Expansion Part 2: Death
Rand sat, lounging on his throne, bored. He'd been listening to the Duke of Salermo pleading to not be crushed into dust and how he'd serve faithfully for the past two hours. It was really quite amusing. However, it grated on his nerves, and none of his arguments were able to dissuade Rand. Without any patience left, Rand shut the Duke up with a wave of his hand. "As far as I'm concerned, these last few hours have been wasted. My position is no different now than it was two hours ago. Leave my court now. This is no longer the time for words." Without even waiting for the Duke to withdraw, Rand turned to his Marshall and asked how long it would take to rally his levies. "2 weeks, milord." "Excellent. Have them muster here, in Palermo. We'll march against the Duke in due time." After about 4 months with no battles, Rand captured the only holdings of the Duke and forced his surrender.
After his victory against the Duke, Rand received a message from the King of Croatia. A succession had occurred and now his son's marriage to Neda wasn't providing an alliance. No longer seeing the point, he broke off the betrothal and found another wife in Agalina di Occhiobello.
In addition, the vassals of the realm, cowed by the performance of the kings power, approved his change to raise crown authority and so Medium Crown Authority was established. However, there were 2 vassals that were not cool with the change. They were both dealt with in one action with a Prince Bishop being handed a dukedom and jurisdiction of the other angry vassal. Now, over the rest of the session, Alison's betrothal was broken a total of 4 times as the betrothed refused a matrilineal marriage. With the vassals fresh off a war, Rand decided to consolidate his power base on Sicily and take the remaining province not under his control, Napoli. A few months later, the count surrendered. He soon received a message from his wife back in Palermo. His second son, Walter, was coming of age soon and a wife needed to be found. Rand found one in Katalin Poth, a master of intrigue (I believe?). On the way back to Palermo from Napoli, while stopping in the court of the Duke of Calabria, he sighted a pretty little thing. He never found out her name except that she was a de Hauteville. After a night of drinking and celebrating, he found himself in bed with her.
Leaving the next day, having impregnated Matilda de Hautville, he continued onto Palermo. Arriving home, he spent barely a week before attempting to get a sanction for holy war from the Pope. Once more, he was denied, but, as last time, it mattered not and so he declared holy war on the Emirate of Tunis.
A few weeks later, 2000 men boarded ships at Palermo and set sail for Tunis. The mustering Emir's army was crushed and his territory besieged. A few days later, Rand received a report of a small Muslim force moving towards his army. Specifically, an army 3 times smaller than his. Smelling an easy victory, he lead a charge the next morning. Unfortunately, during the charge, he ran into a small force of pikemen and both Rand and some of his honor guard were gutted on the pikes. The king was dead.
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King Tancred the First was crowned a few days after his death. Near the end of the ceremony, his spymaster walked up to him. "Lord, I bring dire news. There is an unruly count attempting to lower your authority in the Kingdom of Sicily. He has gathered a substantial following to him. What is your wish?" Damn, thought Tancred. Not even a week after his fathers death and vassals already attempting to weaken the realm. In the middle of holy war, no less. "Arrest him. And if you fail to, then tell me. I'll pull my men out of Tunis." The words left a sour taste in Tancred's mouth. That was the place were his father had died. And he might have to abandon it. He felt sick to his stomach.
The next day, he received word. The count had failed to be arrested, and raised his flag in rebellion. Damning the Count, he ordered his troops to pull out of Tunis and begin sieging the Count's territories. The war was close, and Tancred was forced to hire 500 mercenaries in order to turn the tide of war, but in the end he won. The civil war was ended and Tancred could turn his attention to Tunis once more.
All the gains his father had made were undone. The only reason he wasn't losing the war was because his father had laid low the hosts of Tunis. Unfortunately, the Emir had called his fellow Muslims into the war and so Tancred could not order another offensive. Instead, he decided to build up his cash reserves in order to hire mercenaries and finally found a wife for his twin sister, Alison, after 4 broken betrothals. The husband was a son of the Kaiser, who agreed to a matrilineal marriage. After half a year of building up his cash reserves, he deemed himself ready to win in Tunis. Mustering 3000 men and 1500 mercenaries in reserve, he headed off to Tunis. 3 days after his arrival in Tunis, a large Muslim army of 4000 Muslims arrived to drive him from the shores of Tunis. Having his mercenaries wait and conduct a naval assault from behind broke the Muslims back. The Emir of Tunis surrendered the day after. And so, Tancred won his first offensive war and fulfilled his ambition to win a war (how winning a civil war doesn't count I don't know). And so, he prepared for peace. However, that was not to be. The pope had called a Crusade for Jerusalem and Tancred saw an opportunity to bind his realm together. Gathering an army of 1000 men, his dukes and powerful counts, and himself, he sailed to the holy land to get the Crusader perk. On arrival, he wondered at the lack of Caliphate forces. He had expected the Crusaders to be having a hard time, losing many men and not able to hold a foothold. Instead, he found Jerusalem already besieged and not a single Caliphate army in sight. For once thinking that the Crusade could actually be won, he went back to Sicily and mustered an additional 2000 men and sailed back to the Holy Land. Being careful to only besiege coastal cities and always have an escape route handy in case a doom stack came along, he slowly fought his way to top of the participation list. In the midst of it, he received a message from his spymaster that his brother's wife was plotting against him, planning to have him killed. Telling his spymaster to tell the woman that she will either have to give up her plot or be arrested was enough and the plot was ended.
After capturing 3 cities, he rode in with his 2500 men to save a christian army that was being destroyed by a 5000 strong Caliphate army. 3 days of heavy fighting proceeded and at the end, the Caliphate army was scattered. The next day, Tancred received a royal envoy. It was from his wife, who said he now had a second son, a child named Gerard. Tancred was overjoyed, but could not come home.
2 months later, the Caliphate surrendered. Becoming lord of Jerusalem, he decided to keep the title of Kingdom of Jerusalem to himself to form at a time he wanted, but formed the Duchy of Ascalon and handed that to his brother. He then proceeded to split the rest of his new holdings among his existing vassals, stabilizing his reign. The first years of the new king had been turbulent, but the realm had come out larger and stronger at the end.
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This part was a bit annoying to play through, what with the annoying vassal trying to lower crown authority and the king dying midway through, not to mention the nasty surprise of 4000 Muslims waiting for me at Tunis. However, I'm in the position now that a few tax law changes will result in me raking in at least 10 gold per month and that's with bare-bones architecture.
I was also really surprised by the lack of Muslim doom stacks. The massive civil war a few years back must've been worse than it seemed.
