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The Great Game : Part II, Europe's Revenge

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Early September, 1782
Warsaw, Poland

The sack was winding down. It was the third day, and most of the portable goods had been taken; the women were long since distributed among the units or else discarded, and the ransomable men had been found. The worst of the flames had died down, though a sour smoke and a thin layer of soot still hung over everything like a miasma of war.

Most of the troopers had given up on the city and gone to find better lodgings outside, where there was no smoke to make the eyes itch and the throat dry. Ragnvald and his friends, though, had found an excellent wine cellar on the first day; consequently, they had missed out on the gold and other portable loot, not to mention the women. It had been a really glorious binge, but none of them wanted to leave Warsaw without some memento; thus they were among the last prowlers in the streets.

Pekka had found a tiny golden crucifix on the body of a nun, overlooked no doubt because her killer was drunk on the contents of the bottle he had used to slash her throat; but apart from that, they'd had no luck at all. Ragnvald was getting bored and thirsty, and beginning to think that a Warsaw memento wasn't so important after all; or maybe he could buy one, trinkets would be a glut on the market for a while after this. That was when he spotted the boy - only a quick glimpse of a face in a second-floor window, swiftly withdrawn; but hungover or not, Ragnvald had the alertness of a battle-trained Yngling. He brightened instantly; anyone still alive would surely have something to drink, and perhaps some loot as well - he knew his comrades; if the boy had been seen before now, he would surely have been killed or captured. It followed that the house had not been thoroughly searched. Anyway, even if there was no loot, they could rough the boy up a bit, for fun; come to think of it, Harald the corporal wasn't any too particular with where he got it, and it would be good to have him owing Ragnvald a favour.

Shouting to his comrades, Ragnvald advanced carefully on the building where he'd seen the face; there was no use in being careless, people got killed just as dead from a holdout's gun as in storming a defended breach. But no barrel poked from the window to threaten him. His friends were behind him as he ran up the rickety staircase inside; it was hopeless to try sneaking up on anyone on that surface, so speed was his best option. Fortunately the boy had no gun; only a knife flashing towards his face greeted him as he burst in the doorway. He swayed aside in the best Agoge style, but his reactions were slowed by the hangover, and the knife grazed his cheek. A stril had actually touched him in close combat; he was never going to live this down. Angry, he grabbed the boy's arm and twisted until something gave; the knife dropped, and Ragnvald snatched it from the air, punching it neatly between the Pole's ribs. Harald would just have to go without for a while - then again, maybe he wouldn't; he really wasn't very particular.

Looking at what the boy had been guarding, Ragnvald suddenly felt much more cheerful; a young woman, perhaps year younger than the boy's seventeen or so. It had been a long time, and the women that followed the Yngling army were not the ones with any other choice; but here was a lovely dark-haired beauty, and him first in line. Trinkets be damned, it was shaping up as a fairly good sack after all.

Afterwards he felt a little empty, and tired; at least the girl had stopped screaming, and was only weeping quietly while Pekka took his turn. He became aware of a background sound he had not noticed while he was busy; the boy was praying.
"Benedicta tu in mulieribus..."
The sacred words made a weird counterpoint to the sounds of rape. The boy gasped and wheezed, barely able to get the words out with the air from one lung. Not quite sure why, Ragnvald got up and stood over the boy, watching as he struggled to draw breath through the pain of a collapsed lung.
"...Mater Dei ora pro nobis peccatoribus..."
The gasped-out words trailed off. It seemed the Pole would go to his death without finishing his last prayer. Unable to draw breath, his eyes appealed mutely to the Yngling; and in spite of what he'd just done, Ragnvald felt something in him answer. Bending down, he softly took up where the boy had left off : "Now, and in the hour of our deaths. Amen."

His knife flashed, once. Then he left that house, and that city.
 
The Spanish Wars for Hegemony

By Blayne Bradley

To the outside observers of this time, the latest war between the Spaniards and their relative enemies; The Kingdom of Norway, The British Commonwealth of nations, the Kingdom of Burgundy. Seems just like another war in a long stream of wars stretching back centuries. However this is obviously not the case for I shall prove that this is simply a master plan by the Spanish crown since time immemorial to become the single ruling super state of this planet Earth. For you see starting with the Kingdom of Castile in the Iberian peninsula, the Castilian nobles and royal family ruthlessly absorbed all of their neighboring states and soon declared themselves Spain this we will see is only the first step!

Next the Spaniards knowing that the resources of their corner of Europe alone cannot secure world hegemony set sail with a fleet to find new lands to exploit before the other European powers could find them ruining Spain’s plans for world domination. So upon finding “America” they were shocked to find already sprawling and prosperous civilizations through this “New World” and quickly as their maniacal gears turned it was quite obvious to the Spaniards to pillage and rape and murder in order to secure their hold on the new world and with the resources they hoped to exploit from here use it as a spring board obviously to gain complete influence on world affairs.

With the untapped wealth of South America Spain launched a series of expanionistic wars to gain territory and influence in world affairs to further their aims. Wars against Italy which they won, wars against Burgandy which they won, wars against Hungary which they won, and soon Spain even turned upon their allies to gain influence within China for suppressing those people would be impossible but having a friendly Chinese government as allies will go much farther then having concrete territory. Embolden by humbling England the worlds former Superpower Spain choose to excerise its power to continue its path to world domination by once more declaring war on Italy and crushing them using the comments of their leader as a casus beli. Further examples include Spain forcing Hungary to recognize Spain as the holder of Aleppo and its luxurious center of trade.

Spain would soon also continue to alienate its former allies by attacking Norway in support of Burgandy and after finishing a quick war with Norway and Italy aided China yet again at the expense of England. With such hostility and overwhelming power exuding from Spain the other powers of Europe have had enough and formed a coalition to weaken Spain. Will this coalition prevail and at this point prevent Spanish Hegemony over the entire world? Or will it crumble as their ability to fight a war fades the longer it goes on?

On one hand, Spain has a massive amount of wealth to convert into Armies and navies while the coalition on the other hand have a large amount of center of trades they can embargo Spain out of and have enough manpower to maybe bleed Spain dry. The empire that can hold out the longest is the empire ultimately that will prove the victor in this war.

AAR reward -1 inflaton and remmeber 2 Generals pls. Feng Shi-Huan and K'ung Tse-Tzu
 
Gentlemen, could you please stop responding to Ego? I really do not see that there is anything to be gained from talking to him, since he is no longer in the game. It's not as though speaking with him was a pleasant experience at any time.

Now, we'll give him a chance to do the honourable thing and stay away of his own accord; however, any further posts along these lines, and I will request a mod to delete them, and the responses.

Now, I received some feedback that my last AAR post is rather nasty, and you're quite right, it is. Deliberately so. I thought it worth showing just what the phrase 'a sack brutal even by the standards of the time' actually means; it's easy to become caught up in the grand scheme of things and not look at the individuals. And at the same time, with all the glorification of Yngling skill at arms I've been doing, it seemed worthwhile to point out that they are, basically, not very nice people.
 
You probably know my opinion on this - the more realism the better, and Vikings that don't pillage the capital of a hated enemy don't deserve that name. Far "nicer" peoples have done as much and worse. Reminds me of Nanking, btw (I do suspect that it was partially intended, the similarities are too great).
 
Well, I didn't have Nanking consciously in mind; in fact I don't know that much about it, other than the bare facts of it being a rather nasty event even by the standards of the Sino-Japanese war. But I suppose one sack is much like another. There's only so many ways to pillage a city.

Your point about Vikings is well taken; one way to look at these Ynglings is that they are a society where the old warrior ethos of the Germanic tribes never really died out. Norway was pretty isolated from the main streams of European thought even in our history; with the much more complete division into well-defined, mutually suspicious power blocs, that should be even more pronounced. So of the threads that make up this society, Judeo-Christian morality, and the later Enlightenment, is much less marked than in our history, and the pagan virtues much stronger. Hence this is a society where Christianity never really took, except as a bigger and better warrior god; where blood feud and raiding is still considered acceptable, and where people not of kingly blood (ie, Yngling descent) are not really people.

You will note that Norway is the only Protestant nation around, with the exception of tiny Oldenburg. You could consider this as being the Yngling variant on Christianity; sod the Pope and his attempts at imposing brotherly love! We want the Lord God Jehovah of the Hosts! These are people who would naturally be rather strong on the Old Testament; which, if you actually read the thing, is pretty nasty.
 
Having lived in Israel for a while, yes, I did. Incidentally, an eviler version of Israel is also a good comparison; a modern-day warrior nation. And naturally, the Ynglings are God's chosen people! Can't wait until Victoria when "Yngling's burden" is added into the mix as well.

How come did everyone else stay Catholic? Didn't England at least convert at some point?
 
Perfidious Albion! :rofl: Could anyone post a religious map, now that this aspect of the game probably settled down for good?

EDIT: Also, forgot to ask, what exactly do you want to demand from Spain if you win?
 
The Treaty of Marseilles, when it finally came, was a peace of exhaustion; but for precisely that reason, it was well suited to guaranteeing a lasting peace. The issue for which the war had been fought - the threat of Spanish hegemony - had been decisively settled : Spain would no longer overshadow the European Powers. At the same time, the peace treaty was not so harsh as to embitter the Spanish court beyond bearing : The concessions forced by the victorious Alliance were carefully calculated to bring a maximum of subtle economic effect for a minimum of overt annexation. Thus, England's annexation of Tangiers broke the Spanish monopoly on trade tolls in and out of the Mediterranean (incidentally increasing that trade by 50%), but no large class of Spanish nobles or influential merchants were hurt. In a similar vein, Norway and Burgundy gained enough American gold mines to significantly reduce Spanish revenue - but as the mines had belonged to the Crown, no recidivism could be whipped up in the Spanish people over such a loss. Lastly, the new Republics of Gran Colombia and Haiti (although their independence was quietly guaranteed by English and Norwegian naval power) were ruled by oligarchies of Spanish noblemen and merchants. Hence their existence gave none of the emotional leverage that outright annexation might have provided.

The vast casualties of the Iberian front had in any case dampened the enthusiasm of all parties (except the Ynglings, who had wisely avoided committing large troop strengths to the deadlock; but Norway, which could only fight Great Powers by mobilising half of the most productive class, had its own problems with drawn-out warfare) for war. The effect was particularly noticeable in Spain proper, in which the sacrifices of the war had been disproportionately hard, and made all the worse by contrast with the previous prosperity of empire. No actual revolts took place in Iberia, but enough rumblings of discontent (particularly along the coasts, exposed to Alliance naval raiding) were heard to make Madrid extremely nervous - justifiably so, in view of open rebellions in the colonies, and a total lack of sea power to suppress them.

Meanwhile, the Alliance had strains of its own; the large German population of Burgundy, in particular, took the opportunity to press for concessions, and got them. Even so, small localised risings against Burgundian rule took place in several places, and were temporarily made to stick in the swamps of Louisiana. Like the Spanish loss of Colombia, such a concession was not going to shatter the viability of the Burgundian state; but the precedent was ominous. Many saw the American troubles as the first rumblings of the avalanche. There was therefore audible relief in Antwerp as much as in Madrid when news of the Treaty arrived - augmented by Burgundy, which had borne the brunt of Alliance losses, being rewarded with the bulk of the Spanish gold mines.

With the threat of hegemony thus averted, the Great Powers settled in for another period of peaceful Balance-of-Power diplomacy, jockeying for position in the colonies, and throwing their weight around in the Far East. This happy expectation, however, was not shared by the cold planners of Håkon's Hall. For the Ynglings, the peace was merely an opportunity to prepare for the next war, nor did they assume that war was far off.

From Berserker to Battleship : Norway 1066 to 1920, Bergenhus University Press.​

---------------------------------------------​

A note on Tangiers : EU2 doesn't model anything so sophisticated as who can grab tolls off the Gibraltar trade, but its loss did mean that Spain lost land connection to all its African provinces, imposing a 10% income loss on a good third of its empire. The net result of the peace treaty was to bring Spain's monthly income from 1200 down to a much more reasonable 800, in the same league as Burgundy and England, and not too far ahead of Norway.

Now, maps!

The religious situation in Europe:
religion1806.jpg


North America:
NAreligion1806.jpg


South America:
SAreli1806.jpg


And Asia:
religionAsia1806.jpg


Not many Moslems in this history! On to the political maps. Most important, Europe!

Europe1806.jpg


The Americas; note the two new countries.
SouthAm1806.jpg


India, with the vast English empire.
India1806.jpg


It remains to be seen whether we can squeeze another war into the 13 years of EU2 remaining; but we expect to reach 1819, and the Vicky conversion, this week. Stay tuned!
 
This peace reminds me a bit of the Thirty Years War - i.e. Spain is actually weakened very badly, but it SEEMS that it got out easily at first glance - and the War of Spanish Succesion with its effect on France (which too remained visibly strong, but no longer hegemonic).

The map looks rather disjointed, with all those enclaves and whatnot, and ofcourse Colombia-in-Ecuador. Also, you should change Louisiana's colour.

Not many Moslems in this history!
Click to expand...

Protestant majority coastal India is interesting. I wonder if we'll get a Christian fundamentalist state there one day after all? Operation: Presbyter John. :rofl:

So the world has now become multipolar; I love this sort of situations that could go in a very wide variety of ways. How is Byzantium doing?
 
King of Men said:
Meanwhile, the Alliance had strains of its own; the large German population of Burgundy, in particular, took the opportunity to press for concessions, and got them.
Click to expand...

Sooo... in practical terms, does this mean that Burgundy has claimed german culture?
 
zlaron said:
Sooo... in practical terms, does this mean that Burgundy has claimed german culture?
Click to expand...

German culture can be claimed in 1812 I think. :)

Also, you should change Louisiana's colour.
Click to expand...

They wont be around after the next session. ;)

Is it too late to write an AAR, Ive been really busy this past week and havent had time to write one. :(
 
German culture for Burgundy in 1809, by my recollection. :)

I don't think Spain's as badly weakened as in OTL's TYW, we didn't bring it down to the point where it'll go into terminal decline. (Basically, because EU2 doesn't really model the difficulty of hanging on to distant provinces once they get a taste for rebellion. In real life, the example of Colombia would probably inspire independence movements all over the Americas.) But certainly, it was a pretty heavy nerf.

On the other hand, it might recover quite substantially in Vicky; the gold provinces and the land connection are nowhere near as important there, while sheer size has a lot of advantages that don't exist as much in EU2. On the other hand, Africa and South America don't have the best resources - but come to think of it, with RGOs much improved in Vicky, that might not matter so much. It'll be interesting. :)
 
Well, I didn't say that it was really crippled - only now it seems far stronger than it actually is, having in truth lost momentum and ran out of steam.
 
Ah, yes, true. It's no longer a threat for global hegemon, to be sure. China, on the other hand, with its 450 million population in the converted game - ouch!

We finally got to 1819 and conversion. I really hope we can get some fresh blood into the game for Vicky. We've been sort of limping lately. I think this has the potential to be really interesting in the Industrial Age, though; we're starting with reasonable industrial machines, so by 1900 we'll be absolute monsters. I foresee some really Great Wars, if we can only find someone to play Spain, Poland, and Persia. Italy and Byz would be good too.
 
Ah, yes, true. It's no longer a threat for global hegemon, to be sure. China, on the other hand, with its 450 million population in the converted game - ouch!

We finally got to 1819 and conversion. I really hope we can get some fresh blood into the game for Vicky. We've been sort of limping lately. I think this has the potential to be really interesting in the Industrial Age, though; we're starting with reasonable industrial machines, so by 1900 we'll be absolute monsters. I foresee some really Great Wars, if we can only find someone to play Spain, Poland, and Persia. Italy and Byz would be good too.
 
No worries, play as Spain. Everybody else is a Vicky noob too, and with the resources of Spain behind you can hardly fail. :)
 
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