King Richter is a sort of chaotic good to an extreme and is a cross between Reinhardt and Han Solo
Crusader Kings II - Paradox Entertainement (02/12)
- Thread starter Tellus
- Start date
It's also been adapted for various Holy Fury mechanics, including the alternate starts. They even put a slider on the number of dragons at the start...
I've played some smallish campaigns since HF came out, but today I decided to buckle down and just see where the game took me. I started as the count of Galluria, in Sardinia. I swore fealty to the Kaiser and used the HRE's protection to expand. I formed the duchy of Sardinia relatively quick and after one generation I formed the Kingdom of Sardinia & Corsica. It was when I hit my second character things started getting interesting.
King Costantino "the Philosopher". Grandson of the original character I started with. A veteran of two crusades and holy wars, he greatly expanded the kingdoms territory. The duchy of Sicily being his crown jewel. It was from there his decedents would complete the subjugation of entirety of Southern Italy.
Queen Adella "the Apostle" would continue the path her father had taken. First taking care of the De Hautville's once and for all, she would also take part the the Second Northern Crusade, this time for Lithuania. She later set her sights on Spain and took the entirety of the Kingdom of Aragon and added Tunis to the royal demesne. Not bad for the late king's fifth and youngest child.
Lands of the The Crown of Sardinia and Corsica are shown in Pink. They include The Kingdom of Sardinia & Corsica, Kingdom of Aragon, Kingdom of Sicily, Duchy of Kabylia and the Duchy of Tunis (sans two de-jure provinces).
Here's the state of the world, there are lot of giant states floating around. The HRE is humongous, fueled by expansion from vassals, mainly me and the king of Lotharingia who owns a lot of land in Andalusia. The Byzantines hung on and pushed the Seljuks back into Persia, there are revolts now and then but the empire is reliably stable. The Fatimids took advantage from the situation in the region and expanded out of Egypt and into the Middle-East and North Africa. Forming the Arabian Empire and becoming the most important Islamic Faction.
King Costantino "the Philosopher". Grandson of the original character I started with. A veteran of two crusades and holy wars, he greatly expanded the kingdoms territory. The duchy of Sicily being his crown jewel. It was from there his decedents would complete the subjugation of entirety of Southern Italy.
Queen Adella "the Apostle" would continue the path her father had taken. First taking care of the De Hautville's once and for all, she would also take part the the Second Northern Crusade, this time for Lithuania. She later set her sights on Spain and took the entirety of the Kingdom of Aragon and added Tunis to the royal demesne. Not bad for the late king's fifth and youngest child.
Lands of the The Crown of Sardinia and Corsica are shown in Pink. They include The Kingdom of Sardinia & Corsica, Kingdom of Aragon, Kingdom of Sicily, Duchy of Kabylia and the Duchy of Tunis (sans two de-jure provinces).
Here's the state of the world, there are lot of giant states floating around. The HRE is humongous, fueled by expansion from vassals, mainly me and the king of Lotharingia who owns a lot of land in Andalusia. The Byzantines hung on and pushed the Seljuks back into Persia, there are revolts now and then but the empire is reliably stable. The Fatimids took advantage from the situation in the region and expanded out of Egypt and into the Middle-East and North Africa. Forming the Arabian Empire and becoming the most important Islamic Faction.
Just a bunch of graphic mods at the moment. Mainly Patrum Scuta for the Coa's and In Heaven's Graphic Overhaul lite for the map. Both are great mods and have versions that are Ironman compatible.
Planet of Hats
Donor
More Pomeranians!!
* Mieszko the Wise
Emperor of Slavia (May 23, 1129 - March 3, 1168)
King of Pòmòrskô (May 23, 1129 - March 3, 1168)
King of the Danes (May 23, 1129 - March 3, 1168)
King Consort of Andalusia (1135-1159)
King of Andalusia (1161)
Count Consort of Kanin (1159-1168)
Mateja's only son took the throne under a shadow: While talented and brilliant, he had produced no male heir. But that was remedied a year later, when Queen Wszebora gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, Wlodzimierz.
* Mieszko the Wise
Emperor of Slavia (May 23, 1129 - March 3, 1168)
King of Pòmòrskô (May 23, 1129 - March 3, 1168)
King of the Danes (May 23, 1129 - March 3, 1168)
King Consort of Andalusia (1135-1159)
King of Andalusia (1161)
Count Consort of Kanin (1159-1168)
Mateja's only son took the throne under a shadow: While talented and brilliant, he had produced no male heir. But that was remedied a year later, when Queen Wszebora gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, Wlodzimierz.
Mieszko set out to spend his reign as a rebuilder and a restorer, working to restore the prosperity lost during the Plague. He began his rein by pouring thousands of gold coins out of Slavia's treasury into the construction of new walls and town facilities, creating new, modern housing to replace buildings torn down during the outbreak. Many old street plans in Pomerania today date from Mieszko's era.
The sole early foreign engagement Mieszko pressed was a war to bring part of Lettigalia into the empire. With much of Livonia willingly swearing fealty to the Slavic throne, Mieszko sent a small army to the gates of Selpils, ejecting a pagan ruler and installing a Christian one. These holdings in Lettigalia were divided by the scant holdings of the rightful Lithuanian King, who seethed at Mieszko's interference and refused to swear vassalage. Mieszko passed on the chance to war with him and simply let him cool his heels.
In 1135, Mieszko's wife died suddenly, evidently on the orders of his son-in-law, Prince Karlmann of the Holy Roman Empire - heir apparent to the rule of that entity. Mieszko himself was an honest man and no plotter, and no conclusive proof could be found on which to arrest Karlmann. Mieszko thus set out to chastise Karlmann another way: He broke ground on a new church in the far south of Poland, near the border of Carpathia, which he named the Church of Saint Felicitas, an early Christian martyr. Meanwhile, Mieszko acknowledged the birth of a bastard son, Milzas, before moving to betrothe himself to Elodie, the 15-year-old Duchess of Granada, not admiring her as a person or a beauty so much as an opportunity to birth a second son into a powerful ruling position in Andalusia - Elodie was the most powerful landholder in Andalusia at the time, with more land to her name than the King. While their eventual child was likely not Mieszko's - the two spent most of their reigns apart - Mieszko claimed the resulting daughter, whom he named Lidia.
Meanwhile, the opening of the new church at Zywiec was heralded as a splendid occasion - and a smirking Mieszko celebrated by proclaiming Prince Karlmann its first bishop. The protesting heir was promptly put under de facto house arrest in the church as Mieszko unilaterally made him a bishop and disqualified him from his birthright.
By 1138, his marriage to Elodie drew Mieszko into Andalusian politics. He joined Queen Glod of Sheffield Sweden that summer in declaring a quixotic war against King Sigismond the Black, who had been excommunicated. Slavic troops stormed the Andalusian capital at Murcia in 1139 but found Sigismond absent, and Mieszko ordered his men back onto the ships after hearing word of the monarch's real whereabouts: In Amiens, warring with the Duke of Picardy. Sigismond started south soon enough, though - but just as Mieszko disembarked his forces to meet him at Bordeaux, a papal legate arrived with word of the lifting of Sigismond's excommunication, and Mieszko returned home disappointed. He would sate himself by walking the Way of Saint James the next year.
Word came down in the winter of 1140 of the beatification of King Mscislaw, the man installed by Mieszko's mother to rule Hungary. Mieszko smiled patiently and returned to his life of meddling in Iberian politics and sleeping with everyone but his wife.
In 1142, with Slavia finalizing the capture of Finnmark from the Sami, a Crusade was called with eyes on Jerusalem. With the Abbasid Caliphate fracturing under the weight of its own decadence, Mieszko sent word that Slavia would carry the cross and the sword, but even with the fracturing of the Caliphate, the Islamic world was massing to meet Christendom's host. The refusal of West Francia to join the war left Christendom outmanned.
But the objective of the voyage quickly changed when Mayor Radomil of Odense, then the Grand Mayor of the Sealand Republic, urged the Crusaders to instead support the claim of Princess Anthe Radenos to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was the eldest daughter of the Emperor Methodios, a man who had spent the Empire into debt but whom Mieszko had no quarrel with.
Furious at the Crusaders, Mieszko withdrew his pledge to the Crusade, but he could not prevent his vassals from sailing off to Thrace to wage war in the name of the Cross. Finally, word of the inevitable came: The Crusaders breached the walls of Constantinople herself on October 24, 1145. Princess Anthe was killed in the course of the siege, and Pope Clement II himself retained control of the Queen of Cities, declaring Thrace a protectorate of the Papacy and the schism between Latin and Greek Christianity to be ended. Methodios himself was left clinging to a single barony in the Littoral, and the Eastern Roman Empire shattered into a thousand principalities.
Hoping at least to recover a shred of Christendom's dignity, Mieszko marched his men to war to drive the Khazars from Lesser Poland in 1147. That war ended within months when the elderly Khagan Menumarot simply brought his entire horde to bear, only for the armies of Pomerania to butcher about half of them. A series of quick sieges left this land, cut off by the Carpathians from the rest of Khazaria, under Slavic lordship.
Years of quiet followed in Slavia, interrupted mainly by the winged hussars traveling to Sweden to contribute to the slow stamping-out of the pretenders of Swithjod.
In 1155, word came down that an ambitious adventurer, Alain de Vasconia, was attempting to assemble an army of tens of thousands to invade Slavia. That lasted roughly until he died of a snakebite, and all returned to peace as Mieszko focused on improving his demesne keeps. The next year, another interloper met a dire end: The chronicler Jakusz of Streltza tells of the execution of "the Moorish lord, Salim," apparently one of several Barbary pirates captured attempting to sack Rastoku. It was also in this period that Mieszko's son-in-law, Borut, was placed on the throne of Lithuania by a palace coup, bringing that kingdom into the fold - but with Mieszko's seemingly-infertile daughter Malgorzata (described as "a giantess") unable to give him an heir, and with most of the duchies in that land answering to Mieszko rather than Borut, risk existed that the crown could pass out of Slavia again.
Most of Mieszko's affairs in this period seem to have been both personal and literal: He and Empress Elodie, ruling apart and usually separate, both apparently pursued numerous side affairs, ultimately growing to despise each other. Mieszko spent much of his time in those days overseeing construction of a new tower on the island of Rana, increasing the number of forts under his direct command. However, Elodie's death in 1159 due to a bad case of the flu left Mieszko's second legitimate son, five-year-old Udalrich, to rule in Granada. Ever eager to spread his seed, Mieszko quickly arranged a marriage to Tikshayka, the countess of the distant Kanin Peninsula - a rare appearance for the Nenets people in this part of history.
Of course, Mieszko promptly ruined that marriage, largely by cuckolding his son and siring another bastard upon his daughter-in-law Mala.
The sudden murder of Mieszko's son Udalrich in 1161 brought Granada under Mieszko's stewardship. With little desire to rule such a distant land himself, Mieszko granted his new holdings in Cordoba, Granada and Jaen to his bastard son Bartosz, then crowned him King of Andalusia and sent him on his way.
With Slavia's tributaries in Galicia-Volhynia at war to seize land on the Black Sea from the Khazars, Mieszko loaded his troops onto the ships and set sail. The war quickly resulted in the lands northwest of the peninsula, once steppeland, coming into the Galician realm.
Ultimately, a wave of camp fever sweeping Slavia claimed Mieszko when his court physician chose to treat him by cutting his eye out. An ailing Mieszko ordered the bishop executed, but it wasn't enough to save his own life, and he passed cursing the name of the churchman who maimed him, leaving behind children by at least four wives and countless more lovers, a stronger Slavia and a son on the throne of Andalusia.
The sole early foreign engagement Mieszko pressed was a war to bring part of Lettigalia into the empire. With much of Livonia willingly swearing fealty to the Slavic throne, Mieszko sent a small army to the gates of Selpils, ejecting a pagan ruler and installing a Christian one. These holdings in Lettigalia were divided by the scant holdings of the rightful Lithuanian King, who seethed at Mieszko's interference and refused to swear vassalage. Mieszko passed on the chance to war with him and simply let him cool his heels.
In 1135, Mieszko's wife died suddenly, evidently on the orders of his son-in-law, Prince Karlmann of the Holy Roman Empire - heir apparent to the rule of that entity. Mieszko himself was an honest man and no plotter, and no conclusive proof could be found on which to arrest Karlmann. Mieszko thus set out to chastise Karlmann another way: He broke ground on a new church in the far south of Poland, near the border of Carpathia, which he named the Church of Saint Felicitas, an early Christian martyr. Meanwhile, Mieszko acknowledged the birth of a bastard son, Milzas, before moving to betrothe himself to Elodie, the 15-year-old Duchess of Granada, not admiring her as a person or a beauty so much as an opportunity to birth a second son into a powerful ruling position in Andalusia - Elodie was the most powerful landholder in Andalusia at the time, with more land to her name than the King. While their eventual child was likely not Mieszko's - the two spent most of their reigns apart - Mieszko claimed the resulting daughter, whom he named Lidia.
Meanwhile, the opening of the new church at Zywiec was heralded as a splendid occasion - and a smirking Mieszko celebrated by proclaiming Prince Karlmann its first bishop. The protesting heir was promptly put under de facto house arrest in the church as Mieszko unilaterally made him a bishop and disqualified him from his birthright.
By 1138, his marriage to Elodie drew Mieszko into Andalusian politics. He joined Queen Glod of Sheffield Sweden that summer in declaring a quixotic war against King Sigismond the Black, who had been excommunicated. Slavic troops stormed the Andalusian capital at Murcia in 1139 but found Sigismond absent, and Mieszko ordered his men back onto the ships after hearing word of the monarch's real whereabouts: In Amiens, warring with the Duke of Picardy. Sigismond started south soon enough, though - but just as Mieszko disembarked his forces to meet him at Bordeaux, a papal legate arrived with word of the lifting of Sigismond's excommunication, and Mieszko returned home disappointed. He would sate himself by walking the Way of Saint James the next year.
Word came down in the winter of 1140 of the beatification of King Mscislaw, the man installed by Mieszko's mother to rule Hungary. Mieszko smiled patiently and returned to his life of meddling in Iberian politics and sleeping with everyone but his wife.
In 1142, with Slavia finalizing the capture of Finnmark from the Sami, a Crusade was called with eyes on Jerusalem. With the Abbasid Caliphate fracturing under the weight of its own decadence, Mieszko sent word that Slavia would carry the cross and the sword, but even with the fracturing of the Caliphate, the Islamic world was massing to meet Christendom's host. The refusal of West Francia to join the war left Christendom outmanned.
But the objective of the voyage quickly changed when Mayor Radomil of Odense, then the Grand Mayor of the Sealand Republic, urged the Crusaders to instead support the claim of Princess Anthe Radenos to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was the eldest daughter of the Emperor Methodios, a man who had spent the Empire into debt but whom Mieszko had no quarrel with.
Furious at the Crusaders, Mieszko withdrew his pledge to the Crusade, but he could not prevent his vassals from sailing off to Thrace to wage war in the name of the Cross. Finally, word of the inevitable came: The Crusaders breached the walls of Constantinople herself on October 24, 1145. Princess Anthe was killed in the course of the siege, and Pope Clement II himself retained control of the Queen of Cities, declaring Thrace a protectorate of the Papacy and the schism between Latin and Greek Christianity to be ended. Methodios himself was left clinging to a single barony in the Littoral, and the Eastern Roman Empire shattered into a thousand principalities.
Hoping at least to recover a shred of Christendom's dignity, Mieszko marched his men to war to drive the Khazars from Lesser Poland in 1147. That war ended within months when the elderly Khagan Menumarot simply brought his entire horde to bear, only for the armies of Pomerania to butcher about half of them. A series of quick sieges left this land, cut off by the Carpathians from the rest of Khazaria, under Slavic lordship.
Years of quiet followed in Slavia, interrupted mainly by the winged hussars traveling to Sweden to contribute to the slow stamping-out of the pretenders of Swithjod.
In 1155, word came down that an ambitious adventurer, Alain de Vasconia, was attempting to assemble an army of tens of thousands to invade Slavia. That lasted roughly until he died of a snakebite, and all returned to peace as Mieszko focused on improving his demesne keeps. The next year, another interloper met a dire end: The chronicler Jakusz of Streltza tells of the execution of "the Moorish lord, Salim," apparently one of several Barbary pirates captured attempting to sack Rastoku. It was also in this period that Mieszko's son-in-law, Borut, was placed on the throne of Lithuania by a palace coup, bringing that kingdom into the fold - but with Mieszko's seemingly-infertile daughter Malgorzata (described as "a giantess") unable to give him an heir, and with most of the duchies in that land answering to Mieszko rather than Borut, risk existed that the crown could pass out of Slavia again.
Most of Mieszko's affairs in this period seem to have been both personal and literal: He and Empress Elodie, ruling apart and usually separate, both apparently pursued numerous side affairs, ultimately growing to despise each other. Mieszko spent much of his time in those days overseeing construction of a new tower on the island of Rana, increasing the number of forts under his direct command. However, Elodie's death in 1159 due to a bad case of the flu left Mieszko's second legitimate son, five-year-old Udalrich, to rule in Granada. Ever eager to spread his seed, Mieszko quickly arranged a marriage to Tikshayka, the countess of the distant Kanin Peninsula - a rare appearance for the Nenets people in this part of history.
Of course, Mieszko promptly ruined that marriage, largely by cuckolding his son and siring another bastard upon his daughter-in-law Mala.
The sudden murder of Mieszko's son Udalrich in 1161 brought Granada under Mieszko's stewardship. With little desire to rule such a distant land himself, Mieszko granted his new holdings in Cordoba, Granada and Jaen to his bastard son Bartosz, then crowned him King of Andalusia and sent him on his way.
With Slavia's tributaries in Galicia-Volhynia at war to seize land on the Black Sea from the Khazars, Mieszko loaded his troops onto the ships and set sail. The war quickly resulted in the lands northwest of the peninsula, once steppeland, coming into the Galician realm.
Ultimately, a wave of camp fever sweeping Slavia claimed Mieszko when his court physician chose to treat him by cutting his eye out. An ailing Mieszko ordered the bishop executed, but it wasn't enough to save his own life, and he passed cursing the name of the churchman who maimed him, leaving behind children by at least four wives and countless more lovers, a stronger Slavia and a son on the throne of Andalusia.
So I started out as Count of Brabant, planning to crown myself King of Lotharingia and carve out a Dutch state between France and the HRE. Then my brother, whom I had earned a dukedom in Jerusalem for in the First Crusade, died without an heir, giving it to me. I thus handed off the lands in Germany to focus on conquering the Near East, starting off by rerouting the Northern Crusade to Egypt and finding a beneficiary in my childless, post-menopausal sister. There were a few tight moments with the Muslims trying to take back the Holy Land, but after inheriting Egypt and the Abbasids collapsed with Decadence it's been a cakewalk, now it's 1213 and almost all of the Arabian Peninsula is under my rule.
I'm interested in taking up a secret religion, maybe Judaism, just to explore the mechanics of another religion and secret cults a bit. It'd be nice getting the achievement for rebuilding the temple, and I should probably pay some more attention to who my vassals are.
I'm interested in taking up a secret religion, maybe Judaism, just to explore the mechanics of another religion and secret cults a bit. It'd be nice getting the achievement for rebuilding the temple, and I should probably pay some more attention to who my vassals are.
As a rule of thumb, is looking at a modern population density map a good way to guess where Norse immigration would either end up part of a melting pot with the local culture or replace it?
Of course taking into account both the size of the region and its distance from Scandinavia.
Of course taking into account both the size of the region and its distance from Scandinavia.
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The only good move is to go west, subjugate Toltec Empire and establish Norse Empire of Mexico! Unfortunately, it is impossible in vanillia Crusader Kings II.
Planet of Hats
Donor
More Slavs!
* Wlodzimierz I, or Wlodzimierz the Holy
Emperor of Slavia (March 3, 1168 - October 8, 1182)
King of Pòmòrskô (March 3, 1168 - October 8, 1182)
King of the Danes (March 3, 1168 - October 8, 1182)
The first thing Wlodzimierz did upon his inheritance was order his men to chop his adulterous wife Mala's head off.
His second act was to rein in a stubborn band of Barbary pirates which had taken to roaming inland Slavia. The band was chased down in a series of running battles and butchered to a man.
* Wlodzimierz I, or Wlodzimierz the Holy
Emperor of Slavia (March 3, 1168 - October 8, 1182)
King of Pòmòrskô (March 3, 1168 - October 8, 1182)
King of the Danes (March 3, 1168 - October 8, 1182)
The first thing Wlodzimierz did upon his inheritance was order his men to chop his adulterous wife Mala's head off.
His second act was to rein in a stubborn band of Barbary pirates which had taken to roaming inland Slavia. The band was chased down in a series of running battles and butchered to a man.
An ongoing war in Sweden into which Slavia had been roped and the continued wave of camp fever sweeping the Pomeranian coast forced Wlodzimierz to the humiliating spectacle of being crowned on a muddy battlefield at the tail end of autumn. Freezing and bitter, he oversaw the trip northward of the winged hussars to subdue pagan Angermanland.
Upon reaching out to his half-brother in Andalusia, Wlodzimierz was surprised to find Bartosz had come to refer to himself as Bartush in some quarters: He'd become enamored of the ways of the Mozarabic communities of his new kingdom and embraced their ways and language. His people referred to his reign as the rule of the Saqaliba - the Slavs. As such, the rule of Pomeranian-descended rulers in Andalusia is known as the Saqlabid Period.
In 1170, a wave of Khazars descended on Slavia, but were routed quickly. A few years of peace followed, with Wlodzimierz sponsoring the construction of new hospitals in Pomerania. The commons earned most of a decade of quiet, with only the Winged Hussars traveling north to Sweden to help subdue a rebellion.
Word came down in 1177 of the call to Crusade once more. With little interest in seating a man in Jerusalem, Wlodzimierz interceded with Pope Sylvester III to seek a Crusade to liberate the Ruthenes from the Khazar Yoke and drive the Jews from Slavia's border. A generous donation to the Crusade war chest swayed the pontiff, and Wlodzimierz began making plans to enthrone his brother Oldrich.
In a rare show of courage, Wlodzimierz himself led Pomerania's armies into Ruthenia. He met the armies of Khagan Kamaj head-on at the Battle of Slutsk, in which 50,000 men fought, but the speed and courage of the Khazar cavalry couldn't match the numbers and discipline of the Pomeranians. Wlodzimierz led the host to victory and pursued them over the Pripyat River to Korosten, leading the host in a continued series of engagements against the Khazar horde.
Word soon came, on April 21, 1180, that the Crusade had been won. Wlodzimierz received word while campaigning outside Hubyn, locked in battle with the Bulanid Khazars. Oldrich was hustled to that city and crowned in a splendid ceremony - Kiev itself remained subject to a single pagan chief and would likely soon fall, in any case.
The crusade established what Wlodzimierz hoped it would: It put a Christian buffer state between him and the nomadic steppe. But he would not live long enough to enjoy it: While on campaign to liberate Latgale from the Khazars, Wlodzimierz was cut down on the battlefield in a Khazar ambush at Jersika. His son, also named Wlodzimierz, was left to succeed him.
Upon reaching out to his half-brother in Andalusia, Wlodzimierz was surprised to find Bartosz had come to refer to himself as Bartush in some quarters: He'd become enamored of the ways of the Mozarabic communities of his new kingdom and embraced their ways and language. His people referred to his reign as the rule of the Saqaliba - the Slavs. As such, the rule of Pomeranian-descended rulers in Andalusia is known as the Saqlabid Period.
In 1170, a wave of Khazars descended on Slavia, but were routed quickly. A few years of peace followed, with Wlodzimierz sponsoring the construction of new hospitals in Pomerania. The commons earned most of a decade of quiet, with only the Winged Hussars traveling north to Sweden to help subdue a rebellion.
Word came down in 1177 of the call to Crusade once more. With little interest in seating a man in Jerusalem, Wlodzimierz interceded with Pope Sylvester III to seek a Crusade to liberate the Ruthenes from the Khazar Yoke and drive the Jews from Slavia's border. A generous donation to the Crusade war chest swayed the pontiff, and Wlodzimierz began making plans to enthrone his brother Oldrich.
In a rare show of courage, Wlodzimierz himself led Pomerania's armies into Ruthenia. He met the armies of Khagan Kamaj head-on at the Battle of Slutsk, in which 50,000 men fought, but the speed and courage of the Khazar cavalry couldn't match the numbers and discipline of the Pomeranians. Wlodzimierz led the host to victory and pursued them over the Pripyat River to Korosten, leading the host in a continued series of engagements against the Khazar horde.
Word soon came, on April 21, 1180, that the Crusade had been won. Wlodzimierz received word while campaigning outside Hubyn, locked in battle with the Bulanid Khazars. Oldrich was hustled to that city and crowned in a splendid ceremony - Kiev itself remained subject to a single pagan chief and would likely soon fall, in any case.
The crusade established what Wlodzimierz hoped it would: It put a Christian buffer state between him and the nomadic steppe. But he would not live long enough to enjoy it: While on campaign to liberate Latgale from the Khazars, Wlodzimierz was cut down on the battlefield in a Khazar ambush at Jersika. His son, also named Wlodzimierz, was left to succeed him.
My Sardinian Campaign is nearing it's end, but I'm pretty content with what I managed to cobble together. I'm spending the last of my time focusing on pushing the enormous HRE further and further to the east. Already took France, Burgundy and Lotharingia from them.
Vice Royalties of Sardinia
Religion Map
Vice Royalties of Sardinia
Orthodox North African Timurids and Mega-Romans stick out a lot there. Catholic Mali and Ghana too.
Yeah, ever since the Seljuks fell apart, the Byzantines been steamrolling everyone. That Catholic Ghana and Mali are results of poorly aimed crusades. An other result of those Crusade was the Kingdom of Africa. Who is now a tributary to the Timurids.
I assume the kingdom of Gallicia? Normally around the 1066 bookmark when you start in Spain, you are all part of the Jiménez dynasty. So normally you have claims on the kingdoms held by your kin. If not there are ways to work around this problem. If the pope likes you enough you can ask him for claims on the duchies that make up the kingdom. This mostly works if the titles in questions are held by a child or a woman. It doesn't hurt spending a little gold or some artifacts to got those claims tho. You can also try it the old fashion way and try to fabricate claims with your chancellor, but to get those your chancellor has to have a diplomacy score above 20. If you are worried about losing territory upon succession I suggest you change your succession laws to seniority or elective, if you don't have access to primogeniture yet.
I was nearly finished with my Jerusalem game when my laptop broke, literally the hinge on it broke and part of the screen cracked and began to fall off. Since it was nearly 10 years old I had to get a new laptop, but I lost a bunch of stuff and that includes my files from CK2. 
But I got the game going on my new laptop and at the moment I'm playing a Stephen of England game to make myself feel better. Right now I'm on his grandson Baldwin II, and he's the Spawn of Satan, which is interesting to play considering that Stephen I of England has become a Saint complete with bloodline.
The Spawn of Satan, the Antichrist, the third Blois King of England is the grandson of St. King Stephen I 'the Venerable' of England.
Try to figure that shit out.
But I got the game going on my new laptop and at the moment I'm playing a Stephen of England game to make myself feel better. Right now I'm on his grandson Baldwin II, and he's the Spawn of Satan, which is interesting to play considering that Stephen I of England has become a Saint complete with bloodline.
The Spawn of Satan, the Antichrist, the third Blois King of England is the grandson of St. King Stephen I 'the Venerable' of England.
Try to figure that shit out.