That was an good result to the war after all India is in my experience one of the hardest places to wage a colonial war.
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Pablo Sanchez said:
Wouldn't getting Languedoc have gotten rid of the "no land connection to capital" for your Italian possessions? And give you more income and manpower from all those provinces?
Dimes said:
Since I'm full naval, my penalty for income from overseas provinces is really small... I don't exactly understand how this is working, since in the slider box it says I recieve a 10% tax penalty from no land connection to the capital, but when I look at the actual province's income the tooltip says I have no penalty. I'll be sure to investigate this later, when I do annex Languedoc (see below). As for manpower, I already recieve full benefit of my Italian provinces. You can draw manpower from overseas possessions as long as they're on the same continent as you.
Finally, I know from playing France many times that they have an event in the 1680s that converts pretty much all their Reformed provinces to Catholic, after a penalty to base tax. There's no point in taking Huguenots now when I can have Catholics later, especially since I get no missionaries and can't convert them myself. 40% of base income is a long way from 70% of base income!
For the curious, my DP sliders are
aristocracy = 4 (this one is headed downward)
centralization = 10
innovative = 10
mercantilism = 8
offensive = 2
land = 0
quality = 9
serfdom = 0
War with England
In September 1688, the Austrian Habsburgs declared war on their primary rival for dominance of northern Germany, the Teutonic Order. Though originally established as a catholic crusading order in the baltic, the Order had converted to Lutheranism in the 1520s and become the overall leader of the protestant states in Germany, by virtue of its great military prowess. It had holdings in Prussia, Brandenburg, Pommerania, and Poland, and Austria troops crossed the long common border. Joining the Teutonic Order was it's alliance leader, the Kingdom of England.
England had lately lost much of its possessions on the east coast of North America to revolt, and they had defected to France. However, the island kingdom still maintained pretensions of naval supremacy; Aragon aimed to destroy them once and for all. 15,000 men crossed from Navarre into English-held Gascony, defeating the weak defending forces and laying seige to Bourdeaux, whose minimal fortifications would collapse in a few months, while nearly 100 ships of the line sailed from Barcelona to Tangiers, and then headed north to engage the English fleet. Concentrated in mass and with superior technology, the Aragonese fleet won victory after victory, hammering dozens of English ships to the bottom and taking control of England's territorial waters. Aragonese troops went on to take the English city of La Rochelle north of Bourdeaux. The desperate situation in their home waters preventing the English from responding adequate in the rest of the world, and by early 1690 Austria accepted a separate peace with the English alliance in exchange for a few pieces of the crumbling English colonial empire. Aragon's war continued on until June, when England offered 266 chest of gold for peace, which King Pere VII accepted.
Further Activities of the CMCA
In the 1680s, the Sultan of Hyderabad had maneuvered diplomatically to become the liege lord of the Sultans of Bijapur and Berar. Though this meant that, through their domination of Hyderabad, the Companyia's zone of control had been greatly expanded, the CMCA preferred to control territory directly or through their own vassal states, rather than through third parties. Thus, when a diplomatic incident with the Sultanate of Berar occurred in the 1690s, Companyia troops sprang into action.
This time, they faced a single isolated foe, and were to able to achieve rapid results at minimum expense. The sepoys defeated the armies of Berar in the field, captured the major cities, and finally exacted a devastating peace treaty: the provinces of Bastar, Gondwana, and Bundelkhand were placed under the direct control of the CMCA. This occasion marked the first time that the Companyia directly ruled lands so deep in the interior of India, though it would certainly not be the last.
India, 1700
As this was going on in India, the CMCA also constructed a trading factor on the strategic island of Formosa, off the Chinese coast. This offered a strong foothold in the far east.
Finally, the effective lapse of the Treaty of Tordesillas, which had granted half the known world to Spain and the other half to Portugal, opened new options for Pere VII. He ordered the dispatch of colonists to the Philippine archipelago, which, though it had been traditionally claimed by Spain, was unsettled but for a few small trading posts. Without the Treaty of Tordesillas they had little legal claim, and only slight temporal command, and so the project went forward. The large and hostile native population of the Philippines resisted colonization, only to be put down by Catalan troops, with great slaughter. By 1700 the colonization efforts were well underway.
The colonization of the Philippines also marked a watershed in the way that the Aragon monarchs would deal with their overseas empire. Whereas before, the colonies had been left to the administration of the Companyia de Monopoli de Catalan d'Africa, Pere VII determined that the Philippines would be controlled by his governors as a crown colony, with all the rights and priviliges entailed as provinces of Aragon. He feared, perhaps rightly, that the continued unregulated growth of the CMCA would lead to it becoming a 'state within a state;' already it was more powerful than many governments. This policy was retroactively applied to South Africa as well, though not to India.
The CMCA was still granted exclusive rights of commerce in the trading centers of Africa and Asia, and maintained control over India and Formosa. However, Pere VII insisted that, at such a time as when Barcelona judged that the people of these colonies should be made citizens of Aragon, that the territories would be placed under royal administration. Finally, while the CMCA could maintain it's own army, it was forbidden to construct full sized ships-of-the-line; naval operations would be undertaken by the Aragonese navy. To this end, Barcelona established permanent naval commands based in Port d'Asefeld (the Cape Squadron), Sant Alfonso (Indian Squadron), and Luzon (Asiatic Squadron).
These policies were a substantial blow to the rising power of the CMCA, but as a monopoly company whose charter could at any time be revoked by the crown, no effective protest was possible or attempted.
The Spanish Succession
Pere VII's royal cousin, Carlos II of Spain, was a man with many problems. The Spanish Habsburgs had participated in substantial amounts of marriage within their own line, finally producing in the person of Carlos II a truly poor specimen. Frail, impotent, and mentally incompetent, Carlos produced no heirs of his own and was incapable of administering his realm, and so fell under the domination of his aristocratic court advisors. One of his few independent acts as king of Spain was to name Philip de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou and vassal of the French King Louis XIV, his successor just before his death.
This dramatic shift in dynastic politics caused a whirlwind in Barcelona and Vienna. The vital heartland of Catalonia would be surrounded by the Bourbon adversary, and the vasty Spanish overseas empire would be wedded to the French. Pere VII swore that he fight this attempt at "Bourbon encirclement", and he was backed by Vienna. The stage was set for another European war.
In September 1688, the Austrian Habsburgs declared war on their primary rival for dominance of northern Germany, the Teutonic Order. Though originally established as a catholic crusading order in the baltic, the Order had converted to Lutheranism in the 1520s and become the overall leader of the protestant states in Germany, by virtue of its great military prowess. It had holdings in Prussia, Brandenburg, Pommerania, and Poland, and Austria troops crossed the long common border. Joining the Teutonic Order was it's alliance leader, the Kingdom of England.
England had lately lost much of its possessions on the east coast of North America to revolt, and they had defected to France. However, the island kingdom still maintained pretensions of naval supremacy; Aragon aimed to destroy them once and for all. 15,000 men crossed from Navarre into English-held Gascony, defeating the weak defending forces and laying seige to Bourdeaux, whose minimal fortifications would collapse in a few months, while nearly 100 ships of the line sailed from Barcelona to Tangiers, and then headed north to engage the English fleet. Concentrated in mass and with superior technology, the Aragonese fleet won victory after victory, hammering dozens of English ships to the bottom and taking control of England's territorial waters. Aragonese troops went on to take the English city of La Rochelle north of Bourdeaux. The desperate situation in their home waters preventing the English from responding adequate in the rest of the world, and by early 1690 Austria accepted a separate peace with the English alliance in exchange for a few pieces of the crumbling English colonial empire. Aragon's war continued on until June, when England offered 266 chest of gold for peace, which King Pere VII accepted.
Further Activities of the CMCA
In the 1680s, the Sultan of Hyderabad had maneuvered diplomatically to become the liege lord of the Sultans of Bijapur and Berar. Though this meant that, through their domination of Hyderabad, the Companyia's zone of control had been greatly expanded, the CMCA preferred to control territory directly or through their own vassal states, rather than through third parties. Thus, when a diplomatic incident with the Sultanate of Berar occurred in the 1690s, Companyia troops sprang into action.
This time, they faced a single isolated foe, and were to able to achieve rapid results at minimum expense. The sepoys defeated the armies of Berar in the field, captured the major cities, and finally exacted a devastating peace treaty: the provinces of Bastar, Gondwana, and Bundelkhand were placed under the direct control of the CMCA. This occasion marked the first time that the Companyia directly ruled lands so deep in the interior of India, though it would certainly not be the last.
India, 1700
As this was going on in India, the CMCA also constructed a trading factor on the strategic island of Formosa, off the Chinese coast. This offered a strong foothold in the far east.
Finally, the effective lapse of the Treaty of Tordesillas, which had granted half the known world to Spain and the other half to Portugal, opened new options for Pere VII. He ordered the dispatch of colonists to the Philippine archipelago, which, though it had been traditionally claimed by Spain, was unsettled but for a few small trading posts. Without the Treaty of Tordesillas they had little legal claim, and only slight temporal command, and so the project went forward. The large and hostile native population of the Philippines resisted colonization, only to be put down by Catalan troops, with great slaughter. By 1700 the colonization efforts were well underway.
The colonization of the Philippines also marked a watershed in the way that the Aragon monarchs would deal with their overseas empire. Whereas before, the colonies had been left to the administration of the Companyia de Monopoli de Catalan d'Africa, Pere VII determined that the Philippines would be controlled by his governors as a crown colony, with all the rights and priviliges entailed as provinces of Aragon. He feared, perhaps rightly, that the continued unregulated growth of the CMCA would lead to it becoming a 'state within a state;' already it was more powerful than many governments. This policy was retroactively applied to South Africa as well, though not to India.
The CMCA was still granted exclusive rights of commerce in the trading centers of Africa and Asia, and maintained control over India and Formosa. However, Pere VII insisted that, at such a time as when Barcelona judged that the people of these colonies should be made citizens of Aragon, that the territories would be placed under royal administration. Finally, while the CMCA could maintain it's own army, it was forbidden to construct full sized ships-of-the-line; naval operations would be undertaken by the Aragonese navy. To this end, Barcelona established permanent naval commands based in Port d'Asefeld (the Cape Squadron), Sant Alfonso (Indian Squadron), and Luzon (Asiatic Squadron).
These policies were a substantial blow to the rising power of the CMCA, but as a monopoly company whose charter could at any time be revoked by the crown, no effective protest was possible or attempted.
The Spanish Succession
Pere VII's royal cousin, Carlos II of Spain, was a man with many problems. The Spanish Habsburgs had participated in substantial amounts of marriage within their own line, finally producing in the person of Carlos II a truly poor specimen. Frail, impotent, and mentally incompetent, Carlos produced no heirs of his own and was incapable of administering his realm, and so fell under the domination of his aristocratic court advisors. One of his few independent acts as king of Spain was to name Philip de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou and vassal of the French King Louis XIV, his successor just before his death.
This dramatic shift in dynastic politics caused a whirlwind in Barcelona and Vienna. The vital heartland of Catalonia would be surrounded by the Bourbon adversary, and the vasty Spanish overseas empire would be wedded to the French. Pere VII swore that he fight this attempt at "Bourbon encirclement", and he was backed by Vienna. The stage was set for another European war.
India is looking good now. In regards to your no land connection penalty I think its affected by being on the same continent as your capital. In a recent game as Portugal provinces in Europe had a penalty of minus 2% while those in Africa were minus 10%.
Wow, looks good so far! Good luck with the Bourbons, I'm sure you'll do well. lol. Even though I'm kind of partial to the Bourbons myself, but that's ok. 
The War of the Spanish Succession
Aragon in the eighteenth century was in many ways a kingdom like no other in Europe. The priviliges of the aristocracy had decayed tremendously over three hundred years of domination by the objectives and interests of the mercantile classes, so that more than in any other nation advancement by merit was possible. One beneficiary of this principle in action was Josep Moragues, great general and patriot of Aragon.
Born into a petty farming familiy in northern Catalonia, Moragues was unremarkable in his origins. What distinguished him was his charisma, drive, and native ability. In the late 17th century incidents on the French frontier were common, with freebooters and even organized though 'unofficial' raids by the French army targetting the farmers along the border. Moragues took the initiative in his home province by organizing and leading a company of militia to defend their homes. His leadership qualities were noted by the governor of the province, who offered him a commission in the regular army. Moragues agreed, and began a rise through the ranks of the Aragonese army that ended with the rank of general and overall command of the Army of Catalonia.*
When war with France and Spain approached, Moragues was in charge of strategy. He adopted a plan of defense in depth, unorthodox for that time. Rather than engaging the French army at the frontier, his armies would wait deeper inside Catalonia, along the French to be dispersed and depleted by the substantial border fortifications. Then, his armies would pounce.
This plan went into effect in March of 1701, when Pere VII declared war upon France. Austria joined on Aragon's side, and a general war was commenced. The French armies marched to Moragues's expectations, concentrating in Piedmont and Armagnac. When they found themselves unopposed and laid seige to Pau and Turin, Aragonese forces pounced and inflicted heavy losses, driving the French back across the border. From the middle of 1702 onward, initiative lay completely on Aragon's side.
As armies marched into Languedoc and Dauphine, Moragues personally led the advance on Madrid. There his 50,000 men met 65,000 Spanish troops.
Though he was outnumbered, his infantry regiments and artillery were better suited to the rough terrain than the hordes of Spanish cavalry, and were far more technologically advanced. He inflicted punishing losses on the Castillians and scattered their armies like chaff; followup attacks by the army of Navarre into Burgos, and an amphibious landing by the army of Tangiers in front of Seville ensured that the Spanish would spend all their energy reacting to Moragues, to a tempo and tune that he determined.
Louis XIV, staring the loss of Southern France in the face and with his overseas empire rapidly disintegrating before the Austrian army, abandoned his nephew to his own devices and signed a separate peace in 1704.
This enabled Aragon to concentrate full on Spain, and by the fall of 1705 every major city in Spain was under the control of Aragonese forces; in addition, the islands of Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica were also occupied.
Despite the devastating totality of his victory in the field, success at negotiation eluded Pere VII. He found that, while he could take Spanish lands and hold them by force, he could not compel the Spaniards to accept a Habsburg monarch they would not have. He found that the continued survival of Philip V's reign would be a necessary starting point for negotiations. Once seated at the table, Philip V proved himself the diplomatic superior to Pere VII, and showed himself callous to the suffering of his people as he delayed peace again and again.
Philip refused out of hand any treaty that would remove either Cuba or Hispaniola from Spanish control, and struggled mightily to keep Andalusia under his control. An increasingly frustrated Pere VII finally agreed to take only Jamaica in the Caribbean, but would not himself budge on the issue of Andalusia. Finally, in January of 1706, both parties reached accord. The Spanish islands in the Philippines, Jamaica, and the provinces of Gibraltar and Andalusia passed into Aragonese hands.
Pere VII died in 1708; if he had not fulfilled his oath to remove the Bourbons from power in Madrid, he had at least secured the preeminence of Aragon among the nations of Europe, and arguably the whole world.
Looking Eastward
At the same time as war was raging in France and Spain, the Ottoman Empire was experiencing troubles of its own. The Greek peoples of the Morea had joined with the rebels in Venetian Crete to found the new Kingdom of Hellas; the Ottoman Empire intended to crush the rebellion and reabsorb them. The struggle of the Greeks against the Turks excited the passions of the growing urban bourgeois class of Catalonia and Italy, helped in no small part by the efforts of early broadsheets, which published sensationalized stories of abuses by the heathen Turk.
Pere VIII, newly ascended to the throne, decided for a number of reasons to intervene against the Turks. It would allow him the excuse to seize the wealthy trading center of Alexandria, and as the Mughal Empire was an ally of the Ottoman's it would provide the CMCA an opportunity to annex further territories in north-central India. War was declared on the Ottomans in December, 1714, followed rapidly by amphibious landings in Thrace and Alexandria. Istanbul was briefly captured but retaken by the Turks after a year. Austria accepted a separate peace with Turkey in 1715, in exchange for territories in Wallachia and Moldova; Aragon also concluded the European phase of the war in July 1717, taking Alexandria for its trouble (the severe losses of the Ottomans in these conflicts allowed for the survival of infant Hellas).
However, the war in India continued. While the CMCA was able to win control of much of the Mughal Empire early on, Kabul refused to consider peace on the terms that the CMCA demanded. Their stubborness was reflected twofold by the directors of the CMCA, who ordered their armies farther and farther into the Punjab and Afghanistan; neither side could reach any agreement, but the Mughal Empire was fraying severely at the edges and would not survive it's punishment for too long.
The diplomatic annexation of Jaunpur and the great city of Delhi by Gujarat in December 1720 caused the expansion of the war to include the old enemy of the Companyia as well. Now, staging not only from it's own territories but also from lands nominally part of the Mughal Empire, the CMCA dealt hammer-blows to the Sultan of Gujarat. The Mughal Emperor, besieged by his own people and humbled by the power of the CMCA (which proved capable of easily demolishing both of the two most powerful states in India, simultaneously), accepted peace on Companyia terms: he turned over Agra, Canpore, Gwalior, and Allahabad in October 1721. It would not save his empire, however, as the larger part of it disintegrated into a jumble of successor states, and he was evicted from his own capital by Afghan rebels.
Gujarat fought on for another year, before the Sultan sent letters begging for peace from his emergency capital in Kashmir. He ceded not only Delhi (the approximate cause of the war) but also a number of provinces around it:
For the first time since Tamerlane sacked the city in 1399, a strong nation based in Delhi appeared ready to unite India under its banner.
Meanwhile, in Europe
Pere VIII died in December 1722, and was succeeded by Fernando V. General Josep Moragues retired his commission in 1723 but was granted estates and a large pension by Fernando; a statue and plaza in his honor were built in Barcelona, where they still stand today. It seemed, at least for the time being, that the future held peace for Aragon.
Europe, 1723
----
notes
* I reached full plutocracy around this time, and also I was annoyed by the lack of any historical leaders whatsoever for Aragon... I edited one in, based on a famous Catalonian of the time (Moragues is sometimes called the William Wallace of the Catalonian revolt). As you can see I didn't give him Marly/Nappy/Gustavus Adolphus stats, but he was pretty good (his actual fire value was 5, not six, but I'm full quality).
Aragon in the eighteenth century was in many ways a kingdom like no other in Europe. The priviliges of the aristocracy had decayed tremendously over three hundred years of domination by the objectives and interests of the mercantile classes, so that more than in any other nation advancement by merit was possible. One beneficiary of this principle in action was Josep Moragues, great general and patriot of Aragon.
Born into a petty farming familiy in northern Catalonia, Moragues was unremarkable in his origins. What distinguished him was his charisma, drive, and native ability. In the late 17th century incidents on the French frontier were common, with freebooters and even organized though 'unofficial' raids by the French army targetting the farmers along the border. Moragues took the initiative in his home province by organizing and leading a company of militia to defend their homes. His leadership qualities were noted by the governor of the province, who offered him a commission in the regular army. Moragues agreed, and began a rise through the ranks of the Aragonese army that ended with the rank of general and overall command of the Army of Catalonia.*
When war with France and Spain approached, Moragues was in charge of strategy. He adopted a plan of defense in depth, unorthodox for that time. Rather than engaging the French army at the frontier, his armies would wait deeper inside Catalonia, along the French to be dispersed and depleted by the substantial border fortifications. Then, his armies would pounce.
This plan went into effect in March of 1701, when Pere VII declared war upon France. Austria joined on Aragon's side, and a general war was commenced. The French armies marched to Moragues's expectations, concentrating in Piedmont and Armagnac. When they found themselves unopposed and laid seige to Pau and Turin, Aragonese forces pounced and inflicted heavy losses, driving the French back across the border. From the middle of 1702 onward, initiative lay completely on Aragon's side.
As armies marched into Languedoc and Dauphine, Moragues personally led the advance on Madrid. There his 50,000 men met 65,000 Spanish troops.
Though he was outnumbered, his infantry regiments and artillery were better suited to the rough terrain than the hordes of Spanish cavalry, and were far more technologically advanced. He inflicted punishing losses on the Castillians and scattered their armies like chaff; followup attacks by the army of Navarre into Burgos, and an amphibious landing by the army of Tangiers in front of Seville ensured that the Spanish would spend all their energy reacting to Moragues, to a tempo and tune that he determined.
Louis XIV, staring the loss of Southern France in the face and with his overseas empire rapidly disintegrating before the Austrian army, abandoned his nephew to his own devices and signed a separate peace in 1704.
This enabled Aragon to concentrate full on Spain, and by the fall of 1705 every major city in Spain was under the control of Aragonese forces; in addition, the islands of Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica were also occupied.
Despite the devastating totality of his victory in the field, success at negotiation eluded Pere VII. He found that, while he could take Spanish lands and hold them by force, he could not compel the Spaniards to accept a Habsburg monarch they would not have. He found that the continued survival of Philip V's reign would be a necessary starting point for negotiations. Once seated at the table, Philip V proved himself the diplomatic superior to Pere VII, and showed himself callous to the suffering of his people as he delayed peace again and again.
Philip refused out of hand any treaty that would remove either Cuba or Hispaniola from Spanish control, and struggled mightily to keep Andalusia under his control. An increasingly frustrated Pere VII finally agreed to take only Jamaica in the Caribbean, but would not himself budge on the issue of Andalusia. Finally, in January of 1706, both parties reached accord. The Spanish islands in the Philippines, Jamaica, and the provinces of Gibraltar and Andalusia passed into Aragonese hands.
Pere VII died in 1708; if he had not fulfilled his oath to remove the Bourbons from power in Madrid, he had at least secured the preeminence of Aragon among the nations of Europe, and arguably the whole world.
Looking Eastward
At the same time as war was raging in France and Spain, the Ottoman Empire was experiencing troubles of its own. The Greek peoples of the Morea had joined with the rebels in Venetian Crete to found the new Kingdom of Hellas; the Ottoman Empire intended to crush the rebellion and reabsorb them. The struggle of the Greeks against the Turks excited the passions of the growing urban bourgeois class of Catalonia and Italy, helped in no small part by the efforts of early broadsheets, which published sensationalized stories of abuses by the heathen Turk.
Pere VIII, newly ascended to the throne, decided for a number of reasons to intervene against the Turks. It would allow him the excuse to seize the wealthy trading center of Alexandria, and as the Mughal Empire was an ally of the Ottoman's it would provide the CMCA an opportunity to annex further territories in north-central India. War was declared on the Ottomans in December, 1714, followed rapidly by amphibious landings in Thrace and Alexandria. Istanbul was briefly captured but retaken by the Turks after a year. Austria accepted a separate peace with Turkey in 1715, in exchange for territories in Wallachia and Moldova; Aragon also concluded the European phase of the war in July 1717, taking Alexandria for its trouble (the severe losses of the Ottomans in these conflicts allowed for the survival of infant Hellas).
However, the war in India continued. While the CMCA was able to win control of much of the Mughal Empire early on, Kabul refused to consider peace on the terms that the CMCA demanded. Their stubborness was reflected twofold by the directors of the CMCA, who ordered their armies farther and farther into the Punjab and Afghanistan; neither side could reach any agreement, but the Mughal Empire was fraying severely at the edges and would not survive it's punishment for too long.
The diplomatic annexation of Jaunpur and the great city of Delhi by Gujarat in December 1720 caused the expansion of the war to include the old enemy of the Companyia as well. Now, staging not only from it's own territories but also from lands nominally part of the Mughal Empire, the CMCA dealt hammer-blows to the Sultan of Gujarat. The Mughal Emperor, besieged by his own people and humbled by the power of the CMCA (which proved capable of easily demolishing both of the two most powerful states in India, simultaneously), accepted peace on Companyia terms: he turned over Agra, Canpore, Gwalior, and Allahabad in October 1721. It would not save his empire, however, as the larger part of it disintegrated into a jumble of successor states, and he was evicted from his own capital by Afghan rebels.
Gujarat fought on for another year, before the Sultan sent letters begging for peace from his emergency capital in Kashmir. He ceded not only Delhi (the approximate cause of the war) but also a number of provinces around it:
For the first time since Tamerlane sacked the city in 1399, a strong nation based in Delhi appeared ready to unite India under its banner.
Meanwhile, in Europe
Pere VIII died in December 1722, and was succeeded by Fernando V. General Josep Moragues retired his commission in 1723 but was granted estates and a large pension by Fernando; a statue and plaza in his honor were built in Barcelona, where they still stand today. It seemed, at least for the time being, that the future held peace for Aragon.
Europe, 1723
----
notes
* I reached full plutocracy around this time, and also I was annoyed by the lack of any historical leaders whatsoever for Aragon... I edited one in, based on a famous Catalonian of the time (Moragues is sometimes called the William Wallace of the Catalonian revolt). As you can see I didn't give him Marly/Nappy/Gustavus Adolphus stats, but he was pretty good (his actual fire value was 5, not six, but I'm full quality).
Good result in the war with France. Pity you couldn't get more from Spain. Your Mediterreanean Empire looks nice.
i was wondering why you werent able to get more in the peace treaty, seeing spain was utterly crushed, is your diplo rating so low in comparison?
Your Empire and the Great Big Very White Blob seems such a perfect partner together; and Venice even serves as a nice "buffer" between the two of you.
I say take on Spain again sometime and take over the Southern coast to connect your Iberian holdings together! And clear the Philippines mess as well; a Crown Colony shared? Unacceptable!
I say take on Spain again sometime and take over the Southern coast to connect your Iberian holdings together! And clear the Philippines mess as well; a Crown Colony shared? Unacceptable!
Duke of Wellington-- I also like the looks of my Mediterranean Empire--I like it so much, in fact, that I don't think I'll change it much
AntiochusIII-- If you look at the update more closely you'll see that I did in fact get Samar and Camarines in the peace deal, so I control the entire Philippine archipelago already. I don't think so much of further victimizing Spain or the powers of Europe in the game, anyway. See below.
Dhimmi-- The phrase I would use to describe my diplomacy would be "utterly abysmal". With full plutocracy and a selection of fantasy monarchs with fairly lackluster DIP scores in the first place, I pretty much have as low a diplomacy score as one can have in EU2.
On the other hand, thanks to full plutocracy, control of some of the most productive provinces in the entire world, and a strangehold on trade in pretty much every exotic CoT, my income is rather huge (reaching 10,000d yearly sometime in the late 1760s), especially by comparison with the AI nations. This is combined with military strengths--my comfortable tech lead, array of conscription centers coming online, and cheap artillery (not that cost matters much with my cash flow) I'm basically unbeatable on land, and naturally I'm utterly dominant at sea. So, basically any further wars would be the equivalent of bullying, and Aragon might not see much fighting
AntiochusIII-- If you look at the update more closely you'll see that I did in fact get Samar and Camarines in the peace deal, so I control the entire Philippine archipelago already. I don't think so much of further victimizing Spain or the powers of Europe in the game, anyway. See below.
Dhimmi-- The phrase I would use to describe my diplomacy would be "utterly abysmal". With full plutocracy and a selection of fantasy monarchs with fairly lackluster DIP scores in the first place, I pretty much have as low a diplomacy score as one can have in EU2.
On the other hand, thanks to full plutocracy, control of some of the most productive provinces in the entire world, and a strangehold on trade in pretty much every exotic CoT, my income is rather huge (reaching 10,000d yearly sometime in the late 1760s), especially by comparison with the AI nations. This is combined with military strengths--my comfortable tech lead, array of conscription centers coming online, and cheap artillery (not that cost matters much with my cash flow) I'm basically unbeatable on land, and naturally I'm utterly dominant at sea. So, basically any further wars would be the equivalent of bullying, and Aragon might not see much fighting
India: Pax Aragona
On February 15, 1735 the Companyia again declared war upon the Sultan of Gujarat. This time the CMCA armies were even more dominant than ever before, and the power of Gujarat had been broken. The Sepoys quickly subdued the Sultanate and their ally, Orissa, and extracted from both a final peace; the Sultan of Gujarat signed, with some measure of relief, a peace treaty that made him effectively a vassal of the CMCA, and surrendered the province of Jabalpur. Orissa accepted a similar peace, ceding both self-government and the province of Odisa. A further, very brief war with the Raja of Travancore ended with the annexation of that state and the completion of Aragon's command of Kerala. The Omani factor at Goa had been destroyed by the local Raja and taken over by the Companyia at around the same time, and by 1745 the CMCA's dominion over India was well and truly secured.
India in 1785. Provinces in dark green are lands of the CMCA or its direct vassals;
light green are vassals of Hyderabad, itself a vassal of the CMCA
By these acts, the CMCA took command of virtually the whole of the Indian subcontinent, leaving out only areas at the fringes--Bengal, the Indus Valley, Kashmir, and Ceylon. After almost two centuries of bloody wars, the Companyia would now usher in an age of peace and stability unknown in India since the reign of Ashoka in the third century BCE. Directives flowed out from the central office at Delhi; the wars of the petty princes were put to a stop, the activities of dacoits were suppressed, and between 1752 and 1758 the Companyia ruthlessly exterminated the Thuggee cult, which had committed so many murders throughout India.
The agents and directors of the CMCA were foreign invaders who would always face the resentment of a sullen colonial populace, but this would be a problem for another time.
The Enlightenment Reforms of King Pere IX
King Pere IX, who ruled from 1758 to 1777, was a great student of the Enlightenment. Like Catherine the Great of Russia or Joseph II of Austria, he patronized scholars, read the works of the philosophes avidly, and corresponded with some of the great figures (including Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith). Pere IX surpassed all the other enlightened monarchs, however, in his drive to apply the ideals of the enlightenment to the state. Under his rule Aragon, already the most innovative and free of European nations, would go still further.
Pere IX is regarded as the father of the modern idea of "Constitutionalism;" the process whereby a government would set down explicitly in writing it's powers over the citizenry. He recognized that, while the rights of the people of Aragon were secure now, they remained so only at the whim of the monarch; a less enlightened king could easily change things. In order to ensure the future freedom of his subjects, the prosperity of his kingdom, and in no small part his own legacy, Pere IX began to compose a constitution based on his own study of Enlightenment documents.
Constitution
In January of 1772, Pere IX's constitution was promulgated; it contained a number of provisions with immense import.*
The Cortes of Barcelona had been a concept imported to Aragon from Castille by Ferdinand II. It was a body of important noblemen assembled in Barcelona who would theoretically be consulted by the monarch in making important decisions, and it controlled the tax system. In reality it was little more than a rubber stamp for the actions of the King, who would 'request' that taxes be raised for a war or other project and have his demands promptly met by the Cortes.
Pere IX rewrote this system completely in his Constitution of 1772. The Cortes was renamed the Assemblea General, or General Assembly, and its composition and powers were completely changed. The Assembly would retain control over the purse strings, but would also have power of review over certain actions of the monarch; declarations of war and treaties in general would be reviewed by the Assembly and approved before they were made legal. It would also have supervision over the King's selections for appointments to official posts; governors, ambassadors, and others would be subject to confirmation by the Assembly, as would laws enacted by the king. Finally, the Assemblea General was made responsible for appointing a body of advisors to the King, called Ministers. The members of the Assembly were elected in much the same manner as that employed by England's House of Commons, although the boroughs were apportioned on the basis of population rather than tradition, so that the voting power of those granted suffrage (male Catholic landowners) was more or less equal from place to place.
Finally, the Constitution also included a document guaranteeing various rights to each citizen of Aragon; these included rights to freedom of speech, the free practice of religion, security in one's property and person, the right to a speedy trial by jury, and various others to numerous to enumerate here.
Finally, as one of his first acts under the Constitution, Pere IX revoked the charter of the CMCA and assumed direct control over India; this act was confirmed by the Assemblea. As a monopoly company, the CMCA clashed harshly with Pere's ideas of freedom in trade and industry, derived from Adam Smith. He also feared the power of the immensely powerful and wealthy CMCA to affect the future course of Aragon. In point of fact, little changed; the rulers of India were for the most part the same people, with the Director General of the CMCA simply being appointed Lord Governor of India, and similar changes in title occurring down the line. The important change thing was that these people were no longer employees and agents of the Companyia, they were appointed officials of the King of Aragon, answerable to both him and the Assemblea.
Pere IX assumed the title "Emperor of India" in 1774--from this point on, the Kingdom of Aragon became more commonly known as the Empire of Aragon.
Australia
Finally, during the latter half of the 18th century, Aragon began intensive efforts to colonize Australia and New Sardinia. Although the natives along the east coast of Australia were friendly, the peoples of the Interior and of New Sardinia were decidedly hostile, and their resistance to colonization resulted in a series of land wars with the colonists. The intervention of the Aragonese army deployed from the Philippines made victory a forgone conclusion, and Catalan settlers pressed into the Australian interior and took over the entirety of both New Sardinia's islands.
Australia, New Sardinia, and Viti Levu, 1785
---
notes
* This is basically all roleplay and fluff--I modified the monarch file for Pere IX to have an ADMIN of 9 and wrote an event for the constitution which sliced my mercantilism in half (I got it to full free trade by 1784, which basically did more harm than good since I already got 12 merchants/year from my monopolies and possession of 7+ CoTs with full merc... all it did was give me an extra couple colonists yearly and make my merchants more expensive to send--but RPing is fun). The event also gave me a couple manufactories and some boosted tax values, which had an insignificant effect on my economic power, considering how big I already was in that area.
All I can say about this is I'm a lover of classic liberalism and the Enlightenment, and I like the idea of my fictional Aragonese citizens living under a sound and just government.
On February 15, 1735 the Companyia again declared war upon the Sultan of Gujarat. This time the CMCA armies were even more dominant than ever before, and the power of Gujarat had been broken. The Sepoys quickly subdued the Sultanate and their ally, Orissa, and extracted from both a final peace; the Sultan of Gujarat signed, with some measure of relief, a peace treaty that made him effectively a vassal of the CMCA, and surrendered the province of Jabalpur. Orissa accepted a similar peace, ceding both self-government and the province of Odisa. A further, very brief war with the Raja of Travancore ended with the annexation of that state and the completion of Aragon's command of Kerala. The Omani factor at Goa had been destroyed by the local Raja and taken over by the Companyia at around the same time, and by 1745 the CMCA's dominion over India was well and truly secured.
India in 1785. Provinces in dark green are lands of the CMCA or its direct vassals;
light green are vassals of Hyderabad, itself a vassal of the CMCA
By these acts, the CMCA took command of virtually the whole of the Indian subcontinent, leaving out only areas at the fringes--Bengal, the Indus Valley, Kashmir, and Ceylon. After almost two centuries of bloody wars, the Companyia would now usher in an age of peace and stability unknown in India since the reign of Ashoka in the third century BCE. Directives flowed out from the central office at Delhi; the wars of the petty princes were put to a stop, the activities of dacoits were suppressed, and between 1752 and 1758 the Companyia ruthlessly exterminated the Thuggee cult, which had committed so many murders throughout India.
The agents and directors of the CMCA were foreign invaders who would always face the resentment of a sullen colonial populace, but this would be a problem for another time.
The Enlightenment Reforms of King Pere IX
King Pere IX, who ruled from 1758 to 1777, was a great student of the Enlightenment. Like Catherine the Great of Russia or Joseph II of Austria, he patronized scholars, read the works of the philosophes avidly, and corresponded with some of the great figures (including Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith). Pere IX surpassed all the other enlightened monarchs, however, in his drive to apply the ideals of the enlightenment to the state. Under his rule Aragon, already the most innovative and free of European nations, would go still further.
Pere IX is regarded as the father of the modern idea of "Constitutionalism;" the process whereby a government would set down explicitly in writing it's powers over the citizenry. He recognized that, while the rights of the people of Aragon were secure now, they remained so only at the whim of the monarch; a less enlightened king could easily change things. In order to ensure the future freedom of his subjects, the prosperity of his kingdom, and in no small part his own legacy, Pere IX began to compose a constitution based on his own study of Enlightenment documents.
Constitution
In January of 1772, Pere IX's constitution was promulgated; it contained a number of provisions with immense import.*
The Cortes of Barcelona had been a concept imported to Aragon from Castille by Ferdinand II. It was a body of important noblemen assembled in Barcelona who would theoretically be consulted by the monarch in making important decisions, and it controlled the tax system. In reality it was little more than a rubber stamp for the actions of the King, who would 'request' that taxes be raised for a war or other project and have his demands promptly met by the Cortes.
Pere IX rewrote this system completely in his Constitution of 1772. The Cortes was renamed the Assemblea General, or General Assembly, and its composition and powers were completely changed. The Assembly would retain control over the purse strings, but would also have power of review over certain actions of the monarch; declarations of war and treaties in general would be reviewed by the Assembly and approved before they were made legal. It would also have supervision over the King's selections for appointments to official posts; governors, ambassadors, and others would be subject to confirmation by the Assembly, as would laws enacted by the king. Finally, the Assemblea General was made responsible for appointing a body of advisors to the King, called Ministers. The members of the Assembly were elected in much the same manner as that employed by England's House of Commons, although the boroughs were apportioned on the basis of population rather than tradition, so that the voting power of those granted suffrage (male Catholic landowners) was more or less equal from place to place.
Finally, the Constitution also included a document guaranteeing various rights to each citizen of Aragon; these included rights to freedom of speech, the free practice of religion, security in one's property and person, the right to a speedy trial by jury, and various others to numerous to enumerate here.
Finally, as one of his first acts under the Constitution, Pere IX revoked the charter of the CMCA and assumed direct control over India; this act was confirmed by the Assemblea. As a monopoly company, the CMCA clashed harshly with Pere's ideas of freedom in trade and industry, derived from Adam Smith. He also feared the power of the immensely powerful and wealthy CMCA to affect the future course of Aragon. In point of fact, little changed; the rulers of India were for the most part the same people, with the Director General of the CMCA simply being appointed Lord Governor of India, and similar changes in title occurring down the line. The important change thing was that these people were no longer employees and agents of the Companyia, they were appointed officials of the King of Aragon, answerable to both him and the Assemblea.
Pere IX assumed the title "Emperor of India" in 1774--from this point on, the Kingdom of Aragon became more commonly known as the Empire of Aragon.
Australia
Finally, during the latter half of the 18th century, Aragon began intensive efforts to colonize Australia and New Sardinia. Although the natives along the east coast of Australia were friendly, the peoples of the Interior and of New Sardinia were decidedly hostile, and their resistance to colonization resulted in a series of land wars with the colonists. The intervention of the Aragonese army deployed from the Philippines made victory a forgone conclusion, and Catalan settlers pressed into the Australian interior and took over the entirety of both New Sardinia's islands.
Australia, New Sardinia, and Viti Levu, 1785
---
notes
* This is basically all roleplay and fluff--I modified the monarch file for Pere IX to have an ADMIN of 9 and wrote an event for the constitution which sliced my mercantilism in half (I got it to full free trade by 1784, which basically did more harm than good since I already got 12 merchants/year from my monopolies and possession of 7+ CoTs with full merc... all it did was give me an extra couple colonists yearly and make my merchants more expensive to send--but RPing is fun). The event also gave me a couple manufactories and some boosted tax values, which had an insignificant effect on my economic power, considering how big I already was in that area.
All I can say about this is I'm a lover of classic liberalism and the Enlightenment, and I like the idea of my fictional Aragonese citizens living under a sound and just government.
He was an excellent admin monarch judging by his results, fully justifying the high rating. Glad to see you colonising my home. Looks like things should be a little different here.
Endgame
From the 1780s onward, peace generally reigned through the Aragonese Empire. A brief war was fought against the Ottoman Empire in 1800, over the Ottoman refusal of trade by Catalan merchants. The war was concluded in a little more than a year, with the Turks ceding some land border the Indus river. No other wars were fought; Aragon had achieved all its greatest goals, and no nation rivalled it in wealth and power. No one, then, could force Aragon to action.
The American revolution in the French colonies, and the ensuing revolution in France itself, were actually reacted to positively by the people of Aragon. They were still absorbed with the heady acquisition of their constitution, and they fully supported the efforts of the Americans and French to gain their own (the American constitution of 1789 was modelled in part on the Aragonese, particularly in the Bill of Rights). The descent of Republican France into the Reign of Terror, however, provoked a conservative backlash.
King Alfonso VIII requested from the General Assembly, and was granted, funds to expand the Aragonese army in Europe. By 1794, some 353,000 men manned the fortifications along the whole frontier with France; it was the largest and most powerful army assembled in modern memory, and provided sufficient deterrent to the French Revolutionaries.
The threat of Aragonese invasion and suppression of the Revolution, in fact, is cited as one of the primary reasons that for the Thermidorian Reaction and the rise of the Directory, itself followed by the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of a Corsican patriot who had sent him to the French academy to become an officer and fight Aragon. In the heady days of the revolution, Napoleon showed little interest in that plan and charted his own course, which eventually led to command of the whole nation of France.
After some years of controlling that nation, Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France in December, 1804. Though the Austrian Habsburgs opposed him, Napoleon was pleased to find that the Empire of Aragon had no particular objection to him; Napoleon had at each step justified himself by taking recourse to a plebiscite before the people of France, and the new king Alfonso IX and the Assemblea did not care to abrogate the apparent will of those citizens.
In fact, between 1805 and 1820, Alfonso IX undertook a diplomatic campaign to normalize relations between Aragon and it's neighbors; France, Spain, and England were wooed with gifts, and by 1820 could be considered friendly to Aragon.
The Catalonian Industrial Revolution
The first decade of the 19th century was marked by the development of new methods of production, beginning in Barcelona and rapidly spreading to the rest of the country. Although steam engines had been developed in the early 18th century, and manufactories existed throughout many provinces of the Empire, it was only beginning in the 1800s that manufacturing entered a new stage of development. Aragon, and Catalonia in particular, was ideally suited to lead this sea change, thanks to its large population of plutocrats, enormous shipping resources, and ready supply of manpower and liquid capital.
By placing ever larger numbers of workers under a single roof, together with all the equipment and materials necessary to construct their given product, and further instructing each worker in a particular specialization, unheard of production numbers could be achieved. These new "factories" sprouted up, the first in Barcelona producing textiles, but over time the practices extended to most fields. Coal-fired steam engines came into common use to supply power for the factory machinery.
The vast upsurge in production and export of goods from Aragon demanded a corresponding increase in the amount of resources coming in; coal from South Africa and Australia, iron from Navarre, cotton from India, and a plethora of other resources from all across the world passed through the ports of Genoa, Naples, and Barcelona, which became the busiest in the world. Later on, in the 1830s and 1840s, many remarked that the clear skies and beautiful buildings of Barcelona had been blackened by soot expelled from factory chimneys and the smokestacks of steam transports; it was of no consequence, Aragon's economic domination doubled and trebled in the space of a few years. By 1820, the annual income of the Aragonese government from taxes, trade, and production was more than twice that of Austria, France, England, and Spain combined, and over time the deficit would only widen. Clothing, guns, furniture, sea-going ships, machinery, steam engines, steel--every product that men needed flowed out of Barcelona, and all the money of the world flowed in.
What challenges would face Aragon in years to come, no one could say. But for the moment, and for the forseeable future, the Empire of Aragon bestrode the world like a colossus.
The End
From the 1780s onward, peace generally reigned through the Aragonese Empire. A brief war was fought against the Ottoman Empire in 1800, over the Ottoman refusal of trade by Catalan merchants. The war was concluded in a little more than a year, with the Turks ceding some land border the Indus river. No other wars were fought; Aragon had achieved all its greatest goals, and no nation rivalled it in wealth and power. No one, then, could force Aragon to action.
The American revolution in the French colonies, and the ensuing revolution in France itself, were actually reacted to positively by the people of Aragon. They were still absorbed with the heady acquisition of their constitution, and they fully supported the efforts of the Americans and French to gain their own (the American constitution of 1789 was modelled in part on the Aragonese, particularly in the Bill of Rights). The descent of Republican France into the Reign of Terror, however, provoked a conservative backlash.
King Alfonso VIII requested from the General Assembly, and was granted, funds to expand the Aragonese army in Europe. By 1794, some 353,000 men manned the fortifications along the whole frontier with France; it was the largest and most powerful army assembled in modern memory, and provided sufficient deterrent to the French Revolutionaries.
The threat of Aragonese invasion and suppression of the Revolution, in fact, is cited as one of the primary reasons that for the Thermidorian Reaction and the rise of the Directory, itself followed by the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of a Corsican patriot who had sent him to the French academy to become an officer and fight Aragon. In the heady days of the revolution, Napoleon showed little interest in that plan and charted his own course, which eventually led to command of the whole nation of France.
After some years of controlling that nation, Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France in December, 1804. Though the Austrian Habsburgs opposed him, Napoleon was pleased to find that the Empire of Aragon had no particular objection to him; Napoleon had at each step justified himself by taking recourse to a plebiscite before the people of France, and the new king Alfonso IX and the Assemblea did not care to abrogate the apparent will of those citizens.
In fact, between 1805 and 1820, Alfonso IX undertook a diplomatic campaign to normalize relations between Aragon and it's neighbors; France, Spain, and England were wooed with gifts, and by 1820 could be considered friendly to Aragon.
The Catalonian Industrial Revolution
The first decade of the 19th century was marked by the development of new methods of production, beginning in Barcelona and rapidly spreading to the rest of the country. Although steam engines had been developed in the early 18th century, and manufactories existed throughout many provinces of the Empire, it was only beginning in the 1800s that manufacturing entered a new stage of development. Aragon, and Catalonia in particular, was ideally suited to lead this sea change, thanks to its large population of plutocrats, enormous shipping resources, and ready supply of manpower and liquid capital.
By placing ever larger numbers of workers under a single roof, together with all the equipment and materials necessary to construct their given product, and further instructing each worker in a particular specialization, unheard of production numbers could be achieved. These new "factories" sprouted up, the first in Barcelona producing textiles, but over time the practices extended to most fields. Coal-fired steam engines came into common use to supply power for the factory machinery.
The vast upsurge in production and export of goods from Aragon demanded a corresponding increase in the amount of resources coming in; coal from South Africa and Australia, iron from Navarre, cotton from India, and a plethora of other resources from all across the world passed through the ports of Genoa, Naples, and Barcelona, which became the busiest in the world. Later on, in the 1830s and 1840s, many remarked that the clear skies and beautiful buildings of Barcelona had been blackened by soot expelled from factory chimneys and the smokestacks of steam transports; it was of no consequence, Aragon's economic domination doubled and trebled in the space of a few years. By 1820, the annual income of the Aragonese government from taxes, trade, and production was more than twice that of Austria, France, England, and Spain combined, and over time the deficit would only widen. Clothing, guns, furniture, sea-going ships, machinery, steam engines, steel--every product that men needed flowed out of Barcelona, and all the money of the world flowed in.
What challenges would face Aragon in years to come, no one could say. But for the moment, and for the forseeable future, the Empire of Aragon bestrode the world like a colossus.
The End
Wow. Congratulations for a fitting end of an excellent game. Playing Plutocracy must've been quite terribly annoying in the quarters of diplomacy, so much so that many Enlightenment-lovers themselves balk at the thought. I've rarely seen games where players explicitly try to achieve the opposite of game-efficient (Free Subjects aren't cheap, and Innovative, for all it's glory, means crucial missionaries and colonists aren't as plentiful ) for roleplaying purposes.
The last King seems a nice guy; he perfectly deserves the Admin rating of 9 that you gave him! (Indeed, I always think that Plutocracy ought to give Administrative skill bonus for allowing efficiency over tradition, but hey).
) for roleplaying purposes.The last King seems a nice guy; he perfectly deserves the Admin rating of 9 that you gave him! (Indeed, I always think that Plutocracy ought to give Administrative skill bonus for allowing efficiency over tradition, but hey).
the colossus comparison suits well. good game, and very plausible, which i enjoy a lot!
Excellent ending and well written AAR. Aragon looks to have a very bright future. The AAR has been a very realistic and well RPed one. I hope you shall begin another one soon.