[Abe Sargent]

A Time of Assessment


I now have Liguria, Lombardia, Calabria and Apulia.

10 December, 1543 – RM: Bohemia.

24 December, 1543 – I get an event: Excellent minister. I can choose to invest it in stability and our stability gets +1. The other adds 10 to each of our army and navy tradition. I choose the stability bonus.

1 January, 1544 – Our government tech increased. One more increase and we get our next national idea. Even with my awesome advisor lasting the entire journey, which is unlikely, it looks like it would be at least 23 yeas before that next level is reached.

I missed it, but at some pointing time, the Ottomans and the Mamluks went to war within the last year.


Let’s talk briefly about strategy. What happened in that war?

Burgundian forces much larger than any I could knock out arrived in Lombardia and captured it. The force were powerful in part because of the very large amount of calvary they had.

In the meantime, I had Cardotta infantry as the backbone of my army. They are great on defense, but are only okay in attacking. I also had 2000 calvary and 1000 artillery. When they attacked me, I always drove them back, but here was no way I was going to be able to dislodge them from Lombardia.

So, for most of the war, after sending back the Burgundy forces that sallied forth several times, our mutual armies just held their position. If I move my major force, he attacks Parma in strength. If I attack him, I lose and he follows and wipes out my forces. If he attacks me, the same occurs. If he leaves, I take Lombardia. So we just stayed there for over two years

I think the reason that Portgual and Aragon seemed so reluctant to admit loss was that one of their allies, Burgundy, was doing well against me. So it didn’t matter that I had five Aragonian provinces to the one province of mine Burgundy had. Even after I drove to the Iberian peninsula and captured Valencia, Barcelona, two Portugese provinces, and Lisboa – two capitals, I was unable to drive home any sizeable peace deal.

As a result, that war took much longer than it had any right to.



Let’s look at our new acquisitions in order of capture. A quick note, all financial information is under a stability of one, whereas most previous information as given out in a 2. Therefore, these would be a little lower than those by percentage.

Lombardia – Lombardia has the distinction of being the only province in our nation to be completely landlocked, in northern Italy, although we did have Bern for a brief moment before releasing it as our vassal. We are now adjacent to Bern, i.e. Switzerland, here in Lombardia. 239017 people work the cloth trade here in this Lombard Catholic province. They make 25.28 ducats a year for us. They have a temple, workshop, and courthouse. It is a core province of Venice.

Liguria – Liguria is a center of trade and the former capital of the state known as Genoa. 153624 people work the wool trade here. The Lombard people here celebrate Catholicism in all of its glory. We receive 21 ducats annually here, plus we get all excess trade generated in Liguria. This province grows at a quicker clip because of the CoT. It comes with a workshop, temple and courthouse as well.

Calabria – Calabria is the southern tip of the Italian peninsula – the tip of the boot so to speak. Messina, our eastern Sicily province is land connected to Calabria through a straight, so our Sicilian provinces are now connected through Calabria to Napoli. 53996 Sicilian Catholics work the fishing trade here in Southern Italy. The province makes us 9 ducats annually. It comes with a courthouse, workshop, marketplace and temple. Aragon has it as a core province.

Apulia – 59850 Sicilians work the salt trade here, celebrating their Catholicism and sending us a combined 11.73 ducats annually in taxes and production. Apulia is the eastern half of south Italy, the heel of the boot, so to speak. Like several other provinces, this comes with a temple, courthouse and workshop. Apulia is a core province of Aragon.