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this is weally exciting!

And that Csak chick is an improvement over the Ugly One. Too bad poor Adolf didn't get her.
 
Back to the P's I see. Well, tried and true to be sure. And I am loving the "accent" of Ulric. Vewy nice. ;)
 
And the Perfect P-Project is back!
Nice to see another AAR, but I wonder how well will you fare netx time, getting all the P provinces as Persia in HoI2 :)

PS loved the anonymous letters from Aargau part :rofl:
 
Oooh, a nice little blitzkwieg, how lovely... :D
 
Oh dear. Not another such AAR.


BTW, this is certanly the first AAR that is a plagiat of a plagiat that I've seen. Think there's an awAARd for that?
 
RGB: Skolasztika is a cool name. Much cooler than Eva! ;)

stnylan: Indeed, Duke Adolf stands as a towering example to us all!

Charle_88: I think it must have been an inspiration to some modern day German Chancellors! :D

Kanil: Still a few pwovinces to go though...

Specialist290: What? Dropped into my lap? Huh! That was a hard-won prize I'll have you know! :p

J.Passepartout & Chief Ragusa: Adolf the Bastard is the anonymous writer? An interesting theory. All will soon be revealed.

Jestor: Csák chick - I like it! :D (For those unfamiliar with Hungarian, Csák should be pronounced "chack".)

coz1: Not a very original idea, I admit, but hey, it seemed to work the last time! ;)

Wolfhound: Hmm. I don't actually own HOI2 so I wouldn't hold your breath as regards "P is for Persia"...

Murmurandus: Nice and very, very lucky, methinks!

Snake IV: I've never even heard the word "plagiat" before. Is it real? :wacko:

Chief Ragusa: Quite wight too. I'll hear no mow of this plagiawism talk! :D

And it's the weekend, so here's comes another episode.
 
Chapter 5 (1101-10)

The von Passau Progeny Procures a Prodigious Prize

Before we continue the tale of gallant Count Ulric and his quest to unite all the P provinces of the world into the Diocese of Passau, let us pause briefly to remember the life of little Adolf the Bastard, born to the Count and a pretty wench who caught his eye back in 1078. The last we heard of him was that he contracted "cold-shoulder pneumonia", a common disease amongst court bastards in those days. He did of course die four months later. Well, what did you expect? Just what sort of life expectancy did you think a two-year-old pneumoniac had in the eleventh century? Fortunately, of course, Adolf the non-bastard had survived and had now inherited the vast realms of his maternal grandfather, Guillaume d'Aquitaine the former Duke of Poitou and Bordeaux.

In 1101 King Heinrich of Germany, wishing to extend his lands in the Middle East, declared war on the Emir of Amman, whose realm happened to include the Sheikdom of Petra. This province was of course rightfully part of the Diocese of Passau, so Count Ulric watched developments carefully, but for the time being he did not think it worth committing any troops to the war.

Then later that same year came news from the Duchy of Provence, where Duke Bertrand had died, leaving the Duchy to his one-year-old grandson Ermengaud, then in Poitiers being raised in the court of his father Duke Adolf. Count Ulric was both proud and delighted - now his son and his grandson were Dukes, and the von Passau family between them owned five P provinces: the Count's own lands of Passau and Pelusia, his son's territories of Poitiers and Périgord, and now the province of Provence, where his grandson had his ducal court.

1101-Ermengaud.jpg

By the summer of 1102 King Heinrich's Middle Eastern campaign was bearing fruit as various provinces which had formerly languished under infidel oppression were liberated by his armies. Petra was liberated in August by none other than Count Ulric's liege, Duke Leopold of Osterreich. Confident that the Duke would be handing the title to him as its rightful owner, Ulric travelled to Vienna to receive the appointment in person.


Petra.jpg

The rock city of Petra​

Count Ulric: Gweetings, my liege! May I offer you my congwatulations on your wecent victowious conquests in the Holy Land?

Duke Leopold: Don't mention it, old boy. I only wish I could thank you for your help, only it seems you didn't actually provide any.

Count Ulric: Ahem… yes, well you know, my men were weady to fight for you at the dwop of hat. You only needed to ask.

Duke Leopold: Hmm, yes. Good, good. Well I'll remember that next time.

Count Ulric: And how is my liege these days? Pwestigious as ever, I'll wawwant?

Duke Leopold: My prestige could be in better shape, to tell you the truth. Being blessed with five sons has its drawbacks when you don't actually have any lands to give them, you know. Of course you have no worries there since your son owns half of France.

Count Ulric: Er, yes, how twue, Sire. As a mattew of fact, I was wondwing about the County of Petwa…

Duke Leopold: Yes, well of course it will go to my son Sigmund, but that still leaves Werner, Johann and Rüdger without appanage. So now that you have lands of your own in Pelusia, perhaps it's time to reconsider the ownership of your German holdings?

Count Ulric: Gwacious, Sire, you're surely not considewing taking Passau fwom the von Passau family? It just wouldn't be wight, would it?

Duke Leopold: Hmm, yes perhaps you've got a point. Well, let's leave it for now and see if I can find the lads something else in those distant infidel parts.

Count Ulric: Yes Sire, I'm sure something will turn up soonew or later.

Disappointed, but also somewhat relieved, Count Ulric returned to Passau empty-handed. Imagine then his astonishment when, only a few weeks later, he heard news that Count Sigmund von Babenberg of Petra had declared independence from his father and thus from the Kingdom of Germany. Was the man suicidal or what? But this was of course a very promising development for Count Ulric, if only he could garner sufficient prestige to make a claim on Petra himself.

As it happened, this came from a rather unlikely quarter, when the Pope sent one of his seemingly endless supply of lustful, skeptical Bishops, proposing that he be appointed Diocese Bishop of Passau.

1103-Werner.jpg

The man's name was Werner von Passau, but it was not until two years later that Ulric realized that, being of the von Passau family, he did in fact have the right to marry him off. By this time Bishop Werner had become stressed, presumably at being a lustful bishop whose liege refused to provide him with a wife. A suitable wife was quickly found in Petronila de Leon, from the court of Asturias in northern Spain. Energetic, vengeful and zealous, she promised to be just the antidote to Bishop Werner's stress. The marriage also boosted Count Ulric's prestige, and he realized that just one more prestigious project might put him in the running for the Count of Petra's title. He decided to build a grand library in the city of Passau, and who better to entrust with such a project than Bishop Werner himself?

In 1106 an astonishing piece of news arrived at Count Ulric's court in Passau. His son Adolf, Duke of Poitou and Bordeaux, had died in mysterious circumstances at the age of 35. How exactly this had happened was not known, but it left his son Duke Ermengaud of Provence as ruler of a truly enormous realm. As Ermengaud had already been a vassal of King Heinrich, this also caused the lands of Poitou and Bordeaux, along with extensive holdings in North Africa, to pass directly into the Kingdom of Germany. If foul play was suspected in Adolf's death therefore, there was one man who was certainly a likely candidate:


1106-SMKonrad.jpg



1106-Poitou.jpg

The new enlarged Kingdom of Germany, including little Ermengaud's realm​

Bishop Werner's prestigious Passau Library was completed in 1107. It was only when Count Ulric went to inspect the new institution in person that he discovered that the Bishop had stocked its shelves exclusively with works which appealed to the lustful and the skeptical. As the pious Count leafed through a sample of the volumes which the Bishop had collected his eyes grew round and his face drained of colour. He was even more shocked to find that it quickly became the most popular library in Europe, but since it gave him the prestige that he wanted, he decided to turn a blind eye and the Passau Library continued to prosper.

Count Ulric immediately laid claim to the Count of Petra's title. Fortunately the neighbouring Muslim states had so far failed to notice the independent Christian county on their borders, defended by an army of only 89 men. By November 1108 the Pelusia Regiment had arrived in Monreal only a few days march from Petra. Count Ulric declared war and the city of Petra was soon under siege.


1109-SiegePetra.jpg

Marshal Manfred besieges Petra with help from some local German regiments​

By February 1109 the city had surrendered and Count Ulric made sure of being the first to present Count Sigmund with a peace offer - he himself would take the title of Count of Petra. Sigmund had no choice but to accept and yet another province was secured for the growing Diocese of Passau. No doubt Sigmund's father Duke Leopold von Babenberg would have had something to say about this, had he still been alive. Fortunately for Count Ulric, however, Duke Leopold had died back in 1103 and his eldest son Rupprecht was now the Count's liege. Rupprecht couldn't care less about his rather stupid brother Sigmund with whom he had never got on particularly well anyway. The other thing that the Count had recently acquired was another bastard son named Reinhard, offspring of another pretty wench. Perhaps the Count's piety had been corrupted by spending too many hours in the Passau Library.

=================================​

Has Count Ulric done enough to convince the world that he is in fact a real man? Will Reinhard play a more prominent role in the family than Ulric's last bastard, Adolf? Is young Duke Ermengaud managing to keep his vast territory together? And finally, how much longer can Count Ulric stay alive? Don't miss the answers to these and many other questions in the next paraphrenic episode of "P is for Passau"!

1110-Ulric.jpg
 
Farquharson said:
0Wolfhound: Hmm. I don't actually own HOI2 so I wouldn't hold your breath as regards "P is for Persia"...
What abuot Vicky. "P is for Parma"? ;)

EDIT: Ah, there's the update. Must say it all goes your way now. Think we're out to make up some new provinces ;)
 
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That's the problem with books. Someone reads one and then goes off and does whatever it says. Putting the discliamer 'For entertainment purposes only' just doesn't deter folks. Still, it's keeping Ulric happy and healthy.

I'd have liked to see the look on the face ofthe King of France when told that that half his kingdom had passed into the little hands of a child and to his overlord the King of Germany. Oh the diplomatic incident that could be caused. Heinrich to French King - "Hello my much diminished brother...".

Now, all Ermaguard has to do is grow up.
 
I was going to say - the old dog surely has lived quite a long while, outliving his own son. One might call it...pwepostewous.
 
Actually now would be quite a good time for him to die.
 
The AAR contains a lot of P-words I need to look up in my dictionary... ;)

Other than that, gweat job! :D
 
Nice progress in pilfering Petra from pesky, protesting breakways. :D

Pretty pages promote promiscuity, if Ulric's bastards are any judge.
 
Snake IV: Sorry, no Vicky neither, but at least I've nearly bought it on at least one occasion, so maybe one day. Not within a breath-holding sort of timescale though, I don't think.

Chief Ragusa: Well Ulric has still got what it takes, apparently, so let's not complain. And yes, it must have been quite a blow for the King of France. I'm not sure why Ermengaud remained a vassal of King Heinrich but switched his principal Duke title from Provence to Poitou - makes no sense to me, but as long as the Duke title begins with P I'm happy! ;)

coz1: The nice thing about long-lived rulers in CK is that you get quite attached to them. Life just isn't going to be the same without Count Ulwic and his pwonunciation pwoblems... :D

stnylan: Too true - it would be perfect for Ulric to die within the next five years and let me choose a wife for Ermengaud, currently aged 11.

Murmurandus: I confess - I have been known to use a thesaurus on occasions! Some words I hardly know what they mean myself... :eek:

Jestor: :D I present you with the prized Platinum Pen for those perceptive points!

Next update some time tomorrow I imagine.