Back stabbing (sigh), glory, and nearly an early finishIt all started at 02:00 am and finished at 11::30 am when i realised id been putting off the toilet for 4 hours!! I'd forgotten the beauty of these kind of gaming sessions - i actually went to bed and then got up again because when i closed my eyes my brain said - what will you conquer after Spain?
The revenge of the Aragonese restarts with Leon - their capital
and then Braga
There will be no dawn for Castile
Portugal beat me to Badajoz - doing me a favour actually as there was a roaming stack of Castilians i couldnt find
and Cordoba
Without a home province and suffering from huge attrition the last of the Castilian forces attempt to take Zaragoza - suicide by Aragon
And the last bit of Spanish treachery dies with them
WTF? Who are these guys!! Missed somehow as we took Leon, the actual Kings of Leon were hiding in Santiago - their city will be on fire soon as well as their sex
Tidying up forces and cities now that Castile has gone, i realise the King is 70, the Queen is 72 and they have no children - literally the end of my royal line and the game
The Aragon hero of the moment Bernat-Guillem, a five star general, scourge of Castile, the terror of Toledo is adopted by the pensioners in charge, and made heir to the throne
After years and years of trying our top diplomats finally hammer out a non aggression pact with the English, our northern borders are secure, peace, stability at last
Wankers
My hopes of the Emir of Grenada taking Grenada itself from the Almohads and then been crushed by me leaving the mainland muslim free is over
The big one then.......
We take Bordeaux as a pre-emptive strike and to see if theyre really wanting afight and might peace out after this. We have Bernat-Guillem and his full stack in Bordeaux and a second stack rounding the coast - i know theres 5 English stacks out there somewhere
In retaliation England take Provence, but dont keep it - they return it to Provence and the once aresholey region of Provence is put back on the map
There they are in our old friends back garden, Vienne - our sneaky spy has eyes on Vienne, them and Orleans
Ironically, my biggest friend so far, im stuck on an ever increasing friendship train here - i accept the offer to secure the south and that just makes him happier and happier, im expecting a military alliance request soon
Provence also want peace, i have no time for any petty squabbles and annoying armies that are going to turn up and disrupt the supply train and any reinforcements whilst i deal with England - we accept, for now
When outnumbered the key is not to get stuck in a city, theres no retreat option and ill be crushed by all the English armies - we bypass Orleans as its in range of the Vienne foursome, and sack Paris - medieval drone pilot sacked for ruining dramatic shot
The four stacks come for revenge and i retreat, BUT he leaves 2 armies outside Paris and sends 2 back to Vienne - i can do 2 armies, we destroy the English on the plains south of Paris
The other 2 stacks reinforce Orleans but now theyre trapped in their own walls, the pitiful survivors of the previous battle and these 2 stacks and England are wiped from France in a glorious battle on the fields of Orlean
and sure enough they beg for peace with a gift of 10000 - which turns out to be the repair costs for paris and orleans!
On a sunny day i can see England from here
Bernat and the princess have a boy and a girl of their own, not before they adopted Felip as Bernat was striding thru France killing English men it was too risky not to have an heir. I marry Felip off to the Portugese princess tying our nations and everlasting harmony - we'll see!!
I hadnt realised the game had gone all Crusader Kings with the family shenanigans - if id left that untended the king would have died leaving me with no control over the politics and pretenders would have risen all over the map - its looking ok for a while now