Chapter 1: An Estonian Song
We are Andyamo, a man who history in our time line has forgotten about. In this game, his name will be sung for generations, because right now he is almost perfect. He's young, has yet to be married and has decent stats (though that diplomacy stat will certainly have to be improved.)
We have pretty much a blank slate to work on, and hopefully we'll be able to get a real heir before he inevitably dies. So let's start, shall we?
Here is an in game view of us. We are the light brown country just south of the Gulf of Finland, and as I said before, we don't have very much going for us besides a good character and a bit of room to breath. To are west in light blue is the Kingdom of Sweden, who is currently in a civil war with the dark blue Duchy of Uppland. In the unlikely event that Uppland wins, Sweden becomes Norse under Prince Erik the Heathen.
This doesn't mean much to us other than it will hopefully keep the Swedes off our back for a few years.
In the east in the green we have the Princedom of Novgorod, led by this fellow right here,
He's an Orthodox Russian master swordsman who more importantly, despises us. His only heir however is just a child, more on how we'll handle that later. The most important part is that Novgorod is big and strong and will probably turn into Russia eventually, so we're going to most likely be stabbing each other very soon.
To the north are the disorganized tribes of the Finnish pagans, and we thankful have little to fear from them. To the south are the other minor Baltic nations, who we will turn into some punching bags when we get the chance. North and south are our only avenues of expansion, and right now we're looking south.
The only way to survive is to expand so that we can get enough men to hold off against the Christian hordes. This means conquering lands to earn ourselves more men and hopefully money to gain access to mercenary companies to aid us. Sadly to the south there are also other Russian princedoms like Novgorod, and they're more than likely going to band together at some point, enemies upon enemies.
Sadly, we're not completely together ourselves, and our only vassal is a clubfoot who dislikes us.
His traits from left to right are clubfooted, diligent, arbitrary, temperate and chaste. Andyamo is his only heir, and he is currently trying to decide whether he should arrange an accident or just bribe him into loyalty. After some time he decides on the latter option and half hos treasury later the vassal's opinion is 9.
If matters weren't that bad, our realm is also very decentralized:
We can see we practice Gavelkind, which means we're going to be split up when Andyamo dies. Since we have no plans to reform the Finnic religion, we're going to be sticking with that for quite a while.
Now that all of this is behind us, it's time to get things rolling.
We're 16 and have no wife, this will be rectified. Although normally I'd marry to secure a political alliance with another power, there aren't many pagans that have any real power however, and instead Andyamo decides to marry for... other things.
Here we can see my soon to be wife. She's not much in the personality department, but she has nice hips and right now Andaymo needs a child, which is what she'll provide Andyamo with. Marrying her will marry into a lower class, and will make Andyamo's peers think much less of him. Still, there's not many to decide between, and she'll do.
With our wife sorted out and on the way from the mail order bride guild, we do a bit of soul searching and decide we need to improve our dismal diplomacy skill and become a better talker.
It's something we're going to need if we grow larger and begin managing many vassals, and hopefully we can begin increasing that stat ASAP. Back to the law screen, Andyamo also announces an increase in vassal obligations. My one vassal votes in agreement, no doubt thanks to our generous bribe, and he now has to send slightly more money and more soldiers when we call for them.
This ends all we have to do on this front, and we now look outside our borders. We aren't pious or prestigious enough to declare war on one of the surrounding pagan nations, and for now we're going to just bunker down and try to become a bit famous and a bit religious. This means holding off the surrounding enemies first, and that means we're going to have to cripple Novgorod.
This means killing Mstislav. This will be hard, as his court is very loyal to him, but Andyamo begins plotting his demise regardless. If he died it'd fall to his son, who is still a child and has no idea how to run a realm. With Mstislav dead we will have several years without Novgorod to worry about, and will have time to handle our affairs. Sadly however, we need support in his court to begin an assassination.
We have none. Improving our diplomacy should help, as well as us sending our spymaster to Novgorod to set up a spy ring and help our assassination, but this will take some time. Without much else to do, we wait, performing some minor events such as feasts and hunts to keep everyone in the duchy happy and on our side.
As we're out hunting bear as our Finnic religion allows us, the ferocious beast charges out. This prompts an event to pop up. Events are the cornerstone of Crusader Kings 2, they will decide exactly how our character will develop and how our future will pan out. Andyamo is a strong warrior, and thus charges ahead of his warriors, straight into the bear. This is extremely dangerous, but we're role playing here, and Andyamo isn't too bright.
Well, it ends predictably.
But with glory!
And as we return, the wedding ceremony is held between Andyamo and Pekshayka, Andyamo forgoes a wedding gift, as this will be very impressive to my peers and immediately shoot my prestige back up.
The celebrations of Karhunpaijaset end soon after the wedding, boosting our prestige and piety quite nicely.
This of course means Andyamo's both famous enough and pious enough to invade somebody, and we quickly take this opportunity The Duchy of Estonia extends to The Ingrians to the east, and enveloping them will give us complete control of the de jure duchy.
Our 1,500 strong army is much larger than Ingria's levies, which are half or so our size. The battle is short and decisive, and the war is won as the last of their men breaks and retreats back into the hills. The chieftain quickly surrenders the land, and we are now the owners of a larger duchy.
It will take some time to expand further, but hopefully this is just one more step on a road to greatness. The county is given to Vaino, our court shaman. It means we'll need to find a new shaman, but Vaino is one of the few courtiers that Andyamo gets along with, and he hopes that Vaino will prove a capable ally.
As we celebrate our territorial gains, a night of celebratory passion ends with Pekshayka announcing she is with child.
This of course causes more celebrations. An heir! An heir! We have an heir! In celebration, it is decided war shall be declared on Liivimaa to the south. Sadly the celebration is dampened as Pekshayka has her child. It's a girl.
wooo.
Still, an heir is an heir, and maybe our conquest of the south will inspire further children. Our forces quickly march to Liivimaa. The battle we face there is much more difficult, as Liivimaa is far larger than Ingria. Their leader, Deryab, is a natural leader, and an able general, we can only hope our incoming reinforcements will sway the battle to our favor.
The battle rages but Deryab never makes his presence known, leaving the battle to his two lieutenants. The men are brave and strong and fight like true warriors, but Andyamo's presence inspires his men and his generals are more than skilled in the art of war. The battle costs many lives, but eventually, it is won.
The battle ensures our victory in the war, and a short siege of Deryab's hill fort ends with our victory. Deryab is offered a chance to continue on but his hatred prompts him to continue the war even as his vassal, Varaka, surrenders to the invading Estonians. Deryab is imprisoned and his title is revoked, Liivimaa is ours. Our new vassal, Varaka, seems a good enough sort and more importantly likes us.
And our border now reaches the Lettigallians and Polotsk to the south. Polotsk is yet another Orthodox nation and they have recently conquered the Dvinan tribe of Baltic pagans. They're another likely enemy, and Andyamo keeps an eye out. But on the bright side, conquering the Liivimaans means we are the undisputed rulers of the duchy of Latvia, of which the Lettgallians are a part.
They reject Andyamo's offer of subjugation and soon after the men of Estonia once again march south, and after a short battle, Estonia grows further. We still don't hold a candle to the Orthodox nations that surround us, but we are quickly becoming the master of the Pagan Baltics. Our soldiers prepare to march south, getting ready to declare war on the Curonians. We worship the Finnic religion, while they worship Baltic, meaning that we are free to invade them to our hearts content.
However we've spent many lives pushing south, and we opt to recover our losses and invade later in the year. As Andyamo consolidates his growing realm, his marshal rushes forward about a group of bandits.
Andyamo laughs at the man and ignores the Merry Men, going back to work. As he is preparing, Andyamo discovers that he is acting kindly to everybody. Not the best trait for the warlord of the Baltics, but perhaps it will make people like him more.
As he contemplates, his martial continues complaining of the bandits. Sickened of this Robin Hood and his Merry Men, Andyamo agrees to set up an archery contest to draw him out. The ruse of course works, and Robin and his Merry Men are captured.
Andyamo almost orders his execution but then he remembers how kind he is, and decides against it, instead opting towards the path of mercy. Robin and his men are hired as game keepers.
Robin and his lady Marion marry, and Andyamo moves on from that little distraction and gives the order for his lieutenant's to prepare to martial his armies. Andyamo's personal guard now numbers around 750, nearly as much men as the Curonians can muster in total. War is declared soon after Andyamo finishes preparing his men. As the invasion goes on, the losses are staggering on both sides as the Curonians call in the nearby pagans.
As is tradition, the war sets Andyamo into fits of 'inspiration', his wife has another child. Sadly it's another girl, but Andyamo just continues hoping.
Our conquests south however mean we're slowly coming in contact with greater empires, and Andyamo begins hearing tales coming from those lands which his Estonia will one day rival.
Andyamo doesn't quite understand these strange tales of 'Romans' and 'Turks', not comprehending the great shifts of power to the south, he moves on with his conquests. The battles are hard, and over two thousand men die, but Estonia grows.
It will take some time before we can safely invade another Baltic nation, and Andyamo goes back to the time consuming task of trying for an heir. At the least, we're now large enough to give the Christians pause before an invasion, and hopefully we can continue our conquests without their intervention.
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