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delpiero1234

WritAAR
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Jun 24, 2012
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Foedere et Religione Tenemur - A Savoy AAR

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Welcome to my first ever AAR and thanks for stopping by! I like playing countries on the Italian peninsular and I decided to play as Savoy. You might be wondering about the name of this AAR. Foedere et Religione Tenemur is the Latin motto of the royal House of Savoy and it translates to: "We are bound by treaty and religion".
House Rules
  1. Historical start date (1. January 1310)
  2. Normal AI difficulty
  3. Lucky Nations Off (Don't exist in VeF)
  4. Terra Incognita in lobby
  5. No reloading

Some Goals
  • Form Sardinia-Piedmont
  • Unite the Italian Peninsular
  • Restore the Roman Empire
  • Repell the French

Country Information
  • Tech: Italian
  • Capital: Torino
  • Primary Culture: Lombard

Chapter List
I hope to provide you with an exciting and interesting read!

Edit: Since this is my first AAR, it took me a few chapters to figure out the style that I'm most comfortable with.
Feedback, comments, questions and criticism are very much appreciated :)
 
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Go Savoy! Make Eugene proud, even if he wasn't from Savoy! :p Also, a special good luck since this is your first AAR!

Cheers!
 
Chapter I - Setting the Stage​


Our story begins in the year 1310 in the north-western Alps, in the County of Savoy to be more precise. Our count Amedeo V di Savoia is one of the most skilled rulers of his time. He rose to the throne roughly 25 years ago but unfortunately he lacks a heir.

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The Italian Peninsular in the early 14th century was a crowded place. Next to the County of Milan and the Most Serene Republic, Venice, a number of city states fought for power - and then there is the French Pope Clement V de Got who currently resides in Avignon and controls much of Central Italy. In the South we have the Kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Trinacria (Sicily), a vassal of Aragon. And then there is Genoa. Those frugal, stinky merchants from Genoa have been a thorn in our flesh for decades. They control the most important harbor of the Ligurian coast.
Amedeo V began making plans to take Liguria from Genoa a few years ago and he now waits eagerly for the right moment to strike.

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In the early hours of January 2nd 1310, our count announced that a new heir was finally born! Carlo is said to be as skillful as his father. Nobody had to work on this glorious day and we drank wine all night long.

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Only a month later dire news spread through the streets of Torino. Our new-born heir has fallen ill! The best doctors of our realm traveled to the capital and tried their best to save the young heir but they couldn't. So Amedeo V prayed to the all-mighty God and only through a mystery Carlo escaped certain death.

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Savoy seeked an Alliance with the greedy Pope and secured a state marriage with Phillip IV Capet. The French are a threat to our small nation and hopefully this marriage will keep them from attacking us. Pisa, Siena and Aragon are cordial allies. The merchants of Venice, who are known to be a sworn-enemy of Genoa, are our closest ally. Together with Venice we shall soon declare war upon Genoa.

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For years we have relied on mercenaries but Amedeo V always knew that this was a mistake and one night he had a vision that soon we will accumulate lots of AE and therefore he ordered that our ideas should be changed.

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Instead of focusing on overpriced mercenaries Amedeo V ordered that we should specialize in diplomacy. A wise choice.

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Only one month after securing the strategic royal marriage with the Capets one of our most skilled-diplomats managed to secure an alliance with the French. On his way home from Paris he picked up an interesting piece of information: Count John II Tour-du-Pin of Dauphine has been excommunicated! That's fantastic news. We never really liked him anyways.

Amedeo V had always criticized his father for not applying to the Pope for the title of Duke. Amedeo V enjoyed good relations with the Pope and therefore he granted Amedeo the title of Duke. This was long overdue.

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For strange reasons foreign rulers criticized this move and our legitimacy dropped. Therefore Amedeo V sought an investiture from the Pope and with a few ducats we restored our legitimacy.

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War was in the air and Amedeo V ordered the best man of our 8000 man strong army to his court. The count decided that NAME should lead our troops in battle. The fortifications in Liguria are said to be some of the best in Wester Europe. However, Gennaro d'Appiani d'Aragona is said to be an expert at sieging enemy fortifications. The siege will definitely be much easier now.

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So it appeared that the time had come to take Liguria from Genoa. A few months ago we already ordered one of our spies to fabricate a claim on Liguria. Venice was our only ally that honored our call to war. It will remain forever a mystery why Pisa refused to join the war against those Ligurian fishermen who had previously announced to the world that Pisa was their rival.

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To be continued...
 
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Go Savoy! Make Eugene proud, even if he wasn't from Savoy! :p Also, a special good luck since this is your first AAR!

Cheers!
Thank you! Savoy will rule :)
 
What!! Whiskey is always the answer to everyone's problems! You might even start chasing your son around the palace with an axe! ;) :p

I suppose you should win your war although it looks like you both have 8,000 men and who knows how helpful the allies to both side will be, just as long as Genoa doesn't have a super general or something with a high shock value to turn the tide... :glare:
 
Bah! Forget the Pope. The only cool thing he has is a funny hat which makes me think he's compensating for something. You the Duke and Future King are the Ruler of Savoy, not the Pope. Down with the Pope! Up with Savoy!
 
Bah! Forget the Pope. The only cool thing he has is a funny hat which makes me think he's compensating for something. You the Duke and Future King are the Ruler of Savoy, not the Pope. Down with the Pope! Up with Savoy!
The plan is to take down the Pope sooner than later. I want the Pope to crown me first though :p Vassalazing the Pope won't be easy because he is hiding behind high walls in Avignon.

Rumors are spreading in Torino that the Pope went mad but more on that later..
 
Chapter I - Savoyard-Genoese Rivalry War

The war against Genoa was finally under way and our troops laid siege on Liguria. Led by Gennaro d'Appiani d'Aragona we were optimistic to win the siege fairly shortly. Our Venetian allies began besieging the Genoese holdings in Greece as well as Athens.
Thankfully the navy of the Most Serene Republic was superior to the one of our foe, which was proven when the entire Genoese fleet was sunk in the Gulf of Taranto.

The Venetian forces won the siege of Athens only a few days before Liguria finally fell. We negotiated a separate peace with Athens, in which we demanded some gold and that Athens becomes a vassal of Venice. Amedeo though it would be a wise move to keep Venice busy with another vassal. It was rumored that the Venetian were troubled managing their diplomatic relations.

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Winning the siege of Liguria took much longer than we initially thought and it was not enough to convince Genoa to give up the province. Therefore the war continued. Amedeo thought it would be best to wait for the Venetian forces before attacking the Genoese army who had laid siege on Cuneo. Dire news arrived: Breach in the wall!
Our Army was too small to engage the Genose forces alone and Venice was busy elsewhere. Amedeo asked his general for advice. d'Aragona came up with an alternative plan and ordered our troops to lay siege on Corsicia. The Geneose feared losing the island and a peace treaty was reached before the siege was won. We demanded Liguria in exchange for peace! As a consequences, Genoa moved its capital to Bastia.

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Our position in Italy was now a little better and prosperous times laid ahead. Savoy was now officially a regional power!

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However, our share of the Mediterranean trade was still rather small and our spies reported that the city of Sassari, located at the northern coast of Sardinia, would be an easy target. Antonio Vico traveled to Sassari and found out that the bourgeoisie was more than unhappy with the rule of the House of Crivelli. The Crivellis lost Cagliari to Pisa and Oristano to Genoa. The bourgeoisie was willing to plot against Mariano Crivelli and helped Vico to fabricate a claim on Sassari. Unfortunately, a Sardinian guard interrupted their meeting and immediately informed Crivelli. Vico managed to escape the prison and continued fabricating the claim.

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The costal villages of the Mediterranean Sea were frequently raided by Barbary Pirates. One of the more powerful Barbary captains sent an envoy to Liguria. We spotted his ship and escorted it into our harbor. The envoy offered us a interesting proposal:

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He demanded 25 ducats - too much considering our monthly income was less than 2 ducats. The envoy refused to negotiate the price. So we politely refused his offer and sent his head to his captain!

Knowing that war was once again in the air, Amedeo signed an alliance with Ferrara. Our spies also received new orders to fabricate claims on Lucca and Parma. Both city-states are allies of Sardinia. Taking all three provinces in one war was the goal.

Our incompetent spies were caught once again. Amedeo was furious and his advisors had to calm him down when he was about to expel Vico and Borremeo from the city. But a duchy without spies? That wouldn't work well and for now both were allowed to stay in Torino. We learned our lesson and our diplomats underwent a special training to smooth things out: At home they call them Silver Tongues. Previously, Amedeo had already commanded that we shall adopt the Diplomacy and Relations policy.

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But this was too late: A few months earlier, our neighbor Parma conspired against us and formed a coalition. Soon those lousy farmers from Montferrat joined the coalition. They will find no safety in mere numbers!

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In preparation for the upcoming war, Amedeo ordered two cogs and a regiment of crossbowmen when suddenly things started getting messy on the Italian Peninsular: Phillip IV Capet (France) declared war upon Naples with the intention to conquer Marseille. Luckily we were not called into the war.
Just a few weeks later, Pope Clement V de Got, a Frenchman, excommunicated King Robert I de Anjou. The aristocracy in Torino had no words for this French madness! Two excommunicated rulers in just four years? Who will be next..?

To be continued...
 
I can't see the last 3 pictures.
 
Subbed! :)


3 VeF AARs at the same time. That's quite nice.
 
Is this a 1.2 or a 1.1.3 game? If 1.1.3 I strongly recommend you exploit France's weak-ass units and crush him when the 100 years war kicks off.

Oh, subbed.
 
I can't see the last 3 pictures.
Hmm. That is weird. Does anybody else not see the images? I uploaded all of them to imgur.com.Tonight when I get home from work I'll reupload them. Hopefully that will fix the problem.

Subbed! :).
Oh, subbed.
Thanks!

Is this a 1.2 or a 1.1.3 game? If 1.1.3 I strongly recommend you exploit France's weak-ass units and crush him when the 100 years war kicks off.
The mod version is 1.1.3g. I thought about doing a 1.2 run but since 1.2 is still being developed I might encounter strange things that might force me to restart so I decided it's best to do this AAR with the stable release version. I'll consider your advice. Thanks! I have a feeling though that these Capets will sooner than later betray our alliance..
 
Chapter I - In Honor of d'Aragona

Amedeo sent an envoy to France who was tasked to convince Phillip Capet to join us in the conquest of Sassari. Adriano Solaro negotiated with the French King for hours but he could not convince him to join a possible war against Sardinia. The French war chest was empty and their people were exhausted from the war against Naples, which was still going. If we want to take Sassari we have to rely on our own troops.

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Pope Clement V de Got died tragically and the Conclave elected Innocentius VII Borghese as new Pope. Amedeo V prayed that he was less mad than the previous Pope who had excommunicated two rulers in a rather short time frame.

On April 20th 1315 our Duke gave orders to our forces to gather in Liguria. From Liguria we could easily attack the army of Parma in case they join the war. After our soldiers arrived, war was declared on Sardinia. Our allies Ferrara, Modena and Pisa honored our call to arms. Parma sided with Sardinia. Surprisingly, Lucca refused to help the Crivellis to defend Sassari. The Princeps of Lucca was smarter than we thought.

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Gennaro d'Appiani d'Aragona was in charge of our 8000 man strong army and marched on Parma. But then something unexpected happened: Innocentius VII declared war on Naples! He asked us to join the Papal-Neapolitan Excommunication war. This was a tricky situation for us but we decided to honor the Pope's request. It turned out that Innocentius was a war-mongering bully just like his predecessor.

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We informed the Pope that our forces would support him only to find out that we were not allowed to join the war anymore because our ally Ferrara joined the Neapolitan forces. This prevented us from honoring the call-to-arms. Lucky Savoy!

d'Aragona crushed the Parmensi forces in Parma which then retreated to Bologna. We hunted them down with a thousand men and with the support of Pisa we managed to wipe out their entire army! Glory to Savoy! Amedeo was most pleased when he heard about our triumph and instructed our navy to to transport our 5000 best warriors to Sassari. We Sardinian forces were fools. They left their city and laid siege on Cagliari (owned by Pisa). We proceeded and besieged the city.

On a cold December night the blacksmith of Saluzzo created a new set of melee weapons. Our infantry profited from this and our military technology advanced.

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This advancement in military technology encouraged a Florentine siege engineer to travel to Savoy. He offered to create some siege weapons for us and of course we hired him for the sum of 13 ducats.

News arrived from the far north that Scotland had conquered Northern Ireland. Amedeo did not want to hear about this and ordered the guards to remove the messenger. Pope Innocentius VII heard about our disinterest and was most pleased. Innocentius didn't care about those Celtic cavemen either. He sent a few of his Papal administrators to Torino. They provided us assistance in administrative matters (+25 ADM). Maybe this blood-thirsty Pope wasn't that bad after all?

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After 360 days the garrison of Sassari waved the white flag and opened the city gates. The siege of Parma was still going but our people were optimistic that the war would be over before Christmas. They were right. By the end of October Parma and Sassari were incorporated into our realm. A statue was built in honor of General d'Aragona in his hometown Sion who once again led our troops to victory! What would Savoy be without him?

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To be continued...
 
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Nice AAR, consider this subbed!
P.S. FERT has many meanings and the Fortitudo Eius Rhodum Tenuit means ' through his strength he held Rhodes' and the Treaty and Religion translation comes from another meaning for FERT, maybe you want to decide on one meaning.
 
Nice AAR, consider this subbed!
P.S. FERT has many meanings and the Fortitudo Eius Rhodum Tenuit means ' through his strength he held Rhodes' and the Treaty and Religion translation comes from another meaning for FERT, maybe you want to decide on one meaning.
Thanks for subscribing and for pointing out my mistake with the AAR title. I'll ask a moderator to change my AAR's title to Foedere et Religione Tenemur :)
 
Chapter I - Waiting for an Opportunity to Strike​

The annexation of Sassari and Parma did not go unnoticed. Milan, Lucca and Dauphine joined the already existing military coalition against us. This was a bummer. We had planned to annex Lucca next but this unexpected move by the Princeps of Lucca forced us to rethink our strategy.

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Things got worse when the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Henri VII of Luxembourg demanded that we return Parma. An emergency meeting was held in Torino and at the end the Emperor's request was declined. Who would give up a newly conquered city anyways?

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Our Florentine siege complained that he cannot construct more siege weapons if we don't buy more iron. The market price for iron was low but relying on others was not the Savoyard way. Amedeo sent scouts to Switzerland. There are rumors that there is a deep iron mine in Waldstätte. Soon this was confirmed to be true and one of our spies began fabricating a claim on Waldstätte. Switzerland had powerful allies including Bavaria and the Holy Roman Emperor Luxembourg.

The French-Neapolitan war was still going. Unbelieveable how long it took them to enforce their demands. In October of 1317 a peace treaty was finally signed. Naples ceded Marseille to France and Toulon to France's vassal Anjou. The French threat got too close and any day they might turn on us.

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The military elite of Savoy was unhappy with the Viscontis of Milan. Milan had sworn to protect most of the Italian city states. This was unfortunate and hindered our expansion plans. In order to let Count Matteo Visconti know how much we were upset with him we sent him a present: the head of donkey. We were optimistic that he understood the message.

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Naples was weak after the heavy loss against France. The Papal-Neapolitan Excommunication War was still going. Naples had no friends. Nobody wants to be allied with an excommunicated ruler. So Amedeo V thought that it would be better to strike against Naples instead of going to war with Switzerland and their powerful allies. For years the people in Nice had been suppressed by the House of Anjou. It was time to save them!

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On Christmas Day we declared on Naples. Most of our allies honored our call-to-arms but it turned out that this was not even necessary. Naples had no army! General d'Aragona laughed when our spies informed him about this amusing fact. Before marching on Nice he was ordered to deal with some rebel uprising in Wallis. Just outside of d'Aragona's hometown Sion, Burgundian patriots had risen up. They wanted to join Luxembourg but the rebellion was crushed by force.

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Innocentius VII was still at war with Naples when he decided that it's time to excommunicate another ruler: This time Signore Annibale II from House Farnese was excommunicated. The reason remains a mystery but it was believed that Innocentius planed to conquer Bologna. Amedeo was concerned that the Pope was growing too powerful. But it was not the right time to annul the alliance with the Holy Father. Amedeo wished to be crown king of Savoy by the Pope himself. Annulling the alliance would probably deeply upset him. Therefore it was best to ignore the old man that was sitting on the Chair of Saint Peter.

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Over the past year, our so-called Silver Tongues worked in Milano and Grenoble. On January 13th 1319 they managed to convince the rulers of Milan and Dauphine to leave the coalition against us. Dauphine understood that the real threat were the Capets and therefore they formed a coalition against them. A good day for Savoy! We also improved our industry, which resulted in the advancement of administrative technology.

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1319 was a rough year for Savoy. We were troubled by internal conflicts between the aristocracy of Liguria and the local merchant guild. The guild was doing exceptionally well and filled our treasury. The aristocracy on the other hand was lazy and didn't contribute much to the realm. Amedeo though that this was the perfect opportunity to get rid of some of the more influential aristocrats. This turned out to be an excellent choice. Merchants from the entire Mediterranean talked very well of our duke and our diplomatic reputation was drastically increased.

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Even the merchants from our fierce rival Genoa began thanking us for supporting the Ligurian merchant guild. How unwise of them to leave the coalition against us! They are clearly led by fools!

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Shortly after Amedeo turned 69 a traveling minstrel was spotted crossing our borders. He was coming from Montferrat and was hoping to bring joy to the people of Savoy. The guard brought the minstrel to the captain of the guard who interrogated him for hours. He feared that the minstrel might be a spy. But this was a false alarm. The captain allowed the minstrel to travel through the beautiful cities of Savoy. Our citizens were happy to get to chat with him.

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In the mean time the Papal States demanded Gaeta, Abruzzi, Pescara and Termoli from Naples in exchange for peace. Pope Innocentius became too powerful. Everybody in Savoy agreed that this was a serious problem - only the Aristocracats disagreed. In Parma a member of the Arisotcracy was caught embezzling funds that belonged to our Duke. It was time to crush the Aristocracy of Parma once and for all! Castruccio Guerci, Princeps of Luca, was most pleased by this and Lucca left the coalition against us. Our Silver Tongues manage to reduce the coalition to one member: Montferrat.

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The war with Naples finally came to an end. Provence and Nice were ceded to Savoy and Corfu became an independent country. The Savoyard military was the best on the Italian Peninsula, which was shown by our superior military technology.

Rumors were spreading through the narrow streets of Torino and Rome that Pope Innocentius was about to crown Amedeo V di Savoia king of Savoy. Could these rumors really be true?

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To be continued...
 
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You're on a role so far! On a purely aesthetic note, I do love the very colorful artwork incorporated into the game by the veritas et fortitudo mod as someone who owns Bednorz's two volume compendium on Baroque art and architecture.
 
You're on a role so far! On a purely aesthetic note, I do love the very colorful artwork incorporated into the game by the veritas et fortitudo mod as someone who owns Bednorz's two volume compendium on Baroque art and architecture.
Veritas et Fortitudo adds so much more flavor to the game. It's my favorite EU IV mod for various reasons. I agree with you that the artwork for the events is beautiful. It adds a lot to the game experience.