Post your empires/funny pictures/mini-AARs/etc
- Thread starter Meneth
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There is so much wrong in this picture.
I started as countess of Vernandois in 1081 with aim to do RP run where I join Crusade and make my brother count or duke in Jerusalem through my contribution.
I did not expect Rum to actually conquer Thessalonica in 1098 and to be the biggest contributor with less than 1500 troops, so now I am Karling Crusader king of Constantinople surrounded by Roman Empire and Empire of Rum (I felt it appropriate to make Rum into an empire even though they lost the Crusade because they are quite huge at the moment and ERE is in no shape to recover).
I started as countess of Vernandois in 1081 with aim to do RP run where I join Crusade and make my brother count or duke in Jerusalem through my contribution.
I did not expect Rum to actually conquer Thessalonica in 1098 and to be the biggest contributor with less than 1500 troops, so now I am Karling Crusader king of Constantinople surrounded by Roman Empire and Empire of Rum (I felt it appropriate to make Rum into an empire even though they lost the Crusade because they are quite huge at the moment and ERE is in no shape to recover).
Orthodox Turkmen Sultan of Jerusalem. So while I was busy dealing with Rúm and a few civil wars as Byzantium, KOJ was getting gang-banged by the muslims with religious reconquests, and ended with an Abbasid Jihad for Jerusalem. The new Sultan then went on conquer most of his de-jure territory with the help of Turkic mercenaries. I guess the money ran out and they took over afterwards.
When I noticed this they were already losing a religious reconquest of Jerusalem (99% warscore), so I gave him a luck bonus and console-commanded the Kingdom of Jerusalem to him.
The largest empire I have formed to date, out of my favorite religion in HIP. Startdate was 867. No crusade has been called yet (but a few jihads)
Both Occitania (controls all of norway) and the Holy Roman Empire have been formed entirely on their own by the AI, quite impressed by that.
Karling Latin Empire. I have achieved peak heresy.
Continuation from my previous screenshot:
King Lothaire had three sons, Charles, Lothaire and Richard. He and Charles despised each other and when his second wife gave him two more sons, he dedided to split his kingdom between all his children. Charles got lands around Sea of Marmara, Aegean Islands and Constantinople itself, while other Karling lands on European side went to Lothaire who became King of Thessalonica. Meanwhile, lands in Asia Minor went to Richard, who became Duke of Anatolia (Nicaea, except I split the city from its duchy and gave it to Opsikon so borders looked nicer).
Thessalonica quickly declined, losing its southern territories to Muslim Greeks, while its eastern territories were conquered by Komnenoi, who ruled in Bulgaria. Richard quickly lost most his lands to Rum, but when another Crusade got announced by the Pope, Lothaire managed to persuade the Pope to redirect crusaders into Anatolia. After 15 years of constant warfare that ravaged western Anatolia, peace was made, with Richard becoming King of Anatolia.
By this time, Charles was long gone, succeeded by his son Henri, deeply religious, yet cruel man. He maintained good relations between Constantinople and Anatolia, both during short reign of Richard (who died after ruling only for 3 years) and his daughter, Simonis. With support from Constantinople and Knights Templar (who were given lands in Anatolia by Lothaire), Anatolia managed to hold against Muslim invaders. On top of that, Henri lead expedition into Greece, where he destroyed armies of Muslims, allowing Catholic Greeks to mount a counteroffensive which lead into conquest of the area by Palaiologoi (with duke Eógan of Aegean Islands taking Athens).
Henri abdicated in year 1191, retreating into monastery and his son, Lothaire, became new King of Constantinople. Ambitious young man, he decided to take Anatolia instead of supporting Queen Simonis, and conquered it two years later.
By this time, another Crusade was called. For six years, Christians fought against Turks to take Antioch. Herbert, Henri´s younger brother, was crowned its king, while Henri proclaimed himself Emperor, quoting his heritage, his marriage to Domislawa, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor, and the fact that he ruled over lands where Empire of Greeks stood hundred years ago to justify this action.
Now I just need to find out how I want to call the Empire, because in context of the story, it should be called something like "Empire of Constantinople", but I have no idea how to spell that in Latin. And to possibly find a way how to mod in a culture that mixes French and Greek names and mechanics to represent some sort of melting pot between ruling class and population of the region.
Continuation from my previous screenshot:
King Lothaire had three sons, Charles, Lothaire and Richard. He and Charles despised each other and when his second wife gave him two more sons, he dedided to split his kingdom between all his children. Charles got lands around Sea of Marmara, Aegean Islands and Constantinople itself, while other Karling lands on European side went to Lothaire who became King of Thessalonica. Meanwhile, lands in Asia Minor went to Richard, who became Duke of Anatolia (Nicaea, except I split the city from its duchy and gave it to Opsikon so borders looked nicer).
Thessalonica quickly declined, losing its southern territories to Muslim Greeks, while its eastern territories were conquered by Komnenoi, who ruled in Bulgaria. Richard quickly lost most his lands to Rum, but when another Crusade got announced by the Pope, Lothaire managed to persuade the Pope to redirect crusaders into Anatolia. After 15 years of constant warfare that ravaged western Anatolia, peace was made, with Richard becoming King of Anatolia.
By this time, Charles was long gone, succeeded by his son Henri, deeply religious, yet cruel man. He maintained good relations between Constantinople and Anatolia, both during short reign of Richard (who died after ruling only for 3 years) and his daughter, Simonis. With support from Constantinople and Knights Templar (who were given lands in Anatolia by Lothaire), Anatolia managed to hold against Muslim invaders. On top of that, Henri lead expedition into Greece, where he destroyed armies of Muslims, allowing Catholic Greeks to mount a counteroffensive which lead into conquest of the area by Palaiologoi (with duke Eógan of Aegean Islands taking Athens).
Henri abdicated in year 1191, retreating into monastery and his son, Lothaire, became new King of Constantinople. Ambitious young man, he decided to take Anatolia instead of supporting Queen Simonis, and conquered it two years later.
By this time, another Crusade was called. For six years, Christians fought against Turks to take Antioch. Herbert, Henri´s younger brother, was crowned its king, while Henri proclaimed himself Emperor, quoting his heritage, his marriage to Domislawa, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor, and the fact that he ruled over lands where Empire of Greeks stood hundred years ago to justify this action.
Now I just need to find out how I want to call the Empire, because in context of the story, it should be called something like "Empire of Constantinople", but I have no idea how to spell that in Latin. And to possibly find a way how to mod in a culture that mixes French and Greek names and mechanics to represent some sort of melting pot between ruling class and population of the region.
The greatest AI character I have ever seen! Cinàed Mac Ailpin, king of Alba/Scotland, united British isles conquering Ireland and England, founded the Empire of Cruithn, annexed Denmark and Norway to his empire, survived endless plots, slay personally many enemies and died in his bed after be called "Son of the Devil" and "New Alexander"
AI Karling Byzantium, and the schism was somehow mended...? Of course it has to happen in my Paulician game. 
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I really think there should be some mechanic which prevents Byzantium/Rome from getting destroyed when they lose Constantionple while still being huge. The empire was practically disbanded due to Gavelkind (or, since this is AI, vassal from Germany was granted Constantinople and it got split from rest of the empire on succession).
I think its more so for historical purposes. If you look at the Fourth Crusade, when Constantinople was taken the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist until it was retaken by the Nicaeans. Seems a bit odd to call it the Byzantine Empire if Byzantium itself isn't ruled by the empire.
I'll do a very different roleplay ... that almost nobody does, play Nordic and Christianize, instead of looting the whole world in the name of Odin.
But it's too fun looting the world! Especially Venice and Rome. I've lost count of how many Popes I've sacrificed.
Good thing it´s name is Roman Empire then.
Also, the Empire did not cease to exist, rather it splintered, with multiple people claiming the title (including Latin Emperors). Issue here really is that Roman (or Byzantine if we need to use its historiographic name) Empire shouldn´t be fixed on its capital all of the time, especially in cases where it falls victim to Gavelkind.
I mean, can you imagine Charlemagne marrying Irene, uniting the empires which would then pass on to his son and grandsons, with one of them becoming the Emperor and others independent kings, except one of the younger sons inherits Constantinople with the Emperor saying "Well, that´s it I guess"?
Byzantine and Latin empires being fixed on Constantinople makes sense, but there should be exceptions that prevent absurd situations like this or allow some interesting stuff, for example player roleplaying switching capitals (like Constantine did) with no need to control the previous one, AI having high crown authority and lands and being able to survive conquest of the capital and so on.
Splinters claiming to be the empire could certainly claim they were the rightful successors, but that doesn't make them so. When Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the West, no one seriously believed he was a Western Roman Emperor in the ancient sense; nothing was the same. The HRE was clearly different to the WRE. The same can be said of the Byzantine splinter/successor states; they could claim to be Roman/Byzantine emperors all they liked, didn't make them so. Only when Michael VII took Constantinople was he, and his successors viewed as Byzantine/Roman emperors.
As for gameplay purposes, I get what you're saying but I personally like the idea of the empire title being defunct when losing Constantinople. It makes sense to me. Besides, I may be wrong but I'm playing Byzantium at the moment and Imperial Elective is the only form of succession available for me so I don't think the gavel kind scenario would work unless HRE was the primary title (I may be wrong as I've never played HRE). Mind you, I agree on with regarding roleplaying switching capitals. That'd be interesting.
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I don't understand how the ERE could fall victim to Gavelkind. It is literally locked out of every other succession law in EMF and vanilla; you can't have 2 empires, etc. If the primary heir would've caused an external inheritance, then so would've all the junior heirs in a split inheritance scenario.
The ideal thing to do would be to allow a certain time since the loss of Constantinople, but that takes more work and hasn't been done for lack of any significant impetus.
I think there are ways to break it (at least in normal CK2), it had something to do with factions or some other weird thing (can´t remember where I saw people talking about it). Alternatively, it could have been caused by Independence faction where one of the kings owned Constantinople itself or (what seems to be the case after looking at the screenshots once again), king of East Francia pressed his claims on Lombardy and Burgundy and one of these kingdoms included Constantinople (probably through vassal), which makes the situation even more absurd.
Forming the HRE with a Lombard, I started with the Count of Ventimiglia. When forming the HRE I changed the name to the Italian equivalent, Sacro Romano Impero.
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