The Thanasiad [CKII LP] [NO 56k]

[The Vortex Empire]

What a strange period of Roman history, with Elder Gods and omelettes

[phred]

Omelettes yum! And the Necronomicon for a little light reading while you're enjoying it.

You seem to have thrashed everything this game has to throw at you. Time to port to EUIV?

[FaxModem1]

I rather liked the omelette story.

[Thanas]

Omelettes yum! And the Necronomicon for a little light reading while you're enjoying it.

You seem to have thrashed everything this game has to throw at you. Time to port to EUIV?

Not quite, I think I'll expand as much as possible into Mongol lands. Maybe even take france if it gets boring.

[Dominus Atheos]

You still have the Timurids, Aztecs, and Black Death to go through, too.

[Flagg]

Thanas, are the horribly frequent and annoying typos from Paradox or the mod you're using? I can believe either.

One small request, though: Can you show the size of the empire at the beginning (you usually do this) and the end (I don't think you've done this, but it's not a huge deal and I don't care enough to go look so if I'm wrong I'll apologize in advance) of each chapter, as well as post a comparison shot at the end of the chapter with the 2 sizes compared next to each other?

[Thanas]

I can do so after the next update.

[Tribble]

I think it'd be neat if you completely re-established the Roman Empire, including conquering France and England. Would it be difficult to ship a lot of troops across the channel?

[Flagg]

I can do so after the next update.

Sweet, thanks. I feel like it just would give us a better idea of how much bigger the Empire gets each chapter as well as where exactly many of the conflicts took place as I'm not exactly familiar with all of the ancient names of current countries, let alone those of Kingdoms long dead.

[Flagg]

I think it'd be neat if you completely re-established the Roman Empire, including conquering France and England. Would it be difficult to ship a lot of troops across the channel?

He should wait until the 16th century to try and take back Britain. Should probably set out from Spain with a massive fleet full of as much of your western empires armies as you can spare. I mean, what could go wrong?

[Thanas]

I think it'd be neat if you completely re-established the Roman Empire, including conquering France and England. Would it be difficult to ship a lot of troops across the channel?

I definitely don't have enough time left in the CKII timeframe to do so, that will have to wait until EUIV. I spent nearly a hundred years chasing Mongols. Without those years I could have reestablished the ancient border, but from an RP perspective it made more sense for the Empire to focus on the eastern threat first.

[LaCroix]

I'd have loved to know how insane the other acts would have been. "The Turnip Act" seems severely underrated...

[Thanas]

I'd have loved to know how insane the other acts would have been. "The Turnip Act" seems severely underrated...

Turnip act: Turnips are now the only currency in the kingdom
Pants act: Pants are forbidden
Hole in the wall act: IIRC it forbids complete walls.

[Thanas]

Gallienus the Mongol-slayer


This is us. I have to say we look pretty good after a shave. Probably all that nordic blood coming through (we definitely look more ancient Roman than Greek now, which is nice).


Our wife, a vendish (half western slav, half german inhabitants of Lübeck and Mecklenburg) Princess. She is awesome, an attractive genius with insane stats. Definitely hit the jackpot with this one. (and she also had a strong claim to the Vendish kingdom but we chose not to press it as we had enough land and conquering half of Poland in this timeframe would completely unbalance EUIV).

For focus we chose stewardship this time.

As we inherited a war against the insolent Khan of the Ilkhanate that was almost won already, it took just a few months for the barbarian to learn proper manners and address us in the correct fashion.



Our realm. (Roman sweden not shown)


In Germany, the Saxons had nearly completely taken over after the decline of the Karlings, who now only held parts of the southern kingdoms. Saxonia could field between 110-130k troops now, a testament to the richness of the German lands. (Seriously, in all Paradox games Germany completely goes off post 1200s and German lands become the richest per capita).

But we were not that interested in the west right now. For in the east, the last two existing muslim orders had their last two castles.


They died - like their religion - not with a bang, but with a whimper. Our Persian army of 20k smashed their combined 6k and took their castles by storm. The muslim orders ceased to exist, hanging around as a titular title passed among the very few sunnis left.

As to our focus:

"Classic Marianus".

...yeah.

Anyway, stewardship is a great focus if:
a) you got a large empire
b) you got a lot of income
Because the only real beneficial choice is always to pay for the damage yourself. Your vassals will love you then. Overall, I felt stewardship was a little worse than the family focus, which gives you great relationship benefits with your family members (great if as in this case they hold nearly all the kingdom titles). And it isn't a fun focus with interesting events (all events are of the variety described above), but it prevents rebellions among your vassals.

Speaking of vassals:

Our vassals continued their border wars against the Ilkhanate with little success.

Though they got better in making them bleed more.


Garum was now reintroduced. Clearly ancient Roman cuisine is making a comeback.
However, we slightly overate and fell ill.

"Let the varangians show you where you can shove that relic and call for a doctor."
(The church hated us but it is not like they matter now).

After we were healthy again, we apparently went on a walk through Roma.

"So wait, you just happened to miss the three dozen burly northmen standing around us carrying axes?"
We had the guard thrown into the dungeon. Clearly somebody so incompetent had great difficulty living on his own, so our assisted living home (dungeon) with the great care of our dungeon master was the right place for the idiot. Besides, if he would bully ordinary citizens buying apples he could well go and rot.

Meanwhile, remember the rich German lands? Well, some of our vassals noticed that they were disunited but very rich. I don't think I have to tell you what our vassals thought of that....

Ulm was incorporated into the realm by our vassal king of Lombardy.

Meanwhile, we decided that thanks to their great performance against the Mongols and due to their homelands being overrun by the Golden Horde...


the Alans and Pechenegs were to be given Guard status and were now permanent members of the Roman Army (in game I just kept them constantly hired and had them patrol Constantinople.)

Meanwhile, our genius hot wife decided to have some fun of her own:

Money can buy you happiness. And it can keep your spouse happy (who as mentioned above was really awesome and ensured a healthy line).

To replenish our coffers, we decided to attack the Ilkhanate again, this time taking the last part of the land route to India:

The Ilkhanate had bled so much in wars by our vassals that they only managed to assemble a decent army when we had already taken all the holdings. They promptly surrendered instead of attacking us again.



"So...you want us to pray to your holy relic when we are ill, but you yourself have fun having orgies and sodomizing the choir boys? DUNGEON".

As the Ilkhanate had not given us an opportunity to prove our mettle to our vassals, we looked for harder prey. Our vassal king of Bourgogne had a one-county de jure claim on a french county near Geneva.


We assembled the Spanish, Aquitanian, Bourgogne, Lombard and Sicilian Levies. The french theocracy in return assembled its own forces.


From Nantua 23.06.1273 - the french catastrophe by Cardinal in exile Charles of France, London 1284:
"...the battle of Nantua - or the death of roses, as it is called in the french fashion, took place on a bright sunny day. Scarcely we could make out the Roman armies approaching. We knew that they had collected vast hosts from their Spanish, French and Italian lands and as they came into view, we saw their red banners decorated with the various unit titles. To our relief, we did not see one golden eagle, which meant that our Lord in his grace had spared us from battling the legions or Imperial Guard units. This gave a great deal of confidence, especially as we recognized the flags of the Despots of Sardinia (commanding the sicilians), Africa and Kärnten, who we knew to be fielding mostly light units...To our further relief, the Spanish light horse and pike infantry was lagging behind and had not arrived in full battle order...

....On our side, through the providence of Christ, we had arrayed the flower of the true faith, the french heavy cavalry, composed of princely and knightly retinues and their vassals. Nearly 11000 heavily-armored knights were standing by to defend the true faith against the Orthodox dogs. Though we were only half their number strong, we had faith in our knights and the knowledge that a relief army was approaching fast from the north....


...the eastern heretics opened fire with their archers and crossbowmen, causing a number of casualties among our infantry. This was to be expected, indeed we had kept our heavy cavalry in reserve and counted on the relief army to arrive and hold our lines. Christ had granted us flat terrain, on which we sprang our heavy cavalry, which in one massive charge fell upon the Sicilians and Sardinians.

It was a glorious sight to see their light skirmishers and archers running like scared hares while our heavy cavalry slaughtered them like pigs...I myself was in the front ranks and had the good luck of capturing the Sicilian standard...[/i]
http://i.imgur.com/xOb5W2t.png
...However, Christ did not smile upon us this day. For our relief army did not arrive in time - but the Spanish pike formations did, stabilizing their centre. And then the news arrived from our left flank that the German Ritter, their own heavy cavalry, had smashed into our flank. I myself tried to stabilize the left flank, but it was not to be...

...it was then that we recognized the perfidy of the trap the Easterners had sprung upon us. The Spanish light horse had been kept in reserve and not been unprepared, as we had assumed - instead, over 14k light cavalry was just waiting for the moment when our own heavy cavalry tried to retreat, having suffered grievously against the Spanish pike and German Ritter. Our heavy cavalry, encumbered by their armor, was easily overtaken and speared by their light cavalry, who kept throwing Javelins and charging with their own lances at our backs...The less said about the many brothers that ignominiously fell that day, the better, for I am still haunted by the faces of the dead even in this soggy, godforsaken place..of our 13000 knights, scarcely 5000 managed to escape.


Meanwhile, in the east, the Ilkhanate had to deal with some rebellions. The Persians managed to get free.


Our vassals respected us paying for their misdeeds our wise rule:

Though judging all those "interesting" cases took a toll on us:


After the death of their Khan, the Ilkhanate fractured:

The power of the Mongols in the east had been broken.
Now all that was left was to clean up the various Mongol clans that had set themselves up as rulers.

(to be continued below)

[Thanas]

(continued from above)


From "The Extermination of the Mongol state", by Legate Iustinianus Martellus, Paris 1509:
"Though nominally allied with the Ilkhanate, the various Mongol clans were disunited and ripe for the taking. Though they could in theory call upon their ally, the Ilkhanate, the Khan, who had retreated with his court into the steppes once more, was far away. And Roman Persia was near, with a host of rebellious populaces who resented their Mongol lords ready to spring into insurrection. The Romans cleverly married into the local Persian nobility, thereby ensuring that they were seen as liberators from the cruel steppe people.

First to fall was the county of Herat, which the Roman Army took within a year.

Then came the duchy of Syr Dag, the former seat of the Ilkhanate in the west. It had been decided that conquering the fortresses and having cavalry patrol the steppes was the best deterrent against any future Mongol incursions

This time, the Ilkhanate send help - an army of twenty-three thousand people. However, it was clear that these were not the Mongols of old, but rather the dregs of the Mongol state.

They put scarcely up a fight before being slaughtered like cattle

The former capitals of the Ilkhanate were taken by storm and the duchy incorporated into the realm.

In response to the victory, a triumph over the Ilkhanate was held in Rome. This triumph was spectacular for it featured hundreds of captured Mongols...once can scarcely imagine what the Steppe people felt as they were first paraded through glorious and undefeated Constantinople and then through Rome, where they were confronted with the sights of the restored ancient forum and the glorious buildings of old. The sights of those and the other cities in the Empire, now bursting with life, made a profound impact on the Mongols as they realized the futility of attacking such an Empire - many declared that they had never seen such cities in their life...

...and for some it would be all they ever saw, for the triumph was followed by the customary mass castration and blinding of Mongols in the colisseum.

A great collection of heads, eyes and genitals were sent to the Khan. This was the last invasion of Persia from the Steppes in recorded history.


Roman Persia - now 100% mongol free (except those who converted to Orthodoxy and served as loyal vassals).

Meanwhile in Pannonia - a German noble had usurped the throne.

...and soon enough, one of our vassals claimed the throne for himself and the remainder of Pannonia was now incorporated into the empire.


Yeah sure, when you pay for everything, you are wise.

In response to the disaster that befell the Ilkhanate at our hands, the Golden Horde sent emissaries begging us for forgiveness and for priests.

The Ilkhanate followed suit, only they converted to a heresy.

Good - just one more reason to consider them eternal enemies.

If the Golden Horde thought their conversion would stop our wrath, they were sorely mistaken. (what it did though, was to remove our holy war casus belli, which meant that we could now only declare war for single counties.)


Our first battle against the Mongol hordes came when our army was landed and immediately opposed by the local Mongol tribe.


Our levies easily smashed this numerically inferior force.


The Mongols assembled a great force to the north - but our main force composed of troops from Anatolia, Epirus (legions!!), Armenia, Georgia and Mesopotamia was larger.

From "The Extermination of the Mongol state", by Legate Iustinianus Martellus, Paris 1509:
The trouble was catching them, for they proved to be quicker and more agile than the great Roman Army. They manoeuvred at the fringes of the territory controlled by us. Soon, our troops suffered from attrition and it was decided a decisive battle was needed. Thus, the army of Jerusalem - largely composed of light troops suited for desert fighting - was ordered to bring the Mongol horde to battle and stall their movement.

This they did, though they suffered grievously for it, being engaged by a foe two times their size and better equipped.

However, as their lines were almost collapsing, the main Roman Army arrived.

The Golden Horde could not disengage in time and had to give battle - a battle that went disastrously for them, for the freshly rested Roman Army, led by the axe-wielding Varangians who had been dispatched to the North to give the Romans an edge, hacked through their lines.

The Mongols had to sue for peace.

Oh and just in case you are wondering how our Romanized Swedes are doing:

Just fine.

But shortly after the victory over the Golden Horde, we died of the stress of ruling.



TL, DR:
- Half the Mongols are done, now the Golden Horde remains.
- Gallienus proved to be a beloved and wise ruler, mostly thanks due to his unlimited pockets.

[Dominus Atheos]

What year is it now?

[Thanas]

Gallienus died on 29th July 1289.

[Iroscato]

Most excellent. Yes, most excellent indeed.

This may as well be the mantra of this LP

[Flagg]

I haven't seen that many mongols get their asses kicked since the Republicans lost the house and senate in '06!

[Borgholio]

I haven't seen that many mongols get their asses kicked since the Republicans lost the house and senate in '06!

Except that, sadly, there were no mass castrations in '06.

[Flagg]

I haven't seen that many mongols get their asses kicked since the Republicans lost the house and senate in '06!

Except that, sadly, there were no mass castrations in '06.

I dunno, Karl Rove doesn't have as deep a voice as he used to and Rumsfeld had to resign very quickly afterwards (possible blindness and glass eyes?!?!?!?!!?).

[Thanas]

Claudius the Liberator


This is us. We chose seduction as our focus this time.

Why did we do this? Well, first of all, we had lots of fun (HarHar) the last time we chose to do so and also because....

the great enemy of ours, the Mongol Khan, has an attractive daughter.

We travelled north to sign the peace treaty and then...


"Hey Khan, first I fucked your armies, now I am fucking your daughter."

I would imagine that future historians and playwrights would find plenty of inspirations here. For now let's just say that over the course of this fourty-year love affair over 8 legitimized bastard children were born, which were great for marrying off into the various dynasties to strengthen our hold over the throne.


I wonder how the game measures intelligence. We have the quick trait, meaning we are smarter than most and forget to dress ourselves? Must have been some party.


No, you may not starve the peasants. That is our job.


Yes, let's pick some flowers for our wife. She hates us enough due to the affair with the Mongol princess already, which we are now carrying out in the open....

Meanwhile, we declared war on the Mongol vassal of Volga-Bulgariya.

The mongols, still suffering from the previous defeat, dared not to challenge us. We took the county after a short war in which the main enemy was attrition.

Meanwhile, another lady caught our eye:


...and after that I pretty much stopped. Because seduction did not feel in any way that you were accomplishing anything besides notching up bed posts. At that point I already had like 12 lovers and it felt pretty boring there. I mean, I was producing children at a rate of five a year already, so I pretty much lost interest in this focus.


THERE WILL BE NO REFORMATION UNLESS WE SAY SO.

Meanwhile, we received praise for our handling of the Mongols:



We decided to assist our vassal king of Pannonia in reconquering his de jure land against the Vendish:

The vendish decided to actually offer battle against the combined levies from Ravenna, Lombardy, Kärnten and Pannonia.


This was foolish.


I think the Varangians and the legions standing by to bash in the head of anybody who dares to challenge me have got more to do with that than any innate skill.


We ordered this book to be distributed to all our generals. After all, it is best to start planning early for an invasion.


Yeah, sure, let's help the monks.


Some more cleanup in Pannonia.


Pfft. We put no stock in such nonsense.

Again, we declared a single-county war against the Mongols.




What is there to say? At this point, our own horse archers outnumber and outfight the Mongols. Our infantry is better equipped and much better trained. Our archers are superior to theirs. The only interesting part is the manoeuvring in the steppes before bringing them to battle.

With the east doing well, we decided to go up against some western foes.


The Bretons tried to do battle to our forces with their longbowmen retinues.
This failed spectacularly as we could field six cavalry against one longbowman.


Another war against the Mongols.

Another battle

Another victory.


We grew old.

(to be continued)

[Thanas]

(continued from above)


We noticed that the French were embroiled in a decade-old war with the Saxons, who tried to take French territory in Flanders. As the french armies were all deployed to the east, this was a good time to strike.

Sure enough, the french Cardinal surrendered without any battles being fought.

After three more years, the Saxons were finally victorious in Flanders.

Considering how exhausted they were and how war-ravaged Flanders was, we figured they would not be able to put in much resistance to us claiming Flanders.

Thus, we assembled a massive fleet of 548 ships carrying the levies from Spain, Aquitaine, Leon, Castille, Mauretania and Africa and invaded Flanders.

We were right - besides a token force to oppose us, Flanders was garrisoned by less than 100 men per holding. It fell easily.

We punished the soldiers. There will be no rape - after all, we are supposed to be the civilized ones.

Finally the Saxons assembled an army but did not dare to oppose us as our two forces could easily support each other. Soon after, the Saxons surrendered.

(I don't think this was indicative of the Saxon strength since at this point they had exhausted all their manpower in killing the french).


We conquered Brest...


..and the rich county of Augsburg, which has now the single-county-dutchy of Bavaria. NO BAVARIANS IN OUR EMPIRE.

Emboldened by our success, we declared war against the French once more, this time to conquer Normandy.

The french however would not lose this important duchy without a fight.

We reinforced the force the French were attacking at Barfleur.



The french died trying to assault our prepared positions and soon surrendered thereafter.

We allowed a french bard to stay at our court.

Let us hope he does not seduce our lovers.

Meanwhile, we tried to look at the east again, hoping to once again declare war on the Golden Horde.

WTF HAPPENED HERE?

(continued below)

[Thanas]

(continued from above)



From "The Extermination of the Mongol state", by Legate Iustinianus Martellus, Paris 1509:
The Mongol subjugation of the eastern steppe people had been quick, battering the kingdoms in submission via lighting-quick raids and terror tactics. Now, with the Mongols being weakened in battle after battle with the Roman and losing much prestige, with their oldest princess absconding to Constantinople to live as concubine to the Emperor and with a steady stream of money and weapons to the subjugated people, the name "Golden Horde" had lost most of its terror.

In January 1318 their Khan died, allegedly from an illness. Sources claim that he was poisoned by his vassals, the poison having been provided by Byzantine agents...

The new Khan had the misfortune of having been born a hunchback and was not what one would call a fear-inspiring leader. But without fear, what did the Mongols have to keep the conquered people in line? As it turned out, precious little. In the convention of Moskwa, the Khan was presented with a letter from all his vassals in the west, a letter I reproduce in its entirety:

"The Lords of the Western Rus to the Khan of the Golden Horde:

Thou Mongol Satan, brother and companion to the accursed Devil, and companion to Lucifer himself, Greetings!

What the hell kind of noble knight art thou? The Devil voids, and thy army devours. Never wilt thou be fit to have the sons of Christ under thee: thy army we fear not, and by land and on sea we will do battle against thee together with the great Lord of the Roman Empire, friend and ally to us.

Thou scullion of Samarkand, thou slaver of the Steppes, thou sodomizer of Turkestan, thou goat of Tartary, thou evildoer of Podoliansk, thou grandson of the Devil himself, thou great silly oaf of all the world and of the netherworld and, before our God, a blockhead, a swine's snout, a mare's arse, a butcher's cur, an unbaptized brow, May the Devil take thee! That is what the Western Rus have to say to thee, thou basest-born of runts!

Unfit art thou to lord it over true Christians! Thou canst kiss us thou knowest where!"

The mongol khan had an inkling to contest this declaration of independence. But assembling his forces he found that he could command no more than twenty-thousand horsemen, whereas the entirety of the Roman Empire could field 400k of troops. Thus, he had no choice but to withdraw to the east, the caravans of mongol exiles harried by the light cavalry of people they had once oppressed. Scores of Mongols never managed to escape to the east as the records of the great slave market of Constantinople shows.

Thus, the Mongol presence in the west ended in tears and ruin. What was worse, they had awoken the Roman Eagle, who would now start to look eastwards."

After the destruction of the Golden Horde, the Emperor returned to Rome to take care of pressing matters, like settling a dispute about the origins of Hummus:


Then he took stock of his Empire:


...and died:



TL, DR:
- MONGOLS ITE DONUM.
(Bonus points to whoever knows where I cribbed most of the letter from).

[Esquire]

It's the Cossack reply to the Ottomans, right?