Quickest collapse you've seen?

[seireikhaan]

What's the quickest you've ever seen an empire collapse without assasinations or inquisitions? The fastest I've ever seen was a game when I played as Denmark and saw the Almos go from making their way into southern france to nothing in nine years. France started pushing back, retook Aquitaine, then took Aragon. The Almos decided to avoid Spain in this game by taking valencia and then Aragon. After losing Aragon, they fell into civil war, while france and spain had crusades aimed at Cordoba and Granada respectively. France crushed the garrison at Valencia and I landed an army in Cordoba, which had turned rebel. Spain's crusade, which had previously been stalled by the army at Cordoba, now went right through since I took the province. They easily beat down a small garrisson at granada. Two turns after taking Cordoba, I land an army at morocco, another rebel province w/ nearly no defenses. Now, I can see Algeria, yet another rebel province. The almos, now likely reduced to cyrenacia and tunisia, attack Algeria turn after turn, and after their third try, I get a message saying that the almohod khalifah was eliminated in battle and had no heirs. In nine years my biggest fear went from the almos running roughshot over Europe to how I was going to contain France.

[Innocentius]

Well, I've seen the French empire turn almost completely rebel or struck by re-emergensies in three years several times. The usually conquer all of Britain, most of Germany, the Iberian and some Italian states, reach the Anatolia through northern Africa and conquer most it. By then they get involved in war with some lesser catholic faction, get excommunicated and fall apart in within a couple of years.

[Martok]

Oh goodness. I've witnessed a number of swift/massive collapses in my 4+ years of playing this game. Probably one of the most memorable (and most spectacular) for me, though, would be the Spanish in one of my Egyptian campaigns.

As the Fatamids (XL Mod), I had secured control of the Great Triangle (all the lands between Egypt, Georgia, and Constantinople). I also held a few additional provinces beyond that - mainly in the Balkans, plus a couple of the islands in the eastern Med - and had already achieved superpower status with respect to the other factions.

Well as it turned out, Castille-Leon had gone berzerk in the western half of the map. By the time I really became aware of what they were doing, they'd already conquered Iberia, most of France, the British Isles, northern Italy, and all of North Africa (save for Egypt itself).

It was the latter theatre of operations that had me especially concerned. Not only did they have a good-sized navy sailing much of the Mediterranean, but the Castille-Leonese were also threatening Cairo with an impressive army they had stationed in Cyrenacia. It was around 6000-strong, and it actually was made up of pretty decent troops - only about 2000 of them were UM, archers, and vanilla spearmen. The rest of their army mostly consisted of FMAA, FS, MS, a couple RK's, and an absurd number of Jinnettes. (Oh yeah, and it was under the command of El Cid's successor, so he had 7 stars when attacking!)

This was an army that could do serious damage to my Caliph's empire. Now granted, I myself had garrisoned Egypt with an army of 3500 troops (consisting of my best units available) and under the command of my best general (6-stars); but the Spanish still had me greatly concerned.

Fortunately, however, they completely shot themselves in the foot. Using their massive army in Cyrenacia as its core, they used the excuse of a Crusade to march on Jerusalem via Cairo. I surprised myself by routing the Castillans utterly -- I think the kill ratio was something like 4500 to 800 in my favor -- and their Crusade fell apart a couple years later. At the same time, the Pope excommed them (I think for aggression against the Danes, if I recall correctly). The excommunication combined with the failure of the Crusade caused the Spanish to fall into civil war. The Almos, Aragon, French, and Portuguese all re-emerged; and Castille-Leon never threatened me again.

[Odin]

The HRE has collapsed many times via civil war that its hard for me to remember the most dramatic.

However I do recall a game when the Byzantines had wiped the middle east clean of the turks and eggies and was poised to move into the steppes via the back door of Kazar. The sicillians in all thier wisdom attack and after a few back and forths in Greece the Byzantines loose thier foothold in the balkans.

The feeding frenzy moved on from there, the Cumans who had removed the Hungarians swept down into Bulgaria and, yep the egyptians reappeard in egypt with a massive stack. The emperor dies and a new one is enthroned in constantanople and has a 5 star rating (weak by Byz standards). The sicillians cut off thier fleets and basically surrounded Constantanople. The invade along with the Cumans and a three way tussle ensues, the Byzantines loose Cumans seige the citadel and a few years later the emperor is killed in battle message pops up, no heirs and what was left goes rebel.

Of note was the spectacular battle of Constantanople, it had 3 religous factions all going for the big prize, while I didnt watch the battle, I almost wish I had. the cumans and sicillians were not allied so it was a 3 way slugfest, it was before 1205 so the catholics didnt have any arblasters, I would have loved to have seen the Cuman horse tactics against the heavy armor of the Byz, with the back drop of catholic militias.

This was with the XL mod.

[Caerfanan]

Well, I've seen the French empire turn almost completely rebel or struck by re-emergensies in three years several times. The usually conquer all of Britain, most of Germany, the Iberian and some Italian states, reach the Anatolia through northern Africa and conquer most it. By then they get involved in war with some lesser catholic faction, get excommunicated and fall apart in within a couple of years.

Yes, that's quite typical. If you loose a couple of batles and/or get excommunicated, the rebellions tend to be reemergences + rebellions + civil war. Can hurt a lot.

I've seen a powerful 12 provinces Mercia turned to 4 rebels, 4 saxons and 4 mercians just after twoo defeats when attacking.

And once a Saxon. All "Southern England + Northumbria" except two welsh provinces, while I had Pictish, Scotish and Irish Lands. I was prepared to be crushed, their king dies of old age... Without any single heir!

Oh my!!!

[Ironside]

Don't remember a particular incident, but there's nothing as sweet as when an betraying ally fails his attack on you and gets a civil war and crumbles to dust within a few year, without you even need to do something.

[Enigma13]

Just saw my first truly "swift collapse" last night playing as the Danes.

Egyptians had control of all of the Holy Lands, all of Asia Minor, North Africa up to Cynarencia (sp?), Khazar, Volga-Bulgaria, Constantinople, Greece, Bulgaria, Moldavia, Volhynia, and Prussia. They have been in a pretty much back and forth war with the English (my allies) for about 20 years with neither side really gaining or losing any territory, just exchanging from year to year. Each side will force a siege only to have it broken the next year.

Well in a move of utter stupidity the Egyptians and the remaining Byz (only in Smolensky) decided to launch a coordinated attack against me. The Byz hit Novgorod, the Egyptians Lithuania and Crimea. Fought back the attacks in Novgorod and Lithuania. In Crimea I fought valiently but ultimately ended up getting sieged. For the next year I sent my vastly superior navy to destroy all Egyptians ships. Moved stacks from Kiev to relieve the siege in Crimea, and the shored up the rest of my Asian provinces by moving troops from Scandanavia. Sea battles went largely in my favor and killed all but one Egyptian ship. Siege was lifted in Crimea. The next year without the Egyptian ships around to prevent a sea attack the English made a massive push that resulted in them taking Greece, Constantinople, Bulgaria, all of North Africa, and Tripoli. This triggered a civil war that has left the Egyptians with only 3 provinces (Khazar, Volhynia, Trebizond). In 3 years they went from controlling about 1/3 of the map to 3 provinces.

Two years have passed since the collapse and they have not been able to reclaim any of the rebel provinces and they have asked me for a ceasefire (another thing I have never had the AI do before). In the interim I have eliminated the Byz and the Horde and soon will be delivering the final death blow to the once great Egyptian empire.

[drone]

Probably the HRE, against me as the Danes. I had already taken over the British Isles and beaten the French down. I had been at peace with the HRE, but had gotten excommed when I started on the French. The HRE built a crusade in Lorraine (I think), and sent it towards a lightly defended Denmark. I was pondering how to gather troops to defend the homeland, and then it hit me, "just take Lorraine" (it had been a while since I had played ). Since I had just taken out the French, I had lots of troops in their territory... I jumped Lorraine easily when the crusade move to Freisland, and also did preemptive strikes into a couple of other HRE territories. Within 2 turns, the HRE collapsed as provinces rebelled and I could pick over the remains. I don't know what the HRE king's influence was before this sequence, but I imagine it was pretty much 0 after losing the crusade and a couple of provinces.

Lesson #1: Do not build your crusade in a province next to land owned by the intended target!

[Caerfanan]

Lesson #1: Do not build your crusade in a province next to land owned by the intended target!

I'll remember that one!

[Adrian II]

Don't remember a particular incident, but there's nothing as sweet as when an betraying ally fails his attack on you and gets a civil war and crumbles to dust within a few year, without you even need to do something.

Heh.

Agreed, this is most rewarding. It makes you realise you are an idiot, though, because after all this is nothing personal and you are dealing with a machine only.

But it feels as if it is personal.

[Deus ret.]

I would have loved to have seen the Cuman horse tactics against the heavy armor of the Byz, with the back drop of catholic militias.

What a slugfest! I'm sure it would have been interesting to behold, but in the absence of arbs, it's the Cumans who are somewhat overpowered in XL early because of their ridiculously cheap (and low-tech) but absolutely devastating Cuman Heavy Cavalry, in fact the equal of Chivalric Knights. Consequently, it was them who ended up sieging the big C.....they tend to grow strong in XL in early.

My nicest enemy empire collapse was when I played the Aragonese back in vanilla (good ol' days ) and as always the Egyptians were eating everyone in their way. After cleverly waiting for the Byz and Turks to battle it out, they just swallowed the victor (Byz) and went nuts from there on. They didn't even build their typical giant peasant armies, so actually were a threat to reckon with. When they owned North Africa up to Morocco, half the steppes, the former Byz share of the Balcans and one or two stray provinces (among them Sicily!), I decided that something would have to be done. I sent a massive crusade bolstered generously with extra troops from Aragon (I owned Iberia and most of France) oversea when the Eggies finally left that gap in their line of ships.

What followed were the five or six longest turns I ever played, or so they seemed to me. Not only did our navies contest each and every sea square (a contest which I barely managed to win, mostly because my supply worked better), but the battles in the Holy Land were outstanding. I can't recall how many battles I fought with my isolated crusader force in Antioch, their numbers dwindling with each battle -....well five probably...- but I killed the Sultan twice who was foolish enough to lead his troops into battle himself, including his own 7-star jedi general . On turn 5, I took the opportunity to asassinate the Egyptian heir deeming himself safe in the Sinai - and bang, Egypt falls into a HUGE civil war and in the span of three more years the Turks and the Byz had reappeared, and their steppe holdings were largely lost to a Russian loyalist rebellion. Egypt was now (and until they were extinct) reduced to Arabia, more or less.

In retrospect I'm not too sure if it actually was the assassination which triggered the civil war, it would have been the only time I witnessed it so far. In any case, it was a rewarding deed

[caravel]

Heh.

Agreed, this is most rewarding. It makes you realise you are an idiot, though, because after all this is nothing personal and you are dealing with a machine only.

But it feels as if it is personal.

Half the fun of this game is the "perfidious foe" you encounter! Nothing is better than severely punishing a treacherous faction that has stabbed you in the back.

[Lord Cazaric]

When I was on my Byzantine campaign, I saw the Germans suffer a civil war. Previously, they had had the largest military in the game (except for mine) but the war left them with Tyrolia and Switzerland. Switzerland fell into the hands of rebels the next year, and I marched in and destroyed the Germans in Tyrolia, so in two years the Holy Roman Empire had fallen.

[Xehh II]

The quickest collapse i've seen was my own. I was playing as the Byzantines, there was a civil war and I chose the wrong side(loyalists) and the rebels defeated me easily. My empire fell in 2 turns.

[Caerfanan]

The quickest collapse i've seen was my own. I was playing as the Byzantines, there was a civil war and I chose the wrong side(loyalists) and the rebels defeated me easily. My empire fell in 2 turns.

Errr, I mean: awww....

[The Unknown Guy]

I dont know how çuick was it, but the BIGGEST collapse I saw was that of the Europe-spanning Italian Empire. I was playing as Byzantium, and holding to the four easy-to-keep borders (Serbia&Bulgary, Anatolia&Trebizond). And Italy started to grow bigger and bigger. They ate up Hungary, the HRE, the Pope...

I was allied with them, which was a good thing because at their peak they owned ALL Western Europe, and had carved out some pieces of Africa.

Then the inevitable happened. Bloat effect + low influence king: The Pope resurged in every province in Italy province, including Sicily, with huge armies. Then there was a civil war and Spain and France went out of their hands (I had a lot of cash, so I started to buy provinces in Spain as they rebelled). Then the English reappeared, in Western France, and took away the remaining pieces of the Italian Empire in that part (they also tried to prevent my Byzantine reconçuered land, but I kicked them out)

[Martok]

The quickest collapse i've seen was my own. I was playing as the Byzantines, there was a civil war and I chose the wrong side(loyalists) and the rebels defeated me easily. My empire fell in 2 turns.

Uff da! That's rough, man. Were you that badly outnumbered by the rebels?

@The Unknown Guy: Yeah, I've seen massive collapses like that in my games. Indeed, I would guess that most of us have at some point or another -- the bloat effect is simply too widespread, and no faction is immune.

I remember one of my Egyptian campaigns where the Spanish had a rather spectacular collapse. After I defeated one of their Crusades, their entire empire (which was at least 40 provinces by that point) promptly fell into civil war. The French, Almos, & Aragonese all re-emerged, and I didn't have to worry about them again.

[Xehh II]

Uff da! That's rough, man. Were you that badly outnumbered by the rebels?

No, we were about even but they appeared in every province, those that survived the first turn were slaughtered the next turn because they loss so many troops defending the first rebel attack.

[_Aetius_]

One of the biggest collapses ive personally ever had was as Egypt in Vanilla. It was fast considering I was playing and you would expect players empire not to collapse as mine did, but anyway.

Background

I'd gotten into a position where I was at war with all my major potential trading partners so wasnt making any money, but I still needed a massive army to hold my empire together. Discontent was rife but I was holding things together, my empire was from Tunisia to Bulgaria, Armenia to Arabia, basically everything between those points.

The problems arose when I was forced to invade Italy because of persistant Sicilian attacks on my naval forces, I didnt have many native troops to spare so had to hire mercenaries locally. When Sicily, Naples and Malta where under my control the Papacy declared war and I was forced to keep a considerable mercenary army stationed in Naples. During this brief 5 year campaign a new Sultan had come to the throne with very poor influence, so to lose my recent conquests by disbanding disloyal units would of been catastrophic.

The cost of maintain my empire which needed huge garrisons in Africa to fight the war with the Almohads, massive garrisons in the Balkans to hold back the Hungarians and rebelling Byzantines and a large force in Armenia and Trebizond to hold the Mongols was breaking my economy. I also needed large garrisons in the provinces to.

Start of collapse

The breaking up of the empire began when the current Sultans brother rebelled in Anatolia, it wasnt huge but it was enough to stretch me to far. I had to neglect my western armies to deal with repeated rebellions and invasions in the east during this time. My most loyal generals were pulled east and clustered together with my relief armies leaving less loyal men in charge of the west, something I simply couldnt avoid.

In the middle of this madness the mercenary army in Italy rebelled and a major civil war broke out led by yet another brother in Syria, of a total number of 3,500 men in and around Italy 2,800 joined the rebels. So I instantly lost control of my most recent conquests, thousands more men rebelled throughout the empire including a large army of reinforcements i'd sent to smash the forces of the last rebel army in the previous civil war.

About 50% of the empire was either rebel or being fought over, I lost most of the interior of Asia Minor and every island I had, worst of all my army in Tunisia was fighting itself as half was rebel the other still mine and the Almohads launched a massive offensive and crushed both sides at once and marched on Egypt.

Outcome

Over the next 10 years my empire was dismantled, I ended up with about 20% of what I had had 20 years earlier. I managed to withdraw enough men in time from the Balkans to secure the holyland and repel the Almohads, but couldnt withdraw over 800 men stranded on Sardinia thanks to enemy fleets nearby. Sardinia was eventually lost a few years later along with several important generals.

The main collapse probably took place over about 8 years the following 10 just summed up the chaos that followed, repeated rebellions and ridiculously large invasions. What I performed was a series of large withdrawels to the interior of the empire. I feel that I couldnt of done any better than I did, I was caught in a situation where I needed a massive army my economy couldnt afford to defend the heartlands where my economy was based.

I did recover, but for what ever reason provinces were constantly disloyal to me and I could never expand, but I did get my revenge in Italy and utterly smashed the mercenary army. However I did have to withdraw again, because of you guessed it a rebellion

I've never been huge and literallylost everything before, thats the closest ive ever come to being a superpower to nothing.

[Martok]

Wow _Aetius_, that's rough. I still compliment you, however, for sticking it out and fighting your way back. That takes guts.

I had a fairly epic collapse involving my own faction happen to me when I'd been playing MTW for only a few months. I had led a resurgent Byzantium to glory, recapturing most of the lands once held by the Romans and restoring the Empire. By the end of the Early period, I'd managed to gain control of all the lands surrounding the Mediterranean (save for the Papacy, whom I left alone), and had conquered most of the continent west of the Rhine.

I made a fatal mistake, however, when I decided to invade Britain. Specifically, I committed the error of having the Emperor (one of the Constantines, I think) personally lead the expedition. (This was before I was really aware of the effect of your faction leader being cut off from his lands. Oops!) Well you can guess what happened next: As soon as Constantine had crossed the Channel with his army, the entire empire suffered mass rebellions. Some factions re-emerged, and other kingdoms took advantage of my weakness and invaded some of my more vulnerable provinces.

I reluctantly ended up ceding large portions of my empire, instead focusing my efforts on preservering my heartlands. Of course, this loss of territory spurred yet more rebellions. Fortunately, I was able to crush most of them, but it stretched me nearly to the breaking point. Things were very touch-and-go for a while; I was hanging on for dear life the entire time.

It was at least 10 years before I finally started to get the sitution back under control. After all was said and done, I possessed little more than the provinces I started with, although I did manage to retain control of the Levant. And of course, around the time I got the situation truly stabilized, the Golden Horde showed up in Georgia....

[EatYerGreens]

Not the quickest, nor the biggest, but possibly one of the strangest, was in the campaign I'm currently running.

The Spanish had completely wiped out the Almos but before they'd got around to troubling me, the Almos had a multi-stack re-emergence, in Portugal, which enabled them to completely eliminate the Spanish. They were then held at bay by the Egyptians, in Morocco and me (English) at the (predictable) Navarre/Aragon borders.

I was doing quite well from trading to the Almos for a while (they built the ports the Spanish hadn't bothered to), although only on the northern and western Iberian coasts (a new policy of not spreading my ships too thinly) but then the Almos got jealous (??!!) and went and sank a ship...

I let a number of turns go by, with only naval exchanges (and they never ventured far enough north with their fleets to disrupt the surviving half of my trade), before steaming into Castile, from Navarre and then into Cordoba, so as to get into Valencia, avoiding the river battle that Aragon's border demands. I can only recall two proper 3-D battles with them (I got a Skilled Attacker general, after routing a very long chain of reinforcements in one of them). Leon went straight to a siege. More years of building up troop numbers by me, all the while hoping they'd attack and lose, so as to make the final battles a bit easier.

Finally, I got fed up of waiting and attacked Portugal. In spite of pretty decent numbers/quality on their side, they completely baled out and escaped to Granada by ship! This meant the final battle was against about 3 or 4 stacks in Granada (plus defence in mountains).

I expected a complete bloodbath, with heavier losses on my side, so I sent in an equivalent, or greater, number of stacks.

Despite it being their 'last-stand' territory, there was no 3-D battle and no siege. They completely vanished off the map!

I was really looking forward to using my first unit of CK's in this campaign in the battle as well. (Given my propensity to abandon campaigns without ever finishing them, this might have been the first time I'd ever used CK's in anger, outside of multiplayer battles....)

Also annoying was that Granada's Citadel was reduced to Castle-ringwall-CTs by the pillage effect.

[seireikhaan]

Wow, that certainly was odd, I've never had that happen to me when facing an actual faction. I've had rebels "surrender" a few times when they had no place to retreat, though.

[ULC]

That would be me as the HRE in 1226. I owned all but the Northern most steppes and the lands between cyrencia and armenia. I moved my 15 stacks of CMAA, HRK, CS, XB, and Halberdiers out of khazar ( they had been witing their for 10 plus years for the horde) down into edessa, antioch and syria, and up north into muscovy and chernigov wiping out everything in my path. The egyptians put up a good fight, but I eventually pushed them down into syria by 1228. They launched a counterattack from egypt, and my army being stretched thin trying keep everyone loyal, plus my best men and generals in georgia and khazar waiting for the horde, meant a quick and suprising defeat. I thought nothing of it st first, as all my provinces had 200 loyalty to me, but when I ended the turn, every province INCLUDING khazar and georgia, which had five stacks each, rebelled. Plus the English, the Danes, the French, and the Byzantines all reappeared, generally with 3-10 stacks themselves. The collapse of my empire was swift, but not over. I still controlled a good portion of my provinces, and my military still outclassed anything the reemergent factions had, the GOLDEN HORDE invades with 25 stacks in Khazar and 15 in Georgia (plus the other half of my empire that I wasn't able to put under control). I fight it out, but the sheer wieght of the reemergent factions, plus defeat after defeat and abondoning provinces, causes the rest of my empire to fall into civil war. I the end, I am reduced to Tripoli, Antioch, and Cyprus (Ironic, huh?), with just about everyone back into power. Presently they are beating the pulp out of each other, and I think I'm making a comeback.

[Deus ret.]

Impressive! Either your emperor must have been very weak influence-wise, or you sent him in some kind of province not connected to the rest of your empire before (while attacking?). Or some kind of bug had its hand in there, as I suspect somehow occured to me while I was playing the HRE (see this thread).

In any case, what a magnificent ruin! I'm interested in how you'll fight your way back to the top, given that all of your precious and upgraded heartland provinces are now owned by your rivals, wish you good luck on that....

[Martok]

Wow, YLC! I second Deus ret.; that's quite a spectacular collapse. Here's to regaining what you've lost!

Impressive! Either your emperor must have been very weak influence-wise, or you sent him in some kind of province not connected to the rest of your empire before (while attacking?). Or some kind of bug had its hand in there, as I suspect somehow occured to me while I was playing the HRE (see this thread).

It's been my experience that if your faction leader is commanding an attacking army somewhere, the game seems to treat him as being "cut off", just as if he were stuck on a island somewhere. This is especially true once your faction reaches a certain size (usually around 10-12 provinces).

[ULC]

I'm finally ack on track and have essentially replaced the Byzantine emperor, as I now control the three points. It seems my would be foes ransacked my home provinces, as their seems to be little in quality units coming my way. They have also wasted away their immense armies fighting each other. The only real players now are the Golden Horde, which is well estabilished in Novgorod, The English, The Spanish, and The Hungarians. Everyone else is either gone thanks to the English King (7 star general with specialist attacker) or the Golden Horde. But nonetheless, not a one of them has any chivalric units except for HRK's and CMA's. The year is 1317, do you think a still stand a chance? Oh, and for further reference, My Emperor had 6 Influence when my empire collapsed, and the main reason he was away from the kingdom was becuase he was that rarity among HRE emperors in that he had 6 stars, expert attacker, famously brave, killer instinct, Mighty Warrior. He was the main reason I was able to get back on my feet.

[Ripken]

I just witnessed a good one...

Playing as the Hungarians I had everything from Egypt to Khazar to Burgundy. The 'best of the rest' was France, who had bits of Iberia, northern and western France (the bits I didn't have), Britain, Scandinavia and (via Crusade) everything from Lithuania to Muscovy. We'd been stepping round each other for about 30 years (this was the mid 1200s, and on GA I had no reason to attack them) when their heirless king somewhat rashly led an attack and found himself trapped between two units of my Swiss Halbs.

I am now running around buying up stacks of rebels with my emissaries, which may not be the best thing to do but always amuses me!

[Innocentius]

I've got you all beat now This happened in my Polish campaign (see Pics & History of your empire):

1219:


1220


And all because their Sultan died childless

[Martok]

Wow. Looks like the Sicilians had a major civil was as well!

[Maloncanth]

Well, today I faced the horde horse for horse with the Cumans, smashed them to pieces with magic horses, then collapsed them all dead in the second turn, does this count?

Speaking of which, that was definitely the quickest collapse of heavy cavalry I'd ever seen. I'd never seen anything like it. High valor Cuman Heavy horse with armour upgrades charging downhill, you'd expect them to win sure but the entire Mongol charge just broke up and routed under the shock almost instantly. Such terrifying power.

On an unrelated note, this happened in my Elmo campaign recently.