The saddest thing to happen in a campaign

[phunkbot]

loosing a 57-ish yo faction leader to natural causes, a faction heir to a enemy princess and 2 pretty brutal enforcers to Inquisitors, all 4 in the same province, all 4 in the same turn. all 4 leading stacks that just happened to pass trough on a crusade that just ended and were about to backstab France pretty bad. That was in 1.0 though but it was quite

[WhiskeyGhost]

My poor poor King gets a request to personally go on a Crusade. So, i get him to join despite being on the other side of the world, and by the time he gets there he is 1 turn too late to take Jerusalem himself. The turn after Venice snatches it from me, my king dies, leaving his entire army leaderless, which rebels on the next turn.....also, the Pope(mine, and i didn't have Cardinal control) dies at the same time as my leader, and Spain(my hated enemy) gets ahold of the big Pope Hat, and procedes to allow Spain to attack me without intervention for the next 30+turns.

[phonicsmonkey]

At the end of an enormous siege battle to take Jerusalem from the Egyptians, as the clock is ticking down and my men are wiping out the last couple of trebuchet crews in the city square, I doubleclick to get my general and faction heir to run in from his safe spot on a rise outside the city walls. I often do this so he can join in the celebration when the clock ticks down to zero.

I get distracted watching some of my spearmen beating up on the egyptian treb crews and with about 30 seconds to go think to myself, "now where's that general?"......just in time for the cutscene showing him hacked off his horse and killed somewhere in the streets of the city where he had run into a unit of egyptian spears I'd forgotten about.

Nooooooooooo!

what a waste, I'd been nurturing him for years and his dad the king was about to knock off and leave me with a high chivalry, high command king for the first time.

instead I got his drunken, depraved, demented uncle. ho hum

[supadodo]

My king embarks on a crusade to Jerusalem. Unfortunately, many men deserted and the king was forced to take Alexandria which was only guarded by a mamluk and spear militia. However, the city rebeled and again, many of the men deserted leaving the king to his lonesome. So he wandered back west to try to hitch a boat ride off the Northern African coast..which was under Italian control. After many turns of dodging the massive Italian stacks, the king was finnaly cornered and killed He had such great stats too.

The prince became the next leader and I stuffed him into a ship to avenge the former but for some reason he died in the ship. The message was "Faction Leader Slain". As far as I know, he was still quite young, no disasters, and no enemy attacked my ship. Bloody game..

[MichelRensen]

It was in the dreadful days of the Mongolian invasian into the eastern lands. Armies weren't the right word; HORDES of them marched the lands, plundering and pillaging, but, above all, moving slowly towards Jerusalem.

Jerusalem once had a mighty army inside its walls. However, when the need for additional land became more pressing, a great portion of the army set out to conquer lands further north, into Turky. What was left in Jerusalem was an army on half strength: some militia with spears, a few peasants who could handle a bow for a bit, and the King, along with four of his direct family members and their personal retinue.

Word came in that the Mongols were headed West, and the King bidded for the grand army to return to home base, but the word came too late and although the army left in time, they would never get in time to save the city.

The city was overwhelmed: surrounded on three sides, and facing more siege equipment than the desperate peasants and their collueges in the towers could shoot down. The battle for the walls... It wasn't pretty, It wasn;t pretty AT ALL. The footsoldiers in the mongolian horde killed more than half of the militia before being wiped off the map themselves.

It should have ended there.

But the Mongolian horde waited. Waited the King out. And the King knew... he knew what the end would look like. And so, he decided for one last charge, ONE last act of glory that would be sung by every minstrel in every town hall, in EVERY court!

He and his family got together, greeted eachother grimly, and rode out of the gate, to glory.

-----------------------


In short: got them off the walls, bloody passive mongols won't go away, so not much else to do than charge out: I didn't have any recent savengames and anyway, I actually like this story. :p I always imagine sort of like a final speech that the King gives:

"'Ere, men, it has come to this. I know you have defended this city with your very LIVES! But by now you will know as well as I do that there can be no escape from the hordes. My question to you is this: Do you want to die inside the city walls, hopeless, trapped like a rat in a barrel? Or do you want to ride out, and meet our foes on the field in one last defying stand, that will be the subject for song and stories for CENTURIES to come! Follow me, men, FOLLOW ME!"

Well, anyway, that's how I see it. But five generals, that IS quite painful... :D

[Magraev]

I had a crusade capture Antioch as the english. The general was around 30 when he captured the city, and had great traits and the holy lance (+2 command, +1 piety).

Unfortunately egypt was a powerhouse and kept sending huge armies against the city. I was close to being in the red financially, and in a continental war with denmark and france, so I had to decide to give up the city (and army).

He fought bravely though. The first 4-5 full stacks were sent home packing, but the casualties were mounting without being able to build anything but militia.

I managed to get a new crusade declared against jerusalem, hoping it would take some heat off, but before my catholic brethren reached the area egypt attacked again with a full stack of mamluks, saracen militia and siege equipment. Earlier breaches were also unrepaired, so I had few defences.

After a long battle the general and around 30 other troops made their final stand in the square and were ultimately overwhelmed.

I felt doubly sad because I had abandoned him to his fate myself.

[darsalon]

Sad or comedic I'm not sure.

Playing as the English I was embroiled in a continental war with the French, Spanish and Milanese against me. I'd taken Paris, Angers and Rennes off the French and the Milanese had taken Dijon. They'd decided to treacherously set off on a war against me and we'd had a few fights around the Paris area. Then a major force of them marched up with the intent of grabbing Paris off me. They consisted of around 5 siege engines, 5 lots of italian militia, 3 lots of crossbowmen and a member of their family. Easy, I thought, with my full stack of spearmen, mailed knights, 5 lots of longbowmen and faction heir.

Well I went in with the attack, flanking with my spearmen and longbowmen and me wheeling my knights and faction heir around once the spearmen had started the attack. The milanese were taken in by this and moved their militia in against my spearmen. As I was moving my cavalry round a git of a catapult got a dead on hit on my faction heir as he was moving at full gallop. A sniper couldn't have got off a better shot.

At which point my entire army collapsed despite me having a 2 to 1 advantage. The milanese family member cut apart all my knights on his own and I was left with the stupid commentator saying "We are winning the battle" one second then a couple of seconds later saying my troops were fleeing.

Ignominious wasn't the word. I was able to scrape up enough troops a second time around to beat off this milanese force but it was a major setback and I'm still fighting attritional battles around Paris, years later. That along with inquisitors getting 2 other members of my family a year after the major fight I'm suspecting a conspiracy against me in this particular game