Crusader Kings II - Paradox Entertainement (02/12)

Rognvald

Rognvald

Holy shit, I forgot how epic Norse characters can be.

I just played Sigurd Ring and Ragnar Lothbrook, and damn it was fun.

I roleplayed Sigurd as an ambitious ruler, with goals of conquest. It started out as simply a conquest of Sweden, but then I saw an opportunity to force the Danes to yield. By then, Sigurd’s reputation was already high enough among the Norse that the petty Norwegians submitted to vassalisation. After that, it was just waiting to craft that high prestige for that custom Imperial title.

Ragnar, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less about expanding the already established Empire. He was all about Glory, fighting and raiding on foreign shores and becoming heavily involved in the Wolf Warriors (who were headed initially by his MOM). He would fight countless duels, eventually honing his skills to a personal combat skill high of 167 (!). When the chance came to create the reformed Norse religion, Ragnar opted for autonomy- he didn’t want religious authority. He would eventually die a Legend after going on a rampage through the Byzantine Empire, slaying several of the best duelists they had before succumbing to his wounds.
 

Codae

So I'm doing the tutorial scenario (1066, Alfonso VI of Leon). As suggested, I reunited the western Jimena kingdoms through murder, and passed them off to my son. I've had some successes since, but nothing too dramatic AFAICT.

The crazy stuff is happening elsewhere. Let's start with France. ITTL, King Philip only managed to sire daughters. This meant that his heir was his brother Hugues, who for some reason received a royal invitation to move to Leon. He brought his young son Henri with him, who easily adapted to his environment and started going by Enrique. Then Hugues had another son, and named him Henri. This younger son also acculturated, giving me two courtiers named "Enrique Huguesez Capet". For fun, I married Enrique Huguesez the Elder off matrilineally, into the house of Borgona (a.k.a. random courtier I granted a county in the hopes that he would die rather than have three daughters). When Enrique Huguesez the Younger matured, I had a young woman of my dynasty available, so he married matrilineally into the house of Jimena.

Hugues predeceased his brother, so Enrique Huguesez the Elder went off to be king of France. I had hopes that he would die sonless and pass the throne to his brother, but instead he was deposed by his vassals in favor of Robert the Conqueror, from the Burgundian cadet line. ("The Conqueror" in this case refers to his conquest of the Irish county of Breifne as an adventurer. His career as king of France is obviously no more important.) Now I hoped for a similar rebellion to enthrone Enrique Huguesez the Younger, or else for an opportunity to press his claim against someone other than a French king with a trait-based bonus to national manpower (for instance, his son, who was in the prison of the Count of Nevers for some reason I never totally ascertained--my best guess is as a POW in some subnational succession law war).

Now, at some point, France abandoned Salic Law. Thus Robert's heir was his imprisoned son Rorgues, and his heir was his daughter Valence. Robert had no other descendants. I wanted to make sure that Valence's line would be as weak as possible a rival to Enrique Huguesez the Younger. So I offered her a Muslim in marriage (the family of the Wali of Alcobazas, unusually for the leading citizens of the taifas, hung around my court after I conquered their area), and she accepted. Alas, Enrique Huguesez the Younger did not outlive King Robert, sustaining fatal wounds during the conquest of Toledo, and his claim died with him.

So I got a few more claims in place. I had the senior Burgundian matrilineally married into my family, and when I saw that Valence's daughter Maha had converted to Catholicism, I had her betrothed to my direct heir. Her son Raf was still Sunni, though. But then, suddenly, Valence was widowed, and she remarried and started having more children. So I assassinated her, and France-Valencia (Robert and Rorgues had been pretty successful reconquistadores) passed into Muslim hands. That was pretty cool. It also gave me the opportunity for a holy war that enabled me to form the Empire of Hispania.

Now France is kind of falling apart. Raf made Valencia his primary title, for some reason, and also changed the succession to an agnatic law. The duchies of Gascony and Toulouse won their independence, and he's suffering two or three holy wars from his neighbors. And he's not even an adult yet.

Meanwhile, in other Christian-Muslim strife, the Fatimids just managed to reconquer the Kingdom of Jerusalem. They've left most of the firangi nobles in place, though, including the former King, who's just been demoted to Emir. He's acting as a loyal vassal to the Sultan now, helping with a holy war against the Byzantines. He's also excommunicated, but I honestly don't know if that's related.

A few years back, I checked in on the Byzantines, by the way. The Emperor was a Bogomilist, and they're literally having a five-way civil war for the throne. Said Emperor has an alliance with the Queen of Hungary, who was suffering a three-way civil war. At present, one of the Hungarian rebellions has ended, but all four Byzantine pretenders are going strong.

Incidentally, Emperor Fernando has a weak claim to Hungary, so I have an excuse to get involved in that mess. Do you think it's worth pressing it?
 

Quisquidubietcur

Codae said:
Incidentally, Emperor Fernando has a weak claim to Hungary, so I have an excuse to get involved in that mess. Do you think it's worth pressing it?
Click to expand...

Since weak claims can only be pressed during war (and if I remember correctly, they're also uninheritable if you don't press it), you should probably go for it.
 
Neoteros

Neoteros

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The ASB forum is leaking, guys. :p
 
Lord Insane

Lord Insane

Mostly the Hermetics have inventions that begin to appear or spread in the last two centuries of CK2's timeframe or just after - plate armour, spectacles, a cipher disc, the handgun (assuming it is a matchlock or something like that). The magnetic compass seems to be the one that spread the earliest.
AvatarOfKhaine said:
What does the handgun give as an artifact? I assume personal combat skill and other stuff.
Click to expand...
+1 monthly prestige, +25 personal combat skill (which IIRC is only equalled by the prosthetic leg, which gives that much to compensate for the required One-Legged trait's whopping -30 personal combat skill), +20% moral damage. And, as noted, altered duel descriptions and similar.
 

herkles

hmm, I been thinking of maybe making some wikiboxes for my Russian AAR, I been currently doing. Especially since I have done quite a bit of world building of how this Russia is shapping out, as well as some of the more interesting things that have happened; such as French HRE and Manichean Hungary.
 
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