Portugal and England
France holds 27 provinces = 73 to go for BBB.
First the diplomacy. I cancel the alliance with Provence and the guarantee of Scotland. Both are future victims and I want to have the option to attack them asap. So I let the truce timer for them start. I ally Burgundy, Castile and The Papal State.
The Papal State is mostly for Papal Influence and having good relations with him to avoid an excommunication. Allies get way less AE from whatever I am doing soon.
Castile is a good ally in any case. I can use him against Aragon later and I prevent a Castilian-English alliance this way. The short term benefit is that I have vision on his lands, so I can follow the Portuguese movements.
Burgundy. He desires English provinces, so I can use/abuse him immediately. Sooner or later I will turn against him, as his lands are rightfully ours, not?
The most important department in our game: the military.
Artillery comes to the game in 1479. That is 25 years from now on; half an eternity. While we have hundreds of sieges to do. But France starts with two scripted generals, both very good. Jean Bureau is a real "Master of Sieges", as he has +15% siege ability on top of his 3 pips. Almost OP.
Navy: Very important. As many forts are coastal, it is vital to get the -2 malus for sieges nullified. Plus the possibilty of a naval barrage. Later with a flagship I can turn the blockade into a +1 bonus. A strong navy means naval superiority, means a high mobility for the troops with transports, etc.
For the start I disband the 4 Lights and convert them into sailors. France has 4 ports and I want to have 4 new Heavies asap. I order 2 on day 1 and once I get 200 sailors I will start building the next, so after a few years I will have 6 Heavies. A 6/0/0/8 fleet is not strong enough to challenge the English fleet (10 Heavies in a cluster) in the first war, but it is enough to savely transport troops to Scotland to invade England from the north. Moreover we will need a fleet in the wars to come with Scotland and Denmark.
Morale of armies: The French King gives +5% and by recruiting 8 infantry up to force limit I will get another +5% from the mission reward. The best initial military advisor I got for this game is a Quartermaster, giving +33% reinforcements, which is fine.
So England got Kildare and Navarra besides his starting alliance with Portugal. Navarra very often falls into a PU under Aragon in the first years of the game. So maybe he will just drop out of our war, maybe not. Burgundy wants to join on the promise of land. But first I will ask him for Mil Access, place the 2k on Calais and only then I call him in.
Very important: Before the war I have to flag every hostile province as vital interest. Really everything, not just Calais. I forgot to do so in one run and then Burgundy was crying, as I had little interest to give him Kent and Sussex. If I have signed his provinces of vital interest as vital for myself and he doesn't occupy them, he is fine with getting nothing. Well, I am fine with this too.
I have high ambitions for this war, as I want a province from Portugal and then a complete victory against England, to get some province close to Scotland in addition to the return of all my seven cores.
First I concentrate on Normandy with Caux as the war goal. Burgundy and his subjects will help me sieging Calais.
Normandy is completely occupied. I got an early wall breach in Caen and assaulted the fort to take it down in Mar.45. The "Master of Sieges" is in Calais now, leading the 2 regiments. Flanders with 8k and Brabant with 9k are also there on the fort.
The English fort in Labourd (Gascony) is always a hot spot in these wars. It is woods, so -1 terrain. Besides my 30k+ troops there is a 17k-stack of Burgundy close by, while one Portuguese army has to retreat home already. So I take the chance to attack the 15k of England. However battles on Mil Tech 3 are very costly in lives. After such encounters I consolidate my regiments and start to fill up with Mercs. I don't spare expenses for this war. Time to take care of the economy will come later.
In one of my previous runs I tried to make every friendly stack attach to one of my armies. But it is Burgundy and his 4 subjects. All have several armies, with many small stacks. Some are unwilling to attach at all, other stacks do attach and then go elsewhere, before I can realize, what is happening. In this run I did without attaching in the early stage of the war. As a consequence Burgundy ignored my proposal to siege Labourd and some isolated stacks are already running through Aragon to reach Portugal. Sigh. Playing with AI-allies is often a real test of nerves.
Calais has fallen in Sep.45 and everyone moved south. Half of my army is sieging Labourd or guarding it. Burgundy attacked a weakened English stack in the mountains of Nafarroa. Sigh. As I expected something like this, I already moved the other half of my army through Narbonnais to Aragon. So I could come over to help Burgundy. Meanwhile some smaller stacks have attached, so I can use them to siege Navarra's capital fort in the mountains.
The siege of Labourd was over in Feb.46. The main stack of Burgundy went to lay siege on Évora. I put a 1k-stack on the fort as well, in case he goes away. The "Master of Sieges" sits on Lisboa, with a Dutch 11k-stack attached. In the Low Countries England has landed 18k troops. For the moment I am just waiting here. The action is soon to happen in Nafarroa again. As I have made significant progress in the siege, I decide to stay stubborn and take the battle despite the -2 from the mountains. There is a second army of Portugal and some smaller stack of England in the fog of Aragon, so numbers are about equal. My second scripted general already died, but Flanders has a 2/4/0/2 leader, attached to my 1k-stack for the siege of Nafarroa.
We won the battle in the mountains, but again some thousands of my troops left their lives. The starting configuration of my regular army was 30/8/0. Now it is 16/4/0, plus 16 Mercs. With the next tick in Aug.46 the fort fell and I could peace out Navarra seperately.
Almost as expected Burgundy run away from the siege of Évora. My main army has taken over. Jean Bureau is still on Lisboa, supported by some Dutch. Numbers are sufficent for the Portuguese to not attack me.
The English are in the north. I suppose, I started the battle before the other English 9k-stack could complete its landing. Half of our troops are from Nevers and Brabant rushes over to aid with his 11k as well.
I sent over my fleet (4/0/0/8) for the blockade of Lisboa and in Apr.47 the fort surrendered. But I had to concede 2 transports for this effort, as my fleet is still not good and vulnerable. Anyway, I had enough warscore to get the peace deal with Portugal, I wanted. The annulation of his alliances with England and Castile, as well as the province of Aveiro. That is the only province I can take and have the time of truce below 10 years. So now I have a foothold to expand in West Iberia, which is far away from the HRE and thus "low AE land". Portugal's coastal provinces are rather well developed, but West Iberia contains some low developed ones inland, which means eventually backstabing Castile. We will see. It is an option and one of my goals early game was to have a lot of options for expansion.
Another 17k-stack (leaderless) of England is about to be murdered in Normandy. Currently my fleet is docked for repair in the port of Bas-Poitou. Soon I will ask Scotland for Mil Access and Fleet Basing Rights to start the transfer of my troops over to the Island in small portions. At this stage of the war England's home defense is very weak, as he has lost so many soldiers on the continent and he is not able or willing to rebuild his army appropriately.
The day before I became the new Papal Controller. Lucky? Well, I was the only candidate. AIs don't use Estate interactions, like "Send Emissary to the Pope" and AIs don't invest PI in the election, if they have less than 2 cardinals. If the first Pope dies early a Human French player is almost guaranteed to become the next Papal Controller. That is what happened. -20% AE, an extra diplomant and other cool stuff for some years. Very good.
I have made the naval passage 3 times already. One regiment works as a look out in Finistére (Brittany). If I am still unsure about the English Heavies, I can sail through the open seas and west of Ireland to the North Channel. When I dropped my first 6k somewhere in Scotland (like Argyll), theoretically England or Kildare could rush over and kill them. But I have never seen them trying to do so. They prefer to stay at home and wait.
Things got complicated as Scotland declared war on England in Nov.47. Something like this often happens; I wreck an AI and another AI tries to profit from my efforts. Bad luck for Scotland I already had enough troops on the border and was able to reach Cumbria and the fort in Northumberland first. Now it is Scotland's job to help me in the siege.
Northumberland was done in Jun.48 for a total warscore of +80%. I had to continue the war a bit and occupy some unfortified provinces to make England willing to give me more. Besides the return of my seven cores, I take Cumbria and Northumberland. It is one nice marshland fort for me and a border with Scotland. Moreover I now have a wedge between England and Scotland. It prevents both from taking land from the other, as AIs are shy to take unconnected provinces. I forced the return of Mann to The Isles just because I could do without diplo costs and for some little prestige.
At the end of the war I have 10 loans for a total of 1.8k ducats in debt and 16 Mercs. But the result was very well worth the investment, I think.
Next war? I don't want to spend my resources on the Irish miniors yet. Brittany is protected by Aragon. So now I have the eternity of 16 months of peace, as the truces with Scotland and Provence run out in Jan.50. Lets see then, who is next.
Addition:
Now I want to expand a bit about the different diplomatic starting scenarios for France, as mentioned in the Introduction section.
Burgundy willing to ally France happens regulary. The same for Castile. But sometimes they hate each other, so it is not possible to ally both right from the start. In this case some diplomacy will do over a few years to get them both, if the player wants to. An even better constellation than I got in the game is, if Castile is willing to become an ally and to join the war on the promise of land. Now it is possible to abuse him as I did with Burgundy in the game.
But what if neither Burgundy nor Castile are interested in joining the Reconquest War? Well, in this case, just go alone. And because I hate to profit from a good setup, I had to prove myself, I can do it in a bad setup as well. Kind of.
Like this one. Burgundy rivaled me. I allied Castile, but they won't join. As before he gives me vision on the Portuguese troops which is helpful. The best strategy I found is this: Ignore Normandy, ignore Gascony, concentrate on Portugal in the first stage of the war. I declare on Maine, because it is the only non-ZOC province. But actually I am just waiting for Aragon to give Mil Access to someone, so I can move everything via Narbonnais to Portugal.
I took down the fort in Évora, sat on Lisboa, occupied the rest of main Portugal and waited a few months. Now I can get rid of Portugal for a White Peace.
In the next stage I repel all English and Tyronish troops from the continent. As these stacks have nowhere to hide, I get a lot of stackwipes. Stage 3 is liberating all stuff England has occupied so far. Even if he got one of my forts, it doesn't matter much. Stage 4 is occupying the English provinces in the French region, including Calais with the fort.
Stage 5 is the invasion of England from Scotland, like in the game. As here I have no Burgundian ships to distract England, I am really careful and choose a very long route from Narbonnais to Inverness. The English navy is mostly busy blockading ports and as before I have 4 Heavies, so I can survive an encounter. But here the English ships didn't move away at all.
Tyrone went out of the war, because he was attacked by another Irish minor (and was betrayed by England). This time I found a 14k-stack of English Noble rebels in Northumberland. I let them siege for some months, then attacked and killed them, so I could take over their progress in the siege. So here we are. Same peace deal as in the game and almost at the same time. Interestingly for about the some costs, as here I have hired 20 Mercs. I didn't get a province from Portugal, but its value is limited anyway, as we will see later in the game.
Allthough this war looks way more difficult than the one in the game, it is infact somewhat easier. As I don't have to care about stupid AI-allies running around with weak stacks or leaving sieges without reason, etc.
