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

Started by JasonPratt, October 15, 2014, 09:23:23 PM

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JasonPratt

With the new patch and DLC for Crusader Kings 2 now released, I'm taking my first serious stab at getting into the game.

But since this is my first serious stab, I won't be running a narrative AAR as might be expected (especially from me, and especially with this game). Mainly I'm just going to fish for gameplay answers I haven't been able to find on the web yet, and also for advice on my position as I go.

My operating theory for learning the game has been to choose an independent county or small duchy in an out-of-the-way corner of the map, one which will need lots of growth (so I'll have some things to do) but which on the other hand doesn't have a lot of options yet (so that I can stay focused on figuring out what can and should be done) nor is likely to be bothered yet.

I was originally going to play as the Count of the Faeroes, north of Scotland, who only has one little island cluster (counting as only one territory), and had actually started a narrative AAR as Sigurdthr from an Old Gods bookmark (before the Charlemagne release) since she's one of the few female chieftains available so early in the game (or at all); but when the DLC finally released she wasn't a playable character farther back (as expected, naturally) and the religion there was Catholic now (which I certainly don't mind but which I know from Wiki research was certainly false for this time period, the Norse overran the area before the OG start date but they didn't overrun a Christian settlement), so that soured me a bit on re-starting there.

I thought very hard about playing the last king of the Jews, at the headwaters of the Nile -- I think his name is Phineas at the earliest bookmark -- since that would be a very colorful and historically interesting position, protected and yet also a bit threatened by the surrounding Ethiopian Christian tribes, and he certainly has a lot of room on tech to grow. But then as I was mousing around to get an idea of his extended neighbors I saw an odd splash of color in the sea off the Horn of Africa.

There I found, very unexpectedly, the last king of the Nestorians.



There's the island of Socotra.




And there's the island of Socotra again in relation to as much of the world as the window can show at once.

(Or not quite, as I ticked the resolution a down a bit from the maximum 1080 so I could run the game in a window -- fullscreen allows alt-tabbing out, but not the normal screenshotting command. If there's an alternate command in CK2, I don't know what it is yet.)

Spoiler: I chose to play as Philemon of Socotra. Just because that little island is also known as the Yahballaha Emirate is not a laughing matter!

Okay, it sounds like a laughing matter, I'll grant you that. ;)

(I think it means YH the Lord in Judeo-Christian Aramaic, btw. But that's admittedly an educated guess.)

Some quick background for situational context...

....
.........

Wait, there's no way to give a quick background. Sorry. I legitmately tried and it ran for ten pages.

Um. Summary. Nestorians are trinitarian Christians who, rather like the "miaphysites" in the game (mostly along the west coast of the Red Sea, and up in the Armenian region), split off from central orthodoxy (now the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodoxy, both in game at this point and in modern history, but back then still one Imperial group) over mutual misunderstandings about what each side was saying in subtle disputes over how the two natures of Christ, divine and human, related to each other in Jesus. (All three sides mostly reconciled on our Christological issues a few decades ago, or at least the two wings did with the two central orthodox groups, not sure if the wings did with each other. Long story.)

They had a vastly huge though not numerically very successful evangelical reach, all the way out to China and even to Japan for a few months, and liked to share culture with the non-Christian groups along the way, being generally unjudgmental about the religious differences. (Possibly because, like the misaphysites, they came from strongly universalistic Christian teachers, in their case Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mospuestia who in their days were key champions of trinitarian orthodoxy, too.)

Unfortunately, they never gained any political power as a group (though they had a lot of influence as intellectuals and professional scholars, starting the West's and maybe the world's first medical university in Nisibis for example); so they got caught unable to defend themselves between the crushing juggernauts of Muslim conquest from the south and Mongol expansion from the north (or the equivalent of that for the time period; I forget if they were actually Mongols yet) -- though they came within an ace of convincing one of the main Khans to convert to Christianity. (Later one of his descendants converted to Judaism, and you can play him from an Old Gods bookmark start I think, though most of his area isn't Jewish per se and he doesn't claim Jewish descent like the Solomonids down in the mountains of Ethiopia.)

So while there are still a ton of miaphysite areas at the earliest point of CK2, including some dukes and small kings down along the Red Sea (not to be confused with the lone remaining Jewish king down there, though he's very kewl also and obviously related to the situation), there aren't many Nestorians anymore, even this relatively early, and most are ruled by Muslim emirates and the local Caliph up in what's now northern Iraq.




They're the five counties in the red hash under the fog of war in the middle. Yep, that's Mosul and a few other names familiar to us in modern times right now! Baghdad and Rayy are white because for some reason they're holy sites for Nestorians in the game -- I don't know the historical rationales, though I suspect Nisibis (which aside from being one of the world's first scientific research centers was also one of early Christendom's first four seminaries for instructing Christian teachers) is down there. (The Nestorians had to move it from Edessa, if I recall correctly, out of the Eastern Empire during the mutual backbiting. Again, long story.)

As might be expected we also like Alexandria and Antioch (where the two largest first Christian seminaries were located, both of which the Nestorians have strong historical connections to, even though they ended up rivals of Alexandria), and Jerusalem (duhhhhh). If we can BY SOME MIRACLE WHICH WON'T AT ALL INVOLVE ME HACKING THE GAME CODE BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW HOW FOR THIS GAME somehow pick up those territories we'll gain massive religious influence for spreading our slightly different version of trinitarian orthodoxy again. (And, by the way, Christian universalism.  :smitten: )

But those are the last Nestorians. Except for down south, in the little island emirate of Yahballaha.


Anyway, that's why even though I'm not Nestorian in real life I'm a bit jazzed about finding that the new DLC with its older bookmark provides an opportunity to play the last Nestorian king, off on his little island where the Muslims can't get to him yet, the final tiny remnant of a vast missionary push that originally dwarfed the whole of the Roman Empire -- and faced with the annoying prospect of having to team up with the Miaphysites (in this case the Ethiopians) to deal with the nearby Muslim counts and dukes (especially since they tend to be pirates).

Next up, I'll go into actual detail about what I've been up to since gamestart -- as the screenies show, I've run a few months already -- and I'll ask my first big question about how to proceed. I imagine I'm going to have to live for a while with having chosen my first ambition poorly, but I want to know how to even try getting a set of the other ones when-if-ever I get a chance.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

undercovergeek

Awesome, I love this kind of stuff that ck2 throws up

Has great tale potential JP

One thing, do you have a navy? 

JasonPratt

Yes, I know some players complain that having India around breaks the game somehow, but I love having the extra corners like that: I wish I knew more about Indian history so I could recognize little details plopped in and say, hey, this place had an interesting backhistory and coulda-shoulda been a contender, and now we can give it a try! Similarly, I'm glad the western coasts of North Africa, down below the Muslim areas (currently), are available for playing: I'd like to start a campaign to unify Mali and see what could be done from there.

That being said, I have literally no idea whether this little Nestorian Emir is historical or if a designer at Paradox just thought it would be nifty to tuck him in there.  ::)


Right, so, navy: no, at the moment I can't levy any kinds of troops at all, including navy. Don't know why and that would be another question, soon, because I'm off the coast of several pirate factions, and if I'm going to try to recover the bedouin lands of Arabia (being king of Arabia is one of the long-term super ambitions) I'm definitely going to need ships.

Interestingly, Yahballaha has almost the maximum tech level of any faction for this startpoint: level 1 everything in culture and economy (level 2 on any of that would incur over 75% extra research cost for being ahead of the time period), and they're close to finishing research on the next/first level of everything else. Though this may explain why I can't levy anything, because strictly speaking they don't have level 1 military tech on anything yet. Still, shouldn't I be able to levy pre-1 troops?? And they didn't get out on that island by swimming. Hell, the Faeroes on an Old Gods start have a 1-1/2 naval level, probably because they're descended from Viking invaders from the south (ironically, not from Norway though both waves of settlers came from Norway originally), AND THEY HAVE NO TREES TO BUILD SHIPS WITH!  :2funny: Which led me to infer that their fishing/whaling ships were always getting old and worn out, and wealthy families were sending occasional buying parties south to Scotland and Ireland to buy new ships with whalebone ivory for trade. (The new young chieftainess knows a lot of the wild stories told by the occasional merchant and from similar trips, must likely be true because those impossible "trees" are clearly real -- that's how she parses the bits of Christianity that arrived on the islands via trading families a generation and a half earlier, too: the god was once a man, or vice versa, who worked with wood and died on something like a ship mast. Right, but I'm not playing that game now, don't get distracted...  :crazy2: )

I'll post up some tech shots later this afternoon/tonight. The rest of the family is off on holiday so I'll have a lot of undisturbed time this weekend.  :coolsmiley: (Unless the nieces take pity on me and invade, though that would be nifty so I wouldn't complain.)

ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Post 2

A few incidental notes first. F11 is how to take screenshots in game, so I could stop using the window now (and go full 1080) if I wanted to; but I like having the window open on the desktop for reference and mousing around, even though it makes screenshots a little more difficult for me to properly trim.

Also, despite my recent complaints somewhere (not upthread apparently...?), CK2 does now have a clear way to load saved games from the main screen. Not sure how long that's been there, but whatever I'm glad to see or find it.

To recap what I told U'geek earlier today, I have no navy and can't apparently get one if I needed it. I was wrong about not being able to raise any land troops either, but in my defense the relevant buttons looked just as greyed out. I can raise 724 troops from desmesne levies, or 89 instead (?) from vassals. I think if I raise more from the demesne than the total possible from my vassals (6 from one and 83 from another if I wanted to raise levies from specific people), they'll have none to contribute themselves. So in this case financially it would be better to raise the first 89 troops from them, and then the remainder from the demesne generally (since then they'd be obligated to pay upkeep on the 6 and the 83 respectively) -- BUT politically it would be better for me to raise them from the domain (since I hate typing that other word ;) ) instead, so as not to annoy those two vassals, one of whom has a fairly shallow opinion of me anyway.





I'm ignoring the two available merc groups right now, as I have no particular use for them and couldn't afford them anyway. They're from different parts of Ethiopia for what it's worth.

I could also (theoretically) create (and later add to) a retinue, which in this game means the professional permanent army loyal to me directly (while domain levies are loyal to me directly but aren't as permanent or necessarily as professional). I can have multiple retinue companies based on military tech and maybe some other factors, but they're also more expensive to buy up front. Maybe to upkeep, too, I haven't checked; there's also a reinforcement cost, which has to start being paid immediately for training for finding and hiring troops into whatever company I build, on top of the institution cost, which in any case is prohibitive as I don't have anywhere near enough gold for even the cheapest such company. Also, each company of retinue troops uses some of my retinue capacity, of which I only have 22, which is ludicrously not enough for even the smallest retinue company.

None of that matters, though, since I can't build ships (including not a personal flotilla for my retinue), so I'd just have a hilarious camel icon (representing the best units I'm currently capable of in the group if I raised a levy from the county) standing around on the island near my researching counsel.



There's the fleet tab; as you can see it's quite similar except no ships are listed as available, whether from my vassals or from my domain generally (or from mercs). How that's even possible for an island nation I have no idea.

My guess at the moment is that my shipbuilding tech is only at 91% right now and currently growing at 7.2% a year, 4.5% of which is coming from my spymaster if I understand the rollover correctly. It also says my other councilors are adding 60% but doesn't give a rate, so... whatever.





"Shipbuilding" is the next to last tech in the left column.

When that fills up... well I don't know, do I get it automagically? Or do I have to spend tech points on it anyway?



My educated guess is that I can upgrade to the next level any time I want if I have enough tech points to spend, which right now I have only 1.44 and I nominally need 100, BUT since I've researched 91% I only have to pay 9 and would theoretically have to pay none at full research, BUT since the next level of shipbuilding tech would be ahead of the curve for this time period there's an 18.7% penalty. So 9 points times 1.187 = 10.683, which doesn't seem quite close enough to the actual current cost of 10.089 (even if the 91% is rounded off from a fraction), but flatly adding 18.7 points (as a percentage of the base cost) would be 27.7 points of cost to buy.

Anyway, more importantly that would get me only LEVEL ONE shipbuilding tech, which any island nation really ought to have already, specifically a shipyard unlocked for any city, temple, or castle in the county (assuming the appropriate coastline or large river I guess). Do I have to add that to my properties, though, or do they add automatically at that point?? My guess at the moment is that they add automatically, but either way this probably explains why I can't raise ships yet, which is retarded for this little nation. It's also slightly retarded that this tech would also give me a .9% addition of some kind (speed of production? strength?) to my galleys, AS THOUGH I CAN ALREADY BUILD THEM AND THIS WOULD BE AN IMPROVEMENT, WHEN THE GAME PREVENTS ME FROM BUILDING THEM BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE THE TECH, ARGH! Craziness. Maybe the addition comes from another factor though. The only drawback to the rollover tabs is that the game doesn't provide a way to get more rollover explanations about their information.

As it happens, the island of Socotra has already been developed to have (what looks like) a fort as its capital city, Qualnsiyah; and two other settlements, a bishopric of Qadub, and the city of Tamrida.

 


And there it is. I seem to recall in the previous version before the new update, this view would show the population instead of the supply, but whatever.

My chief immediate enemy on the map is likely to be whoever thinks they own the Emirate of Sanaa, since the Shiekdom of Socotra (not to be confused with my Emirate of Yaballaha which would include whatever I pick up eventually) is traditionally part of that small but larger Emirate. Currently that's Emir Yazd of the Arwadid Emirate. Note that our personal Emirates aren't necessarily equivalent to any larger or smaller emirates we may be laying claim to. Unfortunately I have no claims on anything other than my island right now; and I'm not sure I want to play the 'forging documents' angle.

Here's what the local potential dukedoms look like on the map.




The colors are variations of the basic color of the religion of the person with the current best claim on the ducal territories, which is why our little island is Muslim green like the rest of Sanaa.

You may notice that the actual holding-lines don't necessarily match up with the ducal territories -- some are actually claimed as such by a duke or emir or whatever, and some are only potentially a coherent region. The game treats those areas as having once been solid regions of administrations in the past so that someone could try to become duke of Medina or of Oman again (if they aren't already) by taking the appropriate territories. (Medina and Oman are to the left and right of Sanaa, going around the Arabian peninsula, but from this camera position their dukedom names don't fully show up.)

From this map distance, you might be able to see that Emir Yazd currently owns all of Sanaa except for us, and has started picking up part of Oman. (His border color pattern looks very similar to whoever is holding the Berbera region, but that's someone else not him. They're potentially an enemy, too, though.)

Okay, if I zoom in a notch further, the fog of war kicks into play but the individual counties also map up.





And there you can see Yazd has taken control of Mahra. His capitol county is in the upper left portion of his region, Sanaa, though the fog makes it smudgy in this screenshot. It's south of Asir.

You may notice one of his counties is brighter green than the others, like Mahra except not so smudgy. That's because at the beginning of my game I sent my grand vizier Akin there to improve relations with us.



Why? Mainly because Akin is the only counselor who is completely useless at improving my tech so I wanted to put him to work elsewhere, and I'd personally rather improve relations than forge claims or sow dissent like a spy. Why there? Because it was one of the nearest counties where the ruler had only a slightly poor opinion of me, and the only such county among Yazd's crew. I also sent him a cash gift, so right now he actually likes me, which will improve over time with Akin there, though he still likes his liege better. Eventually I'd like to get him to switch allegiences, maybe while Yazd is off prosecuting war with Oman (which happens to be what's brewing by the way. I think -- if I'm reading the details right they're having a holy war due to being in different Islamic groups.)

My Marshal Shiban, my Steward Aram, and my Chaplain Bishop Halil, are all back here in Socotra researching tech, which is why there are three guys standing on our island in those screenies. My spymaster Musa Musaid is up somewhere near the occupied Nestorian areas feeding us more tech information from one of the Caliph's dukes. (The game gave me only three options of where to send him, all kind of in that region, possibly because my tech is already quite nice compared to the rest of the world, and possibly because of the local Nestorian connections letting him infiltrate over the border into counties with better tech than us. This has already quickly paid off with a package of cultural information, which is why you may have noticed, from an earlier screenie, our cultural research has built up 50.8 points already despite only having a rate of .2 per month.)

My steward was the only one who started off with a little negative opinion of me, but I made him high almoner (letting him give out court charity every month), which improved his opinion greatly, though overall it's still meh-ish: only 10, though better than a couple of others.

I have a few other courtiers but not many; one of the others is ruling the city of Tamrida.

This early in the game, possibly also due to this being the earliest possible gamestart, practically no one is married. And the pickings are slim for me to arrange marriages with: only one lowborn woman. I could bring new ones to court but that would quickly cost more money than I currently have. I may have to borrow 300 gold from Jewish merchants soon...

This leads me to my first big question: I figured my first ambition, relatively easy to score points on, ought to be to marry -- but afterward I started looking around and the only Nestorian woman available anywhere is still lowborn which would hit me for 200 prestige when I only have 31.8 right now -- I'm not sure the game would even let me! And she's definitely the best pick I've found so far, as she has mostly good traits and most of the other women nearby don't like me (partly for religious reasons and partly because I'm cruel and lazy. Though at least I'm just and humble, that helps sometimes.)

I may have to go shopping farther east rather than among the local Christians and Muslims -- possibly the religious difference won't matter so much then.

Anyway, that isn't my first big question. My first big question is, how do I improve my stats? Diplomacy, martial, etc. I mean the personal stats of Philemon himself, not the state stats.





That's the colorful column just right of middle, with the little icons that read 3, 7, 8, 6, 2 next to them (and much larger stats in parenthesis -- those are stats for our nation thanks to me and various other factors like tech and my counselors.)

It's apparently possible, and not just by accident, because some of the ambitions were to increase my various low stats. But I haven't found any way to do that yet, either in the tutorial or online or in the (hahahahaha) manual.

Relatedly, I need to check how long it will take for the ambition list to reset if I cancel marriage -- I tested doing that without saving, and it didn't reset the ambition options immediately. Does it take a half-year? A year? Does the reset clock start only after I cancel, or does it start after I assign an ambition (so if I cancel after the reset limit I can immediately assign a new one, but if before I have to wait)? It certainly isn't a month or a season (quarter year), I already tested that.

Right, that's enough for tonight. Peruse!
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

undercovergeek

#4
okaaaaay -

looks like you can call up 700 odd troops

send your spy to somewhere that already has discovered ships, there is a chance hell steal their tech and speed yours up

im not sure the first ship tech actually gets you ships, it might be number 2, but yeah when you have the tech points, invest them in ship building

your wife will give you 50% of her stats, find a good one with high whatever you want, try and find one with one of the 8 super stats (usually marked in green - things like tactician, courageous - the size of her bonus will let you know what class of skill it is, there are 3 grades of skill from something like tactician to master tactician) and it will be passed onto your son

maybe start looking around for target number 1 and stick the chancellor on there to forge a CB, it can take a long time

JasonPratt

#5
Can't do that with the spy yet for two reasons:

1.) He's already assigned way up north, near the other Nestorian-majority population counties (but not actually in one). Can't reassign him until late July. Up in my first post, there's a screenie that happens to show where he's at though I didn't call attention to it at the time: he's in the bright non-fog county just west of the five Nestorian county cluster.

Edited to add: I decided to be slightly less lazy and post it again for reference:



Hm, he's a little farther away from the Nestorian population bloc than I remembered; can't quite see the name from here, but Al Jazira is between him and them.

2.) The game only gave me three options of where to send him, and none of those were counties with shipbuilding possibilities. For all I know, those will still be the only possibilities later this year; but if they change to a county on the coast, yep!

For those who don't know (though U'geek will), the game tracks tech advances per county, which can vary. So even though the Caliph, ruling the very large "Abbasid" area where I sent my spy, almost certainly has at least level 1 shipbuilding, the county I could send my spy might not have had it anyway due to variable tech spread -- and (so far as I know) couldn't have had it anyway being solidly landlocked.

This also means that I have no idea how to directly improve tech in any county other than my capitol. The game just tracks ambient tech spread due to a couple dozen factors. But there may be a way to directly improve it in a county, possibly by spending more tech points again. I'm not sure -- I know the game will show the relative tech positions of any of my non-capitol counties if I mouse over them while the tech screen is up, but that would seem to mean the tech screen goes back to the capitol if I move the mouse-pointed back to that screen to try buying an advance.  ???


Yes, my 700+ levy troops are quite nice considering I only have one county to work with. However, everyone around me has multiple counties to work with, I think -- I'll check again but I don't think I have any other random counts sitting around within sailing reach not already allied with at least a ducal liege.

Thus my initial plan of gaining a spearhead in the Sanaa region by friendly diplomacy (rather than by forging claims and pissing off a number of people stronger than I am.) I've made some good advances there already, considering it's only early May of my first gameyear.

However, I'm also spending money a LOT faster than I can possibly replace it in any tolerably quick span of time: I've got a 4. something rate per month, which is great considering I only have one county, but that means I've about spent my replacement budget for the year already. Thus my pondering about getting a loan from Jewish merchants, which I can pay back whenever I want. (I suppose that's up to a point, to prevent spam-abusing that tactic.)


Holy crap, even the first ship tech might not get me ships?? That would be insane! -- what the hell's the purpose of adding .9% of some benefit to galleys if I still can't even build galleys yet except by going to level 2???


I've seen potential wives with good stats, but either their lieges hate me and would never approve the marriage, or they hate me and would cause me unending trouble (or both), or at best I'd take a 200 point prestige hit as none of them are nobles. I'm not sure the game would even allow me to do that, or what would happen if I did. I don't want to risk a coup when I only have one county, and rather rubbish stats myself.

Seems like you're saying the only way to achieve the stat improvement ambitions is to marry a wife and pick up from her; but aside from not being at all sure that half her stats count, for the game engine, as improving my stats (...wouldn't it count toward the state stat total, like from a counselor or from tech??), that means unless I'm polygamous or a widower (the former of which the game doesn't allow for Christians I think) I can't fill both the married ambition and a stat improvement ambition. And that doesn't seem right at all...


Incidentally, because of the goofy way early-start dates work, I might or might not have a son even though I don't have a wife; and since I do have a son, that makes me a widower or a divorcee already.  ::) Like everyone else in the game right now.  >:D (Though the game doesn't treat us like that.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

undercovergeek

Yeah she just lends you the stat boost, actual boosts come from random events, other than that you get what youre dealt

It must be a new thing - you used to be able to put your spy anywhere, even Constantinople before you discovered ships so maybe they nerfed this

Tough start this!

JasonPratt

Now I'm starting to wonder if intentional stat improvement is a new thing, too, then. It seems crazy to offer an ambition that you can only randomly luck into.

Will post more information presently.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Okay, as to the ambition to raise poor stats -- this has been around since at least 2012, and was part of a DLC/patch released back then (splitting the ambitions from the plots). Apparently if such an ambition is chosen, eventually the game will generate a plotline which will raise the stat +2 if I succeed, or still +1 even if I fail.

As I suspected, the wife doesn't help this ambition.

Not sure what that actually entails yet (the thread on Steam wasn't specific about details), but at least I understand the mechanism now.

ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

undercovergeek

Quote from: JasonPratt on October 17, 2014, 06:17:58 PM
Okay, as to the ambition to raise poor stats -- this has been around since at least 2012, and was part of a DLC/patch released back then (splitting the ambitions from the plots). Apparently if such an ambition is chosen, eventually the game will generate a plotline which will raise the stat +2 if I succeed, or still +1 even if I fail.

As I suspected, the wife doesn't help this ambition.

Not sure what that actually entails yet (the thread on Steam wasn't specific about details), but at least I understand the mechanism now.

huurrumph, i may not have that DLC then - i know theres ambitions like get married, become chancellor, become rich but ive not often seen many that actually handover a stat boost so to speak

JasonPratt

To be fair, those ambitions only show up if the stats are poor. And mine largely suck.

I still don't know how long it takes to reset an ambition once I cancel it. I may experiment with that tonight since I just passed my first year: if the clock reset is running behind the scenes starting from the day I chose the ambition, I should think 1 year would be the limit and I can redo it now...

Part 3

I poked around in non-Abrahamic counties east of here, but found no wives even available to say no; and checking back over the areas with potential wives earlier shows either no prospects remaining, or poor prospects, or decent prospects whose liege forbids it.

In my defense, that isn't any different from when I started the game, only now there are fewer of the same options. So, no marriage for a while. I need to become more awesome I guess. I'll try to keep track of my counselor and son's ambitions to get married (if any) to try to help them, though.

Checking on my court, only a few have an ambition to get married right now (not including my son Athanasius). My spymaster Musa is one, however, and has the least opinion of me (only 5) out of anyone wanting marriage; so out of curiosity I click where he's working up in Tel Bashir to see if there are any good prospects for him. Not only is there a woman also wanting marriage, and who only has a -2 opinion of me, but who has mostly decent traits -- and the Emir Abd al-Malik of Edessa, whom I have a ridiculously high opinion of (91) even though he kind of despises me (-22), approves the request! Maybe, he's considering it.

Unfortunately, I can't find anyone else for Aram, another counselor. And at this point I think I might as well start the clock again.

A few days later, May 19, Zabel (who is a Coptic Christian) arrives at Socotra, having teleported there -- where her husband-to-be is not, amusingly. ;) The Caliph gave his blessing! Wow. I wonder that if that improves his opinion of me slightly? Hard to tell. No need to do more, the marriage happens automatically I guess -- both are married to each other now, and have a significantly better opinion of me as I fulfilled their ambitions.

A different Musa, just a random courtier, is the last person with a significant dislike of me, -10 -- which to be fair is perfectly understandable as I'm socking every last person on earth with -20 against me for being both lazy and cruel.

While clicking around as the clock runs, I find how to open up the screen for improving the cities in a county. This indicates I'll need time and gold (and lots of each) to put tech improvements into play once they're researched. More on this later I guess.

Shortly before Christmas (I don't recall if the Nestorians celebrate Jan 6 or Dec 25), as I'm messing around in various options (having rejected ticking up my taxes by about 20% which would tank my reputation with the bishop and the baron holding that town), I decide I can afford the 4.something gold to go on pilgrimage -- this is regarded as an "intrigue" plot because it has nowhere else to be classified I guess. ??? I'm not given an option to go to the two special Nestorian sites; maybe they're just a bit too far away. There doesn't seem to be any special difference to going to any of the other three, Constantinople, Antioch, or Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is a bit closer so I go for that. Seems to fit Bethlehem and the Christmas season anyway.

Jan 1, 770, the game autosaves. I've run my first year. No big advances, but no disasters either (unless my pilgrimage plans end with me being ransomed by some Muslim Caliph or something...)

Okay, after my manual save (a few days later just to be sure), I cancel my ambition to marriage -- and no valid ambitions pop up. I'll run it for a while and see what happens.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Part 4

Completely by coincidence, I finished packing and went on pilgrimage Jan 6 -- which if it isn't Nestorian Christmas would be the Feast of the Wise Men or whatever that feast is in old catholic communions. (I'm embarrassed not to know... In my defense, I'm also Baptist. ;) )

Going on pilgrimage instantly improves my rep by 10 points with everyone, so even Athanasius my son thinks substantially better of me now. (Again, to be fair, a lot of his dislike was based on my cruelty and sloth.)

Unfortunately, I forgot to assign a regent, so the game randomly assigned me on: my spymaster Musa Musaid who's farther away than I'll be if I had gone to Antioch instead! {headslap} He's a shy, wroth, cruel, cynical little intricate netweaver -- but fortunately he's also now one of my staunchest supporters, at 33 opinion, with nothing against me other than my cruelty and sloth.

I know for a fact I can gain traits (for better or for worse) by doing various things, so I wonder if I can lose or transform a bad trait somehow....

My Grand Vizier Akin sends good news, that his mission in Taizz with Sheikh Talib is going well. "I seem to have managed to make him understand what a benevolent and peaceful ruler you really are, and he sends his regards." Perfect! Can I afford to send more gold to Talib? Maybe he needs a wife? Jesus, no, he has three already, or one and two concubines never mind. Also he's off campaigning in Hendjan (and I have not the slightest idea where that is, it doesn't seem to be anywhere feasibly near on the map), so the game is being rather wonky on this point -- but not so much as Musa Musaid being my regent. Whom, incidentally, I must petition now to arrange any marriages! I hope this doesn't lead to trouble when I get back; I had other counselors with much higher opinions of me, still on the island, whom I would rather have been regent.

I accidentally remember I can move him around now, since it has been a whole year since he was first assigned; and I accidentally remember now that I can't right or left click on any of his options to check their tech level before moving him, which is COMPLETELY RETARDED!! Consequently he has moved for at least six months to Al Hasa (in modern Saudia Arabia) on the coast. Where fortunately their economic tech is a little better than ours, but unfortunately they have no military tech yet and thus no shipbuilding, sigh...

Okay, how in God's great name do I get my regent to approve something?? Clicking on him directly only activates his move option (as I discovered somewhat to my lament); going to diplomacy from his personal page gives me options to relate to him, but not to sign off on things I want to do like send money to sheik Talib again! AARRGH! I guess I'll just have to wait until I return home from pilgrimage.

If I return.



I take the risk in helping put it out. 30% chance of brave trait, 10% of wounded (possibly concurrently); neither happens. Better than 100% chance of craven. (Or wait, a few days later I notice that "brave" has been added to my traits after all? I don't think I already had that. Shouldn't the game tell me when that happens???)

A few days later, a much better event: sailing on the sea awakens my curiosity and so I can take a choice -- either 70% chance nothing happens (or a 30% chance of picking up a point in either martial or learning), or I can gain 30 piety for sure by staying in prayer, which is no small addition. I do need the stat boosts, but I also need improved reputation and I can surely get that. On the other hand I'm going to pick up piety if I make it back alive anyway -- would having that much more really help me? I take the chance; nothing happens. Dang.  (Or maybe I picked up an extra point in martial and the game didn't tell me again, who knows? Definitely not learning, I'm still at 2.)

Feb 5, arrived safely at Jerusalem; nice flavor text for the announcement, cute joke about finding a place to stay instead of a stall, ha ha. ;)

A few days later on the 10th, I get an social event (at the Jerusalem crossroads) which gives me another good choice: 30% chance of picking up a point in either intrigue (I have 6, pretty average) or learning (2, I need the pickup for sure); or 50% chance of picking up 2 points in diplomacy (I only have 3) and several other benefits by getting the Gregorius trait. Unfortunately, I don't know whether it's even possible for me to pick up a trait now, as the list looks full. Hm. I save the game, to test whether that can give me the same shot later (save scumming? ;) ) and go for the trait, which has the better chance of success and better results for success.

Well, it certainly didn't work since I didn't get the extra diplomacy points, but I don't know whether that's because of a bad roll or because my trait list is full. Since I have nothing to lose either way, I resign to menu and reload the save -- and voila, there's my event choice again! That's worth knowing anyway!

After 10 retries, no trait result, which means there's a 99.902 percent probability that a character has a maximum number of traits and my list is full (even though one is only temporary, on pilgrimage); or that the game seeded the roll already and I was always going to fail if I chose that option. (I did test whether the clock has to start again for a win to take effect, but that didn't seem to help.)

Having spent 10 minutes trying to test that, I don't feel bad about save scumming the other way to try getting a point for my learning. However, I GOT NO RESULT WITH THAT EITHER! Which, while not as improbable as losing a coin toss 10 times, is still pretty unlikely. This seems to indicate the game either calculated my results already regardless of my choice (with a loss calculated either way), or else saving at the choice nulled the opportunity to win anything, at least on a reload, which would admittedly fix save scumming for results.

By February 20 I'm already back home, no problems, the regency hands back over a few days later, I pick up 30 piety and the pilgrim trait. That means my trait list is probably full now, unless I manage to flip one (for better or for worse).

It also means I can send a gift to Shiek Talib now -- but I'm told it won't increase his opinion of me further, so I don't bother, I just leave my vizier there. His opinion of me may be maxed out now, hard to say if my vizier will increase it again.

Marriage options are better (thanks to my piety increase and pilgrim status, at least among Christians) but still not great. I'm going to be super annoyed if canceling my marriage ambition has ruined me from getting ambitions ever again, though...

Done for the night I guess!
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

undercovergeek

My 'vanilla' experience is the main traits can be lost or countered only by these kinds of events.... you'd obviously lose craven by becoming brave, it's worth noting now that any off spring should inherit brave but will prob get cruel from you also..... find a wife that cancels these bad ones

JasonPratt

Part 5

U'geek makes a good point about finding a wife who will help reduce the chances of passing bad traits down to my heir -- but I already have a son who's actually pretty good (though only 13 years old). Considering I only have one county right now, I'm tempted to not even bother more children -- 13 years from now I might have more territories but I'll probably also be dead and my son ruling. More important will be finding him a good wife when the time comes a few years from now.

Of course, if I lose my son and don't have a spare the game is effectively over (maybe). But that won't likely happen unless we're invaded and conquered, and having only one county that would be game over, too.

Other than 'seeing' rumors of the last Jewish king being besieged in Sieman, after having retreated from his lower-land and larger other county (which is sad), nothing much happens until late July when I can finally move my spy again. This time I'm being careful to look at the potential areas -- and then to click the nearby (where my spy can't move) so I can click the areas and check their tech levels!



As you can see, almost but not all of them are in the Abbasid Empire, which if the font is accurate is the largest empire on the map by a fair margin at the moment. More to the point, only some of those counties are on a coastline. None, as far as I can tell, have shipbuilding more than 1; but only the counties up in the Eastern Empire (and former areas nearby) have more shiptech than that right now.

In fact, only one of them (on closer examination) even has shipbuilding of 1:





Makran, at the faaaaaaaaar eastern edge of the Abbasidian Empire. Yep, I'll go park Musa there for a while. The Emir has the slightest positive opinion of me, since we're both brave and humble; I'm tempted to run my vizier over there, too, and try to score 60 points by money and diplomacy, which would put his favor of me over that of his Caliph. But on the balance, I'd rather tic off the Arwadid duchy than the LARGEST EMPIRE ON THIS SIDE OF THE PLANET! Also, I'm unsure if my vizier can continue improving relations with the sheik in Tarizz or not, and if I move him I'll never be able to test that. Though I still have no idea where that sheik is campaigning right now: where is "Zahedan"? Or is it "Zabedan"? -- the game font isn't always clear.

Mousing around I find the "find character" button below the minimap. Okay -- bringing that up, and doing a search, I discover that Talib is mainly a woman's name! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! But there are also a bunch of guys with that name. Sorting by opinion of me naturally brings him up to the top of the list; but clicking his portrait only opens his personal screen, and that doesn't help. (Though along the way I notice he's one of the heirs to that Emirate, so my diplomacy could pay off huge there one day...) Right-clicking his portrait, however, brings up two possible suboptions, one for diplomacy, and one for going to the character. I click that one and...




Boom, there he is! Not too far from Makran, as it happens! He should be marching into detection range of Musa my spymaster soon! Crap, that's all the way over near India! His Caliph must think that's the best direction to expand the Abbasidian Empire right now; possibly to pick up any spares of the old Persian Empire while he's at it.

This by the way shows again how broken some parts of the game engine are. My vizier is back in his home county courting him diplomatically, and he's three thousand miles away, and wasn't much closer back at the start of this year when he sent me his regard! Crazy. But not any crazier than Musa being chosen as my regent while I was off to Jerusalem on pilgrimage.

Speaking of Musa, after a couple of months (into October) I happen to remember I ought to check in on how well he's helping my technology -- and dang if he isn't only helping with "majesty" research! Dammit, Musa, you had one job, one job! This was the only place I could send you that had better shipbuilding than me, and all you're researching is "majesty"?!?! I need galleys, fool! Christ.

Well, in January I can pack him up somewhere else I guess.

Meanwhile, I'm studying that nifty "find character" tool, to help me wifehunt. And by the way, I still have no valid ambitions after canceling marriage as an ambition. I'm pretty sure the gamecode is borked there, great...

Search all (the whole population of the game); women (duh); not married (duh); sort by high opinion of me...

And here's the list (the map colors are for independent domains, nothing to do with marriage, just for color on the screen, and to give a larger idea of where my spymaster is currently working until I throw his worthless butt somewhere else at Christmas):





I have to say, Adila that courtier in Taizz looks interesting. Her stats are mostly rubbish, and she's Muslin, but she has a monstrously high "learning" skill (which I definitely need), and not only does she have sympathy for Christians (and for Jews) but she's a theological mastermind! (I don't know if that would mean anything to my character, but I like it! {heart!} More importantly in-game, it's contributing to her monstrously high "learning".) She's temperate, cynical, humble, and shy. And her liege has a higher opinion of me than anyone else in the world right now, so he's likely to approve a marriage. Plus, while she doesn't have quite the highest opinion of me yet in the list, it isn't far behind the highest, and fulfilling her ambition to marry would ratchet that up by 15 at least. And she's a bedouin, so she wouldn't be considered a foreign wife. Odds are pretty good she'll convert, too. The only drawback is that she's only a courtier, so though her family is probably well-connected she's the lowest rank in the game, and being "lowborn" (not a noble yet) she'll sock me with a huge prestige penalty if I marry her. Not that I have much prestige yet anyway, but neither am I going to gain much in my current position so I'm loathe to give up any at all. Plus I'm unsure the game will even let me.

Clicking on the "Great House" filter leaves me with a bunch of underage women; filtering by "adults" leaves me with only 3 feasible picks, the most interesting of which is Helmsuinda Aldaberts, 18 year old niece of Prince-Bishop Odacre of Valais, a Frankish girl whose opinion of me would be moderately good after I marry her (since I'd be fulfilling her ambition to marry), and whose stats are mostly better than mine, especially in intrigue as she's quite the little netweaver. Her traits overall could stand improvement, but she does have room for improvement -- or for getting worse, I guess. Unlike the other two Great House possibilities she's young enough to safely bear children, too (and isn't lustful like the Lombardian munchkin, I mean Munichingi, so she won't cause church problems.)

I decide to try Adila first: she may crush my prestige to nothing (or worse than nothing), but we'd get along quite a bit better. Alas, Adila "must not marry an infidel", and that sinks any hope. I could try sending her a gift, which would improve her opinion of me my 31, but I'm not sure that would overcome the huge minuses in the "do not marry an infidel" problem.

And Helmsuinda is too distant to interact with. So that's that. Back to the, um, courting board. (No noble girls nearby to betroth with my son, either.)

My next best non-noble bet seems to be Genseoua, a young Nubian woman (17 years old) from the county of Napata in the petty kingdom of Makuria (highlighted with a yellow paintbrush below to overcome the fog of war).




Her liege, Count Thoma, only dislikes me slightly, but dotes on her (47 opinion) even though she doesn't like him much (-13). Her stats are generally great, including in learning and diplomacy where mine are weakest, and her traits are all uniformly good except for being ambitious (which still adds great stats mostly. And being my queen shouldn't be a problem for her ambition unless she tries to aim higher!) Being a nubian will make her a foreigner at court, but that can be overcome. While she has a base reluctance (probably due to distance and a difference in culture and in our Christianities) of two minuses, her opinion of me (which is only going to increase for helping her achieve her ambition of marriage) is three plusses; so she agrees (nice to see that marriages aren't forced in this game, usually) and it's up to her liege to approve I guess! I send out the invitation.

Doing so instantly makes her a nubian noble, so I guess that's a good sign -- not that it helps me any, as she's clearly a noble from marrying me. My prestige shoots directly into the gutter a few days later at -160.3, Christ... that'll take a while to overcome, and will be passed onto my son I guess. But that means Count Trauma (or whatever his name) has agreed to the marriage! -- to which I apparently also agree with an "Ok". Was that a meh?? This woman is a pretty amazing catch for a non-noble. At only four years older than my son, though (I'm 33, so for the time and place this isn't bad), I may have to watch them, but they're both good people so I'm not worried.

I could collect a Royal Aid Duty (i.e. a tax) to help pay for the wedding, but I decide to refuse, which will bump my prestige back up a lot. Still -60, but dang any improvement is worth it. I note along the way that the wedding doesn't cost me anything substantial anyway, the "duty" was just an excuse to get a little more gold.

Weirdly, her opinion of me immediately drops to 4, despite what should have been a 15 point increase! This is slightly due to my new negative prestige (that was for your sake, darling, ingrate), but mostly due to the fact that being in court exposes her to more opinion factors, the main one being my short reign (-16) and my personal diplomacy (-3) though why those didn't count before I have no idea, especially the latter, I have no idea.

I could fix this by first giving her 20 gold as a gift (increasing her opinion +25) and then by demanding she convert from Miaphysitism to Nestorianism (which she would be probably very willing to do after the gift since on balance she's only -1 against it and her opinion of me would increase quite a bit after the gift -- and awarding an honorary title if necessary.) But I don't know that I want to spend 20 on her. Yet.

On the other hand, I do need a regent rather than having the computer assign one randomly, and she'd make a much better ruler than me in practically any regard anyway; so I award her the title (which, strangely, also costs me .4 gold per month, but her various bonuses to state stats easily pay for that), and she bumps up +20.

I also decide it makes sense to have her tutoring my son Athanasius (though admittedly that might cause a few problems later since he's a teen, heh). This bumps her opinion of me high enough that I can at least try to get her to switch to Nestorianism, which should also improve her opinion of me by 10 if she agrees.

Meanwhile, Aram, my Steward, doesn't like being removed as the tutor (-15), but he wants to get married, as does one of my courtiers Jahira (who was also a possibility for tutoring Athanasius by the way -- in fact the game autopicked her when I started the process of assigning him a new tutor, possibly so that they would 'court' for marriage later), so after arranging that they both like me more and Aram goes back to his previous opinion.

A few days later, Nov 5, my wife Gen agrees -- though since I demanded the conversion I don't gain anything after all, switching one demerit (religious differences) to another (demanded conversion) at -10 either way. Dang. Had I just let her alone she might have converted anyway. Oh well, lesson learned.

By early December I'm now known as Philemon the Just, though what that changes other than having a nifty title I have no idea -- nothing as far as I can see. Did my "just" trait upgrade?

An old priest mislays a chalice in early December and thinks bandits have taken it; I give chase until I'm exhausted, and obviously don't catch the non-existent bandits. But I earn another 15 piety and that's nice.

Shortly before the end of the year, the last Jewish king falls in Semien. One of his territories, down-mountain, Tigrinya, goes to the kingdom of Abyssinia (Ethiopia); the other, Semien itself, is now part of the chiefdom of Kassala and ruled by Tomas its chief -- though the county itself is separated from Kassala by Ethiopia and Gondar. That seems likely to cause trouble later.




While that doesn't affect me politically at all, I hope it doesn't bode ill for me as an omen!

Off to lunch with year 770 in the bag, and an ominous start to 771...
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Part 6 -- Year 771

Incidentally, a few extra DLCs were released as graphical updates to go along with the Charlemagne DLC; but I haven't bought them yet, as they don't really factor into my area of the world. Oddly, no new music pack was released.

I'm pretty danged ticced that canceling my ambition to get married means I'm stuck in some kind of non-ambition loop. Does it reset in 10 years? That would suck.

First: TRY TO FIND SOMEWHERE MY SPY CAN BE MORE USEFUL!

Fortunately, his network has increased again a little, and while none of the prospects seem prospectable at first, eventually I find a little sheikdom up in the Caucasus, Dwin by name, in the Uqaylid Empire, ruled by Bakkar Sultan of Armenia (which man that hurts, Armenia was the first Christian nation per se), and heir to the Emirate of Edessa (where the catechetical seminary at Nisibis originally came from by the way. Also I figured out on the map where Nisibis is, not far south of where Musa is now parked -- it isn't a town in Baghdad, so I haven't got the faintest idea why the game treats Baghdad as holy to the Nestorians.)





Ukeleleland is up there in the middle, defiantly planted between the three largest empires on this side the planet. They do have balls! -- and they have surprisingly good tech, including better than 1 shipbuilding (despite Dwin itself being a landlocked county, but the tech is presumably filtering over from the Black Sea or the Caspian.)

That gets my spygears working nicely. I'll be keeping Musa up there a while.

I honestly have no idea whether I should keep Grand Vizier Akin up in Taizz diplomatting with Sheikh Talib: have I already improved his opinion of me as much as could ever happen by this route? I'm willing to keep the Vizier there taking the occasional roll for improvements if there are actual chances for improvement: Taizz is my best doorway back into Arabia someday. But if Akin has shot his wad already, I should be moving him on to other areas on mission.

I decide I ought to be working on the personal loyalty of the key sheiks of Arwadid, not just one of them; so I hike my vizier over to Kathri and send Sheikh Muhammad there (spymaster to Emir Yazd by the way) a princely gift of 65 gold. His opinion of me shoots up immediately to 59 (from -10)!



The colors represent the relative opinion of the lords of the various territories toward me (with Kathiri brighter due to a lack of fog of war). That's two out of 6 in the Arwadid kingdom. Next year I plan to do the same for Mahra next door; meanwhile maybe my vizier Akin can add some extra oomph.

On April 1 (SURELY BY COINCIDENCE!) a merchant offers to sell me a finger of John the Baptist. I'm pretty pious already, and I'd rather not spare the 20 gold, so I refuse. Only a 20% chance to pick up cynical after all.

I pick up cynical. I'm still generating good piety, and my intrigue goes up by 2, but I take a few hits in other regards.

I consider holding a summer faire when May rolls around, but I'm not sure it's worth it -- or that I understand it. It would cost 25 gold, which I can afford but would be a large chunk of the money I'm trying to buy opinions with on the mainland; and would only add .05 prestige a month. But it seems to be in effect until the end of the game (on until I die maybe). Is that +.6 prestige per year until I die (.05 x12)? Or .2 per year (.05 x 4 summer months through till August each year)?

No idea. So I decide not to.

I wasn't paying enough attention to tech I guess; sometime before October 10 I earn enough to buy the rest of Shipbuilding Level 1! Woot!

Not that this means much until I build at least one shipyard at one of my towns. I'll need 144.3 gold for that, and about another year to build once I pay for it. Not anytime soon, then, but a major hurdle overcome!

And that ends out my year in effect.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!