Winterwind Productions

beat the scenario yesterday, 5200 for me over 3900 for Spain, 3500 for Portugal, 2500 for Austria and 2400 for France.

I spent the next 8 years largely according to plan, waiting for the alliance of Spain-Austria-Poland-Venice to expire. I did no more than finish a few colonies, and war Lithuania for a second time, to take Masovia and vassalize them. I also got cores on Swedish held Finland around here.

During the 8 year wait indeed, neither of the alliance started a new war, the Portuguese/Danish alliance did, so alas for that target. The moment it expired, in august 1803, i invited the Austrians into my alliance with France, to which they agreed. I had gotten great relations with Spain too btw, courtesy of some event against Napoleon, so i asked if my by now arch enemy would join as well, and maybe in awe of my war tactics, they agreed.
I immediately went to play with my extreme alliance of Russia-France-Austria-Spain. Poland was now without an ally, and i dowed them, sending out six armies, into the three Baltic areas, Podolia, Volyn and Poltava, four of them fell in the first season. Austria meanwhile advanced on the Polish from the west, sandwiching them in a grand display. The Poles took Moldova and its surroundings, as well as the Transylvanian lands, who were stupid enough to ask Poland for an ally.
The next season Spain and France also entered the war zone with their armies, that had a slightly longer journey, they beat their armada, and captured Danzig and Poznan, while the Austrians took Krakow. Soon the Austrians pulled out of the war, taking their moldovan lands and vassalizing Transylvania. This dropped the warscore for a bit, no more allowing me to pick up the five cores and Poltava with its manufactory. A while later though, the other areas fell, we sieged Krakow from them, and stole some sieges from my warcompanions, and sued for peace for said six regions.
This single quick war eliminated poland pretty much from the map, giving me a land border with Austria.

Sweden was up next, i had some free cores on Finland, saw their tech was inferior, sent some presents to my allies and went on to the next war. Taking Finland was a piece of cake, i sent in four armies, assaulted the castles and got three out of four the first year. This wasnt enough however, as my allies were making a mess of things, landing army after army on Stockholm, where from what i saw about 70 infantry kicked them back in the sea. The spanish even went out of the war early and gave them money. In the end i had to go in myself, creating my first european fleet to ship over the infantry and cannons, the Swedish did have lost naval power in the area.
The sieging and beating armies of the Swedish went rather easy, but their diplomats were very steadfast, in the end i had to take each and every province of them before they were willing to give up Finland, including military access for the next war. (Rest assured though LS , Skane was safely in English hands for the whole time. )

The final five years of the game i decided to have some fun with my extreme alliance, and i dowed the Portuguese with them. My only target was Danish ally owned Osterbrotten, but i wanted to have a look at the grand melee. it would be numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5 of europe against number 3 and 7, in hindsight maybe i should've dowed england as well, to have a grand superpower war at the end. The Danish and Portuguese were all over america and africa as well, so things would be fun.
Portugal were the alliance leader, so i dowed them, my armies ready to take Osterbotten, but the Danish were afraid of us, and left the alliance. War started on Portugal as i waited for another diplomat, and when it came dowed Denmark as well, who had by then again invited the unlucky Polish.
The Polish were grandly kicked once again, as i took Krakow and Wielskopolska from them. The Portuguese and Danish however, were having fun on the other end of the world, racing trough Spanish south america, and French north america. I was sieging provinces around Lappland greatly as well during that time, but the warscore was -30 against both of them.
Soon the Spanish were out of the war, giving up uruguayan areas, chilean areas, the trade center in sacramento surrounded by my provinces, and even two Spanish mainland areas. A little while later they also sued for peace against the Danes, giving up lands as far in Mexico. France was having a similar experience with the Danish, and sued for peace giving up great strips of land around New York and Quebec. The Polish went out of the war as well, but less fortunate, the Austrians grabbed some more lands, while i took Wielskopolska to disconnect their capitol.
With the war a lot smaller the warscores were more to my liking, both around +10, and staying around there, the Portuguese and Danish won points by keeping control of their northern Germany areas like Holstein, while i gained points fending off their feeble attempts around the US west coast and Mexico. The end date of the game approaching i accepted peace from Portugal, i was aiming to get Sacramento from them to collect my us west coast, but after they landed 12 defending infantry i gave up on that and took a lot of gold instead.
This was somewhat erroneous, as the Portuguese held Bremen, making me unable to reinforce the siege in Holstein, and from the Danes i really wanted Osterbotten. In the end i decided to reinforce it by sea, even though that would mean sitting around Copenhagen with my ancient navy. The army never got off the boats, but strangely enough i won battle after battle over their navy trying to get them to unload. Their morale was very low, maybe from the trip back from the US, or by being attacked by the French navy, maybe from their diplo settings. I think i won about fifteen naval battles there before i had to retreat my by then only transports fleet. With that i could succesfully demand Osterbrotten and demand Finnmark along as a bonus.
Another bonus was heavy rioting in China btw, as in a series of revolts Manchu and Korea went their own way, and about three provinces chose me as their mother.

It makes you wonder why the Poles even bother trying to live in one country. Poland always gets divided by it's neighbours

I bought the third expansion, "Heir to the Throne" as a xmas present for myself. Trying to get to grips with all the new features and options (and they are many)

Speaking of Poland...

Started a new game and just to try something completely different, went with Brandenburg, aiming at world conquest. Berlin as capital of the world and all that.

First obstacle was Luxemburg. At the start of the game, you are the junior partner in a personal union with Luxemburg which sucks. So, I waited for almost 60 effin years for King Jobis I von Luxemburg to eat grass. Guess what, I was still locked in a personal union, now just passed along to his heir, Elisabeth. This was when I discovered that I could actually declare war on Luxemburg and break the union. Who would have thunk it?!?

Luxemburg got annexed and the royal family executed, children and all, to ensure Brandenburgian sovereignty. There was much rejoicing in Berlin and 30 new royal marriages arranged. Strategic bribes put me next in line for Emperor of the HRE. HRE is wastly expanded in its importance in Heir to the Throne. Those bohemian Bohemians had already passed the first two motions and I managed to pass the third, getting close to doing away with elector counts completely (after that, you can force vassalise all member and the last step is the annex all member states, sort of my long term goal). The extra income and manpower is overwhelming, but sorely needed. France is flexing its muscles as is Bohemia (which has grown rather big during 80 years as ruler of HRE.

A surprise attack against Poland gave me Danzig. Hah, who would have guessed, a German surprise attack against Poland?

Busy building my armies and deploying them outside Brandenburg in Imperial held territory. I need people to attack member states so I can gain the necesary imperial authority to pass the next motion.

Traitorous bastards voted Bohemia back on the imperial throne...

Ah well, I Decided to let them do some of the bleeding for a while and focused on building
up a colony in West Africa, as a "spring board" for colonisation (need something with a core as soon as possible).
Got a claim and a core on Mecklemburg and promptly found a way of annexing them. As luck would have it, they had an ally
in Sicily for whatever obscure reason, so I could declare war on sicily and then annex Mecklenburg before asking for
white peace (by picking on Sicily, a non HRE member, I didn't have to fight Bohemia and the rest).

Speaking of luck, I play my games without lucky countries for some interesting results. Ireland exists and Cornwall and Scotland
fought for nearly 100 years over supremacy of the British Isles (sans Ireland). France collapsed and got overrun by Brittany,
who again lost control of a chunk of it to Orleans. Spain is doing well unfortunately and Portugal has a license to print money
by occupying most of east africa (all the gold states in Swahili land etc.).

Muscowy has become large enough to resist being overrun by both the Golden Horde and Lithuania and the latter two now fight
against the Ottomans on a regular basis. Sort of maintains a power balance in that part of the world (Black Sea area)

Just before shutting down my pc last night (at around 02:30), I got voted back on the imperial seat again.

As a fun experiment, I created an edited copy of my save file, where I gave myself the few % authority I needed to take the last
step towards vassalising all member states. That was hilarious. Needs to get there asap "for real" and not a hack.

War ensued all over Europe between the member states, those who voted yes against those who voted no, and my manpower suddenly tendoubled
(because I apparantly get access to not only half the income, but half the man power of vassals too).

Need to get more authority and can't wait for the annexation step too. That should create a big blob that makes lucky France look
insignificant by comparison

Good read Gorth, i always love the stuff happening like you have with Cornwall v Scotland, in my games i was always looking for those 'alternate' history thingies work out, like Spain bordering the Ottomans.

Should really give that For the Glory thing a try, still everytime i look at a world map and see Tomsk, Hamadan or even Valparaiso i have to think about my old conquers .

The Holy Roman empire is spreading it's influence. Thanks to the new national focus system, I can more the focus and now control where I want to create new trade centres. Diplo-annexing has become a very powerful and viable expansion tool (because you are no longer limited to annex single province countries) and cultural tradition enables the steady supply of qualified advisors, not at least the guy who gives you -0.3 infamy per year

Ended up force vassalising most of the member states and working my way slowly but steadily towards force annexing the entire bunch (sans a few odd states here and there, but just you wait!)

Nicking a few provinces off Brittany and the Ottomans has given me an odd situation with provinces at the fringe of the HRE, but luckily I can march large armies back an forth now without hindrance. Beat the crap out of Lithuania too, since they were becoming a threat. Rather than taking provinces I went for liberating Smolensk, Ukraine, Pskov and a bunch of other small kingdoms. Managed to get royal marriages and later vassals out of some of them. Annexed Pommerania as they chose the wrong side in the war. Have to be careful now though, as I still need conflicts to generate "authority". The previous ones were damn hard to get already, as the neighbours starts getting cautious and leave my members in peace (which is contrary to my war mongering ambitions).

Castille managed to collapse in on itself (helped by me being the papal controller and excommunicating them). Algier became a christian kingdom and Morocco and Swahili became independent. I think Portugal need a kick in the groin next as they are too busy shovelling in gold from North America and whatsitsname in south-eastern Africa (around Zimbabwe?).

Scotland eventually became Great Britain in something that is reminiscent of the real history (the union, led by the Stuarts after Elizabeth I's death).

... a couple of centuries later:

Not going to attempt a complete recollection of events, but generally I'm this close (shows 1cm) to annex the bunch. Scotland that becamse Great Britain fragmented and both Scotland and England decalred independence from Great Britain. Oh yea, Wales and Cornwall too... and Northumbria. Great Britain now consists of London and most of the Canadian colonies

I sent my massive armies south east and trounced the Ottoman Empire twice within two decades, everytime going for 100% warscore so I could pinch a few provinces (keeping reputation in mind) and then forcing them to release as many nations as possible every time. "Send Warning" and "Guarantee Independence" are truly powerful tools for manipulating events.

Even managed to vassalise a few of the Orthodox countries that got relased (with later annexation in mind). Bosnia and Serbia are both in line for annexation and most of the former Byzans is now Brandenburgian.

Getting very close to the last step of the HRE political evolution tree, annexing all of central Europe. Can't wait

Getting close to the end. It is now the year 1802 and I annexed the willing member states. My manpower is 600K and I have armies all over the world, having colonized a third, conquered a third and intimidated the last third into submission. I eventually even managed to inherit a few countries (I chuckled a bit at the 'take that Von Habsburgs' message) and came in possession of Zaporophe and Brittany that way. France is now the province where Bordeaux is and Normandy and Orleans the two 'independent' french countries. The British isles are really fun. Kingdoms come and go and in 1802 both Scotland and England seceded from Great Britain. Eventually North Humberland overran England, Wales and Cornwall and now shares the isles with Scotland and Ireland.

Chopped Lithuania to bits (took me almost 200 years) and mauled the Persian Empire (which had grown humongous) twice in less than 10 years, grabbing a few gold producing provinces in eastern Siberia (I had colonized the far eastern coastline plus Sakhalin) and forced them to release a bunch of countries both times (reducing them while giving me more allies).

Getting ready for the sprint to the finishing line...

You seem to be getting good at this Gorth, Brandenburg colonizing kamchatka while stomping the french and persians.. good work.


Although im quite engrossed in the 1.13 diablo 2 patch (yes) I started a Vijayanagar game a few weeks ago, i dont think the Indians will allow me world conquest, or even colonization, but my goal is to unite India and hold off the British horde and all those others that come my way. If i'm really lucky i'll try and take a bit of South East Asia or those Persians, but i think that might already be out of my league with the religion and tech group i'm in.
Its For the Glory btw, the recent mod with AGCEEP+ish incorporated into EU2, plays very nice with all the feedback and tooltips now present. In my game i might have to fall back a bit, as i overextended in taking one province neighbours and beating up the two and three province ones. Almost got the whole bunch to war me, which is not something im ready for, especially the other half of India, Delhi.
By now i've found myself an ally in Bengal which makes things a bit more dangerous for them. Having the Chinese like me though, which is somewhat of the plan, is costing way too much money for now.

I should probably mention that I was blessed by a string of kings (and queens) with generally high diplomacy skills. Together with the option of "buying" exactly the advisor you need, you can get rid of your BB rating fairly quick (which is good for an aggressive/conquering type player).

I was curios about India earlier, especially since I kicked Great Britains (and Persias) butt and Indian countries were among the liberated. So I tried one of the "late start" scenarios to check out their technology trees (tried out the same thing for the chinese states), just to see if they were a viable choice for more than small trading/mercenary nations. India didn't look too shabby, but I'm not sure I would survive a full game as Chinese. A unified India would have a gazilion manpower and even more annual income from rich provinces

Well, since Divine Wind (4th expansion) has gone gold, I sort of set the mood by trying a game of Timurid before getting the new expansion. Now *that* was a radically different experience (at least the first 30 years). I laughed out loud when discovering that conquering and razing provinces gives me legitimacy, prestige AND lowers my war fatigue. The more you rape, pillage and plunder as a tribal chief, the happier your subjects are. The downside is the 50% hit on technology and some rather devastating civil wars every time you die. At one point I had no less than 20 enemy armies rising up in rebellion, all pretenders who wanted honour of being the new clan leader, following in the footsteps of the great Timur.

Divine Wind is out

Unfortunately my save game is not quite compatible, so I might have to install EUIII twice, one with and one without DW. I really want to finish my Timurid game now. Managed to overrun Delhi so I could form the Mughal Empire (which coincidentally gives me the government option of "Empire").

Time to spread the word and the will of the most glorious nation of Uzbekistan to the rest of the world

Vijayanagar continues at a slow but steady pace. Something weird happened though, and all of a sudden i have Portuguese on my continent.

It was quite strange, I was going great, capturing Gujarat for another CoT. I was close to occupying the south half of India, when i suddenly lost both my CoTs to apparent lack of competition, while a new one opened in Cochin, a one province country in my hinterland, as well though, it suddenly became Portuguese, without notice. I didnt see any historic event telling me anything about this, nor did i see a Portuguese fleet or army take advantage of the Tordesillas treaty, it just happened with the CoT switch. I loaded and tried warring them even, something i was planning for anyway, and the same thing happened, during the war, while i was sieging Cochin itself.

I suppose it must be some event i'm not seeing because it doesnt show up in the status bar, some choice of Cochin or something as they aren't a country whose score is tracked.

Its weird though, and unwanted/risky. It's only 1504 or the like and i already have westmen on my borders. Weeding out the northern stuff with Bengal is going quite fruitful, but this is rather worrysome. I can hardly kick them out and even if i could i fear their wrath, but they're also in my back and could cripple me, simply because im the easiest route for expansion.

Have you installed any patches recently? Paradox is very bad at distributing map/cache content that doesn't make any sense, giving seemingly random distances overseas to various countries. Took me a while to figure out that I needed to empty the cache folder and then load my saved game (after the game has re-calculated distances correctly).

Did Cochin have any unrest? I've noticed that they sometimes defect a bit strangely after revolutions, although usually within the same culture group.

What expansions/mods have you installed?

Edit: My Timurids turned Mughal Empire has now done their first step towards "westernisation" and have eastern European tech restrictions (i.e. 90% instead of 80%) research efficiency. Wondering whether I should go all western before updating my troop types. Muslim cavalry is pretty superior to their western counterparts at this point in time (1510).