The ramblings of John McNab

[richelieu1628]

You guys are sitting there, on the far end of the map, no muslims, no mongols, no empires stomping around, and yet, and yet...

In a way this is the best advertisement for the game. Who needs enemies with these friends and families?

[morningSIDEr]

I do love how that pregnant wife trick works. Admittedly I can think of few better examples of mercy than releasing your newly born child and recently pregnant wife from jail. Wise of Rab to allow for man flu to let him get him out of work for a while, everything seems to be going surprisingly well, heretic bishops aside.

[Stuyvesant]

Hm. Either the Forum swallowed my earlier response, or I forgot to hit the 'Post Quick Reply' button... Always a possibility.

Anyway, good update, but I am surprised at your decision to incorporate a Crovan into your court. No wonder Rab's wife is starting to plot against him and the bishop turns into a raving heretic...

[Serek000]

Bah! Cathars in Scotland! Good to see Rab put the Albigensian madman in his place. Can't have that kind of rabble popping up. Best leave that to the silly Occitans.

[loki100]

You guys are sitting there, on the far end of the map, no muslims, no mongols, no empires stomping around, and yet, and yet...

In a way this is the best advertisement for the game. Who needs enemies with these friends and families?

I know, its one of the delights of CK is you can play it in so many ways. You can opt in as one of the real powers or as a lesser ruler in an important area, or you can immerse yourself in the small scale schemings of a relative backwater & really concentrate on your dysfunctional family

I do love how that pregnant wife trick works. Admittedly I can think of few better examples of mercy than releasing your newly born child and recently pregnant wife from jail. Wise of Rab to allow for man flu to let him get him out of work for a while, everything seems to be going surprisingly well, heretic bishops aside.

it is perchance a wee bit gamey (thank you naggy), but yes it does seem so merciful in the end. The debate about the nature of god carries into the next post too

Hm. Either the Forum swallowed my earlier response, or I forgot to hit the 'Post Quick Reply' button... Always a possibility.

Anyway, good update, but I am surprised at your decision to incorporate a Crovan into your court. No wonder Rab's wife is starting to plot against him and the bishop turns into a raving heretic...

ah but no polar bears yet, Glasgow is too warm for them (or too dangerous), but yes its good to see the old Scottish traditions being maintained

Bah! Cathars in Scotland! Good to see Rab put the Albigensian madman in his place. Can't have that kind of rabble popping up. Best leave that to the silly Occitans.

exactly, when we have religious nutters we want serious ones, who believe they are all doomed shortly after they are born ...

[loki100]

A well read man, was Rab in those final years ... didn't help him much though



Problem was what he was reading



still we got a new town hall out of it ... unlike Edinburgh



and then he went off to a tournament. took Mael with him to get rid of his complaining for a few years. Which was a good idea but then he forgot to stop reading and was knocked off his horse



found some gouty Swede to keep Cecilia happy



with the kids out the way, he had a bit more time for Helen



which may well have not been a good idea



Still the King really liked the idea of having a Marshall Rab



and he found time to improve the swamps and middens of Edinburgh

[Serek000]

Good to see Rab the Younger carrying on the tradition of the mustache. It's always nice to have a properly grown up heir take over when your leader kicks the bucket.

[morningSIDEr]

still we got a new town hall out of it ... unlike Edinburgh

Typical. Hardworking Edinburgh residents paying for the town halls of the workshy west coast neds!

Quite impressed by Rab senior's sudden scholarly turn, even if said reading was rather heretical and he picked strange times to stick his nose into a book. A pity he has now passed away, he had a surprisingly successful reign, capturing control of so beautiful, famous and wonderous a city as Edinburgh very impressive. Hopefully Rab junior fares as well.

[Stuyvesant]

The Dowager Duchess must've become quite the expert on Uganda! For all his many (many, many, many... and varied) failings, Rab the First had a surprisingly long and successful reign. Perhaps taking part in a tournament at age 64 wasn't the smartest decision... Or going all Nietzschean on his Bishop... Or... Oh heck. Regardless of all that, he lived a long life and ruled a long time, too. Let's see how the second iteration of Rab makes it.

[Tanzhang (譚張)]

I'm not sure whether it's the alice band or the campy moustache, but Rab II looks a bit "fruity" to me... Lets hope he's not another budding Nietzsche like his late father; some extra piety might come in handy.

[loki100]

Good to see Rab the Younger carrying on the tradition of the mustache. It's always nice to have a properly grown up heir take over when your leader kicks the bucket.

and the ducal alice band has been passed on as well ...

Typical. Hardworking Edinburgh residents paying for the town halls of the workshy west coast neds!

Quite impressed by Rab senior's sudden scholarly turn, even if said reading was rather heretical and he picked strange times to stick his nose into a book. A pity he has now passed away, he had a surprisingly successful reign, capturing control of so beautiful, famous and wonderous a city as Edinburgh very impressive. Hopefully Rab junior fares as well.

aye in his inept way, Rab was making decent progress & the next post will feature more spending of Glasgow's taxes on large castle-shaped buildings in Edinburgh

The Dowager Duchess must've become quite the expert on Uganda! For all his many (many, many, many... and varied) failings, Rab the First had a surprisingly long and successful reign. Perhaps taking part in a tournament at age 64 wasn't the smartest decision... Or going all Nietzschean on his Bishop... Or... Oh heck. Regardless of all that, he lived a long life and ruled a long time, too. Let's see how the second iteration of Rab makes it.

I stil think his biggest success was more or less in not dieing ... and producing one huge family

I'm not sure whether it's the alice band or the campy moustache, but Rab II looks a bit "fruity" to me... Lets hope he's not another budding Nietzsche like his late father; some extra piety might come in handy.

well he is into pretty dodgy reading ... and his court is filled with the usual number of men wandering around in steel trousers

[loki100]

Snoooooorrreeeeee

ah, oh, me leg hurts ...

ah now, where was I?

Rab II

ach, him, started out a real lazy so and so he was



and then just because Ewan didn't like him he decided to have him killed off



now Ewan really had offended all the women in Rab's family



but no one else, so there matters rested for a while ... a long while, till Catriona was of age actually,



so he vaguely checked if he could have a war with the Crovans to fill in the gap ... so to speak



Anyway, he finally stirred himself to call a feast, but he really couldn't be bothered to go and get the boar himself



and he got a bit panicky as to what we were up to



No particular reason really, I mean we were mostly harmless



and wasted more of our hard earned cash ... at least it was all designed to keep the Edinburgers in, so not a complete waste



then he picked up old Rab's reading habits



and he finally got a claim on Dunbar



not that he could do much about it, as the King had banned domestic wars

no wonder I'm so tired, if we can't have a good stushie [1] with the east coast mob, whats the point of living?

[1] - fight
[2] - the next update will conclude this AAR, I've not patched to 1.4 as there maybe some save game issues. The goal was to see how you can operate at the bottom of the food chain in a region of relatively stable regimes, and to play around with the event chains. As we approach 1140 and John gets even more inert and senile ...

[Stuyvesant]

I hope Rab II goes out with a bang, but so far, a whimper seems a safer bet.

In your plot to kill your unfriendly courtier (is being unfriendly a capital offense now?), I love how Rab's sister states that 'Your wisdom and mercy are legendary' and then proceeds to back his plot to kill someone.

[aldriq]

Sad to see the end of Rab I, and of this AAR, I thought the alice band would preserve them both until the late 1300s...

[loki100]

I hope Rab II goes out with a bang, but so far, a whimper seems a safer bet.

In your plot to kill your unfriendly courtier (is being unfriendly a capital offense now?), I love how Rab's sister states that 'Your wisdom and mercy are legendary' and then proceeds to back his plot to kill someone.

Aye, I tried for drama, but the only way to speed up gains was war with the King, for which I'm about 50-60 years too early to be able to risk. Well how 'not nice' Ewan was, I think it was pretty wise and kind (to everyone else) to off him ... and anyway one can't waste a good plot can one?

Sad to see the end of Rab I, and of this AAR, I thought the alice band would preserve them both until the late 1300s...

I'm sure the Alice band will protect generations of Rabs yet unborn.

I was always aiming for an 1140 end (unless it all fell apart earlier), as I wanted to play around with a bit of role playing and the new event systems rather than t.o any goal. Given my progress (both expansion and developing the realm), I reckon it'll 50-60 years before I can gamble on a civil war for the crown so I think it would be more of the same to be honest.

Its a real testimony to how stable CK2 was on release that the forum is already seeing a number of AARs that are clearly intended to be long term projects rather than quick game play explorations designed to be dropped once a new patch is out. I started this in 1.2, went to 1.3 but haven't patched to 1.4 (partly for safe continuation and partly as the improvements were tangential to my own goals). However, I like that the new events are more logical and give better feedback loops. So I suspect this won't be my last CK2 AAR, not least I have an outline of an idea for how a certain Rurikovich ruler's bad dreams can be used as the basic plot framing ...

[loki100]

Where's your Grandfather?

Och, he's still asleep

Well wake him up, we want to be home early today so if he's more of his tales, he'd better get started early

He's not waking up

Oh ... do you think

Nah, tell you what lets get out now

Nooooooooooooooooo

What

No, I want to know what happened next

But you do?

No I don't

Look he was going on about 1138, its now 6 January 1140, you know what happened next

He is dead you know

Ok, you two get digging

Not fair

Look, if being arbitrary is good enough for Rab, its good enough for me



Not that it did him much good



though marrying his new Bishop to another Hungarian was pretty funny



Though he caught a nasty rash pretty quickly



And then Duncan invited him to a feast, but really to tell him off



And Rab worked out that the only way to progress was to declare war on Duncan



oddly he went quiet after that,

Oi pass us that paper



You two finished digging yet?

Right lets be off

[Stuyvesant]

So, ill-advised war on the King = dead Rab? Is that how his tale ended? If so, he went with more than a bang than I expected.

On that last map, it's nice to see Libyan Croatia (or should that be Croatian Libya?)

[aldriq]

So, ill-advised war on the King = dead Rab? Is that how his tale ended? If so, he went with more than a bang than I expected.

It's open-ended, so every reader can have whichever arbitrary Rab they prefer

Looking forward to you next plotting, scheming, alice-band-wearing noblemen story...

[Stuyvesant]

It's open-ended, so every reader can have whichever arbitrary Rab they prefer

Argh! I hate having to think for myself! I already have to do that at work! That's not what I call entertainment!

I will, however, wholeheartedly second the second part of Aldriq's statement: looking forward to your next CK2 AAR. Presumably after you Austro-Prussian scrap gets well underway.

[morningSIDEr]

A pity this has come to an end so soon, especially as Rab II made a most promising start to his reign, a marshal wounded in no time! Mention of a possible future AAR featuring the Rurikovich family once again is hugely welcome though.