A Brief History of Prussia - A D&T AAR

videonfan said:

They start as pagan and i want to see what they convert to

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In this game they converted to Catholic, yes.

Martin I was a somewhat obscure choice as the new Hochmeister. A man of great ambition, but blessed with little else, Martin wished to emulate and then one-up his forerunners, in both warfare and the economy. His ambition was enough to convince the council to choose him as Hochmeister. He seemed to have a grand idea of, firstly, continuing the conquest of Poland and, secondly, defeating Lithuania, thus gaining for the Order vast lands of men and money. For a man of little ability, the chances of such a thing actually occurring seemed rather slim, and thankfully his advisors were able to slow him down regularly. Of course, such goals also meant further moving away from the idea of the order, as it stopped short of actually attacking non-Christians. Martin was rather adept at appearing to do things that he was not actually going to do – hence his warning of Poland, which may have been mistaken for a soon-to-be war declaration, but was never really going to achieve anything, as Poland was hardly going to attack its neighbours on the Teutonic border.

Martin's ambitions for the economy were also dealt a blow with the retirement of Humbert von Bucholtz in 1433. But with precious little to spend money on anyway, Martin was not particularly fussed. He was waiting with increasing impatience for an opportunity to go to war. “If only Poland were not guaranteed by Bohemia”, he would often grumble, “we would have taken their capital by now”. The recruitment of a superb Army Organiser by the name of Adalbert von Poll allowed the Teutonic Army to increase to 45000 troops, but this was still not enough to convince Martin's advisors of their ability to defeat Bohemia. Instead, Muscowy offered an alternative in 1434 by again going to war with the ever-weakening Horde, an offer Martin gleefully accepted. Martin was very clear about his goal – he wanted Kaffa for himself, much to the displeasure of the council. He was insistent on the matter. “From Kaffa we will be able to push from both sides against the Lithuanians and Poles, and attack the evil Hordes!”. Martin himself led the charge, going into Horde territories previously unknown.


The Hochmeister's ambitious nature did have one benefit – the Teutons managed to claim successfully that Viborg, the last remaining Finnish territory not under their control, did, in fact, belong to them. With the Horde distracted by Muscowy's success to the north, Martin was able to lead his army through to Sarai, amazingly taking the capital of the Horde and, while unable to take Kaffa, accepted the offer of Kouban, where Martin was to stay with his personal army.


Quickly deciding that there was no time like the present, Martin ordered General Theodor von Schwanden to attack Viborg, while England was otherwise occupied in France. Such a move angered the Pope, who was presumably sick of the Order attacking fellow Christians. This was was more-or-less a constant game of cat and mouse, with the allies of England regularly brining in small contingents to siege with, while England itself sent in large armies to catch the attention of von Schwanden and his second-in-command, Isidor von Dellinghausen. With England unwilling to give up Viborg easily, it looked like a stalemate would be the final result for Martin by the beginning of 1441.

My little siegers...​

Meanwhile, Lithuania had successfully defeated the Golden Horde again, making themselves very dangerous, and clearly the next target of the Order. But first they would need to defeat England, who, despite constant naval and land losses, refused to give up this one province. Eventually even the people of England recognised that they were beaten, and began agitating when peace deals were not accepted. Three generals died in combat, but eventually England was too unstable and exhausted to continue, and agreed to give up Viborg.


Martin could now turn his attentions to a country of his choice. Despite the threat of Lithuania, he wished to immediately declare war on the Golden Horde. After being pleaded with to at least wait until the country recovered, he agreed to wait for at least a year. He instead decided to wait until June of 1446, but weeks before declaring war, Martin suddenly became ill while preparing his troops in Kouban, and died on the 28 April, 1446.


3rd Muscovite conquest of Golden Horde (1434-1436) – Teutonic victory, conquest of Kouban, reparations
1st Teutonic reconquest of Viborg (1436-1444) – Teutonic victory, reconquest of Viborg

• Provinces gained: Kouban and Viborg

There is little to say about Martin. He did not rule for very long, and he achieved precious little. His conquest of Viborg can be put down as a positive mark, despite the overly long time it took for anything to be achieved (which can be blamed just as much on England's obstinacy as it can on Martin's diplomatic skills). His conquest of Kouban, however, can be given no such reward. Although it appears to have been the result of some kind of plan (to take Kaffa), it wasn't exactly a well thought out one. The Order was in no position to try and attack their Eastern neighbours and the Hordes simultaneously. Moreover, the vast distance between the two areas seems to be enough of a reason not to establish a position in the area. The fact that Martin was unable to even take the province he wanted does nothing to help his cause. Therefore, he shall be called Martin "the Rash".

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videonfan said:

Isn't it bad for your technology to capture so many provinces?And unite your domain by capturing lithuanian ones

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Well, considering I'm a theocracy, technology isn't exactly a big focus at the moment...

MrQwerty said:

Also, what country did you release in Kouban, or am I wrong in seeing a different color than Teutonic gray :blink: ?

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That would be me. The colour is becuase I had clicked on the province, so it was flashing.

On his death bed, Martin handpicked his successor, “a man after his own heart”. This man was Johann Eustach I. Indeed, Johann was like his predecessor in many ways, most importantly that of lacking any particular skill. But he, like Martin, had ambition which prevented him from being completely vanilla. Importantly, though, he was more subdued than Martin, and was willing to take stock of the Order's position before going in all guns blazing. But having said that, all guns blazing was not something he would shy away from, and so it was that Johann declared war on the Golden Horde on the May 1st, 1446, with Johann leading the charge. And, for all his faults, Johann was an excellent military tactician when personally leading the battle, able to shock the enemy in battle with astounding ease. With Muscowy on side, Johann believed he would be able to take a number of valuable Horde provinces before Lithuania made an inevitable grab for them.


It does appear that Johann was almost obsessed with crusading. Unlike Martin, who just wanted to go to war against anyone, Johann believed that the Order, being in a position to do so, should be at war with the Muslims as much as possible. And so it was that Johann went on a successful first conquest of the Horde, taking with him four provinces, with Muscowy also taking two.


Johann immediately set about converting these provinces, and waited for the next opportunity to go to war with the Horde, staying in Kouban. So convinced was he of the need to eradicate the enemies of Christianity that he set about enacting a settlement policy in Kouban. Unsurprisingly, this was followed by a policy announcement of increased narrowmindedness.


Johann was able to take full advantage of the strong economy and military that had been gifted to him, and simply set about crusading. Nothing else even seemed to enter his mind. Unfortunately this included foreign relations, and the Pope announced his disapproval of the lack of crusading by the Teutons while they remained at a truce with their only Islamic neighbours, causing Johann to be somewhat miffed, and costing significant time and money to return relations back to being strong.


Not long before declaring war, Johann instituted a policy of a Grand Army for crusading with, and followed this by declaring his second crusade on the 9th of February, 1453. This was well timed, as Lithuania declared war mere weeks later. The Hochmeister was surprised, though, when The Mamluks took control of the war in June, thus bringing in much of the Muslim world. Lithuania did less than expected, accepting monetary payment, and allowing the Teutons much room to move – and block them out.

With the Horde virtually melting at the sight of his troops, Johann crusaded throughout the land, and eventually settled for a peace deal in 1454 which involved only three provinces, but strategically placed ones – Lithuania was now blocked off from crusading any further, thus allowing the Teutons to continue east and south as far as they wanted. Such a move was music to the ears of Johann, but concerned some others, who felt that the Order may have been on the verge of overextending itself. In fact, revolts were something Johann almost revelled in putting down, and some whispered that he had little interest in stability because of that very reason.