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1577-1579 : First war with Great Britain (1)

Although a war against Great Britain was inevitable in the long run, the war council identified a couple of soft targets that would be worth a short war. The first target were the Ottomans. They should be dismemebered in a couple of wars and we would get control over Bithynia and the Bosphorus. War is declared on the Ottomans.
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The other target is Bambuk , in Sokoto, who has a COT and gold. War is declared at the same time on Sokoto, who would be in the war anyway as defender of the Sunni faith.
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The doge is reconfirmed into power. After routing the Ottoman stack, their country is put under siege.
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Diplomatic map in December 1577
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Meanwhile, the textile manufactory in Bosnia is completed and therefore the mission. Next mission will be defend Crete, which is a straighforward mission (hold on to Crete after the war with the Ottomans)
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In January 1578, we are pretty much finished with the Ottomans. Yazgod and Angora are being sieged by Candar and we won't get them.
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So peace is made. They cede Anatolia and release Karaman. In the next war, we will outright annex them.
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Crete has been defended and we lose 1 infamy. The next mission will be colonize Bone.
Through an event our missionary chance improve by 2.5% for 4 years.
The war with the Sokoto turns out to be slower as we hoped and goes on until July 1578. But we reach our goal, control over the Bambuk COT.
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Meanwhile, we had infiltrated the British administration and identified their stacks. 24k in France, 24k in Great Britain, 24k in Scandinavia and a minor stack in India.
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Also the Netherlands's administration had been infiltrated and to our great joy, we find out they are in trouble. They lost control over Zeeland and Breda, who are now independent under Brabant's banner, and their mainland is being seiged by Brabant's stacks. The Netherlands's stacks are still busy in Russia.
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We give war subsidies to Brabant. In January 1579, military access to Great Britain is canceled. And in February 1579, after positioning armies and fleet in the position we judged best, war is declared on Great Britain. Being them in trouble, I hoped the Netherlands would stay out, but regrettably they don't. We are at war with Great Britain, the Netherlands, Finland and a couple of minors.
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British colonies are attacked in Subsaharan Africa...
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in Southern Africa...
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and in North America.
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It is pretty obvious, though, that we are the stronger side in this war.
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We lured their fleet out of their port in Africa...That would prove costly, we'd lose all of our flytes.
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Our main battle fleet comes in time to turn the tide.
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We win, but it turns out to be a costly victory.
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We lay a blockade in the Black Sea.
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Kisarna is seized in March 1579
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1577-1579 : First war with Great Britain (2)

Another colony is seized in North America - Beothuk
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Bone is colonized and we get the mission to blockade Ayshire. We get revenge on the British and destroy 20 of their flytes.
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Around Britain there are no real fleets and we will soon be able to lay a blockade on the British isles.
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In April 1579, we are in fact good to go.
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In Eastern Europe, we are about to make contact with the Dutch troops. Wallachia is fighting against us too, and we are being helped by Serbia and Transylvania. Dutch armies are very respectable in this war theatre.
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We are about to make contact with the British in France as well.
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We accomplish the mission - blockade Ayrshire. The next mission is deal with revolters in Bambuk
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We go on grabbing colonies in North America and Africa, but on the naval front, the tide turns. We are soundly defeated by the British in front of Africa and at the same time the Dutch break the blockade in the Black Sea.
The British sacrificed their flytes to allow their main battle fleet to recover morale, while ours didn't. Not bad for an AI.
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The Black Sea has to be given up and we may be soon challenged in the MeditErranean, where we don't have any real fleet.
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In fact, to my irritation, we don't even have enough ships to recover the tariffs. This war is proving a costly affair.
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The British Isles, though, are feeling the heat.
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While in Africa our troops inesorably march into the British colonies, it is the British who are the masters of the sea.
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As the siege on Bumbak is lifted, we get the next mission : Vassalize Württemberg. Great mission, who will have to wait though. Right now, our hands are full. We quickly check and they are allied with Bohemia and of course the Emperor, Hesse.
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We found some use for our spies and support revolts in the Netherlands Baltics.
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In fact, Dutch stacks are pretty annoying and we haven't managed to contain them yet.
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The Dutch have also achieved naval superiority in the Agean sea and are blockading our ports. Turns out we underestimated their naval capability.
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On the Western front in Europe, things are going better and while the British stack still lives, it isn't doing anything to hinder our sieges.
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In the African seas, things go from bad to worse. We had low moral, our ships were damaged, I am not sure. In a battle we lose 22 heavy ships.
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While the Dutch even dare penetrating deep into Venice's territory.
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May have not been a smart decision, as this way they split their armies and as a consequence they suffer a defeat.
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I believe you are not the first person in history who underestimated the Dutch Navy :)

the Royal Navy on the other hand is indeed worrisome - do the British have multiple naval NIs? they tend to chose the one which gives +1 to morale and somehow (I really don't know how...) the AI always has brilliant admirals. the devil on my left shoulder suspects cheating though it could be the difficulty level alone. oh, and the AI also doesn't have naval attrition which makes maneuvering and blockading a lot easier for them.
 
I believe you are not the first person in history who underestimated the Dutch Navy :)

the Royal Navy on the other hand is indeed worrisome - do the British have multiple naval NIs? they tend to chose the one which gives +1 to morale and somehow (I really don't know how...) the AI always has brilliant admirals. the devil on my left shoulder suspects cheating though it could be the difficulty level alone. oh, and the AI also doesn't have naval attrition which makes maneuvering and blockading a lot easier for them.

Yes, both the Dutch and the British have the naval NIs : "Superior Seamanship" and "Excellent Shipwrights". Well, I'll try and deal with that.
 
Eek... :eek: Time for some rest and repairs before the whole fleet is screwed I suppose. Are your ships modern? With a strong admiral like that the reason has to be either obsolete ships or damaged and demoralized ships.

The saving grace is that GB is the war leader - you could almost ignore the Dutch and still get what you want from this war.

somehow (I really don't know how...) the AI always has brilliant admirals. the devil on my left shoulder suspects cheating though it could be the difficulty level alone.

I actually believe this is due to all the silly little fleets the AI has running around. As a result they fight many more naval battles than a human player who wisely keeps the fleet (or in the case of a large nation, fleets) together. The AI naval strategy might be simple to take advantage of but at least it creates tradition.
 
Naval disasters happen when low morale fleets are caught by full strength ones. You still have superiority in theatre and once rested and repaired will gain a measure of revenge. This war you don't want anything other than the Birtish colonies, anyway. The quicker you can take them, the quicker you can exit the war. You've got the more traditional foes Spain and Portugal to relieve of colonies.
 
Eek... :eek: Time for some rest and repairs before the whole fleet is screwed I suppose. Are your ships modern? With a strong admiral like that the reason has to be either obsolete ships or damaged and demoralized ships.
The saving grace is that GB is the war leader - you could almost ignore the Dutch and still get what you want from this war.
Both GB and Venice have a naval tech of 21 - and both have caravels. But my ships had very low morale, as I wrote, they kept fighting while the British had an opportunity to make them rest. The NIs are also making a difference

Naval disasters happen when low morale fleets are caught by full strength ones. You still have superiority in theatre and once rested and repaired will gain a measure of revenge. This war you don't want anything other than the Birtish colonies, anyway. The quicker you can take them, the quicker you can exit the war. You've got the more traditional foes Spain and Portugal to relieve of colonies.

As always, that is a correct analysis. On the "colony seizing" front, things are going well, and thanks to NIs and the modifiers I can always rebuild my navy pretty cheap. Naval Tech 22 and galleons are behind the corner anyway.

But let's see how it goes on...
 
1579-1581 : War with Great Britain (3)

By June 1579, the British have lost their colonies in Southern Africa, but their fleet there is unchallenged.
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Some fresh ships which we withdrew from the British Isles, even without admiral, managed to defeat the tired and overconfident British fleet.
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The British split their fleet. We defeat their second fleet in front of the Coast of Angola. This other fleet had been reinforced by ships withdrawn from the Indian Ocean.
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Meanwhile, The situation in the British Isles is unchanged.
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The British stack in France has wandered into Navarra and lets us siege French provinces freely.
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In August 1579, though, the Netherlands accept our peace offer. They have no stake in this war, and we have no interest in fighting the Dutch at this moment. This changes the situation dramatically, as we can free a lot of troops and ships.
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One of the two British fleets is completely destroyed in front of the Gold Coast. The other one escapes to London.
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Wallachia was still in the war and we make them release ... Moldawia. This is always weird.
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Situation in North America in October 1579. Regrettably, these are cities and therefore we won't be able to kick the British out of America at this time.
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Also The British split their army in France and allow us to easily defeat them.
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In Central Africa, we grab the inland colonies and this will allow us to demand Bonny in the peace negotations. Bonny has a COT.
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Finland accepts a white peace after losing their navy.
By February 1580, already many provinces have fallen. The British for some reason are very bad at defending their provinces.
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The British have no troops in Ireland and our vassals are exploiting the opportunity.
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In May 1580, we kill the last major British stack in France.
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Another vassal of ours has landed in Norway.
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The "exploration" of British North America goes on.
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An event gives us 4972 ducats. Naples is taking care of the British colonies in India, The British had a small stack there but we don't know what happened to it.
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By December 1580, almost all of France is in Venice's hands.
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Also Ireland is also completely occupied.
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There is nothing in the way of an invasion of Britain. Therefore, armies land in the Orkney and Western isles.
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you were in need of those naval victories "like a bite of bread" as we say :) whit that event (and if your WE remained low) rebuilding the navy should not be a problem at all.
 
As Venice's leaders declared war on Great Britain, they had made clear that the war was strictly over the colonies. Venice was concerned that Great Britain wasn't protecting their subjects from the natives and something should be done about that. Venice could also always use new colonies. Great Britain was just considered a rival colonial power, like Spain and Portugal.
But the Netherlands, as a defender of the Reformed Faith, joined the war as well and suddenly the war turned religious. In the Venice provinces a hate against the Reformed heresy spread like wildfire, and it was easy to convince the soldiers and the people that this war was unlike any war we fought before, and instead of a limited victory we were striving for a total, crushing victory - no matter how great the sacrifice would have to be.
 
Ah, so it was actually a decent time to lose some ships with galleons around the corner, pretty nice! :D Thankfully the Dutch had their hands full with their rebels so they were unwilling to fight on.

Gotta love vassals for occupying remote islands etc.
 
I smell a force religion conversion coming. You need to take some cities - allowing the British to build cities, I don't know; heads should roll - and need the BB to fall. That's a long war. If your WE is under 5 and theirs is over 15, provinces may defect.
 
I smell a force religion conversion coming. You need to take some cities - allowing the British to build cities, I don't know; heads should roll - and need the BB to fall. That's a long war. If your WE is under 5 and theirs is over 15, provinces may defect.

Hrm.. Force Conversion is a good idea, but I chose another way. Regrettaby my WE is already fairly high.
 
1581-1582 : First war with Great Britain (4)

We choose the Highlands as the place where our troops land. The province is quickly assaulted. The main British stack will attack us, but reinforcements by ships are on the way.
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They have a much better general, but numbers count and the battle is won. We have a solid foothold in Britain.
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As we rout them in Fife, we start spreading out.
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By June 1581, all of France is occupied and London is under siege.
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The British scrap together another army and challenge us there. We would then rout them in Essex.
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The provinces in Central Africa have fallen as well.
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Regrettably, our War Exhaustion is pretty high already - we can't be in this war forever. But the British are already at 20%
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By November 1581, Northern Britain and London have fallen. I feel the British are very bad at defending their towns, they fall very soon.
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By December 1581 other provinces have fallen.
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We challenge the British in Sweden as well, but the results are inconclusive. They have a very good general and we haven't committed many troops there.
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By April 1582, GB has hardly any free provinces left, but our WE is around 8% and revolts are getting annoying. War score was at 99%
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The Council of Ten felt that it was time to make peace. France, Wales and Scotland were freed from the British yoke. Venice gained 4 colonies.
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In fact this was North America after the war.
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This was Africa. As you can see, the Sokoto have collapsed.
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And in Europe, France, Scotland and Wales were Venice's allies. The British had still an army in Sweden, but no navy. In the coming years, we would finance rebels inside of Great Britain.
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Meanwhile, we built some barques for global tariffs. All the few remaining Carracks would be scuttled. Soon Level 22 Naval would be researched and the Caravels we lost would be more than compensated by galleons, we had the money and the infrastructure to build them. We would also be able to pay back a loan and replace the banker with something more useful. The new provinces would have to be assimilated and converted.
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That was an interesting choice to bring back a reformed France, which likes colonising, Scotland, also a reformed coloniser and 3 british colonies with nowhere to expand instead of 2 that can in North America. The Venetian Coiuncil of Ten seems most uninterested in Canada or the West Coast of the Americas.

Back to wars against Spain and Portugal to grab colonies, Holy War to annex the Ottomans and Karamon when it refuses to honour a call to arms. Time to diploannex Styria and remove from HREand convert. I think you're going to have a busy few years. Then back to GB to take their remianing colonies -that you can see. Yes, busy indeed.
 
Solid progress.

And bringing back France while weaken GB is not as bad as people might think - However, you need to remember to keep troops in the area, since they will be happy to attack you for cores if they think they can get away with it... ;)
 
1582-1586 : The vassalization of (a smaller) Württemberg

Thank you for the feedback Chief Ragusa and Rendap, let's see how it goes on

There was some grumbling in the senate after the peace treaty. The colonists coalition was demanding more colonies in Canada, but the doge reminded that Venice's reputation would have been badly tarnished if they had done that. The religious party was demanding a forced conversion - the doge replied that while we didn't tolerate heresy in our country, he didn't consider fair meddling in other countries's religious policy, and didn't want to give up on a possible future casus belli, canceling heresy. The militarist party were annoyed at the liberation of France and would have preferred creating smaller countries - the Doge replied that France would be a nice counterweight to Venice's historical enemies, and for a while would be Venice's ally anyway.

The doge had his way, but on that night, he had a nightmare. It was about a world where Venice didn't exist any longer, and in its place there was a country, Italy, who was hated throughout the world and was using religion as an excuse to wage war on all of Europe. It was ruled by a republican dictator, who was set on creating on an empire who would span the entire world. The country was unhappy, revolters continued popping up and the economy was a shamble. He wasn't the doge anymore, they called him "Il Duce", as in Latin "dux".
He woke up, drenched in sweat. It had been just a nightmare.


The war with Great Britain had been costly for Venice as well - at the end, Venice had 10% war exhaustion. Venice would have to lick her wounds, before going to war another time. But Great Britain should not be allowed to recover. We supported revolts in Great Britain's provinces.
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In March 1583, we can move a slider. We obviously go centralization, it is the main reason we went Administrative Republic anyway. We lose 1 stability.
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We happily see how Great Britain is having trouble dealing with their rebels, but should be able to avoid collapse.
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France can't help itself and declares war on Toulouse and soon finds itself at war with Switzerland, Dauphine, Aragon, Lorraine, Savoy and Hungary, but does not call us to arms.
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Wales breaks the alliance. We lose Greek as an accepted culture. After recovering stability we find out that our yearly income is now over 10k ducats.
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In October 1584 a comet makes us lose 1 stability again. The British colonies in India are occupied by rebels as well.
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We accept Candar's call to arms against Gujarat and since we are at war, we decide it is time to fulfill the mission and subjugate Württemberg.
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Diplomatic map July 1583. Sweden is at war with us as well.
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In July 1583, Bavary declares war on Württemberg, and we get a call to arms, since Württemberg is in our sphere of influence. We decide not to, that would prove to be a mistake. But Bavaria was allied with Austria and Netherlands.
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In August 1585, we pay back our loan of 9663 and we have no loans to pay left. France meanwhile has whitepeaced Switzerland and helps us take Dauphine out of war. So having France at our side is not bad after all, they are keeping Burgundy busy as well.
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Bavaria is already seiging Konstanz and we siege the other province in Württemberg
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We lose an engagement in Linz against the combined troops of Hesse and Bohemia. Those countries have become pretty strong.
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In November 1585, we vassalize Württemberg. But they are still at war with Bavaria, who is occupying their province Konstanz. We lose 2 infamy, though, and we get the next mission, colonize Nootka.
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Austria and Bavaria are at war with Bohemia as well (not sure about Hesse) so their armies retreat, or maybe the vassal stack defeated them.
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Meanwhile, we destroy Sweden's navy. Not sure why they are in this war, but whatever. We blockade what can be blockaded.
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In January 1586, something unpleasant happens. Württemberg cedes Konstanz to Bavaria. Oh well.
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Some of our vassals have pushed forward and we take the war to Bohemia now
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We help the French against the Burgundians as well.
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And in Bohemia, we get revenge. Then we white peace Hesse and the war is over.
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We white peace Gujarat as well, but as I often forget, my vassals stay in the war because we got called to arms. Oh well, no diplo-annexation. I am leaning on diploannexing Morea next because as a country in an Eastern group, it is useless and we have a core on Janina. Meanwhile, I'll just start another war.
 
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Have finished this up over the past couple of days. Really cool job you've done so far with it. I take it by the nightmare thing that you do not, at least for now, intend to form Italy?

Thank you!

God's will is not clear. If he wanted us to form Italy, he would give us cores or missions on Siena and the Papal State. We would not want to occupy Roma without God being at our side, who knows what would happen !
 
God's will is not clear. If he wanted us to form Italy, he would give us cores or missions on Siena and the Papal State. We would not want to occupy Roma without God being at our side, who knows what would happen !

Considering that boundary disputes and conquest missions can't fire on the Papal State, it seems clear enough. :D I'm not sure about the vassalization mission though, that might possible?