What Videogames have You Been Playing XX: Virtual Imperialism

[Quintillus]

The Ides of March, 1561. The die has been cast, the big war has arrived, the fate of several great empires will be decided.

I'm playing the Chagatai Horde, having started at their historic low point in the 1460s, and expanded to reach from the Tibetan Plateau west to the Volga River, and northwest to the city of Kazan. The Uzbek Horde still survives to our north but is no longer of great consequence; we left our one-time allies the Timurids for dead around 1540, in the hopes of splitting their lands with Qara Qoyunlu (they get Persia, we get the Silk Road), but QQ wanted our lands around the Caspian Sea instead and steadfastly refused to form an alliance. Instead, they allied with the Ottoman Empire, forming the most powerful alliance in the known world. Realizing this could be an existential threat, we allied with the Mamluks (an equal to the Ottomans in a 1-on-1 matchup, as proven by previous wars), and re-formed our alliance with the somewhat-reduced Timurids.

Now, the Ottomans (#2 great power) have declared war on the Mamluks (#4 great power), with Qara Qoyunlu (#7 great power), as the Ottomans' ally, and me (not a great power) as the Mamluks' ally.

Unfortunately for us, the Byzantines did not have the good fortune they have had in Kyriakos's game, and the Ottoman-Qara Qoyunluan alliance has just over 200,000 men in their combined armies. As this is our only hope to stop them - and more importantly Qara Qoyunlu - we have of course honored the call to arms... and our armies just conquered a formerly-Golden-Horde fort on the Ottoman border, so at least that timing was good.

The Mamluks have about 80,000 men, and we have about 45,000 (mostly cavalry), for a total of 125,000. Our Cavalry are awesome steppe cavalry, but we're relatively technically backwards... it probably cancels out, if we're lucky the steppe factor still wins, but we haven't fought a "western" power before, so we'll find out. Given the numerical and technical deficit, though, we aren't super confident.

Map:

Spoiler :

The current plan is to defend our borders, concentrate troops to defend border forts, and hope our enemies let attrition take its toll. We don't really expect to win unless the Commonwealth (#3 great power, 99K army) or Austria (#6 great power, not yet met) decide to get involved, which is unlikely... but just as we were hoping the Commonwealth would get entangled with the Ottomans at some point so we could throw our hat in the ring, they may be waiting for the same opportunity. They've quit adding claims to the east, but have a lot against the Ottomans.

At least we have little risk of war elsewhere on our gigantic borders. China is a mess, but we're in a truce with the neighboring Shun Dynasty, and on good terms with the just-barely-neighboring Ming Dynasty. We're also allied with the Manchu, who should cancel out any risk of the Mongols invading. To the northwest, Kazan is in a truce with us, is bankrupt, has almost no manpower or army, has three separate rebel groups active in their country, and has a rebellious Ryazanian vassal who's much more powerful than them, and whose independence is supported by mighty Rostov. It's more likely that our stability will fall to -3 due to a plethora of comets than that Kazan will be a threat to us in the next decade.

Only Uzbek theoretically could cause problems, but they've been at 0 manpower for decades due to ceaseless border wars and revolts, so we don't expect them to do much; even if they do the Timurids would take pleasure in occupying their land for the umpteenth time.

So, the 1560s will be the decade that tells us which great powers are the greatest... and whether hordes can still strike fear in the minds of the great settled nations!

 

[Sarin]

PoE: took down Uber Elder. Forgot to switch off Maven's Beacon for that fight, so I had it quite a bit harder. Still did it, barely....on last portal. Now, only Maven and Sirus left from the endgame bosses...

 

[Kyriakos]

I erased my save files - and EuIII itself- at around 1420. Already had went for too long, better to spend the time on something of use ^_^

 

[Takhisis]

Columbia's capital flipped due to cultural pressure (loyalty), and this is what it looks like when I took over. No wonder they wanted new leadership!

This feels like a dystopian nightmare, lol. The city is burning, and is under siege. Zombies are everywhere! Their districts and improvements are all in ruins. Those poor people, huddled in the remnants of their once-great city, trying desperately to survive against the hordes of undead. Columbia had two other cities that both revolted and became Free Cities: one was destroyed, and the other remains free and has an army but will do nothing to help their own people, lol.

Well my vaunted English armies made short work of the zombies, and Bogota is currently growing once again.

View attachment 622645

Zombies! I feel I should persuade you to play the Escape from Zombie Island mod, either by yourself or in PBEM/multi!

So, the 1560s will be the decade that tells us which great powers are the greatest... and whether hordes can still strike fear in the minds of the great settled nations!

An experience worthy of drawing on for the new civ game with nomads, I should say.

 

[Quintillus]

Well, the war is over... and was a resounding defeat. The Chagatai strategy of border defense was effective. One Ottoman and two Qara Qoyunlan armies entered our lands over the years, and all were rebuffed effectively, taking equal or slightly greater losses than our nomadic troops. We even launched some raids into Ottoman and QQ land.

However... the Mamlukian army proved to be a paper tiger. They lost around 125,000 men, and the enemy lost around 25,000 to them (and about the same amount to us). Eventually, attrition did wear down the Ottoman reserves, but with the Mamluks not able to stop the Ottomans a single time, we weren't going to try to be the heroes and risk our armies crossing to Egypt.
So, the Mamluks lost a bunch of land, we lost none, but no longer have an effective strategy for countering those two allies.

Meanwhile, the Timurids declared us a rival, and promptly regretted the decision when the Qara Qoyunlans declared war on them a couple years later. We've focusing on "integrating" Uzbek lands into our horde, in the hopes that it will strengthen us. We'll probably take some Timurid land in a year or two as well, now that it's clear they won't be able to rebuff QQ, even with Gujarati help.

Perhaps our best opportunity will be when the League War starts, as the Ottomans have decided to be involved in it. But we're actively looking for additional allies.

 

[Takhisis]

Obviously you'll have to shove someone from India against the Black Sheep Turks (Qara Qoyunlu) and hope that the Ottomans' enemies to the west come to the rescue.

 

[Quintillus]

Obviously you'll have to shove someone from India against the Black Sheep Turks (Qara Qoyunlu) and hope that the Ottomans' enemies to the west come to the rescue.

Ottomans' enemies from the west... if only! No, they don't have enemies to the west, at least not enemies that matter. They have friends to the west. Very generous friends, as it turns out.

The 1570s started with the War of the Protestant League, as the Catholic League has been unusually weak, with only Austria and Portugal as significant powers, albeit a mighty Austria with more than 100,000 men in their armies. The Ottomans, as mentioned, were involved, on the Protestant side. Austria made a valiant, but unsurprisingly futile effort, which was not saved by Spain trying to enforce a belated white peace with a 97% defeated Catholic League. Perhaps if Spain had joined up front, 150,000 soldiers from Iberia would have swept through the Gallic plains and forests, and bought a stalemate if not a victory... but even Spain, the most powerful country in the world, could not take on so many powers at once.

So, peace was made by the league. Trent, conqueror of Venice, signed a separate peace first, and The Palatinate gave most of their lands to... drumroll.. the Ottoman Empire! Why would they want the Ottomans in Venezia? Who knows, but they did. In the main peace, the two beneficiaries were the Commonwealth (a Catholic state siding with the Protestants for political reasons), and, once more, the Sunni Ottoman Empire, who gained lands in Hungary and Croatia. To be fair, they did put decent numbers of troops against the Austrians... but why The Palatinate saw fit to actively help the Turks near Vienna, we'll never know.

Meanwhile, the Black Sheep Turkomen were busy occupying the Timurid Empire. In mid 1576, they made peace, taking a large swath of land. We'd been waiting on the sidelines, not wanting to jump in too early lest we hurt Timurid resistance to the Sheep. So once the war ended, we started mobilizing to take our own part of the Timurid Empire, enacting the Persia/Silk Road division that we'd long planned, only with Qara Qoyunlu being an ally in the original plan. A few months later, and forts were ready, troops deployed, and we were about to give the order to invade, when an imperial messenger came flying into the Khan's tent, his horse still coming to a stop outside.

What was the need for all the commotion? The cheeky Qoyunlans had guaranteed the "independence" of the Timurid Empire after taking so much of their lands. If Chagatai troops had crossed the border, they were prepared to "defend" the Timurids.

This caused a pause in plans, but eventually our diplomats were able to convince the Mamluks to join us in a war against both the Timurids and Qara Qoyunlu, and in mid 1577 that was began, with the Ottomans still involved in Europe for another six months or so, and not committed to the Timurid "cause" as Qara Qoyunlu claimed to be. There was an obvious danger that the Ottomans might declare war by themselves after the League War, but with the new Padishah not having the reputation for conquest that his predecessor did, the risk was lessened.

The war, like the last one, began with disaster in the Mamlukean Levant. The Mamluks laid siege to as many cities as they could, and Qara Qoyunlu promptly defeated each of the Mamluk armies in succcession. All gains we were making were cancelled out by Mamlukean incompetence. This continued for roughly two years, by which point we'd occupied most of the Timurid Empire, including their capital and only other fort, but still couldn't gain any concessions.

But the Mamluks finally managed to turn over a new leaf, concentrating their forces, and inflicting a couple defeats on Qara Qoyunlu. Another year later, and we were making decent progress occupying the eastern parts of Qara Qoyunlu, and with our manpower down to about 15,000 (from 40,000), we decided to make peace, and not overextend ourselves and invite the Ottomans to intervene.

The winnings were modest; we took Tashkent and a neighboring province, our vassal Kashmir re-gained a core the Timurids had taken, and Egypt re-gained a core lost to Qara Qoyunlu. Our side's losses were considerably higher (125,000 vs 85,000), thanks to two years of Mamluk disasters, but our horsemen didn't lose a single battle, winning one while outnumbered 25 to 15 and out-teched 14 to 11. We never had a chance to force a break in the Ottoman-QQ alliance. But a minor victory is better than a resounding defeat.

Now we have an 8-year truce, during which the Ottomans could invade, but wouldn't have an ally to help, so we feel relatively secure. We plan to integrate more of the Uzbek Horde in the meantime, and if things go swimmingly, maybe interfere with the ongoing Chinese Civil War. So far Shun still appears ascendant, but Yue is gaining as well, as is Manchu, and Ming has halted their fall by securing an alliance with Bengal.

Our quest for allies is still mostly fruitless. Yue doesn't like us quite enough. Bengal likes us a bit but still considers us a rival; we would be happy to add them and Ming as allies if they let us. The Commonwealth thinks we're all right, but not all right enough to form an alliance with. Austria is bankrupt, has no manpower, and has -100 prestige, but despite all that recently entered a Golden Age; they think we're kind of far away. We sent diplomats to England's extremely talented new queen, Elizabeth Tudor, but they also think we're far away. Only Novgorod would be willing to ally with us. They have 20-30,000 men, but they managed to lose to Kazan when Kazan was bankrupt and had no manpower - at the time when it was more likely we'd have five comets than that Kazan would pose a threat. Well, they somehow posed a threat to Novgorod in that situation. So we haven't been in a hurry to put much trust in Novgorod's military.

Spoiler Austria/Europe :

Would you consider this a Golden Age? It's like in Civ III where someone is losing a war badly, but their unique unit gets a win, and then they get a "golden age" most noted by how much worse off they were than before the Golden Age. I think they already had two Age goals, and converting to Reformed was their third, so they qualified. But maybe there should be a requirement to not be bankrupt when you enter a Golden Age.

Also, yes, Lucca is having a good game. They're allied with France, which probably helps.

 

[Quintillus]

Played another couple decades...

Spoiler Map :

We're neck-and-neck with Shun for the largest font on the map, despite our longer name. We've taken a couple more chunks of the Uzbek Horde, the western part of the Mongol Horde (Shun took most of the eastern part), the Kara Del Horde, and also expanded our vassals Kashmir and Jaunpur (the latter of whom is mostly in Tibet, and has a very similar shade of gray). We also helped Manchu add more land, as part of our "strengthen vassals and allies" strategy.

But most noteworthy is that the Mamluks now appear to have a green color rather than their typical tan.

This is because of the Ottoman Empire. The Mamluks took Exploration ideas, and have been busy colonizing Australia, and conquering natives in areas we don't even know about yet. Which means that when the Ottomans declared war, half their army was overseas somewhere far enough away so as to be unknown. Knowing how well things went when most of the Mamlukean army was present to start with, and how even without the Ottomans involved, the Mamluks failed miserably against Qara Qoyunlu, we did not honor the call to arms. Best case, we spend several years with full military funding trying to defend our borders, and the Mamluks still lose.

But we didn't totally throw them to the wolves (despite their obvious eventual failure). A few months later we declared war on the Timurids, and thus Qara Qoyunlu and Gujarat, in a repeat of the 1577 war. Only this time, the Mamluks could do even less. Taking more of the heat, the war was noticeably more difficult; Gujarat in particular was a nuisance, with their "Elephants in Europe" cavalry bonus from the last war still in effect. We did draw some troops away from the Mamluks, too. But our goal of forcing QQ to break their Ottoman alliance would have required commitment to a level that would take our manpower uncomfortably low considering the Ottomans could still declare war on us once they peace the Mamluks. So instead, we settled for a handful of Timurid provinces, and our first QQ province - a worthless desert province by the Caspian, but something.

We also now have the option to construct a string of three forts that, combined with Kashmir's fort, would fully guard against incursions to the Chagatai heartland. Whether that's worth the gold is under debate, but it's an intriguing option. With our Mountain Khanate idea and full defensive ideas, our options for playing defense are fairly good.

Of course, keeping up that 98 Horde Unity will require we don't just hide behind forts forever. The new Khan has been receiving questions about whether we'll ever make an impact outside of the steppe, like his great forebears did. Will we ever conquer China? Persia? Re-apply the Tatar Yoke? Move into the Hungarian Plain? The last century was spend uniting nearly all the horde lands, yet still the world does not consider us a Great Power. No Horde should let the world display that sort of disrespect towards it!

------

Spoiler Expansion Prospects :

Novgorod is likely to be lucky; they were the best ally we could find to deter the Ottomans, and are even more important short-term due to the Mamlukean implosion. Our natural inclination, of course, was to make them bend the knee, but our warriors were satisfied with Uzbek loot.

Kazan still has land between us and Novgorod, and is between a rock and a hard place.

Shun is probably in the greatest danger from the Horde. They are fairly weak, the Manchu would be happy to aid us from the east, and we can't let such an unsightly border as the current one stick around long-term.

----

Spoiler Thoughts on Diplomacy :

One of the things that has made this game interesting and fun is that diplomacy has been relatively unfruitful. One of the human's biggest advantages is that you are often able to play the tables to get a powerful ally, and once you get a powerful ally - especially if you can get two - you are often invincible. Here, we've never had an ally that we can have throw their weight around to shape the map, even when combined with our power. The Timurids? Virtually a stalemate with the Uzbeks, once we surpassed them we had the Commonwealth to fear. The Mamluks? Paper tigers. The lack of that "tip the scales" ally has made things challenging. Partly it's because we're "too far away" from them, partly that several potential powerful allies have rivalled us, partly it's that ones with a coastline want allies with a navy. Regardless, it's made it more interesting, and has also forced some caution in planning our expansion, since we can't just count on Spain or the Ottomans to bail us out if we over-extend.

The wildcard nation that we could ally that could be powerful is Ming. Oh, if only they had been more friendly a century ago when we wanted allies in the east! Now that they're actually willing, we find ourselves wondering why we would help them regain their empire when we could probably conquer them just as easily. So far we haven't taken any of their cores, and the door is open... but they're also so backwards that we have little confidence their troops would be able to contribute much even if we did help them regain their former territory.

The vassals are noteworthy diplomatically, as we rescued both from extinction. Kashmir had lost a couple provinces to the Timurids, and two neighbors had declared war on it to take their last two provinces. They were literally a fortnight away from having their last province occupied when we offered them an alliance. Jaunpur didn't have wars, but had lost all but their last province, a Tibetan one, and looked sure to be eaten up next. We took Kashmir in because their religious school gave us Horde Unity, and if they got eaten up, we'd have few options for that collaboration. Jaunpur provided a convenient buffer state in the Himalayas. But in both cases, I liked that it actually made sense why these states would diplo-vassalize themselves to us. Often when that happens in EU4, it's just a small state with friendly relations to a nearby big state. But here, their very existence was obviously threatened. The motivations to seek a powerful protector, and to be willing to swear fealty for it, would have been quite strong.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Long Dark

Interloper, Day 35: Well, my expedition to Coastal Highway was a debacle. I spent about a week there, almost died four times, and didn't find any new gear of particular note. I scrubbed the mission to Desolation Point and returned to Mystery Lake. My clothing just isn't cutting it anymore. I've gone back to the camp office to hunt, fish, and trap. I went after a deer with my bow, missed, startled the deer into running straight into a wolf. Whatever works. I watched the wolf take down the deer, then shot the wolf.

---

Generally speaking, I do like games that improve your skills as you use them, rather than just awarding you abstract "experience" or "skill points" that you can then apply to things you've never done, studied, trained, or even read about. However, I've noticed a tendency in these games to only reward successes. I think that failing to start a fire or missing a shot with your bow should provide some improvement to the skill. Heck, sometimes you can learn more from a failure than from a success, irl.

 

[red_elk]

I've gone back to the camp office to hunt, fish, and trap.

Very nice location, lived there for several weeks. It's weird that it's impossible to tidy the place up a bit - would be better if I could at least bury that frozen corpse on the second floor!
Also, navigation in the dark. I understand that this is just to add more challenge to the game, but this seems a bit unrealistic.

 

[Takhisis]

Quintillus, is that southern China having become Vietnamised?

 

[EgonSpengler]

Very nice location, lived there for several weeks. It's weird that it's impossible to tidy the place up a bit - would be better if I could at least bury that frozen corpse on the second floor!
Also, navigation in the dark. I understand that this is just to add more challenge to the game, but this seems a bit unrealistic.

Yeah, having a dead guy in my house always gives me the creeps. I got lucky, and he didn't spawn in this game. If I could mod this game, being able to bury corpses would be on my list. I think #1 would be the ability to look around 360 degrees while inside a car. The Mystery Lake Camp Office is kinda 'easy mode', but I'm going to hang around to work my skills up and sew some better clothing. Once I have my Captain Caveman outfit, I think I'll go for a walkabout. Timberwolf Mountain and Ash Canyon, maybe.

 

[tjs282]

If I could mod this game, being able to bury corpses would be on my list.

Or (better?) ... using corpses to temporarily decoy predators away from areas you want to exploit...?

 

[EgonSpengler]

Or (better?) ... using corpses to temporarily decoy predators away from areas you want to exploit...?

I think there are enough tools for managing predators, but sure, if that's easy to implement, why not. Kind of gross, though.

Another mod idea: Being able to use climbing ropes to lift and lower your backpack. I know managing your load is part of the game, but I find myself planning my journey around climbing ropes whenever I can, instead of reducing my weight.

 

[Quintillus]

Quintillus, is that southern China having become Vietnamised?

It is not; Yue has Cantonese culture. Dali has Bai culture, which is in the Tibetan group in-game. Ayutthaya is Siamese, and just took most of Dai Viet's land; Dai Viet is allied with the Ming Dynasty, a questionable decision at best.

By this point, now in 1610, there are clear leaders and also-rans. True powers, and Great Power rank:

- Spain (1), Commonwealth (2), Ottomans (3), Qara Qoyunlu (6)

Contenders:

- Portugal (4; a great colonizer whose army rivals France's), France (5; the sleeper candidate), Chagatai (8), Ayutthaya (dominates southeast Asia, my new ally)

Also-rans:

- England (7; a lesser colonizer), Austria (being picked on by the Ottomans and French, a shell of their former selves), Ming ('splosion), Mamluks (would be a regional power in any other region, but a punching bag where they are)

India is well-balanced between Delhi, Bengal, Bahmanis (a new ally), and Vijayanagar, and has been for quite a while.

It's the most interesting EU4 game at the start of the Age of Absolutism that I've played in some time. I expect the next Age will see some conflict between those top powers, and I just noticed that the Commonwealth and Spain are friendly to each other... an alliance there to counter the Ottoman-QQ alliance could be big news.

 

[Takhisis]

I think Ayutthaya as a contender is a bit exaggerated, for how can they project power from such a far end of the world?

 

[Quintillus]

I think Ayutthaya as a contender is a bit exaggerated, for how can they project power from such a far end of the world?

A fair question, but perhaps in 10 or 20 year they will be supporting the independence of Mamlukian Australia. Though of course, we aim to make it so they never exceed the influence of Chagatai, except in matters to which we are indifferent. They have 110,000 troops, so at leas they are no pushover.

Abdul-Karim IIII (1592 - 1639) was the worst of Khans; he was the best of Khans. Initially, he focused on shoring up our borders. The new Empress of the Commonwealth had made him nervous; not so much because the nobles of Poland had elected a woman to lead them, as because her platform had been renewing Commonwealth expansion to the east. So, Abdul-Karim took measures to secure his interests in that area, taking Great Horde and Kazani lands. But soon, he would face the disgrace of a defeat in war to the Timurids and Qara Qoyunlu, restoring much of the Timurid lands that Chagatai had taken. He took this as a sign that uber alles, Chagatai's military must be modernized. In the days of yore, Chagatai may not have won in the fire phase, but would dominate in the shock phase. In that losing war, Chagatai would be dominated in the fire phase, and barely win in the shock phase. Abdul-Karim may not have been a genius, but he was no fool, and despite his inclinations to focus on administering the empire, he spared no effort on integrating more modern armament technology into the military.

He also, after this loss, invested in the proposed row of forts from the Caspian to the Himalayans. In the next war with QQ, the enemy's greatest general would prove to be not an actual general, but Admiral Abkar, warning them that, "this is a trap", and largely preventing them from trying to siege Chagatai defenses. Still, the Chagatai military, which had reduced their tech gap from -4 to -1, would prove victories, forcing QQ to cancel their Ottoman alliance, and taking back most of the lost land, as well as Samarkand, from the Timurids.

By this time, Abdul-Karim III was in his 60s, and the rest of his land focused on rounding out the Chagatai desmesne, in an attempt to impress the Ottoman Empire enough to sign an alliance. This included conquering nearly all that was left of the Chagatai Horde, advancing against the Yue Dynasty, and helping the Manchu against Korea and the Shun and Ming dynasties. AK III would not quite succeed in convincing the Ottomans to enter an alliance, but would bring the size of the Chagatai Army up to 120,00 men, an all-time high, and bring Chagatai up to #6 in the list of great powers.

His son and successor, Abudul-Karim IV, put more of an emphasis on diplomacy, less on the military. Would he be able to net the coveted Ottoman alliance? Time would tell... but now that Chagatai had decided to enter China, and in a serious way, most figured it was only a matter of time until the Chagatai had a port on the Pacific and commissioned their first navy.

Spoiler Map :

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Long Dark

Interloper, Day 52. -40 is where the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales overlap, don't ya know.

 

[Kyriakos]

Played some Victoria II yesterday and the day before. Major mistake. I already uninstalled it to avoid more excessive playing

 

[Zardnaar]

Played some Victoria II yesterday and the day before. Major mistake. I already uninstalled it to avoid more excessive playing

Could never get into Vicky.

Playing Stellaris these days.