The Rise and Fall of Heresy: World Domination Edition

[cyrileom]

So as an unfortunate result of Steam auto-patching my previous AAR fell through. So, this is a reboot, this time in Poland. It's with a slightly differently statted character as well as the Immortal perk for fun as well as a bit of lore accuracy. Unfortunately I can't choose maimed as a trait in start up so I'll use an event to do it for me. The only other unfortunate thing is that the game decided to spawn Rand with that ridiculous beard. I hope it goes away, I didn't request it. Here's the character:

As you can see, I'll be playing as the Duke of Greater Poland. In my Sicily AAR, just prior to the crash, Poland had expanded it's domain into Hungary and Denmark and had a larger army than me. I hope to recreate that but also expand aggressively against the nearby Rurikovich's. Also, it will be done in CK2+ as in the last AAR and will also be done with the No end time mod that comes with it, so I don't feel rushed and can actually create a world empire that I can then watch fall apart. I've disabled auto-updating so hopefully there won't be any problems with the AAR up and dying in the middle of it. I will also be renaming the Kingdoms and Empires as I acquire them, as I feel it would be amusing to slowly Randlandize Europe. First update tomorrow.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Expansion
Part 1: Neither Beginning nor End.
Part 2: A Crown of Swords
Next parts coming soon.

Chapter 2: The Heresy
Coming sometime in the future

Chapter 3: The Purifying
Coming later in the future

Chapter 4: The Fall
Coming eventually.

 

[cyrileom]

Part 1: Neither Beginning nor End.
Rand was asleep, arguing with an unknown entity.
"Really? This is the fifth time you've kicked me through a Portal Stone. Can you stop it? It's getting really annoying having to explain to my wives where I was for 20 years over and over again. Can't you get someone else to do this stuff for you?"
"No, I can't. Your my most reliable 'Dragon.' An interesting name, that. You're nothing like one. But that's besides the point. I need you to install order in this world."
"I've already been here before. As I recall, I died rather unpleasantly. Why did you need to remind me of it? Did you drop your needle this time around?"
"No... the Dark One did something along the lines of a 'patch.' I'm not really sure. All I know is that it was destroyed."
"Really? He's still a problem for you? Haven't I killed him for you about 4 times by now? How has he not gotten the message?"
"Not important. I just need you to do this for me."
"Fine. But next time, YOU explain to my family why I disappeared for 20 years."
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Rand sat on his table, looking over his realm. "His realm" isn't that accurate though, he was a direct vassal of the King of Poland. Though, he did have a nice, if small, tract of land. He was duke of Greater Poland and was right next to Pagan tribes, so the direction of expansion was clear. He also had a fellow vassal that was de jure his but wasn't serving him. Perfect. An opportunity for expansion and to start making his mark on the world.

The next 5 years passed uneventfully. His chancellor kept trying to fabricate claims on Pagan territory but kept failing. It might soon be time to resort to holy war.
There was, however, ONE event to occur during that time frame. That is birth of his first son, whom Rand called Moridin for nostalgia purposes.

A year after, a pretty wench decided to try her luck with the big duke. She was shut down without remorse. Rand then became Chaste.
And then a year after that, Rand's second child was born. It was a daughter. She was called Ilyena for nostalgia purposes as well.

Shortly after, Duke Rand befriended his liege, Boleslaw, at a feast.
Unfortunately, about 2 years after her birth, Ilyena died of pneumonia. Rand didn't speak to anyone for a week.

He was still depressed for the next eight years, partially as a result of his daughter's death and his Chancellor's inability to do jack squat. He was, however, in for a pleasant surprise. His second daughter was born. He named her Aviendha for, you guessed it, nostalgia purposes.

Two years after that, this event occurred:

I took the first option. After all, 85% chance of having a good result with only 5% chance of being maimed for life! Sounded like a good choice. You can probably guess what happened next.

Yeah. Oops. There goes my heir.
Narrative transition!
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"Now Moridin, you have to be careful you don't open a gateway in a space someone is occupying. It will be very painful and messy for the other person."
His son continued to stare hatefully at him, probably contemplating if opening a gateway on the space Rand was occupying was a good idea. Rand ignored the look,
"Now lets get onto to other uses of a gate---"
His marshal burst in at that moment.
"My lord, the Pagan nation you were requesting I observe..."
"Yes? Continue please. I'm interested to know why you interrupted my teaching session."
"They're at war my lord. They're losing."
"Perfect."
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Best time for a holy war is when the guy is getting his ass kicked. One thing I did notice with this version is that when I attacked a stack of 400 enemy units and 1800 neutral units, I fought the whole stack. Is that a bug or intentional?

Lucky for me, the enemy Duke was leading the routed army and ran right into me. I captured and enforced demands on him.

I then noticed an interesting tidbit: The Duke south of me had died, leaving his daughter to rule in his wake. More importantly, she was all for a betrothal to my maimed heir. KA-CHING!

There was one problem with my heir though: It appears (though I'm not certain) that the more a ward hates you the lower rank in the education tree his mentor is specialized in he will get. Like so: I'm a brilliant strategist and he's, well,

Yeah. Sad face.
Also, another tidbit:

It appears that the de Hautevilles are about to get pulverized by the Muslims.

So, to expand further, I set my eyes on the nearby pagan nation that I had a de jure claim on as a result of me claiming the title of Duke of Pomeralia. Also, I had another son in the meantime, who I named Sammael. This had the unfortunate side effect of splitting up my duchies instead of simply my counties, so to avoid a Duchy split I changed my succession laws to elective. It's perfectly fine because the only count happens to be Sammael who is in love with me. Back on track, I looked on the Pagan Duchess' alliance page. Not good. 2 alliances that were reliable. Time to start snipping them. First to go was her husband, breaking the alliance to the equally large nearby pagan duchy and preventing a Pagan Conglomerate in the future.

The next target was her sister's husband, but alas, fate is not kind to everyone. Even the immortal people.

At least he gets to go back to banging his three hot wives back in the alternate reality he lives in.
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Well, immortality doesn't work out so well when you're missing a hand apparently. Real shame.
I am at some point (probably during Moridin's reign) going to usurp the Crown of Poland by rebelling and requesting an invasion. After that, I'll have a large parcel of land to divide amongst my relatives. Duke Rand also was, at one point, for a very brief time, heir to the Kingdom of Poland, but I didn't have enough gold to attempt an assassination. So

 

[cyrileom]

Part 2: A Crown of Swords
So my father went and kicked the bucket. Good riddance. That bastard cost me a hand and my military education. At least he's dead now, and I rule. Then again, he had to go and die dramatically. Now I have to deal with a flaming mountain right next to my castle. The local peasants are calling it Dragonmount. I'm calling it a pain in my bloody ass. He did however, do two good things in his reign. He expanded his realm to rival the king, and married me to a duchess that has half my power. I am in a very good position to usurp the kingdom. But we'll see about that later.
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Moridin al'Thor started his reign with his Daughter-Heir being born, who was named Min.

Then, next year, his second daughter was born. She was named Lanfear.

He continued his baby-making spree by spawning his first son, who was named Lews Therin.

The next year, Moridin felt confident enough in his reign to take on the Pagan Duchess next door. All her alliances had been broken previously anyway

and she was already at war. Moridin mustered his forces and bought some mercenaries.

At a location called Briesa, her army was crushed. Moridin's army was outnumbered by 600 men and they CRUSHED the Pagans.

Shortly after, the surviving mercenaries were disbanded, secondary levies called in and the province taken.
There was, however, one INCREDIBLY weird thing concerning the succession. Moridin's brother, Sammael, apparently had "worrisome lines of succession" despite the fact that his heir was good old patrilineal al'Thor. That really confused me.
After Moridin's victory over the pagans, God seemed to favor him and healed his grievous wound. His hand had started to regrow and he was now only Wounded.

Unfortunately, a year later it seemed God had abandoned Moridin. He died after a period of illness caused by his wounded hand.

Two years later, tragedy struck again and killed the child Duke, Lews Therin, with a bout of pneumonia. The ruler of the most powerful duchy in Poland was now a wroth Min al'Thor.

She proceeded to divide her lands among her vassals in order to pacify them. She also entrusted her education to her Uncle, Sammael, who did a splendid job as educator. Then, midway through her regency, the Pope called a crusade for Jerusalem. Min did not take it seriously, but sent a token force in order to make her men crusaders and farm prestige and piety. However, there was a twist. The Fatimid Sultanate did jack-all in terms of defending Jerusalem, so Min decided to take it seriously. Deciding to divide and conquer and bringing in reinforcements, her forces sat down and prepared siege lines. By 1095, the Sultan surrendered. The winner was... DING DING DING.

Taking quick advantage, the soon Queen revolted against her Polish liege and mustered her levies.

Some Pagans decided to attempt to nab some of my territory at the same time as well, but they quickly backed off after I crushed my former liege.

I was now Queen of Jerusalem. My only personal holdings were in the Holy land, but I did have very loyal vassals in Poland.
I also had the capability of eventually usurping the title of King of Poland. This would come in time, when I got enough money.

There is 1 more point of interest. The matrilineal King-Consort of Jerusalem was third or fourth in line to inherit the Kingdom of Croatia through Seniority Succession. While on the one hand it might be profitable to attempt to take it, the Seniority Succession would just stop any attempt to continue to hold onto it, so I didn't bother attempting it.
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So, another part with lots of death. It was very surprising in Jerusalem. I achieved about 25% participation and reached first place with LESS THAN A THOUSAND MEN. The largest Muslim army I saw was 116 men. They did not seem to give a crap about the (admittedly small) swarms of Crusaders. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. With an army. Of less than a thousand men. I cannot stress that point enough.

 

[cyrileom]

I really hate Steam now. It killed this AAR again. And I'm not going to bother rebooting it again because Steam auto-updating is still going to mess up the next one.