Weird Scenarios

[Martok]

I was playing a Danish campaign about a year ago in which just about every faction that usually stagnates and/or dies wound up becoming major powers instead. (I myself controlled the Baltic provinces along with most of the HRE.)

The English had actually come out on top over the French for once, and had then proceeded to expand their Angevin Empire east to the Rhine and south to the Pyrenees. The Aragonese had somehow managed to gain the upper hand in Iberia -- I believe they were able to take advantage of both the Almos & Spanish, who were extremely war-weary from a bitter and protracted conflict with each other -- and eventually the entire peninsula came under their control. The Sicilians established a decent-sized Mediterranean empire, conquering most of North Africa, Italy, and a good chunk of the Balkans (including Constantinople).

The two really big surprises, however, were the Polish and Turks! The former had siezed eastern & southern Germany, destroyed the Hungarians, and then moved east into the Russian steppes. The latter faction somehow defeated the Egyptians (I suspect they may have killed their royal family in a couple of battles), took over the Holy Land, and knocked the Byzantines out of Asia Minor entirely. By the end of the Early period, the Eastern Roman Empire had been relegated to just Cyprus & Rhodes, and the Eggies had been completely destroyed!

It was definitely one of the more interesting campaigns I've played, as I've never seen anything like it before or since. I've come to refer to that particular campaign as my "opposite game" -- very odd!