MacDidz: The Scottish Blog

[myz]

how come this is the only thread in the throne room dedicated to chronicles of m2tw campaigns? I can't even find any of the old AARs anymore, the search yields nothing, it's like those other old m2tw AAR threads all disappeared. More people posting campaigns sure would be swell.

[myz]

i have to admit though, life is a lot more boring without an active AAR to read

[StoneCold]

Try expanding your thread listing to see the older AAR. I think the default is only displayed threads that are active for the past month. This room is not only of M2TW campaigns but all AARs and PBEMs.

[Didz]

I'm pleased and a little surprised that so many people are reading this AAR and finding it enjoyable. I might make it a regular feature of my gameplay if it remains popular. Its just a shame it can't be a multi-player blog, with different players putting their own spin on the events.

[myz]

how do i expand my thread listing?

[StoneCold]

myz, go out this thread, into the throne room, there at the bottom of the page is the display option, change the option 'from the' 2 weeks is my default to how ever old the thread you want to read. That should do it. :)

[myz]

alright, thanks a lot stonecold. I think i am in the minority of the forum members who still has not gotten or played m2tw. But I think I will have more time and some money to buy new computer, in the future.

[King of Finland]

Very nice story Didz ! Keep up the good work.

God bless Scotland!

[valhalla89]

nope... ur not alone at all lol. Im right there with ya buddy, and the next thing im gonna do after writing this, is to expand my defalt time scale for this thread aswell! ;)

loving it didz!

[manwithplanx]

Great blog been a tough week without any updates .

Keep up the great work Didz!

[kublikhan3]

Myz, you could also try this link: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=54921
It has a list of many AARs and PBMs. The link is a little slow loading. Sometimes I use the google cache instead:
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:...hp%3Ft%3D54921

Great story MacDidz. Glad you stomped out those blasphemous heretics, they are very annoying. Burn one for me!

[Magraev]

We need an update! How is your scottish empire coming along McDidz?

Och!

PS: Do your priests also say "he won't escape trail, sire" when you're chasing a heretic?

[Didz]

Don't worry I've just been a bit distracted by a combination of my Turkish campaign and real life demands on my time.

However, I am sort of duty bound now to keep this blog running as it is now being re-published on http://www.gamertales.com/ There is more to come shortly.

[Didz]

1128: All's quiet on the home front

Back in the United Kingdoms life was continuing in a relatively peaceful manner. Uncle Alexander’s attempt to provoke the English into open hostility by blockading Caen continued but so far has been unsuccessful.

Alexander was disappointed not just by the failure of his blockade scheme, but even more so by the failure of Pope Strenna to live up to his expectations as a hater of the English.

When Pope Petrus had died in 1125 AD and Pope Strenna had been elected, Alexander thought he had found a kindred spirit with as much hatred of the English as he had. He had assumed that Strenna’s initial edict of 1126 requiring Scotland to blockade the English port of Caen would be the start of a long and hopefully bloody persecution of the English based on this mutual hatred and he was keen to comply with the expected Papal Edicts requesting Scotlands assistance to do so.

But it hadn’t happened instead two years later Strenna seems to have forgotten whatever grudge he had against the English and has reverted to the same habits as his predecessor Pope Petrus in demanding persecution of the French.

Alexander was not happy, he was getting old and there were still too many Englishmen still alive. With growing irritation he sent the Papal Envoys back to their master with ill concealed demands that something be done about the English and their evil existence.

But the English were keeping a low profile and the Pope now had too many other problems.

Winter 1129: Aidan Makmartane is a credit to his father

In the winter of 1129 Aidan Makmartane, the second of Makmartanes brood, finally reached manhood and accepted his spurs. He was little short of a child prodigy and even before seeing battle was considered by most to be the greatest of all Scotlands warrior nobles.

This merely made Alexander even more morose, with five daughters to find husband's for the fact that Makmartane had three sons, at least one of whom showed such promise seemed to be a cruel mockery of fate and he took it out on his female family as often as opportunity allowed.

[Didz]

Summer 1129: The diplomatic cards are shuffled and new hands are dealt.

It appears that France has finally made its peace with Pope Strenna and been reconciled yet again. How long this will last is difficult to say as Scotland's French allies seem to have a lemming like determination to destroy themselves by whatever means are at their disposal.

Meanwhile, the Pope has turned the attention of his holy wrath on the Iberian factions of Portugal and Spain. Spain has been excommunicated and Portugal has not only been excommunicated but is openly at war with Rome.

Were Scotland in a position to do so this would be a perfect opportunity to wrest control of Morocco from the Portuguese, but alas there are no troops close enough to exploit Portugal’s poor judgement.

Makmartanes army is literally halfway across the Sahara desert in the middle of nowhere, King Kyle’s Crusading army is on Crete and fresh troops from the United Kingdom would take years to assemble and ship to Madagascar.

One can only hope that this is the beginning of a trend and that Portugal and Spain will continue to decline in Papal opinion.

The only other news of interest from Europe is that the Holy Roman Emperor has finally surrendered his sovereignty and accepted an offer of protection from the King of Denmark.

This could be serious news as Denmark might be tempted to use the extra strength it now has to pursue its long standing claim on Northumberland and the Castle of Nottingham. It has no other enemies now that the Holy Roman Empire has surrendered and its standing with the Pope is sound despite the war.

The Danish King therefore has little to distract him from contemplation of the lands his father lost at Stamford Bridge and Scotland must begin to watch the sea's along its coast once again in search of Danish raiders.

[Magraev]

Woo another great update.

I bet the danes are going to come for you now - they have often enough in my own campaigns.

[Didz]

Winter 1129: An act of desperation

Mariot Canmore’s quest to find a suitable husband which had begun with such high expectations twenty years ago was now little more than a desperate hunt. Mariot was now 36 years old and time had almost run out if she were to have children.

Since the death of her father Edward, not only had her status as a Princess suffered, but all diplomatic assistance in tracing likely candidates had also ceased. It appears that Uncle Alex had enough trouble trying to find suitable husbands for his own four daughters without the added burden of finding one for a left over Princess on the verge of becoming an old maid.

Thus it was a tired and dispirited Mariot who wandering northwards again after a fruitless trip to Sicily, bumped into a minor Sicilian nobleman called Teofilatto di Martamo.

Twenty years ago neither Mariot or her father would have given such a man a second glance but this was not twenty years ago and Mariot considered herself lucky to find any man willing to consider her as a wife this late in the day. She threw herself at him pulling out all the stops in a last desperate chance of happiness and in doing so completely discarded any loyalty she still had to the Scottish cause or her family.

Not that anybody back home seemed to care, for Alexander this just resulted in one less woman to worry about and her brother Kyle was much too busy playing soldiers on Crete to pay much attention.

[Didz]

Summer 1130: Oxfords Revolt.

In the summer of 1130 AD the resentment of the dispossessed Anglo- Saxon nobility once more festered into open revolt. Godwine, the former Earl of Oxford, who had been stripped of most of his estates by William, Duke of Normandy, had hoped to have his lands restored when the Scots kicked the Normans out of England. But instead the Norman squatters had merely been replaced by Scottish ones and as time had passed and his fortunes dwindled it became obvious that he must do something to try and reclaim what was rightfully his.

He raised a small army and marched north gathering additional support as he went and hoping to raise enough men to either force the Scots to negotiate or, if not, to seize the city of York as a bargaining chip. By this time Godwine had an army of some 680 men, including a small core of 200 English Knights and 240 longbowmen from Cheshire. The rest of the force were mostly local levies consisting of a mixture of archers and spearmen.

However, if Godwine really hoped for a negotiated settlement his timing could not have been worse. With King Kyle still on his way back from the Holyland the only person available to negotiate with was his uncle, Alexander the Mean, and he was not likely to be reasonable about anything least of all giving money to an Englishman.

News of the English revolt reached Alexander at Nottingham just as Godwine’s army reached the Great North Road and Alexander lost no time in mustering a force to confront them. At 59 Alexander was somewhat old to be going into battle, but with the prospect of Englishmen to kill nobody dared suggest that he did not lead the army himself.

Nevertheless, some concern was expressed when Alexander announced that all he would be taking to crush the revolt was his own personal retinue and 240 knights.

The city of Nottingham was full of troops, but Alexander was adamant that he would not need them to deal with a bunch of English rebels. He had already decided that this would most likely be his last chance of battle and he wanted it to be glorious. He imagined himself leading the charge that would crush the English under its hooves. It was only when he was politely reminded that the English might not co-operate in this vision and that longbowmen with their stakes were notoriously good at frustrating mounted charges that Alexander was finally persuaded to take some crossbowmen, 2 ballistae and 120 men at arms along just in case.

[manwithplanx]

Three cheers for the updates!
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

[Razor1952]

Poor old Mariot!. I think Alexander was poorly advised , his knights would be more than enough for the rebels, I suspect his judgment is clouded as it would seem a great chance to make the battle reveal a hero or man of the hour, for then he could reflect in the glory of a new protege.

[Didz]

Summer 1130: The Battle of Tickhill Castle

Alexander caught up with Godwine, the Earl of Oxford's, rebel army at Tickhill Castle just south of Doncaster on the Great North Road. Alexander’s Army was slightly smaller numerically but was the slightly more powerful of the two.

Godwine immediately withdrew his troops onto a nearby wooded hill to the west of the Great North Road and sent emissaries requesting a parley with the Alexander. However, Alexander was in no mood to talk and sent the men back with a demand that Godwine and his rebels stop skulking in the tree’s and meet him in the open like real men.

In the meantime, Alexander tried to conceal as much of the strength of his force as possible so as to encourage the English to come out into the open. Initially he deployed his dismounted men-at-arms and crossbowmen in the grounds of Tickhill Castle along with the two ballistae and kept his mounted knights and his personal retinue hidden behind the castle mound.

However, when it became apparent that the English rebels were not stupid enough to fall for this ruse he ordered the men at arms to advance further down the Great North Road in the hope that this would draw the English out.

The English were still too canny to fall for the bait and so Alexander decided that the only option was to flush them out. He sent two parties of his knights to circle west and north with the intention of driving the English out of the woods and into the open where he and his remaining knights could deal with them.

In the meantime he ordered the crossbowmen and the ballista’s to keep the English occupied so that they did not slip away deeper into the forest and disappear completely.

The plan seemed to work and the two groups of knights charged through the woods into the rear of the English archers driving them out of the trees and into the open. Alexander and the remaining Knights immediately advanced intending to crush the English archers between them.

Meanwhile, the western group of Scottish knights had run directly into Godwine and his personal retinue catching them by surprise and a fierce melee ensued. Alexander immediately broke off his attacks on the English archers and charged in to assist in the capture of the rebel Earl.

The fighting around Godwine was fierce and the western group of knights were almost annihilated before Godwine and his bodyguards finally broke off the battle and escaped to the north leaving the rest of his army to its fate.

Left alone the English Longbowmen that had initially been driven from the wood by the attack of the knights had been taking a heavy toll on the crossbowmen and ballista crews deployed further down the hill.

However, as soon as the Scottish Knights emerged from the trees behind them they realised that their fate was sealed and threw down their weapons or ran.

242 out of Godwine’s original army of 710 men surrendered only 107 including Godwine himself managing to avoid capture.

[gibsonsg91921]

keep it coming macdidzy its all gold

[Lt. Pinard]

Wow this is a great read. Im new to the forum and this is the first AAR I've read. I hope there are other AARs and such out thier with such high quality as this.

[nurizeko]

MWOAR!

Or, simply put, great stuff!.

[gibsonsg91921]

cmon do more please?!?!

[Zasz1234]

Dunno if you are still doing this, but fabulous job thusfar, hope you stick with it.

[Didz]

I have every intention on finishing this blog, unfortunately I sufferred a critical PC failure a few weeks ago and its taking time to transfer and replace everything on the new one. The good news is that I don't seem have lost any of the .tga files I created prior to the failure so once I have everything else sorted I should be able to carry on.

The good news is that my new PC has a much better graphic's card so hopefully MTW2 will look even more awesome once I get it sorted out.

[Northnovas]

The good news is that my new PC has a much better graphic's card so hopefully MTW2 will look even more awesome once I get it sorted out.

I have been thinking about this what did you have and what are you going too? It be interesting to see the difference. Glad to hear you will back on track, an AAR is definitely time consuming.