Once I formed Scandinavia I wasn't prevented from re-forming Sweden. And then back again. I could if I wanted get infinite prestige/centralization/merchants/tax base bonuses. Should probably stop that. :P
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
[size=+2]Excerpts from The Rule of King Louis V de Vermandois, by Lucas R. Hodgson, Ph.D.[/size]
[size=+1]1470 - 1477: The War for Lorraine, and Initial Misteps[/size]
[...] Although he had been the heir apparent for many years, Louis V had spent the vast majority of his formative years on the drilling fields and with his troops, spurning the conference room and the courtly balls which his father had so excelled at. And so, when the old king passed away, Louis V found himself somewhat unprepared for many of the duties required of a king - which would lead to certain issues in the beginning of his reign. He was, by all reports, well-loved by the common people and soldiers of his kingdom, no doubt due in part to the widespread tales of a chivalric king who favored the common infantryman.
[...] Within hours of his ascension, the parliament of nobles had sent a sternly worded request to the king, demanding the vassalization of Lorraine, which in his many-great-grandfather's time had been a part of the Carolingian Empire.
Taken aback by this early challenge, Louis first attempted a diplomatic solution, offering to wed one of his cousins to the third-in-line to the throne of Lorraine. His proposal was soundly and nigh-immediately rejected ...
... and so a more direct route was undertaken. A period of troop build-up occured - matched by an expansionist focus becoming de rigeur in the training camps, tensions rose on both the eastern and western borders of Vermandois, and at last war was declared. Lorraine responded by rounding up Vermandois traders and their families and expelling them from their demesne.
In the meantime, Sunni agitators saw an opportunity to strike back against their Christian lords in Tangiers, driven by the destruction of several mosques and the erection of Christian cathedrals in their places. Although King Louis had not specifically ordered the desecration of the Muslim shrines, he had issued a proclamation late in 1470 calling upon all nobles in his realm to "... see to the glory of the True Faith and make for the Church a home in every holding." King Louis's efforts so impressed Rome that the Pope, for a short time, listened to Louis above all other temporal rulers.
Although Lorraine was guaranteed by the Holy Roman Emperor and supported by Swiss mercenaries and troops from Alsace and Savoy, the war between Vermandois and Lorraine proceeded almost entirely according to the Franks' whims, with their armies chasing routed Imperial and Swiss forces throughout the Vermandois countryside until they were forced to surrender. When the siege of Lothringen, Lorraine's chief town, ended in mid-February of 1472 after 6 months of bombardment and privation, Alsace quickly agreed to a white peace and exited the war. The Holy Roman Emperor would require additional convincing, but soon his troops retired from the field as well.
It is not certain from historical records exactly what happened, but in the final days of the war the original goal was somehow forgotten or ignored. Perhaps Louis, in a bid to show he would not be constrained by his nobles' whims, elected to choose another path. Regardless of the cause, rather than the offer of vassalization which the rulers of Lorraine had expected, they instead received an ultimatum, and were fully absorbed into the holdings of Vermandois. Louis's capriciousness became much the talk of the crowned heads of Europe, and his reputation suffered greatly. Recent scholarship indicates that the unintended annexation of Lorraine may have been a calculated ploy by a poltical rival, who altered the diplomatic correspondance, and Louis, not wishing to look uncertain in his rule, merely acquiesced to the realm's expansion.
Yeah, uh, this was me being unfamiliar with the "Demand Tribute" options, and I picked the wrong one. Ate a *lot* more infamy than I would have, and it basically put a stop to any warmongering plans for quite a while.
Regardless, sternly-worded diplomatic dispatches soon reached Vermandois from across Europe - Trier, Maine, and Breisgau, despite being minor players, went so far as to make official warnings against further expansion by Vermandois.
Following the defeat of Lorraine, but before Switzerland and the Emperor had been defeated, the nobles gathered together in Parliament to discuss the direction of the country. King Louis V elected to address Parliament on military matters, which he felt best matched his own strengths and knowledge. Unfortunately, the war effort had drained the country's manpower and finances, and further discussion of battles annoyed the nobility, who found numerous small, petty ways of making their displeasure felt.
The resulting diversion of necessary tax revenues, and the costs of maintaining the army to fight the remaining forces of the HRE and Switzerland resulted in a budgetary crisis. Futhermore, the rebels in Tangiers continued to take advantage of Louis's focus on European affairs to ransack the countryside.
The Bohemian Emperor attempted to use these distractions to force reparations from Vermandois, including ludicrous requests for the release of multiple vassal states, but Vermandois ignored these requests, and in time, Savoy, Switzerland, and Bohemia all agreed to peace settlements.
Is it normal for people you're at war with to make absolutely ridiculous peace requests? Here, I'd beaten back a couple Bohemian armies with rather minimal losses, and they kept making peace offers wherein I would give them my whole treasury, release all my vassals, and renege some cores; later on, Tripoli, who had mustered an entire single regiment that eventually go slaughtered once it reached Frankish West Africa would make the same kind of demands. I was glad I never accidentally said "yes" to any of them!
At about this time, recent innovations in shipbuilding and navigational techniques made long, cross-ocean voyages more survivable. Believing he had found an opportunity, King Louis V commissioned his scholars and shipwrights to prepare to locate a "Western Passage" between Europe and the rich trading lands of Asia. Although this was met with welcome in the capital, and, indeed, amongst most of the populace, the nobles viewed it as a challenge to their power and a waste of the nation's dwindling supply of funds. The nation was in a precarious position when King Louis V made an unprecedented political ploy, approaching Jordan de Pontailler, one of his chief rivals among the nobility, and offering him a lucrative position in the government, so long as he turned over documents implicating his major associates. With the agitation amongst the nobles for the moment cut off at the head, the realm began to return to stability and prosperity.
Unfortunately for Louis, the new navigational techniques were not yet quite perfected, and an initial test voyage - carrying soldiers to northern Africa to free Tangiers from Sunni occupation - was lost with all hands in the notoriously violent Bay of Biscay. Upon hearing the news, dissident gold miners in Sus raised up in revolt, but were quickly put down. A second naval force carrying soldiers from Europe was dispatched to Tangiers, and this second army succeeded in recapturing it from the Sunnis.
More inexperience here; I was reading the wrong number on the fleet's status display - the attrition number rather than the hit points. So the ships that had been tooling around died in the middle of their trip to Africa because I'd left them out at sea too long.
In his report, Commodore Fauchard informed the King that, during the voyage to Tangiers, the captains and sailing masters had found the new navigational techniques completely lacking, which initially set naval research back several years. Soon, however, word came back that Pascal de Vallaxon, an enterprising captain, had independently come up with a new way of making charts. King Louis granted him a squadron of 3 ships, on which he ventured out into the Atlantic Ocean ooff the coast of Tangiers and began his explorations. The news of his initial successes ignited a fire of learning, and a great convocation of scholars descended on Vermandois to share their theories.
de Vallaxon sent back a small dispatch boat in the middle of 1476, nearly a year after he had set sail on his voyage of discovery, bearing exciting news - he had discovered a new land mass, which he called "Nouveau Vermandois," a huge, nearly empty land, the mysteries of which he hoped to one day more fully explore. It was not to be, however, for on his return trip from Nouveau Vermandois, a storm caught de Vallaxon off the coast of Leon, and his ships sunk.
When I saved the game and went to bed, the expedition was on its way back to Tangiers. When I loaded the game, I think they just stopped, because I don't remember them moving any more but I wasn't paying attention. Then, suddenly, I lost a lot of view of the ocean. In between, I'd accidentally started EU3 without the mod, and then exited and restarted with the mod. I wonder if that somehow caused the ships to lose their pathing orders?
Unfortunately, the expenses of outfitting such an expedition on top of the costs of raising and training troops for Vermandois's long war against the Holy Roman Empire, combined with the complete absence of Vermandois merchants in the world's trading centers, and a huge outlay in payments to support the smaller crown of Trier, brought the country to brink of financial ruin. Huge loans were taken out against the possibility of bankruptcy, and though the funds were invested in funding merchant ventures at the great trade capitals of the world, the associated interest payments were very hard to bear.
What was needed, the King thought, was a short, victorious war.
First, I hadn't ever fought a war in EU3, so my method of reinforcing my armies was basically the same as that from CK - recruit new ones and send them to the front! Accordingly, I spent a lot more raising troops than I really needed to, and I furthermore adjusted the military support slider all the way over to the right, even though they'd've kept positive morale at, essentially, half-pay. So I spent way more building my army, provisioning my army, and then maintaining my army than I really needed to, and dug myself into a hole I had to really struggle to get out of.
Also, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I couldn't reduce my monthly spend on research so that I wouldn't be horrendously negative each month. Figured that one out later. I also ended up having to take some loans out in November of each year because I was a couple weeks short of making it the whole year; the ~10 ducats per month in interest is murder. I also found out that, once you've got your ship righted, so to speak, you can't repay a loan early. You have to go the full 5 year term.
I also had 5 merchants "in the bank" for the longest time. I kept looking for a CoT that had open slots so I could send one there, but they were always full. I found out you could steal a spot from an incumbent by accident, because I went to the CoT page in the ledger, and clicked on a couple names, thinking it would take me to that CoT's page. Instead, I accidentally sent out some merchants and stole some spots. Progress!
You should've seen the lightbulb that went off when I figured out why I couldn't adjust my monthly spend on research. I figured I had to invent some new piece of tech that would allow me to mint or something.
Also, the way taxes work you're almost guranteed negative income every month. You get a bunch of money on the 1st of every year. It's actually 12x the amount you 'make' every month, but the taxes you get every month are immediately invested in research (or the treasury instead).
And loading EU3 without the mod shouldn't let you load the save game. The map cache and flagfiles are also held separately in the mod's folders, so it shouldn't impact anything. If you had the explorers going through terra incognita on their way back they could easily have died from attrition (since it takes significantly longer to enter undiscovered areas).
You should've seen the lightbulb that went off when I figured out why I couldn't adjust my monthly spend on research. I figured I had to invent some new piece of tech that would allow me to mint or something.
Nope, turns out the slider was just locked.
Ah, yes, you always lock that slider because while you can often want to switch tech, you less rarely want to change minting, and in certain cases like researching stab 3, the game will reallocate funds to unlocked sliders and you don't want that to change it either (and end up with 100% mint for a year!)
Yay, finally have complete possession of the Baltic with what used to be Svaeland. Danzig was the last to fall. Now I'm trying to become HRE by vassalizing as many electors as possible. Good times!
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I've got a challenge for people with the mod installed:
Try to form Occitania as an Occitan minor! (i.e. not Aquitaine)
Whoever manages it in the shortest time wins! Just throw a screenshot in the thread or in a PM; we can arbitrarily go until the LP reaches 1600 (about 3-6 players). Remember: the mod is designed to be played on Hard difficulty.
What do you win? Certainly nothing physical (money: I do not have it).
Perhaps the ability to create a political party for Occitania (or another substantial West Mediterranean country if it never forms) in Victoria. Perhaps an exciting event to showcase your überness in a later mod version. Perhaps an event in the HOI2. Maybe even all 3 (I am open to further suggestions).
[tiny]Disclaimer: All these fabulous prizes may or may not be implemented depending on time constraints. Rex Corp. makes no guarantees that said unification of Occitania is even possible and would be glad to hear of bugs or problems that could lead to fixes. Rex Corp. can offer no promises that said prizes will ever materialize (but hopefully they will). Bragging Rights™ are an irrevocable prize for winning this challenge. Rex Corp. is an imaginary entity with a ridiculous name.[/tiny]
We can always give the second-fastest person a rival Vicky political party (if you can't beat the indomitable Phyphor timewise, perhaps your party will out-politick his party).
But cores take 55 years to develop, so if you manage to control all of the necessary land in the first 17 years you can even beat that offering... Where apparently Granada has utterly dominated Leon.
You used Languedoc, yes? I feel like without massive mission luck it's not possible to beat that time with Dauphine. Or backstabbing Aquitaine while they're busy elsewhere. I might have been able to pull it off if fucking Brittany were honorable.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Yes. I don't think it's possible to beat that time with anyone other than Languedoc actually, barring a string of conquest missions and free core events. I got pretty lucky with that game, I beat up Aquitaine while have just 3 provinces and took 4 from them, two of which were needed cores.
The problem with the others is:
- have to take 5 core provinces instead of 4, or you start as an even weaker OPM, additionally Languedoc's core is the capital and they have two provinces, requiring two wars
- they are catholic, but Languedoc is cathar; Unam Sanctum will give the others a CB (but no infamy reduction) on Languedoc; Languedoc gets that CB on everybody, and (as I did) can get lucky from spread of their religion; OTOH, if you can excommunicate say Aquitaine as one of the catholic minors, you'll have a much easier time, requires a huge amount of luck though
- monarchies, thus stuck with terrible leaders for a very long time
- don't start with a dip 9 leader, so infamy limit (8 a pop for the OPMs hurts)
Yeah, I played around with trying to beat that time with Dauphine last night, but the mission generator really wants you to go after Sardinia, it seems. I could take down 1-2 of the OPMs and maybe Languedoc if someone else whittled them down to one province first, but by then you're bumping up against the infamy limit and hoping that Aquitaine is otherwise occupied.
I managed to vassalize Languedoc first, in January of 1401. Then annexed Auvergne and the other OPM that's not Foix. Unfortunately, they were allied with Aquitaine and Bourgognes, Brittany didn't come in on that war, the Aquitaine/Bourgognes war I was hoping would prevent those two from joining in ended coincidentally, and Catalunya/Leon invaded Languedoc.
So, um, oops.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Hmm, true you could diploannex Languedoc. The 3 OPMs would be 24 infamy, 4 from Languedoc's vassalization, probably another 2-6 from no CB wars and 3-5 for Aquitaine's province. So, you'd have to have your BB limit + 16 years of burn > 35-40. I suppose if you switched to a despotic monarchy you might be able to do it
Before I get back into my main update, I'd like to show off an idea I had for a sitcom. The working title is The Moneymooners, and it's a show about Hansa, a down-to-earth, respectable trade alliance, and Mazovia, the young, up-and-coming principality that shakes up his life; they're completely different people from totally different walks of life, but they just can't quit each other!
And now we return you to our regularly scheduled program.
[size=+2]Excerpts from The Rule of King Louis V de Vermandois, by Lucas R. Hodgson, Ph.D.[/size]
[size=+1]1477 - 1488: Crusade and Aftereffects[/size]
What was needed, the King thought, was a short, victorious war.
Initial preparations involved a diplomatic envoy to Leon, who had in times past been a close ally of the Vermandois crown. The king of Leon heard his brother monarch's arguments, and issued a proclamation granting the Frankish troops access to and safe passage through the lands of Leon. His path secured, Louis V revealed his plan to his armies and his nobles: although it had been largely abandoned for many years, the Papal Crusade against Morocco had never been called off. And so, on the 24th of February, 1478, after reinforcements from Europe Proper had arrived in Tangiers, King Louis V declared the beginning of the 2nd Frankish Crusade against Morocco and its allies Oman, Tunisia, and Yemen, and was joined in the war by his allies in Orleans.
As Louis had planned, his call to the Frankish people's historical greatness and their long history of supporting the Pope's calls to arms electrified the nation. New recruits for the armies poured into the recruiting camps; wealthy burghers made large and ongoing donations to the crown's warchest; and even the nation's fractious nobles joined in behind the cause.
[...] Although the Pope approved of Vermandois's advancement of the dormant Crusade, his controllers in Switzerland - among others - were worried that Vermandois's buildup and increased productivity served only to mask Continental ambitions.
[...] Although a small military buildup had occured before the declaration of war, Louis's main purpose was to use the war as an excuse to raise taxes. It would ill serve his needs to then funnel the new funds into further troop expansion. Unfortunately, his recruiting efforts and his reputation were stronger than he realized, and numerous serfs who had left their farms to join his armies found themselves without a uniform to wear and, perhaps most importantly, without a means of supporting themselves. Although, in some cases, such as the capital in Vermandois, new, lucrative trades were found for the new source of labor, throughout the country the overall reaction was much poorer.
[...] Meanwhile, the war in Morocco was proceeding nearly without complication. The earlier loss of Sus and its fabled gold mines had, largely, crippled the African nation, and it had not recovered from the previous Crusade. In turn, the Frankish forces found easy, if somewhat time-consuming, victories in the mountainous region of Fez, the key coastal province of Safi, and the capital of Marrakech.
At this point, driven from his palace, the Sultan of Morocco sought terms, and offered to cede much of his land to the Vermandois crown. Although they were quite generous, Louis was not yet certain he had righted his financial ship, and allowed the war in western Africa to continue.
[...] the former allies of Vermandois, in the waning days of 1478, declared themselves a new nation, The Netherlands, as the King of Holland claimed dominion over several smaller states with strong cultural ties to his own [...]
[...] After Vermandois's smashing victories over Morroco's forces, its ally Yemen quickly exited the war with a negotiated white peace. As Louis had no intentions of sending his armies quite so far away from his power base, it served his goals admirably. Although Yemeni forces had not engaged their Frankish foes at all during the war, the moral support from his Sunni ally had sustained the Morrocan Sultan in his remaining fortress in Figuig. When word reached him of Yemen's exit, the defending forces quickly surrendered, and the Sultan was kept as a prisoner, albeit a well-treated one, in his own palace.
Tunisian forces, like their Yemeni bretheren, had also not directly engaged their Frankish foes, but sought to use the Frank's distraction with Moroccan matters to force a preferential peace settlement, thereby gaining accord from thier peers. Instead, King Louis V ordered a small detachment of his army to sail from Tangiers to Tunisia and wring a better settlement from Tunis. A landing was made, and two elongated sieges of Gafsa and Gabes took place. With much of his territory in foreign hands, and after losing his miniscule navy to the rather amateurish Frankish flotilla, the ruler of Tunisia conceded defeat.
As King Louis's attention turned to domestic matters - the former would-be-soldiers becoming accepted in multiple cities throughout his kingdom, a flowering of military knowledge, and a renewed emphasis on trade - he nonetheless maintained the country on a war footing until, early in the year 1483, he decided that he had finally fixed the financial problems which had so threatened his reign earlier. With the country operating at a solid profit, with inflation completely under control, and with a healthy build-up of his treasury completed, Louis sought peace with the Sultan of Morocco. The sultan, who had been living as a prisoner for nearly 4 years, acceeded rapidly to all of Louis's demands. Morocco was forced to give up the coastal region of Safi, its remaining link to the sea; furthermore, it revoked all claims to lands currently in Vermandois's or Leon's hands, and ended its treaty with Tunisia. Finally, the province of Fez was released as a sovereign state, and the newly installed rulers there knew that it was Vermandois that had achieved their independence. Shortly thereafter, Oman, the last remaining state at war with Vermandois, offered a white peace, and Louis V accepted.
With the Christian armies of Europe once again proving their superiority over Sunni Morocco, the cultural turmoil in Vermandois-controlled West Africa reached a head, and seeking an outlet the populace of Ifni began to convert en masse to Catholicism. The populace of newly-gained Safi followed soon after.
Basically, I instituted war taxes early on, and left them on glady paying the WE penalty and the inflation penalty in order to avoid having to draw more loans, and then stacked that along with the Crusade economy bonuses, until I could not only pay off all my loans, but also get inflation under control. It went, at its peak, as high as 2% as I attempted to keep from running completely into the red. My efforts at actually getting merchants out there and working really started to pay off during this period. In short, the whole Crusade against Morocco was where I first began to feel like I knew what I was doing.
Louis began to pour his wealth into the infrastructure of his nation, vastly expanding the road networks and improving trade throughout his demesne, and the Hanseatic Trade League, to which Vermandois belonged, responded by greatly increasing their network of trade stations throughout the country. The lessons learned during the second, successful Crusade against Morocco were quickly adopted, and a new manner of training and deploying his beloved infantry was advanced - making the armies of Vermandois, already highly-trained and well-equiped, that much deadlier.
A number of small revolts - in newly conquered Safi, in Sus, and in Metz - arose, but were put down with alacrity by the Vermandois army. Meanwhile, relations with the Netherlands had soured - first with the revocation of the military access which Vermandois had earlier granted, and then with some minor diplomatic scuffles over proper spheres of influence. The new nation, however, was strong, and Louis V had no particular desire to go to war with them - but no desire to remain stagnat, either. An expedition further south along the African coast from Ifni revealed a large number of violent natives, largely stymying his plans for expansion in that direction.
Finally, an idea came upon him. His friend and sometime ally, the King of Leon, had some years back provided evidence to the Pope of heresies being practiced by the King of Portugal, resulting in his excommunication. Though it was four years further on, the Interdict still stood.
So when it's done I'm going to show off the world map, but my game has had fairly interesting colonial results. Of course, I'm kind of dominating Europe (all 8 electors are my vassals, good times!) so it might be skewing things.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
So I finished my Scandinavia game. Colonization was interesting, so brief details:
Scandinavia (me) had Guyana in South America, Louisana, much of the American southwest/southern Great Plains, Bali California much of the small Caribbean islands, and Quebec
Galicia had Colombia (where they moved their capital to!), Newfoundland, and some islands.
Leon had Haiti and pretty much the entirety of the initial United States outside New England and large parts of Brazil
England had New England, Mexico, the west coast of North America
Portugal had Ontario, other parts of Brazil
Aquitaine had most of the rest of South America and Cuba and Australia
Castille had a couple provinces in Brazil and Venezuela
Somehow some Brabantian nationalists spawned in the Dutch colony of New Zealand, so they ended up there.
Other stuff: Khylnov was the dominant Russian power and probably was a core away from forming Russia when I took Neva (St. Petersberg) from them. Later I took most of western Russia because I was bored. And all of Bohemia. And Saxony. Sicily had all of Italy south of Rome for much of the game. The Byzantines converted to Catholicism (!!!) and became a major power, taking most of the lands they held at their peak. Murabitids overthrew Zenata eventually and took most of their lands that Byzantines didn't. Egypt collapsed, lost all of their land to Makuria, and then reformed out of the ashes which was pretty cool to watch. Castille was the dominant Iberian power but never quite kicked Leon/Portugal/Galicia out and form Spain. Scotland won and formed the SU followed by becoming Great Britain. And had a stable alliance with me for like 350 years, which I've never seen before. Leinster did eventually rebel and form Ireland. Nobody really went after India or China, except Aquitaine who took a few provinces from them.
A released Nevers beat up Vermandois a few times and had built themselves up to a 7/8 province power in central France. Just took Paris when the time ran out. Some interesting stuff.
I think at some point we might want to beef up the colonial rebels? Haiti and Venezuela were the only two that formed, Haiti on Cuba and they were quickly reduced to OPM status and Venezuela on the island of St. Martin and they never grew.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I figure there will be quite a bit of work that will need to be implemented around 1700 or so to work with colonies. I can also throw out an update for the SCU and SCA issue, but the AI doesn't seem to be very close to forming either at the moment.
But at the rate random conquerings are going we're bound to still be Vermandois with half of every peninsula in the Old World and all of the New World.
Aside from a lack of Morocco and no Dutch/Hannoverian colonizers that is basically the list to be expected of colonizers (I don't believe Vermandois is even set to be a colonizer by default like Aquitaine/Occitania). My only concern is that the number of colonies would make it a bit difficult for the AI to form Spain.
I suspect Imperial Authority isn't working right. I never got any as Scandinavia and then started a game as Bohemia and never increased beyond the initial 20.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
And it took awhile because I'm not even sure how it broke in the first place. It's a mix of the common on_action.txt and a series of events. But since I never touched the on_action file I have no idea why they're not in there. But they will be.
What's this? An update? Effin' finally. Apologies all 'round. Seriously - I was supposed to have a day off this week to finish this thing up, and I didn't get it. Sucks.
[size=+2]Excerpts from The Rule of King Louis V de Vermandois, by Lucas R. Hodgson, Ph.D.[/size]
[size=+1]1488 - 1496: War on the Iberian Peninsula and Louis V's Death[/size]
Finally, an idea came upon him. His friend and sometime ally, the King of Leon, had some years back provided evidence to the Pope of heresies being practiced by the King of Portugal, resulting in his excommunication. Though it was four years further on, the Interdict still stood.
At this time, Portugal and her allies were engaged in an interminable war with Leon, neither side making particularly large strides in territorial acquisition, but rather each was engaged in steadily draining the manpower and war chest of the other. Leon was somewhat the worse for wear, having lost two northern provinces to the Portugese, and the province of Badajoz to Portugal's Castillian allies, but Portugal lacked the manpower to truly drive home its early advantage and Castille was distracted by a series of rebellions in its eastern provinces. As such, Leon initially looked favorably on Vermandois's entry into the war, and was particularly grateful when Vermandois's first battle was a decisive defeat of a Castillian raiding force in Lisboa immediately following the declaration of war - King Louis V had taken advantage of his military access treaty with Leon to preposition a small invasion force before declaring war with Portugal, and had planned to use Leon's ports to safely move his armies into the contested region. Castille responded to its first of many defeats by expelling all Vermandoise merchants from its territory and closing its centers of trade to them, giving the Frankish crown further reasons to make war on the Castillians.
The Frankish troops then marched north along the coast roads and into Porto, and began to siege the fortress there. The main body of Portuguese troops was elsewhere, engaged with those of Leon, and their Castillian allies had been driven back east. The war, in its earliest stages, appeared to be going decisively in Vermandois's favor.
In late September, 1488, Leon signed a peace treaty with Portugal, accepting a white peace. Contemporary letters claim that the King's wrath was nigh legendary to behold, and that even favored ministers and nobles walked very small around the castle for months. Freed from their battle with the army of Leon, the Portuguese forces under Duerte I d'Aragon quick-marched to their capital city and, in a bloody battle on the plains before Porto, forced the beseiging Franks to retreat. Shortly thereafter, Leon signed a punitive peace treaty with Castille, leaving Vermandois alone at war with Portugal, Castille, and a resurgent Nevarra.
The Northern Front
Nevarra, in particular, had benefitted from the recent collapse of Acquitaine, and had gained new holdings along the Bay of Biscay. However, its territory was discontinuous, with a smaller-but-still-active Acquitaine dividing the holdings of Poitou and Anjou from Nevarra proper. The small army that Nevarre had left to defend this region was no match for the massed Armee de Chalons which King Louis deployed to the area, and they quickly surrendered and dispersed.
The northern front of the Vermandois-Portugal war appeared to be easily in the hands of the Franks, with no significant armed forces remaining to stand against them. [...] unfortunately, saw fit to employ a more round-about strategy, and paid several well-known Metz nationalists to rise up against their Frankish lords. Although Metz nationalists had, at multiple times since its annexation, risen up against their liege, this was by far the best funded and most popular revolt. Moreover, it was accompanied by a carefully-planned operation against the main fortress in neighboring Franche-Comte, which rendered the fortress uninhabitable for quite some time and required a large outlay of funds to restore.
The Frankish army was somewhat smaller and had far fewer horse than the Metzen rebels, and was better trained, but lacked the kind of dynamic leader in the field that would have made the resolution a foregone conclusion. The rebel forces, ably led by Balduin de Dalburg, refused to be pinned down, and they led the Franks a merry chase for several months. In the end, King Louis V was required to take forces earmarked for deployment in Portugal and divert them to running down the Metzen rebels. Early in 1499, the forces under de Dalburg were run to ground, and de Dalburg himself was executed.
With their earlier defeats, and the Metzen rebels under heavy pursuit and likely to be defeated shortly, Navarra came to the negotiating table, and Vermandois was able to quickly force the smaller, overextended state to exit the war.
The Iberian Peninsula Campaign
After the initial defeat outside the walls of Porto, the army of Vermandois retreated into the territory of Leon and, unwilling to break their newly declared peace, the forces of Portugal were forced to let them go. Reinforcements gradually trickled in to replace the soldiers lost during the aborted siege, the battle, and subsequent retreat. This process took several months, during which time the Portuguese forces likewise reinforced their numbers. An apparent stalemate was beginning to develop - Vermandois lacked the troops in the region to force a decisive victory and was unable to move a large number of additional troops in, and Portugal could not eliminate the existing Frankish army.
In September of 1489, however, an invention was made in the city of Valenciennes that would change the course of the war in Portugal and, eventually, the face of warfare in the western world. Phillipe de Contretiems, a metallurgist, developed a new bell-like shape of bronze which was strong enough to withstand sizeable gunpowder charges but light enough to be easily moved via horse-drawn wagons. The first field artillery was invented, and King Louis V immediately ordered the training and equipping of "several groupings of good soldiers, well-led, to this new mortar-gonne."
Meanwhile, Johann Henckell, in charge of the Frankish forces in the Iberian peninsula, took it upon himself to lead his forces into Portugal to attempt to disrupt their preparations. He quickly moved into Salamanca and began to siege the city there, hoping to draw the Portuguese forces away from Porto. While he did succeed in this respect, he did not plan on, nor, apparently, did he know about, the Casillian reinformcents moving into Portuguese lands. The early stages of the battle went well, and the Portuguese army was nearly on the rout when a force of nearly 20,000 Castillian soldiers attacked his army. Through superior tactics and equipment, Henckell was able to deliver far larger casualties to the allied forces than his army took, but was still forced to flee the field before his forces were surrounded and destroyed.
[...]For reasons unknown, following the defeat of the Frankish forces in Salamanca, Leon urged the Pope to call a Crusade against Muslim Fez, the small protectorate Vermandois had liberated from Moroccan rule during the previous Crusade. Vermandois declined to declare war on its ally, but, ever a staunch supporter of the Pope, also elected not to further embroil itself in continental wars by declaring against those who had accepted the Crusade. Fez, seeing that no support from Vermandois would be coming, repudiated its military alliance with the Frankish crown.
[...] In late 1490, the cannoneers which Louis V had ordered into training reached Portugal and joined with Henckell's army. Together, they marched back into Porto from Leon, and quickly routed the small garrison which Portugal had stationed there, and began a siege of the capital. Portugal's Castillian allies sent the remainder of their army, still rebuilding from the disasterous losses suffered in Salamanca in 1490, against the entrenched Frankish forces. The slaughter was decidedly one-sided. Three months later, a second, larger army under Juan II de Aragon himself attempted to raise the siege of Porto. They were also turned back by Henckell's troops with extremely one-sided losses.
Although the new cannon were proven extremely effective, there were various aspects of them which could still be improved. The constant stream of letters from the cannoneers to the King's ministers included copious notes on the cannon's virtues and failings, and soon improved models were being forged in Vermandois and shipped to Porto. The newer cannon, much more powerful, hastened the fall of that city, and in September of 1491 the garrison surrendered after almost a year of siegework. A few weeks later, Miguel de Cordoba, leading almost 6,000 Castillians, attempted to dislodge the Franks with predictable results - the Castillian crown had not yet adapted to the new methods of warfare mandated by the presence of true field artillery, and paid a heavy price learning.
After allowing the tired besiegers several months to rest and regain their strength, Louis V sent orders to Henckell to resume active operations against Portugal. In a bitterly cold winter battle in Braganca, King Pedro II de Aragon of Portugal lead the remaining might of his armies against the much larger Frankish expeditionary force, and suffered nearly 50% casulaties. They were forced to retreat into Salamanca, site of their earlier victory, and could but watch while the siege of Braganca took its course over the next five months. Meanwhile, Vermandois began to seek allies amongst the splinter states on Castille's eastern borders.
At long last, Portugal was reduced to a single holding - Salamanca - and a single - sizeable, though outdated - army. The initial battle saw horrendous losses amongst the soldiers of Portugal, and in the aftermath Pedro II managed to sneak through Henckells lines back into Braganca. Henckell quickly gave pursuit, and Pedro's army was, for all intents and purposes, destroyed in October of 1492. Louis army then moved back into Salamanca, and sieged the city, which surrendered in January of 1493 after a mere 3 months of siegework. Portugal was now completely occupied by Vermandois, and peace terms were dictated, rather than offered.
In exchange for retaining their previously-held lands, Portugal became a vassal of the Frankish crown, and annulled their treaties of mutual defense with Tripoli, Navarra, and Aragon. Moreover, they paid a large purse of war reparations. The deal, it seemed, was far better than Portugal had expected - there had been rumors that Louis would not be happy with less than full annexation - and their reinstatement by the Pope led to an upswelling of, if not gratitude, then at least acceptance of their position as part of the growing Kingdom of Vermandois - including joining the two families by marriage, after a suitable period had elapsed, and a military alliance thereafter. Eventually, in his waning days, perhaps feeling remorse over the suffering he had inflicted on the Portuguese people, Louis V would proclaim a territorial guarantee for his Portuguese subjects.
Naval Developments at the End of Louis V's Reign
Apart from an early move towards transoceanic sailings, which located the North American continent but otherwise largely failed to produce meaningful results for Vermandois, the nations focus was traditionally on land. This would result in difficulties during the war against Portugal and Castille, both of whom had strong naval traditions.
In late 1488, a small squadron of Castillian galleys operating out of Granada began a blockade of Tangiers. Although the trading center of Tangiers provided a minor amount of Vermandois's international trade, it was a provocation that King Louis did not feel he could allow to stand. He organized a small squadron of sailing ships and ordered them to the African coast. The Castillians, though, had been awaiting just such a move, and when one of the patrolling galleys located the Frankish flotilla, it turned and fled, returning with nearly a dozen reinforcements. Only a luckily-timed squall, which the heavier sailing ships of the Franks could more easily weather, prevented them from being surrounded and boarded - or sunk. With tails figuratively tucked between their legs, the ships limped into Tangiers. Two months later, after seeing to what repairs they could undertake, the ships attempted to sail back to Calais. Unfortunately, several miles north of the city, the Frankish naval force was caught, becalmed, by the entirety of the Castillian galley force and the several transports they were escorting. Rather than see his ships fall into the hands of the enemy, Captain [...] scuttled them along the coast and ordered his sailor to march back to Tangiers. In one fell swoop, nearly half of Vermandois's offensive naval capacity was destroyed.
Castille attempted to press its victory, and sent a portion of its galley fleet around the Iberian peninsula and into the English Channel. There, the small force attempted to inderdict all shipping into the main Frankish ports of Calais and Picardie. The Frankish naval forces there, determined to gain revenge for the scuttling of the Jordan I and the Armancon, sallied from their ports and brought the Castillian galleys to battle. The galleys, optimized for Mediterranean sailing, were unhandy in the rougher waters of the channel, and the Franks were able to isolate and capture the San Esteban while driving off her sisters. Flush with victory, the Frankish flotilla moved down the coast and engaged the sole remaining Portuguese man-of-war off the coast of Lisboa, sinking her in the closing days of 1489.
Their recent victories - and, perhaps much more importantly, the ability to study captured Castillian ships - lead to a series of innovations in Frankish shipbuilding and seamanship. These were turned against the Castillians, and the remainder of their forces in the northern Atlantic were destroyed late in 1490. Similarly, a recently launched Portuguese barque was engaged and burned to the waterline of Cape Finisterre in early December, 1490. Although Castille would occasionally, throughout the rest of the war, send raiding forces to Channel, they were always thereafter quickly repulsed by the Frankish navy. Eventually, Louis V was able to order his Channel forces south, where they won a smashing victory against the galley fleet which had, previously, destroyed so much of his shipping - by first staging an invasion of the island of Madeira to draw out the Castillian navy, and then bringing them to decisive battle.
The Southern Front
[...] The main weakness of the Frankish navy was its size. The earlier losses of nearly a dozen men-of-war in exploratory voyages had reduced the combatant ship count to a mere handful, and although the nation was fairly wealthy, the coinage had never really been found to support a rebuilding effort beyond enough transport ships to provide carriage of the Vermandois army on Crusade. And thus, although the Frankish navy had developed a taste for victory, it could not be everywhere, and focused its efforts on defending the coast of the English Channel and supporting land invasions of Portugal, usually via Leon. As such, Castillian, Portuguese, and even Tripolitan forces could move almost unopposed off the coast of Africa.
The Armee du Charolais, as the Frankish African forces were called, were ably led by Viscompte Isidore de Vaudray, and had enlisted the aid of several corps of Muslim archers - both horse and foot - who had no love for the Iberian Catholics. Moreover, the Armee du Charolais had a tradition of victory, having assisted in the earlier, successful Crusades - and then had been called on to put down several native revolts since. Thus, it was their duty to repulse the landings that the navy could not prevent, and although casualties were often high, they never failed in this despite numerous attempts. The Armee du Charolais even quickly put down an uprising which attempted to use the constant invasions to gain independence in recently-annexed Safi.
The Castillian Campaign
[...] Given the relatively light requirements of Portugal's surrender, Castille sought to obtain for itself a similarly east deal with Vermandois. King Louis V, however, was not quite so willing to allow them to evade their war debts, and had realized the strategic value of gaining for his own nation additional ports along the Mediterranean - and of denying those same ports to his enemies. Accordingly, Louis ordered a body of troops up from Tangiers and into Granada.
Simultaneously, the army which had most recently been involved in the subjugation of Portugal moved on Madrid, and rather quickly reduced the city's defenses, which caused it to surrender in June of 1493. Hoping to put additional pressure on Castille, Louis V arranged another state marriage with Catalunya, which had recently split off from Castille. The smaller body of troops in Granada took longer to complete their siege, but within a few months of Madrid falling, Granada also surrendered to the Franks. Rebels in western Castille took advantage of the armies distraction to lay siege of their own to Cordoba.
Soon, the armies of Vermandois moved on from Madrid and into Castilla la Vieja, where Miguel de Cordoba had gathered the remainder of the once-proud Castillian knights - nearly 11,000 heavy horse were gathered there. In a pitched battle, Miguel ordered charge after charge into the Frankish cannon's field of fire. Although at several points they were able to cross the field and engage the Frankish infantry in melee combat, the cannon themselves were never in any true danger. With more than half of their number dead or missing, they retreated into Madrid and sought to rejoin the remainder of Castille's foot. Although the forces of Vermandois were once again outnumbered, their superior training and, especially, technology won through and despite heavy casualties, in successive battles they largely destroyed the remaining cadre of Castillian knights and inflicted horrendous casualties on the infantry.
[...] The ex-African forces continued their inexorable march along the coast, reach Almeria and capturing the city in April of 1494. [...]
[...] With the Castillian armies routed and their generals dead, the Frankish forces had free reign throughout Castille, and soon Castille was forced to accept a peace proposal which granted Vermandois one of its most lucrative Mediterranean ports and released Granada as an ally of Vermandois, an alliance which Louis promptly sealed with the marriage of his cousin to a Granadan nobleman. [...]
First Colony
[...] Improvements in naval technology and navigational practice allowed Louis V to dispatch the first mission of colonisaion for his country - sending the seeds of a new settlement to Rio de Oro, south of the Frankish holdings in western Africa. The colony remained small throughout the remainder of Louis V's reign, despite the occasional new batches of colonists, due largely to the extremely unfriendly natives. [...]
Trade Improvements
[...] Vermandois achieved a local monopoly on goods in Lothringen, achieving a premium on traded goods [...]
I'm not actually sure what this does, but I got a couple of them. Probably gives double rent on unimproved provinces, and lets me build trade stations and hostelries. Or not.
Louis V's Death
Although he hid it well for several years, Louis V first became seriously ill in the waning days of his war against Castille. Perhaps this was why, rather than finishing the war and claiming total victory over Castille, he relented and instead took a pittance of what they could have reasonably expected, given the overwhelming victories Louis V had engineered. It is obvious that, at this point, there was a marked change in Louis's correspondance and even the direction in which he encouraged his ministers to act. He returned to his roadbuilding, ordering new highways flung across the realm, stitching his people together even as his body was failing.
Louis V lived on for another two years, dying in his sleep on the night of 15 November 1496. His son, Louis VI de Vermandois, had been schooled in the ways of the court as Louis never had, his father hoping that his heir might avoid the early missteps that marred his reign.
[size=+1]The State of the World at the Death of King Louis V de Vermandois: November 1496[/size]
Vermandois
Vermandois Proper and the Nation
Frankish West Africa
Also includes significant holdings of Leon and the remainder of Morocco. Madeira (small yellow island) is Castillian, and the Canaries are Dutch.
Nouveau Vermandois
The English Isles
Yep - Scotland got eaten, and Ireland just isn't going to make it.
The Holy Roman Empire and The Netherlands
Wurtemburg is currently excommunicated. The newly-formed Netherlands can be seen at top-left. We've had casus belli on and off with them, but I never elected to make use of it.
Occitania
Acquitaine got carved up, piecemeal, by six or seven other countries: Egypt, Dauphine, Holland (until I revoked their military access, which resulted in Acquitaine being able to recapture the Dutch-held territories, only to lose them), Navarra, Castille, Aragon, Bourbonnais ... Basically, the area exploded. Occitania is also a hotbed of religious ridiculousness, with 3 religions now in permanent residence (Catholic, Cathar, and Coptic - and there might be some other heretics running around.
Iberia
We are currently on extremely good relations with Portugal, such that they'll be ripe for diplomatic annexation once they've been our vassal for long enough. Castille's back is broken, since I blowed up about 30,000 - 40,000 soldiers of theirs during the course of the war with them, which is giving the minor states on their borders a better chance to get their feet under them *and* there's the possibility for a rebel state forming in the west, further splintering them.
Italy
I did nothing in Italy during my turn.
Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary
Damn - Poland is *huge.* Also, apart from my first war, I didn't mess with the HRE much, either.
It is quite possible that Zenata also includes all of Persia (although this would be easy to check on the country select screen). Apparently they are becoming the Ottomans...just about 50-100 years behind their counterparts.
I can put up a new version with the nation formation fixes and the HRE fixes (although seeing how the Netherlands and Poland/Bohemia are eating up German minors it's probably to the benefit of the emperor that influence is not fully integrated).
[edit]And there it is: version 1.03. HRE fixed and no more rampant switching between GBR/SCU and SWE/SCA.
Brittany's done pretty well for itself, looks like.
Yep - I want to say that they and Holland* were going at it for awhile, but then I canceled Holland's military access to Vermandois because I kept getting "border tensions," etc., CB with the clog-wearers, and the stability hit for going to war with someone you have a military access treaty with is really tough.
So, I cancelled Holland's treaty (since I foresee border issues continuing), causing Holland to lose easy access for its reinforcements for their wars against Brittany (and Acquitaine), causing it to eventually lose the ground it had gained there.
It was also kind of a last-ditch effort to help Acquitaine (I offered them pretty cheap loans, as well, which they kept turning down) stave off the Egyptian encroachment by taking at least one of their enemies out of the war. This sorta worked - Egypt's holdings have degraded from 4 or 5 provinces to 1 or 2, the rest being new nations (Dauphine, Bourbonnais, etc.) that have split off.
So, further Director's Commentary on the Portuguese War:
Per the thread's vote, I selected "Quest for the New World" as soon as I could (which was actually about a year or so after I unlocked the national idea slot). This let me finally buy some explorers and conquistadores - unfortunately, I didn't realize that they both cost a colonist to create, rather than a magistrate (diplomat? Diplomat).
So, my first colonist goes into making an explorer so that I can actually go out and find something to colonize (and then his ships die on the way home; damme!). Unfortunately, our colonist growth rate was *ridiculously slow*, so it took forever to get another one. By that time, I found out that our colonial range was waaaaaaaay to short to make it anywhere close to the Americas. So, I figured we needed a closer jumping-off point than Calais - queue the exploration of Madeira and the Canaries. Unfortunately, because I was now a colonist shorter than everyone else, Castille and Holland beat me to them, respectively.
Fine, I thought - I'll just go capture Porto, since it's a nice, western Iberian port with a decent tax base (and we used to own it, dammit), and in a few dozen years, we'll core it and use *that* for our American adventures. I had a great lead-in with the psuedo-alliance with Leon, who was doing a great job of keeping the actual Portuguese army occupied in Southern Leon, down around Gibraltar. Of course, as I posted, Leon white-peaced out almost as soon as I declared against Portugal. This let the Portuguese army come roaring back up to raise the siege of Porto. My plans to win the war on the cheap weren't going to work out, so I needed to actually raise a real army and send it in.
I think I lucked out in that the recently-declared peace (and enforced truce) between Leon and Portugal prevented the Portuguese from pursuing my army as it hid and reinforced in Lisbon.
A small strategic error** resulted in the first wave of new unit reinforcements getting run over by a *huge* Catalunyan (IIRC) rebel army and almost destroyed. I thought I took a screenshot of it, because it was pretty funny (especially since later on Catalonia ended up excommunicated and then I arranged a royal wedding with them and demolished the Castillian army and we ended up best buds), but I guess I missed it.
While screwing around waiting for my second army to reinforce (the third took ship from Calais to Lisbon), I took the first army and moved into eastern Portugal, just to force the Portuguese army to not sit on its butt the whole time. They moved over, and I was completely and easily winning the fight, so I went to check out what was going on in west Africa. A few moments later, I got the battle report that I had lost to a massively overwhelming army of Portuguese and Castillians. Somehow, the Castillians had pulled a 20,000 soldier army out of their backsides (I think they were hiding in the south of Spain when my 2nd army came by in the north, so I never got LOS on them).
At this point, I figured I'd just about made a major miscalculation and that I was about to seriously lose a lot of money and prestige in a disasterous adventure. I was looking around, going, "Shit - how am I supposed to stop the Castillians from just wiping the floor with my expeditionary force and then coming up here and kicking my teeth in?"
And then I invented cannons. And realized that, like the Portuguese, the Castillians couldn't follow me into Leon.
So I pulled back to Lisbon, trained up two units of cannon and a couple more of my new improved Landsknechthan infantry, and waited for the Castillians go back to Castille.
My newly embiggened army easily stomped the Portuguese, and then held off the Castillians when they came back. Even with pretty heavy losses in the initial fights, I was killing them much faster than they were killing me, and they couldn't produce the troops or reinforcements fast enough to match their losses, while I was pretty much maxed out on my manpower.
In pretty short order, I mopped up Portugal and captured all of their territories, which is when I found a small but important difference between EU and CK - holding all of an opponent's territories doesn't let you just dictated whatever terms you want. Most crucially, I couldn't demand Porto from them because it was their capital. They'd willingly give me every other piece of land they owned, all the money in their treasury, and renege on all of their agreements with everyone, but Porto was completely off-limits.
Yep, I basically started a long, fantastically bloody and expensive war that completely wrecked not only Portugal but, importantly, Castille, allowing numerous splinter states to form out of Castille's eastern holdings, destabilizing an entire region, in order to not capture a province.
In fact, I only gained 1 province out of the whole thing, and that was from Castille and was in the Mediterranean, for goodness's sake (well, that and I made them release Granada, who rather likes us at the moment).
Oh well - at Louis V's death, our relations with Portugal were pegged at 200 with no decay, and only the 10-year timer was standing in between us and diplomatic annexation. Additionally, we have a royal marriage with Aragon, on the eastern end of the Iberian Peninsula, and had the opportunity (though I didn't take it) to take their throne from them. If I'd been a little more knowledgeable about how it affects your relations with other people (e.g., the tooltip says it lowers your relationship with others you have a royal marriage with, but I had no idea how much, and Louis V was pretty much on his way out at that point, so I figured I'd leave the decision to my heir), I might have added that, as well.
* They may or may not have been the Netherlands at the time.
** They autopathed south, then east in Castille on the way to Portugal, rather than autopathing east, then south.
Victoria is probably the best game for "winning is not represented by how many provinces you own" (since the economic focus almost overshadows the military one), but EU3 is close behind. Research, manpower, income and (ability to accrue) prestige are all more important than simply how much of the land has your color on it.
Phyphor's plan to plunder gold mines in North Africa is sound because it brings in tons of money, is a legitimate crusade target that will make the pope happy, and does provide some more coastal provinces (...even if they are effectively in the middle of nowhere) to raise our naval forcelimits allowance.
Unfortunately it also means a token defense force needs to be stationed in the middle of nowhere and - since Morocco is effectively overseas (it is on a different continent), tax revenue is pretty minimal. Plus they're a different culture, which leads to lots of revolts. I was also cheering for Morocco because I want to see some non-Christian success, but at least Zenata seems to be doing exceptionally well.
Porto is a bit of an awkward choice. Not just because it's a capital. You still have a major cultural difference, you'll be forced to contend with a bunch of (semi-distant) Iberian cultures that have more valid claims to the land, and you'd once again be creating a pocket where troops would need to be stationed (if you planned on keeping it). On the plus side though, Porto is a pretty rich province.
I would've recommend Poitou or Vendee, which will get you to Canada as easily as Porto (without an Atlantic Island) will get you to the Carribean.
Poitou even has a compatible culture. "But Rex!" I hear you say, "Poitou is Francien and we are Salian Frankish!" I know this isn't explained well outside of a mention in one or two of my mod-related posts, but our Frankish culture is partially a parent to both French and Germanic cultures. This is difficult to represent in game, but there are events that allow Francien culture to develop into West Frankish (and back) depending on the culture group the owner is from (same with things around the Rhine and Rheinländer). Essentially this means provinces of Francien culture can effectively have the same culture group as either French or Frankish overlords.
Poitou also has the distinction of working towards the "Form Carolingian Nation" decision that requires cores all over western europe (i should probably make a map for people).
Thanks for the info - Poitou, unfortunately, was owned by Navarra, against whom I had no casus belli at all. Vendee was Holland, IIRC, and then Navarra, and is now Brittany, and we got a border troubles CB with Holland and Brittany, eventually, but not for Vendee.
I eventually went with Pippin's Frankish Empire borders instead of Charlemagne's, because Charlemagne's is - as the technical parlance goes - "freakin' huge." Plus that puts us at the beginning of the ruling Carolingian dynasty.
I didn't include cores or ownership for a vast majority of Vermandois' holdings because the list is already pretty long in-game. Any country in the Frankish culture group can form the Frankish Empire. They need the provinces noted below, maximum stability, a ruler with administration of 7 or above and cannot be at war.
One of the reasons I took the Moroccan provinces was gold, a second reason was to provide a jump off in case we wanted to go to south america. I think it may even be closer than our normal ports to north america too
One of the reasons I took the Moroccan provinces was gold, a second reason was to provide a jump off in case we wanted to go to south america. I think it may even be closer than our normal ports to north america too
I figured that was a reason. Also, we've got a really small naval force limit because we don't own very many coastal provinces. That's why I added Safi (or Ifni, whichever) from Morocco (and to deny them a port, natch) and Rio de Oro in Africa, and then why I took Mercia from Castille.
Well, that and because I was feeling vindictive for them extending the Portuguese war with their doomstack. So, bonus port, it's already Catholic, it's got a solid tax base, and it's near Tangiers allowing mutual support, and it's a big "F U!" to the Castillians.
I originally wanted to forge a path through Dauphine or Switzerland / Italy in order to have a land bridge to the Med, so that troops moving from our populated areas don't have to take ship all the way around (because see above about small naval force limits, which naturally restricts our transport capacity), but I never got the approprite CBs to do it, and my early missteps with the accidentla annexation of Lorraine added so much to my infamy rating that I didn't want to screw things up like that again.
Also, the game *really* likes to give us the "Conquest of Hainaut" mission.
I guess I should ask if Zedar has received the save. I guess that would have happend a few weeks ago now, but perhaps he is biding his time.
Also, we probably get the Hainaut mission because we have completed just about every other default mission for Vermandois (purposely and accidentally). I didn't really write much for Vermandois because I had (and have) no idea what people want to do with it. So basically the only events were designed to get Vermandois to take cores on the capital provinces for the Form Carolingian Nation decision.
And if you could keep track of who you seend out as the explorer/conquistador to discover far off new lands that would be useful for creating events and the inevitable naming of random places (e.g. If we have no Columbus it doesn't make much sense to have a Columbia. Yes, apparently I am that demanding in my mod-making).
Posts
[size=+1]1470 - 1477: The War for Lorraine, and Initial Misteps[/size]
[...] Within hours of his ascension, the parliament of nobles had sent a sternly worded request to the king, demanding the vassalization of Lorraine, which in his many-great-grandfather's time had been a part of the Carolingian Empire.
Taken aback by this early challenge, Louis first attempted a diplomatic solution, offering to wed one of his cousins to the third-in-line to the throne of Lorraine. His proposal was soundly and nigh-immediately rejected ...
... and so a more direct route was undertaken. A period of troop build-up occured - matched by an expansionist focus becoming de rigeur in the training camps, tensions rose on both the eastern and western borders of Vermandois, and at last war was declared. Lorraine responded by rounding up Vermandois traders and their families and expelling them from their demesne.
In the meantime, Sunni agitators saw an opportunity to strike back against their Christian lords in Tangiers, driven by the destruction of several mosques and the erection of Christian cathedrals in their places. Although King Louis had not specifically ordered the desecration of the Muslim shrines, he had issued a proclamation late in 1470 calling upon all nobles in his realm to "... see to the glory of the True Faith and make for the Church a home in every holding." King Louis's efforts so impressed Rome that the Pope, for a short time, listened to Louis above all other temporal rulers.
Although Lorraine was guaranteed by the Holy Roman Emperor and supported by Swiss mercenaries and troops from Alsace and Savoy, the war between Vermandois and Lorraine proceeded almost entirely according to the Franks' whims, with their armies chasing routed Imperial and Swiss forces throughout the Vermandois countryside until they were forced to surrender. When the siege of Lothringen, Lorraine's chief town, ended in mid-February of 1472 after 6 months of bombardment and privation, Alsace quickly agreed to a white peace and exited the war. The Holy Roman Emperor would require additional convincing, but soon his troops retired from the field as well.
It is not certain from historical records exactly what happened, but in the final days of the war the original goal was somehow forgotten or ignored. Perhaps Louis, in a bid to show he would not be constrained by his nobles' whims, elected to choose another path. Regardless of the cause, rather than the offer of vassalization which the rulers of Lorraine had expected, they instead received an ultimatum, and were fully absorbed into the holdings of Vermandois. Louis's capriciousness became much the talk of the crowned heads of Europe, and his reputation suffered greatly. Recent scholarship indicates that the unintended annexation of Lorraine may have been a calculated ploy by a poltical rival, who altered the diplomatic correspondance, and Louis, not wishing to look uncertain in his rule, merely acquiesced to the realm's expansion.
Regardless, sternly-worded diplomatic dispatches soon reached Vermandois from across Europe - Trier, Maine, and Breisgau, despite being minor players, went so far as to make official warnings against further expansion by Vermandois.
Following the defeat of Lorraine, but before Switzerland and the Emperor had been defeated, the nobles gathered together in Parliament to discuss the direction of the country. King Louis V elected to address Parliament on military matters, which he felt best matched his own strengths and knowledge. Unfortunately, the war effort had drained the country's manpower and finances, and further discussion of battles annoyed the nobility, who found numerous small, petty ways of making their displeasure felt.
The resulting diversion of necessary tax revenues, and the costs of maintaining the army to fight the remaining forces of the HRE and Switzerland resulted in a budgetary crisis. Futhermore, the rebels in Tangiers continued to take advantage of Louis's focus on European affairs to ransack the countryside.
The Bohemian Emperor attempted to use these distractions to force reparations from Vermandois, including ludicrous requests for the release of multiple vassal states, but Vermandois ignored these requests, and in time, Savoy, Switzerland, and Bohemia all agreed to peace settlements.
At about this time, recent innovations in shipbuilding and navigational techniques made long, cross-ocean voyages more survivable. Believing he had found an opportunity, King Louis V commissioned his scholars and shipwrights to prepare to locate a "Western Passage" between Europe and the rich trading lands of Asia. Although this was met with welcome in the capital, and, indeed, amongst most of the populace, the nobles viewed it as a challenge to their power and a waste of the nation's dwindling supply of funds. The nation was in a precarious position when King Louis V made an unprecedented political ploy, approaching Jordan de Pontailler, one of his chief rivals among the nobility, and offering him a lucrative position in the government, so long as he turned over documents implicating his major associates. With the agitation amongst the nobles for the moment cut off at the head, the realm began to return to stability and prosperity.
Unfortunately for Louis, the new navigational techniques were not yet quite perfected, and an initial test voyage - carrying soldiers to northern Africa to free Tangiers from Sunni occupation - was lost with all hands in the notoriously violent Bay of Biscay. Upon hearing the news, dissident gold miners in Sus raised up in revolt, but were quickly put down. A second naval force carrying soldiers from Europe was dispatched to Tangiers, and this second army succeeded in recapturing it from the Sunnis.
In his report, Commodore Fauchard informed the King that, during the voyage to Tangiers, the captains and sailing masters had found the new navigational techniques completely lacking, which initially set naval research back several years. Soon, however, word came back that Pascal de Vallaxon, an enterprising captain, had independently come up with a new way of making charts. King Louis granted him a squadron of 3 ships, on which he ventured out into the Atlantic Ocean ooff the coast of Tangiers and began his explorations. The news of his initial successes ignited a fire of learning, and a great convocation of scholars descended on Vermandois to share their theories.
de Vallaxon sent back a small dispatch boat in the middle of 1476, nearly a year after he had set sail on his voyage of discovery, bearing exciting news - he had discovered a new land mass, which he called "Nouveau Vermandois," a huge, nearly empty land, the mysteries of which he hoped to one day more fully explore. It was not to be, however, for on his return trip from Nouveau Vermandois, a storm caught de Vallaxon off the coast of Leon, and his ships sunk.
Unfortunately, the expenses of outfitting such an expedition on top of the costs of raising and training troops for Vermandois's long war against the Holy Roman Empire, combined with the complete absence of Vermandois merchants in the world's trading centers, and a huge outlay in payments to support the smaller crown of Trier, brought the country to brink of financial ruin. Huge loans were taken out against the possibility of bankruptcy, and though the funds were invested in funding merchant ventures at the great trade capitals of the world, the associated interest payments were very hard to bear.
What was needed, the King thought, was a short, victorious war.
Also, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I couldn't reduce my monthly spend on research so that I wouldn't be horrendously negative each month. Figured that one out later. I also ended up having to take some loans out in November of each year because I was a couple weeks short of making it the whole year; the ~10 ducats per month in interest is murder. I also found out that, once you've got your ship righted, so to speak, you can't repay a loan early. You have to go the full 5 year term.
I also had 5 merchants "in the bank" for the longest time. I kept looking for a CoT that had open slots so I could send one there, but they were always full. I found out you could steal a spot from an incumbent by accident, because I went to the CoT page in the ledger, and clicked on a couple names, thinking it would take me to that CoT's page. Instead, I accidentally sent out some merchants and stole some spots. Progress!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
You should've seen the lightbulb that went off when I figured out why I couldn't adjust my monthly spend on research. I figured I had to invent some new piece of tech that would allow me to mint or something.
Nope, turns out the slider was just locked.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Also, the way taxes work you're almost guranteed negative income every month. You get a bunch of money on the 1st of every year. It's actually 12x the amount you 'make' every month, but the taxes you get every month are immediately invested in research (or the treasury instead).
And loading EU3 without the mod shouldn't let you load the save game. The map cache and flagfiles are also held separately in the mod's folders, so it shouldn't impact anything. If you had the explorers going through terra incognita on their way back they could easily have died from attrition (since it takes significantly longer to enter undiscovered areas).
Ah, yes, you always lock that slider because while you can often want to switch tech, you less rarely want to change minting, and in certain cases like researching stab 3, the game will reallocate funds to unlocked sliders and you don't want that to change it either (and end up with 100% mint for a year!)
Try to form Occitania as an Occitan minor! (i.e. not Aquitaine)
Whoever manages it in the shortest time wins! Just throw a screenshot in the thread or in a PM; we can arbitrarily go until the LP reaches 1600 (about 3-6 players). Remember: the mod is designed to be played on Hard difficulty.
What do you win? Certainly nothing physical (money: I do not have it).
Perhaps the ability to create a political party for Occitania (or another substantial West Mediterranean country if it never forms) in Victoria. Perhaps an exciting event to showcase your überness in a later mod version. Perhaps an event in the HOI2. Maybe even all 3 (I am open to further suggestions).
[tiny]Disclaimer: All these fabulous prizes may or may not be implemented depending on time constraints. Rex Corp. makes no guarantees that said unification of Occitania is even possible and would be glad to hear of bugs or problems that could lead to fixes. Rex Corp. can offer no promises that said prizes will ever materialize (but hopefully they will). Bragging Rights™ are an irrevocable prize for winning this challenge. Rex Corp. is an imaginary entity with a ridiculous name.[/tiny]
Also? I DEMAND UPDATES. Make it happen, Shae...
But cores take 55 years to develop, so if you manage to control all of the necessary land in the first 17 years you can even beat that offering... Where apparently Granada has utterly dominated Leon.
The problem with the others is:
- have to take 5 core provinces instead of 4, or you start as an even weaker OPM, additionally Languedoc's core is the capital and they have two provinces, requiring two wars
- they are catholic, but Languedoc is cathar; Unam Sanctum will give the others a CB (but no infamy reduction) on Languedoc; Languedoc gets that CB on everybody, and (as I did) can get lucky from spread of their religion; OTOH, if you can excommunicate say Aquitaine as one of the catholic minors, you'll have a much easier time, requires a huge amount of luck though
- monarchies, thus stuck with terrible leaders for a very long time
- don't start with a dip 9 leader, so infamy limit (8 a pop for the OPMs hurts)
So, um, oops.
Doable, but I think I rushed a tad too much. It was 1405 when I had to abandon it. I really just had to beat Aquitaine and then sit and recover.
And now we return you to our regularly scheduled program.
[size=+2]Excerpts from The Rule of King Louis V de Vermandois, by Lucas R. Hodgson, Ph.D.[/size]
[size=+1]1477 - 1488: Crusade and Aftereffects[/size]
What was needed, the King thought, was a short, victorious war.
Initial preparations involved a diplomatic envoy to Leon, who had in times past been a close ally of the Vermandois crown. The king of Leon heard his brother monarch's arguments, and issued a proclamation granting the Frankish troops access to and safe passage through the lands of Leon. His path secured, Louis V revealed his plan to his armies and his nobles: although it had been largely abandoned for many years, the Papal Crusade against Morocco had never been called off. And so, on the 24th of February, 1478, after reinforcements from Europe Proper had arrived in Tangiers, King Louis V declared the beginning of the 2nd Frankish Crusade against Morocco and its allies Oman, Tunisia, and Yemen, and was joined in the war by his allies in Orleans.
As Louis had planned, his call to the Frankish people's historical greatness and their long history of supporting the Pope's calls to arms electrified the nation. New recruits for the armies poured into the recruiting camps; wealthy burghers made large and ongoing donations to the crown's warchest; and even the nation's fractious nobles joined in behind the cause.
[...] Although the Pope approved of Vermandois's advancement of the dormant Crusade, his controllers in Switzerland - among others - were worried that Vermandois's buildup and increased productivity served only to mask Continental ambitions.
[...] Although a small military buildup had occured before the declaration of war, Louis's main purpose was to use the war as an excuse to raise taxes. It would ill serve his needs to then funnel the new funds into further troop expansion. Unfortunately, his recruiting efforts and his reputation were stronger than he realized, and numerous serfs who had left their farms to join his armies found themselves without a uniform to wear and, perhaps most importantly, without a means of supporting themselves. Although, in some cases, such as the capital in Vermandois, new, lucrative trades were found for the new source of labor, throughout the country the overall reaction was much poorer.
[...] Meanwhile, the war in Morocco was proceeding nearly without complication. The earlier loss of Sus and its fabled gold mines had, largely, crippled the African nation, and it had not recovered from the previous Crusade. In turn, the Frankish forces found easy, if somewhat time-consuming, victories in the mountainous region of Fez, the key coastal province of Safi, and the capital of Marrakech.
At this point, driven from his palace, the Sultan of Morocco sought terms, and offered to cede much of his land to the Vermandois crown. Although they were quite generous, Louis was not yet certain he had righted his financial ship, and allowed the war in western Africa to continue.
[...] the former allies of Vermandois, in the waning days of 1478, declared themselves a new nation, The Netherlands, as the King of Holland claimed dominion over several smaller states with strong cultural ties to his own [...]
[...] After Vermandois's smashing victories over Morroco's forces, its ally Yemen quickly exited the war with a negotiated white peace. As Louis had no intentions of sending his armies quite so far away from his power base, it served his goals admirably. Although Yemeni forces had not engaged their Frankish foes at all during the war, the moral support from his Sunni ally had sustained the Morrocan Sultan in his remaining fortress in Figuig. When word reached him of Yemen's exit, the defending forces quickly surrendered, and the Sultan was kept as a prisoner, albeit a well-treated one, in his own palace.
Tunisian forces, like their Yemeni bretheren, had also not directly engaged their Frankish foes, but sought to use the Frank's distraction with Moroccan matters to force a preferential peace settlement, thereby gaining accord from thier peers. Instead, King Louis V ordered a small detachment of his army to sail from Tangiers to Tunisia and wring a better settlement from Tunis. A landing was made, and two elongated sieges of Gafsa and Gabes took place. With much of his territory in foreign hands, and after losing his miniscule navy to the rather amateurish Frankish flotilla, the ruler of Tunisia conceded defeat.
As King Louis's attention turned to domestic matters - the former would-be-soldiers becoming accepted in multiple cities throughout his kingdom, a flowering of military knowledge, and a renewed emphasis on trade - he nonetheless maintained the country on a war footing until, early in the year 1483, he decided that he had finally fixed the financial problems which had so threatened his reign earlier. With the country operating at a solid profit, with inflation completely under control, and with a healthy build-up of his treasury completed, Louis sought peace with the Sultan of Morocco. The sultan, who had been living as a prisoner for nearly 4 years, acceeded rapidly to all of Louis's demands. Morocco was forced to give up the coastal region of Safi, its remaining link to the sea; furthermore, it revoked all claims to lands currently in Vermandois's or Leon's hands, and ended its treaty with Tunisia. Finally, the province of Fez was released as a sovereign state, and the newly installed rulers there knew that it was Vermandois that had achieved their independence. Shortly thereafter, Oman, the last remaining state at war with Vermandois, offered a white peace, and Louis V accepted.
With the Christian armies of Europe once again proving their superiority over Sunni Morocco, the cultural turmoil in Vermandois-controlled West Africa reached a head, and seeking an outlet the populace of Ifni began to convert en masse to Catholicism. The populace of newly-gained Safi followed soon after.
Louis began to pour his wealth into the infrastructure of his nation, vastly expanding the road networks and improving trade throughout his demesne, and the Hanseatic Trade League, to which Vermandois belonged, responded by greatly increasing their network of trade stations throughout the country. The lessons learned during the second, successful Crusade against Morocco were quickly adopted, and a new manner of training and deploying his beloved infantry was advanced - making the armies of Vermandois, already highly-trained and well-equiped, that much deadlier.
A number of small revolts - in newly conquered Safi, in Sus, and in Metz - arose, but were put down with alacrity by the Vermandois army. Meanwhile, relations with the Netherlands had soured - first with the revocation of the military access which Vermandois had earlier granted, and then with some minor diplomatic scuffles over proper spheres of influence. The new nation, however, was strong, and Louis V had no particular desire to go to war with them - but no desire to remain stagnat, either. An expedition further south along the African coast from Ifni revealed a large number of violent natives, largely stymying his plans for expansion in that direction.
Finally, an idea came upon him. His friend and sometime ally, the King of Leon, had some years back provided evidence to the Pope of heresies being practiced by the King of Portugal, resulting in his excommunication. Though it was four years further on, the Interdict still stood.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
On the upside, New Egg Memorial Day sales = new video card incoming.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Scandinavia (me) had Guyana in South America, Louisana, much of the American southwest/southern Great Plains, Bali California much of the small Caribbean islands, and Quebec
Galicia had Colombia (where they moved their capital to!), Newfoundland, and some islands.
Leon had Haiti and pretty much the entirety of the initial United States outside New England and large parts of Brazil
England had New England, Mexico, the west coast of North America
Portugal had Ontario, other parts of Brazil
Aquitaine had most of the rest of South America and Cuba and Australia
Castille had a couple provinces in Brazil and Venezuela
Somehow some Brabantian nationalists spawned in the Dutch colony of New Zealand, so they ended up there.
Other stuff: Khylnov was the dominant Russian power and probably was a core away from forming Russia when I took Neva (St. Petersberg) from them. Later I took most of western Russia because I was bored. And all of Bohemia. And Saxony. Sicily had all of Italy south of Rome for much of the game. The Byzantines converted to Catholicism (!!!) and became a major power, taking most of the lands they held at their peak. Murabitids overthrew Zenata eventually and took most of their lands that Byzantines didn't. Egypt collapsed, lost all of their land to Makuria, and then reformed out of the ashes which was pretty cool to watch. Castille was the dominant Iberian power but never quite kicked Leon/Portugal/Galicia out and form Spain. Scotland won and formed the SU followed by becoming Great Britain. And had a stable alliance with me for like 350 years, which I've never seen before. Leinster did eventually rebel and form Ireland. Nobody really went after India or China, except Aquitaine who took a few provinces from them.
A released Nevers beat up Vermandois a few times and had built themselves up to a 7/8 province power in central France. Just took Paris when the time ran out. Some interesting stuff.
I think at some point we might want to beef up the colonial rebels? Haiti and Venezuela were the only two that formed, Haiti on Cuba and they were quickly reduced to OPM status and Venezuela on the island of St. Martin and they never grew.
But at the rate random conquerings are going we're bound to still be Vermandois with half of every peninsula in the Old World and all of the New World.
Aside from a lack of Morocco and no Dutch/Hannoverian colonizers that is basically the list to be expected of colonizers (I don't believe Vermandois is even set to be a colonizer by default like Aquitaine/Occitania). My only concern is that the number of colonies would make it a bit difficult for the AI to form Spain.
And it took awhile because I'm not even sure how it broke in the first place. It's a mix of the common on_action.txt and a series of events. But since I never touched the on_action file I have no idea why they're not in there. But they will be.
[size=+2]Excerpts from The Rule of King Louis V de Vermandois, by Lucas R. Hodgson, Ph.D.[/size]
[size=+1]1488 - 1496: War on the Iberian Peninsula and Louis V's Death[/size]
At this time, Portugal and her allies were engaged in an interminable war with Leon, neither side making particularly large strides in territorial acquisition, but rather each was engaged in steadily draining the manpower and war chest of the other. Leon was somewhat the worse for wear, having lost two northern provinces to the Portugese, and the province of Badajoz to Portugal's Castillian allies, but Portugal lacked the manpower to truly drive home its early advantage and Castille was distracted by a series of rebellions in its eastern provinces. As such, Leon initially looked favorably on Vermandois's entry into the war, and was particularly grateful when Vermandois's first battle was a decisive defeat of a Castillian raiding force in Lisboa immediately following the declaration of war - King Louis V had taken advantage of his military access treaty with Leon to preposition a small invasion force before declaring war with Portugal, and had planned to use Leon's ports to safely move his armies into the contested region. Castille responded to its first of many defeats by expelling all Vermandoise merchants from its territory and closing its centers of trade to them, giving the Frankish crown further reasons to make war on the Castillians.
The Frankish troops then marched north along the coast roads and into Porto, and began to siege the fortress there. The main body of Portuguese troops was elsewhere, engaged with those of Leon, and their Castillian allies had been driven back east. The war, in its earliest stages, appeared to be going decisively in Vermandois's favor.
In late September, 1488, Leon signed a peace treaty with Portugal, accepting a white peace. Contemporary letters claim that the King's wrath was nigh legendary to behold, and that even favored ministers and nobles walked very small around the castle for months. Freed from their battle with the army of Leon, the Portuguese forces under Duerte I d'Aragon quick-marched to their capital city and, in a bloody battle on the plains before Porto, forced the beseiging Franks to retreat. Shortly thereafter, Leon signed a punitive peace treaty with Castille, leaving Vermandois alone at war with Portugal, Castille, and a resurgent Nevarra.
The Northern Front
Nevarra, in particular, had benefitted from the recent collapse of Acquitaine, and had gained new holdings along the Bay of Biscay. However, its territory was discontinuous, with a smaller-but-still-active Acquitaine dividing the holdings of Poitou and Anjou from Nevarra proper. The small army that Nevarre had left to defend this region was no match for the massed Armee de Chalons which King Louis deployed to the area, and they quickly surrendered and dispersed.
The northern front of the Vermandois-Portugal war appeared to be easily in the hands of the Franks, with no significant armed forces remaining to stand against them. [...] unfortunately, saw fit to employ a more round-about strategy, and paid several well-known Metz nationalists to rise up against their Frankish lords. Although Metz nationalists had, at multiple times since its annexation, risen up against their liege, this was by far the best funded and most popular revolt. Moreover, it was accompanied by a carefully-planned operation against the main fortress in neighboring Franche-Comte, which rendered the fortress uninhabitable for quite some time and required a large outlay of funds to restore.
The Frankish army was somewhat smaller and had far fewer horse than the Metzen rebels, and was better trained, but lacked the kind of dynamic leader in the field that would have made the resolution a foregone conclusion. The rebel forces, ably led by Balduin de Dalburg, refused to be pinned down, and they led the Franks a merry chase for several months. In the end, King Louis V was required to take forces earmarked for deployment in Portugal and divert them to running down the Metzen rebels. Early in 1499, the forces under de Dalburg were run to ground, and de Dalburg himself was executed.
With their earlier defeats, and the Metzen rebels under heavy pursuit and likely to be defeated shortly, Navarra came to the negotiating table, and Vermandois was able to quickly force the smaller, overextended state to exit the war.
The Iberian Peninsula Campaign
After the initial defeat outside the walls of Porto, the army of Vermandois retreated into the territory of Leon and, unwilling to break their newly declared peace, the forces of Portugal were forced to let them go. Reinforcements gradually trickled in to replace the soldiers lost during the aborted siege, the battle, and subsequent retreat. This process took several months, during which time the Portuguese forces likewise reinforced their numbers. An apparent stalemate was beginning to develop - Vermandois lacked the troops in the region to force a decisive victory and was unable to move a large number of additional troops in, and Portugal could not eliminate the existing Frankish army.
In September of 1489, however, an invention was made in the city of Valenciennes that would change the course of the war in Portugal and, eventually, the face of warfare in the western world. Phillipe de Contretiems, a metallurgist, developed a new bell-like shape of bronze which was strong enough to withstand sizeable gunpowder charges but light enough to be easily moved via horse-drawn wagons. The first field artillery was invented, and King Louis V immediately ordered the training and equipping of "several groupings of good soldiers, well-led, to this new mortar-gonne."
Meanwhile, Johann Henckell, in charge of the Frankish forces in the Iberian peninsula, took it upon himself to lead his forces into Portugal to attempt to disrupt their preparations. He quickly moved into Salamanca and began to siege the city there, hoping to draw the Portuguese forces away from Porto. While he did succeed in this respect, he did not plan on, nor, apparently, did he know about, the Casillian reinformcents moving into Portuguese lands. The early stages of the battle went well, and the Portuguese army was nearly on the rout when a force of nearly 20,000 Castillian soldiers attacked his army. Through superior tactics and equipment, Henckell was able to deliver far larger casualties to the allied forces than his army took, but was still forced to flee the field before his forces were surrounded and destroyed.
[...]For reasons unknown, following the defeat of the Frankish forces in Salamanca, Leon urged the Pope to call a Crusade against Muslim Fez, the small protectorate Vermandois had liberated from Moroccan rule during the previous Crusade. Vermandois declined to declare war on its ally, but, ever a staunch supporter of the Pope, also elected not to further embroil itself in continental wars by declaring against those who had accepted the Crusade. Fez, seeing that no support from Vermandois would be coming, repudiated its military alliance with the Frankish crown.
[...] In late 1490, the cannoneers which Louis V had ordered into training reached Portugal and joined with Henckell's army. Together, they marched back into Porto from Leon, and quickly routed the small garrison which Portugal had stationed there, and began a siege of the capital. Portugal's Castillian allies sent the remainder of their army, still rebuilding from the disasterous losses suffered in Salamanca in 1490, against the entrenched Frankish forces. The slaughter was decidedly one-sided. Three months later, a second, larger army under Juan II de Aragon himself attempted to raise the siege of Porto. They were also turned back by Henckell's troops with extremely one-sided losses.
Although the new cannon were proven extremely effective, there were various aspects of them which could still be improved. The constant stream of letters from the cannoneers to the King's ministers included copious notes on the cannon's virtues and failings, and soon improved models were being forged in Vermandois and shipped to Porto. The newer cannon, much more powerful, hastened the fall of that city, and in September of 1491 the garrison surrendered after almost a year of siegework. A few weeks later, Miguel de Cordoba, leading almost 6,000 Castillians, attempted to dislodge the Franks with predictable results - the Castillian crown had not yet adapted to the new methods of warfare mandated by the presence of true field artillery, and paid a heavy price learning.
After allowing the tired besiegers several months to rest and regain their strength, Louis V sent orders to Henckell to resume active operations against Portugal. In a bitterly cold winter battle in Braganca, King Pedro II de Aragon of Portugal lead the remaining might of his armies against the much larger Frankish expeditionary force, and suffered nearly 50% casulaties. They were forced to retreat into Salamanca, site of their earlier victory, and could but watch while the siege of Braganca took its course over the next five months. Meanwhile, Vermandois began to seek allies amongst the splinter states on Castille's eastern borders.
At long last, Portugal was reduced to a single holding - Salamanca - and a single - sizeable, though outdated - army. The initial battle saw horrendous losses amongst the soldiers of Portugal, and in the aftermath Pedro II managed to sneak through Henckells lines back into Braganca. Henckell quickly gave pursuit, and Pedro's army was, for all intents and purposes, destroyed in October of 1492. Louis army then moved back into Salamanca, and sieged the city, which surrendered in January of 1493 after a mere 3 months of siegework. Portugal was now completely occupied by Vermandois, and peace terms were dictated, rather than offered.
In exchange for retaining their previously-held lands, Portugal became a vassal of the Frankish crown, and annulled their treaties of mutual defense with Tripoli, Navarra, and Aragon. Moreover, they paid a large purse of war reparations. The deal, it seemed, was far better than Portugal had expected - there had been rumors that Louis would not be happy with less than full annexation - and their reinstatement by the Pope led to an upswelling of, if not gratitude, then at least acceptance of their position as part of the growing Kingdom of Vermandois - including joining the two families by marriage, after a suitable period had elapsed, and a military alliance thereafter. Eventually, in his waning days, perhaps feeling remorse over the suffering he had inflicted on the Portuguese people, Louis V would proclaim a territorial guarantee for his Portuguese subjects.
Naval Developments at the End of Louis V's Reign
Apart from an early move towards transoceanic sailings, which located the North American continent but otherwise largely failed to produce meaningful results for Vermandois, the nations focus was traditionally on land. This would result in difficulties during the war against Portugal and Castille, both of whom had strong naval traditions.
In late 1488, a small squadron of Castillian galleys operating out of Granada began a blockade of Tangiers. Although the trading center of Tangiers provided a minor amount of Vermandois's international trade, it was a provocation that King Louis did not feel he could allow to stand. He organized a small squadron of sailing ships and ordered them to the African coast. The Castillians, though, had been awaiting just such a move, and when one of the patrolling galleys located the Frankish flotilla, it turned and fled, returning with nearly a dozen reinforcements. Only a luckily-timed squall, which the heavier sailing ships of the Franks could more easily weather, prevented them from being surrounded and boarded - or sunk. With tails figuratively tucked between their legs, the ships limped into Tangiers. Two months later, after seeing to what repairs they could undertake, the ships attempted to sail back to Calais. Unfortunately, several miles north of the city, the Frankish naval force was caught, becalmed, by the entirety of the Castillian galley force and the several transports they were escorting. Rather than see his ships fall into the hands of the enemy, Captain [...] scuttled them along the coast and ordered his sailor to march back to Tangiers. In one fell swoop, nearly half of Vermandois's offensive naval capacity was destroyed.
Castille attempted to press its victory, and sent a portion of its galley fleet around the Iberian peninsula and into the English Channel. There, the small force attempted to inderdict all shipping into the main Frankish ports of Calais and Picardie. The Frankish naval forces there, determined to gain revenge for the scuttling of the Jordan I and the Armancon, sallied from their ports and brought the Castillian galleys to battle. The galleys, optimized for Mediterranean sailing, were unhandy in the rougher waters of the channel, and the Franks were able to isolate and capture the San Esteban while driving off her sisters. Flush with victory, the Frankish flotilla moved down the coast and engaged the sole remaining Portuguese man-of-war off the coast of Lisboa, sinking her in the closing days of 1489.
Their recent victories - and, perhaps much more importantly, the ability to study captured Castillian ships - lead to a series of innovations in Frankish shipbuilding and seamanship. These were turned against the Castillians, and the remainder of their forces in the northern Atlantic were destroyed late in 1490. Similarly, a recently launched Portuguese barque was engaged and burned to the waterline of Cape Finisterre in early December, 1490. Although Castille would occasionally, throughout the rest of the war, send raiding forces to Channel, they were always thereafter quickly repulsed by the Frankish navy. Eventually, Louis V was able to order his Channel forces south, where they won a smashing victory against the galley fleet which had, previously, destroyed so much of his shipping - by first staging an invasion of the island of Madeira to draw out the Castillian navy, and then bringing them to decisive battle.
The Southern Front
[...] The main weakness of the Frankish navy was its size. The earlier losses of nearly a dozen men-of-war in exploratory voyages had reduced the combatant ship count to a mere handful, and although the nation was fairly wealthy, the coinage had never really been found to support a rebuilding effort beyond enough transport ships to provide carriage of the Vermandois army on Crusade. And thus, although the Frankish navy had developed a taste for victory, it could not be everywhere, and focused its efforts on defending the coast of the English Channel and supporting land invasions of Portugal, usually via Leon. As such, Castillian, Portuguese, and even Tripolitan forces could move almost unopposed off the coast of Africa.
The Armee du Charolais, as the Frankish African forces were called, were ably led by Viscompte Isidore de Vaudray, and had enlisted the aid of several corps of Muslim archers - both horse and foot - who had no love for the Iberian Catholics. Moreover, the Armee du Charolais had a tradition of victory, having assisted in the earlier, successful Crusades - and then had been called on to put down several native revolts since. Thus, it was their duty to repulse the landings that the navy could not prevent, and although casualties were often high, they never failed in this despite numerous attempts. The Armee du Charolais even quickly put down an uprising which attempted to use the constant invasions to gain independence in recently-annexed Safi.
The Castillian Campaign
[...] Given the relatively light requirements of Portugal's surrender, Castille sought to obtain for itself a similarly east deal with Vermandois. King Louis V, however, was not quite so willing to allow them to evade their war debts, and had realized the strategic value of gaining for his own nation additional ports along the Mediterranean - and of denying those same ports to his enemies. Accordingly, Louis ordered a body of troops up from Tangiers and into Granada.
Simultaneously, the army which had most recently been involved in the subjugation of Portugal moved on Madrid, and rather quickly reduced the city's defenses, which caused it to surrender in June of 1493. Hoping to put additional pressure on Castille, Louis V arranged another state marriage with Catalunya, which had recently split off from Castille. The smaller body of troops in Granada took longer to complete their siege, but within a few months of Madrid falling, Granada also surrendered to the Franks. Rebels in western Castille took advantage of the armies distraction to lay siege of their own to Cordoba.
Soon, the armies of Vermandois moved on from Madrid and into Castilla la Vieja, where Miguel de Cordoba had gathered the remainder of the once-proud Castillian knights - nearly 11,000 heavy horse were gathered there. In a pitched battle, Miguel ordered charge after charge into the Frankish cannon's field of fire. Although at several points they were able to cross the field and engage the Frankish infantry in melee combat, the cannon themselves were never in any true danger. With more than half of their number dead or missing, they retreated into Madrid and sought to rejoin the remainder of Castille's foot. Although the forces of Vermandois were once again outnumbered, their superior training and, especially, technology won through and despite heavy casualties, in successive battles they largely destroyed the remaining cadre of Castillian knights and inflicted horrendous casualties on the infantry.
[...] The ex-African forces continued their inexorable march along the coast, reach Almeria and capturing the city in April of 1494. [...]
[...] With the Castillian armies routed and their generals dead, the Frankish forces had free reign throughout Castille, and soon Castille was forced to accept a peace proposal which granted Vermandois one of its most lucrative Mediterranean ports and released Granada as an ally of Vermandois, an alliance which Louis promptly sealed with the marriage of his cousin to a Granadan nobleman. [...]
First Colony
[...] Improvements in naval technology and navigational practice allowed Louis V to dispatch the first mission of colonisaion for his country - sending the seeds of a new settlement to Rio de Oro, south of the Frankish holdings in western Africa. The colony remained small throughout the remainder of Louis V's reign, despite the occasional new batches of colonists, due largely to the extremely unfriendly natives. [...]
Trade Improvements
[...] Vermandois achieved a local monopoly on goods in Lothringen, achieving a premium on traded goods [...]
Louis V's Death
Although he hid it well for several years, Louis V first became seriously ill in the waning days of his war against Castille. Perhaps this was why, rather than finishing the war and claiming total victory over Castille, he relented and instead took a pittance of what they could have reasonably expected, given the overwhelming victories Louis V had engineered. It is obvious that, at this point, there was a marked change in Louis's correspondance and even the direction in which he encouraged his ministers to act. He returned to his roadbuilding, ordering new highways flung across the realm, stitching his people together even as his body was failing.
Louis V lived on for another two years, dying in his sleep on the night of 15 November 1496. His son, Louis VI de Vermandois, had been schooled in the ways of the court as Louis never had, his father hoping that his heir might avoid the early missteps that marred his reign.
Generic "State of the Realm" shots to follow.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Vermandois
Vermandois Proper and the Nation
Frankish West Africa
Nouveau Vermandois
The English Isles
The Holy Roman Empire and The Netherlands
Occitania
Iberia
Italy
Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary
The Byzantine Empire
Zenata
Egypt Proper
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I can put up a new version with the nation formation fixes and the HRE fixes (although seeing how the Netherlands and Poland/Bohemia are eating up German minors it's probably to the benefit of the emperor that influence is not fully integrated).
[edit]And there it is: version 1.03. HRE fixed and no more rampant switching between GBR/SCU and SWE/SCA.
Yep - I want to say that they and Holland* were going at it for awhile, but then I canceled Holland's military access to Vermandois because I kept getting "border tensions," etc., CB with the clog-wearers, and the stability hit for going to war with someone you have a military access treaty with is really tough.
So, I cancelled Holland's treaty (since I foresee border issues continuing), causing Holland to lose easy access for its reinforcements for their wars against Brittany (and Acquitaine), causing it to eventually lose the ground it had gained there.
It was also kind of a last-ditch effort to help Acquitaine (I offered them pretty cheap loans, as well, which they kept turning down) stave off the Egyptian encroachment by taking at least one of their enemies out of the war. This sorta worked - Egypt's holdings have degraded from 4 or 5 provinces to 1 or 2, the rest being new nations (Dauphine, Bourbonnais, etc.) that have split off.
So, further Director's Commentary on the Portuguese War:
Per the thread's vote, I selected "Quest for the New World" as soon as I could (which was actually about a year or so after I unlocked the national idea slot). This let me finally buy some explorers and conquistadores - unfortunately, I didn't realize that they both cost a colonist to create, rather than a magistrate (diplomat? Diplomat).
So, my first colonist goes into making an explorer so that I can actually go out and find something to colonize (and then his ships die on the way home; damme!). Unfortunately, our colonist growth rate was *ridiculously slow*, so it took forever to get another one. By that time, I found out that our colonial range was waaaaaaaay to short to make it anywhere close to the Americas. So, I figured we needed a closer jumping-off point than Calais - queue the exploration of Madeira and the Canaries. Unfortunately, because I was now a colonist shorter than everyone else, Castille and Holland beat me to them, respectively.
Fine, I thought - I'll just go capture Porto, since it's a nice, western Iberian port with a decent tax base (and we used to own it, dammit), and in a few dozen years, we'll core it and use *that* for our American adventures. I had a great lead-in with the psuedo-alliance with Leon, who was doing a great job of keeping the actual Portuguese army occupied in Southern Leon, down around Gibraltar. Of course, as I posted, Leon white-peaced out almost as soon as I declared against Portugal. This let the Portuguese army come roaring back up to raise the siege of Porto. My plans to win the war on the cheap weren't going to work out, so I needed to actually raise a real army and send it in.
I think I lucked out in that the recently-declared peace (and enforced truce) between Leon and Portugal prevented the Portuguese from pursuing my army as it hid and reinforced in Lisbon.
A small strategic error** resulted in the first wave of new unit reinforcements getting run over by a *huge* Catalunyan (IIRC) rebel army and almost destroyed. I thought I took a screenshot of it, because it was pretty funny (especially since later on Catalonia ended up excommunicated and then I arranged a royal wedding with them and demolished the Castillian army and we ended up best buds), but I guess I missed it.
While screwing around waiting for my second army to reinforce (the third took ship from Calais to Lisbon), I took the first army and moved into eastern Portugal, just to force the Portuguese army to not sit on its butt the whole time. They moved over, and I was completely and easily winning the fight, so I went to check out what was going on in west Africa. A few moments later, I got the battle report that I had lost to a massively overwhelming army of Portuguese and Castillians. Somehow, the Castillians had pulled a 20,000 soldier army out of their backsides (I think they were hiding in the south of Spain when my 2nd army came by in the north, so I never got LOS on them).
At this point, I figured I'd just about made a major miscalculation and that I was about to seriously lose a lot of money and prestige in a disasterous adventure. I was looking around, going, "Shit - how am I supposed to stop the Castillians from just wiping the floor with my expeditionary force and then coming up here and kicking my teeth in?"
And then I invented cannons. And realized that, like the Portuguese, the Castillians couldn't follow me into Leon.
So I pulled back to Lisbon, trained up two units of cannon and a couple more of my new improved Landsknechthan infantry, and waited for the Castillians go back to Castille.
My newly embiggened army easily stomped the Portuguese, and then held off the Castillians when they came back. Even with pretty heavy losses in the initial fights, I was killing them much faster than they were killing me, and they couldn't produce the troops or reinforcements fast enough to match their losses, while I was pretty much maxed out on my manpower.
In pretty short order, I mopped up Portugal and captured all of their territories, which is when I found a small but important difference between EU and CK - holding all of an opponent's territories doesn't let you just dictated whatever terms you want. Most crucially, I couldn't demand Porto from them because it was their capital. They'd willingly give me every other piece of land they owned, all the money in their treasury, and renege on all of their agreements with everyone, but Porto was completely off-limits.
Yep, I basically started a long, fantastically bloody and expensive war that completely wrecked not only Portugal but, importantly, Castille, allowing numerous splinter states to form out of Castille's eastern holdings, destabilizing an entire region, in order to not capture a province.
In fact, I only gained 1 province out of the whole thing, and that was from Castille and was in the Mediterranean, for goodness's sake (well, that and I made them release Granada, who rather likes us at the moment).
Oh well - at Louis V's death, our relations with Portugal were pegged at 200 with no decay, and only the 10-year timer was standing in between us and diplomatic annexation. Additionally, we have a royal marriage with Aragon, on the eastern end of the Iberian Peninsula, and had the opportunity (though I didn't take it) to take their throne from them. If I'd been a little more knowledgeable about how it affects your relations with other people (e.g., the tooltip says it lowers your relationship with others you have a royal marriage with, but I had no idea how much, and Louis V was pretty much on his way out at that point, so I figured I'd leave the decision to my heir), I might have added that, as well.
* They may or may not have been the Netherlands at the time.
** They autopathed south, then east in Castille on the way to Portugal, rather than autopathing east, then south.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Phyphor's plan to plunder gold mines in North Africa is sound because it brings in tons of money, is a legitimate crusade target that will make the pope happy, and does provide some more coastal provinces (...even if they are effectively in the middle of nowhere) to raise our naval forcelimits allowance.
Unfortunately it also means a token defense force needs to be stationed in the middle of nowhere and - since Morocco is effectively overseas (it is on a different continent), tax revenue is pretty minimal. Plus they're a different culture, which leads to lots of revolts. I was also cheering for Morocco because I want to see some non-Christian success, but at least Zenata seems to be doing exceptionally well.
Porto is a bit of an awkward choice. Not just because it's a capital. You still have a major cultural difference, you'll be forced to contend with a bunch of (semi-distant) Iberian cultures that have more valid claims to the land, and you'd once again be creating a pocket where troops would need to be stationed (if you planned on keeping it). On the plus side though, Porto is a pretty rich province.
I would've recommend Poitou or Vendee, which will get you to Canada as easily as Porto (without an Atlantic Island) will get you to the Carribean.
Poitou even has a compatible culture. "But Rex!" I hear you say, "Poitou is Francien and we are Salian Frankish!" I know this isn't explained well outside of a mention in one or two of my mod-related posts, but our Frankish culture is partially a parent to both French and Germanic cultures. This is difficult to represent in game, but there are events that allow Francien culture to develop into West Frankish (and back) depending on the culture group the owner is from (same with things around the Rhine and Rheinländer). Essentially this means provinces of Francien culture can effectively have the same culture group as either French or Frankish overlords.
Poitou also has the distinction of working towards the "Form Carolingian Nation" decision that requires cores all over western europe (i should probably make a map for people).
Those CBs may have expired by this point.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I didn't include cores or ownership for a vast majority of Vermandois' holdings because the list is already pretty long in-game. Any country in the Frankish culture group can form the Frankish Empire. They need the provinces noted below, maximum stability, a ruler with administration of 7 or above and cannot be at war.
I figured that was a reason. Also, we've got a really small naval force limit because we don't own very many coastal provinces. That's why I added Safi (or Ifni, whichever) from Morocco (and to deny them a port, natch) and Rio de Oro in Africa, and then why I took Mercia from Castille.
Well, that and because I was feeling vindictive for them extending the Portuguese war with their doomstack. So, bonus port, it's already Catholic, it's got a solid tax base, and it's near Tangiers allowing mutual support, and it's a big "F U!" to the Castillians.
I originally wanted to forge a path through Dauphine or Switzerland / Italy in order to have a land bridge to the Med, so that troops moving from our populated areas don't have to take ship all the way around (because see above about small naval force limits, which naturally restricts our transport capacity), but I never got the approprite CBs to do it, and my early missteps with the accidentla annexation of Lorraine added so much to my infamy rating that I didn't want to screw things up like that again.
Also, the game *really* likes to give us the "Conquest of Hainaut" mission.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Also, we probably get the Hainaut mission because we have completed just about every other default mission for Vermandois (purposely and accidentally). I didn't really write much for Vermandois because I had (and have) no idea what people want to do with it. So basically the only events were designed to get Vermandois to take cores on the capital provinces for the Form Carolingian Nation decision.
And if you could keep track of who you seend out as the explorer/conquistador to discover far off new lands that would be useful for creating events and the inevitable naming of random places (e.g. If we have no Columbus it doesn't make much sense to have a Columbia. Yes, apparently I am that demanding in my mod-making).