Re: Tides of Conquest Late Medieval campaign, turn 1, 1300 CE
Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2023 7:05 pm
The expansion of Castilian power brings an influx of gold into Castilian coffers. As noble houses flaunt their new-found wealth, however, rumors begin to spread that the gilded youth of the land, together with recently converted Muslim aristocrats who have only feigned their conversion, have carried out blasphemous parodies of the sacraments. The crown deflects the blame onto merchants from Ifriqiya, which just happens to be the rival of its new client state of Qusantina. King Nadal calls the chivalry of the land to abandon their frivolous pursuits and join him on a crusade to northern Africa.
Aragon, for its part, takes a break from its bloody campaigning in Italy and also looks to north Africa for a distraction, raiding Castile's local ally Qusantina whose corsairs have recently, for some reason, been focusing primarily on Aragonese shipping and island outposts.
Venice, like much of Italy, was battered by the recent many-sided struggle for control over the peninsula. Those wars have died down for now, but the Doge makes a speech before the Grand Council demanding retribution against the Empire for past forays into the Veneto, and the noble ladies of the city bring out their jewelry to be melted into ducats to finance an army that will march across the Alps.
After recent victories in Flanders, the victorious army of the imperial north led by Augustus Bach decided to continue to Paris itself. This expedition intends to demolish all the French forts that it finds on its way and burn its warehouses of wheat and weapons, in order to avoid future actions on the part of the King of France in Flanders and other territories of the north. Meanwhile, after serious strategic failures in the defense of Austria, the emperor commanded an army whose objective was to return Bohemia to the imperial sphere of influence, as well as to punish the Hungarians. In the east, the Teutonic Knights received financial and material support from the emperor to continue their crusade against the orthodox Slavic barbarians.
France and England, recently at odds over Normandy, pursue their war on other fronts. A French expeditionary force sails to Wales to help local rebels under the banner of one who claims to be the son of King Dafyd of Gwynedd, executed by the English some 20 years ago. As France's campaigns continue, some of its merchants begin to notice that recently minted sous seem a bit lighter and less lustrous than older ones still in circulation.
England, in response, launches a campaign from its Gascon holdings into neighboring Provence. King Geoffrey meanwhile makes what he hopes will be a conciliatory measure to his Celtic subjects, allowing a council of mostly Irish monastery abbots to calculate a date for Easter over the objections of English bishops loyal to Rome.
In Sweden, King Ake revokes a number of feudal privileges, prompting the jarls to grumble and give him the sobriquet "Hard-Ruler." For now, however, they are distracted by the king's latest foreign venture, an expedition to Denmark to force the Danish king to allow the free passage of ships through the Skagerrak and revoke the outrageous tolls that he had been charging.
Tensions between the kingdom of Hungary and Constantinople have been building up due to conflicts between their partisans in the Slavic principalities that form a buffer zone between them. A Hungarian army is dispatched to Bulgaria, whose king recently spurned an offer by the pope to rejoin the Latin church. A second Hungarian army marches west in response to an imperial invasion of Bohemia.
The Ottoman emir Ogün Bey, with his eye perhaps on grander titles, announces that he will be endowing a series of madrasas and hospitals in the cities of Anatolia. Lest anyone doubt that his ardor to spread the faith burns any less, however, he also announces that this year's ghazwa will be directed against the heart of the Roman empire in Constantinople.
Constantinople's Basileos Epiphaneous is meanwhile beset by petitions from rural Thrace, where debt-ridden peasants claim that the local aristocracy are trying to seize their land. Not in the mood for such distractions, he has the ringleaders arrested, but declares that there should be land aplenty for those who join his upcoming campaign to restore the Greek-speaking cities of Ionia to the Empire. A few Byzantine adventurers meanwhile head east to the kingdom of Georgia, which fought off the Ottomans only to face a new threat from migrating Alans pushed south by the Golden Horde.
Khan Okin of the Golden Horde, which for years now has been camped near the old ruined Khazar city of Atil in the Volga delta, decides that it is time to build a new capital worth of their great empire. Architects are summoned to build new palaces and mosques of stone, and word goes out that learned imams are needed to guide a horde that is, for the most part, more Muslim in word than in deed. The Muscovites however continue to press on the Khan's northern frontiers, attacking raiding east along the Volga into the forests of Mordvia.
Aragon, for its part, takes a break from its bloody campaigning in Italy and also looks to north Africa for a distraction, raiding Castile's local ally Qusantina whose corsairs have recently, for some reason, been focusing primarily on Aragonese shipping and island outposts.
Venice, like much of Italy, was battered by the recent many-sided struggle for control over the peninsula. Those wars have died down for now, but the Doge makes a speech before the Grand Council demanding retribution against the Empire for past forays into the Veneto, and the noble ladies of the city bring out their jewelry to be melted into ducats to finance an army that will march across the Alps.
After recent victories in Flanders, the victorious army of the imperial north led by Augustus Bach decided to continue to Paris itself. This expedition intends to demolish all the French forts that it finds on its way and burn its warehouses of wheat and weapons, in order to avoid future actions on the part of the King of France in Flanders and other territories of the north. Meanwhile, after serious strategic failures in the defense of Austria, the emperor commanded an army whose objective was to return Bohemia to the imperial sphere of influence, as well as to punish the Hungarians. In the east, the Teutonic Knights received financial and material support from the emperor to continue their crusade against the orthodox Slavic barbarians.
France and England, recently at odds over Normandy, pursue their war on other fronts. A French expeditionary force sails to Wales to help local rebels under the banner of one who claims to be the son of King Dafyd of Gwynedd, executed by the English some 20 years ago. As France's campaigns continue, some of its merchants begin to notice that recently minted sous seem a bit lighter and less lustrous than older ones still in circulation.
England, in response, launches a campaign from its Gascon holdings into neighboring Provence. King Geoffrey meanwhile makes what he hopes will be a conciliatory measure to his Celtic subjects, allowing a council of mostly Irish monastery abbots to calculate a date for Easter over the objections of English bishops loyal to Rome.
In Sweden, King Ake revokes a number of feudal privileges, prompting the jarls to grumble and give him the sobriquet "Hard-Ruler." For now, however, they are distracted by the king's latest foreign venture, an expedition to Denmark to force the Danish king to allow the free passage of ships through the Skagerrak and revoke the outrageous tolls that he had been charging.
Tensions between the kingdom of Hungary and Constantinople have been building up due to conflicts between their partisans in the Slavic principalities that form a buffer zone between them. A Hungarian army is dispatched to Bulgaria, whose king recently spurned an offer by the pope to rejoin the Latin church. A second Hungarian army marches west in response to an imperial invasion of Bohemia.
The Ottoman emir Ogün Bey, with his eye perhaps on grander titles, announces that he will be endowing a series of madrasas and hospitals in the cities of Anatolia. Lest anyone doubt that his ardor to spread the faith burns any less, however, he also announces that this year's ghazwa will be directed against the heart of the Roman empire in Constantinople.
Constantinople's Basileos Epiphaneous is meanwhile beset by petitions from rural Thrace, where debt-ridden peasants claim that the local aristocracy are trying to seize their land. Not in the mood for such distractions, he has the ringleaders arrested, but declares that there should be land aplenty for those who join his upcoming campaign to restore the Greek-speaking cities of Ionia to the Empire. A few Byzantine adventurers meanwhile head east to the kingdom of Georgia, which fought off the Ottomans only to face a new threat from migrating Alans pushed south by the Golden Horde.
Khan Okin of the Golden Horde, which for years now has been camped near the old ruined Khazar city of Atil in the Volga delta, decides that it is time to build a new capital worth of their great empire. Architects are summoned to build new palaces and mosques of stone, and word goes out that learned imams are needed to guide a horde that is, for the most part, more Muslim in word than in deed. The Muscovites however continue to press on the Khan's northern frontiers, attacking raiding east along the Volga into the forests of Mordvia.