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Readingaccount posted:It's not a fully legit state though. Piedmont is legally ours under the Iron Crown. Give an Hauteville kingdom to non-Hautevilles? Non-Hautevilles who took a Hauteville kingdom in the first place? Surely you jest.
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Nov 28, 2013 03:02
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Readingaccount posted:So fellow Sicilians, personally I'd like to keep Egypt, but if we have to give it away how about giving it to the KoJ? It'd transform their polity to a sword pointed at the heart of Islam.
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Nov 28, 2013 03:02
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Chapter Thirty-Six: Roberto's Ambition (1367-1372) With his territorial goals effectively accomplished, Roberto spends more time at home in Palermo, continuing the Sicilian tradition of royal support for the arts.  As he grows older, though, he is confronted by two problems. The first is the ongoing discontent in his North African kingdoms, and the split in the Curia Regis over what should be done with them. The second is that of his two bastard sons, both of whom seek some sort of inheritence.  Roberto manages to arrange prestigious marriages for both of his bastards, hitting upon a new plan. His illegitimate sons will rule North Africa, but both will be vassals to his legitimate son – whom he will convince the Pope to crown Emperor.  On the way to Rome, however, Roberto suddenly falls ill.  He stops in Naples to recover, but it is too late. The king dies, and his dream of a Sicilin Empire may die with him.  News of the king's death immediately sparks unrest in North Africa, and it seems inevitable that some vassal or another will declare himself King of Egypt or Africa.  The new king, Roberto IV, is only 14, and so it is Baldovino, the Duke of Ferrara, who takes control of the realm as regent.  Baldovino recognizes the necessity of Roberto's plan, but there is no longer any real chance of having young Roberto crowned as an emperor without his father's influence. Instead, he decides to immediately legitimize young king's half-brothers.  Cesare, the elder, is named King of Egypt.  The other, Ruggiero, is named King of Africa.  Finally, the Duke of Aswan, a distant cousin, is named King of Nubia.  King Cesare's Egypt is a smaller, less powerful kingdom than the one that once dominated North African affairs, being limited to more traditionally Egyptian lands.  The Kingdom of Africa, on the other hand, enjoys its greatest existence as an independent state, stretching from Tunisia to Cyrenaica.  Young Roberto retains control of nearly the entire Italian peninsula, however, along with the surrounding islands. Additionally, the island of Cyprus remains under Sicilian control.  Almost immediately, Ruggiero and Cesare find themselves in conflict. Roberto, however, is in no participation to intervene.  Baldovino manages to bring stability to Sicily as Roberto comes of age and can rule Sicily in his own right.  Roberto is a pleasant young man. Kind and friendly, a childhood in comfort in Palermo has left him with an appetite for knowledge but not for the practical details of running a kingdom. More than that, he has a strong distaste for war and conflict.  Already married, his young bride Amburga is a daughter of the King of Galicia. Quite unlike her husband, she is reserved, unpleasant, and keenly interested in the governance of the realm. Before long, she is handling many affairs of state for her husband.  Though he doesn't seem to have the makings of greatness, the king is quickly accepted by his vassals, thanks in part to his personal charm.  Unlike his father, Roberto remains absolutely faithful to his wife.  In fact, the two become very close, despite their differing personalities, and eventually it becomes clear that theirs is a marriage of love.  Roberto's fidelity is rewarded with the birth of his son, whom he names Roberto after both himself and his father.  The good news is soured with news of the rebellion of the Duke of Cyprus. The revolt of a single distant island is hardly a grave concern for Roberto, however.  Shockingly, however, many of his other vassals, particularly in the north, use the revolt as an excuse for their own rebellion. The kingdom his father built has been put in jeopardy overnight. 
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Nov 28, 2013 03:07
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Goddammit Cyprus, why would you even want independence? Muslims are right next door! Also, two things: 1) Does that red outline around Hungary in the last picture mean that we are at war with them? 2) How did we gain that tiny bit of Tunis?
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Nov 28, 2013 03:19
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Can we call in our half brothers?
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Nov 28, 2013 03:23
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Bot 02 posted:Goddammit Cyprus, why would you even want independence? Muslims are right next door! 1) Yeah, I sometimes join minor wars that I don't mention in the LP because not much happens and there's no good way to fit them into the narrative. 2) One of our vassals inherited it almost immediately after we gave it up. Considering that it's actually the city of Tunis itself and thus the best province in the Kingdom of Africa, it wasn't a bad bit of luck. the JJ posted:Can we call in our half brothers? We can call in any and all of our allies. Whether they'll actually join the war, let alone send troops, is another matter.
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Nov 28, 2013 03:44
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You glossed over the most important detail: Serbia-Nicaea-Genoa lives on!
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Nov 28, 2013 04:11
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A very happy Crusader Kings 2 Hanukkah to everyone!
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Nov 28, 2013 04:37
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rlloyd3 posted:A very happy Crusader Kings 2 Hanukkah to everyone! You're giving me déjà vu by posting this in multiple Paradox LP threads 
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Nov 28, 2013 04:45
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Civilized Fishbot posted:You're giving me déjà vu by posting this in multiple Paradox LP threads :P I follow this LP much closer, due to Wiz's...erratic update schedule, but figured that topic needed to share the love. "Our Jews" and such.
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Nov 28, 2013 04:55
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Ugh, there goes the capability of Egypt and Jerusalem to greatly expand against the infidel. Most reasonable hope now is that they don't lose Nubia and more chunks of Jerusalem.
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Nov 28, 2013 08:12
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Readingaccount posted:Ugh, there goes the capability of Egypt and Jerusalem to greatly expand against the infidel. Most reasonable hope now is that they don't lose Nubia and more chunks of Jerusalem. To be honest, it was never really a possibility. I would have had to save-edit just to give the kingdom to a foreign king, and I didn't feel it would have made any sense in-character anyway. Roberto had no personal ties to the Kings of Jerusalem and no particular reason to care about them - never mind that the Egyptian d'Hautevilles had been rivals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem for over a century before Roberto's inheritance. Remember that Nubia doesn't actually border any infidels (just heretics) and Jerusalem has been holding out for a very long time (and has honestly not even been threatened very much to this point - the various Muslim states haven't really tried too hard to take it back). So I don't think you have too much to worry about on those fronts just yet.
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Nov 28, 2013 08:29
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With the Middle East in Catholic hands, who knows what EU4 will look like? It will be glorious!
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Nov 28, 2013 08:38
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Oh right, Abyssinia is still going strong. And yeah, we have ruled Egypt for a long time after all in rivalry against Jerusalem, it doesn't make enough sense internally to destroy that part of our history, even if it's in the best interest of Christendom to somehow unite Jerusalem and Egypt. I was actually primarily concerned about expansion, it'll be exceedingly harder for Egypt and Jerusalem to do so separately than united (Jerusalem managed to expand quite far east before being pushed back), but hopefully Egypt can conquer Jerusalem rapidly at the beginning of EU4. Hey, looks like Jerusalem has managed to retake Jordan! Readingaccount fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Nov 30, 2013 |
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Nov 28, 2013 11:34
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Chapter Thirty-Seven: Fragmentation (1373-1380) Neither of Roberto's brothers answer his call to arms; his only ally is the King of Hellas, who promises to send a small force to aid the loyalists.  Against the advice of those around him, Roberto decides to order an invasion of Cyprus itself, hoping that crushing the rebellion's supposed leader will end it.  Most of his forces remain in the north, where the rebels have already secured a territorial advantage.  The rebels are relatively uncoordinated, however, and often unwilling to support each other in battle.  The loyalists win a major victory over Spoletan forces at Ravenna by taking advantage of this lack of cooperation.  The loyalist strategy of picking off the rebel armies one by one has a downside, however, as the rest of the rebel armies successfully take several loyalist cities.  Eventually, a decisive battle appears imminent, with two roughly evenly-matched armies prepared to meet.  But at the last moment, one rebel army is abandoned by the others once again. While it results in another loyalist victory, it buys more time for rebel sieges across Italy.  More disastrously, the island of Sicily itself has been invaded by the rebels. The king's decision to invade Cyprus is considered the cause, removing the ability to hold the Strait of Messina.  Panicked by the idea of Palermo being captured by the rebels, Roberto hastily makes peace, once again against the advice of most of those around him.  The peace leaves the kingdom fragmented, particularly in the north, and puts Sicily in its weakest position in a century.  Though embarrassed by his failure to keep his kingdom together, Roberto has little trouble returning to routine in Palermo. He retreats even further from affairs of state, turning his attention to the arts.  This goes over poorly with his vassals, who want nothing more than to resume the war and take back the newly-independent duchies.  At the urging of Queen Amburga in particular, Roberto finally agrees to attack the Duchess of Verona, the most powerful of the vassals.  This time Roberto's brothers agree to help, though it is not likely to be necessary. The Duchess, on the other hand, fails to gather the support of her former allies.  The Veronese have yet to recover from the rebellion, and Sicilian armies are able to quickly besiege their major cities.  Treviso is the first city to surrender without a fight.  The cities continue to fall without a major battle, including Amalfi, the duchess's most significant holding in the south.  Eventually, the duchess is stripped of most of her titles and forced to swear fealty to the king once again.  The victory does much to reunite Sicilian lands in the north, but the Duchy of Spoleto still presents a major obstacle.  Once again, Queen Amburga wastes little time in convincing Roberto to mount another attack, despite the damage to the king's reputation incurred by reneging so quickly on his peace settlement.  The Siclian armies win a major victory at Forli, crushing the Spoletans.  Before long, they have decisively taken control of the rebel duchy.  Like his former ally, the duke is forced to give up most of his lands and swear fealty to Roberto.  With the victory, the Sicilian realm is largely restored only a few years after the original catastrophe, and Roberto once again has the approval of his vassals.  In December of 1380, word reaches Sicily of a new Mongol horde. This one, however, sounds stranger – and perhaps more threatening – than its predecessors.  Maidar Khan has arrived. 
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Nov 29, 2013 21:10
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Alright, I really want to see how this all plays out now.
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Nov 29, 2013 21:15
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Only 23, eh? Hopefully Maidar turns stuff upside down out East.
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Nov 29, 2013 21:19
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A most interesting development. Viscardus, could you post a map of the East so that we know just how much the new horde will shake things up?
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Nov 29, 2013 21:31
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I... I didn't even know that was possible. Is that really an event included in CK2+? In any case, this is likely to cause some chaos in the east. Eager to see how it goes!
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Nov 29, 2013 22:01
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I couldn't find anything online for this guy, does CKII+ have randomly generated hordes? E: so the Buddha has returned as a conqueror 
Triskelli fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Nov 29, 2013 |
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Nov 29, 2013 22:06
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Luhood posted:I... I didn't even know that was possible. Is that really an event included in CK2+? No. I created it (including adding Buddhism) myself. I wanted to make an interesting alternate-history version of Timur. Tevery Best posted:A most interesting development. Viscardus, could you post a map of the East so that we know just how much the new horde will shake things up? Don't worry, there will be plenty of maps in the next update. This was just meant to be a teaser.
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Nov 29, 2013 22:08
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Viscardus posted:Maidar Khan has arrived. This is incredibly awesome. What's his trait in between genius and diligent? Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Nov 29, 2013 |
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Nov 29, 2013 23:03
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Tall. It's a CK2+ trait.
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Nov 29, 2013 23:13
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Serbia what are you doing over there
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Nov 29, 2013 23:41
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Oh my oh my. I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.
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Nov 29, 2013 23:45
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So his traits are: Brilliant Strategist, Genius, Tall, Diligent, Ambitious, Zealous, Proud, Patient, and Charitable (Martial traits: Organizer, and Unyielding) Skillwise, 19 Diplomacy makes him a born diplomat who won't have much trouble winning over vassals, 28 Martial means he's basically Alexander or Genghis Khan reborn, 15 Stewardship means he knows how to handle money, 19 Intrigue means he's a clever, conniving sun of a bitch, and 18 learning mean he has broad knowledge of worldly and spiritual affairs. So he's brilliant in every respect, has the temperament of a conquering hero, and stands poised to reshape west Asia, and he's only 23. I don't know Viscardus, don't you think you might have overdone it?
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Nov 30, 2013 00:00
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Duckbag posted:So his traits are: Brilliant Strategist, Genius, Tall, Diligent, Ambitious, Zealous, Proud, Patient, and Charitable (Martial traits: Organizer, and Unyielding) Timur is basically the same only with a club foot IIRC. I guess you have a good point about him being 20 years younger though! If he wants to have awesome alt-history Buddhist states in Central Asia and India I guess it makes more sense this way.
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Nov 30, 2013 00:02
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Duckbag posted:So his traits are: Brilliant Strategist, Genius, Tall, Diligent, Ambitious, Zealous, Proud, Patient, and Charitable (Martial traits: Organizer, and Unyielding) 23 is kind of anomalously young, especially since I don't think he gets the young debuff? Leaders tend to be fairly old, honestly. That said, it's not implausible; it happened to Alexander the Great.
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Nov 30, 2013 00:28
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So basically what you're all saying is that this guy is Alexander the Great in reverse? Looks fun 
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Nov 30, 2013 00:28
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Duckbag posted:So his traits are: Brilliant Strategist, Genius, Tall, Diligent, Ambitious, Zealous, Proud, Patient, and Charitable (Martial traits: Organizer, and Unyielding) You left out that he has apparently proclaimed himself to be the Maitreya Buddha, arrived to take a more forceful approach to the whole "parting with material possessions and worldly desires" thing. Of course, this is CK2, so he'll probably die in combat while chasing down 50 peasant revolters 
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Nov 30, 2013 00:31
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Duckbag posted:So his traits are: Brilliant Strategist, Genius, Tall, Diligent, Ambitious, Zealous, Proud, Patient, and Charitable (Martial traits: Organizer, and Unyielding) I'm honestly not terribly concerned with his exact stats. I deliberately gave him good base stats, obviously, and the fact that he's a Genius and has largely good traits means that they end up quite high. Are they too high? I don't know; does it matter? None of them are absurdly high except Martial (and even then, he doesn't have the highest Martial of any character we've seen in the LP). The point was to create a noticeably extraordinary character - much like Timur himself, or any other great historical conqueror. I don't see the point in worrying about whether he's slightly too good at Intrigue or whatever - the stats are a game mechanic with flavour implications, not a strict guide to exactly how good someone is at every exact thing. As for the age, yeah, you might have a bit of a point, but I wanted to distinguish him further from Timur and I felt that making him 12 years younger (than Timur is when he shows up in CK2 - Maidar showed up a little later than Timur did historically) would be one way of doing that. I'm not sure why that's so ridiculous in an age of monarchy - there are plenty of examples of conquerors inheriting a power base at very young ages (you mentioned one yourself). It took Timur longer because he had to work his way into a position of power over the Chagatai Khans - he was already a respected warlord by 23. Most importantly, he has very good stats and is young because I'd rather he be too successful than totally unsuccessful. The alternate history is more interesting if he successfully conquers Persia than if he loses a war to the Seljuks and dies of "natural causes" at 30. Edit: YF pointed out to me on Skype that the event text doesn't say anything about him inheriting power and might give the wrong impression. I wrote it before I decided to distinguish him from Timur in that way, so I can see how it might be misleading. I may go back and change it at some point. Viscardus fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Nov 30, 2013 |
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Nov 30, 2013 00:36
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Wow, that character trait wasn't kidding when it said craven. Thank goodness we have Amburga.
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Nov 30, 2013 02:28
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Down with the King, love live the Queen!
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Nov 30, 2013 02:30
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Maidar Khanate sounds interesting, especially since Super-Rum seems to be pretty much dead these days. ...I do miss Super-Rum. Also randomized steppe hordes with varying different possible religions sounds like it would be really interesting. Instead of Timur you might end up with a horde that adopted Zoroastrianism or you might find a Gnostic horde. Rejected Fate fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Nov 30, 2013 |
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Nov 30, 2013 02:57
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I wasn't trying to knock your modding, Visc -- if anything I admire your audacity and appreciate you trying to keep the game interesting after a couple centuries of easy growth. I just think he might be a little too perfect -- characters with a few flaws are usually more interesting. I'm sure the random number generator will help you out with that though.
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Nov 30, 2013 03:55
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Duckbag posted:I wasn't trying to knock your modding, Visc -- if anything I admire your audacity and appreciate you trying to keep the game interesting after a couple centuries of easy growth. I just think he might be a little too perfect -- characters with a few flaws are usually more interesting. I'm sure the random number generator will help you out with that though. I think he works best as a perfect flawless übermensch, as it's not like he's the main character that we'll be following - we'll still be looking at the Hautevilles, who have been dealing with competent-yet-flawed people since the start of the LP. Now we see how they deal with a perfect
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Nov 30, 2013 03:58
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Civilized Fishbot posted:I think he works best as a perfect flawless übermensch, as it's not like he's the main character that we'll be following - we'll still be looking at the Hautevilles, who have been dealing with competent-yet-flawed people since the start of the LP. Now we see how they deal with a perfect Especially since even he won't be around for very long in the grand scheme of things, his inevitably flawed descendents will contrast against how loving great HE was. Rejected Fate posted:Also randomized steppe hordes with varying different possible religions sounds like it would be really interesting. Instead of Timur you might end up with a horde that adopted Zoroastrianism or you might find a Gnostic horde. Nestorianism was relatively popular in the far east and I think there were a couple mongol tribes that had adopted it at the time of genghis khan, so it'd certainly be a nice possibility to have mongols show up as NESTORIUS'S REVENGE. reignonyourparade fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Nov 30, 2013 |
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Nov 30, 2013 04:05
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Highly recommend anyone interested in a great read check out Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. It's a fantastic book. I've been meaning to read his The Secret History of the Mongol Queens but haven't gotten around to it yet. Weatherford tells great stories about the Mongols, but my personal favorite involves this French emissary, some kind of cleric IIRC (it's been a while) [EDIT: William of Rubruck, a Franciscan Monk]. He arrives in Mongke Khan's court just in time to participate in a debate Mongke has organized between Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist clerics about their respective faiths, and the French guy gets stuck on the Christian team along with a bunch of Nestorian Mongols. Hilarity ensues and they all end up broing out and getting drunk together and forgetting the argument (despite the Islamic prohibition of alcohol and the Buddhist prohibition against monks drinking). The best ecumenical interfaith dialogue, and Weatherford makes it clear that only Mongke Khan's political authority and sanctioning of it allowed such peaceful dialogue of contentious subjects to take place. There's a great story earlier on about Genghis Khan in the sack of Bukhara (one of the very few sacks he personally participated in) when he assembles the leaders of the city in the mosque and Genghis, a Tengriist sky-worshipper, was puzzled about the idea of holding religious services inside where one cannot see the sky. Patter Song fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Nov 30, 2013 |
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Nov 30, 2013 04:52
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Starting to want us to adopt Women only succession laws.
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Nov 30, 2013 07:38
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Hmmm, does the presence of Maidar mean he's conquered Khorasan and the western parts of India, and perhaps halted the process of conversion in southeast Asia? If so and he is wildly successful it could mean Islam loses out almost as badly as Orthodox Christianity in this timeline, being confined to Africa and parts of Russia (that probably won't survive), without even Egypt at that. Probably a good thing for us in terms of expanding in the Middle East (if we survive him and his dynasty) and Africa, but it might also invigorate the remaining muslims to explore and colonize westwards. Readingaccount fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Nov 30, 2013 |
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Nov 30, 2013 08:07
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