Part 5: Sidetracked by Burgundy & The Crusade of Morocco

Part 5: Sidetracked by Burgundy & The Crusade of Morocco

With Castille built up to our forcelimits and backed by powerful allies, I'm feeling extremely confident about going to war against Morocco. Before we declare war though, there are still a couple of things to take care of.


Our heir, Alfonso is more than old enough to take the throne now, so I'm feeling a little more inclined to send Enrique III into battle as a general. Sure, he could die, but his heir is talented and our succession is safe.



I head to the leaders tab to convert Enrique into a general. He's not great, but he's definitely better than our departed general, Gomez.



Our land and naval maintenance are maxed out a couple months ahead of time to give our troops time to fully recover their morale. I leave an army of 11 regiments in Madrid to respond to any problems that might pop up in Iberia while I'm gone and move 3 armies of 12 regiments each to southern provinces so they can get ferried across to Africa as soon as the war starts.



And just while I'm getting anxious about starting the war with Morocco, Burgundy wants our help again. Its not just against a weak 2 province republic this time, though. They want our help against England, Savoy, and Gelre. Naturally I join, because I don't want us to lose a ton of prestige and a strong ally.



Switching to the diplomatic mapmode can be useful for seeing who exactly you are at war with after joining into a war with several parties. Bohemia, Brittany, and Scotland aren't directly allies of ours, but since they joined the war on Burgundy's side as well it'll display them here as friendlies. Aragon and Sicily join the war along with us.



Our central army heads towards England's provinces in southern France to exploit a (hopefully) weak spot.



Our main army, lead by King Enrique III gets transported to Savoy and begins to siege the entire country to remove that threat from Burgundy's southern border. Meanwhile, Savoy's army ineffectually tries to capture provinces in central Burgundy and just gets chased around by large Burgundian armies.



It turns out that England had about 14,000 men stationed in Southern France and they fight off a combined army of Castille and Aragon, despite taking terrible losses.



I prepare another general to deal with the English army in Iberia.



The new general is assigned to one of the fresh armies that were waiting in the south for the war with Morocco. It's ordered to move north and attack the English while the English army continues to chase our other combined Castillian/Aragonese army around.



A random event occurs while our army is on the move. Our university has produced an exceptional class of graduates. I make sure that they go towards increasing our number of magistrates so more construction can be ordered.



When our second army arrives, the English army is defeated and chased back into their French provinces. After a few more pursuits and victories, they are depleted of morale and wiped out. With that threat gone, one of our armies is split up to siege the remaining English provinces in the immediate area.



Just before the final province of Savoy falls, our admiral dies of natural causes. A new admiral is commissioned and placed in command of our navy while our army finishes occupying Savoy.



I demand the vassalization of Savoy. They have a nice little collection of rich provinces, so they should be able to field a few regiments to support us in future wars. Also, they provide us with a safe road into southern Burgundy from the Mediterranean in case we ever need to provide them with quick assistance in the future.



Savoy accepts our demand of vassalage and I immediately begin sending diplomats to formalize our alliance and include them in our sphere of influence.



Scotland is taking the brunt of England's retaliation against Burgundy. They are being attacked by large English armies. I ask Scotland for military access so I can land armies in their territory without suffering from supply limit penalties. Now I can move troops into Scotland without worrying about attrition and focus on the English forces there.



While England focuses on punishing the Scots, a parade of troops from half a dozen different countries pour over all of their southern provinces. Things are looking bleak for England right now.



A 6 star theologian becomes available to appoint as an advisor. Theologians make your missionaries more effective, and with an upcoming war against Morocco I seize the opportunity and add him to my court.



Our court is now full of talented advisors.



And just as I'm admiring how talented our court is, our 6 star Treasurer passes away after 32 years of service to Enrique III.



Just looking at our technology slider can give you an idea of how much of an impact he had. Even with me minimizing our direct investment into trade tech, he managed to push it ahead of all of our other technologies.



In order to find a proper replacement, I order a few magistrates to commission paintings and then hire a Natural Scientist. This advisor's monthly bonus to production tech research will help us get access to workshops earlier.



I also notice that with our new theologian advisor, we can institute a useful religious decision. A reduction in missionary cost and increase to missionary success will be very useful to us if we ever get to follow up on our plans to wage war against Morocco and seize the Holy Lands. It will add +1 to national revolt risk, but most of our provinces have something like -9 or -10 revolt risk.



Burgundy makes peace with England, forcing them to cede Calais and Kent.



I make peace with England as well, forcing them to release their holdings in southern France as the sovereign state of Guyenne, and to revoke their cores on 2 Burgundian provinces.



Guyenne is so grateful for being given their independence (and so intimidated by my expanding sphere of influence) that I'm able to convince them to become a vassal state of Castille through diplomacy. I move to add them into my sphere as well, along with the other basic treaties of military access and a royal marriage. If you ever catch a glimpse of my prestige and wonder why its so low, its because I am spending it on relentlessly adding small nations to my Sphere of Influence. Right now, we're getting an additional +7 to our diplomatic skill and +0.35 magistrates per year from our sphered nations.



A majority of the cardinals in the Holy See are now Castillian, and this gives us some special influence with the Pope. In addition to these nice passive benefits, we gain access to a couple new diplomatic options. We can suggest that the pope Excommunicate another specific Catholic nation, and we can suggest a crusade to be called against heathen nations. Both of these diplomatic options will cause every other Catholic nation in the world to gain a casus belli against the afflicted party.



With the war against England over, I am ready to make an immediate move against Morocco. I request that the pope call a crusade against them.



The Pope is receptive to the idea, and all Catholic nations gain a Holy War CB versus Morocco.



I declare war along with a few of my friends. Tripoli and the Jalayirids come to the aid of Morocco. The Jalayirids' presence in the war is mostly ceremonial though, since they are further east than the Mamluks.



The people of Castille are inspired by the Crusade and our nation gets all sorts of great buffs as long as the war continues. War taxes are instituted as well. That, along with the crusade buff gives us a booming economy. I think our census taxes were over 250, but I forgot to take a screenshot.



3 armies of 12 regiments each land in Morocco and are split up to begin sieges everywhere that they can. Morocco had 2 armies of about 10 regiments each, but with our troops anywhere and everywhere we have enough flexibility to send reinforcements wherever they are needed to overpower the enemy.



Once their armies are wiped out, it just becomes a matter of waiting for sieges to end in all of their provinces.



Our allies seemed to focus their attention on Tripoli.



The value of a center of trade is only equal to the value of all of the provinces trading through it. Portugal's CoT in Lisbon has only had their handful of provinces trading through it, and it simply wasn't enough for it to stay in business. The CoT became derelict and eventually went out of business about 36 years after the beginning of the game. This will result in a small loss in taxes for Portugal, since CoTs increase the tax base of the province they are in, but it is a benefit to us because now all of Portugal's provinces will trade through Andalucia.



Enrique III finally passes away while waiting for a siege to finish somewhere in North Africa. His military genius heir, Alfonso XII takes the throne. Alfonso XII's heir, Enrique IV is a brilliant administrator and military leader both, and is old enough to take the throne in case anything were to happen to King Alfonso XII. I take this as a sign and convert Alfonso XII to a general immediately to make use of his military skill.



Alfonoso XII adds 5 fire and 4 shock ticks to all of the units under his command, and he also has some skill at siege warfare. This is very good. I assign him to the army we left behind in Iberia and send him to battle some local noble who decided to revolt upon the death of Enrique III. The rebels are quickly defeated.



Morocoo is completely occupied, and I demand a large chunk of their rich northern provinces as tribute. They don't have great trade goods, but they have high tax bases and decent amounts of manpower, and with the Holy War CB we only accrue 5 infamy for seizing 5 provinces. I think in the future, I will build the naval buildings up to level 6 in these 5 North African provinces. Some well developed shipyards will let us upgrade our fleets extremely quickly for a bare minimum of cost as new ships become available.



With the conquest of these provinces we complete our Reconquista mission and are rewarded with army tradition and a reduction of 4 infamy. That means that we got 5 provinces for 1 infamy. A pretty good deal! We get the mission to increase our relations with Portugal once again, as well. When your ruler dies, many of your royal marriages will need to be renewed with fresh ties closer to your new ruler. I renew the marriage with Portugal as well as our marriages with other allies and vassals.



Our national focus is moved to Ceuta in order to speed up our religous conversion even more. Missionaries are sent to all 5 of our new provinces. 2 of our armies are ferried back to Iberia, but one army of 12 regiments remains behind to put down rebellions and protect against future invasion.



The possibility of a large revolt occurs in one of our new provinces, but the situation is resolved with a few ducats and the province just suffers from some bad modifiers for about a year.



After reaffirming our diplomatic ties with Portugal, we receive a new mission: to diplomatically annex Sicily. The reward for this mission grants us a core on the Sicilian province of Navarra, which is the province they own between Castille and Aragon. I think that I will make use of this mission to get Navarra, then possibly release the remaining provinces as a Sicilian vassal again. They won't get Navarra upon being released because they don't have a core on it.



Burgundy is on the warpath again, and requests our aid. This time, Brittany and Scotland are against them. We enter the war along with our other allies to assist them.



They quickly occupy Hainaut and annex it, adding another rich Flemish province to their kingdom.



A Breton navy starts to get the upper hand on the Burgundian navy, so I order our fleet north to assist. We catch up just in time and chase the Breton navy off.



It retreats to one of their ports, so I station my fleet just outside the harbor to prevent them from leaving for the rest of the war. Now Burgundy can ferry its troops around in peace.



Religious rebels keep appearing in our new provinces and I was starting to get tired of dealing with them manually, so I went to click the "Hunt Rebels" button on our army in North Africa. This will make them automatically chase and destroy rebel stacks and then return to their starting location.



At this point, I figured that Burgundy's main reason for starting that war was to claim Hainaut and so, as war leader, I make peace with the remaining enemies. Let's take a look at the situation at the end of the 1430's.
I'm proud of our new territory in North Africa. After the conversions are done and buildings start going up, the rich tax base will increase our investments and census taxes by a healthy amount and they will make good naval bases in the future.



Burgundy continues to grow and has been a reliable ally. They make sure to use us in their wars as often as they can though, don't they?



The Mamluks are maintaining their hold on the Holy Lands and Egypt. I'd like to head there in the next update, if we don't get drawn into some other conflict.