The realm rejoices as Paradox Interactive announces the launch of Crusader Kings III, the latest entry in the publisher’s grand strategy role-playing game franchise. Advisors may now jockey for positions of influence and adversaries should save their schemes for another day, because on this day Crusader Kings III can be purchased on Steam, the Paradox Store, and other major online retailers.
Not to mention part of their land was already technically kind of on lease from poland. I donät agree with poland's claim on that land but I will not deny they had a point.
Which is why I said closest thing.
Well as always in the ancient and early classic eras it's a little fussy on what is actually a conquest and what's a mere tributary system. Also Alexander's greek empire wasnt really an empire, it was the lands held by alexander, but there were little in coherent statecraft between the lands he conquered. In fact it might be better to think of it as alexander taking the crowns of these kingdoms/empires for himself rather than forging an empire (personal union rather than taking provinces), the fact that it instantly splits asunder once he died would seem to suggest it.
Would you side with a slithering tentacle alien species that do anal probe on you at random occasions?
I wouldn't use Alex's conquests as an argument. Like you said he died a few years later and his 'empire' fractured COMPLETELY. Nothing he built lasted any time at all. His reach exceeded his grasp. He conquered Egypt, and not all that long later there was Egypt again!
There might be. In EU4 if you hold a territory that is considered a Core province it will eventually switch to you. This was a very useful tactic as the Byzantines, wait until the Ottomans got all distracted, blockade the straight and take and hold everything on the European side. The Ottomans will never actually accept peace (because their army outnumbers you 4x over), but by sitting on the provinces they will eventually become yours.
How is it unrealistic? All realistic wars had Empires survive a huge defeat. After Waterloo France wasn't annexed by Austria and England, after WW2 Germany remained Germany (albeit it became Eastern and Western Germany), Japan retained control of the main islands after it unconditionally surrendered to the US. All real world wars had only provinces taken from Empires, states only disappeared completely when they were minor compared to the invaders (the Baltic states getting blobbed by the USSR for example).
This is due to a lot of world diplomacy and the establishment of certain international rules. The reason Napoleon France was not annexed was because of the complex web between the other empires relied on the concept of "Balance of Power", who would be annexing France? Who ever did it, would become the new Napoleon France, and ie: the new enemy. In Eu4 terms, there would have been massive Aggressive Expansion modifiers to whoever did, and there would be a coalition against them. So it was in the best interest of the countries involved not to annex, but to have an independent 'friendlier' France to keep check.
I wouldn't call Poland anywhere near equal to Germany though. Poland wasn't an empire, it was (at that time) a backwater. They had horses fighting tanks.
As it was already answered, aside of ancient examples, failing to take over the territory of other country was a lack of will rather than lack of means. As he said Poland was taken in the first weeks of WW2 and even though USSR could annex all other countries on the east side of iron curtain it was not really needed since they had them under control. The same with Vichy France, Germans could take it (and they did in 1942) but for the moment it was better to left something left as population is calmer and you have it under control as well.
STOP! COOKIE TIME
