The NESer Paradox Games Thread

Thlayli

Le Pétit Prince
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Jun 2, 2005
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Coordinate playing Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, and whatever else you plebeian lot play. If you like, post screenshots marking especial glory or ineptitude.

You can also show off your awesomeness at beating up on the AI.

The release patch for Rajas of India is supposed to fix Steam matchmaking for CKII, so I propose we do a #nes game next weekend. Yes, after I update.
 
Spoiler Justanid Satrapy :


Started as the lowly Zoroastrian Marzoban of Gilan and worked my way up to becoming the Satrap of Azerbaijan and Mazandaran in northern Persia. Our only other Zoroastrian ally, the Satrapy of Karen, was invaded by a Muslim coalition and forced to convert and bend the knee to the Saffarid Satrapy, which then perversely claimed the mantle of the Shah.

As revenge, we waited until all of Persia was aflame with a Zoroastrian rebellion and took advantage of the chaos to invade Tabaristan, which is now our easternmost province. The rebellions have spread with their defeat and the Satrap now considers breaking the truce to crush the false Shah once and for all and take his mantle for the glory of Azura Mazda.

The Muslims are consumed with Sunni-Shia wars and the slow collapse of the Abbasid Empire, along with a Byzantine resurgence. Hopefully they will be distracted long enough for Persia to be liberated.
 
Guys.

I did it. I finished a campaign of a Paradox game.

Spoiler :


It's actually kind of unclear who I am. Many blobs.
Spoiler :



I am, however, Germany. I kept it small, and didn't crazy blob.

Spoiler :


I have some minor vassals, but not anything crazy.



Now, some notes about the game.

I started off as Brandenburg, and got in bed with Poland and Austria almost right away. We ganged up on the Teutonic Order for a while, and I took a couple provinces. I also annexed Pomerania on a mission, and grabbed a couple other provinces opportunistically. I kind of sat on that for a while, with about ten provinces, maxing out four military ideas while still keeping up in tech (I had good rulers and a lot of advisers). then, the reformation hit and I converted to Protestant before becoming Prussia. Soon, Austria broke off our alliance. They had blobbed a lot by now (Burgundian inheritance helped), but we had stayed allies throughout. Now, though, I was alone against an Austro-Polish alliance and scared. Fortunately, I managed to convince Russia to befriend me, and we stayed alive for a while. At one point, Austria demanded I convert, but I declined and our relations plummeted hard. It was touch and go for a while there, but we survived. Then, the Netherlands revolted and Austrian power took a hit, even more so when I managed to become emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Then Austria got Spain in a PU. Suddenly, they had 300,000 men and an alliance with a superpower to my east (Poland). Moreover, Denmark had unified Scandinavia and allied Austria. Things were looking bleak. Fortunately, my savior came in the form of France. Austria and France fought a long war, and Russia and I teamed up on Poland. I grabbed some more provinces, and annulled their treaties with Austria. I also allied with the Netherlands.

It wasn't long before I found an interest in becoming Germany, mostly for the claims, and I managed to eat most of northeast Germany before Austria could intervene. However, Brunswick posed a problem -- they were allied to both France and Austria. That war was messy and I got really lucky with rebels and such. At points, both Ulm and Bavaria were regional powers, but I took both down a notch. I quickly formed Germany. However, Austria and Denmark (they had eaten the rest of Brunswick and the Hansa) held the majority of my claims.

Austria, in the screenies above, doesn't look all that scary, but at points they held all of the vassals you see as territory (I made them release it) as well as about ten more provinces that I later took from them. Moreover, they had Spain, who had the second largest army, in a personal union. I had no idea what to do. So I waited. Then, god smiled upon me. The Ottomans went to war with Austria and clashed along the Hungarian border. I allied Portugal, a perpetual world power, and used my existing allies in the Netherlands and Russia to win that war, relying on my friends just as often as my own forces. it was close, but I got about two provinces off of them. The Ottomans forced them to release some states, who I then diplovassalized.

Austria formed a coalition against me, including Spain, France, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania, Ming and some small countries. They declared war, and I barely escaped, using battle warscore to secure a white peace. Here's a picture of the first coalition war:

Spoiler :


There were two more like that, and I won each one, taking advantage of Russia in particular, as well as my 160% discipline, great generals, massive morale, full quality and the spread of enemy forces to win the day. I managed to reclaim Lubeck and surrounding areas from the Danish, as well as Teutonic Land from the Lithuanians.

After that, it was mostly just cleaning up my borders, annexing vassals and the like. I went to war with the Netherlands when I found them ally-less toward the end, but that's about it for drama.

Interesting notes:
-Obviously, those Ottomans. They're absolutely massive, and I never once helped them in a war. Here's their sphere of influence:

Spoiler :


-Austria and Spain were formidable together.

Spoiler :


This is at their height. I couldn't get a world map of their sphere of influence.

-France became revolutionary and forced Britain to release Scotland.

-Russia owns most of Japan

-Great Britain in Kamchatka

-The New World is pretty evenly split, but I'd say the Netherlands won the North, France the center and Portugal the south.

-There is only one European-held province in North Africa. Nice to see they avoided the folly of EUIII.

-Ottomans at times had 500,000 men or more.

-My idea sets went Defensive-Offensive-Quality-Quantity-Diplomacy-Innovative. I stayed away from vassal-feeding (too gamey, imo) and so always had an admin point shortage. Therefore, I ended the game with 24 admin tech, and only 6 idea slots out of 8. I however reached 31 in military tech and 32 in diplo.

Finally, the game end screen.

Spoiler :


I tried to stick to my forcelimits and kept from blobbing wantonly, so I'm not first in anything. I also literally had no navy. 0 ships. It was part laziness and part lack of actual usefulness beyond trade. I tried a couple times, but I always forgot to put my ships in port during war, and lost multiple stacks.
 
End of my Crimean Empire campaign. I could not give that one province in Turkish lands to the Turks because they were busy fighting a war at end game and you cannot sell provinces to warring nations.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :
 
I think some of the best CK2 games I've played have been in Italy. Scheming to break the HRE is great fun, especially as an Italian. I once assassinated like three Kaisers in a row. :p

Once you've got the Kingdom of Italy, the game is kind of boring, but forming the Kingdom is challenging and frustrating, especially since the HRE is perpetually raising crown authority, so you have to organize massive civil wars in order to weaken it enough to capture more Italian minors.
 
Ooh, Paradox games. I have CK2 and EU4, and I'd be up to any MP games and whatnot. I'm no expert, but it should be fun nonethele-

I once assassinated like three Kaisers in a row. :p

/runs and hides
 
So I messed around on the CK2 Steam multiplayer last night, and I found out that 1) it's incredibly fun with people, and 2) OOS rates are much lower if players play in the same region, i.e. not Ireland and India.

So with that said, let me present a couple options for a 4-6 player CK2 multiplayer.

Option 1: Greatest Moravia / Poland Into Spaaaace

The 867 game is super fun in central Europe. There ain't no party like a West Slav party cause a West Slav party's got holy wars. Players would be in Christian (ish) Great Moravia or pagan Wendia/Poland/etc.

Option 2: Something Something Greek Side

Either 867 or 1066 or Alexiad, depending on what players want to do. This would be fun becauase we'd all be squabbling over the imperial throne while trying to defeat Muslims and who knows what else. Players start as a doux or lower.

Option 3: Neston Abbey

This would be a 1066 game, since the special troops in 867 Britain make everything hella unbalanced for MP. Players would be nobles in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Definite potential for internecine conquest, politics and imperialism.

Option 4: Other?

Steppe lords, Indians, Muslims, etc etc.
 
So I messed around on the CK2 Steam multiplayer last night, and I found out that 1) it's incredibly fun with people, and 2) OOS rates are much lower if players play in the same region, i.e. not Ireland and India.

So with that said, let me present a couple options for a 4-6 player CK2 multiplayer.

Option 1: Greatest Moravia / Poland Into Spaaaace

The 867 game is super fun in central Europe. There ain't no party like a West Slav party cause a West Slav party's got holy wars. Players would be in Christian (ish) Great Moravia or pagan Wendia/Poland/etc.

Option 2: Something Something Greek Side

Either 867 or 1066 or Alexiad, depending on what players want to do. This would be fun becauase we'd all be squabbling over the imperial throne while trying to defeat Muslims and who knows what else. Players start as a doux or lower.

Option 3: Neston Abbey

This would be a 1066 game, since the special troops in 867 Britain make everything hella unbalanced for MP. Players would be nobles in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Definite potential for internecine conquest, politics and imperialism.

Option 4: Other?

Steppe lords, Indians, Muslims, etc etc.
Vikings would be too easy... What about France? Or maybe even the HRE? Spain? It kind of depends on the number of players I guess.
 
So I messed around on the CK2 Steam multiplayer last night, and I found out that 1) it's incredibly fun with people, and 2) OOS rates are much lower if players play in the same region, i.e. not Ireland and India.

So with that said, let me present a couple options for a 4-6 player CK2 multiplayer.

Option 1: Greatest Moravia / Poland Into Spaaaace

The 867 game is super fun in central Europe. There ain't no party like a West Slav party cause a West Slav party's got holy wars. Players would be in Christian (ish) Great Moravia or pagan Wendia/Poland/etc.

Option 2: Something Something Greek Side

Either 867 or 1066 or Alexiad, depending on what players want to do. This would be fun becauase we'd all be squabbling over the imperial throne while trying to defeat Muslims and who knows what else. Players start as a doux or lower.

Option 3: Neston Abbey

This would be a 1066 game, since the special troops in 867 Britain make everything hella unbalanced for MP. Players would be nobles in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Definite potential for internecine conquest, politics and imperialism.

Option 4: Other?

Steppe lords, Indians, Muslims, etc etc.

greeks because ck2 represents greeks the best
 
The Year is 20000 CE. Two factions of humanity are battling over the future, and past, of the human race. They send their best and brightest back to 866 using TIME TRAVEL, and the chrononauts, divided into two sides, must fight to make the world safe for their future faction's beliefs.
 
I'd prefer France actually. Which I find weird as I'm really not that much into France as a thing. Of those four... Option 3. I only have vanilla CK2 so if I were to join, I'd have to play 1066, irght?
 
I'd prefer France actually. Which I find weird as I'm really not that much into France as a thing. Of those four... Option 3. I only have vanilla CK2 so if I were to join, I'd have to play 1066, irght?
We can play whatever the host has. I have all except for the Jewish pack and the Indian pack. Waiting for sales on those :)
 
greeks because ck2 represents greeks the best

I actually think that players would model Byzantine politics better than the AI; I also think the new revolt mechanisms (and lessened Muslim decadence revolts) will make it more difficult for the emperors to curbstomp. But we'll see.

I like all the ideas equally but so far that's one vote for British Isles, one vote for Byzantines, and two votes for mumble mumble lots of things. I don't think there are enough Zoroastrians for everyone to do Zoroastrians though.
 
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