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Hmm... classroom location seems right. That's the old Earth simulator - although perhaps a few klaxocenturies more advanced than expected. Syllabus says:
World Conquest for Dummies will convene on the planet known locally as Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, in the year 2002 of the Christian calendar.
Alright, so I'm a few years late, but I've never been an early riser. And I've always wanted to conquer the Earth, by Johan. Fourteen years can't be that big a deal for planet-usurping galactic beings, can it?
...I wonder if Professor Ebbesen gives credit for late assignments?
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Conquest Simulator: For the Glory Patch: FTG 1.3 Beta 29 December Scenario: Vanilla, No Mods Country of Choice: The Ottoman Empire Difficulty: Very Hard AI Aggressiveness: Furious AI Event Choices: Historical Badboy Wars: On Civil Wars: Off Goals:
Seize the City of Men's Desire, Constantinople!
Humble the naval power of Venice.
Capture all Turkish core provinces without starting the bad boy wars.
Launch the bad boy wars by annexing a couple of large Sunni vassals.
Defeat or disable the major Western colonizing powers, Portugal, Castile/Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands.
Conquer the world (own all settled provinces).
Convert the World (all settled provinces are Sunni Muslim).
Colonize the World (all provinces contain cities).
I've been a player of Europa Universalis and its progeny since 2001 when I found it at a Gamestop at the age of 15 - and I've been an AAR reader since I stumbled on Peter Ebbesen's masterpiece back in 2002! But I've never had the patience to complete - much less document - a world conquest.
Call me old fashioned, but I'll take a good ole' AAR over a Let's Play video any day! If I can attract any renewed attention to EU2 - of which For the Glory is the most evolved form - then I'll have accomplished what I set out to. For my money, this is still Paradox's best game - and I hope to show that to the next generation!
Choice of Nation - Ottoman Empire
Were I a true master, I'd be conducting a world conquest as Tibet, Xhosa, or Chimu. Well... I think I'd rather start with a more achievable goal - especially because I've never seen a documented FTG world conquest, and some rule changes since the old EU2 days make it a more difficult prospect.
I have seen two primary strategies for world conquest - 1. Knocking out the colonizers early, focusing on Europe in the early game. 2. Conquering swathes of Asia and overwhelming the Europeans and their extensive colonial holdings in the late game.
The Ottomans are in an almost unique position to vigorously pursue both strategies.
Other nations I considered were France, Castile, Portugal, England, Timurids, and China. All have pros and cons-
The Ottomans have stellar governance through the mid-1600s, but thereafter some weak rulers and difficult event chains. However, they also have one of the largest collection of cores of any in-game nation, as well as FOUR multi-province state cultures. You can't get cores except through events, and with few exceptions (pagan and colonial provinces) you can never change a province's culture except through a random event that occurs at best 2-3 times in a game. So the Ottomans have advantages that no gameplay strategy can replicate in another empire.
France has the game's best rulers and generals, plus a strong set of cores and a good lineup of explorers starting about 1520. That was my runner-up choice.
Castile has great explorers, the benefits of the Treaty of Tordesillas (seizing certain colonial provinces from other Christians), and a special casus belli against most non-Christians. They also have solid cores and cultures.
Portugal gets the earliest exlorer lineup, and in AGCEEP can follow a complicated event chain to inherit Castile and Aragon and get Castile's explorers too. This is definitely worth exploring in a future AAR.
England gets cores on the British Isles and most of France. Their biggest disadvantage is the tax penalty they have for mainland Eurasian provinces as an island, but that can be overcome by going full Naval.
The Timurids get lots of cores and cultures, including on all India if they take the event chain to become Mughals. But they go through a brutal period of national rebellion.
China can conquer East Asia easily and focus on expansion on only one frontier. But frankly, they're pretty far from the heart of the action.
Grand Strategy
Any world conquest played on Hard or Very Hard - which is very much the way to do it, based on the AAR classics! - will face the great question of when to launch the badboy wars.
Badboy is Europa's reputation system. Unlike more recent games in the series, there are no elaborate coalitions. There is simply a threshold which, once crossed, brings declarations of war from every nation currently at peace that either borders you or has a capital on the same continent of you as well as a port. This means near-constant warfare until either you sink below the badboy threshold or conquer the world! Any aspiring conqueror must carefully determine when to launch this final campaign - and most will wait until late in the day when they have extensive colonies, tremendous wealth, and a network of provincial improvement buildings. Not me. I'm going for the throat!
Generally, badboy wars start at about 35 BB points accrued. Here are the critical rules to keep in mind:
Declarations of War
1 point to declare war with a cassus belli
2 points to declare war without a cassus belli,
4 points to declare war without a cassus belli, relations less than +100
0 points to declare war on pagans (for Europeans only - the Ottomans become European if they take the option to move their capital to Constantinople after conquest)
Peace Negotiations
0 to acquire a core province
0 to acquire a trade post or colony
2 to acquire a noncore province, from a non-pagan nation, in an offensive war
1 to acquire a noncore province, from a non-pagan nation, in a defensive war
0 to acquire a province from a pagan nation (only for Europeans)
6 to forcibly annex a country of the same religious group (in our case, Muslim)
3 to forcibly annex a country of different religious group
1 to forcibly annex a country of a different religious group where you have a claim on their capital province
0 + 0 per province Force-annex a pagan country
0 to force a country to convert religions
0 to forcibly vassalize a country
Other Annexations Mechanisms
1 to diplomatically annex a country per province, including colonies and core provinces, excluding trade posts
0.25 inheriting a country per province size of country, including core provinces, colonies, and trade posts. These events are rare and must be hardcoded, but the Ottomans do get one for the Mamelukes.
I must also pay attention to religious minorities in my empire.
Religion in the Near East at Game Start, 1419
Religious policy in EU2/FTG is zero-sum. You can only tolerate one religion at the expense of another.
Muslim religious politics have changed a lot since early EU2. It used to be that Islamic nations could handle each Christian denomination separately, which meant a lot of balancing between the Catholics and Orthodox in the early game. Now, Muslim nations just treat all Christians as one group. This gives us the opporunity to maintain middle to high tolerance to Christians and Sunnis throughout the game, at the expense of the Shiites. Since I will generally be oppressing Shiites, I'll look for other ways to see to their conversion.
With these rules in mind, here is a very rough plan for Ottoman domination:
Take Ottoman cores at 0 per conquered province (plus 1 point per declaration of war)
Do not be afraid to militarily annex Christian nations whose capital I claim.
Force convert Shiite nations, or allow other Sunnis to conquer them and convert their provinces.
Whenever possible, fight defensive wars beyond the region of Ottoman core provinces for cheap (1-BB point a pop) provinces.
Vassalize and annex one or two large Sunni rivals to set off the BB wars well before 1500.
Come after the early colonizers and knock them out if possible.
CONQUER THE WORLD!!!
Domestic Policies
Domestic policies provide important bonuses that help determine your nation's style of play. Anyone going for world conquest - with any country - will follow must of the suggestions below.
Starting value for the Ottomans first, and ideal sliders in parentheses.
Aristocracy: 10 for a monarch diplomat bonus, which brings extra diplomats and faster badboy war reduction. Sunni nations have a big problem with diplomats. You also get cheap cavalry which is great in the early game - I build nothing but cavalry until close to 1500.
Centralization: 10 - the benefits of centralization - high production efficiency in particular, which means $$$; as well as faster research - outweigh the limited downsides.
Innovative: I need to drive this number down to get more missionaries and colonists - although in the early game I won't be able to afford to use those I do accrue!
Mercantilism: I want to drive this down to get more colonists. But mostly the slider affects trade, a losing bet for a badboy nation in the early game, so this will be a low priority.
Offensive: 9 is good for the very special bonus to shock (makes cavalry even more effective) assigned every Ottoman commander.
Land: 10 for morale, cheaper recruitment, and that critical production efficiency!
Quality: 9 for the bonus to fire, which makes infantry more effective. Particularly valuable after Land Tech Level 9, which I don't expect to hit until around 1500.
Serfdom: 10 makes stability recovery cheaper, but I won't really be investing in stability. There are also some nasty events tied to high serfdom, so this is perhaps the lowest priority.
Budget Priorities
Infrastructure levels 4 and 5 are the magic numbers - allowing legal counsels and governors, respectively. I'm not sure if I'll build tax collectors at all in this game; but if I do, to keep revolt risk down, it will only be in same culture, same religion, core provinces and I will immediately follow up with a legal counsel to partially offset the increased revolutionary sentiment. Governors on the other hand are just great - they increase the tax value of any province they're built in without negative consequence - and they reduce inflation! Each level of infra tech also gives a significant bonus to production efficiency, the backbone of my economy.
Land tech is the secondary priority - being able to assault provinces after land tech 5 will make the game much easier!
Naval tech will be all but irrelevant until at least 1520 or so; trade is a losing bet (with a couple of exceptions in very isolated centers of trade) until much later in the game.
I will minimize or avoid spending on stability. There will be occasions where I will mint for province improvements or to fund the missionary program. By and large, however, I will reduce this to avoid hyperinflation. I will NEVER willingly take a bank loan, hire a mercenary troop, or go bankrupt.
And now, without further adieu - In the footsteps of Cyrus and Alexander, Ceasar and Charlemagne, Genghis and Tamerlane - It's time to do what we do every night: TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!
Salaam Aleikum, friend. I am Murad Kodja, son of Mehmed Çelebi, Heir of Osman and Sultan of Edirne and Bursa. I am fourteen years old; but have been Bey of Amasya since my father took the throne six years ago.
Your Christian Emperor of Rum pays tribute to my father, who rules from Edirne which was Roman Adrianopolis. It is an a pleasure to give audience to a Roman Ambassador in this, my city, on the banks of the Yeşilırmak which you call the Iris.
Under the guidance of my father Sultan Mehmet, I rule the Sanjak of Amasya justly and with strength. My mother, Emine Hatun, is the daughter of Nasıreddin Mehmed, Bey of Dulkadir; my worthy grandfather who I have visited at his capital in Elbistan to hone the art of governance. As a Ghazi it is my duty to protect the Ummah, and with my men I have guarded the frontiers against the Romans of Trebizond. Inshallah, one day I shall lead the Faithful against the realms of the infidel and rule the world.
The dream of a youth, you say? Perhaps, but it was also the dream of my glorious ancestor Osman Gazi, who foresaw the will of Allah. It was his father Ertuğrul Gazi, Khan of the Kayi tribe of Oghuz Turks, who nearly two centuries ago led 400 horseman from Merv east of the Caspian sea to fight for the Seljuk Sultan, Ala ad-Din Kay Qubadh, against the infidel Roman Emperor, John Doukas Vatatzes of Nicaea. Ertuğrul captured Thebasion in Phyrgia in your Christian year of 1251. Kay Qubadh made him Bey of the city, renamed Söğüt, and gave him to marry Halime Hatun, Princess of the Seljuks.
In 1258 – I will use the Christian years for your ease of understanding – the Mongols sacked Baghdad and slaughtered the Abbasid Caliph Al Mustas’im. Muslim Ghazis poured into Söğüt, refugees from the Mongol Horde who wished to avenge the Umma by conquering lands from Rum. The son of Ertuğrul and royal Halime, the glorious Osman, became Bey upon his father’s death in 1280, and expanded into the fertile plains of Bithynia.
Osman was a man of great faith who respected his father’s beloved Sufi teacher, Sheik Edebali. One night, when Osman was a guest in Edebali’s dergah, he had a dream. As the sun rose, he went to Edebali and told him:
My Sheik, I saw you in my dream. A moon appeared in your breast. It rose, rose and then descended into my breast. From my navel there sprang a tree. It grew and branched out so much, that the shadow of its branches covered the whole world.
Under the tree stood four mountains, which he knew to be Caucasus, Atlas, Taurus, and Balkans. These mountains were the four columns that seemed to support the dome of the foliage of the sacred tree with which the earth was now centered.
From the roots of the tree gushed forth four rivers, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Danube, and the Nile. Tall ships and barks innumerable were on the waters. The fields were heavy with harvest. The mountain sides were clothed with forests.
In the valleys glittered stately cities, with domes and cupolas, with pyramids and obelisks, with minarets and towers. The Crescent shone on their summits: from their galleries sounded the Muezzin’s call to prayer. That sound was mingled with the sweet voices of a thousand nightingales, and with the prattling of countless parrots of every hue. Every kind of singing bird was there. The winged multitude warbled and flitted around beneath the fresh living roof of the interlacing branches of the all-overarching tree; and every leaf of that tree was in shape like unto a scimitar.
Suddenly there arose a mighty wind, and turned the points of the sword-leaves towards the various cities of the world, but especially towards Constantinople.
What does my dream mean?”
After a brief silence, Edebali interpreted:
Congratulations Osman! God Almighty bestowed sovereignty upon you and your generation. My daughter will be your wife, and the whole world will be under the protection of your children.
Upon his deathbed in 1326, Osman received word that his Ghazis had taken the Roman city of Prusa, which – now called Bursa – became the seat of Osman’s son Orhan, who was my grandfather’s grandfather.
Osman’s Beylik grew mightily in his lifetime, but was only one of many small Beyliks left by the declining Seljuks upon Osman’s death. The Romans of Nicaea had recaptured Constantinople from the Franks, and like the Mongols to our east they overshadowed any Turkish leader.
Of course this began to change with Orhan – but the hour grows late, my dear Ambassador. My father expects us both in Bursa by the end of the week. My ghazis and porters have readied all that we may need for our journey, and have already secured your possessions. We shall speak further as we ride.
Welcome to Ankara, Ambassador. Since the days of my grandfather’s grandfather, Orhan Gazi, this has been a mighty stronghold for the Heirs of Osman. Take refreshment, let us walk in the gardens.
I promised to tell you more of Orhan Bey, did I not? Upon his ascension in 1326, he had already conquered many Roman cities for his father, the lordly Osman; and the Emperor, Andronicus III of the House of Palaiologos, gathered an army to oppose him. But in 1329 at Pelekanon, Orhan routed the Romans; by 1331 he had captured the Empire’s second city of Nicaea; and by 1337 he had captured Nicomedia as well. The Romans were all but expelled from Anatolia.
In 1345, for the first since Orhan’s grandfather Ertuğrul became Bey, war ensued with a fellow Muslim. When the Emir of the small realm of Karesi was called to Paradise, his sons went to war to succeed him. Orhan attacked their stronghold at Pergamum, killing one brother and imprisoning the other, and annexing their lands. This brought Orhan's territories to Çanakkale, on the Anatolian side of the Dardanelles Straits.
At this time, the Roman Empire was in the midst of a civil war. John VI Kantakouzenos had been the Megas Domestikos under Andronicus III and sought Orhan’s support against his 8-year-old son, John VI Palaiologos. He gave his second daughter, Princess Theodora, to Orhan in marriage; their nuptials were a scene of splendor at Selymbria in 1346. Emperor John recognized Orhan Bey formally as the most powerful ruler of the Turks.
Constantinople’s trade was then, as it is now, dominated by Frankish cities Serene Venice and its great rival of Genoa. In 1352 these cities went to war with one another, and the Genoese fleet of Paganino Doria smashed the navies of Venice and Constantinople. Venice, as we both know, is arrogant and treacherous; so Orhan sent his eldest son Suleiman Pasha across the straights to cooperate the Genoese against the Venetians and his hapless father-in-law, John Kantakouzenos. Suleyman captured the Castle of Tzympe, the first Turkish stronghold in Europe, and with the support of his father settled many migrant Turks on the Gallipolli peninsula.
Gallipoli Castle
Orhan lived to be eighty, outliving his favorite son Suleiman Pasha. Upon his death in 1362, my father’s grandfather Murad Hüdavendigâr became Bey; it is he for whom I am named.
Murad Bey acted quickly after the death of his father, knowing that Ottoman control of Gallipoli was a dagger into the heart of the infidel Roman Empire. In 1363 he captured Adrianople, which became his seat of Edirne. Henceforth, the Sultanate would be governed as two vast provinces. The European portion, the land we call Rumelia after the Romans who until recently ruled it, would be governed from Edirne. From Bursa, Murad would govern his territories in Anadolu, or Anatolia.
The glorious jihad of Murad, my father's grandfather, subjugated a large swatch of Southeastern Europe. Murad captured Sofia from the Bulgarians, Nis from the Serbs, Manastir from the Albanians; as well as Antalya from our fellow Muslims in the Beylik of Karaman. In 1383, he established the title of Sultan which his grandson, my father Mehmet, now holds.
Edirne, the Ottoman Capital for Rumelia
The first Murad – inshallah, I shall be the second – created the first Janissary Corps and the devşirme recruiting system, whereby Christian children aged 8 to 18 are taken from their families, enslaved, converted to Islam, and trained to serve the state. Ah – I see your distaste, common to all Christians – you call it the blood tax, do you not?
But it is certain that the cream of our armies and our harems were born as Christians but are now Muslims devoted to the Line of Osman. In Thrace and Macedonia, the Christians were resentful of our rule and rebellious against Allah. Many hungered for the victory of our Roman, Bulgarian, and Serb enemies. Devşirme brought obedience from the populace, wealth and slaves for the ghazi conquerors, bureaucrats and soldiers for the state, strength and women for the Sultan, and Submission before Allah.
In 1389, tragedy struck on Kosovo Field. Although my Great-Grandfather defeated the Serb Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović, a party of twelve Serb knights led by Miloš Obilić fought through to the command tent and slew the Sultan. So died the first Ottoman Sultan, Murad Hüdavendigâr.
My grandfather Bayezid Yıldırım, the Thunderbolt, meted harsh terms to the Serbs, recognizing Prince Lazar’s son Stefan as his vassal (though Macedonia would remain Ottoman) and marrying Stefan’s sister, Olivera Despina.
Peace secured, Grandfather acted decisively, inviting his younger brother Yakub Bey to the command tent, where Great Uncle Yakub was immediately strangled before he could become a threat.
Ah - fratricide is not smiled on in Rome, you say? I know of many Imperial siblings and relatives murdered or mutilated to pave the succession for a Byzantine Basileos. In any case, your weak stomachs need not concern the heirs of Osman. We rule with strength. In time the Thunderbolt would come close to taking Constantinople for the first time since the Frankish sack of 1204.
But come, you must be exhausted. We continue West early in the morning Ambassador, so my grandfather’s story will have to wait. A Circassian girl has been sent to your room to sing, dance, and do all that might bring you pleasure.
Ah, Ambassador, it is good to see that you have arrived safely in Bursa, the capital of Ottoman Anatolia. My father, Mehmet Sultan, will grace us shortly with his presence. He is used to dealing with Roman emissaries bearing tribute... though never any with an offer like yours.
My grandfather, the Thunderbolt, was a terror to the Romans. Having stangled his brother and pacified the Serbs, Grandfather believed the time had come to consolidate Anatolia. But many ghazis disliked the Sultan warring with fellow Muslims. Bayezid was careful to secure fatwas from scholars to justify these wars; even so, he relied heavily on Serb and Roman vassal forces for these campaigns. These armies conquered the Beyliks of Aydin, Saruhan, Menteşe, Hamid, Germiyan, Kastamonu, and Sinope, before making peace in 1391.
In 1393 the whole of Bulgaria, along with the rest of the surrounding region, fell to Bayezid Sultan. This brought an end to Bulgaria's medieval empire. Vidin was now the only region controlled by the Christian Bulgars. But Vidin's independence did not last long.
Bulgaria at the end of the 1300's
In 1396, grandfather laid siege to Constantinople, seeking at last to rule the City of Men’s Desire as prophesied by his great grandfather, Osman. The siege prompted a crusade by the Christian West, led by Sigismond von Luxembourg, who was already King of Hungary as he remains today. Stratsimir of Vidin contributed soldiers to assist the Christian nations' bid to overturn the Ottoman Empire in the Crusade against Nicopolis. At Nicopolis, Grandfather humbled the Crusader armies. While the Hungarians, Wallachs, Serbs, and Bulgarians were used to fighting Grandfather's ghazis, the French knights ordered an overly aggressive charge and were slaughtered on masse by the Turkish ghazis.
Battle of Nicopolis In the aftermath, Vidin fell, bringing an end to Bulgarian independence. Similarly, Nicopolis spelled the end for the Greek realm of Thessaly, ruled by a Byzantine noble family, the Angeloi Philanthropenoi. The Ottomans defeated Manuel Angelos Philanthropenos, and retook Larissa. The conquest of Thessaly was completed during the next few years under the personal supervision of Bayezid Sultan - when he was not occupied expanding Ottoman dominion in Anatolia.
The Ottoman realm had reached its peak; its territory in Europe was the same as the lands now ruled by my father, and his borders in Anatolia have never stretched so far. From 1396 through 1402, Constantinople faced constant siege, soon - all believed - to be the great capital of the Ottoman Turks. Sadly, this was not to be.
The Ottomans in 1400
By 1400 Tamerlane, the Butcher, the Conqueror, had ridden eastern with the last independent Beyliks to oppose Bayezid Sultan. On July 20, 1402, Timur the Lame met Grandfather in battle at Ankara, where the Ottoman army was totally defeated. Bayezid Sultan and my uncle Mustafa Çelebi were taken as captives to Timur’s capital of Samarkand, far to the East along the Silk Road. My father, Mehmet Çelebi, and my uncles Süleyman Çelebi, İsa Çelebi, and Musa Çelebi avoided capture on the battlefield, but soon turned on one another.
In 1403, the Thunderbolt died in Samarkand, and the Ottoman realm collapsed. My father Mehmet was 22 years old, and faced certain death if captured by one of his brothers. He fled to Amasya, of which – like me – he was then Bey. It was to be my father’s greatest test.
MichaelM - Thanks for following! Really cool to have the FTG crew watching!
First gameplay post should be up this weekend.
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Chapter 4: Interregnum
Yildirim Bayezid Mosque, Bursa
Salaam Aleikum, Ambassador, and welcome to the mosque of my grandfather, Bayezid Yildirim. He built much that was beautiful and made the heirs of Osman great. Upon his death, disaster struck, but my father preserved the realm. Do you hear the trumpets, Roman? My father, Mehmed Sultan, has arrived at Bursa Castle and will shortly be receiving foreign envoys. It would behoove you to know what manner of man he is before your audience.
When Grandfather was defeated by Tamerlane at Ankara in the summer of 1402, he was captured along with one of his sons, my sole surviving uncle – the traitor Düzmece Mustafa. My father was rescued from the battlefield by the man who is now Grand Vizier of the realm, the clever Albanian called Bayezid Pasha; my foul uncles Isa, Musa, and Suleyman also made their cowardly escapes. Timur restored many of the Turkish beys who had been conquered by Bayezid Sultan to their former territories, reducing our territory in Asia Minor dramatically.
The realm hung together by a thread until the spring of 1403, when word arrived from the Court of Timur in distant Samarkand that the Thunderbolt, heartbroken, had his soul called to join the righteous in Paradise. Suleyman had established himself in Edirne, and Rumelia – all of our European territories – accepted his claim to rule. Isa defeated Musa for control of Bursa, and as Musa fled to the little Beylik of Germiyan, most of Anatolia fell under Isa’s sway. But Father – a bold and decisive warrior of 22 – proclaimed himself Sultan from little Amasya, and Timur himself recognized Father as the rightful Sultan of Rum.
Father struck West, meeting Isa in battle at Ulubat, where Isa’s vizier Timurtaş fell and Isa himself fled to Constantinople. The Romans agreed to support Isa in recapturing Anatolia, where many of the newly restored Beyliks feared father’s power. Father proved superior once more at the Battle of Karasi, and Uncle Isa fled to Karaman. Father’s agents found him there in 1406 and slew Uncle Isa in his bath.
Father was now master of Anatolia, but still no match for Uncle Suleyman in Rumelia. Thus he set about finding allies. Father met with poor Uncle Musa, who even hapless Isa had overcome, at Kırşehir, and promised him the rulership of Rumelia as father’s vassal. The independent Beyliks, properly chastened for their prior support of Isa, agreed to support this anti-Suleyman alliance. Suleyman, governed by an uncontrolled temper, had alienated most of his former allies, and only the Romans of Constantinople – stunned by father’s quick victories – stood by his side, garnering the wrath of my father Mehmet.
Father rallies the Sipahis
Suleyman knew the alliance between Mehmet and Musa constituted a mortal threat, and so invaded Anatolia, capturing both Bursa and Ankara. Father countered by sending Uncle Musa across the Black Sea to Thrace. Musa brought only a small force, but allied himself with Prince Mircea cel Bătrân of Wallachia, whose armies turned Musa into a significant threat to Edirne. Musa and his Wallachian and Serb allies came close to victory at Kosmidion, just outside the walls of Constantinople, in 1410; but the Serb Prince, my great uncle Vuk Lazarević, betrayed Musa and Suleyman was victorious. The setback was temporary; Prince Vuk did not survive the year, and in 1411 Uncle Musa captured Edirne and had Uncle Suleyman executed.
The Roman Emperor, Manuel II Palaiologos, had supported Suleyman Çelebi, and so Uncle Musa now besieged Constantinople. But circumstances had changed. With Suleyman’s death, Musa had become the greatest threat to father’s rule; and so father’s forces garrisoned Constantinople’s walls against his brother and former ally. With the death of Prince Vuk, Serbia was now ruled by another son of Sultan Murad’s killer, Lazar Hrebeljanović – Prince Stefan Lazarević. You will recall that their sister, Olivera Despina, was a wife of my grandfather Bayezid.
With the assistance of Stefan – as well as ghazis lent by my mother’s father, Nasireddin Bey of Dulkadir – Father invaded Rumelia and secured the quick defection of many of Musa’s generals. In 1413, both armies met at Çamurlu in the former Bulgaria, where Father and his Serb and Roman allies broke Musa’s command. Uncle Musa was captured fleeing the battlefield and, of course, strangled.
I was nine years old upon father’s ultimate victory. My childhood was spent in less in perfumed harems and more in military camps, during a time of warfare and anarchy, of deprivation and loss. But it was a joyous time. Father was magnanimous and jubilant in victory, stoic and unfazed in defeat. From my earliest memories I never had a shadow of a doubt that he would prevail over his inferior brothers and restore the prestige of my glorious grandfather. Upon his triumphal entry into Edirne in 1413, the Interregnum was finally over and the state secure. Edirne has been Father’s primary capital ever since.
Edirne Castle
The tragic was now followed by the comedic, as my final uncle Mustafa – once a captive of Timur in Samarkand – reemerged from years of hiding in Anatolia and asked that Father partition the empire with him. Father easily defeated Uncle Mustafa, who fled to the Roman city of Thessalonica; Emperor Manuel had him exiled to the island of Lemnos, where he resides still – a tool of the treacherous Byzantines, waiting to undermine the stability of the realm if weakness ever returns. Inshallah, while my father or I still breathe, it never shall.
Two lessons the realm has learned in this terrible conflict that the heirs of Osman must never forget. The first is that the realm must never have more than one heir. Grandfather Bayezid had Great Uncle Yakub strangled immediately upon Murad Sultan’s death; due to the disorder of Grandfather dying abroad, Father could not do the same upon his demise. The end result was a decade of destruction with brother fighting brother. This must never occur again.
The second, of course? That your realm – the Roman Empire, which has decayed from the dominion of the Earth to scheming behind the walls of Constantinople – is the eternal enemy of the Faithful of Islam and the Ottoman state. Your Emperor Manuel will always be our enemy, and we will always be his. He is the lynchpin of Christian control of Trade routes to the Levant, and through the Black Sea to the Silk Road. He is a weak keystone, and when he is removed your power will crumble.
The pathetic remnant of the Roman Empire
Though I may be a lad of fourteen, my father had taught me much about the affairs of men.
Well do I know that though the Interregnum is at last ended, the Ottomans no longer control the Beyliks of Anatolia, who have been restored their fractious independence through the intervention of TImur. It is well that conqueror is deceased; though his heir, Shah Rukh, is a mighty ruler, his rule no longer extends so far westward. Most of our immediate neighbors are singly weak. Farther afield are the Mameluke Sultan in Cairo, the Khan of the Golden Horde, the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of Hungary - all significant powers.
Constantinople is no longer a significant trade power. The Italian states dominate the Eastern trade, through direct control of the Black Sea trade routes and by the tremendous influence of Frankish traders at their fondacos in Alexandria, sponsored by the Mamelukes.
The realm is still dominated by Greeks west of the Halys river.
[
Except for our Easternmost posessions, the dominant faith is still Christian, specifically Orthodox Greeks and Bulgars loyal to the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Roman Emperor. We are very tolerant of these people of the book, but your faith is suspect. To promote trade and the cohesion of the realm, the Sultan must rule from the most glorious City in the East - Constantinople, the City of Men's Desire.
And that, Ambassador, is why you are here. You are greatly honored to be a witness to history. Very soon, Rome shall fall – at long last – to the Ummah. Then Osman’s dream will be realized.
Our time is coming. My father is coming. You may plead but you will not dissuade him. You may fight but you will fail. You may flee but never far enough. The fields of Thrace and Bithynia will soon resound to the sound of trumpets, of drums, and of mighty cannons. The Janissaries are coming.
Upon my father's declaration of war, the Roman Emperor of Constantinople, Manuel II Palaiologos, was supported by his sons in the Morea, his cousin Alexios Komnenos - the other claimant to the Roman Empire - in Trebizond, the Crimean Goths in Theodoro, and the mighty warrior King Alexander I Bagration of Georgia. All told, this was not a coalition to fear.
My father entrusted me with the command of our Anatolian armies at Bursa. I am to ensure that no Asiatic Christian armies cross the straits and interfere with my father's siege of Constantinople. If an advantage comes, I am to seize it.
Sadly, the Trapezuntines and their Caucasus allies have laid a successful siege of Angora and my armies have been unable to successfully repel their invasion. Amasya is occupied by effeminate Greeks and uncouth Georgians. A diplomatic solution suggests itself.
Amidst great rejoicing I have taken my first wife, the daughter of Bey Iskandar of Candar. Candarli entry into the war increases our strategic options.
With the Christian armies routed back east of the Yesilirmak, I send word of our victory to Constantinople. My father bids me and my ally and wife's father, Iskandar of Candar, to press onward into the Trapezuntine and Georgian heartlands.
Meanwhile, he announces an organizational reform of the military and appoints me general commander of all forces in Asia, with full plenipotentiary power to govern occupied territories as I see fit.
My war progresses well.
My successes are dull in comparison to those of my father, whom men mow call Mehmed Fatih, the Conqueror. Constantinople has fallen to his armies! It has only fallen once before, to the Venetians and Crusaders by treachery in 1204. However, the Romans retreated to Nicaea and eventually recaptured their capital. Never again. After 2,172 years since the founding of Rome, the independence of the Roman Commonwealth is at an end.
On September 25, 1420, the Emperor lays dawn his crown and scepter for the last time. The gold and ivory of his treasury shall adorn our mosques and fund our armies. The Emperor and his sons are impaled, his wife and daughters are placed into harems. One of his daughters, Isabella Palaiologina, is to be mine.
Henceforth, the Empire will be ruled from Constantinople! My father, the Sultan of Rum, is also Kayser i-Rum, the new Roman Emperor!
And the glorious prize: Constantinople, Bursa, and Smyrna all change from Greek Orthodox provinces to Turkish Sunni provinces. A tremendous blow to the Christian East - a mighty victory for the Faithful!
We've also got this lovely new Byzantine navy to play with...
