DONE. March 15, 1251. All of de jure Britannia, Francia and Hispania belong to me:
The game over screen of my rulers:
The last 20 years started out rough, but turning a setback into a positive shortened things up considerably. I started off by continuing the conquest of Hispania. As I was in a holy war for a duchy there, the HRE called a holy war against me. I quickly wrapped up the war in Iberia and tried to gather the forces into France to fend off the HRE. I got SLAUGHTERED. Although, I had plenty of men, longbow retinues just don't stand up against the holy orders and knights. I didn't have enough vassal levies to even things up and getting what I did have to the war zone in time was challenging as most of the levies were in the British Isles.
What I did have, however, was a possessed ruler who Jesus talked to. That meant that I had a lot of piety. Before the HRE could completely crush me, I converted to Catholicism to end the war. Then, I used my piety to kick all the holy orders out of my lands. That would save me time later as I wouldn't have to go barony by barony to kick them out. After doing that, I had just enough piety to convert back to Fraticelli before even unpausing. Sure, some might call that gamey, but JESUS TOLD ME TO DO IT!
In the meantime, the Muslims had retaken Jerusalem, so the Pope called yet another crusade for it. My retinues were down to 6K when they had been at 42K. I waited until they replenished and checked to see if the HRE had gone off to fight in the Crusade. They had, so I called another holy war for Provence. This time my longbows were free to do what they do best: assault. I got to 100% war score without a single battle. But, I still needed a plan for what to do when the HRE came back from crusading and decided to have another go at me. While flipping through the menus, I noticed that I could change succession laws. Oddly enough, none of my vassals were at war with each other and they all liked me. How often does that happen in a large realm? I bumped crown authority to high and changed from tanisty to primogeniture. Then, I created the three empires and destroyed the two kingdoms I held. While that pissed a lot of vassals off, they never were able to get enough faction power to revolt and most importantly it got me an additional 15K in vassal levies.
A miracle happened next. Two counties in the duchy of Dauphine revolted for independence from the HRE. These were the only two counties in revolt in the entire empire, but somehow they got a 23K stack of troops. My retinues were right in the area. So a quick holy war against the rebels got me those two counties. Then, the Kaiser died. That triggered a lower crown authority revolt in the HRE. One of the other counties in Dauphine was a part of the revolt, so I declared war for it and quickly won. Of course, the next moe was to take advantage of the war some more. None the Duchy of Savoy was in the revolt so I declared for it and won while the new Kaiser was busy.
Meanwhile, there were only four counties in Iberia that I still needed to take. They were all in the hands of a guy who was revolting against his liege. My vassals were warring for two of those counties. I declared for a third. Rather than going straight to the county that I was warring for, I first helped my vassals out. I destroyed all of the armies of the rebel that were around and then assaulted down all holdings in the counties my vassals were going after so it would be quicker for them to siege later. The guy surrendered to me and I turned back to the HRE to see what was happening there. It looked peaceful, so I assassinated the Kaiser, which put his one year old son on the throne. I declared a holy war for Upper Burgundy. I won quickly. I had called up my levies, but never even had to get them into the area. The longbows took care of it with assaults.
I was down to two counties that I needed to take from the HRE. They were both de jure territories of my vassal dukes. I gathered around one of them and waited for my retinues to replenish. When they did, I assassinated the boy Kaiser. Unfortunately, that put his incredibly good uncle on the throne. It increased the total army size of the HRE by 20K. Whoops. I declared war anyway. It was a slugfest and I needed everything that I had just to win the one county. But, my levies arrived just in time and were able to destroy the majority of the Kaiser's army. During the war, my wife died. I betrothed myself to a little girl as I really didn't want any more sons at that point just in case something went wrong and the game took longer than it was looking. Then, I got the blessed event where I could mourn my deceased wife. Jesus told me to choose the option that made me depressed and celibate. As soon as the war was over, Jesus also told my ruler to commit suicide and let his son take over.
I force marched my retinue to the last HRE county that I needed to take and declared war for it. The Kaiser surrendered without much of a fight. I checked out the situation in Iberia. My vassals had won their wars and I just needed to take one more county there. I marched down and took it within a few months. And that was it. Thanks to the HRE declaring holy war on me and all of my piety from being possessed, I didn't need to press a bunch of county claims against holy orders. All of the de jure holdings in the three empires were mine.
A couple of notes about the greater world in this game:
-Tartaria formed as an Orthodox empire.
-All Crusades were called for Jerusalem and won by the Catholics. The land was always taken back by the Muslims. The Capets won the first crusade so they kept getting the titles back in the subsequent crusades. They turned Levantine culture at some point.
-None of the Catholics in Scandinavia ever bothered to do anything about the remaining Norse there at the 1066 start. They have been raiding the entire game.
