Pro Fide, Lege et Rege (Poland/PLC historical AAR)

[CzokletMuss]

CHAPTER 4
1518-1524
COMMONWEALTH DIVIDED​

Hello! I thought that maybe making updates more frequently than once per 2 months is a good idea, so here it is – let's kick some Muscovite butt! But first let's take a look at our glorious Commonwealth.

This is something that is always pissing me off. Ruthenian is an accepted culture but Lithuanian is not? Really? Doesn't the name Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ring any bell? I know that its in a different culture group but seriously, why not make a PLC culture union? Or change the decision to create PLC so that Lithuanian and Polish are always accepted? To add salt to the injury, Ruthenian was probably the least “tolerated” culture in the PLC, with all the szlachta oppressing Ruthenian peasants and frequent uprisings in today Ukraine. I hope Paradox will fix this in “Art of War”.

Glorious Commonwealth is pretty divided both culturally and in regard to religion, although as you can see Christians have more than 90% share in PLC society – just like in real life. In fact, this is one of the qualities of the PLC I personally find most interesting – with all its flaws it was a true oasis of tolerance in Europe consumed by fire of Thirty Years War and widespread persecution. I'll delve into detail concerning religious tolerance later but it seems it's a good moment to talk about tolerance of other cultures in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

[size=+2]TOLERANCE IN THE COMMONWEALTH - CULTURE[/size]​

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a very diverse country. How diverse? Imagine you are Báthory István, prince of Transylvania, who was elected as a king of PLC in 1576 When Žygimantas III Augustas I – the last Jagiellon king – died in 1572, Henry III de Valois was chosen as his successor. He ruled only for a few months because when he find out that his brother died and that throne of France could be seized, he just... left the Commonwealth to try his luck in France. His escape is quite interesting little episode but let's focus on the PLC. After Henry III ran away, emperor Maximilian II Hapsburg became a major candidate but in the end nobility decided to elect Anna Jagiellon – sister of the deceased Žygimantas III Augustas I – as a king of the Commonwealth and marry her to Báthory István.

Your wife is pretty old but hey, that's the price you gotta pay - you're now the king! Let's take a closer look at the realm you are going to rule, shall we? Or to be more precise, let's meet your new subjects: the people of the Commonwealth.

1. Poles (nobles, peasants and burghers; Catholic)
2. Lithuanians (nobles, peasants and burghers; Catholic and Orthodox)
3. Ruthenians (mostly peasants; Orthodox)
4. Germans (mostly burghers and aritsans; Catholic, later Protestant)
5. Jews (mostly burghers; Jewish)
6. Belarusians (mostly peasants; Orthodox)
7. Cossacks (mostly peasants and, you know, Cossacks; Orthodox or Sunni)
8. Russians (mostly peasants; Orthodox)
9. Livonians (mostly peasants; Orthodox and Sunni)
10. Armenians (mostly burghers; Orthodox)

To make things worse, every group used different language – in Commonwealth you could hear Polish, Lithuanian, Ruthenian, Latin, French (as in every civilized place at this time), German, Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, Italian (mercenaries), Armenian and even Arabic

And you - a Hungarian king - are about to rule them all. This seems like an impossible task and in fact it was. Due to very weak central administration you as a ruler of the PLC didn't really have any tools to persecute any culture group, even if you wanted to. Quite the contrary, with the exception of some kings from Vasa dynasty most PLC rulers were rather trying to hold this gigantic mess together and don't let it collapse rather than enforce their particular vision of society or religion. This doesn't mean of course that life in the PLC was a piece of cake – unless you were a member of the nobility, life was getting more and more hard for you until the very end of the Commonwealth. More and more privileges were taking what little influence burghers have and transferring it to the nobles. Although Jews for instance were under royal protection, life of the peasants in „ordynacje” - a gigantic private conglomerates of lands and cities owned by magnates with their own armies and laws – was a rather sad one. Economy of the PLC was underdeveloped in 17th and 18th century precisely because of the exploitation of the peasantry and limiting growth of burghers by various privileges. With huge empty areas in the east viable for „internal colonization” and masses of peasants there was simply no incentive to make investments or come up with innovations like Dutch stock market.

This of course created tensions. The main division was between szlachta and peasants – while for instance Ruthenians wanted to have greater social mobility and have a chance to become szlachta themselves, Polish and Lithuanian nobility didn't really want to share their privileges with potentially third largest political group in the state. Another was the tension between powerful nobility – magnates – and a mix of a lesser and middle nobility. As you can easily imagine, magnates wanted to transform the whole PLC into their private dominion - ideally the Senate (which consisted mostly of them, obviously) was to become the true ruler of the Commonwealth. You probably don't know this but the magnates actually came really close to enforcing this by infamous Privilege of Mielnik in 1501. But this one time the lesser and middle nobility prevailed and this de facto attempt of a coup failed. I'll talk more about this when we get to the Executionist Movement, which is one of my favorite subjects.

There was also tension between Polish and Lithuanian nobles and frequently to describe this struggle a word „polonization” is used. Which is not a very fortunate term, since it reminds of a forceful germanization or rusification in a post-partition Poland, with the strong modern state, raging nationalism and all this 19th stuff. In fact nobles from the Crown and Duchy were trying to ensure their domination in the PLC with varied results – as soon as in 1443 a new law was introduced which gave the Orthodox church the same rights which the Roman Catholic church had. Polonization was mostly cultural and it began with king Jogailo baptism – since the very beginning some of the Lithuanian elites were resisting Polish influence. In time Polish language became more and more widespread – for a time it was a lingua franca of diplomacy in the Eastern Europe – and while some of the Lithuanian nobles voluntarily embraced polonization, some resisted it. With the spread of Catholicism and Polish becoming the language of the administration – in 1697 it substituted the so called „Chancellery Ruthenian” as the official language in the Duchy - the tensions were slowly growing.

As you can see, most cases of the divisions were based on a religious or political ground. Persecution of „foreigners” like Jews or Germans, although sometimes happened locally, were never systematic like in Spain with the Alhambra Decree and expulsion of Jews and Muslims. Nobility didn't really want to take care of this whole inn-mill-lending-craft business, so Jews were mostly left to their own devices. To be honest, the only case of evident and brutal polarization due to cultural causes is AFAIK „colonization” of Ruthenia (today's Ukraine). But even there it was mostly motivated by nobility's fear of losing privileged positions and not due pure hatred toward to Ruthenians.

All in all, there were a lot of divisions in the PLC and if only the judicial system was working as intended (it was badly organized, corrupt, inefficient and if you weren't rich you were almost certain to lose; huh, actually not much has changed when you think about that), it would be a really sweet place to live for all the undesirables in other parts of Europe like Jews or other minorities. I don't think that being a Muslim in late 16th century you would be allowed to marry a Catholic, which was possible in the Commonwealth even while the Thirty Years War was destroying countless lives on the other side of the border. You could still be accused of various things as a Jew or Muslim by some overzealous nobles or peasants but you could be sure that you could sue them (not that it would really change anything but still) and that the state would leave you alone. There is more to the tolerance in PLC than this of course – I was trying to concentrate on other things here but we all know that where PLC really stood out was religious freedom. Next time I'll talk about Jesuit King, Warsaw Confederation and Union of Brest and hopefully we'll find out whether the Commonwealth was really that tolerant or was it just a rhetoric.

Yes, tolerance is a great thing, an achievement every society should strive towards. But hey, I have tons of DIP points and some tiny pockets of cultures which I would never accept, so...

Sorry Old Prussian! Sorry Latvian! No hard feelings, I just need that basetax and manpower. Why? Isn't it obvious? To DOW Muscowy, of course, which I happily do in May 1519.

Oh, right, I forgot to mention – Denmark is now a Big Northern Blob but don't worry, I'll deal with them later. And what's up with allying Genoa? It's not like they can help you, Muscovites – in fact nobody can. With allied armies three times bigger than your forces there is only one thing which could delay the inevitable victory: winter. And that's why I have Novgorod on my side. Using their lands to reinforce my armies during winter while mercs siege Russian provinces and HRE with Brandenburg fight Denmark is the most effective strategy in this circumstances. But there are also those pesky knights from the Livonian Order.

Much better – by the way, how could you even become vassal to Denmark in the first place? Shame on you. You can see that I have general as good as Lucky-Nation-spawned Muscovite demigod and I still suffer some losses. It's so much better to fight against Muscowy before they get to lethal Offensive/Defensive mix which combined with Lucky Nation status, powerful allies and this damned winter makes them almost invincible. I remember that I once lost 250k soldiers during war against Russia as Ming only to white peace – I had tons of manpower (900k max) and on par in technology but I was way behind in Idea Groups.

Anyways, battle after battle PLC and allies are pushing Muscovites and Danes back. The whole Commonwealth is united and peasants spontaneously decide to arm themselves to help the brave soldiers of the glorious- wait, what?

Outrageous! Why do you force me to kill you instead of just dying on the battlefield for the just cause of aggressive expansion? Damned peasants...

But it's just a minor bump on our road to glory and soon Muscowy is completely beaten. Almost completely beaten. In fact, I'm running out of manpower and money so I decide to just call it a day.

There. War ends in June 1521 with just two small provinces gained by me but I'm still a little overextended and peasants are still feeling rebellious. But I'll be back with more claims!

A week later I get two messages.

Sigh. That's the biggest drawback of allying Austria – they are going to bother you with endless HRE wars which is pretty annoying and may be sometimes even dangerous. On the other hand it's pretty easy to increase their trust in you by answering call to arms and than doing completely nothing. I want to have western border completely secure while I'm concentrating on killing Muscowy, so I obviously join the war. But the time will come for you too, Hapsburgs – First Partition never forget, 1772 & 1846 worst days of my life hahaha we will get you, Bonaparte aliv in Polan.

Ahem.

The Very Late Heavy Bombardment period begins in the next year when I get my first comet – I wish it was “Victoria II” at these moments. Stability hit -1 isn't that much but timing is crucial and if you get this in a wrong moment, you're in for a world of pain. Speaking of which, it seems that the general (unwashed) population has some issues with my conquests.

Alright, listen up you bloody peasants – I'm going to build a better world founded on tolerance and peaceful cooperation whether you like it or not. So if anyone of you thinks I will tolerate your petty uprisings you are making the last mistake in your pathetic lives – the peace will prevail even if it means I'm going to kill you all, you hear me?!

That's better – with -2 revolt risk things should be much easier now. I also unlocked Winged Hussars and since this is an PLC AAR as well as PLC history 101 crash course it seems that I can't just entirely skip this subject, although I would like to.

Husaria is pretty famous with all that “mighty winged cavalry charge thing” and considering on which forum I'm writing these words, I'm sure that there is someone reading this who played “Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword” which features winged hussars. Because of that there are enough places where you can read about it in English, like for instance on Badass Of The Week which even if not the most scholarly source contains a decent and funny introduction. You should also read the wikipedia entry about them if you are interested, it's really well done. I'll gladly answer to your questions if you have any – it's not like everything about husaria is available in English – but instead of saying how great it was I suggest we just take a look at how hussar charge looked like. This is a scene from “With Fire and Sword”, a Polish movie from 1999 based on a fantasy novel (okay, it's not fantasy but it's very loosely based on history) written in 19th century by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Here you can witness power of the fully armed and operational PLC cavalry which is bringing some Tolerance™ to armies of bloody traitor Bohdan Khmelnitsky, Ukrainian national hero and, err, a controversial person for Poles. BTW he's the dude with a mustache in 0:08.

[video=youtube_share;q4GFsafg59E]http://youtu.be/q4GFsafg59E[/video]​

God bless you, husarze ;_;>

It's a real shame that Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth idea never really worked out – everyone would be better off if we could just cooperate instead of fighting. Khmelnytsky Uprising was a devastating blow to the Commonwealth which combined with the Deluge brought the golden age of PLC to an end – soon Cossacks were to be devoured by Tsardom of Russia and Commonwealth was to get weaker and weaker. These topics deserve much more attention but we're still in the first half of 16th century so there's no need to rush ahead. Anyways, where was I? Oh, yes.

More good news in 1522. I hate it when I lost cardinal like this – the whole Curia thing is an irritating micro and when your candidate goes “lol nope”and dies its frustrating as hell. I'm glad Paradox is getting rid of it because it's one of the main reasons I never play as Catholic and I convert ASAP. Silly Hapsburg war is finally over which is good since Í'm gonna need them to fight Muscowy.

Coring is over in 1524 and lo and behold, Russians are accepted in PLC. Unlike Lithuanians. Because, you know, it's not like they contributed to the Commonwealth or anything.

…

This is beyond silly.

I accept two cultures of historical enemies of the PLC (Prussian + Russian) and Ruthenians, who were the most rebellious ethnic group in the whole Commonwealth. But Lithuanias? Nah, come on, it's not like they matter. It's not like the bloody Jogaila was a Lithuanian ruler who was the founder of the Jagiellon dynasty who ruled Kingdom of Poland (1386-1572), Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1377-1392 and 1440-1572), Kingdom of Hungary (1440-1444 and 1490-1526) or Kingdom of Bohemia (1471-1526). It's not like it was Žygimantas II Augustas I of the House Jagiellon who was the king of Poland and Lithuania when through the Union of Lublin (1569) the Commonwealth was created. It's not like they are relevant.

It bad enough that in Poland when people say “Polish-Lithuanian Union” they think about “SuperPoland with Lithuanian puppet” ignoring the history completely but to have such easily fixed mistake in game after more than 12 months since the release is completely unjustified.

Okay, enough ranting. Although I'm low on manpower and monies I was busy claiming tasty Russian land, so as soon as the truce is over it's time to come back and finish the job. It should be a walk in the park. With Austria, Brandenburg and Novgorod on my side and Muscowy devoid of allies I hope for a quick and decisive war – this time there will be no mercy. AE or not, I'm getting my slice of Muscovite cake. The revolt risk is still a little too high for my taste but with more ideas from Humanism unlocked everything should be fi-

Oh crap.

“Pro Fide” returns soon with Peasants War, featuring lots and lots of BLOODY PEASANTS! Goddamit, everything was going so well!

 

[Arrowfiend]

Oh, damn. That sucks.

I was actually inspired by your AAR to start my own Poland game, and lo and behold! I was also hit with a Peasant's War! Luckily for me, since all my cultures were tolerated (I didn't expand anywhere besides Prussia, so Byelorussian and Lithuanian had a big enough majority to become accepted once I got the culture acceptance threshold idea from Humanism), and I had just barely 100% religious unity with heretics being tolerated. Basically, Humanism made dealing with the Peasant's War a cakewalk since I didn't get any revolts with the exception of ones spawned by events. Good luck in your game!

 

[Idhrendur]

I'm glad to see a couple of updates. And I'm loving the history lessons in there, too!

 

[Stuyvesant]

A hefty, hefty chunk of update and history lesson combined! Thanks! I'm learning quite a bit about the Commonwealth and I find this stuff about the tolerance and generally superweak government very interesting. Question: was there such a thing as a Lithuanian identity in opposition to a Polish identity, or is that just trying to use 19th century nationalism anachronistically as a framework for a 15-18th century country?

Unfortunate you got hit by that peasants' war, but given the highly aristocratic nature of your state, certainly understandable that the game would throw that at you. Good luck stomping all over the peasants so that you can properly force the tolerance on them that they need.

 

[Attalus]

You were too much talking about the good RNG you got before that it decided to strike !

 

[Quacyk]

Question: was there such a thing as a Lithuanian identity in opposition to a Polish identity, or is that just trying to use 19th century nationalism anachronistically as a framework for a 15-18th century country?

Yes. The Lithuanian nobility had similar rights as the crown's, but they were still a separate group. Many of them were actually opposed to the idea of merging the countries together as they feared they would lose their power in comparison to their Polish counterparts. Over time however Lithuanian nobles became more and more Polish-like. As far as I'm aware to this day Lithuanians aren't very fond of the Commonwealth.

 

[McGrey]

I learned something more about history and thats awesome. Also: Peasants! But say, who is the guy with the mustache you use for your memes? ("Go back to your fields...")

 

[Stuyvesant]

Yes. The Lithuanian nobility had similar rights as the crown's, but they were still a separate group. Many of them were actually opposed to the idea of merging the countries together as they feared they would lose their power in comparison to their Polish counterparts. Over time however Lithuanian nobles became more and more Polish-like. As far as I'm aware to this day Lithuanians aren't very fond of the Commonwealth.

Thanks for the explanation!

 

[unmerged(488339)]

Czok, all the links you posted in this chapter are broken.

 

[soldierpat117]

I hope the commonwealth can weather the storm. Good AAR!

 

[CzokletMuss]

The Commonwealth is born! Bravo. May the blob continue to grow.

God save the blob!

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.

There is more to that, I still have yet to mention few other types of military units used in the PLC. But as you can already see, war was a real organizational mess for the Commonwealth, which explains why sometimes it was beaten so hopelessly and why sometimes it could destroy forces three times bigger: it all depended on talented and skilled leaders.

Tolerance(tm) will prevaill, even if I have to kill all the Muscovites and those bloody peasants

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.

I don't expect anything else from RNG.

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?

@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.

@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.

I would also add that in 15th century Kingdom of Poland no interest to intervene beyond estearnmost border of Grand Duchy. Also hidsight is everything - one could wonder why after the failed "crusade of Varna" nobody rushed to help Byzantium seeing how big of a threat Ottomans became later. In 15th century Muscowy was - from perspective of people who lived in Poland at that time - a distant, dirt-poor vassal to what was left of the Mongols (they gained independence in 1480.

I wrote about tolerance in general in the last update and I'll write more about religious tolerance in the future

Oh, damn. That sucks.

I was actually inspired by your AAR to start my own Poland game, and lo and behold! I was also hit with a Peasant's War! Luckily for me, since all my cultures were tolerated (I didn't expand anywhere besides Prussia, so Byelorussian and Lithuanian had a big enough majority to become accepted once I got the culture acceptance threshold idea from Humanism), and I had just barely 100% religious unity with heretics being tolerated. Basically, Humanism made dealing with the Peasant's War a cakewalk since I didn't get any revolts with the exception of ones spawned by events. Good luck in your game!

Yeah, it does although I can't say I couldn't expect this.

You have Lithuanians accepted? Praise the Lord! Humanism is a must for PLC and we will see exactly how useful it is in the next update or two. Good luck in your game too!

I'm glad to see a couple of updates. And I'm loving the history lessons in there, too!

Thank you very mu- wait, you're the converter guy! Honored to see you in this thread

A hefty, hefty chunk of update and history lesson combined! Thanks! I'm learning quite a bit about the Commonwealth and I find this stuff about the tolerance and generally superweak government very interesting. Question: was there such a thing as a Lithuanian identity in opposition to a Polish identity, or is that just trying to use 19th century nationalism anachronistically as a framework for a 15-18th century country?

Unfortunate you got hit by that peasants' war, but given the highly aristocratic nature of your state, certainly understandable that the game would throw that at you. Good luck stomping all over the peasants so that you can properly force the tolerance on them that they need.

Yes. The Lithuanian nobility had similar rights as the crown's, but they were still a separate group. Many of them were actually opposed to the idea of merging the countries together as they feared they would lose their power in comparison to their Polish counterparts. Over time however Lithuanian nobles became more and more Polish-like. As far as I'm aware to this day Lithuanians aren't very fond of the Commonwealth.

Thanks for the explanation!

I'm from the school (so to speak) which says that nations are a 19th century artificial construct, so to me saying that Lithuanians had a different national identity centuries before that is stretching it. They certainly were a separate society - they had their own traditions, language, religion (many of them were Orthodox) and interests, not to mention all the separate offices and laws for each country. So yes, they had their own identity but I wouldn't say that they were Lithuanians in a modern sense - back in the day there really were no "Poles" or "Russians" or even "French" as we understand this terms today. Identity was defined more by loyalty to the king and religion than "nations" which - IMHO - can't really be used to describe reality before Romanticism. I'm no historian though so I may be wrong

By the way, if there's anyone from Lithuania reading this: if you would like to share your own perspective on some things in this AAR please PM me. I'm trying to be neutral but I know I'm biased while talking about PLC being educated in Polish schools and universities and so on. I would love to see how people from the other member of our Commonwealth perceives these things

You were too much talking about the good RNG you got before that it decided to strike !

He was just trying to make me overconfident - and he succeeded

I learned something more about history and thats awesome. Also: Peasants! But say, who is the guy with the mustache you use for your memes? ("Go back to your fields...")

Glad to hear that
It's (imaginary) portrait of Stanisław Antoni Szczuka, secretary of king Jan III Sobieski and PLC official (he was even Marszałek Sejmu or Sejm Marshal, kinda like western parliamentary speaker). I chose him because this image is in public domain and secondly - that mustache

Czok, all the links you posted in this chapter are broken.

I see. I tried to fix this but I get the same corrupted link over and over again. You can still use them though, just click on them and then in an adress bar in your web browser delete everything before http.

I hope the commonwealth can weather the storm. Good AAR!

We'll see about that!

 

[ekorovin]

I've just found out this AAR, and I dare say I like it even more than Madness. It's a shame I can't get into EU4.

What I always to ask is are there some school of thought in Poland that sees union as a bad thing? I mean, before union, Poland was relatively homogeneous country, with nobility strong, but still manageable. It was only after union that magnates with personal demesnes bigger than some European countries like Wiśniowieckie or Radziwiłł came into being, and masses of Orthodox population, with their dreams of independence begun to erode authority. It's not unseemly that some historian would think that Poland be better off without all that jazz?

 

[CzokletMuss]

I've just found out this AAR, and I dare say I like it even more than Madness. It's a shame I can't get into EU4.

What I always to ask is are there some school of thought in Poland that sees union as a bad thing? I mean, before union, Poland was relatively homogeneous country, with nobility strong, but still manageable. It was only after union that magnates with personal demesnes bigger than some European countries like Wiśniowieckie or Radziwiłł came into being, and masses of Orthodox population, with their dreams of independence begun to erode authority. It's not unseemly that some historian would think that Poland be better off without all that jazz?

More than "This Is Madness"? IT'S HERESY! Seriously though, I'm flattered

Never heard of it. Only thing which comes to my mind is propaganda during early People's Republic of Poland which tried to justify moving borders to the west (as Soviet Union wanted to) by saying that finally the old borders from 10th-11th century are restored. Even name for those German lands annexed by PRP after war is "Ziemie Odzyskane" or Recovered Territories. I mean, you have to somehow justify something like this:

Other than socialistic propaganda I've got nothing Considering how important personal union and later Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania was for Polish history and in generali in case of such defining events in which influenced basically everything what happened after them it's really hard to imagine what could have happened. Jogailo became king of Poland in 1399, so assuming the union between two states would never happened we're talking about 600 years of alternative history. It's really hard to imagine how could Poland look in this timeline. Would it conquer Lithuania? Would it be conquered by Holy Roman Empire or at least get into its sphere of influence like Bohemia? Would Prussia be ever formed? It's practically imposible to predict anything in your scenario. It can be compared to questions like "what if Charlemagne realm collapsed decades before he was evern born and there was never a Carolingian empire?" or "what if Wilhem the Conquere never invaded England?" or "what if Russia never formed?" and so on. Europe would be a very different place, that's for sure, but it's kinda impossible to say would nation/state X be better or worse off IMHO.

 

[ekorovin]

"what if Charlemagne realm collapsed decades before he was evern born and there was never a Carolingian empire?"

Well probably not THAT crazy That would imply some massive timey-wimey stuff.
Thanks for the answer, anyway.

 

[Enlil]

I've just found out this AAR, and I dare say I like it even more than Madness. It's a shame I can't get into EU4.

Blasphemous heresy!

 

[Attalus]

Blasphemous heresy!

If even the prince of heretics denounce heresy, the hour is dire !

 

[Specialist290]

Well, that update was rather... messy. Looks like the peasants will need to be taught the true value of a just and tolerant society at swordpoint, whether they like it or not.

 

[Zqrfmb]

So, your humanism and tolerance ideas advance, and the peasants respond by removing all your stability and revolting constantly. It has in fact gotten so bad for peasants that they assume something's wrong when their lives improve slightly. Well, the PLC, PPRRC if we're going by accepted cultures can handle a few tens of thousands of filthy peasants.

 

[Avocado Aguila]

(...)and masses of Orthodox population, with their dreams of independence begun to erode authority. It's not unseemly that some historian would think that Poland be better off without all that jazz?

i think there is a major mistake in your assumptions - religion of masses and independence - these 2 factors were basically _not_ connected throughout the whole period basically in the whole europe, unless the particular government was stupid enough/had interest to be oppressive towards the masses, eg. due to their being of different religion. PLC was a multi-religion country with the central government caring very little for the religion of masses and was never oppressive due to religion varieties (unlike eg. UK in Ireland or France vs protestants or German whose country his religion etc.)

of course there were peasants revolts, in particular in today's Ucraine, but they were more related to the oppressive economical treatment of the masses by the landlords / magnates, which were allowed more and more rights by the elected kings, virtually leading to reestablishment of semi-slavery rural system with peasants being forced to render lots of free work to the landlord and/or being beraved of their lands.

the fact that the religion between the involved parties was different is rather a coincident, than a reason. at the same time one could say that the reason for revolts was a different language, but please note - the upper class would, in particular in late XVII and XVIII century rather speak French, than the local variety of Polish, Lithuanian, Ucrainian, Russian etc. note - this is quite similar to the case of Prussian emperor who would speak German only with his horse...

to sum up - the peasants revolts were basically always focused on easing their life, no matter in which part of the PLC, and the landlords/magnats were equally hated in all parts of the country.

 

[Lord Valentine]

Hey there mate! Just wanted to say I'm really enjoying this AAR. As a history student who's been specializing in Russian history recently it's been very entertaining to learn something about the development of the Commonwealth before it became a plaything of the great powers.

Made me try a Poland game myself. Went reasonably well until I too had a peasant war and the attrition reduced my army to nothing. I gave it a second shot, choose humanism as my first tech and sailed through without problems. I'm in the mid 1500 now and happily beating up the Turks and the Russians. Incredible what a powerhouse Poland can be once you get it off the ground!