mraltair wrote:I've only played 5 years so there's nothing to tell yet but I've been making friends and selling off my relatives like a Frey. I've also decided to try and become a trading superpower rather than colonising the unknown world, again, because I've not done it before.

Perfect!

1 coloniser, 1 trader, and 1 warmongering despot.

The last one's me, just in case you didn't guess!

I take it we're playing on normal settings? I normally turn off lucky nations to give variety chance.

Well, I stated a new game as Castile. I conquered a fair whack of N. Africa, all of Portugal except for Lisbon(a?), a wee bit of southern France and set up a mini-Empire in Italy with a few forced vassalisations. Each time I told myself I could get away with a little bit more infamy. Then in the mid 1430s it got to about 35 and I lost all my allies and seemingly the entire world declared war on me, even counties like Naples who I saved from being vassals themselves.

Spearthrower wrote:

Thommo wrote:

Shagz wrote:Some other intermediate things of interest are I managed to get the Duchy of Holstein, which starts as Denmark's vassal, to integrate, gaining their two provinces. Denmark is poor at this point; I managed to save up 360 ducats, but then got some bad luck when Holstein had 2 peasant revolts in quick succession, causing a 16,000 peasant strong army to appear. My army was much smaller, and I had to blow over 250 ducats on mercs to finally defeat that huge peasant army.

What's Denmark's Serfdom/free citizens position like? Not worth just giving in to their demands? Mercs are so expensive

The funny thing is (having just looked) - Denmark is already into the free subjects side. Normally, any nation I play I would be working towards Free Subjects.... but in this game, I am seriously thinking about moving towards serfdom in the early game to complete the national decisions, and to get cheap troops.

Still might be cheaper to concede to the peasant's demands though, 250 ducats on mercs is a lot of money. One can always piss off the nobles later and give in to their demands too for some easy slider moves to aristocracy and serfdom. Though I think nobles want cash too, so that comes at a price.

The other thing I thought of is that peasant armies are weak, with no leader, no cavalry and no reinforcements. A smaller force can whittle them away by fighting and retreating. Losing battles versus rebels costs nothing but manpower and builds up army tradition quite nicely anyway. Presumably Shagz can afford the manpower as he's been quite peaceable.

MacIver wrote:Well, I stated a new game as Castile. I conquered a fair whack of N. Africa, all of Portugal except for Lisbon(a?), a wee bit of southern France and set up a mini-Empire in Italy with a few forced vassalisations. Each time I told myself I could get away with a little bit more infamy. Then in the mid 1430s it got to about 35 and I lost all my allies and seemingly the entire world declared war on me, even counties like Naples who I saved from being vassals themselves.

This is the same problem I get as Castille, high infamy. I think they are such a stable and rich power you can build a moderate army and conquer all these little nations without breaking a sweat. It gets too tempting to take just one more province though.

So, here's the Kingdom of Denmark at the beginning of the game:



There's Holstein to the south, a very jarring pink that we will need to do something about as soon as possible.

To our North lies the Kingdom of Norway - a steadfast, placid sort of nation. I expect they'll be doing absolutely nothing until I finally convince them we'd work better under my rule.

Our other personal union lies to the North East. Sweden; our dear friend, compatriot, brother in arms.... and is just itching to stab us in the back.

The problem is twofold. Denmark's economy is weak, and their manpower & forcelimits are not impressive. Sweden knows it's the big boy in this relationship, and it's going to be very hard to convince them otherwise.

As I see it, there are 3 possibilities here. Either: let Sweden go its own merry way, let Sweden insult and break the union, then reclaim the union with a cassus belli also taking some provinces to rebalance the forcelimits in our favour. The last way is to grow quickly to increase those forcelimits and standing army to a reasonable enough size that Sweden stops its whinging.

As a positive corollary to this strategy, when Unions are in a mutual war, they don't spam each other with insults. However, it makes inheritance a lot more difficult, and then there's the obvious dangers of war weariness and being spanked back to the stone age by large invasion forces.

So something must be done if I want to play Warmonger.... but what? Well, let's look at the economy.

As the first pic shows, we have a meagre 49 ducats, we lose 1.01 per month, but our net gain is a whopping 16.52 ducats!

Looking in the ledger, I find that most of our income is from taxes - and it's probably not going to change for a while.

So here's the only answer: Minting.

Now, I know from my own experience and from reading here that people avoid minting like the plague when it accrues inflation. Inflation just looks scary, with its spiralling costs. But that cost is there for a reason - it makes you far stronger than you ought to be. I think there's an important maxim with inflation in this game: if you gain inflation by minting towards an objective, then it's fine. It's when you are gaining inflation just to stay afloat that's the problem. Really, 10% more isn't an awful lot if you can recover that quickly by improving your holdings, and therefore income.

So I am going to mint. Luckily, there was a level 2 Master of the Mint - that 0.04% might not be a lot, but every little helps at this point. I am going to mint enough to build a stack of 15 units - 60% inf and 40% cav.

I am also going to be building a ship every year because I intend to make this my personal pond. The Rome of the North!

I am also aware that my technology is going to suffer in the early game - this is unavoidable when balanced by the benefits of expansion.

So, now I've decided a general strategy, I need to look at my sliders:



Denmark have rather middle of the road sliders. I actually think this is quite nice as you can start to put your strategies into play immediately. However, it also means that you are probably far away from your goals.

I expect that we'll see narrowminded, plutocracy, free subjects, and possibly even naval from the other 2 players here. For a western nation, these are the strong slider moves. However, I think I am going to stay fairly aristocratic - I want tyranny, and no one does tyranny better than a feudal state.

I am also going to do something highly contentious. I am going to move towards Serfdom. While I ultimately want free subjects as it's much more powerful, there is 1 primary reason: Adopt Vornedskap decision adds 10% tax income (but you need to be on serf-free -2). It's not a lot, but it's thematic and I'd never heard of it before looking at the game. I don't plan on moving my sliders there, but you usually get a lot of event choices in the game where you either pay a small amount of money, or get aristocratic/serfdom gain - so I plan to get there for free, then use later slider moves to bring it back to freer subjects.

Fortunately, this strategy actually ties in partly, as I will need cheap troops in the early game. Really, they're just for show to keep Sweden off my back, and to grab some choice lands

I will focus on centralising my Kingdom, and improving the quality and offensiveness of my troops. Naval can stay where it is for now, but if I get an event, I will move towards land.


And that's the pre-game natter done. My first move is to buy a low level admiral, send my boats out to the Oresund to await my 3 troops being loaded.

And declare war on the Teutonic Order.

/cliffhanger

Good luck vs Teutonic Order

Teutonic order won't be a problem I think, it's those HRE allies that are going to be a problem.

Can't help wondering whether the weaker provinces of the western British Isles wouldn't make a safer first fight to pick!

Good luck Spearthrower.

ETA: Yeah, Ulster, Connaught and Leinster for 24 badboy looks really appealing. Closer to the New World, all decent provinces, generating only one new land neighbour of any significance, none of them with any allies on day 1 and none with enough manpower to field more than 1k-2k troops.

Seems like a good way of avoiding hassles with the HRE. Wonder if membership status could even be beneficial, shouldn't be hard to head south from Ireland then to the non-HRE western European areas, and/or wait for union of Scandinavia before pushing for lands to the East of the HRE. Should make the central home territories quite safe maybe.

The war commences with Sweden trying to take Gotland - not what I had planned, so I unfortunately forgot *cough* to send my ships to aid him as the Order's 11 galleys swooped in. Meanwhile, my 3k troops end up in Osel.

In December, the Order manage to get some alliances together, and Hungary declares, followed shortly later by Transylvania. I know from playing the Golden Horde recently that they've got other things on their mind. No worries.

8 January 1400 - Bohemia honors their alliance... oh dear! They clearly joined the Order knowing full well they were at war. Oh well, this might not turn out so well after all!

4 April - Osel falls - troops sent to Gotland.

22 April - Sweden lands troops in Estland.

24 April - 23,000 Bohemian troops are apparent just beyond the borders of my new ally, Pommerania. I wonder if Pommerania are stupid brave enough to join the fight. Yes, indeed the fools brave warriors leap to send their 5k into the advancing stacks of doom. Bohemia proceeds to siege all of Pommerania, while their troops flee to siege the Order they're now at war with.

13 July - Teutons are squealing already and come begging for peace. I didn't realise at this point, but they've spent so much on troops that they've already got at least 1 loan, have -1 stability, and trouble's brewing.

5 September - Fall of Gotland.

9 October - With Bohemia having captured all of Pommerania, they decide to advance into the Order's lands. Looking at my options, I concede defeat with them - Teutons are the boss in this war - and they take it. Prestige and Legitimacy hit, but it's not a major problem. Better to get rid of those now 30k troops!

3 Feb 1401 - Aided by Pommerania (I clicked assault to abuse his 5k troops), Danzig falls. On to Warmia. Meanwhile, Teuton and Sweden clash in the north, in Winter, and their armies evaporate... Muahahah! 2 birds with 1 stone!

22 March - 10k Danes are now in the Order's lands causing havoc. Rape and pillage, pillage and rape!

6 April - 6k Estonian patriots leap up and recapture Estland from Sweden... a rather useful opportunity for me to grab it back for myself!

22 April - Peace with Silesia (there's a bunch more minors that declared on me but I didn't comment - they're mere peons!

6 May - Estonian Patriots return from being spanked in Novgorod to Estland just as my 3k siege force arrives. Very luckily, I beat their 6k troops which were already low on morale, and they bounce back to Novgorod - perhaps this is when tennis was invented?

1 June - Finally get to 3 stability (nearly all my income is being minted) and invest all into Government. When i say 'all' I mean all 1.9 that's not being minted! Govt 4 due in 1423! Hmmm. Shan't hold my breath.

10 July - 9k Danes destroy the remaining 7k Teutons, with considerable difficulty thanks to their 3 shock general.

18 July - Warmia falls. As Ostpreussen is being sieged by Pommerania, I move on to Memel.

9 Aug - Pommerania stops sieging Ostpreussen for no apparent reason, so I sneak in 1k infantry.

27 Oct - Finally, an heir to the throne - Ulrik Gryf shall inherit a greater Denmark!

2 Dec - Pommerania stupidly accepts white peace and trundles off back home empty-handed.

24 March 1402 - Ostpreussen falls.

6 April - Memel falls.

6 July 1402 - with a warscore of 64% I accept Teuton's defeat. Terms of agreement: The Teutonic Order will cede Gotland, Osel, and Danzig to Denmark, and cancel all treaties with Bohemia.

At the end of that really quite intense war (I only had 3k troops for the first year!) I ended with 1.2% inflation, just over 200 ducats in the pot (I was getting 75 ducats a year with War Taxes), and 10,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, 15 galleys, and 6 cogs.

What I am going to do next is completely undecided, and I won't be updating again until next weekend! So I might follow what other's suggest - Ireland sounds very interesting!

No fancy pictures from me this time, nothing really to see, probably next time. Just an update on my first day as Denmark. I'll spoiler it so those that aren't interested can skip over it easily.

Haha. Teutonic Order is deceptively difficult to fight with all their allies. I also wasn't sure how Denmark's small army would cope with their ability to recruit quite quickly. You seem to have done well in your 1st war though Spearthrower, and what an impressive loot

mraltair wrote:Haha. Teutonic Order is deceptively difficult to fight with all their allies. I also wasn't sure how Denmark's small army would cope with their ability to recruit quite quickly. You seem to have done well in your 1st war though Spearthrower, and what an impressive loot

I have to say that it was a dastardly and despicable war. I kept using Norway's and particularly Sweden's troops to cover my advances and protect what I'd claimed. I also let the Order sink a lot of their ships simply because I was busy guarding straits armies can walk over.

I feel so terrible.... so terribly despicable! Muahaha.


Actually, I was surprised when the Order fielded 12k troops! I thought it was game over then, but it really hurt them financially, and losing them threw their nation into troubles. I didn't write much above about it, but I had to keep sending units back to fight off or recapture rebel sieges.

Thommo wrote:Still might be cheaper to concede to the peasant's demands though, 250 ducats on mercs is a lot of money. One can always piss off the nobles later and give in to their demands too for some easy slider moves to aristocracy and serfdom. Though I think nobles want cash too, so that comes at a price.

It wasn't actually an event caused by the sliders. It was a revolt caused by nationalism in the province of Holstein, which I had just diplo annexed. They weren't actually "peasants"; I think the game called them "particularists".
I had something like a 7% chance per year of a revolt because of nationalism. I had not only one revolt, but two, both in the same week!

Denmark doesn't have very much manpower at start. I could have tried to whittle them down with a small army, but it would have taken a long time. I chose to just spend the money and use mercs to get rid of it quickly. 250 does seem like a lot, but I am getting about 25-30 a year right now, plus some income from making high level advisors and letting other countries hire them. I also made 100 from my war with the Hansa, and made some from war taxes during the war, so now I've made that money back and then some.

Shagz wrote:

Thommo wrote:Still might be cheaper to concede to the peasant's demands though, 250 ducats on mercs is a lot of money. One can always piss off the nobles later and give in to their demands too for some easy slider moves to aristocracy and serfdom. Though I think nobles want cash too, so that comes at a price.

It wasn't actually an event caused by the sliders. It was a revolt caused by nationalism in the province of Holstein, which I had just diplo annexed. They weren't actually "peasants"; I think the game called them "particularists".
I had something like a 7% chance per year of a revolt because of nationalism. I had not only one revolt, but two, both in the same week!

Oh, I see! Particularists are a lot worse than peasants, they give crappy decentralisation shifts if you negotiate with them. They are also much harder to overwhelm with a small force as they have a leader and reinforce.

@Spearthrower: A warmongering Denmark! Pretty impressive, considering how weak they start out. I'll be interested to see how the world reacts to all the infamy you get, and how quickly your tech goes up and how hard it will become for you to raise stability.

@mraltair: Your game is going similarly to mine. I had a war about the same time as you. PU with Ukraine is pretty cool and unusual, though.

Thommo wrote:Oh, I see! Particularists are a lot worse than peasants, they give crappy decentralisation shifts if you negotiate with them. They are also much harder to overwhelm with a small force as they have a leader and reinforce.

Actually, they must have been "nationalists", since it was a revolt caused by nationalism. I'm not sure, though.

Spearthrower wrote:I take it we're playing on normal settings? I normally turn off lucky nations to give variety chance.

I'm playing hard difficulty, with random lucky nations.

Shagz wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:I take it we're playing on normal settings? I normally turn off lucky nations to give variety chance.

I'm playing hard difficulty, with random lucky nations.

Aha! Bit late now.... I started on normal, no lucky.

Shagz wrote:@[color=#CC0000][b]Spearthrower:[/b][/color] A warmongering Denmark! Pretty impressive, considering how weak they start out. I'll be interested to see how the world reacts to all the infamy you get, and how quickly your tech goes up and how hard it will become for you to raise stability.

I am not too worried about infamy as I don't plan on being a trader - I'll just stay under the cap, and use a diplomat to keep it low. Actually, my most frequently used advisors after the initial phase of the game are Master of Mint, Philosopher, Diplomat

As for stability - if I get big enough quickly, I will take Church Attendance Duty as my 1st NI - it's a frequent pick for me. I've had monstrous empires that can recover a stab hit in just a few months thanks to building churches everywhere and having CAD.

Shagz wrote:@[color=#CC0000][b]Spearthrower:[/b][/color] A warmongering Denmark! Pretty impressive, considering how weak they start out. I'll be interested to see how the world reacts to all the infamy you get, and how quickly your tech goes up and how hard it will become for you to raise stability.

I'm with you. I'd like to see how difficult/easy it is to make a powerful Denmark through war. As Spearthrower isn't too fussed about infamy it may look like a red and white steam roller taking a bee-line through Europe

Shagz wrote:@[color=#CC0000][b]mraltair:[/b][/color] Your game is going similarly to mine. I had a war about the same time as you. PU with Ukraine is pretty cool and unusual, though.

Unusual things happen when you sell your relatives to Eastern Europe, I can tell you.