First off, I hadn’t intended to write an EU3 AAR this soon after my last two forays had gone so badly with a video card that just wasn’t quite strong enough to do the job. However, after an afternoon of being out with the family<wife, daughter, and two boys> I was in a rather foul mood. My wife, she who does as she pleases, had promised the tykes some toys. The boys, who should be named the terrible tornadoes, were NOT behaving worth a damn.
So much so that I was about ready to explode. Instead, I stopped at my local store and bought a GeForce 8400 graphics card. I figured if the little twits were going to get toys regardless of their behavior<I wouldn’t have given them diddly squat>, I was going to get a new card to sooth my anger. Well off to dinner we go and they were STILL bad. I was seething. To the point of wanting to wreak mayhem in epic proportions.
Finally home, I installed my new card. It worked just fine. I decided to kill thousands of troops in EU3. No AAR intended. But in my thinking of which nation to play I decided to revisit Anhalt. The scene of my worst horror in my gaming career. A game that started with such promise that turned into a horrible nightmare that sent me into a tailspin of despair and terrible defeat and humiliation. Am I am masochist? Or was I burning for vengeance? Perhaps a bit of both.
Find me a gamer who won’t revisit the scene of his worst defeat and I will show you a coward. I am not such a person. I will revisit it and I will triumph. Or go down in flames. Just like before. But I have high hopes. My new card has the game loading in seconds, not minutes. I remember what I had done before and I decided to at least START somewhat like I had before.
So I ally with Saxony. I click my slider toward quality. I recruit men, hire a company of mercs. And I choose my target. Any guesses as to who is my first victim? Hannover, obviously. It’s very early, they only have one thousand men. This time I get a general. Sure, he isn’t worth much, but he’s better than nothing at all. I declare war on my new target. Saxony jumps in. Hannover has an ally. Hesse. Big flipping deal. I’m not afraid of them. I will let Saxony smack them down for me. I want Hannover’s king on a stake outside my castle.
Head on a plate. Or a stick. Whatever. I invade and quickly overcome the defenders. It wasn’t even close, to be honest. They retreat. Toward Anhalt. Am I scared? Nope, not me. My newly recruited Latin Cavalry had finished building just before I invaded. So they were trained and ready to go when Hannover’s pitiful remnants crossed the river. My cavalry stomped them in the muddy banks of the river. Those that survived….well they trudged back across the river only to be hammered by my mercenary cavalry. If it had been hardened ground they would have been a thin red paste.
I annex Hannover after a siege that lasts for 271 days. Hesse is still in the war. Saxony has performed poorly. In fact, Hesse in besieging Erfurt. No Saxons anywhere. Are they cowering in their ramshackle castles? Damned if I know. So I march into Hesse and besiege it. The Hessians? They sit on their arses around Erfurt and do nothing. Hesse falls and I march into Nassau. The Hessians? They are fighting! Saxons! Where did they come from? Damned if I know, but the Hessians and Saxons are duking it out. I think with bent sticks and cracked stones.
Why do I think such? Because the battle seems to last for over a year. Enough time to have Nassau capitulate. I demand it for peace. Hesse agrees. I have gained two new provinces for the grand total of about 1200 men lost. Pretty cheap, I think. I start trying to put some merchants in Vlandeern and Ile de France. Why? Because I am greedy and need more money. I can only tax my peasants so much, after all. I’m not a complete monster. I think.
So now what? I wait a few years and start looking around. I check on who is Emperor. It’s me. How come I don’t seem to get the message when I am elected Emperor? It’s quite annoying not to know this immediately. I suppose the massive jump in my manpower pool should have been a clue, but I wasn’t paying that close to it. Why? Because I hadn’t spilled enough blood yet. I was still annoyed. The kids were FINALLY in bed, the wife had staggered up as well. It was quiet and I was smoking furiously as I was deep in though. The game days spun along rapidly as I thought.
What to do next? I pour myself a drink and swallow deeply. I want to be Germany. Last time I made the mistake of getting overly involved with Burgundy and France. Which have NOTHING to do with Germany. So I now had Hannover and Nassau. Only Hannover was necessary to the formation of Germany. I also need Luneburg, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Altmark, Dresden, Leipzig, Erfurt, and Franken. Well crap! Three of those are owned by Saxony. Well that could be a problem. But one I could solve later. What a second, they are in a war against Bavaria. I’m not involved. Ah, they are also allied with Austria. Well they get Franken in that war. This is not going well. Okay, who do I kill?
Luneberg! Yes, it seems like a carbon copy on my first game, doesn’t it? Just wait, it gets better. This time they are allied to Mantua and Lithuania. Okay, I’m too far away from them to have any real danger from them. I declared war and invaded. I had recruited a few more troops. I swarmed over the border and slapped down their pitiful defenses. It isn’t long before I annex them. Excellent!<Mr. Burns’ voice, and appropriate hand rubbing>
Lithuania attacks Anhalt. Where the hell did they come from? They marched through Saxony and the bloody dolts didn’t stop them? Why do I have incompetent allies? Oh, yes, because I was the one who chose them. Of course. I march over there and kick them out. Mantua demands that I release Luneberg and hand over 25 ducats. Yeah, right, that’s gonna happen.
Well Lithuania retreats and runs into…Saxons! Which proceed to chase them back to the Bohemian border. Well I suppose better late than never. I start getting a lot of alliance and royal marriage offers. I answer most of them with decline. But a few I say yes to…marriage offers, that is….The sneaky Mantuans send another demand for me to release Luneberg. Well in my stupidity I click accept. War’s over. I lose.
I grind my teeth in fury. The cat, which was passing by behind me races away at my hiss of pure undiluted rage. The hairs on her tail have poofed it out to twice its normal size. If I hadn’t been so pissed it might have been funny. But I was, and so it wasn’t. I drink more and puff even more furiously on my cigarette. Now I have to wait for five bloody years for the truce to expire before I can go back after Luneberg. If I had a navy I would be plotting to take Mantua down. Or I could get military access all the way there and kill them. I start seriously considering it until I remember that Mantua has NOTHING to do with Germany.
Some day they will pay. But that day is not today. I see the level of the cigarette butts in my ashtray pile up as I wait for the five long years to pass. Could I have done something else? Of course. But I decided to wait. I could let my BB settle a tad. It wasn’t all that high, but what the hell….Oh, I took as my first national idea one of land for national conscripts. I also managed to get a few diplomatic advisors. Three of them, actually. Who together gave me a -.70 to my reputation. You have GOT to love that!
So now it is time. More troops and I am nearly foaming at the mouth. Luneberg no longer has Lithuania as an ally. They have Mantua….and Brandenburg. Okay. No problem. I have two armies, after all. I declare war and send one into Luneberg and one into Altmark. Saxony sends some men into Brandenburg. Life is good. It takes little time and I have annexed Luneberg once more!
Brandenburg loses to Saxony. I demand Altmark and they fall all over themselves to grant it. Life is wonderful. I heave a sigh of contentment. Then Mantua AGAIN demands I release Luneberg and pay it money. I laugh and thumb my nose at them. Yes, I know, thumbing one’s nose at a computer screen is ludicrous. I know it, you know it. I do it anyway. My mood is slightly improved.
Another round of alliance proposals and marriage offers come in. I believe I am paying attention. The game speed is at the highest level. So guess what happens? I AGAIN click accept to Mantua’s offer! I release Luneberg and pay them money! I restrain a scream of rage so pure it would have brought down the entire house. Instead I spend fifteen minutes banging my head against my desk. Hoping that I was only dreaming and that it hadn’t actually happened to me. AGAIN!
If I had myself in front of myself as the king and was told that I had just GIVEN AWAY MY BLOODY TERRITORY I HAD JUST FOUGHT TO REGAIN….I would have strangled myself with my own bare hands. As it is, I struggle manfully to regain my composure. At least I still have Altmark and that is on my list of provinces that I must have. Yet I have fought TWO freaking wars to take one province and in the end didn’t keep what I had gained. Due to my own towering stupidity!
I get another ashtray. My first one is full. I wait again. Brandenburg is absorbed by Pommerania. Yippee. Why not? Let’s make my life more difficult. Saxony loses Franken back to Bavaria in another war that Austria apparently started. Who cares? I don’t. I have enough problems. I envision ripping the intestines of Mantua’s ruler and feeding them to pigs. But again, they aren’t integral to becoming Germany. One thing at a time….