Bohemian Empire: Part 07: 1520-1535: Bohemian Golden Era

It looks like immediately after subjugating Brandenburg there were 45 hater countries against me.

Well, I guess I'll take it slow for a while. And since I do, I might just as well press the Golden Era button, and enjoy 1520-1570 as my Golden Era.

After diplomatic and administrative, I took influence as third group. It got nerfed, but it's not terrible.

New Emperor Burgundy got into war against my rival Denmark over PU over Brabant. France thought it would be a great opportunity to attack Burgundy as well. Burgungy got wrecked so hard Denmark forced them to revoke HRE reform. How low the Empire has fallen.

Commonwealth got a new ruler who was instantly "-200 wants whole Hungary" and broke our alliance. Then they rivalled me, and decided to actually enforce their Defender of the Catholic Faith claim. Damn.

This forced major realignment of my diplomacy, with Austria, Mamluks, Switzerland, and Muscovy as my allies. Mamluks soon attacked Ottomans-Muscovy, almost forcing me to take sides, but I remembered I can save game, load it again, and tick "do not call into offensive war" box, and that costs me just some favors while it's active.

Well, time for a war! Commonwealth, its subject Cilli, and its allies Moldavia, Scotland, Pope, and Wolgast vs Bohemia and its subjects Hungary, Brandenburg, Circassia, and Stettin.

I hoped Muscovy would join, but due to damn Ottoman alliance they refused to even consider it. I took the usual strategy of overwhelming all their allies, but Scotland was completely untouchable. I built enough of a fleet to fight the Pope, but not Scottish heavies on open sea.

Commonwealth had the weirdest build - all cavalry and artillery, with pretty much no infantry except mercs. It was surprisingly good at fighting since they stack all cavalry bonuses, but it's so ridiculously overcosted.

I invaded them, they invaded me. This shows just how irrelevant army strength is in EU4. Commonwealth armies could defeat mine twice their size, and none of that mattered.

I didn't even hire a single merc in all of this.

We had some fights, and I did not do great, but mostly it was a race of who can siege faster, and weirdly in spite of their artillery superiority, and me having no bonuses, I was easily winning that. AI is just terrible at art of carpet sieging, while I've been perfecting it back in EU3 days.

I got Commonwealth, and I also got unwanted OPM Cilli as another PU partner. Coalition wasn't even a real threat - it was just 10 countries, all of them except Ottomans got into positive relationships with just improving relations.

Great Power map on peace day. Only 7 as two GPs got unified under one rule.

Colonization has been very anemic so far.

HRE is in 4-way religious split, and it's high time for Hussite League to form and clean it up.

Catholic Emperor Burgundy got reduced to an OPM after being beaten by Denmark, France, and even some minors, and that proves Pope is wrong.

I'm not sure if Anglican is yet to spawn, or if they had the event and said no.

Bohemian Empire: Part 06: 1509-1520: Bribing My Way Out of Coalitions

I got Circassia as a vassal, and started adjusting Black Sea region matters more to my liking. This forced my diplomats to work overtime and throw gold at infidels to avoid a coalition.

I assigned all my Anatolian holdings to two trade companies. So far I'm not really struggling with governing capacity (408/625, with many easy ways to increase the limit), but it's a fairly casual campaign, not a world conquest. Once I finish annexing my vassals I might feel different about it.

Damn Turks allied Muscovy. Between that and every faith getting a defender, I felt quite stuck.

Then I noticed that France somehow lost its Defender of the Catholic Faith status, and Brandenburg had no allies other than Austria and a few OPMs. Time to make good on my subjugation CB from new Bohemian missions! With all my hired mercs from infidel wars, and all my subject troops I had 95k to their 51k. King of Poland unfortunately was cruel, so wouldn't join, and it would break my Austria alliance.

There was still just one tiny problem. A coalition of over 30 countries was about to form if I subjugated Brandenburg, and Poland was cruel and obviously wouldn't defend me. Mamluks maybe would, but what good would that be.

I thought about force converting them now, and only subjugating them next time, but that CB only lasts 10 years.

There was only one thing to do - engage in bribery on an even more massive scale. I had massive influx of gold from all the gold mines, sold some land to estates, even took a loan, and somehow those more and more of those outraged countries were too busy counting coins to complain about my expansion.

I peaced out Brandenburg exactly December 31st, as I'd have exactly 50 AE with my rival Denmark and that was the only way to keep them out. A few HRE minors and Aq Qoyunlu were still interested, but they were too weak together, so no coalition formed.

That doesn't mean it's over. Truces are going to expire (especially the Ottomans), all those bribes and influences are on 5 year timer, and some minors still want to coalition me, and are just waiting for a big country to join that.

I suppose I'll need to declare war on the Ottomans and Great Horde the day our truces expire, to prevent them from joining a coalition with HRE minors, but I can just fight them for money this time. Muscovy getting involved in this will be painful, but not as painful as a huge coalition would be.

Since Brandenburg was no longer independent, that resulted in snap HRE elections, and Burgundy is now holding the title. Too bad, I hoped for Hesse or someone else insignificant.

Austria allied me back after all this.

Reformed faith showed up as well, with first center in Bruswick.

I'll need to repeat what I just did with Saxony. To avoid a coalition it will take over a decade of waiting for AE to die out. Fortunately that should be the last of major HRE AE. League Wars will be just about force converting minors.

I want to take over Venice end node at some point, and that will be a lot of AE as well, but it can really wait.

To squeeze every last bit of better relations over time, I switched my church aspect to Pacifism. That's +30% improved relations, but -1 stab to declare any war. Obviously I'll need to remove it before I declare anything. I'll probably have to take it easy for a while.

+30% means mere 0.6 AE a year, and I'll need to get rid of it after a few years to prevent Ottomans from coalitioning me, so I'm not even sure if it's worth the hassle.

Hussite chuch aspects are not too bad. I always keep Taborite Resurgence and Bread and Wine, and keep changing the last one:

• Taborite Resurgence: +20% manpower
• Bread and Wine: +1 tolerance of true faith, +5% goods produced (that means gold income, production income, and tax value)
• Sola Scriptura: -10% warscore province cost vs other religions (best of them all, but only needed when peacing out someone too big)
• Adamite Services: -20% culture conversion cost (used very temporarily to start a bunch of conversions, then switched out)
• Freedom to Preach: +10% religious unity, +1 tolerance of heretics (had this early, not really needed anymore, too many tolerance bonuses by now)
• Pacifism: +30% improve relations, -1 stab to declare war

I haven't used yet:

• Regular Defenestrations: -33% harsh treatment cost - might be useful when absolutism shows up
• Clerical Poverty: -15% stability cost, -10% clergy influence - might be useful if I need to revoke clergy privileges
• Punishment of Sins: -0.05 corruption, -10% nobility influence - might be useful if I need to revoke nobility privileges
• Orphan Hetmans: -1% army tradition decay - it's not terrible, manpower bonus is probably better

Bohemian Empire: Part 05: 1491-1509: Liberation of Constantinople

Poland declared itself Defender of the Catholic faith, but then I attacked electorate of Saxony, and Poland did nothing, and every single one of its allies abandoned it. Well, they're Hussite now. Poland instead decided to help Sweden break free from Denmark. Teutons sided with Denmark, and they got destroyed completely in this war. Poland then lost interest, separate peaced, and abandoned Sweden lost.

Austria called me into a war against Venice, and called me into it. Somehow they managed to assemble an alliance so strong, we were even narrowly leading on the sea. And all that overwhelming warscore was used to get fairly little - Austria got Istria and HRE minor Konstanz, I got Greek island of Negroponte which I handed over to Byzantium; Genoa got Nizza from non-cobeligerent Savoy. I really hoped for an Italian province to start expanding into trade end node outside the HRE.

Mamluks attacked Tunis, and got themselves into a fight against Turks, Morocco, and some minors. The Turks were so weakened, that Mamluks managed to get two provinces in this war.

It was time to reconquer Constantinople! I was sort of hoping that the Turks would roll over and die, but they stack wiped half my army as an opening.

I integrated Serbia during this war, and discovered a new bug, that lands occupied by integrated vassal do not get transferred to the liege - they get returned to the enemy. EU4 has so many old bugs they never fix, but it's nice to know that every now and then I can find something new.

Overall the Turks were stupidly good at battles, and inflicted twice as many casualties as they suffered, but they were outnumbered by more than that.

They lost so much land in this they're no longer a valid rival for me. I guess Muscovy and Denmark it is. This is the first campaign where I'm pretty much always leaving the last slot open.

The Turks are still occupying Albania and 2 Greek islands, but with Christian control over the straits restored, there's not much they can do.

I allied Circassia with intention of diplovassalizing them, as well as the Mamluks to counter any potential Turk coalition.

Protestantism started, and in Naples of all places. Next centers of reformation spawned in Nurnbeg and Ravena.

With Turk problem largely solved, it's time to turn West and focus on spreading the right kind of Christianity

Austria managed to pass two reforms before losing emperorship to Brandenburg, and now authority gain is about zero, so no new reforms will pass until Reformation is solved. I'd prefer someone even weaker like Hesse, but it's still an improvement.

Austria is surrounded by 1 Hussite and 3 Protestant Centers of Reformation, so they might very well end up flipping, and that will make the inevitable League War so much easier.

Defenders of the Faith are being really annoying. Currently it's France, Muscovy, and the Mamluks.

Bohemian Empire: Part 04: 1484-1491: Revenge for Varna

It is time to slay the Turk. Since Varna they took Constantinople, conquered nearly all Balkans not under my protection, and just won their first war against the Mamluks.

Between mine, Austrian, and Polish realms, we outnumbered them on land 161k to 82k, while 29 to 79 ships being far behind on sea. Just in case I hired some extra mercenaries.

The Turks definitely took advantage of their naval superiority, forcing our superior armies to walk around the Black Sea. Still, they were facing double their numbers. I hope the Mamluks get their revenge as well, and remove the Turk from Eastern Anatolia.

Three Great Powers vs one is good fun.

Unfortunately Turk naval supremacy will be a problem in the next war as well.

Thanks to -20% province cost discount from age ability, and -10% from Hussite power, I was able to return every Serbian and Byzantine core except Constantinople itself. And I took one Bulgarian province plus some cash for my trouble.

Since I had so many mercenary companies around already, I took Wallachian lands under my protection as well.

This war kicked the Turks from the strongest power in known world and menace for Christians and infidels alike into secondary power one good war away from falling apart completely.

I'll do my part to destroy what's left of them. I hope Mamluks do theirs.

By HRE event, my junior parter Hungary asked to join HRE, and was admitted. That's 11 Hussite and 56 Catholic princes mix. I gave up on the Hesse idea, and now I'm trying to make Palatinate elected, but that's also not going too well.

Poland got PU over HRE OPM Cilli, Provence got PU over Holland, and England inherited Cleves.

Bohemian Empire: Part 03: 1466-1484: Bohemian Crystal

So far my track record of wars:

• Teutons - technically a draw, but I got Stettin, which turned out to be a lot less useful than I thought
• Venice - loss
• Hungary - win, got Slovakia
• Wolgast - win, converted 4 minors
• Venice - extremely bloody draw, really I lost piles of gold
• Hungary - win, got PU

I wanted to improve my track record, so I attacked Bosnia, hoping to chain it into a bunch of easy vassalization wars.

Unfortunately my targets attacked each other, dragging me into awkward truces and non-cobeligerent wars, and then Ottomans and even Ragusa wanted some of that land as well, so I only managed to setup fairly small Bosnia for all that effort, and got some cash from the rest.

Then I tried to spread Hussite faith to HRE minors.

Cologne got annexed, and Austria nominated Ansbach to be became replacement elector.

Austria called me into their reconquest of Trieste against Venice. It's only fair, I'm the reason they lost it in the first place. It was far too long as AI wars tend to be, and I helped a lot. Austria got its province back, and I got two provinces on Dalmatian coast.

During that war I finally finished Balkan wars, getting what's left of Serbia and Byzantium as vassals.

You can probably guess where that's going.

Varna will not be forgotten

My original plan included Wallachia as extra vassal, and a few more provinces for my vassals Bosnia, Serbia, Byzantium, but Ottomans and Ragusa snatched them first

Austria/HRE and Poland/Lithuania/Danzig both rivalled Ottomans, and owe me a lot of favors.

Brandenburg and Hesse likely won't join as it's too distant for them.

Meanwhile my economy is booming. One of my provinces had its Glass turn into Gems. Overall my economic success is crazy. I make more money than any other Christian country, in spite of terrible trade situation, and only a third of it from gold. Only Mamluks, and Ottomans make more, and not by much.

I took diplomatic and administrative as first two idea groups. I'm not sure what to take as third.

I can't really colonize or even conquer much outside Europe so exploration and expansion are not really useful, at least not yet.

I don't have terribly much need for either Humanist or Religious. As Bohemia I get very high tolerance of heretics for free (+3 tolerance and -1 unrest from national ideas, +2 tolerance from estates, plus some other easy to get bonuses), so extra heretics don't bother me terribly much. Maybe if I ever expand beyond the Balkans it would make sense to take Religious?

Influence would be obvious for all the subjects, but it recently got nerfed and lost its AE discount, which was huge part of its appeal.

Trade is good for most nations, but I make like 2.5 / 40 of my income from trade, and I have easier path to making HRE Hussite than to conquering an end node.

There are some low tier ideas like Innovative, Economic, and Espionage.

So maybe some military idea? They always feel like a waste, but I wouldn't completely hate winning battles more easily, or actually having some manpower for a change.

I've not been too aggressive at spreading the Hussite faith

Centers of Reformation only convert Catholics, so once Protestantism hits, it will pass over Hussite HRE minors, and fast convert remaining Catholic ones.

If I succeed at liberating Constantinople I'll take it as a sign from God and try to form a Hussite League

I could also get PU CBs on Poland and Brandenburg, and perma claims on half of Austria, but backstabbing strong allies might not be the best idea right now.

Bohemian Empire: Part 02: 1452-1466: Union over Hungary and Croatia

I increased my country by 50% in 8 years, so it was time to recover.

I allied Hesse who I want to be the next emperor. Unfortunately that failed and Austria got reelected.

I finished my mission to convert main Bohemia and get 100% religious unity (through stacking tolerance for heretics mostly), and got Hussite Center of Reformation as a reward. Unfortunately it's the only one that can spawn.

I still had some time, so I went to a small war to convert a few HRE minors to the true faith.

And then it was time for the big event. Restoration of Union CB on Hungary! Austria was still allied to them, and England declared itself Defender of Catholic Faith, so I had to distract both (on opposite sides) with a small war against Venice.

Venice was also conveniently fighting Ottomans, as they guaranteed Orthodox Albania. I don't really care about their war, as long as they don't interfere with my legitimate claims to Hungarian throne.

I got PU over Hungary and Croatia without too much trouble - and then by event Hungary inherited Croatia so I only had that one.

Unfortunately Venice war was going tragically poorly. Venice had 10 war exhaustion and Ottomans sieging them down, so I thought I could just wait them out a bit. Then Ottomans peaced them out, took just a few provinces, and as Venice was non-cobeligerent, that was enough to completely wipe out their war exhaustion to 0. I hate this mechanic. Even worse, Venetian ally Savoy inherited Burgundy and all their vassals mid-war.

They started having completely ridiculous demands, so I had to spend crazy amount of money on mercenaries. First I managed to get Savoy and their far too numerous subjects out of the war. Then France attacked England, drastically reducing English interest in defending Venice. A bit of fighting later Lucca also white peaced. Eventually Venice, supported by just Naples, agreed to a white peace.

The war left me with 500 debt, which isn't really even such a big deal.

Imperial Diet demanded that Savoy release Burgundian lowlands, and they complied.

I was briefly a Great Power, but that only lasted a year. By my favourite metric of income, I'm actually 4th in known parts of the world after Ottomans, Mamluks, and England - but that's just my two gold mines, both developed to 10dev.

My realm consists of Bohemia, Hungary, and tiny Stettin

I'm allied with Austria, Brandenburg, Hesse, and Poland/Lithuania/Danzig

All that finally unlocked a non-HRE expansion route for me. I can fight Balkan minors, and then maybe deal with Ottomans - not by myself, but maybe if I could get Poland or Austria to join me. There's still even leftovers of Byzantium in Morea, they would make a nice vassal in longer perspective.

If I had any mana, and so far that's not going too great, I'd love to invest in diplomatic ideas. Renaissance will be in Praha in 1471, and I'll just pay the full price for it right away.

There's no hope for any early Hussite League, I can barely fight Venice to a draw with Austrian help, fighting the whole Catholic HRE would be crazy. Hopefully I'll make it before Protestantism appears and they setup theirs.

Bohemian Empire: Part 01: 1444-1452: The Hussites Are Back

EU4 1.30 came out with an HRE update, and added Hussite religion for Bohemia. It's absolutely awful and Bohemia is ten times more powerful going Catholic route. Catholic Bohemia has very easy path towards HRE emperorship. Protestant Bohemia could try to win league war. Hussites don't even get this option, and honestly if you don't want HRE, you should just go Orthodox.

Fun and Balance mod fixes that! Every Christian denomination can trigger Religious Leagues - and as soon as 4/7 majority of electors take the same side. Or you can wait for 1550 with 1/7 electors, but only first challenger gets the league - there will never be multiple wars. Of course the right thing to do would be an Orthodox League, but we're doing Hussites this time.

Anyway, the goal of the campaign is to form Hussite HRE, and do Bohemian mission tree.

Likely challenges:

• playing in HRE with its massive AE, and no good expansion options
• everyone hating Hussites
• having to start and win League War to get anywhere
• mission tree setting me on a coalition course with all my neighbours
• trade situation is really awful
• even relative to other HRE countries, it's really hard to get naval access and break out of this
• me not really understanding 1.30 meta
• ally AI also not understanding 1.30 meta, and getting into massive debt all the time

Likely strengths:

• Bohemia starts as about 20th-30th strongest country, depending on how you measure it
• decent mission tree with PUs over Poland (possibly with Lithuania), Hungary, Brandenburg, and Saxony
• starting with a gold mine and two nearby gold mines in Hungary and Austria
• enemy AI also not understanding 1.30 meta, and getting into massive debt all the time

[PIC 1]

Starting as a mid-tier power in a really stuck situation

So, let's get started. I start as Catholic, and in 5th year of an interregnum after death of Albert the Magnanimous. Before any dynastic and religious struggles start, I ally Austria, Poland, and Brandenburg. Hungary, Denmark, and Lithuania rivalled me, but that's a silly set, so I set Hungary, Teutons, and Venice myself.

The most obvious thing to do would be fight Hungary for Slovakian gold mines, unfortunately we start with a 5 year truce.

In March 1446 I finally got Hussite King-Elector Jiri z Podebrad, a 5/4/3. So I could finally start a war. First target being Teutonic Order. Unfortunately in all this forced waiting they allied Stettin, Livonian Order, and Denmark. And Poland still had truce with them, so I could only call Brandenburg into this. Oh well.

The war started super easy, until my vassal asked Poland for military access, which grants it to all enemies, completely destroying my ability to defeat them one by one. WTF isn't this fixed yet? This bullshit has been in the game for years now. There aren't even any mods to fix this.

I got Stettin as a vassal and made them Hussite. This solves my access to the sea problem. Unfortunately the war otherwise went poorly. I sieged down 2 Teutonic fort and then their capital, but Praha was about to fall, and Sweden showed no signs of going disloyal, so I decided to white peace.

On on my way home, my zero maintenance troops ran face first into rebel stack. Why isn't there a warning for that on top? Right now it's not too bad, but once you can't see all your troops on one map, it's a huge problem.

Unfortunately Austria allied Hungary before my truce expired, killing my idea of a quick fight.

Actually, Austria would love to help me fight my rival Venice. Oh and what's that? They're now too busy to help Hungary, and their only other ally Landshut dishonored? Too bad.

It was still really painful, but I took great use of my church tenet of 10% warscore cost discount against infidels, and just barely took Slovakia - including the extremely important second gold mine. Then I peaced out Venice by giving them the only Austrian coastal province, and tiny amount of gold.

That sort of looks like Czechoslovakia

Ally my 3 allies - Poland/Lithuania, Austria, and Brandenburg, are at some point going to be my enemies. 

I spent so much mana on developing provinces for gold mine and for estate missions that I'm still at 3/3/3 tech, while being an institution behind.

I'm voting for Hesse for Emperor, and they're leading with 3 votes. If it works, it will weaken the Empire, and that's perfect.

Estate privileges I chose (max is 4):

• nobles: +1 mana, Supremacy over the Crown, Strong Duchies, monopoly on Livestock
• clergy: +1 mana, Clerical Ministers, Expansionist Zealotry, monopoly on Wine
• burghers: +1 mana, Interfaith Dialog, monopoly on Glass, monopoly on Textiles

Extra mana is a total no-brainer. Monopolies give +1 mercantilism every 10 years at cost of -20% production income of chosen goods (in very convoluted way). So over a century 4 monopolies will give me 40% mercantilism, and that's +80% province trade power.

Supremacy over the Crown is supposed to generate extra agendas, but so far it didn't. Strong Duchies is +2 diplo slots and -10% subject liberty desire. I lowered Fun and Balance previous base 8 to 6 (because it's so easy to get +2 here).

Expansionist Zealotry is +5% extra morale, Clerical Ministers is missionary maintenance discount (or a much better bonus for other religions). These aren't that useful, and I'd happily replace them with more monopolies if I had any. Interfaith Dialog is +2 tolerance, and I'll keep it until I get decent religious unity, then I could pick another monopoly.

Even that very modest expansion already got a few countries nearly to coalition level, so ideas like taking Hungarian, Polish, or Brandenburger throne by force, maybe they'll need to wait.