I'm always used to not being the best player in my group of friends. I don't really play their games that much, and my reaction times also aren't that great, so I usually just play with or against them for fun. Today, however, they challenged me in my home territory of CKII, and I'm so happy I can finally say I totally outplayed them.
CKII's base game has just gone free on steam, with the announcement of CKIII, and me and my friends who usually play the game decided to get all of our friends who never had to join. This, however, is not a story about stomping on the unexperienced, which wouldn't be owning, but on a friend of mine who actually has a lot of experience with the game. We played on a randomized world, and had been playing for 60 or so ingame years. The world was pretty complicated, but this is a story of two nations fighting. I owned a little duchy around the Balearic Isles, containing said isles, a few Spanish provinces, a few French provinces and a single province in both Morocco and Italy. My friend owned a little duchy in the center of France, with a boatload of fairly large tributaries surrounding him and two of the less experienced players as his vassals. I was actually allied to him, my half-sister being married to his ruler to secure an alliance through blood.
I was minding my own business, raiding some port cities in Southern Italy for those sweet stacks of money, when suddenly the three guys started laughing. I didn't even notice they had broken the non-aggression pact, so I was totally unprepared for inter-player warfare. He used the very Half-Sister I had given him for peace as a claimant for my throne. I scrambled to gather my armies and call upon my allies. Turned out, most of those allies had already pledged themselves to my rival. In the end, I was fairly glad I had mustered around 6000 of my own troops, with 6000 marching in from an ally in Brittany. I was woefully unprepared for the fact that my friend had mustered all his tributaries, allies, got full support from his two player vassals instead of the regular levies the AI provided, and had spent around 600 gold on mercenaries. His armies easily totalled around 35000, who all quickly reached my borders and started sieging, reducing my army to a meager 1000 in the blink of an eye, with backup still very far away.
The war was utterly unwinnable. I didn't nearly have enough money to get a decent amount of mercs, and the other players would rather look than help me out. But, I decided there was still an option. Not one where I would win, but one that would instantly end the war. Kill his wife, my very own half-sister. As her claim was the reason for this war, it would end the moment she died. Not something my friend had thought of. Murder plots, however, take some time to fire. And time is of incredible importance when thousands of men are ramming on the doors of your holdings. I was lucky though, that my half-sister was an insufferable cunt disliked by much of her court. No one would join instantly, but almost half the court would after a bribe. So I started bribing, reaching over 100% plot score. But I knew this wasn't enough to have the plot fire in time. My armies were sieging the most faraway provinces of my enemy in a last effort to slow the warscore from building up, and I continued bribing until I ran out of money. Still not enough. I had a decent income, so i had to wait until I amassed some more wealth, bribed a person, and the cycle continued. Eventually I reached almost 270% plot power, and a plot fired. 70% war score and over half a dozen sieges ticking away. The plot failed. People actually withdrew from the plot, bringing it back to 210%. 90% warscore. A new plot fired. I knew it was gonna be an incredibly close call. Sieges ticking down. 100% warscore. My friend had technically won. All he had needed to do was pause the game, and click on enforce demands. But the instant 100% was reached, a message appeared on my screen, showing the assassination was succesfull. The sieges were suddenly lifted and there was no war to speak of.
I don't think I've ever felt such an adrenaline rush while gaming. We all laughed at what had happened, how 3 highwaymen had beat over 30000 soldiers. I then duelled his character, as he was my rival (I might have bedded his wife, my half-sister, earlier in the game, don't we all love CKII) and killed him during the duel.
My best game of CKII ever, hands down.
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Topic: How did you last *own*? (Read 1352884 times)