So, a short after action report:
Start: 1066 as Luebeck
DLC: Legacy of rome
Starting moves:
-Danemark DOWed me for de jure, I immidiatly surrendered, resulting in me becoming a Danish Vasall. I send my chancellor to improve relations with the king. After I got relation improvements, I asked for the duchy of Holstein and got it. The Danish king then pushed my claim on the duchy of Mecklenburg. I used my saved up money to hire mercenaries to support him, but if he didnt have an alliance with France, Krutoj could have gotten us.
-Next years were spent with consolidating my rule other Mecklenburg, eventually I also managed to grab Stettin when Pomerania had rebel issues
-I now prepared for the take over of Danemark, be forging claims on everything that was not the Kings demesne. Eventually declared indepence and then ursurped
-There were some really tight moments, because I had a very bad female heir who get excommed and invaded by the HRE. I surrendered, resulting in her not soo bad child becoming "megaduke", however, all my holding were now "recently conquered", and the Norwegians and Danes nearly managed to reassert themselfs
-Eventually, recently conquered wore off, my child mega duke became a very reasonable adult and I went spanking the Danes. He also married a genius princes of Norway, and eventually got her on the throne. It took nearly a 100 years before the Norwegians were somehow acceptant of Pommeranian rule.
-The Abbaddids got Burgundy somehow (come to think of it, there were a lot of situation in which stuff somehow turned out to be muslim or Ilkhanate, at one point Hamburg was Abbadid for some reason, nobody knew why and how, I moved in and took it), I crusaded it and got lucky that the French Kingbishop (France is a theocracy) died, meaning that I and not France got it.
-There was also a crusade for Marakesh which as really easy.
-And another one for sicily, but that got aborted for unkown reasons at 80% warscore
-Via some intermarriage stuff, I got a Nakonid (but a North german one) in charge of the kingdom of Saxony. When the Emperor was away protecting Poland against the Ilkhan, Saxony struck and I helped him to become Emperor
-I had no idea why, but a barony I had in Hamburg did , for whatever reason, became Ilhkanate. I seriously have no idea how that happened. I prepared a fair bit, waited for a time where all holy orders were available marshalled my retinues (lots and lots of Hussars, with Pikemen/Archer support)
-the Illkhanate doomstack soon made its way along the Baltic coast, and its full 100K glory. My retinue troops (around 30K) were waiting at the Oder, with 2 secondary stacks (one beign Mercs + Holy Orders + some vasal troops, the others being the regular levies) of 30K and 40K, together with transports beign prepared behind them.
-I initially planned to let my light cav defence bonus Hussar retinues wether the powerfull Mongol skirmish phase, unfortunatly, my leaders had the great idea to engage 3 times more numerous mongol hordes in running harrassment tactics, which didnt end very well
-As 2 flanks were failing, I sent in my regular levies, which stabilised things and kept the light cavalry from routing.
-The Mongols charged, at which point I sent in the Heavy holy Knights and mercenaries, who kicked some serious rear end, but also suffered grevious losses (all 3 grandmasters died in this battle), eventually, on flank broke and the outcome was 50K casulties on my side and 60K casulties on the mongol side.
-I then used my navy to pursue them and eventually destroy their main stack
-After the Mongols were defeated I kind of lost interest. I tried forming skandinavia, which was "wait for chancellor to work, go to war, get another country", just when I was thinking to have 80% soon, I figured out that Iceland is also de jure Skandinavian Empire
