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.

EU4 Holy Celestial Russian Yuan

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-21 16:41:34 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 01: 1356: Introduction

Playing with 1356 mod and the yet-unreleased Fun and Balance version for it.

Starting as Muscovy - a 71 dev principality with 23 dev vassal Galich, tributary of the Great Horde like everybody else in the region. The goals are:
• fully colonize Siberia
• form Great Yuan for ideas (5% administrative efficiency). Russia has #1 ideas and Yuan #3 on my ranking (American ideas are #2), but that's largely thanks to that idea that gives Siberia for free, and late game that does nothing without moving capital to another continent.
• be Celestial Emperor with max mandate
• and simultaneously hereditary Holy Roman Emperor with max imperial authority
• also with clean borders, nice trade etc.

This will require a minimum of 2 religion, 1 culture, and 2 tag changes, but I expect the full list will be more likely:
• go Catholic - for HRE
• form Russia - for Siberia
• make HRE hereditary
• go Sunni - to get Dhimmi
• go Confucian (or other Eastern) - access to mandate wars
• get mandate
• go Mongol (or other Altaic) - required for Yuan
• form Yuan - for ideas
• go some Chinese culture - to get more value out of China
• flip Sunni - to get Dhimmi again
• then perhaps some kind of Christian back

For 5 religion, 2 culture, and 2 tag flips, minimum. Oh and did I mention Yuan currently exists, so it will need to disappear before we can reform it?

For quick introduction to 1356. The most prominent countries are:
• Great Yuan - Chinese mandate holder currently fighting revolting Chinese minors, and with mandate ticking down to 0, resulting in likely Chinese civil war lasting centuries
• Delhi - huge Sunni power in North India, likely to unite it all, or at least becoming one of main bloms
• Mamluks - without Ottomans to oppose them likely to become the problem
• France and England - with tons of vassals and junior partners each and fighting Hundred Years War
• Majapahit - somehow ruling over 24 vassals who will inevitably rebel - that might have some historical basis, but that's not how this game works
• Great Horde - liege of Russian principalities including us, with huge Crimean revolt
• Lithuania - last Romuva power in the world
• Bohemia - emperor
• Ottomans - 46dev, very far from
• Byzantium - 42dev, with level 6 fort in capital, and pretender rebels
• Denmark, Norway, and Sweden - currently separate, but with events which could setup some PUs

The mod includes Hussites as early reformation wave, but it's a bit RNG dependent and depending on how that goes you can see extremely early reformation, or extremely early Bohemia reforming the HRE.

All countries get their vanilla missions, even if they don't fit perfectly. Only Denmark and England got some changes so far, and I'm not even sure what changed. The mod is sort of early version.

Fun and Balance mod some minor trade map tweaks since last update to help East Asians colonize Pacific sides of New World, but they're not terribly likely to matter much here.
#eu4

I love new early bookmarks. A bit disappointed by limited visibility - I guess it makes sense but fun things are happening out of view and I won't even get notified.

Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-21 16:43:52 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 02: 1356-1366: One Novgorod Down, One To Go

Two Golden Eras happened first month, and a few soon later (England, Mamluks, France). The whole Age of Feudalism could use some tweaks.

I had some cores to get back, so I started war with Nizhny Novgorod, Odoyev, and Beloozero.

That was a surprisingly fun war, multiple frontlines, complex terrain, trying to siege and prevent enemy from joining forces at once. I ended it up deep in manpower hole.

I got generic missions "Build to Force Limit", "Trustworthy Allies", "Acquire Subjects", and "Expand Muscovy".

Majapahit fell off great powers list, I don't see them on the map, but I guess 24 vassals strategy isn't working.

Yuan still exists but lost 2/3 of its land already. Somehow our overlord Great Horde lost Great Power status, presumably due to institutions, but then got it back. Novgorod told them it will no longer pay anything. I could stop paying too, but the costs aren't that high, and they protect me from Novgorod and Lithuania.

I finally unlocked tech 2, so I can fabricate claims. No-CB war really tempted me.

As Novgorod was is inevitable I wanted to ally Poland or Sweden, but they're not interested.
#eu4

This is most beautiful name placement. Mamluks' name look really neat spreading over wasteland too.

England beat France so hard it got coalition against it, but it looks somewhat half-hearted.

Bohemia is already close to passing the first reform (mod changed minimum IA from 50 to 75).

Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-21 20:32:15 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 03: 1366-1379: Free from the Tartar Yoke

A great Russian war started, sides were about evenly matched:
• me, my vassals Beloozero and Galich, my allies Rostov, Pskov, Smolensk
• Murom, Ryazan, Novgorod, Novgorod's vassal Perm

Just before that, as I needed money, I stopped paying tribute to the Golden Horde. They broke our tributary status, but that did not trigger 5 year truce I was expecting. Instead I got attacked while fighting Novgorod and two Russian minors. Ouch.

Somehow with lucky rolls I managed to finish Russian war within a few months. I got reparations, money, and cancel subject on Perm from Novgorod, and fully annexed Ryazan and Murom.

After that the Great Horde found itself at war with not just me but also most of Russian minors. 3:2 strength rate for us. So predictably they did very poorly. I defeated them in some minor battles, sieged their capital and another fort, got 80% worth of land from them, as it was rather awkward going for 100%, and my mana was too low to core it anyway.

And with these wars the Great Horde lost its Great Power status, while I gained it. It sure doesn't feel like it yet, I'm deep in manpower hole, with shitty economy, and with no mana to core what I just took. But at least the Russians were finally free. Well except Tver and Yaroslav, but everything in due time.

I got "Tame the Steppes" mission this way. So now I have permanent claims on a lot of land North and South.

I managed to diplovassalize Rostov. And I got my alliances with Sweden and Hungary.

Moldavia was fighting Crimea, so I allied them mid-war to try to join it, but joining wars is nearly impossible, and they wouldn't just call me in. It could be an useful ally to have, or at least it could let Hungarian troops move through more easily.

Bohemia managed to pass the first HRE reform. I need to hurry.

Perm which I released from Novgorod is getting wrecked by the Great Horde now, but I didn't feel like I can afford saving them. My truce with Novgorod is almost up.
#eu4

It was a nice big war. It could have been much nastier if I had to fight Great Horde, Novgorod, and all the minors at once.

Name placement still implacable. France and Ottomans are growing fast.

Yuan lost empire to fairly small Qi, but it's a huge multiway war with no end in sight. My bet is on Ming, as it has cores everywhere, so it can use reconquest CB instead of suicidal take mandate CB. But if they take mandate early, it could be another round of civil war.

Persia went Shia by event. Between Eretna, Jalayirid, Persia, Bahmanis, and a bunch of minors it's very decent Shia shart.

Post 4 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-21 23:17:14 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 04: 1379-1392: Time of Troubles

Great Horde conquered most of Perm and reduced the it to tributary OPM, thus regaining its great power status for a while.

Novgorod fought well, supported by Livonians, and Yaroslav. Sweden fought very poorly, so I didn't see it fit to reward them for their failures with land. So they broke alliance, but a while later asked me back. Exes and Ohs...

The Great Horde was fighting other hordes for God knows what cause, so they were easy prey in our next war. Still my armies got completely wrecked by 2 enormous stacks of their tribal rebels both popping up just where my armies were traveling. This and rebels popping up everywhere forced me to lower my professionalism and get a lot of mercs.

That finished the first set of hordes claims, I completed "Subjugate Kazan" even though Kazan doesn't technically exist (but Kazani culture does, so I guess), and got another batch of claims.

And when I finally thought I'm done with this, 40k nobles rebelled by event. If they ever make DLC with dead rebel counter, I'll totally pay for that. I'd say I had about 200k in endless rebellion after rebellion, and Great Horde even exported a bunch of Permian rebels.

Since I was ridiculously low on paper mana I took administrative ideas as first group. I was also tempted by:
• humanist - since I can't convert minorities for like a century or two
• quantity - for manpower issues
• aristocratic - partly for manpower issues, but also to get extra diplomat, siege bonus etc.
• innovative - for tech cost discount, as I'm low on all mana

Somehow nothing in diplomatic groups seemed too relevant.

Ottomans attacked Byzantium and got Constantinople.

Bohemia passed Pragmatic Sanction, letting women inherit the HRE, and now one actually does. Is that really what you want Germans? A Bohemian woman?
#eu4

One of many batches of rebels and freshly recruited 9k of mercs to save me. I feel like I might be wasting too much time here, I need to go Catholic sometime soon and get access to the HRE.

All that rebel infested land is not getting me there.

Revealing terra incognita to check what's up in Asia.

Qi is Chinese emperor, somehow with tolerable mandate given their small size thanks to their equally small neighbors.
Yuan still exists as Macau and two Manchu provinces. Somehow Chinese Civil War took pause and nobody is fighting anybody.

Japan on the other hand is Ashikaga-Hakateyama civil war.

Majapahit went from great power with 24 vassals to OPM on Bali.

Ottomans are definitely on the way towards becoming the menace we know them as.

England is doing really well, it integrated its PU over Gascony, and took some land in Ireland and Scotland.

Post 5 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-22 13:54:38 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 05: 1392-1409: Discovering Steppes with Dead Peasants

I got into a fight with Perm. Great Horde decided to protect them, so I humiliated them for next age's bonus, and took their money again. I'll need all that Sunni land at some point, but right now it'd be more a burden than an asset.

War with Novgorod was where the land I wanted was. Turns out that AI still cheats with forts - I had so many forts I mothballed the second line and only had those active which Novgorod could reach. Of course AI just magically walked over my first line of forts.

I tried to export some Permian rebels to the Great Horde, but Tver was still their tributary, and I somehow forgot that I grant them access, so they foiled my plans. At least they got successfully exported to Novgorod, so I took newly spawned Perm as an OPM.

Another Great Horde war I got event that let me reveal a bit of the map. A lot of other hordes helped them, my allies Hungary, Moldova, and Circassia decided that they can't be bother joining even with favors. Like the game has favors system, and same time it has this old system of AI deciding if it can be bothered to join or not. And they're completely unrelated.

After losing a big nasty battle to what seemed like every horde coming at me at once, and with allies I counted on not joining, I let them get away with giving me just two border provinces.

A truce with Livonian Order was due, so I wanted to finally get my hands on some Catholic land, and they got double guaranteed, by Lithuania, and somehow Bohemia.

So I'm a bit stuck now. I'll remove Novgorod for sure, and maybe another attempt at dealing with hordes will do better, but I need to face West. I'd also love to get even more visibility over steppes.

My army somehow has no regular troops any more. Mixing streltsy infantry (10% extra fire damage, cost stab), merc infantry (fight worse, but cost no manpower), and cossack cavalry (10% extra shock damage, no downside once recruited).

Cossacks and streltsy can be recruited with free manpower but they use regular manpower for reinforcement. All this recruitment results in far too much cavalry, both for my budget and for optimal fighting.

The game threatened me with succession war over me between Hungary and Sweden, but then changed its mind. I don't remember ever actually getting randomly PU'd.

Bohemia passed second reform.

France attacked England with coalition CB, and England wrecked them.

Byzantine separatists liberated Constantinople from Ottoman occupation and returned it to Byzantium. That was not expected. But the Ottomans are back occupying it, so it was just a small detour.

Macedonia declared independence war from Serbia. Some things happen in every timeline.

Ming became a great power, but didn't take China yet. I hope it doesn't get destroyed by a glitch.
#eu4

Here's religious map for a change. I'm definitely bothered by the lack of Hussites. Lithuania is still Romuva, and Catholic Hungary took over most of the Balkans.

I could convert horde lands to get some tolerable religious unity, but that's going to screw my future plans. So far it's sort of on track, but it feels extremely slow. I guess I could attack Lithuania directly, they have some randomly spawned Catholics too.

Post 6 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-22 20:20:12 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 06: 1409-1434: Disappointing Catholic Peasants

Lithuania and Bohemia guaranteed Livonian Order, so I can't get any Catholic peasants this way. But Lithuania is Romuva, and their provinces are mix of Catholic, Orthodox, and Romuva, so that's a low AE way to get some Catholic lands.

That was a huge war, me Hungary, Teutons, and Pskov, against Lithuania, Poland, Tver, Galich-Volhynia, and Polotsk. 97k vs 66k.
I got a few Catholic provinces, got Catholic rebels, and then discovered that even as other Christian I need majority Catholic provinces to flip. Damn.

So in 1417 I got first stack of Catholics, with just 2/85 provinces being Catholic. Babysitting a single stack as it's trying to decide what to do with its life, this is extremely painful. There must be a better way, right? They got to 8, mostly resieging already Catholic provinces over and over after I tried to unsiege them. I vaguely recall Florryworry mentioning something about rebel type merging, but it's not documented anywhere.

Since it was never going to get over 50% this way I attacked Livonian Order to acquire more Catholic peasants. Bohemia, Norway, and Teutons were defending them. Pskov and Sweden joined my side, but Sweden was getting overran by 25k Hussite stack and Hussite center of reformation. Hungary, Moldavia, etc. were as worthless as usual, and refused to join my wars.

The Catholic rebel stack died only managing to increase Catholic province count from 2 to 9. It's not completely worthless, as I can try to trigger them over and over, but seriously. That got me to 16/92.

Ottomans got Constantinople second time, and started their Golden Era. Then they attacked Georgia, they asked me for help, but seriously, I have major religious reorganization to do, so sorry about your loss.

Second stack of Catholic rebels managed to wipe out Pskov's and Riga's drilling armies, and was absolutely horrible at converting. Got 1 province before getting themselves killed.

Well, third stack spawned, and another war to maybe get a few more peasants by conquest. It's now extremely clear that what I should have done was going for Catholic lands ASAP, and leave all the Orthodox and Sunni land for later.

I got to 26/97 Catholic, still very far from what I want, and I let Catholic rebels rampage everywhere, unfortunately also 1 formerly Catholic province went Hussite. Somehow I got myself over 1600 in debt, and at 25 monthly income before any expenses I have no idea how I dig myself out of this hole. Perhaps bankruptcy would be easier.

Somehow Cossack estate is bugged. Estate loyalty is supposed to drift towards 50%, but it drifts towards 49.9%, and its main action requires 50%+ loyalty. No other estate has this issue.

Sweden went full Hussite. I got event to declare war on Sweden or suffer stab hit. WTF? I'm their ally, and I'm not even Catholic. After that Denmark, Oldenburg, Holstein.

Bohemia, so far unconcerned, passed third reform.
#eu4

Some nice dashed Catholic lines. I guess conquering Teutons would do something to get me over 50% Catholic. I can't even conquer Sweden anymore, as that's a new heresy.

Lithuania is amazingly still Romuva.

So far I'm still at zero manpower, in massive debt, and far behind on mana. What went wrong here? It's possible the way mod rebalanced techs etc. makes everyone a lot poorer. Or maybe I played super rich countries last few times, and all that cavalry is costing me too much.

Post 7 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-22 22:31:18 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 07: 1434-1445: Catholic Muscovy and Age of Discovery

I decided not to go bankrupt. The only alternative I saw was a gold mine just over my borders. I feel embarrassed that I didn't take it earlier. The whole plan was to siege their capital and the only fort before their other horde buddies show up. Sadly that's not recipe for properly crushing them.

And then I noticed "Accept religious shift" decision, which simply let me shift to religion of my capital. Huh, where did that come from... Apparently I added it to Fun and Balance, presumably inspired by equivalent CK2 decision, and completely forgot about it years ago. Fine, pressing this at 25.5% Catholic. So I no longer need to do any Sunni shenanigans, I'll just move capital to Beijing or something, go Confucian, and tank zero religious unity.

Without it, I might be able to shift Catholic, but going Eastern religion afterwards... No idea how.

Well, Religious Turmoil disaster was ticking, so I took another loan, pronounced myself Defender of the Faith for extra missionary, and started working. I got Religious Turmoil disaster, took tolerant option (+1 heretic tolerance, +50% stab cost) instead of eradication (-2 heretic tolerance, +2% heretic conversion, rebel stack). I had enough missionary strength anyway.

I massively developed the gold mine to 5/11/5, and it increased my income by 12%. It might yet let me repay those loans.

I took aristocratic ideas, possibly first time ever. I wanted to go quantity, but let's try something different this time. Since I can convert through capital definitely not taking humanist third.

Ming decided to vassalize Qi, emperor of China. That's basically broken AI, and it would break the campaign, so I used fairly nasty console hacks to deal with it - made them attack their vassal with correct CB, and then surrendered Qi with appropriate terms.

Bohemia allied 6/7 electors, Hussites sort of got inside the HRE, but just barely, so without my intervention or really rapid Protestantism they'll get the whole damn thing hereditary.
#eu4

Got religious unity to 60%, need 90% to end the disaster, so I'll convert the Sunnis too. This will properly stabilize the country, so no point bothering with humanist.
Also have awful legitimacy and prestige as my ruler died without heir so Pomeranian's Gryf dynasty took over. I don't remember ever marrying them. It will go away next succession.

Some notable things:
• Ottomans developed close to historical borders, and facing Mamluks
• Mamluks never embargoed Venice, and didn't build marketplace in Alexandria (which is not even CoT any more, wtf?), so they never started their mission chain
• Naples and Navarra (with Normandy PU) pretty big
• England did amazingly well for itself. Got all islands and South half of France.
• Yuan still exists and Ming wants to make them their tributary
• I don't think Chinese Civil War works very well in the mod.
• I can't finish Novgorod mission as Kola is uncolonized, so my last claim is unfulfilled. Sweden gets a colonist by trigger for that, so I'm waiting for them.

Post 8 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-23 23:31:16 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 08: 1445-1458: Religious Turmoil

Bohemia attacked Poland and Lithuania, and they had no other allies except some very busy HRE minors, so I joined the pileup. It's awkward that I'm helping Bohemia this way. That got me such obscene amounts of money I repaid all my debts and still had some leftover - and I also took a lot of land anyway, and humiliated Poland just to be sure.

The new gold from wars system makes milking HRE minors harder, but you can get so much from majors now it's crazy. Lithuania went Catholic soon afterwards, so the nearly AE-free land is no longer there.

Amazingly Poland white managed to peace Bohemia, and even take two provinces from Teutons in it.

Hordes were really close to not helping each other, but I was a few months too late and their wars stopped. There was another opportunity soon, and I cobeligerented everyone to get maximum number of capitals uncovered, sent some troops East for maps. That cost me far too many dead peasants, but

Cossacks got obscene influence by events, but since I was already in Religious Turmoil disaster, and disasters block each other, that was actually fine. It's going to take a while, I'm at just a bit over 70% unity.

I allied some electors, but they're still not so sure about voting for me. Even with Hussitism spreading a bit further Bohemia is well on its way to passing 4th reform soon. I feel like maybe I'd have a chance to get two votes if I took diplomatic or influence, and that only because new Bohemian emperor lacks heir. Properly crushing Bohemia is the only way.

England became Britain because mod forgot to update their adm tech requirements to match longer timeline.

I feel with Catholic conversion and reaching 1444 the first stage of the campaign is done. The goals for the next stage are:

• achieving high degree of religious unity
• creating strong but affordable army, probably involving a lot less cavalry, and soon a bit of artillery
• fixing my economy so I can sustain my country without relying on war reparations
• securing path to the HRE, conquering land from Teutonic Order, Lithuania, and possibly Poland
• defeating hordes properly and starting on the path to China (ignoring hordes and Siberian path is also a possibility)
• breaking Bohemia's alliances with electors, currently 6/7 (otherwise it's too hard to overcome penalties for not being in the HRE)
• forming Russia when tech 15 happens
#eu4

Giving Ming mandate made it quickly go to zero, as Ming is not compact and neighbours everyone. China is basically broken in this mod. Oh well. No idea how Yuan got some land back.

The game removed free missionaries from Jerusalem, Mecca/Medina etc. in 1.25. Like seriously, why? Not even a word in patch notes as far as I can tell. All holy site triggers just commented out without explanation.

That makes religious ideas much more valuable, as it's no longer possible to get free missionaries this way. Also harder to stack prestige modifiers for permanent +100 prestige, which would definitely be useful for HRE game.

Post 9 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-25 01:01:49 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 09: 1458-1470: War of the First Coalition

I have Ming a lot of free mandate by console. It's not their fault that mod didn't really fix Mandate of Heaven's mandate system. I thought once about playing Extended Timeline around time of fall of Yuan, but decided against it when AI observe game showed just this kind of silliness.

EU4 is nowhere near CK2 level of scriptable, but I feel the system should be something like this:

• For every Chinese minor, free core event for any Chinese culture province they occupy. That should work, as there's already an event for this for same culture group and religion against infidels, I even got one core on Orthodox Belarusian province held by Lithuania this campaign. Without this, coring speed is just too slow to end Chinese Civil War in under 200 years. On the other hand pre-made free cores cause AI to use reconquest CB, and that breaks China.
• For emperor, free mandate for every Chinese culture province they conquer. I'm not sure if that's scriptable. If not, maybe free mandate every time they declare unify China war. Or at least like 25 years of like +0.25 monthly mandate modifier when new country takes it to give them some time to set things up. Mandate should not be a problem while you're making progress unifying China.
• Event to ask all minors in East Asia if they want to be tributaries whenever a new power takes throne of China. Mostly to guide AI on the right path, strong or distant ones should probably still say no, but various Korchins and Champas might reasonably decide that sending a bit of mana to get big protector is a perfectly reasonable option.

Once China is mostly unified, this system becomes basically vanilla system.

Back to Muscovy. I attacked Great Horde preparing for a big fight, but their biggest ally Transoxiana white peaced first months due to rebellions. Disconnect between joining logic and peacing out logic sometimes results in such issues.

Not like it mattered, since I attacked Sibir mid-war anyway and Transoxiana rejoined. Sadly I lost Defender of the Faith due to not defending Castile from Morocco. Oh well.

I did proper wrecking, vassalizing Crimea, getting good chunk of Sibir which will be useful for future colonization, and reaching Astrakhan. That accidentally got me over 100% OE as Crimean separatists spawned against the Great Horde, occupied Crimea fort once I peaced them out, and I couldn't transfer it to my vassal Crimea.

This caused massive amount of rebels, and a Sunni coalition. To prevent Lithuania from joining as well, I attacked them as soon as truce timer expired. The solution to both these problems is merc spam. And I actually hit merc limit.

Still far behind on manpower, with rebels spawning everywhere, I got hit by coalition war. Ottomans, Mamluks, Poland, Bohemia, a lot of hordes. Balance of forces is surprisingly even, but I'm actually two mil techs behind as I rushed to get aristocratic.

I'm sure it will be fine. It's even more than fine, as it instantly breaks Bohemia's two elector alliances. It would break their Palatinate alliance too, if bastard honored our alliance.
#eu4

This war should be winnable, I'm just not sure if winning it is worth it. I guess I could also suffer for a while to exhaust them, then make some minor concessions to make them go away.

Post 10 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-27 00:08:01 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 10: 1470-1486: Fall of Lithuania

The coalition war ended with very little bloodshed. I tried fighting while two mil techs behind and very low on manpower, did extremely poorly, so I just agreed to the terms. Hungary returned one province to Wallachia, and another to Byzantium. That's what this was all about, right? Hungary's aggressive expansion.

Sadly Bohemia reallied all the electors the war made them break up with almost right away. Even passed 4th reform, and I'm not making any dent in that voting block. Ottomans soon annexed Wallachia. So it was a bad war.

I also discovered why such a huge coalition. Teutonic Order joined the HRE, and then Mazovia did as well. I didn't notice that, annexed Mazovia, and was confused by all the hate. I think if it wasn't for that, only Sunnis would coalition me, and many like Mamluks were borderline and possible to get out of it. So basically it would be Ottomans and some minors.

Teutons broke Lithuania into tiny Russian principalities, so I cleaned up that region.

After that I took a brief detour into Siberia, getting me all the way to Buryatia's gold mines in armed exploration. While that was going on I got into war with the Golden Horde and its horde buddies, and while that was going also with Avaria who was trying to create second coalition, and their Mamluk buddies.

That went fairly poorly again. My troops were fighting quite well, but Mamluk numbers were inexhaustible, and any kind of offensive meant sieging mountain forts. Fortunately somehow my allies Sweden and Hungary decided halfway through that actually they're totally fine with joining the war, so Avaria got eliminated. I felt like I might be able to fortify Western Caucasus pass, but I only have the lowlands, Ottomans control the hills, and I don't feel like fighting them for it.

New coalition already forming, between Poland, Bohemia, Ottomans, and Gazikumukh. I need new allies to deal with it, and weirdly Mamluks are interested, now that we killed like 100k of each others' troops.

Renaissance cost me all my savings, and then building some barracks, churches, and workshops ate a lot again, but it finally feels like I have some sort of real economy going, even if only earning as much as countries half my size.

For third idea group I took religious. Without free missionaries from various holy cities, it became even more important than before.

I thought about taking diplomatic or influence, but I'm doing so poorly on my HRE goals, it's probably not worth the trouble for now. At least soon I'll be able to form Russia and start colonizing.

Ming got massive injection of free mandate by console twice, but they're back to zero. The mod really needs to implement some alternative mechanics for it. Not sure if I should help Ming even more aggressively by console (like by giving them free tributaries or even annexing Chinese minors), or not.
#eu4

If I ally Mamluks, nobody's font size will be able to challenge ours.

The plan for HRE now is to somehow break Poland for easy Bohemian border, then start kicking minors (Saxony, Silesia etc.) out of Bohemian land.

The plan for China is to colonize Siberia, and provinces a few tiles below it for wider route. I might venture a bit further south for trade and forts, but I can't get any trade from Persia up North.

I could get Indian trade through Samarkand node, and that comes with free merchants from trade companies, but that's still like a century away at best.

Post 11 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-27 20:44:55 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 11: 1486-1498: Russia Enters Age of Reformation

I allied Mamluks and Transoxiana to discourage coalitions. Brandenburg got me into their war with Pomerania, getting me on opposite side as Sweden. I separate peaced that to take Vyborg from Sweden, and got me "Unite Home Region" mission. All Brandenburg got for that was war reparations.

Ottomans supported by Poland attacked Byzantium supported by Naples and Hungary. I joined it by attacking Poland as well. Their provinces were ridiculously overdeveloped so I only took three.

I got admin tech 15 a bit ahead of time, formed Russia, and was able to instantly establish 10 colonies, all maintenance-free. Russian ideas are #1 on the list for a reason. Broken as hell, at least as long as you're near vast uncolonized area.

As soon as I formed Russia I threw Transoxiana under the trampling horse, and allied Sweden again.

With Hussitism still raging on, Protestantism spawned in Hesse. Then Shadow Kingdom hit. So at least I don't have to worry about Bohemia reforming beyond 4 it already passed, but still no way to replace them as emperor.

Elsewhere, Brabant got hit by coalition war led by Utrecht, and won. Track record of coalition wars this campaign is not too great. Castile got completely annexed by its neighbours. Which feels weird, as for a while it was vanilla-sized.
#eu4

That list of 10 colonies, it's just ridiculous, and gets me way ahead in font size race. Campaign goals are happening very slowly, not even close to HRE or China.

Also I've been on permanent negative manpower for so long, I can't hire even one artillery, while other countries prematurely switched to late game army composition with 40%-50% artillery. I wonder if that's because mod never adjusted tech at which that's supposed to happen.

Post 12 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-28 21:29:51 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 12: 1498-1515: Hungarian Succession War

Colonization of Siberia was progressing at very rapid pace. I had a bunch of minor wars at my Southern border mostly for sake of improving trade network.

And then king of Hungary died, Britain got a PU, and I got a popup to challenge it. While at two wars in Central Asia. With no allies, with big debt. 95k vs 210k troops, and 0 vs 233 ships. Damn. At least I had some manpower, at least when the war started.

After I ended my Central Asian wars prematurely, one for cash payout and a few worthless provinces, the other with white peace, I managed to get OPM Palatinate into the war. Then Teutons joined it thanks to "prepare for war" button, so basically at double favors cost.

Mamluks, Sweden, and Bradenburg wanted to do nothing with saving Hungary from British tyranny, and Pope and treasonous Hungarian nobles joined on the enemy side. So much for my alliance network.

Enemy armies walked through Teuton lands and broke through fort of Wizna, but soon I called Teutons in, unsieged Wizna, called in 30k with magic Russian button, got my Central Asian troops home, and basically trapped them all in Livonian area. In battle of Osterode, 68k vs 43k, their army was forced to retreat to Ezel island.

Instead of keeping island crossing safe there, Britain basically abandoned it, and Teuton's tiny fleet overwhelmed what they got there. It's surprising to win a naval fight against Britain without having a single ship.

My brave OPM ally Palatinate also bailed out before that happened. After losing their army and ongoing siege of Wien kicked Austria out of the war. Next stage of the war were plains of Hungary.

After that I had to invade Pope and Burgundy to get them out of the war. It was painful, I spent massive amount of money, manpower, and even sword mana to shut up rebels for a while. England and Portugal wanted to continue the fight, so I had to invade British South France to finally convince them that I'm the rightful tsar of Russia and king of Hungary.

I had to check save game, as in-game there's no information about anyone who peaces out halfway, but 172k of our peasants and 248k of theirs died in this war. This might be my first random PU ever in any EU4 game (not counting Denmark, or PLC which are scripted). Not even sure if I had any in EU3.

Just as the war was ending, over 70k rebels erupted, wanting to install some pretender on Hungarian throne. That's peasant's fate, to keep dying.

This war was a surprise, but even before it started I realized I need to pivot this campaign hard. I need far too much diplo reputation and far too many merchants to get from just ideas.

I'll need to take exploration ideas to get +2 diplomatic reputation from trading in ivory, +1 from policy (that's more that diplomatic or influence would give me), and a lot of merchants. It will take a while, but that's the only way HRE can be saved, and the only way my trade can stop leaking.

HRE is now majority heretic, but unfortunately all the electors are still Catholic, so Bohemia will have no trouble getting reelected. I guess I could wait for leagues to trigger and go Protestant. That feels a bit crazy. Then again, this whole campaign is a series of metamorphoses.
#eu4

If king of Hungary died just 3 months earlier I'd maybe be able to get my allies in.

Normally I'm extremely willing to bail out of costly wars early, but this is the kind of war where I'd totally be willing to rule over ashes in both countries, as long as I won.

Hungary doesn't border me, so Poland is not long for this world.

Awkwardly PU juniors don't seem to increase colonial range. I think vassals used to in early patches, but IIRC they removed that too.
So I'll need to conquer myself some land in Western Europe (Genoa is allied with Poland...), or fight my way to Indian Ocean ports (resulting in likely Delhi-Ottoman-Persia-everybody coalition), or just be patient, colonize Siberia up to Pacific, then hop islands to East Africa where ivory is for diplo rep. Right now the plan is to do all three.

This is HoI4 style encirclement. Teutons weren't sure how fort ZoCs work, so they just spammed so many forts until they got there.

Brandenburg was fighting Poland and Ottomans over that bit of land, so wouldn't help me, but that's at least legitimate excuse. Sweden and Mamluks simply said it's too far for them.

Post 13 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-29 17:41:39 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 13: 1515-1526: Russian Africa

There was a lot of unfinished business to do. I moved my capital to St Petersburg, costing me far too much money. I took enough of Poland to connect me with Hungary, and one province of Italian coast to get me in range of West Africa. It turns out it was just tiny bit too far, fortunately third colonial idea extends my range, so I got a colony there.

I needed missionaries so I embraced counter-reformation, even though mana cost is quite significant.

I fought Transoxiana, and Delhi protected them. That was really bloody, with my units forgetting how to shattered retreat and getting stackwiped (not a single fort there, it was some different bug). In the end Delhi got too exhausted, and thanks to age ability "-25% warscore cost from religious enemies" I managed to fully annex Transoxiana, get a bit beyond Samarkand, but that's already almost big coalition risk, and still very far from the coast.

Delhi then guaranteed Chagatai just to annoy me even further. It wouldn't even be the right direction, just some border cleanup. I could force my way through, but the locals are very effective at making it costly.

I tried to vassalize Khorasan to get their cores back, to maybe expand there with low AE, but my diplomatic reputation is not good enough to get them, and even if I did, alliance and guarantee networks from Ottomans to Persia to Delhi with various minors on the way would make it extremely painful.

The third way of colonizing Siberia to Pacific worked a bit better, I was actually surprised nobody tried to burn down those colonies. They weren't exactly well protected. Trying multiple ways at once, something was likely to work.

Mamluks attacked Ottomans calling me in. On Ottoman side Tunis, Persia, Aq Qoyunlu, and Hormuz. I'm not terribly convinced that's a good idea, but it's a chance to attack Ardabil, guaranteed by Ottomans, and allied with Persia. My main contribution to the war effort was giving Persian troops somewhere to run around, so they left Mamluks alone.

I managed to just barely squeeze enough diplomatic reputation to get Khorasan as vassal, and took Eastern Caucasus approaches with 3 mountain forts. Then I managed to sack Constantinople, and betrayed Mamluks for gold, as those bastards didn't help me when I needed it in war of Hungarian Succession.

I wondered about using my warscore to break them up with Persia instead, but that's too long term thinking for someone 2k gold in debt, and with 3k overdue for next institution.
#eu4

The war would be winnable, at fairly painful cost, but Mamluks were a bad ally previously, and I didn't like how many Turks and Persians were running around my country.

Mamluks were too stupid to even do their part - kicking Tunis, Hormuz, and Aq Qoyunlu out, and actually sieging down wargoal (Cilicia), so it would be all on me to win this, and I'd get none of the reward.

My seizure of Western Caspian Sea coast and mountain forts in it enraged a lot of Middle Eastern minors, hopefully they'll get over it before my truces with Ottomans, Persia, and Delhi expire.

Post 14 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-04-29 23:38:28 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 14: 1526-1537: Great Imperial War

In Mamluk-Ottoman war I left, Mamluks lost 4 provinces to Ottomans and 2 to Aq-Qoyunlu. I got some gold, and Morocco took 3 provinces from Ottoman ally Tunis, so our side did OK except for Mamluks themselves.

I destroyed some old forts and put them in more sensible places. Chasing enemy units all around the Russia is not much fun, and attrition for enemies has been reduced to basically zero.

Well, it was time to deal with Bohemia. Attacked them, and 5 of their elector allies. If my relations with Palatinate weren't broken in previous war I'd be able to dismantle the HRE in this war.

France joined, Sweden only when I paid their debt. Teutons and Mamluks would had no interest.

The deal offered to all electors was the same - break relations with Bohemia, and give me as much gold as you'd like. From Bohemia I took gold, kicked Silesia out of them (at painfully high bird mana cost, I hate how expensive this option is compared with straight conquest), and wargoal province to weaken them a bit further.

This rearrange electors, but not in the way I wanted. Bohemia and Brandenburg were each voting for themselves, somehow Lorraine got one vote, and Luxembourg got 4 votes. That's slightly better than the entrenched Bohemia, but only just.

I tried improving relations with 4 electors who seemed like they could maybe be of some use, but it didn't seem like it was getting anywhere. I got +1 diplomatic reputation from policy, but it seemed like I'd need +4 more to get any votes at all, assuming my legitimacy, prestige, relations and everything eles is maxed out. Well, ivory trade is coming soon.

It's close to last time I can decide to go Protestant and wreck HRE with leagues, otherwise I'll need to stay nice.

Mamluks just called me into another war against Aq Qoyunlu and Ottomans, this time without the rest, so I guess I might try getting closer to India.

Lan Xang took mandate from Ming. It's silly because it's so minor. If Xi takes it, I might let them annex other Chinese states by console.
#eu4

My lines of forts were setup more sensibly this time, so everyone was swarming Hungary instead.

Before the war, Brandenburg and Luxembourg were my allies too, but they're too strong, and have imperial ambitions, so it's against my best interest to keep them.

After the war I dropped France (who lost provinces to Luxembourg in this fight), and allied Palatinate (OPM), Mainz (OPM, theocracy), and Cologne (theocracy), so maybe they'll vote for me? Salzburg (another theocracy) is a possibility too if I get a free slot.

Post 15 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-05-04 12:11:09 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 15: 1537-1551: Kongo Wars

I had a neat plan. Release Mazovia in Warszawa, so it adds itself to the HRE, conquer it and rest of Polish provinces, culture switch Polish, form Poland, move my capital to Warszawa by decision, sneaking my way into the HRE. Well, it would have been even easier with St. Petersburg (other than forcing me to sell multiple provinces for the path, but no tag switches needed), but I totally missed that chance. Unfortunately they closed all capital move loopholes in 1.23. Damn. This campaign is a lot harder than expected.

My army composition this campaign has been about the worst ever - because my army grows in bursts of wrong unit types by button presses instead of by sensible recruitment. This together with how big "insufficient support" penalty is (basically making it better off to disband cavalry than have them hang around) makes my army surprisingly awful.

Well, Mamluks dragged me into another massively painful war against Ottomans and Persia, half a million people dead and they took one 9dev province. I took Khorasan's cores from Persia at least.

As soon as that finished, I started what I always wanted - Kongo and Far East expansion. Kongo doesn't contain any meaningful ivory, but all the minors were allied with Butua in East Africa who does, so it was good to get that out of the way.

There's a lot of Central and East Asian minors I want to conquer, but all are allied or guaranteed by Ottomans, Delhi, or one of the Chinese majors. It's really awkward, as my army is third in Africa, third in Caucasus, and third in Far East, so if I fight anyone I'll be at a local disadvantage.

At least I managed to snipe was Ardalan when it got involved in some war on the wrong side of its guarantor. I could either wait for such opportunities, or recruit more soldiers and have a proper showdown.

After all my efforts, Bohemia still won elections, with 2 votes, with Luxembourg, and Palatinate getting 2 as well, and somehow Lorraine getting one. I hoped the emperor would at least switch, allowing me some different shenanigans.

All electors remained Catholic, so basically all my attempts at getting into the HRE the nice way failed. Even ivory and diplomatic or influence won't be enough. If nothing useful happens by age of absolutism I guess I'll just force my way in. Annoyingly I can't even start messing with China before I make myself HRE hereditary emperor.

At least my economy and manpower finally seems to be in order.
#eu4

Ottomans are allied with Persia and Delhi, and overall there's very dense network of alliances and guarantees all the way to Korea.

I'd like to confront them all directly, but there's no good opening.

Post 16 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-05-04 21:14:07 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 16: 1551-1566: End of Siberian Frontier

I picked a fight with Aq Qoyunlu and Ottomans to distract them, then moved in against my actual target, Persia. After massive piles of peasant bodies on both sides, I got Khorasan access to Indian Ocean, as well as 6 forts, 5 of them in mountains.

Then after some minor Kongo fights, I did the same thing - distract Delhi, then attack countries in its sphere. Delhi's army was fighting ridiculously poorly, and I was baffled why.

And then another one, cleaning up Ardabil, and taking all money Persia had as well as their Ottoman alliance.

End result of all that will be either big wedge between Ottomans and Delhi letting me crush either of them whenever I want with the other one unable to help, or a massive global coalition to stop me.

I got 2 merchants from exploration, but so far only 5% global ivory trade of 20% needed. I don't have any strategic good bonuses except furs (+0.5 annual prestige) yet.

I remembered that I can buy 1 diplo rep from the pope, so I'm about 3 diplo rep away from getting 2 HRE votes. So ivory and influence ideas, and keeping OE low during elections, and I might, well, still lose to Bohemia as 2 votes are not enough. But it's a start.

I started setting up a CN in North America, as pope granted all good South American lands to Portugal. I guess I could try Australia and Alaska later. There's nobody left for Siberian frontier, so it's a fine time to switch ideas.

If anyone I could tag switch to had +2 diplo reputation in their ideas, I'd be extremely tempted. Sadly options are Aachen (not formable), Austria (formable by Styria only), Rome (WC project), and Jerusalem (formable by Provence, Cyprus, or The Knights only). So I guess going Occitan, becoming Provence, then conquering Palestine and becoming Jerusalem is an option. There's also time limit on Jerusalem, before absolutism.

I even looked at any +1 diplo reputation countries which wouldn't be too much hassle to switch to. Muscovy is one, but that ship has sailed. Same with Russian minors, generally not formable. Khorasan has it once I annex them. I guess I could go Norway without too much trouble, and that's no diplo rep but an extra colonist.
#eu4

My African and Asian empires highly visible. I have a very cunning idea on how to flip Eastern religion, but first I'll need to become hereditary HRE emperor. Then again, my cunning ideas have very poor track record this campaign.

The Fetishish part of Africa will all go, and that should be enough for 3 merchants and ivory bonus. I'll probably leave African Sunnis alone for coalition reasons. Well, unless my ivory calculations are off.

I have less of a plan in Asia, just opportunistic land grabs. I'm definitely cleaning up Tengri and Buddhists, as these are bottom tier religions. Not sure if I'd rather go Confucian or Shinto for my China wars.

Post 17 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-05-05 22:09:53 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 17: 1566-1585: New Russia

I finally got decent manufactory suggestion script working. Value of manufactory is increase in trade income plus increase in production income. Game calculates trade graph monthly, and that data goes into save file, so I can get perfectly accurate trade value information by just linear interpolation of saved data. In-game that's not available in any way whatsoever.

Then I need to add production information. That's not cached, so I need to redo all calculations from scratch. I only properly included half the factors (autonomy, current price, estates, workshops), and just ballpark estimated the rest (prosperity, tech, ideas, largest producer bonus, merchant republics, corruption, war exhaustion etc.). Ironically production income gain is displayed exactly in-game, so OCRing a screenshot for production + save game for trade would get exact numbers. Or just including twenty more factors manually.

Script's numbers were very surprising, suggesting about huge number of places with 50 year or better ROI. Novgorod is still only third most valuable trade node after the English Channel and Alexandria.

Back to the game, I did the similar distract war / actual war trick against Shun, Korea, and their tributaries. Unfortunately I miscounted OE and suffered 101% OE for no good reason.

My African armies were bored, so I gave them holidays in North America. Because institutions broke natives, the moment I got a border with those bastards everyone chain westernized ten tribes deep, literally one day after previous tribe, getting all the institutions and a lot of techs for free.

I took influence ideas for +2 diplo rep. Ivory got to only 14% of required 20% even after all that effort. I think I overestimated how easy it would be. My only strategic goods are furs, iron, and copper. I'm top producer of ivory, livestock, salt, and wool, but not enough to get the bonus for any of them yet.

It seemed like maybe I'd start to get somewhere in the HRE, but I got dragged into war between electors. After that 4 electors are just close to voting on me. Ivory and getting that vote at time when I'm at 0% OE, 100 prestige, and 100 legitimacy might just work.

Great Britain got PU over Burgundy. Portugal challenge that and failed. The way PU wars are setup, challengers always always lose since defender gets the junior and all their allies, and challenger is on their own in offensive war.

After that Portuguese Mexico and Portuguese Brazil rebelled against Portugal, with Mexico only winning. I'm not sure how that worked exactly, independence wars are all or none normally. Britain also took over Portuguese Caribbean.

Hsenwi took over China from Lan Xang. Ming got fully annexed by another Chinese minor. I'm quite annoyed that Xi, who's obviously the main power in China at 796dev, is not even trying (4th GP after me, Britain, and Delhi).

I weakened Persia so much everyone piled up to take as much as they can. In retrospect it seems pointless, what I wanted was land in Indian trade nodes, and I got close to none.
#eu4

Here's the HRE 229 years in. Bohemia still in charge somehow. Cologne, Salzburg, Mainz, and Palatinate are still my allies.

Oh and Sweden broke our alliance due to that silly border claims event firing over and over. It's really incompatible with the new mission system, which gives permanent claims like it's candy.

Cologne, Austria, and Salzburg expanded recently, while Brandenburg and Bohemia shrunk a lot.

Post 18 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-05-07 23:59:18 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 18: 1585-1594: Hereditary Holy Roman Emperor

I finally got ivory bonus, and just as predicted that resulted in 3 votes. That was some extremely long term plan. I got Albenga in 1516, and that set me on the path to ivory bonus nearly a century later. It would have been far easier to just take diplomatic into influence, but I can't say no to good colonization.

In 1588 I got just barely elected. The empire's a mess with 23/36 princes heretics, 10 provinces in foreign hands, wars raging endlessly, many won by heretics.

I couldn't even end my own wars for a while due to OE limit. In 1594 I finally cored everything, and passed two reforms at once. I don't think I can even do that much about the heretics. Passing the reforms disables wars against other princes, and enforces religious peace, and in any case a lot of them blobbed far beyond 100% warscore cost, so I can't even convert them easily.

Maybe I'll pick up some minor fights like with Sweden, France, or Venice to slightly reduce extent of the heresies, and get that Finish claims mission done.

Absolutism starts soon. Also Imperialism CB. The mod forgot to move it, so it's still at dip tech 23, which is just a few years ahead, and already there for the Ottomans.

Ottomans and Delhi are just slightly below coalition joining limit, so I don't have to worry much, but a lot of minors in Africa and New World hate me, so it would be nice to clean this up.

And now that I don't need to stay Catholic, I can start thinking about further metamorphoses.
#eu4

Post 19 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-05-12 00:17:54 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 19: 1594-1609: North German Federation

It was time to celebrate my emperorship with a nice war with Sweden. I setup Finland, flipped two HRE OPMs, and released Pomerania, sadly heretic. Meissen went Catholic on their own.

I did some border cleanup in Persia, Africa, and Central Asia as well. I'm not in China yet, but I got most of Mongolia and Manchuria regions. I got into one war with two biggest Chinese states to distract them from their tributaries, but then I white peaced them, with major losses on both sides.

But really, I had to decide what I'm going to do with the HRE. I decided to play Vic2 and diplovassalized whoever I can, but set them to passive so they don't get involved in my wars. Vassal swarms are somewhat OP.

Out of 38 member, there's me, 20 vassals, 6 free cities impossible to diplovassalize anyway, and 11 countries I'll still need to do something about. As my vassals flipped Catholic - some by event, some by interaction button (not sure how that event works), that decently increased my IA gain.

I should be able to diplovassalize a few more. The rest are mostly possible to convince through Revoking the Privilegia. Only Austria would be a definite no without major military intervention.

I got policy for cheap culture conversion (-25% adjacent province, -25% religious ideas, -20% policy, and some discounts from admin efficiency), and dumped a lot of points into reeducating peasants.

I just got imperialism CB nearly a century early thanks to mod coding mistake. The era of absolutism is coming soon now, so I'll focus on Court and Country.
#eu4

Main benefit of diplovassalizing minors is that I won't have to fight them when I'm breaking apart Austria and recovering lost imperial land.

It would be really nice to get control over English Channel instead of leaking so much trade from Novgorod, but that feels like a bit of a distraction from main goals in the East.

Post 20 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-05-18 22:13:10 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 20: 1609-1626: Court and Country

I tried something, but AI invented a new cheat. I attacked Pope, cobeligerenting problematic HRE members. They didn't join right away, instead they joined a few weeks later - as non-cobeligerents, so I couldn't do proper country release.

Unfortunately there's no real workaround that I know of, so I released my vassal swarm at the damn cheaters. It delayed absolutism by a few months. Even worse I didn't notice that Aquileia held by Austria was actually non-HRE (HRE map mode is really bad at showing that), probably due to the Shadow Kingdom, so I lost a province of the empire.

I still got 3 vassals, took some land from Venice, broke down all problem countries except Austria, Lubeck, and Switzerland. Sadly the only way to do that was returing land to my vassals, and that generated ridiculous coalitionable level of hatred from half of Europe. Oh well.

Well, might as well clean up the rest of outstanding European issues. I got 4 more vassals, and got all provinces except ones held by Britain.

While I was waiting for Court and Country to finish I integrated Hungary and Khorasan, finished my African affairs, started colonizing Malacca node, and took big chunk of Mexico.

The mod makes HRE a lot harder by moving minimum IA for reform from 50 to 75. It sounds simple enough, but excess IA gives extra reasons to vote for reform, so that is now down from +50 to just +25 at 100 IA. That's equivalent to massive 5 diplomatic reputation points.

Under vanilla rules I should be able to get everyone to vote for reforms. With the mod, there's no way to get Austria without breaking them down further, and it will be a big challenge to get Lubeck and Switzerland. So unfortunately this forced me to take diplomatic ideas, 3 diplo in a row.

Next will probably be humanist to help me shenanigan, but that's a few techs ahead. This campaign was supposed to be about transformation shenanigans, and due to slow HRE I barely did any of that.

As for other world news, Aragon and France fought succession war over OPM Sicily.
#eu4

5 out of 8 great powers choose green, Portuguese really similar shade of green. Fortunately Portugal is currently getting wrecked by Andalusia, so that problem will go away.

It turns out the old "move capital to an island to not lose any mandate" trick no longer works. This campaign is endless list of discoveries that something got nerfed (often deservedly). I border most great powers, so I'll need to think about setting up some long term buffer states, especially against Delhi.

But first I need to finish HRE reforms. I don't want to delay it forever, so if the only way is to get everyone's vote except Austria's, I'll just conquer Austria the old fashioned way.

Post 21 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-05-19 09:21:35 UTC

Holy Celestial Russian Yuan: Part 21: 1626-1634: Revoking the Privilegia

I had a few years until annexed vassals modifier expired, and until I could fill the rest of diplomatic ideas.

So first, some unfinished business with Austria - Bohemian cores they hold. I also took some land from Portugal, but mostly just went on high speed.

After that I allied three problem countries - Austria, Lubeck, and Switzerland, and thanks to +10 diplomatic reputation I stacked as well as buckets of gold got everyone to vote for me.

Now at this point there was supposed to be the whole form Yuan become China business, but:

• the campaign took far longer than expected (1356-1634 is 278 years)
• China is derped - U-Tsang holds mandate, nobody wants to challenge them
• my non-HRE vassals (Finland and Yuan) are derped, counting HRE vassals to their power
• there would be zero challenge whatsoever
• the fun tricks I planned to use got nerfed

I think it's best to end this without technically achieving the goals.

As for my original plans:
• I was going to vassalize HRE before changing religion, otherwise hard to get the votes at -20 penalty
• Take Constantinople, move capital there
• Go Sunni
• Take some Confucian lands, start Dhimmi revolt - possibly a few of those
• Hopefully have them reach my capital (can't move it out of HRE, so can't move it out of Europe)
• Go Confucian
• start gathering tributaries
• move capital to Cyprus or something to avoid neighbouring non-tributary penalty
• take China from whichever minor holds it
• go Uzbek culture, form Yuan
• then switch to some Chinese culture so all of China is accepted
• pass some reforms, clean up borders, have a nice finish

Unfortunately island capital trick no longer works, so instead I'd need to keep blobbing until no other great power is left, and I don't really find that late game blobbing terribly fun. Can't win them all I guess.

Overall, I quite liked the 1356 mod for novelty value, but they really need to sort out China and Hussites, right now both mechanics are doing poorly. It's not even modders' fault, mandate mechanic only does anything when Ming-sized China exists with nobody to challenge them, and it's difficult to see how to fix it.
#eu4

From Colombia North it's my CNs, Peru, Brazil, and Rio Da Prata are revolting from Portuguese rule. All look about equally green.

No interesting wars between AIs are happening, everyone just uses imperialism CB on random minors. I hoped I'd get some openings to move against Ottomans, Delhi, or China when they're busy, but AI is such a coward.

Nearly everyone converted to accepted culture, Muscovite, Polish, or Uzbek. In the end, none of that mattered.