1731 and I just had my 2nd
'Screw the Player' event crop up in my Spanish Campaign, so it looks like you can expect one every 20 years of gameplay during the game. Be interesting to see if the next one is in 1751.
Anyway, this one wasn't quite as 'Dumb' as the first. This time Austria may have declared war on me for no reason whatsoever, but at least Austria and Spain aren't bossom buddies, in fact Spains 'Friend-o-Meter' rating with them is -57 as shown below.
However, as you can see most of this -57 is down to the mysterious 'Historical Grievances' factor which as someone pointed out on the TWC forums has no historical logic to it at all. (Apparently, Prussia has 'Historical Grievances' with factions that historically Prussia never even met, let alone had a chance to 'piss-off')
But I digress, there were two big problems resulting from Austria declaring war on me.
a) They are Allied with Britain, which if they had joined in the war would have complicated things for me in the Carribean. Nothing I couldn't handle but nevertheless unecessary hassle.
b) Clicking on the button to acknowledge the declaration caused an immediate crash to desktop. Thus ending my game.
So, whilst I might have gone along with this particular 'screw the player event' it was actually quite important to avoid it if I wanted to carry on playing.
Also despite the fact that Austria is not exactly pals with Spain, declaring war on me was a completely illogical action anyway. As you can see Austria could not possibly gain anything by it.
It does have a couple of powerful fleets parked in the Adriatic, but it has no armies available to invade Naples and there is no way of getting them there other than by sea as Austria doesn't share any land borders with Spain or any of its colonies.
In addition, like France in 1711 it too is overcommitted militarily already with seperate and an ongoing wars against the Ottoman Empire, France and Poland. It's also Weak and its resources are Meagre, whereas Spain is Terrifying and Spectacular. So once again we see a faction being forced to commit military suicide just to screw with the player.
The good news is that just like last time reloading the game at the end of the previous turn and running the end of turn again resulted in the event not being triggerred, so I can get on with the game.
Another finger in face of the 'geek with the god complex'
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