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Ay, stick em with the pointy end! :)

Great Britain is going to be awesome! Unfortunately Chaos can make him fail again this time.
 
Finally, success! I knew you'd pull it off someday. :)

Are Great Britain and Castille fairly big? I'd love to see a giant war for once where there isn't a risk of annexation.
 
Ay, stick em with the pointy end! :)

Great Britain is going to be awesome! Unfortunately Chaos can make him fail again this time.

Indeed he can.

Finally, success! I knew you'd pull it off someday. :)

Are Great Britain and Castille fairly big? I'd love to see a giant war for once where there isn't a risk of annexation.

Great Britain is pretty standard, apart from one Irish province that belongs to Castille (Meath, maybe?), and Castille is pretty much the normal size + a good chunk of North Africa. So yeah, Annexation isn't going to happen one way or the other :)
 
Britain not controlling Meath?
Oh the irony
 
I just noticed this but Chaos sounds a lot like Nitche's views on said subject.

Excellent AAR too.

I've only ever read Beyond Good and Evil, so there could be some subconscious influences there. It's not intentional.

Updates for this will slow down just a bit -- my desktop's internet is wonky and my laptop is too puny to play EU 3. I'll still comment, and I do encourage you to stop by We, the People, which will run normally since I'm nowhere near actually playing yet :)
 
That was hilarious. Just how terrifying must the Mazovian queen mother have been prior to Daniels takeover to intimidate Bohemia?
 
That was hilarious. Just how terrifying must the Mazovian queen mother have been prior to Daniels takeover to intimidate Bohemia?

I'm glad she isn't my mother, that's all I have to say. :)
 
:rofl:
These monarchs...

Indeed.

If everything goes well, I should have the new NIC tomorrow or Saturday, so, hopefully, I'll update this weekend. No promises though!
 
Great Britain: Tally ho! (And so forth): Part 1

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(Not pictured: Nice, which I also have, somehow.)

Daniel Carlson had been trapped in limbo for a few days now. At first he found the utter oblivion and the complete nothingness rather soothing. It gave him time to think over his situation, specifically, why Chaos had told him the bathroom was the 43rd door on the left instead of the 42nd door on the left. Instead of washing his hands at Deceitful-Bill's, he tumbled through the void.

Regardless of how he'd ended up there, he came to a startling realization. He actually found limbo too boring. He was flabbergasted. Well, that may be overstating things a touch, but I like the word "flabbergasted." It's really fun to say! Go ahead and try it. I'll wait.
...
...
...

Wasn't that great? Anyway, Daniel found that his experiences with Chaos, as horrible, terrifying, nerve-wracking, and occasionally deadly as they had been, were also kind of entertaining. He'd gone, at one point, four hours without thinking about the tax code. That was a personal best, surpassing his previous record of five minutes, or the five minutes immediately after his birth. At minute six, his father, a tax accountant as well, said the word "deductible." That was also Daniel's first word. Could he even go back to his old life? Maybe be a lion tamer? No, wait, that was too exciting. Banker sounded more his style.

(Note: A Monty Python reference, of course. Settle in; there will probably be a lot of them.)

Daniel felt like a man living on the edge. He might even try that zesty new condiment his boss was always going on about... ketchup? Was that it? He didn't know. His boss was always the crazy one of the bunch. On some days, his tie was off center by exactly .34 degrees! Daniel chuckled to himself. He was a party animal, that one. As for Daniel, well, that was too much. He still used a plum bob to make sure his tie was always perfectly straight. As Daniel contemplated something REALLY crazy -- using a half-Windsor knot instead of his normal Windsor -- Chaos pulled him out of limbo and into Great Britain.

Sorry about that, Daniel. It was the authAAR's fault; something about his friend Nick passing out or something.

I don't actually have a friend named Nick. You see, it was my network interface card, which was integrated --

Oh, spare me. Anyways, Danny, we're in Merry Old England. London, even.

"That's neat. Can we meet Shakespeare?"

Too early.

"King Arthur?"

Too late.

"Since I went to public school in the United States, those are the only two British people I know about from before the 20th century."

(A zing on my own country! Well, if you can't make fun of yourself, who can make you fun of? Everybody else, actually. You know, that saying doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you think about it. In fact, it's much more fun to make fun of other people. But I digress.)

Yes. Anyway, you're already at war, and you can only spend cash on naval technology or the treasury, since Odor went and changed the rules, the cheeky bastard.

"Who with?"

Castille and Shawnee. You have Bavaria on your side. It's an honest-to-God succession war! No fooling!

(I have played a LOT of EU 3, and this is my first ever succession war! I'm pretty excited, actually.)

"Okay, give me the details."

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"That looks pretty manageable. We have a lot of North Africa; that must count for a lot, right?"

Exactly 1 war score.

"Wow. That kind of stinks."

It gets better! Take a look at your mighty fleet.

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"So this is Great Britain, one of the most famous naval powers in world history --"

Actually, not yet. Even in the real timeline, they don't take over first place until they beat the Dutch in the mid seventeenth century.

"Let me finish!" Daniel's impassioned shout actually startled Chaos into silence. "I was going to say, 'and we can't transport a single regiment?'"

That's the size of it. Before you ask, we cannot launch farm animals over the Irish Sea.

"Because it's unethical?"

We don't have the distance on our cannon.

"I... see. Is Ireland all that bad off?"

Pretty bad, actually. Here's a closer look.

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"Okay. So I've got 20k troops in London, but they have nothing to do because I have no transports. I have 20k more in North Africa, but they can't do anything either, because Algeria won't let them through and I have no transports. What exactly can I do?"

Not my problem.

Daniel just couldn't take it. "WHY DO YOU NEVER HELP ME, CHAOS? WHY?"

That was a singularly bad time to say that. See, he actually said it aloud, rather than scream silently in quiet frustration. Worse, Chaos had gotten the year wrong and dressed him in a traditional Victorian topcoat and tails instead of period appropriate clothing. Worse still, this strange looking man openly screamed about asking Chaos for help. But perhaps worst of all? It's 16th century Great Britain. They don't have TV, radio, most of the people can't read books, Shakespeare isn't born yet, and there really isn't a whole lot to do. Daily activities include eating, praying, farming, breathing, sleeping, mating, dying, and occasionally, not dying. Soccer probably hadn't been invented yet, and even if it had, all of the previous things are more exciting and fun anyway. For the average person in 16th century Great Britain (or England, since technically Great Britain hasn't been invented yet either, at least in our timeline), there are really two passions.

One is drinking. And of course, you can drink and do other things at the same time. The other thing?

The man at the head of the party in earshot had a huge smile on his face. "He calls upon Chaos! He's a witch, burn him!"

The man behind him tapped him on the shoulder. "You know very well he's a warlock, Richard."

Richard rolled his eyes. "Witch is a perfectly acceptable term for either sex!"

"I beg to differ. We both we just call women who won't sleep with us witches anyway, so we need a special term for men that practice in the dark arts. Especially when they actually do!"

"I really don't see a distinction."

"I do!"

Daniel took this cue to exit. Unfortunately, he ran right into another party of witch burners who had just finished burning a witch. As soon as they heard the first party talking about witches -- or perhaps warlocks, if you like -- the second party grabbed Daniel. At this point, the first party joined in and ale was quaffed.
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By May 1532, a spot to burn Daniel at the stake finally opened up. A Catholic bishop had brought in a few hundred supposed witches and was, as usual, taking up all of the spots. While the parties of witch burners waited in angry anticipation, Chaos quietly filled Daniel in on the war in Castille.

So, the brilliant British strategy is to take the 14k troops on the Breton coast, march them into Castille, moon the armies there, and return into Guyenne, where Castille cannot follow.

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Daniel, not wanting to give them more ammunition to burn him as a witch, remembered to keep his thoughts inside his head this time. "What is that supposed to accomplish?"

I have no idea. Irritate the Spaniards?

"They might make a mistake."

Not as big a mistake as your face! BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

The men seeking to incinerate our intrepid hero got excited when a spot seemed to open up, but were quickly dismayed to see that one of the witches had tried the old "weigh me against a duck!" defense. The Church had heard this defense so many times that they didn't even bother trying to hide their trickery. They simply took a hundred pounds of lead, wrote "Duck" on one of the bars, and that was that. More entertaining to the crowd was when a foreign instructor attempted to show the English how to use their guns. After the army caught on, they immediately tried him as a witch (warlock) and sent him to the front of the line for the double crime of being a witch AND a foreigner.

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Richard smiled and pointed at a stake about twenty yards away. "One's free, lads! Burn the witch!"

A faint cry of "Burn the warlock!" came from a few timid souls, but for the most part everybody shouted "witch."

Daniel begged for mercy. There was none to be had, since Mercy had been the witch that burned right before him. He looked for an avenue of escape, but there was none. Chaos was still laughing at his earlier insult. As he was lashed to the stake and the kindling ignited, the crowd cheered.

"WHY MUST THE PAIN BE SO INTENSE? WHY DO YOU HATE ME, CHAOS? WHY?!?!?!?!"

After three consecutive hours of burning, the crowd grew a little alarmed. Why hadn't the witch died yet?

The King of Great Britain himself was summoned. It wasn't a far distance, as he had been at a witch burning a few miles away.

"What's all this then?"

"Your Majesty, this witch --" 'WARLOCK!' "won't burn!"

One of the more adventurous men decided to offer the unthinkable option -- that Daniel wasn't actually a witch -- with the predictable result of getting burned as a witch.

The King, Henry VII de Despenser (he'd earned the nickname by giving free ale to his troops; he was not surprisingly very popular), examined the stake and kindling to make they were top quality, as of course they were. Witch burning is serious, and if you aren't going to put the time in to do it right, why bother?

"Gentlemen, there is clearly only one answer to this question. He is protected by the devil from the flame! He must be exceedingly powerful to resist the flame and feel no pain."

"I FEEL EXCRUCIATING PAIN! IT'S LIKE A THOUSAND KNIVES IN EVERY INCH OF MY SKIN!"

"Quiet, witch, the King is speaking!"

The King bowed solemnly. "Thank you, good sir. I propose we do the following. Throw him off of a cliff, while he is still on fire, into the English Channel. We will also tie multiple rocks to him. We'll even try the Holy Hand Grenade; it's bound to work one of these days. In addition, I shall personally slit his wrist with my royal sword, which shall set the sharks to him as well. If he survives all of this --"

Daniel gritted his teeth to ask, "You let me go?", which was met by a thorough swat of the head as the King continued "I shall have to think of something else."

And so the King's will was done.
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Daniel hid in the freezing cold of the English Channel until February of 1534. In those nearly two years, the English had made some progress, thanks in large part to some ships they finally got around to building.

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Daniel originally tried to sneak aboard the Castillian ship "Real Alfonso", captured by the English. Unfortunately, it didn't actually exist and was a decoy. Some of the Englishmen muttered at the damnable cleverness of the Spaniards, who had hid their King aboard another ship, possibly called "False Alfonso."

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With most of Ireland retaken, Daniel crawled onto shore in Ulster, where the only military presence was a small regiment that was moving towards Meath. The tax accountant did not look well; both his legs and his left arm were bitten off, his skin was entirely burned off, his lungs were full of water and made him unable to speak. Of course, while all of this happened, Chaos was almost constantly laughing.

What's the matter, Danny? Do you need a HAND?

"Why won't you let me die so I can be reborn?! I can't even feel pain any more, since the fire burned off all of my nerves."

It's pain you want? Whatever you say, buddy! 500,000 volts coursed directly into his brain, making the few nerve endings that weren't dead yet come alive with agony. Chaos' laughter got even louder.
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It was May 6, 1534, and there was much to celebrate. Although the British didn't "win" the succession war in a technical sense since the Personal Union wasn't formed between Bavaria and Great Britain, they did get Meath back, denying the Spaniards a chance to cause further damage in the future.

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As the King and his men cheered, Daniel also had some reason to be glad. What wasn't eaten by various scavenging animals was finally buried, the weight of the dirt crushed his remaining internal organs and skeleton. He was now completely inert, immune to pain, and so, to Chaos, no longer entertaining, and so Chaos allowed Daniel to die so he could be reborn, but revived Daniel in the exact same body, where he was shortly thereafter discovered by Richard and his friends just outside of London.

Richard and his friends were at first terrified, and then shrieked with delight as they knew they'd get an audience with the King, who would want to come up with a new way to kill this surprisingly resilient witch, and so once again, Daniel was tied up and carried off.
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This one will have to be a two parter -- expect part two early next week!
 
Poor Daniel. :( His country finally wins a war, but only because he's in too many pieces to mess it up...

And I'd gladly take the offer to be weighed against 100 pounds of lead (or any other material), being more than 100 pounds myself. ;)
 
Poor Daniel. :( His country finally wins a war, but only because he's in too many pieces to mess it up...

And I'd gladly take the offer to be weighed against 100 pounds of lead (or any other material), being more than 100 pounds myself. ;)

Oh, no doubt, I would too. This is compared to 16th century English women, though, and I suspect they were a good deal lighter :)
 
Poor Daniel.
Chaos must be bored by now!
*gets chased by Englishmen shouting "witch" and "warlock"*
 
Poor Daniel, I'm sure neither he nor Chaos were expecting some sort of Spanish Inquisition...
 
Nobody expects the BRITISH Inquisition... or the Holy Hand Grenade.