Castille: The IbAARian Empire

[dresdor]

This will be a game on Normal difficulty with the goal of Mediterranean Conquest. Initial goals are unification of the Iberian peninsula followed by a push into Africa and Italy. It will be necessary to destroy or at least injure France and England severely enough that they lack the power to interfere with my Imperial ambitions. Eventually I’ll have to deal with the bigger forces of the eastern parts of the Med, but I have many other fish to fry first.

Index:
Update 1: The Reconquesta
Update 2: Infamous
Update 3: Birth of an Empire
Update 4: Border Wars
Update 5: Thunder of Giants


The Plan

Unify Iberia
Push into Europe and the Italian Peninsula, including the decimation of France
Conquest of Africa and securing of the mouth of the Med. Sea
Subjugation of the British Isles (Through Vassalization, Disruption, or Annexation)
Limits of the Push into Europe proper, including the neutering of the HRE.
Final push into conquesting the rest of the Med, control of which will signify my win condition.


Update 1: The Reconquesta

This is my first AAR, and while I have player EU3 IN on a friend’s computer for a bit, I am not a very experienced EU3 player. This game takes place in the latest steam version of Divine Wind. Settings are the defaults, except that there are random “lucky” nations instead of historical ones. We shall see what happens.

Ministers: Land tech, stability, government tech

Sliders moved towards Land Army (Naval Thought Suffering)

King Enrique III de Trastamara ADM: 3/2/2

Building up armies to take Granada; Guaranteeing Navarre


Current Priorities:
Operation Granada Mancha: Take Granada, try to take a few provinces in Africa.
Operation Ara-gone I: Reduce Aragon without taking the Belares.

Royal marriages: Brittany, Milan; Gonna be lonely for a while, nobody else wants to marry Maybe Brittany will ally with me later and help defend (or take the brunt of an attack) from England.

1399 wraps up with my guaranteeing Navarre, as well as declaring on Granada. Without a big army built up, the entirety of Sunni African decides to declare war on me in support of Granada. Building up armies while defending made things very interesting, but eventually the tide of ships dropping off Enemy troops ebbed. Granada spent a lot of time and money spamming mercenaries, as they got 10-15 units of troops completed in a few days, but they use them as lone stacks so they weren’t too difficult to destroy. Soon Granada is secured, annexed into the Iberian Empire, and I can turn my attention to Africa proper.

Fighting in Africa is interesting. I’m having to limit my stacks to around 6 units to stay in good supply and low attrition. With the AI liking to send doom stacks of 13+, I just have to reinforce with a second or third division. This resulted in three or four massive fights involving 20k-30k total troops in the middle of the desert (not the greatest for me, but superior local power and better morale got me through it). In the end, Morocco was out of the war because of war weariness (at 19+) but Algiers and the rest had relatively low war weariness and were still threats for the war (4-5 WW; still good troops counts).

Only other notable bit of the war that I wish I had a SS of is a quick redeployment of forces that won a major battle. I had a 6k stack in Melila, and another that had just gotten done sieging Ceutu. An Algierian stack of 9k was coming in from the east to Melila, so instead of going through the desert, I loaded the troops into my ships from Ceutu and dropped them into Melila on the day the enemy troops arrived (as opposed to a month late going by land).

With a large stack (16k) of various enemy nations coming in through Algiers, I decided to call it quits with this war. I take three provinces, Ceutu, Tangiers, and Toubkhal, and barely get my troops out of Moroccan territory before rebels rise up from their massive WW. By 1404 I have gained six provinces, and am still fairly well off in terms of battle readiness, with 18k manpower, a good number of stacks, and a positive treasury. Operation Granada Mancha is a huge success.

My attention gets turned back to the Iberian peninsula proper. By sheer luck, I get the Alliance CB against Portugal. Unfortunately this means risking Big Red (England) coming into the battle, but reducing Portugal is part of the Plan, and since they are allied with both Navarre and Aragon, I cannot afford to ignore this opportunity. I build up a few more army stacks and declare close to the CB’s expiration to maximize my chances. Interestingly enough, Portugal, Aragon, Sicily, the Papal States, and Navarre all enter the war. Shortly after the Papal States get into war, I become the Papal Controller….guess the Vatican Armies didn’t get the memo.

I decide on a Portugal First strategy, and allow the eastern forces to overrun parts of my empire (though only Madrid gets captured). I reduce Portugal by destroying their armed forces, and capturing a few territories. After the first couple are captured, I move those troops into the east, driving away a few small Sicilian stacks and destroying them. There is an epic battle between 13k Aragonian troops and 15k Castillian troops. My troops defeated the forces of Aragon (despite some reinforcements they received) and the long process of sieging begins.

There is no further outside involvement during the fighting. Portugal gets reduced properly and I take a handful of their provinces, Porto, Alentejo, and Algarve, as well as annexing Navarre. This causes my Infamy to shoot up to nearly the limit (at 31.8), and meant I couldn’t take anything from Aragon. I decided to end that War, getting them to break their treaties, admit defeat, and revoke their core on Sardinia. Before the war ends, England enters with Scotland and a few others. They land 15k troops into Navarre, and I turn and destroy them, but a pair of doom stacks from Bohemia are coming through France, so I elect that discretion is the better part of valor, and get the only war resolution I can from England, admitting my defeat (with 50 warscore….oh well) and getting out cheaply with giving England prestige. All in all, Operation Ara-gone I is a success, though it meets none of its own goals. It does meet the goals of reducing Portugal, perhaps meaning it should be renamed Operation Portu-gone.

The Empire as it currently stands.

I may be into high BB, but we’re also #1 in prestige! It’s a no-brainer that I have hired a diplomat, though a terrible one star one, and have a statesman and army reformer as well. Tech-wise, I have gotten production to lvl 4, and am working on land tech 4 and should have it within the year. The empire is in decent shape, we have a loan that the AI decided to nab when the treasury dipped to 0 for a moment, and are at low manpower, but overall we have strong armies, destroyed neighbors with high WW, and low WW ourselves (1.42). All in all, not a bad start.

Few events happened that I didn’t SS. We had an heir die, and instead of getting a church out of it (which would have been smarter of me) I decided to get a new heir. Juan de Trastamara is a weak claimant, and a weak potential ruler with an ADM of 3/6/3, only slightly better than his dad’s 3/2/2. Also had Berber protestors that I decided to work with at the cost of ducats rather than a rebellion and increased chance for rebellion in the middle of the Portugese War.

Next order of business is to get my Infamy down, build up some infrastructure, and get my finances in order. I have the Italian Ambition mission, which means the ability to gain a core in Italy, which is a very good thing. I’m not sure if this is worth interrupting my Infamy reduction for.

Is there a way to repay loans early when they are not to another nation and are instead from the “Bank?” I’m not seeing it, but I’m new at this so I could be missing it easily.

 

[dresdor]

Turn 2 IbAARian Empire

Update 2: Infamous

Not much going on in the beginning of this update, mostly just waiting for infamy to drop. Its clear I need to figure out the new CB system fast to overcome the massive Infamy gains I seem to be getting. Or get powerful enough that BB wars won’t hurt very much (which will be more about hurting the few big powers in Europe than expanding my empire). Only big innovations so far is an improvement to government technology, which I used to get the national bank idea to help reduce the slowly growing inflation that I currently have left over from my wars. At current rates it’ll take 21 years to reduce my inflation back to 0, but I figure its worth it in the long run.

In May 1416, we have developed Land tech lvl 5, which means upgrading everyone to Men at Arms (chose this over longbowmen for the superior defensive morale, which I think is more valuable than the extra shock.

This is ominous. Guess that’s what happens when an enemy becomes influential with the pope.

Shortly after this I decide to declare war on Portugal, without a CB, eating the 2 stab hit. Unsurprisingly, Aragon declares on me and brings Genoa along for the ride. With myself firmly occupied on the home front, Morocco decides it’s a good time to attack as well, bringing not one, not two, but three friends along (Algiers and Tunisia were expected, but the Ottomans proved to be a big pain).

The situation in Africa leads to some tense times, I end up bouncing a 12 stack around a bit to buy time for me to finish the Iberian war so I can reinforce the African Divisions.

Fighting in Iberia goes as planned. I destroy a 13 stack from Aragon, but the only interesting thing that happens in the mainland is a 16 stack dropped by an Ottoman fleet. It almost finishes a siege before I can deal with it, but I put it down about the same time I finish sieging the four Portugese provinces. I take Beira and Braganca from Portugal and leave them as a two province nation (I cannot afford the Infamy of anything more). I fight Aragon into high War Weariness, but Infamy prevents me from taking anything from them, except making them destroy their treaties and revoke their Corsican core. They are broke so I can’t even get cash out of them.

In the south, Algiers declares war on Morocco, and causes a large civil war in Africa. When the war peters out five years later, the borders are majorly screwed up (just look at the map posted at the end of this update to see). This makes Morocco happy to accept a white peace deal from me, which is great as I cannot gain anything from them without reaching my Infamy limit.

Shortly after I am at peace, I see French troops marching into both Portugal and Aragon. They overrun the two nations, but don’t seem to get anything in the resolution. I’ve seen the AI do that a lot, maybe they got gold or prestige out of it, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me…that said I’ve been near max Infamy for some time now and have crappy relations with everyone because of it, so maybe they are on to something.

I get a surprise a few years later when Portugal declares war on me. I overrun the sorry little nation, and nobody comes to its aid. I take Ribatejo, and force them to forsake their cores on the captured provinces. I need to stop getting involved in these wars as it keeps my Infamy high.

Wide shot of Europe and Africa at this time. England is gaining power as is France. The situation in Africa solves itself with the Ottomans claiming some of Algiers' territory....its pretty screwed up.

Speaking of Infamy, I think I know why I have such problems with it. My king has a mere diplomacy of 2. Maybe in my next war I will kill him off to get his successor in. If his semi-legitimate heir succeeds, he will have a diplomacy of 6. That said, it will also probably lead to a war with France, Milan, Sweden, or Brittany. Ah well, at least my inflation is down to 1.8 Building an Embassy when I hit Gov tech 6 will go a way to helping as well.

In international news, France is starting to form nicely, and with their seizure of Bearn, we share a small border. The only good news about it is that I think I can handle them in a war, if I can overcome their manpower superiority and allies. I should be able to force them to bleed released nations if things go well enough. I need to actually sieze Aragon, and I was hoping another nation would take the Belares from them (they have lost 3 different wars where that province was captured, but nobody has taken it in resolution yet…or any province of theirs). Current date is January 1430, so 22-25 years until I gain cores on the provinces I captured early.

 

[dresdor]

Update 3 IbAARian Empire

Update 3: Birth of an Empire

First some updates for the last post. Realized too late that the maps of Africa and France were a bit out of date, and didn’t show what I mentioned. Here’s a picture of what I was talking about, notice the nice forming of BBB and the weirdness of Africa’s divisions.

Africa

Forming BBB France

I’ve decided that it’s time to eliminate my rival Aragon to open the way to the forming of Spain. This will also open up wars with France, which I should begin as soon as possible. Crippling France is something that is best done while they are still fragmented. England can wait as its far easier to defend against troops that have to be shipped to and from an island than it is to defend against someone who can just walk all their troops at once down Europe.

To prepare for the wars, I’m building up Armories in my core provinces. Extra manpower is never a bad thing, plus the recruitment speed and cost reductions are nice. In other economic news, our inflation is at 1.8%, which according to the ledger means I’m in the bottom 20% of all nations for inflation, while being #1 for income (nearly tied with England who is close to me in inflation I’m also #1 in infamy…not a great thing.

I’m debating between Adopting an Imperial Administration or not. I have no churches yet, and each stability level seems to cost 1275 investment. Assuming a decent Stab advisor and full investment, recovering the 3 stab would take (12 from advisor, 12 from ruler and lets say 36 investment per month = 60 per month, or about 22 months per stab) 6 years to recover. If I took the time to build some churches between now and then, I’d reduce the investment by 12 per church (4 stab reduction * 3 stab needed) which means a 1 month reduction per every 5 churches at a max of 6 month reduction. On second thought, it’s not that great, but I am not sure I can afford a stab hit right now, I have a lot of provinces with nationalism still, and I need to convert the Sunni provinces I have to proper Catholicism. I’ll wait to form the Empire until it is right.

Oh no! not a partially formed France who I can most likely overpower!

In early 1431 I have gotten warned by France. I’m wondering if a Castille-French War would benefit me or not. In terms of active forces, I have more troops, but once you consider available forces (not counting my African defense troops) and manpower, we are closer to even. The tie breaker goes to me as I have neighbors who have too many of their own problems to go to war with me (Portugal will cease to exist if they declare on me again, Aragon is busy whacking rebels that have an army bigger than them, and England might be inclined to intervene but are more likely to pounce on France than me) plus I have my ally Burgundy who would love to eat a few French provinces. France’s allies are the Teutonic Knights (nice and far away) and their Vassals (who are delicious). I’ve recently gained Brittany as an ally as well, so France would find enemies on all sides should they declare.

Few years down the road and France is building War Exhaustion (I’ll probably refer to it as War Weariness a lot, shows I play too much Civilization) and flinging their empire around Europe by invading some countries near Demnark.

Death of a ex-communicated King who refused to die!

My former King has died, and his semi-illegitimate heir (pretty sure I hired only nobility to be the maids at my palace) Juan II de Trastamara has taken up the throne. Good news is that this means most infamy reduction from controlled cardinals and that I’m no longer excommunicated. Bad news is that there are pretender rebels that have risen up. Good news is that is probably the best case scenario at this time for a disputed succession. Oddly enough, the current heir is Juana De Trastamara, who is 24…think its time to kill off Juan II and make Juana the ruler.

Bad news is that my heir’s poor claims to the throne have resulted in a massive legitimacy drop *and* that has dropped my Infamy limit below my current infamy levels (in the 29 range). Good news is that they won’t be that low for very long as yearly change is up to -0.9.

Legitimacy still sucks, but I’m building an embassy to help cut Infamy, and its finally below BB War levels. In other news, France has screwed itself into a corner, getting involved with Denmark and Norway in a big war. Their WE is up to 15, and rising steadily. Their armies are still sizeable, but if they have that much WE I’m willing to bet their manpower is really low as well. I just wish I could declare a war against them without dropping stability, but no CB has presented itself. Plus they have warned me so I can’t even warn them. Next best thing is to declare on one of their vassals, will look into doing that.

Warned several of their remaining vassals/small allies. Also used my one spy to raise a revolt in a former Brittany province…didn’t do much good, but every Frog killed in another battle is one I don’t have to kill. England is also building up their WE with a prolonged war with some Italian states. Neither homeland is being hurt, just outlying provinces (like the “French” English provinces near Navarra).

Also moved my slider to Army again…naval though suffers boo! Oh, and apparently this King isn’t a good Catholic either. Wonder what would happen if I “lost” to Morocco and force converted myself to Sunni. Anyway, excommunication means Burgundy and Brittany broke their alliances with me. Looks like I am on my own again.

1436 opens with no wars. Infamy is dropping (over a point a year now, yay!) and finances are stable. France is still at war, but had a small drop in WE. It is back up to 15 again, but just barely. No sign of massive uprisings yet, but they will come eventually. England is at peace, and their WE is almost gone. Stability is at 2, so I’m not sure they will want to attack me anytime soon.

Ominous....I mean....darn, they finally stopped killing themselves over nothing.

France’s stability has dropped to +1; and they have ended their war, gaining a province for that long war. The final tally is 17.31 WE, which means 10%+ revolt risk in every province in their main empire, 15%+ in a handful of recently acquired and non-connected provinces. Which should mean within a year, almost every province will have an uprising. I have a new spy coming up as well, so I will be using him to increase the chance of revolt. France’s mighty armies are reduced to a total of 9k soldiers, which either means they lost a lot of divisions, or they are out of manpower.

France is in bad shape

Border Friction CB against Aragon….awesome….and they are allied with Portugal with France in no condition to help and England involved in a bloody war….I think this will be a major win for the Empire.

Yay!

Three of my favorite victims are listed when I look to declare war...how fun!


Looks like that's where I'll stop for now...soon a war with Aragon and (hopefully) Portugal! France probably will be too chicken to join the fight.

 

[dresdor]

I'd like some advice as to the following:

1. How can I avoid my next ruler getting excommunicated? It's pretty clear my enemies will always be papal influencers. Is getting my relationship with the Papal States up above -200 the only way to secure this?

2. How do I deal with Portugal without incurring the massive infamy increase that will make my war efforts against Aragon useless? Is there a way to annex them without massive infamy? Should I just vassalize them when I inevitably overrun them, or would that leave me in a similar boat? (Ideally I just want them to cease to exist, as they are a pain to deal with).

3. How often does the "Border Friction" event trigger, as this seems to be an ideal Catholic vs Catholic CB, and if it triggers often enough, I can use it much more reliably than waiting for the AI to declare or run into my spheres/warnings.

4. WTH did I do wrong with my signature, and how can I fix it :rofl:

 

[dresdor]

Update 4: Border Wars

Thinking through things, I’ve realized that annexation of Lisboa will give us 8 more Infamy…which is way to high, especially with such a poor limit imposed by low legitimacy. What this means is I should conspire to commit regicide to bring the more legitimate and better ruler of Juana de Trastamara….this requires me to improve relations with the Papal states in order to prevent Juana from being excommunicated as well. That will be my goal. I have a year until the CB expires. This might allow France to enter the war as well, we shall see. Ironically I just refused a mission to build a bigger fleet (as its useless to me and a waste of money) and get a mission to improve relations with….Portugal. Portugal won’t exist for much longer…unless I vassalize her.

100 or so gold later and relations are up to 80 with Papal states. Going to quell a rebel group, get my troops to max, give another gift and ride on Aragon.

Okay, time for war in late October. France has 14.66 WE, but Britain is not involved in a war any longer. At any rate, my relation with the Papal States is over 100, so with 21.9 Infamy, we go to war again! Portugal and Brittany join in, so goodbye Portugal mission. Interestingly, I get the Italian ambition mission…which could be interesting, but would require a lot of military access or me to dust off the fleets that have been rotting in harbors the entire game.

A revolt starts up in Tangiers almost immediately, I’m not that surprised. I’m half expecting the Sunni nations to attack me as well, but they still seem content eating each other.

The battles in Aragon are fierce. My armies outnumber theirs two to one in overall force, but being on their home territory, and in the mountains complicates things. By the time my armies reach their retreating forces, the enemy has reinforced, and has a defensive bonus. The two big battles (15k troops on each side) end with their WE going up by a significant amount. In a third battle (Where it is 15k Aragon vs 12k Castille soldiers) WE goes even higher…they have gained about 8 WE just from three battles (not counting what they are getting from me attacking their smaller stacks). Their huge stack is not doing anything for them, as it is just draining their manpower and boosting their WE. I may not need to do much to them after this, as their WE could spell the end for them after the war.

As I’ve crippled Aragon, England decides to join the fun...

...by dog-piling on me.

This should be interesting, though I wonder if France will get the bright idea to attack me at the same time. The worst part is that they are allied with Austria, which could be trouble. In a straight war between me and England, and no other forces involved, we are a rough match. England has superior naval forces, and I have superior ground troops, though only slightly. War Exhaustion will be the key here, as the amount of troops England can commit to the fight is directly related to their home stability…high enough WE and England will not be able to stay in the fight. In either case the prudent thing is to close up the war with Aragon, taking the three provinces mentioned in the CB, and figure out what to do with Portugal. I am uncertain whether I will annex or merely vassalize. Vassalizing has the benefit of half the infamy, but my infamy is below 20 now, and I can afford to raise it. I will have to see what Aragon’s spoils will cost me….

Okay, final decision with England landing 15k troops on my shores, I need to end this war. As soon as Alicante is sieged, I will get peace with Aragon to the effect of Aragon, Alicante, and Valencia. I will vassalize Portugal, as I can afford 4 infamy but not 8 at this time. Next will be a long drawn-out war with England. I will also make Portugal cede a core on Ribatejo and break treaty with Aragon.

Austria has joined the fight, which is definitely not good. The only good news is their 8.87 starting WE, and long travel times. I will definitely have to sacrifice territory for tactical time, and fight a defensive war against these foes. I’m just waiting for France to jump on the bandwagon.

Okay October 4th, 1443, and here’s a sit-rep of the war against…well lots of people, let’s just call it the English-Castille Excommunication War (which is what the AI is calling it). England has dropped 3 armies; a 14k army in Asturias, a 15k army in Navarra, and a 15k (though reduced to 13k) army in Ceutu. I have 35k of combined forces in Castille’s mainland and another 12k in the African provinces. England’s alliances have a total of 77k troops, so of their max amount of troops, England has invaded with 42k. This means I will at most have to deal with an additional 35k of invasion forces, not exactly a fun idea, but I’m hoping most of those are in mainland Austria. An analysis of the military compositions of those nations involved in the war supports this. Austria field 34k of troops. England is listed as having 37k of troops, which with their invasion force consisting of 42k of divisions (some are depleted as I’m looking at this listing), means almost all their forces are in my lands. I need to obliterate their divisions if I am to have a chance at winning this war, so that is my goal.

The second major battle (the first being a fighting retreat when English troops landed on top of a repairing division) ends in a solid victory for the Iberian Empire. If I can destroy these divisions, the current English war power will be cut in a third….after a little chasing, those divisions are destroyed.

I am worried about the situation in Africa. Munster and Austria are dropping regiments into that territory, and there are still 10k British troops there. Ceuta cannot hold out forever, and my skirmishing against them is mostly just loosing me troops.

Morocco decides to declare war on me as well. Figured the dog-pile would keep coming. At least my manpower is high, shame the African Provinces will probably be lost if I cannot kill off these English troops.

The Iberian homeland is safe, as England’s second stack is destroyed.

Only the one in Africa remains, and it is under attack by the repaired African Defense Force, which outnumbers it by a small margin. My tiny, poor navy has also proved its worth, sortieing out to destroy the Munster and Austrian navy, that were dropping troops into Africa. They cannot stand up to English ships, but they make a competent defensive force when used properly. Not bad for a nation with a -4 Land/Naval slider.

I got a bit overconfident, and made a bit mistake. The African defense corps are destroyed. I was trying to take out the English forces in Africa, and was doing okay, reducing 15k of troops down to 2k. Then the English dropped 10k of troops into Toubkhal, and destroyed a retreating depleted army of 12 divisions.

Only good thing to come out of that is that African rebels have attacked the 12k troops the English have in Africa. They did little damage, but the English can take care of rebels in my territory any day. I did finally find a use for my near 100% army tradition, I got one kick-butt general….time to kill some English.

The New African Defense Force does its job, but unfortunately, the second war in this chain has left me weak…and France can’t let that opportunity slip by.

The situation is very…very grim. They outnumber my forces by about 12k, and our max manpower is about the same…that said I can do one of two things: build troops to match theirs, or keep my manpower strong. I cannot do both…and staying at war with England will net me nothing. They are simply not hurt enough for it to matter, and that is very unfortunate. I don’t think I can sustain a two-front war against two major powers (plus who knows how many allies France will chain in).

 

[dresdor]

Update 5: Thunder of Giants

The War with France is official, though no troops have been seen yet. Our WE is 5.66, while theirs is 5.54, so we are on an even footing there. The corridor for this war will be Navarra. I have about 35k of forces against France’s 48k. I’m really not certain whether or not I can win this one. The good news is the last English detachment in my land is obliterated. Once Labourd is done being sieged, I’ll see what I can get out of them (if they will take a peace deal).

I’ve decided to scorch Navarra. This has had the effect of one massively successful battle that I would have won if another 13k reinforcements coming in. Let’s see them eat the attrition of two massive armies in Navarra.

The massive French losses from this defensive fight are the best results I get through the war.

Okay, a few months into the war, and France’s WE isn’t rising very much. They have Military Drill and Grand Army making their land forces truly terrifying. To top it off, England has decided its time to drop annoying batches of small troops throughout my empire, including a 12k drop into Africa. I can’t handle both England and France, so I do the smart thing and concede defeat to England, which makes them happy enough to leave me alone. All in all it was a very pointless war.

Yeah, I destroyed all their armies, but I clearly lost this one 0_o

France is sending 19k troops through Navarra….attrition fun. Once they are through (and France assaults Navarra’s fortress unsuccessfully) I drop an amphibious landing into Navarra, and hope their reduced Morale is enough to decide the battle….it sadly isn’t, as French reinforcements arrive.

And to top it off Algiers decides it’s a good time to attack me. Seriously, who have I not gone to war with yet.

France’s superior morale is seriously being a pain in my butt. Every battle causes my troops to take major losses and France’s to remain perfectly happy. It’s sickening. Plus they’ve successfully seized on of my territories.

After a nasty battle, I’ve figured out the solution. Good morale just means I need to bring even more troops to the battle. Fun. Destroyed one group of French troops, and I hope that this will help turn the tide.

In an interesting turn of events, I’ve managed to destroy 15 divisions of reduced French troops and a few of their Berry allies as well….now that’s efficiency! The only good news out of all of this is that France’s manpower has to be plummeting (as is mine sadly) and their WE is also increasing (again, as is mine). I’ve decided to concede defeat to Algiers just to get out of the war….wonder if this will come back to bite me eventually. Either way, I cannot afford to loose Africa, nor can I divert troops to take on their forces.

I also finally manage to break the siege of Navarra; it’s been sitting at 100% with a breach for about 2 months now.

In an interesting turn, France is only sending very small troops detachments from their homeland, and they are entering the above zero RR territory. Once I deal with the troops in my territory, I can invade the mainland France and make them wish they had never attacked me.

In a strange turn of events, a 4k force of Navarran nationalists rises up…and attacks the French for me (They pounced back on Navarra as soon as my troops left it, but luckily the garrison got reinforced) Nice of them to help out, shame I’ll have to kill them later. In other news, another 15 divisions of French troops are destroyed. Leaving just 9k troops in my territory, comprised of 22 divisions.

After figuring out that information, it seems the Navarran Nationalists had lost to the French (after killing about a thousand French troops, not bad for rebels) and are on their way to Labourd to give the British some troubles. Gotta say, best rebels EVER! I also just got the SERIOUSLY! Achievement for killing 10k soldiers in one battle. I think I am getting better at this game.

Poor froggies lost another 15 divisions…7k less troops in my territory, but 7k more have appeared. In an opportunistic bit of fun, England has declared on France….can’t say I’m surprised, they are opportunistic….let them give each other some WE to worry about. Speaking of which, theirs has jumped to 17 in a matter of days. Not sure if this is because I’ve destroyed the last stack in my territory (another 15 divisions, reduced to 7k troops) or because of their fighting with England.

Yeah, France is screwed. English troops are running around France in stacks of 1k, sieging everything, and getting their butts kicked by rebels. It’s quite funny. However, France soon makes nice with England, forfeiting some of their southern territory. Good news is I want Bearn, and that makes a nice border…better news is when I go to war with England again, I’ll have some territory to take.

Showing the new English provinces in the south…they also took Caux in the north.

The destruction of France continues…its going to be a very long war, but I’m slowly bringing up my war score. I could end it now and get some decent stuff, but I want them broken to the point where I don’t have to deal with France herself for a while. Morocco has declared war on me as well….fun….and Aragon too apparently.

Guess its time for me to get a peace deal out of France.

Got a decent peace deal. France ceded Bearn to me, revoked some random cores (just to reduce their overall power and maybe break them up a bit in the future) and release Auvergne and Alencon, which does break their nation into two separate pieces, and if Orleans is ever released, will break it into three. France is out of the game for a little while at least. They’ve lost 3k base manpower from my peace deal alone, and I now have small allies within their borders. Oh, and France has about 7k of standing army and 8k of rebels in their borders with a 15%+ revolt risk in most territories (18%+ in the unconnected south).

War on Aragon is going well, I’m also sieging both of the provinces of Brittany…not sure what I’m going to do with those, but we will see. My plan to break apart France failed slightly as they absorbed their vassal Berry after the war. Oh well, can’t have everything I want. They are hurt, but not badly enough. I think they may be lucky as they seem to have very few revolts for such high WE. If I could stop chaining wars for once I could loose some of my WE, which is just under 10.

Brittany is dead, and now my Vassal. I’m gathering lots of help for the future attacks against France and Britain. Shame none of them are very powerful. Wonder what I can safely get out of Aragon without having my Infamy shoot over the limit…maybe one province if the war goes on long enough. I really need to get out of fighting so I can drop WE before France and England decide I’m tasty.

After occupying all of Aragon but the Belares and with a 80% Warscore, I take Pirineo, force them to give up their cores on the other provinces I own, and destroy their diplomatic relations with everyone. Soon the Knights and Sicily are at war with them…hope they have lots of fun.

Only event that is newsworthy afterwards is Gibraltar becoming a Castillian Core. About time, I will be gaining a few cores in the next handful of years, which should help my income, revolt risk, and a few other things.

England has decided to declare war on us again…guess it has been half a year since I had peace from Aragon….seriously folks this is getting old. I must have really made them mad in the last fight. Worst part is that I will not even get anything out of it really as my infamy is too high.

 

[dresdor]

Save file got corrupted, so this is over . Long story short, got to 1475; England captured Aragon's provicne (Rousillon?) to make a total barrier between me and France. I get a border dispute CB against Aragon, and take Girona from them. England and I fight a long and pointless war, where neither of us gets anything but WE and wasted time, and France is slowly eaten by Burgundy.

I did convert to an Empire, and was still burning off the lost stability. I might revisit this at some time in the future, as there were many parts I botched.

 

[blsteen]

That's too bad, it looked interesting.

 

[dresdor]

That's too bad, it looked interesting.

I'll probably try again in the future. Castille is a fun nation to play for random Europe conquest. I do want to do a France game for achievements, but am having a bit too much fun with Normandy.