Quickest collapse you've seen?

[gaiusjulii]

If we're including the faction dieing due to know heir then the Fastest I have seen would be the Byz, they controlled all of north africa, Asia Minor, the hloy lands, the steppes and the the baltics they had have huge stacks all over europe and I was preparing to die with my measly 3 stacks in denmark. So here I am in control of the ocean as That had been my priority for some reason and the Byz well and truly the only faction expanding with their beautiful purple getting bigger and closer, and then Bam! all gone in one turn the Emp dies with no sons, the Almo's, egyptian hungarian, polish, turks people of Nov all remerge and pick apart the remains the Byz did remerge a few year later but all apart from the 3 small islands in the south med are under other factions control. the Byz emp is stranded on the Island of crete for the rest of the game.

not including the with no heirs destruction was my own and my very first which i will never forget. I was playing as the english as usual and its 1320 something I have destroyed all factions except 2 well one the other was rebel Ireland, you know where this is going already?! well being green with VI and dazzled by the red covered globe for the very first time, not first time playing just first time as the last remaining faction so All i have to do is finish off the sicilians by invading Sicily so I do this and have them Under seige with one Year remaining and being ever the idealist I decide its time to take Ireland so In goes my king with a modest stack to take out the rebels and POW i had this theory back then that king leads from the front! the screen goes red and Not the Englsih color I am accoustomed to... so The next thing I know the french, germans, spanish and turks remerge, I suppress the turks hrshly as they being the newest aquired lands have the highest tech soldiers, and then I press enter and POW the Papacy, the byz and countless other rebels emerge I am Doomed so I ended up with the British Isles tripoli antioch and edessa and denmark with a few others dotted around, I lost heart and quit but I did learn a few inportant things from it! one controlling the Seas saved what Armies were left by jumping them a few years later back home to defend the home lands and DONT ISOLATE your king! and thirdly kill the pope last but the most important lesson. Dont Blitzkrieg and make sure you secure the lands you have before moving to far to quick!!!!all in all I think it took about ten years before I gave up. wish I hadnt Now it would have still been a good game

[Martok]

Yeah, I think most - if not all - of us have learned some painful lessons from invading an island with your faction leader. I suffered a simliar collapse in a (now long-ago) Spanish campaign where I made the mistake of letting my king personally lead an invasion of Sicily. I ended up losing almost all my lands (which until that point had encompassed nearly all of western Europe) to mass rebellions & faction re-emergences -- only the provinces of nothern Iberia and southern France remained loyal to me.

Sadly, that was not the last time I made the mistake of invading an island with my king -- I didn't learn there was a connection between the two phenomena until quite a bit later on -- but it was probably among my most painful slip-ups.

[Agent Miles]

I was playing MTW/VI with no mods as the Turks Early Expert. I crushed the Golden Horde in two turns. I spanked them in Khazar and pursued them into Volga-Bulgaria. After that, what was left turned rebel.
I also saw a very large AI English kingdom suffer the "no heirs" disaster. Half the map went rebel.

[Martok]

It really is a pity that you can't designate a general as your heir should your faction leader be unable to "rise to the occasion". It used to be rumored that a general married to one of your princesses could ascend to the throne, but I've never seen this happen (at least I don't *think* it has). Would that it were so!

[Cecil XIX]

It used to be rumored that a general married to one of your princesses could ascend to the throne, but I've never seen this happen.

I believe the manual says so explicitly, though it also says such an ascension will probably result in civil war. I've never seen it either; does anyone know of an example where it clearly failed to occur?

[The Unknown Guy]

I don´t remember reading that in the manual. I thought it only applied to "Generals of Royal Blood" AKA: former princes out of the succession line. Which I know to take place not for personal experience, but because I murdered several "heirless" kings of Sicily, and some remaining "royal knights" became kings over and over. In fact, I had to çuit my friendly face and invade them straight off, instead of just buying off Malta.

[Martok]

The Unknown Guy is correct. The manual only mentions "princes of the blood" as being able to ascend to the throne (and that a civil war is still possible even if that happens).

These gentlemen are usually the dead king's uncles (and in rare cases, great-uncles), and you'll always be able to recognize them: They'll appear as regular generals, except that they'll also have a crown on their info parchment, indicating the man is of royal blood. To the best of my knowledge -- and my experience reflects this as well -- they're the only generals that can become king if your faction leader dies without a direct heir.