NOTE: This is a megacampaign that has started in Crusader Kings and has finally made its way to HoI2. Therefore the opening few chapters may have a slightly "un-HoI" feel to them!
In fact, because I'm feeling prodcutive - here's an index. Those of you just wanting to read to HoI2 stuff you can jump straight to 1936 (although the stuff beforehand is quite good fun - honest!).
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INDEX
Chapter 1 - the Papal Inquisitor (1179)
Chapter 2 - Phyrric Victories (1190)
Chapter 3 - the Reconquista (1211)
Chapter 4 - A New Flag (1216)
Chapter 5 - A Breath of Fresh Air (1239)
Chapter 6 - Let's Talk (1254)
Chapter 7 - An End of An Era (1451)
Chapter 8 - Terror Incognito (16th century)
Chapter 9 - The Cost of Modern Warfare (18th century)
Chapter 10 - Virescit Vulnere Virtus (early 19th century)
Chapter 11 - Deo Vindice (1840)
Chapter 12 - Foedere Et Religione Tenemur (1843)
Chapter 14 - Take the Afternoon Off Chaps (1921)
Chapter 15 - The Secret Masters of the World (1932)
Chapter 16 - Krgy...where? (1936)
Chapter 17 - Nemo Me Impune Lacessit (1939)
Chapter 18 - Faces of War (1939)
Chapter 19 - Faces of War (Part II) (1940)
Chapter 20 - Faces of War (Part III) (1940)
Chapter 21 - All Quiet on the Eastern Front (1941)
Chapter 22 - Winds of Change (1950)
Chapter 23 - Boom, Boom, Shake the Room! (1950s)
Chapter 24 - I Am Become Death... (1950s-60s)
It's 1159 and the kingdom of Scotland is doing rather well.
The pretty light blue is Scotland
It rules over most of the British Isles, all of Sicilly, Venice and vast expanses of snow and tundra in the east.
The Vast Expanses of Snow and Tundra in the East (VESTE) were aquired through what was basically dynastic cowardice.
Oooh! Colourful!
In the early 1100's the Pope called for a Crusade against the heathen, suggesting none too subtly that those that didn't take part would be laughed at, mocked and shunned by all right minded, pious and blood thirsty Christian monarchs out there. Sadly for Scotland (pretty tiny and financially ropey at the time) the prospect of taking on the well armed and organized Arab nations was pretty daunting. However, it rapidly became apparent that the Pope, for all his ranting about libearting the Holy Land, wasn't really THAT bothered about what heathens were put to the sword as long as there was a substantial body count.
So it was that the Scottish hordes set sail for darkest Scandinavia and ramapged and pillaged there way through the pagan realms, taking on the might of the fearsome er...tribes of the Lapps, the Finns and the Zemeglians (although they sound like some scary sci-fi invader they were actually some scrawny collection of reindeer worshipping pagans who were armed with snow and dried branches). Quite a lot of VESTE was conquered before the limits of the Scottish exchequer were reached. In later years the VESTE served as a "reward" for the more rebellious of the King's subjects. "Oh, so you're feeling rebellious? Dear, dear. I *AM* scared. Tell you what, because I'm so scared of you, I'd best reward you to keep you on side. Here. You can be the count of Lapland. Off you go. I'll look after wherever else you were Count of before hand."
Sicilly was taken when the King felt a bit brave and decided to take on the four small Moorish caliphates (who had no allies to speak of) that made their home there. Turns out that they were quite wealthy so he decided to keep them instead of parcelling them out.
Venice was taken in a moment of drunken belligerence when someone thought that it would be a laugh to sack it. Thankfully the new cannon fodder from Sicilly proved to be up to the task and Venice was added to the realm.
Club Med
The realms of Ireland and Wales were added quite early on through a bit of blatent bullying and racketeering. Two small Irish counties were flattened into the ground and ambassador's were sent to the Irish and Welsh dukes and given messages along the lines of "Nice place you've got here. Shame if it was razed and pillaged, know what I mean?" To the surprise of all concerned all in question (along with their vassals) agreed to become the vassals of the King of Scotland.
Actually, this was almost a bad thing, thanks to a moment of utter stupidity on the part of some Welsh Duke (now deceased). He decided to pick a fight with England, England attacked him AND his vassal and I was obliged to steam into help them out. At first I thought that this was a great chance for me to blag some nice English land (I'd had my eyes on Northumberland for a while) but it rapidly became apparent that the King of England and his gang were more than up to the task of driving my sorry arse into the sea. Thankfully the coffers were quite full at that point, so I was able to almost bankrupt the realm and offer the King of England and his cronies a big chest of gold in return for him leaving me and my Welsh idiot vassals alone. Suffice it to say, said Welsh idiots were soon "purged" from the Scottish court.
Thankfully England had a little dynastic crisis of its own a few decades later on. The King went off to the Holy Land to do a bit of Crusading. He clearly got a bit tied down (I wasn't paying too much potential - I was busy sitting at home sulking at the thought of all the gold that my Welsh bitches had cost me) for he was over there for ages. While he was away a load of his vassals decided to declare their independance and there was very little he could do about it. Not being once to waste an oppertunity I offered them oppertunties to be my vassals and battered those into submission who refused.
Meanwhile, back in the Holy Land some knightly orders and a bunch of Arabs had got together to take the King of England's conquests off him and drive him back into the sea.
So, he's left in the sorry situation shown on the map.
At the moment I'm sitting cooling my heels a bit. I could sweep in and take the other rebel English counties and usurp the King of England, but world opinion of me isn't very good, and if I carry on behaving like a hooligan I'm going to have most of my vassals rebelling and a load of the big boys declaring war.
But don't worry - I don't have much patience for sitting around playing with my economy. I'm sure I'll be off warmongering again sometime soon. Oh, and here's a picture of our illustrious leader, good King David. Handsome devil, isn't he?
King Dave
In fact, because I'm feeling prodcutive - here's an index. Those of you just wanting to read to HoI2 stuff you can jump straight to 1936 (although the stuff beforehand is quite good fun - honest!).
---
INDEX
Chapter 1 - the Papal Inquisitor (1179)
Chapter 2 - Phyrric Victories (1190)
Chapter 3 - the Reconquista (1211)
Chapter 4 - A New Flag (1216)
Chapter 5 - A Breath of Fresh Air (1239)
Chapter 6 - Let's Talk (1254)
Chapter 7 - An End of An Era (1451)
Chapter 8 - Terror Incognito (16th century)
Chapter 9 - The Cost of Modern Warfare (18th century)
Chapter 10 - Virescit Vulnere Virtus (early 19th century)
Chapter 11 - Deo Vindice (1840)
Chapter 12 - Foedere Et Religione Tenemur (1843)
Chapter 14 - Take the Afternoon Off Chaps (1921)
Chapter 15 - The Secret Masters of the World (1932)
Chapter 16 - Krgy...where? (1936)
Chapter 17 - Nemo Me Impune Lacessit (1939)
Chapter 18 - Faces of War (1939)
Chapter 19 - Faces of War (Part II) (1940)
Chapter 20 - Faces of War (Part III) (1940)
Chapter 21 - All Quiet on the Eastern Front (1941)
Chapter 22 - Winds of Change (1950)
Chapter 23 - Boom, Boom, Shake the Room! (1950s)
Chapter 24 - I Am Become Death... (1950s-60s)
The Preamble
It's 1159 and the kingdom of Scotland is doing rather well.
The pretty light blue is Scotland
It rules over most of the British Isles, all of Sicilly, Venice and vast expanses of snow and tundra in the east.
The Vast Expanses of Snow and Tundra in the East (VESTE) were aquired through what was basically dynastic cowardice.
Oooh! Colourful!
In the early 1100's the Pope called for a Crusade against the heathen, suggesting none too subtly that those that didn't take part would be laughed at, mocked and shunned by all right minded, pious and blood thirsty Christian monarchs out there. Sadly for Scotland (pretty tiny and financially ropey at the time) the prospect of taking on the well armed and organized Arab nations was pretty daunting. However, it rapidly became apparent that the Pope, for all his ranting about libearting the Holy Land, wasn't really THAT bothered about what heathens were put to the sword as long as there was a substantial body count.
So it was that the Scottish hordes set sail for darkest Scandinavia and ramapged and pillaged there way through the pagan realms, taking on the might of the fearsome er...tribes of the Lapps, the Finns and the Zemeglians (although they sound like some scary sci-fi invader they were actually some scrawny collection of reindeer worshipping pagans who were armed with snow and dried branches). Quite a lot of VESTE was conquered before the limits of the Scottish exchequer were reached. In later years the VESTE served as a "reward" for the more rebellious of the King's subjects. "Oh, so you're feeling rebellious? Dear, dear. I *AM* scared. Tell you what, because I'm so scared of you, I'd best reward you to keep you on side. Here. You can be the count of Lapland. Off you go. I'll look after wherever else you were Count of before hand."
Sicilly was taken when the King felt a bit brave and decided to take on the four small Moorish caliphates (who had no allies to speak of) that made their home there. Turns out that they were quite wealthy so he decided to keep them instead of parcelling them out.
Venice was taken in a moment of drunken belligerence when someone thought that it would be a laugh to sack it. Thankfully the new cannon fodder from Sicilly proved to be up to the task and Venice was added to the realm.
Club Med
The realms of Ireland and Wales were added quite early on through a bit of blatent bullying and racketeering. Two small Irish counties were flattened into the ground and ambassador's were sent to the Irish and Welsh dukes and given messages along the lines of "Nice place you've got here. Shame if it was razed and pillaged, know what I mean?" To the surprise of all concerned all in question (along with their vassals) agreed to become the vassals of the King of Scotland.
Actually, this was almost a bad thing, thanks to a moment of utter stupidity on the part of some Welsh Duke (now deceased). He decided to pick a fight with England, England attacked him AND his vassal and I was obliged to steam into help them out. At first I thought that this was a great chance for me to blag some nice English land (I'd had my eyes on Northumberland for a while) but it rapidly became apparent that the King of England and his gang were more than up to the task of driving my sorry arse into the sea. Thankfully the coffers were quite full at that point, so I was able to almost bankrupt the realm and offer the King of England and his cronies a big chest of gold in return for him leaving me and my Welsh idiot vassals alone. Suffice it to say, said Welsh idiots were soon "purged" from the Scottish court.
Thankfully England had a little dynastic crisis of its own a few decades later on. The King went off to the Holy Land to do a bit of Crusading. He clearly got a bit tied down (I wasn't paying too much potential - I was busy sitting at home sulking at the thought of all the gold that my Welsh bitches had cost me) for he was over there for ages. While he was away a load of his vassals decided to declare their independance and there was very little he could do about it. Not being once to waste an oppertunity I offered them oppertunties to be my vassals and battered those into submission who refused.
Meanwhile, back in the Holy Land some knightly orders and a bunch of Arabs had got together to take the King of England's conquests off him and drive him back into the sea.
So, he's left in the sorry situation shown on the map.
At the moment I'm sitting cooling my heels a bit. I could sweep in and take the other rebel English counties and usurp the King of England, but world opinion of me isn't very good, and if I carry on behaving like a hooligan I'm going to have most of my vassals rebelling and a load of the big boys declaring war.
But don't worry - I don't have much patience for sitting around playing with my economy. I'm sure I'll be off warmongering again sometime soon. Oh, and here's a picture of our illustrious leader, good King David. Handsome devil, isn't he?
King Dave
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