Weird Scenarios

[CrazyGuy]

Hi guys and a happy new year,

Playing an XL game as the English and an intriguing development has taken place.

Normally the Spanish become the dominant power, it seems that they crush the Almos pretty quickly, drive the French out of continental Europe and leave them scrapping over Britain. This time its different, very different...

Essentially, everyone has swapped around...

Becuase I lost all my navy, the Almos managed to take most of mainland Britain (I'm praying for rebellions), meaning that my kingdom is essentially French, centred on Ile-on-France, and encompassing a line on the Friesland-Bavarian border. The Poles seem to have occupied most of the old HRE, which was eliminated but re-emerged and seems to occupy most of Italy. Both Italians are penned on the Alps, and the French are trapped in Provence. The East seemed crazy for a while, 4 Serb re-emergences and the Egyptians as far as Hungaruy! But The Danes seemed most of it (they certainly claimed Constantinople) but their King died without heirs, many re-emergences...

However, the confusing thing is the Almos, they just attacked me, and because they rule the seas they managed to attack my weak underbelly in northern France. However, when I have brought them to battle, there has been carnage (3000 dead + 1000 captured vs. 300 dead), they have no answer to any heavy infantry. Yet, they still come. I've obliterated 4 huge armies, killed three top generals, two kings and an heir. Yet it hasn't stopped them. Plus no matter many I kill they seem to replenish their armies effortlessly.

How is this happening? Firstly, how haven't I ground them down, and secondly, since they are obliterated by any heavy infantry and come unstuck against any shields have they managed to beat the Spanish. At the very least they would have faced Feudal Seargeants and FMAA's with teched-up armour?

Also, more abstractly, what is the weirdest/most/historically inaccurate development anyone has had/seen? Certainly the Almos occupying Wessex and Mercia just seems wrong...

[seireikhaan]

Well, the Almos steamrolling into Europe isn't too uncommon, though its not something I fancy going up against in the early period. As a matter of fact, the first game I ever played, as the Egyptians, ended up coming down to me owning the entire eastern half, while the Almos owned the entire western half.

Hmm, weirdest scenario...
Perhaps this? I was the Spanish, owning Iberia, much of northern africa, and some of western Europe. The Danes completely dominated the HRE, knocking them out of the game and taking nearly all of their territories, while I was knocking out France. Me and Denmark split the British isles. Meanwhile, in the east, Egypt had been relegated to Rum and Armenia, Hungary owned everything from Bohemia and Poland down to Constantinople, the Byzantines were sharing the middle east with the Turks, Danes, and the HRE, who reappeared in Antioch, after having previously owned the territory from a crusade.

As for the immortal Almos, you have to consider that Iberia is very, very rich, and the Almos have a tendency to spam every unit they can, which can make dealing with them rather difficult, unless you can force a civil war. Plus, they have many good units which have rather meager build requirements, so often times, they'll start producing units right away after capturing a province.

[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!

[Peasant Phill]

...
Secondly, since they are obliterated by any heavy infantry and come unstuck against any shields have they managed to beat the Spanish. At the very least they would have faced Feudal Seargeants and FMAA's with teched-up armour?...

Because the AI calculates battles differently than how they play out in full. The AI consideres all the men at once and not, like a played out battle, max 16 against max 16 with reinforcements coming later. This gives the army with more units an advantage it wouldn't have in a battle against a player that fights his/her own battles. And the Almo's are known for spamming of units giving them an advantage over western factions relying more on technology.

[CrazyGuy]

Thanks Kamilkhan (and others), however, the bigger question (beyond how have they such massive but useless armies) is how they are still standing. If the situation was reserved and I was in a situation where I was in a war with the major power, lost some top generals and three royal members, with no family guarding my 'homeland' in this case, Spain and my King was on a distant island, I would almost be guaranteed a civil war.

In this case a civil war would be disastorous as it would almost guarantee 1 or more emergences, (the Portugese, Aragonese and/or the Spanish) yet it hasn't. Have I misread what causes civil wars or is this a CPU 'cheat'?

Also, i'm liking some of the scenarios people have posted. I've only once had the Turks be any sort of power and that was on the third re-emergence. It's amazing to uncover a portion of the map and find something ridiculous has happened without you knowing about it!

[macsen rufus]

The strangest situation I found once, was the English holding Sinai through to Antioch, and the Egyptians restricted to the British Isles Don't know how it happened (the English I'm sure was a Crusade/Re-emergence thing) as I'd had the map concealed, and I was playing Teutonic Order.

Other oddities I have seen - HRE so far east they were the first faction to meet the Horde (vanilla); Papacy controliing all of Italy, the Balkans and most of France (XL). Byzantines stuck on Rhodes &/or Cyprus is a common occurence, though once they did get stuck in Volga-Bulgaria

[ULC]

I've had many, the best being when the Papacy took over all of Italy, France, Britain, and Spain when I was the Byzantines. I swear, the Pope screamed "Glory to the Western Roman Empire!" when he took Portugal.

[Innocentius]

The Armenians (XL) ruling the entire SE-corner of the map and much of the Balkans is a favourite of mine. Another goodie is the Seljuk collapse in my Polish campaign:

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