CHAPTER XVI: AUSTRIA
Part 2: A Little Help From My Friends
(1660-1665)
Winding Down
I know you don't want to hear this, but I'm not planning much for this turn. Look at it my way: Of our 34 regiments, 10 are still mercenary. Our manpower stands at 1,291. We have four loans outstanding. On a lark I look at our southern neighbors:
Bohemia: Union. We're buddies now! Anyway, we have a truce.
Bavaria: Allied with Poland, Magdeburg, Wurtemberg, Netherlands
Wurtemberg: Poland, Bavaria, Magdeburg, Netherlands
Milan: Hungary, Palatinate, Venice
Mantua: Augsburg, Spain
Venice: Milan, Savoy
Pope: Switzerland, but only one province easy to get to.
Hungary: Spain, Milan
I even think about Ulm: Allied with Thuringia and Spain.
Venice is the most likely target, but they're stronger now that they thrashed MitreHead. Hm...perhaps I can get access through them again to...
No, I must stay focused. We have an eight member coalition against us. We need to get 440 Admin together to begin coring Salzburg. We need to get our economy straightened out. Next turn. There's still reasonable odds I'll be here next turn.
We do pick up a new general, Michael Erlmayr (F2/S3/M6/Sg3). We also pick up an heir, Ferdinand (A3/D2/M2). Hopefully his father will have many more successful years and maybe Ferdinand will get replaced by someone competent.
Let's work to improve our relations with Bohemia, Denmark and Venice. The former to keep them from breaking our union again, Denmark to keep our north secure, and Venice in case I decide I want MA after all. We also change our rivals to the Ottomans, Papacy and Hungary.
Now we wait, kick our feet up, and watch the world...
What? Wait. Coalitions can do that?
No. Pause. Look around. What just happened?
CRAP.
Europe in Flames
So, I thought coalitions were purely defensive. Nope! Mainz wants to cut us down to size. Fortunately we're the defender, which means all of my loyal allies pound in. The numbers are pretty close, this could be a long war. A confusing one also, since I'm not even sure where half these places are. We better take a look:
Oh. Well, that didn't help. The north will go up in the flames. In the south I have Augsburg and Hungary to worry about.
Plan A, which lasts all of about two game days, is to take General Erlmayr and half my army to Augsburg, and the other under Archduke Johan Leopold (F3/S3/M5/Sg2) will play defense in the event of Hungarian attack.
Two days later, Hungary invades the Ostmarch with 33,000 men. It's going to take both armies to deal with them, so we abandon Augsburg and march eastward.
Erlmayr, in overall command, meets the Hungarian king in June 1660. Our armies happen to be evenly matched with 15K infantry, 3K cavalry, and 15K artillery. We have the tech advantage however, and Erlmayr is a much better commander. They lose 10,000 and flee towards Serbia.
Hungary is by far the scariest of our opponents. If we can chase them from the war (effectively if not actually, since coalition members can't peace out separately), then we should be able to win. We chase them to Serbia, then Pozsony inflicting a number of major defeats.
None, perhaps, as devastating as in Mecklenburg. There our tiny 1K army, veterans of the last year who I dubbed (unimaginatively) as the Black Eagles, have once again attracted several allied armies. The resulting battle involves twelve nations and 57,000 on their side vs. 48,000 on ours. They lose nearly 36,000 to our 11. It will be some time before another northern offensive.
Unfortunately the Emperor's help isn't free. He lets us know we can allow the free people of Linz to convert to Catholicism, or we're off his Christmas list. The Emperor is one of my allies. We can't afford -400 relations.
We can, however, afford to send a protestant missionary to Linz who reconverts it 8 months later.
Thrashing Hungary
Erlmayr spends 1660 and 1661 becoming a household name in Hungary - one spoken with awe, fear, hatred, and compared unfavorably with such entities as Beezlebub, Lucifer, and Electronic Arts.
During this stage I'm really ignoring both north and south Austria and focusing our wrath on the Hungarians. There's no real penalty for this: Our allies are keeping the northern coalition members quite busy, and every time Hungary begins a siege they end up moving the army to try and save their main stack. We chase them to Podalia, back to Pozsony, to Podalia, then Zemplen. Along the way we crush three smaller armies totaling 7K who were enroute to help and met our army first. A large group
did join the Hungarian army before Zemplen.
It did no good though, for later in May 1661 we annihilated the army. The Augsburg army, 5,000 strong, had snuck into Linz to try and siege but fled before our homecoming. We caught them in Niederbayern and destroyed them.
Erlmayr's army may be undefeated, but it was also at half strength or so with our manpower tapped. Those units at or near full strength sieged Augsburg, while the rest under Archduke Johan Leopold went home to recover. He destroyed another 6K in two stacks through the rest of 1661.
Winning the North; Winning the South
In 1662 the British decided to have a civil war.
Which, as near as I can tell, accomplished nothing. Not even a rebellion.
I did learn, however, that the massive allied army attached to my 1K 'Black Eagles'
were in fact attached, giving me a northern army 50,000 strong.
I shared my discovery with a joint Hanse/Mainz army trying to steal Luneburg from us. It went so well I then explained things to the primary Mainz stack as well.
By now our warscore was ticking past 51%, so even though the AI wasn't begging us for peace I paused to see what could be had. Surprisingly little, unless I wanted to make Mainz release a few cores that would do Austria no good whatsoever. The war dragged on.
I almost reconsidered in August 1662, when Johan Leopold's army narrowly lost a battle at Linz versus Mainz, Hamburg and Anhalt. Defeated we were, but after Augsburg's surrender I could once more unify our armies. We trashed a small Hungarian force, then extracted revenge at Linz in October 1662.
Notice that of 33 southern regiments, we had a post battle strength of just over 11,000. About this time our northern allied stack occupied Brunswick and sieged Kassel. With our warscore at 62% it was once more time to seek peace.
End Game
I'd decided we would take Augsburg as a vassal, and Brunswick (which would be released as a vassal.) Unfortunately that's over 62% warscore, and anyway Mainz gets +5% for owning their capital. I wasn't willing to settle for their suggestion (which involved giving a province to France and paying us off)
No, we'll need to force them to the table. Since this army is Mainz's more or less last chance, we pursue them to Frankfurt. Through the winter of 1662 we chase them to Bamberg, then Wurzburg, then finally Mainz. Barely 9200 of our 33 regiments remain. We've picked up a reputation as some of the fiercest warriors in Europe however, and that elan makes up for numbers.
Kassel falls, then Frankfurt, then Hessen. Mainz whitepeaces the Palatinate out and somehow rallies together 7K men, who the northern allied doomstack happily annihilates in June. Finally, after a year's siege, Mainz falls.
Augsburg, Brunswick, and even Vermandois for France. As far as I can tell France did nothing this war, but if they kept Burgundy busy that's plenty. Plus, this cuts off Burgundy's northern holdings from the south, which should either help France or the Netherlands. The Dutch are currently rampaging through Mainz for their own reasons, so I have no problem helping them.
We celebrate by taking Military-21 (Line Infantry) and Admin-20 (Absolute Ruler). We even repay our loans and take our weary armies home. With the coalition defeated we should have a few years of peace and quiet to...
Oh what now?
Oh hell no.
We spend the rest of 1664 beginning to recover. I don't even know how many countries take this opportunity to join the coalition and embargo us - I'm pretty sure it's more than half of Germany now. That's okay though: We still have the emperor on our side, we actually do have 2 votes for that august title (Palatinate has 3), and there's still plenty of time on the clock.
Or is there?
Johan's Dice
Reign: 10 years
Needed: 3+
Roll: 6
Continue? Yes
