Båden til København - A Danish AAR

[MAlexander06]

Well well, here I am at it again. I doubt many people here were around for the beginning for my last AAR two years ago (which I finally did get around to finishing after a year of inactivity), but I'm going to try again. Hopefully this one will be much faster than the last one, and I'm not going to try anything involving parallel stories this time. It also won't be as serious as the last one. This one will be somewhat shorter and will probably poke a bit of fun at EU2 in the process. Now don't think I'm writing this to show my displeasure for the game - I'm not. EU2 is by far my favorite game and I've been playing it for a good two and a half years now. But I do have a bit of a sarcastic streak, and I figured I could let that shine in this.

This AAR starts in 1419, Hard/Normal, 1.08 April 21 beta, vanilla GC. I'll (obviously) be playing as Denmark. My only goal right now is to have fun. There's no target end date for this; I'll end it whenever I want. Also, I haven't played EU2 in a long time, and I was never a great player to begin with, so don't expect any brilliant strategy here.

And also, despite the title, I only speak a tiny bit of Danish. So consider this a response to anything you might say to me in that language: Jeg forstår ikke.

And now for our feature presentation.

[MAlexander06]

Chapter 1: 1419-1440

When I decided to return to EU2 after nearly a year without seriously playing it, I wasn't sure that I wanted to undertake another AAR. My last one was really long and drawn out and, to be honest, I really wasn't interested in it by the end. Well, the first end anyway. As you probably know, since I said it in the first post, I just got around to writing the last two updates in it, so it is, I guess, finished. So why am I starting this, you ask? Even that last AAR was actually my third; the first, an aborted tale about Lorraine was, by my own reckoning, outstanding only in its mediocrity, and the second was my first attempt at a WC at the hands of Austria. That didn't go well either. But I digress. So why a new AAR? Hopefully this one will be entertaining. I don't intend to do a history book style approach to this. Instead, it will be my own first-person commentary on my game. I know there are a lot of character based AARs out there, and some of you would probably prefer that; but having just read William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, I want to stick to one consistent setting and narrator for now. No confusing characters. Now I'm done with this. Here we go.


Denmark in 1419

I start out on January 1, 1419. My king, Erik VII, is very average - 4/4/5, to be exact. I start with 600 ducats in the treasury. You know what? I don't like ducats. We're Danish. I'm calling them kroner from now on. And I think there's an accent there, but I don't care. I'm an American and we don't have those on our keyboards. So I take 200 of those kroner and recruit tax collectors in my four provinces: Jutland, Sjaelland, Skane, and Gotland. I also set my religion sliders to full tolerance for Catholics, half for Orthodox, and none for Muslims. I'm in Scandinavia, I barely know of any Muslims, much less actually have any of them as subjects. I also increased my centralization slider by one, because we all know what happened to Poland. I also sent my two merchants to Mecklemburg, which I want so very badly to be my own. At the same time, I look up at my merchant icon. I find that I'm getting 0.4 merchants per year. So I make a mental note that I'll probably forget by the next war to move my slider toward free trade. Until then though, I'll keep trying to get my four-tenths of a merchant into Luebeck each year, since I have a lot of money with which I have nothing to do.

And then I find out on January 6 that I have allies. Sweden decides to declare war on everyone's favorite Russian punching bag, Novgorod. My other ally, Norway, is too concerned with wrestling polar bears to help, so Sweden and I go it alone. I send a bunch of troops to the colonies of Kola and Karelia, hoping to get them quickly. But Novgorod won't budge. Now, the AI makes the first of many idiotic moves it will make throughout the game. It's winter, so I send my troops back to Sweden so they don't go Grande Armee and freeze to death (because Sweden is so much warmer and friendlier to Danes). But Novgorod's 20k troops sitting next to their colonies don't bother invading. In fact, they just send colonists to Kola. To make a long story short, I didn't defend the colonies at all, and Novgorod evidently didn't care about them. They just sent colonists to Kola without bothering to retake it.

I have a core shield on Holstein, which is owned by a one province minor of the same name. So while they're off fighting somewhere else, I declare war on them (January 3, 1420) and send 26k men south to besiege Hamburg. My navy also goes around Jutland to blockade the port. But, of course, they can't be bothered with defending their only province. All their troops are off fighting Swedes in Prussia. So, with absolutely no effort, Holstein is mine by October. But since they still have a few thousand men in Prussia, they won't accept annexation. Finally, my friends in Sweden do something right and make the world's first Hamburgers, so I can finally annex them on July 9, 1421. Now I have all my core provinces. Whoopee. Unfortunately, Europe couldn't get any ketchup until Columbus sailed the ocean blue and gave all the natives smallpox. For which he was given the gift of tomatoes.

A political crisis happened in March 1421, but it doesn't matter enough to be really concerned about. The interesting thing though is that stability of the nation seems to be closely linked to the weather in the capital. I'm not sure if strangely colored skies make people angry or what, or if the skies act like a mood ring for the peasant population, but either way, that circle got a little gray and I really couldn't care less.

In August 1422, I finally got Novgorod to give me Kola for peace. This was three years after I took Kola and Karelia and they still hadn't made any attempts to reconquer either. The main benefit of this was that I finally had something to do with my money. I had 300 or so kroner in the bank from the beginning of the game. Now I could send colonists. It's amazing how when a couple of Danes arrived there, all 500 of those Russian Orthodox fur trappers suddenly became nice, docile Scandinavian Catholics. Maybe it was the simultaneous prohibition of vodka imports and high taxes on beer for Orthodox Russians that made them change. Who knows. But in any case, I had a nice snowy place where I could wrestle polar bears along with those Norwegians in case of war.

In May 1423, I got a boundary dispute with the Palatinate. Now the last time I heard of the Palatinate was when I beat them to a nice pulp with my one-province Lorraine in another game about two years ago. And, in case you forgot your early fifteenth century German geography (because the Palatinate tends not to last long), the Palatinate is in west-central Germany on the Rhine. I am in Scandinavia. Guess what? I don't have a boundary with them! For that matter, I'd have to go through four other countries just to get to them. So I decide to press the case, hoping to find where that disputed border is in the first place.

Now at this point, I want Mecklemburg. It's got a center of trade. But I don't have a CB on them or their allies. So I send them insults. I call them lots of nasty names, spit on that animal that's on their shield, and have my merchants explode stink bombs in their palace, all to no avail. Apparently the peasants in Skane weren't too happy with this though; I guess the smell carried across the water to them. They were revolted, so they revolted. That didn't last long. Let's just say we had a surplus of cow manure in Jutland that year.

On July 6, 1427, I got my wish: Norway declared war on Pommern. I was a Norwegian ally (and her suzerain) and Pommern was Mecklenburg's ally. Yay! This time Sweden wanted to go wrestle polar bears, but they too rejoined the alliance in a few months after discovering that killing Germans was infinitely more preferable to killing polar bears. Anyway, I invaded Mecklemburg. They tried to counter with a few thousand measly men, but evidently they were scared of our stink bombs, so most of them ran away pretty quickly. Honestly, I don't know where they went, because I never saw any of them again. Maybe they got onto a ship and got sunk or something. So that siege was easy, since Bremen and Pommern didn't seem to care that Mecklemburg was under siege. They just went around me. Incidentally, my merchants were having a good time with the stink bombs; on November 20, I got a letter that they were unhappy. I seriously considered lifting the siege, I really did. But mistakes happen. Soon there were four-tenths of Danish merchants lying around Luebeck, since I could only replace them at that rate. On October 3, 1428, I captured the city and annexed Mecklemburg. Now we're cookin'.

On April 14, 1429, I decided to impose the Sound Due. At first I started setting up giant speakers along my borders and blasting Finnish metal. Man, you should have seen them. But then one of those naval types told me that I was actually supposed to be stealing money from traders who wanted to go to the Baltic. Which is code for screwing over the Swedes. My relations with everyone were actually starting to go up; they liked the music. But then they decided that they didn't like giving me money, so they went down down down. Oh well, they'll hate me in twenty years anyway, no reason not to start now. A few months later, someone told me that my policies were good, so evidently at least someone liked it.

In 1432 I moved the centralization slider up again. Oh, I forgot about technology. I hit infra 2 in 1425, which means that I can build "fine arts" academy. I remember that in one of those quiz bowl competitions, a member of my team would shorten "fine arts" to "f'arts." So building one of those probably wasn't a good idea. I hit trade 2 in 1433. Yay, no more fractional merchants. That was actually getting to be a problem; no one wants to buy anything from just an arm. My income went up too, probably as a result of the new whole-merchant phenomenon.

In May 1433 I discovered Georgia. 562 years later, the Atlanta Braves would beat my Cleveland Indians in the World Series 4 games to 2. So I regret having done that. This was the second worst discovery ever made, next to that of Jose Mesa by some scout in the Dominican Republic or something.

In June I swapped maps with Norway. I told them about Georgia so they could get to the Olympics in 563 years and they told me about Iceland and Greenland and how sneaky they were for switching around the names. I just sent some ships to Iceland and started sailing them back and forth along the coast of Vinland and Markland, hoping to actually discover that there is land there. Unfortunately, the ship captains didn't seem to get bored with sailing back and forth repeatedly, so here I am in 1440 and nothing has happened over there.


The maps I got from Norway

In November 1435 the peasants in Skane caught on to that new emo craze and began to complain: "Oh woe is me, the world hates me, why doesn't anyone understand me." Someone in Sjaelland yelled at them to shut up, and then they got even less happy and started to rebel. Seven months later there was a large pile of broken black glasses sitting in Malmo.

On November 17, 1437, the Teutonic Order called me stupid.

Oh yeah, I also hit naval 2 somewhere in that period. It obviously wasn't that exciting.

Byzantium became Catholic on May 15, 1439. Ah, Byzantium, if only you knew how doomed you were. Just look at my last AAR for reasons why you shouldn't do that. Oh well, they only had one province left and were at war with the Ottomans anyway.

And on April 11, 1440, Erik VII abdicated and Christoffer III became king. Erik decided to retire to Greenland, having forgotten Norway's joke. Boy, was he surprised. It became a story the Danish royals would tell at parties for centuries to come.


Denmark in 1440; Kola is also Danish, but it's too far away to be included

And by the way, I did in fact forget about that free trade slider once the Novgorod war began.

[zacharym87]

Very nice start. Did I mention I used to live in Atlanta ?

[CatKnight]

On November 17, 1437, the Teutonic Order called me stupid.

For some reason that line struck me as hilarious.

A fine start! Good luck!

[Badawi]

Interesting start. Your land gains in north Germany are impressive thus far. However, what is your BB score as a result of the two annexations?

[Judas Maccabeus]

Oooh, an AAR with Baden in its name!
...which probably means something else, but still.

Looks good so far. Baden or no.

[MAlexander06]

zacharym - Thanks, but your compliments will never make up for your thievery.

CatKnight - Thanks for reading

Badawi - My BB right now (beginning of 1441) is about 9.4. It's gone down a little bit since I haven't done any annexing in ten years or so. Normally I'd just forcevassalize and then diploannex to keep the BB down, but Holstein is one of my core provinces and Mecklemburg has the CoT, so I wanted both of them ASAP.

Judas - You are correct, båden means "the boat" in Danish. So the title, translated, is "The Boat to Copenhagen." But I won't object if you choose to keep reading anyway.

[MAlexander06]

Chapter 2: 1441-1460

The king that just rose to the throne in 1440, Christoffer III, was, like his predecessor, overwhelmingly average (4/5/4). Which was fitting, as his reign would not be noteworthy in any respect.

On March 4, 1441, Sweden decided to declare war on Suzdal, which I then noticed was the largest and most powerful of the Russian principalities. Of course, for Russians, glory is fleeting. This is Suzdal in the middle of the war in 1442:



If you look closely, you'll see that Suzdal doesn't actually control most of its provinces. I didn't send any men over to fight, but Suzdal got pretty beat up anyway. Once again, the AI of the Russian principalities managed to pull some of the most astoundingly worthless defense I've ever seen. Suzdal had sixty thousand men. Sixty thousand. But what did they do? They camped them all on Olonets. Every single one of them. Now I know, having played as various Russian states that Olonets can't even support that many in the summer, much less the winter. So they were down to 40k after one winter. Then they decided to send those men south to Tver. It would have been a smart move. But then they didn't move a single one out of Tver for the rest of the war. Not one. Norway had 6000 men on Pskov next door. But they were content with letting it fall and just getting rid of the province.

As a result, by the end of 1443, Suzdal only had the provinces of Vladimir, Ingermanland, and Tver left under its ownership. Pskov was lost to Norway in the war with the Union of Kalmar, Olonets was lost to the Golden Horde (yes, the Golden Horde actually managed to expand), and Archangelsk was lost to Ak Koyunlu. Yes, Ak Koyunlu. The one with its capital in Kurdistan. The one that had to march through ten provinces or so, half of which are probably rebelling against the Golden Horde, just to get to the war. In fact, Ak Koyunlu had managed to capture the capital of Suzdal in Vladimir province. That is what you call a joke. Olonets later declared independence as a revived Novgorod after the original one became part of Muscovy. The new one didn't fare all that much better than the old one, however, as it was still the whipping boy of the north.

So an update on other interesting developments around Europe. In 1442, Kosovo defected to Serbia, which had 5 provinces and was actually putting up a fight against the Ottomans. Byzantium still existed. Oh wait, scratch that. The Ottomans finally managed to take Thrace in December 1442 and finally, after twenty years, got Thrace.

In February 1444 a Swedish diplomat put a whoopee cushion on Christoffer's throne. The king was not amused, and had the offender sent to Norway to be pickled in lye. Legend has it that the lutefisk in 1444 was some of the best ever. In response, Sweden's sworn enemy, Novgorod (did I mention that they don't actually own Novgorod?), decides to send us some snow as a gift. The world's largest ever snowball fight resulted.

In January 1448, Christoffer died. Or abdicated, who knows. And for that matter, who cares. His successor, Christian I, was not at all any more special than the old king. In fact, he was exactly the same. Why did the game even waste my time telling me that I had a new Joe King sitting on a shiny chair in Copenhagen?

In 1449, the cities demanded their old rights. I decided that I would grant them these old rights - specifically the right to be razed to the ground. Stability -2.

On May 27, 1451, I got a royal marriage with Hannover. If this was CK, this might be more useful, because I would have a shot at inheriting the English throne a few centuries down the road. But actually this was just meant to try to pacify one of my German neighbors should that alliance (Hannover, Bremen, Pommern, Kleves, France, and Gelre or something) ever declare war. Because every one of them has an army that's way too big for the country. Maybe that's where George Lucas got the idea for his clone armies in Star Wars.

On January 11, 1452, the center of trade in Courland closed down and a new one opened in Danzig. That was bad, because Danzig is closer to Mecklemburg. Oh well, I'll just invade Poland eventually.

On March 4, Kleves sent a diplomatic insult. I wouldn't have cared, but then I noticed they were allied to Bremen and Hannover and such (see above for the full list). However, here you can see why I did nothing about it:



Once again, clone armies or something?

Oh, DP sliders. I almost forgot. I moved centralization up 1 in 1442 so I'm now at cent. 7. I moved Mercantilism down 1 in 1453, so now I'm at Mercantilism 9 (Denmark starts the game at 10).

Bavaria decided to harass my merchants in 1454. I could have resolved it diplomatically, but it wasn't worth the money. So I sent them some warm beer laced with botulism (note: if they were English, I'd have sent cold beer). They've still got frowns on their faces today.

In 1455 I was promoted to a viscount. I contemplated throwing a huge party in Copenhagen, but then I remembered that I don't care about VPs.

Around this time, I was starting to get bored. So I decided to save money for a fine arts academy in Sjaelland. I started building it in January 1456 and it was finished two years later.

In 1457 I hit infra 3. Now I can brew my own beer.

In 1458, some saint performed a miracle. Unfortunately for him, I had already discovered beer the year before.

In 1459, I got royal marriages with Eire and Scotland. Why? Well, why not. I was bored.

In 1460, the center of trade in Novgorod got moved to Moscow. What do I care, they're both in the same country. Also, apparently I had a boundary dispute with Cologne. Here we go again. My last boundary dispute with the Palatinate was over...wait, we didn't actually border each other! And Cologne...another 1 province minor that's three countries away! Why is it that Germans are so bad at geography?

Actually, I quickly discovered why: they think the Dutch live in Denmark. And both countries are close to what will most likely become the Netherlands. So they're not really in need of a geography lesson. It's more of a smack over the head.

And I don't have a screenshot from 1460 because my territory didn't actually change.

Oh, and those ships I had on patrol from Iceland trying to discover new territory? They're still at it, with no success. I've had 9 ships sailing back and forth along 3 different routes in the North Atlantic for 25 or so years now.

[zacharym87]

Another amusing update. I trust some petty German states will soon be learning geography the hard way?

[Judas Maccabeus]

Oh, and those ships I had on patrol from Iceland trying to discover new territory? They're still at it, with no success. I've had 9 ships sailing back and forth along 3 different routes in the North Atlantic for 25 or so years now.

That won't work. You have to have an explorer, or have a much higher naval tech, to discover land provinces.

Now's high time for a geography lesson, I say.

[MAlexander06]

They do? Is this a feature of the newer patches/betas? I suspected that after they didn't discover anything for such a long time, but I thought I remembered being able to discover land by doing that under old patches. Oh well, maybe I had already gotten to the point where you could see farther in those games. That's what happens when you don't play for a long time.

And yes, I will tell you that there is a geography lesson coming soon.

[MAlexander06]

Chapter 3: 1461-1480

Sweden is starting to get on my nerves. Everytime I load the game (which is every twenty years) they declare war on someone in Russia. This time, for the second time in a row, it's Suzdal and Muscovy. I join them, only to find that Muscovy has some huge armies and they want Kola. Not good. It's a good thing I fortified it, because I wasn't about to send my entire army to fight some vodka-crazed Muscovites on dogsleds.

However, I don't like getting invaded. So I conscripted 7000 men in Gotland and shipped them north. They proceeded to Kola, where they caused the Russians to make yellow and then red snow.

In February 1463, Norway said something about me fighting like Frenchmen. I gave them a spanking. In October I got a white peace with Suzdal and Muscovy, which is good, since I didn't really want to fight them anyway.

In 1464, I took a look around Europe. I noticed that Poland and Austria were both huge (relatively) and that Gelre has 5 provinces, including all of the modern Netherlands and Oldenburg. I also moved my mercantilism slider down another notch.

1465 was just boring.

In 1466, I checked to see how Norway and Sweden were doing in the war with Muscovy. All I can say is, they weren't doing well. Muscovy controlled all of Finland except for one province. They ended up taking Savolaks and Kexholm from Sweden in 1668.

The nobles also got restless, asking for more rights in 1465 and 1469. Of course, I said no, and that was that.

I hit Land 3 in 1471, which was good considering that almost all my neighbors were at that level. I also decided not to sell offices, because I remember learning about Harding and how badly he sucked as president.

Then, in January 1472, I saw something very interesting. Hessen had four provinces but no allies. It was only separated from my by one country, Hannover, with whom I had fairly good relations. I got military access from them immediately, and then started to put troops in position for the invasion. Now why would I pick on poor Hessen, you ask? Two of the provinces that Hessen had were Kleves and Cologne. As you may remember, Kleves insulted me way back when, and Cologne was one of the states that thought I was Dutch. I figured, hey, when you annex someone, their debtors become yours. And I owed Cologne a geography lesson.

So on June 11, 1472, I sent my declaration of war to Hessen's capital of Kassel. I didn't have a CB, so I lost 3 stability, but stability isn't really an issue for me at this point. I first invaded the province of Muenster from Hannover; it was only defended by 2000 or so Hessians, and my 16000 Danes had some Frankfurters for dinner that night. I then moved to besiege Kleves and Cologne, since they had 20000 men guarding Kassel. It was at Cologne that I was witness to one of the greatest performances I have ever seen from my any of my armies. I suppose I got my lucky dice. Anyway, On February 3, 1473, my 7000 Danish men beat 25000 Hessians while losing only about 500. That basically ended the war; they tried to attack me in Cologne again in June, but even though I was still outnumber two to one, I destroyed the Hessian army once and for all. I had taken Muenster in March and took Duesseldorf in Kleves on June 17. The rest of the war was basically a joke - Kassel fell on March 9, 1474, and Cologne, the last Hessian city, fell on August 14. At that point, I took all but the capital and vassalized Hessen.

In the meantime, interestingly enough, the Palatinat decided to right their earlier wrong. Or at least that's what they thought they were doing. They realized that I would have a border with them in several months, so they decided to preemptively dispute the boundary. I was in a good mood then, so I sent them a letter congratulating them on their geography knowledge. Enclosed was a certificate from Erik VII Elementary School in Copenhagen for "Most Improved Geography Student." They still hated me.

I also upgraded the fortress in Copenhagen to level 2 just because I had lots of money sitting around.

On September 1, 1474, I became a count. Maybe if I was playing Crusader Kings I might be excited to become a count of another province. But this just reminded me again how much I don't care about VPs.

Sweden apparently didn't learn their lesson the first time, so they declared war on Muscovy again in April 1475. There was a lot of fighting up in Kola again, and Muscovy even controlled it for awhile, but after four years of on-and-off fighting, I got them to accept a white peace. As of the end of 1480, however, Norway and Sweden are still going at it with Muscovy and their now-vassal Suzdal.

In 1476 I got some spam from some casino in a place called Baden Baden that I should come there and try to win a few ducats. Well guess what? We have kroner, not ducats. And why do they have two Badens? I put that address on my spam blocker and also thought about beating the country with half the name of the city with a giant club. But then I realized that they were Austria's vassal and Austria was big. And there was also the Palatinat between us, but that wouldn't have been much of a problem; I had a CB on them anyway. I also want Judas to keep reading this AAR.

And then 1480 rolled around and this chapter was done.


Denmark in 1480; Kola is also Danish but not shown and Hessen is a Danish vassal

[Ladislav]

i had a blast playing danes. they are fun to play, have a number of interesting events. if you keep denmark, and mecklenburg COT you will have more cash than you'll need to repel invasions and just run a clean operation. of course, when you wanna conquer the world, thatsd a little different

[Judas Maccabeus]

I also want Judas to keep reading this AAR.

Oh, I'd stick around even if you annexed Baden. Of course, I'd constantly pester you about having done it, and you may come to wish I hadn't stayed, but I'd still be around.

Is this a feature of the newer patches/betas?

Well, I don't use the betas, so it's not something from that... but from what I remember, it's always been like that. My memory's not too good, though, so who knows...

[Van Engel]

You certainly made up for making me wait for ages for the last AAR. Hope you won't abandon this one.

[MAlexander06]

Ladislav - I am having a lot of fun. It's a lot more interesting than, say, my Byzantine Catholic game where I was going "please don't declare war Venice, please don't declare war" all the time. And it will get even better in the next update.

Judas - I actually didn't notice this until just now, but even in the last screenshot, you can see that Baden doesn't exist anymore. Apparently fairly soon after they insulted me Austria diploannexed them. And I think the exploring thing has been pretty much the same for at least the last few patches. I just forgot after not playing for quite some time.

Van Engel - Sorry about that. But then, what's a year or two among friends. And I don't plan on abandoning this one. Not the way it's going, anyway.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Judas - I actually didn't notice this until just now, but even in the last screenshot, you can see that Baden doesn't exist anymore. Apparently fairly soon after they insulted me Austria diploannexed them.

Then I charge thee to retake Baden from the Austrian opressors!

...when you feel like it, no rush... but I will pester you to do it a lot until you get around to doing it.

[MAlexander06]

Chapter 4: 1481-1500

As soon as I loaded up the game again for this segment, I got a new leader, King Hans. He's no better than your average general (2/2/2), but soon I actually get Hans as king. There he's pretty good, at 6/4/7. His first official act was to declare "Falalalalalan" the national anthem of Denmark. Incidentally, 1481 was the year of the first Eurovision song contest. The Danish representatives performed a heavy metal version of the song that year; looking back, it's no surprise that the contest was not held again for quite some time.

In 1482, I increased the quality of my armies, essentially because all the little German states were annoyingly ignoring support limits and the alliances were large enough to be scary.

The next October, my vassal Hessen finally joined my alliance, after I sent them a couple barrels of lutefisk I'd receieved before from Norway. For some odd reason, they liked it and relations went up almost 200 points. This was actually somewhat disappointing; I had to start all over again in my quest for the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

In December, I drafted the Scandinavian constitution. Aristocracy went up 2 (which didn't matter, I was already at 10), centralization went up 1, and stability went up 2 (again, didn't matter). Kleves decided to revolt in July 1484, which wasn't really a concern. They may not have a problem with lutefisk, but they sure do have an issue with a wall of pikes. The worst part of the battle was the fact that the rebels had obviously raided the Dusseldorf lutefisk stores earlier. You can figure out the rest.

Some boring stuff happened in the next couple of years. Cantonments were established in Holstein, new land was claimed in Gotland, and I noticed that Hannover and Bremen, while still Pomeranian vassals, were out of Pommern's alliance. Unfortunately, my BB was a little high and without a CB, I couldn't do anything about it.

In 1487, I annexed Hessen. This made my situation slightly worse in Germany, since now I had four provinces that were cut off from the rest of my kingdom. Fortunately, I had military access through Hannover, but I don't like relying on others as lifelines.

The next year, I got Junker Schlentz (3/2/3) as a leader in Hessen. I'm not sure why a junker was a historic Danish leader, but hey, he's the best guy I had at that point, so I wasn't complaining. It's not as if this game is going to be at all historically accurate anyway.

In 1489 I was bored, so I decided why not take a stab at annexing Norway. To my surprise, they accepted. I always thought that Denmark couldn't diploannex the other countries in the Kalmar Union, but I was obviously I was wrong about that. Perhaps its just Sweden?

Apparently there were some unhappy Norwegians though, since in January 1490, one of my nobles got assassinated. Then, conveniently, some peasant went Chicken Little when he saw a meteor, and stability went down again. Once again, the weather got bad in Copenhagen. I'm going to have to look into that, it's a little too much of a coincidence.

The next year saw someone give me 100 kroner, which was very nice of them. I gave them some land in Greenland because I was feeling nice. *snicker* Boy, I'm sneaky. I also got embargoed by Venice, which I fully expected since they tend to throw the French merchants out faster than they can surrender.

The next year I released Pskov as a vassal. Norway had taken it from Suzdal early on, and it was wrong-religion, wrong-culture and not connected to any of my other provinces, so I figured I should just let it go. This also lowered my BB, which was fairly helpful. I was already getting into that "rather bad reputation" phase. Apparently I'm Europe's two year old. I also hit land 4 in 1492. Oh, and Columbus may have sailed the ocean blue. But I have no idea, since I haven't looked at Spain or Portugal or anything in that area yet this game.

In June 1494, I denied a petition by the peasants for redress. Muenster decided to revolt as a result. I wasn't in the best mood at this time, so when the event in which I could choose whether or not to have serfdom or not game up three weeks later, it was a no brainer. Serfs up dude!

Oslo rose up in revolt in 1496. Apparently they thought that Norway was a real country at one point.

Oh, all this time I'd been sending colonists to the new colonies of Narvik, Finnmark, and Iceland. Narvik and Iceland were cities by this point, Finnmark had about 600 people and was growing. So yay, more Danish cities.

1497 turned out to be one of the most surprising years of this game. In February, I decided to test that old theory of annexing Sweden. I've started games with Denmark before and I've never been able to annex Sweden before the end of the Kalmar Union. But lo and behold, Sweden accepted! Now the Kalmar Union was for real. So as of February 21, 1497, Scandinavia was truly united under one king.

A week later I discovered Delhi. I sent in an order for a 200 pounds of ham for a feast, but they never responded. So I just ate polar bear instead. There were a lot of them up in the new colonies.

In 1499, I had another boundary dispute with the Palatinat (the third this game). I just decided to settle it, because apparently they were getting encouraged by me pressing it.

And, finally, in 1500, Junker Schlentz died (not that I ever got to use him) and a new center of trade popped up in Andalusia. And I also hit Naval 3. By 1500, I was the largest country in the world in terms of number of provinces owned (or at least as far as I know).


Denmark in 1500; I also have Iceland and the two Greenland provinces, but they're way out there so they're not on this map

[Grundius]

Nice AAR! I only recently picked it up but it looks cool enough. Go Denmark!

[UndertheSun]

Rule, Denmark! Denmark Rule the Waves! Danes Never Will Be Slaves!

Look forward to more! Can't wait to see how Denmark will do in the colonial stage...