In the Shadow of the Ancients - An Assyrian AAR

[Cora Giantkiller]

Oh this looks like a lot of fun.

 

[Tommy4ever]

The Catastrophe – 1270-1279

In 1270 the first recorded instances of the Black Death were observed in Kirkuk, on the eastern fringe of the Assyrian realm. Within months it was rife throughout the Kingdom – turning Middle Eastern society on its headed. Far more deadly than any epidemic seen in the known world for centuries, the plague would wipe away at least a third of the region’s population in the course of just a few years, inflicting an unimaginable degree of suffering and social dislocations. Cities were emptied, fields abandoned, infrastructure sent into disrepair, families wiped out and communities destroyed. To the shaken people of the Middle East, a punishment had arrived from God the like of which they had never before been able to contemplate.

The royal household was not spared from the horrors of the plague. Nehor II’s military expedition in Armenia was decimated as the army was riven by disease and forced to fall back. Worse, at home in Nineveh Prince Saad, for whose claim the Armenian campaign had been fought, was was claimed by disease alongside his mother, Queen Maria, and much of the royal family. After returning to his capital, broken by the loss of his family and failure of his political ambitions, the King himself perished from the same sickness in early 1271.

Assyria was not alone in facing dynastic difficulty as a result of the plague. To the west, the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem had fallen on hard times from the middle of the century, gradually disintegrating as the French King, Holy Roman Emperor and local Latin magnates established control over large parts of Palestine at the realm’s expense. By the onset of the plague, Jerusalem had been reduced to an enclave around Acre. After a number of deaths in the royal household, the crown fell into the hands of Queen Cecilia. The daughter of the Crusader King, she had married one of the sons of King Avina of Assyria – Nerseh – and spent much of her life as a courtier in Nineveh, where she had openly practised Nestorianism. Even after returning to Acre and openly declaring her loyalty to His Holiness, her commitment to Catholicism remained somewhere ambiguous, much to the anger of her nobility. Most worryingly, her son, Prince Niv, was both her own successor and stood high in the ranks of Assyria’s succession too – promoting the possibility of a union with the heretical Kingdom to the east.

Back in Assyria, the deaths of Nehor II, his primary heir and much of the Qatwa dynasty in the face of the plague’s onslaught pushed the fallen King’s cousin Moqli to unexpectedly assume power. Only slightly younger than his cousin, who died at the age of sixty five, the new King swore to lead Assyria through these trying times. Having spent most of his adult life in Baghdad, where he had ruled as one of Assyria’s most powerful Maliks, Moqli isolated himself in a fortress near the city for the first two years of his reign as he saw out the worst of the epidemic, communicating with his court through written messages and couriers.

When the new King emerged from this isolation he was faced with a changed, fearful and unhappy world. In the context of social breakdown, untold personal tragedy and hardship, economic disaster and rampant banditry and criminality, the populace were violent, angry and prone to millenarian fervour that would effect Muslim and Christian alike. For the state, the most immediate concern was a movement of his fellow Nestorian Christians in the Assyrian heartland – the Messalians.

As Nestorian Christianity had expanded its reach to become the primary religion in northern Mesopotamia, the central control of the Church of the East over dogma and practice had been somewhat weakened as holymen working outside the direct authority of the church, and often preaching at odds to its official teachings, spread far and wide. The Messalians had their origins among these lay preachers, as well as longstanding mystery cults within eastern Christianity that taught of intense and individualistic spirituality and suspicion of authority.

The Messalians promoted an egalitarian ethos, questioning the power and wealth of the elite and the necessity of the Church and priests to intercede the individual and God. Prior to the plague they had been growing in strength in northern Mesopotamia, developing deep roots among the Christian peasantry along the fertile banks of the Euphrates and Tigris. The experience of the Black Death radicalised the Messalians and pushed them towards an extreme anti-Semitism – blaming the Jews for hoarding riches, practising Satanic rituals and human sacrifice and bringing God’s wrath upon the people of Beth Nahrain. In order to achieve salvation, the Messalians taught that the Jews would have to be cast out of Assyria.

Although they were rooted among the poor, the growing Messalian movement had many powerful allies among the elite – at court, in the nobility and even the Church. As these groups pushed for an expulsion of the Jews in 1273, some fearing that it was the only alternative to uncontrolled violence, pressured built upon King Moqli to act. Yet, at the time still cocooned in his isolation, the King remained silent on the issue. This changed when Patriarch of the East Yahballaha boldly defended the Jews – claimaing they had played not part in the epidemic and had a rightful place within Assyrian society, rights that had been given to them by the Kingdom’s sacred founder Saint Ta’mhas the Great. Going further, he denounced the Messalians as dangerous heretics and called for the excommunication of any clergy that followed their doctrines. With his spiritual leader having made the first move, Moqli broke his silence – finally returning to court in Nineveh and announcing his support for the Patriarch’s position. The Messalians were denounced, the state would take no actions against the Jews.

Despite the proclamations of King and Patriarch, ethnic tensions descended into intense violence over 1273 and 1274. While containing a significant anti-Semitic basis, with Jewish quarters and villages destroyed throughout northern Mesopotamia and thousands forced to flee to the relative safety of the largest cities, the Messalian-led insurrections had a strong social component. Indeed, the rebels sought to seize control over empty lands, attack landlords and their property and redistribute wealth to the needy. As the Kingdom’s heartland fell into anarchy, and with his regular forces far too weakened by the plague to restore order, Moqli turned to the Cumans to brutally put down the rebels and garrison the major cities, further strengthening the Cumans’ growing influence over the Assyrian state.

Having relied upon the Cuman Khan to subdue the rebellions in the Assyrian heartland, and inviting their warriors into Nineveh and the other great cities of the region, King Moqli found himself under the hock of his Turkic soldiery. As the epidemic receded across the region, the Cumans used their newfound influence to spearhead a series of campaigns into the region around Lake Urmia between 1275 and 1277 which culminated in the capture of the rich city of Tabriz. The spoils of these victories further enriched the Cumans within Assyria, while attracting further migrants to join them in settling the newly acquired territories in the Zagros.

The suppression in 1273 and 1274 did not destroy the Messalian movement nor weaken its appeal. Indeed, anger among the lower orders continued to mount through the rest of the decade as class conflict simmered over a variety of issues stemming from the newfound labour shortages across all areas of the economy that the plague had produced. Efforts to enforce old noble rights, suppress wages, maintain high prices all strengthened the claims of the Messalians that the elite, in hock to the Jews, were their enemies. This erupted into a second peasants rebellion in 1278, this time under the centralised leadership of the radical preacher Yeshua Dinkha. This time, the rebels met with immediate and spectacular military success. Moqli’s army was badly beaten not far from the capital a few months into the conflict. As the King withdrew his forces back to the city, the Cumans abandoned its defence – seeing no need to die for the Assyrian King, and withdrawing towards their new stronghold at Tabriz.

As the rebels approached, the capital was hopelessly poorly defended and the Messalians were able to breach its defences after a defector within the walls opened one of the city’s gates. As the poured into Nineveh, they would unleash a torrent of bloodshed and destruction. Almost the entire Jewish population of the city, numbering close to ten thousand, while many Kurds, Arabs and the city’s elites suffered gruesome treatment. For the despised King Moqli, Dinkha reserved an especially tortious punishment as the King, deemed a tyranical allies of Assyria’s enemies, was crowned with an iron crown that had been fired to be iron hot – burning through his skin and killing him in agony. The Assyrians had taken the shocking step of killing their own King. As the Messalians began to redistribute the spoils of their conquests, they seized custody of Moqli’s daughter and only surviving child, Tabitha, and named her as Queen of Assyria, while Dinkha maintained tight control over the direction of his burgeoning state on the Plains of Nineveh.

With the horrors in Nineveh, the Kingdom was falling into complete chaos. In the east, the Cumans were consolidating themselves around Tabriz having absconded from the defence of the capital and to the south a large scale Islamic revolt had broken out in Babylonia. At this moment, the fourteen year old Prince Niv, son of Cecilia of Jerusalem, crossed over from Acre with a band of retainers to push for his claim to the Assyrian crown. Quickly winning support in the western provinces, he was crowned King in Damascus before the year was out as he set out into the ensuing battle for Assyria.

 

[Tommy4ever]

A sorry state! The King murdered, heretic peasant rebels in the capitals, Cumans doing as they please, the Muslim lands in revolt and the only hope for the older order a teenager recently arrived from Acre.

The Pale Horseman rides undefeated. With holdings in India and at the center of the trade route, every epidemic will follow a well-paved path to Assyria. AI doing Reformed Tengrism throws a monkey-wrench into the game as do the Catholic Cumans. Thank you for protecting us from Rome's excesses.

With all that has been going on in the last update we haven't heard from our Indian lands for a little while - we will again soon. They have not been immune from the recent chaotic period.

I rarely see the AI successfully reform a pagan faith (and it has usually been the Romuva with their closely clustered holy sites), so it was interesting to see the Tengri succeed. In game, I'm not exactly sure what triggered the Cumans to begin their wave of invasions - but it certainly fits with the idea of the Mongols forcing a domino migration like the OTL Huns.

Cumans, Mongols, rebel scum and now a new enemy far deadlier than any of those is about to rear its ugly head. The plague comes for everybody, hopefully the Assyrians can wither this storm. Especially since that very juicy potential union with Armenia could prove fruitful.

The plague ended our hopes of the Armenian union. (In game I think I got to a warscore of 80% + when Saad died - which was extremely frustrating). But the plague really hit us hard, and we have now slid into a cycle of rebellion, extremism and internal strife. We shall seem what sort of nation makes it out of this.

The Black Death approaches.

These Cumans seem like a large threat to eastern civilization. Will they prove a threat to Assyria? After all, this scenario reminds me of the Normans and the French, and we all know how that ended... Cuman Assyrian Empire?

Just how far the Cumans can push their influence is yet to be seen. They have shown their ability to effectively make or break a regime - saving Moqli in 1274 before abandoning him in 1279. Will it be possible for any faction to gain control over the Kingdom at this stage without them? And if so at what price?

If the son dies of the plague, that would be unfortunate…

One might even say it would be Saad! (I'll stop now ). It was indeed very frustrating for the plague to appear and kill Saad right in the middle of this war, right when I was close to victory and end my hopes of gaining Armenia. But that proved to be the least of my worries!

They are not a problem now, but maybe in the future, what a shame if a Cuman empire (nothing like the Ottomans!) unified with its cousins from Serbia, Wallachia and Anatolia and then looked for its brothers in Assyria.

We are already starting to see the Cumans having some maleffects within Assyria, we shall see how their kin in Anatolia and the Balkans get in due course.

Oh this looks like a lot of fun.

Glad to have you along for the ride, I hope you enjoy this one as you did our adventures through Poland!

 

[Bullfilter]

Time Warp 1: was just winding up my reading and comments on the previous chapter when the new one came out. So I’ll post those now, then get into the next when I can, as I found a fair bit to remark on in the prior one

The Great Khan sought to sweep all of this away, seeking to impose a single uniform faith based upon a reformed, more hierarchical, form of Tengrism across the diversity of his sprawling dominion.

I did find it interesting indeed that they reformed Tengrism. You’d think it might have helped spread their power further, but either it didn’t, or the base was low enough it didn’t make sufficient difference.

The Cumans sowed frightening devastation across much of the region

Well, the poor man’s Mongols seem to have done a good enough job of that. And being Catholic, could have just as dangerous an impact for of Assyrian protagonists.

As their campaign in Assyria ground on for years, King Nehor II made the fateful decision to come to terms with Khan Borc in 1257. The Cumans were to be granted land for settlement – predominantly in the foothills around the Kingdom’s northern and eastern frontiers – and in return their would swear allegiance to the Assyrian King and enter into his military service.

It seems to be one of those choices where you just try to pick the least worst option and will get the blame whichever you choose.

For the better part of the next decade Assyria was wracked by internal instability.

Hmmm, there you go.

Nehor and Maria’s son, Saad, was the King’s closest living male relative and as such had a clear claim to the crown. However, with many Armenia’s eager to avoid a union with their larger neighbour to the south, Vakhtank took to decision to revise his Kingdom’s laws of succession to exclude the female line – this removing Saad from the inheritance and naming his cousin Leo as his successor. Disputing the disinheritance of his son, Nehor invaded Armenia at the head of a larger army in 1270.

This spells trouble ahead for both sides.

While Assyria was focussed on its efforts to bring the weaker state to heel, news was already beginning to reach the Middle East of a new force that would scatter all plans of Kings, Queens, clergy and commoners alike asunder.

There’s always a bigger fish.

The Mongols were fairly weak in this run through. They conquered most of the Eurasian Steppe, but did little to threaten the settled empires. Interestingly, they reformed Tengrism

Per above, I’d thought it might have turbocharged their invasions, but it seems not.

to represent the larger part Cumans are set to play going forward (and their in game impact on Assyria) I had described them as securing a partial settlement and entering the service of our army.

Another interesting incorporation of game events.

Yes, part of me feels there should be a more devastating impact to losing your King in the middle of a war than the game simulates.

It seems getting captured is far worse that being killed for one’s war prospects. Not sure how that relates to/models historical examples.

I received a number of related events about us prospering from international commercial/technological connections through our Jewish community. Which is the origin of that aspect of the story.

Very interesting and a great use of what the game hints at.

Now onto what looks like a plague on everyone’s house!

 

[Historywhiz]

Well I guess it wouldn’t be a Tommy4ever story without the kingdom/empire shattering almost immediately after reaching the height of its powers…

 

[InvisibleBison]

Nothing like 1/3 the population dying to throw a nation into chaos.

the French King, Holy Roman Emperor and local Latin magnates established control over large parts of Palestine at the realm’s expense.

Ugh. Transcontinental exclaves are the worst sort of border gore.

Moqli turned to the Cumans to brutally put down the rebels and garrison the major cities, further strengthening the Cumans’ growing influence over the Assyrian state.

Making yourself dependent on a cultural/religious/ethnic minority that has no strong reason to support you? What could possibly go wrong?

he set out into the ensuing battle for Assyria.

Niv certainly has his work cut out for him. Hopefully he can find a way to stabilize things without killing everyone, but that seems unlikely.

 

[Bullfilter]

And now onto the latest cup of hemlock!

Far more deadly than any epidemic seen in the known world for centuries, the plague would wipe away at least a third of the region’s population in the course of just a few years

The steamroller arrives, grinding much to dust.

Worse, at home in Nineveh Prince Saad, for whose claim the Armenian campaign had been fought, was was claimed by disease alongside his mother, Queen Maria, and much of the royal family.

After returning to his capital, broken by the loss of his family and failure of his political ambitions, the King himself perished from the same sickness in early 1271.

Dang it, glory snatched from a dying grasp!

the plague’s onslaught pushed the fallen King’s cousin Moqli to unexpectedly assume power

He’ll need every ounce of luck he can get.

With his spiritual leader having made the first move, Moqli broke his silence – finally returning to court in Nineveh and announcing his support for the Patriarch’s position. The Messalians were denounced, the state would take no actions against the Jews.

At least he tried to do the right thing here. Much good it would do him!

As the poured into Nineveh, they would unleash a torrent of bloodshed and destruction.

The Assyrians had taken the shocking step of killing their own King.

Oh dear. A descent into the Stygian depths.

In the east, the Cumans were consolidating themselves around Tabriz having absconded from the defence of the capital and to the south a large scale Islamic revolt had broken out in Babylonia.

Traitors - perhaps one day they will be punished appropriately. But first …

fourteen year old Prince Niv, son of Cecilia of Jerusalem, crossed over from Acre with a band of retainers to push for his claim to the Assyrian crown. Quickly winning support in the western provinces, he was crowned King in Damascus before the year was out as he set out into the ensuing battle for Assyria.

… Niv will need the Bat Utility Belt to get out of this one! We wish him luck - he’ll need it.

The plague ended our hopes of the Armenian union. (In game I think I got to a warscore of 80% + when Saad died - which was extremely frustrating).

Gotta hate when that happens. Then again, good on the game for making it hard on the player. Bad for glory, good for drama.

 

[J_Master]

Recently my interest in the effects of the Black Death and Thomas Malthus has been triggered, so it's nice to see Assyria this shook by the ongoing events. Also a nice way to cut down on a perhaps little too successful game. Real question now becomes, if prince Niv successfully pushes his claim, how will relations with the Catholic Church be handled?

 

[Nikolai]

All hail king Niv!

 

[Midnite Duke]

What is poor Queen Tabitha to do? She is in the hands of the Messalians and does not have a brother or father to marry. Sir, You are warped and violent. Execution, by elephant and hot iron crowns, is not normal. I have seen the Mongols several times reform Tengrism or take a non-Pagan, but instead of turbo-charging the conquests, it seems to be the first step in the Mongols becoming settled. Thank you kind sir, for this twisted vision of the Middle East (maybe not so twisted).

Sorry, about death snatching victory from your hand. Recently, I had the opposite where I was -100 because leader had been captured and he died in prison before the AI could declare victory. You have to love torturing captive leaders to death to lose the war.

 

[J_Master]

What is poor Queen Tabitha to do? She is in the hands of the Messalians and does not have a brother or father to marry.

The only real prospect for the future for her would be as either a puppet ruler of the Cumans or being executed by prince Niv as he cannot have another pretender for the throne just laying around in such a unstable position for his kingship

 

[Lord Saurus]

My full support to the prince, the levant belongs to the Nestorians! Off to that Catholic scum.

 

[DensleyBlair]

I’m so bad at keeping up with your comings and goings, Tommy! Time to get cracking catching up with this latest treat.

 

[DensleyBlair]

…and I'm all caught up! What a cracking history this is turning out to be. Plenty to digest, and even more to look forward to I'm sure.

Niv was a somewhat hedonistic figure, a known homosexual who could not bare the company of women

and Yeke the Sword of Jesus

Prince Nahir led around five thousand riders on camels through the impassible terrain of the Syrian Desert to arrive unexpectedly near Damascus

These were all astonishing characters right at the start of the story. Excellent for hooking us in. Thanks to the game engine for throwing them up!

History records that as the badly outnumbered Christian army began to buckle, two great streaks of flames lit up the sky in a brilliant light that forced the sign of the cross – inspiring the Assyrians and Latins to join together in a great charge against the Muslim ranks that broke them and sent them into a rout.

As others said at the time – I can see the Victorian serials and Hollywood blockbusters already!

As the realm appeared to be approaching its first period of peace in a generation, an emissary from the distant St Thomas Christians southern India’s Malabar Coast arrived in Nineveh, fellow Nestorians, with a plea for help.

This was a fascinating detour and quite the cliffhanger. Love to see such a non-Eurocentric playthrough, too. I rarely see CK games where Indian politics actually matter.

He therefore found an unlikely ally in the form of the Omanis – who offered to sail the Assyrians to India in exchange for vast payment and assurances of plunder in the east.

Not sure why, but I found this a really compelling bit of extra info. (I guess in game you hired some merchant naval mercenaries?) I suppose just because it adds to the rich tapestry of characters all bunched up together in the Middle East. As ever Tommy, the little hints of world-building are excellent!

When the new King emerged from this isolation he was faced with a changed, fearful and unhappy world. In the context of social breakdown, untold personal tragedy and hardship, economic disaster and rampant banditry and criminality, the populace were violent, angry and prone to millenarian fervour that would effect Muslim and Christian alike.

Reading this I was going to suggest that perhaps you didn't have to search to far for inspiration with this one – but seeing how dire things subsequently got, I can only hope our own world doesn't end up looking like the Assyyrians'!


Great stuff, Tommy. Looking forward to more soon!

 

[Tommy4ever]

The Hammer 1279-1291​

The fall of Nineveh and execution of King Moqli left Assyria without a single respected source of central authority – leaving the country to fall into anarchy and warlordism as local elites organised themselves against a constellation of rival factions. In the north, the Messalians sought to consolidate upon their great victory. With their recently crowned Queen Tabitha locked away in her palaces, the populist religious leader Dinkha rallied his followers to expand across the Kingdom. They achieved significant victories throughout the Nestorian north – pushing west to capture Edessa, east to Irbil and south to Samarra, although they were notably frustrated in their efforts to push on to Kirkuk by Cuman resistance. Across the lands under their control they repeated a pattern of massacring Jews, expropriating land and property and preaching an increasingly millenarian religious philosophy to the masses.

To the south, Assyria was faced with a threat at least as great as the Messalians in the form of an Islamic revolt in Babylonia. Central and southern Mesopotamia had changed a great deal in a century of Assyrian rule. The southernmost part of the region, around Basra and the marshes of the Shatt al-Arab, the Church of the East had supplanted Islam as the largest religion. Meanwhile, Christianity and Aramean culture had been on the rise in and around cosmopolitan Baghdad. Yet much of the land – particularly outside of the vicinity of Baghdad and Basra – the Arab Muslim character of the region had been unchanged and remained deeply hostile to the impositions of Assyrian rule.

Nineveh’s weakness was their opportunity to strike back and under the leadership of the tribal leader Mubarak Al-Tamur the Muslims overwhelmed almost all of central Mesopotamia and brought the great city of Baghdad – by far the largest in the Middle East, its population further swollen by refugees fleeing the Messalians – under siege. With the local Christian-Assyrian nobility of the region having largely retreated south to Basra, Baghdad had no large army to defend it beyond a ragtag band of Assyrians, Christian Arabs and a hastily created Jewish Legion – the Jews being intensely loyal to the Assyrian state as their key protectors from Islamic and Messalian fanaticism alike. Instead, the beleaguered defenders sent an envoy west to plea for aid from to the pretender Niv of Jerusalem, who was seen by many as the champion of a return to the old order.

Niv, King Niv II of Assyria and Crown Prince of Jerusalem by his own pretensions, entered into the ensuing civil war at the tender age of fourteen. However, from the first set out to lead his men into battle from the front. In the early stages of the war, while he gathered his forces and built confidence, Niv’s troops consolidated the lands west of the Euphrates – capturing Palmyra from a local lord and engaging in inconclusive raids and skirmishes across the river against the Messalians. Indeed, he was forced to turn back from Assyria for a time to aid his mother in putting down a rebellion in Jerusalem by nobles who feared that Niv’s campaigns might ultimately lead to the subsuming of their realm into Assyria. Arriving in 1281, the message from the Baghdadis was well received as an opportunity to expand his influence and break the deadlock in the conflict. Bypassing the Messalians in the north, Niv therefore marched south into Babylonia.

Niv’s march into Babylonia secured quick success. The Muslims fell back from their siege of Baghdad and faced a significant military defeat at Ilam, while the lords of Babylonia and her Jewish and Christian peoples rallied behind Niv as their liberator. Yet this moment of triumph was not to last. The fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates still deemed with pious Muslim Arabs, while in the foothills of the Zagros thousands of Kurdish tribesmen were similarly unwilling to surrender the religious power they had recently regained so easily. Licking his wounds from Ilam, Al-Tamur re-grouped with a horde numbering in excess of fifty thousand men and sent Niv into a ragged retreat.

At the disaster at Dehloran Niv himself was badly injured while his army had been savagely beaten. In a state of near delirium, the pretender’s advisors had called for him to withdraw south to the relative safety of Basra in order to regroup. Instead, Niv called for the remains of his army to go north – into the treacherous Zagros mountains, with its networks of passes that his followers know little of and teeming with hostile Muslim Kurds. It was remarkable that such a journey was made successfully, yet it came at great cost – by the time Niv reached the banks of Lake Urmia, near Tabriz, several months later his exhausted army had been reduced to just a few thousand men. There, he held an audience with the Cuman Khan – demanding that the Khan repent for the oath he and his kin had broken at Nineveh in 1279 by rejoining the service of the true King of Assyria. Naturally, there was more than honour at play in Niv’s offer. The Cumans were under significant pressure from the Messalians, who had not only finally taken Kirkuk but were advancing towards Lake Urmia and Tabriz – seeking to displace Cuman settlers as they went. Niv’s forces, reduced as they were, could tip the balance back against the Messalians, while also presenting them access to legal guarantees and power into the future.

Their oath kept, the Cumans and Niv joined together to scatter the Messalians and retake Kirkuk. From there they pushed on southwards, winning another important victory at Samarra – claiming control over the vital city and allowing them to receive reinforcements from the western provinces and Jerusalem. Rather than carry this momentum forward against the northern heretics, Niv pushed south to renew his struggle against Al-Tamur. Once again Baghdad was relieved from a Muslim siege, its strong defences holding out just long enough to keep them at bay. Through the next two years, from 1284 to 1286, Niv and the Cuman Khan waged a long, bloody and exacting campaign criss crossing Babylonia – wearing down Al-Tamur’s armies and the great rebel leader himself as well as the communities that supported them. A key facet this approach, chiefly carried out by the Cumans, to putting down the unrest in Babylonia was through forced conversions, the destruction of villages and fields. By 1286 the region was sufficiently calmed to allow the battle hardened Niv to march north once more.

This push to retake the capital was halted by the outbreak of conflict within the ranks of Niv’s own coalition. Ever since his first campaign in Babylonia five years before, the Mesopotamian Maliks had been one of the cornerstones of his support. Yet the extreme brutality used to by the Cumans over the past two years, that had badly damaged their lands and severed the region’s fragile social relations, had simply been too much. The most powerful of this group, Malik Caiaphas of Basra, sent Niv an ultimatum – turn on the Cumans, or lose their support. Unwilling to abandon his most effective military weapon, Niv rejected these demands and was forced to turn his army around to face down this noble revolt. The magnates rebellion was little more than a cruel echo of previous stages in Assyria’s long civil war, with Caiaphas and his allies defeated in the course of just a few months. Yet this did delay the arrival of Niv’s army on the frontier of the Messalian domain until 1287.

The Messalians were not the force they had once been. While Niv and Cumans had campaigned in the south, war had broken out between the Byzantine governor of Syria and the Messalians, seeing Edessa fall under Greek occupation. Worse, the Messalians revolution had started to eat her own children as, with external enemies closing in, Dinkha had begun to regularly purge their political, military and religious leaderships while on the ground, many of their former peasant allies had grown increasingly disinterested since land had been redistributed. With relative ease, Niv defeated the Messalians in battle and then marched on the capital – seizing it without a fight as its garrison defected to the King, now recognised across the realm. Niv the Hammer offered little mercy to the defeated. Messalians were to be either executed, expelled or forced into repentance by an inquisition led by the Church of the East, their puppet Queen, Tabitha, was imprisoned in a tower within the royal palaces of Nineveh – forbidden from ever leaving – while Dinkha himself, deemed a false prophet, was crucified – left to hang outside the gates of the city. It is notable that while Messalianism was wiped out in Assyria in the ensuing years, a community from the group made an arduous journey through the Syrian desert to settle in the mountains and deserts to the west of Damascus.

Unfortunately for the tired people of Assyria, even with all internal foes vanquished, there remained another battle to fight. Niv, now without dispute King Niv II, had hoped to be able to negotiate the peaceful return of Edessa from the Byzantines. Yet the Romans had no intention of parting with their new prize, expecting the exhausted and weakened Assyrians to offer little resistance. To their surprise, the Assyrian King skilfully outmanoeuvred them diplomatically by making contact with Great Khan Pachu – the Cuman ruler of central Anatolia, the Danube and Bulgaria. Pachu agreed to attack the Romans from the north and east simultaneously alongside the Assyrians. These attacks allowed Niv not only to reclaim Edessa after a short siege but push on into Byzantine Syria as well. There, the Assyrians met with successes they could only dream of, with Constantinople incapable of sending effective reinforcements while the Cumans threatened them in the Balkans and Anatolia. Niv successfully captured the rich cities of Aleppo and Alexandretta to the west of Edessa, although he was ultimately frustrated after a long siege of Antioch as the city’s ancient walls proved too much for his army to overcome. Nonetheless, peace was agreed in 1291 that ended hostilities and brought an end to twelve years of continuous warfare in Assyria. Niv II had earned his reputation as the Hammer in blood, subduing a Kingdom on the brink of collapse and even securing an outlet to the blue waters of the Mediterranean and a new destiny in the Levant.

 

[KanadeSomeone]

Niv II seems like quite a brilliant ruler. Let's see what else he has up his sleeves...

 

[Tommy4ever]

A hard couple of decades for Assyria since the plague, but the Kingdom has made it through somehow intact (in fact actually gained Tabriz and Aleppo in the middle of all those wars). This in game explanation for these civil wars:

The Jewish events after the plague seen in the previous update greatly increase revolt risk. We had an initial peasant revolt, but things got very had in 1278. I have the settings to make revolts very powerful - so from a from a weakened position a peasant revolt in Nineveh and a Muslim revolt around Baghdad tipped us over the edge. We ended up losing the capital to the revolt (the in story Messalians). War resumed immediately afterwards, and they had large numbers of event troops - we wouldn't retake Nineveh for almost a decade. I spent most of my time trying to put down the Muslim revolt in Baghdad. Several times they reached close to 100% warscore, which would have essentially ended my rule in central Mesopotamia. It was a real game of cat and mouse with me picking off armies, and them receiving huge reinforcements. As you can see, they fielded 50k+ men in a single battle at one point. My army was heavily reliant on Turkic (Cuman) mercs - so that aspect of the story holds very true. Just as things were starting to calm down with the Muslim revolt beaten, I faced a noble rebellion over council power - which only extended things further. The Byzantine storyline was also close to in game events. They were distracted by fighting the Cumans and one of my vassals invaded them, and it sucked me into a couple of short wars at the tail end of the civil war that saw us gain those two provinces and reach the Med.

Time Warp 1: was just winding up my reading and comments on the previous chapter when the new one came out. So I’ll post those now, then get into the next when I can, as I found a fair bit to remark on in the prior one

I did find it interesting indeed that they reformed Tengrism. You’d think it might have helped spread their power further, but either it didn’t, or the base was low enough it didn’t make sufficient difference.

Well, the poor man’s Mongols seem to have done a good enough job of that. And being Catholic, could have just as dangerous an impact for of Assyrian protagonists.

It seems to be one of those choices where you just try to pick the least worst option and will get the blame whichever you choose.

Hmmm, there you go.

This spells trouble ahead for both sides.

There’s always a bigger fish.

Per above, I’d thought it might have turbocharged their invasions, but it seems not.

Another interesting incorporation of game events.

It seems getting captured is far worse that being killed for one’s war prospects. Not sure how that relates to/models historical examples.

Very interesting and a great use of what the game hints at.

Now onto what looks like a plague on everyone’s house!

Despite getting access to great holy wars, the Tengri Reformation didn't really seem to help the Mongols all that much. Part of that was strange choice of targets. I think their first GHW was against Bulgaria - far, far away from any actual Tengri rulers. You'd think pushing into Central Asia or at least some adjacent realms would have been a better move.

The Cumans certainly saved the 13th century in terms of drama with their various invasions - and their story within the Middle East is far from run at this stage.

Its a strange little feature of CK2 that you will pray that your ruler dies rather than gets captured in any engagement - which would not quite have been the incentive in real life. IRL, I suppose a ruler being captured might not necessarily mean the end of a conflict - he might have been able to be ransomed and resume fighting after all, especially depending on whose precise custody he was in.

Well I guess it wouldn’t be a Tommy4ever story without the kingdom/empire shattering almost immediately after reaching the height of its powers…

I hope I've not grown too predictable!

Nothing like 1/3 the population dying to throw a nation into chaos.

Ugh. Transcontinental exclaves are the worst sort of border gore.

Making yourself dependent on a cultural/religious/ethnic minority that has no strong reason to support you? What could possibly go wrong?

Niv certainly has his work cut out for him. Hopefully he can find a way to stabilize things without killing everyone, but that seems unlikely.

I don't necessarily mind the exclaves - its the landlocked ones on another continent that annoy me (like the French in Transjordan but not on the coast ...).

And we are seeing Niv making the same decision to get into bed with the Cumans as the most effective available fighters. It has also helped to alienate some of his own allies - we shall see if it does any further damage.

And now onto the latest cup of hemlock!

The steamroller arrives, grinding much to dust.

Dang it, glory snatched from a dying grasp!

He’ll need every ounce of luck he can get.

At least he tried to do the right thing here. Much good it would do him!

Oh dear. A descent into the Stygian depths.

Traitors - perhaps one day they will be punished appropriately. But first …

… Niv will need the Bat Utility Belt to get out of this one! We wish him luck - he’ll need it.

Gotta hate when that happens. Then again, good on the game for making it hard on the player. Bad for glory, good for drama.

Moqli might have been a weak ruler, but history will credit him for standing against the expulsion of the Jews when there was pressure on him to do so (and he might have saved his own life if he had). Followers of my Polish AAR will know that I am not opposed to taking the darker path for my protagonists when the option comes up - so I left this one up to the game engine, clicking the event choice that says to ask the opinion of the Patriarch (who opposed the expulsion).

The Cumans got out of their oathbreaking not only without punishment but if anything in a further strengthened position than before this civil war by switching around sides at just the right time. We shall see how long they can keep playing that particular game.

It was a close run thing for a large part of the civil war, and victory has not come without great costs. But Niv, the Hammer, won out in the end.

Recently my interest in the effects of the Black Death and Thomas Malthus has been triggered, so it's nice to see Assyria this shook by the ongoing events. Also a nice way to cut down on a perhaps little too successful game. Real question now becomes, if prince Niv successfully pushes his claim, how will relations with the Catholic Church be handled?

Forget about the Crusades, the Black Death really was the most era defining moment in medieval history that shaped society more than any other. I try to make sure it plays a part in my AARs when it comes up. Its fortunate that the game threw up some chaos to align with it for this story (and indeed for the Persian AAR) to add sufficient richness!

As for the Catholic Church, that question will come to the fore more in the updates ahead. Let us not forget he is due to inherit the very Catholic title of King of Jerusalem whenever his mother dies ... Relations with Rome are not something that will be able to be dodged or delayed forever.

All hail king Niv!

King Niv the Hammer! Victor!

What is poor Queen Tabitha to do? She is in the hands of the Messalians and does not have a brother or father to marry. Sir, You are warped and violent. Execution, by elephant and hot iron crowns, is not normal. I have seen the Mongols several times reform Tengrism or take a non-Pagan, but instead of turbo-charging the conquests, it seems to be the first step in the Mongols becoming settled. Thank you kind sir, for this twisted vision of the Middle East (maybe not so twisted).

Sorry, about death snatching victory from your hand. Recently, I had the opposite where I was -100 because leader had been captured and he died in prison before the AI could declare victory. You have to love torturing captive leaders to death to lose the war.

She did indeed have little choice, and was more a patsy than an active driver of events.

As for the executions - real life provides more terrible examples than could ever be dreamed up! I actually came up with the hot iron crown while I was searching for images for a more vanilla execution for Moqli - only to stumble into a rabbit whole about a real life peasant rebellion in Transylvania that ended with just such an execution. Provides all the inspiration you need!

The only real prospect for the future for her would be as either a puppet ruler of the Cumans or being executed by prince Niv as he cannot have another pretender for the throne just laying around in such a unstable position for his kingship

Considering Niv's blunt treatment of his foes, Tabitha was shocking fortunate to escape execution at the end of all this - benefiting perhaps from a reluctance of the King to engage in kinslayer against a female relative, and an awareness that she was more of a pawn than active party.

My full support to the prince, the levant belongs to the Nestorians! Off to that Catholic scum.

And what a job he did in restoring order to a Kingdom on the brink of collapse. However, he has only gotten Assyria in deeper with the Cumans and the Catholics - we shall see how that plays out, especially when his mother (the Queen of Jerusalem) eventually passes.

I’m so bad at keeping up with your comings and goings, Tommy! Time to get cracking catching up with this latest treat.

…and I'm all caught up! What a cracking history this is turning out to be. Plenty to digest, and even more to look forward to I'm sure.


These were all astonishing characters right at the start of the story. Excellent for hooking us in. Thanks to the game engine for throwing them up!

As others said at the time – I can see the Victorian serials and Hollywood blockbusters already!

This was a fascinating detour and quite the cliffhanger. Love to see such a non-Eurocentric playthrough, too. I rarely see CK games where Indian politics actually matter.

Not sure why, but I found this a really compelling bit of extra info. (I guess in game you hired some merchant naval mercenaries?) I suppose just because it adds to the rich tapestry of characters all bunched up together in the Middle East. As ever Tommy, the little hints of world-building are excellent!

Reading this I was going to suggest that perhaps you didn't have to search to far for inspiration with this one – but seeing how dire things subsequently got, I can only hope our own world doesn't end up looking like the Assyyrians'!

Great stuff, Tommy. Looking forward to more soon!

Great to have you on board for another story Densley! I'm glad you have been enjoying the story to this point. We did get really lucky in how interesting (and effective) our first few characters were. It perhaps made the growth of the Kingdom a little faster than it might otherwise have been - but it would always taken some exceptional figures to turn the dying Assyrian culture into a major force.

On the Indian aspect, there have of course been ongoings out east while all the latest chaos has been going on in Assyria - I will be looking to fit in a look to Malabar soon. We are in a very interesting geographic position in the Middle East, but with our religious connections linking us to both Europe (as Christians) and Asia (as Nestorians), which is an interesting balance.

With the Omanis, I only got a very small navy from Basra, so hired up some mercenaries to make the journey. In order to transport a large army from Mesopotamia to India we were always going to need a large fleet - and the Omanis were surely the only seafaring people strong enough to do the job, playing a role not unlike the Italian cities during the Crusades.

 

[Midnite Duke]

The hard revolt setting explains a lot. The isolated landlocked exclaves just beg to be captured (and the AI ignores the easy pickings). Tabitha is a very sad chapter, if Niv had been Messalian, he could have made a divine marriage. Thank you, fearless leader, onwards to Jerusalem.

 

[Bullfilter]

A rip-roaring update! Must have been very entertaining and a good challenge to play.

the populist religious leader Dinkha rallied his followers to expand across the Kingdom. They achieved significant victories throughout the Nestorian north – pushing west to capture Edessa, east to Irbil and south to Samarra, although they were notably frustrated in their efforts to push on to Kirkuk by Cuman resistance.

Oh, I do hope this scorpion gets his just and grisly desserts.

Licking his wounds from Ilam, Al-Tamur re-grouped with a horde numbering in excess of fifty thousand men and sent Niv into a ragged retreat.

The second army, even though still just a horde of lightly armed peasants, was just too huge in the end. Too many orcs.

Instead, Niv called for the remains of his army to go north – into the treacherous Zagros mountains

There, he held an audience with the Cuman Khan – demanding that the Khan repent for the oath he and his kin had broken at Nineveh in 1279 by rejoining the service of the true King of Assyria.

Well done, Aragorn! The Army of the Dead shall sweep all before it!

Niv pushed south to renew his struggle against Al-Tamur. Once again Baghdad was relieved from a Muslim siege, its strong defences holding out just long enough to keep them at bay.

On to Mordor!

Niv the Hammer offered little mercy to the defeated.

Dinkha himself, deemed a false prophet, was crucified

A good thing too! Something involving molten lead and a funnel would have quite in order.

peace was agreed in 1291 that ended hostilities and brought an end to twelve years of continuous warfare in Assyria

Phew! Victory, jaws of defeat, etc.

I have the settings to make revolts very powerful

Very clearly!

Several times they reached close to 100% warscore, which would have essentially ended my rule in central Mesopotamia. It was a real game of cat and mouse

Exciting stuff.

My army was heavily reliant on Turkic (Cuman) mercs - so that aspect of the story holds very true.

Nicely incorporated. Was any oath actually ever broken by Cumans past?

I left this one up to the game engine, clicking the event choice that says to ask the opinion of the Patriarch (who opposed the expulsion).

Nicely done. Plaudits to the Patriarch.

 

[Ix:Risor]

If Niv does inherit Jerusalem, do we see an Assyrian Levant? Of course, as alluded to, this would only exacerbate tensions with the Catholics, and with the Cumans as powerful as they are, some settlement will have to be reached...