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Kuipy

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900 yeAARs of AARs
A CKDV-EU3:IN-Ricky-HoI? multiplayer megacampaign
Episode 2 : Europa Universalis III, In Nomine 3.2b
(previous episode - )
(game thread)


Here comes the second episode of the (hopefully) collaborative AAR of our ongoing Megacampaign. Some puple prose from the game thread :

Europe in 1399.

It is a time of change and danger. The era of crusader kings is at en end. Power shifts, sailors bring strange tales from their journeys, new weapons transform warfare. For over two centuries the Kings of the Normans and the Emperors of Burgundy have respected an uneasy truce, contend to compete for influence in lesser kingdoms. But that peace seems more precarious than ever as old claims resurface and a series of brutal assassinations bring the two powers on the verge of open war.

Once-beaten enemies watch this with eager eyes and bid their time for revenge.

Wrestled from the Holland by the Billungs, Lotharingia is once against on the path to glory, having conquered vast swaths of Russian grounds from the last Rurikovitchs. In Greece and Bulgaria, the flag of Byantium rises again. And beyond the borders of Christendom, the sultanates of Qarakhnid and Zirid await the opportunity to storm Europe and spread the world of Muhammad.
(by the way we still need additional players :D).
 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The game at a glance

First session : 1399-1424

Second session : 1424-1453

Reference material

I'll update it when I get the time.

 
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THE GAME AT A GLANCE

A visual summary of this episode, which I'll try to periodically update.

A map the World in 1399 :

EU3_1399.jpg

It looks nice.

A map of the World in 1450 :

EU3_1450.jpg


And an animated GIF of the game :
eu3-1.gif

(made with Kurper's EU3View)
 
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A list of the kings of Normandy
Kuipy (Duchy of Normandy)

Just the list, for the moment ; and as much a reminder to myself as to others. Since I do not like too much Normandy's Vanilla name selection, and since it messes up the number of kings anyway (of course, king tally it uses is for dukes of Normandy in our timeline, not king of the Normans in this one - doh) I decided to rename them. So there they go :

Rolland I the Gallant (1359-1403)
Roger III the Short (1403-1406), Rolland's grandson
Rolland II the Miser (1406-1414), Roger's brother
Richard II (1414-1429), Rolland I's son
Roger IV (1429-1435), Richard's son
Robert II (1435-?), Roger's son

 
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From the catalogue of the L. Museum
Kuipy (Duchy of Normandy)

Bourville, Portrait of master Josce (1470s ?)
oil on walnut panel, 52 cm x 30 cm

Little is known of the Black Robin’s family and early days. In his later days he came to be designated as Josce of York, but this may refer to the large estate on the banks of the Foss. Contemporary accounts suggest he was instead born in a Jewish family London around 1330. He probably experienced first-hand the great plague epidemic of 1338, which may also account for his lack of known relatives. In 1343 he was placed as apprentice to a Jewish military surgeon named master Moses, and took part in the 1345 battle of Ypres against the Dutch, were Moses was killed and Isaac was wounded in the head. Over the next few years he traveled extensively in an out of Europe. The details of his journeys are unknown but there is little doubt from his subsequent career that he was one of the best-learnt men of his time, speaking more than a dozen languages and mastering a wide array of sciences. It is certain, at any rate that he visited Burgundy, Northern Italy and maybe Africa, and attended the teaching of Jewish and gentiles master in Milano, Toledo and the then-fledging University of London.

In 1353 his career took an unexpected turn as he was chosen as tutor for Crown Prince Rolland, then a gifted but proud and temperamental adolescent. By all accounts their relation was warm and even friendly, but it quickly deteriorated after Rolland’s accession to the throne in 1359 and his subsequent persecution of Jews (1360-1365). He briefly served as a legal adviser to Rolland’s brother Fréry in Finland, then went in semi-exile at the court of Duke Torge Cabesat de Vaca in Scotland.

After a dozen years, he once again came to prominence as the tutor of Rolland’s son Robert and was apparently recalled to the court in London. In the Norman civil war of 1378 he acted as a successful intercessor between the father and his rebellious son. Over the next two decades he acted as physician, counselor and diplomat to both of them, preventing a war with Burgundy over the Robert’s assassination (1399). After Rolland’s death (1403), old, ailing, and probably deeply affected by the loss of his two royal pupils, he retired rather than serve king Roger III the Short but was recalled to power by Rolland II the Miser and worked with Eilif of Norway and Rolland's uncle Richard to reform the country’s finances. In 1412 he died and was buried out of consecrated ground in one of his Yorkshire estates. Although cynical and impopular, as a councilor to the king he favored the arts and the sciences, and taught medicine to Simon Picot, future Creator of the London Hospital. His works included Notes on Aristotle, Commentary of al-Kindi, Commentary of Galen, Treaty of the Laws, and a monumental Things of the World, dedicated to his patron Rolland the Gallant, all of which are lost today, as well as a Finnish History, of which only brief excerpts remain.

In this piece he appears as an old, weary man, in the very simple dark robes which earned him the nickname of Black Robin (in Norman, a robin is a man of the robe, specifically a lawyer). His left hand rests on the arm of a large armchair, carved in the likeness of a lion. His right one holds a golden coin, as a reminder of his role in creating the Bank of Normandy. Behind him, a small monkey stands on the table strewn with books, one of them, possibly the Things of the World, opened to present an unrecognizable, and possibly fictitious, map.

The datation of that piece has been the object of much controversy, especially as it is sometimes touted as one of the earliest examples of oil painting (other candidates include van Eylc‘s Flemish merchants and Massello’s Courtesan with pearls). It can be safely estimated than the single panel was from a black walnut tree felled in southern England between 1370 and 1390 (possibly during the "Felling of Wessex" of the late 14th centry, when many woodlands were cleared in the region by Norman settlers) ; however there is little doubt that much time intervened before it was used or reused by the artist. The paint and varnish are nigh on impossible to date, because of several alterations and restorations of the painting.

The painting itself, however, gives some hints of the time when it was produced. It bears the signature ‘BV.’, generally understood to mean ‘Bourville’ or ‘Bourveille’ and found on only one other extant work, the Blount retable in London, dated from 1860 which represents Saint Hugues performing miracles. Nothing is known about Bourville himself, but from contemporary inventories he was a prolific an active and successful producer of both sacred and profane art, whose patrons included peers and royalty. The monkey on the table, with his bald face and coiled tail, is undoubtedly a capuchin from South America, which obviously was not be seen or even heard of in Europe for several decades after Isaac’s death. On the other hand, the robin’s portrayal fits contemporary descriptions, including the shrapnel scar running through his scalp, the hooked nose and sallow cheeks. Clearly Bourville based his portait on testimonies or his own recollection of a man he could conceivably have met many years before. It is therefore suspected that the portrait must be dated to the late 15th century, maybe between 1470 and 1480, and in any case later than 1425, when Courtesan with Pearls was presented to Emperor Charles I of Burgundy.

There is nevertheless a striking, unprecedented realism in this representation. The hard features and bitter expression of this old, wrinkled man, the spare grey hair, the toothless mouth are in sharp contrasts with contemporary idealized miniatures. Anatomy and body proportion are flawless, somewhat fittingly for a surgeon heaped with praise in Simon Picot's Maladies of the Bones. That surprising modernity, though, did not meet with much success in the 16th century, although that can also be explained by the unpopularity of the man portrayed. The portrait appeared to have remained in a warehouse of the Bank of Normandy until 1658, when it was sold, as part of a lot, to the Duke of Green-Isle, and later joined the collections of the L. Museum.
 
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From the catalogue of the L. Museum
Kuipy (Duchy of Normandy)


A stuffed gyrfalcon (1420s)

This bird, an Icelandic gyrfalcon recognizable to his pale grey down, certainly arrived in England as part of the tribute paid by Icelandic jarls to the kings of the Normans after the short Boreal War.

Although already a power of some consequence, Normandy was greatly weakened in the early 15th century by a large popular uprising, often known as the First Peasant War although the most dramatic upheaval happened in London, forcing the king to seek shelter in his Welsh fortress of Castle Dyfed. This appears to have emboldened the Icelanders to take possession of the Orkneys, then part of the Duchy of the Isles, in late 1413 or 1414. Although brash in insight, that move was but the development of the Icelandic jarls long-standing hegemony in North Atlantic, going back at least to the collapse of the Norman-Swedish Kingdom in the 1350s, and probably before. More or less ignored by the rest of Europe, Icelanders, dominated by a caste of rich landowners and malcontent jarls having fled the Norman conquest of Norway, had long dominated trade in this part of the world, eventually extending their rules to the Faeroes and the Shetlands. Yet, that time, the jarls clearly had overreached.

Although generally painted as an irresolute and indifferent monarch, and despite the worrying situation in his own demesne, Roger III reacted swiftly to the call of Duke Charles de Vogüe. While Scottish levies moved to reoccupy the Orkneys proper, a naval force commanded by Eilif of Norway successfully sailed to Iceland in 1415 and sacked each of its ports in a series of devastating raids, quickly burning the unfortified cities into submission. Despite the lack of serious opposition, that unprecedented feat of projecting a force 6,000 strong over 700 miles of stormy Atlantic was a testimony to Eilif’s superb command and to Norman seamanship.

The terms of the peace imposed to Iceland were harsh but, especially in view of the circumstances, not devastating. The jarls acknowledged the Norman’s overlordship but retained their rights and custom in exchange for "annual tithing on cod and whale, harbor fees in Rejkyavik and Akureyri, and besides six of these birds knowne as gyrfalcons a year."

Interestingly enough, the treaty does not mention the valuable walrus tusks which had formed a staple of Iceland’s export to Europe in the 12th and 13th century. This tends to indicate that, by that time, climate change and increased centralization had brought Icelandic forays in Greenland to a halt. Gyrfalcons themselves, however, were very popular birds of prey and made as splendid a tribute as could be expected from the earls of Iceland. Richard II was reportedly found of them and owned more of a dozen at a time.

Perhaps more importantly, by subjugating Iceland the Normans had preempted any attempt by a continental power to control the northern Atlantic, and proved their willingness to defend relentlessly any inch of the British Isles. When Charles de Vogüe died five years later, he bequeathed his lands to the Crown then held by his son-in-law Rolland.


458px-Falco_rusticolus_f.jpg

Wikipedia has pictures of everything
 
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Interesting setup you have in Europe. Getting bery blobby as always in MP. Burgundy looked like big monster that could eat all of Europe at start...but now look at Lorraine, they're the real monster. But I guess it was expected when they were played by Elcyion ;)
 
Looks awesome and nice writing.

Is this a multiplayer game of sorts?
 
Thanks.

It is a multiplayer megacampaign entering its EU3 phase. The game thread is linked in the first post.
 
From the catalogue of the L. Museum
Kuipy (Duchy of Normandy)


The death of Rolland I(1420)

Miniature, 7cm x 13 cm

This miniature used to adorn an exemplary of Reign of Rolland’s grandsons, a history treaty composed by Abbot Gaillard Coleville in 1420. Although unremarkable in terms of execution, it features nine important political figures of the early 15th century, gathered around the body of king Rolland the Tall, represented as a symbol of traditional kingship and chivalry, a white-beard, serene old warrior in a knight’s attire.

In front of the dead sovereign is grouped his surviving issue. Closer to him, his two grandsons, Crown Prince Roger and his brother Rolland ; a bit more to the right, his surviving sons, Richard and Charles. Roger III is sumptuously garbed in gold and ermine, which befits his rank and symbolizes the two provinces he inherited from his father Robert, the Golden Prince: Bretagne and Norman Spain. His younger brother Rolland (the future Rolland II the Miser) wears much plainer cloth, green and black, with only a golden necklace to indicate his rank.

Despite the circumstances the two blonde princes do not look at their grandfather but at their uncle Richard, a tall, brown-haired man, apparently absorbed in his thoughts. Of the royal family only Charles, in the shadow of his older and taller brother, stares at the body.

Near Rolland stands his father-in-law, Charles de Vogüe, Duke of the Northern Isles and the oldest man in the attendance. At his side, his brother Maurice de Vogüe, the archbishop of Eu and as such the first religious prelate of the kingdom, appears to have just performed the last rites on the dying sovereign.

On the other side of the bed Hubert Blount, the Duke of March and Wales and Magnus Cabesat de Vaca, Lord Sovereign of Scotland, glance warily toward a ninth man, whose large size, bushy sideburns and ceremonial sword identify as Eilif of Norway, Marshall and Intendant of the realm. That petty lord and former mercenary, although a foreigner, grew significantly in power during Rolland’s late reign. An accomplished commander and resolute statesman, he reformed and centralized the Realm, curbing the power of the lords and crushing the Irish opposition for a century.


Such a remarkable reunion was probably the very purpose of the illuminator, which represents a scene unlikely to have happened. By 1403 Magnus Cabesat de Vaca had been dead for two years, and his Scottish demesne reattached to the Crown in the absence of direct heirs. It seems also unlikely that Eilif, then in command of the royal host engaged against the Welsh rebels, and Charles, at that time an ambassador to the Burgundian Emperor, could have attended the scene where they are pictured. One is also surprised by the conspicuous absence of both the king’s physicians, Gilles Picot and Josce of York, at least one of whom would probably keep to his bedside at any time.

The scene, thus, is fictitious and highly idealized. In particular, the king’s three vassals, Blount (as a descendant of Eu’s captains), Vogüe (as heir to the old Powells), and Cabesat de Vaca respectively symbolizes the Normandie’s century-old claim on Normandy proper despite their tolerance of Burgundian occupation, their conquest of ever-restive Ireland and the antiquity of their Spanish possessions, at a time when Granada seemed set to unify the Spanish peninsula. In this context the miniature asserts the Norman Empire’s territorial claim and King Richard II’s symbolic endorsement of them.

Like Coleville’s former patron Maurice de Vogüe, Richard occupies indeed a central and prominent place in the scene, as he seems to ponder his dead father’s last words, naming him Protector of the Realm for the sake of his still adolescent grandsons. He does not appear to have been anything to his nephews but a loyal and competent minister, and there is no proof that he was in anyway responsible for their demise in 1406 and 1414, as later Catholic libels would pretend. Nevertheless, after accessing to the throne, there is no doubt that Richard II would have been eager to present himself as his father’s implicitely designated successor.

Eilif, conversely, is only presented as a threat to the Duke’s authority. Despite their former friendship, with the marshall dead for two years, it was now in Richard’s and his protégé’s interest to downplay his accomplishments as a minister compared to those of the new king.


eilif.jpg

Eilif. He can do anything
 
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From the catalogue of the L. Museum
Kuipy (Duchy of Normandy)


An officer's commission (1442)

Richard II, much as his father, was a strong fighter, an avid jouster and a consumate commander. Although financial and administrative hardships prevented him from enacting reforms of a scope comparable to that, for instance, of Willem Billung in Lotharingia, he nonetheless took an active role in drilling and commanding his troops. His eventual death at the battle of Pontevedra in 1429, from an arquebuse shot by a Castilian rebelde, confirms both his military leaning and the growing inadequacy of Norman military.

His son Roger IV, already forty at his coronation, did little to improve the army and refrained to engage in any European conflict, perhaps frightened by the rise of Lotharingia and the Empire of Granada, whose coalition had already humbled the once-undefeatable Burgundy. Under his rule the royal host remained a small, ill-equipped collection of disparate regiments, barely able to put down episodic rebellions in Normandy proper. And only with great reluctance did he delay some of the work on Saint Bede and Saint Hugues of Eu Cathedrals to finance an expansion of the fleet.

It all changed with Robert II's accession to the throne. Young, brash, and determined to bring Normandy in the circle of Great Powers, the Prince of Leon, as soon as he was named regent for his ailing father, undertook to reform and expand the Norman forces, a policy he pursued as king.

The Norman kingdom, at that point, was no longer the weak, unstable confederacy of feudal duchies it had been under Rolland I. After Eilif’s reforms, fueled by the taxes levied on a rising-merchant class, the tolls on the lucrative tolls on Channel ports and the coffers of the Bank of Normandy, his realm could afford an army on par with continental powers. Over the course of a few years, the army size was tripled and the fleet brought to numbers unmatched, except by that of the declining Burgundian Navy. Furthermore, new statutes and regulations were issued, increasing the soldiers’ pay and privileges but also the severity of corporal punishments and the frequency of inspections.

According to the Chronicles of Hubert Saton these reforms led to the demotion of over 700 hundred officers, under charges of incompetence, corruption of cowardice. While this figure is certainly exaggerated, there is no doubt that from that time on, promotions and demotions became a much more common occurrence in the Army, as an officer commission grew to be seen less as a birthright and more as a state employment, to be granted or denied at a few days’ notice. This is one such commission. Signed by the king himself, it gave one Simon O’Brien the rank of captain. Contrary to more general modern officers’ commission, the four-page long document made explicit that he was to command of a regiment in the 9,500 strong “Armée d’Irlande”, and detailed his rights and rather stringent duties. During his seven-year commission, which could be suspended but not resigned, Simon was notably forbidden to gamble, to attend theater plays, to be seen in the company of disreputable women, and to enter any club or league without authorization of his colonel. He was to attend Mass and confess thrice a week and to “bathe as befits a man of his rank and charge” although the rigorous enforcement of this disposition is not attested by contemporary sources.

This document is of especial interest as it presents, for the first time in record, Robert II not as 'king of the Normans' but as 'King of Normandy'. The latter, of course, is not to refer to the old region of Normandy, still under Burgundian occupation and not nearly large enough to constitute a kingdom in his own right, but to 'Greater Normandy' as it came to be known in modern time, that is, essentially, Great Britain, Ireland and the March of Bretagne.


eu3-trade.jpg

trade in Wessex and full quality troops. Note that Burgundy became AI, broke my alliance, embargoes my merchants and holds my homeland. I wonder how it will end.
 
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From the catalogue of the L. Museum
Kuipy (Duchy of Normandy)


A model of the Guiscard (1434) (part 1)

With her fourty-five meter length, forty oars arranged in two rows and four bombardes, the Guiscard was the largest galley of her time. The model presented here, a former staple of the royal collection, also shows several of her innovative features, such as a carvel planking finally adopted from Leonese shipbuilders and a large forecastle.

She sailed for her maiden trip as the flagship of the 12 hull strong fleet charged on transporting Martin V, the first Norman Pope, from Portsmouth to the Burgundian port of Citavecchia, under the command of Admiral d'Ollençon. The fleet was later to be stationed for several years in the Sicilian port of Palermo, to the obvious displeasure of the French Empire.

The very name of the Guiscard was obviously a statement of defiance toward Burgundy and its Sicilian ambitions, and a warning that Robert II was resolved still to consider the Mediterranean in Normandy's sphere of interest. In this occasion he conveniently forgot the fierce rivalry which had opposed Normandies and Hauteville until the latter were destroyed during king Bardol's reign.


eu3-pope.jpg

Also showcasing a skeptical Russia.
 
I edited the first post, but in retrospect...

Yes. Sorry.:eek:o