MEIOU&Taxes 2.0 Brittany AAR/Mod Showcase -- Part 1: War of Succession

So, a recap for those uninterested in history but interested in a historical game (=people who didn't read the prologue like the lazy "tldr" losers they are): Brittany starts at civil war. One faction is house Montfort, headed by John, and the other is house Blois, headed by Charles the Bearded. Both have strong claims on the ducal crown and are duking it out. French help the Blois and English help the Montfort.

Also: I am playing with Fast Universalis so the game will run a lot faster and look like shit. Don't expect to see any 3d models anywhere, but do expect weird terrain textures. If you have a low-end computer like I do definitely download the mod if you play M&T.

M&T uses this conflict to simultaneously simulate the Hundred Years' War. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for England and France, this means the Breton factions are war leaders.

As you might see, in M&T armies are a lot smaller and closer to their historical sizes. OPMs get much less free force limit and manpower, which also makes them very difficult to play especially in the HRE. Which is fine, because the sad truth is that historically Ulm never really had a chance to become a world power. For those seeking a little milder challenge, the alternative to OPMs are small nations with few provinces such as Brittany. Although as a side note playing tall is more than viable in M&T.

Wait why is John Monfort considered the fifth of his name? HIS FATHER JOHN HAD NO RIGHT TO THE THRONE AND WAS NOT THE TRUE HEIR OF JOHN III SON OF ARTHUR AND WAS NOT THEREFORE JOHN IV AND NEITHER IS HIS SON JOHN V REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

(for those who read the prologue, this is one of the reasons why I didn't put regnal numbers after Johns. The other reason is because it was funny.)

Before we get to the fighting, let's take a look at a province. At first glance nothing seems different, there's just some weird icons.

Oh boy, you just wait. Once the setup events are done in one in-game year it's going to look very different. Yes, in M&T some nations have to fight wars while their nation and economy aren't even fully functional yet. That's the price you have to pay for including historical wars.

I'll go through the province menu in more detail once the setup events are done. At this point I can just say that the province has 17 times 10 000 rural population (170 000), 10 000 urban population and one unit of upper class representing at most 5% of the total populace. These values can change and you don't use magical and mystical mana to do that.

Lovely, Charles is called Duke and has two fitting traits: benevolent and righteous. He also has fitting stats, 3/3/5, showing what a capable military leader he is. His heir is pretty good too, AND IS ALSO CALLED JOHN. This isn't funny anymore.

Also, as you can see in the right, France got a new monarch twice. What that actually means is that they're in an interregnum because the English captured their king. This can't be simulated in EU4 so M&T just puts them in an interregnum at the start of the game. Capturing leaders is a mechanic that is only in CK2, a game that takes place in this exact time period.

No, I don't know why the M&T team decided to move the default start date to 1356. Probably so they can brag "extra years!!! longer campaign!!!" in their mod description, even though most people don't care and only play a game for about 200 years anyways.

Hey look, Charles is also a decent general. Because we already have a good heir, because I don't want to waste sword mana (not that mana is important at all in M&T) and because of history, Charles will personally lead his army to battle.

Here's the war. Quite the clusterfuck, as it was historically. Everyone starts out with 4 WE (it's gonna get a lot worse, as will that death counter). Our side has a lot more troops, but it won't matter much. As you can see, two historical battles are listed, one of them being the famous Combat of the Thirty. Too bad here it's actually the Combat of the Sixty. Oops.

John V will also lead his army personally. Damn, he has some nice pips. Not sure why he's so good at gunpowder tactics though, barely anyone has handguns yet. Those siege pips will be scary though. He sure loves trebuchet memes.

Soon after a war starts in M&T you get this event. Looting is a big aspect of the mod so this decision is very important. You can turn wealthy kingdoms into hellish wastelands resembling Helsinki suburbs and become ridiculously rich. War without conquest is totally worth it now, as it is in reality. R E A L I S M.

Charles will restrict looting for two reasons: one, he doesn't want to repeat the massacre of a thousand innocent citizens (just read the prologue to know what I'm talking about), two, he doesn't want to pillage the lands he will own if he wins the war. This will give us some nasty little penalties but they seem manageable.

I plan to do colonization (spoiler warning) in this game so of course I'll turn plagues on, that way there will be less pesky native scum in my way.

Charles has joined up with his French allies and is heading to intercept John's army that is marching through French countryside.

The two armies face off in the battle of Bas-Poetou. Charles vs. John, who will win? Not taking bets because the result is obvious.

The start for Montfort is rough, but not for long. If you survive the initial onslaught, the Plantagenet armies will come to aid from Aquitaine and England. And by aid I mean AID. Those guys kick ass.

Here you can see one of the unique national units in this mod, the French Chevaliers. Many nations get special units a la Civilization with slightly better stats. You can also see how our morale is taking a big hit.

There, eat shit Montfort scum. Also fuck you Bertrand for stealing Charles' thunder. You did jack diddly shit, like the Americans during World War 1.

Charles leads the army to face Edward the Black Prince and help out his allies. He didn't lose many men in the battle.

I'd totally read a fanfic about Charles and Edward facing off in a battle. Too bad people only write fanfics about characters from children's media having sex.

Fuck. Edward is using clever tactics and deceits to split and surround our forces while harrying us with deadly bodkin arrows. Our morale is dropping and the English are coming. It's Poitiers all over again. Damn you Edward! Why did I underestimate you?

The English reinforcements arrive and flank our regiments. A chain reaction of panic occurs and hundreds flee, only to be shot by skilled English longbowmen. Charles is in the middle of it all, somehow still alive.

Then, as the sun begins to set on the bloodied battlefield, the sound of rumbling drums and whistling fifes can be heard in the distance. Blue banners flutter in the dim light of dusk. THEN THE FRENCH KNIGHTS ARRIVED! COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAINSIDE-- wait fuck we're in rural France there's no mountains and barely any hills

Nevermind.

There we go, disaster avoided. And again Bertrand takes the credit for victory, although this time he kinda deserves it.

That's our first Dei Gratia event. What's Dei Gratia? It's one of the many mods included in M&T and is excellent despite some issues. It overhauls religion and I'll be going through that in more detail later on.

The bishop of the Diocese of Rennes (the guy responsible for crowning dukes of Brittany), Guillaume Poulart, is a pretty nice guy who does a lot of nice and pious things. Charles likes him and he likes Charles, especially his beard which rivals that of Jesus.

I realized that I didn't have a royal marriage with anyone and I wanted to improve relationship with France, so I set up a marriage. King John of France is a prisoner of England, but I'm sure he won't mind if Charles marries some French noble. Damn, she has nice stats.

Wait, isn't Charles supposed to be married at this point of time? Let me check wikipedia.

Yup. Get cucked, Joanna.

Ah, here we go, set up events are happening. Here you can see some of the differences. Less autonomy and unrest, different province trade good (if you can't see it, it changed from salt to wheat) and a bunch of province modifiers. You think the number of modifiers is bad? Oh sweet summer child.

(Also note the nice bonuses the Loire estuary gives esp. for trade power)

Paris has the following: luxury trade good modifier, farming efficiency modifier, minor center of trade modifier, important center of production modifier, communication efficiency modifier, capital bonus modifier, largest city on the continent modifier, urban infrastructure value modifier, local wealth modifier, foreign students modifer and vanilla climate modifier. All of these are dynamic and can change. Also, it can get worse than this. I've seen a province where the whole bar is full of modifiers.

I am great OZYMANDIAS
The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
The wonders of my hand.

No, that quote from Horace Smith's poem is not foreshadowing. Cities totally can't get annihilated by disasters in this mod.

Anyways, back to the war. We're marching south after the English.

While marching on a road during a foggy morning, our army stumbles upon a small party from Navarre. The Kingdom owns provinces in Normandy and has allied with the English. Garcia's army tries to retreat but French knights manage to mow down many of them.

John of Montfort has recruited a regiment of soldiers and sent them to besiege Rennes.

As you can see, this province has fewer modifiers. Also note how there's no building cap, and that the set up event has assigned an estate to this province. Looks like the castles of the nobility will hold the raiders at bay.

I get two free units for some reason. I think a set up event did something. Another reason why fighting a war early in this game is awkward. The nobility is unable to send their knights due to presence of enemies, but they can send some drafted peasants and mercenaries. Let's try to get them to our army safely.

After one and a half months of manouvering, our forces meet the English in battle, but only because the enemy stopped after finding a favourable location. Their longbowmen cause damage and disarray in our ranks and arrows fell many fine horses and due to the terrain we can't use our advantage in numbers.

Dat discipline though, holy crap

God dammit Bertrand do you even know what you're doing?

Our men are wavering. A shamefur dispray.

Hey, at least I got that infantry regiment safely to us so they can now die horribly!

Charles and his regiment of footmen and dismounted knights face off against a Montfort regiment. Too bad John is nowhere in sight.

English reinforcements are coming. Looks like we're fucked.

Yup. Would've been worse than Poitiers if we hadn't killed so many Englishmen, so a pyrrhic victory for them. John Chandos, a close friend of Prince Edward, seems to have learned a couple of tricks from him. He was an interesting dude, definitely go read the wiki article about him. Historically this asshole helped John in the Battle of Auray where Charles lost his beard and committed suicide afterwards.

Wait, yet another John? I'm getting sick of this.

The knights of Breton nobility managed to assemble after the enemy left, but were ambushed by an English regiment as they were galloping across Maine. The longbowmen slew many horses and surrounded them from all sides.

Most of the knights made it, however, and had killed twice as many cowardly English archers. Here you can really see how we have a morale problem. Maybe Charles should've given his soldiers permission to loot, but then Brittany would've been ravaged.

Our armies assemble around Paris and reorganize. Soon our knights arrive, somewhat battered but eager to get revenge on the English. There's not enough food for everyone and many die every day, but it would be even worse in nearby provinces with less supplies. Meanwhile England and her allies besiege dozens of castles and cities in France and take many of them.

John (the other one, from Montfort, not the English one) sees an opportunity to take Nantes, the Ducal capital of Brittany, and uses his knowledge of siege warfare and trebuchet memes to good effect. Back in Paris we have regained our morale, received reinforcements, resupplied and reorganized. The grand army of France and her allies is ready to go and marches south to face the English. John soon abandons the siege and goes to support John.

Battle of Tours does not go well for our grand army. The English are simply too good at flanking us, and also have disciplined men-at-arms that beat our mercenaries and levies as well as longbowmen who slaugher poorly armoured horses and infantry, spreading fear amongst them. Our knights wipe the floor with their raider cavalry, though.

I'm beginning to think Bertrand is incompetent.

I don't think he will get a statue/pigeon toilet in this timeline.

Fuck, Poitiers 2.0 finally happened. A humiliating defeat for the French. It's almost like they're shit at warfare and competent at running away and surrendering.

We barely took a scratch, though. Charles' forces didn't really participate in the battle and tactically retreated when things began to look dire.

No, they didn't run away, they retreated like I said. Shut up.

The same thing happens again: we retreat to Paris while the English and their allies besiege provinces. They occupy Tours and pillage the countryside. Horribly, a third of the population of Tours is slain or rendered homeless during the looting of the city. I didn't make that up, Tourraine lost one unit of urban pop and a bunch of local wealth.

Meanwhile in Genoa, early banks are established and currency is being regulated more and more. This institution will spread elsewhere fairly quickly, although provinces with low trade power are less likely to get it.

M&T adds some other institutions besides this one. Unfortunately they're not quite balanced yet, although I might install a submod to fix this.

Ah, there we go, our estates are fully functional now. As you can see, they're completely different. Let me take a deep breath and explain what's going on in this image.

The State represents, well, the State, the ruler's central bureaucracy. Their influence depends on how little autonomy your provinces have. For other estates such as Greater Nobles, more autonomy means more power for them. All provinces get an estate. In our case, both of our provinces have Greater Nobles but their autonomy is low because of our small size. We're very centralized and profit from our provinces goes mostly to us instead of the nobles.

The State has many interactions related to your government. Here we can see our stability and national quality. Paper mana no longer makes subjects calmer and instead you need to accumulate stability points. There's a bunch of multipliers and modifiers that help you gain them. The more or less stability, the more points are needed to increase it. Having -3 stab is hellish.

Our development is low and we get a bunch of nasty penalties. Development is determined by the amount of urban infrastructure, size of the nation and population. We have lots of peasants and only a few small towns, so we're pretty backwards.

Why did I take a deep breath I'm typing this and my fingers hurt help

Court is another modifier thing that is accessed from the State, mostly affecting diplomacy. Charles' court is fairly shabby, for he is a pious and humble man who has no interest in spending peasants' taxes on lavish banquets. Too bad that makes him seem like a commoner instead of a Duke. Maybe his wife can help with this?

Education works like the court. Spend money on education and build universities and you'll get bonuses, but if you have a lot of upper class pops it's gonna get expensive.

Our upper class is not too well educated. The church has some schools, but Charles funds none. After all, he trusts the church to do the job for him. This gives us a bunch of debuffs as well.

After the war is over our main focus will be in getting rid of these penalties.

I think you have now realized that money is very important in M&T. Fuck mana, cash runs the world. That's how it works in real life too. R E A L I S M.

Alright, beating Englishmen take two. Charles advises Bertrand to attack the weaker Montfort army first (mostly so John doesn't take Rennes).

Guess what, we won with minimal casualties. Looks like Charles is more competent at warfare than Bertrand. Doesn't stop him from taking the credit for victory, though.

We march south to attack the English. But the Montforts and Navarrese manage to reorganize their forces and quickly march to assist their allies.

I'm tired of repeating myself so let's just say we lost.

Dammit Bertrand, you're supposed to adapt and change your tactics, not just charge your cavalry at the longbowmen again and again!

hey look a cute baby this will totally help us

nope.avi

The French get desperate and negotiate for the release of their King. The English agree and John returns back home. Not sure how he reacted to recent news, but I hope Bertrand got spanked.

Beating the English take three. This will totally work out fine.

John is besieging Nantes while John is besieging Angers. King John orders us to attack the John in Nantes.

I have a headache.

While we're marching across Maine a rider arrives from Nantes, a message with him from a vassal of Charles.

The city and many local castles have fallen to John and hundreds are dead. The "foraging" by his army during the siege has left many farmsteads abandoned and empty. The small navy of Charles is forced to retreat but the ships are captured by the English navy.

Note that the urban population is not 0, but actually about 7000-8000. Still, we lost all the bonuses given by that urban pop, which are a lot better than those of rural pop. Also note how we lost one trade power and one rural pop.

While Charles begs Bertrand to lead the army to Nantes, he thinks that if they can't save Nantes anymore they'll save Angers and decides to attack John and his army instead.

But this time, things go well. The army is larger than ever before and for once Bertrand has learned something. Also our morale and discipline have increased for some reason. I didn't check why back when I played, but I suspect the King's return has something to do with it.

John of Montfort stays in Nantes and prepares for his coronation. He sends a letter to bishop Guillaume Poulart, asking him to come to the capital and crown him, and awaits his response.

The Battle of Angers is the first major victory in a long time and significantly bolsters French and Breton morale. Maybe that cute baby did have some kind of effect. Thank God for this victory!

Meanwhile in Nantes John still waits for a response that won't come. Guillaume thinks Charles is his rightful liege and won't bend the knee to the impious usurper who just massacred more innocents than Charles ever did.

When the news of a crushing English defeat come, John retreats from Nantes and leaves behind a tiny garrison. Further east Charles, Bertrand and other French nobles agree that the best course of action is to split the army. Charles and some allies will retake Nantes while Bertrand will lead his force south against the Johns.

Soon after the siege has begun, a measles outbreak hits Charles' army.

Sieges have been changed in M&T. Siege ticks go a lot faster now and an outnumbered garrison gets significant penalties to defensiveness, but besieging armies can get disease outbreaks that cause crippling damage. Again, very historical. R E A L I S M. You have to consider if doomstack sieging is worth it despite being fast.

England and her allies have decided to focus on besieging undefended southern provinces far away from Paris. In the north we focus on retaking lost holdings and besieging Aquitaine.

You might note how some French provinces now belong to Aquitaine. That's because of a system called war dynamism, which I'll explain later.

I remembered that I can get a free regiment from the nobles. This is a thing you can do for no penalty when under attack. If you're on the offensive, you risk pissing off your nobles if you ask them to help. I'd prefer to organize a noble war council, but I want to demonstrate how estate levies work.

It works kind of like in CK 2. A unit spawns and you control it. You don't pay any money for it, the nobles do, and they get angry if they all die.

After a lengthy siege Nantes falls and its citizens welcome Charles as a liberator. Tours has already been retaken with the help of some odd peasant girl, so now it's time to go on the offensive.

Charles besieges Vannes, the capital of his foe John. His lack of a fleet means the garrison will get supplies from the sea, but he will still try his best to take the city. Besides, God is on his side, so victory is a foregone conclusion.

Meanwhile in the south John leads his army north, probably to take Nantes again. Too bad the French army moves to intercept him.

eat shit John

Also, who's this woman leading the army? Jeanne? Sounds like John. I don't trust her.

She is capable, though. Real capable. The greatest victory in the war is won as John and Garcia surrender. How embarrassing, they got beaten by a girl. Their soldiers are taken prisoner, although many worthless peasants are killed. What's the point of keeping prisoners too poor to pay for their ransom?

oh fuk

A severe disease outbreak can seriously fuck you up. You instantly lose a hefty chunk of your army and can't do anything about it. This is why doomstack sieging is risky. Thankfully there are no enemies nearby to take advantage of our weakness.

Here's the state of the war after three years. Montfort have raised an army that I won't attack because the siege is nearing completion. France is occupying Navarrese holdings in Normandy and her allies are besieging Aquitaine. England's forces are besieging southern France and have taken Toulouse. Norway keeps sending smelly herring gifts to England.

Having taken Toulouse, John decides to lead his forces north to retake lost land in Aquitaine. They attack a seemingly weaker French army in Agenois, unaware of the woman leading it.

After a long and gruesome battle with reinforcements on both sides, the French stand victorious. The tide of war has truly turned in our favour.

Vannes and its surrounding castles finally surrender after over two hundred days of siege. The capital of John has fallen, and it seems like nothing will be able to stop us, not even that small English army landing in the north.

Here's the event you get each year when you have estate levies raised. Pretty neat, huh?

Also, it says "tribal estates" there but they're not actually in the mod yet. They will be eventually added and will make hordes very special and powerful. Right now they're kind of shit so don't play as them.

An envoy from the King of Navarre offers peace and we accept. Had the French been the war leader, they probably would've retaken Normandy, but because they're not fuck 'em.

Here we can see our first war dynamism modifier. Bro Wened doesn't get it because it's a capital. How does it work? As you can see, Bro Dreger is my core and has the same culture and religion, so if I occupy it, I'll automatically get it for free after the surrendered timer goes away. Some expansionistic nations such as the Ottomans get war dynamism for free in many provinces so they expand historically. They also get special CBs and shit.

On the mod team's behalf I apologize for the railroading, but hey, they've been trying to make the system more dynamic lately so give them a break.

Charles has noticed that many of his noble vassals are more educated and knowledgeable nowadays, despite the war. Our education has increased and it's all thanks to the church.

You might notice how we have 30 "absolutism". It's actually centralization in this mod, so we're fairly decentralized but nevertheless more centralized than nations like Poland. This gives us some penalties and buffs, so more centralization isn't a purely positive thing. It's still mostly positive, especially because it decreases autonomy and makes your government stronger.

Half a year later Brest has fallen, only a week after a severe outbreak of smallpox ravaged Charles' army. God dammit. I mean, may God be praised for he gifted us this victory!

While Charles besieges Saint-Malo, the last holdout of Montfortists, the war continues in the south. Most of Aquitaine has been occupied, but Toulouse remains in English hands and they still have a strong army in the east. But no major battles are fought, only small skirmishes.

The Pope is dead! Long live the Pope! Or, well, he's old so he'll probably die soon, but it'd be pretty depressing to say "For a short time live the Pope!"

You do not mess with Bonifacius IX, he messes with you. Pope's authority affects various things only Dharper's byzantine code knows. Probably has a lot to do with the reformation and antipopes.

I should probably also mention that Pope is in Avignon, not Rome. He probably isn't too happy about christians killing each other horribly right next door.

The Castilian civil war is over. Did I mention there's a civil war in Spain? Oops. Go read a wikipedia article about it, it's pretty interesting. It doesn't really affect us much yet, but Enrique is allied with France and might be useful in the future.

Guillaume Poulart also died. I guess he was a big fan of the old pope and couldn't handle the news of his death. Charles on the other hand won't be happy about the news of /his/ death.

But don't worry, bishops are as easy to replace as Popes. A man named Pierre de Guémené has taken Guillaume's position.

Crap. He's some kind of homosexual satanist or something. That's what the rumours say, so it must be true. Charles is concerned but is too busy with other things to complain.

Things such as taking Saint-Malo. The siege was long and costly but finally the last stronghold of his cursed rivals of house Montfort has fallen. Nobody really knows where John is though. Somewhere in southern France I guess.

The King of England Edward III sends an envoy to Saint-Malo to negotiate about peace terms. Seems like this bloodbath is finally over.

Charles and the envoy make a deal. English soldiers will abandon occupied territories, Calais will be ceded to France and a notable sum will be paid to France and its allies.

During the sieges of Brittany Charles experimented with gunpowder weapons. While they accomplished little, they certainly showed potential with all that scary noise and smoke they made.

And now we wait. For a long time. Why? Because I don't have enough warscore to take all of Montfort's provinces and because I'm waiting for the war dynamism timers.

Half a year later the war is over. John was last seen long ago fighting against Jeanne d'Arc, so his wife finally abandons hope and signs a treaty with Charles, giving up the claim of her family and recognizing him as the rightful ruler of Brittany.

feels_good.jpeg

Only 160 000 people died during this war and merely half of France's vassals went bankrupt. Not bad at all.

Note how English took more casualties from combat but how siege attrition (esp. from disease outbreaks) hurt us more.

Fuck I love the banner of Brittany. Black on white looks really good.

After bishop Pierre crowned him, Charles is now officially the Duke of Brittany. He sure as fuck has deserved that crown. Good on you, man. May your beard grow long.

Charles, with the help of his wife, holds a large feast to celebrate and invites all the nobles of Brittany. This is the beginning of a revitalized court life in Brittany, although it will remain unimpressive for some time.

And there we have it. Unified, glorious, purple, sexy Brittany. After such a long and tough war and so many casualties, this feels very satisfying.

Note how Montfort red + Blois blue = Breton purple. Hehe, I see what you did there, M&T team.

See you in the next part where we will dig deeper into the mechanics of M&T and focus on fixing internal issues.