The Thanasiad [CKII LP] [NO 56k]

[Thanas]

I also got to say the following:
Playing as king of sicily was a lot more fun. There you got to go wild in upgrading stuff, conquer foreign realms pretty much as you pleased and in general, it felt more hands on. The Empire is way harder to play. Reforms take a lot to implement. It takes about half a year to assemble a decent force and react to large changes. There is way more micromanagement. In general, playing the kingdom of sicily felt like a sports car. Playing the empire feels like driving a tank - it is large and nothing will hurt you that much, but it takes a lot to get going.

Don't get me wrong, it is awesome reconquering the Roman Empire, but it feels a lot more sluggish. I suppose it has to due to balance, but playing Sicily somehow suited me a bit better. Maybe that will change as time goes by.

[Kinyo]

((I know what you mean about playing as an empire. Managing vassals can be made a little easier by raising kingdoms and handing them out but this does remove your influence in larger areas. On the whole if I am playing as an Empire I tend to ruler designer in a challenge like ruling Byzantium as a catholic and then expanding the borders while fighting off independence and religious revolts.))

The last two heads of the House of Thanas had grand lives indeed but they have built up substantial momentum that we cannot squander. The people who rest north of the Danube need to be brought to heel under their crown for if the lands do not recognise our overlordship then sooner or later someone else will and letting a threat grow out of idleness is something we can ill afford.

I propose a campaign against the remaining independent Bulgarian lords. It should give our vassals something to focus on that isn't us and we can acquire more land to parcel out to supportive members of the aristocracy to counter those agitating against us. Alternatively, if it where the Basileus' desire, the obtained lands could fund the treasury directly as a part of the Imperial Domain.

((Would it be possible to know what titles you are looking at keeping with the main character and which you would be handing out to others/to sons i.e I saw Thrace is now part of your demense but would Sicily always be handed to the heir until he takes the throne?))

[Thanas]

The last two heads of the House of Thanas had grand lives indeed but they have built up substantial momentum that we cannot squander. The people who rest north of the Danube need to be brought to heel under their crown for if the lands do not recognise our overlordship then sooner or later someone else will and letting a threat grow out of idleness is something we can ill afford.

I propose a campaign against the remaining independent Bulgarian lords. It should give our vassals something to focus on that isn't us and we can acquire more land to parcel out to supportive members of the aristocracy to counter those agitating against us.

I won't attack them. My aim is to recreate the Roman Empire in the ~400 borders. No lands will be attacked until threats force me to.
I am not going to stop my vassals from attacking them though.

Alternatively, if it where the Basileus' desire, the obtained lands could fund the treasury directly as a part of the Imperial Domain.

Nah, too poor and our money is better spent on upgrading Constantinople.

((Would it be possible to know what titles you are looking at keeping with the main character and which you would be handing out to others/to sons i.e I saw Thrace is now part of your demense but would Sicily always be handed to the heir until he takes the throne?))

Thrace is now part of the demesne. Sicily would be handed over to a loyal familly member, our heir is better kept close by (you'll see why in the next update). I will probably prefer giving the heir a county or castle in Constantinople or Thrace, like Blachernae.

[Dominus Atheos]

What all mods are you using?

[Thanas]

HIP and Unique Buildings mod.

[LaCroix]

I won't attack them. My aim is to recreate the Roman Empire in the ~400 borders. No lands will be attacked until threats force me to.
I am not going to stop my vassals from attacking them though.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 400_AD.png
Image broke layout - changed to link...

These borders?

Then we should put our future eggs in the basket labeled "sweeping down Oriens, and towards Aegyptus". They are heathens, so we should see no obvious problems with the Christians intervening, a lot of piety incoming to create more kingdoms, and the lands are wealthy enough to generate some money for our coffers, if I'm not mistaken.

Also, freeing Jerusalem (and maybe creating the kingdom of Jerusalem, while we're at it) will improve our standing with the rest of the world immensely.

[Thanas]

Yes, though it will be somewhat slow going. HIP adds a negative cooldown to holy wars, so you can only wage one every five years plus the 10 year peace timer is still there. Maybe the vassals will take care of it more....we'll see.

[LaCroix]

Well, there is more than one muslim nation, right? So you could go to war with each one in a, say, 3-5 year rythm. That should wittle them down, nicely. (Depending on alliances and stuff destroying our neat shedule for world domination.)

[Thanas]

Holy Wars, stabbings and pirates, oh my.


This is us. We are a MASTER SEDUCER.
This is both the best and the stupidest focus around. For once, if the AI chooses it, the AI character will almost certainly get genital warts and legitimize pointless children bred with the stupidest and ugliest women around.


A grand tournament was held. Hooray.

Let's do seduction right. We identified a genius attractive female.




...well then. That was easy.



An attack on Constantinople? Have the sicilians rebelled again? Has some dwarf called Tyrion made mischief?


Our Greek fire is gone? NOOOOOOO.
(suspicions about Tyrion having to do with this increase).


We momentarily stop slaughtering every dwarf in the kingdom.
We decide to go with the spies - if they got Greek fire, an attack is most likely suicidal.


...a pirate princess? Well.....


The Basileios does not deal with pirates. Or at least he will backstab them.



*Cue maniacal laughter*


So, pirate king, how do you like your new lodgings?

Well, let's see if we can put your daughter to good use.


A hot hedonistic pirate princess. And we are the master seducer of the kingdom....you're thinking what I am thinking?

How to seduce a Pirate Princess.
Step 1: Free her father and give him an honorary post.


Step 2: Have a midnight snack.



With these isssues settled to our satisfaction (hehehehehe) we decided to look at the bigger picture.

We needed to conquer these terrritories to gain the next step in our reconquest of the Roman Empire.

But first we reconstituted the Varangian Guard.

They look badass. (I love how the game has all these little quirks and models for special troops).

We started our reconquest with Corsica.


...and simultaneously declared war against Hravtska (Croatia) which for some reason had inherited Sardinae
(Actually, turned out they had inherited it when they had been taken over by the same dynasty as Lombardia, which also explained why they were always allied).

...we defeated the first army sent against us.




Confirmed: The AI is idiotic. Instead of consolidating their two 10k stacks in one location, it sent them against us piecemeal (I suppose they didn't have enough ships, but this is unlikely considering they got one merchant republic - Genoa - and several coastal towns, which should easily net them 200+ ships). We thus gained both islands and gave them to our brother.

Meanwhile, our wife apparently did not like us shacking up with a Pirate Princess.

Well, you can guess what happens next.

We divorced her and banished her to Russia.

....and since we needed a new wife....

ALL HAIL THE PIRATE PRINCESS EMPRESS.

[Thanas]

BEWARE OF DWARF RACE DRIVERS

After celebrating our honeymoon (presumably by plundering Infidel galleys from Jerusalem to Egypt) we returned to Constantinople.

Well, we are insane daring enough to marry a pirate, we are daring enough to race. We shall trust the DRD (Dwarf Race Driver).



ALL HAIL US. GREATEST RACE DRIVER IN HISTORY. (Some lout named Michaelos Schumacherios disagreed and was promptly stabbed to death by our Pirate Empress).


.....everybody deserves a second chance, no?


I wonder what the stench was like.....


Everybody loves a master seducing, race-winning Basileios.


Meanwhile, in other parts of Europe...

Seljuk....sounds dangerous. Wait.....where did he end up? In what court?

THE HERETIC LAND-STEALING POPE IS CONSPIRING WITH THE TURKS.
(not really. The game oftentimes will place Seljuk in western courts - like the pope - because the programmers forgot to include a line having him show up in muslim courts only. As it is, I chuckle at the idea of the Pope welcoming and supporting a tribesmen from the steppes. And how did he get to Rome anyway? Black magic?)

Back at Constantinople...

...this better not misfire hilariously as the previous ones....


FUCK YOU. GET BACK HERE SO I CAN HIT YOU WITH MY MACE.

TELL ME WHY, YOU LITTLE SHIT.

Oooh....that....well. Hmm. Suddenly I feel pity for the guy.

We freed him. [RP]and commissioned him to rebuilt the former race teams. After all, we will rebuilt Rome after all[/RP]

Our peace treaty with Croatia had expired, so we attacked them once again.


Yeah....you can guess how it went.


The vassals were happy with my maid-seducing, pirate-loving, race-driving, dwarf-pardoning ways.

One great stench remained however. Previously, our dynasty had been forced to surrender the heartland of Armenia to the Persians. We now felt strong enough to erase that defeat.

I was impressed with this war. Either by design or by luck, it played out exactly as most historical wars over Armenia did - no huge battles, just one side being quicker and seizing the strategic points, so that the only way to get into Armenia was to attack into mountains.

You can see how any attacker would be forced to attack into one of our large stacks - and the mountains would favour us in defence and with reinforcements we could easily beat forces double our size.

Seeing the futility of that appraoch, the Persians surrendered before even one battle was fought.



Yes dear. (Given how Despina bore a total of 8 healthy children I better not disagree with her)


We conquered the remainder of the historic Armenia.


RESETTLEMENT IS NOT A CRIME, IT IS A NECESSITY.



...no comment.

We decided it was time to push into the fragmented emirates to our south....

...and after five years, decided to attack and conquer the remaining Syrian emirate to the east.



These eastern borders look much prettier, don't they?

A storm from the north

A large tribe of Steppe horsemen had their eyes set on the Merchant Republic of Crimea. Our Merchant Republic.
Well, previous empires may have crumbled but we would not. After all, we had plenty of great horse archers on our own - our kataphrakts.
And our Varangian Guard.

Ut veniant omnes.


The horsemen struck first, capturing the northern holdings before we could respond.

But respond we did, assembling close to 30k men and sending them against the invaders.

Our heavy cavalry of about 6k cataphracts and armored horse archers cut down everything in their path. In an opposite to Adrianople, it was their infantry who put up the heaviest fight - though of course they had no chance against 4000 heavily armored, axe-wielding, giant norsemen backed up by our archers from Sicily and heavy infantry from Constantinople.
The invasion attempt ended and the invader was banished - after stripping him and all his people of all their wealth and leaving them to either sell themselves as slaves or die on the frozen plains.

Meanwhile, a dispute was growing between our burghers and the church.

We, as we always did, favored the Burghers.

Meanwhile, the king of Croatia had died and his daugher was not up to the task, allowing us to press a claim.

This was a quick and uneventful fight which saw the whole of Croatia incorporated into our realm.

But the wars had exhausted us and Despina had died a year before, leaving us to soon follow her.

Doesn't our son look a bit...pirate-y?

[End of this part]


EDIT:
A small recap - this was the first time playing Emperor felt like a lot of fun, with interesting flavour events. I have a sneaking suspicion this is about as good as playing Emperor is going to get, but still.

[Esquire]

I liked the bit where the Turks called you a "diligent seducer." And everything else, really - I have a sneaking suspicion that Ioulianos III is going to be one of this world's most beloved historical figures.

[LaCroix]

A chariot racing king who increased the realm vastly, drove the Muselmans before him and squashed invading Nomad hordes, who could handle all the girls throwing themselves at him, simultaneously, and wed a pirate princess he captured in battle, but conquered by his charm?

Arthus has nothing to him!

In about 980 years, people form the HBO tribe will fight everyone else to make the first moving picture entertainment series about him, called ROME...

[Borgholio]

In about 980 years, people form the HBO tribe will fight everyone else to make the first moving picture entertainment series about him, called ROME...

Seriously, the dude was a man's man. He made Leonidas look like a pansy.

[The Vortex Empire]

...Best Emperor ever.

[Flagg]

The fact that the dwarf is not eyeless and balless is a sacrilege.

[Thanas]

The saga of Cethegus and Gyla


This is us. Son of Despina and Iouliannos III, we have pirate, german and hellenic blood. I must say we turned out rather well. (Dat quality pirate upbringing, yo).



Upset at the loss of their chariot-racing Basileus, the supporters of the various factions started to go berserk.
How do you combat Berserkers? With real Berserkers, of course.


The Hungarians decided to use our weakness as an excuse to grab some territory. This was not to be condoned.

The Maygars have a stupid amount of event troops. While kingdoms like Lombardy struggle to put together 20k armies, the Maygars just raise 40k within a few days.

The two armies met in the largest battle of the middle ages so far. Both empires brought each around roughly 44k troops to bear.

The battle raged on for five days.
The Hungarians put the majority of their forces on their flanks, trying to overwhelm our flanks and then do a Cannae redux. We on the other hand put our heavy infantry, with the main strike force being the Varangian Guard, in our center. As a result, while our flanks (barely) held, our center swept away theirs and then teamed up with the flanks to destroy the isolated flanks of the Hungarians.

Maygar chronicles call this the "black week", a defeat worse than Lechfeld. Of the over 18k Hungarian archers, barely 3k escaped.

Meanwhile, our wife had passed childbearing age without any children. This would not do. Our line would not end with us. We quickly searched for a suitable candidate. Some Varangian guardsmen told us a tale of a true norse beauty, who was a bastard child of a Duke from the house of Welf and a scandinavian princess.

And a true beauty she was.

(also a genius, expert commander, cavalry leader, renowned fighter, expert diplomat, ambitious, lustful, kind, honest, gregarious - in short, the total jackpot)


...clearly, a crisis of immense proportions.

Our treacherous cousing meanwhile had decided he would like to be an independent king of sicily.

This would not do.

He tried to replicate what our great-grandfather did - and tried to take Constantinople by storm. However, we had our retinues and our Varangian Guard ready.


BEHOLD THE POWER OF RETINUES. Seriously, Cataphracts and the Varangian guard really make one appreciate the Professional Roman Army. They slaughtered the entire Sicilian levy in exchange for just 3k casualties while inflicting 22k on the enemy) While attacking into hostile terrain (mountains).
The entire battle I was just sitting there wondering who fed my troops speed, as the enemy lines collapsed quickly. It was like our troops were receiving 200 casualties per turn while the enemy dropped in thousands.


And then after a quick siege Sicily surrendered.
[Complaint: After a noble rebels against me I should be able to kill them and take their entire titles. But thanks to the stupid rebel mechanic I can only revoke one title per rebellion. The king of Sicily has 13 titles. You do the math. And thanks to a stupid bug, If I revoke his kingdom and give it to another, I am unable to raise the levy. So rebellions carry few punishments.]

With the rebellions squashed, we decided to deplete the levy of our former rebellious vassals a bit more and conquer more territory in the east.



After the quick victory, we created the kingdom and reconquered Syria Palestina.

The response of the muslim world was radical.


The Muslims formed holy orders.





MORE INFIDELS TO SLAUGHTER.

We responded by declaring war on the southern emirate to conquer Jerusalem.


This was not a serious challenge.



Jerusalem, O Jerusalem.


The world.
The Muslim kingdoms are thriving in the west and suffering in the east (Hehehehehe). The spanish kingdoms are reeling and even France has lost territory. Our vassals started expanding into Bulgaria, but the Maygars are still strong despite taking some losses. The steppe is a mess.
England has consolidated against the Viking invasions and is slowly becoming more powerful, having taken Wales. The large giant of Western Europe however is the HRE, which is making a habit of bashing in its neighbours. Should we ever go up against them, it will be an epic fight, for they are the only country that can match our levy.

The orthodox faith is growing stronger, but needs to do a lot of war crimes conversions and further war crimes rededication of temples in the east.


An orthodox holy order was formed to help with the heinous shit conversion of the conquered territories and to defend christendom. They became our vassal. We can now call on a force of nearly 6000 religious fanatics cataphracts and heavy infantry.


Ancona was attacked and conquered, increasing our territory in Italy.


Venice was next. I would like to show you some interesting battles, but this was not that good or challenging. An 8k mercenary army against a 20k doomstack. Boring.

In fact, most battles are becoming boring. I have made a rule of not using the retinues for wars because otherwise the wars would have no challenge. You saw the curbstomps above.

Meanwhile, our norse wife is awesome.

6 children in 11 years and no extramaritial affairs (always marry a kind lustful woman).

She also is awesome in many other ways.


I got to say that the women characters of our dynasty have been pretty awesome so far. From ze german to the pirate empress to the nordic duelist.

With the reconquest of Venezia, a triumph was overdue.



(tbc)

[Thanas]

(cont'd from above)


The caliph declared war on us. However, notice the counties in green? These are the graveyards of armies. They have a supply limit of 20k. As a result, it is very hard to get armies across without taking major attrition. Thus, any large army cannot cross them. This favors our quality over quantity approach and hurts the muslim hordes. The war was uneventful - he took 30k stacks across, suffered major attrition and was then smashed by our 40 levy of Jerusalem, Antioch and Armenia.

A quick counterpunch to the enemy capital...


...and the caliph surrendered. We got a whopping 2k in war reparations, which we put into enhancing the trade centres of Constantinople.

With the muslims weakened, we decided to deal a fatal blow to Arabia and sever the land route between Mecca and Sinai. This was another territory which had low supply limits (desert) and was thus ideal to defend our east.

The war was over quickly.


A happy marriage.



Tuscany was attacked.


...and conquered. The AI has gone full kamikaze and decides to attack a 10k stack with a 10k stack besides us having another stack nearby to reinforce.



Why would we need a thousand women? We got Gyla.


The Caliph tried once more. The result was the same, the war was almost the same as before.


We decided to restore another part of the danube frontier by conquering Gyor.


This time, the Hungarians were not that threatening, having lost their large army before (see above).


O Danube, ancient frontier of our empire. May you provide the same service to us as to our ancestors.


POPE STRONG. POPE SMASH.


POPE GETS SMASHED.

Sadly....

our beloved Empress died. She bore us 12 children and died at the age of 47. The entire empire fell into deep mourning.

Of course, who decides to stir up trouble again?

FUCK YOU.


The rebellion in the west....


...and in the east.



The death of rebellion in the west...


I HATE THIS STUPID REBEL MECHANIC. HATE HATE HATE. I CANNOT PUNISH THE ASSHOLE IN ANY WAY.

To compensate, Urbino was captured...



...as was Ravenna. One former capital of the empire back under our control.


The Caliph attacked again and got smashed. Sorry for no battle reports, but the wars are seriously boring now.


With the caliph weakened, we took the graveyard of enemies, further strengthening our defences. It cost us 30k troops simply due to attrition and sieges, but we got a 100k levy, so.... (honestly, the game has a real problem with balance. Besides the HRE, I could probably overrun everybody at this point. Repetitive and boring - raise levy, transport, smash enemy army, siege, declare victory). I hope there will be a real challenge soon.

The old province was restored.

THE EMPIRE WILL BE REBORN.


Sadly, the festivities proved too much for us.

END OF THIS PART.

TL, DR: married a great nordic wife, had lots of children and enlarged the empire.

[Steve]

Wait, you don't imprison defeated rebels anymore? I mean, yeah, you can only revoke one title at a time unless you banish and incur a massive relations penalty (although that might be alterable in the defines.lua file) but you could also just leave the bastard rebel to rot in the dungeon.

[Thanas]

Wait, you don't imprison defeated rebels anymore? I mean, yeah, you can only revoke one title at a time unless you banish and incur a massive relations penalty (although that might be alterable in the defines.lua file) but you could also just leave the bastard rebel to rot in the dungeon.

I take a lot of prisoners from campaigns so the dungeons get horribly overcrowded. And imprisoning has no benefit anyway, releasing them is preferable then. But there is no true way to truly punish somebody who has rebelled.

[Dominus Atheos]

Blinding or castration?

[Thanas]

Blinding or castration?

Does nothing except cost you ridiculous amounts of piety. It is a cosmetic. But it will not strip anybody of their title, make them hate you less or diminish their capabilities. Well, blinding does carry a huge amount of mali for their personal stats but these do not matter as any king will have a good number of courtiers to do their bidding.

[phred]

You can't just off them? Or castrate and quietly remove heirs until you get someone more amenable next in line?

We need to go back to solidifying our holdings for a few years, obviously.

[Thanas]

You can't just off them? Or castrate and quietly remove heirs until you get someone more amenable next in line?

Offing them gets us the tyranny malus (yes I know, it is stupid). And assassination are no good because at these levels I am almost guaranteed to be hit with the murderer malus.

We need to go back to solidifying our holdings for a few years, obviously.

On the contrary, we need to conquer more titles to bribe the nobility with.

[GuppyShark]

That must be a mod change - in Vanilla, if someone rebels against you you can revoke their title (ie King of Sicily becomes a Duke) or execute them for 10 piety. Because they have rebelled, there is no tyranny penalty.

[Thanas]

That must be a mod change - in Vanilla, if someone rebels against you you can revoke their title (ie King of Sicily becomes a Duke) or execute them for 10 piety. Because they have rebelled, there is no tyranny penalty.

No, I can do that just fine, but it doesn't help if a) The guy has heirs (who then give me the executed close kin malus) and b) thanks to the stupid bug, you then cannot raise any levy. There is that stupid bug that if you rearrange the structure of a kingdom (say revoke and then give title to different noble) this will result in you no longer being able to raise the liege levy.