Episode 1: The Loudspeaker of Liguria
It was the 10th of January 1356, and the Doge of the Republic of Genoa was in a foul mood.
"Sir, criminal activity is on the rise in our fair city!" said his unlucky first visitor of the day.
"Imprison him!" the Doge responded.
"We need more funds to be devoted towards shipbuilding!" said the second, blissfully unaware of the last person to have an audience with the Doge that day.
"Imprison this man!" the Doge responded, because he thought variety was the spice of life.
"Most honorable doge, our merchants are reporting record profits-" began the third visitor, who unlike his predecessor was aware of the Doge's irritability and had decided to show a little extra deference. No such luck, though.
"Have them killed!"
"I didn't sign up for this!" (Image modified from this piece of the Creative Commons)
To be fair, it was Marcellino Larrea's first day on the job. The day before, he'd woken up in a garbage heap with no memory of anything in the past, except for the vague sense that he deserved to rule a country. Fortunately, he woke up in Genoa, which at the very moment was a nation without a formal head of state. A few Italian-sounding slogans later, he'd fulfilled that position and immediately proceeded to get far too drunk at his own inauguration party.
"Can I say something without being killed?" said a faint voice from outside Larrea's office.
"Fine, whatever. Just make sure it's good," Marcellino said, clearly having given up on the noise angle for the day. His throat felt hoarse from the last few days of yelling.
"The Khan of the Golden Horde sent you a gift. I'm coming in with a parcel of woolen goods addressed for the Doge." A small man opened the door to the office - someone with what appeared to be a fake handlebar mustache and a very pale complexion.
"Just leave it on the desk." He did; seconds later, Larrea's visitor ran for the door.
The Khan had decided, for some reason, to give the Genoese government a few woolen tunics, and one particularly stupid, shapeless looking hat - of the variety known as a "tuque". Unfortunately for my sense of aesthetics, Marcellino that he rather liked tuques, put it on, had a sudden flash of memory...
It faded before he could properly begin to parse it, but after a few minutes of deliberation, Marcellino began shouting for some sort of military adviser.
The closest thing he got was Prospero Chiavari, a local bricklayer who had been charged with beautifying the doge's palace. The rest of the government was still rather afraid of Larrea, and it was hoped that a small sacrifice would assuage his perceived wrath.
"You wanted to see me... uh, Doge?" Prospero stammered when brought in.
"Let's invade the lands of the Golden Horde! It's going to be fun, isn't it?"
"..."
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"Well, as much as the idea of a crusade into the Crimea sounds like an excellent use of our time, I don't think we could defeat the Golden Horde in a single land battle, much less a war. Our army is too small, our navy is primarily designed to protect our maritime trade interests, and it's a really stupid idea. You're going to kill me, aren't you?"
Marcellino almost decided to kill Prospero at this point; he stood up and assumed his full seven feet of height at this point as if he'd commit to murdering Prospero on the spot...
"YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE GOOD? WE SHOULD RAISE A BETTER ARMY! THAT WAY, IT'LL BE BETTER THAN THAT OF THE GOLDEN HORDE!" he shouted, working off further buried memories.
"Does that mean I should enlist?"
Thusly was the army of Genoa expanded by 40% of its original size. This took some time, during which Marcellino surprisingly took some advice from his underlings.
Firstly, he granted some petty rights to the local peasantry; anyone who wasn't fortunate enough to be a merchant no longer had to fill out as much paperwork to be one.
Secondly, he made some efforts to expand Genoese merchant interests to local countries in the region, although mostly in places where they didn't particularly need reinforcement.
Marcellino also called for the expansion of the navy, although it was doubtful that the finances of the country were ready for it.
Finally, Larrea negotiated an alliance with the nearby Duchy of Milan, in the interest of having someone to protect the country while its army was off ransacking the Golden Horde... eventually. Switzerland soon offered its assistance to this alliance, implying its murderous territorial urges were probably going to be directed elsewhere for a brief period.
The difference between Marcellino and most politicians was one of decibelage. If Marcellino had an indoors voice, his strong will might not have gone enforced so much. Furthermore, people began to find his unique manner of speaking charming after a while... albeit only from a distance of at least 20 feet. As a result of these policies, Genoa's wealth increased slightly, but Marcellino would find little time to enjoy it.
"Sir, the pope is asking for military assistance!" said the latest visitor to Larrea's office; Marcellino noted that they had become taller and their posture had improved since he'd first taken office, probably because not as most of the people sent to speak worth killing were already dead.
"Then have him killed! We have better things to do."
"His successor would probably excommunicate you if we did that, sir."
"Well then, we'll just have to kill the Pope's enemies!"
Marcellino Larrea was quick to find he was not the first to want to defile the Papacy. Apparently Duke Visconti had a son he wanted to make a bishop or something, as he launched his own invasion of the Papacy a week after Naples did. Since Genoa had decided to rely on Milan for military protection, Larrea had to shout several times from the balcony of the Doge's palace that he was not going to harm the Milanese.
Naturally, this made the Pope rather unhappy, so Larrea had to compensate by having a bishop who'd accidentally dropped a communion wafer defrocked.
In short, the first few months of 1356 were stressful for Genoa. Despite all promises of assistance, the Genoese army remained Liguria-bound for some time, as it was difficult to negotiate travel arrangements through the patchwork of Italy, and the transport fleet wasn't large enough to properly handle it. After some time, though, Larrea was able to legally lead troops into central Italy, and actually participate in the fighting.
It was in the middle of a pitched battle in Perugia that Marcellino realized he knew absolutely nothing about war and began to panic.
Luckily, before word could spread, some competent lieutenants cut off a few Florentine limbs; Marcellino now had a minor military victory to his name.
Despite being in a war, Genoa still seemed like an islet of stability in the Italian peninsula, as its neighbors conspired to murder each other. After some time, the army marched down to Naples and prepared for a siege. Larrea was okay with this, and wandered back to Genoa to luxuriate in his newly found wealth. In his wisdom, he'd managed to forget about the Golden Horde.
"Are they done razing Naples yet?" he asked his advisers every day; they claimed that in fact the army had not.
Then, on the 11th of July, Marcellino heard that the army had been forced to retreat from Naples by a large army of Neopolitan mercenaries; they limped home rather dejected and apparently angry at Marcellino for not leading them to victory.
"Send the Neapolitans a check for their troubles and tell them the war is over. It will free our hand to do better things," said another faceless adviser to Larrea.
"Fine, whatever." Larrea did a double take after saying this.
"I'm also having you killed."
Naples would consider this a small victory, one that could have been rendered sweeter by actually attempting to influence the pope in some way. Marcellino would consider this adviser's death a small vice at best.
"Now can we invade the lands of the Golden Horde?" Larrea asked after the transaction had been finalized. He received another "no" from the council for similar reasons that Prospero had given him the first time he'd asked.
It was 1359, and the Doge decided (perhaps inaccurately) that Genoa was bursting at the seams.
Marcellino finally became aware that work could be done to strengthen the Genoese colonies.
He sent troops to Kaffa to keep an eye on the locals, who were suspected to be plotting against the Republic at all times due to minor religious differences. Besides this, life after the petty war with Naples remained uneventful throughout 1359, as the riches granted to doges dulled Larrea's senses and made him otherwise susceptible to laziness. Luckily, the position of "Doge" was traditionally for life, otherwise Larrea may have been displaced by a more vigorous, youthful politician with the sense to call for an election.
After some time, it became apparent that the Golden Horde was not doing very well; it was suffering quite immensely from the aggression of its neighbors and the locals were beginning to look increasingly rebellious and uninterested in Genghisid domination. Marcellino was about to force the council to order an invasion, but an unfortunate threat to Liguria momentarily kept his wrath in check.
Several thousand rowdy Savoyards decided to lay siege to Liguria, necessitating the redeployment of the entire Genoese army to disperse them. Given the slow speed of travel in the 1360s, it was almost a year between the Savoyard brigand scandal and the return of the Genoese army to Kaffa.
After that, Larrea was quick to stab the distracted and overextended Horde.
In Moscow, the local Rurikoviches, perhaps sensing that they were in an AAR that would (hopefully) result in their incorporation into Genoese land decided suddenly that they did not want to conquer back their lands and begged the Horde for peace. The Horde was all too willing to accept.
To raise funds for the war, Genoa sold some of its vestigial titles of nobility to nobles in northern Italy, who were all too willing to grab them. The problem with this was that funds were not in any way an issue for Larrea - instead, manpower presented a far greater bottleneck to his goal. On the plus side, this meant the war would most likely be profitable no matter what; some of these profits were funneled into Genoa's military interests, such as the funding of armories in Liguria and Corsica.
Some time filled with horde-like looting and pillaging later, the Genoese army managed to take over the main Horde fortress in Cherson. At this, the Horde mysteriously caved. There were rumors of a succession crisis, but it seemed that all the Horde wanted was to be left alone, possibly sans Cherson to recover from years of border hostility.
Larrea was all too willing to allow this.
It had been an exceptionally profitable war for the Genoese - not only had they gained territory, but they'd gained respect from their neighbors, and a few war subsidies from nearby kingdoms... in some cases, more than the kingdoms were capable of sustaining.
When Marcellino got back from the glorious campaign in the land of the Tartars, he was greeted with a letter from Galeazzo of the house of Visconti, the current duke of Milan. It informed him, in elegantly printed (if somewhat ungrammatical) Latin that Milan desperately needed help subduing the evil Pisans-
"What the FOIX is a Pisan?" Marcellino shouted at nobody. Somewhere in southern France, a noble sneezed.
Everybody welcome back Marcellino Larrea, who's making a guest appearance after his supporting role on Nostalgia Freaks! Marcellino is an 8/3/3 ruler, in contrast to the "default" 1356 ruler, who I believe is 8/7/4. A suitable price to pay for a character change, I suppoose, if one that makes things harder.
As is my usual standard, this AAR will update at least once a week barring severe impediments to my ability to play EU3 and write about it.
