Crusader Kings II

[Hargrimm]

The only DLC I have are Old Gods and Legacy of Rome. I've never transferred saves around before, so not sure how it would work between players with different DLC loadouts. Obviously we should make sure we don't have any mods loaded as well.

[All hail!]

I'd be up for this.

[AKB]

Alright, I have done some testing, and discovered how the game will react to us turning on and off DLC. The biggest problem I experienced was actually with the portrait and shield add-ons, as they lost the resources the relied on the faces completely changed and a lot of shields just went pure black. So I would suggest we keep these off, but the rest should be fine (the related game mechanics will be disabled, but it should hopefully not kill a game). I think faces might be fine as well, it's just that characters would look radically different, and that would be confusing.

[MARS]

I am most definitely in, though I won't be home for a few days, still. I'm back at my computer on the 20th, but unsure how busy I'll be.

[AKB]

Don't worry about that, we'll try to schedule to make sure everyone has the best possible chance to complete their turn.

Currently, the player list looks like this:

• AKB
• Unionhack
• Velvet LeChance
• MARS (now confirmed!)
• Hargrimm
• VirtualWeasel
• philfredobob?
• Sav
• Per?
• All hail!
  
  Note that this isn't the play order, just a list of who is participating so far. I have also privately messaged the other two people on the list who it's not clear if they'll participate or not.

Now, we can officially start this once we have an agreed upon starting location. My vote is still for Brittany, it was as fun as I remembered it to be. If you're playing, please choose a starting location from the list of suggested options, or suggest one yourself. Also note that if you're not in a position where you're ready for a turn, you don't have to worry. As of now, assuming everyone takes the maximum amount of time for their turn, we're currently looking at a two month game cycle from first player to last (you can end your turn as soon as you post your save and recap, however). So if you couldn't play just yet, we can put you further down the list.

[Hargrimm]

Brittany looks fun to me! Apulia also I somewhere I've never played before but seems like it should be interesting.

[AKB]

Apulia looks good. If the Muslims fall apart, you can swoop into Africa, or if they manage to move into Byzantium, you can pick off their carcass, or you could attack Croatia, or move farther into Italy if the HRE have a bad game. The only true trouble is trying to play if all the empires manage to hold together, we'd have to be clever to expand then.

[Per]

I am in. Got all the current DLC so wherever we play is fine for me. Goals-wise I'd suggest we roleplay our character based on what traits we get. Might make the AARs more interesting as well prevent us from blobbing out immediately. The downside is it might make for a boring game for someone with traits like content.

[Hargrimm]

I am in. Got all the current DLC so wherever we play is fine for me. Goals-wise I'd suggest we roleplay our character based on what traits we get. Might make the AARs more interesting as well prevent us from blobbing out immediately. The downside is it might make for a boring game for someone with traits like content.

"I was Content, Kind, and Slow, so I just played on max speed and said 'Yes' to every event that came up. Eventually I died. Who's up next?"

[AKB]

I am in. Got all the current DLC so wherever we play is fine for me. Goals-wise I'd suggest we roleplay our character based on what traits we get. Might make the AARs more interesting as well prevent us from blobbing out immediately. The downside is it might make for a boring game for someone with traits like content.

Glad to have you in, Per! Roleplaying your characters for the AAR portion is basically required, but as long as it's interesting, no one should mind acceptable breaks from character. The real primary goal is to basically screw with the world to our heart's content, while our otherwise carefully laid out plans are thrown away by our children.

Right, we should also have a further goal for whatever location we choose. So if we play Sicily (Apulia), we should add on a secondary goal to also take over Italy for example. Nothing too hard so it doesn't drag out, but something to give us a true end goal for the campaign.

"I was Content, Kind, and Slow, so I just played on max speed and said 'Yes' to every event that came up. Eventually I died. Who's up next?"

If we survive long enough for me to have two rounds, we're probably going to be doing fine enough that I am extremely tempted to do nothing for that person's lifespan.

[Sav]

Apulia definitely gets my vote for the starting location. Seems like there's lots of options that would make for an interesting game.

[AKB]

I guess we're leaning towards Apulia then, I think we'll start to move forward at the end of the week.

As a sidenote, you can currently get CKII in the Humble Jumbo Bundle 2 for about 6 bucks.

[AKB]

Okay, it looks like we're going for Apulia then. Unless anyone has something else to add, I think it's been made clear.

Alright, since it was my suggestion, it's only appropriate that I go first, and I'll do my turn sometime this week. We do need to decide on an order besides that, so if you have a preference (earlier or later, or any period during which you absolutely could not play), then let me know. I'll update with a randomized list later, probably with the start of my round.

[Hargrimm]

Sounds good! As far as scheduling, as long as I'm not #2 I should be good to go whenever.

[Unionhack]

So like, what kinda rules are gonna be in place?

Like, rules on renaming counties, naming children, etc?

[AKB]

Counties: You can rename the default ones to whatever you want. You cannot rename one that has already been changed, though.

Children, try to ensure the heir is the next player in line. Extra children should be named after other players.

The rules from before:

• Players will start at the beginning of the reign of their character, and will have a week to complete the character.
• Each round should be recapped to us in an after action report, screenshots and a detailed textual description of the events desired. Remember that we're not playing the game when you do, if you don't tell us about your plot to inherit France by murdering the male heirs and pushing for a grandchild's claim, your successor might not discover your plans until it's impossible to fire them.
• You're responsible for uploading your own save, and making it available to your successor.
• Name your children after other confirmed players, try to ensure your most likely heir will have the name of the next in line. No problem if you fail with the latter objective, but let's ensure player names are used.
• When it is your game, while it can be fun to screw around with your successor's options, don't be a complete jerk. If you marry the next player's character to a lowborn inbred mutant from half way across the world and then release every other vassal under you before the succession, we'll most likely revert to the previous game.
• If the game ends due to loss of last title/end of dynasty during your turn, we'll either restart from the last save or altogether.

The current (loose and randomized via bot) play order besides those who confirmed a slot, further alterations will be done for you guys as needed and desired:

• AKB
• Mars
• Hargrimm
• Velvet LeChance
• VirtualWeasel
• All hail!
• Per
• Unionhack

All names besides my own and Union were randomized for that list, so if you have any preferential slot, you can still get it.

[MARS]

Oh gawd I'm second.

[Sav]

Would I be able to get my name on the list? Any order is fine with me.

[AKB]

To Sav, yeah sure. Sorry about not starting this yet. I have had amazing technical difficulties with this.

In the grimdark future of the 15th millennium, there is only war. The filthy barbarian kings of the "Holy Roman Empire" have conquered almost all of Christendom, with its master boasting an army number in the millions. All people are subjugated underneath the German people, and there is no hope for the future.

Until now.

A last ditch effort by the faltering resistance against this empire sees one of the last non-German lords travel back in time through means that shall not be explained. He is the future's only hope. He is, AKB of House UESP.

Traveling through time and space, our hero wakes up on the eve of much war. The King of Norway besieges England in a bid to add it to his realm, while the Duke of Normandy presses a claim on the same lands. Elsewhere, the Cumans subjugate more of the steppe tribes, the Georgian king tries to halt the Persian invasion of his kingdom, and some minor scuffle happens in India. And all of a sudden, the Duke of Apulia is viciously killed by a time traveler.

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Apulia may be hesitant to except their new duke, and most openly scoff at their new lord's claim to the duchy, but still the seashell flag flies above Southern Italy.

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With a wound from the time warp that had left him disfigured and physically shortened, perfect training in the diplomatic arts, an unmatched intellect, a heart burning for love, and a cynical outlook at the world around him; he may just be able to stop the future from ever happening.

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More to come.

[AKB]

Alright, I am properly starting this now. I might have been a bit unrealistic with the timescale for this, sorry. From this point forward, I'm going to keep to a schedule so you guys can finally play. This session has been sooo fun so far for me, so I hope you guys have just as much fun when it's your turn. No, I do not know why I become a woman for a bit of this story. I get better.

My adventure starts with me solving the greatest problem, my lack of an heir. I quickly find this random Hungarian Princess who terrifies me. She is a Brilliant Strategist, arbitrary, brave, and an aggressive leader. I think she is a good choice to make all of the babies I need with.

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My next immediate concern is my lack of money. I contact some friendly Jewish people for a loan. Unfortunately, to make a long story short, we didn't see eye to eye, and I had every Jewish person in the realm banished and their assets seized. I do not intend to apologize. I then take the money I stole from those poor fellows, and give it to the correct people to allow me to legally deland more people.

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Don't feel bad for him. He was already plotting to do the same to us. That's the thing about this game. I might be completely unreasonable with everything I am going to be doing, but so is everyone else.

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After I send my completely reasonable message to the Count of Bari to "Pack your [&@%!] and get out before I slap you out." He decides to declare war. Thankfully, a previous order had all of my army vacationing in his lands, and he is quickly surrounded.

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I am informed that the Jews are culturally important, apparently. I am still not going to apologize.

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And shortly afterwards, I win my war.

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A similar incident happens to one Count Geoffroy of Lecce. To be fair, I don't think he got my letter. The boulder the message was attached to that I sent to him via catapult was ignited before being fired into his castle. So we find ourselves in our second war.

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Some random ladies ask to be let out of the "Dungeon of Fun" as I took to calling it. I respond to their ridiculous request by making them spend some time in the "Dungeon of Less Fun" to make them appreciate the little things in life. Like not being put into a hole in the ground alive.

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That scary lady who I have embarked on a war path across my lands to get away from turned out to be pregnant. I send her an apology letter for claiming the warring was to get away from "how fat she was getting", even if that's still technically true.

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I quickly take the county I was sieging in celebration/a sudden desire to put a castle between me and my wife.

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Some random [&@%!] in our court manages to get the interest of a merchant republic doge, and earn us a bit more money. We're getting pretty rich so far. Turns out that a complete lack of ethics towards the rightful rulers of the lands around you works out greatly!

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Taking a look around the world for where to expand into next, I notice the Sultan of Tunisia's holdings in Sicily have had their forces completely depleted.

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With my heart set on easy expansion, and getting favor from the Pope, we march into Sicily expecting little opposition.

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I receive another letter from that Hungarian woman, who informed me of the birth of our first child. I lovingly reply to the letter to let her know that he should be named Mars. She replies that SHE has been named Marsi, in respect of my wishes.

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As I siege the Muslim infidels, I receive a courier from the Merchant Republic of Genoa. Interestingly enough, he asks for one of the De Hauteville girls, the offspring of the guy I killed and took the place of at the start of all of this. I instantly realize what he is plotting, and begin to gesture for my guards to "handle" this insult when he opens the chest he had brought with him. In it is approximately half the gold I currently have, and I accept his demands. You can have your weak claim, I'll just have all the money needed to make sure your claims won't matter.

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I receive another message, this time from my steward. The courier coolly presents me with the letter, and a container with even more gold. I end up with over 1000 gold, when I have a regular income of zero gold.

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One of the local Muslims nobles rallies his forces to try to beat my split army. Thankfully, I reinforce in time to stop him.

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But the Sunni forces organize a counter attack, forcing me to retreat back to Italy. My armies land in Reggio with my 1000 gold and nothing to spend it on that isn't as valuable as Sicily. I quickly find mercenaries in my employ to handle the matter more permanately. And I became a woman, apparently. To be fair, Duchess is a much cooler title than Duke. To reward my transition into the wiser sex, I am now known as "The Wise".

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As a woman, I gain the natural patience they all have.

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We break their invasions back, and they surrender! Glory to Apulia! Long live Duchess AKB The Wise of House UESP!

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As I stand down my forces, I make note not to fire the mercs. Why? Because you can declare war with mercs raised, and I see some good, open targets to the south who just murdered their levies in our last war. These next wars are helped out by the filthy Italians I have come to subjugate and make Norman. "Oh hey, those Normans just killed all the Muslim soldiers in Sicily, and are currently sieging their lands! We should declare war on the Muslims for the lands already besieged!" Thank goodness my woman's intuition caught that, and I immediately grabbed the rest of Sicily proper.

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I also now have enough land to create the Queendom of Sicily, which I proudly do. And with that done, I can easily attack all the one province minors in my de jure lands. No one is safe from the mighty legions of Sicily!

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And with Sicily mine, I become a man once more to really throw everyone into a loop.

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If you guys have any suggestions for renames, drop them by. I think this will be quite the interesting game.

[philfredobob]

You should always go for Stewardship in a spouse, if you ask me, the demesne limit boost is useful, and Martial is usually the easiest attribute to increase during your character's adult life.

It's too bad you have to name them after players. Elysande was such a nice name. Aaaanyways, do you plan on assassinating all your possible future children, or are you just going to name them all various forms of ''Mars''?

But the best thing is, you avoided the old De Hautville problem of having too many god-damn relatives too soon. But beware of Byzantium.

[AKB]

Alright, I've continued playing. I'll let you know all about it in a bit. A quick explanation for where I am (I'll do a highlight reel for this period later since both my write up and my game crashed separately), I have started an invasion of Africa, which allowed for the Muslim faiths to be able to launch Jihads. This was intended, since this would most likely destroy Byzantium, one of our threats. The Sunni did as intended, and attack Anatolia instead of going for Africa. Sadly, the Shia have decided to take my holdings in Africa. Luckily, they did this after I had gained almost 2000 gold, and a fairly large military. The game crashed right after the Jihad was declared, but I should win it quite quickly. This is the first real threat I've had so far, so I'm looking forward to this war. I think I should be able to force him to admit a draw at the least, even if I didn't use mercs, but an invasion of Egypt isn't out of the question. It might cause internal revolts for the Shia, or cause the Sunni faithful to try to attack them after I weaken them. If that happens, sweeping through all of Africa should be a cake walk.

I have had three more children, Marsina, Hargretta, and Mars (a son!).

I've taken most of Tunis. A different holy war got interrupted by the Sunni moral authority bottoming out, causing most of their provinces to flip religions, and revolts to spring up everywhere. So my conquests were stopped because it came down to having to buy tens of thousands of mercs to kill rebels for my enemy, or just waiting for the rebels to win, and taking the lands from the victorious rebels.

[Unionhack]

I'm officially dropping out of the succession line, it's just not gonna happen for me.

[AKB]

So the game flipped out on me, and I lost track of each little detail in between, so I'll just pick it up at my last autosave and continue.

The Caliph is still running a Jihad against me, which is good. Well, not good, but at least it means I didn't lose much progress. So to start off, the Pope joins my side in the conflict, which is rather surprising to me since I don't remember us being on the best of terms. In fact, he hates me on account of me being an ungodly abomination. I accept his help either way.

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My troops move in to fight some of the Shia faithful I find in Tunis. The battle is four to one in our favor, and our troops wipe the floor with them. It's a slaughter, and it pushes the war into our favor.

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Meanwhile, my Court Chaplin decides to be a bit of a problem by accusing random vassals of heresy. I try to easy tensions, but my Court Chaplin is not happy with me. Considering everything else about my character, I don't really blame him.

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I notice that the Caliph hasn't been making much of an effort to stop me, so far. He had numerical supremacy, but I've only seen about 3000 troops so far. A quick check reveals why he wasn't bothering to fight this Jihad. The Seljuks had invaded him. I'm fairly certain I could not have gotten luckier with this if I had tried. We're basically guaranteed to win now, and that ensures at least twenty years of pain free expansion now.

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Mars caught consumption. Poor little guy. Thankfully, he recovers. Sadly, he caught it again not long afterwards. But then he recovered again, so I guess he's fine. He refuses to pick up any traits besides consumption, at least.

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With so few threats in Tunisia, I decide to look at what the Caliph is doing. I scout my forces towards Egypt, and I find the Caliphs actual army sitting in Alexandria. Hopefully I won't have to fight it, but I certainly have the money to do so. He seems rather preoccupied

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In a bit of great news, the HRE joins my cause. I was sure of victory before, but now I don't think it'll be any financial risk to me. The main benefit is that he can't attack us during the length of this war, so our holding are now truly safe from all powers around us.

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Marsina, my second daughter, came of age. She took after me with her education, and would make a fairly alright character is she was not weak. Hopefully we'll be able to expand the dynasty a bit with her. She ends up getting hitched matrilineally with some Castillian.

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I invite one of the Emirs I am at war with to attend the birthday celebration, which he surprisingly accepted. He wasn't even suspicious that we were holding the party in my prison, and the fact that only my guards were in attendance. His ransom will keep my armies afloat for a very long time.

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The Pope died, but the new one is still supportive. Again, not really, this is more of a "You're doing God's work and I am obligated to help you" kind of deal. Still, I appreciate every bit of help I can get.

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I get a message that one of the members of that family I deposed has formed a host to go take a realm as his own. I feel a bit worried about his plan being to attack me, but I wish him well. He doesn't bother me, but if he gains any holdings, his descendants might come knocking someday. I should have probably killed the de Hautevilles, but they were such nice people. I truly wish them the best, wherever the ended up that is not my realm.

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The enemy prove that they hold no loyalty for each other, and their armies slaughter each other during their attempted invasion into my holdings. Suffice to say, My initial worries about this conflict have been completely annihilated. I expected a hard fought battle, but all I get is my own enemies killing each other for me. The whole war is a comedy of errors for these clowns.

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In a bit of sad news, my steward died. Truly the man was a legend, raking in more money than any other person should rightly be able to. The funeral is a rather solemn affair, and I shed a tear as his body was lowered into the earth in his coffin made out of solid gold. With a heavy heart, I appoint a replacement to the position. My first piece of correspondence from the new steward, what would have been another tithe with my old steward, was something about a peasant revolt over the tax rates. I miss my steward so much...

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It was simply too much. I couldn't live without him... What will I ever do without all of that money?!? I can't go on living...

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And with that MARS succeeds me as King of Sicily. As my only male heir, he maintains all of my titles. As of now, this is what our family tree looks like (Gandalf PMed me to be added to succession, so I named some random granddaughter after him). As of now, just dying out is a serious possibility, we have only one living male member of the family. Our female family members have so far all been matrillineally married to strengthen the dynasty, a policy that I think should be continued for the foreseeable future.

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A zoomed out shot at Europe. We've done a pretty good job of breaking the back of the Muslim faithful, Byzantium has maintained a hold on Anatolia, and the Reconquesta is going in the favor of the Christian kings. France has chosen to fall apart, as it usually does, and not much of interest is happening besides. The Orthodox Rus are all messed up. The HRE is perfectly stable right now.

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I had a ton of fun with my round, and I pass on the torch to MARS. As a child, he'll have some problems. The Jihad may actually be very beneficial for the initial few years, since the opinion boost should keep the most unruly vassals in line. As of right now, the Caliph will just accept white peace, but we're not far from total victory here, which would be a good start at building up a prestigious and pious reputation. From there, simply attack farther into Africa and we should be able to gain all the power we shall need to drive the HRE out of Italy. You should have a very hard time not capitalizing on our current position, we have a lot of money, most of our Christian brothers are actively supporting us, and the enemy is too distracted to be able to attack us. Thanks to Great Holy War cooldown timers, we have at least twenty years from here during which we can expand throughout all of the weak African nations. From there, we could expand into Egypt fairly painlessly.

But of course, this is no longer my game. Your decisions are your own.

[AKB]

MARS has the save, everything after this is officially his fault.