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RedTemplar

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The Long(er) Lasting Lombards
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Lombard Mega-Campaign

Introduction
Hello there, EUIV world! Back in February, I started a CKII AAR, starting all the way at the 769 Charlemagne date and playing up through the mid-1300's -- The Long-Lasting Lombards, which you can read here. In the span of about six centuries, we've gone from a small one-province Count to the rulers of a sprawling Italian Empire, spanning five kingdoms and standing as one of a handful of world powers set against the rival French and Byzantine Empires.

The journey through CKII was a lot of fun, and I've decided to continue the journey of the Lombards into EUIV. The game has already been flipped using the converter, but I have a good bit of customization-modding to do before I'm fully happy and ready to go. I'm not the best modder, so complex events and decisions are difficult for me, but I'm doing some custom national ideas, swapping around graphical unit models, and generally doing what I can to make enough flavor tweaks to really make the world feel like a continuation of my previous AAR (and smooth out some of those very, very bright map colors EUIV seems to love.)

I'll begin with a historical overview, giving a brief summary of world history for those who may not want to read through the entire CKII AAR (though I'd love it if you did), and also relating what's happened in the 100-odd years that have time-lapsed between the end of my first AAR and the EUIV start date. As I finish my modding goals, I'll also do some overviews of regional history and nations, to help people get acclimated to the world and show off some of those mods ;)

I've also never played EUIV, so this should be interesting. I'm tempted to turn up the difficulty to hard, though, as even though I'm new to the game, I don't want it to feel too easy once I get the hang of it. Couldn't hurt to give the AI a boost and make them hate me a little more, after all...

But anyway. Welcome! I hope some of you dedicated EUIV forumites will join the cast of spectators coming over from my CKII run, and we should have a good time wandering through a few hundred extra years of alt-history!
 
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Awesome to see this continued. I just found your first part, so I'll need to catch up. Still, I look forward to more. What I've read so far is great.
 
I expect the Lombard-Byzantine clashes to grow even more epic in EUIV.

I'm also curious to see how well you do if you've never played the game before. You should feel free to ask questions to your readers since I'm sure enough of us are quite experienced with EUIV. :)
 
A Brief History of Medieval Europe
769 - 1340 AD

The Karling Collapse and the Long-Lasting Lombards
When Karloman died in 771 AD (many believe he was assassinated), the Franks seemed poised to become the rulers of the most powerful kingdom in Europe. His brother Karl took control of all of Francia, and began his conquest eastward to incorporate Bavaria into his budding empire. But Karl fell ill and died just six years after inheriting his brother's kingdom, leaving a number of Frankish nobles to compete for the throne. Karl's son Hugbert held the kingdom together for one more generation, but his death in 828 shattered the Frankish mega-kingdom into eight separate realms, ending the hope of a unified Frankish kingdom for centuries.

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Europe was now divided among France, Aquitaine, Burgundy, Middle Francia, Germany, Bavaria, Flanders, and Saxony, with each one maneuvering through wars an alliances in an attempt to claim supremacy. Over time, the Kings of House Leudoni would subjugate their rivals in western Europe to make France the sole stable power in the region, while Burgundy and Middle Francia were gradually whittled out of existence as France, Germany, and Lombardy picked them apart county by county to add to their own realms. And while the Frankish successor states scrambled to claim power, the kingdom of the Lombards on the Italian peninsula remained strong, keeping the realm peaceful and unified through an elective monarchy while they made slow progress at expanding northward.

The First Crusade and the Reconquista
By the turn of the tenth century, the conquests of the Sunni Muslim Sultans had spread through the Middle East, along the north African Coast, and into Europe, where almost the entire Iberian peninsula had fallen to the Umayyad dynasty. While the Franks were generally successful at stifling further attempts at invasions into Europe, no one had yet proven to be capable of driving the Andalusian Sultans back. Pope Vitalian II set out to change that in 900 AD, calling the First Crusade and sending the soldiers of Christian Europe on a mission to liberate the Kingdom of Aragon from the Umayyads.

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The First Crusade saw the rise to prominence of the Bavarae family, who would later rule as Kings of Lombardy and Emperors of Italy. The Bavaraes were then ruling in the Duchy of Friuli, Duke Arnifrid II expended substantial monetary resources to fund the Teutonic Order in support of the Crusade. Together with the various newly-formed holy orders, the King of Aquitaine, and several minor nobles from the British Isles, the Catholic armies drove the Muslims out of Aragon, marking the first of what would become many substantial victories for Christian Iberia. The victory promised relief for the struggling micro-kingdom of Galicia, barely holding on to its final scraps of land in the far northwestern corner of the peninsula.

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Galicia would grow exponentially throughout the ninth century. Supported by the Bavarae family, the Knights of Calatrava, and the Knights of Santiago, the kings of the de Cantabria dynasty waged a bloody Reconquista against the Umayyad Sultans, winning large stretches of territory in a series of exceptionally bloody holy wars. The Reconquista would be fully realized in 1003 AD, when the last Muslim counties in Iberia were occupied by the Galicians. Though they continued to mount new invasions well into the High and Late Middle Ages, the Umayyads never successfully conquered territory on the Iberian Peninsula after the conclusion of the Reconquista.

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The First Crusade also proved a great boon for the Bavaraes and for Lombardy. In recognition of his great efforts in securing the success of the Crusade, Vitalian issued a Papal decree granting Arnifrid the right to rule the liberated duchies, while the kingship of Aragon was awarded to the kings of Lombardy, so that both crowns were joined under Lombard rule. With such a vast expanse of new land, Lombardy gained substantial additional wealth and manpower, strengthening its ability to exert influence in Iberia and continue to fight its bitter struggle against the Byzantine Empire, always waiting for an opportunity to claim more of Italy for the Greeks.

The Tengri Reformation and the Conquest of Jerusalem
While the Catholics were turning their armed might against the Muslims in Iberia, in the far east of the known world, another religion took its first major step onto the world stage. In 923 AD, not long after the Khazars established the Empire of Tartaria, the Tengri religion underwent a reformation process under the guidance of Khagan Kundaciq Ashina. With the establishment of a High Priesthood and the founding of an order of holy warriors known as the Lords of the Sky, Tengriism rose up to challenge the great Christian and Islamic faiths.

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Invigorated by a new empire and a new church, the Tartars stormed southward and clashed with the powerful Byzantine Empire, capturing large portions of Georgia in a shockingly successful campaign. Unfortunately, the Great Holy War for Georgia would be the only successful campaign against Byzantium, and Tartaria would conquer little new territory until its eventual collapse during the Mongol invasions. Still, few local powers could effectively challenge Tartaria on its native land, and while little was gained, little was also lost for the next several centuries.

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Unfortunately for Catholics, the century following the First Crusade saw the Church fall on hard times. The Lombards challenged Papal authority by establishing the "Lombard Papacy" based in Iberia, and as the unity of the Church faltered, Pope Sissinius III failed to gather the necessary support for the Second Crusade, and the planned invasion of Jerusalem failed miserably. Worse yet, in the face of the Pope's failure to claim the great holy city, the Byzantine Empire stepped in instead, occupying Jerusalem and establishing an Orthodox Patriarchate seated at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Sissinius' successor, Evaristus II, would later call the Third Crusade in another attempt to invade Jerusalem, but he would fail as his predecessor had.

The Division of Lombardy and the Fourth Crusade
When Aragon was conquered during the First Crusade, its land was placed under the authority of the Kingdom of Lombardy, and the two regions were ruled jointly by the Lombard king for most of the tenth century. But just before the turn of the 11th, the kingdoms were split when the popular opinions of the electors differed.

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The noble families of Lombardy were split between three major candidates, but the majority elected Agilof II Bavarae to succeed to the throne in the homeland. The newly-landed families in Aragon, however, supported Saxo II Maiongi, son of the previous king, and elected him. After the election, the Bavaraes eventualy succeeded in dissolving the electoral process in favor of hereditary succession, cementing their place as the permanent rulers of Lombardy. The Maiongi line, on the other hand, lasted only a century in Aragon before the throne was usurped by King Bernard I, a Bavarae of a different branch than the one ruling in Lombardy.

At the end of the tenth century, the French and the Lombards helped lead the charge to depose the Aragonese Clement III, the last of the Lombard Popes, restoring the unity of the Catholic Church under the rightful Roman Pontiff. The restoration of a single, unified Papacy did much for Catholic morale, and the Fourth Crusade received widespread support when it was called to make a third attempt at seizing Jerusalem.

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Finally, with many of Europe's largest kingdoms taking part, the Crusaders were able to drive the defending Muslim armies back and secure a foothold in the Middle East. While the Byzantine Army locked down the Holy City to prevent either side from entering, the Crusaders claimed the rest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which was awarded to France when victory was declared after a thirteen-year campaign in 1046 AD. The region remained divided between Catholics and Orthodox for the better part of two centuries, not to be reunified until the French occupation of the city in 1263.

The Imperial Age and the Twenty Years' War
After the violence and instability of the 11th century, the 12th saw a turn toward the consolidation of European power, as three different empires were proclaimed and established during the 1100's.

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First, in November of 1152, Sten af Munso managed to unify Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, putting an end to a long series of succession conflicts due to the Gavelkind laws common in the region at the time. Under his direction, a single Catholic empire brought all three kingdoms into union, presenting a unified front against the numerically and technologically superior lords of Europe.

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Less than a year later in the summer of 1153, Adalbert d'Oloron -- whose family had finally succeeded in replacing the long-ruling House de Chaumontois in France -- proclaimed the French Empire, only to be assassinated by a rogue officer from the Knights Templar a few months after his coronation as emperor.

The world stage was now becoming crowded with empires, but the Lombards were preparing to challenge one in direct combat. The Byzantine Empire had long been the Lombards' greatest rivals, controlling Sicily and several regions of southern Italy and frequently invading seeking more land. The struggle between the two realms was often a violent and bloody one, and many rulers and heirs were slain in battle, executed in dungeons, castrated, or viciously wounded during their many conflicts.

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In the middle years of the 12th century, King Liutprand III of Lombardy waged an 18-year campaign which historians later dubbed the "Twenty Years' War," with the goal of finally expelling the Byzantine Empire from the Italian peninsula entirely. Emperor Basileios the Bold committed the full military might of Eastern Rome to the battle, and the peninsula was engulfed in a series of battles, some of the largest ever fought in the Lombard homeland. Casualties ran up by the tens of thousands as the Byzantine army struck by land and sea to subdue the unruly Liutprand.

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But Liutprand proved a shrewd commander and secured multiple alliances to help ensure his victory. In the end, Basileios found southern Italy and Sicily overrun by the combined armies of Lombardy, Aragon, France, and Galicia, who together presented a force so overwhelming that not even the great Imperial Army could overcome it. Basileios surrendered in 1166 AD, returning all of Italy except for Venice, which would be conquered years later, to Liutprand.

New Empires and the Mongol Hordes
Liutprand's historic victory in the Twenty Years' War united the Italian peninsula under Lombard rule. By now, Lombardy was a sprawling kingdom spilling out into French, Slavic, and Germanic lands. In 1166, mere months after the conclusion of the Twenty Years' War, he claimed the title of emperor for himself, declaring the formation of the Italian Empire.

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Italy was to be divided into four kingdoms. Lombardy, as the ancestral homeland of the family and the core of the empire, was ruled over by the emperor himself. Sicily, Bavaria, and Pannonia were given over to Viceroy Kings, who would rule over their respective realms until death, at which point the emperor could freely grant it to a successor of his choosing. While the various viceroyalties were not always at peace with one another or with the imperial crown, the system helped to decentralize the empire and allow for enough local autonomy to allow for the smooth execution of the emperor's will.

Christian Europe was quickly becoming crowded with emperors, but one more was still to come after Liutprand.

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In August of 1249, ruling over Poland, Lithuania, Pomerania, and Bohemia, Borzywoj Lechowicz founded the Wendish Empire, seeking to establish himself as a powerful adversary to the growing kingdoms of Rus and Ruthenia in eastern Europe. Like the Scandinavians, the Wends were rarely known to conquer great portions of land, but they were able to form a strong defense against those who would exercise territorial ambitions against them.

The greatest territorial ambitions of the 13th century, however, were to be had by the Mongol invaders who swept down from the Steppes to bring chaos and terror to anyone in their path. When Hulegu Toluid led the Ilkhanate into Europe, he conquered large portions of land Tartaria and the Nardids, establishing a strong base before turning against his greatest obstacle -- the Byzantine Empire.

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What followed was one of the worst defeats in the history of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines had stood relatively unopposed since the fall of the Western Empire, and the Twenty Years' War was their first substantial defeat in the Medieval era. But when faced with the Ilkhanate from the east and the Italian Empire from the west, the Byzantines folded on both sides. Italy recaptured the Slavic county of Veglia, and the Ilkhanate occupied a long stretch of native Persian land.

It was the greatest of the Ilkhanate's victories, but it was also its last victory.

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The Byzantine Empire ruled over the world's largest land empire, and had a massive population from which to draw soldiers. Despite the deadly skill of the Mongol warriors, they lacked the sheer numbers to stand against Byzantium in a long campaign. When the Imperial Army came to reclaim what the Mongols had taken, the Ilkhanate could not match the manpower of their foes, and the Byzantines broke what remained of the once-feared army of horse archers.

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The loss spelled the beginning of the end for the Ilkhanate, as the majority of their remaining land would soon be conquered by the Golden Horde, who came close to creating a unified European Mongol empire. The Khans of the Golden Horde would have brought all of the Steppe kingdoms under their control, were it not for the emergence of Timur Timurid.

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The Timurids ravaged the southern portion of the Golden Horde's land, absorbing several small kingdoms that had revolted against the Horde or the Ilkhanate, driving a wedge through the Horde and splitting its territory in three.

The English Succession War of 1336
Historical consensus places the end of the High Middle Ages around the time of the English Succession War of 1336, an exceedingly brutal and costly war between the Iceling, de Chaumontois, and d'Oloron dynasties for control of the Kingdom of England. Prior to the war, the emperor of France had married Queen Sigrid Iceling, who inherited the throne after the death of the previously eligible heir. Because she had married in the French emperor's line, England was poised to be inherited by Prince Andre of France, in a succession that would have joined the mighty French Empire to the prosperous Kingdom of England.

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Recognizing that the joining of the two crowns would be a threat to the stability of Europe, Emperor Leopert IV of Italy arranged for the assassination of Prince Andre when the heir was only 21. The French crown passed on within the existing d'Oloron family, in accordance with French law. But due to England's different succession laws, the kingdom was inherited by Queen Sigrid's grandson through her eldest daughter: Menasses de Chaumontois, of the very family which the d'Olorons had ousted from power to take control of France. When Emperor Helie d'Oloron inherited the empire in 1336, he declared war on England to place his sister Elisabeth on the throne, taking by force what his family could not take by inheritance. In response, Empress Albina of Italy pressed her own war against England, seeking to place a son of the Iceling dynasty back in power.

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The fighting in southern England was widespread and vicious. French and Italian ships filled the waters around England, crowding her ports and releasing tens of thousands of soldiers onto her shores. Both France and Italy strained their populations with heavy taxes and mass conscriptions, sending multiple waves of reinforcements drawn from the young and old as the standing professional soldiers fell in battle. France was eventually defeated, but the English made such a strong resurgence that Italy, low on soldiers and dangerously close to bankruptcy, was forced to surrender not long after France.

The war succeeded in preventing France from incorporating England into the empire, but it failed to remove the French House de Chaumontois from power, leaving England in the rule of an ambitious foreigner at a difficult juncture in its history. The aftermath of the war would do much to shape the future of England, France, and Italy alike, and its repercussions helped to define the closing years of the High Middle Ages and set the stage for the Late Middle Ages and the transition into the Early Modern Period.
 
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I will tag along for the ride this time. I apologize for abandoning your first part in CK 2. Let's just say I was focusing heavily on writing my own AAR. Now that I have a bit more free time, I will be coming along on the ride. Good luck and, since you haven't played EU IV, things could get very interesting. I look forward the the EU IV map.
 
As I commented in the previous thread, I got hooked on the CK2 portion and managed to read through it all just in time to see that you had already concluded that leg of the tale. I'll certainly be interested in seeing how Lombard Italy handles the Renaissance and the rush for the Americas, though.
 
Glad to have all of you guys! I know some people hopped on CKII right at the very end... It was a great journey, but I'm really stoked for EUIV. Playing a game I don't know very well, and on hard to boot, I'm hoping I'll take a good bloody lip or two on my way through!

Modding is becoming quite a chore, though -- CKII tends to result in WAY too much cultural uniformity, so I have to do a lot of province-by-province culture modding, because I quite refuse to believe that the entire French empire shares one culture. Interestingly enough, English culture never formed, so England is still Anglo-Saxon, and the Hungarian/Magyar culture is long nonexistent.
 
It's good to have a recap of everything to help refresh my memory.

I imagine having it on hard will indeed cause some difficulty, especially with so many large empires around.
 
Subscribed! The EU4 starting map is for sure interesting. I do recommend you to playtest EU4 a bit before though. Have you tried running the tutorial?
 
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So is Sicily and others your vassals? I also imagine you purposely cleaned up the Byzantine border with Georgia because I remember some random patches within their borders. I thank you for fixing that eyesore. :p

That Wendish Empire is quite impressive. Actually, most of your neighbours are. I can imagine there being quite a few titanic wars once the game starts.
 
If you have large vassals, the liberty desires will be a huge pain to deal with. If I read it correctly, Sicily, Bavaria and Pannonia are all your vassals. I wouldn't be surprised if they declare independence war on you with other European powers supporting them.

Diplomacy looks interesting since a few alliances could easily limit your expansion options. The main problem I see with titans in Europe is that wars can drag on for a long time and that might not be favorable for you.

Will we get a chance to see you ideas soon and possibly give our opinions on it? Do all the large nations have cores of their provinces or will they be terribly overextended?
 
I will continue to follow the adventures of House Bavare, good luck my friend. :)
 
Reporting for reading sir! Glad to see this continuing, it's going to be a wild ride me thinks!

And since you're playing on hard and aren't too experienced this won't turn into a steam roll. It seems thought that you have quite a weakened position compared to your neighbours, especially Francia. I'm surprised you left them so unified. With the also unified Wendish Empire I'm afraid the states of central Germany won't live long.
 
If you have large vassals, the liberty desires will be a huge pain to deal with. If I read it correctly, Sicily, Bavaria and Pannonia are all your vassals. I wouldn't be surprised if they declare independence war on you with other European powers supporting them.

Diplomacy looks interesting since a few alliances could easily limit your expansion options. The main problem I see with titans in Europe is that wars can drag on for a long time and that might not be favorable for you.

Will we get a chance to see you ideas soon and possibly give our opinions on it? Do all the large nations have cores of their provinces or will they be terribly overextended?

Well, that's kind of the hope. For the last 200 years or so of CKII, I've been a sprawling mega-empire with only the Byzantines and the French possibly capable of challenging me. If Bavaria or Tunisia break away, that will be a nice hit to my power. But the last thing I want is another 300 years of knowing the AI will never reliably beat me up... That's no fun.

As far as the empires, I tried to use a bit of in-universe logic. Lombardy was always very low on crown authority and the nobles liked to start a fight when it went up, and such a culturally diverse empire would require some decentralized ruling structures. I thought about doing the same for the Scandinavians, but I was worried they'd be too easy a mark for France. I may change my mind on that, though, and divide them into Sweden/Denmark/Finland. I'm open to suggestions on that one.

Speaking of France, they do have three vassals. Even up until the end of the game, the AI never destroyed the k_aquitaine title, so I decided to leave the King of Aquitaine as a vassal, imagining it was a very strong cultural center that maintained its own traditions and such. I modded all the provinces to the Aquitaine culture, whereas most of France is Cosmpolitain. Navarra is also a vassal, because I get the feeling that France never paid too much attention there, except to occasionally conquer another province while the other Iberian nations were busy fighting. And you can't see it on this map, but Jerusalem is also France's vassal, so the empire is decentralized a bit. I could possibly justify making one more vassal up along the northern coast, but I might be straining France's diplomatic options at that point by using up so many slots.

And as for ideas, yes -- with each regional overview, I'll point out the ideas I've given to countries. Some, like France, simply kept their default EUIV ideas. Others use a blend of ideas -- Portugal has a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish ideas. And some are really custom-tuned... The Knights of Santiago and Brittany, for example, are almost entirely new idea sets.
 
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