Chapter 0: What happened before 1456 I have always wanted to write an AAR, but the release of 1.

2 the new mechanics h ave shaken me. When I started this new ironman Ottoman game, I decided to go conservative and f ocus on my neighborhood. My opening move (after initiating the siege of Albania) is to declare on Candar and Karaman, who did not have allies. Byzantium formed an alliance with Serbia, so I picked the mission to conquer Con stantinople and used the conquest CB on them. Serbia dishonoured the call of arms, so Byzantium stood alone in a war against m e (Athens is too weak to be counted). The provinces of my targets fell one by one. I annexed Albania, Candar and Karam an. I took Constantinople and vassalized the Byzantines, hoping that Greek rebels wo uld defect to them. Athens broke free. Dulkadir was isolated, most likely due to its central location in Eastern Anatol ia. I grabbed the oppotunity and annexed them. During all these conquests, I built 2 heavy ships, and lots of galleys and cogs. A strong navy will soon be important. An event gave my claims on the Genoese lands in the black sea, but Crimea conque red them before I can act. In the western frontier, Bosnia annexed Serbia after a short war. I would just l eave them be at the moment. My eyes now fixed on the Mamluks. I took the "Conquer Levant" mission to get fre e claims on the Syrian and Palestinian provinces of the Mamluks. I allied Hedjaz, hoping that they will not help the Mamluks in my war against th em. Then it's war time with the Mamluks! War goal was to seize Judea. Only Aq Qoyunlu joined their side. I started by carpet siege Aq Qoyunlu and signing a white peace with them. I hired 6 mercenary regiments, waited for the Mamluks to come to me (I could see their armies because I blockaded their Mediterranean ports). 2 quick stackwipes followed. I spreaded my army to siege Syrian provinces. I didn't have enough armies to car pet siege, so I needed to pick my targets. I left half a stack to kill any emerging regiments in Egypt. After 2 years or so, I secured a 70% warscore. I took Judea, Negev, Hawran, duca ts, and half of their trade power. With the 2 truces, Ramazan became isolated, so I seized the chance and annexed t hem. My plan was to recover the manpower and crush the Mamluks again after the truce ended. Then I saw that Portugal declared on Morocco for Tangiers. Castile and Aragon jo ined. I improved my relation with Morocco, and pressed the "Enforce Peace" button afte r reaching 100 relation. Portugal naturally refused, and now I led the war against them. I acquired military access and fleet basing rights from Algiers, and sent 20k tr oops to Algiers. The Christian just crushed the Moroccan forces, and were spreading to siege the provinces. That's why I could initiate many 17k vs 10k battles and cleared the 40k Christia n troops in Morocco. This brought me to the starting screenshot.