Chapter Two
Starting with five diplomats, I send four straightaway. The first guarantees Granada. Basically this means a free war against Castile within days of the game starting. By free I mean no BB or stability penalties. The second and third diplomats request Military Access from Aragon and Navarre so that I can actually get troops to Castile.
The fourth, well that’s a bit more interesting. It’s an attempt at a cunning plan.
Armagnac
OPM vassal Armagnac could be diploannexed at a cost of 1BB (as far as I can tell the core doesn’t help in diploannexations). However, as a French core if I took it off someone else I would get it BB free. Armagnac is also an English core so I cancel vassalisation. I do this right at the start of the game – France can have prestige problems early on because there are so many unclaimed cores and grabbing them all first might not be the best option.
I’ve not tried this plan before so we’ll just have to wait and see.
You can also see the troop build up and the first rebels; I haven’t unpaused yet :rofl:
And we’re off…
Aragon and Navarre both grant military access while I get one of the French diplomatic annexation missions. There are four of these (IIRC) where you get a core and a move centralised when you DA – it counters the decentralisation move that DA causes. The core is very nice as well.
Right on schedule Castile DOWs Granada on the 17th. Algiers answers the alliance call. A day later Castile allies with Portugal, timing gentlemen. I honour the call even though I’m a couple of months from being able to do anything as my troops are still in Paris and have a rebellion to crush first.
These numbers are essentially meaningless as everyone starts with cash and manpower. I would not be surprised to see Castile add another 20,000 soldiers within the next year. By the first of January 1400 Castile has 19,000 soldiers under arms. My cavalry are still building and I’ve only just driven the rebels from Rougerie, I still need to finish them off.
August 1400
Castilian forces are gathered in the south of the country fighting Granada so I’ve started some sieges in the north. A strike force has just broken the Castilian siege of Almeria; the longer Granada holds out the longer I have to damage Castile before facing the main armies. Normally I’d say smash the enemy armies then take the provinces but if the enemy army is busy take the provinces first. I want to do is drive Castilian war exhaustion up as far as I can.
14th October 1400 – The new court
I recruit two 4* diplomats. I’ve no BB yet and probably won’t have for a few more years but it’s best to be ready. With my Diplo 6 King I currently burn 1.15 BB a year, adequate for now.
August 1401 Granada makes peace
Disappointing but it should still leave me another opportunity to fight Castile before they get annexed. Now I can expect the full weight of Castile’s troops to march against me. I end up minting 0.4% to fund 4,000 more cavalry and 2,000 infantry.
Summer 1402 – the first peace offer
I’ll decline this; I aim for a ~100 point peace deal here. The earliest wars are not totally optimised for BB. I’ll waste several years BB reduction to ensure that there is no European colonisation.
Also, look at the relative war exhaustion values. I’ve been very very careful to use small forces wherever possible and rest demoralised or damaged units in Aragonese territory – This war has so far been 2 hours of playing time.
August 1403 Peace!
Castilian war exhaustion is 12.65, French 0.14. Castile was all but entirely occupied for a 93% war score. Gibraltar has been captured by Andalusian patriots but they probably won’t last long enough to defect.
I now have a land frontier with Portugal. Galicia is now French, good news as it’s a potential OPM revolter. Vizcaya as Basque cultured can also see the rebirth of Navarre once Aragon gets around to annexing Navarre. Much safer in my hands.
I’ve got military access from Scotland already; with BB to burn I can spend a couple of years looking for trouble.
BB is 4.91 / 16.00 as of 01/09/1403