MacDidz: The Scottish Blog

[Didz]

MTW2 I think really lends itself to rp immersion much more than rtw or civ4. Both those had specific strategies peculiar to that game set up, MTW2 IMHO has a much more logical strategy setup, which means your blog reads like real history.

I must admit I am finding that writing the blog is adding immensely to my enjoyment of the campaign and making me explore area's of gameplay which in a normal campaign I would have overlooked.

This is something like my eighth campaign and yet I am learning a lot from it by being forced to consider everything in more detail. So, the blog is proving a useful tool for focussing my attention as well as bringing characters to life.

The new nerfed inquisitors seem to be rather ineffective, and that makes the heretics even stronger.

I must admit I was surprised at just how ineffective the inquisition was. I was expecting flames and torture, I was even concerned about the survival of some of my nobles. But the guy they sent to Scotland was a kitten rather than a tiger.

Anyway, I've read Neocats Guide to handling priest now so hopefully I can begin to counter the growing plague of heresy contaminating Scotland.

[Didz]

Winter 1110: Diplomats, Priests and Princesses
Princess Mariot arrives at Paris and meets with Prince Henry of France. She sends back the interesting news that our allies the French are now also allied to the Moors of North Africa. Princess Mariot gains +1 Charm from her time at the French court and then continues her journey south towards Spain with her overly attentive guards.

Angus Stewart has met with King Charles of Denmark to discuss the recent tresspass of Danish troops in Kent. Edward was surprised to hear that Denmark only held Antwerp, Bruges and Stockhold plus their capital. Angus beleives that they are reliable although they still refuse to accept a formal alliance with Scotland.


The priest Feradac Besat is persuaded by Primus ‘The Hairy Nun’ that the Scots really are Gods chosen people and joins him in his quest to convert all Scots to Nunism and take up the tartan cross.


Summer 1111: Home again, home again, jiggerty jog.
Domencius the Inquisitor has returned to Rome having found no evidence of heresy in Scotland. In the meantime, Jamie Canmore has come of age and he and his father Edmund decide to return north to Scotland to visit their estates.


Religious unrest in Scotland is growing, Federa and Primus have converted 36% of the Scots to their teachings and religious unrest in Inverness has risen to 70%.

Edward orders sends Patrick Stewart in Rome a further contribution of 500 Florins for the Papal Church gaining further favour with the Pope. [Pope-o-meter 8/10]

Stewart notes that at present Scotland is the only Catholic faction with a formal Papal alliance, and that the Papal States have expanded into Florence and Tripoli.

Another priest, Ranald the Unorthodox, abandons the Catholic faith to join the heretic Isaac in his beleif that wealth is the blessing of the Lord rather than the root of all evil, and sets about getting as blessed as possible.


Winter 1111: Petair gets careless
The Guild of Master Explorers are granted a charter to establish themselves in Edinburgh.

News reaches Nottingham that the English of Caen have executed Petair for spying, a fresh agent will need to be sent to Normandy to keep an eye on King Robert and his kingdom.

The defences of Edinburgh have finally been upgraded after three years of delay and York now has a port.

The situation in Inverness continues to deteriorate with religious unrest now at 80%, with more and more Scots taking to the tartan habit.

Allan of Berwickshire has been landed in Spain and has reached the Spanish court at Toledo. There was nobody there to greet him but he has established that Spain is much weaker than we thought with only four settlements under its control and that it is allied with the Excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor.

News reaches Nottingham that the Mongols are approaching from the East.


Summer 1112: My son and heir.
Prince Kyle the eldest son of King Edward comes of age, and Edward begins to consider the best way to prepare both his son and his brothers sons Cathal and Edward for their future roles in the Kingdom.

Their first challenge will be to proved their peity by taking the lead in the battle against heresy within the kingdom and overseeing the actions to restore faith in the true church. A new church is immediately commissioned in Inverness to try and counter the rising levels of heresy in the province and Prince Edward is sent to oversee its construction.

Patrick Stewart reports that Pope is pleased with the restraint that Scotland has shown towards its enemies the English and that our reputation has improved improved still further. We are now the most favoured faction with the Pope as well as his only Ally.

[Stuperman]

have you tried a heritic stomp?

you need 10 units, place them in the 9 adjecent(sp) squares besides the heritics and then move a guy "ontop" of the heritic. If done right it will kill him, this works for inquisitors too.

Love the blog.

[Didz]

have you tried a heritic stomp?

I haven't but I am aware of the technique. At the moment it suits me to play along with the heretic plot as I have young family members to train so I need to recruit a lot of priests anyway. But I'll see how it goes.

[StoneCold]

Basically the stomp works for all non-fighting units, so if you manage to find an assassin, spy, but don't have a assassin of yours nearby, turn out your nearest army for a man-hunt :). Don't let your young members be in the heretic regions for too long or they will start getting bad traits.

[Didz]

1112-1115 From little acorns.
The next three years were dedicated to the personal development of the Royal children and attempting to make the United Kingdom a land fit for them to rule.


Princess Mariot (Age 22)
Traits and Retinue: Smothering guards, Faithful Servant, Fine cosmetic’s, simplistic, respectful, natural negotiator.
Princess Mariot continued her promenade through France to Portugal. Move suitors approached the King requesting her hand in marriage by Edward remained hopefully of an advantageous match with an Iberian Prince.

He was to be disappointed as by the time Mariot reached Lisbon it was clear that neither Spain nor Portugal had any Faction Leader or heirs available to marry her. Unfortunately, she is not that intelligent either and so her future is beginning to look bleak.

The only possible candidate was a Spanish General she met in Bordeaux called Valdez the Saint. This guy actually had maxed Piety and Loyalty plus 8/10 command ability which is probably why the French are doing so poorly in their war against Spain. The bad news is that there was only an 18% chance that Mariot could charm him up the aisle but I suppose its worth a try.


Prince Kyle (Age 19)
Traits and Retinue: Pagan Magician, Good with Taxes, Mean with money, Religious, Fair in Rule.
Having supervised the construction of the mines in York, Prince Kyle has been packed off to the holy land to answer the Popes call for a crusade to Jerusalem. Edward’s comment that ‘It’ll do the lad good.’ hid a very real concern that his remaining in the kingdom would lead to a very real risk that he would be corrupted by the heretical idea’s that were still sweeping the land. Prince Kyle had already hired a Pagan Magician to help him predict the future, and things could only get worse if he remained.


Cathal Canmore (Age 22) – Duke of Cornwall, Constable of the Tower of London
Traits and Retinue: Overseer, cultured, social drinker, gregarious, dutifully religious, religiously proper, mining knowledge, ignorant.
Cathal was doing well in his new role as Duke of Cornwall, he supervised the building of tin mines in the county gaining considerable knowledge and understanding of mining and encouraged the training of an elite squad of priests to hunt down Isaac and his ‘Salvation through Wealth’ heretic’s which were gaining numerous followers amongst London’s merchant community.


James Canmore (Age 19) – The wandering Prince
Traits and Retinue: Religiously proper, delusions of illness, understands trade, sociable, superstitious, honest, religious, good with taxes, mining knowledge.
Originally sent to Inverness to oversee the building of yet another church, it quickly became apparent that the north of Scotland was not a suitable place for a such a sickly and impressionable youth. He was withdraw to Edinburgh briefly to witness the construction of the cities Merchant Wharf and then sent to Ireland to supervise the construction of the port facilities in Dublin.


Adam Canmore (Age 17) – Duke of York
Traits and Retinue: Abhors Drink, sociable.
Currently overseeing the construction of a church in Edinburgh, he is the youngest of Edmunds sons and feels unappreciated.

[Didz]

Winter 1112 The Battle of Taunton
In the winter of 1112, Edward decided to deal once and for all with the English army which was still skulking in woods and villages of Gloucestershire despite demands that it should either disperse or withdraw to Normandy.

Edward instructed one of the newly appointed diplomats Roy of Sowlis to give them one last option to vacate the soil of the United Kingdom peacefully or simply disperse and go home. But Ralph their captain refused to accept either option and so Edward gathered 150 crossbowmen and 160 knights from the fortress of Nottingham and drove them out of Gloucestershire into Somerset before forcing them to give battle near the town of Taunton.

Edward drew his army up on a low ridge overlooking the English army which then attempted to attack and drive off his crossbowmen, allowing the Scottish knights to envelope their formations and destroy them piecemeal with well time charges in the flanks and rear.


With the last English troops removed from the United Kingdom Edward returned to Nottingham Castle.

[Didz]

1115: Know your enemies, know your friends.

Edmund had done as Edward requested recruiting three more diplomats and an additional spy to monitor the potential threats along Scotland’s trade route to Africa.

So, by 1115 Scotland had established five foreign embassies each with a resident diplomat.

Each of these diplomats had submitted their initial reports and having dealt with the English at the Battle of Taunton Edward settled down with his council of ministers to analyse the information which had been provided.


The first re-assurance Edward gained from this information was that Scotland and her ally France were both supremely powerful and with seven settlements each were much larger than their immediate enemies England and Spain.

Only the Holy Roman Emperor held more territory than Scotland though He was currently ex-communicated and so might not hold onto it for very long.

Economically, both England and Spain have drained their treasuries dry hiring troops to fight their respective wars and only Scotland and the Papal states seem to have any significant wealth.

In addition to the comparison of power and wealth, Edward had a chart drawn up to help him understand the diplomatic and military relationships between the various kingdoms.


This clearly showed that Spain was the centre and of an alliance of five factions, Spain, England, Portugal, HRE and Milan. Together this alliance could call upon the resources of at least 20 provinces.

Opposed to this loose coalition was Scotland and France with 14 provinces but with the potential support of the Papal States and the Pope. It was also clear that Denmark through its alliance with Venice ought to be a potential ally of France and Scotland, as Venice was already at war with the HRE.

However, for the moment, Denmark seemed determined to remain neutral. But there was no doubt from the chart where its friends ought to reside and with Denmark came to possible support of Poland.

Once more the council proposed that Scotland should continue its war against the English by capturing the city of Caen. This would not only swing the balance of power in favour of the Franco-Scottish alliance but remove a potential threat to France allowing it to concentrate all its resources against Spain and would give Scotland a base of operations on the other side of the channel should they need to assist France actively against the Spanish.

Edward recognised that this might well be a sensible course of action. However, Micheil of Argyll had revealed the worrying information that Portugal has already captured the city of Madagascar from the Moors and Edward is now torn between the desire to beat the Portuguese to Timbuktu or finishing off the English. If Caen was to be attacked then it would need to be a quick seige, and that required catapults which Edward did not have. "Give me a catapult and I will give you Caen." he muttered

In the meantime Edward decided to extend his network of embassies to include Venice, Poland and Milan, as he was keen to discover if Venice wished to join the Franco-Scottish Alliance and what if any power Milan and Poland might be able to contribute to their friends.