Austria 1475-9
Quick look:
-At war with the OE and friends, warscore -3%.
-At war with Saxony, warscore -5%.
-Two thirds of the army are mercenaries.
-Manpower at 0, war exhaustion at +10.2!
-New king, presumably Franz Stefan died in the battlefield.
-Some rebels hanging out in Krain.
It could have been worse so I won't complain. On the positive side, stability is still +2, so far Austria has been fighting mostly reactive wars. If the trend continues, who knows, I might even devote the country to trade!
First things first, I get right out of the war with the OE. There is nothing else in it for me, the main goals when I started the war 6 years ago were to save Hungary and weaken the OE, they are more than accomplished now. I give them a fistful of ducats and hope never to see them this side of the Danube.
Saxony is different. Despite having no manpower and the huge drain that the mercenaries are causing in the treasury, Saxony must be punished if Austria is to maintain any hegemony in the HRE. I don't even know how the war started, it had something to do with Anhalt and Bavaria. Anhalt is Austria's vassal so they must have signed a separate peace. Bavaria probably got out with a white peace or paying Saxony some compensation.
I send the bulk of my armies to siege Saxony's provinces and hope for a quick outcome. Their armies don't present much opposition, however their provinces take ages to fall. Two years later I've managed to capture 4 provinces out of six so with a warscore of +63% I start asking for peace. I ask them to become a vassal (98% WS), they refuse, no surprise there. I ask them to release a minor they annexed, 2 provinces and 50 ducats (50% WS), they refuse. I ask them to release a minor they annexed and 2 provinces (48% WS), they refuse. I ask them to release the minor and 1 province (32% WS), they refuse. I ask them to become a vassal again, they accept!! Oh well, I guess it pays being stubborn, but I don't understand why the AI consistently rejects significantly lower WS peace offers to end up accepting a significantly higher one, go figure. The outcome is satisfactory though, Saxony makes a juicy vassal, plus they are an elector. They are left with a 7K standing army so they should recover soon enough and become my strongest ally.
Something odd I noticed in this war when checking support limits/attrition in Saxon provinces is that my "military access" bonus was still active. Doesn't war cancel any military access, or is this a NA change or bug?
Just as I finish with Saxony, Hungary DoWs the OE, here we go again! Bohemia and Venice (Venice?! They must have become an ally recently) join Hungary, Wallachia, Karaman and, more worryingly, Crimea join the OE.
Well, this time they will have to fend for themselves. Austria has a manpower pool to recover, mercenaries to disband, workshops to build, allies to vassalise, electors to bribe... no holidays for the archduke until 1500 (if he can survive that long).
At the start of 1478 this is the situation in the Balkans, pretty messy:
However a few months afterwards the war ends up in white peace. Big sigh of relief, the OE is no longer the threat it used to be. Oh, and Hungary managed to annex Moldavia, clearly the AI ignores the ruler's diplomatic skill.
The rest of 1478 and 1479 are peaceful and allow for some rebuilding and consolidation. Advances in production and land technologies bring workshops and Men at Arms. Bavaria becomes a vassal. Many mercenary regiments are disbanded but I still have to keep 7 of them in order to leave a decent standing army. By the end of 1479 the HRE is fully secured, the only two electors that wouldn't vote for Austria would vote for Hungary! By the way the emperor invited the Papal States to become elector, they are now based in Riga thanks to the generosity of the TO, who gave them the province when Aragon kicked them out of Italy.
The only other development in Europe worth mentioning is the war between France and Burgundy. Brittany already took 2 provinces off France in this war and Burgundy will certainly get some more as you can see. Let's prepare ourselves for a Burgundian monster.