I know, the poll closes on the 27th, but no one has voted in the last few days so I thought I'd go ahead and start the run! Let's go!
Welcome everyone to the start of my EU4 campaign in which I am trying to get the “Luck of the Irish” Achievement! This requires me to start with one of the Irish nations, form the nation of Ireland and then conquer the rest of the British Isles. The nation I have picked is Munster as these are the ancestors of our beloved samoz. Let’s see if we can fair better than the historical kingdom of Munster, which ended in the 16th century. I am playing this game on what is called the “Ironman” game mod. Turning this on is required to earn achievements and it disables reloading a previous save file. Which means that if I fuck up or something bad happens, there is no going back. This could very well happen, especially going up against England later in the game. For now let’s hope this doesn’t happen.
We are starting out in the year 1444 and Ireland is divided into multiple small, independent kingdoms of which I am one. Thus, the first goal will be to peacefully unite Ireland. And by that I mean to slaughter my enemies, rout their armies, overthrow their government, exterminate their dynasties and proclaim myself the one, true king of Ireland while their bodies rot in the dirt. Just basic late medieval diplomacy really. After that, it’s time to “peacefully integrate” the Scots and then it’s time to defeat the English. But for now we’ll focus on Ireland.
The first few years are going to be pretty simple: I will try to ally England which should prevent the other Irish nations from declaring war on me and quickly conquer my way up to Ulster. This is very important for the coming war against Scotland. Controlling Ulster is the only way to cross the Irish Sea without transport ships and I want to save the money required for their maintenance.
Our current ruler is called “King Domhnall an Dana MacCarthy” which sounds absolutely terrible. He is currently unmarried without any children. Unfortunately I can’t simply rename him, I can only rename new heirs. Which I am absolutely going to do once that guy finally finds a wife and learns about the birds and the bees. In order for him to find a wife however, I need to find a country that is willing to marry that bloke. I am banking on that being England, however they currently don’t like me that much:
This relation can go up to +200, at which point they love me and would accept an alliance as well as a Royal Marriage. Which they currently would not:
So I am going to task one of my diplomats with improving that relation. How he is going to do that I don’t know, probably just offer them kegs over kegs of Guinness until everyone is drunk or whatever.
Now, conquering all that land will require 2 things: Enough manpower to raise an army and enough money to sustain that army. Unfortunately I only have around 4000 soldiers at the moment and my economy is….shit:
I just realized I can rename my provinces. Meet our new capital: Cocktown.
Our first goal will be the Earldom of Desmond to our north. However, I can not simply declare a war without a reason. This would destabilize my country and make everyone around me hostile towards me. No, to declare a war I need something called a “Casus Bellis”. Now how do I get one? That is easy. I send a spy to their country, he produces some obscure documents that somehow say I rightfully own their land and then everyone will say “Yeah that’s legit. Go ahead and attack them”. Good thing there are no United Nations in this game. This will take some time so I’ll just wait until that is done.
We are off to a very good start because England just formed an alliance with Ulster:
Great. Now all I can do is hope that this alliance won’t last until it is time for me to conquer Ulster. Otherwise I am going to have some problems.
I have received a wedding proposal from Tyrone which I am going to accept. Tyrone is still a fair bit away from where I am planning to expand to and this will most likely result in a new heir to secure my dynasty.
Any my spy has been successful! I have fabricated a claim for the province of Cork, giving my the Casus Bellis I need to declare a war on them:
I won the first battle, completely wiping their army and will now siege down their capital. They are allied to the nation of Offaly, which sounds like what you get when you order an Italian from wish.com. This is actually good for me, because while their territory is too far away from me to conquer it at the moment, I can turn them into my vassal. Which is like an alliance. Against their will. And they have no choice but to fight my wars and give me money. You could call this an abusive relationship, I call this “one-sided symbiosis”.
After finishing the siege of Cork, I am moving my armies up north to conquer the capital of Offaly and siege down their capital as well. After two more battles, their entire armies are destroyed and now it’s just waiting until their walls crumble.
After 335 days, the city of Uí Failghe falls and I have won the war. My warscore is now at 100% and I can sue for peace. Warscore is important because the higher it is, the more I can demand in the peace deal. Demanding provinces, war reparations etc. all have a certain cost associated and that cost can’t be higher than my warscore. 100% is the highest it can go. I vassalize Offaly and annex the province of Cork, which I immediately rename to “Cock”. I know, I am 7 years old. Now here is where the fun begins! Because Offaly was at war with Ormond and Kildare when I vassalized them, I immediately get dragged into this war to defend my vassal. This is actually great because I had planned to declare war on Ormond as my next war target anyways and now I don’t have to fabricate a claim on them! Onto more bloody battles and glory on the battlefield!
An heir! The succession is safe! In the midst of my war, the queen gave birth to the great “Samoz Noobington”! All hail Samoz Noobington, first of his name!
Now that's it for the first update. I don't know how fast I am going to get through these. MAybe I'll finish this in 2 days, maybe it'll take 2 weeks who knows. How you enjoy the first part
This is definitely still happening today in various forms. Sounds like you're having a smooth start, except for the English-Ulster alliance though.
