My English campaign in SS 4.1.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
All I can say is that you guys taking half the map by the time the Mongols come are insane.
Currently at war with Milan, who owns basically all of Italy.
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My English campaign in SS 4.1.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
All I can say is that you guys taking half the map by the time the Mongols come are insane.
Currently at war with Milan, who owns basically all of Italy.
khaos83 Yeh I have France as vassals, 3 regions :) Bit strange really. My occupied French regions are really poorly defended (for economic reasons) and they have perhaps 4-5 stacks of Armoured swords, spears and mailed knights, pansies.
I agree that blitzing is totally insane, I can't even dream about pulling something like that off lol, what are you planning to do now makaikhaan, expansion wise?
Probably wipe out the Milanese. I hate their effing crossbows, and if I can wipe out their forces in Milan itself, they have little in terms of an army, though they'll undoubtedly start raising more. They've got essentially all of Italy except for Rome, which rebelled on the Papacy.(:inquisitive:). If I can sweep up all of Italy, I'll be ridiculously wealthy, and at that point, I'm not sure where I'd go. I could try and go after Portugal, who's starting to turn the tide in Iberia, or I could go after Denmark who owns a good chunk of the North and are a potential naval threat. But I'm sure I won't have to worry about making that choice since the AI is sure to throw someone at me, probably Hungary, just for kicks even though they're my allies. :wall:Quote:
Originally Posted by Walternat0r
Quote:
Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy
Yes, and it doesn't affect captain-led armies (which the AI ever does so often) which makes for a good concept/challenge but sadly not implemented too well overall (maybe even impossible to implement correctly).
Awsome pictures and stories ^_^.
My only question is what are these steel mods 6.0 and 6.1 that you guys are playing and whats the benefit of these?
Got some problems when latin crusaders and a jihad attacked same time, but the situation got better when I took Ragusa and Zagreb and Venice gave Acona for ceasefire.
Aleksios the Mean took most of Anatolia.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
And this random general took Egypt.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Now I'm going to destroy Moors with my 55 bodyguard emperor.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Great stories and pics you have posted. I thought that I could write a little story but then I remembered how bad my English is and didn't write it.
Here is the Stainless Steels download and features thread. (Needs Kingdoms.)
The Stainless Steel forums are here:Quote:
Originally Posted by Davicus Grimmshade
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=314
There are a lot of submods which can be confusing. Overall the mod is harder than vanilla, the map is bigger, factions from kingdoms are in the grand campaign, no america, you can start late campaigns in 1200. There's an education system for your family members, and a supply system that can be a little too much sometimes... With submods it becomes even harder, especially with Bygs grim reality which forces you to keep your king at home to recruit a lot of times.
Oops, now I see Olavi has already given you an answer :p
In other news, I've started playing M2 again! Stay tuned for my SS 6.1 Switzerland campaign!
Great stuff Olavi! Another convert to the Byzantine empire!
That was perhaps the toughest campaign i played in SS, but it was by far the most rewarding. My advice is to mop up those Templars before you try to push into Europe. Otherwise you'll be fighting a multi-front war, and unless you have the infrastructure to support it that's a risky proposition. :yes:
My campaing come to a sad end. SS is broken. It looks like this now.
Ouch! What happened to make it do that?
An earlier save to restart from maybe an option? Or if your whole SS is broken, a fresh install looks in order. Just keep your saves folder in another location for the time being while you reinstall.
Don't know. Had few days without playing and now it looks like that (whole game not just that save). Even weirder is that, some other mods have the same problem, some mods don't.
Have re-install kingdoms and SS. But I'm not sure what submods I have so I'm not sure that can I continue playing byzzies. :wall:
Recently, as I was winding up my SS6.1 campaigns as the Danes and the Spanish, I have been pondering what campaign I should do next. It occurs to me, that since a typical campaign for me lasts on average 2 months or so, I will only have time to fit in 2, at most 3 campaigns before Empire is released in February. It also seems to me that I should probably take some time off playing TW between now and then, so as not to be sick of it by then. Thus I plan to do one major campaign, and possibly one more quick campaign after that, and then take a month or so off to play something totally different before ETW is released.
So, I have decided to play my last major campaign as England, on Stainless Steel 6.1. This seems to me to have a nice symmetry to it, since my very first M2TW campaign was also as England, back in January 2007, on Easy/Easy in good old unpatched vanilla, with warts, shield bug and all. As such, it seems a good idea to play essentially the same campaign, but this time on Very Hard/Very Hard on a mod which ups the challenge somewhat from vanilla in itself, not to mention being essentially free of the problems that plague vanilla.
For reference, here is my original vanilla campaign at the point I ended it:
https://img355.imageshack.us/img355/1856/oldenghh6.jpg
I had forgotten how very small the campaign map is compared to vanilla. The separation between settlements in Russia on the vanilla map is about the same as the separation in France on the SS map.
My vague aim will be to equal the achievements of my first campaign; either 97 regions, or all of Europe, North Africa, and most of the Middle East and Russia, by 1476. I will hopefully post the first update on my new England campaign tomorrow.
Cool idea, should be interesting to see how this turns out. And good luck! SS on VH is hard.
My first unpleasant discovery upon starting my England campaign on SS6.1, VH/VH, is that the Scottish are not the pushovers they once were. The classic opening gambit as England is to rush for York; however, to my surprise the Scottish beat me to it, besieging York on the very first turn. This somewhat threw my opening moves into disarray; normally, I would take York, Dublin and Caernarvon before massing my troops to overpower the few troops the Scots could muster. Now, however, I would be faced with a Scotland as large as my own lands, fielding Highlanders and Border Horse in larger numbers and superior in quality to my own meagre Levy Spears and Hobilars, risking Excommunication in a lengthy campaign and with the threat of the French in my rear and the Irish and Norwegians likely to make landings on either flank.
As such, I abandoned expansion north of Nottingham for the time being; even Caernarvon seemed well-defended with many longbows, impoverished, and isolated and vulnerable to Irish attack. As such, I focused my expansion around Caen in Normandy, striking east to seize Rennes from beneath the noses of the French. Meanwhile my forces from England landed in Flanders and besieged Flanders; my freshly trained Longbow from Nottingham could not have had an easier target than the slow moving, tightly packed Flemish pikemen. Quickly I worked my way up the North Sea coast as far as Groningen, the French and the Reich helpfully distracted fighting each other.
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A Flemish cavalry charge meets a disastrous end against my mercenary spearmen.
No sooner had I secured my grip on the Low Countries and finally annexed Wales, than an opportunity arrived to improve my precarious position, with two distinct holdings separated by sea and surrounded by potential enemies. The ongoing war between the Empire and the French Crown finally prompted the Pope to excommunicate the French King and, at the suggestion of the English King, to declare the First Crusade against the key French castle of Toulouse. All across Europe, Catholic kings saw the opportunity for conquest and rallied to the banner of the Crusade.
From the English castle of Caen marched a great army of well equipped and fanatical Crusader troops accompanied by the deadly longbowmen, to besiege the castle of Angers. The unprepared garrison fell quickly to the assault, and the army marched onwards toward Bordeaux, meaning to swiflty deprive the French of their castles and thus cripple them. Meanwhile another army, hardened veterans of the Welsh campaign, landed in Flanders and marched south upon Paris, defeating a sizeable French force on the way.
https://img378.imageshack.us/img378/2867/eng37wr6.jpg
Aided by my Spanish allies, my troops crushed the garrison of Bordeaux; however, things were not going so well back on the British Isles. Seizing upon a revolt in York which temporarily drove out the Scottish rulers, King William moved in with much of his remaining forces in Britain to "restore order", in so doing bringing York under the rule of the English crown; however, he had left the rest of Britain underdefended to play this gambit, and as long feared the treacherous Irish seized upon the distraction of the English monarch to land in Wales in surprising numbers, and take the town of Caernarvon from the surprised and hopelessly outnumbered defences. William had shrewdly expanded at the expense of the Scots without yet risking open war with them, but at the expense of the loss of Wales and the start of the Anglo-Irish War, a conflict which would continue to plague him until his death.
Meanwhile, a nimble Imperial crusader army had slipped past the French defenders near Lyon and besieged and taken Toulouse, creating an Imperial exclave crusader state on the coast of the Mediterranean. The First Crusade was over, but the English troops had no intention of celebrating their victory; with the French reeling from their defeats, the English drove on mercilessly, the western army, having rested and reinforced at Bordeaux, marched upon Clermont, while after the fall of Paris, the eastern army drove on, defeating the French once again in a great field battle west of Rheims and taking that city, before trapping the French King Louis under siege in Dijon. The strategy of depriving the French of their castles was working; the French could scarcely muster much besides Spear Militia, Peasant Crossbows and Mounted Sergeants, all easy pickings for the dreaded Longbows.
With the French King at their mercy, the English troops held back from delivering the killing blow, knowing that his death would bring a French reconciliation with the Pope and an end to the conflict. Instead, they waited, while the western army ravaged Clermont and besieged the French crown prince with a large but ill-equipped army at the wooden castle of Lyon. The ensuing assault was a massacre, the hardened Crusaders driving the French defenders from the gates back to the center, while the Longbows took the walls and rained death upon the demoralised rabble huddling in the center. Thus the crown prince of France met his ignominious end under a hail of English arrows.
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The last assault wave at Lyon. The last ragged and demoralised French defenders prepare to meet their ends around the fallen body of their prince, as the English billmen close in for the kill.
With the fall of all other French cities, the French King had outlived his usefulness. The army besieging Lyon closed in and quickly and efficiently dispatched him. The Kingdom of France was no more; and the King of England stood triumphant over a wide and rich swathe of Europe, bordered in the South by the petty Iberian kingdoms; they would be to busy squabbling among themselves whenever they were not united against the Moors to be interested in expansion north of the Pyrenees; and in the east by the Reich, who had now become locked in a losing war with the Venetians and would have no manpower to spare for a western campaign for years to come. The time had come to deal with the threat of the accursed Irish and the barbaric Scots.
After the first fall of Caernarvon, King William, shocked at this sudden reverse and in failing health, retired to London to see out his days, in no fit state to meet the Irish onslaught. It was left to his adopted son, the valiant and selfless Robert Plantagenet, to lead his small force into Wales to meet the larger Irish force now rampaging towards Nottingham. Knowing that the loss of Nottingham would likely mean the loss of all of England, Robert's men bravely stood their ground and routed the Irish rabble, before retaking Caernarvon. However the Scots, seeing the English distracted in Wales, seized the chance to avenge their earlier humiliation by the English king and promptly retook York.
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Robert Plantagenet drives back the Irish in north Wales.
For the next ten years, while the main English strength was distracted in southern France, Robert and the crown prince William Rufus struggled to hold off the Celtic onslaught, taking it in turns to rush out to meet the latest attack while the other guarded Nottingham, their only hope of reinforcements, against potential attack from the other direction. Every time Caernarvon was retaken or relieved, a mighty Scottish army of Mailed Knights, Highland Nobles and Highland Archers from the Highland fortress of Inverness, accompanied by trebuchets and mangonels from the great city of Edinburgh, would descend upon York; and as soon as Robert's English Longbows and Billmen had prevailed against it, a fresh horde of Irish light infantry would land in Wales. Even the final victory at Dijon did not bring immediate relief; the aging and increasingly decrepit King William ordered those veteran crusaders he did not disband or leave garrisoned at Lyon on an expedition to campaign against the excommunicated Danes. Perhaps he reasoned that his English holdings were as good as overrun, and viewed it as more important to secure his Continental holdings by taking the great fortress and Hanseatic League headquarters at Hamburg, followed by the wealthy Danish cities of Arhus and Roskilde.
The next few years did bring a few welcome changes that would turn the tide of the war against the Scots and Irish, however. Firstly, although no hardy veteran reinforcements would be returning across the English Channel, the heavy English losses in the last few battles of the campaign had worked to improve the financial situation, allowing the money to be spent on training fresh troops in Nottingham. Secondly, in 1142AD, the ancient king finally died in London; at last, the newly crowned William II would rule the Kingdom as he saw fit, free from his father's tyrannical and increasingly erratic oversight; he would at last be able to give the British Isles the focus he felt they deserved. And thirdly, the Kings of Scotland and Ireland were at last rightly excommunicated; for years, the once-cosy relationships of both monarchs with the Pope had left William effectively unable to counterattack against them, but their relentless assaults on English lands had at last worn out the patience of the Holy Father.
Finally able to take the offensive, William II seized his chance. Choosing to sacrifice Caernavon once again to the latest Irish invasion, he mustered as many troops as he could to his banner and marched north to end the Scottish threat, since not only was the key Scottish economic center of Edinburgh more easily accessible than the Irish homelands, but the Scottish armies of heavy infantry and light cavalry had proven more vulnerable to the arrows and stakes of the English Longbows than the vast numbers of Irish light infantry, who had often been beaten off only narrowly by the greatly outnumbered English heavy infantry.
A mighty Scottish army under Prince Etmond met the new English King in battle at the Scottish border, close to Durham. As expected, it was an utter rout; the massed Scottish cavalry were forced either to charge to their deaths upon the English stakes, or else to take the long way round, under constant withering longbow fire, to meet their deaths upon the Scots pike mercenaries serving the English king. Unsupported, the Scottish nobles and pikes were forced to advance into a lethal barrage of arrows, killing many and throwing the rest into disarray. The ensuing infantry contest was over quickly, the longbowmen crushing the Scottish morale with a point-blank barrage of flaming arrows just before the lines were joined. In the ensuing rout the Scottish crown prince was killed. Within a year the great metropolis of Edinburgh, largest city in the British Isles, had fallen to the English king.
However, with most of the English forces committed northwards, the Irish invaders were free to drive further than ever before into English territory, while Robert Plantagenet desperately built up his forces in Nottingham. While a smaller Irish force marched south to besiege Exeter, the main invasion force neared Nottingham. Robert, seeing his army would not be finished in time, was forced to plug the gaps with an emergency levy of the poorly-regarded English spearmen from London and Winchester. However, the Irish march on Nottingham would prove to be the high point of Irish fortunes in the Anglo-Irish war.
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High tide: The point of the furthest Irish advance into English territory.
Robert's hastily assembled force met the Irish in the field within sight of the walls of Nottingham. The encounter would be bloody indeed; the Irish army was not one of the disorganized, ill-led raiding parties from the early years of the war, but a disciplined force under one of the Irish King's sons, and numbering several of the legendary Ulster Swordsmen, the deadly Ridire cavalry, and the unruly but savage Deisi tribesmen. The contest was very close fought; while the Irish general together with his cavalry contingent hurled themselves suicidally against the English stakes, some horsemen did get through the gaps, and their charge decimated the longbow units unlucky enough to be in their way before the billmen could drive them off. This was followed by the confrontation of the two bodies of infantry; the Irish, ferocious but depleted by English arrows and demoralised by the death of their leader, and the English, nerves rattled by the shock of the Irish cavalry charge, and with for the large part shaky morale and cheap equipment. Had it not been for the destruction of the Irish cavalry, the English infantry would likely have been routed; as it was, losses were heavy, but the line held long enough for the longbowmen, able to move freely without the threat of cavalry, to flank and pour vollies of flaming arrows into the already demoralised Irishmen, while Robert was able to lead the English cavalry in charges against the Irish rear wherever he could do so without riding onto his own stakes. At last, the remnants of the Irish infantry gave way, and were ridden down. But it had been at a heavy cost in terms of English losses, especially to the crucial Longbowmen.
Robert now left his weary and battered army to recuperate in Nottingham, while he, not pausing to rest after the exhausting battle, led his personal bodyguard on a furious ride to the relief of Exeter. Only he, a great general and the King's Master of Horse to boot, could manage such a feat; his men would have taken three turns' march, by which time the city would have fallen. However, Robert arrived at the walls of Exeter, and with a force of locally raised mercenary huscarls and crossbowmen, destroyed the mere two units of heavy infantry besieging Exeter (they had faced a mere single unit of Levy Spears within the walls, so without relief the city would have fallen). It had been a great day for England; although it would be some time before Robert's forces were rebuilt sufficiently to strike back and retake Wales, the Irish threat to the English heartlands was ended.
In the meantime, William II pressed his advantage in Scotland, knowing that with their sole money-making city gone, the Scots had no means to replace their losses. Hearing from his spies that the Scots had prepared a formidable defensive garrison at Aberdeen, he bypassed the city, and instead marched into the heart of the Highlands and took the great Scottish fortress of Inverness at great cost; however, his losses were of little concern - with the troop production facilities of Inverness at his disposal, losses could be replaced at will. Within a few years, he departed Inverness at the head of a fresh army to march on the Scottish king at Aberdeen.
The Scots did not wait to be besieged, but instead marched out and attacked the English in the mountains west of Aberdeen with two mighty forces. In a fierce snowstorm, the Scots attacked up the mountainside into the teeth of the Longbows. However, as before, the numerous Scottish cavalry were confounded by the longbowmen; some charged home disastrously against the stakes, some hesitated in front of the stakes, searching for a clear way through the stakes while the longbows poured volley after volley of arrows into them; a few managed to make their way around the end of the line of stakes, but found they fared no better against the pikemen mercenaries guarding the flanks. And behind them, trudging up the slope into the face of the blizzard and the English barrage, came the infantry; by the time they reached the English lines, the few survivors were so demoralised and so exhausted by the long climb through the snow that those on the right flank routed before battle was even joined. On the left flank, where the Scots army commanded by the crown prince rather than a captain was attacking the Scots fared better, but were ultimately swept away by a cavalry charge led by William himself, who had marched high up the mountain to flank the Scots and then came thundering back down the mountainside into the Scottish rear. The Scottish infantry routed, leaving their Prince alone to make an honourable end on the points of the pikes wielded by his countrymen among the English army.
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The Battle of the Grampians, centered around an impassable cliff face in the center of the English line; the English were beset by two armies, one on each flank. Here the Scottish cavalry hurl themselves desperately against the English stakes.
The way to Aberdeen was clear; the city was besieged and assaulted, the minimal garrison annihilated, and the Scottish King killed. The Scottish had fallen at last.
https://img379.imageshack.us/img379/9439/eng32nf1.jpg
The Scottish King is cut down trying to drive his way into the thicket of pikes. The Scots pike mercenaries hired at the start of the campaign probably destroyed a greater proportion of the Scottish nobility than the rest of the army put together.
Meanwhile, a turn of events was taking place that would seal the fate of Ireland, though it would be some time before that became clear. The Pope, concerned by the burgeoning power of the Fatimids at the expense of the Templar Knights and Byzantine Empire, called the Second Crusade to take the Fatimid capital of Cairo. Though his lands were far from the Holy Land and it was clear his troops would never make it in time, King William II complied with the orders of the Holy Father and ordered a Crusader army to be assembled in Bordeaux under Fulk de Muncy, which set off toward the east. In the event it was a Templar army which took Cairo, but it had never been William's intention to get anywhere near Egypt: His real target was the rich cities of northern Italy held by excommunicated Venice. However, as Fulk neared the Alpine passes he found his way blocked in every direction; furthermore, his spies reported that the main target, Milan, had already fallen to the Reich, while the cities of Venice and Bologna were strongly defended and would be hard for an isolated stack short on supplies to take. Instead, he turned the army around, and marched for the English Channel. Here he boarded a fleet, rounded Land's End, and made a surprise landing on Ireland itself outside Dublin.
The attack was carefully timed; a turn earlier, the vast army assembled in Nottingham had marched forth to besiege Caernarvon, just as a fresh Irish army had landed near the town. In a single turn, the Irish went from relentless offensive to outright retreat; Robert Plantagenet, by now an expert in the Irish methods of warfare and how to counter them, routed the Irish army near Caernarvon and triumphantly retook the town, this time for good. Meanwhile Dublin fell to the English. Suddenly the Irish found themselves having lost half their territory, and for the first time in the war with an English army on the Irish mainland, bearing down on Galway, while the victorious troops crossed the Irish sea to attack Cork. Robert himself, meanwhile, retired to Nottingham to oversee its growth into a great fortress.
However, although the Irish were on the back foot, they were not defeated just yet. Although Galway was taken in assault by Fulk de Muncy, the rashness of Robert Plantagenet in leaving his army under the command of a little-known captain proved costly. The army was assaulted outside Cork by two large Irish forces. The first attack, by the Irish crown prince, was driven back with heavy losses, however due to the English lack of cavalry they could not pursue and utterly destroy it. Meanwhile, their infantry was depleted and exhausted from the hard fight, and thus when the Irish King then attacked from behind, the infantry were quickly routed, leaving the longbowmen to their doom.
The defeat at Galway did at least have the effect of destroying a large part of the remaining Irish forces. Nonetheless, when Fulk finally arrived to siege the city two turns later, he was in for a brutal assault. Although defended mainly by spear militia and a few Deisi javelinmen, the defenders fought heroically against far superior troops, first sallying out against the rams and forcing the crucial English heavy infantry to run the gauntlet of Irish arrows and javelins in order to prevent the destruction of the spear units manning the rams; then, once the gates fell, the spear militia behind fought stubbornly to resist the rush of English infantry into the city. All the while the Deisi remained on the wall, showering the English heavy infantry with deadly javelins. Once the gate was cleared the English heavy infantry climbed the towers and set about the Deisi tribesmen from both sides, while the English billmen and spearmen, needed to deal with the bodyguards of the king and crown prince who were yet unfought, were instead forced to exhaust themselves against yet more spear militia, attacking in waves from the center.
Normally, light skirmisher troops on city walls, set about on both sides by armoured heavy infantry such as crusader foot knights, should rout in seconds, and if not they should be quickly slaughtered, heavily outclassed by the foot knights even with the wall bonus. However, these men did neither; they fought on almost to the last man, and as it turned out, were not only not being slaughtered by the foot knights, but were actually winning against them, unruly tribesmen armed with shillelaghs and with no armour were actually defeating professional warriors armed with the best weapons and armour money can buy. It was only a hail of flaming arrows from the longbows outside the wall that had any effect on the Deisi, finally routing them (but not before having to kill almost all of them with arrows, more of them than the knights managed).
https://img146.imageshack.us/img146/6189/cork1gt5.jpg
The heroic Deisi on the walls of Cork, defying arrow and sword to smash their way through soldiers many times their betters.
At last the Irish nobility in the city center were on their own. My troops were exhausted from the bitter struggle for the gate, but enough of the billmen and spearmen had survived. The last of the catapult ammo was expended against the General's Bodyguards, killing a good number and inciting the rest to charge into the thicket of billhooks and spearpoints, while the Irish Kern mercenaries showered the horsemen with javelins. Many infantrymen were cut down, but in the end the cavalry were all destroyed, and Cork, and Ireland with it, had fallen.
King William II now had peace, for the first time in his reign, and now held sway over the whole of the British Isles, most of France, and all of the North Sea coast apart from Norway. However, the respite would last only a few turns; King William himself set sail across the North Sea from Scotland to attack the formerly Scottish rebel-held city of Eikundarsund, and meanwhile, the continuing onslaught on the Templar Knights led the Pope to call the Third Crusade, this time against the great Fatimid fortress of Gaza. Once again the Kings of Europe answered the call, and William, this time, did so in earnest. A full stack of the finest English troops marched south from Hamburg under Edward Manners, raced to the head of the Adriatic ahead of the Imperial, Venetian and Sicilian crusade attempts, and boarded mercenary galleys bound for the Holy Land. However, although the intention is to genuinely crusade against the Fatimids this time, Edward will not do so rashly. To land directly on the Levant coast, with his one, unreinforceable stack and hopeless supply situation, would be suicide. Instead he has landed upon the island of Rhodes, aiming to first clear the Fatimids from the various Mediterranean islands they have occupied, while at the same time securing a safe base of operations to recruit reinforcements close to the Holy Land but which is relatively safe from Fatimid counterattack. The aim is to move on to Cyprus, and then Egypt proper.
https://img204.imageshack.us/img204/6373/eng35sb8.jpg
The current state of the English empire. Note that Rhodes is an English possession, though not visible on the minimap.
So, there we are, some 29 provinces in 66 turns. To equal my vanilla achievements (98 in 199 turns) I am a little behind, and if I am measuring it by proportion of map taken rather than number of regions conquered I have a long ways to go yet (I had not expected the Scottish and Irish to be so brutally stubborn!) VH/VH SS is, as expected, proving a challenge, though I suspect the field battles would be a lot harder still if I were not the English; have Longbows always been so overwhelmingly powerful? On the other hand, sieges are proving to be brutally hard after playing as the Danes with their superlative heavy infantry and the Spanish (on late start) with their excellent gunpowder; the English have neither, being a primarily foot archer nation is a big disadvantage in siege assaults. This is not helped by the fact that on VH/VH, absolutely any siege which you autoresolve without having the most overwhelming of numerical advantages will without fail result in catastrophic defeat; thus you are essentially forced to fight every single siege battle manually. On more than one occasion I have resorted to charging my entire Longbow corps through the city gates to join in the melee, reasoning that their arrows were essentially useless here but that their AP mallets were needed to shore up my faltering melee infantry.
My next moves are, as I stated, to attempt to gain a foothold in the Holy Land with my Crusaders, while my next moves in Europe are yet undecided; likely either:
1) A push through Scandinavia to take out the Danes and Norwegians, and thence into Lithuania and Novgorod.
2) An offensive into Northern Italy to finish the Genoese and take on the Ventians; unlikely since this is the route I always take and I am bored of it.
3) An all out attack on the HRE. Gonna have to happen sooner or later, but probably later since they are my allies (since the AI actually respects alliances in SS, I always feel deeply ashamed about breaking them).
4) Expansion south of the Pyrenees to take the Iberian peninsula.
I am tending towards 4 at the moment since Iberia is a route I don't often take.
Great campaign, mate! Well-done narrative as well. :2thumbsup:
Personally, I'd love to see you next move south into Iberia. That nearly always proves to be an interesting situation. ~D
I vote option 1, though 4 sounds good too. Great writing :balloon2:
All those options sound great, but let's see number 4!
Someone has to unite Iberia. :smash:
Standing over the ruins of Eikundarsund, surrounded by the corpses of the last refugees to escape his sack of Scotland, King William II contemplated his great Kingdom. The Scots who had for so long threatened his lands were now his subjects; the whole of the coast of the North sea was his, save for the frigid north of Norway. Meanwhile from Ireland word reached him from Lord Fulk de Muncy, of the death of the Irish High King at Cork, and the fall of the last holdout on the British Isles against English rule. For thirty years the attention of the English armies had been focussed inwards, battling enemies on the English home islands; now it was time to once again strike outwards from the English borders on the continent, as had been the case during his father's reign.
But where to strike? He contemplated marching out from the gates of Eikundarsund and simply keeping going, sweeping aside the warring Scandinavians and driving on across the Baltic into Pagan Lithuania; but he did not relish more battles against the hardy and ferocious men of the North, and in the dark and frozen forests of this land even the mightiest army could vanish and never be seen again. He pondered the wealthy lands of central Europe and northern Italy; but the wealthy Venetians were locked in a bitter war against the Genoese and Holy Roman Empire which would keep all three powers in check for many years to come; upsetting that balance by intervening could lead to the rise of a dangerous enemy, commanding feared veteran armies of the Italian war together with the great wealth of Venice. Besides, for William's troops Crusading in the Holy Land, the aid of their German allies would be essential if the were to prevail against the Saracens.
William's thoughts turned to his Crusader expedition, commanded by one of his most capable and loyal young generals, Edward Manners. Word had reached him of Manners' successful sack of Rhodes, which he planned to use as a base for further raids and campaigns against the Fatimids. Perhaps he could send his mighty armies to his aid, and carve himself out a mighty Crusader empire? But it would be a dreadful gamble; with no port on the Mediterranean, his troops would be forced to either make the long and dangerous voyage around the coast of Spain and through the Straits of Gibraltar, or else to trust to hiring what scant and unreliable merchantmen could be found on the southern coast of France and running the gauntlet of the Saracen navy; either way it was likely his men would be unable to arrive in time and in sufficient numbers to aid the young Crusader general.
Then William thought of the lands south of the Pyrenees, of the bickering Christian kinglets and the wealthy cities of the Moors. The Kingdoms of Portugal, Castille-Leon and Aragon had all long been at war with the great empire of the Moors, but even this dire threat was not enough to unite them; any time the Kings of Castille and Aragon could find to spare from battling the Moors, they would spend battling each other, and even then the Aragonese king could find somehow the time and men periodically lay siege to the Imperial exclave at Toulouse. The most recent such depredation had led to the Aragonese king being excommunicated, and to a Catalan uprising in Barcelona. The Kingdom of Aragon was in a rare position of vulnerability, and thus King William ordered all his forces, from Norway, Denmark, Scotland and Ireland, to rally at Bordeaux.
When all was made ready, two mighty English armies set out a year apart from Bordeaux. The first, under the King himself, marched through the territory of their German allies and crossed the Pyrenees to the east, putting down the Catalan rebellion at Barcelona and marching on Zaragoza, while a detachment was sent by sea to take the the town of Palma on Majorca from the Aragonese. Meanwhile, the second army under the King's brother Henry, took the route to the West of the Pyrenees, and driving back an Aragonese army north of Pamplona, laid siege to that fortress, just as William was arriving at Zaragoza.
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The Battle of the Pyrenees; a charge of the Knights of Montesa in service of the Aragonese king meets disaster on the English stakes.
The Aragonese King, safe within the ramparts of Pamplona, was content to wait for relief; the Aragonese crown prince was leading the bulk of the mighty Aragonese army south of Zaragoza. He led his army to attack William's force at Zaragoza, while the strong garrison sallied to beset the English from both sides. First the garrison, commanded by the prince's brother, charged the English lines; it was a brief but savage struggle, but the losses inflicted by the longbows and the victory of the English cavalry under the King himself over their Aragonese counterparts swung the encounter in favour of the English, just in time to rout the garrison and swing about to face the main Aragonese threat under the crown prince.
Fortunately William had ordered his longbowmen to plant their stakes to the rear of English force, preventing the mighty Knights of Montesa from sweeping down upon the English from behind. Thus the Aragonese were forced to lead with their infantry against the center. One unit of Knights make the march around the English line and charged home against the Scottish mercenaries guarding the flanks; the disastrous fate that met them deterred the rest of the Aragonese cavalry from doing the same, forcing them to remain outside the stakes, under a withering fire from the longbows and unable to come to the aid of their infantry. Unsupported, the light Aragonese infantry were wiped out by the English veterans, and the English spearmen and Scots pikemen surged forwards against the few surviving Aragonese knights. Only the prince himself and his bodyguard stood their ground, meeting their grizzly end on a tangle of Scottish pikes.
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The Battle of Zaragoza; the garrison of the city charges the English lines.
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The Battle of Zaragoza; the weary English troops turn about and reform their lines as the heavy cavalry of the Aragonese prince looms up out of the mist.
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The Aragonese charge on the flanks falters against the steadfast Scottish pikes.
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Checkmate; the Aragonese prince futilely stands his ground and meets his death against the English infantry.
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The invasion of Aragon.
With Aragonese defeat and the fall of Zaragoza, the last hope of relief for the besieged Aragonese king was gone. The English forces, together with their Spanish Allies, closed in. However Henry, a veteran of the conquest of France, was not about to waste the lives of his loyal men; having punched a hole in the curtain wall with his trebuchets, Henry ordered his men to wait while his Spanish Allies, eager to come to grips with their hated foe, assaulted the breach.
The ruse worked. The Spanish light cavalry inflicted a few casualties on the King's bodyguard, but were largely destroyed by the heavy knights. However, as the Spanish cavalrymen fell back from the breach, the Aragonese could not resist the temptation to pursue their defeated enemies. As the Aragonese charged from the breach at the heel of his foes, he was met with a deadly hail of longbow arrows and mangonel fire and cut down with most of his men. The last few defenders of Pamplona, despondent and exhausted, were cut down soon after by the disciplined English attackers.
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The Aragonese King marches into a trap at Pamplona, abandoning the protection of the walls to pursue the defeated Spanish diversionary force.
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King William II resting at Zaragoza. Monuments to his many great victories against the odds litter the Kingdom from north to south.
With the fall of Aragon, William thus had established a firm foothold south of the Pyrenees; however, he would not be content until he had brought order to the whole peninsula, and driven the Moorish
hordes back into Africa. In order to do this, he would have to next attack his loyal allies, the Kingdom of Leon-Castille. They had been brave and stalwart allies in the war against the Aragonese, but they held the wealthiest lands in Spain and stood in the way of the Moors; thus, with a heavy heart, William had his troops rest and resupply in Aragon, before marching across the River Ebro into Castillian lands.
A great English force marched along the south coast to besiege Valencia, assaulting the fortress and putting the garrison to the sword. Meanwhile Henry's force marched from Pamplona to besiege the fortress of Burgos and the Castillian King. William himself took a central route, toward a confrontation with the main Castillian armies around Toledo.
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The siege of Valencia; the defending Castillian knights make a valiant but futile charge against the English spearmen.
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William's surprise invasion of Castille-Leon.
The invasion of Castille would not go smoothly for King William. Apart from the outcry both within his own kingdom and from neighbouring rulers at his treacherous and dishonourable attack against a loyal ally, his unprovoked attack on a law-abiding Catholic country attracted the fury of the Pope. Though the Pope was a former Archbishop of Canterbury and a mentor to the king in his youth, he could not overlook this transgression. Perhaps William had grown complacent, and thought his many campaigns against his excommunicated neighbours would mean the Pope could overlook such a flagrant breach of the peace; but as William continued his onslaught, sacking and burning Burgos and killing the Castillian King in defiance of warning after warning, the Pope had no choice but to accede to the demands of the outraged Castillian ambassador, and order King William II of England excommunicated from the Catholic faith.
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At Burgos, the otherwise steadfast Spanish defenders are thrown into chaos as an English mangonel rains death upon them, killing many.
The Excommunication was no doubt a very great personal blow to the aging King, being not only a dire threat to his immortal soul and to his rule over his subjects, but also in his eyes a personal betrayal by one of his oldest friends. However, his troops remained utterly loyal to him, and he would not allow them to see any sign of his inner disquiet while the campaign against Castille continued. Instead, he met the Castillians in battle that same year near the source of the River Guadiana, and scored another great victory, opening the way for Henry to cross the Tajo and besiege the fortress of Toledo.
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Another hopeless Castillian cavalry charge against stakes and pikes at the Battle of the River Guadiana.
Meanwhile, around a third of Henry's forces under the command of Henry's son-in-law Elias took a different route from Burgos; sensing that the Castillians had left their economic heartland exposed in their defense of Toledo, the small army marched along the north bank of the Douro and snatched Leon from its minimal garrison. With nothing to prevent them doing the same against Salamanca, the Castilllian position had been rendered hopeless.
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Near the end of the Castillian campaign; with Toledo lost and Salamanca soon to follow, the Spanish forces can do little but await destruction.
After the inevitable fall of Salamanca, the end came quickly in Castille itself; in a series of battles, the last Castillian forces attempting to relieve Toledo were routed and the fortress was taken. However, it had come at a heavy price; the depleted local garrisons back home as troops were diverted south to the front coupled to the religious unrest triggered by the excommunication of the king had led to a precarious situation in the rest of the kingdom, and the latest special tax levied by the king to fund the war effort proved the last straw; as the war in Castille was drawing to a close, the victory was met not with celebration, but with a wave of violent rioting and unrest across the kingdom.
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A series of pictures from the closing battles of the Castillian campaign, as the Castillian forces desperately try to relieve Toledo.
The riots were put down by the King's soldiers, at a great cost in lives and property. However, the damage to the King's state of mind would be permanent; he became increasingly paranoid, perceiving betrayal first by his friend the Pope, then by his loyal subjects. Although he had the victory against Castille, ill news reached him from Edward Manners, who had suffered a very great defeat and almost met his death at the hands of the Fatimid Sultan. It was while the king was in this mood of pessimism and paranoia that the long feared Moorish attack finally came. A Moorish army landed on Majorca and besieged Palma, while reports reached the king at Valencia that a large Moorish force was mustering south of the River Jucar.
Despondent at the Moorish attack, William led his garrison to meet the Moors at the river crossing, while sending messengers to his generals in Toledo and Salamanca to "do their utmost" to weaken the Moors, supposing that there would be a similar onslaught to the west and the best his generals would be able to do would be to inflict heavy losses on the Moors before being driven back. In fact, the Moorish forces were much weaker in the west, and Williams generals interpreted his order to mean they were supposed to take the offensive.
William's force met the Moors at the Jucar, a single bridge over the narrow river gorge with steep mountainous sides. Looking upon the Moorish force, the defeatist King William was dismayed, thinking himself vastly outnumbered, and as such determined to fight to the death. In fact, the Moorish force was smaller than he had realised, and had nowhere near the strength to cross the river and scale the mountainside into the hail of English longbow and catapult fire. Indeed, the Moorish general was under orders simply to hold the river crossing against any English attack. Thus there followed a lengthy standoff, each side waiting for the other to attack and come within range of their archers. Realising the Moors would not attack immediately, William ordered his catapults to open fire, hoping to provoke them into a charge into the killing zone of his longbows. However, although the catapults inflicted some losses on the Moors, the Moors did not attack, so when the catapult ammunition was spent, William ordered them to withdraw and ordered his mercenary knights to cross the river and attempt to draw out Moorish units, charging their lines and immediately withdrawing.
This met with more success, with several Moorish spear units taking the bait and being decimated by the longbows; however, the cavalry were under an equally withering fire from the Moorish archers, and after taking heavy losses, routed back across the bridge. William was becoming increasingly dismayed by what he viewed as the battle being lost before him; in what he viewed as a delaying action to save the rest of his men, he ordered his infantry and archers to expend the last of their arrows against the Moors and withdraw, while he led his loyal bodyguard across the river in a last, glorious charge against the Moorish lines. Knowing his health was failing and his empire was in danger of collapse, he decided he would avoid the long sickness and loss of faculties that had accompanied his father's death, and instead meet his end in battle; driving on into a hail of Moorish arrows and a thicket of spears, the mighty King William II of England met his end.
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The crossing of the River Jucar, with a formidable climb awaiting any man brave enough to cross the bridge.
The English army had inflicted heavy losses on the Moors, although many of the Moorish casualties would recover; but more importantly William's sacrifice ended the unrest that had plagued the kingdom, bringing reconciliation with the Pope. The new King Humphrey was crowned at Hamburg; although he had been a great general in his youth, Humphrey was content to leave the business of waging war against the Moors to his capable generals, while he concentrated on overseeing the growth of his settlements and the expansion of his kingdom's infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the English army marching south from Salamanca forced a crossing of the river Gaudalquivir, defeating a Moorish army, and at considerable cost captured the great Moorish capital of Cordoba. The force from Toledo, meanwhile, continued south towards the fortress of Granada, while the garrison of Valencia counterattacked under a new general, Lewes of Surrey, defeating the Moorish army on open ground and pushing on towards Murcia. Meanwhile fresh forces were being assembled in northern Spain to relieve Palma and assist the attack on Granada.
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An English army bombards the Moorish defenders of the crossing over the Guadalquivir.
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The assault on Cordoba; English archers and trebuchets torment the defenders, provoking a charge by the Moorish sultan.
The light garrison of Granada was unable to stave off the attack, and the fortress fell, shortly followed by Murcia. The English armies now converged on the straits of Gibraltar, and the last Moorish stronghold in Europe at Silves. The Moorish armies had concentrated north of Gibraltar, but Silves was under repeated attack by the Portuguese, and many of their troops were forced into relieving the city, weakening their forces. The English consolidated their position in the newly captured Moorish lands, waiting for reinforcements from the north, before continuing the advance to drive the Moors out of Europe for good.
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Near the end of the European phase of the war against the Moors. Only one major field army and the beleaguered city of Silves remains to the Moors in Europe.
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A major battle against the Moors to the south of Cordoba, which effectively signalled the defeat of the Moors in Europe.
Meanwhile, English reinforcements in the form of veteran longbowmen and Knights Hospitaller from Valencia relieved the siege of Palma. Silves was soon besieged by the victorious English forces; however, the assault proved costly, with most of the English forces lost; again, the English were forced to rest for a year while reinforcements continued to flow from the north.
As the English armies prepared to cross the straits of Gibraltar, the spies in advance of the main force reported that the Moors were preparing their main defense at the fortress of Melilla, leaving the large city of Fes lightly defended; this was thus the first target of the first English force to cross the Straits, the veterans of William's campaigns now under Lewes of Surrey. The city was taken, but again at heavy cost; the heavily armoured English infantry tired quickly under the desert sun, and thus made hard work of defeating their lightly armoured Moorish foes. However, they were followed by the army of Elias which passed by the city marching east, laying siege to the strong garrison of Melilla.
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Moorish crossbowmen choose to die under artillery fire rather than abandon the wall of Fes.
The Moorish defenses were now collapsing. As troops flooded west along the coast toward the confrontation at Melilla, the troops which had relieved Palma now landed at Algiers, having been unable to elude the Moorish fleet to reach the Straits. With the fortress almost empty, they took the great castle with minimal losses. Leaving behind a garrison, the main force marched toward Oran, to squeeze the Moors from both sides.
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The invasion of North Africa. Fes and Algiers have fallen, Melilla is under siege.
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The siege of Oran. The Moorish defenders concentrated too hard on holding the walls, leaving the gate vulnerable to a massed attack. Here the forces on the wall have realised their mistake too late, hurrying out of the towers into the onrushing English throng.
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The Knights Hospitaller charge the Moorish foe.
At Melilla, the besieging army of Elias was attacked by much of the remaining Moorish force in the last great battle of the Moorish campaign. The form of the battle was similar to the Battle of Zaragoza against Aragon, with the smaller force of the Moorish crown prince attacking first, and the sultan leading the attack personally from the other side. The attack of the crown prince was driven off with heavy losses, the infantry demoralised by the fetid cows hurled by the English trebuchets, and depleted by mangonel and longbow fire. However, they could not be pursued since most of the English cavalry were lost, and much of the Moorish crown prince had survived, continuing to harass the English rear as the Sultan attacked. In the event, the Sultan attacked at a diagonal to the English stake line, leaving much of the English infantry unable to reinforce the flanks for fear of leaving the protection of the stakes and being cut down by Moorish cavalry. Meanwhile the crown prince did bloody work against the longbows while the infantry were occupied.
At last, though, the Moorish sultan was brought down by point-blank fire from the trebuchets, and after repeated personal charges by Elias wherever the Moorish flanks were exposed and away from the stakes, the Moorish forces broke. The crown prince, too, was finally brought down by the longbowmen's mallets. Elias had the narrowest of victories, but it did not matter; Melilla had fallen, and with the landing of an English army shipped all the way from England at Marrakesh, the Moors were completely defeated.
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Aftermath of the Battle of Melilla; the pivotal right flank of the English line.
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Elias lost more than half of his men in the encounter, but the last significant Moorish army was utterly wiped out.
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Siege of Marrakesh; English forces drive into the breach, forcing back stiff Moorish resistance on both sides, a dangerous mix of spearmen and Urban Militia which neither infantry nor cavalry can engage safely.
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The English longbowmen succeeded in scaling the walls in order to lend assistance to the exhausted infantry in the streets.
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The last Moorish sultan held in combat by spearmen and brought down by English longbows.
While the campaigns in Spain had been taking place, Edward Manners had been waging a long campaign of his own in the eastern Mediterranean. Far out of reach of reinforcements and largely forgotten back home, his men faced a difficult task against the Fatimids. Initially under the auspices of the Third Crusade to take Gaza, Edward instead prudently took the Fatimid castle on Rhodes, while his German allies took the main Crusade target. After a brief rest, his men once again boarded their ships and took Cyprus, before landing on the mainland and seizing the fortress of Damietta. After another brief rest, he took Alexandria.
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At this point the Crusaders were at the strongest they would be for many years, with England in possession of Damietta and Alexandria, the HRE ruling Gaza and the Templars ruling Cairo.
However, English control of Alexandria was short lived; after a year, the people of the city revolted against their new rulers, and Edward wisely withdrew his outnumbered troops from the city rather than be slaughtered by the mob. However, as he layed siege to the city once more, the Sultan of the Fatimids, fresh from the recapture of Cairo, came to its relief at the head of a vast army. Edward's men fought valiantly, but in the end the Saracens were too many; his force was routed, his bodyguard slaughtered, and he himself forced to flee for his life to Damietta.
However, the Fatimid sultan pursued him, and laid siege threatening to drive the English crusaders from the mainland altogether. Seeing the Fatimid force consisted of many horse archers, Edward reasoned it was best to wait for the assault, which came soon enough. His force was hard pressed on the walls and at the gate, but the English stakes, spearmen and boiling oil were finally enough to kill the sultan and rout the Saracen cavalry, leading the men assaulting the walls to panic and flee also.
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The Saracens are slaughtered as they try to force the gates of Damietta.
Damietta was secure, but the Fatimids would soon be back, and meanwhile Edward was in no position to continue the offensive. He also recieved word from his spies that the Imperial fortress of Gaza was under assault. Reasoning that the longer Gaza held out, the longer it would be before Damietta faced another major attack, Edward ordered his freshly raised troops on Cyprus to come to its aid. The gambit worked; with the besieging Fatimids not relishing the prospect of English reinforcements coming to the aid of the German defenders, a Fatimid emissary arrived at Damietta seeking a ceasefire with the English.
Neither side regarded the treaty as a permanent settlement rather than a temporary respite; Edward wanted time to rebuild his forces for a fresh assault in Egypt, while the Fatimids wished first to deal with the Imperial fortress of Gaza and to stave off the encroaching Templars to their north. Nonetheless, Edward set about capitalising on the respite. Receiving word that unruly Alexandria had rebelled against the Fatimids, likely due to religious unrest caused by his efforts at converting the locals, Edward landed and besieged and retook the city from the ill-equipped rabble.
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The disorganised rebels in Alexandria were numerous, but badly outmatched against the well equipped English infantry.
Recalling the unrest which had driven him from the city fifteen years ago, Edward took no chances and had the population butchered. Meanwhile, good news reached him from England; the new king Humphrey had named him as heir to the throne. Doubtless Humphrey was nervous that Edward, far from the reach of the crown, might be tempted to disregard the new king and was eager to ensure he would not be tempted to rebel. Regardless, Edward set about carving out a realm in the Middle East worthy of a future King.
Noting that the outlying Fatimid settlements of Benghazi and Iraklion had turned renegade, Edward dispatched naval expeditions to seize both, knowing he could do so without violating the treaty. With six provinces in the eastern Mediterranean under his rule, three of them islands, Edward reasoned it would now be impossible for any single Fatimid attack to wipe out his realm before reinforcements could arrive, especially since the western Mediterranean was now largely in English hands.
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Tuareg camels at Benghazi attempt to prevent the English seizing the gate.
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An uneasy peace in Egypt, as the Fatimids close in on Gaza.
Meanwhile in Spain, the English generals reluctantly prepared for the task of invading Portugal, knowing that the Portuguese army was strong, the Portuguese citadels were well defended, and the attack would likely bring a fresh excommunication. However, an event intervened which rendered the task ahead far less formidable: The Portuguese King died without naming an heir. The Kingdom descended into civil war and the various provinces came under the rule of petty warlords, apparently blissfully unaware of the huge English armies on their doorstep. King Humphrey breathed a sigh of relief; with no central authority, he could deal with the Portuguese warlords piecemeal, and the Pope would not intervene to prevent him imposing a rightful, stable authority on a war-torn land. He could mop up Portugal at his leisure, while turning his eye to the east.
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The Kingdom of Portugal collapses. The minimap shows the current extent of the English Kingdom.
There we are, up to 51 regions in 95 turns. This puts me just about back on schedule to reach 98 by turn 199. The question is, of course, which way next?
1) Focus on Scandanavia, putting the previously planned attack into action and sweeping around the north east of the map centrifugally.
2) Focus on central Europe, a straightforward frontal attack against the HRE with the option to continue out against any of the Poles, Hungarians or Venetians. Excommunication a near certainty.
3) Focus on the western Mediterranean, taking out the excommunicated Genoese and the Sicilians. Would link up the two halves of my empire, and allow for expansion in just about any direction.
4) Focus on the eastern Mediterranean; invade the Byzantines and Turks and secure the wealthy Aegean and Anatolia. Possibly continue north against the Kievan Rus.
5) Focus on Egypt and the Holy Land; concentrate all my forces and deal with the Fatimids once and for all, followed by an attack against any one of the Turks, Khwarezmians or Templars, possibly depending on how well the Mongols fare. Probably the most lucrative thanks to the possibilities for merchant trade, but also the most difficult in terms of ferrying troops long distances.
I haven't decided which option yet; I will likely be following 5 to some extent whatever happens when the Fatimids inevitably attack again, the question is if I make it the main focus of expansion (note I do have to take Jerusalem sooner or later to fulfill the victory conditions). Otherwise I'm leaning towards 3, Genoa are getting a bit too successful against the Venetians and my troops are already in the right area.
Wow, PBI! That's one hell of an update. :2thumbsup:
Personally, I was going to advise you go with option #3 even before you said that was what you were leaning toward. Genoa is indeed a threat to your dominance in the Med, and my hatred of the Sicilians has carried over from MTW -- destroy them. ~D
Very much well done on the unification of Spain!
An attack on the excommunicated Genoese and the Sicilians will go a long way to making you liked again by the pope. You can gift him unneeded cities in Italy and pretty much get on his good side again while at the same time mercilessly crushing your biggest rivals in the Western Med.
An Invasion of Italy seems all but certain in this scenario. If you move quickly with a seaborne operation you can easily cut the heart out of the Sicilian war machine before you ever fight their main force. :yes:
Awesome job, and a nice empire! Option 3 definitely sounds the best to me. Also, maybe you should try to buy Toulouse off of the HRE- it would better connect France to Iberia, and you might be able to get an alliance out of it, if you want.
Number 1! 3 sounds good too though. Great update :2thumbsup:
I say 5. Lucrative trade and a challenge. Exactly what is great about games.
1221AD: The English empire bestrides all of Western Europe from Roskilde to Marrakesh. Under its great King Humphrey the Chivalrous, the mighty English armies drive the Moors from Europe before taking the pursuing them to Africa, finally subduing all of their mighty cities, leaving only Egypt still in Muslim hands in all of Africa north of the Sahara. Meanwhile Portugal, the last free kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula, disintegrates into petty princedoms; no threat to English rule remains in all of Western Europe, and as her dreaded armies turn eastward, the rest of Europe trembles.
In Egypt, Prince Edward rests in Alexandria; having successfully defended his Crusader Kingdom in the Nile delta again and again, he finally forced the Fatimid Sultan to agree to a truce, allowing Edward to consolidate his gains. Fresh troops are raised to defend his capital at Alexandria, while the English fleet uses its dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean to secure the remote castle of Benghazi in Cyrenaica and the island of Crete.
However, both sides knew the truce was only a temporary reprieve; Edward had established that the Saracen could not drive him from the Holy Land, but hungered to take the offensive once more and seize the glorious prize of Jerusalem; while the Fatimid Sultan campaigned aggressively against his other foes, finally overrunning the stubborn German Crusader kingdom of Gaza, while through cunning machinations he convinced a Fatimid Imam to declare a Jihad against the great city of Baghdad; as Turkish and Khwarezmian armies descended on the city, its Templar rulers withdrew their forces to meet them, ending the threat to the Sultan's northern frontier.
In the end it was the Fatimids who broke the truce first, the Sultan himself leading a great army out of Cairo to besiege Edward at Alexandria, while a second army, hardened by the brutal siege of Gaza, surrounded the fortress of Damietta. Edward had long expected and planned for such an attack however, and his men steeled themselves to meet the assault, confident in their great Prince who had inflicted bloody defeat upon the Saracens so many times before; while quietly, the mighty English fleet embarked from Rhodes to put Edward's long-prepared plan into motion.
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The Fatimid Sultan, having defeated the Holy Roman Empire and the Templars, commits all of his forces in an attempt to drive his last and greatest Crusader foe from the Holy Land for good.
Meanwhile in Europe, the one-time allies of the English crown the Genoese, spied a brief opportunity to challenge the rising power of the great English empire; with most of her armies resting in North Africa or Spain from the great conquest of the Moors, the wealthy English lands in France were almost defenseless. A mighty army under the Duke of Genoa marched from Marseille and besieged the fortress of Lyon, the only obstacle to a Genoese rampage through the wealthy English cities all the way to Flanders. Meanwhile a smaller Genoese force landed on Majorca, meaning to take Palma from the minimal garrison and use the island as a barrier, delaying the English armies as they sailed up the coast of Spain and buying more time for the offensive in the Rhone valley.
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The Genoese ruler besieges Lyon, the only significant obstacle to conquest of France.
The year 1225 would be a year of great sieges. At Palma, the ramshackle defense won an unexpected victory; facing a vastly superior force, the local militia succeeded in luring the Genoese attack into a bottleneck at the gate; as the militia spearmen pressed the Genoese infantry from both sides, the town's two ballistas fired deadly iron bolts into the thick of the Genoese throng. The ballistas carved paths of killed and maimed men through the Genoese ranks, throwing the survivors into panic; hemmed in on both sides and unable to escape the lethal ballista fire, the few Genoese who did not die fled in panic back through the gates. The Genoese delaying action had failed; now they would face English armies landing in their homelands.
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English ballistas fire with deadly effect into the bottleneck at the gates of Palma.
Meanwhile, the great army of the Genoese Duke assaulted Lyon; however, the defenders were ready. A hail of longbow fire took a devastating toll on the attackers as they waited for the gates to be breached, while the Italian Militia attacking by ladder and tower were driven off, brave men, but no match for the heavily armoured knights on the walls. The Genoese army pushed bravely through the breached gate, but into a bloodbath; within the gates they met stakes and more stalwart English foot knights, while boiling oil poured from the gatehouse slaughtered the men beneath, trapped between the troops in front, and the men behind still surging forwards to try to force the gate. At last the Duke was killed by a charge of English knights, and the slaughter became a rout.
At the same time in Egypt, the Sultan launched his rash assault against the walls of Alexandria; on the walls the battle was fierce and close, and the mighty Ghulams came close to carrying the walls at the weakest point, where the wall was defended only by a small unit of Billmen; only an intervention by forces from further along the wall, who had fared better and driven off the attacks in their sector, finally overcame the ferocious assault. But the assault on the gate once again fell victim to the mighty longbows; the densely packed Saracen Militia, waiting for the ram to do its work, were decimated by the intense arrow fire, and only a fraction of the assault force made it through the gate; outnumbered and demoralised, the assault was hopeless.
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Fatimid infantry assault the walls of Alexandria...
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... while at Lyon, the English defenders prepare to hold the gateway against the Genoese onslaught.
By the end of the year, both the Genoese and Fatimid offensives had been stopped in their tracks. While it would take many more hard battles before either would be overcome, the Genoese window of opportunity to seize France and take a strong position to defend against the English from had closed, while in Egypt, the Fatimids would never again come so close to driving the English from Egypt. As the Fatimids were being routed at Alexandria, Edward's counterattack began as an English army landed at Acre, taking the fortress from the minimal garrison and menacing Jerusalem itself.
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The surprise English landing at Acre whilst the main Fatimid forces are occupied in Egypt.
Impressed by Edward's great victory in Egypt and success in taking lands from the Fatimids even in the face of a huge offensive, the Pope determined the Fatimids were now weak enough to drive from the Holy Land altogether, and thus declared the Fourth Crusade against Jerusalem itself. King Humphrey, too, was impressed enough to grant Edward the funds he needed to raise ever more troops from the new Christian converts in Egypt; leaving behind large garrisons in Damietta and Alexandria, he raised the Crusader banner once more; boarding his fleet, he landed in Palestine, and laid siege to Jerusalem itself.
The Fatimid Sultan, knowing that a defeat at Jerusalem would spell the ultimate doom of his kingdom, mounted a last, desperate offensive; armies besieged Alexandria and Acre, and a mighty force attacked Edward's army from one side while the garisson assaulted the other, a pincer attack which had in the past proved one of the few tactics to be successful against the English longbow line. However, Edward had changed his tactics; short of trained longbowmen, he had amassed as many heavy knights as possible, supplemented ferocious mercenary cavalry from the Khwarezm Empire. With vast superiority in cavalry, he used his horsemen in piecemeal charges to destroy the Fatimid dismounted Ghulams and Al-Haqa infantry while avoiding the enemy spearmen; the Fatimid infantry were then pinned by the English infantry and destroyed by cavalry charges to the rear. With the first army destroyed, Edward turned his force, and repeated exactly the same tactics on the second.
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Fatimid heavy infantry are crushed by the unstoppable charge of the Khwarezmian mercenaries.
At last, after nearly 50 years of war, Edward led his army in triumph through the gates of Jerusalem, greatest of all Crusader prizes. As Fatimid armies reeled from their defeat, the Sultan realised that his hopes of retaking his lost lands were gone, and ordered all his armies to retreat, hoping to mount a new defense to prevent the English penetrating further inland. But as their armies struggled to maintain order amid the chaos of the retreat, another disaster befell the Fatimids; the Fatimid army besieging Alexandria did not recieve the order to withdraw in time, leaving Cairo vulnerable to a quick strike from Damietta.
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Edward presses the offensive against the Fatimids after the fall of Jerusalem, besieging Gaza while a surprise attack from Damietta snatches Cairo.
Meanwhile, in the western Mediterranean, the Genoese were steadily overwhelmed by the English fleets and armies flooding from North Africa. A large Genoese army from Ajaccio was destroyed when the English fleet sank their transports, preventing them from coming to the aid of Marseille; that city fell to massive English forces landing by sea and marching from Lyon. Meanwhile, Ajaccio and Cagliari fell to amphibious assault. In north Africa, the intial English attack on Beleb el Anab was defeated in a series of battles with the unexpectedly strong Genoese forces, which then took the offensive; however, the threat to Algiers was stopped at a river crossing and fresh English forces arrived from Marrakesh, taking Beleb el Anab.
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The English retreat in north Africa is halted and turned into advance at a river east of Algiers.
However, on the main front against the Genoese on the Ligurian coast, the Genoese were being slowly but surely driven back. As the armies victorious at Marseille marched up the coast, another English force landed at Genoa itself and launched a massive assault, taking the Genoese capital.
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English forces swarm onto the walls of Genoa, overwhelming the defenders.
As English forces took the last Genoese city in north Africa, the Genoese were left with only the city of Bologna. Three mighty English armies assaulted the massive garrison; the well-trained Italian militias fought bitterly for every inch, and the English commander was forced first to fight a bitter contest for the breach in the wall, a running battle through the streets, then a ferocious bloodbath in the city center as the Genoese made their last stand. The English general was forced to throw in more and more troops as first the initial assault troops, then the reinforcements who replaced them, were wiped out by the savage battle. However, finally with the help of longbows and mangonels the huge Genoese force was worn down, and as the centre square became less crowded, the last defenders could be finished of relatively cheaply as the English cavalry at last had room to maneuver and charge.
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English armies converge on Bologna.
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The closing stages of the furious battle for the centre square in Bologna.
With the Genoese defeated, King Humphrey pondered what to do next with his mighty force. Prince Edward was winning on all fronts against the Fatimids and would require no help. He considered his options in Italy; his first choice would have been to attack the Sicilians with his standing forces in Bologna; however the Sicilians, free of significant threats for many years, had amassed a formidable army; meanwhile, the Venetians, although still strong, were beset on all sides by the Reich, Hungary and the Byzantines. Furthermore wealthy Venice itself was in easy reach from Bologna; thus Humphrey ordered his forces to attack the Venetians and secure North Italy before any war with Sicily would be risked.
However, the bulk of his resources would be spent on a new offensive in a different area. For years Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway and Denmark had been locked in warfare, not far from Humprey's own residence at Hamburg. With both sides weakened by the years of conflict, it had long been clear to Humphrey that a truly determined English offensive could bring all of Scandanavia under his sway, and beyond, it would be a short voyage for the English fleets to ferry troops across the Baltic to campaign against the pagans and Orthodox Christians of Lithuania and Novgorod, where he could safely expand with the full approval of the Pope. With new Retinue Longbowmen and English Knights from the citadels of Nottingham and Hamburg, and Knights of Saint John from Spain, he began to amass a force for an attack on the Danes.
Meanwhile in Italy, the war against the Venetians was not going as well as hoped; though the key Venetian fortress of Ancona had fallen, Venice itself was mounting a tenacious defense. The first attack on the defending army on the plains outside the city, by Simon Plantagenet, victor of Bologna, was a catastrophe; Venetian losses were heavy, but ultimately Simon's forces were overrun by the vast Venetian army and Simon was killed. Although the defensive garrison had been substantially weakened and the Venetian Doge also killed in the battle, the English forces in the area were not strong enough to mount another direct attack; instead, a smaller force was stationed on the main bridge leading to the city to prevent any link up with reinforcements marching from Ragusa.
The Venetians mounted several attacks to try to dislodge the English from the bridge; although the small English army was almost wiped out in the battles, the Venetian defenders were at last whittled down to just the massive city garrison itself. At last the city could be sieged directly by a force of reinforcements from Spain; not large enough to assault the city, but enough to defeat a sally.
In Denmark, as the English armies were within a day's march of the Oresund between Zealand and Sweden, an unexpected turn of events shifted the target of the attack at the last second. The Pope, apparently satisfied that the forces of Islam were being driven back both from Iberia and north Africa and in the Holy Land, turned his attention to the north-eastern frontier of Christendom, and the pagans of Lithuania. An earlier attempt to Christianize Lithuania by the Teutonic Order had failed, the Order being diverted instead by the rich prospect of plunder in the Kievan Rus lands to the south and abandoning their original mission. Determined to succeed this time, the Pope declared the Sixth Crusade against the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.
The English armies in Zealand, originally earmarked to attack fellow Catholics in Denmark, were instead diverted to join the Crusade, and sailed across the Baltic to land in Lithuania. The first force, under Miles Clifford, besieged and took the fortress of Palanga before pushing inland toward the Crusade target; the Lithuanians had been anticipating attack by the Crusader armies of Poland and Hungary and were not prepared for an attack from the sea. The second English army landed further up the coast and besieged Riga.
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The Sixth Crusade besieges Palanga.
The armies of Miles Clifford finally besieged Vilnius itself; unable to afford the loss of their capital, the Lituanians mustered a massive force to confront the Crusaders. However, their reliance on heavy infantry proved costly against the English combined arms; their army proved vulnerable to isolated heavy infantry units being picked off by cavalry charges, leaving the spearmen helpless against the English swordsmen, while throughout the English longbows exacted a heavy toll. Vilnius had fallen, and the English forces prepared to ravage Lithuania.
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English mercenary spearmen and Lithuanian heavy infantry clash outside Vilnius.
During the campaigns in Lithuania and Italy, Prince Edward had been continuing his relentless offensive against the Fatimids. Though the Fatimids fought bitterly for every city, they were gradually driven ever further back, losing first Al Aqaba, then Kerak, Luxor, and finally the city of Tayma, leaving only Medina and Mecca in Fatimid hands. As Edward rallied his forces in Tayma to repel yet another Fatimid counterattack, a messenger managed to run the gauntlet of the Fatimid siege; King Humphrey the Chivalrous had died of old age at Cologne; Edward was now King.
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King Edward, already known by the epithet "the Conqueror", was truly a man worthy to be the first English King to be crowned in Jerusalem rather than London, a peerless general and a stalwart defender of the faith. However, the other kings of Europe, jealous of his magnificent domain and gambling on the new king being too distracted by his ongoing campaigns in the Middle East to properly defend his European holdings, nefariously launched invasions of English lands. The two greatest military powers in Europe after England itself, Sicily and Poland, declared war on England in the same year. A large Sicilian force marched up Italy and laid siege to Ancona, threatening the success of the English siege of Venice. Meanwhile a Polish army, sore at being beaten to Vilnius by the English, attacked English-held Palanga, shamefully putting the English attempts to conquer and Christianize Lithuania in jeopardy for their own selfish interests.
The new King Edward I thus faces a major crisis in the first years of his reign. The war against the Fatimids looks to be almost won, with his armies closing in on Medina, although the new king had a severe scare in a battle on the approach to the fortress, almost being overwhelmed by light Arab cavalry. The real challenge will be in Europe: In Italy, English forces face a steep uphill struggle, with the Venetians far from subdued and a Sicilian invasion threatening from the south. Once the vast Sicilian field armies are overcome the job will be far from done, the great Sicilian fortresses will need to be methodically cracked open and stormed.
In Lithuania, a great victory has been won against the pagans, but they are far from defeated. Meanwhile, the mighty Polish field forces threaten from the south and will require a vast effort to overcome with troops needing to be ferried across the Baltic from Hamburg.
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King Edward I closes in on Medina.
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The vast forces of Poland which may overwhelm the English bridgehead in Lithuania.
So I make that 76 province in 116 turns. That leaves another 22 to take in 83 turns, so that's well ahead of schedule. Looks like matching my targets in terms of fraction of the map held is way out of reach though. I count 23 provinces belonging to factions I'm at war with so I could hit the lesser target just from them, will probably attack some other factions though to exceed it by as much as possible. I actually already reached the campaign victory conditions with the capture of Bologna, holding 70 provinces including London, Caen, Galway, Bordeaux, Inverness and Jerusalem.
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The choices of what to do next are I suppose less clear cut than usual, since I am at war on 3 fronts and will not be able to completely neglect any of them; however, there is a question of where to place the most emphasis:
1)Focus on the Arabian Front; massively crush the last Fatimid strongholds and build up forces to attack either the Turks, or the Templars (who are looking oddly anaemic given their wealthy cities and the vast forces they have fielded in the past with less resources).
2)Focus on the Italian Front: Amass Knights of St. John in Spain to massively reinforce my armies in north Italy, take Venice and possibly Ragusa (though with Venice gone the Venetians will cease to be a significant threat) and prepare for a showdown with the multiple Sicilian stacks and an invasion.
3)Focus on the Northern Front: Finish off the Lithuanians and take the fight to the Poles; hopefully the huge Polish army will turn out to consist of many poor quality troops given that it has never been used and thus never replaced with newer units.
Depending on how well 1) or 2) go they will likely be followed by an attack on the Byzantines to attempt to link my empire up in the middle, while success in 3) will likely be followed by the long awaited invasion of Scandinavia. I'm tending toward 3) at the moment mostly to please Elite Ferret.
GREAT update PBI!
Man you are making me wanna reinstall SS. :yes:
I'm going with 3. The Poles present your biggest threat and therefore need to be dealt with before they grow any stronger. Knock out the Poles then rush the HRE from both sides, crush them in the middle and unite your new European empire!
He made me install it in the first place :) But I say go north, slaughter Lithuania and then on to polish lands. After that go even farther north and destroy the steppe regions. Then head south and link your empire.
Playing Stainless Steel 4.0, replacing only certain files from the 4.1 patch (changed: map, traits/retinues; unchanged: unit stats, diplomacy/reputation).
I have a Danish and Portuguese campaigns, but lost interest to continue. Perhaps, writing about them will change that, at the same time reviving this awesome thread. Do note that my english isn't perfect.
Starting off with the Portuguese:
Starting positions:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Summer 1080: The time to strike has arrived! The largest factions in Iberia, the Kingdoms of Leon-Castille, Aragon, and even the Moors, have stopped bashing each other. Their greedy eyes are set on the smaller kingdoms and towns that litter the peninsula. Those cowards! Only those who risk it all can be called the brave! Only the brave can attain imperishable glory! None of them deserve to rule a united Iberia. Only I.
With that, King Henrique de Portugal gave to his oldest son, Afonso, the authority to command all available soldiers he can gather, and march them to Porugal's border with the hated Moors by the end of the year. The King wanted a piece of the action but he was presently needed at the capital, Lisbon, where plans for a Ballista maker had just been sent out.The heir may only be 19, but he is smart and military-minded, a very capable leader in his father's eyes. Afonso dares not disobey his father's trust, and as ordered marched his army south-east, with a spy leading the way into Moorish hands. The sultan's army in Iberia has dwindled lately, sending a large portion of it back south, to enforce their rule upon their subjects in Iberia, and some further south, past Gibraltar. The prince has already ordered a fleet to blockade the passage between the 2 continents. No Moorish soldier will ever step foot into Iberia again, and anyone within who points a sword against Christianity will be cut down. Also troops from Oporto, under Joao's command, were being transported by another fleet south by sea.
I think i overdid the intro, as the following is just a summary (due to limited pictures)...Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
1081: Prince Afonso has entered Moorish lands. The locals had mixed reactions with their passing. Some cheered, the others hid. There were also some who whispered among themselves in a foreign tongue. Other than some scouts that they caught, they did not encountered any resistance. Can it really be this 'easy?' Afonso ordered his men to march as far as they could without causing a ruckus...
Meanwhile, the king has found his 'ticket' out of Lisbon and his dull duties. The nobles had just sent him a proposition. The town of Silves, just south of Lisbon, for 2500 gold. He eagerly took his bodyguards and a couple of spear militias, and joined the fleet from Oporto, with the prince's reinforcements, going South. Before leaving, he sent a letter to Joao to take over his duties in Lisbon...
1083: Afonso has reached the city of Corduba, and did not waste anytime surrounding the city. Much to his pleasure, he received word from the spy about the composition of troops within, how far the nearest enemy reinforcements were, and most importantly, that he had somehow taken over the city's stonegates, with help from willing Christian citizens and disguised clergymen. He told his men the good news and the men cheered, grateful to not having to wait long to have a taste of the action.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The prince ordered his men to follow behind him, as he charged into the gates, which opened obediently, as though following to his will. As he passed through the gates, he saw the spy on top of the walls, pointing at the enemy soldiers' positions within the city. Raising his sword to the spy, he rode with his men west. There, as the spy told him, was a group of Desert Archers and a group of militia, who were marching towards the center square. The prince charged at them with great speed, and the archers greeted them with a volley of flaming arrows, and swords. Screams could be heard as the infantry finally passed the gates without opposition. They did not wait long as the prince, greeted them with blood dripping off his gauntlets. He ordered the spearmen to march upfront and hold the entrance to the city square in schiltrom formation. A unit of crossbowmen marched forward and fired at the enemy spearmen, and before long thundering hooves charged at them.
The prince knew it was the sultan, himself, that was guarding their most precious holding in Iberia, based from the spy's information, but withheld this info from the rest of his men. He doubted that anyone would recognize him , and he was right. However, it only took the impact between the heavy cavalry and the spearmen, for the inexperienced militia to realize they were dealing with something to be feared. As the men in front (including a couple of unlucky crossbowmen) were cut down and the cries started to grow louder and numerous, Afonso ordered his men into the sea of blood and screams.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:Men fell from both sides, but it was obvious who would run out of men first. Finally, the sultan's horse was bogged down, surrounded by enemies, and was struck down by spears. The sultan disappeared from view, and the remainder of his bodyguards routed.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:Prince Afonso dealt with the remaining horsemen in the square, and ordered his missile troops to shoot down the remaining infantrymen huddled together in the middle, defiantly shouting curses at them. All were struck down, and Corduba was finally retaken from infidel hands. Suddenly in charge of a large population, mostly of a different religion, who had a change of rulers in one day, and with reinforcements still more than a year away, the prince was forced to sack the city.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Meanwhile, Afonso's sister, Maria de Portugal arrived in Leon, but before meeting with the king of Spain, she overheard that Corduba has fallen to the Portuguese. She proceeded establishing trade and trading her kingdom's new map for a sum of gold.
King Henrique has arrived on the coast west of Silves and brought all troops with him, and started the siege on the rebel town.
1084: Maria proceeded west, while Afonso decided make the most of his surprise attack, and marched out of Corduba towards Granada in the south-east. He had already sent the spy, followed by his missile troops, ahead a year ago.
In the west, the walls of Silves has fallen...
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
...and the King marched in and butchered the resistance, ending with a shooting gallery.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
1086: Prince Afonso arrived outside Granada where his army stood guard around the castle, arriving weeks before him. The soldiers who greeted him, pointed at the castle walls, where the expected orange banners were replaced with that of Portugal, and the guards on the walls with his own men.
"We control the gates. Our spy has taken over this gate when we arrived. They dare not take it back 'less they be shot down."
Prince Afonso could not hold back a smile. He praised the men for a job well done and led a short prayer of thanks to God. He remounted his horse and said, "Sound the horn! Let's get this over with! Hya!"After the battle, Afonso was in a very good mood and decided to simply occupy the settlement.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
A messenger from Lisbon arrived in Silves, with a letter to the king from Joao. Some brigands have banded together just south of the capital, not long after the king left, and have been harassing travelers and merchants alike. After leaving a modest garrison, King Henrique marched north.
1087: Prince Afonso received word that a small band of Moorish soldiers left in Iberia had not surrendered, and under their appointed leader have marched outside Granada, intent of recovering the castle. The prince summoned his army and marched out to meet their foe on the field, before they damage the countryside...Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
King Henrique, on his way to the rebel army's position, was met by Joao and his company of militia.Together they neutralized the rebel threat. Afterwards, King Henrique left Joao in command of most of the army and ordered him to have the town of Salamanca join the kingdom, while he travels to the city of Corduba, which he plans to turn into the kingdom's new capital. Joao was more than happy to prove himself in battle, and sent a message to Lisbon with the message "to try out their newest weapon at Salamanca."Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Meanwhile, Maria de Portugal established trade rights with the Kingdom of Aragon, who were also more than willing to part with a sum of gold for an updated map of Iberia.
1089-90: News1092: The princess, Maria de Portugal, has been traveling west, past the Pyrenees, seeking an audience with French, when she crossed paths with the French royal princess, who was heading to Iberia herself. Maria compared the French princess to a real jewel of the Mediterranean and a perfect partner for her brother, Afonso. Maria picked her words wisely, and befriended the French beauty. Most importantly, she was able to convince her to fall for her brother...Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Atop a hill to the south of Murcia (east northeast of Granada), stood Prince Afonso, with a little more than a couple hundred men hidden behind him. Beside him was a spy who came from the town. As they surveyed the town, one of the northeastern houses caught fire.
"He has done it! That's the signal! Hurry, m'Lord!" the spy cried. Prince Afonso wasted no time and charged towards the already opened southern gate, his men behind him.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Afonso was inside his tent, rewarding the 2 spies that caused the diversion in Murcia, when his chief bodyguard entered. Afonso has guests, it would seem.
"About time those reinforcements arrived! Seriou-..."Murcia was occupied.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
On the other front...No doubt the new weapons proved to be a success.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Salamanca was occupied.
Joao was approached by his advisor, bearing a letter addressed to him, from the king, once Salamanca has 'joined' the kingdom...
end part 1
For almost two hundred years, the plains of north Italy had been ravaged by near-constant warfare. Venice, Sicily and Genoa were locked in a vicious three-way war. The Venetians at first had the upper hand against the Genoese Republic, taking the cities of Genoa and Milan, before the Genoese rallied and drove them back to the Adriatic. Meanwhile, Sicily repeatedly but unsuccessfully laid siege to the Venetian fortress of Ancona, while Sicily and Genoa fought their own bitter conflict over control of Tunisia and the western Mediterranean. Meanwhile all three engaged in side wars with the Moors, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary and the Byzantines.
The deadlock was not broken until the Genoese, buoyed by their successes and the recent demise of the Moors, decided to open yet another conflict, against the burgeoning English empire. The attack was a disaster; in the wake of the Genoese defeat the English swept through the western Mediterranean and overran the Genoese Republic, gaining a foothold in northern Italy in the process. Meaning to take advantage of the exhausted combatants, the English pushed on to attack Venice; Ancona was quickly taken, the garrison which had withstood so many Sicilian assaults apparently unprepared for an attack from the other direction, but then the campaign began to bog down. The garrison of Venice itself was strong, and the fighting on the approach to the city was savage and often came down to sheer attrition. Meanwhile the desolated lands around Ancona once again found themselves host to a Sicilian invasion force as the Sicilian king strove to take advantage of the coronation of a new English king in faraway Palestine, and take the prize of Ancona so many Sicilians had died for.
However, by the year 1254 the great Venetian host was at last whittled down and forced back into the city itself; with the garrison under siege, the English were able to bring up an elite army of Hospitallers, freshly raised in Spain, to make the final assault. At last, the English besiegers moved in to attack the great city.
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The English force closes in on the formidable garrison of Venice, but only after a lengthy bombardment from cannons and trebuchets to breach the wall in four places.
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English mangonels rain fire upon the Venetians, throwing the defenders into chaos.
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A courageous lone Hospitaller is the first into the breach, leading the rest of the knights to rout the lighter Venetian cavalry before the infantry enter the breach.
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The infantry flood into the city, eventually getting the upper hand over the Venentian heavy infantry and pikemen.
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The siege of Venice was a costly victory, but it transformed the situation in north Italy; with the remaining Venetians driven back to their holdings in the Balkans, the English armies could concentrate against the Sicilian threat.
King Edward was pleased to hear of the great victory at Venice, but he had other things on his mind. His most hated enemies the Fatimids, whom he had fought for much of his adult life, had been driven back to a small enclave on the coast of the Red Sea, centered on Medina. However, even now they were determined to stubbornly fight to the bitter end. His plan had been to dispatch a large force to bypass the great fortress and take the only other significant Fatimid settlement of Mecca, while he himself laid siege to the Sultan himself in Medina. However, the plan soon faltered; although Mecca was taken, a great propaganda prize for the Crusaders, Edward's own force took heavy casualties in the fighting on the approach to Medina in which Edward himself made a narrow escape from death, coming through with only a wound a battle which claimed the lives of most of his bodyguard. The remaining English force was sufficient to keep the Fatimids bottled up in Medina, but not to take the fortress by storm.
After several years of siege Edward's supply situation was dire, while the Fatimid garrison showed no sign of weakening. With his men close to mutiny, troubling news coming in of attacks all across his far-flung empire, and in constant pain from his wounds which could not be treated in the filthy conditions, Edward relented; leaving the siege in the hands of a lesser commander with a fresh army from Egypt, Edward retreated to the relative sanctuary of Tayma, to rest his troops and to recuperate himself while he directed orders for the many other wars across his empire.
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Edward retreats from Medina, leaving another commander to continue the siege.
The situation across the empire was severe indeed; in spite of the victory at Venice, the Italian front was still precarious, any success by the repeated Sicilian sieges of Ancona threatening to undo all the English gains, while the Venetians were reduced in strength but certainly not eliminated as a threat, and kept from counterattacking Venice only by constant skirmishing with the Hungarians. Far to the north, meanwhile, the English Crusader force in Lithuania had run into trouble after taking Vilnius, struggling to hold the lands they had taken from Lithuanian counterattacks and constant unrest in the local populace, while a devious Polish attack took Palanga and threatened to cut off the English expedition.
And closer to Edward himself, things were no better. Although the Fatimids were all but defeated, the siege of Medina still took up most of his resources, and at the same time the Byzantines decided they would make a bid for dominance in the eastern Mediterranean, besieging Iraklion on Crete and landing an army on Cyprus. To add to an already difficult situation, the Turkish fleet decided to lend their aid to the Byzantine attacks. Thus Edward found himself at war with fully seven different factions at once.
Edward thus set about the business of reducing the number of enemies he had to fight. Ordering new armies raised in Spain and Africa to fight the Sicilians, and in England and north Germany to sail for Lithuania, he made it a priority to inflict a defeat on the Byzantines and thus sue for peace on favourable terms.
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At Iraklion, the Byzantines assaulted, but found the garrison and the defenses more stubborn than they had anticipated; though the attack was fierce, it could not break the defenders in the gateway and the Byzantine force was scattered into the hills of Crete.
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Meanwhile at Nicosia, two larger forces clashed on the field; the Byzantine infantry fought bravely, but ultimately marching uphill into longbow fire had cost them too dearly, and they were crushed.
With the Byzantine invasions repelled, the English garrison at Rhodes took the offensive; making the short naval crossing to mainland Anatolia, they besieged and took Smyrna. This was the victory Edward needed to seek peace; and he sent his diplomats to speak to the Byzantine Emperor.
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At the following talks at Cannakale, both sides were eager to come to terms; the English were still militarily weaker locally, but the Byzantines had lost Constantinople and were embroilled in a long war with Hungary and Kiev; they desperately needed Smyrna back and could not afford to wait to retake it. Thus Edward agreed to peace in exchange for ceding the cities of Smyrna and Iraklion back to their previous rulers, needing them little and reasoning that a resurgent Byzantine Empire could act as a counterbalance to the dangerous Hungarians.
With peace agreed, the eastern Mediterranean was secure; the Turkish armies could do little to threaten Rhodes or Cyprus with the English fleet patrolling the seas and a Templar army invading their eastern provinces. Thus, Edward found himself free to plot the final capture of Medina and the demise of his bitterest enemies. His spirits were not even dampened when word reached him that the army he had left to man the siegeworks had been routed by the Fatimids and its leader killed; undeterred, he led his well-rested and re-equipped army south to besiege Medina once more.
This time the Fatimid ruler did not wait for him to come; perhaps weary of the long years of virtual imprisonment in the increasingly fetid fortress, he marched out to meet his nemesis in battle. In the hills just west of Medina, the armies met.
Edward, experienced strategist as he was, had positioned his army such that to reach him, the Fatimid force would have to pick their way up a rocky, uneven mountainside, all the while under constant fire from English cannons, trebuchets and longbows. The barrage decimated the Fatimid army, and the rough terrain left their formation in chaos; the resulting battle could only have one result. Although the Sultan made many brave charges, and inflicted grievous casualties among the longbowmen, he was finally cut down along with his heir, and his great army destroyed.
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An English cannonball rips through the Fatimid ranks.
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With the last of the Fatimid ruling family destroyed, the faction was effectively ended; a small band of loyalists still held out in Medina, but they were easily overwhelmed by the triumphant English army. At last, the Fatimids were gone, and Edward was undisputed ruler of Egypt and the Holy Land.
To cement his control over the region once and for all, Edward now turned his entire strength in the Middle East against his last remaining enemy in the region, the Turks. Army after army of his landed on the south coast of Anatolia, seizing Isparta and Adana before any defense could be mustered. The Turks proved a far weaker opponent than the tenacious Fatimids; exhausted by the long war against the Templars, the Turks proved unable to withstand the vast English force now rampaging through Anatolia, and Ankara, Iconium, Caesarea, Sinop and Trebizond fell in quick succession.
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The Turkish commander at Isparta braves a hail of arrows to charge to his doom against the English onslaught.
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English archers employ the same tactic at Adana as at Isparta, taking an elevated position from which to butcher the Turkish horse archers with arrow fire.
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An English knight, eager for glory, charges to engage the Turkish sultan in personal combat at Ankara.
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The Turkish defenses in Anatolia collapse; soon they are left with only the citadel at Tbilisi and a single city in Iran. Leaving the Iranian remnant for the Templars, Edward begins the long trek from Trebizond to take Tbilisi.
On the Italian front, the war had become one of attrition. Venice had been taken, and the Sicilians defeated at sea and their ports put under siege, crippling their economy. However, the English land forces could not find a way to easy victory over the mighty Sicilian armies in the Marche of Ancona. The English forces could find no effective way to counter the massed Sicilian Norman Knights and crossbows, and although every assault on Ancona was repelled and every Sicilian army which attempted to penetrate further north defeated, it was often at the cost of equal if not greater casualties among the English ranks. However, the English had a key advantage in such a contest of attrition: While the English could afford to replace their losses, the Sicilian economy was stifled by the blockade, and with all their resources going into supporting their vast force, no more troops could be recruited; every army lost was an army which would not be replaced. Meanwhile, the English could use their naval supremacy and stranglehold on the Sicilian economy to gain another advantage; with the Sicilian forces in Italy and powerless to help, the English army in Africa took the Sicilian possessions of Tunis and Tripoli.
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Another Sicilian attempt to take Ancona fails dismally.
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English cannons bombard a Sicilian army in a costly battle for both sides.
With the Sicilian army slowly being ground down in the Marche, the English once again used their fleet to put into action a plan to end the war. The victorious army in North Africa was ferried across the Mediterranean to besiege the Sicilian king at Syracuse; meanwhile a fresh army from Spain under the English Prince Edward landed at Naples and besieged the Sicilian crown prince.
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The Sicilians could not afford the loss of their two remaining cities along with the entire royal family; rallying all the forces they could muster they met the English in the field to break the sieges; however, despite the heavy losses they inflicted, the Sicilian armies still had no means to break an English longbow line; both the King and the Crown Prince were killed in battle, triggering a succession crisis and effectively destroying the Sicilian kingdom.
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At Syracuse, the Sicilian king watches his army wither under the English barrage.
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The Sicilian Kingdom descends into anarchy.
The English plan had worked even better than hoped; the Sicilian kingdom disintegrating, the English were free to take Bari and Palermo and mop up the remaining Sicilian forces at leisure. There was only one negative; the English crown prince had been killed in battle at Naples. However, King Edward soon named a new heir, the hero of the Seventh Crusade, now Prince Miles, in Lithuania. On the Italian front, the death only spurred the surviving generals on to greater efforts, hoping to be named steward of the new Italian provinces.
To this end, with the Sicilian threat gone, the mighty armies in Italy sailed across the Adriatic to eliminate the last of the Venetians once and for all. The assault on Ragusa was long and bloody, but as usual the English tactic of standing off with artillery and archers to deplete the defenders before commiting men to a costly assault on the breach paid off, and the fortress fell. After this all that remained was an expedition deep into the Balkans to take the last city of Belgrade. At last, the Venetians were gone, and the English were undisputed rulers of Italy.
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The English general hardens his mens' resolve for the assault on Ragusa.
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The Venetian defenders are once again decimated by English mangonel fire.
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Deciding to preserve the lives of his men, the English general instead brings up the cannons to finish the last defenders in the center.
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The Venetian last stand in the center of Belgrade.
The English now no longer had any enemies in the region; apart from a quick expedition to "restore order" in Vienna after a revolt (and thus quietly sneak Vienna from the Hungarians while they were distracted against the Byzantines) the English armies in Italy were now free to rest and recuperate in the cities they had taken.
While Venice was under siege, and while King Edward had been closing in on Medina, a great war was raging far to the north in the forests of Lithuania. At that time the English position was in danger of being overrun, with the English armies struggling to hold the settlements they had taken, the Lithuanian forces regrouping to drive them back into the Baltic, and a great Polish army attacking from the other direction to cut the English off from retreat. However, the English did have complete naval control of the Baltic, leaving them able to ferry in more troops as needed from Denmark and England. It was these troops who managed to stabilise the situation, among them many advanced Retinue Longbows, English Knights, Demi-Lancers and foot knights from the newly constructed citadels at Hamburg and Nottingham. These new troops, coupled with the Lithuanian over reliance on heavy infantry instead of more balanced forces, gradually turned the tide; in the first landing, Palanga was retaken from the Poles, and a powerful garrison left behind to prevent the fortress falling again.
Next a force landed at Reval, took that city, and marched on the fortress of Pskov. The English were finding the Lithuanian forces, while large, could be dealt with relatively easily; with few archers or cavalry, the many swordsmen or axeman could be dealt with by cavalry charges with ease, while the spearmen were easy targets for the English archers. By far the greater demand on manpower was the large garrisons needed by every city to quell the rebellious pagan population.
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The Lithuanian massed infantry proved highly vulnerable to English combined arms, allowing for crushing victories.
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An illustration of just how hard a task the Lithuanian infantry faed to advance against the English longbows.
With Pskov taken, and the longer-held English lands starting to be calmed, the expedition could mount an attack southward, to the last Lithuanian cities of Hrodna and Minsk. With the fall of these cities, Lithuania was defeated, and England faced only one more enemy in the north.
However, the Poles would prove formidable enemy than the Lithuanians. For one thing, their army was immense, having been constantly built up for years with no wars to deplete it. However, more importantly, the Poles were not only Catholic but directly allied to the Pope. This meant that the Poles could attack more or less constantly without sanction, but after retaking Palanga King Edward was warned in no uncertain terms that if he made further attacks against Poland he would face excommunication. Rightly fearing such a fate, Edward forbade any more attacks against the Poles for the time being, and ordered his planned landing in Prussia to turn northwards to attack another target. Meanwhile, his armies in Lithuania would gradually wear down the Poles on the defensive.
Instead, the planned attack force moved to intervene in Norway. For years England's Norwegian allies had been at war with the Danes, at first successfully, but in recent years the tide had turned and the Norwegians had been driven steadily back. At last Oslo had fallen, and only the fortress at Bergen remained. Seeing that the Norwegian king no longer had the means to protect his own people, Edward ordered an army to land at Bergen and take control in a quick campaign, killing the Norwegian royalty, but saving the people from butchery at the hands of the savage Danes.
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The brief Norwegian campaign.
In Lithuania, however, the onslaught was fierce and unrelenting. Polish army after Polish army laid siege to the fortress of Palanga and the cities of Hrodna and Minsk. Time and again they were driven off with great slaughter, but always more armies were sent to take their place, so that the garrisons could not reinforce between attacks.
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Destroyed Polish siege towers before the walls of Minsk.
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Polish attackers once more strive to take the walls of Hrodna.
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The last and greatest Polish attack against Hrodna.
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English trebuchets and mangonels inflict a heavy toll on attacking troops waiting to breach the gate.
However, as the defenders fought off yet another furious Polish attack, Prince Miles began to notice that the Polish armies, while each being larger than the one before it, were becoming of steadily worse quality. The early armies had been truly dangerous, with many hardened Crusader troops, Polish Nobles and swordsmen. However, the later armies consisted mainly of massed spear militia and light cavalry, troops ill suited to a siege. Miles correctly assessed that this was a sign that the Polish king was becoming desperate, as he was running out of both troops and money.
With the Poles having fallen out of Papal favour somewhat, and more importantly with the money now in place to buy the Pope's forgiveness for any transgressions, King Edward gave the word for Prince Miles to launch his counterattack. Two armies marched from Palanga and Minsk aiming to take the fortresses of Thorn and Halych, cutting Poland off from the sea and depriving them of the ability to train additional troops to repel the invasion. Behind them followed the long-prepared reserves from Vilnius and Pskov, led by Prince Miles himself, while the army which had occupied Norway landed on the Baltic coast to threaten Poland from the north.
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The English counterattack on Poland.
The invasion made quick progress; the Polish king had clearly thrown almost all his forces into the attack on Lithuania and had not prepared any significant reserves, while the long years on the defensive in southern Lithuania had given Miles time to prepare a vast force in the north. Thorn and Halych fell quickly, followed by the cities of Wroclaw and Plock, leaving only the capital at Krakow remaining to the Polish king. He had rallied here along with all that remained of his nobles, but they were not enough to repel the coming siege; although their javelins took a heavy toll against the English infantry, they were too few to prevail once the English spearmen closed in.
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The first English troops enter the breach in the walls of Krakow.
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The nimble Polish nobles are bogged down in close-quarters fighting with densely packed spearmen.
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The last Polish horseman is brought down by a charge of German mercenaries.
After years of war, the exhausted Polish kingdom had collapsed within a few turns under the weight of the English attack. King Edward had eliminated the last remaining threat to his rule; of the seven factions who had threatened his realm during the first years of his reign, only two remained: The Byzantines, who had agreed to peace after only a short war, and the Turks, who with the fall of Tbilisi would be reduced to a single city sandwiched between the Templars and the Mongols.
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Europe just after the conquest of Poland.
Indeed, the kingdom would have been at peace, were it not for a new turn of events in Scandinavia: Incensed at having been denied Bergen by the English annexation of Norway, the Danes had long been planning to take revenge and make a bid for control of all Scandinavia. Finally, they sent a powerful army to besiege Roskilde. Although the defenses of Roskilde were strong, the large garrison was nonetheless composed mainly of spear militia, while the Danes had brought an army of swordstaff militia, dismounted Huscarls and Feudal Knights. Though Danish losses were heavy, the attackers broke the gate, the garrison were slaughtered to the last man, and the city sacked.
Furious that a city which had been in English hands for so long should fall into the hands of the enemy, Edward ordered an immediate counterattack to liberate Roskilde. At first it was heavy going: Roskilde was retaken by the English under Henry Lovell at considerable cost, but then immediately came under siege once more by an even more powerful Danish army. However, this military setback proved to be a political stroke of good fortune: Disgusted by the Danes' unprovoked attack on the English, and at their lack of mercy shown to the population during the sack of Roskilde, the Pope excommunicated the Danish king for warring against his fellow Catholics.
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Danish knights charge the English attackers during the liberation of Roskilde.
This gave King Edward the pretext he needed to rid the north of the threat of Denmark for good, and unify Scandinavia under his rule; he thus ordered an all-out attack on Danish holdings by his armies in north Germany, Poland and Lithuania. The Danes had deployed most of their troops in the west, to attack Roskilde and to threaten Eikundarsund (though the army sent to besiege the latter was deterred by the large garrison and instead settled for raiding the countryside), and were thus unprepared for the series of amphibious landings throughout the Baltic. Visby on the island of Gotland was first to fall; not a great city, but a key strategic holding due to its silver mines. The army which had occupied Visby then continued to the mainland, besieging and taking Nykoeping. Meanwhile the garrison of Roskilde sallied; the battle before the walls was long and tense, the Danes having brought a a great many feudal knights which the English longbows without their stakes would be vulnerable against. However, the English edge in artillery, forged in the great cannon foundry at Arhus, proved decisive; the Danish general was cut down at long range by a cannonball, and the Danish ranks were thinned and demoralised by the cannon and mortar fire. Thus when the feared Danish charge came, the men had little stomach for a long fight after the death of their general and the demoralising barrage. Although many English troops fell in the charge, it proved too much for the Danish discipline; as Lovell's cavalry threatened to flank them, they fled in dismay.
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With Roskilde once more safe, and two major Danish armies destroyed, Henry Lovell took the fight to the mainland, landing at Lund and taking the city. At the same time, an English force landed in Finland and took the castle of Turku. Finally, Edward Barlow landed at Kalmar leading his army fresh from the conquest of Poland; drawing the powerful Danish garrison into a field battle and destroying them utterly.
It had been a disastrous year for the Danes; half their empire, and all their economic centers, had been taken in a single season of campaigning. What was left of their kingdom was split into three; Oslo and Skara in southwest Sweden, Uppsala in the far northeast, and isolated Stettin on the European mainland.
Meanwhile, Prince Miles, trusting his lieutenants to take care of the Danes, had been giving thought to the situation in central Europe. The English rulers had long been concerned by the power of the Hungarians, who had been locked in a long war with the Byzantines which would have left them immensely strong had they been victorious. In recent years the Byzantines had been resurgent, retaking Constantinople, Thessalonika and Greece. However with the elimination of the threat of the Venetians the Hungarians had rallied; after a bitter struggle, they finally stopped the Byzantine counterattack at Skopje, a fortress whose loss would have seen Hungary effectively defeated. Although it had taken them committing their entire army, leaving their northwestern provinces all but defenseless, they had steadily regained ground, retaking Bucharest and Thessalonika.
Edward and Miles were concerned by the Hungarian resurgence, regarding the Byzantines as significantly less of a threat, and preferring to see Constantinople an isolated city-state than capital of a vast empire. They also were aware that Hungary was now the only barrier preventing them from linking the isolated northern parts of the empire in Poland and Lithuania with the Italian territories. They thus ordered the invasion of Hungary, both to remove a dangerous rival and to complete their hegemony over eastern Europe.
The English attack was designed to overwhelm the defenses before the Hungarian army busy battling the Byzantines at Sofia could come to the rescue. In the end, Hungary was entirely overrun within two years; in the first attacks, isolated Prague was taken by the garrison of Wroclaw, while an English force from Vienna took the largest Hungarian city of Buda. In the Balkans, the fortress of Skopje also fell to an army from Belgrade, cutting the Hungarian army off from its base of operations, while Prince Miles himself captured the fortress of Satu Mare in the Carpatian mountains.
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English Crusader swordsmen bring the fight to the Hungarian crossbowmen in the streets of Prague.
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At Satu Mare, Prince Miles' artillery relentlessly batters at the second curtain wall, the first having already been overrun.
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After a single turn of attacks, Hungary is fragmented and left with only three isolated provinces.
With key Hungarian settlements taken on every front, and with ever more English armies flooding up from Italy, the completion of the conquest would not take long. Prince Miles continued south to besiege and capture the fortress of Bran; with Bucharest having fallen to the Kievan Rus, this meant the Hungarian eastern marches had been completely annexed. Meanwhile Thessalonika fell to the army continuing its march from Skopje, meaning that for the first time English lands stretched uninterrupted from the Baltic to the Aegean. The Hungarian king made his last stand at the fortress of Szekesferhervar, with a vast army of dismounted feudal knights, pavise spearmen, and the dreaded Templar Knights; the siege would be by far the hardest battle of the campaign.
The siege opened, after the cannons had breached the outer wall and the English mortars had shaken the defenders, with a savage fight for the breach. The English infantry poured in and set about the defenders, trying at first to focus on the enemy spearmen and leave the swordsmen for the cavalry, but soon descending into a free-for-all. The cavalry, meanwhile, forced their way through the Hungarian infantry into the empty streets beyond; although this was costly and lost them many horsemen, it paid off as the survivors wheeled about and charged into the rear of the Hungarian defenders. Beset by swordsmen in front and cavalry behind, the Hungarian infantry were hard pressed and finally broke, leaving the outer wall to the English.
However the siege was far from over; the defenders at the first wall, though they had fought heroically and sold their lives dearly, proved to be less than half of the Hungarian garrison. The remainder had withdrawn to defend the inner wall, no less formidable an obstacle than the outer, only now the English had tired men and not many cannonballs remaining.
The cannons set carefully about reducing the second line of defenses; breaking only the gate to access the inner courtyard, the guns proceeded to knock out the ballista towers and gatehouse guarding the gateway, which otherwise would exact an appalling toll on any English attack. The last cannonballs were used sparingly; drawing the guns right up to the open gate itself, the gunners discharged the last rounds straight into the thick of the Hungarian Templar knights, before withdrawing from the field.
This was the tactic repeated by the English to gradually wear down the formidable Hungarian force within the inner wall; first the English longbows would advance to the gateway, and fire a volley at point-blank range into the nearest Hungarian formation; then they would fall back, and the Hungarians counterattacking through the gate would be surrounded on three sides and worn down by the English infantry. The battle at the gate was long and extremely bloody, but at last the huge Hungarian force was whittled down to nothing.
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English longbows fire through the gates to draw out the defenders at Szekesferhervar...
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... and the German mercenaries equipped with armour-piercing maces close to cut down the counterattacking Hungarian spearmen.
The last Hungarian stronghold had fallen, leaving England as sole ruler over eastern Europe. King Edward, latest in a line of great English kings, was perhaps now greatest of them all; having inherited a kingdom that was already great, but disjointed, he had now forged it into a vast unified empire, stretching from Lisbon to Vilnius, from Inverness to the Aegean, not to mention a vast kingdom in Africa, the Levant and Anatolia conquered by his own hand.
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The current extent of the English empire.
The question, of course, is what to do next. The current province count is 116 in 140 turns; the lesser target of matching my vanilla haul of 98 in 199 turns was achieved with the fall of Trebizond. With 59 turns remaining, and only 84 provinces left to capture, the harder goal of matching the geographical extent of my vanilla empire is starting to look achievable. The only question is where to attack first. The Danes are inevitably headed for elimination of course, but beyond that there are three or four overall strategies I like the sound of:
1) The Pope's Right Hand: Not counting the Danes, there are now only two other Catholic factions left, the HRE and the Templars. Both are allies, and thus pose no threat, but it would be possible to target them next to unite the entire Catholic world under a single ruler, allowing all Catholics to continue the fight against the heathen without fear of betrayal by fellow Catholic lords. Practically speaking, taking Syria and Armenia from the Templars would make for a great base of operations for further attacks north or east, and swallowing up the HRE would bring all of Europe as far east as the Balkans under my sway, allowing my armies to march straight through the center rather than cutting around through Italy or the Baltic.
2) The One True Church: A variation on the religious theme of 1), I could instead focus on eliminating the remaining Orthodox factions, namely the Byzantines, Kievan Rus, and Republic of Novgorod, leaving the Catholic church as the sole undisputed Christian faith. Practically, taking the Byzantine lands around the Aegean would have great strategic value, while taking out Kiev and Novgorod would move me several hundred miles further east and leave Iran as the last significant portion of the map without an English presence.
3) Saviour of Baghdad: Focus everything on a concerted attack into Iran to deal with the threat of the Mongols. Likely would start with a campaign in the north from Trebizond to consolidate the eastern Caucausus, and another in the south to march across the Arabian desert and take the Khwarezmid Gulf coast and the fortress of Ahvaz; alternatively an attack on the Templars to gain a more secure footing in Mesopotamia to attack from. Either way, the next step would be an all out attack against the Mongols. Not truly necessary as the Mongols seem to have run out of steam after the initial rampage, but would lead to quite an interestingly shaped map for the end game.
Alternatively some combination of the three is quite possible.
I am also considering killing off the current faction heir, in the hope that he will be replaced by someone with a more royal-sounding name. "King Miles" just doesn't seem to me to have the right ring to it.
Incidentally, nice stuff glyphz, I hope to hear more about the rise of Portugal. I feel I must also salute your siege skills, very impressed that you can manage such low casualties, my sieges are almost always bloodbaths for both sides. And how on Earth did a unit of peasant crossbows manage to rack up 154 kills in a single battle?! I think that's about as many kills as I've managed in total with peasant crossbows in my entire time playing M2TW!
Thanks for the kind words, PBI:bow:.Quote:
Originally Posted by PBI
Generating low casualties in sieges tend not to be pure battle skills in my part, but taking advantage of the AI. One of my objectives is to control where the fighting happens, or simply fighting in my terms. Thus, avoiding fights on or close to enemy walls is a must. Spies and siege equipment make this happen. Cavalry are the first inside, and their targets are missile troops and siege units. Infantry tend to huddle in the center plaza afterwards, and allow you to shoot them down with missiles :shrug:(Unlike in RTW, where shot at enemy units will chase you). Cavalry, however, will charge once they take casualties from missiles, so spears in schiltrom or countercharge w/ cav, while missiles retreat, are a must.
If the enemy is stubbornly waiting at the walls, I send a sacrificial cav uniy, run straight to the central plaza. That should make the AI pull back their units to the square. Then, you just lure the missiles out first, then the cav, and finally your missiles will take care of the infantry. There are still some siege battles that end in large casualties in my part. In such case, recognizing them, then throwing vast number of troops and auto-resolving does the trick
Concerning your campaign, always a good read BTW, I'd suggest taking out the HRE, your current westernmost front. That way you can concentrate your armies in the east. If your settlements complete surround theirs, their only expansion is through you. Better take the battle in their lands. Besides, despite being catholic, the money generated from their towns are misused. In your hands, they can be used more efficiently, such as dealing with the infidels.
I'd love to play SS6.1 and Broken Crescent, but I decided not to get Kingdoms...
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partII (delayed as to load past save files and take pictures)
1093-96: News:Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Anxiety begins to cloud Prince Afonso's heart. He thought that with the the Moors completely repelled in Iberia, the next step would be their downfall in Africa. Instead, not long after his marriage to Constance, the prince found himself outside Toledo, the Spanish capital, his army merged with his father's, from Corduba. He thought his father intends to unite Iberia under the banner of Christianity. Rather, King Henrique plans to unite Iberia under his.
There was a storm outside, but the heavy downpour and thunder cannot mask the king's displeasure. The spies failed to open the castle gates, and he had to wait until the siege engines were built. The pope will definitely not be pleased, when word about his attack reaches his Holiness' ears.
Meanwhile, Joao was besieging the city of Leon, where only the Spanish king reside. He has ballistae with him, but waited for the news of the fall of Toledo.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
1098: The pope sent a warning to King Henrique to cease hostilities with the Kingdom of Leon-Castille.
"Does it say anything about excommunication?"
"Er... no, nothing. Only a warn--"
"Ha! Then we proceed! NOW!!!"
The enemy decided not to hold the walls, and the battering ram smashed the gates unhindered. The peasant archers were lured out and dealt with by father and son. In the plaza, the arrows rained upon the Duke of Toledo. As he and his men turned a corner, they were met by 220 spears. As men perished, King Henrique watched, laughing...
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Once word about Toledo reached Joao' ears, he proceeded with the siege of Leon, eager to cross swords with the enemy King.
The Kingdom of Leon-Castille was no more...Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
1099-1104:"No one can stand against me, not when I have the Vatican's blessings!"Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The princess Maria arrived in Rome, after audiences with the Genoese, Venetians, and the HRE. She was able to establish trade rights with the Papal States, but not an alliance. If only she arrived before his father conquered Leon-Castille...Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
1105: Captain Leonardo Romao was promoted into the royal family. Portugal needs capable men to lead its armies.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Joao found himself outside the battered walls of Pamplona, via a fleet from Leon. He was impressed to hear (from farmers) that the castle had survived attacks from the French and the Aragonese, under the leadership of an unnamed general. Whispering a silent prayer, he readied himself and his men to face the brave defenders of Pamplona.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
1107-10King Henrique was besieging Valencia, when he was joined by Leonardo Romao. Comparing the garrisons within, the King decided to abandon the siege and set sail to PalmaSpoiler Alert, click show to read:
1111Assassins have been active in the shadows since the creation of an inn in Corduba. This year, they caught their biggest catch yet.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Leonardo was given command of the army assaulting Palma. King Henrique beckoned one of the spies to approach...Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The spy reported back to the King.
"I see. So he passed."
"Whatever do you mean" the king's chief bodyguard asked.
"He'd be a fool to lose, not with the size of the army I allowed him to command. But! If he did not fought himself, I'd leave him here to rot."
end part II
partIII (I'd add more to the last post, but there's an image limit per post... I'm gonna need to pick up the pace~:sweatdrop:)
1113: The Kingdom of Aragon was a growing one......it's just too bad that they stood in the way of King Henrique's united Iberia.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Adios, Aragon...
Portuguese everywhere celebrated, for their kingdom was the sole legitimate power in Iberia. The man responsible, however, continued to quench his thirst for battle...Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
1114-20 News:King Henrique wanted an island resort that Christmas. Leonardo was picked Santa that year...Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
1122:The Pope sent emissaries to the members of his fan club...Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
1125: Moorish Countdown(Chapter 1)Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
IntermissionIt has been many years since Princess Maria visited Rome. There, she grew a secret liking for men of the cloth. Since then, she journeyed northeast meeting foreign dignitaries, establishing connections with her homeland. She wasn't particularly lonely as she has a priest as a member of her cortege, which she was very fond of. This secret connection turned out well at first but unfortunately, the priest turned out to be an alcoholic and a real creep.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Once she finally accepted that things weren't working out the way she wanted, she set out. She failed to lure the fabled Istvan at Satu Mare, at first, but that did not deter her. She revised her battle plan, and it bore fruit. The renown(?) Polish general Boleslaw Piast fell for her.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Narrator: Very nice moves :applause:
Maria: Why thank you!
Boleslaw: :inquisitive:
Maria: No, nothing...
B: Shall we ride back to Iberia, so I can finally meet your father?
M: If you want to meet my father, it would be better that we move south-east, to the Holy Lands. Dashing honeymoon destination, BTW. You might want to hire some locals as insurance along the way, too
B:...
M: You might get a chance to decimate infidels along the way :yes:
B: Smash infidels?! Brilliant!
M: (sigh) Medieval men...Welcome, Boleslaw!Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
1126:Moorish Countdown (ChapterII, part 1)Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Twas finally Prince Afonso's turn. He besieges the last Moorish settlement at Marrakesh. How long he waited for this day. To cross swords again with the Moorish royalty, who he considers as his most worthy rival. He would not be able to face the Moorish Sultan, as last anyone heard, by any Portuguese spy or Moor, he ventured to the famed riches of Timbuktu......without a map.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
[Sultan]: "Where the #@%$ are we?"
...
[Sultan]: "Useless!!! The whole lot of you! :furious3:
[Sultan]: Someone better know where NORTH is!!!"
...
...
"Great Sultan!"
[Sultan]: "Hmmm?"
"Our imam! Our imam is a known cartographer and brilliant astronomer!"
[Sultan]: "Bring him here then!!!"
...
[Sultan]: :stare:
...
[Sultan]: :brood:
:ahh:
"But he was with us when we set of-"
[Sultan]::bomb:
"He's... HE'S GONNA GO NUTS!!! RUN! QUICK EVERYONE, HIDE!!!
*stares at desert*
"BUT WHERE???!!!"
:skull:
to be continued in Part IV (image limit was reached... I guess smilies count?)