Chapter 30: The Almost-Hundred Year War
In 1200, the world was rapidly heading towards... something bad. Well, something involving a ton of warfare, at any rate. Although Cordova was certain they'd eventually triumph over France if they could stand against the huge stack of doom, and that some other nations would fall, practically nothing was certain.
Luckily, they were correct in their assumption about the Stack that it either couldn't attack El Cid's Army or didn't care about it, as it wasn't attacked in 1201. Notable events elsewhere of the year did happen, in the random wars department- England signed a peace treaty with Kiev and asked for Cordovan aid against the Abbasids, which Cordova promptly refused. And, in something that would prove common over the following years, rich countries signed most of the new Military Alliances, as they had the money to get more people on their side. This year, it was the Byzantines, who got Poland to declare war on Burgundy, and the Magyars to declare war on Kiev. Poland probably won't get to Burgundy before everyone else does, but Kiev and the Magyars border each other, and might actually fight. Speaking of fighting, Norway recaptured Orkney. Good for them.
Confident that the Stack wouldn't bother them at all, the Cordovan Army decided to spend 1203 advancing towards Angers again, and also towards the eastern French city of Rheims.
The French did, indeed spend 1204 doing approximately nothing. The Byzantines and Turks were busy, though- the Byzantines got Sweden to join the "At War with Burgundy" bandwagon, and Turkey, not wanting to be outdone, got Norway into the same bandwagon and also got the Fatimids to declare war on Sweden, which will probably accomplish nothing except for the loss of Sweden's African colony, and maybe the island of Sicily. They also captured another random isolated Eastern city, Hannover, which used to belong to Germany.
Four Cordovan Ansars reached Rheims in 1206, and thought it looked like a good time to attack the city. Sadly, they managed to underestimate the defenses the Spearmen in the city would put up, and the first two units to attack saw the loss of a unit and the retreat of one, barely escaping with their lives. The other two Ansar units were more successful, and 2 of the Spearmen units defending the city died at their swords, but one damaged Spearmen unit remained, and the Cordovans were out of units to attack with.
In 1207, Turkey ended their pointless war with Sweden, and also got the 9th country to join the war against Burgundy: The Bulgars, who until that point, had been at peace with everyone, at least as far as the Cordovan government knows.
The French stack of doom decided to rear its ugly head that year, or at least, part of it, but it wasn't going for Cordova- rather, it was going for the Danish city of Nantes on the coast. Understandable- taking it would remove a Danish city that had long been a thorn in France's side, as well as removing the Cordovans' quick route into Angers.
Sweden captured the Norwegian city of Borre, on the Swedish-Norwegian Eastern border, and formerly, the location of one of the 3 Norwegian Kings, and the Byzantines destroyed the Abbasid city of Acre... which was on the Sinai Peninsula. Al-Rahman wonders why they keep attacking Egypt instead of just going directly for Jerusalem.
The few Ansars in the area around Nantes in 1209 decided to try and help by whittling down the stack a bit. In reality, they'd prefer if Nantes was captured and they got to capture it back, but preventing the French from taking it in the first place would also be good, and at the very least, they wanted them and Nantes to weaken the stack a bit. Sadly, they couldn't do very much against it, as there were only 5 units of them, one of which died in the battle and another barely escaped with their lives. They did, however, kill two of the Spearmen units in the stack and one of the Swordsmen. A bit after, an Assassin camped on the hill outside to watch the battle, check out the French stack, which still included the Crown of Thorns, and maybe attempt to retake the city when it fell.
To the east, the battle of Rheims continued, and the Cordovans were greatly aided by the arrival of El Cid's Army, greatly speeding up the battle. Not that it would have taken long anyway, seeing as the French only had 1 unit of Spearmen in the city, which was promptly curbstomped by El Cid, but still. Anyway, the spearmen died, the worker in the city was captured, and a Cordovan flag flew over Rheims.
In 1210, Cordova again looked for any of the random wars that were actually interesting, and found one- although it wasn't easy to see with the large number of new wars that started that year. It started off with Bulgaria declaring war on Turkey. Not terribly interesting, as they weren't bordering- except for Bulgaria's large number of isolated and actually not bad cities in the part of the East that they were originally from, which were now food for the Turkic army. And Turkey, as usual, liked signing military alliances, and in this year, got Denmark to declare war on Bulgaria shortly after Bulgaria declared war on them (like that would lead anywhere...). They did sign a peace treaty with Poland shortly after, though. Not all of the wars of the year focused on Turkey, though, as the Byzantines remained in the "Rich Countries signing tons of military alliances" club, and got, who else, Bulgaria, to declare war on the Abbasids.
But not before the French Stack got to work on Nantes, with huge numbers of Swords assailing the city. The 3 units of Spearmen defending Nantes put up a valiant effort, taking out two of the attacking Swordsmen units and one of the Archer units, but it was in vain, as they couldn't hold out against numbers of that magnitude. The last one fell to the French Swordsmen, and the workers in the city were captured. And, to some deal of surprise, France opted to destroy the city rather than capture it, taking some of the surviving inhabitants as slaves as well.
To finish off the year, the Turks captured the Bulgar city of Plovidiv, the Southernmost and largest of the group of 4 at the far North of the Eastern regions, strangely ignoring the farther-South and probably-more-annoying-to-them city of Sliven, and Denmark captured the Kievan city of Tmutorokan, somewhat connecting the two cities they already had in the area.
Not much happened in 1212. El Cid's Army killed 3 units of French Spearmen that foolishly remained in the area around Rheims, and a retreating Assassin noticed a French settler pair heading for the gap in what used to be Clermont.
The French Settler pair continued moving in 1213, and other French movements included a battle between French and Cordovan Swordsmen that the French won, a unit of Spearmen walking into an Assassin and killing them (come on, they don't have 0 defense!), and a group of workers walking into an Assassin and... dying. Lol.
Elsewhere, the Turks got the Fatimids to declare war on Bulgaria, and continued their conquest of the Bulgar far Northeast by taking the now-isolated city of Bourgas, Bulgaria's Easternmost city.
In 1215, an Assassin decided to "take care of" the Settler pair heading for the gap. The settlers awoke to find all their Spear-wielding escorts had been Assassinated, and that they were now Cordovan.
There were a few French Spearmen and Swordsmen heading towards Bordeaux. The Cordovan military, obviously, couldn't let them live, and threw a bunch of rocks at them with catapults. 4 Ansar Warriors killed 3 units of Spearmen and a unit of Swordsmen in the ensuing battle at no loss to themselves. At the end, a dude named Al-Mansur had emerged as a great military leader who would now lead a large army of Ansar Warriors.
In 1216, the Turks and Byzantines decided they had started too many ridiculous wars and decided to stop. Just kidding... I almost had you there for a second, didn't I? Well, anyway, a large Turkish bribe was sufficient to get the Fatimids to declare war on Germany, and a similar Byzantine bribe got the Magyars to declare war on the Abbasids.
The French seemed displeased with the fact that Cordova controlled the city of Rheims, and decided to send in a somewhat serious threat to the city- 4 units of Swordsmen were in the forest outside the city now, as well as a large number of Spearmen either with them or in the same general area.
At the end of the year, Cordovan scientists were pleased to announce they had finished work on how to make bigger, better, stronger ships to move people around in- which would no doubt be useful for naval combat and assaulting things by sea.
The first priority of the Cordovan army in 1218 was getting rid of the French force trying to retake Rheims. Luckily, they had a lot of Ansars close enough to do the job, and the newly-created Army of Al-Mansur would get its first chance to crush tons of helpless Frenchmen. To get to the Swordsmen, they'd first have to kill both of the units of Spearmen defending them. Two units of Ansar Warriors set out to do this. The leader of the first one currently looks somewhat similar to a piece of swiss cheese. The leader of the second one, Al-Mutamin was so good at destroying the Spearmen his unit attacked that he became the leader of the third Ansar Warrior Army.
Al-Mutamin's Army was promptly put to work. His army and Al-Mansur's Army worked together to kill all 4 of the Swordsmen units in the forest, and it was little trouble after that for another Ansar unit to finish the job by killing the damaged Spearmen unit that had killed the first Ansar Warriors to fight in the battle.
Having nothing else to do, some more Ansars killed a unit of Spearmen in the hills south of Angers and Orleans. They noticed to their dismay that the French had reconnected their Iron source. The Cordovans would have to "fix" that problem. An Assassin would later depart to do just that.
The French Army decided it didn't particularly like that those Ansars were there, and, for that matter, didn't particularly like any Ansars anywhere. Some Swordsmen went to attack that unit of Ansars and another unit of Ansars near Rheims. Both of those attacking Swordsmen units ended up being a bit too dead to not like Ansars anymore. As the still living French soldiers were still annoyed at Ansars, so a unit of Archers went to attack one and a unit of Swords went to attack the other. Those units remained alive to not like Ansars, but didn't kill the Ansar Warriors- both of them managed to escape with their lives.
Residents of Antwerp, Burgundy awoke in 1219 to find that the nearby Mount Vesuvius was spewing spoke and random earthquakes were happening. The eruption didn't destroy the city, but it did certainly scare some people in Burgundy, and make some people who weren't Burgundians and were at war with them (a lot of people now) hoping for a second that they'd lose a city.
In other news, Poland captured the Kievan city of Smolensk, cutting off the small region around the capital from the northern part of the country, which is probably bad for Kiev. If they can't do something about it soon, their entire country will fall to the attacking Poles and Danes.
The several razed cities and the already large gap in the Pyrenees mountains had meant that there were several large holes between Cordova's northern cities. They started filling them in in 1221, when the city of Arcos was built just to the north pf the Pyrenees, on the Bay of Biscay.
Back on the frontlines, there were a lot of random French units that had offered themselves as sacrifices to the armies of Al-Mansur and Al-Mutamin. Both of them gladly accepted, killing 4 units of Spearmen, 1 of Swordsmen, and 1 of Archers between the two of them.
Just to the north of all of this, the war between Burgundy and their chief enemy, Germany, continued. In 1222, the Germans scored another victory by capturing the city of Basel, giving them a border with France (and, sort of, Cordova) for the first time. In the far east, Turkey continued crushing Bulgaria by taking the city of Great Bulgar, leaving Bulgaria 2 cities up there. They'd mysteriously still not taken Sliven. And, finally, Sweden captured Husavik, a small, recently-built city on the West coast of Norway.
At the end of the year, Cumbria, England finished work on creating something called The Knights Templar, which would give England a lot more Crusading foot soldiers to go fight people with.
An Assassin reached the French Iron in 1224, and immediately proceeded to destroy the roads there again.
Back near Rheims, the city was again in trouble, threatened by... the mighty Spearman. Al-Mansur's army went to kill it. Maybe that was a bad idea, as Al-Mansur's army was already a bit damaged, and was now at the level of "getting near dead" and incapable of moving more this year, forcing some even-more-injured Ansar Warriors to get between them and any Frenchmen that might be capable of attacking them.
To the west, the French had built the city of Chartres near what used to be the Danish city of Nantes. El Cid's Army didn't really like this, and went north to burn the city shortly after hearing the news. It was only defended by a unit of Knights and a unit of Spearmen, neither of which were able to do much to stop El Cid's Army.
In 1225, the Turks suddenly noticed they'd forgotten to sign any military alliances for 9 years now, and after collectively facepalming, they asked Poland to join them and everyone else they'd asked in their crusade/jihad/whatever against Bulgaria. Poland said yes, probably due to however much money the Turks paid them.
The Abbasids, meanwhile, noticed that they didn't have any Quarries, curse the Byzantines, and decided to ask Cordova for one. And by "ask" I mean they said "Give it to us or else!" Al-Rahman laughed and told them to declare war if they wanted, maybe they'd be able to get a few pigeons through the Byzantines to attack Cordova with. The Abbasid ambassador, a bit embarrassed, decided to turn around and leave, before someone yelled, "But we'd be more than happy to sell you a source of Quarry if you give us some slave workers, a map, and some gold!"
Both countries walked away, happy with this deal.
The almost-dead Ansars happily did their job of protecting Al-Mansur's army when attacked by two units of French Knights, who rather obviously destroyed them both with little effort. Luckily, the job was done successfully- the French either ran out of units that could attack the army or chose not to do so.
Not long after this, the French demonstrated a complete lack of brains or self-preservation instincts, when they sent a worker to go re-road the iron source, obviously having forgotten that there was an Assassin there, who proceeded to stick sharp things in parts of said worker's body that generally result in death when sharp things are stuck in them. The French then proceeded to send 3 more workers there, obviously unaware that they would just be killed by the Assassin every time they went there. The Assassin even promoted to "Elite" as a result of it, causing Cordovans everywhere to laugh their butts off.
Al-Mansur's army retreated from the area around Rheims in 1227, not wanting to be killed by Knights. It was here that the Cordovan army noticed a bad problem they had: They didn't have any units capable of protecting Rheims from those Knights, meaning it would be retaken by France and generally continue to be a pain.
Unless, of course, they just torched the city on their way out.
A bit after, they noticed that they'd had the technology of Seamanship and not done much with it. Probably, the only reason they'd noticed was that they'd just built their first Galley in Valencia and loaded it with some Assassins and Pikemen to attack Sardinia with again. So, they looked to see if anyone had anything to trade for it- and the Turks had a nice offer for them that they really couldn't refuse- the technology of Mercantilism and a ton of gold.
Perhaps to make up for their long lapse of not doing much, Turkey decided to sign a lot of military alliances in 1228. After someone else got France to declare war on the Fatimid Caliphate, Turkey got England to declare war on France and Germany, officially putting all 4 of the major Western European countries at war with all 3 of the others (except France and Germany, they weren't at war), then got the Abbasids to declare war on France and the Celts to declare war on Bulgaria. As the Celts decided that they didn't want to be in a simply ridiculous number of ridiculous wars (as that would be silly), they ended their silly war against Kiev.
The French, meanwhile, remained idiotic, and 3 more workers gleefully committed suicide by walking into the same area as the Assassin. Slightly less idiotic were a couple of French Settler pairs (and a Burgundian one), but they were still high on Cordova's "Must Kill" list.
To finish off the year, the Swedes burned the Norwegian city of Vantsfjord, taking Norway down to 2 cities- Stavanger and Trondheim- in what was once the core of their empire. If those two and the Kings that reside within fall, they'll be finished.
As large numbers of the Cordovan military were either healing or otherwise unavailable in 1230, they couldn't really do much. Al-Mutamin's army killed some Spearmen and captured the Settler they were guarding, and then some Knights that were guarding two workers, but that was it.
It would seem that the French had all but run out of Iron to give to their mounted soldiers, and their non-mounted soldiers, for that matter, but still had plenty of Horses. In 1231, a unit of said Horsemen attacked some Ansars and died.
Bulgaria, tired of having billions of military alliances signed against it, retaliated by getting England to declare war on the Celts. Given the close proximity those two countries have, this is probably going to end badly for the Celts. The Byzantines, a bit later, decided that getting two countries on the verge of destruction to fight would be fun and told the Norwegians to declare war on France.
A bit later, someone razed the Kievan city of Suzdal, the only coastal city that they owned, not that the Baltic Sea was a particularly great coast to be on.
The French inexplicably had some workers in the gap between them and Cordova defended by a Spearmen in 1233. Some slightly injured Ansars decided to go after them, but were a bit too damaged to do much to the Spearmen, and barely escaped with their lives. Luckily, El Cid's Army was much less injured, which is why Cordova now has two more slave workers. A bit to the North, an Assassin killed a unit of Archers, and the not-injured Cordovan army advanced towards Angers.
Repeating what happened 3 years ago, a unit of French Horsemen attacked a unit of Cordovan Ansars in 1234. Like 3 years ago, said Horsemen died. Farther East, the Cordovans forgot that the French could use some of the roads they could use, and a couple of slaves were captured by French Spearmen and Archers as a result. They are presumed dead or taken to some other part of France that is unknown to Cordova.
The Turks, in their usual military alliance craze, decided the Celts and Burgundians weren't at war with enough people and got the former to declare war on the latter, and all around Europe, a lot of countries decided that it would be a good year to attempt to capture cities. The Kievans took quite a beating, losing two cities- one, Sarkel, to Poland, and one, Pskov, to Denmark, putting Kiev every bit as close to Denmark and Poland as Jerusalem was to the Byzantines. The Turks finally captured Sliven, leaving Bulgaria with only their Northernmost city in the East. England captured Cornwall, a Celtic city on the Southwest coast of their island. Finally, Germany captured the second Bulgarian capital, Pisa, forcing the government to move again. A new capital soon took hold in Dorestad, location of one of the two remaining Burgundian Kings. Probably, the King and whoever was already there decided to put it there, as there's no real logical reason the Pisa government could have gotten all the way to Dorestad, at least not that fast.
A large bit of the Cordovan military had reached Angers by 1236, and was ready to attack. El Cid's Army attacked the city twice, killing a unit of Spearmen each time, and then an Ansar unit finished the job by killing the final Spearmen, taking the city and a couple of workers for Cordova.
And, better yet, they found a nice surprise, one celebrated by everyone in Cordova upon hearing the news: The Crown of Thorns had been left in the city, and was now theirs!
Apparently, one of the Spearmen had been carrying it. Which seemed weird to Cordova- they had thought that it was being carried by Swordsmen, not Spearmen, and that the Swordsmen couldn't drop it. Maybe the Swordsmen died of "Not being paid unit support" or something.
And Cordova was far from done yet. They still had plenty of units left, and were more than capable of attacking Orleans.
But not yet. First they had the Assassin hidden with a bunch of Pikemen and Catapults kill the Archers that were slightly menacing on the hill to the Southeast of Angers, and Al-Mansur's army avenged the captured slave workers by killing the Spearmen and Archers who captured and maybe killed them.
The Assassin walked through the gates of Orleans unnoticed among all the other people who were walking through the gates of Orleans. He easily slipped past the Spearmen defending the city. His mission was simple: kill the Swordsmen in the city to make attacking it easier for the Ansar Warriors and keep them from having to suffer a counter-attack if they couldn't take it in one year (which they couldn't). So, he got down to what he usually did, which should be easy for an Elite Assassin such as him, and looked for Swordsmen to kill, killing them when he found them. Maybe he'd just lost some of his killing talent. Maybe the Swordsmen were good, or at least good at noticing him attempt to kill them. Whatever the cause, the Swordsmen were able to withstand the Assassination attempt and kill the attacker.
Al-Mutamin's army, a bit annoyed at this, decided to charge the city regardless, and see what the Spearmen could do to try and stop them. Answer: Not much, since 3 units of Spearmen formerly defending the city now reside under the ground.
Speaking of Assassins, the Galley with several of them reached Sardinia and the people on it disembarked, meaning that the Norwegian city of Thingvellir would probably not be Norwegian for very much longer.
All of the alliances signed in 1237 somehow involved one of Cordova's two enemies. Make that three enemies, since after declaring war on the Abbasids, the Norwegians managed to get the Celts to declare war on Cordova. Al-Rahman was a bit shocked that Norway still had the money to sign military alliances, but didn't particularly care. The Celts weren't a big threat.
As to how it involved France, the other enemy, well, the Byzantines got the Magyars to declare war on them, as if that would go anywhere, and the Byzantine-Cordovan alliance against France ended, costing Cordova some formerly free income.
But that loss was more than offset by the completion of the Bayeux Tapestry in Toledo. A giant tapestry, it granted the powers of making every barracks on the continent owned by Cordova not need maintenance. Why? Who knows, it's too awesome for anyone to care.
Having taken the Crown of Thorns, the Cordovan military decided to vacate Angers for the much safer "outside Angers" in 1239, due to the fact that the city was calculated to have a very high chance of suddenly revolting and becoming French again.
There was also a unit of Archers outside the city, that really had to die if they were going to leave the city undefended, so an Assassin quickly took care of them.
And, just to make really sure it wouldn't be attacked, they also decided they'd need to capture Orleans. There were plenty of Ansars capable of doing this, so it didn't look too difficult. Al-Mansur's army rode in and killed a unit of Spearmen, but due to how far it had to travel, was unable to do more. Al-Mutamin's army killed the Swordsmen in the city to avenge the Assassin that had failed three years earlier. It was now close to dying, but that wasn't a big deal: The only thing left defending the city was King Charles the Bald. Needless to say, a King isn't much of a match for an army of Ansar Warriors.
Sadly, this meant that they didn't have anything to defend the city with, as everyone was too injured to do the job, and Cordova would rather lose the city than lose the city and lose soldiers. But it would not be a huge problem to just let it fall and then retake it.
In the meantime, they sent a unit of Ansar Warriors to kill the Celtic Spearmen that existed to the West of Angers, who failed badly at doing that. El Cid's Army, luckily, proved more than capable of killing said Spearmen.
The Assassins, preparing for their mission to capture Thingvellir, noticed a problem when looking at the defenses of the city: There were 3 units of Spearmen and one of Warriors defending it, and only 3 of them. They couldn't kill them all. Luckily, it was then that they realized Pikemen (2/4/1 in this scenario) could kill the Warriors if they took care of the Spearmen. So they went out to do this, and not long after, all 3 of them returned alive and well, having killed everything in the city that wielded a Spear. With that done, it was little trouble for the Pikemen that had come with them to defend them to go into the city and kill the Warriors.
With that done, there was no longer any reason for the Cordovans to be at war with Norway. They'd never be able to muster much of a force to attack their remaining few cities with, and none of them would be useful to them anyway. So they just decided to end the war, and wait for Sweden to kill the two Norwegian kings and watch them collapse, then they could easily just settle the Balearic islands themselves. Norway was more than happy to give them some gold and the quasi-island of Orkney for this peace treaty, so why wouldn't they accept?
For once, people decided to give peace a chance and not declare any new wars in 1240, and in addition, Bulgaria and the Fatimids signed a peace treaty, as did Germany and the Abbasids.
Not that already occurring wars would give peace a chance. Just as predicted, Orleans was swiftly captured by French Horsemen.
And it was far from the only city to change hands that year. Sweden captured the Norwegian capital, Trondheim, knocking them down to just one king. For some reason, they decided to not put their new capital where the third king was, and the government moved to Julianehab, Iceland. Which sort of made sense, as it was the only place the Norwegians still had two cities bordering each other, or even two cities remotely close to each other- Stavanger and Skalholt, the only other two cities they had left, weren't remotely close to each other. But it wasn't all good for Sweden- they lost Helsinki, their colony in Africa, to the Fatimids that year. And Norway probably doesn't even have much of a reason to complain- Burgundy not only lost one of their two remaining Kings when the Bulgarians captured Venice, but lost another city shortly afterward when the Germans captured Genoa to the west, which also cut their cities in Italy off from Marseilles and Milan. The only thing that could be worse for them is if they lost their relic, believed to at one point have resided in Rome, or thereabouts. Bulgaria, despite taking Venice, still lost a bit when their final city in the Northeast, Dobrich, was destroyed, presumably by the Turks. And, to finish off the year because not enough cities had been taken in 1234, the Abbasid city of New Antioch, just to the East of Jerusalem, was razed, probably by the Byzantines, but hey, they have a lot of enemies. The Byzantines seem bound and determined to capture or destroy every Abbasid city that isn't Jerusalem.
(Continued a few posts down)
![[pissed]](/images/smilies/pissed.gif "Pissed [pissed]")
And it's just plain crazy to have cities like Tours that shouldn't be anywhere near the "Random Cities Mess" in the Northeast corner of the map.
