More Liberation (and Partial Bagrationi Restoration)
Following the conclusion of peace with the Golden Horde, formalising our liberation of Galaz and Constantia, it is time to send our troops home. Sadly, only about six out of every ten who had left will be returning home:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
'Is there no end to this warfare?' I ask myself as I already plan the next destination. I worry to think what my father would think of this. Strangely, almost all his life he was a duke and he was king for only four months, all of which he was incapacitated from a wound to his head, I and still look to him for guidance and wonder he would do, after reigning for thirty-one years, now over more than two and half times more land than he even controlled. And I am not sure if he would be pleased. I had ruled in peace and relative prosperity, building up the holdings and erecting new baronies for the first part of my reign, as my father would have, or so I believe, before I took up the holy wars. On the other hand, can I really sit still while entire Christian populations are slain, sold into slavery or at least reduced to oppressed minorities in their ancestral lands as I happily sip mead in my royal hall? Yet, does the solidarity with and responsibility for other Christian realms give the right to waste away a half of my levies, men who have families waiting home for them? Again, as do those oppressed Christian souls in Georgia or Cyprus under Rum or as far as Abissynia under the Caliph.
It is also time to reward Doman for his services to the Christendom and to this kingdom in foreign lands. Fittingly, he receives the county of Constantia, washed on its east side by the waters of the Gulf of Varna in the Black Sea.
[Historically, King Wladyslaw III of Poland was posthumously hailed of Varna after the died there in 1444 in an attempt to defeat the Ottoman Turks.]
Unfortunately, this awakens ambitions in him that he did not feel while the ruler of a simple barony. While already having a tendency towards envy, he drifts away from me emotionally:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I doubt he will be calling me his dear uncle again any time soon. Advancement sometimes tests the quality of a man. Doman was happy as the ruler of a simple, small barony I would have trouble finding on the map. Less so, it seems, as the ruler of a county. It is remarkable that leading the armies of an entire realm did not affect him but receving a more important fief did (in itself able to field only a minuscule fraction of what he is used to commanding). I fully intend to make him a duke if I have anything to spare that is not one of the core de iure duchies of Poland. Let us hope he does not give me a reason to change my mind.
Problems with Doman bring my attention to the fact that other vassals might be disappointed too for the same reasons. Due to those calumnies concerning my supposed cowardice, things resurface that were mostly forgotten by now. My vassals seem to no notice again that I hold more ducal titles than a king normally should and they also mind the excessive holding or two in my demesne. This means two new duchies and one new barony for my son and heir. This will give him some prestige when he comes to power. Speaking of power, I do hope he will use wisely what he already has. It is not impossible to imagine him trying to claim the de iure counties from his two new duchies.
With a quickly raised fresh army we defeat the rebels at Slupsk:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
We use such a large force not because we are given to excess but so that fewer people die on our side. The occupied Barony of Schlawe surrenders on sight of our troops. There is no need to siege up, which means some people will not die who otherwise would. For this reason I am granting a full royal pardon to all those who dropped their weapons and opened the gates. The fate of the rest will be decided tomorrow, depending on the results of my inquiry as to the extent of atrocities committed while I was away. 'While I was away.' These words may well haunt me for the rest of my life. If I had been more diligent, although with some risk, I could have saved Schlawe from capture. Or perhaps I am kidding myself. Any bigger stack from the Golden Horde could have routed a weakened army, in which case everybody would have died in vain.
After some delay caused by a legal technicality involving the fact that the Khan of Bulgaria was at war somewhere else, which means putting down another rebellion by a desperate Rurikovich prince (this time it was Yuriy II of Pronsk), I take off him the title of Duke of Karvuna, in which he now rules no land:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
One of those who do rule land in this Duchy is the Count of Mesembria, a local noble who has somehow acquired and maintained independence for a while. I would bestow the Duchy on Doman, except that I would have more leverage to induce the Count of Mesembria to enter into vassalage than Doman. After which I would only need to wrest that one final county away from the Golden Horde in order to relieve the Khan of the Kingdom of Bulgaria.
Speaking of which, I should probably show you the current political map (from before the war, which means the patch of Rum between Polish provinces at the Azov Sea and the Byzantine part of Georgia should now be Poland):
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
This should give you an idea of the situation. Speaking of which, I have truces with both Khagans and am not in a position to challenge the Caliph in a long, messy war while my vassals are already suffering the ill effects of prolonged campaigning [OOC: -40 opinion for raised levies]. This leaves me with two targets, both of which are on the map, and both of which belong to the Sultanate of Rum. The choice is tough between Cyprus, where I could revive the old crusader kingdom that collapsed under Turkish might when I was 2 years of age, and Abkhazia, a more recent conquest by the Turks of Rum. As in many other dilemmas I need to deal with, no choice will be good in this one. Since Cyprus is de iure in the Greek Empire and its core realm of Byzantion, and the Greek Emperor, who is not currently bound by any truce with Rum, might want to take it for himself, I decide to go for Abkhazia, which lies outside the de iure Empire, hoping that this means that I do the justice to the Basileus. He might be of a different opinion, however, as to the desireability of my current move, as he is currently one county away from forming the Kingdom of Georgia, holding four counties in his new Duchy of Kartli, while the Emir of Derbent holds three, Rum holds two and the Golden Horde One. At any rate, I am having ethical doubts regarding the idea of a royal coronation within the Eastern Empire's traditional borders when the Emperor himself is clearly capable of action. And of victory.
Wieslaw of Poland King to Boethios Emperor of the Romans royal greeting
It may please Your Imperial Majesty to know that I am sailing against your enemies of the Sultanate of Rum.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
After one woman too many sees it fit to laugh at her king, accusing and ruling him guilty of cowardice, something she knows nothing about, I snap and decide to prove my bravery, which puts a strain on me and takes my focus away from other pursuits. The diplomacy and administration of the kingdom suffers but at least I am a halfway decent commander right now [11 Martial score].
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
After several months over land and sea we arrive at our destination:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Yes, these are 34428 soldiers in one army (and, as you suspect, one flank). If all the recent wars have taught me one thing, it is that sieges claim much more victims on the attacking side than assaults, provided that you assault with a sufficiently overpowering force. I found it more humane to call nearly all the levies of the realm so that almost all of them may return home than to call only half of them and see a half of that half die to attrititon.[1] Incidentally, on our west, the Genoese, almost ten thousand men all, seem for once to be comfortably retaking the holdings captured by the Ilkhanate, no doubt largely due to our interventions.
We assault and take the holdings in Abkhazia right away, in a matter of days. Since it will take a while before we cross into the more mountaineous Imeretia, we take only as many soldiers there as we can supply from Akbhazia after its capture, which means twenty-five thousand (as opposed to seventeen thousand during the siege), and we board and lodge the remaining six thousand eight hundred soldiers onboard of our fleet. Which has finally grown large enough in size that we no longer needed to pay exorbitant sums to the merchant republics for transport like in the last wars.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Also, look at the Byzantines in the south. Since the rebellious Emir cannot white-peace his way back into the Sultanate of Rum [as of patch 1.05], everything points to that they are going to take the duchy.
As we take up our ladders and run to assault the last holding in Imereti, this happens:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I don't know if I have proven my bravery but I have made sure that as few men died as possible. This is enough for me.
As for Cyprus, as long as Rum loses one of the two simultaneous holy wars for Cybirrhaeot, its only remaining land with access to the sea will be... Cyprus. As soon as a rebellion happens (again), Rum should have no way of putting it down.
Moved by the discovery that the last pre-conquest Georgian ruler of the county of Abkhazia (there is both a county and a duchy of this name) is still alive (he must have been a child), although he does not have specific county-level claims and neither would he be willing to come to my court, I inquire further into the the Bagrationi claimants and find a live Prince of Georgia in Rhodos, with a claim on the county of Imeretia, which I give to him as soon as he arrives (along with Akbhazia after I discover that he is the current head of the Bagrationi dynasty):
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Do you see his claims?
Yes, the Ilkhanate one is real. His mother's name was Oljat Borjigin, the only daughter of Khagan Abaga and the only sister (and only sibling) of Khagan Arghun.
Also:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Actually, he is not old. He is three years younger than I am. And this is his daughter:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
=====
[1] [OOC: It is also that attrition is not applied when you are fighting and I believe assaulting a fortress counts for this purpose. If you time your movement so that you cross into the enemy province at the beginning of the month (which is especially easy if you unload from aships), given that it takes only several days to construct siege equipment with so many hands to work, you can manage to avoid any attrition losses before you capture each and every holding, which you may even not need to. And you capture those with a small enough garrison instantly, while with other ones you may need to wait only as little as 1 day to assault the next holding. Also, immediately after finishing you can quickly load the army on ships in time unless it's very close to the end of the month.]
Following the conclusion of peace with the Golden Horde, formalising our liberation of Galaz and Constantia, it is time to send our troops home. Sadly, only about six out of every ten who had left will be returning home:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
'Is there no end to this warfare?' I ask myself as I already plan the next destination. I worry to think what my father would think of this. Strangely, almost all his life he was a duke and he was king for only four months, all of which he was incapacitated from a wound to his head, I and still look to him for guidance and wonder he would do, after reigning for thirty-one years, now over more than two and half times more land than he even controlled. And I am not sure if he would be pleased. I had ruled in peace and relative prosperity, building up the holdings and erecting new baronies for the first part of my reign, as my father would have, or so I believe, before I took up the holy wars. On the other hand, can I really sit still while entire Christian populations are slain, sold into slavery or at least reduced to oppressed minorities in their ancestral lands as I happily sip mead in my royal hall? Yet, does the solidarity with and responsibility for other Christian realms give the right to waste away a half of my levies, men who have families waiting home for them? Again, as do those oppressed Christian souls in Georgia or Cyprus under Rum or as far as Abissynia under the Caliph.
It is also time to reward Doman for his services to the Christendom and to this kingdom in foreign lands. Fittingly, he receives the county of Constantia, washed on its east side by the waters of the Gulf of Varna in the Black Sea.
[Historically, King Wladyslaw III of Poland was posthumously hailed of Varna after the died there in 1444 in an attempt to defeat the Ottoman Turks.]
Unfortunately, this awakens ambitions in him that he did not feel while the ruler of a simple barony. While already having a tendency towards envy, he drifts away from me emotionally:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I doubt he will be calling me his dear uncle again any time soon. Advancement sometimes tests the quality of a man. Doman was happy as the ruler of a simple, small barony I would have trouble finding on the map. Less so, it seems, as the ruler of a county. It is remarkable that leading the armies of an entire realm did not affect him but receving a more important fief did (in itself able to field only a minuscule fraction of what he is used to commanding). I fully intend to make him a duke if I have anything to spare that is not one of the core de iure duchies of Poland. Let us hope he does not give me a reason to change my mind.
Problems with Doman bring my attention to the fact that other vassals might be disappointed too for the same reasons. Due to those calumnies concerning my supposed cowardice, things resurface that were mostly forgotten by now. My vassals seem to no notice again that I hold more ducal titles than a king normally should and they also mind the excessive holding or two in my demesne. This means two new duchies and one new barony for my son and heir. This will give him some prestige when he comes to power. Speaking of power, I do hope he will use wisely what he already has. It is not impossible to imagine him trying to claim the de iure counties from his two new duchies.
With a quickly raised fresh army we defeat the rebels at Slupsk:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
We use such a large force not because we are given to excess but so that fewer people die on our side. The occupied Barony of Schlawe surrenders on sight of our troops. There is no need to siege up, which means some people will not die who otherwise would. For this reason I am granting a full royal pardon to all those who dropped their weapons and opened the gates. The fate of the rest will be decided tomorrow, depending on the results of my inquiry as to the extent of atrocities committed while I was away. 'While I was away.' These words may well haunt me for the rest of my life. If I had been more diligent, although with some risk, I could have saved Schlawe from capture. Or perhaps I am kidding myself. Any bigger stack from the Golden Horde could have routed a weakened army, in which case everybody would have died in vain.
After some delay caused by a legal technicality involving the fact that the Khan of Bulgaria was at war somewhere else, which means putting down another rebellion by a desperate Rurikovich prince (this time it was Yuriy II of Pronsk), I take off him the title of Duke of Karvuna, in which he now rules no land:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
One of those who do rule land in this Duchy is the Count of Mesembria, a local noble who has somehow acquired and maintained independence for a while. I would bestow the Duchy on Doman, except that I would have more leverage to induce the Count of Mesembria to enter into vassalage than Doman. After which I would only need to wrest that one final county away from the Golden Horde in order to relieve the Khan of the Kingdom of Bulgaria.
Speaking of which, I should probably show you the current political map (from before the war, which means the patch of Rum between Polish provinces at the Azov Sea and the Byzantine part of Georgia should now be Poland):
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
This should give you an idea of the situation. Speaking of which, I have truces with both Khagans and am not in a position to challenge the Caliph in a long, messy war while my vassals are already suffering the ill effects of prolonged campaigning [OOC: -40 opinion for raised levies]. This leaves me with two targets, both of which are on the map, and both of which belong to the Sultanate of Rum. The choice is tough between Cyprus, where I could revive the old crusader kingdom that collapsed under Turkish might when I was 2 years of age, and Abkhazia, a more recent conquest by the Turks of Rum. As in many other dilemmas I need to deal with, no choice will be good in this one. Since Cyprus is de iure in the Greek Empire and its core realm of Byzantion, and the Greek Emperor, who is not currently bound by any truce with Rum, might want to take it for himself, I decide to go for Abkhazia, which lies outside the de iure Empire, hoping that this means that I do the justice to the Basileus. He might be of a different opinion, however, as to the desireability of my current move, as he is currently one county away from forming the Kingdom of Georgia, holding four counties in his new Duchy of Kartli, while the Emir of Derbent holds three, Rum holds two and the Golden Horde One. At any rate, I am having ethical doubts regarding the idea of a royal coronation within the Eastern Empire's traditional borders when the Emperor himself is clearly capable of action. And of victory.
Wieslaw of Poland King to Boethios Emperor of the Romans royal greeting
It may please Your Imperial Majesty to know that I am sailing against your enemies of the Sultanate of Rum.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
After one woman too many sees it fit to laugh at her king, accusing and ruling him guilty of cowardice, something she knows nothing about, I snap and decide to prove my bravery, which puts a strain on me and takes my focus away from other pursuits. The diplomacy and administration of the kingdom suffers but at least I am a halfway decent commander right now [11 Martial score].
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
After several months over land and sea we arrive at our destination:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Yes, these are 34428 soldiers in one army (and, as you suspect, one flank). If all the recent wars have taught me one thing, it is that sieges claim much more victims on the attacking side than assaults, provided that you assault with a sufficiently overpowering force. I found it more humane to call nearly all the levies of the realm so that almost all of them may return home than to call only half of them and see a half of that half die to attrititon.[1] Incidentally, on our west, the Genoese, almost ten thousand men all, seem for once to be comfortably retaking the holdings captured by the Ilkhanate, no doubt largely due to our interventions.
We assault and take the holdings in Abkhazia right away, in a matter of days. Since it will take a while before we cross into the more mountaineous Imeretia, we take only as many soldiers there as we can supply from Akbhazia after its capture, which means twenty-five thousand (as opposed to seventeen thousand during the siege), and we board and lodge the remaining six thousand eight hundred soldiers onboard of our fleet. Which has finally grown large enough in size that we no longer needed to pay exorbitant sums to the merchant republics for transport like in the last wars.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Also, look at the Byzantines in the south. Since the rebellious Emir cannot white-peace his way back into the Sultanate of Rum [as of patch 1.05], everything points to that they are going to take the duchy.
As we take up our ladders and run to assault the last holding in Imereti, this happens:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I don't know if I have proven my bravery but I have made sure that as few men died as possible. This is enough for me.
As for Cyprus, as long as Rum loses one of the two simultaneous holy wars for Cybirrhaeot, its only remaining land with access to the sea will be... Cyprus. As soon as a rebellion happens (again), Rum should have no way of putting it down.
Moved by the discovery that the last pre-conquest Georgian ruler of the county of Abkhazia (there is both a county and a duchy of this name) is still alive (he must have been a child), although he does not have specific county-level claims and neither would he be willing to come to my court, I inquire further into the the Bagrationi claimants and find a live Prince of Georgia in Rhodos, with a claim on the county of Imeretia, which I give to him as soon as he arrives (along with Akbhazia after I discover that he is the current head of the Bagrationi dynasty):
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Do you see his claims?
Yes, the Ilkhanate one is real. His mother's name was Oljat Borjigin, the only daughter of Khagan Abaga and the only sister (and only sibling) of Khagan Arghun.
Also:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Actually, he is not old. He is three years younger than I am. And this is his daughter:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
=====
[1] [OOC: It is also that attrition is not applied when you are fighting and I believe assaulting a fortress counts for this purpose. If you time your movement so that you cross into the enemy province at the beginning of the month (which is especially easy if you unload from aships), given that it takes only several days to construct siege equipment with so many hands to work, you can manage to avoid any attrition losses before you capture each and every holding, which you may even not need to. And you capture those with a small enough garrison instantly, while with other ones you may need to wait only as little as 1 day to assault the next holding. Also, immediately after finishing you can quickly load the army on ships in time unless it's very close to the end of the month.]
Last edited: