About five months ago, not long after I bought Holy Fury, I decided to embark on a Shattered World campaign and selected the Maldives as my starting place. I randomised as much as I could from the start and was assigned a middle-aged Chinese Sunni Muslim as my starting count. This immediately caused a strange problem in that I was not allowed to change my succession system – not sure why. But it gave me an idea: if the succession was locked to male sons (not necessarily the eldest), how many rulers could I have rule in succession who had the same name...? My first ruler was named Count Zhu Junji. It seemed as good of a name as any and I went with it.
By the second ruler, I was already on the mainland and the third ruler managed to create a little kingdom for himself along the coast south of Goa. I lost the Maldives fairly early on to a revolt, although I would later get it back through vassalisation, which proved to be an effective tool in the first century of the game. I immediately fell into the habit of sending my rulers on a pilgrimage to Mecca as soon as they had their first son. This made me realise that all five of the Holy Sites of Islam had been assigned to locations in India for some reason, putting them within my reach. Could I also eventually become Caliph? It was an idea for a much later day.
My third king's youngest son somehow managed to pick up a kingdom of his own in northern India that I named Nikosia after my cat. I decided to follow it's progress over the years just for fun, although the naming convention I had gone with never took off there. For some reason, the family rarely married into mine, even after we became very distant relatives. At the turn of the fifteenth century, I got tired of Nikosia and its independence and fought a hard vassalisation war against it. Interestingly, after I vassalised it, the ruler immediately created a new royal title, presumably from some subsidiary claim, but the ruler remained my puppet in the north and I continued to try to give the ruler the old Nikosia title as a viceroyalty but neighbouring lords always usurped it soon afterwards. Eventually, the penultimate ruler's cousin usurped the title, which really was a random twist.
My main kingdom continued to evolve. My seventh king (Junji VIII) became my first emperor. In the only instance of this happening, he was not the eldest son but was the most capable. The senior line continued to rule a duchy for five generations before dying out. The imperial line had a crisis after the death of Emperor Junji VI (Junji XIV). His heir predeceased him leaving behind two young sons. When Junji VII (XV) finally came of age, he quickly had two of his own sons before ingloriously dying. These two emperors, Junji VIII (XVI) and Junji IX (XVII) only reigned for a collective total of 30 months. The line then passed to their uncle, Junji X (XVIII).
Junji X was the first of the emperors of Daria to be proclaimed Caliph of Islam after conquering Mecca and Medina in the Hijaz. His elevation to the Caliphate once more restarted the numbering and he was known as Caliph Junji I the Great. The family actually had a lot of "great" rulers. He and his son finished the conquest of India and cleaned up a lot of the imperial administration by assigning viceroyal kingdoms and duchies and transferring random counties to nearby dukes. By the end of Caliph Junji II (XIX)'s reign, the royal fisc consisted of two imperial titles, two counties, and three baronies. But the monthly income kept rolling in and the Great Works expansion allowed the construction of several new buildings around the empire.
From about 1300, when Junji III (XX) came of age, most of the expansion in the empire was due to the viceroys, while the emperors subdued revolts, both peasant and religious. Full uprisings were always rare in the empire – having only occurred on three occasions. For most of the six centuries, the vassals were content, except when minors ruled, which prompted council demands that were always agreed to. For roughly three centuries, the culture of Goa, which served as the empire's capital, was Norwegian, but eventually it became Chinese again and in 1401, Caliph Junji VII (XXIV) adopted Chinese Imperialism, consolidated the empire, and adopted the imperial name Zhu Shizu of the Yan Empire. His son and grandson continued in the same fashion, although they both retained their private names of Junji, ending with the 26th Junji ruler in succession (a 24th generation descendant through Zhu Junjis to the founder of the dynasty), Emperor-Caliph Zhu Daizong of Yan, who still ruled the realm on January 2, 1453.
I've included the final map and a detailed genealogy of the family for your enjoyment. Now, I'm going to take a break from this game for a while and return to my life. :-D
By the second ruler, I was already on the mainland and the third ruler managed to create a little kingdom for himself along the coast south of Goa. I lost the Maldives fairly early on to a revolt, although I would later get it back through vassalisation, which proved to be an effective tool in the first century of the game. I immediately fell into the habit of sending my rulers on a pilgrimage to Mecca as soon as they had their first son. This made me realise that all five of the Holy Sites of Islam had been assigned to locations in India for some reason, putting them within my reach. Could I also eventually become Caliph? It was an idea for a much later day.
My third king's youngest son somehow managed to pick up a kingdom of his own in northern India that I named Nikosia after my cat. I decided to follow it's progress over the years just for fun, although the naming convention I had gone with never took off there. For some reason, the family rarely married into mine, even after we became very distant relatives. At the turn of the fifteenth century, I got tired of Nikosia and its independence and fought a hard vassalisation war against it. Interestingly, after I vassalised it, the ruler immediately created a new royal title, presumably from some subsidiary claim, but the ruler remained my puppet in the north and I continued to try to give the ruler the old Nikosia title as a viceroyalty but neighbouring lords always usurped it soon afterwards. Eventually, the penultimate ruler's cousin usurped the title, which really was a random twist.
My main kingdom continued to evolve. My seventh king (Junji VIII) became my first emperor. In the only instance of this happening, he was not the eldest son but was the most capable. The senior line continued to rule a duchy for five generations before dying out. The imperial line had a crisis after the death of Emperor Junji VI (Junji XIV). His heir predeceased him leaving behind two young sons. When Junji VII (XV) finally came of age, he quickly had two of his own sons before ingloriously dying. These two emperors, Junji VIII (XVI) and Junji IX (XVII) only reigned for a collective total of 30 months. The line then passed to their uncle, Junji X (XVIII).
Junji X was the first of the emperors of Daria to be proclaimed Caliph of Islam after conquering Mecca and Medina in the Hijaz. His elevation to the Caliphate once more restarted the numbering and he was known as Caliph Junji I the Great. The family actually had a lot of "great" rulers. He and his son finished the conquest of India and cleaned up a lot of the imperial administration by assigning viceroyal kingdoms and duchies and transferring random counties to nearby dukes. By the end of Caliph Junji II (XIX)'s reign, the royal fisc consisted of two imperial titles, two counties, and three baronies. But the monthly income kept rolling in and the Great Works expansion allowed the construction of several new buildings around the empire.
From about 1300, when Junji III (XX) came of age, most of the expansion in the empire was due to the viceroys, while the emperors subdued revolts, both peasant and religious. Full uprisings were always rare in the empire – having only occurred on three occasions. For most of the six centuries, the vassals were content, except when minors ruled, which prompted council demands that were always agreed to. For roughly three centuries, the culture of Goa, which served as the empire's capital, was Norwegian, but eventually it became Chinese again and in 1401, Caliph Junji VII (XXIV) adopted Chinese Imperialism, consolidated the empire, and adopted the imperial name Zhu Shizu of the Yan Empire. His son and grandson continued in the same fashion, although they both retained their private names of Junji, ending with the 26th Junji ruler in succession (a 24th generation descendant through Zhu Junjis to the founder of the dynasty), Emperor-Caliph Zhu Daizong of Yan, who still ruled the realm on January 2, 1453.
I've included the final map and a detailed genealogy of the family for your enjoyment. Now, I'm going to take a break from this game for a while and return to my life. :-D
