CHAPTER 7
1553-1570
TAMING THE BEAR
Cześć! Today in Poland we have National Independence Day, so what could be a better way to celebrate it than to finally kill the Bear? But before we proceed let me thank everyone who voted for “Pro Fide” in Q3 ACAs for EUIV – I consider being awarded a second place as a vote of confidence from you since this AAR doesn't even have 10 chapters. And for this I thank you very much – positive feedback is a very important think when it comes to writing AARs! I'm planning to get „Pro Fide” to the very end of the campaign (1820 year), so there are much more (hopefully) Reverse Partitions to be done and much more history to talk about. Today there won't be any historical snippets however – National Independence Day is a non-working day, so I'll be writing all of this today and historical parts take quite long to write (research etc.) Don't worry though, they'll come back in the next chapter 
As I already said, today we shall concentrate on the Bear. But before we free Russians from Muscovite oppression there is some extra blobbing to be done – after all, I have truce with Muscowy until 1566. Luckily there is plenty of targets poor and oppressed to liberate.
We start with Denmark.
Not that I have anything against Denmark but it just so happens that they sit on a ton of Swedish cores and I think it's time to get them back to their rightful owner – that is, my vassal. Plus they were allied to Muscowy which caused troubles few times, so there's that. I DOW Denmark on 19th January 1556. On
ledger paper they are a formidable foe but there's one thing AI can't handle at all.
Strait crossing.
The vast majority of Danish forces are trapped on Aland in early March 1556 while I'm carpet sieging the whole country and wiping out what's left of them. Alas, my allies (Saxony and Hansa) turned out to be way too weak to handle Burgundy on their own and so I'm forced to deal with them personally.
Fast forward three years.
On 21st July 1559 I finally wipe out the last remnants of what Burgundy sent to the east and I can white peace three days later. Now all that's left is to deal with the trapped Danish army and I'll reach 100% warscore.
Perfect. Note the hideous gfx of brave soldiers of the Commonwealth – it's such a shame Catholic Units DLC wasn't available before AoW release. They look kinda like red smurfs... Still, the remnants of the enemy's forces are wiped out and I'm sitting comfortably on a 100% warscore, picking cores for my Swedish vassals like dishes on
smörgåsbord. At least for once everything went precisely as planned. To make things even better, I managed to get Norway – which somehow gained independence during the last war I think – to become my vassal, thus gaining another puppet to feed cores to. But of course my joy is very short-lived – the war ends on 4th July 1560 and exactly 10 days later I receive a call to arms from Austria, which I foolishly accept.
France! It's you! Long time no see, eh? How are the kids? An-annexed? Really? Well, I surely- what? Warleader? Me? But... Oh, I see. Still angry at the whole excommunication thing? Come on, it was years ago, no need to be all drama queen about it, right? Right?
…
Sigh.
On 9th November 1561 during the (in)famous battle of Vienna combined forces of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in league with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth led by the Emperor himself defeated the army of
the Ottoman Empire Kingdom of France and her Italian ally. Truly a glorious victory against the
Muslim French hordes from the
East West, a high point of the Austrian-Commonwealth alliance and a turning point of the war. War which I didn't want to participate in but since I'm already fighting the BBB I may just as well gain something while doing so.
It's not that I care about some Hungarian clay but I would really like to get my Western Arms Trade bonus back – how come Austria could lose the border with me anyhow? Put yourself together, Hapsburgs.
After liberating Hungarians from, uh, Hungarian occupation on 18th December 1561 I peace out with France on 12th January 1562 by giving them a piece of
Elsass Alsace, some gold and renouncing my alliance with Great Britain – which doesn't bother me at all, since they are useless as allies (I hope AoW changed this, I haven't played in Europe for a long time though).
It seems however that excommunicated French king is not the only person hell-bent on trolling me.
For reasons unknown, pope himself decided to invite me for the Council of Trent to discuss the threat of Protestantism. To this blatant attempt of disrespecting traditionally tolerant and
Catholic Protestant Commonwealth I respond affirmatively – and so Polish envoys were sent to Trent, to the utter shock and disgust of attendants from Catholic countries. I guess the Council meetings must've been rather awkward.
You may also notice that I'm actually more tolerant to Catholics than to Protestants right now. Because of my abysmal legitimacy (still below 10) I actually get a -1 tolerance malus, easily overcomed by stacked bonuses from Polish Traditions and Humanism in case of heretics but not in case of my own state religion, which I find pretty funny.
In year 1564 I finish integrating Perm and I gain direct access to the remaining Muscovite provinces beyond Ural. I start fabricating claims right away but I still have two years until truce is over. So I figured out I could use some distraction in the meantime.
For whatever reason, Finland – yup, another successful splinter state from united Danish blob – decided that it would be a good idea to embargo me.
It wasn't.
Short war lasted from December 1564 to May 1566 and my pet Sweden grows stronger with every bite of these delicious cores. The best thing is I gained zero AE for doing so, since I'm not taking any land for myself and merely liberating it for a third party – in this case, my puppet. Vassal feeding for the win! That is until it was nerfed with AoW – really, 75% autonomy in annexed provinces?
Anyways, my truce with Muscovites is finally over and that's a good thing, because...
**puts on sunglasses**
...I really can't bear them.
Got it? „Can't bear them”? Cause there are bears in Russia? And this word is a homonym in English which I just cleverly used? Eh?
Upon hearing my terrible pun good king Stanislaw I Lancaster gives up his spirit on 8th March 1568, not even a year into the war (which started on 2nd May 1567) – long live... Frederick? Huh. Frederick I Lancaster, king of Polish-Ruthenian-Russian-Byelarussian-Certainly-Not-Lithuanian Commonwealth. How fitting.
But all of these matters nothing, for on 12th April 1568 glorious PLC has much more to celebrate than a king with decent stats. On this day we finally join the most prestigious nations of the world in their quest to bring the light of the civilization and progress to the primitives, after long last demanding our own place in the sun.
Behold the first Polish colony!
Native population of West Tunguska, finally free from Muscovite occupation, is welcomed among the nations of the Commonwealth with open arms as brothers and sisters in Christ... and inhabitants of my first province with GOLD! This is fantastic news, both game-wise and history-wise, for there is quite a story to be told about Polish presence in Siberia (which you will learn about next time). For now, I'm really glad – I wasn't planning this to be honest, I forgot that except for burning down colonies you can steal them as well. I'm sure even the Sejm will-
Oh. Right, so I either can accept the veto and get the nasty, nasty maluses for 30+ years or I can just the „Go behind their backs” option and lose 20 legitimacy and 1 stability. Since I'm intending to get the achievement, I obviously won't allow the Sejm to be an obstacle and so I choose the second option – loss of legitimacy doesn't hurt that much when you don't have it to begin with after all. But there's more.
„Cultural and religious differences”? No kidding, I would be quite angry too if I find out that as a Lithuanian I'm not tolerated in, you know, Polish-
Lithuanian Commonwealth. But seriously guys, I'm not your enemy: you should march on Stockholm with the pitchforks if you want to accomplish anything. I don't want to be flooded with rebels so I go with the other option (-10% tax modifier in Vilna and -2 prestige).
On 23rd August 1568 Wallachia is forced to surrender and convert to Protestantism in case I may want to blob in their general direction later. Allying Muscovy was silly but there are only 3 Orthodox countries in the world at this point and Novgorod didn't want to ally them, so they didn't really have a choice.
I didn't leave any choice to Muscowy either and after sieging down every province they had on 27th December 1569 the long-awaited day has finally come.
The Bear has been tamed.
Next time – still in EU4 1.7 - we shall take a closer look at Polish presence in the east and contribution to colonizing and exploring Siberia. We shall also continue blobbing but foremost we will try to find an answer for a vital important question: what now? The Bear was neutered, so it's time to turn our attention somewhere else – but where? To the North to finish off Denmark? To the South to clash with the Turks? To the West to destroy Prussia before it's born? Or to continue eastward expansion? In any case, there's still much history to talk about and a lot of place on the map to make „Commonwealth” font even bigger. I just hope at some point I'll be able to put an end to the bordergore...
