Bohemian Rhapsody

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Ok, this will be my first AAR.

System: Europa Universalis I with IGC 2.1 installed.
Rules: Default except for Fog of war, which is turned on.

In the beginning; there was Bohemia. And it was, well. Ok.

Most of this game was played while listening to Seal's '94 self titled CD.

On my first day of gaming, I played from 1492-1523. The first thing I did was go into the technology screen and put the Stability and Naval tech. sliders all the way down. I spent the first twenty years building up the military, engaging in royal marriages, and sending traders to Ishafan. That's a nice trick for anybody who doesn't have much money in EU, as the Persian and Uzbek merchants are fairly easy to push aside. By 1520, I had an army of about 20000 infantry, 15000 cavalry, and 80 pieces of artillery, as well as having built up the forts in Silesia, Erz and Bohemia to Small level from minimal. My goal, post reformation, was to be a catholic crusader in western Germany. If I could take out the Protestant countries as they came into existence, I wouldn't have to worry about the negative diplomatic results of annexation. To that end, I quickly swooped up and destroyed Thuringen in 1522, as soon as it became protestant.

Peasant man: The Bohemians are coming!

Noble man: Well, what does it matter if some merchants come here?

Peasant man: Not that kind of Bohemian, THAT kind!
points at advancing pikemen

I raised the religous sliders for Catholicism and Protestanism, reducing Islam and Orthodoxy to the lowest level.

At this point I spent a little cash on replacement infantry, looked around for other protestant nations (Wurtemburg and Hannover had converted by this point.), saved, and quit.

 

[Morlac]

Some thoughts...

How about some more fiction to go with the recap? It doesn't have to be a novel, it doesn't even have to be serious. But give us a reason to care about your country and its goals...

And on that note -- I'm not sure how familiar you are with things (hey, still learning myself...) But you mentioned that your strategy is to take out protestant states as they appear so that you will "be insulated from the diplomatic effects."

I'm not sure how well that will work--depends on what you're expecting I guess. On the one hand, yes annexing the protestants as they appear will leave you with no protestants getting furious about the annexation. On the other hand, I can't see you quickly annexing, say, England or Sweden when they go Protestant. Also, the badboy costs will still be racking up. Since you have a reasonably modest goal (dealing with the germanic protestant states), I have the sense that you'll add up just enough BB points to get yourself to the point where everyone -- regardless of religion -- declares war on you when you're otherwise engaged...



Anyway, nice to see someone still playing EU 1 and the IGC, much less willing to write an AAR about it!

 

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Bohemia would be an intresting country.......

You better get yourself in a strong alliance with Austira or Hungary, or maybe even Poland. If not You will be gobbled up by one of them quickly. Another thought would be getting Austira and Russia as an anti-poland coalition, that will allow you to take a nice peace of change out of them.

The problem I see when dealing with German states, is that there are either alliances between 2 or 3 of them, OR they are alligned with Spain or France. So while at the begging you should take out some, as they disapeer you will hit a roadblock. Also taking out brandenberg, then the Hans could be VERY profitable for you, BUT it will be a tough challeng, team out with Austria and Denmark if that plan intrests you.

 

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growth of an empire

1523-1552

Now at this point it's interesting that both the comments made by people are happening. I allied with Austria, Bavaria, and Burgundy, but Hungary betrayed us in a war I was forced into against Venice. Luckily, I didn't have to do much (I sent some cavalry and marched up and down the Adriatic coast), but got 250 gold for my trouble. With money in my pocket and a large army, I thought it was about time to think about those pesky protestants again. The Saxons had recently converted and allied with Hannover. With an army of about 20k infantry, 15k cavalry, and 90 artillery pieces, I declared war on, and swiftly conquered, the Saxons. (Ever wondered how a central German people are also the ones who SAILED to England?) In the peace, I got Saxony, Austria got that little eastern Saxon province, Burgundy got Oldenburg, and Hannover remained as an independant state still at war with me. I offered them money, but they just wouldn't give up! I spent most of the next ten years (about 1530-1540, I didn't keep notes), chasing down rebels and expanding all the forts to small level. Now by this time I'm getting slightly pissy about the whole Hannover war. It doesn't seem logical that two nations that don't share a border and don't have allies or a sea between them would "fight" for twenty years! Anyway, at the end of 1552 I ruled a nation of 7 provinces, two german, five Bohemian. I had a large army, a (fairly) content people, and an alliance with Austria. Obviously, this wasn't gonna last for long!

 

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1552-1571

More like the City State of Bohemia

As the King of Bohemia rises from his bed, his bones creaking from campaign after campaign, he looks out towards the newly conquered west.
"Ah, now my sons will rule a true nation, not simply a little kingdom of Germany, but an empire!

As he sits in his chair to right off letters to the kings of surrounding nations, telling them to get stuffed, Into the room runs a courier.

"Sir, sir! The Hessians are attacking!"

Well, thought the king. We can handle that.

"Sir, sir! The rebels are attacking!"

Well, thought the king. We can handle that.

"Sir, sir! The Venicians, Brandenburgers, Hungarians and Poles are attacking!

Well, thought the king. I think I'll just nip off and shoot myself.

As Morlac guessed, my carefully concocted strategy soon crumbled. The Austrians had fought a second and third war against Venice, gaining nothing but a little money, and using up all their troops. Burgundy was fighting off a Dutch national rebellion, and Bavaria must have been using slingshots and broken spears as their weaponry, 'cause they just couldn't win any battles. The rebels took Bohemia, the Hessians took Thuringia, the Poles took Silesia, the Hungarians took Moravia, and Saxony fell to Brandenburg. So, I was left with three provinces. Then, to add insult to injury, the refinery in Bohemia that I had recently built burned down in a random event. So, what now? I saved and built a fine arts academy in Bohemia, and now plan to be very, very cautious for the next two hundred years. So it might not make the best reading!

 

[Morlac]

Re: 1552-1571

Celt--

I take it that the nations you named were in separate alliances or were attacking individually, forcing you to surrender territory to each instead of just buying off a single alliance leader. Ouch -- even I didn't expect the fall to be *quite* that quick.

Some thoughts/suggestions:
(1) When confounded by rebels and under attack by enemies , take a month or two to see where the enemy is marching -- they may very well take care of the rebels for you! (In my current IGC game I'm Spain and own a big chunk of the Netherlands even after the revolts. They had one great general with about 90k troops in their one province capital, surrounded by my (rebellious) provinces. When they eventually declared war on me, I let them besiege a province and within a month or two they were inundated with my rebels! Both sides took hideous attrition, and meanwhile I took their capital. Waited until the 90k had attritted down to 20k, then made peace, laughing all the while.

(2) You mentioned a 10 year long war with Hannover during which you didn't share a border. If neither side was able to initiate any hostilities, the computer should have forced a white peace after 36 months. Were you still in that war with an alliance partner they could reach, or fighting one of their alliance partners, or were they somehow able to get to you through a vassal or something? If it's the 2nd, you can try to get into a separate war with them by making a separate peace with their alliance partner, letting your remaining no-access war wind down in 36 months. If it's the 1st, you have to check carefully when making peace -- you might have concluded a separate peace with their alliance partner, leaving Hannover as alliance leader still at war with you. Avoidable by concluding the peace with the alliance leader in the 1st place (even if it's at less favorable terms). If it's the 3rd, then you are out of luck and you might have to DOW (or vassalize) somebody in the intervening territories to gain access.

Re-reading your post, I think it happened because you annexed Saxony, which was their war leader (you started the war by DOWing Saxony), leaving you in a rump war with Hannover. I think it might have worked out rightly if you had made a separate peace with hannover first, then annexed Saxony. Since you were planning to annex anyway, the weirdness about separate peaces reversing defensive/offensive positions for BB purposes wouldn't apply.

(3) If you're going to go through rounds of badboy wars caused by your nasty rep, you need to be prepared. Keep as many diplomats on hand as possible before entering a war. Once at war try to get as many peaces at once as possible, preferably all of them. The AI nations tend not to want to be the FIRST to DOW a strong badboy, but will cheerfully pile on when you are already at war. So you want to get a solid month or two when you are not at war with anybody (for some reason the AI will still DOW you up to a month after your last peace was concluded). And clustering the peaces together towards the end means the five year peace treaties also run more or less concurrently. If you don't do that, you can wind up concluding the last war only to face a fresh DOW from the one you made peace with first!

(4) The caveat/corrollary to #3 is that as soon as the flurry of DOWs come in, pause--if you can't fight all the wars at once, pick the enemy alliance leader who can hurt you the worst and offer gold for peace. At least at the outset, before they start racking up stars for battles and conquered provinces, they may be amenable to even a 250 offer, which is probably cheaper than the armies and provinces you'll lose fighting them. Then concentrate on making the weaker enemies rue the day they DOW'd you!

(5) Don't include your allies in the BB wars unless they add a LOT to the fight. It splits their tiny AI brains and they lose focus and don't fight well. Also, it may be that some of your enemies can't even reach you unless you let your allies in on the fight. (Was Venice allied with one of your neighbors or had it captured chunks of Austria? if not, could they have even reached you if you didn't invite austria into the fight?

Sorry for the hugely long post -- and further apologies if you know all that stuff already -- I'm not clear on how long you've been playing and how much you know!

 

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1571-1610

In the year of our lord 1588, the barbaric army of Hesse invaded Bohemia, capturing Erz and Sudeten. At the cruel peace of Prague, Bohemia was forced to sign over these territories. A great wave of reform swept over the country, causing lower inflation and a greater army (OOC; Random events).

Ok, worst period of play yet! Hesse, without any allies, was able to beat up my army at the first battle of Erz. This is probably because I had stupidly focused on getting the army back to original size without paying too much attention to artillery. Luckily, the little artillery I did have I saved by sending them to Bavaria, who are, along with Austria my allies. After the war, I focused on rebuilding the army (This time with more artillery, about 90 pieces) and promoting chief judges, governors, and tax collectors. Next time, I wasn't going to lose.

 

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1610-1640 Rebuilding a nation

The old monk sat down at his desk, took out the feather pen and began to write. "In the year of our lord 1618, the Brandenburgers attacked the German alliance of Kleves, Hesse, the Palatinant and Cologne. After many defeats, Hesse was being reinforced by over 80 regiments of her allies. King Rudolph the II (of the red nose?) of Bohemia invaded Hesse, realizing now was the time to strike. At the great second battle of Erz, 60 regiments of German infantry, 10 of cavalry and 20 pieces of artillery were smashed by King Rudolph's glorious army of 20 regiments of infantry, 10 of cavalry and 90 pieces of artillery. After the battle, Rudolph's victorious army swept through Hesse. Soon the traitorous Austrians attacked, however, and seized Sudeten from the hands of Rudolph's army. At the peace of Cologne, Austria took Sudeten from Hesse, while Bohemia held on to Erz. Thanks to a tremendous screw up in Bohemia's already flatulent military history, 6000 men died after the war. (OOC; random event.)

Finally! I regained one of the provinces of Bohemia, so now I have two. Most of my money had gone towards advancing the technological situation, so now I was up to level 9, while my enemies were still at about level 7. Not a tremendous advantage, but combined with all that artillery, it seemed to work. So, what do you think so far, guys?

 

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Oh, and Morlac. Appreciated the post, thanks! I haven't been playing a terrible long time (Somewhere around 5-6 months I think), and besides, I can always use advice about war. Most of the time I play remote mercantile powers, like England, Netherlands, Portugal, Venice or Denmark. I'm pretty good at naval and colonial warfare, but actual European fighting makes me queesy.

 

[Morlac]

On War

Celt:

Hmm, some quick thoughts on European war

(1) I actually doubt that the artillery was of much use in the battle one way or the other. At the lower land tech levels artillery actually doesn't add much to field combat -- it's only useful in sieges, and of course its cost is horrific.

(2) Somewhere around the boards I believe there are numerous discussions and links to Huszics excellent EU1 faq about the factors going into land combat. But basically

-- at lower levels cavalry rules the field, particularly in the plains (light grey) that are common in northern europe. Artillery is too big, slow and expensive to use in the field, and infantry can't stand up to cavalry charges.

--at medium levels the balance starts to shift and cavalry becomes less important

-- at high levels infantry and arty rule the field, and cav is much less useful, though still works well against low tech enemies like rebels

--cavalry effectiveness is reduced by almost any terrain but plains or desert, in some cases quite drastically

--crossing a river to attack reduces your effectiveness badly

--small differences in tech level (like the gap between 7 and 9) are almost inconsequential. There are very slight incremental improvements, and occasional huge jumps (I think level 12 is the first).

--the two ways a battle can end are that one side is wiped out completely (rare) or loses all its morale and breaks off. I think cavalry has an advantage there, in that it seems to be "faster" and can break off with fewer casualties than inf and arty and can do more damage to a slower force trying to break off. Also, at lower tech levels, morale is so low to start with that its almost easy for an inferior force to essentially "scare off" a superior one because even if one side has a big numerical advantage, they started with the same number of "morale points" and lost them at roughly the same speed.

--each "round" of combat, your army may take casualties and may lose morale. It can actually work wonders to "stage" your battles such that a significant fraction of your forces arrive a week or so after the rest. This is particularly true when you have the numbers advantage and want to minimize the chances of getting "scared off". When the reinforcements arrive, the morale of the two units are somehow averaged together rather than tracked separately, so you don't get one almost broken unit and one fresh one, you get two medium units. This also works marvels when conducting assaults on fortresses, by the way (in addition to reducing siege attrition!)

--if for some reason it looks like your army is losing horrifically and taking massive casualties as well, you can manually force them to retreat before their morale breaks to keep them from being completely annihilated. Just click on the unit and right click on one of your provinces as if you were moving it. You've still lost the battle but may have preserved more of your army than you would've.

--in some cases you may be able to cut the advancing enemies supply line by taking the remnants of your force and covering/besieging the province they came through. (If the geography works in your favor -- of course if they have multiple provinces bordering you to run supplies through, you're out of luck). Cutting their supply line will increase their attrition rate by 10%.

--sometimes it would help to retreat your army out of the way of the oncoming enemy juggernaut. Let them besiege the first province in their path (if they will settle for that, sometimes they have it in mind to get something else...) and wait for an opportunity. Attrition will eat at them if they siege, and if they assault and fail on the first attempt their morale will be shattered, at which time you can rush in (leave the slow artillery behind, though unless you think they can get there fast enough -- or send them in a second wave to take advantage of my morale suggestion) and may chase them off easily.

How did Hessen smash you so badly? Was your entire army destroyed in the opening battle? Did they siege both Erz and Sudeten or assault the fortifications? (I recall that you had upgraded all forts to level 2 previously, so this either way it should have required either a lot of time or a lot of men...)

When it looks that grim, by the way, as soon as your first province has fallen, you should try to see whether the enemy will accept an offer of peace for just that first province. If you haven't also lost lots of battles, you may only be two stars/tombstones down, in which case the offer might be accepted. Of course, if you have the gold, it would be better to offer him the gold to walk away before he even conquers that first province (but if he's going to take heavy attrition losses while sieging you, you might let him do that for a few months...)

Also, it's not clear from the post -- did Austria actually attack you? I thought they were your allies. or did they just "steal the siege" by joining your siege and using a better general? If the latter, you should know that happens a lot and it may not even be worth staying -- move the army to another province!

I'm not sure I have a good mental picture of the map as it stood when you were down to 1 province, but I might not have stopped to build up the economy at that point. Things were horrible enough that you might have been better off just spending the money on troops to quickly snatch another province or two from somebody (if possible without annexing and further ruining your reputation)

Sorry if some of the explanations above were unclear. If you want clarifications, let me know. Good luck with the rest of your game!

 

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1641-1675

King Luitpold I of the pretty name ascended the throne. "I vow, from this day forth, not to rest until our country is back to her original... ah.. ADVISOR!!" "Yes your majesty?" "What was the word again?" "Size, your majesty." "Ah, yes. Size."

During this time we fought a lot of wars, and were fairly successful. I had the good luck to get into the Habsurg alliance with Spain, Austria, Portugal, and Aragon (which had recently rebelled from Spainish rule). The first thing I did was invade Moravia , taking it back from Hungary. My country is now Bohemia, Erz, and Moravia. The Ragusan allies of Hungary put up a damn good fight, and we barely were able to conduct the siege, but somehow, the Hungarians obliged and gave us the province. During this time a series of wars broke out between the Spanish and just about everybody else. The Granadians revolted, the English declared war anlong with Scotland and the Papal states, and another alliance war broke out with the Dutch (Who had rebelled from the Burgundians and become a bloody terror in Western Germany, conquering Kleves and Cologne), the Swedes, and the Ukrianians (Recent Polish rebels.) Somehow, the Habsurg alliance managed to win all these wars, but it broke up during the Granada revolt (No one helped Spain but me). We ended at land tech level 12, with medium level forts in all three provinces, an army of about 70 regiments and 80 artillery pieces, and general happiness.

(Sometime after writing this post with word, I decided to play again. Revving up the computer, I loaded the '75 save game. After about five minutes of play, I stupidly saved over it. This wouldn't have been a tragedy, but the game crashed half-way through saving, leaving me with a file which doesn't work. My last saved game is from October of 1641, and I don't really feel like playing through these particular, treacherous thirty years again. If anybody really wants me to continue, post, but otherwise I think I'll call it quits for this one. However, I did enjoy writing, and will probably attempt another AAR in the near future)

 

[Morlac]

Crashed save game

Well, I'd like to see how things turn out, but yeah, I can see not wanting to replay those 30 years. Any chance that you had the autosave feature turned on and have a more recent save than you thought? (I usually keep mine on yearly save just in case...)

If you decide to start a new game along the same lines, maybe you'd be better off with one of the smaller coastal germanic states in the north. I think part of the problem was that as Bohemia you were landlocked (good and bad) and more importantly you had potential enemies on all sides. With water on at least one border, you're at least a bit safer.

Good luck!

 

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I had autosave turned off (slaps himself on forehead). When I go to do the next one, I'll turn it on. How about the Hanseatic league with IGC feature "Super Hansa" turned on? I'd be a little worried if I was just doing it with Pommerania seperate.