Was torn between posting this here or in Strange Screenshots. But you know what? The AI has been so on top of their game this run, Ima post *their* CK2 empire!
Don't mind the multicultural Buddhist India ruled by Bengali Jharkhanids. That's just standard human player doing as human player does.
Revolt aside, the Merchant Kings of Maghreb was one of the more impressive things to come out of the Umayyad Dissolution. I rarely see the AI for their own merchant republics, let alone form an independent republic kingdom. They're doing pretty well for themselves!
One of the coolest early deviations was Sub-Saharan Africa uniting, forming a massive kingdom, forming an empire, and reforming the African faith. Eventually they dissolved, with the Reformed Africans consolidating in Kanem-Bornu while Ghana went Catholic. They lost some land to the Sunnis in the Maghreb Republic, but African Mali is back in business and currently trying to carve a path into Sunni Abyssinia. Best of luck to them, I really hope they pull through. If my violent Buddhist conversions/forced reincarnations ever reach Africa, I want to maintain respected relationships with them.
England was having a fun time all game. First France took over the entirety of the Jurassic Coast, hoarding all the cool fossils for themselves while England bled into Ireland and the lowlands of Scotland. Then England took back the Jurassic Coast, and bled into Northern France. Cue an inheritance into Italy somehow and now they're the empire of Catholic Europe. Surprised they ended up losing Leon to jihad, but I doubt their Reverse Brexit is anywhere near over, there's two centuries left in the game.
Since early times, there has been a belt of empires: Carpathia, Bulgaria, Byzantine Empire. At times, Bulgaria would be suzerain of Carpathia. At times, Bulgaria would own Constantinople. But in time, all three empires stabilized, and became equals instead of joint oppressors, carving their own independent paths. You can see above how Byzantine especially has made some surprising gains, carving into Scandinavia and Africa.
Remember the Merchant Kings of Maghreb? How about the Merchant Emperors of Carpathia? Now that surprises me more than anything! I'm going to assume that acquiring Italian lands meant a vassal republic got factioned into power, but it's still super cool to see it happen. Two large, independent republics! And an empire-sized one!
Bulgaria's been around for so long that I took them for granted, and was surprised when they "settled". But that didn't really change anything since they went from giant blob to giant blob and kept everything the same. Taking a peek, it turned out that Bulgaria is officially Khazar Jewish, though I do not know how long that has been the case. This world is divided up into three colours, basically: the white Catholics of the West, the bronze Buddhists of the East, and a large splash of orthodox Purple as an Eastern European buffer in between. But within this monolithic purple, Bulgaria stands alone as a dagger of independent Blue. Though sadly, they aren't zealous enough to start converting their lands, so it's more of a mixed blue-ish purple.
Might've noticed, the Greeks actually took the Holy Land for themselves. Not just their Holy Land, but Medina is under their control and Mecca is probably next on the menu. No Crusade was ever launched for Jerusalem, no major holy wars, just steady Greek conquest.
So succesfully, it's just a matter of fact that the Eastern Mediterranean and parts of the Red Sea coast are Greek and orthodox. If that's not Roman continuity, I don't know what is. The ease of their conquests is probably best attributed to the large Shia block that used to occupy Egypt before the Crusade for it. And with the fall of the Umayyads, the Abbasids were bereft of nearby allies long before Buddhism was brought to Baghdad by the sword.
Don't mind Egypt. Just Catholic Egyptian Arpad, as descended from Arpad and Attila.
And this amazing woman is also of Attila's bloodline. As if her incredible spread in stats and traits weren't enough, there really isn't anyone else more deserving to bring Buddhism to the Armenians for me.
The Foix scattered across Scandinavia is just Norway. A minor count just happened to turn them into a tributary. Sweden's trying to be a relevant, independent country, but they can't really compare to Greek Scandinavia. Germany's been pretty solid for a few centuries, as have the Pechenegs. I'm kinduv disappointed that the Mongolian Empire has been waffling about, going for the tiniest of nomad chiefs for the tiniest chunks of Volga Bulgaria at a time, instead of just taking the Pechenegs head-on and spreading into Europe proper. And they keep wasting their time chasing tiny allies of their war target's allies, instead of putting their event troops to use in carpet sieges. I can't even fear them properly, now that they're down to a mere 69k troops, so they better get their horses in gear
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