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Okay, after seeing thirdfains thread here I went out and got the game Europa Universalis 3 with the hopes of starting a relatively obscure nation out in it and at the end of EU3 sending it to Victoria and finally HoI. I started out with Ireland but than I said, "Well I don't want a European country.". So I though out japan, which in 1453 was on the brink of civil war and in 1477 broke down into one. Alas, Japan remains unified throughout vanilla EU3. Ad to that Japans tech penalty is one of the worst in game. Luckily I found a snazzy mod that solved both problems. First it broke up japan into the various clan owned provinces and reduced the tech penalty to a more accurate historical equivalent.

Sengoku Jidai

The Shimazu Clan: A relatively small clan on the island of Kyushu. One of the few clans that held their familial lands between the Kamakura and Edo periods of japans history. They also have note as having some famous sword schools. Why I chose them? I've had a soft spot in my heart for them since they first won me the first computer/video game I'd ever bought with money I'd earned, Shogun Total War, the first time I ever played it (On hard with no limit battles).

The lands of the Nippon-ji circa Winter 1477

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Mission:

Unite Japan under the Shimazu Clan

1-Seize control of Kyushu from the Otomo and the Shoni
2-Take control of Shikoku
3-Land on Southern Honshu
4-Capture Setsu Province
5-Finish Fighting in the North

Part 1: The fight for Kyushu

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The game automatically triggers the unrest by setting everyones relation to one another on the island to -199 (worst). However the Shimazu are ready.

One year after mustering up my forces the Shimazu are now ready to strike at the Otamo, at their province bungo. My assault consists of 5,000 regulars. 3 Cav Archer Regiments and 2 Regular Archer regiments. I assault Bungo in October of 1478.

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Tucking his tail between his legs General Asahina scurries back to Satsuma defeated. It will take me nearly 6 months to replace the men I lost during the battle.

July 8, 1479

My main force is still licking it's wounds after the crushing defeat last October. I hire a couple of cheap Chinese spearmen mercs, thinking that the success of the Otamo was due to spears against my cavalry. So I send another 5,000 man, this time, spear force against the Otamo...

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Only to have them crushed yet again.

With their ranks returning back, my main force finally has enough troops to assault again. Reinforced by some Chines returning from the battle, I assault Bungo again. If Asahina fails this time...

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Well good for him.

With their sole province no longer under their control, the Otamo attempt to flee to...

Satsuma!! Their army attempts to wrest my home province from the mercenary force stationed there.

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Only to run before they even get started. Their morale must've been so low they simply lost the will to fight before they could draw their swords!!

For another 6 months the armies of the Otamo ping-pong between Satsuma and Bungo until finally being crushed in their home territory. After defeating them I am courted by the Oda and Yamana and accept their marriage invitation.

With their armies gone, the defenders of Bungo lose the will to fight and are overcome by the armies of the Shimazu. Bungo is then annexed and the Otamo clan slaughtered.

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Yet while I see victory ahead, trouble brews on Honshu. The Mori make themselves vassals of the Ouchi. This could trouble me in he future but now I am focused on Kyushu.

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With two provinces and one to go I now set my sights on Hizen, controlled by the Shori clan. The program must sense my desire for more blood and I am granted a Casus Belli against they. They are no match for the Shimazu. In November of 1480 I take defeat the Shori forces.

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With their armies defeated, Hizen falls quickly. In Jan of 1480 I take Hizen and am now the master of Kyushu. During this time I am nearly simultaneously courted by both the Toki, who wish to marry into the family and the Oda who seek alliance. Obviously the rising power of the Shimazu in the west is attracting the attention of the other clans.

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Now I want to focus my efforts on Shikoku but alas the clans therein are allied with the Oda. Now wanting to make them choose, I set my sites on Nagato of the Ouchi and Aki controlled by the Mori, their vassal state. With another free Casus Billi I take no time in attacking. Nagato falls quickly and the Ouchi run to the Mori for protection. It looks like smooth sailing...

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until...

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10,000! My forces are pushed back to Bongo and then they keep coming.

Frantic I hire more mercenaries and try to push the combined Mori and Ouchi force back to Nagato, to no avail though I do repel another invasion into Hizen.

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At the same time the Yamana daimyo dies and without male heirs the Shimazu inherit the Yamana territory of Harima. Drinks for everyone, wait, doesn't that border the Mori? Doesn't matter when you're still getting kicked off your own island.

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After hiring another merc for to try and stave off the Mori I lose yet again in Bungo and the siege in Harima continues. It looks like I'll lose not only Kyushu but a newly gained foothold on Honshu too...

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WTF?!?!??!

In June of '82 they want a white peace. For those of you who don't know that means we end the war, and go back to the way things were. They leave Bungo and Harima, leaving me alone. Of course I accept. Immediately after, their armies disappear. I can only assume that they had hired mercs and laking the capital I did, could not support them. Had I held out, their armies would have deserted and I would have had free reign over both their territories. Well they won't have to worry about peace for long...

Next, resumption of hostilities

PS: I realize I should know this but how does one make the images appear in the post?

[img]www.pictureurl.com[/img]

On the other hand, having over a dozen pictures per post, and thus probably hundreds of pictures per page of the thread, would be uncool. You might want to select only the most important pictures to be actually displayed, while leaving others just as links in this form:

[url=www.pictureurl.com]NAME OF PICTURE[/url]

About the White Peace:
If you look at the percentages (that goes into deciding who gets how much), the computer only looks at the regions currently controlled (sieges do NOT count) and the battles fought (up to 1% per battle, up to 30 - 40% per region!). Makes it simple, but very screwed up at times (I've had the French nation control 2-3 of my regions - taken at the beginning of the war - but with all of their regions being besieged and their armies all destroyed, but still have a war score of -20%).

The complete battle systematics are completely screwed up. Look in the ledger. One of the statistics pages shows your units stats. Look at the stats for cavalry shock and infantry shock (shock is what kills units). At the start cavalry has a shock value of 4, while infantry has 0.5! Infantry is pretty useless until you get to land level 20 or so. The only use it has is assaulting fortresses (and that is also screwed up, with a 6 shock, 6 maneuver, 1 siege, 6 morale general - the best there is - I've lost 6000 infantry to a fort level 1 with walls broken ...). And you always lose lots of infantry - which drains your manpower (and low stocked units fight very badly).
Additionally, your forces are pretty irrelevant - only the leaders count (8000 cavalry with no leader vs 700/700 with a good leader can have interesting results). I get the Battlefield commision idea at the beginning (+3.5% army tradition per year), so that I don't lose land tradition (you have -3% per year during peace and -2% during war), which gets me to 100% tradition quite quickly and thereby the ability to get the best generals - with which your army is pretty undefeatable (unless the enemy forces are huge, you apparently lose morale when you kill very many enemy troops, leading to battles that you lose with 40 losses vs 9000 out of 10000 enemies killed - thats the effect a pure cavalry force with a good general has). Also try converting your ruler to a general, if you're lucky he will have a good shock value (the value thats worth the most) with which you can trounce the opposition.
EU3 is pretty broken - in addition to the things I've already mentioned. For example you get "bad boy" from defending yourself (you can have unlimited bad boy). Countries attack you because of your bad boy stat, leading to a higher bad boy stat, and so on - resulting in constant war, with extreme war weariness, leading to high unrest stats, leading to constant uprisings, which you kill, leading to a higher bad boy value, etc.

D.Turtle wrote:[snip]
EU3 is pretty broken - in addition to the things I've already mentioned. For example you get "bad boy" from defending yourself (you can have unlimited bad boy). Countries attack you because of your bad boy stat, leading to a higher bad boy stat, and so on - resulting in constant war, with extreme war weariness, leading to high unrest stats, leading to constant uprisings, which you kill, leading to a higher bad boy value, etc.

What? I've never gained badboy from having someone declare war on me or from me assisting my allies who were declared upon. I guess if you define "defending yourself" as "stripping provinces from the aggressor", then yes, you gain badboy from defending yourself, but that's the only way.

And since when do you get badboy from putting down rebellions? Are you sure you're playing the same game as I?

Well, I haven't played it in the last few days/week so I may have been misremembering. But I hated that it had no upper limit - which means after taking a few territories, you very quickly get into the kind of circle that I described - countries constantly declaring war (breaking truces to so!) on you because of your bad boy stat.
I played as Brandenburg, which inevitably gets you into wars, simply because of all the tiny countries surrounding you. As soon as you make peace with one alliance of countries, you get attacked by the next and so on - the only way to stop them is by absorbing them. Not even making vassals out of them instead of absorbing them worked, as even my vassals declared war on me...

I've noticed that too. Even whilst I did get peace for a time, there was a sudden charge of war by everyone on the islands (the remaining 4 clans). Not only would they keep warring but they would go to tremendous expense to do so (The Asakura and Imgawa both went bankrupt twice just declaring war on me). The massive army up keep starts killing and the circle just gets worse.

Incidentally I game somehow crashed and wiped my saves . I will redo them, hopefully with better results.

D.Turtle wrote:Well, I haven't played it in the last few days/week so I may have been misremembering. But I hated that it had no upper limit - which means after taking a few territories, you very quickly get into the kind of circle that I described - countries constantly declaring war (breaking truces to so!) on you because of your bad boy stat.
I played as Brandenburg, which inevitably gets you into wars, simply because of all the tiny countries surrounding you. As soon as you make peace with one alliance of countries, you get attacked by the next and so on - the only way to stop them is by absorbing them. Not even making vassals out of them instead of absorbing them worked, as even my vassals declared war on me...

The obvious solution being, of course, lay off the annexation for a while when the bad boy starts to get high.

Since each force-annexation gives you 6 BB points, you must've annexed at least 5 countries before you entered a BB war cycle. That's kind of a lot of nations there. If you want a way to take stuff without risking that, just force-vassalise everyone instead of annexing or even taking land. You don't get any BB for that and when your BB's low, vassals don't war against you (from what I've seen, at least). And if you have enough spare money (you can get this from peace settlements, too), you can bribe the vassals up to diplo-annexation, which nets you a lot less BB (1 per province instead of 1 per province +5 that you get in force-annexations).