Part 2.8 - Abbasid
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Stuybesant: I guess the toy soldiers did help! I honestly didn't think it would work elevating the Greeks and asking them to convert. The first one I raised up I thought I'd check and see if it was possible and he said yes to conversion. So did it with the rest.
Ashraf needs to locate the bellydancers so he can marry a few though!
I'm going to speed things up in this update, apologies for any whiplash that occurs. And probably on Sunday we will wrap this round up and take a look at the current world and find out who we will be visiting next!
I'm actually looking forward to a change, there's a lot of interesting places and scenarios going on so hopefully we end up somewhere interesting. So with all that said let us return to Ashraf "the Ill-Ruler" Abbasid.
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Part 2.8 - Abbasid
We have that annoying little Orthodox Uprising to deal with. And I really mean annoying. Seems like these Orthodox peasants rise up every three to five years now. I'm sure it will get even worse with the addition of Anatolia into the Caliphate.
But, hey it gives Ashraf something to do and more potential prisoners/victims of the rack. So off to war he goes, and it goes well for him he manages to pick up the patient trait, which is odd as he never struck me to be a patient kind of guy.
Meanwhile one of our Wali's decides to ask for clemency for Prince Akab. Which I respond no too, definitely not about to release one of my family members just because some little vassal requests it. In fact I send the Wali to Baghdad Correctional as well.
After that, the newly crowned Sultan Pashalis of Selinus of Anatolia (lots of "of"s in that title there) comes to the realization that he can have MANY wives. I know he's wondering why he didn't convert earlier, I mean what could be better than four wives?
Well none, is the answer I'd give you, one wife is bad enough, I can't imagine having three others running around the house finding nitpicky things to complain about.
But anyway Paschalis requests a marriage with one of my courtiers and I say sure, because Ashraf's court is getting pretty big so sending a woman away is a good thing.
The final battle of the Orthodox Uprising is gearing up at Trapezous, wonder if that's where Trapezoid get's its name from? Hmm...
Ashraf really did learn a thing or two from the toy soldiers, and put the lessons to good use on the battlefield. Patient trait and now 100 prestige. He's turning into quite the tyrannical warrior.
The battle of Trapezous ends the Uprising, giving me a momentary break from the annoyance of Orthodox Priests.
Next up on Ashraf's plate, is a vassal who is unhappy with our Chief Qadi and petitions me to remove him in favor of one of his vassals. Normally I would say no to this and send the complainer to Baghdad Correctional but I decide to play nice for a change and go with a new Qadi. Besides the old one did allow a divorce which I'm still a little unhappy about.
I click on the decadence screen and notice that one of my relatives is causing decadence to go up, so I try to send him to Baghdad Correctional but the Sheikh escapes on a camel.
Now I have a wonderful rebellion to deal with again.
While the Caliphal armies are mustering another toy soldier tournament begins in Baghdad and Ashraf once again attends. This one will once again raise Ashraf's martial abilities by 2 points and lead him into fulfilling the ambition of increasing the Martial Skillset.
The rebellion of Sheikh Murad is a shortlived one. In fact after one battle the Sheikh has had enough. He surrenders and willingly allows my camel riders to escort him to Baghdad Correctional to join the rest of the Abbasid Family.
In celebration of the war, Ashraf welcomes a new son into the world named Ummaya, and also ends up mourning the death of his wife Tourandokht (not to be confused with the Spymaster/Step-mother Touran).
Oh yeah as a note, I've decided not to post screenshots of these mundane news items just so we can speed things up a little bit.
After the funeral of Tourandokht and the scouring of the region for a suitable replacement wifey, the vassals decide to rise up in rebellion once again. This time to install the recently incarcerated Sheikh Murad as Caliph/Badshah.
Now I know I could execute Murad, and end this war right here and now. But I don't, I'd rather save the guy for a rainy day to play with when there's nothing else to do. Plus this rebellion means more future tenants at Baghdad Correctional, and to be honest that is a very very good thing.
Seeing that I'm in the midst of another war the Orthodox Priests once again decide to declare war.
So two wars, very minor though. During these two wars the conversion of the Anatolian Orthodox peasants seems to be going smoothly as a few provinces convert.
Two battles take place, one against the faction that wants my prisoner Sheikh of Dhofar as Caliph and the other against the Orthodox rabble.
I win both battles easily and both parties decide to sue for peace and request room and board at Baghdad Correctional.
At this rate our prison system has got to be experiencing overcrowding. Probably time to build another cell block.
My wife Zahida then asks our new Chief Qadi for a divorce. I say "NO!", and apparently she decides an angry Ashraf is a bad Ashraf and withdraws her petition of separation. So I guess our new Qadi is doing what I need him to do.
Our Spymaster/Step-Mother Touran informs Ashraf of an Emir plotting to usurp the Sultanate of Mesopotamia. I don't get too worried about this and write his name down on our naughty list. BCF is a too crowded for me to arrest him at the moment so he will get a few years of freedom.
However, a Greek Wali, is not so lucky. He gets accused of heresy and given a room at Baghdad Correctional.
Sadly news from Anatolia comes in that Sultan Pashalis of Selinus has died and his son Theodosios has inherited. Theodosios is 33 years old and has no children so hopefully he starts marrying some young lustful Sunni Muslim women so there isn't a big old inheritance issue over there in newly acquired Sultanate. Heaven forbid it erupts in a Civil War and the ERE is able to pick a few rebellious Emirates off.
What did I decide to have Ashraf do after he improved his Martial ability? Well naturally increase his Intrigue.
I get an event about gossipers as a result. I can imagine with all these wives and the wives of my prisoners bustling about that gossip was running rampant in Baghdad.
Here I was hoping for something juicier. Instead I get news about some milk maid having the blacksmiths baby? The hell is that? I was hoping it would have been something about one of my wives banging the UPS dude or something.
But no just some milk maid trying to get a new cow-bell for free.
This of course fulfills that ambition thankfully, and I move on to improve Ashraf's Learning abilities.
Ashraf's son Ashraf then comes of age. Our first boy turning 16 and since he is our heir and oldest and probably our best bet at passing the torch I can't send him off to the prison. So I allow him to kick up his heels at home while I try and figure out what on earth to do with the kid.
I see an opportunity for Ashraf's son Ashraf. It comes in the form of the ERE. Sultan Theodosios of Anatolia wasn't wasting anytime with letting the Greeks know who the new kid on the block was. For our Anatolian Sultan had declared a Holy War for Nikaea. If he proves victorious this will give Anatolia and thus the Caliphate land right on Constantinople's doorstep. Which means we may very well see the destruction of the ERE eventually, unless the Seljuks screw things up for us in the future.
The Emperor is busy defending against my vassal, which means the ERE can't defend the few lands it still has that are causing purple cancerous looking tumors on our otherwise pretty Abbasid borders.
And Ashraf's son Ashraf needs land. So I declare my own Holy War. This for the Duchy of Edessa.
A month into the War for Edessa my second son Najib comes of age. I think about letting him kick up his heels as well, when I notice he's slow or whatever that bad trait is with his face and the "?". I didn't investigate what that meant but it sealed his fate. I immediately send him to Baghdad Correctional, just because his deformity irritated the hell out of me.
I also send with him another relative Emir Zeyd. Apparently the new cell block at the BCF has been completed, because they're accepting new prisoners again.
And a third man in a row gets sent there just for requesting Zeyd's release.
After imprisoning three people in rapid succession, a writer comes to court wanting to write a book of the Cruel Caliphs of Baghdad. I give him patronage knowing that this book probably wouldn't be meant for children. Probably will contain a lot of passages about random executions, torturing techniques of little girls, the ten steps on how to kill your wife without being caught, you know the usual everyday stuff.
This also gives Ashraf the Proud trait which I think is slightly more suiting then the previous Patient trait he picked up a little while ago.
With the 10 Steps on How to Kill Your Wife Without Being Caught in mind, Ashraf gets to kill his wife!
Only he does get caught. He wants everyone in Baghdad to know and executes her publicly for treason. Oh and to top it all off it is poetic justice in a way, Zahida, had requested a divorce a few years back. Well she got what she wanted, release from Ashraf's Harem, just not the way she had planned it though.
Meanwhile, Ashraf's men occupied a Byzantine holding and captured Kale Makedon. A relative to the once proud ruling dynasty of the Emperor. Kale was a little girl, 1 years old the day she was captured and brought to Baghdad Correctional. Ashraf took one look at the little baby and new this was his chance to emerge from the shadow of his father Najib and become the meanest most cruel Caliph in history.
Yes, Ashraf had a plan for this 1 year old girl and it wasn't the rack either.
Yep...
I executed her.
Following up the execution of baby Kale, another faction breaks out, obviously baby killing isn't favorable amongst the populace. They are wanting to install Prince Akab who is a prisoner at the BCF.
This time I don't want to play around with these traitors. So I say really how about we install a corpse as Caliph.
No more rebellion there.
Emperor Lazaros has seen enough. He knows he can't contend with Ashraf the baby killer. Only Greek that ever could have would have been Thomas, the Emperor who had a castration fetish, and he was long gone.
Plus, Lazaros had the Sultan of Anatolia to deal with so he bowed out and sued for peace of which Ashraf happily accepted.
Which brings us to our stopping point for the day. Time left at this point is 1 year and 4 months.
Next update will complete our round of Abbasid fun and introduce us to our next playground. I'm going to miss evil Ashraf though...