Marching around Europe, Milan DW AAR

Chapter Uno
Part I
October 1399 - January 1405

Map of the land
The lands of our lord stretches from the Lombard core region in northern Italy to Siena and Pisa (non core).



October
Hiring of advisers for the King. Land tech and stability advisers acquired at a net cost of 9 ducats.
Discussion began on the topic of policy change for Milan. It was decided to increase the general level of quality of our armies. 10 years till next change.
Five divisions of infantry were raised in the core region of Lombardy.
Diplomats dispatched to claim Mantua as our sphere of influence, proclaim a guarantee on Ferara and to ally Switzerland, Savoy and Urbino.
Rebellion at Pisa and a casus beli possibility on Sardinia via Savoy.

November
Savoy requests assistance versus Sardinia. Request accepted.

December
Royal Marriage arranged with Wuttermburg

1400
February
Battle at Pisa

April
Battle of Pisa is lost. Victory in the Liguraian sea with Savoyard allies.

Latin knight division ordered to reinforce our infantry based army.

May
Aragonese armies land at Sardinia, pre-empting Savoyard and Milanese units in a separate war with Sardinia.

July
Pisan nationalists successful at the siege of Pisa.

October
Landed 2 infantry divisions on Sardinia. Royal marriages with Bar and Lorraine, this left us wondering whether it was Switzerland, Burgundy or Austria that these two powers are trying to use us as a counter weight to.

1401
January
New Bohemian Holy Roman Emperor is elected.

February
Pisa stormed by Milanese divisions. Stability level increases to 3.

April
Declared war on Ragusa, utilising the "ally" casus beli. I wasn't interested in Ragusa itself, beyond perhaps as a vassal. We did however note that Aquilea was an ally of Ragusa which hopefully will allow us to draw them into the war. Aquilea bites the bait and leads the war against us with Ragusa and Achea.

June
Our armies gathered at Verona and marched on the Aquilean capital of Fruili

July

Battle of Fruili, Aquilean army chased and slaughtered at Gorz.

August
Due to our destruction of their army, Aquilea pleads with her allies to enter the fray. The original Raguan-Milanese war has now widened with Aragon, Sicily, Navarra, Aquilea and Achea arrayed against us. To spread out the enemy armies, we called our Savoyard allies into the war providing the enemy alliance with an alternative landing site for invasions. 4 knightly divisions ordered and loans taken to fund this martial expansion.

October
Battles with Achea over Siena and Pisa. Aragon lands 6,000 men and our 2,000 knights withdraw through neutral lands to the lombard region to await the reinforcement of 4 more divisions. Meanwhile, our 10,000 infantry are leading sieges in Aquilea with all their provinces under siege.

1402

March

Killed 3,000 scilians and 2,000 aquilieans in battles at Fruili and in the Lombard region. Aragon lands a further 5,000 soldiers after our battles were successful. As these landed at the Lombard region rather than Pisa, we joined forces with the Savoyards and anhaliated them.

May
Beauracy expanded.

September
Pisa has fallen! Aragon now controls the province.

1403
August
Siena has fallen! Sicily now controls the province.

1404
January
Fruili, Istra, Gorz and Krain have fallen to our armies. Gorz and Krain are annexed due to their gold holdings. We would of preferred to vassalise Aquilea, it was however in a state of war with Austria, Hungary, Venezia and others. Because of this, we judged that a vassal aquilea will lose all its lands before it managed to peace their enemies, especially given as we had obliterated their armies. Our hand was forced, 8 infamy and +0.5 infamy change due to unlawful lands.




1405
January
Peace with Aragon.

Chapter Uno
Part II
February 1405 - December 1410

1405
March
Supported Florentine school event to lower BB rating, which had a large +change modifier from 4 unlawful provinces.
Noted Venice is at war with Bohemia and Aragon.

June


Semper fi, my soldiers! This was an expensive event, however I did it out of honour and the province in question was Cremona, which I expect to hold onto until we're either defeated or 1800, so it will give payback over a long period.

1406
January
Our chancellor informed us of the unsustainability of our deficit. Decision made to increase minting to 0.15 inflation per year.
August


Prepared for war with Burgundy, which had large armies occupying Savoy. Felt deeply concerned about the possibility of seeing several Savoyard provinces in Burgundian-French hands. Decided to call off the war declaration after examining Burgundy's non-existent expansion in the north. I need a strong Burgundy to slow down France, more then I need one or two Savoyard provinces so I decided to let the matter rest.

1408
March
National idea, National bank. More necessary for warring than military drill in my view.

1409
October
Released Pisa and Sienna to vassal states. This reduced our BB rating and also the monthly change had a decrease of -0.5 which was a good bonus for us. It was either that or face diplomatic stagnation. We will get cores on these provinces once Italy is formed, so the loss is smaller than it first appears. We have essentially traded Pisa and Siena for Krain and Gorz. A good deal.

1410
Februrary
Cancelled alliance with Urbino.
March
Declared war with Urbino. The Papal state joins Urbino's defence. However it is currently neutered as both Rome and Romangua are under siege from the Danes and Norwegians. This gave us the opportunity to simply march our armies to join the sieges and out-wait the Danish-Papal peace treaty before we start our own siege.
April
Gold is the sign of nobility event, we sold some noble titles for +1 plutocracy and 100 ducats. Well it is true, gold is indeed noble.
August
Policy slider, +1 quality.
December
Overview of Italian peninsula. Our armies are in Romangua, Rome and Anacona.

Chapter Due
Part I
January 1411 - August 1415

1411
February
Cancelled mission 'make Bohemia vote for us'. Got given a new, much more useful one "subjugate Mantua". Unfortunately, Mantua is embroiled in a war with Ferara.
September
Cancelled military access through Firenze.
October
Declared war with Firenze, the defenders of Romagna and Anacona have fallen, our forces from these sieges are moved into Firenze.

1412
September
Papal states annexed. Urbino vassilised.

1413
July
Firenze vassilised.
September
Noted a new pope, they are now based at Avingnon.

1414
April
Austria declares a war of honour as part of a fearsome alliance with the Venetians and Hungarians. This is a serious problem that is exacerbated by poor army positioning. Half my army is located in Gorz and separated by the other half in Pisa, by the Venetian and Austrian lands, with the Hungarians to the south of this enclave. The Hungarians attempt to slaughter this army, but I manage to retreat it through the alps by waiting for the Austrian armies to cross into the Lombardia region, then crossing the Austrian alps into the Swiss alps. By keeping this army alive I managed to avoid disaster as the Pisian half was chased down and destroyed after battle at Bresica.



3x Latin knights ordered.

October
We managed to defeat the Austrian army responsible for the demise of the Pisian army, by merging the new knights into the Gorz army. However, 20,000 enemy units were at Verona and more in Gorz-Krain. The Hungarians have successfully sieged Krain, but Austria was the leader of the alliance. I decided to make terms with the Austrians, that we cede Krain.



A poisonous gift for Hungarian-Austrian relations as they will now compete directly for control of this Austrian culture, gold province. Part of the motivation for taking Krain was keeping it out of Austrian hands, so I felt this peace was consistent with our strategic objectives and will hopefully fracture the extremely powerful hungarian-venetian-austrian triad.

1415
August


Subjugtion CB on Mantua activated after we noted a Savoyard army crossing Swiss lands to the north. Savoy and Sicily are allies of Mantua and declare war to defend Mantua. However the Savoyard army is in Burgundy fighting a different war with them. In response, a small force of Milanese units move to siege Mantua with the rest moving to Piedmont. I noted that with the -2 infamy from vassilising Mantua (provided we can pull it off of course) we will have enough infamy left to vassilise Savoy. A highly enticing prospect given my near financial bankruptcy (never recovered from a loan I took on earlier, costs 13 ducats a year and I make 20 ducats a year on +3 stability).

Chapter Due
Part II
September 1415 - December 1420

1416
January
We called Switzerland into our war vs Savoy, Sicily and Mantua. This will ensure that the Savoyard army will not be making its way back from Burgundy.
March
Aragon and Britanny are brought into the war by Sicily. Aragon the new enemy war leader.
October



We have vassilised Mantua.

1418
January
Success in Savoy, three of its four provinces are under our occupation. However one remained under Burgundian occupation so we're to wait out their peace treaty. Soon, Burgundy obliged. We also ordered 3 x inf and 1 x cav to begin rebuilding the Pisan army that was tragically lost in Bresica-Cremona to the Austrians. 16/30 force limit.
March
We conceded defeat to Sicily and Britanny, as the enemy army attacking us reached a 15 big stack at Pisa.
June



Vassilised Savoy. Conceded defeat to Aragon despite having a +14% warscore as it wasn't worth continuing the war with our objectives completed.

1419
February
Hired a -0.25 infamy adviser.
May
Formal request for Gorz from the Bohemian Emperor. Respectfully declined.
November
War between Venice and Hungary, this may offer opportunities.

1420
September
The King of Austria was elected Holy Roman Emperor, driving fear into our hearts.
December
The Kingdom of Milan and her vassals

Ashantai said:

A nice start! Unusual to see a Milanese AAR which isn't Sforza!

I'll be interested to see where you take this.

If I might suggest...can you make the pictures a bit larger? As it is it's hard to see the text in the pictures.

Click to expand...

I've increased the size in the new updates to 17" which appears to be as large as tinypic goes, hope that's clearer. Hopefully it'll be interesting, it's not a WC game however

Edit: Just noticed that it's the forum shrinking the images. Right click on them to copy url, paste it into a tab and you can see a larger version of the forum image.

blsteen said:

Interesting, your taking advantage of opportunities but your financial situation seems to be...messy. Like Italy.

Click to expand...

Yup, it's hurting me a lot more than anything else. I've managed to get annual vassal income upto 60 ducats now so I may just mint until I can pay off the principal of the loan. Will lead to a quiet next 10 years, but I do need to assimilate current advances.


Thanks for reading guys

President_Eden said:

Just an advance warning - you'll need those provinces, with cores, to form Italy in the first place. You'll be able to annex them diplomatically pretty easily (hopefully) when you're ready, but don't count on forming Italy and then annexing outright.

Interesting start; you play a much more active Milan than I do in the early going. I usually snatch up Florence, Ancona and Rome and make quiet moves toward Free Trade before forming Italy and going on reconquest missions.

Click to expand...

Damn, didn't realise that. Thankfully it's just Siena and not Pisa. This sets the date for the formation of Italy as around 1500 as I have Anacona&Firenze&Siena to diploannex + 50 year wait. Thanks for the tip, wouldn't of spotted it otherwise

Chaper Tre
January 1421- December 1430

1421
September
Paid off the loan by minting +1 inflation. Slider option to add +1 centralisation. This is the key issue behind our economic weakness, as it was on max decentralisation before our move. Triggered 14 rebel divisions, dealt with.

1422
May
Cancelled a vote for us, HRE mission and got subjugate Ferara, much to our glee.

1423
January
Diplo-annex on Urbino (anacona)
May
Dissolved our alliance with Ferara
June



War declared. War with Naples, Genoa, Ferara, Modena, Sicily and Provence (subjugate CB)
August
Milanese armies are sieging Ferara, Modena and Liguria (belonging to Genoa, COT province)
A level 5 master of the mint is ordered via our culture screen and replaces our land tech adviser.

1424
March
Vassilised Genoa. This will hopefully fill up our coffers as it's a trading league leader.

1425
February
Rome fallen to the Napalese armies. Ferara vassilised later in the month.
March
Modena vassilised as their defences fall.
June
White peace with Naples. We no longer had free BB to pursue further aggression.
November
Warned by Venice

1426
Februrary
Rejoined the Genoese trading league, after our expulsion during the war.

1427
January
4x Infantry ordered.
June
Noted, with a smug grin it must be confessed, an Autrian-Hungarian war over Krain.

1428
January
6xInf ordered. This has largely rebuilt our losses of the Pisian army in the defensive war vs Austria&Venice&Hungary. We do remain substantially below our forcelimit of 40 (~28).

1430
October
Alliance with Burgundy. We have few venues for action due to rival state alliances interlocking heavily, very difficult for us to get a war that doesn't involve Austria, the Holy Roman Emperor. Sent out some warnings and hopefully Burgundy will drop an alliance CB on our lap soon.



As you can see, our job in northern Italy is essentially complete except for some rogue lands under Venetian suzerainty. We closed down some of the economic gap whilst training the new infantry divisions. Managed 7 developments of economic tier 1 buildings.

Chapter Quattro
January 1431 - April 1442

1431
March
We insulted Naples
October



Burdungian call to arms Vs utretch, munster and Brunswick. We march to war with the Burgundian armies, or rather informed their diplomats that we considered ourselves at war with such, but our armies carried on drinking wine and making whores rich.

1432
August
+1 centralisation, triggered a massive rebellion in two provinces totalling 18 divisions.

1432
December
Bohemian Emperor elected, collective sigh of relief across Milanese Lombardy.

1433
February
Declaration of war on Milan by Venice "conquer Verona" with her allies Austria, Naples and Provence. Our allies rush to our defence, including Switzerland, Bohemia and Burgundy. Our armies totals are slightly higher, but the individual armies are smaller in size and scattered across the theatre whilst the enemy armies concentrate in Verona/Ferara region.
June
State of play



1434
July
We misjudged our ability to wipe out a Venetian Army of 8 divisions in Pisa. It managed to keep retreating and drawing us on towards the stacks of Austro-Venetian armies in northern Italy. Unfortunately, one army counter-attacked our pursuing units and in one swoop wiped out 28 divisions of Milanese armies. The cause was lost in this battle at Cremona, so we sued for peace by ceding Ferara (vassal) to Venice and releasing Modena. This reversed our earlier advances and left us in an extremely precarious position with no armies.

1435
April
Diploannexed Tuscany. Army rebuilding at 9 divisions.

1438
August
New King rises to the throne.

1439
December
Switzerland, Bavaria and Hungrary war Austria, Venice and Modena over Tirol. We joined our Swiss allies and marched forth. Our army is around 20 divisions at this point.

1441
November
Bavaria sues for peace with Austria, managing to claim minor revokation of core demands on Austria.

1442
April
Uncertain of how longer the Swiss war-leader will maintain the war and noting that many enemy armies have been wiped out, reducing the need for our continued participation in the war, we sued for peace and claimed Ferara from Venice.
A pleasant surprise was the Imperial Reconquest event, which granted us a core on Ferara as we recaptured part of the Empire from a non-imperial power. We now only need regain Modena in order to restore ourselves to our previous glory.

dragonizer said:

Got lucky with Ferara.
Their is a book about war and tatics by George Patton that is pretty good.

Click to expand...

Is there? I lose my armies due to the difficulty modifier on army morale. It will stop when I get military drill soon enough, probably will be the next NI I opt for

Yeah, Ferara is very nice. Was a good feeling, especially as my main current priority is ruling all the provinces of the Italian cultural area.

images will be added when steam cloud resumes normal service

Chapter Cinque
May 1442- February 1450

1443
January
Swiss victory in their war. The Austrian and Venetian states are smashed, perhaps not irrevocably but it is difficult to envisage their return to power. For Austria, she lost Styria. Venice lost Treviso and Fruili which were annexed by the Swiss, reducing its Italian presence to the province of Venezia only. This is a great victory for us and much of the Swiss victory was won by my vassals who continued fighting after my peace. Perhaps in the future Switzerland will take the place of Venice and Austria in opposing us, but for now we are largely freed of the threat of constraints by northern enemies.
August
+1 centralisation, triggers 15 divisions of rebels.

1444
June
Tirol has broken free from Austria, we begin moves to pull it into our sphere.

1446
February
Siena diplo-annexed. Countdown to the formation of Italy begins, 50 years hence.
April
Stability loss due to new king, has decent 7-8 diplomatic rating.
May
L'cest et moi? +1 centralisation
October
Offered the opportunity to press claims at Schwarz. Claims pressed.

1448
January
War declared on Naples and Venice by Milan. We aim to expand our non-Imperial holdings at the expense of Naples. This war will be easy for us in that neither force will be able to match our concentration of troops on the mainland of Italy, despite having similar sized armies overall. We're able to isolate and destroy 6,000 enemy soldiers at the beginning of hostilities in Calabria.
March
Switzerland declares war on Austria and Styria, with a subjugate CB on Styria. This growth of Swiss power is a concern, to keep them diplomatically friendly we join their war at their request, however we peace Austria at the first WP opportunity.

1450
Februrary
Peace with Naples (separate peace). We've acquired Apuila and Calabira. We were unable to press further claims or demand the release of sicily as our lack of a fleet limited our max warscore since we couldn't cross into Cosrica or Sicily. This is an issue we may be able to solve soon as our Ferarese core has greatly boosted our fleet force limits which now sit at 17. War continues with Venice, although we'll sue for a WP when it's available.

Chapter Sei
1450-1479

1450
May
Spotted the Venetian fleet out of position. Crossed into Venezia to take advantage of their absence.

1451
January
Peace with the Venetians. We demanded they uncore Verona, release Byzantium and Albania. This essentially broke the back of their power, especially the loss of Byzantium.

1452
January
Hired a level 6 diplomat to replace an adviser death.

1454
February
Gained a core on Gorz and +3 stability

1456
January
A Bohemian Emperor is elected.

1457
April
We declared war on Naples and marched to their lands with two large armies of 17 divisions apiece. Venice is fighting alongside them.
August
Defensive war with the Ottomans, we're defending Byzantium. We accepted the war leader role, however our armies or fleets will not be making an appearance.
October
Hungary had us excommunicated. A shiver of fear went through Milan as we began suspiciously assessing our neighbors.
November
Castille joined Naples in its defence against Milan. We made a separate peace with Naples to claim Calibria.

1458
Februrary
Vassilised Venice after over-running Venezia. Their warscore protection wasn't big enough due to our earlier damage on the power of their empire via Byzantium&Albania.
April
We conceded defeat to Castille, having taken Venice and Calibria we considered our objectives completed.

1459
June
White peace with the Ottomans after they annexed Byzantium. We're now at peace with everyone.

1460
October
Denmark inherited Norway and Sweden. A new great power has been born in the far north.

1462
October
Cores on Ramanga and Roma.

1464
March
8 cogs ordered to form the transport core of the next fleet. Holding off Carracks for now in the hope that naval tech will give us better ships soon.

1465
December
+1 troop quality slider

1466
June
3 x Carracks ordered. Looked at the naval tech and it was too far off to wait for advances.

1467
February
2 x Carracks

1469
November
Diploannexed Venezia, the demise of our hated rival brought cheers to the streets whilst the King insisted on accepting the scum Venetians on equal terms to the rest of his subjects.

1471
February
Switzerland broke our alliance. This struck us as a signal of intent and is probably a reaction to the final defeat of the Venetians as we had essentially secured our northern boarder with that act. It'll be back to the northern theatre to fight old wars with a new enemy soon.

1472
April
We declared war on Naples again. Nobody comes to her aid.

1474
October
Palmero and Messina annexed from Naples. I miscalculated and we're now 0.8 BB over our limit. Tried to release Mantua to reduce our BB below threshold but our prestige was too low to allow for it.

1475
July
Given the long decay time projected for the BB, I decided to go colonial and selected Quest for the New World as my new National Idea.
October
French-Milanese punitive war begins.
November
Albanian-Milanese punitive war begins.

1476
June
Progress during the wars



July
Swiss-Milanese punitive war begins.

1477
January
Lost 1/2 our army to France in a series of engagements that stunned us, despite the heavy weighting of factors in our favour. Sued for peace by offering to release Mantua as an independent state. This thankfully lowered our BB rating clear of the dishonourable threshold.

1478
January
Conceded defeat to the Albanians and Swiss. They accepted as the reality was our armies were defeating them.
May
Sent colonists to the Canaries.



November
Colonies at the Canaries, Maderia and the Azores. Surprising absence of Portugal at these locations, but their fleets were spotted off the coast of Africa.

1479
February
+1 troop quality slider
June
Proclaimed guarantees of independence on Morocco and Granada. Concerned about Portugal over-running Castille after Portugal inherited Aragon. I don't want to see an Iberian great power with colonies in North Africa.

dragonizer said:

Looks like alot of unpleasant neighboring countries to the north and west.

Click to expand...

Yes, the main concern is France. However with our new gateway islands for colonisation, in 50 years time our growth curve will turn exponential and so we'll be able to eclipse the power of France. In the meantime I'm trying to keep growth parity with them within Europe, it is difficult as it has superseded both Burgundy and Portugal in power which it will feed on.

I'm personally not a huge fan of colonisation as in my eyes, I'd rather be lord of Europe than master of lots of poor/weak countries. However the BB mechanic is forcing us out of Europe if we want to keep power parity.