Hey everyone!
First of all, I'd like to make little confession - the by now infamous "rot" line was a last minute edition to the update. I had little idea it would spark such a furor!
At first what Thomas said to his father was more eloquent, but then I decided Thomas' rough and brutish manner would be just summed up by that one word...
I'm just starting the next update, where (if it goes according to plan) we'll meet Christina of Dau, as well as see more of Heraklios' perspective as Thomas' promised war against the Turk unfolds...
RGB - True, its not a
wise choice, but we all can agree Thomas is not necessarily a wise ruler. Considering the Turks are weak and their backs are turned on Romanion, they
should be easy to break, but as the saying goes, all plans in war are thrown out at first contact with the enemy.
Leviathan07 - I have a feeling Thomas might not be so lighthearted if he really knew how Mehtar felt. Thomas seems to be of the type that could react angrily, even violently, if the wrong person expressed such feelings...
Enewald - How is it gayish? I'd say oblivious is a better description of Thomas with regards to Mehtar! :rofl: As for the armies, Leviathan07 is right. In game the armies were split up... so there were 50,000 people heading into the areas around Azerbijian and Tabriz, split into about 5 smaller forces. It can be assumed that these five forces were the ones that would report to Isaakios Vataczes in the AAR.
Deamon - Thomas is on the rise, and at his father's deathbed saw his dream within reach. So, like any fool, he's going to crow his success before the success is in hand. Did he crow too soon?
Nikolai - Thomas is a mean, callous bastard. There's no other way to sum things up. Unfortunately, he's a mean, callous, shortsighted, foolish bastard that happens to have capable help beside him. It remains to be seen what might happen if that help failed or deserted him. If he should discover Mehtar's feelings, he likely wouldn't react well, and if he didn't have Mehtar to do his scheming, you could see diplomatic and political disaster...
Lord Valentine - Christina is definitely going to have a major role to play in the future... with such lovely Byzantine traits and skills, she most definitely won't go quietly in the night. However, she's on a collision course with a great many people in Konstantinopolis, simply by marrying Thomas - Sophie (who still wants some power and not be shoved into the background as a Dowager Empress), not to mention Mehtar...
Estonianzulu - Romanion has a massive military (the game at this point claimed a full mobilization would have given me roughly 650,000 troops), but keep in mind, aside from the Imperial guard units and the Apulian
thematakoi, most of these units have not seen actual warfare in two decades - some longer. Equipment is out of date, officers are ill-prepared... numbers might not mean much should they run into a veteran opponent...
The_Archduke - What do you mean? Thomas is the paragon of a philosopher king, and Mehtar is a wise and dutiful sage!
Right now, both have the pillars of power centered around them - aristocracy, military and the church. It would take a shattering defeat to shake this setup, or sufficient mismanagement. Either are significant possibilites.
Carach - Mehtar's plan is definitely shooting for the moon. If it works, Thomas get Drogo to let the East take Rome, the threat of Drogo pins Alexios in Spain, away from Konstantinopolis, and the army is pleased because the Turks are beaten. If any part of it goes awry, the whole house of cards they've built during the succession mess could come undone. Then you'd have boorish Thomas as an unpopular ruler... and it'd be a matter of time before he was unseated.
AlexanderPrimus - As any one of the Latins at this point might have said - "A Greek tragedy for a Greek Empire." The really ironic part of the affair is that part of Thomas' megalomania is the fact he considers himself a 'true Roman' and deems other Romanoi as nothing more than 'Greeks.'
Fulcrumvale - Nice, blunt, and to the point.
While Thomas is on one of the thrones, rough won't begin to describe things...
asd21593 - I have yet to hear one person say they liked how Thomas treated Basil. Even amongst my friends here that have read the AAR, the common response has been along the lines of what Deamon and Fulcrumvale have eloquently said...
TC Pilot - Great strategists usually look at a map and see similar strategies! Unlike your Bataczes emperors, though, Thomas did not come up with this plan - that fell on the
strategoi. Coincidentally though, I think the Bataczes might be appearing in my AAR more than I first suspected. I'm suspecting that the surname "Vataczes" I'm using is a more modern transliteration of the medieval Greek "Bataczes," just like "Vasilii" is a transliteration of "Basil." If that's the case, House Bataczes has already produced one of my personal favorite characters so far (profane and rude as he might have been), and that character's son helped develop the Turkish invasion plan. Maybe it was a Bataczes plan after all.
Servius Magnus - I don't know about that, but by his mother getting him out of Konstantinopolis, he's definitely going to live longer and get a chance to grow up. With Lusitania and Mauretania he'll also dominate the other exarchates as well. There's still plenty of time for the development of Alexius Comnenus, Imperator et Augustus Romanorum Occidentalis...
Ksim300 - Someone defending Thomas! For now, yes, the two have a fantastic partnership. Sophie and Heraklios have so far definitely been shoved to the sideline. However, there's always a chance this could have been their plan all along. "I, Claudius" shows that bending to the wind can be a viable political survival tactic. If Sophie especially is approaching the question with an attitude that Thomas will eventually screw up, she could just be biding her and Heraklios' time in the background...
Plushie - Mehtar has definitely shown he can "lose it" when his jealousy becomes inflamed. Last time it happened he fortunately was able to pin the blame on David long enough to escape notice. If he flips out this time, one - there isn't a ready strawman to pin the crime on, and two - Christina is going to be
far harder to take on that the Kosaca girl...
kalenderee - I miss Drogo too... he's still kicking around, though he's in his early 60s by this point, without many years left. But he's been bested by the Romans before - he'll not just be older, but wiser too...
vanin - The prospect of Rome being conquered raises an interesting question - what happens to the Pope? Perhaps there will be a 1204 Constantinople in reverse... a puppet Patriarch of Rome taking the fore while the real Pope flees? But where to? If the Pope is driven out of Rome, history in the future suddenly becomes radically and unalterably skewed...