Atwix Legacy with Denmark: A Multicultural European Union

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 20: The Heresy of Niels Wittelsbach (1620-1630)

As for Niels - heresy!

Prophetic words, as it turned out.

Starting with his unusual name, Niels Wittelsbach had always been a rule breaker. As a child he often disobeyed the rules of the Church , earning him the trait of Sinner at the age of 15. But his reputation as an iconoclast was really cemented in the tumultuous decade of the 1620s when he broke from the traditions of his predecessors and took many actions that did not make any sense to his contemporaries. Many thought the good Emperor was incompetent at best, or was actively sabotaging his father's legacy at worst . But before we get to those actions, we will take a peek at the plans of his father, Frederik the Impatient, whose archivist left a blueprint for the future of Denmark.

The map in Frederik's archives , drawn just before his untimely death in July 1619, had Europe split between Denmark , her 10 Personal Unions, and 4 direct vassals . Each culture group was represented by one subject generally, with a few like the British and Carpathian groups split among neighbors. With that map, nearly every province in Europe had a culture accepted by its ruler. That map was going to be the blueprint for the next few decades. And the archivist even had a title picked for the final chapter in the Saga, to be called "Ten Crowns To Bind Them" .

But then Frederik choked on his meal, and along came Niels and up-ended all that.

At first, Niels continued the policy of his father. He began the annexation of Brunswick ( who was placed on Scutage earlier for that purpose) in October 1620 and then concluded peace with Two Sicilies.

In the peace, he had Two Sicilies return cores to Sicily which improved relations with the new junior Union partner. And he also had Denmark give Sicily several provinces in the boot of Italy .
So far, so good. But then, instead of waiting for aggressive expansion with Saxony to decay like he discussed with his father's advisors in the last chapter, he promptly declared war for the Restoration of Union .

Saxony was allied to Wurttemberg. And Niels took advantage of that to make another surprising move

He pretended to lose the war to Wurttemberg and had them ratify the end of Denmark's overlordship over Italia, Liguria and Parma. His advisors had previously thought these tiny nations could be easily annexed into Denmark and then given to Sicily . But Niels apparently had other plans.

And then he really surprised his advisors when Denmark researched National Sovereignty in January 1622 and unlocked another idea group. And Niels chose.....Expansion Ideas.

( I guess @MatthewP was not one of the surprised advisors )

That generated howls of laughter from the people. "The entire world has already been colonized!" everyone said. French California and English Alaska were a thing already . Only a few desolate provinces here and there were left open. And Niels promptly chose one of the coldest and farthest away, and sent his colonist to Ahiarmut in Colonial Canada

A few months later, Saxony accepted peace terms, and returned to Denmark's fold

With Saxony a personal Union, Denmark now had 10 Personal unions, and Niels had finally achieved the dream of his fathers, the achievement of Atwix Legacy

But instead of celebrating that great milestone with pomp and circumstance, Niels did another seemingly crazy deed: he liberated Vinland

And he followed that with another harebrained decision: he voluntarily ended the personal union with Provence. His advisors were taken aback. Denmark was already in the process of annexing Gallia, with the plan to feed the Gallian provinces ( Burgundian culture) to the French culture subject Provence. But now Provence was free and therefore Denmark would own Burgundian land directly ( again!).

After that , Niels did something that finally made sense to his entourage. He declared war on England, with the aim of solidifying Danish control of the channel node

ANd he followed it with another war previously contemplated by his father. And that was against the Ottomans for reconquest of Georgia's cores.

Because of the simultaneous wars, the fighting was a bit tough for Denmark. But eventually the enemy belligerents began to be peaced one by one. Hungary was made to pay money and did not lose land. Mann, Strasbourg and Tirol were made to give up alliances to shore up Danish prestige lost from the release of the Italian minors ( some advisors wondered why places like Mann were not annexed, but others figured it was to keep Mann as a Prestige farm in the future). And finally Portugal, who put up a lot of fighting in the colonies, was made to give up land.

Denmark took just 3 provinces from Portugal (advisors wanted to continue the war and take more, but Niels told them "I have what I need") . One province , Cartagena in SOuth America, made sense . It was home to the Great Project of Cartagena De Las Indias which promised to enhance the trade power of Denmark's fleets. But the other two, Madeira and Azores, were tiny islands out in the Atlantic. But the advisors, now used to the eccentric Emperor, did not ask why those two and simply rolled their eyes. As for England herself, she was made to cede all her coastal provinces in Britain, as well as Boriken in the Caribbean and Epagoitgnag in Canada. That effectively turned England into a landlocked nation ( unless she had colonies that escaped detection)

This was followed by peace with the Ottomans

THe Turks were made to return Georgia's cores to her, enhancing her relation with Denmark. They were also made to cede a swath of land North of the Caucasus of Astrakhani culture, which was given to Georgia as well .

Denmark was now at peace again. And having gotten rid of the Italian minor vassals as well as Provence, and having annexed Brunswick ( and almost on the verge of annexing Gallia), she found herself with a luxury she has not enjoyed in a long time: she was under the diplomatic relations limit.

And the Emperor took advantage of that to create Denmark's newest subject, the Client State of Pangea , based out of Madeira and the Azores ( h/t @alonsom13 for the name). He chose that name to reflect his dream of a WorldWide Union, in whose formation the new Client State of Pangea was intended to play an important role.

And then he proclaimed his intention for Danish World Wide domination by proclaiming Denmark as the Naval Hegemon .

And to show the world he meant business, the newly proclaimed Hegemon declared war on the African nation of Benin, allied to Kongo.

That war turned out to be harder than anticipated because Kongo was militarily on par with Denmark [both tech 18]. And Denmark had to scramble some more mercenary companies to Africa to eventually win the war, but win she did. But while that fighting went on, we will note internal affairs, most important of which was the completion of Gallia's annexation and the promotion of BUrgundian to accepted culture status, using one of the few slots Denmark had left at that time.

ANd on the external front, the colony of Atwixia suffered back to back defeats at the hands of the natives and then the Canadians ( formerly Vinland). To which Niels, to the dismay of his advisors, responded with a shrug and jut the word "Good!" .

And like all other rulers, Niels had his share of good and bad events

Eventually the war with Benin and Kongo reached its conclusion with the enemies defeated completely. First Kongo was made to sign peace, losing only the Kongolese culture provinces to DEnmark, and one province to Pangea

Although Denmark could have taken more land, Emperor Niels insisted that only Kongolese land be taken , and that Pangea be given one province. His diplomats dutifully followed his wishes even though many of them did not understand why. He then had a similar peace signed with Benin and her ally

Again he limited gains by culture lines ( only Yoruba and Nupe culture land was annexed) and one province went to Pangea.

Once Denmark was at peace, he used up the last diplomatic slots available on two new nations: Nigeria, based out of Ife near the Niger River Delta, and Sudafrica, based out of Kongo's old capital of Mpemba

Both new capitals were purposely located inland, and not in the Ivory trade node to avoid having them compete with Denmark in the crucial node.
Then Emperor Niels declared he was going to expand Sudafrica by declaring war on France , allied to Kilwa

Denmark took advantage of the fact that many armies were already in Africa at the end of the Benin and Kongo war, so occupying Kilwa and French South Africa was easy. And France itself easily succumed to Denmark's onslaught assisted by her powerful personal unions in Europe. The decisive battle on that front was fought at Paris, where the French army almost defeated the combined mercenary companies of DEnmark, only to have a late arrival by the Saxon forces save the day for the Danes.

After that France and her allies were quickly overrun. But Emperor Neils did not get to enjoy the fruits of that victory. For on November 6, 1628 Niels II the "heretic" died of uknown causes.

He had reigned just shy of 10 years. But his brief reign was monumental in changing the direction of our history and the future of Denmark. As a result of his early death, Saxony broke away again from Denmark and became independent. And his capable wife, Dorothea 6/6/1 took over. Judging from her actions, she seemed to have been aware of his long term plans. For as soon as the colony at Ahiarmiut in Canada completed, she had the colonists dig up the famed Inukshuk monument and refurbished it to Noteworthy status , before shipping it off to Zeeland.

ANd thanks the additional accepted culture given by the monument, Francien was promoted to equal status with Denmark's all other accepted cultures (Denmark already owned Picardie, which was Francien) .

Soon after,more of Niels' plans were implemented by his widow as peace was made with Kilwa then France.

From Kilwa, Denmark took the Mutapa gold mines as well as nearby connecting provinces. The Mutapa lands were Shona culture while the others were Swahili cultures ( former colonies of KIlwa). From France , Denmark took the state of Ile De France with its 4 rich provinces , as well as all of French South Africa, along with a smattering of Francien culture colonies in the Atlantic ( Fernando Po and St Helena), Indian ocean (Hollahavai, Mauritius, Bourbon) and the Spice Islands ( Ceram and Halmahera). The South African annexation was then divvied up between Denmark - who kept the Francien provinces - and Sudafrica, who got the Ngeni, Shona and Swahili cultures.

The decade was almost over. But Niels' widow had time to start one last war , against former Junior Partner Provence.

Provence was allied to Gascony, and Denmark hoped to get land from both nations and give to her subjects Sicily and Spain . But that will be , God-Willing, in the next chapter.

We end with Denmark's dominion, drastically changed in the short reign of Niels II v Wittelsbach.

---

FOOTNOTES:

I normally explain my thought process in the narrative, but I avoided that in this chapter to maintain the narrative of Niels Wittelsbach doing unusual things. So here are teh explanations in gamespeak for some of those actions :


1. Declare on Saxony early - get Atwix achievement out of way , because I knew I will be releasing Provence to cull the number of PUs.

2. free the tiny Italian vassals instead of annexing them - save DIP slots and diplo points . Sicily will conquer later, after it was fed South France . we do not want sicily to waste culture acceptance slots on same group cultures.

3 . liberate Vinland - I war worried that the moment I get Ahiarwiut completed , Vinland takes the proince and I will not be able to move the monument. So I played it safe and let them go. Also, abandoning Vinland will let me get more CNs later on in same colonial region
.
4 . free Provence. DEnmark already accepted Walloon and Norman . Add Burgundian and Francien, and that leaves only 3 French cultures not accepted (Breton, Gascon, Occitan). Those are better split among other subjects instead of wasting a slot on a French culture subject. Now I could have integrated Provence, but why pay DIP to then give it to my vassal, instead of conquering and have vassal spend ADM to core it.

5. Expansion ideas. @MatthewP guessed correctly. It is to lower LD via policies.

6.why Azores and Madiera. THey are in Europe, so I can create a Client State. Importantly , Madeira was in coring range ( 525 colonial ) to the Benin province ( I measured by loading up a new game and creating a custom nation in Madeira, then using colonial map to Estimate). And Azores is in coring range to the New World. I hope to use that feature in later chapters.

7. Why not take more land from Portugal? Besides being a non co-belligerent , I do not want to give Spain more portuguese land so they do not waste their next culture slot on Portugal, instead of spending it on Gascony.

8 why client states and not regular subjects? More loyal, will have Humanist ideas so more culture spots. Religion could allow to turn them into PUs if keeping them in line becomes harder.


7 Atwixia losing land - A lot of unaccepted cultures in America with Atwixia. Starting fresh with new nations in the Eastern USA ( by feeding Europe based vassals land) will give more merchants and more cultural homogeneity

8. WHy annexed only Kongolese land from Kongo, only Yoruba+Nupe land from Benin? Since I want to have as much culturally accepted provinces in the world, and I cannot have an infinite number of vassals, I need to maximize the culture acceptance slots they have. The best way to do that is create the vassal in a culture group with many small cultures, but restrict them to just one culture in the group. Then expand that vassal into a neighboring group with bigger but fewer cultures. Once all the acceptance slots are full with neighbor culture, we can feed the vassal the same group cultures. This way AI does not waste slots on same group cultures ( like Spain did with Catalan, Leonese etc) . I began to implement this in case of Sudafrica by growing them into neighboring groups ( Shona, Swahili, Nguni) .

9 why one province to Pangea from Benin and Kongo ? This is a workaround to being unable to create client states in other continents. Since you can create a client state next to an existing one, I just "seeded" the Benin area with a single Pangea province ( via transfer occupation) . That allowed creation of Nigeria. Similiary in Kongo region for Sudafrica. Going forward , I can similarly use Sudafrica to seed a client state in say, Arabia or India ( once they have coring range there) .

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 20: The Client State Chain (1630-1640)

The last chapter saw a dramatic shift in Denmark's strategy , with Niels "the Mad" setting up the nation on a new path towards world domination. We left with Denmark at war with former junior Union partner Provence. And speaking of previous partners, Ethiopia soon called Denmark for a war on Adal and Kilwa.

With Sudafrica currently coring provinces that belonged to Kilwa , Denmark did not want to get into an inconvenient war, and so the Regent declined the call ( but kept the marriage, just in case a "natural" personal union happened with Ethiopia eventually). After that , Denmark made peace with Gascony and then Provence.

Two Gascon provinces were given to Spain , who did not accept Gascon yet, but hopefully would eventually ( as of 1640, Gascon was still not accepted in Spain ). And many Provencal land went to Sicily, who - having many of their culture slots still available- accepted Occitan as fast as they cored and stated the land.

Continuing the consolidation of Danish control over the France region, the next war was declared on Brittany

The main target of the war however, was not Brittany herself, but rather her Colonial Nation of Breton Canada which had formed in the island of Newfoundland. Since Brittany could be annexed in a single war, Denmark stood to acquire Breton Canada for herself, to replace the lost colony of Vinland. And , speaking of Vinland ( now Canada), Denmark decided it was time to reclaim some of her own land from the former subject.

Denmark had a lot of cores to reconquer for Atwixia. But that was just a convenient casus belli, and the Regent - following Niels' plans - had no intention of actually giving Atwixia anything. Rather, the plan was to give provinces to Breton Canada - who would soon belong to Denmark - to get them to 10 provinces, and give the rest to Pangea.

The Regent fully expected Pangea to create two colonial nations out of the newly gained land , once cores there were completed in about 3 years ( so around 1636).

With things taken care of in the Western Hemisphere, Denmark turned her attention to the East again. After creating two Client States in Nigeria then South Africa, it was time for another hop , this time to South Asia. In preparation for that, two provinces in the Zanzibar node were given to Sudafrica to give them coring range to India, where they would act as the seed for a new client state. And then war was declared on Gurkani .

Gurkani was probably the strongest independent nation left in the world. And the Regent had to come up with a war plan And that plan was to push into Arabia towards the Hormuz strait and then the Baluchistan coast, while letting the Personal Unions from Europe push from West. And by and large that plan was successful. But before we describe the Gurkani war, we detour back to the Americas, where a surprising declaration of war took place.

Canada declared reconquest war on Breton Canada, and then refused to back down when Denmark tried to Enforce a White Peace ( Canada did not have a truce with Breton Canada, because the latter was not yet a subject of Denmark when Denmark declared war on Canada earlier, and never joined that war). This development was welcome news in Zeeland as it meant that more land could be taken off the Canadians, especially in Eastern America, and given to Pangea. Although it would delay the formation of Pangea's Colonial Nations a bit due to the pause on coring .

Now back to the Gurkanis. The thrust from Arabia towards Persia succeeded in taking Al-Qatif fort after 220 days ( barrage was not used to save military resources [footnote 1]) . After that, two prongs were sent, one towards Mesopotamia and one towards the fortress of Bam

But unfortunately the mountain fort at Khorramabad proved to be a difficult nut to crack, as Danish armies lost a crucial battle there to the Gurkanis. That forced a retreat until the Personal Union subject armies started to arrive from Europe.

Meanwhile in the Americas, a much easier war was fought and won against the hapless Canadians.

Soon after that , our young prince Christian, son of Niels, ascended the throne uneventfully at 15 with a new heir in tow, with above average skills (5/3/4). The heir was also named Christian, and after the crazy reign of Niels, everyone at court agreed there will be no more renaming heirs [footnote 2] .

Back in Persia, the arrival of subject armies - particularly the Bohemians - allowed Denmark to push back again after the defeat of Khorramabad. Only to suffer a similar setback at the mountain fort of Bam .

But just like after the earlier defeat, the continued onslaught of Union armies inexorably moved the front forward, and all that the Bam defeat did was delay the inevitable. And that actually gave Denmark time to get more favorable peace treaties with Gurkani's African allies Antemoro and Kilwa.

In both cases, Sudafrica ended up annexing provinces directly, allowing Denmark to continue to be at war without worrying about over-extension. And the fact that Denmark was not annexing much land herself meant that all her administrative power could be spent on completing the Expansion ideas, which finished in March 1637

Immediately the new policy of "Overseas Dominions" was enacted, a very appropriate name for something that made all the new Client States more loyal.

A few months later, Gurkanis signed peace and a new Client State was born.

The new state was founded on Baluchi land, in the Persian culture group. That meant it was later to expand into Persia. But its first expansion was into Sindhi and Panjabi culture lands in India, to force their adoption as accepted cultures. Because of the geographic location spanning Persia and Western India, it was called Bactria in honor of the defunct Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms which ruled the area 1700 years before. The new state was then subsidized by the Danes to help it get started and core the new provinces. Finally, Denmark took for herself the Great Project of Bam Citadel which would strengthen Denmark's inland trade power ( aka Caravan Power).

With Denmark at peace again, young Christian III followed his father's instructions and began the annexation of the Client State of Pangea who at that point had two colonial nations in the Americas.

When that annexation finished a year later, Denmark became the direct overlord of both Pangea's colonial nations. Since both were already over 10 provinces, Denmark obtained the services of two new merchants, bringing the total to 16.

While that annexation was taking place, Christian III took advantage of the troops in Bactria to declare war on neighboring Vijayanagar, with the aim of extending the Nigeria-Sudafrica-Bactria client chain to India. That war was very easy for Denmark, as Vijayanagar was busy fighting Bengal at the time. The only difficulty lay in reaching the island of Ceylon, where there were 3 provinces of the Sinhalese culture. Sinhalese was part of the East Aryan culture group whose bulk was in the Ganges valley to the Northeast

Out of those Sinhalese provinces, DEnmark birthed the new Client State of India ( using a seed province from Bactria) . That state, of Sinhalese primary culture, was expanded into the neighboring Dravidian group. And just like in the Gurkani peace, Denmark took for herself the province of Chaul with its great project of Murud Janjira Fort which will help expand the navy size quite a bit.

[I may change map color in next chapter due to clash with Vijayanagar]


This brings us almost to the end of the chapter, but there was time for one last Client State to be created. And that was Azorea, a one-province client in the Azores , who will take on the role of Colonial Nation generator previously performed by Pangea.

And before we close with a view of Denmark's expanding dominion, we show the booming economy and aggressive expansion

---

Footnotes:
1) In the Gurkani and Vijayanagar wars I did not use barrage because I prefer to spend excess MIL on devving Denmark . Eventually our relative ratio of military strength to the big vassals will become a problem, and I want to develop for force limit and manpower as much as possible . On the flip side, this slows down my progress towards World Conquest. So it is a tradeoff between speed to make it in time by 1821, and size to keep vassals in check to 1821. Right now I think size is more important, but my estimation could be off and I would need to hurry up sieges later on.


2) When I renamed the heir to Niels, I wanted some variety in the names to be able to refer to rulers by something other than numbers. But I think it is best to refer to them by nicknames that they will earn after they die. I will use a combination of in-game traits, what happened during their reign, and what comments they elicited from readers in deciding on a nickname

So far we have :

Christoffer the Arch King : the original Arch King
Christian I the Great: self explanatory
Christian II the Tolerant : converted to Reformed
Frederik I the WEll Advised: took advice to declare PU war on Bohemia
Frederik II the Impatient: rushed for Atwix achievement only to die 9 days before
Niels II the Mad: both @stnylan and @jak7139 used that adjectvie. Niels was either insane, or insanely brilliant depending on outcome of run.

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 21: The War Chain (1640-1650)
We left the last chapter with Denmark having established a chain of Client States from West Africa to South Asia ( Nigeria, Sudamerica, Bactria, India) . These clients were to effectuate the conquest of the Old World by proxy on behalf of Denmark , as dreamt of by the mad king Niels. As for the New World, that was to be conquered on behalf of Denmark by her Western subjects in Europe and by the Colonial Nation generator Azorea. And the first war to move that plan along was against New Portugal, who had conquered much of the land that used to be Atwixia's .

Portugal was conveniently allied to Two Sicilies, so that was also a chance for Denmark to grow her Italian subject Sicily. But now, instead of just waging one war at a time , Emperor Christian III began a new tradition for Denmark, and that was to chain multiple wars at the same time. So he declared war on Kedah in the Malaccan peninsula, in order to continue expanding the Client State chain eastward.

After about 1 year of fighting, both forts in South Italy were taken and Sicily gained a few new provinces

Two Sicilies was not a co-belligerent, but at that point Christian had stopped caring about aggressive expansion and took maximum gains. Similarly in East Asia, Denmark took maximum land from non co-belligerents as well.

Kelantan was completely annexed, and Malacca lost several provinces on the Malay peninsula. The only compunction Denmark followed was to limit annexations to just the Malay culture ( of the Malay group), keeping away from Sumatran and other Malay group cultures.

The war with Portugal dragged on for another year until both Lisboa ( for war score) and Fez ( to allow annexation in North Africa) were taken .

Then peace was signed .

In the peace, Denmark took Dukkala on the Moroccan coast. That was just 2 provinces away from the monument of Ait Benhaddou in Demnate province, a project that promised more enhanced trade for Denmark ( as you could have gathered by now, and @StrategyGameEnthusiast pointed out, Denmark is going aggressively after the Great Projects, particularly trade related ones). She also took direct ownership of several provinces in South America that would create a new Colonial Nation for Denmark ( and of course, that nation would have more than 10 provinces) . Azorea got 10+ provinces in Eastern America colonial region ( what used to be Atwixia). These will become an Azorean CN. She also got Cape Verde islands, which would allow creation of an Azorean CN in the La Plata region in a future war . Finally, Denmark took the eastern half of Portuguese Colombia and later fed it to Sweden ( who had a province there from the days when we were enlarging Sweden to avoid accidental inheritance). That area would later become Swedish Colombia, and not a direct subject of Denmark . Although that cost Denmark the bonus of a merchant, it kept the Cartagena De Las Indias monument under direct Danish ownership [ +30% trade ship power at lvl 3 beats the merchant] , and it weakened Portuguese Colombia who has been a thorn in Denmark's side in the mulitple wars waged so far against Portugal [ I did not show screenshots, but fighting in the Americas has usually been difficult as Portugal had big subjects and I had none].

After peace with Portugal, it was time for peace with Kedah.

Here Denmark created her newest Client State, called Malay after the local culture [Malaya is taken]. That client was designated as the one to expand into Indochina, adding new accepted cultures, before later absorbing all the East Indies into it.

The creation of the various client states, who were asked to divert their trade to Denmark, in conjunction with various upgrades to the trade related Great Projects caused the trade income of Denmark to continue growing, and in October 1642 surpassed the one thousand monthly ducats milestone. Something that was very pleasing the Greedy Emperor

Soon after our Emperor was presented with the choice of the 9th government reform. And here there was division in the court. Some favored adding more accepted cultures, arguing that a larger Denmark will be needed to keep the growing vassals in check. Others argued for direct improvement in liberty desire among vassals. But in the end, Christian went with the Machiavellians who found ways to minimize stability hits when declaring unjustified wars. Considering that ideas such as Imperialism were still over 40 years in the future , the ability to declare war on anyone without penalty was very enticing to the Emperor [with Diplomatic ideas, a no CB war becomes +1 war exhaustion but no stab hit] .

After that brief interlude of peace, it was time to expand the new state of Malay, and war was declared on its northern neighbors Ligor and Ayutthaya.

And going back to the idea of chaining wars back to back, a second war was declared on Kanu to grow Nigeria. And a third war on Mecklenburg to grow Denmark.

The last war was driven in part by the need to find an outlet for the accumulating administrative power. And for that war , Denmark mostly counted on her Personal Unions , augmented with just a few mercenary companies. The bulk of Danish armies remained overseas in the African and Asian theaters .

There were many battles and sieges in these wars, but the most notable one was at Mergui where Ayutthaya and her allies tried to prevent Denmark from breaking out of the Malay isthmus. And that battle was a rare instance when a fervent focus on war was called for in the Reformed Church ( traditionally, the focus has not been set except around New Year , when it was switched temporarily to Diplomacy ) .

The first annexation in a peace happened about 14 months after the wars started, with Berg becoming a permanent part of Denmark

Then several enemy allies were peaced out for diverting trade, leaving the main targets of annexation. Ayutthaya followed, losing Siamese culture land directly to Malay .

Denmark kept Bangkok province with its famous palace, which was immediately upgraded to Noteworthy before starting the coring process. Then before the next peace treaty, two things happened. First, Christian decided to declare war on Nupe near Nigeria since there were many Danish and subject troops in the area already. Second, he welcomed another Colonial Nation into the fold, named Patagonia.

That brought an 18th merchant to Denmark. It seemed no number of merchants was going to be enough for our Greedy Emperor. That merchant was sent to secure the Astrakhan-Crimea-Kiev-Novgorod chain towards the Channel and away from Venice.

Then Kano was almost completely annexed, all the provinces going to Nigeria . The culture was Hausa, which was part of the Sahelian group , while Nigeria's Yoruba was part of the West African group . With time Nigeria was expected to accept Hausa culture. The peace with Kano began the unwinding of the war chain, and next was Ligor who got absorbed into Malay .

The wars with Nupe would drag for another year, until Nigeria was able to annex almost all her neighbors.

The war with Mecklenburg, which was difficult as their ally Saxony was strong, was kept going while another war was started against Tungning, a small Chinese culture nation that occupied the island of Taiwan

The Tungning were allied to large Chinese nations on the mainland, but the Emperor only needed two provinces from them: one to give occupation to Malay as a Client State seed, and the second to spawn the last CLient State in the Chain. But for that , Denmark needed to be at peace. SO as soon as Tungnin agreed to cede two provinces ( which is a lot easier than a doing a full annexation), peace treaties were signed with all enemy nations.

From Saxony, several provinces with forts were directly annexed ( all German culture). That would make the next war with Saxony easier. From Mecklenburg, a contiguous block of land was taken, also to maximize fort gains. But also to improve the appearance of Denmark's name on the map [didn't work].

Finally peace with Tungning was made, with their northern two provinces taken . The north was chosen to allow claim fabrication on Japan who was going to be the next target. And from those two provinces, the new Client State of Eastasia was created.

That client state was of primary Chinese group culture. But first it would expand into other groups like Korea and Japan before turning towards China.

Denmark rested at peace for just two months to allow her subjects a breathing space ( most seized lands for their crowns as myriads of particularist, noble and zealot rebels popped here and there ) . Then it was time to declare war again. And just like before, when we declared war we did simultaneous wars. After having Nigeria grow a bit, it was Sudafrica's turn, and Kilwa looked like a good target. But Kilwa had strong allies ( Gurkani and France), so an indirect declaration was used , this time on Buhua even though there was no casus belli .

This was soon followed by an attack on Japan, using claims fabricated from Taiwan .

Japan had no useful allies, and the naval invasion went unchallenged. And soon Danish troops were at the gates of Kyoto, which fell after a 2 month siege.

Meanwhile Denmark became even richer thanks to the mercantilist policies of Christian III . And on the penultimate day of the year, peace with Buha and Kilwa was concluded, growing Sudafrica with the addition of several Nyasa culture lands. Slowly but surely , Sudafrica was living up to its name.

And the Emperor was now contemplating what a potential peace with Japan would look like. Ever the greedy one, he was eying taking much of Southern Japan for his Client Eastasia, who would then divert the valuable trade towards Malacca, the Cape and then Europe. But his son was receiving different advice, and was arguing for a much smaller acquisition that gave a shorter truce. Who wins that argument will be decided in the next chapter.

And we close with the happy birth of Manufactories in Bruges, in the heart of the land of Textile Manufactories.

That was only fair as no other nation on earth had spent so much on developing production and trade than Denmark, and she was reaping the financial rewards in buckets.

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 22: An Expensive Education (1650-1660)

The last twenty years saw Denmark expand her worldwide reach by creating a string of Client States around Africa and Asia , and by increasing the number of her colonies in the New World. Her trade income had ballooned under Christian III the Greedy, and the treasury boasted 14K ducats at the end of 1649. We started the 1650s at war with Japan and with Kyoto occupied by Danish troops. While the Emperor initially thought about winning a complete victory over Japan, a court faction close to his son the future Christian IV prevailed upon him to conclude an earlier peace with Japan.

The peace was designed to give the shortest truce possible while still achieving two goals for Denmark: 20 development in coastal provinces of the Saigoku culture that could begin the coring process immediately, and the city of Kyoto. Nothing more, nothing less. Not even reparations or money.

The fall of Kyoto itself was celebrated in Denmark as a major victory with a nice boost to prestige and government power.

As to the annexed provinces, they were kept with Denmark and not given to Eastasia, and the coring process was begun immediately. The coastal provinces were chosen to face Korea, who was going to be the next target. But when the military assessed the situation and discovered that Korea was allied to Wu and Yue, the Emperor changed his mind. And instead of expanding into Korea as a prelude to invading China proper , it was decided to expand first into Indochina, where a power base South of the powerful Yue could be built. But before we get to that war, we will detour to the West where the colonial generator Azorea was quickly annexed , turning New Azorea into a direct subject of Denmark. And in Azorea's place a new client state was created and dubbed Atlantis .

War was then declared on the Huron tribe to allow the expansion of Atlantis into the New World.

And then , continuing the strategy of chaining wars, an old foe was declared upon to give some love to the Client State of Pontus, who felt neglected after seeing all the other Clients gain land while they had gotten nothing for almost a century..

Then finally war was declared on Dai Viet, located just south of the powerful Yue. This was another instance of a war without casus belli

We will not detail fighting in those wars, except to note that Wu , allied to Dai Viet, foolishly tried invading Taiwan Island and lost their main army there. As a result, Denmark was able to effect a naval landing on the Chinese mainland and eventually knock them out of the war.

The first peace in the chain of wars to happen was with Huron, who gave up their mid Atlantic provinces to Atlantis. These would later become New Atlantis.

Next was peace with Crimea, a relic of the 1500s , who was absorbed into Ryazan ( who had accepted Crimean culture for a long time).

Next was Antemoro, who lost everything except their capital to Sudafrica.

By carefully guiding Sudafrican expansion, Denmark ensured that the culture of Malagasy became accepted in Sudafrica.


And speaking of culture acceptance, Denmark accepted her first culture outside of Europe when the Japanese cores completed and became part of the State of San'indo , populated by the Saigoku Japanese.

The Saigoku people, now full citizens of Denmark, helped the Emperor being the upgrade of the Imperial City of Kyoto

The upgrade from insignificant to Significant cost the treasury about 7,000 ducats. And another 5,000 or so were spent on starting the upgrade to Magnificent. That left little money to upgrade the Ait Benhaddou of Demnate, when that province was annexed as part of the Ottoman war.

The war with Ottomans was unwound next, with large parts of Anatolia and the Armenian plateau split between Pontus and Georgia.

After that, peace was made with Dai Viet. The Vietnamese ceded their northern provinces ( populated by the Vietnamese culture) to Eastasia. They ceded their southern provinces ( populated by Khmer ) to Denmark who would eventually transfer to Malay . They kept - for now - their middle provinces populated by the Cham. The Cham were part of the Malay culture group and would eventually get absorbed into the client state of Malay once all the latter's cultures slot have been filled .

Denmark was now at peace. And no wars were started until July 1654 when Christian III celebrated his 20th year on the throne. And at that point the palace faction around his son approached with an offer of abdication. Whether out of love for his son Christian IV, or whether he was forced out, we do not know. But abdicate he did , allowing young Christian IV to assume power.

The new Emperor's first action was to travel to Kyoto where he spent several thousand ducats to complete the upgrade of the Imperial City. And when he finally entered the Magnificent monument, the Saigoku sages conferred upon him wisdom in Administrative, Diplomatic and Military affairs.

not since the days of Christian the Great did Denmark have such an accomplished ruler. And our accomplished ruler's first action was to actually return Kyoto to the Japanese - with the upgraded Imperial City no less- for a paltry 300 ducats

Very importantly, the resale of Kyoto to Japan did not trigger a new truce, and the expiration date of the truce from the peace treaty signed in 1650 remained March 1658 ( less than 4 years away).

Christian IV's next action was to restart the wars in Indochina to expand the base of operations there, taking advantage of the presence of many armies in the area

Lan Xang was allied to Yue, the most powerful Ming successor state. But luckily for Denmark, Yue was embroiled in a war with Wu over the Mandate of Heaven, so the invasion of South China was relatively easy. With much money and manpower to spare, Denmark therefore declared war on tiny Utrecht to rectify the borders in Europe. And that was followed by the happy news of the birth of heir Christian 5/2/3 ( future Christian 5th if he makes it)

And continuing the strategy of multiple simultaneous wars, a new conflict was started in North America against the Portuguese Canadian colony of Labrador.

The aim of that war was to expand Atlantis into the Hudson bay and create an additional Canada region colonial nation ( to join Breton Canada and Pangean Canada) . The Portuguese happened to be allied to the Ethiopians, and that also presented an opportunity to expand in that part of the World . Meanwhile tiny Utrecth got annexed, leaving Gelre as the last Dutch province not under Danish control.

And that meant war with Gelre soon followed.

Gelre was allied to England and Saxony, two nations whose lands were accepted culture in Denmark, and therefore could be potentially annexed directly into Denmark. Meanwhile, the war in Asia progressed with the fall of the Yue capital Wuchang

Yue was forced to part with all their Zhuang culture lands ( Zhuang is part of the Tai group) , which were given directly to Eastasia.
The next annexation was of Lothringen as part of the Gelre war.

As a Burgundian culture province, Lothringen was cored and made a permanent part of Denmark.
Next was Pegu, who lost two provinces to Malay directly , taking them down to one province status

A similar fate befell Two Sicilies ( part of hte Portugal war) who also lost 2 provinces and was reduced to their capital Naples. Both provinces went to Sicily directly

Saxony was next, losing several provinces directly to Denmark ( all German culture and cored and stated) .

With Saxony out , Gelre was left with England as the last remaining enemies in that war. And while England refused to be fully annexed , Gelre was happy to sign off on the annexation of both England as well as themselves!

The full annexation of England caused both English Alaska and Newfoundland to become direct Colonial Nation subjects of Denmark , earning her a greater portion of North America and a new merchant.

The next peace was with Ethiopia, who ceded the area of Eritrea, out of which Denmark later carved the client state of Sheba , named after the Biblical Kingdom.

Then it was Portugal's turn

Portugal lost mostly colonial lands. This was in both North and South America, and the various provinces ended up with existing Colonial Nations, or with Atlantis who was expected to create new Colonial Nations out of them .

Finally , Denmark concluded peace w Lan Xang, ending the last batch of wars . In the peace , Lan Xang lost most of her land which was to be split between Malay and Eastasia along culture lines.

but here Denmark hit a snag when Eastasia refused to take a province because of over-extension. The Emperor therefore resorted to a seldom used clause in the Client State bylaws and forced Eastasia to accept the land ( although they did not improve their liberty desire as a result).

A similar approach was used to force feed Malay the Khmer lands. But even with these transfers, Denmark suffered from very high over-extension . And that led to unrest in unusual places, one of which was Iceland, where separatists erupted in open rebellion . But instead of crushing the rebels, something that Denmark could easily do, the Emperor decided to let them go. After all, Icelandic culture was not accepted in Denmark, and those provinces should have been part of Sweden. but they were too far from Sweden to be transferable directly in peace-time. By letting Iceland go, Denmark could later declare war and transfer the occupation to Sweden in wartime.

At that point it was almost March 1658, and the truce with Japan was running out. ANd as soon as that happened, another war was declared

The war was a brief 6 month affair that ended with the Japanese capital of Musashi occupied, and Japan ceding Kyoto again to Denmark.

Denmark asked for nothing more and nothing less than Kyoto, keeping the truce to just over 6 years . The annexation of course degraded the Imperial City monument, which was promptly refurbished back to Magnificent and the exorbitant cost of 10,000 ducats. And as Christian IV presided over the renovations, he was blessed with even more wisdom, becoming a capable 6/4/6 , all at the very young age of 24.

And this time the Emperor forgot to sell the province back to the Japanese, as he was distracted by the many rebellions that plagued Denmark due to the high over-extension

And soon after that he declared war on Gurkani, the strongest independent nation . The aim of that war was to grow the subject states of Georgia, Sheba and Bactria. ANd that war was ongoing as the decade ended.

And we close with the status map of Denmark's domain, showing a good bit of growth in the last decade.

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 23: Studying Harder(1660-1670)

The highlight of the last chapter was the use of the Kyoto Imperial City as a University of sorts to educate Emperor Christian. We ended the decade at war with Gurkani . Allied to Gurkani were Adal and Kilwa. And Adal was the first nation to peace out

Provinces that were Oromo were fed directly to Sheba, avoiding the annexation of any Somali land. The Somali land will be eventually (in the 1700s) given to Sheba, but not before Sheba is expanded outside her culture group, primarily into Arabia and the Levantine group.

Next was Kilwa who lost provinces to both Sheba and Sudafrica based on culture

Then Gurkani was ready for a comprehensive peace in February 1662. Now, initially, the aim of the war was to grow Bactria more into the Indian heartland, specifically the Punjabi culture lands that Bactria accepted. But due to technical reasons [see footnote], it was decided that the coastal provinces that Denmark could annex directly were a better option . And Bactria found herself expanding on the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, into Khaleeji and Omani culture land.

And as a result of this, the Emperor decided on a tentative plan for future governance of the Levantine people, to be split among neighboring client states that would accept their cultures, and thus avoid needing a designated Levantine client state.

With the Gurkani treaty, Denmark was at peace again. And that allowed her to do two things. First, Atlantis was diplomatically annexed.

When that completed in a few months, Denmark became the new direct overlord of Atlantean La Plata, Atlantean Canada and New Atlantis. And following in the tradition of Pangea, Azorea and Atlantis, a new nation called Colonia was created out of the Azores

THe second peace-time action performed was the sale of Kyoto. But this time not to Japan. Rather it was sold to the original owner Ashikaga, for the fire sale price of 75 ducats.

Ashikaga had apparently survived as a one province minor on the Southern Island of Kyushu thanks to occasional alliances or guarantees by Asian powers like the Later Jin . And they still held on to their core on Kyoto (among others), and so were guaranteed to agree to buy it as long as the price was right . More importantly, the sale did not trigger a truce between Denmark and Ashikaga. And that meant that as soon as Denmark had a claim fabricated on Kyoto, war could be declared to take the city back:

Less than a year later, Ashikaga was forced to cede Kyoto back to Denmark . And the Imperial City was upgraded again, with Christian IV making his 3rd pilgrimage to the site, earning him more diplomatic skills ( his administrative and military skills were already perfected)

By doing that, Christian IV now matched the exact skill level of his illustrious predecessor Christian I the Great . But as he boarded the ship back to Denmark, he ordered the sale of Kyoto back to Japan this time. And he told the gathered Sensei that he would return for more "studies" sometime after the truce with Japan expired in December 1644.

Upon his return to ZEeland, Emperor Christian "the Educated", as he was becoming known, ordered a fresh set of wars, against Canada in NOrth America, Aachen in Europe, and Vijayanagar in India.

The easiest war and the first to finish was Canada. Annexed lands were partitioned among the various colonial nations, trying, as much as possible, to keep similar native culture provinces in one colonial nation ( to hopefully incentivize the CN to accept them ) .

This was made difficult by the haphazard distribution of the various cultures due to past native tribe migrations ( note that the majority of the provinces were Prussian from the days when Vinland and Atwixia ruled all these lands).

The second easiest war was in Europe where the Personal Union armies helped Danish siege stacks quickly conque the enemy forts and capitals. Cologne was first to cede land.

MEanwhile the truce with Japan expired, and a fresh war for Kyoto was started.

Back in Europe, Saxony lost some more German provinces to Denmark.

And then a while later all of Goslar, Lorraine and Aachen were absorbed into Denmark's growing home region.

While the Aachener war was wrapping up, the war in Japan had completed and Tokyo was taken back for the 4th time.

And just like Emperor Christian had promised, he returned to complete his personal education and reached the sublime ranking of 6/6/6 , normally the domain of Republican leaders and the rare exceptional monarch. But now with Denmark's wealth and the availability of the Imperial City, such skills should be within reach of all his successors [this is actually better than Republics because you can have a young heir take over by abdication in his 20s and stats are likely to be better than a new Consul's 4/1/1] .

The last peace treaty of the current war chain was with Vijayanagar, who lost much of their coastline. The annexed provinces went mainly to India and the new Client State of Saurashtra ( named after the historical Kingdom of Syrastrene and the local culture).

As has become customary, culture lines were followed closely . The new client state was created as the Emperor estimated that India alone would not be able to rule the entire subcontinent with accepted cultures, and would become too big and potentially rebellious as a result. So sharing the load with a new Client State seemed prudent. Saurashtra would be wedged between Bactria to the West, and India to its East and would be destined to expand toward the Gangetic plain and in the West Aryan culture group.

And with Denmark at peace, Tokyo was "sold" again to Ashikaga for zero ducats.

It was now time for another batch of wars . And the Emperor chose Taungu who was allied to Ava and a couple of minor states in Indochina.

Although Denmark could have obtained a claim on them, the Emperor eschewed that to save time, realizing that a no casus belli war now made no difference to Denmark who could easily handle the war exhaustion and aggressive expansion hits. (there is no stability hit from Diplomatic Idea group and Government Reform Tier 9 )

And while that war raged, the Emperor visited the old lands of Denmark proper and spent some of the accumulating monarch power on developing them for manpower and production .

Although Denmark had no lack of manpower to wage her wars ( and could still rely on mercenaries, who were not being disbanded any more in peacetime as the treasury had become a bottomless source of money), the Emperor was keen on keeping Denmark relatively more powerful than her Client States in order to keep their liberty desire in check . And having highly developed home provinces [playing tall] produced compound benefits thanks to the many buildings constructed there .

the war in Indochina was quickly wrapped up in 1669.

A few provinces went to Malay and Eastasia. But the lion's share of the annexation went to the new Client State of Burma, created out of what used to be Ava with its capital at Taungoo. Burma was to serve a similar role to Saurashtra, and grow into Southern China to take some load off of Eastasia .

With that out of the way, war was resumed again. This time against Ayutthaya to consolidate Indochina, with a side war on Bregenz in Europe to consolidate Germany.

And when the truce with Ashikaga expired in July 1669, another quick war for Kyoto was undertaken , re-annexing the city in late 1669.

Because Denmark had an overflow of monarch power, the Emperor decided to hold off on completing the upgrade of Kyoto for the time being ( and this time he was not going to attend the upgrade in person as his "education" had been completed [we now get 100 ADM 100 DIP and 100 MIL ]).

And that brings us to the end of the decade.

Denmark is filthy rich in Gold, and has excess administrative, diplomatic and military power thanks to Kyoto's Imperial City.
The only challenges facing the Wittelsbach plan for world domination now are patience and the liberty desire of Denmark's many subjects.

---

Footnote:

when annexing from enemy nations, Denmark can get a lot more directly as opposed to having the enemy cede to a vassal via transfer occupation. This is because vassal's administrative efficiency is lower than Denmark's ( less absolutism and they do not have discounts like Malta Forts). But there is a limitation that Denmark can only annex what she can core. This restriction will be lifted in Age of Revolutions with the "Unrestricted Conquest" ability . So I am saving inland provinces which Denmark cannot core directly till then.

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 24: A Developing Desire (1670-1680)

The last decade saw Christian IV the Educated reach the pinnacle of monarch skills, and two new client states (Saurashtra and Burma) created to help Denmark's quest for world domination . And it ended with war in Indochina with the aim of consolidating Denmark's power in that region before taking on the much larger Chinese and Indian regions. To that end, Ayutthaya ended up losing much of Cambodian lands of Khmer culture to Malay client state

The growth of the Malay client state meant more trade going to Denmark . But it also meant a developing problem of liberty desire.

For now, the Malay were extremely loyal. The liberty desire due to their large size was almost exactly balanced by the gratitude they showed to Denmark for the gift of so many provinces. But that gratitude was destined to wane over the next 100 years, while Malay was anticipated to grow to double or triple its current size once it absorbed the islands of East Indies and Philippines. The Emperor needed a way to keep their liberty desire in check . And that endeavor would be his focus for the current decade.

One strategy to keep the clients loyal was to simply enlarge Denmark herself, keeping her economic power ahead of the vassals. To that end, he continued the annexation of German culture land. He also grew his Personal Union of Sicily ( whose economy and military will not contribute to vassal liberty desire).

he also spent the excess monarch power he had obtained thanks to Kyoto on developing Danish lands, particularly in manpower which counted in the relative military strength compared to the vassals.

And he was hoping that the Kyoto Imperial City would continue to give such bonuses growing forward. But that plan hit a snag when , after selling Kyoto to Japan, the latter declared war on Ashikaga.

This was a bit of a problem for Denmark. If Japan managed to annex Ashikaga, then Kyoto upgrades would have to happen every 8 years or so instead of every 4 years, due to truce timer limits. For now the Emperor could do nothing about the Japanese as they were protected by a truce. And so he turned his attention back to China. Because of the recent wars in Indochina, Denmark had many troops in the area and everyone expected an attack on Yue. But instead of declaring on them directly, the Emperor decided to declare on Korea instead.

Korea was allied to three of the main Chinese powers, including Yue ( the strongest). Korea also happened to be an isolated culture in her own group. And had a very high population density . That made Korea a prime target for direct annexation by Denmark who had 2 culture acceptance slots left to spare thanks to the upgrade of the Inukshuk monument and to technology. The Emperor explained that instead of having the highly developed Korean peninsula under control of a vassal, adding to that subject's liberty desire, Korea would be part of Denmark and contribute to improving the economic and military ratio of Denmark versus her vassals. That is why Korea was made the primary target of the war. And because of Geography they would be attacked last, as armies marched North from Indochina, passing by all the enemy capitals on the way.

While that war was waged, another one was started in North America against the Atahachi federation . And an eye was kept on Japan who ended up vassalizing Ahiskaga instead of annexing them .

The Japan peace produced a sigh of relief in Zeeland. Ashikaga was still alive, and had kept their core on Kyoto. However, they were now a vassal of Japan. And so freeing them became a key aim of the coming war with Japan . But that war had to wait till truce expiration. And so in the meantime we will describe the war on Korea, which was mainly fought in China so far. There, the Yue capital of Canton was taken . But instead of taking land from them and giving it to East Asia, Christian decided to first thin out the development of Yue by pillaging. This way when Eastasia absorbs them it would not cause as much of a problem. But he soon discovered that Zeeland was so developed that no benefit would come to Denmark from pillaging.

So he took a page out Christian the Great's book and decided to move Denmark's capital for the first time in over 150 years. And because Denmark was at war, he had to take advantage of the "Conquer England" mission, which gave him the choice of moving the capital to London.

Christian did not hesitate in moving . There were no longer any concerns about a Dutch Revolt as it was now after 1650 and such ideas as an Independent Netherlands had faded away . And the cost in administrative power of moving the capital in peacetime the usual way was exorbitant [651 ADM] due to Zeeland's size . By moving to London via mission, he got around the wartime prohibition on moving capitals and avoided paying the hefty cost.

Now with London's development being much cheaper than Zeealnd ( London produces cloth) , the new Capital stood to gain from pillaging Canton .

While London grew, Huangdong area lost a bit of development. That would make for an easier annexation by Eastasia later on . A similar deal was made with Wu, again growing London at their expense

While that went on, the war with Atahachi completed, gaining land in the NEw World for Colonia. That land should become the colonial nation of New Colonia, if the pattern holds. Also, Denmark declared her umpteenth war on Japan for Kyoto.

Back in China , Qi's capital was occupied and pillaged just like Wu's and Yue's. But unlike the previous pillaging, this time London did not gain anything due to its large size. Still, Emperor Christian the Educated went ahead with the pillaging anyways to thin out the enemy's development a bit ( educated does not preclude ruthless).

After that Danish armies reached the Korean peninsula and began the invasion of the enemy homeland. And just in time for the future annexation of that developed land, Denmark passed her 10th government reform, opting to enlarge government capacity ("L'Etat c'est moi!" said the educated Emperor in perfect French!)

And Christian got another chance to show his ruthless side when he pillaged Qi for the second time in 2 years (they made the mistake of answering Japan's defensive call to arms after they got pillaged the first time!)

And thanks to the higher devastation in Qi's capital, London was able to actually gain some development as a result. But more importantly Qi's capital area had gone from 68 development to 54 after two pillagings, a loss of 21% .
After that, the war with Japan concluded. But this time , Denmark took more than just Kyoto.

Fist, Ashikaga was made free again. Second, a province on Kyushu next to Ashikaga was ceded to Denmark. This way Denmark would always have a border with Ashikaga, and can prevent Japan from attacking Ashikaga in the future by warning the Japanese ( which does not use up a relation slot). Third, a province with an Otomo core was taken to later release a Japanese culture nation from it ( Otomo was the last surviving Japanese core other than Ashikaga or Japan. All the others had expired). Finally , a string of provinces connecting future Otomo to Kyoto was taken. The idea here was to eventually release Otomo and feed her Kyoto . Then later let Otomo become independent so that there would be three Japanese culture tags with cores on Kyoto ( Japan, Ashikaga and Otomo) and the education of the future Christian V would go even faster than his father ( an accelerated curriculum!).

And while the sieges in Korea were ongoing - the infamous mountain fort at Ganggye taking a long time in particular - Denmark declared another war in EUrope , this time on France

The purpose of the war was to whittle down the French down to a size that could be annexed in one war . That way Denmark could later gain their colonies just like she did with England's . And it was important to do this sooner rather than later, before the Age of Revolutions caused France to lose her colonies ( which were becoming larger than the Metropole, particularly Louisiana).

It was at that point that 1674 finally rolled around and with it the chance to adopt a 5th idea group for Denmark. And this is where Emperor Christian , following plans initially laid down by Niels the Mad, chose the one idea that would help Denmark keep her large subjects in check : Naval Ideas.

The choice had absolutely nothing to do with a stronger Navy. Denmark already ruled the waves. But it had all to do with the Supply Convoys policy which promised to cut the Liberty Desire of DEnmark's large subjects by almost half.

And while that benefit should appear in the next chapter when the Policy will be implemented, the true reward will not show up till the Age of Revolutions, when Denmark would unlock the anti-Revolutionary Zeal age ability and basically solve the vassal liberty desire from development problem

That strategy, my dear readers, was the key insight that led Niels the Mad to believe that Denmark had the means to conquer the World via vassals. And now Christian IV was taking the next step towards realizing that plan. And he soon took another big step on getting all of Denmark's worldwide domains closer together by beginning the construction of the Suez canal

He then wrapped up the war with the French, taking all their remaining provinces in the Pacific and turning them into a landlocked nation to make future annexation simpler.

Peace with Korea followed soon after, resulting in the direct annexation by Denmark of much of Northwest Korea.

As explained earlier, Korea was destined to become a direct possession of Denmark with accepted culture due to its high development. The Northwest was chosen as the first area to annex because it contained the infamous mountain fort of Ganggyee that controlled land access to the Peninsula. And because it bordered Later Jin ( aka Manchu) who was going to be the next target. But before we get to that, a bit of housekeeping was done.

The vassal state of Otomo was released out of the province of Bungo on Kyushu. Otomo was then given possession of Kyoto so they would build a core there . Later, after the truce with them expires , Denmark will break the vassal relation and go to war for Kyoto . But that would be in the next chapter.


Then it was time for a new batch of wars to enlarge the subject states. These wars were against Kano in Africa , Provence in Europe, Aztec in America and Later Jin in Asia

Later Jin was supposed to be the toughest of these enemies. But it turned out they were already at war with Korchin + Chagatai and others, and that war ended up being easy. In fact, all the wars were easy , and Denmark ended up feeding her vassals quite the feast

Nigeria gained a significant amount of land. Denmark annexed several colonies in the Rio Grande area that would become a colonial nation in the next chapter ( likely to be named Christiana to compete with Louisiana). She also gave Colonia several provinces in Mexico proper which would become another Colonial nation. Spain and Sicily also gained provinces in South France based on culture.

But when it came to peace with Later Jin, Denmark faced some limitations in that Korchin had occupied some of the best provinces - Girin and Beijing- in another war. So Denmark took just enough land to create a new Client State out of the Korchin land ( which is in the Altai group that stretches across the Eurasian Steppes). And then she fed that client state several Manchurian provinces, but not before slimming them a bit with Concentrate Development.

After that , there was time to start one more war, and this time it was a against Gurkani.

That war is of course ongoing as the decade ended. And it is now time to show Denmark's status on the world map , with many territorial gains all over the globe.

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 25: Messy Mexico (1680-1690)

The highlight of the last chapter was the adoption of Naval ideas to unlock the Supply Convoys Policy . It also featured expansion into distant lands like Korea and Mexico. It ended with war with Gurkanis, the largest remaining independent nation. A side peace in that war netted Denmark the province of Taiz in YEmen, which would eventually end up as part of Sheba.

Then Denmark gained her latest Colonial Nation in America, in the region of Mexico . It was called Christian in honor of Christian the Great. This was clearly intended as retort to the very large French Louisiana next door.

Considering the relative strength of France and Denmark, it would stand to reason that Christiana was going to surpass her neighbor. But , as we shall see, things can sometimes turn out in "paradoxical" ways.

Meanwhile, in the Gurkani war , Denmark knocked out Kilwa from the war, taking off a few provinces to Sudafrica.

Slowly but surely , the once powerful Kilwa was being whittled down to nothing. Similarly, Gurkani ally Bengal lost land to Burma

And finally, the great land annexation happened at the expense of Gurkani. Denmark annexed a large amount of land , which she transferred- after concentrating development in London - to her vassals Bactria and Sheba .

The peace resulted in Gurkani losing a lot of their coastline, with their last ports on the Persian Gulf being in the Mashriqi culture provinces . Since these were slated to go to Georgia eventually, they were not taken in this war yet. But having a diminishing Gurkani navy was going to facilitate future troop transport in times of war , particularly that the Suez canal was nearing completion .

Denmark took advantage of the peace to break vassalization with Otomo, triggering a 5-year truce. that means war for Kyoto could happen again in 1686 or so.

In addition to Denmark's rapid expansion thanks to her own efforts, she also benefited from the occasional successful war by a colonial nation. And in the case of Swedish Brazil, it was a nice stomping of Portuguese Brazil that took place.

But those independent colonial wars were not always likely to succeed, and when Canada declared war on New Pangea, Denmark intervened to prevent loss of land by her subject.

During the peace lull, the annexation of Colonia was begun. Then war was declared on the next largest nation after Gurkani, namely Yue

It was obvious by then that Denmark's strategy in picking enemies was to go after the largest nation that did not have a truce [common strategy for world conquest]. And here it was convenient that Yue was allied to Korea whose lands Denmark wanted for herself, and also conveniently there were a lot of troops in Korea already .
While the Emperor's attention was focused on Asia, the integration of Colonia was completed, and Denmark gained a second CN in Mexico, confusingly named "Colonial Mexico". But that happy news was overtaken by the plight of Christiana, the first CN in Mexico.

You see, Christiana was born from former Aztec land after they were defeated by Denmark. That meant that the Aztecs did not have a truce with Christiana , and were free to declare a reconquest war on her. Which they did. But because Denmark had a truce with Aztec, the Emperor Christian could not Enforce a White Peace. And to declare war on Aztec, he had to break the truce, something he was loath to do . So , for now, all he could do was send monetary help to the beleaguered colony .

He then refocused his attention on Asia. And during the war with Yue, Naval ideas were completely adopted by Denmark.

That had two salutary effects. First, it enabled Denmark to confirm her Thalassocracy, gaining another merchant. Second, and more importantly, it allowed adoption of the Supply Convoys policy. This immediately improved the liberty desire of Denmark's vassals , as predicted by Niels the Mad's calculations.

Christian's attention was then drawn yet again to the New World, where Canada declared war on New Sweden. And this time he was unable to Enforce Peace due to the New Swedes not having a great opinion of their indirect overlord [the automatic diplomat does not improve with subjects of subjects]. But at least he could help New Sweden by declaring war on Canada, who was not protected by a truce.

With all the might of the multiple colonial nations in the region ( I counted 6 - Newfoundland, Breton Canada, Pangean Canada, New Pangea, New Azorea, New Atlantis) , he did not need to pay attention to that war and he let the colonials handle it. And in a brief period of time, Canada was made to cede provinces to the various colonials

Back in Asia, the island of Formosa was unified under East Asia with the full annexation of Tungqing, and then Korea ceded her North East to Denmark, leaving only the southern areas independent, while Malay gained a couple of Khmer provinces and Eastasia gained a few Qi provinces.

The annexation of so much land was costly in Diplomatic power, but enlarged Denmark herself quite a bit, keeping her growth on pace with that of her many vassals.
After that, yet again, the Emperor's attention was drawn to the New World, but this time with the dire news of the end of the Aztec-Christiana war with full annexation of Christian, and the sacrifice of its ruling family to the savage Nahuatl

The horror of that peace treaty shocked the sensibilities of the court in London. The proud Danish Empire - global, cosmopolitan, tolerant- was humiliated by heathen savages. Furthermore, seeing the name "Louisiana" emblazoned in large letters on the map with no Christiana next to it added insult to the injury. Emperor Christian almost declared a revenge war in anger, but then held his impulse and decided to wait for the truce to end. But he vowed that the Aztec empire will meet its demise sooner rather than later, even if it meant that all of it ended up under Colonial Mexico without the chance of cultural acceptance [with only one CN in Mexico, it is unlikely that most native cultures will get accepted]. And to take his mind off that debacle, he took a personal trip to Egypt to preside over inauguration of the Suez Canal, completed in May 1685, 11 years after it was commissioned.

And then he directed the diplomats to sign peace with Yue, taking land for his vassals Burma and Eastasia based on culture boundaries ( at this point, all land being given to Eastasia was Chinese culture group, as they were not anticipated to gain any more land outside their group being large already).

During the peace lull, the Emperor considered creating a new successor state to Colonia ( to follow the lineage of Pangea-Azorea-Atlantis-Colonia). But decided against it to save on Diplomatic power. And besides, Denmark now had so many merchants from the Colonies that they outnumbered those from the Trade Companies. And so he resumed the strategy of declaring war on the largest nation not truce-bound . ANd that was Vijayanagar

That war was a bit difficult as it took time for armies to arrive and the Vijayanagaris had plenty of troops. And it saw the first use of the Suez Canal by the Danish military when the Atlantic fleet was summoned to transport troops to India and help the Indian ocean fleet fight the VJ navy.

Meanwhile the truces with Otomo and France expired, and that meant another war for Kyoto, and another war in Europe.

The aim of the war with France was to fully annex so as to gain their colonial nations. And in that endeavour, a problem was soon encountered.

France had two provinces in the heart of Mexico ( how they were able to annex those two , I am not sure). Denmark was unable to ask for them in a peace treaty due to being inaccessible for coring. And so, to get a path towards those two provinces , the Emperor decided to declare war on Portugal who had just gained some provinces themselves from Aztec. And one of those provinces separated Danish Colonial MExico from France's two Mexican provinces.

ANd while that war was started, the Otomo war was completed with the annexation of Kyoto . A new upgrade of the Imperial City netted Denmark enough diplomatic power to finally upgrade her diplomatic corps and obtain access to the Imperialism casus belli

And the main benefits of this upgrade were to be the savings on diplomatic power, because recent peace treaties have been very costly as Denmark was annexing large numbers of provinces at a time thanks to high Absolutism. In addition, the Client State Act was now mostly superfluous and could be retired, further saving on diplomatic resources.

As the decade grew to a close, the Emperor became a bit impatient with the wars. Vijayanagar was practically defeated, but he needed to finish all the wars simultaneously to be able to apportion provinces to vassals in peace time . And the French war could not be concluded before the Portuguese war. So he again took advantage of the Suez Canal and ordered the Atlantic fleet back to Iberia to speed up the siege of Lisboa, after which he was able to demand the key Mexican provinces from Portugal.

Denmark only took provinces in Mexico- there was not enough score to take more without prolonging the war. But those provinces were enough to allow the full annexation of France with the French Mexican provinces going to Colonial MExico, and the ones in France proper to Denmark ( and of course, Denmark took provinces from France's allies Milan, Cologne and Tuscany).

The full annexation of France meant that French Louisiana and French California and Cascadia all became direct possessions of the Danish crown, putting most of North America under Wittelsbach control.

This was followed by the annexation of a large swath of land from Vijayanagar, divvied up between India, Saurashtra and Bactria based on culture lines.

The annexation of so much land was very, very costly in terms of diplomatic power. But hopefully, with Imperialism casus belli now available, such exorbitant costs will not be encountered going forward. And the first use of the new CB was against Japan, who had predictably accepted to buy Kyoto from Denmark .

ANd the second use of that war was against the Aztec , in a war of revenge that should see most - if not all - of their Empire destroyed.

And those wars bring us to the end of the decade. As you can see from the dominion map, Denmark's growth is accelerating. ANd thanks to her policies geared towards keeping subjects in submission, she is facing no threats of revolts from her many vassals. Even large and recently acquired Louisiana is loyal.

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 26: A Multicultural Empire(1690-1700)

The last chapter saw Denmark continue her quest for worldwide domination with the addition of lands from many nations, particularly Gurkani, Canada, Korea and Yue. There was one setback when Aztec destroyed the colonial nation of Christiana. The last decade ended with a revenge war on Aztec and another war for Kyoto with Japan.

Japan was quick to conclude peace early in the new decade, transferring Kyoto yet again to Denmark.

The power gains from the re-upgrade of the Imperial city helped fill the hole that Denmark had dug in regard to diplomatic power ( due to annexing lands via the conquest casus belli). The peace with Japan was then quickly followed by a declaration of war on Hungary and her allies in Europe.

In that war, the Emperor counted mostly on the European personal unions to carry the fight, as a large portion of Denmark's troops were stationed in Asia. Meanwhile, in America, Aztec had completely succumbed to the Danish and colonial onslaught.

Revenge for the destruction of Christiana was exacted with full annexation of the Mesoamerican nation , fulfilling the wishes of the Emperor as well as many others:

Azteca delenda est!

Most of the annexed provinces automatically went to Colonial Mexico, with one going to French Louisiana.

Back in Europe, the consolidation of Italy under Sicily was continued with the annexation of Genoa , Lucca and Two Sicilies in side-treaties of the Hungarian war.

We were finally down to just one Sicily , and the confusion over who were the true Sicilians was resolved in favor of Denmark's subject.

The next Hungarian ally to sign a separate peace was Portugal, who was made to cede a lot of their Mexican holdings - land they had conquered from the Aztecs - to Denmark. But our educated ruler, having satisfied his desire for revenge, decided to heed this conciliatory advice

I disagree actually, the only way to show them the error of their ways is to treat them the same as every other culture.

They should be treated equally as an integrated part of the empire, wether they want it or not.

Denmark ended up splitting the new acquisition among several subjects instead of giving it all to Colonial Mexico. After all, most of the people of the newly conquered lands were not ethnic Aztecs , and it was unfair to lump them together with their former rulers in a large Colonial Mexico where they stood little chance of achieving accepted status . So they were split between Sweden, Spain , French Louisiana and Floride in a manner designed to maximize culture acceptance.

It was then time to deal with Hungary itself. And thanks to the benefits of Absolutism, the entire nation was annexed in one fell swoop.

With Denmark now at peace, the Hungarian provinces were then divided up between Bohemia and Bulgaria along culture lines. There was one exception, however, to the previously planned lines. Instead of having the Slovenian lands ( part of the South Slavic group) go to Bulgaria, they went to Bohemia who had a free culture slot. This was driven by the fact that Bulgaria refused to accept those provinces due to over-extension . In fact, Denmark had to hold Croatian provinces directly for a while until Bulgaria was able to accept them [unlike Client states, Personal Unions cannot be force fed over 100% OE] . A similar situation happened with the Dalmatian provinces which Denmark kept until Sicily could accept them.

With Hungary gone, Christian IV turned his attention to the far east again. After a quick sale of Kyoto ( to Ashikaga) he declared war on later Jin.

This was immediately followed by war on Ashikaga . And then to round out this batch of wars, the Rassids+ Ethiopia were targeted next.

The first war of this batch to end was Ashikaga, who ceded Kyoto again to Denmark . Another upgrade of the Imperial city was done for monarch points. Then Ethiopia signed a separate peace

Denmark kept for herself several Egyptian provinces, giving the remainder to Sheba ( although just like in Bulgaria's case, Denmark had to temporarily hold on to some provinces due to Sheban over-extension)[see Footnote]. The reason Egypt was kept under direct Danish control was its strategic location at the junction of two continents and its proximity to Europe thanks to the Mediterranean and the Suez canal. That allowed efficient troop and mercenary recruitment there, and its developed provinces made it an ideal place to station reserve troops in peace time. Plus there was no designated Levantine group subject, so accepting Egyptian into Denmark meant one less culture to worry about .

The Rassids were then fully annexed, with all their lands going to Sheba who already accepted Bedouin and Yemeni cultures.

Finally, Later Jin made peace, closing this round of wars.

Its provinces were transferred to Rohan and Eastasia based on culture lines ( but again not all could be given due to over-extension in the client states). But before all the transfers were effected, Christian IV imitated his Great predecessor by first moving the capital to a smaller city, this time Kent, and then concentrating development there.

Surprisingly, it was the Rassid provinces in mountainous and arid Yemen that yielded the most benefit. It appeared that the Rassids - who had ruled that area since the 1400's - had invested a lot of monarch power in developing their land. And now Denmark was harvesting the benefits.

With Denmark at peace, Kyoto was sold back to Japan . And then another batch of wars was started. These were against Songhai in Africa, Gascony in Europe, and Huron in America.

And the Emperor was thinking this would be the last batch of wars before the new decade , which he hoped would start with Enlightenment spawning in Europe ( as a 6/6/6 monarch with many provinces with Universities, he certainly had good reason to expect that). But alas, our Christian IV the Educated would not live to see the new Century, for he died on October 13, 1695 from food poisoning. He was sixty one years old , and had ruled Denmark for 41 years ( since the abdication of his father, Christian III the Greedy ) . Our late ruler had hoped that changing Capitals was the secret to longevity, but that did not completely pan out for him.

The burden of leading Denmark's vast realms then fell to his son Christian V 5/2/3. Realizing quickly his lack of diplomatic skills, he decided to fully commit Denmark to the Humanist Path which promised to make him a much better diplomat. After hiring a theologian, and clearing all provinces of rebels, he proclaimed the mission Mulicultural Empire completed

With improved diplomatic skills, all Christian V had to do match his illustrious ancestors was take a few trips to Kyoto, and he promptly declared war on Japan . Meanwhile, the various wars were starting to wrap up . First was Egypt who gave Cairo to Denmark and one other province to Nigeria

Then it was Huron who ceded land to New Azorea, New Atlantis and new Colonia.

Then Japan ceded Kyoto and our Emperor took the trip to improve his skills to 6/6/4.

Then Gascony and Tuscany ceded land to Spain , Denmark and Sicily

.


Finally, the war in Africa ended with Nigeria annexing Songhai and Dagomba culture lands.

Now for most of these annexations, Denmark took the provinces directly, then gave to vassals in peace-time. Thanks to Imperialism, this saved a lot of diplomatic power. And also gave Denmark a chance to concentrate development into the Capital Kent, which reached the unusually large size of 65, significantly higher than Zeeland's size .

The growth of Kent relegated Sjaelland, the largest Danish culture city, to sixth place. The cosmopolitan nature of Denmark's Empire could not have been more obvious with the top five provinces consisting of two English , one Dutch and two Korean cities. And in a further nod to multiculturalism, Egyptian was officially accepted into the Danish realm as an equal culture, and the former Trade Company lands in Egypt were turned into States.

One side effect of that was the loss of one merchant, bringing the total from a peak of 28, down to 27 . The Danish economy barely felt that, with no one bothering to see where the merchant was previously stationed. And to stress that Denmark was now a truly Multicultural Humanist Empire, the Emperor announced that he personally identified as a Catholic and a Ruthenian!!

Surely the events that led to that were recorded somewhere [in the 100s of screenshots I took ], but to bring that up was considered "backwards" in the enlightened Danish court. Rather , what people were encouraged to look forward to was the day when the entire world would be part of this Empire. And to that end , the next war was proclaimed on Gurkani , whose truce from 15 years ago had run out

The Gurkanis were at the time in the process of clobbering the pathetic remnants of the Ottoman Empire. And that meant the Danish army could quickly take on the bulk of Gurkani troops in Anatolia.

And although the initial encounter at Malatya ended in defeat, it effectively tied up the Gurkani forces and led to their homeland's invasion from multiple directions . Meanwhile another Kyoto war was undertaken against Otomo, who had become a tributary of Japan and who was sold Kyoto during the last peace lull.

And when that war finished a year later with the conquest of Kyoto, Christian V did another pilgrimage to the Imperial City to earn his next military skill "degree" .

He was now only one more trip away from the exalted 6/6/6 status. And he had been on the throne of Denmark for barely 4 years!

The last year of the decade saw the end of the Gurkani war with Denmark annexing a vast amount of land. That was split among her subjects Georgia, Bactria , Saurashtra and Sheba based on culture lines.

The decade was now almost over. But there was time for two more actions. First, the diplomats of Denmark approached the Japanese , saying "Hey, we have a bridge province to sell you !" . Second, an old front that had been dormant for centuries was reactivated , as war on Kazan was declared.

A few month later , a new century began. But it began with great disappointment, as the institution of Enlightenment was granted to Air, a small province in the Sahara, instead of the highly developed and educated Denmark who had a University built in every province.

We close with the dominion map showing more than half the globe pledging Allegiance to the "Danish" Emperor.

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Footnote: In many instances in this decade, Denmark had to keep provinces temporarily , taking on over-extension , because her vassals were at 100% OE and could not accept. In the case of the Client States, I could have force fed them using the province interface. ANd in fact I did that to India in the previous chapter with many Vijayanagari provinces. But that caused them endless rebellions that I had to baby sit with my own armies. So I decided it was better for Denmark to take up to 200% over-extension temporarily, rather than have subjects enter debt and rebellion spirals.