An attempt to break the power of the Dukes

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Part 2

Part 1 of this update is edited into the former post.

Wow, he's really lucky. That's the first time he got this event in years. And he still has no realm duress!

Upper Lorraine is my next victim.

Remember when I said there is only one bad outcome? I was wrong. Honestly I hoped for her to die with the child to get Sigfried (the King's uncle) another wife.

Austria's next on my hitlist. Really, that's not as near time-wise as it seems, just not much happened in between.

Again the health thing.

You know, DukeWilleo1630, one could nearly take your comment as curse. I hate having huge courts.

Hah, I got Enzio! Together with his four sons! Breeding time!

Enzio's eldest son marries and the outcome after a year.

Next of Enzio's sons marries.

 

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Part 3

And elective started to annoy me so I go Sal-Cons again.

If there is a 25% chance to get a bad trait, I'll get it. That much is clear now.

Now he sucks even more. Only his intrigue is ok, but Schizophrenia nearly doesn't affect that.

I really hate this illness in the court. I always tend to get huge courts without even breeding and then my family dies. Oh well, we'll have to hope the others get more than one son.

I honestly don't know how the Billungs got Dukes of Styria, but I'll take care of that.

Afterwards I think I should have kept suspicious. He still had 0 diplomacy, with or without it.

Enzio's third son marries. The King's bride needs another year to be ready.

 

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Part 4

And so dies Gerlach, Saint of the Schizophren Bastards.

It still fits on the screen.

 

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Ah those saintly lunatics

Well Gerlach didn't have the time to get 8 sons as we hoped, but a nice bit of luck with that dude from Jerusalem coming over with his 4 von Franken sons.

And I realy thought those Mallorcans finished off Egypt. Maybe someone else will in the future, and you'll get more cousins for breeding and spreading illnesses.

 

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I just read this AAR after following the link from your de Forez AAR, good stuff. It's really quite funny to watch your Kings and their devotion to realm duress and sickness. Are there any diplomatically minded women inclined to marry the Salian dynasts? I don't understand the beatified event. In my games it seems exclusively to go to degenerate and incompetent madmen, on the other hand, liberating the entire middle east has rarely translated to beatification for my kings. Hope to see more.

 

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Shuma - Yes that was nice. I actually expected them to go into the court of the King of Jerusalem rather than in mine. Unfortunatly of these four sons only three still live while the fourth died after one son and two daughters (somehow I hate this quote).

As to Mallorca, I thought so too, but it seems the Countess of Delta has annexed them and all their lands. She also happened to have around five or six vassals, but when she died and her grandson took over (I think it was her grandson, I'm not hundret percentically sure though) these counts got vassals of Jerusalem. So in the end the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Egypt still holds nearly all of Egypt.

JimboIX - As you can see I already have married some of these new come von Frankens. I tried to find them brides with high diplomacy skill and many long living siblings. We'll see how that develops.

Yeah, the beatified event for him was strange. But then again, until he got schizophrenic he had built churches, monasteries etc all over the place and converted some Muslims. That's also the reason he had nearly thousand piety when he died. This should make a difference.

Edit: Update tomorrow. I wanted to do one now but the game tends to be stressy, if you know what I mean.

 

[Manstein16]

Very intriguing game premise. If you really are able to make every Duke a family member, your dynasty would have the potential to last forever! Or at least until the end of the game Thanks for bringing this back from the dead. It'll be fun to see how it turns out.

 

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Part 1

Yeah, if. But exactly that's the problem. Where to get so many sons if they don't even manage to have two per King?

Update sometime today. Don't know when yet, the reign turned out to be quite eventful and I have quite a mass of updates.

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There we go, update time!

This guy definatly is no von Franken. He even has nice diplomacy! And one child.

It's a daughter... on the second thought, maybe he's a von Franken?

There we go! That once was Brandenburg, now they come back again. They won't get their title back though.

That had to happen. The illness in the court had killed his father Arnolfo, now he has the illness too.

And he had even ok diplomacy. But he's not going to be my heir anyway. As I fear he won't survive until he can be a breeding machine I rather get him out of my court.

Again a picture of Jerusalem, which happens to own no land in the levant itself but only in Egypt. Now it's nearly united too!

Yeah, you probably already guessed so, I made the boy Duke in the south.

Yay! Another child. And that although his wife is two years older than him.

Somehow I managed to miss the realm duress event, but you know what happened. Yeah, he truly is a von Franken now.

 

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Part 2

Again, the pictures. Part 1 of this update is included in the response to Manstein.

Die Tuscany, die! They agree to my demands.

The boy gets even more land. What I learnt from earlier rebellions: The less vassals, the better. The more loyal these few vassals, the better ( ). The more lands you give to family members, the better is your reputation saving you from the collapse. Yeah, you probably already knew all that.

One word, huge! Bigger than many Kingdoms.

A son is born! And he's ok! It's going upwards for the family!

And again he managed to impregnate her!

Yeah, what he said. Half my army deserted.

O-k. He even managed to get realm duress twice.

 

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Part 3

Could someone tell me why I can't include ten pictures in my updates? It always tells me I've too many, even if I have only eight.

Oh, it's getting that time again?

I get a new army from my vassals, send them to the enemy and half of them desert when they arrive. Why aren't I surprised?

Take that Milan! I find out they also own Antiocheia and I have to take that first.

Crap.

That's the Empire right now. Milan is independent.


And now for some strange reason two screenshots are missing and I'm too lazy to get them from the other PC. Meh, they just tell that I kicked Genoa's, Mecklenburg's and Milan's ass and took their Duke titles. Edit: Now I found them. They were all the way back and for some strange reason the last although numbered in the middle.

Mecklenburg down, I see the Genoese own land somewhere in the Levant.

Both Antiocheia and the Genoese land are taken and they both have to give up their Duke titles.

Holy... Father! Nearly half of my money taken by the Church! Greedy... allies and friends. That's it, allies and friends. Please, don't excommunicate me!

Arabia for the Arabs! Or at least Africa. This is one of the grandsons of Enzio. I have no need for these lands and my rule applies to these lands as well.

There it is. I hope he can survive at least some time and not get his ass kicked only a few days after that.

 

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Part 4

Take that you TURKS! Ehrm, I mean GREEKS! Now I'm confused. Are the Sejuks a Greek Turk Tribe now?

I consider this as a good event. I know I sound harsh. But that's a gameplay AAR, and I won't lie about it, it's like CK: Harsh, sexistic and degrades women to breeding machines. If you wonder, that was Sigfried's wife.

The King's next son. Look at his diplomacy!

I can nearly hear her say: "Look at his diplomacy! He can't be a von Franken! He can't be your son." So seen I believe her. But then, I need a good King between all these idiots!

Oh du lieber Augustin alles is hin.

What the hell are Muslims doing in Padua while I am in Bulgaria fighting them?

Nooooo!!!!!

First good event since years. Now I can get a new breeding machine.

The King is wounded. He won't do it all too long I fear. Meanwhile Byzantion has fallen to the Poles but the Greek Turks are taking it back.

He still survived some battles, but that was his last. So dies Guntram the Crusader King.

 

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Part 5

Last Part for today. You know, I start to wonder if I should do it like TRD, just a few huge screenies?

His cousin Arnulf inherits him. And once again we have a King who nearly is not matured yet.

There he is. Actually he's ok, but I just wait for Realm Duress to hit him in the next few months.

And the map of the world. Nearly nothing has changed other than that Africa gets raped by her Muslim brother (hey, I need to make up a reason to take it back later!) So much to my hopes. And the Seljuks are at war with quite everyone while they have only around 30 000 men if going good. I send human waves and try to bleed them dry but it doesn't quite work. Maybe I should stop to fight like a Russian and fight like a German? Now if I only knew how the Germans at that time fought?

 

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It's a pity aout Rudolf, but you knew it was too good to be true. You've broken a lot of Dukes, but the Frankens seem adept at acquiring realm duress, so I'm sure there will be more. Also, has Jerusalem claimed the Egyptian king title? From the map it looks like they are at most two or three counties short, though I can't remember off hand exactly how many is the threshold for Egypt..Nice update.

 

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Jerusalem inherited the Egypt title or something like that, right?

Anyway, still no luck with the quantity of von Frankens I see. I hope one of those von Franken uber-dukes doesn't decide to break away at some point as well and takes away half your realm.

And I think if you wanna fight the Seljuks seriously, you'll have to do some planing and organizing, not just send armies to be crushed. Good luck with that

 

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JimboIX - Oh yes, although I haven't played on - not a bit - I can promise you more realm duress. Actually I'd be surprised if any of my Kings would die without bad trait. As for Jerusalem, Shuma is quite right.

Shuma - I think Egypt inherited Jerusalem, but I don't really know exactly. In the start the King of Jerusalem was the father of the King of Egypt. So I'll call it the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Egypt (KOJAE) now. Wow, sounds Korean (that is if you pronounce j the English and ae the German way). I like it.

I'm actually not afraid he breaks away, after all his loyalty is damned high. He gets around 5% loyalty per month and in opposite to the other Dukes these don't get rebellious. Oh this will come back to haunt me should I be wrong.

And why plan a war? I mean, I currently have 160 000 men, getting more and not less although I waste them somewhere in Bulgaria. Human wave FTW! Yeah, I suck at military plans, I know.