The Great Empire of Japan- 1503
Yeah, it's been a bumpy ride and I've come far over the last 100 years. And I mean *
far*. As you can see- or not; Japan is now a major player in Europe, having fought Napoli and Milan for control over Italy and have gained a significant amount of land in France. So here's a summary of my playthrough.
1399~1405- The Beginning of the EmpireI first forgoed my initial idea of a technological powerhouse, because I was afraid that if I wasn't careful Ryuku might just decide to screw me over when they had most of my provinces. That and because Settsu wasn't Japan's capitol. So I first paid 100 for claims on Korea, vassalized it, and annexed Ryuku soon after.After that, I conquered the rest of the independents in the South Pacific, including Malacca. However, I did not get a chance to get to Aceh, sadly. So thanks to the two level 4 statesman/treasurer I had to start with, I managed to get Unam Sanctum by 1414.
1405~1440- Steamroll your way through oblivionSomewhere along the line, Ming got into a PU with me, because it's ruler died while fighting with the Oirat Horde. And you know what to do with big gigantic nation of doom- steamroll my way through Indochina. Which I did- until NE India, where *my* ruler, Gokomatsu, died and apparently I had bad relations with Ming somehow. Ming then got its own ruler, and I was left to conquer Assam and co. on my own.
Which I did, of course, and vassalized all the way up to Gondowan; where I took it upon my self to take the territories of Delhi and Bengala, since they were rather tasty. However, my rampage stopped there, because the three Indian nations- Punjab, V- something, and the other one- light blue, olive green, and the pink one next to delhi; allied with each other. And this far into India, I can't get support from most of my indochina vassals, and while Bihar and Gondowan are powerful, it's going to be nowhere enough to cut it. And I'm not willing to sacrifice my treasury for this attempt either... Or wasn't willing to afford any more. I fought them, and they brought numerous 10k stacks at me, which I *barely* managed to fend off long enough to sue for a white peace. It was brutal.
So, while I'm aiming for trade 7 and not having anything to do, I decided to conquer Indochina a bit. I went and killed Dai Viet, Suikhothai, Lan Xang and Champa- though Champa had Vijaya taken over by Aceh. However, while doing so I *accidentally*... declared war on Champa without devassalizing it... And vassal relations as well as stability took a hit. And so, I had to postpone finishing off Champa because I had 3 rebellions popping up at once. It took me a bit to deal with them, and I sold my Indochina territories to my larger vassals because I was too lazy to screw around with rebels. And I got bored again, so I decided to conquer Tibet, which happened rather easily as well.
At this point, I found myself without much of an enemy in Asia.. well, except, Ming. India was powerful, but I doubted that it was going to attempt expanding on me anytime soon; and the other would-be power is... Japan, which is, well, me. Ming was a serious threat though. I hadn't the best of relations, even though I was in a PU with them which should've given me 200 relations... and they had embargoed me. A rather dangerous sign of them going to kill me. However, they were rather caught up with their wars in the west for now, so I decided to leave them rather than face a potentially suicide situation.
1441~1450- To Europe!And after all that, I finally got my QftNW, which was a real blessing. I immediately set out to Europe, hoping that I could get a land from Brittany or something. After a couple of years, I found myself dismayed. Castille conquered Aragon, France conquered Burgandy, Hungary was going around rampantly, and England had already conquered Scotland and was finishing off Ireland.... by the 1440s. And so, I went and reluctantly rampaged on Sicily to vassalize them and Cambria off of them. I soon spent the next few years on Westernization.
After I had done so, I decided to get a large vassal to help me with my conquest in Europe. I found the Byzantine Empire... which was quite considerable, really. It had taken a decent part of Asia Minor though I manged to vassalize it in one go. I spent a few more years to conquer Morea and destroyed the Ottoman Empire (Which was *puny*, with only 4 provinces) and gave the territories to Byzantine.
1451~1470- The Battle for ItalyIt was at that point that I realized that Milan had cornered Napoli and it had only one territory left. I panicked and Annexed Napoli right away to discover... Milan being the new ruler of Italy. I facepalmed for having let things go this far. At this rate, I wouldn't get any decent foothold in Italy- and I really wanted Italy and all of its precious universities. Asia Minor was too risky with the Tirmuid, Mamluks, and Bosnia having gone and guaranteed everything usable, so I was only left with Eastern Europe. Germany was a no go; I wasn't suicidal enough to face the HRE directly just yet and I was only left with Milan... which had Italy and was a bloody member of the HRE as well... Wait- that makes Milan even worse of a choice! Why am I even considering this again?
And so I decided that I *was* suicidal enough to face the HRE and fight Milan for control over its territories. So began the conquest of Ferrara using the territories of Mantua (who had been Napoli's allies), which was Milan's ally... which was also part of the HRE. My goal was to conquer as much of Milan as possible before Bavaria managed to get through Tirol and slaughter me to pieces. Thankfully that never happened- Bavaria was too busy with its war with Hungary and sent me a White Peace soon after- and Milan without Bavaria is... well... Milan. And so I quickly got Firenze and others for myself.
Having taken parts of Italy but still not satisfied, I quickly declared war on Venice... which just *happened* to be allied with Milan. Que epic stomping of Milan and Venice. More territories out of Milan, Venice is reduced to one territory. Wait, I'm not done yet. Milan still up and strong? Why, then the obvious answer is taking Corsica which also just... *happened* to be guaranteed by Milan. Now, the AI is either just outright stupid or I'm extremely lucky because Milan declared war on me... again, after being slaughtered two times in a row. By me. I still got Venezia, and Genoa became my vassal as well. Sadly, the conquering of Corsica wasn't as great, because the Swiss and Brandenburg, the new HRE, declared war on me as well. Thankfully, Brandenburg was only two months old as the HRE, and I fended it off rather well until I managed to screw Milan over rest of the way.
All in all, I've taken most of Italy. Which took a hefty amount of time and I'm rather thankful that it had ended at this point or else I would've been screwed by overextending myself. Now one might note that I've been making extensive wars in Europe and be wondering that it's got to be impossible. Not quite so. I had been very careful during the war not to make any army overruns as much as possible. Also, as you may have noticed, the war took quite a long time, it wasn't a quick curb stomp battle as I would've liked it to have been. For example, Milan had a 21k army rampaging around at one point. And the thing with Europe is, it's supply limit is high.
Very high. Trying to kill them off with attrition as one would do with Ming is very unlikely. Also, Brandenburg, while relatively weak, had continuously sent troops throughout the third war, totaling in about 15k troops in my estimate. This was an especially brutal period for me, because rebels were running high (And Italian rebels for some reason really like to be 10k stacks unlike nice 3~5k ones back in Asia), the Byzantines were suffering from Turkish rebels as well. My saving grace is that Hungary had attacked Bavaria again, which made Brandenburg pull its stacks back a year or so in, resulting in a white peace, and Sicily's continuous contribution of troops (Strange, in a way, since it only has two provinces). That and the fact that I had 3.5k saved up from Asia. Sadly, that huge stack of 3.5k ducats had dropped to 900 by the time I finished with Milan. I never realized why I had ever managed to save up so much in the first place.
1471~1480- Brief Period of PeaceSo Milan was screwed and I should get right back on to killing Milan, right? Not going to happen. As it did, Milan apparently allied themselves with England, and I don't want to get involved in another massive war right now. Also, if England does go to war with me, there is a likely chance in the post-war aftermath that France would invade through Scotland's territories and kill England- in fact, France getting any bigger at all, would be a problem; a problem I'll discuss a bit further.
So, what do I do now? Nothing. My manpower's been hitting 700~900 for the last few months, and I've actually been lucky to have pulled out thus far. Especially since Milan had a higher land tech and better troops than me. It sucks that you can't switch troop types in IN. Then again, Chinese cavalry are actually rather much better until land tech 38 I believe. But infantry's going to be hit hard. Then again, it's not going to be around a hundred years later from now.
And the one thing is, my treasury is bottoming out, and very soon- and I CAN'T TELL WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, that really bothers me a lot. To compensate for the situation, I have an active war with Tripoli just so that I can get War Taxes to help ease the deficits- my ruler has a 9 ADM and it is oh, such a wonderful thing. Of course, I've all the three of its provinces under my control so it can't do anything while I'm busy idling.
On a side note, there hasn't been much change in Asia, except Manchu got three provinces from Ming rebels, two to the south and one to the north due to Ming having been busy killing off the GH and the Tirumuids, and it had warred the newly popped up Mongol Khanate for some reason that I can't comprehend. Well, it got Korea to war it due to Korea having an alliance with it. It fetched Korea quite a few territories and I jumped in on the last second to get Haixi off of the whole thing. The Khanate was quickly re-absorbed by Ming soon after though.
The only parts to conquer that are left are the few northern parts to the NE and NW. And due to Milan running out of things to DoW through, I'm not going be warring them anymore. They do have a guarantee on Cyprus- though the problem is that France and Castille both have a guarantee on it as well; and taking on the world's currently two largest superpowers is by far *not* a smart move. At least; not at the same time.
1481~1502- The Epic Franco-Japanese WarDuring my wars with Milan there was something that I became increasingly concerned with- France. Now I know that France is a big problem for any major European player, but it was getting way out of hand. It had slaughtered Castille, moving a fair bit into their lands, and was slowly eating way at the HRE. It also had the islands above scotland near England, which meant that if I'm not careful and they conquer England too, they're soon going to be invincible, and I have no chance of winning at all unless I'm willing to go the long way and try to risk WWIII against France. I mean come on- they're quickly turning into Ming and to make it worse, they're in the bloody damn latin tech group.
So, the point is, France is getting powerful, way too fast. France has already proven itself capable of killing Castile before, it's been eating away at the HRE, and Palatinate isn't going to be able to do much about a French rampage- it's predecessors proved how incapable they were of that already.
So, after I had recovered... and my gold count was increased to 1200 (through war taxes and minting, I was even considering a loan but..) I decided to prepare for France. At this point in the game I had a total of 30 regiments. I was waiting so that I'd be able to get a DoW on Corfu and attack France right away when...
FRANCE DECLARES WAR ON CASTILLE! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!!!!!
Or not. To look on the bright side, Castille is also allied with England. However, if this goes well for France, it could mean big trouble for me. Either way, Castille's still pretty powerful and France will burn quite a few troops on it while I go and hit it from the back. The AI for some reason always makes peace with other AIs if Human Players attack it but it's still going to be painful somewhat to France, and will at least keep their troops on their border for a while.
So 5 months after Castille's DoW, France probably fought a few battles that would be hard on them, and it should be fast enough that Castille hasn't taken too much of a beating. I go through my vassal the Swiss and strike into France, using Champte-Compte. It proves to be a disaster however. After having taken 4 of their provinces them in quick assaults, France starts blasting off at me... in a painful manner. First, they send a bunch of 1 and 2 stacks, which I kill off easily and then comes a 11k. Okay, that's not too bad, and then a bloody 28k stack consisting of 17k cavalry and 11k infantry, followed by several 10k stacks. It was at that point that France had troops sieging my escape route... in other words, guaranteeing doom for 22k of my troops. And *then* comes the peace deal between Castille and Fran.. wai-what? Are you telling me that France had troops to spare while still at war with Castille!?
I tried to fight a guerilla war in France for a while, taking out a bunch of 1~2 stacks, but I was soon cornered by the enemy forces. I tried to request access from England but they wouldn't let me and the German OPM all hate me too much from Milan wars. I still managed to take a good decent chunk out of their force though and I'm proud.
But whether I'm proud or not, it's fact that the french war machine is coming at me strong. They invade the Swiss and cut through them with no problem at all, and they will soon arrive in Brecia. There's not much I can do to stop them and it's going to be ugly, but I try to use the scorched earth tactic and immediately set off flames in northern Italy, in hopes that it will slow them down. And ho, it does! The 28k French force arrived in Brecia first, along with another 10k regiment, boosting up attrition damage to all time highs. And for some reason, it seemed that they have not learned how to assault as they sit there and let their troops be slaughtered by attrition. However Brecia *does* fall though, and French troops start storming in... only to have the huge stack going back into France and smaller 4~6k stacks spreading out.
At that point, my army, 12k strong starts wiping out the stacks that come in through Italy, trying to time it so I suffer as little as from Attrition as possible. Although I manage to fend them off, France sends another 18k stack my way, which I quickly move to dodge. It then proceeds to start sieging suffering attrition damage....
And the same stuff happens over and over again... for more than 15 years. I never realized time was going so fast. But in any case, it seems that France's assault was growing slowly weaker, so I took my navy and patrolled around, to find that it was being ravaged by rebels. Surprised, I go and check France's stats again to find it at -3 stability. Surprise, surprise, I'm not sure what triggered that, but that means high RR and perfect time for me to step in. I go in, but there still are quite a few french forces fighting the rebels, and over the course of 3 years, I conquer quite a bit of France and take over the territories to get what you see on the World Map there. And it's now two years later...
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Topic: The Show off your Empires Thread (Read 87429 times)