Pillage and plunder till they rebel?

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Playin as the Danes I started off by conquering about 6 nearby provinces. My main goal was to capture the holy land. So I created 2 stacks of 20 men with a general and an heir and requested a crusade! And I was off!

Well I get to around the constantinople region and the crusade is over! Venice took Jerusalem and now i had to pay for 2 stacks of 20 men with only 7 provinces! needless to say I went bankrupt quite quickly, and seeing my situation didnt really want to disband the men so resorted to the next best option of sacking constantinople and burning all the buildings for money.

Sadly this wasnt enough and I had to conquer the other byzantine city of Nicaea, and instead of occupying these cities, sacked and sent my armies to the next city sacking it and all its buildings, leading to the eventual revolt of the city to rebels. After pilliging most of western Turkey I requested a new crusade to Gaza and once again my armies had no upkeep fueling my economy with war plunder and now the 0 upkeep cost I could finance my empire back in daneland with ease.

I quickly captured gaza with my 2 stacks of 20 men, combining troops and getting experiance for them and replenishing any fallen unit cards with mercenaries ransacking and wiping egypt off the map whislt pillaging and selling all of thier buildings. So now with egypt dead, I started a new crusade on the turks, and unfortunately my general died of old age and one whole entire stack of 20 men disbanded the next turn. I took the city with my other stack of 20 and then turned to the turks, although they were quite weak, and since I no longer had a crusade going required funds for my armies.

And once again pillaged them clear off the map, leaving nothing but rebel provinces with nothing in thier cities but tons of men. With the turks gone I quickly took the 2 remaining byzantine provinces and they too were defeated. And so my remaining stack of army set sail to rhodes. Where upon I decided to keep it, incase I wished to furthur any missions from there.

All in all, the entire bottom corner of the map from east greece to dongola and tbilisi is nothing but rebel provinces with no buildings, giving me no real reason to go back and fight the full garisons there =p. I think I just got lazy somewhere and decided to just let the rebels have the provinces... besides tho, thats what vikings do best right? pillage and plunder?

There's a thread somewhere about crazy playing styles (or house rules) to liven things up. The folks in that thread would appreciate your anarchic style. Sounds just like the Mongols.

Nothing like a good chevauchee

Why even bother keeping the dane provinces once you've got the middle east wrapped around your finger? It's okay to let all of the provinces rebel on you, but you should've kept Antioch and Jerusalem. Make one of them your capital, and proceed to recapture the other settlements that rebeled on you.

In no time at all, you'll have your own Middle Eastern Empire ruled by the Danes! :2thumbsup: