The Duke´s Norwegian Adventures

[Duke Hardhammer]

The Duke´s Norwegian Adventures

So there,
this is going to be the Chronicles of one of my games in KOH. I have a rough language so I hope I offend no one.

Norway, Early

Chapter One: King Harald II "the Great" RuleZ!

approx. 960-1020

I had only 2 counties, Trondheim and the South of Norway one, well whatever. I had my sons Sigmund and Thorstein work as merchants. Trondheim developed into a center of military production, while South Norway was my economic core. In the first battle the then young King Harald II crushed some fucking rebels with 6 units of Axefighters.

I needed more money. So I had Harald II sail to England with some Axefighters and plunder York. However, the King of York closed in with a huge army. So Harald II set sail and moved south so East Anglia and Kent and sacked and burned all villages, farms and monasteries there. That was fun! And no one of the English cowards came out to challenge me. Then Harald II sailed home. I can imagine the young king sailing into his home town with his ships full of of gold and silver and clothes and slaves. HAR! HAR!

I raised a second army. Sigmund was relieved of his duty as a merchant, I hired a merchant for that, and also set sail to plunder Scotland. I played Sigmund as a cruel brute with no brains, after the cowardly Lowland Scots were all sacked, he moved to the Highlands. He was intercepted by a Highland Army and a fierce fight started, where he was victorious.

My original plan was for Harald II to sack Ireland or maybe Spain, but then Germany attacked Danmark and conquered Jutland. So the fat Danish King Knut asked me for help. In order to make war on Germany, I received the province of Oslo and the Danish princess Gerda (spelling my be wrong, but she was the younger daughter and she looked really hot) for Sigmund. After the wedding with his hot wife, Sigmund sailed to france to sack the vassall of Germany into submission. He was successful in that. He landed, burnt everything down, crushed a French army and managed to extract a considerable tribute for his future kingdom (Harald II was already old, and Sigmund was the first son.) However, the greedy and selfish Sigmund made the mistake to attack and sack Wessex to make some more money, and he was intercepted and killed by the English.

In the meantime Harald II secured South Sweden and Sealand for Danmark, and invaded Jutland, where he was beaten by a German army and fled. However he was satisfied as he sailed back to Norway, because the German army was so battered that she was unable to sustain the offense, or so it seemed, but then a German fleet fought Norway in a sea battle in the Skagerrak and landed near Oslo, but on seeing the strong defence turned back and returned to Germany.

In his capital Oslo the old Harald II was struck by grief on hearing of the death of his son. He swore revenge on the English but first he had to drive the stupid Germans out of Jutland...

- to be continued -

[Mephistopheles]

Generally I liked the style of writing. If one approaches it with the necessary distance it's very humorous. However, try avoiding actual swear-words (you only used one). You don't need them to make the story telling funny, actually it has the quite contrary effect.

[Duke Hardhammer]

(okay I will keep that in mind. I will also add screenshots, but this is so inconvenient...)

Harald II had a deep sense of loyalty with his scandinavian neighbors. It was unacceptable for him that the Germans held Jutland. Unfortunately they were very strong with their 21 provinces compared to Harald´s 3 provinces. So Harald hat to make up for this with cleverness. He ordered his second son, Thorstein (later King Thorstein I, the Wise, see below) to sack the German towns on the North Sea, from Saxony all the way down till Normandy. The German armies followed Thorstein farther and farther to the south.

In the meantime, Harald II invaded Jutland a second time. The city was defended very strongly with lots of town guard and archers and also many swordmen. King Harald II had only 6 units of his trusted Vikings and 3 units of Archers. The old King ordered his archers on top of a hill and the Vikings around them. The archers shot down many of the defenders, who charged out of the city. The Vikings withstood the defenders for a while, then were beaten back by the sheer masses of the Germans/Jutlanders. Where the fighting was most intense, King Harald II and his Guard of Knights attacked and drove the enemy back, then charged to another part of the battle. His archers ran out of ammo and attacked in close combat, too. Finally the defenders of the town surrendered and Harold II took control of the town. Minutes later Thorstein landed his troops in the area and united forces with his father.

Unfortunately the huge German army that Thorstein fooled invaded Jutland again and tried to retake the city. Hastily Thorstein and his father put up some defenses. Anyways when the Germans reached the town, they just swept away the Vikings and Archers and though the Vikings offered extremely strong and stubborn resistance, the city was cleared in record time. Only some archers still fired on the huge number of Germans. But what was this? The German count rode freely through the town, with only his Guard of 10 knights, to take down some Viking archers. In a desperate charge, the venerable Viking King (probably 80 years old or so) attacked the German Count, dropping him. So the Germans surrendered or fled.

Immediately afterwards, peace was made with the Germans, who conceded control of Jutland to the victorious Vikings. And immediately afterwards, the venerable King Harad II died (probably around 1020). The historian Sigurd notes he died while drinking heavily on the victory feast, but this is uncertain, as we do not have reliable sources from that period. Thorstein I would later give Jutland back to the Danish. Until the end of the game, the Danish and the Norwegians would be close allies.