Hey, can someone remind me how we went from luckless king of Abyssinia to somewhere in Byzantium? I read this AAR enthusiastically until it was inevitably crushed by the Shia Caliphate, and I was pretty much like "too bad! That was a really fun AAR!" I come back to find the AAR 20 pages longer. How did this happen?
In the Shadow of Certain, Painful Doom: Abyssinia
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You do not want the tl;dr version. Go read those 20 pages. They are some of the best AAR written for any game.
Speaking of the Caliphate, what is this current Tesafaye doing? Fighting Byzantine wars is not the way to reclaiming his family destiny... He must use Armenia to take back... um... that land next to Sennar, errr... Matamma?
I think that once he saw land outside of Sennar his destiny changed to "get the hell out of here"
Just read through this wonderful AAR
If I may make a few points, Tesafaye indeed deserves the title Heroic because he slogged through life...in Sennar. That is worthy if and of itself. He battled unruly peasants with his mystical band of goat herders, wells collapsing, and Gabela Baboons with nary a thought! He established truly the bottom that man could goto without going insane. He established many fine traditions like luring Greeks to his court whose claims he would never actually press, and preparing the Ethiopian Tej export market to become the thriving buisness it will become, nearly 1000 years later!
Also, considering how the One Natured God seems intent on tormenting you forever, maybe you should seek aid from the Two Natured Son? After all, this could actually be your revelation! Perhaps the Monophysite God is actually the Demiurge! Both Bogomilism and Nestorianism call you! Abandon both the One Natured and the One And A Half Natured God!
Also, I have faith that you will one day make it! The Zangwe Dynasty must make it! They have gone on too long to fail!
If I may make a few points, Tesafaye indeed deserves the title Heroic because he slogged through life...in Sennar. That is worthy if and of itself. He battled unruly peasants with his mystical band of goat herders, wells collapsing, and Gabela Baboons with nary a thought! He established truly the bottom that man could goto without going insane. He established many fine traditions like luring Greeks to his court whose claims he would never actually press, and preparing the Ethiopian Tej export market to become the thriving buisness it will become, nearly 1000 years later!
Also, considering how the One Natured God seems intent on tormenting you forever, maybe you should seek aid from the Two Natured Son? After all, this could actually be your revelation! Perhaps the Monophysite God is actually the Demiurge! Both Bogomilism and Nestorianism call you! Abandon both the One Natured and the One And A Half Natured God!
Also, I have faith that you will one day make it! The Zangwe Dynasty must make it! They have gone on too long to fail!
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Tesfaye I is ROLLING in his grave. All that assassinate-y effort, gone to naught. Maybe he should have told his grandson to stay as far away from that Baboon hellhole as possible.
On an unrelated note, I wonder if the Caliph ever found that goat?
On an unrelated note, I wonder if the Caliph ever found that goat?
That's what you get when your ancestors lose a knucklebone of a guy who never took a shower. Unless the bone is found, more and more Zagwes will be born so that they never get to leave Sennar, lose all hope and finally start LOOKING for it. Mark my words. Without that stinky little relic, you are doomed! Well, more doomed than usually at least.
Epic AAR! Just bought a computer that will run the game and will be installing this week. I was planning to play the Bastard as my first campaign, but I think I will have to try Abyssinia instead. Tej, vicious baboons, peasants who are sociopaths and councillors who are homocidal maniacs - what could possibly go wrong?
EDIT: Also gave you a shout out in the AARland Choice Awards!
EDIT: Also gave you a shout out in the AARland Choice Awards!
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While Abyssinia is certainly put in a very interesting light in his AAR, I would not suggest playing your first campaign in CKII as them. You really can't get a good feel for how the game plays in the two and a half months you last before you're eaten by Egypt.
Actually In my most recent Experience Apart from eating the Nubians two northern Provinces the Egyptians don't do anything really. There busier elsewhere to worry about a handful of provinces filled with baboons.
I was certainly dazed. I don't know why I didn't see it coming--the guy is young and lustful after all.
LOL, yes. A bit too close for comfort.
Oh, you want a girl? Don't worry, that is coming too.
You and me both thought it was done on page 10 or whatever. What happened is that Tesfaye I saved the day and doomed his line at the same time.
Thank you! I appreciate it.
Unfortunately he is barely able to take on remnants of rebel armies with the combined might of the Byzantine empire next to him. By himself he can't even handle a few peasants.
There is that.
I laugh when I remember that he was desperately trying to kill his grandfather to get his title to Sennar a couple of years quicker.
Thanks! Given the curse that this dynasty appears to be under, I'm sure they'll get to try out all the heresies once or twice before the end. LOL
I think the Caliph decided that the Zagwes' previous presence in the castle had permanently polluted it. I've noticed that the Caliph has actually moved his capital elsewhere, probably because of the smell.
Whatever happened to that knucklebone...
Thank you!
Thanks for your post, and thanks also for the AARland Choice Awards mention! I'm delighted that you want to try Abyssinia; you might want to, as Kanin_Usagi notes, put it off though until you go through a few campaigns and get the fundamentals under your belt. There are several things about Abyssinia that is way harder (no mercs to hire, to mention one). When you do face the Abyssinian Challenge, there are some threads in the forum that summarize some strategies that folks have used. When you do Abyssinia, let us know how it went. Good luck!
I agree completely. Eventually it's fun to try. From all the posts of those who have tried it is apparently not too difficult to do better than I have, so perhaps use my strategies as an example of what not to do.
Wow, that's lucky. I wonder if the latest patch which changed up the Muslims has changed their "go south and destroy all the Monophysites as quickly as possible" ingrained mindset. That would be a welcome change.
Chapter 62
My excellent chaplain secures two more converts. At this rate I will cleanse the land of this heresy within a year or two at the most. The only fly in the ointment is that my chaplain complains in his letters of reoccurring nightmares, usually involving the Gelada Baboons that can be found in the ethnic Ethiopian lands. I console him that it is nothing more than the mind’s natural reaction to dealing with dirty Monophysites.
Apparently having a sky-high piety is not incompatible with murdering several spymasters.
I receive notice from the Captain of the Guards that a thug was apprehended leaving Spymaster Walpurga’s abode, in which she was found dead. After torturing the thug, the captain uncovered that it was my creepy great-aunt Ganet who had hired him to murder my spymaster. She is creepy because she seems as though she is a saint—brave, industrious, charitable, humble—but then she ends up murdering people for no reason. Why would she do this? I know that she murdered two of my father’s spymasters. I can think of no rational reason for her to harbor such malice for the official spymasters in Sennar. Other than the poison that stems from her heresy of Monophysitism, of course.
I marry Ganet off to the 75-year-old Iskinder, and I make Iskinder my next spymaster. I write to Iskinder, informing him of the cause of death of the last few spymasters. If I am lucky, he will strangle her while she sleeps.
With Iskinder as spymaster, I still need a new steward to fill out my council. I assign Laurentios back as steward. He is average in the role, but perhaps that will teach him some humility and he will learn some respect for his superiors.
I have just returned home with the few surviving troops that are remaining from my campaign, when I receive a letter from the regent of my daughter, Duchess of Armenia. She needs my help to put down an usurping count who is trying to depose my daughter. I readily answer that I will assist her. My dynasty must retain Armenia.
We are in trouble, though. They have fielded 1,200 men. My daughter’s own 1,000 troops were cut down by the peasant rebels to just shy of 500. I myself can field 1,000, but it will take some time to move from Sennar to Armentia. I order my marshal to pull together my new army to move out as quickly as possible, with myself and Laurentios at the head.
High intrigue ability, ambitious, husband died in my prison… there’s no way this can go badly, is there?
Before we leave, however, I try to seduce the wife of my deceased ex-chaplain who died in my dungeons. This is wrong, of course, but I cannot stop my lusty nature. She readily accepts my advances. It has been a long time on the campaign trail with only that insolent Laurentios as company. An adoring young woman’s intimate company is just what I needed to rejuvenate me.
Another ray of sunshine in this dreary place: I have become greatly appreciative of the company of one of my courtiers—Rosa. Having her around makes fortune’s poison-tipped arrows more bearable. I find that it is no longer a struggle to get out of bed in the morning. I have new hope that there may be a way to guide my dynasty to a renewed power, even if I cannot see it yet. I am no longer depressed.
I am told by some of my other courtiers that Rosa used to be married to a steward whose lust for blood led him to murder half a dozen spymasters before my grandfather picked him up and throw him over a cliff. It’s interested to learn that spymasters have always had it bad in Sennar.
Without renewed vigor, I am ready to set out to save my daughter’s duchy. Just before leaving town I receive an imperial decree—My empress has taken notice of me! She has appointed me to the honorary rank of Ceasar! Now that is something. Ceasar. That is a title to sit up and take notice. Immediately I look forward to casually mentioning this appointment to Laurentios and then making sure I can see the reaction on his face. It will be beautiful.
You would think that my elevation to Caesar would inspire greater respect among my people, but this is Sennar, where up is down and night is day. Instead a letter reaches me on the road with my army that a rumor is circulating, probably started by that lying widow of Kallinkos, that I lack piety.
Most of the ones above me are heretics anyway.
Clearly I am not the one with the least amount of piety in my court. Even if you take out my young daughter, my wife and Luitgard have less piety than me.
The Catholics call a new crusade. That is always a good thing—it occupies the infidels who might otherwise decide to invade the Byzantines.
Marshal Stephanos writes to tell me that Neophytos, my new son, is born. He neglects to include any message from my wife, which means that my absence has not caused her to hate me less. The birth of a son is a joyous moment, to be sure, but one that is also overshadowed in my mind with the fate of the boy. His lot will be to inherit Sennar from me and remain there for as long as this is his only county. Given the resources of this county, that will probably be his entire life. The most I can hope is to make a marriage match that secures land away from here for his own son or daughter, as my grandfather did for me. I will try to impress upon him that fortune will smile on him if he lives to an advanced age before I die, forcing him to come back here to rule. That is a lesson I did not learn myself, eager as I was to launch myself into the Sennarian carnival of horrors.
The rebel count is attacking my daughter’s army again, chasing it down after routing it the first time, not letting it link up with my daughter’s other army. I need to reach the area fast, but my army travels slowly on foot through Africa’s inhospitable regions.
To make matters worse, we must also avoid the strangely named land just east of Syria known cryptically as "Autosaving." I have heard the Autosavs are fierce cannibals.
As if it were not bad enough that my men must march by foot from Africa to Armenia, suddenly our way before us it blocked: The King of Syria has rebelled from my Empress. His hostile forces are now between me and saving my daughter. What this rebel count attacking my daughter and the King of Syria do not understand is that the only thing between my dynasty's languishing with no hope in Africa and it's having a hope of becoming powerful is the title of Armenia, and nothing is going to stop Caesar from protecting it.
My excellent chaplain secures two more converts. At this rate I will cleanse the land of this heresy within a year or two at the most. The only fly in the ointment is that my chaplain complains in his letters of reoccurring nightmares, usually involving the Gelada Baboons that can be found in the ethnic Ethiopian lands. I console him that it is nothing more than the mind’s natural reaction to dealing with dirty Monophysites.
Apparently having a sky-high piety is not incompatible with murdering several spymasters.
I receive notice from the Captain of the Guards that a thug was apprehended leaving Spymaster Walpurga’s abode, in which she was found dead. After torturing the thug, the captain uncovered that it was my creepy great-aunt Ganet who had hired him to murder my spymaster. She is creepy because she seems as though she is a saint—brave, industrious, charitable, humble—but then she ends up murdering people for no reason. Why would she do this? I know that she murdered two of my father’s spymasters. I can think of no rational reason for her to harbor such malice for the official spymasters in Sennar. Other than the poison that stems from her heresy of Monophysitism, of course.
I marry Ganet off to the 75-year-old Iskinder, and I make Iskinder my next spymaster. I write to Iskinder, informing him of the cause of death of the last few spymasters. If I am lucky, he will strangle her while she sleeps.
With Iskinder as spymaster, I still need a new steward to fill out my council. I assign Laurentios back as steward. He is average in the role, but perhaps that will teach him some humility and he will learn some respect for his superiors.
I have just returned home with the few surviving troops that are remaining from my campaign, when I receive a letter from the regent of my daughter, Duchess of Armenia. She needs my help to put down an usurping count who is trying to depose my daughter. I readily answer that I will assist her. My dynasty must retain Armenia.
We are in trouble, though. They have fielded 1,200 men. My daughter’s own 1,000 troops were cut down by the peasant rebels to just shy of 500. I myself can field 1,000, but it will take some time to move from Sennar to Armentia. I order my marshal to pull together my new army to move out as quickly as possible, with myself and Laurentios at the head.
High intrigue ability, ambitious, husband died in my prison… there’s no way this can go badly, is there?
Before we leave, however, I try to seduce the wife of my deceased ex-chaplain who died in my dungeons. This is wrong, of course, but I cannot stop my lusty nature. She readily accepts my advances. It has been a long time on the campaign trail with only that insolent Laurentios as company. An adoring young woman’s intimate company is just what I needed to rejuvenate me.
Another ray of sunshine in this dreary place: I have become greatly appreciative of the company of one of my courtiers—Rosa. Having her around makes fortune’s poison-tipped arrows more bearable. I find that it is no longer a struggle to get out of bed in the morning. I have new hope that there may be a way to guide my dynasty to a renewed power, even if I cannot see it yet. I am no longer depressed.
I am told by some of my other courtiers that Rosa used to be married to a steward whose lust for blood led him to murder half a dozen spymasters before my grandfather picked him up and throw him over a cliff. It’s interested to learn that spymasters have always had it bad in Sennar.
Without renewed vigor, I am ready to set out to save my daughter’s duchy. Just before leaving town I receive an imperial decree—My empress has taken notice of me! She has appointed me to the honorary rank of Ceasar! Now that is something. Ceasar. That is a title to sit up and take notice. Immediately I look forward to casually mentioning this appointment to Laurentios and then making sure I can see the reaction on his face. It will be beautiful.
You would think that my elevation to Caesar would inspire greater respect among my people, but this is Sennar, where up is down and night is day. Instead a letter reaches me on the road with my army that a rumor is circulating, probably started by that lying widow of Kallinkos, that I lack piety.
Most of the ones above me are heretics anyway.
Clearly I am not the one with the least amount of piety in my court. Even if you take out my young daughter, my wife and Luitgard have less piety than me.
The Catholics call a new crusade. That is always a good thing—it occupies the infidels who might otherwise decide to invade the Byzantines.
Marshal Stephanos writes to tell me that Neophytos, my new son, is born. He neglects to include any message from my wife, which means that my absence has not caused her to hate me less. The birth of a son is a joyous moment, to be sure, but one that is also overshadowed in my mind with the fate of the boy. His lot will be to inherit Sennar from me and remain there for as long as this is his only county. Given the resources of this county, that will probably be his entire life. The most I can hope is to make a marriage match that secures land away from here for his own son or daughter, as my grandfather did for me. I will try to impress upon him that fortune will smile on him if he lives to an advanced age before I die, forcing him to come back here to rule. That is a lesson I did not learn myself, eager as I was to launch myself into the Sennarian carnival of horrors.
The rebel count is attacking my daughter’s army again, chasing it down after routing it the first time, not letting it link up with my daughter’s other army. I need to reach the area fast, but my army travels slowly on foot through Africa’s inhospitable regions.
To make matters worse, we must also avoid the strangely named land just east of Syria known cryptically as "Autosaving." I have heard the Autosavs are fierce cannibals.
As if it were not bad enough that my men must march by foot from Africa to Armenia, suddenly our way before us it blocked: The King of Syria has rebelled from my Empress. His hostile forces are now between me and saving my daughter. What this rebel count attacking my daughter and the King of Syria do not understand is that the only thing between my dynasty's languishing with no hope in Africa and it's having a hope of becoming powerful is the title of Armenia, and nothing is going to stop Caesar from protecting it.
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Cant you just raise up some fleets and move your army in to the safer Armenia minor? :unsure:
Good idea, but Sennar sets a new standard in lack of resources. No access to fleets. They have to walk anywhere they want to go.
As if it were not bad enough that my men must march by foot from Africa to Armenia, suddenly our way before us it blocked: The King of Syria has rebelled from my Empress. His hostile forces are now between me and saving my daughter. What this rebel count attacking my daughter and the King of Syria do not understand is that the only thing between my dynasty's languishing with no hope in Africa and it's having a hope of becoming powerful is the title of Armenia, and nothing is going to stop Caesar from protecting it.
And the baboons continue to laugh at the Zagwes' ailing attempts to escape the sun-scorched huts of Sennar... Subbed! :laugh:
Behold, people of Sennar! I am the new Caesar of the Roman Empire!
...
Yeah, whatever.
...
Yeah, whatever.
Just retreat South and walk around that Army going through What Look like Seljuk Lands to Get to Armenia. That should allow you to avoid those Syrians until after you crush that Count.
Be honest now, you're only really doing this because rebels dare attack daddy's little girl! Like Sennar has any chance of ever becoming powerful!?
Ummm, does she have a brother by chance?
If so, I got bad news for you bro.
At least she's kind? And ummm...just? Who am I kidding, she's a monster, because she got corrupted from living in Sennar.
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