As the Emperor of a sprawling, pan-European Pictish
hegemony, I’ve finally reached the tipping point. You know how when people show
you maps of the Roman Empire, it’s almost always during the reign of Emperor
Trajan, when the empire was at its greatest extent? Well, I’ve reached that point
now, and I’m having a hard time admitting to myself that I may have reached the
pinnacle of my achievement, and the only thing I have to look forward to a slow
descent into chaos, civil war and fiscal oblivion. Even though I’m only in the
1320s and have around 100 years of game-time left, I have to admit I’m a little
reluctant to switch on for my nightly 30-min gaming session, because it pains
me too much to see the great realm I’ve built over the better part of 7 months
fall apart. YES I KNOW I SAID IN MY EARLIER POST I’D BEEN PLAYING FOR ‘A COUPLE
OF MONTHS’ BUT WHAT I REALLY MEANT WAS MORE THAN HALF A YEAR. SUE ME.
*sigh* How did I get into this situation?
House Uerterio start out in 769 as the puny earls of Fortriu
in the Highlands of Scotland. I picked Fortriu because I wanted to play as the
descendants of Bridei of Fortriu, the Pictish king who humbled the
Northumbrians at the battle of Dun Nechtain in 685. My early aims were as
follows:
1) Usurp the Kingdom of Pictland
2)
Form culturally Pictish Empire of Brittania
As we will see I was successful in step 1, but the Saxon
kingdoms in the south proved a harder nut to crack. I would have them
eventually, but by that time my holdings were too diverse to make something
like de-Saxonifying England make much sense.
This was my first time playing as a vassal, and also my
first time playing as a tribal vassal, so I was really not doing very well at
all. I wasn’t really aware of the raiding mechanic so I was completely unable
to accrue wealth for those early stages of the game. I conquered Ce (Aberdeenshire
I guess?) but lost it to Gavelkind succession and then engaged in a horrific
feud with my Doric cousins over the next few years. This culminated with the
sack of Ueris (Forres) by the Chief of Ce, my sneaky harelipped cousin Rubert
(who I’d actually tried to have installed as king by faction many years before,
the ungrateful turd). During this sack Rubert captured my son and two of my
daughters and forced one of them into concubinage which is basically the most
harrowing thing that has ever happened to my family in the game. I was
eventually able to ransom one son and a daughter back, but he kept my youngest
daughter for decades. Naturally, I dedicated the next few years to getting back
at him. Eventually, I bribed one of his bishops to put poison in his drink and
he died like the Ramsay Bolton-esque dog he was. However, by that time my
daughter had been away so long that much to my sadness, she actually preferred
to stay in Ce. I believe she eventually married a courtier. I hope in the end she
found some happiness. But this being Crusader Kings 2, I doubt it.
It was about this time that one of the more unusual
characters in this playthrough emerged, and I’m still a little disappointed my attempt
to name him my tanist (heir with Tanistry, kind of like elective succession but
kept within the same family) and play him failed. Listen, if ye will, to the
tale of Castantin the Conqueror. The early 9th Century saw Pictland
hit by numerous Viking raids, and on one of these raids, Ueris was once again
burned to the ground and prisoners were taken. Among them was a cousin of my
character, Castantin, who was just a boy at the time. I spent ages saving up
for a ransom, but by the time I had enough to pay for the child’s return, the
damage was done. Castantin was now a Norse pagan, and embraced everything that
went with it. I shrugged and put him out of my mind, and went on to expand my
demesne by conquering Tyrconnell. I was pretty smug until I saw what Castantin
had been doing while I was fighting the Irish.
Castantin had taken over Northumbria! And a great swath of land in
central Ireland. And to top it off, he appeared to have been vassalised by the
King of Bavaria? I like to think he offered his services to the King in
exchange for land in the newly conquered territory and had gathered a party of
his old Danish buddies to go and make their fortunes. And now he was the most
powerful Duke in the British Isles, with six of the best counties including Dublin
and York. What a guy. The upshot of this is that I never really got the chance
to fight the Saxons after all, because by the time I had to fight border
skirmishes to the south, all the Saxons were dead at the hands of Castantin’s
Vikings and their Bavarian allies.
Eventually I gave up the tribal life, since it was doing
nothing for me, and embraced feudalism. Shortly after, my spymaster (who had
been blinded after being caught spying on Byzantine tech, in the first of a
long line of indications the Byzantines are bad news) found out my liege was
plotting to revoke my title, so I had him offed and then forced myself into the
position of Duke in the power vacuum. Then it was mere moments before I was
able to push another faction on the king, who ceded power to me to avoid civil
war. So it came to pass that Caruorst Uerterio became the first Uerterio king
of Pictland, and ushered the country out of its dark phase of barbarism and
civil war. In doing so, I eliminated the last few embers of the emerging “Scottish”
culture. Good pikemen or not, I was never going to relinquish my Pictish
heritage, never!
Caruorst earned well his title of “The Great”. Possessed of
martial skill, charm and a fine ginger beard, he quickly subjugated the warring
counts of Ireland, and created a second kingdom. But he was not done yet.
Taking up the Pope’s call to crusade in Iberia, Caruorst launched an attack on
Galicia and quickly beat back the unprepared Moorish forces. So now I had three
kingdoms. Caruorst may have been a fine warrior but he was something of a
disaster in all other facets of life. His cousin and close friend Gigurum was
his tanist, but he managed to sour that relationship by sleeping with and
impregnating his wife. I felt bad for Gigurum, since this was his third wife
and every one of them had cheated on him at least once. To make matters worse,
Gigurum was Caruorst’s spymaster, so began constantly trying to kill him. Luckily,
Caruorst perished in a battle against the Bavarians before the situation could
truly come to a head.
Gigurum was kind of an underrated king. Despite his
unpopularity with his vassals he continued mopping up the remaining Irish
counties as well as some of the Bavarian lands in Northumbria. Then he
triumphed in the crusade for Andalusia, bringing his number of kingdoms to
four. The next few monarchs spent their time consolidating these gains,
snapping up as much Muslim land in Spain as possible at the same time as
picking up counties in Wales, eventually forming another Kingdom there.
His heir, Aniel “the Rash” (named for a bastard of the
dynasty who proved one of the most unshakable generals during the crusade)
proclaimed an empire and continued the partition of Spain. He made it his
life’s work to conquer Bohemia, his mother’s country, and planned this while
making gains in Mauretania. Aniel eventually launched an attack on Bohemia and
was able to take it, but in doing so sowed the seeds of the empire’s later
disintegration. With his vassals supporting another candidate for tanist other
than his selected heir, Ganant, he destroyed the Kingdom title, giving himself
a whole bunch of duke and earl level vassals he could never transfer away… more
on that fateful decision later. Aniel also helped his nephew the King of
Lombardy conquer Africa, although he would eventually lose it in a rebellion.
Aniel also finally conquered the Greeks of England and the Bavarians of
Northumbria to hold the entirety of the British Isles. Given that I already had
an empire title, I decided not to claim the title of Emperor of Brittannia,
because I know how difficult it is to maintain two empire titles on any kind of
elective succession. After an unprecedented number of years on the throne, Aniel died
of old age. An impetuous and ambitious leader, he truly earned his nickname.
Emperor Ganant married Butayna, the Queen of Africa, and
decided to put an end to the constant African/Lombard rivalry. At some point I
must have obtained Africa as a vassal kingdom but I still don’t remember how.
Anyway, Ganant and Butayna launched an attack on Lombardy and took it in a
pretty intense battle. With Butayna “the Great” now Queen of Africa and, hell
let’s just call it Italy, she and Ganant went about solidifying their power
over the Mediterranean basin. An opportunity to steal territory from the Franks
occurred, when the Emperor of Francia idiotically created the Empire of
Hispania. Of course, unable to secure the succession of his heir to both
empires, Hispania broke away from Francia, taking with it much of its territory
in Castille and Aragon as well as some duchies in France itself. Because (I
think) the Empire of Hispania was in the de jure territory of the Empire of
Pictland, and also because of the hilariously mingled family trees of medieval
rulers, the heir to the Empire of Hispania was… some old guy. BUT, his heir was
Ganant. Naturally, assassins were summoned. Unfortunately the old guy went into
hiding, and he and Ganant had a furious race not to be the first to die so that
Hispania would be absorbed into the empire (Ganant was getting on in years at
this point). Then lo and behold, the old guy died! Ganant, clearly not learning
from Aniel’s mistakes, immediately destroyed the Empire title and gave himself
a whole bunch more vassals he could never transfer.
Then the Black Death rolled in! Mostly nobody in the realm
cared at first because they were too busy dealing with the scandal of Ganant
and Butayna’s son and daughter converting to Kharijite Islam. But eventually,
yeah it turned out to be kind of a big deal. Queue a couple of years of hiding
in the castle while the peasants perish and bodies piled up in the streets. The
people went a little bit crazy, and were looking for someone to blame. Ganant
suggested it was probably witchcraft, and inadvertently started a Satanic
panic. Wild-eyed courtiers started bringing him suspected witches (probably
just D&D loving teenagers) who I duly imprisoned. They started calling for
them to be burned at the stake, but by this point Ganant figured it had gone on
for too long. He released the accused witches and told everyone just to chill
the hell out with their witchcraft shit. The courtiers relented, but this was
far from over. Ganant returned to his chambers on night to find Butayna “the
Great”, Empress of Pictland, Queen of Africa and Italy, murdered at the hands
of the same zealots he had himself stirred up. Thus he earned his nickname:
Ganant “The Careless”. Ganant lived for a few more years, but he was never the
same again. He died a broken man, never forgiving himself for his mistakes.
Along the way somebody conquered Poland. I don’t remember
who. Also Sweden. All I remember about this one was that a dwarf named Borkvard
was involved somehow.
The next Emperor of note was Uuen “the Black”. A cynical and
bitter man, Uuen had spent his early life focused on learning, given that his
club foot precluded a traditional knightly education. On becoming emperor he
moved quickly to consolidate power, assassinating a number of rivals,
apparently unconcerned with whether or not they were members of his own family.
He was definitely not the first Uerturio to be a kinslayer, but he was
certainly the first to get caught. Later in life the Pope would grant him
absolution for this sin, but in his early days he was hated and feared because
of it. It was around this time that Uuen began to become irritated by some of
his minor vassals, notably Bosun “the Evil” the Duke of Upper Burgundy, who
constantly plotted against him and eventually raised his banners in rebellion,
suffering a quite grisly fate. Wounded in numerous battles, Duke Bosun lost a
hand and part of his face, before ending up in Uuen’s prison, where he died of
cancer soon after. The next Duke, also Bosun, was not much better. Another
vassal causing problems was Alboin of Barcelona, who had managed to hoover up an
astonishing six duchies and was the instigator of most of the factions against
Uuen.
Uuen married Zoe, Princess of the Byzantine Empire, having
one child together, Uirup. But when Zoe fell pregnant with the child of a lewd
duke, Uuen imprisoned her in a rage. Zoe would live in the prison for the rest
of her life with her bastard daughter, a simple girl who died from disease aged
twelve, leaving her mother alone. Uuen remarried with Èlodie, Princess of
Francia and had a further three children.
Uuen did not do much in the way of conquering, though, due
to the quite ridiculous defensive pacts formed against the Picts at this time.
In any case, he was concerned with a new threat from the East. The Mongol
Empire was expanding across Eurasia and the eastern Christian kingdoms were
hard pressed to stop their advance, with the fractious Byzantines too concerned
with their own power struggles to put up much of a defence. Uuen elected to aid
the King of Mordvinia in his defence against the Mongols but was too late to
stop the horsemen of the steppes from gobbling up half of the Russians’
territory. Meanwhile the King of Georgia broke free from the Byzantines, and
presumably felt quite smug for a few moments there, before the northern part of
his kingdom was absorbed by the hordes. With Pictish holdings in Bohemia and
Poland directly threatened it looked like war was imminent.
But it was not in the east that the Mongols struck. When
Georgia broke away, a small portion of Latium south of Rome had gone with it. Now,
with a swathe of Georgian territory in the hands of the Mongols, one county
with a port became property of the Khans. The Mongols aimed to expand that
territory, and using their Italian holdings as a springboard, they wrested Rome
away from the Franks who had held it since before the Pictish/African conquest.
Uuen likely felt a little conflicted on this account. On one hand, hey, thanks
for kicking the Franks out of Rome for us, but on the other… Rome in the hands
of pagan barbarians is not good for Christendom in general and pagan barbarians
in mainland Italy is definitely not something to be tolerated. Uuen “The Black”
– atheist cynic, kinslayer and wife-imprisoner, would play the defender of
Christendom. The Picts declared war, and mustered their armies. Now, by this
point the Mongols 90,000 troop event-spawned doomstack had diminished somewhat,
but they could still field a lot of troops, and had two 20,000 stacks active in
Italy. I fielded an army of just over 40,000, including about 10,000 cavalry and
heavy infantry retinues. In the Tuscan countryside a single, decisive battle
was fought. Thanks to the generalship of Gede, Uuen’s best friend and marshal,
the Mongols were turned back and sent packing, their manpower severely
diminished. The Mongols are now no longer a threat, and the Khan has recently
converted to Christianity. The Holy Father wrote to Uuen thanking him and
requesting that he return Rome to the Fraticelli Papacy. Uuen’s response was
something along the lines of “Sod you, we’re keeping it.”
Something changed in Uuen after this battle, though. He had
always had an interest in the religions and history of India, and I think he
may have felt kinship with the ancient Indian Emperor Chandragupta Maurya, who
had a life-changing experience after personally witnessing the human cost of
his own conquests. Like Chandragupta Maurya, he converted to Jainism (although
in secret because, yeah, medieval Europe is not the most tolerant of places).
Entering a Jain secret society, he realised that basically everyone has been
secretly practising Jainism for years. His mother, his wife, his good buddy
Gede. Everyone! Uuen and Gede started discussing a plan to eventually convert
the Empire to Jainism. Buuuuuut then he died of food poisoning. I suspect that
Uuen wasn’t taking the whole vegetarian thing seriously. Well, beats starving
yourself to death in a cave, I guess.
Emperor Gede dealt with some more internal squabbles,
particularly from the awful Dukes of Barcelona and Upper Burgundy, who were a
huge in pain in the ass as usual. To top it off, Gede was monumentally
depressed when his friend Uuen died. Now, Gede was peace-loving secret Jain as
well but he hadn’t quite ditched the warlike streak like his old friend. Thus,
it didn’t take too much for his friend’s son Uirup to convince him to push his
claim on the 9-year-old Byzantine Empress, who was in the middle of a
rebellion. Mustering his troops into five 10,000 man doomstacks, they sieged
their way through Dalmatia, conquering province after province, facing little
resistance from the overwhelmed child Empress. Although Gede died of old age
before the war could be completed, Uirup was now Emperor of both Pictland and
Byzantium. And from this point on the game was essentially unwinnable.
A word about Uirup. Uirup is the WORST.
Uuen never wanted this for Uirup. He packed him off as soon
as he came of age to marry a disfigured duchess in England where he would never
have anything asked of him and would never do any harm. Oh boy, was this not
what happened. Somehow, all my vassals voted for Uirup as Gede’s successor,
apparently because they were getting all nostalgic for Uuen’s time in the hot
seat. Don’t worry, it didn’t last long. Uirup has a diplomacy score of zero and
a stewardship score that isn’t much better. Given that he’s also a foreign
conqueror to half of his subjects, he’s having a little trouble.
The main problem is revenue. I’m bringing in less than nine
gold on a good month. The Empire is now hilariously overstretched. I don’t have
Imperial Administration because I didn’t realise you had to have been changing
laws to favour the ruler all along. My attitude to things like banishment or
war committees is kind of “sure, let them vote on it” so I never felt I needed
to change them. As a result of this, as well as Aniel and Ganant’s reckless
destruction of titles, I have 52 vassals and only a 29 vassal limit. Getting
Imperial Administration at this point is impossible, mainly because none of my
council will support the law changes I propose. Neither will they let me buy favours,
they hate Uirup that much they literally won’t take a bribe from him. I’ve
already given away all the vassals I could, and created all the kingdom titles
I could – Sicily, Croatia, Greece, Armenia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, maybe a
couple of others – and I could still only get it down to about 32, only for it
to fly back up again when I inevitably had to fight three or four successive
rebellions and revoke the titles from the offenders.
That’s the other thing. I’m facing continual factions and
revolts. Even vassals that love me because I just made them kings are plotting
against me. I’m currently fighting off some Avarian duke who’s pushing a
courtier’s claim on the Byzantine Empire with only my 10K retinues and about 5K
extra men while at the same time fighting the King of Croatia who’s rebelling
because I tried to have him arrested. And since I’m bankrupt from fighting the
last few wars with mercs, those retinues aren’t going to be reinforced any time
soon.
To top things off: I am going to lose the Byzantine Empire.
I managed to switch it to tanistry, so that my heir Domelch (Half-brother, Uuen
and Èlodie’s kid) would inherit both. And this worked for a while, before the
electors in Byzantium very deliberately switched their loyalties to Amalrich
“the Just” the goodie-two-shoes Earl of Hamburg, from a cadet branch of the
Uerturio family. I have virtually no plot power so killing him is out of the
question. Except for using the console to kill him, I don’t see any way to
avoid the fact that not only am I going to lose Byzantium to Amalrich, he’s
also going to take his lands in Germany with him, as well as Mauretania and
Andalusia because he’s just been elected heir to those too. So to sum up, I am
losing not only the Empire I conspired and fought so hard to get (all right I
beat a 9-year-old but you get the point) I am also losing two entire Kingdoms –
including my capital, Seville – and a bunch of miscellaneous territory in
Francia. And probably Alexandria since I gave it to the King of Sicily…
aaaaaaagggghhhhh.
That’s why I say: This is it. This is the high water mark.
It’s never going to get any better than this. This is the beginning of my
empire’s downfall. Trajan was definitely a better Emperor than Uirup, but I
doubt he had the same perspective. To think I harboured dreams of reforming the
Roman Empire itself! To think I planned to push Domelch’s claim on Francia and
take that too! Hubris! Hubris I say!
I understand why this is happening. To be honest, the game
doesn’t WANT you to be able to take this much territory. Blobbing is fine, up
until a point, and then no more. It’s not really realistic for me to be able to
take over the entirety of Europe. But I wanted to be able to push this as far
as I could, and build the ultimate Pictland to transfer over to EUIV.
Now I’m not sure what to do. Do I try and steer the Empire
through its downward spiral? Settle for being second best to reinvigorated
Byzantium (third best if you include the now untouchable Francia, I suppose).
Or, the second option… I cheat. I’ll kill Amalrich using a console command,
give myself a buttload of cash and weather the inevitable rebellions. Third
option, I go back to before I declared war on Byzantium, and just don’t do it.
Find some other way to expand my glorious Pictish Empire.
Or… transfer Byzantium to my primary title and destroy the
Empire of Pictland… thereby making Amalrich my heir, solving a lot of my vassal
problems in the process. Move my capital to Constantinople as I would have
already if there wasn’t so much heat in that vicinity. So what will it be?
Double down on the mistake or try to erase it? Perhaps there’s a chance after
all. Perhaps, if I keep persevering, I can stop the terrible decline… be
Trajan, forever expanding. We’ll see.
