Atwix Legacy with Denmark: A Multicultural European Union

[mackwolfe]

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

I think Jak is right . I decided to keep Margrete. 6/4/4 is well above average and stnylan may turn to be right. Having her at 15 rule like Christian for a long time would be wonderful. . To help her legitimacy, I will start accepting Royal Marriage proposals from the vassals ( they ding current ruler legitimacy, by 5% but help raise future annual legitimacy if I am reading the messages correctly. Since they are proposing, the marriage will not end with Chrisitan's death and Margrete's ascension).

Just kinda curious how are you doing in the English trade node now, with those various gains?

I do not have screenshot at end of chapter and I started to play next one. it is improving as I develop the capital and neighboring towns and build more ships. I am pretty sure I will have more than half of it by end of chapter.

Oh, by the way I think there is a typo here, as regards to the date:

Thank you. fixed. I did the same mistake in Oda run a couple of times. something to do with numbers.

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 7: Goodbye Marie, Hello Gallia (1500-1510)

The last chapter saw Denmark defeat the Ottomans by joining the Mamluks as a defensive ally. And we left with Denmark attacking Poland with the help of Hungary, and with the aim of releasing some Orthodox nations from Lithuania, as well as feeding Hungary land.

The war between Mamluks and Ottomans wrapped up in June 1500, with Ottomans taking North Syria.

There was no doubt that Denmark's intervention prevented an even more crushing defeat of the Mamluks, and the latter remained allies with Denmark despite losing some trust with Arch King Christian . As to the war with Poland, that was wrapped up in September of the same year, with the Arch King "generously" giving Hungary 6 provinces in South Poland and releasing Polotsk as a free nation

The peace treaty generated no aggressive expansion for Denmark. The guarantee on Polotsk was left alone as the truce was longer than the guarantee . But the Arch King intended for Polotsk to be eventually absorbed into Latgalia , who had a free culture slot that could accept Byelorussian ( he was keen on keeping some balance between his vassals, and he has already enlarged Karelia and Ryazan quite a bit ) . And of course, he took the first step towards the long-term plan of securing the "Triple Crown" of Hungary, Poland and Lithuania (the term used by the Arch King in his private memoirs that the Hungarians never saw) . He limited the Hungarian gains to 6 provinces only because he wanted to control when Hungary managed to subjugate Poland, and he preferred a time when Denmark was stronger .

After that, the Arch King paid attention to some internal affairs, of which we will note the acceptance of marriage proposals from the various vassals

The purpose of that was to help Margrete bolster her legitimacy once she assumed the throne. Then it was time to expand again, and he chose to grow East towards the Urals and Central Asia, where a competition of sorts was going on between Denmark and the Ottomans.

It was during this Kazan war that the eagerly awaited institution of Colonialism finally appeared in Lisboa .

The Arch King was waiting for this so that Denmark can develop it in the capital York and then embark on a new age of Viking, but this time towards new lands across the Atlantic. And he suspected he would have competition when Denmark got there because all the Atlantic Seaboard nations of Europe had chosen Exploration ideas.

Thanks to Christian's super skills, Denmark was able to use royal resources to quickly expand York to double its size and obtain the institution in the province. That was not enough to embrace it in the entire nation, however. And the Arch-King had to wait till neighboring provinces learned about it.

Meanwhile in international news, the Emperor suffered the ultimate humiliation at the hands of Venice, when he was forced to revoke an Imperial Reform .

People in Europe had never seen such a weak Empire. And it all started because of the suicidal war against Denmark over the low countries, followed by an opportunistic Bohemian attack.
Back to DEnmark's war with Kazan . In June 1502 peace was concluded after Danish troops could not find a way to reach Kazan's ally Chagatai, who was protected by uncharted lands.

In the peace the King took care to select provinces that would yield some benefit to the capital from concentrating development. But again, due to the size of the Capital which was recently enlarged for Colonialism, no development could be concentrated. So it was time to relocate yet again, and he moved the Capital to Scarborough next door. That was a farmland province in the same Area, so it did not affect the government capacity to administer the provinces. And after concentrating development from the new conquests, he transferred the Muscovite provinces to Karelia and the Kazani provinces to Ryazan. As for the Uralic province of Perm, he sold it back to Perm for 200 ducats.

As a result of these machinations, Scarborough grew from 5 to 16 development. And not only that, this also sped up the adoption of Colonialism in the new Capital .

But York was not forgotten . On the suggestion of history enthusiasts (@StrategyGameEnthusiast ) , it was renamed back to its Viking name of Jorvik in honor of it being the birthplace of Colonialism in Denmark .

Immediately after those events, Hungary decided to call on her ally Denmark into a war of aggression against Serbia

Serbua was allied to a strong Venice, and to Poland-Lithuania, which would have presented Hungary with a multi-front war. Arch King Christian had no choice but to accept the request, otherwise the valuable alliance would be gone and the "Triple Crown" plan would have to be abandoned. And initially the King wanted to have the vassals and Denmark hold a defensive posture only. But when the vassals did not listen to his directions and started to occupy Polish land, he sent the army all in to quickly secure all of Poland and Lithuania and prevent Hungary from annexing more lands in Poland.

And it was during that phase of the war that Colonialism got established in Scarborough, and Denmark took her first loan ever to embrace it. [this might be my first campaign with no loans until 1500s!]

And immediately that triggered the "Colonial Ambitions" mission which gave Denmark her first explorer ( Tobias Schlentz) and her first colonist , as well as the ability to recruit explorers and conquistadors.

The Arch King immediately sent Schlentz to explore the North Atlantic and the North American coast to find out which Europeans had already settled there , if any.

Meanwhile, Hungary signed a separate peace with Poland.

Since Denmark occupied all Polish lands but did not have claims on any of it, Hungary resorted to the release of Muscovy out of Poland as their condition for peace. This suited the Arch King quite well, since there was now another easy Orthodox target to capture. But as he made preparations for moving on Muscovy, he learned that Bohemia had declared war on Poland. That did not surprise him. What *did* surprise him, however, was the casus belli that Bohemia used

The young Boehmian ruler Kral Vaclav, only 24 years of age, was intent on taking the Polish Crown for himself and ruling Poland ( and by extension Lithuania) as junior partners in a personal union. This of course completely up-ended the "Triple Crown" project, but in a potentially positive way. Whereas Hungary had a tricky path to get to the Union over Poland, Bohemia was already there. As a result, the "Hungarian Triple Crown" project in Denmark morphed into the "Bohemian Triple Crown" project, especially after Bohemia agreed to an alliance ( albeit barely).

ANd immediately diplomats were sent to Prague to improve relations, and later a marriage proposal was also sent , and even favors curried. As to the chance that Bohemia would win their war against Poland, the Arch King had no doubt. Lithuania had become disloyal after the beatings Poland took at the hands of Denmark and Hungary, and Poland's other allies were weak. That meant that as long as Bohemian troops did not venture into Lithuania proper, the Poles were on their own . But the Arch King also took into account that once Bohemia won that war, they would be very powerful. ANd therefore Denmark better stay ahead of them in size. As a result, he hurried up and declared war on Muscovy and their ally Polotsk (the Hungarian guarantee of Muscovy did not matter, as Hungary and Denmark were still together in teh war against Serbia).

And as we mentioned earlier, both Polotsk and Muscovy were Orthodox, so their eventual annexation by Denmark was not going to cause aggressive expansion problems.


WHile all that went on, our intrepid explorer discovered the American Coast, and that activated the second colonial mission "Discover The New World" giving Denmark a second colonist and starting a fresh Frontier colony with 400 settlers .

And when our explorer finished mapping the American East coast, the cabinet in Scarborough was pleased to see no European presence in the region, leaving it all to Denmark.

Meanwhile the war with Polotsk and Muscoy ended with the full annexation of Muscovy and near-complete annexation of Polotsk.

Both lands were concentrated into Scarborough, which reached 21 development as a result. And both lands were to be given to vassals based on culture once Denmark was at peace. And that peace soon came about as Hungary finished her war with Serbia, gaining a lot of Balkan land from Serbia and Venice.

And like we promised, the Polotskian lands went to Latgalia and the Muscovites to Karelia. But the city of Moskva itself, which still had enough development to be pillaged yet again, was returned to Muscovy. It was at that point that a long anticipated event finally happened. Marie of Burgundy fell off her horse and died.

With the death of Marie, the Union with Burgundy ended and all of the Burgundian lands, including the low countries became core provinces of Denmark This was , of course, a huge boon to Denmark. After all, Burgundy alone would have been a great power if she were independent. Incorporating her into Denmark meant that Denmark was much larger than the next Great Power. But this inheritance presented several challenges.

First, the budget quickly ran into the red, as the combined armies of Burgundy and Denmark were well above Danish force limits and the Arch King was forced to dismiss almost all the mercenaries to make space for the integrated Burgundian troops. Second, the lands of Burgundy included 5 large cultures: Frisian, Dutch, Flemish, Walloon and Burgundian . The first three were part of the German group, and did not present a problem ( thankfully King Christian had shifted to the German group a few chapters ago, and that was paying off handsomely now). But Walloon and Burgundian were French, and Denmark had only one slot left to promote culture.

The King was advised to change the third tier government reform ( Bureaucracy) from the current choice ( Representatives of the Crown) to Decentralized Bureaucracy. That would have added 2 more cultures , which would be Burgundian and likely Francien. But that change entailed the loss of a diploamatic relatio slot, something Denmark was in need of. And also affected vassal force limit contribution, again an acute problem for Denmark after accepting all the Burgundian troops. The debate in the council went back and forth, but what finally swayed the King was the thrid problem the inheritance caused, and that was the significant incrase in government capacity well above Denmark's means to cope. Stating up Burgundy was going to make that problem worse.


So the King decided to let the BUrgundian lands go to a subject nation. And here the Client State Act [influence-mercenary policy] came to the rescue, because Denmark could not simply release Burgundy back as that would have included all the low country provinces as well. So instead of releasing Burgundy, a new Client State was created with its capital in Dijon and it was given all the full cores of Burgundy . Ad because that state was expected to eventually absorb French culture land, she was named Gallia after the Roman name of the region. And as a tribute to the now-defunct Burgundy, its color map was chosen as close as possible to the original.

And of course, as has been now customary for Denmark, all land going to vassals was first concentrated in the Capital, and that led to the growth of Scarborough to 31 development.
Now the creation of Gallia did not solve the government capacity problem. It merely prevented it from getting worse. And because the excess government capacity made aggressive expansion worse, Denmark had to refrain from more wars in Europe, until the capacity problem was alleviated by the construction of Courthouses ( which were being built as fast as possible) . So instead of waging war in Europe, Denmark shifted to waging war in America, where Penobscot became the first North American victim of EUropean aggression

While that war was waged, both Baden and Verden were annexed by Denmark.

ANd things were looking very positive for our Arch King as the decade neared its end. But then tragedy struck,

Young Margrete fell ill with a fever, and the medicus was useless , despite his exorbitant fee. She was replaced in the line of succession by another Granchild, presumably Christian II , but of average abilities. This was a clear setback for the Arch King who now had to really worry about a Regency council. And as we close the decade on this sad note, we will update the status of the war between Bohemia and Poland, where Bohemia had finally started to make progress with the elimination of Brandenburg from the conflict.

As to the status of Denmark, she is in wonderful economic shape, with solid control of the Channel Trade Node (@stnylan ) , and significant budget surplus ( all of which is going to courthouses) .

The only cloud on the horizon is the precarious succession. May our Arch King Christian live as long as his wife ( at least) .

 

[stnylan]

Now that is a cruel turn of events the game landed. Heirs can be so troublingly fragile things.

Governing Capacity must be something added since I last played, I think.

 

[Tom D.]

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).

In case you're interested, I checked yesterday and a lot of his streams are still up on both his YT and Twitch channel. Although admittedly it does feel a bit strange hearing his voice knowing he's no longer with us. But I'm def going to try and rewatch his Planescape: Torment streams, besides Atwix Legacy achievement that's one other thing I want to try and beat in his honour.

Nice to see you still around @Tom D.

My haydays are def over, but I still lurk around and read stuff from time to time. Mostly when I remember it's been a while since I logged in, or in this case, by @SibCDC pointing me towards this AAR (thanks again for that)! Now, I got some reading to catch up on

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

ANd things were looking very positive for our Arch King as the decade neared its end. But then tragedy struck,

If this was CK2, I'd be thinking that the Arch-King and Arch-Queen are sacrificing their children and grandchildren to Satan in return for longer lives...

 

[alonsom13]

I´m guessign gov cap from states is not at option?

i guess good male heirs have hunting accidents, and goo female heirs have fevers.

Since the plan is to go Protestant, accepting dutch would be important to avoid the rebellion.

And now we have Gallia in the west, and Latgalia on the east. Sudgalia when?

Good way of dealing with the Triple Crown Plan. Sadly, those favors to install dynasty on Brohemia are going to take a while.

 

[mackwolfe]

If this was CK2, I'd be thinking that the Arch-King and Arch-Queen are sacrificing their children and grandchildren to Satan in return for longer lives...

Now that is a cruel turn of events the game landed. Heirs can be so troublingly fragile things.

To see Margrete the elder make it to 76 but the younger one not see her 15th birthday is cruelty personified. Or maybe evil at work as @StrategyGameEnthusiast surmised.

One wonders if this will affect our King's view of God and the Church. Was it predestined for Margrete to die, or did they not pray hard enough?

 

[mackwolfe]

Governing Capacity must be something added since I last played, I think.

Yes, new feature. It replaced the old State numbert limit . Now each province costs government capacity , and States cost more than territories. But you can have an unlimited number of States. When I first saw this change , I did not like it ( and still think the old system made for more important decisions). But now I have gotten used to it and know how to handle it ( basically get rich and spam courthouses and then state houses)

I´m guessign gov cap from states is not at option?

Not sure what you meant. State Houses are still 2 techs away ( tech 12) . I am spamming courthouses. I do not want to de-state any provinces because of money loss, also beause cultures do not get counted in interface if they are in a territory , so I will have to count them manually (conveniently , overseas trade company provinces such as I hope to have in Africa will not count in the accepted-unaccpeted culture interface)

 

[mackwolfe]

Since the plan is to go Protestant, accepting dutch would be important to avoid the rebellion.

About that. The next 10 years will certainly see the reformation spawn ( Reform desire is at 98%) . I still think Protestant is better bonuses and role-play wise. But Denmark is much larger at this point than I anticipated with important alliances with countries likely to stay Catholic (Castile, Hungary) . So not sure what is best choice .

Either way the Reformation will be very painful with a large country in an area where Centers of Reformation will spawn , and with neither Humanist nor Religious ideas taken

I will be doing some research on Religious Turmoil disaster, the Counter Reformation, and reviewing Denmark branching mission tree before I start playing next chapter.

Good way of dealing with the Triple Crown Plan. Sadly, those favors to install dynasty on Brohemia are going to take a while.

Yes , better stay much bigger than Bohemia. But as long as they keep their union and do not inherit/integrate Poland and Lithuania ( 50 years), and I keep the marriage with them, I will have time. But I have a feeling I will be clashing with Bohemia because I think they will go for HRE title ( unless they convert) . Time will tell

 

[alonsom13]

My bad. I was refering to the Estate land rights privilege, for clergy, nobility and burghers, that gives +100 gov cap each in exchange of crown land.

In my runs, Bohemia likes to go Protestant, so the triple crown plan BPL can tip the balance for religion decision.
If they do, League war can be messy, specially with a weak emperor. Unless they become HRE before the reformation. And with that weak Austria...
Lots of research and some RNG in the horizon.

 

[mackwolfe]

My bad. I was refering to the Estate land rights privilege, for clergy, nobility and burghers, that gives +100 gov cap each in exchange of crown land.

Estates are currently full, and I hate losing the crown land

but it is an option .

 

[mackwolfe]

In my runs, Bohemia likes to go Protestant, so the triple crown plan BPL can tip the balance for religion decision.

That , and where Reformation spawns may tip my decision. I just did a deep analysis of relgious turmoil and Danish missions . Here's what I found:



First of all, I do not think I can avoid the Religious Turmoil Disaster, although that would hit in the 1520s ( needs Age of Reformation to start, which is 10 years from spawning reformation)

The only way I can avoid the disaster is by completing Humanist Ideas. I think Diplomatic Ideas are much more useful for my run.


Once the disaster hits, I will have an important choice: go tolerant or intolerant.

I favor tolerant because, eventually, we will take Humanist ideas ( as 4th group) and the increased heretic tolerance will help with religious unity . Also role play. The big downside is the huge Stab Cost hit. That will make breaking truces after claim throne super expensive . So other means of getting stability ( e.g advisors, being Catholic with a large nation) become important. Also the events one gets from tolerant seem better than the intolerant choice

As to how the disaster ends, I doubt I will be able to get unity up and I may just live with it for 25 years

So I think the Religious Turmoil disaster is not as bad as it sounds. Heck I can use it to max out Burghers influence to 100% since you cannot have two disasters at same time




Ok , next let's look at Denmark mission branch for religion . Denmark gets a choice between Catholic Missions, Protesant Missions and Humanist Missions. The branch gets chosen by completion of the "Age of Reformation" mission. That mission needs age of Reformation ( so 1520s) and either have Denmark activate HUmanist ideas, or be Protestant. Otherwise, will need to wait till Catholic Counter-reformation begins ( which can be a while).

The event from teh mission branch will allow Denmark to convert , but there is no point in using that event to convert because that causes a big relations hit with the other denominations. Taking HUmanist branch causes a relation hit with all Europeans, but at a small level that can quickly be decayed away ( especially with Diplomatic ideas active).


As to the branches themselves, the rewards are nice but not game-altering.

Catholic gives a lot of Papal Influence and big opinion boosts with Catholics and some mana boosts. But unlocking those missions needs a uniformly Catholic Scandinavia Region, which may be tricky to do since I will not directly own Scandinavia. Especially if Sweden goes Protestant

Protestant gives equivalent bonuses to Catholic ( fervor or church power , trust with non catholics and monarch mana skills ). Unlocking the missions faces same issues of uniformly non-Catholic Scandinavia

That leaves Humanist missions, my preferred choice for role play

So I almost certainly will have Denmark go the Humanist missions . BUt again the bonuses are not earth-shattering , so no need to change strategy to get missions.

Ok, so after this deep analysis , where are we left?

First, I think I should ignore the branching missions for a while. The starting event to pick a branch gives negative opinions no matter the choice , so no reward there and I should leave it alone till I have my 4th idea group. Then pick HUmanist branch.


Second, the religious turmoil disaster ain't as bad as I thought because I can easily handle rebels.

Third, bonuses between catholic and Protestant are fairly balanced ( stability is a big bonus for catholics, Protestant more flexible) . I guess a lot depends on where reformation spawns. If 1st Center in Italy, maybe I stay Catholic. But if first center in North Germany, I will flip. The increased zeal in first 10 years can help me convert the really big provinces first, so I can have some semblance of unity going forward.

There is a good chance I think Bohemia and Hungary end up on opposite sides of religious divide. And somehow I will need to remain friendly with both.

 

[jak7139]

It is sad that the game always targets the good heirs. But the new Cristian is not bad. He just needs to live long enough.

Religious Turmoil really isn't a bad disaster if you go the tolerant option. And you can boost stab manually with admin since you are not coring much.

I didn't realize the Reformation would be such a big hurdle this campaign. Probably best to wait on completing the mission until you have humanist ideas and have seen where the centers have spawned.

 

[mackwolfe]

It is sad that the game always targets the good heirs. But the new Cristian is not bad. He just needs to live long enough.

Religious Turmoil really isn't a bad disaster if you go the tolerant option. And you can boost stab manually with admin since you are not coring much.

I didn't realize the Reformation would be such a big hurdle this campaign. Probably best to wait on completing the mission until you have humanist ideas and have seen where the centers have spawned.

Agree regarding religion.

BTW I just realized that I made the Iron Price achievement practically unachievable now. Not only is my primary culture not Danish anymore , but culture converting a place like Scarborough is 270 DIP now.

 

[Steckie]

That , and where Reformation spawns may tip my decision. I just did a deep analysis of relgious turmoil and Danish missions . Here's what I found:

This all seems too complicated, just keep it simple and convert to Hussite.

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 8: Long Lives The Emperor (1510-1520)

(note: title is grammatically correct)

The highlight of the last Chapter was the incorporation of the Burgundian Low Countries into Denmark proper. As a result, Denmark had significant government capacity shortage and wars in Europe were being avoided until that got resolved by the construction of Courthouses. But war with American Natives, where aggressive expansion did not matter much as they were weak, continued. But the first notable event of the new decade was the conclusion of the Bohemian war on Poland ended with a resounding Bohemian victory

The Bohemian King became ruler of Poland *and* Lithuania as well, with the Lithuanians being already loyal to him . This news was viewed with cautious optimist in Denmark, were the secret project of gaining the Tiple BPL Crown was being pursued, and with a diplomat already at work currying favors in Prague. And the reason we say "cautious" is that Bohemia could become a potential rival to Denmark with such power at her disposal, with a potential clash over the Baltic coastline. But with a royal marriage, alliance and improved relations the Bohemia opinion of Denmark was still quite positive.

More important international news followed on the heels of this event with a declaration of war by the Ottomans against Venice and Castile who was defender of the Catholic faith.

The Arch-King saw this as an opportunity for another war against the Ottomans, but first he needed to do some internal house-keeping that required Denmark to be at peace. So he ordered the war in America to be hurried up. And then he had to mourn the passing of his beloved Queen Margarete , just as news reached him that his Norwegian subjects had been successfully colonizing in South America.

He then managed passage of the Elite Mercenary government reform, favoring it over the General Commissariat preferred by the Prussian nobility ( while our Arch King adopted Prussian culture, he had no intention of becoming a Prussian militarized state as that would destroy the unique Kalmar Union government he had worked so hard to ratify ) .

The focus on mercenaries, coupled with previous missions focusing also on mercenaries and the Danish national idea of "the King's Army" meant he could recruit mercenary companies at a steep discount ( although, temporarily , mercenary maintenance costs was high due to unfortunate events that we did not detail earlier) .

While all these internal things were taken care of, the Arch King was closely paying attention to the completion of Denmark's first colony in the new World, in a province with an unpronounceable native name (Peskotomuhkati) . That province was promptly renamed to the easier Margreta in honor of the late Queen .

And the importance of Margreta becoming a city was the ability to annex 3 coastal provinces from the Penobscot and their allies , cities that were otherwise too far from Denmark's core provinces. That quickly raised the total number of provinces in the New World to 4 ( of course the new provinces had to be cored first, but that was much faster than settling a new colony).

The Arch King annexed all 3 in one peace treaty to save on envoy travel time, given distances to the New World . You see, Christian was eager to have Denmark at peace because it was time to move the capital again as he was sitting on a lot of administrative power, and he was about to embark on a possibly long war with Ottomans. The main reason to move the capital was that Scarborough has grown a lot and pillaging was becoming unprofitable again. But he also heard rumblings that Dutch people were going to rebel in the future if they were ruled by someone who was not Dutch, unless the capital was in Dutch land. And since his heir Christian was not known for his administrative skills, the Arch King thought doing the move now was better than leaving it for later, when administrative power may be in short supply.

After surveying all the Low Countries, he settled on Zeeland as a province that was currently small in size, but could be grown due to its grassland topography, and was not on the border. And so at the exorbitant cost of 385 administrative power, he moved the Capital for the last time in his reign ( making a full circle from Danish Zealand to Dutch Zealand) . And of course, prior to moving the Capital to Zeeland, he had to remove it from the Holy Roman Empire . But since he did not care what the Austrians thought, he went ahead and removed all other HRE provinces as well.

Our energetic King was then preparing for war against the Turks, when a Leinster diplomatic party arrived in the new capital with a royal marriage proposal, presumably to betroth young prince Frederik to one of their own. But the Arch King took a fancy to young princess Siofra Tudor, and took her for himself, ending his widower status . Margrete was now just a memory ( at least she got a province named after her in America!).

Our indefatigable King celebrated his nuptials with a declaration of war on the Ottoman Sultan , just as the latter's armies had reached the border of Venice.

For the war, Denmark called on her faithful ally Hungary who gladly obliged, not realizing that the brunt of the fighting would happen on their land given the location of the Turkish hosts. But the war actually started badly for the Danes, as they tried to lift the siege of Giurgi in Wallachia, only to be surprised ( again) by a lurking Ottoman army

The Danes had to withdraw, allowing the Ottomans to invade Hungary proper. But the allies did better on teh Eastern front, winning at Abkhazia and Adyghe.

And the Arch King thought about diverting armies from that front to help the beleaguered Hungarians, but then the Hungarians did something that pissed him off:

They kept the occupation of Crimea after that fortified city fell. Even though it was Danish artillery and siege generalship that hastened the fall of the city . This was very aggravating, because Crimea was the main province he was after , hoping to annex it to Ryazan ( who now accepted Crimean culture). Having it in Hungarian hands was unacceptable. And so Christian decided to leave the Hungarians to face the Ottomans with minimal assistance only, hoping they exit the war in a separate peace to allow Denmark to take Crimea again. And instead ordered the armies to push deeper into Anatolia.

Meanwhile he was having a good time with young princess Siofra who bore him another child, proving he still got it at 63. Also, thanks to his military skills, Danish siege armies were barraging all Turkish forts, swiftly advancing towards the Bosporus from the East.

The Danes reached the eastern side of Marmara in Spring 1514. But that news was overshadowed by the first crack in the monolithic Catholic block that was Europe.

The tiny free state of Ulm had gone Protestant, stopped recognizing Papal Authority, and became a center to spread the new Protestant faith in South Germany . The Arch-King followed that with interest, wondering who else may soon join Ulm ( Denmark, being at war, did not have a choice ). And he actually ended up waiting a while before that happened. And so the more important news for Denmark was the ascension of a new King of Bohemia, Otakar I Kinsy, who managed to retain the Crowns of Poland and Lithuania.

The new King did not have any heirs. The possibility that a Wittlesbach could be made into an heir was pursued, but alas Denmark did not have enough favors with the court in Prague to make that happen . Meanwhile, the Ottomans carried a counteroffensive against Danish armies in Anatolia, managing to defeat them at Karasi.
The Ottomans followed that by signing a separate peace with Venice, freeing up their troops in the Balkans. They then quickly wheeled those troops around and defeated the Hungarian army at Vidin. Meanwhile their victorious army from the Battle of Karasi pursued the retreating Danes to Syria, where a Tlemcen army was advancing Norh from Palestine.

Seeing those Ottoman successes, some of the Arch King' advisors recommended signing a peace while Denmark was ahead. But a quick look at the ledger of forces convinced the King that Denmark could easily win a war of attrition against the Ottomans who were out of manpower. Orders for recruitment of the Grand Company in Eastern Anatolia were sent out, and a new solid front formed there, anchored on the Grand Company and the Swedish Army ( which had finally captured Gazikumukh's capital and was available for combat).
Advancing with 3 full stacks , the Danish-Swedish front intimidated the enemy who abandoned any attempts at recovering their forts in Syria. Meanwhile, another Danish army had traveled around the Black Sea and captured Constantinople after a long siege.

Around that time, Denmark hit another milestone in her development. Flush with administrative resources, the Arch King ordered the upgrade of Denmark's administrative technology 3 years ahead of schedule. And that meant Denmark was able to begin researching another idea group and, as promised, the Arch King chose Diplomatic ideas.

The following year, Hungary exited the war with a White Peace with Ottomans.

Arch King Christian welcomed this development for two reasons. First, it improved the war score situation vis a vis the Ottomans who still occupied some Hungarian land, which was not returned. Second, the Hungarian occupation of Crimea was no more, allowing Denmark to take that city . All our Arch King had to do now was force the Ottomans into an unconditional surrender . And for that he needed to get their allies in North Africa out of the war . So an army was sent under Olaf Skram to help the Gallians clear out small Ottoman, Tlemceni and Tunisian stacks that ventured deep into France to lay siege to Dijon.

And then he had the fleet sail from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and blockade the North African Coast . Fleet basing rights were obtained from Castile because the fleet would have been outside the supply range otherwise. The blockades turned out to be enough to get honorable peace treaties with the North Africans, and soon after it was the Ottoman's turn to negotiate.

The first order of business for the Arch King was repaying all the debt accumulated to adopt Colonialism and fund the war . He then annexed as much land as possible. Because Denmark lacked cores on the Black Sea, she could only annex land adjacent to her vassal Ryazan. So Denmark took the entire Crimean peninsula as well as few other provinces. All development was then concentrated into Zeeland ( a total of 11 ) . And as a result of the annexation, Denmark exceeded 1000 Development and Arch King Christian proclaimed himself Emperor .

Tow immediate benefits of that decision were making German a cultural union for Denmark , improving the productivity of all the Burgundian Low Countries. Second, the government capacity of the realm grew more , which, together with Courthouses that had been constructed already, largely solved the capacity shortage.


The Emperor then allocated the annexed provinces according to their culture. The two Crimean culture provinces were given to Ryazan. But the Pontic and Gothic provinces ( part of the Greek group) were turned into the new client state of Pontus , based out of Caffa.

And he intended for Pontus to eventually grow to include Turkish and Greek land around the sea of Marmara . And to allow the eventual annexation of said land in a future war, Denmark kept for herself the province of Abkhazia in Georgia, which would be turned into a fleet base to allow privateering of the Constantinople node in the future.


And seeing how he was advancing in age, our Emperor did some housekeeping to try to keep the Personal Union with the Palatinate a union, and avoid Denmark inheriting it on his death [usually you want to inherit but for achievement, we do not ]. And so he enlarged the palatinate by the 2 provinces of DUrlach and Baden, previously obtained by diplo-annexing Baden.

With those issues taken care of, attention was turned towards the New World again, where the diplomats had already obtained claims on Abenaki land ( one of the benefits of Diplomatic ideas was an abundance of diplomats now ).

That war was fairly easy for Denmark who was technologically far ahead of the natives, and quickly won the battles and sieges. ANd of the 4 enemy nations, three could be annexed thanks to having neighboring colonies or being coastal provinces .

The annexation of the new provinces brought the total number of provinces in the New World to 10, completing the Colonize America mission. But the Emperor delayed the announcement of the completion because that would give Denmark claims on Caribbean land owned by her ally Castile, and there was no good reason to antagonize that ally .

Now having covered events in the Middle East and the New World , we should back track a bit to events in Europe. As mentioned earlier, the Reformation began in Ulm and for a while it id not spread. But then in the following years the Free City of Bremen and the Merchant Republic of Lubeck both switched to the new faith, and established centers of Reformation within their lands

Most notably for Denmark , neither her largest subject ( Sweden), nor her largest ally ( Bohemia) converted, and Europe pretty much remained solidly Catholic except for the North German coast. The Emperor considered this a benefit to Denmark, because Denmark had a mission to expand into the lands of the Hansa , but she had refrained from doing that due to the aggressive expansion problem. But now with north Germany turning heretic while the rest of Europe remained Catholic, Denmark could get away with more aggressiveness. And the Emperor was keen on expanding in North Germany soon because Bohemia had been growing quickly since the establishment of the Personal Unions over Poland and Lithuania.

Denmark needed to secure the German Baltic and North Sea coasts before Bohemia got there. And the Emperor began assembling the necessary forces to invade North Germany. During that time, his much younger wife Siofra passed away, leaving him a widower yet again.

But that did not slow down our still-vigorous Emperor. After assembling the troops, he ordered embargoes on all the Hanseatic cities ( Bremen, Hamburg, Lubeck and Stralsund (owned by Pomerania)) . He did that because ever since Denmark completed the "Humiliate Lubeck" mission, the cities of the Hansa had committed to attacking Denmark in case of an embargo . And now that two of those cities were Protestant, the Emperor decided to trigger that conflict.

And so on May 1 1519, Emperor Christian dared the Hanseatic cities to declare war or submit to Denmark's trade dominance. The cities replied with four declarations of war

Since Denmark was the defender, she was able to call on her very powerful allies ( Hungary, Bohemia , Castile) , and the two sides were very unbalanced. Needless to say, the outcome of the wars was a foregone conclusion. The only challenge for Denmark was making sure they got to all the important provinces ( the trade centers and estuaries) before Bohemian troops did . And thanks to pre-positioning of troops in Holstein and Stade, Denmark was able to immediately invest the cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Lubeck. And another army quickly advanced from Danzig to besiege Stettin

The only city that was in doubt was Stralsund which was protected by the forts of Stettin and Hamburg. But luckily for Denmark, Stettin fell after 51 day siege only ( helped by naval blockade, but still lucky). And immediately Danish troops moved to Stralsund while the vanguard Bohemian army was still busy occupying the unfortified province of Uckermark.

For there on out the war was a simple matter of Denmark maintaining the sieges while her subjects and allies took care of the enemy forces. The first war to finish was with Pomerania who was forced to cede Stralsund to Denmark.

Since Pomerania was still catholic ( although the province itself was Protestant), there was some aggressive expansion issues with the nations of North Germany. The next peace was with Protestant Lubeck

Here Denmark took 2 rich provinces, but thanks to Lubeck being a different denomination than the rest of North Germany, there was much less aggressive expansion than one would have expected. And of course the most important nation in Germany ( Bohemia), was allied to Denmark and so cared even less about those annexations. And as the decade ended, Denmark was still at war with Catholic Hamburg and Protestant Bremen. But both nations should be fully annexed in short order. And so we close with the customary view of Denmark's ever growing domain under her 70 year old young Emperor Christian.

 

[mackwolfe]

Three points I want to quickly bring up.

1) RNG. I have been very lucky that my 6/5/6 ruler has reigned from 15 to (at least) 70. Great stats during one of the most crucial periods of the game ( when you fill 2 idea groups simultaneously and tech is so important and you have to Dev for Colonialism). He outlived 2 wives and 2 heirs. I will never, ever complain about RNG the rest of this campaign. My heirs can die hunting, fall on stairs or fall ill and I will not raise a peep.

2) Client States. With Burgundy I had to create Gallia but with Pontus I could have released Theodoro or Georgia. I chose a client state for 2 reasons. One, they start with my dynasty. So if I have to turn them into a PU later on, I have one step already done. Second, they are more loyal by 25% . That would mean 100 more Dev for same liberty desire ( you get 0.25 LD per Dev normally). But since I had stacked modifiers to reduce LD from development ( Danish Absolutism mission and Influence idea 7), that actually equals 25/(0.25 * 0.65)= 153 more Dev per vassal.

3) Catholic vs Protestant. Having now seen where Protestant spawned ( not Sweden) , I think I am better off staying Catholic. Especially if Bohemia remains Catholic. Because there is a good chance one of my three big allies will become Defender of the Faith , which means I will have to fight them if I attack any Catholic nation ( e.g England unless they go Anglican, or France).

But I will not try to snuff out the Centers of Reformation in Lubeck and Bremen ( which I will own after the Hansa wars). I need a religiously fragmented Germany so that I can expand in it with less AE.

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

He wants to make sure his dynasty is as strong as it can possibly be...

Meanwhile he was having a good time with young princess Siofra who bore him another child, proving he still got it at 63.

If this was CK (or Project Caesar definitely not EU5) it would be interesting to see the family tree.

During that time, his much younger wife Siofra passed away, leaving him a widower yet again.

Could have been childbirth or something related to it.

 

[stnylan]

He's certainly doing very well for himself, King Christian.

That was very rude of the Hungarians. One can only hope the Ottomans taught them their lesson well - taketh not that which Denmark hath already chosen.

 

[alonsom13]

During that time, his much younger wife Siofra passed away, leaving him a widower yet again.

I am more and more convinced that we have a vampire bloodline

Since Denmark was the defender, she was able to call on her very powerful allies ( Hungary, Bohemia , Castile) , and the two sides were very unbalanced.

only a little bit

Agreed with great RNG, but also played well the cards. Triggering the defensive trade war was well done.
And with such a (in theory) weak reformation, I believe the triple BPL could be done easy(ish). Those curried favors should bare fruit. Unless you have my luck and have the imposed heir being disinherited and waste the favors.
No coalition in sight, but could still preemptibly use a merchant in Lubeck node to stablish communities, and improve the AE decay, before embarquing in more wars in northern germAEny.
Good progress, my concern is that migthy ULM went protestant, hope we are not doomed...