A French AAR

**Bobb4** · November 29, 2006, 01:40 PM

France VH-VH
A very French AAR – My previous attempt at playing France ended in utter defeat. On medium setting I took on the world but found the lure of the Crusades too great to resist. With a large chunk of my army embroiled in a battle for control of Jerusalem the entire western world turned on me. In the bitter war that followed I conquered Jerusalem but lost my general. It was a pitiful display of military ineptitude. As the war progressed I would lose not just my general but France as well.

This is my second game playing France set on VH-VH.

The AAR below is my very first… Will King Philip and his son Prince Louis manage to carve a name in history or will France be split among the hungry pack that makes up the nations in medieval 2

It is a troubled crown the King wears in the year of our Lord 1080. France is now a scatter home to the French, with our once powerful allie the Duke of Normandy wearing the English crown and looking back at his homeland with greedy eyes…
Rebel provinces need to be brought back under King Philips iron fist.
Dijon, Rennes, Bordeaux are all controlled by robber barons who pay little heed or fealty to Frances one rightful king.
The Holy Roman Empire expands into our lands from the East. The damn Spanish probe from the South West and the Italian States from the South East. The silence from Denmark to the North East bodes ill.
France is in a pitiful state.
Two armies are dispatched, one to capture Dijon and one to take Bordeaux. The Northern army has but a lowly captain in command but Bordeaux has been given to the young hot blooded Prince Louis. If he is to rule after his father is gone, he must be made strong.
A meeting with the king’s military advisor caution against frontal assaults both targets as this would be foolhardy. “Starve the bastards out” he advise.
Riders from the court hurry to the massed armies, the king’s message is clear, siege but do not attack.
Prince Louis laughs derisively when told the news… “When I am king, fortresses and castles shall fall at the mere mention of my name alone.”
“Can my father not see we must make haste,” he screams to the court messenger.
“Damn my father and his caution, these rebel scum must be put to sword.”
With that he scrawls a brief dispatch for the king’s eyes only, sealing it with his personal seal he hands it to the messenger. “Take this to the king, and tell him you saw the finest host of French men-at-arms you have ever seen, making haste for Bordeaux.
“And tell him, before the year is out, Bordeaux will be ours.”

For the young Captain Pierre to the North, there was little bravado as he paced through his camp outside Dijon. With barely a company of knights, two regiments of Levy spearmen and a handful of peasant archers he had little to feel confident about.

Damn the king, all those men-at-arms hiding in Paris, prancing around the Royal Court in their finery and here he was, the cutting edge of the empires might.
For two years he had besieged the damn rebels. The sound of a lone horse galloping towards the camp interrupted his train of thought. “Captain, they sally forth at full strength,” shouted the horseman as his horse came to a halt in front of the young officer.
He looked around at the men, young, inexperienced afraid. “To horse men, we ride for France, this day
Dijon is ours or we are done living.

Unable to react fast enough his men abandoned the prepared rams. “Form a line he bellowed.” Almost as if detached from his own body he watched in amazement as his men formed a line.
The fool in command of the rebels charged his heavy knights, allowing Pierre chance to order his spearmen to tear into the charging cavalry’s flank.
Within seconds, the enemy commander was dead.
“Spearmen forward,” he commanded as the dead rebel captain’s men wavered. His archers sent volley after volley of deadly arrows into them. As they started to pull back, Pierre raised his sword.
It glistened in the sunlight as he brought it forward. “Charge,” he barked, a young boy turned into a man.
The heavy knights ploughed through the remnants of the rebel army...
As his troops entered Dijon, Captain Pierre ordered a rider to ride with news of the victory to the Royal Court.
A few more victories like this and it will be General Pierre soon enough he thought to himself, smiling for the first time in two years.