Battle and Campaign Tales

[Lord Romulous]

I really love battle stories and accounts of campaigns. so please if you get time.
post tales of your most interesting battles and campagins.

(it would be good to get away from the complaint threads about the game for a while yes ?)

Im at work so ill post my story later.

[t1master]

last night the greedy, yet stupid english king john thought he could invade the isle de paris with his rather large army. in this he was successful, however, his stupid son, who came along with him, thought it necissary to up his dad and plunge on ahead after the silly french king. this he did leaving his dad behind.

his son took the ajacent provence, but failed to notice that the french, including the king, and his better bred sons had circled back and surrounded his father, the king of england.

now the battle insued and the nannie boy english couldn't hold off the vicious attack of the french and the king turned tale and ran, losing all his stars and most of his army. this rag tag bunch retreated to normandy, a shell of its former self, but smiled in the knowledge that the over ambitious prince john was cut off and would have to fight his way out.

that battle begins this evening after the little princess is asleep.

[Veiny Eyeball]

Fought two of my largest and bloodiest battles ever a few nights ago.

I was the playing the game as the French and had managed to conquer the British Isles as well as a hefty chunk of central Europe.
Spain had capitulated under the Almohads though (bet you didn't see that one coming ;/) The elmos had several massive armies loitering around Navarre and Aragon, probably totalling 10 000+ overall.
Unfortunately I was involved in wars with the Italians and Germans in the east and was unable to pour all my resources into a purge of the infidel scum. Even so I bribed several large Almo armies (even gaining a 9 star general in the process!) and withdrew them into my provinces. Soon after the Elmos launched several vicious attacks against Toulouse and Aquitaine in which maybe 2500 Elmos and 800 of my men were lost. With my armies constantly in tatters I knew I had to break the stalemate somehow.

Since I had pretty much secured the coastal regions of the Iberian peninsula I decided to move a small army into Portgual which was seemingly undefended. The Elmos took the bait and moved most of their armies out of Navarre and Aragon. I immediately sent my entire armed forces into this two provinces and dragged the army out of Portugal.

Navarre put up no fight. The army there retreated to the castle. Next turn a gigantic force of Elmos moved into the province and sallied towards me. The combined elmo forces totalled maybe 5500 troops vs my 2009. It was a horrific battle as the Elmos smashed themselves against the hill I was defending. After more than 2 hours I swear you could not see a single patch of open ground on that hill. It was just bodies everywhere. I even had to use all my reinforcements to replace exhausted & ammoless troops. Final result: 3705 Almohad dead (1200 were prisoners I killed) and 900 French dead.

In aragon however I was the attacker with my 2400 troops vs the elmos 2900. After an hour or so I routed the enemy losing some 700 men to their 2000.

And just out of interest these two battles with Almohads involved about 2500 of their armored urban militia I thought I was screwed when I saw 10 groups of them arrive as reinforcements in the first battle.

I haven't played the game since then but the Almohads still have a major force in Spain. Good thing Aragon and Navarre are full of mountains though.

[Alrowan]

It was a hot morning, and Emperor Henry II sat on top of mount, eager for the victory that awaited. He had faced several humiliating defeats prior to this battle, and only wondered if this might be the same. The Alamohad armies had been campagining against the Holy Roman Empire for the last eighty years, not much land had changed hands in that time. Sure the Alamohads had taken several easy victories at the start of the campagin, conquering southern France, but the HRE was ready for anthing, and when Henry took the throne, a massive counter campagin had been launched, driving into spain. When both armies had finally ammassed thier forces on the borders, a war of attrition soon followed, with not much happening on either side. Henry soon devised a new stragey, and he was soon sending in his many spies to cause revolt and dissent amongst the people of narvere and castille. Soon the Alamohads had retreated from the border, and Henry was now in the process ot taking up the sword to ad new realms to his Empire.

Surveying the battlefeild Henry knew it was going to be a slaughter. He had decided to rest up many of his foot troops and use his knights to teach the large peasant rebellion who was king. His forces sat in a low valley, looking up a mighty hill on which the rebels had camped. He manouvered some of his knights up eaither side of the hill, leaving a hollow center to his army, He the proceeded to advance his left flank along the ridge to the enemies position. The rebels aware of the movment began to make a deffensivline on the ridge, foregoing thier own left flank. Henry, upon seeing this took advantage of the dispersed armies and spurred his mount on, charging headlong into the disorganised right flank, with 3 regiments of knights in tow.

It was pure slaughter, the peasants fell beneath the mighty steeds, and slowy organised themselves into surrounding the knights. Henry was not worried by this manouvre, although it cost him the lives of several brave knights. He issued the order and his standard waved, signalling to 3 more regiments of knights to charge.

Over the hill they came, and up the back of the ridge, and into the fray they charged, dividing the enemy, and forcig several units to retreat to the top of the hill. The other unfortunate rebels were trampled to death, and soon were fleeing, only to be chased down by more knights and trampled to the earth.

Henry looked over the carnage, and saw the dead and dying, the infidal peasants would all burn for thier faith. Henry's attnetion was soon drawn to the last enemy units, making a stand on the mountain. He decided to show no mercy to them either, and ordered the charge.

The uphill fight was tough, but after several more good knights had fallen the managed to reach the enemy general. They surrounded him and Henry stepped forward.

"You are surrounded, surrender." He spoke.
"Never!" spat the man, a tough face glared though his leather helm.

Henry, signalled for his men to bring the prisoners forward, and proceeded to have them executed before thier leaders eyes, yet he still didn not surrender.

"You traitors, your spies told us of freedom and of riches, yet here you are slaughtering those who defeated thier rulers, we would have been better with them!" The enemy general was defiant.

Henry did not think twice of what he was about to do, and signalled for his knights to kill all the enemies that were left, ordering them to leave non alive. He then rode away, not bothering to look at the thousands of dead on the field.

That victory brought Henery great fame, and soon the other rebels were easily bribed into his realm. Now with the Alamohad on the back foot, perhaps Henry might now be able to head to Russia, where in the east the princes of novogorod had claimed to be rightful owners of his lands i the east, and were staging a new war, allied to the alamohad, the turks and the byzantines.

Henry smiled, at least he was now in talks with the Mongol horde to form an allaince, of which Russia and the holy lands would be divided between thier armies.

[Pellinor]

Playing as HRE. Early, Expert; 1215 and I have everything west of Constantinople, except for the Papal States, which the Pope still holds with the awe-inspiring force of 7 knights, 18 archers and 23 spearmen.

I am currently advancing on 3 fronts - rolling up the Egyptians, who hold Damascus and southwards; crunching through the Turks, who hold Turkey, and mopping up the Poles, who fell to a one-turn swoop. Novgorod is neutral, and holds everything north of the Black Sea except for a few provinces round Ukraine which are Byzantine (also neutral).

I invaded Nicea from Constantinople, and as expected the Turks counter-attacked the next turn. Bizarrely, the Byzantines also sent an army in, by sea (the fleet has been moving slower than the advances on land). I wasn't sure who these were aimed at, me or the Turks.

Defending, I deployed on a hill, with a wood and a few houses to my left and a slope down to the sea to my right. Half a dozen Chivalric sergeants made a wall, three or four arbalests to back them up, half a dozen assorted cavalry in reserve, and some more cavalry and some MAA off-table.

The Turks attacked down my right flank, with lots of cavalry. The Byzantines seemed to be attacking them in the flank, but didn't close and ended up sitting in the valley in front of me, ignoring both of us while I dealt with the Turks. The problem was, I didn't want to strike the first blow against the Byz in case they were still neutral, but I had to leave a good force to screen them.

Of course they did attack while I was engaged with the Turks. I managed to rout the Turks off eventually, but took nasty casualties from the cataphracts who seemed to be all over the place, chopping my spears up. I was left with a few cavalry, most of my archers, and a few battered units of spears, but then the Byzantine second wave came - more cataphracts.

I should really have retired at this point, perhaps sacrificing the spears to get the archers and knights out more or less intact, but that goes against the grain so I stayed.

The battle hung in the balance for a good while, even though it was largely arbalests meleeing with cataphracts. My general (valour 13 or so) met the enemy general, and duelled for about half an hour while the rest of our armies were deadlocked - I was holding on in the hope that killing the general would break the enemy's remains. Unfortunately, he killed him moments *after* my army broke. I was left with one man trying to interfere with the pursuit of my archers. I was tempted to let him take on the entire enemy army single-handed, but I couldn't risk my best general so he retired in good order.

Very annoying - if he'd killed the enemy general a matter of seconds earlier I would probably have routed the enemy.

I got Nicea back the next turn - the Turks were in no state to hold it against my reinforcements coming in from the west, even though my best army was broken. And the Byzantine empire in Ukraine lasted about 3 years - I already had the assault troops in place after taking Hungary and Poland.

[Furtrapper]

Great thread guys...was planning to post a similar one but Romulous beat me to it!

My Russian campaign is interestingly poised. With slow and steady expansion, and relatively little warring - I prefer defensive play and let others war on me - I have an empire which stretches from the steppes to the French border and from Scandinavia to Serbia in the South. Last night saw me extinguish the annoying HRE (who had declared war on me). I'm nominally at war with the Italians (primarily naval) who are the third power on the board, but my borders now abut those of the Almohads, who own Spain, France, all of North Africa, Britain (not Ireland -that's the remnants of the Brits) and some of Turkey, along with my allies the Turks. Me and the Almo are neutrally getting along at the moment, so I have a substantial trade income (7,000fl-11,000fl profit a turn, depending on whether I'm at war with the Italians or not, but could be shattered at any minute). However, war is imminent.

The battle last night saw me finish off the HRE. Their army was 500 strong, mainly UM, some FMAA and peasants (hah!) whereas I was trying out my new arquebusiers, arbalesters and recently acquired Swiss halberdiers, along with my unreliable horse archers and one unit of Khwarazim mercernary cavalry and a unit of longbowmen (mercernaries too).

They had the hill, I the valley. I kicked off, as usual, with horse archers and boyars, peppering them with arrows while they sat on the hill, daring them to come in front of my arquebusiers while my Khw. finished off their distant trebuchet. No good, they weren't moving.

I moved some horse archers round to the south of their position, in another valley and peppered some peasants. They, mistakenly, charged, and I was able to sandwich them between the horse archers (charge with sword) and Khw: 1 loss, 100 killed.

Then sent the longbowmen in to fire uphill at the Royal Knights atop it. Still not tempting enough. Withdrew longbowmen and moved arquebusiers forward. This drew a unit of UM down the hill into the rifles...a massacre.

Seeing this, the HR Emperor withdrew his troops along the ridge. I capitalised, moving the Swiss halberdiers to the top of the hill and risking charging the Boyars up the valley while moving the horse archer/Khw. around the other side, classic pincer move.

The result: HRE army routs splendidly and my cavalry capitalise. The final toll, 29 dead on my side, 300 dead on theirs, 200 captured. Crushing victory...

Somehow, I really don't think the Almohads will be quite that easy...

[chaka]

I was playing french. early hard.

campaign started peacefully, as inspection of my forces showed, i had no immediate exploitable advance over englismen, so i decided to build up my military - upgrade defences in flanders and then attack. same time sent my emissary to HRE to back my rear when hostilities begin ...
it lasted for 10 years.

English digged out their old forgotten claims for french throne and attacked me in toulouse and flanders ... bizarre enough, they pulled everything out from anjou and normandy ... toulouse fell to overwhelming english force. Flanders in turn won great time, inflicting casualities big enough to keep brits at bay for some years.

My revenge was sweet - immediately my forces occupied anjou and normandy and next year i took both toulouse and aquitaine out of english hands.

Following years english attacked desperately flanders, but my forces were rock steady. HRE gave up their alliance with me but remained neutral. Aragonese refused from alliance, same for italians, danes, pope, everybody ...
Since playing for great achievements for first time ... didn't know how to feel with it - may-be it's supposed to be like this ...

Although (its 1230 now) HRE remains neutral no matter what, everybody else is backstabbing like he can ... these bastards!

Anyway, it was another decade of my peaceful development and preparations to follow my christian duty in holy land ... Aragonese attacked.

They hold only one puny piece of mountain and still they found courage to spit on me ... i kicked their arses over their mountaintops hard. only to see their next pathetic attempt after 5-10 years after. continiously. same thing in flanders - englishmen could'nt just live with that. I continued to inlict now tremendous losses to them, but no, they just came back. They didn't even bother to take wales or scotland ...

OK, I can stand that. Both my generals in Flanders and Toulouse were practicing, getting good VV's and stars. Things seemed to go well since after few years i was expecting to go crusade into tripoli.

Then Spaniards attacked. and very hard. That took my aquitaine troops totally unprepared. Since spaniards had better army than aragonese could ever spear, I lost aquitaine.

Nevertheless, luckily france quickly recovered from this blow and tooc back aquitaine following year. But damage has been done - much building has to be done from scratch ... and that hurt ...

Surprise came, when year after year being attacked now from spain, aragon and england i found out that spaniard were actually in war with almohads, were losing and refused any attempts to cease-fire with me ...

By mid XII century spain was gone. France probably helped that - since their losses were quite fatal in aquitaine ... result of that event was, that i conquered navarre, hoping, that when almohad probably attack, its much easier to defend than aquitaine.

And they did. hard. very hard. i could afford to send into navarre only around 800 men at first. result of constant neverending conflicts on my borders had forced me to cancel all my building of improvements and spend all my budget for military ... in 1150 i was at war with english, aragonese and almohads. Allied with none.

So, when almohads attacked, did same english and aragonese ... and like this is not enough, pope went senile - sent me message to leave fellow christians alone! I!? I'm defending! Ind pretty darn hopelessly! ... things were bad ... flanders was sure thing ... easy one - english king was "good runner" ) I bet! this being only thing I know he did whole life ...

Aragonese had their beating de luxe ... and then almohads ... along came their bloodthirstiest 7-star general, lots of urban militia and swarm of peasants. This was a battle. My whole army was near breaking twice and routed once. My general flees, but somehow some spearmen and urban militia stays and saves finally my day. just and just barely ... from my defending force of 800 only mere 100 are left ... even when killing 2500 of them, things look dim - skies are filled with dust and horizon is orange from their flags ...

It was my luck that they did'nt attacked for few years after their first defeat - i had just enough time to gather my newly recruited troobs and recreate my defence lines there.

All that lasted for about 20 years or so - and i was getting pissed off ... by that time i managed to spare enough money to build a fleet form north sea to mediterranean and pull together an expeditionary army of 600 men to send it into morocco. only intention to loot as much as possible and to draw almohads interest southward. It worked - my ravaging forse tramped into algeria and into tunisia and then back, meeting no resistance. result was whole almohad owned african coast in ruins. They were so hard-boiled, that they did'nt even send a smallest army to encounter me ... next step was granada - this draw their attention! but boy, did i get some bucks! they attacked me in morocco and trying not to loose my glorious bandits I surrendered them immidiately and bought them back - next assignment was waiting!

Also, by that time I had created quite impressive pack of bishops and spies - these fellows were assigned to portugal. their job was well done - continious uprisings left porugal in rumbles. Also I made finally my first crusade - sent it to castile. Conquerred after another pointless attack Aragonese and after for some years of waiting for english to attack, killed most of their army and sent immediately into england my flanders army and into english back my robbers from morocco. English king died, i believe into heart attack, others say in battlefield ... anyway england was french and since HRE also decided to crusade into cordoba, i was sterting to feel safe now ...

but as came out things were not as bright they looked - british island fell easily and foolishly I withdrew most of my troops out there. Almohad problem was still in the air and my expeditionary force into morocco needed troops. Out of nowhere English reappeared. Same year my crusade took castile and exped.f. took morocco. Next year when my troops in british islands prepared to take serious fight in wales, to everybody's amusement the just reapeared king decides to end his miseries and threw himself into my spears ... and that was it ...

Its 1230 now, almohads still hold about six armystacks in cordoba. All Africa, scandinavia, mediterranean islands and middle east is French - english, aragonese, hungarians, poles, sicilians, egyptians, turks and novgorod (and 100% catholic - thanks to my horde of bishops). Also finland and livonia ... I'm waiting to attack byz - but i'd like to allow mongols to do their job first ...

Still no allies, HRE still neutral, Danes will probably die next, ... damn! Only alliance i had was few years with HRE and all I wanted was glorious achievements - and what is the result? If you cant join them beat them )

[sapphoo]

i have a real short one:

this morning I felt a bit godlike and attacked a province containing 6600 men with one single army of 960 men, led by a 7 star general...

It went quite well of course in the beginning, but they just kept coming and soon I had to withdraw them all...

there is a lesson in all this...but i can't be bothered to figure it out

------------------

[Coeur De Lion]

yeah story time

------------------
Coeur De Lion

[DojoRat]

Turks/early/GA

Wallachia has fallen without a fight but orders to reinforce are never sent. My army consists of 4 Sar inf, 2 Ghazi, 2 d arch, 1 turco foot, 2 turc h, 2 Siaphi, 2 cats, and my gen is an Sar as well with 5 stars. Intelligence reports the Hungarians are returning with 2,200 men.

The terrain is perfect though the weather is windy with intermittant rain. I stick with the initial placement more or less. I'm halfway up a concave ridge with a nice bit of woods anchoring my right flank. I group the G's and hide them in the trees. I put the Turc hr ahead on each flank to harass and the Siaphi on the left above the double line of inf and archers. Fearless leader waits behind the left end of the main line.

What? Not enough crew present. Heads will roll but for now I can use only one cat.CLICK

Whoa, they're close, they have 1 cat and 5 balllistas I hope I'm not in range. I let loose with my cat hoping to take out his but switch when no missles land among my men.

His army isn't strong. HA's, militia, peasants, archers, a spear and one royal fool, but not 'the big guy'. My TH on the right is in trouble though. He has the height over his fellow horse archer but when the stones start to falll its time to go. Now! He moves up the ridge and further right putting the woods between him and the main line. The HA follows but loses interest and begins to advance into the trees. On the far left my other TH exchanges arrows also but watches as a militia unit detachs from the enemies main advance. The Siaphi's see it too and loosen their swords.

Back on the right the Ghazi's whisper closer, closer, as the horsemnen pick through the trees. Now! No, damn, too soon. Pull up, don't follow. Back to the trees. Be patient.

On the left that militia is trying to catch my TH still dueling with his opposite number. I pull back up the hill away fro the HA drawing the militia closer to my cav. Down come the Siahis 80 strong crashing into the UM that barely manages to turn and face them. The UM's losses mount but help is on the way they think, but so also is their doom as my Turc H pull their swords and charge the UM's back breaking their resolve.

But before long the horn of recall is heard. The general sees more inf is advancing toward his horse and knows he's not ready for a general assault. The horse disengages and begins to slowly climb the hill followed closely by enemy militia and peasants.

The action now shifts to the center. The enemies main line starts and stops under the dry rain of my desert archers. He shifts to my left. On the right he's sent a spear to get the G's in the trees. As he enters the trees from the left I sent one G straight down the hill to flank right, the other directly at him and cut loose my Turco inf to hit his other flank. The spear quickly shatters but again pursuit is called off. Not yet. Not yet.

The cav on the left can't put enough distance between them and their pusuers to flank and rout. They might win one on one but this is only the first wave. They will be needed again and again. They climb and angle back to the main line.

The royal fool finally makes his move but as he closes the Saracens charge biting deep into his line. My general veers left then right turning their line as the ghazi's hit home from the otherside. The peasants and militia turn tail leaving the royal fool to be ground between 200 spears.

As my inf charges I send my DA's to help my Cav on the left deal with their pursuers and when the enemy breaks my general goes as well to stop this nonsense. Back on the right my neglected TH (oops) comes back down the hill to disrupt the seige weapons but can't do it alone so a ghazi charges to its aid. The cav on the left now with inf and archers turns and attacks the militia and with the death of the royal fool (finally!) They and the rest of the army break.

This pursuit lasted longer but it too was called back as more HA' and inf came on for the Hungarians.

I must end this. I let them come at me again uphill and with Ghazis right, and cav left they quickly broke when the Saracens charged down the center. I almost kept going and attacked his third and smaller wave but pulled back and rested as he formed his line and shattered them again when they came to me. The kill ratio was 7 to 1 with some 800 prisoners being the recipients of some 'scant mercy' on the part of my general.

[ShaiHulud]

Am playing the Danes on Expert. Special rules
include taxes always at highest level, no mercenaries, no assassination of my (pathetic)princes, etc.

My top general (3 stars! whoopee!) has invaded Pomerania and the HRE has 240 troops holding the fort. The following year I reinforce my group to 800 and the HRE invades with 900+.

The weather is clear and I have a slight slope to my defensive advantage. A forest guards my right and the left is protected by a lake. Three archer units line the front backed up by spearmen, a smattering of feudal seargents, proud Vikings and some armored foot. I have no cavalry save my general's bodyguard, yet, I am confident.

Alas, the opposing general has, somehow, imbued his forces with great elan! Shrugging off their losses from my archers they rush along the entire line. My archers retreat behind the line. I am elated!... until I see that my Vikings on the left are being shredded by mere urban militia. Undoubtably, they are being prodded on there by the presence of their general and his damned royal knights, yet I expected better of Vikings. My own paltry few horse have gone around my right and are riding down his archers.

My right, tho winning, is being held up by the insistent refusal of some stolid spearmen to rout.... sixty armored foot were the link between my left and my right.. the last three are fleeing and the Vikings join them! Bah! The enemy are into my archers now.

Fortune! The archers flee but they take my enemy's victorious right flank with them, in their pursuit of the easy kill! And, finally, I crush his left, but two-thirds of my force is dead or on the run while my general is off slaughtering archers. Well, It seemed a good idea at the time!

I sound RALLY! and 63 spears answer the call, but they are yet wavering and far from the line. Those of my right receive orders to face their left and meet the returning forces of my enemy's victorious right wing. My general desperately tries to join them, riding around my enemy's rallied forces.

NO! His bodyguards stop to take a few heads and now they are entangled with those militia they were to avoid! Seeing opportunity the enemy general is racing with his knights and the rest of those that smashed my left. I order my closest unit, Vikings, to immediately support his general and the rest dash to cut off the enemy before they can surround the general.

The Vikings meet the urban miltia again, but this time, they take their measure! My general charges to meet his general and the bulk of my forces win the race and cut off his army from the meeting of generals.

His militia breaks! My Vikings charge home against his knights now and the enemy shows fear! Huzzah! Their general breaks and runs and his forces lose heart and flee!

(This was my best battle so far. I honestly was shocked to see my left crumple and thought the battle was lost. Love this game!)





------------------
O stranger, Go tell the Spartans that we lie here, obedient to their will.....


[This message has been edited by ShaiHulud (edited 10-25-2002).]

[Richard the Slayer]

I killed every Frenchmen and after prince Lous the V led a rebellion killed him too. Then I wiped out the Welsh and Scots. Dont mess with England.

[Thane Talain MacDonald]

England/GA/1092 Early Mod

Marching from Normandy in early 1096, the English forces sparred with the French for twenty years, my hastily assembled force of spears and militia with barely any knights clashing with the French. In the First Battle of Anjou my troops barely held the charge of the Franks (120 Feudal Knights! And my ENTIRE force was 250 men!), but slaughtered their nobility with spearmen and what few longbows I managed to bribe in Wales. As the french king and his shattered knighthood withdrew to Britanny, half of the Norman garrison assaulted Ile de France, capturing Paris Castle and ending the threat of French Knighthood. Over the next decade the English took advantage of the HRE's papal warning to finish destroying the French. However, the Italians moved into Provence. Now the English under its second king began to build a trade empire and launch a crusade to Palestine. It was launched and led by Chancellor-Duke FitzGilbert of Ile de France, an 8-star general. Arriving in Palestine he immediately settled in to defend.

Over the next 18 years, FitzGilbert held against the reigning Egyptians, slaying every general to come against him, finally culminating in the 7th Battle of Battle-Hill, with FitzGilbert's 800 remaining crusaders facing down the last of the line of Egyptian Sultans with 4300 men at his back, and personally slaying the sultan in combat, scattering his forces and slaying over 450. With the Egyptians reduced to banditry, FitzGilbert sent his best-subgeneral to conquer Tripoli. The newly completed naval line to wessex allowed desperately needed reinforcements to come in, and just in time.

From the south, the Aragonese attacked, and from the east, the HRE attacked. And the Danes attacked the newly victorious garrison of sweden. In anger, the English king hired many mercenaries, smashing the Danes and Aragonese into the dust, and slaying the HRE's king, crushing his armies, and rolling back the borders all along the front, taking Provence in the meanwhile. During this time the immensely powerful Byzantines took the rest of the middle-east, the Polish and Hungarians consolidated, and the Spanish and Almohad continued to do nothing at all.

Returning to his senses, the newly-crowned English king James removed almost all the mercenaries and pulled his troops out of most of the HRE territory, smashing all the buildings beforehand, as well as Aragon. The French returned at Aragon without any buildings, and the HRE reclaimed their territory, then disaster struck. A crusade for Eddesa became an act of war when the Byzantines smashed the turkish troops there. James hastily disbanded the crusade and tried to craft a treaty with the Empire, to no avail. In pulling back his borders, an act of Christian charity, James' Influence had dwindled from 9 to 4, and the Byzantines struck first, attacking the Crusader-State of Israel and crushing the English navy from the eastern mediterranian. The Crusaders held, slaying around 1800 byzantines in the next three years, while the British Isles went into war mode.

With a war chest of 67000 florins and four provinces capable of producing Caravels (Its 1190~, for some reason it won't let me build past dockyards), the English navy began to avenge the dastardly surprise attack on its east-mediterannian Barques. Easily out fighting the oared Byzantine ships, the Royal Navy opened the path to the Crusaders again, with the side effect of destroying the Byzantine trade empire. Now the Hungarians and Novgorod attacked, keeping the Byzantines busy in the north. The royal navy begins to clear the Byzantine Navy at Crete, while sending a force to blockade the Agean. Assuming the two fleets in Crete can clear it without more Byz ships coming in, a force will be sent on an amphibious assault to capture the dockyards of Crete, leaving the Byzantine with on Constantinople and two Black Sea shipyards.

[Swisspike]

Great thread.

Bump.

[Ktonos]

Byzantines/Normal/Early

Rome 1184AD

10 or so years after the destruction of Popes Domain from the Byzantine campaign in the Italian penissula and his exile to Sicily,an immence army of 1200 yellow-dressed warriors and Knights was reported marching towards the citadel of Rome.

The imperial governor and commander of the 800 Byzantine garrison there, Kyriakos Kalaphatis recognised the return of an old friend. A man who was a military and religius,though respected enemy before a decade. Kalaphatis had confrodent his men when he was the commander of a Lohos of Byzantine Infantrimen among many other.The Pope was back for good. The general, who was concidered as an excellend attacker but not to good defender,after the meeting of the commanders of all the lohous stationed in Rome,and a couple of glasses of red wine(just enough to calm him before the storm,although he is roumored to be a dead drunk),he decided to confront the enemy in open field and not to allow him to pillage the surounding villages and public buildings rather than to fortify himself behind the secure walls of Rome.

Next day Rome's gates opened and 600 Byzantine infantry men marched out of the city, followed by 80 Kataphraktous, mounted on their full armored with chain mail heavy warsteeds and 56 veteran Varagian Imperial guards.

The yellow banners showed themselves when the Byzantines where marching through the pine forest near Rome. This Pope should be an excellent commander, for Kalaphatis didn't espect him to be so close to Rome. He ordered the entire infantry to make a single line on the top of a low hill and the Varagian Guards with the Kataphraktous to form the reserves. Most of the Papists where catholic nobles and mounted Knights. The rest of them local Italian militia and peasants.

The Byzantines had the advandance of the hill and the woods and the papists the charge of the Knights.

A few moments later the yellow colored heavy cavalry where charging in a long line of the same size with the purple one against them. The Byzantine infantrymen stood still in defensive position…but then, a few meters before the impact, Kalaphates made a fatal mistake and gave the order to counter charge. The imperial fighters drew their scimitars and facing certain death charged into the frenzied mass of armored steeds and mounted warriors. Maybe not for the sake of their old and drunk general but for the cross of orthodoxy and the Empire.

….

When the last group of the defeated infantrymen vanished in the woods only Kalaphates with his 16 remaining infantrymen and the Varangian guards stooded in the middle of the field among hundreds of their dead. While the Kataphracts where hidden in the woods and ready to strike and support their generals retreat, the Papists had managed to surround him. While surrounded no opponent found the courage to attack them in fear of the fighting abilities of the infamous Varagian Guards. These full armored Vikings where searching among their dead for wounded knights and whenever they found one they finished him.

Then the Pope himself arrived in the field. Mounted on a fine strong steed among his bodyguards. He gave the order to the peasants and the militia surrounding the defenders to attack. Kalaphates gave in turn the order for the Kataphrakts to charge at the infantry and while the Varangians butchered the spearmen, the peasants and the few Knights amongst them who attacked they retreated with discipline into the woods. When the Kataphracts clashed into the enemy the Varangian Guards and the lohos of Kalaphates had formed a defensive line on a forested hill. Soon the commoners where either killed, captured or fled…mostly killed. And before the new wave of Knights come close they retreated to the woods beside their general.

The Pope holded his Knights as he wouldn’t like to loose some of his finest when he could drive the enemy out of the forest using his archers and pavise crossbowmen. After his victory here he should lay siege on Rome, and his army had already many losses.

The archers fired only a couple of arrows and bolts before the Katafractoi reached them and then only few spearmen and the remaining peasants where there to defend them, while the Knights where charging upon them. The Varangian Guards came out of the woods marching towards Pope, and Kalaphates ran with his men to help his loyal Kataphraktous. Pope run behind his bodyguards and ordered a reserve unit of 20 Knights to make a shield for him against the Varangians.

The Kataphraktoi easily clearded the way through the poor armed infantry with few casualties but were exausteded and now had to deal with many knights who outnumbered them by far. Kalaphates left them to deal with their fresh and skilled mounted opponents and seized the opportunity to fight with the pope himself,when he saw the Guards to butcher a whole new unit of knights. The Pope in turn saw the few infantrymen who where marching against him and recognized the Imperial Banner. He desided that the Byzantine general was an importand though easy target. So with no fear for his life, waved his own mighty banner and charged with his bodyguard Knights.

And it was. The Pope and his knights took down the enemy general and his few companions. With pleasure he watched the death of Kalaphates and the victory of his Knights over the Kataphractous some hundred feets away…but he didn’t understood that the Varangian Guards had finished with the obstacle of the Royal Knights before long and,although half their initial numbers, now they are charging him.

The Pope was massacred before his cavalry from all around the field arrive at his last stand. When they did they managed to overwhelm and kill the Guards to the last of them. The battle was victorious for the Papists, but not for the Pope himself. Without a leader the remnants of the battle fall apart.

[CeeBod]

Story time! Here's the account of my biggest battle to date:

In the year or our lord 1216, Sir Simon de Normandie received word from his king, Edmund III, that he was stop his campaign of wiping out the Princes of Novgorod - his army was needed further south, as the crusade bound for Constantinople had just walked unopposed through Bulgaria, where the infidel Egyptians reigned, and the king wanted to keep the province - to secure the hinterlands of the prize of Constaninople that he greatly coveted.

Sir Simon left Novgorod by sea, and met up with a small force from Finland. After a long and tortuous sea journey, his 2300 men landed on the coast of Bulgaria, and surveyed the situation.

It quickly became apparent that this was going to be very different from subduing the barbarian princes in the east. Large Egyptian armies were moving south from Moldovia, and north from both Greece and Constantinople, to relieve the garrison in Bulgaria castle. Meanwhile, the large crusader army was already moving south - Sir Simon would have to fight this army without their assistance.

On the day of the battle, Sir Simon arrayed some of his troops on the side of a reasonably large and steep hill - a fine defensive position. He knew that he also had a good number of reserves, and so he and his army were in good spirits - until the infidel horde took the field - 5400 Egyptians!

The first wave was almost entirely cavalry - which probed and prodded at the English lines - trying to draw them down the hill, and into range of the few catapults and Trebuchets that the Egyptians had brought along.

Sir Simon knew that giving up the hill in the face of so many foes would be fatal, and so relied on counter-attacks with his own light cavalry, and the well-targeted rain of arrows from the Longbows and Crossbows.

This period of maneuvering, and lightning cavalry strikes, resulted in many casualties for the Egyptian cavalry, and caused the English cavalry to become exhausted early. Sir Simon sent them to the rear, and called up re-inforcements, knowing that he had many Hobilars in the reserves who could maintain this tactic.

Whilst the fresh cavalry was still en-route from the rear, the Egyptians tried a decisive attack, and launched into the front, and the left flank of the English line. The English counter-attacked with everything - this could be a decisive moment, and Sir Simon wanted to take advantage. Sure enough, the Egyptian general turned tail and fled, as did the remainder of the first wave.

Knowing the size of the Egyptian reserves, Sir Simon quickly called back the bulk of his forces to their defensive position on the hill - only the light infantry of the Scots and Irish persisted in chasing down the fleeing Egyptians. Those troops soon found themselves in a position to attack the crews of the enemy catapults, which they set about with their usual ferocity. Unfortunately, the troops were still finishing off the siege engineers when the 2nd wave of Egyptians crashed onto them. The English on the hill could only watch as the Clansmen and Gallowglasses were slaughtered to a man - this battle obviously wasnt over yet, dispite the early exit by the Egyptian general.

What followed were several hours of slughter - each wave of Egyptians crashed against the strong English position in vain, and each time they were repelled, suffering huge losses. The English losses were replaced with fresh troops from the rear.

Soon enough, the last of the English reserves was committed to battle. The bulk of Sir Simon's troops were depleted and tired, and every Longbowman and Crossbowman had long since used every arrow.

Sir Simon suddenly realised that his troops had been taking prisoners - as if this was just a normal european battle between chivalrous christians. Surely these infidel foes deserved no mercy, and if there were many more waves of attackers, he may even have to think of retreating from the field. Thinking this, he ordered that every prisoner be slain - an action which would later earn him the title "The Butcher of Bulgaria"

Another Egyptian wave marched forward - still with strong troops of Saracen Infantry, Ghazis and Nizaris, but with no more cavalry. Seeing this, and seeing that there were many archers being brought forward, Sir Simon decided that another drawn-out cat and mouse game would do the English no favours this time - he would have to attack, tired troops or no.

As the Egyptians approached, their front line was disorganised, and their troops were mostly still marching forward in column - not bothering to set up for battle until closer to the hill where all the fighting had so far taken place. Seeing this, the English abandoned the hill for the first time, and charged the Egyptians all out. This took them by surprise sufficiently that the English managed to attack many of their troops simulataneously from the front and flank, before there was an organised line of battle set up - causing chaos amongst the Egyptian troops.

Within moments, the remaining Egyptians abandoned the battle and fled the field - victory at last! The English had lost some 700 men, but the Egyptian losses were 4200, with a good many being slaughtered prisoners. The Egyptians were never to fully recover from this massive loss, and quickly lost all of their holdings in europe. Sir Simon, meanwhile, became both hated and feared as the butcher of so many Egyptians.

[Didz]

The De Montfort Crusade

A tale of courage and outrageous fortune in the face of total incompetence.

A new Pope had at last been elected to replace the one murdered by the Italians five years before and King William IV lost no time in launching his third Crusade to the Holy Land by calling for volunteers amongst his loyal Scottish Clans.

The Crusade would liberate Palestine and Jerusalem itself building on the kingdom already established by his Uncle Edward Plantaganet some ten years earlier.

As the Crusade moved steadily south through England William began looking through his list of expendable noblemen for a suitable General to lead this Holy Quest. He was disappointed to find that all his younger brothers and ungrateful Uncles had contrived to make themselves scarce on the pretext of fighting the French.

In fact there was only one unlucky candidate and that was a rather lack lustre individual called Sir Henry de Montfort who had somehow managed to raise a unit a Feudal men-at-arms in Mercia and therefore qualify as a one star general. He had no acumen and only one dread and was therefore of little use except as the token head of armed mob that was gathering in the English shires.

With no choice in the matter De Montfort and his men joined the Crusade in Bedford and marched with it to the channel ports. The Crusade was already over 2,500 strong and with the English navy in full control of the sea from the Baltic to Granada it had no shortage of options for its route east.

The two previous English Crusades had marched through the Holy Roman Empire to Constantinople and Turkey on their way East. But De Montfort looked at the turmoil in Europe and decided on an alternate route through Spain and the Almohad Empire in North Africa thinking it would be more straightforward. It was his first and biggest mistake.

The De Montfort Crusade landed in Leon and was granted safe passage through Spain. But whilst the Spanish King was an ally of England he was sadly lacking in Christian duty and De Montfort found his army marching through a land where the majority of the population were heathen and hostile.

By the time the Crusaders reached the borders of the Almohad Empire their strength had already dwindled to 1,800 Christian souls. Nevertheless they attacked the small Almohad army in Tunisia and defeated it before moving east to Cyrenacia where they killed the Khalif who had no sons and the Almohad Empire crumbled.

The 900 survivors marched into Eygpt to face the might of the main Egyptian Army led by the King himself. The battle in Egypt was long and bloody. The Crusaders formed on a steep sided hill with the last of their Templars and the Hobilars guarding their exposed right flank. The Egyptians attempted to turn this flank with their Mameluke Cavalry and camels and a vicious cavalry battle ensued which none of the Templars survived. Meanwhile the entire English line was being flensed by enemy archers whilst a large body of Saracen Infantry closed on the right. The situation was desperate and De Montfort decided that sacrifices had to be made and launched all his peasants and highlanders down the slope to drive off the enemy archers whilst his feudal Men-at Arms concentrated all their efforts on the Saracens.

Somehow the plan worked and despite terrible losses the Egyptians panicked and routed from the field.

Then more bad news arrived. A German Crusade had arrived in the Holy Land and was approaching Palestine from the North through Syria. Edward Plantagenate had no choice but to let them through but they seemed reluctant to complete their quest and preferred to camp in Syria and let the English to fight the Turks holding the Palestine first.

But the English were in no shape to take continue. They were now down to less than 700 men with only 39 Hobilars and De Montfort decided to wait in Egypt until the Germans had taken Palestine.

At this point fate was to force the issue in the form of a loyalist revolt in Eygpt which De Monfort had no hope of winning. Now De Montfort had no choice but to move his army to the Sinai in order to escape the rampaging Egyptian mob. This would mean yet another battle and Edward decided to try and improve the odds by distracting the Egyptian army in neighbouring Arabia by attacking them with a small army from Syria.

Another vicious battle was fought in Sinai from which only 342 of De Montforts crusaders emerged. But the Egyptian king in Arabia and his army tried to retreat from Edwards diversionary attack and with nowhere to go they were captured to a man by De Montfort.

Even more amazing was the arrival Egyptian emissaries a few weeks later with a huge caravan loaded with gold to ransom their king. Over 22,000 florins were added to the English Treasury.

In a final glorious step the now combined might of Edwards and De Montforts armies descended on the Turks in Palestine. The battle in Palestine was a long a protracted one. The Turks formed their army on a steep sloping hillside which the English could not hope to storm. Instead they formed their infantry at the base of the hill and showered the enemy with arrows until unable to stand any longer the Turks began to break ranks and charge the English line.

The Turks attacked piecemeal and were overwhelmed but fresh units arrived to replace them and the English began to run out of arrows. Spotting a weakness the Turkish Horse Archers managed to break through the English line creating havoc amongst the archers so that Edward himself had to draw a sword and had to drive them off on his own.

At last more English Cavalry began to arrive and the Turkish Horse Archers were hunted down and wiped out. In a last desperate move the Turks withdrew to a small wooded hill and tried to make a final stand but once again the English archers and Crossbowmen goaded them into leaving their position and attacking whilst the newly arrive cavalry circled behind their flank and gaining the upper slope charge into their rear.

The final slaughter was terrible and very few of the Turks escaped the battlefield.

Those that did were captured and executed later as there was nowhere for them to run to and the Turks refused to pay the ransom demanded.

A few took refuge in Jerusalem and De Montfort settled down to arrange the inevitable protracted siege as he had neglected to bring any seige engines with him.

But it was not to be for at that point the tardy Germans arrived and demanding the right of a Holy Quest were allowed to take over Palestine and conduct the final assault on Jerusalem itself.

So, the 300 survivors of De Montforts Crusade got to watch the final battle for the Holy City. Their Crusade failed to achieve its objective despite the sacrifices but it did raise over 22,000 florins for the English Treasury, which is some consolation.

As an final amazing postscript the Germans captured the Holy City and then in a gesture of generousity handed the entire of Palestine over the De Montfort and the English before disbanding their army.

So! against all the odds De Montfort Crusade was successful after all. And De Montfort has been made King of Jerusalem.

------------------
Didz
Fortis balore et armis

[This message has been edited by Didz (edited 10-30-2002).]

[KILLAM]

Laughed my arse off the other night. 3 vs 3 battle in the late period. I bought two cannons to the battle, the other team none. My side wait for 10 minutes while my cannons fired on the other side blowing the crap out of them bunched up in the top corner off the map trying to run away. Meanwhile one of my allies is typing "MOON, MOON, our army moon you all!" When the smoke cleared we got on with the fight, and as you can guess we won.

------------------
Don't be in a rush to die!!

[A.Saturnus]

In the name of Allah, the merciful, the wise, the Egyptian Sultan ordered to show the Hungarians a lesson for attacking his allies, the Italien.
And so his armies landed in Croatia, the Hungarian unbelievers fleeing before his might. His men advanced and took Hungary as well. The Hungarian king tried to retake it, but his assaults failed bitterly.
For decades then, the Egyptians held both lands.
It was the Sultan`s plan to hinder the conquering of the Almohads, who were marching straight through Europe, and show them humility. A large Egyptian army landed in Cordoba and cut right through their empire. Soon all African lands were gathered onder the Sultan`s rule, but then the treacherous Turks attacked their brothers in faith and distracted their forces. Also the Sicilians allied with the Almohad, and their combined forces threatened the Sultan`s lands in Europe and the seaways werer blockaded. After some years, the Egyptian forces decided to abandon Hungary, the concentrate their forces in Croatia. The alliance of the Kalifah and the Sicilian king send wave after wave of armies to drive the defiant Egyptians intp the sea. But the Sicilian king, this incompetent fool, insisted to lead his attacks personally. His stupid orders all lead to desaster. But then finally they attacked with 6000 men, most of them Almohad, the remaining 2000 Egyptians. Onder fire of catapults crossbows, Nizari and Mamluks, they assaulted the hill of the defenders. Their men clashed with saracens, Muwahid, ghazi and English mercenary billmen. The cowardly Sicilians left the Almohad general alone on the field as their king paniced. The Almohad still attacked as their leader died, and brought up wave after wave. But the brave Egyptians, fighting with desperate courage, stood and so the lines of saracen spearpoints still warded their lord as the last of the attackers left the field in shame. 1800 Almohad and Sicilians had died this day and 500 Egyptians had given their lives to the Sultan. Although they fought bravely, 800 men of the Almohad were left in prison.
The next year the kalifah asked for a ceasefire, what was granted but didn`t last long.
20 years later, the Almohad ruler has changed four times, the original dynasty wiped out, most of Spain lost and Croatia... is still Egyptian!

------------------
In the name of electricity: CHARGE!!!