Weekly Challenge #1 Kingdom of David

[kmh42]

How is it going for you? Some one already took land in Jerusalem as a Khazar?

 

[LeSingeAffame]

Fatimids and Seljuks are still allied, so it's not really interesting for now - I'll continue my game tomorrow

 

[kmh42]

Fatimids and Seljuks are still allied, so it's not really interesting for now - I'll continue my game tomorrow

I suggest you expand into India or restart.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

I'll try expanding into India, if that's not outside my range

 

[Dahoota]

Thought I'd share this, I started a few weeks ago when I saw the challenge but I don't have a huge amount of time for gaming.

The Serene Jewish Republic of Axum:



Ironman 769 start as the tribal Count of Kassala, no ruler designer. Borrowed money, immediately holy warred Semien and took it from there.

I just lost control of the republic though because my third character randomly died of illness at the ripe old age of 32.....so I thought I'd screen and share incase things start going sideways now.

Created the republic based in the duchy of Sanaa around 800, been patiently waiting for the Abbasids to fracture since. That independence revolt is winning with 78% warscore, I should have control of the republic again by the time it wins.

It's also interesting to watch the portraits too: I flipped to Ashkenazi culture for the heavy infantry retinues so all the randomly generated characters in the realm appear greek/jewish and have been interbreeding. Apparently African appearance + Greek/Jewish appearance = ....Turkic? WTH?

 

[kmh42]

Thought I'd share this, I started a few weeks ago when I saw the challenge but I don't have a huge amount of time for gaming.

The Serene Jewish Republic of Axum:



Ironman 769 start as the tribal Count of Kassala, no ruler designer. Borrowed money, immediately holy warred Semien and took it from there.

I just lost control of the republic though because my third character randomly died of illness at the ripe old age of 32.....so I thought I'd screen and share incase things start going sideways now.

Created the republic based in the duchy of Sanaa around 800, been patiently waiting for the Abbasids to fracture since. That independence revolt is winning with 78% warscore, I should have control of the republic again by the time it wins.

It's also interesting to watch the portraits too: I flipped to Ashkenazi culture for the heavy infantry retinues so all the randomly generated characters in the realm appear greek/jewish and have been interbreeding. Apparently African appearance + Greek/Jewish appearance = ....Turkic? WTH?

Very cool. You didn't start as jew but this twist with the MR is awesome. Keep us updated!

 

[n00bypl4y3r]

Was delayed a few years because lack of piety, but here we go. I fulfilled my "before 930" requirement for 867 Ironman Khazaria

Post invasion

Formed Kingdom of Israel after settling in Jerusalem (hence the K_Jerusalem title with the counties' CoA)

Switched it over to primary title

How long my kingdom would last after this is up for debate. As soon as I took Jerusalem Jihads were enabled, the only thing preventing one from being called on me immediately is my truce with the Caliph. I would have to go on a holy war spree until I get enough piety and money for the Third Temple, which would be difficult in just half a decade.

 

[kmh42]

Was delayed a few years because lack of piety, but here we go. I fulfilled my "before 930" requirement for 867 Ironman Khazaria

Post invasion

Formed Kingdom of Israel after settling in Jerusalem (hence the K_Jerusalem title with the counties' CoA)

Switched it over to primary title

How long my kingdom would last after this is up for debate. As soon as I took Jerusalem Jihads were enabled, the only thing preventing one from being called on me immediately is my truce with the Caliph. I would have to go on a holy war spree until I get enough piety and money for the Third Temple, which would be difficult in just half a decade.

Khazar Israel in just 66years, very impressive!
How did you get there? Did you blob into nomadic lands or into Armenia/Anatolia?

 

[n00bypl4y3r]

Khazar Israel in just 66years, very impressive!
How did you get there? Did you blob into nomadic lands or into Armenia/Anatolia?

I expanded to Khazaria's historical size

Upgraded my population growth buildings, and invaded nomad neighbors with the "humiliate" CB, which steals 10% of their population. The second I got over 30,000 population I invaded. My troops combined with my vassals outnumbered the Abassids, and nomad armies are strong to begin with.

The key with invasions is the 30,000 population requirement, but also the 75% population capacity filled requirement. If you're too big, it will take too long to build the population for invasions IMO. I stay at a modest size to prevent that.

 

[kmh42]

Upgraded my population growth buildings, and invaded nomad neighbors with the "humiliate" CB, which steals 10% of their population

I also use this strategy when I play nomad.
I didn't know you can invade a non bordering Kingdom. This way it's just too easy^^

 

[Dark Adonis]

WELL I tried too and gave up at 1447... but I'm not what we can call a good player . I gave up because I needed 2 more wars to have complete control on Galilea : impossible to be done before 1453.

I think I started at ~1100, last year when the Jews have 2 counties !

I wasn't paying too much attention to the time stamp until I got to 1407 and I realised "Oh shit, Jerusalem-". It was already too late : the country was splitted between 5 kings because of a Jerusalem Revolt after a HRE successful Crusade : everyone got a piece of cake. I needed 8 wars splitted between 5 kings to have a complete control and create Israël.

Screenshot and History (pardon my french...) :

Spoiler

God bless it was SO difficult, I understand why it took 400 years for kmh42 hahahahaha. Getting the power in Abyssinia was really tricky at start because I'm still a begginner I guess ! But... when tamed the Abyssianians, I realised that the Seljuq had EVERYTHING from the Kingdom of Khiva to the North-East, Georgia and Anatolia in the North West, Bachulistan in the West, to Socotra in the South.

Seljuq + Fatimids at my doors, I was :///////////////////. And I didn't know the utility of the "Sow Dissent" at that time, so welp. I focused on upgrading my buildings with my 9 counties and I was able to reach 18K in 1150~. In the mean time, I was able to resist the blows of the Fatimids by playing with the Supply Limit ! (it is where I discovered that small Kingsdoms are able to win with that, playing is learning I guess~) (and THANK GOD my counties were half of the time stroke with diseases lol). Although.............. I couldn't form the Empire of Abyssinia because of the dejure-drift of the complete Nubia hahahahesdlkjdsq (well, I can have it with the Kingdom of Egypt, but it would mean : completely eradicate the Fatimids, difficult task indeed (or buying a favour during difficult financial times, marrying one of their daughter blabla having a claim blabla but : he hated me too much, and I seldom had good chancellors).

OF COURSE, luck happened and 2 smalls Seljuq revolts rose in the Duchy of Sanaa and Oman that I was able to annex fairly easily. The HUGE split between 5 nations happened just after I successfully took the Duchy of Medina (yes... bad idea) because of the Seljuq being *entertained* by a huge war with an Indian Kingdom.

But... the Era of Djihads happened, I got something like 1 dijhads every 10 years ?! It was really stressful (by both the Fatimid and the Sunnite Kingdoms). Sadly, I was successful in winning the Dihads, but I got only few duchies from the Fatimids by retaliation (I was too afraid to do Holy Wars against the Kingdoms until the mid-14th Century, huge mistake :/).

Also, I was stroke by a HUGE instability in my Kingdom. I was too much focused on the foreign affairs that I forgot to manage mine, especially the division of powers. The Duke of Medine was at a point tied with me on army forces... The Spymaster wasn't successful. For the 50 next years, I was busy putting down rebellions (having to hire merc 6/7 times...) because I didn't have the flexibility to accept minimal delegation of power for the council (at least for a time, it's so easy to revert it... I was so inexperienced :'( ).
I thought that imprisoning them, taking back their duchy title and putting another Duke was THE play to weaken my vassals, but usually, with their 3/5 counties, they just take back the power after 2/3 years :'))))))))). So yeah difficult, thanksfully, they do not rebel during Holy Wars so I had some peace of mind after 1400 and my continuous wars !


and yes, Brittony is in Andalousia and the Mongol Empire invaded the Byzantine Empire (after, of course, ADOPTING SUNNISM, why are you so eager to save the Seljuq in all of my games, Mongols...)

My numerous rulers before I gave up : (my council didn't want to attack one of the Kingdoms who held Galilea, also...)

Spoiler

The Rebellious Times were during the reigns of Dawit, Makeda and the childhood of Geteye (all "Saints" because of failed Dihads, as I explained). Crazy how I learned to hate the unchanged -10 and -20 Opinions Modifiers from "Female Ruler" and "Pretender" with the Conclave patch...

Religious Maps (In french, but you can figure easily :0) :

Spoiler

SO DIFFICULT to convert counties ! It's normal I know, but fuck, even with 50+ Moral Authority, the Religious Heresies Outbreaks were SO NUMEROUS !
I remember that the first county I converted to Judaism became a Samaritan Heresy 3 years later... And the Monophysite/Miaphysite, it is so comical. When the Miaphysite counties were outnumbering the Monophysite ones because of Low Moral authority, the heresy relationship would revert. But then, the Monophysites would outnumber the Miaphysites because, again, of heresies outbreaks. The Fatimids put down like 7th Monophysites rebellions, I had like 4. But I also had the Shia ones + the Sunnites Ones and the Yazidia ones, sometimes 2 would pop at the exact same time... So tiring, but it was good for my moral authority haha.

I hated a bit Paradox for that, a small religion is difficult to spread out because of Heresies :/.

Also yes, the Mongols went from Orthodoxy, to Sunnism, to Catholicism as you can see .

Cultural Maps :

Spoiler

You can see the traces of the former Turkic Hegemony very well here (all the way to the top...). But now, you're asking yourself : why was I so bad at converting provinces ? Well, for some reasons, I thought that it was possible to convert a county, by pure chance, to Ashkenazi Culture... It didn't work. It was so bad, that most of my vassals hated me for being an Ethiopian (-15 is HARSH now ), this is why I had, at the end of my game, HUGE dynasties of Ashkenazi jews hahahaha *sweat*

I think that's it for my failed run !! Too bad I failed like this, as I want the achievement, I'll surely do it in the future as a Khazar~

 

[Dahoota]

Update on mine, just got there at 920:

(From tribal count of Kassala, 769 start, Ironman no ruler designer)

<

The next thing I wanted to do was create an empire-tier republic of Israel and needed another 200 prestige to do it but then this happened immediately after creating it:



So I guess I'll be fighting that first. Also, the Abbasids never broke up, but I did keep continuously attacking their revolts - pretty much every duchy in Egypt I took while it was revolting. A few few revolts nearly succeeded but then mysteriously disappeared.

So it hasn't been the easiest game ever, I had to fight off the Abbasids and the Sultan of Egypt a few times, especially once I took Mecca. Current state of the realm:



Also an interesting thing to note is that all the patrician houses set up their trade posts in INDIA, leaving me with the Red Sea and Arabian peninsula to myself:



You can see with the trade zone groupings where each house set up.

So from here I'm going to push for a bunch of other achievements, create the Empire and RP expand into India instead where the trade empire is built up

 

[kmh42]

WELL I tried too and gave up at 1447... but I'm not what we can call a good player . I gave up because I needed 2 more wars to have complete control on Galilea : impossible to be done before 1453.

I think I started at ~1100, last year when the Jews have 2 counties !

I wasn't paying too much attention to the time stamp until I got to 1407 and I realised "Oh shit, Jerusalem-". It was already too late : the country was splitted between 5 kings because of a Jerusalem Revolt after a HRE successful Crusade : everyone got a piece of cake. I needed 8 wars splitted between 5 kings to have a complete control and create Israël.

Screenshot and History (pardon my french...) :

Spoiler

God bless it was SO difficult, I understand why it took 400 years for kmh42 hahahahaha. Getting the power in Abyssinia was really tricky at start because I'm still a begginner I guess ! But... when tamed the Abyssianians, I realised that the Seljuq had EVERYTHING from the Kingdom of Khiva to the North-East, Georgia and Anatolia in the North West, Bachulistan in the West, to Socotra in the South.

Seljuq + Fatimids at my doors, I was :///////////////////. And I didn't know the utility of the "Sow Dissent" at that time, so welp. I focused on upgrading my buildings with my 9 counties and I was able to reach 18K in 1150~. In the mean time, I was able to resist the blows of the Fatimids by playing with the Supply Limit ! (it is where I discovered that small Kingsdoms are able to win with that, playing is learning I guess~) (and THANK GOD my counties were half of the time stroke with diseases lol). Although.............. I couldn't form the Empire of Abyssinia because of the dejure-drift of the complete Nubia hahahahesdlkjdsq (well, I can have it with the Kingdom of Egypt, but it would mean : completely eradicate the Fatimids, difficult task indeed (or buying a favour during difficult financial times, marrying one of their daughter blabla having a claim blabla but : he hated me too much, and I seldom had good chancellors).

OF COURSE, luck happened and 2 smalls Seljuq revolts rose in the Duchy of Sanaa and Oman that I was able to annex fairly easily. The HUGE split between 5 nations happened just after I successfully took the Duchy of Medina (yes... bad idea) because of the Seljuq being *entertained* by a huge war with an Indian Kingdom.

But... the Era of Djihads happened, I got something like 1 dijhads every 10 years ?! It was really stressful (by both the Fatimid and the Sunnite Kingdoms). Sadly, I was successful in winning the Dihads, but I got only few duchies from the Fatimids by retaliation (I was too afraid to do Holy Wars against the Kingdoms until the mid-14th Century, huge mistake :/).

Also, I was stroke by a HUGE instability in my Kingdom. I was too much focused on the foreign affairs that I forgot to manage mine, especially the division of powers. The Duke of Medine was at a point tied with me on army forces... The Spymaster wasn't successful. For the 50 next years, I was busy putting down rebellions (having to hire merc 6/7 times...) because I didn't have the flexibility to accept minimal delegation of power for the council (at least for a time, it's so easy to revert it... I was so inexperienced :'( ).
I thought that imprisoning them, taking back their duchy title and putting another Duke was THE play to weaken my vassals, but usually, with their 3/5 counties, they just take back the power after 2/3 years :'))))))))). So yeah difficult, thanksfully, they do not rebel during Holy Wars so I had some peace of mind after 1400 and my continuous wars !


and yes, Brittony is in Andalousia and the Mongol Empire invaded the Byzantine Empire (after, of course, ADOPTING SUNNISM, why are you so eager to save the Seljuq in all of my games, Mongols...)

My numerous rulers before I gave up : (my council didn't want to attack one of the Kingdoms who held Galilea, also...)

Spoiler

The Rebellious Times were during the reigns of Dawit, Makeda and the childhood of Geteye (all "Saints" because of failed Dihads, as I explained). Crazy how I learned to hate the unchanged -10 and -20 Opinions Modifiers from "Female Ruler" and "Pretender" with the Conclave patch...

Religious Maps (In french, but you can figure easily :0) :

Spoiler

SO DIFFICULT to convert counties ! It's normal I know, but fuck, even with 50+ Moral Authority, the Religious Heresies Outbreaks were SO NUMEROUS !
I remember that the first county I converted to Judaism became a Samaritan Heresy 3 years later... And the Monophysite/Miaphysite, it is so comical. When the Miaphysite counties were outnumbering the Monophysite ones because of Low Moral authority, the heresy relationship would revert. But then, the Monophysites would outnumber the Miaphysites because, again, of heresies outbreaks. The Fatimids put down like 7th Monophysites rebellions, I had like 4. But I also had the Shia ones + the Sunnites Ones and the Yazidia ones, sometimes 2 would pop at the exact same time... So tiring, but it was good for my moral authority haha.

I hated a bit Paradox for that, a small religion is difficult to spread out because of Heresies :/.

Also yes, the Mongols went from Orthodoxy, to Sunnism, to Catholicism as you can see .

Cultural Maps :

Spoiler

You can see the traces of the former Turkic Hegemony very well here (all the way to the top...). But now, you're asking yourself : why was I so bad at converting provinces ? Well, for some reasons, I thought that it was possible to convert a county, by pure chance, to Ashkenazi Culture... It didn't work. It was so bad, that most of my vassals hated me for being an Ethiopian (-15 is HARSH now ), this is why I had, at the end of my game, HUGE dynasties of Ashkenazi jews hahahaha *sweat*

I think that's it for my failed run !! Too bad I failed like this, as I want the achievement, I'll surely do it in the future as a Khazar~

WOW, so close! I think you had much fun and learned many thinks so I don't consider this as a fully failed playthrough. Thx for sharing this!

Update on mine, just got there at 920:

(From tribal count of Kassala, 769 start, Ironman no ruler designer)

<

The next thing I wanted to do was create an empire-tier republic of Israel and needed another 200 prestige to do it but then this happened immediately after creating it:



So I guess I'll be fighting that first. Also, the Abbasids never broke up, but I did keep continuously attacking their revolts - pretty much every duchy in Egypt I took while it was revolting. A few few revolts nearly succeeded but then mysteriously disappeared.

So it hasn't been the easiest game ever, I had to fight off the Abbasids and the Sultan of Egypt a few times, especially once I took Mecca. Current state of the realm:



Also an interesting thing to note is that all the patrician houses set up their trade posts in INDIA, leaving me with the Red Sea and Arabian peninsula to myself:



You can see with the trade zone groupings where each house set up.

So from here I'm going to push for a bunch of other achievements, create the Empire and RP expand into India instead where the trade empire is built up

Congrats! Just 150 years, very impressive! Nice blue MR you have there. Have fun conquering India and thx for sharing.

 

[SRM]

I'm assuming this challenge is already over and I wasn't playing Ironman at the time, but I'd like to give an honorable mention to the AI in a campaign I played over a year ago that formed Israel and rebuilt the Temple in less than a hundred years starting in 769.

Full story:

Spoiler

Back in December '14 or so I began a Ruler Designer'd game in Persia with the goal of blobbing my way through Asia and Africa but not expanding into Europe, then transferring the save into EUIV. After conquering the Zunbils and blobbing into Turkmenistan the Abbasids came knocking and I was forced to briefly Islamicize. It's been awhile so I don't remember if I swore fealty to the Caliphate or not, but after a decadence revolt rocked the Abbasids I converted back to Zoroastrian and invaded. To keep the backstory to the good part short, I managed to help the Abbasids lose their revolt and the Caliphate shattered, letting me gobble up Persia and push into Mesopotamia. My goal then became waiting 100 years until all of Mesopotamia de jure drifted into the Kingdom of Persia before forming the Empire title and continuing my expansion. During this waiting period an Abbasid remnant somewhere managed to cobble together a rebuilt Caliphate that included Syria, Jerusalem and most of Arabia, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Around this time, my Shah (and IIRC third character) had a Jewish Courtier event fire that spawned a high-diplomacy Ashkenazi courtier that quickly became my new chancellor and designated regent. However, when my Shah died, something weird happened - my just-shy-of-16 son and heir didn't inherit and my chancellor didn't become regent. Instead, my 2 year old concubine-born youngest daughter was proclaimed queen and her mother, my concubine, became regent, imprisoning and banishing my chancellor. I'm assuming bug, but I always thought of it as some form of palace coup. Regardless, my mother-regent effectively tore apart the realm, lowering my crown authority to autonomous vassals, stripping my character of all but one county and handing them out to her various lovers and generally making an unholy mess of things, including wasting a magnificent window of opportunity - shortly into the regency, the Abbasids had another decadence revolt and two or three assorted civil wars all at the same time, and I made the decision to be a little more proactive and conquer as much territory as I could while waiting for Mesopotamia to drift. Unfortunately, my mother regent refused to let me do anything, and by the time my character finally came of age most of the territory I wanted had either stabilized or been conquered by someone else.

Namely my ex chancellor. I never saw how it happened, but somehow he got control of Jerusalem and some of the surrounding area and began carving out a kingdom during the civil wars and decadence revolts. Sure enough, by the time my regency ended (after which I immediately imprisoned and executed my mother and her various lovers, starting a civil war over tyranny, but I won it and it's not important to the story anyway) he had formed Israel. This was, IIRC, around 830. Shortly afterwards the caliphate (which had now stabilized under some dynasty I don't remember the name of) declared a holy war against it, but wound up losing because I declared a holy war on the caliphate and smashed their armies. That and gold gifts to the Israelite king (I decided to let Israel remain independent as a buffer state and to roleplay a sort of Cyrus and Darius oath thing) were the only assistance I rendered the AI during this time.

Between the gold I kept throwing at Israel every few years and the piety they gained from first winning a few defensive holy wars, defeating a Jihad, and then expanding a little after the caliphate shattered again, the Israel AI was successful in rebuilding the Temple and largely converting the counties it ruled to Judaism. Everything largely went according to plan until Israel decided to start declaring holy wars against me, and after fighting off two of them Israel was weakened enough that Sinai was reconquered by the Muslims and a Crusade plowed through Jerusalem. Unable to help Israel due to the inability to form an alliance due to religious differences, I ultimately wound up conquering the region myself, but lost interest in the game a while later (IIRC I wound up in another regency after a genius early 20s Shah assumed the throne then died of "natural causes" with no heirs inside a year, passing the throne to his little brother) and started a new campaign.

Still, for one brief, shining half-century, Israel formed and survived with only relatively minor assistance on my part.

 

[kmh42]

I'm assuming this challenge is already over

Those challenges are never over!

Full story:

Great story! I never hear of an AI Israel befor, thx for sharing!

 

[Aries666]

I coincidently decided to play a Semien game 769 start by the late 800's I had pretty much all the empire of Abyssinia + Sana'a and Oman but then got completely stifled by the Abbasids who have expanded and never really have any internal problems, hell even the Sultan of Egypt has taken a couple of shots at me!

 

[Aries666]

So I finally got there. Around 1000AD the Abbasids started to lose control of their decadence which gave me enough space to start breaking them eventually creating Israel in 1152.

I started as the petty king of Semien in 769. It didn't take too long to take all of Abyssinia and Nubia but after that I had to wait 100 years for an opportunity to strike. By no means the fastest but was surprisingly challenging.

 

[Aries666]

Also for some reason I cant create the Jewish priesthood which is pretty annoying.

 

[StarSword]

Also for some reason I cant create the Jewish priesthood which is pretty annoying.

Have you met the requirements? You need to have converted the province of Jerusalem to Judaism and have built the Third Temple.

 

[Aries666]

Have you met the requirements? You need to have converted the province of Jerusalem to Judaism and have built the Third Temple.

Yep I meet all req's. I was however, able to build the Third temple before I created Israel which I didn't think was possible.