Crusader Kings II - Paradox Entertainement (02/12)
- Thread starter Tellus
- Start date
I usually prefer to start as a lowly count and to build up from there, but given that I already did the Welsh-Irish Empire too many times, long live the Count of Dyfed!; I think I will give it a try. Thanks Bomber.
I've decided to do a Salian game with Henry IV and just blob the crap out of Europe, Africa, and as much of Asia Minor and the Middle East as possible. For once SCREW realism, I want to create a GERMAN Roman Empire with a puppet-Pope under the control of the GERMAN EMPEROR, the heir to CHARLEMAGNE HIMSELF!
Heil the Emperor!
Heil the Emperor!
Ireland, also called the Tutorial Island. I suggest you to try a count in Germany or Iberia, that would be a challenge.
Maybe the Duke of Portucale.
Already did an Asturias start in 769 and managed to recreate the old Gothic Kingdom, from Ceuta to Toulouse. Any suggestions for a German guy?
The Habsburgs are good to have a fine historical challenge. In Germany the game is harder because you can't expand so freely plus everyone despises you if you are just a count.
Time to create the Hapsburg Empire!!! First Upper Burgundy next the HRE!!!
Thanks for the suggestion.
@Diego I'm playing your suggestion, Emps gave the Duchy of Upper Burgundy when I asked for a title, the Duke had an encounter with Death, Regency and a revolt and thanks to mercs managed to win and revoked the titles of two counts, married the new Duke to a weak claimant to the titles of Upper and Lower Lorraine, pressed the claim to Upper Lorraine when the Duke became incapable and now I'm waiting to see what happens to the Duchess of Lower Lorraine. The HRE is fun!
Austria comes first.
Then the HRE.
Then Burgundy and Flanders.
Then Spain.
The Hungary and Milan and all the rest.
Of course The end point is yo
Secure enough of a powerbade so as to keep a lock on the HRE.
As of right now my powerbase is going this way:
Upper Burgundy First
Then Upper Lorraine
Then Dauphiné
Then whatever I managed to get my hand on!
EDIT: married the daughter of my guy to the King of France, helped him crush a revolt and now we are allies!
As of right now my powerbase is going this way:
Upper Burgundy First
Then Upper Lorraine
Then Dauphiné
Then whatever I managed to get my hand on!
Are you on the fast way to be emperor? Or maybe King of Lotharingia is more your thing?
Right now I had the mother of my guy get Lower Lorraine and he's Count of Lyon by marriage, with the possibility to gain Dauphiné, and I just placed my brother-in-laws as King of France and Duke of Bavaria respectively so I think I will go for the HRE, when I managed to put this back to elective.
I've had good news and bad news on my 'Blob the Crap out of the HRE' Game.
The good news is that in the reign of Konrad II, the HRE was able to win a major war against Byzantium over the succession, thus uniting the HRE and ERE's under a single person.
The bad news is that I forgot to turn off the cap on vassal limits, so guess who wound up creating A LOT of Kings to stave off mass-secessions?
Also Konrad had to deal with the aftermath of the First Crusade, namely adding Jerusalem to the Empire after Heinrich IV won the war, but was still known as 'the Fat'.
Konrad became known as 'the Hammer' after beating back the Muslim Jihads.
Then the hard part began, converting the Byzantine Empire to the Catholic faith, I've got most of the nobility to 'convert' but discovered that the majority of the bastards just went underground with their filthy Orthodoxy.
However due to beating the Muslims up, and near the end of Konrad's life seizing Alexandria, he became popular enough that I could tweak the Byzantine succession (since it had fallen to Gavelkind) so that it wouldn't split off after Konrad's death.
Then when Emperor Dietrich got the throne I discovered that he had secretly become a Satanist, but not a high-ranked one. At this point a bunch of nobles in both realms banded together to try and force an elective crown in Byzantium, however their leader was the Duke of Baden, and I captured him in the first month of fighting. So I was able to force them to surrender, then the Emperor sacrificed every single one of his prisoners to Satan.
He was quickly exposed as a known Devil Worshiper and assassinated in the second year of his reign, leaving the crown to his 10 year old son Siegmund.
Emperor Siegmund spent his minority fighting with his vassals, dodging assassination plots, sticking every vassal he could into the oubliette to clear out the ones who just flat out hated him due to his father.
He even married his cousin, the heiress to the Duchy of Alexandria, however the Duke openly converted to Orthodoxy and his sister murdered him, now the Emperor is married to a kinslaying cousin who just had an affair on him with a minor count.
A nasty divorce is on the horizon, especially since the Emperor has fallen into a depression because of all this.
Not to mention that the damn Italians are flipping towards the Fraticelli faith because of their heretic Queen, I had a cousin successfully seize the English crown during a messy English civil war between the Godwinsons and the Hwicies, but they lost it in two generations due to the cousin being a childless homosexual and his brother being an imbecile with a clubbed foot. Now I've got the English Kingdom under a member of the Godwin's family as a vassal and I can't decide if I want to keep them or not.
Not to mention that Heinrich IV seized the Duchy of Aquitaine early in his reign (I had some free-time) and I don't know if I want any more vassals so I might cut them lose and let France rip it apart rather than seize France as was the original plan.
Not sure if I want to work to form Rome or not, too many damn vassals...
The good news is that in the reign of Konrad II, the HRE was able to win a major war against Byzantium over the succession, thus uniting the HRE and ERE's under a single person.
The bad news is that I forgot to turn off the cap on vassal limits, so guess who wound up creating A LOT of Kings to stave off mass-secessions?
Also Konrad had to deal with the aftermath of the First Crusade, namely adding Jerusalem to the Empire after Heinrich IV won the war, but was still known as 'the Fat'.
Konrad became known as 'the Hammer' after beating back the Muslim Jihads.
Then the hard part began, converting the Byzantine Empire to the Catholic faith, I've got most of the nobility to 'convert' but discovered that the majority of the bastards just went underground with their filthy Orthodoxy.
However due to beating the Muslims up, and near the end of Konrad's life seizing Alexandria, he became popular enough that I could tweak the Byzantine succession (since it had fallen to Gavelkind) so that it wouldn't split off after Konrad's death.
Then when Emperor Dietrich got the throne I discovered that he had secretly become a Satanist, but not a high-ranked one. At this point a bunch of nobles in both realms banded together to try and force an elective crown in Byzantium, however their leader was the Duke of Baden, and I captured him in the first month of fighting. So I was able to force them to surrender, then the Emperor sacrificed every single one of his prisoners to Satan.
He was quickly exposed as a known Devil Worshiper and assassinated in the second year of his reign, leaving the crown to his 10 year old son Siegmund.
Emperor Siegmund spent his minority fighting with his vassals, dodging assassination plots, sticking every vassal he could into the oubliette to clear out the ones who just flat out hated him due to his father.
He even married his cousin, the heiress to the Duchy of Alexandria, however the Duke openly converted to Orthodoxy and his sister murdered him, now the Emperor is married to a kinslaying cousin who just had an affair on him with a minor count.
A nasty divorce is on the horizon, especially since the Emperor has fallen into a depression because of all this.
Not to mention that the damn Italians are flipping towards the Fraticelli faith because of their heretic Queen, I had a cousin successfully seize the English crown during a messy English civil war between the Godwinsons and the Hwicies, but they lost it in two generations due to the cousin being a childless homosexual and his brother being an imbecile with a clubbed foot. Now I've got the English Kingdom under a member of the Godwin's family as a vassal and I can't decide if I want to keep them or not.
Not to mention that Heinrich IV seized the Duchy of Aquitaine early in his reign (I had some free-time) and I don't know if I want any more vassals so I might cut them lose and let France rip it apart rather than seize France as was the original plan.
Not sure if I want to work to form Rome or not, too many damn vassals...
So, why is the guy in Anxi if you start in 769 a Khitan? Shouldn't he be a Chinese guy as he represents the remnants of the Tang dynasty's Central Asian adventures?
Having a bit of a blast in my current Game of thrones game as Emperor Aurion and his descendants. Even if ruling over New Valyria's a bit of chore... I tend to get a lot of revolts despite me doing my best to settle in. Still, I have dragons so it's manageable.
Recently got myself declared war on by the Queen of the Stormlands, Riverlands and the Vale as well as her allies the King of the Reach, because I still allow slavery. I do want to suppress it at one point but only atfer I've secured all the Free Cities (which I haven't done yet because I'm excessively prudent as a player...), the reason being that I don't want to be constantly raided by slavers who might think I'm not strong enough... Still, I was a bit scared especially since Essaria and Lys refused to support me in the war. But when you have dragons, it's not really hard to push back half of Westeros' armies...
I even had a sister-wife captured by the successor of the Triple Queen that I ransomed back after the war ended. To be frank, I felt kinda bad because my victory kinda put the treasury of my opponents in the gutter. I mean he basically had to pay me 1200 gold after his defeat... So I could give him 10 back in exchange for my sister-wife. Not sure it's going to help him considering he's basically at -999 and has already taken a loan he will need to repay... Pretty sure his kindgom is going to collapse...
On a side note, there probably are around 20 dragon riders in the world at the moment. The Targaryens have also kinda lost Dragonstone and I have sheltered them in my Empire.
The one thing I wished was that my game wasn't so buggy and prone to crashing... It works fine for the most part but I've been forced to reload more than once.
Recently got myself declared war on by the Queen of the Stormlands, Riverlands and the Vale as well as her allies the King of the Reach, because I still allow slavery. I do want to suppress it at one point but only atfer I've secured all the Free Cities (which I haven't done yet because I'm excessively prudent as a player...), the reason being that I don't want to be constantly raided by slavers who might think I'm not strong enough... Still, I was a bit scared especially since Essaria and Lys refused to support me in the war. But when you have dragons, it's not really hard to push back half of Westeros' armies...
I even had a sister-wife captured by the successor of the Triple Queen that I ransomed back after the war ended. To be frank, I felt kinda bad because my victory kinda put the treasury of my opponents in the gutter. I mean he basically had to pay me 1200 gold after his defeat... So I could give him 10 back in exchange for my sister-wife. Not sure it's going to help him considering he's basically at -999 and has already taken a loan he will need to repay... Pretty sure his kindgom is going to collapse...
On a side note, there probably are around 20 dragon riders in the world at the moment. The Targaryens have also kinda lost Dragonstone and I have sheltered them in my Empire.
The one thing I wished was that my game wasn't so buggy and prone to crashing... It works fine for the most part but I've been forced to reload more than once.
Finally having a go at the Game of Thrones mod.
Starting as Bronze Yohn Royce, in the Robert's Rebellion bookmark.
Robert won the war, but:
Poor Stannis got Storm's End, and Renly received Dragonstone. Until Stannis died in a freak jousting accident. Westerlands are having fun too. Tywin gave Castamere to Gerion. He also gave him Cersei! She's turned into a black widow. After Uncle Gerion died in a hunting accident, a random lowborn second hubby gave up against depression. She's now shacked up with an elderly gent from House Piper.
I'm ticking along quietly. Nicked Gulltown after fabricating a claim, and my wife and Treasurer conspired to kill an infant holder of a castle, which then fell into my lap. Married a daughter off to young Benjen Stark, but the little goat has taken one of his vassals' wife as a lover. Another Lady Stark has to put up with Snow. Snows, in fact. There were three, but pneumonia saw one off.
Oh, and for some reason, the Umbers are attacking the Night's Watch.
Starting as Bronze Yohn Royce, in the Robert's Rebellion bookmark.
Robert won the war, but:
- Jon Arryn died a natural death during the fighting.
- Denys Arryn became Lord Paramount of the Vale, and survived as did his wife and infant son
- Ned Stark died, slain by Arthur Dayne. All the other Northerners survived
- Robert married CAT?
- But not before having a child (Prince Steffon) with Lyanna. They never married, but Steffon is legitimate
- Poor Cat has only had one child, who died in infancy. Steffon is heir apparent, with the only other child of Robert being Tommen Water.
- Lyanna ran off to Pentos, and married a random Lordling
- Arthur Dayne legged it too, and is now the Iron Sword of War in Pentos
Poor Stannis got Storm's End, and Renly received Dragonstone. Until Stannis died in a freak jousting accident. Westerlands are having fun too. Tywin gave Castamere to Gerion. He also gave him Cersei! She's turned into a black widow. After Uncle Gerion died in a hunting accident, a random lowborn second hubby gave up against depression. She's now shacked up with an elderly gent from House Piper.
I'm ticking along quietly. Nicked Gulltown after fabricating a claim, and my wife and Treasurer conspired to kill an infant holder of a castle, which then fell into my lap. Married a daughter off to young Benjen Stark, but the little goat has taken one of his vassals' wife as a lover. Another Lady Stark has to put up with Snow. Snows, in fact. There were three, but pneumonia saw one off.
Oh, and for some reason, the Umbers are attacking the Night's Watch.
Further to all these shenanigans, I suddenly realised that I hadn't actually looked at what happened to the Targaryans.
- 'Ser' Rhaegar was beheaded on Robert's orders
- 'Ser' Aerys the Mad was hanged, drawn and quartered a month later
- Rhaella died of depression three years later, having been married again in the meantime
- Elia of Dorne died the same year 'of poor physique'
- Aegon and Rhaenys survived, and despite the suspicion that they are bastards (?), the later is now marrying Prince Steffon of the Iron Throne
- No Dany, and the Beggar King is kicking his heels in Volantis
Planet of Hats
Donor
Picked CK2 up again recently and got the Normans started early.
Started off as Sverker Skarfr, custom ruler of Medelpad in 769. Aggressively county-conquested the one-province minors around me in northern Sweden and Lapland until I had a power base sufficient to take on Sigurdr Ring to the south of me in a pinch. Once he got tied up in a war with someone else, I used my King-of-Sweden subjugation on him and conquered his (large) duchy, then took his capital for my own and moved in. From there, spent my first tech points buying shipyard tech, bought my first 15 ships and started the Viking Age a few years early, using the raid income to form Sweden. Spent the next few years - and the passing of the throne from Sverker the Butcher to his only son Grimr - building up a huge war chest and a pile of prestige through raiding.
Eventually, with a vast demesne and a huge army at his disposal thanks to demesne consolidation, Grimr was in a position where he could field an army of men equal to the King of the united Francias - a son of Pepin the Hunchback, as it happened. Ever ambitious, Grimr gathered the largest raiding party ever gathered in the history of the Norse and declared his intention to "go to Valland." Upwards of 17,000 men landed on Frankish shores in the late 810s; while they began with a landing in Frisia, they steadily crushed the armies of Francia, Lombardy and the Counts of Armorica and conquered their way along the coast, eventually seizing all of the northern part of Francia and banishing the Carolingians to Austrasia. Grimr, who had adopted the ways of the Catholics, declared himself High King of Valland and Sweden, made his capital in Brugge, and passed on the thrones to his son, Sverker the Magnanimous. In turn, Sverker finally settled in Valland completely and granted reign in Sweden to his trusted general, Hjalmar Thvari, effectively splitting the kingdom.
It was Sverker's son, born Hrolfr but known to history as Rollo (847-877), who embraced the Frankish language and ways and became the primary patron of Norman culture. Rollo was the first member of the line of Sverker the Butcher (the House of Écarve these days) to be born in Valland, and he grew up with a deep appreciation for the local culture and religion - though he was also renowned for his sympathy for the Jews, particularly after his great pilgrimage to the Holy City itself. Under Rollo and his son Joscelin I (877-902), the hybrid culture enjoyed a vast renaissance, forming a distinct culture unto itself.
It's now the 980s and Valland runs from Poitou to Armorica and along the coast to Denmark. The Carolingians are extinct, and the Anglo-Saxon House of Wiglafing rules in Aquitaine, Burgundy and Germany. Similarly, Asturias is ruled by the Anglo-Saxon House of Offing, while Italy is ruled by Frankish kings over a nobility mostly consisting of Italo-Lombards.
Sweden, meanwhile, fell on dire straits following the House of Écarve's departure. A vast backlash against Christianity resulted in the kingdom being eaten piecemeal not just by the surrounding Norse Pagans, but by the rising Lettigalians across the Baltic. For most of late 800s and up to about 970, most of Scandinavia was broken between Lithuania, Lettigalian Pomerania, Norway, Novgorodian Rus' (under the Radimich clan) and the Kabars, a breakaway nomadic group ethnically related to the Khazars, who at one point managed to subjugate Lithuania and all her holdings in Scandinavia. The dominant ethnic makeup in Norway consists of a mix of ethnic Scandinavians as well as Balts who have adopted Norse culture, most of whom follow Baltic paganism.
That's changed somewhat under the reign of King Gerard the Wise of Valland (970-983, ongoing). With Sweden fractured, Gerard swept into the peninsula early in his reign and seized back many of his ancestors' homelands. Most of the Norse Catholics had been wiped out, aside from the Thvari clan holding on in Croatia; in his search for Christians to entrust these lands to, Gerard put his faith in Ihanti Hannus, an ethnic Finn who had adopted Norse ways and Byzantine Christian beliefs. After giving him a crash course in the Latin Rite, Gerard set him up in Scania and began to conquer most of Sweden, eventually handing it to the House of Hannus and starting off the reign of the Fenno-Norse in Sweden.
The Middle East has been a gong show. The Abbasids have had about six decadence revolts, resulting in the Middle East being an insane patchwork. And a particularly punchy Shia revolt managed to take all of western Anatolia and even Bulgaria and Greece for awhile before now being reduced to Anatolia and Syria.
Started off as Sverker Skarfr, custom ruler of Medelpad in 769. Aggressively county-conquested the one-province minors around me in northern Sweden and Lapland until I had a power base sufficient to take on Sigurdr Ring to the south of me in a pinch. Once he got tied up in a war with someone else, I used my King-of-Sweden subjugation on him and conquered his (large) duchy, then took his capital for my own and moved in. From there, spent my first tech points buying shipyard tech, bought my first 15 ships and started the Viking Age a few years early, using the raid income to form Sweden. Spent the next few years - and the passing of the throne from Sverker the Butcher to his only son Grimr - building up a huge war chest and a pile of prestige through raiding.
Eventually, with a vast demesne and a huge army at his disposal thanks to demesne consolidation, Grimr was in a position where he could field an army of men equal to the King of the united Francias - a son of Pepin the Hunchback, as it happened. Ever ambitious, Grimr gathered the largest raiding party ever gathered in the history of the Norse and declared his intention to "go to Valland." Upwards of 17,000 men landed on Frankish shores in the late 810s; while they began with a landing in Frisia, they steadily crushed the armies of Francia, Lombardy and the Counts of Armorica and conquered their way along the coast, eventually seizing all of the northern part of Francia and banishing the Carolingians to Austrasia. Grimr, who had adopted the ways of the Catholics, declared himself High King of Valland and Sweden, made his capital in Brugge, and passed on the thrones to his son, Sverker the Magnanimous. In turn, Sverker finally settled in Valland completely and granted reign in Sweden to his trusted general, Hjalmar Thvari, effectively splitting the kingdom.
It was Sverker's son, born Hrolfr but known to history as Rollo (847-877), who embraced the Frankish language and ways and became the primary patron of Norman culture. Rollo was the first member of the line of Sverker the Butcher (the House of Écarve these days) to be born in Valland, and he grew up with a deep appreciation for the local culture and religion - though he was also renowned for his sympathy for the Jews, particularly after his great pilgrimage to the Holy City itself. Under Rollo and his son Joscelin I (877-902), the hybrid culture enjoyed a vast renaissance, forming a distinct culture unto itself.
It's now the 980s and Valland runs from Poitou to Armorica and along the coast to Denmark. The Carolingians are extinct, and the Anglo-Saxon House of Wiglafing rules in Aquitaine, Burgundy and Germany. Similarly, Asturias is ruled by the Anglo-Saxon House of Offing, while Italy is ruled by Frankish kings over a nobility mostly consisting of Italo-Lombards.
Sweden, meanwhile, fell on dire straits following the House of Écarve's departure. A vast backlash against Christianity resulted in the kingdom being eaten piecemeal not just by the surrounding Norse Pagans, but by the rising Lettigalians across the Baltic. For most of late 800s and up to about 970, most of Scandinavia was broken between Lithuania, Lettigalian Pomerania, Norway, Novgorodian Rus' (under the Radimich clan) and the Kabars, a breakaway nomadic group ethnically related to the Khazars, who at one point managed to subjugate Lithuania and all her holdings in Scandinavia. The dominant ethnic makeup in Norway consists of a mix of ethnic Scandinavians as well as Balts who have adopted Norse culture, most of whom follow Baltic paganism.
That's changed somewhat under the reign of King Gerard the Wise of Valland (970-983, ongoing). With Sweden fractured, Gerard swept into the peninsula early in his reign and seized back many of his ancestors' homelands. Most of the Norse Catholics had been wiped out, aside from the Thvari clan holding on in Croatia; in his search for Christians to entrust these lands to, Gerard put his faith in Ihanti Hannus, an ethnic Finn who had adopted Norse ways and Byzantine Christian beliefs. After giving him a crash course in the Latin Rite, Gerard set him up in Scania and began to conquer most of Sweden, eventually handing it to the House of Hannus and starting off the reign of the Fenno-Norse in Sweden.
The Middle East has been a gong show. The Abbasids have had about six decadence revolts, resulting in the Middle East being an insane patchwork. And a particularly punchy Shia revolt managed to take all of western Anatolia and even Bulgaria and Greece for awhile before now being reduced to Anatolia and Syria.