Habsburg Trek: The Next Chineration
Intro
Hello there! Some of you might recognize me as the guy who did a CK2 Habsburg AAR. I'm back with a much, much shorter AAR for my first Ironman CK3 campaign, in which I took control of the Habsburgs once again to achieve something I wasn't able to in my CK2 campaign: form the Archduchy of Austria. I decided to just boil it down to one page because
a) I blitzed through this campaign because I was having so much fun
b) I didn't take any notes on the details
c) I have a new job starting on Tuesday and I know I won't have time to manage a series like I barely managed to do over the summer with CK2.
Anyways, please enjoy!
The Story of the Archdukes of Austria
So I started off my CK3 campaign with good ol' Werner. The Hungary marriage cheese strategy from my CK2 run was not viable, in fact I couldn't even marry my daughter Ida off to the Bohemians because I was so low on the feudal totem pole! I wouldn't say the AI is particularly smarter about marriage choices in CK3 (it was still relatively easy to get favorable matrilineal marriages later), but when you're a count it's really tough to marry up. Werner couldn't even implement the awesome strategy I had intended and marry his heir Otto to the only daughter of Duke Ernst of Austria.
So instead Werner focused on increasing his rank to make Otto a more desirable match, fabricating a claim on Neuchatel and declaring war for it in January 1073 (my bishop was pants). Due to an oversight, I neither bought Men-at-Arms nor called my brother-in-law in Bern into the war until that June, resulting in an early defeat at home in Aargau right off the bat. Thankfully once that was done, Count Ulrich drove the enemy from my capital, but we were still short on the manpower to siege down Neuchatel. So even though the idea had been to win the war to increase Otto's marriage prospects, Otto ended up having to marry Sybille d'Ivrea, daughter of the count of Besançon, to get her father's 1,000+ troops to help end the war.
Werner died on 13 March, 1076, before the surrender of Neuchatel, and Otto took over at the tender age of 15. With Neuchatel under control, Otto could declare himself Duke of Transjurania, and the Kaiser granted Otto his cousin Rudolf in Bern as a vassal (Ulrich had died in battle, but oddly enough against Bohemia somehow, not Neuchatel).
Otto ruled for 44 years as a Gallant Overseer, in that time conquering Zurich and revoking the county of Bern to gain access to the duchy building slot. He had 5 children with Sybille: Karl, Judith, Klara, Dietrich, and Dorothea, who died at 7 of pneumonia. She was sadly not the only one of Otto's children to predecease him: Karl died in a duel in 1118, just four years after Dorothea's death. Karl was only 31, but he left behind children of his own, including Berengar, who would ascend to the throne of Transjurania on Otto's death in 1120. Dietrich inherited Neuchatel.
Judith wound up Queen of Jerusalem after a successful First Crusade in 1115, and her heirs would rule the Holy Land for 120 years, ending only when her great-granddaughter Gerberga was overthrown by a Hungarian Coptic uprising. Not sure how that happened.
Berengar von Habsburg saw his family's original realm expand even more. His mother had been Duchess regnant of Upper Burgundy, and on her death the two duchies became legally unified. He also used military conquest to expand the realm south into Geneva and Savoie, converting them to Swabian culture, of which he became the official head. Already a Patriarch by that time, he began a life of Scholarship to help his people advance technologically. In 1168, the last year of his reign, he bought a claim on Austria and subjugated its Duke, Bernart Babenberg-Krems. Berengar died in 1169 at age 64, just one year shy of his 50th of rule.
His son and heir, Bernhard, was already a Torturer on his succession and would later become an established Schemer. He had been married to his cousin Ida von Habsburg, granddaughter of the original. That Ida had been married matrilineally to Giselbert von Luxembourg, the son of Matilda di Canossa and Hermann von Luxembourg. Their daughter, Reginlind, conquered Sardinia, granted Tuscany to another house (although it did for a time come into the possession of a cadet branch of Habsburg), and declared herself Queen of Sardinia. On Reginlind's passing Ida the Younger became queen as well as Duchess of Emilia.
Bernhard, using a combination of hooks on the former Duke of Austria, Count Bernhart, gradually revoked counties until Bernhart was left with only Friestadt to his name. Then an unforeseeable disaster struck. Queen Ida had died in 1152 and passed Sardinia off to their eldest son, Otto. But then in 1181 Otto died in battle, and with no children to his name Bernhard inherited the kingdom. This was problematic as it prevented the decision to eventually form the Archduchy of Austria. So Bernhard did some careful manipulation befitting his nature. First and foremost, he made Sardinia an elected title, gave away the associated Duchy title to a count, and voted for him to be the next king. He then had to deal with his sons.
Bernhard had 10 children in total, 7 of whom were sons. The oldest had been Otto. Next was Berengar, to whom his father granted the Duchy of Viscaya (which had come into the family through Queen Reginlind's husband). Third had been Alarich, but he had died at age 15 in 1176 of the Bubonic Plague. After him was Ekkehard, whom Bernhard designated as his heir after imposing absolute rule in Sardinia. Günther was the fifth son. To him went the Duchy of Upper Burgundy, to ensure that Ekkehard got as much of the duchies of Transjurania and Austria as possible. Günther unfortunately got himself killed seven years into his reign in 1190, passing the duchy onto his son Günther II.
Bernhard also looked forward to when the Habsburgs could unite all of Greater Austria. He managed to secure a matrilineal marriage between Ekkehard's daughter Ilsa to the second son of the Duke of Carinthia, then murdered the first son to move the other one up the line of succession. He also assassinated the boy-emperor of the HRE, Rutger, who possessed two counties in Steyermark thanks to some strange accident that led to a Muwalladi Andalusian woman named Huda Huddid inheriting Graz and a Bavarian woman inheriting Liebnitz. (I forget what faith she followed, but it was definitely not Catholicism, but she converted back so I have no way of telling now). As a result, the past two emperors, who both hailed from the van Loon dynasty, had acquired those counties in holy wars. By killing Rutger, the HRE passed to a new dynasty, making it easier for Ekkehard to later take the counties.
With the succession thus engineered, Bernhard simply waited until Death claimed him in 1196. As he was an independent ruler at peace, Sardinia for the most part shattered when the unexpected king finally kicked the bucket after 27 years of rule and 71 of life. However, Ekkehard found himself strangely missing some key plots of land. By some quirk, Bern and Aargau had passed to Ekbert von Hoya, a man of no known relation at all to the Habsburgs. Krems had also been inherited by Berengar and Amstetten by Günther II. On top of all that, somehow Ekkehard was the only family member who was still considered legally a vassal of Sardinia.
Ekkehard began his reign by waging two wars of independence against the new King of Sardinia, Hartmann von Tortoli. In the first, Hartmann managed to circumvent Ekkehard's armies as they sailed around Italy, taking Wien and Ekkehard prisoner with it. Thankfully, based on what I can only assume is an oversight in the code, despite the fact that Ekkehard shouldn't have been able to form another Independence Faction for 10 years, he could do so immediately after his release, and so he did exactly that, this time eliminating Hartmann's army first and then besieging Sardinia.
With independence won, Ekkehard could swear fealty to the Holy Roman Emperor and begin retaking Transjurania and Austria. First he attacked his brother Berengar with the help of Günther, as Berengar was too busy trying to lay claim to Sardinia to defend Krems, which he ceded to Ekkehard in 1201. Günther II was far too powerful to attack directly, so Ekkehard instead focused on Transjurania. In 1203 he retook Bern, in 1206 he took Neuchatel and re-established the Duchy, and in 1208 he took back Habsburg Castle in Aargau.
Even with Transjurania back under his thumb, Ekkehard still lacked the manpower to challenge his nephew for Amstetten. So he shifted focus to Salzburg, which he'd need anyway if he ever wanted his son and heir Werner to create the Archduchy of Austria. He waited to unlock the ability to buy a claim outright, but then was shocked to discover that the Pope was just barely willing to grant him a claim anyway, saving him some piety. Thus in 1214 Ekkehard took the Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg for himself.
While Ekkehard focused on preparing for war with Günther II, the Emperor, Theitmar, died in 1217, passing the throne to his son Fulcrad, who was only 10. Next in line was none other than Ekkehard himself. A second successful Holy Roman assassination later and Ekkehard became the first Habsburg emperor in 1218 at age 45. With no one to challenge him militarily, Ekkehard spent his remaining 36 years devoted to learning and feasting with his vassals. He revoked Liebnitz in 1223 following a civil war with Duke Reinhard of Jülich and five years later fought the Empire of Carpathia for Pitten and Mürzzuschlag, which they'd absorbed into their realm (although first he accidentally fought a whole war for Moravia because I'm still getting used to the CK3 UI, oops!). With those three counties in his direct possession Ekkehard created the duchy of Steyermark. In 1229 he revoked Amstetten from his nephew Günther after fighting a second civil war.
By 1243 Ekkehard had mastered every aspect of learning. He then had a crazy idea to form his own religion...
Unfortunately, it would be a very short-lived religious experiment, as Ekkehard soon discovered that with Primogeniture still un-researched and the new gender-equal doctrine of his new faith, all the lands he had worked so hard to consolidate would be re-fractured among his 4 daughters and his lone son and youngest child, Werner. So back to Catholicism it was, but not before sacrificing two levels of devotion to revoke the County of Salzburg proper from the new Chin Pope. Ekkehard then re-seized the rest of the duchy to ensure that a future generation would be able to form the the Archduchy.
After a very long and fulfilling life of 81 years, Ekkehard died in 1244. He intentionally passed the Emperorship on to Robert von Calw, leaving Werner a mere duke, but one that could spend a little dynasty renown to claim Carinthia from his nephew Ekkehard, which he obtained in 1248. The only missing ingredient for the Archduchy beyond some easily-obtainable wealth and prestige was a von Habsburg back on the throne of the HRE. The good news: there would be a new von Habsburg emperor in 1255. The bad news: it was Werner himself, and as Emperor he was not allowed to create the archduchy himself.
And so it was another waiting game. Fortunately, as the predominant Swabian ruler, Werner could fast-track the research of Primogeniture, allowing his firstborn son Erich to inherit all four duchy titles in one go. Werner also participated in a Crusade for Syria (which was given to a relative named Hartwig von Habsburg) and did some independent Holy Warring down in Iberia, creating an independent Catholic Valencia and accidentally screwing up an attempt to matrilineally marry one of his daughters to the new king's heir while he was still a minor courtier. (Accidentally set the son up with a random little girl from another dynasty, then could only re-betroth in a regular marriage because he actually had an inheritance now.) Still, he managed to accumulate enough prestige through his August personality and Devotion through his holy wars that he consecrated the Habsburg bloodline, becoming Werner the Anointed.
Werner passed in 1293, and by some miracle, Erich inherited Austria and the other duchies while his younger brother Rutger inherited the Emperorship. Only one problem: parts of Austria had been inherited somehow into other realms within the HRE! Hohenhau was owned outright by the Duke of Istria and the brothers Arnulf and Gerhard Babenberg-Krems, who held Freistadt and Amstettin, respectively, were vassals under Provence. To complicate matters, due to some strange inheritance bug that made me fear that Erich would not be my next character on Werner's death, Werner had implemented Absolute Crown Authority so he could explicitly designate Erich as his heir. That also meant that Erich could not fight with another vassal unless he had a hook on his little brother the emperor. A victorious Liberty War though, got Erich the required hook to go to war with Provence and take the Babenberg brothers back as his own vassals. Once again, factions appear to have been bugged (or else are super unbalanced for player characters), so Erich was able to quickly form a second Liberty Faction and this time Rutger decided to just concede rather than have his big brother hand him his ass a second time. Now all vassals were free to declare wars on each other, and in 1300 Erich had reclaimed Hohenhau from Istria.
With all the requisite land acquired and his younger brother as Holy Roman Emperor, the last thing Erich had to do was acquire some prestige by fighting in battles on behalf of his allies. On 31st August, 1305, 56-year-old Erich von Habsburg was finally able to accomplish the goal of eight generations of his dynasty: the Archduchy of Austria was now a thing, 138 years ahead of time.
Afterword
Well that's it, folks! Feel free to ask me any questions about my campaign down below, but that I think will be all for this campaign. Might play out the final 150 years to get the End of an Era achievement since I'm so close already, but in terms of campaign goals this is a completed game! Enjoy CK3, I know I sure am!
Best Wishes,
Green Rice
Intro
Hello there! Some of you might recognize me as the guy who did a CK2 Habsburg AAR. I'm back with a much, much shorter AAR for my first Ironman CK3 campaign, in which I took control of the Habsburgs once again to achieve something I wasn't able to in my CK2 campaign: form the Archduchy of Austria. I decided to just boil it down to one page because
a) I blitzed through this campaign because I was having so much fun
b) I didn't take any notes on the details
c) I have a new job starting on Tuesday and I know I won't have time to manage a series like I barely managed to do over the summer with CK2.
Anyways, please enjoy!
The Story of the Archdukes of Austria
So I started off my CK3 campaign with good ol' Werner. The Hungary marriage cheese strategy from my CK2 run was not viable, in fact I couldn't even marry my daughter Ida off to the Bohemians because I was so low on the feudal totem pole! I wouldn't say the AI is particularly smarter about marriage choices in CK3 (it was still relatively easy to get favorable matrilineal marriages later), but when you're a count it's really tough to marry up. Werner couldn't even implement the awesome strategy I had intended and marry his heir Otto to the only daughter of Duke Ernst of Austria.
So instead Werner focused on increasing his rank to make Otto a more desirable match, fabricating a claim on Neuchatel and declaring war for it in January 1073 (my bishop was pants). Due to an oversight, I neither bought Men-at-Arms nor called my brother-in-law in Bern into the war until that June, resulting in an early defeat at home in Aargau right off the bat. Thankfully once that was done, Count Ulrich drove the enemy from my capital, but we were still short on the manpower to siege down Neuchatel. So even though the idea had been to win the war to increase Otto's marriage prospects, Otto ended up having to marry Sybille d'Ivrea, daughter of the count of Besançon, to get her father's 1,000+ troops to help end the war.
Werner died on 13 March, 1076, before the surrender of Neuchatel, and Otto took over at the tender age of 15. With Neuchatel under control, Otto could declare himself Duke of Transjurania, and the Kaiser granted Otto his cousin Rudolf in Bern as a vassal (Ulrich had died in battle, but oddly enough against Bohemia somehow, not Neuchatel).
Otto ruled for 44 years as a Gallant Overseer, in that time conquering Zurich and revoking the county of Bern to gain access to the duchy building slot. He had 5 children with Sybille: Karl, Judith, Klara, Dietrich, and Dorothea, who died at 7 of pneumonia. She was sadly not the only one of Otto's children to predecease him: Karl died in a duel in 1118, just four years after Dorothea's death. Karl was only 31, but he left behind children of his own, including Berengar, who would ascend to the throne of Transjurania on Otto's death in 1120. Dietrich inherited Neuchatel.
Judith wound up Queen of Jerusalem after a successful First Crusade in 1115, and her heirs would rule the Holy Land for 120 years, ending only when her great-granddaughter Gerberga was overthrown by a Hungarian Coptic uprising. Not sure how that happened.
Berengar von Habsburg saw his family's original realm expand even more. His mother had been Duchess regnant of Upper Burgundy, and on her death the two duchies became legally unified. He also used military conquest to expand the realm south into Geneva and Savoie, converting them to Swabian culture, of which he became the official head. Already a Patriarch by that time, he began a life of Scholarship to help his people advance technologically. In 1168, the last year of his reign, he bought a claim on Austria and subjugated its Duke, Bernart Babenberg-Krems. Berengar died in 1169 at age 64, just one year shy of his 50th of rule.
His son and heir, Bernhard, was already a Torturer on his succession and would later become an established Schemer. He had been married to his cousin Ida von Habsburg, granddaughter of the original. That Ida had been married matrilineally to Giselbert von Luxembourg, the son of Matilda di Canossa and Hermann von Luxembourg. Their daughter, Reginlind, conquered Sardinia, granted Tuscany to another house (although it did for a time come into the possession of a cadet branch of Habsburg), and declared herself Queen of Sardinia. On Reginlind's passing Ida the Younger became queen as well as Duchess of Emilia.
Bernhard, using a combination of hooks on the former Duke of Austria, Count Bernhart, gradually revoked counties until Bernhart was left with only Friestadt to his name. Then an unforeseeable disaster struck. Queen Ida had died in 1152 and passed Sardinia off to their eldest son, Otto. But then in 1181 Otto died in battle, and with no children to his name Bernhard inherited the kingdom. This was problematic as it prevented the decision to eventually form the Archduchy of Austria. So Bernhard did some careful manipulation befitting his nature. First and foremost, he made Sardinia an elected title, gave away the associated Duchy title to a count, and voted for him to be the next king. He then had to deal with his sons.
Bernhard had 10 children in total, 7 of whom were sons. The oldest had been Otto. Next was Berengar, to whom his father granted the Duchy of Viscaya (which had come into the family through Queen Reginlind's husband). Third had been Alarich, but he had died at age 15 in 1176 of the Bubonic Plague. After him was Ekkehard, whom Bernhard designated as his heir after imposing absolute rule in Sardinia. Günther was the fifth son. To him went the Duchy of Upper Burgundy, to ensure that Ekkehard got as much of the duchies of Transjurania and Austria as possible. Günther unfortunately got himself killed seven years into his reign in 1190, passing the duchy onto his son Günther II.
Bernhard also looked forward to when the Habsburgs could unite all of Greater Austria. He managed to secure a matrilineal marriage between Ekkehard's daughter Ilsa to the second son of the Duke of Carinthia, then murdered the first son to move the other one up the line of succession. He also assassinated the boy-emperor of the HRE, Rutger, who possessed two counties in Steyermark thanks to some strange accident that led to a Muwalladi Andalusian woman named Huda Huddid inheriting Graz and a Bavarian woman inheriting Liebnitz. (I forget what faith she followed, but it was definitely not Catholicism, but she converted back so I have no way of telling now). As a result, the past two emperors, who both hailed from the van Loon dynasty, had acquired those counties in holy wars. By killing Rutger, the HRE passed to a new dynasty, making it easier for Ekkehard to later take the counties.
With the succession thus engineered, Bernhard simply waited until Death claimed him in 1196. As he was an independent ruler at peace, Sardinia for the most part shattered when the unexpected king finally kicked the bucket after 27 years of rule and 71 of life. However, Ekkehard found himself strangely missing some key plots of land. By some quirk, Bern and Aargau had passed to Ekbert von Hoya, a man of no known relation at all to the Habsburgs. Krems had also been inherited by Berengar and Amstetten by Günther II. On top of all that, somehow Ekkehard was the only family member who was still considered legally a vassal of Sardinia.
Ekkehard began his reign by waging two wars of independence against the new King of Sardinia, Hartmann von Tortoli. In the first, Hartmann managed to circumvent Ekkehard's armies as they sailed around Italy, taking Wien and Ekkehard prisoner with it. Thankfully, based on what I can only assume is an oversight in the code, despite the fact that Ekkehard shouldn't have been able to form another Independence Faction for 10 years, he could do so immediately after his release, and so he did exactly that, this time eliminating Hartmann's army first and then besieging Sardinia.
With independence won, Ekkehard could swear fealty to the Holy Roman Emperor and begin retaking Transjurania and Austria. First he attacked his brother Berengar with the help of Günther, as Berengar was too busy trying to lay claim to Sardinia to defend Krems, which he ceded to Ekkehard in 1201. Günther II was far too powerful to attack directly, so Ekkehard instead focused on Transjurania. In 1203 he retook Bern, in 1206 he took Neuchatel and re-established the Duchy, and in 1208 he took back Habsburg Castle in Aargau.
Even with Transjurania back under his thumb, Ekkehard still lacked the manpower to challenge his nephew for Amstetten. So he shifted focus to Salzburg, which he'd need anyway if he ever wanted his son and heir Werner to create the Archduchy of Austria. He waited to unlock the ability to buy a claim outright, but then was shocked to discover that the Pope was just barely willing to grant him a claim anyway, saving him some piety. Thus in 1214 Ekkehard took the Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg for himself.
While Ekkehard focused on preparing for war with Günther II, the Emperor, Theitmar, died in 1217, passing the throne to his son Fulcrad, who was only 10. Next in line was none other than Ekkehard himself. A second successful Holy Roman assassination later and Ekkehard became the first Habsburg emperor in 1218 at age 45. With no one to challenge him militarily, Ekkehard spent his remaining 36 years devoted to learning and feasting with his vassals. He revoked Liebnitz in 1223 following a civil war with Duke Reinhard of Jülich and five years later fought the Empire of Carpathia for Pitten and Mürzzuschlag, which they'd absorbed into their realm (although first he accidentally fought a whole war for Moravia because I'm still getting used to the CK3 UI, oops!). With those three counties in his direct possession Ekkehard created the duchy of Steyermark. In 1229 he revoked Amstetten from his nephew Günther after fighting a second civil war.
By 1243 Ekkehard had mastered every aspect of learning. He then had a crazy idea to form his own religion...
Unfortunately, it would be a very short-lived religious experiment, as Ekkehard soon discovered that with Primogeniture still un-researched and the new gender-equal doctrine of his new faith, all the lands he had worked so hard to consolidate would be re-fractured among his 4 daughters and his lone son and youngest child, Werner. So back to Catholicism it was, but not before sacrificing two levels of devotion to revoke the County of Salzburg proper from the new Chin Pope. Ekkehard then re-seized the rest of the duchy to ensure that a future generation would be able to form the the Archduchy.
After a very long and fulfilling life of 81 years, Ekkehard died in 1244. He intentionally passed the Emperorship on to Robert von Calw, leaving Werner a mere duke, but one that could spend a little dynasty renown to claim Carinthia from his nephew Ekkehard, which he obtained in 1248. The only missing ingredient for the Archduchy beyond some easily-obtainable wealth and prestige was a von Habsburg back on the throne of the HRE. The good news: there would be a new von Habsburg emperor in 1255. The bad news: it was Werner himself, and as Emperor he was not allowed to create the archduchy himself.
And so it was another waiting game. Fortunately, as the predominant Swabian ruler, Werner could fast-track the research of Primogeniture, allowing his firstborn son Erich to inherit all four duchy titles in one go. Werner also participated in a Crusade for Syria (which was given to a relative named Hartwig von Habsburg) and did some independent Holy Warring down in Iberia, creating an independent Catholic Valencia and accidentally screwing up an attempt to matrilineally marry one of his daughters to the new king's heir while he was still a minor courtier. (Accidentally set the son up with a random little girl from another dynasty, then could only re-betroth in a regular marriage because he actually had an inheritance now.) Still, he managed to accumulate enough prestige through his August personality and Devotion through his holy wars that he consecrated the Habsburg bloodline, becoming Werner the Anointed.
Werner passed in 1293, and by some miracle, Erich inherited Austria and the other duchies while his younger brother Rutger inherited the Emperorship. Only one problem: parts of Austria had been inherited somehow into other realms within the HRE! Hohenhau was owned outright by the Duke of Istria and the brothers Arnulf and Gerhard Babenberg-Krems, who held Freistadt and Amstettin, respectively, were vassals under Provence. To complicate matters, due to some strange inheritance bug that made me fear that Erich would not be my next character on Werner's death, Werner had implemented Absolute Crown Authority so he could explicitly designate Erich as his heir. That also meant that Erich could not fight with another vassal unless he had a hook on his little brother the emperor. A victorious Liberty War though, got Erich the required hook to go to war with Provence and take the Babenberg brothers back as his own vassals. Once again, factions appear to have been bugged (or else are super unbalanced for player characters), so Erich was able to quickly form a second Liberty Faction and this time Rutger decided to just concede rather than have his big brother hand him his ass a second time. Now all vassals were free to declare wars on each other, and in 1300 Erich had reclaimed Hohenhau from Istria.
With all the requisite land acquired and his younger brother as Holy Roman Emperor, the last thing Erich had to do was acquire some prestige by fighting in battles on behalf of his allies. On 31st August, 1305, 56-year-old Erich von Habsburg was finally able to accomplish the goal of eight generations of his dynasty: the Archduchy of Austria was now a thing, 138 years ahead of time.
Afterword
Well that's it, folks! Feel free to ask me any questions about my campaign down below, but that I think will be all for this campaign. Might play out the final 150 years to get the End of an Era achievement since I'm so close already, but in terms of campaign goals this is a completed game! Enjoy CK3, I know I sure am!
Best Wishes,
Green Rice
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