Sunni Pope - A Papal State AAR

[delpiero1234]

Croatia is your vassal, right? Give Ragusa and Serbia to them, sans Kosovo since it's a gold mine. And you next step should definitely be destroying Qara Qoyunlu.

Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, Croatia is my vassal. I'd love to feed them Ragusa and Serbia but that is not so easy, unfortunately. Ragusa is allied to my ally Bohemia and Bohemia is the HRE so they are very strong. Ragusa is also allied to strong forces like the Commonwealth. If I find a way to break the alliance then I'll definitely go after Ragusa. Serbia might be easier to attack. Their allies are considerable weaker.

Right now my bigger worries are the nomads of Qara Qoyunlu. They are large and if they continue blobbing then they might get too strong. I hope they won't expand into Persia and in order to prevent that I definitely plan on attacking them in the next chapter which I plan to post either later tonight or tomorrow.

 

[delpiero1234]

Chapter VIII - A Crushing Defeat​

Imam Alexander was looking forward to make a move against the neighboring hordes. Not only followed they the heretical Shia faith, they also declared Rome their sworn enemy and rival.
Two armies of mercenaries were positioned in Sidon and Antioch respectively but war was postponed for some months when disorder stroke the realm. People were once again complained about how narrow-minded the leading class was. Stability suffered.
Alexander made Rome once again the seat of power of the realm after the province had been converted to the Sunni faith. Alexandria remained an important city though.

On May 15, 1555, Roman forced invaded Qara Quyunlu. Qara Quyunlu had three vassal which joined them as well as one ally, Oman.
Diplomats were also continuing to fabricate claims on neighboring countries like Yemen, Makuria and Medri Bahri. Expansion shall never stop. Islam has to be unified!
Paolo Botta-Adorno had been working as advisor for Alexander for years. In 1555, he published his work The Spirit of Laws in which he highlighted the classification of governments among other things. His efforts were admired throughout the nation.

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Soon it became obvious that Qara Qoyunlu was no paper tiger and better infantry was needed in order to deal with them: The first few battles were lost to the nomads. The Tercio Infantry, which had its origins in Spain, replaced the Condotta Infantry. A necessary change.
In Europe a war between France and England broke out. Alexander praid that many Christians were going to die in what seemed to be a pointless war.

Alexander was asked to convert the Hagia Sophia into a Mosque.The church had been built by the Byzatines in the 6th century and now that Constantinople followed the true Sunni faith, it was time to make a mosque out of it - at least that was what spiritual leaders of the realm had demanded. Alexander gave into their demands, seeing that it was surly going to please Allah! The Hagia Sophia had been destroyed when Sunni zealots forced their religion upon the city some decades ago. Alexander provided almost 150 ducats from the Roman treasury to repair the Hagia Sophia.
After important cities along the border like Damascus and Aleppo had been occupied by Roman forces, nationalist and patriot separatists rebelled against Qara Qoyunlu and their unjust rule. Many of them wanted to re-establish the Ottoman Empire; others were striving for an independent Aremnia. They all found a quick death when fighting Roman mercenaries.

On August 1, 1558, the Reformed religious center on Rhodes was removed after the province had adopted the Sunni faith .The war was a success and ended, as anticipated, in an astonishing, dominating victory. The new Terico Infantrymen kicked ass.
During the peace negotiations, Alexander had the brilliant idea of establishing a vassal in the region. Therefore additional territory was demanded in exchange for peace. Iraq was singled out as the perfect vassal and so five Iraqi provinces were demanded which were used to release Iraq as as subject. Of course, Alexander also wanted provinces for his direct control and so Qara Qoyunlu ceded another five provinces which had to be cored by Roman administrators.

Alexander had not considered that his newly created vassal was going to follow the Shia heresy. Therefore, he send the militia to the new governor to ensure that Iraq converted to Sunni. This increased their liberty desire. At the same time, the autonomy of many Antatolian provinces was decreased in order to increase income. Consequently, these provinces had a higher revolt risk.
Alexander was the militarist many said he was going to be. Soon after the peace with the Hordes, he issues orders to attack Yemen, a small Sunni country without allies. Attacking fellow Sunni countries was a crime against Allah but in this moment, conquest was more important than Allah!
The entire Yeminite country consisted of eight provinces but only in their capital, Medina, they had a fortress. The other provinces were undefended. Oman had previously conquered much of the Yemenite territory including their original capital, Sana’a.

Emperor Josef I of Bohemia rejected Protestantism. He believed it was a heresy of the Catholic faith. Protestant members were therefore constrained to form the Evangelicla Union. The stage was set for religious conflict in the Empire. Exciting times! Another interesting question was whether Alexander and his Roman Empire was going to join any of the two sides or not.
Yemen was forced to give up ownership of all but one of their provinces. The Roman Empire of Alexander now had a strong presence in the Red Sea.
After two successful campaigns against Qara Qoyunlu and Yemen, Alexander’s focus shifted back to Europe. His vassal Croatia had been extremely useless and they also followed a heathen faith: Catholicism. The latter could be ignored, at least for now. But their territory was rather small and Alexander felt that Croatia should absorb its neighbor Serbia. In order to guarantee victory, he sent his mercenaries over to the Serbian-Roman border. The mercenaries of Rome were known for their cruelties and brutality.
Alexander also continued building a transport fleet in the Red Sea. It was important to have ships in the region to further continue exploring it.

Because Novgorod sided with Serbia, they were Defender of the Orthodox Faith, Alexander decided to only conquer three of their four provinces for Croatia. Soon after, a diplomat was sent to integrate Croatia into the Roman Empire.
Alexander wanted to finally conquer Mantua and Trent, two out of the three provinces which were still needed before he was able to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Trent was owned by Austria, Mantua was an Italian city-state. Luckily, both were allied and so declaring war on Mantua meant also war with Austria. The alliance with Austria had come to an end when the Habsburgs laid claim on the Terra Ferma. Next to Austria, Baden, Lorraine and The Hansa joined the defending forces.
Roman engineers had built many forts in Italy which made it very difficult for the enemy to move into Roman lands.

Bohemia, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, sided with Alexander in the Roman Jihad against Mantua. During times of religious wars, the clergy was ably to mobilize the population. The people in the Roman Empire felt good.
Alexander did not live long enough to see the end of this Holy War because when he was almost 80, he died a natural death. Callistus III became his successor as Imam of the Roman Empire. Callistus was a decent administrators, knew diplomacy well and was world-class at the art of war.

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Imam Callistus felt not save enough and established the Swiss Guard in 1565. The Swiss Guard was composed of tough Swiss men that fled Switzerland in order to follow the Sunni Faith which in Switzerland was not tolerated.
Callistus had only been in office for a couple of months when the Commonwealth declared a punitive war on the Roman Empire which was still fighting Mantua and Austria. The Commonwealth was joined by forces like France, Hungary, Naples and many more. With Imam Callistus sided the most Chatolic nation of Spain, Bohemia, Tunis, Switzerland and Portugal which was ruled by the King of Spain. Who was going to triumph in this battle of giants? The last punitive war against the Roman Empire, which back then was still the Catholic Papal State, ended in defeat for the Pope.
A herald from the East reported that the Great Republic of Novgorod had formed mighty Russia.

Both sides had very large armies but the attacking forces were larger and they had much more artillery.
Callistus came to peace with Austria in order to focus solely on the coalition. Austria ceded Trent to the Roman Empire.
The first few major battles against the coalition were all won. Superior technology and better generals greatly contributed to the victories.
After five years of fighting, Mantua was defeated and full annexation was demanded. The war with the Commonwealth started to go south. The French and Italian Riviera were under enemy occupation and generally speaking the situation was not looking good anymore. Partially because Spain sent its forces on very long overland routes instead of using its naval superiority to quickly move troops from A to B.

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Three years into the war, and the war score began to go be negative. Things started to look worse and worse.
With the war taking the focus of every capable and production person in the Roman Empire, there was a lot less time for frivolous activities of musicians and poets. Even the best of poets was no better a solider than a common farmer but the sword was stronger than the book.
Bohemia and Switzerland both peaced out of the war after much of their territory was occupied by enemy forces. Callistus continued hiring more mercenaries. Not all hope was lost.
The only good news during war time was that Croatia had been fully integrated into the Roman Empire.
After eight years of fighting, the Roman Empire was once again defeated. Callistus agreed to annual all treaties with Bohemia and Spain. Eight years were lost; hundreds and thousands of men had died; the manpower pool was depleted; the army demoralized and the Imam humiliated. The Commonwealth had triumphed..

Asia in 1574

Comments:

We can only hope that religious wars will weaken the Catholics in the near future.
Our defeat against the Commonwealth is a really bad. We lost eight year in which we did practically nothing. But at least we fought bravely enough and managed not to lose any territory. Alliances can be restored easily but lost territory would be more challenging to reconquer.
Our allies betrayed us all by peacing out of the punitive war. What use are allies if they don’t fight until the end, especially when we are talking about defensive wars?!
At least we are able to feed some of Serbia to our vassal Croatia and the campaign against the nomads went also as planned but overall, we experienced more setbacks than anticipated in this chapter.
Manpower is terribly low. That's the price we paid for not having to cede any territory to the enemy during the punitive war.

 

[delpiero1234]

Chapter IX - European Wars​

Callistus began to restore order after the crushing defeat against the Commonwealth. Rebellions were an issue in Damascus and Aleppo. Mercenaries were sent from Venice to Syria to deal with them because the Aramata Romana was still too weak to deal with revolts. It was believed that it was going to take many years before the army fully recovered.
Any potential wars against weaker neighbors had to be fought with mercenaries. Callistus did not want to wait around and even though a new anti-Roman coalition could form any moment, he declared war on the nomadic tribe of Qara Qoyunlu which helped territory that rightfully belonged to his subject Iraq. These nomads ruled over a large realm but because of too many recent uprisings, their army consisted of less than 10.000 men.
Imam Callistus was confident that 26.0000 mercenaries were enough to crush them.

In fact, probably half of the 26.000 mercenaries were enough to ensure victory said one of the generals to Callistus. The general was right. In less than 3 years, their entire realm was occupied by mercenaries fighting for the Roman Empire.
In 1577, the War of the Protestant League broke out. England led the Protestant League, whereas the Catholic forces were led by the Emperor, King of Bohemia.
The nomads ceded Sivas and Trebizond to the Roman Empire, returned three core provinces to Iraq and on top of that ceded four additional provinces to them.
After the war, Callistus agreed with his advisors that it was necessary to find new allies. The only ally of the Roman Empire was Tunis. Fortunately, Russia agreed to an alliance.

Callistus released Aquileia as a Sunni vassal in Friuli because he was planing on hitting the Austrians which were embroiled in the War of the Protestant League. Any potential conquered Austrian territory could then be given to Aquileia.
War preparations for a campaign against Austria were progressing well even when Callistus gave orders to also hit the Mamluks. After the war against the Mamluks had begun, a comet was sighted over Alexandria. Some peasants believed the end was nigh!

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In 1579, one year after the declaration of war, the Mamluks were annexed by the Roman Empire. By that time they had only controlled four provinces. In the following weeks, the war preparations against Austria were completed and war was declared. The Roman Empire had high chances of winning the war, said the bookkeepers.
The Imam was advised to expand the administration because it was at its limits. Such a large realm as the Roman Empire required a better and more efficient administration. Callistus agreed to reason and focused from this day on on administrative ideas.

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The war against Austria was going well because the Austrian forced had mostly been killed during the War of the Protestant League. It was a wise decision not to side with any of the two sides during that ‘war of Christianity’.
That is why a second war was declared on the one-province-minor Serbia and her ally Naples. The odds were good that the Roman Empire was going to annex the Serbs. And indeed, that was exactly what happened. The Neapolitan army was crushed and immediately after the full annexation of Serbia was demanded in the Treaty of Pisa.

In the summer of 1581, the war with Austria came to an end after the Habsburgs agreed to cede three provinces, namely Lienz, Kärnten and Görz to Aquileia. They also paid 399 ducats as war compensation.
Back at peace, 74-year-old Callistus sent one of his most trusted diplomats to the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The diplomat began working on integrating Iraq into the Roman Empire. The Imam wanted saw not much use anymore in this vassal and hence he came to this decision.
A much more useful vassal was going to be Provence

All Roman forces, mercenaries and regular troops alike, were stationed near the French-Roman border. The truce with France was about to expire and given that most of Europe was still embroiled in the War of the Protestant League this was a perfect opportunity to declare war on the French. France had greatly contributed in the last anti-Roman punitive war and now it was payback time! Tunis sided with Imam Callistus; Burgundy and Scotland with France but before the declaration of war, the Imam released Avignon as a Sunni vassal. He was planing on feeding Avignon some French provinces in a potential victory but the obvious goal of the war was to conquer Piedmont, one of the provinces which was required to declare the Kingdom of Allah on Earth.

Fighting France required better infantry and so, inspired by Maurice of Nassau, the Roman Empire made the Maurician Infantry their primary unit type. The Maurician Infantry had superior skills and better moral.
The unfortunate passing of Callistus was toped only by the incompetence of his successor. Paulus III was a 0/4/3 Imam. He had no administration skill which was crucial to administrate a large realm like the Roman Empire. Some pious people believed that Allah was punishing the Roman Empire for expanding at a fast pace.
After Dijon, the capital of Burgundy, had been occupied, their King agreed to pay monthly war reparation and peaced out of the war. This weakened the defending forces further and at the same time increased the Roman chances of victory.

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It was 1586 and the war with France had been going on for 4 years. By that time, the majority of their country, including Paris, had been occupied by Roman forces. The Imam was hopeful that this was going to be a successful military endeavour...

Comments:

We are currently embroiled in a war against the French which we are winning! So that is good news. Maybe we can give our vassal Avignon some more land?
Our campaign against the Habsburgs of Austria was a success and by establishing Aquileia as a vassal we were able to save lots of ADM.
Switzerland is still holding territory in Northern Italy, namely Brescia. But attacking them would mean risking a war with our ally Bohemia. The Swiss are also allied to Bavaria and other HRE members so for now we will have to focus on other targets. Maybe we can hit the Austrians again - The Emperor won't protect them since Austria is his rival.
Our Imam, Paulus III, is a moron. One of the annoying things of being a theocracy is that you can often end up with weak, incapable rulers.
Maybe we will expand into Africa a bit more. It’s safer to expand there compared to Europe were hostile coalitions spawn all the time.
The War of the Protestant League is finally causing some chaos in Europe! We will have to continue using this to our advantage.

 

[CorwinusJ]

Attacking Switzerland is not a priority, but the chance you get to take them on you should. In the peace deal with France you should definitely get a border with Spain so that you can attack them for Aragon... though, it might be beneficial to wait until they annex Portugal, because you can release it as a vassal later, just like Aragon/Catalunya. And, of course, Northern Africa... I'd advise you attack them all only when you get a good ADM ruler and take only the coastal provinces with maybe some inland for prettier borders, if you wish.

You have 235 years to -reconquer the Roman Empire at the height of it's power and perhaps even more(All of Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, Crimea, Caucasian region, hell Persia if you'd go there. I wouldn't because I love nice borders and the Iraq/Armenia/Azerbaijan ones are just that). WIth your skill level, you could do it, coalitions or no.

 

[delpiero1234]

Attacking Switzerland is not a priority, but the chance you get to take them on you should. In the peace deal with France you should definitely get a border with Spain so that you can attack them for Aragon... though, it might be beneficial to wait until they annex Portugal, because you can release it as a vassal later, just like Aragon/Catalunya. And, of course, Northern Africa... I'd advise you attack them all only when you get a good ADM ruler and take only the coastal provinces with maybe some inland for prettier borders, if you wish.

You have 235 years to -reconquer the Roman Empire at the height of it's power and perhaps even more(All of Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, Crimea, Caucasian region, hell Persia if you'd go there. I wouldn't because I love nice borders and the Iraq/Armenia/Azerbaijan ones are just that). WIth your skill level, you could do it, coalitions or no.

Thanks for the advise, as always appreciated!

I agree with you that Switzerland is not a high priority target - at the moment there are bigger fish to fry like the French and the Austrians
I'll continue the campaign later and plan to give Avignon some French provinces so that it borders Spain and in the long run I have in mind to feed Burgundian provinces to Avignon, too, but right now I don't plan on attacking them.

Northern Africa is a target I have not forgotten about. Spain has been busy conquering provinces in the region but sooner or later I will confront them to conquer at leas the coastal territory. The alliance with Tunis will come to an end once I plan on conquering the region, I guess. Vassal feeding is also an option to conquer Northern Africa and Iberia. Depending on how big I want Avignon to become, I could feed them the Iberian coastline or I could create a new vassal in Iberia like Galicia, Navarra or Aragon. I have to be careful though with attacking the Spanish as they are one of my few allies. Nevertheless, at some point the alliance must end..

Cheers and thanks for reading!

 

[delpiero1234]

Chapter X - Bashing the Europeans​

The war against France continued for a few more weeks. The population of the Roman Empire knew that victory was near!
Imam Paulus traveled to Avignon from the seat of power, Rome. In Avignon he met with King Charles X of France. There the peace negotiations were concluded.
France ceded Piedmont and Wallis to the Papal State and five provinces to Avignon. Pay back completed! The War of the Protestant League in the Holy Roman Empire had ended in total victory for Emperor Premsyl Oktakar IV of Bohemia. Catholicism had been proclaimed the sole confessional faith of the Holy Roman Empire.

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Paulus really knew nothing about administrating a realm but he understood that diplomacy was important, especially after nine countries had formed a new coalition against his Roman Empire. That’s why he decided to reestablish the alliance with the Crown of Spain. On his way back from Spain, Paulus II died a tragic accident: His ship sunk in one of the storms over the Mediterranean Sea.
Pius II was elected as his successor and became Imam of the Roman Empire. Pius was not a very good monarch either but at least he wasn’t that awful. His stats were 3/3/2
The realm stayed at peace for a couple of years before in 1590 the expansion into Africa continued with a Jihad against the Coptic people of Medri Bahri. The fellow Coptic nations of Ethiopia and Kaffa sided with the enemy.
Iraq was integrated into the Roman Empire in October of 1591. This was a glorious moment for Pius II. His empire now stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Persia and the Red Sea.

The war with Medri Bahri was short because Imam Pius II had only intended to conquer three provinces in that war. This conquest increased the Roman influence over the Red Sea. To even further strengthen the Roman position in the area, Pius offered Shammar to become his vassal. The Sheikh of Shammar, Mani I of House Rashid, accepted the Imam’s generous offer. At the same time, he gave orders to integrate Aquileia. Shammar was a very advanced Sheikdom. They even completed westernization before they became a subject of Pius II.

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Shammar was bordering Oman, a heretic sultanate that followed the Ibadi faith. It was time to clean the heresy! Qara Qoyunlu was one of the countries that sided with Oman and they happened to the the first that were defeated, ceding two provinces to the Roman Empire.
Provinces after provinces was occupied and Oman had no hope in winning this war. They begged for peace but the Roman forces continued to exercise cruel behavior in the occupied territory until Oman was willing to accept unconditional surrender.

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Oman was forced to cede nine provinces to Shammar, including their capital Muscat which was an important trading port. At peace, an alliance with Bohemia was formed to further deter any potential punitive wars against the Roman Empire. Soon afterwards, the coalition was disbanded.

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Pius II then had the brilliant idea of going on a Jihad against Austria. Russia supported the Roman plan; the Commonwealh, Burgundy and others sided with the Habsburgs. Smelling victory, the annexation of Aquileia was canceled even though it was nearly completed. It was better to feed them more provinces he felt and so did Pius II's advisors.

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Occupied territory in the Roman Jihad against Austria in 1600:

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In 1602 hostilities came to an end with the Peace of Vienna which granted Aquileia ownership of Salzburg, Krain, Steiermark and Graz. Now Pius II was sure that it was safe to annex Aquileia. The lost diplomatic points were no tragedy.
Pius II received an update from his advisors on European politics; England was eager to form Great Britain and only lacked one province to full-full the requirements. The problem? Scotland was allied to super strong France. The Commonwealth had expanded into the Steppe region; Spain had continued her project of establishing a base in Northern Africa.

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Nobles demanded recompensation for their sacrifices during the latest wars. The Imam was advised to pay them off and so he did. This required the Roman Empire to take a loan of more than 1200 ducats from Florentine bankers.
From Italy, 24.000 mercenaries traveled by ship to Alexandria where they joined another 17.000 mercenaries. Together they marched along the coast of the Red Sea to Medri Bahri. The Imam had plans to move further into Africa and therefore declared war not only on Medri Bahri but also on Alodia. Some of the African tribes had completed westernization and it was only 1604! How silly.

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Pius II’s skill as administrator could still improve because the administration had failed the Roman people. Instead of justice for all there was justice for the few. This undermined the very support for the Roman Empire. It was a sad state of affairs that consequently led to a stability drop.
Medri Bahri was annexed in December of 1604 after every single province had been occupied by Roman mercenaries; the fighting against Alodia and her allies Ethiopia continued for another year but eventually they lost, too, and ceded two provinces to the Roman Empire. Pius II now concentrated again on stabilizing the realm. He also wanted to repay the loan he owned to the Florentines.

The Roman Empire in 1605

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Comments:

This was a crushing defeat for the French! All glory to Rome!
Our campaigns in Africa were successful, too, and at the moment it does not look like that we will be the target of another punitive war.
Our new ruler is still not that great but he is much better than Paulus II.
It’s slightly annoying that we had to cancel the annexation of Aquileia. We lost a few hundred diplomatic power but given that diplomat zc power is not that important this is not a huge tragedy. At least by canceling the annexation process, we were able to give our vassal more Austrian provinces which they core for us.

 

[CorwinusJ]

What's the diplomatic situation of Naples and Ragusa? I gather you'd conquer them both but coalitions/alliances are getting in the way. Yemen and Haasa are OPM's you could easily eat, though maybe not Yemen as you don't border them at the moment, unless Shammar has a claim on the province.

Since you've got truce with about half of Europe at the moment, you can either go for Tunis or the Caucasus. Now that your African provinces don't count as overseas, you need a vassal in both regions since conquering them outright is just too painful. I gather you are already at your diplomatic limit, but then again DIP points don't matter nearly as much as ADM or MIL so you can vassalize Georgia easily and release Tripoli(the irony, wow) as another vassal.

Cheers to you to! I enjoy reading these.

 

[delpiero1234]

What's the diplomatic situation of Naples and Ragusa? I gather you'd conquer them both but coalitions/alliances are getting in the way. .

Naples is in a coalition against me and they have allied the blobby Commonwealth. I will attack Naples once there is an opportunity but to be honest, their provinces are rather worthless anyways but of course I need to rule the entire Italian Peninsulr before 1821
Ragusa is allied to Bohemia and I don't plan to lose my alliance with the Emperor just yet. Bohemia is also allied with Spain so soon enough that alliance will come to an end anyways.
In the next chapter I plan to hit the French again and conquer more of their rich lands. I'd also love for Avignon to have a larger border with Spain since I plan to fight them once I have beaten down the French.

Yemen and Haasa are OPM's you could easily eat, though maybe not Yemen as you don't border them at the moment, unless Shammar has a claim on the province.

Shammar doesn't have a claim on Yemen but once I integrate Shammar I can use the Clean the Hersey CB on Yemen since they are Shiite. Haasa has too many allies to be bothered with right now. I will annex them eventually but it's only worth to fight Haasa once I have annexed Shammar.

you can either go for Tunis or the Caucasus. I gather you are already at your diplomatic limit, but then again DIP points don't matter nearly as much as ADM or MIL so you can vassalize Georgia easily and release Tripoli(the irony, wow) as another vassal.

For the Caucaus I have a special plan: I want to conquer some Armenian cores from Qara Qoyunlu and use these to establish a sunni vassal in the region. Your suggestions with Georgia is excellent, too, but if I'm not mistaken, Georgia is Orthodox and I rather have a Sunni vassal over an Orthodox one (can't check right now since I am not in game).

Tunis is more tricky: It's not possible to release Tripoli because Tripoli formed Tunis and if a TAG forms a new country then the cores of the old TAG are all lost (this also means that there are no more Castilian cores in Spain; no Polish cores in the Commonwealth, etc). This is a bit unfortunate. So I don't think I will make a move against Tunis before I've hit the Spanish. Tunis could prove to be a useful ally in that war as they border the Spanish lands in Northern Africa.

 

[CorwinusJ]

For the Caucaus I have a special plan: I want to conquer some Armenian cores from Qara Qoyunlu and use these to establish a sunni vassal in the region. Your suggestions with Georgia is excellent, too, but if I'm not mistaken, Georgia is Orthodox and I rather have a Sunni vassal over an Orthodox one (can't check right now since I am not in game).

Tunis is more tricky: It's not possible to release Tripoli because Tripoli formed Tunis and if a TAG forms a new country then the cores of the old TAG are all lost (this also means that there are no more Castilian cores in Spain; no Polish cores in the Commonwealth, etc). This is a bit unfortunate. So I don't think I will make a move against Tunis before I've hit the Spanish. Tunis could prove to be a useful ally in that war as they border the Spanish lands in Northern Africa.

Unless they were conquered by someone Sunni who converted them, then released, Georgia definitely is Orthodox. You're right, it's much easier to have Armenia as a Sunni vassal since they'll convert your provinces... Though there's also the subject interaction to forcibly change their religion, it's not like the liberty desire hit is unmanageable since Georgia is far too weak to challenge you.

Ah, I forgot about that. It's a damn shame, that. The way in North Africa for you is clear, then --> first Spain, then Tunis. Tunis probably has something like 20-30k troops at this stage of the game so they are a fantastic ally for the first couple of wars vs Spain.

I haven't played EUIV for some time and you got me to play it again, not as the Papal State but as Tuscany(If I wasn't so lazy to mod Roman Empire in or allow the existing one to be formable by Italian cultures, I might have considered going as the Pope). I've played only something like 10 years of the game, conquered Siena, Lucca and Modena and I have France, Savoy and Milan as allies. I don't have a lot of room to expand more, but I'll sqeak more provinces in my realm.

 

[ThePatriotOfDreumel]

Naples is in a coalition against me and they have allied the blobby Commonwealth. I will attack Naples once there is an opportunity but to be honest, their provinces are rather worthless anyways but of course I need to rule the entire Italian Peninsulr before 1821
Ragusa is allied to Bohemia and I don't plan to lose my alliance with the Emperor just yet. Bohemia is also allied with Spain so soon enough that alliance will come to an end anyways.
In the next chapter I plan to hit the French again and conquer more of their rich lands. I'd also love for Avignon to have a larger border with Spain since I plan to fight them once I have beaten down the French.


Shammar doesn't have a claim on Yemen but once I integrate Shammar I can use the Clean the Hersey CB on Yemen since they are Shiite. Haasa has too many allies to be bothered with right now. I will annex them eventually but it's only worth to fight Haasa once I have annexed Shammar.


For the Caucaus I have a special plan: I want to conquer some Armenian cores from Qara Qoyunlu and use these to establish a sunni vassal in the region. Your suggestions with Georgia is excellent, too, but if I'm not mistaken, Georgia is Orthodox and I rather have a Sunni vassal over an Orthodox one (can't check right now since I am not in game).

Tunis is more tricky: It's not possible to release Tripoli because Tripoli formed Tunis and if a TAG forms a new country then the cores of the old TAG are all lost (this also means that there are no more Castilian cores in Spain; no Polish cores in the Commonwealth, etc). This is a bit unfortunate. So I don't think I will make a move against Tunis before I've hit the Spanish. Tunis could prove to be a useful ally in that war as they border the Spanish lands in Northern Africa.

He could also restore Carthage to the empire.

 

[atwix]

why did you cancel integration of aquilea? Was there no way to increase their libery desire above 50 for a period of time? That would have stalled the integration.

Hope you weren't too far with integrating them... I cringe at a waste of monarch points

 

[delpiero1234]

I haven't played EUIV for some time and you got me to play it again, not as the Papal State but as Tuscany(If I wasn't so lazy to mod Roman Empire in or allow the existing one to be formable by Italian cultures, I might have considered going as the Pope). I've played only something like 10 years of the game, conquered Siena, Lucca and Modena and I have France, Savoy and Milan as allies. I don't have a lot of room to expand more, but I'll sqeak more provinces in my realm.

The Italian minors are always a fun and challenging choice, aren't they If you can make claims on Naples from Siena then try to hit them if your allies support you in the war. Also taking Umbria, Ancona and Urbino from the Papal State is a good move if you want to weaken the Pope's position.

He could also restore Carthage to the empire.

Tunis/Carthage will be conquered after I've dealt with the Spanish

why did you cancel integration of aquilea? Was there no way to increase their libery desire above 50 for a period of time? That would have stalled the integration.

Hope you weren't too far with integrating them... I cringe at a waste of monarch points

I had to cancel the integration of Aquileia at about 97% and thereby lost about 500 Dip points. Luckily it's only dip points. The choice was to either core these provinces I conquered from Austria myself or to give them to Aquileia. Since I was low on ADM I decided to cancel the integration and gave them to my subject. It was a difficult decision but I thought there was no other option really..
I also did not know that the integration process stops when liberty desire reaches more than 50%. That's very useful information. Thanks!

 

[delpiero1234]

Chapter XI - The Kingdom of Allah on Earth​

News arrived in Rome, that Tunis, a Roman ally in Northern Africa, was close to becoming westernised. They had adopted the Roman ways and soon they were going to to have superior technologies available to them. A scout also arrived from Friuli and delivered a message to the beloved Imam: There had been no problems regarding the integration process of Aquileia! Fantastic news these were.
Pius was very pleased. Generally speaking, the realm did well even though he was an incapable ruler. The economy was flourishing, Roman merchants were respected throughout the Mediterranean and the military was one of the strongest in the world.

​

The military was looking for a new adventure and Pius was looking forward to launch a second campaign against the evil French. In 1606, the Imam declared war on France which was backed by the Crown of Sweden and the one-province-minor Scotland. France had established two colonial nations which supported their overlord with ducats.
The French forces were outnumbered and the Roman army, supported by ten thousands of mercenaries, had not much difficulty in winning the first few battles.

France was less fortified compared to many other Western countries like Spain or the Roman Empire which made it easy to occupy their lands. Even Paris could not withstand the Roman siege engineers for long. The local garrison surrendered quickly. Sweden made some attempts to land troops in the Terra Ferra but each of these landing parties was killed before any harm was done. Then Pius II gave the orders to blockade the Straits of Gibraltar so that no further Swedish ships could advance into the Mediterranean.
After the French war exhaustion was sky high, a treaty between both parties was signed on neutral territory. Delegates from France the Roman Empire met in Navarra were a treaty was signed in which the French ceded Vaud to the Papal States as well as five provinces to Avignon. Victory!

The Treaty of Navarra also divided the French ream into two parts. The generals of Rome were hoping that this was going to weaken France further. Avignon and Brittany controlled the provinces that split France into two. Avignon had an impressive size anyways. Given that it started as a one-province-minor in Avignon. It even shared a border with Spain. Spanish provinces could be conquered and then given to Avignon. However, Spain was still an ally of the Romans and it was not the time for a betrayal (just yet).
The Emperor declared war on the Palatinate and called the Roman Empire into the war. The goal was to conquer Straubing. The call to arms was accepted but no Roman actively participated in any of the battles. That was because the Roman Empire had declared war on Oman and their allies which included Qara Qoyunlu and others. This was a relatively short but important war because in this war the Roman forces conquered much of the Omani coastline for their vassal, Shammar and on top of that, Qara Qoyunlu ceded some Aremnian provinces to the Roman Empire. These provinces were converted from Shia to Sunni and then used to release Armenia as a Sunni vassal. The Roman Empire now had a strong presence in the Caucasus.
Adal was another country that had sided with Oman and they too had to cede some territory to Shammar which was now incredibly large, controlling almost the entire Arabian peninsular. It was time to begin integrating them into the Roman Empire.

Pius II died in 1614 a natural death. He was old and this incapable ruler was finally gone. Pius II was succeeded by a talented administrator, Nicolaus V. His attention to detail was surly going to benefit the realm but besides that he was poorly skilled in the arts of war and an awful diplomat.
Nicolaus V was surprised when, only a few days after he became Imam, Crimea sent a call to arms in which they asked the Roman Empire to support them against the heathen of the Commonwealth. The Roman Empire was the Defender of the Faith and the Commonwealth was attacking a Sunni country. For a moment, Nicolaus considered dishonoring the call to arms but eventually he agreed to side with Crimea.

A few weeks later, Russia declared a war on the Commonwealth with the goal to purge what they called heresy: Catholicism.
Not much later, Bohemia also declared war on the Commonwealth. It looked liked everybody was hating on the Commonwealth. This pleased Nicolaus as it made things much easier and he was now confident that his troops were going to defend Crimea well.
Naples sided with the Commonwealth and a Roman army was sent to Southern Italy to defeat their troops. Afterwards, they besieged all Neapolitan provinces. Once this was accomplished, the Imam hoped that Crimea was going to be generous and at least force Naples to cede one or two provinces to the Roman Empire but no. All that Crimea demanded was some gold. How insulting!
After this insult, the Roman army concentrated on besieging fortified provinces only. This accumulated war score the fastest and allowed Nicolaus to dictate terms in a separate peace treaty with the Commonwealth.

​

The treaty between the Commonwealth and the Roman Empire saw Wallachia being annexed by the Romans. Wallachia used to be a vassal of the Commonwealth before the annexation.
New spread through Europe that in England a civil war had broken out that was tearing the country apart. Chaos among Christian nations were always good news in Rome.

​

The Roman Empire had managed to unite the whole of Italy under the banner of Islam. Therefore, Nicolaus V saw it fit to declare his realm the Kingdom of Allah on Earth. Sunnis from all over the world flocked to his banner, eager to love in this model nation of Sunni virtue. This was a glorious day for the Roman Empire. What was next? Maybe Uniting Islam? But that was a tough challenge and Nicolaus knew that this was an utopia.

​

Back at peace, the military advised Nicolaus to further focus on improving the quality of the army. A quality army fights tougher than an army focusing on quantity. At least that was the common understanding between military experts of the realm.
The integration of Aquileia was completed without problems and their territory was now an integral part of the Roman Empire.
A messenger arrived in Rome informing the military that it was estimated that Spain was going to complete the integration of Portugal in about 20 years! What a shock. Something had to be done said the Imam to his genera. Spain was an ally but he did not care. If the integration was going to complete then Spain was going to dominate even more. At least that was the fear. Maybe a betrayal was necessary before it was too late.
Aremnia's realm grew with a war against the Shiites of Shirvan. This war was quickly won and Armenia gained most of the Shirvani territory, in fact Shirvan was reduced to just three provinces.

The Roman Empire in 1621:

Comments:
We were lucky that our allies declared separate wars against the Commonwealth right at the same time we were called to war against them. This made the war so much easier.
We have to do something about Spain. Most probably an invasion. Avignon shares a border with the Spanish and we could feed them some territory. Unfortunately, the Spanish are allied to our ally Bohemia but attacking them sooner rather than later seems like a good move. Otherwise they might get too powerful.
Aquileia is finally annexed and we can now concentrate on other vassals. If we plan to continue attacking the HRE then we probably have to establish a new vassal inside the HRE. Tirol could be an option but as of now it is better to focus on Iberia.
It is disappointing that the AI is such a troll. We occupied all of Naples, defeated the Commonwealth for Crimea and in return we received nothing from them.
Our vassal Aremnia will be very useful to us. We need to hit Georgia soon and feed that territory to Aremnia.
Shammar is mighty blob in Arabia but we already begun integrating it so the territory will soon be ruled from Rome. Avignon is also doing well since we released it as vassal many decades ago. It now has a long enough border with Spain to risk a war with them. Exciting times!

Thanks for reading!

 

[atwix]

maybe integrate avignon and release guyenne after? I'd feed entire Brittany to Guyenne then.

It also seems you never focus on more then one war at once...

Could combine (harder) war in europe with (easier) war in asia and one in africa, to spread the AE.

But overall, nice job.

I'm seriously considering writing papal state AAR of me own someday.. In patch 1.14 or so, after they finetuned developmment etc.

Good AAR, by the way!

 

[delpiero1234]

maybe integrate avignon and release guyenne after? I'd feed entire Brittany to Guyenne then.

It also seems you never focus on more then one war at once...

Could combine (harder) war in europe with (easier) war in asia and one in africa, to spread the AE.

But overall, nice job.

I'm seriously considering writing papal state AAR of me own someday.. In patch 1.14 or so, after they finetuned developmment etc.

Papal State is extremely fun and I can highly recommend playing as them.
I plan to feed some of Spain to Avignon before integrating them and Guyenne seems like a good choice for s vassal in France.

I see if I can fight some more wars simultaneously But neext chapter it will be all-out war against Spain, I hope.

 

[atwix]

Don't feed spain to avignon, thats silly.

Integrate avignon, as papal state is best with temporarily vassals that you integrate (for the monthly reduction to autonomy once you integrated them).

I'd release guyenne. From Spain I'd release Catalunya and feed 'm entire spain. If you can't release Catalunya as sunni, conquer Granada and release them. They should Always be sunni, since they are 'historical' sunni.

Don't know exactly how this rule for releasing vassals and adopting religion goes.

Anyways, I think all iberian nations take religious... So Granada, Catalunya etc might be a good vassal to feed entire North africa to.

 

[delpiero1234]

Ah that's good to know! I will fight 1 war with Spain then integrate Avignon (already started the wsr yesterday night) and make a new vassal in that area for future vassals.

Religion is quite an issue. A vassal will only be Sunni if the majority of their cores are Sunni and provinces of their original faith count 50% more. But my missionary strength is good so I can convert the provinces before releasing the vassal. Granada might be a good vassal but I don't know if I can feed them North African provinces because there is no straiys between Iberia and Tangiers so I have doubts that it'll work. Will try tonight

 

[atwix]

just sell your iberian vassal port the most western port core from mamluks, after securing claims. Work your way rest from there, giving your vassal more and more land. You can take low development port province after first war on the nations west of mamluks, core it, make more claims, sell that cored port to vassal again rinse repeat.

You don't even need to feed africa to IBERIAN vassal.... Maybe its better to feed your iberian vassal entire Spain, in intervals. Like feed catalunya, integrate, release Navarra, feed them lot, integrate, release Galicia etcetc.

Since you are sunni, you may as well force vassalise a small nation in north africa. But religious nations give less rebels... Dunno if there is religious nation in north africa that is sunni... Yhe only theocracy there isn't sunni... But I may be wrong.

Anyways: do any of the mamluk ports have cores from tripoli or any other nation? You might release that...

Or core sardiania and make claims on tunesia from there.

Plenty possibilities, and happy to help further if needed.

 

[delpiero1234]

I got home from work now and will post Chapter XII in an hour or so.
Unfortunatly there are no small nations in North Africa left. Tripoli lost all its cores when it formed Tunis (was quite funny because I had forced the original Tunis to release Tripoli then I allied Tripoli and Tripoli beat up Tunis and then formed Tunis ) Fez lost all its cores, too. The Tlemcen region is Catholic because of Spain. There is Kabylia but it's a vassal from Morocco and Tunis is currently fighting a war for Kabylia which I peaced out of long time ago.
Since most of Chapter XII is already written and played, I'd appreciate more advice for Chapter XIII once I've posted Chapter XII

 

[Sousuke123]

Instead of thinking of creating vassals in North Africa simply core it by yourself through colony trick and taking adaptability from administrative. Most of provinces will have coring cost around 30 so it's not a big deal.