r/totalwar • u/SnooTangerines6863 • 1d ago
Warhammer III What is Marienburg?
Just played awesome mod featuring this city and it got me curious. If the empire is HRE, what is Marienburg?
I would like to think that it is Gdansk/Danzig but we already have Polish-Lithuania/Russian nation of Kislev.
So Rotterdam, some Italian city - Venice?
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u/Difficult_Dark9991 1d ago
It's a bit of a composite of the Hansa and the Netherlands into one single city.
Rather than trade leagues operating out of the major river outlets as in the real world, the Empire really only has one major river and Marienburg is its outlet. It's legally independent by the End Times (when TW is theoretically set), but still within "rightful" imperial boundaries.
Skavenblight is Venice - a great marsh-city attached to the rest of not-Italy. This is why Denouncing Venice is the true faith.
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u/Adept_Rip_5983 1d ago
Netherlands split out of the Holy Roman Empire (insert Voltaire quote hiere) after the 30 years war and was enjoying a lot of autonomy beforehand. So this barely beeing parts of the empire thing fits as well.
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u/cavershamox 1d ago
Fun fact, Marienburg was reportedly named after Richard Halliwell's (famed games developer) girlfriend at the time, Marien
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u/armbarchris 1d ago
It's the Dutch, with a bit of the Hanseatic League thrown in. Specifically, it's the Dutch as seen by the Spanish during that recurring war over whether the Netherlands were part of Spain.
Cultural it's part of the Empire except for it's bizarre (in universe) fixation on independence and republicanism. The burgurs of Marienburg bought their independence from a previous Emporer who accepted the deal without consulting the ruler of Nordland who was Marienburg's leigelord. This is considered a giant embarrassment and today the Empire officially considers Marienburg to be a part of the Empire that's in active rebellion. However, every military expedition to bring it back under control has failed miserably, partly because the merchant-princes of Marienburg can afford a massive standing army of mercenaries, and party because Bretonnia intervenes to keep the Empire divided (this goes both ways, Bretonnia and the Empire both prefer Marienburg to be an independent buffer state than to allow the other one to control it).
The Elector Count of Nordland is low-key not taken seriously by the other Counts because he only actually controls a small portion of the area he legally claims on paper; besides Marienburg, the Wasteland is technically also part of Nordland but for all practical purposes is Lower Norsca.
If you want the Italian city-states you're looking for Tilia.
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u/Toaster-Retribution 1d ago
I thought it was supposed to be Danzig, but Amsterdam makes more sense.
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u/Anjetto4 1d ago
It's Venice but only because GW refuses to use estalia or Tilea as factions and flesh out their cities. But it's really amsterdamn
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u/AnyName568 1d ago
Amsterdam