[SS AAR] Templars Quest to Glory (Templar Knight Campaign)

[Quercia]

Order of the Templar Knights

Quest to Glory
Stainless Steel Mod Patch 5.1

A new (and first) AAR for Med II SSM, I've glorified myself to command the holy armies of the Templar Knights. It's time for conquest, it's time for glory.

Campaign settings
Battle Difficulty/Campaign Difficulty: VH/VH
There is battle time limit
No Advice
Stainless Steel Mod 5.1
Control Settlements

Objectives:
- First destroy and capture all non-Catholic factions. This means the destruction of Novgorod, Kievan Rus, Lithuania, Byzantine Empire, Seljuks, Mongols, Fatimid Caliphate and the Moors.
- Secondly, world domination by defying the power of the Pope. The only true Catholic is the Grand Master and he is by divine right the ruler of the world!


Motivation:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I want some real challenge from the AI. They are way too weak, even in SS. From the forums I read that Templars, Lithuania and Norway are pretty challenging. I decided for Templars first just because I'm out of the Catholic mudhole and the Pope spamming my back with excom threats. I also like the place I'm at - between two way larger factions - the Seljuk Sultanate and the Fatimid Caliphate. Now let's kick their butts!

Introduction

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Templar Order Grand Master Hugues oversaw his lands. He knew that if the Templar Knights were to expand, he'll have to fight major Islamic powers. Tortosa is the only real settlement with power, and thus the lands looked like this:


Rebel lands were stretched far and wide around his little kingdom. The Templar Knights have fair support of the Pope as well as the Christian states. But they were far away and only able to support in financial matters. The fate of the Templars was with the sword.

Chapter 1: Swift Moves

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Quick action was necessary. We need to capture a city settlement in order to gain some real money. We're on netto 500 florins per turn but that'll never be sufficient to provide for any building and recruitment. Our spy was quickly sent to the closest of cities: Antioch:



No cavalry present. That's good. Our army is composed of peasants. The capital holds the General's Bodyguard for Master Hugues + a unit of Sergeant Spearmen. Our field army under command of Councillor Gottfried contains a Bodyguard + 3 Pilgrim units. As I said, peasants.

Even though of that fact, I decided to attack Antioch with the field army. It wasn't to my surprise that the moment I clicked 'next turn', the rebels would attack:



Look at the 'balance of power' meter. Apparantly the infidels have great odds to win this battle!

We accepted the battle and rode forth to meet them. Their outbursting attack was so fast that we couldn't set up our battle deployment. But quick movement resulted in this:


Hmm... nice city.

Anyways, as expected, the Pilgrims weren't supposed to hold the lines for too long. Their intend was much more of distraction of most enemy Spear Militia units. Apparantly, there were like 5-6 Spear Militia units and 2 Archers units.

It's of importance to take those Archers out, because they have a shooting power of 4 (quite strong for archers).



You can see one of the Pilgrim units fleeing already, even though the combat just started. The Bodyguard swept around a Spear Militia unit and went straight for the Archers. They were dead soon enough, and their leader as well:



Next turn was slaughtering the Spear Militia. After a first succesful charging (killing 60 within one unit), the results were moderate with the Bodyguard unit. I lost some of the elite men from the first charge, but luckily my Pilgrims rallied and joined the fight. Together with the Bodyguard, they made mincemeat of the Spear Militia's.

The enemy Archers rallied as well, giving me a headache by doing so. I sent my bodyguard off to them to run them down, as they were the last units not fleeing already:



That's what you get for fighting us, infidels!

That was the last unit that remained stable and fled promptly after this magnificent charge.

The results of this battle were inevitable hehe:



Well I don't say it often, but they were certainly PWNT.

And thus the power of Heavy Cavalry has been proven to be true. This is harder to pull of with enemy Cavalry as they keep nagging behind you all the time, giving enemy infantry the time to close in (no good).

So I captured Antioch on the beginning of Turn 2. I slaughtered the people, knowing that they'll cause a lot of unrest (no Catholics here I think). The result was that I have 1500 people left and a 10.000 florin treasure chest. My netto income has been raised to about 1600, instead of 500.

This was good news for my growth, as my next move will be as swift as this one (and a lot more challenging).

[Pink Beard]

nice start dude!

[Jynx]

... + rep

[Quercia]

Upon suggestion by an ethusiastic member reading this AAR, I have been asked to make a video of the battles. I'm using Fraps for images and it records vids too, but only for 30 secs?

Anyways my FPS is already bad... After I installed Fraps again I saw I'm at 15 FPS without anything moving on the battle lines This got worse when the movie recording started lol.

Maybe when I get a new PC...

Chapter 1: Swift Moves
Part 1: Who said Mercenaries are bad?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Alright I added Antioch to our little realm. It's time to expand more. I just checked the Family Tree and it's a little small:



Ah well, I hope they rejoice the fun of having a go in bed some time.

This means that my generals are very important... If I a lose one of them, it's going to get rough. With this in mind, I have some risky moves I have yet to take. Bodyguard are just too strong to just walk around on the battlefield (as you saw in the previous battle).

I actually got a diplomat down in Italy, and why the hell not form an alliance with the Pope? So I did:


I find that making alliances is easy from the beginning. They will always accept except if you demand something big from them (money or settlements). Though, this can be risky because you can get caught up in real big 'total wars'. For example, when I'm allied to HRE and they start a war with Poland, I have no way to ally to Poland or any of his allies either. And if that's a big enough nation, it's too risky for me to take part in. So I'll decide to leave the theatre of diplomacy a bit next to me, and rather look the cat out of the tree. The only wars I will make are against muslims, hehe...

Anyways, I got a little job to reinforce Antioch with 4 units to get some additional units:


Seems easy enough to fulfill.

This is how our peaceful little realm looks like:


My spy did some necessary work: looking for new settlements to capture! Looks like Adana meets the requirements. We therefore enter Turkish regions.



Damned horses. And these are Armenians too. High attack but lower defence than my bodyguard. But very tough to kill, I assume. Time to recruit some mercenaries!

As a sidenote, I just found out the Turkish realm borders that of Adana. That makes the Seljuks my direct neighbour, something I'm not too fond of to hear. They got a castle close too, and it's their capital! That means I'm pretty much in a hot spot right away. But I'll have to take the chance.



Back to Adana. They resisted to attack me (even though the balance of power is in their favour). I patiently waited 3 turns (it's just a motte and bailey, ugh) to smoke them out of it. And they came hungry enough from the siege:



Weehoo. You see I recruited 4 Mercenary units. It's nice they got some experience from the start. Anyways I have got 2 units of Turkopoles. They're basically crap archers on horseback. Then I have a unit of light Alan Cavalry... I didn't expect them to do much either. At last I have some Armenian Archers. Those are the Archers I fought at Antioch.

The enemy brough enough of their men to cripple me. 2 Spear Militia units, 2 Armenian Archer units and 2 units of Armenian Heavy Cavalry.

Fun. So it's basically Lord-who-wants-to-conquer-the-world-using-peasants-and-mercenaries vs rebel townfolk-with-shiny-cavalry. Who wins?

So this is how it looks like. Both Turkopoles to the front, using baiting techniques by shooting the rebels (it works on the Spear Militia later on). Archers in the middle with the Alan unit to the left, and the Bodyguard behind the Archers:


Now the fun begins.


Image taken from my left flank. The horses are the Alans, fighting Spear Militia. You can see a lot of dead horses behind them. I just killed one Armenian Heavy Cavalry unit by using the Alans + a rear charge from the left Turkopoles. I then charged the remaining Alans into Spear Militia, who were coming up. The Turkopoles retreated to the left flank.

Behind the Alans is a fight of Armenian Cavalry vs my Bodyguard + the Armenian Archers. And behind that are Turkopoles baiting a Spear Militia unit. Enemy Armenian Archers are shooting at the Turkopoles (I think), as you see the arrows fly high over the Alans.

The Armenian Cavalry was quickly despatched, and the Spear Militia after that with the Alans and Bodyguard. It was then time to kill the enemy Archers. The cowards ran to the right of the settlement. But my Turkopoles caught them up:



By that time my Alans were chasing the Spear Militia down. They are at the gates of the settlement and will follow up to the flag capturing fleeing rebel Spear Militia:



Realising defeat, the Armenian Archers held fast. Realising the Turkopoles could be slaughtered, I sent them away and put my Bodyguard into them:



They fled pretty fast, and victory was mine:



I chose to occupy the settlement:


Great, another 600 florins to my chest. Altough having those Turks at my doorstep did not make me feel happy at all.

[Quercia]

Last update for today lol. It will slow down after this

Chapter 1: Swift Moves
Part II: Killing some more Rebels...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A Turkish force has positioned themselves on a hill to the north of my recently captured Adana. This wasn't good news. Though, in the next few months a diplomat approached us with peaceful intent:


We gladly accepted. I certainly thought we would be at war soon. That would have meant the end of me.

But a threat to the south of Jerusalem (still rebel) became more apparant:



Relations worsened with the Fatimids too. I tihnk I have to prepare for a war soon.

But nevertheless, I completed my mission to reinforce Antioch with 4 units, and received 2 units of Templar Spearmen:


I can build these fellows at Antioch by now but 2 of them extra is good anyway. I can't recruit big numbers of them in Antioch yet.

Templar Spearmen, as the name suggests, have useful weapons against those pesky Cavalry.



But then again, I need to hurry capturing any rebel settlements at all. Because I have direct competition with the Fatimids and Seljuks about the next batch of rebel settlements.

The Pope gave me a new mission though:


But it's time to fight once more. The sieged the city of Damascus with a lot of troops, more than necessary. I want them to come out of their measly cities and fight me. I hate city battles. And I can't spend 6 turns waiting for them to come out. So I have to lure them out. I do this by giving them the favour of balance in power (which means basically more men).




I retreated some of the men out of the siege (2 units of Pilgrims, 1 unit of Sergeant Spearmen and the 2 Turkopole units). They took the bait, as you see.

The battle was a mess. I haven't got many pictures, as it wasn't the best chapter in my history. The enemy nearly overwhelmed me, but I fought hard and finally won. Because of this, I hadn't much time to take pictures at all. I took a total of 2 nice pictures in-battle... Next time I will do that one better (maybe movies ).

Anyways, they had some funny camels goofing about. Those weirdo's charged my spear units shooting their bows! They fled after some time:



Behind them are some of my units I think, lol. The templar spearmen for sure, and I think the Pilgrims too. Oh, don't mind that palmtree! 2D for the win!

This image basically sums the battle up. My Bodyguard became the most important unit of my army. First I had to kill the enemy cavalry before doing so:


Above they are hunting down the archers, which were by then the last remaining unit that wasn't fleeing (like usual). They did burn a lot of my troops with their arrows. Ouch.




Blast them. I think it was a Clear Victory because of my casualties, but they had the balance of power. In my opinion it should have been a Heroic Victory, meh.

At last I had Damascus, and I sacked the city. As I mentioned before, I moved some troops back, with a reason. I initially wanted them to attack Aleppo (which I had in mind earlier) with my King, but the turn after capturing Damascus, I was offered an adoptive candidate:



Nice, young and a good commander for my armies. Gottfried is at a sizeable 6 stars already (at age 25)... which is perfect. When battling he now has 7 stars.

This Siegfried will be a fine member of the family. His first mission was to capture Aleppo:



Let's see what happens next time

[Jwb187]

looking good

[platinumkiller]

looks like your already a crusader state haha mna gjob =D

[Jynx]

If you have a slow computer I would advise you to have the unit size on low but as you have got quite a way into it already...

[Antwerpen]

Very nice! I think you deserved some +rep!

[rogergargantua]

Looks good! Nice cropped screenshots aswell!
Even tho its supposed to be "challenging".....you kick ass with those heroic victories so far!

+rep!

Keep up the heroic victories!

[Quercia]

Ok I have found a way to upload videos now. But I made my first movie way too big (3.1 Gb for 7 mins), because it was full size. Result is that I don't have a video at all. But I have to play battles on 10 FPS and I really don't like that. So I'll keep it to pictures.

Chapter II: Middle East Wars
Part I: Silence before the storms

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The kingdom of the Templar Knights lies very peaceful for a short year. No battles happened, even though our newest addition to the family, Siegfried de Costa, besieges Aleppo.

It's important that Aleppo is captured, as combined with Adana they will form the rear of my realm for some time. My intend is to cripple Egypt first.

These are my family members with their stats:


Only Gottfried is really specialised in something, and that's command! He's great but I realised his drop in loyalty. This is bad as he is my heir, as well as the most important asset of my family so far. I hope his loyality goes up again.

Received a small mission from the Pope:


Out of the blue, Egypt approached me with a viable trade rights offer:



I accepted, but knew it was dubious. I had expected a demand of money too, seeing they are stronger too according to statistics. This meant war is imminent.... There's always silence before the storms.

Further bad news reached me. The Byzantine Empire has started a war against Venice:



Bad, bad news. The Byzantines opted to attack the Christians in the west instead of the Muslims in the east. I know the Byzantine Empire won't be able to fight on both fronts. They will risk complete destruction. Furthermore, achieving an alliance with the Byzantines, in order to trap the Seljuks in the future, is morally not possible. I think Venice will be unsatisfied as well as the Pope about favouring Orthodox Christians above Catholics (and subsequently approving the murder of Christians). That can possibly result in a massive war on the map.

We can conclude that for now, we'll be alone in our epic struggle against 2 big nations. And they're right on my borders too....

But before anything, Siegfried de Costa had to prepare to do battle against the rebel motte & bailey called Aleppo. I said I made a video of this but it's way too huge. I also got no pictures because of that. Only this one:

I achieved yet another Heroic Victory under my belt. I lost 168 men, if I recall correctly (most of the pilgrims died + the Turkopoles, and some of hte spear unit were halved in size).

Shortly after, a suitable bride offered her hand to Siegfried, and they married:


Next up is some inevitable news: war. It happened in one turn:


Smells like a damned conspiracy. I think they have already divided the land amongst themselves, thinking I can be beaten easily. But I won't let that happen, will I?

[Quercia]

Chapter II: Middle East Wars
Part II: Informative Tactics

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It has come to my attention, that in order to survive, I will need to defeat either the Fatimids or Seljuks in a war. I said the Fatimids were easier to crush. Why?



This is a picture of our current realm. Grand Master Hugues and Councillor Gottfried sit nicely in Tortosa, considering battle plans with me and the other tactical councillors.

As you see, Egypt besieged me at Damascus with 4 unknown units. Furthermore, they built a battle ram in the first turn. The Seljuks besiege me at Adana with 2 units. Above that, there is a fleet bloccading Antioch's port, hurting my trade.

Now about my options. I will send a Bodyguard up north. Probably Hugues, who will attack the Turks. It will be his job to keep it together up north. Siegfried will liberate Damascus of Fatimid infidels.

Then we have Gottfried and his army left. He has been reinforced by forces at Tortosa, having a Sergeant Cavalry unit at his disposal. The Fatimids crippled the castle Acre in the south already, and that castle is important to conquering Egypt. From there, I can attack Jerusalem if needed.

Now, why is Egypt easier to cripple than the Seljuks? The Seljuks are more spreadout over the mountains and that proves to be a very useful defensive barrier. If I call a crusade on Egypt's capital, Cairo, I distract them and give them additional problems.

Additionally, I can make Gottfried's army a crusading one, and move faster. I will then take Gaza rather than Cairo. It's their most important settlement for military troops, and a link between east and west of Egypt (it's on the spot where Africa is linked to the Middle East).

If I have Gaza, I have Egypt. It will provide the weakspot I needed to find. When I capture Gaza, I will send reinforments to take in Jerusalem next. The Christians will prevail!

Just before the war began, we got disposal of some heavy infantry and cavalry options. It's not because of a Fortress, but rather a guild at Antioch:




Just in time, wouldn't you say? Yes yes, these will prove to be a good addition to kill the infidels! So predicts Quercia!

[toluas]

Great stuff; keep on going!
+rep

[Quercia]

lol I update too fast

Chapter II:
Part III: Liberation

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

With the tactics set up, it was time for battle.

First, word came from Siegfried. He has reached his enemy and commences battle:


Having a meagre army at disposal, he knew that that he had to pin down the enemy. The Dismounted Arabs seemed stronger than our fighters. Siegfried had to be cautious not to get himself killed by their spears.

Furthermore, the army is mainly armed for battle. Most of them are fighters: Desert Raiders, Dismounted Arabs and a unit of Spear Militia. Next to that he has a skirmishing unit, Kurdish Javelinmen,which can throw javelins. Luckily his general is in the Kurd unit, meaning he won't use them effectively at all.



You see the Turkopoles deployed on the left. The Pilgrims screen the two units of Sergeant Spearmen from enemy fire. Behind all that is my Bodyguard unit.



Siegfried ordered the remaining Turkopoles (20) to harass the Fatimids immediately. Running on the left flank, they damage the Kurd units, which is all the way in the back. The other enemy units are (from left to right): Desert Raiders, Dismounted Arab Cavalry and Spear Militia.



Siegfried ordered the Pilgrims and the right Sergeant Spearmen unit to pin down the Arabs. The left Sergeant Spearmen attacked the Desert Raiders on the left flank, but not before Siegfried charged them! Killing half the unit, he pulled back and hte Sergeants could mop up.

At this time, the Spear Militia pulled back the to right flank, very far away. Siegfried told me he had no clue why.

In the image, you see the ensuing pursuit after the victorious assault

After defeating the Fatimid front line, the defeat of the second line, the Kurds, was easy done. The Turkopoles and Siegfried joined in a combined Cavalry charge. I was so shocking they promptly fled. On the charge, this is what happened to the general:



Well, it's rather obvious:



Siegfried hailed at his second clear victory. The reinforcements have not been utilised.

But this did not make matters easy on the other fronts. Gottfried assaulted the Acre walls a few months after Siegfried's victory:



The first time in history we had a good balance of power!



Deployment of the troops. I actually was amazed of how many foot troops I had that could fight reasonable. To be honest, only 1 unit of Sergeant Spearmen! I had 2 units of Peasants, about 140 Peasant Archers in 4 units, 1 unit of Pilgrims, 2 Alan Light Cavalry, a Bodyguard unit and a unit of Sergeant Cavalry. Great.



Harassing time!



'Fight you peasants!' Gottfried cried from down below. Easy to say that, I guess! Image is the left wall.



'Other Peasants, fight!' Gottfried cried from below when the right flank got onto the walls.

'Aksi ratak ktiki! Allah Akbar!' cried the Desert Archer leader. Gottfried didn't know what the heaven it meant. It certainly didn't meant fleeing, and who's Akbar? Gottfried thought.


'Ha! My monk... Pilgrims opened the gates! You weren't too useless in the end.' said Gottfried, then ordered all the horses inside.



'@^%@^*_D ! Where are we?!? I hate this castle already!' an attentive Sergeant Cavalryman noted.


'2 minutes and 50 seconds before the big picknick! Come one guys, I found the best spot!' yelled Gottfried to the castle walls. His men were still fighting on the walls.



'Hey! We didn't invite you to the picknick!' and the Sergeants Cavalry mowed them down.



The picknick was a huge success. We mysteriously miss a lot of peasants, was this picknick so dangerous?

The liberation of Adana is about to happen, as Grand Master Hugues enters the territory:


I can haz pointy stickz, yez?




Running down the archers, the spear militia didn't want to share the same fate.



Muahahah ! Death oder destruction!


Guess what victory I got!



I didn't use the reinforcements... Which was about 259 men.

Further news then. After the liberations and capture of Acre, our loyal and most useful spy, Athalwolf, was killed during a spying mission on a big Fatimid force near Jerusalem:



Ouch. Ah well, he did some good duties scouting for us.

Our realm looks as follows on the mini-map:


This is how it looks like on the campaign map:

[platinumkiller]

very nice updates! i sujest u waiot 5-10 turns recruting men and getingyour defences up then make a armie to liberate Jerusalem

[platinumkiller]

another nice update! Serprised you did not take jerusalem.

[Quercia]

another nice update! Serprised you did not take jerusalem.

Hehe the main reason for that is because if I want to secure (big) regions, I go for the castle settlements first. Besides, Gaza castle was their only castle + a weakspot. The temptation was too great.

But in the next update (which will be huge), I will claim Jerusalem muahah!

[platinumkiller]

good Quercia good (darth sidiuos voice ) Maughahahaha

[rogergargantua]

LOL! The Fatimid Sultan gave your troops hell! He sure fought hard man! He even pwned ya own general bodyguard.
As always, great update! Love the pictures! Seems like you did some editing here and there with blur techniques. It looks hella great!

I cant wait for the battle over at Cairo now France and Spain are involved aswell. The Fatimids are close to extinction....but they always refuse to give up. Hard fighting people. Maybe they are even more dangerous now while their lands are under siege.

Keep it up!

[tuore]

Really nice update! Keep it up