House Rules:
1)Difficulty setting: Hard/Agressive (I would use Very Hard without hesitating, but the BB wars there are so random I’d have quite a time explaining them plot-wise)
2) EEP: Just for more colorful bizantine events that can be integrated in the plot.
3) Hands off sliders: only events are used to move them.
4) “No hindsight”: it’s difficult, but I’m trying to ignore my knowledge of the game mechanics (number crunching) when taking gameplay decisions and trying to make them “in character” (I created the basic characters before playing).
Please forgive me my historical inconsistences. I did some basic research on Byzantiun but my knowledge is extremely minor. I’m open to corrections in order to make my AAR background richer.
I walked around the hypodrome, trying to reach the southwestern gate. Word was spreading that with the city finally submitted, the invasor had lowered his guard and passage through the battered down walls was possible. Pressing the sack and its precious content towards my chest while I passed a group of jenissaries, which fortunately seemed to ignore me, I prayed God for his assistance on my mission. It was Friday, first of March of the year of the lord of 1460, and the city of Constantinople had just fell to the cannons of the Turk.
I walked briskly, but not fast enough to call the attention of the invaders, as I crossed the Lycus and went towards the column of Arcadius. I had changed my usual robes for a filthy rag and the torn fabric made me feel the cold air of the afternoon. Around me, the inhabitants of Constantinople tried to salvage the little that remained of their possessions. Friend turned against friend, brother turned against brother. So great is the misery of mankind that behaves like a beast when . I got absorted in the message that God tried to give me with this disaster, and this proved to be fatal, as I did not notice that I walked into a patch of Italian mercenaries, traitors recruited by the turkish fiends.
- Oh look at what do we have here... a schismatic heathen!
- See friend, we will alleviate him from the heaviness of his sins, which are probably within that bag he seems to protect that much.
- Yes, this way when we send him to Hell to meet the remainder of the Romeians, the amount of fiends punching his butt will be smaller!
They exploded in laughter. They didn’t know I understood their language, so were quite suprised when I answered them in the vulgar language spoke around Fiorentia.
- Please, friends, let me go, as I am a Christian, God fearing Italian like you...
Then, the guy who seemed their leader, a bulky thug with short black hair half dressed in a chainmail, stepped to speak with a bantering voice.
- Oh, surely cunning are the ways of the devil, that puts in the mouth of his servants words in our language to confuse us! Friends! We shall not despair, and prove ourselves worthy, if not of Salvation at least of some gold!
I tried to flee. Sadly my old age – which is source of wisdom at the same time it is a source of pyhsical weakness, sublime metaphor that tells us that our spirit is only uplifted when our matter decays – made me an easy prey for my pursuers. The faster of the mercenaries got me easily and with a strike of his blunt weapon on my legs, I fell to the ground. How ironic that in a city inhabited by schismatics and conquered by the heathen, I would eventually lose my life at the hands of my Latin brethren. But in the same way that God shows us the error and futileness of this world, for the enrichment of our souls, he wants us to survive to suffer and thus learn more. So when I was drowned in a sea of contradictions, little I thought that my saviour would also come under the most unlikely form...
Indeed, a scream that would make blood freeze and ice melt, poured into the air, and a lone jenissary emerged from a ruined building, jumping to my assailants, unseathing his curved sword and yelling at them in his barbaric language. The Italians, without even confronting him, ran immediately for their lives. Then the turk turned to me. It was not as any other turk I have ever met (which, thanks to the Lord, have been few), as his face was cut with a grace that his age (he was probably just ten years younger than me) could not but try to unsuccessfully hide. The turkish cap he wore had also been defeated by a lock of black curly hair that had escaped his prison, and his face, albeit hardened by the pains of life still retained that lightness and delicacy that distinguishes those of the Greek kind. And indeed he talked to me in the language of Aristotle.
-Misser Ioannes, if you stopped holding this sack to your chest with both hands, it would be easier to help you get up – the fact that he knew my name scared me and I brought the sack further to my torso.
- Who are you? How do you know my name?
- Misser Ioannes, fear not. I know that you will not know me, but I surely know you. You are the ambassador of the Prince Bishop of Rome. – he smiled, revealing a set of white small teeth that missed one of his pieces at the front – or the Papal nuntio, if you prefer it. These robes have been given me by a friend, and as a friend I come. If you come with me, we can escape together.
The stranger helped me get up, and I decided to trust him. Anyway, he was dressed as a janissary, he could have robbed me on the spot without any trouble.
- I am going to the southwestern wall, near the Castle of the Seven Towers, I have heard the wall is broken and the escape easy, and with the help of the Lord I think I can make it to Heraklea and take a boat to Christian lands.
- No, the western wall is not safe. I have been there this morning. The turks are guarding it tightly and capturing everybody trying to leave this city. Come with me, or next time you want to speak with the Lord you will be able to talk to him directly!
With this he pulled me from my arm, and went back to the interior of the city.
We hid in an abandoned house in the Seraglio while we waited for the mantle of the night to cover our movements. A few hours later, we were crossing the Golden Horn towards Pera. He had his flight perfectly planned. And impossing, black jenissary, not of turkish breed, but from tose distant lands that only adventurers or merchants dare to go. He seemed to know had a small fishing boat hid for him. He was surprised to see me, but after my saviour talked to him he even gave me a great hug that almost crushed my old bones. While on the boat, we could not resist but to turn back and give our last look to the city that fancied itself to be the Second Rome, the City of Men’s Desire: Konstantinopolis. Parts of the city were still aflame, and the fires pierced the night, and they not only stabbed the blackness, as my companion seemed to turn to a statue of salt, and only the tears that crossed his face convinced me that we were not leaving Sodom or Gomorrah. I tried to consolate him.
-Son, it is but just a city. Cities, Kingdoms, Empires, these are all work of men, and the works of men are futile, monuments to his vanity that will all fall prey of time, as only God and His Grace are eternal. Don’t cry for the loss of the Empire of Constantinople, as in the same way others came before it, others will come. And even this turkish empire that now proudly stands over the ashes of Byzantium will sooner or later find its demise, as night kills the light of day, winter defeats summer, and the red and proud rose will eventually wither and die. This is the law of God.
He looked at me, and waited before answering.
-No, misser Ioannes, it is not only a city what has been lost today. – he took a deep breath - and it is all my fault.
1)Difficulty setting: Hard/Agressive (I would use Very Hard without hesitating, but the BB wars there are so random I’d have quite a time explaining them plot-wise)
2) EEP: Just for more colorful bizantine events that can be integrated in the plot.
3) Hands off sliders: only events are used to move them.
4) “No hindsight”: it’s difficult, but I’m trying to ignore my knowledge of the game mechanics (number crunching) when taking gameplay decisions and trying to make them “in character” (I created the basic characters before playing).
Please forgive me my historical inconsistences. I did some basic research on Byzantiun but my knowledge is extremely minor. I’m open to corrections in order to make my AAR background richer.
I walked around the hypodrome, trying to reach the southwestern gate. Word was spreading that with the city finally submitted, the invasor had lowered his guard and passage through the battered down walls was possible. Pressing the sack and its precious content towards my chest while I passed a group of jenissaries, which fortunately seemed to ignore me, I prayed God for his assistance on my mission. It was Friday, first of March of the year of the lord of 1460, and the city of Constantinople had just fell to the cannons of the Turk.
I walked briskly, but not fast enough to call the attention of the invaders, as I crossed the Lycus and went towards the column of Arcadius. I had changed my usual robes for a filthy rag and the torn fabric made me feel the cold air of the afternoon. Around me, the inhabitants of Constantinople tried to salvage the little that remained of their possessions. Friend turned against friend, brother turned against brother. So great is the misery of mankind that behaves like a beast when . I got absorted in the message that God tried to give me with this disaster, and this proved to be fatal, as I did not notice that I walked into a patch of Italian mercenaries, traitors recruited by the turkish fiends.
- Oh look at what do we have here... a schismatic heathen!
- See friend, we will alleviate him from the heaviness of his sins, which are probably within that bag he seems to protect that much.
- Yes, this way when we send him to Hell to meet the remainder of the Romeians, the amount of fiends punching his butt will be smaller!
They exploded in laughter. They didn’t know I understood their language, so were quite suprised when I answered them in the vulgar language spoke around Fiorentia.
- Please, friends, let me go, as I am a Christian, God fearing Italian like you...
Then, the guy who seemed their leader, a bulky thug with short black hair half dressed in a chainmail, stepped to speak with a bantering voice.
- Oh, surely cunning are the ways of the devil, that puts in the mouth of his servants words in our language to confuse us! Friends! We shall not despair, and prove ourselves worthy, if not of Salvation at least of some gold!
I tried to flee. Sadly my old age – which is source of wisdom at the same time it is a source of pyhsical weakness, sublime metaphor that tells us that our spirit is only uplifted when our matter decays – made me an easy prey for my pursuers. The faster of the mercenaries got me easily and with a strike of his blunt weapon on my legs, I fell to the ground. How ironic that in a city inhabited by schismatics and conquered by the heathen, I would eventually lose my life at the hands of my Latin brethren. But in the same way that God shows us the error and futileness of this world, for the enrichment of our souls, he wants us to survive to suffer and thus learn more. So when I was drowned in a sea of contradictions, little I thought that my saviour would also come under the most unlikely form...
Indeed, a scream that would make blood freeze and ice melt, poured into the air, and a lone jenissary emerged from a ruined building, jumping to my assailants, unseathing his curved sword and yelling at them in his barbaric language. The Italians, without even confronting him, ran immediately for their lives. Then the turk turned to me. It was not as any other turk I have ever met (which, thanks to the Lord, have been few), as his face was cut with a grace that his age (he was probably just ten years younger than me) could not but try to unsuccessfully hide. The turkish cap he wore had also been defeated by a lock of black curly hair that had escaped his prison, and his face, albeit hardened by the pains of life still retained that lightness and delicacy that distinguishes those of the Greek kind. And indeed he talked to me in the language of Aristotle.
-Misser Ioannes, if you stopped holding this sack to your chest with both hands, it would be easier to help you get up – the fact that he knew my name scared me and I brought the sack further to my torso.
- Who are you? How do you know my name?
- Misser Ioannes, fear not. I know that you will not know me, but I surely know you. You are the ambassador of the Prince Bishop of Rome. – he smiled, revealing a set of white small teeth that missed one of his pieces at the front – or the Papal nuntio, if you prefer it. These robes have been given me by a friend, and as a friend I come. If you come with me, we can escape together.
The stranger helped me get up, and I decided to trust him. Anyway, he was dressed as a janissary, he could have robbed me on the spot without any trouble.
- I am going to the southwestern wall, near the Castle of the Seven Towers, I have heard the wall is broken and the escape easy, and with the help of the Lord I think I can make it to Heraklea and take a boat to Christian lands.
- No, the western wall is not safe. I have been there this morning. The turks are guarding it tightly and capturing everybody trying to leave this city. Come with me, or next time you want to speak with the Lord you will be able to talk to him directly!
With this he pulled me from my arm, and went back to the interior of the city.
We hid in an abandoned house in the Seraglio while we waited for the mantle of the night to cover our movements. A few hours later, we were crossing the Golden Horn towards Pera. He had his flight perfectly planned. And impossing, black jenissary, not of turkish breed, but from tose distant lands that only adventurers or merchants dare to go. He seemed to know had a small fishing boat hid for him. He was surprised to see me, but after my saviour talked to him he even gave me a great hug that almost crushed my old bones. While on the boat, we could not resist but to turn back and give our last look to the city that fancied itself to be the Second Rome, the City of Men’s Desire: Konstantinopolis. Parts of the city were still aflame, and the fires pierced the night, and they not only stabbed the blackness, as my companion seemed to turn to a statue of salt, and only the tears that crossed his face convinced me that we were not leaving Sodom or Gomorrah. I tried to consolate him.
-Son, it is but just a city. Cities, Kingdoms, Empires, these are all work of men, and the works of men are futile, monuments to his vanity that will all fall prey of time, as only God and His Grace are eternal. Don’t cry for the loss of the Empire of Constantinople, as in the same way others came before it, others will come. And even this turkish empire that now proudly stands over the ashes of Byzantium will sooner or later find its demise, as night kills the light of day, winter defeats summer, and the red and proud rose will eventually wither and die. This is the law of God.
He looked at me, and waited before answering.
-No, misser Ioannes, it is not only a city what has been lost today. – he took a deep breath - and it is all my fault.
