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Completed Let us RECLAIM THE HOLY LAND

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,406
Location
Djibouti
CHAPTER IV - BLOOD PENINSULA

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We decide to participate in the complex web of middle eastern polotix and intrigue, by first taking the bribe from the French.

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and then splurging it on Templar support.

Next step: King Richard starts funding ISIS

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The donation to the Templars gets us over the first fame threshold. Now our dudes will get more XP.

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After which we march to the Sinai Peninsula, to the tune of teutonic deus vulty tunes.



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The hills here are certainly a change of sight from the previous desert sieges.

Apart from the siege weapons already known to us, we get to deploy 3 new traps.

- Spike trap that smites 1/3 of an enemy squad that walks into it with MASSIVE DIVINE RETRIBUTION.
- Caltrops that do continuous damage and slow down anything that steps into it.
- Camouflage that lets our dudes hide in plain sight until they attack.

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In the end, I got two catapults on the overlooking hill, two ballistas next to our lines, a bunch of caltrops, one spike trap and one camouflage for surprise shot archers.

I also left a few trash units in the back in case surprise turk horsemen appear, like in Jerusalem.

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Starting battle triggers the annual kebab pride parade, with many new enemies to be found among them.

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Abbasid lancers are (I guess?) an improvement over seljuk spearmen.

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Mameluks are heavy infantry that does REALLY BIG DOMOGES.

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Poor suckers

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Never knew what hit them.

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RED ALERT, RED ALERT

SARACEN REINFORCEMENTS APPEAR MUCH FASTER THAN I'D EXPECTED

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AND THEY ARE MUCH MORE SERIOUS TOO

Saracen horsemen are heavy cavalry. Nasty gits, let's hope they run into our spearmen.

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Nigga infantry may not look like much, but they are actually DEADLY SERIOUS. That's because they have the Javelin active ability. It's a short-range skirmish attack that more or less disintegrates 1/3 of a regiment. This is something you really want to steer clear of.

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oh god why :negative:

PREPARE FOR IMPACT

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Bad news is, despite the traps and stuff, we're heavily outnumbered. Fortunately, the occasional catapult boulder sends the jihadis running (although this time it was a tactically delayed cavalry charge). But we're still running out of time.

Also: note the foot knights. They ran into a battered squad of lancers at half hp AND THEY ALREADY LOST 16 MEN, WHAT THE HELL YOU USELESS SHITS

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AFFIX BAYONETS

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I retreat the bowmen from the fray in the hope that the spearmen can hold off the enemy long enough for the rest of our heavy duty troops to finish dicking around. Quite fortunately, the saracen horsemen decide to go chop up our ballistas instead of focusing on what matters (i.e. dudes).

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Unfortunately, the situation is somewhat spiralling out of control... and most of that is because of those HUNDRED MILLION BILLION seljuk archers who keep stinging our regiments.

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*yakkety sax, deus vult edition, goes here*

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ruh-roh

Fortunately, the spearmen held out JUST LONG ENOUGH for the crusaders to finish their job and rush to their aid. Just as planned!

Note our losses. NOT LOOKING GOOD.

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Ha! Have at thee, villains!

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The foot knights here (far right, engaging bowmen) would probably be dead already if those lancers behind them weren't morale broken 24/7. I try to send Richard to their aid. Meanwhile the cavalry start mopping up the fucking archers.

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Speaking of broken 24/7.

Also, Richard changes route a bit to engage the goddamn horse archers.

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And by "engage", I mean all his bodyguards get trampled to death while he's left alone against the entire regiment of 36 :what:

Will he make it before the foot knights come to his rescue? This will take a while because they have to take THE LONG WAY AROUND or they'll run into the broken lancers.

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:shredder:

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Actually, Richard would be perfectly able to solo these suckers :lol:

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After which it's finally time for the last ninja archers.

Jesus Christ, those casualties.

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WELL

THAT DIDN'T GO AS PLANNED.

But I can't believe I managed not to lose a single full regiment. I thought the foot knights, spearmen and vassals were done for, especially when the vassals got caught in seljuk archer crossfire.

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and of course we don't have enough cash to buy all replacements...
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Still, some level-ups.

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Crusaders get to choose between Heroic Defence

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Persistence

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Shield Wall.

Persistence is a total no-brainer.

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Shredding archers lets the cavalry get to level 6! Another skill for them, either Expert Riding

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or Resilience.

You'd have to be dumb not to take Resilience.

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Conquering Sinai unlocks a new province. In our current state it is very well above our pay grade.

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For replacements, I refill the ranks of all the really important troops - foot knights, crusaders, archers, and then zero my coffers (well, not true, I have 1 penny left :M) to hire Richard some bodyguards (10/12). Richard's replacements were the most expensive here (8k gold). Also, 1000 of that money I had I spent on giving the crusaders a healer.

The rest of the men I put into the reserves so that they may recuperate - each day a unit spends in the reserves, it regains 1/3 of its cohesion.

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Weakened as we are, we should probably try something Easy.

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Antioch!

Two battle plans for us to choose from.

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The daring French want us to go full retard.

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The dastardly Germans want our men to break their backs building catapults.


WHAT WILL IT BE?
 
Last edited:

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,247
Who need catapults in EASY mission?:whiteknight:

Also from previous mission we learned that our defence kinda sucks so i don't like idea of defending victory locations.
 

ore clover

Learned
Joined
Mar 25, 2017
Messages
171
Hory shet, and that was a medium difficulty engagement!
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I ought to abstain from advising, since the previous Teuton strat almost rek'd you, but that French plan doesn't sound like much of a plan at all. Will a hit to stamina drastically lower your fighting potential?
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,406
Location
Djibouti
Stamina is rather importante because it influences all combat abilities - at 0, a regiment turns into a glorified roadblock. Everything, from fighting to moving, lowers it, and what's worse is that most of the map tiles in dis gaem are desert, which increases stamina spending even further while also lowering its regen.

Conceivably, if we're to set up siege weapons and just wait for the enemy to run into us, the 25% stamina hit should not be that serious, but, well, you know how well that ended up last time :troll:
 
Self-Ejected

Irenaeus

Self-Ejected
Patron
Dumbfuck Repressed Homosexual The Real Fanboy
Joined
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Rio de Janeiro, Cidade Desespero
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera
Stamina is rather importante because it influences all combat abilities - at 0, a regiment turns into a glorified roadblock. Everything, from fighting to moving, lowers it, and what's worse is that most of the map tiles in dis gaem are desert, which increases stamina spending even further while also lowering its regen.

Conceivably, if we're to set up siege weapons and just wait for the enemy to run into us, the 25% stamina hit should not be that serious, but, well, you know how well that ended up last time :troll:

Agree.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,406
Location
Djibouti
CHAPTER V - MARCH TO ANTIOCH



(Since I can't name any French deus vulty tunes for the moment, we'll have to retreat to some potato ones)

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Today, as part of our Corpus Christi procession, WE MARCH TO TAKE HOLY ANTIOCH BACK FROM HEATHEN HANDS

It was a close call, but the French option won 4:3 over the Germans. We shall meet the turkmens on the field of honour!

Also, since we have so few men, I decided to take the light cavalry regiment out of the reserves. Even at half strength, it is high level enough to be useful, and we need all the numbers we can get.

Also2, the voices for the German and French commanders are very, very Red Alert-ish, with all the ZE SARACENS etc.

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I heard you like deserts.

Since there's no set up phase, we can see all enemies immediately right now. There's a lot of them.

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First victory point.

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Main army.

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Second victory point.

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Third victory point.

Taking all of these together, we are outnumbered 22 to 7, and one of our units is at half strength. DIS GON BE GUD.

Fortunately, all of these suckers are just regular seljuks, and 10 of them will probably just defend the victory points. Still, the odds are very much against us.

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We start by heading off to this scrubland, so as to avoid fighting in the open desert.

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As predicted, the main army scrambles towards us while all the others stay at the points.

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Let them come. We are ready.

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The heathens are more clever than I'd expected. They stop some hundred metres short of our archers' range :argh:

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I try to send a master baiter ahead to trigger them with muhammad caricatures, but it doesn't work.

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Time to do it the hard way.

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WAAAAAAAAAGH!

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PREPARE FOR IMPACT

Now that we've got their attention, I retreat the archers behind the range of the enemy ones and start picking off the light infantry.

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I intended to send the cavalry to smash the enemy bowmen but the AI is smart enough to leave spearmen next to them :argh:

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This may require some finesse.

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Our cavalry is riding around drawing the attention of most enemy units. Meanwhile our heavies engage anyone dumb enough to get close.

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And there's less of these by the minute.

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Until the suckers finally break under our arrows :incline:

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This is the opening we've been waiting for!

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:desu:

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The spearmen fall back to aid the archers, so we retreat our cavalry, but it's already too late for them - the turks are as good as dead.

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After that it's just mopping up.

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Regroup

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Rambo heavy infantry running through the desert at 0 stamina, what could go wrong :lol:

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The armoured kebabs get shredded by our archers and quickly suffer critical morale failure. That's it for the main saracen army. Now for the victory locations.

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The plan is the same - lure them in with a few archer volleys, split them, then crush them beneath our hooves.

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It's like the cavalry has some hidden taunting ability because I swear everyone just keeps running after it all the time. Great for baiting.

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The spearmen break. Time to surround and murder the archers.

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TAKE NO PRISONERS

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hqdefault.jpg


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That's one of three sites liberated.

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Moving on.

There's some bug here where the seljuk swordsmen get super confused and just keep running back and forth in place, depleting their stamina. Not that I'm complaining.

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You know the drill.

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This time we don't even need too much taunting to get to the bowmen.

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Toot toot :incline:

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Final point. These idiots don't even have spearmen to protect them.

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Let's see what we can do here.

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Complex flanking stratagems ensue.

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KILL ALL INFIDELS

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:incline:

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Bretty guuuud.

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Back to the world map we go.

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Ofc we still don't have enough cash to buy all replacements because that fucker Richard keeps hogging ALL the gold :negative: I think each of his bodyguards costs like 1000 to replace.

Also, we can now recruit Genovese crossbowmen (that is, we could IF WE HAD THE GOLD). Crossbowmen are pretty nifty because they do HUGE domoges and have armour piercing, but their straight line of fire makes them perilous for friendly fire, and IIRC they have half the range of normal archers. Still, they turn heavy infantry into mincemeat.

Anyway, I refill the ranks of every regiment, then pay what I have left to get Richard's regiment to 9/12.

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Also, some level ups. I give Richard one level of famous leader cuz stamina is good to have.

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Crusader arrerz get a new ability. They can choose between Encouragement

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Surprise shots.

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Useful concoctions.

All three are, you guessed it, kind of shit. Took surprise shots.

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Also, the last mission launched us over French reputation 1. We can now hire captains for 1k gold instead of 2k, which is significant. Of course, NOT MUCH TO DO WHEN YOUR COFFERS STORE A SINGLE DUCAT.

Also2, three new politicool events appear.

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Hmmmmmmmmmm get 12k geld and a battle or do nothing? You take me for a fool?

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Some grade A heresy.

We can either support the pretender and get heavy cavalry + captain and lose 1 rep with everyone, or tell him to fuck himself and get +1 rep with everyone.

IMO supporting him is not worth it in the long run. Sure, the cavalry would be useful, but there are also free units along the rep tracks, so we could potentially find ourselves blocked from these later on due to this.

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Pilgrims are a trading event.

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We could buy some useful things from them if...

that's right

IF WE HAD MONEY.

I reload and don't trigger them in the hope that the event will stay on the map after our next mission.

And speaking of missions...


Since we'll be now going for that Trouble in Tripoli side mission, you can decide what place we'll invade liberate afterwards.

Damascus and Cairo are ofc out of the question, so the 3 choices atm are:

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Jordan, which has been available for a while.

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Lesser Armenia, which is new post-Antioch.

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and Edessa, which is also new.


WHAT SHALL IT BE? And what do we do with the fake emprah?

DISCUSS!!!!
 
Last edited:

oscar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
8,036
Location
NZ
Edessa cause healers are good for the long haul and tell the Byzzies to take a hike.
 

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,247
Fake Emprah is fake.:rpgcodex:

Go for Armenia. I think new relic is better than priest. Can we sell it?
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,406
Location
Djibouti
Edessa cause healers are good for the long haul and tell the Byzzies to take a hike.

Like Reinhardt said, Edessa gives us a priest, not a healer. Priests are just morale boosters, so not particularly useful.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,406
Location
Djibouti
Also, turns out the fake emprah is actually a historical figure:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Mangaphas

Theodore Mangaphas or Mankaphas (Greek: Θεόδωρος Μαγκαφᾶς, fl. ca. 1188–1205) was a nobleman from Philadelphia who assumed the title of Byzantine emperor twice, first during the reign of Isaac II Angelos (r. 1185–1195 and 1203–1204), and secondly after the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.

He was given the sobriquet Morotheodoros (Μωροθεόδωρος) meaning "Theodore the Fool", by the Greek chroniclers after his repeated failed usurpations.

Theodore's surname, Mangaphas, is not Greek, and represents perhaps a Hellenized form of the Turkish mankafa meaning fool or idiot. It is hence possible that it was not his actual surname, but a translation into Turkish of his Greek sobriquet Morotheodoros, which then was adopted by the later Greek chroniclers.

Theodore the Double Idiot / Twice Dumb :lol:
 
Unwanted

Janise

Unwanted
Joined
May 14, 2017
Messages
727
Armenia - wanna see what a captain does and since priests are shit...
 

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