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unmerged(84806)

Lt. General
2 Badges
Sep 30, 2007
1.346
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  • Divine Wind
  • For The Glory
A Fistful of Tobacco - A Friesland AAR​


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Since I consider myself finished with the Kara Koyunlu/Safavid Empire SG, I had to find something new to do with EU2. The choice fell on writing a new AAR. I have for a long time wanted to play and write about Friesland. It's perhaps not the best choice of country, since another AAR about Friesland was recently started. However I don't think that will be a problem for you. :) This will also be my first game with the new version of AGCEEP; hopefully I will get some surprises!

Game Settings

Grand Campaign
AGCEEP 1.55
Very Hard/Weakling
Standard Victory Points
Random Events on
Missions off

Goals
  • Survive :cool:
  • Form the Netherlands
  • Only own dutch cultured provinces and Oldenburg in Europe
  • Convert to Protestant and then Reformed
  • Do some serious trading
  • Have some "special" Domestic Policies settings
  • Have the largest navy in the world
  • Get the most victory points

The title of the AAR is of course not a random one. One other goal in my mind is to at least be the leading nation in producing tobacco; preferably owning every province with the resource. It is not many of them: Roanoke, Catawba, Chesapeake, Powhatan, Delaware, Havana, Para, Tiracambu, Parnaiba, Iguato, Diamentina, Niteroi and Mindoro. Many of those provinces will be colonized by Portugal, so many wars against them should be expected.

Regarding the DP settings, I plan to go for the money making options. That is: Plutocracy, Centralization, Naval, Free Market and Free Subjects. Also, I will go for Defensive Doctrine for cheap forts and +1 siege bonus. For the two last settings, they will be Innovative and Quality. I will start going for centralization, as many of the other options could be very dangerous early in the game.

I have played Friesland before, so I know some basic strategies that will hopefully work this time too. I have managed to form the Netherlands, however, I have never played more than ~50 years with them, so I don't know what to expect later in the game. I will play as I update, so you have the opportunity to affect (some) outcomes of this AAR, unlike the Livonian Order AAR.

Friesland in 1419

Friesland starts as a vassal of Brabant. Because Brabant is in an alliance lead by Burgundy, Friesland is in no alliance. On the bright side, Friesland starts with a diplomat, so the vassalization can be broken right away. Another good thing is the 200 ducats in the coffers. They will come in handy when creating a small galley navy. As for the army, it consists of 6000 soldiers. The support limit is only 9000.

Friesland's neighbours are all in alliances already. As mentioned, Brabant and Burgundy are allied, together with Lorraine and Cleves (Münster). Since my plan is to capture Dutch cultured provinces, I won't join that alliance. More appealing is the alliance of Geldre and Berg (Kleves); even if they are small, they could support large armies. Moreover, we have the German minors to the east, but I always forget how their messed up alliances work. ;)

So, in other words, my short term goals is to ally Geldre and Berg, and wait for an opportunity to get Dutch provinces off Brabant and Burgundy. Of course, I have to be very careful to avoid getting too much BB too fast, so I won't get into the same trouble as Scipio got in his Friesland AAR.

I hope to get the first update uploaded within 2 hours. Comments and feedback are very much appreciated!
 
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A Soft Start?

As planned, the vassalization with Brabant was broken. After a while I was invited to the Hessen/Hannover alliance, which I declined. I did not have to wait long for another invitation though, this time fortunately from Geldre. Royal marriages was arranged with both Geldre and Berg, the other member. Meanwhile Friesland was ravaged by civil war (negative stab, and +10 RR). However it didn't cause any problems for me.

I didn't take long time before the Dutch alliance was tested. Wanting to take opportunity from the civil war in Friesland, Luxemburg declared war on me, even if Luxemburg was losing the war against Brabant. Geldre and Berg were invited to join the war, but both refused. I had only one diplomat; he managed to persuade Geldre to join back into the alliance, while Berg decided to join a German alliance. Oh well.

I had MA with Brabant, but they already had captured Luxemburg, so there was nothing for Geldre and me to do. Nevertheless, Geldre did recruit a massive army, counting 31000 men. They will surely come in handy later!

In the west the Hundred Years War continued. Burgundy became vassals of England, and Brabant became vassals of Burgundy. In other words, Brabant was now without any allies. Seeing this as an excellent opportunity to grab some dutch provinces, Friesland declared war on Brabant in August 1421.

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Brabant had 14000 men in Holland, but they were wasted in an attack at the large army in Geldre. I knew they would come in handy! :) The newly created Frisian fleet was also handy, blockading the port in Holland.

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Both Holland and Zeeland was easily captured. Because of the war between Brabant and Luxemburg had taken it's toll (it was finished now though), it was a cakewalk to besiege both Brabant's and Luxemburgs provinces. The two wars ended at the same time in the winter of 1425: Zeeland to Geldre and Artois and Holland to Friesland (+ 150 ducats) from Brabant, and 216 ducats from Luxemburg to Geldre and Friesland. A very nice conclusion of the two first wars for Friesland. It costed me 6BB though.

The recent changes in the Lowlands brought some more changes. Friesland's economy experienced a boom with the acquistion of two new provinces: An exceptional year (+300 ducats!) and a gift to the state (+100). Most of the money was spent on upgrading the fort in the capital. Moreover, with the loss of 3 rich provinces, Brabant decided to cave in and became a part of the Great Burgundy.

Successes, both in war and economical questions, draws attention. Frieslands neighbour, Oldenburg, couldn't sit still watching the Frisians growing rich. War was declared in 1433, bringing in Holstein on their side. Of course, with a large treasury and a leader in the army, Friesland had not much problems defeating Oldenburg. After some sieging (they managed to take Geldre), Oldenburg was finally beaten in 1435, and became vassals of Friesland (+125 ducats). Meanwhile the Hanse-alliance collapsed; Bremen was now without allies, and was invited to the Frisian alliance along with Oldenburg. The war against Holstein would now be a cakewalk, even if their capital was defended by 16000 men.

All in all, the first 20 years for Friesland had been very successful, with 2 new provinces, one vassal and lots of money. All was fine and dandy, until...

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Burgundy alone shouldn't be to hard for the Frisian alliance... but Burgundy is allied to England and the Irish. :(
 
Gulp! Those seemingly profitable wars are always ones that put you on Burgundy's raider (as if they wouldn't come knocking eventually anyway.)

This is a fun area to play and write about. Good luck.
 
I'll be following this one,
interesting choice

and though war against Burgundy: keep one army in Holland, England seems to land in that province every time, meanwhile you can take out Burgundy

btw 100 years war still going on? because if it is England or Dauphiné will soon declare war on each other again, which will be good for you
 
Burgundy said:
btw 100 years war still going on? because if it is England or Dauphiné will soon declare war on each other again, which will be good for you
It certainly is still going on. However, England might as well want to concentrate on him during the war. Which will surely be problematic.
But you should do it. I hope :).
Good luck!
 
WB: No problem. ;)

coz1: Thanks! Yeah, grabbing those dutch provinces south of Friesen always makes Burgundy mad. Fortunately I have a rather strong alliance to back me up.

Burgundy: Nice to have you along. :) I didn't mention it in the last update, but the Frisian navy now counts 20 galleys - so I think it should be possible to hinder England from landing soldiers directly into Holland and Friesen. Since those two provinces are "protected" by the navy, I plan to move all of the Frisian soldiers south to take Burgundian lands. I also hope that Dauphiné will come to my rescue... :)

E_k: If Dauphiné will go to war against Burgundy and England, I think at least Burgundy's men will be occupied in France. Hopefully it will be easy to capture Flandern.

chefkoch: I hope so too. ;)

I will play and update tomorrow morning, I reckon (~10 hours). By the way, I'm not so well versed in Burgundian history and AGCEEP events regarding the inheritance of Burgundian lands... I often see Spain getting them, but France or Austria could get them too, right?
 
Hey, buddy, I'll be sure to pop by and follow this newest venture of yours. I guess your avatar required that you'd pull a Friesland AAR sooner or later. :D Hopefully you'll be luckier than Scipio was (that Denmark was mean...).

Those are some challenging but reasonable goals, particularly the tobacco monopoly. If you make Netherlands as you plan, you should have a good shot at it though. These early years will be the real bastard.

Hopefully your navy will be able to get a few cheap victories against England and get to 5% or so on them, so they'll take a separate white peace or maybe even give 50 ducats or so. Once you have Burgundy alone, you should have a good chance at picking up some ground. Particularly if everybody hates them as usual and attacks them from behind. Hell, if you get Flandern, it may be worthwhile to relax, tech, and build the economy for a while with the four rich provinces.

Anyway, good luck. I'll be watching. :)
 
Trading Provinces

The Frisian army in Oldenburg was quickly moved back to Friesen, where it was reinforced with 6000 men. The Frisian navy (20 galleys) was already in place outside the capital, protecting it and Holland. The only place Burgundy and England could directly access Frisian lands was in Artois. My plan was to leave Artois alone, and instead focus on capturing Burgundian provinces. When 20 days of the war had passed, great news arrived to the Frisian court:

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Notice that the Frisian alliance is still in a war against Holstein​

Dauphiné on our side will surely be helpful. Burgundy immediately stood off and focused on their southern borders. England, meanwhile, seemed unafected by the DoW and besieged Artois with 46000 men. The members of the Frisian alliance were of course motivated by the good news, and thus Flandern was besieged by a large combined army from Geldre, Bremen, Oldenburg and of course Friesland. Unfortunately, Geldre started the siege, so the Frisian army tried to take Brabant instead.

A year passed, and things looked bleak for Friesland. England took Artois, and moved their army through Brabant where they easily beat the Frisians. Then England moved into Holland with 5000 men. Even if the Frisian army was badly beaten at Brabant, I followed the English and managed to send them out in the ocean outside Holland on the second attempt. Meanwhile, Geldre was doing well and captured Flandern. England bought them out of the war for 310 ducats in 1437.

Even if I had lost the support of the armies from Geldre, I made a new attempt at taking Flandern. After being routed by Burgundy a couple of times, I finally managed to capture it in 1439. The good news were countered by the English annexation of Bremen and capture of Oldenburg. Since Oldenburg was my vassal, the English wasn't able to annex them right off the bat, fortunately.

Even if Burgundy and England had the upper hand, Burgundy surprisingly sent me this offer:

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The war against England continues though​

I'll take it! The Frisian army moved into Artois to liberate it.

England must have been furious by the Burgundian capitulation, as they moved thousands of men into Friesen. When the capital was captured, they had no way of reaching Holland, because the straits were blocked. The Frisian navy had been largely uncontested during the war, but England was now ready to strike. With more than twice the size of the Frisian navy, it was an easy victory for the English fleet. Holland was soon besieged.

With no support from my navy, it would have been no problem for the English to take Flandern too. After a long time of thinking, I decided to cave in to Englands demand for Artois and 2 ducats. Even if I really wanted to keep Artois, "trading" it for Flandern was a good bargain. The war against Holstein ended with a white peace soon afterwards, the same with the war between England and Dauphiné (200 ducats to the French).

England wasn't finished with warmongering though, as they declared war on Aragon. While they were busy in Spain, all of their northern French provinces revolted. Interesting. Meanwhile, in Friesland, things were looking good. A loan from the war was repaid at first opportunity, much due to the riches from Flandern. Flandern did prove valuable in diplomatic aspects too, as Geldre became vassals of Friesland in 1451. Excellent! I thought it was a longshot due to Geldre's large armies, but they accepted nevertheless.

England didn't manage to liberate their rebel-controlled provinces, and thus Hainault declared independence in 1454. Also, Calais revolted to Friesland, which is both good and bad. Good, because it is fairly rich. Bad, because England now got a CB on me. The rest of the northern French provinces revolted to Burgundy. In addition to that, Bremen revolted too. England: overextending is never smart. :p To rub it in, Wales revolted too. Both Hainault and Wales didn't live for long though, as the former was annexed by Burgundy and the latter by England.

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Bremen was annexed by Holstein, which in turn was diploannexed by Denmark. It's an unstable region Friesland is living in... :) Also, I don't like the size of Burgundy now. :(

Stats 1462:

BB: 0.9
Inflation: 0.8%
Army 15000 cavalry + some infantry, Navy: 30 galleys. Gotta love Flandern. :cool:
Allies: Geldre, Oldenburg, Cologne and Lorraine
Vassals: Geldre and Oldenburg
Techs: On par with rest of Europe. Got Infra 3 in 1457!
 
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Minarchist: Thanks! :) I hope that I manage to get some of that tobacco... ;)

Brian: Hey thanks, nice to have you along! Fortunately Denmark hasn't been a problem for me yet. :)

I hoped my navy would perform better, but the English fleet was just too big for it to handle. Anyway, with Flandern in my hands things look very good. I think it was crucial for the vassalization of Geldre.

--

I stated in the goals to not own any other-cultured provinces than dutch. I'm not so sure what to do with Calais. I guess I can give it away to France or somebody else in a peace deal later on. What do you think?
 
Pretty hairy ride that turn. I'm impressed you got out in good shape. I don't like the looks of things to your southwest, though. Scary neighbors.
 
WB: I will try to do that. :) Perhaps I could give it to Spain or Austria; then things would get interesting!

coz1: Yeah, it was. In hindsight, I think it was a good deal getting peace with England by giving away Artois. If I had continued the war, they would surely have captured Flandern sooner or later, and then it wouldn't be so tempting for them getting only Artois in a deal. And yes, I got some scary neighbours - and as the next update will show, they will get even scarier.

Update coming up in a couple of minutes.
 
It's All About Burgundy

The unstable region in and around the Low Countries continued to be... unstable. Cologne, Friesland's ally, became vassal of the Palatinate, and thus leaving the alliance. Of course, that couldn't be tolerated. Since Friesland had less than 1BB, I decided to declare war on Cologne. They had still not joined the Palatinate's alliance. The reason for war was to get some easy money.

I let Geldre do all the hard work - well, it wasn't very hard work, as Cologne only had 9000 men against Geldre's 28000. Köln was captured in 1463. After waiting some time so Cologne could gather some money for us, I concluded the war in 1465 for 100 ducats divided in within the Frisian alliance. I could have signed a separate peace with them, but then Geldre would surely have annexed them. Also, before the war ended, Friesland got this event:

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Vrieslant über alles! At least über Oldenburg!

England continued their reckless behaviour: After Connaught had been annexed, they declared war on Dauphiné. Burgundy got the most out of the war, gaining Orléanais. Ach. My worst enemy growing bigger. England got nothing out of the war, so they annexed Leinster to get some more BB. 6BB was clearly not enough, so they DoW'ed Scotland. I was a bit sceptical by England's warmongering; maybe Friesland would be the next target? It was therefore releaving to get an Italian Engineer event, giving me a small fort in Flandern for 75 ducats (and +1 Defensive Doctrine). That wasn't the only good news: after some serious minting, I bought a refinery in Friesen for 762 ducats in 1467. I believe that would be the first of many Frisian refineries.

The DoW from England never came. Instead, Aragon togheter with Milan, Switzerland and some others alliance members declared war on England and Burgundy in 1471. Interesting! Meanwhile, I had to make an attempt at a daring diplomatic offer towards Geldre. By an event, Burgundy would have inherited Geldre in 1472. I couldn't allow that to happen, of course, so I tried to annex them myself. The result:

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Mietje!​

It wasn't so surprising to see that Geldre declined, but the broken vassalization did hurt. It also was also heartbreaking to see that Burgundy got Geldre's 34000 soldiers, but worst of all was of course their inheritance of Geldre and Zeeland. Bleh. As I mentioned in the goals, I want to form the Netherlands, and I need to own Zeeland and Geldre in addition to Holland and Friesen for the creation event to trigger. I had hoped I could get those two provinces peacefully, but now it seems that I have to take them by force from my archenemy. But when would be the best time to strike?

Now, of course! That is, in July 1473, because Burgundy was occupied in a war against Aragon and allies, and because Friesland had a CB (because of the inheritance of Geldre) and a leader:

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After some sieging here and there, Zeeland and Geldre had been captured by Friesland, and Oldenburg by Burgundy. To rake up some more warscore, I used Theda to smash some Burgundians with the large cavalry army. After playing cat and mouse for a while, things returned to the siege phase. Fortunately, England must have been occupied with someone else, since they never landed any soldiers in the Frisian provinces. However, they obviously had their fleet next to me (look at Calais' port in the pictures below).

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Ile de France, Artois and Picardie were captured in that order. Burgundy didn't manage to liberate any provinces​


With 5 Burgundian provinces under Frisian control, Burgundy had to cave to the demand I sent them. And they did. Excellent! It was almost too easy, but I guess it was due to the war they had against Aragon etc at the same time... England accepted White Peace shortly after.

Since Burgundy lost two provinces, they had to "retaliate" by annexing Strasburg. England and Burgundy's mottos gotta be: The only good minor is a dead minor. Anyway, in Friesland, good news arrived. First of all, Cleves entered the Frisian alliance. Second of all, going innovative payed off: I got another manufactory, this time a naval one in Zeeland. There was much rejoice. On the other hand, there wasn't so much rejoice when this message appeared:

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Here we go again!​
 
Let's hope Burgundy is still hurting from their previous war with you. I was impressed with how well you did that time so a repeat performance may not be out of the question. Guess it depends on how much England support's her allies this time.
 
Good war against Burgundy. Hopefully, you've reached the part of the game where everybody attacks them and they fall apart. If so, prepare to take the North and do everything you can to help Lorraine take some rich French provinces in the East.

PM me if you want me to help with editing the save file to move ownership Calais somewhere. I was able to figure it out when we were rearranging the Balkans in the Safavid SG, and its pretty easy to do. Just move around the city information and the numbers in the "owned provinces" and "controlled provinces" lists.

I'd say give them to somebody like Brittany or something like that. You wouldn't be transferring them directly to one of your enemies, but it would likely become French down the line. Else, just hang on to it, and claim it doesn't violate the rules as you didn't pursue its conquest yourself. I doubt its particularly rich, if you've had the AGCEEP "Decline of Calais" event, though.