Beyond Tannenberg: Black Eagle Rising

Vann the Red: Soon I hope to give you those new adventures!

Chief Ragusa: You're probably right. I wouldn't mind them being next door, but they really gave me a headache!

Strategy...I didn't really have a formal strategy - I 'roleplayed' each leader and their reactions to the developing situation. I saw the Teutons going one of four ways:

1. Be a Crusader State and go after the 'schismatics' in Russia: Good idea, and we tried that once or twice but as you saw the Russian winters are brutal.

2. Dominate the Baltic: Also a neat idea, but any ambitions there ended fairly early: The Kalmar (Den/Nwy/Swe) fleets are just too powerful.

3. Poland/Lithuania: I think this is MORE feasible under WATK than AGCEEP and it's worth looking at. Certainly I could see the Knights wanting revenge, and I think it this game continued we would have taken a shot at them. They're really strong though.

4 Germany: This will be much harder under WATK because most of the one province minors now have two, but I think it's still feasible with a more diplomatic strategy. This is a more opportunistic strategy.

I think the TK have a real tough battle no matter what they do, which probably helps to explain their slow decline after Tannenberg.

stnylan: You got it! I'm currently 'practicing' with the Ottomans on WATK to see how the map changes things, then I'll be ready to restart. Well...after I play my CK game for awhile too.

Stuyvesant: This has no effect on 'Resurrection,' thank God. WATK ONLY has a 1419 scenario....updating it back to 1784 would be impossible.

The Byzantine Empire fell in 1426 after two rapid wars. (Forceannexing hurt my bb rating of course) The OE starts in 1419 at war with them and Karaman

In WATK the Teutons start allied with Hungary, Luxembourgh and Livonia. Kasperus justified this on the thread as a counterbalance to Poland/Lithuania/Masovia, saying (correctly) that they should fight, but there shouldn't be a cataclysmic showdown in 1419. This does indeed stop that, but it also means the TO ends up in all the little border wars down south. In this game the TO ended up with part of MOLDAVIA for awhile. The Livonians don't have the necessary MA, and therefore don't get involved. Occasionally they'll bicker with the Rus states, but no one has the necessary MA to help them, including the TO since Lithuania splits them apart. Eventually the Livonians dishonored and joined up with Sweden to get in a major war with Muscovy, which actually makes a lot of sense for them.

The map itself seems smooth enough. I had a game crash the other day, but EU2 and CK occasionally do that to me anyway, so I don't think it's the scenario. The three biggest problems/changes I'm seeing are:

1) As said, most of the 1 province minors are now 2 provinces, making destroying them that much harder to kill. It looks like that might be helping with political stability, though diploannexations are more common.

2) Militaries seem to be larger. This may simply be because of more provinces, though I wonder if Kasperus played with the province and/or manpower values. I'm fine with this - I think EU2 in general underestimated what each nation could bring to a determined fight.

3) With a few exceptions, we're back to the Vanilla events. Some people may be perfectly happy with this, and usually I'd join you...but that does rip out all the TO events but the one destroying it. It also extends their life to 1560 when historically the Order becomes Prussia in 1525. I'll be watching that event chain carefully when I catch up in my OE game, as Vanilla unified the TO and LO - I don't know if this will affect both groups or what. Other vents, like the Sale of Neumark event Duke asked about, for example, must be an AGCEEP event as do those involving the fate of Danzig/Gdansk.

3) With a few exceptions, we're back to the Vanilla events. Some people may be perfectly happy with this, and usually I'd join you...but that does rip out all the TO events but the one destroying it. It also extends their life to 1560 when historically the Order becomes Prussia in 1525. I'll be watching that event chain carefully when I catch up in my OE game, as Vanilla unified the TO and LO - I don't know if this will affect both groups or what. Other vents, like the Sale of Neumark event Duke asked about, for example, must be an AGCEEP event as do those involving the fate of Danzig/Gdansk.

Click to expand...

Hmm....I was incorrect about a few things.

First, the sale of Neumark is in there. It's hidden in another file and triggers if Poland and the TO are at war, the TO owns Neumark, and the TO/Brandenburg are not fighting.

The 1560 event applies to the Livonian Order. For some reason it's in the TO file - probably just didn't bother moving it out.

On the other hand, the event breaking up the TO is in the PRUSSIA file. I noticed it hadn't fired in one game, that's when I began worrying. The end of the TO event fires after 1524, if Poland exists, AND the TO's converted to reformed/protestant...so long as you can put up with all your provinces being wrong religion after the Reformation, you can stay the TO forever....which I suppose makes sense, though I'd expect the Poles to be getting more and more irritated.

When the event fires, it lets you be a Polish duchy, OR go independent. Both options make Brandenburg happy and really annoy the Livonians. You can guess which option the Poles like.

It appears there are future events unifying Brandenburg/Prussia, then pulling Courland (the ex-Livonians) into the game around 1725.

We're about ready to restart soon as I can find some time. My Ottomans are doing TOO well....it's 1460, and thanks to a lot of rebels, Nubians and Ethiopians I just turboannexed most of Mameluke territory - I think I can handle this map

Just letting my former Teuton fans know that I've restarted at:

Beyond Tannenberg II: The Knight's Tale

I hope to see you there!