Django Wexler

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, and Part Thirteen.

Last time, Emperor Gorm was riding high after his conquest of France, in spite of constant Catholic revolts.

While I wait for threat to go down, I raid Brittany again.  This time, though, when the Aslamid army comes to try and kick me out, I raise the levies of France and smash them.  How dare you try to stop me from burning down your cities, sir?

This exploit earns Gorm official Viking status!  Though honestly he’s more a conqueror than a raider.

There, everything nicely aflame, as is right and proper.

My vassals are so content that hardly any of them are plotting treason!

It’s now been thirty years since the last Great Holy War, so we can have another one.  I don’t mean to pick on the French, but they’re looking increasingly weak.  My threat is still high enough that other Christians will join them, even if they are Orthodox, but I think I can handle it.

Germanic War For Germany!  Christendom lines up on one side, Pagandom on the other.

The main French army turns out to be over here in Nantes.

I finally run them to ground and take an early lead in the war.

Wars with lots of allies are difficult to keep track of, and hard for me to fight in my usual meticulous style.  I don’t like losing troops to attrition, for example, but it’s hard to avoid when ally stacks you don’t have control over are eating all the food.  You just have to make the best of it and try to do damage as quickly as you can.

Not a great time, guys.

France and Germany are a total mess of marching armies.

For the most part, though, I’m getting the upper hand.

The army of Jerusalem has decided that their contribution to the war will be laying siege to Dyfed.

Victory is ours!  Praise Thor indeed.

Once-mighty Francia is now crippled enough that hopefully my vassals will start grabbing bits of it.

Oh, don’t worry guys.  I haven’t forgotten about you.

Gorm’s mother finally passes away at 71.  No one commanded a bloodthirsty legion quite like her.

My threat is now sky-high of course.  I decide to try for five years of peace to let things cool down a bit.

In spite of Catholic treachery, the true faith is spreading nicely once again.

Side story: this young Muslim woman I’d captured, Ide de Bissy, was a) pretty awesome at stewardship and b) reasonably friendly, so I recruited her from the dungeons.  A bag of gold encouraged her to give up her faith and join the winning team, and I married her to one of my sons.

Though almost immediately thereafter, Gorm decided he wanted her for himself.  This feels like a novel, right?

I continue to raid Cyrenaica, though it gets a little dicier now that it’s part of a big Muslim empire.

And the Pope has finally gotten smart enough to keep a big mercenary army standing around.  Hard times.

Instead, we move on to Antioch, which is also rich and inexplicably independent!  Perfect.

Thankfully, these don’t count as breaches of the peace, or I’d never get to five years.

Build a bridge out of him!

The commander of the Varangian Guard is preparing an attack against me.  Hmm.

I need help fan-casting the role of Duke Guillaume II, Son of Lucifer.  Look at that craggy face!

Dogs: good for what ails ya.

Antioch also proves to be nicely flammable.

Made it!  Five years and not a single war.  Maybe I’ve kicked the habit!

Or not.

I was waiting to see if the Catholics would come back at me with a Crusade, but instead they’ve decided the most pressing issue is freeing the island of Corsica from its oppressors.  Have at it, guys.

My adventurer friend finds himself trapped like a rat.

More in the story of Ide de Bissy — now happily married to Prince Styrbjorn, with two children.  But she has to watch as her sister Almodis, who refused to give up her faith, is sacrificed to the gods.  This thing writes itself!

I am the cynicest!

You have to zoom out quite far to see the whole empire now.

Threat’s still above 50%, though, which means any war would face both Christians and Muslims.  I raid Corsica to pass the time, forgetting that there’s a war going on there, which makes things a little inconvenient.

Oh good, here comes the next event on the doomsday calendar.

My heir, Rikulfr, has turned out … so-so.  He’s got okay stewardship, but his martial is terrible.  He’s stubborn, ambitious, just, and craven.  Not ideal.

I marry him to a martial lady in hopes of making up for his deficiencies.

Only one guy is plotting against me!  Can you really have a conspiracy of one?

While I wasn’t paying attention, my vassals have actually made good progress taking over the Baltic coast.  However, we now share a border with the Mongols in the far east.

All in all, Gorm has been a pretty awesome emperor!  And, he thinks, why shouldn’t that reign continue forever?

I send Buðli, my general, out to look for eternal life.  His awesome martial ability will clearly be of great help.

Gorm is prepared to spend the whole treasury, if that’s what it takes.  And it turns out that’s pretty much what it takes.

Huh.  He … actually found something?

Wow.  Forget eternal life, I’m making her a general!

What’s a little blasphemy in the pursuit of eternal life?

Rikulfr has questions.

Shockingly, Djeneba seems to have all the answers!

All right!  Eternal life, here we come.  

This may be the world’s most expensive antelope.  Scandinavia is now officially bankrupt.

And it ate my fingers.  And now Djeneba’s gone.  Well, that was the entire GDP of my country well spent!

Maybe I should have been less worried about eternal life and more about this guy.

“Not especially blessed” is code for “fingers were eaten by a sacrificial antelope.”

Rikulfr immediately sets out to raid the Pope, since Dad spent literally the entire national treasury on trying to live forever.  It’s a time for penny-pinching in Scandinavia.

“Sorry, Bernard.  You are indeed wise, but I literally can’t afford you.”

Once I get a little money coming in, I’d like to have a holy war with the Aslamids, who are now my biggest threat.  Unfortunately, I’m not pious enough.

The Jomsvikings can solve that!  For a donation, of course.

Now I’m broke again, but the holy war can proceed.

Oh, don’t you guys start!

Fortunately the revolt is conveniently placed like a speed bump on the way to the war.

The main problem turns out not to be the Aslamids, but keeping my guys alive in disease-ridden southern France.

In a familiar story, I have a daughter, but my wife dies in childbirth.

I lure another high-stewardship young woman to my court with a sack of gold, then forcibly marry her to the Emperor.

“Wait, I have to marry who?”

“The Emperor.”

“Why me?”

“Because you are the greatest accountant in the land!”

The main Aslamid army is duly crushed, and the holy war ends in victory.

Once again, I’m super threatening, but the Aslamid territory in France is now cut off from their main base.

Meanwhile Genghis Khan is rampaging across Asia.  He’s almost as good a general as Ottarr the Brute.  Keep at it, Genghis, you’ll get there!

With some money in his pocket, Rikulfr can finally afford a doctor, and settles on this creepy blind guy.

Just in time, too, because he has syphilis.  Okay, Ale, work your magic!

That … kind of worked.  I’ll call it a win!

Maybe not.  Is it time to fight Cthulhu again?

Rome at least is burning nicely.

Plus it’s way easier to get home now!  Unfortunately, the vassals are conspiring against the now-mad Emperor.

The young king of England was plotting against me.  Everyone is plotting against me!

I head over to England for a quick showdown.

With that resolved, the remaining factions are weakened, and I set my spymaster to work digging up dirt on my vassal kings.

On the plus side, Scandinavia proper is once again purged of Catholics, and England is getting close!

And the empire has a satisfactorily large font.  My vassals continue to pick away at the remains of Francia.

…why does encouraging my dog to kill my courtiers give me prestige?

The King of England meet his end at the Great Blot, like so many kings before him.

Unfortunately, the new queen also hates me, mostly because I am a drunken, syphilitic lunatic.  And because she wants a seat on my council.

As a result of increasingly dubious mystical/medical experiments with Ale, Rikulfr puts himself out of everyone’s misery.  His youngest daughter, Grima, is only 7, so once again we’re in for a regency.

Grima’s looking so-so, but it’s hard to tell at this age.  Will she survive to become empress?

Current Year: 1233 AD.  Current Status: Growing up.

 

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, and Part Twelve.

In our last installment, Emperor Oddr had apparently been driven barking mad by his time in the Varangian Guard, but that hadn’t stopped him from taking over Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

One of my Jarls has challenged me to single combat!  Since I took care of Cthulhu, I’m pretty I can handle him.

My chances of winning are very good!

But not good enough, apparently, since I’m wounded and forced to yield.  What the hell, Oddr?

Fortunately it heals quickly.

Princess Ystradwel is a pretty awesome name.

This scares me for a second, but Aquitaine is owned by the Spanish Muslims now.  Have at it!

Some more vassals revolt, but I capture their leader in the first battle, so it’s over quickly.  It’s Dad’s old friend Sveinn!  He and his buddies are Christians, so I get to take all their titles.

Princess Ystradwel finally shows up, in kind of an inconvenient spot.  My armies sail over to meet her.

Bringing her to battle is a pain, since there are bad roads and low supplies in the east.  I manage it eventually, though.

Soon enough, she’s banished and her gold swells my coffers.  Try again anytime!

Oddr arbitrarily decides to stop being arbitrary …

…considers sleeping with his daughter-in-law days after her wedding (though she’s no Glitterhoof) …

…and is accused by his daughter of murder, which he is only sort of guilty of.  I mean, I did throw the guy in prison for life, but technically I didn’t kill him, right?

Another host army turns up …

…and I have cancer.  Some days, you just can’t win.

Fortunately, we can take care of the cancer by swallowing live fish…

…and take care of the host army with stabbing!  So that’s all right.

Okay.  France is kind of a mess, being currently split between “France” and “Francia”, which is confusing.  But it means that if I’m going to attack, now’s the time.

The Empress of Francia is definitely looking weak.

Time for a Great Holy War!  This is where the Empress turning Orthodox helps me out a lot — only other Orthodox rulers can help her, and that means basically just the Byzantines, who are too far away.  

The Great Holy War begins!  And I basically march straight to Paris with no resistance whatsoever.  

In fact, the French agree to surrender without even a token battle.  

…

I mean, if you read my books, you know I’m not one to run down French military prowess.  But way to play into the stereotype, guys…

Praise Tyr for this, um, glorious victory!

However, you can’t argue with results.  I’m now on the continent with a vengeance.  I spend some time (seriously it takes like an hour with the game paused) handing out new territory and reorganizing my vassals as best I can.

Oddr’s main goal now is to live as long as possible, given his illness, so that his youngest son Gorm will have the chance to grow up a bit.

Almost immediately, my vassals start declaring wars against each other and everything else in sight.  I have the “External Wars Only” law but I don’t think it works properly, since they still fight each other a lot.

Oddr starts to gather his own forces for some raiding, but he’s quickly losing his grip.

Sadly, Oddr dies less than a year after his greatest achievement, leaving me with an eight-year regency for his son Gorm.

Gorm is looking reasonable, stats-wise, but his vassals are going to kick up a fuss.

Following Dad’s example, he sends raiders to burn down Cyrenaica.

This … feels like something out of a 90’s PSA, right?

Ahhhh!  Stranger danger!  Stranger danger!

I should say so.  Not enough PSAs end with “…and then he was taken away and beheaded.”

Learning to take bribes gracefully is an important skill for a young emperor.

Venice still flammable?  Just checking.

Very slowly, I’m reclaiming my land from the Catholic usurpers.

Although they will not give up with the rebellions!  Take a hint, guys.  There’s a reason it’s the twentieth rebellion, and it’s not because the other nineteen went great.

Good to have you on the team, Mom!

Seriously great, because Mom is pretty awesome.  However, she keeps trying to teach me about stupid Christians.  

Her attempts to make me religious don’t stick, though.

14-year-old Gorm’s worst fear: the Catholics are revolting, using math.

Gorm comes of age.  He’s just, diligent, and cynical, though his stewardship education didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.

The best available spouse in the kingdom is my niece.  Which, no.  So we go shopping elsewhere.

I invite Asa to my court, casual-like, and then spring the news that she’s marrying the Emperor before she has a chance to run for it.

Duchess Sif the Butcher is trying to kill me, so we go to war to throw her in prison.

Conveniently, I get the chance to hold a Great Blot shortly thereafter.  Praise Odin!

Falki Son of Loki is next.  He absolutely hates me, for some reason.

He rebels as well, but I get him in battle soon after.  Convenient!

Shortly thereafter, though, Visby rises up in revolt.  It never ends with these guys!

These guys, either.  Sigh.

Stockholm Syndrome is setting in.

“Good luck with that.”  Except.  He’s my older brother.  And he’s invading me.  That may be taking politeness too far, Gorm.

Visby goes to prison.  Inconveniently, my brother Alfr invades Scandinavia by way of Serbia, so I have to put the army on ships and go and fetch him.

Alfr goes to prison —

— a bunch of vassals decide they would rather have Alfr than me —

— so Alfr loses his head!  Problem solved.

Of course, now I’m a tyrant and a kinslayer.  Whine, whine, whine.

One of my vassals manages to retake Zeeland, a Germanic holy site, bringing all five back under my control.  Good vassal!  Have a vassal snack!

Seriously, now my sister is coming after me too?  Learn from example.

Another vassal takes over Venice.  Which is … great, I guess.  But now what will I set on fire?

And now my niece wants in on the action.  Is it because I wouldn’t marry you?  Maybe think again about that haircut.

I revoke titles from some Catholic counts.  Most of them agree, but this one is either really brave or really stupid.

Honestly, man, at this point being of the same blood is kind of a strike against you.  This family!

With the threat from the Great Holy War finally expired, I grab Leinster off of France, just as Bjorg and Iliana show up with their armies.

Mom is almost sixty, but she still leads a host of bloodthirsty Vikings with the best of them.

I’m briefly confused that there’s both Princess Bjorg and Prince Bjorn in the mix.  Bjorn is unrelated, though, and he’s not at war with me, just looking to burn a few things down.  I can respect that.

“Who can you trust, if not your siblings?” Gorm thinks, as his own siblings declare war on him one after the other.

For the longest time these invasion forces don’t even show up.  I sit around with my troops in the middle of the ocean, waiting.  Come on, girls!  Time is money!

Eventually I find them way over in Finland, already freezing to death.  Pro tip: if you’re going to invade somewhere, might as well invade somewhere warm with nice beaches.  Once I’ve tracked them down, smashing their armies doesn’t take long, and soon they’re banished and their funds line my warchest.

With that finally wrapped up, I have a good chance to take some land off the Aslamids.  They’re having a civil war at the moment, so the time is ripe.

A quick holy war will bring in only other Sunnis as allies, and there aren’t many of those in the vicinity.  So here we go!

Wait.  Say that again, more slowly?

Gorm’s best friend dies young, and he takes it pretty hard.

That may be taking it a bit far.  He wasn’t that great.

Meanwhile, my armies bring the Aslamids to battle while we besiege their castles.

I also get the chance to usurp the Kingdom of France!  See, the title was held by the Emperor of Francia, and while I controlled all the territory you can’t usurp a title from someone who is at war.  Which, until now, has been always true for Francia.  But they’ve attained a brief piece, so I can deliver my official notice of usurpation.

And Gascogne is mine, too!  I spend a bit more time re-organizing my vassals in France.

A bit later, as I wait for my threat to subside, my vassals subdue the last of the Irish.  

I’m now served mostly by kings, rather than dukes.  I’ve created England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and now France, consolidating the duchies underneath them.  This creates powerful vassals, but it can’t be helped, since I need to stay under my vassal limit.  I’ve been trying to redistribute titles in such a way that each kingdom and duchy has the vassals it “should”, since this limits jealousy, but the vassals are always conspiring to ruin my neat arrangements by fighting and/or marrying one another.

Much of England and Ireland now follows Odin once again.  France is just a mess of Catholic, Germanic, Orthodox, and Sunni all mixed together.

At 34, Gorm is looking pretty darn competent!  He’s also managed to have six children.

Grima, his wife, is also quite awesome.

Seriously, you two.  That is enough kids.

I have also had about enough of these.

Current Year: 1199 AD.  Current Status: King of the French.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, and Part Eleven.

When we left Emperor Steinn, he’d taken over much of England, but Scotland, Wales, and Ireland still remained.

Steinn is also looking to further reform the government.  Specifically, switching to Imperial Administration would give me a much larger vassal limit, and allow for a “no internal wars” law, which would hopefully cause my vassals to redirect their energies into external conquest.  This becomes very useful as the threat of vast coalitions against me restricts my own conquering.

Ireland and Wales: still a mess.  They should welcome the civilizing hand of the Scandinavians!

My wife Empress Grima is the best field general in the Empire.  Love you, honey!

In between battles, though, she likes to keep up with the latest fashions.

Another county falls, beginning my gradual takeover of Wales.

For some reason the Duke of Northumberland is vassal to the King of Bohemia?

Humility is for losers.

Um.  Who wouldn’t want a romantic assignation with a much older, horribly disfigured woman?

Though there’s a terribly sad story here somewhere, the elderly, disfigured widow hopefully leaving wildflowers in the emperor’s tent…

Unsurprisingly, the King of Bohemia didn’t jump at the chance to defend Cumberland.  That’s all of England under my iron fist!

Scotland is united, but fairly weak, and run by a twelve-year-old.  It’s time to settle up with them.

For the first time, I use my power as Fylkir to declare a Great Holy War — essentially a Germanic Crusade.  If I win, it gives me the chance to take over an entire kingdom all at once, instead of just a county or a duchy.  The downside is anyone of the same religion can join the defender, so it’s a bit of a gamble.  I’m assuming the rest of the Welsh and Irish will join, but if the French throw in as well, things are going to get tricky.

The gods demand blood!

Somewhat to my surprise, only a few Welsh petty kings turn up to help the Scots.  The crusade is almost an anti-climax.

Victory is ours!  Praise Thor!

At a stroke, all of Scotland is ours, minus a few counties they still hold in Ireland.  It kicks my threat way up, of course, and I have to spend some time distributing all the titles to loyal vassals.

In the process, I discover that one of my sons is imprisoned by his own wife.  I’m sure he deserved it.

Most importantly, Britain now has a nice clean label!

My beloved wife/foe-mangler has cancer, but Doctor Vagn is on the case, and she recovers nicely.

As I wait for my threat to tick down again, the Pope decides to have another go at taking over Austrasia.

Pope War II: The Wrath of Pope!

Fortunately, about half of France is in revolt, so I’m hoping the largest Catholic power won’t have much to contribute.

And so it proves!  The French are fully occupied, so I’m only facing Italy and the Crusader orders.

Grima finally dies, sadly.  I get a new wife who’s a better administrator but not half as skilled at carving my enemies’ hearts out.

Since I’ve got some troops to spare, I send an army to camp on the Pope’s front lawn and see how he likes it.

Ambition: also for losers.

I prepare for a final showdown with the Papal mercenaries.

Poor Rikassa has not given up.  At least she sent me a sword!  Dudes love swords.

Taking over the Pope’s personal castles is shockingly effective at getting him to give up on the Crusade.  Something to remember for the future.  I take the victory and a nice chunk of cash.

Some of my vassals are turning Catholic again, starting with Ragnarr of Slupsk.  Another great name!

My son Oddr is all grown up!  He’s frail, ambitious, diligent and greedy, but most importantly Midas Touched.  While his martial is only fair, his stewardship is fantastic.  Well done, son!

Steinn tries for five years of peace, to give his threat a chance to tick down.

Which is ruined immediately by a rebellious Jarl who wants to murder me.  He’s just … angry, for some reason?  The revolt goes predictably poorly for him.

Oddr is quick off the starting block!

He has a second son just as fast, but this time his wife dies in childbirth.

Fortunately I find him a new, awesome wife.

Uhoh.

I’m not a doctor, but that seems unlikely.

On the whole, though, I like this doctor!

Oddr is off to prove his mettle in the Varangian Guard.

Rikassa is almost seventy, but she hasn’t given up hope of her true love.

This guy wants to be on the council.  Actually, he kind of looks like Abe Lincoln?  I’m just going to call him Abe of Lincoln.

As my threat continues to decrease, I set Venice on fire again.  Raiding isn’t “war” and doesn’t increase your threat, for some reason.

This feels like the start of a horror movie.  Also, what the fuck, guards?  Is “your guards are all drinking in the tavern” the medieval equivalent of “my cellphone gets no reception”?

Fortunately, Sveinn turns out to be a good sort.

Another of my Jarls has turned Christian!

Fortunately his heir has not, and everyone hates him, so he should be easy to kill.

There.  Much easier than fighting a war.

Don’t look so shocked, Steinn.  I mean, Jarl Dan?  Come on.

Steinn’s shock is apparently terminal.  He did a fine job, winning me my first Great Holy War and fending off a Crusade.

Oddr’s back from the Varangians, and considerably improved from the experience.

In fact, at 25, he’s pretty awesome overall!  Although he’s inherited his father’s regrettable taste in mustaches.

Threat is finally wearing off, too.

The raiders sent out by Steinn return from a truly epic vike!

“I’m King of the Whales!  Mwoooo!  Mroooo!”

*whisper whisper*

“Really?  Are you sure?”

*whisper*

“Well, that sucks.”

The options here are “kindness” and “envy”, but not “off with their heads”?  Sigh.

Now that I am the Whaleking I can claim Welsh counties de jure, which generates less threat.

France is still ruled by Orthodox Greeks, which makes their ruler a Basileus.  This may explain why they didn’t join in the Crusade, actually.

“These are descendants of Faithful.  They will guard you well, but never skip a feeding.”

The remaining Irish and Welsh are weak enough that my vassals are getting in on the act, seizing land for themselves.  Since I’m limited by threat, I’m totally fine with this.

I can now declare myself Emperor of Brittania as well!  This doesn’t actually do anything for me (except make my vassals jealous) but it increases my prestige gain considerably.

About that making my vassals jealous, though…

Sveinn!  I thought we were friends!  You saved Dad that time!

Not cool, bros.  Not cool.

Parchment and ink are ruining today’s youth!

Also, apparently Oddr did something evil while in Byzantium?

Wait, what?  I call shenanigans!

Okay, Oddr, what the fuck did you do down there?

Seriously?  What’s next?

Oh.  Um, sure?

Once again, plague == sexytimes.

Meanwhile, the revolt has turned out to be easily the worst in my history, taking years to get under control.  I finally chase the rebels armies out of Scandinavia and sack their capital in Scotland, bringing the terror to a close.

In the process, Luxembourg has somehow gained its independence?  Fortunately, its ruler sees reason and agrees to rejoin the realm without a fight.

On the plus side, Scandinavia is almost completely purged of Catholics!  And Britain is coming along.

At 34, Oddr is slightly less effective and a lot weirder.  His youngest son is only 1, so I’m hoping he lives a while yet.

Oh, dear.

I don’t want to leap to judgment, but that seems bad.

“The peasants are revolting!”

“Yes, and they’re rising up against their rightful masters!”

Honestly I think this is just a duty of my family line.  Once every few generations, an av Nordland is called on to defended the mortal world against Things from Beyond.

Even the beautiful young women who apparently abound in the woods have turned on me!  Attack!

*comes to, covered in blood*

“Guys, I think I have a problem.”

To take his mind off things, Oddr declares a holy war for the biggest kingdom in Ireland.

I like that the previous chancellor is annoyed at being fired, but not more annoyed at being replaced by a horse.

In spite of his attractiveness, no one will marry Glitterhoof.

However, largely thanks to Glitterhoof’s skillful diplomacy, the holy war comes to a successful conclusion.

I make my eldest son Viceroy of Ireland, in hope that he will subdue the remaining Irish without my help.

Oddr is just crazy enough to go for this.

For a change of pace, I head over over to burn down Cyrenaica instead.

One of my vassals has apparently acquired Serbia, possibly while high.

Connacht has been taken over by a Germanic adventurer, who wisely agrees to become my vassal.  So that’s most of Ireland in the bag.

Who could resist that silky mane?

Definitely good to be the Fylkir.

This confused me.  At first, I thought it just meant Essex would turn Catholic, which isn’t so bad.  But it’s much worse than that.

The entire realm has turned Catholic!  By Odin’s beard!

That’s a lot of work to do over again.  I think the Society of Jesus is to blame for this…

Current Year: 1162 AD.  Current Status: Surrounded by Catholics!

 

 

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, and Part Ten.

New Empress Þora continues the conquest of England!

First, though, she has to see someone about her syphilis.  The ol’ fish cure works wonders!

A Great Blot is next on the list.  The gods demand blood!  Like her father, though, Þora chooses to spare Princess Asa and avoid being labeled a kinslayer.

Lesbian Þora doesn’t mind watching two dudes make out at all.  Only homosexuals are sympathetic to homosexuals; there are no allies in CK2, apparently?

Although Hjalmar’s passionate making out might be a little gross for unrelated reasons.

Before we can get to conquering, there’s some housekeeping to do.  The King of Denmark, though vassal to the Empress, has gotten too strong and is plotting against me.  My attempt to arrest him fails miserably, so war it is.

It wraps up nicely.  Vassals need periodic kicking if they’re going to stay in line.

My son Steinn is only six, physically weak, though his stewardship shows promise.  I need Þora to live long enough for him to become an adult for taking the throne.

With the King of Denmark in prison, he’s an easy mark for my assassins.  His son seems more pliable.

Now the Countess of Norfolk is trying to kill my son, though, and that can’t be allowed.

Her attempts to stay out of prison go poorly.

With all that resolved, it’s back to merry old England.  Now that I’m Queen of England, I have de jure claims against all the remaining counts.  This raises threat less than a pagan conquest, which is handy.  Normally it would mean that I would only get the count to swear fealty, rather than claiming their land outright; however, since they’re all Catholics, I have the right to strip them of their land anyway once they’re my subjects.

I can just ask them to become subjects, too, but apparently “definitely going to get killed” doesn’t outweigh religious and cultural differences.

A sad fate for my gay best friend Toste.  His wife has a great mask, though.

Þora’s husband has died, so she needs a new one.  Since she’s too old for more children, she can safely marry for love good stats.

I send her out hunting to maintain her health as long as possible.  In addition to needing to give Steinn a chance to grow up, she has really excellent stats.

The Count of Sussex is for some reason allied with a sultanate in far-off Spain.  Shocking no one, they don’t show up when I kick down his door.

No reason to worry about violent, murderous fanatics.

Jeez, Þora, you only married the guy for his stewardship score.

Great.  Thus far I’ve avoided the attention of the Pope and his band of heavily armed psychopaths, but it couldn’t last, especially since I keep burning Rome down.  Here we go.

Pope War, The Motion Picture.

Still keeping syphilis at bay!

My troops gather across England and Scandinavia.  Unfortunately, though predictably, France has joined in the Crusade.  This will be my first confrontation with them, and I can’t say that I’m looking forward to it.

Wait, what?  I’m cured of syphilis?  I didn’t think that was a thing.

Frisia is simultaneously at war with France, and their army provides some unintentional assistance.

One French force attacks Austrasia directly, while the other heads north for Denmark and Sweden.

I corner the northern army after they’ve suffered through the rough terrain for a while, and give them a good beat-down.

Once they’re beating a hasty retreat, I sail back to Austrasia to confront the rest of the enemy forces, now including some Germans and other hangers-on.

In the very definition of “not helping, bro”, my eldest son Folki decides this would be an excellent time to try and press his claim to the throne.  I can’t even plot to kill him!  I’ve got a while before he gets his shit together, though.

Once I’ve gathered enough troops, I smash the Crusader armies and liberate the castles they’ve taken.  There’s now a French army loose in England, though, and a peasant revolt in Iceland that’s going untended.

Aaaaand here comes Folki.  Well done, son.

The revolt in Iceland is getting dangerously close to actually achieving something, so I ship 9,000 troops up there to put a stop to it.

Hurrah!

Boo.

In the background, my combined armies arrive in England to thrash the French and Folki’s troops.

Okay, even if it cures cancer, I can’t approve of eating cats.

Welcome home, son!  I kept your room just the way you left it.  But you’ll never know, because you’re staying in prison.

Back to France to round up the smaller Crusader armies that are causing trouble.

Really?  Iceland again?

“Yeah.  Look.  It’s not going to go any better this time.”

The French continue to put armies in the field, and I continue to smash them as the warscore ticks up.

Not a bad Crusade, if I do say so myself.

Thanks for the cash, Pope!  See you in thirty years!

Is she cheering on Yngvar or the girl?

Age is taking its toll on Þora, but I’d like her to hold on for a few years yet.

As payback for the whole Crusade thing, I head over to burn down Rome again.

Since Luder-Udo’s purges, we’ve knocked back the Catholics quite a bit, and spread Odin-worship in England.

Okay.  Anything you can do about cancer?

That didn’t work.  How about a mystical treatment, then?

Much better!  Maybe don’t be so hard on the guy, Þora, he did just cure cancer.

Once Rome is aflame, Venice is next.

That’s some good Viking!

And my son has come of age, apparently!  And chosen an extremely regrettable mustache!

Given that she’s a lesbian, I’m shocked it took her this long to get tired of them.

At 66, Þora is losing her stewardship, but is a better fighter than ever.  Her eldest son died in the dungeons, but Folki, improbably, has become King of Denmark.

But not for long.  I inherit when he dies childless.

His wife gives birth just a little too late.  So long, suckers!

In England, I’m grabbing a county owned by Scotland, so the war takes a little while to win.

Before I can finish, Þora dies.  She didn’t get to take quite as much of England as she wanted, but fighting off a Crusade takes up a lot of energy.

Fortunately, Steinn is all grown up and ready to take the throne, with heirs of his own!

He’s not quite the all-rounder his mother was, with great stewardship but weak martial skill.  He’s also a secret Christian!  I put a stop to that at once.

In spite of Steinn’s hidden indiscretions, the true religion has an increasingly solid grip on the empire.

“I am great!  Wait, it costs how much?  I’m not that great.”

Scotland concedes the point.  Almost all of de jure England is now under my control!  

Taking a break from that for a minute, I take this chance to seize a piece of Brunswick that contains a German holy site long lost to the Catholics.

Germanic moral authority is running a little low, actually, mostly because my vassals keep losing wars.  Get your shit together, vassals!

Next up, crushing the Duke of Essex for plotting against me.

Better get on with it, though.  There’s a storm a-comin’.

Take that!

And that!  Surely the favor of Odin will protect us from the Black Death!

(Spoiler alert: no it will not.)

Steinn bulks up as a result of training his dogs.  Serious guys, dogs are like a panacea.  Dogs for everyone!

I can fit in a couple more conquests before the end of the world.

Here we go.

“Hello darkness my old friend…”

Are you sure it’s the flu?

The enemy has vaulted the channel.

While watching the Black Death, I noticed that there’s a huge empire of Manicheans at the eastern end of the map.  Awesome.

Steinn frantically builds a hospital.

And recruits a skilled new doctor.

Uhoh.

Really?  What are the odds of that?

Pretty good, apparently.

I mean, under the circumstances, why not roll the dice?

That was unexpected.  A hand for being cured of the Black Death isn’t such a bad deal!

Sadly, my young daughter isn’t as lucky.

“Lucky” in air quotes.

Also, is it me, or is there a chunk of Eastern Europe where the plague is being kept at bay by smallpox?  Maybe everyone is already dead.

So the peasants are all “let’s blame everything on the Jews!”, as usual.  I’m not going to put up with that, obviously.  But (I don’t quite realize at the time) the consequence are quite dire — they’re going to refuse to pay taxes for ten years.

Nothing like catching the Black Death, being maimed and getting an infected wound to stir up the old lustful thoughts!

And Grima’s into it, apparently.  Ew.

Against all odds, Steinn survives!

Some peasants launch a revolt, put together an army, and then all immediately die because of, you know, the Black Death.

Finally the plague recedes, heading back east to whence it came.  It’s weird to say this, but honestly this wasn’t such a bad Black Death.  I didn’t have to eat anybody!

“Yarr, I finally tracked down the white beast what took me hand!”

“Sire, wasn’t it your doctor who –”

“Yarr, shut your pie-hole!”

I’m strongly tempted to jump France while they’re weakened.  The only thing that stops me is that the peasants are still mad about the Jews, and I have no money at all.

However!  Somehow, an Orthodox dynasty has taken over mostly Catholic France.  This will turn out to be most useful in the future.

Instead, I do what I always do when cash runs low — sail overseas and set fire to things!

Current Year: 1122 AD.  Current Status: Not Quite Dead!

 

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, and Part Nine.

The realm is at peace, and we can’t have that!  Emperor Luder-Udo, now undisputed ruler of the Scandinavian Empire, searches for someone to fight.

It’s 1042, twenty-four years before the scheduled defeat of the King of England by William the Conqueror.  That’s not going to happen in this timeline, though, because a) there’s no Normandy, only a gigantic France, and b) there’s no King of England.  England is badly divided into a bunch of very small realms, many of them single-county, with the six-county realm of Essex being the largest outside Scotland.  All in all, a good place to take over!

Essex is ruled by Queen Sithmaith the Dragon, who sounds awesome.  I could call a holy war against her, but that has a strong chance of drawing in other Catholic powers — certainly the rest of England, and possibly France.  Instead, I decide to do a single-county conquest, using my Norse pagan conquest powers, attacking Essex itself.  Hopefully if I grab the capital of the biggest realm right off the bat, the rest will fall without much trouble.

Essex mobilizes its scanty forces as a fleet full of Vikings descends on them, this time to stay instead of just to raid.

Meanwhile, Duchess Saga, the Sword of Odin, has attempted to escape my dungeon using her “female charms”.

Essex doesn’t put up much of a fight, and soon I’m laying siege to their castles.

Victory!  We have our first toehold in England.

On the political side, steady work has stripped the council of most of its powers, and I’m finally ready to declare absolute rule.  A few quick bribes get the majority of the supine councilors on my side.  L’etat, c’est moi.  Now I can change laws without worry about pesky “voting” or “other people’s opinions”.

Luder-Udo himself is surprisingly marginal, stats-wise.  At 36, he’s attractive (check out those hollow cheeks!) kind, charitable, and humble, as well as deceitful and shy.  His diplomacy is at least above zero now, but it’s still not great.

Most of the vassals are miffed, so further conquest needs to wait a while.

Saga the Sword of Odin finally meets her end, appropriately, as a sacrifice to the gods.

Luder-Udo decides to raise a monument to his own awesomeness.

Specifically to his own beauty.  Oh yeah, people of future generations.  You know you want some of this.

Future scholars will definitely have their work cut out for them attempting to glean wisdom from those words.

While I wait for my vassals to unrustle their jimmies, I pass the time by burning Venice down again.  They’ve managed to get themselves an army, this time, but not enough of one to stop me.

Luder-Udo follows in the footsteps of his ancestors!

Essex has already given up on Jesus and converted to worshiping Odin and Thor.

Luder-Udo is now known as ‘the Pious’, for some reason.  He also has seven children, so the future of the dynasty is pretty set.

And even grandchildren!

Oh.  Hmm.  Turns out I might have married my son to his first cousin?  Oops.

That was a mighty vike indeed.  And everyone’s chill again, so it’s time to grab some more territory.

I’m actually well-suited to conquering England in its current state.  I can conquer any county adjacent to one of mine, or to the sea, and it only raises threat minimally.  One by one is the slow way to take a place, but it’s the only option when the place is badly divided.  Also, since each conquest leaves me with a ten-year truce afterward, I can switch from one target to the next to avoid waiting.

All that said, I go after Suffolk, ruled by Glaschu of East Anglia, also called the Dragon.

As expected, he can’t put up much of a fight.

Next up, Northhampton from Lachtnene the Fat!

The only tedious part of this process is having to regather the army in Scandinavia each time and sail it down to England.

Tormod has caught syphilis from his wife/first-cousin.  He’s having a rough life.

Fortunately, he’s not heir.  My heir Þora (“thora”) is looking pretty great, actually, with high stewardship and martial.  She’s lesbian, diligent, ambitious, lustful, wroth, and zealous, all positive traits in my book!

Tormod, meanwhile, ends his brief career.

Þora is actually the next-best commander in the empire, but I keep her off the front lines for obvious reasons.

Warwick falls to the advancing Vikings.  Look at all those tiny, delicious little realms…

Hooray for the people of Suffolk!

With my truce with them expired, I snag Bedford from Essex.

My daughter, presumably knowing on which side the imperial bread is buttered, surprises me with a statue of my handsome self.  Well played!

Oxford falls.  Since no one in England has stepped up to be king, I’m going to have to do it.  I’m at 6/13 required counties so far.

Þora has a serious beef with my doctor, for some reason.

Worcester is next.  Wales is a separate kingdom so I don’t want to go too far west yet.

I briefly pause when I discover one of my dukes has become a Catholic!  That obviously can’t be allowed to stand, and another minor purge commences.

Skulking, as I often do.  I mean.  Who doesn’t?

Poor inbred Ylva has not turned out super well.

Luder-Udo’s beloved empress has died.  He tries to drown his sorrows in lustful wenches.

Uhoh.

I’m Batman!

While I fight the war for Westrogothia, another Catholic has married my daughter! I fear for the children’s souls.

Much better.  

Capturing the arch-heretic brings the revolt to a close.  Plenty of land to redistribute, since I can strip Catholic vassals completely.

Unexpected, one of my vassals inherits what’s left of the Kingdom of Austrasia!  It looks a little lonely there in the midst of Francia, but more land is always welcome.  Other vassals are starting to nibble at the small German states on the northern coast.

Another revolt breaks out as I strip more titles from the Catholics, which includes a fair number of the new vassals in Austrasia.  Should have thought of that before you were forcibly joined to the team by the death of your liege, suckers!

Some of my grandchildren who were led astray are willing to return to the correct path.

Others continually propose horribly incestuous marriages.  No marrying your first cousins, guys!

France is still powerful, but continuous castle-building and English conquests have gotten me close to 17k myself, so they’re no longer completely out of my league.

Luder-Udo is 62, but he’s still got the touch.

What did I just say about cousin-marriage?

One of my daughters, unfortunately, refuses to give up her Catholicism.  I don’t want kinslayer, so she can just stay in the dungeon.

Enough with the incest, you scandalous wenches!

Screw those guys.

Back to conquest!  Lincoln falls.  Unfortunately, I’m now big enough to generate threat each time I do this, so I have to space them out a little more.

I have to subdue a couple of unruly barons, too.  Meanwhile, France has two simultaneous revolts.  It’d be a good time to attack them, but I’m not really prepared for that yet.

The realm is growing nicely, though Scotland is still biting my style.

At 66, three of Luder-Udo’s children are in prison, two are dead, and one is a duchess.  He’s somehow even less diplomatic, but his success is undeniable in spite of his mediocre stat-line.

Þora is doing nicely, and has two children in spite of being a lesbian.

The counties of England continue to fall like dominoes.

Oh dear.  This is especially bad since Luder-Udo can’t last that much longer.  Good luck, doc!

A new son makes things even worse, since if she dies he’ll have a long regency to contend with.  Ugh.

After a long reign, Luder-Udo is finally succumbing to the ravages of old age.

York falls.  Why is York so large anyway?

One of my more troublesome vassals has recreated the Kingdom of Denmark.  So far it’s been held by Tyke the Evil, Freyja the Unfaithful, and Sturla the Evil.  Not a great record there guys.

Luder-Udo has picked up the “Brawny” trait at 72.

Derby falls!  I need one more county to make myself King of England.  Will Luder-Udo live to see the fruits of his victory?

I read Luder-Udo’s response in the voice of Sean Connery from SNL Celebrity Jeopardy.

Yrsa!  Just because I have a new grandson doesn’t mean you get to marry him!  If you need to get laid, go out hunting, that usually does the trick.

Lancaster provides county number thirteen!

I hurry around looking for stones with swords sticking out of them.  All hail Luder-Udo, King of the Britons!

“I’m king of the what, now?”

Counting from his majority, Luder-Udo ruled for 59 years, a spectacular example of what I meant by the benefits of ultimogeniture.  He never wanted anyone to make a fuss over his accomplishments, which is why he proclaimed himself King of England and raised runestones dedicated to his own beauty.  His reign was short on drama and bizarre stories compared to someone like Ottarr, but much more successful in terms of taking over England.

Þora, for her part, just needs to live long enough that I don’t have to worry about a regency for her children.  And there’s the continuing conquest of England to attend to…

Current Year: 1083 AD.  Current Status: King of the Autonomous Collective!

 

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, and Part Eight.

Queen Wulfhild continues her quest to create the Scandinavian Empire!  Also continues her descent into madness, in the mode of her ancestor King Ottarr.

At the moment she’s laying waste to Brittany, again.  The owners show up to defend it, but not in enough numbers that I’m inclined to leave.

I mean, who wouldn’t be charmed by that beard?

Waaaaait a minute.  Futility of prayer?  I know these guys!  Wulfhild may take after Ottarr, but she doesn’t want to go down the truly dark path.  Fighting Cthulhu is enough.

A bunch more Spanish troops show up.  I hurriedly finish up my looting and head back to the boats.  Back home, the brother of the dead adventurer has finally turned up with his army, so there’s work to do.

Wulfhild’s doctors have been shockingly successful at treating her syphilis.  

Another adventurer in jail.  I banish him, and confiscate the 500 gold he spawns with.  Try again any time, sir!

With the treasury replenished and threat run down, it’s back to conquest!  The remnants of Karelia are part of one of my duchies, so I can just take them de jure.

53/55!  Almost there!

Also, my vassals like me, so I can finally change the succession!

(I’m actually super unsure of why my younger daughter comes before her older brother in seniority?  Maybe he disqualified himself somehow.  Anyway.)

So, while seniority is infinitely superior to gavelkind, it has its drawbacks in terms of short reigns and difficulty of raising your heirs.  My normal default is primogeniture, but here I decide to experiment with ultimogeniture instead, which means that the youngest child inherits.  There are tradeoffs to both.  Primogeniture offers stability, since unless the eldest child dies the heir remains the same.  It also gives you the greatest chance of having your heir be an adult when the ruler dies, preventing a disruptive regency.

Ultimogeniture, on the other hand, means that your heirs will often be very young.  If they’re younger that 16, you have to suffer the regency, but on the other hand a ruler who takes power that young will hopefully have a very long reign, which is really helpful in terms of vassal opinion.  Since you can exert some control over whether you have more children, it also means if your current heir sucks you can try to breed more.

One technique to mitigate the regency issue for male rulers is to marry women about a decade older than yourself.  Typically women will stop having children somewhere between 35 and 45, which means your ruler will be about 30; that gives him a good chance of making it to 46, when your heir will be of age.  It’s harder for women, unfortunately.

Anyway!  Here ends the confusing genealogy!  Unless something goes horribly wrong, future rulers of Lapland will be descended from mad Wulfhild the Rash.

My current heir, Gisela, is honestly not great, and already has chest pains.  But importantly, she already has three dynastic sons, which means a strong future for the line.

I’m looking to grab those last two counties, but I’m running out of easy targets.  I go to war with Austrasia, a biggish kingdom in Germany that holds two counties on my east coast.  Unfortunately, I have to take them one at a time.

Seems like a good move.  You can always trust a horse.

Glitterhoof is attractive, strong, stubborn, slow-witted, and a horse.

But so loyal!  Although somewhat intolerant of my homosexuality.

Gisela dies of her heart problems, leaving her youngest son Luder-Udo, age 0, as heir to the realm.  Now I need to hope Wulfhild lives a while longer.  Maybe ultimogeniture was a bad idea.

Noooooo Glitterhoof!  Now who can I trust?  At least 17 is a ripe old age for a horse.  Also, during his brief reign as chancellor, he managed to gain “Sympathy for Christians” somehow.

The war against the Austrasians is going well when a bunch of my vassals demand independence.  This is actually kind of stupid of them, since my army is raised and ready and theirs is not.

Predictably, this goes poorly for them.

As a reward for rejecting the temptations of Hel, I am visited by Odin himself!  Sadly his well full of gold never materializes.  It was probably a metaphor.

I need more good doctors to keep me alive longer!

The Austrasians finally give up and concede the war.  And I’m pleasantly surprised to find that my vassals have taken two additional counties in the meantime, putting me at 56/55!  A century or more after Ottarr’s death, his descendant has realized his mad dream.

Finally, the empire is born!  I like its pleasing blue-gray color.  And there’s only a couple of stray provinces in the peninsula proper left to clean up.  (Note that Scotland, while being a similar color, is not part of my empire.  Yet.)

Wulfhild consistently keeps her venereal disease in check via violent pooping.

Of the nearby powers, France is by far the strongest, ruled by Empress Agnes the Frog.  Italy and Muslim Spain are also powerful.  Eastern Europe still a mess, England a mess aside from Scotland.

A pyramid for Faithful — wait, it costs how much?  I’m not spending the cost of a new castle on my dog.

Since creating an empire is expensive, we celebrate in the traditional way: raiding Cornwall!

Then, once we arrive, we have to sail back immediately because I forgot to tell the army to vike before they left port.

“Prepare to attack — hang on, guys!  I left my Viking hat at home!  Back to Scandinavia!”

One of my vassals grabs the last of the Saxon holdouts on the tip of Scandinavia.  Good work, guys!

Even lesbian empresses can get in on the hunting-tryst action!  Insane empresses can also ATTACK.

Unfortunately, the Duke of Westrogothia I so recently praised has become a Catholic, which means I’m forced to crush him without mercy.

“You won’t take my titles without a … oh … hmm.”

Man, screw everybody.

And here come the Austrasians again.  It’s that same queen, she’s been around a while.

A couple of other vassals are pissed off, which reveals that they’re Catholics too!  I’ll settle them soon enough.

Hey, it’s that duke guy!  With his long, flowing locks and fashionable mustache.

Finally.  I collect yet another big indemnity from the Austrasians.

Hooray for mysterious red powders!

After spending the windfall on moar castles I set out for Brittany once again.  France has a new empress, who is stupid-looking but still powerful.

Hey, another one of these!  Though the last one took two hundred years to unlock and was somewhat disappointing.

That was fast.

Huh!  Well, gold is always useful, Roman or otherwise.

I’m distressed by how much Catholicism there is in my realm.  I’ve purged it from my vassals, and they’re working on converting the people back, but it’s slow work.

Against all my initial expectations, Wulfhild managed to reign for 23 years, fix my succession, and create the empire at last.  The lesson here is: if you want something done right, send for the lunatics.

Her grandson Luder-Udo takes the throne.  He’s looking so-so, stats-wise, although he’s been given an Intrigue education, which is kind of annoying.  He is attractive, which is a pretty good trait!  There’ll be four years of regency before he can rule in his own right, but his vassals seem to like him.

His betrothed, Yrsa, is about a decade older (see above) and a badass to boot.  Glad to have her on the team.

Yup.  He’s 14, all right.

Luder-Udo continues his grandmother’s policies of a) building up his castles at every opportunity, and b) burning things, in this case Rome.

One of my vassals is Duchess Saga, THE SWORD OF ODIN.  Unfortunately she is nothing but trouble.

Luder-Udo takes the throne!  He’s a fantastic schemer and a so-so administrator, but absolutely atrocious at diplomacy due to crippling shyness.  First priority: have some kids.

His eldest brother, Duke Balthasar, has been arrested for plotting against him, no surprise since he’s pissed about the succession change.  I’m offered the chance to sacrifice him at the feast, but while it doesn’t give me the “Murderer” opinion penalty I would get “Kinslayer”, which is pretty bad.  So Balthasar can rot in prison, I guess.

Twins!  That certainly gets the succession off to a good start.

Luder-Udo falls in love with his wife, which is convenient because she’s a badass.

The raiders are finished with Rome, and take the scenic route home via the Black Sea.

That was quite a trip!  Castles for everyone!

That’s a joke.  Me.  Castles for me.

With the treasury rebuilt, Luder-Udo takes on the Austrasians again, ready to finally kick the last foreign rulers out of the peninsula.

Queen Gertrude is still kicking, but has no better luck fighting me this time.

Next up is grabbing this county from Vitebsk, on my eastern border.

I get the flu, but survive, in spite of the best effort of my doctors.

Scandinavia is now more or less completely under my control.  This completes my initial objectives: reform the religion, convert from tribal, and form the empire.  So the question is what to do next?  Expanding any further south means fighting France, and in spite of having a child-emperor they’re still too strong for that.

In the short term, my vassals are a bit unruly, so I spend some time raiding to let them cool down.  The money is helpful for further castle upgrades.

“Burn and pillage, my mighty warriors, for we are — ah, jeez, here they come!  Run for it, guys!”

Oh, good.

Even better.  Can’t a man burn down Brittany in peace?

Apparently not.  The Teutonic Order wants to get in on the fun.

Let the juggling act commence!  Fortunately, I have a big enough fleet to shuttle my army around quickly.

First we smash the invading Order army down in Copenhagen.

Then we rush up the coast to deal with the rebels.

Dogs are the medieval Paxil.

Follow the rebels by sea and take another whack at them…

…force the Hochmeister to surrender and pay a nice indemnity…

…finally catch up to the host army before they burn down my capital…

…then all the way back around to take on the rebels again!  All in a day’s work for Luder-Udo.

I am not actually sure why this guy loses his gold.  I kind of want him to keep it so I can steal it?

Shortly after he’s arrested, Hereweald is killed in prison, because I forgot to tell my assassins they could stop going after him now that the war was over.  My assassins are loyal but very literal minded.  “Man, this guy will be easy to kill now that he’s locked in your jail!”

The rebels finally cave too.  So that was fun.

The realm is once again at peace.  France is unified and too strong to attack, so I cast about for another target.  Hmm…

Current Year: 1042 AD.  Current Status: Imperial!

 

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, and Part Seven.

When we left off, we had just gotten news of another vassal revolt against Queen Rodelinda, as she fights her council to work towards being an absolute monarch.

As my raiders sigh and hurry back to Lapland, the Catholics decide to join in the fun, as they are wont to do.

My husband is paranoid and keeps popping in and out of his blanket fort.

I mean, that actually seems kind of arbitrary.

Actually kind of surprised this worked out for them.

Hmm.  Christian kingdom of Jerusalem in the midst of all those Muslim empires?  Good luck.

Once my troops get back, the revolt is easily crushed.

Robin Hood!  I let you live, and now you betray me like this?  </Corleone>

God damn he’s a good general, though.  But apparently he turned to drink after coming out of the forest.

Way too many of my important vassals are Catholics, which means they encourage the people in their territory to follow suit.  ODIN IS DISPLEASED.

Oh FFS.

Just … slow down a minute guys.  Take a number and you’ll be served in the order you arrived.

The host invasion is easily dealt with, but this revolt is stronger then the last one.

Much stronger.  They’ve got mercenaries or Christian holy orders or both backing them, and once again I’m reduced to using my fleet to dodge around their much superior army.

To break the stalemate, I try to assassinate the guy whose claim they’re backing, but so far no dice.

Another faction of my vassals has declared war on the rebels, though, and things take a turn for the better as they fight it out and a harsh winter takes its toll.  I continue sniping unprotected rebel holdings.

I’m finally getting the upper hand there when here comes the Queen of Austrasia with another claim on my territory.  Bring it on!

Fortunately, the rebels give in before any Austrasian armies actually turn up, which gives me a chance to catch my breath.

I would very much like to bring in the Jomsvikings to help me against these Christian invaders, but apparently they’re “busy”.  I’m forced to hire mercenaries instead.

We corner the Austrasian army on a small island and fight a desperate battle across the straits.

While the war is still ongoing, and yet another adventurer is targeting my territory, Rodelinda decides this is a great time to try and figure out how to live forever.

“Come on, guys.  Someone must have some ideas?  Anybody?”

“Anybody?  Bueller?  Eh, screw it, it’s only eternal life.”

Austrasia (which is this weird blob in the middle of France) finally comes to terms, and pays me a healthy indemnity.

I consider declaring war back at them, now that they’re weakened.  As Fylkja, I can call a pagan crusade and take over a whole kingdom!  The problem is that France would no doubt stand by their fellow Catholics, and they’re far too large and powerful for me to poke at this point.

Instead, I work on getting the authority to revoke the titles from Catholics and other heathens.  I’ve placed one of my supporters on the council, and I’m more popular now, so it’s closer.  Distributing some bribes helps.

Ultimately, rather than simple improve his attitude, I’m forced to buy Duke Niklas the Repulsive’s vote outright, which costs quite a bit more.  Fortunately, he’s amenable to the arrangement.

Hooray!  Let the reign of terror begin.

I start demanding every Catholic noble turn in gun and badge.  Surprisingly, for the most part they go along with it rather than fight.  Since I previously got the council to sign over sole authority for revoking titles to me, I don’t need their approval for any of this.  Without the Religious Control Mandate law, every vassal would be furious whenever I revoke a title for no reason; with it, only Catholic vassals are horrified, and since I’m getting rid of all of those I don’t care.

As a side effect, stripping so many nobles of their titles lets me stock the council with loyalists!

Once I’ve stripped enough titles, it’s easy to recognize the Catholics, because they’re the ones who are super pissed-off.

Duke Jon is in prison for being a rebel, so I just offer him to the gods at the next Great Blot.

After quite a while at this, the number of titles I’m holding personally is causing even Germanic vassals to be pissed off at me.  (As seen in the giant list of titles on the right, including the proud castle of UI Missing Text.)  I redistribute the seized land, keeping a swathe of the best levy-producing castles for myself and farming out the rest to family members and zealous Germanic followers.

The king poked his head out again!  Does that mean we get six more weeks of winter?  Because we already live in Lapland, so that would mean just like, all winter.

The great purge is complete!  (For now.)  We’re all one big family of happy vassals again.  Happy, happy vassals.

(You would think the fate of previous Catholic vassals would discourage others from converting.  You would be wrong.)

They’re so happy, in fact, that I could even change succession law!  And since I’ve got Late Feudal Administration, I can use primogeniture even.  Which would be great, except…

…Rodelinda married non-matrilineally, so her children don’t count as part of her dynasty.  This is fine under seniority, since it means her heir is just the next most senior dynasty member, but if I change to primogeniture I’d lose the game.  So I’m going to have to wait until I get a ruler with dynastic children, and then try to make the switch.  Sigh.

My last real doctor died, and this one is just some idiot I tapped for the post.  He doesn’t seem too certain of his diagnosis.

With good reason, as it turns out.

Valdemar’s potions prove ineffective, and Rodelinda dies, happy in the knowledge that at least she rid the realm of heresy.  

In a blessedly straightforward succession, Bithild is simply Rodelinda’s next-youngest sister.

She’s only two years younger, and solidly mediocre in terms of ability.  Annoyingly, she too is married non-matrilineally, so I still can’t contemplate switching succession to primogeniture.

She’s also a secret Catholic!  Fortunately, now that I control her, she renounces her faith at once.

Apparently she was also a secret member of the Society of Jesus, which exists to defend … the Shia religion?  Pretty sure that’s a misprint.

The Queen of Austrasia (currently in my dungeon) forms an alliance with Queen Sorcha of Mercia, who sounds like she ought to be fighting Captain Planet.

Bithild’s reign looks to be as exciting as her sister’s.  First a revolt breaks out, which honestly is about part for the course.  Then the Finns of Kola decide they want Ostrogothia back.

Then one of the little island countries decides they want to kick me while I’m down!  Läckö turns out to be a county and not an IKEA bedroom set.

And then — no, wait, I don’t care about those anymore.

I race around with my army, trying to keep all the plates spinning.  Visby is that island I’m laying siege to.

Uhoh.  Somebody doesn’t like me.

Visby caves, and the rebels are crumbling, but the Kolans are running rampant.

Geez, Valdemar, I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing yet.

Great.

Valdemar, you’re fired.

In the background, though, I retrieved the war against the Kolans.  So things are looking up!  For the first time in ages, I have the strength to expand a little.

Once of my courtiers has a claim on Scania, the reddish duchy down at the tip of the peninsula.  However, since she’s not my vassal, installing her as Duke of Scania wouldn’t really help me.  So what to do?  Three easy steps!

Step one: grant courtier a county, making them your vassal.

Step two: grant the new count a duchy, making them your vassal duke.  This is important!  If a count from inside your realm becomes a duke outside it, they will switch to the duchy as their primary title and the county they control becomes independent.  But if they’re already a duke inside the realm, they’ll remain your vassal if they get a second duchy.  Fortunately, I have a lot of spare titles lying around.

Step three: go to war to press the claims of your new loyal duke.

Ta-da!  Another three counties added to the kingdom.  This is a very useful trick when dealing with territory that is nearby or used to be part of the realm, as there will probably be all kinds of claimants hanging around.

Hesitantly, I start to glance at the empire again.  I’m back up to 40 counties of the 55 I need.

Somewhat belatedly, I recall that I have the Queen of Austrasia in the dungeons, so I send her back and collect a queen’s ransom.

Another stray county, down next to Scania, is easily subdued.

And another vassal has turned Catholic and needs to be subdued.  I though Rodelinda got rid of all of those…

Men!  Always going off and doing their own things without consulting anyone.

Maybe he could tell that he wouldn’t have the position for long.

Geneologically, we’re getting complicated again.  While we’re still in Gurli’s line, while Bithild was a direct descendant of Gloð, Wulfhild comes down through her sister Bothildr, then through Ottarr the Brute, Rögnfrið, and Ingjald, plus Ingjald’s son Hrörekr.  Got all that?

The important part is that Wulfhild the Rash definitely takes after her great-great-grandfather Ottarr.  She’s a good intriguer with otherwise middling stats, a lesbian, a secret Catholic, and ambitious, charitable, deceitful, wroth, paranoid, and insane.  She also has syphilis and is betrothed to a little kid.  So my expectation is that she’s not going to last all that long?

 

Nevertheless, she’s ready to pick up where her predecessor left off.  (After renouncing her secret religion, of course.)  I have a bunch of claimants on Uppland, one of the duchies lost to the Saxons.  I make one of them a duke and launch the war!

Which is cancelled almost immediately.  Turns out this guy only had a weak claim, which only worked as long as Saxony was in civil war.  Well then.  I’m sure he’ll make a good duke?

I find another guy, who definitely has a strong claim, make him a duke, and try again.

Greenland?  Sounds charming!  I’m sure it’s not cold and horrible.

I told you she took after Ottarr.

Guess who’s back!  Fortunately, Wulfhild is as good at god-slaying as her great-great-grandfather.

While these multiverse-shaking events were going on, I was wresting Uppland away from the Saxons.

Vinland?  It’ll never amount to anything.

Once again, the king is off to the races!  Have fun storming the castle, honey!

The Saxons fight back hard, and I have to hire mercenaries for the final battle.  But we get the upper hand at last.

48/55 counties!  Is the empire in sight at last?

Wulfhild is kept healthy in spite of her illness by regular bloodletting.

You mean that guy who wandered off on his own to start a war?  Shocking.

Next up is to finally settle accounts with my old foes the Karelians.  This time I’m well-prepared — I’ve got a duke with a claim on their territory, I’ve got mercenaries and Jomsvikings.  I send a small force into their territory to build a fort, which negates the supply penalty I take in tribal lands and keeps my army from starving.  This time we’re here to stay.

It’s possible I drunkenly befriended my husband?

Victory!  The old bogeyman is finally vanquished.

One of my vassals appears to have secured the other half of Iceland while I wasn’t looking.

51/55!  So close.  And this time I’m not screwed if my ruler dies, either.

Also, Wulfhild married matrilineally, so the two children she managed to have (in spite of being a lesbian) are of my dynasty.  So if I can swing it, changing succession is possible too.

Meanwhile, there’s an adventurer coming for me.  Assassins!

Unfortunately, I’m threatening enough that I have to back off conquest for a little while anyway.  And that means …

Time for some viking!  It’s been a while.

The adventurous claimant falls to my assassins.

Unfortunately, that just means her brother immediately comes after me.  The life of a queen is a neverending trial, I tell you…

Current Year: 1006 AD.  Current Status: In Sight of Empire.

 

 

 

 

 

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, and Part Six.

Finally free of gavelkind!  Now we’re getting somewhere.

King Ingjald the Bewitched can relax a little, but not too much.  The relatively united Lapland forged by Ottarr has been nibbled away at, and with only three counties in my personal demense my military power is pretty weak.

Meanwhile, the earlier mess of German states is solidifying into a powerful Saxony and Poland, and an even more powerful France.  England is still a disaster of tiny realms, though.

The Queen of Saxony is too strong for me to take on, so clearing her out is going to have to wait.

On my eastern border is Karelia, which looks weak, but Rögnfrið tried to take them on and we all remember how badly that went.  They have a lot of allies.  So, Ingjald is somewhat stymied for the present.

Turns out not to matter though!  His eldest son, no doubt pissed about the succession law change, sneaks a viper into his bed.  I’m impressed that Ingjald can recognize Ake’s snake on sight, though.

So Ingjald dies, not long after securing his greatest accomplishment.  One of the annoying things about seniority succession, for storytelling purposes, is that it means the titles hop all over the dynasty and make the relationships tricky to describe.  But I’ll try.  Genealogy time!

Ormr, who founded the dynasty, had seven children: Gurli, Þordis, Astrid, Gnupa, Ingrid, Guðfrið, and Rögnfrið.  His successor was Gurli’s daughter Gloð.  Ottarr was the son of Gloð’s sister, Bothhildr, and Rögnfrið (another one) was his daughter, and Ingjald was her son.  So to this point all the rulers have been within Gurli’s line, and pretty much direct descendants except that Ottarr was Gloð’s nephew.

The new king, Guðröðr, is in the same branch of the family — he’s Gloð’s grandson, via her youngest son Hrolfr.  But after this point things can get crazy.

Guðröðr, it turns out, is already in the society of Hel!  But I no longer need to sacrifice my children to ensure succession, thankfully.  Maybe I’ll give the dark powers a miss from now on.

First order of business: revenge.

However, there’s more to it than that. Åke is a substantial landholder, and as the eldest dynasty member I’m now his heir.  Killing him will bring me his territory and substantially beef up my depleted demense.

This works out perfectly.  I go from three holdings to nine, and poor Ingjald is avenged.

Guðröðr then hunkers down, because the vassals are restless.  They’re not happy with this new succession regime.

The Sheriff of Nöttinghåm is apparently having some trouble.

Scandalous!  Something must be done.

Everyone knows outlaws can never resist an archery contest.

Isn’t this Lapland?  If they’re hiding in the forest, can’t we just wait for winter and assume they’ll freeze to death?

While all this delightful plotting is going on, Guðröðr sends his warriors to continue the serious work of setting Cornwall and Brittany on fire.

A great archer, you say?  Sounds like a useful guy to have around.

Aww.  A happy ending!

Damn.  Forget gamekeeper, I’m making Robin a general!  Although he doesn’t look much like Cary Elwes.

Marion is no slouch herself, if it comes to that.

The long-feared revolt finally breaks out, with a Catholic uprising to boot.  Fortunately, my men are on their way back from raiding, and cheerfully jump in to beating on the rebels.

Bwahaha!  Long years of biding my time have paid off!  Now I will use dark sorcery to crush my enemies!

Or not.  I didn’t really want to crush those enemies anyway.

Gyða is still more or less in the same branch of the family.  She’s also a descendant of Gurli and Gloð, a great-granddaughter of the latter via Ragnarr and Ingjald (not the king, a different one).

She’s disfigured and wears a creepy mask, and her stats aren’t great.  But you work with what you’ve got.  We’ve got a revolution to fight!

The rebels are too strong to simply crush, but my usual tactic of dancing around them with sea movement manages to outfox them.

Hurrah!  To jail with the lot of you!  Notice that the person rebelling was in fact my heir, which is odd.  She’s the next oldest, so she’s my heir, but I’m also her heir.  So … whichever of us dies first gets everything, huh…

Yeah, I think we all saw that one coming.

I’m slowly getting Lapland reorganized, keeping the best counties for my demense and farming out the rest to more loyal vassals.

With the boost in popularity from crushing the rebellion, Gyða manages to push through Late Feudal Administration, which will — in the event that one of my rulers lives long enough and is popular enough — let me change to a better succession method.

I’ve managed to stock my council mostly with sycophants, which helps get these things done.

Still too weak to attack my neighbors.  But I invest in expanded castles to generate more troops, and head out viking to get more gold.

“Your application has been processed.  Please wait six to eight weeks for your official membership card.”

This dude declares war on me…

But since all his castles are occupied by one of his other enemies, he loses the war immediately.  Good work, sir!

Seniority succession is thinning out the ranks of the elderly in the dynasty.

Gyða joins the ranks of the cat-owning elite.

Whoa!  That thing has been kicking around like two hundred years.

Aw, man.  Talk about an anti-climax.

Gyða dies, possibly of disappointment.  Lots of short reigns is the issue with seniority succession.

Sif comes from an entirely different branch of the family tree.  She’s descended from Gnupa, via Asa, Knut (the guy who everyone wanted me to help kill a while back), Ale, and Alfr.

She’s only 49, which gives me some hope she’ll last a while, but she already has chest pains, which doesn’t.  She’s also somehow both Shrewd and Slow-Witted, with ‘meh’ stats.

My work on stripping the council of its powers is slowly paying off.  I’ve got two crucial ones, now — the ability to grant titles, which the councilors always opposed if it wasn’t to themselves or their allies, and the ability to revoke titles, which I need for stripping rebels of their land.  I’d like to have war declaration, obviously, but that’s the hardest one to get.

This happens to Sif constantly.  There’s only one explanation: Gideon ninjas.

It’s been a while since I burned Venice down, but it’s just as flammable as I remember.

Sif catches one of her vassals plotting and brings down the hammer.  Meanwhile, some of my vassals have taken it on their own initiative to take back some Saxon land.  Good vassals!

Residual instincts from my Israel game make me jump when one of these pops up.

Sif continues the family tradition of general lewdness.

Somewhat against my expectations, Sif is getting healthier!

I guess those were psychosomatic.

Getting there.  Banishment is nice to have because you can strip money from captured adventurers, who always have at least 500 gold!  Very nice.

Finally, we’re ready to take on some small opponents again!  Viken is one county, so that shouldn’t be too hard.

Ooooor they could hire a holy order and put five thousand heavy cavalry into the field.  Well then.

Fortunately the reformed Germanic faith has a holy order of its very own, the Jomsvikings.  I bring them in, along with some mercenaries.

Only to discover Viken has brought in ANOTHER holy order!  They must be pious as balls.

Fortunately a) they couldn’t afford to keep paying them indefinitely, and b) a lot of them froze to death trying to besiege my castles.  So everything turned out all right in the end, though it cost more than I would have liked.

Next on the hit list is Kola, which controls a couple of counties on my eastern border as well as a random assortment of stuff throughout the insanely fractured east.  

Unfortunately, their scattered territory makes for a very slow war, and I can’t get it wrapped up before another set of vassals comes calling, demanding gavelkind succession.  Obviously we can’t have that, so I make peace with the Kolans and hurry back to deal with them.

This time, the rebels aren’t particularly strong, and are easily crushed.  Another set of vassals goes to jail, and now I can easily strip them of some titles.

Sif dies soon after, having reigned longer than expected and done important work raising royal authority.  The new queen, Rodelinda, jumps us back to the line of Gurli and Gloð, being the granddaughter of King Guðroðr’s younger brother.  Are you keeping track of all this?  There’s going to be a quiz.

Like many of my recent monarchs, she is profoundly mediocre, but at least she’s only 33 and not yet ill.  She is, however, Saxon rather than Norse, which is not ideal.

Lapland is still looking nibbled at the edges.  Kola and Karelia are both still strong in the east, while Saxony and Austrasia (the gray blob in the midst of France) both have holdings.  There’s a few independent realms too, though, that are better targets for expansion, particularly Westrogothia.

Grr.  One jerk who has been handing out favors dominates my council, and they refuse to declare war on Westrogothia.  That’s annoying.

Temporarily thwarted, I work on upgrading my holdings.  Tribal holdings that are sufficiently advanced and Germanic can be upgraded to feudal, which increases their tax revenues and levy contribution.  Slowly but surely, I’m dragging Scandinavia into the 10th century!

I also catch quite a few of my vassals plotting, and throw them in prison.  Unusually, I actually manage to catch most of them before they start a revolution.  This is actually kind of annoying, since imprisoning someone without them revolting doesn’t give you the authority to revoke their titles.  Also, an alarming number of my lords are becoming Catholics!

With most of my money spent on building bigger castles, it’s time for … well, you know the drill.

Another day, another count in the dungeons.

Good.  Stay generally pointed in that direction, please.

It’s always a blessing to have another viking in the family!

Burning down this Breton castle is taking a while, so I send the fleet back home to drop off the loot.

This proves to be a serious mistake.  Brittany is now owned by the Atlasid Caliphate, which controls all of Spain and chooses this moment to send a huge army north to register their displeasure with my constant arson.  My fleet returns just in time to evacuate the shattered survivors.

We’re gonna go raid in Cornwall, where it’s a little safer.

I’m trying to upgrade one of my counties to feudal, and I find out they’ve turned Catholic!  There’s Catholics everywhere.  This can’t be borne.

What I’d like is the authority to revoke titles from non-Germanic rulers at my whim, but my council of course is dead set against the idea.  Stupid council.

In the meantime, my raiders are forced to hurry home once again as my vassals rise in revolt once again.  This is getting a little tiresome, guys…

Current Year: 969 AD.  Current Status: Thwarted.

 

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and Part Five.

Last time, despicable sorcerer Ottarr had finally died.  Due to his scheming, his daughter Rögnfrið inherited both Lapland and Sweden, and so she can continue his quest to create an empire before gavelkind succession ruins everything.

Rögnfrið already has three children, and without a convenient way to murder them her titles will be split up upon her death.  

She’s well equipped for the task with an excellent Martial score, but her levy strength is low due to some unhappy vassals.  Nevertheless, I’m determined to get on with the task as quickly as possible.  It seems like my only chance to take the 10+ counties I need to create the empire is holy wars, which let me seize several at once.  Holy wars against the Catholics are a losing proposition, obviously, but the Finns to the east are weaker.  I get one started against my old enemies in Karelia.

This turns out to be a fantastically poor decision almost immediately.  First of all, enough co-religionists join the Karelians that they can put an army in the field that’s bigger than mine.  Second, my angry vassals get angrier, and declare a revolt in favor of putting someone else on the throne.  Ottarr’s money buys me some mercenaries, but not forever, and things are getting dicey.

First priority is the rebels, since they’re after the kingdom itself.  My biggest advantage is having a good-sized fleet, enough to move my army around very quickly compared to marching overland across rough country.  The AI is very bad at this, so if you’re clever you can run rings around them.  I get the better of the rebel armies, but meanwhile the Karelians are grabbing territory left and right and apparently getting stronger all the time.

Then, of course, it never rains but it pours.

These guys want this random territory in Holland I took back when I was fighting for Zeeland.  Since I’m pretty well occupied at the moment, I just surrender and let them have it, since it’s outside the empire and doesn’t count toward my total.

The rebels are brought to heel, but the Karelians have got the holy war down to -51%.  I head in their direction, but they still have the much larger army.  While not as catastrophic as losing the revolt, I’ll have to pay them a big indemnity if I get to -100%.

The Count of Loon comes calling for the last of my Dutch territories, which I’m happy to hand over to him.  With the religion reformed, they’ve served their purpose.

The Karelians have occupied huge chunks of my territory, and have gotten the war to -91%.  I frantically sail back and forth rescuing my castles.  It’s only possible since, with my ships, I move much more quickly then they do, and they often siege when they could assault.

I’ve clawed it back to -71%, but my vassals are furious with me for having their armies raised this long.

Rögnfrið, however, has more architectural matters on her mind.  For some reason.

By ambushing isolated detachments, freeing my castles, and assaulting poorly-defended enemy tribes, I have pushed the war back up to +26%.  Rögnfrið proclaims herself the best Fylkja ever.

The stalemate can’t last, the Karelian coalition is still much stronger than I am.  With my temporary advantage, though, they’re willing to call the whole thing off.  So that’s one tight place escaped from, but I’m no closer to my empire.

Actually it turns out I’m a little closer, as some of my vassals have declared their own wars and snapped up loose territory.  I need eight more counties, which isn’t impossible if Rögnfrið lives long enough.

Another revolt begins, this one for the claim of a guy who is already in prison for supporting the first revolt!  Even though it generates some tyranny, I just chop his head off, which takes care of that right away.

Unfortunately, shortly thereafter one of my vassals becomes King of Saxony, and takes all the territory he held in my kingdom with him.  I have de jure claims on it all, but Saxony is too tough for me to fight, so that about puts paid to any hope of creating the empire during Rögnfrið’s reign.  Less than ideal.

My council is also being extremely annoying, since they all are very unhappy with me.  I try to claw back some authority, but it’s not going well.

I finally muster the strength to start taking my land back from the Saxons, but it’s going to be a long and arduous process.

After only twelve unhappy years in power, Rögnfrið dies.  All of Ottarr’s murder and scheming ends up being for naught, as the long-feared breakup of the realm happens in spite of his effort.  Let that be a lesson: eating your children won’t make you happy in the end.

This is … not good.  I have a claim on Sweden, so I can fight to take it back, but Rögnfrið didn’t exactly leave the new King Ingjald in a great position.  Plus, I’ve inherited her war with Saxony, and that has to be dealt with first.  Norway is even making a comeback down near Denmark.

Ingjald isn’t a terrible war-leader, but he’s not quite up to the standards of his mother or grandfather.  He also has three children, so his realm with fragment even further on his succession.

Step one is to finish with the Saxons, as castles start to burn all over Sweden as my ex-vassals scrabble for power.  

That’s something, anyway.

Next, I decide to take the plunge and try to get Sweden back.  I’m desperately weak, but so are they, and they’ve got several ongoing wars to deal with.  The initial stages go pretty well, and I gain an early advantage picking off some isolated Swedish forces.

My forces and the Swedish army are almost exactly evenly matched.  Given that most of the terrain is rough, and thus advantageous for the defender, it means whoever attacks will probably lose.  This leads to a lot of standing around conducting opposing sieges rather than risking a fight.

This scared me briefly until I remember I’m not right next to them any more, I’m on the other side of the world now.

Eh, there’s probably nothing there worth looking at.

Sweden pulls some allies into the war, but they don’t coordinate well, and I get the jump on the main Swedish armies while they’re off laying siege somewhere else.  That gets the war, briefly, to 100%!

Whew!  Okay.  That’s better.  But it’s now clear that I won’t be able to create the empire if I have to re-subdue breakaway vassals every time there’s a succession.  I need to change my succession law, even if I can’t get it all the way to primogeniture.

Ingjald is now known as “the Bewitched” for reasons that escape me.

Taking Sweden back kicked my threat way up, so expanding is out of the question for the moment.  Ingjald needs to settle in, get people to like him, and work on glad-handing his council.

This will not be easy since some of his vassals are extremely angry.  I’m actually hoping for some plots or rebellions, because then I can revoke some titles and expand my demense again.

On the plus side, I can now declare crusades of my own!  Crucially, since I am the Germanic pope rather than simply commanding the pope, I get to pick where they go.  Unfortunately, I’m surrounded by Catholics, so any attempt at a crusade is probably going to get squashed until I get a lot stronger.

Ingjald focuses on stewardship, accumulating prestige, and generally being a good king and getting people to like him.  The vassals are still pissed off, though.  In order to switch succession, they all have to be at positive opinion, and some are as low as -100.

Apparently Rome has fallen?  The Pope figures that since everyone else is crusading, he might as well get the party started.

Bizarrely, Rome has fallen to a Jewish Kingdom of Italy!  Good work, guys.

My wish is granted and not one but two simultaneous revolts break out, with another threatening.  Fortunately they don’t cooperate, so I get the upper hand fairly easily.

Kinging is hard, guys.

On the plus side, now I welcome death!

I’ve got revolt #1 up to 100% warscore, but since his territories are now partially occupied by enemies who have declared war on him, I can’t claim the victory!  Come on, ref, this is bull!

Ingjald, at least, is feeling better.

Turns out the people attacking the revolt are my old buddies the Karelians, with a rather large army.  That makes it tricky to take the revolt castles for myself and end the war.

However!  Kettilmund, the revolt leader, concedes his war to the Karelians.  This means one fewer county for me, but I’ll take it, since I can now claim victory over him in turn.

One revolt down.  But my doctor now thinks I have cancer.  I don’t take that too seriously, since he’s just some random dude I appointed, not a real doctor.  (I can’t afford a real doctor at this point.)

I think Ingjald is bipolar.

Both revolts pacified.  Lapland is nibbled a bit at the edges, but still basically together.

Ingjald has now reigned for ten years, so it’s time to look into changing the succession.  I can’t use primogeniture, my preferred method, because I don’t have Late Feudal administration — basically the king isn’t enough of an autocrat.  But I can use seniority if I can get my vassals onboard.  Here we go.

Step one is the Jarl of Bergslagen, who hates my guts with a passion.  Some people you bribe…

…some people you don’t.

The Christians are going to get Rome back.  Anything that’s not coming after me is fine.

The next step is to go through my more pliable vassals and bribe the crap out of them.  Fortunately, I seized quite a bit of land from the rebels, and that’s my best tool for getting people on my side — granting a county is +40.  Money also helps, and with the latest expansion I’ve discovered you can give artifacts too for an additional boost.  By hook or by crook, I get them all on my side.

Getting there!  Of the available systems, gavelkind sucks, and elective monarchy means constantly obsessing over keeping your dynasty on the throne.  Seniority it is.

Unfortunately, this is only half the story.  That’s Lapland — Sweden has its own set of succession laws, which need to be changed to match.  (This is why I wanted to create the empire first.)  But changing the succession pisses off various vassals, especially the ones who were going to inherit.

This guy, for example, hated me even after every bribe I could muster.  So I tried to kill him, and now he really hates me.

Which, honestly, leaves me few options.

Sadly Jewish Italy didn’t last long.

Judicious murder and another round of bribery leaves me poor and stripped of land, but limping across the finish line.  Henceforth, Sweden will have succession by seniority as well, and this means Lapland and Sweden will no longer be separated at succession.

I can’t express what a relief this is.  It removes the ticking clock that hangs over every reign, where the ruler either needs to jigger the succession, Ottarr style, or have his successor fight all of their siblings.  Now I can build something without worry it’s all going to come apart.

Seniority isn’t my favorite succession method, but it has its advantages.  In seniority, the oldest member of the dynasty inherits all titles.  This tends to concentrate titles, since the oldest member will be heir to many people in the family at once.  More importantly, it means when the ruler dies all their titles stay together.  It also makes it much harder to lose the game, since a non-dynast can only inherit if your dynasty goes entirely extinct.  On the negative side, you have very little control over who becomes heir, and you generally don’t get to educate them.  You also tend to have a lot of short reigns, both because rulers tend to be old and because the entire rest of the family will happily assassinate them.

But I’ll take it.  Now that this is sorted out, we can work on our other problems, and see about that empire.

Current Year: 936 AD.  Current Status: Feeling Much Better.

 

 

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.

When we left the Kingdom of Lapland, it was still under the bloodstained thumb of King Ottarr the Brute, who was fighting his way to reforming the Germanic faith with murder and black magic.  Shockingly, these trends continue!

With control of three Germanic holy sites and sufficient piety, the barrier to my reforming the faith is getting moral authority over 50%.  Two ways to raise it (by 1% each) are successfully taking counties by “pagan conquest” and burning infidel temples, which go nicely together.  I get thing started by attacked the Finns to the east.

Also on my list of goals is creating the Empire of Scandinavia, but that’s tough — it requires controlling 80% of the counties within this area, and I’m not even close.  It would help my succession enormously though, by getting me back into a situation with one top-level title.

As usual, my doctors have no idea what’s going on.  Fortunately I’m extra-healthy from, uh, eating my children.

Come to think of it, maybe that’s where food poisoning comes from?  Who knows where they’ve been?

Odin is with me!  And I’m going to kill him!

Putting the woman I demonically possessed in charge of building me a statue?  I … um, really should have seen this coming.  Fortunately I have piety to spare now.

Ottarr still makes time for old-fashioned, non-demonic lunacy.

I’m making a little progress against the Finns and Estonians, but moral authority is going in the wrong direction.  This is because other Germanic states affect it too, and they apparently aren’t doing that well.

Time for a new plan.  The county of Zeeland is the fifth Germanic holy site, currently under the control of Catholics.  Getting it back under German rule would give me +10% to moral authority.  Fortunately, as Norse, I can fight a pagan conquest not only against bordering counties but against any coastal county, so Zeeland is a fair target.

Unlike holy wars, pagan conquests don’t draw in neighboring co-religionists.  So I only have to fight Germany, which owns Zeeland, and Germany is pretty splintered and weak.  I call in some tribal armies and start marching down through Denmark!

The King of Germany is only 15, and busy with some other wars, so my occupation goes fairly well.

Meanwhile, my efforts to secure the succession continue.  My daughter Rögnfrið has been groomed to rule, as my only surviving child, but the electors insist on choosing someone else!  I call on the dark gods to give her disease, but she only gets pneumonia and recovers quickly.  So I’m forced to rely on conventional assassins and bribery.

Success!  Germanic faithful rejoice.

And the victory, combined with some older modifiers timing out, kicked me over 50%.  Better and better.

So the reformed German religion was created, codified, and led by a man who secretly worshiped Hel.  This is a bit like finding out that the Apostle Paul was actually a Satanist all along.  But you can’t argue with results!

It’s time to hunker down for a while, though, because my vassals are pretty angry.  I get started quieting them down.

The next goal is becoming feudal instead of tribal, which among other benefits will allow me to finally change away from the gavelkind inheritance that has made my life miserable from day one.  Reforming the religion was a prerequisite, as is upgrading my holdings, so I’ve done that.  I need to increase my legal authority a bit more, which means quieting my vassals down and waiting a while.  I just need to hope Ottarr lives long enough and/or his succession issues get smoothed over.

I summon a cat familiar, LORD OF ALL BEASTS, to assist me!

Halla is currently standing in my way, succession-wise.  She’s lunatic and possessed, so maybe the electors just don’t want to rock the boat?

A major revolt finally breaks out, but I’m ready with tribal armies and mercenaries, and the rebels are crushed.  Enjoy rotting in the dungeon until the next Great Blot!

Unfortunately, both sorcery and assassins have failed to rid me of Halla.  I turn to my third option, which is just to bribe the electors and make sure Rögnfrið gets the nod.

Honestly, if the worst I get after a lifetime of human sacrifice and dark sorcery is a stutter then I’m kind of okay with that.

Another claimant to the throne pops up.  I try to have my minions abduct her, but they fail miserably.  Honestly what is even the point of being an evil wizard anymore?

Fortunately, bribery works wonders where more dastardly methods have failed.

This charming fellow is the King of Frisia, who has declared a holy war for Holland.  I don’t really need Holland, at this point, but I’m not giving in without a fight.

I appear to have acquired two additional counties in Holland without noticing?  That’s odd.  Also, good lord, northern Europe is a mess.  Why is Italy in there?

The king of Frisia dies and is replaced by a two-year-old, who agrees to cool it with the holy war.  Yet another adventurer is targeting my kingdom, though.

However!  My own vassals are quiet enough that I can raise tribal authority, and I’m ready to convert to feudalism.  This will weaken me a bit in the short term, especially since I lost the ability to hire tribal armies with prestige.

In the long term, though, it’s great.  Not only can I finally start working on changing the succession, but feudal holdings produce enormously more income, and my vassals no longer get a choice about whether they contribute troops to my wars.  

At 59, Ottarr is not quite the general he was at his peak, but still head and shoulders above almost everyone.  He’s a brilliant strategist, a falconer, a hunter, diligent, ambitious, arbitrary, cruel, lunatic, and a drunkard.  He’s got one legitimate daughter and five bastard children, all of whom have now been given titles.  Plus, of course, the … other children that we don’t talk about.

I’d like to change the succession to primogeniture, but that requires “Late Feudal” authority, which I don’t have yet, plus I’d need to do some work pleasing my vassals.  But it’s on the agenda.

Being feudal gives me access to a bunch of new upgrades for my holdings, which of course requires money.  And we all know where we get money!  So it’s off Viking once again.

Mellowing in his old age, or perhaps with just more to lose, Ottarr starts turning down these requests for random mayhem.  No need to rock the boat.

Now that I’m feudal, another goal is to increase the power of the ruler at the expense of the council, slowly moving toward absolute monarchy.  The problem is the council has to sign off on this, so you need to get them on your side first.  Bribery works, of course, but it helps to stock the council with loyalists and sycophants too.  (If you’ve read my Israel game, this was never a problem, since I started with absolute authority and never gave it up in spite of many, many revolts.)

I also start a war to get Kemi back into the empire.  My goal is to get to the 55 territories I need to create the empire during Ottarr or his daughter’s reign, before gavelkind succession comes to bite me again.  I’ve got about 35 at this point, so it’s going to be a long haul.

My vassals want to change from Elective Gavelkind (where the primary heir is determined by election) to ordinary Gavelkind (where the eldest child is primary heir).  Ordinarily I fight all revolts, since winning gives you an opinion boost and a chance to revoke titles.  But I’m totally fine with this one, since I’m not popular enough to change succession law anyway.  This means I no longer have to worry about Rögnfrið being displaced!  (Retroactive apologies to all those people I killed, I suppose.)

Yes, it would be terrible for any … dark influence to come into our lives.

This is a slightly more serious consequence for the use of dark magic, I have to admit.  Ottarr is on his last legs, but I’m still working toward getting the empire.

One step closer!

But still a long way to go.

Fortunately, there are still some small realms I can pick off fairly easily.

Once that’s done, I declare Holy War against Denmark to pick off their counties in the west, something I can do now that I’m reformed!  There aren’t many Old Germanic rulers around to help them out.

?Holy War theme song is back!?

While the war goes well, one of their counties rebels against Denmark, which means I won’t get it when I win.  Boo.

Ottarr’s time is definitely running low.

Unfortunately, while I beat Denmark, my vassals are all very angry due to their levies having been raised too long.

Only at 43/55.  Rögnfrið is going to have a lot of work to do.

On the plus side, the new Germanic religion has mostly supplanted the Old Germanic remnants.

Back in Brittany, Ottarr finally earns his Viking card!

He seems to show some remorse for the unspeakable acts he committed.  Which causes him to become possessed?

Ottarr’s long and bloody reign finally comes to an end.  Whoever writes his summary seems unaware of his dark side!  In spite of being a demon-worshiper, dark sorcerer, child murderer, and all around supervillain, Ottarr managed to get the Germanic religion reformed and convert his people to feudalism, two essential tasks on my checklist for this game.  Good work, I suppose!

Meanwhile, the new Queen Rögnfrið is an excellent general and a passable administrator.  She’s brawny, scarred, zealous, ambitious, kind, gluttonous and greedy.  Her vassals are not very happy with her, either.

(Side note: I say “queen”, though the game prefers “Fylkir” or “Fylkja”.  These are the titles of the head of the Germanic religion, the equivalent of the Pope, which I now also hold!)

While all of Ottarr’s scheming and murdering to pass the kingdom to Rögnfrið intact worked great, Rögnfrið herself has three children, so when she dies things are going to be bad.  If I create the empire before then, it’s not so terrible, but if I don’t make it then Lapland and Sweden will go to separate heirs and, at minimum, I’ll have to fight a war to get them back together.  It’d be great to change the succession law, but that requires at least ten years reign and for your vassals to like you, something Ottarr could never manage.  

Will Rögnfrið be able to create her empire or change her succession before she dies?  Will she resort to eating her children like her father?  We’ll see…

Current Year: 905 AD.  Current Status: No Longer A Murderous Psychopath!