* Character is a career military guy, mostly involved in more internal affairs.

* He was called upon to be a leader in the Long War, in part due to the leadership he exhibited in the time prior to that and the trust he brought along from his previous military work.

* At the time of the game, he is older, having survived his military adventures with minimal physical damage, and has taken a position within Rudolf's court as his Oberstkammerer in the Papacy's order of 1599 to clear the court of Protestants and Utraquists. "This new generation of nobles, often influenced by the Jesuits or trained in their schools, tended to be particularly consistent and militant in its religious commitment."

Born a commoner in 1555 in Bohemia, ethnically Bohemian-German.

conscripted for an Imperial regiment to serve under Spanish officers (John of Austria) and was sent to protect Tunis from the Ottoman Turks during the siege of Tunis.

The Spanish lost Tunis in 1574, but Ernst survived and excelled during the fight.

He was conscripted for one of the early battles, and showed immense skill and bravery in what was a losing proposition

When he gets back to Bohemia, he gets a command in the war against the Turk on the front in Southeast Europe.

Real hostilities didn't break out in the Long War until 1593, so this was essentially a peacetime commission until then. A career soldier who became an officer in the late 1580s. He is ennobled by Emperor Rudolf after early campaigns against the Turk in the mid-1590s.

Midway through the war, after the loss at Keresztes, in 1597, he's pulled off the lines because he's getting older, and he's essentially given a glorified desk job  which he hates because he doesn't really fit in and doesn't really have much experience in.

In 1599, Prelude. And then he is brought to court to bolster the presence of Catholic nobles in Rudolf's inner circle.