Yay, it's done! But I can't post pictures the capture; it's for exceeding quota or something... maybe it's counitng it as doublepost.
Anyways, caught a lucky break in capturing the Kaiser in the independence war, which probably shaved off a good year or three from achieving that last condition. First Major Battle won 4 January 1143, Kaiser Captured on 10 May 1143, officially independent 7 June 1143. And that was after two years of war during which the doomstacks had smushed mine. When they went to bother Bohemia I was able to regroup, but I've still lost my 4 knight retinues.
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Great! I think you may want to upload pictures to another site like imgur or photobucket. That could be your problem.
I begin to wonder if it is enough to be Holy roman emperor instead of independence. Since something unexpected happened: http://imgur.com/h19uLUy
Edit: Image didn't work so posted link instead.
Hm. Interesting. Not sure how to respond to this, honestly.
Yeah, I didn't want to rush it so I just bitted my time until I was stong enough that I could break free without any difficulty.
Well, you certainly did that. No problems on that end whatsoever.
My character the Queen died in 1136, aged 35, leaving me with a game over.
(I had all the de-jure kingdom and 4/6 of the duchy, but wasn't independent.)
What? No children, or siblings?