The Cerdicings of Britannia: A Crusader Kings 2 Succession Game
- Thread starter Blazinghand
- Start date
- Let's Play
Darrenb209
"Who are you, who do not know your history?"
- Location
- Scotland
My hatred of regencies stems from the time when my regent stole more than 500 from me, but it was considered tyrannic to imprison and execute him.
I'd recommend making it a rule that if it does we turn it down.
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
This sounds reasonable to me, since it's a succession game.
The DLCs I don't have are The Republic, Rajas of India, Way of Life, Conclave, and Monks and Mystics, though I'm thinking of picking up Conclave.
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
So I looked into it and based on my tests, it seems you can take a pre-conclave save file and open it in conclave, but some laws becoem set to 0 andthe reverse is not possible. So we will be playing only with the conclave dlc turned on.
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Pre-Game Post
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
Ok, so we're going forward with all major DLCs except for Sunset Invasion turned on. Unless I hear a veto from someone, we're going to move forward with Duke of Wessex at Charlemagne Start. Here's the current queue status:
Player Queue
Completed turns:
No-one
Coming up:
@Blazinghand
@Death and Faxes
@Darrenb209
@EliudFS1
@Walker Of Chaos
When we hit the bottom of the queue we'll restart at the top. Queue will be maintained in the OP. If nobody has any problems with this I'll get started with the first turn in 24 hours.
Player Queue
Completed turns:
No-one
Coming up:
@Blazinghand
@Death and Faxes
@Darrenb209
@EliudFS1
@Walker Of Chaos
When we hit the bottom of the queue we'll restart at the top. Queue will be maintained in the OP. If nobody has any problems with this I'll get started with the first turn in 24 hours.
AAR Turn 1, Blazinghand as Cynewulf Cerdicing Part 1
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
So, here we are, starting off as Cynewulf Cerdicing, Petty King (duke) of Wessex in southern England in 769 AD:
Not really the smartest cookie. 14 Intrigue, but bad diplo, martial, and acceptable stewardship. I guess that really low Diplo doesn't really matter because I have no vassals above the rank of Baron. Only one son. I wonder if he's any good...
Oh great, a Chaste, Craven, religiously-educated son who has no stat above a 7. And that's my family! And I'm 49, so I could kick the bucket at any time, then my fuck-up son Beorhtric takes over. Sheesh. What are my vassals like?
Pliant, okay. And none are count--level, so I might as well set up a new succession system, Elective. That way, I can have a new, better son (No offense Beorhtric) and make HIM the sole heir rather than this idiot (again, no offense Beorhtric...). Since none of my vassals are ranked Count or higher, I'm the only "elector" and this means I can just pick whoever I want. Sadly, the only choice currently is... Beorhtric. Sigh.
While I'm at it, I also set up revocation law. I'll want to be able to control who my vassals are in the future so that I can control elections. Now, to secure the succession...
...a lustful midas-touched wife for me, to hopefully produce a better heir with. I also set Family Focus to increase my fertility level. I need a kid, and fast, because I don't have long to live.
Our best castle is Winchester Castle in Wessex. I'll be focusing on building this up, mostly levy bonus, heavy infantry/pikes, cavalry, and taxes. This is one castle we can be sure will stay in our demesne forever, so these early investments are worth it.
Wow, look at that diplo score! Great for fabricating claims. Too bad he hates me! He'll do the job anyway, though
My first Mystics & Monks event. Not really into Satanism, I gotta focus on family stuff right now.
So, nearly 3 years in, my wife is pregnant. This is good. She just needs to give birth before I kick the bucket, so that this kid can take over for me instead of my awful awful first son. I just need to live for 9 more months!
Ahh, shit.
Why is this making me nervous?
Ah, shit! Survive, old man! Survive until your son is born and you can name him heir!
Face east to cure cancer? Well, if it's stupid but it works, it ain't stupid...
Ah! I'm getting worse!
Do something, you imbecile! Don't just tell me I'm dying!
Well, hey, it worked. not bad.
A granddaughter instead of a grandson. You disappoint me yet again, Beorhtric.
Oh, thank goodness, a son! We're saved from Beorhtric inheriting! But that name. It's too similar to the hated Beorhtric. We should change it to something more noble, a better name. Who has a great name that we could name this child after...?
Perfect.
Cynewulf son of Cynewulf, you are now my heir.
...and a spare! You know, with the realm prosperous and my succession secure, I feel content. Like I could die right here. But no, there's so much more to do. I must fight this "Cancer" and press on!
The Avars went down pretty early. Sic transit gloria mundi... but where's my worldly glory? I must live! Doctor, come at once! I demand you cure my cancer immediately, no matter the cost!
OH SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY! At WHAT COST!?!?
To be continued....
Not really the smartest cookie. 14 Intrigue, but bad diplo, martial, and acceptable stewardship. I guess that really low Diplo doesn't really matter because I have no vassals above the rank of Baron. Only one son. I wonder if he's any good...
Oh great, a Chaste, Craven, religiously-educated son who has no stat above a 7. And that's my family! And I'm 49, so I could kick the bucket at any time, then my fuck-up son Beorhtric takes over. Sheesh. What are my vassals like?
Pliant, okay. And none are count--level, so I might as well set up a new succession system, Elective. That way, I can have a new, better son (No offense Beorhtric) and make HIM the sole heir rather than this idiot (again, no offense Beorhtric...). Since none of my vassals are ranked Count or higher, I'm the only "elector" and this means I can just pick whoever I want. Sadly, the only choice currently is... Beorhtric. Sigh.
While I'm at it, I also set up revocation law. I'll want to be able to control who my vassals are in the future so that I can control elections. Now, to secure the succession...
...a lustful midas-touched wife for me, to hopefully produce a better heir with. I also set Family Focus to increase my fertility level. I need a kid, and fast, because I don't have long to live.
Our best castle is Winchester Castle in Wessex. I'll be focusing on building this up, mostly levy bonus, heavy infantry/pikes, cavalry, and taxes. This is one castle we can be sure will stay in our demesne forever, so these early investments are worth it.
Wow, look at that diplo score! Great for fabricating claims. Too bad he hates me! He'll do the job anyway, though
My first Mystics & Monks event. Not really into Satanism, I gotta focus on family stuff right now.
So, nearly 3 years in, my wife is pregnant. This is good. She just needs to give birth before I kick the bucket, so that this kid can take over for me instead of my awful awful first son. I just need to live for 9 more months!
Ahh, shit.
Why is this making me nervous?
Ah, shit! Survive, old man! Survive until your son is born and you can name him heir!
Face east to cure cancer? Well, if it's stupid but it works, it ain't stupid...
Ah! I'm getting worse!
Do something, you imbecile! Don't just tell me I'm dying!
Well, hey, it worked. not bad.
A granddaughter instead of a grandson. You disappoint me yet again, Beorhtric.
Oh, thank goodness, a son! We're saved from Beorhtric inheriting! But that name. It's too similar to the hated Beorhtric. We should change it to something more noble, a better name. Who has a great name that we could name this child after...?
Perfect.
Cynewulf son of Cynewulf, you are now my heir.
...and a spare! You know, with the realm prosperous and my succession secure, I feel content. Like I could die right here. But no, there's so much more to do. I must fight this "Cancer" and press on!
The Avars went down pretty early. Sic transit gloria mundi... but where's my worldly glory? I must live! Doctor, come at once! I demand you cure my cancer immediately, no matter the cost!
OH SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY! At WHAT COST!?!?
To be continued....
AAR Turn 1, Blazinghand as Cynewulf Cerdicing Part 2
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
....and now, the thrilling conclusion!
It's about time! Let's do this! If I'm going to live as a eunuch I'm going to conquer some land for my infant son. Just borrow a bit of cash to pay for some levies since that claim was expensive...
No problem. And I pay back the moneylenders after.
So I get Aelle Brunosson at my court (of house Littlefinger??? lol) and proceed to use him--and his claim on a West Francian Duchy--to my nefarious purpose.
First, we make him Christian. We'll do more with him later.
Sussex! Another solo county to conquer. And now we have the claim. Easy, with our much larger army.
In the meantime, I have been carefully raising my heir. I pass along Just to him. He has great stats and will have a solid stewardship education with non-terrible martial.
the Slow Fever has been spreading East. I don't have a lot of money but I want to at least preserve the levy and economy of Winchester Castle, which will mean a hospital.
Uh oh... I'll play you for it!
Well. You can't cheat death forever, I guess!
So, where are we now, heir of mine, Cynewulf son of Cynewulf?
Well, you have a younger brother who is betrothed to a title claimant. It's not particularly useful and you can break it off if you want. You yourself are not betrothed; that decision is yours to make. Whether you marry for alliance or skills, make your choice wisely. Also, that duke claimant kid, I converted him to Catholicism and Anglo-Saxonism and he is matrilineally betrothed to your neice, Aelfryth (who has Strong trait). With that claim bred into our line, things could go very well. Remember with Elective, you can pick any of our family to succeed you.
Speaking of the which, watch out for this guy:
He's our highest-ranking vassal, and a right count (heh). He has a vote in the elective process too. Good news is, a 1-1 tie is broken in our favor always. Just bear in mind if you get any new vassals, they have to be on our side. I've been trying to assassinate this guy for years and it never panned out.
Here's the main castle:
As you can see, there's quite a large levy there. Lots of heavy infantry, plenty of cavalry. I've put most military research points into cavalry or heavy infantry to boost their states. This army alone can probably take out most of your neighbors, if carefully managed (you have a 20-martial commander).
Here's the world:
It has been an interesting 20 years. The Pannonians have expanded a lot, and middle and west Francia fight for dominance while Lombardy turns its attention to the south. Closer to home, Mercia and Northumbria are our biggest threats. There's no telling when Mercia will turn its sights on us. also, watch anyone you attack that they don't have marriage ties to either of these kingdoms. We might be able to take Mercia in a straight up fight. But with the Slow Fever sweeping in from the west, who knows what could happen to our levies. Best to go after smaller neighbors, I think.
And don't forget about your brothers and your nephew and niece. They may be crucial when the time comes. If you find yourself needing to give titles away, they may be good choices. If your major vassals are of our family, then the odds of the duchy going out of our hands, goes way down. Since the Electors can try to vote one of themselves in, having them all be in our family is ideal.
Death is upon me! I can delay no longer. These 20 last years I lived, most of it was bought time after cancer struck. Long enough, son, that you are on the cusp of adulthood. 15 years old, you are almost an adult. Your regency (under the designated regent, your mother) will be short. You are smart and have good training, a stable realm, and a world to conquer. You'll have time for more than I did. Go show them what the Cerdicing dynasty is capable of!
End of AAR.
Save File: Dropbox - Succession_Blazinghand_1.ck2
@Death and Faxes you're up next! You have a week to post your AAR.
It's about time! Let's do this! If I'm going to live as a eunuch I'm going to conquer some land for my infant son. Just borrow a bit of cash to pay for some levies since that claim was expensive...
No problem. And I pay back the moneylenders after.
So I get Aelle Brunosson at my court (of house Littlefinger??? lol) and proceed to use him--and his claim on a West Francian Duchy--to my nefarious purpose.
First, we make him Christian. We'll do more with him later.
Sussex! Another solo county to conquer. And now we have the claim. Easy, with our much larger army.
In the meantime, I have been carefully raising my heir. I pass along Just to him. He has great stats and will have a solid stewardship education with non-terrible martial.
the Slow Fever has been spreading East. I don't have a lot of money but I want to at least preserve the levy and economy of Winchester Castle, which will mean a hospital.
Uh oh... I'll play you for it!
Well. You can't cheat death forever, I guess!
So, where are we now, heir of mine, Cynewulf son of Cynewulf?
Well, you have a younger brother who is betrothed to a title claimant. It's not particularly useful and you can break it off if you want. You yourself are not betrothed; that decision is yours to make. Whether you marry for alliance or skills, make your choice wisely. Also, that duke claimant kid, I converted him to Catholicism and Anglo-Saxonism and he is matrilineally betrothed to your neice, Aelfryth (who has Strong trait). With that claim bred into our line, things could go very well. Remember with Elective, you can pick any of our family to succeed you.
Speaking of the which, watch out for this guy:
He's our highest-ranking vassal, and a right count (heh). He has a vote in the elective process too. Good news is, a 1-1 tie is broken in our favor always. Just bear in mind if you get any new vassals, they have to be on our side. I've been trying to assassinate this guy for years and it never panned out.
Here's the main castle:
As you can see, there's quite a large levy there. Lots of heavy infantry, plenty of cavalry. I've put most military research points into cavalry or heavy infantry to boost their states. This army alone can probably take out most of your neighbors, if carefully managed (you have a 20-martial commander).
Here's the world:
It has been an interesting 20 years. The Pannonians have expanded a lot, and middle and west Francia fight for dominance while Lombardy turns its attention to the south. Closer to home, Mercia and Northumbria are our biggest threats. There's no telling when Mercia will turn its sights on us. also, watch anyone you attack that they don't have marriage ties to either of these kingdoms. We might be able to take Mercia in a straight up fight. But with the Slow Fever sweeping in from the west, who knows what could happen to our levies. Best to go after smaller neighbors, I think.
And don't forget about your brothers and your nephew and niece. They may be crucial when the time comes. If you find yourself needing to give titles away, they may be good choices. If your major vassals are of our family, then the odds of the duchy going out of our hands, goes way down. Since the Electors can try to vote one of themselves in, having them all be in our family is ideal.
Death is upon me! I can delay no longer. These 20 last years I lived, most of it was bought time after cancer struck. Long enough, son, that you are on the cusp of adulthood. 15 years old, you are almost an adult. Your regency (under the designated regent, your mother) will be short. You are smart and have good training, a stable realm, and a world to conquer. You'll have time for more than I did. Go show them what the Cerdicing dynasty is capable of!
End of AAR.
Save File: Dropbox - Succession_Blazinghand_1.ck2
@Death and Faxes you're up next! You have a week to post your AAR.
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Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
Sure! I'll add you to the list. We're using all major DLCs except sunset invasion.
Player Queue
Completed turns:
Blazinghand as Cynewulf - AAR Link
Coming up:
Death and Faxes
Darrenb209
Ceslas
ElliudFS1
Walker of Chaos
Jorlem
Zooboss
Also your AARs don't need to be as detailed as mine. Just descriptions of major events and a few screenshots and such is fine. I had fun with it. Add as much detail as you like.
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Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
Ah, sorry, I forgot you somehow Jorlem. I've put you in the queue ahead of Zooboss since you asked before.
Man, even with the cancer, castration, etc I think this is probably one of the better starts for Wessex. I'm proud of what I got done. I had to thread a lot of needles to make a good succession happen. Married a Midas Touched + Lustful wife, focused family for fertility (also for the +1 Health) and switched us from whatever succession we had before (Gavelkind maybe?) to Elective Monarchy so we could make the right son inherit. There was some luck involved, too: the Jewish Councillor showing up and having 22 diplo getting us two claims on neighboring counties, etc etc. Our main province now also has like, 8 upgrades instead of the 2 we started with. It's too bad I couldn't last until Best Son was full-grown, but the regency should be short. And getting nearly 20 years out of a 49-year-old start is pretty respectable.
Man, even with the cancer, castration, etc I think this is probably one of the better starts for Wessex. I'm proud of what I got done. I had to thread a lot of needles to make a good succession happen. Married a Midas Touched + Lustful wife, focused family for fertility (also for the +1 Health) and switched us from whatever succession we had before (Gavelkind maybe?) to Elective Monarchy so we could make the right son inherit. There was some luck involved, too: the Jewish Councillor showing up and having 22 diplo getting us two claims on neighboring counties, etc etc. Our main province now also has like, 8 upgrades instead of the 2 we started with. It's too bad I couldn't last until Best Son was full-grown, but the regency should be short. And getting nearly 20 years out of a 49-year-old start is pretty respectable.
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Darrenb209
"Who are you, who do not know your history?"
- Location
- Scotland
Watch me send that all crashing down on my turn. I have a tendency to underestimate my enemies and provoke people until someone hires enough assassins to fill a party.
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
I wouldn't worry too much about it. First off, @Death and Faxes has plenty of chances to screw up before we get to you. Also, with succession games it is generally understood that a certain amount of surprising/bad things happening is both to be expected and excellent. Don't go looking for them, of course, but don't savescum or cheat either. My character left a regency behind rather than a grown heir, had cancer then was castrated a few years into his reign, etc etc. Adds a lot of flavor.
- Location
- yes
but how else will we start a dynasty of horses
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Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! Or... my horse is a king???
AAR Turn 2, Death and Faxes as Cynewulf Cynewulfsson Cerdicing
- Location
- yes
Alrighty!
Unfortunately it's 4am before a work day, so this is just going to be a highlights reel rather than a full AAR
We are Cynewulf Cynewulfsson Cerdicing, almost-adult and now (Petty) King of Wessex.
Unfortunately, our younger brother, the oddly named Blazingwulf Cynewulfsson Cerdicing, really hates us. Not sure why. Maybe it was all the wedgies.
Also on the hate train is this guy. He probably hates us because dear old dad conquered his crop fields and burned his peasants to the ground. Anyways, seeing as how he's our only vassal, we revoke his title and replace him with a guy who likes us and is guaranteed to have heirs of our dynasty. Nobody else is around to care.
Anyhow, first thing on the list is becoming an adult! We promptly get a 2-pip education trait. Disappointment. Incidentally, Blazingwulf the -100 little brother will eventually get Midas Touched and 23 stewardship, but be unusable on the council due to his -100 opinion with us. Such is life.
Anyways, time to pick ambitions! Seeing the realm prosper is always a good one to start out with: it's easy to fulfill, and it gives us a better economic base + stats to work with in the future. It's basically automatic in a relatively stable realm like this one without any particularly aggressive neighbors, and it only takes five years.
Coincidentally, it's gonna take - on average - a little over 5 years to get us a fabricated claim! Great how these things work out. Our first target is Middlesex as that's the county with the most holding slots (6) anywhere remotely nearby. Max holdings isn't a big deal yet but will matter quite a bit a few generations down the road.
For some reason this guy really had the hots for mom. He sent five or six different marriage proposals, but he's also halfway across Europe so there's really no point in any kind of alliance we could get from this.
This popped a lot faster than expected. No big deal though, we can buffer them up. Technically, fabricated claims need to be pressed during your lifetime in order to inherit, but we're still 18 so we probably won't die before we get around to it. Next up: Kent.
...and ol' Benyamin just cranks these out like nothing. What a beast.
Sometime around now we find a nice Genius (+5 to everything) girl to marry, in the hopes of popping some genius heirs. The inheritance rate for the genius trait is low (15%) but it's generally worth a shot; you can reasonably have 4+ children if you optimize for it, and you have a not-terrible chance of getting quick (+3 to everything) as well. Sadly, her education is in martial - she has a 19 in it, which is impressive, but also useless, as the Petty Kingdom of Wessex is still slightly too petty to allow women to lead armies or attend to military matters. I forgot to get a screenshot of her as a kid, but here she is a decade or so later:
But that's something for the future. You know what time it is, right now?
It's claim-pressin' time.
We have a pretty good stable of high-martial commanders, so I'm going to have us fight a lot of wars between now and dying. We'll probably be racking up a lot of prestige from conquest victories, as long as we don't bite off more than we can chew. Therefore:
Time to become exalted among men, and live on forever in the annals of history. It's going to be sweet.
Interestingly, our rather... simple half-brother managed to, by purely random chance, pop a genius son, which leaves us a good backup if our own breeding program doesn't work out:
Rather embarrassingly, this newborn infant is just as good as we are at diplomatic affairs and learning. What a world we live in.
Anyways, we proceed to declare war for Kent, and quickly add a new county to our demesne.
Due to our rockin' commanders, most of these battles are a faceroll. Interestingly, Essex had declared war to press a claim on Kent at around the same time that we did, and when Kent falls, we inherit their war as well as their title. Rather conveniently, Essex and Kent spent more time fighting each other than us, leaving Essex a rather easy cleanup. Winning the inherited war also gives us yet another victory's worth of prestige, which is a nice contribution towards fulfilling our ambition.
At this point, we decide to embed ourselves in the army because there's a nasty case of sick going around our capital.
It doesn't work, we get the nasty sicks anyways.
Thankfully, we've got a good doctor who understands the importance of amputating limbs of patients who have contracted syphilis, and manages to cure us at the cost of a leg. Which is fine; there are literally four-year-olds with better martial scores than we do right now so it's not like we have a lot of value in the field. It does make us less attractive to the opposite gender, though, which hopefully doesn't throw off the heir breeding too much.
The fabrication/war cycle continues - we fabricate a claim on Norfolk and forcefully assimilate Middlesex. At this point I move our capital to Middlesex, due to the previously mentioned 6-slot nature of that county making it superior to other counties with fewer slots (basically every other county here). Meanwhile, our Chaplain decides that there are witches among us, and begins throwing blame around. I go along with it, because hey, why not.
No, not Blazingwulf! Oh, wait, he hates us, whatever.
Sometime around now our rather old chancellor dies, and I end up inviting a nice young Italian man with 20 diplomacy to our court. This basically repeats itself every time a councillor dies, since our realm is still too small to reliably produce high-teens/low-twenties councillors. Thankfully, nobody protests about the immigrants we're bringing in to literally take their jobs. We also grant the mercy of god to the supposed witches, and Blazingwulf lives another day.
We have our first kid about now. Unfortunately, he's not a genius. We bequeath him with a great and dignified name regardless.
At this point we decide to press a de jure claim on Oxford, one of Mercia's more prosperous counties, in the hopes of sniping it while Mercia is busy with a peasant uprising. This war actually ends up going very poorly, as, in a rather amusing twist of fate, we get hit by two peasant uprisings in the middle of the war.
(at the time of this screenshot I'd already put the first one down)
Mercia also appears to have scraped together enough gold to hire some mercenaries, and we're forced to hire some of our own. We barely have enough gold to afford it (hiring a 1500 stack costs ~150 and ~10/mo), but we only need to keep them around for one battle and one siege, so it should be fine. A series of pitched battles later, and we've lost our best commander, but Oxford falls and Mercia surrenders soon after. (I forgot to screenshot this because I was distracted by micromanaging the mercenary hiring/firing, since I really didn't want to deal with a band of revolting unpaid mercenaries).
In the aftermath of the war, we break the 1k mark on prestige and fulfill our ambition:
Sadly, we don't become "King Cynewulf the Great" because we're already "King Cynewulf the Just".
Two years later we get a second son:
and this one is a genius! Rejoice! We discreetly change our elective nomination to our newly-minted Best Son instead. Of course, a sharp kid like him deserves a similarly sharp name: Blerbfred Cynewulfsson Cerdicing, soon-to-be first of his name.
Rather amusingly, we get sick again around now, and, well...
It must run in the family, I guess. Thankfully, we've already gotten our designated genius heir (and not a moment too soon) so this isn't a huge deal, as long as Best Son doesn't die of the nasty sicks. Fingers crossed.
We then gear up to press the claim on Norfolk, but halfway through that war, this happens.
Apparently, the filthy Ostlanders have been preparing an invasion for some time. Thankfully, we have just barely enough time to polish off the last holdings in Norfolk and end that war before they land, and when they do...
It seems all of England comes to our defense. (not shown here: about six other identical messages). What follows is a three-year back-and-forth with giant doomstacks that the AI decides to path around in seemingly random patterns.
Eventually, though, the united forces of England (and Scotland and Ireland) manage to push back the filthy invaders. Everyone presumably celebrates with kidney pie and biscuits.
After the Great Invasion is repulsed, it's basically all table scraps. We manage to fabricate and assimilate Devon, and are in the process of pressing a claim on Gwent when we are, sadly, done in by some backstabbing rascals. So passes Cynewulf II Cynewulfsson, family man and one-legged paranoid eunuch who probably spent 2/3 of his adult life a depressed and stressed wreck. We may have been pretty incompetent ourselves, but we leveraged the shit out of our consistent stream of 20+ stat immigrant chancellors/commanders. Delegation at work!
(Fun fact I did not know: apparently having a 20+ martial marshal pretty reliably fires two events, one of which improves the martial scores of your other commanders, and the other which recruits very loyal 15+ martial commanders into the fold if you have empty commander positions. Pretty neat.)
All in all, it was a pretty good thirty years. Cynewulf-2 fabricated and pressed a lot of claims and won a lot of wars, and approximately doubled the size of the Petty Kingdom of Wessex. Since most of these wars were direct claims on county titles, we were able to (mostly) avoid assuming any unfriendly vassals, leaving the way open for a Cerdicing-dominated Kingdom of England in the near future. We also successfully repulsed a filthy Scandinavian invasion and married a genius wife who gave birth to a genius son. And a not-genius son, but we don't talk about him.
We also changed succession to agnatic-cognatic instead of straight agnatic—in combination with elective, this allows us to land and nominate female dynasty members as heirs, which should double the pool of potential genetic freaks we'll be able to draw on in the future. It was actually surprisingly hard, since changing succession laws requires that no vassals have negative opinion, and our first landed vessel turned out to be gay with a -35 unattractiveness penalty from one-legged and eunuch and a -40 opinion hit from not being on the council (he had terrible stats). Thankfully, he was the leader of a plot so we could throw him in prison and let him rot, but it still took five years of oubliette-ing for him to pass away.
Conveniently, ol' Blerbfred has just finished his education, earning a rather nice 3-pip stewardship trait.
So: unfortunately, we're transitioning in the middle of a war. Fortunately, it's a war we have the manpower to easily win, and Blerbfred has got (as you can see) really good stats due to the genius trait. Hyuge stats. The best stats. He also has a genius cousin named Swefred who has something ridiculous like 26 martial, and the realm as a whole has a fuck-huge pile of money (over 1k gold!) so we should be good to go for the near future.
Anyways, that's all I got. I'd add something clever here but it's now 5am and I need to be awake for work in the morning, so... I dunno, go forth, @Darrenb209, and make the Cerdicing name live forever in the annals of this specific simulated version of history.
@Blazinghand should we threadmark this?
Save File: https://www.dropbox.com/s/938il6h1gv7lnsa/Succession_DnF_1.ck2?dl=0
Unfortunately it's 4am before a work day, so this is just going to be a highlights reel rather than a full AAR
We are Cynewulf Cynewulfsson Cerdicing, almost-adult and now (Petty) King of Wessex.
Unfortunately, our younger brother, the oddly named Blazingwulf Cynewulfsson Cerdicing, really hates us. Not sure why. Maybe it was all the wedgies.
Also on the hate train is this guy. He probably hates us because dear old dad conquered his crop fields and burned his peasants to the ground. Anyways, seeing as how he's our only vassal, we revoke his title and replace him with a guy who likes us and is guaranteed to have heirs of our dynasty. Nobody else is around to care.
Anyhow, first thing on the list is becoming an adult! We promptly get a 2-pip education trait. Disappointment. Incidentally, Blazingwulf the -100 little brother will eventually get Midas Touched and 23 stewardship, but be unusable on the council due to his -100 opinion with us. Such is life.
Anyways, time to pick ambitions! Seeing the realm prosper is always a good one to start out with: it's easy to fulfill, and it gives us a better economic base + stats to work with in the future. It's basically automatic in a relatively stable realm like this one without any particularly aggressive neighbors, and it only takes five years.
Coincidentally, it's gonna take - on average - a little over 5 years to get us a fabricated claim! Great how these things work out. Our first target is Middlesex as that's the county with the most holding slots (6) anywhere remotely nearby. Max holdings isn't a big deal yet but will matter quite a bit a few generations down the road.
For some reason this guy really had the hots for mom. He sent five or six different marriage proposals, but he's also halfway across Europe so there's really no point in any kind of alliance we could get from this.
This popped a lot faster than expected. No big deal though, we can buffer them up. Technically, fabricated claims need to be pressed during your lifetime in order to inherit, but we're still 18 so we probably won't die before we get around to it. Next up: Kent.
...and ol' Benyamin just cranks these out like nothing. What a beast.
Sometime around now we find a nice Genius (+5 to everything) girl to marry, in the hopes of popping some genius heirs. The inheritance rate for the genius trait is low (15%) but it's generally worth a shot; you can reasonably have 4+ children if you optimize for it, and you have a not-terrible chance of getting quick (+3 to everything) as well. Sadly, her education is in martial - she has a 19 in it, which is impressive, but also useless, as the Petty Kingdom of Wessex is still slightly too petty to allow women to lead armies or attend to military matters. I forgot to get a screenshot of her as a kid, but here she is a decade or so later:
But that's something for the future. You know what time it is, right now?
It's claim-pressin' time.
We have a pretty good stable of high-martial commanders, so I'm going to have us fight a lot of wars between now and dying. We'll probably be racking up a lot of prestige from conquest victories, as long as we don't bite off more than we can chew. Therefore:
Time to become exalted among men, and live on forever in the annals of history. It's going to be sweet.
Interestingly, our rather... simple half-brother managed to, by purely random chance, pop a genius son, which leaves us a good backup if our own breeding program doesn't work out:
Rather embarrassingly, this newborn infant is just as good as we are at diplomatic affairs and learning. What a world we live in.
Anyways, we proceed to declare war for Kent, and quickly add a new county to our demesne.
Due to our rockin' commanders, most of these battles are a faceroll. Interestingly, Essex had declared war to press a claim on Kent at around the same time that we did, and when Kent falls, we inherit their war as well as their title. Rather conveniently, Essex and Kent spent more time fighting each other than us, leaving Essex a rather easy cleanup. Winning the inherited war also gives us yet another victory's worth of prestige, which is a nice contribution towards fulfilling our ambition.
At this point, we decide to embed ourselves in the army because there's a nasty case of sick going around our capital.
It doesn't work, we get the nasty sicks anyways.
Thankfully, we've got a good doctor who understands the importance of amputating limbs of patients who have contracted syphilis, and manages to cure us at the cost of a leg. Which is fine; there are literally four-year-olds with better martial scores than we do right now so it's not like we have a lot of value in the field. It does make us less attractive to the opposite gender, though, which hopefully doesn't throw off the heir breeding too much.
The fabrication/war cycle continues - we fabricate a claim on Norfolk and forcefully assimilate Middlesex. At this point I move our capital to Middlesex, due to the previously mentioned 6-slot nature of that county making it superior to other counties with fewer slots (basically every other county here). Meanwhile, our Chaplain decides that there are witches among us, and begins throwing blame around. I go along with it, because hey, why not.
No, not Blazingwulf! Oh, wait, he hates us, whatever.
Sometime around now our rather old chancellor dies, and I end up inviting a nice young Italian man with 20 diplomacy to our court. This basically repeats itself every time a councillor dies, since our realm is still too small to reliably produce high-teens/low-twenties councillors. Thankfully, nobody protests about the immigrants we're bringing in to literally take their jobs. We also grant the mercy of god to the supposed witches, and Blazingwulf lives another day.
We have our first kid about now. Unfortunately, he's not a genius. We bequeath him with a great and dignified name regardless.
At this point we decide to press a de jure claim on Oxford, one of Mercia's more prosperous counties, in the hopes of sniping it while Mercia is busy with a peasant uprising. This war actually ends up going very poorly, as, in a rather amusing twist of fate, we get hit by two peasant uprisings in the middle of the war.
(at the time of this screenshot I'd already put the first one down)
Mercia also appears to have scraped together enough gold to hire some mercenaries, and we're forced to hire some of our own. We barely have enough gold to afford it (hiring a 1500 stack costs ~150 and ~10/mo), but we only need to keep them around for one battle and one siege, so it should be fine. A series of pitched battles later, and we've lost our best commander, but Oxford falls and Mercia surrenders soon after. (I forgot to screenshot this because I was distracted by micromanaging the mercenary hiring/firing, since I really didn't want to deal with a band of revolting unpaid mercenaries).
In the aftermath of the war, we break the 1k mark on prestige and fulfill our ambition:
Sadly, we don't become "King Cynewulf the Great" because we're already "King Cynewulf the Just".
Two years later we get a second son:
and this one is a genius! Rejoice! We discreetly change our elective nomination to our newly-minted Best Son instead. Of course, a sharp kid like him deserves a similarly sharp name: Blerbfred Cynewulfsson Cerdicing, soon-to-be first of his name.
Rather amusingly, we get sick again around now, and, well...
It must run in the family, I guess. Thankfully, we've already gotten our designated genius heir (and not a moment too soon) so this isn't a huge deal, as long as Best Son doesn't die of the nasty sicks. Fingers crossed.
We then gear up to press the claim on Norfolk, but halfway through that war, this happens.
Apparently, the filthy Ostlanders have been preparing an invasion for some time. Thankfully, we have just barely enough time to polish off the last holdings in Norfolk and end that war before they land, and when they do...
It seems all of England comes to our defense. (not shown here: about six other identical messages). What follows is a three-year back-and-forth with giant doomstacks that the AI decides to path around in seemingly random patterns.
Eventually, though, the united forces of England (and Scotland and Ireland) manage to push back the filthy invaders. Everyone presumably celebrates with kidney pie and biscuits.
After the Great Invasion is repulsed, it's basically all table scraps. We manage to fabricate and assimilate Devon, and are in the process of pressing a claim on Gwent when we are, sadly, done in by some backstabbing rascals. So passes Cynewulf II Cynewulfsson, family man and one-legged paranoid eunuch who probably spent 2/3 of his adult life a depressed and stressed wreck. We may have been pretty incompetent ourselves, but we leveraged the shit out of our consistent stream of 20+ stat immigrant chancellors/commanders. Delegation at work!
(Fun fact I did not know: apparently having a 20+ martial marshal pretty reliably fires two events, one of which improves the martial scores of your other commanders, and the other which recruits very loyal 15+ martial commanders into the fold if you have empty commander positions. Pretty neat.)
All in all, it was a pretty good thirty years. Cynewulf-2 fabricated and pressed a lot of claims and won a lot of wars, and approximately doubled the size of the Petty Kingdom of Wessex. Since most of these wars were direct claims on county titles, we were able to (mostly) avoid assuming any unfriendly vassals, leaving the way open for a Cerdicing-dominated Kingdom of England in the near future. We also successfully repulsed a filthy Scandinavian invasion and married a genius wife who gave birth to a genius son. And a not-genius son, but we don't talk about him.
We also changed succession to agnatic-cognatic instead of straight agnatic—in combination with elective, this allows us to land and nominate female dynasty members as heirs, which should double the pool of potential genetic freaks we'll be able to draw on in the future. It was actually surprisingly hard, since changing succession laws requires that no vassals have negative opinion, and our first landed vessel turned out to be gay with a -35 unattractiveness penalty from one-legged and eunuch and a -40 opinion hit from not being on the council (he had terrible stats). Thankfully, he was the leader of a plot so we could throw him in prison and let him rot, but it still took five years of oubliette-ing for him to pass away.
Conveniently, ol' Blerbfred has just finished his education, earning a rather nice 3-pip stewardship trait.
So: unfortunately, we're transitioning in the middle of a war. Fortunately, it's a war we have the manpower to easily win, and Blerbfred has got (as you can see) really good stats due to the genius trait. Hyuge stats. The best stats. He also has a genius cousin named Swefred who has something ridiculous like 26 martial, and the realm as a whole has a fuck-huge pile of money (over 1k gold!) so we should be good to go for the near future.
Anyways, that's all I got. I'd add something clever here but it's now 5am and I need to be awake for work in the morning, so... I dunno, go forth, @Darrenb209, and make the Cerdicing name live forever in the annals of this specific simulated version of history.
@Blazinghand should we threadmark this?
Save File: https://www.dropbox.com/s/938il6h1gv7lnsa/Succession_DnF_1.ck2?dl=0
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Darrenb209
"Who are you, who do not know your history?"
- Location
- Scotland
I'll get started on mine tomorrow, my free time today is already booked for the new Star Wars movie.
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
What a great update! Lots of funny bits. Nice job pumping out a Genius heir. It's pretty funny that Beorhtric had a Genius son also. Assuming we make sure that guy gets married we have good chances of having a Genius in the next generation as well.
Player Queue
Completed turns:
Blazinghand as Cynewulf - AAR Link
Death and Faxes as Cynewulf Cynewulfsson - AAR Link
Coming up:
Darrenb209
Ceslas
ElliudFS1
Walker of Chaos
Jorlem
Zooboss
Player Queue
Completed turns:
Blazinghand as Cynewulf - AAR Link
Death and Faxes as Cynewulf Cynewulfsson - AAR Link
Coming up:
Darrenb209
Ceslas
ElliudFS1
Walker of Chaos
Jorlem
Zooboss
- Location
- yes
Unfortunately I played the last 14 years or so on max speed owing to how late it was and may have failed to set him up. Fortunately he's only 28, plenty of time still.
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
Did the wonderfully named Blazingwulf have any kids?
Also it's rather hilarious that both Cynewulf and Cynewulf son of Cynewulf ended up eunuchs by the time they died. Medieval medicine! Not the greatest!
- Location
- yes
Yeah, he had two I think, but neither of them were notable. I actually forgot to set them up too due to the same time constraints, but we can probably just find some unlanded strong/genius/quick/attractive girls to marry them to or something.
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Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
That Ostlander Prepared Invasion of England war is actually a pretty interesting CB. Vikings vs Anglo-Saxons! It's a Viking Age thing (so Viking Age must have fired at some point). Here's a quote from the CK2 wiki.
Basically, this represents a massive invasion of Viking warriors, and your Catholic neighbors who are normally enemies spring to your aid because of the great external threat the Vikings represent.
Basically, this represents a massive invasion of Viking warriors, and your Catholic neighbors who are normally enemies spring to your aid because of the great external threat the Vikings represent.
Darrenb209
"Who are you, who do not know your history?"
- Location
- Scotland
For when I start tomorrow, can I get a list of DLC that we are either using or not using, whichever is easier? Don't want to accidentally break the save by forgetting,.
Edit: I remember we aren't using Sunset, but I can't remember if we are using Conclave or Monks and Mystics.
Edit: I remember we aren't using Sunset, but I can't remember if we are using Conclave or Monks and Mystics.
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Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
DLCs we're using:
Sword of Islam
Legacy of Rome
The Republic
The Old Gods
Sons of Abraham
Rajas of India
Charlemagne
Way of Life
Horse Lords
Conclave
The Reaper's Due
Monks and Mystics
DLCs we're not using:
Sunset Invasion
I've updated the OP to reflect this
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