Summer - 1460

Summer 1460 -
"It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air-conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming."

The summer turn was interesting for Milan, bored of the fact that from the off I felt I had seen very little material aid from Naples I asked them what their plans were for the near future and the reply I received was one of great interest. They informed me that for several turns now that they had been in contact with the Ottomans and now believed they had prised them from the Pope's clutches and brought them to join me as allies. I was initially removed from the idea that this could be true, Naples had promised me many things over the campaign that for one reason or another they just never got around to doing, but a short enquiry with the Turks on whether they would join me seemed to validate the Idea, and it was now on Summer 1460 I felt that I finally had some allies and that victory was in reach.

Orders were postponed as the Turks and Naples wished to speak face to face before handing in orders, however I did manage to get my game in against the Papacy. I have to say though whilst in essence a very boring battle, with nothing but the wheeling of two lines for over four hours, it has been my favourite of the whole campaign. It meant so much to both myself, as it guarded the doors to the north and was also a large revenue boost, but also to the papacy, as it allowed him a foothold for his northern assault. We both clung on for dear life as the tables turned, sadly one of my line arcs was not so elegant and led to my general being stranded in a woods against greater numbers, though he managed to withdraw he took heavy casualties including the loss of the gun, which mean that Papal troops were now able to push that flank much harder and the battle soon ended with a crash of battle lines and my general lying in the mud soaked earth. The port of Genoa was lost, however with the gain of my allies, France was no longer as needed as before.

On the Saturday before orders were due to be handed in the umpire received a note that Venice had decided to drop from the campaign.  With already having exhausted the wealth of campaign players in the club our only two choices were to either collapse Venice as a state making their faction autonomous, which as I had many armies in the north would most likely lead Milan to victory as there was very little in opposition, or we call the campaign at this point, shake hands and call end of play. And to my heavyhearted agreement we chose the latter. I felt that if Venice left, victory would either be tainted with the cries of "you only won because he left" and the general mood of the other players seemed to want to call it an end, which is a real shame as I loved every minute of this campaign and am gutted that I couldn't finish my first campaign with a consummate victory after all the time and thought I had put into it.

Oh well - all good things come to an end.

So in short summary, I have loved being part of a campaign, it's a level of gaming I had only ever heard about and now I have taken part I would readily sign on to another, though perhaps not one quite so intense so soon. I have learnt a lot over the course of the last year, we now know who the campaign gamers are at my local club, who will stick a system to the end and fight like they mean it. I have learnt that you should never leave part of a plan to an ally and always make sure, even if they're not, that people think you're their friend as even a turns delay can cause you to get the upper hand. I have loved the mutual rivalry between myself and the papacy from day one, the Papal general has always been on the edge of things, almost the rival puppeteer if you will, and in hindsight this has really been a war over Genoa, which was fitting that the last battle to be fought was between he and I in that godforsaken port. I also want to comment on the Ottoman General, who though not widely covered in this blog played a brilliant game, taking the reins from a not-so-great general he has managed to ally with a great power and grow his faction until he was once again a threat on the board and for that he definitely deserves a round of applause.

In the post campaign chat, one of the players asked "Did anyone have any personal aims, other than winning of course", this is such a 'look I didn't really lose that badly' comment but thinking it over, No, not really. My personal aim was to win my first campaign and prove myself to the other players that I know what im doing, and I feel that whilst the campaign never really ended it did end with me out in front and other players flocking to my side, so all in all I feel I was fairly successful, I certainly know who I can and can't trust in future games, that's for sure!

For anyone interested, as I will soon make this open to those I was playing with, my final set of orders (Assuming I won both battles against the Venetians) as prepared on my phone were:

Army Milan to Cremona
Army Tyrolea to Milan
Army Carinthia to Trent
Army Austria to Carinthia
Army Savoy to Genoa
Army Pontremoli to Parma
(Build Army in Marseille)
Army Marseille to Provence

This will no doubt stem 'what-if' conversations however without a plague roll we can never really be sure of what would have happened next.

I had also invested time in discovering other players' assassination tokens, as I was considering the idea of having a go at the Pope, and learnt that:

5/7 Austria, 3/7 Milanese, 2/7 Turkish, 3/7 Neapolitan, 2/7 French, 2/7 Venetian, 2/7 Papal and 2/7 Florentine tokens had been removed from the game through destruction of powers, and my own tokens were Milan x2, Ottoman x3, Naples x1 and France x1.

For the last time now I sign off, with the final recoloured Machiavelli board labelled below, and no matter what any of them say - I think it's fairly clear who had the winning hand...

Yours,

Francesco Sforza
Duke of Milan
Good king of Provence
'He who put the 'France in France-sco'
Viper of the North
Devour Christian
Uniter of Europe
and last standing Northern power.


and finally the obligatory before and after pictures: