Really happy with my current game (769 Mercia). I beat Death at Chess, crowned by the pope (several times now), defeated 4 invasions to the British Isles, two against me personally, founded Britannia (and founder later became a saint).
At this point iirc Charlemagne united all that territory but another dynasty ultimately formed Francia. They will later break out in civil war, and some kingdoms actually being independent for some time before being absorbed once again. During these times Umayyad sniped Most of Aquitaine and parts of France.
I was actually nervous about this time because there was actually a 5th invasion called after I formed Britannia but my ruler died and nothing happened after that.
Noregr became Miaphysite and somehow I ended up getting a matri marriage to the eventually king but the son who was my kin died in prison and his daughter died childless (I even went through the trouble of saving her from concubinage!) so nothing came of it.
I did have plenty of opportunities to take at least parts of Francia and the ERE but decided against pressing claims.
Muhallabid/Abbasid have some sort of dueling rivalry in the sense that at certain points one is the more dominant in the kingdoms of Egypt, Africa and Arabia. I think that is keeping Abbasid from eating away at the ERE (although the ERE is pretty strong right now).
Through marriage shenanigans Ireland inherited Brittany. Francia was a big mess right before this with Germany, Aquitaine (which was really just Normandy + parts of Toulouse), and France freshly become independent after a war. Umayyad was in two wars with the Abbasid and ERE so I decided to call a GC for Aquitaine. Umayyad sued for peace really early because the Shia spawned for the second time (Sami) and would attack them for Andalusia (and later Aragon).
Sami later tried to invade me but because the AI is stupid I was able to win after only a few lopsided battles (they must have had only 70 boats so they would send about 6k at a time to be slaughtered by my 20 k army) and a few sieges to counties in Seville and Cordoba.
Really disappointed that Saxony converted to Christianity. Svipjod is still pagan but I think they only hold 2 sites. Really hoping they can boot Khazaria out of Denmark and reform. I kind of miss the invasions now lol.
I'm kind of wondering what to do now. I decided to suicide by scurvy so I could start out as a young ruler. I hardly ever got baptism events because my next ruler would be in their mid late 30s with a bunch of kids already. Monastic life was getting monotonous so this time I decided not to jump right away into the monastic order and do some old fashioned seduction. So far I don't have a son (well none that were revealed) and 4 daughters, 3 of whom are bastards. I was going to holy war Umayyad some more but now I think I'll at most take their French holdings. I'm regional power at this point. I don't want to cross the line into superpower yet.
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