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Brittany had not yet given him permission to die—there remains work to be done.
 
glengarry leads said:
is there a good way to do that bar zoom out and printscreen? i am new to this. also, superbusy today. working on it!
One option: use the savegame editor/scenario editor from the Paradox forums; you can even show the whole world at once using it. Not as pretty as the game, though.
 
gameplay notes + responses, ch. 6 (thru 1496)

all: ok, ok, i'll go back to my 1503 savegame file and give you a map of Europe and a rundown! here's to 50 year anniversiaries! next update should get there, i forget. it's written. i'm written out to 1525 actually, but keep refining things so as to have better foreshadowing etc. :) continuity.
f'vale: that's why he died in gay Paree! '
enewald: think i may have given you a screencap... the regency wasn't the absolute worst... and only 4 years in duration. there were a couple minor events fired that were regency-specific, but not worth scripting in.
immryan: here's a list of countries i've never so much as started a game as: France, England, Ottomans, Castille, Aragon, Sweden, Muscovy, Ming, Poland, Venice, etc etc. I did play Portugal 'out of the box' and had a 'own Europe' game as Austria once... but i took to the off-the-beaten-path countries pretty quickly and have never left. My absolute favorite game was with Ceylon, but i haven't been able to 'capture the magic' again, nor write it properly... hope to do so soon. Also love the Italian minors, and can't wait to play Sengoku.

game notes: i totally had to re-conceptualize everything because the game kept throwing #*&$#!ing Francois at me. New names please!

events anticipating the reformation are starting to sneak in, so watch for that coming up. i'm working hard on getting relations up with England and France, but low Dip ratings have kept me from throwing cash around. nobody *really* hates me except Burgundy, of course. I keep waiting for the other Irish minors to do something, anything ... but they seem to live in mortal fear. France's economy seems to be purring along well... i'm getting a decent neighbor bonus in all techs save for Gov, due to my rockin' advisors! at this point (memory is fuzzy) i am desperately sinking money into army tech to avoid being outclassed in next round of Burgundian wars. Naval is, to be honest, in dire shape, despite my two national ideas in the naval sphere. I always seem to ignore naval as long as possible, but it always turns out that I ignored it longer than i *should* have.

Big maps coming up soon, I promise.
 
A most excellent AAR thus far.
 
chapter VIII: Lady in Waiting

Amsterdam, Bretagne, April 1500
Carice Moñforzh had already lived a long and eventful life before seeing her only child, Francois IV, installed as the Duke of Bretagne. Her father once had commanded the Royal Burgundian Knights for a turbulent era of Burgundian history, and served with distinction. Offered a minor landed title, he retired to Zeeland, where he received many visitors not only from his military days, but officers from other countries as well. Though still a young lady, Carice nonetheless served as ‘the lady of the house’, as her mother had gone quite mad years before, and her father relied on her greatly.

Her father had met Pierre II long before the Breton occupation of Holland, and he parlayed that friendship into a role in the first Breton administration in Amsterdam. Carice caught the eye of the Duke in Amsterdam, and she married Francis II, but gave birth to his first heir shortly after he died and Francis III was installed as the Duke. Carice had spent the decade tirelessly working to pave the way for her son to one day take power.

Despite the hostility of some Breton nobles, Carice’s reputation in the new Dutch holdings was without peer, and she had cultivated many friends in the flourishing new ‘Renaissance’ society in Nantes as well, including the charismatic, hard-nosed Bishop of Nantes. So when it came time for her son to rule Bretagne, few were surprised that Carice was the ‘power behind the throne.’ And her most pressing concern was stabilizing Bretagne’s control over the Dutch provinces.

Over the years, Carice had become friendly with Visant de Penguem, the great Breton general who had settled in Amsterdam in his semi-retirement. He had excellent Dutch, and keenly-held ideas about the best and worst the Low Country had to offer. In his opinion, the Burgundian crown would always be able to imperil Holland and Zeeland, so long as they controlled the great city of Bruges, in Vlaanderen. The still-feuding independencies of Gelre, Utrecht and Friesland were no threat to Bretagne… but Vlaanderen was too important to ignore.

“Phillipe will not part with his crown jewel lightly,” Visant told Carice over a bottle of wine (from Bourgogne, ironically.) “But we may take some solace in the fact that the Emperor has no claim on Vlaanderen.”

“So the Austrian crown won’t interfere, you think?”

“Surely not, my lady. Nor the French – Pier always said they had no stomach for ruling over a single Dutchman, let alone fifty thousand,” the old general said.

Carice summoned a courtier and ordered him to fetch Francois immediately. “I don’t care how many whores you have to wade through!” she snapped at the hesitating official, who left gracelessly. “The boy needs to learn that ruling isn’t all play… if he’s going to order men off to die in Flanders’ Fields, by God, he’ll know why,” she explained to de Penguem.

Brough-Brugges-BelguimS-1.jpg

the goal: Bruges, Pearl of Flanders

A few months later, as de Penguem was still drawing up mustering plans, news came from the south, the best possible news: Phillipe had declared war on France. After signing away his claims on Zeeland and Holland, the war-mad monarch had taken to brooding over the French occupation of Artois, Picardie and the like. There was some fairly serious internal dissent going on in France at the moment, the old vassal-states groaning under the weight of harsh new taxes imposed by the throne in Ile-de-France, so Phillipe calculated that the time was ‘as right as it would ever be,’ … but it seemed to de Penguem like a grave miscalculation.

Young Francois IV barely waited long enough to muster troops beyond those already in the field; the Burgundian armies, and those of their ally, Lorraine, were engaged in a long line all across the north of France, and would offer little resistance. Everything had been meticulously planned. “In the Dutch fashion,” laughed de Penguem. By the time the diplomat given the thankless task of carrying a declaration of war reached Dijon, Breton regiments were laying siege to three provinces, Vlaanderen included.

In truth, it wasn’t much of a war. Phillipe’s regiments were desperate to hold onto their gains in France; the Dutch troublemakers in the newly-occupied provinces seemed to be content on biding their time. Smelling blood, the Swiss had invaded Franche-Comte, and their ally, the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick III, joined them. Burgundy was in dire straits.

Francois never left the safety of Amsterdam. After two years and with the Breton army ready threatening to push on into Artois to help the French, diplomats returned from Bourgogne with the news: Vlaanderen was to be ceded to the Breton crown.

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I can’t help but wonder if Brittany’s territorial fragmentation over the years might eventually have catastrophic results…
 
chapter IX: Empire Ascendant

Amsterdam, Bretagne, April 1500
Charles de Pontbriand had inherited many of Pier du Tonquedoc’s duties in Nantes, and all of his worries. The old diplomat relied heavily on the civil service he and Pier had built, but Bretagne’s nobles demanded personal attention. Ever since he’d engineered the humiliation of Countess Anne in Armor, a sizeable faction of the aristocracy was malcontented in one fashion or another. As always, he did his best.

Events in Vlaandern had not worked out quite as Carice had promised. With the Burgundian armies eventually broken under France’s boot, Phillipe had fled to Austria, begging the Emperor for clemency, shelter, anything. What followed was a pitched battle of diplomats, French v. Austrian, meeting in Turin. It was all terribly thrilling, by the sound of it; Charles would have given the moon to be there. Eventually, France was granted some of the Low Country provinces, and Bourgogne proper, but the Empire added Breda, Brabant and Luxembourg into “the Imperial Demense” – and with that, the once-feared Kingdom of Bourgogne was no more.


EU3_29-2.png

To the great dismay of all Bretagne, the Holy Roman Emperor was just getting warmed up. Emboldened by these gains, he reasserted the Imperial claim on Zeeland, thought to be a settled matter, and also proclaimed that Holland and Vlaanderen, as “Germanic” counties, were falsely occupied by Bretagne. The Emperor seemed unwilling to tax his armies by going to war over the matter, but his word was enough to see all Breton merchants expelled from the great centres of trade in Lubeck, Venezia and Danzig, and diplomatic relations with many Imperial states suffered greatly.

EU3_17-1.png

Charles regrouped the merchantry as best he could. The dispersed merchants were encouraged to follow the Venetian model and seek trade in far off places like Alexandria, Thrace and Stockholm. This proved to be a great success; it seemed that the Turk was more hospitable to dealing with the hard-nosed Breton merchants, than they were to their old Italian foes. After a brief downturn, money flowed again into the coffers in Nantes.

In 1502, word came that Countess Anne was widowed, and she had chosen to stay across the Channel in Hampshire, in a nunnery, rather than return to Rennes. Charles begged the lady Carice to influence wild young Francois to stay in Nantes, rather than split time between the Breton and Dutch provinces. He worried that too many parties would like to see Bretagne ruled from Paris. In fact, the more he thought about it, he wondered if anyone besides the Bretons themselves didn’t want this. The Dutch might use it as an opportunity to revolt. The English, who knew what they were up to? The French Crown, her difficulties seemingly behind her, was certainly not unaware of the implications. And what of the Empire?

But for all his worrying, fate was still capable of throwing even a seasoned pro like de Pontbriand for a loop. For a visiting Munstrian prince, the same age as Francois, goaded the young Duke into planning a wild night of drinking and whoring in Amsterdam “for old times’ sake!” And his ten Irish conspirators lying in wait proved more than up to the task of slaying Francois’ bodyguards, and the young Duke himself, on a rainy April night in 1504.


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It looks like things are taking a turn for the worse.
 
An excellent AAR, you have inspired me to play Brittany next.

Just one small nitpick, Groningen isn't located in Zeeland. In fact, Groningen lies in the north-east of the Netherlands (in EUIII, Friesland-province) and Zeeland as we all know lies in the south-west. ;)
 
Veldmaarschalk said:
Just one small nitpick, Groningen isn't located in Zeeland. In fact, Groningen lies in the north-east of the Netherlands (in EUIII, Friesland-province) and Zeeland as we all know lies in the south-west. ;)

You can learn a lot by playing hoi2. :p

Make yourself the emperor!!
Dont accept your fate!
 
Veldmaarschalk said:
An excellent AAR, you have inspired me to play Brittany next.

Just one small nitpick, Groningen isn't located in Zeeland. In fact, Groningen lies in the north-east of the Netherlands (in EUIII, Friesland-province) and Zeeland as we all know lies in the south-west. ;)

D'oh! And i was being so careful otherwise. I minored in Geography so i take such things VERY seriously! Will be fixed immediately. I just didn't want to wait 5 minutes for EU3 to load while i was writing so I could check the name in-game, and forgot to doublecheck after I'd written.

One alternate tack you can take with Brittany, especially in non-MMG2, is "escape to North America before France Eats You..."
 
Smell the Inertia!

ok, here's the state of the world circa 1504. I have a biiit of storyline to cover to get here, but since you guys want screenshots, you're gonna get em! hope you guys enjoy stasis. If it's not mentioned, assume borders are as per 1453. Well there's one neat thing: Tripoli went TO TOWN on the Mamluks, they added like 4 provinces. GO tripoli! Austria is HRE emperor, Curia Controller has usually been Castille.

The Big Picture in Europe:

EU3_56-1.png


The Frozen North: Somewhat rare to see the borders of Denmark / Norway / Sweden stable, but as you can see, Sweden's made some gains in Russia. Russia has formed and is in a chaotic state. Silly Livonians and Teutonics at war. England / Scotland / Ireland borders are unchanged, save for Brittany's ownership of Meath.

EU3_57-1.png


The Balkans: Some interesting back-and-forth here, the Big Surprise is Catholic Bosnia. No wonder I was getting all those marriage offers. Wallachia's stable, been around a while.

EU3_59.png


The Low Countries:
Oh, the humanity! I control three provinces, and am around 40? years from having Core on Holland... hopefully that will make me accept Dutch as a equal culture and make things a little more lucrative. Oldenburg is free/ Most HRE minors seem tranquil. Breda and Brabant are perhaps the most turbulent provinces in the game, having variously been owned by Burgundy, 'The Netherlands', Utrecht, Bretagne (occupation), France and now Austria. We'll see how well the Emperor can profit from his demense... or if he can hold onto it at all. ;)

EU3_58.png



Here's a few looks 'behind the curtain...' note the totally hypocritical lack of Naval Investment despite the wonderful early successes (I had a 83% Tradition that I let rot without creating an admiral, wisely as it turns out!)

EU3_61-1.png


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Sorry for the censorship, gotta protect a few facts for the moment! On a wonky gameplay note, here are the meaning of the status icons, right to left, most of these are unique to Magna Mundi...

Imperial Agents: Temporary, mostly spy and reputation effects.
Imperial Sanctions: Temporary, the most minor HRE hate i think.
Major Power: WOOT! Didn't start with this, I assure you! Prestige!
CoT Owner: Helps me Compete in Vlaanderen, triggers some events...
Imperial Censure: THE BIG ONE. Open-ended, and really nasty.... mostly due to the -25% Trade Efficiency and the +200% Advisor Costs.
Horrendous HRE Relations: =.5 Prestige / Year
Mixed Arms Specialty: The Best, Totally, for the later game, so i am pleased.
Large Smuggling Op: A one-time expense gives you +2.5% Trade Eff, Compete Chance, something else indefinitely, though bad events can come up in the long run.

Just a couple oddities to mention that i've seen: Granada owns Navarre! Genoa lost her Crimean holdings, to Crimea, which sounds strong by all accounts. Livonia and Teutonics fought a big naval battle off Finistere. That is all. :)
 
Nice round up post.
 
rcduggan: oh lord, is it? i'd never noticed, it's always gone so soon and I guess I'd never gotten a RM offer before so i figured it wasn't. well, it's MY alternate universe after all.
enewald: yeah, the Emperor is capable of mustering some SCARY peacetime armies... more on this later, haha.
stnylan: thank ya, they henpecked me into it. not all that much to report in the first 50, but the next 25 is pretty interesting if i say so...