The Never-Ending Sacrifice AAR Thread

[admiral drake]

byzantium aar 1586-1616​

The start of this period saw the first line of a massive effort to convert as much of Hungary as possible, while majority failed we did succeed in converting several of the regions in 1 go which wasn’t too bad, over the course of the session the byzantine empire would be spending a serious effort to convert the remains as well as Egypt, unfortunately it appears the Hungarians where more eager to switch religion then the Egyptians did, it took several attempts and even then in Egypt only a few provinces have been converted so far

While in Hungary it appears only the border areas are left which is kind of nice considering the empire is suffering from 5different religions because of the Hungarian mess I was in.

Fortunately during the session I had a significant amount of peace which allowed me to go after infra 5 and spend some effort to build both governors and later chief judges in most of my provinces .

my stability was fairly high trough the session despite starting the week with around 4500 stab cost so it appears I was a bit more lucky then the Hansa was in this regard, I hope they wil recover a little bit using the culture claim idea we been throwing around since they and Poland seem to be lagging a bit behind, using my great admin kings and high stab I managed to invest a great deal in trade this week as well allowing me to compete in most centers of trade known to the empire allowing my income to rise to new heights with even reaching number 1 for a brief period soon after that, unfortunately silly ai keeps competing me out in my own centers of trade which kept me busy for quite a while.

Byzantine empire and the duke of Poland also finally managed to made the deal we have been waiting for some time now, in a effort to come to a good border for both sides, Byzantium gave up 2 provinces in bohemia and Donetsk in exchange the poles would dow or annex some ai for me and give me jedisan so evil Spanish would be unable to cut the empire in 2 at any time

At some point I also finally annexed Georgia so byzantine empire is finally more or less in 1 piece, reigning from the shores of the red sea to the black sea and from the Persian gulf to Napoli Byzantium is now truly again the eastern roman empire.

On a more serious notice, what I expected to happened someday happened this week, the evil Spanish from Asturias attacked the peaceful empire in a effort to steal all the Indian trade for himself, he attacked me in India first taking Kutch and sieging Ganges while at the same time grabbing Napoli and Apulia and slowly moving to my remaining islands in the med where I was unable to do much about it, while I was able to retake Kutch fairly easy and had significant troops in the region to fight john, I ended up giving in for 20year nap as I felt the islands would have cost me fairly big either way and the change of victory without being able to retake those was fairly low

I figured he would get enough war score on me to stab hit just from those provinces alone hence I made the call and offered peace, at first he refused but in the end he accepted after al taking both centers of trade and considering he refused the nap at first I have a fairly clear idea that he will try again when it expires and I expect nothing less from the evil Spanish.

Despite the Spanish trouble however the empire his little adventure in brazil was untouched and growing, including a small center of trade in the region and a few cities, we continue to expand to bring civilization to the jungle over the next sessions.


Next session is fairly unknown what to expect but the Asturias aggression has some momentum it seems as he is growing richer and stronger and knowing john he probably won’t stop pressing for some time, I guess will tell who he will attack next or if he will do another round of Genoa and me over on Sunday. No matter what, despite byzantine size I cannot be everywhere so fighting will always be a bitch in that regard but we will see what kind of defensive strategy to develop next week.​

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ontime
badboy
aar (long)
badboy

claiming culture :
maygar : 8
romanian : 3
dalmatian : 1 (culture : amazonian )
turkish : 6
kurdish : 2
crusader : 1 (culture : guajiro )

 

[King John]

Asturius 1586-1686: Not a Bad Session

There were two interesting highlights to the session. Firstly, I finally made a successful war against Genoa. After a session and a half of lollygagging, we had a war and the dice blessed me with 4 colonies in Venezuela. And secondly, I made a war against Byzantium, which was also a victory. This wasn't as exciting of a war, but it brought me two cots.

So, preparations went forward. Buffed up my warship fleet ever so slightly, and moved some more troops into India to join the conquerors of Sri Lanka, who would now become one of the main wings of my attack.

The other part would center in Venezuala, where the Genoese had a large chunk of land next to my major recruitment base. I could pretty easily funnel an endless line of troops, as needed, to take control of this area.

I saw that Krisz was also thinking about this possible theater of war a couple years in, when he began sending an expedition to explore Peru. I thought it would probably be best to cancel Genoese MA before they could map out much of my hinterland, just to be on the safe side going forward. With war planned a couple year in the future, this was going to happen soon anyway, so no big deal stab-wise(My stab has remained pretty reasonable since BB went down, and the main collection of low pop or pagan provs have been converted, especially relative to income).

Preparations continued for the attack. The idea would be to drop off an army in Zanzibar, and then drop off the main one in South Africa, which together in combination with whatever I managed in Venezuala would give me the WS to stab for peace. It didn't go quite that smooth though.

My canceling of my own MA gave Genoa a one month warning of what was coming. My fleet was already off Zanzibar, and my army made its dashing attack soon after. However, it had trouble beating the 20k garrison. I had a nice sized force with a general, but the first battle failed, and then the second army to drop also failed. The third or fourth attack finally won, but it caused a delay.

Nextly, I sailed to the South to go after South Africa, but then I ran into the big 100 ship Genoese warship fleet, which I thought spelled disaster to my 80 ship fleet, since I was down a CRT (18 to 21). But I think I had a better leader, and the rolls favored me very well over the next few battles and several phases. It was a string of success, and before long their numbers were down to 40something, with mine at 50something. I also eventually lost and had to retreat, but slipped away after being chased a bit, and was able to land the army with the leader in Zanzibar, so as to better defend the island against Genoese counter-landing.

Meanwhile, in Venezuala, my invasion force met stiff resistance. The Genoese Caribbean army was well supported and reinforced with the Caribbean fleet, and I had to constantly raise reinforcements in Peru to keep up the offensive. I tore through the two minimum forts closest to the border, but then lost the small fort in Panama to an assault. There were a number of pitched battles, which blend now into a sort of haze. But I had my uber conquistador here. This is the one theater where my preponderance of good battles made some sense, since my guy was simply a lot better than his counter-part.

In Europe, the Genoese navy of 800 galleys came forth and dropped off a big army in Andalusia. It seemed like a serious problem, since my fleet was so outnumbered. But when my army arrived, led by a 555, I sent the fleet out to cut off his retreat. I was blessed with amazing luck which gave me a naval victory. I did have home waters, and my admiral wasn't too shabby(355 I think), but I was going against numbers and a CRT, so I'd say I lucked out.

I won the land battle as well as I recall, and then pursued into Gibralter, but lost there. Regrouped and tried again successfully. Then pushed the Genoese army to the east, where I finally lost a naval battle and had to go into port. Genoa embarked its army and returned home to recover.

It wasn't long before they were back, though, and landed their army once again, this time in the North. Roussilon fell, and then Gerona. I brought my army up to confront Spinola, a 465 or so, and won a battle in that area, then pursued them to the North.

As they were retreating to their ships, my fleet came up again, somehow pulling off another victory. I thought that this would've doomed Spinola, but instead they just shifted their retreat toward Gerona. So I carried the pursuit north, but then they finally defeated my navy, and he was able to escape.

After their fleet left, mine left the Valencia port to go lick its wounds in a safer area closer to my Western shipyards, which were pumping out galleys as fast as they could.

By this time, though, the situation in Venezuela, combined with Zanzibar's ws, combined with battles in general, gave me stabhitting warscore. Not quite enough to stab for Zanzibar, but all I needed was to retake Panama. Instead, I stabbed for the 4 Venezuelan colonies. They were about the same value, together, as the cot, if you ignore the leverage a cot gives, or the potential to mono it, and it avoided the risk of a reversal, which could've ended my stabhitting window. And the stabhit was accepted, so that was the end of that.

Shortly after the war, I offered Genoa a NAP, and it was also accepted. This opened up an option that interested me very much- making a war on Byzantium to hinder their growth while they were still down in tech.

Byzantium had by this time grown very wealthy. Their income was briefly the highest in the game, which was a major change from where they'd been a session earlier. This alarmed me very much, since Byzantium's potential military capacity is substantial. I think it was inevitable that we'd soon be butting heads. To some extent, we were already positioning ourselves as adversaries. So it was natural to use my advantage while I still had it.

I declared war in 1610 or so. It was very straightforward. I assaulted Kutch, and then moved to siege the better defended Medium fort in Ganges. He had forces in the area to contest these attacks, but I felt confident in my siegers behind the Ganges river, led by my general, and there were reinforcements standing by in Sri Lanka, so I thought I could probably maintain that theater for some time.

But the main thrust was in the Mediterranean, where the backwardness of the Byzantine fleet made it quite simple. Byz has so many islands, which probably amount to 50 warscore when you add them all up. I don't know how Byz could have possibly averted defeat of some kind. My official demand was for Ganges and Kutch. He eventually offered those two if a NAP were included as well. I haggled a little, and then accepted this offer.
In the end, it was a good victory, but I worry about how much Byz will catch up in tech with such a breathing space.

After this, I attacked the two Chinese countries in order to end their embargoes. From the one, I took their cot. The other war is still going. Since the second one has their cot in their capital, I'll just have to settle for lifting the embargo.

On the economic front, I annexed another minor in Peru, and vassalized another. Converted the protestants, and some muslims, built 4 weapons manus, and started a few naval manus, and improved income to such a point that Asturius is now the wealthiest country. Not the most advanced. That distinction is still Genoa's, but for the time being, tech speed is slightly higher.

Bonuses: Early AAR(It's 12:15am wednesday at the time of finishing this, but hopefully it's close enough. Again, most of it was done on Tuesday).
Ontime
Long AAR(1366 words)

All to deflation

FAA 30 * 30 = 900

 

[bluelotus]

Genoa 1586-1686

This would be a tale of how I lost a war because of the dice. The first part of it anyway. No offense to John, he planned well and carried out his strikes neatly, but had the game given me two decisive rolls instead of minus five (thousand), I would have been sued by some environmental agency because of the damage the annihilated Asturian fleet caused. Alas, this did not happen.

A few years into the session I noticed that John was speedily teching NT18, but his progress was relatively slow even with his regular usage of war taxes. I decided it would be worthwhile to hypertech NT21 to keep the CRT edge between us. As far as I remember I managed to complete NT21 before John pulled off his NT18, but this might not be true, in any case the dates were fairly close to each other. I figured John would attack during the session at some point so I spent most of my time preparing for the war, for every naval expansion he completed I’d order 1.5 times the same.

The uniqueness of this cold war between us was provided by the fact that we were allied as part of a fake war earlier so we both knew what the other was up to. I expected John’s colonial force to be based in Ceylon anyway, but with the knowledge from having unobstructed vision of his lands confirmed my theory. I decided to plant my warships in Cuba, always weary of John’s numbers, and my plan was to send the ships from the Caribbean to surprise John’s navy that was undoubtedly bound for Zanzibar in case of war.

Contrary to John’s guess, my cavalry move in the South American region was to discover the bordering province of my then-colonies, to avoid being attacked from terra incognita. I decided that I would let him come to me as I was sure my plans were adequate to deal with him and frankly, I’m still certain that they were. However, with his DoW came my unlucky streak. His opening move was to attack Zanzibar and Venezuela/Columbia, while mine was to attack Gibraltar where his navy was based. My Zanzibar garrison managed to repel his landing force a few times before they were ultimately subdued, but by this time my warship fleet was already halfway to engage John’s. And this was the point where things took a sour turn for me.

Roughly at the same time of my warship fleet engaging his warships I took Gibraltar in an assault and forced his galley fleet out. Despite having a CRT advantage both my fleets managed to lose. The warship fleet off the coast of South Africa (although not in national waters as was my original plan) and the galley armada near Gibraltar. As fate have it, in that main battle just as I ordered my retreat I saw the morale metre bounce back towards me but it was too late, as I have already pressed the button. After this came a series of defeats in all three theatres. My average conquistador couldn’t cope with John’s über one, and ultimately he died in one of the battles. Despite finally forcing a victory, my warship fleet was reduced too much in size, and I couldn’t reinforce them from Europe as my galley fleet didn’t sink John’s galley fleet.

When I say “didn’t sink” I mean that my fleet continued to suffer defeats upon despite having superior morale, superior tech and on par leaders. This almost resulted in Spinola’s untimely death, but thankfully that was somehow averted. Before the war closed I managed to finally inflict heavy losses on John’s fleet and cut his main force down to 450 ships, but that wasn’t decisive enough, had I managed to bring it down to 200, I would have carried on with the war but with 450 ships and two shipyards pumping out galleys to aid them, I decided that I should just take the first stab hit for 4 colonies.

After the war John wanted to know if I was okay to sign a nap, which I agreed to on the condition that there would be no 2v1s against each other’s allies. John accepted, which meant that he wanted to attack the Byzantines, but it also meant that I got a green light to bring destruction to Delian.

I patiently waited for Delian to end his war with HAL, and then announced that I wanted Fernando Po. His response was a merry “fuck you” to which I replied with destroying his armies and pushing into Middle France. Shortly after I sent he first stabhit for Fernando Po, then we parted as friends.

Words: 784
I guess I ran out of the early rewards so let's just make it a normal -inflation reward
Ontime: -inflation

Claimed cultures:
Sardinian (1/1)
Sicilian (2/2)

 

[HALNY (HAL)]

POLAND 16th century AAR

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This time the mighty forces of Poland went to west and with swift offensive secured the fall of Bawarian Empire. Even the Krisztianians Genuenians were surprised how fast Germans gave up, and how furious were polish armies. After that it was just a matter of time when Poland's borders reached Alps in south and Rhine river in west.

Securing the western flank with this bold move allowed Poles to start taking care about nasty musilm rebel;ions in the east, that were provoked by sabotageurs from Sibir. That is why, after crushing most of rebels, Poland declared war on this wild and stupid country. It took many winters to annex it, but was worth it as now Poles can safely travel to China.
Unfortunately annexing Sibir caused some diplomatic problems. Currents status of so called "bad boy 45" is rather dangerous and costs it is causing are enormous. That is why our most humble monarch decided to send AARs letters to other kings in Europe and change this dire situation a bit.

T B C

I claim all ontime and other rewards = bb reduction

 

[admiral drake]

Aar 1616-1642


The empire of Byzantium had a fairly quite session right up until the end where a huge war broke out across Europe, India and America


For the majority of the session the byzantine empire was essentially playing catch up in tech

At the start of the session I was fairly close to trade 5 and I figured I would grab that first and use the extra income to speed up my tech speed a little bit further using the extra merchant and trade efficiency to good use.

After that it was all out towards naval tech 18 but when I reached 17 I came up with a idea to war tax and mint 1year and a half to build 6navalmanufacturys quickly with the idea that they would help me keep up in tech better once I reached parity with the rest. After that we proceeded forward to naval 18 and later 21 in a slow but steady pace, afterwards we spend some additional effort into gaining land tech 21

While great strides have been made towards gaining with the western competition both at sea and land the empire is still behind in both regards, with a current tech of 22/22 vs the French 26landtech and asturian 24/25tech we still have a long way to go.

Unfortunately during the session Asturias dowed Genoa where I would have preferred to help but after talking things over with Genoa it was decided that I would just keep it a 1vs1 and push my tech further while the extra years after the nap expired helped me a lot its sad to see Genoa loose another war vs. the Spanish, at this point it seems Spain dominate the Asian trade and has control both Spain and England united almost which is something that should worry any player in the end.

In the end 5year truce expired after Genoa peaced out and the byzantine empire used the time well to build up army and navy up to a mighty 600.000 man standing across the continents from America, Africa, Europe all the way to central Asia and a fleet rivaled in size by nobody unfortunately the tech it still a bit wonky and most of those ships may need a upgrade.

When war broke out majority of the action so far has the defense of the alps by the valiant Italians it seems but some side actions are occurring at this moment as well, at this point the Greek navy is blockading the island of Malta and the island is under siege.

More Greeks are currently sieging Ganges but ran out of troops so are waiting for reinforcements and at the same time a Spanish army is defending Kutch from the Greeks trying to invade that center of trade to but so far the majority of the Greeks are waiting, they have yet to be called to fight and are just standing there defending the motherland

At this point the empire is suffering from lack of leadership with the only general left leading a army in Europe and the great admiral defending Europe from the sea but fortunately it appears the enemy is suffering from the same issue as his army in Kutch has no general either. Only time will tell if things will change but I have a good feeling for next session as the great Doukas will soon spawn to lay waste to evil French and Spanish forces.

From what I can tell the Spanish are attacking the poor Italians in America at this point to with significant effort going on along the northern coastline of south America. At this point it’s difficult to help out there despite the fact that Byzantium has significant forces in the region but time will tell.

As for next session we do not know what the terms are from the enemy and time will tell if how this war will end up going regardless, I’m fairly confident this can go both ways fairly easy with a few lucky or unlucky battles both at sea and land.

With some luck the empire will gain tech parity during the truce after this war regardless at which point things might get interesting


ontime
bb reduction

aar (long+early)
i had 0.5 cores left from a while ago so i claim 2 cores

i didnt get crusader culture last week so claiming it again
crusader = guajiro in prov file

core 740
core 508

 

[TC Pilot]

Hanseatic League: 1616-1642

The beginning of the session began with the League at a crucial turning point. All the various malus which had haunted my 100+ year monarch (well, technically it was the Parliament of the Hansa League, but whatever) had finally gone away. Coupled with that, I was able to claim a number of cultures (including all of Scandinavia) which made conversions a viable option at long last. A few fortuitous events also allowed me to increase my stability to full for the first time in decades. The early years were focused on a number of things: minting to pay for missionaries, and sending out traders in the hopes of rebuilding my trade income, which had collapsed to less than half of its height two or three sessions previously. Conversions could have relatively good success rates throughout the entire session. Nearly all of Scandinavia was converted, as were parts of Finland (which had relatively cheap conversions due to population) and I believe one German province. Copenhagen remained a frequent point of failure, but overall the religious situation has improved dramatically.

Unfortunately, these gains in the early years were marred by Poland's second war of aggression against me. The attack was somewhat unexpected, and there was little the Hansa armies could do against them initially. A sizable chunk of the army had actually been transportted to Ceylon in preparation for a renewed attack on Malacca, so my armies fell back to Copenhagen to regroup and build up a new force capable of taking on the Polish invaders. Unfortunately, while this was happening, Novgorod and a number of German provinces south of the Elbe River were taken by assault, boosting Poland's warscore substantially. After many months, with no sign of foreign intervention coming, the League sent out its newly minted cavalry army, riding south down Jutland and across the Elbe. The battles were long and drawn-out, but ultimately went in Poland's favor, the Polish mixed armies of infantry and cavalry taking full advantage of the fire phase to whittle down Hansa morale. Fortunately, no catastrophic losses were suffered, and Poland seemed content not to pursue. A second and third attempt were made in subsequent months, with little improvement. Simultaneously, I had dispatched a large infantry force of perhaps 50,000 to the Baltic provinces to deal with the relatively small Polish armies occupying northern Russia. Unfortunately, the army was defeated at Pskov by a substantially smaller Polish force. It was at this point that Poland issued its demands, cession of the province of Novgorod and a small pile of gold. This demand was a stabhit, and rather than risk the instability and the possibility of the demands going higher, I chose to accept the offer as it stood. It was only after the war was over that I realized the likely force of my endemic failure to win battles: I had forgotten to raise army maintenance, and had actually fought the entire time at 50%....

This was unfortunate, but not fatal. Asturias approached me with the possibility of selling three of my English provinces for the sum of 4,000 ducats. On top of that, he offered approximately 3000 more ducats if I would build two refineries in those provinces before handing them over, an offer I accepted with alacrity. Payment was made and the provinces transferred, leaving the League with Kent as the last vestige of its old British holding. Nevertheless, the pool of money was enormously helpful in funding more conversions, trade missions, and colonization attempts in North America.

Prospects of renewed fighting with Poland disappeared with the disappearance of the Polish sovereign, so I could look forward to some peace and quiet as I plotted my revenge on Mallacca. I finally declared war and landed an army of about 40,000 on the Malay peninsula, hoping my technological edge would be able to overcome the medium forts and high attrition rates. I succeeded in destroying their armies in a series of ping-pong battles and blanket siege their provinces. Unfortunately, the siege dragged on and it was only later that I realized countries can only be annexed if they control 1 province, not 3. This effectively destroyed my interest in spending more time sieging down their forts, and I peaced out in exchange for a small pile of gold. Another war was launched towards the end of the session when I noticed Nordrige was allied with Scotland, against whom I had a free CB. War was promptly declared. In the Americas, my colonial forces were able to largely sweep the Scottish armies before me, while York and Stockholm were besieged with relative ease, though sporadic Scottish naval forays were a constant annoyance. Nordridge was finally occupied and annexed, but the war against Scotland continues, likely to result in the dismantling of much of the Scottish colonial empire and the extraction of whatever wealth I can get out of their coffers.

Overall, things are looking much brighter now than 30 or 50 years ago. With the worst of my monarchs out of the way, and the religious situation far more manageable, there are many more possibilities for growth and prosperity at hand.

 

[HALNY (HAL)]

Cultures claims: Russian, Baltic, Ruthenian, Cossack, Nomadic Turkomen, West Slavic.

I also claim last ontime bonus.

 

[admiral drake]

1642-1654


Well this session marked 1 big endless war against the evil aggression of the Spanish and French, we started this war before 1642 and the war has been going ever since, some people start to wonder, is there such a thing as peace

During the session the byzantine empire has been fighting most of the war a crt behind both land and sea and has been forced to spend most of its effort to tech up trying to get rid of this really annoying disadvantage. By the end of the session we reached land tech 2 and are now heading towards naval crt hopefully this will allow us to actually win some battles at sea for a change.

While Brittany got kicked out of this war during the session thanks to a timely hansa intervention the Asturias remain stubborn and continue to fight. Personally after all those years I wonder if a white peace could be in order as it appears most of Europe is suffering from this war though Byzantium hasn’t really had to many rebel issues so far I am is getting tired sending wave after wave of troops trying to attack while trying to tech at the same time. Either way Byzantium itself can keep going for a long long time if needed as stab cost is now a none issue to thanks to Doukas moving me serfdom and narrowminded

ontime
deflation
aar
bb reduction

 

[King John]

Asturius: 1642-1654

Asturius really has no problem with carrying on the war for the foreseeable future. The military situation is good. Though the Hansa managed by their British invasion to draw my fleet away from the defense of Catalunya, opening the door to a massive Byzantine stack, it is now on its way home, and it won't be very long, I expect, before the Byzantine fleet is unable to continue to support their army in Spain.

Meanwhile, Genoa continues to take stabhits. Though they have recovered much of their lost warscore, those parts that they've recovered are the parts that are easiest for me to take back. So I think that once I divert my fleet back into the Caribbean, with a modest force, it shouldn't be very hard to get the warscore back to 99 by reoccupying the high tax base Caribbean islands, almost none of which have forts. I don't know if Genoa will be able to put a short term stop to the stabhits before then, but I think the situation is very interesting, and I'm very curious about how it will come out.

The other interesting thing is the Hansa. I had been leaving them alone on account of their pitiful tech, but now that they've gotten into this war, and ripped three provs off my ally, I don't think there's anything unethical about returning the favor. And certainly nothing dishonorable in picking on such a weak country, when one considers that their very modest strength is added to two very powerful ones, which I now, at least for the next three years(when the Brittany truce expires), have to deal with by myself.

The situation vis a vis the Hansa looks very good. The provs they captured in Britain are being recaptured, and I have an army in the Netherlands which should be able to capture a fort or two before a major response can be mounted. And before too long, I think I can get my army in Britain, with my good leader, down to NL and get the WS up enough to stabhit. The Hansa fleet was reduced to about 200 ships, and since they're NT 18 to my 26, I can probably deal with that with 120, letting me keep the mobility I need while diverting the rest to handle Byz.

The situation vs the Byz is actually very bad at the moment though. Ganges and Kutch were captured, and so was a large swath of my east coast in Iberia. All in all, it gives them a lot of warscore. The warscore I've gotten from battles counters that somewhat, but not nearly enough. It's very difficult to fight off their uberleaders, and this advantage they have is combined with a manpower pool that is five times larger than mine. But I've got some ideas on how to turn it around. I just need to kick Genoa out of the war first.

This will be the last war where I enjoy a naval CRT(and probably any CRT) on Byz, so I have to do what I can with it. With my fleet, which has performed incredibly well so far, I hope I can beat them away, and recover Iberia. With Brittany's truce expiring before long, I think we have a lot of potential to turn this into some kind of victory. It will probably be our last good chance before Byzantium, with its dominant tech speed and income, behemoth MP, highest naval support, and by far the best historical leaders, gets to where it just outclasses every country by too far to be challenged by anyone.

Asturius is also very curious about when the Hansa are going to give Poland the provs it promised. We think they should do so immediately, and if they will not, Asturius is prepared to support Poland in getting these provinces by force. Since we're already at war, this obviously isn't a very big step. But we will shift our war goals to more toward helping Poland to grow.

Byzantium might threaten to attack Poland, but I think they could ignore those threats. If they Byzantines did attack them and take some land, it would help the Poles more than it would hurt them, because of the badboy they'd lose. Meanwhile, the non-religion/non-culture provs Byzantium would gain would hurt Byzantium. So I think their threats against Poland are probably overblown. Plus, Poland is going to have the CRT soon, and be able to fight on equal terms with Byzantium. As the only country with even comparable MP, this seems to me to be a perfectly natural thing, and I encourage Poland to take its natural position as the main land counterweight to Byzantium. It currently has the leaders, and I think the Polish king might just have the right combination of madness and sheer tenacity to make something like this happen. If they do, Asturius is willing to provide money and ongoing military support.

825 words

Ontime + Long AAR- all deflation

Cultures: Anglosaxon (4* .5 =2 bb)

FAA bonus = 360