England's Rise to Prominence - An EU3 DW AAR

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England's Rise to Prominence - An EU3 DW AAR

Hello and welcome to my first ever attempt at creating an AAR. First off I'd like to say that my writing skills aren't the best, so please bear with me on this. This will mainly be focused on gameplay and screenshots rather than a creative storyline. Secondly, I am fairly mediocre at EU3, so you will probably notice noobish mistakes and other terribly folly's. If you do feel free to point them out and tell me how I should fix my mistakes. Also, I would like to add that I decided to start this AAR after I had played up to 1427 in the game. I will post an overview of what occurred from 1399-1427, though I don't have any screenshots from that period. I'll hopefully have that up today at some point. If there is anything else you'd like to know just ask and I'll try to answer asap.

Currently I don't really have any rules except for one that I can currently think of. I don't really know any exploits, so the only way I would use then would be accidentally.

Rules:

1. No reloading if a war or any other event doesn't go my way. The only exception to this would be if I am completely destroyed.

Settings:

• Europa Universalis 3 - Divine Wind - No mods
• Normal Difficulty

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Table of Contents

Overview - 1399-1427

The Reign of Henry IV and Regency

The Reign of Queen Anne I Lancaster 1443 - ???? Part one 1443- 1454

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Overview: 1399-1427

England's starting position in 1399 is fairly safe with the exception of Labourd, Gascogne, and
Calais. Labourd and Gascogne are bordered by France, so I have basically left those provinces undefended except for during the first war. I'll go into more detail about my thoughts on this decision later. Calais is surrounded by Burgundy, who are scary but not as scary as France imo. The home island and Meath, my only Irish province are safe from invasion because of the size of my navy.

Army and Navy composition

I started out having my armies contain 6 regiments, which was a mistake looking back. I later increased that to 12(8 infantry and 4 cavalry). My navy is the same since the start of the game 28 carracks and 12 transports.

The Beginning

My first mission was to reclaim Normandy from the French, great I thought. I've always had trouble with France in most of the games I have played. I almost cancelled the mission but decided to keep it and see how I faired against them. Looking at the Economy tab I noticed all of the technologies were ahead of their time, so I started investing in stability since it was at +2. Then I proceeded to reorganize my troops into 4 armies of 6 regiments a piece. I stationed one in Gascogne, one in Calais, and the other two in southern England.

Which way to Calais?

Not long after this France decided to declare war on me in order to take Calais. Sadly the French didn't realize they had no way to reach Calais and never bothered to ask Burgundy for military access. I sank their navy of 4-5 ships early on in the war so they were stuck on the continent :(. They attacked Gascogne and Labourd with one of their 15 regiment armies where my measely 6 regiment army was stationed. They were quickly overwhelmed, and my navy was busy ferrying the two armies stationed in S. England into Normandy or Caux(I don't remember which). The army in SW France was destroyed and I lost the battle in Normandy as well, but managed to rescue the two armies there. I decided then that they were too strong, so I sat on my island and waited until they would accept a White Peace. It took a while but they finally accepted peace and I decided to cancel the mission to reclaim Normandy.

Conquest of Ireland

My next mission was the conquest of Ireland. This gave casus belli's on the four Irish nations and cores on their four seperate provinces. Two armies of 6 regiments were shipped to Meath and war was declared on Connaught and Ulster. Their armies were rather small and defeated quickly, the sieges lasted a bit longer but both were annexed around the same time. Next war was declared on the southern two Irish nations, Munster and Leinster, and my two armies marched south and destroyed both armies. I had overlooked the fact that Leinster was allied with Brittany or that Brittany had guaranteed the independance of Leinster. That brought Brittany into the war, which didn't really concern me since their army was relatively small and wouldn't pose much of a problem for my own. Of course it could never really be that easy and it turns out Brittany was allied with Burgundy and they joined the war. I decided to evacuate my army from Calais and focus on the two Irish nations then on Brittany. I employed the same strategy that I used against the French on Burgundy. I ignored them and let them siege Calais while I rampaged through Brittany. I annexed the final two Irish nations and took Armor from Brittany. Me and Burgundy just glared at each other across the channel. Occasionally they would land a regiment on the home island and I would destroy it, but other than that nothing happened. Eventually they accepted a WP, which was good for me since the French attacked not long after.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

2nd War of French Reconquest

There's not much to say about this war really. The French took Gasconge and Labourd in S. France, as well as my recently conquered province of Armor. I tried multiple times to land my armies in Normandy, but the French forces were in force there and I couldn't hold. This was due to my inability to transport more than one army at a time. Eventually the French accepted WP and the war ended with nothing lost or gained.

New technologies and the Economy

At some point after the war my Government tech increased and I got to pick a National Idea. I chose to go with Military Drill, which increases the morale of my armies by +1. My reason for picking MD was because France had chosen that same NI. As you can probably tell at this point I haven't performed well against France. Having such a gap in morale between our two armies would be dangerous imo. Also, my Production and Army techs increased later. The increase in Army tech allowed for new infantry types. It allowed me to choose between Longbowmen and Men-at-Arms. Longbowmen had 2 offensive shock compared to the Men-at-Arms 1, so Longbowmen were my choice. Being the noob I am I don't know if that was the wisest choice, but it seemed like a good choice to me. The production increase allowed me to build constables. These are really nice, they increase my direct tax in provinces by 25%. I've only built a few in my higher tax provinces. Recently I decided to mint as much as possible to build constables in all of my provinces. This will increase my inflation, which is around 4% as of 1427, but it will allow me to increase my income. I've been running deficits in recent years and this will certainly help with that problem.

Here come the French again

France declares war again to conquer Calais. This isn't really surprising at this point, they've been declaring war like clockwork after the 5 year truce or very near it. I decided to try something new this time. I let the French take my two provinces in S. France and then leave them undefended. Taking a chance I decide to land an army down there and leave them with no escape route in order to land another army in Normandy. Two of the French armies moved south to takeout my army in S. France leaving one in the Normandy area. If I can take out this one army without losing my own I'll have the upper hand. I have a tech advantage over France, which is my reason for saying I'd have the upper hand. Sadly, at this point Brittany smells weakness and declares war on England. Could I take on both nations at once? Possibly but since it was a surprise I kind of paniced and made peace with France. Ceding Gasconge and Labourd in order to end the war. Most of you will think this was a dumb move and you're probably right about that. It wasn't the best decision I've ever made, but I decided to focus on the weaker opponent. Defeating Brittany wasn't a difficult task and I take Morbihan and Finistere leaving them with only one province.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Trouble in France

When I was fighting the war with Brittany, France became embroiled in a war with Burgundy. I'm unsure of who started the war, but Burgundy brought some friends to the fight. France ended up at war with Burgundy, Austria, and Scotland. Had I not made peace with France this could have been a golden oppotunity for me to weaken them. I would have to wait for the 5 year truce to expire. Hoping that the war continue long enough for me to join in or leave France weak enough that when the truce did end I could roll over them. I'm not sure when the war ended, but it did a decent amount of damage to France. They were forced to release Normandy as a free nation and their entire army was destroyed. Releasing Normandy meant they no longer had access to the English Channel, so they couldn't really have a naval presence there(not that they had one before, but every bit helps :) ).

English Revenge

I positioned my three armies in English Brittany and waited for the truce to expire so I could declare war. I had to get military access through provence since I no longer had a border with France or their vassals. My plan was to send two of my armies south since that was where the majority of the French army was, as well as provinces they controlled. The remaining army would head for Ile-De-France their capital. The campaign in the south went just as I had planned. The lone French army there was destroyed and I began sieging the provinces. In the north I ran into a bit of a problem. There was only 1 regiment there, but a large force of pretender rebels(14 regiments) was sieging the capital. My army just avoided them and sieged the surrounding provinces until they moved. Once I had taken their capital and most of provinces they owned I made peace. I took back Gasconge and Labourd, which I had ceded to them previously. Also, I took Armagnac the province just east of Labourd that England has a core on. The peace deal also forced them to release Toulouse. After this I believe France won't be much trouble for England in the future.

Current situation

This basically bring everyone up to date on where I am at the moment in the game. It is currently April 1427 and England is enjoying peace. France is still dealing with the large rebel force, and the Normans decided to declare was on them. They are currently sieging France's capital and Alencon. Other than that it seems pretty peaceful in my neck of the woods. I'm adding a map below this so you all can see an overview of the area.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Overview is completed.

[Kagemusha]

Interesting game. I think you were really lucky with early French defeat against Burgundy. Usually in my past games, unless i use pretty much every resource available and ally with all the French neighbors, The "big blue blob" keeps just getting bigger. About what to do next. I think Normandy is there out waiting for you to pick it up. Concerning Countries like Brittany, where you dont have cores, many times making them vassals is a better deal then straight forward conquering them. That way you wont suffer an revolt risk and you get a nice income from them.While you can concentrate on upgrading your core provinces.

My advice is to vasallise, vasallise and vasallise. Good idea might be after you have taken Normandy, to force the French to release more lands. Smaller blobs will be easier pickings in the future.Take the cores and the lands that promise cores with missions.

[Csargo]

Interesting game. I think you were really lucky with early French defeat against Burgundy. Usually in my past games, unless i use pretty much every resource available and ally with all the French neighbors, The "big blue blob" keeps just getting bigger. About what to do next. I think Normandy is there out waiting for you to pick it up. Concerning Countries like Brittany, where you dont have cores, many times making them vassals is a better deal then straight forward conquering them. That way you wont suffer an revolt risk and you get a nice income from them.While you can concentrate on upgrading your core provinces.

My advice is to vasallise, vasallise and vasallise. Good idea might be after you have taken Normandy, to force the French to release more lands. Smaller blobs will be easier pickings in the future.Take the cores and the lands that promise cores with missions.

Thanks for posting Kage!

I was very lucky with France. They either lost their entire army in the war Burgundy/Austria or they disbanded it after the war. Normandy is definitely one area I'd like to take, my only concern is they are allied with Austria. I've played up to 1454 at this point and I've seen their armies and they are fairly large. I should have vassalized Brittany, but I wanted the land for other reasons. Chock it up to me not fully grasping the situation I guess

Thanks for the advice Kage. You'll see what happens to France, they're not doing so well atm.