Hello and welcome to my first attempt at playing EU4 outside of the 1444 starting bookmark. 1530 is not one of the recommended bookmarks, but it is at this time that I think Europe is a complete powder key and, as such, this can be a really fun time to get in on the action. The First Ottoman-Habsburg war is ongoing as the Ottomans start to reach the gates of Vienna, the Ottomans and Spanish have become immense powers that send shivers down the spine of neighboring OPMs and the 30 year war is soon to begin. But we will not be playing a prominent power in this setting, but instead the Knights of the Order of St. John.
For anyone returning, I have put up chapter links! For newcomers, just keep reading the introduction which follows the links... don't skip to Chapter 1!!
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Chronicle of l'Isle Adam 1530-1535
Chapter 2: Like Knight and Day 1536-1550
Chapter 3: Time is Running Out 1551-1571
Chapter 4: The Sub-Saharan Crusades 1571-1587
Chapter 5: The Road to Jerusalem 1587-1600
Chapter 6: Into the European Theater 1600-1625
Chapter 7: The Crusader States Reborn 1625-1648
Chapter 8: Of Dreams And Nightmares 1648-1670
Chapter 9: Yesterday's Friends, Today's Enemies 1670-1694
Introduction to the Knights
The Knights have long been driven out of the Holy Land, and even Rhodes has fallen to the Great Turk. While without a land to call their own, the Order of St. John did not fade away, and continued its work across Europe. In 1530, Spanish Emperor Charles V granted our monastic order the lands of Malta and Tripoli. Historically, the Knights actually turned Malta into a great forttress which would repel the Turks, and in later years actually gained colonies in the Caribbean before eventually falling into decline and falling under French and finally English control in 1800.
In this AAR, I will instead be attempting to revive the Knights and defeat the immense Ottoman Empire to reclaim the holy lands to form the Kingdom of Jerusalem. I believe that this will be much more challenging than a typical Knights 1444 play through because the Ottomans are at their height of power compared to earlier bookmarks.
With such a daunting task ahead of us, we need a ruler that is exceptional and can look at the Ottoman threat without fear. Luckily, the Knights starts with just one such a ruler.
Grandmaster Philippe de l'Isle Adam (4/4/5) is not only an incredible starting ruler, but he starts as a general with unbelievable abilities of 6 fire, 5 shock, 5 maneuver and even 1 siege. If that also wasn't enough, we also start with an incredible admiral at the head of our navy and our capital is incredibly defensible should we be able to construct a large enough navy to defend it. The biggest problem is that the Grandmaster is quite old; he is already 66 and could die quite soon. We also are rather poor, with only 13 national development, so if the Turk attacked no matter how great our general might be, we would be overwhelmed by numbers alone.
As we are starting in 1530, some of the ideas are already chosen for us, as seen below:
Armed with the holy war casus belli, I immediately gathered l'Isle Adam and the 5000 knights of Malta to prepare themselves for their first steps in the reconquest of the Hold Land.
For anyone returning, I have put up chapter links! For newcomers, just keep reading the introduction which follows the links... don't skip to Chapter 1!!
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Chronicle of l'Isle Adam 1530-1535
Chapter 2: Like Knight and Day 1536-1550
Chapter 3: Time is Running Out 1551-1571
Chapter 4: The Sub-Saharan Crusades 1571-1587
Chapter 5: The Road to Jerusalem 1587-1600
Chapter 6: Into the European Theater 1600-1625
Chapter 7: The Crusader States Reborn 1625-1648
Chapter 8: Of Dreams And Nightmares 1648-1670
Chapter 9: Yesterday's Friends, Today's Enemies 1670-1694
Introduction to the Knights
The Knights have long been driven out of the Holy Land, and even Rhodes has fallen to the Great Turk. While without a land to call their own, the Order of St. John did not fade away, and continued its work across Europe. In 1530, Spanish Emperor Charles V granted our monastic order the lands of Malta and Tripoli. Historically, the Knights actually turned Malta into a great forttress which would repel the Turks, and in later years actually gained colonies in the Caribbean before eventually falling into decline and falling under French and finally English control in 1800.
In this AAR, I will instead be attempting to revive the Knights and defeat the immense Ottoman Empire to reclaim the holy lands to form the Kingdom of Jerusalem. I believe that this will be much more challenging than a typical Knights 1444 play through because the Ottomans are at their height of power compared to earlier bookmarks.
With such a daunting task ahead of us, we need a ruler that is exceptional and can look at the Ottoman threat without fear. Luckily, the Knights starts with just one such a ruler.
Grandmaster Philippe de l'Isle Adam (4/4/5) is not only an incredible starting ruler, but he starts as a general with unbelievable abilities of 6 fire, 5 shock, 5 maneuver and even 1 siege. If that also wasn't enough, we also start with an incredible admiral at the head of our navy and our capital is incredibly defensible should we be able to construct a large enough navy to defend it. The biggest problem is that the Grandmaster is quite old; he is already 66 and could die quite soon. We also are rather poor, with only 13 national development, so if the Turk attacked no matter how great our general might be, we would be overwhelmed by numbers alone.
As we are starting in 1530, some of the ideas are already chosen for us, as seen below:
Armed with the holy war casus belli, I immediately gathered l'Isle Adam and the 5000 knights of Malta to prepare themselves for their first steps in the reconquest of the Hold Land.
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