NAXOS 1.15 one faith, one tag catholic crusader AAR no exploits

[atwix]

Poland is westernizing, and Naxos helps them killing the reactionaries. And then they help Austria killing rebels. How very interesting.

Francesco banned the import of coffee, stating it was as bad a drug as the WIZ WEED the Austrians used before his mother subjugated them..

"We must limit the spread of this unnatural narcotic!"

The emperor ended his last ongoing war, asking THIS from Mali. All rebels can be reached easily now in West Africa..

Naxos had peace now, and the Naxian diplomats had stabilized relations with the brunt of the HRE..

"Peace can have its uses.."

Emperor Francesco IV added a good part of the Naxian provinces to the Holy Roman Empire, and passed a reform. Naxos now has another diplomat to use, and +1 diplomatic reputation.

The only HRE elector (the bishop of Münster) still likes us, and still wants us as HRE emperor!

Naxos took level 19 in military tech, and got more military tactics and new unit types.

Daddy Varys had done a nice job. Naxos now makes +50 ducats a month, WITHOUT war taxes.. Production kept increasing and increasing..

All subjects like Naxos

Francesco paid to support loyalists in Austria and England and that got them under 50% liberty desire again.. 'donation based decision making' for the win!

Brandenburg sent a diplomat, being concerned with the troop amassment near their borders..

"Why do you think I needed PEACE? Only then I could ask Poland to join with Naxos against Brandenburg.."

The ambassador of Brandenburg was FURIOUS

Francesco proved to be as ruthless as his mother

He gave the ambassador a grim look, and replied..

I just needed the coalition gone to attack Brandenburg on its own, helped by Poland...

Francesco let a trumpet sound, when he bluntly attacked Brandenburg, in WOODS, on their capital.

Naxos outnumbered them three to one, but the space marines still managed to bring my morale down FAST

I stomped them out of Berlin, but not without heavy casualties

Berlin fell fast

Forts fell fast, but the Brandenburg army had vanished in thin air.. Weird

THEEERE they are

70k MEAN space marines are slaughtering Poland and Lithuania in the forests of NiederLausitz..

EEK!

Send in ummmm... all we can spare

HOLD THE LINE

Meanwhile, the rewards of our mercantilistic protectionism keep rolling in..

Man, those events--you are Gladstone Gander and I claim my five pounds.

@Path: "Yessir, Cuz! When my public named me 'LUCKY' they weren't just awoofin'!"

In other news: Spain attacked France. Be my guest.

The space marines simply do NOT give up

Lübeck got occupied..

Brandenburg got bled BAD in those woods. I don't get why the AI never routs during a battle if it becomes hopeless to win

Here you can see how Brandenburg BLOBBED inside HRE, and beyond

But who cares.. We chased 'm, and we stomped 'm again

They routed to the province nextdoors in Polish Sandomierz, and they got wiped

War won..

Meanwhile, West Africa got overrun. This is the result..

Emperor Francesco fed POLAND all its cores back, and gave them their claim on STOLP and DANZIG.

Poland is 'one' again.

Francesco dined with his stepbrother, the Polish Emperor, and toasted to the reunification of all Polish territories..

Varys didn't quite like the charade his son was doing... But he played along.

The Polish wife of Francesco was very happy that Francesco had helped her brother out..

"I had NEVER expected you would be so generous to my brother Francesco!"

Francesco smiled.

"And you think you know me? I can be full of surprises."

But something else was on his mind..

"My intent is to press my claim on the throne of your homeland ONCE your brother and his bastard cored Danzig, you silly girl. Its the only reason why I married you, after all."

Varys was in a melancholical mood, when he saw his son doing the charade he had so carefully planned..

"He would see this country BURN if he could be king of the ashes..." thought Varys.

He sometimes saw a little TOO much of his mother in Francesco





Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

 

[atwix]

@ThetrueColt and all other readers:

The above chapter had its images uploaded to imgur.com and now you can click on them inside forum to enlarge the images. Think I'll keep uploading them to imgur from now on..

Is it my imagination or do the images have BETTER colors, and more crispy clear look now?

 

[Frogbait]

@ThetrueColt and all other readers:

The above chapter had its images uploaded to imgur.com and now you can click on them inside forum to enlarge the images. Think I'll keep uploading them to imgur from now on..

Is it my imagination or do the images have BETTER colors, and more crispy clear look now?

Thinking the lucky image you should move under the next line of text. Was a bit confusing at first with its placement to me.

Great work per usual good sir! Thanks for the update

 

[atwix]

Thinking the lucky image you should move under the next line of text. Was a bit confusing at first with its placement to me.

Great work per usual good sir! Thanks for the update

ok, edited that, you are right.

 

[parats]

Polish pu incoming. :>

 

[atwix]

Polish pu incoming. :>

nope, not Poland.

Hint: Danzig

 

[ThetrueColt]

Nice. I am already enjoying the new way of presenting imagery

 

[willain]

Great AAR!

I'm pehaps a bit late with this advice but as far as i know there are no penalties to revoking a province from a trade company and therefore no need to wait with adding them until you have converted it. Just add everything, revoke those you want to convert and the re-add them when they have the correct faith.

 

[atwix]

Great AAR!

I'm pehaps a bit late with this advice but as far as i know there are no penalties to revoking a province from a trade company and therefore no need to wait with adding them until you have converted it. Just add everything, revoke those you want to convert and the re-add them when they have the correct faith.

thats true. I usually add them right after conquest, core them, and then start converting the conquered provinces in trade regions once I run out of other provinces to convert. I then remove provinces from trade companies and start conversion, as soon as missionaries become free. Then you can batch convert the entire trade company region. This is better for rebel management

 

[parats]

nope, not Poland.

Hint: Danzig

I should keep in mind to write PLC as a placeholder instead of poland.

 

[Joey0wnt]

commonwealth PU incoming.

 

[Horkak]

amazing! with a bit of advice from here and a lot of luck, I managed to get my firsrt pu as the commonwealth!! But a poland lithuanian union is much more useful B)

 

[atwix]

amazing! with a bit of advice from here and a lot of luck, I managed to get my firsrt pu as the commonwealth!! But a poland lithuanian union is much more useful B)

I'll try to force PU the commonwealth in next chapter

Francesco deliberatly fed Poland Danzig in the Naxosian-Polish war versus Brandenburg.

Danzig was the last province Poland needed (to core) to be able to form Commonwealth out of Poland+Lithuania..

It was a long term goal I set already in the beginning of the 16th century (it is in the earlier chapters somewhere), and I managed to do it.

Anyways, glad you got your first PU!

And next chapter will be for tomorrow.

 

[Path]

Game of Thrones indeed. It's interesting how different our style is from mine--I hadn't pursued a PU in so long that when I lucked into one in my Perm campaign, I didn't even notice how much AE I was building up with them until our relations were close to 0. LD was negative so I figured they loved me to bits; turns out they hated my eating the empire a lot more than the actual princes I'd vassalized did Still, PUs have a lot going for them as you've demonstrated.

 

[atwix]

Game of Thrones indeed. It's interesting how different our style is from mine--I hadn't pursued a PU in so long that when I lucked into one in my Perm campaign, I didn't even notice how much AE I was building up with them until our relations were close to 0. LD was negative so I figured they loved me to bits; turns out they hated my eating the empire a lot more than the actual princes I'd vassalized did Still, PUs have a lot going for them as you've demonstrated.

how is my 'style' different from yours exactly? Just curious

Yeah, hawking and preying for PU is cumbersome sometimes (got to check stuff a lot) but it can be very rewarding. I wrote in first version of PU guide already that PU game can net you largest part of EUROPE if you play it well, for relatively low AE.

Think I demonstrated it here again, and in Ryukyu aar also

 

[Path]

how is my 'style' different from yours exactly? Just curious

Yeah, hawking and preying for PU is cumbersome sometimes (got to check stuff a lot) but it can be very rewarding. I wrote in first version of PU guide already that PU game can net you largest part of EUROPE if you play it well, for relatively low AE.

Think I demonstrated it here again, and in Ryukyu aar also

I'm not too fond of Christian gimmicks like PU and the (incredibly cheap) empire, so I rarely use either when I'm playing a Christian tag; rather, I try to use the same basic method of expansion regardless of religion. My Ryukyu, Ceylon, Trebizond etc. campaigns all used a similar approach, even though they were Sunni (eventually), Buddhist and Orthodox respectively. That's why it's interesting to see a very different approach, i.e., aggressively pursuing PUs. Presumably you play differently if you're playing a Hindu or Buddhist tag, though.

Your idea groups are also very different--unless I'm Catholic I normally open with religious, influence and administrative, and make a point of filling out the last two quickly to speed up integrations, as I core very little same-continent land myself. I've dropped quantity completely now, instead picking offensive down the line (5th or 6th depending on whether I need exploration--diplomatic'll be the fourth). Losing out on those extra troops hurts a bit, but I've found that as long as you grow quickly enough you'll have enough troops for the job by the time the Europeans start expanding their armies (it's only when they start unlocking ideas that the majors become a problem--most of them can't field more than 40-50 regiments before that point).

Then again, you fight a lot more wars than I do--I make a point of avoiding more than two wars at once unless it's against some hapless pinata. North Africa, African interior etc are areas I avoid entirely until much later. I have enough material for a basic AAR now, so I'll put something together to show what I mean (if I don't end up playing instead--Theodoro's colour is absolutely beautiful).

 

[atwix]

Chapter 13: Remember all this, Sansa, when you come to play the game

A few unexpected twists will follow in the narrative story.. Or maybe not so unepexted?

Brandenburg is just peaced out. They won't core Danzig immediatly, as they are westernising.

Ok fine.. Make it quick please

I asked Poland to join again versus Norway mainly to get them in a war with me. Any war

Why? To be able to attack their ally SAVOY with impunity

Got to love dirty moves

We made claims on all possible provinces of Savoy, and now we go for 'm.

Hmm, why are you in coalition mapmode

Due to a silly mistake. Ottomans came out of truce within the month after I declared on Savoy, and I couldn't declare on the same day they came out of truce.. They started a coalition, and Cyprus, The Knights and Persia joined before I could declare war on the Ottomans.

I made Cyprus co-belligerent, and this dragged the entire coalition in. So Persia joined as normal belligerent... Persia is allied to Jaunpur. The plan was to attack Jaunpur and 'annul alliance' Persia, but this works too

As usual, I focussed on all belligerent nations FIRST. Persia got overrun and got peaced out quickly with 'annul alliance'.

Emperor Francesco invested in the religious idea group. He wanted to get the extra missionary and the +3% missionary strength..

Important tip: if your conquested provinces push your religious unity under 90% before any other unity bonuses get applied, then this means you don't convert fast enough. An extra missionary and more missionary strength helps, and its always good idea to ask for missionary advisor from clergy estate if you conquer a lot of heathen/heretic land, especially if you are catholic and you want to convert sunni provinces. Its always harder to convert sunni provinces, so more missionary strength is always good.

If you have 1 active cardinal as catholic nation, you can get 480 month MTTH event 'cardinal minister' that gives you more tolerance of true faith and more missionary strength for 20 years.. That can help too.

Anyways, ENTIRE Arabia is Catholic now, including Mecca. Our vassal Algiers is 100% catholic now! Francesco is defender of the catholic faith (his mother Ariadne couldn't take the title, as she was a.. woman. Right )

In Africa, 7 missionaries work night and day to convert all conquered provinces

Diplomatic idea group got filled.

Persia got peaced out and Emperor Francesco moved his troops to Ottoman turf. Their fleet got forced out of port, and sunk.

Spain took a big bite out France

Naxian troops fully occupied Savoy, and then tried to peace out their allies...

Uzbek got fed completely to Muscovy

The longterm goal is to spread Muscovy all the way east to Manchuria, and to give them a PORT there. After that, Muscovy can be fed anything in Asia that is within coring range of that port! Muscovy is catholic remember. And they took the four first ideas in religious idea group. They are a converting machine now, and an ideal subject to feed stuff in Asia to.

Naxos can't convert it all THEMSELVES.. It's a big world out there

I flipped Muscovy to catholic as soon as I got the free PU over them, in the hope that they would be fully catholic when I was in position to expand to the east.
Well, they ARE. Yay me

Muscovy hardly has rebels now

And another benefit of flipping them to catholic: their neighbour PU nations can't get 'tolerated heretic belief in neighbour' -40 opinion malus. That malus combined with events in PU subjects that result in 'bad monarch' and 'backwards monarch' opinion malus modifiers, can make getting +190 opinion for integration VERY hard.

Planning ahead is always needed in a long campaign

Poland and the PU subjects fought the war versus Norway. Denmark got peaced out without concessions, and Sweden received entire Norway.

Fun fact: I failed to notice Norway had colony underway in Florida. With this peace deal, I evicted Norway to Florida, as OPM busy colony. They will stay there, just like I did to Portugal. Portugal is 2 province minor in Mexico since I evicted them from Europe.

Popups of wars being declared led to scooping another opportunistic chance. Jaunpur is being invaded by Mewar, and they won't help Bahmanis now.

Francesco attacked Jaunpur right after, and Mewar and Vinegar allowed access again

Naxian troops choo-choo'd to North East India

Meanwhile, Naxos had invaded Cyprus and the Knights. Emperor Francesco was tired of them joining any and all coalitions... The Knights ceded Malta to Naxos, and Cyprus became a naval base for England.

Might seem weird choice, but this encourages the AI to send the ENGLISH fleet into the Mediterranean Sea if you are at war with any nation there..

England has the coring range to be fed whatever I want them to chew on..

Fun fact: I peaced out Cyprus when their army was in same province as Otttoman army.. They became rebels, and Ottomans destroyed them.

The Ottomans got overrun once more..

I am saving admin points now for Savoy. Time to feed our subjects

Austria got provinces that made corridor to former Persian mountain territory of Naxos, and England got EVERYTHING the Ottomans have in the Balkans...

England in the Balkans, yes. Why? Same reason I fed them Cyprus. If you feed England stuff on the main European land, they will be more inclined to transport their troops to Europe itself.

No more chilling in London, England

Protect your new land from rebels

This is the result.. English Balkans... And Austrian Caucasia is getting really big

Savoy their allies got stomped, and Francesco did a blunt full annexation of Savoy. Tired of them joining coalition if able.

Francesco started coring the biggest overextension provinces, and sent missionaries to the other provinces.

The populace rejoiced.. The emperor is weeding out the heresy on Italian culture land

On the other side of the globe, the Naxian troops sieged up Jaunpur and Bahmanis.. Both were weakened by Mewar. Thanks

Spain got invaded also.. 130+k troops invaded them at once

Emperor Francesco used his manoeuvring talent against Spain.. Spain is travelling from mountain to mountain province, which takes a while.. When they were movement locked, he led a stack from the flat land of Labourd to Béarne.. And he arrived FIRST

But I made error. In my mind, Béarne was still MOUNTAINS province. Well, NOPE

Its hills now and the combat width is wider then I thought.. After a curse, I sent everyone I could spare to Béarne.

I suppose its... erosion.... that made Béarne hilly instead of mountainous right

On the other side, Jaunpur got occupied swiftly..

Bahmanis got full annexed also.. The missionaries need work, after all

The heretics got converted in Savoy.. Emperor Francesco made a resident cardinal a minister, and the populace rejoiced once more.

The new cardinal was assigned mainly thanks to the influence of Francesco on the Pope.

The pope had reluctantly agreed to raise the priest to cardinal rank, as the new cardinal had a bloody history...

The new cardinal minister was a former general of the Savoyard army, whose family was part of the catholic minority in Savoy. His home and his family got burned on accusation of witchcraft, while he was fighting the Naxian invaders.

The man, named Royce, had entered a Jesuit monastery after he lost his family to heretic persecution.

Francesco heard of this, and planned to meet the man.

The emperor reflected on this for a while.

"Having a Jesuit cardinal in our service would certainly lend us credibility with the Pope and strengthen the sentiment that Naxos is a Catholic nation first and foremost..."

The Jesuit priest quickly became a cardinal, after the involvement of the emperor.

Francesco gave Cardinal Royce a chance to get back at the heretics that burned his family..

Cardinal Royce now had a deep grudge against all heretics, a background as ruthless general, and an inner fire that amazed even Francesco..

Royce took the chance Francesco offered. Francesco agreed to install a new NAXIAN INQUISITION , and Cardinal Royce and became HEAD INQUISITOR of Naxos.

 

[atwix]

Royce would go in the history books of Naxos as a fanatic combat priest, who didn't hesitate to use ANY means necessary to convert heathens and heretics to Catholicism, as it was the purpose of the Jesuit Order.

Factoid: The Society of Jesus, more commonly known as the Jesuits, is a society within the Roman Catholic Church that was founded by Ignatius of Loyola and instituted by Pope Paul III. The Jesuit society demands four vows of its members: poverty, chastity, obedience to Christ, and obedience to the Pope. The purpose of the Jesuits is the propagation of the Catholic faith by ANY means possible.

Spain had more then 40k troops in Iberia when the war started.. But the Naxians simply outnumbered them..

In the end, Spain got wiped. War won.

Meanwhile, Emperor Francesco had waited until Poland would CORE Danzig.

And waited. Waited. And then waited some more

Poland is westernizing, and they don't have the admin points to core Danzig.

GRMPF. The emperor decided to keep on waiting

Emperor Francesco ordered the puppet masters of the wartable room to make a NEW model table of East Asia.

Jaunpur got occupied.

The emperor gazed upon the new model table, and started planning ahead...

Emperor Francesco decided to ask for all provinces in the Himalaya mountain range. It linked up the Naxian land..

I wish to explain this a bit more in depth.

Remember the first war versus Jaunpur? I took ONE port province from Bahmanis then, and cored it.

If I had NOT done that, then I likely would have trouble coring the Himalayas, as coring range is then counted from the Baluchistan ports.

My strategy in Eu4 is to take bridgehead ports to expand coring range, as told before. But this tactic has benefits that may not seem obvious at first

IMPORTANT TIP: The longterm goal after taking that bridgehead, was to use the coring range of the NEW bridgehead to install a corridor in a semi circle from Baluchistan to Bengal, around India, through low development province land.

And then you do it again, make another corridor through the mountains of SHU into Dai Viet territory, after installing a bridgehead port core in the east side of Southeast Asia (Champa, Annam and the like), and then conquering a corridor in a semi circle, through low development mountainous province land.

See where I'm going with this

And rinse repeat this tactic until you end up in Manchuria. Combine this with expanding Muscovy in a straight line east towards Manchurian port. It has been my 'conquer asia' strategy since I did my first world conquest with Savoy in 1.7.

It is another example of how I use 'surround and divide' corridors.. If you install these corridors, you can CLAIM all rich provinces next to it. And what is right next to the corridor I took in the Himalayas? Yep, all 15+ development rich India provinces in Jaunpur.

See the benefit?

The longterm plan now was to claim entire Jaunpur, and plain conquering it after Naxos claimed it all.

The idea is to install the corridor in POOR development land, that borders rich tax region land.

The overall idea behind this strategy is to expand coring range, and to be able to core these corridors IN ONE GO, because you link up the corridor to the bridgehead ports you took and cored. If you don't have a bridgehead core, you can also install a corridor to a port at the edge of your coring range. But then you likely have to CORE the port first, before being able to core the rest.

I prefer taking the bridgeheads first, as you can get HOLY war CB easier then on nations around it. Hence, take bridgehead ports that border nations you want to install a corridor through.

Are you still with me

I also used this tactic to conquer West Africa. Take bridghead ports around Benin, and make half circle corridor to Jolof on the West Coast.

It might be hard to grasp, but its a very effective tactic to be able to conquer stuff around the world VERY fast, and it also makes sure you NEVER run out of possible wartargets for continuous 100% overextension coring for decades and decades and decades on end. And another benefit is that troops can WALK through the corridors from China to Europe, so to speak! You can reach any wartarget without cogs...

The idea behind this is to isolate all rich development areas with corridors, and then start to nibble left and right until its all gobbled up.
I demonstrated the same thing in the 1.9.2 Ryukyu AAR, but failed to explain the plan behind it there.

Well, that is rectified now

In other news: Our PU subject Muscovy also installed an inquisition so it seems. They are speed converting now

They reached 90% religious unity once more, and their religious turmoil ended. Soon after, they would go 100% catholic!

In other news: Spain is doing a nice job in South America. They have 4 colonial nations there.

North America only has the French. They have French Canada, and the Antilles in the Caraibean. Strangely enough, England didn't make 13 colonies CN yet.

Haïti was the former colonial naiton of Portugal, and they are busybusy colonizing Louisiana.

Deja Vu

They did the same in my 1.13.2 QING true one tag. Next thing that happens is Colombia colonizing Oregon, like in that AAR. You'll see

And then Poland finished westernising, and FINALLY finished coring Danzig. Poland wasn't at war, had +1 stability, and POOF

Say hello to the COMMONWEALTH.

The Polish emperor is in his forties, and his bastard heir is almost thirty.

"About bloody time", muttered Francesco..

Emperor Francesco sent a diplomat to the PLC, stating that Naxos dismissed Poland as alliance partner..

The Polish charade had worked.. Poland didn't bother making other allies, thinking Naxos would be enough on its own.

The Polish emperor August V was baffled when Naxos broke Alliance, but dismissed it as a pridish whim of the Naxian emperor..

When Emperor Francesco claimed the throne of the Commonwealth a few years after, they quickly understood his intent... They began preparing for hostilities..

When Francesco's wife Lysa heard that her husband was planning to attack the PLC, and start a war to overthrow her brother and nephew, she burst out in tears..

Francesco tried to comfort her, saying that her brother and his bastard son had no real right to the Polish Throne.. The Polish nobles never really liked them both, and they had begged Emperor Francesco to 'liberate' them from Emperor August and his son.

But Lysa soon found out the truth behind it all.

Emperor Francesco had secretly taken a concubine, and he would surely toss his wife aside very soon.

The former handmaiden of Empress Ariadne had grown up into a really nice woman, and Francesco had fallen in love with her after she got reassigned to his chambers..

They secretly met in the palace gardens.. Francesco got careless, and didn't see his wife on the balcony.

Lysa flared in anger, and swore revenge.

The handmaiden, named Sansa, was a very Pious girl. Lysa followed her into the palace church, and tried to force her to leave her husband alone.

They came dangerously close to the edge of the staircase.. And Sansa realised Lysa intended to throw her down!

But Francesco arrived just in time.. He tried to soothe his wife, stating it was all a misunderstanding..

Lysa didn't buy it. She struggled to escape his embrace, and Francesco flared in anger.. He pushed his wife away, and she fell down the staircase..

Francesco stared down for a long while. He felt no remorse though. He covered the entire thing up, stating it was an accident...

Francesco pretended to mourn his deceased wife for 2 years...

His father Varys suspected what had really happened on that fatal day, but he didn't dare to speak up. Instead, he forged papers for Sansa, proving she was in fact the lost bastard daughter of the late Lord Della Carceri. Lord Della Carceri had withered and died, heirless, after his heirs got killed leading the Naxian army on the battlefield.

The old militaristic family that had delivered so many good generals for Naxos, hadn't died out, so it seemed! Lord Della Carceri had a bastard daughter, whose existence he acknowledged in his diary and will..

Varys sighed, but did his duty. He had forged the diary and the will himself.. The Naxian nobles would never accept a lowborn Queen!

Emperor Francesco made Sansa the true legitimate heir of the Della Carceri family, after Varys proved her claim with the forged documents.The entire inheritance, including the lands, the family estate, the personnel and all the other belongings of the family were now hers..

Sansa became the 19th generation heir of the noble Della Carceri family, and a noble LADY. And she played along. It was an offer she couldn't refuse..

Nothing stood in the way now for a marriage between the emperor and Sansa.

Sansa Della Carceri married Emperor Francesco, and the empire rejoiced.

The Naxian nobles had in fact 'demanded' Francesco to remarry swiftly, as the succession wasn't guaranteed yet. Lysa hadn't given the Emperor an heir, before she tragically died..

Francesco reflected on that as he gazed upon his new bride, when they watched the tourney held in honor of their wedding .. And he smiled sardonically.

 

[atwix]

Francesco went back to the war room the next day, and took control over the nation again.

First thing he did, was to make peace with Spain.

Naxos took an unfinished colony in the Amazon estuary (you can ask for these in peace without occupying fort in region!), all Spanish provinces in the gold coast trade node, .....

... and Naxos took ALL provinces in the Genoa trade node, and gave Sweden a bridgehead port in Iberia. Because why not

Head inquisitor Royce had a meeting with Emperor Francesco, to discuss a revelation he had during his daily praying in the Palace chapel.

"My Emperor, my work has been made considerably easier by the Bedouin catholics. They delivered the brunt of the missionaries sent into Africa, and they have been successful in any assignment."

Inquisitor Royce beckoned the Emperor to a map of the Asian Near east.

"It might be a good idea to make a Jesuit inquisition nation in their homeland, and to let them convert the remainder of the Ottomans and Persia to catholicism. It would allow the inquisition to focus on the heathens in India and the steppes in the north."

Emperor Francesco reflected on his suggestion for a while.

Then he nodded.

"Make it happen. I have seen them at work personally, and they deserve it."

Najd appeared on the map, after the puppet masters of the wartable room altered the Asian Near East table.

Emperor Francesco handed them a few provinces, that made them border the Ottomans and Persia. They also got a few ports in former Baluchistan.

"Najdi Makran..?" asked inquisitor Royce.

"In the far future, Naxos will feed ENTIRE Mewar to the Jesuit order.. I predict their work in the Ottomans and Persia will be swiftly done. My successors will likely let your Bedouins convert a big chunk of India."

Royce was delighted. "Might I do another suggestion my Liege? Muhammad II Von Habsburg of Algiers has a very pious thirdborn son. You might please him if you made this son the new ruler of Najd."

And so it happened.

A Von Habsburg became the ruler of the VERY pious catholic Jesuit nation NAJD.

Gaze upon their national traditions and ambitions and their idea group choices, and you will understand WHY Emperor Francesco agreed to make Najd a vassal state..

Full religious and administrative ideas, +2 missionaries, tolerance of true faith and +2% missionary strength

Naxos was now the leading Catholic nation, and many noble families sent their noble offspring to the universities of Venice, Bologna, Perugia and Naples.

Francesco visited the University of Mantua, and attended their doctoration ceremony in the cathedral of Mantua.


The Padua Cathedral was filled with University authorities, the professors of all the faculties, the students, and most of the Venetian Senators, together with many invited guests from the Universities of Bologna, Perugia, Rome, and Naples. Elena Cornaro Piscopia did not show any nervousness during the full hour she spoke in classical Latin to get her degree of doctor of philosophy by explaining random passages from the works of Aristotle. The audience listened with great attention as she spoke, and applauded with fervor as she was awarded the insignia of the doctorate, the book of philosophy, the wreath of laurel on her head, the ring on her finger, and over her shoulders the ermine mozetta placed by Professor Rinaldini. She is the first woman to receive a doctoral degree from a university, which wouldn't have been possible hadn't her family followed the advice of Giovanni Fabris to let her study under distinguished instructors. The title 'Oraculum Septilingue' - master of seven languages - is well-earned, for she is proficient in Hebrew, Spanish, French, Latin, Greek, Arabic and Chaldaic besides her native tongue. Besides languages, she is studying mathematics, philosophy, and theology. She is an expert musician, mastering the harpsichord, the clavichord, the harp, and the violin.

Francesco was impressed, and made Elena Cornaro Piscopia the court theologian.

Naxos had a few years of peace. Emperor Francesco added all the provinces in Iberia to the Holy Roman Empire, after the Spanish provinces finished coring.

He spread the territory of the HRE into the Black sea and beyond (why you think I kept the port provinces from Constantinople to Crimea for myself )...

..and he passed another HRE reform. Naxos now has +0,50 yearly legitimacy for its dynasty, and gets an extra -10% coring cost for all provinces.

And finally, the day came the truce with the Commonwealth was gone

Naxos declared the same day... The PLC had no allies whatsoever.

Troops amassed near the Southwestern and Southeastern border of the PLC..

Hostilities began swiftly, in the province of Kalisz.

ALL subjects of Naxos have loyalist subsidies active, and they are ALL helping Naxos out with the invasion!

HOLD THE LINE

FIRE!!!!

The PLC got wrecked..

But hardly beaten

Their armies were split up, and now the other half attacked

Naxos drove them off. Round 1 is for Naxos

The Polish Emperor died suddenly. His bastard son Karol I took over. He has no heir, but nevertheless.. It was indeed high time we declared this force PU war.

Francesco let all PU subjects do sieges; their generals obliged. I kept an eye on 'm while I was looting Danzig, and suddenly the entire might of Austria attacks the PLC near Danzig

PLC reinforced the battle with all they had.

The Ai never takes troops on neighbouring provinces or beyond into account when attacking... Naxos marched to reinforce the battle!

It became a winter battle.. The Naxian troops replaced the battered Austrian regiments on the battlefield, and Naxos drove the PLC back.

The bastard son Karol I Ferdynand led the battle, but he saw his troops defeated.

We routed the PLC, but not without heavy losses. Don't EVER underestimate the PLC in the 17th century.. They are a military powerhouse, just like France, Brandenburg or Sweden..

Emperor Francesco left the area around Danzig alone after that. It seems to ENRAGE the Polish if I try to occupy it! (I wonder why )

Francesco grouped his troops on the heartland forts, after the sieges on the southeastern forts concluded..

PLC has almost 15 forts, and Naxos occupies them in a (reasonably) orderly fashion

The PLC tries a desperate resiege of their capital.. They just lost precious time doing that.

The PLC realised it was for naught, and the bastard king tried a desperate attack against the English.

There is NO popup/pause for ally/subject armies being attacked, so I had to scoop the map for such possible attacks myself.

Can't have a popup/pause for EVERYTHING, I guess

But still.. It ANNOYS me, being the micromanaging fetishist that I am..

The PLC threw everything in the fight, and so did Naxos!

What can I say? War won..

You will probably laugh, but one major war wasn't enough. I also was busy on an Asian war against Shun and Persia...

(Spread the blue!)

...and a war versus Kanem Bornu in West Africa...

(Spread the blue!)


...to fill the overextension belly of Naxos

I tanked my prestige below 30 with 'placate local ruler' in vassal subject interaction window.

I took the resulting 'improve our prestige' mission that popped up the same day..

Important tip: you can get a free +1 stability with tanking prestige and taking 'improve our prestige' mission each ten years. Not sure if its 10 years interval between TAKING the mission or 10 years after COMPLETING the mission, but I'm 100% sure you can repeat this +1 free stability each decade or so. It is best to take the mission right BEFORE making big peace deals, that give +20 prestige or more. The mission will complete right after, after your prestige jumped from 2x to 5x...
Note that you have to make sure you have an empty mission slot, or the mission might take some time to replace another.

The PLC never fought Naxos again. They saw it coming already..

VICTORY IS OURS!

All welcome the Commonwealth as our new PU subject!

Emperor Francesco and his new Queen wife Sansa Della Carceri watched the sacking of Danzig from the Royal Galley. 40k troops were 'looting' Danzig without officers controlling them..

Queen Sansa was staring at the fire in Danzig/Gdansk with open mouth, while Francesco talked about the war and how it was all part of a bigger picture.

He tried to explain the GAME to his new wife, who he knew to have a big interest in politics.

"Always keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.. Keep the both of them confused, and keep them blind to your moves in the game..

If they are never certain who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to do next. Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you."

Francesco paused, and started to smile sardonically.

"The Polish emperor dismissed the breaking of our alliance as a whim of pride on my part, and took me for a fool.. He was wrong. My move had confused him, as planned. He never expected what came next."

Francesco paused once more...

"Remember all this, Sansa, when you come to play the game."

Queen Sansa turned away from the grizzly fiery sight, and frowned at her husband.

"What.... what game?"

Francesco smiled. He put his arms around his wife, and replied in a soft voice...

"The only game. The game of THRONES."

He brushed back a strand of her hair. And then he kissed her.








Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

 

[parats]

Railwaymode enabled.