Austriae est imperare orbi universo (EUIV Austria)

Started by Kushan, November 21, 2014, 03:03:58 PM

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Kushan





Austriae est imperare orbi universo

All soil is subject to Austria


Decided to start a new AAR to highlight the major changes in the new v1.9 patch and Art of War DLC.

My main goal as Austria is maintain my position as the Holy Roman Emperor. Since I'm playing Austria, whose unofficial motto during the period was Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube ("Let others wage wars, you, fortunate Austria, marry"), I'm going to do that as diplomatically as possible. Yeah we'll see how long that lasts.





First thing to do is set my rivals. Since Burgundy and Bavaria already don't like me, I rival them and Hungary fills the last spot.



One thing new in new patch/DLC is the ability to set a monarch point focus. Doing this will provide a +2 bonus to that category and the cost to a -1 in the other two. I'll keep mine set to admin for the time being.



Being Austria, I get a ton of offers for alliances. I accept Brandenburgs offer, and send offers to both Bohemia and Poland. The alliances with all 3 will probably break down as are competing interest interfere. I my reasoning for choosing Brandenburg and Bohemia is mainly political since neither brings many troops to a fight at the moment. Both are one of the seven HRE electors and I want to be able to secure their votes. Poland doesn't have many troops itself, but it starts as the leading member in a personal union with Lithuania who brings



What was that I said about playing diplomatically?





Not really a war I want to fight, but it gives me a chance to go beat up on Hungary.



While Hungary's troops are heading north, I begin to carpet siege. I want to bait Hungary into going for one of my siege armies. Once it commits to the attack, I'll converge my other armies onto the attacked province.



No need to worry, Poland goes on the offensive. I send my cavalry in to support but the battle is almost over by the time the arrive.

From there its just a matter of sieging until Hungary surrenders.



A new thing in Art of War, is that sieged provinces can have their occupation changed. The AI will automatically give up a sieged province to whoever the war leader is.



Theres really no other choice for your first national idea, for most countries anyway, then Diplomatic Ideas. This early in the game you want to focus your admin points on coring and raising stability, and military points should go solely to teching up.

After the Brandenburg war ends, I get into a minor skirmish with Bavaria, and end up taking two of their provinces. I tried to out right annex them but the warscore requirement was too high.



There's no reason to not convert to an Archduchy.
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Probably not a smart move, but I'm going to choose to lose the 100 admin power and gain the cardinal.



Well I've never seen this event before. Personal union with Hungary, hell yea. Austria-Hungary in 1455, thats got to be a record. Going to save me a lot of time having to conquer them piecemeal. I send a diplomat to improve relations.



Time to go beat up on the Italians. Tuscany annexed territory that wasn't theirs, as the emperor I cannot allow this. All my faithful allies except Brandenburg join in.





My 3rd Diplomatic Idea yields an extra result. Along with the -33% cost to reducing war exhaustion, I gain my first national idea, +10% to Imperial Authority.



-20% to unjustified demands and -5% aggressive expansion. I think the game really wants me to conquer Europe by force.



Tuscany never really stood a chance. Luckily I didn't take many casualties. From previous experience, if I'm not careful these police actions will drain my manpower dry.



Personal Union with Hungary and Burgundy. Might be worth attempting. With my current cash reserves I can afford to hire mercenaries to supplement my standing army. Burgundy normally has a really good general in the form of their king but if he gets killed in battle, which he seems to have a high chance of doing, then the Burgundy succession event will fire. Austria has a chance to inherit Burgundy when the event fires, so even if I can't defeat Burgundy outright I still might inherit its lands.



I'm going to need Poland, and its vassal Lithuania's, army for the war with Burgundy and eventually France. The army heads north....
PanzersEast: Have to think to myself.... will I play the first one by the Winter Sale?  Probably not, then I should remove Dragonfall
PanzersEast: but that is thinking too logically.... and Steam Sales are about ignoring Logic

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Martok

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Kushan

Sorry its been a few weeks. Works been a bit crazy.



This was a really boring war. The Teutonic army got crushed by Poland and Bohemia before my  troops arrived. All what was left was to spread out and carpet siege.



After crushing the Teutonic Order I sent half the army home and the other half to siege out The Hansa.





Poland did something that I very rarely see. It peaced out all of the orders allies then held onto their land and ran up their war exhaustion. In one war Poland reduced them to a one province minor.



In my continuing goal of creating  a chain of alliances that can withstand the inevitable clash with the big blue blob (France),  I decide to form an alliance with Castille. I'm a little short of them being willing to accept but its nothing a diplomat sent to improve relations won't fix.



After a year of improving relations, I have my alliance and a royal marriage.





I get into a small altercation with The Hesse. Only had one minor battle, and after the necessary siegeing they soon surrender and release Frankfurt.



This is great, Sweden is no longer in a personal union with Denmark. Its does mean I'm probably going to have to deal with both big blue blobs at some point but in the short term I'm more likely to be able to defeat any of Denmark's ambitions on northern Germany.



With Bavaria no longer being a valid rival for me, I choose England. Englands a long way away and I'm more likely to get into it with France, but at this stage I don't want to upset France more than I have too.
PanzersEast: Have to think to myself.... will I play the first one by the Winter Sale?  Probably not, then I should remove Dragonfall
PanzersEast: but that is thinking too logically.... and Steam Sales are about ignoring Logic

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I'm going to go ahead and make a bid for the throne of Burgundy. Burgundy racks up some early war score by using its armies to pick off my smaller allies. I'm going to go right after the war objective, Burgundy's capital. I'm going to try and bait the AI into attacking me in the alps. I leave a 12 stack to siege the objective and spread the rest around to hopefully draw the AI in. Once it commits to the attack the other amies will converge.

Another thing new in art of war is the terrain system has been completely overhauled. Each province no longer has a percentage chance of rolling one of multiple terrain types. Now each province has a dominant terrain type, and you will always get that disadvantage.

Use the new simple terrain map mode to quickly see a provinces dominant terrain.



Here they come.



Do to a slight mistake on my part, I have 20k troops that are 2 provinces away and will arrive late to the battle.



With higher discipline, morale, a better general, and more troops, the outcome of the battle was never in doubt.

A little irked Brandenburg broke its siege progress of Franche-Comte to reinforce.

With the battle won I re-deploy my troops back into the mountains.





While I've been fighting in the south, Bohemia went right for Burgundy's heartland, and after a short battle goes into a full blown retreat with 40k Burgundians chasing them.



And here they come again. This time I engage them on slightly less favorable terrain.



It looked like the battle was going to be fought on ruffly even terms, but then the AI makes a dumb move and decided to send 13k men to siege and left its other army to get smashed.

I think Burgundy still has a sizable army compare to mine, and my man power is being drained after every battle. I decide to throw money at the problem and recruit every mercenary unit available to me, and do the same the next month after the mercenary pool replenishes.



With the sieges in the south completed, and after some cat and mouse games, I catch Burgundy again.



This time I pursue them, and crush them a second time.



Austria Part 04 - 12 by Kushan2021, on Flickr

After breaking the siege of Koblenz, its time to carpet siege everything I can.



I don't even have to finish any more sieges. After losing every battle, and having no army left, Burgundy surrenders.
PanzersEast: Have to think to myself.... will I play the first one by the Winter Sale?  Probably not, then I should remove Dragonfall
PanzersEast: but that is thinking too logically.... and Steam Sales are about ignoring Logic

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France is really not happy that I took Burgundy.



Papal influence, imperial authority, or +1 diplomatic relations and -5% aggressive expansion. I'm already over on my diplomatic relations, so the choice is really simple.



Pomerania has imperial territory that it shouldn't, they refuse to release it, so I go to war. Bohemia betrays me and joins the other side but Poland with Lithuania came in on my side.

Pomerania and Bohemia's army were easily crushed. From there on its just a matter of settling in for sieges and making sure no surprises happen.


More force limit and discipline or morale and fort defence. In my opinion discipline is better than morale, so I go with the first choice.



The emperor is dead.



New ruler is 5-6-2, not too bad. My heir could be better, 4-1-1.



And I get to maintain the position as emperor.



The war against Pomerania comes to an end. They'll release Mecklenburg and annul all their treaties.





To bad my heir had a hunting accident, but hey my new heir is a 5-4-3.



I've opened up my next idea group. I usually like to take a military idea for my second one. I'm also have a 9 year "ahead of time" (+90%) penalty to tech level 8. Offensive, quality and quantity ideas are my usual favorites. Given that I plan on doing a lot of fighting against France, I'm going to take offensive. Force march, which you get with the final idea, will be really valuable in running away from superior French armies, and pouncing on their smaller ones



War against Venice and France. Timing could be better, but I don't want to lose the imperial authority for declining. Luckily Venice is the aggressor and not France. Assuming I can avoid the French hordes, it will be a lot easier to siege Venice and lower their war enthusiasm then it will be to do the same to France.,
PanzersEast: Have to think to myself.... will I play the first one by the Winter Sale?  Probably not, then I should remove Dragonfall
PanzersEast: but that is thinking too logically.... and Steam Sales are about ignoring Logic

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The plan here is the same as the one I used against Burgundy. Hold up in the alps and try to draw the enemy into attacking me on favorable terrain. While my main armies are doing that, small armies will siege Venice's provinces.



Ulm got caught by Venice in Mantua. Venice gets the river crossing penalty. I move one of my stacks out of the alps to reinforce. With almost 3 times their numbers, Venice gets crushed.



I didn't realize Aragon was also in this war. I'm a little surprised at the overall force balance between the two sides. Unfortunately we are spread all over Europe while France has more or less concentrated its armies into two stacks. With its army crushed early Venice won't really be an issue.



The siege of Venice.





France seems more preoccupied going after Burgandy and hunting down all the Aragonese armies then going after the war goal. It sucks to be bleeding my vassals manpower but rather them than me.



Couple of my armies play cat and mouse with a Venetian army, while another gets crushed.



Burgundy's army is about gone. It was a valiant stand they were bound to lose but they've kept the entire French army occupied in the north for longer than I expected.



After more baiting I finally catch up to Venice's army. Maybe this war won't be so bad afterall. Even with all the fighting I've done so far, I've actually gained 1,000 manpower.





France's army finally makes an appearance in Italy. With the usual tactics it gets crushed.

This time I elect to pursue the retreating French army.





With the arrival of the French, my manpower is finally starting to take a real hit. In just two battles against the French, I'm down 20,000 manpower. The overall numbers are still in our favor but not as great as before.

I leave a couple of units to siege Venice's balkan territories while the rest of the army moves to follow the French and Venetians retreating to Venice itself.





With France and Venice's army trapped in Venice, I spend the rest of the war baiting them into attacking across the straight, and getting the penalty.



My manpower is down to about half of what I started with, but France has been completely drained of reserves.

Its about now that I realize I'm not the war leader. I should be heading off to start sieging France and trying to force it to release some of its integrated vassals. I could do it and peace out independently but chances are the AI would likely make peace before I could siege anything meaningful.



And a month later the AI makes a white peace with no gains on either side.
PanzersEast: Have to think to myself.... will I play the first one by the Winter Sale?  Probably not, then I should remove Dragonfall
PanzersEast: but that is thinking too logically.... and Steam Sales are about ignoring Logic

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Both Burgundy (11k) and Hungary (5k) are low on manpower,and I'm not in great shape myself with 16k. Assuming none of my allies do something stupid I need to sit back and relax for a couple years and let things recover before thinking about any expansion.







Well, I guess the Iberian wedding event (why does that never fire for me as Castile or Aragon?) I need to drop my rivalry and mission against Aragon. With them now in a personal union with Castile I don't think it be a smart move...

And with dropping Aragon as a rival the time has come to finally bite the bullet and rival France.



Its January 1494, another 10 years and I can finally start integrating Hungary.



All the gold that used to be in my treasury must have been melted down to coat the roof.



I think I'm going to choose Rival of our Rival as my next mission. I have to get the Mamluks to a +100 opinion. After that, assuming it still available, my manpower should have recovered enough to go for vassalize Salzburg.

As a side note, one thing i hope is on Paradox's list for improvements in a future patch/DLC is improvements to missions. To me only a few of the mission rewards are worth the time and effort put into them.



The papal system in Art of War has been completely overhauled. There are now a total of 50 cardinals and each has an actual seat in a province on the map. The more cardinals you control the more papal influence you gain.

Like the old system you can still spend papal influence to increase your chance at becoming the papal controller or if you have no desire or chance to be the controller you can spend influence to boost stability, legitimacy, manpower, prestige, gold, mercantilism or lower your yearly interest rate.



Poland is going to war with Sweden, Muscovy, and Novgorod. Thats not a good combination but I really need Poland so I accept. Its a trade war they started so I'm just going to keep my troops home and send Burgundy and Hungary to fight for me.
PanzersEast: Have to think to myself.... will I play the first one by the Winter Sale?  Probably not, then I should remove Dragonfall
PanzersEast: but that is thinking too logically.... and Steam Sales are about ignoring Logic

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Martok

Seems odd Poland would take on Sweden and her allies like that (even if it is "only" a trade war).  Something a bit wonky in the diplo AI? 

You still gearing up to go after France then? 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces

Kushan

Quote from: Martok on December 19, 2014, 04:43:44 AM
Seems odd Poland would take on Sweden and her allies like that (even if it is "only" a trade war).  Something a bit wonky in the diplo AI? 

You still gearing up to go after France then?

I don't think its odd. I've seen similar stuff before. I like seeing the AI press non conquest CB's.

I'm going to have to go after France, sooner or later. Sooner would be my preference. I really don't want France to get those huge manpower reserves its capable of if given time. My other concern with France is their generals. France generals can be god like and they might be able get away with attacking me on good defensive terrain and still come out ahead.
PanzersEast: Have to think to myself.... will I play the first one by the Winter Sale?  Probably not, then I should remove Dragonfall
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Burgundy and Hungary went to help out Poland, I'm sure as hell not sending troops all the way out there.



I really like the fact that Poland is allied with Brandenburg. As long as it holds the only of my allies whose interest are likely to conflict will be Poland and Brandenburg against Bohemia.



Mission complete. On to vassalizing Salzburg.



Burgundy and Hungary have either sent their troops home or been defeated. Either way looks like Poland is holding its own in the east.






The emperor is dead. As expected the electors elect for Austria to maintain the emperorship.



While Poland is having fun out east, I decided to use a imperial liberation CB against Ansbach before it expired. Closing in on the 50 authority I need to pass the next imperial reform.



Papal conquest of Modena? The popes getting a little frisky, and I can't have that.
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PanzersEast: but that is thinking too logically.... and Steam Sales are about ignoring Logic

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57,000 troops vs the Popes 9,000. This is really going to be a hard fight.





The Swiss came to support the pope. After ambushing one of my sieges reinforcements, I move in and crush them.



Out of all the places the pope could go siege he chose to go siege Burgundy?





One of the papal armies appears back in Italy. 18k to my 16k but they have a general and I don't. My reinforcements get held up fighting Milan but eventually make it to the fight before my forces break.







With Roma and northern Italy subdued its time to deal with the last remaining papal army. Outcome was never in doubt.



Right after having its army smashed the Papal state surrenders.
PanzersEast: Have to think to myself.... will I play the first one by the Winter Sale?  Probably not, then I should remove Dragonfall
PanzersEast: but that is thinking too logically.... and Steam Sales are about ignoring Logic

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Nice job, Kushan

Question:  What effects (if any) does going to war with the Pope have in EUIV?  Any long-term fallout from this for you to really worry about? 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces