Final map of a CK2 MP game I ran for over a year with some friends. Can you spot the humans players ? Hint: we were 4.
Not gonna enter into details because this game was crazy enough (Madrid is currently a Khazar Tengri province, Benevento is Khazar although those adopted Orthodoxy - yeah weird things happened).
Run down of the most important stuff:
- we were originally 5. The 5th player started as the Duke of Flanders, but was too busy and left after a couple sessions. But he still had the time to plunge the Frankish Empire in severe turmoil by chain murdering his liege (including, yes, Charlemagne). Didn't contribute to make France a stable realm and left it open to invasions by the Muslims, and later, by the Vikings and Saxons.
- one player went away for a while (he went to Japan for an internship, so it was pretty much impossible to schedule sessions with him). He started as the Duchess of Kiev, and did have enough time to reform the Slavic faith before having to give up. That left the Slavic religion as a major religion in this world, albeit after the loss of much of their Northern lands to Vikings and Finland their main stronghold is the Empire of Carpathia, as well as the kingdom of Poland, the Warriors of Perun and the Khaganate of Somogy.
- said player came back much later on, but he gave up on the Slavs and instead decided to play as England, a Reformed Germanic Norse kingdom (the AI reformed the Germanic faith by itself). He went on to form the Empire of Britannia, and he has some pretty OP vassals who are busy conquering the world.
- another player started in Scotland, with the aim of establishing a powerful Scottish kingdom. But the Vikings disagreed, launching wave after wave of planned invasions against him. With other realms monopolizing the holy orders, he had troubles defending himself and it was pretty clear it was a very unfun game for him. He tried making his branch of the dynasty die off so another branch, which had converted to the Germanic religion, could take over, but it failed and he had a game over.
- after his game over he decided to restart as the French, Reformed Germanic count of Champagne, and well you can see the result on the map, with a twist - he secretly converted to the Cathar religion, and once he was strong enough openly revealed his true faith. Catharism became the mainstream branch because Catholicism was pretty much restricted to the Papacy by that point, and much of France is Cathar.
- the 3rd player is easy to spot. It's of course Suomi, who reformed his Finnish paganism and became the head of his religion. He's very big, but much of it came from an invasion of Sweden. Sweden had been a major power until that point (reforming the Germanic religion and conquering vasts swaths of land), but the Swedish king had only one kingdom title, so when Finland invaded the kingdom of Sweden he vassalized all of Sweden's lands.
- and then, myself is fairly easy to spot too. Started as the Daufingi count of Salerno - or Lukania as the Greeks would have it. Catholic Lombard, became Italian and converted to Orthodoxy after joining the Byzantine Empire. Slowly united Sicily, then lcuky inheritances granted me the kingdom of Sardinia (which also had lands in Dalmatia and Carinthia), then the kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia too. Joined an independence faction (directed by a Confucian Han who somehow had become Duke of Achaia). The Emperor wouldn't hear the voice of reason and so we had a civil war, but fortunately my side's AI was clever enough to make our superior numbers count. Then I lazily expanded in Italy and mostly in Northern Africa (with an eye on Egypt as next target). Main pride right now is having converted the huge empire of Kanem-Bornu to Christianity thanks to missionaries.
Run down of the most important stuff:
- we were originally 5. The 5th player started as the Duke of Flanders, but was too busy and left after a couple sessions. But he still had the time to plunge the Frankish Empire in severe turmoil by chain murdering his liege (including, yes, Charlemagne). Didn't contribute to make France a stable realm and left it open to invasions by the Muslims, and later, by the Vikings and Saxons.
- one player went away for a while (he went to Japan for an internship, so it was pretty much impossible to schedule sessions with him). He started as the Duchess of Kiev, and did have enough time to reform the Slavic faith before having to give up. That left the Slavic religion as a major religion in this world, albeit after the loss of much of their Northern lands to Vikings and Finland their main stronghold is the Empire of Carpathia, as well as the kingdom of Poland, the Warriors of Perun and the Khaganate of Somogy.
- said player came back much later on, but he gave up on the Slavs and instead decided to play as England, a Reformed Germanic Norse kingdom (the AI reformed the Germanic faith by itself). He went on to form the Empire of Britannia, and he has some pretty OP vassals who are busy conquering the world.
- another player started in Scotland, with the aim of establishing a powerful Scottish kingdom. But the Vikings disagreed, launching wave after wave of planned invasions against him. With other realms monopolizing the holy orders, he had troubles defending himself and it was pretty clear it was a very unfun game for him. He tried making his branch of the dynasty die off so another branch, which had converted to the Germanic religion, could take over, but it failed and he had a game over.
- after his game over he decided to restart as the French, Reformed Germanic count of Champagne, and well you can see the result on the map, with a twist - he secretly converted to the Cathar religion, and once he was strong enough openly revealed his true faith. Catharism became the mainstream branch because Catholicism was pretty much restricted to the Papacy by that point, and much of France is Cathar.
- the 3rd player is easy to spot. It's of course Suomi, who reformed his Finnish paganism and became the head of his religion. He's very big, but much of it came from an invasion of Sweden. Sweden had been a major power until that point (reforming the Germanic religion and conquering vasts swaths of land), but the Swedish king had only one kingdom title, so when Finland invaded the kingdom of Sweden he vassalized all of Sweden's lands.
- and then, myself is fairly easy to spot too. Started as the Daufingi count of Salerno - or Lukania as the Greeks would have it. Catholic Lombard, became Italian and converted to Orthodoxy after joining the Byzantine Empire. Slowly united Sicily, then lcuky inheritances granted me the kingdom of Sardinia (which also had lands in Dalmatia and Carinthia), then the kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia too. Joined an independence faction (directed by a Confucian Han who somehow had become Duke of Achaia). The Emperor wouldn't hear the voice of reason and so we had a civil war, but fortunately my side's AI was clever enough to make our superior numbers count. Then I lazily expanded in Italy and mostly in Northern Africa (with an eye on Egypt as next target). Main pride right now is having converted the huge empire of Kanem-Bornu to Christianity thanks to missionaries.
At this point huge defensive pacts make any war a hassle for all of us, and turn the game into a waiting one. On top of that, we've all achieved what we wanted to achieve, with level 3 or 4 great works and no threat whatsoever remaining. Plus, we have a new player interested in joining, so we've decided to stop this game here and we'll start a new one. MP CK2 is definitely fun though
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