Well, Dan's invasion in CK2 is over.

At the end, he attacked with 18k soldiers while I only had about 7 thousand. Turned out that despite I let them become my suzerains, China didn't really give a fuck; I got an event where they sent 4800 troops, but that was nothing compared to my enemy (and they were not even high quality troops, just a hodgepodge army of everything). Naturally, I was running to the jews as fast as I could to borrow some money, and with my own spare cash, I hired some mercenaries. My total army was about 15k; I even sent in my personal retinue, which I almost never do unless shit absolutely hit the fan, because they are expensive as FUCK.

But you see, I had one final trick up my sleeve: as soon as Dan declared war, I invited every military genius from the four corners of the world who were willing to join my empire. (Except people with a family. My entire nation might have hanged in the balance of this war, but I *hate* when my courtiers clog up my place with their kids and wives). My army was led by a man with a martial score of 24 (this in a game where 12 is pretty decent and anyone with a score of 8+ is okay to lead an army), and his aides were also 18 or more. I sent a call to the Byzantine Empire, my only allies, and began marching to war.

From the heartland of my empire in Transylvania, we arrived to the Adriatic Coast to a horrible sight. The barbaric invaders were burning and looting everything (they were actually vikings; I dunno what a viking invader was doing in Croatia, really, but vikings *did* get to a lot of places). While my army was smaller, I trusted in the strength of the sons of Carpathia and the military genius of my commanders. Over thirty thousand men glared at each other in deathly silence and everyone knew there would be no second chances; quarter would not be given or asked for. This was where heroes and cowards parted ways. And with a single battle cry, the machines of war were unleashed.

I was beaten **brutally.**

As the raggedy remnants of my fleeing army were withdrawing, I was desperately looking for more mercenaries; over half of my army lied dead on the battlefield, and the enemy only lost about three thousand men. But as panic started to creep up my throat, a lone horn sounded on the horizon. And then the ~~winged hussars~~ Byzantines arrived.

Oh, their army was not big, numbers-wise. It was even smaller than my own original army. But they were the men of the Eastern Roman Empire, the true inheritors of Rome. Without exaggeration, dozens of centuries of martial knowledge was theirs, and the warrior spirit of Caesar, Cincinnatus and Mucius Scaevola burned in their veins. The afternoon sun shined on the proud cataphracts and the unbeatable phalanges, the Varangian Guard standing shoulder to shoulder to the proud sons of COnstantinople, as the two-headed eagle glared right into the eyes of, well, the vikings also have some sort of bird symbol in this game, so I suppose it was to be an extremely avian combat, but the point is there. The dogs of war bayed and the might of the true Roman Empire was about to be unleashed.

They were crushed with even more ease than my army.

And this point, however, they delayed the unstoppable viking death machine long enough for my army to stop running away. I went around Croatia, where they were doing their rape-murder-pillage thingie, and instead of trying to defend my lands, I went to where this guy lived. And showed up with my entire army, took over his house, and forced him to surrender while otherwise his army was vastly outnumbering mine and suffered no defeats.

I love CK2.