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Hashim posted:Yeah, that actually sounds like a fantastic megacampaign. Of course, as tensions escalate a cold war will eventually develop between Aztec America and Muslim Europe, culminating in a devastating nuclear war and the end of all mankind. So, Aztec Mad Max? That I want
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Apr 1, 2017 17:52
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Lord Cyrahzax posted:So, Aztec Mad Max? That I want After the End but all the relics are Aztec.
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Apr 1, 2017 18:10
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Mad Maxtecs
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Apr 1, 2017 22:20
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Luhood posted:Mad Mixtecs ftfy
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Apr 1, 2017 22:48
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I am not opposed to a hilarious invasion of Europe by the Aztecs. Please let the rumors be true.
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Apr 2, 2017 21:04
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the april 1st post re: outlandish game scenarios, is true
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Apr 2, 2017 23:21
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This thread is good and I am reading it.
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Apr 3, 2017 20:43
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Chapter 26 – The Pilgrimage of 1399 – 1385 to 1405 As the fourteenth century gradually nears its end, the political landscape across the Mediterranean continues to morph and change, with Muslim and Christian powers clashing from Jerusalem to Tulaytullah. The most recent setback was the fall of Jerusalem to the Egyptian Crusaders, now poised to roll over the Levant, but the next few years would see challengers rise up in all directions.  First amongst these challengers had to be Armenia. Threatened by the rising power of Crusader Egypt, the Sharif of Hejaz agreed to swear vassalage to the powerful Sultan of Armenia, who went on to claim the title of Caliph.  This announcement doesn’t cause so much as a ripple throughout the rest of the Muslim world, however. If Sultan Zarmihr wanted to revive the Caliphate, then he would have to enforce his claim on the battlefield, like the Khalifas of old. Across the Mediterranean, meanwhile, the Jizrunid kingdom was quickly recovering from the Second Crusade for Al Andalus. Sultan Ma’n was determined to rebuild his army and patch up relations with his vassals, but late in 1387, news of a sudden development in Castille changed everything.  King Cyneric – who unified the thrones of Castille, Portugal, León and Aragon through marriage and conquest – died whilst battling rebels in Catalonia. With his sudden departure from this world, the entire weight of the unified Christian state was thrust onto the shoulders of his nephew, a mere babe by the name of Lop. Sultan Ma’n could not let such an opportunity slip past. Within days, he had his armies raised and marching northward, vowing to reclaim the former Andalusi territory of Baja.  The Castilians are able to throw together a large army, but its weak leadership is made evident when a 5000-strong scouting force entered Andalusi territory without any reinforcements nearby. Ma’n pounced on the small army and, in a short and decisive battle, utterly annihilated it.   The Sultan then pushed north, splitting his forces and besieging to nearby fortresses. Before any could be captured, however, the regency ruling in Castille send another army to confront the Muslims.  This time significantly larger, the 23,000-strong force engaged the Andalusi army not far from Évora. Ma’n was able to make good use of a nearby river and his terrain to repel the initial attack, however, fending off the Christians long enough for reinforcements to pour onto the battlefield and reinforce the thick fighting. Now hopelessly outnumbered, the Christians were quickly overwhelmed, with thousands cut down in the frenzy of the battle. Once broken and fleeing, thousands more drowned to death in the flooding river, utterly destroying the rest of the Castilian army.   Facing certain defeat, the Castilians were forced to turn to other powers for help. After securing a marriage contract, an Occitan duke agreed to contribute some of his forces to the defence of Castille, and a 10,000-strong force is thrown at the Andalusi a few weeks later.  Sultan Ma’n had already proven his worth on the battlefield - and against far greater odds than this - and the Christians are once again routed.  With that, the Muslims are able to spread out and besiege nearby fortresses, scaling and capturing several within months. Once the provincial capital at Elvas succumbed, all of Castille’s options were finally spent, and they were forced to the negotiation table.   The Catholic kingdom was forced to cede a large stretch of land in Portugal to Al Andalus, including the city of Lisboa, a densely-populated coastal centre of trade. The consequences of Castille's defeat would go far beyond this, however, as revolts began sprouting up from Galicia to Aragon.  One thing that all the recent Andalusi-Christian wars made clear was that the Andalusi army had a definite, if narrow, edge over its Christian counterparts. A large part of this came down to the discipline and effectiveness of the Mubazirun, so Sultan Ma'n decided to expand the elite force, using the spoils of his victory to fund the construction of new barracks and training grounds.  With that, some much-needed peace descends over Al Andalus. Ma'n returns to his capital a few days later, and whilst Qadis is thriving in population and income, the Sultan is not impressed with its defenses. After consulting his viziers, he began investing large sums of money into the city's fortifications, building new watchtowers and repairing its surrounding walls over the next few years.  Sultan Ma'n doesn’t simply focus on the military, however, he also began to actually rule for the first time in his life. Hoping to solidify relations with his vassals, Ma’n invited emirs and sheikhs to feast with him in Qadis, gaining friends and allies in the Majlis al-Shura.  Eventually, Ma'n managed to convince the Majlis to pass an act further restricting the autonomy of the Taifas, whose land and personal power were gradually shrinking. In exchange, they gained influence in the Majlis itself, which served as the only check on the Sultan’s power by that point.  As the months turn into years, Ma'n proves himself a capable monarch, juggling his different administrative, diplomatic and military duties with admirable skill. Unfortunately, the exhausting days take a toll on his health, as they do on any good ruler.  And of course, it became expected that Ma'n would finally take wives and concubines, and hopefully father sons soon enough. Curiously, however, Ma'n had never found the charms of women particularly... appealing, he had always preferred the company of his soldiers and officers, spending the long hours of the night swapping tales and riding mounts. Nonetheless, he did take a highborn lady to wife, with courtiers and servants whispering that they'd never seen their Sultan look so fearful as when he marched into his wedding bed. And before very long, he had twin princes running about the palace - Sayf and Khudayr - born within minutes of each other, and both viable heirs to the throne.   These years of peace did the realm good, but peace always comes to an end, and it can only end with war. In the Mediterranean, conflict broke out between the Sultanate of Algeria and the Duchy of Sicily, with the powerful Izri Sultan declaring a holy war for the island.  Sultan Ma’n saw opportunity in this. He had never forgotten his vows to retake Jerusalem some day, but he could not do it without establishing a permanent presence close to Egypt, and Sicily was a constant threat to that presence. After consulting the Majlis, the call for war was once more taken up in every mosque and court across Al Andalus, and ships were on their way to Palermo carrying declarations of war.  Within a year, Sultan Ma’n managed to put together a fairly substantial army, with 25,000 men landing at Reggio in the winter months of 1395. After resting his troops for a few days, Ma’n led them in a dangerous crossing across the Straits of Messina, engaging the Sicilian army on the other side.  The Sicilians were weak in numbers and morale, and after a short but bloody battle, their army was surrounded and wiped out by the Andalusi.   Ma’n then led his army to the island’s capital at Caltabellotta, which quickly succumbed after a few weeks of being surrounded and blockaded.   With the destruction of his army and the fall of his capital, the duke of Sicily was forced to abandon his island, fleeing overland to his last holdings at Bari. The Andalusi quickly subjugated the rest of Sicily after that, sieging down and capturing Palermo within weeks, thus bringing the war to an end.  Sultan Ma'n keep his army raised for a few weeks more, crushing any Catholic and Orthodox rebellions that sprouted up across the island. Further south, meanwhile, the powerful Izri Sultanate was in a state of crisis. After suffering a few losses to the Duke of Sicily, revolts began breaking out all across North Africa, and they quickly spiralled out of control. Before long, the empire had been carved up between rival tribes and emirs, bringing the brief Izri hegemony over North Africa to an end.  At the same time, in the Near East, Sultan Zarmihr finally decided to cement his hold on the Caliphate by recapturing Jerusalem, declaring jihad on Crusader Egypt.  This was exactly what Sultan Ma'n had been waiting for. Within months, he managed to assemble an ever larger army at Sicily, and 50,000 Andalusi levies embark from Palermo... He had performed the pilgrimage to the Holy Land several times, but never with his sword and never with an army. Until now.  Sultan Ma’n had spent years planning for such a war, agonising over different tactics, brooding over countless approaches, testing and discarding dozens of different strategies. Eventually, he decided that the best way to cripple the Crusaders was by hitting them at the centre of their power – Egypt itself.  The Christians evidently didn’t expect to suffer an amphibious assault, because the Andalusi were easily able to make the landing. The next few weeks passed in a blur as coastal forts were quickly besieged and captured, and because the Crusaders were busy fighting the Armenians in the Holy Land, all of this was done without any opposition.     By late 1399, Sultan Ma’n had a firm hold over the northern coast of Egypt. It was only then that the Crusaders were able to defeat the Armenians, sending the so-called Caliph packing after the decisive battle of Antioch, before marching back down to lift the occupation of Lower Egypt.  The Crusaders were a famously disciplined and well-organised fighting force, but the countless battles in the Holy Land had bled them dry, and their numbers didn't exceed 15,000 soldiers. Sultan Ma’n pounced on them whilst they were still weak, and in just three hours of fighting, most of the Crusader army was destroyed.   Sultan Ma’n even distinguished himself in the fighting, leading a near-suicidal charge into the enemy pavilion and cutting down several high-ranking officers and generals.  With the Crusaders demolished, the road to Jerusalem lay empty and clear, and Ma’n led his army to the city of Prophet Isa unopposed. Facing no prospects of victory, King Mei agreed to cede the entirety of the Holy Land over to Sultan Ma’n, in return for his withdrawal from Egypt and peace.  With that, the turn of the century sees Ma'n fulfil his vows and reclaim Jerusalem for Islam. The next few years would see the warrior-king become a legend in the flesh, with stories of his grand exploits told over campfires and bound in books, and with time he would even come to be immortalised as Sayfullah - the Sword of Allah. Ma'n's conquests haven’t been the only wars of note, however. Even before the Andalusi and the Egyptians clashed, wars had been raging all across the Near East, beginning with the fall of Rûm and the rise of Nicaea.  Despot Eustratios, a follower of Iconoclast Orthodoxy, managed to partly revive the legacy of the Roman Empire by conquering the Sultanate of Rûm, reducing it to a rump state in northern Anatolia. Eustratios didn’t stop there, however, he went on to declare war on the Latin Empire, vowing to reconquer Constantinople and restore the Eastern Roman Empire.  Meanwhile, closer to Jerusalem, war erupted between the Sunni Otaybahids and the Shia Fatimids. The once-dominant Fatimids had been in steep decline for the past few decades, but Caliph Ali sensed weakness within the Otaybahid Emirate, and was determined to reconquer all of Syria.  Both of these developments were overshadowed by what was happening further east, however. Hailing from a small town in Isfahan, a young soldier named Ismail Farzadid somehow managed to claw his way to power within his local emirate, before usurping the throne and embarking on a conquering spree. Within a scant few years, he had somehow managed to create a vast empire that stretched from the wide plains of Khorasan to the rugged mountains of Trebizond, all under his personal rule.  Back in Jerusalem, meanwhile, Sultan Ma’n had appointed local governors and was preparing to return to Al Andalus. Ma'n departed from Acre late in 1404, but when his ships docked at Qadis a few months later, the Sultan’s body was cold and unbreathing. The sailors swore that he died in his sleep, but they were tried and executed nonetheless, and Ma'n's rotting corpse was swiftly prepared for burial.  The reign of Sultan Ma’n is highlighted by his many accomplishments, but his greatest legacy will surely be his conquests. He ensured the survival of his kingdom by defeating the Second Crusade for Al Andalus, he reconquered vast tracts of land from the united kingdoms of Christian Iberia, he fought and defeated the Egyptian Crusaders when no one else could… But these conquests came at a price. Ma’n spent so much time on the march that he fathered his sons very late in life, and with his sudden death at sea, a mere child is crowned as his successor in Qadis. To make matters worse, the regency will be made up of powerful members of the Majlis al-Shura, made up of power-hungry nobles and ambitious opportunists... The next few years will undoubtedly prove to be rocky and unstable, but as the Middle Ages draw to a close, it is quickly becoming clear that only the strongest of the strong will survive, with everyone else resigned to the pages of history. hashashash fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Jun 10, 2019 |
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Apr 4, 2017 08:42
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Oh poo poo, only two years old? That's gonna be quite a few years of regency.
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Apr 4, 2017 10:14
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Al-Andalus survived the has expanded!  Though Rum has fallen...  Jerusalem is back in the fold! Though now under the rule of a two year old... This is a real rollercoaster, ain't it?
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Apr 4, 2017 10:18
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drat, that's a lot of chaos in the middle east. On one hand, the meteoric revival of the soon to be Byzantine Empire is pretty awesome, but i'm sad to see Rum fall (Rumans best turks, although are they even Turkish in this timeline?).
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Apr 4, 2017 10:44
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Zakrelo posted:drat, that's a lot of chaos in the middle east. On one hand, the meteoric revival of the soon to be Byzantine Empire is pretty awesome, but i'm sad to see Rum fall (Rumans best turks, although are they even Turkish in this timeline?). No, the initial rulers were Levantine, then the title got usurped by a Greek Muslim.
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Apr 4, 2017 10:50
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Hashim posted:No, the initial rulers were Levantine, then the title got usurped by a Greek Muslim. Now I'm sadder that they're gone.
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Apr 4, 2017 11:11
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It's always one step forward, two steps back around here.
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Apr 4, 2017 13:52
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pls conquer that one Castilian county in the south of Portugal it's getting on my nerves. maybe the next ruler can be OCD about borders
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Apr 4, 2017 14:14
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Are you going to give Jerusalem over to the current King's brother?
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Apr 4, 2017 14:56
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Oh please let the Latin Empire survive into EU4. 
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Apr 4, 2017 15:52
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HannibalBarca posted:pls conquer that one Castilian county in the south of Portugal it's getting on my nerves. maybe the next ruler can be OCD about borders This, please. I'd be mourning Rum right alongside you guys, but having it get replaced with Iconoclasm is pretty neat to me. I don't think there's ever been an LP where it was a major force.
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Apr 4, 2017 16:43
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Soup du Jour posted:This, please. Well, if the pope doesn't try for one last (winnable) Crusade, that is.
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Apr 4, 2017 16:49
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The Canadians are biding their time...
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Apr 4, 2017 17:22
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The lack of unified Iberia is horrifying
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Apr 4, 2017 18:21
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Honestly having Napoli as an exclave makes me more annoyed than any of the other OCD map issues 
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Apr 4, 2017 20:49
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RabidWeasel posted:Honestly having Napoli as an exclave makes me more annoyed than any of the other OCD map issues Pssh, Iberian kingdoms having southern Italian holdings is a time-honored tradition. 
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Apr 4, 2017 21:04
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Sampatrick posted:Are you going to give Jerusalem over to the current King's brother? Yeah, that's what I've been doing along. All titles are split between a character's children when they die, that's the danger of having two top-tier titles, I suppose.
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Apr 4, 2017 22:53
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ninjahedgehog posted:Pssh, Iberian kingdoms having southern Italian holdings is a time-honored tradition. No I mean he has just Napoli, then some random duke, then more provinces to the south.
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Apr 4, 2017 23:20
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RabidWeasel posted:No I mean he has just Napoli, then some random duke, then more provinces to the south. Having control of a small city but not the surrounding territory is entirely historical and normal. Also, the random guy is another Muslim judging by the map. As far as unpretty borders go, it's extremely mild.
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Apr 5, 2017 00:46
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The real problems are the Balearic Islands and Corsica. C'mon, how are we going to get a Zuhriman for this Iberia without Corsica?
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Apr 5, 2017 00:51
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We are setting ourselves up to be the greatest colonial power of this timeline considering our current power and geography. I'm going to preemptively urge for staying in the old world. Maybe invade Italy and make the Mediterranean a wholly Muslim lake or something if we need to let out our aggression out.
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Apr 5, 2017 11:04
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Snipee posted:We are setting ourselves up to be the greatest colonial power of this timeline considering our current power and geography. I'm going to preemptively urge for staying in the old world. Maybe invade Italy and make the Mediterranean a wholly Muslim lake or something if we need to let out our aggression out. Whether or not we colonise is gonna come down to the Majlis (the thread), but even if we do, there's definitely gonna be a lot of late game events that'll make it much more difficult to hold onto colonial nations.
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Apr 5, 2017 11:25
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I'd love a gimmick run where we'd war to keep everyone else from colonizing.
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Apr 5, 2017 14:55
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Hashim posted:Whether or not we colonise is gonna come down to the Majlis (the thread), but even if we do, there's definitely gonna be a lot of late game events that'll make it much more difficult to hold onto colonial nations. I have full faith for this LP. As much as I want to see a Muslim New World, I think wars for the interior will be more interesting.
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Apr 6, 2017 23:53
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Yeah but on the other hand Muslim United States of America Allah from sea to shining sea 
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Apr 7, 2017 06:15
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Deceitful Penguin posted:I'd love a gimmick run where we'd war to keep everyone else from colonizing. I have never seen anyone do this so this has my vote.
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Apr 7, 2017 07:33
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Snipee posted:We are setting ourselves up to be the greatest colonial power of this timeline considering our current power and geography. I'm going to preemptively urge for staying in the old world. Maybe invade Italy and make the Mediterranean a wholly Muslim lake or something if we need to let out our aggression out. I would argue the complete opposite of this. Colonization is a great way to scratch the blobbing itch without actually blobbing and becoming way too powerful, and the eventual colonial wars of independence are going to be both interesting and serve as a natural way to limit our power. Besides, Muslim America.
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Apr 7, 2017 11:04
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Muslim America has been done, tbh. I really hope that he's running the best DLC and it will be a struggle to just get any land for colonization~
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Apr 7, 2017 13:06
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Muslim America has been done, tbh. When was it done? Is there a link?
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Apr 7, 2017 14:10
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Uh, POTUS #44
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Apr 7, 2017 14:26
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Samovar posted:When was it done? Is there a link? Wiz's Hohenzollern lp, the Paradox ur-lp
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Apr 7, 2017 15:09
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Don't forget that multiplayer game where Wiz colonized Louisiana with the "Duq Dynasty"
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Apr 7, 2017 16:32
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Muslim America may have been done before, but I stand by the fact that colonial Al-Qahrib is the best thing to ever happen to my games! 
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Apr 7, 2017 17:47
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