MEIOU&Taxes 2.0 Brittany AAR/Mod Showcase -- Part 6: Hundred Years' War, Round 2

Don't you hate it when every week you read a new part of some story or AAR on the internet and then one week there is no update so you wonder where it is, shrug and move on but then there's no update next week either or the week after that and you realize "fuck it's over and the story will never be finished".

I sure hate it.

So anyways, the war begins! Or continues? The thing about the Hundred Years' War is that it wasn't a continuous war: it lasted 116 years counting ceasefires and 81 years without counting them. Longest ceasefire lasted for 26 years. So technically we're continuing the war despite being at peace for a long time.

wait who cares and why am i writing th

John tells his commander Gilles to encourage their soldiers to loot to their hearts' content. He wants that sweet dosh.

Gilles leads his army south to join with the French. If we attack Aragon immediately we will weaken one of our strongest enemies.

But when the army arrives in the south, the scouts have no sightings of the Aragonese, only a small Navarrese host. Gilles orders an attack and expects the French to support them if the Aragonese pop out of somewhere.

Oh, there they are.

The scouts see the aragonese army approaching and tell Gilles it'd be a good idea to retreat. But the army keeps marching on and there's nothing he can do. It's as if some invisible force is forcing them to go.

R E A L I S M. This time ironically.

The battle begins and goes poorly at first, but reinforcements come...

...too late. Damn French. Gilles' army suffered a humiliating defeat and retreats, broken and battered.

The French army attacks the army of their former ally Aquitaine. Not sure why as Aquitaine is disloyal and therefore they will only defend their home country. It'd be better to focus on Aragon and get them out of the war quickly, but whatever.

wait what HEY WHAT THE FUCK THE AI IS SUPPOSED TO BE INCAPABLE OF DOING NAVAL INVASIONS

YOU LIED TO ME

"The AI is shit" they said. "The AI is retarded" they said. Fuck you.

The French are beaten back and they retreat. Great. Things keep getting better and better.

This war was supposed to help our economy, not ruin it! Oh well. Let's hope we gain enough out of it to make this expensive venture worthwhile.

A Sicilian army (vassals of Aragon) and their Portugese allies besiege Nantes, but we consolidate our army and prepare to drive them away. The Dutch will help us too. John is pissing his pants out of terror and unironically prays to God for once.

But a message arrives from the south: the French require our support immediately, for they're attacking Aquitaine again. By the time Gilles' army arrives the French are fighting a losing battle.

Nevermind, the AI really is retarded.

We come just in time to save the day, but it is a pyrrhic victory for us as the French took heavy casualties.

The Sicilians abandoned the siege of Nantes and attacked Anjou instead. We march north, hoping to aid the local forces trying to keep the enemy out of their land.

We fail to arrive in time. Gilles decides to attack the weaker Portugese army instead, mostly because John sent him a hastily written letter begging him to come save him from the great and terrible horde of three thousand people.

The Sicilians approach but the leader of the local garrison opens the gate and rushes out to attack the flank of the Portugese. John quivers in terror and thinks all is lost.

The Dutch come to help as well and the battle rages for a long time. The foes' heavy cavalry gives us a pounding. In the south the French lose again, which has never been surprising. The reason why people like Napoleon and Charlemagne are admired so much is because they are the exception to the rule. A French victory is always a shocking thing.

A Breton-Dutch victory isn't, though. Frans Willem used clever tactics to keep the cavalry at bay and neutralized the enemy's only advantage.

But things aren't looking so good elsewhere. The Aragonese have a huge army coming north, the English have crossed the Channel and many vassals of France do fuck all because they're disloyal. Turns out the strongest vassal Burgundy is disloyal too.

This war might've been a horrendous idea.

The Breton-Dutch coalition attacks a nearby Navarrese army, as it is weak and is just sitting there masturbating. The English rapidly march to their aid and turn the battle from an easy victory for us to a certain defeat.

Gilles orders a retreat and the Dutch come soon after his army. A volley from longbows can ruin anyone's day.

We retreat and recuperate, while the enemy goes on the offensive. The French army is all but gone. Blois, the birthplace of John's dynasty, is under siege. Oddly symbolic.

The English and their allies march east. Gilles and Frans negotiate and decide the best course of action is to support their allies there, even if there are smaller easy pickings lying around. If the English army is not defeated, we're fucked. We're also fucked if they are defeated, although a little less so.

The army of Bar is led by a capable commander who manages to hurt English morale with cunning tactics. England's allies are further east locked in a skirmish with the local garrison. Our army is forced to march quickly, leaving behind a trail of soldiers too weak to go on due to wounds or illness as well as any wagons that broke down or got stuck.

The battle of Barrois greatly grows in size as we and the English allies join it. Arrows blot out the sun, thundering gallop of cavalry makes the earth shake and the infernal ear-rending noise of primitive firearms fills the air. But Louis des Armoises has a trick or two up his sleeve. The enemy is flanked, ambushed and surrounded, despite having greater numbers.

But the Sicilians are coming to aid. A fresh army could easily turn the tide of battle and snatch away victory.

The French army intercepts them, however, and also distracts the Portugese. Credit where credit is due, that was great. If the only thing you can do is lose, then lose strategically.

The front line of the English army is shattering and our soldiers rush in the gaps. Longbowmen are cut down in droves as they try to make their escape. Victory is within our grasp.

Oh yeah, firmly grasp that victory and rub it hard, for it is a truly glorious victory.

Hold on, I gotta play some of that sweet victory music from Medieval II Total War. 100% VOLUME BITCHES

Amazingly the French are still fighting. Maybe we can help them.

Louis of Bar doesn't come with us as he refuses to help his liege. Shame, as he is a talented commander.

We fail to come in time. Come on, they're French, why did I expect them to last long enough?

However, the Portugese and Sicilian commanders disagree on which way to go and split off. This already happened once in Nantes. I wonder if the commanders just don't like each other?

Whatever. We take advantage of the situation and attack the weaker Portugese.

The sicilians come to help, but only when it is too late. Both armies are defeated with a sick K:D ratio. We're real pro MLG warriors.

Aragon still fields a big army and is approaching from the south, but the English are weak and unwilling to fight. We need to strike at them before they regain their morale.

It's neat having those Navarrese provinces there. The enemy automatically retreats to them because they're the closest friendly provinces and ignores the fact thet they're deep in enemy territory.

The foe scatters before we arrive, but we do catch the Portugese army and inflict heavy casualties on them.

The English commander orders his army to go help, but the men obey with hesitation. When they join the battle they soon begin to waver. For a moment, it seems like another great victory is ours.

Then the Aragonese appear in the south.

Gilles, Frans and Francois-Antoine all agree to retreat before the enemy can truly strike at them. The enemy took almost twice as many casualties, but they still have a large advantage in numbers.

The war is going poorly, despite our recent string of victories. Aunis and La Rochelle still belong to the enemy, barely anything remains of the French army and like I said the enemy has an advantage in numbers. Gilles even sends a letter to John in Nantes asking if they should continue the war or admit defeat. John is mourning all the lost money, is terrified of imminent defeat and shakes in fear every time an enemy army marches through a nearby province, but his wife grabs the quill from his trembling hands and writes "Rather death than dishonour" and nothing more.

Gilles receives the letter and orders his army to march.

He does regret not being able to loot Constentin as it is a fairly wealthy province. That would please his employer, yes, but more importantly he'd like to gain something out of this mess of a war. He's a mercenary, after all.

But orders are orders and he'd like to keep his job and his head on his shoulders. Things are looking quite grim as many cities have been taken by the enemy, Aragon is invading southern France and Sicilians are taking care of Louis of Bar. The French are raising new regiments and Gilles decides the best move is to join with them.

The Portugese are beaten and chased, when scouts report that the English army is nearby and in some disarray. The Breton-Dutch coalition changes course and marches north.

The enemy is in poor condition and lacks morale, cavalry and men. The battle of Tours does not go well for them.

All horsemen of England are either dead, too wounded to fight or galloping away never to be seen again. Their infantry is not in much better condition either, but it still is capable of some fighting.

The Navarrese and Aragonese are fighting a large battle in Berry, and are not doing well despite their overwhelming advantage. We march to help and so do the French.

The battle of Berry is the largest battle in the war by far, with over 30000 men on the battlefield. Neither side gives mercy to the other and neither side has the upper hand for a while.

In the end our superior numbers win the day. The casualties are almost even but the enemy is broken and retreats. Has the tide truly turned?

aaaand there the french go to commit suicide again.

guess we should go help the idiots.

As we are marching south to join the French, Aquitaine attacks our rearguard and the rest of the army turns to face them.

The battle ends up being a terrible defeat. The enemy broke through the rearguard and attacked the wagons, killing and raping civilians and capturing supplies. This shattered the morale of many men who were then chased down without mercy.

Well, fuck.

We're rapidly going down again on this rollercoaster. I'd like to get off Mr. John's wild ride.

Burgundy has a large army but is doing jack diddly shit. Maybe I should've checked the LD of French vassals before declaring war...

Wait what's this

An English army suffers a defeat at the small hands of their outnumbered enemy. The French didn't even get to help their allies before the English lost.

Hmm...

The French shrug and move on to attack the Sicilians.

Aquitaine still has 100% LD because Castile still supports its independence. As long as the French don't try to commit suicide again (not that I blame them) we should be fine.

The large army of Aragon has already taken Toulouse, but as they siege Montpesliers a disease spreads through the ranks of their army, incapacitating thousands.

Let's hope they keep besieging shit and losing men to attrition.

The English try to attack Bourbonnais again but this time the Bretons and their many allies come to help.

The French are in Aquitaine once more. Sigh.

The English are defeated and they lose all their cavalry again. Funnily enough the regiments keep existing even without any soldiers. I understand why this mechanic exists but it's still funny to see ghost regiments running around.

It's at this point that Gilles meets the military mastermind who defeated the English earlier: Mathieu d'Isalguier, the commander of Foix, a tiny French vassal on the Aragonese border. He claims to be a big fan of all the military masterminds of the ancient world such as Philip II, Alexander, Hannibal and Caesar. Gilles has never heard any of them but is still quite impressed. Mathieu can also speak Latin and was educated in Italy. Gilles soon lets him have full control of his army and steps back.

Mathieu thinks they should wipe out the English once and for all, and so the army marches north, once again to Constentin where the English are waiting for reinforcements to cross the Channel and come to aid them.

It is a resounding victory as the demoralized enemy is surrounded and forced to surrender. Three thousand prisoners of war and dozens of ribaulds were captured. Mathieu orders one of his soldiers to make a laurel wreath for him. He points out that they're in northern France and that there are no laurels that far north. Mathieu slaps him, says he didn't literally mean a wreath made of laurel and orders him to make an oak wreath or some shit and shut the fuck up.

The French came to their senses and are no longer fucking around in Aquitaine. French war exhaustion is getting pretty high and their war enthusiasm pretty low so it's necessary to alleviate that by retaking some lost provinces. Mathieu, at the request of Gilles, begins to besiege enemy holdings in Blois while the French besiege Berry.

The Aragonese march North with Sicilian vassals in tow. Seems like they want to attack the weaker French army, even though our strong army is right next door.

I feel bad for being angry at people who called the AI stupid. Sorry.

The Aragonese weren't exactly as dumb as I thought but still stupidly parked right next door to us. After Blois is retaken we march south to attack them.

The French come to our aid once Berry falls and with Mathieu at the helm achieving victory won't be hard.

A resounding victory indeed. We lost less than 1500 men while the enemy lost about 4500. Mathieu is telling everyone how he plans to hold a Roman-style triumph in Paris once the war is over. One of the soldiers points out that Paris has really narrow streets coated in shit and people throw garbage out of their windows so holding a triumph would be a pretty terrible idea. Mathieu slaps him, says that he'll have so much money after the war that he can order the streets to be cleaned and widened and tells him to shut the fuck up.

An envoy arrives in Nantes. John thinks he's a spy and hangs him. Another envoy arrives in the camp of our army and meets the commanders. England offers peace, but only if Brittany abandons its alliance with France and pays a sizeable tribute to the King of England and Ireland. Gilles rejects the offer without hesitation.

Why would he accept it? The war is going well for us. As long as the French won't make a separate peace because of their war exhaustion, low manpower and occupied provinces, we're fine.

Shit, that might actually happen.

But if we keep going we will win. The enemy no longer has superior numbers thanks to our many victories and England has low enthusiasm.

Let's hope our bros don't abandon us. #PrayForFrance.

THERE THEY GO AGAIN

But this time we're prepared. Come at us, Aquitaine. I fucking dare you.

Thankfully the French come to their senses and leave.

We attack the Sicilian army near Paris.

They are defeated with minimal casualties and the army retreats. We give chase...

...and catch them some time later. The enemy surrenders and a thousand men and many pieces of artillery are captured.

Mathieu vanishd after the battle for several days before he returned with a monk. He said he needed a chronicler from a nearby monastery to write down his glorious deeds. One of his soldiers pointed out that he can also write and could just do it by himself. Mathieu slapped him and said great people order others to do the hard work instead of doing it themselves.

The Navarrese army surrenders without a fight as soon as they see the banners of our army.

Albret and Portugal skirmish for several hours, killing and wounding about three hundred, before they surrender too.

Mathieu demands that one of his soldiers will bring him a purple toga. The soldier points out that nobody makes togas anymore and purple dye costs more than everything Mathieu owns. He slaps him and says they've got enough booty to order a dozen purple togas from the finest Italian tailors and sends him off to Italy.

Another envoy from England arrives and demands them to concede defeat. All the commanders laugh, take him outside and execute several dozen high-ranking prisoners in front of him, then kindly ask him to bugger off and tell the King what he saw. He could come again if the King still thought they would accept his peace offer.

Now that most of the enemies have been defeated, it is time to attack Aquitaine and finally take La Rochelle.

As the army marches along a river in a valley, the army of Aquitaine attacks them from two sides. But with Mathieu in charge the army quickly changes formation and counterattacks. The enemy is soon on the defensive.

Another great victory. When Mathieu orders one of the soldiers to find masons to make a statue of him, he does so without question, albeit with some fear in his eyes as he rubs his cheek nervously.

Gilles says they should finally take La Rochelle but Mathieu reminds him that he is in control of the army now and orders the soldiers to march after the retreating army of Aquitaine instead.

The enemy was waiting for English reinforcements in port, vainly hoping they would come. They did not. Raymond, commander of the army, requested a private audience with the French commander John. An hour later the commander and the entire army surrendered. But the enemy was not taken prisoner. Instead, their army marched in peace back south to Aquitaine. Mathieu demanded to know what the hell happened, but John simply stated that Aquitaine was a rightful vassal of France and that their forces would be under the protection of the French crown after the war.

I'm fully certain France will soon after the war guarantee the independence of Aquitaine.

The army splits. One half goes to take La Rochelle while the other half, mostly French, goes to retake lost territory in the south and deal with a rogue Aquitaine army near Toulouse. Mostly because Mathieu was angry at John and didn't want to work with him any longer.

We are nearing bankruptcy at a rapid rate. The war must end soon.

La Rochelle falls after a harsh siege. Afterwards armies scatter all over the place to pillage the defenceless countryside.

Gilles sends a letter to Nantes asking what to do next. John orders him to loot as much as possible. They had loaned a fortune from Jews and Italian bankers and he had to pay the debts somehow. Fuck the peasants and burghers of Aquitaine.

Too bad Greece can't use the same tactic to solve its debt issues today.

This is where the local wealth mapmode comes very handy. Constentin, as I mentioned before, seems to be the best nearby candidate for looting.

John (the French commander, not the Duke of Brittany) is unable to keep France's vassals' soldiers from having some fun in Aquitaine. He shrugs and thinks they might as well join in and do some rapes and pillages and shit because the treaty with Aquitaine won't be in effect until the war is over.

John (the Duke of Brittany, not the French commander) gained a reputation of being a malevolent person after he ordered the Burning of Aquitaine and let it happen even if the war was over at that point.

Three negative traits! Yay! He really is the anti-Charles!

The enemy managed to gather a somewhat large army but so did the French. The English allies lose the battle of Gavaudan, the last major battle in the war.

Constentin had reached 250 ducats of wealth when we looted it. Sweet, sweet money.

After the battle of Gavaudan, a Navarrese envoy arrives and sues for peace. The offer is accepted.

The war is pretty much over. All the major enemy countries have low enthusiasm and we have 17% warscore. Unfortunately, we also have 7 war exhaustion.

The King of Aragon offers peace and we accept.

As the war is drawing to a close a scandal occurs: turns out John's claim on Aunis is not legitimate after all and seems to be fabricated. John can do little except deny it and hope the word doesn't spread to other courts. However, more and more people in the duchy question his legitimacy and think if he even deserves to sit on the throne.

A small English army besieges Saint-Malo but the city's defenses should last. Meanwhile Mathieu and the French are retaking southern holdings. Aquitaine burns.

Finally, John sends an envoy to England to negotiate a peace treaty. He would become the Count of Aunis, the crown of France would reclaim eastern Poutou and Poitiers and England would pay a small tribute to them.

Province war score costs and AE costs are a bit fucked if you're playing in highly populated regions, as provinces are too expensive making expansion wars quite the slog. The devs are planning to address this soon, but as of now don't play in China.

A peace treaty was signed on May 26th 1404 A.D. Over 200000 men had lost their lives, been severly wounded or fallen seriously ill. Not to mention the civilian casualties which were in the tens of thousands. All for... what? Some territorial changes, widespread devastation and some tributes. Such senseless waste. This, is modern war. I mean medieval war.

Another free upvote if you get that reference

In total, we gained a grand total of... 37 ducats, and even that only because John confiscated a lot of the loot the soldiers had taken. Was all that really worth it? No, but greed can easily blind the eyes of foolish men. John went to war expecting a profit and learned a tough lesson: war can be really fucking expensive.

Well, the rest of the money goes to local wealth of our provinces. Each province got about... 25 ducats. Wow.

And now we have three loans to repay. With the money we have, we can repay one loan. Yup, we sure as fuck did not make a profit.

But we did capture La Rochelle, an important port. Although it increases our income only by a little bit. Still, with a couple of buildings and investments of several hundred ducats it could become a worthwhile trading port...

M E C H A N I C E X P L A N A T I O N

Sheesh, haven't had one of these in a while. So, in M&T coring is really cheap but you can't immediately do it. Instead, you have to wait for the martial law modifier to go away. So for about 5 years your conquered provinces are kinda shit. Coring cost modifiers are therefore kinda shit now, don't waste mana or cash on them.

The soldiers of Saint-Malo and the rest of Brittany returned home. Or, well, some of them did. Others lie dead all over France. Cold, rotten corpses in Barrois, Tourraine, Berry, Constantine, some unburied, but all of them unnamed and forgotten. And unlike in modern times, there won't be a fancy memorial with big statues or huge fields of white crosses for them. No, there will be nothing. Only the families of the dead will remember them, but who knows how many family members that followed the soldiers (because back then soldiers often took their families with them) came home.

And what of the wounded? Veterans received little to no respect back then, unless they were nobles. Breton cripples left behind beg in a street of some French town, unable to speak to local language and only able to lift an open palm and look at passing strangers with pleading eyes. Occasionally some pious man would place a single coin on a hand, a coin that would not return lost limbs but that would buy a nice mug of beer.

And for what purpose? Because John mistakenly thought war would be a profitable venture. It was his last hope of fixing the economy which he had ruined by being an incompetent shit, but now it's more ruined than ever. Yet he still lives on, at the age of 63, still somewhat healthy and with all limbs attached, with a young child and a smoking hot wife. Tens of thousands perished, now unable to ever raise their offspring, just because they chose the wrong career path or because their lord had forced them to leave or because they had an oath to honour. Just because John was a stupid piece of shit. But he received no punishment. Everyone else did. Those who deserved life died, while he who deserves death lives.

I really want to press the "abdicate" button but I also really want to see the message "Our Duke is dead!". Fucking John, I bet he doesn't even have a beard.

After the war, the military of Sicily was so crippled that they were unable to resist full annexation by the crown of Aragon.

Meanwhile in Foix, Mathieu has become a heavy drinker after it turned out he'd only get a small portion of the disappointingly small amount of war spoils. Most of them went to the crown of France and Duke John. He is now in debt to Italian tailors, Aquitainian masons, a French monk and his own soldiers and is unlikely to pay them back any time soon. And he never got to hold a triumph in Paris.

Now that there is peace at last, Brittany becomes more stable. Let's hope this peace lasts, and let's hope there are no severe consequences for this war, such as famine...

Tune in next time if you still care about this shitty AAR. I promise the next part won't take half a month to finally appear.