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Saintz408

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Jan 11, 2015
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  • Crusader Kings II: Legacy of Rome
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Yo,


This is my first After Action Report for Crusader Kings II, following my most recent campaign that was so interesting I thought to myself it would be a shame if I didn't attempt to share it. Expect updates every Thursday. The following mods I am running (ONLY) for this campaign were Patrum Scuta and Vanilla: Cultural Melting Pots | Empires of Conquest to add flavour to the overall story. Since this is my first attempt at an AAR, if you guys have pointers please feel free to share.


Future reference - this is NOT an Ironman run.






King Hásteinn 'Ironheart' Vásinkyr
Jarl of Namsborg: 867-873
King of Miklagårdriki: 873-885

Head and Founder of the
Vásinkyr Dynasty: 863-885

Lived (est.): 823-885

Hasteinn Vasingr.jpg


Chapter One: The Conquest of Constantinople (869-873)
Throughout the bloody yet relatively short Viking Age, the warriors, traders, seafarers, pirates, and adventurers from Scandinavia would influence the fates of more regions than any other culture before the Age of Discovery. One such region was the Balkans where the ambitions of one particular Viking Sea King would bring about the cataclysmic end to the eastern remnants of the old Roman Empire and establish one of the greatest Viking dynasties in history.

Despite the formidable legacy that Hásteinn would leave behind upon the civilized world, little is known about his early phases of life. He first appears in historical records when he and Björn Ironside, the legendary Viking King of Sweden, jointly led a fleet of sixty longships on an expedition that would take them into the Mediterranean. They would sack the Ummayad city of Algeciras, then sail their ships into the Rhône river where they 861, then in spring they raided and sacked churches, towns, castles, and cities along the whole of the Italian peninsula. Once they arrived in Sicily, Hásteinn led his men to raid the environs of Syracuse, which was under the protection of the Byzantine Empire. A local contingent of Byzantines was sent out but was soundly crushed by Hásteinn's Vikings, who took several officers prisoner but made no effort to move on the city itself since it had a sizable population and decent fortifications. Upon returning to his encampment, the aspiring Viking warlord took a liking to one of the greeks - Anastasios Tyropoulis - who surprisingly knew how to speak the Norse language, and immediately they developed a rapport.

After a week without a word from the city to pay their ransom, Hásteinn didn't know what exactly to do with them. His hirdman, Ingemar Hávi, suggested sacrificing them for safe travels across the Mediterranean. Yet Hásteinn had found a new friendship in this young Greek officer, a kindred spirit so to speak. So he gave the Greeks an opportunity to either join him and earn riches beyond their comprehension, or return to Syracuse and die forgotten and penniless. All but one chose the latter; Anastasios Tyropoulis, a Greek and Orthodox Christian and Byzantine Commander of Syracuse, deserted his post and sailed with Hásteinn back to the Loire. Nobody could know then that this most unlikely of friendships would send ripples across the Mediterranean world that are still felt to this very day.

Sacking.jpg

Ingemar Hávi at the sacking of Le Mans (866)

On his way back to the Loire, Hásteinn and Björn Ironside would part ways with their prestige at an all-time high after a very successful raid that led to wealth neither could have anticipated. Upon settling back in Brittany, Hásteinn would take an interest in the growing conflict between King Salomon of Brittany and King Charles the Bald of West Frankia. In 866, as part of a Viking-Breton alliance, Hásteinn led an army into Anjou and Maine, where he sacked Le Mans and lured the Frankish forces under Robert the Strong to a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Brissarthe, destroying the only army within a hundred miles that could stop him from marching on Orléans. This quickly prompted peach talks with Charles and by the spring of 867, the King of West Francia recognized Salomon as King of Brittany and Hásteinn as the Duke of Upper Britanny.

With his base of power secure in Britanny and as the Great Heathen Army descended upon the islands of Britain and Ireland, Hásteinn had begun to assemble a great army of his own. Although he lamented not participating in the glories offered in Britain, he had a far more ambitious prize he meant to take for himself - the very heart of the Eastern Roman Empire.


Screenshot (307).png

In the late Ninth Century, the Eastern Roman Empire was undergoing a period of revival. The ascension of Basil I of the Makedonian Dynasty and the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire had seen the eastern remnants of Rome become Europe's most dominant military power. Constantinople’s location on the shores of the Bosporus strait, which divided Europe from Asia, allowed it to become a prosperous crossroads of trade, the largest city in Europe, and the richest city in the world. After repelling the Tunisian assault for Syracuse and enforcing peace in his Sicilian holdings, Emperor Basil I had won the greater support of Byzantium's nobility and secured a marriage alliance with King Boris I of Bulgaria, who was reeling after losing the Pannonian Basin to the Magyars in 868. Basil would retain a powerful suzerainty over the Serbians of Epirus, which proved its worth when the Roman Emperor continued hostilities with the Paulicians and Muslims on Byzantium's eastern frontier, leading a sizable force of 15,000 - supplemented by an additional 2,200 Serbian troops from Epirus.

However, everything changed when, in September of 869, the first Viking longships of Hásteinn's invasion fleet landed upon the isles of Euboeis and Chios. Anastasios, now a proven commander for the Viking invaders after his incursions with his benefactor in West Frankia, personally led the vanguard to his ancestral homeland of Euboeis, using his familial connections to quickly subdue the populace into submission, thus avoiding a sack and total massacre. However, the Greeks living on Chios faced the horrors of Ingemar Hávi - now a seasoned Viking commander who joined Hásteinn for glory's sake. Ingemar and his warriors raped, pillaged, and murdered the Greek islanders, resulting in what could only be described as ethnic cleansing. Of the initial 10,000 who lived there, barely 2,000 civilians remained, most of them women and children with few men spared the ax thanks solely to their high birth. Unfortunately, this would be the tragic first of many such massacres inflicted upon the Greeks.

Upon their arrival on 18 September, Anastasios and Ingemar quickly commandeered the local theme ships - equipped with greek fire - manning them with Scandinavian seafarers with Byzantine Greek sailors from Euboeis that knew how to handle greek fire. They quickly went about island hoping, seizing any Byzantine ships at anchor and burning any that attempted to escape the Viking longships. This allowed Hásteinn's fleet to enter the Aegean virtually unopposed and by the time Byzantium had finally realized what was happening, a Great Viking invasion of the heartland of the Roman Empire had begun. The Norse invaders quickly sailed through the Dardanelles Straits, making landfall and occupying the entire Thracian Chersonese within a handful of days before sweeping over Byzantine regions of Thrace and Adranopolis in a three-pronged attack, sacking and occupying over a dozen holdings by the end of October.

The Byzantine Navy, commanded by Admiral Constantinos Doukas, had been based out of Cyprus supporting Emperor Basil's campaign in Armenia Minor when word reached the Admiral of the Norse Invasion Fleet ravaging the Aegean Sea. Once the reports came inland about the Siege on Constantinople itself, Emperor Basil chose to send a detachment of 3,000 men with his Serbian contingent to relieve his capital while he sued for peace talks in the east. Meanwhile, King Boris of Bulgaria had assembled a 4,000-strong host to support Byzantium and marched into the Thracian region unopposed on their march to Constantinople. While the disparity in numbers was evident, all Basil could hope to do was stall the Norsemen until he could bring most of his army back to the capital.

Battle of Constantinople (871).jpg

Battle of Constantinople (871)

However, the battle itself was anything but a footnote in the Norse Conquest. After receiving reports from his sentries of the Bulgarian Coalition army, Hásteinn left a token force to continue the siege on the city while he re-deployed the bulk of his army in a formidable shield wall on high ground just outside the Theodocian Walls. When their armies initially clashed, both sides were roughly in terms of men. It wasn't until the arrival of Anastasios with an additional 4,000 men that the battle turned into a major victory for the Norsemen.

Shattered by the defeat, King Boris led what was left of his army back into Bulgaria proper to lick its wounds, while the Serbians and Byzantines that had been sent by Basil scattered. By the end of 871, Roman authority throughout Greece and the Aegean had disintegrated as the Norsemen continued their march south toward Thessaloniki. Admiral Constantinos led the Byzantine Navy against the Norse fleet at the Battle of Chios, where they were subsequently annihilated by the Vikings at sea.

From 872 to the end of the conflict, Emperor Basil would continue to be embroiled with his conflicts in the east, with every attempt to send the rampaging Norsemen back into the sea being met with defeat after defeat. By mid-September of 872, Hásteinn led his victorious army to the gates of Athens itself and found the city in a desolate state after being raided by the Berber pirates of Krete. After putting up the eagle banner of the Allfather above the ancient city's gates and resting for a week, an Imperial envoy came with terms from Basil himself, seceding all occupied territories to Hásteinn and recognizing him as 'King of Thessaloniki'.

By the 18th of May, 873, the war had been won and the Kingdom of Miklagårdriki had been founded.

Founding Miklagardriki.jpg
 

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Impressive. This will make for some ripples indeed.
 
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Welcome to AARland! Very, very interesting start! Two ways to increase readership: 1) Comment on other AARs 2) Link your AAR to your signature 3) Take my suggestions with a grain of salt as I am a first time writer. Good Luck
 
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That is an exciting opening move, and it'll be cool to see the Norse interacting more with the eastern Muslim world. I like the style of the write-up and look forward to more!
 
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