Pope Dreams - An Avignon DW 5.1b AAR

Actually I always play in the default view because it looks nicer. I only change to the other views when I need to check something like religion or HRE provinces etc. By now I know where every country is anyway after playing the game so many times so I don't really need the colours on.
I have another update coming this evening (my time) which should be a little bit more interesting.

As promised to my valued readers, the much anticipated (?) update of this evening. I hope it will be slightly more engrossing than the first chapter. Also, I welcome any suggestions on style, or comments on what you would like me to talk about for each update. Currently I'm mostly thinking of using a short description from the PoV of the ruler or nation, along with my own comments on how/why I made certain decisions and how I plan to achieve my goals.

This update starts with the first in what was to be a long line of sheriffs from Avignon. The financial advisors came back from a market survey with data that showed a lack of sheriff supply and high demand in Europe, so I fired up the trusty sheriff machine and got to work. The machine seems to be able to convert magistrates into paintings and then paintings into sheriffs, which seems a little obtuse but I'm sure there are some good reasons for it. Personally I would have just made magistrates turn into sheriffs but maybe that is just me.


A few more sheriffs, senseless wars followed by white peace, a vote on the reichsreform of the hat society, and the realisation that protecting against fruit wasn't necessary (cancelled the 'protect against Berry' mission), I received a lovely bonus from my next move of the slider towards free trade. This would help me grow my economy so that I could have a chance of pulling of the dastardly plan I had been cooking up all game. Actually this is one of the very few times I have seen a good advisor spawn from a slider move. I consider myself lucky.


However, not everything was peachy in the land of Avignon, the peasants were getting uppity and so I decided to give them some freedom. Mainly because free peasants let me research better, and research was one thing I could do to help me achieve my lofty goals. In fact, I consider my state of Avignon to be pretty good for a Theocracy, it's not so narrow-minded and the people enjoy a greater degree of freedom than in the impostor Papal States. One thing I would fix when I have the chance.


Unfortunately, it seems like I was beaten to this by Morocco of all places. They had had enough of the impostor pope and decided to oust him from his holy seat. First time I've seen this happen this early in a game actually.


At this stage I had to cross my fingers and hope I didn't become the Papal States this early or I would have to start again, thankfully it didn't happen. Although, in this surprising turn of events it seems that the pope managed to escape the Moroccans and take refuge in Cologne of all places, even being promoted to elector of the holy hat club. The bad news for me is that Cologne was a vassal of Burgundy before the switch to the Papal States, which meant that I would have a harder time dealing with them later in the game.



Immediately following this I got an event that took me one towards innovative, because of the tech factor. Then something else quite out of the blue happened. Pardon the pun, which I'm sure you'll understand when you see the picture.


After a few more sheriffs, some nice events from good advisors, and a reform of military troops later, I decided to take a look at the income charts. Not too bad for an OPM 30 years into the game I think, although let me know if I'm wrong about this. I think the 6 star trader really helped me out in this game.


The very next year I moved the slider again towards free trade, gotta keep those ducats rolling in to fund my later expansion. I also got two rapid-fire defence slider gains in 3 years, putting me in a pretty good position in case somebody decided to try to knock the rightful pope off his French perch. However, the chance that I *thought* I had been waiting for finally arrived. Maybe I would be able to take advantage of this.


Another free trade move followed, along with some bad news from other parts of Europe. Apologies to all the Danes out there, and congratulations to the Swedes.


Aquileia soon went the way of Denmark.


At this point you may be thinking, well how is he going to expand? It's a good question, and a fair one. I can't go to war with France directly since they now surround me on all sides and would be able to annex me as soon as I look at them the wrong way. So I need a plan that was plausibly deniable. I needed spies.


I was hoping to just sneak Provence from underneath the French noses, but then something extraordinary occurred. France had been fighting Burgundy at this stage for a year or two, but clearly had the upper hand in the field and had taken much of the Burgundian territory. Milan seemed mighty provoked by this, as you will see in the next shot. Unluckily for France, Milan had also just been promoted to king of the holy hat club and so had an army to rival their own. A clash of the titans was about to start and I was hoping that I might just be able to steal a few pieces of land here and there in all the chaos.


While the battle was raging in the countryside, the true pope was safely hidden in his mighty castle, protected from the soldiers and fighting. In the next year or so I moved again to free trade, got another innovate event, and the sheriff machine was still coughing up it's valuable prizes. I decided to take this national idea so I could make the most of my not insignificant income in order to fund my admittedly expensive spy army.


I managed to find some men in the French countryside who agreed that Benedict was the true pope (or at least with the gold that said he was), and the rebel fuelled conquest of France begun.



Stay tuned tomorrow for the next exciting update on a story about love, hats, popes, rebels and sheriffs.

I hope you enjoyed this update, strange as it was. Many things I hadn't seen to often occurred in this game so I felt lucky. Maybe the game knew I was doing an AAR and felt like being kind.

Hi again everyone. Apologies for the reply being later than initially promised, I was much more busy with work than anticipated over the weekend so I was too tired to write something like this after getting home. I hope that this update makes up for it.

Last time we finished with the initiation of my rebel plan to take land from the French empire in a bid to overthrow them and create a theocratic France. To be honest I wasn't really sure what I could get out of funding rebels apart from a breakaway of smaller states near me that I might be able to annex. So I was a little surprised when this happened.


Two nearby provinces had decided to throw in their lot with the new leader of Avignon, Iohannes, and his fine target of establishing a French-based theocratic empire through Europe. To achieve this goal I took another step towards a centralised state, and made sure to standardise measurements. I knew that the rebels would not appreciate errors in the amount of gold I was giving them due to shoddy merchants with low quality scales.


It was at this time that the court received a report that Avignon was considered to be the richest nation in all the known world, capable of lavish displays of wealth such as a solid gold pope hat. Iohannes had it commissioned immediately.


In the next 5 or so years the rebel fervour and the desire of the people for a kingdom under god increased, and the surrounding cities signed their allegiance over to the one true pope of the catholic church.


However, the sudden surge in population had the serfs rioting, so Iohannes decided to increase their autonomy in the hopes that a happy populace would be more willing to do the work of god in the future.


Benedict's crafty ploy in southern France seemed to have become a hot topic in Europe, and the court of England decided to forward their best wishes and recognise Avignon and the true pope as a state worthy of an alliance with their own nation.


One final province entered the fold, and Avignon's destiny had truly begun. With riches to shame the Castilians and now enough manpower to field a worthy army, Benedict's original dreams were looking attainable. Centralising the state once again, this new situation called for an expansion of the army and an improvement in their training. The men of god would be vital in realising the fate laid before them.


A map was commissioned, in conjunction with some of the finest cartographers available in Europe, to display the name of Avignon and show the world that the pope would not settle for the barbarism and in-fighting so prominent in these lands.


As you can see, Milan is blobbing pretty significantly and they will be a strong opponent later in the game when I move to take Italy and Rome and form the Kingdom of God. In the meantime though, the next targets are the minors in southern France and the massive Burgundy to the north. As fortune would have it, the rising power Milan also wished to recognise my achievements and a letter of diplomatic alliance arrived by messenger.


Iohannes moved to advance the ways in which the one true faith was disseminated to the masses, and also received a strange report from the merchant city of Venezia about heresy. This was something he would no doubt have to remedy in the future.



In order to overthrow France and create a mighty kingdom Burgundy would need to be defeated on the field of battle, however reports indicated that this would be no easy task. Indeed, it seemed the Burgundian pretenders fielded the largest army in the world.


Unfortunately for the state, the pope Iohannes passed away in 1480, and Gregorius was elected to the position of the mouthpiece of god and inherited the goals of the previous popes in Avignon. It seemed that his prodigious skills in warfare would be useful against the vast hordes in Burgundy.


In preparation for battle, the newly risen Gregorius demanded a higher calibre of service from the soldiers of the nation, and his timing just happened to be impeccable as a frantic messenger arrived from the English court pleading for help against the Castilian menace. Game on.



No, I'm not totally crazy, Castile was actually at war with about 25 different nations when this happened. I just saw a good chance to stifle their growth and make sure that I had less opposition coming from the south in preparation for the inevitable conflict with the massive Burgundy. Stay tuned next time to see the first real war as Avignon, with a surprising twist to follow.

No statute of monopolies yet, that comes in a bit later on. I agree though that free trade is pretty ridiculous. You should see how much money I have later though. I've actually got another 2-3 updates worth of material I could post but I don't want to just dump it all at once. On the other hand I do want to continue playing the game. I should be able to update every day for the next few days at least and then start playing again though.