Also the roman empire just sorta morphed into the catholic church when things got tough and continue their insidious influence to this day.

The HRE just licensed the Roman Empire brand for name-recognition purposes. No real connection to the original.

What Two Jar Slave said.

The Byzantine Empire, meanwhile, did not call themselves "The Byzantine Empire"; they called themselves the Roman Empire, because that's what they were -- the eastern part of the Roman Empire, the part that lasted longer. The term "Byzantine Empire" was applied only later by western historians, for whom it was more convenient to speak of how "the" Roman Empire fell in 476 AD and then there was a Dark Ages until a Renaissance happened. (In fact the Pope was still calling upon the Byzantine Empire for protection well into the 700s, because the Vatican had never lost its connection with the east.)

What Bort said.

Although it was rather presumptuous of them to use the brand-name "Roman", when they had no actual authority over the city of Rome. The HRE-thing was less a licensing agreement, as it was a copyright dispute, following the Anti-Trust Invasions which broke up the Standard Roman monopoly into smaller corporations.

Also, it didn't take them all that long to annex Mallorca; only about seventy years following the Roman conquest of Carthaginian Spain. One might as well ask why Puerto Rico isn't a state yet!

After rescuing them from the Lombards the Carolingian dynasty had considerable influence over the papacy and the political life of Rome. I don't know remember specifics of how Big Chuck, Lil' Pepin, and the rest of the brood actually exercised that influence (besides having the Pope grant them fancy titles), but it existed. Before consolidating land holdings of its own, the Vatican (more like Vatican't!!) was effectively a minor satellite state of the HRE, albeit a symbolically important one. Then they scraped together enough provinces to form the Papal State, and that's when I took over and did well for a couple years before tanking my economy in a drawn-out war against Castille.

I should have allied Castille against Aragon for an easy Naples grab, but nooooo...!

Castille is brutal, especially if they get the Lucky modifier. :(

Do you make it a point to commit wanton genocide against Castille each and every time? Because I do. I usually ally Aragon and Portugal against Castille, rushing for Gibraltar and Morocco by 1420 at the latest so that I'll have a foothold from which to slowly absorb southern Iberia.

Depends! Sometimes baguette swamps Aragon early and makes headway into Castille, so he becomes the bigger problem blob-wise. Plus, being more central, france is just more likely to rub my shoulders than any Spaniard. I've only played the Med that one time as Papal. My other attempts have been as England (overseas colonial once I got my house in order), Muscovy (no real contact with western Europeans until getting reduced to freezing ash by, you guessed it, frenchblob), and Japan (no contact with any Westerners until much later, when everybody and their steel-smelting mother suddenly wanted a piece of the Philippines). I never futz with the HRE, though... too complicated. Where are you taking Gibraltar from?

Usually from the sea. I've gone through so many games over the years I lost count, but my go-to nation is typically England, and I typically find some way to CB on the Andalusian Muslims, landing Marines and snatching them up just before Castille's armies can roll in and finish the deed. It helps A LOT, especially after those patches which introduced colonization range; without that region under your control, it's almost impossible to colonize the Caribbean before Castille gets there, even if you've got a significant tech and economy lead (which is unlikely, given all those damn Spanish goldmines).

Japan is fun, too! In fact, the last game I played, I actually managed to turn Japan into the leading New World colonial power, thanks to moving towards Westernization early, a randomized New World which placed New World colonies within reach of Guam, and a super-lucky, out-of-nowhere inheritance that suddenly promoted the Daimyo of Shimazu to the Emperor of Ming. The last thing I was doing in that run, before I got bored with it? Invading Castille. From the sea, with Japanese troops.

Literally went halfway around the world, just to repopulate Castille with Japanese Shintoists.

"Big Chuck, Lil' Pepin"

I smells me a Clevelander. Also, phantom stars for that.

That is an impressive dedication you have to a very specific need! What did Castille do to you, originally? Do either of you even remember?

I can't believe you inherited mothertackling Ming, man. I spent past 1650 pretty much completely occupied by them, although I did manage to plant a few bamboo shoots in California and Alaska before they were cut down by Portugese Americans. Go me.

The closest thing I've done to your Kyotoledo Frankenhistory was to occupy London as the Iroquois (I forgot about that campaign 'till just now--it was before Conquest of Paradise and reaaaalllllly boring). A relatively short swim (though cold), but the landing was so, so sweet after having been forced to abandon the Caribbean and Florida to their bewigged beefeaters, and play centuries of peek-a-boo with not-even-their-third-largest-army. I only wished there was a 'burn the city in a glut of pure emotion' button like in Civ.

i hate to out myself as a complete idiot, but are you guys talking about age of empires?

No, but sorta similar! The game is called Europa Universalis IV. It's a fun, noisily complicated nation sim which spans the periods from the high Renaissance to the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

I didn't actually mean to hijack the thread to talk about this game. In my mind I was making a little joke generic enough that any strategy game player could follow and get a chuckle. But EH completely zeroed in on what I was laying down. And it's not every day you get to talk EU4 with someone who's finished multiple campaigns!

What originally intrigued me about the game, if you're interested, is that the warfare is only one part of the game. In a lot of other strategy games, war is the 'main point' and everything else sort of exists to supports that. But in EU4, if you want to spend your whole game competing for trade routes, or brokering alliances, or discovering and settling the New World, or maneuvering your politicos to peacefully inherit (as EH did) the better part of a continent, then that is your privilege.

I do have a serious soft spot for Age of Empires II, though. Those majestic windmills...

i'm gonna check it out! thanks!

i would be curious to see if American history would have been far better/more egalitarian if the Swedes had been the main colonizers of America and England had just largely stayed at home, only sending a few farmers over here and there.

Emperor Basil is my favorite emperor, along with Emperor Fennel annd Emperor Thyme.

I've always hated Castile, as far as I can remember. Honestly, I think it's just deeply in-grained racism on my part; my father is English and an academic history nerd, so I grew up with stories about plucky British Protestantism versus the vile Spanish Catholic menace. Also, there was another boy living down the street from me whose family was Spanish - not *His*panic, I mean they were red-haired, lived-under-Franco Spanish. The Spaniard and I did not like each other very much (my French-Irish best friend and I used to get in fights with him a lot) so whenever we played a game involving historical political intrigue, I always made it a point to stick it to the Castillians. Please note! I have nothing against Catalans, or Andalusians, and even my oft-played-up animosity towards the French is in truth pretty good-natured. It's just those fucking Castillians, man, can't stand 'em.

Ming was a complete fluke. I had a royal marriage with them through my most prestigious ruler, Queen Toku; they had a bunch of assassinations, lost a ton of prestige, and apparently collapsed due to factional intrigue. I wasn't planning for it at all, but it was probably the second most spectacular inheritance I've ever had (the first most was in a world-conquest game; I was playing as Germany, and allied to Great Britain, who'd managed to conquer all of France, Spain, and North America. I got them into a Personal Union somehow and inherited them, along with half of Europe, by 1700)


Bus - it's an awesome fucking game.

Anyways, yeah, I'll shut up now. This video is a lot of fun, and don't want to hijack the thread.

Europa Universalis is a fantastic game.
You guys would probably like Crusader Kings as well.

Fuck yeah, Crusader Kings is my jam. As a bonus, in that game, you can decide the fate of the Byzantine Empire (which is already doomed by the start of EU)!

Odinist Rome. Yes.

Like a lot of other people, Crusader Kings 2 was my gateway into the whole Paradox shebang. The character-level kitchen sink intrigue really hooked me. It felt like a good tabletop RPG, in that I always wanted to tell people (who couldn't care less) about the great story that had just happened. Before I knew it, the endless menus and stats actually made sense, and I could guide my realm to relative success. When EU4 came out I was ready for it--even if there were no sideburn options.

According to Steam, I have sunk twice as many hours into CK2 as my next most-played game. Yikes. Like I said, really hooked me.

Currently the only things I play are Caves of Qud and Tabletop Simulator. I've gone off the grid.