Chapter 5: Consolidating our position in French territory
Ryukyu is still vulnerable after the exodus to France. This chapter will tell about how Ryukyu consolidated its precarious position in French territory.
Ryukyu has a quite vulnerable position in French territory. Time to consolidate our position!
We start the integration of Dauphiné, because they were a vassal useful only to get reconquest cb from, versus France. It will be done 1581.
During the Spanish succession war, France attacked Brittany and Spain couldn’t protect them. Brittany is now a vassal of France. I hope they integrate them soon… Brittany has +coring cost, so I’d rather feed them to a subject, like north africa region.
France has almost 60k troops. The next war versus them won’t be the same walk in the park like the last one, where all their troops were abroad
…But who cares! We got AUSTRIA at our side
I made Navarra (they got released from Spain, remember) and Scotland co-belligerent again.
This war will be a real challenge, in theory. I sent 1k troops on top of all Austria armies BEFORE the war started.
IMPORTANT TIP: Armies of allies will NOT attach to you in their OWN territory, during a war where the ally joined in. Instead, attach your 1k to THEM.
ONCE the ally army walks inside the territory of the war target (or in territory of any war participant), they *can* attach. But its flakey. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. But they CAN, and that is what I’m going use to defeat France here. You can’t rely on AI to defeat France
This is the result. I attacked a 20k stack of France with two 1k stacks with Austrians attached, in northern France. Easy win. French troops retreated to Berry. I followed the fleeing army to Berry and attacked it again with a couple 1k stacks with Austrian and Dauphiné troops. France reinforced that battle with their main army. To no avail, waaaay too late
See that big Austrian stack in Franche-Comté? They are on way to reinforce this battle aswell. Guess what? The French actually held out long enough for that stack to join the battle. 100k+ troops versus French army. You can guess the result. The main army of France got ob-li-te-ra-ted in Berry, only months after the start of the war
Some folks might wonder "Why did the army flee to Berry and not more south"...
Because of my stray looting stacks.
IMPORTANT TIP: Looting 1k stacks are not only useful for looting and halting troop production. They are also useful to create a chance for a stackwipe after an army got routed.
If you are fighting French main army and win, they usually flee to the other side of the country, and can have regained all their manpower and morale before you can reach them again. This is what disheartens many folk, when trying to beat France. France always comes back in full, when you are still licking your wounds
Well, looting stacks are useful to avoid this. When a big battle occurs, move ALL your looting stacks to a province that has many provinces around it. Make sure to include all the border provinces in the provinces around your looting stacks. Result?
The provinces won't be considered 'safe' to retreat to and the fleeing army might only flee a few provinces away. If you are lucky, you can get stackwipe in the same month this way. Note that this doesn't always work, as it is hard to 'block' all possible retreating provinces. But it helps.
I started my micromanaging way of winning a war again, mainly with ally armies and loose 1k stacks stopping troop production and looting.
Austria went after the Brittany army that sieged my territory. Hey Austria! Wait for me! I want some prestige from that battle aswell
Result? Brittany army got routed to the north. I placed a 20k Austrian army in their flee path, and Brittany got ob-li-te-ra-ted in Orléannais. The Austrian army went for a tiny siege stack in Gascogne. I sent the army in Orléannais west and then south, towards the tiny French army in Poitou.
That’s how one defeats France with micromanaging. Their entire army destroyed within 6 months of war. 6 months
The ai would do lot worse. Lucky Ryukyu has a very good general overlooking the battlefield; directing the Austrian troops
2 years later Southeast France is occupied, and the remains of the battered French army was about to be…. You guessed it
Meanwhile, I started some wars in Asia to keep my vassals busy. I still lack siege troops there, so the wars are all versus relative small targets. Still, a little progress there is better then no progress. The snowballing there has to wait a little bit.
In other news: Japan is starting to get provinces that flip to Catholicism by event. I hope a lot more will flip.
26k troops left, and those are all in Scotland and Tuscany. England is doing a BAD job invading Scotland. They siege one province a time, and stop it when Scotland is close to occupying one themselves. Then they battle, and all starts from scratch. Dumb Ai can’t be trusted to win wars
Spain did a lot better job at invading Scotland in the first French war…
Anyways, Austria thinks its safe to invade Tuscany now. Be my guest, Austria.
I was contemplating for a LONG time whether or not to do full annexation of Navarra. But I thought “the heck, Spain has militaristic ruler, they want my land NOW and Navarra isn’t going to make that lot worse. Besides, I need LAND in Europe, and ports! Spain be damned.”
Austria made the Tuscan army retreat to Sicily. I blocked that army off with one cog. Yep, one cog. Silly mechanism, those land corridors over water
Austria could occupy Tuscany completely now and I would have fed Austria a load of Tuscany. Why? Tuscany was allied to Austria before the war. And now Austria was invading them because Austria wanted baguettes more then spaghetti. If I fed Austria some Tuscan provinces, they likely would never re-ally in future.
Ok, now that came as a surprise
Spain is bold enough to *attack* me, knowing full well England and Austria would be called in. Gotta love militaristic rulers. I warned you before, don’t ever border a nation with a militaristic ruler… Here’s the result you get doing that, sooner or later. But since they declare over Navarra, maybe its my own fault they attack now. We’ll never know
Right, time to think. French war is won. But still.. Spain might try to siege stuff in France. I can stall the war a bit longer with France, see what they do.
BRING IT ON SPAIN
The Spanish fleet got attacked by England. 14 Heavies versus 16 briqs. Blubblub Spain
Once again, Berry was where the first big battle was fought. I baited Spain to attack a relative tiny stack there, and reinforced it with all I (and Austria) got in the vicinity. Carlos himself is leading the battle for Spain
As you can see the battle was 30-33, but I led a 1k stack with 21k troops towards the battle, along with the Byzantium army. Almost 30k troops were on the way to reinforce that battle. Carlos would get a nasty surprise in a few days
Result? Spain got sent back to climb over the Pyrenees. Hey! Leave those baguettes in France
Same old. Micromanaging my way into Spain. I took position in the Pyrenees to defend the merc siege stacks in the French territory that Spain holds. But then I saw Spanish army was retreating towards Barcelona. Lets get ‘m boys
You are goin to regret this Spain. So much
Crimea got stomped by Lithuania. I’m keeping a close eye on Crimea. I got plans with them. More on that later.
EDIT: I forgot to make a screenshot of how the French war ended. I gave Austria a province in Tuscany in a seperate peace. I couldn't give them more then one province, since Tuscany was attacking the stray Austrian siege stacks after my block cog got sunk by Spain...
France gave me Labourd, Lyonnais, Auvergne and Avignon, war reparations and all their gold.
This gave me a direct land connection between ryukyu, Navarra and Austria. That will come in handy.
I never gave Spain a breather. I kept following and battering their main army. Meanwhile, its now (again) safe to siege NE Spain.
Look Southwest Spain. The ai can be really dumb. Half of the Spanish army split off the main army and went a province NE. I attacked them there, and the other half of the Spanish army didn’t budge. See that 13k I’m leading south? They reinforced the battle, and we outnumbered them enough now for a stackwipe. Ob-li-te-ra-ted
Meanwhile, a few stray 1k stacks looted entire Spain. MMM ducats
Time to tickle the remainder of the Spanish army. They didn’t even recover morale yet…
Spain once again fled, towards Pyrenees this time. To no avail. The remains of their army tried a desperate siege of Navarra, and I attacked them with 37k versus 7k. Of course, I made it so that the 21k in Pirineo arrives in Navara *also* on 1 august, along with the austrian army approaching from the north.
Micromanaging for the win
EEHHH. Right. ***sigh***
Quite a chapter huh. Ryukyu doing a war versus entire southwest Europe, and then Civil war on top.
Well, since my king has no legitimacy, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Guess we’ll redirect forces to deal with the problem. Well, Austria forces, to be exact.
I kinda quit for the day there on the 19th. Spain attacking and then civil war… Grmpf.