Yeah i'm kinda weirded out that I wrote that much, i'll go back and space it out later when my brain doesn't hurt as much.
If someone from the other side could do a write up as well it'd be interesting as then I could compare how our different interactions lead to what happened.
Here you go:
For starters, there were no faulty mechanics involved, disembarks are rather slow. Since we noticed the mercenary stack, I quickly relocated my forces to Brabant, the only province I could move to in time to avoid your landing forces, taking the engagement away from the coast so as to make the Antwerpen disembark temporarily useless. Italy's army had already been arranged to emerge through Trier at the time.
Due to my massive manpower superiority, we were playing attrition up from the start. By the time major engagements came into place, the only forces you were reinforcing were your mercenaries. As Fivex never had the means to cross into Europe, and took too much time arming up for the Ottomans, you had a clear numeric advantage, not to mention technological, as my military technology was and still is rather outdated. That could and would have granted you victory, if you had better cohesion. You had the means to, but never deployed enough troops in the western front to give you a clear edge. And by that I mean you could have afforded to field more soldiers, that was dangerous overconfidence.
As for the battles in the mountains, that was intentional. The battle was supposed to end in a forced retreat to Lombardy, where your massive concentrated stack would take more attrition losses than we'd lose in the battle; whereas our armies would regenerate just fine, yours wouldn't. Alas, I was a bit unclear to Tarran, saying "towards Lombardy" instead of "to Lombardy", and he retreated to French territory, leading to an undesirable stackwipe.
As for lucky rolls, the one battle I believe was extremely influenced by luck, was the one were I suddenly saw Russian troops wreck my stack of the same size in but a few days. The last engagement Russia won, and perhaps the only one, I was truly shocked at the time.
Twiggie made, however, the rather terrible tactical choice of engaging me and Isdar with a weaker force early in the war, which sent his regiment packing through Russia at massive, massive losses. Meanwhile, the Ottomans, had they deployed anywhere in time, could have made all the difference in outnumbering either front. Instead, they only arrived in time to partially replace lost troops.
The varying discipline and morale values are not due to generals, DreXav, but rather, due to the game averaging the value of the armies involved. The Italian-French army, for instance, had a different morale value than either of the two alone.
We made the rights sacrifices, secured the right victories and it paid off. I can think of two clear failures in our movements though. One, when an unpause took me by surprise and forced me into an undesirable position, another, when my imprecise input led to an Italian stackwipe. Of course, there is greater mistake of joining the war on Fivex's side in the first part, but I've mostly been forwarding strategic and tactical aspects this far.
Admittedly, and attesting to Andrew's point as to my actual reaction on the war's onset, in my earlier conversation with DreXav, I was not bluffing from the start, differently from what I claimed earlier, and did, indeed, entertain the possibility of neutrality after his side had been honored. The haste through which war was declared against the Mamluks, without any prior consultation as to my instance to an immediate war, however, angered me greatly. Even then, I made sure to secure proper support before joining the war.
Finally, having by all means secured victory, and you must admit that, no matter how long it took, it'd be a cheap victory for us after that, I intended to ensure that said diplomatic might would not go ignored again. Having offered them several times earlier in the war, I believed the time for favorable peace terms to be long, long, past, that and, knowing full well that Twiggie and Chosrau had joined the war solely to try and cripple, I wanted to pay them in turn once they had lost. Most of all, however, I didn't want a decade-worth setback in my economy to go unaccounted for after having won the war. But looking back, with the peace you actually got, that made for a rather bad example, didn't it? What a great price paid for the war, really. I, the Hansa and Italy waged a ridiculously costly war and Fivex, who despite being the war target and war leader, had contributed the least militarily, was the only one to pass any demand.
On a side note: I didn't notice, until now, I had left that fleet there or that I had actually lost it. I had two fronts to focus on, after all. The move on Roussilon, though my memory is blurry as to it, probably was part of our constant bluffs. In hindsight, had I remembered that fleet was there, I'd have disbanded it to spare myself WS.
I resent the Russians and Ottomans because, for them, this was a war against me first and foremost. I resent the Mamluks because they negotiated peace terms in complete disregard of my wishes behind my back, despite their seemingly token contribution. I resent Tarran, however slightly, for keeping quiet about it, even though I could infer negotiations were going on from the complete silence.
The later isn't held to any effect, and probably forgotten by the next session, on the basis of which I called him in this war for the first place, and he did not have to join, nor probably have any interest in doing so other than aiding me.
Given the above, I simply refuse to side with the Mamluks for the next century (make that until 1670 or so, arbitrarily). Of course, that means any peace demands made are not upheld by France in any way or fashion. Someone wants go into India, they do so against the Mamluks and any allies they may have, but not against France. I am still not going into the Americas, still allied with Italy and the Hansa, unless they desire otherwise, and still guaranteeing Europe's borders. Though I will adhere to the 50 years' peace, I will already note that I will not hesitate to join a war:
A. In defense of my allies.
B. In defense of my guaranteed parties.
C. Against independent European minors where the conflict is unopposed by both Italy and the Hansa. Attempts at guaranteeing them aimed strictly at crippling French expansion will be ignored. Should the guarantor wish to press a war, there is nothing France may do about it other than answer in kind, but they do so of their own volition.
PS: at the very start of the war, the greater bulk of my army was sent east to contend with Russia, as I trusted the forts in France to buy me some time, not to mention the possibility of Italian reinforcements, which came true. With Isdar, we decisively outnumbered Russia, and with troops that averaged out superior in quality.
PS2: concerning the Roman fleet, I had originally planned to temporarily ignore that stack in favor of an offensive in Spain to completely halt recruitment there, but, both thinking it'd be highly undesirable to Tarran and considering its value in an extended war, where we'd have to finally build ourselves a superior navy, opted to rescue it instead. Tarran was initially headed there, I believe, then changed route to Spain, according to plan, and back to Rome once we decided against it. Or so I recall.
Edited out a few mistakes (typos and misplaced names).
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Topic: Europa Universalis IV: MP, Saturday, 7pm BST (Read 34867 times)