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Table of content

1444 AD - 1449 AD
1450 AD -1457 AD
1457 AD - 1459 AD
1460 AD - 1469 AD
1470 AD - 1479 AD
1480 AD - 1489 AD

Holy Roman Empire slideshow (10-years interval)

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Austria, 1444 AD - 1449 AD

11 November 1444
We’ll be playing as Austria. Austria starts as the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. According to google Austria’s motto is: “Austriae est imperare orbi universo “. Roughly translated it means: “It is up to Austria to rule the world”. Well…….Let’s hope so. But I highly doubt it.
Not over a century ago (irl) there was a ruler who was a born Austrian and had…..similar ideas. It didn’t end too well for him. But we won’t let that stop us. We shall try a more diplomatic approach than he did. Our goal will mainly be to unite the Holy Roman Empire into one country and stay alive. We shall be playing ironman so fingers crossed.

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Austria is fairly well loved by their imperial electors. Only Bohemia doesn’t because they are our rival. And that will probably only get worse in the foreseeable future.

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At the start of the game Hungary, Burgundy and Bohemia are set as my rivals. I expect that Burgundy will be preoccupied with France. So Bohemia and Hungary will be the most prominent threats for now. We will rival Bohemia and Hungary from the start. To get a good amount of power projection we’ll also rival Burgundy.

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An alliance with Poland might help us put some extra pressure on Bohemia and Hungary in case of a future war.
Venice might also be helpful against Hungary. They are rivals with Hungary so certainly something to gain for us there.
The final alliance will be Switzerland. The main reason is that they are in between the biggest part of Austria and a more remote.
That will leave us two relations we are not using. Suggestions are most welcome!!!

So let’s start this!!!

Anno 1444

12 November 1444 : Poland accepted to join an alliance with our great nation.
2 December 1444 : Venice sent a diplomat to improve relations with our people.
8 December 1444 : Our diplomat Adolf had to convince Switzerland a bit. Using his immense charismatic skills he managed to make Switzerland accept an alliance with us. I bet he uses another surname as his stagename.

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13 December 1444 : Not much luck with Venice yet. Our people are not convinced we should form an alliance with them. Hopefully the Venetian representative can change their minds. Or will the people realize the enemy of our enemy Hungary should be our friend eventually??? We made it our primary goal to form an alliance with them today. If we make it happen we should be regarded more prestigious and have more diplomatic power.

Anno 1445

22 Januari, 1445 : After a request from Poland we accepted a royal marriage with our noble allies. What will this bring in the future?
10 March, 1445 : After the hard work from the Venetian diplomat our people finally realized there is nothing wrong with forming an alliance with the Venetians. May today go into history as the day on which Austria and Venice created the foundation of a long and mutually profitable cooperation.
11 March, 1445 : Our advisors suggested we should improve our relations with Saxony, one of the imperial electors.
10 April, 1445 : Our nation has closely taken a look on the actions of our rival Hungary. Hungary has been forging some dangerous alliances. Those alliances threaten us and our ally Poland. Something has to be done!!! To prevent an attack from Hungary we decided to try and ally ourselves with their ally, The Teutonic Order. This should decrease the chances of Hungary attacking us. And even if they do The Teutonic Order will probably side with us. On the other hand it would mean we cannot attack Hungary while keeping the alliance in place. The Teutonic Order shares borders with Bohemia, our other rival. They might be helpful after all…. Now let s hope we can get that alliance arranged sometime soon. At the moment our people do not think much of each other, so there is work to be done. We will do our part and raise their populations opinion of our country. Let’s hope they do the same…..

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Anno 1446​

1 March, 1446 : Tensions along our borders with Hungary have given us a claim on one of their provinces, Sopron. Should we attack??? Do we even have enough military power to attack them???
9 March, 1446 : The tension between Bohemia and The Teutonic Order has made the people of the Teutonic order see reason to form a military alliance with us!!! The pieces are set. The time for a war with Bohemia is near. Unfortunately Bohemia is allied with The Palatinate and Brandenburg. Both are electors in the Holy Roman Empire. Our position as ruler of the Holy Roman Empire might be endangered!!!

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23 March, 1446 : The allies are in place. But we can’t just attack Bohemia without a good reason. Therefore I sent Adolf, my faithful diplomat, to make “arrangements”.

Anno 1447

17 March, 1447 : Adolf returned from his mission. He managed to get a claim on Moravia in Bohemia. It had something to do with a great-grandfather of my grandmother who used to rule it in the old days. At least that is what the documents said…
18 March 1447 : Our allies Switzerland and Poland betrayed us!!!! When we decided to declare the long anticipated war on Bohemia, they abandoned us. The Polish ambassadors informed us that they “liked” Bohemia too much to declare war on. And Switzerland did not join us because they felt we are a threat to their independence. If they act like this we certainly might become a threat. Anyway Venice proved to be a faithful ally. And The Teutonic Order joined us as well. We are at war with Bohemia, Bohemia’s vassal Silecia, Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia the minor partner in a personal union with Saxony and The Palatinate. While we are at war with Thuringia we might as well try to end their personal union and have them release some vassals in the process.

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24 March 1447 : Our diplomat Clemens returned from his mission to Saxony. 2 years he has been in Saxony to improve their opinion of us. Without much success. The council still isn’t convinced the Saxons like use enough. We might send Adolf instead after the war.
25 April 1447 : The first victory is ours!!! We won the battle of Ostmarch. Both of our allies are also moving their troops in, this looks promising.
14 Augustus 1447 : Those damn Poles!!! We should never have trusted them. They declared war on the Teutonic order today. Both countries are our allies and we are forced to take a side. We decided to help The Teutonic Order since Poland refused to join our previous war. Hopefully we can avoid heavy casualties from this war. We will try to remain on the sideline as much as we can. The best case scenario for us would be a white peace.

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Anno 1448

16 Januari, 1448 : We have an heir. His name is Leopard Wilhelm von Habsburg. He has a strong claim on the throne.
24 Februari, 1448 : Poland entered a military alliance with Bohemia. It seems our friendship was not meant to last very long.
26 May 1448 : The war with Bohemia is going fairly well. Unfortunately we cannot say the same about the other war we got involved in. But for now our focus is to win the war against Bohemia!!!
5 Juni 1448 : The Hansa, a country within the Holy Roman Empire, has annexed a province of another Holy Roman Empire member. As the emperor we should force them to once again release the nation. Unfortunately we are already involved in 2 wars. So maybe later????
17 November, 1448 : Bavaria annexed a province in The Holy Roman Empire. We should liberate that country too soon. So much to do and so little time…

Anno 1449

31 Januari, 1449 : Today we confirmed the truths written in the “Privilegium Maius”. This meant changing our government type. We are now an Archduchy!!! Nothing has really changed. The only different thing is that we can maintain one more diplomatic relation. So a big improvement for Austria!!!

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2 Februari, 1449 : Today Denmark annexed a province from the Holy Roman Empire. We should get it back! This is even worse than minor nations in the Holy Roman Empire waging war on each other. An outsider is invading our lands and they must be stopped.
22 March, 1449 : Peace with Bohemia! They decided to agree to our wise demands. They will end their alliance with Poland, release Silicia and cede Moravia to us. Now we need to end the other war somehow. We are really low on manpower so we can not do an awful lot against them.

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12 September, 1449 : We sent Adolf to improve relations with the Saxony. Hopefully he will have more success than Clemens.
30 December, 1449 : Clemens, a 48 year old bishop, who is loyal to us became cardinal today. We are represented in the college of cardinals now!


Questions that need answering in the future: What should we do after we make peace with Poland? There are many options. We got a bunch of Casus Belli's to release occupied nations. That would mean goint to war with: Bavaria, the Hansa or Denmark. We have 2 free diplomatic relation slots. Should we ally some people, or just royal marriage someone and hope for PU's? Should we diplomatically vassalize Switzerland because they abandoned us on the call to arms? What should we do with Poland? Forgive them or keep hating them for the things they did to us? Oh and we need some time to recover from the war. And we may need to suck up to some electors to ensure our continued emperorness.

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Österreich über alles! The Latin phrase is properly translated as "It's Austria's destiny/fate to rule the world", source: I have a working knowledge of Latin per my job as a Roman/Byzantine researcher and writer (well, that would be my translation of the phrase).

Make the world grayish-white! :cool:
 
Austria, 1450 AD - 1457 AD

Anno 1450​

2 Februari, 1450 : Adolf came back. He also didn t succeed in improving relations with Saxony.
7 Februari, 1450 : Our allies have almost no troops left. And considering we are losing money every day and we are running out of trained men to reinforce our armies. Our warpartner the Livonian Order is losing a war against Norway, Denmark and Sweden. The Teutonic Order is being besieged by our enemies. And finally Hungary seems to have ran out of troops as well. They also seem to be tired of this war. And Mecklenburg… They only own 1 province, so there is not much we can expect from them.

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We decided conceding defeat to Poland would be the smart thing to do. The time for peace has come. Time to recover from the wars. Let’s hope for a relatively long peace period.

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12 Februari, 1450 : We decided to publicly proclaim a guarantee on Silencia. We recently liberated them from Bohemia. We will not accept it if Poland Bohemia or Portugal attacks them!!!

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14 March, 1450 : We offered a royal marriage with Silencia. If their ruler, who has no heir at the moment, will die, we will end up in a personal union with Silencia.
16 March, 1450 : We also proclaimed a guarantee on the independence of our neighbor Augsburg. This should prevent Bavaria from annexing it in the future. (Augstburg is the small green/blue country on the left, surrounded by Bavaria’s territory.)
2 April, 1450 : Ferrara has annexed a province in the Holy Roman Empire. We might deal with them in the future.
5 April, 1450 : We decided to bestow imperial grace upon Saxony. Our council is most pleased with the results.

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20 June, 1450: There was a Styrian nationalist rebellion in Graz. Luckily our advisors managed to inform the emperor beforehand. So the nationalists were defeated the minute they revolted.

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1 october 1475 : Due to border tensions Hungary got a claim on Ostmarch. Will Hungary try to declare war on us to take it in the future??? We might need to reinstate our alliance with the treacherous Poles again to defend against Hungary.

Anno 1451

29 Januari, 1451 : We have gained a casus belli to enforce a government change in Milan. They are currently an Ambrosian republic. They should obviously be ruled by a real king!!!
1 Februari, 1451 : Our current ruler is only 35, in the prime of his life!!! So we do not expect him to die anytime soon. But let’s take a look at the electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Some things have changed since the start of the game.
The first Elector, Bohemia is one of our rivals. So obviously they will never support us.
The second elector, Brandenburg still doesn’t like us enough to vote for us. The reason is our alliance with their rival, The Teutanic Order. And we have recently been at war with them in the war with Bohemia.
The 3th Elector, Cologne is almost convinced to vote on us. Our diplomat visited them to improve their opinion of us, but they seem to be a bit insulted that we didn’t accept their alliance offer. We should easily be able to convince them to vote for us.
The 4th elector, Mains has a really neutral opinion about us. They are neither offended or pleased with us. If we would send one of our diplomats to them for a long time we might be able to convince them to vote for us.
The 5th elector, the Palatinate will vote for themselves, because Cologne proposed them as a candidate. They are a bit afraid about our latest border expansion. They also remember we were at war with them earlier. Funny enough they are also a bit pissed at us, because we refused their alliance proposals. But our diplomats have visited them recently and their general opinion about us is positive.
The 6th Elector, Saxony adores us. We have been at war, and have refused an alliance with them. But the work of our diplomats and the imperial grace we have given them seems to have paid off. We should be careful that those relations over time will not get worse.
The 7th Elector, trier likes us enough to vote for us because of the work of our diplomats. But they are still a bit upset we did not accept their alliance request.
So if we add it all up we only have 2 votes if our ruler would die now. That would break us even with the Palatinate who also holds 2 electoral votes. We shall turn this situation in our favor!!!
If we make Cologne vote for us, The Palatinate will also not vote on themselves anymore, but on us. That would give us 4 electoral votes. A solid majority!!!
We might also try to convince Mainz. But we will put zero effort in convincing our rival Bohemia, which we simply cannot convince. We will probably also ignore Brandenburg for the fact that we really do not need their support.

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23 februari, 1451 : Today some people petitioned about a boundary dispute with Venice. We decided to support our people and press the issue. We got a claim on the province Treviso. And Venice felt really insulted about our decision. They could declare war on us now. But we suspect they will not because of our mutual interests and alliance.

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1 Juli, 1451 : Our diplomat, Clemens was successful in Cologne!!!! We can now expect 4 electoral votes. We left our diplomat to improve the relations even more and keep a solid hold on the electoral votes!!! It would be nice if we did not have to worry about the electors as much. We should find ways to improve our diplomatic reputation a bit in the future. That would have a positive effect on all electors.
23 Augustus, 1451 : We noticed that we had a navy today. It consists of a total of 4 ships.....that will never do us any good. Especially because we are not planning on any overseas expansion. Therefore we disbanded our entire navy!!! We simply do not need them. And we can stop paying for their maintenance. We will have much better uses for our money than the navy.
1 December, 1451 : Our armies are finally fully reinforced from the war!!! And we are making some money again. A few years of building up manpower should be enough preparation for another war.
6 December 1451 : Bad news from the west. France has declared war on our rival Burgundy. Good as it may sound, it is bad news. If France becomes too big they could pose a threat to our future. Depressing as it may be, we really can not do anything but watch from the sidelines in our situation.

Anno 1452​
3 Februari, 1452 : After several months of work the people of Moravia accepted that they really belong to Austria. Moravia is a core province now!!!
13 April, 1452 : Today we made advancements in our diplomatic technology. We can build marketplaces and docks now. If we can spare the money we should try building a few. We will definitely need the edge to stay the major power in our home trade node Wien, where we collect taxation from trade goods. We currently hold 26% of the total trade power in this node, resulting in an income of 2.38 ducats per month. We decided to build 3 marketplaces immediately. They are being built in Staiermar, Kärnten and Graz.

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19 Oktober, 1452 : Magdenburg annexed territory inside the Holy Roman Empire. We can declare war on them to make them release it. They are allied to The Hansa. The Hansa did the same years ago. If we fight both we might be able to make them release 2 nations.
29 November, 1452 : Despite Polands treacherous reputation we have renewed the alliance we had with them. Their position simply makes them a really helpful potential ally. And they appear to be the major partner in an union with Lithuana.
3 December, 1452 : We offered the small nation of Augsburg an alliance. They accepted. It is the start of our plan to make them our vassal.
15 December, 1452 : We accepted Byzantine Refugees into our nation. They should be most helpful with improving our technology for as long as they live (-10% technology costs until 15 December 1482).

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Anno 1453
3 Januari, 1453 : We bestowed imperial grace upon Augsburg. They should accept to become our vassal now.
5 Februari, 1453 : Augsburg accepted to become our vassal!!! The little extra income they will provide is most welcome. Maybe we will annex them in the future. But if we decide to do that we need to make sure to maintain good relations with the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire so we will not lose our imperial seat.
28 April 1453 : We decided to fully support bishop Schaluyn. He is aged 43. We are not expecting to get control over the pope. But with a bit of luck we might!!!

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5 May, 1453 : After a request from Silesia for a military alliance, we decided to accept their proposal. Let’s hope they do not decide to do anything crazy!!! Secretly we are still hoping for their ruler to die and inherit their lands!!!
6 Juli, 1453 : Magdenburg declared a war on Brandenburg recently. The two countries and their allies are at war! This is an opportunity for us to attack Magdenburg. We can let Brandenburg and allies do the heavy fighting while our troops invade as well!

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6 Juli, 1453 : The war between Poland and the Teutonic order seems to be over. Poland occupied Neumark. The Teutonic Order has no borders with Bohemia anymore. They are still a rival of Poland, so keeping an alliance with them would hurt our relations with the treacherous Poles. Therefore we decided to end our alliance with The Teutonic Order.

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13 July,1453 : We declared war on Magdenburg today. They should release the nation of Anhalt they annexed recenty!!! Their allies: Saxony, Munster and The Hansa decided to join them.
Saxony is an elector in the Holy Roman Empire. This means we only have the support of 3 electors if our ruler happens to die. Barely enough to guarantee our continued rulership over the empire. If we can make a separate peace we might be able to demand the release of the nation of Meissen. We might also be able to make Saxony end their personal Union with Thuringia.
Münster is just a small country. If we peace them out it will be in a white peace.
The Hansa also have 2 nations they could be forced to released if peaced out separately: Hamburg and Saxe-Lauenburg.
We will eventually make Magdenburg release the nation of Anhalt if we win the war.
Our allies Venice and Silecia decided to join us in the war. Poland was still worn out from the war with the Teutonic Order. And Switzerland… Well they didn’t join AGAIN!!!

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18 Juli 1453: We hired 2 more generals to lead our troops. We divided our forces into 3 armies of 12.000 man each, because bigger armies would have problems with nutrition. Our first target: Saxony!!!

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1 October, 1453 : Our troops are sieging Saxony territory. Hope we can knock them out of the war pretty fast.
21 November, 1453 : Oh no. One of our generals died. One of our armies is leaderless now!!! We will send 1 000 mercenaries and one of our newly recruited general from our homeland.

Anno 1454
7 Januari, 1454 : Our general arrived to replace the dead general. Al forces are being properly commanded again!!
16 Juli, 1454 : Victory against Saxony!! Our plan to besiege them were a great success.

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Saxony accepted our demands to end the vassalization of Thuringia and release Meissen as a sovereign state. We gained 4% imperial authority for releasing Meissen. We have 28% Imperial Authority now. Our next target are The Hansa!!!! Venice already seems to be on the way there to help us. And to make things even better, we have gained the electoral vote for Emperor of Saxony again!! We have 4 of the 7 electors voting for us again!!!

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31 Augustus, 1454 : Our troops arrived in the lands of The Hansa. Somehow Venice achieved to get all his troops killed while we were traveling there. Unfortunately two of the provinces we are besieging have coastal access. Since our über powerfull navy, consisting of zero boats will not be able to block their ports. Therefore those sieges will take longer than ideal.

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17 September, 1554 : Bosnia decided we are one of their rivals. Nobody seems to know why they would do that. Maybe because they are sworn enemies of our ally Venice???

Anno 1555

6 Februari, 1455 : Due to border tensions we got a claim on one of Burgundy’s provinces, Franche-Compté.
25 februari, 1455 : Trouble at the homefront!!! 9 000 Czech patriots revolted against us in Moravia. With all our troops in The Hansa there is little we can do unless we withdraw from there. For now we will leave the situation be as it is.
8 June, 1455 : We increased our knowledge on administrative matters!!!

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We also got access to another competent diplomat who decided to work for us. His name is Ernst von Auberg. His services will be most useful in keeping the empire in good shape.
8 September, 1455 : Horrible news from the palace. Our heir, Leopold Wilhelm von Habsburg has fallen ill. We sent him the best doctor in the entire country. Despite the doctors efforts Leopold has deceased. This leaves our country without heir. Our current ruler is 39 of age. The death of our current ruler, Friedrich III could lead to a horrible situation. Let’s hope he still has many years to live and produce another strong heir!!!

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18 September 1455 : After winning the siege of Lauenburg, we decided to send half our army back home to deal with the Czech rebellion.

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12 November, 1455 : Our armies in Lübeck are under attack. Let us hope reinforcements arrive in time!!!! If they won’t and concequently lose the battle, we might have to retreat all our troops from the Hansa’s territory.

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19 December, 1455 : France has won the war against Burgundy. They took Franche-Compté, a province we had a claim on. If we want to get our hands on that province we would have to go to war with France now.

Anno 1456

11 Januari, 1456 : We have won the battle of Lübeck by the edge of a blade. If our Venetian allies did not decide to help us in the battle it would have been a major defeat. But they did come. So far they are the most trustworthy allies we have!!! May they stay our allies until the end of days.

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31 Januari, 1451 : Our troops arrived at Moravia to deal with the Czech rebellion. They managed to occupy out settlements in Moravia before our troops arrived. We managed to kill the rebellion forces that were present. After consolidating our troops, due to a lack of manpower to fully reinforce them. We will need the 2.000 man that are left to reinforce troops in our war with Magdenburg.
9 March, 1456: We are under attack in Hamburg. Hopefully we can reinforce in time. I am afraid this will not be the case. And even if we do it will be dubious if we can win the battle.

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14 March, 1456 : We lost the battle all our effort to siege Hamburg has been in vain. We will move our troops to Lübeck. If we can win this siege we shall work out a peace deal with The Hansa.
11 April, 1456 : We have been attacked in Lübeck. We might be able to hold the enemy off long enough for venetian reinforcements to arrive. This battle will have a big effect on the demands we can make from The Hansa in a peace deal.

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30 April, 1456 : Gelre has annexed an imperial province!!! We could go to war with them to demand they release it. The current state of our army is really bad however. So not much we can do.
7 May, 1457 : We lost the battle of Lübeck. Despite the timely arrival of Venetian reinforcements we were no match for the hostile forces. They appeared to have a far superior general than our army. And The Hansa do not want to sign a white peace with us, so the war shall continue.

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30 Augustus, 1456 : We won the siege of Moravia. The problem with the Czech rebels is over! We will send the troops involved in the siege to attack in the war with Magdenburg. The forces that retreated from the battle of Lübeck will remain in Austria to reinforce for a while.
19 October, 1456 : We arrived in Altmark to lay siege to the capital of Magdeburg.
10 November, 1456: We are being attacked in Altmark by enemy troops. They still have a better general, but we have defensive advantages from the terrain. The outcome of the battle is a big unknown for both sides.
2 december, 1456: Switzerland decided to end the alliance they had with us. I wonder what their motives are.
9 December, 1456: Cursed! We lost another battle. It was a very close call again. There seems to be good news after this battle as well.
10 december, 1456 : We managed to kill so many of The Hansa’s troops in the last battle that they agreed on a white peace with us. It is not what we had in mind when we started this war, but considering the current situation not a bad deal for us. We will retreat all of our troops to Austria to reinforce. To fully get our army back on our feet would take 2 years at the very least. And then we still wouldn’t have any men left to reinforce them. Let’s hope our allies decide to take on Magdeburg and we will not have to do much to ensure victory in this war.

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17 December, 1456 : While our ruler was out hunting he found a little boy in a basket in the reeds. This must be part of Gods plan for Austria!!! We decided to take the boy home and educate him to be the next in line. At least the problem of the lack of a proper heir seems to be solved now. However the fact that we adopted him might cause problems. People will doubt his legitimacy, which would probably lead to rebellions. It would also cause ruckus among the electors of the holy roman empire. We shall train this boy well so he can face his future trials!!!
The adoption also upset the people in Austria right now. Therefore we decided to harshly treat the people in Moravia to avoid rebellions.
18 December, 1456: We decided to hire Leopold Johann Casper, a master recruiter who should be able to help us with our manpower issues.

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Anno 1457​

29 Januari, 1457 : We decided to consolidate a part of our troops. Reinforcing all of them would be too expensive. This will however mean that we need to hire new troops when we can. The size of our army is down to only 12.000 men at the moment.
4 March, 1457: The bishop we supported, bishop Schaluyn , has become a cardinal! We now have enough influence over the pope to control their actions!

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11 March, 1457: We discovered that Switzerland is trying to fabricate claims on our province Sundgau. Are they trying to go to war with us???
10 April, 1457 : Trier has annexed lands within The Holy Roman empire. If it ever comes to a war with them we should demand they release it.
21 September, 1457 : Due to the poor quality of our generals we decided to attract another one, Cristoph von Hohensberg. His superior knowledge on shock weapons compared to the other generals should be most helpful.

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Whenever I hear "Styrian" I always want to correct is as "Syrian", Even though they are different things...

Also, that was quite a time skip, were things really that boring? (I mean between the last sentence and the one above.)
 
Well that war with Poland her allies went well, conceding defeat only to achieve the peace was a nice way out. Although the loss of 10 prestige early on is a bit disappointing. How is the composition of the Prince electors, have they begun to shift?
 
Whenever I hear "Styrian" I always want to correct is as "Syrian", Even though they are different things...

Ha I had the same thing!

Also, that was quite a time skip, were things really that boring? (I mean between the last sentence and the one above.)

Yes for Austria it was very uneventfull. But that is a good thing, while you are trying to rebuild your troops.
 
Well that war with Poland her allies went well, conceding defeat only to achieve the peace was a nice way out. Although the loss of 10 prestige early on is a bit disappointing. How is the composition of the Prince electors, have they begun to shift?

The 10 prestige wasn't a big deal. We had 99 at the time. And if we wouldn't have taken the peace deal the Styrian nobles would have caused quite a lot more trouble.

The eloctor situation is quite interesting actually, I ll try to cover it more in the "1451 AD or 1452 AD update."
 
Austria, 1457 AD - 1459 AD

Anno 1458

3 Januari, 1458 : The war between Magdeburg and Brandenburg seems to have ended. We decided to hire 3.000 extra mercenaries and prepare an attack on Magdeburg. If they also recover a lot of troops it would mean more casualties on both sides.
17 April, 1458 : Our population is tired of the war. Unfortunately this caused a reduction in our army tradition.

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17 April, 1458 : We finally managed to attack the enemy troops in München. They kept running away from our army. Probably afraid of our newest general, Cristoph. We eventually managed to reinforce some of our allies troops, who they decided to attack. We are also outnumbering them. This fight should result in a major victory.

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10 May, 1458 : Our ally, Venice, decided to agree to a white peace with Magdeburg. It should not be too much of a problem since the war seems to be almost fought.
20 May, 1458 : We completely annihilated the enemies army.

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The enemy forces are wiped out now!!! All that needs to be done is arrange some sieges of Magdeburg’s provinces.

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29 May, 1458 : We offered Münster a white peace, because we have no problems with them. They accepted without any hesistation. Only Magdeburg left to take care of.
26 June, 1458 : We laid siege to both of Magdeburgs provinces. Only a matter of time now until we can enforce our demands.

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18 August, 1458: We refused to aid our imperial subject Genoa, who is under attack from Crimea. The reason is simple. We have no hope of winning this war, especially in our current condition.

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The members of the Empire do not like our refusal to aid against the conquest of Genoa. We lose 10 imperial authority, leaving 18 imperial authority total. There are also problems with our re-election now. We should deal with this somehow.

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19 September, 1458 : We decided to bestow imperial grace on the imperial elector, Trier. Our problems with succession of the Holy Roman Empire seem to be solved for now. We only have 17 Imperial Authority left now however.

Anno 1459

14 Januari, 1459 : Another call to arms. Münster requested us to help them defend their lands. They are under attack from East-Frisia. It seems to be a rather small-scaled war and we cannot refuse them because that would cause too much trouble with the electors. We might be able to incorporate East-Frisia into the empire if we win this war. We gained 5 Imperial authority for accepting their call to arms. We also became the war-leader.

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5 Februari, 1459 : We won the siege of Altmark, the capital of Magdeburg. This gave us enough warscore to enforce our demands to release the nation of Anhalt. We gained another 2 imperial authority for releasing Anhalt. We also got 27 Ducats out of the peace deal. The war with Magdeburg is finally over after 6 years of war!!!

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2 March, 1459 : After making peace with Magdeburg our troops immediately rushed to the aid of our allies in Berg, who were under attack.

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3 March, 1459 : We decided to call in our ally Poland, since we are the warleader of the war. We will focus on besieging East-Frisia, the only province the attacking warleader owns. Hopefully our Polish allies will distract our enemies a bit, so we will not have to fight an awful lot of battles.

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25 March, 1459 : We won the battle of Berg. Let us march on East-Frisian now.

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4 july, 1459 : We decided to support a 53 year old bishop called “de Vergennes”.
17 October, 1459 : We decided to establish a royal marriage with our neighbors in Wurttemburg.
25 November, 1459 : Our understanding of military matters improved. Our army will fight even more fierce and organized than before. We can also build armories now, allowing us to draft more people for our armies.

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What will the next decade bring us? The war with East-Frisia should be over soon. Hopefully we can incorporate them into the empire. Our manpower is really low because of all the wars. Will we be able to recover them? Will there be any nasty surprises, like France attacking the empire??? Will we be able to remain in control of the papacy? Should we use our papal powers to excommunicate someone we do not like? If we are in the opportunity to start another war, what should the war be about? We can try to military vassalize Switzerland, who broke their alliance with us and are acting hostile now. Or maybe we can attack Bohemia again to expand our lands. Maybe we could target someone outside of the HRE?? We also have 1 free diplomatic relation. So we could find another ally, royally marry someone or get a new vassal. Suggestions are welcome!!!

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Getting caught up in imperial squabbles is also one of the banes of playing as Austria. That war seemed particularly brutal, thankfully you got away without much damage beyond manpower. And also, you're lucky the princ-electors aren't coalescing around a single rival to you...I know that can be a gift but also a major problem if the other four electors decided to back Bohemia...
 
Getting caught up in imperial squabbles is also one of the banes of playing as Austria. That war seemed particularly brutal, thankfully you got away without much damage beyond manpower.

Yes, that war was a really close one. Mainly because I decided to try and peace out everyone seperately. I honestly underestimated them a bit.

And also, you're lucky the princ-electors aren't coalescing around a single rival to you...I know that can be a gift but also a major problem if the other four electors decided to back Bohemia...

Let's hope they won't become too friendly with Bohemia. Besides that there will probably be enough imperial excitement in the future. I'm especially concerned about our next ruler. There would be a lot of legitimacy issues with him, possible costing us electoral votes. If we end up in a war with Bohemia we might be able to make Bohemia end their alliances with some electors (I believe they are allied with 2: Saxony and another).
 
Austria, 1460 AD - 1469 AD

Anno 1460​

24 April, 1460 : We won the siege of East-Frisia! We decided to make East-Frisia our vassal and make them pay us 85 ducats. The victory over east-Frisia increased our imperial authority by 2%. East-Frisia is recently being attacked by Bremen and Friesland. So we will have to deal with that war now to defend our new vassal. Will all those wars ever end???
18 July, 1460 : After some minor battles we have killed the entire military from Frisland and Bremen. We are besieging both countries. Their surrender is very close.
2 september, 1460 : Frisland realised they had no chance to win their war. They accepted our offer for a white peace. After 2 decades of brutal warfare the Austrian people can live in peace again.
12 December, 1460 : By establishing an executive council, we can now maintain even more diplomatic relations.

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17 December, 1460 : Silesia has accepted to become one of our vassals.

Anno 1461​

8 March, 1461 : We decided to build marketplaces in Linz, Ostmarch and Moravia. This should optimize our trade power in the Wien trade node.
1 September, 1461 : Our armies are fully reinforced. We have an army of 23.000 men now. This could be much bigger since we have a force limit of 50.000 men.
15 December, 1461 : Hungary has been discovered trying to fabricate a claim on Moravia. I doubt they dare attack us because they share borders with our allies from Venice and Poland. However they do have an alliance with France, which might result in trouble.

Anno 1462

17 April, 1462 : We decided to negotiate a deal with the Czech minority in Moravia. We negotiated with them, avoiding a big revolt there.

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22 April, 1462 : We decided to use our influence on the pope to excommunicate king Jiri z Podebrad of Bohemia. This should give us an excuse to invade them once again.
1 June, 1462 : We declared war on Bohemia. Our goals in the war are: making them release a core province from our vassal, Silesia, trying to expand our own lands by making them concede Böhmerwald to us and finally we want them to end their alliance with the Palatinate and Saxony.
Both of our allies: Venice and Poland are willing to join us in the war. The Palatinate and Saxony are in a pretty weak shape at the moment. So winning the war should not be a problem.
The Palatinate, Saxony and Bohemia are all electors in the empire however. But we should be able to keep enough electors supporting us anyway.

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18 June, 1462 : Good news. The Palatinate wisely decided not to join the war on Bohemia’s side. The result is that the war should go even more smoothly and we still have strong support for Austria’s re-election as emperor if our ruler dies.

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27 June, 1462 : We Started the siege of Böhmerwald. We should be able to only siege that province and have our allies deal with everything else.
29 November. 1462: Something tells me we got this :p.

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Anno 1463

Nothing happened this year. Nothing at all!!! Can you believe it?

Anno 1464

11 Januari, 1464 : After winning the Siege of Leipzig, Saxony’s capital we decided to make peace with them and take their money. They paid us 68 ducats for the peace deal.
17 Januari, 1464 : We offered Bohemia a peace deal. In it they would
  • Pay us 63 ducats
  • Revoke their core on Ratibor (territory our vassal Silesia owns)
  • Cede Breslau to our vassal Silesia
  • Cede Böhmerwald to us
  • End their alliance with Saxony

In this most successful war we managed to increase our reserve manpower!!!! We have 6 000 men to reinforce us now.

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27 April, 1464: We decided to start integrating our vassal Augsburg into Austria. We should be able to do this without pissing the electors off too much.
3 December, 1464: We successfully integrated Augsburg into Austria.
5 December, 1464: England requested us to consider an alliance with them. We decided to accept their offer. We have common interests fighting Burgundy and are both allied with Venice. This would probably lead to bad relations with France however. But we need to keep an eye on France anyway or they might become a threat.

Anno 1465

11 Januari, 1465 : Burgundy declared war on Gelre. Because we are the emperor they asked us for help. We accepted to join the war and defend Gelre! We also called in our Polish allies. If we had asked Venice and England they would have joined too, but they are involved in a war with France and Hungary. Calling them into our war as well would have decreased their chances in that war.
Because Burgundy has a decent army we decided to harshly treat the people in Böhmerwald, to avoid any revolts while our troops are away from home.
8 March 1465 : We attacked Burgundy’s forces in Mainz with all our might.

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16 April, 1465: We lost the battle. We simply had really, really bad luck this time. Our troops are going home to reinforce again. Let’s hope the Poles do something useful in the meantime. Their troops are just entering the Holy Roman Empire now, so it will take a while for them to arrive in Burgundy.

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16 June, 1465 : looks like our allies are doing well in this major battle.

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Anno 1466

18 Januari, 1466 : Our troops have recovered from the earlier defeat. We will move them to the borders of Austria so they can move towards Burgundy early spring (to avoid attrition).

23 march, 1466 : Unfortunately bishop de Vergennes, who was loyal to us, has deceased. We will now invest in the future of bishop von Schönbrunn.

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13 June, 1466 : Our troops arrived in Burgundy. They were sent to besiege their capital, Antwerpen. Together with our allies we will terrorize their country xD.

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24 July, 1466 : Due to our administrative developments we can build temples, which increase tax income and constables, which increase production in our provinces.

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4 December, 1466 : Recent advances in the art of war have resulted in improved infantry troops.

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Anno 1467

20 Februari, 1467 : The province Böhmerwald (the one we acquired in the last war with Bohemia) is considered as part of our homelands now.

13 July, 1467 : We hired Jakob Arlitz. He is a Master of the Mint and will aid our country fighting inflation.

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Today we also had some bright ideas that will help us in the future. We established a war cabinet. They will make us more proficient in reducing war exhaustion. (it will cost less diplomatic power). We also became more ambitious leaders of the Empire, resulting in more respect from the people. (+10% Imperial Authority gain)

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14 October, 1467 : We entered a marriage with Urbino. A small country located just outside the Holy Roman Empire in Italy. We will try to make them our vassal in time.

13 November, 1467 : We informed the world not to attack Urbino. If they do they will have to deal with our wrath.

20 December, 1467 : We sent Urbino a gift of 25 ducats.

Anno 1468​

14 January, 1468 : Thuringia Annexed a country within the holy roman empire. We received a casus belli on them to reclaim the lost lands.

27 August, 1468 : We have won the war with Burgundy. We demanded the release of Brabant, the end of their alliance with Castile and a sum of 85 ducats. They agreed. We received 32 imperial authority for this victory. We have a total of 65 imperial authority now.

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Since we had enough support from the princes in the Holy Roman Empire we decided to enact the first reform: “Call for Reichsreform”. This reform reduces the costs for buildings and technology with 10% within the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor gets 1 extra prestige annually now!!!! Glory to the Holy Roman Empire, glory to us!!!
This reform also allows us to go to war with countries outside of The Holy Roman Empire to reclaim all lands within the imperial borders. At the moment we have claims in: Denmark, Poland, Burgundy, France, Provence and Venice.

6 September, 1468 : Urbino asked us to form an alliance with them. We managed to talk them into becoming our vassal instead of our ally.

12 October, 1468 : A brilliant diplomat appeared in our country. We decided he should serve the empire and gained some imperial authority.

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2 december, 1468 : We decided to build a temple in all our province, totaling 13. This should incease our yearly tax income with 13 ducats or more.

19 December, 1468 : Eek!!! What is it with our heirs??? Philipp von Habsburg has fallen ill. We decided to send the best medicus in Austria to treat him. The death of Philipp could result in a total disaster for Austria. Our king, Friedrich III is already age 53.

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The medicus could not save poor Philipp’s life. If our king dies now we might end up as a minor partner of Poland in a personal union.

Anno 1469

27 May, 1469 : We made a shocking discovery. One of the electors in the Holy Roman Empire has been annexed recently. Embarrassing we did not realize it until now. Saxony had been annexed by Thuringia. We decided to grant their former electoral powers to Anhalt.

With “The Call for Reichsreform” reform we can start trying to reclaim our old imperial borders. On the other hand we can also decide to expand into Hungary. They seem to have been forced to end their alliance with France in a war they were involved in earlier. However before we can attack we need to wait for truces to expire. They have a truce with all our allies. The truce with Poland is ending soon.

We are also in a troubling situation if it comes to our succession: we have no heir. Let us hope an opportunity for a new heir arises before our King dies (he is 54 now). If not we might end up being a minor partner in an union with Poland. That would definitely cause major problems for us.


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Well, it looks like Bohemia has seen her better days. And it's best to keep that kind of control over the Prince-Electors for the rest of the game, or unless you take that one Imperial Reform that abolishes the elected monarchy.
 
Question for the readers:

Do you think the readability of the text is better after 1466????

Is everyone able to follow the story, because wars, papacy stuff, technology advances and elector stuff are ordered chronological? I m considering covering them seperately somehow if it makes it easier to follow.
 
Question for the readers:

Do you think the readability of the text is better after 1466????

Is everyone able to follow the story, because wars, papacy stuff, technology advances and elector stuff are ordered chronological? I m considering covering them seperately somehow if it makes it easier to follow.

Since you're developing along the lines of a mostly gameplay AAR, with lots of screenshots, they in-of-themselves provide a visual 'readability' of what's going on in your game. I don't necessarily think you need to worry since you're not writing a text-heavy AAR, like I generally do. Otherwise yeah, entering a field in the AAR that many won't find interesting (how are you really supposed to convoy technology changes in a textual AAR?) is also tricky water.

That said, I found nothing wrong with your prior post, I think you're moving along just fine! :)
 
Question for the readers:

Do you think the readability of the text is better after 1466????

Is everyone able to follow the story, because wars, papacy stuff, technology advances and elector stuff are ordered chronological? I m considering covering them seperately somehow if it makes it easier to follow.

More or less. I don't notice a difference since my eyes are shit. :(
 
Austria. 1470 AD – 1479 AD

Anno 1470​

Nothing of note to report.

Anno 1471​

1 March, 1471 : We lost our casus belli with Hungary, because we lost the claim on Sopron after many years. Therefore we decided to immediately start fabricating a claim on Pozsony. When the truces between Hungary and Venice and Hungary and England are over next year we shall be prepared to attack.

Anno 1472

9 March, 1472 : Our diplomat is done fabricating a claim on Pozsony. We have a legit reason to attack Hungary now. We will just wait a bit until their truces with our allies expire at the 2nd of July.

6 July, 1472 : We declared war upon Hungary. All our allies (England, Poland and Venice) decided to help us out. We will be fighting Hungary, The Teutonic Order, Province and Lorraine, who is leading a personal union with Lorraine.

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14 July, 1472 : Our troops are in position to besiege the first provinces.

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16 September 1472 : Denmark declared us as their rival.

10 October, 1472 : Muscovy has also declared us their rival/enemy. I don’t like where this is going…

16 November, 1472 : We decided to help our Venetian allies by attacking enemy troops who were besieging one of their provinces, Istria.

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7 december, 1472 : We won the battle, but other enemy troops are moving in on our army. I doubt our reinforcements will arrive in time.

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Anno 1473​

2 januari, 1473 : The reinforcements arrived in time!!! We won the battle.

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7 december, 1473 : The Teutonic Order has been under heavy pressure from Poland. They offered us 18 Ducats for peace. We decided to accept their offer.

Anno 1474​

27 februari, 1474 : Hungary seems to be done for. We decided to move our troops towards Provence while our allies deal with Hungary. We have some unfinished business with Provence before the war ends.

Anno 1475​

13 May, 1475 : Ruler Friedrich III ran across a pretty lady. He decided to break his “celibacy” / infertility. Austria has an heir again!!! The boy shall be called Ferdinand von Habsburg.

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2 October, 1475 : After having fully occupied Hungary for a while Poland decided to make peace with Hungary, demanding a province in the process. Meanwhile we are still besieging Provence’s provinces.

28 October, 1475 : We managed to make a peace with Provence. They promised to release the nation of Bar. Bar is a minor country within the Holy Roman Empire.

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Anno 1476​

5 January, 1476 : We offered Hungary a peace deal. In it they would hand over the provinces Sopron and Pozsony to us. We also demanded the release of Croatia.

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8 January, 1476 : We decided to inform the world not to attack Croatia. They would make a fine vassal in the future.

9 Februari, 1476 : By carefully selecting our diplomats our employed diplomats became 25% more proficient at improving relations with other countries.

11 februari, 1476 : we decided to embargo our rival Bohemia. This should severely reduce their trade income.

10 May, 1476 : We increased our military technologies. Our infantry troops get extra shock damage and our overall quality of troops increases.

18 Juni, 1476 : We arranged a Royal marriage with Croatia.

4 december, 1476 : We increased our administrative skills. Therefore we can produce more goods now. We can also create farms now.

Anno 1477​

3 July, 1477 : We sent Croatia a bag of ducats. It should be enough to convince them to become our vassal.

6 September, 1477 : Croatia agreed to become one of our vassals.

2 October, 1477 : We became more advanced in diplomatic technologies. We increased our trade efficiency and can send our traders further away.

Anno 1478

27 May, 1478 : Our bishop, von Schönbrünn became a cardinal in the college of cardinals. This means we still remain in papal controller. The other cardinal, loyal to us, is becoming very old. We have no idea if we can remain papal controller very long. If cardinal Cumberland dies we might lose papal control. We are supporting bishop von Waldstein from now onward, let’s hope he gets voted into the college as well.

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6 October, 1478 : The province of Pozcony, which we took from Hungary, is now considered part of our homelands.

7 October, 1478 : We decided to declare war on our Rival Bohemia. Since they still are excommunicated, they have no friends left. We will not call on our allies for help in this war. Our army is much bigger than the Bohemian army. We have an army consisting out of 39.000 men, while Bohemia only has a meagre 6.000 men.

10 November, 1478 : In a matter of days we defeated all Bohemians troops and are besieging all of their provinces.

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Anno 1479

25 February, 1479 : The emperor, Friedrich III has died after ruling Austria and the Holy Roman Empire for 40 years. We will remember him as a great ruler who did an admirable job leading Austria to greatness. Because his heir, Ferdinant von Habsburg I, is only 3 years old a regency council will rule for him until he reaches adulthood.

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However because of the weak claim on the throne of Ferdinand I, the people do not all consider him legitimate. This also shifted the opinion of the electors negatively. But the young Ferdinant I still has a long life before him.

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28 Februari, 1479 : We renewed our royal marriage with our vassal, Silesia.

2 March, 1479 : We renewed our royal marriage with our vassal, Urbino.

13 March, 1479 : The province of Sopron, taken from our previous war with Hungary is considered a part of our homelands.

20 September, 1479 : We demanded all of Bohemia’s lands in the peace deal. They had no choice, but to accept. Bohemia is no more!!! The disadvantage of this aggressive move is that many people around us might look at us as aggressive expanders. So we will need to take it easy on the expansion the next few years to regain their trust. Rebellions also seem unavoidable the next few years. Therefore we decided to give harsh treatment to the population of Pozcony and Bohemia.
We also decided to appoint a new rival. This rival is Denmark.

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24 September, 1479 : Since Bohemia was an elector we should also appoint a new elector. We decided to appoint Brabant as new elector within the empire. We really need to improve our relations with the electors to regain their support.

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27 September, 1479 : Because of our recent aggressive expansion Hungary started a coalition against us.


After the death of our old ruler, Friedrich III, we are now being ruled by a regency council for the 4 year old Ferdinand. So we cannot declare any wars the next decade. We shall mainly be dealing with internal affairs like rebellions and succession of the HRE. But that certainly does not mean there will be a peaceful decade without wars. Our allies might decide to attack someone, they might be attacked or we could mix in someone else’s affairs and enforce peaces somewhere. Besides that we could consider annexing our vassal Urbino and Croatia to expand the imperial territory.

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