Double posting but want to keep bug stuff separate from empire stuff:
The year is 1551. Colonization is just finally starting to happen. I don't know why Portugal didn't do anything, except that I see France nabbed the Azores. Spain until very recently had much, much bigger problems, with at one point they got overrun and half conquered by Granada, and as soon as they bounced back and kicked the Muslims out, Aragon swarmed over the border and split the country in two, and formed an Alliance with Portugal.
I'm Austria. This is supposed to be a pretty laid back game, I'm just trying to become the Holy Roman Empire by enacting all the decisions. And I also wanted to get "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword" achievement that HAB can get. You need 3 Personal Unions at one time. I had Bohemia and Hungary in a PU since basically the beginning of the game. I didn't integrate Bohemia earlier because I didn't know how Elector mechanics worked and whether or not I would get their seat. They inherited on me (and I got the Electorship) about 5 to 10 years ago.
I also have several Electors vassalized to ensure my Emperorship. The other Electors obviously hate me, but as long as it is 4/3 I don't care. The Hapsburg NIs + Diplomacy + Statesman are making for some really fun Diplomatic shenanigans. However, my Diplomacy tech has certainly been gimped as I am often -5 DMP from having too many diplomatic connections.
Currently, my diplomatic relations are: Poland (PU), Lithuania (PU), Hungary (PU), Muscovy (RM, waiting for the chance to claim), Guyenne (Alliance/RM), Spain (Alliance/RM), Portugal (RM), Trier (Elector-Vassal), Cologne (Elector-Vassal), Ulm (Elector-Vassal-RM), Bar (Elector-Vassal-RM), Livonian Order (Vassal), Golden Horde (Guarantee, must have forgotten to revoke this after the last war whoops).
Long term plans are now to conquer Europe completely. Forming HRE will give me Germany, and then I just need to get Guyenne and Spain into a PU. Which is really only a matter of time. If I get Muscovy into a PU I will go after Sweden as well.
England is currently being overrun by Sweden, while Sweden is being overrun by England. Sweden seems to be seiging faster and more successfully, so they will win the race to the capitals. It will be interesting to see if there's an actual peace deal in which provinces change hands or if the AI just going to white peace/release a small unimportant country that gets reannexed by England 10 years later.
Aragon's Italian/Sicilian provinces are occupied by Tuscany, but I don't know if Tuscany can even get to Aragon to force a large favorable peace deal.
Denmark is a OPM, and France has amusingly become landlocked even though it has colonies. Ouch.
Speaking of France, Ironman mode has really made for some fun moments. I misunderstood some game/alliance/coalition mechanics, and ended up in a war with France with about 1,000 manpower left. After some careful positioning and baiting I managed to achieve a significant victory in the mountains of Switzerland, and pressed home my advantage... only to lose 20,000 men when the 40k french men came out of the fog of war two provinces into France and wiped out my units completely. I still had 40k men myself, but I was now just trying not to lose the war completely.
I strategized and moved tactically, every single move I made was tight and had purpose, no sloppy plays, my stacks supported each other and gave up on sieges at the slightest whiff of a doomstack.
And then... I fracking TROUNCED France. Utterly demolished him. I rolled four high rolls in a row with a good general while he rolled 1s and 0s and WIPED OUT A FORTY THOUSAND MAN STACK WITH AROUND FOUR TO ONE CASUALTIES. And by wiped out, I mean in a straight up battle, his 40k men fought, and died, and not at 0 morale, either. I mean the battle was so vicious that they did the instapop thing because their morale went down so fast.
I'll tell you, there was some chest beating and screaming after that battle. I then split my guys into smaller stacks to divide up the portions of France to siege while a 8k man stack with great maneuver General took care of France's troops it built.
I utterly destroyed France so badly that England and Brittany both declared war and didn't even have the money to make any troops. It just sat there, troopless, with 60k manpower while England and Brittany slowly besieged it's provinces. The only reason why England didn't get any provinces is because Milan, yes
MILAN, was in a different war with England and came up and unoccupied the occupied French provinces. Now hows THAT for realpolitik.
EDIT: Okay, so a great chance to go for Muscovy's throne appeared. I claimed it, then declared war. Her only ally was Pskov, and she was out of manpower. Heheheheh, piece of cake.
Until my troops killed the King of Muscovy in battle. And PSKOV GOT THE PU. Which means I could no longer claim Muscovy in a PU, but I could claim Pskov. Since it was a OPM, that war ended quickly, so now I have Pskov in a PU which has Muscovy in a PU. My head hurts.
It would appear my high prestige, relations, and reputation are actually going to end up working against me because there is no way Pskov is going to inherit Muscovy, and I don't know if Pskov will integrate her before I inherit Pskov. It's so tiny. It'll be like a 40% chance to inherit once the 50 years are up...
