Part V - The Volatile Era (1430-1445)
In the 1430's, our whole region can be accurately as well as metaphorically illustrated like this:
Some provinces change hands more than 3 times in 10 years. Georgia doubles in size, then halves again returning right where they were. Trebizond suffers a lot of enemy incursions and (sometimes successful) hostile sieges. Therefore, the volatile era.
Nevertheless, we seem to emerge kind of victorious and ever more
glorious!
Part of the trouble was a shipload of rebel scum, which had me constantly running around the country while I was also trying to keep an offensive going. All the hassle made me forget to make a whole lot of screenshots.
But this is surely compensated by the accomplished of a mission I put myself to quite a while ago. Yes, we finally took the lake that is no lake! At the end of this session, our horses can finally drink no water while we take no swim and take a sunbath at the nonexistent beach of Lake Van. So relaxing!
Well, on to business.
We start off with a nasty event. The nobles are demanding stuff because they think we're doing well financially. Well, we do have some money in the bank, but that's because I just took out a loan to pay for more regiments. I'm even planning to build an actual navy someday. All right, we pay the nobles.
The Golden Horde is getting some serious eduction in warfare from the Russians, which allows us to finish the Ottomans.
We convert some people and siege some others. I think this makes Bithynia our best province now.
The Ottomans haven't managed to get back on their feet. A tiny army is quickly destroyed and we get sieges going everywhere. Note how the Hungarians are crushing Serbia. We'll probably have a land border with Hungary soon then. They are big, scary and terribly advanced. Best to try and make friends, I think. Oh yes, we started Greekifying our province names! It confuses me to no end actually, but I decide to stick with it.
The Golden Horde is in shatters and peaces out with Georgia. Good, this eliminates any risk of their land forces getting to us. Sieges aren't progressing a whole lot with such small armies, and rebels are popping up in Anatolia.
Here we see the Timurids building up a big force in Sivas. And Georgia got a mission to annex Ak Koyunlu. Noooo, Van's mine!
Funny. Castille is doing poorly. I guess the New World will be all-Portuguese then. Less colonizers means a slower overall colonization rate, meaning we have a bigger chance to get to California first! So I'm happy with this.
Around this time, Georgia declares on Ak Koyunlu, dragging in Qara Koyunlu, the Timurids and a bunch of others. Wtf? I feel very bad about it but I decline. I'm busy! And I don't want them to have Van. I mean to re-ally them soon though.
They quickly subjugate northern Qara Koyunlu on their own. Whoa, that's unexpected.
Meanwhile, most of the Ottoman sieges have concluded, except for Edirne. Rebels are really running amok, and the recently defeated Qara Koyunlu decide to attack Armenia. Wait, what? That's not just unexpected, that's bizarre. We help this time
We now have two wars going on and we hire our first general while we have to divide our attention between rebels and the war in the east.
Edirne falls and we take what we can. The Ottomans are now reduced to Bursa (we want it, but it's the capital) and Albania (wasteland). I totally forgot about the ships I built, but we have 4 of them now!
The Golden Horde is in serious trouble, we make peace. Nothing there for us to gain! Notice that the tides have changed for Georgia. We're allies in war for the moment and we will get to them as soon as we cut through the rebels. Who are occupying their eastern provinces anyway? Is that Chagatai?
Why do they do this, instead of, I don't know, protecting their capital mayhaps?
Manuel IV bites the dust fighting an angry mob. Men armed with pitchforks, clubs and torches lift him off his horse and dance on him. His last words reportedly were "Aaargrrrtbrglksmrtghgtgrmph!". Odd, I didn't know he spoke Georgian.
Since the whole nation is geared towards the production of beautiful daughters and baby boys are often eaten for breakfast, the successor is from a rather distant part of the family tree. This is good as it breaks the line of idiot kings. Long live King David!
The coronation of king
David seems to be a good time to snap out of game stuff for a while and discuss the respective flags of our past and present neigbours Candar and Karaman.
.....................
Isn't that symbol a Star of David? But they're not Jewish, are they? One might be rather confused about the existence of Jewish states in 15th century Anatolia.
But no, it's not Jewish. The
beyliks of
Candaroğlu and
Karamanoğlu were proper Muslims.
The symbol we recognize as the Jewish Star of David is geometrically a
hexagram. It's origins aren't exactly clear and they are much debated, but in the
Abrahamic religions it is unanimously associated with David and Solomon. Both are held in high regard in Christianity, Judaism and Islam alike. The Quran names them Dawud and Suleiman, and they are wise prophets and kings. Well, then there's bunch of legends around all that, and in the end you find out that the symbol, at that time, was identified as the
Seal of Solomon (Suleiman)
Only after the rise of zionism (19th century onwards), WW2 and the establishment of Israel (1948) did it attain the status of a typically Jewish symbol.
One last factoid spree before we return to our beloved Trebizond. Did you know that the national Red Cross branches in Muslim countries use a
Red Crescent instead of a cross? And a
Red Star of David is used in Israel? Finally, Sri Lanka and India have tried to introduce a
Red Swastika. Weird, the rest of the world didn't like it at all.
Back to the game! It's april 1435 and Georgia is losing half of their recent conquests. Van too! Go go go!
A bunch of muslims invade while we keep on getting shitty events.
Ah, a good one at last. We pick manpower.
A year passes while battle rages back and forth. We're low on manpower and high on rebels. We win some, lose some, buy some people out... A whole lot, but let's combine the bad stuff into one picture shall we?
Sometimes we control the province of Van we covet so much, sometimes we don't. It still hasn't got a fort.
But in the end we turn out to be totally
victoglorious! We take Van and 100 ducats. We are at Van at last! Like I said, no fort, so we build the
Van Fortress
We're going to rename it to Vaspurkan, as that's what the Empire used to call it when it was last under her control (like eh, 400 years ago). However, if we expand any more to the east from here, we'll soon run out of Greekish names.
Now we're back to rebel flogging! Everyone gets back to peace for a while and we happily renew our alliance with Georgia. Oh, and we get a core on the Byzantines.
Hmmm. At least the Timurids can't declare war on us themselves now.
Now we have our hands free, solving the rebel problem is easy again. We attain some tech too.
Some while ago, Albania defected to the Byzantines, and I did not realize at the time that this meant that the Ottomans were down to one province. Exit Ottoman Empire. Even before they historically captured Constantinople! I think this gives the game timeline *some* credibility, because
if the Ottomans were to be stopped, early on would probably have been the best time. 1453 just never happened. Shame 1204 did. Oh, never mind that.
In 1440, we feel up to a new fight again. The list of allies is good for nothing, I think. Yet I forget that my naval power is still next to naught (1 galley, 4 cogs) and that I need to cross the Sea of Marmora to get to my European provinces. Hmm yeah. That's the third time I use the verb 'to forget' this update. Maybe I shouldn't be playing at 5am.
In the next year, we quickly conquer and annex Karaman, pay off a loan and ally with Greece ( who popped up in Kaffa some time ago ).
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