Total Tyranny, a Turkish AAR

This is a sort of successor game to my Tyranny's End Total Independence campaign. I remember it as one of the more interesting campaigns I've run, but I picked essentially the easiest possible nation (France) to accomplish the goal and I wanted something tougher. I also wanted to play a Muslim nation this time, so I took the Turks. I also thought it would be fun to exterminate almost every settlement in the game, since in the TI campaign I occupied almost every one. With those thoughts in mind, these are essentially my rules:

1. I can have only ten provinces in which I recruit or build structures. Those ten provinces must be occupied when captured. Any other province which stays loyal cannot have a garrison unless an army runs out of movement in the city or a castle is being converted to a city to force it to rebel (This is to minimize defensive siege battles, which are nearly unwinnable for the AI).

2. Every other province on the map must be exterminated, whether held by rebels or enemy nations. Provinces can be exterminated more than once only if an AI nation recaptures them from the rebels; i.e. I can't generate income by exterminating rebel cities repeatedly. There is to be no sacking at any time, but structures in the exterminated provinces can be sold for cash. Europe must be left a smoking hole from end to end.

3. Every captured prisoner must be executed, especially including enemy family members.

4. No alliances. No ceasefires for any reason. Trade rights are permitted, but once war is declared there will obviously be no way to get them back. Every AI nation must be wiped out.

5. No jihads. No more than five spies at any time, and no more than one assassin. Hard to do a Total Tyranny campaign without assassins, but if use I them often it becomes a crutch and makes the game too easy.

6. I cannot prep stacks for the Mongols or Timurids until they've actually arrived on the map; i.e. no ambushing them as soon as they pop up.

7. No Imams or religious structures. I'll try to tie this one into the story, but if I kept a priest gang I'd end up with a lot of empty forts around the word providing me undeserved extra income.

8. No straight adoptions, but MotH and marriages of daughters are allowed to keep the family going.

(One note is that I did decide that mercenaries could be replenished in castles being converted to cities at the front, as long as it doesn't result in heavy abuse of that system. Absolutely no other recruitment except in my ten provinces.)

My ten will be: Constantinople, Iconium, Antioch, Edessa, Damascus, Jerusalem, Yerevan, Baghdad, Caesarea, and Mosul.

There is nothing historical about this campaign, I very deliberately butcher all sense of time and scale and take some of the more obviously inaccurate aspects of MTWII directly to heart, the better to enjoy them. I am going to try to use fewer images than in the past, and limit the size of posts as well so that the default thread size doesn't become unweildy.

Turn 1, Introduction, (Since the passage of time is such a mess in vanilla and I'm too lazy to fix it the exact year will always be fuzzy. I imagine each turn to be somewhere between three and six months, approximately, and the lives of generals to last perhaps 40-50 years.)

At the glorious court of Sultan Jalal ad-Dawlha in Iconium it was the usual custom of the Vizier's guards to extort gifts from unexpected visitors who sought an audience with their master. Naturally they would claim that this petty extortion existed as a way of weeding out the poor, low born, or unserious contenders for the King's attention, an explanation which Jalal found most amusing and useful. It was impossible to complain about the theft either, because the least mention of the word 'bribe' had gotten more than one supplicant tossed out on his ear, with bruises aplenty as a warning for the rest. All in all the people of the city knew their place, and really quite enjoyed seeing the occassional haughty foreigner come flying into the square cursing and spitting teeth.

Which is why, on the day that those same guard's heads came rolling down the steps of the palace and into the square, the citizens of Iconium took no delight in the end of the Vizier's sport.

The Vizier himself even now stood imperiously before a short, glowering easterner bedecked in some sort of armor that looked for all the world like polished wood, fiercely debating his right to enter the court.

'You could kill a dozen guards for all I care, when at my call hundreds more will come! You cannot enter! And do not think to molest me as you did my gate wards, for I am under the personal protection of the Sultan!'

At this the grim faced figure threw back his head and roared laughter. When he spoke his voice had the peculiar character of washing out his 'r' sounds, and generally slurring and drawing out words.

'Feahr is a wweaphon, wwise ghenewrals usse it weww! My Kahn wiww not towwerate faiwiurwe, so stand asiwde!'

At this the Vizier's face turned a dusky red, but his courage held and he remained in place. The stranger narrowed his eyes, and then in a single burst lept forward and struck the Vizier in the temple, knocking the poor man into a moaning heap on the floor. The doors to the Sultan's court were rapidly thrust open, and with his head held haughtily high the emissary in armor strode into the court.

Courtiers parted to either side of him, and guards along the walls drew aim with their bows as the man approached the throne of the Sultan. Six guardsmen with halberds rushed out from behind the throne and blocked his path. When the chest of his armor lightly struck the tip of the foremost halberd, the stranger stopped and turned his unpleasant gaze on Sultan Jalal himself. The Sultan met his gaze with a look of cold anger, tinged with resignation, and as the emissary was just about to speak the Sultan calmly said,

'You may address me now.'

A sneer rolled across the stranger's face, as though in contempt for the Sultan making such a petty opening move, but the Sultan took no account of the armored man's response, and instead watched the ripple of approval from among his courtiers and attendants. With a short, chopping gesture of dismissal the emissary began again, still with the strange rolling accent,

'Youwrs are a peasant people, made pooww by departing the lands of their ancestowws and begging scraps from the table of the Chwwistians! You awre weak and decadant! The Gweat Khan out of the East sends me to pwwace youww people under his pwwotection and wwetuwrn youwr stwrength!'

'Your accent is nearly as astonishingly ugly as your face. If we actually have something to discuss you will have to lessen it.'

Again a sneer emerged among the emissary's scars, but at this he actually bowed his head and when he spoke again the words were clearer, though still oddly accented,

'I must apologize fowr this. My Khan had my wwips cut off when I miscounted the numbers of the enemy on a scouting mission. I repaid him with ten heads for every one I missed, but I will carry the mark of my failure all my days. Noww, can we speak fwrank truth in front of these court fops, or should we adjourn to private?'

The Sultan smiled, and spoke to his court in a hard voice,

'You are dismissed. Prince Mustafa will attend me, as will Salih al Alai.'

The emissary then turned away from the Sultan and pointed to one of the Turkish courtiers dressed in a comfortable military style garb, before saying,

'Selim al Rashid also should remain.'

Momentarily the Sultan's eyes widened, and though the emissary was turned away it was clear that Selim himself caught this instant of weakness and treasured it. Then Jalal grimly nodded his head and gestured imperiously for the court to clear. As it did so the emissary turned once more to the Sultan and spoke in a more subdued tone, though still loud enough for the departing court to hear,

'I will owe you wrecompense for the guardsmen I slew to gain entwwy. Will you take five goats per man, or were they mowwe highly trained soldiers? I have wittle mead with me, but I could offer a skin on each if their heads were returned to me...'

:egypt:

Turn 1, Introduction continued,

With the court cleared some of the tension in the air began to seep away, as the need to impress the men who believed themselves to be the most important in the realm no longer existed. With the Sultan's first words, however, the atmosphere thickened once again immediately.

'Selim al Rashid, governor of Yerevan, trusted confidant of the throne, son of the line of Harun al Rashid, who once named himself Caliph, I must know; Are you a traitor to your people?'

'To my people? No, I am loyal to the death to my people and their Sultan. There is, however, a deeper loyalty and an older legacy to which we all must acknowledge debt. The line of Harun al Rashid is but a trickling thread out of my past, while the line of Aigiarn the Idugan beats in my blood like a swelling river.'

A troubled look overtakes the Sultan's face, and his gaze twitches for a moment to this odd emissary before returning to Selim, and asking,

'I know your line Selim and none of the men of your line carried the name Aigiarn. Of whom do you speak?'

'Aigiarn was the mother of my mother's mother, in the true line of descent. She was a shamaness, an oracle, and it is in her name that I answered the call of my brothers, one of whom now stands before you. I am not a traitor, but neither am I free of the blood debt written in the bones of my ancestors.'

Sultan Jalal held Selim's gaze a few moments longer in contemplation before he turned to Salih al Alai,

'And you Salih al Alai, what say you of this legacy?'

'I know nothing but obediance to your will lord. If you will it, I shall expel both these men from the chamber immediately!'

At this the emissary smiled a slow, nasty smile, while Selim himself merely went on gazing at the Sultan in an earnest way. Eventually the Sultan nodded his head, beckoned Salih to come and stand at his side, and moved on to the stranger among them.

'What is your name odd one? Where, exactly, do you come from?'

'I am Bayan, son of the Mongol il-Khan Hulegu who descends from your own line of antiquity. You might say we awre cousins Sultan.'

With a snort the Sultan shakes his head and replies, 'No, you might not. You are a thug and a barbarian. Your entrance here was impressive only for it's audacity, which necessititated this interview to inquire if you represented a power the equal to that entry,' The Sultan's voice takes on a scornful note as he continues, 'You do not.'

An imperious gesture summons Crown Prince Mustafa to the Sultan's side, and Jalal rises from his throne with Salih on his left and the Prince on his right before he continues in a stern tone, 'Your people and your little Khan father are the subjects of another even within your own nation. Your influence on Selim is the result of a pathetic bit of trickery, but there I am indebted to you for bringing his treachery out into the open. Unfortunately such service will not be sufficient to save your life. I have but to speak one word and two hundred men of my personal guard will flood in, take you alive, and spend the next week breaking you for your insults and for killing some of their brothers. Give me one reason, just one, why I should not speak that word. Quickly now, your time is short!'

Bayan sneers and thrusts his chest forward as though to say he is prepared to greet death with a charge, but it is to Selim's unutterably calm face that the Sultan's attention is drawn. What could give him such confidence, wha... there is a tiny sound, the barest scraping of a slipper across stone behind Jalal, and he shoves the Crown Prince away so that he can leap to meet the threat himself, dagger in hand. With a killing stroke just an instant from being delivered Jalal's eyes catch up to his instinctive attack and the knife halts having merely parted the outer layer of the exquisite Egyptian silk covering the body of Islah ad-Dawlha, wife of the Sultan.

She shows no sign of fear, and in fact merriment twinkles in her eyes at the confrontation which has erupted. Bayan restrained Selim from rushing forward, while Salih, caught between attacking Bayan and rushing to aid his Sultan, stood frozen. Islah moves her body carefully around the outstretched blade, stoops to give Mustafa a hand returning to his feet, and greets the shocked silence with two sharp claps and an exquisitely controlled voice.

'Tea Bayan. Just a touch of honey, mind, I don't care for it to be too sweet.'

Fierce Bayan, who still has the fresh, wet blood of the Vizier's guards on his boots, bows low to the Sultana and moves confidently to a tray of tiny cups set around a steaming pitcher along the far wall of the chamber. Islah, her hand firmly gripping Crown Prince Mustafa's sleeve, marches with him over to stand by Selim's side while the Sultan recovers himself, his eyes darting wildly among his opponents. Salih al Alai remains standing to the left of the throne, frozen and seemingly struck dumb. By the time Bayan returns with the tea for Islah the Sultan has somewhat regained himself, and regards her with narrowed eyes.

Sultan Jalal carefully returns to his throne and slowly takes his seat. The move is meant to make him look strong and confident, but his eyes immediately go to Crown Prince Mustafa after he sits, and what he sees there robs him of his arrogance. Softly he says, 'Truly my son? Truly do you stand with them?'

The prince cuts his eyes at his mother, who is gazing serenely at the Sultan, apparently unconcerned at what Mustafa might say or do. At last, with a jerky motion of his head, the prince half nods in answer, clearly not trusting his voice at this moment.

Jalal's eyes return to his wife. With a deep sigh he says, 'Need I even ask about princess Nefise and little prince Tutush? Have they also been corrupted into this curious conspiracy?'

The Sultana, a delicate woman in elegant but now slightly damaged silk robes, gracefully curtsies to the Sultan before speaking in a rich, dulcet tone, 'My noble husband, my mighty lord, master of my house, it would be unseemly for me to correct you but there is no conspiracy here. We, all of us, merely follow the path laid out by our ancestors, the path your mother was perhaps not fully aware of, but nonetheless the path our own descendants too will walk.' Here she smiled affectionately at Mustafa and mussed his hair like he was a child.

The troubled gaze of the Sultan has returned to his son, but his voice remains strong as he asks the expected question, 'What path do you speak of?'

The Sultana's eyes grow black, and her beautiful voice takes on an unnatural hardness, 'The path of blood, conquest, and domination! All the tribes of Europe will be broken, and their remnants will bend knee to the Khan of the east while our sons stand at his side, and our daughers show him the road he must walk from behind it! I have seen it Jalal, I know it will come to pass. From east to west all will burn until our people alone remain as a nation, until our sons and daughters control the destiny of the world!'

Jalal's heavy lidded eyes are drawn back to Islah as she speaks, and he seems to shrink into himself, surrendering his fate and his nation to her vision. After a moment he lowers his gaze to the floor and grips Salih's arm, causing the man to jump, then says, 'Go and see to the Vizier now Salih. I will not need you today after all...'

:egypt: