Bohemian Empire: Part 16: 1628-1635: Holy Roman Empire United

I was waiting for Court and Country and for my Imperial Authority, I started a quick war against Mamluks, and then Tunis.

I won Court and Country and I could give back all my estates +1 mana privileges. I had to temporarily revoke them for duration of the crisis.

Max absolutism is: 65 base + 5 empire + 10 two government reforms + 5 great power + 10 legitimacy + 5 religious unity + 15 crownland + 20 winning Cout and Conutry, or 135. So I can give away -35 absolutism worth of privleges and still have absolutism at 100%+ cap. Each mana privilege is just -5, so I still have some leftover. Overall new estate system is stupidly easy. I'd probably keep it a bit less than that.

So finally in 1635 I had enough IA to pass the last reform. And unlike previous reforms, this one actually has voting by each country. And unfortunately the new 1.30 interface won't tell me who'd vote for it.

When I tried pressing it at 50 IA , I got Sweden, Denmark, Oldenburg, Switzerland, Nuremberg, Genoa, Liege, and Utrecht rebelling. If I wait for 100 IA (just 6 more years or so), it's only Denmark, but by a lot, as they have huge AE against me.

Well, I could wait another 20 years or so for Denmark to accept it as well, but that would be rather boring, so here's the map of what HRE would look like if i just won the whole vote.

Great Powers map

Pasai is a rare contestant, narrowly overtaking Bahmanis at 9th

So some 1.30 conclusions.

HRE:

• HRE is overpowered if you start as Austria, or take it over early as another Catholic power; if you start late (in vanilla as Protestant; in F&B also as any other version of Christianity) it's a lot weaker
• forcing OPMs into HRE is nice; forcing huge (especially heretic) countries is actually a bad idea, as they'd never accept your religion, or accept revocation of privileges
• HRE CBs don't work too well unless your target is contiguous - and sea zones don't count
• latest hotfix nerfed it to the point wehre it's not too stupid
• nerfing influence ideas by removing AE reduction made playing in HRE less fun - AE doesn't make things harder, it just forces boring waiting; and there are no other good ways to reduce is (espionage ideas are seriously not worth it)
• overall it's OK change

Hussite:

• Hussite church powers are not as bad as I expected - those bonuess are fairly weak, but being able to switch them pretty much at will was useful a lot
• Bohemia has 3 paths - stay Catholic; go Hussite, then flip Protestant by event; or go Hussite and stay Hussite; Catholic path is definitely most powerful
• overall it's good extra flavor; a lot more interesting than Anglican for sure

Estates:

• new estates are stupidly OP, and have a lot less strategy involved than old estates; on the upside there's a lot less micro
• one really annoying issue with new estates is that you need to remember when its buttons (call diet and seize land) become available - old estates had notifications
• going full mana nad mercantilism privileges; then hard revoke 1610 almost everything for Count and Country; then give some back after winning Count and Country is a reasonable strategy; I'm not sure if it's optimal
• overall it's fine

Mercenaries:

• terrible change
• every AI blob now has infinite manpower
• especially Ming is indestructible after they just fixed it like one patch ago
• using mercs is really unfun, as they're impossible to split, and can only move as a group, so it adds up tons of extra pointless micro
• overall terrible change

UI:

• I had a lot of trouble with new trade company UI (which trade regions / states can build what), and notification goes to bad UI; but it turns out they made perfectly decent UI hidden in outliner - I only discovered it after finishing the campaign oops
• new HRE UI is not great - especially trying to figure out who'd vote for your reforms and why not
• building outliner is still terrible - building barracks / churches / workshops etc. makes sense as it shows you what you get (manpower / money etc.); but building courthouses for government capacity discount has no help whatsoever; and manufactory number has always been ridiculously wrong
• overall it's fine

Other changes:

• Bohemian mission tree is one of better ones in game. But if you play you need to decide what's your strategy before you even start, especially wrt religion and HRE.
• provoke revolt is the best button EU4 added in very long time
• playing without Religious and without Humanist worked OK, as EU4 rebels are ridiculously weak, and got even weaker now, but honestly I should have just picked Religious for the CB and its 25% AE discount
• administrative ideas are now basically mandatory; not only they save ton of paper mana, and ton of OE by reducing coring time; they're also the only source of that much extra government capacity. Even if you play tall, you should have administrative ideas
• I was spamming courthouses everywhere, took every government capacity bonus, and wasn't even growing that fast, and I was really close to the cap for last few decades. Admin efficiency doesn't affect the cap, maybe it should. Overall it's a very uninteresting system.
• Expansion ideas double what you get from non-state non-trade company territories, so if you play wide enough, you'll probably need them. Otherwise territories are garbage.

So 1.30 Emperor gets 3/5 stars from me.

Bohemian Empire: Part 15: 1616-1628: Hereditary Holy Roman Emperor

I had no idea what to pick for my 5th idea group. Eventually I decided that the build is: Diplomatic, Administrative, Influence, Trade, Expansion.

I started some colony in South America, but it will be completely insignificant this campaign.

I fought Tunis for Italian islands.

On death of my emperor I inherited my PU minors Brandenburg and Saxony. This is actually quite annoying, as that costs me my Electoral College votes, and now I need to make some alies, or demand a recount or something.

I started Court and Country in February 1623, pretty much by accident. I did the absolutely right thing and passed another HRE reform and declared war to get Sweden inside the Empire the same day.

This war was awkward as Britain joined on Swedish side, and sunk a third of my fleet as I was sailing from Mediterranean to Baltic. I tried building a small heavy fleet to secure the route, but Britain showed me that it's completely inadequate.

Somewhat surprisingly their side lost more ships than our side, but that really didn't matter, I couldn't blockade London, so I had to wait 5 years until full occupation of Sweden got me to 100% warscore.

After that I managed to make HRE hereditary. Just 7 years left to revoking the privilegia. 

Holy Roman Empire, not counting my other lands in Syria and Commonwealth, and without Danish non-HRE lands. It's huge.

Bohemian Empire: Part 14: 1599-1616: First Coalition

I took a break from HRE fights and attacked the Mamluks, taking Jerusalem and some forts for myself, and releasing Syria as vassal to manage AE.

I allied Shia Persia as well, for AE management.

My maximum absolutism was just 21%, due to all the privileges I granted, so start of age of absolutism meant mass privilege revocation. Turns out revoking privileges is super easy, barely an inconvenience, and by the time Age of Absolutism started, my max absolutism was up to a much nicer 69%.

I passed 5th reform, and unfortunately then I noticed that my Expand Empire CB on Sweden expired, as I lost Age of Reformation bonus for 20% warscore discount. And it would be so nice to get Sweden into HRE.

I was happily fighting Mamluks in a second war, when Pope tried to start a coalition against me. Well, it's amazing it took that long. I attacked the Pope day one

Of course I couldn't let them actually form a coalition, so I declared war on them day one. This did not discourage a bunch of other countries from coalitioning me anyway.

I got a few new minors into HRE, and then I noticed that Bourbonnais I just made join is being attacked by France. Well, that's the first time I use Enforce Peace ever I think. France refused, all HRE minors got +50 opinion modifier with me.

We 100%ed France, and Bourbonnais took 5 provinces and even handed over one to Spain for some reason. I allied Spain after this, since I might have to expand into Tunis or France soon, and they have no other allies, and lost most of their colonies, so they're exactly the kind of weakened state that could use some protection.

Coalition is just Genoa, Anizah, and Hormuz. I don't know why they thought that would be enough. Genoa and Hormuz even have slightly positive relations.

There was also a minor issue - I declared Expand Empire war on Orleans, and winning it made some of their lands join HRE, but not their capital, so they're still a non-HRE power, and now there's an imperial province controlled by foreigners (that is Orleans) costing me some IA.

I still hope to stack up absolutism so high I can get force Sweden (really close) and France (very far, but it keeps getting smaller, so maybe) into the HRE. That would cost some stupid amount of AE, and drag me into war with my ally Muscovy.

Then again, if I broke up Muscovy into pieces, and made them join the HRE too...

I'm not sure how far this campaign will go, I'll probably declare it won at Revoke The Privilegia, and I'm already 5 reforms in, with 4 to go (ignoring some optional ones).  

There were a few awkward simultaneous wars, Great Britain got dragged into this due to their Defender of the Faith, but AI doesn't know how to transport troops, so I usually just ignore them.

I could have pushed the Mamluks harder to get Mecca for +1 missionary, but I wasn't sure if I'd be fighting coalition with Denmark and who knows else just right away, so I only took Syrian cores and some cash.

Bohemian Empire: Part 13: 1590-1599: Denmark in Empire

So I have Expand Empire CB, which I can use to make countries join - and that gives me some free IA.

I got Moldova, Ferrara, Savoy, and Naxos. And while at it I made some of their allies release a bunch of OPMs like Corsica, Lucca, Parma, Donauworth, Bamberg.

I wanted to have a glorious fight against Spain for Naples cores on Sicily, but it turns out they expired, as Paradox split Neapolitan and Sicilian cultures. Those silly microcultures are seriously annoying.

Well, what else can I do? Turns out I can force Denmark to join the HRE. I didn't expect that. France which I recently allied was on their side, but everybody in Europe really hated Denmark, so I had a huge alliance on my side - all the while France was busy fighting Spain.

I made France and Pope release some minors, and got Denmark to join the Empire. A small problem is that they're heretics, but I'll get to it eventually. Not sure how, as Denmark -200 hates me, and even if they loved me they're enormous, but opportunities show up every now and then, and heretic penalty is per country, so they only cost me as much as Ulm would.

Than unfortunately only added mainland of Denmark, not Norway or Livonia, so if I force them to release Norway or Livonia, they'll leave the Empire. Quite annoying.

That costs 25% AE cost, the same as returning cores, so it wasn't quite free, but I managed to convince everyone to please not coalition me just yet.

After that war, I passed the 4th reform. It's going to be about 15 years between reforms by just ticking IA, so counting all other sources I'll be able to revoke about 1650-1670.

Once our 15 year truces expire, I plan to add about 5 more countries I recently released to the HRE, if they're still around. It would be great if I somehow managed to fragment France so much that what's left can be added, but I'm not sure if I can make it.

Playing as Austria, and having all those CBs by 1470s would be really powerful - this late they're just less amazing.

Oh and there's supposedly some way to make countries join peacefully, but I have no idea how that even works.

Danish War. Spain's separate war with France distracted their troops, so it wasn't too bad.

My navies were getting wrecked by pretty much everyone, and wargoal was on an island, so that was a bit awkward, but it somehow ended up working out fine.

Bohemian Empire: Part 12: 1575-1590: End of the Turk Menace

Third Swedish War of Independence erupted - it was Sweden, me, Muscovy, and Great Britain vs Denmark, France, and Pope.

Brits sunk Danish ships, so we had supremacy in the North, but French and Papal navies turned out to be stronger than mine in the Mediterranean.

Sweden decided to troll me, and gave my vassal Naples most of its cores from Pope, without any discount as this is wrong CB. This is of course total bullshit, core return should always be at AE discount, but EU4 CB system is just not smart enough to support that. And that's after I annexed what was left of Mantua. Together, that meant France and Spain both in coalition territory - fortunately France was already involved in Swedish Independence War, so we'd have a long truce.

I integrated Hungary, mostly to get proper control over Ragusa trade node, and that was another opinion hit with all HRE members.

Then I destroyed what was left of the Ottomans, and that was the last straw for the Mamluks, who broke our long alliance. I allied France instead, so if Spain coalitions me, they can get some French land maybe.

I passed 3rd reform, this time without any extra delays. That gave me Expand Empire CB which I can use to force minors into the HRE. Sounds like fun, except people say it's bugged.

Bohemian Empire: Part 11: 1563-1575: Finally Reforming HRE

So I read the files, and that Imperial Incident that makes junior PU partners join HRE, it doesn't happen for the emperor. It's baffling why, but that means Commonwealth won't autojoin, and so I'll need to pay mana to integrate them someday.

Anyway, I just noticed that Naples got severely beaten my the Pope, and have very little land left. Then I cleaned up Venice, and got some land from Aq Qoyunlu. Georgia emerged, so I diplovassalized them, and threaned war for one of their cores.

Naples separatists even occupied half of Papal States, and had army five times bigger than the Pope, but EU4 rebels mechanics are so pointless that never amounted to anything.

All that got me over diplo relations limit, so I integrated Stettin, and that made the whole HRE really angry at me. Fortunately there's nobody strong to back all those minors, so no coalition happened so far.

I attacked Ragusa, Ottomans respected their 1444's silly guarantee, so I broke their alliances with Muscovy and Tunis. Mamluks took full advantage of it and attacked them right away, taking half their land. Guarantees should expire after like 30 years, this is just silliness.

I was finally had IA to resume reforming HRE, but Muscovy dragged me into some pointless war with Nogai, so I wasted 24 IA before I was at peace and could press the button, basically half another reform. I hate AI allies.

I have no idea how I managed to keep alliances with Muscovy and Mamluks for so long.

Mamluk alliance hinges on me sending insults to Ming or Spain on a regular basis

Muscovy alliance on using diplomatic trickery to fight their allies without fighting Muscovy itself

Of all the great powers, Denmark/Sweden is really due for destruction. The Sweden want independence, and this time I can support it without it being too much hassle.

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.

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.