GameLog 23 & 24

Really difficult 2 weeks at work trying to get everything back on track for the start of term made for my worst playing weeks since I started recording. I'll average out the the times for the week, but it was pretty much the same formula during the whole 2 week period; Crusader Kings or trackmania to get going, a bit of TF2 at night followed by more Crusader Kings after 10pm.

Crusader Kings (16h) - After a few years of solidification, we start to look around the map for potential new targets. The King of France had recently been excommunicated making claims on his land dirt cheap. I still had reputation issues and a boatload of prestige so I'd have rathered a cheaper reputation option for declaaring war rather than the cheaper prestige. We wait out a couple of years to see if anyone else jumps onto the heretic and finally Wales is the one calling to arms.

France has lost the majority of their French land to Norway and Brittany, so it has a wierd mix of Irish, Welsh and Southern English provinces to go with a solitary French capital. I head off over the sea to get a jump on his capital with a regiment from Moray as no-one's at home and his vassals aren't too keen to get involved against the pope. Just as Wals is about to fall we join the war and call all able bodied men to arms. The top of Scotland send troops to Ireland while the main body from norfolk, York and Northumberland regions aim at the Welsh provinces. We catch a lot of their army at sea and have taken the main provinces before they start to challenge. A final push on Kent drops the flag on the French ramparts and we claim the French throne. The vassals of France more than double our economic power, and we've only taken a slight hit in reputation.

After another consolidation period I had almost forgotten about a declaration of war against Zaragoza out on the Iberian peninsula. Norway was down that way beating up on the muslims and I had agreed purely to save face and keep Norway as allies. With everything squared away on the home front, a new battle looked inviting. We rally some of the provinces in southern France to take the Mallorcan islands while they are busy against the northern Nordic push. They fall quickly and we vassalize them just in time before the King of Tangiers, who somehow was the monarch of the region, can get there.

I notice that vassalizing muslims don't hit our reputation, so we pressgang Mallorca to push on to Zaragoza. As smaller muslim provinces fall they too are vassalized and pressganged into the snowball. Soon enough we have 1/2 the Iberian peninsula under our control and a 20,000 strong force to go head-to-head against Tangiers. We forge ahead and pick off individual counties from the Castille duke until we have the mainland completely vassalized. Cordoba is the only one to be claimed our own as the technology of the muslims in that province would be a great boon back in Scotland.

The King of Tangiers had a number of counties under his own demesne along the western side of Africa. These fall with a few minor skirmishes and we enforce the claim of King over Spain. Old Donald Dunkeld, a previous patron of Atholl and friend, had managed to get into my court before the fall of Tangiers so he get gifted that dukedom. His wife is also given title over western Africa. Both are old and have no descendants, so I'm hoping they'll filter back my way after they pass away. Should be a useful way of laundering reputation if it works ...

TF2 (8h) - 3 more [QGL] matches over the 2 week period. A grrreat 3-2 win over the Grr Armada vaulted us up into 12th, but 2 losses to -PC- and HoC have us sitting in 17th. There's still some teams above us that we have beaten previously, so hopefull we can get in a challenge to keep us in the top 20.

Trackmania Nations (2h) - Cameron's Fave.