Completed Let's conquer the known world! Let's play Genghis Khan IV: The Blue Wolf and the White Deer

[vazha]

Was fun while it lasted!

 

[Lucumo]

I don't like to say this but I've severely underestimated how slow-paced this game in comparison to Koei's other games. It's all about city building and it doesn't help that the AI is too passive to offer a decent challenge. I just don't have the energy to continue on.

Is it though? Here is a map from a game in 1224 (so basically where you are at this point).

With the Hiraizumi administration he has pretty much conquered everything up to Constantinople. And I wouldn't say he was aggressive either. If anything, he took his time. As far as skill level goes, he mostly knew what he was doing but was definitely not good. Regarding the AI, while they weren't too aggressive towards the player (mostly because the player tends to be the attacker and the fights themselves are easy), they did a lot of fighting in general. Just look at Europe where Byzanz took a city of Kiev, crushed Hungary, Poland and Venice and founded three cities. Castille founded two but one got taken over by the HRE (they would later found another one in between HRE, France and England). England has founded one, as has Norway who would later take out the remaining city of Kiev. There was also a lot of back-and-forth between Castille and the Almohad Caliphate, France and England and the HRE and France with cities being lost and retaken. My guess is that your AI is gimped since you played the console port instead of the superior PC original.

 

[Modron]

Should have gone potato.

 

[Thorakitai]

I don't like to say this but I've severely underestimated how slow-paced this game in comparison to Koei's other games. It's all about city building and it doesn't help that the AI is too passive to offer a decent challenge. I just don't have the energy to continue on.

Is it though? Here is a map from a game in 1224 (so basically where you are at this point).

With the Hiraizumi administration he has pretty much conquered everything up to Constantinople. And I wouldn't say he was aggressive either. If anything, he took his time. As far as skill level goes, he mostly knew what he was doing but was definitely not good. Regarding the AI, while they weren't too aggressive towards the player (mostly because the player tends to be the attacker and the fights themselves are easy), they did a lot of fighting in general. Just look at Europe where Byzanz took a city of Kiev, crushed Hungary, Poland and Venice and founded three cities. Castille founded two but one got taken over by the HRE (they would later found another one in between HRE, France and England). England has founded one, as has Norway who would later take out the remaining city of Kiev. There was also a lot of back-and-forth between Castille and the Almohad Caliphate, France and England and the HRE and France with cities being lost and retaken. My guess is that your AI is gimped since you played the console port instead of the superior PC original.

I've had suspected as such but thank you for confirming it.

I'll have to also keep that in mind for a another GKIV Let's play someday but this time for the PC Version, especially since I've found a partial English translation in a very old and obscure and got it to work on Windows 10 besides lack of BGM (but only for the base game not the PUK).

I'm quite glad to have spread awareness for this game.

Link to forum where the Vanilla version of GK, it's expansion and the Eng Patch can be downloaded

 

[Nutmeg]

I imagine to get the most out of the game you gotta play for speed. It was like that when I was playing Gemfire (DOS). I doubt the PC AI will be that much stronger than the console one, if it really is stronger.

 

[Lucumo]

Is it though? Here is a map from a game in 1224 (so basically where you are at this point).

With the Hiraizumi administration he has pretty much conquered everything up to Constantinople. And I wouldn't say he was aggressive either. If anything, he took his time. As far as skill level goes, he mostly knew what he was doing but was definitely not good. Regarding the AI, while they weren't too aggressive towards the player (mostly because the player tends to be the attacker and the fights themselves are easy), they did a lot of fighting in general. Just look at Europe where Byzanz took a city of Kiev, crushed Hungary, Poland and Venice and founded three cities. Castille founded two but one got taken over by the HRE (they would later found another one in between HRE, France and England). England has founded one, as has Norway who would later take out the remaining city of Kiev. There was also a lot of back-and-forth between Castille and the Almohad Caliphate, France and England and the HRE and France with cities being lost and retaken. My guess is that your AI is gimped since you played the console port instead of the superior PC original.

I've had suspected as such but thank you for confirming it.

I'll have to also keep that in mind for a another GKIV Let's play someday but this time for the PC Version, especially since I've found a partial English translation in a very old and obscure and got it to work on Windows 10 besides lack of BGM (but only for the base game not the PUK).

I'm quite glad to have spread awareness for this game.

Link to forum where the Vanilla version of GK, it's expansion and the Eng Patch can be downloaded

Tried it out and the BGM works for the base game for me and the PUK (I'm using Windows 7 though). The main issue is that it doesn't loop but I don't know if that is as intended or not.

And I'm thankful for that. I know of a lot of Koei games but somehow that series has never crossed my path...probably because it never made it past the 90s.

Ahh, good old Tokugawa forums. I've tried to register twice and tried several times to get my email confirmed in the last five years but since the administrator only checks in like once every 2-3 years at best, it seems impossible.

 

[Thorakitai]

Starting a new LP from the ashes of the old one.

Today, Koei is mostly known for its Dynasty Warriors series and its strategy games, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga's Ambition. In the 1990s, they made quite an interesting library of strategy games.

You've got fantasy strategy games like Gemfire and Celtic Tales, World War II games like Pacific Theater of Operations, Uncharted Waters, an open-world game set in the Golden Age of Piracy where you can play as a Pirate, a Trader, or an Explorer, and many more set in other historical periods; all of them have excellent art for their game covers.







But surprising enough, they also made some business strategy simulations, although only one game was released in English.





Aerobiz Supersonic is a 1993 business strategy simulation game released on the SNES and Sega Genesis and a sequel to Aerobiz.

You play as the CEO of an international airline whose objective is to defeat four other competitors for dominance to become the greatest airline in the world. Despite its premise, it's easy to play due to every necessary piece of information being presented; the game has a competent advisor system that suggests what to do if you're unsure but is also hard to master; and the AI is also surprising fair while being utterly ruthless and cunning in harder difficulties.

Given that I bit off more than I could chew in my first LP, Genghis Khan IV, I decided to try a more manageable game before tackling another historical strategy game.

Explaining Mechanics.



It gets to the point quite well.



Aerobiz is divided into seven regions, with an airline establishing a single hub in each of the regions in a major city. All business is conducted by connecting your hub cities to other cities to make routes. An airline can extend their reach to other regions by connecting to a major city and investing some time and funds to make it the airline's hub city for that region.



The major cities are green, while the minor cities are white.



The city has statistics that determine whether or not it's profitable for an airline to make a route.

Population determines the number of passengers; the greater the number, the more passengers riding your planes.

Economy determines whether people are capable of paying to ride your routes; the higher the number, the more you'll be able to raise your fare for more profits, but a lower number means you'll have to lower your rates to acquire more passengers.

Tourism determines the attractiveness of the city. The higher the number, the more travelers are lured to go along the route.

On the top-right corner is the city's opinion of your airline. The more they like you, the less time it takes to buy routes and business from that city. The initial relationship between the airline and the city depends on the airline's country of origin and the country that rules the city.

Example: An airline based in the UK has great relationships with almost all countries in Europe and North America, but bad or hostile relationships with communist countries like the Soviet Union and China, to the point where you'll never be able to conduct business with their cities.

In the middle right are various businesses an airline can buy in the city. They can be purchased to provide good income and a bonus to all routes connected to the city.

Finally, the middle bar represents the city's airport and its available slots. The number of slots determines the number of flights required on a route, and it's important to grab as many as you can.

Also, both random and historical events happen that will cause changes to the cities. Random events has a city's tourism rating being boosted to max that will give a nice bonus to routes while natural diasasters lower population and tourism rating. For historical events, you have wars that lowers the rating of the affected cities and bars new routes from being made to that city. Others change the relationship of between East and West, with certain cities changing owners (HongKong changes from UK to China) to changing their viewpoints (Cuba bring more friendly to communists than capitalist cities.)



This is the aircraft screen, where an airline can fly airplanes from various countries.

Aerobiz contains many real-life airplanes from various companies (the game starts by listing the numerous copyright licenses from these companies). The price of these planes depends on the year they are released and what country of origin the airline is from. Vendors will offer discounts to airlines from their home countries or those who own a large number of their planes, while they will raise prices or outright refuse to sell to airlines that come from their country's enemies, like North American companies refusing to buy from commie scum airlines. Of note is that there's a 1-turn delay in buying airplanes, so I've got to either buy enough of them or plan ahead to be on time to use them.



Airplane statistics consist of distance, seating capacity, and fuel/maintenance efficiency. For the third, the higher the number, the lower its expenses are when it comes to the funds needed to maintain them. The last two statistics are the number of planes in use by an airline and the number of planes held in reserve.



A route consists of linking a city to a hub, assigning the number of planes used in the route, the number of flights that these planes can make, and setting a proper fare to make a profit. You'll be on this screen a lot, as you'll be constantly changing stuff to make sure it's highly profitable.



An airline has four agents in charge of buying slots and business from other countries, preparing a new hub city for a region, and handling an ad campaign to attract passengers in that region. Each can only be in one place at a time and will be stuck there for a span of time depending on their tasks and the relationship between the city and the airline they came from. The fifth agent's job is always to give back slots an airline doesn't need. A nice little feature is the portraits are randomized but vary depending on the region. You get an all African crew in Africa but get a more cultural diverse crew in North America.



I'll start from Scenario 1, where the airlines start off with propeller planes but slowly get to buy large and long-distance jet aircraft.



A more balanced difficulty setting. Higher diffculties has the AI alot smarter at choosing good cities, routes and changing in response to the competition. However, they tend to focus on the highest number of passengers over profits, to the point of backrupcy. The lower diffculties has the passengers react slowly to changes in route fares to which is ideal for airlines in home regions but makes it difficulty for a competitor to challenge them.

I'll let you guys choose which region and hub my airline is going to start from.



Europe is an easy region. There are many countries that are rich in money and population, although the Iron Curtain separates relations between the communist countries and the capitalist ones. They can reach the regions of North America, Africa, and Europe easily without buying long-distance planes.

In order: Population(By Millions), Economy and Tourism.

London 5.6 46 42
Paris 1.8 40 55
Rome 2.2 36 45
Amsterdam 0.3 18 36
Frankfurt 0.2 14 20
Berlin 2.0 20 20
Moscow 5.0 28 12



Another easy region. There are lots of rich cities with huge numbers of people. It can only access Europe without the use of long-distance planes due to the long distance of the Pacific Ocean.

New York 5.4 50 46
Los Angeles 2.4 44 48
Chicago 2.2 48 35
Dallas 0.8 33 32
Washington 0.4 46 40
Vancouver 0.3 22 47
Atlanta 0.2 20 30



A challenging region to start in. Their cities have a large population but not too much wealth, and the relationships between these cities aren't good.

Sao Paulo 6.8 16 9
Mexico City 5.4 28 29
Havana 1.4 14 12



A very difficult region in which only Cairo is the only good city worth a damn while the rest are as poor as fuck and war-prone to boot.

Cairo 4.0 24 30
Tunis 0.5 10 20



Another very difficult region where the cities are poor and all the countries here hate each other to the point where war will happen.

Tehran 4.4 22 10
New Delhi 3.6 10 16
Baghdad 3.5 20 14



A nice middle ground between the rich western countries and the dirt poor regions of Africa and the Middle East. There are lots of good cities, although communist China may be a problem for some western-aligned nations.

Beijing 7.5 26 22
Tokyo 5.2 30 20
Bangkok 5.0 16 33
Hong Kong 4.1 37 31
Seoul 4.0 16 8
Singapore 1.4 20 27
Manila 1.3 14 16



Another balanced region There are lots of good but not great cities, but it takes a long distance to reach the other regions, even its nearest region, Southeast Asia.

Sydney 2.8 34 17
Perth 0.8 18 20
Auckland 0.1 15 29

Please choose my starting region and city.

 

[abnaxus]

Their non-strategy games are most interesting

Koei made space-sim

adventure game based on Dante's Inferno

and rpg game where you are a god

And of course Inindo, of which the snes version seems much inferior

 

[Lucumo]

Wouldn't it make sense to create a new thread for this? The first post being about a different game which is now not mainly advertised in the thread title isn't exactly ideal.

 

[Thorakitai]

That was a complete bust (I guess no one likes air management sims) and given how my first LP is literally on the front page, I can't let this go incomplete.

Thankfully, I've finally manage to get a good handle on the PUK (Expansion pack) version of Genghis Khan IV with a little help from the partial English patch of the vanilla GK4 and how the commands are placed identically similar to the PS1 version. The PUK contains adds two additional scenarios and new gameplay mechanics such as abdicating the present ruler in favor of his direct heir and buildable walls.

Here are the major differences of the PC version and the PS1 version.

This is Tibet and it's surroundings in the PS1 version.



And this is the original PC version. They have really shrunk the world map to fit for the console version.

Also, a few quick playthroughs and I've notice the AI is even more aggressive, to the point almost all the nations are attacking somebody and even target different nations when compared to the AI in the PS1 version always choosing then same predictable target without fail.

With that said, I've started a new playthough with one of the countries voted in. Stay tuned.

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 1: Vikings in Italy (1189-1196)

Genghis Khan IV PC OST - Western European Strategy






Welcome to Palermo, the starting city of the Kingdom of Sicily. It has 7500 gold, 18000 grain, and 8200 men. Due to being on an island, there's not much land to properly build enough facilities, even with fully extending the city's area of influence. My closest neighbor is the Almohad Caliphate, one of the Kingdom's long list of hostile enemies, and their city of Tunis is right next to Palermo, but Sicily's navy will easily defeat whatever invasion force they try to send. Besides the Almohads, France, the Kingdom of Castile, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate, and the Ayyubid Sultanate also hate Sicily's guts. Thankfully, Sicily is quite far from most of those nations.




Clockwise, beginning from the top center, Palermo has 37 farming culture, 24 pastorial culture, 19 weapons culture, 36 tactics culture, 72 naval culture, 25 architecture culture, 67 academic culture, 34 arts culture, 73 medicine culture, and 27 craft culture.


To sum it up, Palermo's starting advantage is that their ships have low chances of suffering sinking accidents at sea while having a great chance of recruiting officers with a high naval ranking; they have a good chance of recruiting generic officers with good stats; anyone who lives in the city will have their lifespans last; and the ruler's wife has a high chance of becoming pregnant to produce an heir or a daughter.

Here's Sicily's ruler and his two available officers.




King William the Second. nicknamed "The Good," where his reign is rather peaceful when compared to the messy internal conflicts of his predecessors. He also tried to conquer the Eastern Roman Empire but was defeated, and he supported the Third Crusade. He later died without an heir to succeed him, leaving it to his cousin Tancred. He's not an outstanding ruler, but he can fight well, and he has a very high ranking in the Navy, so he'll destroy enemies in naval battles. Unfortunately, he's rather old, and it'll be game over if he dies without an heir. Palermo's high medical culture will help him stay alive to desperately sire an heir, so he'll be staying at all times to recruit generic officers or fuck his wife at every turn. His wife, Joan, is also the sister of Richard the Lionheart.


There's a new mechanic in the PUK where a king can abdicate and hand over the throne to someone else, but the successor needs to be his direct heir, so no relatives or son-in-laws.





Tancred is another mediocre officer. He succeeded William the Second, whose reign was spent fighting the nobles who opposed the ruler, fighting Richard the Lionheart when he imprisoned his sister, the widow of William the Second, and later fighting the Holy Roman Empire for control of Italy before his untimely death.





Michael Scott is purely a mediocre political officer who's going to be doing most of the construction work. He's a famous Scottish mathematician who translated Arabian literature into Latin and later served the Holy Roman Empire.









Sicily has four cultural items available, ready to be used as bargaining chips for diplomacy. They have the Book of Natural History by the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, Surgery, Triangular Sails and De re Militari, a military book about Roman warfare and military pricinples written by Vegetius, a Roman who lived during the period of the Western Roman Empire.


First, I'll have to expand the area of influence of Palermo using the two officers as builder units while William is going to be really busy desperately making love to his wife to sire an heir.


Screenshot of the banquet

Genghis Khan IV PC OST - Banquet






The banquet minigame is a lot easier to complete compared to the PS1 version, where it's easy to fill the affection bar for your wife. No shadowy sex scenes, though but rather cheesy image. The catch is that even if you manage to fill her affection meter, there's a chance she'll just sleep for the night inside of making love. It's a minor obstacle in comparison.





The advantages of Palermo's high academic culture show results. He's well-rounded in stats, has a high naval ranking but a mediocre rank in infantry, and is bad at commanding archers and cavalry.








A few turns later, and my wife has borne a child. She gets angry when I decide to just have the game name the kid. Next turn, a random bard offers me a free officer in exchange for gold. I accept. He's a good political officer with the market skills to get better rates when buying or selling food.





Next turn, I've managed to fully extend Palermo's area of influence, but being on an island is a heavy disadvantage. I'll now focus on building some farms for some additional food production, and the rest of the land will be spent building hospitals to raise the medical culture of the city to 100 and make it a city of medicine.


If a city's culture level reaches 100, the city is deemed a City of Culture," and it grants excellent bonus effects. For the City of Medicine, it greatly increases the lifespan of every officer living in the city, as well as having a 100% pregnancy rate. Very valuable for Sicily's starting situation.





In just 3 years, the Jin Dynasty of China attacks the city of Dazaifu in Japan, but they trigger a special event where a kamikaze hits one of their units, reducing all of their units to just 1 man left. This is very unlikely to happen in the PS1 version, and I'm happy to see the AI being very aggressive.






A few turns later, the Holy Roman Empire attacks the Kingdom of Poland. Another unlikely thing to happen in the PS1 version





Later, a merchant offers to give me another wife. I accept the creation of William's harem.






Prince Marco of Sicily is being tutored with a random event.





Nice. Now William II will have a long life ahead of him. Also, one of my many sons is being tutored.





Since almost every nation in Eurasia is at war, why not have Sicily join in the fun? I'll now have Tancred lead the force to capture Tunis from the Almohads since he's the only officer who has a good rank in commanding infantry units. These are the only available units that Sicily can recruit: light infantry, pikemen, Vikings, and lightbowmen. The Vikings are the ace-in-the-hole unit for Sicily, as they have the highest attack power of all infantry, and they gain double attack power when in water tiles. Due to the Kingdom of Sicily being founded by the Normans, they are only nation besides the Kingdom of Norway that can recruit these units. They'll be able to stand up to the Almohad Caliphate's camel cavalry when cavalry dominate the battlefield.



https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ANoTDsn8w_H1v64ggjAeNPtjDNN4-Vtg/view?usp=sharing



With the Almohads busy invading the Kingdom of Castile, my forces have surrounded Tunis and are ready to attack the unsuspecting city. The enemy's defenders are all lightbowmen, while the command unit is a camel cavalry. While he has the Rapid Fire skill that enables his missile units to strike twice in a single attack, the officer's low war skill prevents his units from inflicting too much damage. Unfortunately, my officers lack the ability to scale the walls, and the siege turns into a slow grind where his light archers actually take out some of my units.







I tried to breakthrough, but the enemy units kept blocking the way, and their multiple attacks managed to cause a confusion effect that turned one of my units into an unresponsive obstacle that blocks my troops from moving further. Worse, the enemy decides to replace their losses with cavalry, and after 10 days, the siege ends with a draw.



Eurasia as of 1196.

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 2: Tunis must be destroyed.(1196-1201)

The Kingdom of Sicily's siege of Tunis ends with an inconclusive draw and my army suffering casualties.

*Screenshot of diplomat screen*
I'm going to prepare to trade with the Holy Roman Empire to strength Sicily's inexistent weapons culture and its army. While I have my army units attack Tunis' builder units to capture them in order to forcibly deprive the Almohads of any officers.

Next turn, the Almohads finally send their army, surrounding Tunis to prevent me from besieging it again. My army's been depleted by the siege, I order a retreat. Tancred's safe, but the rest of my army isn't so lucky. I have them raze the enemies' facilities to weaken them for a bit.

As expected, the Almohad retaliate by attacking one of Sicily's fleeing armies, and battle is joined. Even if I order a retreat, there's a chance he gets captured anyway, so he'll be inflicting as much damage as possible before he falls. It ends poorly as my infantry units are rendered confused as a result of attacking the enemy and are easily destroyed. The Almohads then captured the officer and executed him.

The same happens to the 2nd Silician Army, only that I decide to have the officer flee instead. He loses his army, but he lives to escape back to Palermo.

My diplomat reaches the city of Genoa, and I offer a cultural item for the Holy Roman Empire in exchange for trade rights. It's a done deal.

A few turns later, the Abbasid Caliphate falls as the city of Baghdad is added to the Ayyubid Dynasty of Egypt.

Two officers on a cycle of trade from Palermo to Genoa The delegation mechanic for all units allows me to cut out the tedious micromanaging and let the computer do all the work. The last failed siege showcases the weakness of Sicily's army when it comes to assaulting a city, so I'll have to recruit generic officers with good military stats while Palermo's culture level improves for all the trade being done.

Meanwhile, Tancred decides to tutor one of my sons on the art of fighting.

This is bad. The Ayyubids have conquered the Eastern Roman Empire. They already own culture rich cities like Damascus and Cairo, now they have Constantinople and Baghdad to expand their reach east and west.

My son has come of age, and now William is ready to come out of Palermo and lead the siege against Tunis. He and Tancred will attack.

With William leading the siege, he easily uses the confuse tactic to immobilize some of Tunis' shortbow units, and I manage to breakthrough to the inner castle and attack the command unit. Unfortunately, i wasn't able to kill him in time, and the siege ended inconclusively. It does further reduce the growth level of the city, weakening its defenses so that a siege will be a cinch.

While attempting to reposition my units for the next siege. Tunis counterattacks and surrounds Tancred's unit. This is going to be hard.

Yeah, this looks bad. I have to kill the first army fast, or Tancred will be surrounded and cut to pieces by sheer numbers. Thankfully, the enemy only inflicted minor damage in its first attack.

The Vikings manage to kill off a camel cavalry while Tancred successfully uses the confuse tactic on the enemy shortbowmen in order to try and kill off the command unit of the aggressor army. Unfortunately, the enemy command unit manages to confuse Tancred's CU in turn, destroying any chances of victory. Tancred is forced to retreat and luckly flees with his life in intact.

Due to being on enemy territory and right next to an enemy unit, William is unable to escape and is forced to literally cut through the enemy force.

Due to the army size differences, the AI absolutely refuses to attack William's army and he is able to cut through the enemy, killing off the subordinate command unit, forcing the main enemy command unit to successfully flee the battlefield.

Not too soon after, another Almohad army attacks, and he is far more willing to attack due to William and his units suffering casualties from the previous battle, and his units hit a lot harder when compared to the previous Almohad officers. I managed to rout them by killing their command unit, but it's clear they are going to send army after army to grind him to dust.


William safely goes back to Sicily. While he's on his return trek home, some of his sons have come of age, and they have slightly better war stats than him. While the siege failed, it went a lot better than the previous, and Tunis is further weakened as a result of the siege and has lost some of its officers in the battles I've won. In the next chapter, I'm going to have the royal family go on a fun Viking experience to finish Tunis once and for all.

World Map as of 1201

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 3: The New Era (1201–1206)

The last chapter ended with the Sicilians twice failing to conquer the Almohad city of Tunis, although it shows how weak the Saracens are when compared to the power of the Vikings.

With most of my sons having come of age, I'm ready to conquer Tunis once and for all, but first I have to wait a few turns to replenish my troop count. Unlike the PS1 version, where you need to manually select each officer in order to recruit, the PC version simply automatically does it for you, with only a toggle required to turn off the auto-recruitment.

With three armies each commanding a total of 5000 men, they easily destroy the Almohad armies that can only command 3000 men.

Meanwhile, the Hungarians have conquered the Kingdom of Poland and taken the city of Krakow as their own.

The constant sieges have taken their toll on the forces of Tunis, who are unable to send their armies to protect their city as I position my troops.

The 3rd siege of Tunis is a complete slaughter due to proper positioning (William is placed south so he can get near the gates) and overwhelming numbers. It doesn't help that the command unit decides that staying outside the walls is a good idea, enabling William's army to close in and kill him.

Genghis Khan IV PC OST - Islamic Strategy

Tunis now belongs to the Kingdom of Sicily. Most of the Almohad officers are killed for refusing a chance to submit to Sicilian rule, while a few get the hint. I also acquired two cultural items from the city: an astronomical device used in the identification of various stars and planets and used for naval navigation during ancient times, and the Saga of Hannibal, which details the military history of Hannibal Barca, the feared nemesis of the Roman Republic and one of the most renowned military generals in world history.

Another nifty change is that if your ruler is placed in a city of a different culture, the BGM changes appropriately to it's native culture.

Conquering Tunis also gives me access to new units. A neat mechanic is that as long as a kingdom's cities are connected, either by road or sea, they will be able to recruit the same kind of units regardless of their culture. So, for example, if I conquer a Japanese city that can recruit samurai units, the Sicilian city of Palermo will also be able to recruit samurai units but if only the roads from Palermo to Japan aren't broken.

It's nothing that a good cultural exchange can do to fix it.

William celebrates the conquest of Tunis with a feast. Genghis Khan IV does a very excellent job at displaying the rich differences of each culture.

Alas, only two turns later, William II dies of old age, leaving me to choose Castellano as the new king of Sicily.

Already, he has two wives. William's polygamy has rubbed off on him.

The officers express their support for the new king.

I decide to transfer Sicily's already significant stock of food and gold to Tunis, as I plan to rebuild the city and establish trade routes to Palermo to increase its cultural level. Then I have Tancred govern Tunis while I delegate three builder units to create farms, blacksmiths, and academies to build up food production, increase the strength of Tunis' armies, and enable the recruitment of good-quality officers. Also, a merchant offers me special product for the city of Tunis, unfortunately it's a just a sheep, instead of the more useful horse resource.

Later, the Kamakura Shogunate conquered the city of Hiraizumi and finally united Japan after so many constant battles. They are currently being attacked by the Jin Dynasty of China, which has enough wealth and manpower to attack both it and the Song Dynasty of China.

While waiting for Palermo's army to regain its troop count, the Hungarians decide to attack Venice while the Ayyubids target the Russian city of Kiev. With the Ayyubid menace lurking so close, my prime objective is the unification of the Italian peninsula in order to stand against the Saracen menace.

After many turns of preparation, the invasion of Genoa begins as Sicily's navy closes in. The Holy Roman Empire sends back most of the troops defending Venice as they face the Sicilians. Meanwhile, the Jin Dynasty of China has taken the Song Capital of Lin'an, giving them a city of high cultural level that they can put to good use.

The World Map as of 1206

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 4: "Holy" "Roman" "Empire" (1206-1211)

Welcome back. The Sicilians have conquered Tunis from the Almohads, and now I'm proceeding with my plan to unite the Italian peninsula by first conquering Genoa from the Holy Roman Empire and then Venice. King Castelliano leads the Sicilian Army to attack Genoa, but the Holy Roman Empire responds by recalling its armies currently defending Venice from the Hungarians' expansion. I decide to clear the way so that Castelliano's army suffers no casualties.

The first battle begins. I face two HRE armies, but the second suffers from some casualties. The HRE has a special unit available only to certain European nations called the Crusaders. They are barely weaker than Pikemen and Vikings, and Heavy Infantry are far stronger, but they can perform offensive actions twice, which makes them one of the most powerful infantry units when used correctly. I'm going to be quite caustic despite my numerical superiority.

The enemy strikes first, but some of its units are confused in the process. I managed to take advantage of the situation to cut them down to size, kill the command unit, and force them to retreat. The two HRE officers fail to retreat and are executed.

After auto-battling the next encounter, I'm preparing to besiege Genoa, but it has a significant garrison, and they have crossbows and archer units that have a longer range than shortbowmen but can only perform offensive actions once. Next turn, Genoa's armies decide to defend the city rather than attack me. I'm going to have to make more cleanups.

Here's the very first naval battle. Note how the Silicians have cool longboats due to having Viking units, while the HRE troops only have rowboats. The HRE officer's low WAR stat and the Vikings' having an advantage at naval battles mean a quick victory. However, the strength bonus has drawbacks in that Vikings can only attack in melee, unlike other units, which can attack at range and in melee. The officer quickly flees, knowing how he's outmatched.

The siege of Genoa begins.

Castelliano's army heads out to directly break the gate, knowing that the reinforcement unit near him will be dealt with by the other Silician army to the northeast. The battle is fierce due to the long range of the enemies crossbows, and the officer having the arson skill to turn them into fire arrows doesn't help, but I managed to break through.

I managed to force the reinforcement commander to retreat, but the enemy managed to set one of the Castelliano's units on fire and is unresponsive as a result. The fact that the crossbow units prove to be surprising tough in melee doesn't help, and the commander's INT stat being only slightly lower than Castelliano's means that I have fewer chances of confusing his units. The vikings tries their hardest to break through but the crossbow units' fire attacks continue firing arrows of fiery death that result in more confusion and painful immolation that prolongs the siege. The siege ends with a draw, but Castelliano's army suffers heavy casualties as a result. The Sicilian army is forced to retreat from Genoa as a result.

Meanwhile, one of Castelliano's sons is receive a lecture from one of my officers back at Palermo.

In contrast to my failed siege of Genoa, the Norwegians decide to attack the HRE and actually conquer their capital of Cologne, forcing the HRE ruler to retreat to Genoa. To make matters worse, the Russians decide it's a great time to attack their city of Krakov.

Another one of Castelliano's sons is being taught pre-Machiavelli lessons.

While figuring out my next move. I decided to create a new city in the unclaimed spot at the center of Italy.

After a long-fought conflict, Genghis Khan manages to defeat his rivals, the Jadarans. Meanwhile, against all odds, the HRE retook their capital of Kolm from the Norwegians. Later, Genghis adds the Kereits to his list of conquests and has finally unite the Mongols. He's going to be another potential threat to the East.

A few turns later, the Russians have taken Krakov from the HRE, while the Ayyubids further expand east, taking Nishapur from the Khwarizem Empire.

While Palermo is trading with the new city to increase its cultural level. I decide to invade Venice instead due to the powerful Friedrich II who'd easily wreck Castelliano's forces with his superior stats. This time, I decide to let the HRE and the Hungarians wore each other down while my army invades Venice. I decide to ready an assassin to take Venice through espionage rather than brute force.

Eurasia as of 1211

Till next time!

 

[Lord of Riva]

Just found this thread, I am having fun reading it, juts so you know people are interested. The PC version looks vastly better.

 

[Thorakitai]

Just found this thread, I am having fun reading it, juts so you know people are interested. The PC version looks vastly better.

Glad you liked it. I was unsure whether or not people are actually following my playthrough beyond a certain few given the utter obscurity of this game.

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 5: The Battle for Venice (1211-1217)

With Sicily's initial siege of Genoa facing defeat, I've decided to bid my time, slowly expanding Sicily's reach to Italy by way of building the new city of Trimonti as a frontline base, and decided to target Venice with a larger army and an assassin for espionage tasks while the HRE and Venice deal with the invading Hungarians.

While the Sicilian army goes on its way, the assassin will have to do his duty by killing off nearby armies. He fails on his first try, gets caught, and loses all his money, but he escapes. This is a poor start.

Deciding to do this the old fashioned way, I have my army attack a Venetian army currently defending its city shore. Despite the officer having a much higher naval rank, the Vikings easily destroyed the fleet, with the officer quickly fleeing the battlefield and successfully escaping with his head intact.

The Sicilian army prepares to besiege Venice, and my assassin fails again and has to escape back to Trimonti. The armies of HRE block the way to Venice, so I have to clean them up myself.

I start off with an excellent advantage despite being outnumbered. Because my officer effectively neutralizes both armies with a confusion tactic, which is good because the officer of the main defending army is rather tough. I immediately go straight for the commander and his defeat sparks a mass retreat from the HRE army. Both enemy officers managed to escape, unfortunately.

The Jin Dynasty of China has finally conquered the Song Dynasty and united China at last; unfortunately for them, the Mongolian rape train has arrived and has easily taken over their capital city. The Mongolians now have access to artillery units, one of the most powerful siege units in the game. Also, the Kamakura Shogunate of Japan has destroyed the Georyo dynasty of Korea and taken their city of Kaeseong. The Jin are now faced with two strong factions who hate their guts.

I tried to attack another defending HRE stack. Unlike the last battle, it failed miserably, although the officer managed to escape safely.

With one of Castelliano's sons coming of age, he's sent off to provide reinforcements for the Siclian invasion force.

The Hungarians have conquered the city of Krakov from the Russians. The poor city is basically a bitch to every European power it neighbors with.

The HRE is throwing everything it has to defend Venice. They won't attack me due to the Sicilians' numerical superiority, but I can't carelessly attack them because I'll be forced to attack their armies that are well-defended by each other due to my armies focus on besieging the city. Venice has a massive army protecting their city, but they are unable to help due to their low funds.

Unfortunately, the Kingdom of Sicliy is also throwing everything it has at this campaign because Palermo has run out of troops and my son's reinforcements are all they have. The Sicilians' food supply is getting rather low, so Palermo sends a transport unit bearing lots of food.

To break the deadlock, I decide on a risky battle to clear out the HRE defenders.

As always, Castelliano's army number advantage makes the enemy reluctant to fight me, except when their infantry tried a surprise attack, which didn't work and resulted in their units being confused. Unexpected victory occurred when the enemy decided to repeat attacks on my units with surround attacks, except their command unit was low on health as a result of my attacks, so they decided to repeatedly use that unit, resulting in their command unit dying of counterattack damage and a victory for the Sicilians. Unfortunately...

In a move of utter stupidity and overconfidence, thinking that Castelliano's number advantage might make him win in an auto-battle, I decide to do so to break apart a well-defended HRE formation, leading to his utter defeat and death at the hands of HRE. The campaign against Venice is a total failure, and the armies of Sicily retreat back to Palermo as I select a new king who now has to raise the loyalty of his officers.

Poor Krakow can't catch a break. The city is basically in a tug-of-war between the HRE, the Russians, and the Hungarians.

While the new king hurries to Palermo to solidify his rule. I decide to take a break from warmongering and strengthen the new city of Trimonti by building blacksmith and barracks facilities to increase its weapons and tactics culture and create a recruitment grounds for generic officers with good military skills, something the Sicilians have always lacked.

Surprisingly, the Tibetans have conquered the city of Dunhuang from the Xi Xia dynasty.

In a surprising turn of events. The Kingdom of Hungary asks for an alliance with me. I accept but my plans for an Italian unification are put on hold as I focus on development rather than warfare for now. I'm honestly thinking of targeting the Almohads and then Spain to assault Europe from the east.

Eurasia as of 1217

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 6: Rise to power. (1217-1225)

Hello there! The last chapter has the Kingdom of Sicily attempting to conquer the city of Venice, but the HRE's armies and my poor judgment resulted in the death of the late King Castelliano and the failure of the Venetian campaign. Now I'm just going to focus on the development of the city of Trimonti so it can act as a frontline base for a possible second attempt.

While in the process of development, I decided to train in the use of proper espionage due to my poor performance in using assassins in my last Venetian campaign.

The Qara Khitai retook the Xi Xia city from the Tibetans and have decided to invade their capital city of Lhasa in retaliation.

The Mongol-Jin wars continue, with the Mongols slowly winning as they take another city from the Jin.

Nice, so this command confuses an enemy army just the same as it was on the battlefield.

After being the shield of Venice for so long against the Hungarians and the Sicilians, the HRE turned on Venice and proceeded to attack them.

The Kingdom of Norway falls as the Russians take over the Norwegian capital city of Bergen, becoming the new rising power of Eastern Europe.

Both the HRE and the City of Venice are severely weakened due to their conflicts with each other. Now is the time for another invasion. With the city of Trimonti growing strong, I'm now ready to engage in a two-prong invasion. The Palermo army is mostly commanded by the sons of the late King Castelliano; they'll be distracting the HRE force while the Trimonti force led by King Benedicto strikes at the weakened Venice.

The HRE army takes the bait, freeing King Benedict's army to take Venice. When I was busy deploying my army, I immediately noticed an interesting advantage...

The HRE's attacks on the city of Venice have weakened its growth rate, reducing its area of influence so much that my city of Trimonti has taken a single tile of theirs containing the Horse specialty item. Not only can I finally recruit cavalry units like Knights, but my conquest of Tunis also gives me access to Lightbow Cavalry, an average HA unit, but this is the Genghis Khan series, where Horse Archers dominate the game and are culturally neutral, so my West-European officers won't get attack penalties. This is going to be a game-changer.

The army of Trimonti, led by King Bernadetto, is composed of Lightbow Horse Archers, a knight, and two Vikings. With the command unit being a cavalry unit, they move much faster than infantry on the world map.

While the Palermo army attacks the HRE armies, whose forces are utterly weakened by their attacks on Venice, and makes short work of them, the Trimonti army faces no resistance from Venice; their builder units, trying desperately to regain their city's growth level, are quickly attacked by my units, and those I capture are executed. The Hungarians take advantage of the situation, but that's my prize.

A single HRE army attempts to reinforce Venice, a perfect chance to try out Sicily's new units. The cavalry units add a quick and powerful punch to the slow Sicilian army, easily destroying the HRE army.

The HRE has lost countless officers due to its attack on Venice and the Palermo force killing off what's left of them, leaving Heinrich II as the sole defender of Genoa. I then surround the city from all four sides to block any chance that he sends any reinforcements to Venice. Meanwhile, the Trimonti force prepares to surround Venice to besiege it and prevent the Hungarians from attacking the city before I do.

The Hungarians have decided to renew their alliance with me; they are definitely scared of Sicily's rising power. Their armies have also moved away from Venice. The HRE has also offered an alliance, and I decide to accept it so that I can focus on my future plans to develop Venice after conquering it.

Now it's time for King Bernadetto and the Trimonti army to attack Venice.

The Sicilian army surrounds Venice and easily breaks through the gates, but the Venician crossbows put up a fierce fight due to the Doge having the Arson skill that lets him fire flaming arrows at my units, and his units have a large troop count.

The forces of Sicily fight their way through, but the Venicians are smart enough to specifically target units that would block the gate if their firearrows managed to inflict a burn status to immobilize the affected units, hopefully stalling for a draw.

Just when the Vencians are about to win by a draw and after inflicting a good amount of casualties against my units, I decide on a whim to attack their base with a Viking unit, utterly surprised that it falls in just one hit. It seems the gate isn't the only structure affected by the significant reduction of Venice's growth level. Surprisingly, King Bernadetto learns the Arson military skill, I'm surprised that Genghis Khan IV has such a system where you learn military techniques from the enemy.

With that, the Kingdom of Sicily conquers Venice. Sicily has acquired the cultural items enamel, which increases Art culture; the Stern Rudder, which increases Naval culture; and, most importantly, the crossbow, which enables Sicily to recruit Crossbow units while increasing the weapons culture of all its present cities.

The city of Venice is utterly ruined as a result of all these conflicts, and a heavy period of reconstruction is in order. I moved a good number of officers from Trimonti and had them raise the city's growth level and create caravans to trade to Trimonti to raise its cultural level.

The Hungarians have brought their diplomat, this time to ask for help in defeating the threat of the Russians in exchange for 1000 gold. I decided to accept out of boredom.

Since Venice is busy with its repairs, I've only sent a single unit to assist the Hungarians in retaking Krakov from the Russians. It goes poorly when I decide to just auto-battle instead of fighting manually. Still, the Hungarians managed to retake Krakov from the Russians.

Many turns later, my alliance with the Hungarians ends, and they decide to repay my aid by sending an army to attack Venice, even attacking a builder unit (thankfully, he evades capture). I'm glad they provided an excuse for more conquest.

Eurasia as of 1225

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 7: Pest Control (1225-1230)

Hello there! The Kingdom of Sicily has grown in power, taking advantage of the sudden conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and Venice, conquering the latter and forcing the former to accept a peace treaty. Now the Hungarians have decided to repay Sicilian assistance in capturing Krakov from the Russians by attacking Venice. I'll be glad to deliver a proper reward for their insolence.

First, I sent a force from the city of Trimonti to attack the Hungarian force besieging Venice. I decided to attack the one with the siege units first.

An army of siege units consisting of Trebuchets is actually quite a threat for Venice but easy prey in field battles without support. The command unit is easily killed and the officer has been executed after capture.

Still, they are the only units that don't need an troop rank to be effective, so they managed to deal a bit of damage to one of the knight units.

Next turn, the Trimonti army easily destroys the Hungarian army in a naval battle. They were pretty much sitting ducks due to being immobilized by the confusion tactic.

I decide to have the Trimonti army return to its home city to regain its troop strength in preparation for the attack on the Hungarian capital of Pest. Meanwhile, the Hungarians send only a small force to attack Venice again. Next turn, the force to besiege Pest is assembled.

The Hungarian force wisely retreats back to Pest upon seeing the massive Sicilian army assembled outside Venice. While the Sicilian Army marches for Pest, I send an assassin to successfully use a destruction espionage tactic to weaken the city's defenses. A Hungarian army fails to escape fast enough due to the river and is easily destroyed in a battle.

The natural defenses surrounding the city of Pest make it quite a pain for the infantry forces of the Venice army to cross, while the Trimonti cavalry army is able to move far, but its movements are still heavily hampered by the environment. The assassins perform another successful sabotage attack on the city's defense. The Hungarians send an army next to the city as a reinforcement unit, and it's an army commanding 2500 men, either a relative or a son-in-law general.

Unfortunately for the Hungarians, the officer is of inferior quality when compared to Bernadetto's sons, who have both quality of stats and quantity of men on their side despite some casualties. He's going down.

Already aware of the outcome, the CU decides to quietly retreat while his units provide a proper meat shield for his escape. In response to me moving my units back, he actually decides to fight back after all. Too bad he can be easily dealt with using a confusion tactic.

Given how the Hungarians have a significantly high garrison and he has catapult units from Krakov, I decide to surround the city and starve him out. I then sent a transport unit containing food to supply the army.

Meanwhile, on the east, the Qara Khitai have conquered the last remaining city of the Xi Xia, whose capital was already taken by the Mongol Empire.

While the long siege of Pest is going on, The HRE hasn't forgotten the humiliation of the last conflict and has decided to break the "alliance" treaty and send an army to attack Venice. Now this is more like it.

Next turn, the HRE sends even more armies to Venice. They aren't kidding around this time, but Venice still has a large number of officers defending the city, even despite the ongoing siege of Pest. I form a defensive line to not get too careless this time.

An HRE army loots a tile, destroying a facility for a bit of cash and gold, before another army begins the attack on the Venician defense line. Believing that I have the advantage, I decide to autobattle instead, easily winning three skirmishes against the HRE army and executing their captured officers after the battle. The remaining HRE force decides to bypass the defense line by sea. With their strongest general far out in the sea, I unleashed a counterattack of my own. The enemy fights fiercely but is ultimately forced to retreat, which he fails to do, and he and his other officer are executed. Next turn, I easily destroyed the remaining HRE unit.

While all this was happening, the ongoing siege of Budepest continued, with Venice and Trimonti providing valuable supplies to the camped armies.

Despite the massive loss, the HRE continues the fight, sending more forces. and loses them even more.

While I'm honestly thinking of just attacking the Hungarian Capital instead of just waiting it out, An unexpected diplomatic meeting happens between Sicily and France. I accept their alliance and a huge bag of gold.

Finally, a noticeable decrease in food when compared to having 47000 Meanwhile, I managed to destroy yet another HRE invasion force and I've decided to surround their city of Genoa and starve them to death as well.

Map as of 1230

See you next time.

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 8: Empire Building (1230-1243)

The Kingdom of Sicily faces off against the Kingdom of Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire, with the former being subjected to a year-long siege to starve them out and the latter's offensive being destroyed by the Sicilians' significant reserves.

The Sicilians gather a force to besiege the HRE city of Genoa and easily take out an HRE army.

Despite being constantly attacked by France, the English have taken a city from the HRE.

The HRE-Siclian War continues as I attack another HRE force. I'm hoping to kill the main force before the HRE's reinforcements gather. and I do so due to the rough terrain, which is quite an advantage.

The siege of Genoa finally begins.

Sicily is getting popular. The Kingdom of England asks for an alliance with a large sum of 10400 gold, and while France also constantly sends gifts of 1000+ gold, I accept them.

With both Genoa and Pest contained, there was not much else to do but handle the constant attempts at failed espionage from the besieged cities, resupplying each of my armies and diplomatic gifts from both France and England.

The long war between the French and the English ends with the fall of Paris.

Oh boy, the consequences of having multiple wives and forgetting to perform banquets to keep them happy The ladies fight with each other, and the King loses money in the process of appeasing them. Not a problem given how Venice is overflowing with money after all the trade caravans, though.

Things are rapidly changing. The Mongols have finally crushed the last Jin resistance, and in Europe, the Ayyubids begin their first assault against Europe, taking Kiev from the Russians. Meanwhile, in Western Europe, the English have conquered the HRE homelands, cementing their dominion over Western Europe.

Alright, I'm done waiting. The food supply of Pest lowers but somehow they manage to add a good 3000+ despite being surrounded. I suspect they have a random event where a merchant offers to sell them food. I've decided to just directly attack Pest instead.

With the ruler being painfully mediocre, it's easy to immobilize his troops with a good confusion tactic, but he still manages to inflict a good amount of casualties thanks to his catapult units and light horse archers constantly firing upon the Sicilians and his Knights doing their best to block the way. Ultimately, the city of Pest falls to the Kingdom of Sicily.

The only cultural item they have is a Horse raising manual written by Xenophon, a famous Greek philisopher, historian and military leader well-known for the Anabasis, a book he wrote about how he and his Greek mercenaries escape back to Greece from Persia after their employer got killed. It raises Pastorial Culture of all present cities.

Welcome to Eastern Europe! (Genghis Khan IV PC OST - Eastern European Strategy)

Next turn, I leave Trimonti under the care of the AI as I focus on rebuilding Pest's defense and establishing trade caravans to strengthen its cultural level. Its unit roster of Crusaders (Arguably the strongest infantry unit due to being able to act twice) and Hunting Cavalry (2nd strongest Horse Archer unit that's culturally neutral) makes it a very important military base to plan for a future confrontation against the Ayyubids.

Also, the siege of Genoa continues, and unlike the previous situation with Pest, they'll be running out of food soon enough so I can take their city without fighting.

With the Mongols conquering all of China, only the Kamakura Shogunate of Japan stands alone against the Mongol hordes, and they already have enough problems with a rebellion usurping control of their city of Dazaifu and the Korean city of Gaesong. Still, they manage to take a recently conquered Jin city from them but given how numerous the Mongols are, it's wonder how they'll keep the city for long.

Meanwhile, England puts the Kingdom of Hungary out of its misery by conquering their last remaining city, Krakov. They are going to be a future threat, especially with my alliance with them coming to an end.

Eurasia as of 1443


Tune in next time, everyone.

 

[Thorakitai]

I'm glad to be back. If anyone here is still alive watching my progress, I've been busy making two pdf files; one is a Google Translated screenshot of the GKIV PUK manual, which finally gives the game's gameplay mechanics some badly needed context. The other is a collection of Google-translated menus for the PS1 version, making it excellent for people who are JP-literate. The links are on the very first page here.

All that work has been quite great, reducing my fatigue from playing this game for weeks. So I'm now happy to enjoy GKIV again.

Chapter 9: The Battle for Europe. (1243-1248)

The Kingdom of Sicily has grown to power, defeating the Kingdom of Hungary, and the siege of the last HRE city of Genoa continues as they are losing food fast, and it's only a matter of time before it reaches 0 and the Sicilian army can easily conquer it. However, they aren't the only country in the process of building an empire.

The Kingdom of England has expanded its territory after winning the long conflict with France, taking over the Hungarian homelands, and recently conquering the last remaining Hungarian city of Krakov. With my alliance with them running out, there's going to be a war of supremacy for Europe between them and my Kingdom of Sicily. Given that the far more powerful Ayyubid Sultanate is also currently expanding west, having recently conquered Kiev from the Russians, this is going to be rather tense.

A few turns later, the English are sending an invasion force from the city of Cologne, heading towards Pest, while another force circles the besieged city of Genoa and is headed for Italy.

The war for Europe finally begins.

The battle begins between the English army and the Hungarians; the former's troops consist mainly of Knights and Longbowmen, and the latter is the most powerful archer unit in the game, boasting the longest range and strongest atk power, dealing quite heavy damage against my units, although the Sicilians manage to hold them off.

Far to the east, the Mongol Empire has destroyed the Ly Dynasty of Vietnam and taken over the city of Dazaifu from the Kamakura Shogunate. Meanwhile, I'm currently recruiting as many officers as possible in Pest and Venice in order to gather as many forces against the English and make sure I'm not overextending myself.

With the defeat of the English invasion, I've sent two prince-led armies to invade Krakov and a builder unit to construct roads in order to not only remove a lingering threat from behind Sicily's back when I begin the attack on their German territories but to also acquire the Plate Armor and Trebuchet culture items, which enable the recruitment of the heavy infantry, the strongest infantry unit, and the catapult unit that breakdown enemy gates from afar and attack enemy units inside castle walls.

The royal force of Sicily has now begun its siege of Krakov. The CO of the English garrison has high intelligence and a below-average war stat, enabling him to successfully use confuse tactics to disable the eastern Sicilian force while inflicting a good amount of damage with his longbowmen and crusaders, which leads to some deaths despite the numerical disadvantage, but it only postpones the inevitable, and the city of Krakov falls to Sicily.

Sicily then acquires the two previously mentioned military cultural items and the Fresco art cultural item.

While I rebuilt Krakov from scratch and brought a transport unit filled with supplies, the English sent another force from the German city of Cologne in an attempt to attack Pest. Honestly, princes that can field an army of 5000 men can be quite the gamebreaker when the enemy can only send 3000 and refuses to attack the former unless it's been wittled into constant battles.

Back to the siege of Genoa to finish it once and for all, especially with England sending forces to intercept the siege lines. Despite reducing the food supply to zero, I'm forced to directly assault the city rather than achieve the instant victory that the manual explains should be the case. Maybe the final city is exempt from that strategy. We may as well hope for the best.

The HRE king may be surrounded from all sides, but he has a tremendous advantage. He has a very high WAR stat, and his INT stat is maxed out to boot, so he'll be able to confuse my units with immobility. He commands units of crossbowmen that each number 1000 men, and they'll be replaced by Crusaders to boot. It will be an intense fight to the death.

The Sicilian Vikings breakthrough the gate, but HRE crossbowmen block the way as they bombard the front with fire arrows, immobilizing and slowly burning them to death. One Sicilian army has the ability to climb walls, allowing him to avoid their defenses. He is focused as a result, but this forces the crossbowmen to move out of the gate, allowing the vikings at the front to enter, and fierce hand-to-hand fighting ensues.

Unfortunately, the HRE strategically fires upon units near the gate, so when they are burned, they are basically obstacles that impend my units. The battle ends in utter defeat as the HRE kills off the CO unit of the commanding army, forcing the entire Sicilian force to rout, and my officers are captured and killed.

A few turns later, I've decided to assemble a second invasion force for Genoa; this time they are armed with Catapults that outrange the HRE crossbows, and I have a prince and a relative leading the army. Unfortunately, the English have once again decided to attack the city of Trimonti in the center of Italy, forcing me to split up the force into two to deal with the threats while continuing the invasion. This will be a nice way to end this chapter.

Eurasia as of 1448

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 10: War of the Lions (1248-1249)

The last chapter saw the beginning of the war between the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of England for control of Europe and the utter failure of the siege of Genoa due to the HRE ruler being an absolute badass and being able to burn all my Viking units alive with firearrows.

However, the Kingdom of Sicily's recent capture of the English city of Krakov has given the former valuable catapult units, and I'm poised to finally destroy the HRE once and for all.

With the English forces near Italy, I decide to shift the AI of the Sicilian city of Trimonti from the focus of internal affairs to passive attack and transfer officers to both it and the city of Tunis since the passage of time has reduced the number of available officers in those cities. Then I deployed an additional force from Venice to protect Italy from the English.

While the Sicilian army of Venice heads to Genoa, Next turn, the English forces have landed in Italy and are heading towards Venice. Two of them are close to the city, but my defense force dealt with them swiftly. Seeing how the city of Cologne is in such a bad shape (only has a city growth level of 2), I've sent an invasion force from the Hungarian city of Pest to deal with them.

Meanwhile, in the East, the Kamakura Shogunate of Japan is doing rather well, defeating a Mongol invasion force and retaking Korea from a rebellious officer.

The Sicilian-English war continues, with Venice doing double duty by besieging Genoa while defending against constant attacks from the English and the remaining HRE forces. The Sicilian force from Pest has arrived in Germany and has begun to assault the city. While the English did a poor job rebuilding the city, its defense force is commanded by a powerful but dumb general.

Meanwhile in Asia, the Mongol Empire has conquered the Vietnamese city of Hanoi, bringing an end to the Ly Dynasty.

The English forces are close to Venice and decide to pillage the countryside, destroying some buildings while the HRE force launches a ferocious attack on the Venician siege forces. The first battle caused significant casualties and forced me to use the "kill the commander" tactic just to win, which led to my loss in the second battle due to the HRE officer being a relative who commands a fresh unit of 3000 men made up of crusaders.

Meanwhile, in Germany, I manage to take the city of Cologne from English control. It was a close siege battle due to the English commander being a relative and having a high war stat, but thankfully his low INT stat made his units vulnerable to the confusion tactics, immobilizing his men. I take the cultural items of crop rotation and wheel plow; the latter not only boosts the farm culture levels but also increases the harvest income by x1.5. Not a bad catch.

Having eliminated the last HRE field armies and with reinforcements from Trimonti, the 3rd siege of Genoa begins.

The battle begins with both the siege army and the Trimonti reinforcements composed of Hunting Cavalry defeating the remaining HRE reinforcements by killing off their commanders before focusing on the powerful Genoa defenders commanded by the Holy Roman Emperor. As always, the HRE garrison is composed of crossbowmen, and their Emperor's ability to fire flaming arrows makes it a formidable wall. As always, my troops sustain heavy casualties and are immobilized by the flames. The addition of catapults does manage to even the playing field, enabling my troops to kill many of the defender's troops. The battle ends in a draw.

But I still have more reinforcements from Trimonti to throw at the city.

----

The second ended with a horrible defeat due to my CO unit dying in battle, and the result was that nearly all of my officers had been captured and killed. Thankfully, the city of Trimonti sent plenty of reinforcements, allowing me to initiate a third battle. With two armies composed of hunting cavalry and one army composed of catapults, I managed to get a better result—still a draw, but at least I'm killing as many of their troops as they are killing of mine.

Screenshot of Venice reinforcements

After that long chain of siege battles, I sent another force to aid the siege forces of Trimonti. The HRE is proving to be a consistent thorn for the Kingdom of Sicily.

-----

Next turn, the English are angry that I have taken Colonge from them; they sent a massive army. It's a good thing I've decided to transfer more officers from Venice. Thankfully, Colonge has a large garrison carried over from the English takeover, so I send my forces to intercept them. The first battle is a simple rout, but the second is a daring attempt to kill three English armies in one battle using one highly skilled officer. Thanks to the Ambush tactic, I was able to delay the weight of English numbers long enough that I was able to successfully kill the CO unit, forcing the entire army to rout and bagging me three captured officers, whom I executed. The third battle is where I used an army of Crusaders to distract the English army made up of Knights while an army filled with Crossbows sniped the CO unit dead.



This time, the city of Genoa will fall. The battle starts with the HRE garrison now lacking enough men to fill their units with troops, and I have plenty of Catapult and Crusader units to spare. Despite the massive bombardment from the Catapults, the HRE still fought well and inflicted casualties on my side, but inevitably I finally managed to win the battle by destroying their already weak base with a single catapult shot.

Italy is finally united, and the Holy Roman Empire finally falls. Most of the surviving officers I've captured refused to join, which is a shame since they have high stats, but I put them to the sword except the ruler; he's way too valuable, and I hope to recruit him someday or he may join another faction. Cultural items accquired from Genoa are famous books from both medieval and Antiquity eras.

I'll have to end this here, despite lasting only one in-game year, but the constant battles dragged on. With the takeover of Genoa and Kolm, I'm poised to strike the Kingdom of England and unite Western Europe.

Eurasia as of 1249

 

[Lord of Riva]

Ah, my morning coffee let's play is back.

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 11: An Explosive discovery (1249-1254)

The last chapter was a grueling one, filled with constant battles against the Kingdom of England and the Holy Roman Empire, but ultimately the Kingdom of Sicily triumphed against all odds, conquering the city of Cologne from the former while finally defeating the latter after several defeats in breaching their city of Genoa.

First, I need to rebuild both Genoa and Cologne; both cities' city levels are reduced to their lowest numbers to prepare for the final invasion to finish off England once and for all.

It's a good thing the English are too battered and have few officers to find the opportunity to attack me, given how I've constantly killed or persuaded most of their officers after capturing them in battle.

The Mongol-Japanese war continues as the Kamakura Shogunate loses control of Korea to the Mongol Empire.

A few turns later, Cologne's growth level is maxed, and I've sent an army to attack the city of Bruges to not only take advantage of England's weakened state but also because that city has a horse specialty that allows me to recruit cavalry units.

Next turn, aside from the few armies the English can muster, the Russians from Norway decide to also chip in and attack the city, not that I'll let them do so we clash. The first battle with the Russians and the second battle with the English army had me taking advantage of both the forest terrain and the confusion tactic to minimize losses, leading to victory.

A fun fact: When naming a new city after settling it by using the auto-name function, the game's choice of city names changes depending on which location the city is in. For instance, this city is named Bruges by the AI due to being placed in the location that would eventually become Belgium. It's one of the many things that give the game character.

*Screenshot of the siege of the last German city*

Clear of hostiles, I position the Sicilian army and begin the siege.

Nice mountain terrain.

The English garrison consists of Catapults and Longbowmen, with the CO unit being a knight, while I command four armies made up of heavy infantry and catapults. An easy victory is made easier by a lucky confusion tactic that managed to shut down the enemy CO unit, preventing them from sending reinforcement units as I broke through the city.

With that, the city is conquered, and next turn I clear out the Russian armies in auto battle before focusing on rebuilding the city of Bruges, as I will use it as a launching pad alongside Genoa to conquer both the last remaining English cities of Paris and London to finish off the crippled Kingdom. The previous chapter has ruined the kingdom, as both their cities only have 3 or 2 officers, including their king, while the Kingdom of Sicily has many able officers to spare.

The Kamakura Shogunate has fought hard but the Mongols are about to conquer Japan.

The end of England begins as I send armies from both Genoa and the German city to Paris and London, respectively, while the Russians try to be an amusing sideshow by sending one army at a time to try and conquer Bruges from me.

The siege of Paris ends with a catwalk; the CO unit and his army were rendered powerless due to me immobilizing their armies, whether using the confuse tactics or my catapult units. I acquired some nifty cultural items from it, but most important is that I can finally recruit siege towers, units available only in castle battles that have the range of longbowmen; their range attacks can hit units inside walls, and they can perform actions twice.

Next turn: London is next. The siege battle's progress and outcome are the same except that the English King's strength and royal army proved challenging at the end, where he kept summoning knight units as reinforcements that nearly managed to end the siege at a draw if it weren't for the repeated catapult attacks on the CO unit and a lucky break where I sent a knight unit to finish him off.

London and the Kingdom of England have fallen, but I decide to let the English king go, hoping to recruit him in the future. The cultural spoils of England are many, but the most important ones are the Longbow, which gives me access to the most powerful foot missile unit in the game, and the Castle Architecture, which strengthens the HP of city castles and gates, making them harder to destroy and reducing the success rate of enemy infantry climbing over the walls using the Siege tactic skill.

Another game trivia: Certain Cultural items have a sound effect or tune when you read about them, so the Sheepdog barks while the Bagpipe plays a tune.

Next turn, the sudden accumulation of cultural items from the war with England has massively boosted the cultural levels of all my present cities; in particular, Venice now has an extremely high weapons culture and has given me the Handcannon cultural item. Only initially available in the main Chinese cities, this cultural item enables me to recruit Cannon units, the most powerful siege unit in the game, and aside from being a stronger catapult, it also adds the chance that a shot might set a unit on fire. A very deadly combination that can shut down an entire army if used well.

While reorganizing and leaving London to the AI, I decide to put my new weapons to the test by attacking both the Kingdom of Castle and the Russian Principality of Kiev in Norway to finally complete my conquest of Europe. The lack of cavalry units and the constant attacks of the Almohad Caliphate have rendered Castile too weak and unable to build many facilities that can raise its cultural level.

Next, I decide to move my faction leader and almost every officer from Venice to Pest so that I can begin the future invasion of the Ayyubid Sultanate, particularly their city of Constantinople, where their current Sultan is residing. This is a wise choice given the high cultural level of the city, which enables him to have more chances of recruiting high-quality officers and ensuring that his children are high-quality as well.

An Almohad army is currently attacking Toledo, so I decide to clear them out with my army. Aside from inflicting confusion on the target, they may also suffer from being set on fire as if they were hit with fire arrows. It's a very deadly combination that enables me to shut down this Almohad army. Unfortunately, due to eagerness and a bit of embarrassment, I got too carried away and immediately decided to directly siege Toledo and underestimate the enemy once again. I sent my CO unit to clear out enemy troops, and the AI concentrated on him, resulting in an utter defeat.

Using Paris as the main center of direct control for my kingdom, I've sent officers from Pest to bolster its military strength so I can attack Toledo for real. Now is a good time to end this.

Eurasia as of 1254

 

[Thorakitai]

Chapter 12: The conquest of the West and... (1254-1259)

Hello there.


The last chapter ended with the Kingdom of Sicily emerging victorious over the Kingdom of England, gaining full control of Western Europe, and the development of the Kingdom's weapons culture from all the cultural items recovered from the war has given the Kingdom the ability to recruit Cannon units, making the armies of Sicily even more powerful.


Now I'm preparing to conquer the remaining weak nations, the Kingdom of Castile in Spain, the Almohad Caliphate, and the Russian Principalities, before engaging with the powerful empire of the Ayyubid Sultanate.

My joy of having a powerful unit and overconfidence caused me to lose a siege battle against the city of Toledo, forcing me to order the weakened army to retreat to Paris and plan for a full-scale invasion. Meanwhile, the Sicilian army from Burge sails to the Norwegian city of Bergen, controlled by the Russians. Meanwhile, having moved the King and most of the officers to the Hungarian city of Pest, I created trade caravans to boost its cultural level in preparation for an attack on Constantinople.

Next turn, I begin the siege of Bergen, noticing how the Russian officer in charge of the garrison is the King himself. I have to be careful this time.

The Silician army from Bergen is commanded by a relative, leading an army composed of Longbowmen and cannons, while the second army is composed of Vikings. The Cannons show how devastatingly powerful they are when their shots inflict both confusion and fire, utterly neutralizing the garrison forces with few casualties and shooting the CO unit to death. Before, fighting the King's troops would have been an uphill battle, even with catapults and four armies attacking simultaneously. This is a battle won with only two armies.

Bergen is conquered by the Russians, the King is executed, and the city is left to the AI for development. Now I've assembled invasion forces to conquer both the Kingdom of Castile and the Almohads. Both forces are led by princes, so I have enough manpower to crush them in one fell swoop. Meanwhile, King Benernadito fulfills his dreams of having a massive harem of queens from different nationalities as a result of Sicily's conquests.

Next turn, the 1st Paris army besieges Toledo and easily wins. I've put the King and most of his officers to the sword and acquired Castile's cultural items.

Many turns later, the 2nd Paris army arrives at the Almohad capital of Marrakech to finish off the Almohads and turn my attention to the west. The Almohad forces, on their way to the recently captured city of Toledo, try to go back to defend their capital, but it's too late. The siege battle went well. until my CO unit ran out of food at the worst possible time due to the long distance the CO unit had marched and the royal army disintegrated, forcing the officer to return to Paris.

Not wanting to run out of food while conducting the second siege, I have the remaining active army loot the enemy building to replenish the food supply. Then I proceeded with the second siege, and I won without losing food. The city of Makkarech has fallen; all the captured officers have been executed, and I've gained their cultural items.

With the West fully conquered. I decide to finish off the Russian Principalities before tackling the Ayyubids. This time, sending a supply unit alongside the army for the long road to Novgorod.

The only thing difficult about the conquest was the long journey, as the Russians fared just as well as the two other countries that swiftly fell to the might of Sicily's cannons. And all I got from the destruction of the nation was a Babalaika.


Upon the capture of Novrogod. The Ayyubid ruler responds to the Empire of Sicily's conquest of Novrogod.

Ayyubid Ruler: Oh! The army of the Kingdom of Sicily.

Ayyubid Ruler: Allahu Akbar! Take up your swords! O you who serve the only God! Jihad!

Khwarazmian Empire Ruler: In the name of Allah, let us unite and defeat the infidells! Jihad!!

Ayyubid Officer: Your Majesty! The people of the domain have organized a volunteer army and are rushing to join us one after another.

Ayyubid Officer: In addition, wealth people in the territory have sent huge amounts of money and food.

Ayyubid Ruler: Oh, thank you. With this, the preparations for battle with the Kingdom of Sicily are complete.



Yep. The Ayyubids, the Khwarizem Empire, and the Qara Khitai decide to stop fighting each other and form a coalition to stand against the Sicilian Empire. It's a hidden event trigger where if a player's nation-city total reaches fifteen and you have captured a city from a specific culture, the remaining countries of that culture band together to form a coalition and attack you. And yes, it seems the Ayyubids now have unlimited manpower and wealth to fund the offensive.

Ayyubid armies are sighted at the borders of both Pest and Krakov, and there are more coming this way. The clash of East and West begins now. It's right to end this here.

Eurasia as of 1259

See ya.