Rise of the Magyars - A HUN tutorial

[Kovax]

The following After Action Report [ COMPLETED ] documents not only the events specific to Hungary, but the reasoning behind the choices made, so the principles can be applied in other games for other countries besides Hungary.

Initial start: Normal difficulty, with all of the Default settings, except Lucky Nations turned off.

Initial Advisors:
Natural Scientist (6 stars) - Production Research bonus
Philosopher (2 stars) - Prestige bonus
Artist (3 stars) - Stability gain

Initial Mission: Austrian Relations (100+ relations with Austria, and Royal Marriage)
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11/1399 - Hired advisors, set research sliders to recover stability, sent diplomats as follows:
Austria - offer an alliance immediately, before other countries form alliances, as the odds of success decrease significantly once a country already has two alliances. This will also boost relations, raising the odds of a successful Royal Marriage offer being accepted later. It will also significantly reduce the odds of Bohemia declaring war on Hungary in the first few days of the game. Accepted by Austria.
Bohemia - Royal Marriage offer, in the hopes that their king will pass away before they gain an heir, resulting in a Personal Union between Hungary and Bohemia. This happened historically, leaving the King of Hungary temporarily as the King of Hungary and Bohemia, and Holy Roman Emperor. Accepted.
Burgundy - this is a very likely candidate to claim the Imperial throne if/when the Bohemian king dies, if Bohemia acquires its usual levels of Infamy. There is a very important reason for remaining on the good side of Austria, Bohemia, and Burgundy, as the following events will show. Accepted.
Poland - Royal Marriage offer, in hopes of inheriting or forming a Personal Union with them in case their king dies while fighting the Golden Horde. Accepted.
The 5th Diplomat was kept in reserve for a month, until the diplomatic menu with Austria resets.
Constructed one Cavalry unit and an infantry unit, with just enough funds left in the treasury to last until the end of the year.

12/1399 - Used that 5th diplomat to make a Royal Marriage offer to Austria. Accepted. Mission completed for a +1 boost in Stability.
New mission: Annex Transylvania for a core on Transylvania.
Slider move made, to increase Centralization, in order to boost income. Resulting effect: -1 Stability.
Several Royal Marriage offers accepted, two rejected (Bar and Mazovia) because I don't want to accidentally inherit a usual target for a major power at this stage.

6/1400 - Stability increased. Various Royal Marriages offered, mostly within the HRE, all but one accepted. Bohemia attacks Poland/Lithuania, while Poland is at war against the Golden Horde. Wallachia, Ragusa, and Montenegro ally with each other, then the king of Montenegro passes away, leaving no legal heir. Hungary sends a spy, and uncovers "Obscure Documents" showing a legal right to the throne of Montenegro. Montenegro itself is not an important target, but it's a path to a legal CB on the more valuable targets: Wallachia and Ragusa. Additional military units are built, increasing the army to 2 cavalry and 8 infantry.

7/1400 - Hungary declares war on Montenegro to enforce its claim. Ragusa and Wallachia join Montenegro in the war.

12/1401 - Wallachia surrenders, converting to Catholicism and becoming a vassal of Hungary. This combination raises Hungary's Prestige to #2 in the world.

1/1402 - Venice declares war on Montenegro, and Ragusa supports its ally against Venice. This throws a proverbial wrench into the gears, since accepting the surrender of either Ragusa or Montenegro will allow Venice to stroll in and annex them. Second army stack started, making a total of 14 units: 2C/8I and 2C/2I.

11/1402 - Hungary's king has an heir, although certainly not a great one. Average legitimacy, and 4//5/7 stats, just a shade below average overall. That's 3 stars between Administration and Diplomacy, not bad enough to be a concern, but not what I was hoping for. Note that in the early stages of the game, the king is the primary source of research points, unless you get a really good advisor. In the late stages of the game, the king's input is trivial compared to the huge tax, trade, and production contributions.

1403 - Bohemia ends its war against Poland with the annexation of a province and forces the release of Moldavia and a one province minor (OPM) Ukraine, giving Bohemia 4 points of Infamy. Moldavia is soon defeated by the Golden Horde, becoming a vassal. Ukraine is quickly guaranteed by about 6 other countries. Burgundy, having picked up 3 provinces through missions or by taking its own cores, has gained Prestige without any Infamy, and is preferred by the majority of the HRE electors. Hungary sends a diplomat to request military access to Burgundy, then offers military access to Burgundy a month later. Both are accepted, increasing Relations.

1404 - The king of Bohemia passes away, but has a legal heir. The King of Burgundy becomes the new Emperor. Hungary makes a modest request to admit Ersekeuvar to the HRE, which is approved, which is now possible because Burgundy has more provinces than Hungary, whereas Bohemia would have never admitted a province of a larger country than itself into the HRE. Hungary then requests that Pecs (the capital) be admitted, but is rejected. A month later, the request is repeated, and Hungary becomes a member of the HRE.

1405 - Venice and Montenegro tire of waiting, and settle for a white peace. Hungary enforces vassalization on Ragusa, then enforces the Personal Union with Montenegro, ending the unusually prolonged war.

1406 - Production research pays off, thanks to an excellent advisor, and Hungary builds its first Constabulary. Research focus changed to Government, for a National Idea and the +1% tax efficiency boost per level. Poland admits defeat in its war against the Golden Horde, and Lithuania soon breaks away upon the death of the King of Poland, losing another 4-5 provinces to the Ukraine in a series of revolts.

1407-1409 - Hungary uses most of the rest of the decade to burn off the majority of its Infamy, and annexes Transylvania diplomatically, completing another mission.
Next mission: "Make Bohemia vote for us". This is all-but impossible, as Bohemia will always vote for itself unless cut apart and vassalized. Reload the game. Same mission, reload. After 8 reloads, I get "Make Trier vote for us". This is at least reasonably possible, even thought I have zero intention of becoming Emperor while my financial and military state is still so weak, so I accept it.
The exceptional Natural Science advisor writes a book, providing an additional boost to Production research for the next decade.

1411 - Another slider move toward Centralization. Shortly after, I get an event providing a slider move toward Free Subjects, saving me what would have been my next slider move in another decade.

Ultimately, Hungary MUST westernize in order to remain competitive. This will require several more slider moves over several more decades toward Centralization, more than are allowed by the current form of government. Annexing enough provinces (30) to allow an Imperial form of government can allow that to happen well before a suitable alternative can be researched, provided that you're at least moderately aggressive about it. Several slider moves toward Innovation will also be needed, but the increase in Stability cost for doing so makes it attractive to remain slightly Close-Minded, at least for the next few decades.

The medium-range plan is to pick up a couple of HRE provinces through the Obscure Documents espionage mission and forced PUs, then inheriting them as cores through the HRE. Member states (not the Emperor) get a -0.25 Infamy per year benefit, along with other advantages, but eventually I'll need to become Emperor to wield the massive amounts of manpower and high force limits that the title confers.

That Imperial title also allows you to declare wars against outside countries that take HRE provinces, and if you liberate any HRE provinces in such a war, you gain a core on one of the reclaimed provinces. Illegal HRE provinces (taken by HRE or outsider states) often turn over their illegal HRE provinces as a random event, which can be either good or bad, depending on the situation. Good if you want that province or can release it to burn off a point of Infamy for your other antics, but bad it you don't want it and can't release or sell it, and then have to suffer a +0.25 per year Infamy increase for each illegal HRE province in your possession, for the 50 years that it takes to become a core. That's 0.25 per year for 50 years, which is 12.5 Infamy points for a single province! The idea is to take as many as possible for as little Infamy as possible, since Infamy is the primary brake on expansion. Colonial wars for 0.8 Infamy per province are excellent, Holy Wars for 1.0 per province are good, and even defensive wars offer 3 point provinces instead of the usual 4. Occupying and colonizing lands owned by a horde incur no infamy, so taking land from the Golden Horde is ideal, if you can survive their early-game advantages both in sheer numbers and in combat strength. Inheriting is also free, and I intend to utilize that as much as possible.

 

[Kovax]

Short session, not much progress to show.

Naples and Provence began a war with Venice over a couple of provinces near the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula, and after a couple of months and attempts, Hungary's offer of alliance was accepted by Naples. While Naples' fleet engaged and pinned the Venetian navy off the coast of Morea, Most of the Hungarian 1st army crossed over the strait into the province of Venice itself and defeated the Venetian army there, the other portion remained behind, and the sieges of both Venice and Treviso were initiated. Venice's vassal Naxos and ally Corfu meanwhile sieged and occupied Naples' previously annexed province of Janina. The smaller second Hungarian army made its way down through the Balkan coast and engaged Venice's allies, Corfu and Naxos, in turn, defeating both. Naples' troops on Corfu successfully assaulted the already heavily demoralized fortress there, and Corfu surrendered soon after, becoming a vassal of Naples. The small Hungarian contingent then began laying siege to Athens, one of Venice's earlier conquests, ignoring Janina's Venetian garrison.

Thrace, annexed by Venice during the first decade of the century, went into revolt, and was besieged by a sizable army of Byzantine patriots.

With the war still technically undecided but essentially already won, the hope is to force Venice to surrender Treviso before they settle with Naples, since the war score for Naples against Venice should be slightly lower on account of Venice's occupation of Janina.

Meanwhile, construction of Constables continued throughout the Hungarian territories, as funds allowed, beginning in the richer provinces and gradually spreading to the less prosperous ones where their overall financial impact would be substantially less. The plan, at this point, is to set up Constables in all provinces, then begin building Churches to reduce the growing cost of Stability recovery. By the time that's complete, I should be able to construct Workshops.

Hungary's merchants managed to gain a couple of seats very early in the game, but by the latter part of the first decade, they had both been ejected by more aggressive and better organized traders from several Merchant Republics. Their replacements failed to gain seats, and I quickly stopped trying to place merchants, since the compete chances were all well below 50%. At this point, the dedicated merchant countries have already gotten their first Trade tech increase, and made slider moves to improve their competition chances. A few have gotten their first National Idea, increasing their compete chances further. Hungary is already falling behind in Trade tech, with a starting slider position that's heavily Mercantile rather than Free Trade, meaning that it will only pay to place merchants where they gain bonuses in OWNED Centers of Trade, since those traders would suffer penalties and be uncompetitive in foreign markets. The cost of repeated failures will not be recovered (by any that do manage to succeed) before they're ejected by their more competitive rivals. At this stage of the game, there is little reason to construct Markets, because the additional trade revenue would be harvested by other countries, not Hungary. If/when I manage to annex Venice, THEN I can build markets and see an increase in income from it. AFTER I Westernize, and begin to absorb techs from my HRE neighbors at 100 points per day until mostly caught up, THEN I can worry about slider moves toward Free Trade.

 

[Kovax]

Another busy evening with a short session:

The sieges of Venice and Treviso were successfully completed by the end of 1413, but Venice would not accept any terms above "white peace". Athens was then sieged and occupied, and Venice offered Treviso and a small sum of reparations to settle with Hungary, but would STILL not accept even the most minimal terms if offered by Hungary. I recall from a previous game that they won't accept terms until/unless their fleet is broken. Hungary accepted their offer, since it was what they wanted anyway, gaining control of the gateway to Vienna and thereby blocking any future attempts by Austria or Milan to conquer it. Vienna is a high-value non-HRE province, and waiting a couple of years to take it, until after Vienna gains a military tech level and changes its troop type to Men-at-Arms, would allow the recruitment of some Western troops to match the rest of the HRE for most of the century. Treviso was taken too soon for that, and still has the basic military level 3 militia which are already becoming obsolete in the HRE. With Hungary's heavily Mercantile slider position, owning a CoT would be highly beneficial, as no merchants so far since the early half of the first decade have been able to remain in a CoT long enough to recover their placement cost.

In 1414, Byzantium declared its independence from Vienna, making the eventual annexation of Venice one step easier. Venice is now down to Venice itself, Moria, Crete, and Athens, with the latter three all suffering from high revolt risk. All but Crete are accessible by land, thanks to Hungary's military access treaties, vassalage, and Personal Union with all the intermediate states. If Crete revolts, that puts the complete annexation of Venice within the realm of possibility when the truce expires, but at the moment, the majority of their army (or what's left of it) is bottled up there by Naples' fleet. I think I know what my spies will be doing once Venice and Naples settle, and Venice moves some troops to deal with rebels in Moria or Athens, but it appears that Venice won't accept any terms from Naples while its own fleet still exists.

In 1415, the King of Burgundy, Emperor of the HRE, passed away, and Austria's young prince became the new leader of the HRE. Burgundy's Infamy had been well into the "very bad" range, mainly due to several illegal provinces turned over by Bavaria (Franken, Augsburg, and two provinces of Wurtemburg) and a couple by Milan (Pisa and Sienna), plus at least 3 of its own doing (2/3 of Brabant and 1/2 of Liege being non-core annexations). Within a year, Burgundy had relinquished 4 illegal provinces to Austria, and Austria began accruing a small amount of annual Infamy from the acquisitions.

At this point, Austria, England, Bohemia, Burgundy, Naples, Pommerania, Brunswick, and Bavaria are all being run by regents or lack a legitimate heir, and Hungary's king or heir are either the prospective heirs or second in line in all of them. Unfortunately, with a mediocre heir of its own, Hungary's odds of actually inheriting any of them are low. There are also 3 countries being run by kings with weak claims, which would seem to invite an "Obscure Documents" incident, but at this point all 3 have multiple alliances with strong countries that Hungary should not be taking on at this stage of the game, and they're too remote to defend even if they can be forced into a PU and annexed. With 23 Royal Marriages, anything can happen at any time, but in most games it only happens once or twice, if at all. I'm not counting on it.

 

[Kovax]

Timing is everything. Sometimes, the game tantalizes you with juicy tidbits and possibilities, then snatches them away from you at the last moment. This was one such day.

2/1415 - The continuing war between Naples/Provence and Venice escalated when Milan's truce with Naples expired, and they joined Venice, taking control of the war and bringing in their own allies: Genoa and Sicily. With Genoa already involved in a long struggle against the Golden Horde, they waited about a month and then called for a white peace with Naples, who gladly accepted. Sicily waited about a month longer before doing the same. Naples then called Hungary BACK into the war, resulting in an odd situation with HUN facing Milan, but not at war with Venice in the same war. The 10,000 Hungarian troops still standing in Treviso immediately launched an attack on the 4,000 man Milanese army in Verona, not arriving until the beginning of the next month, which allowed them to reach full morale status a few days before contact. Hungary's remaining 6,000 men left Hungary and headed for the conflict. Shortly after, Venice requested a white peace from Naples, which was accepted, leaving Milan to face both Naples and Hungary.

10,000 versus 4,000 is a relatively easy fight, despite the tech difference (eastern Bardiche infantry versus western Men at Arms) and the -4 terrain penalty, but when another 19,000 Milanese joined the battle a week or two later, the situation started to look grim. The arrival of the additional 6000 Hungarian troops of the second army helped reduce the disparity, but the loss ratio was still close to 10:1 against. Despite the massive casualties (over 6,000 lost out of 16,000), and thanks in part to the "Military Drill" national idea adopted by the Hungarians, the morale of the Hungarian front rank held, and the Milanese army broke first. Milan's army was pursued to Bresica, both forces arriving on the last day of the month, and surrendered to the last man, leaving Milan without a land army. In the mean time, the combined Naples/Provence navy abandoned its blockade of Venice's Balkan provinces and engaged Milan's navy, destroying it completely. Bereft of army or navy, Milan sued for peace with Hungary. With no cores to reclaim or relinquish by either party, and no Milanese vassals to force the release of, Hungary accepted the white peace offer, since the King of Hungary was second in line for the Milanese throne, and there was little to be gained by spoiling relations any further. Lots of casualties and nothing to show for it.

7/1416 - Bohemia invaded Poland over a border dispute, bringing in the Teutonic Order, Aquileia, and Burgundy against Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Bavaria, and the Papal States. Hungary had no clear stake in the contest, and remained out of it, still recovering manpower after the brutal engagement against Milan.

3/1417 - Naples and Milan finally tire of the pointless fight, and cease hostilities. Poland surrenders Poznan to Bohemia, ending that war.

2/1419 - Hungary diplomatically annexes Wallachia.

5/1419 - Bohemia invades Austria over the disputed border province of Ostmarch, and Austria calls Hungary, Cologne, and Albania to its side. Bohemia brings in Aquileia, Burgundy, and Ireland. Burgundian troops busy themselves with sieging Cologne and Austria's remote provinces turned over by Burgundy and Bavaria earlier, taking Cologne out of the war quickly, but don't make the long overland trip to engage the core parts of Austria or Hungary.

10/1420 - Morea, which revolted and declared its independence from Vienna only a year earlier, is annexed by Achaea. Venice is looking ripe for the taking, but is still allied with Milan.
​

3/1421 - Aquileia is totally occupied by Austrian and Hungarian troops and is vassalized by Austria. Bohemia is almost totally occupied, with Hungary in control of two provinces (Moravia and Ratibor) and almost done sieging two more, before Bohemia accepts peace with Austria and relinquishes its core claim. A month later, Hungary gets an event: "Claims on our Rivals", giving cores in Ratibor, Krakow, and Verona. Wait a minute, I had troops unopposed in Verona in 1415, Poland was ripe for taking in 1416 if I had a valid CB, and Hungary controlled Ratibor only a month ago. That's almost funny. Timing is everything.....or you get nothing.

Once Austria burns off some war exhaustion, I'm considering using the core in Verona as a CB to get into another war against Milan's ally Venice, as well as picking up that HRE core from Milan. Austria should be able to handle Milan's army with no problems, although I'm expecting my other non-vassal ally Naples to reneg on the alliance. They've been dealing with revolts almost continuously since well before they settled with Venice in the last war, and were subsequently invaded by Sicily in 1420 when their truce expired, paying out a few ducats but not losing any territory in the peace deal. If they do break the alliance, that's another CB and a potential vassal, if they're not just slightly too large to vassalize.

 

[Kovax]

The following decades get increasingly bloody, and things take several unexpected turns.

7/1422 - A small gift to Tier had improved their relations with Hungary earlier, and Austria's growing Infamy finally tipped the balance, completing Hungary's "Make Trier vote for us" mission. The other electors gradually begin to switch their votes from Austria to either Burgundy or Hungary. The next mission is to annex Ragusa. This will need to wait another 8-9 years for a diplomatic solution.

12/1422 - Milan unexpectedly accepts Burgundy's alliance offer, and jumps into their heavily one-sided war against Lorraine. This makes the acquisition of Venice or the core in Verona much more problematical, as much-reduced Venice and Milan are now tied to Burgundy, and Hungary is in no way prepared to take on Burgundy, much less all three opponents at once.

2/1423 - King Zsigmond is succeeded by Laszlo (4/5/7), with only 50 Legitimacy, but Laszlo's infant son shows real promise (7/7/8). The succession of Laszlo also sees former PU partner Montenegro annexed into the Hungarian fold. Despite the "average" claim to the throne on the part of Laszlo, marriage offers are eagerly accepted and given by many states, rapidly solving the legitimacy question. This soon eclipses the 24 Royal Marriages of Zsigmond.

4/1424 - Albania unexpectedly announces the offer of its throne to Laszlo in a Personal Union. France and England wage another war.

1425-1426 - Hungary completes its construction of constables throughout its land while Laszlo's legitimacy steadily improves, then begins construction a pair of docks and begins the long program to build new churches in all of its provinces, since future events (Westernizing, the Reformation, etc.) will almost certainly require multiple stability hits. Meanwhile, Austria's high Infamy is rising by 1.6 per year, and they have no electors backing them for the next Imperial election.

1/1427 - Hungary puts its Austrian alliance to the test, declaring war on Bohemia for the disputed core in Ratibor. Hungary, Austria, Naples, and Ragusa face Bohemia, Mazovia, Teutonic Order, Lorraine, and Mecklenburg. The war turns vicious, as Bohemia and TO are no pushovers, and casualties mount.

11/1427 - Bohemia offers to release its vassal Mazovia, in exchange for peace with Austria, leading to Austria suddenly dropping out of the war and leaving Hungary to face TO and the remaining Bohemians.

12/1427 - Hungary, with several Bohemian provinces already occupied, manages to hold off the TO troops long enough to complete its sieges in Bohemia and eke out a victory. Bohemia surrenders Ratibor, ending the war. Hungary builds a couple of Men at Arms in Ratibor, giving it a little more ability in the future to face HRE troops on a more even footing.

8/1428 - Burgundy declares war on France and its horde of vassals. Milan honors its alliance with Burgundy, and soon after, Bohemia forms an alliance with France and joins the war on the opposing side.

4/1429 - Hungary diplomatically annexes Ragusa, completing another mission for a core. The next mission is "Make Bohemia vote for us", which is all but impossible, since Bohemia will ALWAYS vote for itself unless broken up and vassalized. I reload the mission several times (like around 20) until I get something else: "Convert Zeta". I need to find a way to edit out that one mission, at least with Bohemia as the target.

3/1430 - Zsigmond comes of age, and Laszlo is converted to a general to hopefully hasten the succession, although despite his poor stats, the country has done well under his rule. The war between Burgundy and France ends, and Milan is forced to break its treaties. Hungary declares war on Milan a month later for its disputed core in Verona. Milan surrenders Verona, and Hungary now has a second province capable of producing Men at Arms. More are built. Upon the resumption of peace, Austria diplomatically annexes Aquileia, adding 4 more illegal HRE provinces to its already sizable list, and 4 more infamy to its already "very bad" notoriety. This is looking like a disaster in the making.

2/1431-1433 - The king of Bavaria passes away without a legitimate heir, and Hungarian spies mysteriously pull out documents showing a right to the throne. Hungary and Austria assert Hungary's claim after a long but one-sided war, and Bavaria becomes a junior partner under the guidance of King Laszlo of Hungary.

4/1434 - Austria's Infamy level surpasses the "Dishonorable Scum" mark, and Hungary breaks its alliance, not wanting to be a part of the inevitable fall from grace. Burgundy exceeds 16 Infamy, forcibly annexing Aachen, followed by Holland. Hungary now has 6 votes from the 7 electors, the 7th vote being Bohemia, voting only for themselves as usual. A period of waiting for the inevitable occurs, and several countries declare insults or other threats against Austria.

6/1435 - France breaks the long wait, declaring a punitive war on Austria; Switzerland and Cologne honor their alliances with Austria. Wurzburg declares its own war soon after. Milan does so too, as does Luxemburg.

1/1436 - The hated Emperor, King of Austria, dies and a regency begins in Austria, with King Laszlo of Hungary as the next option behind the infant heir, while Laszlo is voted Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by 6 of 7 electors (Bohemia dissenting, as usual).

12/1436-10/1437 - Switzerland accepts peace in one war, breaking its alliance with Austria, but is still fighting alongside them in the other wars. Wurzburg and Luxemburg are each defeated by Austria, paying trivial reparations and renouncing all existing treaties. France eventually accepts a white peace offer from Austria, since they share no common borders.

10-1437 - King Laszlo of Hungary is succeeded by his son Zsigmond as King and Emperor. His son Andras (7/8/7) is already 7 years of age.

1/1438 - Austria's heavily depleted army gets only a short respite before Bohemia declares its own Punitive war. Genoa does likewise, calling in Milan and Sicily, as well as Switzerland, since the Swiss are no longer allied to Austria. This puts Switzerland in the extremely awkward position of being at war with both sides, yet fighting for them. Burgundy declares its own war on Austria a few months later.

1438 - Austria accepts peace with Sicily in exchange for the release of Tirol. Genoa demands the release of Aquileia, of which only the one capital province still has their core, and which is accepted.

5/1439-1440 - The Hungarian Emperor is called to defend HRE member state Provence and its PU senior partner Naples from predation by France. The war is heavily tilted in favor of drastically expanded France, and Hungary dedicates itself to the task of breaking at least a few of the multiple French stacks, but soon begins running out of healthy troops in the field. A pull-back is required while the army replaces losses, leaving France to siege and occupy the three provinces of Provence. England declares war on France, but it's too little, too late, and the French navy makes it impossible for England to send troops to the continent. Provence surrenders two of its three provinces to France, and a few days later Hungary accepts a white peace offer from France, rather than continue fighting a lost cause. Meanwhile, Brabant declares independence from Austria.

1/1441 - Bohemia demands the release of Salzburg, and Austria accepts. This, on top of previous surrenders, puts Austria well below the threshold of "Dishonorable Scum", and ends the punitive wars against Austria.

1441-1442 - Burgundy turns over the illegal HRE non-core provinces of Zeeland and Holland to the Emperor on demand. Austria gradually turns over all of the remaining provinces taken from Aquileia, but Aquileia's cores in Gorz, Krain, and Istria had already been removed by Austria, making them illegal HRE provinces for whoever holds them, so only Aquileia's capital could be released earlier. Hungary had no viable choice but to release Holland as a vassal, or else gain infamy and face the same situation as Austria. Franken, Aachen, and Liege were also turned over by Austria, Nice by Sicily, and Siena by the Papal State. All were either released or sold back to their original owners to avoid excessive infamy gain, leaving it at + or - 0.05 Infamy per year, depending on the presence or absence of a bishop at the moment.

1442 - Burgundy declares war on France to recover Picardie. Burgundy brings in Savoy, which is soon vassalized by France.

1443- Milan declares war on France; Switzerland follows suit with its own war, shortly before Burgundy surrenders Calais and Vlaanderen to France, and releases Hainaut. England accepts a white peace. Hungary allies with England, for lack of potential significant military assistance aside from its junior partner Bavaria. A quick glance at England's army and navy shows that to have been a questionable move, since the army is down to a hollow shell and there is NO navy.

2/1444 - Milan surrenders to France, and is made to renounce treaties without giving up land, since France is already up to the "very bad" infamy rating. Hungary allies with its former rival Milan to counter the growing coalition of France/Bohemia/Sicily/Brandenburg.

3/144 - England begins the reconquest of Orkney, declaring war on Norway. Norway calls in Sicily, Ireland (unified), and Denmark, which is problematical because England does not have a single ship left. Fortunately, Sweden declares on Norway, English troops are able to cross the strait and occupy Orkney, and Norway turns it over soon after.

4/1445 - Hungary's 27 royal marriages pay off, as Brunswick unexpectedly announces Zsigmond as its new king, becoming a junior partner under Hungary.

5/1445 - Switzerland finally ends its long war against France, agreeing to break the few foreign treaties they still had.

At this point, Hungary is hovering around the break-even point for infamy gain/loss, and has shed whatever infamy it had by the re-release of all of those illegal HRE provinces turned over to it, as vassals. The surrounding countries are mostly locked into several large interwoven alliances, so declaring war on one will inevitably bring in more than one major country on the opposing side. The next step is to construct an Embassy to burn off Infamy, once the depleted treasury recovers from all the wartime spending. Currently, any Infamy I build cannot be shed without releasing a vassal, so the -0.5 annual Infamy from the Embassy should be a huge help.

Venice still beckons as a ripe fruit waiting to be picked, but there's no valid CB to do so, and their alliances would make it expensive. Bavaria, Albania, and Brunswick are in Personal Unions under Hungary, with varying likelihoods of integrating in the next change of kings, but there's no good way to rush that. The Ukraine has formed as the result of revolts in Lithuania (down to 3 provinces), but is allied with or guaranteed by all and sundry, including Poland, Bohemia, Muscovy, and Novgorod, so declaring an offensive war against them (at half cost) is not advisable at the moment with the weak troops Hungary has to work with (other than the handful of units recruited from Verona and Ratibor). Brandenburg has a regency and an heir with low legitimacy and poor spy defense, making them a perfect "Obscure Documents" target, but they're allied with or guaranteed by a long list of major powers, including France. Rather than picking and choosing wars and opponents, I'm being herded into fighting difficult wars for little or no gain, yet I dare not break my alliances at this stage, because I'm holding cores of several unfriendly neighbors with even bigger friends.

Between odd events like England not having a single ship, and Switzerland fighting against and allied with the same parties on both sides in simultaneous wars, it's been a very strange campaign so far.

 

[Kovax]

A short session follows, because reality poses its own challenges:

1445-1448 - Hungary uses the time to build up its finances for an Embassy, while Infamy hovers just above 0 and is rising at a very slow pace, thanks to all of the non-core HRE provinces in its possession. France has voluntarily turned over Provence, which is now being held in reserve by Hungary in the event that France annexes the remaining "province of Provence" (that just sounds odd to me), in which case it can be released to re-form the HRE state for a boost in Imperial Authority and a drop in Infamy, or it can be held for 50 years in spite of the absurd Infamy cost because it's a really nice plot of land to keep. If Infamy gets too high, it may be necessary to sell it back to Provence, although France would then in all probability just annex both provinces of Provence.

1449 - Finances allow the construction of an Embassy in Gorz, which will provide +1.0 Diplomats per year and a -0.4 annual decrease in Infamy (my previous post was wrong on that figure) for the next 40+ years. Late in the year, a couple of important guarantees by other countries expired, making it possible to declare war on Ukraine or Poland without bringing Bohemia, France, and/or Austria in on the wrong side of the war. Milan has an alliance with Ukraine, as well as with Hungary, but a small bribe to boost relations made it Likely that Milan would side with Hungary. A stack of 15,000 men on the Milanese border served as insurance, also raising the possibility of forcing Milan to renounce its core on Verona if it takes the wrong side.

9/1449 - Hungary utilizes a Tribal Conquest CB (at 2 points of Infamy per province) against Ukraine, calling in Bavaria, Brunswick, Milan, England, and Albania against Ukraine, Teutonic Order, and Lithuania. Days later, Poland declares on Lithuania, and Muscovy joins Ukraine in both wars. The small contingent of western Men at Arms in the Hungarian armies, in conjunction with the Eastern Knights, proves effective, and the eastern armies are driven back like chaff in the wind.

2/1450 - Austria declares war on Poland, bringing several additional countries into the confused tangle of alliances and animosities.

The goal in this war is to take two provinces from Ukraine, cutting off its capital on the border of Hungary from its other provinces, so that it may be annexed in a future war (a capital cannot be claimed during surrender negotiations unless it has no land or sea connection to any other provinces of its country). Liberating Crimea would also weaken Ukraine for that later conflict, as a secondary consideration, but weakening them too far could lead to predation by Poland, Lithuania, Moldavia, Polotsk, any of several other eastern countries, as well as allowing the Golden Horde time to recover and return in force. This will need to be considered, depending on the situation in the other wars by the time Ukraine is mostly occupied and ripe for surrender terms.

Finances are tight, thanks to the military buildup, frequent wars, and the 455 ducats for the Embassy. Next step, in a year or two when money is available, is construction of the first of a long list of Workshops, now that the technology has been researched, which should gradually begin to ease the financial crunch.

Burning off the 4-6 points of infamy anticipated at the end of the current war will take a long time at -0.4 per year, and the 4 current non-core HRE provinces won't become cores for at least 40 years. An advisor is helping slightly at infamy reduction, but the wars essentially drain Cultural development down to a pittance in practically no time, and it takes decades to build back up to anything useful without a National Idea to boost that rate. I can't create an advisor with more than a single "pip", and good ones rarely show up at random, especially with skills that are actually useful (reducing the cost of expensive mercenaries is useless if you can barely afford to pay your own native troops, and an advisor who costs more in upkeep than he gains you in taxes or other revenues is counter-productive at ANY skill level - "Do the math", as the starting tips suggest).

 

[Kovax]

The war against Ukraine/Lithuania/Muscovy continues, and Georgia joins Ukraine against both the Hungarian invasion and Polish incursion.

3/1450 - Bohemia diplomatically annexes Pommerania.

6/1450 - Lithuania requests peace with Hungary to deal with being totally under siege by Poland, and Hungary welcomes facing one less combatant. A month later, Poland settles with Ukraine/Lithuania in order to concentrate on fighting Austria. Meanwhile, France begins another war that brings in Burgundy on the other side. Bohemia turns the first of its 3 illegal Pommeranian provinces over to Hungary.

11/1450 - 15,000 Ukrainian nobles suddenly rise up in Kiev, which is under siege by 12,000 Hungarian troops, resulting in 15,000 less Ukrainian nobles. Hungary completes another Government technology research project. With Government and Production techs up to current levels, but lagging badly in everything else, Hungary switches to improving its Trade tech, in preparation for a National Idea in a couple more Government tech levels: Quest for the New World, which requires Trade tech 7.

12/1450 - Ukraine surrenders, turning over Volhynia, Podlasia, and Cherson to the Hungarian invaders. A couple units of Eastern Swarm Cavalry" are built in Cherson, taking advantage of its Golden Horde core, which are superior to anything being fielded in the HRE, and are sent to join the Royal Honved for use in the west. Unfortunately, those units will never upgrade, but it will be nearly a century before they're matched by anything else in the west. Rebels in Janina integrate the province with Albania, which is a junior partner in a Personal Union with Hungary. That's just one more province likely to be inherited and annexed into Hungary at some point, infamy-free.

1/1451 - England begins a war against Ireland, and calls in Hungary. Ireland brings in Sicily, which takes control of their war.

6/1452 - Burgundy surrenders to France once again (surprise, surprise), this time releasing Bar as an independent state and dividing Burgundy into two isolated halves, plus relinquishes several core claims. Meanwhile, Bohemia turns another province of Pommerania over to Hungary.

7/1452 - Bohemia releases the last illegal province of Pommerania to Hungary. Hungary accepts a white peace offer from Sicily, then releases Pommerania as a vassal, burning off the entire 6 points of infamy acquired from the annexations in Ukraine and bringing infamy gain back down to -0.45 per year.

2/1453 - Moldavia settles with Austria, renouncing several treaties but remaining intact and free. Hungary has no CB on Moldavia, and is not willing to suffer the stability hits to attack it without a CB while it's not guaranteed, but does bring it into its sphere of influence to limit any outside interference. A month later, Hungary requests military access through Moldavia to its isolated 3 province enclave in Ukraine, at least until Ruthenia can be annexed in the next war against Ukraine. Meanwhile, Poland settles with Austria, also renouncing several treaties and paying a small sum.

5/1453 - Burgundy begins to collapse as massive revolts spread through the defeated and war-ravaged country. 4 provinces in the northern section break away as Flanders, leaving three other Burgundian provinces individually isolated. There is now nothing left of any size on the western side of the HRE capable of confronting the giant blue blob known as France, possibly aside from England, which has no foothold on the continent. Orleans is diplomatically annexed by France, adding more fuel to the fire.

Hungary is now 2 provinces short of the 30 needed for a change of government to Imperial Administration, which will allow for greater Centralization (to +3, awkwardly listed as -3 Decentralization), required for Westernization. It will also take a couple of slider adjustments toward Innovation, however those will increase the cost of stability significantly, and Hungary will soon need to recover a couple of levels of stability after changing its form of government. The Reformation is on the horizon as well in another 3-4 decades, and will likely be in full swing at the same time that Hungary is finally prepared to Westernize. Those are two painful processes at the best of times, and more so when they happen together.

I'm also waiting for the Ottomans to involve themselves in another war with the Mamluks, because further expansion in the Balkan Peninsula has been on hold for a lot longer than expected, and the 1 Infamy per province cost for taking land from religious enemies is highly appealing. In a couple of previous HOI3 campaigns years ago, I was able to bring a large Western Alliance to bear against the Ottomans early on to spin off Bulgaria, as well as having Bosnia and Serbia released from vassalage, to be vassalized and eventually annexed by Hungary by this point in the timeline. This time around, defensive alliances and guarantees seem to be far more prevalent, making progress more difficult.

Venice is another tough nut to crack, still heavily guaranteed by several countries with ties of their own to other major powers. It's just looking like more trouble than I care to get myself into yet, but the juicy reward beckons.

 

[Kovax]

Some progress last night, but I didn't bring the paperwork with me (which functionally equals the "dog ate my homework" excuse). As a result, this is from memory, and "mostly" accurate.

Basically, aside from building up a few more Workshops and Churches, Hungary did very little directly for a couple of years, but the rest of the map was a royal cluster-something-or-other. Multiple wars between Austria, Bohemia, Poland, and Teutonic Order, but aside from a lot of casualties and claims being cancelled, the only memorable item in the next two or three years was the one province of Silesia being released by Bohemia as an independent state.

Eventually, the truce between Hungary and Ukraine expired, and Hungary declared another war, with Ukraine calling in Muscovy (as war leader) and Georgia. The Ukrainian troops were crushed almost immediately, but Muscovy sent wave after wave of troops, making the siege of the Ukrainian provinces difficult. The Golden Horde then resumed hostilities with Ukraine, and it became a race to see who could get to what first.

France claimed the throne of Brandenburg. Burgundy and Flanders war over a province, ending in a white peace.

Poland launched a war against Mazovia, bringing Austria and Bohemia in on the side of Mazovia, and Brandenburg, Moldavia, and Teutonic Order on its own side. This upset the entire balance of alliances and guarantees in the east.

Sweden, allied with Muscovy, joined the struggle against Hungary and took control of the war from Muscovy. Ultimately, Hungary had enough war score to either take Kiev and a couple of minor concessions, take Ruthenia to provide a direct link with the previously taken provinces and also force religious conversion, or take two poor provinces. Hungary chose Kiev, plus forcing Ukraine to renounce a core. Taking the two other provinces would have resulted in contact with the Golden Horde, and Hungary was not in any mood to deal with that can of worms while still involved in the current one. The other consideration was that Kiev is a rather high-value province, and the sooner it becomes a Hungarian core, the better. Connecting the new acquisitions seemed important, but with the Austria/Poland war in progress, I had another idea. A few months later, after a tedious "whack-a-mole" episode of Hungarian troops putting down individual Muscovy brigades and several uprisings in the former Ukrainian provinces, Muscovy offered a white peace, which Hungary accepted.

Brandenburg entered a Personal Union under the King of France. A month or two later, with Relations between France and Brandenburg still abysmally low, the King of France was succeeded by an heir, and the Personal Union was dissolved, with a distant relative of the Hungarian von Luxemburg king advancing to the throne.

To deal with the connection issue in Ukraine, Hungary took advantage of its long-standing core claim on Krakow and the curious absence of troops in Poland, despite the limitation of not being able to claim the capital province in surrender negotiations. The real goal was to drag their ally Moldavia into the war, which succeeded, but also brought in Brandenburg.

9/1458 - Moldavia was sieged and occupied, agreeing to convert to Catholicism and become a Hungarian vassal, securing Hungary's connection with its isolated former Ukrainian provinces. Poland requested a white peace, which Hungary accepted, as there was no point in building additional infamy while only being able to burn off 0.1 infamy per year.

With the only contact between Hungary and Sweden being a small and quickly crushed landing in Hungarian-controlled Provence, Sweden sent a white peace offer to Hungary soon after, which was accepted.

The war between Austria and Poland (and their allies) continued, with the exception of Bohemia dropping out early and Silesia becoming a vassal of Austria. The vast majority of the Polish army was in Austria, as it turned out, while the vast majority of the Austrian army was apparently in Teutonic Order territory, with some in Brandenburg. Eventually, it turned into a closely fought race to see which of the two could out-siege the other, until TO surrendered and released Riga. The fresh truce between Hungary and Brandenburg precluded the use of spies to force a personal union in such circumstances, because the CB would expire long before the truce.

So far in this campaign, the Ottomans have been unusually complacent, not fighting against the Mamluks since the first couple of decades. Castile controls Thrace, but again, no recent conflicts over it to weaken the Ottomans. Basically, they've been only marginally involved in minor wars, and haven't expanded more than one or two provinces beyond their initial borders. Most importantly, their military strength and war exhaustion have been practically undamaged, and Hungary is not yet capable of taking them on without the assistance of a strong ally. Without Austria or Bohemia as that strong ally to break up the Ottomans and spin off Bosnia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, the anticipated conquest of the Balkans has gone nowhere.

Kiev brings the Hungarian province count up to 29, one shy of the 30 needed to enact Imperial Administration. The three Personal Unions (Bavaria, Brunswick, and Albania) were at "will inherit" for quite some time, but have since dropped to "will continue" despite almost maxed prestige and 100 Legitimacy, since the current Hungarian heir seems to be too old now at age 39, but the king is still going strong. Normally, I'd wait for the next king to take the throne and an initial round of Royal Marriages, rather than spoil the chance of inheritance for several years (the change of government will reduce Legitimacy by 50 points, plus inflict -3 to Stability), but in this case, the chance seems to already be spoiled, so I'm planning to make the change as soon as the option becomes available.

 

[Kovax]

10/1460 - The war between Austria and Poland ends as Burgundy and then Brandenburg sue for peace with Austria, paying token reparations and renouncing several treaties. Poland settles soon after under similar terms. As the dust settles and both victors and vanquished begin to rebuild their shattered realms, revolt risk reaches double digits in a few of the core provinces of most of the participants due to war exhaustion and stability issues. Non-core provinces are far worse.

9/1461 - Netherlands has been showing the King of Hungary as the heir to the throne for some time now, but it's Flanders which unexpectedly enters a Personal Union under the King of Hungary when their uncrowned heir dies suddenly.

3/1462 - Austria diplomatically annexes the Palatinate, adding 3 more illegal non-core HRE provinces to add to its 13 points of Infamy, 17 war exhaustion, and 0 stability problems. Pfalz is turned over to the Emperor in about a month, and Worms follows a month or so later.

5/1462 - Not to be topped by Austria's high Infamy rating, France declares war on Provence (a former HRE member until France took their only HRE province and the capital moved to Anjou, and thus remained an outsider when Nice revolted from its French occupiers and joined Provence). Theoretically, Hungary could take Nice from Provence, gaining it as a core, but that would put Hungary rather awkwardly at war with practically every nation opposing France's expansion. A long list of OPMs and minor states joined Provence, while France called up the few remaining vassals which it still hadn't annexed. Naples eventually joined against France, becoming war leader for the opposition. Burgundy soon got involved as well.

10/1462 - England calls Hungary into its war against Sweden and Muscovy, still being waged since the earlier declaration against Ireland. Hungary moves troops toward the Muscovy border, but Golden Horde troops show up on the Muscovy side before the Hungarians reach the border. The Hungarians begin moving to the west for the inevitable confrontation against France.

11/1462 - Milan uses an Alliance CB to declare war on Pisa (allied to France and fighting against Provence and friends), immediately bringing France to the side of Pisa to lead the war.

12/1462 - Provence surrenders the province of Anjou to France, which rather interestingly moves its capital back into HRE territory and returns it to membership, but in a different location than it once had. Burgundy once again surrenders to France, handing over Artois and releasing Nevers as an independent state.

3/ 1463 - The King of Milan perishes in battle against French troops. Meanwhile, Muscovy's army drives off the Golden Horde invaders from their province and advances rather rashly into Hungarian territory. The comparatively small garrison unit left behind by the Hungarians is sufficient to break the already weakened invaders, then pursues them back into Muscovy territory, defeats them a second time, and returns to friendly soil as the few surviving troops of the defeated army fall back deep into enemy territory.

4/1463 - Treviso becomes a core province. Sweden/Muscovy offer a white peace to Hungary in their war with England, and Hungary accepts, in order to deal with France.

5/1463 - Two messengers arrive on the same day. The first is from Saxony, announcing that Saxony is offering the throne of Saxony and full control of the country to Hungary. Saxony is annexed by Hungary, bringing the province count up to the 30 required for the change to Imperial Administration. The second messenger is from Milan, urgently requesting Hungary's assistance against France. Despite the urgency, Hungary waits almost a week until more troops arrive from the east before sending the messenger home with a positive reply.

8-9/1463 - The combined 26,000 men of the Hungarian I Honved and II Honved advance into Brescia, engaging and utterly destroying two tiny contingents of France's allies busily sieging the province. They proceed further to assist 10,000 Milanese troops engaged against 12,000 Frenchmen, doing significant damage (6000+ French casualties) until another 30,000 French troops arrive and tilt the balance the other way. With unfavorable combat conditions (-4 terrain penalty), a Milanese leader of minimal ability (+1 fire, 0 melee) leading the fight, and morale failing rapidly, the Hungarians pull back all the way to Verona, leaving the already badly battered Milanese to their fate. French troops soon begin sieging all of Milan, with over 20K men in the province neighboring the Hungarians.

1-2/1463 - 11,000 French troops move to attack the 12,000 man Hungarian II Honved in Verona. The I Honved moves up to assist, making it a 24K to 11K battle. The French troops are broken, chased down, and eliminated completely. 6,000 more French troops land at Cherson in the east, and are destroyed by the modest 8,000 man III Honved left behind to cover the rest of the country. The troop balance is now 29K Hungarian troops and 0 remaining Milanese against slightly over 80K French troops, plus their numerous allies in addition to that.

3/1463 - The last of the French sieges in Milan are completed, and Milan surrenders Parma and Cremona to France as well as breaking its existing treaties, ending the war. At peace again, Hungary releases the two provinces of the Platinate as a vassal, burning off most of the Infamy from the previous wars against Poland/Moldavia and Ukraine. Franken is still in Austrian hands, since they refused to give it up. Hungary renews its alliance with Milan. France is still at war with Naples and a couple of remining minors who haven't already surrendered.

With a 5 year truce with France in place, and practically all of the surrounding major countries exhausted, this would seem like the right moment to enact Imperial Administration (a window of opportunity to deal with its -3 Stability and -50 Legitimacy hits), except that both Bavaria and Albania are once again showing "Inherit", rathe than "continue", so I'm now expecting to wait until my geriatric king expires and his merely elderly son takes over the kingdom. I replaced my 1 star Military Reformer (Land tech) with a 5 star Ambassador (Diplomacy) when I had the chance, and I'm now showing 3 different 1 or 2 province HRE states ripe for diplomatic annexation. That would be a bad idea right now, at least until the 3 former provinces of Aquileia become cores, because I don't need more illegal provinces to build Infamy faster than I can shed it.

Financially, building Workshops has made a difference, the addition of Saxony as a core and the coring of Treviso have boosted income levels, and Nationalism has had time to subside in a few other places such as Wallachia. The generation rate of Magistrates, rather than money, is now the bigger issue for economic development. I expect to change that situation shortly, by building several more brigades of Swarm Cavalry, which proved rather effective against the French, as well as a couple more Men-at-Arms.

The Ottomans are now at war with Castile/Portugal, as well as still involved in a pointless war (with no direct contact) against the Timurids. If war exhaustion builds up enough, I may attempt a holy war against the Ottomans, then call Bavaria to arms. Calling all of my allies into the war would almost inevitably lead to broken alliances by England and Milan at this point, with both of them suffering from crippling war exhaustion.

 

[Kovax]

Long holiday weekend, including one rainy day without much needing to be done....so a LOT of progress. This will probably require two or three installments to catch up.

1465 - France accepts a modest cash sum from Naples to end that confrontation. France releases Cremona to the Emperor, who promptly sells it back to Milan for a pittance. Estland and Osel revolt once again, preparing to change hands again. This nonsense will continue back and forth for decades, going from revolt to Finland to handed back to another revolt until Hungary can establish a permanent presence in the region. I will not list the changes, and one may assume that they occur almost every year or two for the rest of the century. Between the three illegal HRE provinces of Krain, Istria, and Gorz and the two part-time provinces of Osel and Estland, there's not a lot of leeway for Infamy reduction.

1466 - Bohemia and Poland settle with no change of territory.

1467 - Hungary researches Trade Tech 7, unlocking "Quest for the New World" for the next National Idea when the next idea becomes available. Parma is turned over to the Emperor by France, and sold back to Milan for a trivial sum at the beginning of the next year when Milan has money for it. Keeping the HRE strong in the face of France is more important than trying to milk the states for every penny. The Hansa turns over Lauenburg, and the Emperor releases Saxe-Lauenburg as a vassal.

2/1468 - Queen Mary von Luxemburg of England, cousin to the Emperor in Hungary, forms Great Britain.

6 /1468 - France turns Artois over to the Emperor of the HRE, who promptly gifts it back to beleaguered Burgundy, its sole core-holder. A usurper seizes the throne of Muscovy, who are allied to both Venice and Sweden, with Sweden already at war against Denmark. Venice still beckons as a shiny trinket, and between that and the throne of Muscovy, this appears to be a perfect opportunity to kill two stones with one bird, or something kind of like that.

9-11/1468 - Hungarian agents reveal "Obscure Documents", claiming a legal right to the throne of Muscovy. Hungary diplomatically annexes Moldavia. Brandenburg conquers and annexes Silesia. Elsass hands Lothringen over to the Emperor, who releases it as a vassal: Lorraine, burning off the infamy for the annexation of Moldavia.

1/1469 - Hungary declares war on Muscovy over the disputed throne. Sweden, Venice, and Finland join Muscovy. Great Britain dishonors its alliance with Hungary, but the 7 other vassals and allies join Hungary in the war.

7/1469 - Sweden wants out of the war, and Hungary is happy to see them go, Finland follows suit by the end of the year.

4/1470 - Burgundy declares war on France, as if that will end well. Brandenburg turns over the illegal province of Breslau, which Hungary can only release if it also releases Ratibor. In this case, the steep price to keep it may be justified, in part as a way of denying it to Bohemia, who keeps allying with France against other HRE states.

6/1471 - Castile declares war on the Ottomans, which drags on for an inordinate amount of time, but the Ottomans' war exhaustion doesn't climb very far, and Hungary is busy elsewhere. Meanwhile, the war against Muscovy is proceeding slowly due to the size of the eastern provinces and the need to recover morale and troop strength at the front.

8/1471 - All remaining Muscovy troops have been eliminated and all provinces are either occupied or under siege. The situation against Venice is at a standstill. The large Venetian fleet is blocking the strait between Venice and the mainland, and refuses to be drawn out of position. Venice's other provinces of Achaea and Crete have been occupied without much effort, but Venice itself remains unassailable, and Hungary's pathetic naval force limit and weak economy makes it economically non-viable to attempt to out-build them.

3/1472 - Accepting the realities of the situation and unable to complete the victory, Hungary accepts Venice's surrender of cores and the release of Crete as an independent country. Days later, Muscovy surrenders as well, and the throne of Muscovy belongs to the King of Hungary. It will take some time to mend the terrible relations, however. At the start of the next month, the Golden Horde appears on the borders of Muscovy, but as they are a junior partner of a PU, no war results and a 5 year truce with Hungary ensues. The remainder of the year and most of 1473 are spent putting down numerous revolts in Muscovy and the former Moldavian territories, as well as handing substantial gifts to Muscovy to boost Relations while it rebuilds.

7/1474 - Researchers reach Government Level 9, allowing another Idea. Hungary chooses QFTNW, hires an Explorer, then dispatches a small fleet to Lisbon as a jump-off point, where they can resupply before trying their luck at sea. That's far better than trying to make the trip from southern Europe to the mid Atlantic in one long leap, and results in less time spent continuously at sea and less damage to the ships.

4/1475 - Hungarian explorers discover the Azores, which are already on the verge of becoming a Portuguese colony. They explore further past that, but are forced to return due to supply shortages and too much time at sea. A second expedition meets them in Lisbon, the Explorer changes ships, and the push resumes.

10/1475 - Hungary discovers the Carolina Coast. Land is spotted, occupied by native tribes called "the Creek", in a land they call "Muskogee". A military expedition departs from Hungary.

1/1476 - Hungary declares war on the Creek tribe, rapidly occupying the unfortified provinces of Muskogee and Yamasee. The Creek surrender the two provinces and forts are constructed. Hungary now has a foothold in the New World.

3/1477 - The Golden Horde appears again on the Muscovy border, vanishing for another 5 years as mysteriously as they appeared.

1/1478 - Naples annexes Provence (previously reduced by France to a One Province Minor - OPM) in Nice.

7/1479 - King Zsigmond of Hungary, Emperor of the HRE, passes away and is succeeded by his talented son Andras (7/8/7), who becomes the next Emperor. He also inherits the countries of Bavaria, Brunswick, Flanders, Albania, and Muscovy, which are integrated into Hungary. This, obviously, produces severe border gore and difficulty chasing down revolts, especially in the east where the non-HRE provinces were not inherited as cores. His younger and more contentious brother, Karoly (6/4/3) is next in line at age 55, for lack of a son. A major military expansion begins, taking advantage of the sudden increase in both money and manpower. Equal numbers of eastern Bardiche and western Men-at-arms are recruited, along with a few more eastern knights.

2/1480 - Brandenburg turns over Mecklenburg to the Emperor, which is promptly released as a vassal, reducing the very gradually increasing Infamy that the former Aquileia provinces, the provinces of Provence and Breslau, and the occasionally controlled Baltic provinces of Osel and Estland continue to inflict. So far, the balancing act is just about holding its own, with an occasional shot of Infamy reduction by the release of vassals. No other HRE state has managed more than a single vote in about half a century, and most of the time only Bohemia is voting for anyone other than the King of Hungary.

As of 6/1480:

Note that Holland/Zeeland appear to be part of Hungary, but are only a vassal with an almost identical color, neighboring several Hungarian provinces inherited from Flanders. Aquileia cuts Treviso/Verona off from the main body of Hungary, although they're an ally, and the former Bavarian provinces are separated by Austria, which has granted continuous military access since 1400 but apparently will not ally again.

The inheritance of Bavaria and Flanders is a major game changer, turning Hungary overnight into a world-class player, able to recruit troops which can practically match the West, aside from a slightly inferior tech level. The Men-at-arms will not be able to advance to the next troop type (Landsknechts) until Hungary can Westernize its Military, which won't happen for close to a century, but for now they're competitive. The Bardiche units will continue to advance as new types are unlocked (the next is STILL slightly inferior to western Men-at-arms, despite being 5+ tech levels higher). They will always remain behind the western units in effectiveness until Hungary can pass the military reform at the end of Westernization, requiring a couple more slider moves toward Centralization beyond what Imperial Administration allows.

The military buildup with additional Western troops and the additional revenues will be absolutely essential over the next decade, as the following post should show.

 

[Kovax]

This should bring the campaign back up to date after the long US holiday weekend.

1/1481 - With several majors tied up by wars, the King of Hungary and Holy Roman Emperor, Andras von Luxemburg, decides that this is the time to reorganize the government for more centralized control and other benefits. The down sides of this critical move are considerable: a -3 hit to Stability and a -50 hit to Legitimacy. The latter will recover fairly quickly and painlessly over the next 5 years, thanks to 20+ Royal Marriages, but meanwhile the stability problems will cause serious unrest in the new provinces.

10/1481 - with stability on the verge of recovering the first of the 3 lost points, a slider move becomes possible. An increase in Centralization brings Hungary one step closer to Westernization, but incurs yet another Stability hit. Naples decides to turn Nice over to the Emperor. With the three illegal non-core former provinces of Aquileia and two Balkan provinces which cannot be released, plus Provence and Breslau which can, Hungary is gaining Infamy at a slow but steady pace. Adding Nice to the list makes it essential to sacrifice something, and Provence/Nice will need to be released as a vassal (Provence), since Breslau/Ratibor are more easily defensible. This burns off the existing infamy and ends the buildup, resulting in a tiny annual reduction, and gives one other side benefit: +10 points of Imperial Authority, allowing another reform. This reform isn't all that important, a +2 annual increase in Cultural Tradition (which means no longer losing most of it during a war), but the following reform will be a game-changer.

12/1481 - The first stability hit is removed, bringing Hungary back up to 0. Great Britain offers an alliance. Since France is the most serious current problem, Hungary accepts whatever help it can get on that front. Great Britain will declare several wars over the next few years to take or retake Ireland, but doesn't involve Hungary.

1/1482 - The truce with the Golden Horde is due to expire later in the year, and the GH is currently at war with the Mamluks. Judea falls to the GH deep in Mamluk territory, while Saratow is occupied by he Mamluks deep in the Golden Horde interior.

11/1482 - The Golden Horde appear on the borders of Hungary, and war is declared.

12/1482 - The Golden Horde settles with Ukraine after occupying 3 of their 4 provinces for over a decade. Ukraine admits defeat. Hungary breaks a few GH armies as they're built, and begin sieging a few provinces.

1/1483 - With troops sieging each others' capitals, Mamluks and GH declare a truce. Hungarian troops await the inevitable return of the bulk of the GH army from Mamluk territory.

5/1483 - 8K GH troops arrive, and are quickly broken, pursued, and destroyed.

7/1483 - Another 17K GH troops arrive. Hungarian troops abandon the most forward sieges and consolidate around two locations. Revolts break out simultaneously in the former Muscovy territories of Vyazma and Mogilyov, and an army is dispatched to put them down. The temporarily reduced Hungarian troops at the front deal with one smaller GH stack while the larger 17K GH stack sieges Nizhny Novgorod.

9/1483 - After repeated attempts, Austria accepts a Royal Marriage offer, completing another mission for +1 Stability, which finally brings it back up to +2. A new mission to convert Yamasee to Catholicism is given.

10/1483 - Apparently, word has not gone out that the country is stable again, because revolts break out in Chernigov and Janina. Forces are diverted to deal with the revolts.

3/1484 - Troops are available once again to drive the Golden Horde out of Nizhny Novgorod, as the province is on the brink of surrender. GH troops retreat to Pensa (a long trip taking close to two months), but Murom revolts, forcing the Hungarians to break off the pursuit to deal with the revolt. An event, "Hannovarian Revolt", occurs, and Hungary chooses to negotiate and lose the income, rather than divert an army to face 15 regiments all the way on the opposite end of the empire.

4/1484 - 13K GH troops are broken and annihilated in Tambow. Hungary breaks off the siege of Kharkov due to the appearance of another 14K troops following the 13K. The remaining Hungarians still outnumber them, but morale is on the brink of collapse, so they withdraw to buy time to recover. The GH troops unexpectedly reverse course to put down a Pretender in one of their own provinces. Hungary finally regains +3 Stability. Less than 2 weeks later, a saint is declared in Hungary, providing a +1 Stability boost now that it's no longer needed. Once again, timing is everything, and I get nothing from it.

9/1484 - Genoa, also at war with GH up to this point but occupied and doing nothing militarily for the past couple of years, offers to pay tribute to GH.

12/1484 - With the revolts crushed, Hungary resumes the offensive, occupying Kharkov once more and assaulting it. Colonization begins, optimistically, but it quickly becomes obvious that GH is building fresh troops faster than Hungary can destroy them.

1/1485 - GH offers to admit defeat. With yet another 2 revolts behind them, Hungary decides to take the offer and come back better prepared in a few years. The construction of Constables and Workshops has been proceeding at a slow but steady pace, limited more by finances than Magistrates while at war, but Hungary's income is steadily rising. There will be money for a LOT more troops in 5 years when the truce expires.

2/1485 - France declares war on Burgundy, and the Emperor is called to defend a member under attack by a foreign aggressor.
France and Wurtemburg face Hungary/Austria/Burgundy/Milan and a few OPMs. France calls in its vassals and OPM allies over the next couple of months. On paper, the matchup looks quite favorable:
France - 82K troops, Wurtemburg 5K, Bar 3K, and Savoy another 8K
Hungary - 52K, Austria 46K, Milan 12K, Burgundy 12K, Holland 9K
Problem is, 3/4 of Hungary's troops are just starting to return from the GH border, and the rest of the alliance is scattered, while France and its allies are mostly in one concentrated area.

9/1485 - Milan, already in another war with Naples and Bohemia plus several OPMs, drops out of the war with France, renouncing treaties.

10/1485 - Austrian and Hungarian troops each occupy one province of Wurtemburg, while Hungarians engage and shatter the Wurtemburg army. Wurtemburg surrenders to Hungary, releasing Ansbach (for another +10 Imperial Authority) and relinquishing a core claim. Meanwhile, Burgundy surrenders Franche-Comte to France. As the month closes, Great Britain declares its own Alliance war on France.

11/1485 - Between the Austrians and Hungarians, three French stacks of 15K men each have been destroyed, either fighting to the last man or breaking and being chased down to the next province. The Hungarian generals may have terrible Melee modifiers, but excellent movement, so they easily outrun the French troops. The Hungarian troops take massive casualties against the higher tech western units, but their morale holds time and time again, allowing them to rapidly converge, break, and then destroy the French armies, and then withdraw to friendly territory to recover manpower and morale. As Holy Roman Emperor, there are practically limitless replacement troops (+4800 per month), and the higher reinforcement rate in friendly territory makes a huge difference. France requests a white peace, which is rejected, as long as Hungary can keep Austria's war exhaustion from driving them to peace out on their own.

1/1486 - Another 16K French stack is destroyed in Isle-de-France as they battle to the last man, and the alliance against France goes fully onto the offensive. Another 12K French army drives off the already battered Hungarians there, inflicting hideous casualties, but the Hungarians fall back still in relatively good order to a province with another 5K troops from Holland, and the French are beaten by the combined armies, again with significant Hungarian losses, and then chased down. While there are practically limitless troops in the manpower pool, getting them to the units on the front line takes time, and France is building fresh troops in almost every single province. Austria's war exhaustion is at its limit, and I'm getting concerned that they will settle for a white peace.

6/1487 - with both sides clearly exhausted, Hungary decides to take what it can get and end the war. France agrees to release Dauphine as an independent country (2 provinces) and surrender Vlaanderen to Hungary, which becomes a Hungarian core as a reward for reclaiming it from a foreign aggressor. Hungary gains +10 Imperial Authority for the victory against an outside threat, and another +10 for freeing Dauphine. France is at 17 war exhaustion and -2 Stability, still at war against Great Britain, although GB is just about out of ships. The victors will need some time to recover, and the treaty with GH will expire in only a year and a half.

3/1488 - Denmark turns over Hamburg, which is promptly released by Hungary as a vassal. The +10 Imperial Authority for this is enough to pass yet another HRE reform: Gemeiner Pfennig, providing a massive +50% increase in tax income to the Emperor. This is an absolute game-changer for what has so far been a cash-starved empire, and Hungary begins a major military expansion with some of the additional revenue, while increasing its rate of construction of Constables, Workshops, and Churches to the limits of its available Magistrates. Within a relatively short span of time, Hungary increases its army by roughly 30%, building an almost even mix of native Bardiche troops and Men-at-Arms.

The next level of Western troops should be due within a decade, making Men-at-Arms obsolete on the western front but still highly effective in the east, since the Bardiches won't upgrade for at least another decade or so, and STILL won't quite match the Men-at-Arms. The Men-at-Arms will either be replaced by better units in the future, or relegated to garrison duty against revolts until the last step of westernization (the army) in almost another century finally allows them to upgrade.

That was probably the last HRE reform that I will pass, since the next is arguably a downgrade for the Emperor, and the following one eliminates the elections for the Imperial Throne. I will need to exit the HRE in another half a century or so (difficult if you're the hereditary emperor), once I'm westernized and more powerful than any two or three of the remaining members combined, since the Infamy hit for taking HRE land will be a limiting factor. Meanwhile, I can still take advantage of any opportunities for Personal Unions to inherit HRE states as cores.

 

[Kovax]

The additional western troops make a big difference for a short while, at least until the next tier of infantry appears.

6/1488 - Bar revolts and reverts back to Burgundy.

1/1490 - The Golden Horde appears, right on schedule, exactly 5 years after the last conflict. Hungary's best general dies less than a week later while, advancing toward Horde territory.

2/1490 - Great Britain surrenders to France, giving up Navarra, renouncing several cores on the continent, and paying 195 ducats.

3-11/1490 - The 3 former provinces of Aquileia become cores over the next few months, 50 years after each of them was turned over to the Emperor by Austria. This renders the Embassy invalid, and construction of a new Embassy begins in Albania. War against the Horde goes well at first, and Kharkov is occupied.

3/1493 - King Andras of Hungary passes away at roughly 90 years of age. Karoly (6/4/3), nearly 70, is crowned.

3/1494 - Elderly King Karoly succumbs to old age and is replaced by Andras (6/7/3). The new heir Janos (stats unknown) dies later that same day, and Zsigmond (another 6/7/3, oddly enough) takes his place as the new heir at age 33. Hungarian settlers in Kharkov reach 1000, and Kharkov defects to Hungary. The GH is down to only 16K total troops.

4/1494 - A dispute between the clergy and a philosopher reaches national importance, and Hungary uses that to make a slider move toward Innovation a bit earlier than planned, with good and bad sides to it. This makes Stability more expensive heading into the Reformation, and reduces the availability of Missionaries down to 0.05 per year with a whole lot of provinces in dire need of conversion, but it increases research and brings Westernization one step closer. One more slider move toward Centralization and two more toward Innovation are still needed. Hungary is already 30+ tech levels below its western neighbors, and has a king with the requisite 6 Administration skill, but those 3 slider moves will take decades.

5/1494 - Portugal declares war on the Creek tribe. Hungary launches its own war against the Creek immediately, to preempt Portugal, and Shawnee takes control of the Creek's war.

6/1494 - Voronezh defects to Hungary. The Golden Horde surrenders, agreeing to pay 5.3 ducats per month in tribute.

9/1494 - With both Apalachee and Pensacola occupied by Hungary, Creek surrenders both provinces and revokes its core claims on Yamasee and Muskogee, while Shawnee continues the war. This gives Hungary all of the coastal provinces formerly occupied by native tribes in North America, and Portugal is left without access to its declared enemy.

12/1494 - Another slider move becomes available, and the last required Centralization move is made, at the cost of a point of Stability. Revolts break out simultaneously in Nizhny Novgorod, Bryansk, and Croatia. France diplomatically annexes Savoy a few days later.

6/1495 - Hungary's mere handful of troops in the Americas are gradually becoming depleted in the conflict against Shawnee and frequent rebels in the new territories. Shawnee requests a white peace and Hungary decides to accept. No longer at war, Hungary sells Franche-Comte back to Burgundy for a token sum. Additional troops are moved to the Americas for future conflicts.

9/1495 - Burgundy and France war again over a guaranteed OPM. Franche-Comte and Bar become play toys for the next decade, being taken away by France or its allies, revolting, and either rejoining Burgundy or being given back by Hungary. Artois soon shares the same fate.

3/1496 - Bohemia declares war on Austria. France/Bohemia/Naples/Brabant face Austria/Lithuania/Finland. This will drag on for years, as France occupies Austria's scattered western provinces but cannot reach its core provinces, and Austria occupies all of Bohemia except two isolated provinces blocked by Poland. France won't surrender, since none of its provinces are occupied by Austria, yet Austria won't surrender because it's got a positive war score. The Reformation begins.

6/1497 - After previously saving up the Magistrates and passing "Expanded Bureaucracy" (+0.4 Magistrates per year but reduced tax income), Hungary now has the magistrates for "Formalized Scales, Weights, and Measures", providing bonuses to trade and production, as well as offsetting the prior tax penalty. Revolts are still triggering in the former Muscovy provinces at the alarming rate of 2-3 per year, despites high Stability and Legitimacy and minimal Infamy.

7/1497 - Yamasee converts to Catholicism, completing another mission. The inevitable "Austrian Relations" appears, almost always present in Hungary's list if/when that Royal Marriage is ever broken, offering a +1 Stability bonus. Missions have a weighted chance to happen, often 1-10 points. A few specific missions have high chances, like 100-1000, and will almost always appear if/when the conditions are met. This is one of those high-chance missions for Hungary. That mission could be handy, if I need to raise Stability.

9-12/1497 - Poland converts to Protestant. Brandenburg does so soon after. Provinces begin to change, with an unusually high frequency compared to previous campaigns. The Reformed movement branches out from the Protestant movement in the Hansa.

7/1498 - Research into Land technology unlocks Stradioti cavalry, which are superior to anything in the West, and almost a match for the eastern Swarm cavalry. Research changes focus to Government, for the next National Idea in another 4-6 years. The rate of religious conversions is increasing, and Hungary decides to take drastic action.

9/1498 - Hungary changes its former National Idea from QFTNW to Attendance Duty. This inflicts a -3 Stability hit, but lowers the cost of regaining Stability by 33%. The side effect is that it lowers the chance of provinces converting during the Reformation. Hungary then proposes a Royal Marriage with Austria, which is accepted. This completes the mission, increasing Stability by +1. Next mission, convert Croatia, which was one of the first provinces to change religion during the Reformation, and will be next to impossible to re-convert for the next 25 years. Oh well.

6/1499 - Hungary declares a Tribal conquest war on the politically isolated Crimea. Troops are waiting on the borders for the word to go, the pitiful Crimean army evaporates in a couple of days, and the provinces are taken by assault with minimal casualties and little time. Hungary then has to wait more than a week for the next diplomat to reach Crimea with the surrender terms, and Crimea (provinces of Crimea and Zaporozhia) is annexed 31 days after the declaration of war. This example of "lightning war" will remain unmatched until the term "blitzkrieg" appears in the 20th Century. Artois is turned over by France, and a new form of Infantry arises in revolt: Gallowglaichs. Hungary crushes the revolt, builds two of the new units in the province, and eventually gifts the province back to Burgundy.

5/1500 - The Golden Horde returns, right on schedule. 42K Hungarian troops are waiting on the border, advance into Horde territory, and the provinces of Cherkassk and Tambow are taken by assault. The nearest GH army of 12K troops is broken in Bogutjar, re-engaged in Saratow, and finally destroyed in Pensa.

6-12/1500 - Another 8K GH troops are engaged and destroyed in Murom before they can escape. 12K more are intercepted in Tambow, after assaulting and retaking the province. The province is immediately retaken by Hungary, and the fleeing troops are pursued through Hungarian units in Bogutjar without engaging to Cherkassk, where they halt and are caught and annihilated. A fleeing unit can apparently route THOUGH an enemy unit if its previously declared path takes it beyond. I recall one annoying incident in another campaign where a broken enemy unit was pursued for at least 6 neutral provinces before it arrived at and stopped to siege one of my own provinces.

1/1501 - Another GH army and numerous individual brigades are wiped out, and Bogutjar is taken by assault. Despite the casualties, GH total troop strength has regrown from under 8K back up to 24K, and more units are being built faster than Hungarian armies can chase them down. Volhynia, Podolia, and Cherson, formerly Ukrainian provinces. become Hungarian cores.

4/1501 - Astrakhan occupied by Hungary. Nogai declares war on GH. Zsigmond (6/7/3) succeeds Andras (6/7/3) on the Hungarian throne. The new heir is Istvan (7/3/8), 17 years old.

9/1501 - Samara is occupied by Hungary, and 15K GH troops are chased down, engaged repeatedly, and finally destroyed back in Astrakhan.

7/1502 - Cherkassk defects to Hungary, and the war score is at 99%, despite 2 unoccupied GH provinces still visible and more hidden by "fog". Hungary builds a couple of the new Landsknecht, which are already replacing the only recently introduced Gallowglaich infantry in the west.

11/1503 - Tambow defects to Hungary.

12/1503 - Another Land tech level is researched, and Hungary converts its Bardiche infantry to Eastern Militia during a still-active war.

2/1505 - Pensa defects to Hungary, and that's deemed to be enough provinces to take without incurring penalties for too many non-core provinces, and a large enough bite to chew, especially without more than a token number of missionaries to convert them. A rate of +0.05 per year really doesn't do the job, and that number will go negative after the next slider move. Hungary demands peace, and the Golden Horde agree to release their vassal Georgia, as well as pay 2.6 ducats per month. The Ottomans are currently at war against Morocco, and Hungary has a much better idea than colonizing a long, winding string of cantankerous provinces far from home. Hungary shifts its recently upgraded and significantly more effective troops toward the Ottoman borders, before other western powers realize just how powerful they've become compared to the Muslim tech group, and get funny ideas about expanding.

 

[Kovax]

I was correct about the Western land techs having more than caught up with the Moslem tech group, but I didn't consider the naval situation.

4/1505 - Hungary declares war on the beleaguered Ottomans, who are already fighting Morocco and Syria. Great Britain, Holland, Aquileia, and Dauphine join Hungary in the feeding frenzy, and Great Britain (the current Papal Controller) declares a Crusade against the Ottomans, making it economically advantageous to be at war. With practically the entire Ottoman army either in Syria or engaged against Moroccan troops near the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula, Hungary crosses the northern borders and besieges several provinces, quickly taking them by direct assault with 14K-28K troops committed in each instance. The units with reduced morale remain behind to recover, while the less affected units advance and begin fresh sieges.

4/1506 - Savoy revolts, seeking independence from France.

5/1505 - Naples declares its own war on the Ottomans. The first 9000 man Ottoman stack shows up and is dog-piled by 3 Hungarian armies of 12K-14K men each. It doesn't last long.

8/1506 - Milan declares war on Savoy, and annexes them before the end of the year. Ottomans and Morocco/Syria settle for a white peace, freeing up the Ottoman troops in the east.

2/1507 - Milan turns the province of Savoie over to the Emperor, who begins construction of a couple of brigades of the new western Landsknechts. The province cannot be released while still at war, and there's no point in letting the better troop types go unused, despite the 127 day construction time due to the non-core and non-culture issues.

3/1507 - Large concentrations of Hungarian and allied troops block the crossings at Edirne and Thrace while the rest of the Hungarian forces split up to siege the remaining Balkan provinces, but the Ottomans manage to drive off several small GB and Holland fleets that try to stop at or pass through the strait between the Balkans and Asia Minor. The modest Hungarian fleet tries to tip the balance in a couple of those engagements, but the western fleets are defeated repeatedly. In spite of taking heavy damage in each battle, the Ottomans manage to outlast the western morale, capturing one British and one Hungarian warship and a Hungarian transport over the course of those fights. Eventually, the Ottoman fleet fights enough battles in too short a time span to recover, and their moral collapses, unblocking the strait. British troops cross from Edirne to Bursa, while Hungarian troops cross from Thrace to Bythinia.

4/1507 - The Ottomans throw just about everything they have at the Hungarians, who converge on the site of the battle with practically everything in the area that they can spare: 27K Ottomans versus 32K Hungarians, and the Ottomans break first. By the end of the month, Ottoman total troop strength is down to less than 10K men, but Hungary now has enough war score to get what it wanted from the war, and chooses to settle before the Ottomans are totally unable to defend themselves against the other Western armies. Both Bosnia and Serbia are freed from vassalage, and Bulgaria is released as a sovereign country, incurring no Infamy for Hungary. The Ottomans continue building new forces to face the armies of Naples, Milan, Aragon, and Venice. Hungary almost immediately breaks its alliance with Bulgaria.

5/1507 - Hungary declares a holy war against Bulgaria, suffering a point of Stability loss for declaring war with good relations, and Swahili comes to their aid as Defender of the Faith, joined by its allies Iraq and Hedjaz. Hungarian troops walk into Bulgaria unopposed, and begin sieges with minimal forces in all four provinces, while the vast majority of Hungary's forces enter friendly territory to recover faster, and begin to move toward the French and Golden Horde borders in case of trouble.

1/1508 - Another slider move becomes available, and another step toward Innovation is made. There is now only one more slider move required for Westernization. The last remaining missionary is sent to Zaporozhia. With an annual rate of -0.15 Missionaries per year (-0.35 once I make the last slider move), there will be no more at least until the next National Idea, and a LOT of provinces badly in need of conversion. Milan and Aragon launch their own war against the Ottomans. Iraq requests and is granted a white peace to drop out of the conflict, but Hungary is still technically at war with Swahili and Hedjaz. The long stalemate between Austria and Bohemia has been dragging on for 12 years now, and shows no signs of ending.

9/1508 - Polotsk declares on Mazovia, and Poland, Ukraine, and Gotland come to the aid of Mazovia. Hungary still has a core claim on Krakow in Poland, but decides that adding more provinces on the verge of Westernization is probably unnecessary, especially since it would bring in several HRE states and needless extra bloodshed over something that can most likely be gotten far more easily in another decade or two. Those are also Protestant and Reformed territories, and it's probably a bad idea to increase the percentage of non-Catholic provinces at this point, because there are some devastating events that can happen.

Hungary also began construction of its 100th brigade. France is second in brigade count at 84, but they're mostly modern Landsknecht infantry, rather than a motley conglomeration of relatively weak Eastern Militia and obsolete Men-at-Arms, reinforced by roughly half a dozen brigades of semi-current Galloglaichs and only 4 of the state-of-the-art Landsknechts. On the bright side, Hungary's relatively recent Stradioti cavalry will outperform the aging Western Knights, in spite of the latters' higher modifiers due to tech level. I expect trouble from France at some point, since they're clearly building troops at a rapid rate, but also need to consider the truce with Golden Horde which will end in a little more than a year.

The last slider move for Westernization won't happen for another decade, unless something unusual happens (such as another Clergy versus Philosopher event). That will incur a crippling -6 Stability hit, at a -50% recovery rate (partially offset by the +33% due to Attendance Duty), so I'm concentrating on building Churches in the remaining conquered eastern provinces and American colonies that don't already have one, to speed up Stability recovery. The good side of the first part of Westernization will be a massive technological landslide: +100 research points per month in the disciplines that are badly lagging, and probably half that in the few that I've managed to keep semi-current (Government and Land). The second part of Westernization will modernize the military and allow conversion to western military units, but that's going to require more Centralization than my current form of government allows. Meanwhile, the massive research gains should at least allow for Pikemen to replace the Eastern Militia, and once I can unlock Offensive and Defensive Musketeers, the performance difference between those and western units should be substantially less. From there on out, the game should effectively be on "easy mode".

 

[Kovax]

A lot of plans and procedures either fell into place or fell apart over the weekend.

4/1509 - Unexpectedly, France declared war on Dauphine. Aragon, heavily weakened by another war and not too strong to begin with, joined Dauphine's war. Hungary was faced with the prospect of engaging French Landsknechts with a mix of Eastern Militia and Men-at-Arms, plus around 10 brigades of more modern western troops. Considering how unspectacularly those were faring against rebels, Hungary decided that the only sensible course was to dishonor the alliance, then try to salvage as much of the situation as possible. Hungarian spies hastily fabricated a reasonable facsimile of a claim to the throne of Dauphine and declared war on it themselves. Hungarian troops, already on the border in case of problems with France, beat the French to the two provinces by days, and proceeded to siege and occupy the country.

5/1509 - Castile offers an alliance, and Hungary accepts it as protection from France. The 9K man Dauphine army had fled the approaching French and Hungarians into neutral territory, and now turned their attention against the back-stabbing Hungarians, occupying a Hungarian province. 14K Hungarians engaged them, and the battle was going poorly for the Hungarians until a second stack arrived. Even then, with 8K Landsknecht (Land tech level 15) against 26,000 Hungarian troops, primarily Eastern Militia (Hungary's tech at level 11) and Men-at-Arms, the outcome of the battle was still only a marginal Hungarian victory, but the Dauphine troops were then pursued to the next province and eliminated. Facing 84,000 French troops of that fighting strength would have been a bad idea. As the month closed, Swahili offered white peace in the earlier conflict against Bulgaria, which was accepted by Hungary.

6/1509 - Austria and Bohemia finally end their war after close to 13 years of occupying each others' provinces, with Bohemia taking Ostmarch from Austria. Dauphine, fully occupied by Hungary, offers surrender, but is rejected until Aragon/Dauphine and France settle their other war, otherwise France will just annex Dauphine. Aragon leads the war against France, but Dauphine leads the one against Hungary.

11/1509 - Hungary completes a level of Government tech, allowing another idea. Divine Supremacy allows an additional +0.5 missionaries per year (VERY important with all of those annexed Orthodox and Moslem provinces in the east), and slightly reduces the chance of religious conversion during the Reformation. Re-converting all of the Protestant and Reformed provinces will have to wait until their 25 year province events time out.

12/1509 - Aragon surrenders to France, renouncing several cores and treaties. A day later, Hungary enforces its demands on the throne of Dauphine, which enters a Personal Union.

7/1511 -The Golden Horde re-appears, this time with only around 29,000 total troops, due to revolts and other wars.

12/1511 - Hungary assaults and occupies both Bogutjar and Kalmykia. Religious revolts break out in force across Europe, and most of Hungary's and the rest of the HRE's armies are fully engaged in trying to chase small groups of religious fanatics from one country to the next.

1/1513 - Bogutjar colonized by Hungary, defects from Golden Horde.

12/1513 - Kalmykia defects to Hungary. Another level of Land tech is researched, allowing both Pike Infantry and Eastern Hussars. The Pikemen are roughly equal to Men-at-Arms, and the Hussars will be clearly superior to western cavalry for a few more decades. Golden Horde agrees to pay 2.6 ducats per month and release Sibir as a vassal, ending the war.

4/1514 - Hungary declares war on Shawnee.

8/1514 - Shawnee surrenders Chiaha and Catawba to Hungary. Poland annexes Mazovia (3 provinces), annexes the province of Ruthenia from Ukraine, and annexes Grodno and Lublin from Lithuania, making Poland a sizable player again in the region. Their dynasty has been stable for decades, and they've been allied with either Bohemia or France for most fo the last century, so I haven't made any moves in that direction.

12/1514 - With Ruthenia gone, Ukraine is now down to a single province, with a Hungarian core claim on it, and has been forced to break its alliances by Poland. Only Georgia has renewed the alliance. Hungary declares war on Ukraine for Poltava. Georgia joins Ukraine against Hungary, the Hungarian army crushes the tiny Ukrainian army, and the province is taken by assault on the 12th day of the war. Georgia's participation is a formality, basically irrelevant.

1/1515 - A fresh diplomat arrives from Hungary, Ukraine vanishes from the map, and Poltava becomes a core province of Hungary.

4/1515 - Milan/Venice declare war on the Ottomans.

8/1515 - Hungarian agents reveal an "Obscure Document" claiming right to the throne of Serbia. They are successful, but the effort is discovered.

9/1515 - Hungary declares war on Serbia.

10/1515 - Serbia is forced into a Personal Union under Hungary, renouncing its core claims on Nis and Zeta.

2/1516 - Hungary embraces the Counter-Reformation, increasing its missionaries by 0.4 per year and increasing their rate of success.

1/1517 - The Ottoman Empire annexes Venice. Not what I expected, but I'm not going to overlook a golden opportunity.

2/1517 - The Ottoman fleet leaves the Aegean sea and Hungary declares war on Ottomans. Troops cross into Venice, while other units assault the Ottomans through Bulgaria, quickly blocking Thrace and Edirne, the two provinces with straits to Asia Minor. Small Hungarian detachments siege all of the other Ottoman provinces on the Balkan side of the straits. Crossing the strait against the Ottoman navy proves impossible. The Ottomans and their allies cross repeatedly, and are bloodily repulsed each time, but the Hungarians are unable to pursue across the strait.

5/1518 - France turns Friesland over to the Emperor.

1/1519 - The Golden Horde makes its inevitable return, Hungary rapidly assaults Saratow, and GH admits defeat by the end of the month.

6/1519 - All Ottoman provinces on the Balkan side are occupied by Hungary, and surrender terms are presented. The Ottomans relinquish Venice and Macedonia, plus retract core claims on all four provinces of Bulgaria. A day later, Hungary releases Friesland as a vassal, burning off the infamy inflicted by the Ottoman war. Another day passes, and Great Britain calls Hungary to war against Kanem Bornu, Mali, and Ashanti. despite Hungary having no practical way of reaching them. This is problematical, as there is no way to end the war except by waiting until Kanem Bornu feels like ending it or Great Britain actually sends troops, and no real advantage to either side it continuing it, but the AI will often drag it out for years.

12/1519 - The illegal HRE province of Stade is released to the Emperor by Finland, but can't be released by the Emperor while stuck in a silly war on paper with some remote parts of Africa.

1/1520 - 4/1521 - Revolts are nearly continuous in the annexed Tartar provinces, frequent in the former Muscovy territories, and occasional elsewhere, keeping the Hungarian army busy without getting itself embroiled in any new conflicts. Castile sends several warnings to France and Bohemia, and Hungary cancels its alliance with Castile, not wanting to get involved in a major conflagration this close to the final slider move needed for westernization. Men-at-Arms are gradually replaced by Pikemen, plus a couple of additional Landsknechts from the illegal provinces.

4/1521 - Breslau becomes a Hungarian core, improving the abysmal rate of Infamy reduction, not that there's all that much Infamy to reduce.

6/1521 - At long last, the final slider move required for Westernization is made. The result is "New Thinkers Arise", providing a 4 star Treasurer. Normally, this would have been a fairly welcome thing, but the effects of westernizing and the resulting neighbor bonuses on tech (capped at +100 per month) will inevitably dwarf all other inputs for a while. Still a freebie is a freebie.

7/1521 - Zsigmond, Emperor of Hungary and the HRE, launches a comprehensive program to modernize Hungary according to Western standards. This causes a -5 hit to Stability, and increases the cost of Stability recover by 50%. Fortunately, this is partially offset by the 33% Stability recovery bonus from the Attendance national idea, and several other smaller bonuses, and aided by the +53 points to Stability from the 53 provinces of the HRE. It will STILL be a shade over a year to recover a single point of Stability. At -2 Stability, Hungary is too occupied with internal issues to look beyond its borders. With a total of 145 ducats from the budget going into research, 6 points from the Emperor going into each category, and various other advisor and improvement bonuses adding a few more points here and there, the neighbor bonuses due to westernization have just jumped up toe +100 in Naval and Trade, +99 in Production, and around +20 in Government and Land techs.

4/1522 - An unexpected and most welcome event occurs, one which I have never seen fire before: "Church Mobilizes Population", causing a +1 Stability increase. Then again, I've rarely been at -2 or -3 stability for long. Kanem Bornu and Great Britain finally see sense and agree to a white peace.

5/1522 - Bohemia turns Ostmarch over to the Emperor, and it is promptly sold back to Austria. Stade is released as a vassal (Bremen? I forget).

2/1524 - Following years of seeing waves of 2 and 3 star Theologians which always spawn in huge numbers during the Reformation, a 6 star Theologian appears. This will be very useful for all of those Orthodox and Moslem provinces annexed in the east, but not very useful for the Protestant and Reformed provinces in the west until their 25 year "Religious Zeal" events time out, and the -20 penalties to conversion disappear. As the month winds down, Bosnia gets a Border Dispute event with Hungary, and presses the claim.

3/1524 - Hungary reacts to the Diplomatic Insult created by the border dispute, and uses that as a pretext to invade. Bosnia and Hum are taken by direct assault, and Bosnia becomes a Hungarian vassal. Meanwhile, a missionary succeeds in converting the province of Bulgaria to Catholic. In the East, the Golden Horde appears once more. Saratow is taken rapidly, one small GH stack is crushed, and the GH agrees to pay 5.2 ducats per month while they deal with another war and internal revolts. Poland sends a warning to Hungary. Bohemia warns Hungary. Novgorod also warns Hungary.

11/1524 - Milan ends a war with Austria, releasing Savoy (2 provinces) as an independent country. Hungary has been holding Savoie illegally for decades, building Landsknecht there, and Provence has Nice as a core.

 

[Kovax]

In a game with a high degree of randomness, **** happens, and sometimes things go completely differently than you ever anticipated, which can sometimes be a good thing.

12/1524 - Great Britain calls Hungary to arms in another distant war, this time against Mutapa, Kongo, and Benin. Meissen is handed back to the Emperor a few days later by Poland, but cannot be released as a vassal while at war.

6/1525 - "People Sampling New Religions" event happens in Hungary, allowing a slider move back toward Narrow-mindedness. This allows an increase in Missionaries, now at +0.55 per year. With all of the Muscovy territories, Balkan states, and Native American provinces in dire need of conversion, this is a big help.

11/1525 - A minor revolt in Aachen (a vassal of Hungary) is crushed by Hungarian troops. This would not be a note-worthy even if not for the small detail that the rebel troops were Maurician Infantry, Aachen being one of the technological leaders a year or two ahead of the rest of the HRE. At least I know what I'm going to be up against on a larger scale in another year or two. Aachen is at Land tech level 18, most of the HRE is still at 17, and Hungary is catching up to them rapidly at level 16, with the prospect of Offensive and Defensive Musketeers at level 18. While Eastern Militia and Pikes have lagged badly compared to western troop types at the same Land tech level, there is a major jump in capability from Pikes to Musketeers, nearly catching up to the number of "pips" of the comparable western units.

12/1525 - The highly talented 6 star Theologian hired a few years back produces a classic work, granting +2 Stability, in addition to a +2.5% missionary success rate for the next few years. With only 5 months to go to burn off the last Stability hit, this is nice, but would have been FAR more useful if it happened 1-3 years earlier. At least Stability is back up to +3.

4/1526 - Bohemia turns Ostmarch over to the Emperor, who cannot release it or sell it while at war. Infamy begins to creep up slightly.

7/1526 - After more than a dozen insulting "offers" to have Hungary surrender and release vassals and pay reparations, Mutapa offers a separate white peace to Hungary, who gladly takes the excuse to get out of the pointless war without losing prestige, provinces, or money. Meissen is released as a vassal, and Austria is offered Ostmarch at a bargain price they can't refuse. Austria refuses. A month later, the deal is offered again at a slightly higher price, and Austria accepts. Go figure. Luxemburg has been handed to Hungary at some point, but since Valenciennes is a core of both Luxemburg and Hungary, the province of Luxemburg cannot be released without also giving up Valenciennes. 21 Infamy over the next 50 years isn't a good deal, but I'm not giving up Valenciennes if I can avoid it. Two months later, Burgundy gets a Border Dispute, claiming Valenciennes, more than a decade after having relinquished its claim on the province in a settlement with France. Burgundy is guaranteed by far too many countries for Hungary to do anything about the Diplomatic Insult that comes with the core claim.

10/1526 - Croatia is converted back to Catholicism, completing another mission for +2 Prestige. Next Mission: "Convert Nizhny Novgorod". Oh well, not all that useful.

1/1527 - Hungarian troops move to the Ottoman border, who are at war against the Mamluks. With 46,000 troops ready to go, and 14,000 more due to arrive in another month or two, the unexpected happens: Marie von Luxemburg, the Queen of Great Britain, passes away, and her cousin Zsigmond von Luxemburg, Emperor of Hungary inherits Great Britain in its entirety. This is a game-changer, in both a good and bad way. Hungarian troops on the Ottoman border move toward the coast and back toward the former Muscovy and Golden Horde areas in preparation for the inevitable. Troops board transports, heading to the British Isles in a race against time. Great Britain had units under construction at the time of its annexation, including 15 units of Chevauchee cavalry, 5 Reorganized Gallowglaichs, and 3 Small Iron Cannon. The Chevauchees are all cancelled, since they're inferior to the Eastern Hussars being built in Hungary, and one of the artillery units is stopped as well. Additional Pikes and Eastern Hussars are put into production in Hungary's core areas, for shipment to the British Isles to supplement the native troops.

2/1527 - The inevitable Overextension penalty appears, since Hungary now has far too many non-core provinces for its Emperor's Administrative skill to handle. This inflicts a double whammy of +3 Revolt Risk and +50% Stability Cost throughout the Empire. In addition, pirates appear off the coast between England and Ireland. The Hungarian navy follows the loaded transport fleet to England, in order to deal with the pirates.

4/1527 - Muskogee and Yamasee in the Americas become Hungarian cores. Colonization begins.

5/1527 - 5/1529 - Hungary is fully occupied with putting down revolts all across the empire, particularly in Ireland, England, Benin (3 former GB colonies), North America, Crimea, Muscovy, etc. There are 21 provinces on the top menu list showing revolt risk of 8.7 or higher, but the list only goes up to 21 provinces; the actual number is probably more like 30 at that risk level, and a lot more with lower figures. The National Focus is moved to Oxfordshire in order to increase stability in the region, and to facilitate religious conversions in the near future. Meanwhile, the continuous rebel spawns in London alone are wearing down a 15K stack of defenders faster than they can recover, and a second group is racing around, hunting down revolts in the rest of England. I'm barely holding things in check, despite building and sending more troops, since I need every existing unit to keep order where they are.

6/1529 - Poland declares war on Mamluks, which is rather pointless with no ports or other ways of actually reaching them.

7/1529 - Albania and Janina become Hungarian cores. Two less major revolt risks to deal with.

8/1529 - The Hungarian colony in Santee expands; the new colonists in Manhattan fail to do so, and the colony is wiped out by the native tribes. All 9 of the former Muscovy provinces become Hungarian cores.

9/1529 - Overextension is removed, since Hungary has dropped back below the limit for non-core provinces. Emperor Zsigmond is converted to a general to hasten his demise, since his heir has a slightly higher Administration skill, which directly impacts the number of non-core provinces which can be safely held.

10/1528 - Once again, the Golden Horde arrives at the border. Hungarian troops advance to take the fight to the Horde.

12/1529 - Hungary engages 21,000 Golden Horde troops with 15,000 Hungarians. The GH troops rout, and are chased down and destroyed, leaving the entire GH khanate with only 2000 men, facing a Pretender with 20,000 men as well as the Hungarians. Saratow is taken by assault, and the Golden Horde offers to pay 3.8 ducats per month in tribute. Accepted.

9/1530 - Another level of Trade research completes. The Hansa is annexed by Denmark, and all of its trade league stations close, including over a dozen in Hungary. The closings could have been prevented by joining another Trade League immediately, but Hungary is now in a position to utilize its own CoTs. With 100 research points flowing into Trade technology every month since Westernizing, Hungary now has a high enough Trade level to at least compete in its own Centers of Trade, thanks to its somewhat Mercantile slider settings giving an advantage in owned CoTs. Merchants are sent to Venice, Antwerp, and Alabama (two had been placed in Alabama previously, but were making negligible profits). Venice and Alabama succeed and are expanded further, Antwerp fails repeatedly, and Hungary stops after 3 failures and nothing to show for it. Besides, the extra income isn't that important anymore. The limitations are now Magistrates, Infamy, and the number of non-core provinces that can be controlled. The colony in Manhattan is re-started.

3/1531 - With nearly the entire Ottoman army deep in Mamluk territory and occupying several Mamluk provinces, Hungary begins moving some of its troops back toward the Ottoman border.

4/1531 - Hungary declares a Holy War against the Ottomans, bringing in its vassals and allies. Days later, the Ottomans settle with the Mamluks, gaining 3 provinces.

5/1531 - Edirne and Thrace are taken and occupied by direct assault, while the Ottoman army is far out of position. Several Hungarian armies cross the straits into Asia Minor, and the lone Ottoman transport ship that tries to intervene is sunk almost immediately, while the bulk of the Ottoman fleet is collecting troops from Egypt. Bursa and Bythinia are taken by assault.

8/1531 - The Ottoman fleet returns with a load of troops from Egypt, and is engaged by practically the entire Hungarian navy in an almost even battle. It comes down to the wire, but the Ottomans break first, and 3 Ottoman ships are captured. The Ottoman transports drop off 8000 troops before they leave. Kozani falls to the Hungarians.

9/1531 - the 8000 Ottoman troops are beaten in Edirne by 12,000 Hungarians (with substantial losses to both sides), but recover some morale before reaching Thrace, where they are beaten again, and again pursued back to Edirne, then to Bursa before finally collapsing. Larissa and Smyrna fall to Hungary. Anatolia is taken a month later in October, Athens and Antalya in November. The bulk of the Ottoman army is still trapped in Egypt, with no transit rights and its transport fleet blockaded in port.

12/1531 - The Ottomans surrender Edirne (the capital was moved to Thrace a decade ago), Kozani, and Larissa.

The next Land tech advance is due in a couple of months, which will allow either Offensive or Defensive Musketeers. This is the point where eastern and western military technologies get a bit closer, and the eastern units can at least compete on a reasonable basis if they have a modest numerical, leadership, or terrain advantage. Taking on France, 1 on 1, is still probably a bad idea, but at least it should be possible if necessary.

Once the British Isles become cores, the additional income should make success in any military confrontation all but a given, with the eastern military tech only about one troop type behind the west in effectiveness. Sheer numbers should dominate.

It will then require 3 more slider moves toward Centralization in order to pass the final Westernization step: reforming the military. My current government (Imperial Administration) will allow one more step at normal cost, and then it's either double cost for the next two moves (5 slider move cycles in total to make 3 moves), or else a change of government after it's unlocked in several more decades, probably at about the same time as I can complete the double-cost slider moves.

Serbia is in a PU, Bosnia a vassal due to be annexed in about 2-3 more years. One more war with the Ottomans would drive them from the Balkans, except that their capital in Thrace can only be taken if it's cut off from all other Ottoman provinces, which is more difficult to do for a coastal province. Polotsk and Poland would be easy targets (and I've got a core in Poland), except for their multiple alliances and guarantees by larger and more powerful states like Bohemia, France, and/or Austria, which I'm not ready to take on, at least until I've got that long-awaited troop upgrade.

The huge number of GB provinces (all of England, Ireland, and Scotland, plus Malta and 3 overseas provinces on the Gold Coast of Africa) won't become cores until 1577, which will leave only a 23 year window to grab as many non-horde provinces as possible in the East for 1 point until the Holy War Casus Belli goes away permanently. Meanwhile, I'm heavily constrained by the Administrative skills of my kings.

 

[Kovax]

At the start of the game, there were a couple of potential events which I hoped for, but didn't happen. 134 years later, one of them happens.

1/1532 - Lithuania surrenders to Poland, becoming a vassal.

2/1532 - The re-started colony in Manhattan is attacked by natives, and damaged down to a single digit of population. 2000 Hungarian troops embark, bound for Manhattan, to put an end to the problem.

7/1532 - Naples declares war on the Ottomans. A month later, Castile declares their own war on the Ottomans.

9/1532 - Denmark releases Bremen to the Emperor. Only a few days later, Lubeck is similarly handed over. The Hansa (Lubeck and Bremen) is released by Hungary as a vassal, clearing Hungary's Infamy completely.

11/1532 - Another level of Land tech is completed, bringing it to level 18. Hungary's foot units can be updated to Offensive Musketeers as soon as ongoing combats against revolting peasants and nationalists are over. Offensive was chosen over Defensive, because you can't win a combat until/unless you break the enemy units, and the sooner you can do that, the sooner your units can advance, or start to recover for the next combat. Combined with the superior cavalry units in the East, his puts Hungary's overall fighting power almost on par with the West. Superior numbers will more than make up the difference.

12/1532 - Austria declares war on Milan. The Papal State declares war on Naples, which is already thoroughly embroiled in a war against the Ottomans.

8/1533 - Milan surrenders to Austria, annulling treaties, including the one with Bohemia. Hungary has transit rights, a Royal Marriage, and 200 Relations, making it a non-trivial task to take advantage of the situation. Within days, Milan forms several new alliances.

8/1534 - The Hungarian colony in Santee (in the Americas) grows to the point of self-sufficiency. The earlier increase in Trade tech puts Hungary into a reasonably competitive status within its owned Centers of Trade, although it's still terribly outmatched in foreign markets. Merchants in Venice are expanded to 5, and after several more failures, 2 manage to take root in Amsterdam and survive against the competition. Another 5 are operating quite successfully in Alabama, but the profit margins are extremely slender there until the colonies grow a bit more.

10/1534 - A new king takes the throne of Bohemia, only distantly related to the previous king, and therefore lacking legitimacy. Hungarian agents present an "Obscure Document" (as usual), claiming a legal right to the throne, and military access through Bohemia is cancelled. Hungarian troops begin collecting from distant corners of the empire.

1/1535 - Hungary declares war on Bohemia over the throne, Poland and Magdeberg join Bohemia, while Hungary's vassals and allies heed the call on the attacking side. The main Polish formation of 16,000 men is attacked and quickly broken by 12.000 Hungarians with far superior military technology (level 18 versus level 11), and beaten to the next province by a second Hungarian stack arriving from the Golden Horde border.

2/1535 - Krakow falls to assault, as does the Bohemian province of Moravia. Poland agrees to release its vassal Lithuania, a move which King Zsigmond later regretted, since only marginally higher demands for the release of an HRE core province would have given Hungary a core on that province for liberating an HRE province from an outsider...but at the time it seemed better to put Poland out of the war than to continue fighting to milk them for more. The Golden Horde returns, and the lone stack of 14,000 Hungarians on the border advance, break a tiny 2000 man GH detachment, and then take Saratow by assault. Golden Horde, facing yet another crippling internal revolt, agrees to pay 4.6 ducats per month in tribute. Hungary takes the province of Bohemia by assault, while Bohemia likewise takes Leipzig from Hungary. Magdeburg's small army begins sieging Hungary's former Brunswick provinces, but is summarily crushed by the Hansa.

7/1535 - After much chasing, the last Bohemian army is cornered and brought to battle, fighting to the last man. The remaining Bohemian provinces are soon sieged and taken, and Bohemia is forced into a Personal Union, also revoking its claims on Breslau and Ratibor. I had hoped to pull this off with Austrian help back in the 1410s-1420s, but conditions were never right until after Austria made itself a pariah, and then Hungary didn't have the muscle to pull it off solo.

8/1535 - Another slider move becomes available, Centralization is increased (Decentralization to -3, need -5 to complete Westernization), and revolts break out in two provinces as a result of the change. With Hungary's huge number of provinces increasing the time between slider moves to nearly 15 years, it will be another 60 before Westernization can be finished, barring events one way or the other. Monetary gifts and Imperial Grace are both lavished on Bohemia, to bring the -186 Relations back to positive numbers. A Weapons factory is started in one of the recently cored Silesian provinces, which will provide +5 research points per month, in addition to 10 ducats per year. This is in addition to the 3 Universities (2 of them in England) and 3 Textile Factories (mostly in the former Flanders region) already existing in annexed provinces.

10/1336 - Emperor Zsigmond von Luxemburg, Emperor of Hungary and the HRE, passes away at an advanced age, and is succeeded by Istvan (7/3/8), who also inherits Bohemia despite his abysmal lack of Diplomacy skill. His son Albert (5/8/4) is the new heir at age 35.



This does not show the 7-8 colonies in the New World, or the 3 colonies along the Gold Coast of western Africa. Bosnia and Serbia are a vassal and in a Personal Union, and there are at least 8 HRE states as vassals.

The new King/Emperor has a 7 Administrative skill, so the immediate threat of another Overextension is put off for now, but the next provinces to become cores won't be until 1544 for 3 provinces, and 1545 for 1 more. The current heir has a mediocre 5 in Administration, which WILL trigger the condition, until Great Britain cores in another 40+ years. Fortunately, the last advance in Government tech (which I may not have mentioned, because the tech increases are happening frequently) allowed another National Idea, for which I chose Bill of Rights. That should lower Revolt Risk by 2 points for any reason EXCEPT Nationalism. The +3 Revolt Risk penalty for Overextension is not Nationalism (Note that the effects of Judges, buildings, etc., on Revolt Risk have no effect on Nationalism), so it should almost negate that aspect of the penalty. The +50% Stability Cost is another matter, which is particularly nasty in conjunction with the +50% penalty from Westernization.

 

[Kovax]

A busy evening, but I managed about an hour or two to make some progress, then another half-hour this morning, and received yet another unexpected freebie, probably more of them so far in this game than in any of my previous EU3 campaigns.

3/1538 - The throne of the Palatinate is vacated by the death of its king, without a legitimate heir. The throne is passed to the Emperor of Hungary, who inherits the two remaining provinces of the Palatinate: Worms and Pfalz. Sometimes, all of those Royal Marriages pay off handsomely; other times, not so much. They're cores, coming from another HRE state, but I don't get the province improvements because my culture and theirs don't match (Hungarian/Bohemian/Polish/Silesian culture group versus Germanic).

1/1539 - Baden becomes a vassal of Austria, and Milan agrees to renounce treaties, taking both out of the war against Austria. France sends a warning to Austria. Somewhere in the next few months, I get another event allowing a slider move toward Narrow-Mindedness, which I don't mind either way. The increased number of missionaries is roughly equivalent in importance to the reduction in research speed. At +0.75 Missionaries per year, that's sufficient, so I don't think I want to move it any further in that direction.

2/1540 - The Ottomans surrender to Naples, turning over the 4 provinces in Egypt that they took from the Mamluks only a few years earlier. The Golden Horde appears on the borders of Hungary. Poland declares war on Polotsk.

3/1540 - Sarai and Bolgar are taken in brief and overwhelming assaults by Hungary. 8000 Golden Horde troops are engaged and wiped out completely in Mordvar.

5/1540 - 16,000 GH troops are defeated in Samara by 14,000 Hungarians, Samara is promptly taken by assault 4 days later by the same army, and it then pursues the beaten Horde army. Saratow is taken by another Hungarian army. The GH troops are no match for the new Offensive Musketeers, and are often wiped out completely before even having a chance to retreat. Another small detachment of GH troops accompanying the last defeated group flees through the Hungarian lines unhindered by the units bent on its destruction, and moves deep into Hungarian territory. A small detachment is split off to chase it down; being able to route THROUGH provinces containing enemy units is infuriating, and in one extreme case, a lone brigade routes more than 5 provinces away from its starting point, deep into Hungary, before starting a siege. Another detachment is sent to annihilate it.

8/1540 - Despite its shattered army and high war exhaustion, the Mamluks declare war on distant Portugal for no apparent reason. This is not likely to end well for the Mamluks.

9/1540 - Another 15,000 man Golden Horde army is broken, fleeing to Kazan. Poland's heir dies unexpectedly, leaving the future of the ruling dynasty uncertain. Hungarian agents begin preparatory work, in the very possible event of a succession to the throne by a member of the Polish nobility without a shred of legitimacy. Hungarian settlers arrive in Saratow, and a second group is dispatched.

10/1540 - Several individual Golden Horde brigades are chased down inside Hungary, the fleeing stack heading toward Kazan is engaged there, broken again, and flees deep into the mysterious uncharted east.

With all but one of the visible GH provinces either occupied or under siege, it seems like too good of an opportunity to waste, and now I'm waiting for settlers to begin colonizing at least 2-3 more of those provinces. There's no rush to end the war, so I can send one settler and then just let the provinces gradually build up and defect to Hungary.

There are three colonies under construction in the Americas, dozens more prime provinces waiting to be colonized there, and it's only a matter of time until my current king passes the crown on to an heir with a mediocre 5 skill in Administration. That WILL invoke the Overextended penalty, even without taking additional provinces, so I might as well confront the inevitable for the next 40+ years until Great Britain's provinces become cores, and take or colonize what I can get in the mean time. I'll just have to build more churches to offset the +50% Stability cost penalty.

There's a good chance of being able to force a Personal Union on Poland within the next few years, in the event that their present king expires without producing a new heir. More immediately, my truce with the Ottomans has expired, and I'm preparing to move a few armies to that border. I'm strongly considering taking Bythinia from the Ottomans in the next war, cutting off Trace by land. If I can liberate a couple of the Ottomans' previously annexed vassals as well, I should be able to isolate their Asia Minor holdings from the coast in the, leaving their capital in Thrace vulnerable to annexation. Of course, there's also the rest of Europe, who are likely to take a few of those provinces by then anyway.

The current Offensive Musketeers are marginally better than the Landsknechts that the more backward of the HRE states are fielding, but a bit inferior to the new Maurician infantry that are now appearing with much more frequency. The troops in the other eastern kingdoms are generations behind, and no longer any threat. The long-dreaded war against France is now looking more like a major inconvenience; still not something I want at this point, but I no longer fear it. I've got 50% more troops than them, although mine are much more widely dispersed.

 

[Kovax]

A short session.

11/1540 - 10/1543 - Hungary continues to send colonists to Bolgar and Saratow, while also diverting a few colonists to the New World. Some random events start looking anything but random.

11/1543 - The 5th "Sampling New Religions" event in the past 3-4 years fires, and then happens again only days later. I'm at -1 on the slider (1 to the Innovative side), and have no need or desire to push it further, so I'm choosing to suffer the local tax and revolt risk penalties for "heresy" instead. I'm getting +0.75 missionaries per year, and with the Counter-Reformation bonuses, that's enough to maintain around 3-5 active missionaries, mostly affecting the more difficult Moslem provinces while the bonuses and 6 star Theologian last, because they'll be a LOT more difficult later without those bonuses. Meanwhile, I've gotten 3 "Border Dispute" CBs in the same short span of time, located in Ryazan, Poland, and Oyo (in Africa). One stack of rebels spawning in Bogutjar was beaten repeatedly, and was chased from there all the way to Cherson, then back and forth between there and Azov without heavy casualties, although my pursuers started running dangerously low on manpower. Why can't I roll higher than a 0 in melee? The Fire combat rolls are fine, but they don't do a lot. Before that rebel stack finally runs out of men, a second revolt happens in Bogutjar, and I've got to pull an army from the front to deal with it. The first stack FINALLY reaches the next province just before the end of the month, rather than a day or two later when its morale increases, is caught with its morale fully depleted, and is eliminated. Compared to the rebels, the actual enemies barely even qualify as a nuisance.

2/1544 - Austria and Milan get into another war.

4/1544 - Kharkov becomes a Hungarian core.

6/1544 - Bolgar and Saratow defect to Hungary. The Golden Horde agrees to pay 2 ducats per month in tribute.

8/1544 - Milan settles with Austria again, annulling 9 treaties.

9/1544 - Apalachee and Pensacola become Hungarian cores.

6/1545 - Voronezh becomes a Hungarian core.

I've got a core in Ryazan, two more in Poland, and the two countries are allied. Ryazan is guaranteed by Novgorod, while Poland is allied to Novgorod, Brandenburg, Switzerland, and a couple of OPMs. Attacking Ryazan will most likely bring in Poland as the war leader, bringing in both Brandenburg and Switzerland, plus Novgorod. Poland is without a legal heir, and Brandenburg is showing a Hungarian noble next in line, so I'm inclined to wait and see what happens, rather than forcing the issue now. If the next Polish king lacks legitimacy, I could conceivably force the whole country into a PU, rather than just nab a couple of cores (and one of them, Krakow, which I can't take because it's the capital).

Poland also has two illegal HRE provinces, which I could fight to reclaim, getting one of them as a core in reward for their liberation. The problem is that they're also cores of Bohemia, and I can't release Bohemia as a vassal without giving it all of those other provinces that I've recently inherited. Taking both illegal province from Poland would mean 1 becoming a core, and the other being an illegal HRE province I can't release, building Infamy for the next 50 years. Otherwise, I'd have to take one province in each of two wars to get them as legal cores, then a third war for my non-capital core in order to get it without paying 4 infamy per province. Fighting one war to force a PU, then getting ALL of it as cores (due to being in the same cultural group) seems a lot simpler. I just have to wait for a moment of low legitimacy.

Therefore, the next move will probably be against the Ottomans, pushing into Asia Minor and taking the last Balkan province, other than Thrace (which I can't take because it's their capital, and has sea access to at least one of their other provinces). With a bit of luck, as a "best case scenario", my land grab may cause enough war exhaustion that they'll suffer a Byzantine revolt in Thrace, which could lead to a Moslem Byzantine state that I can conquer long before the truce with the Ottomans expires. Worst case is that I'll cut off Thrace by the annexation, release, or revolt of all of the coastal provinces, and then Castile or France will grab Thrace before the truce runs out. I'll also have to grab that core in Oyo before it expires, but it's not a priority at the moment.

Meanwhile, Portugal, Castile, and now France have colonies in the Caribbean, and have conquered land in Mexico and Central America. So far, I've got the North American east coast to myself, but with a fair number of provinces yet to colonize there. It just takes time and colonists, and then the natives attack and destroy the colony.....

 

[Kovax]

Most of the weekend was spent staring at the "real thing", a WWII Weekend event in Reading, Pennsylvania. Nice chance to see vintage WWII stuff at touching distance, and a lot of it in action (planes flying, troops and armored vehicles advancing across a short span of open field, guns firing blanks, etc.). They don't hold the live flamethrower demonstration anymore, thanks to the burns it left on the field. Anyway...

7/1545 - Hungary declares a colonial war against the Shawnee, and Cherokee takes control of the war from Shawnee.

10/1545 - The main Shawnee army is attacked and elminated, and Tuskeegee, Cherokee, and Cheraw are occupied by Hungary. Shawnee surrenders all three territories to Hungary (at 0.8 Infamy each).

1/1546 - Hungarian troops are in place, and a Holy War is declared against the Ottomans. Only Adal comes to the aid of the Ottomans.

2/1546 - One of the two main Ottoman armies is defeated in Thrace, fleeing toward Bithynia. The Magyar Fleet blocks the strait, and the Ottoman army is eliminated.

6/1546 - A second Ottoman army attacks the Hungarians besieging Bithynia, but are defeated, chased down, and destroyed.

7/1546 - 7/1547 - Thrace's walls are breached, and Thrace is taken by assault. Athens and Bithynia are also taken. Most of the remaining Ottoman provinces are under siege, and individual brigades are destroyed as they spawn, with no larger concentrations. The Ottoman navy is driven out of port and annihilated. Single province Ramazan allies with the Ottomans and joins the war. Austria turns illegally held Salzburg over to the Emperor. Cherokee offers a white peace, since there is no contact between them and Hungary. Hungary accepts.

10/1547 - Ramazan's lone army brigade shatters on contact with 14,000 Hungarian troops. Their navy is likewise exterminated by the Magyar fleet after a pitifully brief engagement. Ramazan demands that Hungary release its vassal Bosnia. The Ramazan ambassador is sent home with a warning not to return after that ill-considered insult.

11/1547 - Poland declares war on Pskov. Poland brings its allies Lithuania and Brandenburg, while Pskov is allied with or guaranteed by Ryazan, Novgorod, Austria, and Finland, all of which join the war.

12/1547 - Aquileia's siege of Bursa in the Hungarian-Ottoman war is completed. This prevents Hungary from annexing Bursa, and means that Bithynia would not have a land (via strait) connection with the Balkans. Hungary settles with the Ottomans, taking Athens (at 1 point of Infamy) and forcing the Ottomans to revoke their cores in the previous round of Balkan provinces. If Hungary can't take what it wants now (cutting off Thrace), the Ottomans at least need to remain strong enough to survive the opportunism of the other European powers until the next war.

1/1548 - No longer at war, Hungary is able to release Salzburg as a vassal, burning off two points of Infamy and bringing the rate of gain back down to +0.07 per year. In sharp contrast to his solid Administrative ability, the pathetic diplomatic skill (or total lack thereof) of Hungary's current ruler is insufficient to cover the +0.75 Infamy gain from holding 3 illegal provinces, but Savoie and Luxemburg will both become cores in roughly another decade, so I've got no intention of releasing either. The three "on again, off again" non-core HRE provinces in the Baltic states are a different matter, and at some point I'm going to have to push through to them, fight Finland to get one as a core, and connect them directly to the Empire. As it now stands, they're not defensible without a major commitment of troops that they simply don't justify. Austria has guaranteed almost all of the states in the way, to prevent that.

2/1548 - With Poland under assault by Austrian and Novgorod troops, and both Poland's and Burgundy's armies fully engaged in un-sieging provinces deep in Poland, Hungary takes advantage of the freebie and declares war on Poland over two provinces that ran afoul of the Imperial Ban (Bohemian cores). Krakow and Poznan (one of the HRE provinces) are taken almost immediately by direct assault. Most of the other provinces are either already occupied by Austrian and Novgorod, under counter-siege by Poland and Brandenburg, or are currently being sieged, so I can't raise the war score too much further.

4/1548 - Ruthenia is occupied by Hungary, and Poland agrees to surrender Poznan (at 0.4 Infamy) plus renounce its border disputed claim to Ersekujvar. Poznan, one of the two HRE provinces, becomes a Hungarian core as a reward for its return from an outside aggressor. Krakow, despite being a Hungarian core, is the Polish capital, so I couldn't take that in the surrender negotiations.

A couple more provinces in North America have been colonized and settled by Hungary, leaving only a handful along the East Coast still to be claimed. Central America is mostly gone to Portugal and Spain. The truce with Golden Horde will expire in another 2 years, but anything I occupy and colonize will put me in contact with one or two of the smaller hordes, in addition to the GH, so further operations there will need to be backed up with some muscle. The future of the throne of Brandenburg looked promising for a while, but a new heir appeared and made that rather unlikely in the near future, which was part of the reason I decided to take on Poland for the HRE-granted core. Of course, that means the throne of Poland will probably go up for grabs, and I'll be sitting there, stuck with a truce for 4 more years. It will be interesting to see what terms Ryazan and Poland (the respective war leaders) settle for. If the Polish king does produce a legal heir, I can probably fight a war in 5 years over the other HRE core.

Financially, I'm now secure in my own CoTs (5 Merchants in each of Vienna, Antwerp, and Alabama), and at least viable against non-European traders in other places, but still not competitive in foreign CoTs against European traders. A Refinery is under construction for +5 research points per month in the field of Trade, and I'm still getting roughly +55 points per month in it from neighbor bonuses in the HRE.

 

[Kovax]

A very brief session, and not very many things happened, but what did happen has major implications...

6/1548 - France warns Hainaut; Hungary guarantees Hainaut. France begins a colony in Conoy on the North American coast, directly between the two major groups of Hungarian colonies.

7/1548 - France declares war on Aragon, which is only allied to a couple of OPMs (Tuscany and Brittany) and an African tribe, but guaranteed by Castile, which joins the war against France. Hungary begins moving over 80,000 troops toward the French border from the borders with the Ottomans, Poles, and the Golden Horde, and initiates a wave of construction of military brigades to replace those pulled from the GH border. The truce with GH is due to expire in under a year, and the movement of troops completely across the Hungarian Empire will take time.

France holds 4 HRE provinces illegally, including Calais and Pisa. A declaration of war to enforce the Imperial Ban could provide: (A) Calais, with a core given as a reward for its return to the HRE, and (B) a second HRE province (Pisa) to release as a vassal, burning off 2 points of Infamy in the process, which will more than cover the 0.8 Infamy for taking the two provinces at 10% Infamy with that war goal, plus take a decent sized chunk out of the slowly growing Infamy for holding illegal provinces. This king has no "pips" in Diplomacy, and the +0.75 Infamy for holding 3 provinces (1 of them involuntarily) isn't being completely negated by all of the factors that reduce it. If I can force France to release either Guyenne, Normandy, or Toulouse, that should weaken them significantly for the following confrontation(s). At this point, I'm not sure whether it would be better to take their colony in Conoy for a point of Infamy, or use spies to instigate a native revolt to destroy it, then build my own.