Okay, welcome to my first AAR! This is going to be vanilla DW. I've lurked for a while and I thought, hey, I can do this. So enjoy and comment! Of course I noticed right away that someone else has a better Breton AAR than I do already running, lol. Maybe it will be informative to compare and contrast his good play and historical insight with my terrible ignorant blundering.
Looking over the map to figure out what country to play I finally landed on Brittany as something challenging but not impossible (keep in mind here I'm not one of these guys who can take over the solar system as the Cherokee so maybe this doesn't seem too challenging to everyone – how bad I am is going to become clear pretty soon). Stranded out on the little elbow of France it sports a decent starting navy, good trade sliders, it's independent, and France doesn't have any cores on it at the beginning of the game so it might be able to survive for a while. I've never played Brittany, and the AI usually seems to keep it alive for a hundred years or so before it's absorbed into the blue blob. Obviously the challenge will be to keep the dream alive longer than that, but I don't have any idea right now how that's to be accomplished. House rules:
1. No reloading and no ragequitting. If I end up annexed by France in 1435 then that's just how the cookie crumbled. That being said I probably won't actually play the game out until 1821 – when I die or am obviously ascendant (!) then that'll be the end of the story.
2. No doing anything that's super gamey or absurd, but I'm not a historian so I don't plan on keeping to a script.
3. Hard difficulty, random lucky nations, everything else set to defaults I think.
My only goal is to keep body and soul alive and try to make Brittany into something interesting. I'll just be flexible and see what develops.
So first things first, the initial slider move. Brittany starts with a pretty nice set, actually, especially +3 free trade, so I decide right off the bat to bump centralization up one, assuming that I'll get the stability hit that I almost always do. Of course it doesn't play out that way.
Already I'm in self-imposed difficulties because the pretender outnumbers me two to one, and happened to spawn on my capital province where all my troops are. The battle doesn't go too well and we're forced to retreat with heavy losses.
At this point I realize I haven't even checked my ruler out or bought any Great Dudes. Things are off to a fantastic start! There are some decent dudes available as it turns out, so I sink most of my initial cash into a gentleman-artist and a pretty decent army reformer; since my culture is terrible and I didn't see anybody else I wanted (and I'm out of money after I buy up another three infantry regiments) I'll just leave that third slot open for the moment. Good old King Jean turns out to be pretty awful, and we'll see soon that his son is even worse, but I guess at least he has an heir. Just to complicate things a little Burgundy (who it turns out I'm allied to) throws a call my way, since they want to eat Bar up. It doesn't seem likely that France will intervene in this so I've got Burgundy's back, and it gives me an opportunity to crush the population with some extra taxes. I figure a year's worth of WE is worth getting a little extra pocket money and of course I don't intend to actually send anybody to Bar.
A few days later I get a free plutocracy slide due to the "merchants complaining" event, too, and by this time I've collected my legions together in Mordihan so it's time to put a stop to the pretender's ambitions. While I'm at it I'll send King Jean down to personally supervise the battle, since he's all I've got.
Of course that doesn't work out too well since they match me in men, have a comparable general, and they have 3 cavalry regiments to my zero. Once again we retreat in confusion, but since I recoup my losses and they don't, six months later I finally wear them down to nothing (burning through nearly all my manpower), and execute the rival for the throne.
So now it's October and I've been so concerned with losing my capital in the first year I haven't thought about the larger picture or even sent out a lousy merchant, all thanks to that slider move on day one. Making up for lost time, I deploy my merchant armies, starting in France, and then moving on to Lubeck. Stability is up to +3 now so I throw what money I have into government and then finally take stock of my local situation.
The only obvious area for expansion is into the Providence-controlled territory of Maine and Anjou. I have cores on both these territories so I have a free CB and won't take an infamy hit. I have 6,000 men and they have four thousand; Provi is allied with Naples and the Pope, both far away, so I don't expect either to be a problem. They don't have navies to match mine so I figure that even if they decide to bring men up I can screen them out with my six starting Carracks. The only thing that worries me is the prospect of Imperial stormtroopers, but they have to walk about two thousand miles to get where the action is. So the plan of attack is:
1. Crush the Providence regiments using my numerical superiority.
2. Keep my carrack armada ready to interdict any allied landings.
3. Scoop up Maine and Anjou before Bohemia can get here, end the war quickly, and get off scot-free.
Sounds like a plan! Both Maine and Anjou unfortunately have French cores on them, so after I eat them I'll be opening myself up to reco war declarations, but I guess I'll have to burn that bridge when I come to it. Let's roll!
Knife Fight in Providence
Now I just sit back and await word of my victory…
…
…
Unfortunately, my cheese-eating Bretons are no match for the Providence all-star team.
What happened! I'm forced to retreat in confusion with the angry Providence armies hot on my heels. Well, everything's ok, right? I'll get a morale lift on the first of February and Armor is basically one big hill. I mean it's named Armor! We'll show those Provipeople how we do things in Brittany.
Another crushing defeat. Right now Jean's single point advantage in maneuver is the only thing keeping my shattered army alive.
Right! Back to Armor. I'll buy a couple mercenary regiments to beef up my numbers, even though I know they're going to be disorganized when the battle starts. This time surely…
At this point I belatedly realize that there isn't going to be a victory and to save these troops I have to get them on a boat where the marauding Providence forces can't reach them, so I split off a few regiments and recombine what I have left in the main army so there's room in the cogs, while buying up some more mercenaries while I still have some land to call my own. Unfortunately I retreat too late.
Things are not looking good right now, but after I load my remaining mercenaries on the boat, a small hope appears. The AI decides to split up their stack to start sieging me into oblivion; since their armies are pinned down in sieges and split up, I sneak into my capital city under cover of darkness and finally manage to pull out a victory.
This breaks the siege on my capital and gives me a bit of breathing room to raise a few more mercenaries and get everybody back on boats to try to pick off their other units. As I'm jacking my minting up to maximum to pay for all these hired swords I happen to notice a very unwelcome visitor to the region.
Since this "war" has ground on for about two more years than I planned, the empire has had plenty of time to stroll over here. It's only nine regiments suffering from attrition but it might as well be a doom stack of forty French musketeers as far as tiny Brittany is concerned. Fortunately, at the moment they seem intent on locking Armor down instead of exterminating my mercenaries, so my only chance is to keep my boys moving and try to pick off as many Providence units as I can. Since peace is clearly out of the question I'll just have to keep buying mercenaries until I have some hope of surviving the Empire. Money is starting to get tight and that WE is starting to ramp up, but I manage to pick off the unit in Morbihan before running into another stopper in Vendee, necessitating another couple of retreats.
I finally drop half my army back on the boats and trap the other half on Finistere, and eventually between buying mercenaries like crazy and sliding my regiments around like chesspieces on fire, I pull out a victory and execute the survivors.
The elimination of Providence's armies has come about three years late, though, and I still have no answer for Bohemia, who's just about to finish off their siege of Armor. Some Providence reinforcements are starting to trickle in but I don't need to worry about them just yet. The only thing to do is to keep buying troops and hope for an opportunity. Unfortunately King Jean the Moronic, harried by Providence soldiers and his bad life choices for the last unhappy years of his stupid existence, up and croaks on me as I'm sliding behind the Empire to grab Armor back.
Since I'm not really interested in starting any more ill-advised wars the regency isn't a huge problem, but it does deprive me of my only general, terrible as he was. My troops are already heavily demoralized by the negative prestige we've built up losing four battles every year, so that's a serious blow, and that maneuver point was keeping body and soul together for me. Money is already starting to get tight and I've achieved 1.5% inflation by in April 1404, still minting at 100%, so there's nothing for it but to hope the men can lead themselves. Fortunately Bohemia makes camp in Morbihan like they're planning on moving in. This gives me a fool's hope, since I have access through Armor to Maine and Anjou – if Morbi can hold out for a while, and I can snap up the Providence territory next door, maybe I can find a way to even the war score and get out of this with something tangible.
As I'm trying to bust my way into Armor I notice that Bohemia has another stack sitting right next door, which would of course doom me since I can't even handle the stack they have right now. For whatever reason (fear probably), they decide to wander off in search of greener pastures. Another bullet dodged! In the meantime Anjou has fallen, I've taken back Armor, and I've consolidated all my mercenaries in Maine to try to finish the job.
At this point the AI makes a bit of a blunder by hurrying the siege along. Also I have one hired horseman (which I took out a loan for), and since King Jean VI just came of age I have a terrible general again. On top of that I've managed numerical parity, although I'm killing my economy to do it. Once Morbihan falls I'll be three times over my force limit, more than half of them mercs, and even though I'm minting at maximum I can't pay the bills. So we need to end this quick: with their army partially demoralized by the siege I give up on Maine for the moment and meet them in Anjou to put the hammer down.
Another costly defeat, and on top of it I retreat to occupied Morbihan instead of hilly, reinforcement-friendly Armor. But for whatever reason (fear), the Empire chooses not to chase me, instead sieging Anjou, and I get yet another lease on life. After buying up still more scurvy mercs and raising the odd Breton regiment I wheel around for another showdown in Anjou.
Well, we lose again! But this time I've finally managed to inflict some casualties. I guess that one horseman was worth it! Because I've been relying so heavily on mercenaries and the war is into it's fourth year, my manpower is sufficient to replace my losses, and they're sieging enemy territory so they don't regain much. After a couple months I have a 2-1 advantage and I return to Anjou – third time's the charm. They stay in the fight until they're almost exterminated, and I trap the remainder in my capital city. Victory at last! In retrospect, it was all part of my master design to give them hope, to make the eventual defeat all the more crushing, so mission accomplished. With Maine and Anjou both occupied and no enemy forces left, I can fire all those mercenaries and regain my rightful territory.
Of course I just now realize, five years in, that Providence is the junior partner of a union with Naples and I can't make a separate peace. Well this is just peachy. This quagmire of a war has put my WE to about 15, I'm almost 3.5% inflated already, I have a loan due in 3-4 years, my manpower is down to nothing, Mobi is still occupied, my ruler is differently-abled, and I can't even skank out the territory I wanted in the first place. But I survived the empire, and where there's life there's hope!
Hope you enjoyed my oafish misadventures so far, stay tuned for part two, I'm On A Boat.
Looking over the map to figure out what country to play I finally landed on Brittany as something challenging but not impossible (keep in mind here I'm not one of these guys who can take over the solar system as the Cherokee so maybe this doesn't seem too challenging to everyone – how bad I am is going to become clear pretty soon). Stranded out on the little elbow of France it sports a decent starting navy, good trade sliders, it's independent, and France doesn't have any cores on it at the beginning of the game so it might be able to survive for a while. I've never played Brittany, and the AI usually seems to keep it alive for a hundred years or so before it's absorbed into the blue blob. Obviously the challenge will be to keep the dream alive longer than that, but I don't have any idea right now how that's to be accomplished. House rules:
1. No reloading and no ragequitting. If I end up annexed by France in 1435 then that's just how the cookie crumbled. That being said I probably won't actually play the game out until 1821 – when I die or am obviously ascendant (!) then that'll be the end of the story.
2. No doing anything that's super gamey or absurd, but I'm not a historian so I don't plan on keeping to a script.
3. Hard difficulty, random lucky nations, everything else set to defaults I think.
My only goal is to keep body and soul alive and try to make Brittany into something interesting. I'll just be flexible and see what develops.
So first things first, the initial slider move. Brittany starts with a pretty nice set, actually, especially +3 free trade, so I decide right off the bat to bump centralization up one, assuming that I'll get the stability hit that I almost always do. Of course it doesn't play out that way.
Already I'm in self-imposed difficulties because the pretender outnumbers me two to one, and happened to spawn on my capital province where all my troops are. The battle doesn't go too well and we're forced to retreat with heavy losses.
At this point I realize I haven't even checked my ruler out or bought any Great Dudes. Things are off to a fantastic start! There are some decent dudes available as it turns out, so I sink most of my initial cash into a gentleman-artist and a pretty decent army reformer; since my culture is terrible and I didn't see anybody else I wanted (and I'm out of money after I buy up another three infantry regiments) I'll just leave that third slot open for the moment. Good old King Jean turns out to be pretty awful, and we'll see soon that his son is even worse, but I guess at least he has an heir. Just to complicate things a little Burgundy (who it turns out I'm allied to) throws a call my way, since they want to eat Bar up. It doesn't seem likely that France will intervene in this so I've got Burgundy's back, and it gives me an opportunity to crush the population with some extra taxes. I figure a year's worth of WE is worth getting a little extra pocket money and of course I don't intend to actually send anybody to Bar.
A few days later I get a free plutocracy slide due to the "merchants complaining" event, too, and by this time I've collected my legions together in Mordihan so it's time to put a stop to the pretender's ambitions. While I'm at it I'll send King Jean down to personally supervise the battle, since he's all I've got.
Of course that doesn't work out too well since they match me in men, have a comparable general, and they have 3 cavalry regiments to my zero. Once again we retreat in confusion, but since I recoup my losses and they don't, six months later I finally wear them down to nothing (burning through nearly all my manpower), and execute the rival for the throne.
So now it's October and I've been so concerned with losing my capital in the first year I haven't thought about the larger picture or even sent out a lousy merchant, all thanks to that slider move on day one. Making up for lost time, I deploy my merchant armies, starting in France, and then moving on to Lubeck. Stability is up to +3 now so I throw what money I have into government and then finally take stock of my local situation.
The only obvious area for expansion is into the Providence-controlled territory of Maine and Anjou. I have cores on both these territories so I have a free CB and won't take an infamy hit. I have 6,000 men and they have four thousand; Provi is allied with Naples and the Pope, both far away, so I don't expect either to be a problem. They don't have navies to match mine so I figure that even if they decide to bring men up I can screen them out with my six starting Carracks. The only thing that worries me is the prospect of Imperial stormtroopers, but they have to walk about two thousand miles to get where the action is. So the plan of attack is:
1. Crush the Providence regiments using my numerical superiority.
2. Keep my carrack armada ready to interdict any allied landings.
3. Scoop up Maine and Anjou before Bohemia can get here, end the war quickly, and get off scot-free.
Sounds like a plan! Both Maine and Anjou unfortunately have French cores on them, so after I eat them I'll be opening myself up to reco war declarations, but I guess I'll have to burn that bridge when I come to it. Let's roll!
Knife Fight in Providence
Now I just sit back and await word of my victory…
…
…
Unfortunately, my cheese-eating Bretons are no match for the Providence all-star team.
What happened! I'm forced to retreat in confusion with the angry Providence armies hot on my heels. Well, everything's ok, right? I'll get a morale lift on the first of February and Armor is basically one big hill. I mean it's named Armor! We'll show those Provipeople how we do things in Brittany.
Another crushing defeat. Right now Jean's single point advantage in maneuver is the only thing keeping my shattered army alive.
Right! Back to Armor. I'll buy a couple mercenary regiments to beef up my numbers, even though I know they're going to be disorganized when the battle starts. This time surely…
At this point I belatedly realize that there isn't going to be a victory and to save these troops I have to get them on a boat where the marauding Providence forces can't reach them, so I split off a few regiments and recombine what I have left in the main army so there's room in the cogs, while buying up some more mercenaries while I still have some land to call my own. Unfortunately I retreat too late.
Things are not looking good right now, but after I load my remaining mercenaries on the boat, a small hope appears. The AI decides to split up their stack to start sieging me into oblivion; since their armies are pinned down in sieges and split up, I sneak into my capital city under cover of darkness and finally manage to pull out a victory.
This breaks the siege on my capital and gives me a bit of breathing room to raise a few more mercenaries and get everybody back on boats to try to pick off their other units. As I'm jacking my minting up to maximum to pay for all these hired swords I happen to notice a very unwelcome visitor to the region.
Since this "war" has ground on for about two more years than I planned, the empire has had plenty of time to stroll over here. It's only nine regiments suffering from attrition but it might as well be a doom stack of forty French musketeers as far as tiny Brittany is concerned. Fortunately, at the moment they seem intent on locking Armor down instead of exterminating my mercenaries, so my only chance is to keep my boys moving and try to pick off as many Providence units as I can. Since peace is clearly out of the question I'll just have to keep buying mercenaries until I have some hope of surviving the Empire. Money is starting to get tight and that WE is starting to ramp up, but I manage to pick off the unit in Morbihan before running into another stopper in Vendee, necessitating another couple of retreats.
I finally drop half my army back on the boats and trap the other half on Finistere, and eventually between buying mercenaries like crazy and sliding my regiments around like chesspieces on fire, I pull out a victory and execute the survivors.
The elimination of Providence's armies has come about three years late, though, and I still have no answer for Bohemia, who's just about to finish off their siege of Armor. Some Providence reinforcements are starting to trickle in but I don't need to worry about them just yet. The only thing to do is to keep buying troops and hope for an opportunity. Unfortunately King Jean the Moronic, harried by Providence soldiers and his bad life choices for the last unhappy years of his stupid existence, up and croaks on me as I'm sliding behind the Empire to grab Armor back.
Since I'm not really interested in starting any more ill-advised wars the regency isn't a huge problem, but it does deprive me of my only general, terrible as he was. My troops are already heavily demoralized by the negative prestige we've built up losing four battles every year, so that's a serious blow, and that maneuver point was keeping body and soul together for me. Money is already starting to get tight and I've achieved 1.5% inflation by in April 1404, still minting at 100%, so there's nothing for it but to hope the men can lead themselves. Fortunately Bohemia makes camp in Morbihan like they're planning on moving in. This gives me a fool's hope, since I have access through Armor to Maine and Anjou – if Morbi can hold out for a while, and I can snap up the Providence territory next door, maybe I can find a way to even the war score and get out of this with something tangible.
As I'm trying to bust my way into Armor I notice that Bohemia has another stack sitting right next door, which would of course doom me since I can't even handle the stack they have right now. For whatever reason (fear probably), they decide to wander off in search of greener pastures. Another bullet dodged! In the meantime Anjou has fallen, I've taken back Armor, and I've consolidated all my mercenaries in Maine to try to finish the job.
At this point the AI makes a bit of a blunder by hurrying the siege along. Also I have one hired horseman (which I took out a loan for), and since King Jean VI just came of age I have a terrible general again. On top of that I've managed numerical parity, although I'm killing my economy to do it. Once Morbihan falls I'll be three times over my force limit, more than half of them mercs, and even though I'm minting at maximum I can't pay the bills. So we need to end this quick: with their army partially demoralized by the siege I give up on Maine for the moment and meet them in Anjou to put the hammer down.
Another costly defeat, and on top of it I retreat to occupied Morbihan instead of hilly, reinforcement-friendly Armor. But for whatever reason (fear), the Empire chooses not to chase me, instead sieging Anjou, and I get yet another lease on life. After buying up still more scurvy mercs and raising the odd Breton regiment I wheel around for another showdown in Anjou.
Well, we lose again! But this time I've finally managed to inflict some casualties. I guess that one horseman was worth it! Because I've been relying so heavily on mercenaries and the war is into it's fourth year, my manpower is sufficient to replace my losses, and they're sieging enemy territory so they don't regain much. After a couple months I have a 2-1 advantage and I return to Anjou – third time's the charm. They stay in the fight until they're almost exterminated, and I trap the remainder in my capital city. Victory at last! In retrospect, it was all part of my master design to give them hope, to make the eventual defeat all the more crushing, so mission accomplished. With Maine and Anjou both occupied and no enemy forces left, I can fire all those mercenaries and regain my rightful territory.
Of course I just now realize, five years in, that Providence is the junior partner of a union with Naples and I can't make a separate peace. Well this is just peachy. This quagmire of a war has put my WE to about 15, I'm almost 3.5% inflated already, I have a loan due in 3-4 years, my manpower is down to nothing, Mobi is still occupied, my ruler is differently-abled, and I can't even skank out the territory I wanted in the first place. But I survived the empire, and where there's life there's hope!
Hope you enjoyed my oafish misadventures so far, stay tuned for part two, I'm On A Boat.
