Scotland cooperative game thread

[Velociryx]

Indeed, Rav...at the height of our military presence on mainland Europe, I was having to pay in excess of 20d a month in overage charges to simply maintain the force....was totally paralyzed (even tho I had money in the bank), and unable to raise ANY more troops...that was it...I mean, we were stretched to the MAX....if they had hit us again after we beat the 20k force, we'd have had no choice but to give up and go home.

As it was....with the "victory" for our side, it will take YEARS to fully recover....

-=Vel=-
(who shoulda just taken the money!)

[ravagon]

Another consideration (as always oh so helpful after the fact, oy )
Does this give Burgundy a CB against you for holding one of their "National" provinces?

As a fairly major continental force it might be a good idea to mend fences - particularly if there's the possibility of a scrap with France in the near future - although now they'd have to cancel the military access first so maybe it isn't quite so bad and you'll get the warning ...

[Velociryx]

I'm almost sure they do, which is prolly why that cagey bastard Charles insisted on giving us Holland....gives him a ready-made excuse to jump on us at a moment's notice....ARGH! WHY did I get so damned focused on gaining Morbihan....I feel that I may have doomed us!

-=Vel=-

[ravagon]

Mayhaps Holland be left without ye obligatory garrison?

The neighbouring rebel penalty may give Morbihan a bit more of trouble than she would otherwise see but with luck a defection might solve that little problem before Burgundy comes a-calling in a few years time ...

OTOH though, if they're both National provinces then losing just Holland will do ye no good at all laddie...

[Velociryx]

Hmmm...I don't *think* that the lands of Brittany are national provs, but if Morbihan is, then the rest (Bretagne and Armor) are too, in which case, they'll hit us no matter what, but I think most of their CB shields are centered in the low country and northern France....

What worries me about the current situation is that we're REALLY in a tenuous position right now.

Manpower is a vexing problem for us....the only provinces we're drawing ANY manpower from are our Gaelic lands--which is why control of all of them was so important to me--all those Anglosaxon provinces we control are adding handsomely to our treasury, but they're not adding ANYTHING to our manpower pool...end result: We cannot maintain a very big standing army, and certainly nothing on par with what the Burgundians, Castillians, and French are fielding (France has more than 210k under arms, Castile is right at 170k, and Burgundy is ~125k)....meanwhile, our max is....27k....if we get into a serious land battle with any of these guys, we're toast.

If there IS a bright spot to be found in the prosecution of this war, it's that we were able to do a lot to restore our relations with France, and although they will drop over time, it buys us time, and that's a good thing. Add to that the downright NASTY stability hit they'll take for declaring war against us (-1 for same religion, -1 for RM, -1 to cancel military access), and we have a bit of a cushion). Still...we've got some big, strong powers right p*ssed off at us, and we are not yet strong enough to adequately defend ourselves.

I think the best use of Holland is as a bargaining chip...it's one of the few non-culture provinces that's generating manpower for us (0.5)...not a huge amount, but we need all the help we can get in the manpower department, so I'd definitely like to keep it for as long as we can, and then use it as a bargaining chip to get us out of a war....sort of a "free pass" that buys us five years of peace...if it comes to that.

With relations restored somewhat with France, our most pressing problems are:

1) Manpower - we can't stand up to the big boys in terms of troops in the field....this means we need to relentlessly focus on quality and offense to gain benefits for what troops we CAN field.

2) Annexation - Ireland will be first, cos we want to wait till England gets their Royal Ship Yard and their CoT in Anglia....trouble is, Ireland has been locked in a war with Bavaria (whom we cannot get to) for the past hundred years, and won't make peace....if they're at war, we can't annex!

3) France - Long term, this is still a problem...VERY expensive to keep forking out 70d to send a freakin' LETTER to France, which might increase our relations 1-10 points...

I don't really consider Burgundy as much of a threat. They don't have military access through France, and we have totally destroyed their navy, so a) they'd have to build their fleet from scratch (and we can easily keep pace with their efforts....we have the money for that at least), and b) the worst they could do would be to retake Holland, which we would gladly give them and buy five more years of peace....it'd be the war following that one that might give me concern, cos we don't want to find ourselves locked in perpetual war with Burgundy.....that would eventually disintegrate the nation with revolts....

A quandry, then.

And, something you mentioned before and I did not respond to yet (but something that DOES bear consideration) is that we have potentially built the monster that could be our unmaking....both England and Eire put the hordes of money we gifted them to improve our relations to good use.

The upshot is that the Scottish Isles are in not much danger of being overrun by our enemies (not with 40k Irish in Ulster and 50k English adding to our own forces), but if either of these should suddenly turn on us.....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

And now that I have the Lorraine thread begun, this one shall get an update this evening....played ahead some more and have some additional notes to add, but for the moment, let me just say that Scotland has truly entered a dark and uncertain age....we face numerous problems and NONE of them are easily solved.

This latest segment saw rebellion and bloodletting as our citizenry, unhappy with the duration and the price of this war, vented their anger toward our King....setbacks of a variety of sorts. The essence of what tonight's update holds is a temporary withdrawal from the world stage....a pulling back within ourselves to recover our strength, and we lost a great deal of national strength in this protracted war. It was a victory that very nearly undid us as a nation. We lost our treasury reserve, we lost thousands of scotish lives, our national stability took repeated hits, and war exhaustion reached never before seen heights (-9,....took nearly two years to recover from that, and the economic hit it brings with it!).

So....I fear that tonight's update will not be filled with much in the way of good news, save for the fact that we're still here as a nation, and on the mend! Let us hope that our NEXT opportunity for greatness is not so hellishly expensive!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

1489

Our good King James dies a broken man, not long after the disasterous "victory" over Burgundy. His glorious rule, marred forever by that horrid misadventure, and this would set the tone for the years that followed.

His son, James IV was an able ruler, but he was not cut from the same cloth, being only an average diplomat, but a good military man and organizer). Nonetheless, the skill our nation needed MOST of all in these times was diplomatic finesse....a thing which James IV simply wasn't as adept at as his father before him had been.

That, coupled with our newly risen inflation (7.7% after the disaster with Burgundy), made it more expensive to conduct regular diplomacy with our vassals.

In one aspect, however, James followed in his father's foosteps, and continued to take power from the Aristocracy and place it in the hands of the people (Aristoc -1), Production Effie = 43%, Trade effie = 45%)

With our old King dying, and a new one taking his place, the year passed us by quietly, and we were most grateful for that quiet.

1490

Slightly more than a year into his rule, James IV all but abdicates the throne and begins spending more and more time with the troops (new leader: James IV, Diplomatic skill drops to wretched - 1 dot)

At this point, if we send letters to our vassals, all we do is worsen our relations with them, and so, we sit by powerlessly, and watch all the years of careful planning by our former King, and all the hundreds of ducats spent toward the day of their eventual annexation....it all begins to head south, and there is NOTHING we can do about it. Thousands of Ducats spent, and our vassals used that money well to rebuild their armies, and now, our relations with them begin to crack, and we have no means of repairing them. Our only hope is that James IV will give up his love of the military and tend more to matters of state, but this does not look likey....

If there is one bright spot in the otherwise dreary year, it is that we gain greater understanding of coastal navigation and maneuver (naval tech 3).

1491

Relations with our vassals continue to deterioriate....still friends, but the day is coming when they will not be.

On the other hand, our national stability is at +2, we have rebuilt the treasury to 183d, and our economy is a respectable 34.4, with 21.2 coming from taxation, 12.4 from the production of goods, and 0.8 from trade surplusses as our merchants once more begin plying their trade.

By June, national stabilty has been restored (+3), and in November, a wandering Scot returns to his island home with detailed maps of a place called Vladimir (new map data - Vladimir discovered!)

1492

Our treasury has risen to 303d, but this is mostly because spending money on diplomacy doesn't help matters, and in May, the situation worsens when one of our Stewards inadvertantly insults the English Envoy, driving an irreparable wedge between us and our English vassals. The King pays this no mind whatsoever, and continues to play with his army while strategic relations deteriorate (with both of our vassals AND with France!)

1493

The English grow bold and increasingly hostile, breaking out treaty maps and pressing for more lands (boundary dispute)....thankfully, we resolve the matter peacefully, and relations actually improve with them....for now....

1494

About the only noteworthy event of this year is that our military technology improves slightly with better (more fully articulated) armor for our troops (land tech 4)

1495

Again, our increasinly emboldened English vassals approach us over a matter of borders (another Boundary dispute) - this matter is also settled in their favor, and they return home happier than when they left...but if this keeps on, will we not eventually give them back the bulk of the island? This is not diplomacy, it is extortion, pure and simple!

1496 - 1497

A pair of blissfully quiet years, marked only by our King out playing war games with his troops, as our relations continue to sink deeper into decline, and our nobles not with growing alarm the sheer size of the armies England has just across our border....

1498

A surprisingly good year in the midst of our overall darkness, with an Internal Trade Ordinance in the Grampians (+1 to tax value) and Cantonments established in parts of Morbihan (+1 Manpower)

1499

Our stabiltiy takes a minor hit as the King interrupts his ceaseless wargames to take further power from the aristocracy (-1), which sees our production effie boosted to 44%, and trate to 47%

August sees another new land discovered (New Exploits! - Mekkah, while October puts us in the uncomfortable position of finding corruptive elements amongst the (mostly absent) King's advisors (-100d and -1 Stab to root them out).

The King and his army use them for Pike practice, and things continue on much as they have been....a slow downward spiral, with no means to prevent it.

1501

1500 passes our nation by in total quietude, but the following year, 1501 sends sufficient shock waves through the Kingdom of Scotland to rouse even our useless King, as France cancels their military access pact with us, and our centralized governmental power erodes due to Non-Enforcement of Ordinances (centralization -1).

Does our King do anything about this? Does he take bold steps to reverse our increasingly dangerous decline?

Of course not....after acknowledging that they occur, he goes right back to playing with his toy soldiers, and Scotland continues to wither....all his father's work continues to slowly come unravelled....

Does the King care? Hell no! We achieve land tech 5, and the ability to perform assaults, much to his delight! The rest of the kingdom can rot, apparently.

1503

Despite the King's total ignorance about how to rule a nation, this year IS a notably bright one, as this is the year when our nation's infrastructure sees another marked improvement (Infrastructure Level 4, and with it, the ability to promote Justicars throughout the land).

Our King's endless wargames are interrupted just long enough to get his approval to do that very thing, and then he goes right back to ignoring his country, and his faithful advisors set about doing what they can to improve things in the almost total absence of leadership, beginning with Justicar appointments in The Highlands and Grampians.

1504

Sees an agricultural revolution in Munster as new farming techniques are put to widespread use there (manpower +1), and this, coupled with earlier gains, now enables us to field a standing army of 37,000 soldiers, which seems to please our King endlessly.

1505

Taking up the King's passion, the people of far-off Holland rally behind him and begin joining the army en mass (Enthusiasm for the Army, gain 5k Infantry in Holland). This does not cheer the less militant among us in the slightest.

1506

Sees a Justicar promotion in Lothian, and little else

1507

Justicar in Strathclyde in January, followed by a revolt in Lancashire and dissastisfaction growing among the peasantry (Unhappiness among the peasants, stab -2)....land tech 6 achieved.

1508

Little to report besides a Justicar appointment in Northumberland and in July, New Land Claimed in marshy Connaught

1509

We beg the King to re-centralize the government, and he stops long enough to sign papers enabling his faithful staff to do so (centraliztion +1), and later in the year, our skill at ship-handling improves further (naval tech 4), and a Wave of Obscuritanism sweeps across Scotland...how....appropriate for the times.

1510

Justicar in Midlands, and July brings a 5k revolt in Holland....our volunteers there quell the rebellion, but are themselves reduced to 1547 Infantry. The King is overall satisfied with their lackluster performance.

Later in the year, we achieve Land tech 7, and with it, the ability to construct siege cannons, which, as you can imagine, delights our self-styled "Warrior King" to no end. No one in the Court is amused or impressed, as our problems are becomming deep-seated indeed.

1511

Further military improvement (land tech 8), and a foriegn drill instructor presents himself to the King, and is hired at once! (+1 Offensive Doctrine, +1 Quality) - this at least, is a useful thing. A pity the rest of the King's decisions aren't more like it. We must take a loan to hire him, but it is done without question. The Court Advisors fear that we'll need the military as good as we can possibly get it in coming years if things keep on as they are.

1512

April - The Pope enacts the Treaty of Tordesillas...not that it matters much to our slowly withering nation

and in October, we see relations improve with France (in-game event "The Auld alliance, +75 with France), once more staving off our doom, at the expense of relations with England (-50 with Eng).

Near the year's end, the King decides to host a great royal hunt, and it actually has some positive diplomatic effect! (relations with France +100, staving off our imminent doom at their hands). Burgundy is also invited to the party (+50), but of course, our vassals are both shunned (Ireland -50, England -100). Our vassals now hopelessly hate us, and still, there is nothing we can do.

Which brings us to the end of King James IV's life....death in a tragic training accident with a siege cannon prototype which saw his royal blood spattered liberally along the walls of the south tower in Sterling.

His son, a quiet boy named....James, if you can believe it, stands ready to take his father's place.

We dearly hope is is more like his grandfather than his father....alas....it is not meant to be, and Scotland's time of darkness continues.....

[Velociryx]

There is scant need to bore you with the details of the next 10 years, as they were, by and large, like the several you have just read about.

Although James the Fifth was not an avid fan of the army, and did not spend his days endlessly drilling with them, he was nigh on useless as a diplomatic figure, being to short of temper and too brash and unruly to ever make a good impression.

He did have one compelling strength, however, and that was in matters of organization. James V ran a tight ship, that much could be said of him, at least, and so under his rule, our Kingdom did prosper, even while our relations around the world turned increasingly hostile.

That hostility would reach a fevered pitch in 1523 when tensions with our one time friendly, faithful vassal of England rose to unbearable levels as England declared herself devoted to the Protestant faith, broke our long-standing vassalage, and was suddenly a hostile, monster of a force sharing our once-tranquil island home.

Diplomat or not, James V knew that something had to be done, and vowed to make use of the only tool he trusted to resolve the matter....the Army of Scotland.

However, during the years of good relations with England, they had spent the money we had showered them with well and wisely, and we now faced a numerically superior, deeply embittered foe. True, they did not control much land, but their army was large, forboding, and well-trained.

It stood to be a terrible struggle....one of our own making (or perhaps "unmaking" would be the better term) and one which we might not survive....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

On the Eve of War with England....

[Velociryx]

But it would be both unfair and remiss of me to completely discount those "missing" ten years I so easily glossed over, because there were things of import in that time.

For one thing, that ten-year period saw us reach our goal of seeing Justicars promoted in every province in the Kingdom of Scotland, and those promotions had profound and far-reaching effects indeed. A greater sense of security for our peasantry for starters, which in turn, led to greater producitivity, and contributed to our steadily growing economy, so although our diplomatic options were entirely shut down, it was IN this ten-year period that we began to get some sense of ourselves as a nation again...that we began to once more find our national footing, and it had been a very long time since we had had that feeling of self confidence.

The disaster with Burgundy had shaken us to our core, and done vast, far-reaching damage to us as a nation, but in the abovementioned ten-year, we began to truly recover from that....finally.

It slowly dawned on those of us who were the cogs and wheels OF the King's government that even though we were all but paralyzed diplomatically, even though James the Third's grand designs had come completely undone, setting us back literally thousands of ducats, and now left us facing re-armed, dangerous, and determined opponents, that there WERE options to be had....that even without diplomacy to aid our efforts, we could, by focusing on the fundamentals that made the Kingdom run, still excel....still succeed.

And so, in the face of ever-growing dangers, Scotland began her slow, painful re-awakening.

As Fate would have it, our re-awakening corresponded loosely with Martin Luther's publication of his 99-Thesis, which sparked in all of Europe the Reformation Movement, and it was this movement that was directly responsible for the crisis at hand....the crisis which stood at the cross-roads of our re-emergence as a nation.

For more than twenty years, Scotland had drifted with the currents of history....tugged along in seeming helplessness until she had drifted into dangerous waters indeed, and the looming war with England was to be our test.

If we passed this test, Scotland had a chance (not a guarantee, by any means, but a real chance at once more being a brightly burning star....if we faltered here, we would forever be relegated to the backwaters of history.

Those were the stakes we faced going in, and everyone in Scotland's government knew it full well.

We had to win this war. It would either mark our re-birth, or our slow death.

There were no other options.

Of course, the war itself, having been simmering and brewing for quite some time before the English declaration for Protestantism, was hardly a surprise, and because of that, we had ample time to prepare, bulking up our army to impressive levels (and once more, rising well above the normal limit we could support long-term), but it was that act of religious defiance which proved to be the final straw....the catalyst which set the war in motion finally, and roused our sleeping nation from its dreaming and once more into action.

Stand or fall....right here, right now....against an England that we created.

The die was cast....

[Velociryx]

Preparations for our war with England had begun a full two years earlier than the war itself, and in that time, all available forces were pulled out of the various places we'd been keeping strong garrisons.

Ireland...empty. Holland...empty. Bretagne and Armor....empty.

Every availble man we could scrape together was piled into the Scotish Isles and formed two massive armies for the fight of our lives, in Northumberland, we stationed the Army of Holland (named for the volunteers who had flocked to our banner some years earlier), their ranks swelled handsomely to 11,453 Infantry and 6000 Cavalry

And a larger force, the Army of Kent 18,628 Infantry/ 17,926 Cavalry. All told, these forces gave us a staggering 54,007 men under arms, and yet....the English still outnumbered us, with our latest intelligences informing us that there were some 68,000 Englished armed and waiting for us.

And so it was that on December 1st, in the year of our Lord 1523, Scotland declared a war for her very survival against a newly re-strengthened England, and on that day, the Army of Kent recieved orders to march to Yorkshire and give battle to the English army awaiting them. We had not expected our Irish "allies" (and remarkably, still vassals, though they dearly hated us) to join in our fight, but they did, apparently bearing the English even more ill-will than they bore us, and for that, we were grateful.

That battle came to pass on the days between December 11 and January 11th of the following year, when our largest army gave battle to 10,063 Englishmen. Ultimately, the English army was destroyed to a man, but our own losses were horriffic, and nearly eight thousand in number (down to 12,112/16,623). Nonetheless, with victory assured in Yorkshire, and one of the three English armies demolished, our main force marched south, into Lincoln, where we had given the English battle many times previoius. These were familiar stomping grounds for us, and we fell into our old, comfortable rhythms.

Meanwhile, the main English army, some 43k strong had advanced into Bristol to give battle to a relief force of Irish reserves that had landed in Lancashire in late December and were hastening to join the fight. This force would be utterly defeated, but not before handing the Englishmen nearly eight thousand casualties of their own....a good, solid showing from our allies.

On February 26th, our main force encounters and utterly destroys the 10k garrison left to guard Anglia, but our army has now taken a serious blow, and is reduced to 7391/12,715, and the Army of Holland has come down from the rugged hills of Northumberland and begun a siege of York...not the first time we've been in this situation, either. Leaving a siege crew here, the bulk of the army marches on to Lincoln.

Only two days after defeating Anglia's defenders, some 1600 English Cavalry race across the Thames, apparently attempting to rescue the garrison. They arrive far too late, and are slain to the last, turning the waters of the river red with their blood (no losses for our army).

In early May, the English General Norfolk leaves a detachment of his army in Bristol to continue the siege there, and returns to Anglia with 13,022/5801, determined to give us battle and rescue London from our wrath.

Seeing this move, we send for reinforcements from Lincoln, and when these arrive, we see our own force swell to 13,649/15,487

Alas, Norfolk proves the better general, and our own army is devastated in battle, suffering more than thirteen thousand losses, while inflicting a scant 3423 on the Army of Norfolk.

Retreating to Kent with 2497/13,257, our army is humiliated, but not utterly defeated, and vows to return.

To bulk up our battered army, we recruit two mercenary bands in Kent, totaling 10,000 Infantry and 3000 Horse....these are welcome additions indeed, and do much to rapidly improve the shaky morale of our forces, and while we are recovering, Norfolk abandons his siege of Bristol and marches south to Wessex, recalling his siege crew left in Bristol to that location to reinforce his army.

[Velociryx]

Round two with Norfolk

[Velociryx]

Having recieved fresh troops to swell our ranks, and Norfolk, without such a luxury, we catch his exhausted-but-victorious army resting non their laurels on August 25th (battle ran Aug 16-25), and destroy the army utterly....our own losses were 7915/1583 (9498 total).

With the Scottish isles once more free of English troops we settle into our sieges, and by early 1425, all three English provinces on the Scottish Isles are well in-hand.

With these victories come English maps, and we discover that while we have been in our doldrums, England has been busy exploring and colonizing the new world.

Our fleet is gathered and 12,000 cavalry are shipped out to these posessions to claim them for our own.

En route, we lose 5 ships (forgot to separate our galleys....oops) and some 1500 horse troops to disease and storms at sea, but we discover England's overseas colonies, trading posts, and cities to be lightly held indeed, and so it is that by November, 1426, we conquer England wholly, and demand all but London from them in peace. Victory is Scotland's, and once more, her star burns brightly.

[Velociryx]

Greater Scotland

[Velociryx]

North American Holdings