It's 1453. Let's Stumble through an alternative Swedish history!

[Aardvark]

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/6173/constantinevj0.jpg

It is the Year of Our Lord 1453.

Europe is awakening from the dark slumber of the Middle Ages.

The news from western Europe is of fractured Kingdoms and constant warfare. Here in the west, new ways of thinking are being born amidst the violence. Ways of thinking that will open up new worlds.

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/3430/eur_south.jpg

In the east, city-states squabble in the Russian heartlands.

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/9159/eur_north.jpg

And towards Arabia, the Ottoman Empire lurks.

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/9454/eurasia.jpg

In the northern parts of this fractured arena lies a nation struggling to retain independence in the face of would-be overlords. Sweden is fighting for its life, and may yet take more than it gives!

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/6103/flag1.jpg

CONTENTS:

I. War of Danish Aggression and Karl VIII 1453-1456 A.D. (http://forums.multiplay.co.uk/showthread.php?p=703940#post703940)
First Danish War. Death of Karl VIII, Karl IX ascends the throne.
II. First Eastern War and Karl IX 1456-1466 A.D. (http://forums.multiplay.co.uk/showthread.php?p=705440#post705440)
War on Novgorod. Karl IX proves his warfare credentials.

[Aardvark]

An Introduction:

What is this thread about?:
This is a playthrough of me attempting to wrestle Sweden through 500-odd years of history. No doubt there will be success and failure on the way, here's hoping its INTERESTING success or failure.

We're going to start in 1453, hopefully, and go all the way up to World War II, spanning 3 games by those nice chaps at Paradox Interactive.

What games?
Europa Universalis III, Victoria, and Hearts of Iron 2.
(All with relevant expansion packs)

Tell me about Europa Universalis III.
This is Paradox's flagship game about the Rennaissance and Age of Exploration. With the Napoleon's Ambition expansion pack it runs from 1453-1820. It's very detailed and totally dynamic. Take your nation from feudal lords and pikemen to a constitutional republic, cannons, and massed infantry fire. You can, if you know what you're doing, turn the Ottoman Turks into a colonial power, colonize New York, and rename it New Baghdad.

Tell me about Victoria.
Victoria is the only game ever made where you can turn the Republic of Texas into a brutal communist dictatorship and conquer the world. There, I knew that would get your attention. Victoria, with the Revolutions expansion pack, runs from 1836-1936. If you think the other Paradox games have depth, wait until you've been hit by the minutae of the Victoria economic and population model.

Tell me about Hearts of Iron 2
With the Doomsday expansion pack it takes the series up to around 1953. It's World War II, and the fallout thereof. And fallout is the operative word, because here is where we get nukes and rain firey death down upon people we don't like.

Or I guess we could go for appeasement, whatever...


This is all so confusing!
I'm trying to stick to the narrative thread rather then get bogged down in gameplay minuate. There are a LOT of events and minor goings on I'm not going to mention or even touch on. If I did we'd be here for the next fifteen years. Still, if you have any gameplay mechanics questions, do ask, and I'll do my best to answer.

What country are you playing?
We'll be playing the Kingdom of Sweden, tucked away in the north where we can live in peace and oh wait it appears we're at war before we even start, hi Denmark, hi Norway, love your work...

Who's your King?
Karl VIII. One in a long line of noble Karls.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3955/karl_viii.jpg

May 30, 1453. And wouldn't you just know it, we're at war with the Danes and Norwegians. Time to get the house in order and stand by to repel boarders, then.

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/9619/advisorscb2.jpg

Karl VIII is moderately handy in the fields of Military and Administration, and bloody useless at Diplomacy. And we wonder why we're at war. Oh well, at least he has some likely chaps to tell him what to do. We can have three Great Men as advisors at any time and each month they’ll add the stated amount to their specialized investment.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1814/economy.jpg

This is the economy of the Kingdom in 1453. The vast majority of our income comes from taxes and very little from production and trade. We can divide our monthly income up anyway we please, and we begin by focusing on improving our government technology. You’ll notice we're not making much cash right now, but steps will be taken to remedy this. Not at all due to spoils of war. No sir, we are a peaceful nation at heart.

We could up the treasury slider to mint more cash, but the more we do that the more inflation we’ll gain, and that can cause long term damage to our economy.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9194/sliderseq7.jpg

These are the national policies of the Kingdom. One slider may be moved one click once every sixteen years. More advanced governments can move the slider more often. It also costs one stability to move the slider. There are many trade offs for each slider. We move the Offensive slider one to the left. We're currently in a war so lets start bringing the fight to the enemy.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7751/slidereffectyx5.jpg

As we’re to the left of centre right now we get bonuses to army morale and leader shock and penalties to artillery cost. I'll explain why morale and shock are good things to make better when we start to hit people with sticks later.

The state of play as we begin looks like this:

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1356/war2_aims.jpg

The Danes have a strong army of 8,000 men led by their king Christian I lurking just over the border in Halland. Luckily, we have comparable numbers with a little to spare, though Norway have several thousand men waiting in their capital province of Akershus.

My priorities at this stage are to initially avoid being overrun, then hopefully push back and gain the provinces we have cores on, namely Skane, Halland and Jamtland. A 'core' province is considered part of your nation, though multiple nations can have cores on one province. If another country controls a province that you consider to be a core, you have a cassus belli on them, allowing you to go to war with less penalty to your national stability.

Core provinces also produce units of your national type, and produce more income. You gain cores on provinces by fabricating claims with spies (expensive) or by owning a province for 50 years.

So, step 1 is 'don't die', step 2 is 'take back our ancestor's land!'. Lets get cracking then. First things first, King Karl uses the war as an excuse to levy extra war taxes on the nation. This increases war exhaustion slightly, but as we intend to end this war quickly this shouldn't matter too much.

Feeling suitably enriched, King Karl heads for Skane. But wait, those pesky Danes have beaten us to the punch and are sieging Smaland!

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/8129/war3_repel.jpg

Best wade in there and repel them. Karl leads his men personally, and the besieging army is summarily ejected back over the border. Now, to go on the offensive:

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3259/war4_attack.jpg

Karl settles down for the siege of Skane, having repelled the armies outside the capital's walls. Meanwhile, some daring Germanic entrepreneurs like the look of the trade opportunities on offer from a warring Sweden:

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4149/war5_hanseaticinvite.jpg

Joining the Hanseatic League raises our standing with Mecklenburg and Saxony, as well as helping with our trade income. Foreign policy at this stage consists of 'be nice to everyone we don't plan to invade right now', so we happily join up.

Meanwhile, the Norwegians are getting frisky, but are being repelled with little strain at present:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/384/war6battlereppf3.jpg

Elsewhere, the Danes are trying their best to break the siege of Skane.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/8066/war8skanesiegesw3.jpg
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5669/war9battleskaneuc9.jpg
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1628/war10_skanevictory.jpg

The victory is not won without paying a price, however. Our brave warrior king Karl VIII falls at the very gates of the city.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/4753/war11newkingob7.jpg

On the bright side, it appears that the new king Karl IX has a greater grasp of diplomacy. By which I mean he doesn't stab members of the ruling family when he's invited to other countries for pie and mash.

In the summer of 1454 our investment in government technology pays off and we reach level 1. This entitles us to pick a new national idea. Every country in EUIII has twelve national idea slots that open up over the course of the game. A national idea is a unique special power that helps distinguish nations from one another.

These are the national ideas available to pick from:

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/650/war12_newidea.jpg

The ideas at the bottom that are grayed out are special late game ideas that were added for the Napoleonic period. The grayed out idea in the middle is called Quest for the New World. I restricted this idea to level 3 naval tech so that no nation could pick it as their first idea. Otherwise there are
thriving colonies in North America by 1470. This will delay the AI colonisation rush a little bit.

We choose to take the Military Drill idea, as the morale bonus will serve us well in the current conflict and beyond.

And so it proves, as by the winter of 1455, Skane has fallen!

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/3410/war13skanefallskd4.jpg

And is followed in short order by Halland!

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/9599/war14_hallandfollows.jpg

These losses, combined with a smash and grab raid on the unfortified province of Jamtland to the north (unfortified provinces become occupied without needing to be sieged first), force Denmark (and by extension its junior alliance partner Norway) to the negotiating table.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3366/war15_victory.jpg

Victory is ours. All over by Christmas! We celebrate by agreeing an alliance with the very serious indeed team, the Teutonic Order. This is a pledge to assist each other in wars, and welching on this deal will result in a significant loss of face in the international arena.

New Year 1456 rolls round, and after a good night out it seems the Danish culture (drinking a lot) appeals.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/7024/war18_daneculture.jpg

This will overcome previous penalties on tax income for Danish culture provinces we own. So more money for us!

However, there is something ominous about this new year. What's that moving in the east?

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1738/war17_uhoh.jpg

Crap. And they don't like us very much right now either. Fire up the diplomats, build some forts, cross some fingers time! Now lets look the other way at how our borders are looking after two years of war.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/451/war16_newborders.jpg

Hmm, very pleasing. But we can do more. Let's do that then. Next time!

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/9320/swe_troops.jpg

[WhiteKnight]

#care ? </troll> :D

[D0c]

This is a preamble to warm you up for the SA let's play forum isnt it :p

[swarfega]

Is that an actual computer game? Looks interesting.

[Aardvark]

This is a preamble to warm you up for the SA let's play forum isnt it :p

Yes, this is the shallow end of the pool :p I lifted a couple of the descriptive parts and the intro layout from Fintilgin's Jerusalem thread (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2649309), which is awesome and everyone should read. And you should read his first, because its better.

[10acious]

Interesting. I like your all out war policy, I just feel that their could be a little more war and a little less diplomacy. Glad to see you putting the national monarch on the front line of the siege tho. Luckily his offspring (called Karl, how egocentric is that) seems a pretty handy chap, and appears to be an even better warmonger then his old man.

It is my advice that we go marching on against those pesky novos and hope the teutons don't welch on the deal and come clean up our mess. Bit like the yanks invading everyone and needing 'peace keepers' to come help them out, its worked pretty well for them.

Sweden, bringing peace by force since 1453!

Edit: Just spent the last hour and a bit reading that SA thread, its brilliant, good luck living up to it.

[Aardvark]

It is my advice that we go marching on against those pesky novos and hope the teutons don't welch on the deal and come clean up our mess.

I think you're overestimating the military strength of our knightly chums. And underestimating the Siberian manpower train :(

[andyf]

Wow, so it was all a big, long-winded way of aarvark hawking someone's wares.

Goddamn astroturfers.

[bvark]

Can we nip a diplomat over to Lithuania and dial up the "common enemy" rhetoric?

[Aardvark]

Can we nip a diplomat over to Lithuania and dial up the "common enemy" rhetoric?
Already being worked on, as are all the local countries that aren't a) worthless or b) targets ;)

[10acious]

Having never even heard of the games in this thread before, my advice should be taken with a pinch of salt. However war is far more fun then diplomacy, and my opinion from reading the SA thread, its also a lot funnier to write about.

[Aardvark]

Ok, the next update has some interesting events...

http://vando.org/LP/interim_teaser.jpg

:psy:

[Quietus]

Destroy Novgorod!!!

[Afty]

Novgorod must be crushed.

[Predobear]

Pros and cons of joining in this war? And do Novgorod have any stronger allies?

If there's no huge reprocussions from going in and killing stuff, declare war on Novgorod, declare it now. We don't have big sticks of sharpened metal for just looking fancy. :awesome:

[ez64]

For the motherland!, I vote novgorod be crushed.


any chance of a flashed based interface that will be used to track what's been done and what's going on, not realtime of course.

[Aardvark]

Update tonight, I guarantee it!

Pros and cons of joining in this war? And do Novgorod have any stronger allies?

Well, there were other... 'issues' present at the time. Also bear in mind that as of the end of the last update, our standing army is about 10,000 men. We can beef this up to some extent, but this costs cash and given that our income streams are 'fish and ice' for the most part, we're not exactly rich.

Put it this way, as a nation we're not in a position to be wantonly crushing people, we'll have to be kind of sneaky about it ;)

[Aardvark]

We left off last time with Sweden having duly schooled the Danes and Norwegians with regards to who is boss in Scandinavia. The threat on the borders, however, was external: Novgorod, the Russian city state, whose troops were building up in disturbing numbers.

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/8538/1novgtroopsmb0.jpg

Knowing that to stand alone against this potentially powerful enemy could jeopardise the survival of the kingdom, Karl began building diplomatic bridges with as many neighbouring powers as possible. The Teutonic knights were already on board, and soon afterwards a potentially powerful alliance was signed with Poland, and by extension their junior union partner, Lithuania.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5022/2polandallianceeo5.jpg

Despite this, Novgorod maintained a belligerent attitude towards Sweden.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/851/3novgwarnjl8.jpg

Unfazed by the sabre-rattling of the diplomats, Karl set about filling in the blanks on the map of Scandinavia. The uncolonised region of Lappland, while inhospitable, was looking particularly untidy. Some likely lads were equipped with skis and bobble hats and instructed to set up a settlement.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/110/4colonistgp7.jpg

Meanwhile, Novgorod decided to move their capital out of easy striking distance of our armies. The new capital was situated many thousands of miles away, on the isolated Siberian steppe.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4783/5novgcapitalcx9.jpg

Poland, meanwhile, had gotten a little bored. Our ostensibly defensive alliance was about to be directed towards entirely the wrong Russian state. In June of 1459: war!

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/442/6crimeawarma0.jpg

However, as Crimea and their Mongol allies of Kazan and the Golden Horde were a remote opponent, Sweden happily supported the Poles in their endeavours. After all, the fighting would be in a remote location and the Polish and Lithuanian forces were imposing in stature.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/3569/7crimeaborderxl4.jpg

Poland made early inroads, as expected:

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/1336/8polandgainsqc6.jpg

But what's this!

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/6034/9sneakyhordetv2.jpg

So much for a remote enemy. Two Horde cogs snuck into the Baltic and coughed up two units of angry Mongol warriors into the Finnish heartlands. And now, a quick demonstration of a game mechanic. Witness the route taken for these troops from Stockholm to Finland:

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/8172/10seablockadekq6.jpg

This is because those rascals in the Horde navy are sitting in the strait, blocking troop movement.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/8526/11blockadetextpw5.jpg

Luckily the mighty Swedish Navy is on hand to deal with them.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2218/12navalbattlekv1.jpg

And a ship captured into the bargain! Now our brave troops are free to hop across the strait and lay into the sieging Horde troops.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5971/13breaksiegebm1.jpg

For the Alliance! Wait...

Mongols repelled, a peace treaty is signed with Crimea, seeing them cede Chersow to Poland. Unfortunately, Lithuania isn't dealing quite so well with the troops of Kazan and the Horde:

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5215/15lithtroubleef4.jpg

We despatch an army of 4,000 cavalrymen to break up the sieges in Lithuania. But no sooner has Smolensk been relieved then the knights start getting clever ideas:

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/3007/16teutwarus7.jpg

Hm. Now, do we let the Teutons fight Novgorod and her two allies of Tver and Pskov alone? They might well lose, it seems like the forces are evenly matched:

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2117/17teutstrengthtv9.jpg

Then again, they might win. And take all that land we've had our eye on. Never! To arms!

But first, a peace treaty with the Horde. Their presence has gotten rather tiresome of late.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4933/18hordepeacepr3.jpg

Now, to business. Tver is happily right next to Smolensk. Clearly Karl's military genius and foresight combined to place the expeditionary force in exactly the right place!

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4721/19tvermarchmg8.jpg

Meanwhile in the north, our armies quickly seize the unfortified border holdings. The Novgorod units previously posted here had been moved south, to hold back the knightly incursions.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/3843/20novginroadsac2.jpg

Soon, in the October of 1462, the state of Tver was beaten and vassalised. They would now act as a satellite nation of the Swedish fatherland.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2857/21tverfallswi9.jpg

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5278/22tvervassalzm7.jpg

Pskov was not faring much better, falling to the Teutons mere months later.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/8556/23pskovfallsyl8.jpg

In the winter of 1565, the old capital finally fell. With Swedish and Teutonic troops flooding their western provinces, and their ancestral capital in enemy hands, the ruling family of Novgorod was pressed to the negotiating table.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/3631/24novgfallsko1.jpg
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/6839/26novgpeaceju0.jpg

On December 7th of 1565, 10 years to the day after their victory over the Danes, the glorious Swedish nation had triumphed over another upstart neighbour. With the borders redrawn to include the rich trade centre of Novgorod, the war in the east could be considered an unmitigated success.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7940/25newbordershl7.jpg

Well, not quite. Our warlike tendencies had been noted by the world at large, and our reputation was suffering as a result.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/8277/28reputationdw4.jpg

(The figure of 11.01 is our reputation or 'badboy rating'. When this reaches the figure on the right, our global reputation is in the hole and at this point pretty much the entire world will declare war on us. This is A Bad Thing.)

Nevertheless, the Kingdom of Sweden had been expanded once more. Karl XI had triumphed again, and was proving himself to be a military commander of immense vision and strength. All was well in the kingdom.

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/3862/27mapstateuz9.jpg

So, where do we go from here? A period of recuperation for the nation is necessary initially, but after that, thoughts? Finish off Denmark? Norway? I can drum up some wider maps of Europe for reference if you want to pick out some more exotic targets. Or just sit tight and turtle into a future giant?

[10acious]

Invade Scotland.

[ez64]

Great Game so far I have no suggestion's apart from build more mammoth tank's.

can anyone give me a good list of these risk game's like the best single and multiplayer ones?

[her0n]

Make the Danes our bitches

[SarGara]

Remake this thread with Medieval Total War 2 then we will talk. :awesome:

[Aardvark]

Remake this thread with Medieval Total War 2 then we will talk. :awesome:

I don't have it :smith:

[10acious]

Remake this thread with Medieval Total War 2 then we will talk. :awesome:

The problem with M:TW2 (which I love) is that diplomacy is very very simple. Even if everyone hates you, doesn't mean they'll attack you. Same if you have allies, they more then likely won't defend you.

The game play is also pretty linear, you just keep attacking until you have too much land and too many rebellions, so you stabilise your lands and then start attacking again. With enough heavy infantry you can pretty much steam roll the entire game, fun the first play through, but it gets a little tedious. Sadly the campaign map AI just isn't good enough, no matter what difficulty you stick it on.

[Aardvark]

Make the Danes our bitches

Well, if you insist.

http://vando.org/tease1.jpg

[Killy]

Jesus that was a belated update :p:
I also think you're a pussy for not going for Scotland ;)

[Aardvark]

Jesus that was a belated update :p:
I also think you're a pussy for not going for Scotland ;)

I'm ALLIED with Scotland! :psy:

[Predobear]

I'm ALLIED with Scotland! :psy:

THEN THEY ARE RIPE FOR THE PICKING.

I myself, vote for the (future) invasion of Scotland if we make nice with someone on the opposite part of the continent so we at least have one country we're nice with and who we can count on not raping us of our dignity and kingdom so we can continue ourselves with raping countries of their own dignities and kingdoms.

Any possibility of convincing other countries into demolishing Western Europe for any reason? Subtly starting a war amongst other nations while we go about our business would thin out their numbers for when we ourselves choose to invade. It's a thought for future turns.

I don't have it :smith:

Bit late as to a reply, and slightly off topic, but I do. I also have Civ2/4, Rome:TW, and a copy of Shogun:TW knocking around somewhere, so after this one finishes I could myself start a version with one of those? Or name a different game for such a thread. I may possibly have it in the hordes of random ye olde games somewhere.

Oh, group city building with SimCity could be achieved. Oh, and Capitalism II for some reason. :awesome:

[Aardvark]

Or name a different game for such a thread.
DWARF

FORTRESS