Panjer – Oh Edmund! How we miss thee! Maybe one of his descendants needs a cameo at some point…
Deamon – If Andronikos himself did it, that’d take some ridiculous level plotting. But what could he accomplish by having someone (Vishly clearly got his orders from a third party) up the poison dosage without just telling Vishly?
Laur – I can’t wait for that series!
Kirsch27 – Some of your analysis is right, some of it is not. I won’t say anything else for fear of spoiling the chapter.
Ioannis definitely
seems loyal, but is he a good actor, or is he that fanatically dedicated to his friend? Kaukadenos started as a friend of an Emperor as well, after all…
Sudaxe – At this point, it looks like the narrative sections of the story will DEFINITELY end with CK. By the EU3 timelines, there will be so much going on over so many different places that people will be interested in that I think I’ll have no choice but to move to a more history book timeline of sorts…
Vesimir – That said, there’ll still be plenty of intrigue and drama. Just told in a different way.
Well, Gabriel’s finally doing what everyone has been hoping he’d do since 1247—he’s getting up and moving full bore for his birthright…
FlyingDutchie – Patriarch Thomas is a Komnenid, but he’s from the most remote branch from power possible—he’s descended from the original Manuel Komnenos, Prince of Sinope, who murdered the father of the Megas and tried to overthrow Demetrios during the early days of his reign. The Pereschen Komnenids are perhaps the poorest and least well regarded branch—Thomas becoming Patriarch is the highest office they’ve sniffed since their progenitor briefly was
Kaisar from 1091-1092…
Zzzzz… – Sophie’s one of my favorites as well—a perfect compliment to Basil, and I’d say the most sensible part of the best ruling duo the Empire has had…
asd21593 – That’s seemed to be the mantra lately.
vanin – Well, the question is if, during such a power vacuum, the Patriarch would have waited for someone to tell him to investigate, or if based on rumors he’d heard, he decided to do so anyway? Anastasia had complained before that her husband was using black magic…
Avalanchemike – I haven’t played
Dynasty Warriors in forever… and I haven’t read my copy of
Three Kingdoms in about as long. The analogy is perfect! My
homage, though, was completely coincidental…
Fulcrumvale – Ioannis is the type of person who could slit the throat of a baby, then with blood still on his hands, pick up the child of a friend and play with it. We’ve only begun to see what he’s capable of…
Servius Magnus – Maybe… though everyone one seems to be forgetting what tends to happen during moments of governmental crisis—the little bureaucrats still trundle along, often without orders, and keep doing what they’ve always done. There’s a certain comfort in following a routine, even if the routine makes no sense at that time or could be changed at any moment. No doubt the minor grain monitors,
kephaloi and other low officials are quietly doing the same, praying word comes from Konstantinopolis as to who is their new master.
Or yeah, someone could have already stepped into the gap.
vadermath – The Pope of course! Seriously, the Patriarch’s involvement, like I said above, is one of the linchpin’s to this mess. Did he lurch ahead on his own? Is he getting orders? Was it preplanned and he’s simply (if blindly) following through with his part despite the situation changing? We’ll have to find out!
Enewald – Danorum delenda est? Albrecht wasn’t expecting the Patriarch to conduct himself like that—since the ascension of Thomas and his sidekick Aquinas, Albie has a rather dim view of their political intelligence (to the point he relished putting Aquinas in his place). He probably didn’t have his guards ready to intercept them simply because he thought they were going to be bumbling idiots like before, and not the spearpoint of an attack directly on him…
RGB – Nope, no precedent of the sort, which makes this even more mysterious. There have been Patriarch’s who have tried to act this way before (the instances I can think of involve threatening Emperors who married more than thrice), but no one has outright accused an effective ruler of witchcraft, to my memory… and yes, even bowing and praying to God, Albrecht is not capable of shutting off his political mind. I’m sure God’s quite annoyed at the constant interruption.
canonized – Interesting little twist? More like an, “Awww *bleep*!” moment in game. Albrecht was my most talented courtier! Why do the most talented courtiers always get accused of witchcraft? Why can’t it be bumbling bozo with a 1 martial who lost an army to three peasants without any pitchforks?
Ah, but I digress. In all honest, the medieval mind would have probably jumped to something like witchcraft for those who weren’t versed in poison. You have to remember that for the medieval world, advanced science and logical thinking was almost intrinsically paired to religion and superstition. Witchcraft was a conclusion that, in their minds, could be reached through a perfectly reasonable series of Aristotelian deductions and logical process. It’d therefore make sense that in a potential case where the stakes are this high, that if the Church is involved it would turn to its foremost intellectual mind in Aquinas to deal with the issue…
Well, things are coming together quickly for the move! I likely will not have time to work on any update from now until next week, so the next full update likely won’t get posted until the Friday after next or so, once I’m settled into my new place. But don’t fret, I shan’t leave you all empty handed! Here, in no random order, are parts of the latest version of a map for EU3. Compared to previous ones, there are far more countries with far more vassals and allies of the major powers instead of big blocs that are centrally ruled. It’s by no means complete, and considering there’s at least six months before I begin modding in earnest, things are very likely to change. Like before, I’ve only colored places that are different than they are in HttT… if its left blank, at least in this version, it will be the same as in HttT…
Enjoy!