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[elvain]

Revenge of the Avar, part 3

How it basically went down:

Spoiler

Version 2:

Spoiler

Random vassal Khan: "Sir, we conquered France. Who should we pillage?"
Me: "Everyone."
Random vassal Khan: "What do you mean by everyone?"
Me:

So, my first real Nomadic playthrough is over and I have to say murdering all French and German people is quite exhausting
World in year 1003:

Spoiler

Catholics were pushed behind Alps and Pyrenese mountains, with few of them still lingering in area of former Great Moravia and few counties in Scandinavia. Brittish isles also remain Catholic, just like Croatia and parts of Africa that were conquered before I came. On top of that, one of my vassal Khans, who is stationed in southern Germany and Switzerland somehow managed to subjugate Lombardia, therefore basically recreating empire of Charlemagne, but owned by Avars. Oh the irony.
Because of this blue wall and not big moral authority of Catholics, no pagans were converted. Parts of Greece, still partially controlled by Pannonia (which is being attacked from multiple directions) are also Tengri.
Muslims are surprisingly passive and despite the fact that Roman Empire was gone for about 100 years, they did not conquer much of it. Georgia even managed to restore it by capturing Constantinople (and by the way, name Romis Imperia sounds amazing) and they are slowly reconquering Roman lands, mostly around Black Sea. Seljuk became quite succesful and owns huge chunk of Iran, but surprisingly, Abbasids are pretty strong too. They even made Jerusalem, Oman and Al-Sham de jure territory and Antioch and Al-Jazira are slowly getting there too.
Muslims in Iberia seem to understand this conquest thing much better and as soon as Aquitaine fell, they reconquered half of Portugal and even conquered remnant of Aquitaine´s territory in Aragon.
And what about Karlings? Well, there are few dukes under my vassal, one of them being former king of Lombardia. There is also count on southernmost tip of Italian Peninsula and duke who owns Balearic Islands. But with fall of Lombardia, last of Karling power in Europe was broken. And just like their rulers, French and German people are gone (well, two French counties in Iberian Peninsula remain), almost all killed by ravaging nomad hordes.
Holy Roman Emperors were replaced by Avar Khagans who mere 150 years ago ruled only few counties in Pannonia. Despite losing their former lands in Pannonia, Khagans of House of Khunzakhal now command horde that is over 60 000 strong and each of their Khans is more powerful than other Avar Khagans.

Wow! Hats off.
ON a side note, good that Moravians have managed to survive, does it have anything to do with your actions?
A special minor thingie I especially like is the Khwarezmian Al-e-Afrigh being so strong

 

[DorlasAnther]

Wow! Hats off.
ON a side note, good that Moravians have managed to survive, does it have anything to do with your actions?
A special minor thingie I especially like is the Khwarezmian Al-e-Afrigh being so strong

It kind of does, but there is no doubt they would still have those cultures if I wasn´t around.
Basically, when I started, I had to use county conquest CB and my idea was to restore Avar Khaganate together with ethnical diversity (while Slavs in current Slovakia did not have any form of political organization and Avars ruled over them, it was only later when Avars started to settle north of Danube and they never went really far and Slavs still lived north of them). So, I conquered Nitra as a whole duchy and left it governed by Catholic duke (who even got parts of other duchies and restored Great Moravia for a short time before his dynasty died out and I destroyed the title before handing the duchy to another count).
But when I became strong and populous enough to conquer whole kingdoms in one invasion, I moved to the west and after death of my Khagan, Nitra became independent and just like Great Moravia does in this bookmark, they got crushed by pagans and the whole area is just a big mess. But because I never got to pillage that area, all small cultures in Carpathian Basin still live (well, except Croats in the north, I pillaged them, but there is still one Carantanian province in the middle of Carpathian Basin).
And I guess survival of that culture can also be attributed to the fact that during most of my playthrough, Moravians ruled themselves, even as vassals and only in last decades they got under control of other Slavs, but that area is such a huge mess that nobody gets to control those counties for long, so culture doesn´t change (although part of Nitra and Moravia is ruled by one of my Khans).

And I think I helped more with Al-e-Afrigh than I helped with Moravians, because I conquered nomads in that area when I went to reform Tengri faith and left it divided between remnants of my enemies and new Avar Khagans, so everyone north of Persia had easier conquest there.

 

[theKing1988]

Yeah, from that point on, you would basically just do victory laps by continuing the game. Not that doing victory laps is not fun, if you've grown attached to a specific game

Very impressive game you've got to show DorlasAnther, very impressive indeed

 

[DorlasAnther]

Yeah, from that point on, you would basically just do victory laps by continuing the game. Not that doing victory laps is not fun, if you've grown attached to a specific game

Very impressive game you've got to show DorlasAnther, very impressive indeed

Well, at least now I understand why people say nomads are OP. I never realized how powerful they can be, because AI is extremely stupid, so they almost never get to the point where they have 30k population and even if they get, they invade useless targets and never pillage (I got 250k gold out of it at the end, before I had those tens of thousands of soldiers, I just hired every mercenary I could, which was about 20k and assaulted everything, not to mention I maxed 1/3 of technologies) and on top of that, use every opportunity to settle down, so in reality nomadic land remains the same size.
The thing is, when you are Feudal or some other government form, you can still be threathened by Jihads or Crusades in the middle of civil war while also attacking someone else, but who could threathen Khagan with 60k troops who are mix of horse archers and heavy cavalry, whose vassals all are happy because of how much land they have and every one of them has 10k (one even 30k, because of Lombardy) and he can get 20k more troops without problem. At this point, I could probably even push Aztecs back into the sea and Genghis Khan would also have problem conquering me if he even got there.

 

[Toa Kraka]

I didn't realize until now that, when an adventurer fails to raise an army large enough to challenge you, he keeps all the gold that he's accumulated! If you're an emperor, an adventurer typically will give up if he's failed to accrue 800 gold within the ten-year time limit for fundraising.

Spoiler: Screenshot

I guess Zurab Donauri will enjoy a very comfortable retirement with his 684 gold...

 

[Xorix]

962: Seljuk conducts his initial attack.
972: Seljuk the Conqueror usurps the Kingdom of Persia.
985: Seljuk's decadent son Arslan inherits the kingdom.
986: Shahram Taheriyan (grandson of a past Persian king) is installed by faction demand.
989: Persia is consumed by revolts--three claimants, plus an independence faction that just won its war.

Spoiler: Screenshot

View attachment 238945

Is that a christian arabia?

 

[theKing1988]

Is that a christian arabia?

Look at the CoA's. It's not Christian

 

[Xorix]

Whoops my bad. Seems like he's not playing with dynasty titles, it confused me for a bit (I never see those patterns on the coa unless they're ruled by non muslims).

 

[EU3NOOB]

All Hail the Greatest King of Scotland, King Jake of DDR!

One of the goals of this playthrough is to conquer Britain and De Jure drift all of it to the Scottish Kingdom! After all, England is a lie! Another goal is to conquer Sweden and Denmark or better known as Lesser Scotland and Even Lesser Scotland respectively.

Glory to Jake!

Update: Jake died an infectious cripple with one arm after a bid to gain immortality. He is succeeded by his 0 year son Jake and his 9 year old daughter Jake. The prospects of this dynasty are not great, despite having forced the Northmen to the south to bend the knee.

GLORY TO HOUSE DDR!

@DDRJake

 

[Moarice]

The son of Harold Godwinsson has conquered Flanders with the help of the Norwegian king. Now Sigeric of Flanders's nephew won a war of independence and even got Orkney, Shetland and Ross under his command. This may be a herald of their return to England... and even if not, I don't mind because now taking Shetland and Orkney became easier.

 

[Z-Z-Z]

View attachment 239785

All Hail the Greatest King of Scotland, King Jake of DDR!

One of the goals of this playthrough is to conquer Britain and De Jure drift all of it to the Scottish Kingdom! After all, England is a lie! Another goal is to conquer Sweden and Denmark or better known as Lesser Scotland and Even Lesser Scotland respectively.

Glory to Jake!

Update: Jake died an infectious cripple with one arm after a bid to gain immortality. He is succeeded by his 0 year son Jake and his 9 year old daughter Jake. The prospects of this dynasty are not great, despite having forced the Northmen to the south to bend the knee.

GLORY TO HOUSE DDR!

@DDRJake

At first I didn't get the joke. Now I can't stop laughing.

 

[Toa Kraka]

El oh bleeping el!

Spoiler: Screenshot

867: I start playing as Louis Karling, King of Italy.
1000: Bertran de Toulouse, King of Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, creates the Empire of Italy. (Those three kingdoms later become de jure vassals of the Empire.)
1146: Adeltrudis de Toulouse, the only one of her father's five daughters who managed to produce a son, inherits the Empire of Italy at the age of 46, after her father, Emperor Savarics, dies at 68. She previously converted to Orthodox Christianity at the behest of her husband, a Greek count--and she's Zealous, so she can't return to the fold of Catholicism.
1147, February: Adeltrudis is forced to abdicate the imperial throne in favor of her uncle, Alfons de Toulouse. However, the claimant faction allows her to retain all four of her kingdoms (Italy, Germany, Bavaria, and Croatia), which compose the majority of the Empire's land!
1147, September: Barely six months into his reign, Emperor Alfons dies of pneumonia, leaving his infant son Florènc in a regency.
1147, October: The regent for Emperor Florènc submits to the Independence Faction's demands.

I've got half a mind to make a new Greek Empire (since my heir Leontios Argyros is Greek, not Occitan) in north-central Europe! (Hungary is Orthodox as well.)

Spoiler: Mods and game rules

Spoiler: Mods

Spoiler: HIP 2016-12-31 Hades7 for 2.6.3

EMF: Extended Mechanics & Flavor (v6.06 - 2016-12-31)
ARKO Interface (2016-12-31)
SWMH (v2.973 - 2016-12-31)
SED: English Localisation for SWMH (v2.2.11 - 2016-12-31)
ARKO Armoiries (2016-12-31)
LTM (C - 2016-09-24)

Spoiler: Miscellaneous tweaks

Tweaks for HIP 2016-12-31
Claims on Defunct Titles
Game Over Prevention
Prestige and Piety Tracking 2
Titular Title Assimilation

Spoiler: Non-default game rules

supernatural_events="off"
dynamic_realms="off"
dynasty_title_names="off"
cultural_title_names="off"
matrilineal_marriages="off"
gender="historical"
railroading="passive"

 

[Toa Kraka]

I've got half a mind to make a new Greek Empire

The year is 1174, and Europe contains not one, not two, but three empires ruled by Orthodox Greeks!

Spoiler: Screenshot

1. Emperor Leontios Argyros of the Alps (612 holdings)
2. Eastern Roman Emperor Ignatios Brindas (252 holdings)
3. Emperor Florènç de Toulouse of the Alps (165 holdings)

The ERE actually fell apart in 1159, when a Sunni adventurer managed to take Constantinople; the current King of Crete is the son of the previous emperor (and a kinsman of Leontios). (Also, the Sunni Caliph won a jihad for Konya in 1144.) Ignatios, formerly King of Bulgaria, restored the Empire in 1172.

 

[m n]

The year is 1174, and Europe contains not one, not two, but three empires ruled by Orthodox Greeks!

Spoiler: Screenshot

View attachment 241147

1. Emperor Leontios Argyros of the Alps (612 holdings)
2. Eastern Roman Emperor Ignatios Brindas (252 holdings)
3. Emperor Florènç de Toulouse of the Alps (165 holdings)

The ERE actually fell apart in 1159, when a Sunni adventurer managed to take Constantinople; the current King of Crete is the son of the previous emperor (and a kinsman of Leontios). (Also, the Sunni Caliph won a jihad for Konya in 1144.) Ignatios, formerly King of Bulgaria, restored the Empire in 1172.

Such is life in a bether word.

 

[Moarice]

A few weirdnesses from my last playthrough:
1. The traditional lands of the 3 main religions:
For Catholicism, it's most of Europe
For Islam, it's West/North Africa, Middle East, Western Persia, Turkey and Andalusia.
For Orthodoxy, it's Russia, the Caucasus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Cyprus... Prussia, India, The Steppes and Eastern Iran?
And I didn't even mention the fact that for a while Byzantium went Catholic (hence the few Catholic provinces in Bulgaria) or that Western Greece was held by the Sultanate of Africa for some time, which explains the Sunni provinces there.

Spoiler

2. This lad almost became the double Roman Emperor.

Spoiler

3. The most powerful republics in Europe: Venice, The Hansa... Pisa, Utland and the Channel Islands?
I know there are also Novgorod and Genoa, but Novgorod has absolutely nothing beyond its own lands and Genoa owns literally one province and could be reduced in trade posts to only the Black Sea if I decide to do an embargo war on them in a short while (I'm an heir to Castille, Portugal, Navarra and Leon thanks to certain intrigue shenanigans).

Spoiler

4. De Jure Kiev doesn't include Kiev.

Spoiler

5. This is more impressive than weird, but de Hautevilles managed to get Sicily back after starting as counts (I started at the "Scourge of God" bookmark).

Spoiler

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

A few weirdnesses from my last playthrough:
1. The traditional lands of the 3 main religions:
For Orthodoxy, it's Russia, the Caucasus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Cyprus... Prussia, India, The Steppes and Eastern Iran?

Spoiler

So I'm guessing that the Nestorians dropped their opposition to the idea of the Theotokos and rejoined with their dyophysite brothers?

 

[StarlightTW]

I have one from my ongoing game as Bohemia. As an aside, does anyone know a graceful way to give up the imperial throne? Ah, let me explain...

My previous ruler was outstandingly successful in his rule as king of Bohemia and Poland. Poland was gained in an earlier generation when one of my rulers pressed a weak claim after a devastating series of wars crippled Poland. It was as much for Poland's defense as it was for personal gain, as the baltic pagans were having a field day of biting off chunks of its territory. This ruler was widely respected and renowned as a fair and holy man, being appointed advisor to the emperor and named Regent when the emperor passed. This is where the trouble began. The new emperor was but a child, and one given to insanity at that. Rather than condemn the great empire to another Caligula, it was with a heavy heart that Milic the Holy declared his intention to seize the throne for the good of the empire. After a hard fought civil war he emerged victorious and took the imperial throne, reigning from Praha. Shortly thereafter the Pope called a Crusade for Jerusalem which was handily won, incorporating that kingdom into the empire. It was never his intention to hold the imperial throne for his family, intending that it be passed on to one of the German princes upon his death. Yet because of his wise and just rule the electors proclaimed his son emperor. After a short-lived rebellion his son is now Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, King of Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary. He holds the Kingdom of Jerusalem as well, though only until his youngest brother reaches the age of majority. At that time the kingdom will pass to him.

This, however, has left me in an awkward position. The new emperor has no son to call his own, having been blessed with two daughters yet no heir. His brothers are posed to inherit the family holdings, though I can still hope for a son. Ultimately, I don't really 'want' to be emperor. It's too much of a headache, and I'd prefer to simply rule as a powerful king under the emperor. If I thought it had a snowball's chance I'd try getting my kinsman, the King of Sicily on the throne as the next emperor. As a king in his own right he would have the power to hang onto it and it would further expand the borders of the empire. That being said, the empire is in fact 'too big'. I have some ideas on how to remedy this situation, but I'm a reluctant emperor at best.

The current extent of the Holy Roman Empire. Hungary was incorporated after a rogue vassal of mine in Poland pressed a claim on a civil-war torn Hungary and took it, then subsequently lost the crown when he tried to rebel and was crushed by me.

BONUS! I present to you the German Khaganate. Somehow 3 temples got built in a province, leaving no room for any other holdings, and it sparked Nomad Agitation. So now there is a nomad empire within a single German province. I am looking forward to see if he tries to take on the Wends.

 

[Toa Kraka]

As an aside, does anyone know a graceful way to give up the imperial throne?

Write a one-time targeted decision, in addition granting a temporary "increased vassal opinion" modifier to the new Emperor in order to represent how he has your blessing.

You also could include a severe prestige penalty for yourself and huge opinion maluses for your children. It might also annoy your vassals or reduce Crown Authority, since you're flouting the established inheritance laws.

 

[StarlightTW]

I figured if I was going to be Emperor I may as well do it the right way. So I put my other game on hold for the moment to return to the Roman Empire. During the game I saw my half-brother whom I put in charge of Cyprus take on this title. I've never actually seen it before so thought it was pretty cool.

 

[m n]

I figured if I was going to be Emperor I may as well do it the right way. So I put my other game on hold for the moment to return to the Roman Empire. During the game I saw my half-brother whom I put in charge of Cyprus take on this title. I've never actually seen it before so thought it was pretty cool.

Open strat declaring war on the muslim the italian king is already attacking? conquering the south of the papal states by chancellor claim?