Bohemian Empire: Part 10: 1555-1563: Heretic-Free Empire

I changed my mind, and decided I don't want to get into Swedish-Danish fight. That would delay liberation of Danish-occupied parts of the Empire too much. And it's much more fun to attack France.

Sweden declared its independence war, supported by England and Spain, against Denmark and Muscovy. That's good balance of power in theory, but really all its allies were too far, and in ended up losing.

While I was fighting France, Muscovy got tired of saving Denmark, so I declared on them as well.

Then it was a few minor wars, a lot of diplomats demanding conversion, and I only got rejection once from Geneva, as there really wasn't any way to get them into a fight. Rejecting conversion gives me a CB, so that was the last one.

While at it, I took some more land from Mantua, so together with some trade power transfer, I have over 50% trade power in Venice end node now. That's mostly thanks to milking estates for mercantilism. I'm at 59%, next highest is Venice at 38%, and really most countries have below 15%. 59% mercantilism is +118% province trade power, and it will only increase, at least until absolutism comes and I have to change my approach.

Finally after a bit over 20 years, HRE is heretic-free, and completely free of foreign control (not counting two provinces held by Commonwealth, as they don't cause any penalties). Now that there are no more Imperial Authority exploits that I know of, it will take until about 1650 to unify it.

Free and Hussite Empire. There's event chain for PU juniors to join the HRE, but since it already fired for Hungary, I don't know if it can also fire second time for the Commonwealth.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world. I'm not really challenging other Great Powers much, so they can do whatever.

I'm allied with Muscovy and Mamluks, and they hate each other, so it's not going to last much longer, and I'll need to pick sides. Muscovy annoys me a lot more with its Ottoman alliance, but the Mamluks have much nicer clay, especially Jerusalem for free missionary.

Or maybe I could ally France now that they're no longer occupying any Imperial clay

Bohemian Empire: Part 09: 1544-1555: Restoring Imperial Order

So my main problems are 46 countries with enough AE to coalition me (most sort of managed by my diplomats), 24 heretic imperial princes, and 22 imperial provinces occupied by foreigners. And once I liberate HRE clay, those liberated princes will largely be heretics as well.

I did the usual strategy of starting as many wars against as many heretic OPMs as possible, as long as it didn't involve any major power. I liberated some provinces from Provence while at it. Knights of Rhodes were constantly raiding me, so I took Rhodes, and while I was at it, I seized the island of Venice. I couldn't take anything more due to AE, but eventually I'd like to take that whole end node.

But really it wasn't the OPMs that were coalition risk - even if half of the HRE hated me, they wouldn't create a coalition without some strong external support. And that someone was the Ottomans. Unfortunately they were allied with my ally Muscovy. So I distracted Muscovy with some silly war against the Golden Horde, and invaded the Ottomans.

That was a fun war, as I had to go to 161% OE. A lot of haters as well, but with so many diplomats and without majors it's very manageable.

After my first decade I reduced imperial heretic princes to just 11, and foreign-occupied provinces to 18. With my first reelection I even have positive imperial authority, so I asked some bigger countries (Switzerland and Brabant) to convert.

I'm supporting Swedish independence for fun. Muscovy is allied to Denmark so they might end up breaking up with me.

I was pretty much forced to seize that Turk land. Anatolia is now two trade companies.

All that Greater Circassia was just a way to distract Muscovy that got out of hand

Converting the HRE worked mostly fine. It's just Austria, Utrecht, and some OPMs left.

Bohemian Empire: Part 08: 1535-1544: Victory of the Hussite League

The HRE was a mess, with 21 Catholic, 17 Hussite, 9 Protestant, and 8 Reformed princes, including 3 Catholic, 3 Hussite, and 1 Protestant electors, 25 provinces under non-imperial control, OPM emperor Burgundy who was forced to revoke second reform, and Bohemian control over Brandenburg still not recognized.

I pressed Abandon Personal Union button for the first time in my life and got rid of Cilli. 16dev OPM PU is not worth that diplo slot.

Then I started picking fights with HRE minors, and converting them. I declared myself Defender of the Hussite Faith.

I was trying my best to start Hussite League, but Emperor did it first - one of electors got annexed, and Emperor just proclaimed some Hussite OPM as replacement, so now we're in majority of 5.

I tried to join Hussite League, and then I discovered you cannot become League leader if you're in consort regency. EU4 has so many of those tiny rules you won't run into in 100 campaigns. Well it was just a few years' wait.

The Leagues were small:

• Hussite League - Bohemia, 13 HRE minors, none of my allies were interested
• Catholic League - Emperor OPM Burgundy, Spain, Portugal, 3 HRE minors, some Emperor's minor allies, and Genoa's trade league as Emperor as also minor member of a trade league, first time I'm seeing such an embarrassing performance

Austria decided to join halfway through the war. The war wasn't too difficult. Spain had naval superiority, but it couldn't control the whole sea at once, so it didn't do them much good. After all the minors were defeated, everyone invaded Spain, and their mountain forts were not enough to stop us.

I became the Emperor but the Empire was a mess. I granted 2 missing Free Cities. And then I had to subjugate Saxony, and eat all the resulting AE.

And then I discovered the mission tree was all lies, and the "legitimate vassal elector" thing tooltip promises is not true at all - it applies to elector votes, but vassal electors are still bleeding imperial authority like crazy. Never mind then, I consoled changed Brandenburg and Saxony from vassals into PU subjects. That was on the original dropdown, the tooltip just lied that other options are even remotely reasonable.

And The Empire is still a mess. 24 heretics, and 22 provinces occupied by foreigners (France, Denmark, Provence, and technically Poland), 0 IA (with big negative ticking), and only 1 reform passed. I have a lot of work to do.

That's the Empire as I received it. Full of Frenchmen and heretics and worse. A lot of work to do.

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.