Range : You need to war, but strategically. Like Riga, take on Tver or anything like that, just to get a second province and not be annexed. Or you can try to diplo-annex everything, but that is way out of my league!
Middelkerke : Will take out Brabant when I fully surround him... Next target is Burgundy
Nodscouterr : The capital stayes West Frisia, but I find it better that way or else my AAR isn't much about West Frisians
Conquest and Deception, the Beginning of a New Threat 1440-1453
Johan Williem I had finally done what the Frisian people wanted. So now, he could die in peace. But, being still young, he wouldn't die before expanding even further his empire! Looking on a map, he decided that he should go close, but not to close, of the french border, maybe also take the coast lines of England and then go through Denmark and north Germany. Those were ambitious plans. He also wanted to conquer the New World, but that will prove to be hard with Portugal already holding The Azores. But, nothing is impossible!
The years past, the reputation of Frisia getting better and better. Johan had recruited good soldiers and expanded the nations army and economy, becoming one of the most powerful nations in Germany. To be able to spy on their future rivals, Johan Williem established an alliance with France, thus boosting our relations with them, for the moment. Then, a war started, the second war of Frisian agression towards Hainaut. Thuringia, Burgundy, Hainaut and Trier were against Brabant, France and us. France had backstabbed their ally, Burgundy, because they wanted to recover a few lands that were rightfully theirs. But, the only thing France did was to destroy an army of about 10 000 men. Great news for us! Then, with a treaty that was signed in Paris, both nations stopped the war. Meanwhile, Thuringia and Trier left the war, only paying a large sum of ducats, keeping all their land. Brabant crushed the opposition of Hainaut, sieging the fort. When all the land of Hainaut had collapsed, Brabant annexed them, expanding their territory. Great news for us, because it is territory is a friends hands.
While all this was happening, 6 000 of our men were sieging Antwerpen, without any resistance. 11 000 other men were taking control of Flanders, a strategic location to slay any incoming threat. Both cities fell fast enough. The first Burgundian resistance arrived when our 11 divisions were sieging Artois. Though well trained, the Burgundians had one big disadvantage, they didn't have any leader. In a total mayhem, they charged towards us, without any strategy. We sent 3 000 cavalry men charging in their direction, 4 000 other cavalry flanking opposition on each side. Also, our 4 000 longbowmen shot the Burgundian horses before they even arrived at us, leaving them for dead on the battlefield. The ground was covered with their blood and bodies, some horses stomping the survivors that tried to flee the carnage. It was a terrible victory, at the cost of only a few hundred frisians compared to more then 10 000 Burgundians. Then, we left a stack of cavalry chase down the survivors and the new armies that were hastly recruted, giving us an easy victory overall.
In conclusion, we asked for three provinces. Antwerpen, a great merchant city that generates a considerable income; Flanders, a great economic province and finally, Artois, because, well... we want more territory. We already installed five merchants in Antwerpen, generating a good amount of ducats. We were able to lower our minting to only 0.04 each year, compared to 0.20 we had before. Still, we have an inflation of 10%, something pretty bad compared to the other nations. It is a good thing we have instaured a National Bank system to lower by 0.1 our inflation each year.
Now, our biggest fear is that, because we hold Artois, a province the french consider theirs, we think they might attack us. We already develloped a plan if they did. We would leave a few mercenaries on a few provinces close to France and, at the sight of ennemy troops advancing, they would scorch the land to prevent the french from taking our reserves of food. That would be a beginning, then we would need to counter-attack.
Also, we have some bad news, something that created a great deception amongst our people; Brabant cancelled our military alliance. Why? We do not know. We won't forgive this, so we shall conquer them soon, but patience is a virtue, so we shall still wait a little. Meanwhile, we have royal marriages with Great-Britain that formed after annexing Scotland. They are a promising future ally.
In 1448, after achieving his goals, Johan Willem I died peacefully in his sleep. Willem Frederik rose to the throne, but that created a succession crisis, resulting in multiple revolts across the nation. Our armies shall slay these rebels, but a high risk of revolt will still stay present for a while, sadly. We will also hire new divisions after this crisis, just in case a new crisis arrives. The only good news in all of this is that Willem Frederik is trully blessed by the gods.
In a few weeks, we got rid of all the rebellions in our nation. Brabant was kind enough to help us a little, but except from that, our relations have badly deteriorated. Now, we have a military alliance with Great-Britain, surely this will come in handy. Our relations with France are getting lower and lower and, now that we share a border with them ( Cambray and Picardy ) we fear a french attack. We have stationned a mercenary division in Cambray, Picardy and Artois. We will scorch the land at any declaration of war from the french, as previously planned. We acquirred Cambray and Picardy after another war with Burgundy. This time, we didn't even fight. We sieged their provinces, with the help of France, and the war was nearly over after three months. We made them lose their cores on Antwerpen, Flanders and Artois, we took 50 of their ducats and we also made them release Nevers. Maybe France will want to declare war on Nevers, so this might be problematic. France is one thing to handle, his vassals are another problem.
In the rest of Europe, things are still nasty. Multiple countries have revolted from Lithuania, resulting in its dismantelment. Poland jumped on the occasion to recreate the union it once had with Lithuania. Bavaria annexed Hungary, removing from the maps this once great nation. The Ottoman Empire has been calm for a moment, attacking countries situated closer to the African land then our borders. Finally, Denmark continues its expansion in German territory. We might have to deal them after the french...
