My Trebizondian game

[Heresson]

It was a hard game from the start. I had to reload several time before I really started.
I set the hardest settings and the most agressive AI. Mine starting Trebizond isn't a special
province, and it is surrounded by stronger powers, including Georgia, Turkey and the White Sheep.
I was attacked by Candar or whatever, owner of Sinop. I lost a battle, but reduced their army
so that they could not capture my province, and my defeated forces captured theirs.
About that time, I got an alliance offering from Turkey, which I accepted; earlier I gave them and Mamluks the law of passage, which was supposed to secure me from their attack. When Turkey crushed Byzantium with my help,
and I got nothing from that, I decided to be a bit nasty. Though that reduced my stability to -3, I attacked
Byzantium again and conquered Constantinople. Ain't I a bad guy... But if I hadn't done that, I'd have stayed a puny state forever. I had to destroy most of Byzantine navy though,
as I could not afford that. Then I was attacked by the White Sheep,
but Ares was on my side, and I conquered Armenia and Sivas, captured by it earlier, and just waited on a proper time
to get the rest of their provinces, which I did. Then Athens declared independance from Turkey, with 2 provinces.
I captured them, and got Morea; my vassal, Athens, were destroyed by the Turks later on, though.
And it was the time of the most heroical struggle in the game. The great war against a Burgundian-English-Aragon
alliance. I managed to transport a small army on Sicily until my fleet was completely crushed by Burgundians.
My forces captured Messana and crushed a bit larger Aragonian forces in Palermo province. Then, giant Aragonian forces
started besieging Messana, and when they were close to capturing it, they moved almost all their forces to fight me,
when I have captured Palermo; they were defeated, and I've been chasing them (with initikallly 5x smaller army)
through Sicyly several times. Aragonian and other forces attacking me in Asia Minor were defeated as well.
Eventually I got just big recompensate, but it made me believe it's time for some ambitious work. My next task was to
defeat Teke-Karaman alliance in southern Anatoly. My plan was to lure their forces to besiege Turkish provinces,
while I capture theirs. They weren't easy targets; as being at war with several western powers, they large forces in each province; I managed to defeat thyem, though. During the war, an ungly thing took place; Sivas converted to catholicism, and
I had several stability problems. Also in this time I was attacked by georgia, but defeated, took one province and vassalised
the rest; after next attack, Georgia was completely destroyed. It was a sad thing, as I gave them a lot of presents later, in order to try to annex them diplomatically in the future. I was giving presents to Turkey as well, so that it remained my dear ally. But I think during second Georgian war, it betrayed me and attacked me, and regreated it later on, when I crushed it
and took all of its provinces but Macedonia. Then I was attacked by Austria and Venice; allied with Genova and Bavaria
and several other states (only Genova liking me, the rest liking Genova), I crushed Venice and got all of its provinces but
the capital; next, I removed Venice from the map and heavily crippled Austria (with France, Bavaria and cooperating
France and Netherlands). However, this made Frirenze to attack me; after a heavy fight, I annexed it, just to be attacked
by even more deadly Siena. Moreover, a time of great Italian revolts started. It was the hardest of my wars; on and on,
giant barbarians armies were appearing and crushing my forces, twice, practically all of my Italian and Austrian provinces were captured by rebels, and many more elsewhere were revolting. I noticed also in that time what price have I paid for
my survival and for my conquests. over 60% inflation, and technology 2 while even Aethiopia had 10 (when it comes to
land technology). Still, I was forced to fight. I was allied with several nations, but were sure they'd attack me if only
I asked them for help, so my alliance was practically a pact of non-agression. Still, I had to repel genovan
attack (I captured their provinces but their capital had to wait several decades till I got mercenary cannons;
in that time, I had to repel dangerous Napoli agression, new Austrian one, Transilvanian... But also I captured
Moldavia, which revolted from Austria, and Kraina from Croatia; my forced vassals, Croatia and Transsilvania, were
later conquered by Austria. Later on, I was attacked by Lithuania; my ally, Poland, assisted me in my conquest - but only
when I started winning. We have conquered almost all Lithuania, but I was pleased with small gains over Black Sea.
Again, Lithuanian forces were on higher technology level than mine, but they proved to be dumb. As I could not please
Poland with even big gifts, I decided to ally with Russia and Kurland, and am their ally up to today. But it had
some bad sides; when I attacked Mamluks and cut a big part of it for me, Russia joined my siege of Lebanon and got it
for itself. Grrr. But me, thanks to them I got 2 Golden Horde provinces north to Caucasus. Meanwhile, Poland annexed
Lithuania, Denmark, and Czechs and stretched from Iceland to Ural; but after it converted back to catholicism, Holstein and Meklemburg separated from it. In this time, I concentrated on internal reforms. Heavy converting, and science research. I'm on some 7th land level now.Except for that, I established two colonies, in NW Africa and SE America. My American province became trade center quickly. Still, it was a time of humilitation, until recently. I've paid the largest ransom in history to Bayern and France
- some 700 000 gold. I have now a big problem, as I can't afford 3 600 000 gold to convert Alexandria,
or smaller money needed to convert some of my Italian provinces; but Siena is a nice orthodox city now f.e.
My politic was interrupted by evets, which madeseveral of my provinces catholic. It was pretty annoying.
Also, I'm a bit angry at my ally's conquests in the east. I don't want them to become too strong.
I'm not afraid of Spain, which is crippled by giant inflation. I'm not afraid of England, which is not looking
too dangerous. I'm not afraid of giant Poland, as it is busy with its little revolts. But I'm pretty afraid of
France/Bayern tandem. France is a big bad bully. Also, I can not finish Turkey off. Not only because it has a big army.
But because it is allied with big Persia (and not only), which has two trade centers in fact, and army locked at my borders.
Austria recently regained some strenght.

Two regions in the world are especially divided; Ireland, which is divided between Ireland, Poland, England and someone else,
and NW Africa, where there are colonies of every culture, from muslim Turkey, through orthodox me and some catholics, to China.

One thing that suprised me was that a new trade center appeared in Wahran, a Spanish province surrounded by Maroccan empire;
ok, I know, but it is so close to Europe?

[Oerdin]

Try to let the OE kill Byzantium then kill the OE before 1453. You'll lose one greek provience but you'll gain a greek supply center.

The only problem is Trebizond has two fewer shields then Byz and it doesn't get the other cultures (Slovonic & Italian) which Byzantium does. Of course if Trebizond really did become Byzantium then it would make sense that as a true heir to the Empire it would get the other cultures in an event.

[pg]

sounds like a fun game... but all i really wanted to say is you know you can take screenshots with f11, right?!

[Heresson]

Theoretically I know...
But I like making maps!

Will Thrace trade center appear only if OE will get Thrace from Turks? You mean, if they conquered it from me...?
It's long past 1453 anyway...
And I think that if I hadn't conquered Thrace myself, but OE
had done that, I would have been too weak, and they, they'd be too strong. And they could have chosen a possibility making Thrace greek anyway.

[pg]

i'm not quite sure... i think if trebiznoid(sp?) becomes byzantium they might get a cot but i don't know how that happens.

[Nikolai]

It only happens in the AGC and the EEP that they get a CoT, but Trebizond can become Byzantium in the vanilla game too IIRC.

[Oerdin]

In AGC and EEP the Byzentines get an event which adds a supply center in Thrace. In the plain vanilla GC a supply center is created when the OE conquors Thrace and if you are playing Trebizond then once you reconquor Thrace it will switch back to Greek culture. The down side is you lose Greek culture in Smyrna.

In my Trebizond game I reconquored Thrace by killing the OE and then became Byzantium. If you hurry you can even become Catholic during the union of Churches event.

[Heresson]

Much too late... It's year 1683 now.
Maybe if I ever play them again.
But now;
General situation haven't changed much;
France diploannexed Bavarian Empire, just to loose the core of it a bit later.
Little Aragonia, Sardinia and Catalonia appeared on former Spanish soil;
Portugal again joined their empire, though,
Netherlands strangely remain nominally catholic, but Poland came back to lutheranism
and tries to rebuild its position on German soil. Sweden captured most of Danish provinces,
and Russia slowly moves into Asia. A giant Moroccan empire appeared, but after I crippled it,
it was annexed by even bigger Omanians.
When it comes to me, first I got rid of Mamluk remains, and carried on colonising
in South America. Another trade center, English one, appeared there. Later on I decided to
finish uniting Balkans by attacking Turkey, which brought me to war with Morocco; I took
large part of its posessities, also by small colonial army in Africa, as Morocco stretched almost to Guinea.
Later on, I attacked Austria. Its conquest was not easy, their armies were strong, and they had medium forts in
each province. But finally it was done, and later I did that again... meanwhile, by Persian (I'm not sure if it wasn't a part of the same Turkish-Moroccan war) war got me 6 of their western provinces, seamingly ending any threat from this side.
Finally, I decided to destroy Austria completely; my alliance was dissolved, and I decided to attack my unfaithfull
Sardinian ally, as it was practically soldierless. But England and Netherlands joined on Austrian side. I had soldiers in my Irish provinces,
conquered from the Austrians, but have no navy to move them on the other side of Man sea... On the other hand, I captured some Dutch and English colonies, including English trade center in South America. Also, Papal state attacked me, but I punished it by annecting Naples. My big army in Ormuz was attacked by the Dutch and was loosing, so I declared war on
Afghanistan, so that my army could move there - but it didn't work, it was destroyed, and big Greater Afghanistan-Persia-
Delhi alliance proved to be some challenge for my unprepared eastern front, especially that really strong Oman empire attacked me, and I was cut off from my capital. I signed peace with Delhi and bought Afghanistan out of war, Persia left
on its own lost the battle and was reduced to Isfahan. Nevertheless, I'm still far from winning the war. Meath was liberated by the English, and earlier I haven't noticed that Morocco was annexed by Omanians and now I have to liberate some of my African provinces. And not only; Syria, Kirkuk, Fez and Segou are in Omanian hands. I'm besieging Jordan, Basra and English Meath. I'm sure I'll win this war oneday, but it'll take so much time and money... I had several good events (twice deflation, several time good years), but I had many bad events (-1, -2 stability) as well, and my researches have stopped.

Oh, ONE BIG PROBLEM.
I researched level 3 infrastructure, but I can't upgrade my buildings. Why?

[Heresson]

When it comes to the mentioned problems with buildings, it's just sth wrong with translation I guess.

[Agathon]

Can't you take a screenshot?

[Asmodean]

He can, but he stated earlier in the thread, that he likes making maps.

Asmodean