how many more territories for Frankfurt to create Germany? As time moves on, its looking more and more like Germany wont be unified. 
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Glad to hear Navarra is out from under the Austrian yoke. Also: Holy Bejeezus are Hungary and Frankfurt getting huge! Frankfurt looks like it could take on the world, and Hungary just keeps expanding. The only thing that can stop the protestant powers is infighting!
how many more territories for Frankfurt to create Germany? As time moves on, its looking more and more like Germany wont be unified.
Frankfurt still needs Brandenburg, Altmark, and Lüneburg. I think it's safe to say that most of the readers are pulling for a united Germany before Victoria II. There's still about 100 years left...
edit: well, more like 80 years
Brandenburg belongs to an OPM so Frankfurt could realistically take it, Luneburg and Altmark are another matter...
Altmark also belongs to an OPM, and Gelre (which owns) Luneburg probably isn't a big problem unless it forges an alliance with Austria or Hungary. It would be easy enough to do, but it might not be a priority for the A.I. and it's running out of time. It needs core on the provinces as well as ownership, which takes 50 years unless it's gained through a mission.
Crap, I've been playing CKII too long, I completely forgot about cores. Dang. What'll happen to Frankfurt if it converts to VickyII without being Germany?
Frankfurt expanding and Navarra has broken free of the PU? Is there anything not to like in this update?
Its much hard to unify Germany in Vicky2 because you have to own every province in Germany as opposed to just 10 of them. Only once have I seen the Prussians unify Germany in vanilla Victoria 2,which means if Frankfurt doesn't do it in EUIII, it probably wont be done in this timeline.
I must say that every time I play Vic2 (and I played a lot) Germany is unified, and always range from 1 to 5 in the rankings.....
By the way, great AAR!!
By the way, great AAR!!
I think that Frankfurt definitely CAN unify Germany, it's just a matter of if they WILL.
Any competent player could grab the necessary provinces within a year, in my opinion. Gelre would be the only difficult enemy.
Also, dat Hungary!
EDIT: Woo-hoo! No more Austria-Navarra! Go Basques!
Any competent player could grab the necessary provinces within a year, in my opinion. Gelre would be the only difficult enemy.
Also, dat Hungary!
EDIT: Woo-hoo! No more Austria-Navarra! Go Basques!
Last edited:
@Hiryuu I'm talking about the German Empire, not the North German Federation (which is seen every game), I also play a lot, either Bavaria becomes a great power (which if that happens it becomes impossible to create Germany) or Austria blocks them by annexing one of the German countries or keeping one in their sphere.
If you have played as much as you claim I can assure you that it is 100% impossible for the Germans to unify every time since Bavaria always does well.
Hell, I have seen the AI creat the South German Federation more then I have seen the German Unification.
Edit: That said I have only ever played with A House Divided (and two games of Heart of Darkness), it might be easier to unify Germany with vanilla Vicky 2, I don't know.
If you have played as much as you claim I can assure you that it is 100% impossible for the Germans to unify every time since Bavaria always does well.
Hell, I have seen the AI creat the South German Federation more then I have seen the German Unification.
Edit: That said I have only ever played with A House Divided (and two games of Heart of Darkness), it might be easier to unify Germany with vanilla Vicky 2, I don't know.
Frankfurt is in a far better position to unify than Prussia is in a standard Vic2 start. The SoI map for Frankfurt and Austria would be interesting to see as that could point to how difficult it would be for Frankfurt to pull of the unification.
Thats weird. I almost always see Germany form thanks to the Crown from the Gutter event.
I didn't know crown from the gutter was available for Germany, I thought it was only India and Italy, could be mistaken though. just because I have never seen it doesn't mean it never happens...
Actually, the phrase "crown from the gutter" was originally said by King Fredrick WIlliam IV of Prussia.
I haven't played a lot of Victoria 2, so I'm not familiar with the mechanics of Crown from the Gutter. Does it spark nationalist rebels in ALL provinces with similar culture? That could lead to a really huge Germany in this game, because so much of Russia has german cultures.
Also, can it happen with any culture? There is likely to be a large number of Greek culture states in the game.
Also, can it happen with any culture? There is likely to be a large number of Greek culture states in the game.
THE MIDDLE EAST 1709-1759
Ioannes IX Doukas of Byzantium had little time to enjoy his majority before his empire was thrown into war once more. In truth, there had never really been peace for the restive tribes in the East had been stirring up trouble even during his coronation. But it was yet another declaration of war from Karoly V of Hungary in 1709, brought on by the young Emperor’s foolish words about Karoly’s wife, that would really test the young Emperor’s mettle. Achaea and France joined Karoly’s attack, while Byzantium’s vassals—still quite numerous—lined up to defend the Empire.
Sadly, though Ioannes would prove a fine administrator and, as he matured, a good diplomat, he was nowhere near the general that his Doukas ancestors had been. His troops did well enough in the east, forcing the Chagatai and Khiva to pay tribute. But in the west, it’s unlikely that the 30,000 men the Byzantine’s could bring to the European front would have been sufficient, even had their troops been the equal of the Hungarians. As it was, they suffered crushing defeats both in the Balkans and on the Russian steppes, and the Emperor himself was slain in May 1710, leaving his three-year-old son as heir. In a desperate attempt to defend the capitol, a poorly organized force of 25,000 men from Funj was assembled, but they were unable to stop the Hungarians. After a six month siege, a peace was signed that ceded Cherson to Hungary, recognized its authority over the lands it had taken in previous wars. Three former Imperial vassals that had been absorbed over the centuries—Georgia, Naxos, and Albania—were reborn, and the new leaders allied themselves with Hungarians, even Ioannes’ cousin Francesco II Doukas of Naxos. But of the three it was the loss of Albania and its rich trade center at Amisos that was most galling.
With the Emperor only 17 when he died—and several other key advisors falling in the war as well—there had been little preparation for a regency council. Though they managed to tread water for a few years, they were seen as ripe for the picking by their European rivals. In 1716, the newly crowned Francisco VI Febo de Navarra, keen to extend his influence in Africa declared war. He hoped to capture the Byzantine colony at Inhambane, a key source of ivory, and though no longer in union with Austria, Francisco was able to persuade them to join the war. Anticipating that the superior Austrian Gustavian infantry and swivel cannons would smash the Greeks once again, Byzantium’s neighbors circled like vultures. By the end of the summer, the regency council in Constantinople found itself facing enemies in all directions: Achaea had declared war again, and Hungary backed it up in the west, while Yemen and Ethiopia attacked from the south, and Manchu and Vijayanagar from the east.
Unable to defend all its borders at once, the council began to sign treaties before the year was out. After a victory in the desert, they were able to extricate themselves from the war with Yemen and Ethiopia without terms. But there had been insufficient time to rebuild the armies in the west from the disaster of the Hungarian war, and the Austrians were soon banging at the gates of Constantinople. The only way to buy peace was to cede Byzantium’s last holdings in ancient Illyria, homeland of Diocletian and Constantine, the Empire’s founders. They also forced Byzantium to release the Doux of Tripoli from his allegiance. With their Austrian allies out of the picture, Navarra was willing to withdraw from the war without concessions. But the Austrian’s departure made room for the Hungarians to sweep in once again, and by the summer of 1717, Constantinople was in danger once more. Hungary seized control of more of the land north of the Black Sea, where Byzantine influence was crumbling.
The regents hoped that making peace in the West would enable them to deal forcefully with their enemies in the East. But by that time, Vijayanagar had made great progress against the troops of Funj and Dulkadir that had been deployed to defend the East Vijayanagar had moved west along the coast and were besieging Darab, northward to attack Heart and had taken much of the Horn of Africa from Funj, as well. Still outnumbered on both land and sea, the regents had no choice but to surrender all the coastlands east of Hormuz. With the powerful Indian state out of the way, they were able to fight the rest to a standstill, finally securing a white peace with Manchu in the summer of 1720.
Byzantium in 1721:
The Empire had survived, but the cost had been high. The divestiture of lands to create new states had left it more splintered than ever and communications between the various pieces of the Empire were weak. The Empire ruled by Demetrios III Doukas when he came of age in 1723, was a shadow of what it had been under Andreas I forty years earlier.
Meanwhile, the Arab Orthodox realm of Yemen grew increasingly ambitious. While many of the new states carved from the Empire had allied with Hungary, King Isma’il Ibrahim of Yemen had begun forging an alliance of orthodox states outside the Empire, including Ethiopia, Naxos, and Albania. In the summer of 1720, they declared war on Sicily, a pale memory of the Fatimid dynasty, but still the strongest of the muslim states remaining in Arabia. But Sicily had survived the centuries of Christian domination through its tenacity, and would not concede without a long and bloody struggle.
Despite fierce resistance, by 1730 the Yemeni held the desert provinces of the north and were besieging Qatar. Their success persuaded Najd and Achaea to join the war effort, thinking that Sicily would soon fall and the victors could divide up the spoils. Isma’il’s star was rising, inspiring an Arab revolt in Ar’ar that brought another province under his control.
Yemeni-Sicily War, 1730:
But the plan hit a serious snag. After capturing Qatar, Isma’il found himself unable to take the war to Salalah, the Sicilian capitol. Not even the Bedouins would think of daring to cross the burning desert of the Rub-al-Khali. The easier southern coastal route was blocked implacably by Oman which was allied to the Eastern powers of Malacca and Aceh, and they feared the Jalayirids. The Yemeni fleet was too small to deliver a large enough force to threaten the Sicilians, and the timber resources to build substantially fleets were scarce in the Arabian peninsula. The war became a stalemate.
The war had seriously weakened the Sicilians, however. A rebel movement of Sunni zealots under the leadership of Zaid Rukh seized control of Liwa, and announced his allegiance to the Jalayirids who followed the correct interpretation of the Qu’ran. Still, the logistical difficulties in pursuing the war prevented the Yemeni from forcing Ayatollah Martino III of Sicily to the table to the table until 1744, by which time Isma’il’s son, al-Qasim ruled Yemen. The northern desert which the Yemeni had controlled for more than a decade was formally ceded to them, and soon afterward, proud Sicily found itself paying annual tribute to the Jalayirids.
The Ibrahim family’s combination of traditional Arab customs with the Orthodox faith continued to prove attractive to people outside their realm. In 1752, a revolt overthrew the Hellenic government of Najd, and invited in a governor from Yemen. This suited al-Qasim well, as it provided a land link to the province of Ar’ar. Seven years later, a similar revolt in Basra brought the former Byzantine province under Yemeni control. Yemen had become the strongest power on the Arabian peninsula.
As one might infer from the last, the Byzantine Empire’s struggles continued through the reigns of both Demetrios III and his son, Ioannes X. The centuries of continuous warfare were wearing the nation down. The constant border skirmishes with the Chagatai and Oirat Hordes, Kazakh and Khiva combined with Mongol revolts in the East were destructive. Although they repeatedly forced the tribes to concede defeat, pay tribute and sometimes even become vassals, it did little to establish Imperial authority and the more remote parts of the East continued to slip from their grasp.
Whenever it seemed they might have some respite in the East, enabling them to take more advantage of the rebellions of discontented Orthodox peoples in Confucian Khiva, the Hungarians invaded them again or a rebellion would crop up in a distant part of the Empire. Hungarian aggression cost them the province of Tyrnovo in 1740, and in the late 1740’s a nationalist rebellion flared up that started in lower Mesopotamia and spread northward throughout the Tigris-Euphrates valley and eastward as far as Vijayanagar.
In 1749, the rebels declared themselves to have formed the Qasim Khanate, a declaration that infuriated the Byzantines and Vijayanagarans alike. It was the Vijayanagarans who struck first, recapturing their easternmost province, and forcing the fledgling khanate to release Hormuz as a state. As a result of some geographic confusion on the part of the Indians, they insisted on calling the new state “Yaroslavl”. But the feeble Byzantine army was unable to manage better than a stalemate against the Khanate, even after their defeat by Vijayanagar.
Two years later, Ioannes X faced aggression from the West once more. Tyrnovo was once again the site of a disastrous battle, and Constantinople placed in peril once more. Desperate to prevent further Hungarian aggression, he ceded Philipopolis to Hungary, praying that access to the Mediterranean would be enough to persuade the Hungarians to leave the Empire alone in the future. But even that was not enough for peace. King Lajos III of Hungary carved out three more small states over which he hoped to exert his influence: Armenia, Haasa and Hedjaz.
The Empire was in dire straits. Its grip on the Balkans was weakening with each passing decade, and while the map in the east might not look so different than it had 100 years ago, there was an important difference. In the past, most of the small states of the middle east had been loyal members of a decentralized empire; once, it had encompassed seventeen vassal states. Now, only Ak Koyunlu, Dulkadir, Trebizond, the Mamluks and Funj remained loyal, while many of the others were allied to Hungary The only bright spot was they continued to have success in their battles with the primitive Mongol Khanates but this was a mixed blessing as the Khivan occupation was a constant drain on the treasury, exacerbating the Empire’s economic problems.
Byzantium in 1760:
Ioannes IX Doukas of Byzantium had little time to enjoy his majority before his empire was thrown into war once more. In truth, there had never really been peace for the restive tribes in the East had been stirring up trouble even during his coronation. But it was yet another declaration of war from Karoly V of Hungary in 1709, brought on by the young Emperor’s foolish words about Karoly’s wife, that would really test the young Emperor’s mettle. Achaea and France joined Karoly’s attack, while Byzantium’s vassals—still quite numerous—lined up to defend the Empire.
Sadly, though Ioannes would prove a fine administrator and, as he matured, a good diplomat, he was nowhere near the general that his Doukas ancestors had been. His troops did well enough in the east, forcing the Chagatai and Khiva to pay tribute. But in the west, it’s unlikely that the 30,000 men the Byzantine’s could bring to the European front would have been sufficient, even had their troops been the equal of the Hungarians. As it was, they suffered crushing defeats both in the Balkans and on the Russian steppes, and the Emperor himself was slain in May 1710, leaving his three-year-old son as heir. In a desperate attempt to defend the capitol, a poorly organized force of 25,000 men from Funj was assembled, but they were unable to stop the Hungarians. After a six month siege, a peace was signed that ceded Cherson to Hungary, recognized its authority over the lands it had taken in previous wars. Three former Imperial vassals that had been absorbed over the centuries—Georgia, Naxos, and Albania—were reborn, and the new leaders allied themselves with Hungarians, even Ioannes’ cousin Francesco II Doukas of Naxos. But of the three it was the loss of Albania and its rich trade center at Amisos that was most galling.
With the Emperor only 17 when he died—and several other key advisors falling in the war as well—there had been little preparation for a regency council. Though they managed to tread water for a few years, they were seen as ripe for the picking by their European rivals. In 1716, the newly crowned Francisco VI Febo de Navarra, keen to extend his influence in Africa declared war. He hoped to capture the Byzantine colony at Inhambane, a key source of ivory, and though no longer in union with Austria, Francisco was able to persuade them to join the war. Anticipating that the superior Austrian Gustavian infantry and swivel cannons would smash the Greeks once again, Byzantium’s neighbors circled like vultures. By the end of the summer, the regency council in Constantinople found itself facing enemies in all directions: Achaea had declared war again, and Hungary backed it up in the west, while Yemen and Ethiopia attacked from the south, and Manchu and Vijayanagar from the east.
Unable to defend all its borders at once, the council began to sign treaties before the year was out. After a victory in the desert, they were able to extricate themselves from the war with Yemen and Ethiopia without terms. But there had been insufficient time to rebuild the armies in the west from the disaster of the Hungarian war, and the Austrians were soon banging at the gates of Constantinople. The only way to buy peace was to cede Byzantium’s last holdings in ancient Illyria, homeland of Diocletian and Constantine, the Empire’s founders. They also forced Byzantium to release the Doux of Tripoli from his allegiance. With their Austrian allies out of the picture, Navarra was willing to withdraw from the war without concessions. But the Austrian’s departure made room for the Hungarians to sweep in once again, and by the summer of 1717, Constantinople was in danger once more. Hungary seized control of more of the land north of the Black Sea, where Byzantine influence was crumbling.
The regents hoped that making peace in the West would enable them to deal forcefully with their enemies in the East. But by that time, Vijayanagar had made great progress against the troops of Funj and Dulkadir that had been deployed to defend the East Vijayanagar had moved west along the coast and were besieging Darab, northward to attack Heart and had taken much of the Horn of Africa from Funj, as well. Still outnumbered on both land and sea, the regents had no choice but to surrender all the coastlands east of Hormuz. With the powerful Indian state out of the way, they were able to fight the rest to a standstill, finally securing a white peace with Manchu in the summer of 1720.
Byzantium in 1721:
The Empire had survived, but the cost had been high. The divestiture of lands to create new states had left it more splintered than ever and communications between the various pieces of the Empire were weak. The Empire ruled by Demetrios III Doukas when he came of age in 1723, was a shadow of what it had been under Andreas I forty years earlier.
Meanwhile, the Arab Orthodox realm of Yemen grew increasingly ambitious. While many of the new states carved from the Empire had allied with Hungary, King Isma’il Ibrahim of Yemen had begun forging an alliance of orthodox states outside the Empire, including Ethiopia, Naxos, and Albania. In the summer of 1720, they declared war on Sicily, a pale memory of the Fatimid dynasty, but still the strongest of the muslim states remaining in Arabia. But Sicily had survived the centuries of Christian domination through its tenacity, and would not concede without a long and bloody struggle.
Despite fierce resistance, by 1730 the Yemeni held the desert provinces of the north and were besieging Qatar. Their success persuaded Najd and Achaea to join the war effort, thinking that Sicily would soon fall and the victors could divide up the spoils. Isma’il’s star was rising, inspiring an Arab revolt in Ar’ar that brought another province under his control.
Yemeni-Sicily War, 1730:
But the plan hit a serious snag. After capturing Qatar, Isma’il found himself unable to take the war to Salalah, the Sicilian capitol. Not even the Bedouins would think of daring to cross the burning desert of the Rub-al-Khali. The easier southern coastal route was blocked implacably by Oman which was allied to the Eastern powers of Malacca and Aceh, and they feared the Jalayirids. The Yemeni fleet was too small to deliver a large enough force to threaten the Sicilians, and the timber resources to build substantially fleets were scarce in the Arabian peninsula. The war became a stalemate.
The war had seriously weakened the Sicilians, however. A rebel movement of Sunni zealots under the leadership of Zaid Rukh seized control of Liwa, and announced his allegiance to the Jalayirids who followed the correct interpretation of the Qu’ran. Still, the logistical difficulties in pursuing the war prevented the Yemeni from forcing Ayatollah Martino III of Sicily to the table to the table until 1744, by which time Isma’il’s son, al-Qasim ruled Yemen. The northern desert which the Yemeni had controlled for more than a decade was formally ceded to them, and soon afterward, proud Sicily found itself paying annual tribute to the Jalayirids.
The Ibrahim family’s combination of traditional Arab customs with the Orthodox faith continued to prove attractive to people outside their realm. In 1752, a revolt overthrew the Hellenic government of Najd, and invited in a governor from Yemen. This suited al-Qasim well, as it provided a land link to the province of Ar’ar. Seven years later, a similar revolt in Basra brought the former Byzantine province under Yemeni control. Yemen had become the strongest power on the Arabian peninsula.
As one might infer from the last, the Byzantine Empire’s struggles continued through the reigns of both Demetrios III and his son, Ioannes X. The centuries of continuous warfare were wearing the nation down. The constant border skirmishes with the Chagatai and Oirat Hordes, Kazakh and Khiva combined with Mongol revolts in the East were destructive. Although they repeatedly forced the tribes to concede defeat, pay tribute and sometimes even become vassals, it did little to establish Imperial authority and the more remote parts of the East continued to slip from their grasp.
Whenever it seemed they might have some respite in the East, enabling them to take more advantage of the rebellions of discontented Orthodox peoples in Confucian Khiva, the Hungarians invaded them again or a rebellion would crop up in a distant part of the Empire. Hungarian aggression cost them the province of Tyrnovo in 1740, and in the late 1740’s a nationalist rebellion flared up that started in lower Mesopotamia and spread northward throughout the Tigris-Euphrates valley and eastward as far as Vijayanagar.
In 1749, the rebels declared themselves to have formed the Qasim Khanate, a declaration that infuriated the Byzantines and Vijayanagarans alike. It was the Vijayanagarans who struck first, recapturing their easternmost province, and forcing the fledgling khanate to release Hormuz as a state. As a result of some geographic confusion on the part of the Indians, they insisted on calling the new state “Yaroslavl”. But the feeble Byzantine army was unable to manage better than a stalemate against the Khanate, even after their defeat by Vijayanagar.
Two years later, Ioannes X faced aggression from the West once more. Tyrnovo was once again the site of a disastrous battle, and Constantinople placed in peril once more. Desperate to prevent further Hungarian aggression, he ceded Philipopolis to Hungary, praying that access to the Mediterranean would be enough to persuade the Hungarians to leave the Empire alone in the future. But even that was not enough for peace. King Lajos III of Hungary carved out three more small states over which he hoped to exert his influence: Armenia, Haasa and Hedjaz.
The Empire was in dire straits. Its grip on the Balkans was weakening with each passing decade, and while the map in the east might not look so different than it had 100 years ago, there was an important difference. In the past, most of the small states of the middle east had been loyal members of a decentralized empire; once, it had encompassed seventeen vassal states. Now, only Ak Koyunlu, Dulkadir, Trebizond, the Mamluks and Funj remained loyal, while many of the others were allied to Hungary The only bright spot was they continued to have success in their battles with the primitive Mongol Khanates but this was a mixed blessing as the Khivan occupation was a constant drain on the treasury, exacerbating the Empire’s economic problems.
Byzantium in 1760:
