A very eventful session for Korea. One of EU4's mechanics that I pay close attention to is the 'state' system, where you have a limited number of provinces that are fully useful, with the remainder being only a quarter useful. But the limit is state-by-state, not a fixed number of provinces; thus Southern Korea, with five provinces, adds much more development possibility than Hamgyeong, with three. Korea begins the game with two 5s, a 4, and two 3s; its immediate expansion opportunities are mostly 5s and 4s. (Contrast to Japan, which is mostly 3s with the occasional 4.) But this included some states that I would have to race others for--if Yan or Liang takes Shandong, then it becomes that much harder to take myself and harder to claim is a natural extension of Korea. It's not quite what the I Ching was suggesting, but I spent much of this session attempting to accumulate fuel (of the worldly sort).

Yi Do starts with Free Thinker and tactical genius; I decided to overwrite tactical genius (+1 maneuver for generals, meh) with Scholar in order to get a random option for the third. (In SP, I often get something like -10% construction cost). Sadly, in the only game that matters I got greedy (-10% tax income). We'll pretend this represents the high cost of his scholastic pursuits.




His heir Hyang is also pretty poor, but there are ways to solve that.



He serves honorably (he gets +1 siege, and is otherwise comparable with the estate-granted general) and dies at some point (sadly, I didn't get a screencap of that).

1445 passes uneventually, besides building up to my forcelimit. Jianzhou to the north is weak, but has friends and enemies; the time to pounce is when they're in a war they can't handle. I discover that Qi to the west is astoundingly weak--apparently KoM forgot to grant them a military or something--and by late 1446 I've fabricated a claim on Laizhou which I translate into annexing their whole state of Shandong. (Five provinces, all of which were farmland, and two of which produce grain, that key enabler of force limits).




In single player tests, I had typically allied Xi; now Xi is a player, who did not take kindly to my expansion into China. The 40 aggressive expansion is enough to wipe out the +25 same religion bonus, meaning Xi could quickly assemble a coalition and launch the first Chinese-Korean punitive war.



The war lasts for two years and was, I think, in Korea's favor in the short-term but not the long-term. Yan had lost control of most of their provinces, and Korea (even Shandong, I think) was untouched. A series of battles fought in Beijing (I believe) ended in Korea's favor, but just barely, with significant losses on both sides. Feeling the need to prepare for an expedition against the Manchu tribes, and expecting that the second set of battles would not be as mismanaged by the AI, I pursued peace with Xi.

Originally we struck a deal that would have given me Liaoning and I would have released Qi as a vassal; for some reason we weren't able to actually transfer Liaoning, so we went with a white peace instead, followed by an alliance and a royal marriage.




During the first punitive war, the Renaissance begins (in the deserts of Mali, leading to a very slow spread outward). I had held off on beefing Gyeongju up to the point where Judaism could be harmonized until that would give me Renaissance points, and then invested until it was at 20 and promptly began harmonizing, which takes an exorbitant amount of time.

The Southwestern border secure, the army returns to the Northern Front, where I've accumulated the espionage to fabricate claims on three provinces and get a fourth claim from a mission. The bloody Korean Conquest of Jianzhou ends quickly with Jianzhou reduced to a three province minor.

While at war, Korea gets level 5 admin tech and selects exploration for the first idea set. It doesn't go particularly well; with the armies needed to deal with Jurchen rebels in the north, Pangasinan is overwhelmed by natives. (I went with Native Trading policy as most of the early places I can drop colonies have high populations, making the assimilation bonus pretty excellent, but as a middle-of-the-road strategy it lacks the speed of repression or the fire-and-forget of coexistence.)

After the war, Tianlan comes to the aid of Korea, which desperately needed more admin power to incorporate their new gains:



Xi's continued expansion to the southeast wedged Tianlan between Xi and Ming; walled in, Tianlan declared war. This put Korea in an awkward situation; allied to the defenders and married to the attackers, and with manpower reserves depleted from wars with the Manchu tribes, Korea answered the defensive call to arms but could only send forth the Korean fleet, which contributed to Xi's other war by sieging down Canton. (Somehow this earned me 23 favors.) This war takes two years and ends in another white peace (which earns me only 2 favors).

In 1458, Yan, in coalition with the Jurchen tribes, declares the second Chinese-Korean punitive war. This time Xi is on the Korean side, and puts their excellent general (Tang Xiang) to good use, and Tianlan accepts an alliance and also devotes their fresh army to the cause.

The session ends on July 1st, 1460. Yi Do is 60, his daughter Hyohye (an acceptable 4/4/4) is 7. All of Liang as well as much of Yan is occupied by Xi, but northern Korean is completely occupied and the coalition outnumbers the allies about 53k to 39k. If the stacks were in one area, and the terrain were on the side of the allies, perhaps; but it seems likely Korea will buy off the coalition with a king's ransom in gold and peace will be restored in Manchuria. In other news, the Uesugi shogunate has united much of Japan, and will likely finish the job next session, bringing yet another power into the mix.

After the massive growth of the last session, for much of the early session I was struggling with rebels, and for the later bits involved with wars such that I never fully retained my balance. The winds were unkind to Korea, but not as unkind as they could have been, and it was mostly my mistakes with army management that kept my forces low.

Despite the rebels, the first order of business was expansion in the northeast. That gave me two important things: a gateway to Alaska (as Kagrygyn's port is unbelievably closer to Alaska than Penzhina's) and an infusion of cash.



All together, something like 500 ducats is looted from the tribes, which was almost enough to embrace the Renaissance on its own.



Second order of business was beginning the harmonization of Vajrayana buddhism, present in the state of Eastern Mongolia. It gives +5% production efficiency, which is (for some unclear reason) also used for determining settler chance, meaning it's important to get that underway quickly. My harmony was already somewhat low because of harmonizing Judaism, and I also have Zoroastrianism to harmonize next--I decided that, well, harmony can't go below 0, and so I'm going to both convert a lot of Tengri provinces (useful for getting the '10 provinces converted' that grants splendor in the Age of Reformation, as well as getting more true faith provinces, and Tengri, as part of the animist group, only gives -0.5 unrest if harmonized) and harmonize Vajrayana followed by Zoroastrianism, and then recover back up to high harmony.

In 1489, Korea is the first in the immediate area to embrace the Renaissance, though Candravamsas has had it for all of the session.

Xi was subbed this session, and the sub didn't have the mod ready at the start time, and so as per the rules was picked up in a rehost at the 30 minute mark. Unfortunately, during that time AI Xi decided to take the mandate from Ming, and in 1487 Yue Shuang becomes Emperor. He dies within the year, and Bai Luzhen (presumably a consort) takes over. With three roughly equally powerful players in China, the mandate is something of a white elephant--the other players are unlikely to bend the knee, and then you’re looking at steady mandate loss.

After the rehost, now that it has a player, Xi is attacked by Tianlan. Unlike their previous wars, this one is for the mandate, which would result in a truly crippling modifier. Korea’s armies are scattered to deal with rebels and Northerners, but a 6k stack starts sieging in Jiangsu.

At the start of the war, Xi has a 27k stack (impressive, given that they started the session with only about 6k men) and Tianlan has two stacks of approximately 20k each, which are split to attack Xi from the east and South. But the opportunity to strike while they’re separated passes, and afterwards the two stacks are rarely more than a province apart as they walk through Xi. An attempt to siege down Hangzhou has to be called off, and the war proceeds inexorably.

The rest of the Korean army finally arrives, evening out the numbers, but the war is already at a late stage; Xi’s forts, taken by Tianlan, prevent the Korean army from joining the Xinese army and forcing a major battle. Tianlan, uninterested in fighting an even war, peaces out Korea for some provinces in Jiangsu, which will eventually lead to Korea holding its victory card there. Tianlan takes the eastern half of Xi, reaching a staggering 170% overextension, and forgets to take the Mandate.

This leads us to the 1490s. In 1491, Korea advances to miltech 8, leading to Asian Arquebusiers. Hyohye, now renowned as a conqueror, pays close attention to the education of military leaders to ensure that they correctly use this new technology.



Korea has two colonists in Alaska, slowly working their way eastward. Exploration ideas are finished in 1496, activating Korea's third national idea. As per the Scholar idea set, this is now an additional 10% reduction in each of the tech costs; add on to Korea's traditions of -10% tech cost, and it's no wonder that Korea ends the session as tech leader, with level 9 in all three techs. (I'm aware of four others at 26, and many have miltech 9, so it's not a huge edge.)

I had thought, at the start of the session, about investing a bunch of mana into getting as many of my ports as possible to 12 development, to increase the chance of colonialism spawning in one of my provinces. I decided to instead invest it in other things, and colonialism spawns in western France. This provides the opportunity to boost Suwon, the new home of Zoroastrianism (which has been banished from the Middle East), up to 20 dev so that it can eventually be harmonized. Once the first colonial nation comes online, it'll be about four years from finishing--which might be too slow, and so I may bump Suwon up further next session. (Low harmony is biting me here, with the 25% penalty, but it's mostly just canceling out other bonuses.)

In 1504, Hyohye becomes Expansionist, giving a much-needed boost to settlement. The Highly Developed Colonies boost gives +3 dev to colonies when they finish... so long as we're still in the Age of Discovery, which likely will come to an end shortly.



In 1507, the unmarried queen finally marries a Korean noble. What would have been normal if the genders are reversed is instead somewhat scandalous--she's 54, he's 16. At about the same time, Korea gets another female heir. Since Hyohye is too old to have children of her own, we'll assume she had an unmentioned daughter, who married Prince-Consort Jang Gyeong, and then died in childbirth, and so now the grandchild is heir apparent with her father as potential regent. Or maybe I should go with her robbing the cradle and having a miracle baby?

Also, there are apparently only two female names in EU4's Korean culture list, so this one is also called Hyohye. She's a mediocre 2/4/2, which is at least better than Yi Jung who she replaced, who had passed away some time ago.



In 1508, Xi loses a war for the Mandate of Heaven to Hsenwi, an unremarkable nation in Indochina that's allied to Candravamsas (Khan, absent for this session). Korea answered the call to arms but couldn't do much against Candravamsas, and so just knocked out Hsenwi's army and retreated, which wasn't enough. Now with the crippling penalty for having lost the mandate, Xi is rent asunder by rebels, with four different separatist movements with armies greater than the main government's, and the Civil War disaster well on its way to happening.