Scotland AAR (1492-1494) Part 1

[Guy Carleton]

This is the beginning of on on going report on Scotland and how it does.
I may not do to well and it may come to being destroyed.
Just to warn you in advance this is a difficult nation to play.

(1492)
January
James the fourth appoints me to court and looks very discouraged.
He tells me our country is in great disarray and orders me to help him threw the great suffering of all Scots. I make a point to hire a tax collector in Strathclyde which will take 12 months to produce. Our countries stability is low right now and our people as i see are backwards compared to the many nations of Europe. I will do everything in my power to make Scotland great under king and country. Our countries gold ducats are 244 (-50 for spending on promotion of the tax collector).

February
Our monarch orders me to go to war with England and take The Marches in five years time. I want to protest this because i must build our country to greatness but fear if i do i will be beheaded for questioning my king. I will do everything to do it and maybe there will be good fortune in our future. On February 20th the great empire of Turkey declared war on The Mameluks. We will see what will happen but it doesn't concern us.

March
Not much happens this month. I order the 1st Scottish fleet home to Edinburgh. I do this as a procaution. Things do not look good. Stability is still at low levels.

April
Things look a little up. I look outside and see traders starting to do business in our capital again. The scottish fleet makes port on the 9th. I order the highlanders army home on the 20th. Our monarch approves and when they reach home they should for a larger army within our capital. General Norfolk stalks us from The Marches. With a larger army we may be able to defend against an assault from England.

May
I make a trip to Paris to speak with the king there. After many hours of wine and drink i make a purpose of an alliance with the king. Unfortunately he rejects it and sends me packing. When i tell my king about it well lets just say he wasn't to pleased. I am jailed for 15 days then summoned to the palace and given a slap on the wrist. Thank god my lord didnt kill me. The highlands army combined with my lords army and formed over 24,000 Scots. God save Scotland!

June
Not much happened this month.... Granda was annexed by Spain (I saw it coming). Our lord told me he's giving me this chance because he thinks Scotland wont survive 10 years. I beg to differ.

July
On the first of July I ordered 3000 infanty and 2000 Calvary to be assembled in the capital. I hope these troops will be enough for an attack from England if one comes. I also hope that an alliance can be formed with France one day so that England may be distracted by that. Our current Ducats stand at 157.

August-September
Royal Marriage with France has been accepted!!! our relations are now (+75). Our king is pleased that we has done this and expects a lot from me in the future to form an alliance! With the French as allies we may have a chance with England in the upcoming years!

October-December
The assembling of our army is complete and we now have over 29,000 Scots in Edinburgh. Also we are seeing more merchants in our capital and the people seem happier. (0 Stability). We sent our first merchant to Venice. I have high hopes that at a centre of trade such as that we may expand our business in a major marketplace!

(1493)
January
22D
I am happy to report an alliance with France (+95)! and our tax collector in Strathclyde has been finally installed! Things are looking upwards! We now have 171 ducats in our coffers and I am very pleased with the progress.

February-May
In March of this year our stability increased again (+1) and the servants report that our country has made a good recovery. People are not fearing England so much now that we are allies with the great power of France and taxes are being given to our coffers to aid us in maybe taking provinces in the future from our dreaded enemy England. We sent another merchant to Venice in hopes we can expand again. In a move our king invited me to his chambers... he wanted a marriage with England. He told me it was a spying tactic so we can see the English provinces so if we war them in the future we know what we deal with. I reluctantly agreed and a marriage to the kings brother was struck. Seeing reports we see that Norfolk has 16.000 troops in The Marches (we already knew this) 2 div of 9000 in England and another of 4000. This made me very nervous! They are protecting thier land and have no troops in Callis.

June-July
Many troop movements from England. We put a Pskov merchant out of business in Venice. England took 9000 of its troops and put them in Meath Ireland. In July mother Russia declared war on Kazan which shocked me because they also canceled Vasalliage on them the same day. Pskov Crimea and Ryazan all declared war with Russia. We will see what will happen but it doesnt mean anything at home.

August-December
We sent a merchant to Flanders to see how it does there we still have one in Venice. In September we proposed a royal marriage to Spain and they accepted. The kings cousin was betroved. Many troop movements in England happened this month. We sent another merchant to Flanders but only put a merchant from Cologne out of business and still have none there. Stability rose again and I have high hopes for our country for its recovered well. Pskov made peace with Kazan (79D in tribute).

This is my first AAR I know i don't sound Scottish but its the best i can do.
Also can someone message me if there is a way to put screenshoots on this.

[King Of Nines]

i'm also playing an IGC as scotland, so i for one would be interested to see how it goes. word of warning though, is don't be tempted to expand too fast. i made that mistake in my game, and even though i've done well militarily (taken 3 provinces off england), i've got crippling inflation now.

[Lord Durham]

I echo King of Nines. Scotland was actually my first attempt at an AAR but things went horribly, horribly wrong after about thirty years. After that I had a 'religious' calling. Anyway it looks good so far. Good luck.

[D. Marlborough]

Finally a Scottish AAR! Show those English who take over Scotland by 1500, what a buch of toads they are....

[Guy Carleton]

Hello again I have played a bit more and wish to share another AAR

(1494)
January
D29
Today was a wonderful day in Scottish history. Our merchants are now at maxium capacity and now the kingdom is faring the most it can and the happiness is being felt all around us (Stabiliy 3 [max]). We are promoting a tax collector in our capital Lothian. We sent a envoy to Denmark and have a royal marriage with them and the king's sister. (+35). England on the other hand is doing better then us. We see that they are now promoting 6 tax collectors. We wonder how much they have in thier coffers. Our current ducats are 188 but we promoted a tax collector so we have 138 now.

February
A merchant is sent to Venice. We currently have one there. We have hopes to expand more places so we can pocket more cash in our coffers. Our economy is a factor right now.

March
On March 25 Kazan has been Annexed by Russia. We are respecting Russia they are emerging from a small country and are building by expelling many backwards countries (turns back to Scotland and looks at England).

April
Troops from Meath move to Lancashire this month. This makes me worried. So many troop movements from England I wonder if they are worried about both France and us. I hope we don't start lagging in technology but for now it looks like we may just do that. I will tell our lord all is well but i secretly wonder. It is early yet but i do worry about this long term factor.

May
Royal Marriage to Hannover. I wonder if we are assimulating into other nations by marriage. Diplomacy must be good for now in our position. We sent a merchant to Flanders to expand trade. Our Venician Merchant must have gotten lost in Italy. We will have them shot if they return. Continous troop movements by the English. This is making me a bit nervous.

June
Troop movements to Bristol and Wessex makes me relieved a bit... Still Norfolk stalks The Marches. Maybe we should go and meet him and have a picnic. It is really a stalemate right now. It makes me a bit nervous but we still outnumber him 2 to 1 (29-16).

July
James IV is pressuring me to recruit some troops so if we are invaded we may be defended and move on to The Marches. I debate against it making a point of expenses that come with troops. He accept for now and dismisses me.

August
War is declared on Lorraine by France, Savoy, The Pope, and Brittany. We honor our alliance and also declare war on them. We see this as a move to make us look strong in Frances eyes as they obliterate Lorraine.

September
A royal marriage with Saxony. We look good towards the HRE. I hope the Pope thinks so too being his ally. Maybe my lord will one day be emperior (one can only hope).

October
Lorrianne falls to France's seige of over 42,000 menand is annexed as we knew it would. France reclaims its lands there.

November
Sent a merchant to Genoa as a different stategy. We will see what happens. More English troop movements.

December
Genoa's merchant expanded there! this is the good news... the bad news is that it provides 1 ducat per year. On december 19th Denmark declares war on Prussia and the Teutonic Knights.

(1495)
January
D29
Tax collector is promoted in Lothian. We now have some fincial power in our realm. England also had its tax collectors promoted... all 6 of them arg! I was sent to Lisbon on a marriage mission but was turned down. (You can't win them all i guess).

Febuary
Another merchant was sent to Flanders. We have one Venician merchant and one Genoian. We must expand business in Europe to gain money for the conflict with England that will happen someday.

March
Tuscany lost a merchant to Flanders which doesnt help us since we have no merchants there grrrrr!.

April-May
We visited Portuagal again but they are a rude bunch and don't want anything to do with a marriage just yet. Yet another merchant ventures to Flanders and i am becoming frustrated!

June
Holstein looses a merchant in Flanders.... we don't expand we help our enemies!

July
A development has come to my attention and the king is brought to the main war room in our castle. Infrastruction has been brought by our engineers and we know now how to build breweries. We also know how to build things better and we will use the knowledge to better ourselves (Infrastructure 2).

August
We sent another merchant to Genoa... god help him with our economical endevors.

September
The knights of Saint John loose a merchant in genoa which benefits us fine. We went to Lisbon again and the king there still reject the idea of Scottish and Portuguess marriages!. On the 25th Poland declares war with Modovia against the Teutonic Knights and Prussia. God help the knight now they fight on two fronts.

October-November
Not much happening in October but in November Russia declares war on the Golden Horde with Crimea, Pskov, and Ryazan with Astrakhan standing with the Golden Horde. Mother Russia will probably win this one.

December
Flanders finally expands!!! Now we have a Venician merchant a genoian merchant and a Antwerpain merchant making 3. Peace has been good but we need other lands to expand and I hope we do in the future. As the year ends I stand on top of our castle looking into the final sunset as snow falls on Lothian.

[Guy Carleton]

Sorry for my poor spelling and grammer.... I hope you all understand me well.
I am ashamed of it but hey im Canadian eh

[Lord Durham]

Hey Guy, careful with the stereotypes, eh?
People will think we really do live in igloos and eat pemican.

Nothing wrong with the spelling and the grammar, man. The fact you're writing this AAR is good enough.

[Guy Carleton]

Ya I know but spelling countries names without capitals are bad... the spellcheck takes a long time for some reason to load up so i said F it

[King Of Nines]

sounds alright to me so far...

diplomatically, i would say cultivate relations with spain and france. they'll be a big help against england. in my current IGC scotland, i took 3 more provinces from england last night, leaving them with ireland, cornwall, anglia, and essex.
so it can be done. if i knew how to take and post a screenshot, i'd put one here, just to motivate you.

keep writing. interested to see how your IGC compares to mine.

[King Of Nines]

just remember to watch out for inflation.

[David Row]

Originally posted by Lord Durham
Hey Guy, careful with the stereotypes, eh?
People will think we really do live in igloos and eat pemican.

Now now, we know far better than that!
You only find wild pemmicans in Antarctica.

You eat Moose and drink Labbats, right?

[Guy Carleton]

Another report!
1496
January
D31
This month a went to Lisbon again and this time the king granted a marriage with the king's second cousin. We are saving a lot of money and one day when the time is right i hope to use it well.

February
We sent another merchant to Flanders... i am getting frustrated though because all we are doing so far is kicking others out and not expanding. We will see what happens and I hope it favors our great nation.

March
This month are weaponsmasters approach me and tell me that they now use metal cannonballs for seiges from armies... i hope this keeps the English at bay if they invade us! I hope we can carry these weapons around for we may do great damage to English soil if we have traveling versions of this.

April
The Mameluks loose a great war and Turkey take three provinces from them (Nile, Samaria,and Sinai). Turkey seems like a warmongering nation compared to most and we should view them as such.

May
The king summons me to his court and tells me he wishes to hear more about the world because his Spainish spies tell us of a New World out there. He tells me to go to the different countries we had marriages with and ask them to share thier explorations in the hope we may know more about the world. I firstly go to France but they tell me to go away and they do not wish to share anything with us which to me is a shock since they hold us with the highest regards in the world. Denmark shares they explorations with us and to our map we see the two nations Russia has gone to war with. The Golden Horde and Astrakhan. We then see Spain not expecting much. But to our surprise they do share with us! We see the New World and it looks glorious. We see that Spain has expanded some colonies and trading posts. We then go to Portuagal and they to share with us since we have more knowledge now and we see India and the Middle Eastern countries! We then venture into Venice to try to get a royal marriage which is rejected.

June-August
When we go home not much happens in the months of June and July. We send another merchant to Flanders which isnt returning much yet. Also a white peace between Crimea and the Golden Horde is signed in August.

September-November
We expand in Flanders and we have 2 merchants there and 1 in Genoa and 1 in Venice. Not much again has happened in these months which is a blessing since we don't want a war with England just yet.

December
Ragusa lost a merchant in Flanders. No much more then that happened this month. We are at peace for another year.

1497
D30 (194)
Janurary
Inflation I was told by our tax collectors is now at 2%. We sent a marriage purposal to Poland a distant country in the east they rejected us. We are still saving cash for the war that will come with England.

February
I failed to conquer The Marches and was pressured to resigned today but the king told me that i was needed and not to fail again.. Privately he told me that war with England would be a bad thing for the time being. The new task is to keep The Grampians. We sent another merchant to Flanders today.

March-May
More trading these months we expanded in Flanders again which made me very happy. We now have 3 merchants there. In May we sent another merchant in Flanders once more. We also sent a marriage purposal to Poland which was rejected again.

June-August
We expanded once again in Flanders! We now have 4 merchants there and they produce 7 ducats a year! I am very happy about this. I guess this year will be a trading year. In August we sent another merchant to flanders to max our merchants there.

September
We expanded once more in Flanders which makes the merchants there max and we produced 10 ducats a year there which is much needed!. Poland rejected another marriage purposal again. I guess maybe they didn't like the Scottish boar we brought. The Golden Horde also excepted peace from Russia at 18 ducats and Samara to Russia. Russia is becoming great.

October-December
We sent a new merchant to Andalusia in November to expand in December. Our current merchants overseas are Flanders-5 Andalusia-1 Venice-1 Genoa-1.

1498
D30 (220)
January
A royal marriage is signed with Poland. No boar eatin today. On the 9th of this month the Teutonic Knights sign peace with Molovia at 33 ducats.

Febuary-March
We sent another merchant to Andalusia and we expanded in March and have 2 merchants there now.

April
A breakthrew in our navy as the first Caravel is produced. We increased funding to our land technolgy to improve it now that we can afford it. We hope that we can beat the English in land technolgy as they spend all thiers in naval. On the 3rd Denmark annexed Prussia. This move shocked the Europe and we will look at the Danish as being a bad blooded people.

May
We lost a merchant in Flanders so we sent one to Flanders to make up for it. We offered a marriage to the Teutonic Knights but i guess the Danish must have mistaken us for them and the envoy must have been slaughted. I was on vacation luckily so didnt have to go.

June
Kleves lost a merchant in Flanders but we don't expand there. We maintain 4 merchants there.

July-September
In August we sent another merchant to Flanders and we expanded back to 5 merchants there. We have hopes we keep them this time.

October-December
Merchant sent to Andalusia and expanded in December. Our merchant count is as follows. 5 Flanders 3 Andalusia 1 Venice 1 Genoa.

1499
D30 (241)
January
We gained the knowledge of Field Artillary today. It is a cannon that can be pulled around. We should be able to seige English cities with this technology well!! I have high hopes now and hope that France declare war on England in 1 year or more. We will be ready for them then most certainly!.
[Future reports will be sent soon!]

[Guy Carleton]

I'll be out most of today ill try for another 3 years tonight. Thank you for all your comments.. I hope im not stalling for war but if France looses the stability its better... i was waiting for artiliary and i hope it pays off with a war.

[SimonM]

Originally posted by David Row


Now now, we know far better than that!
You only find wild pemmicans in Antarctica.

You eat Moose and drink Labbats, right?

Nah. I ran one over on my way to work (as a lumberjack, leaping from tree to tree in the forrests of British Columbia -- I retired as a pet store clerk years ago) with my dog sled.

Oh -- and if you visit this fine land, avoid what the major commercial breweries pass off as beer (I think it's been passed, anyway ). There are some fine micro-breweries, however!

Cheers!

[King Of Nines]

I'll be out most of today ill try for another 3 years tonight. Thank you for all your comments.. I hope im not stalling for war but if France looses the stability its better... i was waiting for artiliary and i hope it pays off with a war.

as long as england has calais, then france has a CB against england. they'll declare war on england sooner or later, and then you can hopefully snatch a few provinces from england without having to take a BB hit for a DOW.

[das]

But can you please, just improve relations with France, a little, and theb declare war on England? Or you had other plans? And about screens, I guess you should either build a new website, or put screens on systemvoid.

[Guy Carleton]

France's relations with us are a healthy 95. I wish to let them declare war on England so i can go in without affecting BB to much after taking provinces... i want to let France loose the stability instead of me. I would loose a lot if i declared war on England. If France does then i can join in i may be able to snatch a few provinces. But tonight i am tired and first thing tomorrow ill do another report. I thanks from the comment from the king of nines. I am also preparing to build artillery so it will help me with seiging.

[Olaf_the_White]

Originally posted by Guy Carleton
Sorry for my poor spelling and grammer.... I hope you all understand me well.
I am ashamed of it but hey im Canadian eh

"I dont considir a man truely intellegent if he can only think of one way to spel a particuilar werd."

Andrew Jackson
PotUS

(Actually I think he spoke the quote above but had he written it it might have come out like that!)

[Coeur de Lion]

Originally posted by Olaf_the_White


"I dont considir a man truely intellegent if he can only think of one way to spel a particuilar werd."

Andrew Jackson
PotUS

(Actually I think he spoke the quote above but had he written it it might have come out like that!)

He could write?

[King Of Nines]

France's relations with us are a healthy 95. I wish to let them declare war on England so i can go in without affecting BB to much after taking provinces... i want to let France loose the stability instead of me. I would loose a lot if i declared war on England. If France does then i can join in i may be able to snatch a few provinces. But tonight i am tired and first thing tomorrow ill do another report. I thanks from the comment from the king of nines. I am also preparing to build artillery so it will help me with seiging.

hey, no problem. like i said, as long as england has calais, then france will declare war on england sooner or later. hopefully later rather than sooner so u can build an army, and hopefully upgrade a fort or 2. and when the DOW comes, don't bother fighting the main english army. let them beat themselves on the walls of your fortresses while you storm theirs. with any luck, you'll be able to take 2 or 3 provinces to them maybe taking one of yours. and then you can sue for peace. don't be tempted to go for too much in one sitting, either. nibble away at england, taking a province here, and another province there. in my game, england has changed religion twice, and each time they have, i DOW'ed them when their stability was low, and have taken a total of 6 provinces from them in 3 wars (two declared by me). france and spain (if you can get them into the alliance as well) will be a big help in keeping the english fleet at bay....