A while back we had a thread on the creation of Russia so I was wondering if we could do the same for Italy as I am curious to know how the various regions joined together to form todays nation. So ideally the creation history would begin around the 15th century so that it ties in with the start position in EU2.

After the fall of the Roman Empire Italy's been ruled firstly by Erulians, then by Ostrogoths. Maybe Teodorich has been the greatest king of Italy of all the times.

Then the byzantines conquered our country and brought it to ruin, but the least were the Lombards, in the VII century, which are remebered like very evil barbarians. Their invasion splitted italy in different states: this situation would have last for over 1000 years.

Then arrived Charlemagne and the german Emperors of HRE, which ruled in the north and Tuscany (except Venice, autonomous). In the south the norman invasion united the remains of byzantine, arab and Lombard domination in the rich Kingdom of Sicily. It was allied with the Church State, ruled by the Popes, in the centre.

During the conflicts between Popes and Emperors (the matter was the control of the Italian feuds: most of them were ruled by bishops), the northern cities became independent: were born the "comuni", rich and 'democratic' city-states. The comuni defeated the german Emperors but their rivalities and the conflicts between aristocracy, middle class and workers brought to an authoritarian involution: were born the "signorie", regional states like the republics/duchies of Florence, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Mantua, Ferrara, Savoy... their intestine wars weakened them and, although in 1454 a long peace time had started (bringing to the "Golden Century" of Renaissance) these rich states became vulnerable to the French and Spanish invasions in the early Modern Age. Spain took Milan, Sicily and Naples; XVII Century is the time of Italian decadence and spanish rule.

After the Spain succession war Austria took hegemony on Italy, which will last till 1860. The only really independent state of Italy remained the kingdom of Sardinia, in the north-west. The Napoleonic times brought liberalism, jacobinism and revolutionary ideals in Italy, and many riots took place in the country, against Austrians, in the time 1821-1848. They were all repressed but a great prime minister, C. Cavour, brought Sardinian kingdom to industrial, military and diplomatic strenghts. Our "Risorgimento" (rising again) had started:

- In 1859 an alliance between Sardinia and France took Austria away of Lombardy;
- In the early 1860 rebellions in Emilia and Tuscany brought these regions to unite themselves to Sardinia, like Lombardy;
- In the Summer of 1860 our national hero, G. Garibaldi, with only 1000 soldiers conquered Sicily. The kingdom of the south fell down. The Sardinian army invaded the Church State leaving only Rome to the Pope. The center and the the south united themselves with Sardinia;
- In 1861 the "Kingdom of Italy" was proclaimed;
- In 1864 the capital was moved to Florence;
- In 1866 an alliance with Prussia brought to the conquest of Venice and Veneto;
- In 1870 Napoleon III, protector of the Pope, fell down; Rome was conquered and became the new capital.

In the years 1870-1915 our constitutional monarchy became a colonial power in Africa and there had been a good industrial development. But the working class and the Socialist party rised, and a new time of democracy was going to start. After the winning in WWI (1918) Trento and Trieste returned to Italy, and the "Risorgimento" was now finally complete.

But the war had brought the country on the edge of revolution. In order to face the socialists, the monarchy and the big corporations allowed Mussolini to take easily the power. Elections were brailed up and the liberal constitution abolished. That was the darkest time for Italy. In 1940 our people was brought to a war nobody wanted. Yankees invaded Sicily in 1943, in a country where the central power was greatly weakened because the people started to rebel against war and fascism. Mussolini fell down, so the Nazies occupied the North and Centre where they estabilished the "Salò Republic", a new mussolinian fascist state. In the south the kingdom survived under allied occupation.

But those were years of glory. In the areas occupied by the Nazis, the people started the resistence. Many little armies were created, and free partisan republics were established for short times. The "Resistenza" was the people's revenge against fascism: on the 25th of April (1945) Italy was finally free. The Resistenza was leaded by the three greatest democratic parties of that times: P.C.I. (Communist party), P.S.I. (Socialist party) and D.C. (Christian Democrats). Their collaboration brought to the born of the Republic (1946) and of our Constituion. With peace, we lost colonies ant the little region of Istria.

After the war, expecially in the sixties, Italy saw an "economic miracle", a great industrial boom. In 1951 we became a founder member of EU. However there were internal political problems.

The communist party took over one third of the votes, although it wasn't any more communist, I'd say radical socialist and democratic (surely more democratic than D.C.). To face the greatest communist party of the West, the D.C., the liberals and other left parties (including P.S.I. from 1962) formed an alliance which ruled Italy for over 40 years. This brought to great corruption and internal terrorism (fascist and leninist). All the parties united themselves in order to face terrorism and it was defeated. But there was still corruption...

In 1990 Communism had fallen. there wasn't any more reason to keep the communists out of the government: P.C.I. was split in two parties (D.S., "Democrats of Left", modern social democrats, actually my party) and P.R.C. (party for the communist re-foundation). In this situation a great judiciary scandal in Milan ("Mani Pulite", in English you'd say "Clean-handsgate") brought to P.S.I. and D.C. implosion. What remained of D.C. became the P.P.I., "Popular Party". All the other parties were destroyed.

In this chaotic situation S. Berlusconi created a right-wing confederation, the "Freedom House", in alliance with the "League" a new autonomist party of the north. They won elections in 1994, but their government lasted only 8 months because of the struggle between Berlusconi and the League.

In 1996 the alliance of D.S., P.R.C., P.P.I. won the elections. We decreased the State deficit allowing Italy to adopt the Euro currency. However, the P.R.C. in 1998 broke the alliance. So Berlusconi, again with the "League", won elections in 2001. His actual government is surely the worst in all the Republic's history. He supported Bush in Iraqi occupation in 2003 although over 70% of population disagreed. He's bringing us to economic crisis. Now the alliance with P.R.C. has been re-estabilished and the left wing won all the EU/administrative elections in 2003-2004. We are going to rule the country from 2006... maybe since next year.

So ideally the creation history would begin around the 15th century so that it ties in with the start position in EU2.

15th -19th century dominated by spain than austria.

After the napoleonic wars the torch for an united italy was carried by house savoy which included sardinia and piedmont. They gained lombardy and the papal states ( but not rome itself ) in 1860 following the 1859 war with austria ( allied with france ). later that year under garibaldi, sicily and the kingdom of naples were added. In 1866 allied to prussia they gained venice. in 1870 following frances defeat in the franco-prussian war ( french troops were protecting the pope ) they occupied rome. in 1871 the kingdom of italy was declared.

ah, i see he added to his post while i was typing ;)

Thankyou :)

The Italian nation I've been creating looks like its about to go north and no longer really be Italy as such...

awesoem article!

@dell; I'm intriguged at what ever your talking about; linkith perhaps??

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/

There is also a link in my sig and a few other threads in other games.

Its a game called Europa Universalis, you might like it since it starts just before the final collapse of the Byzantine empire so its still possible to change the course of history and push back the Ottomans.

It is difficult to rebuild the Byzantine Empire isn't it? I should play one game for Italy after reading this arctile :).

Sadly you can't start the game as Sardinia unless its possible to make them a vassal as Aragon although Savoy is playable from the start.

With Byzantium the key is to let the Ottomans waste troops to attrition trying to take Morea whilst you use a smallish force to besiege Macedonia or Bulgaria. Its still a struggle though and I ended up bankrupting myself and just when it looked like the game might progress I went Catholic when I should have stayed Orthodox but I had forgot that all my allies like Moldovia were Orthodox so there went all my chances of peacefully expanding...

It is really quite easy. Make Alliances with Serbia and Georgia and survive the first war with Turkey. Try not to loose Morea in the war. I think it should be easy once you have your Quadruple Alliance against Turkey. Then enter a war with Ai Koinu (sp) and conquer Armenia from it. Good thing about Byzantine is that with its former historical boundaries your reputation doesn't go down as fast as with other countires. You are seen as one who wants to reconver your on contry, not as an agressor. Anyway once you get Armenia you have secured yourself a gold reserve for future wars with Turkey. You can try to take Cyprus or Rhodes now simply to increase your territory (You can do that even in 1419 if you wish). After you have 4-5 provinces and the alliance I mentioned (or another one of the same power) you are ready for the first war with Turkey. Win it. Get land. Carry out another war. Come back to Turkey. Repeat untill Turkey is out :). Thats the way I did it and I hope it works for you :). It might take some reloading though :).

sounds like a very cool game indeed (that said, my main interests would be in uniteing Italy, or re-establishign the Byzantine empires borders. Also, is it possible to be the papal states (yes, weird all things considered, but I've always felt liek playing a game where i could be the pope, and going on a holy stomp fest throughout the lands of europe... ;))

You can do that in EU if you wish :). In fact its an interesting idea :mischief: !

P.S.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=2080588#post2080588
EU thread for those who want to discuss EU2 (like me)

It might take some reloading though :).

That really is the key :) I remember at least one war which has changed dramatically after playing defensively by holding a key mountain province rather than attacking.

But I guess we have the other thread for EU2 now so back to discussing Italy :)

I should add that I myself dotn own the game; though soon I just might (school just started back up for me, and i want to get things rolling along at a good pace before getting a gameing addiction....\though I suppos eits better somthign liek a computer game, then, somthing heroin or the like...)

I once started a game with Siena, where I managed to unite Italy under their banner and conquered most of north Africa, Switzerland, Albania and a bit of Greece. After a while, my goal was to recreate the Roman Empire, but it proved too much for my limited skills. Also Austria rulled the entire Balkans, half of Anatolia and pretty much united Germany! And they hated me... It is possible however, I've seen it done at Paradox forum with the Papal States. Actually, I've seen a guy there that conquered the entire world by the XVIII century with the Maya. :eek:

using EEP I was able to gain all core provinces of byzantine in one game by a stroke of luck and shady diplomacy, diploannexing many of the balkan states which had kept me alive during that fragile ottoman rise era (ended by my own hand in anatolia :evil:

Victoria is much better than EU2, EU was just stupidly-easy in most cases.

Now uniting Italy as S-P in Victoria, thats rather difficult, especially with VIP 0.3 since all northern italian minors are austrian satellites, crushed my early unification strategy. watching Lombardy revolt with venetia then invading austria to protect them was fun.

Discussions on games shld take place in the Other Games forum. Kindly desist fr threadjacking.

Yeah guys come to the thread I made :D.