After almost two to three years of trying (and failing At one point or another), I have been able to establish a Messalian Kingdom.
A quick search into Messalian history shows they lived in the Mesopotamian river banks and Asia minor (eastern Turkey). Before branching out into Bulgaria etc.
With that in mind any and all attempts for creating such a kingdom meant I had to create it along either the Tigris or Euphrates rivers. With the best bet it being someplace close to Antioch to get religious authority.
The avid among you will notice that area of the map is not the most welcoming to anything non-Orthodox Christian or Muslim. Leaving me between a literal 'rock and a hard place' with both the Abbasids to the south and the Byzantines to the north. Either able to literaly crush any county/duchy I have to build upon.
With my latest playthrough though a number of factors played to my advantage:
A-The Byzantines were pretty occupied with a pretty strong Armenian uprising and eventual Armenian Kingdom.
B-Abbasids being too busy either trying to invade the Byzantines, expand in the Sind region or quell a few shia/ decadence revolt uprisings.
With two very closely timed decadence uprisings I was able to snipe two duchies from the Abbasids and their (much weakened when they started successors). With the final nail in the coffin being a duchy of Allepo that I snatched from some Emir that decided to go independent rather than become a vassal of the Abbasids replacement empire.
With only my second ruler of the game I was able to maneuver between the two monsters (Abbasids and Byzantines) and carve out three duchies in order to finally create the Messalian Kingdom I always dreamed of having.
Note that no console commands were used, this is a straight up ironman Charlemagne playthough on the vanilla game.
Although some might not think much of it. I am very proud to finally do it. That area of the map is murder if you are anything but a Muslim/ Orthodox Christian or Miaphysite Cristian....to pull it off....the cherry on my CK2 cake.
A quick search into Messalian history shows they lived in the Mesopotamian river banks and Asia minor (eastern Turkey). Before branching out into Bulgaria etc.
With that in mind any and all attempts for creating such a kingdom meant I had to create it along either the Tigris or Euphrates rivers. With the best bet it being someplace close to Antioch to get religious authority.
The avid among you will notice that area of the map is not the most welcoming to anything non-Orthodox Christian or Muslim. Leaving me between a literal 'rock and a hard place' with both the Abbasids to the south and the Byzantines to the north. Either able to literaly crush any county/duchy I have to build upon.
With my latest playthrough though a number of factors played to my advantage:
A-The Byzantines were pretty occupied with a pretty strong Armenian uprising and eventual Armenian Kingdom.
B-Abbasids being too busy either trying to invade the Byzantines, expand in the Sind region or quell a few shia/ decadence revolt uprisings.
With two very closely timed decadence uprisings I was able to snipe two duchies from the Abbasids and their (much weakened when they started successors). With the final nail in the coffin being a duchy of Allepo that I snatched from some Emir that decided to go independent rather than become a vassal of the Abbasids replacement empire.
With only my second ruler of the game I was able to maneuver between the two monsters (Abbasids and Byzantines) and carve out three duchies in order to finally create the Messalian Kingdom I always dreamed of having.
Note that no console commands were used, this is a straight up ironman Charlemagne playthough on the vanilla game.
Although some might not think much of it. I am very proud to finally do it. That area of the map is murder if you are anything but a Muslim/ Orthodox Christian or Miaphysite Cristian....to pull it off....the cherry on my CK2 cake.
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