We are 31 with an unfortuantely 'Chaste' wife, but she has gifted us with a son and heir along with a daughter. Our son, Prince Enri is 5 years old and betrothed to a 4 year old genius Byzantine Princess (this is a little genetic gambling I am playing, I'd love to breed Genius into our line).
The Kingdoms have settled down since the disasterous reign of my Brother Iacob and the equally bad final years of my Grandfather King Amalgaid II. Through all of this though, we have been expanding at the detraction of Scotland, and we continue to fabricate claims in an attempt to continue this push - our only hope to dominate the world against the awesome powers of England/Jerusalem and especially the massive Holy Roman Empire will be to get as much area solidly united under our rule as we can. And so we begin...
1247-1255 Reaching new heights.
Typhoid Fever continues to ravage the Kingdoms of Ireland, Wales and England - many of our kin and/or vassals contract the disease.
Another Succession revolt in Scotland occurs in early 1248. We gain a claim on the County of Carrick shortly after, but I definately want more than that so I will wait until the revolt is over and they are really tired (whomever actually wins) then hopefully we will have more claims and be able to take multiple counties.
We take over as guardian of our son and heir Enri later in 1248. His planned wife continues to impress with her stat line being all 7s and 1 8 (in intrigue) and she is only 5. Turns out she is heir to the Byzantine Empire, the Kingdom of Georgia and several counties - interesting, I wonder if that means we will either split the Byzantines off from the HRE or perhaps become their vassals later in the game... will be interesting either way.
There is a new Duke of Connacht in September 1248 and he likes me pretty well so that is good, he has a female heir though, they better get at it and make some sons! On a side note my vassals are marrying within the Dynasty a lot, they better not start getting inbred!
My son Enri picks up the Kind trait in 1249, hopefully the first of many good traits that will help him to be a good ruler. And my wife is pregnant with our third child in 1250 - and our second daughter Nuala is born in April 1251.
I gain the trait of ambitious in late 1251 along with two more claims in Scotland - I want one more than then we are going to lay the hammer down!
Duke Murchad of the Isles dies and passes his titles to his daughter, Duchess Dervorgilla of the Isles has a neutral opinion of me because she wants Argyll and the Isle of Man, which are supposed to be her vassals but report directly to me, I decide to give her fuedal lordship over the County of Argyll (not the title but make the title holder her vassal) so she will like me some.
Scotland is once again known as the Kingdom of Alba, and again almost immediately enters into a period of revolt. We almost have the claims I want to take and once this revolt is done hopefully we will and can hit them hard.
Duke Faelan of Gwynedd seeks to fabricate a claim on one of our titles - the Kingdom of Wales. This obviously cannot stand, we would force him to end his plot but he has been a thorn in my side for a while and is also ambitious (so he continually hates us) so we decide to imprison him, as we can do that without tyranny because he is leading a plot.
Unfortunately we only have a 40% chance of imprisoning him and he of course escapes capture - to arms!
During the conflict our son Enri gains the Brave trait. We check up on his planned to be wife and little Princess Emma (10) has gained the Deceitful, Cynical and Patient traits, she is now 7/7/10/16/10 - god I hope she actually likes Enri because if she doesn't she could easily plot against him.
The siege against Duke Faelan of Gwynedd ends in 1253 and we imprison him and Usurp the County of Powys from him - this also make him loose the Duke of Gwynedd title as it was his only County title and we recreate it for ourselves. We don't have the Demnse to support another County however (and we don't want the 'Holds too many Duchies' penalty) so we make young (9 year old) Mael-Ciarain Ua Cheinnselaig the Earl of Powys and Duke of Gwynedd.
Shortly after dealing with Duke Faelan a Crusade is called against the Kingdom of Lithuania - another conquest likely for the Holy Roman Empire, but we at least have to try to be involved (if only to get the Crusader trait). And so in March 1254 we make our way towards Lithuania (on the Eastern border of the Holy Roman Empire/Poland).
While onboard ship my Wife becomes pregnant with our fourth Child (for a Chaste Woman she is kinda slutty) just before we arrive on the shores of Lithuania in April 1254. We start our first Siege and gain the Crusader trait in May. I realize that I am the only person participating in the war and we actually have an army much bigger than Lithuania so I raise the rest of my levies and begin the big invasion - the shot is small but we actually have a shot at being the winner of this if we do it right.
In camp in Lithuania our son Enri gains the Humble trait, we seem to be raising him well. Looks like his future wife just picked up the 'Just' trait so that's cool. Our second son Cennetig is born in November 1254 just as a large battle between the bulk of the Lithuanian army and our own (along with help from the Papacy) begins. Unfortunately I am wounded in the battle, but I gain the Zealous trait shortly after - hopefully the wound will heal to a scar and gain me prestige (I'll settle for just not dying). We later get the Master Flat Terrain martial focus.
We spend the year 1255 trapsing all around Lithuania destroying small armies while the other half of our army sieges the capital, I have 84% of the War contributions and we have a 58% warscore by the end of the year. We also keep our son from gaining the content trait.
Back at home there is a new Duke of Ulster and he is ambitious so he hates me, I may have to deal with them after this Crusade is through (although if I win I'll likely have a lot more things to deal with). I lost the trait ambitious later in the war (apparently I'm already the best in the world according to me, so what is there to be ambitious about) so that sucks, but thankfully I also lost the would and got a scar.
1256-1260 Ireland is now on the Continent!
We win the Crusade in October 1256 and inherit 31 titles and the Kingdom of Lithuania! We also create 3 new Duchy Titles (Lithiunia, Grodno and Courland). After about 15 minutes of organizing I have found enough male members of my line (in my court) to give each Baronry, Earlship and Duchy out and only give the Dukes a single Earlship each (and everyone else single titles) this made me a crapload of happy vassals and none of them should be too powerful. I was able to get everyone with positive opinions of me, except the Duke of Ulster of Course - the Duchess of Munster even likes me by 3 and she is in prison!
We gain the title of 'the Great' in 1257 and besides the new Duke of Dehuebarth who doesn't like us much we are not seeing any problems. We decide it is time to start collecting tax from our Feudal Vassals for the first time and so a Small Feudal Tax Law is instated (it is approved within a month in early 1258) this pushed two more vassals to the negative opinion of me, but not many. Hopefully as the Counties and Baronries in Lithuania recover from the transition of power we will start to really see some gold pour in, although it did just go up to over 23 gold per month which is better than it has ever been.
My son Enri comes of age in 1258 as Midas Touched, still only 16 Stewardship but still not bad and his traits are pretty good (Kind, Brave, Humble, Temperate) still two years before his wife comes of age but when she does it will hopefully be a thing of beauty. I start construction on a Baronry in County Kildare to have a title to give him (I kinda gave the crapload I had in Lithuania away - I don't want him way out there anyways). I want to make sure he gets married correctly before sending him off anyway - and believe me I can afford the prestige loss for unlanded son now that I have 3 Kingdoms.
Our now Daughter-in-Law comes of age in 1259 and the marriage seals an allegiance with the Holy Roman Empire which means we are once again allied with the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of England/Jerusalem (the two biggest powers of the day).
We gain the fourth claim on Scotish counties in 1259, just wanna wait for their revolt to end before attacking them. Should be soon as they are 90% done according to the warscore. The Baronry of Clonard finishes construction in 1260 and we grant the title to our eldest son and heir Enri. By this time our monthly budget is +31 Gold and rising.
Our second son Cennetig turns 6 in 1260 and we take over as his Guardian, he is ill but hopefully that will pass. I also notice that the Earl of the Isle of Man and one of this sons has the genius trait (they are of my Dynasty) so we're not the only ones breeding well. The Dynasty's prestige is up to 1556!
1261 But we still want to take over Scotland!
In January 1261 the revolt in Scotland ends and King Fergus Dunkeld takes command, the King is young and weak, we have many claims on their lands and they have no allies outside of Scotland - back to war in the Isles!
We ask our allies to join the war, the Holy Roman Empire agrees but England/Jerusalem says they are too far away (even though they are right next door they consider their main kingdom Jerusalem now so the British Isles are pretty far away).
Our second son Cennetig gains the Zealous trait while we gain the Organizer trait. Unfortunately shortly after we die in battle and our son takes command! Unfortunately we loose our claims on the Scotish counties and the war ends inconclusively.
1262-1264 A new King of Ireland
We are now King Henri and we have a bunch of vassals who are not too happy. First we reduce our Demense down to 9 by giving our brother (and current heir) the Baronry of Clonard. Then we transfer a few vassals to some of our Dukes that should rightfully be feudal lords of them.
Our wife is pregnant with our first child and in October 1262 our first son Oengus is born (must be a Byzantine name). He is Heir to the Byzantine Empire along with all of our other titles, very interesting to see how that works out. Plus he inherited the Genius trait! Already 5s across the board and he's less than 1 year old!
We have several factions forming (to instate other rules, to Lower Crown Authority, etc.) some are around 4-5000 men strong so they're in the mid 30s percentage wise to our own forces.
Duke Aegnus of Ulster gets to the point we can try to imprison him without tyranny (as he attempts to fabricate a claim on my Kingdom of Ireland) so we do so and are successful (too bad, I was hoping for a good rebellion to put down to ease some of these tensions). That disbands one of our strongest rebellious factions though so that's good.
In March 1263 we announce a Grand Tournament and by July it is over, this helps our vassal situation somewhat and we only have about a half-dozen vassals who don't like us (out of 35) but unfortunately they are mostly Dukes.
The Welsh populace in Dyfed embraces the Irish culture in September 1263. Actually 4 of the 5 counties in Wales consider themselves Irish now and 1 in Lithuania!
In April 1264 the Romuva Religion in Lithuania revolts - but unfortunately we don't have time to play that out today (especially as they caught my garrison Retinues off guard so we are starting at a disadvantage)
Oh what the heck let's finish it. We hire a Holy Order to help us out.
I gain the Honest trait in September. We kick the revolters back and chase them around Lithuania until December when we are able to Enforce our Peace demands, gain Piety and Prestige and give the Catholic church a boost in Moral Authority for 10 years.
1264 Status
The dark green to the right of the main portion of the Holy Roman Empire are our lands in Lithuania. We fortunately had plenty of relatives to get a pretty healthy feudal system installed there and besides the threat of religious revolt (as I just witnessed) I should be fine there for some time. My hope is to eventually absorb a bit more and get the entire Kingdom of Lithuania but its a secondary goal to Scotland.
Our wife is now the Heir to the Kingdom of Georgia and our son is Heir to the Byzantine Empire (along with all of our titles, King of Ireland, Wales, Lithuania, etc.) so it will be interesting to see how that plays out.
The Holy Roman Empire is still massive of course but what you can only see some of is the almost equally massive ilKhanate that is now basically the empire of Persia and Russia that is nipping at their heals. If we get the Byzantine Empire like I think we might, it will be interesting to see if we can help fight them off.
In any case the next few session will be where the rubber really meets the road, this has been an interesting playthrough to say the least.
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