Completed Let us RECLAIM THE HOLY LAND

[Kipeci]

Onwards to Edessa! I'm liking the current absence of desert.

 

[Azira]

Why not finish mopping up the "easy" maps first? Edessa it is.

 

[Storyfag]

Yeap, Edessa sounds good

 

[Reinhardt]

Edessa. Easy money and free exp.

 

[Janise]

st michael jordan

 

[Jaedar]

Is there any reason for not doing maps in order of difficulty?

 

[Azira]

Masochism?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Is there any reason for not doing maps in order of difficulty?

Getting the bigger rewards faster, obviously

 

[RK47]

Doesn't make sense in any point since there's no 'pressure' in the game like King Arthur.
Threats remain static until you choose to confront it.
If there's timed availability of mission, then maybe there's a point in doing things before you're fully prepared for it.

 

[Darth Roxor]

INTERLUDE III - BOHEMOND THE BAMBINO

Spoiler

Awww yeah bitches I can already hear the jingle of all these ducats.

We hook up with the Templars and go genocide some Armenians, under the banner of the True Cross.

Familiar surroundings.

Familiar enemy placements too, but at least this time they probably won't have traps around.

Our opponent this day are crusader units again, but these are beefier than the suckers we faced off in Cyprus. Except for a bunch of vassals and spearmen, these are all Tier 2 at least.

Including White Company.

Templars!

Makes you think why are there templars here if the templars called us for assistance but so it goes

They even have crusader knights, elite and archers. So their forces more or less mirror ours, while having more cannon fodder to throw at us.

Still, we have the obvious advantage of higher levels.

Also, it seems I was correct about the banner of Alexander, because some of those enemy regiments still have full morale bars. Into the trash it goes right after we're done with the battle.

And many forests all around. I hide our dudes in the closest one.

Alas, the enemy scrambles and refuses to come to us, so we'll hafta approach them all sneaky loike

Ugh, I wish I had curse of shadows or lightning bolt now.

These forests here should do fine.

Very fine indeed.

Enemies don't budge while we park a whole rapetrain right in their neighbourhood.

Only the light cavalry I order to wait on the flanks, just in case.

Aaaand heeere we goooooooo

For some stupid reason the ambush bonus doesn't trigger for the archers.

Still, as always the braindead enemy AI is on our side, and so it sends only its cavalry to face us.

WHEN SUDDENLY, SURPRISE!!!!!

Also, crossbowmen > everything

Killing off the cavalry finally makes the rest of the enemy haul ass towards us.

With predictable result, too. Archers shooting from forests have crazy advantage over those in the field.

Hol' up, the AI is still being retarded. It only activated the archers, and a lone squad of spearmen...

Who are taking the long march towards our cavalry while arrows tear them apart

Meanwhile all enemy archers are put to flight.

AND FINALLY does the infantry start moving. And guess what.

IT'S CHASING THE FUCKING CAVALRY

So I take them all on a little sight-seeing tour of Armenia.

While our archers pick off the light infantry.

And just because I can, I chase down and slaughter the fleeing archers.

After which I chase down and slaughter the fleeing vassals et al.

However, the non-fleeing dudes have finally decided to go against our archers.

BRACE FOR IMPACT.

I retreat the archers and reorganise forces to engage the enemy.

Yeah, well. They never stood a chance.

No chance at all.

Meanwhile light cavalry keeps riding around murdering stragglers.

And then I notice the crusader elite are engaged 1v1 against Templars and taking huge losses

Goddamn forest clusterfucks

A short tactical withdrawal

And victory is ours once again.

The only ones who managed to get away were a bunch of vassals that ran into a forest, which made our cavalry lose sight and engagement orders At least they didn't have any items.

Seriously, so much geld to fill up such pathetic losses?!

Ofc ~3600 of that 5000 are Richard and the crusader elite. Ugh.

Also, some level-ups.

Spearmen finally get a skill. We know what all these do, and that they are all kinda crap. Took ambush.

And then I upgraded Rysio's cleave and gave him a healer (because fuck are those bodyguards expensive, and I often use him as an all-purpose shock troop).

Also hired a kaptin for the templars.

Let us see what lies ahead!

Kinda shit rewards, but what are you gonna do?

Only one battle plan available.

Okay, this might actually be interesting.

We're gonna have to fight in 3 phases.

1. Storm the central hill and murder the defenders.
2. Regroup, set up our own traps and defences. Then fight against some cavalry waves.
3. Build MORE traps and defences. Kill everyone who gets close.

Bad news: Cavalry is locked in this battle. And since cavalry makes up for over 25% of our army...
Good news: The paypal representatives will pray for us!

Assets include: Stonemasons and Extortion. Might even be a good idea to take extortion (one-time use global ability; selected enemy unit is forced to retreat)

 

[Darth Roxor]

all the dlcs are on sale for a total of 5 ebro on steamu



hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

they are all kind of retarded tho and add fantasy creatures

if anything i'd probably leave them all for the saracen campaign if we decide to take the LP that far

 

[Darth Roxor]

CHAPTER VII - TRENCH WARFARE IN EDESSA

Spoiler

Since we have the spare cash, I figured I might as well buy extortion, just in case. May come in handy once Saracen heavy cavalry arrives.

Can't say I miss the deserts.

Phase one enemies are just trash-tier seljuk kebabs, but...

THEY HAVE A FUCKING TREBUCHET

WAT

They scramble for the guard post. I wonder if I can use extortion on the trebuchet...

YEP

WELL THEN

No mercy!

The light of Christ sends the foul saracens running for their lives.

Until soon there is barely anything left.

Crossbowmen single-handedly murder the heavy infantry.

Mission accomplished.

Now to just chase away the stragglers.

Look at 'em trying to gtfo

Phase two begins.

Since this is the direction from which the enemy cavalry is going to arrive, we want to entrench it real gud.

I set up caltrops everywhere + 2 ballistas + give camouflage to the archers that can't hide in plain sight.

We also get to deploy a new kind of trap - a pool of oil that ignites and does big continuous domoge to anything that steps into it. However, I don't think it would be too good against fast-moving cavalry, so I skip it for the moment.

Thar she blows.

Open fire!

honestly i have no idea why i bother with the ballistas, they are kind of shit

And then they reach the range of our hidden bowmen

and crossbowmen

Clusterfuck ensues once the horsemen get too close for comfort.

Form up! Prepare your rosaries!

A few templars get trampled by the initial charge, but then suddenly they lose 14 men and I'm left wondering wtf is going on.

This was obviously FRIENDLY FIRE from the fucking ballista because the siege weapon AI is retarded. Normal bowmen don't auto-fire on enemies that are engaged with own regiments. Siege weapons do.

Well, at least the templars have a healer and experienced retainers...

oh hey our own cavalry joins up

I thought it would be completely absent from the battle. Not that I'm complaining.

But at this stage they can't really do anything, since we're done mopping up before they reach the hill.

Cue phase three!

Since now we're likely to get busted from both sides, I deploy deeper inside the ravine and set up a few guard towers. It's probably gonna be all-infantry too, so I also lay down a few oil pools.

Here they come!

These in the north are pathetic.

The south force is a bit more formidable. They even have mameluks, nubian warriors and turk bowmen.

i sure feel dumb now about setting the oil pools where nobody will really walk through them

Still, we better get rid of the auxiliary chumps real quick.

Real, real quick.

Because their friendos are about to knock on our doors.

I quickly relocate the archers to the other flank, then send Richard to mop up the seljuks.

Check those seljuk archers JUST RUNNING INTO THE FUCKING OIL POOL in the back

I dispatch crusader elite to get rid of them since they are in the open.

The combined barrage of archers, guard towers and the ballista makes short work of enemy morale.

Still they keep coming.

Until they get too close for comfort once more.

AFFIX BAYONETS

Now's a good time to roll out the cavalry and flank the enemy archers.

DEUS VULT

The horsemen are engaged by mameluks, which might end bloody, but fortunately the mameluks are at like 8/36 cuz of the missile barrage.

Mopping up running archers.

Where's muh victory?

Oh right

That was fun.

Losses are fairly costly to replace, alas.

Some level ups

Crusader elite get a bunch of new options. Scatter is too good to pass up, even if Haste looks lulzy for cavalry.

Crossbowmen unlock masterwork arms and armour. Took weaponry, might as well go full retard on their damage output.

Also, the last battle put us over another rep threshold for the Papal States. We can now recruit Crusader Archers, or upgrade our normal bowmen to them.

I do it immediately, even though it bleeds our coffers dry. One shitty thing is losing the hide in plain sight ability the bowmen have, but the crusader archers are just much better all around.

Also, ~the more you know - spearmen can use both light and heavy armour. Woulda never figured. This suddenly springs their usefulness up a notch.

New politicool events in Edessa:

Self-explanatory.

The styrian infantry we may get from the Teutons are a light infantry unit that can throw javelins. P. useful as far as I remember.

Some traders.

They mostly sell junk but the elixir catches my attention. Don't ask me what "shoot" does but more archery madness = more gud. Ofc we have only 76 ducats, so I have to sell some of our garbage first to get it.


New territories

Al-Jazira (please no haterino, Saudis)

Asia Minor.

Asia Minor is the only "medium difficulty" map left along with Jordan, so we might as well go with the flow.

Four battle plans.

de who?

Anyway, the French think THE TIME FOR ACTION IS NIGH and so they propose just rolling our faces over the Saracens.

The Germans propose to go all sneaky-loike and flank the entrenched kebabs with light infantry so that we may bust their siege weapons.

This, naturally, is a bit hard to accomplish without light infantry

Ah, so that's the de Rancon king Philip referred to.

The Templars want to go against the heathens head on and effectively assassinate some vatican poster boy.

On the other hand, the papists very much want us to keep the guy alive.


Decisions, decisions...

- What do with Edessa?
- How to proceed in Asia Minor?

 

[Excidium II]

HRE choice for the event.

For Asia Minor I think Templars is the choice, we've been sucking up to them for a while anyway, already commited.

 

[oscar]

Styrian infantry

For the plan, whoever we're closest to levelling up with (sans the HRE plan).

 

[Erebus]

Let's sell Edessa to the Empire.

Regarding the battle, I'm voting for the papist plan. As amusing as it would be to let the guy get slaughtered, having to protect him should make things more interesting.

 

[Reinhardt]

HRE.

Regarding the battle, I'm voting for the papist plan. As amusing as it would be to let the guy get slaughtered, having to protect him should make things more interesting.

And this.

 

[Azira]

So. I went and bought the game. Get the same crash you did Darth. But then managed to get past the first mission.
Only, the crash reoccurs at the end of the second mission.
Every.
Fucking.
Time.
What kind of voodoo did you do to keep on playing, Darth Roxor?

 

[Darth Roxor]

So. I went and bought the game. Get the same crash you did Darth. But then managed to get past the first mission.
Only, the crash reoccurs at the end of the second mission.
Every.
Fucking.
Time.
What kind of voodoo did you do to keep on playing, Darth Roxor?

Are you on Win 7 or 10? Apparently it's much worse for 10 (I'm using 7).

Also, I saw some git on the steam forum say that running the game as admin fixed the crashes for him. It made 0 sense to me, but I figured it wouldn't hurt, so I did that too. No crashungs afterwards, but whether the two are related or it's just dumb luck on my part, I cannot say.

 

[Azira]

Win10. Will try and fiddle with settings a bit later. Thanks for the reply anyhoo.

 

[Storyfag]

Vote 1: HRE
Vote 2: Pope

 

[Darth Roxor]

CHAPTER VIII - REQUIEM IN A-MINOR

Spoiler

We graciously give Edessa to the Teutons in exchange for some dudes.

These dudes.

As all light infantry, they are complete garbage in a fight, although their stats are universally higher than both the vassals and the white company. Also, javelins are nothing to scoff at, and they can give them just the advantage they need to put up some resistance.

The bribe also puts us over another rep threshold for Germany. We now get to pay much less when buying stat upgrades.

Paypal States won the popular vote (3:2), so we go with them. With our last 700 geld, I first wanted to pick Poison the Wells for that sweet global 20% HP debuff, but then I noticed sabotage is available, and we're storming a hill. Odds of siege weapons = very high. So I took that instead.

Karol Wojtyła invokes a temporal paradox and smiles from above to bless our forces. We take all the blessings we can get because this map topography might make our job hard.

In our immediate vicinity, there are two squads of chumps.

Then a bit further along the way, there are these dudes. Seljuk archers and nubian warriors.

By the hilltop there are two fire ballistas. Good that I took that sabotage.

Finally, the hilltop itself, which is fairly well guarded. Five turk bowmen regiments, some abbasid lancers, two mameluk regiments and a bunch of seljuk swordsmen. This ought to be messy, but I think we can just do the usual archer cheese and emerge with the upper hand.

No sign of William de Rancon yet. Guess he'll spawn a bit later.

First things first, I invoke the blessing of Karol Wojtyła to destroy one of the ballistas (note how one of the operators is half-sunken in the sand, while the other one appears to be levitating. HEATHEN SORCERY!). The mouse pointer even changes into a swirly little wand, which unfortunately can't be seen here.

Job done.

De Rancon appears right after battle starts, with two regiments of crusaders.

SUPER BAD NEWS: I was certain he'd be a controllable unit. Turns out he's controlled by the AI. ESCORT MISSION, AHOY.

This changes our plans considerably, because we'll have to rush for the hill on the double lest Dumbfuck de Rancon gets himself slaughtered.

More bad news: turns out the two regiments of chumps had friends hiding amongst the trees

We let archers and cavalry take care of them while the rest of our troops run to the hills.

BECAUSE DE RANCON SURE AS HELL WON'T BE WAITING FOR US

TURKS HIDING AMONGST THE TREES

AND NIGGAS TOO

The only way this could get even more anal would be if there were caltrops spread around here or something.

Also, all these fuckers standing in our way aren't exactly helping us reach de Rancon in time. Good, at least, that he's walking, not running.

and he's almost made it!

I send the cavalry ahead pronto while the rest of our units try to keep up.

WELL NOW I FEEL LIKE A CHUMP FOR KNOCKING OUT THE OTHER BALLISTA INSTEAD OF THIS ONE

So we proceed with our very own charge of the light brigade, rushing into the fire ballista under fire of all the enemy turks. But this thing really has to go.

And then we leg it as everyone gets pissed!

Quite fortunately, it seems nothing can trigger these kebabs here, so we can feel safe about our flanks.

The main force however keeps following us.

When de Rancon makes his heroic entrance, straight into the fire of the turk archers!

However, he makes a pretty good job here distracting the archers from our already battered cavalry.

So we can more or less safely drive into them and murder them all before their friends arrive!

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO

The cavalry's time is limited however but they should get the job done.

Meanwhile de Rancon is bumrushed by a bunch of mameluks that we've been shooting for the past half minute with our archers. Good, he should be safe in this fight.

OK BOYS, THE JIG IS UP, RETREAT NOW

NOT THIS WAY YOU FUCKING CRETINS

While I try to control the retreat patterns of the cavalry, meanwhile the turks suffer critical morale failure.

And since almost all the enemies are chasing after one regiment, we can get rid of all the running bowmen on the double.

Bad news: abbasid lancers and seljuk swordsmen are heading towards de Rancon's men. I throw some javelins at them and attack with the styrian infantry + crusaders.

More bad news: de Rancon is done with the mameluks and now he's moving straight towards all those kebabs as well. And his unit is now at 25/36 strength

Meanwhile we check the other flank for the remaining heavy infantry.

SHIELDS UP!

de Rancon is getting his ass kicked despite the overwhelming support. This is not good at all.

I send Richard away from the other fight to reinforce him as well.

6/36, GET A MOVE ON RICHARD

Naturally, Richard the Donkeyheart attacks some useless gits with most of his men not even engaging due to formation clusterfucks, even though I tried to navigate him into the biggest saracen concentration

Which is why I ultimately say "fuck it" and send in the cavalry, despite them rushing into lancers.

And holy shit they're finally victorious. Blondie is the only survivor from his whole squad

We can't rest on our laurels yet though, because I bet he's gonna rush towards THESE folks now. I send our archers towards them just in case.

... when suddenly...

Victory!

Huh.

Well, I guess it was enough to just cap the victory point at the top, instead of kealing everything in sight.

WHICH MEANS I DIDN'T GET TO LOOT ONE ITEM FROM THE REMAINING ENEMY INFANTRY

Ugh, pretty big losses. Mostly cavalry, so it's prob gon be costly.

Also, new map unlock. A pretty big one, too.

well at least i'll have 2k left in the coffers

The last mission also got us YET ANOTHER regiment of light cavalry (crusader elite).

When I finally start accumulating big ducats again, imma upgrade one of them into knights. Very expensive this, however, so it'll have to wait.

Also, two new politicool crises appear. And both of them are battles!

Prester John needs our help! Or, well, a guy looking for Prester John, I guess.

(I CAN'T WAIT TO GET A 5TH CAVALRY REGIMENT)

And then some renegade templars landgrabbing clay that is not rightfully theirs!



Which of these exciting adventures shall we embark on first, ye Codex?

 

[Azira]

The game's a complete bust in Windows 10, so I'll be experiencing it purely through this LP.
Help the frogeaters first, then the papists.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The game's a complete bust in Windows 10.

Bummer. Guess they never bothered trying to give it any compatibility fixes since it probably sells approximately 3 copies a year

 

[Azira]

Yeah, well, I might dig up an old laptop one day and give it a try. It wasn't expensive, so I'll call it sunk costs and read your lp instead.

Made me realise I liked the series, but never really got into King Arthur 2, so currently playing some of that.

 

[Jaedar]

We must destroy the heretics first.