Scenario: Religious wars/Das zeitalter der merkatilismus
Setting: Very hard/furious
My agenda for this game is to make the baltic a swedish lake and to create a Gross-Skandinavia. If time permits, I will also make an attempt at colonization at a small scale.
I start out by creating an alliance to help me in the annexation of Denmark. I wanted Turkey in the alliance for my next venture against Poland or Russia, but unfortunately they choose to ally with the muslim minors instead.
The Hansa is my vassal and ally. In march '17 I send an envoy to Brandenburg, and the powerhungry germans look favorably upon an alliance, eventually leading to their vassalisation into the mighty Scandinavian Empire.
Since the danish have in their ownership Gotland, Jamtland and Skåne, where a lot of Riks-Svenskar are living, I have no trouble in motivating a war on Denmark. The people demand the freedom of their brothers and sisters in slavery!
War is declared on Denmark and I send an army to besiege Lund/Skåne. Meanwhile, the Hansa and Brandenburg also declare war and assault Jylland. In '19 war-torn Denmark, having lost its capital to the germans, and Skåne to the swedes, agree to peace on the terms: Jylland to Brandenburg and Skåne to Sweden.
However, the people is not satisfied.
Another war is launched in '24, and this time, I'm going for the gold. The combined might of Sweden-Brandenburg-Hansa completely annihilates the danish navy. I now have complete freedom to transport my troops as I please. Visby surrenders to the heroic forces of Sweden and Norway crumbles under a series of assaults by Gustav II Adolf's élite troops.
An expeditionary force takes Iceland and only the danish capital still stands.
At this moment, in may '25, Poland decides to join the fray, sending an army to take eastern pommerania. 27'000 men do battle on 3'000 pommeranians. The Hansa puts up a fight for it, and when reinforcements numbering over 7'000 arrive they actually manage to send the poles packing!
Worthless leadership? Poor planning? One can only wonder.
However, the poles don't give up so easily! A huge behemoth of an army (80'000+ men) enters Brandenburg and takes Kustrin without much of a fight. At the same time, my forces accept the surrender of the Danish General defending Kobenhavn, Denmark is annexed into the glorious Swedish Empire in september '25.
Winter strikes when the poles besiege Berlin. The huge army cannot forage enough to survive, and casualty rates are atrocious. When a combined Brandenburg-Hansa relief force of 20'000 men arrive, they have no trouble with ousting the polish rabble still alive. Poland accepts a peace, back to status quo.
Now follows a time of rebuilding and strengthening of our defenses. Gustav is leering at Estonia, rich and ripe for the taking, and orders the Highcommand to prepare an invasion. However, we advice him that as long as the swedish population there remains under polish rule, we have the people with us against Poland, thus justifying multiple wars against the heretics to save our tortured brethren. His royal majesty agrees.
More germans knock on the door to the victorious Scandinavian faction and we allow Saxony and Hannover to join our alliance. At this time, Brandenburg, as previously stated, agrees to be vassalized. Saxony and Hannover have more pride and refuse repeated diplomatic envoys on the issue. They will learn soon what it means to refuse Sweden in all her glory! For the time being, though, they are useful, even though the cowardly Saxons do nothing but run at the faintest smell of blood.
11 years of peace passes by. The Swedish economy is booming and merchants are sent far and wide. We manage to create a monopoly on spices and chinaware coming through the tradecenters in Persia which brings much-needed gold into our royal coffers.
Our great king, Gustav II Adolf is brought back to his celestial home in '32, having performed so well that our heavenly father decided to take him early. Queen Kristina accepts the mantle of rulership and performs very well at it.
Poland persists in making trouble in '36 and declares war on Brandenburg. We honor the alliance and quickly send our troops to assist our german friends. To no avail. Poland takes kustrin and the daft germans agree to cede parts of their vaterland to the slavs!
Appalled at their cowardice, we none the less manage to shake the shock and take Gdansk in '37, and when we burn their capital in '38, the poles agree to let us keep what we've conquered. There's nothing like a bit of flaming city to give you the edge in peacetalks!
Saxony insists on maintaining their independance, but when their king dies without children in '41, the closest heir is our beloved queen Kristina! Highcommand is smug. We shall now send their cowardly troops in suicide attacks on polish fortresses and execute any who flee, until they realize who is in charge!
Poland forms a powerful alliance with France and Portugal in '43. This could pose a problem. Ah well, we shall concentrate on the russians instead!
In '45, we praise our good fortune as the Polish-French-Portugeese alliance declares war on Russia! This will certainly aid us in our campaign to capture Novgorod.
When the English-Dutch-Turkish alliance also declares war on Russia the winter of '45, her fate is sealed.
The battles between Poland and Russia get very bloody with casualties ranging in the tens of thousands, and in the spring of '46, I decide to give Russia the mercy killing her people needs. Fresh troops enter Onega and have some trouble with the garrison of Onega, which hasn't seen any of the Polish-Russian war. However, our cannons turns small fort to dust and after a few weeks of the hailstorm of lead, the russian commander surrenders.
The steppes are open for our ravaging!
A smaller force moves east for Archangelsk and Volgoda, while our supreme commander lays siege to Novgorod, and after 6 months, Moscow itself!
The following 10 years we refuse to even see the diplomats of Moscow, as our victorious armies surge through russia like a steppe-fire. In '54, Karl X Gustav takes his rightful place as ruler of Sweden, and he immediatley starts to barter for peace with the russians. However, peace does not come for 2 more years, since peacetalks '56 are not with the Russian government (it is mostly carrion by now) but with the Russian People, with envoys from the major cities. The people of russia welcome us as saviours and we open our arms to our Russian Brothers, decendants of the vikings of former expeditions east.
(At this point I have to cheat, since I realize when I've finally taken the last russian tradingpost that they are a major nation and cannot be annexed! AAARGH! But I think it's a silly rule anyway..
so I edit the savegame and annex russia)
Now it's time for some heavy-duty buildup, and some minor wars to keep those bloody polacks down.
In the spring of '59, Courland drops her vassalage to Poland. Big mistake. By summer, swedish warships dot the horizon, but the pitiful army of Courland can only make feeble attempts at defending themselves. The well-trained Karoliner have better weaponry and better leaders, and they number ten swedes for every courlander! By a freak accident, Karl X Gustav dies at the hands of his own troops when they mistake him for a courlander in the middle of the night. There is much grieving and thousands of courlanders are slaughtered since it is in the eyes of the troops obviously their fault for not surrendering immediately. The soon-to-be new king, Karl XI Gustav only manages to halt the killing and plundering after fourteen days of terror. Courland will remember this war a long time.
In the year 1666, Sweden emerges as the new european superpower. Her warships number in the hundreds, her soldiers are more numerous than the grains of sand on a beach by the caspian sea. Where to next? The final annihilation of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth? A new crusade against the heretics in the middle-east? The liberation of our hungarian brothers from the Turks?
Decisions, decisions... whatever happens, it will be pure gravy.
[This message has been edited by Jinxed (edited 29-10-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Jinxed (edited 29-10-2000).]
Setting: Very hard/furious
My agenda for this game is to make the baltic a swedish lake and to create a Gross-Skandinavia. If time permits, I will also make an attempt at colonization at a small scale.
I start out by creating an alliance to help me in the annexation of Denmark. I wanted Turkey in the alliance for my next venture against Poland or Russia, but unfortunately they choose to ally with the muslim minors instead.
The Hansa is my vassal and ally. In march '17 I send an envoy to Brandenburg, and the powerhungry germans look favorably upon an alliance, eventually leading to their vassalisation into the mighty Scandinavian Empire.
Since the danish have in their ownership Gotland, Jamtland and Skåne, where a lot of Riks-Svenskar are living, I have no trouble in motivating a war on Denmark. The people demand the freedom of their brothers and sisters in slavery!
War is declared on Denmark and I send an army to besiege Lund/Skåne. Meanwhile, the Hansa and Brandenburg also declare war and assault Jylland. In '19 war-torn Denmark, having lost its capital to the germans, and Skåne to the swedes, agree to peace on the terms: Jylland to Brandenburg and Skåne to Sweden.
However, the people is not satisfied.
Another war is launched in '24, and this time, I'm going for the gold. The combined might of Sweden-Brandenburg-Hansa completely annihilates the danish navy. I now have complete freedom to transport my troops as I please. Visby surrenders to the heroic forces of Sweden and Norway crumbles under a series of assaults by Gustav II Adolf's élite troops.
An expeditionary force takes Iceland and only the danish capital still stands.
At this moment, in may '25, Poland decides to join the fray, sending an army to take eastern pommerania. 27'000 men do battle on 3'000 pommeranians. The Hansa puts up a fight for it, and when reinforcements numbering over 7'000 arrive they actually manage to send the poles packing!
Worthless leadership? Poor planning? One can only wonder.
However, the poles don't give up so easily! A huge behemoth of an army (80'000+ men) enters Brandenburg and takes Kustrin without much of a fight. At the same time, my forces accept the surrender of the Danish General defending Kobenhavn, Denmark is annexed into the glorious Swedish Empire in september '25.
Winter strikes when the poles besiege Berlin. The huge army cannot forage enough to survive, and casualty rates are atrocious. When a combined Brandenburg-Hansa relief force of 20'000 men arrive, they have no trouble with ousting the polish rabble still alive. Poland accepts a peace, back to status quo.
Now follows a time of rebuilding and strengthening of our defenses. Gustav is leering at Estonia, rich and ripe for the taking, and orders the Highcommand to prepare an invasion. However, we advice him that as long as the swedish population there remains under polish rule, we have the people with us against Poland, thus justifying multiple wars against the heretics to save our tortured brethren. His royal majesty agrees.
More germans knock on the door to the victorious Scandinavian faction and we allow Saxony and Hannover to join our alliance. At this time, Brandenburg, as previously stated, agrees to be vassalized. Saxony and Hannover have more pride and refuse repeated diplomatic envoys on the issue. They will learn soon what it means to refuse Sweden in all her glory! For the time being, though, they are useful, even though the cowardly Saxons do nothing but run at the faintest smell of blood.
11 years of peace passes by. The Swedish economy is booming and merchants are sent far and wide. We manage to create a monopoly on spices and chinaware coming through the tradecenters in Persia which brings much-needed gold into our royal coffers.
Our great king, Gustav II Adolf is brought back to his celestial home in '32, having performed so well that our heavenly father decided to take him early. Queen Kristina accepts the mantle of rulership and performs very well at it.
Poland persists in making trouble in '36 and declares war on Brandenburg. We honor the alliance and quickly send our troops to assist our german friends. To no avail. Poland takes kustrin and the daft germans agree to cede parts of their vaterland to the slavs!
Appalled at their cowardice, we none the less manage to shake the shock and take Gdansk in '37, and when we burn their capital in '38, the poles agree to let us keep what we've conquered. There's nothing like a bit of flaming city to give you the edge in peacetalks!
Saxony insists on maintaining their independance, but when their king dies without children in '41, the closest heir is our beloved queen Kristina! Highcommand is smug. We shall now send their cowardly troops in suicide attacks on polish fortresses and execute any who flee, until they realize who is in charge!
Poland forms a powerful alliance with France and Portugal in '43. This could pose a problem. Ah well, we shall concentrate on the russians instead!
In '45, we praise our good fortune as the Polish-French-Portugeese alliance declares war on Russia! This will certainly aid us in our campaign to capture Novgorod.
When the English-Dutch-Turkish alliance also declares war on Russia the winter of '45, her fate is sealed.
The battles between Poland and Russia get very bloody with casualties ranging in the tens of thousands, and in the spring of '46, I decide to give Russia the mercy killing her people needs. Fresh troops enter Onega and have some trouble with the garrison of Onega, which hasn't seen any of the Polish-Russian war. However, our cannons turns small fort to dust and after a few weeks of the hailstorm of lead, the russian commander surrenders.
The steppes are open for our ravaging!
A smaller force moves east for Archangelsk and Volgoda, while our supreme commander lays siege to Novgorod, and after 6 months, Moscow itself!
The following 10 years we refuse to even see the diplomats of Moscow, as our victorious armies surge through russia like a steppe-fire. In '54, Karl X Gustav takes his rightful place as ruler of Sweden, and he immediatley starts to barter for peace with the russians. However, peace does not come for 2 more years, since peacetalks '56 are not with the Russian government (it is mostly carrion by now) but with the Russian People, with envoys from the major cities. The people of russia welcome us as saviours and we open our arms to our Russian Brothers, decendants of the vikings of former expeditions east.
(At this point I have to cheat, since I realize when I've finally taken the last russian tradingpost that they are a major nation and cannot be annexed! AAARGH! But I think it's a silly rule anyway..
so I edit the savegame and annex russia)Now it's time for some heavy-duty buildup, and some minor wars to keep those bloody polacks down.
In the spring of '59, Courland drops her vassalage to Poland. Big mistake. By summer, swedish warships dot the horizon, but the pitiful army of Courland can only make feeble attempts at defending themselves. The well-trained Karoliner have better weaponry and better leaders, and they number ten swedes for every courlander! By a freak accident, Karl X Gustav dies at the hands of his own troops when they mistake him for a courlander in the middle of the night. There is much grieving and thousands of courlanders are slaughtered since it is in the eyes of the troops obviously their fault for not surrendering immediately. The soon-to-be new king, Karl XI Gustav only manages to halt the killing and plundering after fourteen days of terror. Courland will remember this war a long time.
In the year 1666, Sweden emerges as the new european superpower. Her warships number in the hundreds, her soldiers are more numerous than the grains of sand on a beach by the caspian sea. Where to next? The final annihilation of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth? A new crusade against the heretics in the middle-east? The liberation of our hungarian brothers from the Turks?
Decisions, decisions... whatever happens, it will be pure gravy.
[This message has been edited by Jinxed (edited 29-10-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Jinxed (edited 29-10-2000).]
