Why should france minor removed?

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This is miy question as it seems habsburg possession as burgundy, spain and austria, looking to EEP philosophy, are going to stay splitted, it seems to me illogical and inconsitent to give those fife provinces to france even if they had been ruled by different rulers. Ok i know some times they had not an indipendent foreign politic and this is good to painted with a vassal status, and the econmy of those province was walking togheter with france one, but many times minors made indipendent politic instead and they had mostly indipendent parlaments, courts, and minting coins. This things makes a country. Again why want you to remove those minors even if it not belongs to france king? Even if they made laws and justice?
And instead splitting habsburg even if more nearer related than minors rulers to france kings family?

 

[Rhodz]

We want to remove the French minors (Bourbon, Auvergne, Orleans) Because:

A: Their combined armies unbalance the 100 years war. France is supposed to be weak yet you have three nations quite willing to bankrupt themselves several times to get armies into the field which simply annihilate your troops.

B: As opposed to Burgundy and Provence, these duchies(or counties or whatever) didn't act as independently from the crown of France.

Also, the reason Spain and Austria aren't united into one huge superpower is because it would unbalance the game.

 

[unmerged(547)]

Most excellent idea. However, I presume that the minor's starting armies would still be present, just now as French forces?

 

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Originally posted by Rhodz
We want to remove the French minors (Bourbon, Auvergne, Orleans) Because:

A: Their combined armies unbalance the 100 years war. France is supposed to be weak yet you have three nations quite willing to bankrupt themselves several times to get armies into the field which simply annihilate your troops.

B: As opposed to Burgundy and Provence, these duchies(or counties or whatever) didn't act as independently from the crown of France.

Also, the reason Spain and Austria aren't united into one huge superpower is because it would unbalance the game.

Ok i can understand point A, even if i had saw france losing badly against burgundy in the first 50 years even if minors more then once.
But point B is not to understand, cause if you give vassal status they don't act indipendent anyway cause they cannot join an alliance.
About Spain and Austria, well this is a first 50 years of game point of view, cause if you keep habsburg powers splitted and france is going to become united, well in this case france will be the superpower and the habsburg countries in a very weak situation instead, which is ahistorical. IMO if we keep HAB splitted france should have theire historical vassals splitted too.

 

[Twoflower]

What you fail to understand is that the different Hapsburg branches and the vassals of the French crown are different cases because they are connected in different ways:

- the Hapsburgs are relatives, but each of them is a sovereign prince of the HRE. If all other HRE principalities are independent states, there is no reason not to make the Hapsburgs independent
- the French princes are part of one united Kingdom. They are subject to the French crown and the French King can interfere. They cannot have an own army and they are not allowed to mint their own coins (other than you stated). Their ties to France are strong, almost impossible to cancel and prevent them from having an own foreign policy. Also, they tend to behave very ahistorically (how often have you see the vassalage cancelled and even open warfare between them or them and France)
Hapsburgs are same family, but different, independent countries, French vassals are not exactly same family, but closely related, and completely subject to the King. For historicity and gameplay it is probably better to have splitted Hapsburg possessions and united France.

 

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Well my problem with a united france is simply this:

it puts habsburg alliance into a to weak position. It's simply to weak to manage a powerfull united france if splitted. If at war against france, some habsburg branche makes early peace every time, letting alone the other branche and losing badly as france is so powerfull to win easy if on a one front war.
This is mainly a gamebalance issue.
My suggestion if you insist to let minors disappear is to weaken france by taxvalue. After all france had a huge court of nobles to entertain even if versailles was not there, but the nobles where and demands money and positions again and again.
What can i say about nobles rulers is that they had armies and for this i'm quite sure, i'm not 100% sure about minting, but what i can remember is that france had not minting monpole at this time, about law and court power i'm sure there had been province in a indipendent position or near to be. This leads me to think to a partial indipendence like vassalizzation with alliance off course and high relationships. This is off course my main position.

 

[Twoflower]

Originally posted by Barbalele
Well my problem with a united france is simply this:

it puts habsburg alliance into a to weak position. It's simply to weak to manage a powerfull united france if splitted. If at war against france, some habsburg branche makes early peace every time, letting alone the other branche and losing badly as france is so powerfull to win easy if on a one front war.
This is mainly a gamebalance issue.
My suggestion if you insist to let minors disappear is to weaken france by taxvalue. After all france had a huge court of nobles to entertain even if versailles was not there, but the nobles where and demands money and positions again and again.
What can i say about nobles rulers is that they had armies and for this i'm quite sure, i'm not 100% sure about minting, but what i can remember is that france had not minting monpole at this time, about law and court power i'm sure there had been province in a indipendent position or near to be. This leads me to think to a partial indipendence like vassalizzation with alliance off course and high relationships. This is off course my main position.

Regarding the Hapsburg branches, what division are you talking about? The one between Burgundy, Austria and Spain between 1477 and 1516? I don't think the split of the Austrian possessions will matter for wars against France, since the first split is over by 1490 when Austria is supposed to start fighting France (btw Sigismund of Tyrol actually was an ally of the King of France) and during the time of the second split, if it is to be done at all, between 1564 and 1630 (iirc), Spain is supposed to do most of the fighting, and all realistic and historical efforts should be made to make Spain as strong as it was (i.e. close to hegemony).

Generally, I think independent vassals is certainly no worse solutiom concerning historical accuracy, you can argument either way. However, there are several arguments against separate vassals:
- independent vassals tend to act ahistorically by cancelling the vassalage and declaring wars on their own, even on their suzerain. You see Auvergne and Bourbonnais do that quite often, and there's no way to effectively stop them from doing that; it's a limitation of the EU2 ai
- if these appanages are independent, why are other autonomous French fiefs, like Dauphiné, Limousin, Berry etc not, and why do the other West European Kingdoms, especially England, have no independent vassals

As compensation for this added territory, France should be weakened by a more historical HYW setup (that is harsher on them and will make them struggle to survive the first years), have lower centralization, decreased taxvalues and manpower, more historical events for rebellions of the French nobility (that happened quite often), maybe some specificallly French random events for subversive nobles and much more severe Wars of Religion.

 

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Well in this case i could be agree to remove them too. The important thing is to avoid just unifying france and do nothing else.
Even if i have to say keep france minor would be much better in historicity. Anyway i'm agree ai is not able to handle it well.

 

[laurent]

Welll...I already wrote it time and again, but I want the vassals to be removed because they make absolutely no sense. Take the example of "Auvergne": the count of Auvergne holdings were a ridiculously little bit of the Auvergne region (most of Auvergne has been confiscated for reasons I don't remember 100 or 200 hundred years ago). Most of it was held and ruled directly by the king. The rest was shared between several minor noble families, who would be totally irelevant at the game scale.


Now the Bourbons : their holdings weren't in any way connected. They were holding various fiefs in various places in France (and incidentally the largest continuous part was in Auvergne) . Most of their holdings would be dots scattered all over the map. Even worse : they hadn't any significant holdings at this time in the regions where "Bourbon" is situated in the game (more exactly they had some little fiefs in roughly the northern region, but none in the southern one). Beside : they were indeed a powerful family, but not particulary more powerful than a score of other major houses. There's absolutely no particular reason to have them appear in the the game and not two dozens or more of other noble families.

Though the kings would have to take into account the will and opinions of many powerful noble families to keep their support, they weren't at all on the same footing than the dukes of Bretagne or Burgundy; And arbitrarily picking a couple of these families and granting them "independance" doesn't make sense, especially when, as I just wrote, the provinces they're given in the game haven't any historical basis.

Actually, there's *one* of these noble families which is very well-known for having had a major influence during the period considered (though didn't have a major piece of territory, either) : the Armagnac. And they don't appear in the game.



The vassals considered in the game didn't have, AFAIK, any independant parliament, contrarily to, say, Britanny (I would note that "parliament" in this case has nothing to do with the modern concept...we're talking about a kind of "supreme court"). They probably had courts of justice. But once again the domains of these nobles were scatered. So, living a parish, you could have to deal with the count of Auvergne court, while people living in the next parish would deal with the king's court, and in the third parish it would be another court again, depending on some minor noble. Besides, people could appeal to the king's court. AFAIK, they didn't have the right to mint money anymore at the time considered (since the middle of the XIII° century, I believe)



I just checked the "minting coins" thing : actually, they *could* mint money, but these coinages were already marginalized, since they couldn't by law circulate outside the domains of the nobles minting them, while the king's coins had to be accepted everywhere. There were three types of coins actually circulating : those minted by the english, those minted by the king...and those minted by the duke of Burgundy...and even him was minting coins exactly identical to the king's coins (I do mean identical : with the king's arms on them, etc..), and only began to mint them in 1418.

 

[laurent]

Originally posted by Twoflower
- if these appanages are independent, why are other autonomous French fiefs, like Dauphiné, Limousin, Berry etc not,

Actually, the Dauphine wasn't autonomous at all. It belonged to the crown, and was the domain held by the crown's heir. The Limousin wasn't autonomous, and has been part of the kingdom for quite a long time (though there was some very small autonomous fiefs inside it, held by three different viscounts). I don't know what was the situation of Berry at this time.

The problem is : Apart from Britanny and Burgundy (though it's very possible I'm overlooking some relatively large domains..I'm thinking about Bearn, in particular) , the fiefs were mostly much smaller than the size of an EU province and very numerous. It wasn't the XII° century anymore, and the fact that there was a "duke of Berry" didn't mean that the guy actually owned the whole Berry province, let alone that he could rule his domains with a large autonomy. The largest fiefs were actually appanages (fiefs which had revertered to the crown and were later handed to the king's youger sons and their inheritors). And since they had belonged to the crown, people who held them didn't have all the autonomy a noble whose family always had held the fief could have.

 

[laurent]

Also, concerning the "parliament" thing : the parliaments, where they existed, were maintained even after the fief reverted to the crown. For instance, during most of the period covered by the game there was a "parliament of Toulouse" and a "parliament of Britanny", even though the (once very powerful) county of Toulouse had dissapeared long time ago and Britanny had been annexed by France. So, the fact there was a parliament somewhere didn't mean that the province was in any way independant.

As for "armies"..well...sure, especially in these troubled times, those who could afford troops had an "army" (or probably more correctly gathered troops/paid mercenaries when needed). So, yes, probably the heads of the Bourbon or Orleans families could afford to have troops (though the count of Auvergne probably couldn't). But so could many others.

Now, if you want to play "France Universalis" with only a map of france divided in some hundred provinces, you could certainly add many "independant" fiefs...

 

[Rhodz]

laurent, I hate to say this but I've always read the word as parlement...pronounced parl-uh-mont. It's a totally different word to "parliament". At least that's how I've always read in books on the french revolution and also on Louis XIV

EDIT: Just read that you're a Parisian...perhaps I should shut my stupid hole now

 

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Well i see it in this way:

German countries had an emperial court, could mint coins, had an army, where mostly very splitted, had a limited foreign politic.
France fiefs are on the same level, like german countries. But you want to unify all france and keep HRE divided. My question is why? Hre countries are likely to go ahistorical like france minors and had the same politic power. So there is still no reason for me to unifiy earlier france if it has not go to be a centralized country. Or on the ither hand if you wants to unify france there is one more important reason to unify the HRE.

 

[laurent]

Originally posted by Rhodz
laurent, I hate to say this but I've always read the word as parlement...pronounced parl-uh-mont. It's a totally different word to "parliament". At least that's how I've always read in books on the french revolution and also on Louis XIV

Actually, "parlement" in french translate as "parliament" in english, and a lot of people assume that the old "parlements" were somehow similar to the modern ones, with people voting laws, etc...That's why I thought I should mention there was a difference. Usually an "old-style" "parlement" was an advisor to the king/lord, a high court of justice and would register the laws and other legal acts of the king/lord. In the case of the provincial "parlements" we were talking about, they also were very busy making sure the king would respect the local customs, priviledges, etc..dating back to the times when the province was still "independant".

 

[laurent]

Actually, Barbalele [/l] by the XV° century, France was much more centralized than the HRE. Since the "classical" middle-ages, the french nobility had lost a lot of its independance, while at the contrary, during the same period, the nobility in the HRE had *gained* a lot of independance. If the game was beginning in, say, 1219, then, yes, you could assume a lot of fief holders had a large independance, and that nobody could know whether there would ever be a really unified kingdom of France. But at the beginning of EU, the kings of France had for a very long time tried to unify the country, to weaken the nobility, to centralize the state and to get as much pieces of land they could, by arranged marriages (the county of Toulouse, for instance), by inheritance (Champagne), by buying them (Dauphine), by taking them from the king of England who was the inheritor of the huge domains of the dukes of Aquitaine (Limousin) or by plainly confiscating them for one reason or another (it was the case for the county of Auvergne, as I wrote above).

There weren't many noble families who had large continuous pieces of territory corresponding to one of the old french fiefs. The era of the powerful dukes of Aquitaine, counts of Toulouse or Champagne, etc..was a thing of the past. These old fiefs belonged to the crown for the most part, though various families could have sub-fiefs in one place or another. Like the Bourbons, who, over time, had gathered pieces of land here and there (originally, their sub-fief was situated in Auvergne).


The only large missing pieces were Britanny, Flanders (that the french kings would never get back) and Provence (though technically not part of the kingdom). Burgundy had been part of the of the king's domain since around 1350, but had been given as an appanage to one of the younger childs of the king, whose descendants would try, as we know, to gather as much territory as they could (Flanders, Franche-Comte, etc..) and to gain independance...

 

[Twoflower]

Originally posted by Barbalele
Well i see it in this way:

German countries had an emperial court, could mint coins, had an army, where mostly very splitted, had a limited foreign politic.
France fiefs are on the same level, like german countries. But you want to unify all france and keep HRE divided. My question is why? Hre countries are likely to go ahistorical like france minors and had the same politic power. So there is still no reason for me to unifiy earlier france if it has not go to be a centralized country. Or on the ither hand if you wants to unify france there is one more important reason to unify the HRE.

It is possible that the difference in the beginning of the 15th century did not exist or is hard to tell, but during the century it developed and in the beginning of the Reformation it is very obvious that the German princes were much more independent and powerful than their French counterparts. Also generally in the course of history the independent German princes were more significant; even before the 15th century you will certainly see more mentions of the Wittelsbachs, the Hapsburgs, the Wettins, the Askanians, the Hohenzollern, the Welfs or the Luxemburgs in history books, mainly for four reasons:
- the Empire was electoral while France was hereditary. This means before the Hapsburgs no dynasty could use the Imperial dignity for a long time to build up a powerbase that would make it clearly the strongest. Upon every election, the Emperor had to give concessions to the princes who thus gradually gained more and more independence and importance and the electors were often eager to choose a "weak" emperor who would not limit their privilegues. The French Valois Kings on the other hand were able to connect the hereditary crown with their dynasty and could therefore expand both their holdings and their authority over the centuries
- there were more, stronger and less related dynasties in Germany. All mentioned German families had gathered big holdings and were separate of each other while the French dynasties, especially Valois and Bourbonnais, had close familial ties
- the feudal system in France was different. While fiefs in Germany were hereditary, tied to a dynasty for long times and could be lost only by extinction of the ruling dynasty or in very rare cases by treason against the Empire (and the princes were quite leery against this; neither Ulrich of Württemberg who was a murderer and had attacked an imperial city without a reason nor Friedrich the Winterking of Bohemia or the French ally Max Emanuel of Bavaria could be permanently dispossessed), the French King had more control over the fiefs; whenever a noble conspired against the crown, the King was able to confiscate his possessions (which happened e.g. to Charles de Bourbon or the Armagnacs) and several fiefs were non-hereditary appanages where the King could often appoint a successor of his choice (just have a look at the EU2 monarch file of Auvergne to get a picture of this)
- the Empire was generally a much weaker institution than the Kingdom of France. While the French Kings had their big coherent demesne and had to be supported by the princes in their wars, an Emperor's power was based almost only on the power of his dynasty. By the 15th century most of the Emperor's authority was only of theoretical or ceremonial nature and the princes only obeyed him when they wanted to.

 

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Ok we pointed out following till now:

-) france has not a big difference to the empire in the beginning of GC scenario;
-) it became different trough the years, cause HRE princes get stronger, while france fiefs became weaker insted;

In standard game HRE princes are giving some money to the Cesar and some manpower, but didn't follow emperor politic and can form alliances against him.
By now in both eep and standard games france fiefs are fully implemented, not able to make any indipendent politic and giving everything to the king. While the first seems mostly correct for me, the second is not. IMO the king gains very few from those provinces and the dukes still decided if to join the king in a war or not. So fully implementation seems to me a total misinterpretation of what was really, and make france to strong.
The only problem here is we have not a 2folwer making fiefs history working in the right way.

 

[Twoflower]

Originally posted by Barbalele
Ok we pointed out following till now:

-) france has not a big difference to the empire in the beginning of GC scenario;
-) it became different trough the years, cause HRE princes get stronger, while france fiefs became weaker insted;

In standard game HRE princes are giving some money to the Cesar and some manpower, but didn't follow emperor politic and can form alliances against him.
By now in both eep and standard games france fiefs are fully implemented, not able to make any indipendent politic and giving everything to the king. While the first seems mostly correct for me, the second is not. IMO the king gains very few from those provinces and the dukes still decided if to join the king in a war or not. So fully implementation seems to me a total misinterpretation of what was really, and make france to strong.
The only problem here is we have not a 2folwer making fiefs history working in the right way.

Huh? can you elaborate further on your last sentence? I'm not sure whether this was a nice compliment or offensive
And I think I did point out that the situation in France was different. Prove the four points I mentioned wrong for the beginning of the 15th century. I think you can hardly argue that the electoral nature of the Empire, the existence of many strong, independent-minded dynasties, the different feudal law in Germany and the much weaker position of the Emperor compared to the King of France do make quite a difference, and if you add to this that the discussion about what is most historically accurate in the beginning is not solely relevant and that in the course of history the German princes, especially Austria (remember that the emperor in 1419 is a Luxemburg and Austria would be part of a unified HRE), Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria, Hannover, the Palatinate and Hessen, were much more significant and acted more independently than any French prince except the Dukes of Burgundy and the Counts of Foix (when they had become Kings of Navarra), there is quite a solid argument that German princes are far from being the same case as the French.
IMO it is much more ahistorical for the French minors to get annexed easily by England, break their vassalage, declare war on other countries or even fight the King without any consequence than for them to not exist as independent countries and be owned by France. The one is clearly wrong and hurts the game, the other is just a matter of interpretation.

 

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And if we have france minors mostly vassalized and allied and on a high relationship rate to france things are different to HRE where german minors are still fully indipendent and only have to "give " some money and manpower to austria.
Instead if we let france be fully unified early, well this is on the extreme position of a hipotetical range scale. While vassalized and allied are in a middle (better?) position and fully independet on the opposed extreme position.

 

[Twoflower]

Originally posted by Barbalele
And if we have france minors mostly vassalized and allied and on a high relationship rate to france things are different to HRE where german minors are still fully indipendent and only have to "give " some money and manpower to austria.
Instead if we let france be fully unified early, well this is on the extreme position of a hipotetical range scale. While vassalized and allied are in a middle (better?) position and fully independet on the opposed extreme position.

You know, I would agree with you if things worked out as we want. Independent vassals would probably be the most accurate solution if these independent vassals acted like we wanted to (and in fact I made exactly the point you were making in a discussion with Sire Philippe a while ago). In EU2 the independent vassals however only cause trouble:
- with their own armies, they make France too strong initially in the HYW. With the minors and their armies removed, France in fact starts out in a weaker position
- Orléans is annexed by England in the first year in most games, and this cannot be prevented
- all French vassals have a terrible tendency of leaving the alliance, cancelling the vassalage and then going to war against France, usually dragging their new allies into the war who then get brutalised by France as well. Again, by this habit they in fact strengthen France more than they weaken it
- when they still are in the French alliance, they often start wars or are attacked, again giving France an opportunity to fight and annex some countries easily