Pics & History of your Empire

[bretwalda]

I've also just noticed that my heirs are both on an island with no navy next to it with the Eggys attacking my fleets. Hopefully my king won't die as my empire will spiral into rebellion if the new king gets trapped!

I don't think that your heir (new king, long live the king!) will be trapped on the island, instead miraclously (sp?) teleported to your most advanced province. Now if that one is cut off from the rest of your empire - then you are f.... well, in trouble because your new kings influence will start out low anyway and THAT can lead to civil war.

[Diehard_TH]

All went fairly well, my king was fine and the Cypriots were just about ok until i beat the Byz fleets and reinforced them. I then concentrated my assault on the Eggys resulting in the following position

Poland 1370

I lost cyprus to an Eggy rebellion but managed to cause serious damage to the Eggy holdings although not having much in the way of cash for troops i had fun keeping the loyalty of the holy land above 100%.

One slight incident was yet another re-emergance of the GH in Armenia as i was assaulting a castle. Just under 5000 troops appeared and after mustering all the tneighbouring troops i could the battle commenced.

Admittedly my 7* general helped but i finally got a 30 to 1 kill ratio! The pic below says it all

I didn't need any reinforcements and as you can see my 1 unit of archers didn't even run out of ammo.

My cav was awesome, my losses should have been less but a unit of Steppe cav got caught some GH Kharawsim(?) cav when i wasn't looking. I just kept charging in and retreating. The main problem i had was my cav got totally exhausted and i withdrew a couple of units as they were just knackered.

Great fight and the GH are now hopefully not to return.

A few years later the Eggy Sultan attacked a weakened Syria and with about 40:60 troops concentrated all my forces on him and his heir resulting in the end of the Eggys.

Poland 1378

The Eggys owned huge tracts of land and these are now rebels. My trade shot up and i was receiving nearky 30k a year! I didn't know what to do with all the cash so rather than sit back i transported a few nice generals over to Europe and decided to crush the French.

After a few nice attacks the French had a civil war, so more rebel provinces but i couldn't get their king and he ran away to Navarre. The pic below is just after i have bribed some rebels in Spain, to open up another front, and after attacking the Pope. He excommed me so had to die.

Poland 1383

The only slight hitch to all this is the Hungarians decided, out of the blue, to attack my navy. My assault force attacking the Pope is now trapped with no retreat and my trade income is next to nothing and i'm losing 1500 florins a year. (oh yeah the rebels seem to be enemy for some reason and i can't withdraw from them to reset their status!).

So i lauched attacks against 4 Hungarian provinces and tried assault castles in Wessex and Papal States. The results are below

Papal States - No Retreat

The Hungarians deceded to help the Pope which was a problem as i had no retreat and i'm outnumbered 7 to 1.

I battled hard but eventually my archers & catapult ran out of ammo and the cav were all totally exhausted. Still they did pretty well

Lord Jagged's last stand.

The rest was interesting, the Hungarians attacked Poland and Lorraine, unfortunately i had a 0* general in Lorraine and lots of peasants so that fell but the rest held out and i won the provinces i attacked. I bribed Toulouse as well so it all looks set-up for very bloody last 50 years or so!

Poland 1384

[NodachiSam]

Very nice campaign Diehard! Impressive defense of Armenia; think of the propoganda opportunities :P!

[DukeofSerbia]

Game: XL mod 2.0+2.1 for MTW VI 2.01 + my modifications

Starting era: Early XL (1087)

Difficulty: Medium

Victory type: Glorious achievement

Faction: Byzantines

Unit size: default


Beginning story:

This is the map of Europe, Near East and North Africa in 1087.




Strategy:
The main enemy is Seljuk Turks in the start who are located in Minor Asia and Near East. Possible enemies are Serbs, Papal state, Sicily and Hungary and later Cumans, Kievan Rus’, Fatimids (Egypt) and Armenians.
Possible allies are orthodox Armenians (Kingdom of Lesser Armenia), Serbs, Kievan Rus’ and Novgorod.

Tactics:
Backbone of imperial armies are Byzantine infantry and Trebizond archers led by Kataphraktoi general if is possible or some other cavalry. Horse archers are also used, but later replaced with Byzantine cavalry. I use mercenaries and most of them are Steppe heavy cavalry and Italian infantry (only until 1205).
As Emperor of Roman Empire has discount on various agents, I later trained large number of assassins and few spies. And I have reason for that.


Main story:

1087 – 1110

In the first turn Armenian emissary came and offer alliance. I agreed. I used islands for only one purpose: building ships. Later I used them for recruiting troops. On start everything what I had I moved in Nicae.

On second turn Armenians attacked Seljuk Turks in Rum and conquer province. But Seljuk Turks retreated to castle so Armenians had to besiege them. After some four years Armenians lost Rum and Seljuk Turks went in counterattack. Then I came in action. I invaded Anatolia from Nicae and Seljuk Turks retreated without fight into Rum. Around 1100 I conquered Rum. By this time Serbs betrayed me and attacked from Serbia into Greece but they lost. Serbs also built barque and they invaded Naples, which I lost. Battle was very close. Meantime my Hungarian allies invaded Serbia (before that they conquered Wallachia and Moldavia) and the whole Serbian army retreated to Naples where they besieged my troops in Fort. This was the end for Serbs. I have loyalists’ rebellion first time since I play Medieval. Three Byzantine infantry and one unit of Trebizond archers, spearmen and peasants were enough for destruction of Serbian army and their king was killed in battle.




Next time: how Pope get married, England and France became empires and destruction of Seljuk Turks by Armenians, Fatimids and my Romanoi plus annoying Sicilian fleet.

[NodachiSam]

This sounds like it'll be good DoS :) I like to play Romanoi too so it shall be very interesting to see how you go about this. I hope you finish this campaign for us. :D

[DukeofSerbia]

@NodachiSam

Thanks. I will continue.

[DukeofSerbia]

1110-1140

In Western Europe situation by this time is boring. Nobody is in war with anybody. Castile-Leon destroyed Portugal who was in war with Almoravids and Aragon who was in war with HRE (for both were excommunicated) and later England attacked Almoravids together with Castile-Leon. Holy Roman Empire conquered Venice and Croatia from rebels. HRE became the strongest faction.
I offered my princess to Pope John XXI and he accepted.





In Eastern Europe Kievan Rus’ attacked Cumans and destroyed them. In Near East I was still in war against Seljuk Turks together with Armenians and Fatimids (we all were allies). I captured Armenia, Armenians captured Edessa and Antioch and Fatimids captured Arabia. This was enough for Seljuk Turks’ sultan and he lost everything in civil war except Tripoli. Soon, Armenians captured and executed Seljuk Turks’ sultan and they conquered everything in Near East plus they invaded Tunisia and Malta (both were in control of rebels).

By this time England destroyed Almoravids and conquered 2/3 of Iberian Peninsula plus Morocco. Around 1120 France, Denmark, Bohemia, Hungary and Genoa started war against HRE as it was strongest and largest faction (I was the richest). Denmark relatively easy captured Northern provinces (plus they destroyed Sweden who was ally of HRE), France was held in Lorraine and Burgundy, Bohemia conquered one or two provinces, Genoa was wiped out and Hungary unsuccessful attacked HRE in Croatia and Austria. The only allies of HRE were England and me.

As Seljuk Turks were destroyed and eastern boundaries became peaceful I attacked my former ally Hungary from Bulgaria into Wallachia. They retreated without fought in fort and I assaulted them. The same story was in Moldavia. HRE finished Hungarians around 1140 and conquered Serbia, Hungary and Carpathia and became my new neighbor.

Two things annoyed me in this period: papal bishops and Sicilian fleet. Pope every turn sent at least two bishops in Naples. Crete is my base for training assassins. In one year there were 8 papal and Sicilian bishops in Naples. Assassins couldn’t kill them all. Conversion of Naples was very, very slow… Btw. Pope still sent bishops. Even now in 1233 Naples have still 16-20% of Roman Catholics as there is always at least one papal bishop and my bishop (not priest) is there and like he do nothing.
Just to mention that until 1140 there were no crusades.


Next time: war with Sicily, Fatimids and Kieavan Rus' plus England became huge; Armenia became great power and destruction of France.