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If I had allowed Ming to grow they probably would have given me even more trouble, seeing as how they were fully westernized.

THAT...was worth the wait O_O

Chimaera wrote:THAT...was worth the wait O_O

Not over yet. There is still empty land to be colonized, and then other worlds. The Roman Empire shall stretch across the galaxy!

Holy shit, the Battle of Velanadu was fucking epic but horrifying. And I love the irony of perhaps the greatest battle in history, fought in a time with rifles and canons, being won by a charge with pikes and axes. A final hurrah for the old Roman way of fighting.

Well, here it is, the finale to our story. If you have not yet read about the war against Hindustan, look on the previous page. It has been an honour and joy to be the LPer for you.


Imperium universale I: ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant

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The above words by Tacitus, criticizing Imperial Rome, can just as easily be applied to India. For due to overextension, I slaughtered around 5 million rebels over the next decade. Can't take any screenshots now after accidentally deleting them (thanks, Paradox), but I can't imagine a lot of people being left untouched in Northern India after that.
Still, the damage to the legions was negligible, most likely because with my manpower pool I could lose 8 million soldiers and still have enough left to build an army twice that long. So the rebels were just easy killing.
Revolt-->mass legions ---> crush 100k rebels--->repeat.

Anyway.....

After the integration and pacification of Northern India, Southern India was the next target.

Our army had not diminished. But Hindustan, bankrupt and riven by internal strife, could not put up much of a fight.

Their Navy met a predictable end....


While our legions overran the countryside.

The end result of the campaign was that Hindustan was reduced to a series of thoroughly plundered and cut off provinces.


Yeah...this wasn't the smartest choice by Songhay.

Only now, at the end, do they realise the magnitude of their errors.


Meanwhile, while the bulk of the army was busy pacifying India, we took the Kongo.


And after having cored the rest of India, we took the remainder of Hindustan.
India was ours.
The world was ours.
The whole world?
No. One small province still resisted Roman rule.

A province populated by intrepid Jewish burghers, surrounded by Roman Armies.

But as they say, save the best for last.

However, this proved to be a tough nut to crack.

From "A history of Britannia", by Julius Birdwood, Londinium 2003:
"Essex was the longest-lasting siege in Roman History, lasting almost six entire years. For the Eastsaxons refused to go quietly, and instead had turned the entire province into a massive fortification. Every House was a tower, every village a castle and every city a fortress. The Roman Army had to fight for every inch of the territory and besiege every village. Ultimately though, the end was the same as in Massada - the army breaching the walls, religious zealots who had previously prophesied the coming of a messias who would crush the heretics now committing suicide en masse and the remainder sold at market. For truly, nothing could resist the will of the Emperor."

On

The Roman eagle was planted atop the ruins of the last independent state of the world.

And the clash of weapons stopped, for there was not a single enemy left to fight.

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Imperium universale II: De vera religione

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Augustine might have wondered about that, but for us it was clear as the sunny sky. There was only one true relgiion - Orthodox Christianity, which as usual was the best tool in keeping the people in line, especially as we were also the head of that religion.

On

this was the religious situation:

Everything is fine except for India:

...the aminist remains in former Songhay...

...and the shamanists in former Congo.


In the new world, the Jewish faith, almost gone from Europe, was still somewhat thriving in the former Eastsaxon colonies there:


...yet Roman California and Alaska had already made great progress in the matter. (These two were almost 99% jewish when we conquered them, now Judaism is close to extinction there).

Eastsaxon ROMAN Peru however was making only slow progress.

With the conquest of Sunni and Shia lands in India, Muslims were now citizens of the Empire and thus could travel to Mecca. Apparently, despite us having turned it into an Orthodox province, it still had a pull.

We promptly transferred the funds to the church. In effect, the Muslims were, through this tax, paying for the missionaries aimed at converting them.

Allow me to insert a picture of the advisor who thought of that:


Within less than 15 months, all of Africa was converted:


To illustrate how quickly our fine-toned and very experienced missionary machine is working, let us look at the former capital of Judaism in the World, Essex:



And in India:

Situation on


compare to:


One shudders at the methods which must have been used to achieve this.

Among those religions which disappeared from history was Islam, with the last provinces being





Within the next six years, there would be only one religion in the old world. (The game however ended before this could happen).

In the new world, conversion was proceeding at a slower pace.

Nevertheless, Roman East America managed to convert eight provinces and would be finished with the conversion in 1835.

In Peru it would have taken until 1850.


All hail the power of Orthodoxy and the Holy Emperor.

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Imperium universale III: De officiis

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On


The nitwit died (presumably having forgotten how to breathe) and his son took over.

Celebrations were held over the reconquest of all former Roman colonies and the conquest of the world:

Indeed, it would not fall again.

Our new Emperor was a very benevolent man and decided to look into the issue of abolishing slavery (the fact that our colonies were getting a bit rebellious and needed to be punished by losing their slave supply had nothing to do with that, no Sir).

Sadly, the Emperor was not diplomatic enough to win the debate in the Senate. If only he would die and his son would take over....sadly, that did not happen. I was tempted to cheat, but decided against it. Rest easy that as soon as the heir takes over he will probably do it.

What we could do, however, is irk the colonies by making every native nation in the Americas our protectorates, guaranteeing their land for all eternity on the honor of Rome.

We thus prevented the removal of the Cherokee...

...the Trail of Tears....

...and guaranteed the other nations (not shown in screenshots) like the Apache, Sioux etc.
Reportedly, one young colonist by the Name of Andrew Jackson died of apoplexy when he heard the news.

In India, we had to make the British choice - turn arable land into massive plantations for our benefit, resulting in massive famines, or keep it as it was?

We chose to not enact dye production because - as you can see from the screenshot - the revolt risk would not be worth it and we already had enough dye-provinces already. Besides, it feels good to prevent the Indian famines.

To keep ahead, we increased our technologies:

Better farms to make the people fat and happy, for fat and happy people do not revolt.


Gold. PRECIOUS GOLD. The only material fit for showing our faces to the populace.


Things that go boom to reduce pesky colonials to ashes.


And finally:

The Panama canal was completed. Hooray. Our Navy can now easily cross over from one ocean to the other. Now if only we had some steam engines...

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ROMA UNIVERSALIS

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The Roman Empire.

The greatest Empire the world has ever seen.

The only independent civilized nation in the old...

...and in the new world.

Held together by a common religion....

....proclaiming it God's will on earth that Rome rules over all.


Ruled by an Imperial dynasty....

beloved by its people. Even the freshly conquered territories in Africa....

...quickly adapted to the rule of their rightful overlords.
Even the provinces where missionaries where converting people did not resist the rule of the benevolent Emperor.


Let us take a closer look at the first universal Empire in History:

Our Government. We still accept German as the only culture equal to the glorious Roman culture.

Diplomacy. Notice how the primitives are starting to love us as their rightful protectors. And "no possible rivals" - you got that right, game.

Our economy. It would be a profit of 8k if we were not heavily subsidizing our colonies and aiding them in their efforts. Inflation is not a thread anymore, no matter the massive quantities of precious metals extracted from all over the world.

Our trade. It is telling that the large trading cities of Venice, Genoa and Lübeck are still the richest trade centers. One can also clearly see the focus on Europe.

Our technology. Everything is researched. The Industrial revolution awaits.

Our ideas. I wanted to swap out religion for Humanist tolerance, but could not find the admin points to fill humanist tolerance out in time.

Missions and decisions left.

The rebel and stability screen. Basically, no Rebel can threaten the might of this fully operational Empire.

And the amount of rebels will be nil within in the next few years anyway....

because we will have converted them all.


It takes only ten months to convert even the richest Hindu province. Again, what methods are they using? Most likely "kiss the cross. Congrats, you are a Christian. Now don't rebel or we will come back with a legion".

Our legions. The greatest fighting force in the History of Man.

Our subjects.

...our subjects continued. They all show the appropriate amount of liberty desire, that is next to none.

Let us take a look at SPREADSHEETS and STATISTICS.

"Yo manpower is so fat, it caused the integer to collapse". But seriously, I could afford to lose all my forces five times and still rebuilt them all within the year.

Religions. We have eliminated almost all of the competing faiths except for those we are protecting (natives).

The provinces. Sadly, I had the wrong screenshot and can't go back and retake it (thanks Paradox). Anyway, the largest Provinces of the Empire are:
Rome, Constantinople, Paris, Trier, Lübeck, Nanjing. The wealthiest regions are Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Asia Minor, East China and Great Britain.

The production value. Of the non-gold goods, China and Europe are the heaviest, meaning industrialization is concentrated there (much more in Europe though).

BEHOLD OUR LIST OF RULERS:



Armies:

...yeah. Keep in mind that this is with me financing 90% of the expenses of the colonies. In short, if they try to rebel, I can just crush them. Just look at my forcelimit.


Same with the Naval forces.


Our income.


This chart does not reflect reality in some ways. Everything is ok except for the Culture chart, which I manipulated to get the converter to Vic2 to work (Unsuccesful). I want to change it back, but the game-breaking patch destroyed it. Thanks, Paradox. The real chart should read something like 70% greek/german, not 99% as it does.

The Goods. Is there any doubt that we are basically the king of all trade and production?


..yep. All us.

The summary screen.


In closing, let us take a look at the caput mundi.

A city with many great buildings and monuments, which has no equal in the world.
A city that has conquered the world.


ROMA AETERNA.
SALVE, IMPERATRIX MUNDI!


(Acta est fabula)

A glorious end to a truly glorious journey.
Hail Herr Emperor! Long live the Empire!

Thank you Thanas, for this and the CK-2 walkthroughs. It inspired me to pick up copies of the games for myself and I'm having a blast!

Is there like a space-faring equivalent of this game? Not an add-on, but a different game with similiar mechanics, only in SPAAAAACE. I would play the hell out of that.

And when Thanas saw the breadth of his domain, he wept; for there were no more worlds to conquer.

This has been awesome to follow. From a single province in Sicily to a true universal Roman Empire. Kudos sir.

It's been quite a ride, but the Earth is all under one Italian noble family, and has prospered because of it. Who knows what they would look like 200 years later, in our time.

An excellent playthrough, Thanas. You did well with the humor and flavor of the history as well.

Now all you need to do is declare universal abolition and blow up anyone who opposes that.

Yeah, I think that is exactly what will happen in the next thirty years.


Here's my guess as how the future Empire would have run:
- late 1820s Bardas IV succeeds to the throne, begins a policy of liberalization
- Colonization of Inner Africa and the Amazon starts
- Slavery is abolished somewhat in the 1840s as industrialization makes it superfluous and the abolition movement would have gotten steam
- 1845: Small-scale revolts in India occupy the Army there
- This is used as a pretext for the slave-owning colonies in Roman North America (Canada, Mexico, Caribbean and East America) to break away. The South American, Californian and Alaskan colonies accept it as they did in history as they are more dependent on immigration.
- 1846-1860: Roman Civil War. Economies of Roman North America quickly collapses as the Government withdraws it funding and they are blockaded. Caribbeans are the first to fall to an invasion fleet, shortly followed by Mexico. Most of the Roman protectorates are overrun and genocided by East America.
- 1860: North America surrenders after being rendered a wasteland, new colonization is used to supplant the illoyal elements there, who are largely forcibly relocated to Africa to serve as colonists there.
- 1900: Roman Empire turns into a constitutional monarchy as the new working class demands its rights.


So that is my guess. Although a war might not even have been necessary to abolish slavery - given the utter imbalance of power between the colonies and the Empire - even if every colony revolted, they would have less than a third of my power and I can always recruit way more. In fact, I could have an Army ten times its size. Now imagine a full-scale industrial mobilization on top of that....yeah.

That the Empire would turn into a constitutional monarchy is a guess based on two things. First, through this and the previous playthrough, we always supported the common man against the aristocracy. We also had a parliament and institutions like courts. I can only see this coming to its logical conclusion with it ending up as in Britain or Spain - though with a more powerful monarchy. Maybe akin to the German Empire of Bismarck.

With industrialization, I would see a large movement of people to Europe, with a lot of mingling between ethnicities. As Rome never had biological racism and I can't see it happening in such a multicultural empire anyway, Rome might be a model of diversity.

That being said, would I like to live in such a nation? It depends. The level of propaganda and totalitarianism required to hold it together - as well as knowing how all Roman Empires were always run - would be insane. Sure, it would have its advantages - the church would be much more a servant of the state instead of its master - but living in one grand Empire is not for me. That is, unless I would be born in Europe. Rome and its cities must be true marvels.

Ah, what a wonderful AAR. Bravo!

Also, I was on vacation right after Common Sense dropped, but I still wanted to point out the followingfor future refernce: If you have the game through Steam, you can roll back to any previous major version you want by opting-in to the EUIV betas and selecting the version you want from the dropdown. I used this to finish out a LOL RUSSIA IS HUGE LOL game this way, and when I was done, I opted out of the beta and brought my game back up to current.

I have cleaned up the first post and generated an index.

After playing both games to their end, which one do you enjoy more? You had a pretty big advantage going into EUIV, would your opinion be different if you had started with a small country? Would your opinion of CK2 be different if you had started off as a King/Emperor?

I would say that as a reader, CK2 appeared to be more fun. Watching you conquer the world and manage a super-state was certainly enjoyable, but for me at least it sorta pales in comparison to things like watching a chariot-racing emperor capturing a pirate and marrying his daughter. CK2 seems to be a bit more... personal, if you know what I mean.

CK2 was way more fun IMO.

That was a fairly awesome run. Let's do it again, starting with something difficult. Like a Zulu tribe or something.

phred wrote:That was a fairly awesome run. Let's do it again, starting with something difficult. Like a Zulu tribe or something.

I've actually played the last few games starting as a North American tribe. It's hard. Truth be told it's really actually impossible to hold off the Europeans unless you...well...not cheat, but give yourself advantages from the beginning. The North Americans have a 250% penalty on tech research speed, so you need to use the custom nation editor to be a native tribe that already has access to Western technology. That gives you enough of a boost to take over half the continent before the Europeans arrive. In my case, I also managed to colonize the entire South Pacific as well. So it can be done, but not without giving yourself a non-historical advantage first.

Although if you give yourself western technology, it apparently shows you all of Europe from the getgo.

Steve wrote:Although if you give yourself western technology, it apparently shows you all of Europe from the getgo.

A minor issue all things considering...I'd find and invade it soon enough anyways.

I am thinking of starting a Victoria II LP next, tentatively titled how Bismarck got his herring.

Vote here.