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BEC NOIR! RUN!
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The Conquests
- Thread starter choxorn
- Start date
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
please dont post unless your name is Choxorn
Sorry about the long delays, everyone- I had a couple of busy weeks on account of the APUSH Test, and wasn't feeling particularly inspired to actually write anything the past week. I'll try to get an update done this weekend.
Chapter 27: Five Against One
Many Cordovans in 1035 predicted that war was not far off. Eventually, they would have to push North, and there were other people in their way. They were proven right, and were proven right in more ways than they would expect, although there wasn't as much war as there appeared to be on the surface.
They were certainly right that there was nowhere left to expand peacefully, though. All locations on the continent were already taken, and there were none across the sea in Africa that were open and close enough to be worth taking. The only places left to expand were islands, and the only ones anyone in Cordova saw anything in were the Balearic islands near Spain- specifically, the largest one, Majorca, which could get them a 4th source of grapes to turn into wine, however useful that could be. Any hopes of settling there were soon dashed, as Norway built the city of Skalholt on the island in 1036. With the island's small size, it would take a really good knowledge of assaults from the sea to take it, a kind of knowledge that nobody but the Vikings had, and Norway probably wouldn't just give it away. The islands became Norwegian, and a few years later, they settled in Southern Sardinia, as well. It wasn't something most Cordovans cared about, though, or anything that would really matter.
In 1042, a group of people from Turkey showed up in Cordoba. They said they were there to build an embassy, to bring the two countries closer together. A Cordoban embassy soon appeared in the Turkish capital of Ghuzz, far to the East- if it was even in Europe, it was just barely so, and probably it was in Asia.
Perhaps the Turks wanted aid in their ongoing war against the Kievans, which they were currently losing. The Cordobans had known for a few years that the Kievans owned a city that the Turks had built, but they didn't know they were actually at war until they were able to check as a result of the embassy.
If that was what they wanted, they weren't going to get it from Cordoba, which was uninterested in what was going on in Eastern Europe and too far away to actually fight the Kievans anyway.
The Kievans, meanwhile, proved more capable of getting help, when they (presumably- the Cordovans have no idea if they did so or the Magyars joined the war of their own accord, but the Kievans getting them to join is far more likely) convinced the Magyars to join the war on their side in 1045- and the Magyars were close enough to join in the fight.
1046 saw one of the most important scientific discoveries in a while. After many years of hard work, Cordoban Scientists had finally figured out how to make more Ansar Warriors. The existing Horsemen would be upgraded immediately, and the Cordoban Military would also begin training more. Now the military was fully in "prepare for war" mode, and the only other thing that needed to be done was to wait while some more roads on the border were finished to make it easier for the troops to move quickly.
For a while, this was all that happened. The period from 1047-1059 became known as, alternatively, "The Time of Waiting" or the "Quiet Fifties." In this time, almost nothing of note happened, either in Cordoba or out of it, the only foreign event remotely noteworthy being the English settling on the Northern half of Sardinia. In Cordoba, the military expanded, the culture expanded, infrastructure was built, money was made, and it was generally a time of everything happening as it usually did.
For that matter, much of the period after this wouldn't be particularly eventful either, at least compared to later, more turbulent periods, but it would set the stage for what would become a large war, even if it was a war that saw almost no actual fighting.
It all started in 1060, when an ambassador from Kievan Russia came to Cordova with an attitude.
"I wonder if you would consider giving us a small gift of 21 gold, Abd Al-Rahman, in honor of the timeless friendship between Mighty Kievan Rus and your weak and defenseless people?"
Al-Rahman discussed this with advisors briefly before laughing and giving the reply, "If you want to come all the way from the other side of Europe to get that gold, be our guest, but we're not just giving it away."
The Kievans must have taken this as a challenge, since they declared war shortly after.
It was a challenge they would never complete, as the Kievans and Cordovans never so much as saw each other during the long time that the war would last- but that was not why it proved to be important.
In the meantime, the uneventfulness of the 1050's would continue, being interrupted only by the announcement that the French had joined the Eastern War. Well, part of it. The Turks had managed to get them to declare war on the Magyars, but couldn't get them to fight the Kievans.
The military continued its preparations, in the meantime, for the eventual conquest of Castile. They hoped it wouldn't take too much longer, and they were right about that. Only a few more things were left to be done. In the meantime, the scientists of Cordova continued their research, and in 1070, finished development on something that would help them a lot when the time came to invade: The developed some Catapults to throw rocks to bombard the Castilians with. Catapults weren't a new invention, but the more modern versions of the ancient weapons were fairly new, only starting now to appear in Cordova and elsewhere in Europe.
In 1072, the Kievan Foreign Affairs Department got busy. The Kievans decided that year was the year to the end the war against the Turks, which they weren't really gaining from, and leave the Magyars to fight the war on their own. The Magyars didn't really like this, but there was nothing they could do about it.
In the meantime, they decided they really had to do something about those damn Cordovans refusing to give them 21 gold. Realizing that they were, in fact, on the other side of the continent, and thus not really capable of hurting them, they decided to enlist someone else to do it for them: The Germans. Not the best choice in the world, as the Germans were still pretty far from Iberia, even if they were closer than Kiev.
The Cordovans realized in 1074 that they'd made the critical error of not trading Early Siegecraft yet to someone who didn't have it but had something else. Luckily, there were still some people to trade with- and they settled with a trade to the Poles, for a Code of Laws and what meager gold the Poles had.
The phony war continued being phony in the 70's and 80's, even with it now being a 2-on-1 war. It would, however, gain some new members, going from 2 vs. 1 to 4 vs. 1 in short order- and that was before the addition of the Castilians.
First, in 1078, the Fatimids, realizing how awesome the Cordovans' new Code of Laws was but lacking the means to obtain it for themselves, decided to try the route of threatening them. The Cordovans rejected the demand, realizing that the Fatimids lacked the Naval Power to invade across the Mediterranean, and certainly weren't going to go around it by land. The Fatimids seemed to forget about that pesky limitation, though.
In 1081, the 4th member joined the "At War with Cordova" club- the French, who were convinced to join by the Kievans when they realized that Germany was also too far away to really fight Cordova.
The French actually could fight Cordova, even with their comparatively small military- they were close enough, and the only nation between them was both small and soon to be at war with Cordova anyway. It also served to make Germany more threatening, as they'd no longer have any trouble moving their forces through other countries on the way to Cordova unless the Burgundians gave them trouble.
These events prompted some in Cordova to question the wisdom of making it 5 on 1 until they could at least deal with the French Threat, but most decided that they could easily start the war now. Nobody else would likely give them trouble in the short time it would take to crush Castile, and then maybe they could even consider fighting their Northeastern neighbors. And so, with the support of most of Cordova, Al-Muzzafar, Al-Mundhir, and several top generals traveled to Castille with Al-Rahman in 1086 to inform the Castillians that they were about to start a war. Before they did so, they successfully managed to extort the entire Castilian treasury (5 gold), and failed to get anything else. Would they have not fought the war if the Castilians had given them that? No, probably not, but it was good for show and PR.
And so, the Second Spanish War had begun.
Upon hearing the news, Ansar Warriors happily rode out across the border between the two countries to fight. The first battle of the war happened at the small town of Oviedo, a city in the foothills of the Pyrenees that was near a somewhat important Stone Quarry- the only one the Castilians had. It wasn't a particularly long battle. The city was only defended by two units of Spearmen, which were no match for the powerful Ansar Warriors. The two units of Ansar Warriors that killed them took them both out with no casualties to themselves and were barely even injured. News of the victory was celebrated throughout Cordova in anticipation of victories to come, and the people strongly united in support of the war effort, becoming much more productive to do so.
To the West, some more Ansar Warriors rode to Salamanca, hoping for a similarly easy victory. They would not get it. Salamanca was much more well defended than Oviedo, being larger and more important. Most notably, it was the home of King Alfonso of Salamanca, one of the two most important people in Castile, the only one more important being Isabella, the leader. The Castilians would fight to defend him, and drag out the battle for a while. Even so, this year, they made great progress against the defenders, killing 3 of the Spearmen defending the city with no losses, although one of their 4 units was forced to retreat when faced with heavy damage. The 5th and final unit of Ansars in the area, although capable of attacking the city, realized they couldn't win the battle this year, and thus settled for capturing some nearby workers and decided not to waste their time attacking the city.
In 1087, the Castilians made their moves in the war, but there wasn't much they could do. They just didn't have the military force to match Cordova's Ansar Warriors. All they could do was reinforce Salamanca and hope to hold it. They did manage to kill one of the Ansar units with their Swordsmen, a move that may have delayed the capture of the city by quite a while by reducing the number of full-strength Ansar Warriors in the area, but they could not last like this forever.
A bit later in the year, the English demanded a Code of Laws.
Ordinarily, the Cordovans would have laughed it off, but seeing as they were already at war with 5 countries and didn't really want to make it 6, they gave it up to England. They also knew that the English had considerable Naval Power- perhaps enough to be an actual threat.
The Cordovans attacked Salamanca again in 1089, and prepared the victory celebrations. They would get no such thing. Despite 5 victories, two outside the city by Cordovan Swordsmen killing Castilian Spearmen and Ansars killing Castilian Swordsmen, and three inside the city, resulting in 3 more dead Spearmen units for Castille, the city still stood stubbornly, and the Cordovans were running out of people to attack it with.
The Castilians again reinforced Salamanca in 1090 with more Swordsmen, and battled one of the units of Ansar Warriors in the plains outside the city. This time, though, the Ansars expected that, and retreated before the Swordsmen were able to kill them.
The Cordovans attempted to deal with the Swords again in 1092. They were much less powerful now, with most of the Ansar Warriors healing back in Cordova and unable to attack. They were aided by the arrival of a Catapult to bombard the city, but even with that, they were only able to attack twice, killing one more unit of Swordsmen while the other attack saw the Ansars barely escape with their lives.
Farther East, the Ansars that had earlier taken Oviedo attempted to add Navarre, slightly to the West, to the Cordovan Empire, having gone through the Mountains in their attempt to do so. It was an attempt that would quickly become a failure. They did manage to kill one of the Spearmen units defending the city without suffering any losses, but they were injured too badly to continue. Being a city that wasn't even that important, they decided to cut their losses and retreat from the city while they still could.
The slightly less damaged one was attacked by Archers in 1093, escaping with their lives but being brought down to a similar level of injury. If anything more happened to either one, they'd be dead.
Luckily, they were able to reach Oviedo and begin healing in 1095. Other Ansars in the city went out the same year to take out the extremely threatening Spearmen near the border. They retreated, having done almost no damage. The Swordsmen that attacked them shortly after saw their heads impaled upon spears, having done no damage to them. The Spearmen quickly gained the nickname, "The Invinci-Spears."
Luckily, they weren't invincible, or a threat. They moved to Salamanca to try to hold the city against the now back to full strength Cordovan Ansars. The Ansars were aided by the arrival of several more catapults, which fired a rain of stones at the city to bring most of the few defenders down a bit. The only remaining full-strength unit in the city, some Swordsmen, were immediately killed by Ansars. The final 2 units of Spearmen were killed by Ansars and Swordsmen. Finally, King Alfonso, the Very Important Man they'd fought for 12 years to protect, was trapped in his palace, and after a brief fight with the Ansar Warriors, was killed. They admired his valiant efforts to save his life, but he stood no chance. His death and the fall of Salamanca sent shivers down the spines of most of the people who remained in the much-shrunken Castile.
Even before the news had fully spread, the Ansars were already on the move again. They headed to Santiago, and killed one of the units of Spearmen there, and hoped they would be able to capture the city in less than 12 years.
By this time, the Castilians were getting desperate. They were almost out of soldiers to fight with. But they'd certainly fight to delay the inevitable. In 1099, they transported a unit of Swordsmen to the Wines near Badajoz by boat, and also got 2 more units of Swordsmen, one of Spearmen, and one of Archers to the Northwest. In all likelihood, it would be the last major battle of the war.
But now, for the first time, they may finally get some help from elsewhere. The French had finally gotten off their arses and sent some of their military to the Pyrenees, preparing to cross the mountains and attack Cordova. It wasn't a particularly large force, consisting only of 1 unit each of Archers, Swordsmen, and even ancient Warriors, and 2 of Spearmen, but it would still serve as a distraction.
Sadly, they weren't close enough for the Cordovans to pay attention yet, and the Northwest was a more pressing concern. In the Battles in that front in 1101, they would not attack any of the cities, but the Ansars did destroy all 5 units there- the 3 Swords, the Archer, and the Spearmen. They didn't fight terribly well all the time, though, taking some injuries and lost 2 Ansars to almost dead Swordsmen and Spearmen that they had underestimated, making those battles the first time the Ansars had ever died in a battle in which they were the attackers.
In the Northeast, most of the French military was still too far North to actually attack, so the only battle that occurred was a brief skirmish in which one of the 2 Spearmen units was killed by Ansar Warriors.
1102 was a strangely eventful year for a year in which the Cordovans did no attacking. First, the Castilians, realizing that they had no hope with nearly their entire military dead, asked to surrender. The Cordovans would have none of that, accepting nothing less than the total destruction of Castile.
A bit later, the Byzantines demanded a map of Cordova and some gold. "Here, take it for all I care, that's barely anything," Al-Rahman replied.
The most important event of the year was the appearance of 5 units of German Swords in the Northeast to join the French. Now the Northeast was a serious threat- in fact, it was likely the Cordovans couldn't actually continue fighting if they had to actually fight 3 civilizations at once.
They'd certainly find fighting easier, though- scientists had finished work on yet another military technology. This one, Assassination, would let them "Assassinate" important people in other countries- and probably without even it being discovered that they were behind it. The Assassins would operate almost invisibly, only surfacing to perform assassinations and easily capable of bypassing the stronger military guarding their weak targets.
In 1104, the top officials of the Cordovan Government met, to determine how to deal with the Germans. Almost all thought not fighting them would be a good idea. They were somewhat annoyed at having to give up something to the Germans to get this peace, but it sort of was a surrender, so they shouldn't be expecting anything else. While they were at it, they decided to end the phony wars with the Kievans and Fatimids- the Fatimids because they made nice trading partners, and the Kievans because the Cordovans were sick of having to fight whatever proxy they wanted to fight the war for them, and were sick of losing countries to the Kievans' side that they could be working with. And so, the 4 countries met in Valencia. The Treaty of Valencia signed that year ended the fighting between Cordova and all 3 of them. Cordova, being the weaker ones, had to pay for it, in the form of a technology to all three. Many Cordovans resented having to pay more than the initial demand to the Fatimids and Kievans, thus rendering the whole war a waste of time anyway, but decided it was probably for the best. They could make them pay later.
Luckily, with the war down to just Castile and France, they could now focus much more on those two- and win more easily. They started by attacking the remaining French soldiers in the Northeast near Oviedo. They started by killing the lone Spearmen that were separate from the larger stack, to prevent them from destroying the Stone Quarry. They then went after the Swordsmen, the strongest unit in the group on the mountain. They faced some difficulty here, due to the Swordsmen's defensive skill combined with the huge advantage defending a Mountain gave them, which forced the first attackers to retreat, unable to kill them. The second Ansars to attack them, though, were able to finish the job easily. The Warriors and Archers that remained were far too ancient and weak to do much, and were killed by Ansars in short order. The commander of the battle, a man named El Cid, was celebrated throughout Cordova for his role in the battle, and was promoted to become the general of the soon-to-be-formed First Ansar Warrior Army.
The Army wouldn't see any actual fighting for a while, due to the Ansars needing time to recover from this battle, but it wouldn't be too long before it would be striking fear and killing people that were enemies of Cordova.
In the meantime, Ansars elsewhere were busy fighting the Castilians. At Santiago, the remaining two defending Spearmen units were killed with little effort, and the Curragh in the city was sunk. Some Swords outside the city would soon join them.
Small battles like the one that killed said Swordsmen would continue over the next few years as the Cordovans prepared to make their final push to finish off Castile. In 1107, some Ansars killed a unit of Spearmen in the vicinity of Navarre. They were themselves killed in a counterattack from Swords in 1108. Those Swords proved especially tough, killing one of the Ansars sent to kill them in 1110 before succumbing to another. A unit of Spears nearby was killed shortly after.
But while the small skirmishes continue, the Castilian Military prepares for the final battle. It is only a matter of time now before Castile is finished.
Many Cordovans in 1035 predicted that war was not far off. Eventually, they would have to push North, and there were other people in their way. They were proven right, and were proven right in more ways than they would expect, although there wasn't as much war as there appeared to be on the surface.
They were certainly right that there was nowhere left to expand peacefully, though. All locations on the continent were already taken, and there were none across the sea in Africa that were open and close enough to be worth taking. The only places left to expand were islands, and the only ones anyone in Cordova saw anything in were the Balearic islands near Spain- specifically, the largest one, Majorca, which could get them a 4th source of grapes to turn into wine, however useful that could be. Any hopes of settling there were soon dashed, as Norway built the city of Skalholt on the island in 1036. With the island's small size, it would take a really good knowledge of assaults from the sea to take it, a kind of knowledge that nobody but the Vikings had, and Norway probably wouldn't just give it away. The islands became Norwegian, and a few years later, they settled in Southern Sardinia, as well. It wasn't something most Cordovans cared about, though, or anything that would really matter.
In 1042, a group of people from Turkey showed up in Cordoba. They said they were there to build an embassy, to bring the two countries closer together. A Cordoban embassy soon appeared in the Turkish capital of Ghuzz, far to the East- if it was even in Europe, it was just barely so, and probably it was in Asia.
Perhaps the Turks wanted aid in their ongoing war against the Kievans, which they were currently losing. The Cordobans had known for a few years that the Kievans owned a city that the Turks had built, but they didn't know they were actually at war until they were able to check as a result of the embassy.
If that was what they wanted, they weren't going to get it from Cordoba, which was uninterested in what was going on in Eastern Europe and too far away to actually fight the Kievans anyway.
The Kievans, meanwhile, proved more capable of getting help, when they (presumably- the Cordovans have no idea if they did so or the Magyars joined the war of their own accord, but the Kievans getting them to join is far more likely) convinced the Magyars to join the war on their side in 1045- and the Magyars were close enough to join in the fight.
1046 saw one of the most important scientific discoveries in a while. After many years of hard work, Cordoban Scientists had finally figured out how to make more Ansar Warriors. The existing Horsemen would be upgraded immediately, and the Cordoban Military would also begin training more. Now the military was fully in "prepare for war" mode, and the only other thing that needed to be done was to wait while some more roads on the border were finished to make it easier for the troops to move quickly.
For a while, this was all that happened. The period from 1047-1059 became known as, alternatively, "The Time of Waiting" or the "Quiet Fifties." In this time, almost nothing of note happened, either in Cordoba or out of it, the only foreign event remotely noteworthy being the English settling on the Northern half of Sardinia. In Cordoba, the military expanded, the culture expanded, infrastructure was built, money was made, and it was generally a time of everything happening as it usually did.
For that matter, much of the period after this wouldn't be particularly eventful either, at least compared to later, more turbulent periods, but it would set the stage for what would become a large war, even if it was a war that saw almost no actual fighting.
It all started in 1060, when an ambassador from Kievan Russia came to Cordova with an attitude.
"I wonder if you would consider giving us a small gift of 21 gold, Abd Al-Rahman, in honor of the timeless friendship between Mighty Kievan Rus and your weak and defenseless people?"
Al-Rahman discussed this with advisors briefly before laughing and giving the reply, "If you want to come all the way from the other side of Europe to get that gold, be our guest, but we're not just giving it away."
The Kievans must have taken this as a challenge, since they declared war shortly after.
It was a challenge they would never complete, as the Kievans and Cordovans never so much as saw each other during the long time that the war would last- but that was not why it proved to be important.
In the meantime, the uneventfulness of the 1050's would continue, being interrupted only by the announcement that the French had joined the Eastern War. Well, part of it. The Turks had managed to get them to declare war on the Magyars, but couldn't get them to fight the Kievans.
The military continued its preparations, in the meantime, for the eventual conquest of Castile. They hoped it wouldn't take too much longer, and they were right about that. Only a few more things were left to be done. In the meantime, the scientists of Cordova continued their research, and in 1070, finished development on something that would help them a lot when the time came to invade: The developed some Catapults to throw rocks to bombard the Castilians with. Catapults weren't a new invention, but the more modern versions of the ancient weapons were fairly new, only starting now to appear in Cordova and elsewhere in Europe.
In 1072, the Kievan Foreign Affairs Department got busy. The Kievans decided that year was the year to the end the war against the Turks, which they weren't really gaining from, and leave the Magyars to fight the war on their own. The Magyars didn't really like this, but there was nothing they could do about it.
In the meantime, they decided they really had to do something about those damn Cordovans refusing to give them 21 gold. Realizing that they were, in fact, on the other side of the continent, and thus not really capable of hurting them, they decided to enlist someone else to do it for them: The Germans. Not the best choice in the world, as the Germans were still pretty far from Iberia, even if they were closer than Kiev.
The Cordovans realized in 1074 that they'd made the critical error of not trading Early Siegecraft yet to someone who didn't have it but had something else. Luckily, there were still some people to trade with- and they settled with a trade to the Poles, for a Code of Laws and what meager gold the Poles had.
The phony war continued being phony in the 70's and 80's, even with it now being a 2-on-1 war. It would, however, gain some new members, going from 2 vs. 1 to 4 vs. 1 in short order- and that was before the addition of the Castilians.
First, in 1078, the Fatimids, realizing how awesome the Cordovans' new Code of Laws was but lacking the means to obtain it for themselves, decided to try the route of threatening them. The Cordovans rejected the demand, realizing that the Fatimids lacked the Naval Power to invade across the Mediterranean, and certainly weren't going to go around it by land. The Fatimids seemed to forget about that pesky limitation, though.
In 1081, the 4th member joined the "At War with Cordova" club- the French, who were convinced to join by the Kievans when they realized that Germany was also too far away to really fight Cordova.
The French actually could fight Cordova, even with their comparatively small military- they were close enough, and the only nation between them was both small and soon to be at war with Cordova anyway. It also served to make Germany more threatening, as they'd no longer have any trouble moving their forces through other countries on the way to Cordova unless the Burgundians gave them trouble.
These events prompted some in Cordova to question the wisdom of making it 5 on 1 until they could at least deal with the French Threat, but most decided that they could easily start the war now. Nobody else would likely give them trouble in the short time it would take to crush Castile, and then maybe they could even consider fighting their Northeastern neighbors. And so, with the support of most of Cordova, Al-Muzzafar, Al-Mundhir, and several top generals traveled to Castille with Al-Rahman in 1086 to inform the Castillians that they were about to start a war. Before they did so, they successfully managed to extort the entire Castilian treasury (5 gold), and failed to get anything else. Would they have not fought the war if the Castilians had given them that? No, probably not, but it was good for show and PR.
And so, the Second Spanish War had begun.
Upon hearing the news, Ansar Warriors happily rode out across the border between the two countries to fight. The first battle of the war happened at the small town of Oviedo, a city in the foothills of the Pyrenees that was near a somewhat important Stone Quarry- the only one the Castilians had. It wasn't a particularly long battle. The city was only defended by two units of Spearmen, which were no match for the powerful Ansar Warriors. The two units of Ansar Warriors that killed them took them both out with no casualties to themselves and were barely even injured. News of the victory was celebrated throughout Cordova in anticipation of victories to come, and the people strongly united in support of the war effort, becoming much more productive to do so.
To the West, some more Ansar Warriors rode to Salamanca, hoping for a similarly easy victory. They would not get it. Salamanca was much more well defended than Oviedo, being larger and more important. Most notably, it was the home of King Alfonso of Salamanca, one of the two most important people in Castile, the only one more important being Isabella, the leader. The Castilians would fight to defend him, and drag out the battle for a while. Even so, this year, they made great progress against the defenders, killing 3 of the Spearmen defending the city with no losses, although one of their 4 units was forced to retreat when faced with heavy damage. The 5th and final unit of Ansars in the area, although capable of attacking the city, realized they couldn't win the battle this year, and thus settled for capturing some nearby workers and decided not to waste their time attacking the city.
In 1087, the Castilians made their moves in the war, but there wasn't much they could do. They just didn't have the military force to match Cordova's Ansar Warriors. All they could do was reinforce Salamanca and hope to hold it. They did manage to kill one of the Ansar units with their Swordsmen, a move that may have delayed the capture of the city by quite a while by reducing the number of full-strength Ansar Warriors in the area, but they could not last like this forever.
A bit later in the year, the English demanded a Code of Laws.
Ordinarily, the Cordovans would have laughed it off, but seeing as they were already at war with 5 countries and didn't really want to make it 6, they gave it up to England. They also knew that the English had considerable Naval Power- perhaps enough to be an actual threat.
The Cordovans attacked Salamanca again in 1089, and prepared the victory celebrations. They would get no such thing. Despite 5 victories, two outside the city by Cordovan Swordsmen killing Castilian Spearmen and Ansars killing Castilian Swordsmen, and three inside the city, resulting in 3 more dead Spearmen units for Castille, the city still stood stubbornly, and the Cordovans were running out of people to attack it with.
The Castilians again reinforced Salamanca in 1090 with more Swordsmen, and battled one of the units of Ansar Warriors in the plains outside the city. This time, though, the Ansars expected that, and retreated before the Swordsmen were able to kill them.
The Cordovans attempted to deal with the Swords again in 1092. They were much less powerful now, with most of the Ansar Warriors healing back in Cordova and unable to attack. They were aided by the arrival of a Catapult to bombard the city, but even with that, they were only able to attack twice, killing one more unit of Swordsmen while the other attack saw the Ansars barely escape with their lives.
Farther East, the Ansars that had earlier taken Oviedo attempted to add Navarre, slightly to the West, to the Cordovan Empire, having gone through the Mountains in their attempt to do so. It was an attempt that would quickly become a failure. They did manage to kill one of the Spearmen units defending the city without suffering any losses, but they were injured too badly to continue. Being a city that wasn't even that important, they decided to cut their losses and retreat from the city while they still could.
The slightly less damaged one was attacked by Archers in 1093, escaping with their lives but being brought down to a similar level of injury. If anything more happened to either one, they'd be dead.
Luckily, they were able to reach Oviedo and begin healing in 1095. Other Ansars in the city went out the same year to take out the extremely threatening Spearmen near the border. They retreated, having done almost no damage. The Swordsmen that attacked them shortly after saw their heads impaled upon spears, having done no damage to them. The Spearmen quickly gained the nickname, "The Invinci-Spears."
Luckily, they weren't invincible, or a threat. They moved to Salamanca to try to hold the city against the now back to full strength Cordovan Ansars. The Ansars were aided by the arrival of several more catapults, which fired a rain of stones at the city to bring most of the few defenders down a bit. The only remaining full-strength unit in the city, some Swordsmen, were immediately killed by Ansars. The final 2 units of Spearmen were killed by Ansars and Swordsmen. Finally, King Alfonso, the Very Important Man they'd fought for 12 years to protect, was trapped in his palace, and after a brief fight with the Ansar Warriors, was killed. They admired his valiant efforts to save his life, but he stood no chance. His death and the fall of Salamanca sent shivers down the spines of most of the people who remained in the much-shrunken Castile.
Even before the news had fully spread, the Ansars were already on the move again. They headed to Santiago, and killed one of the units of Spearmen there, and hoped they would be able to capture the city in less than 12 years.
By this time, the Castilians were getting desperate. They were almost out of soldiers to fight with. But they'd certainly fight to delay the inevitable. In 1099, they transported a unit of Swordsmen to the Wines near Badajoz by boat, and also got 2 more units of Swordsmen, one of Spearmen, and one of Archers to the Northwest. In all likelihood, it would be the last major battle of the war.
But now, for the first time, they may finally get some help from elsewhere. The French had finally gotten off their arses and sent some of their military to the Pyrenees, preparing to cross the mountains and attack Cordova. It wasn't a particularly large force, consisting only of 1 unit each of Archers, Swordsmen, and even ancient Warriors, and 2 of Spearmen, but it would still serve as a distraction.
Sadly, they weren't close enough for the Cordovans to pay attention yet, and the Northwest was a more pressing concern. In the Battles in that front in 1101, they would not attack any of the cities, but the Ansars did destroy all 5 units there- the 3 Swords, the Archer, and the Spearmen. They didn't fight terribly well all the time, though, taking some injuries and lost 2 Ansars to almost dead Swordsmen and Spearmen that they had underestimated, making those battles the first time the Ansars had ever died in a battle in which they were the attackers.
In the Northeast, most of the French military was still too far North to actually attack, so the only battle that occurred was a brief skirmish in which one of the 2 Spearmen units was killed by Ansar Warriors.
1102 was a strangely eventful year for a year in which the Cordovans did no attacking. First, the Castilians, realizing that they had no hope with nearly their entire military dead, asked to surrender. The Cordovans would have none of that, accepting nothing less than the total destruction of Castile.
A bit later, the Byzantines demanded a map of Cordova and some gold. "Here, take it for all I care, that's barely anything," Al-Rahman replied.
The most important event of the year was the appearance of 5 units of German Swords in the Northeast to join the French. Now the Northeast was a serious threat- in fact, it was likely the Cordovans couldn't actually continue fighting if they had to actually fight 3 civilizations at once.
They'd certainly find fighting easier, though- scientists had finished work on yet another military technology. This one, Assassination, would let them "Assassinate" important people in other countries- and probably without even it being discovered that they were behind it. The Assassins would operate almost invisibly, only surfacing to perform assassinations and easily capable of bypassing the stronger military guarding their weak targets.
In 1104, the top officials of the Cordovan Government met, to determine how to deal with the Germans. Almost all thought not fighting them would be a good idea. They were somewhat annoyed at having to give up something to the Germans to get this peace, but it sort of was a surrender, so they shouldn't be expecting anything else. While they were at it, they decided to end the phony wars with the Kievans and Fatimids- the Fatimids because they made nice trading partners, and the Kievans because the Cordovans were sick of having to fight whatever proxy they wanted to fight the war for them, and were sick of losing countries to the Kievans' side that they could be working with. And so, the 4 countries met in Valencia. The Treaty of Valencia signed that year ended the fighting between Cordova and all 3 of them. Cordova, being the weaker ones, had to pay for it, in the form of a technology to all three. Many Cordovans resented having to pay more than the initial demand to the Fatimids and Kievans, thus rendering the whole war a waste of time anyway, but decided it was probably for the best. They could make them pay later.
Luckily, with the war down to just Castile and France, they could now focus much more on those two- and win more easily. They started by attacking the remaining French soldiers in the Northeast near Oviedo. They started by killing the lone Spearmen that were separate from the larger stack, to prevent them from destroying the Stone Quarry. They then went after the Swordsmen, the strongest unit in the group on the mountain. They faced some difficulty here, due to the Swordsmen's defensive skill combined with the huge advantage defending a Mountain gave them, which forced the first attackers to retreat, unable to kill them. The second Ansars to attack them, though, were able to finish the job easily. The Warriors and Archers that remained were far too ancient and weak to do much, and were killed by Ansars in short order. The commander of the battle, a man named El Cid, was celebrated throughout Cordova for his role in the battle, and was promoted to become the general of the soon-to-be-formed First Ansar Warrior Army.
The Army wouldn't see any actual fighting for a while, due to the Ansars needing time to recover from this battle, but it wouldn't be too long before it would be striking fear and killing people that were enemies of Cordova.
In the meantime, Ansars elsewhere were busy fighting the Castilians. At Santiago, the remaining two defending Spearmen units were killed with little effort, and the Curragh in the city was sunk. Some Swords outside the city would soon join them.
Small battles like the one that killed said Swordsmen would continue over the next few years as the Cordovans prepared to make their final push to finish off Castile. In 1107, some Ansars killed a unit of Spearmen in the vicinity of Navarre. They were themselves killed in a counterattack from Swords in 1108. Those Swords proved especially tough, killing one of the Ansars sent to kill them in 1110 before succumbing to another. A unit of Spears nearby was killed shortly after.
But while the small skirmishes continue, the Castilian Military prepares for the final battle. It is only a matter of time now before Castile is finished.
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CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
good update, although you only needed to make peace with Germany.
MaxaTheGreat
Feel Prussian Iron!
Yes! Kill the Castillian menace! 
mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
Hooray, Castile's screwed! Are you going to move on directly after this to France or are you going to wait a while?
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
oh, and why didn't you drag allies into the war with you, I would have tried Norway.
True, I just didn't want the Kievans to keep signing MA's against me. Knowing the AI, they'd probably get Germany to declare on me about 2 turns later.
Sure, why not? France needed to die soon anyway.
I could, but I want all of their cities myself, and I also want to be able to leave the war when I want to if I need to sign peace.
Pieman
Prince
Just wondering if it would've been quicker to have headed straight to Salamanca then Leon rather than spreading out and taking all of Spain's cities, as this is a Regicide game - did you take the other cities like Oviedo to prevent the French settling them in a territory vaccuum (cos you know, an entire civ is destroyed and all cities of theirs instantly razed once the leaders are dead)?
Yeah, that. I know for a fact that they have a settler or two, some other people probably have settlers too, and I'm not going to let them have that spot. Plus, it's easier to capture a city than it is to raze it and build a new one.
I'm probably not going to bother attacking Navarre again, though. Leon will fall next, and Castille with it.
I'm probably not going to bother attacking Navarre again, though. Leon will fall next, and Castille with it.
Chapter 28: A Temporary Peace
In 1110, it was plainly obvious to everyone that Castile was in the last days of its pitiful existence. The only question was, then what? The majority opinion seemed to be to expand Northward into Europe, where France, Burgundy, and everyone else was, and hopefully grab a few of their treasured artifacts. Maybe even go on to attempt to take them to Jerusalem, where they would gain much more attention and prestige for Cordova. If only it wasn't controlled by the Abbasids...
But that was in the future, probably in the far future. In the present, they were still weak, and being threatened by such small French attacks as the one in 1111 that saw several small groups of French soldiers occupy the Pyrenees near the border.
They didn't have many Ansars in the area in 1113, and it would be difficult to fight them in the mountains, so the Cordovans decided that it would be better to wait for the most part, although they made sure to attack the group on the Mediterranean Coast, as, consisting of one unit of Swordsmen and 2 of Horsemen, it posed a valid threat. 2 units of Ansar Warriors were sent in to remove the threat. Although they couldn't completely destroy the Swordsmen, they weakened them a lot, and got rid of one of the Horsemen units completely. They suffered no losses, and retreated to the safety of Oviedo.
A Third unit of Ansars in the Mountains near the westernmost French group, which consisted of a unit of Spearmen and one of Warriors, decided to attack it. They killed all of the Spearmen, but found themselves badly damaged as a result.
The final unit of French Horsemen in the east attacked Oviedo in 1114. Predictably enough, the weakness that charging uphill caused them resulted in this particular unit of Horsemen being impaled on the defenders' Spears.
Meanwhile, the Cordovans advanced towards Leon, with the aim of taking it and finally destroying Castile. They continued to suffer random counter-attacks, as the Castilians still had a few Swords left, but nothing that they couldn't handle- one particular battle in 1114 saw some Castilian Swordsmen almost defeating one of the Ansar units, but not quite, and the Ansars, unlike the Castilians, would live to fight another day.
Around this time, the Castilian Scientists delivered again with the discovery of more advanced weapons and forms of combat, which they called Medieval Weaponry. Specifically, they could build slightly better armor and weapons, like maces, for their infantry, for all the good that did them.
But anything new was good, and they certainly were in the middle of fighting with the French over the Pyrenees. The Archers and Warriors had advanced, and the Swordsmen had stayed behind to heal. Meanwhile, another unit of Horsemen decided to take up residence on a nearby mountain.
It was decided in 1116 that the Horsemen were the biggest threat, even if nobody was really a threat, and thus would be the first to be dealt with. A group of Ansars went out to attack them immediately.
A bit after this, a messenger with a worried look on his face rushed into the room of Al-Muzaffar.
"What is it?" asked Muzaffar, "Did we lose something badly? Is the army dead? Did someone declare war? What?"
"Oh no, none of those things, sir. In fact, the Ansar Warriors that recently went out to kill those Horsemen in the Pyrenees reported a stunning success, no losses to themselves, and I haven't heard of any more recent battles," the messenger replied, "The bad news is the other thing they reported once they got on top of the mountain and got a look at what was on the other side."
Al-Muzaffar's jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me? I thought they were supposed to be weak! By my count, that's 12 units of Swordsmen, 13 including the damaged one, 7 of Spearmen, 4 of Archers, and 2 of Warriors! 3 if you count that one to the West!"
"That was my reaction, too. I was also surprised to see that they took something as valuable as something called a "Piece of the True Cross" to the front lines, even defended by that many people. I'd expect they'd leave it in a heavily fortified city unless they wanted to take it somewhere."
"So, what do we do?"
That was the question that was to be answered when other members of the government were shown this. They all agreed that they couldn't fight against numbers this high, even if they were weaker than the Cordovan units. They would sue for peace now, build up a bit in their Golden Age, and then, when the time was right and they weren't fighting two wars at once- strike against the French again, when they had trained more Ansars and Assassins, and take this Piece of the True Cross for themselves.
They quickly went into negotiations. Luckily, the French didn't realize how massively the Cordovans were outnumbered right now, as they eagerly agreed to give away their entire treasury of 19 gold for Peace. They even threw in a city called Tours. Nobody in Cordova knew where this city was, but decided, "Hey, why not, it's a free city, right?"
They later found out where it was- on the very edge of the known world, far east of even the Easternmost known civilizations. Why the hell did the French bother settling out here, exactly?
Even weirder, it was right next to a Turkic city and a Burgundian one. The Turks being here, Al-Rahman could understand, but the Burgundians? What the heck? That was almost as out of place of a city as the formerly-French, newly-Cordovan Tours.
With the war with France now in what would be a 60-year peace, the Cordovans could focus their efforts on finishing off Castile. With an army composed of many Catapults, Swordsmen, and Ansar Warriors parked outside Leon, it wouldn't be long.
They started off their 1116 effort by bombarding the city with catapult rocks. All of them hit targets. They revealed that the defenders of Leon included at least 3 units of Spearmen and 1 of Swordsmen, all 4 of which were now slightly injured. Make that 2 Swordsmen, because once all 4 of the Catapults were done, one more unit of full strength Swordsmen remained to take up the defense.
Not for long. The Ansars charged the city once the Catapults were finished, and started by easily destroying the full-strength Swordsmen. They then ran throughout the city, killing opposing Spearmen left and right. Thanks to the help of some Cordovan Swordsmen, all 3 of the Spearmen units defending the city were killed. Now only some Swordsmen remained to fight and defend the city. It would not be long now.
3 years, specifically. The Castilians had been weakened too much to mount any counter-attack at all, so there were no battles between that one and 1119, when the Cordovans were again ready to attack. After the catapults bombarded the city again, the rest was effortless. The nearly dead remaining Swordsmen were wiped out by Ansar Warriors without a second thought, and then some Cordovan Swordsmen charged into Isabella's castle to remove her head. They managed to do exactly that, and proceeded to destroy what very little was left of the city. With its fall, Castile fell as well. Navarre was soon reported to have disappeared for no particular reason at all.
Seeing as the Cordovans wanted this for themselves and weren't about to let anyone else get it, they promptly constructed a human wall across the Pyrenees, or rather, just to the south of the Pyrenees, to prevent anyone else from coming there.
In 1120, the Cordovans heard the first news they'd heard of the Turkic war in some time. First, the Magyars signed a peace treaty with the Turks, which should have ended the war- or not, because the Kievans declared war on the Turks almost immediately after they heard the news that the Magyars had signed a peace treaty.
Noticing that they had a large gold surplus in 1122, the Cordovan government decided it would be a good time to do something they'd wanted to do for a while: Build some embassies. Specifically, they built embassies in Regensburg, the capital of Germany...
Aix-La-Chapelle, the capital of Burgundy...
Jerusalem, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, as well as being freaking Jerusalem...
And finally, Tripoli, the capital of the Fatimid Caliphate.
There was nothing particularly surprising about any of them, they were all fairly standard for capitals. This did give some new diplomatic possibilities, though, and also let the Cordovans see if anyone was at war with anyone. They quickly discovered that the Abbasids were at war with the Byzantines, and, moreover, that the Byzantines were winning.
With Castile dead, the number of noteworthy events that happened dropped off quite a bit, but not entirely. In 1123, a curragh in the Mediterranean was dangerously exploring waters far away from the shoreline. That's probably why they sunk upon being hit by a storm. Shortly after, England completed work on something called the "Holy Roman Empire," which gave them a lot of advantages, specifically, in the field of technology and large armies. (It's a combination Theory of Evolution + Heroic Epic + Pentagon, basically)
In 1126, Kiev seemed to be up to its old "sign a billion military alliances" game again, when Denmark declared war on Turkey. As they had little actual reason to do so, a military alliance is believed responsible.
And Kiev continued to play this game for a while, as, in 1129, Burgundy declared war on Turkey. The same year, a much less important peace treaty was signed- specifically between the French and Magyars. Al-Rahman had forgotten they were even at war.
Meanwhile, life went on in Cordova. They took advantage of the Golden Age they were in to build a lot of stuff, such as get settlers supplied to re-settle what was Northern Castile- and especially to start work on some wonders in Toledo and Cordoba that would give good benefits.
The first of those two efforts would soon see a frustration, as, in 1132, the Norwegians decided the land should be theirs. As nice as the wall across the Pyrenees was, it couldn't do anything about someone like Norway simply sailing around it and dropping off some settlers off on the coast. There would be a Norwegian city there soon. Or not, because it was no trouble for the Cordovans to just kill the settlers, due to the weakness of Norway's military. But still, that could be risky.
In the meantime, the world got to watch an epic fail of diplomacy in action, when the Abbasids signed a peace treaty with the Byzantines- who immediately re-declared war. The general reaction was "lolwut?"
In 1134, Al-Rahman promptly went to Norway to talk about the settler pair. The following conversation was had:
Al-Rahman: "GTFO of Spain."
Harold: "No."
Al-Rahman: "Then give me your entire treasury and Skalholt, the city on Majorca!"
Harold: "You can have our 2 gold, but Skalholt is ours!"
Al-Rahman: "Then it's war, ye noob!"
Shortly after, one of the Ansar Warriors in the wall of humans killed the Norwegian Spearmen and enslaved the settlers.
A Norwegian Longboat was spotted heading South from Norway by a curragh that had been exploring up there, but hopefully it wouldn't be too much trouble whenever it finally reached Spain.
In 1138, yet another country joined the Turkic war: This time, it was France, prompting many to wonder, "Where the hell do the Kievans get all this money?"
The next few years would prove to be much more eventful than usual, and not because of the war- no more Norwegians were sighted for a while. No. First, the first of two cities to fill the void in Northern Iberia was founded in 1140, named Carmona.
Next, it was noticed that the English had Map Making, a technology that Cordovans had wanted for a while now. It would let them make maps, and also advance them to a new era, somehow. Better yet, they didn't have Medieval Combat. So the Cordovans and English met, and it was rapidly decided that a trade of the technologies, as well as a trade for maps of the other's territory, would be beneficial to all.
Al-Rahman then went around to his neighbors, hoping to get them to trade their maps of all of the known world, which he knew shockingly little of. He couldn't manage to get it out of anyone though, just the territory maps of France, Burgundy, and the Celts, all of which were pretty helpful. Then he finally got the trade he wanted. Upon going throughout Europe, he found that several countries were unaware of the existence of the Fatimids. Seizing the opportunity, he immediately went to Tripoli and offered to introduce the Fatimids to Germany, France, Bulgaria, Burgundy, Poland, and the Celts- everyone they didn't know- for the Fatimid World Map. Even then, it still wasn't enough, and the Cordovans had to trade their own World Map and some gold to get it.
But it was well worth it. Now most of Europe was revealed to them, with only some small blank spots remaining. Those were quickly resolved by trading World Maps with Poland, Bulgaria, Sweden, Denmark, and the Abbasids. They now knew so much more.
Much of what they found was bafflingly confusing. What was with the Norwegian and English settling patterns on Northern islands that were worthless anyway? Why did Denmark have a city so deep in Northern Africa, surrounded by the Fatimid Caliphate and the Sahara Desert? What was with the weird shape of Germany, and so many cities in places they had no real reason to be in? Most of all, why was there so many different people in the area North of Turkey and East of Kiev? It's not like that area was particularly valuable, it seemed like these cities weren't really doing anything for the people that built them. Most were Bulgarian, but a couple were Polish, a couple Danish, a couple Swedish, a couple Magyar- even a German one, and a former French one that was now Cordovan, and a former Burgundian one that the Turks had captured at some point. Seriously, what the heck?
In 1141, Cordovan scientists researched Medicine, letting them keep more people alive at once and build bigger cities. Cool, bro.
Finally, in 1143, the second and final city in the gap was built: Niebla, somewhat near where Navarre was.
Now the wall wasn't needed any more, as the tiny space left was pretty much worthless and not somewhere the Cordovans cared about anyway. Now- they would prepare for the French War to begin again.
Largely out of curiosity, they established an embassy in Kiev later that year. They were surprised to find that the Kievans didn't appear to have any active military alliances on anybody- in which case, why the hell was everyone declaring war on Turkey? Was it just a bug, or something, and they couldn't see the military alliances?
Speaking of military alliances, Turkey decided to stop being the victim of them and start signing them in 1144 by convincing the Germans to declare war on Kiev.
Who knows, maybe they wouldn't even need it- they soon after captured the city of Uskudar, a city that they had lost to Kiev in the first war.
But, they decided to keep getting allies anyway, and got the Abbasids to declare war on Burgundy in 1147, which someone retaliated against by getting Poland to declare war on the Abbasids. Not like those wars will ever see much action...
But the Abbasids' other war against the Byzantines will, as the Byzantines continue winning. They captured the city of Antioch that year, putting just one city between the Byzantine Army in Jerusalem. If they captured that... well, bad things would happen, to say the least.
And, lastly, the bad news. In 1148, the Cordovan Golden Age finally ended.
With it, everything slowed down a bit. The wonders, the military, the science, everything. It was good while it lasted, but it just couldn't last.
They would continue on. They would build the wonders, the military, anything they needed.
And soon, they would be on the war path again, and Allah help anyone that wants to get between Cordova and its goal of victory.
In 1110, it was plainly obvious to everyone that Castile was in the last days of its pitiful existence. The only question was, then what? The majority opinion seemed to be to expand Northward into Europe, where France, Burgundy, and everyone else was, and hopefully grab a few of their treasured artifacts. Maybe even go on to attempt to take them to Jerusalem, where they would gain much more attention and prestige for Cordova. If only it wasn't controlled by the Abbasids...
But that was in the future, probably in the far future. In the present, they were still weak, and being threatened by such small French attacks as the one in 1111 that saw several small groups of French soldiers occupy the Pyrenees near the border.
They didn't have many Ansars in the area in 1113, and it would be difficult to fight them in the mountains, so the Cordovans decided that it would be better to wait for the most part, although they made sure to attack the group on the Mediterranean Coast, as, consisting of one unit of Swordsmen and 2 of Horsemen, it posed a valid threat. 2 units of Ansar Warriors were sent in to remove the threat. Although they couldn't completely destroy the Swordsmen, they weakened them a lot, and got rid of one of the Horsemen units completely. They suffered no losses, and retreated to the safety of Oviedo.
A Third unit of Ansars in the Mountains near the westernmost French group, which consisted of a unit of Spearmen and one of Warriors, decided to attack it. They killed all of the Spearmen, but found themselves badly damaged as a result.
The final unit of French Horsemen in the east attacked Oviedo in 1114. Predictably enough, the weakness that charging uphill caused them resulted in this particular unit of Horsemen being impaled on the defenders' Spears.
Meanwhile, the Cordovans advanced towards Leon, with the aim of taking it and finally destroying Castile. They continued to suffer random counter-attacks, as the Castilians still had a few Swords left, but nothing that they couldn't handle- one particular battle in 1114 saw some Castilian Swordsmen almost defeating one of the Ansar units, but not quite, and the Ansars, unlike the Castilians, would live to fight another day.
Around this time, the Castilian Scientists delivered again with the discovery of more advanced weapons and forms of combat, which they called Medieval Weaponry. Specifically, they could build slightly better armor and weapons, like maces, for their infantry, for all the good that did them.
But anything new was good, and they certainly were in the middle of fighting with the French over the Pyrenees. The Archers and Warriors had advanced, and the Swordsmen had stayed behind to heal. Meanwhile, another unit of Horsemen decided to take up residence on a nearby mountain.
It was decided in 1116 that the Horsemen were the biggest threat, even if nobody was really a threat, and thus would be the first to be dealt with. A group of Ansars went out to attack them immediately.
A bit after this, a messenger with a worried look on his face rushed into the room of Al-Muzaffar.
"What is it?" asked Muzaffar, "Did we lose something badly? Is the army dead? Did someone declare war? What?"
"Oh no, none of those things, sir. In fact, the Ansar Warriors that recently went out to kill those Horsemen in the Pyrenees reported a stunning success, no losses to themselves, and I haven't heard of any more recent battles," the messenger replied, "The bad news is the other thing they reported once they got on top of the mountain and got a look at what was on the other side."
Al-Muzaffar's jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me? I thought they were supposed to be weak! By my count, that's 12 units of Swordsmen, 13 including the damaged one, 7 of Spearmen, 4 of Archers, and 2 of Warriors! 3 if you count that one to the West!"
"That was my reaction, too. I was also surprised to see that they took something as valuable as something called a "Piece of the True Cross" to the front lines, even defended by that many people. I'd expect they'd leave it in a heavily fortified city unless they wanted to take it somewhere."
"So, what do we do?"
That was the question that was to be answered when other members of the government were shown this. They all agreed that they couldn't fight against numbers this high, even if they were weaker than the Cordovan units. They would sue for peace now, build up a bit in their Golden Age, and then, when the time was right and they weren't fighting two wars at once- strike against the French again, when they had trained more Ansars and Assassins, and take this Piece of the True Cross for themselves.
They quickly went into negotiations. Luckily, the French didn't realize how massively the Cordovans were outnumbered right now, as they eagerly agreed to give away their entire treasury of 19 gold for Peace. They even threw in a city called Tours. Nobody in Cordova knew where this city was, but decided, "Hey, why not, it's a free city, right?"
They later found out where it was- on the very edge of the known world, far east of even the Easternmost known civilizations. Why the hell did the French bother settling out here, exactly?
Even weirder, it was right next to a Turkic city and a Burgundian one. The Turks being here, Al-Rahman could understand, but the Burgundians? What the heck? That was almost as out of place of a city as the formerly-French, newly-Cordovan Tours.
With the war with France now in what would be a 60-year peace, the Cordovans could focus their efforts on finishing off Castile. With an army composed of many Catapults, Swordsmen, and Ansar Warriors parked outside Leon, it wouldn't be long.
They started off their 1116 effort by bombarding the city with catapult rocks. All of them hit targets. They revealed that the defenders of Leon included at least 3 units of Spearmen and 1 of Swordsmen, all 4 of which were now slightly injured. Make that 2 Swordsmen, because once all 4 of the Catapults were done, one more unit of full strength Swordsmen remained to take up the defense.
Not for long. The Ansars charged the city once the Catapults were finished, and started by easily destroying the full-strength Swordsmen. They then ran throughout the city, killing opposing Spearmen left and right. Thanks to the help of some Cordovan Swordsmen, all 3 of the Spearmen units defending the city were killed. Now only some Swordsmen remained to fight and defend the city. It would not be long now.
3 years, specifically. The Castilians had been weakened too much to mount any counter-attack at all, so there were no battles between that one and 1119, when the Cordovans were again ready to attack. After the catapults bombarded the city again, the rest was effortless. The nearly dead remaining Swordsmen were wiped out by Ansar Warriors without a second thought, and then some Cordovan Swordsmen charged into Isabella's castle to remove her head. They managed to do exactly that, and proceeded to destroy what very little was left of the city. With its fall, Castile fell as well. Navarre was soon reported to have disappeared for no particular reason at all.
Seeing as the Cordovans wanted this for themselves and weren't about to let anyone else get it, they promptly constructed a human wall across the Pyrenees, or rather, just to the south of the Pyrenees, to prevent anyone else from coming there.
In 1120, the Cordovans heard the first news they'd heard of the Turkic war in some time. First, the Magyars signed a peace treaty with the Turks, which should have ended the war- or not, because the Kievans declared war on the Turks almost immediately after they heard the news that the Magyars had signed a peace treaty.
Noticing that they had a large gold surplus in 1122, the Cordovan government decided it would be a good time to do something they'd wanted to do for a while: Build some embassies. Specifically, they built embassies in Regensburg, the capital of Germany...
Aix-La-Chapelle, the capital of Burgundy...
Jerusalem, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, as well as being freaking Jerusalem...
And finally, Tripoli, the capital of the Fatimid Caliphate.
There was nothing particularly surprising about any of them, they were all fairly standard for capitals. This did give some new diplomatic possibilities, though, and also let the Cordovans see if anyone was at war with anyone. They quickly discovered that the Abbasids were at war with the Byzantines, and, moreover, that the Byzantines were winning.
With Castile dead, the number of noteworthy events that happened dropped off quite a bit, but not entirely. In 1123, a curragh in the Mediterranean was dangerously exploring waters far away from the shoreline. That's probably why they sunk upon being hit by a storm. Shortly after, England completed work on something called the "Holy Roman Empire," which gave them a lot of advantages, specifically, in the field of technology and large armies. (It's a combination Theory of Evolution + Heroic Epic + Pentagon, basically)
In 1126, Kiev seemed to be up to its old "sign a billion military alliances" game again, when Denmark declared war on Turkey. As they had little actual reason to do so, a military alliance is believed responsible.
And Kiev continued to play this game for a while, as, in 1129, Burgundy declared war on Turkey. The same year, a much less important peace treaty was signed- specifically between the French and Magyars. Al-Rahman had forgotten they were even at war.
Meanwhile, life went on in Cordova. They took advantage of the Golden Age they were in to build a lot of stuff, such as get settlers supplied to re-settle what was Northern Castile- and especially to start work on some wonders in Toledo and Cordoba that would give good benefits.
The first of those two efforts would soon see a frustration, as, in 1132, the Norwegians decided the land should be theirs. As nice as the wall across the Pyrenees was, it couldn't do anything about someone like Norway simply sailing around it and dropping off some settlers off on the coast. There would be a Norwegian city there soon. Or not, because it was no trouble for the Cordovans to just kill the settlers, due to the weakness of Norway's military. But still, that could be risky.
In the meantime, the world got to watch an epic fail of diplomacy in action, when the Abbasids signed a peace treaty with the Byzantines- who immediately re-declared war. The general reaction was "lolwut?"
In 1134, Al-Rahman promptly went to Norway to talk about the settler pair. The following conversation was had:
Al-Rahman: "GTFO of Spain."
Harold: "No."
Al-Rahman: "Then give me your entire treasury and Skalholt, the city on Majorca!"
Harold: "You can have our 2 gold, but Skalholt is ours!"
Al-Rahman: "Then it's war, ye noob!"
Shortly after, one of the Ansar Warriors in the wall of humans killed the Norwegian Spearmen and enslaved the settlers.
A Norwegian Longboat was spotted heading South from Norway by a curragh that had been exploring up there, but hopefully it wouldn't be too much trouble whenever it finally reached Spain.
In 1138, yet another country joined the Turkic war: This time, it was France, prompting many to wonder, "Where the hell do the Kievans get all this money?"
The next few years would prove to be much more eventful than usual, and not because of the war- no more Norwegians were sighted for a while. No. First, the first of two cities to fill the void in Northern Iberia was founded in 1140, named Carmona.
Next, it was noticed that the English had Map Making, a technology that Cordovans had wanted for a while now. It would let them make maps, and also advance them to a new era, somehow. Better yet, they didn't have Medieval Combat. So the Cordovans and English met, and it was rapidly decided that a trade of the technologies, as well as a trade for maps of the other's territory, would be beneficial to all.
Al-Rahman then went around to his neighbors, hoping to get them to trade their maps of all of the known world, which he knew shockingly little of. He couldn't manage to get it out of anyone though, just the territory maps of France, Burgundy, and the Celts, all of which were pretty helpful. Then he finally got the trade he wanted. Upon going throughout Europe, he found that several countries were unaware of the existence of the Fatimids. Seizing the opportunity, he immediately went to Tripoli and offered to introduce the Fatimids to Germany, France, Bulgaria, Burgundy, Poland, and the Celts- everyone they didn't know- for the Fatimid World Map. Even then, it still wasn't enough, and the Cordovans had to trade their own World Map and some gold to get it.
But it was well worth it. Now most of Europe was revealed to them, with only some small blank spots remaining. Those were quickly resolved by trading World Maps with Poland, Bulgaria, Sweden, Denmark, and the Abbasids. They now knew so much more.
Much of what they found was bafflingly confusing. What was with the Norwegian and English settling patterns on Northern islands that were worthless anyway? Why did Denmark have a city so deep in Northern Africa, surrounded by the Fatimid Caliphate and the Sahara Desert? What was with the weird shape of Germany, and so many cities in places they had no real reason to be in? Most of all, why was there so many different people in the area North of Turkey and East of Kiev? It's not like that area was particularly valuable, it seemed like these cities weren't really doing anything for the people that built them. Most were Bulgarian, but a couple were Polish, a couple Danish, a couple Swedish, a couple Magyar- even a German one, and a former French one that was now Cordovan, and a former Burgundian one that the Turks had captured at some point. Seriously, what the heck?
In 1141, Cordovan scientists researched Medicine, letting them keep more people alive at once and build bigger cities. Cool, bro.
Finally, in 1143, the second and final city in the gap was built: Niebla, somewhat near where Navarre was.
Now the wall wasn't needed any more, as the tiny space left was pretty much worthless and not somewhere the Cordovans cared about anyway. Now- they would prepare for the French War to begin again.
Largely out of curiosity, they established an embassy in Kiev later that year. They were surprised to find that the Kievans didn't appear to have any active military alliances on anybody- in which case, why the hell was everyone declaring war on Turkey? Was it just a bug, or something, and they couldn't see the military alliances?
Speaking of military alliances, Turkey decided to stop being the victim of them and start signing them in 1144 by convincing the Germans to declare war on Kiev.
Who knows, maybe they wouldn't even need it- they soon after captured the city of Uskudar, a city that they had lost to Kiev in the first war.
But, they decided to keep getting allies anyway, and got the Abbasids to declare war on Burgundy in 1147, which someone retaliated against by getting Poland to declare war on the Abbasids. Not like those wars will ever see much action...
But the Abbasids' other war against the Byzantines will, as the Byzantines continue winning. They captured the city of Antioch that year, putting just one city between the Byzantine Army in Jerusalem. If they captured that... well, bad things would happen, to say the least.
And, lastly, the bad news. In 1148, the Cordovan Golden Age finally ended.
With it, everything slowed down a bit. The wonders, the military, the science, everything. It was good while it lasted, but it just couldn't last.
They would continue on. They would build the wonders, the military, anything they needed.
And soon, they would be on the war path again, and Allah help anyone that wants to get between Cordova and its goal of victory.
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CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
capture Jerusalem, now is your best chance.
MaxaTheGreat
Feel Prussian Iron!
They later found out where it was- on the very edge of the known world, far east of even the Easternmost known civilizations. Why the hell did the French bother settling out here, exactly?
This is the one thing that annoys me with The Middle Ages. AI will settle anything, no matter how stupid it is.
The problem is, then I have to sit around and hold it for a while while I go find the Relics. It's easier to just grab 2 or 3 from the French, Burgundians, and Germans, then park a huge army outside the city and bring the relics there for instant victory.
If I'm lucky, the Byzantines will capture Damascus but not Jerusalem, saving me the trouble of taking any other Abbasid cities on the way there. If I'm unlucky, and the Byzantines capture Jerusalem, then I just have to take it from them, my RoP Reputation be damned.
They'll always settle any empty space if one exists. Here, there's a large empty space in Russia where I think the Mongols were originally going to be, so people settle there.
mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
Do the Fatimads control or originally own Cairo? Because they have a New Cairo, but it seems the Abassids control Egypt.
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
Cairo is on their city list, and not at the start of the game. In fact, in a couple of my pictures, Cairo is clearly visible in Northern Algeria.
alternate history, man.
TheOverseer714
Overseer
I recommend building a line of fortresses across the Pyrenees, keep Frances huge army behind a wall and try a decapitation by killing their kings with a big stack of assasins.
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