(Complete) The Last Nestorian King -- CK2 w/CharlDLC 769

[JasonPratt]

Not nearly enough money for mercs.

The aggressor has 11 provinces. I'll show a map here soon.

Year 789
--------

That plot against Julienne will have to wait, if it can. Our research has been handicapped with Spymaster Musa and his wife at home; I plan to send him back out in the world, but (because the clicking mechanics are different when assigning him to tech spy from the "councilor" tab) he decides to go to Sanaa first for a few months and give us an idea of what kind of military we're facing. A lot.




Odds are very good this represents only around a tenth of the total military strength the little Emir is mustering against us. Fortunately, the same game limitations hamper him as us: he cannot split up 1400 levy troops and so would need 14 ships (or more rather) to carry them. At the moment only those 779 troops are a serious threat to us, so far as we've seen; if he brings in the nearby 294 (which are marching to Bayda) he probably won't be able to ship them at all! Or maybe he'll ferry them in galleyloads. The nearly 1500 troops in Sanaa itself are of no concern anyway until he has a bloc of 15 galleys to move them.

My diplomatic options don't allow me to request an invasion from anyone; but my best chance for survival will be if King Remah Armah of Abyssinia decides this is a good time to mess with Arwadid directly by invading, either by galleys or across the strait into Taizz or Aden.

I realize from a prophetic dream (ahem) that I've been pushing my luck not to have raised my levies yet and properly assigned them to the best commanders and to flanks etc. Good and loyal Marshal Shaiban warns me that galleys could drop off troops without us even having seen them approach. So let's take a look at that.




This is how the game sets up my combined army initially.

With a little shuffling, and some VERY unclear mechanisms about how to assign unit commanders (and why can't my marshal of all people command a unit???) I end up with this:




Frankly, aside from my Marshal (WHOM I CANNOT FOR SOME REASON ASSIGN TO COMMAND ANYTHING ARRGH) my best military commander is a Muslim emigree who only likes me a little. I guess I should find him a Muslim wife as he wants to marry; not sure I'd trust him with my troops.

The game code is somewhat broken here, though: despite finding a nice lusty Ibadi woman (with otherwise good stats and a relevant age) who wants to marry, she refuses to marry Samir (or maybe vice versa) because DESPITE BOTH OF THEM BEING IBADI MUSLIM they mustn't marry infidels. {headdesk} So there's no chance of him marrying anyone at all. I do however manage to assign him command of the central army anyway. This doesn't improve his opinion of me.

On Feb 14 (awwww... does Valentine's Day exist yet?) Princess Nejin Hadareb finally turns 16, and still wants to marry my son and heir Athanasios. This will ally us with Chief Thoma of the kingdom of Kassala, currently the 3rd largest Christian kingdom in Africa; though I can't think this will help us in any military way. Still, once the marriage goes through later in February, I send him the invitation to join the war.

And on March 2nd, he answers the call to war! Though how he's going to go about that I have no idea. Still, he immediately musters about 600 troops, some of them from his stranded territory at the former Jewish temple in Semien, and how they're going to even get to him, who knows. Through one of Abyssinia's territories, looks like. I was hoping that by asking him in, he'd bring some allies who have galleys on the coast, or even Abyssinia itself -- I hope I didn't send him into a war against his own neighbors in order to try to help us!

At about this time, March 9, a galley with not-sure-how-many troops (2 shields worth, whatever that means) arrives offshore.

We're ready, and I can only hope his army is bankrupting him faster than it's bankrupting us; I wish he had delayed another year or two until I could get more economic upgrades, because right now I'm bleeding -1.16 gold per month: if I had not built shipyards but rather waited a little longer to build tax booths in Tamrida, I could have stayed at war forever (so far). I can last a long time with this, but not forever.

On April 21, Gen delivers another baby son, Al'sodoommed; I'm feeling pessimistic about his chances. Though I haven't seen any problems from Scetara and her nanny recently.

My army seems to be keeping the galley troops from invading as of June 1. It's a standoff until Emir Frank or Farku or whatever his name is sends more ships and troops I guess. Bleed that money, Fakru, bleed it!

I sent Ath to Kathiri, one of the ports closest to us where the invasions seem to be staging from; and in early July he reports diplomatic success. I try to decide if I should send him a monetary gift to improve his opinion of me over that of his young Emir; but I don't know for sure that would accomplish anything useful Probably better off using that money to pay my troops to hold off, and hope for the best. When Sept 4 rolls up, I'm thinking of moving Ath over to Muscat on the far eastern coast, because the Emir there has about the same opinion of me as of Frank: I might be able to accomplish a lot there!

Or maybe not; not long afterward, in late August, Ath somehow succeeds in raising Sheik Muhammad's opinion of me again, and I'm well above his Emir in his opinion now -- but it doesn't seem to matter. No new diplomatic options open up. Still, what else can I do? By Sept 16, Ath has already succeeded: he's on a roll!



And what the heck is up with the warscore?? little Emir attacked me, and yet his warscore is growing because I don't hold his capitol. He hasn't done one single thing to improve his standing in the war. By mid October he's up to 2 percent! At this rate he'll win without doing anything other than letting his troops starve off my coast!

At the end of September, Spymaster Musa of all people blabbers about the plot to kill Nurse Julienne while in a drunken stupor. Apparently the drunken stupor was in DAMASCUS since that's where I've got him stationed right now. Fortunately, the only person this affects is Julienne herself, whose opinion of me tanks to the bottom.

On November 15, my beautiful first daughter Samaraa became a woman able to marry; but unfortunately there are no noblemen nearby to offer her hand to.

Thus ends 789, with a little Emir winning an aggressive war against me simply because I haven't taken his capitol yet.

[JasonPratt]

Year 790
--------

Since it has now become painfully obvious that the game will assign bad plot results to people even if they are masters at intrigue (simply assigning them randomly to plotters), I go ahead and fill out the plotter list with whomever I can find (except for Scetara's mom Gen, though I bet the game would let me do that anyway and even succeed with her on board! :P ) This brings me up to 103.6 percent plotting power. Now let's see what happens.

On March 6, I send Ath back to Sanaa, the capitol of Arwadid itself, to see if he can get that little warring Emir back on my side.

This gives me the idea of checking his balance sheet, which the game allows me to do for no good reason by the way (not because I moved Ath to the capitol), and indeed Arwadid is eating 23.58 gold a month. What we don't know is how much gold he currently has in the bank, but it couldn't have been much more than 300 to start with because he's in hock to Jewish merchants for a loan.

Of course, he could send home most of his levies, and get back in the black, and still win his stupid war if the game simply tallies him a warscore for accomplishing nothing aggressively at all (so long as I haven't smitten his capitol).

Scetara tries to kill Al'sodoommed on May 21, but misses. Better than succeeding in killing Ath who, being on the mainland and a high intriguer, ought to be immune to such attempts; but I had a nightmare about that happening last year (ahem ;) ).

On July 31 I set city taxes higher (thought I did that last year... maybe it was during a nightmare about things that happened but didn't...?), and Cupbearer Aram's wife Shahzadah contracts someone to saw the railing under where Julienne frequents. About dang time.

I'm pretty sure I just insulted Gen by babbling in my old age about the likelihood she's trying to poison me with cookies, but in my defense DEMON DAUGHTER! Her opinion of me drops by 15 for 2 years, and I pick up Cynical for 2 years (-5 opinion generally, but +1 to intrigue and diplomacy).

August 26, gravity becomes a much more cruel mistress than Julienne threatened to be. Hopefully this will stop the murderous attacks on my children. Otherwise my daughter is next, sigh.

Thus ends year 790.


Year 791
--------

I think I see the problem with the war. It isn't a war to take my country, Emir Farkyu has framed it as a war over the title of Awardid -- which in hindsight means this may actually be my fault for sending Ath to dig up claims on it!

Consequently, so long as he holds Sanaa, the capitol of Awardid, he wins eventually.

I could pack up my ships and try to take his capitol before he takes mine, but I doubt that will work.

My only two possible hopes are (1) he calls off the fight due to bankruptcy (but who knows how much gold he had to start with, or how far in the hole the game will allow him to go); or (2) Ath diplomats him far enough to call off the war because he likes me (but who knows whether that's even a game mechanic).

In late February, my beloved Saama started complaining about not being married though I had promised her I would find someone. I was waiting and hoping to find someone of great house who would marry with her as the heiress; but since she insisted, and since she seems rather taken with my Steward Ibrahim Tamird (and vice versa), and since marrying them would improve his stewardship a bit, thus costing me less money per month and allowing us to hold out against Awardid a little longer -- I gave my blessing. Everyone seems happy.

Awardid has improved their finances, too, a bit; now they're only losing 24.40 gold a month. COME ON ECONOMICS, I NEED A WIN HERE!

Ath makes a first diplomatic success, raising Faruk's opinion of me to 8, but that doesn't stop the war. He won't accept a white peace either (which admittedly would cost him in piety and prestige).

Meanwhile, over in Africa, King Rema of Ethiopia concludes a crushingly quick war against Gonder, taking it into the Abyssinian kingdom.

I wish I hadn't brought Ath's father-in-law into our war, because Kassala is just sitting there unable to do anything with its levies, being bankrupted at more than -5 gold lost per month. Sure, if Arwadid bankrupts faster (and the game even lets us win that way), he'll pick up major prestige for agreeing to help us, but still.

Dhofar, on the coast up in Arwadid, has set off another of its occasional peasant revolts. That will only help us, though how much so who knows?

So ends 791, with another signal diplomatic victory. Little Faruk now likes me 43 percent (max always seems 100 or -100 even if the numbers add up farther). Still not enough for him to call off the war, but I have hope because now when I go to diplomacy and offer peace "Enforce Demands" is available as an option! That wasn't true before; and moreover there are only 2 minuses to his refusal to accept demands, whereas (oddly) the white peace option has many more minuses because his warscore is already at 35%!

Go, Ath, Go! We can last another 158 months at this rate, or a little longer actually! How long can Arwadid last?!?

[JasonPratt]

Year 792
--------

While poking around early in the year, I realize Jabir, Mayor of
Tamrida, has used some of his own money to improve the city barracks all by himself. That's great -- you've always been loyal to me, Old Jabir (now 50 and looks 80), which is why I've got you leading a wing of our army in defense of our island, even though my opinion of you is terrible (-17, to his 92 of me). But I wish you had spent it on the toll booth, SIGH!

I also come to realize (when Ath's next success is actually to increase the opinion of the Sheik of Dhu Zabi, where the United Arab Emirates are today and the city of Dubai), that "Enforce Demands" wasn't a new option opened up, only pre-selected when I go to offer peace. Sigh. Still, it's my only real hope other than them running out of money.

On September 29 (Michaelmass), the little remaining sheikdom of Shirazid agrees to get drawn into the war over Arwadid; and the peasant rebellion in Dhofar is actually winning! The main castle of the county has almost been defeated, though the main city and mosque town are still in good shape. Why hasn't Dhofar mustered levies yet to solve this problem?? Weird.

So ends 792, with Emir Faruk 50% of the way toward winning his war by default -- even though at a -50.27 ducat defict per month he ought to be bankrupted long ago and unable to keep his war going.
 
Year 793
--------

On February 9, Adila daughter of Aram (a very pious man of much prestige in court, who always wanted to be grand vizier but just didn't have the talent for it), born 19 years ago, starts flirting heavily with me. I ignore her advances and gain 5 piety; and promptly marry her off to the Muslim commander of my armies, who apparently isn't Muslim since he's okay with marrying a Christian now (and cannot marry a similar Muslim woman due to game wonkiness).

Mayor Jabir dies of old age at the end of March, and I replace him with a good minor nobleman, Isir, who will be a better steward of the town anyway. He's also better at military matters, and I make sure to assign him to the Tamrid levies. (Oddly, I have been unassigned from the Bishopric levies, so I assign myself back.)

Old Spymaster Musa brings back some cultural tech points from Damascus in early May, though frankly I wish it had been economy tech which I need much more. But it allows me to bump my Tolerance up to level 2, which will help with my diplomatic efforts a little. (All other options would only help improve the opinion of various mayors in my counties toward me, which isn't of any use right now.)

On May 9, 793, the Viking Age begins. We've managed to survive into the 2nd level of the game, which may make our techs a little less expensive to upgrade now. Also I honor old Marshal Shaiban for his work in training our levies, without which we wouldn't be losing this war against Arwadid through default instead of by invasion! (Not actually sarcastic against Marshal Shaiban...)

On June 8, my wonderful grandaughter Rashida, whom I managed to forget existed, comes of age and reveals herself to be an underhanded rogue, which in this game isn't actually bad (though it tics off her martial skill slightly). Mainly it means she has a major uptick to her diplomacy stats (which due to other traits was only 10 before -- her traits are actually quite good but not much for diplomacy), and a slight increase in her sexual flirtiness. ;)

Sadly, there are still no noblemen around to whom I can marry her. Unless maybe that Sa'aadin guy? He's kicking quite a bit of butt among the Arwadid!

Back to being ill on July 6.

By August 15, I feel confident the game is flagrantly cheating, since Arwadid is hemorraging money at almost 60 gold per month by now and yet they can still afford to be at war -- even though they also seem paralyzed and unable to do anything about the peasant rebellion meandering around their southeastern coast.

Sept 23, well again, except for how sick I feel at the unfairness of the game: 61% warscore against me, just for holding the capitol.

So ends 793 as the broken pseudo-war continues.
 
Year 794
--------

Okay, as of Feb 11 my diplomatic efforts (after randomly focusing on a court poet sheik who hates my guts and is of no use in trying to solve the situation) have finally reached Emir Faruk for a third time, pushing his opinion of me up to 64. As a result, I could get a white peace if I asked for it, which will only tag him for prestige and piety (which he can easily afford to lose, GAWD he has 1080 prestige.) But now I want to see if I can get him to accede to my demands if I get his opinion of me higher still.

I've got a save back in 793 March (and also now in 794 after getting this diplomatic achievement), if this plan doesn't work out (which will be due to me trying to figure out how the game plays itself, bleh). I have a suspicion that if I can sucker his troops into invading and then bloody them up this will affect his willingness to surrender to my demands.

Shaiban gives me a 50% levy reinforcement rate for a couple of years in July.

And that ends Year 794.
 
Year 795
--------

I'll have to make a decision soon about whether to offer that white peace, because his warscore is now 81%.

Unfortunately, I'll probably have to take it, as Faruk just picked up the trait "Zealous" which knocks his opinion of me back 60 points to (4). DAMMIT! He's drinking 70.93 gold ducats a month being at war, and yet he can keep at it. Is this the game being bugged, or did he really have that much gold to start with?

Other than being able to upgrade the church taxation rate (not that this helps me much, but I'm down to losing only .63 gold per month), nothing else happens this year.
 
Year 796
--------

All right, enough of this crap. He's at warscore 96%, so I'm going to save the game and then temporarily disband my personal levies to see if I can get him to invade and then catch his troops when I raise my levies again.

Yep, that starts bringing them in. Let's see what kind of surprise awaits them or us...

Well, the first surprise is that when I raise my liege levies again, once the battle starts, all three of my armies seem to instantly converge in one army with no flankers, which is run by Aram my steward (of all people): a guy who has a military skill of 3!

We still win. But dang that was stupid.

Reload. (Though I may wish I had saved that win...)

The next time I start by disbanding everyone temporarily -- at which instead of invading, the Emir's fleet turns around and goes home! The hell!!

Reload.

Only dismiss my personal levies again; and the fleet turns around and goes home again. SIGH!

Reload.

Dismiss everyone again, and the Muslim fleet still goes home.

At this point I'm thinking of fleeting up and following them!

The rebel leader has taken over Dhofar and made a truce with Emir Faruk, splitting Arwadid in half, and leaving the whole eastern side rather weakened.





If I packed up some troops, I could probably snag a territory or two over there, and Arwadid wouldn't be able to do much about it (I think).

Fortunately, I realize the fleet was probably sailing home to top off with troops again, and that it'll be back now that peace has been made with the rebels on the mainland. But fine, I'll recover some gold for a month or two until they return. This will give me a chance to put my newly trained troops into my levy brigades -- the game doesn't let me assign them otherwise unless I disband and reform.

On Feb 6 the Emir's fleet is back and his troops dismount to attack. Time to form up!

 


A day later, his troops turn around and climb back on his ships, SIGH!

Really? -- only way to get him to fight me is to sucker him in with vassal levies and then send in my town levies led by ARAM OF ALL PEOPLE!? That seems like a horrible waste.

On April 1 his warscore is 100%. So what.

... HOLY CHRIST! WE WON!

I don't even know how. What the hell heaven? Emir Philemon the Just controls Sanaa?? That's unpossible! Did his country bankrupt out of the game? Did the bug run in my favor instead of his?!?

I enforce demands, he accepts.

I don't get the title of Emir of Arwadid (I guess), but he pays me back in lost gold. Man. I don't even.

I don't even feel like a won it. I mean, yes I feel like I won it: by all rights I should have out-economied him. But that doesn't seem to be what happened. The game seems to think I occupied the Sanaa capitol until he capitulated after several years.

...yeah, what about you over there Shirazid? You're in a war with Ethiopia right now aren't you?

[Martok]

Well that was an...interesting end to the war.  I've even less idea of what to make of it than you.  ??? 

Still, all's well that ends well -- at least for now.  Well done, Jason! 

[undercovergeek]

did he die?

[JasonPratt]

U'geek, nope, everyone is still totally alive.

My tentative guess is that, thanks to a bug, my vizier parked in Sanaa (their capitol) for diplomacy purposes counted as my army holding Sanaa despite a seriously large (for the region) real Arwadiddling army parked there, too. Maybe because my vizier is also my son and heir Athanasios?  ???

What should have happened is that they either quit the war early before they went bankrupt, suing for peace; or that they were forced to quit the war having gone bankrupt.

Or, okay, no, what should have happened was that they brought batches of troops to the nearest port city, so long as the batches were less than 900 men (and presumed support). They vastly outnumbered me but they lacked the galleys to invade me with more than 900 troops at a time; but they could have ferried them over in batches. Later when the peasant rebellion started up in Dhofur (or wherever that was), that wouldn't have been feasible; but had they done this from the beginning I would have been steamrolled.

Instead the computer got scared and parked his ship off the coast, until I tried leaving with some troops to draw him in -- and then he went back to top up his fleet with as many troops as he could carry. But it still wasn't enough numbers and quality to deal with the solid troops we had defending the island from a naval invasion (which has a couple of different severe penalties until the troops have been on land long enough to no longer count as a naval invasion.)

I pondered last night what to do next, reloading a few times to test gameplay theories. (I don't like doing that, but the game mechanics aren't documented enough for me to safely continue at this point without understanding them better.) I'll report this afternoon.

[JasonPratt]

Year 796 part 2
---------------

Now, I could fleet up and go stick my nose into what's happening in Zeila, Shirazid's last county, which is currently under assault by Ethiopia (a nominal ally of mine, sort of, who looks like he may also have a war on his northern border soon from another African Christian tribe); but I have a possibly more lucrative and evil righteously crazy plan.

What if I declare war back on Arwadid again? And then do that again and win? I'm the aggressor, does that mean I would actually get the whole duchy? And would that be exploiting the engine too much, offsetting one bug (he shouldn't be able to afford troops now) with another? Or, would doing so actually reverse the bug on me and now the game thinks he's sitting in MY capitol occupying it?

Some testing indicates that I can declare war on the Emir, we only made a truce; and I could do so over two different duchies, Oman and Sanaa. I could also declare war on the guy who took over a county of Oman and yet not declare war on Emir Faruk; but Faruk might come to his aid. (I could also give back some of his gold as a gift, sending his opinion of me up into the mid 70s, but he still wouldn't accept betrothal to my granddaughter, despite Rashida being pretty awesome -- but not Muslim.)

If I do go to war with the Emir again, I certainly shouldn't try to invade anywhere, since he'll only muster an army and thwomp me in that county several months later.

On the other hand, if I muster an army and go after the rebel in Dhofar, I'd probably need a lot more troops to fight him than I currently have, seeing as how he has a lot of garrisons at least. But then again, so long as I don't attack I could take them slowly -- he doesn't have any friends in the region, probably.

Testing indicates that declaring war on Emir Faruk, doesn't result in the same weird "Emir Philemon holds Sanaa" situation which was earning me 1.27% warscore every month. So I couldn't win that way. But I might eat his troops progressively if he sent them in galleys to my island. In order to do that, I would have to raise only my vassal levy troops at first in order to provide some initial resistance to his invasions, and then spot-raise my personal levies once the invasion is running. But then I would give up being able to assign a good leader to the combined army (much less multiple good leaders), because due to game engine limitations or problems they would all be regarded as under one leader whom the computer has persistently chosen to be Aram my cupbearer the least competent military leader in my court.

Still, I did win that way once (before a reload for further testing) without many casualties; after some initial archery skirmishing I killed his troops faster than he could retreat them back to his ships! Repeat 10 times, and he would have a lot of difficulty resisting any invasion from me anywhere on the mainland, so long as I took it slow and besieged his cities carefully. That would admittedly take so long per county that he could feasibly train enough more levies to make my invasion worthless; and even if I had enough gold to run almost 110 month (which I would, based on a test invasion of the weakest county over past Dhofar). But if I only went after his capitol county of Sanaa, I might be able to take all those cities before he could train more troops. And then... would that be it? Would I at least gain the duchy of Sanaa (not just the county)? Don't know. I do know I would have to strip my island of all defenses to try that, and even if I was sure he had no more levies at all to send, he could raise 400 guys during the three years I'm in Sanaa and carefully countersiege me back. Nor does that take into account THE GIANT EMPIRE ALLY OF HIS NEXT DOOR who might send any number of troops to ruin my day since Sanaa is on their border.

Another option is that I don't try to make war at all yet, but hang back and spend my war-won money upgrading my economy base.

I haven't decided what to do; I'm just spitballing ideas. Another war possibility, though, which would avoid the risk of pissing off the Abbasidian Superempire, would be to go after small independent duchies and petty kingdoms on the continent. Though I would still likely need to drain my defense troops to do so; and I might inadvertently trigger a counter war with Ethiopia. Or I could try sailing over to India and messing with petty kingdoms there, though that would seem to be pushing too far. (I can't go anywhere nearer without running into the Abbasids.)

I suspect militarily my best bet would be to go after Dhofar and hope Faruk likes me enough not to want to help the peasant rebel usurper there (or to invade me himself with a new war, though I don't think he can initiate one right now if he's bankrupt. Though I don't really know that for sure.)

For reference, here are some maps again:





Abyssinia (aka Ethiopia) has taken over Gojjam or Gondar or both since that last screenshot (I don't have my game loaded up right now to check), but otherwise the situation up there is about the same. The country outlined in yellow, Kassala, is an ally of mine; my son married the chief's daughter. He's probably bankrupt now, but could have picked up some prestige from agreeing to help me in my war with Arwadid even though all he did was take troops out of that Semien pocket up in the mountains and make it helpless if his ally Abyssinia decides to take it.

[JasonPratt]

Year 796 Part 3
---------------

Okay, overall my best shot at putting my troops to positive use anytime soon is to pack up my personal levies, along with all the galleys I can muster (because I'll need them all), and ship them to Dhofur to invade that guy before he gets his armies back (perhaps). If that triggers a counterwar by Emir Faruk again, well fine, let him destabilize his country further, I'll send everyone home again to await his arrival.

Scetara my beloved little spawn of Satan, who has a surprisingly high opinion of me all things considered (and who hasn't tried to kill any of her siblings since her nanny tumbled to her death, perhaps not-incidentally), comes of age in May and mutates from a retarded girl of no skills at all into a fine princess. I promptly marry her off to King Afework (??) of the petty African kingdom of Shewa, which also allies me with them. If she brings about the apocalypse, she'll do so in a very weak land where she can't cause too much trouble and two or three fairly strong nations nearby can put her down perhaps -- while being weakened in the process of course. Possibly with military help from me if necessary, as I'm allied with at least one of those kingdoms (Kassala) already. On the other hand, if Ethiopia keeps doing their steamroll thing, I'll get causus belli with them and maybe can gin up a confederation to stop them.

This looks like the best possible way to both neutralize and make good use of my little Tyke Bomb. YOU GO, GIRL! GO AWAAAAYYYY!! (They get a June wedding, awww...)

On May 27, Nejin Hadareb, the new young wife of my son Athanasios, dies after a period of illness. sigh. I don't know who else is around I could feasibly marry him to.

I had to reload at one point because I didn't understand the war declaration rules properly and ended up with my little army sitting in Dhofar doing nothing for a month while I was unable to declare war; first because I had armies in the territory I wanted to declare war with (huh??) and second because I had raised levies already in order to fight the war I wanted to declare (HUHSH?!?) Sending my troops back to the boat didn't help; but I may have lost by the reload because I originally had scored a couple of further diplomatic coups with Emir Faruk and in the original version Ath's wife hadn't died. Oh well. Fortunately there's another decent wife nearby, a Nubian countess named Maria Eionkoudid, whom I promptly arrange him another marriage with. Meanwhile my awesome granddaughter Rashida has no one yet, sigh.

At about the time my troops make landfall, Ath scores a diplomatic coup with Faruk after all, so everything's okay there. Dhofar has a larger army than mine parked next door (in very weak Duqm), just standing there not doing anything which is weird. I promptly start a careful siege of their capitol city the castle Salalah. My morale isn't all that great to begin with (having just been on boats for a few days, you wimps), but unless he sends his troops home to help he's going to lose. Faruk doesn't seem to care yet, but he's busy helping Shirazid defend their last county against Ethiopia again.




There's the situation. I can't decide if this is another weird computer bug; or if they're waiting to recover all his troops from assaulting Arwadiddian counties northward before he smites me; or if the general quality of my troops are scaring him off; or if he's waiting to see if I unwisely hurry a siege and bleed off my troops first.

Before I save for the night, I remember that my two sons -- now spared from Scetara apparently(?) -- Doommed and Al'sodoommed, need guardian/tutors. Ath and his daughter Rashida are by a good margin the best candidates, other than my wife Gen whom I don't know whether I can trust in such matters anymore; so I assign the two boys between them.

[JasonPratt]

Year 796 Part 4
---------------

Jesus (or Issi in Arabic, right?), it's only July 1 this year...

I've had vassal levies out for too long (even though it's only ships right now), so my two barons (or the local cultural equivalent) are starting to get slightly peeved (-1) every month. Not a problem for the bishop, as he's well over 100, but the new mayor of Tamrida only likes me 18 points. I grant him cupbearer, that guy having died a while back; this improves him a bit.

By mid-July, a large squad of Faruk's troops (6 light infantry, 6 heavy, 2 pikemen, 2 light cav, and 1 archer) are passing through Dhofar on their way to Duqm next door where that mass of Dhofarians are standing around not protecting Dhofar from my sieging. Samir waves at them as they trot by. By August 1st, my troops are well recovered from their few days on the ocean and are basically camping out around the city toasting hot dogs while we wait for the castle garrison to decide they've satisfied their honor sufficiently to surrender. A nice polite minimal casualty war so far. Once we've built our siege weapons around mid-August, the enemy morale starts to drop faster, but as of Sept 22 we're still likely to be here at the castle another 150 days or thereabouts; or sometime in February. We could technically try an assault right now, but our losses would be grossly high. Before my siege units were finished (though the on-map siege graphic always shows a trebuchet) the game showed a somewhat longer time before a siege could be feasibly attempted. At the time it was 67 days, which by Sept 22 we're well into but I don't think we could have passed it yet -- but I don't know because the game designers forgot to include that running total after siege engines were completed.

Another round of illness starts Dec 12 -- will this be the crud that kills me? Down to 24.6% morale at Salalah; at a loss of 4.4% every 12 days, that's another 67 days to go. Will Sheik Sa'daddin do anything to save his little county before then?

Speak of the devil! -- Dec 16 starts the fight!




He outnumbers me, and can pit three fronts against me (with variable generals each way). The first round isn't going so badly, considering I have only 173 archers (though most are on horse, I think, with only 18 on foot, so that helps) and he has SIX HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN! That's a large proportion of his full 1370 (at this point), so if I can close in I'll smack him hard -- which my 117 camels will certainly help with. Right now though Samir has chosen to go with a shieldwall tactic during the skirmish phase while most of Sa'd's troops are busy volley harassing me (central and on my right) as Sad himself feints on my left.

Unfortunately, he murders me badly: his archers are able to eat my morale down far enough, and Samir never bothers to try more than a shieldwall, so Sad can then overrun Samir and destroy his army utterly. No survivors (except Samir, somehow). The AI played me very well.

I call the fleet home and disband them. Starting the next month in March I'm back to a 2.47 gold income per month; and I have enough gold left over from my goofyass war with Faruk to start upgrading the city of Tamrida to having toll booths. A couple of years from now, that will give me +3 gold a month. sigh. I could have been halfway there by now, and still with all my levy troops, plus almost 2.5 gold per month meanwhile, had I just stayed home.

By May 6 I'm back to my usual health. Still alive, Saddaddyo! I'll be back someday when you can't afford it! Actually, since we're still at war, and he hasn't upgraded his county much, I'm earning about 6 times as much profit as he is, so I ought to recover much faster: but if I don't bring significantly more archers it won't make any difference!

On May 15, Athansios and his (3rd) wife Maria finally have a son! So unless Scetara returns to murder him (I wonder how things are going over there in that subkingdom of the Abyss, heh heh), the game will continue. They want to name him Philemon, and I Philemon am entirely okay with that.

[JasonPratt]

Year 797
--------

Actually we're already well into May at this point, but where I stopped last night seemed to be best.

Upon loading I'm informed that my vassals have deducted 2 opinion from me for keeping levies out too long, which makes no sense as I disbanded all levies a while back. I could better imagine them being pissed that I killed off all my own troops. I double check; no levies out at all. Maybe the game just means I built up -2 total resentment from levies so far, and enough time hasn't passed for that to go away yet.

I manage to negotiate a marriage for awesome granddaughter Rashida with the young prince who is heir to the petty kingdom of Gondar over on the continent -- largely swallowed by Ethiopia, but now aligned with them. Not sure what to do if Gondar calls for aid, ba-dump-tish. But any children will be heirs on her side of the family, so Ath as her father may have a claim on Gondar eventually.

By early September, the game seems to be getting bored with my non-war with Dhofar and starts tacking a 5% penalty against my warscore. Which is reasonable of course, but it means that unless Sa'd sends his army out to get massacred somewhere else I'm not going to win, since he can slaughter my troops with massed archers: a point I have certainly taken note of for future reference! -- but which I can do nothing about for a long time.

This does finally explain the super-bizarre ending to my defensive war against Emir Faruk, though. The game said I was winning because I held "Sanaa", and I couldn't figure out how that was possible because OBVIOUSLY Faruk held that county, his capitol; which is why I thought the game really meant he was winning (until I won).

What the game meant, not very clearly, is that I held the DUCHY of Sanaa. Which I didn't, I still only held our little island of Socotra, but that's part of the de jure Duchy of Sanaa, over which Faruk had been pushed by his courtiers (I suppose) into a war with me. The designers didn't provide any way for the game to distinguish this better, other than to say I held Sanaa.

Similarly now, I'm going to start taking 5% warscore damage per month because Sa'd still holds "Oman", meaning the DUCHY of Oman, over which we're having a holy war. Of course he only holds one county of that de jure dukedom (or the Middle Eastern equivalent thereof), but that's how the game distinguishes it.

I would try to go for a white peace now, since I can't afford a "surrender", but that wasn't an option even back after I lost my whole army; so I don't know what I'm going to do.

A Sunni uprising is afflicting parts of the Ethiopian coast at the mouth of the Red Sea, but I don't have enough levy troops rebuilt yet to go help with that. I'll be watching to see if I have any hope of swooping in afterward to take some Sunni territories though if they win. For whatever it's worth, old Marshal Shaiban has kicked levy reinforcements into 50% overgear.

So ends 797.

[JasonPratt]

Year 798
--------

We start the year with a downtick of my warscore to -71%. By the end of the year I don't know what's going to happen. I hope we can afford to surrender!

I don't understand the spytech issues. Supposedly Old Spymaster Musa should be improving our Light Infantry tech 9% a year (or 8.4% now since he's getting a bit old and ill), by stealing it from Damascus (where he's currently posted), thus reducing our eventual buy cost for it. I haven't seen that nudge up even a little yet, though. Town infrastructure and trade practices are still at 1.6 each also. I'll try to remember to keep him parked in Damascus for a while; if I see no improvement by Jan 799 I'll know something is foofed in the game code.

By July, the peasant revolt on the Ethiopian coast is over; as I should have reasonably expected, Ethiopia won. No opportunities for me there.

On Jul 17, my first daughter Saama bint Yahballaha died after a period of illness, probably meaning pregnancy. She was only 24. This especially hurts because she had happily married Ibrahim Tanrid, my Steward, who has a great diplomacy score but not so great stewardship, which Saama was helping with. I promptly spend 20 gold or so to impress a young Nubian (nubile? :D ) financial genius to move to the Soctran court (she couldn't quite edge over to marrying Ibrahim otherwise) and marry them off by late October.

Thus ends 788.
 
Year 789
--------
Something is definitely screwy with the spymaster tech engine, or else I don't understand it properly. Light infantry research ought to have advanced AT LEAST 8 percent by now, but it hasn't advanced at all. Neither has town infrastructure or trade practices.

I'm dropping a line to the Steam forums to see if anyone else has noticed this, or to get advice if I'm doing or understanding the mechanics wrong -- but I don't understand how I can be misunderstanding the mechanics here. ;) A possibly-over-quick scan of the Paradox CK2 forum doesn't seem to indicate such a problem.

On April 1 (I seem to recall this happening on April 1 last time, too, which makes me a bit suspicious of an in-game joke?), the Iconoclast sect of Orthodoxy dwindled away again so that Orthodoxy is orthodoxy again and iconoclasm is a heresy. Not that this affects me at all; it's just interesting to see that dispute go sailing past during game-span. :)

My toll booth system in Tamrida was completed; but it only added 3 gold a year not 3 a month. Which is admittedly more reasonable, but disappointing.

Around mid-July, Mayor Isa of Tamrida decides he's had enough of Marshal Shaiban messing with levy reinforcements, and sets up a bureaucratic campaign to undermine troop training by 200% until December. sigh.

All right, it's September and our warscore is at 95%. My levies haven't fully recovered yet, but my only hope is to try running my main levies back to Dhofar and then quickly reinforce them with vassal levies who will have most of my archers.

This only has any chance of working if Sa'd has sent his armies somewhere else and gives me some time to overcome the morale issues inherent in landing troops by boat. He has levies in his cities for sure, but not so much that our mission is impossible from the outset.

Unfortunately, some cheap scouting by galley (before raising my troop levies) show his army is still just standing there waiting for me -- not counting levy reinforcements. With them outnumbering me, and out archering me, and with morale hits from a sea invasion, I'd be slaughtered pronto.

So, I send the fleets home and disband them again. Crap. I'll lose the war a few months later.

On Nov 13, Old Spymaster Musa dies of severe stress. Maybe that's why he wasn't providing the tech research anymore? His son Muslihiddin ibn Musa has always wanted to be spymaster, and unfortunately I can't appoint his mother, even though she would be a little more effective; but he's only a point or so worse than his Dad and that could improve over time. I find him a good intrigue wife and send him out to return with tech!

So ends 799.
 
Year 800
--------

This'll be a harsh year {shaking head}. I'm going to start off out of the gate (or on Feb 1 actually) losing my war with S'ad, which will bankrupt me and hit my prestige hard, too.

At -53 gold, I'll need a little more than a year and a half to break even again. sigh. My prestige and my piety both chunk down strongly, too (though my piety remains ungodly strong. Um, so to speak.)

One of my main generals, Samir Samarid, dies in bed of old age around the beginning of June. I blame you for our loss in Dhofar, Samir. You should have charged those archers a lot sooner. (And, um, I should have supplied you more troops especially since that would have reduced your relative deficit of archers a lot. Sorry.) Being a good Nestorian I pray for his Muslim soul.

My "learning" ambition seems to be following a track of carousing with monks. Hopefully this doesn't end with me being a drunkard later.

On July 13... the hell?

Caliph Ismail, Emir of Medina and cupbearer of the Arabian Empire, declares war on me. Fine, you old coot, bring it.



Medina is no small kingdom in the Arabian (or a little more properly the Abbasidian) Empire. You can see it outlined in yellow up there. If he has enough ships I'm in big trouble, probably game ending trouble. If his liege the Emperor decides to gang on, well it's only a matter of time then.

It's kind of weird, because he has sympathy for both Judaism and Christianity, and if he hadn't declared war on me he'd have a 30 opinion of me -- and still has 10!

On August 19, he brings an Emir of Damascus into war with me, but he's only the court musician (though heir to a sheikdom somewhere). Emir Umarahid of the Emirate of Tigris is rather more of a problem. Al-Hasan 2 Taid Emir of Jerusalem piles on, too. And Muhammad the Emir of Syria.

Out of those, the only ones who might have galleys who can reach me (or at all) are Medina and Tigris; it doesn't matter how many troops are raised, unless they can be put into ships properly, and that remains to be seen. Things aren't entirely hopeless yet.

As of Dec 15, none of his allies have contributed a drop yet, which is kind of hilarious; also he appears to be in revolt against his own Emperor as part of an alliance (likely with those other nits). This should be amusing!




Maybe I should levy up some galleys and go scout his coastline for vulnerable areas? -- crap, no can't do that yet, I'm bankrupt. Sigh.

It might not matter. A few days later on Dec 12,    TWENTY FIVE GALLEYS park off the island and disgorge some camel jockeys.

Don't know how many that counts as, yet, but this is probably game over.





I call up the levies anyway of course, assign proper wings and commanders, and pray for a miracle.

On Dec 28 they finish landing and the battles start on the beaches. My left and right flanks immediately rout, though that's understandable since the enemy comes in with no center.




By Jan 1 things aren't utterly worse yet, though the skirmish phase is still going on and my left wing is being run down by cavalry. Fortunately I (Philemon the general) am currently hallucinating that I'm visiting a hermit's cave to learn wisdom, so the shock isn't too bad.

So ends year 800.
 
Year 801
--------

On Jan 6 or thereabouts my wings totally fail, and the enemy converges on my center, outnumbering me 2 to 1. The only good news is that their morale is substantially worse than mine. But mine is starting to fail.





As might be expected, their archers are simply murdering me. But hey, by Jan 10 I have managed to badger my imaginary hermit into teaching me an endless stream of platitudes and maxims as my hopes for the future collapse around me!

By Jan 15 it's all over but the sobbing and probably the raping and burning.




The besieging army's morale is still bad, 33.7%, but they'll regain 11.2% a week if they just sit around, and they have no good reason to do otherwise.

[undercovergeek]

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[JasonPratt]

Not necessarily game over, but only if the game burps up a reprieve. Which it might, if the Abbasidian revolters think they need those troops on the mainland more than slowly chewing their way through three cities on a podunk island off the coast of Africa.

Another possibility might be to swear fealty to someone else. Though I'm unsure whether this is allowed if I'm at war, and whether the game would even let me continue -- it should, I could start as a count or a duke with a liege, but we'll see.

I'm surprised I lasted this long, really.

[JasonPratt]

Year 801
--------

By Mid-January, the revolting fleet has sailed away, leaving around 2050 combat troops and their support camped around Qualnisiyah our capitol fort city. Our morale has started dropping already, but they will need most of a year to bring us to capitulation; and still will then need to take our other two cities. Unless they try a direct assault later.

We cannot submit to another stronger nation for protection while we are already at war; and we have no strength to throw them off the island. Our only hope is for political fortunes elsewhere to lead the troops to evacuate in order to meet a greater threat. Relatedly, my diplomatic genius son and heir, Athanasios, promptly moves to Mecca (where I should have sent him months ago when the Abbasidian Revolt started) to try to improve the Emir's opinion of us enough for him to call off the assault.

Old Marshal Shaiban rallies the people in a masterful way, increasing our levy reinforcements by 50% for a year in early April. But I can't see how it will possibly make any difference.

Galleys return and depart again in late April, bringing reinforcements for the invaders, now numbering around 3300. This will reduce their normal siege time, and also increase their ability to overrun us more quickly should they so choose.

Ath continues his brilliant career with an early diplomatic success leading Emir Ismail to favor us more. Scouts give the impression the besiegers seem a tad less by early June; possibly some have died of natural causes.

Adila keeps trying to seduce me, which is especially inappropriate in our circumstances! I continue to refuse.

Our old friendly adversary, Sheikh Talib of Taizz, one of the pretender heirs to the Arwadiddian throne, dies of natural causes in mid-August. He was 63. I pray for his soul as a good Christian would, and wonder if we shall meet in paradise soon.

Morale has already depleted to almost nothing in the city; and yet our continued defiance has actually improved our relative warscore slightly! In a hundred and sixty months I might even win, ha ha!

Soon afterward, the invaders (now down to a mere 3245) win the siege of our capitol fortress. The city of Tamrida will fall more quickly, despite having twice as many troops to resist them.

Old Marshal Shaiban will not live to see us fall. He dies a natural death of grief. I appoint prince Haeran Zagwe of Gondar as our new marshal. GONDAR CALLS FOR AID! -- that isn't going to work.

Sheik Mukhtar ibn Talb of Taizz, decides to do what his father would not and raise rebellion against his liege. This will likely end soon in defeat.

Tamrida falls in early December; only Qadub our temple city remains. This will take longer, as the church is easier to defend and has more troops, but the end is nigh.

And nigher than it seems: the old bishop, hoping to spare our people further hardship, surrenders on December 25, regarded as the day of Christ's birth by some of our brethren. The Muslims, respecting the Prophet Issi as they regard him, accept the surrender. I die from shame; or perhaps I quietly take a place as a beggar in the streets, to finish the brevity of my life in the island I was privileged to guard as the last, and only, Nestorian king.

[JasonPratt]

Post-mortem
--------------

I'm fuzzy about what I could have done better, under the circumstances of this particular game. I started off with some real advantages in culture and economics, and those helped me pick up a standard level of military capability quickly, as well as upgrading most of my economic and cultural tech to level 2 eventually. I started with three cities, each of one of the three types, so I had a good spread of opportunities there and didn't have to build anything from scratch in that regard. Several facilities in each city had already been upgraded to level 2 when I started the game.

Still:

1.) I lacked galleys. This is completely bizarre for an island nation, especially as a Nestorian culture would have kept a lot of the older Greco-Roman tech (which historically got handed to the Muslims so far as they wanted any of it). Without galleys I couldn't aid Christian semi-allies on the mainland against Muslim aggression, nor could I try to recover any of the Horn of Africa myself -- particularly the small Berber kingdom which would have given me two more counties to work with.

2.) Archery superiority wins heavily. I don't know that I should have, or even feasibly could have, upgraded my light infantry techs and buildings to make more archers, but I will certainly keep that in mind for any future playstarts.

3.) Quantity is its own quality. (See also archery superiority.) Small independent factions are likely to be overrun quickly unless, as we were, they are insulated from invasion by a lack of ships able to bring troops. This is really the only reason we lasted as long as we did. But it was also a main reason why I thought we could last long enough for me to practice the game mechanics on a small nation -- and that turned out to be true.

4.) By the same token, had I not felt like I should be role-playing a the last Nestorian king, I would have been well advised to offer fealty to the king of Abyssinia immediately, or if not him some other strong Christian kingdom on the African mainland within diplomatic reach. As a "Nestorian", and the last such ruler in the world (maybe the only one who had ever existed), I didn't think that it would be psychologically proper to submit to a "Miaphysite" ruler; but I, or my heirs, might have lasted far longer had I done so.

5.) It's possible that I was distracted a little by the Antichrist plot, even though that turned out better than I was afraid it would. But it turned out better largely (perhaps??) because I sent my spymaster home to help put a murder plot into action, and that took several years of him not helping my research (assuming that mechanic isn't broken as evidence later suggested). But that was partly because I didn't understand the plot mechanics: a plot has NO CHANCE AT ALL OF EVEN STARTING until its power reaches 100%, though it could be vulnerable in several ways. I should have assigned enough people, which I certainly could have done, to get 100% immediately.