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Huzzah! Farquharson is back! An playing as Portugal, too!

Excellent job in the war against Spain. Good luck finding those P provinces. You might want to hurry up and finish off Castile, to make sure they don't unify with Aragon anyway. You might also want to grab Provence sooner rather than later.
 
Preposterous! The perfidy in proposing that I need to plot my posts by philandering painfully through a thesaurus. :sniff:

I'm not sure how the creation of Spain events work. Won't Aragon become Spain now?
 
I´ve just found your AAR.
It´s great! Good luck in capturing all those P-Islands from the P-agans ;)
 
As usual, I find another Farq AAR after it has started, and to top it off, have gotten myself hooked on it! Another lively one I sense is in store for us all! Good show, Farq!

Now, when are you planning on moving into Western Europe and it's P provinces? It seems like a bit of a catch-22 'cause if you start now, you have a week power base to work with, but if you start later, you have to deal with a Powerful France... possibly. Can't wait to find out what you decide! :cool:
 
jwolf: The BB-management plan is to do things in Europe gradually and so never let it get out of hand. There aren't actually that many provinces I need to get in Europe, so I think this should be possible. I do want to own the whole of the Iberian peninsula by fairly early on though, so things might be tricky for a while. As far as I can see, Aragon will likely now become Spain, unless I can get Castilla (Madrid) off them by 1469, perhaps? Or don't they need Castilla? All help welcome with these kind of things! :)

J.Passepartout: The Giralda is nice, but I could do without the Muslims who are still being called to prayer from it. It's a fortune to try and convert them too. :(

The Danish King: Thanks! With luck, I think we'll make it. ;)

Grundius: Portugal is a bit cash-strapped, you're right. Luckily the trashing of Castile cost me very little, thanks to Aragon's help, but all that colonizing and shipbuilding is kind of expensive.

Anibal: Thanks for putting me right on Old Gonçalo - that's what comes of writing a Portugal AAR without knowing a word of Portuguese! :eek:o Still, as long as you stick around you can keep me from making too many blunders - all help welcome here as well!

Deflare: Good advice about Castile - I am working hard on it! ;) As for Provence, they're currently allied with France and about a hundred other minors, so this may not be the moment...

CatKnight: Please pardon my presumptuous perniciousness! Plainly you're penmanship passes my own... :p

Wolfhound: Thanks - of course pagans will be liberally conquered, just in case they really were the P-smudge. :D

Draco Rexus: My reasoning is that if I succeed in conquering all of Iberia and a fair swathe of Poland/Lithuania, along with a vast colonial empire, I'll be ready to take on pretty much anyone, especially if I only want one or two specific provinces from them. :)

Ciçatrix: The great thing about AAR-writing is that you can put in anything! Maybe the Portuguese will be on Pluto by 1819... :D

As always, thanks to all prolific posters and plain perusers. Next piece is in the pipeline and will be posted tomorrow.
 
Catknight: Aragon can become Spain if it owns Madrid. I believe it does, from that screenshot.

Farquharson: The moslems know of a province with a p, and the pious moslem goes there when he dies. Maybe you should become moslem! :D ;)
 
J. Passepartout said:
Catknight: Aragon can become Spain if it owns Madrid. I believe it does, from that screenshot.

I believe - but am by no means 100% sure - that in the AGCEEP Toledo is the key to becoming Spain (for Aragon, at least).
 
J.Passepartout, Grundius: Well, the current situation is that Castile holds Toledo (their capital) but Aragon now holds Madrid (Castilla province). I've had a look in the event files (AGCEEP 1.39) but I'm not familiar enough with this stuff to be able to see exactly what the various conditions and possibilities are. In a way, I prefer it that way as it always seems a bit of an exploit manipulating events. :rolleyes:

EvilSanta: Glad to be of service! ;)

And here, as promised, the next episode...
 
Sizing up to be as good as any Farq AAR before it. I had another idea that may be damn near impossible - you should make it your goal to squash all pirates as well. That ought to keep you busy, as if you were not already.

Nice work with Castille there. Now I guess there's Aragon to deal with. To bad you can't just inherit since the princess married the prince, now King.
 
Chapter 5
P Provinces are Pinpointed but not Penetrated

At the end of the last chapter, King Duarte had just come to the throne of Portugal, having inherited a somewhat enlarged Kingdom from his father King João. Next door in Castile, King Juan II now ruled over a somewhat smaller realm, which was entirely landlocked apart from a colony in the Canary Islands. Portugal had always disputed Castilian claims to these islands, and the Portuguese now appealed to the Pope, pointing out that, since Castile was no longer a maritime nation, they had no use for island colonies. The Pope agreed with this persuasive reasoning and issued a decree that the Canary Islands should henceforth belong to Portugal. Stubbornly, and of course rather sadly for Castile, King Juan II refused to comply.

canaries.jpg

A typical native homestead in the Canaries​

Portugal’s truce with Castile came to an end in January 1436 and since Castile didn’t actually have any army at this point, it seemed the perfect moment to settle the Canary Islands issue once and for all. King Duarte declared war and his armies quickly invaded both of the mainland Castilian provinces and besieged their capitals. Meanwhile a small detachment of troops landed in the Canaries themselves and took control. The Aragonese were not invited to this war, as they still had a truce for two more years, and their help was not exactly seen as necessary anyway.

In January 1437 Toledo fell and King Juan II and his court fled the city. King Juan had by this time been driven to drink by the ill-fortunes of his reign and was no longer in touch with reality, as demonstrated by a peace offer he sent to the Portuguese shortly before the capture of Estremadura:


peace-offer.jpg

No thanks, King Juan, if it’s all the same to you we’ll just continue the war...​

Once Estremadura was in Portuguese hands King Juan was forced to become King Duarte’s vassal, and to grant military access to Portuguese troops. In return he was allowed to keep the Canary Islands - for the moment anyway.

King Duarte was not in the best of health these days, although he was only in his mid-forties. It will be recalled that he had married late, and his eldest son and heir Prince Afonso was still very young. It was therefore a great tragedy when King Duarte succumbed to a particularly fierce bout of illness in 1438, to leave a six year old Afonso V as King of Portugal. Fortunately the young King’s mother, Leonor of Aragon, was a capable woman and had soon taken the reins of power as regent for Afonso. Her first task was to patch up the sadly battered relations between Portugal and Castile. Juan II, it was decided, had been humiliated enough and now was the time for reconciliation. After the delivery of several cartloads of best Andalusian wine to the royal palace in Toledo, King Juan was in high spirits and ready to accept an invitation to the Portuguese Alliance.

Having thus put the somewhat weakened Castile out of reach of the predations of both Aragon and Granada, Queen Leonor then found herself ousted in her position as regent by her late husband’s brother, Pedro Duke of Coimbra. Duke Pedro had wormed his way into the young King’s favour by such underhand methods as teaching him how to burp as loudly as possible, an exploit which Queen Leonor objected to almost as much as being deposed as regent, however where under-age royalty is concerned, what can one do?


afonso-v.jpg

Young King Afonso lets rip​

Now we must turn our attention back to the great Portuguese search for the missing P provinces. Gonçalo Velho arrived back eventually in Cape Verde, and set off westwards again almost immediately, determined this time to avoid the sort of gaff that had ruined his previous trip. As he explored the western reaches of the Atlantic, it soon become clear that, far from containing a scattering of small islands, it appeared to contain a continent of gargantuan proportions. What’s more, he and another explorer, Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia, had soon identified one part that was called Parnaibo and another named Pernambuc. The only problem was that the beaches of the continent tended to be lined with barbed wire, pillboxes bristling with poison-dart blowpipes and large signs saying things like “No Europeans” and “Trespassers will be Cooked”. Clearly this was hostile territory requiring a special type of crackpot adventurer to penetrate it.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, another intrepid explorer named Gil Eanes had succeeded in charting his way far round the African Coast. He had even discovered one part that appeared to be habitable, a place called, rather disappointingly, Casamance. However, unlike the natives of Tassaret who had long ago burned down the Portuguese trading post there, the inhabitants of Casamance seemed to have a more relaxed attitude to European incursion. Immediately Portuguese traders were sent there to try and set up business:


Portuguese trader: Roll up, roll up, ladies and gentlemen - get your blue pots here! Blue pots, blue pots! Finest blue pots!

Casamance native woman: Don’t you have anything else?

Trader: Um - let me see. Let’s have a look in the chest. Blue pots.. more blue pots. Even more blue pots... Gosh you’d never think so many blue pots would fit in this chest.

Native: We don’t really want blue pots, actually.

Trader: Oh, I don’t think you should say that. Have you thought about all the benefits blue pots could bring to the modern Casamance mud hut?

Native: Like what?

Trader: Er... Well, they make great ornaments. Or you can put things in them. I mean, where do you currently keep your basic store-cupboard ingredients, madam?

Native: In brown pots.

Trader: In brown pots? Ah! Well, you see, madam, that explains why you’re so technologically backward! See, in Portugal, we all use blue pots, and look at us!

Native: You look pretty weird to me.

Trader: OK, listen, do you want to buy a blue pot or not?

Native: No.

Trader: * sigh * Looks like it’s time to get back to the eggheads in Marketing. This one’s going to be a tough nut to crack.

However, Marketing reckoned there was at least a 45% chance of interesting the Casamance natives in blue pots, so more traders were sent, but again without success. Six times shiploads of blue pots were unloaded and offered for sale, and six times the people of Casamance sent them packing. Marketing had obviously made a massive miscalculation. But then came the great breakthrough. The local tribal chief’s wife announced that she was going to try out a blue pot. Overnight, blue pots became the kitchen utensil to be seen with and the Portuguese traders were soon sold out. Business began to boom. Finally, in 1438, shortly after little Afonso V came to throne, Casamance became a full-fledged colony, capable of acting as a base for further naval exploration of the African Coast. All that was lacking were crackpot adventurers willing to brave the interior.

atlantic-1440.jpg

A Portuguese map of the Atlantic Ocean in 1440​
 
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Excellent update. :D
I'm quite impressed by the speed at wich you colonised Casamane, it seems blue pots are the recipie for Portugese P-Province domination. ;)
EDIT: Or actually, shouldn't it be Purple Pots?
 
I mean, who doesn't like blue pots? Come on!!!

Good to see the natives taking to the customs. Now if only the natives over in the west could do the same and take down some of that barbed wire. Who knew that had such capabilities anyway? Preposterous!
 
Perhaps it is possible to penetrate pagan pillboxes with Portugese pikes ...
 
Nice work colonising. But I have to question how long it took. You should have sent off the kign, and had him demonstrate his burping ablilities. The natives would have been so impressed they would hand over the province immediately.
 
Great update. Very funny explanation for a very annoying phenomenon. BTW Do you play with fantasy events on? For there is one in there -check the fantasy-iberia file in the events folder of AGCEEP - which lets Portugal inherit Spain and become either Spain with cores on Portugal and Portuguese culture or - more fitting, I'd say - Portugal with Spanish cores and additional Castillian culture.
 
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The Portuguese spread! Those African provinces are a pain to colonize. Be sure to grab Fernando Po; besides being a good base of operations for African expeditions, it's half a P-province!