I got it!! I had to sit through a whole day of school and a 25 minute download before I could get my hands on it.
It's everything I hoped. Except the map. I suppose that KoH spoiled me with its beautiful maps (for example, when you switch to relations mode in the political map, it clearly colored all the nations according to their view of you. In EU you have to look up specific nations on a list to see their opinion of your nation... in numerical form.). But the gameplay! I started as France since I'm a nub, with an army of [IIRC] 17,000. 50K+manpower, 195 ducat income at the end of the year with still a very small inflation rate. All I could want. After building up and changing policies for the better part of a year, I embarked on a campaign against Spain (Castilia, I think). My navy was in the Mediterranean, and I hadn't the least idea how to begin sea transportation. So I chose land. In the way stood Aragon and a small, obscure nation with a french name
. I managed to get military access with Aragon but I must have wasted half a dozen diplomats on that tiny, stubborn two-province annoyance (1k infantry, 1k cavalry) before I finally gave up and declared war. Unfortunately, I don't know how to check a nation's relations with another nation (another easy part of KoH) so I just dived in. It so happened that they were on very good terms with Aragon...
I wasn't altogether unprepared for such a combination. My allies--Norway, Scotland, and Brittany (an odd mix)--were quick to send naval support and land a few thousand infantry on the Aragonese border. Aragon's grand army consisted of 5k Latin knights and 8k men at arms. When I re-directed my army from the other nation to smash the army of Aragon, I had forgotten about generals. Yes, it was a miracle that my leaderless and demoralized army of 5k cavalry, 12k infantry, and 1k artillery could overcome Aragon's well-led force (
Aragon takes around 4.5k losses and retreats while I suffer from 5k losses. Only my infantry meat shield kept me from losing altogether.).
After that, I split my army in half to besiege two of Aragon's provinces. Risky if they should recuperate enough to take another shot at me, but I figured keeping my army together would result in unbearable attrition losses. I also tried to cripple the puny nation's 2,000 man army with 5,000 fresh troops of my own. It appears I hadn't learned the previous battle's lesson, and their crafty general held his own until a rebel force generated in their province and intervened, pushing both armies back and besieging the province. That was okay with me, I just wanted to keep them from raiding my vulnerable interior provinces. I sent the remnants of that army along with another artillery regiment and some infantry and cavalry to bolster my suffering siege forces. When they arrived, I had 10,000 men in one province and 8,000 in another--almost as good as new. However, with the ranks filled back up, attrition became a problem again and I split my force up to starve two more provinces (by that time, one of the two forts had fallen). Now I was spread too thinly and I constantly feared a counter attack from the seemingly dormant Aragon army.
Meanwhile, my fleet of about thirty vessels in the Mediterranean fought the fearsome armada of Aragon along with the aid of my allies. After losing eight ships, I blockaded all their ports. Back on dry land, the entire army of Aragon was dug in in a single province, suffering attrition due to starvation. Looking at the diplomacy section, I saw that I had a 23% war rating against Aragon, a "victory"! With no diplomats to discuss terms favorable to myself (after the fall of one of his forts, the Aragon ruler sent a peace treaty offering two ducats
), I just sat and waited. It was pretty late, though, so I got off...*sigh* No save function in the demo.
Banned
