• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
RIP in pipes, Adamus II.
 
Who slew the King?
 
I've never died in a tournament before!
Someone was lucky enough to miss the never ending tournament bug. Especially creepy when you get the 'Died in the melee' pop-up.

The forties, sixties and eighties seem to be the danger years for CK2 rulers. No idea why.
 
Ah, the perils of the reign chronicle AAR: one update you have a surplus of game history to write about, the next? Virtually nothing. Let us hope that this Murdoch fellow will prove to be a more prominent monarch than his predecessor.
 
Well, that was a hilariously short reign! Really like the look of this AAR, great writing and a fantastic mix of images, and of course a setting of great personal interest to me. Subscribed!
 
Well, the best die (relatively) young. :p
If the king was silly enough to participate in an tournament, maybe the realm fares better without such a king.

Also subbed. :cool:
 
Well as they say, Heir today, Gone tomorrow.
 
We wait so long for an update only to have the guy die so fast! Aaaaaargh!:angry: Murdoch has a big challenge ahead of him--he has to take his father's place in history and his own!

Dying in a tournament is always so shocking whenever it happens because I so rarely ever see it in my games. Those tournaments always feel so safe, and the only people who ever get injured are some random count/minor duke. Always the other guy.
 
Murdoch I, the Just, MacDrostan
Lived: 1020-1076
Head of House MacDrostan: 1048-1076
King of Scotland: 1048-1076​


Murdoch I benefitted from inheriting the Scottish throne during a Golden Age for the Kingdom. Over the course of almost three decades at the head of the Scots state he faced no major rebellion or internal conspiracy against his rule, was threatened by no great external threat and saw his Kingdom march rapidly forward as Scotland caught up with the European mainstream in terms of prosperity. Murdoch was an able administrator, but little else. During the latter 1000s, that was all Scotland needed from her King.


Murdoch’s greatest, and most lasting, achievements during his reign were his reforms to Scotland’s legal framework. Enhancing the power of the crown, Murdoch sought to do away with the arbitrary justice of local barons’ law courts and instead establish a uniform law applicable to the entire Kingdom of Scotland – directly under the control of the crown. With only the Church and a few peripheral areas in the Kingdom, the reforms were intensely popular with great swathes of the Scottish population and earned Murdoch his enduring title, ‘’the Just’’. Murdoch I, after centuries of uncertainty, finally set Scotland’s law of succession in stone through the strict adoption of primogeniture. Since the initial formation of Scotland in the 9th century the succession had been established by various forms of election by the nobility, by dividing the King’s lands and titles between his sons and, often, on the field of battle. Now, Murdoch appeared to have adopted a system that would bring stability even to the perennially treacherous periods that followed the deaths of Scotland’s Kings.


The endless peace that appeared to punctuate Murdoch I’s reign was broken up only twice by two brief wars against the Spanish in England during the 1050s and 1060s as the Scots first captured the County of Derby before moving on to the far more tantalising prize of Yorkshire – York being one of the England’s greatest cities. Scotland’s borders were expanded even further in 1065 when the County of Desmond, in the extreme South of Ireland, was inherited by the Duke of Albany – forming a Scottish bridgehead in Ireland itself.


With remarkably rapidity, in the 1070s, the balance of power in the British Isles took a dramatic shift with the formation of the Kingdom of England. Alfred of Kent, latterly known as Alfred the Great of England, came from a prominent Anglo-Saxon family that had maintained major landholdings in Wessex long after the Spanish had taken control of the region. In 1071 Alfred inherited the Duchy of Castile – giving him sovereignty over most of the old Kingdom of Wessex, as well as not insignificant holdings in Northern Spain itself. He then moved quickly to consolidate his grip over the region by attacking the Spanish holdings to the North of England, capturing Oxford and Northampton. In 1074 he declared himself King of England and moved his capital to ancient centre of the Kingdom of Wessex at Winchester. With the formation of England, comprising the most naturally bountiful lands in Britain, Alfred offered a challenge to the Scots and Irish for dominance in the British Isles.


Murdoch I died in 1076 in the 28th year of his reign. Murdoch had overseen the continuation of an age of stability that began during the later years of Brice, the Bold’s rule. His son and successor, Murdoch II, would be tasked with continuing this era on to the end of the century and laying the foundations for it to continue beyond it.
 
Last edited:
In the beginning of the update you refer to Murdoch I as Murdoch II which is a bit confusing.
 
I didn't even know that Kings could actually take part in their own Tourneys-most unfortunate for such a renowned warrior.

Great update though

Also isn't it accede to the throne (accession)?

I didn't know before this happened either :p.

I believe that accede is the verb, but accession is the name of the process itself. I could be wrong though.

I've never died in a tournament before! I have won or placed a few times though. Did King Murdoch inherit the Lotharingian claim?

I'm afraid that its gone now. Adam died too quickly.

Man, what a way to die. Just like poor old Henry II of France! :(

Although I must say, I think Adam II's great legacy is the new dynastic beard of your rulers! These Scots mustn't know of the great invention known as the razor! :p

Looks like Murdoch II has heard about that new invention you speak of :p.

RIP in pipes, Adamus II.

Only the potentially good die young.

Who slew the King?

An unnamed champion.

This.

Well. That was anticlimactic. :D
If CK2 portraits reflected character, I'd say Murdoch is gonna be a Scheming Scottish Spider

I love the alliteration in 'Scheming Scottish Spider'. Whilst there will of course be SSS MacDrostans in the future, just as there have been in the past, Murdoch I turned out to be a rather gentle sort.

Someone was lucky enough to miss the never ending tournament bug. Especially creepy when you get the 'Died in the melee' pop-up.

The forties, sixties and eighties seem to be the danger years for CK2 rulers. No idea why.

I'll have to start looking out for the death dates to see if they correspond with your 'danger years'. But looking back I think you might be right! And what's this never ending tournement bug? Would it have killed my game? :eek:

Ah, the perils of the reign chronicle AAR: one update you have a surplus of game history to write about, the next? Virtually nothing. Let us hope that this Murdoch fellow will prove to be a more prominent monarch than his predecessor.

That is the biggest flaw of this style of update. But it keeps a nice strucutre.

Really interesting reading. Subscribed for sure!

Hope you keep enjoying it! :)

Well, that was a hilariously short reign! Really like the look of this AAR, great writing and a fantastic mix of images, and of course a setting of great personal interest to me. Subscribed!

Thanks! And hope I don't disappoint in my chronicling of Scottish history up to the modern world.

Well, the best die (relatively) young. :p
If the king was silly enough to participate in an tournament, maybe the realm fares better without such a king.

Also subbed. :cool:

I do wonder if it was something that Kings actually did during the Middle Ages. This is the first time that I can recall ever seeing my King actually participate in a tournement, and with disastrous consequences.

Well as they say, Heir today, Gone tomorrow.

Indeed :p.

We wait so long for an update only to have the guy die so fast! Aaaaaargh!:angry: Murdoch has a big challenge ahead of him--he has to take his father's place in history and his own!

Dying in a tournament is always so shocking whenever it happens because I so rarely ever see it in my games. Those tournaments always feel so safe, and the only people who ever get injured are some random count/minor duke. Always the other guy.

Quite often its landless courtiers and nobodies who dies. Never considered that it could be such a disastrous episode :eek:. None the less, Murdoch turned out alright in the end. So all's well that ends well.
 
Now it's England that own land in Spain rather than Spain that owns land in England. I wonder if it'll end up in a new hundred years sort of war. :)

If the englishmens have time with it maybe. I'm currently under the impression that the Scots will not let them.
 
I didn't know before this happened either :p.

I believe that accede is the verb, but accession is the name of the process itself. I could be wrong though.

You're absolutely right but you wrote ascension...twice! Lol-it's only a small point, however, when compared to the general excellence of this AAR-KUTGW ;)
 
And what's this never ending tournament bug? Would it have killed my game? :eek:
That part was intended as a response to LordEnglish, but I didn't make that very clear. The bug's been patched out by now, but before it was occasionally you wouldn't get the ending pop-up for a tournament so it just kept going. I got it once and it only ended after five years when my King died from the 'Died in a melee' pop-up I mentioned.