Succession in Brandenburg

[Jiben]

This was a succession game done on Brandenburg we decided to call it and make a short aar if someone is intrested. If anyone would like to join a simular game in the future you can click the link down below. Pictures and potential in game discussions can also be found there.

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1444-1459 AAR:
The first ruler of brandenburg started off strong. Poland proved themselves an easy and powerful ally, along with the palatenate and colonge. Luneburg thought themselves our rival, so a quick show strength war gave lots of early monarch points. The tuetons allied or guarenteed our enemies to the north. Unfortunately for them, the tuetons allied denmark. Sweden declared probably the earliest independence war I have ever seen, allying muscovy, england, and scotland.
While this was going on, I attacked stettinfor a quick war=, taking a province and humiliating for some PP.
Muscovy proved an excellent enemy of our enemy, and occupied all of the tueton lands, leaving the northern enemy undefended. While attacking them, brunswick was taking forever to seige down, so lubeck also pounced, taking the war goal for themselves.
I took a province adjacent, and decided to punish lubeck. Lubeck's trade league was powerful, so I attacked wolgast, their ally. I force vassalized lubeck, taking care of our money problems.
Another opportunity quickly arose as poland declared on the tuetons. I had a claim on danzig from the stettin war, so I occupied that province in a seperate war and was able to vassalize them afterwards.

Unfortunately, the monarch of brandeburg died in the middle of another show strength war.

To his heir, he hopes he takes care of his short term goals: Returning cores from poland to the tuetons, and showing strength in the current war.


Brandenburg in 1459 on succession.

When Albrecht took the throne after his brother he inheirited potentially the third strongest realm in the holy roman empire only after Austria and Bohemia. He also inheirited a war that his brother had started that he intended to finish with haste. Albrecht was a diplomatic leader a that trait soon be the keystone of Brandenburgian foreign policy.

Soon after the war was finished a alliance with the emperor was formed which would secure Brandenburg from any further threats.

The hohenzollern lands outside of Branenburg would be cut off from the main family as they provided little value.

Although Albrecht preferred peaceful diplomacy he understood that to bring forth the true potential of his duchy Brandenburg would need to be the undisputed hedgemon in northern Germany, something that took both bloodshed and cunning.

In a little over a decade Brandenburg had crushed most potential rivals in it's viscinity and not soon after Albrecht would be elected holy roman emperor.

His first act as emperor would be to punish the danes who owned lands in the empire.

After his victory against the danes Albrecht used his last years to leverage his diplomatic hegemony in germany to make many smaller local states submit to him without a fight.
On his deathbed Holstein, Brunswick and Oldenburg all had become Brandenburgian vassals peacefully.

Brandenburg in the succession of 1489.

Friedrich III. took over in September 1489
He Builds up Army, and wages some wars Against some Minors, Stade and Halle are now Part of Brandenburg.
Conquest against Denmark, Sjalland is now Part of the Empire and Norway is a new Vassal.
He disolved that polish Alliance and conquered Ostrada.
In a Great war Friedrich took half of Bohemia.
In a defensive War together with Austria he lost his only war and has to accept a peace offer from France over 1k gold was paid to France.
In 1520 Friedrich converted to Protestant.
An internal Religios War waged till 1528.
1525 Prussia was formed and accepted as a kingdom in the HRE.
A Great Victory against Sweden was won, but this resulted in a Coalition against Friedrich.
When Friedrich died a Regency for his 3 year old Heir Albrecht was formed.

Prussia after it's third ruler.

 

[Jiben]

When electress Anna Maria came into power, she was determined to do one thing - prove her superiority over France. She told her son stories about how France had wounded their pride in an earlier war. Prussia was still dealing with the economic reprecussions. Further, with the French tendrils creeping ever closer to Prussian lands, it was clear something needed to be done.
Anna Maria made her intentions known. She declared France her rival. The French armies were twice that of the Prussians, and they sent open insults to the regent Queen.

The posturing could only end one way. War. French had gone far enough into German lands that the regent queen finally had a claim on a provence, and she pressed it immediately. She called her faithful ally the Palatinate into the war. This was a mistake - the Palatinate were crushed and her armies could not respoond. The French troops had the morale of a victorious state, and the queen could not push into their lands, lest they take an unwanted fight. She picked off the French allies like the French picked off the Palatinate, until all but the cowardly island nations of Scotland and the Knights remained. Suddenly, Saxony decided they would answer the call for war. They knew about the French threat. With their forces combined, the queen ruthlessly exterminated the French armies. When peace was signed, the once proud standing French army was now entirely conscripts and mercenaries. Nevertheless, the Prussian people were not spared the effects of the war. There were no longer young men to replenish her spent forces, and the queen decided to sign for peace. She could not claim French land herself, so she released two vassal princes, Gascony, and Burgundy.

As the regency for Anna Maria was coming to a close, she needed to secure the estates for her son. The nobility wanted a land connection between the Prussian exclave. There were internal pressures to drop Saxony as an ally despite their help in the French war, and that could not be done if access was not assured. So the queen went to war with Bohemia and connected the lands.

Finally, Albrecht von Hohenzollern rose to power. Since he was three, he heard from Anna Maria about the French threat. He saw his wartorn lands. He moved his people closer to Protestantism. The young king was righteous. Instead of looking externally, he looked internally, developing Berlin and the surrounding provinces. That was, until his advisorts pointed out to him that Muscovy was an ally, and Poland was weak - The Hungarian people were openly defiant. He called his men to arms and declared war on the heretic Polish. While in the war, he declared the country in a golden age. His troops clearly dominated the Polish, and his country was in an economic boom.

He conquered the claims his country had laid in the past. He additionally granted Moscow back to the Muscovites, allowing them to declare themselves Russia. In this act, Russia began to implicitly trust the Prussian crown. With the Polish crushed, Albrecht declared himself defender of the Protestant faith. This was a means of posturing. The only country in Europe who could threaten protestant nations was France. Albrecht was planning to deal with them in time. To prepare his people, he enacted a decree of religious culture. His lands were mainly germanic anyway, so what was the harm?

Next came the moment that Albrecht's reign was leading to. The destruction of France. Over his reign, Albrecht was known to be righteous to his own subjects, but cruel in all of his dealings with foreigners. In a diplomatic faux pax, he had already destroyed his relationship with the Palatinate and Saxony. Even the marriages were severed. Albrecht turned his cruelty now to the French. His princes cried out for their soverign lands to be returned to them.

Albrecht did not lead the battles himself - he trusted his generals. But he did dictate their movements from Berlin. While there, he enacted many decrees to reform his army, rebuild the city, and improve his own lands. Berlin was thriving from his control.

The war was hard, but France had not recovered in the same way Prussia had. The once mighty French troops with their limitless moral was still the mercenary army Anna Maria had left them with. Albrecht, in his cruelty, split the country in twain - the only peace he would accept from the French. The French lands were now split, upper France, controlled directly from Paris, lower France, with its Italian holdings, and the German tendrils that had so threatened Berlin earlier.

Albrecht allied Spain, and continued internal improvement for years in his rain. Brabant declared fealty, and Brabant was rewarded with land. Besides a few wars of consolidation, Prussia was mostly silent. Albrecht further increased his professionalism and passed reforms to better his army. Known as a tactical genius after the French war, Albrecht began researching how to be more offensive in wars - it was the seiges that killed his people, not the battles themselves.
As defender of the protestant faith, he naturally took the mantle of leader of the protestant league. There was one issue before he could declare his hegemony - Spain was also allied to the heretic Austrians. By sending diplomats to improve relations and curry favors, he was able to convince them to break their alliance with Austira. Thus began the league war.

The war was a trifling thing for the Protestants. It was his armies, the French, and the Russians against Austria, the Polish commonwealth, and the Ottomans. Albrecht originally tried to exclude the French from the league - he didn't want their help, and he didn't need them, but his advisors convinced him that it would be better to have them fight for Prussian interests than to build their strength. Thus, the Prussian armies rolled over Italy, rolled over the flatlands of Eastern Europe, and demolished the Ottoman fortresses. In his cruelty, Ablrecht did not give the catholic league peace until his own people were rioting in the streets to demand it.
Of the notable treaties, Albrecht restored the Byzantines to their former glory. The Ottomans were a thorn in Prussia's side for a while, and despite decimating their lands, he thought releasing the former empire would be another way to punish them. No one would oppose Prussian interests.

The league war completed, Albrecht was elected emporer. This gave Albrecht that which he desired most. A way to completely destroy the French forces. He would take from them all land they held in Germany, he would release French princes as their own states, and he would do so with the authority of all Germany.

Or so he thought. The German people saw this transfer of land as moving from one threat to another. But to Albrecht, it was no matter. The French would never again threaten his interests.

The proudest moment of his reign was when one of his courtiers delivered a message. The French had conceded, lest Albrecht return to remove them from the map completely.

Albrecht died Jan 7th 1587. His son, Albrecht, was elected emporer of the HRE after him, with all the authority his father had earned.
Albrecht the father was remembered for three things: His righteous fury, his cruelty towards the French and Polish, and his tactical genius in managing his armies. His armies were standing, drilled, and professional. His generals were the pride of Germany.
On the world stage, the Prussia he left behind was second only to Spain, and the countries who swore loyalty to the Prussian crown surrounded him on all sides.


Prussia in 1587 after it's 4th ruler,

When Albrecht took the throne in 1587 Prussia was arugably the dominant power in not just germany but in europe at large. With vassals from Scandinavia to Aquitaine and Prussia herself owning a good chunk of land. This made Prussia the envy of europe and many nations were only waiting for Prussia to fall on hard times.

Albrecht reinvented the prussian legal system to have a unified legal system all across his domain. (ändrad)

Many nations submitted peacefully to the Prussian eagle.

Denmark and Poland would be humbled and neither state would ever be a threat to Prussia again. (ändrad)

Not long after both Sweden and Lithuania would be humbled. Prussia now held hegemony over both Scandinavia and Poland.

More nations saw the light and became vassals peacefully.

While Albrecht had many more ideas about how to transform Prussia he unfortunately left his mortal coil and would leave Prussia for his son. His son Freidrich would inheirit a strong but overextended Prussia that had vultures approaching. Only time would tell if Freidrich would live up to his fathers ambitions.

Prussia after it's 5th ruler.

Friedrich still suvering from the overextension searched for new ways to extend the prussian empire. In after a short but hard war the Byzantium Lands joins the Prussian Empire.

1637 Constantinoble falls to his rightfull owner and Byzantinum got a land connection to the empire.

1639-1642 Nueremberg, Erfurt, Inntal and Munich falls to the Prussian Empire.
2.July 1645 Germany was formed.

In the Middle of preventing a great fearsome Coaliation, after expanding the empire by a huge margin Friedrich dies in the middle of the war against the Ottomans.
His last order as monarch was the complete Annexation of the Hesse.

The rule of Fredreich Albrecht began with promise. He inherited a vast empire and showed a love for ships. He internally rerouted some of Germany's trade and developed the land.
He appointed a new chancellor, Ferdinand Maria Raabe, to rule the country in his stead. Fredreich much preferred to play card games in his countryside villa.

His son, Fredreich the 4th, watched as his father delegated more and more matters to Ferdinand. Weary that his father was losing control of the government, he plotted a coup. In 1659, Fredreich Albrecht met his end, and Fredreich the 4th rose to power.

Friedrich was a poor ruler, and his quick succession taught him to think that things come easily with brute force.
Nevertheless, in statescraft, he always tried to come across as careful and calculating.

He ended the three generation long war with the Ottomans, in which over a million men had met their end.

He then declared on Switzerland, seizing many of their mountain forts.

Nevertheless, the plot against his late father was exposed after this war. An Ottoman spy had discovered the plot, and sewed discontent among his provinces. On April 1st, Friedrich was set upon by a mob of Germans who had loved his father. Friedrich the 4th did not make it out alive.
Some say that the chancellor was the one who orchestrated the mob, some say it was the new strict Kaiserin who leaked the original plot to the Ottoman spy in order to seize power herself.

All that was known for certain is that in 1662, 3 years after her husband came to power, and with a child the age of 1, regent Kaiserin Marianne von Ansbach ascended the throne. She inherited a Germany pretty much the same as Fredreich the 4th and his father Fredreich Albrecht, but one lacking far more stability due to the succession plots that preceded her.

This is where we called it as we had become too strong and there was no real threat left. Save is linked if someone is intrested at looking around.

 

[HistoryDude]

Byzantium is doing well.

Prussia is also doing very well, and they got their revenge on France...

I'm interested in succession games, so I'll check out the server.

I wonder if the Russian-Prussian Alliance will soon face a great alliance of others that fear their expansion...