Why do none of you use Magna Mundi? It's depressing.
Yeah, I don't really consider an empire an empire unless it's a MM one. EU3 seems like the easy version, and without as much fun events as a MM game. So, here's a MMP2 game for your enjoyment
Brunei. My RL home province. Today in the 21st century, it's a tiny country making tons of money selling oil. Nothing like an empire. So, I decided to try and simulate what it could've been.
One of the tougher nations you could pick in MM. Only one province. Almost no tax. It's got a strong edge in trade, but without tax, inflation normally goes mad (I've seen it hit 23% in 16th century without human control). 2 national policies dedicated to trade, the other to naval, giving them specialized traders.
It starts off as an oligarchic monarchy, meaning that gov is impossible to change until 18 Gov tech. 50% tech penalty from lack of foreign contact, 10% tech penalty from socioeconomic status, 25% tech penalty from (lack of) diversity.
Without my interference, it'd end up like this:
But thanks to my brilliant and risk taking leadership, it's now this:
Yup, that's right, a Magna Mundi game.
Transformed a tiny holding into a big empire. Vassalized half of SE Asia and middle India. Vassalized one COT in India, conquered the other two.
And that's right. Its income is almost the same as that huge Portugal that conquered half of South America. Richer than Ming AND the Ottoman Empire.
Tech still hasn't caught on to Europe.. busy modernizing, but it's sort of in the stage equal to the European renaissance, with only the 25% penalty from lack of foreign contact remaining. Should be able to clear that one soon too.
Cores formed on all provinces except the ones in Cambodia and India. Brunei's added Javanese to their culture.
Managed to stave off the European colonists from taking over SE Asia. I was worried that Portugal would take Malacca by the start of 16th century, but they didn't. The spice trade collapsed and is getting worse, but economy's still great. Malacca and Brunei are the big powers in SE Asia.. I've been trying to conquer Malacca's 1000+ ducat COT for a while now, but they keep staying ahead in navy size and land tech. So, I now have a military alliance with them, and with Brunei and Malacca's massive navy combined, even taking on Korea and the Ottomans is possible by sea.
The hardest part was starting. A lot of hostile people, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslim. The Hindus protected each other a lot. I wanted to start by conquering Malacca, but they kept making alliances with big Indochinese countries, and attacking their navy was suicide.
So, annexed a few 1 province states, Makassar and Siak mainly. Very slowly over a few years, because this is Magna Mundi, after all.
Eventually, a war struck between the two big countries on Java. After a bloody war lasting around 6 years, I took over most of Java.
Waiting for the cores to form on Java was probably the longest part. The administration was designed for a tiny country.. almost every province in Java was bigger than Brunei's capital. So, it fell through. It took two national policies - Bill of Rights and Guilds just to get Brunei at the level where it can administrate the current country. Bill of Rights helped immensely.. also got a revolution in the people's rights, removing that 10% tech penalty.
I got stuck in that position for quite a while. Couldn't attack any other countries because of a tiny navy, couldn't build a larger navy because of lack of money, couldn't earn more money because I wasn't getting enough taxes. Malacca surfed way past me in everything, because of that massive COT and their navy was just way too good.
I signed an alliance with Sulu and Aceh, trying to vassalize them. Malacca ate up Aceh (and I was too weak to defend them), so just had Sulu. Eventually, Malacca messed up and attacked a treaty partner. They had a great economy, but weak military and were pwned by Khmer. I took advantage of Khmer's war weariness, and them dropping Malacca as a treaty partner and hit them. Long, bloody war, only managed to take a single province, even with Sulu's help. Sulu agreed to be a vassal.
I used that province as a base on the Indochina mainland. Eventually mustered up another long, bloody war, getting 2 more vassals. Khmer decided to tie themselves up with Siam. Siam was fricking scary at this time. They had about 24000 troops AND 4 national policies dedicated to land warfare. I had about 21k troops at best, and was navy specialized, with much less manpower. Siam easily rolled over Malacca, taking a province after only a couple of months of war. Signed a treaty with Malacca, both of us needed it.
I hit Khmer again. My 3 vassals + Malacca stormed in on them, one of them with as much manpower as Siam, but less quality. Siam really kicked ass, beat one up easily, conquered all their provinces. It was another bloody war. I gained two vassals and a province, but could only manage white peace with Siam.
At this point, I decided that I needed a COT to keep up with Malacca and to modernize. India was in war at this time. Rajputana (North India) and Vijayanagar (South India) had been aggressive, conquering a lot and had an alliance. Both of them guaranteed the safety of Goa and Baroda, so I could only hit Bihar. Carved my way into Bihar, vassalizing two broken countries along the way. It then turned out that Bihar was landlocked, severe profit cuts, so I released them as a vassal.
Later on, the Rajputana-Vijayanagar alliance tried to hit Gujarat (which owned one of the COTs I wanted). It left Gujarat very vulnerable, so I attacked them. Rajputana was at -3 stability, so they really failed. A lot of their provinces were rebelling in the middle of the war. Their attacks were blunted, so I took over where they left off, grabbing a few other rich West India provinces in the meantime.
Rajputana is continuing to collapse with its -3 stability (thanks, Magna Mundi!) My vassal, Khandesh was a shattered country when I vassalized it, but their freedom fighters retook quite a few provinces from Rajputana, making that neat middle India form.
My next step would be working towards an espionage team, so that I could further collapse the large Indian countries, while upgrading the economy. And maybe I'd look for an opportunity to finally conquer Indochina-Bengala, but larger India's more of a threat now. It doesn't take a lot of knowledge of game mechanics or history to know that India's got a hell lot of manpower and will be mustering huge armies.
So, there. Magna Mundi's good fun when you figure it out, a hell lot more realistic, and way more fun, especially with the events and political system. Also very satisfying building that nation.. going to be upgrading it to an official Empire by the next century.
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Topic: The Show off your Empires Thread (Read 87407 times)