Lets Play From The Rear End of History We Shall Ride Forth

[Enoch]

Ooh, fantastic. I bought this game a few weeks back, but haven't gotten it up and running yet, as I've had to send the video card in my primary gaming machine back for replacement due to a fan that went all clicky on me. Teach me!

[Monte Carlo]

 

Rum is an empire/kingdom/whatever I really could get behind.

 

It needs some coke, ice and a slice of lime.

 

This looks a bit too Gaming-as-Excel-Spreadsheet for my plebian tastes.

[213374U]

I'm a sucker for Paradox LPs, your excellency. Will be following this one closely as you diplomatise the **** out of these infidels.

[Tigranes]

2. Inter-Regional Diplomacy

1102-1106

 

Hi, everyone. My name is Brian, and I'm a Beylerbey. I own the Obsidianite Beylerbeilerbeyler...uh, Beylerbeylik. As you all know, I've been diplomatising the nearby heathens to our happy fold, so that we might all be one happy beylerbeylik together.

And I still have no idea what the hell I am watching.

 

The tea-boy tells me that the nearby Ortokid Beylerbeylik has declared war on the Christian principality of Antiocheia. This is not good news. Antiocheia is tiny, and with the other Christian principalities gone, the Ortokids will be able to expand, and close off our diplomatic route to Asia Minor.

 

Sokman, which I hope isn't his birth-name, rules the slightly larger but largely poorer Ortokid Beylerbeylik. Clearly, it wouldn't do to let our competition beat us to potential assets. There's only one answer here, and that is...

 

Diplomacy, of course. One of our workers has a legal claim on these lands, and this gives us the diplomatic right to go in and diplomatise their butts thoroughly before the Ortokids get in on the act. If we can get in before the Ortokids, they won't be able to finish off their war, and we will secure the coastline.

 

Duke Bohemond responds by calling on his original homeland of Apulia to help. Sadly, Bohemond has forgotten the sixth rule of diplomacy: it only works up to a certain distance. Coincidentally, it's roughly the same distance an army can travel without half the men deserting.

 

We diplomatise the Bohemondians, one by one.

[Tigranes]

We lay siege to their castle, their men, and their typhoids.

 

A mayor asks for lower taxes, but I diplomatically rebuff his request. Mainly, I complimented him on his luxurious hair.

 

I also attempt some battlefield romance, but nothing ever comes of it. I guess truly cinematic storytelling will have to wait for the next generation.

Thank God.

 

Maybe it was the typhoid that put her off.

 

The Ortokids arrive a little too late; we are already sieging their provinces, and they won't be able to complete a takeover.

 

Meanwhile, I am finally blessed with a son. After much deliberation and rolling of dice, we decide to name him Feargus.

[Tigranes]

Feargus is born with a lisp. It's to the credit of our advanced medicinal technologies that we were able to detect it before he can speak.

 

Back in the battlefield, Bohemond appears to have passed away before we could go and pass him away. Unfortunately, the de jure heir was his original liege, the Duke of Apulia, with whom I am now in direct conflict. It looks like Bohemond had no son or other eligible heir. The beleaguered residents of Antiocheia duly respond by recolouring their entire principality. It's a pretty nice birthday gift for a seven year old brat.

 

Billy runs to his creepy old neighbour for help, in a desperate bid to prevent our inevitable diplomatisation. I'm not afraid of you, Roger.

 

This presents a problem. Although we now occupy all of Antiocheia, this amounts to only a fraction of Billy's back yard, and there's not much more we can do to force defeat. Fortunately, current laws of diplomacy dictate that the longer we occupy our claimed lands without interruption, the higher the warscore will go. Within a couple of years, we should be able to win the region.

 

Again?

Baby-making is pretty fun, I've found.

[Tigranes]

An army of devout Christian crusaders visit our beylerbeik, and ask for permission to pass through. Apparently they're on their way to Jerusalem, to participate in the crusade against filthy Muslim infidels. We extend the grace of Allah to them and provide safe passage, of course.

 

Wait, what? This is my reward for all my kind deeds?

Guess Allah doesn't do karma.

 

This is the bastard that did away my leg. To be fair, he seems to be a skilled warrior and a veteran of the first crusade.

He's also 69 years old.

A worthy foe, indeed.

 

Good to know I wasn't maimed anywhere important.

 

Come to think of it, I should probably stick to what I'm best at, and none of those things happen outside my bedroom.

[Tigranes]

My second child is a daughter. I know this because she already has longer hair than me.

 

Wait, what? Who are you? What's happening?

Guess you're being diplomatised against.

 

That's not fair! Look at all the land he has!

 

Look, I'm a bit busy now for all that family stuff, ilkay?

 

I assemble every able-bodied man in the beylerbeik on the Eastern frontier. The war for Antiocheia is still ongoing, but not much happening except for a few straggling Christians wandering around. I'd like to relieve myself of front-line duty, but apparently my crown authority is too low and I wouldn't accept my order to replace me as the leader.

[Tigranes]

1 month into the new war, the enemy has yet to appear, and everyone is angry they're missing Christmas. I try and tell them we don't celebrate Christmas, but they won't listen. I tell them to go smash some Antiocheians, just to keep them occupied.

 

Wait, guys, come back! Come back! The diplomats are here!

 

There's no way we can stand up to 9000 Mosulians; thankfully, we've built up a healthy reserve of cash and can hire some mercenaries for the cause. Let's just hope they can get here by the deadline...

 

Guess not.

 

Our second set of troops also are caught running away.

[Tigranes]

In light of the situation, we hire yet more mercenaries. We still have 106 gold, but this will drain quite quickly due to the increased monthly wage bill.

 

I guess we'll need to set some money aside for baby showers, too.

 

We gather a numerically superior force and bear down on the filthy Mosulians.

 

For some reason, we appear to have massed into one big chunk down the centre, only to be surrounded on the flanks by the distributed Mosulians.

 

This is not going well.

[Tigranes]

We re-mobilise the beylerbeik to join the surviving mercenaries, hoping to gradually wear down the Mosulian horde.

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Running out of money and men, we throw all we have into the Battle of Osrhoene. I'm hoping it is a great victory, because then all future children of the beylerbeik will need to learn how to spell Osrhoene.

 

It seems that my strategy of removing myself entirely from the front line has worked wonders.

[Tigranes]

I'm getting to be something of a specialist, really.

 

We disband the mercenaries to avoid bankruptcy, but the Mosul horde has been destroyed. Unfortunately, there's probably more where they came from. Perhaps at 80%, little BIlly will be more amenable to wrapping up our diplomatic transaction...

 

They let kids watch Monty Python over there? The depths to which Christians will sink!

 

Game keeps crashing so I am resorting to frequent autosaves, and the last week I've been interviewing about a hundred people. Hopefully a chunky update makes up for it.

[Gorth]

Yeah, a lot of great, fast-paced diplomacy going on between the baby making

[Gorgon]

looks complicated.

[Calax]

You certainly produce daughters at a good clip.