So starting moves are pretty simple. Accept Walloon as a culture, rival Burgundy, and ally France. I also Fund Expansion of the Bureaucracy (-10% advisor costs) for my first debate, which immediately passes. I create a general to start drilling troops - though he is quite lacklustre being a 1/0/0/1 affair. Burgundy allies Münster (and Ferrara). Münster allies Trier, and so I opt to ally Cleves as well. Looking through the Age objectives getting a Large City and Embracing the Renaissance will be easy enough. Humiliating a rival should be possible as well - but maybe not against Burgundy as the restrictions won’t work. For that I may well choose Gelre … but right now that probably isn’t viable. I select three +1 advisors (Tax +10%, Spy Network +25%, Land Maintenance -10%). A few months into the game England and France are at war, from the Surrender of Maine event.
I take my army and move to besiege Calais. That remains the only thing I do in this war, which is essentially a snoozefest. France occupies all the other English land in France. Bar a few naval skirmishes I do not get involved in. It is mostly just waiting for warscore to tick up. I do manage to lay a claim on Luxembourg in this time, but otherwise it is just waiting. My ruler does get her second trait, which is a negative one (though also currently immaterial).
Shortly after that I build my army up to force limit of 18 - 4 cavalry and the rest infantry. I get an event making Gent come up the control of the Burghers, which I allow. The warscore continues its interminable ticking.
Then in 1448 I get a lovely event, which gives me a 100 traditional general. Call me a happy camper.
The war ticks on. The Renaissance launches in Ferrara. My three Flemish area provinces (Vlaanderen, Gent, and Antwerpen) should all get the Renaissance in the 1456-61, so getting Renaissance will be easy enough. That said I still plan to develop Brussels at some point for the Age objective as well. I do research Admin 4 (I had focused on Admin btw). Diplomatic 4 follows, and then finally in November 1450 the war ends (though I fail to get screenshot of the peace, below shot of France rivalling Austria shows the end result in northern France. France also got the whole of Gascony.
Military 4 is completed and I start building my first Church in Antwerpen. I get an event to have a daughter as an heir … but I reject it ultimately. A 2/0/2 Heir … I would still rather take my chances.
In 1453 I finally get around to moving my Trade City to Antwerpen. After some mucking around the best combination seems to be collect in English Channel with one merchant, and redirect Trade from Champagne with the other. In 1454 I also get an alliance with Austria. I also decide to take the plunge and attack Burgundy, with the Conquest CB for Luxembourg. I can get France in for Land, but not Cleves who apparently likes Burgundy too much (and not Austria, but as a recent ally I was not expecting them).
However, I make what proves to be an error: I don’t really check the state of France. I notice from the tooltips (not screenshotted) that France has 179 gold debt. Precisely how I don’t know, but I should have looked further.
My first move is to try and take the war target, Luxembourg. And this is when I first notice France only has three small stacks, whilst enemy forces seem to be rather better organised.
It turns into a siege race between myself in Luxembourg and Holland in Antwerpen … one that I lose. Meanwhile Paris also falls.
I go to retake Antwerpen, and defeat a couple of small armies on the way, wiping one of them. But it takes a long time to siege down. I do split off ⅔ of my force to attack a lone enemy stack at one point, wiping that as well. I do love my general. I adopt Admin Tech 5. In the winter Burgundy’s main army tries to dislodge me but I send them packing in my first truly major battle of the war. Northern France, however, continues to fall under Burgundian forces.
The battle gives my general the Glory Seeker trait … which is nice enough I guess. Finally Antwerpen is retaken, but the situation in France is looking bad. The entire remaining France troops are now in a futile siege of Holland.
I choose to take Picardie. I have to take either Picardie or Rethélois to be able to march into France due to the forts. I choose Picardie as I am thinking warscore against Burgundy might be more important than against their vassal. Northern France has, for all intents and purposes, fallen. But I still can catch wandering enemy forces when the opportunity presents.
Picardie eventually falls, and to be honest the overall warscore isn’t too bad.
Of course, overall not too bad equals very bad for France, and shortly thereafter they bow out - with the consequence the warscore now looks very positive for me!
I may have the single largest army in this war, but I do not fancy my chances alone however. France, although a disappointment, was a marvellous distraction. Also I get a mad thought: could this be how I get those French-Walloonian provinces? Food for thought. To the matter at hand, I could get Luxembourg with money right now, but I want to see if I can wangle War reparations. To that end I manage to wipe a small stack in Rethélois, taking me to 40% warscore.
Then make peace before I get swamped by enemy troops.
It is only after the peace that I realise Burgundy had researched Military 5 during the war … so I count myself lucky indeed. My next goal, I decide, is to get the Large City objective. My next debate in Parliament was Land Reform, which now passes giving me -10% development. I am not quite ready yet though. As I wait for more monarch points I get a claim on Artois via a Boundary Dispute, the Last Jousting Tournament fires, and the Emperor enacts the First Reform (another -5% development). I also go head and make Denmark a rival.
I finally get Military 5. In 1460 I give Antwerpen to the Burghers, and Luik (Liege) to the Clergy. I set Brabant to have the development State Edict, and therefore stack up my development bonuses, and develop up to 30 (turning Brussels into a 12/13/5 province). Now I wait again, and my ruler gets her final trait as a Bold Fighter. I also ally Provence.
In 1463 I Embrace the Renaissance and get Dip Tech 5 immediately thereafter. In February 1464 I get Admin 6 ahead of schedule. My intention is now to get some Ideas. I haven’t actually selected the group yet. I remain torn between Innovativeness and Humanism. Despite the more rp appropriate name of Humanism, the more I look at the actual modifiers the idea set of Innovativeness works better rp-wise.
Before then however my ally Austria has a little favour of me:
I choose to accept, and then save the game and end the session.
In retrospect I think these twenty years are a pretty good overviews of my capabilities as an EU4 player, both good and bad. When it came to the Burgundian War I should have been more aware of the state of France before declaring - it might well have been wiser to wait until everyone had MIL5 before starting it as well.
In terms of actually fighting - there were occasions I could have had one 6k stack sieging and a 12k stack hunting out the smaller enemy armies as they presented themselves. I probably should have chased Holland off Antwerpen early on, and I wonder if I shouldn’t have tried to knock Münster out of the war. ‘
I also feel like I don’t know what to do with my diplomats. This is not a new feeling for me - I don’t, as a general rule, feel confident in the diplomatic game.
My truce with Burgundy et al runs out in May 1465. I can re-ally France, should I choose, in October 1467. The question of France is interesting though. It is feasible that a weaker France is to my advantage That will require some thought. Of some concern is that I still have no heir. My Dynasty would change to de Valois, but (as far as I can tell) no succession war. I hope that doesn’t end up happening, but it is of course largely out of my hands.