So I was dominating... and then...

You know those campaigns where you're doing so well. You play the diplomatic game to gain the advantage. Tech up in specialized provinces to get right to the best troops, build up a warchest of 1M Florins, lead a GA game just barely in the lead, sweep through the map pushing everyone into the center, and then...

Your King kicks the bucket.

No, he didn't die in battle... He was safely in Naples.

No, he wasn't assassinated... with all the assassins I have roaming around, I haven't had a general assassinated ever.

No, he had no heirs... I'm not sure why.

He died from an illness.

It was the year 1419. I had much of the mediteranean coastal provinces. I had Khazar in the east as one battle front, Constantinople and Greece as my second battle front. Naples as my homeland defense province, Aquataine and Toulouse in the west, and Ireland, Denmark and Scandinavia in the North. The French and English were neatly contained in England, and the Swiss had taken over from the Germans after their civil war. The Italians were stuck in mostly in their initial starting provinces minus their island provinces of Corsica and Sardinia, and the pope was tucked away nicely in Rome.

The Byzantines had just disappeared, but eventually reapppeared in Lithuania, and the Horde was pushed further north. Finally Hungary managed to stay in a decent position but would've fallen to my troops.

I was playing on Normal difficulty for I think the first time. I had previously played on Easy, so it was quite different. Easy is a very different experience from Normal. Generally these are the observations I've learned from the many campaigns I've had on easy.

- French and English wipe themselves out. The French don't stand much of a chance to Germany, and the English just seem like they don't know what they are doing.

- Poland and Hungary get confused and don't know what they are supposed to do, and subsequently disappear after being squeezed by Germany and the Byzantines.

- Germany eventually gets Excomm'd, the provinces revolt, and germany disappears to the history books.

- Italy follows Germany's lead... Excomm->Revolt->Dead.

- The Spanish mop up the Almohads (often happened with the VI expansion. With normal MTW, the Almohads tended to devastate the Spanish).

- The Turks decide they don't want any part of the world and let Egypt sweep them into history.

- The Danes sit up there in Denmark like a guy on the toilet who doesn't want to or can't get off it.

- The Horde comes roaring onto the scene takes a few provinces and then lets the Byzantines clean the floor with them.

Thus what I've seen occur in the last few games is Spain become the super power of the west, Byzantium the super power of the east, and if egypt is still around, the superpower in the south. You sort of survive where you can and carve out your own region.

So, I finally played a game on Normal mode, and I have to say that I liked what I saw. For one thing, it took a very long time before a faction disappeared. It was I believe the Almohads. The Egyptians were next because I devastated them in a series of Crusades from Malta, and had Palestine, Tripoli, Antioch and then Edessa. I then took Syria, and by the time I consolidated my position with Arabia and Sinai, the Spanish had pushed east through africa to eliminate the Almohads and Egyptians. The Spanish loaded Egypt with troops, I loaded Sinai, but we were allies at the time. Europe was a mash of various factions. Germany held incredibly strong, holding onto all their provinces and staying on the Pope's good side. The Italians likewise stayed where they were. The French battled the English until they had pushed the English up to Scotland (and then subsequently lost Northumbria to rebels and never went back. The English also managed to hang onto Navarre, and when the Spanish pushed through Europe to meet the Germans, Navarre was a bright red pocket of English amid a sea of Yellow Spanish territories. For the longest time the spanish never even did anything about the English there.

The Horde was an incredible force. They swept in through the steppes, and drove the Byzantines to the brink of extinction. The only thing that saved the Byzantines was their islands in the mediterranean. They lost Constantinople long ago to the Turks, who held in there for quite a while. The Turks and Egyptians both got eliminatd by resurfaced afterwards. The Swiss appeared, and in the vacuum left by the German civil war, the Swiss filled it quite nicely carving out a region almost rivaling the original german empire. The surviving Germans held the other parts. It was interesting not knowing who would be the powers standing at the end, but had my king not kicked the bucket, I would've likely won by GA points. Sicily does decently points wise at the start and particularly in the high period. Unfortunately it tapers off, and you no longer get points for any homelands (which suddenly means Conquest is your only means of victory, and it's particularly difficult because you get 1 point for every 5 provinces you take.

The Horde did do something very odd. They built ships and set a course straight for the Pope. The Pope was in the Papal States (I had claimed Rome after it fell to rebels). The horde came in and took out the Pope. They didn't have enough to be able to hold the province and it was subsequently lost. Uber Pope decided to return and where did they dump all their troops ? On Rome. In the time that I had, I decided I couldn't handle the onslaught, and rather than just giving it to them, I burned Rome to the ground and withdrew my troops. The Pope wasn't finished with that. They sent their new forces south into Naples. My forces were still recovering and at the time I don't think I had the ability to transport troops (not that I had the reinforcements available. Outnumbered 2400 to 1000, my troops held on to not only recover from a complete rout, but to rout the opposition not once but twice. It was a long and hard fought battle and the Pope did not attempt another strike again.

All said and done, Normal mode was a much more enjoyable experience, even if I did have to deal with some disloyal generals, and my very first Civil war. Once I started framing generals for treason, things started to turn around.

I now want MTW more than ever~;)

Gotta love that. I had a campaign going as the Spanish and was only a generation or two into the game. I had just driven the Almos out of Spain and things were looking up when BAM! my just blossoming kingdom disinegrated. Oh well. Throughout history for every great kingdom that has risen to promience there's probably been 100 that fell. At least you get to start over in MTW.

Nice to see the Swiss doing well for themselves!