שירי בית דוד - Songs of the House of David

[Kashked]

Alright, lets start out with the disclaimers... This AAR is not made as any kind of commentary on current events. I actually started this game 2 days before the recent round of hostilities broke out. Neither is it meant to portray anti-semitic stereotypes or ideas. The judaism, and jews, of this alternate timeline exist under very different circumstances than those of our own history and will have very little in common with the jewish experience in real history.
Also, any time I use hebrew characters I am entirely reliant on google translate. It could be total nonsense for all I know.

That out of the way, this will be, if that isn't already obvious, an Judea into Israel AAR, that likely will continue into a grand campaign. At the time of starting this writing I'm at 90 CE, or 402 AG ("Anno Graecorum", or year of the greeks) as the Israelites in the story would account it. AG was historically used by the jews during the second temple period for dating up until the diasphora, but since that isn't likely to happen it gives me an excuse to modify the dates a bit. Wise from experience, this is my second grand campaign, I know that
1. You can't damned well play IR until the 700's, that is super boring,
and...
2. You can't start a CK3 campaign in the 400's, that sucks because you wont get any tech advancment for centuries, and also, the game can't handle running into the 1400's for the transition into EU4, it'll get very slow after about 600 years of play, well, atleast with the mods I use.
So using the AG calendar I can play until about the 400's AD, which is as far as the timeline extensions I use have events for anyway with the huns being the last mayor event, and then start off CK3 with a date in the 700's, and then hopefully play the campaign until completion under the AG calendar. Yeah, Genghis Khan will be born 300 years early and the Ming will be all wrong, but we can't see that part of asia in-game anyway so lets just assume they went through some kind of alternate timeline too that will have them arriving at that state earlier than in real history.

I will also note that there is no consensus amongs historians, well, atleast not according to Wikipedia, wheter second-temple judaism was a proselytizing religion or not. The evidence goes both ways. For the purposes of this playthrough I'll assume that it was. In fact, it will kind of be the main theme of the playthrough. Again, wise from my previous playthrough where I kind of conquered the world as Rome in IR, which was, don't get me wrong, fun, but I will attempt to NOT have hebrew culture be as hegemonic as the roman culture was in my last AAR. Gameplay-wise it was fine. CK3's hybrid and divergent cultures made the cultural landscape varied enough anyway, and when the game converted to EU4 it broke up the culture even more, but this time around I want more diversity. So I will attempt to preserve many cultures going into CK3, and then let it work it's madness with them, and hopefully this will provide a more interesting cultural mosaic than just one main hegemonic culture. So as I expand I'm not expanding the culture very much, but I am expanding the religion. Basically these jews, after breaking free of greek overlordship and ending up as one of the regional top dogs decided that the "people of Israel" wasn't so much about ethnicity and descent, but rather belief. Kind of proto-christian in a way. Also, this Israel is very Hellenised. The kings of Israel sees themselves as much as the inheritors of Alexander as those of Solomon. The army fights in a phalanx, learned men speak greek as well as hebrew, and not unlike in certain early greek christian sects they do not deny the existence of gods like Zeus and Ares, they just claim that these are demons, false gods, not worthy of worship. The missionaries don't go around saying "Zeus isn't real, let's go get you circumsised", they are saying that there is only one God worth worshipping, the Jealous God, the one that says "Thou shalt have no other Gods beside Me".
In fact, in 90 AD, there are only two hebrews for every Macedonian in the empire, and most of those live in Canaan itself, the Macedonians arguably being more influential and dominant in the outer areas of the empire, even though the nobility is all hebrew. They haven't abandonned the idea of the "chosen people" as much as they have... well, modified it. And with many syrians and macedonians now having been jews going back over 300 years, I do see that erosion of the idea of judaism being an ethnicity only further being undermined going forward. I'm not going to push too hard to make it happen, but an nationalist hebrew-supremasist fascist cult taking root in Canaan in the 30's sounds like a fun way to cap off the campaign, if I ever make it that far... Yeah, I am proposing jewish Hitler starting the war in HoI. But I am getting way ahead of myself.

So let me present to you, the world, in 89 AD, 842 AUC, 401 AG:

Our protagonist, Israel, is the most popolous realm of men in the world. Having broken free from foriegn domination roughly 400 years ago after the re-establishment of the monarchy under the house of David, Israel practices it's own unique religion, sometimes called judaism or more commonly refered to as the Israelite faith, or by it's detractors, the faith of the Jealous God. Future historians would call this period "the Imperial Israelite creed", to distinguish it from the second temple-period of religious development after the return from exile in Babylon.
The King of Israel is always advised by his Kohen Gadol, the high priest in the temple at Jerusalem, who traditionally was from the house of Zadok, the Tzadokites, but for the last 100 years the Kohen Gadols have been chosen from within the royal house of David itself instead. Thusly Israel has two rulers, one who deals with wordly matters, and one who deals with the divine.
The integrated cultures are the Macedonians, Aramaic, Median, Phoenician, Nabatanean, Makan and Sabean peoples. I choose very specifically to not integrate the Babylonians, Assyrians or Egyptians, for RP-reasons.
Pontus, Aritharid Kingdom, Bithynia, Phrygia, Lycia and Syrbotia are client states. I'm only integrating Syrbotia as I don't have any use for them threatening the southern border of Egypt anymore. The rest I am keeping as buffer-states against the romans. Also, keeping them alive will allow both Zoroastrianism and the Cybelene faith to survive into CK3, which I find desirable.

Do note that I'm not playing my top game here. I am very reluctant to do any expanding because I don't want to repeat my world conquest in my last megacampaign. I want strong opponents to butt heads with in CK and EU. If it wasn't so boring I would actually want to be even smaller than this. I have been at 0 AE for most of the game, never spiking above 40 or so. I could have been stronger than this, I'm choosing not to be.

In the west we have the second most popolous realm in the world, the Roman Kingdom. I do hope they manage to get to "empire" without having to take any of my land... I'm also hoping they will turn christian in the end, but we'll see. A lot of the events promoting christianity takes place in the middle east, and obviously I'm killing that pretty hard in my own lands, so I'm not sure they will get enough converts to convert the nation, although I don't know if there is some "cheat" for AI Rome enabled in the timeline extension or not. When I played Rome I wasn't even close to being able to convert the nation at any point.

The other obvious great power is Carthage, although Carthage is in the middle of a civil war in this screenshot. I'm expecting Rome to kill them off before the game is over though. Surprised it hasn't already happened, the AI is set to "chaotic" so it is a lot more willing to take AE than it normally would, but I guess they have kept busy.
Pritania is one of few mid-power nations that have survived. They have just recently switched over from tribalism to monarchy, and then descended into civil war. Suebia looks imposing, but they only have about 4000 pops (I have 21 000, and the romans 15 000, for comparison) so they are definatly more of a power than Pritania with about 1500, but it's not like they will be marching on Rome any time soon. They are still a migratory tribe, although they wont splinter as one of my mods stops barbarian splintering after 750 AUC for performance reasons.
My greatest sadness is the fall of the Nesiotic League. At one point they held all of Greece, had conquered Paeonia and Macedon, and even Aeolia and Ionia. If it wasn't for Rome they would have been a world power. Now they are on life-support... and unlikely to survive their next encounter with Rome. But hey, they stuck around long enough that maybe the greeks won't be extinct by CK3, so there's that atleast.

I am using the Virtual Limes mod, so a lot of the smaller nations are actually "friends and allies" created by the AI nations as buffer-states in areas they aren't 'allowed' to expand into by that mod. It makes for nations that makes a lot more sense than vanilla IR. I enabled the mod about 150 in-game years ago and it has created much cleaner borders than what you would expect, which isn't saying much, but it's something atleast.

And finally in Asia, where there is really just one game in town, Bharatvarsha. Maurya turned into "The Gandharan Empire" turned into this. Don't let the map fool you, almost all those nations in the east are client states created by the empire. Alania is our resident steppe-horde, they even managed to take Crimea off Rome itself.

Well, all that being said, I don't intend to start writing the actual AAR today. This is more like an overview before I get started. And if I don't do it in the next few days, it'll be two weeks from now, as I'll be going away over New Year.

Anyway, if anyone have any further ideas on how the jewish religion and culture would have changed from being the hegemonic faith of an imperial power over centuries, feel free to drop them here. Just keep in mind that it is a hellenised and missionary faith at the crossroads of the Romans, Greeks and Indians. I have been listening to youtube lectures about jewish history and faith during the period while playing, but I am by no means an scholar in the subject, so there might be something very obvious I'm missing, or something that would just work very well narrativly that I haven't considered.

 

[Bullfilter]

Interesting premise. I’ll see how you go with it. So you won’t be going back in a prequel to illustrate how things got to this point, where it started etc (say using old saves, for example)?

 

[Kashked]

Interesting premise. I’ll see how you go with it. So you won’t be going back in a prequel to illustrate how things got to this point, where it started etc (say using old saves, for example)?

I have taken notes since the start, as well as screenshots, so, yeah, there will likely be some stuff from the early struggles. I like to write in-universe rather than straight-up prose, so an historical account of the re-establishment of Israel will certainly happen, in fact it is at the top of my list. The two main ideas I have started working on is an report on Israel from a merchant to the king of Rome, like a travel-account, and a "Book of the New Kings", something in a biblical style that is added to the Talmud in-universe about the rise of Israel as an mayor world power.

 

[Bullfilter]

Nice!

 

[Kashked]

Spoiler alert... The Justinian Plague, in combination with extra crap added by the Crisis of the third century mod doesn't pull any punches. I've mentioned I'm deliberatly not playing at the top of my game, but these twelve years I really did try to get out of it with as much intact as possible. Combination of pops dying and losing land put me back from 30 000 to 10 000.

Ouch.

Before Justinian Plague:

After Justinian plague...

It was such a nice empire. While it lasted...


Speaking of former empires. I might just have come out better out of it than the competition. Carthage is gone. Rome isn't really Rome any more. Alania shattered. Only powers coming out of this more or less unharmed in Bharatvarsha and Suebia. 200 years to put back the pieces... for all of us.

But hey, Nesiotic league is back in style!

 

[Bullfilter]

It was such a nice empire. While it lasted...

Wow, that really is a wild scrambler of nations. From the challenge perspective, a really good chaotic tipping point to freshen things up and break down the bigger forming blobs. Israel looks to have done comparatively well out of it, despite the fragmentation. But that bit of the homeland must surely be recovered first. Promised land and all that!

 

[HistoryDude]

This world is interesting, although Israel is massive. Will we learn how that world emerged?

Rome and Carthage don't seem to have done well.

If it helps, my plan for Epirus Ascendant is to just play vanilla, convert, and then do some modding while filling out the history between I:R and CK3. Maybe you could try a variant of that?

 

[Kashked]

Wow, that really is a wild scrambler of nations. From the challenge perspective, a really good chaotic tipping point to freshen things up and break down the bigger forming blobs. Israel looks to have done comparatively well out of it, despite the fragmentation. But that bit of the homeland must surely be recovered first. Promised land and all that!

Yeah. But there is still roughly 200 years to play, I want to end at about 400 AD, which with the calendar I've decided to use will make it just after 700 for CK and going forward. So I have plenty of time to put it all togheter. But for anyone who knows how the timeline extension and crisis of the third century-mods work, I am likely to shatter atleast once more before that, so none of this is stable. I am walking a seriously tight rope, at this point external powers are pretty much an non-factor, it's internal stability that is the challenge, and conquering more wont make me stronger, just more vulnerable when the crisis hits. At the same time with how crisis of the third century works I need to constantly add non-integrated pops to my empire, or I'll worsen the internal economic situation, which doesn't affect my cashflow as the state, but I assume will have some pretty dire consequenses when it comes to stability and pop happyness. My economic reform already have me at -20% integrated pop happyness and -30% commerece income, and I don't know what the conditions are for me to be able to take the decision to end the monetary crisis. It's my first time playing Crisis of the third century, and I've kept ahead of the crisis so far, but I didn't invest in keeping my precious metal-mines open because I didn't realise how important that was, and it's really coming back to bite me.

This world is interesting, although Israel is massive. Will we learn how that world emerged?

Rome and Carthage don't seem to have done well.

If it helps, my plan for Epirus Ascendant is to just play vanilla, convert, and then do some modding while filling out the history between I:R and CK3. Maybe you could try a variant of that?

Yeah, I intend to cover the rise to power first, and religious and social developments coming from that. I also want to write outsiders perspective on the empire.

As for filling out the history I do want to play up until the hun invasion atleast, and then convert and just set the CK startdate somewhere in the 8th century and then keep that going from there. Luckily the calendar of the second temple judean-period allows me to do that and then just use the in-game calendar from that point on, so I am commited to the long game for IR. The internal instability from my mods will hopefully keep the game interesting even up to that point. I also want to end the game at some kind of point of crisis, to explain why/how the governors ends up as hereditary kings. Atleast, unlike in my Rome-campaign, I don't have to explain why the legions just went poof at the height of the empire, as I only have my one legion, the royal army, and intend to keep it that way.

As for Israel's size, yeah. My goal for the IR part of the campaign was to reach a size that was roughly equivalent to the Abbasids in vanilla CK3's early start date, and then at some point use a dissolution faction to shatter the empire in CK3, if the AI doesn't do it before me, and start EU in whatever kingdom I end up in after the dissolution of the empire, but there is little point planning too far ahead, that's just a rough idea of where I expect it to go. I don't have a grand plan for where I want the narrative to go, I'm totally open to even ending up non-jewish somewhere else in the world at some point in CK if there is a decent narrative reason for it. Aside from being commited to making sure I'm not too strong at the start of EU4 and Vicky, I am just letting the narrative take me where it wills.

And while Carthage and Rome is pretty much gone, the Carthagenians and the Romans aren't and their succesor kingdoms are among the larger powers, so those cultures will definatly still have a huge impact in the game going forward still.

 

[Kashked]

This here is my attempt to write in a slightly biblical style. Only issue is... I haven't actually read the bible in english, except short excerpts. So words and style may be off. Honestly I don't really feel I pulled it off. But it's the best I could do. In either case it kind of fits, unlike other biblical text this was written by priests who make up the upper strata of an conquering imperial power, so it's a lot more historical chronicle of the empire that is foundational to an transforming religion than mythical retellings of the deeds and words of prophets. Basically it represents the role of judaism transforming from an insular ethno-religion into the foundational ideological justification of an empire. Just as how christinaity changed it's very nature by becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire the israelite faith gets heavily entangled into the imperial structure, not only in a practical administrative role, but as an religio-ideological tool justifying not only the existance of the state but also it's expansion.

Anyway, in-universe this text was added to the Talmud around 100 BCE, or the 170's AG/620's AUC in-universe. Doing these date-convertions is a damned headache... You either do x+312 for CE, or x-444 for AUC, for a year 0 that is 312 BCE, corresponding to the return of Selukos to Babylon after his exile in Egypt. As I mentioned above, this was the dating system used in Judea during the second temple-period up until the destruction of the temple and beginning of the diasphora in 70 CE. The modern hebrew calendar that takes it's date from the calculated creation of the world, from analysis of the biblical text, is a much later invention, and also not useful for this campaign, which is why I wont use it.

Another note. In real-world terminology the hebrew word goyim is usually translated as "gentile", denoting a non-jew. Gentile stems from the latin "gens", meaning clan or nation and the word isn't actually ever used in the bible, it's a much later invention. I've decided that in this world "goyim" corresponds more accuratly to "infidel", since the jewish faith is multicultural, while the "gentiles" will be the nations that have accepted jewish law but does not descend from the twelve tribes of Israel. So basically converts. This will keep the idea of distinction between the hebrews and other nations that is so important in the bible, while still recognising that the majority of jews aren't hebrews, they are instead "of the nations/gens", i.e. "gentiles", a term that could plausibly have been borrowed from the romans through cultural and linguistic exchange.

ספר המלך החדש
The new book of Kings, compiled from older as well as contemporary sources during the reign of 'Abraham (106-180 AG)
Chronicle of the New Kings of the house of David who restored Israel
​

Oh children of the Lord, Him most High, Protector of the Faithful, who carried in their hearts his words, and who followed his law, even as they lived in captivity in the clutches of the wretched Babylonians, ye have returned to the land that was once promised to you.

Sing the praises of the Lord in the new temple, tell of His might and benevolence.

The King Cyrus released you from your bondage and allowed your return, and for many years we lived in peace with the Persians, that noble people.

The age of the Persians ended, and we entered the age of the Greeks as mighty Alexander, beloved by the Lord, marched into our lands and took stewardship.

In that time no King of the line of David sat upon the throne, neither were our rulers anointed in the holy oil, not since Holy Zerubbabel ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerubbabel ) did that sacred bloodline hold true authority, but the prince of the the Sanhedrin ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasi_(Hebrew_title) ) ruled over Judea, in the name of the Diadochi, but the people were uneasy, for even the benign rule of foreigners and goyim is distasteful to the faithful, who yearned to return to the time of the Kings of Israel.

Amongst the wisest of the Nasi during those days were Shi'mon, of the line of Zadok, who kept the temple and administred justice amongst the people of Judea. At that time did Judea tribute to the Diadochi Antigonos, who was a wicked man and unworthy of the heritage of Blessed Alexander. Sending envoys to Alexandria to the venerable Ptolemy, who was a companion of Glorious Alexander himself, pledging the support of Judea against Antigonus in return for granting to the Judeans their ancestral homelands currently held by Greek rulers, and recognising the establishment of an anointed king of Judea of the house of David. Wise Ptolemy agreed to this and in the 8th year of the reign of Selukos the Conqueror in Babylon Daniyyel, a noble scion of Zerubbabel's line was anointed king of Judea.

[Extent of the Kingdom of Judea at the start of the rule of Daniyyel.]

Daniyyel marched the men of Yerushaláyim into Syria. He conquered many towns, of which all he treated fairly. After his return to Yerushaláyim after several years of conflict in the north the spoils of that war was made to pay for the establishment of shrines, markets, libraries and great granaries.
In the 5th year of the war Antigonos was struck dead by the Lord for his wickedness, and from that point no resistance was given to the combined advances from Ptolemy and Selukos, who took all land from Antigonids heir. But even then the cursed Demetrios turned up again from his base in Greece, and conquered many towns in Syria, naming a govenor of that region and gathered an army of the local Macedonians to march south. Daniyyel defeated this army at Parnia and reversed all Antigonid advances in Syria, and also fought off the Ionians in phenicia, while the Antigonid navy was destroyed within sight of the city walls of Salamis, in Cyprus. And with that the war was over.

Many are the tales of the exploits of Daniyyel, who is the father of our nation.

After peace is restored, Daniyyel attacks the Samarians, who are rightfully part of our people, though they can not see it in their folly. Their meager forces are crushed at Bet Yerah by forces led by Yosep Kepa Cynicus, who have been appointed Governor of the northern parts of Judah, with support from Egyptian forces. Yosep then proceeds to round up many of the samarians in the countryside, sending them into slavery in Qadesh, his seat of power, while the main army sieges the samaritan stronghold in Shekem.

Daniyyel led the men of Judah to defeat a band of roving arab raiders from Hadhramut.

Eshmun'adon the Philistine of Rashpon rebels against the Ptolemaics, who by this time is ruled by a 10 year old girl called Kleopatra, first queen of Egypt. Chaos rules in Egypt as they are fighting Selukos in Syria.
Making a deal allowing the Egyptians to pass unmolested through Judea, Daniyyel attacks, sacks the city of Rashop, and adds it to his kingdom, integrated into the province of Samaria, securing for Judea a port connecting it's land to the mediterranean sea.

The Phoenicians rebel against the Egyptians under Tabnit, who was a prominent man amongst that people. Judah attacks the rebellion, the Egyptians being greatly weakened by their loss in Syria do not contest this conquest. Judea seize the Galilean coast, and borderlands in Philistia, further expanding the kingdom, taking the cities of 'Akko, Dor and 'Ashdo.

The Phoenicians, that ancient enemy of Isreal, as well as the Syrian Arameics, would in that time start getting integrated into the growing Judean state, being granted citizenship on the condition that they accept the laws of Moshe. Also the Macedonians, our former masters have an offer of friendship extended to them, for they are a mighty people and our people will benefit from their friendship. Many are their gods, but the Macedonians of the levant see that none of those are mightier than the Lord of Israel and many of them form their own synagoges where they preach the word of the Lord in their own language.

Hiring a band of Macedonian mercenaries, as well as supported by the Macedonian population of Rashpon and the Phoenicians Daniyyel marches south to humble the Petreans who have spurned the rightfyl dominance of the ascendant Judah. Their country is conquered, and the kingdom starts the integration of their people, for the Nabataneans are not a wicked people, only their rulers were wicked.

Trade relations are established with the storied Sabans, and the pirates of Nuweiba are driven out to make the sailing down the red sea safer by the order of Daniyyel.

The great man Shim'on Tzadokim, head of the heirs of Zadok dies during the reign of Daniyyel. His son Honiyyo takes his place a the Rab Kohanim, custodian of the Temple.

Marching ever further south the men of Judea march on Arabia, while the Phoenician city of Sidon declares war on Judea and Daniyyel himself march on that city and burns it to the ground as punishment.
Sidon is repopulated by men fleeing the war against Byblos fought in Ptolemaic Phoenicia.

Seeing the Qedarites fortifying their border, fearing Judean might, Judea strikes to eliminate the threat from the south. The Qedarites were vanquished and their nation reduced to rubble.

[Judea towards the end of the reign of Daniyyel.]

The sons of Daniyyel were Hanan'el, who was king after him but did not father a son, and ruled over an decade of peace and prosperity, who was succeeded by his younger brother Hanila'i, who is named as the first king of reunited Israel.

Hanai'la took 40 000 men from Canaan and in a great campaign subjugated all the tribes of the arabian interior.

Hanai'el conquered the cities of Ashkelon and 'Azza from Egyptian rebels, and having re-conquered these important sites he proclaims himself as king of a re-united Israel and restores the office of the Kohen Gadol to the Tzadokites, those great men who held the nation togheter during the times of the persian and greek dominion over the people of Israel.

He then marches south to conquer the lands of Thamud from Yamnat to further secure the power of the kingdom in arabia.

After years of planning Israel finally pounces unexpectedly on the Egyptians to reunite it's historical lands in the north.
The forces of upper Egypt are beaten at Halutza, where the Shrine of David, progenitor of the Davidite dynasty have been made sacrament. Their forces retreat to Pilousion, but are there attacked by the forces of Israel and utterly destroyed.

At the fortress of Nuweiba on the shores of the Sinai another decisive battle is fought against the royal army of Egypt, led by the Macedonian Dioskourides Magides.

Tzadoq Parushi, a jewish mercenary general destroys the cypriots at Tzippori, and then the Carthagenian allies of Egypt at Ashkelon and then utterly razes the city of Ioppe.

At the end of the war the northern part of Israel of reunited with the south, the city of Ioppe is resettled by Hebrews and re-named Joffa, and the sacred city of Moshe, Har Horeb, is brought into the fold of Israel as the Egyptians give up the Sinai. Also, many sacred artifacts of the Phoenicians and the Hellenes are brought into the possesion of Israel, including the armor of Alexandros himself, which was kept in the temple of Melquart at Sur.

Later, the alliance is remade with the Ptolemaics, for despite their humiliation they still consider Israel an important ally against the Seleukids who ever loom as the greatest threat for both kingdoms.

Hani'el dies just months after his son and expected succesor, Daniyyel, and instead the sacred rites are performed on the infant 'Abraham, his grandson. Honiyyo Tzadoqi, the Kohen Gadol, takes the reins of goverement until the king can grow into his kingship.

Ezra later takes over as Kohen Gadol. A wise and loving man. He is later suceeded by 'Abtylon, his son, who is equal in wisdom. These three mighty and wise priests guide Israel until the maturity of 'Abraham.

In his 16th year, after reaching the age of maturity 'Abraham invades Selukid Syria, with help from arab and Egyptian allies.

Several victories are won, the most decisive at Thelada. The Seluekids were again beaten in the hills of Sigon.
With ever more Egyptian armies streaming into Syria, and the Seluekids having been beaten at every turn, they give up the rule of Syria to the Israelites, up the river Euphrates and the Syrian and Amanian gates.

'Abraham also greatly improves the land, founding many farming settlements, and also expanded and beautified the capital of Yurushaláyim itself.

He also allied the king of Yamnat, for that land had accepted the word of the Lord, and converted, and he supported them in many wars, sending the loyal Nabateans of arabia. The Sabeans later accepted to be ruled by the king of Israel, their king bowing before the Malk in Yerushaláyim.

"The Mighty Deeds of 'Abraham", an epic poem, is written by Gid'on Hitzone and 'Atalyah Yannayyid to commemorate the great king who brought the heirs of Victorious Seleukus to their knees.

This poem is forever more sung in praise of the mercy of the Lord in all synagogues, for he has brought low the enemies of Israel at every turn. Truely, God is on the side of the Righteous.
Israel, mighty, eternal. 'Abraham, equal to David and Solomon, you are our leading star.

 

[HistoryDude]

Are Samaritan-Judean relations better in this universe?

Were you initially a vassal of anyone (Egypt or the Seleucids)? Or did you just break an alliance with the Seleucids and ally with Egypt?

I think the style is fine, although it's been a while since I read 1 Kings/2 Kings/1 Chronicles/2 Chronicles. There are a few strange things there, but it's not ridiculous.

Will you talk about the events that led to some cultural merging with the Greeks (as indicated by the epic poem about Abraham)?

How will Christianity's spread be justified here since a lot of OTL's justification was that Israel needed a messiah due to oppression by the Romans?

 

[Bullfilter]

Thanks for that, appreciated the antiquarian approach to give the early history Its own flavour. Israel’s rise has so far been steady and uninterrupted, even when taking on larger powers such as Egypt and now the mighty Selukids. One wonders whether there will be any serious bumps (other than plague) in these early years.

 

[Kashked]

Are Samaritan-Judean relations better in this universe?

Were you initially a vassal of anyone (Egypt or the Seleucids)? Or did you just break an alliance with the Seleucids and ally with Egypt?

I think the style is fine, although it's been a while since I read 1 Kings/2 Kings/1 Chronicles/2 Chronicles. There are a few strange things there, but it's not ridiculous.

Will you talk about the events that led to some cultural merging with the Greeks (as indicated by the epic poem about Abraham)?

How will Christianity's spread be justified here since a lot of OTL's justification was that Israel needed a messiah due to oppression by the Romans?

Samaritan-Judean relations aren't any better. As soon as I was free I invaded Samaria and integrated them into Judea. There have been quite a few waves of intense religious suppression, especially later in the timeline when christianity became a thing, so I doubt Samarians, or any other jewish sect outside the mainstream, would have been able to survive like they did in our own timeline. Although I don't actually know how the converter handles large-scale judaism, so if it seeds out a bit of karaism and the other variants of judaism in the empire I'm gonna have to retcon that once I get to CK.

After stopping tribute to the Antigonids I was never any kind of subject again. I initially allied Egypt, but broke that alliance later so I would be able to attack their revolts, it was the only way I was able to grow in the early game. There were a few years were I was quite nervous as I wouldn't have been able to take them on, but I kept relations high and they prefered to fight the other Diadochi and invade Nubia. Once I had what I wanted to form Israel I allied them again, which then transformed into an guarantee when they grew even bigger. I never allied the Seleukids, although we were both in the wars of the Diadochi on the same side at the very start.

The merging with greek culture will be an important point going forward, yeah. Right at the end of 'Abraham's reign we got the military reforms, which included being able to recruit a legion. I decided to make it fight as a phalanx, as I had this idea that this was a hellenised Israel from the start, and although we integrated the Macedonians very early I didn't actually have them as an sizable minority until I conquer Babylon later. I got a few in Syria, but they didn't become massive as a minority until Babylon. For a while there were only two hebrews for every Macedonian in the empire after Babylon. But seeing as we were allied with Diadochi from the beginning, we traded with them, I used a lot of macedonian mercs, I patronized greek culture and art, and of course there were the hellenising events that popped up I feel that hellenised Israel was pretty justified from the start, which is why I made sure to use positive language about Alexander, Ptolemy and Seleukos. Sure, we didn't want to be subjects to the Diadochi, but we didn't want to wipe them out either. We wanted to be equal to them, at first, and then later, first among them. I actually tried really hard to keep the Seleukid Empire alive into CK3, it would have been an Armenian-Kurdish empire with a macedonian elite holding the area here in the screenshot below (do note that they had an revolt going on here so I wanted them to keep that bit too) but they kept losing to the indians and Alani and I didn't want to have to fight Bharatvarasha for northern persia so I finally put them out of their misery later. It was the last true line of the Diadochi left, Egypt lost the Lagids early on and neither Lysander or Kassandros did very well. If I hadn't been around and had the mission tree pushing me into their lands the Seleukids would have been doing really well in this game, they were MASSIVE.

As for christianity... I have my own headcanon, and I'll explore that when I get there in the timeline, but the short version is that Jesus did the stuff he did, the new testament is pretty much the same, only that the priests in the story didn't go to Pontius Pilate to get permission to crucify him, they went to some local magistrate serving the empire in Jerusalem instead. So he claimed to be the Messiah, not many people bought it, and he was crucified as a heretic. I imagine lots of similar things have happened over the centuries in this Israel. Still, he had a few followers, and they started to spread out. They were heavily persecuted in Israel of course, since their teaching were heretical, but Israel is a world power and very influental, but the jewish priests does NOT preach outside it's borders. They are a tool of the state apparatus keeping the internal peace, to be cynical. And while they will always welcome jews home from foreign lands, they don't really care what happens outside the borders, on a spiritual level. The Lord is the Lord of Israel, anyone outside it is irrelevant. Even in the client states. So all the "soft power" in the form of cultural influence only filtered through to the outside by christians. And it is, and was, an appealing message. So Israel takes the place of the Romans in the persecuting of the christians here, the saints of the christian church would have been martyrs put to death by Israeli kings, not Roman emperors. So a sneak-peek on the religious situation in the far future...

Anatolia is made up of my three client states, and as you can see it is the epicentre of christianity, which fits. The spread into north Africa happened just as the Carthagenian empire collapsed, so I interpret that as a reaction to the old order being crushed. And then it has just spread from those two initial hotspots. I don't know how it will turn out yet, honestly. There are very few actual christian countries yet, just Soqotra, two minor gaulish powers and one Indian vassal that I've spotted. But even if almost none of the Roman, druidic or Canaanite states in the west convert they probably wont have the holy sites within their borders to reform the faith in CK3, meaning they wont be able to convert their christian provinces, meaning at a long enough timescale it is likely they will be overtaken by rebels at some point, giving christianity a fighting chance. The only religion that have a fighting chance to reform it's religion if I converted right now is the tuistic and British druidic (which forms it's own faith separate from the continental druidic in the converter).

So yeah, christianity have a different, yet in some ways similar story. I don't know how hard-coded the Romans are to convert. The Roman Kingdom is definatly a power in the world, and if they convert it will speed along christianity greatly, but the Roman successor kingdoms in Italy and Greece are almost as powerful, and I don't think they will have events helping them along as they have the roman culture but not the Rome tag. I was initially hoping for a strong, christian rome who would send a few crusades my way in CK3 but that is unlikely to happen now. Anyway, I'm not going to get involved in Europe, so whatever happens there, happens. Christianity in the middle east is pretty doomed though.

 

[Kashked]

Thanks for that, appreciated the antiquar approach to give the early history Its own flavour. Israel’s rise has so far been steady and uninterrupted, even when taking on larger powers such as Egypt and now the mighty Selukids. One wonders whether there will be any serious bumps (other than plague) in these early years.

Nah. Choosen people of God, y'know. And I'm the God in this world, if you'll excuse the heresy. Sometimes I wish I didn't have 8000 hours in PDX-games so I'd occasionally lose.

I'm not a tryhard doing One-tag Three mountains, but I can only recall two times where I legitimatly lost. Once I was trying to do a Zoroastrian run in CK2, where I got my only ever game-over, and one time was just after I installed Obfuscate in CK3 and legitimatly lost two wars I really needed to win since I misjudged how many troops my opponent would have since that was hidden by the mod.

Honestly I thought Israel would be a lot tougher. I could have made it harder for myself by never integrating any foreign pops I suppose, going the "purist" Israelite path. But then I might have succeeded anyway and would have had the same issue I had in my last campaign, a very mono-cultural world, and I didn't want that.