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Say, how did the von Chelyabinsks get into power in England? I'm not very clear on how dynasties work in EU3... it looks like they get shuffled a lot in your AAR.
Is cultural assimilation possible? I.e. that the English rulers could switch to English culture like the majority of the land they rule?
 
I believe in the CK2 part of this the French and English crowns were dually held for a couple centuries, so it seemed a logical conclusion that the rulers of England would still feel rather French-y.
 
Indeed, Gaucelin the Cruel conquered England in 1359 or so*, uniting them under the Van Vlaanderen dynasty. They only split up in 1443**, because England had primogeniture and France had elective succession, at which point they were both still Van Vlaanderen and I presume they both still had Frankish monarchs.
Not sure why they'd stick with French culture when they're under the Von Chelyabinsks, though.

*"Reaching the age of majority in 1356, Gaucelin was determined to make an immediate impression. Egged on by his ambitious Marshal, Duke Wilhelm II, he took advantage of the insurrection in England by declaring war to capture the crowns of England and Ireland that had been worn by his grandfather.
While he was campaigning in England, the new Duke of Gascogne, Emmo II, followed in his father’s footsteps and declared independence. Unwilling to return home, Gaucelin persevered in England and three years later led his troops into Westminster, forcing Mark capitulated."

**"But the Kingdoms of France, England and Ireland were not destined to stay united. Early in Richard’s father’s reign, when King Gaucelin had been a child, he had agreed to elective succession for the Kingdom of France. When Gaucelin had died, there had been no controversy. However, Richard’s eldest son had died in 1430. While he had a son who ruled as Duke Ontfroy of Kent thereafter, the French nobles knew little of him and the reports they had from across the channel did not impress them. Upon Richard’s death in 1443, Ontfroy became King of England and Ireland, but not of France. Instead, the nobles chose Richard’s son, Duke Guillaume of Anjou. Guillaume had been crippled in war, but he was still handsome and popular, with a reputation for kindness and diligence that contrasted with Ontfroy’s rumored nature."
 
i just think IRL it didn't take many generations for the norman french ruling class to become more or less assimilated.. similar to how the french ruling class didn't stick to frankish for too long. creating french colonies for a country which is almost entirely of english culture seems a bit off.. especially in light of how the rebellion game mechanics have played out..
 
i just think IRL it didn't take many generations for the norman french ruling class to become more or less assimilated.. similar to how the french ruling class didn't stick to frankish for too long. creating french colonies for a country which is almost entirely of english culture seems a bit off.. especially in light of how the rebellion game mechanics have played out..

I'd say the English kings were still essentially "Norman" in Henry II's time which is more than a hundred years. And the English kings didn't continue to live in France during that time. In this time line, the King of England in 1453 was born in France and was Duke of Anjou before being elected King. Since I converted the game in 1453, I think the ruling culture in England would have been accurately described as French. Besides, foreign rulers don't always adopt the culture of their subjects; sometimes it's the other way around. The Saxons did not adopt British culture, for example. The problem is that the EU3 A.I. never makes the decision to accept cultural shift--the ruling culture can change, but I don't think it ever does unless the government is broken. It's an A.I. flaw.

The way dynasties work in EU3 isn't very transparent and I haven't really figured it out. Someone else may have a better idea, but it seems like when there isn't a legal heir it randomly flips to one of the dynasties you have a royal marriage with. It probably relates to legitimacy.
 
I follow your logic magritte2, and hope I didn't come across too snarky! I guess my take would be that IRL in 1399 the hundred years war was still over 50 years from completion and the English ruling class were most definitely French, and yet EU3 culturally represents them as English, not French (or at least I hope, I have deleted EU3 so I can't validate this claim). Fair point about the AI not changing cultures, I guess in most situations it wouldn't matter, unless say a 1399 start Cyprus somehow became a major colonial power!
 
The way dynasties work in EU3 isn't very transparent and I haven't really figured it out. Someone else may have a better idea, but it seems like when there isn't a legal heir it randomly flips to one of the dynasties you have a royal marriage with. It probably relates to legitimacy.

It's most prestigious country you have a RM with. If you don't have any RMs, or are the most prestigious, then you get a new dynasty from your own country (which is random, and may just happen to be another dynasty, but there's no mechanic of that). I'm not sure what affects if you get an automatic PU.
 
I would just like to say: this AAR is great!

(I haven't posted yet because I lost my registration key, but I got DW and now I'm registered! Yay!)

Also, I see Bremen's colonies are occupied by someone. Who is that?
 
Yeah i'm wondering too, Which country is occupying their American colonies? It looks like the Etrurian colors.
 
Actually, the AI does change cultures, I've seen Najd as an azerbaijaini-cultured OPM in an uncored QK province before. I think the logic is: If the dominant culture is accepted, which it usually is, there's no reason to culture shift, it will only pointlessly cost stability. In the very rare case when this is not true, however, the AI can apparently actually take the decision.
 
Actually, the AI does change cultures, I've seen Najd as an azerbaijaini-cultured OPM in an uncored QK province before. I think the logic is: If the dominant culture is accepted, which it usually is, there's no reason to culture shift, it will only pointlessly cost stability. In the very rare case when this is not true, however, the AI can apparently actually take the decision.

I guess I see your point, although I was playing Genoa briefly in this game and I actually did accept the cultural shift to Maghreb Arabic which resulted in two nearby provinces defecting to me. But I think the cultural shift should happen naturally through some MTTH event if you have no provinces with your ruling culture. And I don't really think the ruling culture should invariably determine cultures of colonies. The Irish and Scottish, and non-anglicans were disproportionately represented in England's colonies.
 
Yeah I've never liked how its your ruling culture that gets placed in every colony. It should be a % chance for any of the cultures which our under your dominion, with higher chance being given for ones that are non-accepted, non-culture group and lesser chance for ruling culture (it wasn't the landed wealthy that wanted a new life, after all). Also, instead of the Religious Migration event each colony should be from a minority religion unless you have a completely homogenous state, which even then should still have a % chance of being a heretic religion to represent the fact that there would still generally be a small fraction of the populace that wasn't of the One True Faith.

It also mucks around with the accepted cultures when all of North America is your dominant culture. I generally (am forced to) accept the fact that my diverse, accepting nation which had several large cultures living in relative harmony slowly becomes lorded over by a bunch of intolerant f*cktards as my colonies core. It makes me want to go and conquer other nations colonies just so I can keep some plurality in my nation while keeping my own colony spree to a relative minimum.
 
What exactly is French-England?
 
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE, 1708-1737.

The first quarter of the 18th century was relatively quiet in Central and Eastern Europe. It was not that all the countries in the region were at peace, for Frankfurt, Bohemia, Danzig, Bremen and even Hungary had ultimately become involved in the conflict that had broken out between England and Leinster. But most of the actual fighting took place far away, in the Americas, in Ireland, in Brittany. The only territory in the area that changed hands was the province of Valenciennes, but that was a result of the final absorption of Frankfurt’s longtime vassal and ally, Armaganac, not of war.

The relative quiet ended in October of 1724. King Laszlo VII Thokoly of Hungary attacked the Kingdom of Prussia, a tiny remnant from a time when Swedes had ruled all of Poland three centuries earlier. King Christian VI Rantzau of Denmark was irritated by this, as it viewed Prussia as falling within the Baltic theatre where it held sway, but chose not to intervene. The fact that Laszlo was joined in the war by his ally Philippe VII van Vlaanderen of France, who was married to Christian VI’s sister, likely played some role in the Danish forbearance. Also joining Hungary were several of the small states that had been carved out of the Byzantine Empire in recent decades, for Laszlo had been aggressively expanding his influence in the southeast. But with 30,000 men poised on the Prussian border, Hungary needed no help and Prussia fell before the year was out.

Early the following year, perhaps out of a sense of rivalry with his eastern neighbors, Frankfurt’s imperial ambitions came to the forefront once again. Seeking to obtain a land connection to his new possessions in Valenciennes, Karl Theodor V of Frankfurt declared war on Bohemia. With Leinster still embroiled in war with Etruria and Sweden in its colonies, Lord Protector Cathaoir O Cairbre failed to defend his traditional ally, while Karl Theodor’s allies in Denmark, France and Liege eagerly joined the war. But the regent’s council of Navarra came to Bohemia’s defense, which left Karl Theodor waiting for the other shoe to drop. Would Austria join the war, forcing Frankfurt to fight on two fronts?

Some years earlier, there would have been no question. But following the death of King Anton in 1716, the Navarran nobility had chosen not to recognize Anton’s four year old bastard son, instead proclaiming a Basque speaking cousin as King of Navarra. Though Austria and Navarra remained close, with Karl still not of age and the stability of the nation wavering, Austria failed to enter the war.

By 1727, Bohemia’s situation was dire. With much of its land both in Europe and abroad occupied and facing a devastating Danish blockade, it paid off Liege for peace and ceded the South American province of Pehuenmapu. But the war was not going as well for the overstretched Danes as it was for their allies in Frankfurt. While the Danes had succeeded in occupying Mecklenburg, parts of Bohemian South America, and most of Navarra’s possessions in North America and Africa, the Navarrans had swept through Iberia. Rather than face an uphill battle of recapturing all of the Iberian fortified cities in the heat of summer, the Danes chose to exit the war without terms.

But the release of the blockade was not enough to revive the fighting spirit of the exhausted Bohemians. In the winter of 1728, with all their holdings in Europe occupied by Frankfurt, they signed a humiliating peace. Not only did Karl Theodor seize a corridor to Valenciennes through Luxembourg, they took the provinces of Namur, Mecklenburg and Lauenberg as well. For the first time in its history, Frankfurt had access to the sea.


Frankfurt in 1730:


Meanwhile, Central Europe’s other dominant power was making waves of its own. Barely three months after annexing Prussia, Laszlo VII turned his attention eastward. The territories that Hungary and Norway had seized from the Byzantine Empire in the last fifty years had brought the two nations into direct contact. Tired of the Norwegians penchant for defending the Catholic states of the Baltic and eager to spread his kingdom eastward across the steppes, he declared war on King Olav VIII Gelre. As expected, Laszlo found himself at war with Olav’s staunch allies in Sibir soon afterward.

But both Sibir and Norway were bogged down in conflicts with the steppe hordes at the time and their experienced generals were far away. In the Battle of Sarkel, the Hungarian General Tamas Lackovic’s brilliant use of his Southern Cossacks took full advantage of the inexperienced leadership of a hastily assembled defensive force of 25,000 Norwegians. After the rout at Sarkel, and the subsequent fall of one southern fortress after another, the weak Harald VI was eager to make peace. In 1726, he ceded Sarkel and released the nations of Muscovy and Pskov in return for an end to hostilities.

The weakness displayed by Norway in its war with Hungary emboldened Danzig to attempt to regain the province of Slupsk in 1732, with the help of the English, Moldavia and Nizhny Novgorod. Whether it was because of the beating its troops had taken in the Hungarian war or because some of Norway’s opponents were Holy Roman Empire members, Ablak Khan of Sibir chose not to defend his ally.

But neither did he offer aid, and Moldavia—completely surrounded by its enemy—was defeated and forced to swear allegiance to King Olav, cede half its territory, and switch sides in the war in 1734. And England proved a far less potent ally than Danzig had hoped because it had still not recovered from devastating losses to its fleet in the war with Leinster. Danzig actually ended up recapturing some English colonies in South America, but with the Norwegians occupying most of their homeland, they ended up ceding the South American possessions to Norway in the fall of 1737. But despite the successful war, Norway still lost territory in the area because it was too distracted to deal with an Augsburgian revolutionary force that took hold of Danzig.

Eastern Europe in 1739:



Thus, after a brief respite, the early 18th century saw a continuation of the seemingly unstoppable advance of Frankfurt and Hungary to dominate the region. The traditional Catholic powers of Norway, Sibir and Bohemia remained unable to stem the tide.