Slightly less than 50 years ago, this was the state of Asia.
Things weren't looking good for Deccan (teal). Sure, India had been conquered after almost a decade of on-and-off warfare with the equally large state of Delhi, but India was not a large part of Asia. Ming (maroon) had established complete control over half of the continent while retaining full stability and lacking many rebels. The Timurid Empire (red) had shrunk a bit, but it was still every bit as powerful as Deccan. The Mamluks (brown) reigned supreme in the Middle East. The Golden Horde (yellow) had been beaten back by the Poles, but their army was once again out for blood. Deccan... Deccan was stuck. Nowhere left to expand without running into one of these, barring incredibly slow colonization attempts that had thus far only claimed Diego Garcia.
Something had to be done, of course. I spent a large part of my treasury sending spies to incite rebellion in the Timurid empire, splitting it into a half-dozen new countries and leaving only a shattered rump state in Samarkand that still remains to this day. Unfortunately, the rebels within the Mamluk empire split off and conquered many of these other states to form Persia, an even more powerful country. An alliance was forged with the state of Arakan (purple in the map), the only not-huge free state bordering Deccan that wasn't the incredibly lame state of Kashmir. For the next few years, Deccan created masses of troops. It was time to do something unexpected and supposedly suicidal - take on Ming. Ming was huge, and nobody liked them. Unfortunately, the plan went awry when Ming pre-emptively threw 50,000 men into Arakan to annex it. By the time Deccan's armies had formed up, it was too late. Fortunately, a new king had been crowned, Taj ud-din Firuz II, grandson of the Taj ud-din Firuz that had conquered Delhi and united India. This king was pretty terrible with economics (score of 3), but his military skill was unmatched in the world. (Score of 10) He personally led the charge into Ming. Tens of thousands of men died on either side, but in the end Deccan had claimed a narrow swath of provinces leading all the way through to Panduranga at the very tip of Indochina. Arakan was released and re-allied. For five years, Ming and Deccan sent hordes and hordes of spies at each other, most of which were deflected by impeccable spy defenses. Along this swath of land, however, the greatest armies in history were being formed. This time, it was Deccan that took the initiative. The goal was to conquer Indochina and set up a defensive line between Thang Long and Liangshan, but when the dust had cleared and the Deccanese army got to that point... there were no armies of Ming in sight. A blitzkrieg of the highest order began, cavalry riding to claim provinces while the infantry slowly moved up the front. There were only two problems. First, a 100,000 man doomstack incoming from Altishar in the Himalayas. Second, a 100,000 man doomstack incoming from Jiangsu on the eastern coast of China. To counter the first, most of the Himalayan provinces were scorched and armies were raised in northern India. By the time the remaining 20,000 Ming soldiers got through, the 20,000 less demoralized Deccanese soldiers crushed them. To counter the second, the armies retreated together and formed a 150,000 man doomstack lead by the greatest general in the world. After these defeats, Ming collapsed. (That was quite fortunate, as Deccan's armies were battered to hell.) Provinces far and wide defected to Japan, and after the war Deccan claimed all of southeast Asia, much of the Himalayas, and parts of interior China. Throughout the following decades, wars would be repeatedly started to take more and more Ming land until only a few provinces remained. There are currently only two such provinces remaining, Wu in Guiyang and Qin in Jinan.
All of this plus a later curbstomping of Persia and Japan led to this. That, and hordes and hordes of colonists and explorers. New world shmoo shmorld. I have Siberia!
Some labels on that last map got squeezed by accidental shrinkage, ask me if you can't read them. My goal in this game has been to create an Asia that can fight off and defeat any single European country instead of being colonized. To that end, I've started 'protecting' the continent by claiming it. The golden horde is next. I'm currently occupying the Mamluks entirely, just waiting for a diplomat to ask for their surrender. These screenshots were taken at the very end of Taj ud-din Firuz II's reign, an almost 50-year period of constant warfare that led Deccan to the conquest of almost two hundred provinces. Unfortunately only the ones I owned in that first map are cores right now. That should change very rapidly over the next half century, though, as the 50 year waiting periods run out. France, Venice, Sweden, Poland, and Great Britain are the main threats, with Castille and Portugal being the most widespread countries. Right now France has about 1/3 of my troopcount, which does not bode well for my armies that half half the land tech. More troops shall be made for the crossing of the Danube and the Rhine, I imagine. Poland currently has 50,000 troops on my border of far higher quality than mine, but I'm amassing 200,000 at that border to overrun them before moving on to the Horde.
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Topic: The Show off your Empires Thread (Read 87500 times)