The Oligarchic Republic of Tuscany’s Doge came into office with promises of expanding the republic’s economic supremacy over their Italian neighbors and expanding their borders. He signs an allies with the northern Kingdoms of Savoy and Milan 1444. He immediately start expanding the navy and increasing the army size from 9,000 to 13,000 as he plan his invasion of the state of Urbino. In the end of the year Genoa entered a mutual defense pact with them and only months later a powerful Tuscanese noble family married into the Milanese royal family. The powerful Kingdom of Hungary request an alliance with Tuscany, something the Doge was more than willing to accept. Royal marriages with Savoy and Hungary strengthened their relationship.

Doge Cosimo de Medici force through radical reforms of the merchants of the republic that the people takes with enthusiasm although it destabilized the nation’s economy and internal stability.

On the 26th December 1445 de Medici declared war upon Urbino and invaded with an army three times the Urbino forces size. Within a week they sieged the capital and after two years the city surrendered and Urbino was annexed into the republic. De Medici led the army himself to prove his strategic genius to command. The long siege didn’t do much for his reputation and he realized he needed to continue expanding the Tuscany Republic’s borders as the peasants who was dying in the war start to lose faith in him. He was unable to live up to the military genius he painted himself out to be.

In 1448 De Medici declared war on Siena, a neighboring republic with only a few thousand men to defend themselves against the 13,000 large Armata di Firenze (Army of Firenze). Once again he led the army into battle. But attacking a far weaker nation-and a fellow republic at that- gave him very little prestige and outraged merchants and the high nobility back home.

Tuscany began improving relations with Castile in hopes of a future alliance. Perhaps they can divide the Mediterranean between them. In the elections of 1448 De Medici just barely managed to stay in office.

In the end of 1448 Siena was annexed and De Medici attacked Modena to the north immediately. But Modena was a vassal of Ferrara who joined against Tuscany and its allies Savoy, Hungary and Genoa. Milan decided to honor its alliance with Ferrara instead of the alliance with Tuscany. The First North Italian War had begun. Tuscany’s army crushed both Modena and Ferrara’s quickly but De Medici have burnt through his countries manpower from the two previous wars and only minor reserves of men was behind him. He could only replace one of every fourth man who die. 1450 the Milanese province of Parma was given to Tuscany in the peace deal and Modena was annexed. Ferrara paid war reparations to the Grand Republic for the next ten years. De Medici wasn’t very popular because of the high casualties Tuscany had taken in the three conflicts.

Tuscany allied Venice the next year and De Medici tried working on his own propaganda to be reelected in the next election that was coming up in only two years.

De Medici declared war upon the Papal State and the pope himself in the years end and hoped for a glorious victory. The first battle was won in Romagna but with high Tuscanese casualties as the noble cavalry was almost wiped out. The war had already backfired on him. In the election of 1452’s beginning De Medici heard the news during his siege of Rome, the eternal city itself that he had been voted out of office. Doge and General Raniero Chigi took to his horse and rode out to Romagna to end the siege. The main part what got fifty-three year old military commander into office was his outspoken attitude towards De Medici from even before his popularity fell after he took office 1444. Chigi quickly ended the war but left Rome in the hands of the pope. Nothing else would be tolerated by Catholic Europe.

Instead of going to war directly as De Medici did over and over again, Doge Chigi started improving the economy and expand the merchant fleet in the hunt for pirates.

In 1453 doge Chigo died of a heart attack and Commander Constantino Terreni assumed the offices. He had fought in the war against Siena for the first time in career. During The First North Italian War he stood out after a great victory against a Modena force in the opening month. He was now thirty-one years old, making him the youngest Doge yet. In 1454 Constantino made plans to establish a colony in West Africa in either 1455 or 1456. The work began 1455 during the same month Tuscany allied Castile. The colonial expeditionary force took heavy losses against local warrior tribes in Arguin. Doge Constantino kept his nation at peace for years as he built up the trade power. 1457 he ordered his trade advisers to start justifying a trade conflict with Tunisia. He ordered the military to prepare for an invasion on North Africa. The same year he was reelected with a 95 % majority vote.

The colonial expeditionary force finally defeated the tribal warriors around the colony in 1458 after thousands of dead Tuscanese men and tens of thousands of dead tribesmen.

Constantino landed personally with his army of 15,000 in the Tunisian heartland and marched on the Capital itself. Back home his brother worked on his plan on turning the republic into Constantino’s personal monarchy. He allied the small Muslim state of Kabyla to gain support and supplies on the African continent. Castile and Genoa joined Tuscany and Kabyla to beat Tunisia and its two vassals into submission in the grace of God.

The Tuscanese military was far more technologically advanced then the North African nations they now faced. Constantino hunted down and eliminated the Tunisian army before sieging the Capital of Tunis itself. He won the battle with a ten to one ratio of casualties.  He only lost 1,500 men while all 7,000 Tunisian’s was killed. Castilian and Tuscany ships blockaded the Tunisian ports and Constantino split up his army to carpet siege Tunisia.

The Tuscan-Tunis War raged on from 1458-1561 when Tunis was forced to except a humiliating peace treaty.  Tuscany gave a province to Kabyla, annexed almost all Tunisian land themselves and forced them to release Algiers in Mitidja. Tunis was allowed to keep their vassal and provided Tuscany with War reparations and a large sum of money.

Constantino returned home to Italy to be celebrated as a hero and the feast lasted for days as people partied on the streets both night and day. It was the greatest military achievement in the republics history.

The 28th May 1461 Constantino reformed the Merchant Republic into a Noble Republic with elections every eight years instead of every fourth. It was the first step in his plan to turn the Republic into a dictatorship under him. He was thirty-nine years old and yet he wasn’t worried about what time he had. He assumed the title of Prince instead of Doge.

In short he returned to the Tunisian colony to continue making war with Tripoli, a heretic nation bordering Tuscany North Africa. But not to anger the population back home he recruited mercenaries to assist in the fight and to make sure that not too many Tuscan men returned home in caskets.

General Grimaldi was put in charge of half the army with Constantino commanding the other half.

In January 1462 Constantino led 11,000 men into Kabyla to crush the peasant uprising. He did so with brutal force and efficiency. The Kabyla Malik was most grateful for Constantino keeping him in power. Just as he was poised to attack Tripoli Castile declared war upon an alliance of Western North African nations, excluding the Ottomans who was in Turkey. Constantino was forced to go to war with his newest ally. Kabyla was pulled in and their armies crushed by their former ally.

Constantino was furious at the Castilian King for halting his plans of a North African Tuscanese Empire. It would be the beginning of a huge Tuscanese Mediterranean Empire.

1464 the war ended, however Tuscany was forced to come to the aid of Algiers who was attacked by Kabyla. Tuscany declared war on Tripoli finally in 1466 in June. In September Genoa asked for help when Crimea and the Ottomans was attacking its territory in the black sea. Tuscany joined and set their best naval commander, Admiral Henry Stefano. Henry Stefano was fifty-seven years old and have spent twenty years living in England. There he had been educated in both administrative and military tasks. He had been a political rival to Constantino’s both predecessors.

On the 17th December 1466 the Tuscany navy suffered a heavy defeat by the Ottoman navy. Henry Stefano sunk with his ship. Standing with 34 ships the Tuscan navy faced the 120 strong Ottoman navy. But Rear Admiral Medici, a relative to the former Doge Medici managed to win several battles and sink many Ottoman galleys and slowly ground down their naval power.

Algiers was vassalized and they planned to turn them into a march and give them all of Western North Africa.

Constantino died suddenly while campaigning in Tripoli. He was only forty-four years old. He seemingly fell off his horse during and March and was declared dead before he hit the ground by a physician. His dream of an empire temporarily died with him. However his dream of a monarchy survived. A Bureaucrat became the next Prince. Innocenzo Barbarini was 47 years old. Barbarini wasn’t expected to live for very long. Without an actually plan Prince Barbarini continued both wars until the enemy would capitulated. He sued manpower that Tuscany couldn’t effort to create a new army in Italy.

The war with Tripoli ended in success and half the nation in Tuscany hands 1468. The Ottoman-Genoan war entered its third year. But with all manpower gone the Tuscany war machine grounds to a bloody halt.

During Constantino’s reign he organized the alliance effort against the Ottoman Empire from his camp in occupied western Tripoli. But as Genoa didn’t do much to secure their land which was being occupied by Crimea. Barbarini didn’t have a tactic other than continuing to face the Ottoman navy and blockading their ports. But his arguing military advisers knew that a land war against the Ottoman state would surely be a failure. With over forty thousand troops the Ottoman Sultan could crush any land army invading his land. The war that started 1466 had entered the third year and soon the fourth, as it appeared the heretics would win.

Prince Constantino’s dream of a North African Empire had been crushed and left behind by the new Prince. Barbarini was abandoning almost every part of the Tuscanese Republics international interests to chase his own wealth as Tuscan sailors died fighting Ottomans for Genoan interests they themselves didn’t fight for.

As the fourth year began neither side had either won of lost.

Catarina Sforza was hired as the first Tuscan female commandant for her abilities and knowledge in warfare. The high nobility protested heavily over Barbarini’s decision. In the 20th December 1468 Catarina managed to gather enough support to send a military force to the Ottoman province of Teke as the northern parts of the state was falling to large rebel armies. Thinking this was the right moment to act 7,000 mercenaries was sent to a southern province in central Turkey.

The EU4 game file this was based on was corrupted and had to be deleted, therefor ending the story here.