Okay, I love the Bornholm concept, the culture-shifting, but mostly I love the development farm idea. That's so creatively cynical: the perfect EU4 stratagem, in other words.
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Well, we have one elector in our pocket already. But let's see how the Reformation shakes out. It feels weird that Denmark is so strong and the Reformation is 2 or 3 chapters away still.
I thought about renaming Bornholm Christianstadt but it may not be the permanent capital. Maybe another location needs some love.
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Didn't realize that helped liberty desire. But now looking at my screenshot it is certainly there and does not fade. Good tip. I will have plenty of diplomats once I start Diplo ideas.
Another good tip. I will for sure use Influence Nation which directly adds one Mana.
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I still have a lot to catch up. But I wanted to say 2 things: I have read a few of your AARs and like a lot the style. And as a follower of Atwix´s AARs and twitch channel, I love the achievement and how to honor the legacy. I have thought of writing my own AAR, but never had the courage (or success in campaigns) to do one, besides having in mind something for a name and playstyle (more diplomatic that warmonger), a bit related to the goals in this one. Keep it up!
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thank you for the support.
You should go for it. Many here would enjoy a diplomatic game rather than conquest ( as others have said, youtube has plenty of map-painting campaigns). But I think the biggest challenge in AAR writing is not the campaign itself , but rather the time requirement. AAR writing and eu4 playing come from the same leisure time "bucket" so to speak. Unless you have a lot of free time, you will find that the hardest part about writing is that it you have to stop playing to write. But the interaction with readers is totally worth it , in my opinion. Which is why I write.
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I would just echo @mackwolfe above, but also just to urge you not to be concerned about "success". Plenty of fine AARs have been written from people just playing the game as they want, best they can.
And if things in the game don't work out, well challenges and setbacks can actually be pretty interesting to read about, and can make a gameplay negative turn into a creative positive (through the AAR).
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If it helps, one of the most memorable moments in any of my AARs came from a gigantic failure. (It was CK3, I did a late-game religious shift, prompting a massive populist rebellion which I then lost, leaving my empire-tier ruler with like three loyal provinces; the story of how that happened was great, even if the experience of losing the war was not.)
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very well, i shall give a try. If (that´s a big if) something starts brewing, I´ll let you know. In the meantime, I patiently await for more adventures of our Arch-King. The theory-crafting is amazing. And execution, superb.
For the play, before Austria declares, don´t know if you could call-to-arms to another war. I believe I avoided a dec for BUR that way, but can´t recall.
Re: AE, how bad is it or is something that can be managed/helped with merchant´s stablishing communities interaction on trade notes, sacrifiying some money to decay faster/keep relations >0.
For the play, before Austria declares, don´t know if you could call-to-arms to another war. I believe I avoided a dec for BUR that way, but can´t recall.
Re: AE, how bad is it or is something that can be managed/helped with merchant´s stablishing communities interaction on trade notes, sacrifiying some money to decay faster/keep relations >0.
I think you will like some tantalizing possibilities at the end of the next chapter ( which I am about to post)
I actually welcomed the war with Austria. It is a defensive war for me, so any ally I add would automatically join me.
The AE so far was not bad, but see next chapter, titled GermAEny (h/t @Steckie )
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Chapter 6: GermAEny (1490-1500)
Chapter 6: GermAEny (1490-1500)
Title credit goes to this comment :
We left the last Chapter with the Holy Roman Emperor, the arch-duke of Austria, ally and royal cousin of Denmark threatening war if Arch-King Christian did not release Holland, Brabant and Flanders as free nations. Needless to say, the Arch King was going to refuse. The only question was whether he would enlist additional allies before sending his answer. As this was a defensive war, Denmark was guaranteed to be joined by any ally . And the only downside to including a large number of allies was the strain on diplomatic relation slots which were already fill.
And thanks to Denmark's powerful army and navy, many nations in Europe would have loved to become allies . Castile was an easy choice: a powerful nation that would help in the war and was a perfect counterbalance to France and Ottomans. He also considered Milan, Naples and Brandenburg as middling nations that could be cultivated into bigger allies in the future, but in the end decided against it. And while Denmark was at peace and dealing with Diplomacy, he had France and the Ottomans designated as official rivals, considering that no one else was deemed worthy.
He then gave his reply to the Emperor: Molon Labe. And the Emperor declared war
This was a suicidal war for the Emperor, for his one good ally - Hungary - took the defender's side . But I guess Imperial honor demanded a declaration . With the forces so lopsided, there is not much point in detailing the fighting. Instead we will fast forward to October 1490, when the truce with England expired and when England was mired in the midst of a nasty Peasant's War disaster
Christian could not let this opportunity pass and he began moving troops to the Island, confident that his allies and subjects can handle the Austrians. And when he checked on who would help England in case of war, he was very pleased to see that Portugal was in debt, and would not help them. But more than that, he was pleased to see that England was allied to Liege and Friesland, who would join England. And despite Denmark being at war with the Emperor, Denmark was able to include them as full co-belligerents, despite them being princes of the HRE.
And Denmark also added Dithmarschen as full co-belligerent for good measure. The nice thing about those 3 nations was that their annexation would actually make for better looking map borders for Burgundy and Denmark. And Arch King Chrisitan fully planned to give at least Liege and Friesland to Burgundy, because he knew that once Marie of Burgundy died, those provinces ( along with the rest of the Burgundian Inheritance) would become an integral part of Denmark itself [this is a scripted event of the Burgundian Inheritance].
As to the conduct of the war itself, the fighting in England was easy because peasant bands had destroyed the English army, and Danish troops spent more effort fighting and dodging the peasants than fighting English regulars. The only problem Denmark faced was the Neapolitan army which managed to destroy the Danish army besieging Wien in the other war.
But the main battle of the war was the annihilation of Frisian and other enemy troops besieging Kolding in Denmark . That allowed Danish and subject armies to quickly carpet siege all the enemy provinces .
While both wars were being waged successfully, King Christian oversaw the completion of Mercenary Ideas , which allowed the implementation of the Client State Policy. And he also worked on influencing the tiny nations of Novgorod , Beloozero and Perm to encourage them to develop their capitals (h/t @jak7139 ).
The first peace treaty in the war came with Dithmarschen who was annexed by Denmark, and who Denmark hoped to turn into a core province before the war with the Emperor ended
But now opposition to Denmark's aggressive growth started to grow and rumblings about a new coalition began to be heard. But Christian pressed on , counting on his diplomats to keep the larger nations out of any coalition . But unfortunately, the decision to declare Ottomans rivals of Denmark came back to haunt him , with the Ottomans joining a coalition started by Mann.
And the Ottomans followed that by officially designating Denmark as a rival ( I guess Denmark started it , so this was deserved) . And this came about jut as Austria was fully occupied and surrendered
But despite Denmark having war exhaustion from the long war, the King held on to the wars a bit longer because he wanted to annex Liege to Burgundy first, and the Liegians were stubbornly refusing annexation despite their only province being occupied , citing "ally in war" ( presumably Naples and England). But once Napoli fell and was pillaged, the Bishop of Liege saw the writing on the wall and decided to leave the city to the Burgundians
With the dirty deeds of annexing Friesland, Dithmarschen and Liege done, Denmark now played the magnanimous victor , forcing Luneburg to release Verden as a free nation . And of course the latter had no knowledge of Denmark's aggressive past.
The purpose of releasing Verden was to have some nations in the HRE that did not hate Danish aggressive expansion . But the Arch King was pleasantly surprised to lean that the grateful Verdners were willing to become vassals of Denmark despite being a prince of the Empire
It appeared that Denmark's awesome economy and military prowess was enough to overcome Verdner reluctance. The King immediately started improving relations with them , and even had the Pope send a legate to improve Denmark's Diplomatic Reputation just to make sure that the deal would be consumed once peace occurred. And then he waited a few months, till January 1495 to be exact, to conclude peace with England
From England, Denmark took just two provinces: London and Kent. The English were willing to cede more, but many European sovereigns threatened coalition if Denmark was too aggressive.
This was soon followed by peace with Austria The core in Dithmarschen was done, so there was no fear of the Emperor demanding unlawful territory. And to avoid having that problem with another province, Denmark minimized her aggressive expansion exposure by limiting the peace to the release of Baden and Tirol from Austria, and monetary compensation only .
And just like with Verden, Denmark was surprised to learn that Baden was agreeable to becoming a vassal . Apparently they did not consider Denmark to be too far, and probably took into account that Denmark was overlord of Palatinate next door [there was no distance between borders modifier]. The Arch King hesitated a bit before adding Verden and Baden as vassals, as there were no more relation slots in the diplomatic corps. But the opportunity to expand in GermAEny without aggressive expansion could not be passed up, and so he made both small nations voluntary vassals of Denmark.
The two simultaneous wars against Austria and England had netted Denmark 7 rich provinces on the North Sea ( London, Kent, Friesland, Groningen, Verden, Stade and Dithmasrchen) and three inside Germany ( Liege, Baden and Durlach). But that came at a steep price in Aggressive expansion, and Denmark found herself facing a poweful coalition that counted France and Ottomans as members .
Now Denmark had two strong allies in Castile and Hungary, so there was no fear of the coalition declaring a punitive war . But between truces and coalition members, expansion routes for Denmark were now limited. So our King decided to rest a bit, and wait for the truce with Poland to expire. And he needed to be ready to pounce on his enemy before they joined the coalition . But then a Herald arrived with news that gave King Christian a way to attack a coalition member by itself, without dragging the rest in. And that news was the declaration of war by Ottomans against the Mamluk Sultanate
A quick diplomatic check showed that Mamluks were willing to ally Denmark ( because of her military and economic might and common rivals). And that meant Denmark can be called in a defensive war againt Ottomans alone, although not as war leader. There was no doubt in King Christian's mind that the chance to fight the Ottomans while they were in a two-front war should not be passed over, and furthermore , he could not allow them to expand at will and grow stronger. And the lure of pillaging a city such as Constantinople to grow Denmark's capital was too good to resist. And to maximize the effects of said pillaging, he decided to move Denmark's capital yet again. He first considered moving to Danzig, which produced valuable Gems , was farmland, and had an important trade harbor that would allow cheaper development. But it was not very defensible compared to Sjaelland and Bornholm. And after much searching, he settled on the city of York, which was still small, but had farmland, cloth and an important trade center. All of which would make its development cheaper.
Moving the capital also moved Denmark's home trade node to the Channel. This was initially detrimental to her trade income, but not by too much . And the expectation was that this would change dramatically once Burgundy got inherited by Denmark. And in fact, it was a long term plan for the traders of Denmark to eventually move to the more lucrative Channel in any case.
With that preparatory move out of the way, envoys were sent to Cairo to conclude a formal alliance, and soon after Mamluks called Denmark for help .
Of course Denmark answered , and thus started the first war between Denmark and her arch-rival.
The strategy for Denmark was straightforward: focus all the troops on the capital of Crimea, then once that was taken march on Constantinople via Bulgaria ( Hungary gladly gave access ) . This was supposed to be easy as Denmark and her many subjects easily outnumbered the enemy who was supposed to be fighting in Syria. But when a Danish army chased the smaller Crimean army in Tyn, they were surprised by a large Ottoman force of 70 ,000 men that sprung out of nowhere. The army fought bravely but then withdrew. But that left the siege army in Crimea exposed . Not wanting the siege army - which contained the valuable artillery regiments - annihilated, the Arch King ordered the artillery to withdraw, leaving the Prussian Volunteer army accompanying them to fight a rear-guard action .
The Prussians dutifully obeyed and held their ground , expecting complete destruction. But they were rescued at the last minute by a relief force of Burgundians who arrived in the nick of time to stave off defeat.
During that sequence of battles, the Arch-King realized this could be a long fight and that more mercenary companies needed to be recruited. And so he made a concerted effort to achieve the "Mercenary Army" mission, which required Denmark to have 60 mercenary regiments, no loans and a positive budget surplus. As Denmark already had 47 regiments, only one company of 13 regiments needed to be recruited. But the King had counted the Prussian Volunteer Army as good as dead, and he ordered two companies recruited. And to prevent a negative budget, he had the fleet go on low maintenance and mothballed many forts away from the frontlines.
With that mission accomplished, DEnmark was assured a steady supply of cheap mercenary companies going forward. But it turned out that the 2 companies he recruited were more than enough to turn the tide of the war in Denmark's favor, as the Burgundians proved to be superb fighters, and the Ottomans had to divert troops to their Syrian front. And the Ottomans foolishly attacked Konigsberg as Danish forces took Crimea and then advanced on Constantinople.
But the Ottoman expedition to Prussia was taken care of by the Burgundians who defeated the enemy at Konigsberg and then chased and annihilated the retreating army. And that meant that Denmark was able to capture Constantinople without being challenged.
Danish troops then moved on to Macedonia taking Thessaloniki without difficulty . Meanwhile the Ottomans took Damascus and began the siege of Cairo , the Mamluk capital. After Denmark occupied much of the Ottoman Balkans, fighting moved back to the region east of Azov, where Danes and Swedes tried to hold off an Ottoman counter-offensive
The battles with the Ottomans were hard fought and at Circassia the Ottomans almost prevailed. Seeing how Denmark was not be able to get more easy gains, the King decided it was time for peace. The last thing he wanted was the Mamluks suddenly making peace with Ottomans and giving Denmark - who did the heavy lifting- nothing .But unfortunately, the peace negotiations did not give the choice of pillaging Constantinople or Crimea [because I am not war leader?] which was one of the main rewards touted when Denmark joined the war. So the King settled for annexing land . He chose the area of Azov, which was inhabited by Crimean culture people together with the province fo Kyzyl-Yar ( also Crimean).
Luckily, the distribution of development in that land was almost perfect for optimal concentration of development to the capital . And since York had such low development cost, there was no wastage in the transfer, with York gaining 14 development, exactly what the annexed land lost.
After concentrating development into York, all the land was given to Ryazan. Although Ryazan did not accept Crimean ( they were accepting Mishar and Kazani ), the hope was that as their diplomatic technology advanced and they became able to accept a 3rd culture [Diplo tech 8 - 1492 to 1505], they would choose Crimean. (as a sidenote, the King actually wanted to keep Azov for Denmark herself, to have a base for the trade fleet to privateer the Constantinople trade node, but since the Capital York had no land connection to Azov, this was not feasible, and he ended up giving the land to Ryazan).
One salutary effect of the peace with Ottomans was the dissolution of the coalition in the aftermath of the war. Without the strong Ottomans in the coalition, its members gave up on military containment of Denmark.
And that meant Denmark was free to expand again, particularly against Poland who had become an implacable enemy of Denmark . But the King worried about creating more aggressive expansion notoriety, a problem exacerbated by the uniform Catholicism of Europe. He asked his advisors to convene and brainstorm about how Denmark could weaken Poland without angering the rest of Europe. And they came up with two solutions.
The first solution was to take advantage of the fact that Lithuania ruled a lot of Orthodox land ( and Poland ruled Orthodox Muscovy area as well). Denmark could force the Poles to release independent Orthodox nations out of that land ( such as Chernigov, Smolensk, Polotsk and Muscovy). And Denmark would later annex these Orthodox weaklings without Catholic Europe raising a peep.
The second solution was more devious and trickier. And that was to let Hungary annex Polish land, and then one day use the favors gained in Budapest to install a Wittlesbach on that throne. There was one issue with that plan that the Arch King needed to address, which was the culture incompatibility of Poles and Hungarians. HE queried about who the Hungarians accepted already, and it was the Bosniaks, Serbs and Slovenes. Meaning they had no more free slots to accept Polish. So he had his envoys visit Budapest and surreptitiously dig into their mission archives to see if they had a mission to accept an additional culture down the line. And what they discovered was quite interesting:
The Hungarians not only had claims on Polish land ( thanks to completing the mission of conquering Moldavia), they also had potential future missions of accepting Polish culture and even turning Poland into a junior personal union partner. If Denmark could get a Wittlesbach on the Hungarian throne and then help them get that union over Poland, and all the stars aligned and Hungary kept that union, then Denmark could later sweep in and put all of those thrones into the Kalmar union. It was certainly a far-fetched plan, but worth pursuing . And to help manage it , the King had his enovys keep an eye for any mission completion by any nation, just to avoid missing things.
With those plans in mind, the Arch King declared war on Poland and of course asked his Hungarian allies, who owed him lots of favors, to join.
The balance of forces was very lopsided in Denmark's favor. And it got even more lopsided when Denmark forced Brandenburg, Poland's strongest ally, out of the war :
In the peace , Denmark had the choice of pillaging Berlin. But the King refrained from this for two reasons. First, he did not need more aggressive expansion in Germany. York could be grown out of other places ( like Russia and Asia) with less problems. Second, York was at perfect size to allow the adoption of a new institution he heard about , called Colonialism, and which he was told was right around the corner. He thought it was better to save York's unique low development cost for that purpose, and leave pillaging till later.
At that point, our archivist historian thought that the peace with Brandenburg was going to be the last notable event of the decade, but sadly it was not so. Our dear and beloved heir Frederik 5/6/2 tragically died at the young age of 35.
He left behind a precocious little girl of 4, Margrete 6/4/4. While clearly a very promising youth, her gender gave her very low legitimacy among the nobles, some of whom called for her to be disinherited. BUt her namesake and grandmother Queen Margrete absolutely forbade Christian from doing that , arguing that such a talented child will make a great ruler as an adult. She could even be Empress of the HRE one day, since the Austrians had already passed the Pragmatic Sanction. But some nobles feared that her legitimacy may affect the status of the personal unions and the vassals should something happen to our King [wiki says nothing about liberty desire and legitimacy], and there was also a chance of a Regency council as the QUeen consort was quite older than the King . The King listened to his wife and kept little Margrete as heiress. But we will let readers weigh in on that decision . And we will close the chapter with the customary view of Denmark's domain .
Title credit goes to this comment :
We left the last Chapter with the Holy Roman Emperor, the arch-duke of Austria, ally and royal cousin of Denmark threatening war if Arch-King Christian did not release Holland, Brabant and Flanders as free nations. Needless to say, the Arch King was going to refuse. The only question was whether he would enlist additional allies before sending his answer. As this was a defensive war, Denmark was guaranteed to be joined by any ally . And the only downside to including a large number of allies was the strain on diplomatic relation slots which were already fill.
And thanks to Denmark's powerful army and navy, many nations in Europe would have loved to become allies . Castile was an easy choice: a powerful nation that would help in the war and was a perfect counterbalance to France and Ottomans. He also considered Milan, Naples and Brandenburg as middling nations that could be cultivated into bigger allies in the future, but in the end decided against it. And while Denmark was at peace and dealing with Diplomacy, he had France and the Ottomans designated as official rivals, considering that no one else was deemed worthy.
He then gave his reply to the Emperor: Molon Labe. And the Emperor declared war
This was a suicidal war for the Emperor, for his one good ally - Hungary - took the defender's side . But I guess Imperial honor demanded a declaration . With the forces so lopsided, there is not much point in detailing the fighting. Instead we will fast forward to October 1490, when the truce with England expired and when England was mired in the midst of a nasty Peasant's War disaster
Christian could not let this opportunity pass and he began moving troops to the Island, confident that his allies and subjects can handle the Austrians. And when he checked on who would help England in case of war, he was very pleased to see that Portugal was in debt, and would not help them. But more than that, he was pleased to see that England was allied to Liege and Friesland, who would join England. And despite Denmark being at war with the Emperor, Denmark was able to include them as full co-belligerents, despite them being princes of the HRE.
And Denmark also added Dithmarschen as full co-belligerent for good measure. The nice thing about those 3 nations was that their annexation would actually make for better looking map borders for Burgundy and Denmark. And Arch King Chrisitan fully planned to give at least Liege and Friesland to Burgundy, because he knew that once Marie of Burgundy died, those provinces ( along with the rest of the Burgundian Inheritance) would become an integral part of Denmark itself [this is a scripted event of the Burgundian Inheritance].
As to the conduct of the war itself, the fighting in England was easy because peasant bands had destroyed the English army, and Danish troops spent more effort fighting and dodging the peasants than fighting English regulars. The only problem Denmark faced was the Neapolitan army which managed to destroy the Danish army besieging Wien in the other war.
But the main battle of the war was the annihilation of Frisian and other enemy troops besieging Kolding in Denmark . That allowed Danish and subject armies to quickly carpet siege all the enemy provinces .
While both wars were being waged successfully, King Christian oversaw the completion of Mercenary Ideas , which allowed the implementation of the Client State Policy. And he also worked on influencing the tiny nations of Novgorod , Beloozero and Perm to encourage them to develop their capitals (h/t @jak7139 ).
The first peace treaty in the war came with Dithmarschen who was annexed by Denmark, and who Denmark hoped to turn into a core province before the war with the Emperor ended
But now opposition to Denmark's aggressive growth started to grow and rumblings about a new coalition began to be heard. But Christian pressed on , counting on his diplomats to keep the larger nations out of any coalition . But unfortunately, the decision to declare Ottomans rivals of Denmark came back to haunt him , with the Ottomans joining a coalition started by Mann.
And the Ottomans followed that by officially designating Denmark as a rival ( I guess Denmark started it , so this was deserved) . And this came about jut as Austria was fully occupied and surrendered
But despite Denmark having war exhaustion from the long war, the King held on to the wars a bit longer because he wanted to annex Liege to Burgundy first, and the Liegians were stubbornly refusing annexation despite their only province being occupied , citing "ally in war" ( presumably Naples and England). But once Napoli fell and was pillaged, the Bishop of Liege saw the writing on the wall and decided to leave the city to the Burgundians
With the dirty deeds of annexing Friesland, Dithmarschen and Liege done, Denmark now played the magnanimous victor , forcing Luneburg to release Verden as a free nation . And of course the latter had no knowledge of Denmark's aggressive past.
The purpose of releasing Verden was to have some nations in the HRE that did not hate Danish aggressive expansion . But the Arch King was pleasantly surprised to lean that the grateful Verdners were willing to become vassals of Denmark despite being a prince of the Empire
It appeared that Denmark's awesome economy and military prowess was enough to overcome Verdner reluctance. The King immediately started improving relations with them , and even had the Pope send a legate to improve Denmark's Diplomatic Reputation just to make sure that the deal would be consumed once peace occurred. And then he waited a few months, till January 1495 to be exact, to conclude peace with England
From England, Denmark took just two provinces: London and Kent. The English were willing to cede more, but many European sovereigns threatened coalition if Denmark was too aggressive.
This was soon followed by peace with Austria The core in Dithmarschen was done, so there was no fear of the Emperor demanding unlawful territory. And to avoid having that problem with another province, Denmark minimized her aggressive expansion exposure by limiting the peace to the release of Baden and Tirol from Austria, and monetary compensation only .
And just like with Verden, Denmark was surprised to learn that Baden was agreeable to becoming a vassal . Apparently they did not consider Denmark to be too far, and probably took into account that Denmark was overlord of Palatinate next door [there was no distance between borders modifier]. The Arch King hesitated a bit before adding Verden and Baden as vassals, as there were no more relation slots in the diplomatic corps. But the opportunity to expand in GermAEny without aggressive expansion could not be passed up, and so he made both small nations voluntary vassals of Denmark.
The two simultaneous wars against Austria and England had netted Denmark 7 rich provinces on the North Sea ( London, Kent, Friesland, Groningen, Verden, Stade and Dithmasrchen) and three inside Germany ( Liege, Baden and Durlach). But that came at a steep price in Aggressive expansion, and Denmark found herself facing a poweful coalition that counted France and Ottomans as members .
Now Denmark had two strong allies in Castile and Hungary, so there was no fear of the coalition declaring a punitive war . But between truces and coalition members, expansion routes for Denmark were now limited. So our King decided to rest a bit, and wait for the truce with Poland to expire. And he needed to be ready to pounce on his enemy before they joined the coalition . But then a Herald arrived with news that gave King Christian a way to attack a coalition member by itself, without dragging the rest in. And that news was the declaration of war by Ottomans against the Mamluk Sultanate
A quick diplomatic check showed that Mamluks were willing to ally Denmark ( because of her military and economic might and common rivals). And that meant Denmark can be called in a defensive war againt Ottomans alone, although not as war leader. There was no doubt in King Christian's mind that the chance to fight the Ottomans while they were in a two-front war should not be passed over, and furthermore , he could not allow them to expand at will and grow stronger. And the lure of pillaging a city such as Constantinople to grow Denmark's capital was too good to resist. And to maximize the effects of said pillaging, he decided to move Denmark's capital yet again. He first considered moving to Danzig, which produced valuable Gems , was farmland, and had an important trade harbor that would allow cheaper development. But it was not very defensible compared to Sjaelland and Bornholm. And after much searching, he settled on the city of York, which was still small, but had farmland, cloth and an important trade center. All of which would make its development cheaper.
Moving the capital also moved Denmark's home trade node to the Channel. This was initially detrimental to her trade income, but not by too much . And the expectation was that this would change dramatically once Burgundy got inherited by Denmark. And in fact, it was a long term plan for the traders of Denmark to eventually move to the more lucrative Channel in any case.
With that preparatory move out of the way, envoys were sent to Cairo to conclude a formal alliance, and soon after Mamluks called Denmark for help .
Of course Denmark answered , and thus started the first war between Denmark and her arch-rival.
The strategy for Denmark was straightforward: focus all the troops on the capital of Crimea, then once that was taken march on Constantinople via Bulgaria ( Hungary gladly gave access ) . This was supposed to be easy as Denmark and her many subjects easily outnumbered the enemy who was supposed to be fighting in Syria. But when a Danish army chased the smaller Crimean army in Tyn, they were surprised by a large Ottoman force of 70 ,000 men that sprung out of nowhere. The army fought bravely but then withdrew. But that left the siege army in Crimea exposed . Not wanting the siege army - which contained the valuable artillery regiments - annihilated, the Arch King ordered the artillery to withdraw, leaving the Prussian Volunteer army accompanying them to fight a rear-guard action .
The Prussians dutifully obeyed and held their ground , expecting complete destruction. But they were rescued at the last minute by a relief force of Burgundians who arrived in the nick of time to stave off defeat.
During that sequence of battles, the Arch-King realized this could be a long fight and that more mercenary companies needed to be recruited. And so he made a concerted effort to achieve the "Mercenary Army" mission, which required Denmark to have 60 mercenary regiments, no loans and a positive budget surplus. As Denmark already had 47 regiments, only one company of 13 regiments needed to be recruited. But the King had counted the Prussian Volunteer Army as good as dead, and he ordered two companies recruited. And to prevent a negative budget, he had the fleet go on low maintenance and mothballed many forts away from the frontlines.
With that mission accomplished, DEnmark was assured a steady supply of cheap mercenary companies going forward. But it turned out that the 2 companies he recruited were more than enough to turn the tide of the war in Denmark's favor, as the Burgundians proved to be superb fighters, and the Ottomans had to divert troops to their Syrian front. And the Ottomans foolishly attacked Konigsberg as Danish forces took Crimea and then advanced on Constantinople.
But the Ottoman expedition to Prussia was taken care of by the Burgundians who defeated the enemy at Konigsberg and then chased and annihilated the retreating army. And that meant that Denmark was able to capture Constantinople without being challenged.
Danish troops then moved on to Macedonia taking Thessaloniki without difficulty . Meanwhile the Ottomans took Damascus and began the siege of Cairo , the Mamluk capital. After Denmark occupied much of the Ottoman Balkans, fighting moved back to the region east of Azov, where Danes and Swedes tried to hold off an Ottoman counter-offensive
The battles with the Ottomans were hard fought and at Circassia the Ottomans almost prevailed. Seeing how Denmark was not be able to get more easy gains, the King decided it was time for peace. The last thing he wanted was the Mamluks suddenly making peace with Ottomans and giving Denmark - who did the heavy lifting- nothing .But unfortunately, the peace negotiations did not give the choice of pillaging Constantinople or Crimea [because I am not war leader?] which was one of the main rewards touted when Denmark joined the war. So the King settled for annexing land . He chose the area of Azov, which was inhabited by Crimean culture people together with the province fo Kyzyl-Yar ( also Crimean).
Luckily, the distribution of development in that land was almost perfect for optimal concentration of development to the capital . And since York had such low development cost, there was no wastage in the transfer, with York gaining 14 development, exactly what the annexed land lost.
After concentrating development into York, all the land was given to Ryazan. Although Ryazan did not accept Crimean ( they were accepting Mishar and Kazani ), the hope was that as their diplomatic technology advanced and they became able to accept a 3rd culture [Diplo tech 8 - 1492 to 1505], they would choose Crimean. (as a sidenote, the King actually wanted to keep Azov for Denmark herself, to have a base for the trade fleet to privateer the Constantinople trade node, but since the Capital York had no land connection to Azov, this was not feasible, and he ended up giving the land to Ryazan).
One salutary effect of the peace with Ottomans was the dissolution of the coalition in the aftermath of the war. Without the strong Ottomans in the coalition, its members gave up on military containment of Denmark.
And that meant Denmark was free to expand again, particularly against Poland who had become an implacable enemy of Denmark . But the King worried about creating more aggressive expansion notoriety, a problem exacerbated by the uniform Catholicism of Europe. He asked his advisors to convene and brainstorm about how Denmark could weaken Poland without angering the rest of Europe. And they came up with two solutions.
The first solution was to take advantage of the fact that Lithuania ruled a lot of Orthodox land ( and Poland ruled Orthodox Muscovy area as well). Denmark could force the Poles to release independent Orthodox nations out of that land ( such as Chernigov, Smolensk, Polotsk and Muscovy). And Denmark would later annex these Orthodox weaklings without Catholic Europe raising a peep.
The second solution was more devious and trickier. And that was to let Hungary annex Polish land, and then one day use the favors gained in Budapest to install a Wittlesbach on that throne. There was one issue with that plan that the Arch King needed to address, which was the culture incompatibility of Poles and Hungarians. HE queried about who the Hungarians accepted already, and it was the Bosniaks, Serbs and Slovenes. Meaning they had no more free slots to accept Polish. So he had his envoys visit Budapest and surreptitiously dig into their mission archives to see if they had a mission to accept an additional culture down the line. And what they discovered was quite interesting:
The Hungarians not only had claims on Polish land ( thanks to completing the mission of conquering Moldavia), they also had potential future missions of accepting Polish culture and even turning Poland into a junior personal union partner. If Denmark could get a Wittlesbach on the Hungarian throne and then help them get that union over Poland, and all the stars aligned and Hungary kept that union, then Denmark could later sweep in and put all of those thrones into the Kalmar union. It was certainly a far-fetched plan, but worth pursuing . And to help manage it , the King had his enovys keep an eye for any mission completion by any nation, just to avoid missing things.
With those plans in mind, the Arch King declared war on Poland and of course asked his Hungarian allies, who owed him lots of favors, to join.
The balance of forces was very lopsided in Denmark's favor. And it got even more lopsided when Denmark forced Brandenburg, Poland's strongest ally, out of the war :
In the peace , Denmark had the choice of pillaging Berlin. But the King refrained from this for two reasons. First, he did not need more aggressive expansion in Germany. York could be grown out of other places ( like Russia and Asia) with less problems. Second, York was at perfect size to allow the adoption of a new institution he heard about , called Colonialism, and which he was told was right around the corner. He thought it was better to save York's unique low development cost for that purpose, and leave pillaging till later.
At that point, our archivist historian thought that the peace with Brandenburg was going to be the last notable event of the decade, but sadly it was not so. Our dear and beloved heir Frederik 5/6/2 tragically died at the young age of 35.
He left behind a precocious little girl of 4, Margrete 6/4/4. While clearly a very promising youth, her gender gave her very low legitimacy among the nobles, some of whom called for her to be disinherited. BUt her namesake and grandmother Queen Margrete absolutely forbade Christian from doing that , arguing that such a talented child will make a great ruler as an adult. She could even be Empress of the HRE one day, since the Austrians had already passed the Pragmatic Sanction. But some nobles feared that her legitimacy may affect the status of the personal unions and the vassals should something happen to our King [wiki says nothing about liberty desire and legitimacy], and there was also a chance of a Regency council as the QUeen consort was quite older than the King . The King listened to his wife and kept little Margrete as heiress. But we will let readers weigh in on that decision . And we will close the chapter with the customary view of Denmark's domain .
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Surely, to honour it's new status as the capital of Denmark, it should be called Jorvik once more...
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Aye I do, I definitely do! Atwix was my first avid commentator and slowly turned into a bit of a 'mentor' to me when I started writing AARs and I learned a bunch from him. I supported him when he switched from AAR writing to streaming but I couldn't resist remarking from time to time how he should return to AAR writing
. I too was devastated when I heard of his passing, and I actually found out through the devs' Dev Diary where they showed off the achievement to honour him. I've always wanted to get that achievement to honour him, maybe make an AAR out of the journey as well, but I've not been able to so far. Maybe after reading this I have to give it a shot...I'll be closely following this, and apparently got some catching up to do as well (Oda AAR you say
?). Subbed!- 3
Consider it done!. Although the occasion for renaming would be that Jorvik enabled a new era of viking, this time across the Atlantic.
it will be very tricky to pull off. I will do some "thinking aloud" about pitfalls in this post
1. I have to feed Hungary the 9 necessary provinces. But if I do it in one war, there will be a long truce with Poland. And I suspect the AI pops mission as soon as available, so that would eat 15 out of the 25 year duration of CB.
2 . therefore when Hungary finally gets the 9th province, they need to have a short truce with Poland (e.g feed them 8 in first war, then feed them the last one in a second war with no other peace terms). Or better yet, feed them the last needed province from Bohemia
3. Hungary may quickly lose hte union unless they have a young monarch . So I should wait till they have one before feeding them, ideally when Poland relation with them has recovered a bit.
4. Make sure I do not beat up Poland too much where someone else ( Bohemia) gobbles them, or Lithuania escapes.
5. Make sure Hungary does not get too big, so that I can still PU them without triggering a pan - European coalition ( or they decide to rival me and break alliance).
Ideally all that will happen once I have Diplomatic ideas in hand, sometime in the 1520s.
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Learning from atwix is certainly a common refrain in the comments here. I will link his famous guide now, because the run is getting close to where I will start to play the Game of Thrones as atwix was fond of calling it , once I get Diplomatic ideas (1518 or so, so 2 or 3 chapters away).
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ages-personal-unions-and-claim-throne.788829/
Sadly I could not follow him on twitch. Different timezones and my video game time is very fragmented. I often get interrupted by wife, kids and dogs. Which is why eu4 is ideal for me ( pausing makes you play better because you are still thinking about the game). And AAR writing suits my work schedule fine . I often read and reply to comments when at work and have a free moment ( but serious chapter writing is done on the game desktop at home).
welcome aboard.I'll be closely following this, and apparently got some catching up to do as well (Oda AAR you say
Since you brought up the Oda run, I will also mention the Geneva Growing Tall AAR. Both runs featured strategies that I am using with this Denmark AAR. I am expanding very fast in Europe same as Oda expanded in Asia. I think this is because when you use vassals, you are not slowed down by the coring process and over-extension maluses and drain on ADM points and rebels everywhere. And I am playing tallish similar to Geneva run where I am developing select big cities ( Sjaelland, Bornholm, York). These provinces with accepted culture, very low autonomy , and many building slots lead to a super economy because of how buildings work. So this Denmark has been more successful than I expected. When I wrote the aims of the AAR I thought conquering all Europe was going to be the hard part. Now I think keeping 10 PUs and having cultures accepted will be the main challenge.
As founding member and interim president for life of the International Cartographers Society of th World (TM), I approve of this message.
theory-crafitng extraordinaire, this Arch-King. Not something I would come up with, but makes perfectly sense all things considered.
COnfirmation bias, but somehow it always seems the AI focuses on the player.
Then the winged burgundians arrived!
you miss 100% of the shots you dont make
Funny that you mention your previos Geneva run, playing tall. The initial approach for the draft of a sketch of a maybe AAR of yours truly is a combination of diplo-tallish custom created Florence in a mega-fragmented world (running a script to release_all tags on day 1, and move from there)
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Classic AI jumpscare.
I hope the plan succeeds. Also, I didn't know there were message settings for missions. Thanks for sharing.
I don't think regencies affect unions. Keeping Margrete seems like it won't break things. But I've never played a union-heavy run like this.
Margrete is a fine name, and I am sure she will be a marvellous monarch, and who may yet put her father's memory in the shade
Just kinda curious how are you doing in the English trade node now, with those various gains?
Oh, by the way I think there is a typo here, as regards to the date:
Nice to see you still around @Tom D.
Just kinda curious how are you doing in the English trade node now, with those various gains?
Oh, by the way I think there is a typo here, as regards to the date:
mackwolfe said:
I'll be closely following this, and apparently got some catching up to do as well (Oda AAR you say
Nice to see you still around @Tom D.
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I think AI usually attacks someone they deem weaker than them ( to knock out of war). In this case I think they were going for Ryazan. However AI does not seem to take into account that vassals cannot separate peace.
So true. It is a challenge within a challenge to get the "triple Crown" in one swoop.
I love it. I think releasing all the tags will give Firenze time to grow tall, without having France or Spain or Venice breathing down their neck too soon.
I will be very curious to see if any of the released tags does surprisingly well. Many like Bulgaria will have unique ideas, but generic missions. WIll they block Ottomans? Will Iberian wedding still happen? If / when you write the AAR, please include wide shots of known world because that would be an interesting side story to follow.