Europa Universalis IV - 13 August 2013

[Md139115]

A wider map of the world taken nine years later after all the Ottoman-kicking wars finished. I've taken all the territory the Serbs took in an attempt to firm up my position in Europe (the Hungarians were starting to get a bit too close). Important points to be made here:
1. Austria is now an ally of mine and would be my one of my closest friends for the next 150 years. They are allied with Hungary, but the latter is keeping the Hunyadis so no union is coming.
2. the De Trastimaria dynasty of Spain is having possibly the weirdest game ever. On the one hand, they somehow had the Iberian Wedding, the Burgundian Collapse, and the French throne (Valois didn't breed well for some reason) fall in their lap in less than 30 years, as well as sliding onto enough other thrones to make the Habsburgs look like celibates. On the other, Naples successfully revolted away from them, France, despite the shared dynasty, hated them so much they have expended more effort charging southwards than anything, Portugal has stridently avoided them like the plague, and all their efforts in the new world have been devoted to the settlement of Brazil and... Canada.
3. Italy is an unholy s***storm as future pictures will make clear.
4. The Mameluks and I liked each other initially... but that is rapidly cooling.
5. To do anything else, I need to kick some Venetian and Genoese butts.

Fun, fun, fun! A war with Venice with Austria and Hungary landed me their extensive territories in the Aegean and helped me land my Albanian puppet some valuable territory of its own. Fighting Genoa and the Knights just after the latter had bit off more than they could chew in Karaman gave me the remaining Aegean islands, a third war with the Ottomans killed them, and a war with Karaman and Cyprus netted me the critical fort at Icel (Tarsus) and finally enabled me to re-unify the Hellenes!

There's just one small problem now though... I'm not well-liked now, and the Mameluks and Hungarians are sharpening knives...

So ends the bloody business of the day. Massive coalition war with Hungary, Naples, the Papacy, Aq Quonulu, and the Mameluks vs. Austria, Walachia, Albania, and yours truly. I never once had the upper hand, and several times, I stared disintegration in the face, only being saved in the end by my granting of the Liberum Veto, which got me 15k of fresh troops in time to save my flanks from caving in Albania and Thessaly. After five long years of fighting, in where nearly every inch of my territory was contested and 200K+ fell on both sides, I managed to get them to moderate their demands down to ceding Ragusa and Zeta and paying a sum of money. Problem was that after all this, with my manpower exhausted, nearly 2,000 ducats in debt, my corruption high, and nearly all my territories sacked, my financial situation was in ruins. I therefore had to do the one thing no player of EU4 should ever dare do...

I declared bankruptcy.

Join me tomorrow for the climb out of this nadir!

 

[Caesar_33]

snippity snip

i'm loving this series so far

 

[Md139115]

Welcome back. We left off in 1513 with a shattered state, but in the seeds of that ruin, new opportunities flourished. For starters, astute viewers will notice two important things in the previous map:

1. The Austro-Hungarian alliance was dissolved in the coalition war, and Austria never forgave Hungary for it (Roman emperors stick together! ).
2. Genoa just grabbed a large part of Karaman, but it could not access its territory anymore since I took their coastal provinces.

Now, I should have taken at least one, probably two or three pictures during the 1530s and 1540's, but I forgot, mea culpa. Here's what happened:

It took me a good twenty years to straighten my state out before I could retake the offensive. In that time, Genoese Anatolia was consumed in rebellion, with the Karamanese regaining much of the eastern half and the Ottomans regaining independence in the western parts. I annexed Albania, then in my first aggressive war since the coalition, I grabbed the newly freed Ottoman lands and annexed them in my fourth and final war with this menace. Karaman had, unfortunately, become a Mamluk vassal, so my way east was closed until I could build up more strength. First, I entered into an alliance with Qara Qoyunlu since they hated Aq Qoynulu and the Mamluks as much as I did, and then, I worked on expanding north. The Crimeans were turning into a dangerous threat, having annexed Georgia and force vassalized Circassia. They had to be stopped. My first act was to fight my final war with Genoa for their remaining Anatolian provinces and their base in Canik. Then I entered into an alliance with Muscovy. This was intended to be a temporary alliance of convivence, but it has turned into my longest and closest friendship, uninterrupted for 150+ years. They had not been having a good game so far. The Danes had swallowed prime chunks of Novgorod before they could and blocked the north. Poland-Lithuania blocked the west, and the alliance of Crimea, Kazan, and Nogai blocked the south. My alliance with them and subsequent DoW on the Crimeans broke this impasse and enabled them to begin expanding into the major power that they (and I!) needed them to be. As can be seen from the map, my war with the Crimeans gave me the peninsula, with all its riches, and I also liberated the Circassians, who would quickly become my vassals, and very quickly earned the reputation as my whipping boy, since nearly all my opponents since have put their occupation at the top of their priorities for some strange and hilarious reason. The Crimeans had just finished conquering Georgia before the war, but with Circassia being mine now, and their navy at the bottom of the Black Sea, they were unable to hold onto it, and it would become independent again (soon after picture was taken, ~1560?).

Before that happened though, it was getting time for me to turn to the Mamluks, who had diplo-annexed Karaman and now had a knife pointed at my heart. I readied my armies, built up my navy, got my financial house in order and...

Qara Qoynulu beat me with a DoW on Aq Qoynulu.

What could I do? I had to join them, since they otherwise would be killed, but even a separate peace wouldn't net me near as much as what I wanted. So the First Byzanto-Mamluk War kicked off. This is the aftermath. My armies were very competent, driving them all the way to Cairo. While this was going on though, Hungary invaded Wallachia. They were allied with both Moscovy and me, but when the former refused to honor the alliance, I decided that I wasn't going to be able to either. This would wind up being one of my most callous, and wisest decisions. Qara Qoynulu made peace for us after I concluded that I wasn't going to get much with a separate peace. I was reasonably happy since I got all their enclaves in my lands, but now Qara Qoynulu held lands that I would need to complete my mission chains. I would have to backstab them eventually...

As a general aside, it is probably worth discussing the wider map. We are currently in the "Papal" period of Western European politics, where the Papacy, Spain, and Hungary are all swallowing up as much land as they can. People are getting ticked off though.

The map of Eurasia changed a lot in under 30 years! The first thing worth noting is that after the Hungarian conquest of traditional Wallachia, everyone in Europe was fed up with them, and with their Spanish and Papal allies occupied, Venice (with Poland), Austria, and Bohemia each launched wars of their own on this interloper, utterly dogpiling it. Before they could catch their breath, I vassalized Wallachia and waged war to reconquer their lands. This was successful, and I also got the valuable gold mines of Kosovo and their remaining sea access at Zeta (also erasing some of the humiliation of the coalition war).

To explain what happened next, I should probably explain the Reformation in this game, which is the weirdest I've ever seen. Simply put, the Protestants and the Reformed wound up hating each other so much more than the Catholics. Their centers of reformation (the Protestant ones were the Hanseatic cities, the Reformed ones were Ulm, Wittenberg, and Konigsberg) dueled to convert the same countries, resulting in larger Northern European countries being torn apart by rebels of different confessions while the HRE electors, France, and Britain were able to play one off of the other in order to remain Catholic. The religious wars inside the HRE was bitter and never ending, and culminated in such insanities as the government of Ulm deciding that they should be Protestant, and using a missionary to convert away their own center of reformation! The weirdest moment of it all though was in Scandinavia. The king of Denmark inherited Sweden, finally uniting the Kalmar Union (Norway had been diplo-annexed prior) only for it all to disintegrate within five years as every possible nation broke free due to the religious violence. Sweden, Sapmi, and Gotland (yes! Gotland!) decided to be Reformed, Denmark and Iceland decided to be Protestant, and the poor Norwegians threw their hands up in the air and stuck with the Roman church. What this all means is that the Reformation never got a chance to enter Orthodox lands, except in one case: Moldova. Poland being Reformed, they demanded their march convert. This was something I took umbrage to, because if they converted, the Reformation might spill over into my lands with all its madness, so with Muscovy as my ally, I declared war on Poland-Lithuania, and got Moldova, while the Russians got some valuable border forts in Livonia.

Elsewhere, the "Papal" period began to end, to be replaced by the "Tuscan-Austrian" period. We can see the beginning of this decline as France moves into Provence, Tuscany into Umbria, and Sardinia gains independence (religious reasons, the island was Protestant)

It was now time for the Second Byzanto-Mamluk War to begin. After a violent and bitter struggle, they made peace with me receiving the valuable fort of Trebizond, the rest of the Mamluk holdings in Anatolia, a minor base in Cyrenica so that I could begin projecting power west (the Tunisians were allied with the Mamluks, and I wanted to take their territory in future wars), and something more valuable than everything else combined...

Yes! STRIKE UP THE TRUMPETS AND ORGANS! SOUND THE KYRIE FROM THE ROOFTOPS! LET EVERY CHURCH BELL IN CHRISTENDOM RING! 950 YEARS AFTER IT WAS LOST, THE EAGLE OF THE RHOMANOI FLIES OVER THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM AGAIN!!!!!!

 

[Md139115]

Alright, I really should have taken another picture at least once in the hundred year period between this and the last one, but here's what happened. During the Second Byzanto-Mamluk War, the Religious league war broke out. I didn't get involved, but my presence was unnecessary. Austria and the Catholics wiped the floor with the Protestant's faces. Instead, first, I vassalized Bosnia, declared war on Hungary, got more land out of it, annexed Bosnia, used the seize land feature to take northern Bulgaria from Wallachia (they've spent most of the time since throwing temper tantrums about it, but I ignore them). I fought a Third Byzanto-Mamluk War, which went well, netting me the remainder of the ancient eastern pentarchical capitals and some critical forts. Then, with Qara Qoynulu seeing me as less an ally and more a rival, I finally ended my alliance with them, allied instead with Georgia, and smashed them as hard as I could. With Anatolia united, I was able to finally "Re-establish the Theme System" and get proper Greek names back across Asia Minor (and yes, I'm calling it Asia Minor from now on, no more Turkish Anatolian filth).

Now, with the east mostly cowed, it was finally time for me to look west. I declared war by myself on Naples, which was allied with the Papacy and Bohemia. I calmly marched 52,000 men into Austrian lands on the way to Prague... and got my ass handed to me on a silver platter by a 60,000 man Bohemian army backed up by 40,000 Papal troops and 25,000 Neapolitans. Ummm… not good. There was only one thing I could do, and that was to go pay off Austria's 2,000 ducat debt so they could enter the war on my side. After a brutal conflict, Bohemia peaced out, followed by the Papacy when the Tuscans came for them, and I took a bitter vengeance on the Neapolitans. The war was over, and I had a half-dozen Italian provinces (re-)gained, but I was back in debt. So I decided to rob the First Bank of Cairo again by declaring war on the Tunisians, knowing the Mamluks would join them.



My armies raced south from Antioch, putting the Mamluks to flight and driving them to the gates of Cairo, and into the Arabian deserts. But then the Tunisians and their Moroccan allies arrived, and they were of much sterner stuff. My armies were decimated, and in a running battle, I was driven all the way back into Asia Minor before a bunch of mercenaries finally stabilized the situation. What saved me was that I had launched an amphibious expedition into Tunis near the beginning of the war, and though my war score versus the Mamluks was -20 and dropping, my overall war score with the Tunisians was still in the negative single digits. They offered me a white peace, I accepted, and that was that. Over 150k men lost and a treasury ballooning past 4,500 in debt. So I declared bankruptcy again.

I had thought that I had learned from my first bankruptcy. I had raised my stability as high as it would go, secured my armies and fleets to take care of unrest, and spent all my monarch points, but I did not know that it would jeopardize my alliances.

Austria and I had been drifting away. They were allied to Spain and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, my rivals, and I was allied to Russia, one of their rivals, but the friendship probably would have continued on had the bankruptcy (partially brought on by paying their debts, mind you) pushed things over the top. Even still, things may have been preserved once I got out of bankruptcy had fate not intervened.

Tuscany was a rising power, they had vassalized the Papacy, and they had hated the Tunisians, so I had allied with them out of convenience for that disaster of a war. I don't know how I became aware of it in time, but I noticed that the king of Tuscany was 72 and about to die without a heir. So I entered into a royal marriage with them that brought a member of my dynasty to the throne. I thought that was very nice and would have left it at that, had he not given birth to a son with a weak claim to the throne! I broke off my alliance with them, and, seeing as how they were allied to Spain and Austria, allied with France. I waited for an opportunity when both powers were involved elsewhere, and struck. A violent and brutal war, but a successful one. And with that, I became king of most of Italy.

Austria had been willing to tolerate a great many things from me, but not this. The friendship ended. Now the concern was less keeping my European fronts peaceful and more weakening everything in front of me. I waited until they were exhausted from their war with Bohemia, and declared war on them again, this time using the Tuscans to kick them out of the Balkans.

I also decided that I wasn't going to let these damned Mamluks be a danger any longer, so I declared the Fourth (or Fifth, if you want to count the Tunisian fracas) Byzanto-Mamluk war, this time for the purpose of stabbing them straight in the heart at Cairo.

A war with Tunis followed, which saw me gain much of the coastline of Tunisia and Libya while my Tuscan partners got Corsica and Sardinia from their unlucky ally. This war ended on an auspicious date, the first month of the 18th Century. At this point, I was ambitious, having the largest army west of Ming China, a gushing treasury, an alliance with France and Russia, and a number of angry nations too scared of me to fight. I was 256 years in, 120 to go. Could I do the impossible? Could I re-establish the Roman Empire?!

This is where I was four days ago when I started this record. The pictures coming tomorrow are of the world at 1700.

 

[Md139115]

Since image quality isn't that good, I should probably nail down which is which:

Alaska/British Colombia - Holland
Hudson Bay - Holland
Canada - Spain
Northeast US - Spain (with French enclaves in Delaware, RI, and Maine)
Carolinas and Miami - Holland
Rest of the US South - Friesland (The Netherlands never formed, though curiously, Utrecht conquered Friesland, which made their entire global empire based out of a few new colonies in Cape Horn)
Louisiana - France (the only thing that's OTL!)
Texas/Northern Mexico - Britain (and they got the good gold reserves)
California - France
Baja California - Ming China
Rest of Mexico - native states with an enclave of Portuguese Guatemala and Caribbean
Northern Central America - Portugal
Southern Central America - Friesland
Columbia/Panama/Ecuador/Northern Peru/Eastern Venezuela/Guinea - France
Western Venezuela/Guyana/Amazon - Sweden
Brazil - Spain
Argentina - Portugal (after a wild battle with the Inca, who still own parts of Peru)
Southern Brazil - Sweden

And curiously, native enclaves abound. The Shawnee, Kiche, Gurani, Inca, and several other Brazilian tribes are still in existence and have almost fully westernized.

Yes, that is a British Australia and New Zealand. The only other European colony of note in the Pacific is the French one on south Borneo. They have fought several bitter wars with the Bruneians for the whole island. The Chinese however have been very busy with their colonizing.

Yeah, Protestantism hasn't done so well this game, although I just love how closely the religious divides in Germany, the Low Countries and North America follow OTL.

 

[Md139115]

Remember all that shining hope and optimism about possibly restoring the Roman Empire 11 years previously?

Yeah, turns out EU4 has this obscure feature called coalitions...

This is me. I went into a Fifth (or Sixth?) war with the Mamluks, then had Spain join in the fun. I got Messina from them, and a lot of dead bodies. Then France decided to fight a colonial war with Britain. I cleaned up their continental allies, and, with nothing else to do while their navies dueled on the high seas, launched a quick attack into Qara Qoynulu (needed Mesopotamia to refound the empire). Guess what happens when you're in two wars and you have nearly all of Europe angry at you?

Seven years later, I had lost 200k men, my alliance with France was in tatters, and I had to white peace the coalition in order to save my realm from collapsing. Not fun, at all.

On the lighter side though, that is a Japanese dyinamo trying to fight Russia.

 

[mattep74]

So i am facing France-Denmark(France has PU over Denmark), Hamburg, Sweden, super-Milan(taken Genoa and much of Austria), Knights(a pest since they are only on Three islands, capital Island has a 3 star fort, Cyprus have a 6 star fort), Bahamis(controlls most of India) as Great Britain along with my colonies in America(British Mexico had 48 independence wish, i developed a province and it Went to 29) British Mexico, British Canada, British East America, British Colombia, British Peru, British Argentina, British Australia and my ally in Indonesia that fight the french colonies. It is a super war and i just want French Floridas posessions, but the game laggs and one day can take a very long time. Downside to the fact that my colonies have fleets and armies everywere

 

[mattep74]

Seven years later, I had lost 200k men, my alliance with France was in tatters, and I had to white peace the coalition in order to save my realm from collapsing. Not fun, at all.

On the lighter side though, that is a Japanese dyinamo trying to fight Russia.

Whats wrong with White Peace? When i am at war with the Dutch i go for a White Peace after i have lost 50 ships and they 300. To me that is a win. White Peace is also usefull if you are bored with the war and you can not get what you want unless you have to play nonstop for a week. Fighting a coalition and not lose is a good thing.

 

[justinNL]

Strange, I started a new game in the 80 years war. The Netherlands were a kingdom apparently.
It seems I was not the first one to notice, but you would think Paradox would fix it.
I guess I never noticed before because I always start in 1444 with a random world.

 

[Md139115]

Whats wrong with White Peace? When i am at war with the Dutch i go for a White Peace after i have lost 50 ships and they 300. To me that is a win. White Peace is also usefull if you are bored with the war and you can not get what you want unless you have to play nonstop for a week. Fighting a coalition and not lose is a good thing.

White peaces don’t mean much if you’re bled white. And I could not expand any further since I now had truces with all the powers.

Losing men and money without gaining territory is a loss in my book.

 

[The Forty-Eighth Rōnin]

Strange, I started a new game in the 80 years war. The Netherlands were a kingdom apparently.
It seems I was not the first one to notice, but you would think Paradox would fix it.
I guess I never noticed before because I always start in 1444 with a random world.

Do you have the Res Publica DLC? It gives Netherlands an event that switch their government to a special one.

 

[Md139115]

Today, we begin Part 2 of discussing how to survive four coalition wars in 50 years. Here's the details:

So I finally white-peace after a violent war, but there's a problem, Europe still really hates me. So guess what happens just eight years later?

This scorecard tells you pretty much everything you need to know (except that my debt was 7000+ at war's end and I was running a 100 deficit). I was actually tempted to keep it going just to win the "Have 1M dead on each side of a war" achievement.

Now here was the issue, as can be seen in the next picture, they had shifted their attention to France, which was bad because they were only in the war as an interested Great Power and could make peace anytime, at which point, I would be well and truly up ****'s creek. So I peaced out, having Tuscany give up Novara and Venice proper, Wallachia gave it's Transylvanian foothold, and I gave Tunis access to the sea again (this latter one worked out wonderfully as Orthodox rebels promptly took over and converted that country).

With a peace with the coalition, I turned my attention to slapping those Commonwealth vultures upside the head. With them promising me war reparations, I finally went to work rebuilding my shattered economy by declaring bankruptcy. I thought this wasn't a big deal because I was in a regency at the time, and when my Basileus came to the throne a year later, my legitimacy went back to 100, but guess what happened? Go on, guess...

 

[justinNL]

Do you have the Res Publica DLC? It gives Netherlands an event that switch their government to a special one.

Yes, it seems to have a MTTH of 200. I used the console to fire it. I really needed 33% naval frocelimit increase!

 

[Md139115]

The Game is finally over, but there are a backlog of pictures to get through, so here we continue for a few days yet.


We begin with the aftermath of part 2 of our surviving four coalition wars in 50 years. I went into bankruptcy, and it started a major revolution! Now, my Basileus at the time was awful, so I would have let them win, except I would have lost my personal union with Tuscany. I barely survived it, but forgot to take a picture.

Then comes Part 3 of surviving four coalition wars.

The third war was a minor affair with the Bohemians and other minor HRE states again. It was bloody, but not desperate. I probably could have fought to a victory, but I decided to white peace to avoid going into debt again. I didn't bother taking a picture of it. Then I fought a brief war in defense of my Tlemcen ally that saw me gain the remainder of Sicily.

Then came the fourth coalition war...

I don't understand why I didn't get the achievement. It may be that I white-peaced France early, and Russia white-peaced a bit later (to my extreme frustration as the balance was finally going my way), but the bloodbath finally continued until I had spent everything in one last almighty push that brought me back to neutral.

One casualty of the war though was my dynasty, as my heir died in battle and my Basileus followed him soon after. The Padiologos Family had accomplished the impossible and brought back the empire to glory, but now the torch had to be picked up by the Russians.

Finally, the day of glory came. I annexed Tuscany, and got Rome, bringing the whole Pentarchy back together!

 

[Thoresby]

I do love a restore Byzantium game.

 

[Md139115]

I do love a restore Byzantium game.

I have one more day’s worth of pictures...

 

[Md139115]

Now, in the course of my game, I had undone much of centuries worth of humiliation to the Byzantines. The ruptures of earthquake at Gallipoli that enabled the Ottomans to enter Europe I healed. The stain of Manzikert I purged when I conquered the Turks. The loss of Syria and Jerusalem to the Arabs I undone. The wickedness of the Normans was crushed in my reconquest of Naples. And the Great Schism ended with the Metropolitan of Rome being finally restored. But there was one more humiliation, one greater than all the others, that needed avenging, and after a brutal war with the Austrians and Bohemians and British, I finally got it.

It was the 27th of December, 1794. 590 years, 7 months, and 19 days since Constantinople fell to the Fourth Crusade.

I like to think that not only were the horses and columns returned to Constantinople, but some commander had the kindness to send St. Mark home to Alexandria, this time not packed in pork.

Now, with that done, it was time to look to the future, I had enough saved up, and the game was almost over, so I decided to start the Suez Canal.

From my playing of Victoria II, I thought this would be an instant thing. It's not.

This is my proof that I did begin it, though I wouldn't see it completed.

Well, perhaps a bit of sadness is the best way to end this saga, it is Greek after all. But this does not detract from what I did. Byzantium, when I began, was just nine years from its OTL date of expiration, a ramshackle city of about 25 development and some tiny provinces in Peloponesus. And now, on the first of January 1821, 12 years before the Greeks of OTL tasted freedom once more, we end with Byzantium being more than just Byzantium. We end with it being what it always was, and what it always will be in the hearts of some.

Behold, the Eastern Roman Empire!

And just for comparison, the Empire on the death of Justinian in 555. A bit more time, and I would have gone into Spain.

Thank you all for watching!

 

[Neoteros]

How Europa Universalis made me love, and hate, Philippine history

 

[The Tai-Pan]

Love me some re-born Roman empire. very nice @Md139115

 

[The Undead Martyr]

As a venenetophile, Sicilophile and italophile I've long had complicated feelings on the Eastern roman empire in paradox games. More often tham not I enjoy restoring the west to glory from an italian power, be it Milan, Venice, or Naples.