The French Wars
As related previously, the peaceful Britannian countries (Lancaster, Scotland, England) had largely settled their affairs with elections, rough wooings, and the occasional execution of a particularly unruly vassal. By agreeing to fight like gentlemen, and not strive to extract every last possible drop of blood, the Britannians ensured that nobody got hurt who wasn’t an adult who had voluntarily entered into the game of thrones, or alternatively, a peasant. On other continents, however, the political process was less civilised; indeed, it could hardly be otherwise since those other continents are inhabited by, not to put too fine a point on it, foreigners. In particular, the kingdom of France had found it useful to gather a very large horde of peasants and assorted other ruffians, in order to bully its neighbours. (This is not very gentlemanly, but to be scrupulously fair, a Frenchman is hardly a gentleman anyway.) Finding that its neighbours had gathered their own large armies in response, the French uncharacteristically decided to think for a moment, looked beyond the borders of their own island, and found a large number of peaceful countries minding their own business and not particularly heavily armed. They immediately seized the opportunity, and sent out messengers requiring those other polities to make a leal submission to the French King, on pain of the French Army. Which, of course, shortly afterwards provided them with an even larger and more ruffianly army, leading to further opportunities… and only a few years later the army was so large and ruffianly that it would not support a mere King, but demanded an Emperor to hold it in check.
All right, all right, I’ll be a vassal… for the time being.
This situation was, naturally, intolerable to every right-thinking Briton. The immemorial freedoms of this sceptered isle! The right to govern our own affairs as we choose! The maddening stench of garlic! We were initially taken by surprise by the sudden insolent demand for submission, and had not had time to make a united front; fighting separately, we were naturally defeated separately. However, once the shock of defeat had subsided, the organisation of a united resistance front took only as long as is required for a messenger to ride to London from Lancaster. The unfortunate fact is, however, that not every Briton is right-thinking; the perfidious Scots, in particular, proved very unparticular about whose salt they loyally served - and very deadly in battle.
Britons never-never-never shall be slaves!
Defeated in the open field, Byrhtnoth ended his days in a French dungeon, leaving his people a legacy of unrelenting resistance to French oppression. However, his son Cenræd had to overcome considerable obstacles to unite his people in that resistance: The French, true to their devious nature, made
diviser pour régner their watchword, and spread bribes and blackmail with a heavy hand. Fortunately for Cenræd, the French outsmarted themselves: Judging all men by themselves, they intrigued too intricately for the bluff and honest Britons, and created not one, but four separate factions, each of whom sincerely believed themselves best suited to lead the resistance in Cenræd’s place - and each of which was, consequently, too weak to effectively press any such claim.
French oppression; British disunity; dark years. Note also the Scots collaborationist invasion of our comrades-in-resistance to the south.
Nevertheless Cenræd had considerable fighting to do before he could emerge as the true heir of his father’s legacy, and the leader of the British Resistance. While he was doing so, living
toujours en vedette and defeating one after another of the hydra-headed, French-paid risings against him, the Emperor “Some” Guy died and left the Garlic Throne to his daughter Perinne.
Cenræd and some of his wars - and an attempt to coopt his skills into the French Empire.
Perinne did not have her father’s ability to overawe vassals with a single bare-fisted blow to crush the skull of anyone questioning her rule. Like Cenræd, she was immediately faced with several factions plotting her overthrow and hindered mostly by the fact that they couldn’t agree on a replacement. Unlike Cenræd, however, the tyrannical and arbitrary customs of the French permitted her to simply threaten to revoke the Kingdom titles of her Britannic vassals unless they immediately quitted all faction; Cenræd, of course, would never have dreamt of denying that a Lancastrian King is first among the Dukes who are his peers apart from sovereignty. A rebel Duke, in Lancastrian customary law, might be defeated in battle, imprisoned, beheaded, and indeed impaled before being burned alive - but none of that would make him any less a Duke. The French did not see titles that way, and had the army to back up their views; Cenræd - and his confederate, King Henry of England - perforce backed down.
‘Brute’ does not have to refer to “brute force”, however.
Still, there are factions and factions; Cenræd might have felt unable to speak openly of Britannic independence and organise his subjects to rebellion, but there was nothing stopping him from secretly speaking of French liberty and organising
Perinne’s subjects accordingly.
Her daughter, confusingly also named Perinne, continued her mother’s policy of ruling by threat and decree; but the first Perinne’s death had given the Britannic kingdoms a breathing space to get their paperwork in order. Two strategic marriage alliances secured troops enough to overcome the French Army even if Scotland remained loyal. And, since the Empresses had used threats, force, and sharp elbows to break up the gentlemanly Independence Factions that would have merely seen Britannia and France part ways, the Britons accordingly went for the throat at last: King Henry claimed the Garlic Throne. This was unlimited war, war in the uncivilised French fashion - a fashion which the British had been slow to adopt, like all decadent French manners; but having done so, they fought with the enthusiasm of converts. If the French chose to fight without restraint, if they chose victory over the conduct becoming gentlemen - very well, let them have total war, and choke on it! Perinne’s shouts of “injustice” and “barbarism” were met with snorts of derision; if the French didn’t like the game, they’d had no need to start it.
The pressure that had been pent up by the suppression of the small independence wars, finally breaks out irresistibly into a claim war for the Garlic Throne itself.
(To be specific and exegetic, the French player Mark got
real salty about the claim war for someone who had unprovokedly force-vassalised three players and then threatened to revoke primary titles if they didn’t exit the independence factions, whose victory would have amounted to a status quo antebellum.)
Glorious victories at Etampes and Vermandois, however, did leave the Briton kingdoms with a new problem: Having conquered the formerly-French Empire, what to do with it? Mere independence was evidently insufficient; the French had well demonstrated that they did not respect the deterrence of a people in arms determined to maintain their freedoms against foreign rule. At the same time, neither Henry nor Cenræd had any desire to rule the French, and become what they had fought so long to destroy. The compromise they arrived at was to recognise Perinne’s sovereignty within the borders of the traditional French kingdom, and to reorganise the Empire as a confederation of sovereign kingdoms, united only for defense, but retaining their own laws and customs. This, they hoped, would lead to a lasting peace both within and without the borders.
And perhaps, as they say, the horse would learn to sing.
Final CK borders.
Programming note: Having fought a large war in which certain players got Really Quite Salty, and otherwise more-or-less explored all the CK mechanics, we have voted to convert and will be playing EU4 when we have a good working conversion. It’s not entirely clear how long that might take, as some work is needed to make the converter play nicely with the procgen maps, and Vaniver has a day job. Stay tuned but don’t hold your breath for further updates.
