Damo,
The entirety of that first post is dedicated to extolling your prowess. I assumed the inflation was part and parcel.
But let's look at the numbers again:
Take the first inflation figure. Consider that it was increasing before the war began to fund conversions, rapid colonization and a war chest against another duel with the OE, because, above all else, I want Spain's inflation to be high and might as well get shit done at the same time.
(not prohibitively high-as you point out, I can function with inflation in the thirties and forties and even, if necessary, fifties: but I'll be as weak as Spain was historically after the second bankruptcy)
But let's assume, anyway, that the six points came during the course of the war. Inflation from gold is currently .13 percent-I think the war lasted five years (correct me if I'm wrong-I was AFK and I don't pay much attention to those kinds of details, which is why my AAR is going to be largely apocryphal)-so subtract .65 percent rounded down. Five point five percent inflation caused by minting.
We'll use your figure again, 220 a month (rounded to 2600 yearly), because it jumped around depending on how the ungodly religious revolts in the Andes were doing, other similar factors. Taking 5.5 points would mean I minted, solely in monthly income to be absolutely fair, 14,300 ducats.
Take out of this my average operational costs for five and a half years, including maintenance, colonization, conversions, merchants, etc., reduced by annual income as usually used, and that number is roughly 12,000 ducats.
I sent (again, not into details-correct me if I'm wrong) about a hundred and twenty-thousand men into Austria. The Milanese and Burgundian guards totaled about fifty-thousand. My levy came to about twenty-five thousand. Forty-five thousand mercenaries hired at nine thousand men and three hundred ducats apiece (at a high, easy estimate) comes out to 1500 ducats. Taken all together, that's about 1900 ducats. This strikes me as rather more than I spent, but we'll go ahead with it.
I did send state gifts to Austria and Venice, the former being around 170 (I think, because once again...) and the latter around 100. I sent about 800 ducats worth, as I was MIA for a good chunk of the war.
2,700 hundred ducats. Rather a lot. Especially for Poland to tackle-but I'm not saying it was fair. Poland challenged the Emperor and got fucked by the Empire. Tough luck.
The question is what I did with the additional 9,100 ducats minted and why I wouldn't spend them in the desperate last stand against the Polish hordes:
"assumed it'd been used to liberally prop up Austria's economy and buy mercs. Which it was. It wasn't an accomplishment or an objective."
As far as I know, the Archduke did not spend any of his brother's money on appointing officials, sending its scant few merchants to market or building factories. As far as I know, it mostly raised mercenaries and whatever national armies it could manage, which brings up another interesting question:
"Just a fact that the formidable Spanish economy was brought to bear,"
If the formidable Spanish economy was brought to bear, why, beyond the question of the mysterious misappropriated 9,100 ducats, did it spend the vast majority of its money on expensive mercenaries? 2700 ducats is a lot to run up against, indeed, especially when 1500 is exchanged for 45,000 men with virtually no cavalry.
If, as you say, the mighty Habsburgs were out to get you, why wasn't this money better spent raising troops at home that could easily have sailed Mare Nostrum to Emilia, and from there to Milan?
Better still, why didn't Spain, perhaps with the 9,100 ducats set aside for the annihilation of Poland, continue to buy mercenaries, raise troops and trek across Austria to get the Archduke a little recompense?
Even better still, why did Spain bother with it at all? It's rich, powerful, otherwise occupied, itching for a crusade. Why take six points of inflation to protect Austria from, as you put it, her pride? Why appropriate 14,000 ducats from the vital pursuit of the mysterious Infra 5?
Best yet, why not leave Austria to siege back Bohemia and pour a good two or three hundred thousand men into Poland? Because I was afraid the Duke of Alba would be savaged and destroyed in Danzig? Or because the fair Catholic city (congrats on that, by the way, hadn't said so before), adding another COT in the friendly race I'm currently losing to Portugal, wouldn't appeal to the avarice and vanity of Charles V? The jewel of the North wouldn't be a fitting addition to his scattered and nearly ungovernable possessions? Or because someone could've/would've stopped me?
Allow me a little lack of humility.
I have a good-sized fleet in Spain no one but Portugal could challenge. I have ships that can easily be brought back from the colonies and a few more in Flandern. I can build transports (maybe with the missing 9,100 anti-Poland ducats!) with ease. So I ship an army to Holland, restock and ship it up to Danzig. Duke of Alba (assuming I'd waited to get him), large invasion, whilst the Habsburg Legions of Mayhem stream into Krakow and Wiel. Assault. Fleet docks temporarily in Copenhagen, heads back to Flandern, ships another Legion of Mayhem over, squeezes the life out of Poland. Who's going to intervene on your behalf against Austria and Spain?
Wyvern?
There are three things I'm trying to get accross here (with my admittedly hazy recollection):
A. While I don't want to stunt the growth of your titanic achievement (sure to persist unabated), Spain was largely peripheral to the war. I was careful to stay within the limits of a distant Emperor fortifying the frontiers of his realm. If you have a specific challenge to how far I went, we can discuss it, but there's no question at all that I could've gone much further.
B. Spain suffered not a whit for that war. The Empire was protected, the Emperor's prestige grew, the Protestants were given a bone. The missing 9,100 ducats? Most of them were raised periodically over a larger stretch of time and went to such projects as the Total Destruction/Salvation of the Savages and the relentless war against the Cuzco heretics (who, I will admit, fielded more against Spain then Poland-but, then, they accomplished more as well). Moreover, while that period included a six point increase, the remainder of the session included eight. I don't think there's room to take credit for any ill winds in Madrid.
C. Duke played it right, for no in-game gain (which he could've gotten, if he'd pressed on). How well did he fight? Dunno. I wasn't there for most of it, I don't have the starting numbers, I opposed attacking Poland in the middle of winter and was more concerned about picking up Gary and finding out whether I could put the blade to the Pagan beasts everywhere and I had no idea what he was doing after my troops got there. I just went where he went and asked no questions. I assume he had a plan, and it resulted in the sum total of what he wanted in the first place. Call him names, insult his abilities, build great monuments throughout Krakow to your stunning, unprecedented military mind. I don't give a shit and neither should he. He won, and that's all that counts.
