[IN] Provence - The Rightful Kings of France

Rastar said:

Love the concept!!! Amazing work so far in keeping out of war with France, even though you have a huge target painted on your forehead.

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Thank you!

How many regiments of cavalry can you afford to maintain?

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Right after becoming HRE, I created 10K cavalry. Lock up your daughters, or they'll be pressed into the Duke's Cavalry!

Chapter 7: Whisky for my men, beer for my horses

Emperor Charles spent a year partying like it was 1399 in celebration of his new title. Unfortunately, apparently the denizens of the Empire thought that perhaps the Emperor was supposed to actually do stuff, like smack around anyone that tried to take advantage of small German states.

The first state to run screaming to Emperor Charles for help was Austria, who was being bullied by the Palatinate. Poland gave all their marbles to Austria, and the Palatinate threw a fit and declared war. Austria was obviously completely outmatched.



3 months into the war, Bohemia took Franken from the Palatinate.

Before Provence's armies could do anything about Luxembourg or the Palatinate, Burgundy decided to declare war on Lorraine, the Emperor's first vassal.


Charles responded by freeing some serfs (Free Subjects +1). On September 29th, 1420, Austria beat down the Palatinate and forced them to accept the Union of the Austrian and Polish crowns. Charles prayed fervently that Austria would not inherit Poland. Unfortunately for the Palatinate, Provence was the war leader, and plenty of countries were still ready to grab a piece of the pie.


On December 9th, 1421, France yielded to the inevitable by forcing England to release Northumberland. On June 1st, Scotland stupidly decided to declare war on Northumberland - who was allied with France and guaranteed by England.

On November 6th, Burgundy surrendered Artois, Vlaanderen, and Antwerpen, after finding out the hard way that the Emperor could afford 10,000 more cavalry, and that infantry do not do well against a giant army of well-drilled cavalrymen.


Wars:
As usual, I forgot screenshots of battles, but it's not like we've never seen battles.

Essentially, I was able to wipe out Burgundy's southern armies, leave behind small siege armies, then go up and chase their main army around until it died. Once Burgundy was out of armies, it was a matter of waiting for sieges.

Explanations:
* I took the provinces from Burgundy because they are rich, don't border France, and have a COT. The not bordering France part is very important - as HRE, I can wander about the HRE at will, but France is unlikely to go around Burgundy to get to those three provinces (or so I hope).
* The Austro-Polish union obviously worries me.
* As we all know, the first war of Scotland vs. England means that England will win and start forming GB. Might as well resign myself to that.
* All cavalry armies have a disadvantage in that you can't assault, so the final phase of the war where you spread out and siege is pretty boring. However, the fact that they can destroy armies pretty easily more than makes up for that shortcoming.
* I completely missed the popup where Palatinate was annexed (first one country reduced it to an OPM), so I later was looking around for the Palatinate and couldn't find it. Is it bad when the Emperor misplaces a state in the Holy Roman Empire?

Situation on 11/6/1422
Trade: 5 in Lubeck, Antwerpen, Ile de France, Venice, Andalucia, Alexandria, Novrogod. 4 going on 5 in Vlaandern.
Provinces (6, 2 cores*): Provence*, Anjou*, Nevers, Vlaandern, Artois, Antwerpen
Vassals (4): Lorraine, Switzerland, Saxony, Genoa
Money: 386 ducats
Stability: 3
Prestige: +33
Armies:20K cavalry, 2K infantry

Chief Ragusa said:

There are so many states in the HRE that the Emperor can't be expected to keep track of them all.

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Exactly!

I could have sworn the Electors elected Charles III as Holy Roman Emperor. If he wants to call himself Louis, who I am I to object?

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Whoopsie! I better go back and fix that in the last couple of posts. Maybe later I'll have a paranoid delusional king, but not yet.

That's a cool set of traders and income. I'd settle for that as a yearly sum, not as a monthly income. Spending some money on decent uniforms might be advisable.

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To afford the armies I need, I have to cut corners. They'll have the best horses money can buy, but no uniforms. The enemy can fear my naked horsemen!

That Austro-Polish union could make a good ally.

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I considered it, but I don't want any allies at the moment that are strong enough to take anything from France. Mine! All mine!

Demon1 said:

Uh oh you have a non core COT so prepare for your merchants to be dropping like flies

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I have max Free Trade, so one 15% penalty for one non-core COT will not be that big a deal. Now, when I annex Genoa and take Paris, 3 15% penalties will definitely cause some problems.

Rastar said:

Good quality new provinces.

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High tax, 2 textile manufactories, and a COT. Yup.

Based on that, appears you feel that you + HRE swarm have enough troops to defeat France. If so, guessing you want them to DOW you as soon as possible.

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There's a very important step before you can take on France early with a relatively small army. I'll get to that.

curufin said:

Next step: vassalize Burgundy?

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They're still too big.

Cliffracer RIP said:

I've seen this before, tiny country beats up a load of other countries and then fights even bigger countries.

Until they end up with provinces all over Europe and stuck in never-ending BB wars.

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I will try to avoid BB wars. However, being Emperor artificially lowers your War Capacity calculation, which may cause me to look weaker to the AI than I am...

Chapter 8: Rome (if you want to)...

An empire cannot fight wars without good generals, so Emperor Charles elevated his best 3 leaders to be his generals for the upcoming campaigns. The question was not if he would fight, but when.


On January 22nd, 1424, Emperor Charles was in his throne room, practicing his imperial scowl in a full length mirror when a messenger from Tuscany came running in.

"Your Grace!"

Emperor Charles scowled.

The chamberlain stepped in and advised the messenger. "Please use the proper form of address, that is, His Most Imperious Majesty, Emperor Charles the Great, Duke of Anjou, Provence, Maine, Vlaandern, and Antwerpen."

"Uh, His Most Impervious Majesty, Emperor Charles the Great, Duke of Angina, Provence, Maine, Vlaamable, and Twerp, the Republic of Tuscany has been foully attacked by the Pope!"

The Emperor started to smile, but caught himself. He scowled even harder.


The Pope had made a critical error, as Milan, Sicily, Savoy, Provence, and other powers all rushed to defend Tuscany against the Pope and Mantua.


The Milanese got to Mantua first, but did not understand the first rule of war: the victor is not the first with the army, but the first with the diplomat. Mantua swore fealty to Emperor Charles, and soon became his ally.



Provence occupied Romagna, and Milan occupied Roma and Abrezzi...yet again Milan did not learn the lesson, and the Pope was forced to kneel before Emperor Charles. The Emperor was finding it hard to scowl and cackle maniacally at the same time.



On October 2, 1425, a messenger from Riga begged for help from Emperor Charles against the Teutonic Order. The messenger was shown a map, and invited to calculate the distance between Riga and Provence. However, the Emperor was not without pity: he offered to send his best diplomats...

Chapter 9: Showdown with France

Rather than wait for France to crush its ex-vassal, Charles decided to redirect the country's efforts from a National Trade Policy to Military Drill, even though that meant a large destabilizing effect - as Emperor, his lands would stabilize again quickly.


Once his armies had a chance to put their new Military Drilling to work, Charles declared war on May 1, 1426 on the Duke of Bourbon, from the claim he had pressed a few years prior.

The war involved Provence, Corsica, Lorraine, Saxony, Switzerland, Genoa, Mantua, and the Papacy against France, and the Duke of Bourbon. Charles had split his army into 3 armies of 11,000 cavalry, and a backup army of 6000 infantry for sieges. The armies each had an excellent general, and immediately set about hunting down every French troop they could find. The last battle was in Armagnac on February 2, 1428, after which the Imperial armies proceeded to besiege the entirety of the French countryside.

On February 1, 1430, the province of Caux threw off the shackles of the Valois dynasty, and defected to Provence, followed by Armagnac on July 5, 1431, and Rouergue on March 29, 1437. On February 2nd, 1438, France surrendered, handing over Othe, Vernadois, Normandie, and Dauphine, leaving Paris surrounded by the Emperor's holdings.






The Emperor had saved the Occitan people in Dauphine and humiliated France. In response to the surrounding of Paris, the French King relocated to Poitou. The Emperor knew that a great first step had been taken by forcing the Valois king to flee Paris.




Explanations:
* The easiest way to match and beat France is to take Military Drill NI, neutralizing the morale advantage that France would otherwise enjoy. Once you've done that, cavalry smites infantry. I started with 33K cavalry to their mixed army of around 40K.
* In IN 3.1, if you have less than 5 WE and your target has 15+ WE, their occupied provinces may defect. The MTTH is 300 months (25 years) with the event accelerating the target has different religion from the province, more than 1 badboy, or less than 0 prestige, -50 prestige, or 0 stability. Lucky nations take 5 times as long, though. This means that sometimes it's advantageous to just sit on a large country like France for a few years and shake a few extra provinces - here I got 3 extra provinces for 1 war.
* The entire war was fought with a baby in my lap, so screenshots are horribly lacking - and there are a few where I have no idea what I was thinking. Luckily, the save file helped me jog my memory.
* I had planned to take Ile de France in the next war, but now I can take other stuff too.

Chapter 10: During the war with France

During the Occupation of France, the Emperor was able to do quite a few important things.

Domestic:
In 1430, Provence established a National Bank, forsaking Military Drill. In 1434, after inflation had been brought down a bit, the National Trade Policy was resumed by closing the bank.

Rulers:
Charles III the Great passed away on October 1, 1433, leaving his great empire to Charles IV. However, the Corsicans cited "cultural differences" as an excuse to dissolve the Personal Union. Apparently, Corsicans are morbidly afraid of scowling. On June 12, 1436, Charles IV scared himself to death with a particularly scary scowl, and the kinder, gentler Charles V took the throne.




Wars:
Naples stupidly chose to attack Sicily, not realizing that the Imperial Cavalry was busy drinking French wine and chasing French women around in a patriotic attempt to sire little cavalrymen. They quickly rode to Italy and vassalized Naples and took Verona and Treviso from Venice.



Lithuania chose to attack Riga, similar to the Teutonic Order's failed attempt years early. Charles wasn't about to ride to Lithuania, but Bohemia joined Lithuania and dared send armies to attack the Emperor. That led to the occupation of Bohemia, and the loss of Franken, Sudety, and 1350 ducats.

Intermission #1

Status as of March 1, 1438:
Prestige: 46
Stability: 3
Treasury: 1551
Trade: 5 merchants in 8 COTs

Armies: 33K cavalry, 6K infantry
Navy: 2 cogs

Provinces (* for cores) (17): Provence*, Anjou*, Nevers, Vlaandern, Artois, Antwerpen, Treviso, Verona, Sudety, Franken, Rouergue, Caux, Armagnac, Normandie, Othe, Vermandois, Dauphine*
Vassals: Lorraine, Switzerland, Naples, Papal State, Mantua, Saxony
Uncontrolled cores: Maine, Bourbon

Other developments of note:
* Burgundy was forced to release Nevers as an OPM in Franche-Comte.
* Milan is an 8 province medium power.
* England took Moribhan and Finistiere from Brittany. France took Armor and Vendee.
* The Palatinate was eaten by Trier, Baden, and Bohemia. I took Franken back from Bohemia.

Update! Here's a map:

Middelkerke said:

Could you give us a map of europe? Its easier to understand the situation...

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Hopefully tonight I can have time without the baby to see if I have a save at this point so I can get a map of Europe. I thought I had one in screenshots, but I must have been delusional.

rasmus40 said:

This is a great AAR!

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Thank you!

You obviously know the game very well and take full advantage of your knowledge, which I expect is the only way to beat France. Still I'm very impressed by your achievements.

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To really take on the tough challenges, it helps to run a few test games to see how the AI ticks in your situation.

What problems do you face in the near future? I'm thinking BB, strong alliances etc.

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England has cores on me, and has good allies.
France is still strong enough that I could get unlucky and lose the next war.
Rebels are going to be a problem from here on out. During peace, they'lre probably no big deal, but I may lose a province or two during wars if I'm unlucky/uncareful.
There are no real strong alliances, and I'm not yet strong enough to get screwed too much with BB.

Do you plan on annexing some of your vassals if that's possible in spite of your BB, or will you just keep them around?

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Yes - I plan on annexing closeby or rich vassals. Taking Genoa as a vassal means I at least need to annex that for the CoT - the biggest problem is being at peace with appropriate relations and low enough badboy. That might take a bit.