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Brandenburg III

A Smooth Operator
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Jun 22, 2007
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Brandenburg III: 11 March 2014 Tinypic, the site I used to upload the pictures below, has disabled or changed the pictures I uploaded. Due to this problem, I had to remove 4 pictures from this AAR.

bevbk.jpg




20p6721.jpg


Chapter 1: Footholds

Chapter 2: The East Grows Strong

Chapter 3: Of Mice and Men

Chapter 4: A Century Ends

Year 1100 Maps

Chapter 5: Sins of the Father

Chapter 6:
Turning East, Facing West

Chapter 7: The Mess of Eberhard I

Chapter 8: The Regency

Chapter 9: Sigfried's Trials

Chapter 10: Loss

Chapter 11: Saved By the Light

Chapter 12: Against the World

Chapter 13: From the Grave

Year 1150 Maps

Chapter 14:
Securing the Region

Chapter 15: Breaking Free

Chapter 16: The Austrian War

Chapter 17: A Transition of Power

Chapter 18: The Fear in Poland

Chapter 19: Getting Through the Night

Chapter 20: Berengar and the Austrians


 
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My real introduction:

Its been months since my last - and first - CK AAR and I wanted to try something again. Rather than go through the motions of another gameplay - as I feel I understand the basics - I’m importing an idea I had for an EU3 AAR... except I’m turning it into a mega-campaign.

I’ve always tried getting in on mega-campaigns from the start but they all are either put on hold or become abandoned. I know there have been one or two that have been completed but for the most part mega-campaigns seem to have the highest mortality rate of all AAR types. Here’s hoping this one goes all the way.

Rules:

CK


I cannot become anything larger than a Duchy unless I accidentally inherit a title.

I can’t occupy more than ten provinces. If I happen to occupy eleven provinces or more, as I am sure will happen, I must give away a Duchy/King title and as many provinces as needed until I return to ten provinces. If I don’t have a Duchy/King title, then as soon as I acquire one, I must enact this rule. I am not allowed to exploit this rule.

I’ll be playing CK/DV on very hard difficulty and normal aggressiveness. Also, I’m using Veldmaarschalk’s mod.

Chances are I’ll be using the CK - EU3 converter but if it doesn’t take for whatever reason, I’ll look into modding the EU3 version myself when the time comes.

I’ll try to role play the leaders. I never played this way before so I’m sure it’ll be interesting for the both of us.
 
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Well, I'm certainly watching intently.
If you don't go to the end of this I will personally murder you.
:D

Am I liked by you enough that were I to offer to write a guest chapter at some point in the future it would not be an entirely futile effort?
 
Oh well, if it's going to be a mega-campaign, I'm in. As you know I'm not a huge fan of CK (I still think it's a very well executed excuse for grown-ups to keep playing with dolls :p), but I'm sure you'll make it interesting.

Am I liked by you enough that were I to offer to write a guest chapter at some point in the future it would not be an entirely futile effort?

You called him beautiful person, that must give you quite a few points. And if you are from Devon, that's plus points too! ;)
 
C’est Moi: If I only allowed people I like, there wouldn't be many I'd allow. ;)

When I lay out a few battle posts and the setup is shown, I’ll send the details of the people’s stats, maps, etc.

aldriq: What’s wrong with playing with dolls? In my defense, my favorite part is converting heathen provinces to my culture/religion. :cool:

Judas Maccabeus: Ah, really... Usually if something was born before I was or if it didn’t mention megacampaign in the title or the first post, I passed on it. A megacampaign being a narrative is another way to turn me off. CK narratives are so overdone I automatically fall asleep as soon as I find out I’m reading one. :p

But now that I see yours is a history book I’ll probably start reading sometime although it’ll take me a while to catch up. I’m a very slow online reader and I only comment after I’ve caught up so it might be a while. :)

Enewald: Several years? Let’s just hope it goes until its desired end. :cool: As long as I make it alive out of the CK world (I always find myself getting annexed one way or another) I ought to live until the beginning of HOI2.

To all: It looks like an update may be out this weekend sometime. If the first post isn’t out this weekend, it ought to be out by Wednesday at the latest with following updates being about 7 days apart.
 
To all: I’ve come to find that its very hard to find old terrain maps before the creation of massive cities in some of these places which is why you don’t see trees nor a very accurate depiction of the rivers or hills. But as we advance forward in time there will be more substance to the map. Think of it as poor maps = old, better maps = modern. As I progress through games and time, my maps will become more accurate and detailed but be mindful that my abilities in paint-like programs is very weak.

As for the battles. Sieges of forts will become its own post at some point although I can’t say when. Perhaps when there’s a big war, or, if that never happens, it’ll definitely start in EU3.

While writing the battle I take into account character traits, army makeup, total army makeup, what they’re up against, total casualties (I’m writing down every detail) among anything else that happens in the field. In larger campaigns, individual battles will likely affect one another and will become more epic. However, because this war really was only one battle, its self-explanatory and a little plain especially in the “Perspective” areas.

For those of you who have expressed interest to write something, now is your chance to rethink that option if you like since this project is nothing like anything I’ve created before. What is listed in bold must stay should you choose to write something and a map (it doesn’t matter if its good or bad) must be provided since my interpretation of your words may be wrong. For smaller battles it isn’t needed but it helps break up the text... so if you keep your report short, don’t worry about a map unless you want to draw one. I really don’t want any pictures other than a map of some sort. So, after all that, if you’re still interested, state so in a pm and I’ll send you a battle and its stats. If you want a specific timeframe, be sure to mention it; be mindful that I haven’t played too far in and I may not have reached the date you want. Anyway, its probably best to wait until my last post so you can better see the outlay of the war and characters. Most of all don’t worry, it isn’t nearly as complicated as I’m making it out to be. There’s a lot of freedom here, the only limitations coming from the few I set and those the game has imposed.

As for tactics, CK is my weakest point but my military knowledge does advance through time meaning I know more about WWII tactics than I do about what went on in 1066. Expect many factual errors at least until somewhere in the middle of EU3.
 
I usually just find someplace where the modern geography can be reasonably worked around to make it look like a place at the time period would look; if it's not exactly what that place looked like in 1100 / 1500 / whatever, that's not a huge deal, so long as it looks about right. :)

Not that your current job is anything less than very good, of course. :D
 
Ah, 11th century military tactics are easy to understand. Just charge with the middle and maybe consider flanking with the cavalry if possible. And fight gloriously and as bloodily as possible. :D
 
Judas Maccabeus: I have a basic working knowledge of what everything looks like but I always prefer solid foundations. After looking into it, its clear that I won’t be able to attain the accuracy I wanted but due to these battles being between 600 - 900 years old, I can just as well use that as an excuse. :cool: Thanks for the tip too, I’ll probably shove off a few miles to whichever direction to get away from the City Lights.

Enewald: Ah, as I thought. Common sense tactics and good old fashioned blood brawls. :)

aldriq: Easier. :cool: The trouble is getting high enough prestige so you can make a claim (like a core in EU3) because without a claim, you can’t DoW same-religion character title holders. The better the title (like Duke or King) the more prestige. There are other ways to snag a claim for eventual DoW, but for me, this will probably be the most common way.

To all: After writing a few reports for future releases I can’t help but feel redundancy is becoming a major issue. When I started this style I figured I’d be able to think of something to usher it along since I’m best at coming up with new ideas. But I can’t keep things fresh. What I’m going to do is create a proper history book type of megacampaign. I’ll rewrite my last post within the next few days and probably chop the Preface on the second post.

For those who love knowing what’s going on in the character’s lives and such, this still isn’t going to be that kind of AAR. You may find some insight into the advisors and the Duke, but beyond that, don’t look for any mention of sons and daughters not immediately related to the ruler. The history book will be more focused on government, those who head it, those who inherit it, wars, alliances and things of that nature. Basically put, you’ll never know if some strange kid is afraid of the dark. :cool:
 
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Okay all. Here’s what’s going on. I ought to have an update out sometime within the next 36 hours or so depending on a few things. I’ve begun rewriting the AAR from the 1091 date and will continue in the history book style using a type I used with my American AAR. The reason I post here and now is because I want to know what looks best to you. I have three versions of the size for my pictures here and need to know if you can read them and what picture you prefer (the only difference is the point size of the writing.)

Bear in mind the above is a rough draft and its just slapped together (final product will be much better), I haven’t checked for mistakes of any kind much less spelling. If I receive zero feedback, I’ll likely go with the first picture and run with it. This is the style I will be using although the books and font ought to change with the other games.

As a final note, would I be able to make the book wider? I don’t want to resize it on the website because the writing may become - even more - blurred. So let me know if I can make it wider and which pic you can read/prefer.

Edit: Those pics are not the entire update. I only put in the first few paragraphs to show you how it'd look.
 
The first one is OK size-wise, but it's to faint to read comfortably. If you can somehow bold the font in 1 or 2 that would be fine, otherwise 3. I think you can make the book a bit wider, probably 100 pixels.
 
aldriq: Thanks :cool:

To all: Hopefully this doesn’t look too rushed ;) If there are size issues (and your monitor isn’t incredibly tiny) then be sure to say something. I won’t correct chapters already posted but I’ll consider resizing them for the future.

So this will be the basic structure of the AAR. I’m not sure how often I’ll update, it won’t be anymore than twice a week but it won’t be less than once a week. I’ll likely include more description - this offering only has a little over 1000 words - when I get caught up to where I decided to stop writing the Battle Only AAR. But don’t worry about that, I started taking very accurate notes around 1096 or so which means better writing, characters and a richer history.