Longest War?

[Comradebot]

So, I just got done with the longest war I've personally participated in. Started off as a simple war to lower crown authority in the ERE (I'm Despot of Bulgaria, but was not the faction leader), and after our initial success it started to completely bog down.

It ended up taking 21 years before we could finally claim victory. Long enough that the "traitor" modifier vanished before the war was over, and at the top level I had over -100 opinion with some of my vassals for "levies raised". I guess after the risk of being labelled a traitor upon defeat went away I could've given up, but at that point... c'mon, gotta keep plugging away. Thankfully, the turning point came when some Seljuk vassals tried to holy war the ERE. They failed, but killed enough Byzantine troops and provided enough of a distraction for us to finally end the two decade deadlock.



So (and not counting intentionally letting a war go or bugs where the AI refuses to end a war, like hordes do sometimes), what's the longest war you've ever personally been a participant in?

 

[Lord Finnish]

At least a decade. There have been wars where I am a weak power but managed to destroy the armies of a larger realm and most of the war is just sieging insanely well fortified castles.

 

[aniuby]

In my opinion, it was fully the designers' intention to make wars into more drawn out events to which you'd have to commit for many years.

A weird thing about this game is that due to the fact that a single county has many holdings to defeat, conquering a OPM (without assaulting) often takes much longer than attacking a big blob. Let's say the HRE attacks Rome. After one year, he can siege down one holding while taking zero losses, but has only conquered 1/7 of Rome, not enough to force its owner to surrender. In contrast, if the HRE attacks France, blanket sieging (after crushing the enemy doomstacks) means that after one year's successful sieging he has earned 50% or more war score. Within two years, the enemy is forced to surrender. The massive losses attackers take when assaulting is designed to discourage the tactic, but it counterintuitively makes defeating a small power take much longer than defeating a large one.

Another thing in this game which makes wars so unnecessarily drawn out is the rapidity with which the defender's morale replenishes once the sieging army falls even a single man short of the defenders. There's only about less than a month's grace period before the defender's morale fully replenishes, even if they were just a sliver away from breaking. The random events which impact the size of the besieging army (Disease strikes invading army, Successful sally by the defender), and the fact that the game doesn't warn you if a siege is suddenly lifted, means that a moment of inattentiveness can undo a year or more of work. At least in EU3, garrisons that were being sieged, even ineffectively, never replenished troops or morale, and when left unbesieged the defender's morale only replenished to maximum over the course of several months.

The whole arduousness of sieging down multiple holdings is, in my view, what makes combat in CK2 extremely tedious and unfulfilling. Blob-on-blob wars are fun, but blob-on-OPM wars are a real test of patience. Worst of all are OPM vs OPM wars - ever had that feeling of rage when a bad event kills a score or so of your guys, but somehow completely resets your siege that you were mere weeks away from winning and forces you to start all over again and stand there like a idiot for over a year? That's the rage I feel. And heavens forfend if this happens after you've already hired mercenaries to help you out.

Maybe it was meant to be this way. But that certainly doesn't mean I have to like it.

 

[CurtisManning]

I once watched a war between the duke of Lombardy and the Doge of Pisa who was going for over 60 years. The Lombards had crushed every single Pisan army, besieged every single holding, except one baronny in Corsica. But Lombardy had no boats at all. The warscore was 99%. 91 Pisan soldiers were safely hiding in corsica, resistingand they would not be reached for 60 years. I was King of Sicily and duke of Tuscany, it was hilarious to watch.

 

[RustyTurban]

As Duke of Galloway and the Isles my war to take the Scottish throne lasted near 15 years because my biggest vassal revolted (Lothian) as I was about to win the war. About 6 years in, lots of back and forth seiging, raising and re-raising of levies later Scotland had been pretty much destroyed and I had a -40 levies raised penalty.

Kenneth IV 'The Tired' I call him.

 

[Panzerschiffe]

I was part of the scottish succession war for 17+years. I didn't want to lose prestige and I thought it would be a quick one without my intervention. I was busy uniting the british isles and they were still fighting after forming britannia...so I put a stop to that soon after. Wonder how long they would have gone if I hadn't decided to end their silly war.

 

[Frenz0rz]

I'm currently in a game where France has been in a civil war to lower crown authority for over 30 years, with no sign of it ending any time soon (warscore about 60% in favour of rebels). It hasn't been completely static either - allies have been gradually dragged in from both sides. It was looking like the vassals would lose when the (noticeably weaker than usual by c.1250) HRE got dragged in, but then French King died and a number of fresh vassals rebelled against his 2 year old son. Its actually quite fun to watch, particularly as the Duke of Flanders used the chaos to gain independence a few years back and the usual French splurge into northeastern Iberia has fractured into a multitude of independent Castillian and Catalan states.

 

[bmullins0118]

I had a game where france was in a civil war for 100+ years.

 

[unmerged(496122)]

My record is around 50 years when i played as the king of Lithuania. Deffended the king of Russ from a golden horde invasion and knowing i would be next as soon as he was gone I stalled it as mutch as possible. By 1300 i knew thay wouldent get ny more 20k stack reinforcements so then i finished them off and HWed them all the way back to mongolia

 

[NewbieOne]

The course of the game described by my first AAR was largely dictated by an attempted Mongol invasion of Genoa that took about 30 years to extinguish. After a while the fighting tended to be done by the caliph, who was the Mongol's coreligionist. It dragged on and on between 30 and 60%. But I think there might have been a longer war somewhere in the HRE.

 

[yezhanquan]

In my opinion, it was fully the designers' intention to make wars into more drawn out events to which you'd have to commit for many years.

A weird thing about this game is that due to the fact that a single county has many holdings to defeat, conquering a OPM (without assaulting) often takes much longer than attacking a big blob. Let's say the HRE attacks Rome. After one year, he can siege down one holding while taking zero losses, but has only conquered 1/7 of Rome, not enough to force its owner to surrender. In contrast, if the HRE attacks France, blanket sieging (after crushing the enemy doomstacks) means that after one year's successful sieging he has earned 50% or more war score. Within two years, the enemy is forced to surrender. The massive losses attackers take when assaulting is designed to discourage the tactic, but it counterintuitively makes defeating a small power take much longer than defeating a large one.

Another thing in this game which makes wars so unnecessarily drawn out is the rapidity with which the defender's morale replenishes once the sieging army falls even a single man short of the defenders. There's only about less than a month's grace period before the defender's morale fully replenishes, even if they were just a sliver away from breaking. The random events which impact the size of the besieging army (Disease strikes invading army, Successful sally by the defender), and the fact that the game doesn't warn you if a siege is suddenly lifted, means that a moment of inattentiveness can undo a year or more of work. At least in EU3, garrisons that were being sieged, even ineffectively, never replenished troops or morale, and when left unbesieged the defender's morale only replenished to maximum over the course of several months.

The whole arduousness of sieging down multiple holdings is, in my view, what makes combat in CK2 extremely tedious and unfulfilling. Blob-on-blob wars are fun, but blob-on-OPM wars are a real test of patience. Worst of all are OPM vs OPM wars - ever had that feeling of rage when a bad event kills a score or so of your guys, but somehow completely resets your siege that you were mere weeks away from winning and forces you to start all over again and stand there like a idiot for over a year? That's the rage I feel. And heavens forfend if this happens after you've already hired mercenaries to help you out.

Maybe it was meant to be this way. But that certainly doesn't mean I have to like it.

Sieging vs long-drawn out war. I wonder which one Mr. Sun condemned more. I always assault. Higher casualties, no doubt, but let's just get it done with.

 

[tnick0225]

I just recovered from a tragic incident. My King of Bavaria died while hunting, and had elective succession, well my only boy was only a few weeks old, so no one supported him. A Duke from another house won the throne, and my boy became a duke instead of a King.

Well anyway when he was six the regent decided we had enough money saved up to start a war. And the war for the Bavarian throne would go on and on and on for a almost 10 years. In fact my little son was crowned King just weeks after coming of age so it was really perfect timing.

But I've seen in previous playthroughs a Crusade take 12 to 15 years, and a civil war in the HRE go back and forth for almost 20. Some wars are just nasty and downright horrid. Its those kind of wars that can bring a realm to its knees if your not careful.

 

[TheLionHeart]

50 years...fifty long years of defending against the Sunni Jihad for Galicia as a slightly unified Castile. Just to have a Shia Jihad called a month after, it's safe to say that was the end.

 

[Ithvan]

My invasion of the HRE took 19 years to pull off, with every holding being taken. It's a miracle there were still people left there when I was finished.

 

[Hastings1066]

My Invasion of Denmark as Sweden took 20 years, due to each province having so many holdings in it, espicially the capital. It would have ended quicker, but I sent my vassal levies home at one point due to them begining to hate me for having them raised for so long, including the wars previous.

As soon as the war ended with my complete victory, my charecter, King Erik IV the Conquerer, having personally lead his army in battle for 20 years, died the following day of natural causes. I guess the thought of getting back to his young, attractive wife was too much for his old heart.

 

[Pinstar]

While not a direct participant, as the kingdom of Aquitaine, I was able to nibble 6 counties off of France with 6 seperate dejure wars over 30 years without breaking truces. It helped that half the land was held by the rebelling faction and the other half by france proper, and they each carried separate truce timers.

 

[unmerged(364953)]

Well the longest war I had was right around 50 years, It was a war with the Golden Horde, when I was Finland, I controled the Baltic states, Findland, Sweden and Norway. The Golden Horde slammed my forces with their normal doomstacks, taking pretty much everything they hit over with. I was able to get all my forces unifed together on Gotland. I had one stack of at around 40k which was nothing compared to their doomstacks From here I would raid the counties away from the doomstacks and take it, then have it taken back by the Horde, and when they would break off smaller forces, I would take out the smaller units from the horde, and avoid a major battle, cause I knew I would lose. The Golden Horde only had 6 ships so the most they could attack gotland with was like 500 men, which at points they did constantly to only have the 500 men whipped out. In time they even called in Illkhate actually joined the war on the same side as the Golden Horde. They would take over parts of sweeden and then after a bit, leave the war, causing the areas they took over to revert back to my control. At some point, I managed to sneak around their forces and take the Golden Horde lands in Poland with a small force. The Golden Horde never tried to retake this and it kept the warscore basically at 0, after the highest it got was like 92 percent. After 50 years, I had managed to pick off enough of their split off forces and retook enough to give me enough to get a white peace with them.

Overall in the time the war took place, the Ilkhanate joined and exited twice, I had three different kings rule, the Golden Horde had a least 5 or 6 rulers. Ilkhanate defeated two Jihads, and Riga changed hands at least a half dozen times

 

[Ryasyr]

In my Recent Game as the last male Survivor of Charlemagne (karling/Karlinginan) I took part in a 132 year war for the kingdom of Lothrangia. i had a small claim through marriage, and Iwas largely independent since the Sunni had won an invasion (SUPRISE!) for Aquitaine, in which i took my chances and went with a few others to get away from fance before the Muslims got to me. My child had inherited the Claim on The kingdom (it made itself independent when the HRE died after the first and second independence revolts) So in I went, his started the longest war ive ever had, where every major Power was in on trying to take the Kingdom at some point. First it was just me and Lothrangia, then the HRE re declared for De Jure lands, which made Once Enemy's friends, then The Muslims came in, then My marriages paid off, All the while 2 generations of karlings Inherited the claim to the Kingdom of Lothrangia Thus keeping the war straong. I finally won after a failed Invasion by a french Emirate and proceeded to Kick the Muslims out of Aquitaine

 

[nodnarb]

In a game as one of the Spanish kingdoms, Mauritania had been involved in a constant series of civil wars for over a century. Each time a civil war broke out I jumped on the chance to Holy War some Iberian Muslims. Finally I noticed that one of those civil wars had been going on for decades. It didn't end until I got involved by taking some Mauritanian territory, disturbing the balance of power that had lasted for so long. The war took over 50 years.

 

[Ghost of Winter]

The longest I've been involved in was 12 years. After "uniting" the Spanish kingdoms I got the go ahead from the pope to invade France. The longest I've witnessed was a war between the count of Tours and the Duke of Anjou that lasted for over twenty.