Emperor Guiges II of Francia, 1432-1442 AD
There will be blood.
(Previously on Royal Dispatch.)
Predictably, the Syrian Crusade becomes a gory kill-festival very quickly. Because my recent conquest of Jerusalem means I have an adjacent border, I can summon my whole force and throw them into the mix right away, overpowering the locals as the Damascusid’s many smaller allies have to trudge over this way from all points of the map. That means I can siege, occupy, and slaughter enough that the warscore runs all the way up to 88% before most of the enemies even make it to the theater of operations.
But they’re there, creepin’ in. I just have to not let all my troops die of exposure long enough to hold ground and clinch the victory before this becomes a real grind.
Fortunately, the defenders rethink their advances and withdraw into the desert—bait which I decline to take. That gives me enough time to loot a few more castles, and as we say back ’ome, voila.
My half-brother Philippe is given the newly conquered kingdom of Syria, which is convenient since I can use my powers as the dynastic head of the family to claim his title, then take it by force and add it to Francia. I’ll give it back right afterward, I promise. But that can wait a bit for the usual troop-regeneration cycle. I also have a whopping 39 prisoners to dispose of, most of whom I’ll simply require to convert to Catholicism in exchange for their freedom since they’re too broke to pay ransoms.
I spend a couple months knocking off the Russian kingdom of Vladimir, where I had fabricated a bunch of claims way back before taking on Jerusalem. Annoyingly this still leaves me one county short of creating the Russian Empire, which is part of my grand plan. I carve out a single de jure county from the neighboring paltry khanate of Mordvinia, and the Russian Imperium joins the French collection. It’s my seventh empire!
After a precious year is wasted letting my troops reflesh themslves, it’s time for some familial skulduggery. As predicted, I spend Renown to get a claim on the kingdom of Syria, which had I recently facilitated via crusade spoils for unsuspecting my half-brother.
War commences. My bro surprises me by charging across his own border to attack my forming armies, dispatching a couple before I reform considerably further behind my own lines. After that, my armies engulf his and wipe away all resistance. In a year’s time I’ve conquered Syria yet again and claimed the crown, which I promptly hand back to my half-brother as my vassal king. Now that wasn’t so bad was it?
Once again I must wait a year for my armies to recalibrate such that I can actually summon them for one last, big fight. It’s the year of our lord 1440, meaning there’s only 13 years left of playable time in this game. I’m 67 years old and in reasonably good health, as long as I’m not overweight, which happens from time to time. Time to go to war once more with Byzantium for a huge chunk of de jure Russian Empire territory and little Syrian county of Antiochea, which should be de jure mine by virtue of the recent reconquest of Syria under my banner.
Because the Russian front is so far from and much larger Antiochea, I summon my troops in Russia to claim all that land first, then amble down to Syria for the finale. The Byzantines are nice enough to concentrate their small forces in sieges around their formal capital of Byzantion, which I took over a couple wars back. Eventually I’ve covered the Russian lands in uncontested sieges, so I send one large contingent across the seas to Syria, and the rest to go wreak havoc in what’s left of central Byzantium.
I manage to achieve all bonus perks related to my Stewardship lifestyle, so I shift focus to Learning with a Medicine focus, hoping to prolong my life as long as I can. As if balancing the scales, the reaper instead claims my wife Fahriya.
She was a good one indeed. Still, as per usual the empire requires the guidance of a guided hand, and so I marry a young lady named Eudossia de Castro Arquato, chosen for her skill in warfare.
I have about half of the Russian territories occupied and the rest half sieged, and Antiochea is facing my armies as well. The rest of my forces run wild in Byzantium, smashing armies and castles alike. The outcome was never really in doubt.
I guess he’s insulting me as “squeamish” due to my stress-inflicted Inappetetic trait—which always seemed slightly at odds with my tendency to obesity, by the way. But regardless, Russia’s imperial lands are now under my control, which allows me to create and subjugate the kingdom of Ruthenia. And also, that little extra Syrian county of Antiochea is now part of my realm as well. It’s time to Mend the Great Schism!!!
Oh wait, I guess I forgot to mention one final detail.
Yes, I need to also control Rome itself. And why not? After all, it’s every good Catholic boy’s fondest dream to one day take down the Pope.