The Random Campaign - AAR

[HALNY (HAL)]

UNITED SLAVIC STATES - 1671 - 1690

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HONOUR IS INEFFICIENT
​

Big War

After being released from vassalisation from Moors (mostly thanks to Egypt) USS started to prepare for inevitable war with one of its neighbours (which was not easy task at -3 stab and empty pocket). At first it seemed the attack will come from Romans, but it turned out they were satisfied with last war outcome and only build some forts on our border just in case. So we turned our eyes to Swiss. But also from that direction came an easy NAP. It was almost certain it is time to finally fight with Bremen over disputed colonies, yet Bremen was at that time country of living corpses and there was no way to attack it. Beside it was discovered that other powers want to fight with them, so our President decided not to provoke one more gang. USS almost gave up its imperial ambitions and army started to slowly melt, when suddenly offer from Eire came. The Witcher of Eire offered us some gold if USS attack Ingria. It was very very tempting, but Ingria at that time was remaining in alliance with Swiss and Egypt. It seemed inappropriate to attack in this particular moment and ruin war for someone who just helped us to get rid of vassalisation. Not to mention the fact that Ingria was doing heavy fighting with Eire, when USS wanted clear 1vs1 war. Anyway we of course took 1000 gold money from Eire as our treasury is always empty (barely 300 census...), but did not specify when we will attack Ingria. After some time we even were thinking about giving money back, but than dirty Scythians started to build forts on our border! On our border! Can you imagine that?! USS President get furious but he hold on somehow and ordered armies to wait until war Eire vs Ingria is over. So we waited, and waited... and waited... And Ingrian mad queen was getting older and older... and our maintenance money were melting... Finally when window of opportunity for war opened and USS superb troops attacked, stupid scythian queen died and some better barbarian took her place. But still our army invaded and at first even managed to win several epic battles, but soon Ingrians started to come in endless hordes. Really endless. USS was sending 100k, 200k, than even 300k man at the moment and yet Ingrians were more and more! Some may say it was very bad tactic, that USS should keep its border and attack only north and west coast of Ingria, but there was our hero HAL with us and everyone believed "full scale offensive on open front is beautiful and honourable" as he said. Soon however it proved to be very inefficient. Crossing rivers and winter costed us thousands of ducats (and inflation!!!), but there as no progress and war score was balancing near +10 points. At this moment diplomat from Roman Empire showed in USS senate and announced Romans attacked Ingria too. It caused a lot of civil unrest and even some deaths of Romans in USS taverns, as Slavs hate when someone interfere in their fighting and want to steal the glory. Seeing what is happening President gave order to not to help roman troops and do not cross south-east border. USS kept heavy fighting on north. Unfortunately most of the attacks on ingrian capital failed. People started to rumour about HAL The Hero tactics and his possible madness. There was even an attempt of his assassination, but this news went unnoticed because Irish diplomats started moves to arrange another war with Ingria. President almost lost his mind finding that out and urged Witcher to stop by all means! Frightened by Slavs rage Irish made some deal with Ingria and did not attack. Also Romans were persuaded by Egyptyans to leave north, and so USSvsIngria conflict did not escalate. We had our "honourable" war back, but none seemed to care. Slavs arranged rebellion kill the president and send HAL to exile. New President Kazimierz Leon Sapieha was elected. First thing he did was to send troops to west front and start attacking ingrian capital from ships and sending only supplies from south. This new tactics worked immediately and in matter of months USS reached 77 WS. Soon after Ingrian capital was taken and hard peace offers were send. Scythians did not read them carefully it seems as they rejected several times. Kazimierz Leon Sapieha ordered to explain it to them in few 100kvs100k battles and it worked. Ingria gave up. Six crucial baltic provinces were acquired. USS won Big War. Slavs started to celebrate glorious victory.

REWOLUCJA​

HAL going (more) crazy

Celebrations did not take long. Exiled HAL gathered many supporters abroad and started anti government propaganda based on motto "this war was not honourable!". He also wrote a pamflet (lampoon) in which he described how much USS lost on the war and how small it gained. It was of course pure hypocrisy as most of losses took place thanks to his tactics, but many naive Slave believed it and civil unrest was growing and growing and growing. Kazimierz Leon Sapieha did not give it enough attention and did not invest enough into stability. Great victory ruined by small mistake in administration. In 1689 faced Rewolucja (in polish, La Revolution in french)! Almost 150k troops and like 30 provinces took HAL's The Mad Honourable Revolutioner side. Right now foreign forces (Swiss and Romans) are trying to contain slavic shawl before fury will spread on other nations. God have mercy on us!


Reward: 2 deflation - I did not get one last time

 

[Pepsi_max]

Neustria 1597-1628​

Number of provinces: 66 (5th/9).
Income: 6th/9.
Army: Strong
Neighbors: Noone cares about Neustrian shitty country.

No wars have been made this sessio (except the roman-ingrian war which ended by a roman victory, resulting on taurida switching hands). This session only saw the little decline of the Moors.
After the wars against Moors and the new agreement about the common borders with them, i tried to do the same thing with bremen. Finally we accorded into Neustria giving Zeeland to Bremen (which has a core on it) while we would get 3 colonies-city from him. The deal was of course, made to improve our colonial sphere of influence, and avoid having too neighbours in the area.
Since most of the session was spent on doing absolutely nothing and where i've been ghosted 2/3 of the time, i need to fill the lines to have a enough-strong post to allow me to have the inflation reward.

Note that you forgot the AAR reward (-3) from last session. I'll post the others AARs later in the week.

 

[Pepsi_max]

Neustria (1628-1650)​

Number of provinces: 69 (6th/9).
Income: 7th/9.
Army: Average
Neighbors: Let's do a party in Paris.

After (and even during) the Irish+Moors vs Swiss war, which resulted on a bloody draw, contacts were made between Switzerland and Neustrian Kingdom to prepare a defensive alliance against them.
Knowing that sooner or later, there would be fights for supremacy in france and in incas territory, we decided to spy them and prepare our common defense in case of they attack. Some months after the attack of the Moors+Eire, i saw some fleet regroupments around Andalusia and troops building.
Finally, they attacked Swiss another time (probably to try to take back Valencia). Both of us were ready, Mats asked for help against them, and when John used his MA over me to reach Swiss territory, i decided to join the war on Swiss side. While swiss were launching attacks in north of france supplied by a part of the neustrian army (who proved useful in the end, saving a swiss general from death).
During that war, except for north of france, not much action happened in south of it. There have been some skirmish, but medium forts+mountains would have made the job very tought to breaktrought his lines, especially given i had the upper hand in america, and soon we were able to stab-hit eire. Eire decided to get out of the war, losing in the way some important lands, like Gascogne (a CoT) or Poitou.
Eire out of the war, we had been able to focus properly against Aladar, who finally gave up some provinces, like Catalonia and some provinces in south of america.

Some years later, the alliance decided to get their revenge. But this time with "some" more people. Eire launched first attacks on me just before the war started, and when the war really begun, formidable armies were ammased by the opponents. The war (Roman Empire + Moors + Egypt + Eire + Bremen vs Neustria + Swiss) was horrible and very brutal. At first i have been able to send some reinforcements to my ally to be able to beat Bremen and peace him out, but Eire sent hundred thousands mens, and after a lot of bloody battles in the north of France, Neustrian army came from 200k to 35k. And even if the Irish invaders were beaten in all those battles and received even more losses than we do, i wasn't able to build troops enough fast to keep both Moors and Eire out of the heartland, aswell as not being able to get enough WS against moors in south america to counterbalance my losses in France itself. Before my swiss ally could be totally crippled with stabhits, i decided to get out of the war since i knew that the alliance would reach +99WS against me sooner or later and be able to force-peace me.

In the bitter end of the session, i was trying to recover the money losses of the war : the 2 previous wars showed that now Neustria was able to put up a good fight against the other superpowers..and eventually, the 2 wars allowed Neustria to keep one Moorish colony in south america, and Gascogne in France, while i lost Normandy and Caux to Eire.


reward = -1 infla. (yeah, another one) -5 infla (in total for next session)

 

[Pepsi_max]

Neustria (1650-1671)​

Number of provinces: 67 (7th/9).
Income: 7th/9.
Army: Poor
Neighbors: Poor generation against strong one. Guess what happened ?

After those exausting wars, time was spent trying to recover the losses. But there have been bad sides of good events. Neustria got 2 deflation events, but with those came also -2 offensive and -2 quality, which lowered the effectiveness of my leaders. Finally i ended up with Fire 1 shock 2 leaders, and what was going to happen happened : i've been attacked another time by Eire. We previously tried to settle our differents, but he decided that war was the better option. The future proved him wrong, but that's not the meant of this session. Neustria lost another 3 provinces to Eire. Peace was made rapidely, since there were no possibility of putting up a good fight against them. Bremen, which was the 5th country at that time (after the 4 superpowers swiss, eire, egypt and moors), decided to take his share of the pie. But thinking it would be an easy victory after Neustrian rapid defeat against Eire, he hasn't put enough effort to force me to peace, and even if the initial effort allowed Bremen to stabhit Neustria many times, the death of 2 of the most important Bremish leaders in Belgium plains definetely turned the fight in our favour. The goal was nomore to survive against bremish invaders, but more to build up gains.

When the session ended, war was still ongoing and given he wouldn't be there the next session and that the war was clearly in my favour (roughly +20WS and a lot of rebels on his side), we agreed on a fair deal between the sessions which would not hurt Bremen in his mainland, but that it would still pay a good part of the Neustrian losses in this war. 4 colonies would be build by Bremen, and those ones would be returned to Neustria before it became a city.

Outside Neustria, a lot of things also happened. Mats, who was alone on his war against the coalition after i had to give it up, got peace with egypt primally because he decided to give up his own claims on south italy. While Mats white peace his other ennemies, his polish ally (united slavic states) got vassalized by the moors.
Of course, Egypt was the great winner of the war. They later decided to teach a lesson to Moors, Roman Empire and Eire, who were the main funders of the anti-swiss hegemony and to release USS from Moors dominance. I don't know if i helped much there, but there is no need to think that if Bremen wasn't at war against me during all this time, he would have probably helped his irish friend against Swiss. Roman Empire had been beaten, and Moors was already being invaded in africa, and his navy was almost smashed.

During the intersession, Moors had been forced to make peace with the coalition (white peace i think but i dont recall exactly), while the Egypt-Swiss alliance promised each other to get a trip together in Dublin.


Reward = -1 inflation. total for next session -6.

 

[TC Pilot]

Reward: 2 deflation - I did not get one last time

Note that you forgot the AAR reward (-3) from last session. I'll post the others AARs later in the week.

Ok, I'm really sick of hearing this. I did not "forget" your AAR rewards. You posted the AAR several hours after I put up the save file.

THAT IS THE DEADLINE

 

[Pepsi_max]

Neustria (1671-1690)​

Number of provinces: 80 (4th/9).
Income: 3th/9.
Army: Average
Neighbors: Everyone fighting for the dominant position in europe.

Most of the session was spent on building a merchant empire trought the world., trying to catch up the others ones (roman empire, eire, moors and uss). There is still some way to do, but a good part of the work is done. Neustrian trade efficiency is 74pc, which is in the 2nd rank (after moors).
Some years have been spent minting for money, to buy irish isles in carribea for 5k ducats). This session was meant to be peaceful for Neustria, since we had agreements with all our previous ennemies, in the peace deal or in NAPs. They were probably too busy fighting each others to be able to face another front. near the end of session we decided to get the bremish colonies which were rightfully ours, thanks to the peace treaty of the previous war.

My best monarch, Alda 8-8-8 (1673-1703) allowed me to build 2 additionals manufactories (+ the one i got from trinidad). The main objective of the colonial politic has been done this session : there is nomore land free, and most of central-south america are exclusive neustrian seas. This monarch will be followed by a 6-6-6, so i think i've got roughly 45 years left before shitty ones arrives. 45 years to prepare my kingdom for problems against john the bulimic or greedy mats.

Around me, i've seen many wars between egypt, moors, swiss and eire mainly.
First one was the continuation of last session's war, between swiss&egypt&ingria against eire. It ended very bad for eire, which totally lost the war, many manufactories and had to give up a lot of territories, included calais which was returned to me. The second one was moors&egypt vs swiss, which also logically ended by the end of swiss domination in europe, and moors recoverance of valencia and algiers.
The third war happened between swiss vs eire&bremen. After the first months of the war, eire joined bremen on his fight against swiss, because he was getting overrun by the swiss. It ended on a white peace, which are never good to definetely resolve potential conflicts.

reward = -1 infla.

 

[King John]

Ireland 1671-1690.

During the last part of the previous session, Ireland was called into war along with Grenada in aid of our ally the Byzantines, who were under attack by Ingria, Switzerland, and Egypt. Surrounded, they were quickly overrun, but our part continued. The enemy fleets engaged us in the Med with nearly double our numbers, and after a few lucky battles, they inflicted a very tough defeat upon us, and chased our ships past Gibralter. Having secured all waters eastward, they proceeded to land overwhelming forces into North Africa. My 100k army landed in Tangier to help, but was beaten back to the galleys, and my Moorish confederates did little better.

By the end, the enemy was landing men in Iberia itself. Alliance warscore was terrible, and the naval balance wasn't improving. I tried to rush ships in as quickly as I could, but for some reason, Aladar didn't seem to build any ships at all after the war'd begun. After the session, I told him that he could peace out, but that I would in this case need a LOT of financial support, to allow a very quick naval armament, along with a big increase in troops in Ireland and England.

The plan seemed ok. I would be outnumbered, but my home waters along with my slightly better monarch left me confident I'd at least win more battles than they would, and my 6 shock leader seemed sufficient to take on whatever forces they managed to land. Aladar peaced out immediately as planned, and my ships moved as quickly as they could, 650 galleys chased by 1900. Finally, off the coast of Brittany, they were met by about 200 reinforcements, and luck was with me. From the get go, the battle went well, and the shock phase wasn't a terrible upset. They were turned back, and time was bought.

For this first year, I wartaxed twice, but during the second one, my funds were too low to build at full capacity, even though I'd been minting at 100 percent the entire time. I was also unable to recruit as many soldiers as I wanted to, or have quite the fortress upgrade that I wanted in Ireland. Aladar was much thriftier than I had counted on, sending about 1500 and then claiming that he couldn't spare more, even though at the beginning of the session he had over 3k just in his treasury.

I really should've just let them have their four prov demand at this point. The ones they wanted in Scandinavia didn't matter for my economy, and I knew this war was going to cost me a lot of money. Without proper Moorish backing, why should I take upon myself the huge financial burden, and the risk of greater disaster? But I felt eagar to fight, and more or less committed.

When they came back, I declined to engage their fleet again. They arrived off the coast of Southern Ireland, and Egypt landed some armies, which assaulted the South and then moved to besiege the North. My army landed and gave them a fight, but it lost and had to retreat with high losses. Meanwhile, Switzerland landed some men in Britain, which had an army to the North, but in need of more men. This is where getting more money earlier on would've come in handy.

My 6 shocker army on board the fleet was reinforced and landed again, but failed to beat the Egyptians. Dublin was going to be in trouble. On the third try, after yet again more reinforcements, it finally won, and proceeded to rout all of Egypts armies in Ireland. Concurrently, the fleet, boosted to about 1300 ships, fought their combined navies and won. They retreated in different directions, with Egypt going NW. I pursued, preventing their armies from escaping. Soon, one army with its uberleader was killed, and the other was beaten in the North. It retreated across the Irish Sea toward Scotland, but I had ships in the way. I thought after a little while that they were stuck in a permanent retreat, and then moved away, but it turned out I was wrong. Shortly after, they arrived in Scotland. I was very annoyed with this. I thought I had ships there for a pretty long time.

Things weren't going so well in England. I tried to fight the Swiss a few times, outnumbering him pretty heavily with cavalry. I also had higher morale, but he now had a CRT on me, and I just couldn't get the kind of battle results I needed. Even when I brought the 6 shocker over, things just weren't materializing, and I was way behind in warscore. He had by this time conquered the southern coast, and was slowly moving up. Their ship numbers had, in the course of several battles, been reduced to about the same as mine, which meant I had naval dominance, but he was sneaking army after army through the Dover Strait. And I was losing land in Northern France. Warscore was NOT GOOD.

This entire time, I was also at war against Krisz, who briefly had naval command in the Baltic. I had to move my 70 galleys out at the start of the session. He didn't make a very strong push initially, but got bolder as the session went along. Earlier, I had sent money to Hal in exchange for him to DOW Krisz, but that did not materialize. When I took back naval control in the baltic with 16 ships that had been created in Norway, it slowed him down. Things never really fell apart in Scandinavia, but it did take away a lot of resources.

In general, I wasn't doing that bad until somebody asked why Mats wasn't stabhitting. "Hmmm, why not indeed?", he must have thought, and began to stabhit me then, for things in England I really didn't want to give away. I continued to fight, trying to really kick them out, but kept losing battles, and then Egypt came back with a new army. Their combined fleets won against mine, giving him the chance to land in Ireland, so that was pretty much it.

Mats wanted me to lose as much as possible, which made perfect sense, being that I had been a staunch enemy of his most of the game. He wanted Krisz to have all of Scandinavia. Had that happened, it would've been hard for me to get back into Scandinavia... Maybe. Harder, at least. Drake, however, had a checkered past with Mats, and wasn't really that interested in making Mats' life totally easy. Instead of losing all of Scandinavia, I ceded 6 scandi provs, and Calais. A bitter pill, but at least the war was over.

Aladar had betrayed me doubly by not being available to intervene against Neustria should he attack, or better yet, preemptively stopping this by DOWing him beforehand. Instead, he made some deal with him, and had Pepsi chosen to, he could've caused me a great deal of trouble. But apparently he thought he still wouldn't win or something, not fully appreciating the vulnerability of my position. And I guess he was very economy oriented at this time(and it really showed in the stats this week). Instead of war, I sold my Caribbean islands, which included a refinery, for 5kD. I offered a 20 year NAP later, in token of gratitude. It was really a great deal for me.

I lost two manus in the war, and gained about six inflation. Income dropped by almost 100 a month, and this took a few years to recover. Within ten years, pre-war income was more or less achieved. Two provs in France were converted, one with a missionary and the other by event. I also retook Bergenslagen from Krisz. The circumstances of this were that the Hal war finally took place, and he was hard pressed. This was maybe ten years later. I'm not sure. I was ready for war with him, or someone else. But Krisz had offered to give me Skane after he took it from Hal, with the idea that this would compensate me for what I'd lost to him. Acceptable. Better economically, and about equal in terms of naval support. But his war went badly for him, and he could see my men building on his border. He thought I was about to attack him, and offered me my demands upfront. Let him off for just Bergenslagen, but really, my attack was a bit away. Mats had just DOW'd Bremen, and my help was needed.

Mats had just lost a war against Aladar and Drake. He wanted to make up for it with yet another plunder of Bremen, but the weight of Ireland and Bremen together was too much for him. After I landed some men and we pushed him back to his borders, things were a bit stalematish. He tried bringing in his fleet, which slipped into Holland unopposed. Speedy and I challenged it with our combined fleets(he left his admirals out, his fleet being at NT 10). We lost, but the damage inflicted left us strong proportionately. Some battles later, Mats caught the Bremen fleet off Holland and sank the whole thing, 200some ships, with many warships.

Speedy and I tried to break the deadlock on the continent by sieging Kessel. If we took it, it would be a strong central province from which to invade his hinterland. Speedy had a 6 shock leader. I had cavalry units standing by to assit, but instead of us both leaving reinforcements ready to rush in whenever Mats attacked, most of the army was left in Kessel to wither away. While the siege went on, I tried engaging Mats along the Rhine, counting on my superior morale to win me a few battles, get the warscore up, but I lost more battles than I won, and more men than I killed.

Mats tried to relieve the siege a few times. We inflicted some good casualties until the last one. A few months and it would've been captured, but instead all the attrition losses came to nothing, and we were sent across the river. There I decided it was time to white peace.

The rest of my session was peaceful. I began teching toward infra 6, with the intention of getting infra seven a little later and catching some free deflatioin events. Probably a mistake, with trade 6 yet unteched. We can call it a gamble.

 

[King John]

Pepsi, I think my one AAR is bigger than your last four AARs.

 

[Mats_SX]

I too think that Pepsi's recent AAR-boost smells quite ill...

 

[unmerged(306607)]

Bremen 1671 ????-1690

This was important session for Bremen but unlucky for them their King was ill ,and young cousin who was asked to help and take the throne for this time couldn't arrive on time. So in that situation wise King has made peace with Neustria obligating Bremen to colonize some provinces in caribean till they reach Lvl 8-9 and then loosing them in Nestria favor.So when young cousin arrived he found country in turmoil ,especially colonies in India. First he managed to unite country killing all rebel forces and then started to improve economy which was in bad shape. First thing was to promote few legal councils in Core provinces and then started combination of promoting Councils and colonizing provinces in Caribs. Colonizing was pretty smoothly except 3-4 times failed so in general we tried to keep our part of bargain soon as possible.At some moment we promoted councils all over Europe and when we wanted to concentrate on Colonies in Africa and India WAR began. Swiss wanted to restore naval support they lost in previous war with Major powers and they picked small nation as easy prey. Luckily Bremen was teching LT and at that time was at same level as Swiss ,but Bremen weakness was in small standing army and maintanance at 50% .So Bremen retreated deeply into empire while moral wasn't at 100% and young cousin raised all army he could afford.Start of war was terrible for us ,few provinces in Holland region have fallen right away in Swiss assault and 2 more was under siege. At that time morale was up and we started marching toward border.And then good men from west leading Eire offered help which Bremen accepted immediately .Without help poor Bremen would easily loose few provinces, but now we had chance for even gaining some land.

Bremen and Eire broke Swiss sieges and started siege of lost Bremen provinces.After some time our combined forces regained all but one province and we made a plan to leave it and had for Kessel enemy medium fort province.We had 6 sch gen and we won few battles and sieging was almost done ,but then swiss luckily won battle and force our troops to leave siege .That was time for WP then. During war Neustria took colonies which was agreed , but Bremen couldn't colonize them as much as agreed cause of war with Swiss but Neustria understood situation and took them as they were. Not long after that King was up at his feet ready to take over.

reward -1 infla

 

[TC Pilot]

The Roman Empire: 1671-1690

Many of the events and happenings that transpired this session were predicted in the previous session. New Rome has largely abandoned military conflict, though, much to our surprise, there was fighting to be had before the session was out. But that's getting ahead of things.

For the first several years, I held myself to a fairly strict budget, consigning myself to sending only three explorers per year (though this was as many as my sliders could afford) and merchants to various European centers of trade. Early on, most of my colonizing was focused on the Pacific coast of North America, but after I recieved my conquistador, I dispatched him to Australia and used him to rapidly expand the scope of my Australian colony, which had consisted of a mere level 1 colony in the far northeast tip of the island and ballooned the covering the whole eastern coastline. My explorers pushed further into the Pacific Ocean, discovering New Zealand and many small islands. Colonization has also directed toward the Indonesian islands with moderate success.

Trade was another area where I spent a lot of time, and was remeniscent of my approach in the previous campaign as the Netherlands. Early on, I had split my research funding between naval and trade. Once I reached the next trade level, I threw myself into expanding. I had previously had a strong trade presence, if not monopolies, in Ingria's COTs, but by the end of the session was fairly well entrenched in all cots, save for Bremen, which refused a trade agreement.

Another effort in my defensive realignment was the building of more fortifications throughout the empire. The sheer number of minimal forts, which my war with HAL had shown were simply too puny to hold off a determined opponent, was no longer acceptable. Constantinople was raised to the level of a medium fort, as were my Croatian provinces, causing a stir in Switzerland despite the NAP I had signed. Along the rest of the border, and in several coastal provinces, forts were expanded to Small size.

War broke out between Ingria and the USS, a development that I was not surprised by. My sympathies obviously lay with the Slavs, and their President had been in frequent contact with New Rome prior to the war, but no anti-Ingrian alliance was signed, in part due to my desire to build up my empire through peaceful measures, and partly because they were still allied to Switzerland and Egypt in their conflict with the Moors and Irish. So when war broke out, New Rome remained neutral. Though, with time, it was clear that the Slavs were not conducting their war very well, and seemed to be on the verge of losing the fight. The Slavic President appealed for assistance, which was all the empire needed to intervene on their behalf. A large army and the whole navy was dispatched to the north coast of the Black Sea, and war was declared.

The war followed much the same pattern as the previous attack on Ingria: a large infantry force was landed in Tauride, with an equally large cavalry force staying nearby in case the Ingrians attacked. An Ingrian army was repulsed from the USS' southeastern holdings and an army deposited there to cover the Slavic flank. A combination of the distraction of fighting a two-front war and his communication issues seem to have left the Ingrians unable to effectively respond to my invasion. A major battle was fought in Tauride, the Ingrians throwing about 70k mixed infantry/cavalry against my 90k, and being promptly defeated. Ingrians resistance collapsed, with Roman armies sweeping inexorably north from Tauride, which was captured in April of 1684. In June, Donetsk and Belgorod were taken, Burtasia in July. By this point, Roman warscore was easily in the 70's, but the empire quickly experienced a cruel twist of fate.

In late August, Egypt realized I was at war with Ingria, and intervened without warning, while in early September, I had overextended my cavalry force, which was nearly destroyed in Voronezh. It was a minor setback, but a setback nonetheless (my 5-shock general died of old age within months anyway), and the threat of a two-front war utterly violated the spirit of my 'peace and prosperity' plan, so a white peace was agreed to.

Aside from that, Roman arms were employed notably in rebel suppression, first early on in Bremen's Dutch holdings, and near the end of the session in the USS, which experienced a civil war as a result of the President's continued mismanagement of the stability of the realm. Roman armies are still within the borders of the USS, and it is expected they will remain there for quite some time until order can be restored in our troubled northern neighbor.

 

[admiral drake]

1671-1690

egypt has been atwar with half the world this session i think
at the start of the session we where fighting a war vs eire & moors, and truely i had very little intrest in harming either of them in general, therefor i made sure the moors got off with a whitepeace and i wasnt very thrilled to be after eire either so i figured if it had to be done it should be for ingria not swiss in general, not that i dislike mats either but lets face it i just dont trust him thatmuch (i do hold south italy)

but a war is a war so i dispatched my finest generals with quiete alot of troops & my entire fleet to the channel(after moors peaced ofcourse) and i have to say john held out fairly good, his fleet beat us many times but in the end all it took was landing troops in eire and occupyng his fleet while the swiss moved his troops acros trough calais, despite my shitty landtech i can say my 5551 general did a pretty good job and survived the entire war eventually reinforcing the swiss near oxford in central england and crushing quiete some irish heads in the proces so we like this guy, my 6shocker sucked and died fairly fast tho

eventually peace was agreed like john sayd for scandinavian provs & calais wich didnt realy please mats but the deal was in my intrest weakening eire without boosting swiss is kinda ideal, if only ingria would manage to keep the provinces wich seemed a tougher thing to do as i didnt really expect the uss later on
i also got a nap with the irish out of this

after the big irish war our armys & generals returned home only to end up fighting 2more wars none of wich benefited me but ok

the swiss have held valencia+catalonia & algiers for a long time and as soon as the irish peaced aladar asked for aid to retake those, i figured why not, cutting swiss navalsuply is often a good thing but i may have overdone that since i forgot he also lost south italy recently
anyway war was declared and we attacked but despite our 5551 general back from eire we had very little succes and it seemed like it would be a very expensive fight for all 3sides, and apearently mats tought the same as he offered a deal to aladar as soon a she joined, i gues in a way its nearly unwinneable & would definatly have cost all of us a ton of gold & recourses (so i have to thank mats for avoiding that ),
they ended up signing a deal & mats agreed to a 20year nap shoftly after, i believe it involved hawaiian cot & gold and mayby some other crap for the 3provinces+nap
my general survived this war to i believe

last war i planned to fight but never managed to do much as byz surrendert quiete fast
the uss had been atwar vs ingria for ages and i wasnt aware how badly kris was doing but even if he wasnt i wasnt about to let byz join and make sure ingria would loose bad in the proces so i forced tc to sit out

outside the 2wars egypt fought & the skirmish with byzantium egypt did little to improve his economy yet again, as all money was spend on war or most of it


the first wars didnt really move egypt but i felt dowing swiss probaly was a mistake later as it felt like i undone the first war in a way
and the third war especially gave me a bitter taste as my friend in ingria was now beaten by the very country i fought to free only years before,
this is something egypt will reflect on before i participate in any new wars, as its clear my actions of getting my nose in other affairs give reactions that are unexpected

deflation

 

[HALNY (HAL)]

Ok, I'm really sick of hearing this. I did not "forget" your AAR rewards. You posted the AAR several hours after I put up the save file.

THAT IS THE DEADLINE

OK OK that is why I posted this AAR last week and still expect -2 inflation ;p

Yea Pepsi, your AARs are not as nice as ours

 

[King John]

Ireland 1690-1711

Delian and I planned to wage some wars while we both had our good monarchs, and up to date techs, as well as NAPs with Neustria. The original idea was that we would DOW and overrun our neighbor to the east. Mats would probably join, and we'd hold him while finishing things up in the USS. But Hal had problems, and there was no sub for his country, so our plans needed to be rethought.

We spent the first few years focused on our economies, but it remained in our heads that we needed to use our advantages while we had them, and so around 95 or so we updated our plans to include only a DOW on Mats. We knew it would be very difficult to beat him based on every past war, and that taking an appreciable amount of territory would be much less cost effective and less likely than against any of our other neighbors, which is why we'd hoped to make the main theater in some other place, with Switzerland as the secondary front, and one that we'd concentrate on after consolidating gains elsewhere, and letting him exhaust some of his forces attacking into Bremen's territory.

It just seemed impossible that we would not be able to punch through though, much as it had become ingrained in our heads that Switzerland was an impregnable fortress. We both prepared large armies. Delian's bulk was in Bremen, and I backed him up with about 150k there. We also both prepared armies to send to Mexico. I had about 25k ready to ship to Oahu first, from Australia, and it was quickly occupied after the DOW was issued. Then this force landed in NW Mexico, successfully assaulting the first prov and going on to create a strong front while Delian's men invaded from the NE.

I played a supporting role in Europe, throwing my bulk behind Delian's leaders. I wasn't going to get anything good until 1703. I did however try to fight with my lesser generals in order to sometimes throw an army or two into disarray. Our strategy was to seige the larger provs slowly while sending battle armies out to regularly send Mats relieve forces running. Because of our superior morale, this worked quite well. Mats wasn't able to break any important seiges, and warscore began to climb steep.

I don't recall exactly when it began. I think 1696 or 97. By 1701, we had the strong central fortification structure around Kessel and Pfalz captured, along with many surrounding forts, and were pushing deeper. Warscore was becoming quite good. It was only a matter of time before we reached 99. In Mexico, most of the Northern area was captured, along with two or three gold mines, and these were to be included in the demands. And then I saw Pepsi's armies moving around, and knew it was time to begin stabhitting. My NAP with him expired in 1702. But then to my horror, he joined the war, breaking the NAP and invading my French holdings!

The Reversal

I took for granted that the NAP would hold until its proper time. I couldn't oppose Pepsi in France. I continued to focus on helping Delian in Germany. Stabhits went flying, and Swiss stability steadily dropped. Not as quickly as I'd have liked. His religions' stability bonus is very powerful, but in a couple years it was getting close to -3. By this time, the Neustrians had realized that the real front lay in the east, and had turned their main attention there. We were on the defensive in Germany, trying to hold the Rhine and to break Mats seiges of Pfalz and Kessel, with mixed success. But the sheer weight on them both was too hard for us, and Hal had returned at about this time, giving me the fear that he would join as well, and I made some preparations for that with an army in Norway.

I lost two of my mediocre leaders in Germany at about this time, letting a battle against Neustria go a little bit too long. I still had armies in Germany for a while, but I wasn't coordinating well with Delian, and didn't use them that effectively. I assaulted back some minimal forts. Meanwhile, my focus had moved towards Neustria, liberating parts of northern France, initially without a leader, making hit and runs. But this turned into more of a serious fight soon enough.

The Moors joined on our side at about this time, but peaced after only a few months, for a couple colonies and Gascogne. It was a small help. He killed some Neustrians and forced many to move South for a while, but it wasn't quite as much help as we needed. Our enemies complained bitterly about the help while it lasted.

Mexico was lost not much later. They outbuilt us and kicked us out. I'd been bringing reinforcements from Australia regularly, but the build capacity there wasn't strong enough to maintain the numbers I needed, and we both lost our ground. Not much later, Delian asked me if it'd be ok to peace out for some light terms they were offering him. I asked him to wait just a little bit, and then he peaced out after I liberated a province from Neustria, getting me out of stabhitting warscore. But then he took another one, and sent me a seperate stabhit. I accepted, giving up Calais and Artois.

Teno

Mats must have given him the go ahead for this separate stabhit thinking that he was safe from Ireland. But he had many rebels in Mexico, and I had by this time, after pulling out of Mexico, moved my warship across the world to Ireland, where it was loaded up with 40k under my 553 conquistador. They initially tried to pry away some Atlantic islands, but failing at that, went right for the family jewels... I had about +21 warscore from battles, and would continue to hold Oahu for a short while, putting warscore at about 36. Just needed to capture a province.

Arriving in the Gulf of Mexico, it was clear that he was having some problems. I landed my army in the plains port and assaulted it. He brought out his fleet and forced mine out to the east, but then pursued me. I retreated again, and he pursued again. He didn't have an admiral with him, and my numbers were nearly double his. I won this battle, and my explorer had 5 shock, so when I pursued him, I was able to whittle his numbers down in the course of the next few battles, leaving him with about 3 warships and a bunch of transports at the end.

My army, after taking the plains coastal prov, moved north into the mountain prov. Mats' men were too busy to block it. I could see even before I ever landed that there were a lot of rebels. I entered without problems. To my glee, I noticed Teno, rebel held, was being sieged by Neustrian soldiers and without a leader. My own general was happy to fill up the command vacuum, marching with about 5k to take control. Assaulted the fort, and then I began stabhitting for Tenochtitlan. Forces from the other siege all moved in now to help me hold onto it. The decision of the war would rest on whether or not I could hold against Mats' counter attacks. It pretty much came down to two battles, both of which I won, thanks to the mountains and my still superior morale.

My fleet had sailed back to Ireland to get another 40k. Returning to Mexico, I noticed the Swiss fleet heading east to do the same, and pursued them. In the first two seazones, no contact was made, but then I caught and ended them. My fleet reached Mexico and dropped its armies in the mountain and the plains prov to the east, cutting off a retreat by a recently defeated army from Teno. At this time, Mats accepted my stabhit, knowing demands would soon increase.

The return to France

It was a small consolation for the larger defeat of me and my ally. After I peaced Neustria, Pepsi went after Delian and, after a couple more years of fighting, took the coast of Holland from him. Now I would seek vengeance. The Neustrian truce was to expire in three years. By that time, I had my army prepared, and both of my good generals were spawned and leading strong armies. The main one went right into France and took on a weaker army, sending it flying, then assaulted a bunch of stuff around Paris. The other army assaulted Flanders and took several other provs in the area. Siege armies landed in the Netherlands.

The main army beat and then pursued the main French army from Paris down a couple provs closish to Lyon, but then was beaten and forced to retreat all the way back. Then came somewhat of a reversal, as my troop numbers were low, but I rebuilt with the help of mercenaries, and then engaged him again, winning, and pushed him down inflicting high losses. This time, I don't think he will recover. I've also captured a swathe of land in Central America. He has land there which gives Teno an outlet.

On a less exciting note, the economy grew a little bit. I teched to infra 6, and colonized a couple gold mines along the Pacific, and 2-3 other provs, and improved trade just a little. I think my plan of going for infra 7 was a big mistake, as it's going to take many years more before I get there, what with everybody soon LTing into the 30s and going for LT 41. I'll have to let go of this for a while.

 

[TC Pilot]

The Roman Empire: 1690-1711

Given the outcome of the fighting in the previous session, it was really inevitable that I should find myself in a war with Ingria again over the province of Tauride. But that will have to wait for a moment. When the session began, Roman troops were busy putting down many of the rebellions that had broken out to the north as a result of the USS civil war. With Swiss intervention also supporting us, it neither took too long nor cost too much to take care of these annoying rebel scum.

Despite the brief interlude of the Roman-Ingrian War, much of my time and energy was directed instead at trade and colonization, very much as it was in the previous campaign as the Netherlands. The ebb and flow of merchants does not make for particularly thrilling reading, so I will spare the reader those details. But I will conclude with the noteworthy caveat that I am now in a dominant trading position in the Far East. Who needs costly wars when I can already get monopolies in Shanghai and Malacca? After the rush of colonization in Australia last session, I was running out of places where my conquistadors could be used to good effect, so I turned them toward the North American interior, attacking and defeating the Dakota tribes. I got 200 ducats and two provinces from the deal. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Rome watched with some concern as Bremen was subjected yet again to invasion, but made no moves to intervene, as diplomatic contact with King delian and his allies was very sporadic and amounted to little. Still, it seems unfortunate that Bremen has endured so much war and conflict to such great detriment to its territorial integrity.

But there was a war to be fought with Ingria. Armed with a CRT advantage, I hurled my armies across the Black Sea in a manner that is starting to become customary. Stelmis put up an aggressive resistance, nearly destroying my first invasion force after I, yet again, overextended my cavalry forces in pursuit of his defeated armies. Fortunately, my cavalry was able to use its superior speed to outrun the artillery-laden Ingrians and slip back into the Black Sea. With my low inflation, it was no trouble to mint for several months, allowing me to quickly rebuild my armies and attack again. Several large-scale battles were fought in the Tauride, usually to Roman advantage thanks to my CRT advantage. After Tauride fell, I pushed north into the Ukraine and Donetsk with my infantry, while the cavalry held back, standing ready to reinforce whichever army Stelmis chose to assault. Beyond the initial ring of medium forts, the Ingrians had only minimals, allowing me to push far and fast and rack in the warscore.

After a few stabhits, Stelmis realized that the fight was a doomed one and accepted my peace offer, ceding Tauride to its rightful owners once again. To emphasize just how much Tauride belongs to Rome, construction began on new and improved fortifications. It will take quite an army to dislodge Rome from that land again. But with Ingria involved in a war against the Slavs and facing Rome's continued technological superiority, the Emperor certainly hopes Ingria will realize that it is time to finally recognize Rome's rightful possession of this land.

 

[HALNY (HAL)]

UNITED SLAVIC STATES - 1690 - 1711

+

=

DARK HOUR
​

Out of control

Rebellion rised by HAL The Crazy Lion turned in total disaster. Some Slavs in fury attacked President's White House and cut off his network with other castles. President lost control for more than a decade and country was only for a short time under maintenance of Pepsi minister, before it felt into total anarchy. Great administrative and military skills of our Presidnet were lost forever... Dark hour it was for our state.
In 1701 most of the rebels were haunted down and USS slowly started to gather strengths back. Unfortunately economy was already hurt a lot and savings in treasury were not enough for full recovery.

LIVING-SPACE​

Swords vs Axe - Scythian War

After some fraud election USS get new president. Rather low one. His idea of war with Scythians, for more living space, got applause, but right now not many Slavs believe it was good idea. First few years went very well and we managed to start big stabhits, but Ingria ally Egypt send like 400k army and we had to retreat. Not long after some divine forces interfered and our army started to act strangely slow. We also lost all officers in matter of seconds. Seeing such a unnatural signs Slavs lost spirit to fight and Ingrians are right now retaking their proves back... We can only hope for not very harrasing peace...


Reward: 3 deflation

 

[admiral drake]

aar egypt 1690-1711

this era is a fairly boring 1 for egypt for the first time in ages we stayed atpeace for most of the session and focus was spend to industrialize our vast realm so we could finaly catch up in tech & keep up in arms & sea
the concept is that we will never be able to really compete with others at trade so no effort was spend in that direction and focus was placed first on getting navalmanus & spend anything left after building 10of them on weapons & 1fine art

most of the remaining session our gold was spend on forts colonise & gifts to others (mostly ingria) while we tryd to invest in landtech to catch up

tho at the end of the session me & ingria agreed to keep ingria safe from future dows & i offert a alliance as soon as my annoyng alliance with nippon ended the idea was nobody would be silly enough to dow the poor guy with me as ally, alowing ingria to recover a bit in peace but sadly it apears i was wrong and uss are foolish enough to antagonize egypt by dowing ingria unprovoked again

our initial intervention has suffert a fair bit of losses and our initial relieve troops are down to 60-70k but uss troops arent in ingria at this time asfar as i remember so atleast ingria got some time
and during all this a fleet has moved his way to the baltic with a big army that will definatly hurt uss 1 way or the other
at the same time a army is waiting atsea near crimea for the renewed uss attack

hopefully we can push uss out completly and stop the stabhits soon, but atm its uncertain as ingria has suffert from the stabhits and a crt down vs uss doesnt help for them
there isnt really much to say since outside this war wich was fought on ingrian ground egypt was fairly passive this session


1deflation

 

[TC Pilot]

Reward: 3 deflation

That's a good joke.

 

[Mats_SX]

Switzerland 1671 - 1690


The road to Bristol

Coming out of the last session, I had decided to pay the Romans a visit after their betrayal in the huge gank I had experienced in the middle of the 17th Century. Following this, Ingria had joined to get the CoT in old Crimea back, but the war escalated as a consequence of the gank-alliance still being in place. Moors and Eire joined quickly. This provoked also Egypt to join in on our side, causing the Romans to immediately surrender to all the demands, being Albania and Dalmatia for Switzerland and Tauride for Ingria. But the war was still on against the Moors and Eire.

In the last parts of the session, the Moors with CRT had been fighting hard against Swiss and Egyptian forces invading North Africa. The combined Irish-Moorish navy had been beaten and was being controlled at a distance by the Swiss-Egyptian ships. As usual, Egypt stood for the quantity and Switzerland for the quality, in terms of fleets. Unfortunately the balance wasn't as good on the other side, as Eire stood for almost all the naval power, and the Moors looked to more or less had given up their naval programme. Egyptian meddling did however come to terms with the Moors, where they would allow USS to get out of vassalship, which had been brought upon the Slavs in the aftermath of the Great Swiss War.

So Eire were left alone against Switzerland and Egypt. From Bern this was greeted as good news, as Eire had for a very long time been fighting against Swiss interests, in Bremen as well as in Neustria. It was considered that this opportunity must not go to waste. In Cairo feelings were somewhat cooler. They were pretty much happy with letting Eire off the hook, but decided to give it a go anyway, mostly just because.

So a large combined fleet sailed north, pursuing the Irish ships until reaching Brittany, where the Irish navy won. Egypt sailed back to reinforce their armies and the Swiss fleet took defensive positions outside Poitou, which was a Swiss holding, won after one of the many wars of Neustrian protection. When reinforcements arrived, Eire had been building ships and troops like mad. Still, the allied fleet was allowed to sail to outside Ireland itself and land massive Egyptian forces on the island. The Irish navy failed to send the hostile ships away at first try, but succeeded eventually. Lots of Egyptians were trapped, but most battles were won. As a round of naval skirmishes began, with mixed fortunes for both parties, a large-scale invasion of England across the Calais strait was commenced by Swiss forces. All of Irish north France was occupied, save for the large fort in Bretagne, and soon the Swiss flag waved above Sussex and Wessex as well.

The Egyptian forces had been pushed out of Eire proper, and the allied navies had been defeated and sent back to outside Poitou, but a large Swiss presence was still in England. Meanwhile the Ingrians had had little success in invading Norway and Sweden, territory owned by Eire also since the aftermath of the Great Swiss War. Warscore was however in large favour of the allies, and soon stabhitting for Essex and Sussex began. These were naturally key provinces for Eire, who swallowed many stabhits before finally asking for real peace terms. Switzerland cried for cessation of all of Scandinavia, at a minimum, but Egypt didn't really want to press for heavy demands. Despite all the troops they had lost, and all the ships that had been sunk, and the fact that Eire would never again be caught with their pants down like this, they wanted to limit the demands. With heavy protesting, the Swiss finally agreed to let Eire give up only 7 Swedish provinces to Ingria plus Calais, which was given to Neustria. No doubt was Dublin celebrating at having escaped so cheaply. The Swiss Imperial court knew that it wouldn't be long until the lost possessions would be back in Irish hands again.


The downfall of Swiss world dominance

This was the beginning of the end. Switzerland had risen up to become the world's greatest power, controlling both seas and land with great confidence. Italy had been united since long, after successful warfare against Egypt, the wealthy Moors had been defeated soundly in several rounds of war, which had given Switzerland rich possessions in both Catalonia, including Valencia and Barcelona, and Algiers. With the recent campaign against Eire, it was arguable that the Swiss navy was second to none. But it would not last, as glory seldom do. But the Great Swiss War, preceding these events, had lost south Italy to Egypt, and from there, anti-Swiss policies could be projected with ease.

The geographically most appealing sign of Swiss power was doubtlessly the Spanish possessions. For over 50 years, Valencia had been owned by the mountainous realm. It was as Swiss a province as Bretagne was Irish, or Crimea Egyptian, or Flandern Bremish. But the Moors could never accept that, and decided the only thing they needed in the world was to reclaim Catalonia and Algiers. In Egypt, a giant nation with huge armies of questionable quality, but well led, they found their liberator. Out of the blue, Egypt declared war upon Switzerland, sending armies into the northern parts of Italy, penetrating the unprepared Swiss defenses. It was made clear that Egypt was fighting for the return of Valencia, Catalonia and Algiers to the Moors. Why, the Swiss Emperor would never understand. The super-rich king of the Moors could surely fight their own wars? Soon the Moors joined the war, and the combined navies gathered outside Genoa. The Swiss navy was ready to take them on, but the Emperor decided to take the diplomatic route in this conflict. Egypt and the Moors would most likely have had real troubles getting deep enough into Switzerland to actually force a peace, but the Emperor was weary of war. After having defended Valencia successfully in more than 5 aggressions from the Moors, and declining selling them due to the dependency on naval support, he finally decided that Swiss naval dominance could not be. After some greedy negotiations, it was decided that Algiers, Valencia and Catalonia would go back to the Moors, and Switzerland would be given the Hawaiian center of trade.


A last attempt

Shortly after the peace had taken effect, the Swiss Emperor decided to try one last time to come back up to fighting shape. A quick plan was made; to conquer the Dutch ports, currently owned by Bremen. Bremen had, as most nations, participated in the Great Swiss War, and had been a stern enemy of Switzerland's for as long as anyone could remember. They were however ill prepared for war, and the Emperor decided to try to overrun the Dutch provinces and quickly come to terms. The navy was well over limit after having lost 200 support to the Moors, so things had to be done fast. With army not even near max support, was was declared and armies moving in. Everything went as planned for the first months, with many provinces falling to the Swiss invaders. But then Eire joined. Eire, who had been so far down as any nation could be, had escaped the clutches of (real) defeat, and had now taken back land in France, via diplomatic deals with Neustria, and in Scandinavia, using the USS war against Ingria to their advantage.

With Eire joining the war and aiding the badly beaten Bremish forces with a large swath of men, Swiss positions became vulnerable. Troops had to be pulled back to establish a stable frontline, losing most of the ground taken during the initial blitz. Two enemies was more than a handful for the Swiss forces, who offered white peace, an offer which was rejected, to the Emperor's surprise. Apparently the Irish thought they could crave revenge for the Swiss invasion some 20 years earlier. The Swiss navy had however been sailed up to outside Holland, where it sunk the Bremish navy and won several battles against the far bigger Irish fleet. Warscore which was well needed, as Eire and Bremen tried to push into Swiss territory. Several large battles were fought in Kassel, which was eventually liberated by Swiss forces, an event which was followed by a white peace agreement between the fighting sides. Switzerland had not succeeded to replace the losses to the Moors, but had now to face a period of decline, realizing that it was no longer the Greatest Power.


Reward: -1 inflation

 

[Mats_SX]

Switzerland 1690 - 1711


The Dark Years

I was beaten and weakened. Switzerland did not own a manpower, economy or CRT advantage, except navally, against any other nation. Eire was on the run, with great influence over Bremen and decent relations with most nations. Egypt was pulling the strings in the South, controlling the Romans with an iron fist and enjoying the Moors' relative passivity. Despite having lost seven (7) very rich provinces in the preceding wars (4 in Italy and 3 to the Moors), Switzerland again found themselves the target of aggression. This time, it was Bremen and Eire who under good leadership wanted to use the fact that the new Swiss Emperor was a moron.

Not many years into the session, they declared war and showed massive numbers of soldiers at the border. A quick NAP was signed with the Romans and Egypt, and forces were pulled from the South to fill the holes in the frontier. But the enemies were too many and too powerful. Battles were lost, one after the other, and provinces fell, despite the many good fortifications that had been erected. Switzerland were on the absolute brink of defeat, when the Neustrians made their promises real and honoured the defensive alliance they had signed with Switzerland, and joined the war. Huge armies flowed into Germany, across the Rhine, relieving the thinning Swiss lines. The later parts of the war had seen some progress for Switzerland, but slow. Now it was sped up greatly, and all of northern France was also occupied by Neustria.

Another front had been in Mexico, where Bremen and Eire had been doing remarkably well, and controlled several provinces. But their forces withered out, and upon the Neustrian entrance in the war, they were forcefully pushed out. This relative calm of the Mexican front would not last for all war, though.

After all of Switzerland now reclaimed, and Bremish warscore being under the stabhit mark, Switzerland now sought peace. But before anything could be agreed upon, Neustria signed a separate peace with Eire, splitting the wars in two. This was a great surprise, but in Bern it was greeted well, as Neustria had taken two provinces from Eire. Hopes were high that maybe now, eventually, Neustria could become independent against the island nation. That was naively optimistic, it would show. Switzerland answered the separation of the wars by taking two provinces off of Bremen in peace, and hoping to see Eire accept white peace. They did not. Instead they sent an army into Mexico, led by a fierce conquistador. All was well, I thought, and started to position my quite large Mexican defense-forces into the mountains. I thought I had trapped their leader quite well, after having routed their navy and retaking the port province, but then Neustria decides to give the victory away to Eire. Few things in my eu2 career have been more frustrating, than seeing Neustria start an assault on the rebels just as Eire approaches Tenochtitlan. There was no rush. There was no leader. But it ended up with Eire taking control of the rich CoT province and starting stabhitting for it. Pain. Many a Swiss suspected the Neustrians had done it on purpose, but there was nothing to be done about it. Two attempts were made to defeat the Irish forces in Tenochtitlan, and success was near. Coordination was the issue. Too many rebels had sprung up, and the Emperor was confused. The first attempt saw the death of the Swiss leader in the area, with the battle leaning slightly towards Swiss success, but soon turning bad. The next attempt was also a good one, but too many small Swiss armies were forgot. Had the existing material been used optimally, the Irish had likely been defeated. But seeing no end to the stabhits and rebellions, Tenochtitlan was given up to Eire, ending a dark period in Swiss history.

The new Start

After a period of peace, Eire soon unleashed upon Neustria again, using the truce with Switzerland as a cover. Neustria had taken many Dutch provinces from Bremen, during the fighting in Mexico. But Bern was tired of the constant constellation of protecting Neustria against Eire and Eire protecting Bremen against the Swiss. So a deal was made with Eire; a NAP would bind the nations to peace between one another, and at the same time allowing swift defeat to be brought upon Neustria and Bremen. A limit of four European provinces was decided, in protection of ones allies. Swiss plans were quickly forged of taking the remaining Rhenish provinces in Bremen, and compensate the loss of Tenochtitlan with Unalachtingo. But these plans would not be followed completely...


Reward: -1 inflation