Medieval II campaign sociology!

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

I, being the crazy OCD person that I am, have observed the Western European tide of events.. (this is on M/M, for fun)

England seems to ignore its neighbor to the north, either making an alliance or simply neutrality with them. They largely ignore Ireland for a long time, instead concentrating on crushing France, which they seem to do with ease, forming an annoying empire that is a large pain in the backside. The Iberian Peninsula is largely dormant, with Portugal conquering a few rebel cities (zaragoza) and Spain mostly passive, while the Moors go on to conquer Valencia. In Italy, Milan, as usual, crushes every nation around it and begins to go North-East into parts of France, and north into HRE. At this point, I'm not sure what happens, as I usually crush Milan into little pieces so it doesn't bite me in the arse later. Sometimes, but not always, the Papal States go on a mad rampage, slaughtering Sicily and anyone else who gets in their way...and they call crusades on their enemies, obligating my greedy self to help them. (On my French file, they have all of Italy 'cept for Milan, which I destroyed, and they are in the process of destroying sicily and the Moors) When this doesn't happen, Sicily takes the island cities around it, then proceeds to Tunis, and then goes into dormancy.

Meanwhile, in the East, the Byzantines capture Sofia and Durazzo (if Venice doesn't get it first) and some rebel cities in Asia Minor. They then go into some kind of hibernation, in which the Turks grow powerful and get about 7 territories. After about 20 turns, they wake up, and use their mass stack armies to crush the Turks in a slow war of expansion...meanwhile, Egypt is happily conquering all those rebel cities, carving out a coastal empire. (Again, after this, no idea what happens, my crusading armies usually crush Egypt) That is, until the Mongols sweep all of them away. And that's as far as I've gotten, it being about 1286 or something.

Am I right? I've been noticing a pattern in my campaigns, just wondering if it happens to everyone or just me. Sorry for the length!

People, I'm not crazy, just bored. Seriously.

[pwijnands]

That pretty much sums it up. The Iberian peninsula should see some serious action, but it doesn't typically. I'm playing Stainless Steel which also adds Aragon to the east of where Spain starts out. None of those factions ever grow particularly powerfull.
Egypt always becomes a huge empire but is crushed easily because of crusades (particularly naval crusades at an always weakly Alexandria and Cairo).
The Turks are a bit of a mis and hit affair and can grow fairly large on occasions but eventually lose territory to Novgorod (Russia) which always slowly acquires more lands.
Haven't played to the point that the Mongols show up though.

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

Huh, that's interesting. I've heard a lot of stuff about Stainless Steel, but I don't understand it. Is it a mod? What does it add? I heard something about the Templars being a faction, so I'm a bit confused on that point. Thanks for the feedback.

[Ged]

Huh, that's interesting. I've heard a lot of stuff about Stainless Steel, but I don't understand it. Is it a mod? What does it add? I heard something about the Templars being a faction, so I'm a bit confused on that point. Thanks for the feedback.

'Tis indeed a mod, and adds three new factions, Kievan Rus, Aragon and Templars. It adds a lot of other features (that most game enhancement mods generally do.) 'Tis probably one of the most played mods apart from maybe Broken Crescent.

And, yes, my campaigns pretty much follow that pattern.

[pwijnands]

Huh, that's interesting. I've heard a lot of stuff about Stainless Steel, but I don't understand it. Is it a mod? What does it add? I heard something about the Templars being a faction, so I'm a bit confused on that point. Thanks for the feedback.

What Ged said, but it also adds in Ireland, Teutonic Order, Kingdom of Jerusalem and Lithuania (I think I've got all of them). The new version coming up will remove the Americas so the Aztecs can be removed and a new faction slot will open up (there's a limit to how many factions there can be in the campaign).

[Idaeus]

I haven't been watching other factions that much. This is interesting. I do recognize Milan being insanely aggressive though. And Venice being SCUM!

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

Milan is on anger steroids. They even attacked the Pope one time, if I remember correctly.

[Valbruch]

England seems to ignore its neighbor to the north, either making an alliance or simply neutrality with them. They largely ignore Ireland for a long time, instead concentrating on crushing France, which they seem to do with ease, forming an annoying empire that is a large pain in the backside.

lol, in my games England usually gets its ass kicked when trying to conquer France. But then the Green Plague from north Italy comes and rips France to pieces.

[Duke4747]

I'm still on my first campaign and i chose England... I'm going to look for these things and ill let you know what happens lol!

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

Okay...Thanks for all the info on stainless steel. And to respond to the thing about England, what are you talking about? England crushes France.

[pwijnands]

France is a bit of a miss and hit affair and can grow fairly large in size on accasions (15+ regions), but eventually get at war with all of it's neighbours and get crushed in the end by Spain, England and Milan. HRE sometimes takes a piece of the pie as well.
The only factions that always grow big are the HRE and Egypt, every campaign I've done has seen this. Unless off course I'm playing a faction near those.

[Captain Spanky]

I wouldnt say HRE. They always get demolished by Denmark in my games. You can always predict who will win between the HRE and Denmark. The winner will always own Hamburg before the war starts.

I've also seen Venice grow very prosperous. They normally get kicked out of Europe, but have Iraklion. From there they take Rhodes, then go on a conquering spree where the Turks used to live. Anyone else seen that?

[pwijnands]

I wouldnt say HRE. They always get demolished by Denmark in my games. You can always predict who will win between the HRE and Denmark. The winner will always own Hamburg before the war starts.

I've also seen Venice grow very prosperous. They normally get kicked out of Europe, but have Iraklion. From there they take Rhodes, then go on a conquering spree where the Turks used to live. Anyone else seen that?

Denmark stays in Denmark in my games and might take a settlement in Scandinavia and continue eastward from that. In none of my games have the HRE been beaten by other AI factions.
Venice and Sicily tend to be minor factions in my games and slowly get kicked out of Italy. They usually end up with one province in North Africa and stay there until someone (me) puts them out of their misery. This tends to happen mostly with Sicily. Venice has grown to be the second strongest kingdom in my games once and they utterly destroyed and took over the Byzantine's lands.

[Shazbot]

In my game, France is being crushed by England as usual, Portugal has taken over almost all of the Iberian Peninsula, me (Denmark) has expanded eastward towards Russia and southward toward the HRE, Hungary is destroying Poland, Byzantium is killing the Turks, Venice almost destoryed Milan, I basically laid waste to Egypt with a three stack Crusade conquering all of their cities one at a time, sacking it, then leaving them to take it back from the rebels.

[Cyrus Spitama]

Milan and Venice are usually the number one enemies because they are very central, play whatever faction you will, with the possible exception of Russia and maybe Egypt, and you'll be at war with them sooner or later.

The game depends mostly on who I play, the only constant seem to be that Scotland gets wiped out sooner or later and Sicily never goes much anywhere, most of the times getting into up and close trouble with the Papal states. The mongols are unstopable unless they confront a human player along the way, if the game autocalcs the battles their superior generals and numbers will wipe out full stack enemy armies with minimal casualties.

Meanwhile I've seen some strange behaviour, like a huge Poland turn a fairly large Hungarian empire into a vassal with it still had more than ten territories while I was playing the portuguese all the way across the map.

[Laconian]

In my games, Scotland usually take over the Scottish isle while denmark usually conquer central europe.

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

I don't know about the HRE, I usually kill them. In fact, I ALWAYS kill them. In my France, Denmark, Venice, Milan, etc. I have always killed them. And I never play as them, I don't like having an empire starting out that way, all in the middle of things. And I don't feel awesome when I conquer things, like I do when I am Denmark.

[cfmonkey45]

Funny thing, I was just thinking about this.

In one game, in fact I think I have the screenshot, perhaps I will look for it later, I was Spain; at around approximately turn 40-50ish (long time ago) I had successfully united the Iberian Peninsula-plus-Bordeaux. I had just began an incursion into North Africa, with little resistance, when I realized that that pesky kingdom called France had not blockaded Zaragoza in over 10 turns. Normally, I would be happy seeing as we were still at war. However, I decided to investigate this mystery.

Lo and behold, when I entered toggle_fow into the almighty console, I saw a scene that made me laugh: Scotland had successfully united the British Isles (England no longer controlled England), England was fighting to the death with France in France, France actually lost Paris, and the majority of its northern provinces, Milan, Venice, and Denmark whittled away HRE to a mere three provinces: Prague, Nuremburg, and Vienna. Milan also was slowly but surely crawling up the side of France like a cancerous vine (hmm, how fitting), Venice was taking the pickings of Byzantium, and Hungary was just finishing the scraps of what used to be Poland. Naturally, I felt inclined to intervene.

After much debate with the Papacy, I decided that it was in the best interests of all the countries (especially me ) to annex Lombardy and its adjacent regions and give half of it to the beleaguered Holy Roman Empire (err what remained of it). With that, I began a slow, but steady incursion into Milanese territory, eventually exterminating the Green Menace, while leaving the opportunity to arise to reprimand my old foe: France. Suffice to say, by the close of the Century, western Europe, along with large portions of North Africa and the Near East, donned the flag of the Imperial Spanish Crown.

Back on topic, I have noticed that HRE either becomes the bully, or the bullied. Milan and Venice usually tend to duke it out in Italy, but apparently their incursions into German territory lose momentum and die out rather quickly.

[Cyrus Spitama]

Something very odd is happening in my Turkish campaign right now: the Mongols have arrived and wiped me out of Yerevan and Tblisi, sacking the places and rolling ahead, nothing new there. They headed for Trebizond, where I summed up a considerable force waiting for them inside the fortress to give them a warm welcome. One or two of their armies went within striking distance of Trebizond, stalled for a couple of turns, changed their minds and went back...Did they chicken out because of the fortress garrison?

Now they are all hanging about Tblisi and Yerevan again, I've got an Iman there to follow them around and they can't seem to make up their minds about where to go next.

[Cyrus Spitama]

Something very odd is happening in my Turkish campaign right now: the Mongols have arrived and wiped me out of Yerevan and Tblisi, sacking the places and rolling ahead, nothing new there. They headed for Trebizond, where I summed up a considerable force waiting for them inside the fortress to give them a warm welcome. One or two of their armies went within striking distance of Trebizond, stalled for a couple of turns, changed their minds and went back...Did they chicken out because of the fortress garrison?

Now they are all hanging about Tblisi and Yerevan again, I've got an Iman there to follow them around and they can't seem to make up their minds about where to go next.

It gets weirder.. They headed towards Trebizond again, after I sent some troops back. I quickly garrisoned up with 3 heavy unhits and I scared them off again, back into Yerevan, which I think they sacked again just for the thrill of it, the rebel garrison there seems much smaller than the original one after they first sacked it.

Right now I'm playing a funny game with Crusader armies; I've got a crusade going on after my Antioch, but I've noticed that the Crusading armies are always dead set on attacking just the target settlement and will move out of their away to avoid any army they find in their path, no matter how small and defenceless it might be. So I'm dropping single peasant units at strategic key passes on their way through Turkey to Antioch to try and divert them towards Yerevan to create the ultimate Mongol-Crusader Traffic Jam of Doom and see if they kill each other.