EU IV Portugal AAR Part 27 – 1660-1675

1660-1675 King Filipe II, Part 4

This update starts with an embarrasing apology. Just 5 minutes ago, as I was preparing to start uploading photos, I accidentally deleted them all from my USB stick. Having already deleted them from the computer at home after I transferred them to the stick, they are gone forever. So this update will, unfortunately, be text based.... :(

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 26 – 1651-1659

1651-1659 King Filipe II, Part 3

We get Military tech 17 in September 51, and start our attempt to close the technology gap

EU IV Portugal AAR - Intermission 1650

Once again we are back for our 50 year look at the world around us.

We normally start in mainland Europe, so let's not buck the trend.

A large part of central, eastern and northern Europe is the same as it was 50 years ago, albeit Prussia is a bit bigger and Poland is a bit smaller. Moving westwards, the Netherlands has formed and is holding its own, although I don't believe it has started colonising abroad yet. Great Britain is identical to 50 years ago; Wales had a short life, but was absorbed back into the British Empire quite quickly. Moving to the south there has been more fluidity. On the Italian peninsula, Genoa has completely disappeared, being annexed by Venice, and Castile has lost some of Iberia to me, but gained bit of territory along the Cote d'Azur. I have also annexed Granada. The biggest change though is that Aragon has disappeared, being diplomatically annexed by my faithful ally, Austria.

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 25 – 1640-1650

1640-1650 King Filipe II, Part 2

A slight change of format for this update. With my colonial interests ever growing, it becomes more and more tricky to report on my expansion in a sensible and meaningful way that isn't just a picture of a random island. So in future, I will just put a little section at the end of each update reporting important colonial matters, and make a bigger report at the 50 year intermission.

Anyway, on with the show. In October 1641, the Ottomans conclude their war with Yemen, taking the province of Asir

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 24 – 1633-1640

1633-1634 King Sebastiao I, Part 5

OK, so the answer to the question was..... we decide to make Vijayanagar a Protectorate. We really don’t need the overextension now of taking a load of new provinces, as we’ve spent a heap of admin power on coring recently and are falling behind. WE automatically become the war leader in Vijayanagar’s war against France

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 23 – 1623-1633

1623-1633 King Sebastiao I, Part 4

We’ve had four good years of peace following our war against the Yemen/Brunei/Makassar coalition, and have cored our new provinces. Religious conversion is taking some time though, especially in Brunei, where the Sunni religion imposes a 2% reduction in our missionary power. This doesn’t sound much, but it takes the time to convert out from around 3-4 years to 7-8 years. We’ll not finish converting Brunei for most of this decade.

In the middle of 1623 we get two Call to Arms notices from our allies. First, Austria calls us into a European-wide war in which Anhalt is being attacked by Brandenburg, Prussia, Hungary, Sweden and some others. We reluctantly accept the Call. Our aim is to avoid getting involved if possible.

Almost immediately afterwards, Morocco decides that the Canary Islands should actually be Moroccan, so attacks Castile. This war, unlike the other, we gleefully accept. Our aim in this war is to take Murcia, and block Castile from access to a Mediterranean port.

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 22 – 1614-1622

1614-1622 King Sebastiao I, Part 3

Here we are again, happy as can be. All good friends, and jolly good company...

Except for Yemen, Brunei and Makassar, who, you know.... ‘Delenda est’ and all that!

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 21 – 1605-1614

1605-1614 King Sebastiao I, Part 2

And, back we come to our normal AAR service! We’ve just enjoyed 10 years of tranquillity, building up our trade power and colonies. Let’s unleash the dogs of war, shall we?

But first, oh look, we’re the Papal Controller again, how nice!

EU IV Portugal AAR - Intermission 1602

We stopped almost 50 years ago to take a look at the known world (link). Let’s do the same now.

1602 World View

Looking at mainland Europe for a moment, it’s hard to see what has changed between 1555 and 1602. Iberia is almost the same, except we’ve taken a couple of provinces from Castile. France and the smaller nations around her are identical to before. Britain is still Britain. In central Europe, Austria still dominates, and although 1 or 2 provinces have changed hands it looks very similar to before. In the Med, Genoa has annexed Corsica and Sardinia, but the Italian peninsula hasn’t changed.

Over in Eastern Europe, however, there has been much more fluidity. Prussia has formed along the Baltic coast, and Hungary has lost a lot of provinces, some to Austria and Poland, but most to Bosnia.

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 20 - 1595-1604

How do you solve a problem like Maria? Kill her, obviously!

1595-1604 King Sebastiao I, Part 1

Well, we didn't take such drastic steps as that, but in 1596, our Queen dies suddenly, leaving her young (ish, he’s in his twenties) son Sebastio in charge of the Kingdom. He’s an OK ruler, but his 3 year old son Antonio is much better!

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 19 - 1591-1595

1591-1595 Queen Maria I – Finishing the War

Jan 1586 – Apr 1591 Yemen

So here we are, with our first Queen. Maria I von Habsburg is a bit of a spanner when it comes to administration (clearly filing is not her thing), but is OK elsewhere. Her son, however, is very good diplomatically, which will be useful when he takes the throne, as we are lagging behind in this area.

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 18b - 1576-1590 – War!

If you read the previous update, you will remember that we spent a long time securing our colonial borders from other exploring nations. Well, we also did that militarily in the same period.

1576-1590 King Felipe I, Part 4 – A Tale of 2 and a 1/2 Wars

Feb 1576 – Feb 1579 Mali

We have made war with Mali several times before, taking a couple of their provinces out of the peace deals. Since those heady days of the 15 th century, we have essentially ignored Mali, and they have not been idle in the past 100 years. As you can see from the picture, they have expanded their territory eastwards, swallowing up a couple of nations. At the end of our last war with Mali we could ‘see’ all of their lands, but now it would appear that over half their territory is unexplored. Well, we don’t want them to get so big that they try something silly like attacking us, do we?

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 18a - 1576-1590 - Colonisation

I’m breaking down this update into two parts. The first will look at colonisation, and the second will look at war. Portugal’s prime ambitions are trade based, and as such colonisation is the focus of our game. But there are times when we arrive somewhere to find that someone else already lives there, and won’t let us in.... First, though, the colonial bit...

1576-1590 King Felipe I, Part 4 – Continental adventures

As far as colonisation goes, we focussed our efforts on 3 areas in roughly five year chunks.

Initially, our focus was on completing our colonies in South America, to block off Castilian access to the interior of the continent. By 1577, as shown in the picture below, we had colonies in the coastal areas, and by 1580, both ourselves and the Castilians had completed our rapid expansion phase

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 17 - 1570-1575

1570-1575 King Felipe I, Part 3 – Dismantling the Big Blue Blob

So, this is interesting.... France has declared war on my on-off ally, Austria. They are fighting over succession rights in Aragon, and the wargoal is to take Valencia. This is an excellent chance for us to dismantle the Big Blue Blob, so I happily join in.

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 16 - 1556-1569

1556-1569 King Felipe I, Part 2

If you recall from Update 15, Castilian Brazil and Portuguese Brazil had been having a small colonial war for a couple of years. At the end of the update, the war spilled over to the colonial overlords, us and Castile.

Before we get to that, however, in June 1556 Bourbon, a small island next to Mauritius, became self-sufficient and we completed a mission

EU IV Portugal AAR - Intermission 1555

1555 World View

Let’s take a step back and have a look at things in 1555. It’s 111 years (cue Umpire David Shepherd jumping up and down) since the start of the game.

David Shepherd Nelson link! 

Europe is a bit of a mess. In Iberia Portugal and Aragon have expanded, and Granada has disappeared and reappeared thanks to me. Castile has been the big loser, although they have taken four provinces in North Africa by way of recompense.

France has had a bit of trouble in recent years, with Normandy and Toulouse breaking away.

England has expanded and formed Great Britain, and is probably the most stable of the European nations.

Austria is the big winner in central Europe, having taken a snaking path of provinces all the way through to the low countries. I’ve drawn a red line round all of their territories. Prizes will be given for working out what animal Austria currently looks like! Elsewhere, Poland, Hungary and Lithuania are pretty stable.

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 15 - 1535-1555

1535-1555 King Felipe I

In August of 1535, our nation unveils its new King, Felipe I von Habsburg.... wait, what!?! Von Habsburg? Eh? What happened to the de Avis line?

So, it would seem that when one of our royal ladies married into the Austrian monarchy, they produced a child reared in Portugal, who had the highest claim after our last boy King died heirless. Well, whatever, Portugal carries onwards and upwards, whoever is at the helm!

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 14 - 1521-1535

1521-1535 Regency Council 

Regency Council for a 2 year old, sigh... we now have a long time to wait before something exciting happens...

EU IV Portugal AAR Part 13 - 1514-1521

1514-1521 King Joao II de Avis, Part 4

"All your province are belong to us!"

 

At the end of the last update, we spotted that France had occupied some of Aragon’s provinces. It turns out that France and Castile (and Castile’s vassals, Aragon and Naples) are on opposite sides of a major central European War, and that France is winning! It is October 1514, and Castile is being invaded, with its military in disarray. Is there a way to take advantage of this?