A new level of Harlaus incompetence.

So I'm trying to get all steam achievements in mount and blade (only sassy and heartbreaker to go now yay!) this is the story of my most recent achievement: manifest destiny.

So I start a new file on diplomacy, recruit Swadian peasants, crack bandit heads, get cash and swadian Knights, open a few enterprises, sign up as a vassal with Harlaus and get granted some shitty burned out village, all going smoothly.

At this point we're at war with the Nords, and I actually don't have to do much, I help out in a few skirmishes but the marshalled force manages to take sargoth and wercheg on their own.

This, however, is where it all starts to go to shit.

Harlaus grants a bunch of the conquered fiefs to himself (as is to be expected) but also overrules his lords votes to grant like 3 fiefs to none other than count Haringoth. He also makes haringoth fucking marshal, and surprise surprise no one will follow him because he's such an unpopular asshole. All our good lords like grainwad and despin start defecting and to make matters worse the rhodoks declare war on us.

At this point I'm getting pretty baller so I head on down and singlehandedly curb stomp the rhodoks and take veluca and jelkala. Harlaus thankfully grants me both of them.

Despite haringoths incompetence the other lords finish the job on the nords and they sue for peace with like 2 castles still in their possession. The Swadian tide comes to my aid just as the rhodoks finally get their shit together and besiege my poorly garrisoned veluca with their marshalled force. Together me and my allies fight off the rhodok army and March from fief to fief capturing castle after castle. Soon enough the rhodoks are all wiped out. One faction down.

On the home front, though, things are deteriorating. More honourable lords defect away from us and all the asshole Rhodok lords defect to our side. Harlaus's fief allocation gets even more erratic in an attempt to keep all his debauched and quarrelsome lords happy, and it doesn't work. No one will cooperate in campaigns anymore and just go off to raid villages on their own. And, to make things worse, Harlaus won't even do the one thing he can usually be counted on to do: feast. Yup, simple way to improve his relations and were not even at war, and he won't feast. Instead things just keep getting worse.

During our short peace the vaegirs finish off the weakened nords, 2 factions down. Then, the sarranids declare war on us, and the vaegirs go to war against the khergits. After a long gruelling campaign with very little assistance from my allies and lots of fief taking and retaking, we finally triumph over the sarranids and wipe them out, 3 factions down. Harlaus then grants ahmerrad to some dick cheese who then immediately defects to the vaegirs. Nice work harlaus dude.

The vaegirs have decimated the khergits during this time, leaving them only ichamur and a few castles. They sue for peace and the vaegirs immediately declare war on us.

This is the hardest campaign of all. Backstabbing and infighting among my allies mean I have to fight this almost singlehandedly. I'm at the point of the game where my strength is reaching godlike levels though, and I gradually retake ahmerrad, push The vaegirs out of khergit territory, and push into their homeland. It is months before rivacheg finally falls and the vaegirs give in. To give you an idea of how fucked the swadian nobility is right now though, most vaegir lords defect to the khanate with one town and like 2 castles instead of us with the entire rest of the map. 5 factions down.

We wipe out the khanate no worries, 6 factions down. However, there is now a problem. Even with literally no land and nowhere to go, the remaining honourable lords won't defect to us. I wait months in game, still no defections, so I have to do what no butter loving swadian should ever have to do: I walk to praven and tell harlaus I'm renouncing my oath and keeping my lands (diplomacy lets you do this).

He's pissed and declares war, but thankfully despite his scores of vassals they can't get a cohesive attack together to besiege veluca and jelkala. A few try have a pop on their own but I smack those bitches down no problem, even conquer yalen and a couple of castles. Due to my high honour and the juicy unassigned fiefs, the khergit lords defect to me in no time and the khanate is finally defeated. I allocate them fiefs, then send an emissary to praven. I ask harlaus to forgive me, and take me as his vassal again.

He does, my lords are taken into his new kingdom, and swadia stands unopposed in calradia.

Manifest destiny achieved.

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Submitted September 18, 2019 at 10:21PM by operationmeepo https://ift.tt/2Oa7lOo