Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-08-30 23:39:36 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: Pre-campaign notes.
I made Fun & Balance compatible with Extended Timeline mod, so now it's time for some fun! I don't want to play any time already covered by CK2 (including Charlemagne DLC) or EU4, so decision was between something really old or really new - and starting at pre-Islamic Arabia and conquering the world sounds like fun.
Whoever controls Mecca in 627-ish gets event to turn them into the Caliphate, and then they get ton of ridiculously OP events to help simulate world conquest. In random observe mod games AI seems to be completely uninterested.
My plan is very simple:
• conquer all inhabited provinces claimed by the most recent Caliphate [ http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/03/why-is-the-media-taking-these-isis-world-domina/199984
] - they obviously use maps from Paradox games. Their maps are different from each other, so if it's on any of their maps, it's victory condition.
• eliminate all Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian (and other Middle Eastern religions) provinces and countries from the map
• deal with Shiite uprising event somehow
I only have general idea as for game mechanics. Biggest risks are Byzantium, Sassanids, and Shiites - if I manage to deal with all three, I'll probably be totally OP.
What makes it easier is that Byzantium and Sassanids are at war for a few decades by that time - I can't really rewind it back to where they aren't without going into 500s.
Anyway, I expect this to be the easiest campaign I ever played, but then you never know.
Some starting maps for 625 (religious left, political right) below.
#eu4 #caliphate
Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-08-31 03:41:52 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 625-642
The first two years were just trivia - fabricate claims on East African minors, improve relations with Byzantium and Sassanids (just in case), and waiting for event to trigger.
It happened in February 627, giving me a choice of -2 stab or becoming Caliphate and getting a stack of some really obscene bonuses for the next 30 years. Then it was some waiting for neighbouring countries of my culture group to join the Caliphate by conversion - especially Yemen, which finally did in September 628.
The first war was against East African minors - Aksum, Alodia, and Makuria. Then I added second war with Blemmyes - Nobatia was all inland so I didn't have any CBs so I left it for the time being.
This unfortunately turned into very long waiting - the way province defection works is that it first needs to go Sunni (mtth 6.4 months if Christian, 1.6 month otherwise), then defect (mtth 5 months). Unfortunately requirements include neighbouring by land - so my conquest of East Africa couldn't proceed until I got Tajura converted, and as we all know mtth of 6.4 months mean I'll be waiting until next century for it.
Byzantium was just way too big to even consider at 72k + 27k manpower. Sassanids were closer at 29k + 10k vs my 24k + 0k. My armies have higher morale, but that won't increase manpower in any way. My force limit was 18 to theirs 50, so it's not like that going to improve anytime soon.
Tajura actually decided to convert, hopefully starting a chain reaction, but it will take years (of technically permanent war) to go all the way, so I might just as well attack Sassanids. Byzantines were really happy about me doing so, sending me 6.59/month in cash - huge amount that early.
I managed to seriously damage Sassanid manpower, and even got one Sassanid province to defect, but then I lost a battle of al Hasa. I apparently suck at this game. So I did what I ought to day zero - spammed recruit general button until I got a good one, took loans for merc spam, and created a new army.
My fleet got sunk (my OP bonuses are for land armies only apparently), and my war exhaustion was getting close to max, mostly due to silly call for peace nonsense. My first idea was to have a short break in war as soon as I get border with some minor country in Caucasus, so I can expand somewhere else than into Byzantium and Sassanids - but then war exhaustion of 20 didn't seem to be doing much - just spawning some rebels I could appease with rebel negotiations.
Only in February 639 the last East African province (not counting ones held by Nobatia and Byzantium) finally joined me - proving that I was right to rush into war against Sassanids. I was waiting for that border province with Caucasian minors, but by that point Sassanids were basically over. While I was waiting for defection events I attacked 2-province Albania in Caucasus as well. I ended up annexing 1-province Sassanids and 2-province Albania in October 642, thus ending the first Caliphate war.
Bahrain defected to rebels, and they are my culture, but that event for joining the caliphate expired already, so I'll need to conquer them normally.
Right now I'm not even close to Byzantine army size (my 37k - almost all mercs vs their 130k), so that direction is pretty unworkable. I can go through Caucasus into territory north of the Black Sea, into Western Gokturks territory of Central Asia, or East right into India.
My awesome broken country modifier expires in 657, and after that I'll have to do the conquering the slow way. Fortunately I got big enough power base that if I waited for my manpower to recover etc. I could probably fight Byzantines - I have 3rd largest force limit after Francia and Byzantium already; if I manage to conquer half of India before timer goes off I'll probably become the strongest country in the world.
#eu4 #caliphate
Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-08-31 23:34:17 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 642-648
My strategy of spamming mercs and attacking anybody who's smaller than Byzantium seems to be paying off.
All Northern Indian kingdoms have been defeated, as well as Western Gokturks (about modern Kazakhstan) and Bulgaria (about modern Eastern Ukraine), even if defection events will take a while to trigger. Now my armies advance into territory of Avars (Modern Western Ukraine / Hungary), Gokturks (that huge blob around modern Mongolia) and various Indian minors.
I'm much more conservative tactically than during my wars against Sassanids, since micromanaging armies on so many fronts simultaneously would be too difficult at reasonable game speed. AI is extremely cautious about challenging my armies - for good reason since I have crazy bonuses, but that makes all the fighting so much easier. Max battle width is very small than far back, so AI can't even overwhelm me with numbers - its morale will crush in 300 style scenario.
I started getting call for peace again, but I don't really care - rebels can be bought off for some prestige, and I'm getting +10 per defecting province in addition to ridiculous amounts from battles. I'll probably only finish state of permanent war in 657 when Rise of Islam modifier expires.
To make things even easier, 2nd and 3rd most powerful countries Francia and Byzantium are at war. That's pretty good for you two.
By the way Extended Timeline mod has sensibly spaced out techs, but EU4 extrapolates starting tech level in really stupid way, so everyone starts 100 years ahead of time, and MPs just overflow for a century or so. Perhaps some fancy scripting to fix that is possible?
#eu4 #caliphate #funandbalance
Post 4 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-09-05 18:03:55 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 648-650
Central Asia is all conquered, Indian armies have fallen, all Avar alnds are being besieged (geography will make spread of Islam to their territories slow), my armies even reached Gokturk territory (of about Western Mongolia) and Western Indochina region.
The question is really - to go against Byzantium or not? I have "Rise of Islam" modifier until 657, no major enemies to go, and Byzantium is already at war against Francia.
Spread of Islam event is 4x slower against Christians, but that's 6+5 months instead of 1.5+5 for both spread and defection to occur - not such a massive difference. And I could always just take some provinces in the war and core them the hard way.
I originally planned to go against various Pagan minors of Central Europe (well, Northern Europe by standards of the era really) after defeating the Avars, but they refuse to get discovered.
#eu4
Post 5 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-09-06 00:02:15 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 650-653
Current state of world armies:
• The Caliphate - 89k
• Caliphate's current enemies (10 countries in 8 separate wars) - 22k
• Byzantium - 73k
• Byzantium's current allies (Goths and Visigoths) - 32k
• Byzantium's current enemies (Franica, Moors, Lombardy, Dumnonia) - 153k
Surely it would be silly not to strike Byzantium now. And Visigoths bailed on them - not that it would matter, they're in Spain and at war with Francia anyway.
So it goes! The first battle between the Caliphate and Byzantium was in Zagreb where Francia's stack rushed to help.
Of course it couldn't last long, so they white peaced and I was left fighting Byzantium on my own. I managed to completely overrun Balkans except for random off-shore islands I couldn't access due to Byzantine fleets - that includes occupying Constantinople itself. Byzantines tried to break through the straits multiple times but between straits modifiers and my overpowered armies it never ended up well for them.
The second front was in Caucasus - starting from Kartli and now extending to Aleppo, separating Anatolia from Byzantine Africa - not with enough armies to withstand truly coordinated attack, but if they rushed everyone at me, I'd withdraw into mountains where extremely narrow passes make Byzantine victory pretty much impossible. In battle of Erzurum 15k of my troops crushed Byzantine 50k thanks to defensive terrain, good general, and extremely narrow front (just 6k wide IIRC).
Tibet is putting far more resistance than they had any business doing, but since Gokturks are fully occupied my armies from the Far East are returning to India through Tibet now. I was too distracted fighting Tibet to occupy even Arakan so far - I don't expect any spectacular gains in this area - just Tibet, leftover Indian kingdoms, and a couple of provinces towards Ligore.
I have less than 4 years left with my modifier. I'm obviously not going to conquer the whole Byzantine Empire, but if I could get all of Balkans, and good part of their Asian provinces, that would be pretty cool.
If all of that works the remaining provinces to go will be all of North African coast (not sure if I care about those 2 Subsaharan kingdoms - one of them I don't even see, and I have CB on neither), maybe Spain, maybe (discovered parts of) Indonesia.
I'll think about it when the modifier expires. Transition from totally overpowered Caliphate into "simply" largest empire in the world could be hard.
#eu4
Post 6 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-09-06 18:15:13 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 653-655
For some reason Byzantines have been far more aggressive than any of my previous enemies - instead of tamely waiting for me to carpet siege their holdings they're charging into battles where they're not favoured.
That's helping them somewhat - I overextended a bit, as it makes me play much more cautiously and probably saved them Egypt, but even then Constantinople just voluntarily went under rule of the Caliph a moment ago.
16 months of war left. 20 War Exhaustion pretty much permanent. Sadly I won't be able to take much territory - Byzantium is somehow worth >1000% - I thought sum of province costs was capped at 400% so you can always take 1/4 of any country in a war? Is this a mod thing, or did they change that in some recent patch?
War in South-East Asia is pretty straightforward - not sure if events will trigger fast enough or not. I'd say I have more territory than some ISIS maps already, even if it's shifted a bit around.
#eu4 #caliphate
Post 7 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-09-06 19:31:06 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 655-657
And here's the last update. I thought I'd play past expiration of the modifier, as it took me 15 years to defeat Sassanids, so I thought in 30 years I'd only maybe get North India, Caucasus, and Ukraine, and that's it - everything turned out to go insanely well instead.
I annexed remaining East Asian countries, except I only could vassalize Pyu as they held one of my provinces (I ignored such issues since it would revert back to me when they'd lose their last province by event) - I released another country there too just to lower OE.
From Byzantium I could only take a bunch of territories in Judea / Egyptn area - including Jerusalem, since 400% province cost cap doesn't seem to be working for some reason.
My country is now in deep shit - apparently OE (188%) massive increases merc cost, so I'm now at -100 gold / month, in addition to all other penalties associated with high OE and still high WE (I only reduced it from 20 to 6). Obviously I'd just disband half of mercs, since I can't wage any serious wars until I finish some cores.
Next 5 years are going to be relatively painful, as rebels are everywhere, I need to replace all merc army with proper army (for which I have no manpower), core everything and so on. I'm pretty much guaranteed to end up at -100 prestige from rebel negotiations as well.
Anyway, there's not much point continuing. Technically I'm missing North Africa, but between my power relative to Byzantium, and province cost cap not working, this would be tedious rather than challenging. I'm going to say the campaign was crazy successful and call it done.
And yes, I'm going to release Fun & Balance version for Extended Timeline mod sometime soon, I just need to clean it up a bit.
#eu4 #caliphate
Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-08-30 23:39:36 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: Pre-campaign notes.
I made Fun & Balance compatible with Extended Timeline mod, so now it's time for some fun! I don't want to play any time already covered by CK2 (including Charlemagne DLC) or EU4, so decision was between something really old or really new - and starting at pre-Islamic Arabia and conquering the world sounds like fun.
Whoever controls Mecca in 627-ish gets event to turn them into the Caliphate, and then they get ton of ridiculously OP events to help simulate world conquest. In random observe mod games AI seems to be completely uninterested.
My plan is very simple:
• conquer all inhabited provinces claimed by the most recent Caliphate [ http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/03/why-is-the-media-taking-these-isis-world-domina/199984
] - they obviously use maps from Paradox games. Their maps are different from each other, so if it's on any of their maps, it's victory condition.
• eliminate all Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian (and other Middle Eastern religions) provinces and countries from the map
• deal with Shiite uprising event somehow
I only have general idea as for game mechanics. Biggest risks are Byzantium, Sassanids, and Shiites - if I manage to deal with all three, I'll probably be totally OP.
What makes it easier is that Byzantium and Sassanids are at war for a few decades by that time - I can't really rewind it back to where they aren't without going into 500s.
Anyway, I expect this to be the easiest campaign I ever played, but then you never know.
Some starting maps for 625 (religious left, political right) below.
#eu4 #caliphate
Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-08-31 03:41:52 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 625-642
The first two years were just trivia - fabricate claims on East African minors, improve relations with Byzantium and Sassanids (just in case), and waiting for event to trigger.
It happened in February 627, giving me a choice of -2 stab or becoming Caliphate and getting a stack of some really obscene bonuses for the next 30 years. Then it was some waiting for neighbouring countries of my culture group to join the Caliphate by conversion - especially Yemen, which finally did in September 628.
The first war was against East African minors - Aksum, Alodia, and Makuria. Then I added second war with Blemmyes - Nobatia was all inland so I didn't have any CBs so I left it for the time being.
This unfortunately turned into very long waiting - the way province defection works is that it first needs to go Sunni (mtth 6.4 months if Christian, 1.6 month otherwise), then defect (mtth 5 months). Unfortunately requirements include neighbouring by land - so my conquest of East Africa couldn't proceed until I got Tajura converted, and as we all know mtth of 6.4 months mean I'll be waiting until next century for it.
Byzantium was just way too big to even consider at 72k + 27k manpower. Sassanids were closer at 29k + 10k vs my 24k + 0k. My armies have higher morale, but that won't increase manpower in any way. My force limit was 18 to theirs 50, so it's not like that going to improve anytime soon.
Tajura actually decided to convert, hopefully starting a chain reaction, but it will take years (of technically permanent war) to go all the way, so I might just as well attack Sassanids. Byzantines were really happy about me doing so, sending me 6.59/month in cash - huge amount that early.
I managed to seriously damage Sassanid manpower, and even got one Sassanid province to defect, but then I lost a battle of al Hasa. I apparently suck at this game. So I did what I ought to day zero - spammed recruit general button until I got a good one, took loans for merc spam, and created a new army.
My fleet got sunk (my OP bonuses are for land armies only apparently), and my war exhaustion was getting close to max, mostly due to silly call for peace nonsense. My first idea was to have a short break in war as soon as I get border with some minor country in Caucasus, so I can expand somewhere else than into Byzantium and Sassanids - but then war exhaustion of 20 didn't seem to be doing much - just spawning some rebels I could appease with rebel negotiations.
Only in February 639 the last East African province (not counting ones held by Nobatia and Byzantium) finally joined me - proving that I was right to rush into war against Sassanids. I was waiting for that border province with Caucasian minors, but by that point Sassanids were basically over. While I was waiting for defection events I attacked 2-province Albania in Caucasus as well. I ended up annexing 1-province Sassanids and 2-province Albania in October 642, thus ending the first Caliphate war.
Bahrain defected to rebels, and they are my culture, but that event for joining the caliphate expired already, so I'll need to conquer them normally.
Right now I'm not even close to Byzantine army size (my 37k - almost all mercs vs their 130k), so that direction is pretty unworkable. I can go through Caucasus into territory north of the Black Sea, into Western Gokturks territory of Central Asia, or East right into India.
My awesome broken country modifier expires in 657, and after that I'll have to do the conquering the slow way. Fortunately I got big enough power base that if I waited for my manpower to recover etc. I could probably fight Byzantines - I have 3rd largest force limit after Francia and Byzantium already; if I manage to conquer half of India before timer goes off I'll probably become the strongest country in the world.
#eu4 #caliphate
Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-08-31 23:34:17 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 642-648
My strategy of spamming mercs and attacking anybody who's smaller than Byzantium seems to be paying off.
All Northern Indian kingdoms have been defeated, as well as Western Gokturks (about modern Kazakhstan) and Bulgaria (about modern Eastern Ukraine), even if defection events will take a while to trigger. Now my armies advance into territory of Avars (Modern Western Ukraine / Hungary), Gokturks (that huge blob around modern Mongolia) and various Indian minors.
I'm much more conservative tactically than during my wars against Sassanids, since micromanaging armies on so many fronts simultaneously would be too difficult at reasonable game speed. AI is extremely cautious about challenging my armies - for good reason since I have crazy bonuses, but that makes all the fighting so much easier. Max battle width is very small than far back, so AI can't even overwhelm me with numbers - its morale will crush in 300 style scenario.
I started getting call for peace again, but I don't really care - rebels can be bought off for some prestige, and I'm getting +10 per defecting province in addition to ridiculous amounts from battles. I'll probably only finish state of permanent war in 657 when Rise of Islam modifier expires.
To make things even easier, 2nd and 3rd most powerful countries Francia and Byzantium are at war. That's pretty good for you two.
By the way Extended Timeline mod has sensibly spaced out techs, but EU4 extrapolates starting tech level in really stupid way, so everyone starts 100 years ahead of time, and MPs just overflow for a century or so. Perhaps some fancy scripting to fix that is possible?
#eu4 #caliphate #funandbalance
Post 4 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-09-05 18:03:55 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 648-650
Central Asia is all conquered, Indian armies have fallen, all Avar alnds are being besieged (geography will make spread of Islam to their territories slow), my armies even reached Gokturk territory (of about Western Mongolia) and Western Indochina region.
The question is really - to go against Byzantium or not? I have "Rise of Islam" modifier until 657, no major enemies to go, and Byzantium is already at war against Francia.
Spread of Islam event is 4x slower against Christians, but that's 6+5 months instead of 1.5+5 for both spread and defection to occur - not such a massive difference. And I could always just take some provinces in the war and core them the hard way.
I originally planned to go against various Pagan minors of Central Europe (well, Northern Europe by standards of the era really) after defeating the Avars, but they refuse to get discovered.
#eu4
Post 5 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-09-06 00:02:15 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 650-653
Current state of world armies:
• The Caliphate - 89k
• Caliphate's current enemies (10 countries in 8 separate wars) - 22k
• Byzantium - 73k
• Byzantium's current allies (Goths and Visigoths) - 32k
• Byzantium's current enemies (Franica, Moors, Lombardy, Dumnonia) - 153k
Surely it would be silly not to strike Byzantium now. And Visigoths bailed on them - not that it would matter, they're in Spain and at war with Francia anyway.
So it goes! The first battle between the Caliphate and Byzantium was in Zagreb where Francia's stack rushed to help.
Of course it couldn't last long, so they white peaced and I was left fighting Byzantium on my own. I managed to completely overrun Balkans except for random off-shore islands I couldn't access due to Byzantine fleets - that includes occupying Constantinople itself. Byzantines tried to break through the straits multiple times but between straits modifiers and my overpowered armies it never ended up well for them.
The second front was in Caucasus - starting from Kartli and now extending to Aleppo, separating Anatolia from Byzantine Africa - not with enough armies to withstand truly coordinated attack, but if they rushed everyone at me, I'd withdraw into mountains where extremely narrow passes make Byzantine victory pretty much impossible. In battle of Erzurum 15k of my troops crushed Byzantine 50k thanks to defensive terrain, good general, and extremely narrow front (just 6k wide IIRC).
Tibet is putting far more resistance than they had any business doing, but since Gokturks are fully occupied my armies from the Far East are returning to India through Tibet now. I was too distracted fighting Tibet to occupy even Arakan so far - I don't expect any spectacular gains in this area - just Tibet, leftover Indian kingdoms, and a couple of provinces towards Ligore.
I have less than 4 years left with my modifier. I'm obviously not going to conquer the whole Byzantine Empire, but if I could get all of Balkans, and good part of their Asian provinces, that would be pretty cool.
If all of that works the remaining provinces to go will be all of North African coast (not sure if I care about those 2 Subsaharan kingdoms - one of them I don't even see, and I have CB on neither), maybe Spain, maybe (discovered parts of) Indonesia.
I'll think about it when the modifier expires. Transition from totally overpowered Caliphate into "simply" largest empire in the world could be hard.
#eu4
Post 6 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-09-06 18:15:13 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 653-655
For some reason Byzantines have been far more aggressive than any of my previous enemies - instead of tamely waiting for me to carpet siege their holdings they're charging into battles where they're not favoured.
That's helping them somewhat - I overextended a bit, as it makes me play much more cautiously and probably saved them Egypt, but even then Constantinople just voluntarily went under rule of the Caliph a moment ago.
16 months of war left. 20 War Exhaustion pretty much permanent. Sadly I won't be able to take much territory - Byzantium is somehow worth >1000% - I thought sum of province costs was capped at 400% so you can always take 1/4 of any country in a war? Is this a mod thing, or did they change that in some recent patch?
War in South-East Asia is pretty straightforward - not sure if events will trigger fast enough or not. I'd say I have more territory than some ISIS maps already, even if it's shifted a bit around.
#eu4 #caliphate
Post 7 - Originally published on Google+ on 2014-09-06 19:31:06 UTC
EU4 Caliphate Zero campaign: 655-657
And here's the last update. I thought I'd play past expiration of the modifier, as it took me 15 years to defeat Sassanids, so I thought in 30 years I'd only maybe get North India, Caucasus, and Ukraine, and that's it - everything turned out to go insanely well instead.
I annexed remaining East Asian countries, except I only could vassalize Pyu as they held one of my provinces (I ignored such issues since it would revert back to me when they'd lose their last province by event) - I released another country there too just to lower OE.
From Byzantium I could only take a bunch of territories in Judea / Egyptn area - including Jerusalem, since 400% province cost cap doesn't seem to be working for some reason.
My country is now in deep shit - apparently OE (188%) massive increases merc cost, so I'm now at -100 gold / month, in addition to all other penalties associated with high OE and still high WE (I only reduced it from 20 to 6). Obviously I'd just disband half of mercs, since I can't wage any serious wars until I finish some cores.
Next 5 years are going to be relatively painful, as rebels are everywhere, I need to replace all merc army with proper army (for which I have no manpower), core everything and so on. I'm pretty much guaranteed to end up at -100 prestige from rebel negotiations as well.
Anyway, there's not much point continuing. Technically I'm missing North Africa, but between my power relative to Byzantium, and province cost cap not working, this would be tedious rather than challenging. I'm going to say the campaign was crazy successful and call it done.
And yes, I'm going to release Fun & Balance version for Extended Timeline mod sometime soon, I just need to clean it up a bit.
#eu4 #caliphate
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