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Thread: [M2TW AAR] England - Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

  1. #1

    Default [M2TW AAR] England - Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    Playing as the English on VH/VH, turn 105 (using excellent Ultmate AI, Darth and BigMap mods).

    The year is 1195AD. In a scenario familiar to most English players, Mighty England is about to wipe out both the French and HRE after nearly 75 years of bloody attrition - checked only by Papal intervention.

    But I'm struggling to hold onto my Jerusalem-Cairo foothold won during the 1st Crusade, because the supremely powerful Turks have joined the Egyptian Jihad to retake Cairo (the Turks now pass southbound through Acre and Jerusalem frequently with 2 full stacks moving at blitzkrieg pace, and my beleaguered garrisons fight them off with huge casualties on both sides). Sensing a shift in regional power that will see the colonisers evicted from the Near East, the Muslim populations of Jerusalem and Acre are in revolt. Only veteran tribal Sudanese mercenaries, Christianised during the First Crusade, are preventing an all-out Islamic rebellion, while the pink-skinned English with their absurdly long bows and oven hot armoured knights are strung out in a defensive line along the rugged badlands of the Sinai, holding back the Ottoman onslaught.

    With the bulk of my European armies tied up in fighting in southern France and east central Europe against the last remnants of the Franco-Imperial forces, after decades of espionage and counter-espionage, and mercantile hostility, the Danes and Venetians seize a golden opportunity and declare war on me, and threaten to link up on a Innsbruck-Hamburg axis of advance, cutting off my forces beseiging the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna and threatening my rich interior. My allies the Spanish are tied down in a war of survival in the western Med with Venice's key ally, 5-Cardinal Sicily, with whom I've managed a shaky neutrality since I seized Egyptian Malta from right under their noses during the First Crusade while there was an English Pope, and it's taken untold thousands of Florins to keep goodwill with the successor Venetian Popes for the past 25 years.

    (Long live the modder who made Ultimate AI!!! I'll post a link to it later). [Edit: the link is http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=301 and the modder is Mesut aka GrandViz).

    So the last thing I needed was a Veneto-Danish alliance on the offensive. The prospect of Norse War Clerics dining on the Antwerp waterfront in 2 years' time seems very real indeed.

    To make matters worse, Henry the Watcher, most authoritarian king has died. His nephew Prince Harry the Mad - referred to by many nobles as Harry the Adulterer - has ascended to the throne at the ripe old age of 58, heirless. Luckily he is fairly dreadful and has been training spies and assassins in Rennes for decades, so perhaps he can keep things together in this difficult time.

    My raising of three huge armies in Europe to fight the new invasion and two massive defensive forces in the Levante of the best units available from fortress colonies in Gaza and Acre (over 30,000 Florins per turn for these 5 stacks alone) has run me into serious debt (total Army upkeep = 75,000 per turn; Corruption = 48,000 per turn), to the point where I am losing 1 Cross of Papal favour per turn due to my inability to lavish my customary gifts on His Holiness. What's more, the (for now neutral) Scots stand with 3 stacks of Highland Nobles on my northern border (they've been the junior partner in the Venice-Denmark-Sicily pact since turn 18), have inundated my northern cities with their agents, and are licking their chops with the spires of York almost in sight.

    Luckily my valourous forces smash the Danish armies in the snowy forests north of Hamburg (Norse War Clerics cut down by Feudal Knights from Anjou) and my men now lay siege to 2 cities on the Danish peninsula.

    To counter Venice, I divert a former Crusader army from Malta (just refitted with troops from Tolouse and originally meant to relieve my harried Levantine garrisons) up the Adriatic and land them in eastern Bologna, a turn's march from the Venetian capital.

    All's going according to plan and the day looks saved until the good Pope tells me on successive turns to stop hostilities against Venice and the Danes or I will be excommunicated (great first move for a new king). To boot, the Venetians march a huge host northwest from Dalmatia and south from Innsbruck (which rebelled and was seized by Venice when the HRE was excommuniated) to protect their capital, just upgraded with Ballista towers, my spies tell me. So any seige will result in the loss of probably half my Eastern Relief Force, not a quick rush to the Doge's Palace wth carpet-bags as I'd hoped.

    So there go my plans to sack Venice and the jewels of Denmark and use the plunder to get back into the black, finance long overdue upgrades to my bursting settlements and buy Papal favour. While burning and pillaging and being excommuniated would probably have been more fun, my 20+ lightly defended, 100% Catholic settlements, the true economic engine of my empire, would probably have rebelled against the successor king, making the campaign all but unwinable (in fact I saved it just to go back and see later on what might have been).

    Facing -20,000 Florins per turn, the Turks bearing down on me with hordes of Sipahis and Ghazis, the resurgent Eyptians with their Mamluk armies marching west out of the Arabian desert against my chronically corrupt Nile colonies of Cairo and Alexandria (-3,000+ Florins of corruption each since 1110 AD), the situation looks bleak. What do I do? (Of course the lesson learned is not to expand too quickly next time).

    I decided not to negotiate or withdraw or offer back territories won with English blood in exchange for a truce...I do what every sensible Christian King would do in my situation...I request a Crusade against Antioch!

    Despite my declining sway with the Papacy and His Holiness' abhorrence of violence, Pope Stephanus the Peaceful of Venice agrees! (He owes it to me for not bulldozing his beloved hometown or its newly built huge cathedral into The Lagoon).

    Immediately I turn my 5 full stack armies into Crusader armies (no money left to hire Crusaders), and take my 2 best manager-generals from Antwerp and London and add them to the Crusade along with several other high cost units of knights raised to fight the Danes (the managers, 42 and 46 years, will whip Alexandria and Antioch into shape), and immediately set off for the Narbonne coast. A total of 7 English Crusader armies now march eastwards, some 42,000+ Florins of free manpower.

    All of a sudden I'm at +10,000 Florins of profit per turn and all of Christendom has declared war on the mighty Turks, destroying all the hard work the Ottoman diplomats and their treasury had engaged in to buy good will in the West over the prior century. My spies in Anatolia tell me he's already diverting forces westwards.

    The HRE, still excommunicated, apparently can't Crusade, and has lost their Emperor to my downsized force in the assault on Vienna, and my army in Italy has moved to take Bologna, the HRE's last city. The Scots have marched their threatening armies to the ports of Edinburgh, allowing me to disband a few units stationed in my border forts north of York.

    Now the still powerful Byzantines - engaged in a bitter struggle with Papist Venice for domination of the Eastern Mediterranean - have Crusader armies marching across their lands and it remains to be seen what comes of the lasting peace they built with the Turks in an effort to secure their eastern frontier while concentrating on fighting expansionist Venice. Perhaps they will pursue an alliance with England? Perhaps the Orthodox bloc of Byantium and their allies, the booming Russians, will seize on the opportunity to attack westwards against the burgeoning Polish empire? Perhaps the Hungarians, already at war with the Turks over influence in the Black Sea, and recently allied to Venice, will benefit from this whole affair?

    Whatever happens, I am now bent on racing my *free upkeep* armies into Turkey, sacking their cities and taking their capital. And Venice and Denmark will be forced to stand down in Europe. Of course the Mongols may already be on their way westwards...and we may yet need a strong Ottoman presence to counter their mounted hordes...only time will tell.

    So at the end of it all, I don't know if Crusaders fight for free during a Crusade or if the Church picks up the bill. Either way it's a grand solution if you're in a situaion like mine!

    P.S. The Ultimate AI mod has probably contributed significantly to the ejnoyability of this campaign, and helped it get to this exciting crux.
    Last edited by MrMerisi; January 12, 2007 at 08:11 AM.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    Holy crap, I didn't read the post though...but it sounds scary.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    I think the length of the post is more scary than the situation!

    I'm having so much fun with this campaign and this mod that I just had to write about it.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    wow great post. i have that same mod and it really does make a huge difference. i also like that everyone can move much farther per turn on the big map mod.
    "...it is often necessary to act against mercy, against faith, against humanity, against frankness, against religion, in order to preserve the state." Nicolo Machiavelli

  5. #5
    Thoragoros's Avatar Citizen
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    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    Uh, do YOU have any allies?

    Are alliances between the PLAYER and the AI possible in this mod? Or is it like the Vanilla where the player is essentially alone?
    Founder of The Great War - A WWI Mod, Creator of Thorized - Napoleon: Total Combat

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  6. #6

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    I am also playing an English campaign, and am at turn 160 (year 1160). I discovered the hard way that the Norse War Clerics are to be FEARED.
    "oooh a gypsy wind is blowing warm tonight, sky is starlit and the time is right. Now you're telling me you have to go...before you do there's something you should know." - Bob Seger

    Freedom is the distance between church and state.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    Quote Originally Posted by Thoragoros View Post
    Uh, do YOU have any allies?

    Are alliances between the PLAYER and the AI possible in this mod? Or is it like the Vanilla where the player is essentially alone?
    I know it's a long post:

    Paragraph 3, "My allies the Spanish are tied down in a war of survival in the western Med with Venice's key ally..."

    Seeing as though I had only played Vanilla before installing this mod, I was too slow to make alliances (wary of the ever-present backstabs in Vanilla), and made a marriage alliance to Spain by marrying one of their princesses to my Faction Heir. I then regularly gave map info to the Spanish and helped them fight the Moors and they have remained loyal to me throughout ("Allied for 104 turns").

    They got excomm'd by the Venetians [EDIT: Venetian Pope], staunch allies of the Sicilians who attacked the Spanish on Corsica, and Toledo revolted. I landed an army from Bordeaux to recapture Toledo, but the Portuguese (Spain's ally but not mine) arrived first and took it from the Rebels. When Sicily started gaining the upper hand on Spain, the Portuguese intervened, attacking Sicilian fleets in the western Med, and bingo, Portugal was excomm'd. So Toledo rebelled yet again, allowing me to capture it. I then promptly returned it to the Spanish in return for Military Access (so my army could march back to the docks in northern Spain without destroying my relationship with my ally) and relations went to "Perfect". 2 turns later, they returned the favor by attacking the French in Narbonne (heck, they were excomm'd anyway right?)

    Anyway, in short, yes, you can make alliances. With this mod (I have v0.8) the AI behaves more rationally. You really have to have "Amiable" or worse relations to get invaded by another Catholic faction.
    Last edited by MrMerisi; January 12, 2007 at 12:24 PM.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    Quote Originally Posted by jajknight View Post
    wow great post. i have that same mod and it really does make a huge difference. i also like that everyone can move much farther per turn on the big map mod.
    Thanks! I enjoy these mods a lot. I was ready to pack away the game after a couple of days playing Vanilla, but having played Rome: Total Realism for a while, I knew the modding community would do something.

    Too frustrating in Vanilla building up an alliance only to have 1 naval unit blockade York for 1 turn and start a war with Ally X, which in turn causes a bunch of other factions to declare war on you. Then the Pope tells you to cease hostilities the moment you start to gain the upper hand on the transgressor.

    I'm happy CA made the game so moddable. Now (almost) everyone will be happy. The good modders out there deserve a medal from CA for extending the shelf life of the game.
    Last edited by MrMerisi; January 12, 2007 at 12:53 PM.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    I enjoyed that anecdote. It really should inspire me to play and lose, and have a hard time. However i always end up shutting the game down as soon as it looks slightly bad for me.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    Quote Originally Posted by BlatantlyOriginal View Post
    I enjoyed that anecdote. It really should inspire me to play and lose, and have a hard time. However i always end up shutting the game down as soon as it looks slightly bad for me.
    I hope it inspires you to greatness!

    There's a difference between shutting down the game because the AI makes unbelievably stupid and unrealistic moves like backstabbing its allies and provoking a global conflict (which has led to me quitting Vanilla on several occasions), and shutting it down because you've been comprehensively "outwitted" by a computer making decisions based on algorithms and percentages.

    Personally I get more enjoyment of managing my way out of a tricky situation than just watching my armies steamroll across the map, pacifying towns and leaving garrisons of 200 troops for 20,000 people. Some CEOs like a smooth ride from startup to domination and quit when things don't go perfectly; others like to take a struggling entity and turn it around (kind of like the playing the HRE in M2TW).

    I'm looking forward to playing a mod with different victory conditions than the standard 45 regions + target city. This way everyone won't attack me all of a sudden just because I get region number 38 and threaten to win the game.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    that sounds glorious. hopefully im in for some suspensful-ness with the winning combo mod. im scotland who now is allied with england portugal poland papal states and milan. england has about 6 allies including portugal and spain who are allied together. the only factions at war are portugal and spain against the moors and milan and sicialiy against venice. i got polands alliance and thorn for 1500 over ten turns which is pocket change at this point. poland won a crusade against cairo but all those factions got ceasfires from egypt and i got some egyptian city in return for a cease fire...without the presence of an army...i was a little late off the line..spread out real bad through all the rebel settlements...

    the crazy thing with all these allies is you can see roughly two different groups allied all amongst themselves which isshaping up to amount to a world war type conflict. all among catholic nations. i cant wait to see what happens and cant decide if i should wait for england to provoke something with the french or for me to join the war against venice...who has been excommunicated twice. thinking of sweeping around to take corisca to have a nice foothold to pinch the french with...all weekend to see how this progresses yay

  12. #12

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    Quote Originally Posted by borschwanger View Post
    that sounds glorious. hopefully im in for some suspensful-ness with the winning combo mod. im scotland who now is allied with england portugal poland papal states and milan. england has about 6 allies including portugal and spain who are allied together. the only factions at war are portugal and spain against the moors and milan and sicialiy against venice...
    Very brave of you to ally with the Papal States!!! Nobody's allied with them in my game as your reputation with the Pope influences your relations with the PS and vice versa. That can make for some very tricky situations, especially if two factions you are allied to go to war with each other, or an enemy faction gets elected Pope (and you vote for someone else).

    You're also a brave man to ally with England, your sworn enemy. York is a natural and tempting target for you, and when it's up at 6500+ Florins a turn in income, you'll start thinking about it seriously. You'll clash over Ireland (if you haven't already) and you'll have a big stretch of water to cross if you gain lands on the continent (in addition to your lands in Eastern Europe). You're going to have to take land from the HRE or Russia, and if you carve out a central European fiefdom, Denmark will come into play. You'll also play host to the Mongols in the not too distant future.

    Over the course of the game you will see how the Catholic factions split into 2 clearly definable camps, generally forseeable based on who the Italian factions align with, and you may see the Muslim factions ally with each other when pressed (the Turks allied with Egypt and attacked me when Egypt called a Jihad against me so I got the Pope to declare a Crusade against the Turks). I also think it's very true to history how the 2 Orthodox factions have allied in my game, shunning the Catholic factions, and how Venice and Milan never seem to get along. Also, Venice and the Byzantines are always going to have a very special relationship...will be interesting to see if the Venetians go to the defense of Constantinople as they did historically or if they'll be the ones beseiging it.

    Anyway, with England and the Papal States as allies, I also advise you to watch out for their deteriorating relationships as heresy creeps in and as France and England come to blows.

    To make it even tougher, you've got an infantry-heavy faction. Beware of the Russians and keep an eye on wo the Polish ally with.

    Good luck...sounds like you're in for an enjoyable weekend!

    P.S. France is your natural ally!!!
    Last edited by MrMerisi; January 12, 2007 at 04:59 PM.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    Loved this post, thanks a lot. =)


    "I am what the Gods have made me!"

  14. #14

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    I use that mod.

    World War 0.5:

    http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ww05wo1.jpg

    There was another pic where the same factions declared war on Milan, HRE and the Byzantines but I cant upload it so

  15. #15
    Trajan's Avatar Capodecina
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    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    What a long post. Moved to the AAR sub-forum.

  16. #16

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    Great post! Hopefully we will get updates on your progress or lack thereof?

  17. #17

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    aahh what the hell my saves are gone...i played a different mod but they each have their own save folders...damn it.

    well i took all but two of the rebel settlements on the entire british isles and well if england wasnt my ally they would have annihilated me. i usually stay fairly good with the papal states/pope. never been excommunicated before but im tempted to do it on purpose to get crusdaded against. it was only a matter of time until the pope was always from my faction so it just didnt get bad. if it did or someone else got elected hell get a visit from a crossbow bolt. venice and the byzantines were actually dukin it out and i had just landed a force at oslo held by rebels. i didnt want to make the first move and have every faction drop me for whoever i attacked. never got taht far..hmpf...looks like ill just have to try again heh. i tihnk i read somewhere that allying with the papal states messes with the ai mod too so ill avoid that just incase. well here goes nothin

  18. #18

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    excellent dialogue. Loved reading it.

  19. #19

    Default Re: Under attack in Europe from Papal Pets? Stretched in the Levante? In debt? Get the Church to pay!

    Nice report. You're in a simular situation I'm in with the English. I'm just able to keep the Turks from taking over Jerusalem but without some fresh European blood over there I won't hold out much longer.
    Problem is that the French are a pain in the ass... They formed an alliance togheter with the danes and split Western-Europe between themselves. I'm only having Rennes and Caen on the mainland which are constantly under siege. I just lost Rennes with my faction heir but was able to quickly retake it by a relief force. (I wish I could have come 1 turn sooner and I would have been able to save the whole city) In the meanwhile the French have taken over Caen and the Danes are demolishing my fleet and blocking my harbors. Because of all this the Scots are still not destroyed although they're almost bankrupt. Good news is that I've got the pope! (what's it good for anyway?)

    Anyway this is my first campaign in M2TW and I was still learning about the new building etc. so I took a slow start.

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