EU2 AAR, Venice, a Great Power?

[Dell19]

*Probably not a great history since I wrote most of it several weeks after it happened*

Map of starting position

There can be no doubt that the republic of Venice begins the game as a regional power with several coastal provinces bordering the Adriatic, Greek islands and of course the greatest trade centre of Venice. AGREEP has significantly weakened the position of Austria to the north which does strengthen the starting position of Venice. The major opportunities are to form an Italian empire from the city states to the west or to build a Greek empire in the south however Venice is destined to face great dangers. The Hungarian kingdom to the east can boost massive armies and even as they collapse a German power is likely to replace them. To the south is the historical enemy, the Ottomans. Destined in history to essentially end any chance Venice had of becoming a great power and establishing their massive empire instead. Finally no list of threats would be complete without mention of the French who are destined to one day focus their attentions on the Italian provinces.

Venice begins with two vassals, Mantua to the west of Venice and the Duchy of Athens, their alliance consists of the Duchy of Athens and Tuscany.

Beginning in turmoil

Venice begins the game at war with Hungary, perhaps their biggest threat at the start of the game with the ability to levy great armies. Fortunately Venice has already conquered Dalmatia when the story begins so there is a chance to gain a province if the war progresses well. As expected a large army of 20000 Hungarians moved to try and retake Dalmatia. A smaller Venetian army of 10000 troops moved to besiege Croatia and after a short period of fighting a peace treaty was agreed where Hungary ceded Dalmatia to Venice.

War isn’t the only way to measure progress and the aim of the republic was always to be one of the most advanced nations in terms of infrastructure and land technology so these were set to be the priority whilst over the next several decades the innovation slider would be increased to reduce the time taken to research.

Morea, Constantinople and the Ottomans

Constantinople starts the game in the hands of a dying empire, the Byzantines and in reality would be captured by the Ottomans to propel them towards a position that could destroy Venice. An obvious solution to limiting their power is to take Constantinople before they can but the Venetian leaders were wary of losing their reputation if they were to declare war without a cassi Belli. In light of this the Venetian generals turned their attentions elsewhere and decided to declare war on Morea, a Greek state to the south of Athens, as the province had been declared as a core Venetian province.

The war was declared and it wasn’t until a month of fighting that the Venetians realised that Morea had an ally and we were now at war with Byzantium. Plans to take Morea were scrapped and the Duchy of Athens would later besiege the province instead. Venice turned its attention further east and set about the glorious conquest of Constantinople which was added to the Venetian republic. Peace saw Morea stay independent as the Duchy of Athens never took the option to absorb the province.

This peace would not last long as an ultimatum arrived from the Ottomans, ‘Cede Constantinople or prepare for war’. There could be no way that such a recent conquest could be simply given away so war was chosen. Venetian troops would capture Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria and Kosovo whilst Ottoman troops did take Thrace. Without a major battle between the two armies the winner was decided on the number of captured provinces allowing Venice to gain Macedonia in the peace deal. A month later the Duchy of Athens was diplomatically annexed adding the province of Hellas to the republic.

 

[Dell19]

The kingdom of Italy?

As a republic and a nation with interests further a field than just Italy, Venice cannot become the Kingdom of Italy but that doesn’t mean that Venice should avoid conquering the rich lands of northern Italy. The next chapter of the Venetian nation saw them acquire Tuscany as a vassal who brought Venice into a war against Siena which Tuscany comfortably won and annexed Siena. Attempts were also made to gain Modena as a vassal which was eventually successful when they joined our alliance with Tuscany and Mantua.

The obvious exception to the alliance was Milan and soon war would break out. Modena was an early casualty in the war as the Milanese army could quickly reach the province whilst Venetian armies had to be assembled in the north. However the Milanese success of annexing Modena would soon turn sour as first the Venetians would gain Modena in a peace treaty, then Tuscany gained Emilia and finally Mantua annexed Milan as a one province nation to gain Lombardia.

The defining moment of the Venetian republic would come soon after the war when Tuscany accepted to become part of our nation. This saw the number of Italian provinces order Venetian control increase from 2 to 5 when Venice had been the only Italian province before the war with Milan.

The obvious next stage of the republic would have been to diplo annex Mantua but a war against Scotland and Switzerland would disastrously destroy their nation with Lombardia becoming part of Switzerland whilst Scotland took Mantua. Eventually Mantua would be retaken but the event has been lost in history.

 

[Dell19]

Focusing East once more

With our old alliance members either having been destroyed or annexed it was time to find a new alliance and that was found with France and Genoa. Forming an alliance would last for a number of years and at one point form an alliance that owned provinces from Coventry to Constantinople. With Albania becoming a core province it was time to fight the Ottomans again.

The navy would win the war for Venice by effectively blocking any crossing that the Ottomans tried to make from Asia whilst their provinces were besieged on the European side. Ironically the poor performance of the French, by throwing away troops against the Ottomans in Asia saw only Albania added to the Venetian empire. To worsen the matters we would lose Albanian culture the day before we took the province making the war largely a waste. Things were not too bad though as the Venetians were technologically advanced and we were progressing.

The alliance would ensure some major benefits with regular military successes. A war against Austria would see Steiermark added and weaken the Austrian empire, which were struggling after Hungary had diplomatically annexed Bohemia instead.

Papal war

Before we joined the French alliance we could have allied with the Papal States and Aragon but they held several Italian provinces so it was judged that one day we would go to war with them. When that alliance broke down, Venice took the opportunity to declare war against the Papal States. With French support there was never going to be any doubt of the result and in 1500 Venice had gained Marche and Napoli.

The Palinate and Meissen would join the alliance both with powerful German nations. A French led war saw the carving up of Switzerland with Lombardia given to Venice whilst France gained the other two provinces. At the height of its power the alliance would see France dramatically defeat the English and at one point look like diplomatically annexing England. They also diplomatically annexed Genoa who had been gifted about 500-1000 ducats by the Venetians who were trying to do the same but were forever rejected.

The end of the French alliance

Thirty years after the war against the Papal States had united Italy, relations between France and Venice had begun to deteriorate heavily. Perhaps the French court had begun to eye Venice as a potential conquest after securing Genoa or perhaps because they believed Venice were about to start a new war in the east. Either way when the third Ottoman war broke out, France refused to join the war leaving Venice and the Palinate to take on the might of the Ottoman armies.

The third Ottoman war took on a similar feel to the previous war with Venetian fleets blocking the Bosphorus whilst the army besieged the European provinces. Without the defeats of suicide French armies, Bulgaria, Kosovo and Morea were captured for the Venetian empire. Morea had been the original target of the war as it was a core province. The war was a success however the diplomatic consequences would have a major impact on the future.

 

[Dell19]

As had probably become clear by now, I tend to play the game as a series of war with domestic building limited to mass upgrades of majors and legal councillors. Essentially I like to know that there is an opportunity for future growth which is always my fear as an Italian nation. This was especially true in the vanilla game where by the time Italy was conquered you would have a united Spain, France and an Austrian dominated Germany leaving the only opportunity for growth into the east where the Ottomans are too strong for the low value provinces that may be available for capture.

With this in mind the Venetian generals are always on the lookout for new opportunities to gain more valuable territory and to exploit game events. There is one event that Venice can take advantage, the first is to take Constantinople. A second would be to attack Austria whilst they have their hands tied with the Hussites or another powerful neighbour although that needs Austria to have already taken a few provinces which they had not. The disappointment of losing Genoa to the French constantly led to possibilities to gain revenge and one obvious event was found.

Around 1560 France is struck by a massive rebellion that leads to the Huguenots appearing in the south of France with a modest empire and seemingly set up to win wars against a powerful France. Even better is that their empire cuts across southern France cutting off three French provinces below the line and also Genoa and Corsica. Once the event fired war was declared and our ally the Palinate joined us in the fight against France.

The problem with the strategy was always going to be how to soak up the French manpower whilst being able to conquer provinces to gain in a peace treaty and also stopping my AI ally from losing too many provinces. Fortunately the Palinate were up to the challenge and managed to only lose one province in a separate peace deal where they perhaps could have fought for longer as they still had troops left whilst France were looking shaky.

The initial moves of the war were to besiege Liguria whilst the navy formed a blockade. Armies from around Venice were assembled in northern Italy whilst we watched the French armies move around Switzerland who were fighting the Huguenots and gained Franche-Comte during our war with France. Liguria was soon captured and that army moved on to Piemonte, having a leader certainly helped with sieges. The army in Lombardia still remained stationary whilst another army boarded the navy surrounding Corsica and on their second attempt took Corsica and began the siege.

Like a lot of wars against the AI after a certain period they seem to stop building quite as many armies as they run out of cash and waste their troops in massive assaults or long sieges where their army is much larger than the support limit for the province. So by the time Piemonte was taken we started to find it a bit easier and moved an army to besiege Provence and then the army was split to also besiege Languedoc. The decision was also made to besiege Schwyz.

As the French provinces began to fall and the Huguenots took Savoy it was a surprise to see the Palinate agree to give Wurzburg to the French but this decision turned out to help me somewhat as the French armies would now have to fight their way through the Huguenots if they wanted to fight me in the south whilst Venice quickly signed a military access agreement with the Palinate so that we could attack the French in the north. This wouldn’t be necessary as once the siege of Wurzburg began the French capitulated ceding Provence, Languedoc, Piemonte and Schwyz.

The war was undoubtedly a success with four provinces gained from the French and well worth the bad boy score even if we didn’t manage to take the Italian province that we really wanted, Genoa. The key advantages of the conquest is that Corsica or Genoa could now fall into rebel hands and either form a weak nation or decide to join our nation. It also gave us a land connection with the Spanish who still held Apulia and Sicily and perhaps more importantly the Huguenots who hold Lyon and if defeated could lead to significant gains in the south of France.

If anyone is wondering about why I had 3000 gold it was because I was close to getting the infrastructure level required for majors so I was saving up for a mass upgrade which will occur in the next chapter. The fact that I still had the same amount at the end of the war is that I've adapted to the game and now keep large armies with 50% support as they can still defeat rebels and avoids worrying about how to afford to build large armies. A tip in this respect is to never use the war tax option unless you are playing a nation such as Byzantium which desparately needs the cash to stay alive in the early game.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Enjoyable read. Some nice strategies there, especially with Constantinople. To be fair though, I've never read a Venetian AAR. Out of interest, what are your main objectives (other than making Venice a great power )

The English Channel land bridge seems to have been exploited fully by the French. Tis a shame, really.

 

[Dell19]

The original aim of the game probably was to form an Italian nation butthat plan was screwed up from the start since there were several opportunities for war in the Greek region whilst the northern Italian provinces start in an alliance that basically forced me to wait for it to expire. After the Greek conquests the objective changed to building an adriatic empire and now the aim is to dominate the Mediterranean.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

That's the way it always seems to go for me. I plan to create a nice little empire, then suddenly I'm being forced to take on a continent.

 

[Dell19]

An Unwanted War

No war is good but a war that is chosen is better than one that is rammed down your throat and with this is mind its probably clear that Venice is about to brought into another war.

After the successful war against the French the alliance was in a good mood and this prompted Denmark to join the alliance as the Palinate were still leading the alliance since we had poor relations with Denmark. The triggers of a continental war would start with the declaration of independence of Oldenberg from the Danish. The rest of the alliance joined the war and Oldenberg would be eventually conquered by the Palinate, however the rebellion had started a dangerous ball rolling and soon Zealand rebelled from the Palinate.

Their attentions were elsewhere and Holland declared independence rapidly forming an empire from the four core Dutch provinces creating a second war which would see the Danish leave the alliance – unwilling to fight someone else’s war. These wars were quite simplistic but before their end the Palinate would do something a little crazy. Perhaps motivated by suspicions that the Hapsburgs had been behind the Dutch revolt, they declared war on Austria who were allied with Portugal, SPAIN! and the disloyal Danish.

There is no map of the initial situation but essentially Venice was now at war in the east against Austria and in a war against Spain in the west whilst the Palinate were still tied up fighting Holland. This is the not the kind of war I would typically chose but then again there had always been a vague plan for going to war with Spain and the war would be a challenge to gain some sort of victory.

Avoiding Conflicts

The AI has a strategy for favouring massive sieges with massive armies so after a meeting of the top Venetian generals they decided to fight a war of avoidance. The Spanish soon made it clear that the French provinces of Languedoc and Provence, and Schwyz would be their targets whilst Austria would focus on Steiermark and Schwyz. With this in mind a first Venetian army landed in Gerona across the Spanish border and instantly took the province and thus moved on to Catalonia. Gerona would later be lost but that army would eventually take Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia and be besieging Grenada when peace was signed without ever facing a Spanish army.

The other main focus of the attack would be to take the southern tip of Italy and Sicily. The battle for Apulia went well but the first attempt to conquer Sicily was considered a failure. An initial defeat in Messina saw the army then head for another defeat in Sicily before ending back in Messina to begin a siege of the province. The last movement involving this front was to attempt a failed landing at Sardinia and then moving on to besiege the Baleares islands after they were found undefended. To the East the Danish, Spanish and Portugese would all try to dislodge a 7k Venetian army on Crete and all fail whilst occasionally landing small armies on Corfu.
Back in mainland Europe Spain would capture Languedoc whilst Austria conquered Schwyz with Spanish support. The Spanish should have taken Provence but regularily broke the siege for no reason. Against Austria we traded Steiermark several times and the war was beginning to turn in our favour when the Palinate negotiated a separate peace with Spain where Spain ceded Murcia, Apulia and Messina to Venice. The war against Austria would continue for another year with Austria and Oldenberg both captured. The Palinate ended the war by signing peace where Oldenberg became a Venetian province. Oldenberg was perhaps a bit greedy of the Venetian generals as it turned out to be dominated by protestants who were viewed as being useless in the Venetian republic.

The end of the war with Spain:

Peace was restored and a mass upgrade of officials occurred with many mayors promoted over the next years to combat the inflation that was at around 11% at the time. Of note during the war was that the Venetian navy was only defeated once however we only gained maps from Spain and they did not give us any information of the mysterious lands of America that rumours mentioned contained great riches.

Western front:

Eastern front:

 

[Dell19]

A last chance

France was continuing to struggle as the French Catholics declared independence with a large number of previously French provinces, stretching around the northern half of France that cut off England from France. The Venetians knew that this would not last and that eventually the differences would be overcome and one day the Huguenots and the French Catholics would be absorbed back into one nation and thus time was running out for a war against the Huguenots to gain the rich province of Venice.

The Venetians desperately sought to justify their war to the world but no excuse could be found so with the Huguenots at war with the French Catholics, we declared war. We decided to spare the Palinate from the fighting as they were not viewed as being necessary to win the war. Three armies moved north to besiege Lyon, Cevannes and the third army would split to besiege Guyenne and Gascogne. The major battles would occur in Dauphine, where a Venetian attack was initially repelled but the second was successful and in Guyenne. The battle in Guyenne would seal the outcome of the war as a Venetian army that had besieged Guyenne defeated a larger Huguenot force from the north. Peace was signed soon after for very generous terms that gave Lyon, Guyenne, Gascogne and Cevannes to Venice.

The aftermath left Venice as the badboy of Europe by increasing the rating to 29 points that gave us the label of ‘Very bad reputation.’ This increase was justified by the knowledge that we had secured 4 valuable provinces and now had a port on the Atlantic and an established position in southern France.

The French in crisis

The defeat of the Huguenots was the least of the problems that France was facing. They had joined an alliance with the Huguenots and had found themselves at war briefly with Venice and also with the French Catholics. Denied a land bridge to England, the French were helpless to prevent every English province being taken by rebels and the same occurred in Genoa. A disaster for France, perhaps their lowest point in their history.

Perhaps a game bug or something that is meant to limit collapses, the rebels would all disappear once Genoa declared independence. All the English rebels returned home and the land reverted back to being under French control. The Venetian diplomats would at least take advantage of the collapse, even if it was not as large as had been hoped, by bringing Genoa into our alliance. This was a big achievement as the Doge could not be worse at diplomacy and thus it was only once a successor was appointed that Genoa would finally become our vassal.

A Time of Peace

For 15 years Venice would not be involved in any wars; however several achievements occurred during this time. The notable activity to the north would be the end of the Huguenot rebellion and their re inclusion into the French empire, however the French Catholics would remain free. As has already been said Genoa would become a vassal of Venice and they would also become our sole alliance member as poor diplomacy saw a slow reaction to the expiry of the alliance and thus the Palinate joined a northern alliance with Sweden.

The return of a Great Power

The original predictions of the Venetians were proved correct as before the turn of the century, the French Catholics followed the path of the Huguenots in returning to the French empire. The rebellions that had begun again in England were soon crushed by the reunited French army and gave a clear indication that France was back as a global power. It also created the opinion in the Venetian courts that France would one day attempt to recapture the provinces that they had once lost in the previous French war and those provinces lost by the Huguenots. An odd development would be a joint Spanish and Danish war against Sweden where Spain would gain a significant number of unconnected Scandinavian provinces.

 

[Dell19]

WAR!

A rebellion over taxes had been cleared except for 1000 rebels in Messina when an announcement was received. War had been declared by France and that was soon followed by the announcement that Scotland wished to join the war as well. Genoa would come to our aid in a war that the Venetian generals thought would be challenging but perhaps no harder than the war against Spain and Austria. I say this since Austria and Hungary have terrible relations with Venice due to our expansion policy. The alliance was almost as unlikely as the alliance to the north that had formed between France, Scotland, England and our former allies, the Palinate.

The war would begin positively with few French troop movements giving confidence to the Venetian armies that had originally held back in case the French sent a massive invasion force into the south. A minor problem in the beginning of the war was that French troops would continually pass through Piemonte on their way towards Wurzburg so initially only the army that had been stationed in northern France could move north to besiege Poitou and Vendee. The problem would be broken first by winning a battle against a French army in Piemonte and opening the way to move into France.

The second solution would be to take the army that had finally defeated an army of rebels in Messina and load it into a fleet that had come from Morea and would finish in Languedoc. The increased manpower allowed many further sieges to be undertaken including a siege of Burgundy which was seen as a major target of the war if it was to drag on for many years. A couple of major battles would be fought against Scottish troops that had come south to aid their allies, however the Venetian armies were victorious.

As captured above, the army in Burgundy was about to be attacked by a French army of a similar size but once again our army was successful at holding the siege. The victory effectively ended the major threat of a French counter offensive and there was a real possibility that our armies would reach Paris in the course of the war however ultimately if the French were going to offer a generous peace treaty then we would accept.

The navy would see only one action in the war and that would be with a Scottish fleet. It had been decided early on to send a fleet to block the sea east of Gibralter as the province of Murcia meant that the region was classed as home waters. This meant that our fleet could stay there for the next 155 months without suffering attrition. Ironically the battle with the Scottish fleet would occur on arrival in the region.

Peace would be declared in 1604 handing over Limousin, Dauphine and Savoie to Venice and thus further establishing our hold in southern France. Perhaps more provinces could have been taken in a peace treaty but in other games I’ve taken every French province in Europe before and still only gained 3 provinces in the peace deal and also it kept our war score down as it only increased by 3 points to 32 points in total. Whether this would be the end of wars with France, only time will tell.

Genoa and North America

Eight years after the war with France, Genoa was finally a possibility to diplomatically annex. They would accept our first proposal and their realm was added to the republic. This was a great moment as it was the redemption of the earlier loss of Genoa to France many years before. It also ended our alliance so we were free to sign a new alliance and the first offer would be accepted. The result saw us become allied with Spain, Austria, Poland and Hungary that formed a significantly large alliance that stretched from Russia to the Americas. Whether any of the alliance members would come to our aid in a war was yet to be tested.

The other result of the war was a great period of learning and expansion. Genoa had been much more successful at obtaining maps and their knowledge revealed the outlines of South America and Africa. Much more importantly they had reached the relatively unpopulated lands of North America and had even established a city in the region known as Laurentia. Ironically the region was dominated by French colonies thus giving us a new aim for a future war if it were to ever occur. Venice took advantage of their new knowledge by sending 6 colonists to the new lands, of which 5 would be successful, so that they could establish a port in this new land. The city in Laurentia would be fortified and an army to be produced whilst the colony effort would focus on turning Ottowa into a city. Sagueney would also be turned into a trading post.

 

[Pyotr Veliky]

That's an impressive Venice you have there. Nice to see the French taken down. In essence you are now unrivalled on the continent. Everyone is at Venice's mercy.

 

[Gelion]

Mein gott.... what I don't get about these games... how do you handle reputation?!!

 

[Dell19]

For quite a bit of the game the AI was on a low aggression setting since I had forgotten to check it. Also until recently my reputation stayed below 10 by never declaring war witout an excuse. At a certain size the AI seems to pretty much stop declaring war and in the later game the chances of wars tends to reduce quite a lot anyway since you only have a fraction of the original number of nations so there is less chance that one of them will start a war.