In Flanders Field

The year is 1492. After breaking loose from the Burgundian Realm in 1477 during the political crisis following the death of Charles le Téméraire in combat at Nancy, which set of the regional powers in the Netherlands, Flanders had been enjoying a prosperous spell. While the rest of the Burgundian legacy came under Austrian Habsburg control and were effectively being ruled by Maximilian I of Austria after the death of Maria of Burgundy in 1482, the trading nation of Flanders had clearly established its position as trading center between the mediterranean zone and the Baltic zone. The other independent part of the Netherlands, Gelre-Friesland (Holland) didn't yet make any claim for greatness and for now was concentrating quietly on the Baltic trade. Flanders enjoyed good relations with the traditional trading powers, amongst whom it was included itself, of the Hanse, Venice and Genua. Also with the new trendsetters, Portugal, relations were fairly good. Major power wise we were less well placed however. France had been trying for several centuries now to get the rich province that is Flanders under its control. Flanders didn't have to think of getting any help from the Habsburgs after leaving them behind earlier. Luckily though England, which wanted to protect its huge economical interests in Flanders, had invited Flanders into a militaryalliance which the Raad van Vlaanderen gladly accepted. Common foes make for good friends. At least now we had some backup against the French juggernaught. Although our little nation was prospering we needed to preserve a future for ourselves before the present caught up with us. Our trade knowledge is superb, our naval and infrastructure is adequate but our army needs working on if we ever plan on opposing the French seriously.

In game terms : Flanders starts with 2 provinces (Flanders and Calais, which bar Calais itself was Flanders anyway) and a military and economic presence of England in our nation (wool, cloth, Calais itself, the COT,...). We have CB shields over Hainaut, Artois, Calais, Flanders, Zeeland and Picardie, all provinces who were part of Flanders at one point in history and shouldn't revolt when coming under Flemish rule again. This also gives us a CB against the French and Habsburgs and rightly so. However, expanding isn't a thing for the near future, the Raad feels, for now we can be happy to be under English wings (them not having Calais will help them out no bit against the French who wil 9 times out of 10 take it in the first 10 years anyway). Luckily the Habsburgs are primarily concerned about the threat from the south posed by the Ottomans, which might open up opportunities for us. The trick is to keep up our trading empire while keeping our small homebase under control. Losing Calais wouldn't be the end of the world as long as we could hold on to Flanders. France has CB shields over all our provinces and our relations are accordingly. But the alliance with England looks good. Our army is puny though and our tech isn't much better. Leaders are few and far between but luckily we had aan able council to lead us and the default generals are adequate. We set of on a carefully to be followed course of trade supremacy and diplomatic action to preserve the military status quo.

Played with 1.08, Hard/Normal, I think. No missions while annexations and random events are on.

If Holland already exist there won't be any Dutch nationalism so unless Holland gets annexed (very unlikely as I've given them major power status to be xure) it won't happen. So I should be safe.

An added bonus for me in this game is the chace to play with my home 'country' so to say. I used the Saxony shield as it's very alike and sadly I can't make shields of my own.

I experimented a lot with the COTs. I started with none in France, Holland and Anglia but the COTs in Europe are hardcoded and a French one doesn't come into play if there isn't one from the start even if they have a huge colonial empire. So it has to be there from the start. I was playing for 2 years and the Holland one already came into existence. Why, I do not know as they have no colonies. So I went all the way then and gave every colonial country its own COT, and the value of each would depend of its own provinces and its colonies. So the more colonies, the more valuable is its COT. Anyway, with 1.08 the AI does trading very well IMO and they're available in all COTs overall getting the same profit like being available in one big COT and the actual worth of a COT doesn't really matter.

Now to found New Flanders somewhere

First of all u need a webpage to host them.

Then if they're hosted u can use UBB code to display them on the forums (see the Board FAQ for that).

Anyway if u can host ur shots, u should be able to display them as it isn't hard at all.

Okelidokely! Found New Flanders next to Homer, that's worse than natives!

I bought it online from Germany a few months ago already. Great decision, never looked back!

I added a few leaders, not too many but enough to get it nicely realistic, I think anyway.

Rebellions don't occur as long as Holland exists, so I won't get them as Holland will never cease to exist as I made them a major.

Early on we succeed in monopolizing our own COT while upgrading infrastructure to maximise our income. The Raad van Vlaanderen chipped in nicely by upgrading our fortress in Antwerpen. Royal Marriages are being made all over the HRE to counter the Habsburgs. England for now doesn't see much in enlarging our alliance though. The Hanse however team up with Holland, Portugal and Poland. Portugal is busy exploring the world. We hear about their exploits and are interested as we see colonial trade as the future but for now we can’t do nothing yet. Our relations are good and we just need sommink to trade for their maps. Our knowledge of Eastern Europe is very good thanx to contacts with the Hanse and we use the Italian merchants states to get maps of the Islamic part of the world. We keep on shopping around till we have enough knowledge to go and talk to the Portuguese.

But that plan is forcefully interrupted when the French declare war on Habsburg. We cannot be left out of this party. I take advantage of France being busy elsewhere to conclude a royal marriage with them to secure our back. I'm very glad to hear they accept! Maybe they wanna keep their 'renegade' provinces close at heart in a friendly way like Lorraine. Anyway with that RM conluded the Raad van Vlaanderen decides the time to be very opportunistic has come. With Habsburgs being warred on by every side (Turks too) we cannot stay out. Even though our army is quite shitty we have the English under the able general Norfolk to back us up. War is declared and as expected the English are there to fully back us up. We go for Hainaut and siege Brussels while Norfolk sieges Artois. The French are getting the Franche Comté. Habsburg in the meantime isn't planning to do nothing. 2 armies are sent out and their priorities are clear. They go for the minor allies of the big powers. Shit. Lorraine are being sieged as is Flanders. Our army was decimated trying to scare them away. We patiently build up a new army in Calais while Flanders is holding nicely. Lorraine is less lucky though. Lorraine is forced into paying a huge sum of 250D in indemnities. In the meantime however the French have taken the Franche Comté and the English have control of Artois. This proves to be our break as the siege of Flanders is abandoned in order to liberate Artois. We take advantage of this by sending our army to siege Hainaut again. Our tech had increased during the wartime and as long as we didn't meet sizeable armies in the field we'd be safe. Besides the English were there to scare them away.

Hungary had meanwhile lost the war to Turkey bigtime and lost some provinces. After a year long siege Brussels falls to our persistent army!! Hooray!! But the Habsburgs can't be swayed to give anything up. Bugger. By now they had liberated Artois but lost Luxembourg to the French. Heavy battles were taking place in Helvetia to keep the French out of Tyrol. We scoured the remaining provinces of the Netherlands. Our initial target of Zeeland unfortunately had an upgraded fortress but Den Hague didn't so we went for that. The English in the meantime making xure the Habsburg armies who no doubt were much better than us couldn't reach us. While we sieged Den Hague, France stromed their way to victory in Artois. Things were looking bad for the Habsburgs in the Netherlands. We looked to force sommink and stormed the fortress. It cost us half our army and reinforcements (by now the treasury was empty) but it worked. Den Hague fell. The Habsburgs finally saw the light that they had lost in the west and that they should cut their losses now so they could still get sommink done in Hungary. They gave up Hainaut to us (woohoo) and Franche Comté and money to France. We made gifts to the English to thank them for their help, which was priceless really.

Brugge born and bred

Sneak preview : I founded Nieuw Brugge in Manhattan

I also got a nice Flemish shield thanx to the great work of McGuinn which I will use for the later parts of the game.