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well, once muscovy is dealt with, all will be well... until super denmark eats its PU states, that is. If it does, which it does for me.
Great update, you handled the Muscovite problem very well. It saddens me a bit you won`t go further into Asia, you could fuel in the end trough Kiev and Novgorod the Baltic trade node with goods from Stepps. Oh well. I won`t point fingers at this moment but consider Ottomans as your next target because as seen on the screenshots they`ve already started eating Mamluks. Good luck!
Nice beating of Muscowy. That will let Muscowy worrying about Novgorod.
Isn't Polan Christian? Should't you defend against the infidels? : P
Protestant WHAT? Infidel
LOL
New Law, No good news must be delivered.
Protestant WHAT? Infidel
Poland should follow the one true Orthodox faith.
(Ps. Angeloi protect!)
I just read the first chapter and must say I enjoy it quite a bit. Going to get through chapter 2 and hope the next chapter will be out soon.
Well the best thing would be to vassalize them and then let them take the steppes but well one does not simply vassalize Muscowy
Thanks!sub
Thank you; hmm, I read about PLC mainly in Polish (surprise, surprise) but I'll see what can I find.Impressive work, handling the Muscovites like that before they become too much of a threat. I also found the section on the Szlachta Privileges to be rather enlightening; would you recommend any particularly good English-language sources for anyone who might want to read up on them a little more?
Also, on the technical side, I just noticed that your six-step plan has Step Four coming before Step Three
Ooops, correcting ASAP!
I'm glad you enjoy them
Nope, I'll be busy enough with "This Is Madness 2" and "Pro Fide".
Thanks!
Will do
It always does.
It's about timeDeluge with opposite direction. Count me in.
Actually I changed my mind about this - expanding into the East would be a great occassion to talk about Polish presence in Siberia. It isn't really that connected to the history of PLC but it's an interesting piece of history which is really poorly known even here in Poland.
Thanks!
It's always nice to beat the Muscovites, I really hate fighting monstrous Russia in the late game.Nice beating of Muscowy. That will let Muscowy worrying about Novgorod.
Isn't Polan Christian? Should't you defend against the infidels? : P
Protestant WHAT? Infidel
LOL
New Law, No good news must be delivered.
PLC was tolerant and so am I.
Sorry, gotta save those MPs!
Not on my watch!
Angeloi protect now and always.
I will! Seriously nowWow. This is awesome. Will continue to read if you continue to post!
Thank you, I'm glad you like it - it's nice after all the crazy alternate history stuff in "This Is Madness" to dive into some RL history
POLAN STRONK!
Thanks! Oh it will be out soon enough...
Husaria best army!It is alive!!!!
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CHAPTER 3
1492-1518
FROM PSKOV TO LUBLIN
1492-1518
FROM PSKOV TO LUBLIN
Hello there! It's been some time since the last update – quite a lot of time, in fact. Ahem. Anyways, let's join our glorious Polish-Lithuanian Union in her Preemptive Partitions. Last chapter ended in 1492 year with us
RNG welcomes me in 1493 with “The Statute of Piotrkow” event. Also known as The Second Privilege of Piotrków, in was also called statuty piotrkowskie or konstytucje piotrkowskie, which means “constitutions of Piotrków”. In Commonwealth, konstytucja had nothing to do with constitution the American one – as some of you may know, Latin constitutio means basically a bill or a package of bills like in Constitutio Criminalis Carolina. So in fact „The Statute of Piotrkow”, as Paradox calls it, was not a one act but rather just a bunch of concessions given to the szlachta by king Jan Olbracht, each in a separate konstytucja. What I find funny is that the whole flavor text for this event is ripped off from wikipedia – oh well, it's not easy to find good sources about Polish history in English or Swedish I guess. Just to remind you what was the deal with this whole „Statute of Piotrków”:
In game you basically can chose between -3 stability hit and sweet +5 Mercantilism bonus and +1 stability together with +10% tech cost malus. Considering that I have -10% tech cost from Byzantine refugees (it would have never happened under the benevolent rule of the Angeloi!) until 1518, I chose the second option – it's hard to increase your Mercantilism, you know, and I'm gonna need monies.
Hapsburg finally can ally me again in 1494, so we promptly sign the alliance. Remember, you gonna need at least one neighboring Western country with +150 relations during the whole game as Poland/Commonwealth – it'll give you the edge against Muscowy and Ottomans and will save you a lot of MPs. I also become a Papal Controller again which is nice, especially considering -10% AE impact – it's really worth it to play the Curia game for this bonus alone.
I welcome the dawn of a new century in 1500 with another of the unique Polish/Commonwealth events, this time dedicated to Nicolaus Copernicus or, as we know him in Poland, Mikołaj Kopernik. You can see him on this painting made by one of the most famous Polish painters, Jan Matejko – by the way, his works will frequently be used in this AAR since he dedicated a great deal of his carrier to making painting concerning Polish/Commonwealth history. Keep in mind though that he was born in 19th century in the Free City of Kraków, so hundreds of years after the events he depicted. Anyways, back to Copernicus - everybody knows the dude and he even was mentioned several times in “Cosmos” by Neil deGrasse Tyson, so I won't delve into details concerning his discoveries and their consequences. Since he is one of the few important characters in history of Poland/Commonwealth to have an extensive and very well written wikipedia page, I'll make a one time exception and I'll skip him completely. Sorry Mikołaj! In
The next year I finally annex Teutonic Order.
Teutonic Knights are a delicious main course and for a dessert I also ate Tver – om nom nom. I kinda regret that I didn't take Influence as one of my National Ideas, I would surely save some DIP points – Aristocratic and Humanism are a must but choice between Diplomatic and Influence wasn't that easy to be honest. Oh well, it's not like I care about DIP tech progression or modern ships or anything. Since I lost my puppets I quickly arrange addition of a new
Bohemia was unlucky enough to lost a war where the enemy demanded releasing Silesia. To protect Polish speaking minority I immediately send a humanitarian aid to Silesia in 1503 and, after a short while, they decide to join
[size=+2]POLISH-LITHUANIAN ARMY – PART ONE[/size]
Military of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is an interesting topic for two main reasons. First of all, its completely different than the armies in western Europe, both in composition and doctrine. For instance, mercenaries were rather rarely used and practically until the 18th century it was entirely based on feudal levy. This in the end proved to be ineffective but even in 17th century outdated armies of PLC could really kick some ass – and I really mean it. Battle of Kircholm in 1605, battle of Klushino in 1605 and battle of Vienna 1683, to mention just a few, were all great examples of how outnumbered Commonwealth's army was able to decimate the enemy.
Second of all, the strength and weakness of PLC army was its dependence on nobles and strong skilled leaders who were able to make a good use of what they have. But since it was szlachta which was providing soldiers and protecting the realm, it was easy for them to argue that they deserve more and more privileges – after all, they keep everyone safe (in theory). This combined with Złota Wolność – The Golden Liberty – made every attempt to create a stronger and centralized power to fail. To put it simply, without army king couldn't subjugate the nobility and without subjugated nobility he couldn't gain enough support for creating a strong army. In the end this was one of the causes of the downfall of the Commonwealth – while in 18th century Prussia, Russia and Austria all had disciplined and modern standing armies counting 100,000 or more troops, PLC had barely 10,000 strong military.
But let's start from the beginning.
Armies of Poland and Lithuania – before Union of Lublin (1569)
1. Pospolite ruszenie (feudal levy)
Both in Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania the core of the military was the same as it was in Middle Ages – feudal levy, which everyone who played “Crusader Kings II” is familiar with. In Poland ruled by Kazimierz Wielki (Casimir the Great) every land-owning noble had to obligatory take part in feudal levy under the penalty of land confiscation. It was based on administrative division of the Kingdom of Poland – all nobles from smaller units were ordered to meet in a certain place in województwo (English: voivodeship) where hetman – royal commander – or the king himself would take command over them.
Despite it being very ineffective this type of military survived basically until the 18th century and even then formed the backbone of the Commonwealth's army. That's right, in the same century when French Revolution and American Independence War happened the Commonwealth was still using this medieval method of conscription. To make it worse, various privileges for nobility meant that without the permission of a local sejmik (parliament) or later Sejm, king couldn't even muster pospolite ruszenie! It's enough to say it didn't work out great for PLC.
2. Obrona potoczna (General Defense Regiment)
When you start playing EU4, Kingdom of Poland looks kinda stretched, doesn't it? Well, it was and historically it made some problems with defending the eastmost border – before the necessary pospolite ruszenie forces could be mustered and sent to the border with Moldova, Turks and Wallachia the campaign could be already lost. That's why obrona potoczna was introduced.
These guys – more or less 1500-2000 hired soldiers paid from king's coffers – was the only standing army of Kingdom of Poland and later of PLC (at least until the reforms). Imagine that in EU4 you have only 3-4 regiments of mercenary active at any time: that's your whole army and if you want more, you need to ask local sejmiki and later Sejm for their approval. With such tiny standing army every campaign had to be based on pospolite ruszenia and without support from the nobility, Polish kings simply couldn't wage any war. It must've been quite frustrating since they come up with a new idea – wojsko kwarciane.
3. Wojsko kwarciane (The Quarter Army)
The idea was simple – let's take a quarter (or in Polish: kwarta) of tax revenue fromlands in the royal demesne and with this money fund a decent army. And so wojsko kwarciane was introduced in 1562, just a seven years before Union of Lublin and creation of the Commonwealth. The idea was indeed simple (it's basically the same as retinues from “Crusader Kings II”) but the execution was not – Polish and later PLC kings used to lend the lands from a royal demesne to nobility, so there was a lot of corruption and the revenues from these lands weren't that impressive. By this I mean that The Quarter Army counted c. 2500 men. Not that much, eh?
Later, in 1632 – when the Commonwealth was the biggest blob on map of Europe – finally more money started to flow for The Quarter Army with introduction of “dupla”, a second quarter of tax revenue from lands in royal demesne dedicated to standing army. But still it counted just a few thousands troops, who couldn't really protect the vast territory of the PLC.
Army of the Commonwealth – after Union of Lublin (1569)
Core of the army of the Commonwealth was more or less the same as the in case of army of Poland and Lithuania – pospolite ruszenie mixed with tiny standing army (The Quarter Army plus General Defense Regiment). But since the territory requiring protection was so much bigger and with longer borders there were more enemies willing to attack the Commonwealth, there was a need for more professional military forces.
4. Wojsko suplementowe (The Supplemental Forces)
Some day someone must've come up with a bright idea – The Quarter Army is financed from taxes, right? So... what if we take some tax revenue from województwo (voivodeship) and pay for some professional soldiers instead of irregular and undisciplined szlachta? You know, like mercenaries who know how to kill a man?
And thus wojsko suplementowe was born.
“Suplement” in Old Polish means the same what “supplement” means in English - this type of military was literary a way to ad hoc patch the main army of the PLC with more troops. Considering that vast majority of PLC soldiers were members of pospolite ruszenie this was a step in a right direction. But even with wojsko suplementowe, the Commonwealth's army was still very small. There were also private armies of the magnates, which I will describe in the future since they are a very interesting subject, but generally PLC military was terribly underdeveloped. Situation improved somewhat during the reign of a Hungarian king Stefan Batory.
Army of the Commonwealth – reform of king Báthory István (c.1578)
King Batory is widely regarded as one of the best kings of the Commonwealth, despite that he ruled only for 10 years. But even with only one decade to clean up the mess, he managed to reform the army and create not one but two new types of units.
5. Piechota wybraniecka (The Chosen Infantry)
Before being elected as a king of PLC, Báthory István was a prince of Transylvania where a type of peasant conscription was already in use. Upon becoming the king and seeing how weak is the Commonwealth's army, Báthory István decided to implement the same solution which he already knew from Principality of Transylvania. The idea was to conscript peasants from all over the PLC so that a strong standing army counting 15,000-20,000 troops could be created. But Sejm decided otherwise and gave his permission to conscript only peasants from royal demesne and only 1 for every 20 łan (old unit of field measurement).
The result was rather humble – c. 2000 strong regiment. It may seem to be a failure of Batory's policy but remember that even this small force was effectively doubling the size of the PLC professional standing army. And The Chosen Infantry was really disciplined, with every chosen peasant obligated to participate in a compulsory training every 3 months. Still, it wasn't enough.
6. Kozacy rejestrowi (Registered Cossacks)
Kozacy rejestrowi were those of Zaporozhian Cossacks who were enlisted and paid by the Commonwealth and served as a soldiers in a special regiments counting more or less 4000 men. I will delve into details concerning Cossacks in the future but right now what you should remember is that – among other things – the Registered Cossacks regiment was one of the cause of an infamous Khmelnitsky Uprising of 1648. Simplifying, Polish-Lithuanian nobles wanted to make peasants from Cossacks, who wanted to have political representation (that is, to become nobility with all the perks attached to this status) and – what's very important – to significantly extend the registry of the Registered Cossacks regiment. This is a terrible, terrible simplification and I will expand on this in future chapters.
Army of the Commonwealth – later reforms
7. Wojsko komputowe (The Komput Army)
In Old Polish „komput” was an army budget voted by the Sejm (from Latin computatio – account, calculation). The Komput Army was a new type of unit created in 1652 by merging The Quarter Army with The Supplemental Forces. It numbered c. 12,000 troops for the Crown (Polish part of the PLC) and 6,000 for the Duchy (Lithuanian part of the PLC), increasing during war to 20,000-40,000 men for the Crown and 8,000-20,000 for the Duchy respectively.
For the first time PLC had a decent army. If not for the devastating Deluge (1655-1660), perhaps the Commonwealth would continue slow reforms of its army and would enter 18th century with enough soldiers to protect itself. Alas, when during the Silent Sejm of 1717 Tsardom of Russia enforced on the Parliament permanent reduction of the Komput Army by more or less 50% it was already to late.
***
And that was it: pospolite ruszenie, General Defense Regiment, The Quarter Army and The Chosen Infantry (later substituted with The Komput Army) Registered Cossacks and some Supplemental Forces and private armies if needed.
To put it shortly, a real mess.
With more or less 50,000 strong standing army (in good times) and unknown number of pospolite ruszenie troops (it depended on the approval of the Sejm but also distance to the border, time of the year, how the nobility felt about going to war etc.) the Commonwealth practically couldn't wage war effectively. With good leaders, the army was able of destroying vastly superior forces – but under mediocre leadership, all the flaws of outdated and badly organized patchwork of different units were clearly visible.
There is more to the military of the Commonwealth of course – I'm yet to mention wojsko ordynackie, other private armies, infamous Lisowszczycy Regiment and of course the Polish hussars. But more about them next time.
With bonuses Piechota Wybraniecka my army is now stronger than ever which with AE reduction from Papal Controller makes it a perfect time to start a war. All I need is a viable target...
Come on, don't act like you are surprised – Muscowy is the Big Blue Blob of Asia and the sooner we destroy the Muscovites, the better.
I DOW them in 1503.
Obviously Austria wasn't able to answer to my call to arms but it's of no concern – second front consists only of Hungary with its pathetic army and Genoa (seriously Muscowy?) which can't do much. I let Lithuania and Novgorod engage Muscovites while I'm kicking Hungarian butt into submission – they'll both lose manpower but my army should be practically intact and at this point of the game Muscowy is not yet the Lucky-powered monster it becomes in a few decades.
In about a year I peace out with Genoa and siege down every single Hungarian province, so that I can finally concentrate on the main target. Muscowy loses every battle against combined Polish-Lithuanian-Novgorodian forces – I expected them to put much more resistance to be honest. It's a little disappointing but I can't really complain. Before long the enemy loses all its armies and we start carpet-sieging while they try to regroup somewhere beyond Ural.
A shamefur dispray.
The war ends in 1506 – in just three years Muscowy was completely beaten. Again. You may wonder why I didn't take more in peace offer – I limited myself to taking only the provinces on which I had claims. Why? So that I could forge more of them before the next war and thus save my ADM points, obviously – remember that I need to get to ADM tech level 10 before enacting decision to create Commonwealth. Kaluga will let me claim everything near it, so it's a good choice. The last screenshot deserve some extra explanation. You see, while I was carpet-sieging Muscovites they got quite a lot of rebellions and one of them succeeded in liberating Ryazan*. In Tula. I obviously couldn't waste such a great occasion.
DOW with no CB, 100% warscore, annexation of Ryazan* (the one in Tula). Then in a peace offer to Muscowy I forced them to release Ryazan proper and then quickly diplovassalize it in 1507 – after selling to them Tula on which it had core. Thus I spared myself paying for coring both Tula and Ryazan (the province)! Polan you of genius.
Of course the downside of this all is that Muscowy joined coalition against me – oops.
I'm not the most popular country in Europe but with friends like Novgorod and Austria plus Lithuania in PU I couldn't give less crap about this. Denmark and Muscowy in coalition is unfortunate but not that bad. On the other hand however... Dat bordergore. The sooner I'll reach ADM tech 10 the prettier and more blobby I'll get, so I focus all my attention on teching ASAP. After all, what's more important than pretty borders?
As a cherry on top of my quick and successful war I get this tasty event in 1509 which I think is one of the Aristocratic ones. Funny that it mentions hundreds of battleships when my tiny fleet consists of a few outdated galleys. I'm really lucky with events recently, I just hope I won't run out of my luck and that RNG isn't going to curse me with comets or some stuff like this in the near future – as long as I don't get Peasants War I'm fine.
Speaking of momentous and historic events of long-lasting consequences:
England, huh? I guess they really got into John Wycliffe's teachings. Still, 1510 is kinda early considering that Act of Supremacy was issued by Henry VII in 1534. Huh. Well, I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong with that. Say what you want about Protestants but at least they didn't initiate some kind of a witch hunt,, unlike those corrupt papists. I'm confident that everyone will meet at the table to reach a peaceful conclusion in matters of faith and that we can deal with all this like a civilized men. I mean, could you imagine how much devastation there could be if instead of resolving this peacefully half of Europe would engage in a destructive war lasting 30 years or something like th-
Oh, right.
The Reformation was a turbulent period, but one has to admit that it was a very interesting period as well - – unlike the next few years in the game. And by this I mean absolutely nothing of interest happens until 1518.
In this year I finally annex Ryazan – it was nice to meet you, guys! - and I get another great event. I'm really starting to fear that I'm going to run out of my luck any moment now. Usually I'm just bombarded with comets like anyone else, so this is very suspicious indeed. What's more important is that I finally unlock my next set of ideas.
It's obviously Humanism – it's hard to imagine good playthrough as Poland/Lithuania/Commonwealth without this Idea Group. While the religious unity in the rest of Europe is slowly being eroded by spread of Reformation events, I get a nice +25% bonus to it just for being tolerant. You gotta stay open-minded if you want to build, like, totally inclusive and innovative society man, you know what I'm sayin? Seriously though, as soon as you reach ADM tech 10 you should- wait, level 10?! Let's see:
[X] Administrative technology level 10
[X] Is not a subject nation
[X] Stability at least 1
[X] At peace
[X] Owns core province: Krakow, Warszawa, Danzig, Magdeburg
[X] Ruler also reigns in Lithuania
[X] Have fewer unions than 2
[X] Mazovia does not exist
Aw yiss! The time has come.
That's all for now – next time I'll talk about how Polish-Lithuanian Union transformed into Commonwealth in real life but for now I'm just going to enjoy my pretty, pretty blob.
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Given that the PLC had such a horrible mish-mash of armed forces in real life, I'm surprised to learn they managed to stick around as long as they did... Very informative.
On the game-side of things, you've done really well. Muscovy's been humbled again and now you're the Commonwealth! Peace, Love and Understanding, yeah! Excepting all non-nobles and especially Muscovy, of course.
On the game-side of things, you've done really well. Muscovy's been humbled again and now you're the Commonwealth! Peace, Love and Understanding, yeah! Excepting all non-nobles and especially Muscovy, of course.
Entertaining and informative, as always. Looking forward to seeing more
And clearly the game is saving the comets for when the Protestants finally infiltrate Poland's borders, just for maximum effectiveness.
And clearly the game is saving the comets for when the Protestants finally infiltrate Poland's borders, just for maximum effectiveness.
Looking very good! I'm definitely going to be following this!
On a side note, I have two historical questions:
1. What kept 15th century Poland from completely roflstomping the Muscovites? With Lithuania, they surely could have defeated Muscovy, right?
2. I've noticed that a few of the Polish ideas have to do with tolerating other cultures and religions. How did that play out in real life? Were they actually very accepting of other cultures, or was the PLC like the later Austria-Hungary, which was meant just to appease the minority races of the empire?
On a side note, I have two historical questions:
1. What kept 15th century Poland from completely roflstomping the Muscovites? With Lithuania, they surely could have defeated Muscovy, right?
2. I've noticed that a few of the Polish ideas have to do with tolerating other cultures and religions. How did that play out in real life? Were they actually very accepting of other cultures, or was the PLC like the later Austria-Hungary, which was meant just to appease the minority races of the empire?
@Arrow
1 in 15th century moscow was a small unimportant duchy under mongol yoke. in 16th century Poles ignored muscovites and thought those border clashes can be easily handled by lithuania alone. in 17th century powers of the king and the state as a whole was already rejected in favor of the combined power of magnates, so the famous 1610 happened only with the men and arms of the eastern magnates.
2 Poles ever since Łokietko had no problems with other religions, later, sensing a great war of catholic unity szlachta forced upon the king acceptance of other religions, which was no appeasement, it simply guaranteed religion is not an issue, but during 17th and 18th centuries when situation of the state got immensively worse (until its reckoned demise), death of alot of populace, slight but still- influence of stern catholic Wasa kings and fact all wars at those centuries were fought against protestant sweden, orthodox russia and islamic ottomans.
1 in 15th century moscow was a small unimportant duchy under mongol yoke. in 16th century Poles ignored muscovites and thought those border clashes can be easily handled by lithuania alone. in 17th century powers of the king and the state as a whole was already rejected in favor of the combined power of magnates, so the famous 1610 happened only with the men and arms of the eastern magnates.
2 Poles ever since Łokietko had no problems with other religions, later, sensing a great war of catholic unity szlachta forced upon the king acceptance of other religions, which was no appeasement, it simply guaranteed religion is not an issue, but during 17th and 18th centuries when situation of the state got immensively worse (until its reckoned demise), death of alot of populace, slight but still- influence of stern catholic Wasa kings and fact all wars at those centuries were fought against protestant sweden, orthodox russia and islamic ottomans.
@Arrow Deus Eversor
They were also busy with their own playground. There was fights with Teutonic Order, Lithuania and Hungary, so small long far duchy was the least of their problems.
They were also busy with their own playground. There was fights with Teutonic Order, Lithuania and Hungary, so small long far duchy was the least of their problems.