Medieval II: Total War Part VI

"Honour and Glory await England!"


- His Royal Highness, King Toby of the House Robin, The First of his Name, King of England, Scotland and France, Protector of Wales and Ireland, Prince of Aragon and Doge of Genoa

Current affairs


In the year of our lord, 1282, The Kingdom of England is divided into eighteen areas, which are ruled by either cities or castles. There are fourteen capital cities and four castles. London remains the political centre of the empire. There are seventeen male members of the Royal Family who have come of age. the Royal Family consists of multiple house. House Norman, descended from William the Conqueror and is currently led by George the Cuckold. House Roose, led by Charles. The current King comes from House Robin descended from Morcar the Wrathful and currently led by his eldest son King Toby.

England is currently the largest country in Europe in terms of area and population, and second only to the Mongols in wealth and military size. The English are currently at war with Venice, Denmark, Spain and Portugal. Venice is considered the most dangerous threat, as it is the third strongest power in Europe. While the English armies go unchallenged on land, the Venetian and Danish navies control the seas. Military efforts are divided into three Campaigns. The south-west front is led by King Toby himself as he fights against the Portuguese and Spanish in unison. In the north, the armies are led by a coalition of nobles against Denmark. the south-east front is led by Robin Robins, the king's youngest brother against the Venetians.

Domestically, two more members of Henry's cable have fallen. Morcar the Wrathful passed away while visiting the Irish and Leonard died while down south. This is a worrisome situation for the British Isles. The last governor of London is also ageing, and it is feared that he will die before any are able to take the threes place. while there is no worry of the islands actually rebelling against the King, the lack of anyone to enforce his will could pose a problem. Neither Godwine or Robin wish to return and claim their father's territory, and Leonard left no descendants to take his place.

Events


At the fall of France, two cities were under siege. Antwerp in the north by the Danish, and Marseilles in the south by the Venetians.With the end of the French threat,  units that had taken serious casualties were being sent back west in order to recruit new soldiers, while newly trained troops were heading to the fronts. The English armies present were divided into three parts. the smallest was as a garrison for the freshly conquered town of Dijon. Half of the army went with Robin down south to Marseilles. the other half went north to lift the other siege. They were to be led by Edgar, younger brother of George. Meanwhile, Toby would march south to link up with his forces heading to Portugal.

The North


Before reinforcements could arrive, the enemy armies decided to lead an assault on Marseilles and Antwerp. Edgar defended Antwerp valiantly, despite being outnumbered 3 to 1. While he took heavy casualties and lost a third of his men, he was able to repel the assault by holding the Danes at the gate. reinforcements arrived soon after, but at first mostly composed of siege equipment that arrived in anticipation of the coming assault.

Actual soldiers appeared soon after. However, even by combining their forces, too many of their units were depleted. Fearing another attack that they wouldn't be able to repel, they were forced to call from reinforcements from nearby towns. When they arrived, they were finally able to send the veterans away from the front and give them time to find more members. This delayed any action in the north for a significant amount of time, as they tried to deal with the logistics of shuffling soldiers and nobles around.

The situation at sea didn't help at all. The enemy navy was too strong for England's. They had numerical and technological superiority. This prevented the transfer of any troops over the water, which would've been a significant time saver. Instead the soldiers were forced to march constantly. Ports were constantly blockaded which significantly cut into the trade income necessary to fund the armies. Luckily, due to England financial advantage, they were eventually capable of building enough to forces them to retreat. The army has finally moved out and entered Denmark. However the pope threatens the King with excommunication if he attacks the Danish over land for the next while. Thus, progress has stagnated.

The Southeast

Jasper in Marseilles decided to sally forth. He faced the near opposite of Edgar's situation. He outnumbered the enemy, but his forces were mostly composed of untrained militia men and peasant archers while the Venetians had a professional army. Nevertheless, he was able to drive the enemy away. He lost about a third of his forces. Unfortunately for him, the he was soon under siege again by yet another army.

This time, Robin was in position to come to his rescue. Proving himself worthy of his brother's name, He defeated an army twice the size of his own forces, without taking significant casualties. Seen as a hero he entered Marseilles and saw what happened to Jasper. Jasper had turned into a paranoid dysfunctional man, who was doing more harm to the city than good. Years of attempted assassination attempts and the stress of the constant threat of uprisings had taken its toll. the The city was turning into a hellhole. He managed to convince Jasper to leave the city, and left his cousin by marriage, Robin of Berwick, in charge of city. He hoped to take Jasper to war, where he could face a heroic death in battle without harming more of the people.

Together, they headed east to Venetian lands when they ran into Genoa, only lightly defended by the Doge of Venice himself. They quickly lay siege to the city, hoping to be able to attack it before reinforcements arrived. Unfortunately, an army did arrive, led by a family member of the Doge. They were forced to engage in battle. During the battle, the Doge came out of the city to reinforce his ally. Robin was able to take out the crossbowmen with a cavalry charge from behind and his own missile units. He killed the Doge's relative before he went after the Doge. While the bodyguard put up a brave fight, they eventually fled. The whereabouts of the enemy leader is unknown. While he did not die in the battle, he was not found in the now defenceless city. Angered at the missed opportunity, Robin took a page from his brother's book and had the city sacked in revenge. Now what's left of his forces must decided whether to hold or abandon the city while a Venetian siege army approaches.

South-West

The war against the Portuguese was long and hard. They were the current lords of the kingdom of Aragon, holding the city and castle of Zanagoza and Pamplona. While they were reasonably defended, the true challenge was crossing the Pyrennes mountains and getting to them. Toby was still far behind his forces, and reinforcements were coming from the north as well. Eventually, the army made it through, while Toby linked up with the reinforcements.

The first army laid siege to Zanazoga, unaware that a Portuguese army was coming from behind. Toby showed why he had earned the crown and managed to slay most of the army before they were able to get to his assaulting army. It was a glorious victory, as he was outnumbered and lacked a significant cavalry force. It was there that he learned of the joy of using catapults on enemy soldiers. He had all the prisoners executed for opposing him, before continuing to Pamplona, the seat of Portuguese power. After a siege and a night assault, He claimed victory. In a moment of cruelty that had become expected of him, he ordered his soldiers to exterminate the population of the castle. Thousands died as he solidified his rule and his reputation as a brutal, merciless conqueror. His enemies now tremble at his name. It is believed that due to his sense of justice, Toby performs many of the executions himself and he uses assassins to eliminate those that could potentially bother him.

Once his other army finished their siege, he claimed the title "Prince of Aragon" to show his commitment to keeping his new lands. He intends to march further into Spain,  and continue his reign of Conquest, and surpass William the Conqueror as the greatest commander the English had ever seen. He is military genius, a competent ruler who inspires dread in any who would dare oppose him.

The Borders after the recent conquests

Medieval II: Total War

When Steam had their Black Friday sales a while back, every game seemed to have some ridiculous discounts that I'd never be able to find anywhere else. One of the best deals I saw was the Total War Megapack, normally  sold for $50, something which I'd always consider way too expensive to buy even if it did come with 4 games, for only $12.50. Even though my computer can't run the newer ones, my friend said I might as well take advantage of the deal since it 75% off. So I got the pack which came with: Rome: Total War, Medieval II: Total War, Empire: Total War and Napoleon: Total War, along with all their expansions. I decided to start with Medieval II, mostly because I misremembered it as being the oldest of the four, forgetting Rome came out a few years before.

So I started it up and unsurprisingly enough, the game ran at about 8 whole frames a second even with all the graphics set to the lowest possible and nothing else running on the computer. For comparison, go to this Link to see the difference between 15, 30 and 60 fps. Despite the slowness of the game, once I got out of the tutorial I really started to enjoy the combat and almost forgot it was atrocious to watch. the battles of the tactical map were extremely fun to command, as you line up your hundreds of troops and then watch them fight the enemy. I managed to win my first seige, although i suffered extremely high casualties. I had a grand total of 4 archers left. Not 4 units of archers, literally four men. When a unit comes with 75 men a piece, you can see how much I sucked. I decided the only way to get better was to keep playing the game. I started a short campaign playing as England. I got hooked and spent the next few days mostly playing the game.

The campaign map is turned based as opposed to real time, and includes up to sixteen different factions. To win the campaign as the English, you need to control 15 regions and eliminate the French and the Scottish. I got to work and learned how to play the game and how to command my men, what units worked best against which, the importance of morale, and most importantly, how badass Cavalry units are. If you use them properly, they're the strongest units in the game. they can beat almost anything if you used them properly. foot soldiers are losing a melee and are outnumbered? Cavalry charge. Archers are chipping away at your troops? Cavalry Charge. the enemy cavalry is charging you? Cavalry Charge. As long as you hit them from the side or behind, your horses will slaughter the enemy and force them to rout. Later on, once the French started to use heavy infantry (basically armoured knights), you can see how easily those can fight everything to a standstill .and how one unit of those can hold off 3 or 4 times their number in light infantry. they're also much harder to charge with your own cavalry.

As I played, I discovered one of my favourite features about the game; the Royal Family. Each faction has a Royal family where the males act as governors of Towns and Castles during the campaign, and Generals on the battlefield. You need to use them as governors in order to recruit new soldiers for your army and build new buildings in towns, otherwise the towns only provide income. You also need them on the battlefield since they can affect the course of battle, and also act as an extra unit of Heavy Cavalry. They each display 4 ratings which impact how important they are, which are ranked on a scale of 1-10. the first is Command, which increases morale on the battlefield. Chivalry/Dread increases your own units morale, or lowers the enemies, respectively. Chivalry is better for governors, while Dread is better for war. Loyalty is the chance they have of rebelling, being bribed, and also affects the amount of unrest in lands they govern. Kings have authority, and if they have a high enough score it'll keep low loyalty family members from rebelling. Piety is how religious they are, and whether the inquisition will get them.

Maybe its just me, but as I got family members, they seemed to develop a personality depending on how I used them and seemed to tell a story. they got traits which affected their stats and made sense.  For example, I had one character who had three children. he got traits such as alcoholic and angry. As his children grew up, they all get traits which said they abhorred drinking. I thought this was a clever touch on the games part. Since this was my first campaign, I grew quite attached to some members of the family, and hated some others. each character seemed to tell his own story if I thought about it, and just made the game more fun and exciting to play.