Brandenburg AAR

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So, continuing. The reformations branches out at about the same time that I got all the provinces fully converted. Oddly I didn't get the <make war on heretics / live with them> event.

The Hansa dows me a short while later bringing a few smaller nations into the war.

This time, my troops are the same type as his, so let one army group head south to handle Wurtenburg while the two other ones combine to start nuking The Hansa's stacks:

And soon his armies are gone:

Portugal with his god-king gives me a few headaches and it illustrates how much better the ai is with the latest patch. I had moved a 1/2/1 batallion north to join up with my smaller army waiting up there to handle the Portuguese but seeing that it was alone, the Portuguese army immediately attacked it instead of moving in to another province to siege which he was doing. Anyway, it didn't help him in the long run as it gave me enough time to join the battle and wipe his army out.

The outcome of the war is the conversion of The Hansa and Wurtenburg to Protestantism. The main reason to do this is so that when I come to make war with them later on as part of German unification they aren't protected by probably France or Austria as defenders of the faith.

 

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Meanwhile Bohemia has converted to Protestantism as well:

He offers me an alliance which I accept but it barely lasts a year before he cancels it:

And, finally government tech 19 is reached and I switch to a republic:

Frankly I don't know why anyone would keep a monarchy. My new ruler is a god-king:

Austria, as emperor, is trying to enforce religious unity and some are accepting, but not all:

As my BB is pretty low now I decide to annex Pommerania even though I've only got one core on their provinces:

I immediately start upgrading their provinces with shipyards and docks so that the southern Baltic will be my main ship building location.

Unfortunately now I have no allies and having a look at relations, there aren't many possibilities:

Another one of these events turns up - I've had quite a few so far. I think defensive is better:

 

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It's coming up to about 20 years before I can declare myself Germany so I start warning all the small minor countries so that I can make individual wars and hence reduce the BB toll during unification:

And, then Austria cancels military access. Is this a prelude to war? Hopefully not, but precautions are taken in building more troops. I'm rather high over the limit but I've got the cash for them while not at war:

Austria doesn't declare war and then the emperorship passes back to Bohemia, mainly due to me as the council is divided:

Thw next idea I grab is superior seamanship to give myself a possiblility of winning a naval battle or two. Against England with his huge navy and naval ideas I haven't a chance but other countries will be possible:

My current economy is doing pretty well:

And, then around 1551 Mecklenburg cores and I declare myself Germany:

 

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And, I lose Polish culture. Not sure why this is. Is it because all the other cultures are now considered "Germanic" and hence compared to that the proportion of Poles is too low?

And, the first unification war begins in earnest. The biggest bang for the buck is Hesse:

So I dow him and Holstein. This brings in Gelre and some other smaller countries. Holstein was allied to Hesse which is why I dowed him separately so that I effectively had two wars and hence could annex Holstein for 0BB. The biggest stack I have to face, moving my way:

It doesn't take too long to wipe out all the armies and I start sieging. I don't really have enough to siege everything so I keep an army running round Gelre killing what he's building. The outcome is:

And then it's time for war on Bohemia to grab my cores:

I think that screenshot is a bit later because I'm also at war with Switzerland and Gelre again. I think I attacked Frankfurt and Hesse again and those other ones came in to the war. I annex Baden because he had just been released from Switzerland by France and I don't want to take France on just yet:

Shortly after I'm removed from the electorship. Not unpredictable, but I'm just amazed it has taken so long:

And, remarkably Danzig is the biggest cot. Not quite sure why there aren't many more that have been built. Normally there are.

Also, just before I finish this posting a word on disolving the HRE. I want to do this so that I can take the dutch provinces and other ones without getting the BB penalty but the problem is that the Palatinate is in a PU with France and I don't want to take on France until I'm bigger. Hence, my goal is to gobble up Switzerland and Austria before taking France on.

 

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About 10 years later I rush land 22 to get latin caracolle cavalry, the first upgrade from latin knights:

and decide that I may as well declare war on Austria as he's still at land 21.

I combine six army groups into two mega-stacks and proceed to annihilate the main Austrian army divisions:

and the peace is devastating to him:

Then a wee while later I dow Switzerland, Cologne and Gelre. The sieges after the main armies have been destroyed (not very taxing):

After straight out annexation of Switzerland and the taking of all my Gelre cores, Germany has become number 1 economically. As far as buildings go, I've built up to lvl 4 army buildings in a 4 province area around my capital which produces all my troops. I've got a few provinces in Poland that I'm upgrading to Colleges for the magistrates and the rest is going in to tax buildings. As well as manufacturies which I'm building when I can as my yearly income is about 1200g.

Territory comparison:

 

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It's 1578 and France has been at war with the UK for a couple years. Most of their troops are down at the bottom end of the Iberian peninsula as Britain has a province there so I intend to make war. They're also still at land 21 so don't have latin caracolle cavalry yet. I'm a bit surprised as when I've attacked France in other versions (not DW) they always seemed to start with really high free subjects so their tech was always great. Whereas I've noticed (from spy efficiency) that they're at 4 towards serfdom. Is this a new starting position for them or perhaps just events have made it that way? As far as tech goes, they're probably behind as they've got an inflation rate of 40%.

Anyway, military comparison:

And current over all map:

All the yellow armies stacks are 4/8/4 divisions and I'm about 60 armies over my limit, but it's still manageable income-wise.

 

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War begins in earnest with mainly assaults and then pulling back to recover infantry; there's combing forces to kill the French stacks. Not too difficult really as not all his troops are to hand. Then I realize my war exhaustion is already rising rapidly (due to attrition) and my infantry aren't being replenished quick enough so I start sieging individually.

Not long in to the war Gelre declares war:

so troops are diverted a wee bit for them and their allies. Moments later Austria does the same:

Troops are definitely diverted for Austria.

However, it doesn't take long for Gelre to realize the error of his ways and I get a white peace pretty soon afterwards:

and then, after I've made sure that I've taken his capital and had a few battles, Austria gives up too:

I don't want France building up troops numbers into large stacks so I make sure that he has a path from Iberia to the provinces I have already taken and this way I just leave an army group around there and I can pick them off quite easily. Gradually, as I take more provinces I send my troops down to the Iberian peninsula where Castlle, Portugal and Provence are at war with France as well. Before long I have conquered pretty much everything on the continent. I leave a couple of army groups hanging around for rebels or reinforcements from elsewhere and get my forces ready for the assault on the remaining electors of the HRE.

My war exhaustion of 6ish isn't too high but my income is already down to a couple hundred ducats a year, partly due to a couple of bad stab events so I'm going to have to disband some divisions after the war; I am almost 100 units over the limit with the lower stability.

War begins again by a declartion on Cologne; I had to wait until 1584 for the truce to expire. This brings Gelre, Bavaria and Cologne into the action and then I declare war on Bohemia as well. Assaults are done on the capitals (occupying the capital is how the game works out that you "control" that elector) and there we go, the HRE is dead:

Peace is made with France for most of their Netherlands and a few other provinces, putting me right at the limit of my BB:

And, everyone else white peaces, phew.

 

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After that last war I had lots of rebels as a map of revolt risk can show:

All research investment goes into stability and when I get to +1 I swap out battlefield commissions for quest for the new world:

When war exhaustion has got back down I go back to war to get most of my remaining cores:

But the Ottomans get there first and make Austria release Croatia while I am sieging those provinces:

Germany is now the largest country, just:

and it's economy is twice the size of it's nearest competitor, France:

So, when my BB gets back down to close to zero I dow France again. This time far more of his troops are on the continent and he's only at war with someone like Sokoto. Hence, I will try and kill more of his troops when he's on my territory to reduce attrition, but I'll still probably mainly need two and three army stacks (16/8/8 and 24/12/12, inf/cav/art) and the atttrition from this kind of large army is really bad, within months it's going up by between +0.3 and +0.5 per month. Needless to say, Provence declares war on me almost immediately:

and then Gelre a wee bit later:

This is why it's essential to have weakened considerably Austria.

The battles go all right in the north, but I lose a 3 army stack in the south and have to rapidly build more and divert some back that way:

GB is the defender of the faith and has joined in but has not landed any troops, thankfully. This is the first time I saw any of his ships and I won a battle! Hoorah, I wasn't expecting to win a fleet battle against them as previously with all his naval ideas their fleets seemed invincible, even tiny ones:

I decided that I could leave France's armies running about a bit in my territory in order to concentrate on getting Gelre and especially Provence out of the war, so I sieged Gelre and destroyed some of Provence's armies. I then assaulted Lombardia and he gave up. This means all my armies can once again concentrate on France, which right now is required. It's a long slog to obliterate all his armies and siege provinces.

Here's my WE after a couple years:

and a year later he peaces out for a large swathe of territory chopping him in two. This should aid in the next war:

 

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During peacetime I have been concentrating on building the government line of buildings, so temples, courthouses, spy agencies, town halls and then colleges. These are mainly in lowish income provinces, like tax base 6 and less. (The higher ones I've been concentrating on doing mints). This is because each college gives an extra 0.05 magistrates. So, by the time the next war comes along I've got almost 20 of these. Not sure if this is a good tactic. In the past I've just built mainly the tax boosting buildings like mints everywhere, but I think more magistrates is definitely a good idea and off course these also reduce revolt risk so it might be a good idea (town halls also boost income so aren't a total waste). Anyway, I'll find out. The other good thing is that the next one in the tree, which I start building later is cathedrals which give +0.05 missionaries each and I will definitely need more of these. They also have a whopping +10 stability bonus each and with say 20 of these, I'll see if that makes any kind of dent on my stability when I go over the BB limit; probably not, but no harm in trying.

Also, I don't really see any point in building the army buildings as I've got loads of manpower. It may be worth it later to have another soldier producing 4 province area, perhaps in Iberia for shipping overseas. The southern Baltic provinces are all, excepting Danzig (which gets a mint) upgraded fully with the naval buildings. I am kind of waiting a bit to get war-galleons at naval 26 in order to mass produce these continually because these are really decent and will really own the previous types of ships. It is really just GB who is the main worry as far as big ships go because Portugal and Spain have been mainly neutralized by France. GB has around 70 ships as do I, although he has a few more. I am presuming that most of these will be carracks and caravels, so the war-galleons should gun them down pretty easily once I get into the BB wars.

About 8 years of BB cooling off I get some new cavalry:

I am the only major country to have these, being a good few techs ahead of my rivals so war with France is resumed:

This time things are much easier than last time but it doesn't really stop the war exhaution heading up extremely rapidly. Tellingly, this time no other countries get involved which helps matters.

Here's a battle in the south (I have another army coming south in case the battle goes bad and I have to retreat - it helps to have another army there to boost the morale preventing wipe-outs like I had in the last war):

which my troops win:

And the next battle in Bearn is also won, with his armies retreating to different locations, which eases destruction:

There's a naval engagement which annihilates most of the French fleet:

Here's a battle showing the power of artillery (it was not a retreat, just straight engagement), although my general may have had something to do with it now that I think about it:

and the peace carves out some nice meaty territory:

My war exhaustion ended around 8.7 so it will be a few years cooling of. I've been going for the religious war CB to cleanse heresy so that I only pay 2 BB per province. I think I will have one more war to take as much as I can before going over the BB threshold and into a world of pain.

 

[sprites]

As France was so big for once, that's sad to destroy them

 

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You will have noticed in the last screenshots that I have an idea slot for quite a while which I haven't taken up; I am waiting until I can get Smithsonian Economics (+20% production efficiency; this will be massive as most income comes from production now, see below) and Scientific Revolution for the -10% tech.

 

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As France was so big for once, that's sad to destroy them

You're right sprites. They almost never get that big. Also, have a look at the Ottomans; they totally recovered and are pawning the Timurids. Not sure what I will use to declare war on them as the religious war CB is going to run out soon.

 

[Magnive]

Imperialism!

 

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Imperialism!

For the CB? If that is the case, what's the requirement for the CB?

 

[Magnive]

Revolutionary Empire, Revolutionary Republic, Enlightened Despotism, Republican Dictatorship or Absolute Monarchy

 

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Revolutionary Empire, Revolutionary Republic, Enlightened Despotism, Republican Dictatorship or Absolute Monarchy

Thanks Magnive. I'm an Administrative Republic currently which is pretty awesome for swapping leaders in and out but from now on I will only need an administrative chap, so it's probably worth switching to a Republican Dictatorship as the first three are far too far away tech-wise.

 

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Continuing, naval 26 is reached for war galleons and the baltic coast begins construction. Until I have at least 4 fleet groups of probably around 50 war galleons and 32 merchantmen they will be continually building. I also upgrade the facilities to naval arsenals and naval bases when the tech allows:

This is a new event I've never seen. Seems a bit odd considering what the country has been doing for the last 50 years:

The truce with France is about to expire so I rush land 28 and upgrade to Gustavian Infantry. Takes a couple months as I'm pretty close already. Currently my tech is spread evenly across all techs as I'm not really sure what the best things to go for right now and for government, production and land I'm hitting the penalty for tech advancement ahead of prescheduled year.

Having a look around the world almost everyone nearby finds Germany threatening, even Ottomans, Morocco, Vijay and Lan Xang that I don't have land borders with or am even remotely close to:

 

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So, war with France begins again and my troops wait for their forces to move across my borders and then pounce. One battle in the north:

followed rapidly by obliteration:

This is pretty much the same everywhere.

A pretty handy event; that's a serious quantity of cash:

Almost full sieges everywhere following the destruction of the French army:

This time my war exhaustion doesn't get above 2.5.

And I've decided that I may as well stop hanging around and initiate the pain so I annex The Palatinate, partly for their refineries which they have in both provinces, Luxemburg, Navarra (closing their cot so that it all goes through Andalucia; I don't like that many cots) and make peace with France, completing the process of chopping them up into small pieces:

 

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So, a couple of screenshots showing the state of play before the BB wars begin. Economy comparison:

Tech comparison; Germany is 1st in all techs:

Global map:

And, this is probably the last time I will see my people so happy (revolt risk map):

 

[PineconeKing]

Lan Xang is BIIIIIIIG.