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In November of the year 1095 Guy II, Comte de Macon attended church in the recently liberated county of La Marche to give thanks for recent events in his life.

He had fully avenged the corruption of his previous wife Paola by capturing the county of La Marche for himself and sending Paola’s lover Bertrand into exile without a penny to his name. He had gained glory among Christian Lords by leading his army south into Iberia, winning battles almost on the border of Seville, and capturing the county of Calatrava.

Through his half-sister Constance his family had risen to connection with the King of France himself and he had even remarried recently and his third wife, Katharina d’Ardennes already carried a new life inside.

But it was here on holy ground that it appeared his time in the good graces of fate and destiny ran out, as he was assailed by a gang of men, cut through several times and left to die.

That Guy would survive was only the second-most miraculous thing about to happen.
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In the summer of 1088 Guy II of Macon returned to his home county from extended stay at the Royal Courts with a determination to deal with Bertrand, Count of La Marche for the slight suffered when Bertrand bedded Guy’s wife.

Clearly, the plan would involve placing mailed fist to soft La Marche visage, but in 1088 the Macon armed forces were just not ready to land this blow having neither the technical advancements or the leadership to convincingly best the La Marche army.

Plus Bertrand himself was a vassal of the Duke of Aquitaine with whom Guy had no fond friendship, meaning La Marche would almost certainly be able to count on support.

This left Guy with two options: 1, put in place a sweeping range of technical innovations and improvements, massively enlarge and re-equip the army with the new technology and then find a new Marshall of Guard to lead the men. Or 2, have someone else punch La Marche for him.

To be fair, option one sounded like a lot of work.

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In the year 1066 while Guillaume le Batard de Normandie was wresting the English crown from Harold Godwinson, Guy was beginning his second year as Comte de Macon at the tender age of 11. The 20 years that followed would be a period that saw him often referred to as “The Silent count.” A period that would essentially start and end with the death of a wife.
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This past August Paradox Interactive announced that 2012 would see the release of a Crusader Kings II, a sequel to the 2004 original that is part of the “Grand Sweep of History” series – a series which allows the clinically insane to start a game in 280 BC with Europa Universalis : Rome and finish 2000 years later with Hearts of Iron.

With a focus shifted away from running a country and on to the fate of a dynasty Crusader Kings was the odd-man-out of the series, abstracting combat to simply dragging armies on top of each other, while you concentrated on trying to do the same with the Counts and Ladies of Europe, promoting the future of your family with your primary weapons of sex, assassination and even more extreme tactics like… love.

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