Posted here a while back my campaign with England. I stopped playing for a while, and now got back to it. Expanded a lot, if you compare with my previous post, and my power is now hegemonic. At the point I took this screenshot, I was only at war with Kiev and the Timurids, but the Byzantines attacked me again on the next turn (they sure gonna pay). My allies are Denmark, Sicily, Poland and Novgorod. I'm a very good ally, since, by the map, you can tell I already gave them large chunks of land I conquered myself, like Ray for the Sicilians after the last crusade, Moscow and that other fortress for the Novgorodians (which only had two territories by the time I married their princess) and to the Poles some city in the Holy Land (I forgot which) from which they expanded and some hungarian lands I took from the Byzzies. Still gonna give them the next territories I take from Kiev. You can see the Teutonics, too, who I couldn't stop from taking Riga because I was too busy in my war with France, and the Holy Roman Empire, who was vassalized by my Sicilian allies and now my other allies, the Danish, can't finish them off. The Cumans are vassalized by the Byzzies, and the Mongols are so weakened the Timurids, Poles and Sicilians are having no trouble taking their lands. The Genoese were destroyed by the Sicilians and the French, which had northern Italy, and that's why I hold it now. Thinking about making Venice my capital, since it will soon be a Huge City. More pictures below.
Here without FOW:
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Baghdad, which my Polish allies took from the Byzantines. You can see my Citadel Mosul (the other one I have is Metz), which I took during a crusade on Yerevan.
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Newly conquered Crimea. The assault was led by my Heir, after crossing the Black Sea.
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Constantinople and the last Byzantine settlements remaining. They also have Rhodes and Cyprus, which I will take from them now that they were dumb enough to attack me again. Hope they will settle after I leave them with only 2 settlements, they are a pain in the ass to fight.
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Iberia, which I took in its entirety from the Moors (yes, they destroyed Leon and Portugal).
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The first Polish settlements in the Holy Land. From there, they expanded eastward. You can also see the last city from the Crusader States, which has been vassalized by the Byzantines also.
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England. I've paid little attention to it for a while, but now I'm focusing on developing it. Caernavron was a Large Town some time ago, for example.
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France, blitzed by me. The only thing that kept me from overruning it in, like, 5 turns was the Pope. Now, it is completely under my rule. I made them my allies at the beginning of the game, which was a mistake.
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My Danish allies delivered a good beating to the germans. Believe it or not, I didn't even interfere. Well, I actually took Cologne from them when they attacked me, but that was a while before the Danes took this territories.
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Greece, completely conquered from the Byzantines. Also took Crete from them.
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The Holy Land, took from the Fatimids a long time ago. I already had this territories the last time I posted this campaign.
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The Hungarian lands I gifted the Polish. I actually took those from the Byzantines, who were beating Hungary before I interceded.
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The Timurids took Khiva from me (but not without a hard fight where my army, composed only of militias, was able to kill half of their two-stack force and kill one of their generals), and certainly are gonna cause trouble in my eastern colonies.
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My border with the Kievan Rus. I intend to soon took Kiev from them.
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The territories I gave to Novgorod to get them back on their feet.
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Northern Italy. I thought about giving it to Sicily, but I'll probably keep it. Below you can see Rome under control by my allies.
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Scotland, which I took recently, so I could win the game. I commited the mistake of vassalizing them at the beginning of the game. It was awkward to kill them like this.
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I gifted Ray to the Sicilians after I took it from the Mongols in a crusade, and they acted like I wanted and kept expanding. Somehow they let it rebel. Well, whatever.
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The Teutonics. I sold Riga to them so they would leave me alone, and they did. I'll finish them off in the future.
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The ridiculous amount of stacks the Danes have in the border with the HRE. I want to find a way to de-vassalize them so that they can finally attack. Or I can just gift them a region in the East and they can expand there, too.
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Yerevan, took during a crusade on the Khwarezmians (who ended up destroyed after it). It was here the Byzantines first attacked me and started our bloody war. They paid dearly.
And that's it. After 259 turns, that's how it looks. You may have noticed I have a load of cash. That's probably because, some time ago, I decided to just build everywhere I could, even if I went into debt. So, just kept building, building everywhere. Now, I'm still building, but my economy skyrocketed. And, managing my army so I don't waste money where it's not needed, I only keep growing. It's crazy.
Edit: I'm also just past the plague.
And this is my older post on this campaign:
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Originally Posted by Macunaíma
Here's my English Empire, turn 127 M/M:
With colonies everywhere, which demands much more money ! If you want to hear the whole story:
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My start was ok, I took a lot of surrounding rebel regions, and then Scotland attacked. Took Edinburgh and vassalized them. Made a marriage alliance with France and went on a crusade on Cairo. Papal States got there first, so I took Alexandria. That tiny enclave would eat up all Fatimid lands, after some conflicts and a crusade on Gaza. Meanwhile, I sailed to Norway, which I had little difficulty to destroy. A crusade on Vilnius opened the Baltic for me, as I carved a great colony on Lithuania's body. While I faced the hordes of Lithuanians in the East, I sailed for the Moorish-dominated Iberian peninsula, where I striked first at Oporto, and quickly sent a small army from there to take Lisbon, which had a weak garrison. However, the Moors were much more powerful than I thought, and soon I saw myself surrounded by endless orange stacks. My favor with the Pope proved to be worth the effort when I called a crusade on Granada (won by me). While I was battling the Moorish in portuguese lands, they were attacking me at Middle East. A jihad was called on Medina many turns before (seriously, I think it was something like 50 turns before this picture, and it's still on), and the settlement saw itself surrounded by endless saracen armies. The English held their ground heroically, fending off stack after stack, slaughtering endless hordes of cavalry storming their gates. In Lithuania, after a huge battle a few miles from Thorn, causing the death of many enemy generals, the Lithuanians beg for a ceasefire, which the English accept. Exchanging conquered Mensk for Stettin, from their Polish allies, they narrow their border with Lithuania, solidifying their spread-out mass of territories. Soon after, the Teutonic Order emerges, attacking the English at Palanga. They manage to get a ceasefire without shedding the blood of fellow christians, but they doubt that the germans will give up on the fortress. And this is the world at the time, from the English point of view.
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The peaceful border with the French. The English know that eventually it will become the stage of the most bloody battles Europe has ever seen, but for now they enjoy the peace, and rest.
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Their vassals in the north. They have lived side by side for so many time that the English hesitate to do what must be done. Finish them off.
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Thorn, a unreached goal for the English Empire. After accepting the Lithuanian ceasefire, they were forced to withdraw, although leaving piles of bodies behind as they returned to Palanga. It is possible to see their new foes, the Teutonic Order, patiently waiting outside of the walls of Palanga. They have an accurate idea of what's going on their minds.
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As part of their deal with the Teutonics, the English agreed to reignite their conflict with the Lithuanians. The King patiently waits to join the pieces of land that form his colonies on the Baltic.
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The besieged Medina. The English heroic stand seems to be in vain after all, as the thousands of saracens prepare their assault against the around 100 men in the settlement. Hungry and tired after fighting the muslims for decades, they wait for their fate. The last assault only stopped on the inner walls, and the day ended when the Khwarezmians were going to cross the gatehouse.
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Conquered Vilnius, the center of the English Empire on the Baltic.
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Jerusalem and the Holy Land, shared by the English and their Polish allies. The advance of Khwarezmians forces on the East is concerning.
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The Golden Horde, carving their empire on Khwarezmian lands. It was expected that the muslim forces would retreat to deal with this threat, but they seem to be confident enough to keep attacking Medina and expanding West.
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Granada, the newly conquered English Empire enclave.
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The English settlements in the northwest of Iberia. Despite Moorish efforts, Oporto was held, and many thousands of saracens died on their attempts to take it.
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Scandinavia under the English and their allies, the Danish. This alliance proved to be true on their war against the Holy Roman Empire, a great victory for both.
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Venice, who conquered important settlements from the weakened HRE. After fighting England and its allied repeatedly, the germans saw their mighty empire crumble when several countries took advantage of this and attacked them. Asking England for a ceasefire, they retreated (after losing territories to the Danes, and losing battles in French soil) to lick their wounds. Now, they grow strong again, but to regain the power from earlier ages is a distant dream.
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The Seljuks, enemies of England, now reduced to a small bunch of provinces in the East. Losing ground to the Byzantines and Khwarezmians, they still find strenght to send jihad armies to Medina. It is likely that in the near future they will be engulfed by both nations, and then the Mongols.
And that's it. Thoughts?
Last edited by Macunaíma; February 23, 2015 at 05:40 PM.
So two things. Before we start I want to say I'm running Early Campaign HRE. Turn 58 and I absolutely despise Mangonels. Absolute trash siege equipment. I think I've killed more of my own troops than enemies. So enemy will be about ohh lets say 200 yards? Right when they get within range of the artillery piece. Anyways, enemy is that close and 5 of my mangonels fired, 2 actually went the distance but exploded about quarter of the way there. The rest didnt even get any air, just a line drive into the back of my infantry. 3 whole units completely wiped off the map and 2 of my crossbowmen retreated. so there goes a big chunk of my army and it's only 10 seconds into the fight.
So the next thing I wanted to touch on is allies. If you are playing any of the Christian kingdoms, immediately get the Crusader States. They are total bros and in the 10 fights I've been in with them (4 of them being defense against Jihads, they really wanted Acre and Jerusalem) they have saved me 8 times, right when my troops were beginning to retreat, here comes the Crusaders inspiring raw courage in my troops to continue fighting and turned the fight around to earn myself on the campaign map a Famous Battle marker. Jerusalem is actually surrounded with Historic Sites now lol.
I use the default Print Screen button. The game saves them automatically on the "tgas" folder, and, since they're on that format, you'll need a software that can open them (I use IrfanView). Then it's just cutting and pasting.
I am playing the Fatimid Caliphate on vh/vh and Christendom called it's second crusade on Cairo (They've only ever called 2 and the first one was at turn 15)
I've somehow been able to conquer Constantinople when the Jihad was called (but I do believe the Seljuk Turks softened up the Byzantines quite considerably before I made my move)
After conquering Constantinople I spread out and took Adrianople, Cannakkle, Nicaea and Smyrn (pardon my mispellings)
I also moved west from Alexandria and took Benghazi, but since it was a desolate village (I converted it from it's castle state) I left it largely un-garrisoned due to it's remote location on the map.
The Sicilians however ended up taking it, so I retaliated by taking Tunis and Al-mahdiyya from the Sicilians using my Heroic 10star Shi'ite Caliph Ahmad the Conqueror (now known as the Brave for some reason)
From there I took my Caliph back to Constantinople and now I use his son, Suwayd (who is second in line to the throne) as my main general who is currently braving off the onslaught of fanatical Christians coming into the holylands in pursuit of Cairo.
Update 1: Suwayd is now a 9star general because of his heroic deeds at the defense of Cairo
Update 2: I have taken Thessalonica from the Byzantines, and recaptured Benghazi from the Sicilians
Update 3: Lost Benghazi again, gained Scopia
The Plan: I'm looking forward (after I deal with this Crusade) to wage war against my current allies, the Seljuk Turks. I am willing to backstab them because they backstabbed the Khawarez and are currently waging an almost equally matched war against eachother (although I do see the Khawarez buckle against the strength of the Turks. I feel it would be a smart move to sandwich the Turks and blitzkrieg Iraq and Armenia
Last edited by here4thehax; August 04, 2015 at 02:13 AM.
Hi again, here with yet another playthrough of the HRE (Savage AI VH/VH, Regional Knight Orders, Royal Ladies of the Court). This time I managed to pull through though and it's been quite the interesting campaign.
I started out killing off the Hohenstaufen dynasty right off the bat. No point in keeping them around if I want an Austrian dynasty. Next thing I did was selling of Magdeburg and Cologne to Norway, Hamburg to Denmark and the remainder of the german provinces to France in exchange for money and alliances. Allied with Venice afterwards instead of conquering them. After that I moved all my troops east. Saint Leopold and his successor Vic the Crusader waged war on Hungary and half of Poland, before coming into conflict with the church. Leaving the remainder of Poland to serve as a buffer with the Lithuanians, Kaiser Vic the Crusader allied with Byzantium and set out on a crusade to help out the beleaguered Crusader States in the 1140's, capturing Acre (Tyre) in 1142 and later Alexandria in 1157. In his latter years he set out to Vilnius on his final crusade in 1180 before dying in Vienna in 1184. Vilnius' addition was shortlived though, being attacked by Novgorod spawned an ongoing war with the Russian principalieties to this day.
During the lifetime of both these emperors, the HRE allied with the Cuman Khanate, Crusader States, Aragon, Castille, Portugal, England, Scotland and Sicily as well. There was a real Pax Europeana so to say. The only faction that did not want any of this was <drum roll> Genoa, who else. Genoa and Venice's constant battling led to Venice's excommunication. Kaiser Wilhelm the Saint saw this as an opportunity and led a succesfull crusade with his son Adolf the Merciless (Yes, Kaiser Wilhelm and Kronprinz Adolf, talk about coincidence, I first thought it'd be history repeating itself and me getting ran over by the russians and english haha), wiping out Venice and adding it to the Reich. Kaiser Adolf concluded his reign with the purchase of Baia in 1212, one year before his death.
At 1210 I got a strange message. "The Fatimid Caliphate has been destroyed". The Crusader States actually managed to defeat them and were carving out a mighty empire of their own. I was pretty much overjoyed at seeing my allies finally not being beaten to death the first fifty turns. In hindsight, that's a mistake I won't be making again. In the latter years leading up to this first screencap, Aragon and France kept eating away at Genoa, eventually leading to its destruction at the hands of Aragon. It came at a heavy cost though, my worthy ally got excommunicated in 1220. This was the year of the mongol invasion for the east, but for the west it marked the death of the Pax Europeana.
Under Hildebrand the Merciless, the Reich started preparing itself for the worst. Border regions were reinforced, the troops were trained for battle. An alliance was swiftly forged with the emerging Teutonic Order, which wiped out Lithuania and firmly occupied their territories. In 1224 France declared war on Aragon. I sticked with Aragon, although Imperial-French relations only slowly deteriorated. Aragon couldn't hold the combined might of France, Castille and Portugal and was destroyed in 1242. 2 years later, war broke out. Hildebrand's son Arnoldt the Killer and his grandson, Sigismund the Mighty swept out of Bern and Vienna into the german provinces, out to reclaim what is rightfully ours. At Kaiser Hildebrand's death in 1156, papal relations had deteriorated to the point of excommunication. Kaiser Arnoldt the Killer resolved this situation by murdering cardinals and popes until the Holy Roman Empire was in control of the papal seat again. At his death in 1165, the now Kaiser Sigismund the Mighty had succeeded in reclaiming all german territories, being the first to be truly proclaimed as Holy Roman Emperor. The fortress line Antwerp/Metz/Bern has until this day been impenetrable for the French.
In 1272, the Teutonic Order died out. Sigismund responded to this by annexing the Baltic to the Reich, leading to a prolonged war with Kiev and Novgorod. The struggle ended in an indecisive stalemate with the capture of Vilnius by Sigismund in 1287 and Pskov by Sigismund's son Ernst the Brave in 1294. Sigismund spent the remainder of his years fortifying the baltic, building citadel after citadel. Through occasional friendlier contacts with Kiev, the Reich learned of the Mongol Invasion, and while an initial success, was heavily on the decline in the 14th century, with Kiev and Jerusalem gaining victory after victory. With the destruction of Cumania, Transylvanian knights of the Teutonic Order descended on Targoviste and added a solid border citadel with Byzantium.
After his death in 1320, the eastern alliances fell as well. For 44 years, the Reich could not protect their Iberian allies from the French onslaught, nor Byzantium from the Frankish crusaders. At the death of Ernst the Brave in 1347, both forces had allied and inflicted heavy damage upon the Reich's remaining allies. Kaiser Jens the Chivalrous remained in Vienna, more concerned with keeping the Reich stable than expanding it. His son Lothar the Conqueror sailed forth to Alexandria though, and swiftly defeated the Crusaders at Damietta (1347), Cairo (1349) and Luxor (1350). A dangerous gamble was started.
Kaiser Lothar managed to fight his way up to Antioch, where he was assassinated in 1377 by the treacherous Crusaders. His son, the ruling Kaiser Maximilian the Great was still fighting in the Baltic against Novgorod upon being crowned emperor. Under Maximilian, the Reich allied with the Timurids, assassinating the last Mongol Khan. In 1382, Maximilian established himself as a true conqueror by defeating both the Novgorodian Knyaz as Knyazhich in a battle at the Imperial-Novgorodian border, effectively destroying the Principality of Novgorod. Under Maximilian, the Reich finally fell in favour with the pope again, after 100 years of Crusader States domination of the papacy (which is really really really annoying if the CS are your enemies). With both France and the Crusader States soon excommunicated, his armies marched from the Levant into Anatolia, all the way up to the Byzantine border. In 1399 this ended with the Sicily declaring war on the Byzantine Empire. Maximilian, seeing his chance to attack the remains of Byzantium and truly crown himself as the Roman Emperor. In 1400 Imperial troops from the Balkan under command of his son Otto the Conqueror stormed into Greece and Thrace capturing city after city. Troops from the Levant under command of the Kaiser marched into Byzantine held Anatolia and quickly conquered those, while troops from Egypt claimed the isles of Rhodes and Cyprus. In 1408, Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire fell, gaining Maximilian his nickname the Great. In 1410, the alliance between France and the Empire is restored.
I'm not yet sure what the future holds, most likely I'll mop up the Crusader States first and since the relations with the Timurids are deteriorating, I'm expecting to be betrayed soon. France is marching into Africa so I'll let them do. My end game of choice would be against France, England and Kiev, I'm building armies now but I'm waiting for a full war against them until I can get Demi Lancers and Gothic Knights.
I'm here updating on the Fatimid Caliphate: (see the second post above this one)
Suwayd al-mahdi decisively smashed the Genoese crusaders in a battle pitted directly in their odds, but the 10star'd general didn't seem to give a
The aftermath of said battle:
The stats (holy damn he's good)
To be honest I don't know how much longer he can last, as you can see his army is made largely up of mercenaries now (which were crucial in his victory against the Genoese since they had no missile units whatsoever that battle)
But after this Heroic Victory he has now earned the title "The Conqueror" just like his father once did when he protected Cairo against the first crusade.
Finally, I have one last "full" army to reinforce the young prince, with this army (aswell as the depleted mercenary army) will he need to wipe out the remaining stacks of crusaders currently besieging the ancient city.
If he succeeds, I will make sure his older brother dies... of natural causes... and see to it that he becomes the caliph of the Fatimid Empire ""
Thanks , maybe one day I'll write an AAR, if I have more free time.
You most definitely should, your descriptions are quite thorough and your use of images are quite nice too
My campaign is actually getting very very interesting, so maybe if I ever write an AAR in the future, it'll be about this one (the Fatimid's always have a cool storyline, especially since I finally got my hands on the Hashashims )
here it is my first crusader states campaign and also my first post your empires post hope you like it.
This was played in SS 6.4 with Melooo182 bugfix v1.27 (btw huge thanks to SS team for making this brilliant mod and also huge thanks to Melooo182 for being so kind and making this much needed bugfix - i had 220 turns without a single ctd, later in next 100 turns i had only six of them but it might be due to my laptop not being the greatest...)
So, as you can see mine is the light grey color (borders are almost as if I played with ERE ), timurids are black color, blue are france, light blue grand duchy of kiev, geona migrated to africa (not by their choice), leon did the reconquista, hungary was pain in the ass for more than 100 turns for me and they are pink here, they also have toulouse (crusade), denmark is scandinavia and norway migrated to brittain where england fights them. Last to mention are papal states with southern italy and mongols sandwiched between timmies and me
I have to say this 320-some turn campaign was the best I ever played in any TW game. I like to play with my house rules (and I have many of them, I love to created rules to make this game harder in order to keep campaigns longer and AI more challenging) and I also role play a lot, keeping an eye on every of mine family members
Starting position was rather difficult because I soon found myself in war with fatimids, so I decided to attack gaza. Huge mistake my only army I had was crushed there and I had to retreat to acre. I lost jerusalem soon after that but had enough time to create another army and call for crusade on jerusalem which I recaptured after that.
Northern borders were calm but in the south I found myself in torouble again and lost jerusalem again. Fatimids are always tough opponents... I managed to get peace with them and tried to recover my army. But soon after that seljuks smelled my wounds and attacked me in edessa. I defended edessa and I have to say its the only (of the first 3 cities) I never lost so it had a special place in my empire.
Seeing I might lose this campaign I decided to invade nicosia (till that point ERE was my ally). After capturing nicosia jihad was called on acre and since my power was nearly enough to fight jihad armies I just left acre hoping there will be peace soon. The major problem there was fatimids declaring war on me again. They were really powerfull at that point (some 50 turns in the game) and there was no way I could fight them. I also lost antioch to them and managed to get peace and alliance with my butchers. ERE was my enemy now and seljuks had their own fight to fight so they didnt harras me anymore (I also used crusade to take baghdad from them which fell into venecias hands, soon to be lost afterwards).
And so it starts, crusader state kingdom being reborn from their fortress in nicosia while living in shadow of mighty fatimids caliphate preparing revenge against the same.
I amanged to take rhodes and crete and after that athens and corinth fell under my rule. Soon I realised this whole ERE fighting might get bad for me later because fatimids started to grow to strong and even managed to invade EREs eastern borders. Peace was needed and happily accepted by ERE. It would soon prove to be the long lasting alliance between me and them.
Invasion was needed and soon enough two armies landed in nile deltacapturing damietta and alexandria. At this point alliance with fatimids was history and only god almighty saved edessa from falling into the hands of saracens again. War with fatimids was needed and the front I chose was egypt even at the risk of losing edessa (my only asian territory at that point). Egypt was perfect, it was rich with strong military recruiting points for fatimids and northern border was now being invaded by ERE who managed to push fatimids away from asia minor (at least to adana). I also called for the crusade on jerusalem (papal states were by besties then) and kingdom of hungary created a strong foothold there. But later jihad got jerusalem back to fatimids.
In the meantime I lost damietta in jihad and my future in egypt looked bleak. Another crusade was called, on antioch this time and kingdom of hungary was first to come again so they took it. At that point I finnaly got some breathing space in egypt so I captured cairo. Soon enough damietta and benghazi and luxor fell into my hands but jihad (again) took away cairo from me.
This time another invasion was being on its way, on tortosa and crusade against jerusalem (hungary again - they have 2 settelmets there at that point and are strong in european theatre as well) really chopped fatimids territory. I managed to take allepo, damascus, adana, kerak and ghaza and I also recaptured cairo. In africa peace was once again and western african border was secured with marriage alliance with kingdom of sicily.
Fatimids were no longer a threat and I found myself looking at EREs borders once again. Seljuks were history.
To finish off the fatimids I called for another crusade this time on acre. My first capital was jerusalem, then acre and later nicosia so acre was another special city to me, and also because it was lost in jihad. Kingdom of aragon captured acre and established one full stack garrison there.
To understand my position at that point it has to be mentioned I was really strong (at least I thought so) and my main enemy fatimids had nothing except 4 or 5 cities at the time. Khwarezmian empire was on its peak having huge empire north and south of caspian sea bordering my regions in northern mesopotamia. ERE was beginning to restore its mighty glory and republic of venice was its main enemy. Hungary was strong in european affairs and they were also the most succesful faction in crusades. They were allied with france and kiev (which grew in strength). Kingdom of sicily was medium sized kingdom with foothold in africa while losing in southern italy to ERE. France grew its territory but was nothing major yet. Aragon and leon sliced hispania in half, and almoravids had some tough time with genoa and sicily in africa (after they lost their spanish territory). HRE was weak and destroyed in the middle game. Papal states were rather agressive, the took ancona, bari and naples from ERE and later they also took pisa. Denmark was strong and got into european inland on account of HRE and poland.
Now back to CS. My dreams of conquering whole middle east in a blitz were over soon. My ally ERE just vanished, big empire lost all of its family members and huge chunks of teritory were open for grab, the same thing happened to poland. At the same time my fatimid war was stopped because hungary decided to expand its holy land teritory on my expense! Gaza and tortosa were soon under siege. Kingdom of sicily vansihed cuz of fm thingy and sicily was open to conquest. So I decided to take it since their princess was part of my family. War with fatimids and hungary in holy land weakened me and I lacked the strength to take advantage of EREs fall. But fatimids didnt. Their only fortress in asia minor proved to be usefull, they rushed onto ankara and iconion trying to recover their strength, they had to be stopped. Another two factions saw their opportunity. Kingdom of hungary and republic of venice. Venice took over dyrrhachion, scopia, thessalonica, constantinople, nicea, trebizond, sinop, while i took adrianople, smyrna, dardanelia, and soon iconion and ankara and caesarea (driving fatimids out from aisa minor). So I had 3 fronts to fight. Around jerusalem and gaza, in asia minor and in northern greece and around marmara. This was a bloody fight. I was successfull in asia minor securing that part of my kingdom. Later I manged to take arta, and thessalonica from venice and hungary took constantinople. Fatimids were on their way to being crushed. While doing that things in world theatre have changed.
Mongols have arrived and mighty khwarezmian empire was under great danger. They put up a great fight, but in the end they had been smashed by mongol invasion. They left with that oman region, in tbilisi, in mosul and some regions north from caspian sea. Later they were stationed in tbilisi only. I took over mosul. Venice power was fading and so was denmarks. New powerhouses were france, hungary, genoa, aragon, leon and kiev.
Hungary was driven from holy lands and so was aragon from acre (after declaring war on me). Fatimids were destroyed and so was venice (by french!).
Soon I found myself bordering with france and hungary in northern greece, genoa in africa and mongols in the east. Mine empire streched trough asia minor, greece islands of crete, rhodes and cyprus, egypt and lybia and northern arabian paeninsula and holy lands all the way to mosul and baghdad (which was added to my kingdom later). Mongols attacked me in qarisiya (spelled wrong :/ me thinks ). I won that battle and soon after that we allied. East was secured.
Greece was real battlefield, trough the next 100 turns blood has been spilled there. There were times I thought there is no way I can win and was really considering abandoning it. But with god almighty crusader states have prevailed. Money and popes love helped also
Aragon was destroyed. At that point allies were hungary, papal states, france, genoa and leon, and there I saw my opportunity. Geona attacked me in benghazi just to take it soon after that and there they were, multiple genoese armies walking around alexandria waiting for its spoils. That front was also bloody one. It took me around 50 tunrs to kick them out from there after I managed to crush their alliance with france trough force of diplomacy and influnce in pope. France was no longer a factor in greece and its power diminished but soon to be recovered again. Hungary and genoa were only enemies left now (on greece and africa). I also went on kutaisi and black sea northern regions, where I was stopped, not by kiev, but by hungary in constantinople! Later I managed to ally with france (marriage) and hungary was in trouble now. Crusade against tunis got me some breathing space in africa which I used to consolidate and capture benghazi again. Peace was soon established and africa was calm again. All of this led to fight with the pope who got rather powerfull waging war with france in italy. My high lord (whos wife was french princess) saw this as a great opportunity to take southern italy and rome. But was killed during siege of naples so I decided to pull out from there. France got pisa, ancona and rome from papal states in this war. Timurids arrived.
Timurids were not nearly as impressive as mongols who crushed khwarezmian empire (the most powerfull faction at the time of mongol invasion - kwarezmian overral power chart looks like a mountain XD ). Timurids took over medina and mecca in jihad but thats all that is worth mentioning for them. Kiev used mongols power decline to expand eastwards. Genoa lost its italian regions, french lost toulouse in crusade later they lost frankfurt. Leon dug themselves in hispania. Hungary continued to trouble me.
Finally in the end after many turns of war and diseases (1348 ftw - black death was terrible I almost lost all of greece because of it!) greece was mine along with newly acquired regions of scopia (first citadel), dyrrhachion, sofia and targoviste. Grand duchy of kiev was my last stop. At this point I murdered many hungarian popes, was expelled from the Church and had tensions in the east (with mongols and timmies - but there was no war - gold bought them). I was rich (had over 1 million for a short time - then I bribed many hungarian armies in grecce to preserve myself there). After that I was making aroung 40-50 thousand per turn, so I bought peace on my borders. Last 3 regions were taken from grand duchy of kiev on northern coast of black sea. And then victory screen popped up leaving me with so much joy after playing the BEST campaign in any TW game EVER!!!
One more thanks to SS team and Melooo182 for making this possible!
Have fun guys, hope you liked my crusader states campaign (this was all written from my memory - next time I might write a dairy while playing so it feels like a real history with names and battles). I am not sure who to play next, was thinking about england, or denmark, or ERE, or genoa, or venice...
Where you installed SS6.4, go to data/text/expanded.txt. Open it with notepad and look for "{EMT_HRE_FACTION_LEADER_NAME} Emperor %S". Change Emperor to Kaiser, save and you're done.
Where you installed SS6.4, go to data/text/expanded.txt. Open it with notepad and look for "{EMT_HRE_FACTION_LEADER_NAME} Emperor %S". Change Emperor to Kaiser, save and you're done.
another campaign of mine. This time with Kingdom od Denmark.
It took me about 425 turns to achieve victory conditions, although to be honest only because of the AI who didnt know how to capture the only settelment almoravids needed for vitory - the one on mallorca.
So, Almoravid emirate is orange, black are timurids, denmark (me) is yellow and ERE is purple, england red and white (ancona and rome) is poland. There is also kingdom of sicily in sicilia and sardinia.
Orange and black are allies and so are purple and yellow. Pope is no more. Well its his fault, papal states expanded in italy and outside while warring against me, this helped muslim factions a lot, intern christian struggles.
Timurids wiped the east and are still, military wise, the strongest faction in game. Fighting them was a real pain in the ass. But it was FUN!
This was the longest campaign I ever played, and I had only 5 ctds (battle ctds).
Re: Post your Empires!
load of cash. That's probably because, some time ago, I decided to just build everywhere I could, even if I went into debt. So, just kept building, building everywhere. Now, I'm still building, but my economy skyrocketed. And, managing my army so I don't waste money where it's not needed, I only keep growing. It's crazy.
Originally Posted by Macunaíma
! If you want to hear the whole story:
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I like both very much
, maybe one day I'll write an AAR, if I have more free time.
)
