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Feedback :

Dewirix : time will tell if this was a blessing or not :D

blsteen : i hope they will!

Range : the power of good sliders !

morningSIDEr : I got onmly one bigger neighbor , and this must be adressed

PrawnStar : thx

dsb3232 : i may go a little higher , but i don't often ignore forcelimits

ERTURKHAN : thx













chapter IV : time of conflicts

Our next head of state was Karl I , a moron in paperwork (3) but gifted in both diplomacy and military concerns (8)

Maybe he wasn't the brightest administrator , but he innoved where his predecessors overlooked : he set up several festivals , building up cultural tradition from the excess of magistrates. In early 1424, our allies in Holland requested our help in the reconquest of Utrecht , allied to Münster.
Karl used his silver tongue to convince the council of the necessity of helping our allies against Münster , forgetting to mention the fate of another bishopric , many catholic leaders would not go to war against their brothers.
Utrecht soon fell and was annexed to the growing power of Holland , and after three short battles , we annihilated the army of Münster , occupied them , and made them bow : they were now our vassals , though still at war with Holland , but they could not fight among themselves as neither has military access through Gelre , and eventually they settled a white peace.

At some time , Swiss rebels got defeated by Milan , took over Breigsau , tried to invade us but they were repelled , than seceded from Baden

The italian affairs were trickier , and in 1426 , the Lord of Milan asked for our help once again , but this time it was a defensive war , against Austria who had a claim somehow on Lombardia.
this war was long and the alps were the main theatre of operations : Holland quickly triumphed over Austria's allies , Epirus and Albania , with Milan getting a few ducats.
hopefully Austria had such weak and useless allies , as the Hapsburg amry outnumbered milanese one , fighting a dire war on harsh terrain.
We did our share of the work , negociating treaties of military access with the countried bordering Austria , and our army killed a lot of newly build regiments to prevent them frm reaching the main battles in Schweyz. after a while Austria's last ally gave up and signed a white peace , having done pretty much nothing in the was , but it was a huge relief having Hungary out of the war , now we had the feeling that we could win!
one of our scouts noticed a major battle between Milan and Austria stacks , each pretty depleted , and we joined to cut back the retreat from our enemies , routing them completely while they were fleeing.
thos battle decided the outcome of the war , and Austria agreed to pay a huge tribute to Milan , and they were to release the nation of Tyrol.

eu3500.jpg

take that , von hapsburgs ! 20 regiments were routed here

you can here wee the outcome , with Venice failing her mission to conquer Friuli to the armies of Bohemia , who strangely did not answer to the austro-hungarian partition of Aquilea

eu3505.jpg

if you look at this screen , you can notice that Savoy's army is trapped in Baden :D

In 1429 , we notice the Turks have onened a CoT in their capital , Edirne ... they usually go for thrace , but they apparently didn't want to wait to annex it first :D so we send our merchants there , we also hire a four star trader to improve our compete chance

in the end of 1429 , Karl centralize the country a bit more , and he got a pretender too , but this time burgundy would not come to our help .
We lose the first battle , but after waiting a few months to get back to full strength , we beated the pretender army , then chased it until oblivion

In 1431 Milan again declared war upon Sardinia , Karl used the same tactic as before , not bothering to send troops as we had no boats.however this time Holland was on our side and they sailed into the mediterranean, landed an army and annexed the island! the lord of Milan was furious , but there was nothing he could do , having his fleet hiding in the docks the whole time ...
 
Holland seems like a go getter...I always like the idea of expeditonary forces sailing for months to conquer some territory far far away. Although it always makes more sense to me for the NEuropeans to be grabbing vacation spots in the Med than say the Ottomans taking Iceland(saw that once and shook my head)
 
In 1429 , we notice the Turks have onened a CoT in their capital , Edirne ... they usually go for thrace , but they apparently didn't want to wait to annex it first :D so we send our merchants there , we also hire a four star trader to improve our compete chance

An archbishop trading with the heathens!

Good work destroying the Austrian army like that. Any chance of snatching Breisgau off the Swiss, or are they all allied-up now?

Is the plan to diplo-annex Münster?
 
Excellent stuff regarding the fighting against Austria. Stopping them growing any larger has to be of great importance for Alsace. The last screenshot shows a very healthy treasury, I rather hope the stack of ducats will be used to unleash a veritable horde from Alsace at some point!
 
Holland seems like a go getter...I always like the idea of expeditonary forces sailing for months to conquer some territory far far away. Although it always makes more sense to me for the NEuropeans to be grabbing vacation spots in the Med than say the Ottomans taking Iceland(saw that once and shook my head)

For sure - that's a very active Holland!

Interested to see which way Alsace goes from here, especially if you aren't planning on exceeding your force limits too badly :)
 
FEEDBACK :

blsteen : they are aggressive here , and will land here and there ^^

Dewirix : yes it is , but not before God asks us to do it :D

morningSIDEr : this won't occur for now , i'm afraid ... maybe i should have !

dsb3232 : the force limits are tights , but i won't go over for now :D

i've had some connexion problems , but i will get back the 2nd of October , i enjoy some late september holidays ^^







chapter V : the italian crusade

a short update as i'm far from home ^^

in 1433 , Milan started what will be called the great italian war ...
the cost to help our ally was prohibitive , but we could declare on their ally , Naxos.
While Milan was at war only against Venice and Naxos , my declaration added virtually all of Italia to our opponents :D (except Modena-Ferrara)

Karl wasn't sure why , but he expected the stability to drop a bit to +2 , but it dropped all the way to 0 , the Pope surely had more influence on us than expected ^^

eu3515.jpg


Genoa in retaliation broke our trade rights , and expelled us from their league!

After some discussions and many heated debates , the dominant position was that we could not depend on the coastal trading powers : with the exception of Paris , every center of trade was coastal , and they did not care for the hundred of km the central producers had to do.

The decision was taken to create our own center , to get rid of their influence , and maybe to try to have some of our own , then we enacted the statute of monopolies , so we favored free trade the most efficient way we could.

Our army marched south , and our siege of Romagna was almost successful when it was lifted by a Napolitan army , and the second attempt of the siege met the Pisans who got rid of their rebel problem in the meantime :

eu3519.jpg


With our army destroyed and the ennemies victorious , it took some time , but we had to admit defeat and peace came again

shortly after war , KArl was able to re-use the bishopric trick and claimed both Metz and Lothringen , claiming that Burgundy had no legal claims over these lands , but Karl lacked the might to enforce these , even with our loyal vassal and allies a wr seemed a very risky gamble

Karl atoned for its sins by bribing a few cardinals , restoring our papal relation over 150 , and sending a few gifts to his wealthy neighbor , accomplishing two divine missions , but the coffers were almost empty after that generosity and the reconstruction of the army , who was now of 6000 men , one of the advantages of our tiny center of trade , its zone of influence wasn't that big but it had the merit to exist.

eu3521.jpg
 
The new centre of trade must be doing good things for your income, even if you need to mint to get at most of it.

Bad luck with the war, but at least you manage to escape intact after losing all your army. I doubt you'd have been so merciful to the AI!

A new and bigger army must mean the archbishop is planning something!
 
The CoT is nice, but the lost war could prove costly, perhaps getting troops before a CoT would have been better. Thats why I always favour warfare over trading!
 
FEEDBACK :

Dewirix : the AI could not reach me , and id they could they would have to beat Milan to do so :D

morningSIDEr : this one isn't a 'conquer everything as fast as i can' game ;)

blsteen : good soldiers only get me gold if the neighbors are wealthy enough to have some when they are willing to condede defeat to end the war :D
and gold brings me good soldiers , not because my sliders are optimized for that , but because we are ahead of our rivals in land and other technologies :)

It's time to get back at this , as i returned home ^^


chapter VI : Konrad the great

14 November 1440 Karl passed away and the council chose a warmonger to be our new archbishop : Konrad IV
while he lacked some administrative and diplomatic skills (4 and 5) he was a great leader , loved by his men , feared by his ennemies ( 8 )

about a year after , some political crisis occured , the army didn't like the nex center of trade and the merchants going everywere to smuggle wine and other products

But the army would not lay here unoccupied for much longer as we recieved a gerald from the king of Holland , requesting our help against Frisia and their brabantian allies.Obviously we agreed and the army marched north , to Braant , as Holland was occupied besieging Friesland

Brabant assumed leadership , but their pride led to their downfall as Frisia soon fell and was annexed but they were occupied by then , and their kingdom was divided between its two ennemies : Alsace would get Limburg and 40 ducats , where Holland gets Breda

eu3535.jpg


following this war , Holland felt strong enough and declared itself as the protector or the Dutch , the Netherlands , and by that move claimed vast swathes of land , including Limburg and most of northen Burgundy

Konrad hired a great diplomat , and our great diplomacy was recognized at european level , most courts of the empire and western europe agreed that fighting was needed , and our infamy dropped by half , accompanied with the promise to cede Limbourg at a later date.
We took advantage of this diplomatic feat, and accepted an alliance with the king of France , we now have three allies against the big purple blob :D

(screen2)

In 1445 , the Netherlands started another war to free the people of Gelre , this time allied with Brunswick.
Nothing special to add about that war , Gelre soon fell and was incorporated into the united provinces , and Brunswick swore allegance to Konrad , we now had two vassals in northern Germany

In 1446 , a few days after the subjugation of Brunswick , a request from our new ally arrived , against his former rebellious vassals , who took advantage the defeat against Burgundy to gain independance!
A strong France is preferable if we want to preserve the balance of power in Europe so we send our army , for the time upgraded to 10000 men to their aid
We decide not to reclaim lothringen for the moment , and our next divine mission is to conquer Ancona , but we can't do that for the moment as we have a truce with them

the war for the restauration of France is fought between two alliances : France itself , with her allies Aragon (greatly weackened by Castille) and Alsace , against the league of former vassals , led by guyenne (3 provinces ) , with also Champagne (3 provinces , strongest enemy army filled) , Auvergne ( 2provinces ) and Orleans ( OPM )
the war mainly consists in helping France , we chased and beated Auvergne and Orléans armies , then got defeated by the main Champagnian stack , who later got annihiilated by main Franch stack , then disturbing Champagne recruiting of a backup army , racking huge army tradition in the process , as well as some war exaustion as our people did not understood why we were fighting against foreigners for foreigners.

when victory was clearly ours , we negociated a white peace with Guyenne , and France did a few months after us , having greatly recovered from the past chaos , mainly thanks to our brave troops who lifted a great number of enemy sieges against French places. Orléans was annexed back into the fold, Auvergne lost Poitou , Guyenne lost Gascogne and Champagne reduced to OPM status.

some trouble occured when , during the french campaugn , Konrad died in battle , to be replaced by Karl II , an administrator archbishop

eu3549.jpg

still a mess there , but bluer
 
So are you up to three provinces now? I'm not too sure about the 'strong France' policy you seem to be pursuing, but it will certainly keep things interesting.

I have to say I like the policy of slow expansion in this AAR. I tend to be very opportunistic and not sufficiently confident in my own abilities that I grab whatever is on offer when I can.
 
Hopefully France will prove a grateful ally, and not instead bring you into her loving embrace at a later point! Its a good idea though, as if she is a good ally, then she should offer you enough security to the west to allow you to expand further into Germany/Italy.
 
FEEDBACK :



Van5 : thx

Dewirix : The goal is to have , whenever it's possible , roughly equivalent nations to prevent one to become too strong. Here i don't want Castille or Burgundy to expand further , and they will help for the (re- )conquest of Lothringen. and I have 4 provinces at this point , maybe unfortunately , there will be some more opportunistic moves in the future :D

morningSIDEr : they are a powerful but fickle companion :D




chapter VII : warmonger




During summer 1449 , preparations were made to free the people of Ancona from their masters of Pisa , and some umbrian rebels were bribed for 30 ducats so they don't revolt against us for the time

In September war was declared against Pisa , the army was ready in Romagna , and the Pisan army recklessely assaulted our position , and while 89 of our 10000 men died , 3278 of the 11000 attackers perished!
they were then chased into oblivion , their provinces occupied , their ally Naples white peaced , seeing the desperate situation and facing a nderlandese landing

During the war , a new idea slowly rose , the military training was so good our troops were said to be 'drilled'. With all those events the Archbishop reputation was tarnished , as he was accused of being a powermonger, while he only answered some call of arms and seek to recover Lothringen ,while accomplishing some divine and papal missions , and some unrest occured

the stability dropped , and we hired a three-star artist , and a five-star diplomat to improve our standing!

facing our mighty alliance , the Pisans soon suffered a major defeat (though allied troops were to be seen except the dutch landing at the south of the boot ) and the peace deal was harsh for them , though they were not annexed , they had to cede Firenze and Ancona plus paying 118 ducats, tripling our italian possessions.

The emperor threatened to double the sanctions against us as we just conquered another imperal province without any legal claim for it.
We sold Limburg to the netherlands for another 120 ducats , they were here rewarded by recovering one of their national provinces for their not-so-helpful help , but their friendship and troops would be much needed just later!

God , or the Pope , i don't know for sure , was ironic because our next mission was to crush Pisa by vassalizing them! and umbrian became an accepted culture as well.

our next move will be to oppotrunistically dclare a reconquest war on maybe the mightiest western power , who just fought a fruitless war against England , along with her allies :D


edit : thanks for the fan of the week , i forgot to mention it , i got a MP saying it (or else i likely wouldn't had noticed ) i will do that tomorrow , well later on the same day now :D
 
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Just in case you don't know yet, as you are apparently not long home again: You've been named Fan of the Week almost a week ago. Congrats again! Don't forget to pick a new one this weekend or monday/tuesday at the latest if possible!
 
Very nice gains with regards to annexing rich Italian land. Your next more against the foremost western power seems very bold if not foolhardy! Although I am sure it is destined for success, Alsace clearly has God on her side.
 
You're going up against France?

Good luck with that - I hope they've been properly beaten in this war, but the "mightiest western power" thing makes me suspect otherwise.

Unless of course you meant Castille, but where would be the fun in that?
 
feedback :​

this one was quite long in fact ^^ next part the weekend i think ;)


morningSIDEr : we had God on our side , at least at two critical moments !

Dewirix : no i'm not going up against France or Castille , but against Burgundy !!




chapter VIII : warmonger , part II


So ... how is it looking?
-allies , OK : we've got Milan , France , Netherlands and our ally Müntser
-finances OK , we got about 250 ducats out of our last campaign
-army OK , we are now at 150% of our forcelimits

eu3563.png


Archbishop , i got great news : they all joined our crusade!

the battle plas is this one : crush Baden and Savoy army which , for some reason , is stationned in Baden , let one regiment siege this burgundian vassal
occupy Metz and storm the citadel of Lothringen (Metz fortifications are a shadow of what they once were , due to the offensive burgundian doctrine) , and try not to fight the biggest enemy stacks , while trying to root/disturb the little ones , so they don't have time to merge into doomstacks

God was clearly on our side as when the front was starting to look grim facing one of the main burgundian stacks on Metz and about the battle , the lowlands were overrun by the french and the dutch , and the milanese forces were ealing with Savoy , a moderate peace was sent to the burgundian king where he lost only the disputed area ad a small peace token. This peace would hurt the burgundians a lot as they were almost accepted as legitimate rulers of Lorraine , some lords were ready to pledge allegiance to them in a few years time

eu3564.png


With this , the relations with our big western neighbor were sour again , but people was confident in the future , and we even accepted the burgundian culture ^^ , and the Metz fortifications were rebuilt.
In 1455 we favored artisanate , and started to build workshops around the bishopric , and we see here the French fight the Castillans for some puny reason , to revert to status quo after some fighting

eu3567.png


But those good times , with stable allies and easy wars ended in 1457 when we started our subjugation of Pisa.
the war went smoothly , with Pisa subjugated and Ferrara taken back into the empire from Naples , where the emperor and locals granted us the legal ownership of the province , but both France and Milan dishonored the alliance.
a high ranked statesman ws hired , but the problems really arose with the newly added goal to vassalize switzerland , who relocated in the southern Baden province

We followed the Netherlands in their war to vassalize Oldenburg , and took advantage of that to vassalize Thuringia.
In 1458 we formalized the scales and measures between our rhenan heartland and italian possessions , and as a result gained some production effiency.
a border dispute arose in march 1459 about the surrounding of Pfalz , some palatine nobles seeing Franken occupied by Bavaria preferred to join Alsace than Bavaria!

eu3584.png


an alliance was signed with England , and of all allies , only Bavaria dishonored the enemy side , which is fortunate as they are the very powerful emperor , but the Netherlands dishonored in our side too :/

Naples is the leader of the enemy alliance , composed of the papal states , the palatinate and some OPM in the empire , saxony.
after a quick war , the palatine nobles agreed to join our country , and to give us the former royal treasury (275 ducats).The pope is left easy , and we agree to a white peace with him after crushing his army , and Naples is stripped of its other imperial province , Modena , who happily join ouritalian territory and collection of universities , not so bad for a very narrowminded state as we are closely following the dictrines of the church!

the problems would come in 1461 s we returned the favor to England , and helped them in their reconquest of Picardie against Burgundy ...
unfortunately , if the small burgundian allies pose no threat , the emperor decided to intervene and was leading a vast and mighty army. The plan here is .. to not lose , we keep our armies home and try to crush invaders , while diverting two or three regiments to occupy Baden and Trier.
But the emperor is simply too strong and was starting to overrun our forces , our ranks were depleted , and as they moved to retake Baden we quickly assaulted back Pfalz.
Then , after two long years of war , we could at least make peace , conceding defeat to Bohemia , saying that we were fooled by England in honouring our alliance with them , as they honoured it when we called them earlier...
We were at peace again , but if the coffers were filled , nobody was left to hire in the bishopric , and our war exaustion was quite high too , all that for England who failed her recnquest , they even gave Calaid to Burgundy to make peace some months after we could find our way out of this war!

eu3592.png


well , sometimes in this chaos one of our army leaders , general Rudolf , subjugated Switzerland by himself! her ally Austri was having trouble with Bavaria and Croatia and such , we were at war technically against them for a few months but Rudolf declared that no Austrians were ever seen or fought , whild we were at war against Bohemia and Burgundy!
the Archbishop was furious to learn that , but as we achieved victory in this little war the punishment was moderate , and Rudolf was sent to protect the border with the papal state , that was a bit hard as apparently we were at war against Milan at some point and they revoked our military access , and would of course not renew it!

his last campaign was to subjugate the northern minors of Mainz and Trier , at least we wouldn't fight them anymore , but the Pope was at war once again against us , and this time as had some border dispute on our territory he would not white peace with us , even when we steamrolled his german allies! Milan would not let us pass through her territory , and our navy , consisting of three cogs was sunk by papal galleys when Ancona fell

the 23 october 1466 the archbishop died , letting a somewhat difficult situation in the south


edit : where the F*** are my screens? i can see them briefly before they vanish!

edit2 : i've found it , fixed!
 
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Wow, you've really gone for it this time. Nice work standing up to Burgundy and the Emperor. I'd consider a concession of defeat a win under the circumstances.

If you can't get military access from Milan you could be in a bit of trouble. I suppose you could always go to war with them, but that seems a bit extreme.

Not sure what's going on with the pictures either. The updates at the top of the page look fine.