Just want to congratulate Paradox for the new feature that makes League Wars possible in post-Reformation Europe. The appearance of Protestantism on the European map is no longer a peripheral, primarily aesthetic change affecting a few countries. In my current game (as Reformed Poland in 1570) it has reduced all of Central Europe to a bloodbath, with multiple 50-100k coalition armies rampaging through Austria, Bavaria, Brandenburg, and the Rhineland. It's about half a century early for the Thirty Years' War, but that's OK - I'm imagining that the Peace of Augsburg never happened in 1555, so the big confrontation came a bit sooner.
I've mostly been focusing eastwards, leaving the HRE to its own internal dynamics, and France and Austria remaining equally matched for the first 150 years of the game. When the Reformation began around 1505 (in Bohemia, Bavaria, and The Knights-controlled Rhodes (!)) a good 50% of the HRE turned Protestant within a couple of decades, and my decision to go Reformed helped persuade a few German minors to do the same. (Interestingly, Scotland remained intact until the early sixteenth century, and also became a Reformed centre, but sadly it was eaten up by England shortly afterwards).
A couple of years ago Protestant Bavaria started the war, and I was called in on the Protestant side by my ally Bohemia. France has joined the Protestant coalition, as has Portugal, while Spain and a load of Italian and South German minors have joined Austria on the Catholic side. Protestant Brandenburg has done a Maurice of Saxony and joined the Catholic side - I will be sure to punish this Judas of a state for its betrayal of the Reformation cause....
Here's a screenshot of the participants on either side - it's by far the biggest war I've ever seen in EUIV.
I've mostly been focusing eastwards, leaving the HRE to its own internal dynamics, and France and Austria remaining equally matched for the first 150 years of the game. When the Reformation began around 1505 (in Bohemia, Bavaria, and The Knights-controlled Rhodes (!)) a good 50% of the HRE turned Protestant within a couple of decades, and my decision to go Reformed helped persuade a few German minors to do the same. (Interestingly, Scotland remained intact until the early sixteenth century, and also became a Reformed centre, but sadly it was eaten up by England shortly afterwards).
A couple of years ago Protestant Bavaria started the war, and I was called in on the Protestant side by my ally Bohemia. France has joined the Protestant coalition, as has Portugal, while Spain and a load of Italian and South German minors have joined Austria on the Catholic side. Protestant Brandenburg has done a Maurice of Saxony and joined the Catholic side - I will be sure to punish this Judas of a state for its betrayal of the Reformation cause....
Here's a screenshot of the participants on either side - it's by far the biggest war I've ever seen in EUIV.
