Conflicts and Converts: The Wars of the Limes - AAR Thread

[bluelotus]

Portugal
1544-1563​

For great surprise Portugal continued his colonization, trading progress after 1544. New cities like, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Florianopolis, Porto Alegre, Paraiba has been built and improved like Ilheus. Nothing important happened to Portugal till 1554 November. The Arch duke of Austria has attacked Venice who was Spain and Portugal’s ally. Finally Portugal joined in Venice’s side and sent his navy with a small supply force to the bay of Genoa, along with the Spanish strike force. With the help of the combined armies of Spain and Portugal the brave Venetians chased out the Archduke’s forces from Venetian lands by 1560… [Thanks to misclick of course]

After the war Austria had navy but no ports so the Portuguese king bought the survivor ships of his navy. In Indonesia a new European power has showed itself..

 

[Chaingun]

Austrian 1544-1563 AAR: How a game of nude poker can decide the fate of a nation...

(Now with a few smileys.)

Dear Loooooord!
Mainly
in-vain(ly)
war
tore
your
four
cows.

- Unknown Austrian writer called Jesus, around ca. 1560

Many of the years preceding and following 1544 are too a high degree forgotten in the mists of time because of an accidental flooding of the corresponding section of Vienna's city library. Nontheless, while looking through this gap of history Austrian historians have been able to conclude that for some years following 1544:

1. Baden and Bavaria were vassalized.
2. War with Poland resulted in a couple of provinces added to the 2.5th Reich.
3. A new Archduke ascended on the throne, known to history as Yussuf bin-Ferdinand.

Of course, as state documents after these events has been preserved they can be told, though in shame.

The emperor... sigh, archduke... bin-Ferdinand has been called so for his friendly policies towards the Ottoman Empire. When nationalists in Vienna called for a new war to wreck havoc in Europe and pointed out they had never sun-bathed in Greece before, bin-Yussuf responded by promising them a war, but not in that direction. For instead, there seemed to be oppertunities to the west and south.

It needs little explanation to say that France was a main enemy. The thought France would go to war with Brandenburg (read other volumes regarding the reasoning behind such a war) was a thought that tickled the Arch-Sheiks head. However, such an oppertune moment never came since the Frenchies demanded a guarantee of Austrian non-aggression if they ever were to engage in north German hostilities.

Of course, with the west sealed diplomatically, the remaining option was to go south to satisfy the mountain trolls lust for sun. Venice had been a long time ally or otherwise friendly country to Austria. It was just that in some years preceding the Archduke's current situation the Doge (why the hell would the Venetian leader insist to call himself a dog anyway?) had proposed a transfer of all Italian provinces (including the Genoan trade center) to Venice in exchange for 50 years of vassalship. Yussuf felt highly offended the Doge thought the sheikdom... err duchy of Austria would give away its citizens like that.

Soooo, having strong incentives for a completely illogical war on Venice bin-Ferdinand assessed the strategic nature of the problem. Venice had a huge god damn fleet. Venice was allied to friends of Austria that would instantly become enemies. It would be almost impossible to win such a war, and it would ruin much more than ever would be gained. The thought thrilled, and pleased Yussuf bin-Ferdinand very much!

The war was initied by an offensive from the Austrian Italy into eastern Venetian Italy. This army of an estimated 40 to 60 000 men was led by the Scottish prostitute Mac Enfield, a general with 6 fire skill. Troops were held in reserve in the mountains around Steirmark since the city of Venice could not be invaded with the Venetian fleet blocking all access, and a sizable army that could be used for a counter-attack was stationed there.

It's not exactly clear what happened next but after capturing Romagna or so the Austrian army was pushed back, and Mac Enfield was killed by "natural causes" when rejecting a proposition of too poor French knight who had long been away from home. o Although Romagna was continued to be held after a Venetian assault was repulsed the Spanish inquisition would soon arrive.

And the inquisition did arrive, very Spanish indeed... Sixty thousand (or less) trigger happy Spaniards landed on the shores of west Italy and immediately began to rape the cows and kill the women in the Italian countryside. The Austrians mountain trolls, seeing this it would damage their honourable moral standards if they gave up now. Hence, an all out attack on the Spaniards and their less numerous kin the Portugese were attacked, but the brave attack was repulsed. The Austrians had to retreat into the mountains of Genoa, were they after some time were defeated again and forced to flee in the direction of Milano.

The idea of retreating to Milan was not so bad if it wasn't so that the Venetians realized this would be an oppertunity to cause a total-annihilation of the Austrian army. Therefore they hurried to Milan to be able to defend the river Po when the Austrian army.

What the Venetians had not expected was that twenty thousand of hardy men and trolls from Tirols had left towards Milano some weeks earlier. They arrived before the Venetians, and a fierce battle ensued with the Venetians trying to rout bin-Ferdinand's troops before the fleeing remains of the Italy army came would catch up with them. Fortunately, they did before the reinforcements had been routed and with the arrival of 15 000 cavalry the process of killing every single Venetian was initiated.

The Venetians didn't flee because they hoped for Spanish troops to come and help them. They did... but only seven thousand delusioned Venetians remained by that time. Also, the Spaniards attempted to cross the river under heavy fire and got heavy loses before they disengaged. Now it was their turn to flee to Genoa, this time with the joint Austrian force chasing them.

However, now a point turning history would occur: The Spaniards had time to flee aboard their ships again, but, the Spanish king of sin sent out a request that a grand night at his royal luxury yacht would be held for the archduke, the Spanish king, the Portugese, and the doge.

The Spanish king had access to some fresh drugs imported from his colonies, and so a great party took place. Somewhere in the middle of the knight, the four of them started to play nude poker with some women. Now, this would not be so strange in itself, but bin-Ferdinand was exceptionally bad at this game, and quickly lost his clothes. The others now pointed out he had lost and by know had to leave the party and the half-naked women, but refuses! In his high state he said he would bet his entire French and Italian possessions next round! He did, and lost!

Thus, Spain got control over much undeserved land in Europe when the war ended. However, the government managed to stop a part of the bet and did not relinquish the French possessions for a very long time. Yussuf bin-Ferdinand was ridiculed by the populace for surrendering big without losing, and eventually he was kicked out of office (maybe).

Talk about the four cows of Europe was widespread in these times.

Later a prayer was found under an Egyptian pyramid from the anonymous poet of "Jesus". It is cited at the top of this AAR.

 

[PJL]

England 1544-1563

England during the last years of King Henry VIII's reign was in some way a well developed country with a large colonial presence in N America. However in other areas, she was less developed - her economy not doing so well, and she was not very advanced. Also she had many different religions within her empire (Protestant, Catholics, Reformed and even Pagans).

In 1544 Henry VIII decided that it was not enough just being an English version of Catholicism, and was keen to convert to Calvinism. With no strong central religious authority, the King could act as a final arbiter in conflicts between the different sects, and hence increase his personal power, rather than use a proxy through the Archbishop of Canterbury. So once again there was much instability caused by the conversion, though thankfully there was not a civil war.

Henry VIII was a tolerant man though, he wanted more tolerance and free thinking to encourage new ideas – as long as they were Christian. Pagans would still be converted to the true faith, especially those in North America.

As a result of the new found freedoms two new explorations were undertaken, and a manufactory built. This itself heralded more explorers and discoveries, and our knowledge of the world increased dramatically.

Edwards VII’s reign was fairly uneventful, continuing much of the policies of Henry VIII. However Mary took a harder line, wanting to convert more of the heathens in N America, and consequently became more narrow-minded. In all cases, much was made in expanding the N American colonies, plus getting new footholds in Africa, to explore the east more easily. Whenever possible, investment in better trading (especially getting a monopoly in the COTs) was made. This came to fruition during the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, when trade 3 was reach. At last we could begin to trade on equal terms with the likes of Portugal, Venice and the Ottoman Empire.

Generally throughout this period, England remained neutral in foreign affairs, and did not take part in any wars at this time, wanting to consolidate her domestic holdings. Although she has become concerned at how powerful some countries have become, especially the Ottomans…

 

[Avernite]

The age of feuds

The Danish king was mad. Very mad. Everyone could see it, as his moves got more erratic by the month.

This worried Gustav Vasa to no end. For all their troubles, the Danes and Norwegians were brother peoples, and he didn't want to lose them. Not to mention the fact that the Kurfürst of Brandenburg seemed poised to seize Holstein and Jylland from the madman.

Sweden, however, acted more swiftly. The war between the madman and Sweden began with some naval skirmishes in the Sund, mostly won by Sweden, after which the army was moved to Jutland to secure the region before the Germans arrived. Indeed, they arrived in time, and the German commander, Alcibiades, could do naught but accept the fact.

For a time, at least. A shockwave went through Sweden when the declaration of war from the Brandenburger arrived just shortly after the madman had been apprehended and put away somewhere in Lappland. Unfortunately, offcourse, the new regents for the Danish King were no better, but at least they had sense enough to freely allow Sweden to fight for the freedom of the Jutlanders.

The situation in Jutland looked grim, however. Even while fighting the Poles aswell, and from time to time some Lowland statelets, the army of the Germans easily equalled the Swedish army, and it's ability to reinforce was nigh on legendary.

Even so, Von Mehlen led the Swedish army to Jutland, where thousands of Swedish citizens were slaughtered by the Brandenburgian Knights. And yet, thousands of Brandenburgers died too, at one time somewhat like 27 thousand of their ranks were cut down at the cost of only 3 thousand Swedes.

Unfortunately, the pursuit could not be continued as Holstein was officially still a Danish province, even if it was obvious it would fall to Brandenburg soon enough.

In the end, however, Brandenburg developed new weapons and all Swedish operations across the Sund were halted, while the fleet continued to prevent any attack from reaching the rest of Sweden.

As such, Brandenburg essentialy held the lands of Jutland hostage, and the Swedish crown eventually paid the ransom. Now the slow work of rebuilding began, while the diplomatic service frantically tried to decipher what to do next.

War with Brandenburg was unwanted, but losing Jutland was unacceptable. And Denmark still was inbetween, even if only as a shadow of it's former self.

 

[unmerged(36826)]

Venetian AAR, (stupid dumb no invading easy AIed Asian countries rule... hate it soo much)


The Venetian Colonial Company and its exploits...

By the year of our lord 1550 the Doges of Venice had made the momenteous decision to reverse the policy of their forefathers, Venice was to make its fortune in the New World, as the Turk had managed to cut off the goods from the Orient and controlled trade all over Asia, the fabled venetian traders were giving up the centuries old profession and Venice had gone into an economic slump from which there seemed no sign of respite.

However the council pooled what remained of the cities money into a bid to buy the maps of the New World from the Portugeuse, English, Spanish, French even the Swedes. However only England and Sweden were willing to sell and at a high price, which was reluctantly paid. However their maps were useless to us as they only showed English or Spanish colonies. The venture seemed to have failed and thousands of ducats had been spent upon it.

However God himself took a hand when the Pope was being threatened by the Doge, and Spain gifted the province of Genoa to Venice along with the maps of the Spanish main and all the undeveloped lands of the world.

And so the first colonists were sent off, to fight the natives of the new world and tame the unsettled frontier (conveinently cleared by Spain earlier) and the west coast of America was soon swarmed (6 TPs and 2 colonies) by hordes of displaced Italians. Other spots were also experiencing the light of Italy as Santee was settled as an outpost for good catholics and Buenos Aires had a small inbred community set up as well. And so these colonies grew and grew with funding from La Serrissima and influxes of refugees who had their homes burnt down to encourage immigration.
And so by the year 1575 Venice had established its first colonial city on the paradise island of Flores followed swiftly by the desolate wasteland of Monterey.

However the second and third phases of colonisation were being put into plan at that very moment, the visionary Miceni had rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed for the city of Flores across the newly named Dr Bob's Ocean (named after the newly comissioned general of Venice) to see what they could see, he passed a desolate rock but currents prevented him from going closer and charting it for further colonisation. He explored the windy ocean for another 2 years before finally mapping out a larger island which was due south of a huge landmass he named New Venice. The small island of Tasmania was swiftly colonised and expedtions mounted from the port to explore New Venice. After many such voyages the coastline was laid open for the exploitation by the brave adventures of italy, and soon the entire coastline was flying the venetian flag.

However to the west of Venice's success story was another attempt at amassing colonial power by more military methods and the blue water fleet set out from Genoa with a small expidtionary force under the command of General Brigadin with orders to establish a foothold in India then move on with the pacification of Malaysia and the Indonesia area.

The small statelet of Mysore fell quickly to the well trained Venetian troops and peace was concluded without incident as the main Mysore army was in another war at the time leaving its home provinces unprotected.
However the ambitious general also realised he was at war with persia who were struggling against the might of the vibrant Mughal Empire under the command of Akbar. Seizing the oppurtunity Brigadin took the trading port of Isfashan with an amphibious landing and marched into the seat of saffivid power itself in Tabirstan and managed to sack the ancient city. The Persians eventually conceded victory when Brigadin again took the newly-liberated Isfashan despite attempts by the Persian army (3 times Brigadins armies size) to break the seige.
However the taking of Isfashan and Kerala caused an unheard of uproar as people realised that their husbands and sons were not going on a skiing trip at all, and were in fact killing innocent, technologically backward natives for the glory of Venice. His army was immediately called home and Isfashan left to whomever wanted it, the Doge had egg on his face for that leak of documents.
Elsewhere the colonisation continued apace and all of coastal Western America now has a Italian settlement of some sort or another on it, the income from this has increased Venices profits by nearly 35% and allowed thousands of heathens the true light of God.
The money will be put to good use to try to keep the Venetian fleet able to fight a defensive war against the Turkish armarda, and we must hope they suceed for an ottoman dominated Mediterrean would be a disaster for Christedom

 

[unmerged(6147)]

AAR OE 1563-1580

When the game begun we found that finally had NorthWest Africa become a part of our Empire. Not much later Crimea chose the safety of being part of our empire. Thus it stretches from Morocco in the West to the basin of the river Don in the East.

It has come to our knowledge that far away into the North on some forgotten island in the Sea the king of that island has become afraid of our power and thus started an intensive ship building race. That cost him dearly in inflation while we merely expanded our navy on our yearly census tax. The question we ask ourselves is: what has they to do with us? No answer to that riddle has been presented.

However, a few years of minting was made to provide for six refineries and thus our inflation grew with 2.2% but as income grew with 17% that was not so bad. Several other nations managed to increase income much more by percentage although they have not made any big impression on the trading market. The latter does not cease to surprise the Sultan. Neither SPA nor ENG has yet made such an impression. Besides OE only Portugal trades successfully. It was believed that our trade dominance would end this session, but it did not. Now Holland is in the game as well, it will be interesting to see how well they do. However, trade is a two-edged sword, a high presence must be paid with money from the treasury.

The doge in Venice got a cerebral haemorrhage and attacked our muslim brothers Persia and took Isfahan. However, as all other know that is forbidden. A proper punishment will no doubt be issued by God in the interest of teaching all nations to respect the laws for international interaction.

Songhai to the Southwest is a good muslim nation and were thus convinced that living as our vassals was good.

In the East Prince Murad of Persia fled to us and of course we offered him hospitality. That was not well-liked by the Shah who had the impertinence of DOWing us. A war that shortly will end in them being our vassals, their destiny from start.

Thus all proceeds according to plan.

The question now is what to invest in?
Trade for the gready?
Infra for the one who believes we cannot be a trading nation in the long run?
Naval to be safe?
Or land to be aggressive?

 

[unmerged(45041)]

AAR France --> 1580

During this session it was only a question of time before Austria was gonna
show its agressive natur towards the peaceful French ppl. And with CRT disadvantage there was nothing else to do than try to catch up. Finally that assault came and the Austrian forces met fierce resistance from the defending french forces. The offensive came to an halt and a stalemate began. But due to lack of funds the french army didnt have the money to further invest in army expansion. And the regent was led to believe he might handle the situation with the current armies. This was however a critical error. When the Austrian forces once again pushed forward, the 2 armies met at a huge battle just outside Paris. But the massive cavalry superiority for the french was to no use. The Austrian leader saved the day and from that day there was really no way to stop the advancing Austrian forces. With a terrible ws we had no choice but to meet the Austrian demands and let Brabant fall into enemy control.

The french was beaten and made peace, but they are not defeated...
This insult on french honor will not be forgotten. The french ppl crave for revenge, they shall be satisfied..........

 

[Chaingun]

The United Austrian, Hungarian and East French State: 1563-1580

On the seventh day, the Lord created soccer and declared times of soccer holy and not to be fought upon. Thus, the very pious Austrian-Hungarian-Schwyz-East French Archduke decided not to attack West France while he had a technological advantage during the period in question.

Hence, for the early part of these years, universal peace was declared in central Europe. The peaceful time was used to strengthen the army, which despite having a technogical advantage, was too small compared to that of Western France. At the years before the outbreak of war it had reached a number of close to 120 000 men. The West French army would perhaps field a similar number, but the Austrians were confident they could beat them and reconquer more of the Empire from the evil west.

After the dream years of soccer war was declared on West France. The goal only was to take more provinces to obtain the Austrian Archduke recognition as East French Emperor. Unfortunatly, the West French army would put up stiff resistance. Austrian armies were gathered in their areas around Lorraine, and separated into mobile spearheads and assault forces. Mobile spearheads consisted of 100% cavalry to strike quickly, assault forces contained a lot of infantry to be able to assault West French fortifications. Initially most troops were grouped into assault formations but all incursions failed and a new strategy to provoke the enemies to attack would have to be devised.

The Archduke looked at his nice wall map and saw that Savoy had joined the war together with the rest of the West French alliance. Nothing special about that, but when a closer look was taken it appeared that in fact Savoy was not a vassal of France. This meant they would accept a separate peace (and annexation). The strategy from thereon was adjusted and a siege was initiated in one province Savoy.

Initially only a small force sieged. The reason was the West French forces were large in the south and it was believed they could be lured into attacking their ally's province and be annihilated if Austrian forces waited behind the province. The French did not fall into this trap, even after several attempts to outmaneuver them. Austrian forces then stopped trying and put a 70 000 men army to guard the siege instead. (The Savoyans were nice enough to provide military access to feed the troops sieging their fortress.)

Eventually Savoy fell and was enveloped into the Empire. West French forces on the north of the front had been too pussy to do anything so essentially no warscore could be credited to either side. Since the French forces was split into a north and south forces the Austrians tried to engage each of these separately but failed each time and nothing happened. The war threatened to end without further gains to East France so the Archduke needed to think hard about it.

He did come up with a plan. More cavalry would be reqruited and organized into a huge mobile spearhead. This would then engage one of the West French armies before the other one could reach it and help out. While some operational mistake were done in this plan (at first a north Austrian army was beaten back as far as Luxembourg until countering), the strategy worked. Soon the entire West French army was forced to fight a huge battle against a slightly superior enemy outside Paris which they lost.

It has to be pointed out West France was far from beaten, but after losing many troops the people wanted peace. It was given in exchange for Brabant, a Dutch catolic city that had previously belonged to the Empire but had been cowardly taken after the Brandenburg war. In fact, West French forces might have fought on and reclaimed their lands because the main Austrian general carried out a suicidal attack with 3000 men on 25 000 enemies where he was killed. It's not entirely clear why he did this, but probably he thought the West French allies were his.

The end result was the crowing of the (sigh) Archduke as ruler by God of Austria, Hungary, Schwyz and East France.

 

[PJL]

England 1563-1580

This was another fairly quiet period, one of consolidation, colonisation, and conversions. The period began where it had left before, war with Scotland and the troublesome Irish fiefs. Ideally it was planned that all the Irish was be forcibly converted to Calvinism, and that Scotland would be vassalised. Unfortunately, due to the tenacity of the Irish, and troublesome rebels at home, only the vassalation went ahead, and Ireland was left alone.

After a shaky start quelling the rebels, the conversions in the Americas went well, with all the pagans and Catholics there converted, and most of the Anglicans who still believed in a strong central church authority. Indeed by the end of the period all Catholic provinces (not just in N America) had converted to the true faith.

Meanwhile, colonising in N America continued apace, and just as importantly, more colonies and trading posts were set up along the African and Asian coasts, with even a TP in the fabled East Indies set up. Income began to increase noticeably, especially now that we know how to monopolise trade, especially in our home centres of trade.

In Europe we chose once again to remain neutral, not siding with either the French or Austrians in yet another of their wars. We did not remain idle however, as we wished for a more independent line, and not just be at the goodwill of the Spanish and their allies. We undertook a crash course of naval expansion, increasing our navy five-fold during this period. This was especially important to counter the potential threat of the Ottomans who already had the biggest navy as well as a powerful land empire.

 

[Avernite]

Guns and Butter

Peace had returned to the vast, icy north of Europe. A wary peace, for sure, as Brandenburg and Sweden stared at eachother and attempted to gain an upper hand for the seemingly inevitable confrontation.

Sweden chose to do so in a very simple way: bribery. The Danish nobles, allways suspect to greed, were easily convinced to ally with Sweden in exchange for the rich spices gathered by Swedish merchants in Isfahan.
Unfortunately, they were not half as willing to give up their independance to join a new Kalmar Union, and kept the Swedish crown just a few inches short of the throne of all of Scandinavia.

At the same time, Brandenburgian attempts focused on the low countries, where they set up a puppet government and hid a fleet. It was nowhere near enough to beat the Swedish navy in direct combat, but if it could transport Brandenburgian armies into Sweden they could wreck serious havoc.

Also, some Swedish explorers, or madman as some would say, had discovered land west of the great English settlements in the new world. With the consent of the English king, trading companies were set up to exploit the riches of these new lands.

Still, despite the clear attempts to ensure a war would be engaged under the best possible circumstances, the Swedish economy boomed. New land was claimed in Skane, and monopolies were established in Holland, Sjaelland, and at times Isfahan.

This was no surprise, as central europe was wrecked by the chaos of a French-Austrian war, and only traders that travelled along the edges of Europe could achieve wealth, as the Golden city of the Sultan clearly showed. If only those riches could reach Sweden.

And an opportunity arose, as Swedish 'traders' discovered that the Venetians held maps of most of the new world, and were willing to sell them. Unfortunately, the Swedish crown did not acquire the means to buy them, yet, but if possible one day an attempt will be made.

One day, the riches of the earth, as Genesis promised, would be herded by humans, and Sweden would stand in the first rank to reach out and seize the riches promised.

 

[bluelotus]

Portugal
1563-1580​

Around 1570 Portugal changed his trading policy, and sent the most of his merchants to the New World, and to the Far East. Of course Portugal kept sending settlers to his colonies too. But mainly in that era Portugal spent a lot of money into their infrastructure and built new equipment to their forces. With the new CRT the tiny Portugal army could keep up the fight with his enemies. However Portugal not really has enemies, yet.

In Europe the second or third Austrian – French conflict just about to brake out. So around 1575 Austria attacked France, and in the end Austria annexed Savoy, and took Artois from France. In the South, Venice and the Ottoman Empire started a ship-build-race, and soon England is joined to it, too. As a naval country Portugal had too little fleet, and soon she realized that she must build a decent fleet.. After some years, in 1580, Portugal got enough money to start a serial run of warships..

 

[unmerged(36846)]

AAR – France (1580 – 1603)

France had two massive obligations: Uniting France under one leader and extending her borders to the Maas & Rhine Rivers and the Alps . This would re-bring prosperity to our once glorious nation.
Undoubtedly, this could not be achieved without a strong economy so the first ‘war’ against our hated enemies, Austria, was economical.

The first thing necessary was promoting responsible governors to cut inflation which at the time was about 10%, this was already done by many of our neighbours and we fully invested to reach infra 5. This was a hard time – the small size of our army brought about constant fear of being re-attacked by Austria, which from our estimations had an army twice as much.

Meanwhile, the unification of France under one leader was under way as the Bourbon monarch accepted to hand the sovereignty of his kingdom to ours, thus Bourbonnais became our vassal state.

Finally, after about 8 years, infra 5 was reached while some years later, we reached trade level 3 and hence became enlightened in methods to gain monopolies. We gained a monopoly in Paris, thought not much long-lived.
Meanwhile we were alarmed by the Austrian annexation of some of its puppet states which doubled her army. This was the time for France to re-arm. We fully invested on land technology and managed to reach Austria which was at first slightly ahead. We also tripled the tally of our army.
To our gratitude, the economical and technological war against Austria was being clearly won.

The awaited moment has come, perhaps quite unexpectedly and surprisingly .. Austria declared war.
To tell the truth, we didn’t expect Austria to declare war again and the attacks caught us a bit surprised. We thought we were going to be the ones to initiate the war and clearly didn’t expect Austria wanting to expand more in France.
Our vassal state, Bourbonnais also joined the war.

The Austrian offensive was not so strong; managed to take only one province while we defended cautiously. At first the war was balanced, Austria took a couple of our provinces; but after our counter-attack proved too strong and we managed to conquer the two northern provinces, Brabant & Luxembourg.
Austria re-took the offensive; we defended and again counter-attacked successfully, taking, if I remember correctly, Lorraince, Franche Comte and Baden.
In the meantime, the Bourbons were fairing disastrously, but at least they managed as little as they could to disrupt Austrian offensive plans.
Finally, Savoy and Alsace were blitzkrieged and hence all Austrian western provinces were now in our hands.
We noted that Austria won decisively against the Bourbons, but this would not affect us in any way since Austria can only take cash from them.

Though no peace treaty has been yet formulated, we already know we won the war. Our economy is still healthy, we did not even start to mint while our economists have concluded that Austria has been minting at 100% (or almost) judging from her inflation increase. All that had to be done was done, now all we have to do is defend the conquered provinces and await the Austrian archduke to sign the peace treaty which will re-bring glory and prosperity to France.

Vive la France!

 

[unmerged(6147)]

AAR OE 1580-1603

When we left the previous AAR the question was made what to invest in. The answer to this was to be gready. All investments went into trade tech alone. Thus OE succeded in reaching TT6 just before the game ended. This menas OE now lags a little in the military techs. This will be remedied the next session where the race for LT/NT18 will be joined by the Turks.

Our war with Persia was over quite fast as suggested in the previous AAR. Apparently a little too fast because just as peace was made the English fleet must have been somewhere in the Biscaya or outside Portugal judging from the fact that just a few months after the peace ENG DOWed claiming publicly they wanted Fez. They must have been really disappointed when peace was made between PER and the OE.

We were never worried, we started the war one land CRT ahead and around 5,000d in the treasury. Armies started moving from Egypt directly. After having lost the initial battle in Fez to the invasion force, led by a conquistador whose name we did not care to check for, great masses of men begun to assemble in the Algeria region. Fez was sieged by 25.000 cavalry led by this conq while the OE leader had not arrived yet. However I still decided to send in my 44,000 cavalry into Fez. I also claimed DotF. It was a smashing victory. With 7k men left the conq slipped away via Tangiers to SPA. He was never seen on African soil again after that. I had my fleet blockade Gibraltar strait.

Next thing to happen was a naval attack on my fleet outside my colony in Bombay. It failed. Some months later it was repeated and this time the ENG fleet won and they landed an armed force similar to mine. IIRC it had no cavalry…. Wes won that battle. And the attackers retreated to Goa to embark. I now decided to go on the offensive in the colonial area. I sent some more ships and men to India, they then sailed for Ceylon and eliminated a 13k ENG force guarding the Eastern province colonised by ENG. After that they proceeded to the province on the southern tip of Sumatra where the ENG had a TP. Control was taken. ENG was also trying to colonise Sunda and 2k infantry was placed in that province to be prepared it the colonist succeeded, but he did not.

Meanwhile the huge ENG fleet was sighted outside the coast of North Africa. Had it slipped by my fleet or had it sailed directly to some SPA harbour after disembarking the army for Fez? We may never know. However, my fleet blockading Gibraltar strait immediately set sail for the Bosphorus. Meanwhile a small fleet outside Alexandria (mostly transports) was sunk by the ENG fleet (sloppy to not have it in port). When my fleet arrived in Constantinople the ENG fleet sailed around in the Black Sea. Apparently it had not men on board because it never disembarked any. Anyhow I decided to wage battle in the Bosphorus intercepting the ENG fleet when it came sailing back. I had Uluch Ali while they had Drake. He had slightly more war ships than me but the bulk of the fleet were some 500 galleys each. As is the case with these early naval battles losses were not very high and moral decided the day with a win for the ENG, but it was hard fought. The ENG fleet decided enough was enough and sailed for home and ENG offered WP which was accepted.

Thus ended the 2nd attempt by a European nation to infiltrate on the North side of the African continent just as the first. Let this be a warning to all nations! OE will protect their citizens!

After this war we just had to wait for Songhai to go to peace with Benin and when they did they could be annexed.

We are constantly astonished that no one else but OE and POR trades on a more grand scale. Each session I predict will be the last one where OE dominates trade, but I will stop making these foolish predictions now.

Several nations have not yet reached infra 5, some not even infra 4. We are perplexed. That a rich nation like ENG in the year 1603 is on INFRA 3 with 9,000d invested… The OE have been on IT5 for close to 50 years now and the SPA even more. Has ever an ENG performed as weakly in IT? Did the ship building race with the OE break the neck of the English economy? That is some of the questions analysed by the Turkish brain centre. Another one is why both SPA and ENG allow their economies to inflate this much? The obvious answer is colonisation and converting of Indians. Investments with long term benefits, no question about that.

We noticed with envy that ENG got 3 exceptional years while the Ottos got none. Still we reduced our inflation by 2.6% while they increased their with 5.6.

We wish all our friends good luck!

 

[unmerged(6147)]

AAR – France (1580 – 1603)

Aryus. Nice AAR and nice effort by you. Could you please insert your ICQ in your sig, I would like to add you to my contact list!

 

[unmerged(36846)]

Aryus. Nice AAR and nice effort by you. Could you please insert your ICQ in your sig, I would like to add you to my contact list!

Cheers. My sig doesn't show. Icq is 203-916-072.

Edit: Ah it shows at the next post..

 

[Avernite]

Maps and War

The era of peace seemed to be lasting longer than expected, and the Swedish crown managed to secure the resources necessary to buy Venetian maps.

A wealth unthought off by even the most optimistic Swede suddenly flowed into Sweden. Rich spice from Delhi, Gold from Tlaxcala, and offcourse the ever present flows from Isfahan and Alexandria.

Sweden was a rich nation, for it's population, and many flocked to it's cold shores to find their fortune and freedom from aristocratic oppression. However, the Germans were not at all quiet.

Poland was crushed again by Brandenburg, yielding terrain claimed by the Tsar. Suddenly, Sweden had the chance of diverting Brandenburgian attention, but it was not to be. Russia was vast, empty, and cold.

In the years needed to mobilize Russian resources, Brandenburg chose the sole option that harmed Sweden the most. They struck against Denmark instead of waiting for Russia to strike instead, apparently hoping to avoid the possibility of a Swedish flank attack when their forces were tied down in Russia.

The Brandenburgian army hugely outnumbered even the combined strength of Sweden and Denmark, and it's navy was larger than the Swedish fleet, too. Luckily, the navy provd a paper tiger. Another offspring of the reknowned Avernite family lead the much more disciplined and experienced Swedish fleet against the Germans.

Even outnumbered, the battle was easy for Sweden. Brandenburgs fleet was crushed like it was made of paper instead of wood, and it was clear that at least defeat was not imminent. Some had feared that, for indeed if the Swedish fleet had lost...

Suffice it to say, no Swede had had anything but nightmares about that possibility, with a hundred thousand Germans looting up through Sweden. Such would not occur, now.

In the meantime, Russia had picked up it's pace and struck Poland, a Brandenburgian vassal. Brandenburg now proved even stronger, or smarter, than expected, and fully engaged the Russians to drive them out. Tens of thousands must have died even in the early months, and that while Sweden still had a large army occupied in Northern Germany.

Slowly but surely, the Russian meatgrinder advanced every time Swedish actions forced German resources to be diverted north, but it was horribly slow. In this same time, domestic trouble brewed in Sweden as Duke Karl seized the throne to prevent a catholic pole to seize our beloved homeland, but the price WAS high. As a result, while Russia kept grinding on, disaster struck.

On the wide open lands of Jutland, the full power of the Swedish army, only numbering some 30 thousand compared to the 60 thousand at the wars start, was engaged by the northern army of Brandenburg. Few ever returned to tell of the shame, that the Swedish army was tossed aside by a mere fraction of Brandenburgian power.

Yet the long years of war had harmed Brandenburg more than Russia, and despite the effective elimination of Sweden from the war, Russia held it's forward positions, and Brandenburg accepted a white peace to be signed.

As soon as the news reached Sweden, the economy boomed, as Wallonian immigrants set up shop in the metal-rich inlands of Sweden. At the same time, the diplomatic service was busy too, leading eventually to a great breakthrough.

Sweden would do the work of God, and in return a lasting peace with Brandenburg could be established, which would bring great prosperity and hopefully ensure attempts to integrate Denmark would be more succesfull. Apparently, God wanted peace to exist between the only large protestant powers. As peace with England was allready a fact, this was the final step to breaking the papal hold on Swedish affairs.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

It appears mighty interesting wars took place up in the North. Good to get a glimpse of them Avernite.

Appears Tonio did well in war as is his habit Avoid low tech wars with him Avernite, and that is as good advice as you will ever get. He claims he will beat anyone in low tech warfare Yes, anyone. Presupposing similar strength of course.

 

[PJL]

England 1580-1603

The period started with a brief war against the Ottomans, in which our demands were to take the strategic province of Fez. We had hoped to get allies to fight with us, but none were forthcoming. So we decided to fight them alone, even though their navy was slightly bigger and their army was much bigger. Also we hoped that their war with Persia would distract them.

At first things went well, we crossed Fez from Tangiers with Raleigh and destroyed the small force there, and our fleet headed by Drake tried to find the Turkish fleet. We wondered all around the Med, but to no avail, although we did sink some ships outside Egypt. Meanwhile another force had sailed from Ceylon to take the overseas Turkish provinces in India and elsewhere. After an initial success with the fleet, we failed to dislodge the army there, and sailed back to get some more reinforcements

In the mean time the Ottoman-Persian war had finished, meaning that all their forces could now be directed against us. This resulted in a large battle in Fez, which Raleigh had seiged. Unfortunately theirs was superior, even with Raleigh as leader, and he were forced to flee to Tangiers, awaiting reinforcements. However worse was to come, since we had finally found their fleet (outside Constantinople), which despite superior technology and leadership, and even though we had won, our losses were too high to be acceptable, and decided that we could not face their again. Meanwhile a local Turkish force had defeated our navy in Ceylon, and our garrison there. It was decided that it would be best if we made a white peace with the Ottomans, an offer they accepted.

Much of the rest of the period was consolidating our holdings in N America and elsewhere, and getting the tech for trade monopolies, which we duly reached. Towards the end we had decided to teach the Irish a lesson again, which is ongoing, despite rebel trouble at home.

 

[Avernite]

It appears mighty interesting wars took place up in the North. Good to get a glimpse of them Avernite.

Appears Tonio did well in war as is his habit Avoid low tech wars with him Avernite, and that is as good advice as you will ever get. He claims he will beat anyone in low tech warfare Yes, anyone. Presupposing similar strength of course.

I try, I try. I try to avoid fighting him.


And I don't think it was an uber-great result, Russia wasn't very allpowerfull compared to his German hordes

 

[Tonioz]

Daniel, Sweden and Russia finally minted, while i didn`t and their total income doubled mine. At the end my census taxes reduced to around 140, but i didn`t want victory just for my satisfaction for the price of 0.1% even