Guyenne! Let's Just Try to Survive. Possibly Lots of Screens

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So I thought what I'd do was: I'd play Bradenburg in the grand campaign, form Prussia, form Germany, and terrorize the rest of the world till game's end. However, while I was waiting for my PU with Luxembourg to end, I noticed something happening in France.




Due to a simple mistake I credited Guyenne with 1000 more men than they had.

With no intervention on my part, Guyenne and Avignon have managed to win independence from France. So I decided to give one of the new guys a try.
More specifically:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquitaine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyenne

Rules for this playthrough:
Playing with the April 25 HttT beta patch.
Guyenne will not own any Cosmopolitan, Norman, or Wallonian provinces in Europe.
When we get bigger, Guyenne will ensure the survival of France, or failing that, a French nation who must rule all European Cosmopolitan, Norman, and Wallonian provinces at game's end.
Italy, Germany, and the HRE must not be allowed to form.

I'd like to warn you all that I'm not very good with minor nations, the Byzantines being an exception since I can just spam spies everywhere, but I think I'm doing fine so far and this could be kind of entertaining.
So without further ado, the rebirth of Guyenne!

 

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Modest Beginnings

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/6762/1icantsee.png
This image is huge, sorry.


The date was September 1, 1411 when the Kingdom of Guyenne won its independence from the diabolical king of France. Guyenne was a relatively small nation, occupying little more than the former capitals of Armagnac and Toulouse. Such humble beginnings showed that Guyenne was destined to mediocrity, nevertheless, their newly appointed King Henri III Minden was determined to lead the nation to rival its former oppressors.



The mysterious king was rumored to be a very skilled diplomat and general but left something to be desired in his handling of the court. His advisors, none of whom were ever considered noteworthy, often heard him mumbling about “sliders,” apparently he believed Guyenne to be too decentralized. Moves to correct this perceived error resulted in an uprising.


I took national bank as my first idea, I never do that and now I remember why. Patron of the arts would have been a much better choice.

Henri, however, paid little mind to it and busied himself with discussing his plans for the budget.



Guyenne was relatively advanced compared to its neighbors, something which everyone credited to Toulouse, the jewel of the tiny kingdom.



Despite the claims of his great military skill, Henri refused to engage the rebels personally and instead entrusted them to the leader of Guyenne's independence movement, Nicolau Detmold.



Somewhere around this time, rumor has it, Henri's advisors suggested he work to improve the Pope's view of Guyenne, supposedly Henri just asked who the 'Papal States' were.



As soon as he found out, Henri declared it much more pressing that he work to enforce Guyenne's rightful claims to Aquitaine.



His advisors countered that the Pope would excommunicate him like the king of Aragon, an aggressively expansionist nation that had recently attacked Foix.



As soon as Foix was mentioned though, Henri supposedly became preoccupied with trying to identify an adjective for the people of Foix.
“Is it Foixian?”
“Your Grace, I really don't think it matters.”
“How 'bout I call them Foxes then?”
There is no record for why Henri's chief advisor resigned.

King Henri, it was known, believed that Guyenne should avoid northern expansion, and feared that a northern neighbor could be Guyenne's greatest weakness. At the same time, his disdain for the Northern Frenchmen made him reluctant to include them in Guyenne. Therefore, he began a policy of improving Guyenne-French relations.



He also ordered massive changes to the bureaucratic system of Guyenne stating that it would help future kings impose their will on the little kingdom.



Meanwhile, the liberation army of Guyenne continued its battle against the pretender army.
Elsewhere, another liberation army was doing the same.




I took too many screenshots, so I'll end here and post the next chapter, or part 2 of this one, later.

 

[blsteen]

Interesting, Guyenne has an ok start but Henri's going to have to look around for allies and victims, sooner rather than later.

 

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Meant to post this yesterday, but the forum was being slow.

Meeting the World​

The worst part of being a newborn nation, Henri figured, was the abysmal view other nations held of Guyenne.



However, the king knew that Guyenne's future would depend not on its neighbors' opinions, but on its ability to unify its rightful territory. To this end, he had a calvary regiment raised to strengthen the army of Guyenne in preparation for an invasion.



Henri then began to search for allies, but found no nation willing to have any military involvement with the little nation. It didn't take long for him to find out why.


This didn't last long thankfully.

Frustrated, the king ordered sweeping reforms in the use of land around the capital.


Our land is awful, we'll need every cent we can get until we have wealthier lands.

Elsewhere, the nation of Siena, having just won its independence from Milan, had somehow incurred the Pope's wraith. Rumors say it was their disrespectful delegates.



Talk of Siena's impending invasion by Aquilea was, however, quickly replaced with talk of the king's new son and heir.



Then was once again replaced by news of the Teutonic Order's invasion of Pommerania.



Having just successfully taken back Gotland, the Order apparently became full of themselves and assumed to be the Emperor's match. They lost their Hungarian ally in the process though. The king of Hungary was much too busy with his own problems.



While the Order made its march toward Pommerania, the Swedes had declared their independence from the Kalmar Union and attacked it in a brazen show of force.


You'll see next update that this wasn't a good idea at all.

Henri and his court weren't interested in the affair, until they heard rumors that the Swedes fought with magical horsemen!



Just as these messages reached the court, the Teutonic Order had won its war with Pommerania, but the war with Bohemia continued.




Just south of the wars, Poland had just abandoned the Hansa's trade league declaring that Krakow was a much more important center of trade.



This news had reminded Henri that Guyenne had not gotten involved in the politics of the trade leagues, at first he was happy with himself, but then he learned what this meant for his merchants.


Finally, we've saved enough money to send some merchants.

Dismayed, the king quickly hurried to join the nearest league, and so Guyenne grew an interest in the Venetian heartland.


Now maybe we won't go bankrupt trying to keep them.

While he was doing this, Henri learned that Genoa was not dead, despite having lost Liguria.



His search for information regarding 'Astrakhan' was cut short as the Venetians announced an interest in Guyenne's northernmost province.



It was at this time that King Henri realized how poor his kingdom was. Guyenne's survival would depend on it being able to take wealthier lands from its neighbors, but who could the little kingdom hope to defeat?
He looked to his neighbors and found that Avignon had still failed to attract any allies, or any interest from the rest of the world at all. Better yet, they were roughly Guyenne's military equal. A better opportunity could not be asked for!



King Henri ordered the army to march towards Avignon, the French and English were in the throes of regency and would not intervene. Avignon's army would be defeated quickly and Guyenne would take the wealthy, highly populated provinces of Avignon for herself.


Not shown, the army marching east.

Next time:
A quick war with Avignon!
England lets us go! (Not really)
Waiting, lots of it!

 

[badger_ken]

very fun and unique AAR, thanks for posting it!

Gwynedd trades through ... Astrakhan??? Bizarre.

 

[sprites]

good luck ^^
basically you want to have two frances ?

 

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good luck ^^
basically you want to have two frances ?

A northern and southern France basically.
I can't explain why, it just sounds appropriate for a reborn Aquitaine nation.

Unfortunately, after the war with Avignon, it seems I might have to let Burgundy take France's place.
There just seems to be no way I can keep the English from annexing them and take their Occitan/Gascon vassals.
Plus I'm not sure if anyone can form France without some of my southern provinces.

I'm not playing ahead as far as I probably should so I'll wait awhile before I post the war with Avignon.
Suffice to say, it ended too quickly for my liking.

 

[sprites]

These are the provinces needed to from france , none of them is yours or avigono's

                        owns = 177	# Maine
			owns = 179	# Blois
			owns = 182	# Vermandois
			owns = 183	# Île-de-France
			owns = 184	# Orléannais
			owns = 185	# Othe
			owns = 186	# Champagne

if you overpower avignon and get your cores back , you surely could repel the brits , together with the king of france

 

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if you overpower avignon and get your cores back , you surely could repel the brits , together with the king of france

That's the plan, wait for England to attack France and then fund some patriots in my core.
Declare on England and occupy the Basque culture province and, if I can, Brittany.
Then it's just like the strategy everyone gives for the Irish, kill small English stacks until they talk.

The problem is, I'll have to attack France to get Foix. Auvergne, spell-check is failing me, has an Occitian province I'd like also.
The French still have a strong army so I'll have to get Burgundy in on this.
If the English don't give up their cores on France, the war will prompt them to invade, and then I'll just have to do the whole thing over to kick them out.

That said, I never realized before this just how much better those northern provinces are at the start.
I think I may have to get in on the colonial race later to keep my northern ally, whoever it may be by then, in check.

 

[Malurous]

Guyenne will not own any Cosmopolitan, Norman, or Wallonian provinces in Europe.
When we get bigger, Guyenne will ensure the survival of France, or failing that, a French nation who must rule all European Cosmopolitan, Norman, and Wallonian provinces at game's end.

I'll follow, nice start and I really like the rule set. Looking forward to the war and seeing what a resulting stronger Guyenne can do

 

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I will be subscribing and following.

 

[nalivayko]

I may have a slight problem with your AAR title. Guyenne is extremely powerful nation. A toned down France w/o most of its cores, if you will. You face three major threats in the beginnin: French, English and Iberian. However, if you manage to defeat (not crush) the first threat a couple of times, you basically "pick up French mantle" and deal with England and Spain the same way France would (i.e. easy). Thus, survival wars quickly turn into wars of conquest.

Your dreams of alliance with France do present an interesting challenge. Just make sure you force France to renounce the cores on your lands, otherwise improving relations with your northen twin will be somewhat difficult.

 

[Frozen_Predator]

hmmm, interesting, and you got me interested in playing a french minor....

 

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I may have a slight problem with your AAR title. Guyenne is extremely powerful nation. A toned down France w/o most of its cores, if you will.

Your dreams of alliance with France do present an interesting challenge. Just make sure you force France to renounce the cores on your lands, otherwise improving relations with your northen twin will be somewhat difficult.

All true, however, every single route of expansion forces you into war with powerful neighbors.
If you're not fighting France, you're fighting England, or Aragon/Spain, or the HRE, or Burgundy.
Normally this wouldn't matter, but with the new rules on annexation it is very possible for any of them to wipe you out while you still have a tiny army that can't be reinforced because your land is so poor and under populated.

None of this is a concern now, but when I started it was something I suspected would happen. I didn't realize just how powerful the new annexation rules are and only knew that Guyenne didn't have very good land compared to its neighbors.

You are very right however, that survival makes Guyenne into a "mini-France" and that is exactly why I'm avoiding the north.
To keep the game interesting I'm forcing myself not to expand into the wealthier lands of my neighbors and so later the game will most likely become "watch Guyenne police the world."

Writing the next update right now, I think you can all guess how the war goes.

 

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The Battle for Avignon​

The war got off to a rocky start, General Detmold died before he even got the order to march.
King Henri was forced to lead the army in his place.



The first battle of the war went poorly, but through perseverance Guyenne's armies triumphed.



Henri's decision not to raise war taxes nearly put the little kingdom into debt, but some nobles saw fit to donate money for the war effort.



Meanwhile, in the east, the Emperor had clearly beaten the Teutonic Order and undid years of hard work for them.



Back in Guyenne, by March 31, 1415 it was clear who had won the war.



In Hungary, the easternmost rebels had declared their sovereignty as Moldavia.



With Avignon's defeat, Guyenne had more than doubled its territory.
Although half of it land was now incredibly rebellious.



The move may not have made King Henri anymore popular outside of his kingdom, but it didn't hurt him either.




The king was glad to hear that England no longer held stake in Guyenne's future, but was more excited to hear that the foolish regent of England had decided to protect Guyenne's independence.


It's not a full fledged ally, but it's something.

The English would have to be fought sometime, but that time was not now.
Ireland and Brittany had already tried and failed to do that.
It would not be Henri who saw the English weak enough to be bested.




Rather, the king would instead lay out a plan for Guyenne's future.
Starting by recognizing the right of his Cosmopolitan neighbors to rule certain lands.



Looking inward, Avignon was a gain the kingdom would not easily forget.
Guyenne's army could now be doubled among other boons.



Henri's eye was brought to his southern neighbor when he heard of Aragon's expansion in Italy.



The Catalan king had earned himself many powerful enemies, and Henri hoped to take advantage of this to seize land rightfully belonging to the Duke of Toulouse.
Unfortunately, Aragon's allies made any attack simply impossible.



A planned attack on Provence was cancelled when it became apparent the Emperor would intervene, and France was too strong to let Guyenne attack Foix.
So King Henri saw a quiet period in Guyenne during which Moscowy was leading a unification of Slavic peoples and Sweden was losing the war it had started earlier.




It took much effort for Henri to not make smart remarks about that "magic pagan calvary."

King Henri, feeling his life nearing its end, drew out a plan for his son.
A map showing the future not only of Guyenne, but of all France and the Lowlands whose wealthy lands Henri insisted must belong to nations supportive of the French Kingdoms.


The sharp-eyed among you will notice this includes one Cosmopolitan province, I have a plan to convert that before I take it for the sake of making the border a little nicer.

Next time:
War!
The death of a king!
Allies! Finally!

 

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War in Our Time​

While Guyenne was at peace with its neighbors, nobles within the kingdom were just beginning to express their displeasure with the way Henri ran things.
A simple complaint over Guyenne's support of certain scientists was only foreshadowing a much greater conflict in Guyenne's future.



Hoping to get away from the tension in his court, Henri began to take an interest in the wars of the known world.
He was especially delighted to hear that France had gotten itself in a war with the Holy Roman Emperor himself.



This was the perfect excuse to invade the duke of Foix.



The armies of Guyenne were quickly split to attack all of the neighboring French dukes. Berry, Orleans, Auvergne, and the cause of the war Foix.




While Guyenne itself could never hope to best the king of France, the Burgundians were a much more pressing threat to the French.
Additionally, the Emperor was on his way.



It wasn't long before the French monarch started to look for peace. Though he was rejected, it still gave Henri pause when he learned the fate of France.




By now the lord of Bar saw fit to abandon the war.
His peace agreement was a very important one for Henri.



Additionally, he proposed strengthening the ties between Guyenne and its French neighbors, an offer Henri was unable to refuse.



It was around now that Henri was surprised to learn that other nations suddenly had interests in making Guyenne their ally.
Castille was accepted, but the English were refused immediately.




Sadly, this would be Henri's last act as king as he died in his sleep during a siege.
As his son, Henri IV Minden, was ten years too young to take over a regency was arranged.




Meanwhile in England, a city on the Welsh coast suddenly found itself to be a major stop on passing trade routes.



On January 9, 1420 the Duke of Burgundy dropped out of his French war.
The massive armies of France could now march towards Guyenne.



Cursing the name of Henri III, the regents decided to get as much as they could out of the war.



But thankfully, news reached the court that the Emperor had arrived in France with a massive army.
Nonetheless, the war was quickly wrapped up.




And so, Guyenne now stood as a truly independent state.
Though due to Henri III's failure to quell rebellious thought, it was also on the brink of violent civil war.
Worse, with the regents in charge, Guyenne was at the mercy of its ally and guaranteed nations to have any effect on the world.



Next time:
Regency!
Rebels!
Raising a king!

 

[sprites]

interesting ^^
one core to take from the english , that will be hard unless they commit themselves in some bad war and rack up a ton of war exaustion
with the eastern half being uncored , whacking rebels should be a repeated enjoyment

 

[unmerged(146373)]

interesting ^^
one core to take from the english , that will be hard unless they commit themselves in some bad war and rack up a ton of war exaustion
with the eastern half being uncored , whacking rebels should be a repeated enjoyment

Trust me, it was.
Especially since those eastern provinces have pretty good base taxes.
I'm just going to condense the battle results from when I killed the largest stacks together in the next update if that's okay.

The English turned out to be real fun.
They will only give up one province if I don't invade the islands.
Normally I'd station some troops in Scotland, but I have no cored coastal provinces yet, that's a big problem.

 

[blsteen]

Interesting. Guyenne confounds the French and deals with the rebellions from its annexations.

 

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The Decade of Chaos​

In January of 1421, Savoy ended the French Aggression War.



Quickly the regents of Henri IV Minden declared their intent to defend the young nation that England had set its sights upon.



Confident that the English wouldn't cause trouble, the council of nobles set to dealing with the building discontent in the former lands of Avignon.



Many citizens of the old bishopric took up arms against Guyenne in what could be considered the kingdom's first real civil war.
Yet these traitors never stood a chance against the might of the Guyennese loyalists.



The kingdom stood now on the verge of a major military renovation, and the entire nation shook with fear for tomorrow.



To lessen the impact of these baseless fears, the noble council made moves to elevate the lords of Perigord over the other nobles in Guyenne.
The move had the exact opposite effect however.



A delegation of nobles demanded that the council make every effort possible to ensure the safety of all noble families' political interests.
The council was simply unable to refuse them.



By September 1422, the council felt it had achieved the goal King Henri III had failed to.



Some of the regents suggested stronger relations with Auvergne.
They were quickly shot down and suggested a much better course of action.



In their spare time, the council took great delight in hearing about the ongoing wars Guyenne's neighbors had involved themselves with.



Then word came that the Castillians had launched a crusade against Morocco and the council quickly joined their ally; mainly for the war taxes.



The extra taxes, civil war, and growing importance of Perigord was leading many peasants to flee the countryside in favor of the capital.
The council of nobles saw fit to encourage them.



Meanwhile, Poland was suffering for its repeated attacks on the Holy Roman Empire. The Polish military had been completely wiped out and now disenchanted peasants were rising up to demand change while the armies of the empire marched for Krakow.



Evidently, Navarra envied the Poles' situation as they saw fit to warn Guyenne against any act of aggression.



Back in the east, Hungary had finished its collapse. Croatia was now free and the King of Hungary was now at war with Moldavia and Croatia in addition to endless rebel armies.



News came in from Germany that the Emperor had passed a major reform in the Empire's organization. The council began to imagine horrible scenarios in which the Empire unified and vowed that such a thing would never be allowed.



As the civil war in Avignon died down, many legends were made of a saint helping those who had been devastated in some way by the rebellions and their suppression.



The young Henri IV Minden, while still too young to officially rule, was being given more and more power as he approached majority.
He immediately used this power to encourage discontent among the conquered Irish and Bretons.



On Tuesday April 4, 1428 King Henri IV Minden, the English would add "the Weak," was crowned.
He was a rather average man, Henri had not inherited his father's interest in diplomacy or his military skill, but he definitely surpassed his administrative skills to some degree.
Henri IV was known to be an outspoken critic of the English, he despised their every action and had somehow managed to convince himself that they were responsible for his father's death.



Henri IV swore to kick the English out of the mainland, and quickly set about preparing for war with English monarch.

Also have three screenshots I thought were interesting, but not important enough to keep in.

The Pope marching toward Aragon, who had managed to end up at war with every single nation in Italy. It ended in white peace.
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/3526/z15papalarmytoaragon.png

Royal marriages, we made lots of these. In a few updates this turned out to be a very good idea.
These are just the two most important, I feel.
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/7876/z19royalmarriages.png

The English attacked one of Castille's allies.
This is what our brave ally looks like at the end of this update.
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/6279/ztemp.png

Next time:
War with England!
The English are too stubborn for their own good!