Hans(e) and the Balance of Power

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18 Dec 1591, in the Reading Room of the Lubeck Museum:Ah, everything is running smoothly. In a mere two weeks, our military alliance will expire; reestablishing it with Sweden will push our relations high enough that they might agree to be our vassal. Oh s**t, here comes Junior to bother me; that's never a good sign...
M'lord, Poland has declared war on us! All our allies are willing to aid us, and Poland is backed by the Knights, Hungary, Algeria and Prussia.
Very well, we will have to delay our plans to vassalize Sweden. Send the Hanse army against Poland and Prussia, and order our troops in southernmost Africa to burn the Dutch trade posts there.
But m'lord, you wish to declare war on the Dutch?!?
They dishonored their alliance with Poland? Well, then! Bring them into ours!

The Dutch refuse us as well. But we raise war taxes. 1592 saw the opening of a new CoT at Falklands, costing 17 to send a merchant but only having a total value of 35; we ignore it. On 7 Jan we initiated a seige in West Prussia in the snow, the city falling at the very end of Jun. Meanwhile, our Stability recovered by Mar. Interestingly, during this war and the next I would suddenly find more cash in my treasury than should have been there, by about 100 gold each time. I still don't know what was causing this (nothing showing up under loans, and I certainly didn't do it), and it's not happened in any of my other campaigns.

We renewed our dynastic alliance with the Dutch on 25 Aug, and a week later completed our shipyard at Bremen. After capturing Posen on 25 Oct, our army turned north against Prussia. They tried offering a truce on 21 Feb 1593, but on 1 Mar they agreed to pay 1750 gold (but we only recieved less than a dime on the dollar). The best result of this was that Poland's seige to retake Posen had to start over from the very begining.

In Jun both military techs advanced (L12 and N17). Warsaw fell on the 6th, and that day we rejected a Polish embassy offering us both West Prussia and Posen. (If ever there was a moment's weakness in my resolve, that was it.) In reply we sent our own peace demands to the Poles: that they force Hungary to cede Carpathia to Bohemia, plus pay hefty indemnities for having attacked us unprovoked.

-Pat
ps- the next update will include a screenie.

 

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8 Aug 1593:France has annexed Rhodes, eliminating the Knights of St John. This is unbalancing Europe: begin making plans. In Oct the Papacy conceded that the Reformation is here to stay, issuing the Edict of Tolerance. In other good news, our naval tech advanced in Nov to 18; once more and we can blockade enemy ports.

14 Jan 1594:Tuscany agrees to become a vassal of France. These French are becoming too powerful: the next time they go to war, we must interfere against them! Apr saw our ships become bold enough to blockade ports. Cartegena became a city in early Jul. 9 Oct:France, backed by Scotland, Maples, Genoa, Portugal, Navarra and Tuscany, has declared war on the Netherlands. It is time. On 2 Dec we established a trade post at Muni.

Stay tuned for the next installment wherein we loose 2 levels of stability!

-Pat

 

[J. Passepartout]

I think this calls for a gigantic war against France. Hopefully someone starts it soon and the French get crushed.

 

[Lord E]

Damn you loose 2 levels what happened then?
And I agree with J. Passepartout, the French are big and ugly and must be destroyed as soon as possible

 

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I think this calls for a gigantic war against France. Hopefully someone starts it soon and the French get crushed.

Damn you loose 2 levels what happened then?
And I agree with J. Passepartout, the French are big and ugly and must be destroyed as soon as possible

Other than changing religions, this was my biggest single stab hit in a few campaigns! I've taken to calling France in this campaign The Blooze (well, Austria certainly isn't the BWB in this one): squeeze it in one place and it just seeps out somewhere else.

30 Dec 1594, at a diplomatic corps New Year's Eve party:Everyone, your attention please! We have an announcement for the French ambassador: get out. We're going to war with you, any allies who wish to join are more than welcome to accept. All six (6!) of France's allies do so; for us it's Bohemia, Hessen, and Sweden (Saxony declines, but is immediately welcomed back into the fold).

Two weeks later our invasion force captured the undefended French city at Placentia, and one month after that we sank a Frech warship somewhere. We then captured their TP at Gander three days later, on 16 Feb. Our stability fully recovered by May, and on the 24th of that month we captured the fortress of Krems in Ostmarch. 18 Jun:France has ceded Artois to the Dutch. They are getting too powerful as well; we will need to make plans for them now, too.

In late Dec Portugal invaded both our provinces in southernmost Africa (I had forgotten all about those pesky Portugese; think of all the TPs I could have torched!). My troops protecting our TP held out, but we lost the battle at Karoo; fortunately they were now too small to even cover the fortress and their fleet had long since abandoned them.

On New Year's Day 1596 we demanded cash of Genoa (~148 gold split four ways), torched the TP at Gander and demanded cash of France (rejected). However, after we had defeated yet another French fleet, France agreed to pay indemnities on 15 Feb (I didn't write down how much).

That should be enough for today.

-Pat

 

[Lord E]

Good work getting them to pay, but you should take some land from the French as well, also those Dutch are evil and needs to be destroyed. Nice work

 

[J. Passepartout]

What are those people doing in France's alliance? They know they will be vassalised.

 

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Wow, I am just *so* far behind here. My excuse: I discovered OotS. o

It's now about 30 years later, and I can't find my notes. It's probably safe to assume I've done some colonial expansion, fought a few wars, burned a few TPs, won some cash, ... . Most recently, when Tuscany declared independence from France, I declared war on the latter (without CB) merely to distract them from reconquering the province. It worked for a year or so, but they took it back anyway. But my allies and I won 500 gold for it, and we torched 14 French TPs.

I kept competing with Portugal for control of trade at their CoT Tindore, but have since given up on that, as my new CoT Mekong now controls the China trade. Spain, however, took it poorly when I kicked their last merchant out of their own CoT Zacatecas and imposed an embargo on me. Foolish Spaniards. Now that I have all my troops in place, I'm about to declare war on them; it should be over within 6 weeks. They are allied with P-L, and I may let that part of the war drag on, to get gold all around.

-Pat

 

[J. Passepartout]

Spain will die.

 

[Morpheus506]

Well done, pat--declaring war on France for the sole reason of messing with them? Bravo, you might end up a warmonger yet!

 

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The war against Spain went quickly. We declared against them on 3 Sep 1629 (they were joined by P-L, the Mameluks, and Hungary), and by the end of the month had captured three of their cities. We had to wait until 3 Oct to demand a separate peace from them, demanding 500 gold (they only had ~70). I planned on waiting until the New Year and the fall of Warsaw before making demands of P-L, but their capture of Prussia on 28 Oct forced my hand, as I used my last diplomat to demand cash of them. It worked out ok in the end: we gained another diplomat in Nov with our army still on Prussia's borders, so they were willing to become vassals of the power that pulled their ass out of the fire.

Sweden did something weird in the new year, though. On 2 Jan 1630, they declared war against China, without calling allies.

Other things I noticed during the year: at some point Lorraine had annexed Baden, and Austria annexed Bavaria.

-Pat

 

[J. Passepartout]

Well well well, new vassals. Excellent.

 

[Lord E]

Good to see a new update, and well done taking out Spain and her evil allies. I must say I wonder what Sweden was thinking, probably they had been drinking to much beer and then got some wild idea
Hope we won’t have to wait for so long for the next update, I am looking forward to it Pat

 

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I really need to keep better track of where I put my notes...

In any case, in the spring of 1640 Spain embargoed our merchants again, and again this meant war. In little more than a month, I had six of their cities (one of these games they'll learn to build at least minimal forts). I kept turning down their offers for peace (I prefer to demand my gold immediately after the annual taxes come in), although on 23 Nov we forced Poland to reunite East and West Prussia. On New Year's Day we demanded 1k gold from Spain as a separate peace. Buda fell on 8 Mar 1641, and we demanded cash of them and then accepted an offer of a truce from the Mameluks.

And then something odd happened: in Oct 1642 Civil War broke out in England, the Royalists declared independence, and the government of England fell, all in 1 day. And England was ruled by that royalist Charles I while the Royalists were ruled by some nobody. In any case we offered a royal marriage to the newcomers. But then, less than ten months later, England declared war on the Royalists on 29 Jul, and Sweden followed suit less than a month later and only Prussia joined them; Bohemia, Saxony and ourselves dropped out of our alliance. Those unreliable Swedes, with their crazy talk of month long vacations and stuff... .

In any case, we joined Austria's alliance with Wurtemberg. In late Mar 1644 our new general von Sparr cleaned up the rebel scum in West Prussia to help out our vassal. In Sep there was a native uprising in the gold mines of Yarumal, which was quickly suppressed by our garrison there. And on 25 Mar 1646 our new alliance expired, and we were able to become the new alliance leader with Austria, Bohemia (I really wanted to prevent a war between these two), Thuringen and Wurtemberg.

That's about as far as I've gotten.

-Pat

 

[Lord E]

Those silly Spanish people, when shall they learn, and that Civil war in England sounds pretty strange… Still seems like you did well and now you are in a nice alliance that should work out fine. Good work Pat

 

[J. Passepartout]

Interesting situation with the English I see.

 

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Interesting situation with the English I see.

It gets better. I had tried improving relations with the Royalists so I could use them in my overdue wars with England, but France beat me to it; then England beat me to aligning the Iroquois. And then last night England declared war on me.

-Pat

 

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29 Nov 1646:M'lord! News has arrived that the English alliance has gone to war with us!
Which England?
The non-Royalists ruled by the King. They are joined by the Teutonic Order, Portuagl, Navarra, Scotland, and the Iroquois.
Hmm, that's a lot. Bring along our allies, too. Austria, Bohemia, Thuringen, and Wurtemberg. I didn't think about how none of my allies could reach any of my enemies until I had already clicked the "OK" button. o Oh well, it's not like much cash changed hands anyway.

Keeping track of who was fighting whom got very complicated before the year was out. On 20 Jan 1647 the Dutch, backed by Russia, declared war on the TO, backed by England and the Iroquois. Then on 20 Aug the Royalists, backed by France and Genoa, declared war on Russia (!), backed by the Neth, Port, Naples, Ven, Den, and Navarra.

Meanwhile, on 2 Aug we demanded 1k gold of the Iroquois, recieving 2. And finally, after torching lots of English and Portugese TPs in North America, Brazil, India, and the Spice Islands, we demanded cash of England on New Year's Day 1648.

-Pat

 

[J. Passepartout]

At least there appears to have been a little profit. All the fighting against the evil English done by you?

 

[Lord E]

Silly English, attacking you like that. Good to see you got revenge by burning down their trading posts and then managed to get them to pay some cash. Nice work