Part 5.0 - Vahid Shahdom of Persia
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TheDeaconBosco: Yeah high stats for a peasant, perhaps we was an officer in one of the local imperial armies. But yeah he's a more realistic character than the de Wexfords of Ireland we had previously. And his story is a little more interesting. Although his position is a bit of pickle.
So without further ado, you get to see why I really wanted to get to this turn, so enjoy.
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Part 5.0 - Vahid Shahdom of Persia
Well I asked for entertaining, I asked for a challenge, I asked for something that would keep me on my toes like the Abbasid lands of constant rebellion and discontent. The RNG gods have answered with their just punishment.
Vahid, the Liberator of all Mazdakians in Persia. In a way his situation reminds me of that Manichean dude we had to slap around and destroy as Tvrdoslav in the land of the Pecking Pest. Although we are lacking strategic miracles, such as our giant neighbors tearing themselves asunder in Civil Wars and such things like that. Oh no, instead we land smack dab in the center stage between three fairly stable massive Muslim Empires.
The Saudids to our South that rule most of Persia and are surely licking their lips awaiting to snack on us are the most powerful by far and the successors to the Sunni Caliphate that the Abbasids lost. The Seljuks are a Turkish Kingdom that has Imperial ambitions of its own. They really want to move into Persia proper, because they heard the last Persian Sultanate that moved too far into the steppe shattered, and was gobbled up by the Abbasids. Apparently the steppe is poison to any and all Middle Eastern superpowers. Or, at least that's the tone this game has taken. Thus, the Seljuks are moving slowly.
But for now, these two behemoth Sunni nations are at peace with us and therefore we can't worry about them at the moment. Oh no, we have another fish to fry. The Hussayns of Mesopotamia. They're the Shia Caliphate, and their not at all happy with the Mazdakis holding the Persian Crown. Thus, the Caliph Hussayn is already at war with us when we land in the lands held by Vahid. And the war is not going well at all.
Needless to say we're between a rock and hard place.
As we start this scenario, my armies are scattered. We have some far in the south playing hide and go seek with some Shia. We have some scurrying around on the other side of the Caspian lost, wondering where their dear Liberator is today. Its a mess, and to that thank you AI!
I go around finding all my various stacks of 100 to 1000 men and send them all on a death march to unite so I at least have a few thousand to throw at the Shia. Not that it will do any good, because when I look up at my lands, we're being occupied and occupied fast!
Within a few months I've lost most of our remaining provinces. It's a shame really but no helping it. The Shia Caliphate has close to 30,000 men camped out in our lands assaulting our walls one after another.
But finally my men find their Shah that Liberated them from the clutches of the Sunni Caliphate. All is well now. We have a stack of 3,700 men. Diminutive in comparison, yes, but enough to mount an insurgency.
I find a slightly smaller stack of Shias and send Vahid in to spill a little blood finally at Merv.
The Hussayns then occupy yet another holding pushing their war score up to 80. Defeat is only a breath away. But Vahid gives chase and kills the army he routed at Akhur. At least we managed to wipe out a few thousand of our enemies.
I look around though and if I move further north I'll be met with destruction.
January 1, 1068, rolls around and I realize there is no way to win. Its futile and eventually the Shiah Caliphate will be able to enforce demands anyway. So I happily offer my surrender.
Vahid gets to live another day, but we're now reduced to a few counties, and to be honest really shouldn't be calling ourselves the Shah of Persia anymore since we own zero lands in Persia now.
But this doesn't prevent Vahid from making a baby with his wife and he even goes so far as to spend some of his remaining gold buying her some poetry books.
In October of that year baby Khosrau is born making son number three for Vahid. Which does no one any good, because we don't need more mouths to feed. And babies will slow the escape should we end up in another war against one of these giants.
A year passes by rather quickly with nothing happening. I watch our gold increase, and our levies replenish, but nowhere near to the point I need them to be.
June of 1069 comes about, and the Turks decide its their turn to kick us in the teeth.
This is where I decide its time to pack our bags and retire the Liberator to some vacation home on the Black Sea. In fact I think I'll call forth our levies and start the march now!
As I get ready to run away I notice my Northern path is cutoff, and there's a group forming in the South. But the numbers don't look all that bad. Definitely not as bad as it was with the Shia Caliphate.
I get to thinking then, we have almost 600 gold. There's got to be mercenaries!
I go to try and hire some and much to my dismay there's only one, yes one available for hire. And they can only give me a few thousand more men.
Well I guess having over 4,000 is better than being a hair over 2,000.
So I hire them.
Seeing his life crumbling all around him Vahid realizes for whatever reason that he is by far thee Greatest Shah...EVER!
Then again I suppose it's fairly easy being the best Shah when you are the only Shah. Unless of course he's comparing himself to Kings and Sultans, in which case Vahid is obviously quite delusional.
While waiting to see how the Seljuk troop movements are working I see a chance and pounce like a lion.
Vahid then proceeds to chase the routing soldiers to mop up the remaining men.
This gives us 24 points in the war score department which is pretty great. Now if only I can lead more Turks to a slaughter. However, I discover much to my surprise that I was the one being led to the slaughter.
While I was cheering our proud Liberator on I failed to maintain tactical awareness. And completely did not notice that 7400 men stack that gathered just to our south. Prior to discovering that unfortunate turn of events I was going to try and lead the Turks south into the mountains where we probably would have been able to put up a decent defense. Sadly, taking the offensive against that other stack led us to this situation of having nowhere to run.
But run we shall.
There is a river up north of the Caspian. If we can get there first Vahid may be able to pull of a miracle victory.
But the Turks travel too fast.
We've been intercepted. And Vahid is about to get beaten silly.
While that battle rages on the Turks plop some men in our home counties and begin sacking our holdings.
Which swings our warscore by quite a bit. To the point of no return really.
We also lost that battle and the subsequent ones while we were running away. The Turks annihilated Vahid's army. All the way to 0.
I can't put up a defensive fight anymore. I ruined any chance of that.
So there's no other option but to pack the wife up and go looking for that beach-house on the Caspian. Or maybe the Black Sea...
Vahid was doomed for failure. I could have converted to Sunni Islam but that would not have saved Vahid, just would have prolonged the inevitable. I could have swore fealty, but I hate doing that just to survive. I figured I'd give this a go and see what happened. Besides there was no point doing either of those things and seeing the Mazdaki religion disappear.
Even though it will now disappear.
So for the first time I get a game over screen. Its actually only the second time I've ever received that great screen in the game since purchasing it so that in a way is an accomplishment all on its own.
I wish it had gone better though as a Mazdaki powerhouse would have been hilarious.
Now that I got a game over what happens? Well I load back up as the Seljuks and wait for Vahid to accept the surrender which he does. I then save, and hit the random button once again, wondering if the RNG will give me something interesting but not so suicidal? I guess when I pray to the RNG I need to be more specific because last time it gave me something interesting and suicidal.
So we hit the button.
And it sends us to Africa.
Sheikh Samir Shaiban of Taroudant, he has three counties to his name. And is a vassal of the Duke of Fez if I remember correctly. Although Samir's lands technically belong de jure to the Emirate of Marrakech which is held by the Qutid Sultan.
Not only is our new Sheikh Samir a vassal to an Emir. But his Emir is a vassal to the Sultan of the Rahhalid Sultanate of Andalusia.
This could be promising....