Will Scotland ever stop being of Sassanach culture, considering the Norse-Irish-Scottish origins of the Crovans?
Saltborn: A Crovan AAR
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just read through the full 11 pages at once and had a good laugh while doing it so consider me *subscribed*
Only if I have an heir tutored by someone of another culture, either by purpose or accident. Since I'm still holding on to the hope of conquering England, I find it unlikely that I will do it on purpose.
I start off by raising every able-bodied man in my three kingdoms and recruit the Knights Hospitaller, the Templars and Teutons already fighting the Moors. Soon enough I have twenty thousand men on the beaches of Spain, with more on the way.
The first order of the day is the relief of Astorga, where 11 thousand Moors are tearing down the Templar holdings.
It's a victory, but a frighteningly costly one. Sultan Yahya can afford these losses. I cannot.
Case in point:
At least there's good news from the home hearth:
That's how you do it, great-grandfather! Ha!
I am forced into another battle in Astorga.
If I keep winning like this, I will lose the war. Meanwhile, the Templars are fighting desperately in Braganca, where the Moors are sending wave after wave of soldiers to relieve the siege. I send my own reinforcements, prompting Sultan Yahya to bolster his side, forcing me to send even more. Before we know what's going on, we are fighting one doomstack-battle after another:
In the end, I am forced to admit defeat. Sultan Yahya knows he has me on the ropes, so I can't get even a White Peace. I have to surrender, however much it pains me to do so.
And my wallet.
With piety at an all-time low, I use some of my gratuitously bloated treasury to buy indulgence from the Pope.
But heaven, it seems, is no place for the poor. Unwilling to push relations with the Pope further into the drain, I take the deal, but I think I'll survive having low Piety for the while.
After repeated failures to use my Intrigue, I decide to put the blame on my Spymaster. None of my available courtiers are particularly good, so I bring up the Characters tab and sort by Intrigue. I find myself at the very top with 29 Intrigue(I lost 'Diligent' earlier). In second place is a certain Scotsman by the name of James a Sratha Cluade, a courtier in the court of Duke Richard of Galloway, sporting a healthy 28 Intrigue. I invite him to my court and he accepts. Of course, I make him my Spymaster, sending my State Intrigue into the stratosphere:
My brother Donald dies in November 1348. I grant the duchy and constituent county to Duke Waltheof of Galicia. He should be an excellent counterweight to Prince Maldred, who is the Earl of Lothian and two counties in Spain.
The Duke of York has my Duke of Somerset excommunicated, probably after misspelling my name.
I put my astronomical Intrigue to good use by sending an assassin after Caliph Ra'uf the Lionheart, hoping to destabilize the empire so that I can defeat them in a Crusade. Naturally, the attempt fails, but my involvement is still unknown.
Duke Ælle of Meath was heard making some sort of comment that could be interpreted as a certain willingness to possess Ireland for himself. Dungeon.
In May, I make another attempt on the Caliph.
In honour of the occasion, I grow myself a suitably villainous mustache.
Not everyone is impressed by it, however:
I retaliate in the only manner I know:
That'll show them to depict me as some sort of Godless bastard!
Only Prince Maldred shows any signs of revolting after this, and he is mostly mollified with an honorary title. Furthermore, the people of Astorga do not seem to mind an excommunicated king as they revolt from the rule of Mauretania and become a fief of the Prince-Archbishop of Léon's. Duke Waltheof promptly declares a Ducal War on him over the county.
Being a bit miffed at seeing everyone else have so much excitement, I murder another Caliph.
With my piety at a shameful -43, I am offered the ambition to Become a Paragon of Virtue. I choose it just because it would be a slap in the face of the Pope to see me nicknamed "The Holy" after my transgressions.
Duke Muirchertach of Munster briefly plots to Acquire the Kingdom of Ireland. Dungeon.
The Crusade for Alexandretta gathers steam in the meantime, Europeans salivating at the opportunity to snap up the county while the Caliph struggles with disloyal vassals.
In red are the countries at war with the Caliphate. Notables include the Kingdom of England, the Kingdom of Poland and the Duchy of Bavaria. Naturally, none of them actually manage to do much but lose the war and so give the Caliph a whole bunch of realm-stabilizing prestige. Not to mention that vassals are very reluctant to revolt while their liege is defending against heathens.
The burden of excommunication still irks me, but I need 50 piety to even ask the Pope to lift it. On the other hand, I find a nifty decision hiding away in the Intrigue tab:
And people wonder why I'm a cynic. Hah!
Half a year later:
So. Much. Gold.
It's time to do something I should have done generations ago, and it's time to do it before yet another nobody with claims on my titles can get me excommunicated yet again.
With my spirit secure, it is time to prove myself in warfare. The King of England has exhausted his armies in the Holy Land and my vassal Duke Æthelhere of Gloucester has a claim on Gwent, which would join my Welsh holdings with those in England.
Note the grey in Hereford. Some German duke or duchess in the Empire managed to inherit it. There were a lot of weird inheritances recently. An English vassal inherited the holdings of the Buchanans, that is the counties of Moray and Buchan, while a vassal of mine inherited English Cumberland. I briefly held landlocked Poitou in France but it kept rebelling so I let it defect to France.
I manage to blitz fresh English levies totalling 7500 men before King Eardulf knows what hit him, but then he surprises me in Oxford, personally commanding an army of eleven thousand which catches a six thousand strong army of mine by surprise.
Of course, reinforcements are quick to show up, and I play the same game on Eardulf. He is quick to retreat from Oxford, but cornered and decisively bloodied in Wiltshire.
English power broken, the war is a foregone conclusion. The last holding in Gwent has just fallen to my armies when
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So this doesn't look good. How do the Spanish Muslims get such large force pools? It's crazy compared to what you get.
What CB?
In my game as Armenia (started 1337) an ultra-powerful Turkish Sultanate attacked me and I was like 'The End' but it was just a religious defense so a month into the war I simply surrendered some piety and it was over.
In my game as Armenia (started 1337) an ultra-powerful Turkish Sultanate attacked me and I was like 'The End' but it was just a religious defense so a month into the war I simply surrendered some piety and it was over.
Massive, massive bloodshed. On the Iberian Peninsula, in England... And that was before the Doomstacks of the Caliphate started marching on you again. Perhaps expanding into heathen lands was not such a grand idea after all?
But hey! You created an anti-pope! That's pretty cool in and of itself! And you murdered two Caliphs. Oh, and the murder of Duke Holger (..."died green and bloated like a toad") was a new one for me. So you're at least getting points for style. A very lethal, vindictive style...
But hey! You created an anti-pope! That's pretty cool in and of itself! And you murdered two Caliphs. Oh, and the murder of Duke Holger (..."died green and bloated like a toad") was a new one for me. So you're at least getting points for style. A very lethal, vindictive style...
is it me or do the unplayable factions feel like massively more powerful than the playable ones?
anyway another great update
anyway another great update
Ouch...Legend goes that farmers in Iberia drenched their fields in Crovan and muslim blood for decades to come...
I guess Scottish army ranks must be severely depleted by now. I truly hope you aren't gonna miss those guys! How long will it take to replace all those losses? Won't you be open to attack while your army recuperates?
Of course there was a bright side to the slaughter. The remaining Crovan warriors at least have an excuse to give their Crovan wives back in Scotland for not taking them along for the trip, in sunny Spain.
"It was a bloodbath m'love, I tell you...I could not stand the thought of you getting your melon split in two by some crazed heathen...no, we didn't once go to the beach m'love, it was all bloody campaigning and whatnot...See, we didn't even take looting breaks or I'd have gotten you a nice dress or ten...this isn't a tan on my face it's sunburn...spanish girls? I never saw any, I heard they're ok..."
Good stuff!
I guess Scottish army ranks must be severely depleted by now. I truly hope you aren't gonna miss those guys! How long will it take to replace all those losses? Won't you be open to attack while your army recuperates?
Of course there was a bright side to the slaughter. The remaining Crovan warriors at least have an excuse to give their Crovan wives back in Scotland for not taking them along for the trip, in sunny Spain.
"It was a bloodbath m'love, I tell you...I could not stand the thought of you getting your melon split in two by some crazed heathen...no, we didn't once go to the beach m'love, it was all bloody campaigning and whatnot...See, we didn't even take looting breaks or I'd have gotten you a nice dress or ten...this isn't a tan on my face it's sunburn...spanish girls? I never saw any, I heard they're ok..."
Good stuff!
I'm playing Barcelona -> Aragon right now and the Mauretanians are crazy strong and unified as well. I think North Africa has some very good provinces and on the edge of the map they don't get bothered much letting them grow unmolested.
Epic stuff with the Pope and crusades... I'm betting we'll see Africans in Scotland soon
So send your troops to North Africa and use your fleets to keep the Moors away and take the territories and then scorch until bled ddry.
TonyJoe said:
It's intended that way. Muslims have a special building or two that is essentially free troops, and I know for certain Pagans have a building that costs 1g but gives ~500 free troops.
Also, subbed. I've been subbed since the second page, but, now I'm saying it.
Well, Muslim lands are much more developed in infrastructure and technology than Catholic lands, especially Northern European. Also, like Cetan says, the Arabic cultures get a building chain that gives them extra troops(light cavalry or horse archers I think. It may be different for the various Muslim cultures.). Also note their extensive lands: All of Mauretania, a respectable share of the Kingdom of Africa and about half of the Spanish kingdoms. Most important of all, however, is their Absolute Crown Authority, which they have somehow maintained for about a hundred years. That's the same reason for the strength of the Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire.
Yeah, I've gotten away on technicalities before when I thought all was lost. Not so lucky this time, the CB is Holy War for Léon, and I ain't gonna give any land away to some stinkin' Moor.
Don't worry. This is currently my go-to anger management technique.
Ouch...Legend goes that farmers in Iberia drenched their fields in Crovan and muslim blood for decades to come...
I guess Scottish army ranks must be severely depleted by now. I truly hope you aren't gonna miss those guys! How long will it take to replace all those losses? Won't you be open to attack while your army recuperates?
Of course there was a bright side to the slaughter. The remaining Crovan warriors at least have an excuse to give their Crovan wives back in Scotland for not taking them along for the trip, in sunny Spain.
"It was a bloodbath m'love, I tell you...I could not stand the thought of you getting your melon split in two by some crazed heathen...no, we didn't once go to the beach m'love, it was all bloody campaigning and whatnot...See, we didn't even take looting breaks or I'd have gotten you a nice dress or ten...this isn't a tan on my face it's sunburn...spanish girls? I never saw any, I heard they're ok..."
Good stuff!
You have no idea how correct you are about the level of bloodshed. As for depleted ranks, not so much. Levies replenish pretty fast(too fast in my opinion, and I'm not the only one who thinks so), and now that I'm 'Defending against heathens', I get a +30 opinion from every vassal, dramatically increasing the proportion of levies I can raise from their lands.
Regrettably, fleets can only be used to transport in CK2, not to fight. My best bet is to gather all my forces and hope the Moors arrive piecemeal. If they don't do that, attrition will certainly punish them.
Also, did I mention how pleased I am with 20,000 views? Because I am. Thanks to everyone for reading and especially for commenting!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
OKAY ERRYBODY JUST CALM THE DUCK DOWN WE CAN HANDLE THIS
JAMES A SRATHA CLUADE, I choose you!
JAMES A SRATHA CLUADE uses BACKSTAB!
SULTAN YAHYA is carried away!
MAURETANIA sends out SULTAN MU'IZZ!
SULTAN MU'IZZ uses GRATUITOUSLY OVERSIZED MANPOWER POOL!
Damn it. Look at that ledger. So many realms I could be attacking right now but noooo, Yahya just had to come upsetting my groove.
How did that work out for you, Yahya?! Oh, you're dead?! Thought so! Unfriendly lady.
At least the war with King Eardulf doesn't distract me for as long as I feared:
Yes, Sevilla conquered Brittany out-of-frame. It's a disturbing thought that the Crovans are the only ones who can be trusted to defend the western borders of Catholicism from the heathen hordes.
I disband my levies and re-raise them in order to replenish depleted regiments and make use of the +30 'Defending against Heathens' opinion bonus. I can now field a whopping 36 thousand men before mercenaries/holy orders, almost half of what the Moors can field. With some shrewd tactics, this war is most certainly winnable. What I can make use of now that I am on the defensive is that I can stay within my borders and enjoy higher supply limits while the Moors must divide their forces in order to minimize attrition. This enables me to pick them apart piece by piece, fighting a war against superior numbers by outnumbering the enemy in each individual battle.
Disaster looms as an army of ten thousand in Santiago is surprised by 14k Muslims marching north from Porto. However, I am able to pick up newly-landed reinforcements from the rally point in Asturias de Oviedo and ship them off to Santiago, arriving just after the initial clash.
The losses are still uncomfortably high, but I should have an easier time recovering than the Muslims, since he will be taking penalties for having his vassal levies raised. I don't, since I'm defending.
In February 1358, I discover a strategy even more superior to 'outnumber the enemy two-to-one':
I call it 'outnumber the enemy three-to-one'.
With the not-pictured destruction of the muslims fleeing from Santiago, the battles result in a total of 10,139 Christians lost to 32,918 Moors. Not bad proportions at all.
In June, I shatter another 9400 Muslims at the price of 1701 soldiers in the county of Leon. In September, 7961 Muslims are traded for 1775 Christians in exactly the same place. In November, it's 10558:2759. The ledger shows Mauretania with an army size of 45k, Scotland at 19k(but I have both the White Company and Breton Company in hire, totalling a maximum of 6750 soldiers).
In December, I send my third assassin after Sultan Mu'izz. He fails as well, but at least he leaves the infidel wounded.
Yet another round of battles in Leon:
This is one ridiculously bloody meatgrinder. Surely I must have made an impact on Mauretania's demographics by now. The ledger shows them at 31 thousand men, me at 12 thousand. However, by disbanding my levies(keeping the mercenaries) and raising them fresh again, I turn my 15 thousand army into 34 thousand, though it will take a while to get them from Britain to Spain. Fortunately, it takes a while for the next Mauretanian doomstack to arrive as well.
You know, I would have thought that they had figured by now that intermittently sending in stacks of ~10,000 men to besiege some holding doesn't work out too well.
In order to expedite the conclusion of the war, I send in my own 10,000 stack to lay siege to Plasencia.
Another 7,500 Muslims are destroyed in Astorga in March 1360. Sultan Mu'izz is now willing to accept a White Peace.
I am not.
I'm feeling confident, so I send another army into Moorish lands, twelve thousand men into Braganca.
There's a whole bunch of inter-vassal wars within Al-Andalus, which has low Crown Authority.
In August 1361, Murcia, owning the northern half of Portugal, declares independence from Mauretania.
Warscore from battles, holding occupations and the ticker for holding Léon is all adding up. I'm at 99%, but Mu'izz is still unwilling to surrender. Just one more battle, one more holding or one more month, and I can force him to accept my demands.
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Who let a man that fat into a starfighter! Also I thought you swore off using your leader in these battles, or is crown authority too low for that? Great update, great AAR!
