Croatia, Rise of the Balkan Empire (29th May 1453 AD – 2nd December 1492 AD)
-why did I choose Croatia? Because the 2nd Bookmark in Selection Screen is centered on Balkan after zhe fall of Byzantine Empire. Since the Empire fell in my game, I needed to choose one of Balkan nations that would be able to beat the Ottomans. The choices were Transylvania and Croatia. I choose the 2nd because of obvious reasons
-Objectives:
*In order to beat the Ottoman empire, we need manpower. To get manpower, we need the HRE crown
*Create a powerful alliance with countries that are bordering the Ottoman Empire in order to attack them from all sides (FAILED)
*Free the Balkan from Ottoman presence (without Thrace, naturaly)
STATE OF THE WORLD IN YEAR 1453
Croatia and neighbourhood
They control Croatiam Damatia, Istria, Bosnia, Hum, Pecs and Szolnok. Ah yes, and they annexed Morea
Denmark certanly knows how to handle royal ties
As does Poland
England has some problems (before few years, 75% of the island was under rebellion control)
It seems that Japan is going through a golden age
Lets check the current situation:
-Despotic Monarchy? We ain't really advanced, are we?
-Prestige 0 and Rand #34. Well, it could have been worse
-Honorabke Reputation? They annexed Bosnia, Hungary and Mora and they still have honorable reputation? I have been beaten by Croatian Parliament... oh my God..
-only 4,116 manpower? This is gonna be rough...
Now, lets check the Court:
Seems that our Helena II is Croatia's Elisabeth II. Her skills are appreciated.
And she even knew that wasting slots on useless advisors is NOT a good idea? Wow...
But... why do we have a Muslim spy in our court?
Now lets visit the treasurer:
-3.4 ducats a month? How am I supposed to conquer the Ottoman Empire with that?! Forget teh investments for now, we need more money!
Now lets check the national ideas... Battlefield Commisions? Time to hire that artist and change the idea to Military Drill. 47.50% of Land Tradition should give us many good generals. However, I am glad that they had that decision before I showed up.
Now lets check the army. 11k in Croatia, another 1k in Mora and another regiment is being recruited in Istria. Nice, but lets recruit 4000 more while the inflatation is still small.
Also, to accomplish the first goal, we will need to have good relations with the HRE nations. And whats the better way to improve our relations then to join the HRE? So, all my provinces are now part of HRE. Also, it would be a good idea to improve my relations with Pope before I am excomunicated.
Next, we need... no, we don't need Morea. I gave them independence before rebells could rise and crush my 1000 soldiers into 1000x1000 pieces.
Few months later Castille decided that another war with USM would be nice so they attacked Mamluks and called me for aid. Since they are no treat to me and I don't need good relations with them, I accepted and later declared White Peace.
A year passed and I managed to enter a military alliance with Ragusa, who are also allied with the Ottoman Empire. Whom will they choose in future war? Theit Muslim liberators or their brethren? Future will show.
1st August 1454: Transylvania, with support from Aquilea invaded Moldavia. Since Croatia guaranteed Moldavia's independence, they called me for aid and I accepted their offer. Novgorod, Muscovy and Poland also sided with Moldavia. However, for some reason they fought that I should lead the war. Those were great news because I won't need to worry about when to accept a peace offer.
At beginning of year 1455, Serbians used the situation and declared independence from Transylvania. This event shall be very important in future (they shall screw up all of my plans). About the same time, Moldavia accepted peace with Transylvania. However, the Ottomans used the situation and invaded. Nobody asked me for help, tough. God knows why.
2nd April 1455: Aquilea accepted peace and ceded Gorz, a province filled with gold mines. I don't need to mention that I profited from that, do I?
16th april 1455: Transylvania ceded Banat and became my vasal. This should stop them from starting unwinable wars again.
22nd December 156: Ragusa finally showed where their loyalty lies. They accepted me as their sovereign state and became my vassals.
4th november 1457: After Serbia started a war with Montenegro (they dreamt about Great Serbia again <_<) and lost it, Ottoman empire once again used the situation and invaded Serbia. Serbians asked me to honour our alliance (which we signed after their war with montenegro) and help them in their war with Ottoman Empire.
I tought I was ready for minor war so I accepted... and forgot that we will be alone because my allies are not included in this war.
Naturaly, I became the war leader against OE, Golden horde, Naxos, Zaporozhie and the Golden horde.
After few years Serbia fell and was annexed and I was left alone to fight thiese enemies who woudn't accept peace for nothing! I was attacked by Ottomans from south and by Zaporozhie from sea.
And so we continued our war for a long, long time. Rather then explaining iin detail this long war, I'll just say how I won it.
Not long after the war began, I realized that my 18,000 soldiers were to small to fight an army that is 3x that size. Not to mention that I needed to leave few troops to protect the coast from Zaporozhie and few more to protect my lands from growing rebellions.
At first, it looked like I will lose. The Ottomans had powerful armies guarding their most important provinces and attrition didn't help me. Not to mention the annoying Byzantine, Serbian and Bulgarian rebels that seemed to favour attacking me rather then Ottomans.
But my worst enemy was attrition. It was annoying how it destroyed my numbers and my armie morale. However, then I remembered something: „Turning your enemy into your ally is your greatest enemy!“. If I suffer from attrition, won't those giant armies also suffer from it if they end up in „right“ provinces? So I devised a cunning plan: buy few mercenary regiments and make Ottomans chase them. While my small regiments run around, Ottoman armies will suffer from entering attrition, as well as from monthly attrition.
Very soon, their big army suffered. Their numbers didn't change a lot, but their morale was a different story. No matter how big they are, my army boosted with max maintance, Military Drill and Crusade were worth three times their numbers.
After my armies have beaten the crap out of their regiments, Turks realised that my army is superior so they retreated to protect their capital, continuing to decay from attrition.
After Serbia and Bulgaria fell, I understood their plan. They waited for me to move far enough for them to attack, liberate and retreat the occupied regions. In other words, I needed to choose my next province carefuly or the Ottomans will strike swiftly and take back what I took from there and perhaps even attack my own lands.
I chose Edirne as my next target. That way, I split their kingdom into two parts and, since Edirne and Burgas are near one another, Turks coudn't use the situation and invade unprotected lands with their main armies. Once my secondary regiments (and some rebells) destroyed their army in Greece, I hired few mercenaries to attack other cities in order to speed up the war. Since rebellion risk increased, I used spies to Bribe Defenders of some cities and took a loan to buy mercenaries which would fight th rebells. I also needed to split my main army because of attrition which meant that I will need to be even more careful because of Turks from Thrace and Bursa which used the situation of splited army. Also, after seeing where the wind blows, all of Ottoman allies accepted White Peace with me... all of them on the same day.
After years filled with nasty problems of rebells and Ottomans, I managed to conquer the entire Balkan (including Thrace). In other words, I was ready to invade the turkish homeland.
Because of War Exaustion (caused mostly by attrition), Ottoman empire started falling under rebellions and my armies. Conquering their homeland was easy as beating the crap out of 500 men with an army of 500 000 men. The only true fights happened in their easternmost provinces, but they were mostly about hutnign Ottomans up and down until they were completely destroyed (Transylvania was diplomaticaly annexed in that period).
After few months (or a year?) of suing for peace, I realized that, for some unknown reason, Ottoman empire woudn't cede more then four lousy provinces, even if they had 0% War Capacity, lost the war with 100% and had a giant War Exaustion.
After few more noths, I got few up with this stupidity so I saved the game, resigned, loaded with them and found the answer to my questions. Their emperor was...
I had no idea how HE got there and why they choose HIM to be the Emp, but I sued for peace in his name. And please don't call this cheating because I was able to take more provinces, as well as those 350 ducats Turks had (the above picture shows why they never used them). Instead, I took only that what rightfuly belonged to Europe and what it would have been realistic to get (and what I deserve for all the pain I went through...):
Of course, I woudn't be the „Liberator“ if I kept all those lands. So I freed albania and Wallachia and turned them into my allies. Serbia and Bulgaria would also have goten independence if tehy didn't go on my nerves every goddamn month with their rebellions...
After the war, I found out who was my potential new enemy. Poland. And that didn't make me happy. Why? Because there was a big chance I would end up fighting this thing:
Their relationship with them was terrible to saw the least and their BB rating was giant. They also enjojed to send spies to play around my country. As did Ottomans for every 1st January. That cerated pirates. Pirates destroyed my economy. Nuff said.
Fortunately, there were no battles betewen me and Poland. At least for now...
On June 1472: Montenegro and Achaea accepted me as their sovereign.
The Ottoman empire didn't need my help to decay. They were pro's in doing it themeselves. As wre the Mamluks who lost their northern provinces (which became Syria).
10th July 1476: Helena II died and Slavic II rose to the throne. He was also a good king.
13th May 1477: Ragusa finally acepted the fact that they are Croatians and became part Croatia again.
24th July 1477: Serbia became a catholic province. Four years later, their culture will become a tolerated culture in my kingdom.
During those four years, Denmark inheriated (again??) Sweeden and...
...formed the kingdom of Scandinavia. Seems that marriage IS stronger the Sword
11th March 1483: My allies from Bohemia lost the war against Austria and Poland. And they were wounded greately!
But I was overjojed because of that! Thanks to that hit, on 3rd March 1483, they became...
This event shall affect the future that is to come.
6th July 1487: Start of Aragonesse Succesion War. Seems the old King of Aragon died without leaving the heir so he declared the king of Castille as the new King of Aragon. However, relatives from Portugal disagreed with that decision so they, with support from England, started a war against Castille and Aragon.
16th March 1488: Achaea accepted my annexation proposal.
23rd September 1488: I became the Papal Controler, even tough I didn't bribe anyone. Still, this was useful for removing my BB score.
2nd December 1492: Stoped playing (while I didn't become the HRE emperor, most voters are supporting me)
EPILOGUE
Maps from year 1492:
Portugal, you SUCK!
Mamluks are dying and Castille had colonies in western and eastern Africa as well as in Americas
Japan's Golden Age ended
And the next nation is...
Shawnee Vs Portugal! Lets see how it looks like to play with natives against colonists
