Dominus Regni Poloniae, 8 Feb 1296

[NewbieOne]

For some reason, the Archbishop, who has helped my father's accession has stopped liking me. In fact, I guess I can say he hates me now. I'll give him an honourary title to show him my appreciation:



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Wiesław of Poland King to Archbishop Jakub of Gniezno and of the Polish Ecclesial Province royal greeting.

Whereas you helped my father in his mission to restore the kingdom of Poland and whereas you brought me up as my foster father, the rift between you and me in the last months is grieving me greatly. We may not see eye to eye but I would at least like to see that we are on the same side. Please accept this as a small token of my good will. Filially – Wiesław (Rex)



I know more Latin than military strategy, sigh. At least our diplomacy is working okay:



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And my people have finally started thinking that I'm a Kind ruler:



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"Fair Queen of Elfland," hah. I have one right here.



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My brother Przybor thinks he would make a fine Emperor:



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It's not like I'd mind, except he's quite a mean guy and I wonder what he would do. He won't have a chance anyway. It'd be like 1 vote for him (his own) vs 17 for Prince Walram.

Meanwhile Uncle Siemowit is having a good hand for the troops. He's just a capable soldier, no splendid command ability (I'm worse anyway), somewhat battle shy even (mean people call him Craven), but he's doing his job with the troop training:



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I need those troops to reinforce because I have claimants on both sides of my kingdom. Zhmud and all the rest of former Lithuania belongs to the Teutonic Order, who have a claim on the county of Chelmno and are pals with Bohemia, whose ruler has a claim on the entire Kingdom of Poland:



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But it seems enemy would not come from without. Of all people, my brother decided to make trouble. He pressed the claim on Kuyavia, despite our cousin Leszek's superior rights to the Duchy:



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I guess it's time to write again.

Wiesław of Poland to Przybor of Poland greeting.

Przybor. What the heck are you thinking. I want your damn hands off Kuyavia and I hope this is very clear to you. Since I have a claim on that title too, I will be taking that title from you and giving it back to Leszek the moment you steal it and no vassal will bitch in your defence, so this is pointless. It only breaks my royal heart to have to sit back watching men die for your stupid folly before I get a chance to act. But will and don't make me hold you accountable for it.

Meanwhile our diplomacy is still working great (on my Silesian cousin, who is the most powerful after the king of this realm, and his vassals) and the council are fast at work in Cracow:



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Amidst all this some guy with a Bohemian name has the audacity to ask for my Uncle Siemowit's job as the Marshal of Poland. Nope. Not unless you're 20 martial, which you're not (though I suspect my wife is).



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Speaking of my wife, the princesses she's been raising are turning out great. My sister is Midas Touched. Just why can't I make her the steward? Oh well, I'll have the steward report to her.



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And, suddenly... the map has fallen silent with the death of my brother Przybor at age 18 after a period of illness. This is not what I wanted. He could still have come round. He was only 18(not like I'm much older myself).



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There is no distinct Pomerelia on the map any more because I am the new duke but this is still not what I wanted. I will at least make sure something good comes out of this. The royal demesne will be strong and so will Poland.

Also, Count Jaroslaw of Slupsk is now my problem. Or again, perhaps I should say. I already have 5000 men in the field that my late brother had raised, so good luck with that. I am seriously tempted to come down on him hard but I regret the men that would die if I were to provoke an open conflict.

Plus, it's time to vote in HRE elections. Guess who my candidate is going to be. And that king with 1 vote after the leading hooded candidate is Waclav of Bohemia, the same one. And why is Walram wearing that hood like a stupid rogue? I guess he does "delicate" work for his father the Kaiser. Well, since I have my wife doing that for me, I probably shouldn't be one to talk.



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Back to Count Jaroslaw. He really hates me.



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Even despite all this, I won't be neglecting things like building walls in my new baronies so that a larger town can settle there. I've been doing a lot of construction work lately.



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And it seems Count Jaroslaw's hate of me is growing by the minute, or perhaps his willingness to act on it:



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He's back to plotting:



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Thank you, Berta. Your clueless husband.

Off to the jail. Although it probably won't work. (What's with all those low arrest chances anyway?)



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Well, it didn't:



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What the...:



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And you against me, my tutor? But this will likely be settled by talking. I can't imagine him saying no. And I probably couldn't get myself to imprison him even then.

On the brighter side of the news, look what a charming guy wants the hand of my young sister! And he's the future king of Denmark. Sure. Thanks for coming up. I might have ended up having to marry her to a jerk with a title. I should write him a letter when I have the time.



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Look, now King Magnus of Sweden wants to marry the eldest of my younger sisters, Eufrozyna. Yes, the same one. So she has finally got her ruler to marry.



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I almost pity him:



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Wieslaw of Poland to Magnus of Sweden knightly greeting

I trust you have made an informed decision...


Chancellor, please finish this one.

Oh no, looks like the Pope has called a crusade for Jerusalem. I can't. I disagree with marching on provinces with different religions without an additional good reason but I couldn't do it even if I wanted. Not right now. Look on my eastern border, as if an internally non-torn Golden Horde wouldn't actually be an even bigger problem, anyway. And the Kaiser is running his armies around, plus the Hochmeister and his big blob wants Chelmno, and Waclav is still alive and wants entire Poland.



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Is there no end to surprising news? Look what we have here. Ondrej of Cheb, son of Pelhrim, actually wants to serve me. Look what a virtuous man he is. Better than a whole host of my cousins. I wish I could have him as a count somewhere, even marry him to a sister to get him into the family. He wants to be my chancellor and I'm going to grant it. Sorry, Archbishop. My patience has its bounds and I also need to bear the best interests of this kingdom in mind.



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I'm sieging Slupsk (and Count Jaroslav in it) and my wife is taking up another princess to raise, this time our daughter, the current heir, even though she's pregnant right now.



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Speaking of which, another daughter!



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It's fun having all these little princesses here and I wouldn't say a word about it but I'm slightly worried. But we're still both young, Berta and I. What's with the Russian name? I had an ancestor with it. King Boleslaw II's [Out-of-Character note: the starting king of Poland in the 1066 scenario] mother bore it but that was over 250 years ago. Hmm...

Meanwhile Count Jaroslaw's hate of me is complete as is his war against me:



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A fine (ransom) will not do:



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But in keeping with my habit, I will release him right away:



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My dungeon is empty. And wife is pregnant again. And another guy wants my uncle's job as Marshal and will not be getting it.

It seems a local church wants to organise a miracle play and is asking me to pay for it out of the royal coffers. Sure, gladly. I always support the faith:



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[NewbieOne]

I have a son!



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Wladyslaw, what else:



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I'm tempted to increase Crown Authority so that episodes like my brother's, for which our dynasty has become famous, do not occur again. But my vassals would start hating me again. And, right now, there don't seem to be any cousins interested in stealing other cousins' lands.

I'll go hunting. Whatever happens, I must increase my Martial skill. Besides, hunting is a good way a man can become Diligent.



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Bohemia has enough problems as it is, with two doomstacks from the Kaiser, who is inevitably going to get the land he wants. The Hochmeister has been silent. I am beginning to tire of this inactivity. Is this the middle age crisis getting to me?



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And hunting didn't work:



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Actually, I have more luck with birds. This will have the side effect of increasing my already considerable Diplomacy skill. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's diplomacy. I inherited this from my father. And I'll go on another hunt anyway since the season is early enough to allow this. And my sister Maria has come of age. She's way smarter than normal in our family. My wife has done a great job raising her. Look what a good guardian can do!



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This new hunt was more successful and I found the White Stag but couldn't get myself to kill it.



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And it seems Maria is about to become the Queen of Hungary. No wonder their king snatched her off right as she became adult. It's so hard to part with this wonderful child, I mean, woman now. So how many foreign kingdoms are we allied to now? That must be three. Denmark (not like they can do much), Sweden (now this sounds more serious) and Hungary (who are also bigger than we are). Anybody saying anything about our diplomatic skills?

As of 1324, Uncle Siemowit is still drilling the troops hard. Good. I am getting a nudging feeling we will be needing them eventually.



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And it seems Poland, my kingdom, is tasting the fruit of peace through my Steward's justice. The rest of my Council isn't bad either. My wife has gone up 4 points in Intrigue since her appointment as Spymaster about 8 years ago. She has also become a Poet:



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And a Cynical poet at that... We're both Cynical, actually.

Speaking of Cynical, it sometimes takes an open mind to solve a problem. For example, that exiled Possessed woman is still making trouble. I'm actually going to send her a gift to see if that will raise her opinion of me high enough to let me dissuade her from her murderous plot. Nope, it didn't. But at least I tried:



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Our diplomacy has slipped:



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And my wife is bailing me out of economic trouble again:



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I guess, "honey, help," is going to become a phrase I know by heart. Well, this was expectable. It was actually my father's plan. And he was right about it. Thankfully, Berta doesn't mind. I've also reaffirmed my Content trait on this occasion, too. No wonder the Steward doesn't like her or the other way round:



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Oh, and I've gone hunting again. And announced another feast. It's been a while since we last had one. The fire eaters nearly blasted my face off and I spent a ton on food but this wasn't the end of trouble.

Mayor Wratislaw (a Bohemian name) bailed out of the drinking:



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But Mayor Bezprym did not:



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I think my opinion of Mayor Bezprym has sunk quite far. I honestly don't know how he's going to raise it.

As if that weren't enough, some evil spirit tried to tempt me to steal my invited vassals' titles. I resisted, even though an amoral person could judge me weak for this. This isn't how the Archbishop raised me, nor is it the way of my father.



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However, the fire eaters who almost burned my face amused people so much that our diplomacy was bolstered even further:



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If there's one thing I know something about...:



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On the west side, the Kaiser is meaning business in Brandenburg. Where is he getting all those guys from? I'd better go to Berta for a lecture on, "How do you beat 61K with ~30K." I should probably tag Uncle Siemowit along. For now, the Kaiser doesn't feel like pressing any claims against me (while, in turn, he holds the County of Lubusz, which is a de iure part of my Duchy of Greater Poland) but he has already grabbed three provinces off Bohemia (Plzen, Domazlice and Hradec).



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Well, I'm a Patient person:



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I guess it's inevitable that you become patient supervising all these people here. I wonder how many plots the Kaiser is asking people nicely to end per annum. I bet he must be a very patient man. Then again, those doomstacks...

For all my patience, however, Stress is getting at me:



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Try having the Kaiser's doomstacks on the west, the Golden Horde on the est, the Teutonic Knight on the north and a claim and another king claiming your own kingdom at the south, when you rule a country you inherited at age 16 from your father four months after he put it together. At least I have Berta here.

However, today, 15 July 1328, my mother died:



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Rest in peace, mum. Meet you on the other side.

If there is one thing I don't understand, it's these guys on the east. They've been in rebellion since forever and they aren't defecting to us (despite being supposedly in our de iure kingdom and our Masovian cousins' de iure duchy, but according to my knowledge of history this is very shaky) or taking over the government or anything.

Thankfully, I have Albert. Albert is an elderly guy with a Russian wife and they always manage to cheer me up.



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On 1 July 1329, Prince Wladyslaw of Poland completed six years of age. I have taken care of his upbringing personally. I am sure he would come out more skilled in everything if I gave him over to my wife (who's probably too busy with the daughters anyway) but I need to have the decisive say in the most important matters. I absolutely don't want him Slothful or Cruel or anything like that. And I can't have him Italian, as much as I love Italians. And especially one Italian (thank you, dad!). The vassals would hate him for being foreign–cultured, and ruling Poland is very much a matter of personal relationships.

Speaking of which, we've warmed up to the Pope. Again. Or rather he to us. Again.



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Right now I have three kings for allies, two of whom bigger than I am, and the Pope loves me. Try DoWing me.

I am also spending my last penny on new baronies.



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I think I'll go down in history as King Wieslaw the Baron.

No, Wladyslaw, stuffing your belly full is not what you were born to achieve (and you won't be another Piast with a poor Martial score, like I am, let me see to it). Come, let me tell you about your great destiny. Darn it, my wife's probably a better fencer than I am. I need to take lessons so I can teach this boy. I've been trying so hard with all these hunts, depleting my treasury. I guess I'm the chancellor king and the builder of baronies but this here boy needs to learn to fight if he's going to survive.

Attaboy! Mum will be proud. As will the grandfather in heaven, my father Wladyslaw after whom his name was chosen (hopefully):



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Myself, I'm gleeful. And I go on another hunt.

And this time I became Diligent!



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I'll never be as skilled as Berta but I'm doing what I can.

On 21 October 1330 (time's flying fast... it feels as though I were a young lad betrothed to a slightly older Berta just yesterday), Jan Przemyslid, referred to as Lord John of Bohemia in this court, died in his bed. Rest in peace, could-have-been King of Bohemia. If Waclav had forced us, we might have done that. Father or I. More likely I.



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Uncle Siemowit died on 2 March 1331, as Duke of Sandomierz and Marshal of Poland, having been the latter for two decades simply because there had been nobody with a good enough Martial score. Undaunted by this sad necessity to keep doing a job he wasn't made for (he was another Kuyavian piast with 20 Diplomacy and 10 Martial, already good for our line), he trained the troops to his last day. As far as I am concerned, he died in the line of duty. I wonder how many lives he has saved in doing this. He has certainly helped prepare Poland for what's to come. Archbishop Jakub is still alive, as well as some others.



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[NewbieOne]

My next marshal is not even a knight (although I may be tempted to fix that... Mayor, what say'st thou?):



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My son Wladyslaw is a blessing. Not only is he promising great skill with the sword (and hopefully in command), he seems to have inherited our talent for Diplomacy:



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He is also a kind soul, like his mother. Well, supposedly, I am too. Really, there's been so much bad blood in this realm, it's way more than enough. If we could convince all people to think this way...

And my eldest child, Princess Wojslawa, has become another Midas Touched:



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Just why can't I have female Stewards?

Speaking of convincing people to see things our way:



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Oh, it's Albert's wife! Apparently, I've managed to do something good for her in return for the great service of her husband Albert in my hour of need. So underappreciated is the man who keeps the king going. Few people will even know of his efforts. Anyway, looks like I've made friends in this elderly couple.

And time for another construction project. My demesne is 12/13, so one more will be ideal. I'm also making about 33 gold pieces a month.



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Walram has become Kaiser. He wants to increase Crown Authority. I am approving this only because this is a way to help keep his vassals from in-fighting and avoid huge, needless loss of men. I haven't done the same in my kingdom (yet) but there is peace as of now and no indication of conflicts brewing.



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Remember my son Wladyslaw, the almost-glutton? He's now Temperate.



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And I have a Genius daughter:



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At age 6 and as a girl, she apparently knows about as much as I do about warfare. Figures.

My coffers are empty due to the constant investment but my income is good now (I think I've doubled it but Berta can probably claim most of the merit):



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Archbishop Jakub now wants the Duchy of Greater Poland. I am saddened, I'd have thought he would be above that. Maybe age and some illness are taking their toll on him. No, Archbishop. But someone else will be writing the letter of non-refusing refusal.

On 9 October 1332 my long-serving and long-suffering 24 Learning Chaplain died at age 59. He must have served in this capacity all his adult life since I'm pretty sure he was my father's chaplain before. As far my memory reaches back, he was always the Court Chaplain. He may well had already been Court Chaplain when I was born. He was Bohemian but I don't care one bit. I hope he will continue to pray for us all in heaven.

Looks like only Archbishop Jakub is alive of the Old Guard. I guess my generation is taking over. I've already been the king for 17 years, which is more than a half of my life. And my life is about to change. Soon.

 

[NewbieOne]

Polish Holy War for Mallorca

The Sultan of Africa is attacking the King of Aragon in Sicily, with success. He has also recently conquered Mallorca, inhabited by a Catholic populace. It's time to stop being uninvolved in European matters. We may not be joining the Crusade, for various reasons, but we will do something. Such as liberating Catholic or otherwise Christian provinces newly (or at all) conqured by Muslims. The Sultan of Africa is our first target. In liberating Mallorca we may also help take some burden off the shoulders of the King of Aragon in Sicily by defeat the Sultan's doomstack and so on.



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Wieslaw of Poland King to Yahya ben Hafs Sultan of Africa royal greeting.

Sultan of Africa, may your reign be long and prosperous for as long as you stay out of Christian provinces. I cannot let you retain the Duchy of Mallor and am consequently declare war on you for it. Hostilities shall cease the moment you surrender the land. Be well.

Wieslaw Rex

I can do it without external help but you never know. So here goes a request to my brother-in-law Magnus of Sweden:



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Meanwhile my economy is blooming and the steward has new ideas:



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Magnus accepts and Polish troops land on ships—there are only 59 ships, so we will have to make many rounds dropping them off at the rate of five thousand and several hundred each trip:



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We also invite Prince Istvan of Hungary:



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...As well as my brother-in-law King Erno:



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Istvan accepts, Erno does not:



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Our diplomacy in Silesia is still going strong. We need good relations between Poland's king and Poland's strongest vassal for situations like this, so that the latter sends more troops.



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Sweden overcommits and sends in almost 30 thousand men. I have no choice but to order assault because diseases and lack of food will kill my men at a faster rate than climbing the walls.



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Meanwhile, Wladyslaw, my son, already Brave and Kind, has become Charitable. And his Diplomacy skill has further increased in keeping with the traditions of our family:



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Several thousand men die, I don't even know how many in battle and how many at the camp, due to diseases and insufficient nutrition, but the war is going forth rapidly in our favour.



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It seems my chancellor is already hard at work along with the armies, even though we don't formally own the provinces yet and the war is still an unconcluded matter. Also, our armies feature Pelhrim of Cheb, the former Duke of Lesser Poland appointed by Waclav. I am tempted to reward him for his participation but his character absolutely prohibits me from doing this. Not only is he a cruel impaler, he simply does not have the skills and is overall a bad candidate for rulership anywhere due to his traits. I may give some land to his son instead, who is much better ruler material, in fact much better than most of my co-dynasts, but there are simply too many unlanded people in my dynasty to allow this. And if you ask me what the King of France is doing, I don't know.



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At 45%, the Sultan offered to accept the entirety of our demands, even though we barely set foot on the second island. Both islands are now under Polish crown, although I have considered donating them to the Pope. It is now time to distribute the gains. I need to grant a couple of bishoprics and appoint a couple of mayors for starters. Also, I pity those poor Swedes without ships to get out of there. At least attrition shouldn't be so big now that I control the province as their ally.



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While looking for some barons, I can't help noticing that in our dynasty, women seem more capable than men. That Duchess of Kuyavia is better than my marshal, for instance. As is the Duchess of Silesia. However, there is a male bastard somewhere with 26 Diplomacy and he's married matrilineally to another kinsman. By creating him baron in my demesne, I can also appoint him as my chancellor. He is even better than I am. With Berta, our trio should easily beat 60 State Diplomacy.



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In order to retain the new counties without penalties, I will have to part with some of my newest baronies in Poland, sadly:



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My income is likely to take a massive hit because the new counties and the holdings under them won't generate income for a while.

That last guy, who got the Barony of Rawick, was a 23 Martial member of my dynasty. He can finally replace my current Marshal, surnamed "the Effeminate".



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By 5 September (1333), the war we declared on 16 January is over. Aragon and Sultanate of Africa are still fighting (see province occupation):



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[NewbieOne]

Against the Golden Horde: Liberation of Moldau

What's next? Let's see. Christians in Asia Minor need help. By now, provinces held by all manner of Turks have been converted with little exception. Just Lykia on the west coast of Asia Minor and some Armenian provinces but that's Ilkhanate or the Caliphate and not the Turks, and I don't want to go there. Well, I could surely defeat the Sultanate of Rum but what would I do with the land? Donate it to the Pope? He'd have plenty of trouble holding it, it might even lead to his downfall militarily. And I may be unable to defend if I keep it and become attacked by a neighbour in Poland, as well as by the Caliph down south in the Levant. No, we won't be going there. At least not yet.



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Or...



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...We will hit the Khan for the Duchy of Moldau. The Duchy is what you see south of Galich, five counties all. It will leave several counties possessed by the Golden Horde to the south and west of there unconnected and relatively defenceless. Also, it will reduce the Golden Horde's potential at the back of the rebellious Rurikovich principalities in southern Rus, and perhaps enable us to dismantle the Golden-Horde-posssessed Kingdom of Bulgaria, depriving the Khan of a kingdom vassal.

Wieslaw of Poland King to Khagan Tokhta of the Golden Horde greeting.

Lord of the Steppes, it does not please me to engage such a mighty foe as you may be but as much as I respect your might, I may not continue to allow you to retain those Christian provinces which you have conquered, and conquer new ones. Should you wish to embrace Christianity, for example with the assistance of my Court Chaplain, I shall be most glad to welcome you as a brother in the family of Christian rulers. In fact, you would place above a simple king in honour, as you have kings under you, yourself. I shall require that you vacate and turn over the Duchy of Moldau. In the contrary case, I shall have to march.

So I am mobilising, while Bohemia, already deprived of half its territory by the Kaiser, if you don't include the vassal duchy of Moravia, is being hit by the Kaiser's doomstacks again, and the King of Hungary is granting a county to the Teutonic Knights. I think I will have to have a chat with Erno and convey to him our experiences from Poland with the Order. Maybe this will teach him some sense. Eventually.



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...Or not. As I march against the Golden Horde, the King of Hungary grants another county to the Teutonic Knights. And he grants them those counties in the de iure Kingdom of Bulgaria, which I would otherwise hope to wrest from the Golden-Horde-appointed Mongol king's hands.



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Meanwhile back in our homeland the populace in Gdansk (Danzig) embraces Polish culture:



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Just in time, our diplomacy has made another successful move at the papal court:



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We employ the Knights of St. John in this endeavour. They are not particularly numerous vis–à–vis the entire Polish army but their composition, featuring a lot of heavy cavalry and heavy infantry, allows them to beat superior forces. This is not the optimal solution because their numbers will be depleted in such a case, though. I'd much rather have them incorporated in a larger army to boost its breaking strength while actually having superior numerical force to the opponent if possible. The yellow line signifies the extent of the Duchy of Moldau. We want to deploy sieges everywhere, if possible, to expedite the take-over of the castles so that the time begins to work in our favour. However, we must bear in mind that if we scatter too much, we will be picked off one by one by improvised Golden Horde doomstacks.

On 27 November 1334, Archbishop Jakub died, the last of the Old Guard unless you count Pelhrim, who was on the opposing side, and maybe Waclav, who might still be alive.



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Meanwhile, the Sultan and the King must have concluded peace because we are now able to usurp the Duchy of Mallorca (and we will do so because the Sultan has no good claim on it):



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The war on the Golden Horde is doing relatively well. Our plan on making good use of the Knights of St. John is working, as you see at Palada, in Belgorod. We have numerical advantage, and superior holy order troops.



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On the other hand, an 8167 strong Golden Horde army has made it through Rus and Hungary and is advancing from Szekelyfold to attack our 6355 strong siege force in Birlad. We cannot allow this to happen. We may have to simulate some movement. Amidst all this, a minor member of our dynasty requires permission to duel. Denied.



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We have decided to arrange all our armies in single flanks to maximise the impact. While the opponents can flank us for a time at impunity, we can pick off their individual flanks very easily with overwhelming force. Thus we avoid breaking the battle into three separate battles in the centre and on the right and left. Instead we make optimal use of our numerical advantage, if we have it, or get away with slight numerical disadvantage.

We mark some movement to disorient the Mongol armies as we advance as many sieges as we can in such a situation, and after several successful sieges the Khagan requests peace:



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We have won:



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I can now create the Duchy of Moldau, as opposed to usurping it, and I have 20 excess holdings to give away. First church grants, then mayors, then baronies--the last among Piast dynasty members, who are all considered Princes and generally also Dukes regardless of the rank their holdings would otherwise provide. And I say holdings rather than fiefs, since due to long-standing gavelkind tradition, the dynasty's sovereignty reflects also on the younger members. They are not mere fief holders. Not even when their power is scarce and of little note.

So this is the new Duchy of Moldau:



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The land giving takes a while and granting the bishoprics boosts my piety to 638 from the 400 I had after enlisting the Knights of St. John. Again, due to counties being gained, I need to give away the baronies in Poland, some of which I spent time and money upgrading, especially in terms of castle towns and cities to boost income. This income is now going away, but I'd rather not give counties away instead. Those counties will eventually start bringing income too, from the county seat barony and from the vassal baronies, in tax.



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Or I could dump the entire duchy on my heir, except that he's underaged and I don't really have a decent candidate to betroth him to. Nobody above baroness or high in line to inherit something of note. I'm sure there will be opportunities later, so ideally, I'd wait and keep him in my court. But I may have to make do with what I have and betroth him to the best I can find right now. The Rurikovich family have extreme prestige and 400 points could be gained from such a marriage, a good kick-start for a king. This could be a solution if everything else fails. Or we could choose that Ute Welf and bring another Genius into our family. Also, sadly, Wladyslaw's Martial skill has decreased. He still has good traits but is far less promising than he was as a younger child. I regret not leaving his education up to his mother. It is still not too late to fix this, at least for the remaining 3 years, and I can probably hold those few excess holdings in my demesne without too much trouble during the time.



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Interestingly, a glance at the ledger tells us that the Pope has 35K gold and the Khagan has 8K prestige.



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[Malurous]

The image limit for an AAR update is 20. In addition, any posts made within an hour count as one for this purpose. Please remember this in the future.

 

[Avindian]

Interesting concept for an AAR; I like what I've read thus far, and will continue reading!

 

[NewbieOne]

The image limit for an AAR update is 20. In addition, any posts made within an hour count as one for this purpose. Please remember this in the future.

Sorry, missed that one. Thanks for understanding. Matter of fact, I was meaning to post earlier but only ended up with may too many screenshots and had to write them up en masse.

Interesting concept for an AAR; I like what I've read thus far, and will continue reading!

Thank you! I appreciate that a lot.

 

[Emperor_krk]

Just posting to say that I'm still reading and enjoying this. Thanks for your effort writing; it's even more interesting thanks to the period setting.

 

[NewbieOne]

Aftermath of the Moldau Campaign

After some consideration I decided that to enfeoff my heir Wladyslaw as the Duke of Moldau despite his minority would be the best course of action in the present circumstances. Since there were no overwhelmingly interesting landed females or obvious heiresses, I started looking for a good wife, such as my queen Berta, his mother, has been to me. Here too there seemed to be no particularly compelling candidates and I suppose I might have gone for Ute Welf of Luneburg, not my wife's caliber but still a Genius and two years Wladyslaw's senior. Then again, you never know how children will come out and there were some neighbouring countesses available. I was about to give up and resign myself and my heir to a non-spectacular marriage but look what I found!



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Ibolya, the genius daughter of the Baron of Tabanya in Hungary, was already a noted theologian with a developed sense of justice, zeal for the faith and diligence in her works at age 16! Not to mention an unparallelled love of learning. And her talents were such that even Berta was amazed. I couldn't pass by, even though she was a whole four years older than Wladyslaw. The Baron was not a particularly nice person but he made no obstacles and my cousin the Chancellor handled it all well. After the betrothal was sealed, Wladyslaw was invested as Duke of the newly conquered Moldau.

With this off my chest, I was able to take a long look at the map and see if any oppressed Christians in provinces newly conquered by heathens needed help elsewhere. Abyssinia was unrealistic. While the formerly Christian kingdom had recently turned into a Muslim Sultanate, the assault would have been murderous. The most welcoming of those provinces could handle no more than seven thousand troops. The norm was three thousand. How are you going to conquer a province capable of raising five thousand troops not suffering the same attrition? And how exactly would I the Caliph that I needed to land on his shore and march through his land to wage Holy War of his same religion? No, I had to pass. There were others. In Lykia, under the Sultanate of Rum. Remnants in Armenia under the Ilkhanate. Kartli under a newly independent, rebelling emirate of Derbent. Abkhazia under Rum. While the Basileus was already trying to gain Kartli, there was no risk of upsetting the Byzantines too seriously in Abkhazia since Georgia is not in their de iure Kingdom.



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I had a chat with my Chancellor and my Marshal, each a capable man and a cousin, and here is what we established:



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Apparently, a Mongol Invasion of Genoa is taking place. Not a simple Holy War for Caffa. The Ilkhan went for the whole thing. This is scary and I don't want it happening. Our next campaign shall be against the Ilkhanate and it will be starting... now, as there is no time to spare. Meanwhile, I shall be writing some letters.

Wieslaw of Poland King to Michael Emperor of the Romans greeting

May your reign be long and your armies ever victorious. Whereas your Imperial Majesty's struggle against the heathens of the so called Sultanate of Rum, so named in ridicule of your Majesty's very empire, has not passed unnoticed before my concerned eyes, I have a pressing matter closer to my own borders, in Caffa, for the time being which I need to address with priority, as the heathens could not only take this land but also in fact conquer Genoa itself, in Italy. This is also to notify Your Majesty that in so doing I shall need to enter the ancient de iure borders of Your Majesty's Empire in lands long ago conquered by heathen hordes from the steppes, in the Duchy of Cherson at the Azov Sea. I trust that Your Majesty will reflect on this peculiar situation with understanding. In time, I shall descend upon Rum as well to take some load off Your Imperial Majesty's shoulders, Abkhazia being the likely target, adjacent to the two counties in Cherson currently held by the Ilkhanate. Should Your Imperial Majesty wish to enter into a more formal alliance, it would do me a great honour.

Wiesław of Poland King to Doge Tomaso of Genoa royal greeting.

Lord Tomaso, I have been made aware of the dire tribulation facing your illustrious republic and the suffering of Christians at Caffa under siege or already in the enemy's hands. As we are not formally allies and on account of some technicalities [OOC: reference to Defence of Faith CB removal in patch 1.05] I cannot join your defence against the Ilkhanate directly, I have therefore decided to declare Holy War for the two counties held in Cherson by the Ilkhanate but will lift the sieges and reconquer what has already been lost. Meet you there.

 

[NewbieOne]

Helping out Genoa in the Crimea: Poland vs Ilkhanate

So, time to declare war formally on the Ilkhanate:



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No detailed letters this time. We gather our armies at the coast and hire two mercenary fleets. Meanwhile the Khagan invites another Khagan to the party (which isn't looking good but is not the end of the world just as long as we manage to force the Ilkhanate to accept peace as the leader of the defence):



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We hire the Frisian and Hanseatic Fleets [OOC: new in 1.05] and part of our army travels around Europe by sea, with the additional purpose to avoid getting tangled up with the Golden Horde while travelling overland through Rus. This is going to cost us [look at treasury]. Meanwhile the other, smaller part of the army waits for its turn, ready to act in case the Golden Horde marches into our homeland.

But we don't actually begin the sieges of the Holy War CB land yet. First we unload exactly 19998 soldiers immediately next to where the Ilkhanate is sieging the Genoese (whose defeated ~6 thousand army is currently at Lower Don). Meanwhile our treasury is completely depleted but the Pope comes in with much needed funds:



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We put all of the 20 thousand soldiers in a massive single flank and destroy both of the ~10 thousand Ilkhanate stacks one by one:



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Unfortunately, a brave Polish mayor dies in the battle against a Mongol nobleman. At the same time, the Court Chaplain, recently sent to Birland to convert the populace, accuses the newly appointed Polish bishop in that province of heresy. The bishop's stated religion is Catholic and there is no evidence. Case dismissed. Our fleets go back around all of Europe for the remaining 15 thousand soldiers and we are once again in the red, forced to borrow from the money lenders:



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At least some good news from the Chaplain (Birlad was the only county in Moldau that had accepted the Tengri religion of the Golden Horde):



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Our old acquaintance, the Hochmeister, offers his unspecified assistance in exchange for a border county. Not gonna happen, not this particular order:



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We assist the newly arrived Genoese army in retaking Caffa, providing two thirds of the Genoese-led siege force. The sooner we clear those sieges the better. The new Archbishop wants to buy the entire Duchy of Greater Poland for 200 pieces of gold. That too is not going to happen. Meanwhile the Golden Horde has managed to withdraw from the conflict somehow (among other indications, the Bulgarian armies running around are non-hostile whereas the Kingdom of Bulgaria is a vassal of the Golden Horde), I don't know how but I am not going to complain. The black Eagle coat of arms represents the Republic (Duchy) of Cherson, currently held by Genoa, although part of the de iure Kingdom of Byzantion under the Eastern Roman Empire. Apparently, the local count or some other count-level power that be had rebelled against the Genoese Doge a while ago. If only he had known what kind of overlord he'd be looking at next!



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At 339 in the red (-339 gold) we disband the mercenary fleets after dropping off the remainder of our army. What a good thing they at least did not rebel at the sea, while carrying my troops.

 

[NewbieOne]

While we fight hard at Crimea, our ally the King of Sweden wants my first-born child, Princess Wojslawa, to marry his son Ulf. After considering his proposal, we disagree.



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We also keep sieging at Kherson. Due to half of our army staying back in Genoese lands, the formal goals of our Holy War are not advancing much. The war score is down from -1% to -4% but this does not concern us. Soon a holding is going to fall, interrupting the Khagan's bonus for controlling all the contested land. Our Chaplain, whom I forgot to reassign from Birlad to some other province in need of conversion, accuses another dignitary of heresy, this time a mayor. Similarly no evidence other than the Chaplain's words, so case dismissed again.

While we check out Pereyeslavl, the Duchess of which seems to be at war against her former overlord the Khagan of the Golden Horde, to whom a nearby 25 wayward archers belong, the Ilkhanate makes landfall. It is fortunate that we left a half of our army with the Genoese, this way the Ilkhanate cannot destroy us separately, like we did to their armies. Still, due to the comparable numbers of theirs and ours, Polish army at Kherson is down to a bit less than eight thousand.



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War score is down to -7% but this is soon going to change. Meanwhile my second daughter, Dobronega, tutored by her mother, comes of age as a Midas Touched. In fact, war score falls further to -14% as we clear the remaining sieges in Genoese territory, the unstated goal of this war. As predicted, after sieging back the last captured Genoese holding, the Genoese army helps us out a bit too. We also decide it's time to invite Sweden:



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While the estimation is "maybe", the actual unswer is unfailingly this:



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Now up to 13% in warscore after winning the first siege against the Ilkhanate, we shift our troops one province to the east and invite Hungary, who are very close and very powerful:



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But Erno does not accept our invitation. Meanwhile the King of Sweden makes another proposal. Another daughter, another son. Nope, not interested, either. Hope this doesn't strain our relationship.



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Amidst the warfare we marry my aforementioned firstborn child, Wojslawa, to Otto Welf, a several years younger Duke of Brunswick. But an all right fellow, in fact, without a single negative trait and plenty of positive ones, such as brave and all. Overall, a very charming fellow.



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This is going to cost us:



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On the other hand, Kaiser Walram is a nasty fellow who has usurped half of the lands of our brothers the Bohemians (regardless of our own conflict with their recent rulers), apparently by somehow managing (he or his father) to press a spurious claim on the Duchy of Bohemia, covering all save two of the counties of the Kingdom, then having the audacity to declare "de iure" wars for the individual counties, including Praha, the very capital of the kingdom. Frankly, it would be a good thing to depose Walram. But, on second thought, this was probably a very stupid idea... Still, I have Crimea to worry about right now.

 

[Bballman23]

Lots of updates, I like it! Wish you had more commenters, but I'm sure there are plenty of other readers. Things are going quite well. I'm surprised you were willing to go into so much debt for the Kaffa war, but it's good to stick it to the Khagans. It wasn't quite clear, are you joining that war in the HRE? That could be a tough one, especially with your money problems!

 

[NewbieOne]

Our sieges are advancing, as is our war against the Ilkhanate. On the other hand, young Otto's war to depose the Kaiser is not advancing. Quite the opposite rather. And we can't be joining him now for obvious reasons:



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(Our diplomacy is still working and it is still vital that we keep good relations with our Silesian cousins. My other cousin, the Chancellor, is working hard on this. And a siege has just completed. Also, apparently the Khagan isn't particularly well liked by his neighbours. Or is it former vassals?)



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We push the sieges and go up to 64%, while the Swedes [AI] don't seem to know what they're doing.



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We finish up in Korchev, while two things happen simultaneously: the Genoese finish in Caffa and ride forth to assist us in turn, while a scary stack of 13 thousand shows up in Abkhazia. Conveniently, we can move the 9K army to Tmutarakan, there should be enough supply limit there by now after some successful sieging. Warscore at 79% and soon going up again.



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We do just that and warscore is now 93%, while the scary stack goes away. Meanwhile the Khagan invites his friend from Rum. Nothing to worry about. The Sultanate of Rum is completely messed up by vassal rebellions right now.



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Suddenly, a stack from Hungary or somewhere shows up and defeats the scary stack up there. Looks like Hungary is at war against the Golden Horde and Rum is part of it, or something. Meanwhile we're at 97% but the Khagan won't accept peace on our terms. Regardless of their previous conduct, I am a big fan of Hungary right now.



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At 99% he won't either. And since the Swedes aren't showing anywhere (after helping deplete my armies by attrition in moving back and forth without actually helping in the sieges, argh!), I guess they're finally roughing him up somewhere in the fog of war. And he's having trouble in Alania.



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At 100%, however, while he still does not want to accept, his opinion no longer matters. We force his hand:



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And we win:



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But this isn't an entirely joyous occasion. The fight seems to have been taken to Genoa in Italy, with caliphal fleets also going there, probably not with empty decks. Perhaps we could have sent troops to Italy before concluding the peace, defeated the armies there. Let's at least hope that it will take a while, perhaps outlast the truce. Now we need to bail Otto out of trouble, although I don't know how one bails out a lone duke rebelling against the HRE and losing it at -50% (somehow, several years ago, most of the empire was in rebellion). For now we disband our armies.

As for Genoa... we should be DoWing Rum soon and perhaps Rum will cash in on the favours and invite Ilkhanate. Or perhaps the Khagan will die in the rebellions that have already started, ending the invasion.

Also, Born-in-Purple (the Basileus) is doing well in Georgia: if you look at Kakheti and Guria, that is his doing.

 

[NewbieOne]

Lots of updates, I like it! Wish you had more commenters, but I'm sure there are plenty of other readers. Things are going quite well. I'm surprised you were willing to go into so much debt for the Kaffa war, but it's good to stick it to the Khagans. It wasn't quite clear, are you joining that war in the HRE? That could be a tough one, especially with your money problems!

Thanks! I've very much gone to the HRE, the update will be following in a moment. I'm glad you enjoy this piece. The last updates piled up because I played for a while without updating, so I had to write up a lot of screenshots. As for Caffa, I lost quite a lot of money indeed but going by see was the fastest way of doing it due to low supply limits everywhere overland. The Khagan had one stack each in Cherson (Caffa) and Theodosia, while Crimea from the north is a single province. That could have been deadly, not to mention attrition going through hostile Golden Horde lands, getting depleted in battles with the other Khagan etc.

 

[NewbieOne]

Mess in the HRE: Bailing Son-in-Law Out of Self-Made Trouble

The first thing Doman Piast noticed upon entering the royal chamber was the soles of the king's hunting boots squarely on the desk, crossed at ankle. The royal forehead was covered by an unspecified piece of cloth soaked in an unspecified liquid, presumably cold.
'Doman.'
'Yes.'
'I'm no friggen military genius like you and probably half of the bishops of the realm are better at warfare than I am, and heck, my own wife is approximately four times better, but here's how I see it: we load everybody and his dog on ships in Gdansk, go through the Danish straits, unload in Otto's lands and punch the **** out of the Imperials before they know what hit them, in a single flank. I don't see any other way.'
'Actually, that's pretty brilliant. I agree that when it comes to battle, it normally works out better when you do the charging and I do the thinking, but that's actually brilliant.'
'Good.'
'Catch,' said the king and an oaken keg flew straight from the privy royal reserve. There was no need to ask, it was fine Polish mead. The smell told the tale.
'Thanks,' he caught it with one hand.
'Any time.'



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(Also, the Hochmeister is not at war. Must be dealing with rebellions. And look at what the Kaiser did to Bohemia. Litomerice and Boleslav are all the king has, and his vassal the Duke of Moravia also has only two counties. The Kaiser is already capable of usurping the Kingdom.)

We recall Doman from his troop training duty so that he can take command of the army (at 23 Martial, the next candidate being a bishop at 15, compared to the royal 6).



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And we prepare the 30K Flank of Doom:



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We hire the Venetian, Genoese and Hanseatic Navies, distrusting the Frisians somewhat as perhaps too loyal subjects of the Emperor, at 90 up front and 75 a month each. This isn't going to be many months. We go three gulfs west, and at -65% warscore unload the doomstack right on top of a previously considerable imperial force. And we immediately disband the mercs.

As a post-siege garrison in foreign land, the imperials have 579 men in Oldenburg to my 28342. The conclusion is obvious:



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Rinse and repeat. With warscore up to -56%We're now in Celle, east of Oldenburg. That's three holdings captured by the emperor plus an imperial holding we identified as such post-capture. Meanwhile the King of Aragon wants me to vote on his absolute authority on account of my holding Mallorca. Ignored.



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Done:



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And Nassau actually is the capital of the Kaiser, Walram von Nassau, no less.

Apart from warscore going up to a whopping -33%, news reaches us that my daughter Wojslawa has become Spymaster for Otto. Just like her mother for me, for what is more than 20 years now.

We do the same in Osnabrück, while the ~12K imperial stack moves away, and we move to Göttingen, one step north of Nassau.

Suddenly:



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Doman could barely contain himself.
'Otto. What the **** were you thinking? First you get us in this stupid war, then I have twenty six thousand troops right atop of the Kaiser's favourite barony and you cry for white peace? You kidding me?'
'But...' Otto tried to say something.
'That's okay, Doman. We could eventually have lost impetus and many men would have died before we achieved victory. We already lost a lot at Caffa and we're going there again. At least no more men died than necessary. At least on our side. Can't be said about Otto's or the Kaiser's,' said the king.
'Young Otto,' the king continued, 'there is one thing you must learn: don't invoke what you can't expel. Ne invoces quod non expellere possis. If you're going to white-peace, you just don't start a war. We really could have deposed the Kaiser, although probably with great losses. Instead, about forty thousand men died in a botched rebellion.'
'If you had come earlier...'
'We couldn't. We were buried up to our necks in sieges at Crimea.'
'...'
'Just reflect on what happened,' said the king and rode away, with Doman at his flank.

Half an hour later.
'Doman.'
'Yes.'
'I wonder if we shouldn't have left him there. He would have gone to prison. Lost a title, not likely his neck, although Walram isn't a nice guy. We lost about 3 thousand good men, killed three times that, the result would have been vastly similar if we had allowed the Kaiser to capture several more holdings and just count the time.'
'Probably.'
'I really should have checked before I married Wojslawa to him.'
'You should have.'

We split up to avoid attrition while returning to Poland, so that all troops can come back home, and I appointed Doman the Seneschal of the kingdom of Poland for the swift execution of the impossible, but only after turning down another marriage proposal from the King of Sweden. Same old son (Birger) without a single positive trait unless Gregarious counts as one, same PrincessDobronega. Same answer.

Back in the East, the Basileus is at 41% against Derbent and Rum is fractured. Unfortunately, the Ilkhanate again has a 11K stack in Theodosia, Crimea. And I have only recently lost 18 thousand men there to prevent that kind of thing. This is haunting me. Perhaps I should just have sat in peace on my Polish throne? Only going to war if my allies called me, and then only for a good reason, not allowing Polish men to die in some foreign lands just because their king decided to declare war on somebody? On the other hand, can I sit idly while Christians in the East are losing their fight? My next target is likely to be Abkhazia, in which case I may be able to help the Basileus indirectly, or Cyprus, in which case I could perhaps recreate the titular kingdom. Or Lykia. But the rebelling local Turkish ruler could white-peace back into Rum before I came in with troops and won a siege to prevent him. So either Abkhazia or Cyprus will be the target unless parameters change.

 

[Arizal]

I just read your AAR, and although a little scary in size at first (and the screenshots are too tiny), I really like it. The narrative is good, the letters and recently the little scenes are also great. Maybe someday I will make an AAR in english too (I'm a Quebecker and I only did one AAR with CK1, unfortunately abandoned because of the crazy zirids taking over Scotland and I lost the screenshot due to imageshack).

I liked the very dark beginning date and the semi-historicism you had at first. Now this is less possible, however you continue to be concerned by the christians fate, so I supposed you aren't as opportunistic as many others. Keep up the good work!

 

[Bballman23]

Agreed, an interesting read as always! Very annoying that Brunswick bailed like that, what a waste. Funny that Sweden REALLY wants your princess... Are there no more suitable husbands you can find for her yourself?

 

[NewbieOne]

I just read your AAR, and although a little scary in size at first (and the screenshots are too tiny), I really like it. The narrative is good, the letters and recently the little scenes are also great. Maybe someday I will make an AAR in english too (I'm a Quebecker and I only did one AAR with CK1, unfortunately abandoned because of the crazy zirids taking over Scotland and I lost the screenshot due to imageshack).

I liked the very dark beginning date and the semi-historicism you had at first. Now this is less possible, however you continue to be concerned by the christians fate, so I supposed you aren't as opportunistic as many others. Keep up the good work!

Thanks! Yes, I can promise you more of the same. I'll have to find a way to make the new narration blend with the old. The current narration takes account of the current king's personality (it was the same with the first king, on second thought, except he was historical, so as you noted, there was more to work with), I think I'll go the same route with the next, who can be quite a handful (he's currently a duke somewhere quiet but he's already a grown-up, so he may start to matter soon). This is perhaps a reflection of my own personality more so than the king's, but as a bishop's ward I think it's quite fitting, even if ahistorical. Poland never did any real crusading in the middle ages (there was only a single significant prince who went crusading, the one who is the king in the 1187 start of CK2) but eventually in 15th century we ended up entangled in conflicts with Muslim neighbours (Tatars and Ottomans). The focus on diplomacy is also historical for the period.

Note: If you click on a screenshot, it will load the entire big file in 1920*1080. I started to clip the screenshots later on.

Agreed, an interesting read as always! Very annoying that Brunswick bailed like that, what a waste. Funny that Sweden REALLY wants your princess... Are there no more suitable husbands you can find for her yourself?

Thank you! That situation with Brunswick is very controversial, I think, looking at it from some distance. On the one hand, marrying your king's daughter to a duke who's at war against his emperor and losing it looks like a massive blunder. On the other hand the Kaiser really is a jerk who needs a solid beating and I wish I could topple him. He actually holds a de iure county of my king's ancestral Duchy of Greater Poland (Lubusz, taken from Poland about 40 years before my game start), and I'm not sure how long the fact of being a fellow Catholic is going to protect him from me. But the fact that I've managed to piss off two emperors and one superduke (not counting the now-rump kings of Bohemia who might still have a claim on my entire kingdom) might deter me from taking on a third emperor. Basically, if I had a bad situation and all of them DoW-ed me at the same time, things could become grim.

 

[NewbieOne]

Sticking it to the Khagans[*]. Again

(* Thanks to Bballman123 for the idea for this title.)

(Note: Click any of the pictures to load a larger version, where you can read all the words and numbers.)

Doman and I led the armies home from Brunswick. I hope that idiot Otto is going to turn out well in the end, although the rest of his life is probably going to be uneventful, like any of the HRE dukes when they aren't revolting. We were literally grazing our horses a day's worth of riding from the Kaiser's home barony when the kid white-peaced. But I'm repeating myself, so let's drop this arc. Besides, the last thing I want to be doing is sitting on a siege in the middle of the Reich with re-raised levies coming at me from all sides while somebody else is DoW-ing me in the east. Or south. Or north. Besides, who knows if the new Kaiser wouldn't have been as bad as old Walram (who is only three years older than I am but who cares). Unless, maybe, if we had made Otto the Kaiser. He had positive traits through the roof. Fortune Builder, Brave, Honest, Just, Zealous, Diligent, Kind, closest to a True Christian Knight I've seen. Even the Pope would have liked him. Maybe next time. But I wonder if there's going to be a next time for Bohemia. Half of the country is now under German yoke and the only claimant to it is the king. If only I had a claimant in my court, or at least one I could invite. But I'm repeating myself again.

Our intended destination was Abkhazia. The north-eastern duchy in the Kingdom of Georgia, one of three. The other two ones are the larger Kartli, which the Basileus is currently fighting to wrestle from the newly independent Emir of Derbent, and Derbent, which has been persianised by now. However, with all the Ilkhanate troops going back and forth in their invasion of the Geonese holdings, any siege force I would send there, either paying a fortune to transport it over sea or risking many months of marching through the Golden Horde backyard, would whittle away to attrition at a dramatic rate. I'd probably still win but a half of the soldiers would not be returning home, even without a major battle. This cost is prohibitive. This is making me uncomfortable because I've promised the Basileus some action! Fortunately, he is doing well in his war on Kartli. Alternatively, I could hit the Sultanate of Rum from a different side, at Cyprus and revive the Kingdom, which was overrun by the Muslims when I was 2 years old. Few things end faster than a holy war for a two-county duchy located on an island, as the example of our conquest of Mallorca shows. However, there is currently a rebellion going on in Limisol and while the rebels won't cooperate [this is a reference to the fact that rebels are hostile to everybody, no matter the cause of rebellion etc.] and I have no desire to fight them. I'd send them help if they were more reasonable but I guess even Polish diplomacy [king 18, wife 16, chancellor 26] can't talk sense into those Greeks. Let's hope they at least manage to win independence. At any rate, we won't be going to Cyprus. And we'd rather not be dealing with the Caliph yet; any holdings won there would be awfully difficult to hold on to, especially if we were simultaneously DoWed by... erm... pretty much any of our neighbours, basically.

This leaves us only one option:

...The Golden Horde still has that vassal Khanate of Bulgaria, now reduced to three provinces. Two of which, Galaz and Constantia, are in the Duchy of Karvuna, immediately south of Moldau, which we already hold. The remaining one (Naisus) is landlocked between Serbia and Turnovo (a multi-duchy and remnant of the pre-conquest Kingdom of Bulgaria).

However, we can't do it just yet. While things are looking good in Mallorca, with the majority of Menorca's populace converting to Catholicism (reducing revolt risk from 5% to 1%), our new holdings in Korchev at the Azov sea have risen in rebellion. I don't have the faintest clue whatever Doman was doing there or how he made the trip in such a short time, but he's apparently leading the defence over there. This is not optimal because he cannot lead the relief force I am sending but who knows if it isn't his martial skill that makes sure this relief force still has something to save. We use the delay caused by the necessity to deal with this local rebellion to allow our levies some respite and make sure we can raise more for the big war. Meanwhile some witchy woman's tongue has given me the reputation of a coward:



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Coward, huh:



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Several weeks later this happens:



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The doors of the royal office fly open without any knocking whatsoever. A youthful man strides in with the vigorous, semi-innocent swagger of a young soldier who has the world at his command but it hasn't gone to his head yet. At the age of thirty, Doman Piast (equally well of his barony of Rawick as of entire Poland) has been in command of Poland's crazy campaigns for almost a decade by now.

''Sup, Uncle?' There was a difference of 12 years between the men and while they were not too closely related, Doman's branch was actually senior in the House of Piast, so the King really shouldn't be complaining about the title. 'Being at war with two Khagans, is that how you like it? Figured you'd have got bored within a year of that white-peace with the Kaiser,' Doman continued before the king could return the greeting.
'Actually, Doman, that is just what we needed.'
'Just what we needed, huh! Tell me more about that one.'
'Actually, I've been looking for an excuse to hit the Ilkhanate and help Doge Tomaso again. This is weighing heavily on me. The man has been resisting two Khagans, one Caliph and one Sultan for years now, not counting the lesser folks.'
'Same old thing?'
'Yes, same old thing. Same thing we did to the Kaiser.'
'You have it,' and Doman swaggered off to replay the familiar routine, shouting some orders in various directions as he left.



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This is the theatre in its current shape:



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(Meanwhile Genoa is doing as well as possible under these dire circumstances, far from capitulating.)



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And here come we:



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The entire boat rocked and a corpulent and confident master's mate with an attitude tripped and fell on the deck as Doman spurred his black charger and took a long leaping jump after galloping right through it, sending water up high in a dozen yard radius as he landed, waving the royal red banner with a white eagle with large sweeps of his mighty sword arm as he splahed ahead in the general direction of the beach. 'Suck it up, princesses! For Uncle Wieslaw and for all of Christendom!'

Following the liberation of Caffa, which took place as soon as basic siege equipment could only be set up, the battle of Kalamita marked a calamity for the Ilkhanate forces, one half of which was annihilated with minimal losses for the Kingdom of Poland, while the other half still loitered about in Abkhazia, in the former Kingdom of Georgia. The Genoese recovered and mustered almost eight thousand men to take care of the remaining affairs in the peninsula and once again the gonfalone of the Republic was to be seen as the intervening Polish army sailed away, split in two halves in preparation for two separate sieges after landing from the same fleet of ships, on the other side of the water.

Less than a month later they made another landfall, one group, slightly larger, in Galaz (with about 17K supply) and the other in Constantia (with about 15K supply), and set up shop. It appeared that the sieges would continue unmolested, at least for a longer while, but soon about thirty-seven thousand Mongols showed up, in two instalments, in addition to the ten thousand Ilkhanate troops making way back to Theodosia in the Crimea. We implemented another of my amateur-conceived military tactics approved by my brilliant marshal: we faked movement between provinces to disorient the Mongols and thin their ranks with attrition as they passed through our lands and Hungary (the king of which wouldn't join the war).



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Long story short, they finally gathered up and decided to give it a chance. It looked bad, very bad, until we realised that out of the still more than thirty thousand Mongols, a large group were staying behind in our Birlad province in Moldau. Twenty-two thousand Mongols with the prominent participation of independent Khiva made it at about the same time Marshal Doman and the Genius Midas-Touched (and Humble) Bishop Jakub of Tsemes (with 15 Martial skill) joined forces right in front of them, to make the difference between twenty-two thousand against fifteen thousand, and twenty-two thousand versus twenty-nine. Later we noticed that the enemy's right flank (left from our perspective) was led by the Khagan himself but we only discovered this while reviewing battle records. The battle of Galaz was another Kalamita, for another Khagan:



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Except this time we lost more men and the victory was bitter-sweet. Perhaps we should have arranged three separate flanks, after all? Perhaps in this way we would have saved more men on our side? These men won't be coming home and this is weighing heavily on me. On a far less spiritual side, we made some money on ransoms amidst all the insults and bad wishes, which allowed us to get back firmly in the black. Around this time Sweden finally made it to our aid and we got good news that Oltenia converted to Catholicism:



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All the while the time is urging us since we have a revolt going on back home in the County of Slupsk, Duchy of Pomerelia. We nervously look for unraised vassal troops and we discover some potential in Mallorca, as we grab the ships from there. In order to relieve the siege of Slupsk right now, however, we would need to take troops away from one of the sieges or hire mercenaries, neither of which we can afford right now. We will go there and set things right, just not yet right now. In the future, I will have to think about leaving a small reserve behind or be thriftier with my gold. I cannot fail my subjects by failing to protect them.

Things move forward:



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Sweden has augmented our somewhat depleted siege forces (about nineteen thousand men out of thirty-two thousand who had left or thirty thousand who had landed on Bulgarian coast) and we use the Mallorcan and newly raised Moldavian troops in the Crimea, to make the 10151 strong Ilkhanate force reconsider attacking the now ~10000 Genoese, whom you can't see under the 1069 strong Polish force but they are there. The >14000 thousand Polish force in Torki is a Swedish army attached to a local Polish commander (this possibly being Prince Wladyslaw, the heir, before embarking for the Crimea).

As the situation developes, the Swedes are launching more of an independent operation and more Polish troops go to the Crimea. Battle ensues at Torki between the Swedes under Bishop Anders and a Mongol army from Khiva and five hundred Polish troops led by the 68 years old Boleslaw Piast of Cernauti turn around to join them instead of their originally intended destination being siege duty but the Swedes make an amazingly quick work of the Mongols (must have had a good army composition or superb leaders):



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Meanwhile Prince Wladyslaw, the heir, leads the small detachment of Poles who attempt to assist the Genoese after the latter dealt with Muslim units in the peninsula, free from the menace of the main Ilkhanate force, which had retired to Akbhazia. The Poles were not numerous but just enough to tip the scales and avoid debilitating losses for the Italians.

A tiny procession of riders clad in mantles darker than night made its appearance known at the Genoese forward outpost. A muffled horn signal, similar to the ones used by papal soldiers, such as those from Orvieto, which should be well known to a Genoese veteran sergeant, warned the archers not to shoot before asking questions.

'Chi va là?' arrived warily and angrily from the top of the outpust.
'Ladislao di Polonia, duca di Moldavia,' came back helpfully and cheerfully from below in perfect Italian.
'Si e io sono la moglie preferita di Ilkhan.' | 'Yeah, and I'm the Ilkhan's favourite wife.'
'Potreste essere se non lasciarmi passare.' | 'You might be if you don't let me through.'

And so it began. At the battle of Neapol (not to be confused with the one in Italy), Prince Wladyslaw of Poland comanded the left despite not formally being an ally of the defending force. The centre, commanded by the experienced mercenary Captain Theobald, crushed the numerically weakest central third of the Ilkhanate army but the flanks had meanwhile sustained heavy losses.



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'Sergeant. I never thought it would please me so much to see your ugly face again,' said the dust and blood covered prince after an oversized mace crushed the skull of a man who was about to stab him while he was pulling his sword out of another, together the last two of half a dozen, at least one other of which lived to meet the mace.
'I was making as much haste as I could but them fat mercs lagged behind, 'Highness. And I'm not getting any younger as it is,' responded the sergeant, leaning on the weapon heavily to catch his breath.
'Yeah yeah, now if you'd like to apologise for that on a bent knee...' retorted the prince as he lifted his sword expectantly in a move the purpose of which you could not mistake for any other, and suddenly adopted a more solemn facial expression.
'What the... Are you...' started the sergeant.
Two distinct taps were heard, each with a metallic ring to it, conclusively interrupting the old veteran's attempt at inquiry.
'I just have. Sorga un cavaliere.'

And so 9400 surviving Genoese soldiers marched off to finish what was left of the Ilkhanate invaders while Polish troops went back on their ships to rejoin the bulk of their forces.



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Notice anything? [Hint: Icons in the top bar.]

Yes. This:



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Time to sail home and put down that rebellion in Slupsk.

Oh, and the Basileus, after winning the entire Duchy of Kartli (four provinces), wanted us to vote on Absolute Crown Authority for him. We did not reply:



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