Scotland cooperative game thread

[ravagon]

A plan in which I had input actually worked??!!
The martians will be invading anytime now then...

Originally posted by Velociryx
Oh, and by the way....both loans, paid in full!

Now that is impressive.
Either you've minted an appalling amount of coin or those looters of yours have left Ireland without any kitchen sinks.

Re: Vassalisation - How soon will Ireland have the option to try and break it?
I guess it wouldn't do you much good if they broke away within 6 months.
Additionally, England will still have a CB and probably wouldn't hesitate to jump in where you've left off ... hmmmm ....

Maybe it is worth keeping territory then ... ??

[Velociryx]

Yep....it was BEAUTIFUL!!! Going into 1424 (January), we had 401d, had to repay the first loan in January, and I just kept right on minting coins to keep raising money, so that when we hit april, we had ~212 or so....paid the second loan and we're good....debt-free.

I ran the game up to August 2nd, raised War Taxes, and then saved her off....we've got 43d with a net gain of just over 9d per month as things stand right now. Inflation is 5.6%, which is the only part of the picture I don't like.

I plan to keep minting coin for us till the end of the year, get that money plus the census taxes and see where we stand.

With regards to Eire....I'm kinna leaning that way myself (keeping territory)....if we were the head of an alliance, we could vassalize and then invite the Irish into our fold, but as we're a junior partner, vassalizing Eire would leave them incapable of making any allies (not that their former ones helped them any), which would leave them extremely vulnerable.

Add to that the fact that the provinces all come bearing our CB shields (no nationalism) and share our culture....I'm mightily tempted to make the landgrab....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

I went ahead and took the land grab after talking with you and considering the matter further...snagging all the Irish provinces, 'cept their capitol, and 50d.

Was in the midst of consolidating our troops to ask opinions about what kind of garrison force we should leave in Ireland (IMO, we should bring Douglas back to Northumberland or Lancashire....won't be long before the English come calling again), but I do think we should leave something in Ireland....just not sure what!

Anyway, was in the midst of that, when we got our first event, "The Ransoming of the King, and the Purge of the High Chiefs"

It seems that King James has been kidnapped, and that the kidnapping was arranged by, and approved by the Clan Chiefs themselves!

200d to get him back.

Our choices are:
Forget the king (nothing happens)

Ransom the king (-200d) and punish the chiefs (+1 tax val in Lothian and Grampion) (+2 Centralization, -2 Aristocracy, -2 Stability, 13 years of +3 revolt risk)

or

Ransom the king (-200d) but forgive the Chiefs (+1 Tax val in Lothian) (+1 Centralization, -1 Aristocracy)

Good choices, those last two. As of September, when the event fired, we have 105d, so we'll need to float another loan if we ransom, but on the other hand, we'd see some strong gains in productivity with either ransom choice.....the +3 rr for 13 years is....harsh, but on the other hand, that's a total of 40-years worth of slider moves!

Opinions?

[Velociryx]

Also, there is a pressing question of what to do regarding standardizing taxation in our three new provinces....It'll wind up costing us 53d per TC, with three to appoint (159d to get all three), with the benefit of pulling 100% of the available annual census taxes from our Irish holdings...I *think* we can get all three appointments starting this year (and certainly two...we've got the money for that right now). The question is....should we, or should we wait? If we appoint now, then we squeeze the budget pretty tight, at a time when we KNOW England is going to come knocking soon....however, given that we have just--starting with our 4 provinces--come off of a period where we floated and paid for two loans, we could easily do it again, now that our kingdom has more than doubled in size in ~5 years time....still, the flexibility of cash now, or shall we aim for long term growth?

And by the way....the acquisition of the three Irish provinces brings us to a total of nine provs under the Scottish banner, up from the four we began with....not bad....not bad at all! It remains to be seen though, if we can keep them from English fury....

-=Vel=-

[ravagon]

Re: The ransom, much as I'd love to take the revenge option (Very few other chances to increase base tax values) it doesn't look so good with the duration of that revolt risk. That could last through the next couple of wars with England and into a third.

Then again though, with the new rules re: RR (ie: thats 3% per year IIRC?) it isn't the same as in 1.06. The +2 Centralization ( ) makes up somewhat in efficiency for the revenue losses. Increased cost of cavalry though might not be quite so good this early.
Is this a 3% base RR (which can't be neutralised/reduced by your religious tolerance settings/stability modifier, etc) or does it just add 3% (which would probably still come out below 0 if it can)?

*ravagon fine tunes the art of fence-sitting to unheard-of levels*

Re: A garrison in Ireland - If you don't have any nationalism/RR you could probably get away with no garrison (or maybe just 1000 Infantry in either Connaught or Munster. If England comes calling they'll like as not send a much larger siege force than they need and your small force may be able to keep them busy "playing tag" for quite some time ...

[PS: Love the idea for this thread btw. It lets me play vicariously through you while at work. Erm, ... working. ]

[Velociryx]

Glad you like the idea....I'm enjoying putting it together and seeing how it plays out....VERY happy with the results so far, I must say!

With regards to the RR....yep, it's just whatever the normal rr is, plus 3, so if we keep our stability up, we won't even know it's there for the most part (which, however, means limiting our use of WT for the next 13 years, or running the increased risk of rebellion)....not that we can't manage that, we just can't use WT at EVERY opportunity like I've been doing. And you're right, with RR calculated annually now, rather than monthly, this penalty isn't nearly as bad as it could be (or as it used to be, for that matter).

:: pondering::

I dunno....the economic gain prolly nearly offsets the increase in cav cost, and given that, plus the revision in the way ww is calculated....let's do it!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

So....we boldly go where the Scots went before, historically....and here's a snapshot of our growing Kingdom, just after accepting the event. Note the increase in supportable troops and the corresponding decrease in maintenance! We're finally under the limit!

[Velociryx]

The situation of January, 1425.....one more load of troops to bring home and we're as ready as we can be.....stopped minting coin, with inflation holding steady at 6%. Current treasury = 109d (half the loan repayment), with a loss of 2.9 per month.

We're solid!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

The Current Situation:

Two (2) points of War Exhaustion (will be gone by the mid-point of this year, or sooner).

Currently plying all our efforts into increasing national stability....we should be at +2 by the time our truce with England expires, meaning that we'd be in a position to make use of War Taxes if needs be.

Current treasury = 109d, will drop to 74d by year's end, and we shall see from there how much we get in January, to see if we'll need some coin minting to get enough coin to pay the loan we took to ransom our King.

I will get us some economic data up by this evening....I know that our national productivity began at a dismal 11%, growing to 13% after our first nudge toward centralization....dunno exactly what it's at now (17% after the +2 centralization, but I don't recall exactly what the productivity impact is for -2 Aristocracy).

Will also post our new troop costs and detailed troop placements as soon as I get the last of our army from our Irish posessions back to Scotland.

One thing I definitely think we should do is to prepare a 1000-odd cavalry force in advance, to be specifically used for pillaging. Given how powerful that strategy was for us--allowing us to pay off two loans we otherwise would not have had a prayer at--I think we should do it with a vengeance against the English should they declare against us.

The other big thing to discuss is defensive plans against England.

Northumberland is easy to hold...good terrain, and we'd have all the advantages....Lancashire is wide open spaces tho, and will be more difficult if the English hit us with all the force they could. Not sure exactly WHAT to do there....

The good news is that for now, the English forces arrayed before us are in numbers we can cope with, being:

A 200-odd man garrison in Wales

2300 men in Yorkshire

5000 men in Midlands

And that's it....or at least, that's what we can see.

Another good thing is our size, relative to England...at game start, England had 17 provinces to our 4.....we have closed that gap to England 13, Scotland 9....not that the raw number of provinces tells the full story, but it's a good broad-based indicator in this case....and we're much more able to stand up to them by virtue of our expanded base of resources!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

In terms of beating England if they declare against us--and we have to believe that the odds of that happening are extremely high, given that we humiliated them and killed one of their famed generals in our last engagement--the key, I think, is to defeat the forces separately, before they can unite.

The Wales garrison is of scant concern....too small to truly be a factor even IF they combine....but we'll need to pounce on that 2k force in York and nail them before they can link up with the 5k in Midlands. To that end, I propose that we give Douglas all the cav we can spare (pure cav force) and if war comes, have him drive HARD toward York and smash that force....odds are good that the 5k in Midlands will move to hit Lancashire, and with Douglas' movement bonus, he can get to York, give battle and arrive back at Lancashire in time for defense....After that, we unleash the pillage force and split the army if needs be to pursue both beaten English forces, focusing on keeping the enemy armies off balance before worrying overmuch about sieges.

Thoughts?

-=Vel=-

[Nikolai]

I was thinking that since the English mainland is the most dangerous part of their realm, maybe it would be smart to let just 1 or 2k troops be left in Eire, to make sure Meath won't make troops(or rather, make sure all of them is engaged and loose as soon as they is built) by letting those 1k troops be there? You'll get looting money too. Then the rest 4k can be shipped over to Scotland!

[Velociryx]

Excellent call, man, and I've got the naval squadron steaming that direction now to pick up another load of troops....IIRC, we'll have something like 1235 Infantry posted to Eire after this last load gets picked up....would you recommend leaving an additional thousand on the Emerald Isle, or is your sense of it that that's sufficient?

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Speaking of preparations for the possible (likely) upcoming war with England, I think that given the scant use of our fleet in that battle, the more use we can get out of it before the fact, the better!

To that end, I propose two "scouting missions" 'round England's coast....the first will see the fleet sailing from it's current position in the port of Lancashire to the Channel to get the scoop on recruitment and troop strengths in those provinces....then back to Lancashire for re-supply and provisioning, re-porting to Northumberland, and then a little jaunt off the coast of Anglia. That will tell us if the troops posted to the border are all we can expect, or if there are reinforcements aplenty waiting in the wings....and it'd be far, far better to find that out before the war begins, than have our troops find out the hard way....

-=Vel=-

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Velociryx
IIRC, we'll have something like 1235 Infantry posted to Eire after this last load gets picked up....would you recommend leaving an additional thousand on the Emerald Isle, or is your sense of it that that's sufficient?

Hmmmm... That's difficult... You don't need any more in Meath, but the question is: Are you able to prevent qith some certainity the invasion of English troops by sea? I think it'll be possible, but you're the one with the save game!

Another question, that I don't remember right now: When you have your troops stationed in Meath, you will 100% surely win against the recruits that England might build, but will you annhilate them completely? If so(I think it's so), no problem, but if not you'll need a unit more to teke care of them!

[Velociryx]

That's an excellent point....cos with our scant navy, we really can't prevent the English from landing there....so perhaps we'll keep just over 2k in Ireland, splitting them into two groups....one whose mission it is to lock down Meath to prevent recruitment, and the other to prevent any recruits who escape from pillaging US (we don't want them turning the tables!)

-=Vel=-

PS: The only time you get assured destruction in that case is if you outnumber the recruits by 10:1 (?)....so with 1-2k, the recruits will just bolt....