This is what I have written yesterday:

The Battle of the Gold Mine:

Prologue:

Lazlo slowly gained his perception. Still only half awake, he could hear the pleasant melody of the harp. He recognized immediately the piece – it was an ecclesiastical polyphony melody by Guido of Arezzo. Ah, Guido, Lazlo thought, you have given so much to music. Your greatness shall forever live in your melodies and the brilliant system of staff-notation which brought such order and clearness into the teaching of music. The lonely tunes of the harp were aided by the kaval. Its soft, high-pitch tunes told a story of harmony, of love, of balance. Then in came the deep voice of the crumhorn. Its tunes seemed to Lazlo to be like a drill sergeant in a new regiment; it ordered the kaval and the harp, counterbalanced their highs with its bass, and above all it seemed to personally tell Lazlo, “Get up, your highness, get up.” Lazlo obliged, waving to the musicians that he is up and they can leave.

His cook had already placed the breakfast tray on his desk. He wolfed the thin slices of meat and the vegetables, drained the large glass of milk and used the small wooden spoon to finish the porridge of wheat and barley. Once finished, he turned to the small container his secretary had brought in. He recognized the tiny seal on it – it came from the Pope, brought by his speedy pigeon post service.

Lazlo hesitated opening the container. He suspected it will be a damnation for his attack on Sicily. He wondered whether the Pope had enough courage to excommunicate him or whether the Pope really gave a damn for the Sicilians with whom he had waged war for so many years before.

He reached and broke the seal, retrieving a tiny parchment. “My dear child,” it read, “I am disappointed you would attack Sicily without my consent. However, I am willing to give you my pardon if you show me you are a true son of god. The Orthodoxy is spreading its influence. It must be stopped.”

Lazlo reread the parchment, looking for any secret meaning. He couldn’t believe his luck….


I stopped writing for reasons you will read below. The battle itself was rather fun for me. I had the hill, I kept my line in order, and I raided the flanks of the enemy with my two kataphraktoi units. If anybody is curious, I can send you the replay. For the battle, I had already prepared an outline on what to write, and it seemed a funny story could come out of it. My plan was to write it from the perspective of the Hungarian general, who got a bad case of diarrhea that morning and had to frequently visit the bushes from where he observed much of the battle.

Why stop the writing? I played quite a few years this morning. Frankly, this particular game no longer presents any challange. There wasn't much to do and the AI presented little resistance. It didn't attack me, but even if it did, the outcome would have certainly been in my favor due to the highest armor upgrade, excellent generals and much better quality troops. Just a single unit, Paranoi cavalry, is enough to route 5 units of peasants. I need to find a way to make the AI more formidable. Currently I am considering playing for the Hungarians, with the restrictions I had for this game but with the modification:

1. Allow no Crusades to pass -- this will give me some fun battles with Crusader armies.

I will document the progress and if the game turns out to be fun, I will create a story of it.

Can anybody suggest ways to make the game a bit more challanging? I don't have VI, just the original MTW.

There were a few new things I did discover in my Byzantine campaign. First, my first emperor lived to be 70 -- by far beating any other ruler I have had in a game. Second, one of the Crusades, that I allowed to enter, skinned each province it went through between 9,000ft - $10,000ft. By the time it left my borders, it had taken close to 40,000ft. I wished there was a way to attack the crusade once it was allwed to enter. Alas.