The Venetian Diaries #2 - Mercenaries Save The Day

I would have chosen to play as a less diverse faction than Venice - the Italians are proving to be real difficult, especially since over the course of the first 20 turns that this series of the diary will be infatuated with, I have come across certain hindrances which sort of opposed to the strategies I formulated in the previous series. You see, MTWII, or any Total War game for that matter, is not particularly random, like an MMORPG, since after a considerable amount of time you feel that game's flow is perceptible and uninteresting, and , being limited to Europe and some part of Asia, you're certainly never enthralled by a sense of randomness that RPG games can conjure so easily. It's just so easily to get lost and find obscure things in games like Skyrim or Knight Online, and in a game like this it's quite easy to get bored because the gameplay is based on logical thinking and using available information more than anything. Nevertheless, I will try to make these diaries as fun and vexing as I can, adding fictional stories here and there to invigorate and brighten the tactical, political and economic development of an empire, (well, no yet, but soon to be) so bear with me here. Sometimes I get entangled in such gruesome situations that I find it hard to rid myself of these sprouting troubles and create a convincing fictional story line based on these rather serious events. One final note: I usually conduct all battles with the quick-simulator, so there won't be many detailed depictions of bloodshed, I'm afraid. Some of the most epic battles, though, will be transferred to you directly the way it was on the battlefield, so don't be in vane, dear friends.

Summer, 1080 A.D.

I found the faction leader Doge Dominico to be rather lazy man, with little command and chivalry. Not that I haven't commanded him before, but this time, focusing a little more on personal details, I found him to be less shrewd looking than other faction leaders - the Holy Roman Emperor, for example, seems like a truly cunning man, in great contrast to our snobbery Italian ruler. East of Venice, marching along the narrow strip of land that connects Italy to Eastern Europe, we have Councillor Bartolomeno, who has been affixed with a fairly large group soldiers. The Councillor seems suitable enough for battle, a seasoned, yet virile stalwart of the Venetian rule, so ambitious that in fact he seeks to conquer all with his own small army. Ragusa is garrisoned minutely - we have Alessandro Selvo with a handful of archers and spearmen, more keen to stay fixated atop the grand and muscular walls of the castle than actually engaging in battle, like our rather lazy friend Doge, however, as much as he dislikes blood, and all things carnal, he will do whatever he can to provide his country with the best of services, so that Venice may grow into a mighty empire. Last, but not least, Iraklion is inhabited by the less reluctant Christiano Selvo, who is an absolute sucker for the sea and all things Mediterranean. That's probably why he chose to govern Iraklion. Considering his position, he is the most potentially dangerous general out of Venice for the moment being, for is he builds up a force in Crete over time, he will be a great threat to the island of Cyrus and its capital, Nicosia, though failure during brazenly conducted conquest will give birth to egregious results.

My first move is to send our ambitious Councillor over to Zagreb, currently being a village inhabited by a bunch of rebel rabble, hardly more than 400 men. Though, knowing that the battle might not conclude entirely well for me, I spare some florins to hire two Slav mercenaries, who actually prove to be very useful. Zagreb falls rather quickly, though the damnable people (some 600 inhabitants) fail to deliver any funds even when I try to sack the settlement, so I just wipe them off the face of the Earth. I don't they weren't very pleased by my sadistic actions, but shit people, any action is acceptable for the good of the country, right, Machiavelli? Anyway, I am well conscious that Durazzo, the third of the three Adriatic settlements I mentioned before, is under threat by the Byzantine, who have enormous geographic reach thanks to their possession of Sofia, so I quickly start mustering my troops over at Ragusa. I damn the Byzantine for things they had no relation with - for example, the fact that Ragusa is completely susceptible to an invasion, and because, despite being a castle, it can solely train light cavalry and fucking peasants. Yes, I'm aware that it's extremely early in the game, but you have to give me some credit here, peasants are the absolute worst troops you can have in the game, and they're even worse than a dispatched catapult battalion - and trust me, a dispatched catapult battalion is pretty damn weak. Peasants just never seem to be good for anything. They melt away in the slightest heat of battle as if they were a bunch hay sacks being demolished in the convulsive fray, rushing and chanting with their crappy tridents and pitchforks as if they were just an illiterate bunch of villagers trying enforce the strength of a professional Venetian army, (what am I saying - they probably are just like that!)  their purposes unknown. Well at least we get 150 (on the largest scale) men per battalion. That's good enough for now.

Without procrastinating military growth, I decide to to enter and take Durazzo, because it guarantees my naval dominance in the Adriatic Sea, soon after building some farms and roads along my cities, and what do you know? It's the Byzantine Empire. I'm not entirely befuddled, but I still found it surprising that they acted so quickly, (it was something like turn 6) but thankfully the idiots encircled the village with such a tiny force that I could send them spinning back to their damned city Sofia before they have a chance to recuperate in a matter of seconds. And I did. I sent slightly more than half of my troops in alongside our reluctant general Alessandro and it's actually a closer battle than I would have anticipated, but I emerge victorious anyway. I quickly establish a motte and bailey, but later on I decide to morph the wooden castle back into a village, then to a town. I need money, and money comes best from cities. At first I tax them heavily, but when the people grow tired of my avaricious desires they decide go all mad so I have to impose lighter taxes on them. People always seems to be trouble. Thus, my punitive and greedy desires go to waste. Strangely enough, after I take Durazzo, some Byzantine general decides to besiege the whole settlement (garrisoned by a bunch of peasants, spearmen, archers and a general's unit) completely on his own, without any aid whatsoever, and I'm actually shocked that our chance of victory is marginally higher than a draw. Nonetheless, I win and the frightened bastard is sent spurring back to his homeland. I'm safe.

My financial situation isn't good at all, despite all the taxes imposed. Army upkeep constantly drains your florins. I build a Merchant's Wharf at Venice which I believe is fairly beneficial to my economic cause, and I expand the farms built on Venice and Iraklion. Many trade requests come pouring in by turn 5, as I expected, and I am only positively predisposed to accept all these generous offers with fervent grins and smirks. My merchant, some guy by the name of Tusco Delogu, is a standard man of trade at best, and with the best resources in Venice's vicinity being textiles (14 florins per turn), I send him over there to set up trade links. Meanwhile, Hungary takes me very much by surprise and decides to ambush me! Not quite an ambush really, but a  massive siege assault that I thankfully foresee before I actually encounter. I have no aid to be transferred over to Zagreb, the apparent destination of siege, and my troops and tired and reduced to lesser quantities, so I urgently decide to use my general to gather a whole bunch of mercenaries, Slavs and archers, and them re-inhabit Zagreb so that now I have stronger force. When the Hungarians come rushing over, I fend them off, and get a handsome sum of money thanks to the ransom, but I only win by a sword's edge.

My next target is Florence. I've been mustering troops in Venice for some 15 turns now and hopefully, if the Germans don't intervene, I can exterminate the rebel scum in Florence. Its garrison is a small and feeble force by any standards, so I send my army - around 1600 men, solely comprised of spear militia and peasants, sans our lazy faction leader - and to my surprise, the Germans stay confined to Bologna and do not interfere with my military affairs, though I'll confide that they would have probably attempted to attack me if I hadn't sauntered near Bologna for only a short amount of time. Florence falls, and to the victor goes the spoils. I get some 3000 florins from sacking the city, a much needed sum of money, and I promptly start imposing fairly heavy taxes. I build some farmland, some roads and some spears, and stop there. The strategical prestige of having Venice and Florence at the same time in undeniable. Together with the more distant city of Milan, the three form a Bermuda Triangle of some sort, completely engulfing Bologna, which should fall after a succession of forces arriving from all three cities. However, I don not yet possess Milan, and a Milanese conquest must wait, because I fear the Papal States will be soon knocking on my door. At the moment being, I have only 90 florins, having spent these vast sums I earned from sacking the city of various trade-oriented investments, but I regret nothing. I am currently the strongest faction, (yay!) and it's turn 21, and I have a hulking Byzantine army only a days' march away from Durazzo, so, yeah, I'm pretty much screwed. Until next turn, dear friend.