New Story: Re-Habilis

It has been three solid years since I last dared post a fiction story, so to motivate myself I decided to just imitate a bigwig. Well, not without putting my own spin on the material, motivated partly out of spite at others spinning that same material in nonsensical directions the past decades. But then, you always knew I was a biter, didn't you?

 

It's still short but giving me a chance to try some action sequences and makes good practice for plotting out some longer, novella-caliber yarns, which I haven't tried in... literally decades... and never completed successfully even back then. So even if you hate this result, I'm liking the process.

 

I'm actually planning a companion piece to this (different plot, different viewpoint, just same theme) to put up in a month or two. Also, since the previous couple of stories I posted (Buggy and Deliver) were composed bottom-up from their premise and didn't turn out as coherent as I'd hoped, I've plotted this one ahead of time, mostly completed the second and third chapters (but am tossing the first up there now to light a fire under my own ass to finish faster) and will post the final installments over the coming weekend on the story's very own page: Re-Habilis!

Sunless Skies

"And the stars will show

Where the waters flow

Where the gardens grow"

 

Roxette - Stars

 

 

After a dishearteningly tough mission in Battletech (my spaniel took it good in the meat) I decided to follow through on a decision I regretted ever since being disappointed by Sunless Sea: having already bought its sequel. To my relief though, Sunless Skies reads and plays better... better enough that if you've been curious about the Fallen London / Sea / Skies genealogy, go ahead and skip the first two and grab Skies on sale. (Though really, for a much smarter take on the same choose-your-own-adventure exploration roleplaying caravan management precept, it still can't even remotely measure up to Vagrus: the Riven Realms.)

Look, it's not like I have any compunctions against nitpicking when the mood strikes me, but every once in a while I run across even a basic concept rotted through from the bottom up. Here it's the attempt to mash together florid Victorian-flavored oneiric fantasy text walls with 2D 1980s arcade gameplay. Yes it does feel every bit as jarring as you might think to go from pages of precious poncy tea-sippin' among Her Majesty's subjects at the Maiden and Unicorn beneath the elegiac firmament of Eleutheria... straight to "pew-pew space invaders"

 

I can't avoid the impression that Skies and its predecessors (much like pixelated "retro" fare) staked out a market niche of sophomoric hipsterism, an audience which would like to play video games but also turn up its nose at them, and so will only accept a primitive parody of game-playing so as to maintain that feeling of superiority. Similarly, though the writing demonstrates plenty of linguistic aptitude and familiarity with adventure/horror tropes, every encounter rides the ironic/postironic high horse. Wouldn't want to be caught getting truly invested in a work a fiction, now would we? Chalance is ever so... common. *sniffs contemptuously* So call perception "mirrors" and call willpower "hearts" and make it a steam locomotive floating in the skies to scorn the more obvious (and just as period-appropriate) dirigibles (see space dudes not-in-space) then just ladle on a couple of repeating gimmicks ad nauseam: making fun of stuck-up old-timey brits (which SYABH pulled off better) and <abstract concept> (hours/souls/etc.) is edible/sapient/iacthulhufhtagn. Just to make sure everyone understands you're above the execution of your craft, slap on some lines like "Piranesi is, of course, bigger on the inside" (cf. "you know how elves are") and you're all set to bilk your thoroughly validated devotees by, say, peddling a $9 soundtrack for a $20 game.

 

Pity.

The creative team obviously boasted some ability. The florid prose can be quite charming when it's not crawling too far up its own ass, a few of the locations/monsters are intriguing, the layers of terrain float enchantingly below you as you chug along and the spacing of towns/hazards (along with intelligible instructions and more balanced resource consumption) makes for a far more workable horse trading core loop than that of Seas. I'll even praise Skies' travel when I talk about the virtue of distance. But the combat is both dull and annoying, the caravan simulation's pretty shallow since you rarely plan longer than one stop ahead, and engaging writing grows out of combining simpler elements (like my spaniel taking it in the meat) not strained LOLrandomness.

 

Still, unlike Sea, I have to grudgingly admit that Skies does actually... function... so long as you're willing to save-scum and not waste your life starting over every time you miss a cannon shot.

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P.S.: Don't get me started on their wokey abuse of the royal "they"

We are not amused.

edit 2024/10/13

Forgot to mention one bit of idiocy: why would you ever make a game about floating without taking the third dimension into account?

Necroville

"She runs through the fields of daisies

Yeah it's just a shame that they eat their own babies

Who cares, cause the air is free

When you get there will you kiss the dead for me"

 

Acid Bath - Scream of the Butterfly

 

 

In The Robots of Dawn Asimov's protagonist (hailing from an overcrowded Earth) levels a strange accusation against a planet where humans are universally wealthy, healthy and live to four hundred with a population density of one per hundreds of square kilometers, attended by slews of robots. It's the old Brave New World chestnut about losing the human spirit, somehow always intertwined with human misery. Their longevity has made them risk-averse and complacement, y'see. Naughty-naughty, how dare you not shuffle off your mortal coil at the appointed time.

You could pick many contrasting viewpoints, but my own mind recalls a fairly obscure 1994 text titled Necroville by one Ian McDonald. While hardly a masterpiece (its plot is... not much of one) it does seem underappreciated as a set of vignettes on human adjustment to rebirth or immortality. For, y'see, nanotech can recreate the dead. Endlessly. From there you of course immediately run into the discontinuity / ship of Theseus / Star Trek transporter argument, but also an entire tirade of human stupidity misusing such technothaumaturgy. Because of course a simian savanna brain is entirely built around the mindless animalistic rush to combat rivals, procreate and elevate one's progeny in social rank before yourself expiring around thirty or forty. Aggression, thrill-seeking, philoprogenitiveness, subsistence, mating rituals and contests, sadism and masochism and humanitarianism (a.k.a. favor-currying) are all thrown off their rails by removing the (pun intended) deadline.

But more to the point, McDonald manages to convey that the driving force of the new society is none of that individual, existential struggle to come to grips with an extended (or duplicated/extended) existence, but the economic exploitation of this new development. Asimov missed or ignored that it's how you're treated by the mindless infinite glut of others and otherness out there which determines the quality of your life, destroying any personal growth regardless of your personal quality or how long you have to develop it. A 400-year-old (or a 400-times reborn techno-zombie) is no less intrinsically disposable than a 40 or 4-year-old, depending on the interest others develop in murdering you after you've outlived your usefulness to them, and it turns out resurrection (here likened to longevity) by providing a convenient workforce actually amplifies disposability. Not just for the dead themselves but the planet as a whole. No matter how long you prolong your mental development, how many facets of existence you delve and transcend, how bodhisattva-like you manage to grow, nobody cares about you except insomuch as you can be exploited for their own instinctive power-mongering.

 

What's that you're asking? Does this discussion have anything to do with current political arguments about baby boomer medical costs? I'm sure I don't know what you mean.

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P.S. As Necroville was purchased for me by my grandmother and great-aunt on the same rainy day as the other author's short story collection, I can't help but note Robert Sheckley also hinted at the resurrection/disposability issue in Immortality Inc.

(And apropos of nothing, using nanotech to make plains-apes seems just the worst possible use of post-human technology.)

Gods of the Terror

"That's not a polar bear, the slope of the skull is all wrong."

 

My correction there drew an eye roll from the seat next to me... then an exasperated sigh and reach for the heavens when it was repeated almost verbatim by one of the TV show's characters a couple minutes later.

Comparative anatomy powers: activate!

I was equally jazzed at the subsequent blink-and-you-missed-it glimpse of the monster's humanoid phalanges. Rare is the art / effects department capable or willing to invest such work in details which, let's be brutally honest, almost none of a TV series' audience will appreciate.

 

But I do find it regrettable in retrospect for The Terror to have opened with hints of a "creature feature" to hook its audience, as that severely undersells the show's complexity. Where should I start? The, if not world-class, at least professional acting of every last bit player? The grandiloquent but believable period cast? The Inuit presented as positive characters but never diving headlong into some politically correct superiority complex? The rare splashes of low-key dark humor growing naturally from the plot and personalities? The decor, which initially put me off as low-quality but soon grew to impress me through its consciously theatrical set design? The refusal to pull punches while also never sinking to a slasher flick's cheap reliance on gore? The sun dogs? One observation surprised me more than most, and it may be better illustrated by a slightly simpler example. An illustrated example.

See, I also recently read through a comic called Gods of the Game. Six teenagers in 1987 get transported to a magical medieval world as an RPG party. At only 120 pages long it suffers from some pacing issues (after a disproportionately lengthy introduction in our own dimension, the last chapters feel a bit rushed, similar if inverted to some other examples I've given) and the solidly clichéd set-up immediately had me polishing my scoffin' fangs. Then, weirdly... it pulled me in. Clean style, not skimping on the backgrounds, decisive plotting. Something about the very readiness with which the author adopts all the standard gimmicks manages to come across as neither mercenary pandering nor naïve / blasé complacence but an endearing love of the genre shining through on every page. And, as another reader commented at some point, she managed to cram a startling amount of characterization into so few pages. As the example which most stuck with me, here's how the story handles the inevitable moment when the popular athletic girl joins the geeks' game: a weird, morose younger girl just bluntly invites her, to the slack-jawed consternation of every male in the room. And that tells you more about their personalities than pages of exposition.

Even the "don't go meta" criticism fails to stick, for much the same reason that it's not belabored into some startling plot twist. So what're you left with? Adventure. Characters adapting to new situations according to individual personalities. Gimmicks and phlebotina permutating into trials and solutions.

I hadn't realized how much I missed adventure stories.

I don't mean the "kitchen sink" approach to adventure you see in most cRPGs where you absolutely have to fight every monster in the monster manual in sequence, or the alternative of straining to turn every goblin stabbing into some supposedly grandiose social commentary like "racism against goblins is bad, mm'kaaayy?" but a story merely taking a limited premise unto the great unknown and allowing it to run its course while fleshing out naturally afferent details. You don't have to save the world. You may not even save yourself. The story gets away from you. You just do the best in the situation at hand. And, in its multifaceted problems, in its self-conscious refusal to bow to clichéd expectations of redemption or salvation, that's what The Terror in turn boils down to: an old-school adventure story, but one expertly developed beyond its stock elements.

That adventures now come as surprises probably says a lot about the state of pop culture.

____________________________________

 

P.S.: Having never read the novel on which it's based I can't speak to how much of the adaptation's quality was inherent in the original and yes, I did see that AMC's trying to cash in The Terror's well-deserved warm reception with more (unrelated) seasons under the same title, but sequelitis warns me off any such cash-grab.

It's lunchtime for another triangle orb weaver.

 

 

And yeah, the crunchy little bitches really do throw their webs across open spaces several meters across. At exactly my head level. Not fun when you're just trying to take a walk without inhaling spider silk.

Uzbek Universalis

or: "wants your provinces"

Long story short, in a game touting politics as a main selling point over its competitors, discovering alliances are nigh-worthless doesn't exactly inspire praise.

 

I might re-try Savoy eventually, but for now I'm sick of HRE/Papal politics. How 'bout something in Asia? I used to do Novgorod back in EU3, so not that. Japan/India look like micromanagement nightmares. Maybe something in central Asia? Timurids look interesting, but I'm willing to bet on some hard-coded vassal drama. The Uzbek Khanate on the other hand... not very rich but large, painfully long travel times but well positioned to play off the larger powers while not directly adjacent to Ming or Muscovy or the Timurids or Ottomans, which might buy me some time at the start. Plus, I'm already the marquis of Baltakhand. Alright. Let's bake ooze! ... and workshop our catchphrase while we're at it.

First reaction: replace "not very rich" with "steppes suck" 'cause despite controlling a tenth of Asia my broke ass can barely afford bottom-tier advisors. Province development is 1/1/1 across most of them. Rush to promote the Khazaks and Siberian cultures, 80% of my population, to accepted status. Kazan/Nogai/Oirat as rivals. Great Horde and Chagatai as allies.

Can't even develop. Steppes have 20% development penalty, arctic/desert 50% ... and dev penalties stack... I should've started by invading I guess?

Worse, with only one estate, summoning a diet is a no-go, since even with three options at least two were always stupid. Tried it, got a mission to invade westwards, get trounced by Kazan and Nogai while the Great Horde somehow manages to lose to Crimea.

Biggest shock of all though is the "horde unity" mechanic which continually ticks down very quickly unless you keep warring and ruins your revolt risk and army discipline when low. It's supposed to also be sated by pillaging... your own provinces... no thanks... but no chance to solidify, pay off debts, anything.

---------

Attempt 2

- 1457 Oirat declares war, loses half its territory, Chagatai immediately flips 180 from ally to rival

 

- keep getting dragged into wars by Great Horde, dump it - new allies Timurids, Delhi, Sindh, need ally in the west, start buttering up Denmark, uselessly, can't overcome the distance and "unknown" penalties

- 1508 - invade Kazan, Nogai with Timurids

- 1510 become sultanate

- 1525 - annex what's left of Kazan, Muscovy is now the major threat and I'm several levels behind in tech - 1538 death by Russia

-------------

Attempt 3 - death in 1553-57 by muscovite opportunism while I'm busy south

--------------

Attempt 4 - death in 1489 - Great Horde declares war against Ottomans... who are four tech levels ahead of me and have four times our combined military, and I still need the Horde as defense against Muscovy - pay for Feudalism and two tech levels - my armies just instantly vaporize regardless - Transoxiana declares war on me and irony of ironies the Great Horde refuses to help, dissolving the alliance I just lost my armies to uphold

-----------------

Attempt 5 - death by Timurids

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Attempt 6 - 1451 Oirat attacks a Ming vassal, I attack Oirat... and its entire alliance turns around and travels half a continent to attack me and me alone even while Ming is taking over all their provinces! WHAT THE FUCK

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Attempt 7 - death by alliances randomly dropping - 1491 Muscovy invades

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Attempt 8 - 1480 my ally Great Horde (with Genoa) calls me in against Muscovy ... and my other aly Kazan of its own volition immediately attacks the Great Horde

--------------

Attempt 9

- ally Crimea, GH also happens to be allied to them, hopefully a stronger regional block but leaves me defenseless in the east

- 1474 decline Crimean war against Lithuania

- 1492 Timurids and GH go to war. WHY!?!? both had closer, weaker options for expansion where I could've supported them

- 1497 Kazan and Chagatai invade me, Timurids, my last ally, refuses to join

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Attempt 10

- ally GH and Kazan, rivaled by Nogai and Chagatai, Tims ally Nogai

- 1457 invade Nogai, Transoxiana declares independence, Timurids splinters, ally Timurids and Khorasan

- 1463 invade Transoxiana with GH and Khorasan

- 1468 support Yarkand's independence from Chagatai, drop Timurid Alliance

- 1476 Muscovy attacks GH, Kazan also hates GH and won't help against Muscovy, and I can't afford to fight Muscovy without a full alliance so... sigh... abandon GH

- 1485 Kazan declares me as rival and breaks alliance despite top relations in every other sense and despite this making it easy prey for Muscovy, GH becomes Astrakhan

- 1491 Oirat / Nogai invade Yarkand, I take out loans to rush Feudalism and hire mercs, go from 3/3/3 to 4/5/5 - manage to win a bit of Oirat

- 1497 reform my state as the Sultanate of Bukhara

 

- 1515 Muscovy invades, and is four military levels above - allies get nothing done, can make no headway even with four mercenary companies above my military level - 1518 Astrakhan surrenders and Delhi pulls out after a few fights in 1521 - Yarkand pulls out in 1522 having done jack shit - my desperate defense ends in bankruptcy

- 1530 haven't done any fighting in years, it's just muscovites putting down my rebellions - finally I lose my entire western third

- 1538 Khorasan breaks alliance, just 'cause... and immediately gets chewed apart by the Ottomans, Afghanistan, myself because what did you think would happen you idiots?

- 1545 Lithuania FINALLY wakes up and invades Russia, but my allies refuse a war - Ottomans immediately give themselves a -135 "wants your provinces" attitude penalty toward me for our shared Khorasan holdings

- 1548 Russia declares war. Ottomans refuse and break my alliance. Take out some loans, tech up to 5/6/8, but Russia has military 11 so I still have zero chance

------------------

CONCLUSIONS?

The more I play EU4, the more I hate its alliance mechanics. The Uzbek Khanate is impoverished to start but there's no reason it should be so utterly doomed. Don't get me wrong, some of the difficulty here is valid:

- Horde Unity is slightly too punishing numerically (even with constant wars you can barely keep it half-stable) but that last time I did scrape by with ~50% until monarchy, shaving a couple decades from my government reform accumulation by invading to claim this or that title like Bukhara, fitting with the rampaging horde theme. Could stand some fine-tuning but works decently in itself as a roleplaying challenge.

- Rebellions. Large distances, heterogenous culture and the fact you can't afford fort upkeep all adds up to not even bothering to keep everyone happy. Just try to time your armies' upkeep to coincide with high rebellion risk / land seizing and be ready to put down the inevitable uprisings.

- Same for desert life. I lost a lot of manpower in early attempts shifting armies across undeveloped provinces to put down rebels. But saving up monarch powers for some well-timed development edicts, I could just barely make it work.

On the other hand:

Even with knowledge sharing, adjacency and heavy use of advancement edicts, institutions DO NOT SPREAD. They just flat-out don't. Granted, some of that is due to the aforementioned development woes, but looking across the border I'm routinely ahead of steppe neighbours in development yet slower to advance.

 

By far the worst of it though is EU4's idiotic AI, especially when it comes to alliances and war declarations. We'll leave its... questionable... military tactics for another time. Being entirely geared toward the struggle between a handful of superpowers vying for the top score, it has a slew of mechanics (like the "economic base" penalty to vassalage or the absolute impossibility to annexing any vassal supported by even one foreign nation, any) specifically designed to prevent small to medium-sized nations from presenting a united front. Uzbek can't keep up with richer Asian empires at the start, so maintaining a unified regional defense is critical.

 

For instance it's impossible to find allies on the other flank of Oirat, Ottomans or Muscovy, even if those countries lack closer options, due to "unknown" attitudes and "distance between borders" penalties - except distance is exactly what would make such an alliance advantageous! (is it colonial range that dictates this?) That was in fact how my teutons finally took both the Turks and Russians down a peg, taking advantage of Ming or Timurids pulling their militaries across the continent. And even though empires are quick to dogpile the human player if they see you've lost your army, they blatantly avoid doing so against a larger NPC threat. Novgorod, Lithuania, Denmark/Sweden, Ottomans, Genoa, all frequently hold Muscovy as rival/enemy, but never invade if they see it weakened. The same seems to happen with Ottomans, Ming, France or Austria, as their many, many enemies never take advantage of moments of weakness. Just as one example I tied up Muscovy's military for fifteen years straight in attempt #10, dropping its manpower to ~20k and reserves to 0 for over a decade, yet at no point did the surrounding powers ALL OF WHICH had it rivaled and all of which were doing little or nothing else, take advantage of the situation. (Repeat for the Ottomans below)

Possibly due to limited rivalry options, nations deliberately avoid prioritizing threats. For instance the Great Horde / Kazan / Nogai / Crimea quadrangle's constant rivalries against each other guarantee one of your allies will call you into war against your other, making any coherent defense impossible. In fact, while you do have alliance breaking and opinion lowering diplomacy options you conspicuously lack any third-party mediation. Even passive bonuses to tie a triumvirate together count for little against "want your provinces" or distance modifiers.

Worst of all is the suicidally stupid way the AI will start random hopeless wars or instantly break your alliance on a whim, regardless of opinion and trust or whether I'm the only thing keeping it alive. Novgorod falls almost immediately every time. For my Teutons it was Livonia refusing to join me in war and instantly falling to Denmark, etc. Just in attempt 10 here I had Kazan and Khorasan rival me from ally despite full trust / attitude because "wants your provinces" only to instantly get torn apart by Ottomans or Muscovy for their trouble. Enjoy those provinces.

I'm sure both Paradox and its fanboys would claim this constant, knee-jerk allegiance shifting keeps gameplay moving, avoiding the stalemates which did admittedly occur in #3. But be honest, what it really boils down to is the entire alliance system being just outright broken, serving only the few nations which don't need alliances in the first place.

--------------------------------------

Attempt 11 - I thought I'd give it one last try

- rivaled by Nogai and Oirat, ally GH, Kazan and Chagatai

- 1448 Muscovy attacks Novgorod, sacrifice 2 stability to declare war, since my allies are too stupid to do it themselves - Novgorod just instantly folds and hands Muscovy its capital, but we eke out a 60% peace treaty winning my allies a few provinces and hopefully forestalling future disaster

- ally Tims, start getting Feudalism from them, start paying off loans

- 1463 Transox declares independence, supported by... everyone... including both the Ottomans and Mamluks... so I'm forced to break off my alliance with Tims dishonorably - use favors to dissolve Kazan's alliance to Nogai, invade w/ GH

- 1469 Ming invades Oirat and makes it tributary, no expandin in that direction

- 1475 Kazan invades Muscovy, and I have to take out more loans to help, luckily GH also jumps in to help, of its own accord! miraculous! then also Denmark, Sweden and Norway! why couldn't you assholes do this 11 attempts ago!?!

- 1479 dogpile on Oirat, Ming chooses not to defend it against Kara Del and Kham... then Chagatai... then me - meanwhile GH is attacked by Ottomans, decline war, they lose most of their territory - grab feudalism, tech up to 4/4/4 - situation looks... stable

- Ally Afghanistan

- 1514 reform gov. into Sultanate, bye-bye horde unity

- 1516 Chagatai demands we invade Oirat, minor win

- 1519 Kazan "wants your provinces" (of course) and breaks alliance, switch alliances to Ottomans

- 1529 Ming breaks apart

- 1535 abandon Afghanistan alliance for demanding a war against Ottomans, grab knowledge sharing from Denmark before Poland and Kazan trample it (I've created a monster!)

- 1540 Ottomans turns on Transoxiana, grab renaissance, tech up to 8/7/7

- 1543 Chagatai invaded by Shun, Kazan loses Muscovy, which it had vassalized, and is invaded by Poland

- entire southern alliance focuses on invading me while Ottomans take their provinces, but amazingly, by the end the Ottomans actually give me three provinces in the peace treaty, but the defense of Shun turns into a very expensive, 1300-ducat defeat, dissolving our alliance

- ally Jaunpur, my development is coming along nicely

- 1561 minor Ottoman expansion war, finish Colonialism (26 years !) and tech up to 10/9/10, best in Asia

- 1569 start receiving printing press from Denmark, finally pay off all loans, ally Sindh

- quiet few decades, focus on construction, accumulate crown land, cash in estate demands, all that good stuff you don't get to do while warring nonstop

- drop Jaunpur's alliance for wanting me to fight the whole rest of India

- 1599 Transoxiana invades, Ottomans refuse the war, but at least thanks to the danes, I'm now the first in Asia to get the Printing Press, tech up to 15/15/15, one military level below the enemy

- 1608 after two more military levels and Mamluks pulling out, I finally win, but at the cost of a whopping 53(!) loans - re-ally the Ottomans

- 1615 ally Shun

- 1640s Ottomans turn expansionist again, mopping up smaller nearby kingdoms, forcing me to break alliance with Singh

- 1650s Ottomans invade Kazan / Transoxiana, and after centuries of favor currying I finally manage to ally Poland - finally pay off my loans from half a century ago - once again I'm five techs behind everyone else. Buy global trade and tech up to 19/19/16 when everyone else is at 21.

- 1678 decline Ottomans' war invite and lose the alliance

- 1693 Poland is guaranteeing Kazan, so I attack Kazan's only ally, Chagatai, annex it and take a few of Kazan's provinces

- 1698 finally caught up in tech at the pre-enlightenment stage, re-ally Ottomans to bribe them to drop their French alliance and attack Transoxiana (and its ally Kazan) while it's busy with another war in India

It's the Permian mass extinction!

- grab half of each enemy then immediately drop Ottomans' alliance (hopefully triggering a pan-European war against them) and ally Deccan instead alongside Shun and Poland-Lithuania

- 1712 invade Oirat w/ Shun

- 1721 Chagatai breaks off from Shun, free provinces for me

- 1724 finish off Kazan after it was weakened by Muscovy, take a chunk out of its ally Transoxiana

- 1743 Deccan invades Bengal / Afghanistan / Transoxiana - Germany intervenes against us as a great power, so I bail out, losing 3 provinces - but the Ottomans are also busy in Africa, so I enlist Poland-Lithuania to invade from the north... except Poland once AGAIN pulls me into a war against Germany - German war fizzles, but it causes allies to abandon the Ottoman war, Ottmans gradually wear me down... until in 1757 Britain hits from the other side! go get 'em lads! and Poland-Lithuania merge into Commonwealth - use my Great Power status to break Delhi's alliance to the Ottomans

- 1759 still fighting a gradually losing war against the Ottomans, Shun calls me into war against Japan, I decline, and the limey gits have made zero attacks on the Ottoman shore so far, apparently Britannia does NOT rule the waves... in 1761 they finally break my back, make me give up a fifth? of my provinces

 

- 1768 hit Transoxiana while its best ally Bengal is weakened by a war in the east, allowing me to recapture some of the provinces the Ottomans forced me to free (a.k.a Bashkiria) meanwhile Germany and the Commonwealth go to war, wish I could join in the war as an ally, but I just know if I do the idiot AI will bail on me

- 1770s ally Perm, later vassalizing and annexing (the second Permian mass extinction!) Commonwealth somehow gets into wars with both France and Germany at the same time

- 1780 Commonwealth is attacked by France, Ottomans, Denmark and a slew of littler allies while at 0 military, unwinnable war, I betray the alliance

- 1787 Ally Denmark, Industrialize, tech up to 30, catching up to the rest

- I haven't beeen getting called into European wars, can't ally anyone in Europe due to "distance between borders" but did ally Japan to deter Wu

- 1810 with Bengal busy east, Deccan calls me to invade Transoxiana... and the Ottomans intervene against us in return as a great power - 1814 Deccan forces peace, losing me a couple of provinces

So in retrospect trying to avoid the big Asian powers early on doesn't work, since only an opening sally kept Muscovy from snowballing. And without building up the Timurids as an ally, even Deccan couldn't really help keep the Ottomans in check. The tatar hordes all seem defined not by their starting territory (which is unequivocally crap) but by their primary direction for expansion (south for Uzbek, Chagatai and Oirat/Mongolia, west/north for the other three. Attacking each other is mostly a first-century preliminary (to feed Horde Unity and avoid the discipline penalty) or a low priority, as it just nets you more worthless undeveloped provinces.

I'm actually liking the peacetime bonuses you gain from alliances, deterrence against invasion and the various favor cash-ins, but the AI seems intentionally stupid when it comes to the military angle, including war declarations. Its decision-making is weighted not to allow smaller nations to band against bigger ones to stand a chance, but to allow the bigger to divide and conquer the smaller. It's a system presuming that any human player will obviously choose one of the major powers and race for the #1 score.

Wrong.

_______________________________________

P.S.: Don't get me started on the nations generally not acting like self-interested independent actors and instead behaving as if their only purpose is to screw the player-character over.

Down by the stream draining from a reservoir, on a path about twenty or thirty paces inside a patch of deciduous forest.

Not much of a spider guy, but the orb weavers in these parts are spectacular.