Historically, Sweden invaded the HRE during the 30 years war, what if Brandenburg did a preemptive strike?
- 1
- 1
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Most certainly that wasn't THE Free Company that suffered such an ignomious fate. It had to be a poor imitation...
Might I suggest something along the lines of a Red Wedding?
That was a good update. Lots going on. I think a little peace and quiet should be in order.
It's encouraging to hear some positive news on the job front, @Rensslaer. Good luck.
- 2
Historically, Sweden invaded the HRE during the 30 years war, what if Brandenburg did a preemptive strike?
@Nikolai that's not a bad idea! Don't think it wasn't on my mind. However that alliance between them and Austria have me pause.
Thanks @Lord Durham! I am quite sure this was a different iteration of the Free Company. Most certainly not those heroes we know.
Thank you for catching up and following along - I know you're keeping quite busy these days.
I do hope you'll continue with The Sons of Ragnar Lodbrok: In the Shadow of the Great Old Ones! I'm darned near caught up to the new stuff. Still an exceptionally evocative narrative work!
I am completing the next update and should post in the next couple days more than likely. Still busy with an exam Monday morning and hoping to hear about this job.
Thank you s all for reading and commenting!
Rensslaer
- 1
- 1
Probably too late by the time you read this, but good luck with the exam and I shall have my fingers crossed for you about the job.
- 1
- 1
So… Just previous, we saw the mega-wars between Brandenburg and France, on the one hand, and Brandenburg and Bohemia and Teutonic Order (among others) on the other hand, be concluded in ways that were generally beneficial to Brandenburg (not particularly happy that the French war ended with a loss for our side, but it was good experience and showed that we could handle war with an enemy like France, and that we could manage an amphibious campaign).
I may or may not have mentioned (I kinda think I did) that, toward the end of those wars, Austria declared war upon Bohemia as one of several dogpile wars that resulted from our gelding of these various countries.
In August of 1512 – more than a year and a half after I concluded my war with Bohemia – they signed a peace treaty with the Habsburgs cementing a personal union between their two crowns. Austria also annexed two Swiss provinces.
As Emperor, Friedrich IV gains a casus belli against Austria for conquering an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire (i.e. Bohemia).
Hmm… What do you think I did?? Well, surely you know that after not much consideration I ignored the situation to tend to Brandenburg’s more immediate problems. Austria was a problem for another day.
In other news, we achieved Diplo Tech 8 and Luneburg voluntarily became a vassal of Brandenburg. We experimented with requesting/demanding our neighbors transfer trade power to Brandenburg (see below), and both Thuringia and Krakow (neither a small trading power!) did so.
Europe, as you can see (back above, sorry!), had a variety of very large countries, but enough of them were sufficiently powerful that no one had anywhere near a hegemony over the continent.
Austria, however, and her bevy of allies, were on the move…
First, Landshut was inherited by Austria’s ally Munich. Then, in of May 1514, we acquired advance knowledge that Munich intended to declare war upon Ingolstadt, the former possession of Landshut. Alas, Brandenburg at this time remained powerless to do anything to stop this continual land-grab, and in August the war began.
By February of 1515 Ingolstadt ceased to exist, being divided between Austria and Munich.
So, in the shot above, Munich is the darker blue (two provinces south of Bohemia on the right, and the province of Ingolstadt next to Ansbach. Landshut (the blue-green just above Regensburg’s red) has been reduced to a one-province minor. Austria, since 1500, has added several of central Europe’s provinces to her white blob, extending now to Donauwurth, just south of Ansbach.
Austria, around this time, recognized what any keen observer would already have kenned to, and declared Brandenburg as a rival. And Austria, due to a variety of factors, not least her recent embracement of the Colonialism institution, became one of the world’s Great Powers. Brandenburg was still mired somewhere down below that status.
Austria was clearly a power Brandenburg would have to reckon with at some point, and we would need to prepare ourselves for that time. But Austria continued to take steps to grow more powerful.
In July of 1517 they declared war upon the first of the small states that Saxony had forced Bohemia to release. Already, Bohemia was in a personal union with Austria, and now they meant to claim the rest of these lands for the Habsburg throne!
These great power maneuverings weren’t the only thing destabilizing Europe in the middle of the 1510s. Various provinces within Brandenburg continued to convert to Protestantism, and in 1517 Danzig – one of Brandenburg’s most populous provinces – converted. The Age of Reformation was very much making itself known.
If good news was to be had, during these times, it was perhaps that by the end of 1517 we’d paid off several of our loans. Our total loans were down to 33 (from a high of 41), and our costs for interest were down below 14 ducats a month, compared with nearly 20 ducats a month at our peak.
It was clear that Austria and her allies would continue to grow stronger by taking over the small countries of central Europe. It was a game Brandenburg was powerless, as yet, to stop, regardless even of the Holy Roman throne. But in 1518 Friedrich IV did finally have latitude to attempt to retake some of the initiative.
By February of that year he had established claims for Brandenburg upon both Glogow and Opole. Two could play at this land grab game. And – looking ahead – the Emperor released Saxony from his alliance structure. He saw Saxony more as a target for future conquest now, rather than as an ally.
And yet, Austria wasn’t done. Not only did they conquer two provinces from the only briefly independent Moravia – both of them annexed to the Austrian-owned Kingdom of Bohemia in April 1518. But by the end of that same year they’d declared war also upon Glogow.
Fortunately, when that war concluded in 1519, only an indemnity was imposed, and a reversion of religion from Protestantism to Catholicism. This was very auspicious for Brandenburg, as this meant the Emperor would have his chance at these lands instead.
Our riposte to Austria’s expansionary policies in October of 1519 was to declare war upon Opole, first, and then upon Glogow the next month. Neither of these countries had existed long enough to acquire allies, and so they were easy pickings.
In July of 1520 Glogow acquiesced to our demands and was annexed into Brandenburg’s empire directly. This may have upset some of our neighbors, but surely they were already wary of Austria and may have seen our action in the same light as we did – as a means of countering the aggressions of Austria.
Emperor Friedrich IV became known, through these actions, as a Charismatic Negotiator. This may have been partly, also, due to his signing of an agreement between Brandenburg and the Kingdom of Castile to share ideas and knowledge of innovations related to Colonialism. Largely because of France, Castile held a place in my mind as a possible future ally, so we’d been improving relations.
By December of 1520 he had also laid the groundwork for claims against what remained of Moravia. And Moravia had, by then, made a pact with Krakow, which meant that Brandenburg came to be at war with both of them.
Our first battle at Krakow ended favorably in the first days of 1521. Their defeated army withdrew, marched around for a while unbeknownst to us, and eventually recovered and came back to haunt us with a brief siege at Anhalt. We defeated them again there, and then this army surrendered to us at Leipzig.
Opole, ceded one of her 3 provinces to Brandenburg in February, and their remaining territory was pledged to us as a vassal.
Krakow, herself, made peace in December by also agreeing to become our vassal.
And then, a day later, Moravia became our fourth vassal.
This is where we (I – the player) had to become familiar with the vassal mechanics, and how to keep vassals happy. Three of our vassals were recently conquered (the fourth being voluntary vassals), so were understandably upset with us. Two of them were over 50% Liberty Desire, so they didn’t even bother to pay endowments to us. We were reasonably happy with the .3 ducats provided by Krakow – they obviously had some money due to their trading hub.
Brandenburg’s diplomats got to work improving our relations with these three displeased vassals so that they wouldn’t be so desirous of being free of us.
And so it was, by the end of 1521, Brandenburg had countered Austria’s considerable gains by turning another 6 provinces to our side and evening the score by a few degrees.
One unfortunate side effect of our having first annexed five provinces from the Teutons and Bohemians, and then annexed another 2 provinces and acquired three vassals, is that some of our neighbors began to look upon Brandenburg with a degree of fear. Surely they knew that we were only countering Austria’s expansion, and keeping these countries from the grasp of the Habsburgs.
But no, it was the Austrians themselves stirring up all this hostility against us – a means of protecting themselves and excusing themselves by acting as if WE were the guilty party!
Of course, Austria started the whole “coalition” thing. Followed over the next 2 years by (in order) Salzburg, Lubeck, Magdeburg, Hamburg, Regensburg, Bremen, Brunswick, Munich and Saxony. Later (after the image above) Saxe-Lauenburg and the Teutonic Order also joined.
They clearly meant to favor Austria’s unfettered growth over any kind of checks on their power. It set up an obvious future clash between Brandenburg and Austria (and all of her allies). At least now I had a good number of allies and vassals of my own, to counter them.
In other news around the world… The Ottomans and Muscovites got into a rather large scale war with each other.
And Castile invaded France, not just on the European continent, but also in the Americas and probably elsewhere.
That war also embroiled Portugal and Venice, as well as the Castilian and Portuguese colonies, all against France. We were not too worried about France – she could use to lose a few dozen provinces or so. That would make our position all the stronger.
There was a war between Berg and Munster, which I may or may not have mentioned (I think I pointed to this war in one of the screenshots as we were wrapping up the war with France). In October of 1520 this was resolved with the wholesale annexation of Munster (I think she’d been taken down a notch in a previous war) by Berg, which was now four provinces and kind of a regional power.
The war between France and Spain wrapped up in 1523 with Spain annexing various enclaves of France itself! Including, if you can believe it, Lille/Leal.
A couple of weeks after, to make things more interesting, Castile inherited the throne of Aragon, forming the Kingdom of Spain.
In the below screenshot you can see everything that I, in 1523, could see of the world. We’re aware of the American coastlines, but not what might lay behind most of them. The Spanish have clearly taken portions of Central America and the Caribbean, and Portugal has colonized Brazil partly. Denmark and England (and France, though you can’t see it) have claimed portions of North America.
And France, even after the war with Spain, remains the top Great Power. Castile (weird artifact – this was after Castile had become Spain, which is probably why the Castilian score is ZERO) aka Spain is at 2nd. The Ottomans are third. They’re fighting Muscovy, who are Fourth. Ming, around the world, is fifth. Then Hungary, England and Austria to round out the top 8.
Worth pointing out that Ming is 5th despite having embraced only one Institution, whereas France, Hungary, England and Austria have 3.
Brandenburg is coming along nicely, but isn’t yet among the Great Powers despite holding the Holy Roman Emperorship.
I’m pretty happy with what we accomplished, and how we protected the remnants of that central European Bohemian region from eventual annexation by Austria.
Yes, a war with Austria must surely be in Brandenburg’s future. Not sure how far in the future, at this point, but it feels really close. Which means we need to be ready for it.
- 4
- 2
Prepare the loans and Mercenaries! Austria must be brought down for the good of the Empire.
- 3
- 1
- 1
Things are not looking bad, all things considered. Do you think putting down Austria will be your next war or do you have anything else you want to take first to put you in a stronger position for the showdown?
- 2
- 1
Some impressive seeming diplomatic shenanigans. I say seeming because the mechanics still remain a mystery to me. Maybe it's all really obvious to someone who knows the game. Anyway
Summon the bankers, double check the locks on the Chancellor's cell, peruse the glossy mercenary brochures and find the latest issue of Soldier of Fortune. Brandenburg is preparing for war!
- 3
- 2
France is on a small retreat. Someone will become the fly on the big blue blob's windshield. Thanks
- 1
- 1
- 1
How many relation slots are you taking up now, especially with your three new vassals?
That's the problem with you becoming Emperor, Austria is no longer contained by its constraints and can conquer freely.
How much were they paying you for this arrangement if you remember?
Some quick notes regarding vassals:
As you've noted, they don't pay you taxes if they're disloyal. However, you can still divert trade power from them and it will still apply, making them weaker.
And, to help with liberty desire, you can improve relations, royal marry them, build a larger army (which you usually want to be infantry, since they're cheap), and increase trust (by currying favors and then using those to buy trust).
Coalitions can be annoying, especially since the TO (a rival and expansion target) joined. If a truce is expiring with someone who can join against you, you can declare against them immediately once the truce ends to prevent them from joining. Even if you don't take any land in the war, it keeps them weak and the coalition small.
I'm not sure how they took Lille. The Spanish do have a mission tree to go into Belgium for historical reasons, but they still shouldn't have been able to core it. Weird.
- 2
- 1
Thank you @El Pip! I did pass, and now have 2 new certifications CySA+ and CSAP.
I'm supposedly the top candidate for a job and supposedly will hear Monday if I have it. We'll see...
lol @Hootieleece I expect it will happen eventually. I shall not say whether it will be soon or later. I merely indicate it feels very imminent.
@Cromwell At this point I fully expected war with Austria was on the horizon, and pretty much all of my planning was directed toward preparing for such a war. The problem was Austria had so many allies, and they were very strong themselves... I expected that any such war, no matter my preparations, would be a dog of a war, and would be a near run thing.
@El Pip you are entirely correct. This late into the evolution of EU IV they've added a great many bells and whistles, and there are many options for doing this or that. It's difficult for a player who's familiar with the game to remember all the things we can do!
We are doing all you suggest! War seems to be on the horizon!
@Midnite Duke Yes, they do appear to have been set back, slightly. First by us (by, perhaps, curtailing their gains against Brabant), then by Spain. I'm really glad Spain is on "our side". Not our side, exactly, but they're definitely friendlier with us than with France.
@jak7139 See! You understand what I'm doing -- you see the train wreck as things begin to fall into place.
There are quite a few diplomatic spots taken up by all these allies and vassals. Our diplo monarch points did slow to a trickle (as will be mentioned in the next update). I felt the war with Austria was so close, it would be a good gamble.You'll see how the liberty desire becomes an issue for Brandenburg, soon. It rather drives the next update, as I recall. Or maybe the one after. Soon, you shall see.
As to the coalition (as, again, I think I'll be addressing in the next update or two) it greatly complicates the "coming war with Austria" theme, as since Austria is part of the coalition, I greatly fear it means we'd face much of Germany in addition to Austria. Four or five large enemies, all at once, with Austria being only the foremost.
Thanks for reading and commenting, everyone! One last reminder about the AARLand Choice Awards -- I believe we're in the final 24 hours, and the votes are far fewer than usual. I don't typically count up the votes in advance -- I like to be surprised -- but I have a strong feeling there may be multiple ties for 1st and 2nd place if we don't get some more votes in there. That's just how the voting goes in low-vote contests.
I'm off to the beach again tomorrow! I am using my unemployed time primarily to get new certifications.... and to get a tan.
Rensslaer
- 6
- 1
France's weakness is good for everyone else.
While Austria is the main threat, is there anyone else in Germany that could become a problem later?
How will this Austro-Brandenburgian Rivalry affect the League War in the future?
Austria delenda est!
While Austria is the main threat, is there anyone else in Germany that could become a problem later?
How will this Austro-Brandenburgian Rivalry affect the League War in the future?
Austria delenda est!
- 1
- 1
@HistoryDude I think I see Germany and all its powers this way... They're all fine as they are, so long as they remain as they are.
But if they become a tool - an ally or a subject of conquest - to Austria or another rival, such as France. Then they become a threat. And so in a way these German powers are a threat because I don't control them. And I know that sounds very Machiavellian, and I have no defense.
I guess I see the rivalry between Austria and Brandenburg as paramount, and feel like it's incumbent upon me to ensure Austria doesn't eclipse me. That may mean aggressive expansion into countries that honestly don't deserve it.
This week and last week have thrown me for a loop. There's a company that keeps saying I'm their top candidate but they have to finish interviewing others, and I keep hearing "next week" for a decision, but next week comes and... There are other things happening where if this falls through I have other options, but everything happens so slowly. I'm definitely in the stage where I feel like I need a job soon.
As such I haven't been actively writing the next update. It's ready to put together but I didn't have the wherewithal to get at it. I did actually update my other V2 AAR this week, Shining Stars. That subforum is a little backwaterish these days, so maybe some readers haven't seen it.
I'll get back in the saddle with this soon! I've actually had great fun playing the game itself, and there's lots more adventure to explain in coming updates.
Thanks for your readership and kind comments!
Rensslaer
- 2
- 2
Sounds very frustrating, @Rensslaer. I hope you're not letting it get to you too much.
I'm sure you will find the right company soon.- 2
- 1
Sounds very frustrating, @Rensslaer. I hope you're not letting it get to you too much.
I'm okay @jak7139 but thank you!
@Midnite Duke thank you!
So the company that I've been waiting on apologized via the recruiter. They have too many people involved and too many vacations to work around and they have one more candidate they need to interview. But it sounds likely they'd still like to hire me. I've been taking to other recruiters if that doesn't work out.
I have 2/3 of the images edited for the next update. So hopefully this weekend I'll have something.
Thank you everybody for the great support this AAR received, winning 1st Place for EUIV for Q2 2024 in the AARLand Choice AwAARds! I value your support and encouragement! Glad some others of my favorite AARs were also recognized in this and other subforums!
Any new readers out there who haven't said Hi? No need to catch up - I'd welcome comments on any portion of the story.
Rensslaer
- 3
- 1
How close are you to embracing the next institution? That should put you over Austria and opens up the Great Power diplomatic actions.
- 2
Hey @Rensslaer. Just letting you know I'm still reading, and just caught up. Looking forward to the next instalment.
- 2
Still at peace, in the wake of major and then minor wars, Brandenburg is attempting to get its economy back on track and catch up in the technology race. The last major war – the multi-war with Teutonic Order, Bohemia and France – ended in 1511.
In 1522 MilTech advanced to 9, which is probably a little slow. Especially for an aspiring great power. In 1523 Diplo Tech reached level 9, which also is probably a little behind. Then in 1525 Admin Tech reached level 6, which (Hey, why are you clutching your heart? Maybe you should sit down…) is QUITE behind.
Admin Tech, of course, is behind for Brandenburg largely because of all the conflict and the Admin Tech that was expended coring new territories, etc. These are “digestive issues” that have kept us behind in this category. Plus early inability to control the economy, which led to loans, and the resulting inflation, which is also reduced by expending Admin points.
All things considered, though, the economy itself is doing A LOT better! As of 1527 you’ll see that we’re paying less than 8 ducats a month for loan interest, whereas that number was nearly 20 ducats a month after the previous major war. We’ve been taking advantage of the peace (it’s been 16 years since the major war and 6 years since Glogow, Moravia and Krakow, etc.) and lower army maintenance to pay off loans.
Hesse voluntarily became a vassal in 1527.
Brandenburg continued to work toward embracement of the Colonialism Institution, but it was slow going. As you may know, the Institutions are embraced gradually by provinces, the rate of increase depending on how much communication and commerce that province has with other provinces where the Institution is more familiar, as well as government policies, edicts, and various other things. It’s better – probably – to let the embracement occur organically instead of paying a huge fee to catch up. But Brandenburg has typically waited for it to advance to a point where the fee to completely embrace it is less expensive.
We can see that point on the horizon… It’s not quite here yet.
More loans paid off in 1528 and 1529 meant that more attention could be paid to constructing economy-building infrastructure, such as workshops and churches. Not sure if I’ve addressed this in this AAR previously. I know other AARs such as @bullfilter’s and @jak7139’s have. But the workshop improves provincial production efficiency, whereas the church improves provincial tax income.
Another thing I’ve not mentioned in detail is how I’m earning ducats. Every 5 years it’s possible to ask a trusted ally for 10% of their income (or is it 15%?). I don’t know why anyone would trust me THAT much, but they do it, and I use it to pay off loans. Also every 5 years there’s a cycle where we can Seize Lands from the Estates for the Crown. I try to keep the Crown Lands above 30% to avoid economic penalties. But I can also then SELL Crown Lands to the Estates to make money. It’s quite a bit of money, typically, and helps to pay off more loans. The trick is that every time I seize land I only get 5%, but when I sell titles I lose 10%. So sometimes it’s 10 years between this cycle, so I can build up Crownland, rather than just 5.
In 1531 Brandenburg reached Admin Tech level 7! That’s a full Admin Tech level in 6 years. That seems fast to me – it may have been accelerated by random events or something. But we’d ceased using our Admin points for other stuff, and were concentrating on catching up. Level 7 meant a new Idea Group, and we chose to add Quality Ideas to the Economic Ideas we’d chosen previously. Some of these Idea Groups have more crossover benefits for various things, but Economic Ideas do really focus on the economy, whereas Quality Ideas focus entirely on improving your military (army and navy both, which we could use both).
Austria’s expansion had slowed since we had taken steps to counter her. But it hadn’t stopped entirely. Their ally Munich acquired a province from The Palatinate, and Austria absorbed Frankfurt, in 1531.
In 1531 Brandenburg paid the fee to fully embrace Colonialism – it was probably down to 400 or 500 ducats at this point.
@mackwolfe anticipated this event in his very recent comment. This Institution catapulted Brandenburg into the ranks of the Great Powers at 6th Place, slightly ahead of Austria. The Great Power rankings are primarily driven by Infrastructure/Development points (basically all your provinces/cities development added together). But lacking an Institution will handicap your points. Notice that Ming is at 5th Place, just ahead of us, even though she’s only embraced ONE Institution (the major European Great Powers have embraced 3)! If Ming embraces another Institution it’ll improve its rank, but if not they may gradually fall.
Becoming a Great Power allows Brandenburg to accomplish one of our Missions – Balance of Power. That gives us a boost to Power Projection, which helps actually with quite a few economic and military statistics (positive modifiers, somewhat similar to those provided by Prestige).
Oh, and Religion… I’ve mostly avoided focusing on the Protestant Reformation, because it wasn’t really at the forefront of our minds with all that was going on. But Brandenburg’s provinces have gradually been converting, one by one, and it’s not been on our agenda to try to convert them back. Brandenburg has adopted a more or less tolerant attitude toward such things. There may be strategic reasons not to allow this. But at the same time there are strategic reasons for tolerance and allowing the Reformation to continue.
By the end of 1531 I think probably 15 of our provinces had converted to non-Catholic Christian. Religious Unity, you may notice, is at 53%. If it’s not obvious, that’s low.
And so, Brandenburg (the Hohenzollerns, really) have a Mission to fulfill relating to the principality of Ansbach. This is, I believe, a traditional country which has been in the Hohenzollern hereditary “family” for some years (at game start the heir to Brandenburg’s throne is also the heir to Ansbach’s throne, and there was supposed to be an actual inheritance at some point but that got derailed by a bug which killed off Brandenburg’s heir and left the same guy as Ansbach’s heir lol – Achilles, I believe it was). The Mission recognizes this special hereditary relationship and makes it into something to achieve. At the beginning of 1532 Ansbach becomes a vassal, voluntarily. And this triggers the first Mission Accomplishment – the Ansbach Succession.
Except here’s where it gets complicated. There’s a follow-on Mission triggered when we complete the Ansbach Succession Mission – the Franconian Conquest – and it gives us 5 years to complete that Mission after the Ansbach Succession. Actually, I MAY have mis-read this. It makes the point that once we accept the Franconian Hohenzollern “event” the 5 years begins. And I may not have waited for that, and it may not have ever actually occurred in my game. Anyway, I’m getting WAY ahead of myself. @jak7139 in his AAR cleverly indicated that you do not HAVE to “accomplish” a Mission even when you’re eligible for it. And so I wasn’t ready to do anything yet about the Franconian Conquest, and so I delayed “Accomplishing” the Ansbach Succession until later (which you’ll see next update).
Looking ahead, the Franconian Conquest requires that Brandenburg own (directly or as a vassal) 6 provinces out of Upper and Lower Franconia. In the map above you’ll see that Ansbach accounts for 2 of those provinces – Ansbach inherited Beyreuth, so those 2 provinces leave only 4 more provinces we have to control to achieve the Accomplishment/Mission. Another province is Coburg, which is also already our vassal. So that’s 3 of the 6 provinces we need to control. One more province out of the 8 total provinces in the two Franconias is owned by Austria, which would require a massive war to acquire. Rothenberg is another of the 8, just to the west of Ansbach. The remaining 3 provinces are all part of Wurzburg. So how am I going to manage this, and when?
Later, in 1533, Verden joined Brandenburg as an ally (not a vassal). Of course this flurry of forcing or welcoming vassals into our circle, and adding allies on top of it, was part of our greater strategy of being ready when the “big one” with Austria came along. It also, as has been noted by others, has grievously depressed our earning rate for Diplo monarch points. I remember at one point we were getting 12 Admin points per month and only 4 Diplo points. So watch us start to catch up in Admin Tech, but you’ll see over the next couple of decades we will start to fall behind in Diplo Tech.
Oh, and Berlin – my largest City at 29 Development – converted to Reformed.
By 1533 our economy was so recovered that we’d actually paid off all but 10 of our 4% interest loans. We had our budget pretty well managed, and could at times produce quite a few surplus ducats if we didn’t have to have forts manned or army maintenance high. There were always a number of things I had always wanted, but could never imagine how I’d ever have enough money to accomplish them.
One of these was the Brandenburg Gate – our Great Project in Berlin. It required an investment of something like 2500 ducats just to get the damned thing under construction to its 2nd status level, and that seemed like a lot. But I desired it, and I saw an opportunity. I used the “Indebted to the Burghers” Estate concession to borrow about 2000 ducats from the Burghers at 1% interest. I figured it would be nowhere near so much a burden at a quarter the interest rate of the other loans. We set the expansion of the Brandenburg Gate into motion.
Now, some of you veteran players may be aware of a dynamic that I didn’t understand until it came to bite me in the butt. I kept seeing references to the levels of “Influence” the Estates had, but wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. I could have looked it up, but I could have looked another 20 things up. I didn’t. The taking of these loans, added to other concessions I’d added for the Burghers, brought their influence up to 70%. Foreshadowing for the benefit of our dear readers. I remained oblivious.
Oh, I don’t think I’d been mentioning my constant war against Corruption. I remember it had been going steadily down, but it took FOREVER to really move to any significantly lower levels. Here you can see that by 1536 Corruption was down to below 4 (the number will remain displayed at 4 until it’s actually down to less than 3). In 1482 I’d acquired 10 Corruption because I decided to see what “Debase Currency” would do, so in 50 years I’ve reduced it by 7. NEVER, EVER Debase your Currency!!!! Good Gosh I had no idea how bad it would affect me. Now I know.
We acquired Mil Tech 10, improving our Cavalry and Artillery models.
In 1536 I had raised enough money to promote Breslau to a Market Town (2nd Trade Level). I was steadily increasing my trade power and my share of the trade in a number of different Centers of Trade (I’ll refer to them as CoT, though I don’t often see that abbreviation used in EU IV, as it was in EU III).
Out of all the CoTs, Brandenburg’s chief playground was Saxony, of course – our home CoT – with 26%. Next in terms of percentage of market is Baltic Sea at 19%, then Krakow at 15%, Novgorod at 10% and Lubeck at 6%. On the extreme left, almost off the screen you’ll see we have 4% of the North Sea market. But if I do the math multiplying the percentage of market vs. the market value I see that we’re getting about 2.3 ducats from Saxony (monthly I assume), about equal values at 1.7 ducats for both Lubeck and Baltic Sea, and the only other significant sum is from Novgorod at .8 ducats. And this makes sense with the total Trade Income we’re seeing, which is 8.28 ducats (small!). We have a lot of maximizing of trade values, percentages, and multipliers to do and just haven’t had time to focus on that yet. A small point to note – we only have 1% of the Rheinland market, but that’s .16 ducats because of the 16 ducat value, which isn’t bad. Lubeck and Rheinland are clearly the big markets near us. Interesting that Rheinland is stronger than Vienna, which is at 13 ducats.
To illustrate why our trade numbers are so small, we have only 31% Trade Efficiency, which is low (note, above, Genoa at 91% and Venice at 71%). Our Trade Range, over time, will improve (Lubeck and Genoa and Venice – the major trading powers – have far more range than do we). And our provinces, as they develop, will add more to the value of our trade in each of the nearby nodes. Various buildings and other factors will also, over time, add to our Trade Value.
England and France appear to be running quite a business of Privateering! I haven’t gotten into all that yet. Maybe I should, but I don’t have a good picture of how it would work, either economically or in effects to our relationships with other countries. We have 7 “light ships” protecting trade in the Baltic Sea and near Novgorod. Other countries have far more. Brandenburg’s Mercantilism seems low – I’ve not spent much effort changing ours, and so it’s basically just drifted by random event. This is probably something I should change, but I just haven’t.
In relatively minor news, in the event (more significant, obviously, for the family), the Crown Prince Adalbert Karl died unexpectedly. It’s not so much import, really, because there’s a Prince Friedrich in line, ready to step into the breach. His stats happen to be better than Adalbert Karl’s, who had merely 2 / 3 / 2.
The last item I want to note, before we go on to cover the next decade or so in the next update, is that I invested in Flagship for our Navy – the Brandenburgischer Dragoner. These Flagships are more powerful versions of the unit – a carrack in this case – than others. There are different options to choose, but I chose to add extra cannon, some extra defensiveness, and there’s one option that adds speed to the whole fleet, or something like that.
So, as of 1537, Brandenburg has been mostly at peace (excepting the brushfire wars in the Bohemian remnant states) for 26 years. It’s been good for us.
- 6
- 2
I desired it and I saw an opportunity should be the motto of this AAR!
Brandenburg has done a lot of recovery and now looks less like a country on sitting down and panting from her exertions and more like a country crouching ready to spring... a short, cheap war with lots of gold taken in the peace settlement from your main foe's allies could help pay off the last of the loans. That is assuming you don't decide it is time to go for Austria... there would be nothing short or cheap about that confrontation...
- 3
- 2