I am the King of Naples!

[Yenzen]

Hello person in the distant future 2017 or later. Sadly Dropbox discontinued their public file sharing, resulting in every image link here being disabled. I did not have the time to restore this AAR, nor did I believe it would ever be read by someone new after 4 years. That is to say, this AAR is now pining for the fjords and likely the only way you can read it with images is through the web archive or a google cached version.

Also, do we have hoverboards yet?

Introduction

Having bought EUIV a few months prior, I've only had one Single Player game as Denmark where I by the 1600's had managed to turn the Baltic Sea into a Scandinavian lake, colonize all of North East and Middle America and utterly ruin England and the HRE.

I was pretty pleased with myself until it dawned on me why it had gone so well:

I was save scumming. That is, before every major choice I would save, and if things did not turn out in my favor I would load the save and try again or do something else. If Russia declared on me while I was at war? Reload. If my heir sucked? Reload.

So I decided to abandon the game and start a new Ironman¹ one, but this time I would pick a nation that was not on the verge of absorbing 3 other nations nor so politically isolated. I also decided that I wanted to write an LP, since I wanted to share what will hopefully be an entertaining showcase of me trying to stumbling from one bad descision to another. I have played CK2 and Victoria 2 a lot, but I only have experience from EUIV from one singleplayer

I noticed that there weren't many LP's from Italian nations. The southern part of the penninsula tends to get treated as the free-for-all battlefield of multiple european nations, and the northern half is protected by the Holy Roman Empire. I decided to go for Naples, since this would leave me with many options on how to make my way through the game. As of writing this, I've made it to 1459.

What will this LP be

- I will strive to be image heavy and text light-ish. Take note if you're on a slow connection!
- I am not much of a writer, so this will not be a roleplaying LP.
- I want this to be readable by players and non-players of EUIV. This means sometimes explaining game mechanics that are probably obvious to most EUIV players. Often these will be marked by a^number and explained at the bottom of a post or a headline.
- I want any readers to criticize and comment as they feel like. I will try to respond to any comments you may have. Sometimes I will ask for your opinion on my options, but this is not an interactive LP by any means.
- I will try to keep an eye out on and describe what's happing in the game world!

¹ Ironman: Game saves automatically every 6 months, you can only load the latest save which is stored in the cloud. All decisions are permanent and irreversible. This is the only mode that offers achievements if you're into that sort of thing.

Introducing Naples

Here we are:

- We are in a personal union with Aragon - meaning we share our monarch and can't we declare war, we can't ally, we can't perform royal marriages. We're essentially stuck handing out insults and improving relations.
- Sicily is not part of our domain, but it is our core. This is unacceptable in the long run :angry:
- We have a decent income and army. Nothing earth shattering, but we can stand on our own.
- We have some influence in the Venice trade node and a little bit in the Tunesian. I will probably explain trade a bit later.

Goals

- Become independent!
- Unite Italy, though not necessarily by forming the Nation.
- Dominate the Mediterranean.
- Kick the Ottomans out of Europe.
- Early colonization will not be performed. Europe is our priority.
- Leave our mark in history.

Table of Contents
Note that every "chapter" is a session, which is why some are split into multiple parts

1444-1544

Chapter 1 - 11. November 1444 - 14. august 1450
Chapter 2 - 14. august 1450 - 14. may 1454
Chapter 3 - 14. may 1454 - 1. July 1459
Chapter 4 - 1. July 1459 - 15. November 1463
Chapter 5 - 15. November 1463 - 20. September 1467
Chapter 6 - 20. September 1467 - 7. june. September 1472 (double post!)
Chapter 7 - 7. June 1472 - 1. April 1481 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 8 - 1. April 1481 - 5. may 1489
Chapter 9 - 5. may 1489 - 22. September 1493
Chapter 10 - 22. September 1493 - 12. August 1497
Chapter 11 - 12. August 1497 - 8. January 1508
Chapter 12 - 8. January 1508 - 3. January 1518 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 13 - 3. January 1518 - 27. September 1527 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 14 - 27. September 1527 - 18. April 1539 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 15 - 18. April 1539 - 11. November 1544

Intermission 1

1544-1644

Chapter 16 - 11. November 1544 - 27. November 1557 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 17 - 27. November 1557 - 7. January 1565
Chapter 18 - 7. January 1565 - 1. January 1574 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 19 - 1. January 1572 - 1. January 1590 Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3
Chapter 20 - 1. January 1590 - 1. January 1598
Chapter 21 - 1. January 1598 - 18. July 1608
Chapter 22 - 18. July 1608 - 22. March 1621 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 23 - 22. March 1621 - 13. November 1631 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 24 - 13. November 1631 - 22. January 1639
Chapter 25 - 22. January 1639 - 11. November 1644

Intermission 2

1644-1744

Chapter 26 - 11. November 1644 - 1. August 1651
Chapter 27 - 1. August 1651 - 11. November 1664 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 28 - 11. November 1664 - 11. August 1674
Chapter 29 - 11. November 1674 - 1. January 1688 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 30 - 1. January 1688 - 16. August 1694
Chapter 31 - 16. August 1694 - 24. July 1708 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 32 - 24. July 1708 - 16. April 1715
Chapter 33 - 16. April 1715 - 11. November 1721
Chapter 34 - 11. November 1721 - 2. March 1734 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 35 - 2. March 1734 - 1. January 1740 Part 1 / Part 2
Chapter 36 - 1. January 1740 - 11. December 1744

Intermission 3

1744-

Chapter 37 - 11. December 1744 - 11. November 1764



Arbitrary points

DensleyBlair: 6,5 / 21 = 27,5
GreatUberGeek: 8 / 6 = 15
Verdas: 8
Kiddo3: 0 / 8
BogMod: 3 / 5 = 8
Strix97: 7
Warlord Skorr: 7
fordisbunk: 0 / 8
DennisRoos: 3 / 4 = 7
Edlar89: 5
MiniaAr: 0 / 4
Frogdude: 0 / 3 = 3
Afaslizo 0 / 2 = 2
Buckingham 0 / 2 = 2
PG908: 0 / 2 = 2
Gulmancet 0 / 1

 

[LemonMonk]

I haven't seen a Naples LP/AAR. I'll be watching keenly.

 

[Yenzen]

11. November 1444 - 14. august 1450

Our first priority is independence! No longer will we be subject to their strange, Aragonese ways! We shall have our own king who can supress and abuse his subjects the Sicilian way!

Now, independence from under a Personal Union can be achieved three ways as far as I am aware:

1: Our senior partner (the one who calls all the shots, who "owns" the monarch) can have negative prestige¹ when he croaks.

- This is a fairly safe way to become independent without shedding blood. The downside is that prestige is a stat can quickly be regained though missions, events etc so we might have to wait forever

2: We can hate our senior partner with relations below 0 (scales -200 to +200).

- This sounds easy, but it is not. We have little control over how much our nation likes another. We might set rivalry (-50) but it is not enough if Aragon for example sends a diplomat² to improve our relations with them. Which they did. :glare:

3: We can fight for it

- The problem is that we won't be able to call in allies since we can't establish any alliances beforehand and once the fight has started, nobody will want to ally a country at war. Also Aragon has more manpower, higher forcelimits and a larger navy³. In other words, this is not a realistic option unless they've just been in a war (which we will be forced to join) and are heavily drained. This makes us angry and we send our harshest words at them. And cut off a few heads, sorry I didn't screencap the event itself:

Aragon? More like araGONE.

What's wrong Joan? Didn't like me beheading a few of your pretty boys? You gonna cry like the daughter your father wanted?

The above pretty much examplifies my issues with making my own nation hate Aragon - they're doing everything in their power to stop me. In the meantime we recruit a general. Generals cost 50 Military Power and Admirals cost 50 Diplomatic power ⁴ and we can only afford to have a base of one total (not of each) without losing either diplomatic or military tech equal to the surplus every month. We can also make our as of yet non-existant ruler a general, but that'd increase the risk of him dying and leaving us with a regency council.

I'm lazying out, but read this for a rundown of stats: http://eu4wiki.com/Military_leader - All in all, this is a good general!

Time passes, I send diplomats to Castille and Austria to improve relations. While waiting for something interesting to happen. We disregard the church and aquire stability.

And then something wonderful happens

Yes! While we are forced into joining on Aragon's side and cannot declare war while this one is ongoing, this means that Aragon will lose a lot of military power even if they should win. The "no casus belli" appears to be a bug. The war was declared over a succession crisis in relations to Navarra where Aragon claimed the throne and Castille was not having any of that. Portugal joined on the side of Aragon making the sides approximately equal.

I won't bore you with all the details. The war kept going back and forth and both sides kept on abandoning sieges, engaging and defeating the enemy on their land, then hunt them down and lose in theirs. Repeat about 5 times until Portugal bows out and Aragon suddenly stops reinforcing it's troops on the field.. and no longer makes new troops.

Aragon ran out of manpower!

During the war I decided to reinforce my fleet to deal with Aragon. This will be important later.

In the end, the inevitable happend. Castille demanded that Aragon give up its plans for making a personal union with Navarra and all was right with the world. Just kidding, they decided they'd rather just ignore the reason they went to war for three years and lost tens of thousands of men in the first place and get a little prestige instead.

Well, nevermind that. The time for acting is now. This shall doubtlessly be a quick and efficient war!

(I forgot to take a screenshot of the declaration of war for Independence, but I declared it right after the peace).

Other news out there:
- Georgia has been completely wiped out by its neighbours.
- England got gangbanged by Scotland, Brittany and Munster individually in the late stages and aftermath of the 100 year war. It seems they were able to contain all of them, however.

I still almost did a small spit-take when I saw this. Talk about having balls. Since Brittany could not land in England and France had taken all English land in mainland Europe, they decided to hit them in their weak spot, Portugal.
- The Ottomans have of course attacked the Byzantine Empire, which has inherited Cyprus in the meantime. For some reason they have however not taken Cyprus yet, so the war has been going on forever.
- Serbia has annexed all of Bosnia.
- Poland and Lithuania are ruled by the same royal house, but they are not in Personal Union. They came close though when a Queen ruled Poland for a while with no viable heir.
- Meath in Ireland was occupied by Provence...
- Austria ate up a good chunk of Switzerland.

Explanations

¹ Prestige: Basically a gauge of how respected your nation is. It has a moderate influence on tax income, legitimacy and relations. Scales from -100 to 100.
^1cont It would be unwise not to mention legitimacy here as well. This basically gauges how well your "right to rule" is perceived by the populance and scales from 0 to 100. It influences the revolt risk, tolerance of other religions and diplomatic reputation. The first is a really big modifier which can give a lot of internal unrest, and diplomatic reputation is a very important stat in relations with other nations and for actions like annexing vassals
² Diplomats are necessary for any change in relations with other nations. They can improve relations over time, deliver insults/war declarations/alliance offers/etc. They are a very precious rescource and you only start with 2! There are of course ways to increase this number with ideas and positions. They have the uncanny ability to teleport anywhere immediately, but you must then wait for them to return home relative to the distance they traveled. If they have been to another continent, it can take over half a year before you see them again.
³
Force Limits: How many troops you can field at any time without harsh upkeep penalties. Mercenaries do count towards this number and thus are not used to circumvent it. Navies only have a force limit, and no manpower.
Manpower: How many able-bodied men can serve your nation. New troops are drained from this and the number takes time to regenerate. Mercenaries do not put a drain on this number and are thus better suited for when you need fast reinforcements or need to conserve your manpower.
⁴ Haha, okay, this is huge. You have three powers (Administrative, Diplomatic and Military) where you gain 3 + [monarch skill] + [Advisor skill] every month. This power is used to increase tech level, perform relevant actions actions such as for example coring (using adm to claim-as-rightfully-yours), increasing stability (uses adm too.. a lot of things do) building related buildings (mil --> + manpower buildings). In other words these powers are what drives any improvement of our nation.

Analysis

The timing of that war was pretty much perfect since Aragon had lost most of its manpower and was deeply affected by war exhaustion. However, its navy was largely intact, and nothing at this stage was certain.

I don't know what you guys think about all of the info I write about game terms. I can see how anyone who have played the game is probably going to view them as a distraction, and frankly I've spread them a bit haphazardly around. Since i managed to get a cardinal in this game, I've been thinking about writing a bit about the Curia and how I'm managing trade at the moment as Naples and why.

 

[Yenzen]

I haven't seen a Naples LP/AAR. I'll be watching keenly.

Welcome aboard.

14. august 1450 - 14. may 1454

Naples is now at war with Aragon with the CB to regain the independence. We also have a new king:

I suppose they just picked the prettiest warlord they had. He's 21 by the way with no heir.

Our army was commanded to siege Sicily and hire 3000 mercenaries to boost my numbers. This should help speed up the 39 warscore needed to declare independence. I move my navy to engage the minor Aragonese one nearby and spend some admin points to increase stability to 0 to avoid rebels for the time being.

This turns out to be a huge mistake.

Remember when I said bolstering my navy would be important later? Well that time isn't now!

Now, an intelligent AI would fan out now and blockade my every port, which would hurt my income and make my war exhaustion soar. Then it would isolate my troops in Sicily while taking down Naples itself.

Luckily, I'm not dealing with an intelligent AI and it just blocades two ports and lands an army of 5000 men in Sicily, which I easily wipe out (sorry about the terrible screenshot).

While the Aragonese fleet is wasting in harbor in Sicily, I sneak attack the smaller fleet near Bari and crush it. The sieges in Sicily continue.

Sensing the badassery of the Neapolitan kingdom, Savoy sends an offer of Royal Marriage¹. I'm so excited about someone acknowledging Naples that I just accept it right away. This is followed by an alliance, though they will not help us in a war that started long before we became allies.

Now for the following 3 years, 8 months, 23 days, the young King of Naples sets about his everyday routine:

- Admiring the blockade of Naples in the early morning
- Inquiring his advisors that yes we still hold Messina and Palermo, no there is no sign of Aragon caring to land new troops, no they won't give in just yet and yes, the remains of the Eastern Roman Empire are still holding on in Cyprus.
- From 15. of January 1452 and onwards playing with his new child & heir Alfonso, a talented statesman before he he was old enough to even talk (they really should make the stats grow randomly with the heir's age)

- Making sure the Cardinal d'Ors still answered our every whim²:

- Sending diplomats to kiss the ass of every nearby major power.

- Doing his best to convince the populace that he was indeed the King of Naples and not that guy in Barcelona

I had dismissed the mercenaries early in the war since they cost way too much to keep around for too long, and even then I had to take about 100 ducats in loans.

Snore

During this rather uneventful time in Naples the world moved on:

Neva in Novgorod was taken by the Livonian Order but was soon to be claimed by Denmark in another war. The Baltics had experienced some instability and constant warfare in the last few years, and it had yet to be seen who would dominate the region.

The Burgundian king bit the dust, but what's the worst that could possible result from that?

HOLY ROMAN EXCREMENT. How did that happen? Did they even have a Royal Marriage? Guys?

Meanwhile, an interesting chance presented itself during the war of independence:

I won't use it until after this war, but I would rather hurry. The Papal States has once tried to conquer Urbino, and somehow failed. Better to use it while they have a truce.

Also, this happened:

I could really use the money, but my prestige is already dangerously low and more important in the long run.

Finally on the 14. may 1454, Aragon concedes to The Kingdom of Naples' demand for freedom. Like the chump I am I forget to screenshot the peace treaty being accepted, but here's the story of my last two updates told through the dynamic history thing in the game. Note that while we're having the old king Joan, the war in Navarra and our independence war are regarded as losses while Frederigo I lists it as a victory.

¹ Royal marriages in EU4 do not establish alliances by themselves the same way they do in CK2. They do however increase good relations, increase the chance of getting an heir, give the chance of inheriting or claiming another nation if they don't have a proper heir. On the downside, breaking the royal marriage results in a stability drop and greatly pisses off the other nation.
^1cont Diplomatic Relations is a measure of how many nations you can have a relation with at the same time. Every nation you exceed the limit by slows down the gathering of Diplo Points. A diplomatic relation is very vague and includes any of the following: Royal Marriage, Alliance, Vassal (Basically like a PU where you have over ½ your tax income), Personal Union, Military Access, Naval Access and Guarantees. Designating Rivals which gives bonuses when fighting an enemy do not spend diplomatic relations. A nation usually starts with a limit of 4 relations which can be increased by certain ideas. Note that the limit depends on how many nations you have a relations with, not which type or how many. An Alliance + Royal Marriage + Military access + Naval access + Guarantees will spend just as much as simply having military access.
² Controlling the Holy See in EU4 means investing Papal influence you gather from a number of different factors (such as relations with the Papal states, religious unity) and events (random ones and when you convert provinces). You invest this in one of the possible potential cardinals who may or may not make it to be cardinal before they die. If you invested the most influence in a cardinal when and if he ascends, you gain control over him. The nation with the most controlled cardinals become the Papal Controller, netting you +1 diplomat, an extra leader (navy or military) without associated cost, some stability discounts, better choice in advisors and more papal influence to keep your position.

Analysis:

Wow that war took quite a while! I could possibly have kept the war going for another few years and demanded my cores in Sicily, but getting past the war and gaining more freedom of action seemed more important.

Next time I'll bring the AAR up to my current state (July 1459) and then take a look at where all this is heading.

 

[Yenzen]

14. may 1454 - 1. July 1459

Found out that the House that has taken the Royal Throne in Naples was actually a semi-important house in Italian history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Borghese
They had some pretty interesting members:

- A pope
- Napoleons sister
- A few cardinals and some noble titles here and there

There are even still some living members today!

Glory to House Borghese!

No, not you, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_Borghese - no glory for you

Disclaimer: I was really tired while playing this and forgot to take some screenshots of war declarations. Sorry.

As you may reasonably expect, following the war, Naples was rather drained from war exhaustion. It should spend the next few years letting things die down and enjoy its newfround freedom - But no, not on Frederigo Borghese's watch! No sir! He would damm well finish a mission that he started.

Lets go mess up the Pope!

Remember the mission that was accepted just during our war for independence? It will give some nice bonuses and give us less infamy for ultilizing it.

Now, in the meantime Savoy had offered us an Alliance, which I accepted. They were also allied to the Papal States, but I assumed they would simply refust to join either side. I was wrong, they decided to help the Pope :glare:
Follow this, I discovered that the Papal States had also allied Hungary. This is very bad and could mean one of two things:

1: If Hungary assumed leadership of the war (what influences this other than brute strength? Anyone know?). In this case, I would be unable to win since gaining sufficient warscore would take a long time and war exhaustion would tear Naples apart even if I could keep Hungary out of the Italian Peninsula
2: If Hungary did not assume control, the war was winnable. I simply had to utterly defeat the Papal States and keep the other two nations from interfering.

Luckily, Hungary did not assume control as the war leader and the was winnable with a little luck.

- First I moved into engage the Savoyan navy.. and forgot to take a screenshot of the arguable only important sea battle of this entire war. In order to appriciate how well it went, compare these images before and after the onset of the war. I did not build any naval units between these screenshots (the latter is just after the victory over the Savoyan navy, the Papal army is not defeated, we're just swapping sieges of each another's capitals)

I captured 9 ships in the battle! That actually put me fair beyond my force limit for ships and I had to remove everything but the small ships I used for patrolling the trade zone in Venice¹

I quickly moved most of my fleet into the Adriatic Sea to prevent a Hungarien landing (they were trying to transfer 2 units at a time, enough that it would be troublesome, were they allowed to continue) and keep the Papal Navy at bay. After me and the Papal States successfully sieged each anothers capitals, with mine giving more warscore, since the Papal one considered the provinces of its allies as well, the final battle of the war occured - you can see my fleet blockading in the Adriatic Sea, which also removed an otherwise annoying bonus to the defenders siege defense.

I then moved on to sieging Romagna and recapturing Naples. As you can see from the updates, I am suffering from rebellious provinces and debt and my legitimacy is ridicliously low.

I even gave up a chance to get some tech bonuses because I did not dare to go further into debt.

Well, I suppose it could be worse:

They're not dead yet?

Finally, on the 30. May they give up:

They took the entire experience quite nicely, you have to give them that.

Now, Naples is suffering from war exhaustion, is still in debt even after the victory over the Papal states, is dealing with significant defiency in legitimacy and will suffer even more once it diplo annexes the Papal States² and the 5-year truce with Aragon is running out. Now it is finally time to rebuild our glorious kingdom. To set aside war for as long as possible to..

Never mind that, at this time I noticed I had had the mission to annex Ancona and just did that right away. How much worse could it get?

In case you can't tell from this terrible screenshot, they spawned on top of 2000 of my men and killed most of them.

At this point, I decide it would be better to disregard anything happening on the battlefield and take a screenshot of what National Idea I decided to get first. I was torn between some alternatives:
See http://eu4wiki.com/Ideas for a more complete overview of all options. You get to pick one of these at certain administrative tech levels, and they will all cost monarch points in their respective categories - so picking idea groups from the same monarch power type may be ill advised unless you're drowning in them.

- I excluded all military ideas as my first choice. I honestly can't image a current war right now where one of these would make a large difference. It is my general experience that these only make a lot of sense later in the game, if you're already a well established country lacking that extra oomph - or you start out as a nation likely to be caught up in constant warfare.. Which unlike what this AAR might lead you to believe so far, isn't exactly my plan.
- The Administrative and Diplomatic lines both had some ideas. While I would usually go for exploration as my first, that has no real use for me now.
- Religious ideas: This is a very easily underrated idea group! CB's against other religious groups, missionary bonuses, stability cost improvements, presige and tolerance (more income, less rebellion in provinces full of those-who-think-differently) bonuses. The entire line also unlocks a bonus that halves the time it takes for bad relation penalties to be reduced to zero - that's huge!. I didn't pick it for now, but it will almost certainly remain an option for the 2. or 3. idea group, depending on how naples expands.
- Economic: Gives some useful bonuses to tax/production income and combating inflation, however unless you're already making a ton of cash, it's not much.. and if you're already make a ton of cash, what do you need it for?
- Diplomatic: Gives more diplomats, higher limit for number of diplomatic relations, quicker CB generating speed, less cost of reducing war exhaustion, CB against other goverment types, better diplomatic reputation (which will speed up diplo annexing!), Less Agressive Expansion³ from unjustified claims, and some protection against negative stability events.

All in all I ended up picking the Diplomatic idea group. It seemed well suited for our future annexation of vassals and would make it easier to be on good relations with our stronger neighbours.

Back to the war with Urbino!

We won it a few months later on 3. may 1458. It's a one province minor with no meaningful allies.

Now.. If you were paying more attention than I was, you might be about to point out that my mission was to annex Urbino, not vassalize it. You'd be right. This wasn't a descision I made for any strategic reasons, I was just tired and forgot the exact wording of the mission. It's not such a big deal since the annexing it later will be cheaper in terms of AE.. but more expensive in terms of legitimacy, which could turn out to be the real issue.

Now it was seriously time to let the AE and war exhaustion settle down and hunt down some rebel scum.

I tried to re-establish the alliance with Savoy, I bear no a grudge, they were forced to choose between two allies and we still have our Royal Marriage taking up a diplomatic relations spot, but they're not quite ready for it - they'll come around.

I also did something I should have done a long time ago:

That's right, Joan. You're on the list.

I'm going to need who to add to the other two spots. I'm thinking the Ottoman Empire and Venice?

The truce with Aragon expired on 7. may 1459 but they have yet to make any overt threats.

Now the scary thing on the picture isn't the truce - Aragon has a Royal Marriage and Alliance with Castille! We are unlikely to be able to defeat them and reclaim the island of Sicily unless we make an alliance with France or something.

Actually, speaking of France...

And on that note, I think it's time to end this update.

News of the world!
- England can't catch a break (France joined Scotland, they're going for Lancashire)

- Byzantium still holds out in its fortress island of Cyprus. Constantinople and Athens are occupied, but the Romans are not so easily broken.
- Now Denmark is attacking Neva.

Analysis:
- Stunt in Urbino was stupid, I will now waste 5 years where I can't pick a new mission.
- Where to go and what to do now is a good question. If I want to expand further into northern Italy, I may have to join the HRE. This will also offer some protection, but I am not keen on staying a member, and I certainly don't want to be emperor and unify the empire - those are not my goals. This means that I will seperate from it at some point, probably in a bloody fashion.
- Alternatively I could seek expansion in the mediterranean for now.
- A war with Aragon+Castille may be brewing, I'll need strong allies.
- Goals for the next sessions in order of importance:

1: Rebuild army, stabilize nation
2: Re-establish alliance with Savoy
3: Start annexation of Papal states and Urbino
4: Retake cores on Sicily somehow.
5: To join or not to join the HRE
6: Consider joining some war against the Ottoman Empire if it has a chance of being successful. I would rather not have them crash Hungary as I've seen before.
7: Regain Legitimacy

¹ Trading:
- Read this http://imgur.com/a/A1Hk1
- Basically I have some power in my capital trade node (Venice) which is giving some income, and very little in the Tunis node where I'm also collecting with a merchant, in Tunis I am also dealing with a heavy penalty for not collecting in my capital province. You do not need to use your merchant to collect in your capital node, but it gives a small bonus and I have nothing else to do - in the nodes that drain to Venice (Ragusa and Alexandria) I have no power whatsoever, and I can't afford to buy small sships enough to matter.
- I have 6 light ships patrolling the Venice node.

² Conquest!
Can be done a number of ways:
- Normal war goal: The most direct way. Gives a lot of AE, even more so if you don't have a core or a claim. You need to core afterwards. Missions and other factors can mitigate this somewhat.
- Vassalize war goal --> Annex: Can only be used if the targets base tax is low enough. This can be lowered somewhat with missions. Adds a moderate amount of AE depending on size. After 10 years, if the target has high enough opinion of you +(185) you can start annexing it slowly.
- Diplomatic vassalization + annexation: Some nations will accept a vassalization by you if: 1: You have a royal marriage with them, 2: They like you enough, 3: Their base tax is much lower. The annexation proces is the same. You can also release other nations' cores in your country as vassals. One popular strategy is to release a vassal and claim their cores from enemies, since this draws little AE to yourself.
- Personal union integration. If you end up the dominant partner in a personal union, and you're larger than your junior partner, you can absorb them after 50 years and if you have good enough relations (+190)
- Inheritance: Straight up inherit a nation you have a personal union with. This is rare.

³ Agresssive Expansion (AE):
- Adds negative relations with nearby powers. The closer to the site of conquest, the worse the fallout. Also changes AI attitude towards you.

 

[eMPiko]

I am playing game as Naples myself and it is unexpectedly rewarding. You have a lots of space to expand (Alexandria, Constantinopole, Ragusa, Venice trade nodes). You have great italian provinces with high tax base and your culture. You have HRE on your borders, which is always a challenge to play against. You have Ottomans as your biggest rival, which is as well quite challenging.

About HRE: I got lucky, when Brandenburg became HREmperor. They were too weak to halt my conquering ambitions on peninsula. You probably wont have this sort of luck and strong Austria will be emperor for decades to come. You could join the empire, since youre quite small and emperor will allow it, conquer all you want and leave it.

About expansion: You should start to check on Ottomans as soon as you can. If they grow too much, it's really hard to control them.

 

[LemonMonk]

Good start! It will be interesting to see how you expand with the HRE northwards. On the Austrian-Burgundy inheritance: It is an event that can fire if Austria is not at war when a king dies for Burgundy as it is historical.

I think that Venice is a good choice for someone to fight. If not for land, to ensure you have less to worry about nearby.

 

[Yenzen]

I am playing game as Naples myself and it is unexpectedly rewarding. You have a lots of space to expand (Alexandria, Constantinopole, Ragusa, Venice trade nodes). You have great italian provinces with high tax base and your culture. You have HRE on your borders, which is always a challenge to play against. You have Ottomans as your biggest rival, which is as well quite challenging.

About HRE: I got lucky, when Brandenburg became HREmperor. They were too weak to halt my conquering ambitions on peninsula. You probably wont have this sort of luck and strong Austria will be emperor for decades to come. You could join the empire, since youre quite small and emperor will allow it, conquer all you want and leave it.

About expansion: You should start to check on Ottomans as soon as you can. If they grow too much, it's really hard to control them.

You'll see about the Ottomans as well in this update. Overall I'm rather unnerved by how safely you have to play in Ironman. Wars where you could one try and see which allies would assist a nation are no longer trustworthy.

Good start! It will be interesting to see how you expand with the HRE northwards. On the Austrian-Burgundy inheritance: It is an event that can fire if Austria is not at war when a king dies for Burgundy as it is historical.

I think that Venice is a good choice for someone to fight. If not for land, to ensure you have less to worry about nearby.

Quite right about Venice being a ripe target. However I do run into some issues:

1: They have a much larger fleet and a large army (as you'll see in the next update) meaning that I can only realistically take provinces in the north for now
2: Those northern provinces belong to the HRE. Which means the Emperor might demand them. Which means possible war or at least worsened relations with Austria.

Now, unto the update!

1. July 1459 - 15. November 1463

That's the Castel Nuovo which was the primary seat of the the royal court after the capital was moved from Palermo. If that doesn't scream badass medieval castle, I don't know what does. Though I suppose it is getting a bit old fashioned for these reformation times..

This update is going to be a rather heavy demonstration of what ironman mode does to my confidence.

First off, I performed the necessities following the many years of non-stop war:

- I decreased the war exhaustion by spending diplomatic points since the number of rebels were getting rather scary.

Look! It's green! Green is good!

- The economy was doing quite well thanks, in part thanks to our new vassals. Thus I could afford to start reinforcing my army towards my force limit:

- And hire a new advisor filling out Naples' weak tech spot:

A few events showed up over the following year:

(I picked the one that lost us prestige. It may be dangerously low to begin with, but I need those diplo points..)

Aragon and the Ottomans hates us and we hate them:

Savoy had no heirs and low prestige. Naples could have claimed their throne¹, but:

- That would give us a nasty penalty in our relation with other nations
- We may have to fight someone else for the PU
- Austria is likely to interfere

In other words, not worth it. At least they came around about re-establishing the alliance:

Austria is currently helping to attack Venice.. Which would make you think that I could abuse that weakness and take Corfu. However:

1: They have an army thrice my force limit and even after they're depleted in a war, may surrender while able to defeat me
2: Their navy is unharmed, meaning they can isolate whatever army I move to an island.
3: I can't claim anything in their mainland since I don't border it yet.

We got some new military tech where I picked longbows because.. I don't honestly know if they're better than Men at Arms.

On the 7th june 1462, our great king falls ill and the kingdom is better off for it.

I'm not sure I'm okay with the implications of this

Okay. At this point I needed a focus. Just looking around and waiting for an oppertunity was getting nowhere fast. I've decided to put all my gears into regaining my cores in sicily and locked the famously single-minded Frederigo I unto the idea:

Meanwhile, Connact decides that it is fit to fight both England and Spain and we finally manage to secure a royal marriage and alliance with France after switching our administrative advisor with a diplomatic one (+5 diplomatic relations!). We go over the relations limit for a short while, but the diplomatic idea kicks in shortly after, so we actually have space for one more relation right now. And we also get one of our national ideas² - to be honest, Naples' national ideas are not the best, but we'll manage.

Now, surely with the backing of France, we shall be able to defeat the Aragonese menace!

Haha, no.. That'd be too easy wouldn't it? France and Aragon are all buddy-buddy

England will ally us and has Aragon as their Rival.. However that modifier for our army strength means they're completely drained from all the wars and more likely to be a hindrance than a help, unless we wait another fews before doing anything of important.

Without the backing of another nation with a great navy, I might just be able to siege the provinces in Palermo and Messina and hold out for long enough to get the sufficient warscore. I'm a bit worried about blockades they can put us in without effort.

Interestingly, Aragon just suffered a massive peasant uprising, which is blocking my access to Sicily even if I were to declare war right now:

This does, however reveal that they can only move small groups which my main army (13k men) can mop up.. and Austria shold be able to get his men to assist me since he will move through HRE land and my vassals(?). Once they cleared the island of rebels, I decided that I would finally declare war.

Here we go!
(I'm scared like hell. The war will likely include Aragon, Castille and Portugal. I don't know how reliable Austria will be in all this.)

World news
- Lithuania and Poland both have teenage heirs of the same dynasty, but they can't get a bloody Personal Union going..
- Muscovy has started eating up Novgorod, as it tradition.
- The Byzantine Empire is STILL locked in eternal war with the Ottomans because they can't be bothered to make transports and siege Cyprus. The warscore has been 99% for years! I would have taken over a small nation in the mediterranean and released it as a Byzantine Empire vassal if they weren't so stubborn.

¹ If you have a royal marriage with another nation and more prestige than they, you can claim their throne. If the king dies with no heir, you establish a personal union with that nation. However, this greatly pisses off other nations you have a royal marriage with, is pointless if they get a strong heir, and if they get a weak one or someone else claims the throne, you can get a bloody civil war.

² Ideas that automatically unlock as you complete Ideas in normal Idea lines. Most countries of any significance has unique ones. http://eu4wiki.com/National_ideas

 

[Webstantine]

Just found this, good luck with the war.

 

[Yenzen]

Just found this, good luck with the war.

Thank you. As it turned out, I would end up needing it..

15. November 1463 - 20. September 1467

I took over a hundred screenshots during this war, obsessively capturing every bloody troop movement and event, most of which would make this update rather tedious, so I'll only display the somewhat important stuff:

Most important information:

- Both Spain and Portugal answered Aragons call to arms.
- France still refused to get involved. It might have if Spain had assumed war leadership (I was hoping for this, but it did not happen)
- Savoy and Austria joined me and Austria brought friends!
- I retained war leadership.

On december 1463 the first battle occurred in the form of a Naval Battle - I chased Aragons local light ship trading fleet away:

Later I engaged a very small Portugese fleet which had wandered in there somehow. I captured a light ship.
I wiped out the Local Aragonese army they had sent to mop up their rebellious peasants in Sicily. Then I started sieging both Messina and Palermo

In March 1464 a cat-and-mouse chase around the Mediterranean started, with me trying to avoid the larger fleet of Aragon until I could combine with an ally's fleet.

The Aragonese fleet would later just sail into the gulf of Venice and stay there. I don't know what was up with that.

I lost stability to the bloody comet event.

We're in the middle of a war with one of the most powerful power blocks in Europe. Stop looking at the skies unless you're an admiral trying to navigate to a battle somewhere.

Speaking of admirals, I hired one. We're going to need every edge we can get:

I took this screenshot in the summer of 1464. Why is that fleet of heavy warships not crushing us? Because it belongs mostly to Spain who is tied up in the English with Connacht.. yeah we don't have much time.

The siege of Palermo was completed on the 18. October 1464.

All in all this was going pretty well.. only, Austria wasn't engaging the Iberian alliance in any meaningful way, and I just realized why:

France has specified Austria as its rival. It will not give them military access and now the entire Austrian war machine is just sitting in the modern day Netherlands and doing absolutely nothing. This is going to be a long waiting game since I would depend on a slowly ticking war meter. No way could I engage them on their home turf.

I decided to land an army in Malta to siege it in November 1464 and won the siege of Messina in February 1465. Time was now on our side, but was a long way ahead to being able to claim all Sicily

I tried to buy out Portugal and Spain, but they both had much too high demands (~35 warscore each) to bow out individually.

The naval war was pretty much lost at this point, and I was blockaded into the harbor of Salento by the summer of 1465

They're bringing in reinforcements? Good god.

My only bet at this point was that my grip over the Islands of Sicily was quite strong, and that I could likely repel any landing they might make at this point with the help of Austria, Savoy and my vassals.

Malta fell in the fall of 1465 at which point the warscore reached.. 5% total :glare:

And then nothing much happened before the spring of 1465 where Spain tried a rather impotent landing of Malta

I'm starting to suspect that if the AI was better at handling army landings and logistics, I'd be in a whole different level of trouble..

They would try the same thing more than a year later (Yes. Nothing important happened in the war for a year) much to the same results.

By the fall of 1466 I was getting quite frustrated at the lack of progress. War score was around 14% and I decided to sneak through a landing in Sardinia which was actually successful!

Finally by the fall of august 1467 they had softend enough that they would let go of half of Sicily. But at this point, I was so into the battle that I refused to take that deal. no sir, this war is to liberate Sicily, not just Messina. At this point they had dealt with the war so utterly incompetently that I felt completely sure that I could outlast them, even if it would take as much as two or three more years.

And then something terrible happened!

1: Spain landed a 7K army in mainland Naples, which by itself wasn't a huge deal, though it did indicate that they were starting to wise up to what they needed to do. Even though my manpower was low, I could count on Austria to bail me out..
2: This:

Okay.. okay. We can still win this and liberate all Sicily! I just have to keep up the war for another four or five years without succumbing to war exhaustion.. or finally getting landed by an Iberian death stack.. or being declared from someone else.. or being overrun by angry Sicilian peasants who show me no respect.

Look! Savoy is bailing us out! And we have a new ally!

Or not... At this point I realized the war had been going on for almost four years. It was august 1467 and I wasn't going to be able to demand all of Sicily. However a victory in Savoy over a landed Castillan army sent the warscore up enough to secure this:

It's a half victory, not a half defeat. That's how I chose to view it, anyhow. At some point in the far future, I will find a way to extract my vengance upon Austria. For now I'll play nice with them.

I took some screenshots of the aftermath in terms of state, but first of all I've reached the image limit of 20 and second of all it's easier to just list:

- The economy is doing alright, a little inflation because of loans.
- Naples has about 3,5/20 war exhaustion. This is manageable. No rebels.
- I now have the chance to pick a mission to free Palermo. And it will be, just not right now. I picked a mission to improve relations with Urbino instead.

My legitimacy is at an all-time low of 19 (I just recovered our rightful lands, how does this make my rule questionable!?). Even so I did this:

And this is why I picked the +Diplomatic reputation advisor

Annexing a vassal diplomatically will cost 10 legitimacy once it completes. For this reason, I will put off starting the annexation of Urbino until I have at least 40 legitimacy.

Analysis

The war largely failed to accomplish its main goals because Austria had no way to start a land war with the Iberian factions. The sea power of the Iberians was overwhelming and if they had had more transports, I would have been in a bad position since they would be able to blocade the crossing between mainland Italy and Sicily and break my hold over the islands afterwards.

News of the world

- The Byzantine Empire has finally admitted defeat and ceded Constantinople to the Ottomans. It now resides in Cyprus and directly controls Rhodes (Greek nationalist rebels usurped the Knights Hospitaler) and is the overlord of Athens.
- The Ottomans have now gained their freedom to do their usual conquest spree, starting with half of Wallachia. Now they're engaged in a war with the Mamluks over Candar.
- Denmark diplo-annexed their vassal Holstein.
- The King of Aragon is 70.

 

[DensleyBlair]

Very deft start. Nicely written, too. I'll very much enjoy seeing where you go next.

 

[Webstantine]

Better then nothing I guess.

 

[Grundius]

You came out of that with Messina, for taking only 3 provinces. I'd say that is a victory.

 

[Yenzen]

Very deft start. Nicely written, too. I'll very much enjoy seeing where you go next.

Thank you, though sometimes it feels like I'm going nowhere.

Better then nothing I guess.

You came out of that with Messina, for taking only 3 provinces. I'd say that is a victory.

I did consider white peacing after Austria left the field. I was getting concerned that the Iberian alliance was starting to ship larger armies and my manpower could not keep up with that.

But we captured what was a the time a rather important port city, having some interesting architecture such as the Church of the Annunziata dei Catalani and Cathedral of Messina.

Well, excluding the clock tower anyway.


20. September 1467 - 7. June 1472

Yeah I know I'm updating in quite short intervals. I should probably strive towards covering at least 10 years at a time.

The period started with a whole lot of nothing. I was recovering manpower and let the time pass for some months. At least I had a chance to admire the weather effects as the seasons changed.

Have I mentioned I love the geographical map in this game? 'Cause I do.

I also noticed this little golden nugget:

In the winter of 1469 our last general Alessandro Grimvaldi bit the dust. You'll know him as the guy who massacred the landing troops in Malta etc.

Our economy is doing all right, largely thanks to us taxing the Pope into space.

The missions presented were useless:

- Recover Palermo (which we can't do for another 4 years, so no)
- Mend relations with Aragon (I don't think either party is interested that. And it's impossible)
- Culture convert Abruzzi for 10 diplomatic power.

Now that latter is a pretty bad idea too. Not only will the conversion itself cost 125 diplomatic power, but:

1: Umbrian is in the same culture group so we only get -15% tax/manpower instead of 33/33% and no revolt risk
2: Umbrian is bound to become an accepted culture (requires 20% of total taxbase, and to remain over 10% afterwards) once we annex the Papal States, negating all penalties anyhow.

So, spoilers: No missions this entire period. Speaking of missions, Aragon is getting a bit snippy:

And the mighty remnants of the Roman Empire considered us one of the greatest rivals:

I did have some time to think about what the further goals of Naples for the following decades would be. I determined:

1: Palermo must be recovered ASAP.
2: Main expansion will be towards integration of other Italian cultural nations. To that end, I believe that Naples must join the HRE to gain access to war with enough Italian nations. This scares me because while I won't mind being the emperor, I do not under any circumstances want to unit it under my control or even work towards centralizing it. Simply joining it once we annex the Papal States (ETA somewhere in 1477) will make the emperor grow stronger. In my general experience, the HRE grows towards unity much too quickly and Austria is almost unshakable as the emperor. If the HRE reaches its fifth reform, we will no longer be able to wage wars inside the HRE.
3: Malta, though of an Iberian culture group, will count as an Italian core for all intends and purposes
4: The Ottoman Empire must still be stopped, but until I have become much stronger, only if a very good chance appears where I can unify multiple allies against it.

As for point 4, a perfect chance opened up in April 1469 where a war broke out between Genoa and Crimea which quickly spread like wildfire with the Ottomans joining Crimea and Genoas allies backing it up:

I thought this was perfect and saw that yes, Austria would back us up! The Hungarians also hated the Ottomans, so surely they would join us if I allied with them - I even went over the diplomatic relations limit to do so and:

I don't know why I have a core on Epirus, I just found it a little while earlier. I must have missed an event?

I might have been able to convince them with a royal marriage, but breaking that would cement the relationship, with me losing diplomatic points or stability from breaking the marriage. So I just cut the alliance afterwards, I'm not going to war with the Ottomans unless my allies have a land connection with them.

The world continued to turn and infidels were subdued:

Did you really need that extra manpower?

In a development in the HRE that was actually a little interesting. Prince-elector Mainz was wiped out by Trier and a new elector had to be found:

I decided to spend my entire surplus on another advisor. I was already far behind my neighbours in almost every technological field, and only diplomacy could I justify because of the idea group I picked.

To break the monotony: Corruption and obscurantism to the rescue.

The hilarious appropriateness of these events coming right after one another is not lost on me.

I went with the inflation and revolt risk option. Worst case I would have to smack a few rebels around.

Then some bloke gets the bright idea of writing an epic about the royal house we broke free from not a generation ago. Sure, why not? I'm starting to suspect the game is mocking me.

I know my legitimacy is low, but come on!

27 years after the start of the game, in 1471, Austria with its new emperor manages to inact the first of the HRE reforms. The emperor is, of course, a god made man thanks to Lucky Nations

Then something rather alarming happens

TO BE CONTINUED... on the next post I'll post in 5 seconds, I've reached the image limit for this one.

 

[Yenzen]

And of course I accept. What's the worst that could happen? War with France and Austria?

Just Austria? oh okay then.. :mellow:. Faced with an overwhelming enemy to my north and allies that are nowhere nearby, I do the only sane thing:

I cash in my war taxes, hire a new general and advance like a madman.

The army further marches northwards to Lombardia. Here's my logic: Even with a combined larger army and navy, Savoy will eventually be overrun by Austria because of its proximity. Now, I can negoatiate with Milan on behalf of our entire alliance, and if I can complete a siege of Lombardia before Austria pulls too many troops from former Burgundy (England can't land too much) - We might be able to white peace this war early on.

Then I get this update:

Goddammit, not now Aragon. Go play with Castille.

Now, Austrian troops have started streaming down Milan, it at this point I decide to start abusing the AI system:

The battle at cuneo above had to be won too, so I detached a blocade from Lombardia, and every time Austria moved to reinforce their troops there, I would move 11k men to support as well, which would stop them dead in their tracks and head for Lombardia instead. Then I would stop moving my troops and the AI would halt their persuit because it would be against an equal force attacking through the mountains.

The plan worked and the battle of Cuneo was won, however now two armies were converging upon Cuneo anew:

I detached enough for a siege in Lombardia and moved into the frey. We may start out with lower morale, but I figured the geography would be on our side (defending in mountains, them crossing rivers.)

it worked out quite well:

Meanwhile, I had noticed that an English navy had made all the way to the Gulf of Venice and was unloading troops and blocading the Austrian navy!

Sweet. I could now set loose my remaining 7 light ships to protect trade and make a little money while Venice has completely deserted it because they were using theirs in the war with the Ottomans.

Then something terrible happend:

A notice that I clicked away all too fast informed that entire Light Ship fleet had just been sunk. The english had abandoned their blockade, probably because they were far too logn away from their home port to survive for long. I should have considerd that. They were worth a total of 140 ducats, easily 10 years worth of surplus. If I am to recreate that navy, it would take some 15 years for them to pay themselves back.

Well, enough about my incompetent handling of my navy, Lombardia fell on may 14. 1472 which was almost enough to make them consider a WP

Now why did I make such a wide shot at the end? Do you see those 14 thousand demoralized Austrian troops? They were effectively trapped by nations they did not have military access to and me and Savoys armies. I ordered my army to descend on them:

That.. that exceeded my expectations a little

That was enough, a few days later on june 4. 1472 this update arrived:

Honestly, after that slaughter, I'm sure we could have worked out a better deal by sieging all of Milan, but overall this went better than I expected.. other than the loss of my ships. It is worth mentioning that England blockaded Austrias northernmost lands and landed a 10k army near Venice (interestingly intelligent choice by the AI, landing in the former Burgundian land would have been a slaughter) to distract some of Austrias forces along with Hungary. At the end of things, they still had 30k troops and plenty of manpower to keep up a long war.

Austra quickly agreed to re-establish our alliance, not much worse off for wear:

Amazingly, being humiliated by one of its subordinate HRE states did nothing to wear off its imperial authority (now at 10 after invoking the first reform, each taking 50 IA). I'm starting to think that the only way I could possible stop the HRE from uniting before 1700 is to join it and try to ruin it from the inside.. On the bright side, the former unitary support for Austria as the next emperor has been shaken, probably by the loss of prestige from this war:

Even so, it'll probably regain it because of the Lucky Nation status. But for now I forgive Austrias audacity for leaving the former war. I guess contributing to murdering them by the tens of thousands made me a bit mellow.

Now, the truce with Aragon is soon expiring and Navarra still does not have a proper heir. Here's to hoping for the the tragic and sudden death of Queen Leonor of Navarra

News of the world:

- A huge war between Poland, Lithuania, Denmark/Sweden/Norway and half the HRE has broken out. This distracted Poland and Lithuania from the Genoan war with the Ottomans, which it had joined. It seems like the Poland-Denmark alliance is defeating the Anti-poland coalition:

- Venice, Genoa & co are holding up somewhat against the Ottomans.

 

[Yenzen]

I want to take a minute to complain about something:

Lucky nations being forced upon Ironman is a shame. For those of you reading this not familiar with EU4 yet, see http://eu4wiki.com/Luck - it’s basically making a few select nations better at everything.
I dislike the concept of giving specific nations this bonus. I’m not trying to recreate history here, I’m trying to form my own path and would like the AI to do the same! What if Austria declined and lost the almost 100% solidified position as emperor? What if France got torn up by internal strife and the Occitans in the south broke lose? What if Novgorod regained its foothold and stood firm against Muscovy? What if the Ottomans grinded to a halt in Europe and collapsed under ethnic and political tensions from within?
None of these things are likely to happen unless the player actively tries to make it so. This may seem empowering, but at the end of the day it shapes a very predictable pattern for any nations, which the player has little contact with, and that’s a shame – In the absence of the existence of player influence, the world should still be very dynamic and random.



Boring rants aside, I would like to know: I'm writing/playing this on a 1920x1080 screen which may be warping my perspective on the size of my screenshots. Would you guys prefer if I made them smaller in the future?

 

[Grundius]

I agree. Lucky nations is a concept that forces "realism" on the game basically by making some already favoured nations even better. The alternative is of course playing w/o Ironman and switching LN off, then just maintain the discipline to not reload

Good handling of you war with Milan and co. Very strategic.

 

[DensleyBlair]

Another well handled war. Good job with that.

Hopefully next time you'll be able to end on (more) favourable terms. Pushing Austria as far a you did is certainly impressive, in any case.

 

[Yenzen]

Thank you, both of you; however this update might not give that good an impression of my war management.

7. June 1472 - 1. April 1481

This period began with another peaceful time. For other nations around as well:

- The War between Poland/Scandinavian countries ended with what seems to be a white peace.
- The Genoese-Ottoman war ended with the defeat of Genoa

Even France was going all hippie on me. They kept refusing my calls to arms and I suspected the reason was because Aragon kept increasing their relations, despite France having a mission to attack them.

The only action I got was whooping an insubordinate noble

Being king means never having to use your wits.

Oh and a 10-year-old girl now rules the Byzantine Empire:

If you don't submit to the glory of Rome she will pout at you.

England still can't catch a break. Scotland declared war in November 1472.

That ended up including half of Western Europe. France joined Scotland while Castille and Portugal joined England. I considered using this opportunity to launch an attack on Aragon, but reconsidering knowing how quickly England could beat Scotland and leave me against all of Iberia all by myself. It turned out to be wise, the war ended in 1475 with the complete and utter defeat of France and Scotland:

The defeat was so bad the French king just died on the spot, leaving his 8 year old heir to rule.

Hell, even Navarra could see where the tides were turning:

In April 1472 Serbia declared war on Ragusa.. Which is a vassal of Hungary.. Who is allied with many HRE members. It went about as well a could be expected, though Hungary surprisingly didn't eat into Serbia or release Bosnia.

To pass the time, we engage in some good old-fashioned corruption. Then we sent our most competent man to the Papal States to aid the Pope.

Sometimes the man with the funny hat complains about the mixed signals we keep sending him

To pass the time in this period, I minimized my spending on the military for a few years to afford the commission of a new trade fleet.

This translated into a boost from 0,97 to 1,73 gold income from Venice.. and a little more respectable navy.

On the 20th June 1476 a bunch of petitioners shows up and I murdered 4000 peasants brutally, instead of bothering to listen to them and thus lose the respect of my peers. You know the drill.

Now, even the Ottoman Empire had been forced to deal with an underage 10 year old ruler, meaning that they could not independently declare war. I thought this might mean some lack of expansion on their end, but the Ottomans always find a way:

Now, being awfully tired of all of my allies but Savoy refusing to join me (And Fererra suddenly just dropping our alliance and leaving me with a useless royal marriage) in my war, I resolved to find an ally that would and could help me. Now, England had Aragon as their rival, so I decided to ally them and just start the annexation of Urbino. Legitimacy be damned, the new heir is reset anyway!

And while we refused to spend 50 ducats trying to contain the spread of plague, we had no problems spending 60 on building some new cannons.

Technology marches on:

Now, I finally manage to get a viable mission - and complete it, The Papal States become part of Naples on 2. june 1477

Now I this a perfectly viable excuse to go to war. No better way to celebrate the expansion of our proud nation than the mindless slaughter of thousands of men. Savoy and England both join us in war on 12. june 1477:

The war of justified aggression for the sake of glorius liberation of the Sicilian population of Palermo against the dastardly Aragon and its heartless allies Castille and Portugal

Primary goal:
- Regain our core, Palermo.

Secondary goal:
- Liberate Sardinia as an independent nation, which I should be able to vassalize.

Tertiary goal:
- Cash.

Not long into the war, the Pope and the entire catholic world makes a big deal about the whole Rome thing.

No, you can't have it back! It's mine now.

They move to some random spot in northwestern HRE.

Now, I start the war by losing the light ship I got from the Papal States without noticing and then sending a 4k army including 1k cannons down to Palermo to siege it.. only for Portugal to attack my navy south of Sicily and afterwards settling in the Straights of Messina, blockading my navy and a quarter of my troops in Sicily for the entire duration of the war.

Good start!

Spain moves in to siege Englands holdings around the Bay of Biscay (Navarra and Labourd). England does.. precisely nothing about it. Its major 25 ship fleet remain in port and its 25k men hang around London and Scotland.

Meanwhile in Northern Italy in October 1477 an Aragonese army of 17k starts to descend down the peninsula and I make my remaining 12k men run southwards in a mad scramble to reinforce it with mercenaries:

Arrghg. Bad

Now, the war is honestly going to hell. Savoy tried to break though France and failed. Luckily Castille is already knee deep in war exhaustion in war exhaustion and agrees to this:

Thing I said about using your wits earlier? Forget about it.

Then the Aragonese forces try to cross the Strait of Messina for reasons unknown to me. I swallowed the bitter pill and abandon the almost complete siege of Palermo in order to meet them in a position, where they would be crossing a body of water:

As you can see, out great king Federigo I died in the battle for Sicily. We have a new 5/3/3 king and a 4-year old 4/4/4 heir to the throne.

At this point England finally starts landing troops in Spain. The war is not yet lost! start looking up countries I need to get military access to in order to join the coming beating of Aragon into a pulp and...

TO BE CONTINUED.. in like an hour when I can post the second part, forum rules and such. I tried to make this fit in one post but I can't seem to help myself with the screenshots.

 

[Yenzen]

7. June 1472 - 1. April 1481 (part 2)

I just realized I've been switching between present and past tense this entire time. I'll use past tense from now on.

Okay, this is bad. My entire amy is locked because of Ferrara being a jerk and my fleet was stuck, blockaded in Sicily. England did not land enough troops in Iberia and was repelled easily. They had their 25 ship fleey just handing around Northern Spain.

In October 1478 a new Aragonese army tries to break through Romaga, this time however they were repelled without issue and in december, Palermo finally fell.

An entire year later of me accumulating debt and nothing really happening, England finally gets serious, and Savoy joins the fray:

Sadly, Savoy was under siege and I could do nothing to help it. However the sieges of Aragon were spreading everywhere. It seemed like things were finally turning out well for me. I would be able to get both Palermo and Sardinia. Victory was at hand.

Meanwhile, another bunch of smelly peasants demanded face time from their new king..

er.. That's a lot of smelly peasants

Back to the war: Proceeding perfectly! England was even trashing the Aragonese fleet:

.. Then Savoy drops out of the war on a WP

I forgot to screenshot that, but one can see the effect this had on negotiations:

I had forgot something very important. The AI doesn't care about the big picture in a long war. It just wants out the best way it can. I should never expect to be able to pressure my enemies to their very edge, if my entire war effort rests on the shoulders of someone else. I quickly took the deal for Palermo once the war score ticks up a bit again.

And thus ended the war. At a few points I was sure that I was done for, at others I was sure that I could demand anything I wanted at the end. One of the most most limiting factors in all my wars so far has been my lack of a large enough navy and in time, I will need to seek to rectify that.

This is our new king and his heir:

The history of the 12th chronological and 1st King of Naples after re-establishment of independence.

The text engine is really bad at handling vassalization outcomes.

He was actually very well suited for the task. I didn't need the administrative points, but the diplomatic ones to advance the diplomactic idea group and military power to advance new military units.

Rest in peace digital dude.

News of the world
- The Byzantine Empire annexed Athens but instead moved their capital to Rhodes.. which actually made perfect sense in historical context. Rhodes having been made into a fortress island by the Knights Hospitaler.
- Moscovy is eating further into its neighbours. I don't think it'll be long before we see the rise of Russia.
- The new location of the Papal States:

- The new sultan of the Ottoman empire has reached his majority. Now the Ottoman machine can begin again: