Those dodgy Brits... we could have been friends

[Grond]

Last night, I was playing as HRE. The situation is thus: I have all my HRE possessions, Denmark and scandanavia, and just recently northern Italy after the Italians made a nuisance of themselves. Venice is this wonderful source of cash, and of course who can survive without Sweden and Flanders to spam money? I'm sort of minding my own business, not making war. Aragon survives in original form, England has all its original possessions, and I've gobled up the French except for Brittany, which is separated from me by the British. I also own Scotland and Toulouse.

To the East, Poland labors on, but they're poor and can build nothing; the Byzantines cover most of the land, and have a lot of shipping in the mediterranean, and they're fighting over the middle east with the dregs of Egypt (and their 9 star wonder-general Alaham the Munificent. They can't kill this guy, and he's probably 150 years old at this point).

Then the British decided to try to take Flanders.

To say I was miffed is to put it mildly. I had traded with them, treated them nice, smiled at diplomatic receptions, offered princesses for treaty, and even sent them a card on their birthday! And to think this was how they repaid me! They could have built ships and taken one of the half dozen rebel provinces. Show some ambition! Go after the rebels. Or save some money and just BUY the property, like I did, for pence on the florin when it all goes bankrupt, as it seems it does every year. Pommerania could be had for 12,000 florins, or the price of training two spears and a hobilar horse and transporting them there. But no, they want Flanders and the free 5300 fl. a year it generates.

I held on to it, barely: The epic battle cannot be described, because I autocalculated it. But I'm sure it was epic, just in such a way that you won't read even one of the twelve parts. I'll bet you're glad. I know I am. I quickly reinforced it with 1600 of my finest basic spearmen. Oh, sure, you say, those guys have been around forever, but there is this high deterent value when you're staring at 1600 guys with spears. It makes the horsey people nervous.

Then my war machine went to work. Posters went up: "King Wilhelm vants you!" with a scowly picture of King Wilhelm pointing at the reader. The HRE would not-- could not brooke this sort of insult. THE BRITISH MUST PAY! came the cry from my embittered peoples, stung by this awful insult to our national honor.

This didn't even address the problem which created the situation, which is that the British had no money because they bought tons of peasants and war buildings but didn't know how to trade. If only they would sell their teacups in Egypt, they could have lots of florins. I offered to send them Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," and even tutor them in how to create a Huge Cutthroat Trading Empire That Would Scare Even the Mongols, but noooooooooooooooooo. They were at WAR with me.

I created eight sixteen-stack armies, and poised them on the borders of the British "empire." King Wilhelm, 62 years of age and well respected, was in his war tent in Toulouse, leading 1600 men and prepared to jump off into the northwest. More huge stacks waited in Venice, ready to dispatch to Wales and Mercia via ship. A great army waited in Flanders and Isle de France, each one sitting at the border, picking their nails with their daggers and staring at the small shivering British forces. Then, like raindrops before a storm, a few inquisitions began. A general here, a general there, we had to insure they were all religiously pure. Huge armies on the borders, inquisitions of the best generals, what do YOU think is going to happen?

The year before Jump-off, I sent in twenty assasins to see if I could bump off any of the high star generals. Buying their generals was economically unsound as they were too expensive, so I pulled out all the assasin-bait Emissaries and sent them to all my allies, for the inevitable break when I did a mean thing.

And then... a peasant army from Toulouse crossed over into Aragon, to attack them. What was this? We didn't order that! Withdraw that army! Chagrined, the peasants came back, and didn't mention they'd been under secret orders. The Pope sent some gregorian chanters with a telegram: Don't beat up the Aragonese, or yousa gonna be toast.

All my allies immediately side with Aragon. The French, after three dozen years of being in a state of war and having only ONE province, continue to defy me. "We told du so." they say smugly. "The HRE is evil." Only it sounds more like "The RE is evil," because the French are incapable of pronouncing "H."

Distracted by the fake conflict in Aragon, the pope fails to notice 13,000 soldiers moving into every British province except north africa. A small sea battle near Wessex rumbles to its watery conclusion: Victory to the HRE. In Northumberland, some hobilars and ballistae try to hold back 1,200 screaming highlanders ("Highland spam"). They almost succeed when the general falls to an unlucky chop, but some spearmen save the day and cut down the remaining Brits. Wales and Mercia both withdraw to Wessex, and their king removes to North Africa... perhaps the smartest move he makes.

The smoke cleared and the British were left with one province in tunisia.

I smugly consolidate my armies, place garrisons, and then it happens. France attacks me.

They don't actually fight, as they keep discovering odds they don't like, but they're still at it. Does the pope see this? Hell no. Because I'm still under an Aragonian Time Out with the Pope, I decide not to be nice anymore to the French. Brittany is mine, a short time later. Stupid French. We could have been friends. I offered a ceasefire countless times. But no.

A year later, and Wilhelm dies. His 16 year old son Roland takes the throne. Roland needs work. A lot of work. Starting with his drinking problem, at the age of 16. A drinking problem!!! Only the Byzantines have a larger empire, and he's busy asking his uncles to buy him elderberry wine because he's underage. Small beer can do that to you, I guess.

Roland moves to Austria and contemplates his next move. Should he go to the liquor cabinet or the wine cellar? Or just order a servant to do it for him?

In the meantime, Aragon has been invading each turn and turning back. I keep a stack of guys with "go bags" ready to jump off into the mediterranean to help my allies the Byzantines when the opportunity offers itself. This will certainly help Roland become something other than a 2 influence king with 2 piety and 0 command and two acumen. Oh, he's a gem; if it wasn't for the fact he was the ONLY heir, he should have been put in a sack and drowned early on.

It's 1211, and there's a few years left. Roland will probably die before the Golden Horde arrives, and oh, yes, I'm looking at those provinces they're going to coming through. I don't think Poland will survive. I know Byzantium is going to be cut down like wheat before the scythe, and the Khan will probably get to Antioch before the 9 star stops him. While the Eastern border is quiet--has always been quiet--I have only three fronts, Poland/Hungary, Italy, and Aragon/Leon/Castille. The Spanish are in shreds, wracked by rebellion. Poland has two provinces and makes no money and has no troops. And Byzantine slumbers. I'll let the Khan wake the beast.

[Vladimir]

"King Wilhelm vants you!" with a scowly picture of King Wilhelm pointing at the reader."

No doubt your ranks swelled as the masses of peasants flocked to your banner. Wait a minute, they’re all illiterate, well I guess that’s what feudalism is for.

“Starting with his drinking problem, at the age of 16. A drinking problem!!!”

I was told I had a drinking “problem” at 16 but I didn’t see it as a problem. I can stop any time I want to but I DON’T WANT TO!

And yes, the Brits deserved it.

[miho]

Nice story. Here's another version of "Uncle Sam wants you ..."

[The Grand Inquisitor]

Oh, he's a gem; if it wasn't for the fact he was the ONLY heir, he should have been put in a sack and drowned early on.

It's not to late for him to have a tragic accident. A rash drunken decision to invade Tunis with just his bodyguard should do the trick. You're the HRE - you don't need heirs - thats why you have electors.

[Crazed Rabbit]

A great story! It sounds like you have yourself a nice little empire. Well done!

Crazed Rabbit

[Grond]

It's not to late for him to have a tragic accident. A rash drunken decision to invade Tunis with just his bodyguard should do the trick. You're the HRE - you don't need heirs - thats why you have electors.

You know, I'd read that but I'm deeply suspicious of the procedure. It ain't proper, ya know? Kingdoms should go strictly by in fee tail forever, none of this women inheriting rot, or some new age wretchedness like ELECTING someone. Next they'll be erecting bloody huge statues which say "give me your tired, your poor, your tax dodgers." That'd be French, btw, as I recall they put the poetry on the Statue of Liberty.

"Hey you."
"Sir?"
"Who wrote this bloody pap about tired and poor?"
"I dunno. I think it came from France."
"Well, are they going to PAY for all these tired and poor?"
"No sir. It's just poetry."
"It's poetry that'll create entitlements is what it is. Pity we haven't invented sandblasters yet. That'd fix it. Can you rig something up?"
"Maybe, what?"
"Change the tired to `clever,' poor to 'rich,' and tie it up with something snazzy."

But I think King Roland the Wastral Drinker might just take you up on that glorious expedition to Tunisia. And if he survives that, I can send him to assasinate the 9 star mummy general in Egypt. I hope he likes plagues of scarab beatles. It gives a new meaning to "Club med vacation," it does.

Cheers!

[miho]

You know, I'd read that but I'm deeply suspicious of the procedure.

It's true that when your king dies without heirs a general is elected to be the new emperor. I once forgot about this and I went for their king thinking that they would become rebels. When the HRE emperor died after siege a new one was elected.

[Ciaran]

But still, if you married off any princesses to foreign factions, chance is you´ll lose some land in the process - it happened to me, once, all the nice land went of to God-knows-who and I was left with - out of everything - Bavaria.

But that story of yours sounds very familiar, swap HRE to Italians and English to Byzantines and that´s where the greeat conflict of my time erupted. And then, when I finally had contained the Byzes, fought the heathen and generally have been a good catholic Italian, doing my crusades, spreading the culture of Pizza and wine and Milanese fashion through the whole mediterrean, making the latter in fact what some fifty years ago a fat pompous fellow called "mare nostro", who out of everyone stabbed me in the back? The bloody, goddammit Pope, that´s who. Well, he had ade the mistake of excommunicating the Sicilians earlier on, and they were less than pleased and wiped him out - only to get too big for their boot (a bad play of words, I know) and trying to take on the mighty Italian Empire with their mafia clans. Not to much good, I didn´t even bother fighting them, rather I bought them off, until only their King cowered in Rome, awaiting his undesirable fate of being exterminated. I still hope the few factions that are left or newly arrived have learned from the somewhat drastic examples I showed them, but I doubt it.

[dgfred]

Good playing and great story Grond . Our HRE playing styles are

very similar . I like to take Denmark, Pomerania, Flanders, Venice,

Prussia, Sweden and generally wipe the floor with France . I usually take

Aragon down pretty early too, that is the only major difference I really see.

Are you playing GA or conquest? It is good to see the Byzantines are your

ally, them and Hungary are always giant pest when I am the HRE.

Keep us informed on this game, I am really curious to see the remainder of

your game.

[Grond]

A year after my little final sufferance with the now defunct and gone France, I had started to consolidate the fragmented armies and rebuild some of the veteran core units. We had work to do. I was gazing East, Poland and Byzantine awaited. But there were also some rebels in Spain, northern Russia, and Ireland had been sort of sitting there begging for some attention.

And in the East: A great purple wave. In fact, the Byzantine armies seemed to be massing on my borders?

And Byzantine ships were in my waters, up to Gibralter.

The next year, a Byzantine gunboat blew up one of my longboats East of Italy, and it was on.

While Aragon, who was too poor to attack and a nuisance that provided a nice Papal Time-out source (I attack them when I don't want papal sanction when I attack someone else), was considering my properties in southern France, the true worries were Austria, Venice, and Bohemia. I had only 260-400 men in each province. I'd been fighting a war somewhere else, you see. And then the Byz armies rolled across my heretofore holy roman borders. First, though, was the battle in Austria. Only 80 men invading? That doesn't look too bad. I've got 260. A half unit of archers and 200 primitive spearmen.

Then I see the unit. Khatophraktoi, the crack heavy cavalry of Eastern Europe. The nasty, feared, mean Khats. I formed up my spears in ranks of 4, per the text book defense against cav. "Shore 'em up, boys," I said, and walked them to the middle of a nice hill. The archers stood behind. I made the archers wait before firing.

The Khats approached from the front, and decided to do a off-center frontal charge. Maybe they hoped to break my spears. I told the archers to get to it, and two horses go down. They hit my spears, and the primitive spears stood strong. I lost two men, they lost about 3. At least my cost ratios are much better than his. His Khats retreat to do another charge, so I wheel the spears to face 'em again. I'm nervous: Spears against elite heavy cav, in such small battles, almost always do something stupid and lose the battle.

The archers are doing great, and about 10 horses are down from the volleys. The next charge is ineffectual, and a few more horses fall. The Khats retreat, then sit there starting at the spears.

I don't need an invite: the archers go crazy, killing a horse each volley. A minute ticks by, and valuable heavily armored Khats are falling this way and that. Then, it's decided. They're going to attack the left middle this time, since the right middle was such a debacle. Good thinking! Go Byzantinium!

I wheel the line of spears a bit, and they're standing solid when the Khats hit again. The archers are making like agincourt, and the Khats are down to 37 men when they withdraw from the field, leaving my spears with 7 casualties and my archers with 0.

In contrast, their invasion of Venice involves 3,320 men, to my 650. I retreat to the castle to await overland reinforcement and seige relief, which is coming via toulouse. But it's far, and the shipping lanes are completely screwed up with purple ships everywhere. The northern part of HRE 4Ever is tasked with providing tons of replacement shipping, and Europe begins churning out archers and spears, and a few swords. I rue the fact that the Scottish won't invent the railroad until someone in Europe figures out how to use a blast furnace to get the anthracite coal to burn at hotter temperatures and thus provide purer alloys, create steel, then make rails for rolling stock. That's not going to happen till the mines in Wales start it in the 1800s.

My armies march overland and soon I've got several thousand sitting on the border of Byzantine. Poland watches the entire thing from a ringside seat. I've got bronze sword upgrades, and silver shields, so my people, while a bit outmoded, are well equipped.

King Roland has aged a few decades in the interum. His liver is pickled, but he's a Great Warrior now. Tunisia isn't an option anymore, I need his skills in Serbia.

And there's happy news: The Golden Horde has arrived. They're early, but I'm not complaining. Soon, they'll begin to eat through Byzantium, and then it's a matter of rolling up his pesky navy and encouraging his large armies to head East for the bigger threat of the Khan. *I* don't have 30000 men. My army is only 12,000, and it's a lot of poor grade stuff.

Spain is quiet, and Britain in north africa tried but failed to take a rebel province. Russia and Poland will be eaten by the Horde. Egypt... might be a problem if they take advantage of the Horde.

And the pope, he's quiet. He's always quiet. Can the Byzantines be excommunicated? They may as well eliminate him.

My next move will be a counterattack against the most heavily fortified Byz. enclaves... or, perhaps, against the places that are spamming out his navies so I can stop that process from happening. One of my ships is up to 4 stars after killing about 8 of his ships over a period of a half dozen years before it is sunk. I'm pleased. I liked that ship.

[Ciaran]

And the pope, he's quiet. He's always quiet. Can the Byzantines be excommunicated? They may as well eliminate him.

No, the Orthodox don´t care about the pope. He´s only a nuisance to the Catholics, spoiling all the fun.

And Byzantine ships were in my waters, up to Gibralter.

The next year, a Byzantine gunboat blew up one of my longboats East of Italy, and it was on.

Ah, the dreaded "naval incident" tactic the AI is so eager to use to break up your treaties. As you probably know, AI allies who have to choose sides in a war go with the one who wins the first battle. This, for some reason, seems not to be the case if the first battle is naval, then they´re on the side of the attacker, whether he wins or not. The AI just loves doing that, whenever you witness a fleet being built up, armies amassing and diplomacy cooling down, think hard about a preemptive strike. The AI doesn´t care about the influence loss it gets from attacking its ally, as it seems.

[dgfred]

Good info to know Ciaran . Thanks . Naval sneak attacks

really piss me off, I guess I'll have to turn the tables on the AI .

[Vladimir]

A time-consuming but effective strategy is to have 3:1 naval superiority in every sea zone.

[miho]

A time-consuming but effective strategy is to have 3:1 naval superiority in every sea zone.

A good strategy is also to eliminate factions which have ships using agents. I'm now playing as the Sicilians and the Italians outnumber my ships 2:1. Soon I'll be able to train grand inquisitors and then they're toasted.

[Grond]

The reign of King Roland the Pickled of the Holy Roman Empire goes on.

As things were in détente - the Byzantines couldn’t attack, and I hadn’t chosen to bite back yet, I sent King Roland the Pickled up to Pommerania, which has succumbed to my armies a few years before. With 720 archers and 500 spears, they attacked 4000 peasants in Prussia. Things went swimmingly until one of the spears decided to chase a peasant unit, and the archers ran out of bullets. The archers left the field, and the spears were massacred by angry Prussian peasants from behind. Luckily, Roland’s Great Warrior rating allowed him to get a new vice and escape the carnage: Good runner. To give him the benefit of the doubt, there were about 2000 peasants left, and the last 40 spears were surrounded and forced to join the Green party, so he was by his lonesome, and his arm was tired, and he needed a drink and shave.

After some rehabilitation, my rheumy eyed king went south again, to Bohemia. Poland continued to spawn heirs, the only military they could afford. Byzantine was being eaten up by the Golden Horde, and still their huge armies spent money on the border of Hungary and Croatia. But they didn’t dare attack me. The next year, 12,000 men went over the borders of Bohemia, Austria, and Venice into Hungary and Croatia. King Roland the Pickled was leading the charge of 1400 men in a stick from Venice to visit Miho’s home country. Ah, Croatia: a crossroads for the world’s armies. And you can see why, geographically, it is that.

So, at 2 to 1 ratios, the Byzantines are slaughtered and I move into Hungary and Croatia. I won’t describe the battles, for neither piqued my interest and I was pressed for time.

Meanwhile, my caravels were rolling up the Byzantine navy, region by region. My emissaries had gone out to attempt to rebuild some goodwill with ANYONE. Everyone refused to be at peace. I’m the big bad HRE, I am.

A few of my province leaders have turned to the dark side, and their vices outweigh their profit-making potential, so I put my emissaries to work, stripping titles and sending misbehaving generals off to war. I put in new leaders with 5-6 acumens, some with additional chancellery titles to enhance profits in Sweden, Denmark, and Flanders. It makes the difference of about 1000-1500 florins a year for each place I fix up. With trade restarted in the med, I’m back to making 12,000 florins a turn. The war chest was as low as 80,000 from 250,000, but it’s headed to the positive, and I only build things I need now. Gone are the heady days of a palace in every province. These days, you get a trading post and port, a watch tower and a fort. After that, show me you’re useful or that’s all you’ll have… maybe a keep so I put in a church.

I ended up with 960 archers who were sort of without an army to join, so having regained total domination of the oceans, I decided to play Hunt the Khan. Into Kiev they went, where the Khan was sitting about munching pita bread and sunning on the beach. There was a bridge battle, and my 8 units of archers did some stellar work chopping anyone crossing the bridge into little bits. It was sort of fun directing the rain of arrows and ruin on the arrogant Khan’s horse troops. Heavy horse, take that! Steppe horse, watch those numbers fall, and watch them run.

The Khan finally fights, and from his heavy horse of 80 only he and two companions escape. He gets a new vice: Good Runner.

Kiev is mine, and I send troops into Moldavia to try to get Mr. Khan, once more. After a few counterattacks in Kiev, which now has over 1200 archers sitting at that bridge crossing, I try to take Walachia and Serbia. Both of these are mistakes and setbacks when a Byzantium Super General manages to scrape together a good counterattack and retake both provinces.

But the Khanate is in shreds. They’ve got some large Khan spam stacks here and there, but I can match him for quality if not quantity.

It is at this time, while my large stacks are down in Macedonia, that Poland decides to execute a clumsy attack in Brandenburg. Fools. They fail. I reinforce that place with one of the troops rehabilitating in Bohemia (which builds golden spears. Oh yes).

It's then that the Khan expires... of old age. His spawn inherits the title and hides down in Constantinople.

He's next.

Roland the Pickled has led a long life, 64 years, and he quietly passes away one night in his sleep. His heir: Friedrich the Irritated. The year is 1256. I have no allies. I have no friends. The pope barely acknowledges me. I have conquered over 50% of the known world, and only stand to make more gains as I go. The remaining factions have only 2-3 provinces a piece, excepting Byzantium and the Horde. I have complete naval superiority. My manufacturing capacity stands ready to create thousands of horses, spears, and swords at a moment’s notice, though I learned through Roland’s reign how expensive it is to have all those troops sitting about doing nothing. The provinces are running leanly. I’ve decided I’ll create a couple dozen peasant garrisons. (At 100 florins to create a peasant, and costing around a third of a florin per guy to maintain, it’s rather cheap to build 20 garrisons, and discard the ones that aren’t 4 acumen or so.) And there’s the loyalty issue of the new guys. Perhaps I can send them to camp with Friedrich the Irritated and raise up their enthusiasm for HRE 4Ever and Ever, Amen.

Britain limps on in Tunisia, Spain owns a few parts of Spain, and most of North Africa, Aragon has its two original provinces and a lot of vim and vinegar, and Poland has two provinces. Russia barely holds on in Latvia. Egypt has the crusade objectives. Italy holds Sicily, and Sicily holds on by sitting on one of those swampy islands in the Med. Byzantine is clearly out of money, so they’re not building new things, and without new things, you can’t defeat the Khan. And the Khan… I’m not sure how his voodoo economics work, but he can’t possibly be making any money. He’s a lousy financial manager. Lousy. I can see his little rearing golden colored horse down there in Constantinople. I'm building a special faction of crossbows for the sole purpose of assasinating him. Oh, yes. The Horde is going to become rabble. Hamburger. Toast!

[miho]

I think that the best way to dispose the Horde is to swarm Kazaar with assasins and kill the kahn right away. When he appears he's heirless so soon those little horse archers become ready for bribing.

[Ciaran]

Nice update on your empire, but your new avatar gives me creeps

The pope, I had the disputable joy of having to deal with him directly, meaning in a ontest of arms.
As I mentioned, the Sicilians had sent him away, but Frog is right: he´s touchingly devoted and keeps coming back. Well, no problem with that, he can have his completely ruined Rome back, there´s nothing left that´s of interest to me. But instead of sitting there and being happy leading all proper Christendom, what does he do? He tries to build an empire for himself and the only provinces accessible for him unfortunately are mine. Now, "catholic" means universial, which means in turn the pope´s supposed to sit in Rome, give his blessing to my crusades, excommunicate the odd fellow and send me cash for being such a good christian. It certainly does NOT mean he´s supposed to grab some of my richest provinces, such as South Italy. All that warfare is bad for my infrastructure, and a damaged infrastructure damages my profits. So, off he goes again. He´ll come back, no doubt of it, and were the Byzantines still active or the Horde in existance, I would need him for crusading, but as it is now, there´s no need for him right now. See you next time, papa

[Grond]

Nice update on your empire, but your new avatar gives me creeps

The pope, I had the disputable joy of having to deal with him directly, meaning in a ontest of arms.
As I mentioned, the Sicilians had sent him away, but Frog is right: he´s touchingly devoted and keeps coming back. Well, no problem with that, he can have his completely ruined Rome back, there´s nothing left that´s of interest to me. But instead of sitting there and being happy leading all proper Christendom, what does he do? He tries to build an empire for himself and the only provinces accessible for him unfortunately are mine. Now, "catholic" means universial, which means in turn the pope´s supposed to sit in Rome, give his blessing to my crusades, excommunicate the odd fellow and send me cash for being such a good christian. It certainly does NOT mean he´s supposed to grab some of my richest provinces, such as South Italy. All that warfare is bad for my infrastructure, and a damaged infrastructure damages my profits. So, off he goes again. He´ll come back, no doubt of it, and were the Byzantines still active or the Horde in existance, I would need him for crusading, but as it is now, there´s no need for him right now. See you next time, papa

I changed it from Princess 23, the Horse Face girl.

My pope is really boring. I like him that way. He sits in Rome, gives blessing to crusades... his record on excommunication is lousy. He only threatens me.

[miho]

I changed it from Princess 23, the Horse Face girl.

My pope is really boring. I like him that way. He sits in Rome, gives blessing to crusades... his record on excommunication is lousy. He only threatens me.

I like your new avatar although the first one was the best.

[Grond]

I like your new avatar although the first one was the best.

Thanks. These look new. I like the bug eyed bushy browed guy. And in red! Stylin.

[Ciaran]

Now, this one is perfectly fitting for the historian of such illustriuos persons like Snorri the Magnificent or Roland the Pickled. A bit, uh, deranged, but then, so are the subjects of your history.

[NodachiSam]

Very entertaining writing, as always Grond :)

I'm going to find a cute princess for my avatar for a while.

[Grond]

Very entertaining writing, as always Grond :)

I'm going to find a cute princess for my avatar for a while.

NodachiSam! This is a most excellent avatar, although this might cause some gender identification confusion--you might get some date offers around here. It's sort of like making a baby boy wear pink.

I have to say, medieval hats are really stupid looking. They haven't done much to improve on them through history.

[Grond]

There was a period of about 10 more years of relative peace, while I rebuilt my shattered armies and sent many of the units formerly governing provinces forward, replaced by peasant garrisons. I poised some armies next to Poland, and in Prussia, and down south, all designed to make thrusts into the remaining three provinces of the Kingdom of Poland. Two more armies waited to invade Serbia and Greece; another army was set to hit Constantinople. A seventh army waited in port in Toulouse to embark for Southern Italy, an eighth for Sicily, and finally, a ninth was slated for Lithuania, which was one of two provinces held by Russia.

To prevent Papal displeasure, I sent a single archer unit into Aragon, who still held their original two provinces.

The Aragonian King, with his 12 cavalry units (all his sons; he was bankrupt and couldn’t make new armies) fled the province, leaving my single archer unit victorious.

The Pope sent a boys choir to sing in Latin, "Friedrich, don't be invading your neighbors' lands or you'll be excommunicated and written in as a villain in a Harry Potter book."

As I am not in the habit of throwing away advantage--one thing they teach in the army is "take the ground," which is to say if you fought for it, you take the ground, you don't let the other side back in, unless there's strategic value in doing so, such as a killing sack--I sent my occupation army into Aragon to settle down and read some El Cid comics in Spanish and think about why the Castilian accent has a lisp, and maybe reflect on the irony of why the word lisp isn’t even pronounceable by someone with a lisp. This seems like a mean joke perpetuated by Webster. Notably, I had managed to bribe El Cid to join my side, and he was one of my pet 5 star generals. Heh.

Speaking of Castile, they had 100% Zeal, so I opened the Castilian School of Inquisition Training, and began training inquisitors on Spanish Generals. Toast them like marshmallows, they do. I had a few 100% zeal provinces, myself, due to governors with Zeal bonuses while ruling.

The next turn, Friedrich the Irritable, I think it was from his bowels, initiated the biggest conquest since the Horde showed up with Victoria’s Secret catalogs. Nine armies simultaneously jumped off into nine provinces. The Polish were immediately crushed, surrendering two provinces and being routed out of their castle in the last. The Russians put up a valiant defense, but their horsemen were no match for golden sword/shield CMAA. Every province fell, and it was only one more turn to take all the castles and add another nine provinces to HRE 4Ever.

The next year, the Sicilian King was pried out of his castle and executed; the Italian king, likewise. Serbia did not fall, but Greece did. Serbia, it seems, had a 9 star general in a castle, so I needed to stop autocalculating the battle and send in a special archer assassination unit. Either that, or build some gold sword/shield halberdiers to get in there and chop him to bits.

In Constantinople, the army had laid siege to the Khan, and a tenth army jumped off into Turkey to go after the pesky Byzantines. I didn’t autocalc the battle with the Khan… and was able to watch my poor armies NOT win. It seems the Khan is immune to being killed by common swordsmen!! Troop after troop was cut to bits by this powerful warlord, and I was annoyed. It seems I made a mistake; with those 80 star generals, you don’t assault them in their castles, you leave them there with their 400 troops, and let them sit. And sit… and sit. About 3-4 years is all it takes, and they eventually cannot hold out against a siege any longer.

But I'll bet the Khan can't dodge a big friggin' rock, can he?

The question won't be answered, not in this iteration, for it seems I conquered 60% of the world and could call it a victory, so I did. The HRE was victorious!

I’m still dissatisfied with the way things went at the end, there, so I may replay these 10 years, and bring a couple of special catapults just for the Khan. I know I can go to 100%, but it’s the administration that is a nightmare: build troops in back provinces, shuttle them forward to the tip of the invading armies. Shuttle damaged troops to the rear, rebuild them, shuttle them back forward. Sometimes I get lazy and just consolidate troops because the prospect of rotating them in and out is daunting and makes things take much longer.

[dgfred]

Nice going Grond , let us know how the 10T-replay goes .

[miho]

Nice work Grond. What happened to Ole? He lacks inspiration most probably.

[Grond]

Ole belongs to the Danish game with King Snorri the Magnificent that I was playing. This game is Roland the Pickled, Friedrich the Irritated, and whomever takes over after him (though that will be certainly in the replay.)

[dgfred]

Ol' great, great, great, great, great, etc... grandpa Friedrich was always
rumored to be very irritated fellow .

[Ciaran]

You sent swords to kill horses
No wonder they lost to the Invincile Khan, swords and horses are the major "don´t" according to the goddess frog. And Kings are usually tough guys. I even once had a King slaughtering almost half a unit of Chivalric Foot Knights, and those fellows usually go through anything like the shark through the surfer.

[miho]

Ole belongs to the Danish game with King Snorri the Magnificent that I was playing. This game is Roland the Pickled, Friedrich the Irritated, and whomever takes over after him (though that will be certainly in the replay.)

I know he's a spy for Daneland 4ever. Just saying it's been a long time since we've heard of him.