Romanos & Julius - the last true Feudal Emperors
(Although of course the Byzantine/Roman Empire was never truly feudal, the control over the western lands was at least in part built on feudal principles).
The time. Soon, it will be 1444 - conversion time.
This is us. We chose stewardship - a focus I have grown rather fond of and would be more fond if it would not always cause your rulers to be stressed out and/or depressed.
The Northern territories.
Roman Empire proper.
The southern territories. Revolts and conversions from orthodox to paganism weakened the tribes and our vassals expanded there now.
With that, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work:
Yes, we'll pay.
Ugh. Stressed out with a health malus already.
More cases. We paid.
Well, at least our subjects appreciated our efforts.
Why not? Let's try it. After all, our new Nordic wife suggested it....
...that's not a castle. That is a huge giant fortress. Holy crap, those huge walls have to be at least a hundred meters high.
We held summer fairs:
and held court feasts:
DUNGEON. AND THEN OFF WITH HIS HEAD.
Catholicism reared its ugly head again and was crushed. I love the title for the rebel.
HERESY WILL BE ROOTED OUT.
Our wife, who is also the finance minister, is proving to be very good at affairs of state.
There was one war - we took the important city of Timbuktu. It was only logical and having this important slave trading hub would be great for our economy.
Perfidious Albion (whose Queen had actually converted to Judaism) inherited some territories in Wendland.
Sadly, our swedish wife died of the slow fever much too soon.
Well, this is a tricky one.
We finally managed to get the last reform passed:
Hooray. Because from now on, war would only be waged by the state, not by the vassals, who had lost their most important rights with this reform.
We married our son to a converted German TRUE GREEK.
COMET SIGHTED.
Unfortunately, in the year 1444, Romanos died from slow fever as well, following his wife.
Julius IV took over.
As it was 1444 already, it was time to convert and say goodbye to this game.
Let us recap: We went from controlling a single county in Sicily
to this:
larger version
larger versionThe frontiers of the Empire:
Rhine and Limes:
larger version
larger versionDanube, Pannonia, Moldavia and Hungary:
larger versionThe wild South:
larger versionAt the end, let us check the score:
We pretty much beat everybody. And that should be no wonder considering the achievements:
- Restored the Roman Empire
- Restored the unity of the Christian Church
- Restored the limes and the Rhine frontier, exactly 1000 years after the Rhine had been abandoned.
- Conquered Persia and Arabia
- nearly completely wiping out Islam
- Crushing the Ilkhanate, Golden Horde and Timurids
- Switched from a feudal state where everybody could wage war on everybody to a semi-modern renaissance state with great bureaucracy and rule of law
- Integrated the conquered people into our realm instead of wiping them out
- Ended the threat of viking raiders by civilizing them and turning Sweden into a cornerstone of our realm.
In closing, let me thank all of you for reading and commenting. You made it worthwhile and much more fun than if I would be just playing it alone.
TL, DR: We're on to EU IV.
