Sorry everyone posted in the wrong hotseat thread lol.

[This message has been edited by The Great Monty (edited 06-02-2012 @ 09:21 PM).]

Yeah, my computer has died. I'll give you an update on an ETA of me coming back by thursday

Right, the shop I want to get my computer fixed (it's based in uni, so it's quite good) is closed until the 11th. It'll then take a few days, so assume until thursday the 14th I'll have a better idea

Thanks for the update - hopefully we'll be past turn 100 soon but you might be back for turn 101

Computer's fixed! Gimmie!

EoJ will be mostly unavailable for a few weeks starting soon so I'll ask a sub to stand in as the Turks continue to fight for survival.

And survival it should be- seriously, I've got the save, I've opened it. And I've just sat there. Puzzling...

I don't think I'm going to be able to play this turn- I've left it a bit too late... Kindly send on to Monty with instructions not to die?

It's on to England for turn 106 and *sniffs air* what's that sulphury smell?

I think everyone's fleets and artillery just became outdated

Will the Janissary muskets be enough to turn it around for the Turks? Only time/turns will tell for sure (although in-fighting, Timurids and the Black Death are possibly more likely candidates for an upset)

Alas alack, HotseatA is over - after a mere fourish years.

Since I sort of got lazy with the updates, the result might not be entirely obvious. The winner is...

Sicily

Well done me :0)

England made a determined thrust at the Jerusalem, its crusade target, which would have given it victory due to the vast English lands - but the first armies to reach Turkish shores were too strung out (especially after some shipping accidents - I do wonder how the Turks found every single unprotected English troop ship...) to take the city. Sicily swooped in up through Egypt (again) taking Jerusalem before the English.

This time Turkey had been so weakened, and Sicily had enough troops (and an impressive priest bomb that may or may not have been noticed) in the area that Turkey bowed down, accepting protectorate status (sort of unofficially to try and keep the game running - which didnt work).

Sicily had the economic advantage over England and rather than be ungentlemanly and attack an old ally, England conceded.

A fun, if a little slow, game. Thank you all

Well. It was rather fun.

I started as Spain alright but slowly, and England was quicker out the blocks to carve up france. I managed to secure a few deals here and there for settlements, though, and had the lucrative med all to myself.

I then became more concerned with defending sicily and stopping the Turks after Venice's implosion in Greece rather than expanding myself- in the long run I suspect this along with Bandito's sad retirement saved Sicily. My navy was just about equal to the task and grew, but after a failed crusade I realised I had to get more land in order to become more of a concrete presence. Turkish sultans coming and going meant I could not worry as much about them, though Greece was fairly impenetrable.

Sicily's attack on Venice and subsequent wiping out of the Italian holdings gave us all a chance to engage in some Balkanisation- the English had been expanding merrily across the top of the map, and Sicily was now in a very secure and rich position, but I needed the pair of them to draw off armies at the cost of reduced expansion on my part. I intended to go for England's soft underbelly with Sicily's help at some stage, perhaps after launching them at the turks, but unfortunately as I was gaining footholds in Hungary and setting myself up nicely, with Venice gone to oblivion, I switched factions. To the doomed Turks.

Initially, the Turks were in a strong position when Bandito left them- I discovered later he was bluffing happily in some areas and in others was in sore need of rebuilding, but he had the capacity to do so in about 10 or so turns even after the succession of Sultans that didn't last long. I didn't get 10- I barely got 5. Spanish armies were small but powerful, Sicily had huge stacks easily shipped in from its Italian cities that could take on a turkish stack, and the English, though often slow to attack, could field many well equipped armies. I was outgunned, outnumbered, and to make things worse, out-mongoled. I didn't have enough stacks when I first took control to counter the armies camped on my borders, not enough time to assemble more, and if I did I needed them to counter the hordes, who were after my heartlands.
In the end, the Mongols were repulsed- it took far more men than I could spare, but if they had took Antioch and the area I would have crumbled even quicker. The Greek front, however, was a bit bleaker. Bulgaria was subject to a number of feints, counter feints, and surgical strikes, but Sicily found a way through to Thessalonica, past the great fort maze that Bandito had set up at great expense earlier. With Thessalonica gone, I took to hit-and-run while protecting Constantinople at all costs- England moved in and took Bulgaria, Sicily the rest of Greece. My navy was fighting a losing battle against the Sicilians, as I couldn't spare enough money to do army and navy. I regretted taking up so much of the slack to protect sicily earlier in the game.

Throughout, the entire defense effort was completely undermined by the way I was unable to move troops defeated in that turn- this often led to troops being left outside otherwise-dependable cities that were then taken, and ships and armies that could be retrained or withdrawn being completely lost. Should I inflict a defeat on the enemy, however, they'll be able to move normally. It really sucked- I'm pretty sure I was doomed anyway, but I could have put up a better fight if this was not the case.

Anyway, I was left with Constantinople, and repulse three or four major incursions from Sicily and England. The Sicilian Navy gradually took control of the straights, I had to trundle armies on foot through Turkey, but I held it for a bit. The intention was to stop, get some decent stacks together and ship them on to mainland greece to strike back. Unfortunately, Sicily doesn't wait, and I still had a severe Mongol infestation at this stage- not enough troops, not enough ships. No dice. Constantinople and western Turkey falls, I concentrate on saving my troops now rather than anything else, but before I know it I'm holed up in Armenia with the English taking my Black sea settlements and spilling down, while Sicily was more patient.

Another crusade was launched- I had cleared out a first one with relatively minimal losses- I'd had cities taken, true, but I took them back relatively quickly- but this one was devastating. The first wave took and held egypt, I repulsed the English with a little help from Sicily telling me where the ships were, and then I had to watch Jerusalem be taken. I surrendered, intending on becoming a vassal and retaking English-taken lands, watching as England and Sicily duked it out while nipping in here and there.

But Sicily won good and proper. Which is amazing, because it was going to be the first nation out if Bandito stayed

I just checked through my write-up and I think Venice was slightly more in line for death at the point Bandito left - I'd just liberated Italy I think and Bandito had agreed (strangely / due to being weaker than he was letting on) to peace. Besides, I had a general down in Timbuktu by then, so death would have been fairly slow...
You're right though, I spent quite a long time thinking I was about to get slaughtered.

The turn order problem is really a pain in the whatsit, and should have been avoidable if only they'd put troop movement points renewing at the start of each faction's turn rather than all at the same point. Perhaps that's a reason the AI is so easy to beat usually.

Ahh, too bad I was around back when the game started... :P

At least I was able to ensure Spain's longevity, and if my first turn went through(Boreego came back with his play of it just in time), I may have beaten England, as I actually got them excommunicated(I was ambushed, and the ambusher is considered the attacker), and I beat a whole English stack, which prevented that army from breaking my seige of Caen, but alas, that save never went through, It could have been a game changer... :P

Is Bandito still around(or at least have contact)? He seemed like a really good hotseater from what I've read.

I have him on facebook- he's married now, poor chap. Other than that I haven't been in too much contact with him. He has liked the TWH facebook page, however, so he still remembers us