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England is one of the better countries to use for world conquest.  This is a strategy for England to do that.  

== Initial Moves, Jan 1419 ==
Invest your initial cash into cavalry.  Henry needs them to kill with.  Spread out and start sieges, and loot like crazy.  Once you've got France and its allies down, then you can extract plenty of cash from them to promote your tax collectors with.

For you initial slider move, push the [[Land]] DP slider up to 6.  This gives several nice benefits.  Set your religious tolerance to full for Catholics.  

Leave your army maintenance up for one month; [[battle]]s in February will want it.  At the end of February, reduce maintenance on army and navy.

For each of your two main stacks (in Gascogny and in Caux), create 16 tiny armies for looting with.  Since you will be getting 100% warscore against all opponents, you don't need to worry about losing battles.  You can use tiny armies freely, running away whenever they encounter the enemy.

Also in Gascogny, create 4 armies of 1250 infantry each.  These are "cover" armies, to just cover enemy provinces to stop them building.  One should head north, and all other forces present to Guyenne.  Divide out Beauchamp and give him the cavalry.

In Caux, similarly portion out 4 armies of 1250 each, for cover armies.  Send two of these to Normandie immediately, with some tiny armies.  The other forces should divide out a 6000 man siege army (no commander), and 14000 infantry army under Clarence, and the 5984 cavalry under Henry.  On Jan 15, move the siege army towards Picardie, and Clarence to Ile de France.  Henry should start his move to Ile de France, along with all remaining tiny armies, on Jan 20.  All armies will arrive on Feb 1, and [[combat]] will commence.  This is an important battle, and with your huge shock advantage, you're likely to win.  Still, the "human player hose" can sometimes hit, and you may have to back off.  Watch a single day's combat and make the decision -- assuming your losses are not huge, and the enemy's losses are substantial, you should be fine.

== Winning the 100 Years War, 1419-1430 ==

=== The First War (1419) ===
 Leaders: Henry (5/6/5/1) (1419 - August 1422)
          Bedford (5/4/3/1) (1419 - 1435)
          Clarence (3/3/2/0) (1419 - 1421)
          Beauchamp (3/4/4/0) (1419 - 1439)
          Gloucester (2/3/1/0) (1419 - 1447)

In Scotland, do not fight their army.  They have a very good leader, Buchan Douglas, who you cannot beat easily.  Instead, run around them: transport the infantry from your home armies to the Scottish rear as [[passengers]] and siege at least two provinces.  The Scottish AI usually moves to siege Northumberland; let it.  That siege will usually take them a good long while to get going (it's a un[[blockade]]d port, and mountainous).  You just want white peace with Scotland, and maybe a little money if they offer it.  Get peace with them as soon as you can get a decent warscore advantage.  This allows an earlier second war with their alliance.  Getting peace by 1421 should be your goal.

In France, concentrate all cavalry under the command of Henry (shock 5!), except perhaps a small force under Beauchamp (shock 4).  Use Henry to destroy the enemy armies in France proper, attacking only on plains.  Beauchamp should just be used to kill off armies being recruited until you've got France covered.  Henry usually does not have much trouble killing an enemy stack, unless it is very large, or if you foolishly attack into mountains or across a river (don't do that).  But do try to kill smaller stuff first.  Usually the enemy AIs will concentrate on sieging Burgundy, which is fine -- leave them there while you kill off other stuff.  Only when that's the last army left should you risk attacking it, because it's usually a pretty big dogpile.  

Cover France first, and then its allies.  Your allies will be slow in doing much, but that's OK.  Use your many leaders to [[steal sieges]] from your allies if necessary.  (I.e. Gloucester, who with shock 1 should never command any battle. Note that both Henry and Bedford can steal sieges from Burgundy's leader, Jean de Pressy.)

By mid 1420 or so, you should have eliminated all enemy armies and covered
their lands.  If you still have armies above your [[land support limit]] once you've achieved this, disband infantry to get down to the limit.  After that, siege them down, but don't make peace.  Use your fleet to find the French fleet and kill it down to the last ship; you need to destroy every single military unit the French have to get the peace you want.

Now you start a relatively idle period, completing sieges and [[synchronized looting]].  Each year's loot of France and its allies will be worth around 300d.  With this income, promote all of your own tax collectors, and then build up your treasury so that you can promote tax collectors in French lands once you get peace.  After sieges complete, you can sync up all enemy provinces for looting.

You're on a clock.  When your [[truce]] with Scotland expires (5 years after signing, so roughly in 1425), stay at war with France ''et al'' for one more synchronized loot.  Once you do that, your goal is to get peace as soon as possible with all combatants, recruit some more cavalry and let [[war exhaustion]] die down, and then quickly jump back into war.  That way, your looting schedule remains on track.

For making peace, I suggest the following course.  Your goal here is to get all 8 provinces from France to make her into a single province country.  To do that you must accept one of her peace offers, because you cannot ask for that much (the 8 are more than 100% in warscore).  But do ''not'' accept any peace offer from France yet: her offers are for her whole coalition, not just France alone.  So, first you must make peace with each minor ally.  (According to the rules as I understand them, the allies should not be able to propose or accept separate peaces, because they are France's vassals and France is still in the war.  But they can.  I'm not sure what's up with that.)  Do not make any separate peaces, as that would split the war, making you the aggressor.  Instead, just accept the separate peace offer from each minor ally.  However, before accepting any offer first make sure to position a siege force, or at least a cover force, in each minor ally's capital province.  (See below for why.)

Once you've made peace with everyone except France, start paying attention to the peace offers from France.  Eventually she'll offer you all 8 provinces.  Great, take it.

=== The 2nd War (~1425-~1432) ===
Once you get to peace with France, immediately recruit more cavalry and take a few months to let your [[war exhaustion]] drop back to zero.  Move troops to be ready to invade Scotland (from the sea, similar to last time).

Then, [[DoW]] Scotland.  Her French allies all hate you and have CB on you, so they will join at her call.  On each minor ally's capital, order a move and cancel it: the siege begins, and the enemy cannot build even a single army!  You're back at war with France ''et al'' after almost no letup!  You don't even have to amend your looting schedule!  You should invite your allies, so that Burgundy joins you.  If Burgundy does not join you, invite her back into alliance (she'll join the war then).  You need her in this war, to annex France.

This time your goal for the war is to have all of the French minors as your vassals, and/or annexed.  This means killing France first, since you cannot force-vassalize countries which are already vassals.  So, let Burgundy annex France.  (This is why it was so important to get all 8 of France's provinces in the first war: so that she is annexable in this war.)  Use your leaders to speed the siege of Provence; time is unimportant with the other minors.  Wait for Burgundy to join you at Paris, and hand off control of the siege.  Once it completes, they'll annex France, taking the [[badboy]] hit and the [[relations]] hit with Catholics everywhere.  With France gone, you can now demand vassalization from her old vassals in peace treaties.  But no need for haste, here.  Let them each give you 300d for the privilege, looting while you wait.

Meanwhile, Burgundy's separate peace (required to annex France) means you've got a short (6 month) [[casus belli]] on them.  Hmm, you've got a lot of armies sitting around idle, AND a CB against a country holding FRENCH CATHOLIC provinces -- ideal for you -- and also TWO CoTs.  Does this mean war?  Is this a rhetorical question?  Throw Burgundy out of your alliance, DoW, invade, and go for 100% warscore with no remaining enemy forces whatsoever.  Your goals in this war are Flanders, and
Paris.

You'll probably want to hold off on diploannexing Burgundy until 1451, when they inherit Luxembourgh.  So this means you can loot them until 1441, about 15 years.  Fair enough.

Meanwhile, though, you want the same result in Scotland as last time: peace fairly quickly.  This time, I suggest using a good leader up there to beat Douglas and wipe out the Scottish army, so that you can siege the whole place down.  A good stack of infantry and cavalry in Northumberland, defending in the mountains, should probably suffice.  Once you've gotten the enemy removed, siege him down and make separate peace expeditiously.  Do not take military access or vassalize.  You want Scotland free to make alliances, presently.

In France, you should quickly kill whatever armies the minors can afford.  Siege them down, and loot.  When you invite Provence into alliance, she'll join you in war against them.  Once the truce with Scotland is getting short in time, you need to wrap up your wars with the French minors, because your goal here it to remove Scotland from any alliace, so that they have to go look somewhere else.  So, make a separate peace with each French minor, vassalizing it, getting military access, and taking all its money.  Now Provence is at war with these guys, and might be able to annex them.  If so, great.  Less badboy that way.

== Things to do, 1430-1450 ==

=== Using Provence ===

Provence is the subject of one of the earliest inheritances in the game, by France in 1451.  If you're willing to use the inheritance exploit, it's an excellent way to grow early in the game without gaining much badboy.  

In your second war in France (starting ~1426), try to focus on getting Provence sieged down before Burgundy annexes France.  As soon as the annex happens, you can now vassalize Provence, which you'll have to do to extract it from its alliance.  Now you want to bribe up Provence, and get her into alliance with you, ideally before you DoW Burgundy.  (If you don't get Provence into alliance before DoWing Burgundy that is OK.  Just don't delay too long, because Provence all alone is vulnerable and you don't want it getting annexed.)

With Provence at your side, you should let it capture all of Burgundy's provinces except the two CoTs (which you want for yourself).  Once you get 100% warscore, loot for as long as you can stand it, while watching the peace offers.  Eventually Burgundy will offer you and Provence most or all of its holdings; so long as the 2 CoTs are in the set, take the offer.

You can now continue to use Provence to take land for you. 

When 1451 approaches, you need to do several things.  One is to get France to revolt.  It is possible to release France as a vassal, but that would require you giving away most of France, not something you want to do.  France can also revolt from any province in {385 376 383 384 386 408 409 410 411 412 413 419 420}; of those, you must retain control of {382, 383, 384, 413, 418, 424} to avoid losing French culture.  So your practical choices for getting France to revolt are these:
:Champagne (376), Nivernais (386), Lyonnais (408), Bourgogne (409), Berri (410), Orleanais (411), Maine (412), Limousin (419), Auvergne (420)
In a pinch, you can also let Paris (385) revolt to form France, though of course you want that nice CoT to yourself.

Note that rebels in France will tend to stay in France, according to the rules for rebel movement.  So, if you get rebels in France but they are not in any of the right provinces, just let them be.  They'll siege down where they are, and move on, probably to a better province.  Once they get to one of the provinces you want, you can afford to clean up behind them.

Once you've gotten a rebel siege to complete in one of the right places, and
assuming that the requisite 3 years before July 1451 exists (so that France
will revolt in time), then it is safe to devassalize Provence.  This makes
them a more useful annexation ally, because they can annex on their own,
without you having to get out of the war.  

When France revolts, she DoWs you.  Do not invite your allies; just move in and capture her city.  You can wait to make peace, to let her pile up 300d and loot.  So long as she does not border anyone, you don't need to ally with her to keep her safe.  Once you've taken over Provence, then France can be your next annexation ally.

In the rare case in which you do not get any revolt in France for the 20 years
or so from the time you let Burgundy eliminate her, until 1448ish, then
you'll want to just diplomatically annex Provence.  

Assuming you've got France set up, then you'll want to manufacture a CB against Provence fairly soon before the inheritance, so that you have time to invade and siege down all of all her cities.  If you've managed to discover a pagan country by this time (probably by mapswapping w/ Portugal), then you might use the unknown-country DoW method of CB manufacture.  Otherwise, set up Provence to annex a single-province minor; this requires her to make a separate peace, which gives you CB.  


== Things to do, 1450-1500 ==
1461: new king is Edward IV, w/ diplomacy 7.  Highest you'll get in a long
while, so, this is the time to diploannex.

Meanwhile, you've got permanent CBs on Eire and and Scotland.  In both cases,
this is a great boon for you, not because those places are particularly
valuable; they are not.  Rather, it's because they'll get into alliances with
places that are of value, and then you have the CB necessary to start wars
cheaply.  So watch both countries carefully to see if there are any of their allies
you'd like to attack.  Usually there will be.  When you do create a war using
these CBs, it's best to vassalize (or have an ally annex) all of the members
of the enemy alliance.  That way, the country you've got the CB on (Eire or
Scotland) will be once again out of any alliance, and will look around and may
eventually find a new set of partners.

You may get other CBs, in several ways.  The pope is a good one: watch to see
who the papal states is in wars with, and consider piling on.  You get a free
CB on anyone the Papal States is fighting so long as you're Catholic.

One other way to get wars is to get allies who get in wars.  This is not ideal
since you have no control over when the wars happen.  But this may be a good
way to get involved in Iberia or some other place that is fairly quiet.  Find
a minor ally that is bound to get in wars with the target nation.  In the case
of Iberia, Navarra is a good choice, but you can also use Granada.





== Events ==

The Lollard Heresy					Feb 1419
 A:	RR +3, 3 yr;  stab -2;  -50D
 B:	relations -100 w/ papacy, france, burgundy, brittany, orleans, bou

The End of the Hundred Year War			January 1453 until end of game
 trigger: France exists; any of six French-culture coastal provinces not owned
 A:	lose French culture; stab +1; relations +140 w/ France

The War of the Roses					January 1455
 A:	stab -3; RR +4 in england; tax -1 in england;  ARIS +1; SERF +1; CENT -1; LAND -1
 B:	stab -3; RR +6 in england; tax -1 in 3 provs;  ARIS -2; SERF -2; CENT +2; LAND -2
 C:	stab -2; RR +2 in england; tax -2 in england;  ARIS +2; SERF +2; CENT -2; LAND -2


Bosworth Field						August 1485
	result depends on which selection was taken in War of Roses:
 All:	stab +3; tax +1 in england
 wotr a:	RR -4 in england; ARIS -5; SERF -3; CENT +3; MERC -3
		command = { type = sleepleader which = 09343 }
 wotr b:	RR -6 in england; ARIS +1; SERF -1; CENT +1; MERC -1
	activate Richard III  (aug 1485) D,A,M=4,7,6
	deactivate Henry VII  (aug 1485) D,A,M=7,5,7
 wotr c:	RR -2 in england; ARIS +1; SERF -1; CENT +1; MERC -1
		command = { type = sleepleader which = 09343 }


The Justices of Peace					January 1485
 A:	stab +1; +200D; 6 bailiffs promoted; CENT +1
 B:	stab +2; +100D; SERF +1; ARIS +1


Support Middle-class Bureaucrats			January 1485
 A:	stab -1; INNO +1; ARIS -1; MERC -1; LAND -1
 B:	stab +1; INNO -1; ARIS +1; SERF +1; LAND +2; +100D


Court of the Star Chamber				January 1485
 A:	stab +1; RR +3 for 5 years; CENT +2; INNO +2
 B:	stab +1; ARIS +2; CENT -1; INNO -1


The Enclosure Movement					January 1509
 A:	stab -3; RR +1 for 20 years; revolt in Northumberland; tax +1 in 6 provinces.
 B:	stab +1; CENT -1; SERF -2


The League of Schmalkalden				January 1527
 trigger: Austria exists; England is not Protestant
 A:	relations +50 w/ 7 minor German states, -50 w/ Papacy and Spain, -100 w/ Austria
 B:	relations -50 w/ 6 minor German states, +50 w/ Spain and Austria

The Royal Army					Jan 1530 - Dec 1560
 trigger: "The Admiralty" has not fired; LAND >= 6
 A:	-300D; +800 land; +400 infra; LAND +3; Anglia gets -2 tax, barracks
 B:	-200D; +800 naval; +400 trade; LAND -3; Anglia gets -2 tax, COT, shipyard

The Admirality					March 1530 - Dec 1560
 trigger: "The Royal Army" has not fired; LAND <= 5
 A:	-200D; +800 naval; +400 trade; LAND -3; Anglia gets -2 tax, COT, shipyard
 B:	-300D; +800 land; +400 infra; LAND +3; Anglia gets -2 tax, barracks

The Act of Supremacy					January 1534
 trigger: England is catholic
 A:	stab -2; +250D; CENT +1; become protestant; 2x random nation relation -150, break RM
 B:	stab +1; relations +100 w/ Spain, Papacy

Welsh Act of Union					January 1536
 trigger: England owns Wales.  England is Protestant or Reformed
 A:	Wales converts to anglosaxon culture

The Merchant Adventures				January 1545 - Dec 1565
 trigger: innovative >= 6
 A:	+200D; 5 merchants; random explorer; gain naval equip manu


The Muscowy Trade Company			January 1545 - Dec 1565
 trigger: innovative >= 6
 A:	+200D; trade +200; 5 merchants; random explorer; relations +150 w/ Russia

Jane Grey and the revolt in Northumberland		January 1553
 A:	stab -1; RR +6 for 3 years
 B:	stab -1; CENT -1; ARIS +1; INNO -1


Bloody Mary and King Felipé of England  		July 1553
 A:	stab -2; England -> Catholic; INNO -2; 1 random conversion; 3 missionaries
	relations +150 w/ Spain, Papacy; RM w/ Spain
 B:	stab -1; INNO -1; 1 missionary; relations +100 w/ Spain, Papacy
 C:	stab +1; INNO +2; -6 missionaries; 1 random heretic
	relations -100 w/ Spain, -150 w/ Papacy

Sir Francis Walsingham					January 1555
 A:	stab +1; -200D; 6 RMs with random neighbors; relations -100 w/ Spain, Papacy
 B:	INNO -1

Sir Thomas Greshams Currency Reform			January 1555
 A:	stab +3; inflation -10; +2 tax in Anglia

[[category:opinion]]