Pics and History of your Empire

[PBI]

OK, so here are a few pics from my first Stainless Steel 6.1 campaign as Denmark, in the early era. It's only on Easy campaign/ Normal battles, as I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of difficulty (although easy on SS seems to be about the same as about Hard on vanilla, just not as unfair), hence why I've managed to conquer quite a large area; it's been quite fun though.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A unit of Huscarls battles with a rebel unit of Feudal Knights in a night battle in the north of Scandinavia. Not a particularly exciting battle, I just thought it was a nice picture.

My opening moves were to launch a campaign north into Sweden lead by my faction leader, quickly mopping up the rebel settlements, and snatching Oslo from under the noses of the Norwegians. I also took the castle of Hamburg, which would be my bulwark against the south for the next hundred years. My king then took the island of Gotland, and began to campaign on the east shore of the Baltic, taking Finland and Estonia before Novgorod could reach them.

If was some 20 turns before I first came to blows with another faction; sacking income in SS is roughly a tenth of that in vanilla, so my early expansion did not result in the easy riches it usually would and I spent the next few years slowly building up my settlements. However, eventually my spy in Norway noticed that most of the Norwegian forces had left by sea to attack the rebel settlement of Groningen, leaving their homeland scantily defended. I was able to take both their settlements of Bergen and Eikundarsund in a quick campaign with my Oslo garrison, equipped with catapults.

Shortly afterwards, the Pope called a Crusade against the Fatimid capital of Cairo. I was in a relatively poor position to take advantage, with my distant position and my meagre forces scattered all around the Baltic. Thus by the time I could muster enough units in Hamburg to have the minimum for a Crusade, the other factions had a considerable headstart. However, the Crusades of the factions most likely to beat me to it (Venice and Hungary) both became snarled up trying to take the land route via the Bosphorus, whilst my own force raced South to the head of the Adriatic, amassing an almost full stack of Crusader troops on the way, and made the rest of the journey rapidly via mercenary ships. Upon arriving in Egypt, I had my forces literally burn their boats and easily overcame the small garrison of Alexandria (the main Saracen forces were occupied with the Fatimid expansions into the Levant).

Next was a brutal siege for Cairo itself. My Crusaders took the city, but sustained heavy casualties whilst doing so. However, more problematic was the fact that, without the free Crusader upkeep, my huge mercenary army would be a financial black hole. I quickly bought up the local Saracen mercenaries to replace my losses before my cash reserves vanished completely, and continued the campaign, both to press my advantage against the Fatimids and to deplete my expensive mercenaries. I proceeded to take the wooden castle of Damietta, defeat two large Fatimid armies returning from the East, and seize the castle of Gaza. However, more strong Fatimid armies lay beyond, including the large garrison of Jerusalem, and my position was precarious, with my captured settlements fomenting with rebellion and the uncaptured castle of Luxor posing a threat to my flanks; thus when the Fatimids asked for peace in order to focus upon repelling the Templars to their north, I agreed.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My Crusader swordsmen and Saracen Mercenaries slash their way across a bridge against the inferior Fatimid infantry.

My Crusader kingdom at the end of the first conflict with the Fatimids.

With my Middle Eastern expansion on hold for the time being, I focused instead on expansion in the north, with the Huscarls and Norse Swordsmen I had trained before the campaign and could no longer afford to have sit idle. So as not to anger the Pope, I decided to attack Orthodox Novgorod. The losses my forces took in the campaign, the extra income from the wealthy city of Novgorod I took, and the money saved by being able to disband many of my mercenaries in the Middle East, finally began to stabilise my economy.

This rapid expansion was followed by several years of peace, as I developed my cities. The Baltic sea trade began to flourish as many of my impoverished settlements finally grew large enough to build ports and mines, and the plentiful trade goods available in the Middle East brought a lucrative new income stream from my merchants. This lull was broken only after my economy had truly begun to thrive, and I was able to train enough of my own troops in Gaza to continue the campaign against the Fatimids. By now, I dominated the College of Cardinals thanks to my efforts to convert the Muslim lands I had taken as well as my Pagan and Orthodox holdings in the north, so I was able to request a Crusade against Jerusalem, allowing me to get a second stack of Crusaders to the Holy Land while my local forces seized Luxor to eliminate the threat to my flank.

With my more secure footing in the Middle East and my Crusader reinforcements I was able to quickly wrap up the remaining Fatimid lands; soon I was master of my own Crusader empire stretching from Mecca in the South to Damascus in the north and from Alexandria in the west to the banks of the the Euphrates in the east.

Following my pattern of alternating between campaigns in the Middle East and Europe, I next decided it was time to expand south into the Holy Roman Empire. The Reich was at the time embroiled with a long war with France, during the course of which both sides had been excommunicated; however, they had also had some success in taking the Venetian capital and with the extra income were slowly starting to gain the upper hand. Thus, once my forces were ready, I launched a third Crusade against the Imperial capital of Frankfurt.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Danish Huscarls battling Bohemian Hussites on the walls of Prague.

The Reich's forces in the north were weak, and I was able to quickly push deep into Germany, taking Cologne, Magdeburg, Frankfurt, Nuremburg and Salzburg. However, as I continued through the Alps, the resistance began to increase as the Imperial forces began to return from Italy and France. I took Innsbruck in a Heroic victory, and pushed through into Italy. Venice and Bologna fell easily thanks to my plentiful siege weapons, but the Emperor still possessed formidable forces in Ancona. My first attack on Ancona was repulsed in a savage battle, my king's army being sandwiched between two massive Imperial armies and destroyed, the king himself cut down in the battle. However, the Imperial forces were depleted to a single stack, which fortified itself in defense of the Emperor in Ancona itself.

I finally took Ancona with my replacement army, in an epic siege. My armour-piercing dismounted Huscarls barely managed to take the breach made by my trebuchet in a ferocious scrap to the death against Imperial swordsmen and Armoured Sergeants, before being relieved by my Norse Swordsmen and Dismounted Knights of Jerusalem. There followed a huge confrontation on the main road to the centre, with the Emperor himself entering the fray and doing bloody work against my swordsmen. The Imperial infantry greatly outnumbered my own, and were at only a slight disadvantage in quality, but my Norse soldiers' Shield Wall gave them an advantage in the vicious close combat, and my archers and crossbows were able to mount the wall just behind the melee and shower arrows and bolts down into the mass of enemy troops. However, the fight was close-fought, and many of my infantry units were reduced to a handful of men; the fight only swung decisively in my favour when I was able to bring up one of my catapults to just behind the battling swordsmen, and blast flaming boulders into the enemy mass at point-blank range; finally, as his men began to fall or flee around him, the enemy king was felled by a lowly spear militiaman, and the remnants of the Imperial infantry began to break towards the centre.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This image is shortly after the death of the Emperor, after which the ultimate success of the assault was no longer in doubt.

Late in the siege, my catapults goad the enemy knights into attacking my spear militia; my troops are positioned such that the knights will not be able to charge them.

The aftermath of the pivotal battle in the streets.

At last Ancona was mine, and the Holy Roman Empire was destroyed. By now my empire has reached the point of singularity after which victory is inevitable; I am making more money than I can spend, many of my settlements that started out as towns are reaching Large City size, and my best troop production buildings are starting to be built in Hamburg and Gaza.

I followed my conquest of the HRE by crushing the pagan state of Lithuania at the behest of the Pope; my stack of heavy infantry and siege weapons easily outmatching the light Lithuanian forces, as seen in this shot from late in the siege of Vilnius:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The conquest of Lithuania was completed a single turn before the emergence of the Teutonic Order; Their two stacks, finding no pagans in the area to attack, instead have descended on the Orthodox Kievan Rus and sacked their capital of Kiev. My own forces in Lithuania now march upon Kiev in order to take what I can of their lands before they are overrun by the Teutonic Order on one side and the Cuman Khanate on the other.

I have decided at long last to intervene in the protracted war between England and Scotland, landing in Kent and seizing London from the excommunicated English. My army is now carving a path through England, having seized Winchester and Exeter and laying siege to Nottingham.

Meanwhile, the Mongol horde has arrived and is laying waste to the lands of the Khwarezm Empire. Before long I may need to defend my Crusader kingdom from them.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The current state of my empire. Note the huge amount of money being made from merchant trade, having your capital in Denmark and flooding the Middle East with merchants really pays off.

Sorry for the rather wordy and long post, I guess it's actually a pretty typical campaign, but it is fun. I'm thinking maybe next I will try a campaign as the Mongols on the late campaign, for a nice easy romp of conquest and destruction.