I did try posting to the CK2Plus bug report forum. Hopefully we can figure something out, or this might be a one-chapter AAR.
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The Eastern Vikings - Baltic Megacampaign Part 1
- Thread starter RedTemplar
- Start date
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I hope you can get the bugs cleared up. This is a very wacky world and I'd love to see it's future.
Bad luck on the Aztec invasion, well for Western Europe anyways, I hope you're better suited to defend against the Mongols.
Bad luck on the Aztec invasion, well for Western Europe anyways, I hope you're better suited to defend against the Mongols.
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What else happened in between the two conversions besides the Byzplosion? I'm not sure that the Byzplosion would cause a crash. By that logic, there would have been crashes when the HRE was absorbed into Byzantium or when Byzantium subsequently lost the HRE territories. Are there error logs you can check?
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I believe it creates a dump file each time it crashed, since I have them corresponding to the times the program died. Don't know how to read them, though. Comes up as jibberish in notepad.
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For the gibberish, have you tried opening the file in another text editor (notepad++, excel, etc) or using a different encoding (in some text editors you'll get an option to change which encoding you use, like UTF-8 or ISO-1889 or something)? And did you remove all previous mods generated by the converter? That might work.
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Yeah, I tried notepad++ and it was still gibberish. However, I did just try it now in 1016 AD and it succeeded... I'm wondering if there was a problematic character that had to die? I'm cautiously optimistic, will test some more.
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The Aztecs probably won't last all the way to conversion, just due to how early they've shown up, but considering they have basically no challenge in Eastern Europe, I can see their culture and maybe even their faith maintaining a presence in Europe long after they're gone.
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Clearly the Aztecs have purged the pesky cause of your conversion troubles. All hail our feathered overlords!
First the Black Plague shows up incredibly early and now we have the Sunset Invasion right at the turn of the millennium. I certainly hope the next surprise is the Mongols to complete this perfect trifecta of chaos.
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Kosk's Trials
1010 - 1015 AD
The Eastern Campaign1010 - 1015 AD
For much of its history, Estonia's worst enemy was within. The civil wars and uprisings that brought the kingdom to a half for over a half-century stunted the growth of an already powerful kingdom, preventing it from becoming an even greater empire. But with the electoral reforms implemented by Ohevald, the often-fractured kingdom was whole once again and under the direction of Kosk, who had already begun campaigning against Kiev and Sweden. As the King of Estonia and Tietaja of the Suomenusko Church, Kosk enjoyed considerable power and leverage; two things he would need in great quantities during his reign. While none of Estonia's immediate neighbors could match it in power, a new enemy was soon to arrive that could.
In 1010 AD, word reached the Baltic of a dread Mongol horde riding from the Far East, whose horsemen were unmatched in speed and skill by any known people. Under the leadership of their Khagan, Temujin, these horse warriors flooded into the Eastern Steppe and overtook the High Chiefdom of Otuken, expanding out to the base of the Altai Mountains and routing the army of the feudal Khazars & Ughurs who had settled there. Temujin was not easily satisfied, however, and it was not long before he continued to expand westward, setting his sites on the last remaining nation of nomadic horse lords: the Sandilids.
The Sandilids controlled a wide stretch of the Steppes and had a powerful army that had, at one time, posed a stern challenge for the soldiers of Estonia. Proud and unwilling to bow to an invader from the east, the Sandilid hordes rode out to meet the Mongols in a massive open-field battle that stretched across hundreds of miles of chilly plains. But despite their skill, the Sandilids were outmatched in both horsemanship, marksmanship, and numbers. It was a short campaign, and soon Temujin had subdued the Sandilids, capturing all of their territory and stretching his borders out to the Ural Mountains -- and the border of Estonia.
When he learned that the Mongols had reached the Ural Mountains, Kosk knew that a war with Temujin was inevitable. The Mongol horde wanted conquest, and with much of the Steppe under its control, it only had two meaningful directions to turn: south through Zhetsyu and into the Middle East, or west through Estonia and into Europe. Knowing that his kingdom would make an appealing target both for wealth and prestige, Kosk quickly began drilling his soldiers to prepare them to face the Mongol threat, calling on his vassals as well as the two religious orders who served him as Tietaja to prepare their men for battle. Then, in 1013 AD, Temujin made his move.
The Battle of River's Edge
Kosk was well aware that Temujin, with his vast army of mobile horse archers, would have the advantage in any open-field battle. The Estonian method of waging war was built on infantry, with a mixture of light skirmishing troops and heavy close-combat troops only sparingly supported by archers and cavalry. Facing an army like Temujin's, they would be encircled and shot down from all sides, unable to match the speed of their mounted opponents, leading to a bloody rout. In an effort to force the Mongols to fight on less favorable terms, Kosk conceded the eastern border and allowed Temujin to overrun a large stretch of Estonian territory on the way to the interior. He focused his defense around Veliky Ustug, where three small rivers converged from Syrj, Zyriane, and Hylnov. He broke his army, well over 20,000 strong, into three units with the goal of drawing the Mongols into a battle where the rivers could be used to limit their mobility.
When the Mongols came, they attempted to march around past the river intersection through Hylnov, where the center of the Estonian formation was positioned. They attacked swiftly, and the Estonians stationed there began to inch back toward the river, keeping in close formations to defend with their shields against the hailstorm of Mongol arrows assaulting them. As they moved back, the two flanks closed in -- when they reached the river, another unit crossed the cold waters to join them, as the water prevented the horsemen from riding around behind them. Then, a week later, another 6,000 men marched up from the Volga, attacking the Mongols from behind. Faced with the river on one side and a wall of shields and spears on the others, the Mongols were forced into a close-quarters battle that forced them out of their original strategy. For weeks, the two armies fought in a bloody battle near the riverside, but eventually one of the Mongol flanks collapsed, allowing the Estonians to maneuver around them and entrap them from all sides. A great army of over 20,000 Mongols was defeated in Hylnov, at what was referred to as the Battle of River's Edge.
The Battle of River's edge marked the first time that a Mongol army had been defeated in the field. With the advantage of rivers and woods, the Estonians had managed to kill thousands of Mongol warriors and pushed their army back, sending it fleeing out into the Steppes.
The Numberless Horde
But Temujin did not have an army -- he had a horde. Even though several small neighboring territories joined with Kosk to help repel the invasion, the defeat of one Mongol unit brought the arrival of another. The Estonians were weary and fatigued after one exhausting battle, and as they attempted to regroup at the intersection of rivers in Veliky Ustug, a second Mongol attack swept through and assailed them. The Estonians and their allies had the benefit of their chosen terrain, but with tired soldiers outnumbered substantially by fresh horsemen, the defenders were beaten back. After attaining his greatest victory, Kosk was forced to run back to Saaremaa as the Mongol Horde swept over his kingdom.
Temujin continued his campaign westward, finally coming to a stop in the winter of 1015 AD. In a span of just two years, Temujin had seized the Steppes from Estonia and slashed the expansive kingdom by over one third. It was following this victory over Estonia that Temujin declared himself the greatest of all Khans -- Genghis Khan, as his followers and enemies came to call him.
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So it was the Mongols, and Estonia was right in their path. Ouch.
Hopefully now they will find other avenues.
Hopefully now they will find other avenues.
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That all depends on which direction he goes. If he keeps trying to press further into my territory, becoming a vassal could be smart. Or maybe he'll turn south. Either way, things are gonna be rocky in the Baltic.
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Well at least you have the option of becoming a Mongol vassal if things go poorly. That sure beats getting your heart ripped out by the Aztecs.
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Ouch, Mongols and Aztecs right after the turn of the millenium, that is bad timing.
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Well, you've got a challenge now. Thankfully you're not also having to deal with the Aztecs as well as the Mongols.
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At least Genghis has borders with more targets now, some cold comfort.
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Damn, i forget to check this for a few days and the Aztecs AND the Mongols both come! Let's just hope you can beat them back, at this point, soon you may be the last defender of europe. Prepare for war! Ukko Vult!
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