Crusader Kings II - Saharan Empire of Francia, Because of Course Saharan Empire of Francia

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Crusader Kings II - Pagan Wars

Here's a screencap of the Beginning of the War to End All Wars, just before it all got completely out of hand, as follows:

Ruthenia attacked Perm so I attacked Ruthenia so Rus defended Ruthenia so Samoyedia defended me so Bjarmia attacked Rus so Denmark defended Rus so Sweden defended Ruthenia  but the disenfranchised Polish revolted against Ruthenia and Sweden was attacking Norway so I attacked Sweden so Norway attacked me, then the HRE attacked Denmark so England defended Denmark, then Cumania finished its civil war and jumped in to defend Perm so Seljuk launched a full-blown invasion of Cumania so I assassinated the Khan's third son's wife and married my sweet sixteen daughter to the distraught widower then defended Cumania.

Catch all that? Also, the rest of the world did stuff and at some point the King of England was elected Holy Roman Emperor. Crap.

When all of this was said and done, King Njuolla the Noble of Finland, who had been at war his entire life, declared a war of conquest against Sweden and promptly died in the saddle after the first action, away from his homeland, of an old infected war wound that had been plaguing him for over ten years.

75 years old, riding as the commander of his army almost non-stop since he was 16, and regularly draining a nasty infected gash on a daily basis (it had already gotten him ill once for about a year at the beginning of The War). Way to hang with 'em, old timer. Here's the map of where the lines finally stood when all was said and done. Somewhere in all of that, I forgot the part where Rus conquered Bjarmia with a Holy War towards the end of it all (I never liked Duchess Emmi the Fat anyway, so screw Bjarmia) and where Bulgar, long since gobbled up by Perm and Cumania, won independence from Cumania only to be gobbled up by Perm. You win some, you lose some.

Note the hideous gray pallor of Holy Roman England to the very left of the map. Uuuuuuuugggggggghhhhhh.

Update: Totally forgot about it, but right in the middle of all of this the Duke of Karelia revolted with roughly a quarter to a third of my realm. Needless to say, I banished the crap out of him after. Here's a screen cap of what my vassals thought of that, in addition to one of how they felt about me utilizing their levies for all of this:

Crusader Kings II - Over 9000!!!

...and still kickin'!

Started as a single-county custom Countess of Najera (wanted to be able to try the Absolute Cognatic mechanic, and felt right to achieve gender equality via a woman). Well, I haven't tried the Absolute Cognatic mechanic yet, but I have a female heir above my two sons, so we'll try it eventually. My Empress of Hispania, Queen of Jerusalem, and Scourge of Africa is now 59 years old and still racking up Dem Points!

Post your screen shots of your best single-lifetime, no heir score for a single-county start! (Single county duke and king starts welcome - the Count of Najera starts with a strong claim on the Kingdom of Najera anyway).

Update: Here's my bouncing Countess on Day 1. Click to Enlarge.

Crusader Kings II - The Faces of Njuolla

Here are my photos of the three eras of my Pagan chief. Personally, I'm partial to the royal blue coloring for my territory on the map, but whatever.

Click photos to enlarge.

Crusader Kings II - Thou Art a Silly Beotch, Crusader Kings II

Oh, the trials and tribulations. I felt like my fierce Pagan Finnish army lacked a certain, I don't know, division? Corps? Battalion? SEEMED TOO SMALL. So I whip up my Military screen and I see my son (my only vassal, thank you life of cultivating decent stats and ginormous Stewardship second wife) can provide me at most 596 troops from his three holdings, one of which is Recently Conquered. Note that I have maximized feudal vassal levies and he thinks his old man is just the bee's knees - his opinion modifier is 100.

But he can provide me zero of those 596 troops because the levies are depleted? Huh? And as I recall, he has two non-Recently Conquered (Pagan!) castles. All of this seems odd to me, so I go and check.

(Click To Enlarge)

(Click to Upscale)

(Click to build Warrior Cult for your pixel levies)

 Hi, welcome to the WTFBBQ, would you like the SMH dry rub or the /Palm Sauce for your ribs?

My son can provide me at most zero of his 596 troops, because of his 596 troops, 1189 of his living troops are dead. I'm sorry - depleted. Maybe they're just not getting enough electrolytes in their diet?

I wouldn't care about this obvious bug, except for the ZOMG RAGING NORWEGIAN ARMY that requires beating. I'm honestly tempted to go find out what cheat code I need to magically give myself 1189 troops, because this obvious bug is making what would otherwise be a manageable military scenario I put myself into because I knew I had more beef than them into a nearly unmanageable military scenario.

Crusader Kings II - This is Why We Pagan

 Sweden's Realm Size: 37                                        Norway's Realm Size: 40

Denmark's Realm Size: 58                                     Norrland's Realm Size: 20

I mean, I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

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Crusader Kings II - Everybody do the Pagan

(Click for full size - it's BIG)

The year is 1097. The date is August 27. The Pagans ... are Cometh.

OK, OK, it was a lame start to my Lappish Pagans game. As you'll note above, the blue blob of me (far less impressive than it looks due to the quality of the territories involved) definitely moved the wrong way when my goal was to destroy the influence of Sweden and Norway on the Scandinavian peninsula. Regardless, sometimes you have to declare war where there's war to be declared, and I'm the one who chose to start the game as incredibly underwhelming Lappland.

Still, I really have little to fear from anything less than three Christian kingdoms ganging up on me, and the Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire is really quite tolerant of me as a person. Yeah, you may be an accursed infidel, High Chief Njuolla the Noble, but you seem like a genuinely NICE guy. You better believe it, mega giant Grey Blob slowly creeping closer and closer to my holdings! I am your best brotato.

Obviously, I am NOT his best brotato, but that's not a secret I'm going to let out until Sweden, then Norway, then Denmark get ground under my heel, and the goal is to make the first couple of those things happen like, now. Thankfully, the majority of Christendom and Islam have bigger fish to fry while I get set to wage bloody, bloody war on my neighbors. Like Cumania. Because Cumania is HUGE (6th most holdings in the game to date) and Pagan, and surrounded on every side by realms that are not huge, and not Cumania, and it's inexorably changing that.

This whole game started as a result of a hyperbolic rant I had about how overpowered Pagans would be as a playable race as they stand in Crusader Kings 2, in response to complaints about how Pagans suck (AI Pagans do kind of suck, in the sense that -every- small realm next to bigger realms who have an excuse to gobble them up suck). Overall, I stand by my hyperbole. Or at least the core point I was trying to make - at the start of the game in 1066, a Pagan realm will splat any neighbor Christian realm of equal size, in spite of their technological deficiencies. (According to the esteemed experts at Paradox, and judging by the technology system in the game, Pagan tribes in 1066 didn't know how to wipe their butts with a leaf, much less make fire or wear clothes or what not).

It has really drained my time resources away from playing my Basque game, where I started as a custom count of Najera in 1066 and founded the empire of Hispania in 1091. But all in all, this has been a greater, more fun challenge - starting as a single independent infidel county next to two of the larger kingdoms and quickly establishing myself as a force they cannot take lightly.