Turkey AAR, or we have a Very Bad Reputation

[State Machine]

Introduction
My intent is to run this game for about 100 years. It is being played on the Gold version. I have made one minor change (which I will suggest in the beta forum). I made it highly unlikely that Thrace will get a CoT via the mysterious CoT creation process. A problem of concern in the beta forum is that Thrace starts with no CoT (good - Byzantium doesn't deserve one historically, and it strengthens it too much), but the game mechanics always create a CoT in 1420, defeating the purpose. If Turkey owns Thrace, a CoT will be created from an event.

Part 1 - First Moves to Uniting Anatolya - Mehmed I - 1419 to 1421
1419
It is the 18th year of the reign of the most glorious Mehmed I. In council in our capitol [Macedonia - a compromise since the historical capitol is in the same geographic area as Thrace], Mehmed thinks it is time to restore our losses caused by the depredations of Tamurlane. We have seven provinces (3 in Anatolya, 4 in the Balkans), a strong army, and weak neighbors. Byzantium is long past its prime. The Duchy of Athens is corrupt. Moldova, Wallachia, Serbia, and Albania have other worries. Anatolian countries are all weak. Teke, Duldikir, and Candar are one province countries. Karaman is three provinces and on the verge of disintegration on its own.

Our first decision is to improve the quality of armaments (). Secondly, we secure access between the two halves of our domain (Military Access agreement with Byzantium - this is something proposed in the beta to exist at the beginning to ease Turkey's initial difficulties and keep Byzantium from DoW'ing Turkey so easily as you have to cancel MA to DoW).

May 3. DoW Karaman. It is so unstable we are worried someone else may step into the power vacuum before us. The 2nd army defeats Karaman's paltry army in early June and invests Konya. By September, Taurus is invested by the 3rd Army. The first army stays at the capitol to dissuade any of the Europeans from messing with us.

Meanwhile, Byzantium dares to suggest we become subordinate members in alliance with them - hah! Moldova, however, refuses the honor of being our alliance partner (as will everyone, and that's before our reputation went down).

1420
Konya falls on April 12. Taurus falls on June 6. Remaining Karaman forces are destroyed in Adana in June and July. Adana is besieged. Karaman is doomed. November 4 marks the next stage in the unification. We declare war on Teke. We destroy its army and besiege it by mid-December.

In other areas, Georgia refuses to ally with us in January and August. Ak Koyunlu refuse to ally with us in August and November, Hmmm, we are respectable, maybe even honorable - what's the problem?

1421
Teke cavalry raids in February and March are a great bother, but we sort it out. Adana falls in May, so we can do anything we want in peace negotiations. We decide there is no hurry.

Our Trade and Naval technology increases in January. Finally, we can place some Merchants. Other than getting one merchant into Alexandria, we have no success for some years. Serbia rejects an alliance proposal. On May 18, we send a gift to Candar - a robust bull and the putrid carcass of a lamb. They don't respond to our intimation that we are the bull and they the lamb. They will have to wait till later, then. [One DP slider change and two DoW's have our stability down - we can't afford another DoW on a coreligionist.]

Disaster. Mehmed chokes to death while eating a particularly succulent leg of lamb. Our court is in a tizzy. Was it assassination? Fate? Hubris? Murad II becomes our leader and takes command of the 1st Army.

[DarthMaur]

Ehum, two new threads, SM? (nice AAR, btw)

[acetime]

Great AAR.
From what I read from Produce Pete's AAR it is better to conquer Byzantium as soon as possible to get all the bonuses that come with the new capital. Do you want to stick to historical rise of Turkey or you didn't annex Byzantium because Turkey is not in a good position initially to do so. Now that you got the military access from them, you will take a stability hit later on when you are going to conquer them.

[State Machine]

Part 2 - We Have a Slightly Tarnished Reputation - Murad II - 1421 to 1425
1421
The rest of 1421 is pretty quiet. We reject nice monetary peace offers from Teke and Karaman. Teke finally falls in December. We finally have some diplomatic success by negotiating a Trade Agreement with the Mameluks. We look forward to future investments in Alexandria. We are uneasy with Venice annexing Ragusa at the beginning of December, and look with concern at Byzantium's success in its war with the Duchy of Athens.

1422
The year starts out with great ceremony as we celebrate the marriage of Murad's 2nd cousin into the Ak Koyunlu. Byzantium annexes the Duchy of Athens in April. We repeatedly reject peace offers from Teke and Karaman. [we are content with the extra income from their provinces and don't want to dilute our stability investments by taking territory, right now] Our great reputation improves relations with many countries. We continue to be concerned with Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania, so we Proclaim a Guarantee on Moldova.

1423
It is time to take care of Candar, so we declare war. Candar is not only rightfully ours, but has annexed Trebizond. Murad defeats the Candar army in Kastamonu in February and besieges it. Meanwhile we besiege Trabzon in March. Kastamonu falls in October.

Meanwhile, Venice asks us for military access. We question their motives and refuse. In another coup, we arrange a royal marriage with Qara Koyunlu in May. In July, Dulkidir is annexed by the Ak Koyunlu. Sigh, we had our sights on them, next. Qara Koyunlu reject our alliance proposal in October.

1424
Dobrudja revolts to start the year but it is suppressed in March. Byzantium is at war against Aragon and Castile - I would be happy to grant them military access if they would only ask.

In April, we embark on the Great Army Reform. We make a great investment in military technology, and become more oriented to the offensive and land combat [historical event].

Trabzon finally falls in June after Murad had to sack the siege commander and come in to do it himself. We decide to cash in our gains after some serious consultation [i.e. Murad's most trusted advisor forgot that you cannot militarily annex countries with more than one province]. We decide to annex Teke. In October, we come to terms with Candar, 357D and Trabzon to us - quite nice. We eagerly await an offer from Karaman. Some Karaman irregulars rough Murad up in September to his embarrassment. It seems there was some very costly corruption affecting some of our military ability [random event with two nasty options - lose money and stability vs. increase inflation]. A few more commanders are executed.

1425
We start the year receiving heralds from Serbia and Moldova, both rejecting our alliance offers. March 14 - hurrah - peace with Karaman, getting 158D, Konya, and Adana.

Now is the time for us to consolidate our gains and improve our governance. On December 3, we initiate the Sheikh-ul-Islam Office. This will be a way of standardizing our laws throughout the realm [historical event with some DP slider changes and a big stability boost - finally positive stability].

EDIT: A couple of references to Candar were supposed to be Karaman.

[State Machine]

Originally posted by acetime
Great AAR.
From what I read from Produce Pete's AAR it is better to conquer Byzantium as soon as possible to get all the bonuses that come with the new capital. Do you want to stick to historical rise of Turkey or you didn't annex Byzantium because Turkey is not in a good position initially to do so. Now that you got the military access from them, you will take a stability hit later on when you are going to conquer them.

I am trying to be vaguely historical, at least as far as Byzantium is concerned. Especially since there are some complications to be reported in Part 3 or 4. I'm up to 1435 and have a lot of BB. I'm going to lay low for 10-15 years or so, then take Byzantium.

The big benefit in taking Byz early is the CoT, that I have gotten rid of. I'm not sure when the event kicks in for Turkey getting a CoT after it has conquered Byz. Other than a couple of event references, I'm going to try to hide the events some to not spoil surprises for people playing the game in a week or two.

[Alexander Seil]

Good AAR. Looking forward to at least one AAR updated regularily, as every other AAR is dead.

[acetime]

State Machine,
Could you please answer these two questions:
1.You said that it is not possible to militarily annex countries with more than two provinces. Is this true or you just didn't want to take the bad boy hit for annexing them and made this up to make the storyline more interesting.
2.Does granting military access to other countries give you any bonuses. It doesn't seem to me like there is anything good about other countries troops marching around on your territory and draining the supply of the province they are in.
Thanks in advance.

[Pred]

No, you can't annex countries with more than 1 prov... they already said that in other thread.

Maybe military access improves relations?

State?

[HisMajestyBOB]

Awsome AAR
Very interesting, especially that info on random events. Does this mean most random events are multile-choice, or are these events rare?

[BiB]

Quite a few random events have choices, often between stab loss, money loss, change in DP, loss of VPs, ...

[State Machine]

Originally posted by BiB
Quite a few random events have choices, often between stab loss, money loss, change in DP, loss of VPs, ...

That's for sure. I just had to take a nasty stability loss because some noble is holding me up for money - bastages! I didn't have the money. Hmmm, maybe I should have taken the loan - drat! Low stability is killing me.

Alex, I have parts 3 & 4 written and am playing what will be part 5 right now. I plan on releasing something once a day. But I only expect to play 100 years, so I'll be done sometime during the week. Of course, part 5 is now BB wars, not my nice peaceful economy and diplomatic relation building, so...

1.You said that it is not possible to militarily annex countries with more than two provinces. Is this true or you just didn't want to take the bad boy hit for annexing them and made this up to make the storyline more interesting.
2.Does granting military access to other countries give you any bonuses. It doesn't seem to me like there is anything good about other countries troops marching around on your territory and draining the supply of the province they are in.

Acetime, you can only militarily annex a one province country. This is an excellent balancing measure. There was a bit of argument about it in the beta forum, but not much. I haven't seen much advantage to grant MA to another country. But if the right country asked I'm sure I would grant it. Most MA comes from peace negotiation. I am kicking myself right now for accepting a peace deal from someone, instead of making my own peace including MA. On the other hand, it turned out to be just a small problem.

Pred, MA does not affect relations. But, relations and alliances affect whether a country will grant MA from a diplo request. For example, a country that dislikes you a lot is not likely to grant you MA. Or, a country that is in an alliance against you in war is not going to grant you MA if you ask. Again, this is from a diplomatic request, not a peace negotiation.

[hacksaw]

If you cant mil annex another country, can you declare war on them, take all there provinces. ( say they had 5 and you decimated them and took 4 at peace) could on you next war annex them totally.

[Alexander Seil]

Originally posted by State Machine

That's for sure. I just had to take a nasty stability loss because some noble is holding me up for money - bastages! I didn't have the money. Hmmm, maybe I should have taken the loan - drat! Low stability is killing me.

Alex, I have parts 3 & 4 written and am playing what will be part 5 right now. I plan on releasing something once a day. But I only expect to play 100 years, so I'll be done sometime during the week. Of course, part 5 is now BB wars, not my nice peaceful economy and diplomatic relation building, so...


Acetime, you can only militarily annex a one province country. This is an excellent balancing measure. There was a bit of argument about it in the beta forum, but not much. I haven't seen much advantage to grant MA to another country. But if the right country asked I'm sure I would grant it. Most MA comes from peace negotiation. I am kicking myself right now for accepting a peace deal from someone, instead of making my own peace including MA. On the other hand, it turned out to be just a small problem.

Pred, MA does not affect relations. But, relations and alliances affect whether a country will grant MA from a diplo request. For example, a country that dislikes you a lot is not likely to grant you MA. Or, a country that is in an alliance against you in war is not going to grant you MA if you ask. Again, this is from a diplomatic request, not a peace negotiation.

Awww, post all of it, now! This part of the forum is so dead, i am running into risk of dying out of boredom myself

[State Machine]

Originally posted by Alexander Seil
Awww, post all of it, now! This part of the forum is so dead, i am running into risk of dying out of boredom myself

Nah, it is all part of a brilliant marketing program to increase the anticipation each day.

Besides, it gives me some buffer stock. I am 2 and 1/2 days ahead now. If I can't play much in the next few days, I still have something to post.

[Alexander Seil]

No! *needs some more*

[Zagys]

Originally posted by State Machine
Acetime, you can only militarily annex a one province country. This is an excellent balancing measure. There was a bit of argument about it in the beta forum, but not much.

So that means the Turks have to sack Constantinople twice in order to recieve it? Not very realistic Imo. Wouldn't 2 provinces be a more reasonable limit?

[State Machine]

Originally posted by Zagys
So that means the Turks have to sack Constantinople twice in order to recieve it? Not very realistic Imo. Wouldn't 2 provinces be a more reasonable limit?

That was the argument in the beta forum, but it did not get anywhere. Specifically relating to Constantinople, the game system "requires" you to take it twice (unless other actors have defeated Byzantium previously). This is clearly ahistorical in this (major) instance. But, the overall affects to the game are great. Really, in the case of Turkey vs. Byzantium, there is absolutly no problem, Byzantium will fall, as it should.

Now, there might be other balancing issues that need to be addressed, including Turkey ai performance vs. Byzantium. Alas, EU II has gone gold, so corrections will be a patch. I have every expectation that these things will be handled very quickly, and ideally, the eager EU II buyer in a week or so, will be able to download a very good patch.

[Yasko]

What about Ottomans vs. Hungary? or Ottomans Against Memlukes? Both were taken by pretty quick. Suleyman took the first one 1526 and Selim I took Egypt 1517. With these weird rules doing the same in the game seems to be impossible....

[boehm]

Originally posted by Yasko
What about Ottomans vs. Hungary? or Ottomans Against Memlukes? Both were taken by pretty quick. Suleyman took the first one 1526 and Selim I took Egypt 1517. With these weird rules doing the same in the game seems to be impossible....

...I dont think they sound that weird quite reasonable actually....historically its not really my impression that there were many instances when whole countries were taken in peace settlement....or perhaps Im wrong but if it makes the game perform better its good

[Vulture]

Oi State... Nice AAR mate
Nice to see Turkey kicking arse