Siberian Prosperity - an Economic CK2 AAR

[Sanvone]

Wait, do you do that by murder plots or excom+execution?

Murder. Excommunications being limited to 1-2 per year are too limited in the long run.

 

[Sanvone]

Part LV (1217-1225)​

Year 1217
======================

Onto the next chapter of toiling in Siberia we go. As always we start next part with looking up and refilling court positions, inviting more courtiers of both sexes and making sure our Permo-Siberian Patriarch can only convert handpicked characters (event generated Jews) by lack of presence of anyone else eligible for change. As we slowly enter path to moral recovery of Orthodox Christianity (44% atm) things are looking up. Eastern Roman Empire is on brink of retaking Jerusalem from Hamidid Sultanate (99% war progress), so it will help. Our condolences for Catholics from Western Europe, who will have to make do with remnants of Kingdom of Jerusalem as prize for their Crusade efforts. As I was checking city courts I came up with new idea - we can (and probably should) keep inviting unwanted characters to our court. This way we can lower the amount of assasinations that has to happen as well as acquire extra female lowborns for future use (as baron level AI doesn't marry off their courtiers).

For now we have to save up our imperial treasury so no expenses for now. We have other things to attend to. As our ruler entered rather advanced age we should finally solve inheritance. After recent Orthodox successes we can excommunicate and we do it to Prince Arnaz. It goes without any hiccup but then I get distracted into matchmaking among barons before proceeding further.

With that our prosperity chances in the future seem rather secure. Finger crossed he dies before our character finishes his stewardship book. ​

Before end of January a "Town is born" event fires for Perm itself marking another 7 holding slot province in our capital duchy. We at once get to constructing another town there and just as luck would have it our Patriarch lands that 50% yearly chance and makes one of younger Jews in court (31 y.o.) a fellow Christian. So we get another character to use. Then as we invite more lowborn women we conclude Prince Arnaz fate: after forcing him to take vows, he ends in temple within our demense in Tura. As we have only 94% chance for arrest we sent our Marshall (no longer required to supress heretics in Yugra duchy) to make it 100% chance. He is still excommunicated so we have reason and soon he ends in our dungeon again. From which we evict him into Oubliette. Why? Cause we want to retrieve those two Stewardship Quality 3 books he is holding (to increase our own chance of getting "On Komi Architecture" from 25% to 50%). Thus skilled Prince Rayda becomes our new heir, which we also designate to be our Apprentice (so he can start climbing hermetic society hierarchy).

One of two expected events pop off. No idea what happened to second. We must have missed the trigger on finishing feature. ​

By Spring we make sure every city vassal directly under us is married. Greeks manage to take over county of Jerusalem and our religion MA rises by another 10% (to 58%). Then it quickly falls down to 52% for some reason. Well - such is feudal life I guess. We soon get another Hermetic mission that we turn down (we have over 6.000 esoteric knowledge banked and nothing to do with it) but we get presented offer to hold gathering of minds. Previously dismissed cause I thought it is prompt for holding great debate. Upon trying it for around 2.000 gold it reveals itself to be invention event. Oh. Ooooooh! Did I previously turn it down? Daaamn. We definietely want those as those nice province modifiers have duration of 100 years. Our Advanced Blast Furnace in Kudymkar is still going (till 17 December 1251) granting -20% Local build time/cost and +10% local tax.

As we progress with invention event chain by choosing stewardship and deciding on less ambitious option, our City in Perm finishes. Newly invited steward is seeded there and we start basic construction there (to get the thing going quicker). We get rare "Eureka" modifier helping us further with technology spread for few years. This will help distributing technology to eastern part of realm. Sadly as whole event comes to an end, we end up with 2nd Magnetic compass (that we created 28 years ago) =.=... Thought game will eliminate results that we already have and also we lowered chance for it with less ambitious route (it is critical success). So we got unlucky. Our Marshal in Tura also triggered prosperity event from being smart, so we picked +10% morale on all levies (instead of +10% levies in Tura specifically). Those might come in handy as due to recent epidemics our prosperity in Perm county lowered down to level I.

This changes my previous estimation of how much we will get out of Monastics. We want province modifiers as copies of artifacts are simply lost. Probably will have to make worse leaders to reliably keep getting them (less Learning). That's gonna be weird. ​

In early November consumption breaks out east of Ural mountains and spreads further east. Somehow till end of year we do not get second town is born event (I'm confused). Will wait a little more. More good news from Emperor's family though - his youngest son became dad of Genius Spira Permyakid, while our heir fathered daughter - Mel'shay Permyakid. Our Chinese friends pushed their invasion of Muhallabid Sultanate towards 96% and Crusaders climb their Crusade to 26%. We also get to decide on event related to "Composing Book" decision we picked. Contrary to my expectations we don't get to use our better Steward and his expertise - instead we can either pay new scribe or help ourself (thanks to having Scholar trait). We pick the second options.

Year 1218
======================

We enter second year in this chapter with record 41,284 gold coins in coffers and +4.141 annual income! We do little education managment and assign our Scottish lads as commanders. With that and our Marshal set on improving commanders now we only need to give them some (preferably great) commander traits. We also get visited by Nomads from Mongolia in border adjecent county of Ob (North-eastern Cumania). In line with traditions, our retinues from Irtysh react by marching towards place of distress. I keep my eye on our Mercenary band employed in Egypt too. They are hovering around 600-700 men for now.

Five of those are Scottish. We have 2 more commanders in the making. ​

We put one of Scottish freshmen in command of border force. Isaac is Cruel and Coward. We hope he stops being skittish and have no problem with his cruelty. He rolls well and we end this skirmish with 50 dead on our side and 300 on enemy side. Doesn't affects our 10 Martial commander in any way. One of our relatively recently planted high Martial dukes (in Turgay) passes away and is replaced by his newborn son. Well there goes his extra levies I guess (and he was only 40). Then finally one of mayors dies (due to plot of our courtiers) but he was over 50 so it is less of problem. We have replacement but can't assasinate (as we alerady suffer -50 opinion from "Dishonorable till 1219). Don't want to prolong it. But we can excommunicate him and execute without risking opinion or civil war (we still are on "See the Realm Prosper" ambition").

We proceed and everything ends well with our recently converted Ashkenazi character taking over after already being married. Ecumenical Patriarch keep changing every few years but somehow they become worse and worse (mostly Diplomacy wise). Doesn't help that previous Patriarch of Constantinopole spent free time scheming - the new one picked slightly less revolting interest in scholarship. Then I check how the Consumption is going and oh boy:

Well total lack of hospitals east of Ural mountain definetely didn't help... Still rarely do I see such big epidemy. Seems our prosperity levels are set on fire =.= ​

Months pass uneventfully till we get popup in November. We are forced to pick between Proud and Humble. First option cost 800g, so I decide on 2nd. With that we have 7 traits so we are now down to randomness, which of them goes away. We really don't want losing Diligent (prosperity chance) and Kind+Gregarious help with vassal opinion. Losing Stubborn would be best (opinion penalty). Then we get offered opportunity to intervene in education of teenager Russian in our court. Decide to make him Patient and take few years of -2 modifiers so we may get another good steward in near future.

Year 1219
======================

Another January and we have 45,210 coins in pockets but most likely due to Consumption raging (it spread even further towards silkroad and central asia!) our income went down to +4.067 coins per year. Another mayor bites the dust but not due to epidemy. So we have to arrange some last minute replacement.

With february we are finally able to once again go onto ingredient gathering and I very much would like to have Potion of Eudaimonia power at our disposal. Then I slowly realize that I can't fix recent city administration problem as I have no way of sending my handpicked character to court with only lowborn women. Huh. We do excommunicate and execute gettting slightly better character there (3/2 demense limit) but even with relatively nice lowborn wife he doesn't rises above it (must be close). Will have to do for now.

As winter passes we finally get rid of both opinion penalties (dishonorable and tyranny). Meaning our opinion soars by +95 instantly. Yet we don't really have candidates to fix any Bishoprics while extracting cities from under vassals requires provoking rebelions. So for now we chill. Or we use this occasion to pass some law. I like the second option:

Semi-last levy obligation. The only thing we can push as we are not ready for messing with our demense limit yet. ​

With that we prepare somewhat better for Mongols. So far there is no sight of them though. Beside that we finish gathering ingredients and refill our treasury with 5 more herbs. That's brings us up to 6 so I feel free to spent 3 on 3 different baron vassals suffering from Stress/Depression. We still have 3 more allowing us to brew 2 more potions of Eudamoina if we would need it.

During first weak of May we get disturbed by clergy demanding us to donate one of our relics to public. As it is "Finger of Saint John" that grants me +1 Learning I say no to suffer -10 temple opinion but only for month. Phi! But then we lose Kind due to being over the soft trait limit :<... Well that's should allow me to to torture our prisoners and I try it on our firstborn. That's soon turns to be a stupid idea. Yes we make him stressed on top of giving him -2 Health modifier for 2 years but he is released (as per game rules). After sending Marshal for him we miss 83% arrest chance and he flies abroad with our Books! Now if he dies I'm not sure who will inherit. Now it will take at least another 10 years before we can invite him back :/... Well got greedy and now I will have to pay for this mistake.

Our Firstborn doesn't live long (even more for a reason I should left him alone after torturing as he was about to inherit Temple in Tura thus making inheritance of artifacts a 100% affair) and dies on 4th of August. Turns out I was right and our Stewardship books got transferred to Chief Burtmort "the Just" of Ryn. Interestingely he also has Jade Dragon (Quality 5 chinese artifact) - meaning we might be interested in few years to start plotting for taking back not only what ours but also his own artifacts. This might turn tricky as all of them are Orthodox. To my suprise I might already see a line - he has 3 sons under Gavelkind with just 1 county. Meaning as we bribe 3rd, then upon his death we might have claimant to press his strong claim (after excommunicating) then imprison and await his death. Will just have to give him some holding first so he is our vassal. This way I won't have to push through other Khaganate between Permo-Siberia and this small tribal count. Not sure if we will manage to finish it during Turush remaining lifespan.

Halfway through November our heir - Prince Rayda fathers his second child. It is a boy Paksyut Permyakid. He does contracted Great Pox from his mother :/... Which doesn't look good for his longevity. Then our "Divine Epiphany" times out and we find ourself slightly over demense limit (11/10). I swap one of the books "The Komi Language" (+0.5 prestige/month, +1 Diplomacy, +5 General Opinion) for "The Permyakid Cookbok" (+1 Stewardship, +5 Dynasty Opinion) and it is enough to fix that problem. Beside that we are still on: "How to build a Well" (-20% Construction Time), "Magnum Opus on Universal Panacea" (Learning +2, Health +1) and "Treatise of Fishing with an Angle" (Diplomacy +1, Stewardship +1, General Opinion +5).

Year 1220
======================

Consumption is still strongly present across our eastern realm by beginning of 1220. It actually cuts deeply into our income as it by itself grant -25% province income modifier but it also started depopulating some counties (not only getting rid of positive +province income modifier but swapping it for -20% province income modifier) so our income is down to +3.676 gold (while expenses remain controlled at 99.82g per year). As I did a little break to think about what to do, it's time to embark on mission to start culling down court of foreign current holder of our familial stewardship books. He is 55 years old so I expect him to die in the foreseeable future thus we can start getting rid of all of his sons in front (2) of our bribed candidate. The middle son is about to become father so it might just present a opportunity for us (letting his kid inherit to press his uncle claim). Chances are ok - 194% plot power is reliable enough and that's even without using our spymaster. Also just 1 more year before prosperity ambition is done.

Black death fizzled out affecting less counties that this consumption we have going. Holy Crapamolli!x ​

Uninvited visitors arrive in Udmurts on 25th of January (Tengri Khazar band of 1.990 men) so we dispatch response team immedietely (with +movement speed commader). They make it to Udmurts on 13th February, by which point raiders managed to loot around 25% of province wealth even with fort present :/ Ehhh. We beat team handily losing less than 250 men but killing around 600.

Through unknown means my income recovers up to +4.081 by March. The consumption is still active so I have no idea what's going on. Our expenses rise due to replenishing retinue up to 500g/year too. In the meantime I excommunciate one scheming hobbyist among my vassals, make personal alliance with our Greek son-in-law (to make sure our Komi-Greek alliance persist after current Basileus death as it is easier to strike the deal with Heir than Emperor) and throw some un-needed courtier into dungeon for his past transgressions.

By June our Marshall improves one of our Scottish Commanders (Nydog Sarin) with another +3 Martial (to 17 total), which makes him useful at the minimum we require (firing Shieldwall in Skirmish with 16+ Martial). He has Leading Center commander trait and Brave making him one of better first generation Commanders we have. My income keeps fluctuating (goes down a little). We finally get rid of "Bad Rumours" modifier increasing our general opinion by no longer suffering -10 penalty.

With July we remove firstborn of our foreign target and luckily next in line gets the son to inherit after him, putting our picked heir for that title still 3rd in line (thus more likely to accept our sheningans). Prince Zhebeg (married to Countess of Illyinsk) got a daughter of our dynasty. Meaning our plan for taking over that land through marriage is coming nicely. It is not set in stone yet - if by chance current Countess would remarry without having living son out of our's character son, the new son could take over in inheritance. There are no signs of this happening yet so fingers crossed! Another Permyakid of imperial family also means another character with all 4 bloodlines we accumulated.

September is marked with news from far away - Western Protectorate lost their defensive war against Tangut Xia liberator (with his 27.000 event troops). They had to move back all the way from Africa and didn't make it in time. This means they left their 96% won invasion (that didn't tick away somehow). Interestingely their total troops increased overall due all that (they got way more event troops). So they can now focus on their last remaining war against Muhallabids that field 17.000 troops spread both between repelling Catholic Crusade for Jerusalem (39% warscore in favour of Christians) and 60.000 invading Chinese troops :].

Somehow thanks to losing, chinese armies increased in size. Not that I will complain about them being now more likely to dismantle Muhallabids! ​

October results in another Malyyid south of our empire flying out of window. This time it was the youngest (4th) son to our target. We get discovered but it doesn't matter for our vassals. We also get "Vicious rumours" modifier back. Oh just wait my dear vassal till my ambition no longer prevents me from dealing with you ". I will have my vengeance. We move onto another assasination project to slowly clear up whole dynasty (and ensure that our liege character will inherit books back from last Malyyid). Before end of month King Setyamka II the Permyakid of Nenetsia dies due to personal combat against one of his vassals. Luckily it didn't fracture his realm despite him having single legitimized bastard. The 12 year old grandson of Emperor Turush took over as King Setyamka the III.

In November our youngest Prince (Oshmar) keeps getting Genius children. I knew it was a mistake to marry that Catholic French Genius to him instead of Rayda, when first wife of Prince Rayda died! Not only I clicked too fast to convert her (she would be perfect for quick religion swap whenever Crusade happens) but she is also 2 out of 2 kids being Genius when Turush son isn't one. Noticed also that our 80+ years old Court Tutor died some time ago. That's why I was starting to get so many education popups (that I took care of). Found replacement - a lowborn 34 years old Komi Peasant Leader that is Temperate, Humble and Kind. Those traits will do for initial development, then we press him into becoming monk (and member of Monastic Society of Saint Basil), bribe him, buy favour and invite back into court.

During last month of this particular year we encounter huge Viking host (4.300 men - mostly Light Infantry) in Mordva (nextdoor to Burtasy). So we send our 3.000 strong Pikemen force hosted there with our Scottish commanders to get some training in trouncing enemies. We have Tadeusz (14 Martial but also Stutter) Isaac (8 Martial, Craven, Cruel and Consumption) and Vachagan (9 Martial, Brave). This is the 2nd generation of Scottish commanders (the one we had to assimilate by converting both religion and culture) and you see how well did they turn out.

Year 1221
======================

Year starts with us hitting 50.538 ducats in Permo-Siberian coffers with income summary showing again +4.035/-79.85 (income/expenses). This is also marking 4th year of Consumption ravaging eastern part of our Empire (please staaahp!). Difficulties are expected during this year as our modifiers expiration dates don't exactly align - we will lose Confident Seer before (25th January) being able to have wars without worry to renew it (11th June for "See the Realm Prosper"), so our demense limit will for few months go over.

Time to rumble with Vikings. Somehow they did not try to sneak into Perm itself. Wonder if this will persist. ​

Battle initially goes slightly in favour of raiders (which isn't bad as we only have around 300 Archers while they have over 1.200 + plenty of Light Infantry). Nothing crucial happens though. I'm proud of Commander Tadeusz for not falling on 15% chance for rolling Confusing Orders (due to his stutter). Halfway through skirmish 2 out of 3 army segments enter melee. Our Center charges, while our left assumes Schiltron to receive enemy charge (getting nice extra +400% damage modifier for countering their charge). Chance for Schiltron on Tadeusz was 19% while Isaac has 24%. We quickly route lightly armored foes and then we gang up with 3 flanks on remaining 1 flank, that makes it to the melee to get absolutely slaughtered (1.300 men dying per day). The end results says for itself.

As we keep cleaning Malyyid dynasty I manage to invite to court nephew of current Chief of Ryn. He is 5th in the succession line. Little more work to be done but better safe than sorry. We can quickly get rid of 1 year old girl who is in front of him. He doesn't have claim on himself yet - should still inherit if we squash their main line. Worrying news arrive from abroad as some Nomad Adventurer begins preparations to invade me. We also get visited by traveling bard and thanks to Emperor Turush being Poet himself we get exclusive option of getting +1 Diplomacy and +2 Health for half a year. Interesting - it would be really nice if we had any disease cause it pushes our health modifier by +6.5 to whatever our played character hidden starting value was.

In February Buddhist Pecheneg host arrives in Kudymkar to raid. Whole 3.310 of them so they will inflict damage :/. One of our vassals manages to convert county of Bryansk into Orthodoxy and I'm not certain whether it was Slavic or heretic province. More importantly Consumption starts vanishing! Yet our income shows just +3.200 gold per year. As we are suffering from over the demense penalty.

In April Capital guards manage to relieve Kudymkar. That got looted down to 60%. Udmurts so far recovered to 90% province wealth. I must keep Guards in either Perm or Kudymkar to avoid having to travel more than 1 provinces in most cases. One of our Scottish commanders (Dergun) as he participates in fight with raiders gets improved by Marshall, receiving Heavy Infantry Leader and uping his Martial to 13. Like where this is going. We soon throw out intruders so our county can start recovering from 57% province wealth.

May is the time to once again visit Fountain of Youth in Primal Taiga. We succesfully de-age Emperor Turush by 2 years (65->63 years of age). Further increasing our chances of actually finishing writing the book. Despite Orthodoxy MA slowly recovering (up to 64% from down 52%) we get Monothelite outbreak in Turgay on southern border of Cumania. That's a 30% revolt risk per month. So I decide to send our Marshal down there to lower the chance of rebelion by 20%. At least our yearly chances of converting courtiers rised from 50% to 67%.

In 2nd week of June we finally finish increasing prosperity. Uhh! Time to start the work. First I administer some justice as we have quite a list of punishable crimes accumulated over many years by various vassals. As such 6 Dukes and 2 Counts get arrested and 2 more counts rebel upon unsuccesful imprisonment. We also push some of our excommunciations to the breaking point to provoke rebelion of Duke of Ural (huge administrative mess that prevents us from adjusting vassal borders) and our Genius Spymaster Countess Nezayka "the Terrible" from Mordva (for scheming and repeatedly slandering our Majesty :<). But wait there is more! We also declare another war to retrieve another city in Siberia from Polish Lithuania! The best thing is we can (and do) call for help from Eastern Roman Empire to help us with their 113.000 army (checking for future reference how does the AI will tackle this call to war).

Round 1 of revocation wars just before Adventure Invasion happens. ​

After raising our levies and sending them in various corners of our Empire I do little side project. Given that we are close to date at which Mongols can happen it is prudent to prepare ourself for possibility of China losing. Both of our Chinese officials (Scholar Bureaucrat and Master Engineer) are quite old (55 and 54 y.o.) So it would be better to swap them for new younger characters. Not only will it insulate us from having no bonuses for some period of times but it also further exhaust remaining China currency we have (8.000 atm). Turns out I don't even have to execute them. It is enough to just imprison them after excommunicating them (as we tend to order them to convert immedietely to not waste precious Patriarch conversions on them).

Thus our little mischief comes to satysfying conclusion! ​

Good news from china reach our ears in July. Invasion succeeded, dismantling Muhallabid Sultanate to down 5 holdings. In it's place Abbasids rise from ashes after almost 300 years since their collapse due to Decadence. It might seen fruitless but by getting it done we probably enabled Egypt to more aggresively expand south towards Horn of Africa and Eastern Roman Empire will be able to now more easily push south from Daylam to take over Persia. So things are happening :>.

Before September our demense fixes itself and I'm not sure why. Our "Out of Patience" penalty didn't vanish yet, we also didn't retrieve "Confident Seer" nor "Divine Epiphany" modifiers and our wife also didn't change any attribute/trait. Well I will take it cause it means not suffering penalty to income. Our Emperor fires "Great Hunt" event chain (wasn't entirely sure if he was eligible while having other lifestyle trait already). In my experience once you get that starting event, hunting events become more common (which includes chance of becoming Brawny for extra health). As most of our forces start besieging various rebel holdings across realm, there is interesting development in Nenetsia - Setyamka III get's his kingdom title usurped by his uncle king Ozhmeg 'the Cruel from Vladimir. While losing our direct descendants from ruling is somehow bad due to bloodlines, it is still a unification of titles under Permyakid dynasty. We still have more work to do (44/83 counties within Rus Empire are in our control and we need 80% of empire) to be able for our vassal to create their own empire and secede from us.

Well that's work too. As long as we have Permyakid vassal being able to secede from us - it is bueno!​

As November days slowly pass one of bad bishops in Tynea dies and gets replaced by better character thus removing problem (and leaving just 3 bad bishops). I'm not extracting with tyranny right now as I want to get few cities under our newly acquired mayors with just 1 holding. Our servants inform Turush about sighting of beast we are after, so my character rides out. Consumption by end of year gets reduced to just vicinity of Silkroad (duchy of Tarbagatai) and another infantry based raiding host of Buddhist Pecenegs shows up in Perm (just as Udmurts fully recovered and Kudymkar is at around 65% of province wealth). Luckily I left my retinues in capital just in case so we can send them as quickly as possible. Our warriors took in this year Polish city in Turgay, which is important cause this war will drag on due to lower passive warscore gain and no battle so far. That was the most important thing to achieve first and us taking rest vassal holdings in matter of months will work out just fine. Greeks did not send any army to help us (despite at one point spotting 18.000 army in Caucasia) but truth to be told had, Greece had 2 heretic uprisings that needed to be put down. Saw 18.000 strong Crusader stack in Levant bashing Hamidids forces and huge 22.000 Slavic uprising in Novgorod (if they win it will make rapidly expanding west easy).

Year 1222
======================

Well our balance during war isn't great: +4.050/-1.437 gold per year. And 52.900 coins to our name. We catch raiders quicker than expected (thus Perm county wealth drops only by 30%) but we will pay for it dearly as Severe Winter will give us 9.5% of attrition. That's the reason retinues are not in Perm or Kudymkar. We conclude winning against our former spymaster and are quite near being able to also conclude Ural and Zaysan rebelions. Our Great hunt ends fruitlessly in narrative but it does confer "The White Bear eludes me..." modifier of +1 Martial.

In March attrition claims 300 of our retinues (it could be worse) and new arrival of raiders in Bashkiria happens. The word has to got out about how wealthy Perm is with all the visitors - I swear =]"... Luckily our Patriarch does something productive by turning 38 y.o. Ashkenazi courtier into member of Orthodox community. Suprisingly for quite some time we didn't lose any mayor vassal so there is no adjustment required on my part. This may be a good thing or mean that we will suffer many of them dying in quick succession later. Did check up on my court and dismissed 2 Ashkenazis, who were too old to bother with converting them (52 and 45 years old) leaving just 2 Ashkenazis right now in Court. Some time ago we generated Diplomacy Jewish Exile but as he wasn't Genius/Quick/Shrewd I chased him away.

With spring second daughter of Prince Oshmar is safely delivered. The lucky streak was broken as she is not as gifted as her older siblings. Still someone we can use for alliances. Not much is happening so time passes till July as we one by one conclude - Zaysan rebelion, followed by Naberezhnye rebelion and slowly accumulate warscore in war against Polish Lithuania (up to 47% from single city but our men are on route to tak over last city in Tarbagatai). The more progress the more I keep disbanding levies to lower our upkeep costs so by summer only 5.000 of our personal warriors are in use. Turns out I was wrong and those Slavic uprising wasn't from Novgorod but from one of neighbouring Estonias - they crossed the border confusing me. They received further reinforcements bringing their current event troop number up to 32.000 which seems much more than local ruler can bear to suffer (with his 1.000 troops). Still they might slowly chomp on Russians in Novgorod.

Once most of wars are done I make a mistake and start revoking Ural cause I have something to do (in this especially uneventful year) but I can fully proceed. To realize my pIan need to be in peace time and my war against Lithuania will drag on (we just start besieging city in Tarbagatai). We at least imprison our old Master-Engineer to demand another 30 year old official from China (leaving us with around 6.300 chinese grace currency). This move quickly pays for itself as on 4th of October new official builds Paper Mill in Kolva (+10% Local Tax modifier, +50% Technology Spread Rate and +1 Economy Tech points income for 20 years).

November is suprising - because our ruler finishes writing his stewardship book! That's some record time for finishing meaning we exhausted that opportunity (as even if we lived for another 20 years, we won't get another chance for writting about stewardship). What did we got? Quality 4 "A treatise on fishing with ankle"! Wait what? Haven't we got it already? I check. Turns out I was right. Just look! It is the same book we created with previous ruler - Meltsayka "the Wise". We have currently 2 of the same book, which I considered impossible (as many other artifacts get automatically destroyed upon getting duplicates). That changes everything - making my previous assumptions of our increasing chance for finally obtaining one book we missed so far - false. Oh wow so you can stack up to 4 copies of the same book. That's bonkers! Of course the one book we desire the most still eludes me but we will keep trying.

Today I discovered you can have duplicate of the same books :O... ​

By December our remaining war ticks slowly towards 73% (but after reching 95-99% it will stop for almost 3 years so maybe I should already be moving my forces into Lithuania to stop it quickly?). Given limbo in which we have to stay I decided to provoke small vassal (his holdings spread across Ural and Yugra) to rebel in order to adjust borders (as we have title of Ural duchy in our possesion and could make old dynasty branch still present there Dukes given almost no holding slots there to worry about when it comes to negative opinion penalties). We still have quite a few vassals to be had before we reach our limit but why risk it? After previous pondering I raise levies from Pilva, Kudymkar and Tynea (over 7.600 men total) to start marching towards Lithuania. We also have to worry about Adventurer invasion in February of next year so I won't send everything (and some of them are still guarding captured Lithuanian holdings within our borders). Luckily so far Turgay didn't explode into Monothelite frenzy so there is non 0 chance of us actually weathering the storm till most of revolt risk vanishes with modifier that times out on 3rd of June 1223. Just before end of year nomadic host of Manichean Uyghurs tries to raid Saur (by the Silkroad) so retinues guarding city in Ayakoz rush towards them.

Year 1223
======================

Another year with no sight of Temujin on the horizon. Oh great Khan where are you? Stockpiled men and gold to fight you and you dare not show up? Due to being over demense limit we suffer just 3.320 annual income and 883 expenses in the same period of time. Remembered that I do have ability to give orders to my Allies thus I ordered Greeks to start besieging Lithuanians (better for them to burden themself with expenses than for me as they have not done anything during this war so far). Maybe this will help but still it will take time for them to arrive. To my suprise by end of January we spot some contingent of Eastern Roman troops in Lithuania (among Camp Fever outbreak)

Who would thought that AI will help us. Also another entertainment from game! ​

As expected Adventurer conquest fires in February, granting our foe around 22.000 event troops. Upon closer inspection those are not purely cavalry or mostly light infantry enemies we were trouncing till now. They have plenty of Heavy Infantry, Pikemen, Light Infantry. Meaning we can't just half-ass dealing with them. Somehow due to starting this war for duchy of Tarbagatai he increased his court size. As new women arrive they become more willing to join Emperor's Turush plot to kill their host due to his high Sex Appeal. We continue trying to assasinate so maybe it wil end this whole war without us having to engage them on battlefield? Was quite some time since last time I bothered but hey it doesn't cost me anything to try. Still just in case I recall troops sent to Lithuania (Greeks totally have it xD!).

Just as after quite a struggle we deal with raiders in Saur, more Uyghur's raiders arrive in adjecent Irtysh (this time light infantry). We had bad time cause in melee our commander rolled 'Hesistant Commander' dealing no damage in melee against narrow flank remaining 1/3 of raiding party. So we took around 500 casualties total. Greeks did something cause just as I was writing those words our warscore shoot up from 84% to 99% instantly. We did conclude our small extraction in Ural/Yugra. Somehow Slavic Russian rebels struggle to win war while enjoying 26 to 1 advantage in numbers. Not them alone though: Crusaders are still fighting and can't reach end of their holy effort - ping-ponging between 58 and 60% warscore (it is 8th year of Crusade).

In May after deleting recent looters we get news about another nomad infantry group arriving in Western Sayan. This time leaded by what I thought was fat werewolf but it turns out he just has "Wolf's Blood" modifier (+1 Martial, Health +2, Personal Combat Skill +10). Well he is quite the character with both fat and brawny trait. Shrewd yet gluttonous. Despite being occupied by this singularity of character I still manage to spot another occasion on another side of Empire - main body of Lithuanian army visited our borders to take over single tribe (that I would not spot as it is within borders of khaganate). Gave chase with Pikes in Burtasy cause if we can force battle on them then we can conclude this war instantly (we are lacking just big win in the open field).

Luckily as spring turns to summer, most of adventurers behave properly and arrive into Tarbagatai instead of just hiding somewhere in fog of war (which would be a huge drag to finish this war). The only thing that stings is the timing - our forces are halfway through Siberia and we lack at the moment the numbers to sent them packing. They might take over some holdings but probably can't take over Lithuanian city located there (as it is 4th in order). Appoint all 5 of our Scottish commanders to battle both raiders and Lithuanian troops. Firstly we deal with raiders as local Zaysan garrison helped us by sacrificing themself to hold intruders in place and enable instant joining into melee part of battle. One of our two wings started with Schiltron and instantly ensured victory. Whole thing ended with our side losing 112 men but killing over 1.300. Then in Saratov rest of our Scottish creme de la creme startes fighting against Polish-Lithuania forces (+some of their vassals who were called into meat grinder)

Quite thrilling battle as we were slightly outnumbered and had not the best commanders but prevailed ​

Battle is interesting cause it is close initially. Our center charges into them and they do the same to us. Then they keep charging where our Commander (Tadeusz) switches to 'Slow Advance' thus getting +400% damage extra due to countering their tactic. Thus we start exchanging 12 men for 131 of theirs daily. Next our left resists their oponents charge with 'Force Back' also getting counter bonus to damage reaching similar kill exchange every day (9 for 102). Both enemy center and right flank route soon thus battle turns into all of our half depleted morale wise wings against their almost not touched left wing. Further battle turns into melee when they try to resist with Raid Tactic (Light Infantry +240%, Light Cavalry Attack +240% and Camels are not present so it doesn't matter) on their 1.030 troops against our forces of:
779 under Isac with Timid Advance (-210% Heavy Infantry Attack, +120% Pikemen Attack, -210% Heavy Cavalry attack),
+ 1055 men under Tadeusz with Slow Advance (+60% Heavy infantry attack, +240% Pikemen Attack and -60% Heavy Cavalry Attack)
and 801 men under Dergun with Charge tactic (+120% Heavy Infantry attackm +300% Heavy Cavalry Attack, +300% Horse Archers Attack).
Thus we exchange 11 dead for 145 enemies each day. Thus it is just a matter of few days to break them. This way on 6th of September we enforce our demands starting another 10 years of truce between Permo-Siberian empire and Polish Kingdom of Lithuania. Weirdly town goes towards our Turgay Count and not us (meaning we will have to extract it). Lucky for us he is just a child and last of his line thus upon assasinating him (1050% plot power) we will inherit it. So we pursue that way of resolving it.

Further back in east our forces almost arrived to contest intrusion of 21.000 Buddhist Pecheneg adventurers of Kugel's Host. It requires some more time. In the meantime our stubborn protagonist realizes that his marriage is in sorry state. Well imprisoning and then torturing his firstborn son wasn't the best way to keep Turush in his wife good graces. We don't want to lose Lover status with her and if we can we want to just weather another 6 years to lose huge -150 opinion penalty. So we try and soon succeed in buttering her up, receiving +15 opinion modifier in eyes of Empress Zaynab for 3 more years. Well she still actively hates Emperor (-100 opinion) but hey we tried x]...

Well that's something x] ​

Turns out this is our last thing to note in this year as I cautiously wait till all of my forces arrive in Irtysh before pushing onto enemies.

Year 1224
======================

We enter new year in anticipation of deciding last ongoing war. Close to 27.000 troops are waiting in Irtysh to pounce on foolhardy Pechenegs located currently to the south. But before that as usual time to check our annual statistics. We hoarded 57.700 gold coins, have +3.421 and -1.260 gold coins of income and expenses. With great relief I can inform you all that our Permian mercenary band not only is still alive but started replenishing, while still contracted to Pomeranian Catholic Emira of Sinai and through many months of receiving monthly wage they crossed 3.000 gold coins in their possesion milestone. Crusaders pushed infidels towards 69% warscore, while our own Orthodoxy went down to 59% MA again. Which is just 2% below better conversion chance treshold thus once again we have to deal with just 50% yearly chances =.=. With end of previous year we also got rid of "Out of Patience" penalty we had thus most of our attributtes increased by +2. There is also less than 10 years till Kingdom of Cumania de jure drifts into Permo-Siberian empire, meaning higher levies and less independence revolts there . Soon with months passing from January to February the battle begins.

First big battle between very similar army compositions. Took us a while as we initially have Light Infantry+Archers then Light Infantry + Light Cavalry.​

Battle starts with small hiccup as our right flank rolls "Confused Orders" (lowering dmg of Archers and Horse Archers by -120%). It doesn't matter much as we are still exchanging 40 lives of our men for 102 enemy heads daily. Interestingely both our center and left flank manage to break oposing enemy army segments before end of skirmish so all 3 army wings pounce on remaining enemies in melee. Which is extra bloody as plenty of countering happens. Our right flank under Tadeusz panics and 'Charges' into enemy to get skewered (789 men dead per day) by enemies receiving them with 'Force Back' (+400% dmg due to countering). They in turn get mauled by center that rolled Slow Advance (and gets +90% dmg due to flanking) and extra destroyed by Permian left that rolled Advance tactic (+400% dmg x]), which upon unpausing transforms their losses to -4.721 men per day. Holy Mother of Mercy! In the end Tadeusz underperformed, while Dergun overperformed. I think Dergun also got Brave cause he increased his Martial by +2 (from 13 to 15).

After that we are in quite a pickle. It's early March and while winter is mild counties can host only 20.000 troops. So I have to move part of our troops elsewhere as I don't want to push onto Tarbagati county that is mountainous. Somehow we barely avoid taking attrition and soon enemy moves onto Irtysh. We time our departure from Ayagoz once their army is locked in with movement to catch them. Back in court we managed to assasinate and take over Turgay but not without having our name revealed. Thus first instance of -10 opinion for being dishonorable happens among our vassals for next 5 years. Still we got Turgay back putting us at 13/11 demense size. As we need probably just one more victorious battle against remaining 11.000 Pechenegs it is highly likely that soon we will be able to do away with that inconvenience. Our Patriarch also gets active and converts 2 courtiers (one being some young female courtier that I somehow missed). With that we have no more eligible for conversion targets (as I trashed other 40 year old Jew from court). Need to invite more but that will have to wait after this incoming battle.

Turns out only half of remaining "would be conquerors" are ready to fight us. They have quite nice color scheme though.​

Second battle against Kugel's host turns much less interesting. With over 3:1 advantage in numbers we are winning quite a lot in skirmish already. Still that can be good exercise for our not so great Commanders (Dergun is close to being decent). They don't even last till melee which worries me cause we don't have much cavalry to pursue them. Still thanks to flanking we are inflicting 200 losses on them each day they try to escape us. In the end isn't enough (puts us at 73% from previous 48%). We will retake Tarbagatai but probably will need one more battle to conclude this Clown fiesta. Or maybe it will be enough?

Ironically as I move back to look at my capital, another 7.000 light infantry raiders materialize in Udmurts x]. We pause just day after and sent retinues from Kudymkar instantly. Well my commanders will get quite a lot of training won't they? Still the travel takes 11 days in which wealth of Udmurts (with 5 cities) drops to 80%. Those wretches started by assaulting fort (that isn't much of deterrent with their 100-200 garrison) x].

By August the fight goes on as I remember to assault holdings in Tarbagatai on other side of empire (and thus not losing around 2.000 men due to attrition due to negligence). This to my suprise puts us at 100%w warscore allowing to end this madness. Enemy leader is imprisoned and soon executed by hanging, which definetely puts Permo-Siberian subjects at ease. As we route Pecheneg hordes from Perm, our Emperor that departed to hunt encounters huts with old crone offering him special potion to make him better. Have to check this in game files cause from what I remember it can have various outcomes and I would rather make informed decision on this. After looking it up the verdict is to not drink it. We are already diligent, we don't want to become lustful and we have little room for brave. Risking becoming ill seems wasteful. Soon our capital retinues delete another 2.000 visiting Buddhists and we can finally sigh in relief. Wars are over (for now). We do disband our levies to lower costs and recall Marshall from Turgay to keep improving our commanders. Sadly as days keep passing our hunting dog departs into dog's heaven. Well time to do last few things before Turush succumbs to his own mortality I guess.

First order of business is to finally transfer technology towards another edge of empire. We really stockpiled a ton of research points across many years of Turush's reign. Was waiting for perfect opportunity to use our "once per 600 months" change of capital for just that. That's why we evicted Duke of Ural to get our hands on county of Izhma (inside duchy of Komi). It is province bordering our future border with seceded Nenetsia so it is quite far from our capital. By making it capital we can directly purchase several technology levels marked below

Map mode on Construction technology mode and marked in green technologies instantly bought with points. Turns out buying tech levels without "Ahead of time penalty" is really cheap (like 300-400-500 tech points per level). Basically doubled tech in Izhma. Provinces in light green are currently held, dark green were previously held. The lighter province color is, the higher technology level compared to adjecent provinces. ​

I try to purchase as many cheap levels among many categories of tech evenly. Why? Cause it is cheap and I have my doubts whether just focusing on few would bring better levels. We are left with around 200 years and base chance of technology spread is around 10% for 1/10 of technology level each year. So if we leave something really far behind I have hunch it will be less likely to reach max technology levels. This way we quickly reach tech level of 26/35/26 in Izhma (where surrounding counties have between 10-16 in each Military/Economy/Culture categories). As I prepare to return I once again forget that Perm isn't the traditional capital of Volga-Bolgharia empire (well Bolgharia is) so I can't return. But I have different way of transfering back - we can just give away Izhma (and we want to give it back cause we are 2 counties over the limit). After finding some local 2nd Permyakid son, we gift him lands and some gold after which, we throw him under local duchess. Then we deal with double count that rebelled and redistribute his holdings in Yugra to our branch family there (once again trying to decentralize them so single characters doesn't suffer all opinion penalties for us holding his sub-holdings) and part of Ural to our 3rd living son (Prince Zhebeg with 2 genius kids). We make him an Ural Duke too. With that we get rid of two over the limits titles and two -10 opinion penalties across vassals. We aren't done yet though as we still have plenty of imprisoned vassals just waiting to be "adjusted". But first I order excommunication on mayor in Turgay so we can transfer holding ownership to one of our free mayors in Perm and hand off Turgay county too. But for that we will need our levies from Sibir so it might take some time for them to arrive.

In September our recently settled youngest son, demands that multi countess of Qazan (holding his missing county in Ural) should become his vassal but we just impress him with vague promises. He will get missing county but not all other counties that she is holding. Thankfully our other dynasty vassal - King Ozhmeg 'the Cruel' of Vladimir lends a helping hands by declaring war on one of our counts in southern Volga-Bolgharia, who also holds something within his de jure Rus empire. So that's saves us the effort .

In November we launch a 1 day extraction war (after all of our levies arrive in Turgay). We keep imprisoning and releasing mayor in Turgay till he rebels (and it takes quite a few takes as we initially have 98% success chance). Then we just assault his 144 defenders behind walls with our 3.300 besiegers. Thus war instantly concludes, the city is revoked (and the unlucky vassal gets executed). Thus the previously Lithuanian city finally returns under stewardship of also retaken city in Perm county itself. Still forgot to tyranny revoke the bishopric here before assigning new Count though x]... Well we will fix it later as right nowe are have no personel for temple administration anyway (and MA to keep it going with conversions). We now move our "extraction teams" onto 2 counties of imprisoned Count of Zaysan, Meaning soon we will have 2 more cities under our direct vassals . Another Mayors dies, but his replacement was already in place. He is even better (16 vs 18 stewardship) so we only need to grant him wife for even more bonus taxes. This alarms me that we runned out of high stewardship lowborn women in court. Something to be remedied. Invited 3 more young event generated high stewardship Jews (with one of them being already converted to Catholicism but still needing to flip to Orthodoxy).

By December 5 more lowborn women and 3 more Jews arrive. We have 2 converted Ashkenazis and 1 that hid himself in Court as Keeper of Tomes so our Patriarch has his work still cut out for him. Even though our men arrived to designated holdings we are still waiting for green light from our Patriarch (who also became our Court Physician as previous died). All newly arrived girls are also kindly asked to become Orthodox. So it happens that I'm allowed to see some mercenary band event for the first time - Captain asks for our daughter (now widow to King Setyamka II while her son Setyamka III got demoted to Duke). We deny him this, counting on him becoming one more step closer to rebelling which (as we previously experienced) can led to us getting occasion to nationalize mercenary band funds again. We also retract 2 vassals from under Countess of Qazan that is located in our dungeons for some minor transgression.

Year 1225
======================

Last year for this parts and we start it with 59.593 gold coins in treasury. This also is the 40th year of Turush reign . We are once again eligible to gather more ingredients (we still have 2 as I was declining each Hermetic mission just in case) so we embark on this trip with our Apprentice - Prince&Heir Rayda. As we look around world we can confirm that Crusade is still going (89% warscore in favour of "Deus Vults"). Eastern Roman empire is helping Young Croatian Queen to repel Italian Paulicians fighting for Croatia. Found out that while our religion menu says that Holy Sites in Lebedos is partially controlled it is already going to revert to Orthodoxy given time, as both local count and duke over there are Orthodox - leaving only temple holder to die and he just might (50 years old). We start plot due to potential of reaching up to 220% plot power and maybe shortening whole process of gaining 5% Moral Authority extra that will have impact on conversion chances.

After small bribe for our Patriarch we can excommunicate mayor in Kazakh county. Then we do our usual dance of imprisoning and releasing him til lhe rebels and start besieging. As he has over 1000 defenders I won''t assault but wait to starve them out. With our Siege expert it will take 48 days. Between start and end of that siege, we get involved in another summoning of Divine Being (Hermetic society event). Made terrible mistake of investing ingredients and as we have ingredients from 2 different gatherings, game swallowed all 4 of them =.=... According to notifications at least despite us having less of them to my memory.

Not only we got robbed on number of ingredients but also got minimal success... What a scam! ​

We finally take over another city to be included into our system. We can proceed almost instantly as excommunication is available in March against last target in Zaysan. It also ends adjustment process leaving rebel Count with just 2 counties in de jure Mongolia for which I don't care much. Still haven't used our tyranny, yet our vassal limit slowly fills up (49/50 at the moment).

With April we start besieging city in Zaysan (will take 36 days) and luckily turns out that we haven't finished latest ingredient gathering so we get 4 extra materials for future potions of Eudaimonia! Uff! That's a huge relief. With that we have more wiggle-room for any stress/depression related problems (not only on us but also our family and vassals). If I time things correctly the financial summary at the end should showcase really impressive numbers today.

Month later Patriarch makes Christian out of another 37 year old Ashkenazi courtier. At once I decide to make him a monk. Things start to look up and we have quite a few spare candidates at the moment. To be honest at this point it is more challenging to find good male non-rulers with high martial that aren't part of one of several noble houses that managed to grow in numbers (thus I'm worried they will use it to continue consolidating under us via marriages and forcing us to break them apart). As we fix another city it leaves us with 3 more city slots to utilise. For which I have to look around who else can we nab and how to do this the smart way. Then few days before end of May we manage to shoot Greek Bishop of Lebedos with bow. We get revealed but no one in my realm cares and we just made Orthodoxy fully take over another Holy Sites. Mission accomplished

We finally are looking at more than less Moral Authority. Not gonna lie would love for Byzantine Empire to chomp holy site in Antioch too. ​

As I look around how Orthodoxy is set up I briefly get excited thinking we can also ask Ecumenical Patriarch for excommunications within our realm using his different limits and cooldown. Yet it quickly turns to not work as I though. Would be quite busted if it did so - imagine having ability to ask excommunications/claims twice as often. Still as you can observe on screenshot - Orthodoxy spread quite a lot. It even has some of Iberian coastal provinces. Somewhat suprising that Christianity make a comeback with not so much of player assistance. Cathars in Spain are also doing quite well as they pushed towards Tunisia, taking some Sunni lands.

Moving onto Cheremisia (where our ex-Spymaster has still some holdings under her) I make mistake by quickly clicking imprison+release and revoke city with tyranny by accident... Ups! Well we still take it over and give back to some mayor in Perm duchy (leaving just 2 more city slots available). We provoke another rebelion but instead of releasing her we allow her to ransom herself multiple times. Then rebellion is allowed to happen but I'm not happy with how many warriors are garrisoning her holdings so we leave county of Cheremisia for second. This allows rebelious countess to rise her troops and us to stomp them to have easier time besieging after. Reinforced Retinues with levies from Burtasy too but it didn't change much (even with our Siege commander).

By October Prince Rayda fathers second son - Kyldysin. He isn't sick but didn't inherit Genius either. Well better having spare than not. Soon (quite unlucky) in lands of our Vladimirian vassal located on the southern steppes, revolt occurs:

Unlucky 9% revolt risk and our kin vassal can't deal with it on his own. Tsk-Tsk! ​

Halfway through November as we watch slow siege progress, entertainment in form of city vassal occurs. He was 61 years old mayor in Kolva. At long least occassion to use our spare (quite old) courtiers to take over. Forty years old Ashkenazi Orthodox court member with 21 Stewardship is married to 12 stewardship daughter before traveling to assigned city, which should result in 54 state stewardship for that court meaning +108% tax modifier on associated 3 cities :]. Just need to commit single assasination with 650% plot power. Easy peasy!

It fires two weeks before end of year but the results don't arrive in time for this part. Our levies from Bolgharia are also making their way towards rebels in the south as Cheremisian castle is on the verge of collapsing. Pity couldn't conclude this war as it would slightly increase our income. Still we got rid of over the demense penalty so:

We are making steady progress and this income total should start picking up rather nicely as we just included bunch of new cities into our network. We also might start fixing temples in next part . The only downside was Consumption that took few prosperity levels in Siberia and Cumania.​

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

More good news from Emperor's family though - his youngest son became dad of Genius Spira Permyakid, while our heir fathered daughter - Mel'shay Permyakid.

A future marriage is in order I think.

He does contracted Great Pox from his mother :/... Which doesn't look good for his longevity.

That might be good for the daughter and the genius...

In the meantime our stubborn protagonist realizes that his marriage is in sorry state. Well imprisoning and then torturing his firstborn son wasn't the best way to keep Turush in his wife good graces. We don't want to lose Lover status with her and if we can we want to just weather another 6 years to lose huge -150 opinion penalty. So we try and soon succeed in buttering her up, receiving +15 opinion modifier in eyes of Empress Zaynab for 3 more years. Well she still actively hates Emperor (-100 opinion) but hey we tried x]...

Well that's something x] ​

Yeah, she's going to have Turush killed if he's not careful...

 

[TWR97]

I concur, the Empress is still probably gonna have funny ideas in ending the Emperor.

Oh wow so you can stack up to 4 copies of the same book.

Imagine being able to stack the book you wanted. Hell if you ever want to go with making a military book, the On (insert Government) Warfare one's pretty useful, according to the wiki it's +1 martial, 10% morale damage and 10% morale defense. Though the very useful good military book ought to be Military Strategy, according to (Author name), that gives 10% levee reinforcement, 2.5% siege speed and 5% morale damage. I never knew the same book could be written by different characters since I thought it was a one time thing but now, well that changes stuff.

 

[Sanvone]

Naaah - imperial marriage is fiiiineee!

Regarding books I'm becoming less and less enthusiastic about military books as I close on my 2.000 hours in CK2. Levy reinforcement seems niche - how often do you have big wars that are really close and long? You need to lose quite a lot of your troops and not lose overall war. Morale are great though. Still I want my "On Komi Architecture" (-10% build cost)... Books with bonus health also seem juicy as many disease require some amount of health to be had in order to heal - so you can just swap few +health books after succesful treatment until RNGesus cures your sickness.

 

[Sanvone]

Part LVI (1226-1233)​

Year 1226
======================

January starts where we left - besieging Cheremisia with attritioning rebel force further south. Before I unpause the Crown Focus is moved from Udmurts onto Tynea. While completing provinces is nice for everyone's perfectionism, waiting (and possibly wasting extra slot events) is not the move if we want to maximize our economy. Tynea has 4 holding slots and all 7 province slots to acquire. In second week of the year we succeed in killing bad mayor in Pilva, thus enabling our handpicked candidate with 21 stewardship to take over.

February starts with outbreak of Smallpox in Kolva. Well much good that +11% disease resistance (after subtracting prosperity penalty) has done us so far. Having learned the hard way - we immedietely seclude our court. This in turn lowers our diplomacy (-5) and lowers our vassal limit from 50 to 48. So we are 1 vassal over. As I just split my retinues between Kudymkar and Perm (to cover more counties from looting) our force in Perm (2.400) suffers combination of severe winter and smallpox once again putting local supplies at lowest possible minimum (1k troops) thus deleting over half of my retinues. At least in few more days we conclude Cheremisian rebelion. Our levies from Bolgharia duchy arrived in Burtasy so now by combining retinues and levies we can move onto peasant rebels further south. They in meantime took over Bakhmut holding in Desht-i-Kipchak county.

March undoes my previous efforts in spreading our 4 bloodlines Permyakids into Nenetsia, as grandson Prince Setyamka II dies due to severe stress at old rip age of 18... We can't catch break in Nenetsia, can we? Not only did our handpicked character lost his kingdoms in less than 2 decades, but his whole line was extinguished not long after. Think we are working on Nenetsia for over a 100 years and we still not done with it. Smallpox spreads to Udmurts.

April suprises me with something positive. For the first time we get asked to become a sponsor for mass conversions from some rebel leader that won independence in Galicia-Volhynia. Our side declines. He is within de jure empire of Rus, that we want to hand off to our King vassal. So him winning helps us in eating those counties relatively quickly (we can get whole duchy of Turov with 4 counties at once).

First time it is us that get asked. Sadly we have to deny this request as it would make our conquest west tougher. ​

Next months are spent on manouvering to get good angle for pushing against rebels (no river penalties for us). Spotted that my Vladimir vassal despite low Cavalry technology levels across empire really likes that type of Retinues as there are 3 different such armies under his banner. Interesting . At beggining of July we finally catch remaining 6.500 rebels with our 10.000 Imperial force. We also get called into Byzantine Civil war where our ally with 70.000 troops fights against pretender with 50.000 troops. Think our Greek friends have it in the bag. Then we get invited by Prince Oshmar (new Duke of Ural) to spend some family time with him and Prince Rayda (our heir). We accept invitation and soon make a friend of our oldest living son. This has domino effect - as we had "make a friend" ambition that gifts us +1 diplomacy but also 5 year modifier "Popular".

This extra diplomacy helps with seclusion affecting our vassal limit (and lowering our vassal taxes sadly). What a nice chain of events! Time to start wars. ​

We put down rebelion and disband our levies. After observing new Slavic Russian Duke of Galicia-Volhynia I decide to also pounce on them right now. They are already under fire and even got Orthodox Russians uprising (that is sadly only 2/3 of their army size; probably not enough to win). Better to chomp on them now or we might miss the opportunity.

August gives me a nasty suprise from Byzantines. Those cursed Greeks dissolved our alliance as Prince Maximos first excommunicated, then burned on stake our niece - Nyumina Permyakid (41 years old). Thus concludes her tragic love life. We don't currently have any close female Permyakid to remake those alliances and we are still inside that huge Byzantine civil war. This catches me off guard. But also makes me less interested in helping House Krinites and Basileus Pamphilios "the Wise" in keeping his power. After some checking there is a way. Can't regain Greek military presence now, but we can make a bethrothal between children of both empires heirs. We try but it all hinges on Prince Maximos not dying before his father the Emperor. Otherwise we are somewhat cooked.

As new deals goes through and concludes in September it turns out we haven't lost anything. To my suprise granddaughter of rulling character is enough to be able to make alliance again (although first I had to to make the same deal with Prince Maximos). So all is good between Orthodox brethren. Funny enough topic of Empress Zaynab and plots pops up. Our spymaster reports that some sinister people are trying to kill her. Which is funny considering that we were worried about her helping any plotters aiming to kill Emperor Turush.

This is really important for us. So come on game! Don't leave us hanging. The "Great Orthodox Alliance" is here. ​

Have to somewhat retreat from Galicia-Volhynia front as I underestimated enemies. Those are liberation rebels thus they have some heavy cavalry and represent mostly feudal troop composition army. Thus we need to join with Bolgharian levies before meeting them in battle. Luckily pagan Russians assault few holdings and lose a chunk of those event troops. Between Orthodox rebels and our holdings enemy force melted from 12.000 to 9.700 men. Given that we ourself have around 10.000 this is good sign. The only worrying thing is that due seclusion I can't access most of our commanders.

In October our vassals priests convert Paulician Vorotynsk and Monothelite Mansia back to Orthodoxy. This leaves 3 heretic counties in eastern part of empire. Our religion Moral Authority is currently at 69% which is somewhat healthier that it was previously. We would benefit from higher conversion chances yet epidemy once again affects me more that I ever suspected.

Rest of year slowly eats at me with Smallpox affecting 4 out of 6 counties in Perm (-25% income hurts). It also kills our orthodox Jew we had in court. Pagans did another assault (losing another 350 men). This quickly leaves them with 8.500 men but as they are currently in forest county with river present I can't push into them with our 10.200 strong force nearby.

Year 1227
======================

Our income got slashed down to +3.903 and expenses rise to -680 gold per year. At least we have 67.000 gold in treasury. Our mercenary captain for the second time asks for reinforcement which we vehemently deny. Pagans besieging our vassals in Ruthenia finally get bad siege event, further diminishing their manpower. We also lose mayor in Bolgharia (with no replacement cause replacement just died) so have to suffer 3/1 demense mayor for now (-40% income from all his holdings).

February finally results in battle against pagans (after they were worn down by attrition). Sadly at last possible moment due to Severe Winter we lose 800 men day before battle.

Lack of commanders due to smallpox... Curse you! Luckily we get the counters going in melee.​

Battle turns unexpectedly tough as enemy leader is quite the commander (26 Martial, Heavy Commander Leader, Inspiring Leader, Brave). While our center and right wing win skirmish phase slightly, our left is halfway towards running away. Luckily it doesn't enter melee in first possible moment, while rest of battlefield does. Our right rolls Charge against their Powerful Charge and our's tactic is better (as it does buff Heavy Infantry while their doesn't; their's actually debuffs HI and PI attack by -150%...) giving us 20 men lost per 109 enemies killed every day and our center straight up counters them (Slow Advance vs Charge) leading for 599:39 kill/death ratio. After slaughtering 2/3 of enemy army, victorious wings help struggling left. They don't manage to prevent their allies from running away and meet in force with enemies in melee. That is unlucky for us as we have both Slow Advance and Force Back vs their Advance giving now enemies 400% bonus dmg due to countering. But our forces are still similar thus after suffering 150 casualties for one day we inflict 559 casualties back and route tired enemies. Finally I forget to take screenshot of after battle report but enemy retreats with just 880 men, while we have still over 8.200 troops. There is no confusion who is winning this war overall.

Got distracted because raiders showed up in afflicted with Smallpox Kudymkar. Norse 5.400 light infantry raiding host. So we have to move at once. We still lose 24% of province wealth before we get there and enemy has better than average commanders. Meantime 7 year old King Godefroy III of Burgundy (basically France) sets up his own Anti-Pope to sink Catholicism Moral authority to 37%. Wow x]. For comparison Spanish Catharism has 75% MA even as heresy with just single holy site due to recent expansion in northern africa.

Takes up to May to mop up Vikings in Kudymkar. It was somewhat bloody as we lost 609 of our retinues to their 2.670 men (basically half of what they had). This soars our replenishment costs to -1.017 gold per year (with 20% discount from Marshal mission). Yikes. Our forces in the west move towards Turov to start besieging instead of recapturing 2 vassal counties.

In June our Chancellor (Duches of Komi) dies and we replace her with also Genius daughter in Law - Countess of Illyinsk. She is pregnant with Prince Zhebeg child for the 3rd time (they have 2 daughters up to date). As August begins we receive this news:

Catholics finally prevailed over weakened by Byzantium Hamidid sultanate. Not that they got much for their effort. No idea if this is good enough to survive longterm.​

While the price of Levant - Jerusalem got sniped previously by Byzantine's vassal, the new small Crusader state forms. Probably not for long (their only hope are holy orders but Catholic MA just got nuked into oblivion by French). Still it fractured Hamidids making some vassal secede from them. Which leaves them more vulnerable against both Catholic Egypt as well as Orthodox Armenia/Byzantine empire (once they deal with whole civil war business).

We press on with invading Galicia-Volhynia and before Autumn we control whole county of Slutsk. As October arrives Measles breaks out in Irtysh... Which is more expected due to lack of hospitals on that side of Ural mountains. Then in November another uprising happens - this time those are Tengri Khazars. Vladimir vassal troops are raised at once (around 8.400 of them) to help dealing with that. Upon inspection it was another 10% revolt chance

Ruling empire surely is tiring... At least we finish our war against Pagans. Then more rebels ugh! ​

To not call back levies in Galicia-Volhynia I will have to use again our retinues, that just were on route to Burtasy. Noticed that in August twin grandsons were born - Lyneg and Turush (sons of Prince Zhebeg and Countess Sanal'la of Illyinsk). No genius trait though. Still - they have all 4 bloodlines.

End of November marks also our full conquest of Turov Duchy. All new holdings go towards King of Vladimir. With that we enjoy 79% Orthodox MA and having 59% of de jure Empire of Rus. We have no time to lose cause there is rebelion to deal with. One? Of course not. In december another fires on other side of Ural Mountains. Well our vassal troops will have to help with that as I will just join with 4.000 troops from Osha and Tura. All thanks to another genius vassal that triple taxed his already angry peasant :>... At least Greeks almost dealt with pretender (95% warscore).

Year 1228
======================

This year is noted with 69,600 gold coins in Imperial coffers but only +3900/-820 gold per year balance. Smallpox starts vanishing in duchy of Perm but Measle expanded around Silkroad. We also connect 11.000 army marching from Bolgharia and 5.400 troops coming back from Turov in Cheremisia duchy to start hunting down Tengri rebel stack. Weirdly the one person to blame for our problems in Yaik duchy dies and I notice that he is younger by 12 years than his son that took over. Well that's a combination that I haven't seen yet in CK2. Also he is only 8 years younger than his mother. Will leave figuring this one for you readers (he is legitimate child, no bastard sheningans).

Well we really are getting hit by those diseases a lot. Probably will persist till we resolve Mongol threat as we have to save money. ​

Pursuing rebels begins in February. We force them into battle before they can cross the river south of Cheremisia with our 16.000 troops. They have only half that and equiped way lighter.

The battle turns easy as we crush enemies in skirmish ​

With that victory we conclude Tengri uprising. At least it gave us +1% MA for our religion, putting it at 83%. That's decent - 100% county conversion and 90% subject conversion chance per year. Now we are talking. Just as Smallpox vanished from Perm and we can leave seclusion. Things will start happening again.

With spring our forces east of Ural have assembled. Just in time cause this happens:

Gosh darn it. That's a lot of them! When it rains - it pours xD ​

While it will again give us extra MA, I would rather they stop doing that. So battle of manouvers start as I don't feel we can run straight into that army. Due to all that rebelion nonsense our rebelious ex-spymaster dies in dungeons without ever receiving proper justice (and giving us another city to our domain) making whole extraction war we started this part with pointless. After month we get opportunity but before I can utilize it I get another head ache with Chernigov rebelion.

So Vladimirian levies are raised again (we get more than our vassal anyway due to higher popularity). They catch and defeat Chernigovian rebels by July (800 men lost but 2.400 killed) putting down whole rebelion. Meanwhile far to the east behind Ural mountains we catch 1/3 of Monothelite mob with our 9.000 strong levies. We handily defeat that part of heretic army but rest of them combines with peasant rebels in Boqtybay. I decide to risk it (as we have commanders once again) and rush into them. Before our warriors can arrive, rebels decide to assault local keep that costs them over 2.000 men, making our chances much better.

Tough battle ahead. Combat randomness at it's finest. ​

Despite enemies not dealing much damage initially it starts adding up and our right flank despite having Schiltron tactics gets routed pretty quickly during melee phase. Wisely I put our best commander in center so despite being flanked he slowly rolls over his oponents, routing them to then rapidly slay enemy left flank (inflicting 1.400 casualties for single day) just in time to join our remaining flank in melee. We get even luckier cause enemy rolled "Charge on Undefended Flank" which is met with being countered by both remaining Permo-Siberian army segments (Force Back and Slow Advance) resulting in over 3.000 men being slayed on single day. Uff! That wasn't easy fight and was more worrying that I anticipated. Yet we prevailed and thus put an end to both remaining rebelions. Soon both rebel leaders are executed and all is "good" in Permo-Siberian empire. Damn that was taxing!

Now that I'm more free to care about civilian matters - our Emperor during all that chaos went on hunt but came back with nothing, tried for the third time to rekindle love with his wife (those previous attempts stacked) but failed and thus lost his lover status (and +40 opinion for life). Turush wrote another theorem for Hermetics, his Patriarch converted another jewish courtier and Tynea fired it's first prosperity modifier (our decisions pays off!)

One down, six more to go ​

New pile of criminals accumulated and after some arrests we have 3 new rebeling vassals. Two of them are damn schemers hobbyist so I go against them and last one tries to usurp duchy of Bolgharia. Then in november another peasant rebelion in Yaik fires (the county with triple taxation for 3 more years =.=)... On the bright side first schemer in duchy of Mari falls before months end, giving us access to extraction of another city. It will briefly put me over the demense limit but what "can man do against such hate?" Permo-Siberian Patriarch converts remaining Jew courtier so right now we have some options.

We command our scattered forces to proceed with all wars at the same time and are doing good job with it. We beat both vassals standing armies while starting the siege of their holdings. We also excommunicate city we want from Mari into extraction war.

Year 1229
======================

Penalty from being over the demense limit haven't kicked yet so we enjoy +4.235/-465 gold per year on top of 69.600 coins in the coffers. Wonder how much longer will my 70 years old Emperor live? Is he such a "Mule" that he refuses to die? If it happens we are already set with succession. We don't really even need those quicker truces with Lithuania and Galicia-Volhynia as we want to secede Vladimir with western lands ideally after Mongols and I read somewhere that they can arrive in 1238. So there is no hurry (especially as there is non 0 chance that the whole setup in Vladimir crumbles on itself yet again).

We deal with city extraction within two weeks of 1229 and thus last free spot on our mayors in Perm is now used. We leave 1 more for future retaking of last Lithuanian city within our borders. Spent quite a lot on "University II" building on both sides of empire (around 5 constructions now but 2-3 more might follow once local construction is done). Despite us saving cash for Mongols I want technology spread to be as high as possible cause it basically prints us more money quicker (as some economic technologies increase taxation). Also invited 6 Jews from abroad (ranging in age between 30 and 34 years). Five of them arrive to become next victims of our Patriarch. Also did check up on religions in court and kids education. Everything it checked .

Between playing sessions I did little analysis of my lands. Compiled a lot of useful information to have better idea about how my empire is doing. ​

As you can see above I did little side-project. We are halfway through this playthrough and over 100 years past since we feudalised. How did it affect previously nomadic lands? How various parts of Permo-Siberia compare to each other? What construction projects are available to push everywhere at once? Now I know. First of all it describes only 89 counties that I'm interested in holding till game end (not uncluding Nenetsia, Vladimir and rest of de jure Rus that will be seceded). Now onto goodies - out of 4 kingdoms we hold Volga Bulgaria is the richest on average. Perm despite being target of our efforts can't compete with so many holding slots more despite superior technology levels. Permian kingdom is basically held by richest duchy (Perm) and somewhat suprising Bashkiria to the south as rest of those lands are terribly poor with just castles in counties and low technology. Thus at the moment our economic center is definetely on the west of Ural mountains. Our eastern half still is doing better than expected given that around 250 years ago it had literally no technology spread into it's provinces and while they are still catching up, they definetely left stone age . Prosperity levels are all over the place due to our missing hospital network. Something that was haunting me lately. Overall we have 89 castles, 95 cities and 45 Bishoprics with total of 10.404 gold in province wealth across all counties. Even more to be looted cause holdings upon failing give extra not included. Not sure but this should be already at West Europe and Eastern Roman Empire level where it comes to average county wealth. Our technology definetely catched up to feudal standards. Our worst places are basically at the same level as British Isles or Germany while better places outpace every other realm on the map. During next 100 years we are destined to leave everyone in the dust in terms of scientific breakthroughs. I like to think that due to harsher enviroment we have to compensate with better methods that inspire new discoveries. AI has better lands (way more holding slots and way higher initial technology) while we compensated with better rulers, cheaper construction (each gold in Permo-Siberia is thus worth more) and research.

Guess who's back! Our 5th rebelion that happened during this part. 6th that we will resolve. ​

Our data pondering gets interupted by rude Cheremisians. They decided to revolt again. So our Vladimir vassal is instantly called close by (not too close to get instantly defeated with his close to 0% morale troops). Soon our Patriarch does God's work and converts another Jewish courtier into Orthodoxy. At this rate we might think about fixing temple's administration in Perm for even more income. Was also keeping tab on what is going on with our family heirlooms (2 Stewardship books that got away). Chief of Ryn is 65 years old but his next in line has Cancer. Sadly it is mild right now and he is Strong (so overall just -1 health at his 31 years of age). It gets better as his wife is 40 years old and his only surviving child is girl. Meaning when she inherits she is the proper target for weak claims. Like the one we have from one family member we got into our court to whom it will be our characters who inherits. So not only getting those books seems quite realistic - we most likely will also get that Jade Dragon. Love how I basically made the full circle in my thinking: from considering giving away Books to heir a good idea, to realizing that it might lower my chances at getting what we want to finally discovering that it didn't mattered afterall so it was good idea in the first place.

In April we lose Humble putting Emperor Turush once again at 5 traits. Some time ago another pilgrimage event fired but I took 250g for 10 piety as we already have Gregarious trait we could get from other option. Our mercenary captain also asks for help for the third time, meaning he will try to go independent soon. At which point we will replace him, thus possibly getting in court courtier with all that accumulated gold . Luckily they ended their contract in Sinai (as Byzantine Empire and Egypt now are fighting for it) and found another job defending Damascus from expanding Kingdom of Jerusalem (which would double it's size with that ducal holy war).

By May Cheremisians are put down again, Naberezhnye and Ubagan counts are on their last legs leaving only Oranian peasants running amok south-western Cumania. We soon execute another leader of Cheremisian peasants. We continue with sieges and after they are done we move Bolgharian levies to deal with Yaik peasants. Some raiding host also shows up before autumn in Tarbagatai so we deal with it as well. Due to all those battles our Commanders started leveling up. Just noticed we have several new commander traits on them:
- Scottish Dergun with 17 Martial "Heavy Infantry Expert" and "Brave" got "Flat Plains Expert" (really good!),
- Scottish Tadeusz with 14 Martial developed "Experimentality" (meh),
- Scottish Vachagan with 12 Martial and Brave got "Flanking Expert" (mediocre),
- Komi Deryab new count of Mari with 14 Martial and "Cavalry Expert" developed "Flanking Expert" (interesting!),

Our Marshall also wants something from us - he heard a rumour about rare artifact. Oh wow. At 71 years of age the chances of completing it aren't great, but why not try anyway? It's so rare to just not do nothing. So I delve into wiki to pick the best candidate for "Artifact hunting". Good thinking on my part as if we let Marshal do it, it would end pretty badly (as he is definetely not "Brave" with "Coward" trait and has less than 20 Personal Combat Score (-4)..). Our best bet (and to be honest only one that has more positive checkmarks than negative) turns out to be Emperor's daughter-in-law - Genius Countess of Illyinsk. So we make her Eudaimonia potion to cure her depression and offs she goes!

Low chance of success given that our Emperor is 71 years old. Still let's try! ​

The only way this is happening is if this is minor rumour that requiers 8 points meaning around 8 years of artifact hunting. Previously we had major rumour that resulted in "Bones of Saint Peter". This most likely won't happen again (so there won't be 3rd skeleton of Saint Peter). Still getting something rare would be nice. It's not like we are losing anything as Chancellor office doesn't do anything important at the moment. Contrary to our vassal king in Vladimir that just launched vassalization war against 1 county Orthodox ruler on the border. That's what I like - chomping smaller targets so I don't have to deal with them .

First report from Chancellor Sanal'ka results in steady progress on 1st of December meaning we have at least 1/8 points acquired. Well Good . There are also some events, that can give us even more points at once so maybe it is more doable that I think. Meanwhile we fix one mayor in Perm only for our Steward in Council to die due to some assasination. Well duh!

Year 1230
======================

After purchasing some second level Universities here and there we are left with 69.500 gold. Income: 4203, Expenses: 101. Have some trouble with two 3/1 demense burghers at the moment. Too few characters to arrange some good takeover. Still I persist and tinker more with courtiers in my capital. Marry some Scotsmen and slowly begin Italian Orthodox breeding program (perhaps we are the 3rd Rome? Jokes aside making those Pike retinues and mercenary band good against other pikes and not downright terrible against Advance tactics might pay off). Then given how busy our Patriarch lately was converting I decide to offload some of Ashkenazis into Monastic Society (as we have like 4 converted and 2-3 waiting to be converted). You won't believe what happens: almost one by one those new Monks go into courts of non-monastic society Bishops that are over the demense limit. Thus with 3 "Order to take the vows" for 150 piety total we made the most difficult step towards fixing them (all due to rng). We now just need some assasinations and 3 out of 4 bad Bishops we have will be fixed. That's basically saved me 3 rounds of revocation with tyranny meaning 15 years of work =]. We also have some courtiers that due to either missclick or being set on education by AI couldn't be made into Scottish commanders so we have few more high stewardship characters that are barely 20 years old (meaning the potential of living for another 50 years!). That's a hell of a development and progress, which makes me very happy.

So the 45 years of Turush reign come to an end. Definetely a good time for Empire. ​

Turns out we will never find out what relic it could be. Seems like one of the most chill transitions of power. While our new Emperor is 34 years old, he already has 23 Stewardship and 21 Learning on top of Level 3 Stewardship, Shrewd, Diligent. We only lack lifestyle trait for perfect prosperity modifier. We no longer need +health Magnum Opus thus we switch it to 2nd copy of "Fishing with an ankle" and swap "Building a well" for "The Komi Language, Volume IV". Meaning way more positive opinion from everyone and dynasty members. For focus we pick instantly - Business. Something that I was decided on for quite some time. Not only we can get that final education upgrade with Trade route but we right now it also fixes our over the demense limit situation. Would like to get Architect lifestyle on Emperor's Rayda. The only downside is - we have both Arbitrary and Cruel (resulting in -10 opinion from vassals). Those are fixable (way more than our last character combination of: Homosexual + Stubborn) but I'm not sure if it's worth the time. After we finish Business I would like to go onto warfare to pick "Organiser trait" that increses chance of receiving "On Komi Architecture" book somewhat. We can and instantly do level up in Hermetic society to 3rd rank (getting ability to make horoscopes). We also renew our alliances with Eastern Roman Empire (as our oldest daughter is still bethothed to grandson of Basileus). Most of my court remains - sadly I think few Ashkenazis got "YEET'ed&DELETEd" by game as I haven't had every single one of them marked. Still our lucky Monks remain. We don't compose book yet but we start writing theorem for that free +2 Learning modifier from Hermetics. We also don't embark on 5 years of peace ambition for prosperity yet.

By May we invite 2 new Jews into court (to not waste our current 97% Moral Authority). We fill the court, establish alliance with Byzantine Empire (rocking 124.000 troops right now) and get another Master Engineer from China (as previously acquired replacements vanished). We start plotting assasinations of our bad bishops in Bolgharia (1000%+ plot power). Master Engineer instantly builds paper mill in Tura. While local tax is kind of wasted, +50% Economic technology spread rate definetely isn't .

For once we start with bang! We got around truce timers slightly but it matters little as this is last rightfully our cty we are about to retake. ​

After few more duties, we begin wars. First - Kingdom of Lithuania for our city in Tarbagatai. Second - Pagan Galicia-Volhynia for Minsk. Then Bukhal Khazarian khaganate for liberating Polotsk duchy. Finally Chernigov Khaganate to liberate Aqtobe so we can come closer to retrieving our Stewardship book located behind them. At least we will maximize time efficiency as now we only need to marsh our troops once instead of 4 times, if we did every war seperetaly. We also call Byzantine help and order them to siege holdings in Lithuania then will switch them to hunt armies of Nomads.

Rest of year is spend on carefully managing our troops, killing all 3 bad bishops and finding a way to fix one lowborn city mayor with sons (invited his heir to court, there married him against his will to noble woman matrilineary to finish with assasinating his father to let him inherit). We took over city in Tarbagata, Lithuanian capital (with Vladimir troops), found main Chernigov horde as well as watched how Byzantines are finishing their war (97%) against Egypt. Sadly we also got drunkard event and once again I acquired this trait (instead of rolling on 10% death). So here we go again like it was during Meltsayka 'the wise" times (Emperor's Rayda grandfather). This makes going for Theology much more appealing.

We get unlucky for second time. I'm pretty certain that our council member can just help us to earn favour from us but nope... ​

Year 1231
======================

We enter first full year of Rayda's reign with slightly over 70.000 gold coins. Income of +4.239 and expenses of -1.257. With plenty troops moving around. Lithuanian war at 40% warscore and Bukhal at 12%.

We slowly siege enemies out cause they aren't too keen on meeting us in field. Our plan to fix lowborn issues falls apart because despite being listed as heir, our married son of burgher does not inherit. We push towards 61% of warscore with Lithuania by the the time May rolls over. Our vassals within a week convert another Monothelite county back to Orthodoxy.

We do push forward with extraction to fix another bad bishops (lowering their number to just 2) although with tyranny. That's means that between rising raised levies penalty and -45 opinion from tyranny we are working on fixed time table. Which doesn't turn so well for me. Was somewhat rushing (probably too long playing session) thus after concluding Lithuanian war mid year and taking half of nomadic Polotsk our war effort started falling apart. Partially to blame was total war that we went into. But not ours total war - I mean our targets that were occupied by 1-2 other khaganates thus getting any amount of warscore with concentrated push into it became impossible. Initially I wanted to reroute troops from Lithuania to Polotsk to nicely conclude this war too, but Greeks started hunting nomads and... well... Their 12.000 contingent got melted down by 4.000 Bukhal riders, after which they started picking my 3-4.000 strong armies in the vicinity of Polotsk 1 by 1. Moved my pike retinues ahead of time, suspecting such danger but even when they were behind the river we still got mauled. Basically Bukhal 4.000 Bukhal riders defeated 20.000 enemies across 3 armies xD.

Luckily for me I still have 27.000 troops in Perm and 11.000 troops returning from Lithuania. My armies weren't completely deleted. Seems like they have above average commanders. Before I can commit to them I still have other worry though:

Our Count of Turgay in action again. Please "staaahpp!". ​

As another count pushes his subjects a little "too hard" we get another 18.000 rebels quite some distance from frontline. Luckily most of vassal levies were kind of standing without doing anything useful south of Perm so we can move them there to deal with that. Given that Chernigov Khaganate was halfway sieged by others early in the war and their horde was trashed too, we can't get much warscore out of them quickly anyway. Meanwhile my troops from Lithuania can knock Paganic Galicia-Volhynia out of war. By eliminating other nuisances we will be able to better concentrate on most dangerous opponent. Still probably this will take longer than expected. Our mercenary captain finally goes independent so we change him as he leaves. To my suprise he doesn't take gold with him (it remains in company). Well not the worst outcome and we can live without those 3.000 gold coins now.

Last stand of retinues. Well we haven't lost so badly in quite some time. Which costs us more precious gold. ​

This battle went far worse than expected. Mostly as till now I haven't seen their high martial commanders with plenty of somewhat high bonuses. Didn't help that in melee our Pikes panic charged against them and in return got countered with "Slow Advance". Those aren't pure cavalry armies, which was nasty suprise. They still have enough horse archers to trigger "Swarm tactic" to counter our "Volley tactic". Ouch...

Game for some reason started lagging tremendously for me. In the background there were some assasination plots to clear another Mayor, but one more skilled vassal died. Seems like everyone slowly starts getting pissed - I because of Nomad antics and city in Tarbagatai immedietely going to local count instead of us, my vassals due to tyranny and having raised their levies for quite some time and my character due to being framed as Drunkard again. May turn out that we should just chill for initial 5 years instead of going with so many wars now to maximize truce timers and time before Temujin shows up.

Year 1232
======================

After taking break from playing, it's time to reassume our wars. With fresh mind and plenty of energy it is time to stop this clown fiesta of Permo-Byzantine alliance with 180 thousands troops not being able to deal with 4 thousand strong nomadic force. We have over 73,400 coins in imperial coffers, income of 4.309 and expenses of 1.259. Not bad! We also spot several Greek armies coming back from Egypt and being close to lend us their help. So I order retreating retinues to move towards rest of Vladimirian levies in the meantime.

Allied AI pulls it's weight This is good sign for our near future. ​

Soon enemy's Khaganate fills with substantial amount of Greek troops. We start besieging paganic counties and our relief forces is halfway towards rebels in Turgay by February. Our Peasants complain about arbitrariness of our steward (didn't paid attention to him) so our Perm now has 1.5% revolt risk. No biggie. Two weeks later Ecumenical Patriarch Eusthathios II dies due to Plague. I check but there is no outbreak. Which would be far more alarming than death of religion head per se. New Ecumenical Patriarch has slightly more diplomacy yet the religion MA rises up to full 100% with other modifiers.

Before spring arrives we start marching onto heretics in the east, take over Minsk castle and are about capture Novogrodek castle too. Seperate Eastern Roman army (9.700 men) beats pagans, who just took over Lukoml from Orthodox kingdom of Novgorod (meaning another possibility to take over something with holy war). All of the wars are hovering around 20% warscore in our favour.

Bad luck in regards to traits continues - we get to choose between becoming proud (70%) or humble (45%). I pick the second option and sadly get the trait. It's our 6th trait :/... Meaning we now have 1/6 chance of losing Diligent once the game decides to adjust our character. Yes we could also lose anything else but I don't have high hopes for it. Just as the battle of Boqtybay begins, we notice that pagan Duke got captured by Greek armies. We thus enforce our demands and end with 4 more holdings.

Another regular beating down of rebels. I'm really happy that those don't erase any population in province (even in shape of prosperity levels) ​

Battle goes predictably well with our assigned commanders (they are getting plenty of training). First to enter melee is our right under Count Meltsayka (19 martial). Their charge demolishes lightly armored enemies. Then they help center and briefly left flank as it enters melee for one day. Battle is over and we are victorious. But this isn't enough as there is still seperate 9.000 strong Monothelite force further east. So we move those 2 counties towards them to finish this uprising. In the background our older sister - Sernyava (previous queen of Nenetsia) dies due to poor health at 44. Our Permo-Siberian Patriarch converts a 35 years old Ashkenazi (love to see it), so we instantly start seeding him into court of one Mayor that needs removing. Beside him we only have 2 unskilled Bishops (3/1 demense), which is quite the improvment over previous 6 bishops that needed fixing. Our other Nomadic foe starts recapturing his own capital and we let him, as it is another Khaganate that captured it. Which screwed our chances of rapidly advancing this war for time being. Stings little less thanks to whole Monothelite nonsense going on further east allowing us to spend our time productively but still.

Not all is well in Chinese country. All domino pieces start falling into their places between final crash. ​

Before end of May we get news about Great Famine in China. So it begins. The next downfall. We ask for Scholar-Bureaucrat given occasion thus fully replenishing our chinese experts in court. Before we walk into remaining rebels in Turgay, we get another conversion back at capital. Wow. Our Patriarch is on fire! At the same time we run out of possible candidates to convert so 3 more Ashkenazis are imported. Finally remembered to appoint vassals in recently conquered lands from Pagans. Found few high stewardship character then shove them under our king of Vladimir. This makes him happy. And gives him any chance of culture converting those lands if he ever bothers (but I still think it won't happen, after he vassalized some Russians and Alans). We also experience some personal satisfaction on character level - our sister-in-law/rival (Countess Sanal'ka) got struck by fate with health problems. Serves her right for smearing our leader good name with charges of drinking to become stressed, depressed and apathetic (Potion of Eudaimonia backfired spectacularly x]).

By autumn wild Byzantine armies are fully roaming Steppes, hunting those ever elusive nomads riders. Most of our stuff repositions from Polotsk to border (we have 75% control of holdings in Polotsk slowly ticking away). We succeed in removing Mayor of Sarkan in Udmurts and greet all new Jews that arrived. Spotted that another Scottish commander in our service (Vachagan) developed Brave if I'm not mistaken but definetely got his second commander trait - Defender. Which is terrible combination with Flanker >.>. One prolongs the battle while other wants to quickly win it's own battle to get the benefit at all. On other hand he is mediocre in both situation thus more universal. After appointing 2 new young Scotts (Dergun and Conall with respectively 9 and 8 Martial) we hope we will develop someone soon. Would like some "Narrow Flank Expert".

We lose another burgher and I spot some that might need little upgrade (3/2 so sometimes just giving high stewardship wife will help). Luckily for us before end of year our Greek allies catch Chernigov Khan in battle, thus we can enforce on him. That leaves just our war with Bukhal (56% atm). Demands are enforced and weirdly - we get all holdings within duchy of Aqtobe but nominal control over most of counties remainis with Chernigov khaganate... We also manage to capture one of vassal hordes capitals in the western reaches of Bukhal khaganate.

Year 1233
======================

We start with almost 75.000 gold coins in coffers. But suffer -14 opinion penalty for vassal levies raised for too long. We have another siege on some feudal holdings by our border with Bukhal. We excommunicate one of our bad mayors (we need to once again seed nobles there cause fixing it without nobleborn proves too difficult right now). Then we watch as 18.000 Roman army catches main Bukhal horde (4.000) on steppes. Another heretic county (Tarbagatai) gets converted back.

Purple armies win but it barely gives us a warscore. Still we reach 80% by May so I disband my vassal levies. Another update from China - their Emperor Li Zhenzong dies and is replaced by Li Huanzong (51 years old) who likes Latin-Iberian cultures and dislikes wealth. China remains opened. We have no use for visiting them now as we have what's we need right now. What we have to take care of is another nomadic band in north-eastern Cumania. For that our worst Scottish commanders are picked. Easy training for them.

As we venture onto steppes to capture few more holdings I have to perform evasive manouver further west, as their main horde reinforced and moved against our small (4.400 men) team besieging enemy vassals. But that's it. They never catch us. Few month later we can finally end it (as we don't have to wait for another field battle) and we conclude our warlike behaviour.

Well that was more difficult that anticipated. Byzantine Empire lost around 50.000 troops on this venture x] ​

After that we shove our new liberated vassal under Vladimir (funny he is the title owner for our Russian courtier that I invited some time ago). With that we are currently at 54/83 counties within de jure empire of Rus (65% out of 80% required). This will have to do for now, despite there being several more potential targets (we can vassalize whole Russian kingdom of Novgorod, Duchy of Pereyaslav or holy war several more counties in Pskov but also in Galicia-Volhynia from heretical Scotland). We might need those troops for Mongols. Soon another mayor dies and need fixing as well as mother of our Emperor (Empress Zaynab Muhallabid) succumbs to cancer.

Upon checking it turns out we can vassalize the holder of our own stewardship books as holdings inside other realm count for range requirement. So we might still go on little conquering (before Temujin starts rampaging and probably taking over all small realms on the steppes). But that will have to wait for another part.

Our income is fine - we just suffer low income from our mayor target (cause we got discovered failing twice). Temple tax should have increased/ ​

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

Rebels gonna rebel...

 

[Sanvone]

Part LVII (1234-1242)​

Year 1234
======================

We push on. Year starts with us provoking rebelion of one of our bad multi city vassals (thanks to power of Christ and Excommunications). We will have to do it twice to remove it fully. Soon I add second lowborn problem mayor to the equation so we are siegeing 6 cities across empire at the same time. For that some of my own levies are raised (cause vassals are still cranky for our previous "borrowing" of their troops). It rises our yearly levy cost to 238 gold coins. We have no real need to stockpile our Jewish courtiers further but at least something happens - our brother Oshmar manages to lose his Dukedom of Ural to his vassal. Which ends in his imprisoning. Well he did sire 5 children already (2 boys and 3 girls) so we don't really need to bail him out. Between 3 sons of previous emperor Turush we already have 13 grandchildren (6 boys and 5 girls). That is enough spreading our bloodlines for now.

Started February with providing some "Emperor's Justice" and imprisoning bunch of vassals in hope of them rebelling. Contrary to my expectations we nail every 50-61% arrest chance 7 times in a row. Wow. This means we have plenty of vassals in our dungeons, preventing them from reacting. But I would rather revoke them fully. It is crucial for my near future plans to be able to go over the demense limit. Maybe some more vassals commit crimes for me to get them.

Before end of Winter we convert another 34 years old Jew in our court (will come in handy to fix one set of cities), catch and beat up Norse raiding band that was roaming Perm and Bolgharia since end of last part (3.400 of them) with our levies, while rest of our men proceed to reach 37% and 38% warscore respectively in both wars. Our fixing by assasinations also succeds removing different 'over the limit' mayor in our setup. Syrt in duchy of Bolgharia also reaches 2nd prosperity level.

Summer starts with Emperor Rayda returning from his ingredient gathering (missclicked diplomacy option instead of stewardship variant but still got like 3 ingredients), which probably was his last escapade with his Apprentice. Why? Cause his apprentice is his brother - previous duke of Ural and now denizen of current Duke of Ural dungeons. So don't expect him to be left out of his prison cell anymore. Imperial succession also sorts itself out thanks to extra "stressed " trait Prince Paksyut Permyakid (14 y.o.) dies due to Great Pox. Making his 8 year old brother Kyldysin the next heir. He already have 2 traits (Affectionate+Willful) and is lacking education focus. We select: Thrift as we really want inteligence trait that he is lacking.

July starts with yet another peasant uprising erupting. We really are flooded with them lately aren't we? Must be something in water I swear. Province in question has currently 4.5% monthly revolt risk, so it isn't so bad. We use our King of Vladimir troops to deal with that quickly but still assign our commanders (mostly for training of Scottish newbies).

I feel we had enough of those lately. Can you please not make the serfs upset, dear vassals? Also RIP Province modifiers in Perm...​

Turns out I don't learn because we just repeat what we did previously while retaking cities lost to Lithuania. Two of our "Glorious monuments" province modifiers are looted (for just 50g) by our own hands... Ouch! That's some backprogress when it comes to completion. That said their bonuses weren't crucial - +0.5 prestige a month per modifier isn't something we really need. Still it will lower my final province modifier numbers at the end of this AAR :/

During September our vassal troops catch uprisers, while we start 2nd round of extractions. As those holdings no longer have defenders we can assault to instantly take over. Thus we quickly conclude extractions of those 6 cities and give them away to our handpicked candidates. We also marry them to generate more highborn characters in cities (for future use).

As we end managing it in November another mayor (50 y.o.) dies in county of Syrt and is replaced by lowborn. But there are still 2 high born ladies present so we can remedy this (one of girls being 17 years old giving us some time). For now we just marry him to one of our high stewardship female courtiers we have on hand to avoid eating penalty to income. One of our Italian kids converts from Catholicism to Orthodoxy and different pair gives birth to first Italian Orthodox kid from get go.

Before end of year I realize that we also lowered some prosperity levels by extracting cities in our core demense (Udmurts lowered from 3 to level 1; after checking on wiki it is 75% chance to delevel prosperity with sieges :V) but our Vladimir vassal cheers us up by launching subjugation war against 2 county Orthodox Lithuanian neighbour within de jure empire of Rus (thus making another step towards that empire instead of us having to bother with it now). We also get two updates from Hermetic society - mission to select Apprentice (for easy +100 esoteric knowledge that puts us at 1.300 out of 2.000 needed for final rank up with +164 yearly income) and summoning divine being. The second one doesn't end in critical success we would love to see and it still takes more ingredients that tooltip suggest. Pretty sure that game for whatever reason picks ingredients from each batch of ingredients (meaning saving them up is pretty bad if we want to keep trying Theurgic rituals).

Year 1235
======================

We move onto next year with little more than 80.000 gold coins in the pockets (+4.206/-100 yearly balance). Was keeping with constant upgrades of tribes in newly acquired lands. We have 2 baron level vassals to whom our character is heir. So we start assasinations there to swap those Orthodox Khazars with Komi. The more we eradicate cultures capable of raiding close by, the less nerves will we lose due to raiding. The single county that flipped it's colors fully to Permo-Siberia has Tengri count though. Which we will have to revoke, as upon his death county ownership reverts to Khganate we just defeated. Something definetely bugged out with that war resolution. Perhaps lack of forts for province occupation before enforcing demands is the culprit? I'm not sure. Early in the year noticed that our mercenary company concluded it's latest contract. Thus I employ them to reserve them. Want to avoid scenario in which Mongols show up and we can't access our mercenary band due to them being busy. It doesn't cost us much right now (144g per year) and even then all of that gold sooner or later will revert to us. For now we can wait with further upgrades for moment Mongol armies spawn.

Our private army reserved ahead of time to avoid complications. We will kit them out properly soon. ​

Did little tour among our counties - we have three over the demense limit bishops right now and 1 mayor that somehow escaped my attention so far. Few more lowborn are spotted though and few more city courts in danger of reverting to lowborn characters. So more female courtiers (both lowborn and highborn) are invited. Seems we still have our work cut out for us. At the very least all that work means that all cities directly paying taxes to us have between +60-90% income modifier from high stewardship. We also are 2/3 done with waiting for "levies raised for too long" penalty on vassals to vanish (depleted from -14 to -5).

This is our current status on our multi city mayor vassals. The bonus income is double the state stewardship (number in the bracket) + Greedy if present. ​

After some tinkering with court and vassals I resume playing. After discovering that Prince Maximos (heir to Byzantine Empire) has died (Pneumonia, 35 y.o.), I make new non-aggresion pact with his brother (new heir) Prince Pavlos (32 y.o.). Then it turns out we can still make an alliance with Pavlos, cause our grandchild is married to his nephew - Doux Pamphilios II. So the future is secured while old Basileus Pamphilios 'the Wise' (65 y.o.) still reigns. Not gonna lie - it would be great if our favourite purple blob didn't succumb to civil war just as Temujin shows up. Besides that I started acquiring favours from family of Chief of Ryn. With that once we start digging to inherit back our stewardship books, we can use those to force them into our court again.

Then for next few months I focus on readjusting vassals in recently liberated duchy of the Aqtobe on the steppes. We have 2 titles to whom our Rayda is heir so we assasinate owners (and everything goes smoothly without detection). Then we have Tengri Khazar duke we revoke with help of mercenary Permian band (that just arrived) and Orthodox Khazar chief further south to excommunicate and revoke. I time some of those somewhat poorly as county of Utva haven't finished Stone Keep IV in their tribe (thus we can't instantly turn it into Castle to get rid of Nomad agitation modifier). So for time being we eat that 12/11 demense limit situation. We appoint high stewardship barons to new castles so in the future we can speed up culture conversion. Plan being to reduce amount of Altaic culture provinces on the map once we let them go independent. Ideally would translate into less raiding visits into our domain. After concluding cleaning up activities in Aqtobe we move to attack Chief of Ryn through vassalization cb. Why now? Cause he is old (71 y.o) and it shouldn't affect his children's opinion of us too much. We might quickly burn through penalty with his natural death.

Easy fight. Tribals have no chance without good advantage in numbers​

After taking over we finally are onto finishing Stone Keep IV in Utva. For that I equip "How to build a Well" (-20% construction time) instead of Permyakid cookbook (+1 Stewardship, +5 Dynasty opinion). That cuts down on time from 210 days to 140 days. Still will take up to February-March of next year before we can fully resolve our demense problems. We have to tough it out till then. We finally get rid of penalty for having raised our vassal levies previously. Some trait events occur - we can get rid of diligent or choose no change at all. The pick is obvious.

Year 1236
======================

Year starts with freshly vassalized chief of Ryn Burmort feudalising instantly. Then we get an interesting offer from one of our Permian vassals - Duchess of Qazan offers matrilineal marriage with Prince Kyldysin, Usually it's an instant decline but... She is of our Permyakid Dynasty and is Quick. Additionally she holds 3 titles we want to readminister into smaller vassal hands under primogeniture. Lastly I have small hope that maybe this way we won't transfer bloodlines so Kyldysin's heir can once again forge bloodline, to then merge them with rest of accumulated bloodlines, that we so far propagated quite a lot.

To ensure she turns out better, we make Emperor Rayda her guardian. ​

Beside that - 83.000 gold coins in Imperial coffers and +3.569/-229 gold per year balance. Will improve soon as we hand over that extra holding. Changed retinue reinforcement rate - I have a feeling we may save a lot on half speed (that replenishes 1.2% instead of 2.5% per month for half the gold cost). Sometimes we take less casualties that retinues can replenish at once and there is no discount depending on number of troops actually replenished.

We get to intervene in education of young Duchess of Qazan and develop Fussy into Patient. Then we hand her over for 2 years into hand of Brave and Kind Bishop to develop Zealous and Rowdy into useful stats. We definetely don't want "Frail" on future Empress lowering her health and fertility. At the same time (April) one of our Vassals converts Vitebsk from Slavic into Orthodox religion. Interestingely there is Suomenusko uprising in Orthodox Novgorod that basically won their war (100% warscore) so we might quickly holy war them for extra counties within Rus empire.

During summer we get another prosperity occasion in Syrt but I decline it. We are not building so extra modifier to construction speed is not needed. We also get Business event (finally) and we sell land in Tynea for 10 years (-50% castle tax). As per my hunch it does give me "Aspiring Trader" modifier (+1 Stewardship" but more importantly starts us being able to get other business event chains (Trade Route and later Garden/Build a Tower). That's not all - we also get the most precious event related to our "Far North Scriptorium" (Great Library) - rumor about lost Roman architecture book. We roll on being able to send our Court tutor, who has quite nice traits (not sure if they affect anything but I hope they make it less likely he ditches us) and full pockets with instant bribe to ensure his loyalty. Maybe finally (on 4?th attempt) we get that book for cheaper construction. It is still worth hundred thousand gold coins..

Go my loyal subject and find that ancient text! We need it *.* Maybe finally we find it... Also good opportunity spotted.! ​

Opportunity arrives and it's time to start a holy war for Novgorod now. Using our Vladimir's vassal troops. Cause new pagan ruler there has only 4.5k troops and almost instantly suffers 7.000 strong Orthodox uprising. Not a moment too soon on our part to react huh? We start playing war of manouver in this 3 way conflict - moving behind Orthodox rebels to take over holdings they assault and make sure they don't win the war (thus making our conquest null and void).

With Autumn our Court Tutor returns with empty hands... Lost books eludes us again. Damn. Our previous tyranny also ends but I don't desire to extract at the moment. With Mongols spawning relatively soon I woud rather have extra vassal troops. Not the time for dividing our realm in face of external threat.

Year 1237
======================

Our treasury soars up to 87.200 gold coins. So does our income: +4.524 and expenses seem reasonable (-232g). We start occupied with what's happening in Novgorod. Our vassal troops (almost 11.000 levies) engaged Novgorodian event troops (4.000). We beat them in skirmish but are unable to inflict tremendous losses. Maybe 800 pagans are slayed. It still gives me almost 76% warscore with 2 eastern counties captured. Time to cross Volkhow river to get to other bank where Orthodox rebels are running amok.

Unlucky for me in February, Novgorodian rebels receive another 12.000 troops as reinforcement. It's up to us to beat them. We will suffer river penalty + fight in forest. There is nothing to be done about it, as they spawned after my army movement was locked. We also get severely attritioned by ever so beloved time of year - winter season. It lowers our vassal army from 10.000 troops to 7.500. Ehh!

Tough battle that luckily for us doesn't reach it's true conclusion >.> ​

Battle turns extremely hard due to similar numbers and modifiers on both sides. We lose our right wing in skirmish quickly but center holds till melee in which it starts turning battle around by routing enemy center and then their left wing. But before we can truly win, rebels enforce their demands and we are left with nothing :<... Damn, it really played in the worst way possible for us (AI held our army with one stack to go around recapturing with other)...

In March we get something to sweeten the recent failure - Tynea prospers in shape of receiving province modifier. You guesses it - it is Glorious Monument (which lately we had great time dismantling ourself). I still buy it for those 6.000 gold coins cause it removes number of possible options and makes it impossible to get stuck by keeping getting offered those in succession.

Huh that is actually really nice. Will help with any sickness. ​

So we return to Permo-Siberia with just 4 out of 11 thousand vassal troops. We petition Chinese emperor for some artifact (to spend more of Grace in case it gets wiped clean) and receive quite good Chinese book. Extra health and fertility might occasionally be crucial to occasionally equip. In June there is discovery that the Byzantine Empire is now ruled by Basileus Pavlos (since 20th August last year). As we already had alliance in place there is nothing to do but congratulate new Basileus .

Months pass as I hunt down some small (500 men) nomad raiding band. We get extra prestige for being arbitrary and then have some "weight" issues. Don't really want to diet as this confers -attributes for some time and health isn't exactly needed. So Emperor Rayda becomes fat! It trully doesn't matter as we won't be leading troops with him or have many tribal vassals.

We soon get whip lashed for picking being Fat as we get health lowering event. It affects base health so ouch! That's some bad rng for us. On other hand we get option to debase coins from business focus. Sadly it doesn't improve lifestyle modifier. We also take over as headmaster for Hermetic society, without having to spend our hermetic knowledge (1.600+).

Forgot about it. Well this might be quite bad :/... ​

Year 1238
======================

We continue with 80.200 gold (why below), +4.464 yearly income and 235 yearly expenses. Decided to push for Keep V in Perm, Bolgharia and some counties we are currently holding. That construction will increase our levies thus is good investment right now. It will take some time too, so we don't have to bother with that for a while.

Keeps for around 3.000 gold coins. That extra +25% levy size per keep should give us more than a thousand troops I think. ​

Unlucky for us, Rowdy childhood trait on our Duchess of Qazan lowers her inteligence thus removes Quick. We still get to assign her Diligent (and have to cure stressed on our character) after which we throw her in the arms of Kind guardian to make Idolizer evolving into Kind more likely. Real shame about losing that Quick :/ - this makes that bethrothal much less desirable. We also lose our Spymaster and have to invite some high Intrigue Jew from abroad. Some Mayor dies but we already have 2 reservist ready to be used in his place so operation begins. We send one of them into targeted city court and start dagger and cloak dance. We also push another round of arrests and one of our vassal rebels. Yay!

By 19th of July Empress Nikarete of Permo-Siberia gets pregnant despite suffering from Great Pox. Oh. Maybe this will result into better heir? Who knows. We do suffer a Manichean uprising on the eastern fringes of our realm (over 8.000 of them) so I raise my personal levies from Osha and Tura. We also get Monothelite heresy outbreak in Sibir despite 100 Moral Authority of Orthodoxy. Spend some time looking up Mongols cause Temujin still haven't appeared. Checked in game and we have them set to "Historical" setting. Meaning they should have show up between 1210 and 1218. China also went through status change but instead of "Invaded by Mongols" they have "Great Famine". It is very likely that something didn't triggered properly and now Mongols won't arrive. Even though we left them de jure Mongolia to prevent current scenario :/ Eh! Good thing I haven't pimped out our mercenary band yet (would make them unpurchusable for AI). "RNG taketh, RNG giveth"!

With just 7% and 3% monthly risk we get somewhat unlucky. Will cost us as we need our levies to deal with them. ​

As it is already Butumn when we raise our levies, it seems inevitable that Monothelite heretics will be free to do as they please till next year. We probably won't be able to cross Ural mountains with troops due to poor supplies. Beside that - we get interesting offer from Countess of Miass. She gets the favour - we get "Heavy Infantry Leader" trait on our 3 Scottish commanders. It's a deal. Not bad deal. A good deal even! Whatever she wants we can grant her and then take it back in due time. But getting those commander traits is lovely as it is one of things we want. Makes those Finno-Ugric Schiltrons more effective.

December poses interesting event choice. Due to his wife pregnancy, Emperor can give her something nice for extra health modifier and small (5%) chance of getting Kind. That would be huge, as it would overwrite Cruel resulting in 10 points of opinion swing. Sadly we miss it. Still worthwhile to be aware of such opportunities in my book!

Year 1239
======================

We recover up to 83.800 gold coins, yet our income somewhat goes down to +4.444 and -1.400 expenses (levies raised, mercenaries still hired). Still no sight of Temujin. My decision to don't rush troops paid off, as winter is severe and some of heretics in Sibir freeze off instead. Soon another Prince to Imperial family is born - Prince Zarny has not inherited any trait. Well he still has potential to turn out better than his older brother so lets wait and see. At worst he still will be younger thus have longer period to be developed in player hands, once he inherits.

Arctic terrain of duchy of Perm gets even more cold and our supplies go down so I need to move south. Will move towards southern mountain pass to circle around Ural mountain range. For time being eastern crew (retinues in Irtysh and levies from Osha and Tura counties) move to deal with Manicheans. Our younger Scotsmen will get occasion to perform. One of them get's improved by Marshal (+2 Martial) last moment before fight. While 11 Martial isn't anything to write home about in one more such event he will start becoming decent. Not great but decent. Then we get event that I haven't seen so far. We as a ruler decided to do something about Craven courtiers. One of them is our Scottish commander. We try to scare him (out of curiosity) and don't roll that 50% on making him depressed. Was curious if this somehow can remove "Craven" from them. Would be an upgrade (especially on commander).

Another run of a mill battle. We sadly don't level up our commanders during it.​

By April Manichean uprising is thing of the past. I'm somewhat bummed out that our 58 years old veteran Scottish commander (Nydog) didn't pick 2nd commander trait despite how often we use him. He has Leading Center + Brave but we managed to make him "Greviously Scarred". Meanwhile other heretics took over Sibir castle but also ate bunch of attrition events leaving 19.000 out of initial 22.000 troops. We get Business event - trying to established Craftsmen guild in Syrt. Shame not in Perm or Udmurts - would have better profitability with more cities.

Business focus gives back. This has around 66% chance of success, giving some pocket money and +10% city tax province modifier for 10 years. This is better out of 2 province modifier available and would be nice to stockpile them on all counties within Perm duchy itself. ​

Our Vladimirian vassal pushes against Khaganate of Bukhal to then suffer vassal revolt trying to claim Nenetsia from under him. Uh-uh! Not good. Most of our Keeps finish upgrading, as our troops finally catch up with heretics in Kordon. Rebels don't reinforce their 14.000 men so our 19.000 levies stomps them out reliably. As we clean up rebels, our Steward offers to organize trade expedition. Long time coming We obviously accept. Empress Nikarete also becomes pregnant again (she is 41 years old with Great Pox). Pregnancy soon turns difficult. At least trade expedition ends nicely - we get both Stewardship education upgrade, friend and Trade Route modifier in Tynea. Before end of year our vassal King gets slain in battle against Nomads, thus revolt is waived off and his big realm splits into kingdoms of Nenetsia and Vladimir (each goes to one of his sons).

Easy Midas Touched . Now we can start rolling for lifestyle traits.​

Year 1240
======================

We have record high 86.7 thousand gold, yearly income of 4.417 and expenses of 242. Once again we will start utilising those funds more pro-actively. For now I dismiss my mercenaries. Soon another revolt erupts in Novgorod region - Finnish heretics! To deal with them we raise up fresh Permyakid sibling kings levies (still around 10.000 troops). There is slightly more enemies than we would like but without terrain modifiers we should manage. This is good moment to send our Marshal to supress locals in Sibir (and diminish revolt risk from 28% to 8% per month). Wish AI vassals would do this - would save us some trouble. Not a fan of how many revolt we are suffering lately. Wanted to note that Count Burmort of Ryn still lives (75 years old) despite not having any positive health modifiers oO". Him refusing to die prolongs our retrieval of artifacts. We also make a peace deal with China for next 50 years. If they aren't about to die to Mongols then I want to prevent anyone from sending them after me.

Damn heretics. Chill out! I wonder if any of those following black plagues outbreaks will pose any serious threat. If not then I'll stop reporting on them unless they are directly acros our border.​

Well we have our work cut out for us. Changed my mind - it's time for me to start extracting those artifacts too. Was delaying dealing with that, hoping Count Burmort would die on his own. So we waste our excommunication on him. Four more candidates for mayors arrive (3 Jews and 1 Pagan). We also get news about Black plague - this time in Arabia. Just as our vassal troops are about to engage Finnish heretics.

I don't have good feeling about it. Why are they so strong? Did I bite more than we can chew? ​

We overestimated our Heavy Infantry as our young Scottish commanders went with skirmish tactic instead of shieldwall, thus together with defensive advantage of Forests we got routed pretty quickly. Commander Nydog also betrays other flank commander thus we lose our 9 Martial, Heavy Infantry Scottish commander with Dumb trait :/. Well time to raise every vassal troop as well as personal levies. Finnish Paulicians managed to force us to treat them more seriously! Soon proposal from Holy Roman Emperor arrives - he wants to bethroth his 3rd son to our 2nd daughter. I decline as he is excommunicated. Soon other suitors send their offers - Sultan of Egypt, King of Scotland, some Khagan in the east. All declined. Still it is nice to receive those offers from major geopolitical players.

Halfway through June we deal with another potion of Eudaimonia backfiring, but only after another ingredient hunt concluding. Sadly it turns out I missed my intervention time on Prince&heir Kyldysin and while we took guardianship of him back he developed Trusting and Gluttonous instead of Kind and Gregarious :/. That's tremendously less useful as we miss on that +10 Vassal opinion from both traits. Bad trait developement. Another daughter is born to Emperor - Princess Virtyava and she is a Genius!

By October we are at least done with getting rid of 76 years old Count of Ryn. We execute him to make his Cancer ridden strong son inherit. We also invite the daughter of said son (and heir to that County) into our court to prevent her from marrying and safely put her under house arrest relatively quickly. Then we go onto whatever we can do to lower the number of their dynasty members (just in case). I never can remeber how title and gold/artifact inheritance varies under Gavelkind. Will take a while cause old Burmort had 9 children and 2 kin from his brother. Something good happens too - Saintly bloodline allows us to get 'Just" thus overwritting "Arbitrary". Well that's a 10 points of opinion swing among our vassals - don't mind if I do! Sadly there is also more heretics that rise up. Never suspected that Saintly bloodlines would keep on paying off so much!

Getting Just fixes one bad trait on Emperor Rayda and raises his current stewardship up to 32. He has still penalty from "Drunkard". What a monster!​

We invite some of late count Burmort's family members into our court for easier assasinations. We also excommunicate and imprison current count's of Ryn heir. Now the only issue is few family members married in foreign courts. Maybe patience is the key to make sure they die first, before we inherit? Shouldn't be that tough as our female heir safely locked in house is younger than them. Finally with November we also move out with our amassed levies towards heretics. We gathered over 30.000 troops, which under our best commanders should be enough to deal with heretic rabble.

Now it should be ok. Time for round 2. We start by eating small detachment siegeing closer to our forces province.​

Another battle is much more favourable for us. It goes so well that we don't ever stay in melee for more than a day. Enemies feed only some of their reinforcements into battle thus we pretty one sidelydelete almost half of them. Permo-Siberain pacification force moves onto another 5.000 rebel army next (that probably will be reinforced by another 12.500 strong red force). They will have Forest advantage again but with 26.000 troops on our side (we lost some due to attrition) it should be ok. We also get a prompt for Garden even chain, which we decline. Meaning another one less possible event for Business (and only Tower event chain for lifestyle is possible).

Year 1241
======================

Another year begins - 89.2 thousand gold in coffers, yearly income of 4.425 and expenses of 1.172. Not bad. It's time to start spending it though. First of all we want to start upgrading those Great Works in Perm and Kudymkar (the second one missed "Town is born" event for extra holding slot). It's easy 5.000 gold spent. Putting us at 84.134 coins, which we now will invest in basic hospitals across empire. As announced earlier - it's high time to do something with those nasty epidemics! We click it around 75 times across our empire, which drops us down to 80.780 coins. Well that's the beginning and the cheapest one too. Prepare to feel financial sting in coming years.

Once again we can invest into developing our lands fully. Hospitals seem especially good investment not only for protecting our prosperity bonuses but also for further technology spread speed and generatic non economic tech points. ​

Black death spreads into Persia so maybe our hospitals will become more needed that we anticipate. Started assasinations on family from Ryn. We also lose one of our Monastic bishops and have to reappoint our Court tutor after he returns from sickness. There is also little development in Nenetsia-Vladimir. When our vassal died, his 2 sons inherited and splitted his lands. That state of affairs did not persist for long, as younger son managed to get himself dead after becoming incapable due to taking part in some fighting on frontlines. So lands reunited again but some of Nenetsian vassals revolted against older brother. Nothing serious he has over 8.000 troops, while revolters have only 3.500 and 1.800 respectively. In meantime we face rest of Finnish heretics

Another easy battle. With that the danger passes. It somewhat refreshing to cut those light armies to pieces in melee phase. ​

We enter the March without any wars going on. We also succed in killing Burmort's son to let his daughter (denizen of our dungeons) inherit. There is little problem - Jade Dragon is lost upon succession. Game probably had another hiccup as I received both messages of first losing it then receiving it (but there is no artifact in current Countess inventory). The rest of artifacts (our 2 books and some minor saint artifact) are preserved though. That's what matters most. We also realize that our imprisoned Countess Chenksa of Ryn is stressed. So we of course make her a eudaimonia potion. Can't have her dying now, can we ? Soon we receive news that the Assasin's Society in middle-east have been destroyed. Wow. Not often do we see it. We probably helped in that, while we were entangled in creation of Orthodox Greek Syria last century.

By May we eliminate another member of Malyyid dynasty, so his 2 children inherit his weak claims. We will get rid of boy, leaving girl just in case. This way if some of foreign Malyyids outlive our Countess, they most likely won't outlive her niece. Meaning that taking back those books can take much longer. But what one can do...

Someone is doing something right when Assasins cease to exist. Also we do succeed in Business focus. Kind is also godsend ​

As months pass we get update on Craftsmen event - they succeeded, granting Syrt county +10% city tax province modifier for 10 years. Not bad. Then we get another occasion - Carpenter guild. I decline it cause we aren't building much so that +5% tax is worth more in Kudymkar. It gives us "Despised Aristocrat" penalty of -10 city opinion. Permamently. Ouch! Didn't expect it. It counter acts our "Business Contacts" from trade route event chain. Our Heir Prince Kyldysin also comes of age and turns in almost the worst way possible. Level 1 stewardship education, trusting, gluttonous and brave with 4 stewardship and 9 learning. Given that he has younger by 14 years brother (Prince Zarny), we bid him adieu and excommunicate + order him to take vows. Wanted younger ruler anyway for that long reign (that would allow me to adjust realm structure a lot with Carousing strategy).

Few weeks later in Autumn, we get another trait event. Good one too. Some courtier returns giving us option of generating new courtier or getting Kind trait. The second option is much better as we have Cruel. So that's another trait swap and another 10 vassal opinion swing. Our Architect lifestyle chain also begins. Sadly despite my numerous efforts we don't have any traitors on hand. Why would I want them? Cause if we could revoke to get over the demense limit, we could lower tremendously costs of that event (it scales up to 7x yearly income IRC, which in our case currently is 31.500 gold coins...) by incuring temporal penalties to income.

Year 1242
======================

After paying first Architect event step we are left with 79.4 thousands gold. It will rapidly vanish further cause we embark on upgrading all previously build hospitals. That drops us down to 61,3 thousands gold. So as you can see it definetely starts ramping up costs. At least that upgrade will unlock "Libary" building to be constructed (increasing technology spread by +25%). We still have 4.485 of yearly income and our cost now with Great Work Construction hovers around 283 coins per year.

Health reform for subjects is continued. It still vacuums gold despite our relatively high levels of Construction technology. Also emergency law change to decrease our demense limit. ​

Given that we really want to lower our Architect event chain cost, we start revoking without valid reasons. First single city in Mari duchy (that despite drifting to Kingdom of Vladimir is still loyal to us). I remember to utilize this occasion for Scrying (which turns out to be a mistake but more on that later). Thus we quickly pass that city onto our newest City in Udmurts (making it 3/3 mayor) and then revoking 2 bishoprics in Ashli. Next I pass law change to decentralise our realm further (lowering demense limit but increasing vassal limit). Sadly due to extra stewardship from second level of Scrying (Confident Seer) we increase our demense limit back to 12, thus after giving out the city we are at 14/12. Still 40% penalty to vassal taxes. Would prefer 60% for remaining duration of Architect chain. Even worse that penalty only kicks in after 3 months. My overall plan was to start that event chain on -60% income to pay only 2.8 times my yearly income. Unlucky even though we kept imprisoning and provoking rebelions, our targets either kept getting arrested on 50-60% chances or were dying in house arrest rather quickly.

RIP my gold coffers. Those costs @.@ Why doesn't it have maximum value... First two steps fired year ago so this isn't exactly quick event chain. ​

Across winter and spring we progress 4 steps in building great tower :/. Decided against constructing quarry. For over 13.000 gold coins that construction modifier will not pay for itself even, if we are working on extra holding slots in Tynea (that are yet to be generated). Seems we will pay full cost for this this =.=... Then despite our rather healthy Moral Authortiy of 87% we get Bogomilist showing up in north-western Perm. Just as I moved Marshal from supressing Monothelites in Sibir to Paulicians Finns in west. We also get visited by 2 Jewish high diplomacy courtiers. One of them is also shrewd so we keep that one and dismiss other to not dillute our still high (90%) yearly conversion chances among useless targets.

On 1st of July Bogomilist rather quickly take advantage of that 18% monthly revolt chance and we have another uprising to put down. Some mayor also dies and I have to stop trying to kill one of Foreign Malyyids (somehow got up to 142% plot power in Khazarian band) to fix him. We raise the troops and amass them before getting around 19.000 of them in Autumn and moving out. One of our vassals fixes one of two Paulician counties. As always the winter starts quicker thus we lose few thousand troops but catch main body of heretic army by end of November. Also by giving quick glance we ensure that Black Death still remains in Persia.

Gotta love fighting in those lands, where even revolt troops suffer attrition. ​

Battle goes well as enemy fights us with portion of their total army at the time, slowly feeding rest into meatgrinder. First we deal with initial 13.000 troops to then meet another 8.000 and by January next year face last 2.000 of them. Our courtiers help with assasination of another bad mayor (luckily we can throw our 41 years old jew into that place). Our penalty for being over the demense limit also fully kicks in. If there are any remaining steps, we can save a little. We get a pop-up about our Bishops being cranky as tower is higher than their temples. Seeing no reason to not fulfill their wish cause 50 prestige is much less worth than extra opinion from Ecumenical Patriarch for 20 years. Finger crossed it doesn't affect anything down the line. We also get another craftsmen guild which is intriguing! I thought that as long as we have one of them, other can't happen (till RNG removes them with Business focus "Fire" event). So they can keep circling thanks to "Fire" event associated with them way quicker than their duration. Inteeeeresting. That's actually a good news as it makes stacking those +city tax modifiers on more provinces more doable.

We are at -40% income penalty for being 2 holdings over the limit (deliberately) so our real income is higher. ​

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

Can you please not make the serfs upset, dear vassals?

Vassals: No, we don't think we will...

Someone is doing something right when Assasins cease to exist.

Luckily it's the mid-1250s, so they shouldn't come back...

 

[TWR97]

First time I've seen another event in relation to the religious uprising, usually it's just that one notification of it firing, must be because I always put it down due to their low numbers. But I gotta say, 30k rebels is quite scary, no wonder beefed up rebels have had a massive hand reshaping Europe when it's not the player's realm

 

[Sanvone]

Part LVIII (1243-1250)​

Year 1243
======================

Let's go back to regular business. Invited a bunch of courtiers (Ashkenazi for conversions, highborn and lowborn women for marrying off etc). We have quite a few mayors to fix and our religion MA is somewhat failing (85%). But as new courtiers arrive, we get note about vassal converting Drutsk county (under Vladimir King) to Orthodoxy, then move our Marshal from suppresing Paulicians at the Finnish border (who already chilled out a bit) to our latest revolt spot (Zyriane 8% before Marshal zeroed it). Then news from China arrive:

I was checking previous parts and Mongols were already invading China but failed. Not sure if this Jurchen invasion is real risk. Also that Chinese book doesn't compare to Quality3/4 books from "Compose the Book" decision. We already have better books for those limited slots. ​

Well better to be safe than sorry so I exchange some of our remaining Grace for another Chinese artifact. We get not bad Quality 3 book (+5 Vassal Opinion) but we have better - our three Quality 4 books offer +5 General Opinion and more. Still it is nice to have an option to use in case we need more. Meanwhile rest of heretics from previous part kamikaze against our army and Bogomilist rebelion is finally over.

Finally we conclude this event chain. Did cost us an arm and a leg. But this is not the end! ​

With February our Architect event chain finally concludes. We take Architect lifestyle trait, as it does count as prosperity event modifier and thus once again we get perfect prosperity ruler (2nd in succession). My only complaint is that it took quite a while - Emperor Rayda took over Empire 13 years ago so those were years when we were "only" rocking 9 out of 10 possible modifiers lowering "Medium Time To Happen". For comparison getting Scholar is simple 2-3 year venture, mostly thanks to not needing to acquire previous steps toward lifestyle that are dependent on 2 years cycles between events. Definetely will add up across generations. Returning to topic of Architect event chain - this isn't over yet. After decade our "Great Tower" should start to lean. So I mark our architect as important character to make him more likely to survive till then because his presence will almost guarantee success in repairing tower thus ensuring positive province modifier. There are few things we can do now - first we start "Compose a Book" decision. Thanks to still being over the demense limit we will pay less for it (384g right now). Also want to start it while we are still on Business focus in hopes of it increasing our chances of game graciously offering us Stewardship topic. And it does happen . So now we can freely move from Business focus to War focus. Why? Cause getting 'Organizer' commander trait increases our odds of writing "On Komi Architecture". Might help. Then we give away 3 baronies we were holding to incure penalty to income. One Bishopric is outside our desired borders so we just generate random vassal there and rest is within our administration so we order to take the vows one of our recently arrived lowborn 30 years old Greek with 19 Stewardship. Then he is first assigned temple in Ashli (Bolgharia) and then in Tobolsk (Tobolsk). Upon dismissing personal levies, our expenses should diminish next month. We still have to pay for replenishing our retinues and ongoing Great Work construction but that is that. Before end of that month we fix another mayor, leaving 2 more to fix and still 3 bishops that are not up to task.

Starting with March all possible demands for conversion are answered by freshly arrived courtiers, which leaves 9 possible targets in capital for Conversion of characters. Not gonna lie - with 90,12% yearly chance of that happening I have my hopes up. Some small (750) nomads also show up so our Silkroad guards have something to do. We also decide to pick "See the Realm prosper" ambition as it is still 4 years till we will revoke without legal reason again and I don't expect any wars in this time period. Soon another county converts (this time far in the east, county that was Manichean).

Good thing come in pairs. Nice change of pace for acquiring both prosperity modifier and desired commander trait.​

Once May begins, we are halfway done with fixing Mayor of Cukataw. Then we get nice suprise in form of prosperity modifier in Tynea (3/7). After that we watch as our eastern vassals manage to deal with another nomad incursion (just 500 men) and are proud of them . One of Emperor's friend dies, so he goes into tavern to drink himself out of sadness (cause what the game gonna do - give me Drunkard that I already have? I'm not taking Depressed for free). Rayda makes new friend out of lowborn woman in court. Some months pass before War focus fires and gives us... Organizer trait we wanted. Well that's a quite quick resolution x]...

As our mailbox keeps getting spam from various bachelors across world vying for our 2nd oldest daughter hand (Princess Chichayka - 15 years old), I decide to strike a quick bethrothal with Basileus Neophytos of the Byzantine Empire. Let's hope we can prolong engagment for few years to avoid getting dragged into some war while our prosperity ambition is going on. Not only will it increase our girl prestige but her good diplomatic prospects might help as current holder of Byzantine empire is somewhat struggling with his current vassal limit.

Let's secure Greek help for worst case scenario. Not having to worry about them is also nice. ​

Rest of year is spent on watching 7 failed attempts at killing our current mayor target. Well - we had better times with assasinations I guess.

Year 1244
======================

We enter another yaer with 50.400 gold coins, +4.558 and -494 gold balance. Not bad. Not great. Don't want to spend anything right now, as we are saving up for further hospital upgrades across whole empire (estimated to cost us around 44.000 gold) while still having some emergency reserve for prosperity events. Two weeks pass and we get report about succesfully converting Korosten (near Kiev) to Orthodox faith. All nice but where are my character conversions ;D?

Not happy we go to ask for another Chinese trinket and we receive Chu-Ko-Nu (known in-game as Zhuge Crossbow aka self-repeating crossbow). Usually it would be great, but we kind off passed Light Infantry stage. Still that's one less possible artifact to receive and I'm hunting for Ji (which we lost after giving it to one of our Scottish commanders. Also our best Scotsman (Nydog; 20 Martial, Direct Leader, Brave) passed away due to old age (62 years of age) shortly after one last rumble with Nomads.

Lucky nickname. Did you noticed that so far in this playthrough not a single nickname repeated itself across generations? ​

Had to open in-game chronicle as I wasn't sure, if Rayda's subjects apprecieate our character or are just making fun of him due to his obesity. Turns out his recent healtcare projects were apprecieated. For curious we triggered this way of obtaining "the Great" nickname: "Ruled 10 years, 2000 Prestige, higher tier than count. Chance increases at 4000, 8000, and 15000 prestige.". Pretty lucky.

After finally managing to kill Mayor of Cukataw, we are halted with further work due to lack of personel. Soon Mayof of Lysva dies and we are stranded further. We also lose spymaster so it is time to pick another. We mostly want him for having any "inteligence" trait (Genius/Quick/Shrewd) and 12+ relevant attribute. This will give us chance for event granting prosperity (+6) in capital, that might be nice once we move back to Perm (that deleveled to prosperity one).

Seems like this character will live longer. Suprisingly War focus is treating us really well. ​

As snow melts, our Emperor starts throwing javelin competition. He mangles one of his older Scottish commanders, doesn't win but still receives Brawny trait (being his 4th grey pernament trait alongside Shrewd, Groomed and Fat). Well that's another +5 Vassal opinion and extra health x]. Well now he only lacks Gigantism to max his size specs! This is really lucky, as any other trait (Brave or Wroth) would put us over 6 traits soft limit. Due to not being able to pursue further adjustment in our city structure, we go back to hunting for another Malyyid dynasty member in order to smooth over inheritance of our's family stewardship books. With some bribe and help of spymaster we reach 150% plot power, which is a lot in small Mercenary Band (target is married to captain of Khazar band). We will keep trying as removing her would be huge due to how young she is.

Month later we decide to finalize engagment, as it only puts us at non-aggresion pact. We can push for alliance right now but delay it till ambition is finished. Then I spent some time on seeing to education of kids in court. Might want to start pivoting from Scottish culture breeding program to Italians. Soon another Mayor bites the dust (up to 4...). War focus deliver again in selection of Commander trait. This time we pick between Lightfoot, Heavy troops or Cavalry. My choice is to seek another selection. Why? Cause our Emperor will not fight for certain. So prolonging this selection lowers our chances of getting unwanted trait right now. Also getting Winter Specialist would be great (as Winter does us more economic damage than any nomadic force ever did). We also get "Artisan Workshop" modifier (+10% city tax fo 10 years) in... Tura. Which has exactly 1 city. Well bad luck continues as we really would like it in one of Perm counties (especially those that have like 5 cities).

Small things that will increase our stability in case Jurchens succeed in China. Also other minor province modifier from previous Business focus ​

Year 1245
======================

Another Anno Domini with 54.8 thousand gold, +4.612 coins of income and -296 coins of expenses (we almost finished replenishing fully our retinues). First good news arrives in form of our Patriarch finally converting someone. Forty years old Jew is not the peak of my dreams but he will do. We bethroth him to one highborn girl in Mayor that we want to replace. She is 13 years old so it will take few more years but I prefer this over marrying him to 43 year old woman

One of benefits of living near China. ​

Playing in range of China pays off, as we get visited by wandering Chinese teacher. As he targets our sole heir it is definetely worth paying to increse his attributes. Second option granting +1 Learning and Erudite (+2 Learning) is picked not only because it is the highest impact option but also Erudite can't be lost. I have some doubt about how attributes develop for children and well Prince Zarny can still benefit from up to 3 Monastic ward events. They always target Learning attribute and whatever else is the highest. So realistically his Learning will improve between 1-3 points. Maybe more. Didn't notice but that character joined our court, as our Patriarch converts twice in succession (March-April), with second conversions ending on him. Well right now I'm sending converts to become monks anyway - previous courtier went to Syrt to be a 10 years younger replacement for bishop there. We are down to 7 possible conversion targets in capital.

Having nothing better to do, we request another Chinese trinket and get quality 1 Figurine of Li Zhenzong. Well that doesn't do us much good (+0.15 prestige monthly). Still we are using that grace which counts . Time flows. Our character does go to gather more hermetic ingredients and also writes another theorem (for +2 Learning modifier).

In September bigger nomadic band arrives on our eastern fringes of empire. Almost 3.000 of them so this will be a relatively tough fight. We send our Scottish commanders to deal with that.

This battle turns somewhat better than expected. Have a feeling that nomad incursions slowed down. ​

As maruders have really weak commanders, our side bravely charges into them at first chance they get and rapidly demolish them in melee. Sadly another mayor dies and I'm little scared as lately we are losing mayors that are just 40+ years old. Meaning they had not even 10 years in office, which throws whole calculations for how doable it is out of window. Also bad mayors start stockpiling so our income dips down... We get another conversion but it targets our smart high diplomatic Jew (which now is replacing our rival daughter-in -law). Turns out making match with her was a mistake cause she due to being of different dynasty doesn't care for our dynasty at all and made for her Permyakid children to be married off in such a way that another dynasty will take over her holdings in the future! Definetely should have assasinated her after she produced Permyakid heirs to let her husband (emperor's brother) take over. Well we still generated more Permyakids with 4 bloodlines, but it somewhat discouraging.

Before end of year, we get update on our book, Emperor is working on. We can ask our 21 Stewardship Council member to help which risk lowering the quality (cause we have more Stewardship - 31) or take stressed. Stressed it is as we just gathered more ingredients to brew ourself potion of eudaimonia.

Year 1246
======================

Year starts with 56.7 thousand gold in our imperial coffers but income diminishes to +4.473 due to many over the demense limit mayors and bishops. As we are fresh after battle with raiding Manichean Uyghurs we also are paying reinforcements on retinues so expenses total -424 gold. Lucky our non-Monastic bishop in Samarra dies and is replaced by our Monastic candidate there, fixing him in result.

Next few months pass with single prosperity (ambition) event to increase it in Kolva and ocnfer -15% construction cost there for 400 gold which we take. Then we get converted another Ashkenazi (5 targets left ranging from 33 to 40 years old) and I screw things up as I normally marry him to highborn women there =.=. Meaning I just converted this city to lowborns as the only remaining high born there has 0 years and Great Pox.

Want to point out is that some time ago, Kingdom of Cumania finally drifted into our de jure Empire. This means that levy modifiers for troops from vassals increased from 25% to 35%. More importantly we now will have de jure claim on it in case of losing it (which we feared with potential arrival of Mongols). Another Slow fever epidemy also pops up in western Nenetsian lands. It most likely won't reach us but I panicked and secluded court instantly (which lowered conversion chance of Patriarch working in capital to 0%).only to have eat another General Opinion penalty from rejoining the world. Still wouldn't want to eat that -40% tax penalty.

Finally all de jure kingdoms we want are within de jure borders of Permo-Siberia. Now only to secede Nenetsia and Rus. ​

I watch as our levies increase to new height - 73.76 thousand men. That's a quite a lot. Soon another Jew gets converted and we send him to become monk. Will have use for him as soon as our opinion penalty from previous extractions vanishes in few months (times out in february 1247). We watch as Byzantine empire devolves into another civil war that seems to favour enemies of our son-in-law and slow struggle of Vladimir vassal king with his 2 revolts (he managed to turn first to 95% warscore in his favour). No assasinations occasion so far.

Given that not much is happening I want to ramble a little about something related to this AAR. Had some thoughts recently regarding our overall strategy. Given new experience I'm of an opinion that there were 2 mistakes on my part. I'll talk about first of them right now:

- Great Construction building. Shouldn't have started building them in capital duchy as it makes mass constructing them much less doable. What I'm talking about? Well the penalty increasing costs for each same/different Great Wonder we have counts (to my knowledge), if we are still holding it. Meaning that in alternative universe if I hoarder around 200.000 gold coins we could start constructing 89 wonders at once. How? By starting and then releasing local single count vassal to avoid penalties. One easy way of doing it within our de jure empire would be to temporarily convert to non-Orthodox religion (Catholicism works just fine and meets our Crusading needs). It would allow us to first secede them and then upon converting back to Orthodoxy diplomatically vassalize them back instantly. Unless I'm missing something. That would cut down on starting costs somewhat (we could also do the same every time we wanted to upgrade them) but wouldn't work for passive construction costs while building (that would still eat tremendous costs aas they make around 25-33% of total costs). There is nothing to be done about the second fee, as with 89 wonders to be built the game lenght isn't enough to build them one at the time. To my defence - we started building while Tribal as I wanted that architecture book (that we still don't have after close to 300 years and 5 attempts at getting it =.=). Still think how ridiculous having for example 89 Universities or Royal Palaces would be. First would allow for easy +89 Martial and Stewardship attributes. That under regular inheritance would give every ruler 19 demense limit (and 24-25 under Gavelkind) assuming easily achievable 100 Stewardship together with spouse and no +demense size laws enacted. Then each of those personally held castles would get +200% income modifier from character holding it (which is multiplicative with province modifiers xD) and +445% levy size from Martial (not even counting other bonuses from buildings or province modifiers). All in all we could personally own around 20-25% of our empire counties, getting from them between 974,7 gold (no gavelkind) and 1282,5 g (gavelkind) each year. On top of between 150.214-197.650 personal levies. In case of Palaces we are talking of +66.750 base retinue limit and +1780% retinue size modifier (effectively 1.254.900 retinue size from Royal Palaces alone, which is enough for 1.394 Cavalry retinues meaning 278.800 Light Cavalry and 69.700 Heavy Cavalry; it would cost us 313.65g per year fully replenished and... 3.763 gold per month of replenishing). Would allow us to field 3.750 strong army on every single county within empire. Probably more as this just Royal Palace part (and you still multiply regular sources of retinue size by 18.8 times). Best part this is ironman compatible x].

Towards autumn our Moral authority lowers by around 10%. With it goes our 90% character conversion rate :/ - down to 67,5% yearly chance. Our heir develops "Indolgent" childhood trait that will require assistance. His father (emperor Rayda) could influence it into Charitable, but Gregarious would be much better and Slothful would be kind of wasted (forcing us to give him Diligent). Besides that nothing worthy of note happens.

Year 1247
======================

Another January with over 60.400 gold to our name, +4.484 yearly income and -289 expenses. It's time for another empire-wide construction project. We finally have enough. This time we want to make Libraries in all Hospitals. Extra 25% technology spread empire wide is crucial especially for those counties that have just single (castle) holding.

78-79 constructions at once costs us around 22.300 gold coins which is less than expected. Another of those long-term investments. With that every county within Perm, Volga-Bulgaria, Sibir and Cumania have at least some bonus technology spread rate. ​

Buying each library for 390-450 gold coins wasn't so bad. Left me with far more cash than anticipated. Which means we probably can build another hospital upgrade within few years. Getting every hospital to level 4 (out of 7) will be tougher as even in my personal demense it costs around 700g per hospital. Well technology spread should help us somewhat. Still writing or aquiring from event those -construction costs books would help even more.

Slow and steady work towards retaking our family heirlooms. ​

March is really constructive month as we get assasination pop-up on our targeted Malyyid dynasty member in Khazar band. We succeed and get that Malyyid woman before she can give birth to another claimant. With that our 2 top characters in succession to Ryn county are firmly within our hands. The younger brother of our imprisoned Ryn countess developed cancer too. We could leave him be but thanks to 300% potential plot power I decide to cut his remaining lifespan short. Upon unpausing it turns out he isn't even in line of succession. Which leaves just 5 characters, 3 out of which are in our hands. Also another Mayor dies and now I'm kind of pissed off that I sent last Jew into Monastery.

In May we claim another Malyyid life and order a hit on his daughter. Even the claimant list is getting short now (8 characters including 2 over 60 years old!). Then our vassal King finally concludes his almost totally won rebelion and moves onto another (in which he has 40% warscore already). Not sure how much it will strenghten him as he already has full demense limit (5/5) but still putting loyal counts and dukes will help our family to hold onto power there. Having not much to do we decide to write another Magnum Opus. Want to check if those books too can be stacked. We will try with +Health Magnum Opus as even if we receive Quality 3, it still will be useful.

By August we get visited by another 750 strong detachment from Tartaria and we receive news about fall of China:

Wonder what they will do - right now, they lost huge swaths of terrain under Western Protectorate Tributaries. For now we will wait and see ​

Few more heads fall off and by the end of year we get another Jew converted. This together with some young girl becoming adult allows us to start fixing 2 out of 4 bad mayors. Next year our prosperity ambition comes to an end so we will be able to revoke single Bishop (out of 3 needing it). That should help improve our finances.

Year 1248
======================

With change of date we are once again up to 31.400 gold coins. Income hovers at 4.426 and expenses at 276. Nothing out of ordinary. It will only go up during this year. No great construction project for now. Doesn't take even two weeks and one of bad Mayor gets replaced. We instantly move onto another one.

As months pass we quickly fix another Mayor, then end marriage of wasted Jew to use him in fixing another City. One assasination later and we sent him in place that our agents are swarming in order to kill local Mayor. We also conclude writing Magnum Opus so we get answer to the question wheather we can stack them:

Turns out - no. The game doesn't let us even pick option we took previously (probably cause we have highest quality book already?). Not willing to try giving book to heir before to try getting lower quality book, as higher one most definetely will be destroyed upon inheritance to avoid duplicates. ​

Soon Prosperity ambition finishes and we are once again free to revoke. We do fix one multi Bishop and then take 4th revocation for fixing some city issue. Thanks to doing census of lands in last part I spotted that our latest City mayor got 2 cities within the same outside duchy. From what we experienced so far it increases the risk of overlordship reverting to local de jure vassal. We do not want that happening. So we take city of Hlynov from him but don't give him city in Khopyor in the south yet. This will have to wait another 5 years, as with -60 opinion penalty we are on the brink of incuring tax penalties for most of our City vassals. Really want to point that I don't feel like opinion bonuses are powercreep beyond are reason as when we are using them actively (like any resource should be utilized) you see yourself how thin we are stretched while administering our 4 kingdom worth of size empire.

We are also free to change our Focus as 5 years finally went by. We got to teach one of our Commander Organiser trait and got "Warrior" modifier (+1 Martial, +10 Personal Combat Score). So we got what we wanted and more (Brawny!) so remaining on this focus longer seems bad. We still can get Brave and Wroth that will put us over the soft trait limit. I must think about what next though.
- We could go back to Business for those small events (Artisan Workshops) but that seems like such miniscule benefit right now,
- Rulership still can give us Ambitious, lifestyle modifier but over all - low frequency of events probably will push up other events to the front (Lost Book!). If we lose Diligent or Just we can always get it back.
- Family/Seduction - we are 52 years old and while not happy we are mostly settled to play as Prince Zarny next. While he still did not get Curious trait I'm not sure how wise it is to risk longer regency. On other hand we have Brawny so hmm...
- Theology would fix Drunkard and give us Temperate and Cynical/Zealous. I don't think we really need another Saint but extra health opens some options too. Pilgrimage also counts for that +opinion. It also would probably allow our Emperor to lose weight.
- Scholarship won't give us lifestyle trait and I don't exactly want +Intrigue right now on this character. Necronomicon for +5 Learning won't persist for long too. We would get double chances of Summoning Divine Being while on it (and Theology). We aren't exactly hurting for attributes (32 Stewardship, 28 Learning...). Doubling occurence of +technology events is also a drop in sea of needs.

Other options don't seem to be good right now. After some deliberation I pick "Seduction". There are some Genius women and if anything it's better to make spare heir now instead of later (5 years less of regency). Getting that extra 0.9x MTTH modifier with Genius trait on long reign of next Emperor might pay for itself.

That's creative way of extracting mayors from under vassals without incuring regular penalties ​

We also get approached by Jewish Merchants on Silkroad and we gladly pay them to kick off local Mayor in Aylik. This saves us the trouble of extracting it from under vassal clutches and hey - he has 20 Stewardship . Just as we import 2 Genius targets for our Great Emperor, we get this event that scares me off:

Please don't kill us x]... ​

Well haven't expected that out of gate. Luckily we don't die and don't even get that Lustfull. Soon Rayda succeds in bedding new 18 year old Genius Greek. Soon another attempt is made.

Year 1249
======================

With 35.600 gold and record high +4.796 coins of income with 280 coins of expenses we enter another year. Our administrative work surely paid off this year . We are quite stable so now we might start thinking about pushing adjustment more. But of course game doesn't want to make this easy - Orthodoxy moral authority plummets to 60.9 meaning it is barely under treshold. We still have around 67.5% conversion chance but it isn't what we need to rapidly convert and fill Monasteries with high stewardship Jews. After looking around the map I think the culprit for our fluctuating Moral Authority is rebelion strenght game setting. Just spotted 80.000 strong Bohemian Paulicians fighting for their kingdom in-between different Orthodox realms. Meaning that this might persist as no one has enough time and MA to convert lands fully and whenever MA falls, heresies spread. Rinse and repeat. Well never experienced this downside of my rebelion setting.

By February Emperor impregnates first Genius Greek courtier. After switching targets we get Lustful that might be problematic but was unavoidable. We also develop "Aspiring Seducer" for +15 Attraction. Noticed that our heir Prince Zarny developed Cough that persist for quite a few years and was not treated at any point by our present Court Physician. We might try to cure it by equiping bunch of +health bonuses from artifacts and focuses.

Meanwhile we go after Malyyids once again. We manage to kill husband to one of our countess aunts, that allows us to clean her next. Then we move onto last aunt in Ryn court. With that we will reduce Malyyid dynasty to 4 members, 3 of which are in our Court.

As Winter turns to spring we lose our Marshal. Time to pick new with Diligent and 15 Martial so we might get those +military technology points events. Our seduction pick up pace - as some young Scottish courtier approaches us and soon after tumbling we are catched red-handed. As a result of that we get -5 General opinion, while our Aspiring Seducer turns into Seducer (+1 Intrigue, +30 Attraction). Our first target has most showy pregnancy as future mother gets 2 modifiers - 'Pregnancy Glow' and 'Pregnancy: Praying'.

Few weeks later our Emperor is confronted by his wife, which is (understandbly) not happy (as I refuse to break out with our Scottish lover). Despite succesful tumbling attempts we still couldn't impregnate another Greek Courtier and our first child out of wedlock doesn't inherit Genius. Nor all of our Bloodlines which is more troubling. Maybe if I acknowledge him (cause I didn't for that first boy?) Who knows at this point. Meanwhile our Vladimirian vassal concludes remaining rebelion and suffers another. This time rebels have slight numerical advantage (8.000 vs 7.000 troops). I hope he prevails.

Given that besides seduction firing and not resulting in much I will now talk about second of my mistakes:
- Resigning from Ducal Viceroyalties. Not gonna lie I'm completely not used to them as most of my playtime in CK2 was without Charlemagne DLC. But given good result of my "direct barons managment" strategy this would do so much. Just imagine that: Ducal level titles allow for technology generation, which together with title returning to us would allow us to stress free keep high learning dukes to generate us bunch of technology point that would eventually be inherited. Even if they spent it themself we wouldn't mind as it would help with spreading tech around. It is totally doable, as base game decision "Invite Holy Man to court" is capped at 25 piety and Great Works that "Inspire Learning" allow us to generate characters with up to 30 Learning quite reliably. Each such duke (we could also marry him off to ensure no children) would generate us +1.2 tech points in every category each month (meaning 14.2 tech points per year). We have 25 Duchies so after deducting 2 (we would personally own) we are left with 23 possible Minor Viceroys, resulting in extra 27.6 technology points generation for each category per month (+331,2 technology points each year!). For reference our current tech income is +4/+16/+6 (Military/Economic/Cultura) points per month. Forget Reneissance - we would be straight up progressing 100 years of technological progress in every category every 24 years, meaning if game allowed for technological scaling past XV century, given our late feudalisation we would be entering industrial revolution in second half of XIV century and probably start manufacturing chips way before Christopher Columbus discovered Americas xD. It makes me reavaluate getting to Empire (+40% Technological points generation for Emperor) and unlocking Imperial Administration (Viceroyalties) completely different. It also nicely plays into gameflow - we could start with them and after maxing technology in every county we could start getting rid of Viceroys (or replace high learning ones with high Martial ones given access to Warrior Lodges to be doable) on top of helping us fix any issues that arise with our direct baron level vassals escaping our taxation. Bonus points for ability for free revocation of Viceroy titles - allowing to keep rolling on Viceroys with desired focuses and instantly getting rid of Viceroys with Seduction/Scheme focus. Sadly right now we can't re-enact those as we lack final level of Legalism (6/8 levels atm).

We lose another Mayor and upon 2 more assasination can't seem to be able to get our converted Ashkenazi into Mayor position. Not that current Mayor is amazing (just 10 stewardship) but we married him off to 20 stewardship woman and called it a day. We also further diminished Malyyid dynasty and got little scared as our imprisoned countess inherited some artifacts. For whatever reason first to display are messages about her losing artifact during transfer of power (which were duplicates).

Year 1250
======================

Another half of century passes through. We have almost 40 thousand gold coins and relatively healthy income. We keep both assasinations and seductions going. Soon our bastard son (out of Scottish courtier) is born but nothing worth considering. So we pass on him. We have also tremendous difficulties in inpregnating 2nd invited Genius woman - Romane. She has -15% fertility from Chaste and after quite a few tumbles we are still not knocking her up. Emperor Rayda has +60% Fertility (Midas Touched + Seduction Focus + Lustful).

Spent some time on looking how our next character is turning out. Prince Zarny just turned 11 and beside previously assigned Erudite from event is Indolent, Fussy and Rowdy. No Curious yet. We really want that for Shrewd. Lost Cough though. Indolent and Rowdy can develop into problems (Slothful and lowering inteligence =.=). So I went shopping for perfect tutor with Brave (to overwrite Rowdy), Gregarious (for Indolent) and Patient (for Fussy). Then ideally we can give him Diligent from our Character at 14.5 years of age to have the best of what we are dealt by game to work with. Still there is slight chance for Curious that would require different approach (turning Fussy into Diligent to then get him Cynical if he doesn't develop Curious before that intervention point).

Months pass as I move from killing my own Mayors onto another Malyyid target (to make another step towards inheritance of our artifact books). The sooner we get it the better as I will be able to fully focus on other tasks. Not sure if having any of those books changes our potential results of current book in writing. Did open textfile related to this event and to best of my ability of understanding code our current chances are (Quality 3 and 4):
Permyakid Cookbook - 10
Feeding the Realm - 10
Modest Measures - 20
On Komi Architecture - 30
How to Build a Well - 30
Garden of the Planets - 5
Treatise on Fishing (Q4) - 10

So as you can see we have big odds for getting another "How to Build a Well" as it shares "Architect" lifestyle trait for increased weight with "On Komi Architecture". But if unlucky we can keep not getting what we want till the end of a game.

Upon several more succesful nights with one of our courtiers I lose my patience. We are up to +250 attraction on her in May and she still can't conceive. Probably due to advanced age of our ruler. So I return to previous Genius woman that already gave us bastard.

With start of Autumn we get another virtue (Temperate) from Saintly Bloodline. Which is ugh!... Not really needed (With our 34 Stewardship even with penalty from Drunkard). Maybe it will get rid of Fat? Most likely it will push us into lottery of: "which trait will we lose soon". As we have 8 traits. Also it adds to probability of writing Modest measures (+10 weight). Then within 2 seduction attempts we impregnate courtier nr. 1 again. To only go back to our second target. One of our mayors also dies and by trying to rush it to get nicer number for end of this part I mix things up a little. It isn't unfixable - will just take some time more to get my people into position. Sadly my recently converted 40 years old Jew vanished somewhere, leaving only 2 more that wait for becoming Orthodox. That won't happen soon as our religion MA dipped down to 65%. Given lack of option I push my dynasty bastard with 13 stewardship. Yet despite waiting a little more into 1251 assasination after being announced doesn't fire and my income suffers for some reason slightly more. Pity

We were reaching over 4.700 raw income this part but alas it isn't visible here. ​

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

As our mailbox keeps getting spam from various bachelors across world vying for our 2nd oldest daughter hand (Princess Chichayka - 15 years old),

I can relate to this (not helped by the fact I like to have interfaith marriages on open for when I'm trying to collect bloodlines easier).

Nor all of our Bloodlines which is more troubling. Maybe if I acknowledge him (cause I didn't for that first boy?)

Saintly bloodlines can't be inherited by bastards (they have an icon in the bloodlines screen that should indicate that), even if the child is legitimised as bloodlines are inherited at birth (otherwise denounced children would lose their bloodlines).

 

[Sanvone]

Economic Report: Permo-Siberia Year 1250​

Realm size: 461
Yearly Income: 4536
Treasury: 44681 (+ 5642 in Mercenary Band)
Number of Cities in Realm: 95
Number of Cities in Personal Demense: 68
Number of Prosperity Province Modifiers: 19
Number of Holding Slots Generated: 14
Number of Great Works: 6
- Far North Scriptorium in Udmurts (Great Library; Stage 2; Keeper of the Tomes, Scribe Room, Architecture collection)
- Hagia Epimoni in Tynea (Grand Cathedral; Stage 3; Grand Basilica, Watchtower Network)
- Primal Taiga in Pilva (Magnificent Garden, Stage 2; Hanging Gardens, Fountain of Youth, Road Tolls, Tavern,)
- Uralic Walls in Kolva (Great Walls, Stage 2; Studded Bastion, Gatehose Fortress, Watchtower Network,)
- Permyakid's Sanctuary in Perm (Royal Palace, Stage 1; Road Tolls, Great Roads,)
- Komi University in Kudymkar (Great University, Stage 1; Road Tolls, Great Roads,)
Global Construction Speed modifier: 58,14% (Tang Sculpture, How to Build a Well, Bones of Saint Peter, Scholar Bureaucrat,)
Global Construction Cost modifier: 68,85% (Dragon Amulet, Bones of Saint Peter, Scholar Bureaucrat,)

5 Highest Income Realms (Yearly Income)
1. Permo-Siberian Empire (4536),
2. Byzantine Empire (541),
3. Nolamba Kingdom [Kingdom of Tamilakam] (469),
4. Empire of Rajasthan (404),
5. Kingdom of U-Tsang (370),

Honorable Mentions: Republic of Amalfi [Under Byzantine Empire] (1101), Kingdom of Sicily [Under Byzantine Empire] (509), Holy Roman Empire (360), Abbasid Sultanate [Sultanate of Arabia] (350), Kingdom of France (320), Sultanate of Egypt (317), Kingdom of Eire (301), Sanghamittid Kingdom [Kingdom of Lanka] (290),

5 Wealthiest Counties Worldwide (Province Wealth)
1. Udmurts (668,5),
2. Perm (656,9),
3. Kudymkar (477,7),
4. Amalfi (469,9),
5. Constantinople (381,4),

Honorable Mentions: Roma (371,4), Burtasy (369), Venezia (366,9), Delhi (320,1), Nikomedeia (315,4), Cholamandalam (311,1), al-Iskandariyya (303,6), Bolghar (302,5), Tunis (297,9), Dunhuang (291,4),

Additional Comment on worldstate: Mongols didn't come, yet China did fall. Thus big Western Protectorate is currently not present. This leaves few bigger entities in India, fracturing further Middle East with Greeks expanding there. After our Coup de Grace on Muhallabids, Abbasids re-appeared. They are (and the whole Muslim world) a shadow of former glory at this point though, as Egypt kept eating into Nubia, Abbysinia and enveloped Eastern Sahara. Rest of Africa is getting squished between that Catholic Kingdom and Hispanic empire (currently ruler by Italian Paulician of Khazar origin; they went from Cathar through Orthodox before ending on this). Iberian pennisula gets contested between locals and both French and Byzantines though. France and Holy Roman empire engage in border gore between them (with Knights Templars in Aquitaine). England is still torn apart - with Welsh Catholics still being biggest and many realms chomping on old Cathar Anglo-Saxon remnants. We even have Dutch Frisia that got independent there. Ireland and Scotland are united under Catholic Irish, who is on his way to eradicate Scottish culture.In central Europe we have Croatia and Bohemia both suffering from huge Paulician uprisings, Pomerania and Lithuania mostly divided Baltics between themself and beside our own Empire - Greeks expanded almost to Kiev. Most interesting development happened in Scandinavia though - after failure of Jomsvikings realm, new uniting force emerged - Paulician Norwegians. They established their own Kingdom and started steadily expanding, sometimes vassalizing remaining Holy Order Jomsvikings Counts (turning them Feudal). They have to contend with Teutonic Order based in Denmark and until recently 3 Kingdoms of Suomi (Cathar, Germanic and Orthodox - out of them only 2 remains Orthodox Suomi and Cathar Lojo Suomi).

P.S.:
1) Vote in Yearly AAR awards!
2) As some of you might have observed I was tinkering with AI graphics. We have new cover image (on top of this thread) and new graphic in opening post (after my initial got nuked by imgur).

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

Things continue to go well for Permo-Siberia.

 

[Sanvone]

Part LIX (1251-1258)​

Year 1251
======================

We start the part with visiting fountain of youth in Primal Taiga. Had some time to think things over and right now prolonging our perfect Prosperity Ruler's lifespan seems beneficial (less time on less optimized heir). We still are waiting for book (Which can take up to 8 years more). It's also period to push some progress with various sideprojects (Nenetsia/Vladimir secession, retrieving family books from Malyyid dynasty).

Then we start with declaring wars for Rus Empire. We will have 2 theaters of war - north in Novgorod and south around Kiev. Most of those 5 wars are against relatively small realms. The only real danger is posed by forces of Khaganate of Bukhal (which previously were a menace on both our and Byzantine army). That's why we mobilize all 73.000 levy troops and start marching them towards Moskva. Meanwhile our new generation of Scottish/Italian commanders have opportunity to learn by fighting 3.000 strong nomad intruders in Irtysh. They are our rising stars for foreseeable future - 16 years old Scottish Nydog Sarin with 16 Martial and Brave, 20 years old Scottish Magnus Tuhan with 15 Martial and 16 years old Italian Salvatore with 13 Martial but also Zealous (increasing his chance of getting Holy Warrior).

Given how long does it take to assemble troops I prefer to push all wars at once. ​

We manage to eliminate another member of bad bourgeoisie with start of February (which becomes pretty much a tradition at this point) and bastard of our dynasty takes over. We really are wanting for high stewardship characters as Orthodox Moral Authority went down to 51%... Which lowers our chances of conversion to 50% per year. At least we have just 1 more bad mayor right now. For that reason I don't invite more Ashkenazis - we still have 2 that will take quite some time to convert. Seems like we will have to start Stewardship breeding program ourself. But that later as our Silkroad boys are fighting nomads:

Not the easiest battle but it's lenght provides opportunity to improve our commanders ​

Border engagment goes as planned. Perfectly rolling 3 times Shieldwall to then enter the melee with 3x Charge is perfect. But those are Altaic so 2 of them soon use "Retreat and Ambush" to reset battle back to skirmish phase. Yet their left is stuck, while our left (placed against their right) is slowly loosing. After next skirmish phase the nomads decide to charge themself and get countered in response, while our left starts winning back grinding battle (losing 10 men per day but killing 20). I even see Salvatore utilizes Italian "Pike Column Formation" and soon both him and Nydog route their enemies and try to rescue Magnus flank. He routes but we win soon after as local vassal bolsters our forces. Well it didn't go as planned. We still got something out of this as Nydog improved his Martial Education from lvl 3 to 4 (meaning +3 Martial but no commander trait yet; putting him at reliable 19 Martial with Brave trait).

As winter was normal, no logistic issues were encountered so far for our levies slowly moving across empire. Back in home we return to our assasination plot of one of last Malyyid family members outside our grasp (with 189% plot power). We continue seducing but not impregnating one of Genius courtiers though. Given that it turns out bloodlines are not inherited this way I give up (to not further damage our standing among vassals). New batch of bachelorettes arrives and I marry bachelors in our court (including our new commanders). I'm suprised how relatively small my court remains (45/99 characters). Shouldn't be an issue in breeding more characters (and then personally seeing to their education). Did spent quite some piety (down to 3.657) on generating "holy men". Why? Cause in my last venture into game files for more info on artifact events (Lost Book from Great Libary) I've found that characters with 'Scholar" trait have bigger chances of success. So I've got myself a quite of few Geniuses and started marrying them off too. Maybe trying breeding program for our baron vassals is a way of alleviating lack of skill among our subject? Not that we had great success so far with it ourself but given that those minor vassals with their AI are unable to manage their children education I'm willing to try anything that will make less god-awful characters there. So now we have Malyy Sharan (Genius, Theologian, Scholar, Honest, Just, Diligent, Greedy with 24 Learning), Kuaz Kuazid (Scholar with 23 Learning), Dobrinya Dobrinyid (Attractive, Genius, Theologian, Scholar, Just, Temperate, Shy and Trusting with 23 Learning), Deryab Achitid (Renowned Physician, Genius, Theologian with 20 Learning), So that's 3 more Scholars in our court and IRC game prioritizes them for travel regarding "Lost Books".

As Spring months pass we watch our religion Moral Authority drop to 46% and amass 16.000 levies in Moskva. That's enough to start fighting with our greenhorn commanders. We target biggest army in North (Petty Kingdom of Novgorod with over 7.000 men) first. By end of June we can also throw another 16.000 levies to march further west to deal with smaller targets nearby. Plan on leaving Bukhal horde (3.000) for last).

To my suprise our commanders are almost perfectly matched skillwise. But our side has twice as many warriors. ​

Battle turns out suprisingly easy, as we demolish enemies before skirmish ends. That's easy +48% warscore. We move onto another target ASAP before we break down to start carpet siegeing Novgorod. With Summer almost over we finally can set education type for our heir and as always pick Stewardship. Sadly we didn't luck out with getting late Curious trait (to develop it into Shrewd). But at the very least perfect Guardian with intervention traits I procured came with over 1.000 gold coins for us to inherit. Now need to just wait till Prince Zarny reaches 14 years of age for brief swap to Emperor Rayda so he can give him either Diligent or Patient (As imported tutor has Gregarious, Brave and Patient which would be nice set of trait on future character).

With start of Autumn we are demolishing other northern Slavs with second batch of levies we thrown on the front and once again beat remaining 4.000 Novgorodian warriors with our first army. We finally can distribute troops to sieges and soon we are besieging 7 counties simultaneously. Would be 8 but one of our target got attacked by invading landless host who has siege going on. At least another 15.000 levies gathered in Moskva so we can start marching them south with end of October. We even do it with Emperor himself as he is the only Organiser we currently have (+38% Movement Speed). Well he also has +38% Siege speed and +76% dmg against religious enemies. But let's use him as taxi for now. We get another Zealot event from Saintly Bloodline but sadly don't manage to get extra event troops (We need Zealous trait for that).

With end of November our Vladimir king vassal ends his rebelion. He is quite cranky (-94) due to us now incurring opinion penalties for raised levies (-5). Well that is unavoidable. Just in case I ask our spymaster to stop all plots before it can get ugly (we still have -40 for being dishonorable and -60 for revoking too many titles without just cause). The true problem arrives in December:

Well that's quite a few of them :V Far away from our troops. ​

It was long time coming since I noticed in last part that our recent heretic outbreak was rocking 27% monthly revolt chance in Osha. Sent Marshal there to lower it by 15% at the start of this part and we were quite lucky so far. It was bound to expire with end of year so we literally got screwed on last possible roll ^^". Also that's a lot of them. Much more that those provinces can support x]. Well we evacuate both our Marshal and Steward from there. Question is what to do? Our reserves that are still marching towards Moskva are just 11.000 men. No enough. So our 3rd army that was just under guidance of Emperor himself marching south is doubling back towards Tynea. Won't pass Ural mountains in winter probably but at least we can move closer to eastern parts of empire before next spring. So far weather is normal. We also started assasination of our Malyyid target.

Year 1252
======================

New year starts with 47.247 gold coins and less of total balance due to paying not a small chunk of our income for raised levies. We continue our sieges as part of our military travels back to Siberia. Our assasination fails but soon Count-Husband of our target dies thus we no longer risk her creating more problems for us. Sadly due to even lower religious authority Monothelite heresy appears in Tavda with the same +27% Revolt risk. Our Heir got his first intervention trait thus we no longer fear him developing Slothful as he is already Gregarious!

Ugh. This might be an issue as this is on route to main heretic army ​

We enforce terms on Petty King of Novgorod in February and move those levies towards south. Meanwhile we are halfway done with two remaining targets in north. Winter turns severe and heretics get few bad siege events for them that eats almost 1.000 troops. We in meantime conquer Izborsk and give it fully to our Vladimirian vassal to make him less cranky (doesn't help as due to Anglo-Saxon tutor for heir we got another -20 across board).

As season passes we finally get rid of last non held Malyyid in line of succession for our current holder of some Permyakid books. Alas I commited mistake when marrying off my courtiers forgot about one female 32 years old Malyyid courtier we were holding and she instantly got pregnant... Luckily it was a girl. Still has to clear her and old father as we no longer need them. They were safety measure in case we couldn't assasinate previous 2nd in line Malyyid family member. Back in the southern front, Bukhal&Allies managed to put up 8.000 strong army, that started besieging some of our vassals holdings. Our 18.000 troops are halfway on the way from Novgorod to Kiev (and 7.000 are still left behind to finish capturing Pskov for which we are winning the race versus invading mercenary host).

By May we have 27.00 levies in Tynea and I decide on southern pass to approach enemies, as northern pass with severe winter gives us just 8.000 supplies. Prefer keeping those troops traveling together in face of still 54.000 enemies lurking behind mountains. On 19th of May Osha finally capitulates to heretics. Well nothing that could be done. It bought us a ton of time thanks to high fort level (7.5). Sadly after losing them we get +20% monthly revolt risk in both counties for 2 years =.=. Another 2 mayors also die within our demense. Suprisingly one of Monothelite provinces in Siberia gets converted back to Orthodoxy (Chimgi-Tura).

Across summer we finish race to claim Pskov, after which our 19.000 strong army is moving onto Kiev directly. Now remaining 8.000 are starting to catch up with them to oppose Bukhal forces and conclude last 2 wars in the west. Meanwhile 27.000 strong host under Emperor Rayda is passing south of Ural mountains to start picking off heretics. To my suprise we finally get issued mission to construct laboratory. Was convinced that this mission only happens at rank 1 (we are at rank 4) so was planning on rejoining society just for that (as without laboratory we can't get "great inventions" event that can confer us some hefty province bonuses to income for 50 years). Our penalty for levies raised for too long is at (-8) so it's still passable. Spymaster reports nothing dangerous.

Well that's starting to get out of hand xD ​

Just as I start thinking about how to deal with heretics, they receive another 25.000 troops... Which is problematic cause now there is almost 80.000 of them compared to our 27.000 strong imperial host. Could defeat them, if we can just ambush one of their armies to enter melee unmolested and they would keep feeding into it but it's still tough order. Bethrothal is with heir to the Byzantine Empire but before asking for alliance (which we would get) I realise that they are in the middle of own civil war and I have non-aggresion pact with pretender too! So it won't make us much good.

On 10th of September we are finally approaching heretics from Tavda. Decided to target them first as they are far away from rest so we should win handily and thus remove 17.000 heretic warriors from equation. And we need to win something cause their warscore rised up to 98% already. As I prepare our forces I spot that our Nydog Sarin developed "Unyielding" commander trait thus he has now +19.5% Defence and +58.5% Morale Defence. That's what we just need. I put rest of young commanders as they can develop (especially Zealous Salvatore could pick up Holy Warrior) and on 6th of October we start the battle.

Crucial battle. It if goes south heretics can enforce on us. So we put our hope into cadre of young Scottish-Italian commanders. ​

Everything goes smoothly as our new rising stars rise to presented occasion. Most of enemies get demolished in skirmish already and before end of month whole section of Monothelite army get's deleted. Putting their overall strenght at much more approachable 60.000. We even get peace offer from their leader as fight goes on but we decline it. With this battle won we are down from -99% warscore to -75% which is enough breathing room to catch another of their besieging armies. We also conclude another of western wars (getting another county near Kiev). That's leaves just this ongoing Monothelite rebelion and war to liberate 3 counties from Khagante of Bukhal. Both of which we finally can focus on as troops are in place.

To my suprise in November our Permo-Siberian Patriarch manages to convert one of our jews (40 years old). Despite Orthodoxy going down to 36,7%. Sadly we lose 6.000 troops while moving out of Tavda due to (you guessed it) Severe Winter. Our troops soon manage to kill another 8.000 heretics in Tobol and move onto another 9.200 in Ishim. We also lose Humble trait due to being quite a lot over soft limit of traits.

Year 1253
======================

With almost 50.000 gold coins in January things are nice ecomenically speaking. We lose another 4.000 troops to winter in Siberia, which puts us at 16.000 men and our enemies evade us :/. Damn. While I'm certain that we will prevail - each conquered by heretics county provides +20% monthly revolt risk for 2 years, which is naaasty. StilI remember to switch Emperor Rayda as tutor for Prince Zarny (as within year we will get intervention option). Supplies diminish further and we are at the risk of losing another 3.000 troops in Tobol (we will recuperate around 2.000 troops per month but still).

By accident left Emperor in command of troops moving to avoid another attrition trick via joining the battle. ​

Luckily game rewarded me for my carelessnes - we got Brave which is perfect. This was the missing trait for development of Prince Zarny character within this year. Unlucky we get 2nd battle event and have to part with our "+2" Axe. No biggie - we have many different replacement and there is chance we inherit it after imprisoning revolt leader. At least we avoided another attrition so we are left with 16.000 troops in Siberia against 35.500 heretics still roaming further north-east. Due to bad supplies we must stop pursuing them for now (which means even more of northern Syberia will probably get conquered).

We finish laboratory and start moving our troops near Kiev to start working on that war against Bukhal. We still have around 24.000 troops there. Our penalty for revoking titles finally fizzles out. That increases our standing among vassals. Good. We need extra wiggle room for unforseen circumstances right now.

With start of May our weather finally allows restarting military operations. We are up to 18.500 troops and can start moving towards duchy of Sibir. We also spot 9.200 army that evaded us previously coming back - we may strike them down. Then our Empress and wife breaks out with Emperor Rayda (due to his cheating that ended some time ago). On the bright side his longtime rival Countess Sanal'ka "the Rash" of Illyinsk also died (we have to thank her for giving our ruler repuration of being drunkard). Emperor developed "Poet" trait, which is always one less possible event to fight for limited event slots.

Takes us up to September to hunt down and crush another Monothelite army, leaving them with just 26.000 troops. Meaning the situation stabilized quite enough.Problem is that there still can be further heretic reinforcements so let's play it safe and not walk into severe supply issues, while charging after remaining rebel armies. We finally can and do move away from Seduction focus to Theology. With little luck it will get rid of both Lustful and Drunkard traits before game takes something else away from Rayda. Soon expected intervention for Prince Zarny occurs and we give him Diligent at the cost of "stressed" for us. We immedietely start curing it with potion of Eudaimonia (thanks Hermetic Society!). Then he goes back to his Anglo-Saxon tutor to develop Brave and Patient (which will make him quite nice with Erudite and Gregarious too).

Well here we go again! That pretty much puts Monothelites back in the game. ​

Just as expected another 26.000 heretic troops join the fray. The good news - it pacifies this county completely. The bad news - I had armies split and locked so now we will be rushing to join all forces and avoid losing as that 26.000 Monothelites move to give us battle in Sibir county. At the same time at the western front our troops started reversing war against Bukhal, with capture/recapture of few holdings - we are now at (+3%) warscore from (-69%). Heretic rebelion fluctuates around -72%.

With November fresh enemies lose interest in our army so Sibir doesn't see battle, thus we can rejoin safely and give them chase. Once again forgot to move Emperor away and he joins battle :x...

Mowing down rebels in progress. Really nervous for our character who was left in command of army center. ​

Once again our leader gets hurt (but he already is hurt in shape of "swollen wrist" modifier) but luckily it ends on that. So we win again. But it matters little (besides lowering our negative warscore to -58%). Throng of rebels pop up in December and this is really getting out of hand ^^":

Hummm... As most of those counties are not heretic the only possibility is for peasant to rise up. ​

At the very least Prince Zarny has another great trait development (got Brave). Several of our Mayors also die and currently I don't have the mental capacity to spare on them. Nor do I have capable future city mayors at hand. Majority of our forces makes steady progress in the west (up to 30%).

Year 1254
======================

Year starts with even more peasant rebelions and heretic reinforcemenets (some of previously showed above). At the moment we have 4 simultaneous rebelions:
- Monothelite uprising with 51.960 troops (freshly reinforced),
- Tuian Peasant revolt with 9.320 troops,
- Shishan Peasant revolt with 17.220 troops,
- Yeletsian Peasant revolt with 11.090 troops.

All but the last one are in Siberia. So once again we have 17.000 troops and 80.000 rebels to take care of. My main problem for previous years were consequtive severe winters, which prevented us from building on successes in the field. The good news is that whenever some county reinforces rebelion it gets -100% revolt risk for 5(?) years. Meaning it won't do it again as those revolt risk from being conquered last only 2 years. So as I unpause Monothelites feed another 8.000 troops into our 17.000 in Tobol (nice of them to allow us to avoid attrition) and then even more of them move to join (extra 20.000). So out of nowhere we end in battle behind river against big chunk of heretic forces.

Probably the biggest engagment of the conflict. Enemies kept pilling into losing engagment. Pushed us to the breaking point. ​

The battle keeps getting prolonged till April (!) as many rebels joined it. In the end we managed to end one of the rebellions with that battle alone but Monothelites got another 20.000 troops during it so they remain with 43.000 troops. We kept slaughtering them in melee quickly but by the end our center was dangerously low. Now another peasant rebelion is locked onto us but it's just few thousand troops. We assign old timers there and move our commanders (who sadly didn't develop anything during that long battle) to the west, where we are finally engaging Bukhal forces trying to recapture our first captured county. We pounce on them after some allied 3.200 nomadic force moved away. So we have tremendous advantage in numbers while they have hill (which isn't much of an upgrade on their 22 Martial Flatlands expert commander).

For change of pace battle in the Pereyeslavl. Our main forces tackle much more skilled but less numerous opponents. ​

As we win decisively in the west our army in Tobol crushes another peasant rebelion. But close to 30.000 Monothelites are on their way towards us as we reinforce and regain morale (by May have 14.500 troops). Decided to ride against one of the forces to let other (preferably) join them during melee phase for easy pickings instead of letting heretics fall on us all at once. After recapturing lost holdings around Kiev turns out we have just enough warscore to enforce on Bukhal (was +75% after battle). Meaning that by end of May we have 83% of de jure Rus Empire (we need 80% to create title). One less war and those victorious troops are moved to deal with last peasant rebelion that is only few counties away from them (and already engaged by Vladimirian forces half their size so they probably will win it; good to see our big vassal being competent).

So now my attention can be completely spent in the east. Where it turns out my move proved fruitful as other 15.000 rebel force ignored initially their brethren and marched away onto Tobol, where they decided to try and relieve their allies (which already were routed). Thus fighting difficult battle against almost 30.000 troops was averted.

Theology focus giving back and Tynea develops another holding slot amid all the carnage east of Ural. ​

Theology focus event fires in June and allows us quite a few options. The pick is to remove Drunkard. We could swap Lustful for Chaste but that's helps little for our current trait limit issue. We are down to 7/6 traits limit. We also get infuriating news about our late rival - Countess Sanal'ka "the Rash" being beatified... Would be quite a twist if she somehow became a Saint x]... As there quite a bunch of Komi characters getting beatified but none managed to become canonized since our last Saint Emperor. Thus I stopped reporting that.

With start of July Monothelites are down to "just" 36.400 troops. And we move to kill another 15.000 of them. Rebels decide to reinforce late and before end of months are left with less than 15.000 troops overall. We just killed 10.000 troops at the cost of 2.000 casualties and move on. Our Vassal also finishes other peasant rebelion, so only heretics remain. Not for long.

Might wait some time as those negative revolt risk modifiers are vanishing. With everything captured we don't risk getting it again. We do have around (-20) opinion penalty from vassal levies raised for too long to take into consideration.

Monothelites make last stand in Sibir county with their 15.000 remaining troops. Our 12.000 troops prevails albeit at the steep cost (one of our wings was even routed). With that I end the whole rebelion and damn how tough it was! Just look at those battles:

That was bloody. Kind of wish we got more than +1% Orthodox authoirty for it. It was almost Crusade level challenge. Also I think war menu lies as we had this one battle where final tally showed over 40.000 enemies but it shows less. ​

Peace once again returns to empire. We have quite a few things to do. First we move our Marshal to supress heretics in Yamalia (the highest 29% monthly revolt risk till February of 1255). With that we have 4 counties with unrest between 8 and 16%. If we luck out those next 3-4 months it will subside. If not we will be getting repeat of previous rebelion bogaloo. Not sure what happened to my timer on Great Tower starting to lean (should happened in 1253). Will it still happen? No one knows. The other event (Craftsmen guild) fired despite us changing focus. At the very least I make anti-depressant potion for our architect to ensure he lives. Quite unexpectedly we get prosperity event - extra slot. Well that's useful as it means another 2 cities that can be transfered under our direct vassalage. Orthodoxy remains at around 40% MA. Which will be tough to swallow as we run out of characters to convert. We have one in reserve. Aaand 5 mayors that need fixing. We start on one noble right away. Spotted that Salvatore developed "Rough Terrain expert" (bonuses in Forests and Hills) and Nydog got "True Christian Knight" modifier.

Year 1255
======================

Time to start solving issues that pilled on during our recent fighting. First of all we do have 5 over the limit City Mayors. Meaning only 4068 yearly income. One of them is resolved immedietely (he had 14 stewardship so just giving him high stewardship wife is good enough for now). Another one is about to be fixed with next assassination. So that leaves us with 3 and for those I need more lowborn characters so I invite some. We also did convert all Ashkenazis despite low chances so I invite 3 more (for grand total of 285g spent on bribes and favors). Also found out some 71 years old French Catholic woman to marry soon'ish. So those Jews arriving would do much good in making for potential targets of Patriarch instead of her. As this was another day that I restarted playing - checked event files for Business and nothing in it indicates I have to keep Business focus on. There is random chance with weight of 2 for tower to lean so we probably (?) failed this. Thought those were weights but I'm not sure now. There is also possibility that it happened exactly where I left Emperor Rayda in Command. Otherwise kind of sucks - it makes getting this modifier even costlier. With that said we can move our capital back to Perm at least. And spent whole bunch of technology points.

As previously on map: lightgreen - personal demense, darkgreen - previously held. Siberian reneissance soon. ​

Time to start bringing less developed technologies up to par. Especially as only 200 years remains for tech spread to do it's work. So getting several levels of cheap technologies (without "Ahead of time" penalty) will do us much more good. Thus we get Cavalry, Trade Practises and Shipbuilding up to current date. Out of goodies "Castle Infrastructure VII" gives us option to build Barracks VI and Militia Training Ground IV (so more infantry), while "Improved Keeps VII" unlock last level of holding's fortifications. More important is Culture category - we unlock "Full Status of Women" law with "Tolerance VI". While we still are on only Significant level (allows Spymasters, Chancellors and Stewards), we do want to progress further. It was somewhat neglected but having an ability to utilize female characters as Commanders and well rulers could make my life easier. Better chances for that Genius/Quick ruler to take over. Then we are also putting culture technology points into "Legalism VII". It doesn't unlocks anything but as I mentioned in previous part - we need to re-enact Ducal level Viceroys. Not only will it help technology generation tremendously but also make pivot in the future easier. Rest of points are saved and (if my math is correct) in around 8-10 years we will be able to get that final level in Legalism technology. Which is just in time for another law reform . Love when the timings comes together. That put's our new capital in Perm at 38/43/38 technology levels (military/economic/cultural) out of 48 levels max possible in every category. For reference some other counties worldwide:
- Constantinople 33/33/33,
- Amalfi 22/31/27,
- Baghdad 23/26/25,
- Lahur (India) 23/25/26.
- Dunhuang 22/25/22,
- Toledo 20/24/23,
- Cairo 20/23/21,
- Roma 19/22/19,
- Wurzburg (HRE) 20/20/20,
- Dubhlinn 21/19/16,
- Paris 17/19/18,
- Timbuktu 17/16/17,
- Bergeenhus (Norway) 16/14/13,
- Baygal (Mongolia) 11/9/10,
So as you can see it is pretty varied overall.

Reform schedule busy as always. We move towards emancipation to make better use of our daughters in the future. ​

As I unpause we also pass improved status of women. As new courtiers arrive I do spend some time on marrying them off and assigning them their court offices. Another mayor dies (due to our doing) and different mayor dies (due to sickness sickness). Somehow our handpicked candidate doesn't takes over. We will have to see to it later. My two guesses is either our man lost on succession score or his wife claim is blocking him. Empress Nikarete Kamonas finally succumbs to Great Pox by the age of 56. Well that's makes divorcing her so much easier. She was second wife of Emperor Raida. Luckily clergy in CK2 doesn't make remarrying an issue. Due to rocking still absolutely amazing attributes on our character (22 diplomacy, 20 Martial, 36 (!) Stewardship, 13 Intrigue and 32 (!) Learning) we don't get over any limits (demense/vassals).

On 16th of February new city (Fedorki) in Tynea is completed. We assign there a 42 years old Orthodox Ashkenazi (18 Stewardship) with 20 years old Wife (16 stewardship) which should result in 44 State Stewardship after game recalculates (meaning multiplicative +88% tax income bonus). Soon another marriage is assembled (and we get free half of our yearly income). More importantly it allows us to secretly convert to Catholicism and we will need it in few years time when Crusade fires. We also swap equipped books - for now "How to Build a Well" (-20% construction speed) and "The Komi Language IV" (+1 Diplomacy, +0.5 monthly prestige and +5 General Opinion) make room for "Tang Compedium of Medicine" (+0.5 Health, +15% Fertility) and "Magnum Opus on Universal Panacea (+2 Learning and +1 health).

Well that's solved itself. With new wife we get access to quick conversion into Catholicism for incoming Crusade. Lucraitve marriage overall!​

More good news follow. By the end of February Rayda's son&heir Prince Zarny comes out of age. While he ends on only 2nd level of Stewardship Education, rest of his traits are great and his overall attributes are workable. We make him our Designated Regent and enjoy not longer suffering -20 opinion penalty from vassals for having heir being tutored by foreigner. Even more of discontent will vanish by end of year as my "Dishonorable" (-40) penalty also times out. Not to mention "-16" penalty from vassal levies being raised for too long slowly ticking away.

Our next character to play turned acceptable. Not great but acceptable. Business/Rulership focuses are a must. ​

Time flies to May and we miss 2 chances at assassinating one of targetted Mayors with 618% plot power. Check on kids learning at court (there is quite a lot of them - 36 to be exact) and everything is properly assigned. We mostly have Scottish and Italian kids. They are at first assimilated then according to their talents either focused on stewardship or martial education. Our rebelious situation in Siberia also gets under control. Out of 5 counties we had problem with - only 2 remain. So with moving our marshal around we lower that number to just single county with 8% monthly revolt risk. Sadly our religion is still having issues (43% MA). As lately I was reading older chapters of this AAR I think that main culprit beside Bohemian heretics (83.000 troops) were also those huge Sunni Rebels (126.000 event troops), that I glimpsed on in one of previous screenshots. They seemed to have go absolutely crazy on surrounding Orthodox realms. Which as you remember were my failed "Greek Syria" project xD. Little did I know how it will haunt me.

Before end of August I refresh my Seer modifier with 2 revocations of single city vassals. Why cities revoked? Well I had a choice. Could try to push right now and take vassals from my Vladimirian king-vassal to adjust internal borders. But in few years we will want to go on Crusade and having crushed our relations with him could prove fatal. On other hand with all +health modifier we currently have I probably can survive another decade (especially as once again we will be able to de-age Emperor Rayda by 2 years). Retaking cities is also more pernament and usually doesn't require any further adjustments. This time I was attentive and made sure to not pass 2 cities within de same de jure duchy/county to single of our direct vassals. We still have 1 more slot on recently built city in Tynea.

Bad luck with assassinations occurs 4 times in a row. When we finally succeed our man doesn't takes over. Figured out even why. Cause he has -69 prestige (and whooping +1.32 yearly income). Another burgher bites the dust on his own and we are up to 5 targets once again. On the flip side we can (and do) excommunicate former tutor of Prince Zarny to banish him and take his 1.300 gold coins. That's something out of bonus that puts us over 51.100 gold mark.

In the background I deal with some Nomads (really small groups of 50 spread out in western part of empire) and upon wanting to imprison one of newest vassal additions in Pereyeslavl we get a rebelion. Which is a-ok with me as this gives me chance to replace those Alan vassals with regular Komi rulers (which should make future sibling empire much more stable potentially in long run). Sadly some time ago it was discovered that my Permyakid kin - king of Vladimir managed to marry himself into oblivion so in next generation Permyakid dynasty will lose crown of western lands. Not sure If I even bother fixing it now - later we still should be able to marry ourself in with our high prestige to take over. There are also still some branch families there.

Sadly by the end of year another bad randomness happens- we finish writing book and behold:

3rd copy of Quality 4 Stewardship book x] So now we have edition penned by emperor Meltsayka, Turush and Rayda. Literally suffering from success... ​

I won't get that "On Komi Architecture" in this AAR, am I? Our Marshal is moved to Osha and at least since November we don't suffer any risk of revolt that I can spot on. We at least got rid of that (-40) opinion for being dishonorable. We also excommunciated and banished (held by us) Malyyid male courtier, making list of their dynasty members even smaller (3 remaining).

Year 1256
======================

New year greets us with another mayor getting messed up. We are up to 7 >.>. Also noticed that some of my candidates have unholy amount of negative prestige... Which means that it will take even longer to fix it. To be completely truth 2 of those targets don't suffer from over the demense limit but they are really lousy stewards that are completely carried by their wives high stewardship.

At least western europe will have some "fun". Given all the turmoil in Hispania I think Aztec influence will actually be beneficial >D. Much worse for Eire. ​

Seems like Aztecs are on the horizon. This time regular and not some devil spawn European, that went there to unite them and return back with army. Spain is completely not ready - out of 29.000 troops they currently have 3.000 (and are fighting against landless Italian host on top of 39.000 strong Catharic Berber uprising). But they will most likely be an poisoned apple for invaders - they have so many different cultures and religions that no matter to which religion Aztecs convert they will suffer rebelions.

Sadly in March Smallpox breaks out in Tengiz county (south-western Cumania). Testing for the first time our newly provided hospitals. It spreads weirdly to finally affect only 3 counties that we care for and maybe 4 more to the south. Then we focus on those of bourgeoisie, whom we can fix. Soon one city administration issue is resolved. Then we move onto another but are blocked by lack of proper high stewardship characters. Our religion conversion ability has long way to go before it improves (as we somehow go up to 46%). Now that I think about it - Jewish realm would have fantastic time utilizing this strategy cause religion matches!

Abslute cinema! Made me chuckle. Also don't remember seeing this previously. It happens where we are secrety Catholic. ​

To my suprise we get a visit from Ecumenical Patriarch Nikephoros 'the Just'. That is still in seclusion but decided to sent his men to our heretic county of Osha (that we are currently supressing). Funny enough he is suffering from minor food shortage and is hunter owning proper dog and... Cannibal. Somehow I feel concerned for my subjects xD. It grant's province modifier - Theological dialogue (-50% Local Revolt Risk) allowing us to move our Marshal back home. Our religion Moral Authority keeps improving first to 53% and few months later (August) to 61%. That changes character conversion chances from 50% to 67% per year.

We keep trying assasination (bad year for them - certainly something with the weather as we have another series of failures). Our Patriarch dies and I remarry his quick 18 years old wife to our own heir (let him start getting some smart descendants - we can do without getting another half of yearly income by waiting). We improve city situation to just 1 'over the demense limit' mayor and 4 lackluster barely managing their 3 cities. Then our Orthodoxy MA goes down to 56% and I realise that I forgot to move my Patriarch when I was moving capital (bravo me x]).

Takes up to November to fully beat down Alan vassal in Pereyeslavl. We take duchy (which we destroy) and give county back to our Vladimirian vassal. Now we still have her 2 Alan count vassals but we need some time before being able to pounce on them ,so for now we just excommunicate them.

Year 1257
======================

Given relative peace I decide to send Emperor Rayda onto pilgrimage. We decide to go to Jerusalem. Prince Zarny takes over as regent (but it does put us at 11/8 demense limit - somewhat concerning). Whole pilgrimmage last long enough for game to reward us with (-60%) income penalty before return of our rightful Ruler. We do little more tinkering and get one bad mayor fixed.

It is good timing for such adventure before next Catholic Crusade. Quite eventful too. ​

It isn't exactly boring as we risk 10% for getting Pneumonia (but in the end we push through even without even 30% Flu), then we decide to keep Charitable, opt out of getting Paranoid and get rewarded with Zealous. Well this makes for our 9th trait but it does makes seclusion twice as likely to happen, which in turn could allow us to drop lustful. Soon everything concludes with Pilgrim trait (+5 opinion from same faith yay!). Took us from January up to April. At once I decide to come in the open as fellow Catholic, which offers me option for coronation. Interesting - I completely forgot about it.

Crusade can start in 4 months (or not depending on how weird current Pope is). Looking at him (Silvester VI), he is total unit - with 18 Diplomacy, 27 Learning, Theology focus and over 1.300 piety at age of 56 he boosts Catholic MA all alone by +34%. They only fully hold 1 holy site and 2 partially. Makes me only irritatied that Orthodoxy with 4 fully held holy sites dropped down below 60% MA >.>. Catholic was remaining at 100% MA for quite a long time even though there were some issues with heretics taking over HRE and France. France did sort itself out though. So we have French, Egyptians and Irish on our side with some elements of Holy Roman Empire probably joining but not their Lolard emperor (funny enough some time ago both France and HRE switched to Lolardy despite poor MA). So that's overview of #TeamPope forces for upcoming Crusade. I think we can expect quite a treasury to be collected. The only question remains - who is going to become Catholic's victim?

Rare instance of me actually showing you Western Europe. It kind of united in few blocks but still suffers some religious turmoil. ​

Then we start organizing coronation but I didn't think it through. We ask what Pope wants and he ask us to declare war on some county in Italy. Initially I think this will put us at collision course with Holy Roman Empire (was assuming he wants Rome back from Lollard Emperor), which while weaker than us, still would prove to be an arduous task. Upon checking I notice that now as we are Catholic - Byzantine Emperor no longer is interested in alliance with us. Was thinking of sending those 80.000 Greek troops against Germans but that's out of the window. Still this options isn't without merits - we could resupply ourself on route to Spain or western Africa. Ugly but still workable solution. But then I inspect more. Turns out the holding in question isn't in HRE but in ERE. Which is worse! But wait! She is independent. So it is no brainer - we can send 3.000 strong retinue force under Emperor Rayda (for that +40% movement speed) and be done with it. Probably not before Crusade starts organizing but still. So I accept and the war ends instantly, wasting our Coronation attempt. Should have moved our investiture towards "Free" to make Pope ask us to give it back to him (although virtually no Bishop would pay him anyway as our Orthodox Clergy continues paying us - their nominal liege even after changing to different branch of Christianity). Ahhh! We totally could do this cause investiture has seperate timer.

In May (just in case) I check and yes - my theory about swapping religion to secede western lands was spot on. We could do this via this method . Won't be doing it right now but it's good to confirm. Our Patriarch also converts another Jew into Orthodox religion. Game also takes Zealous trait, which isn't bad. Less opinion penalty means slightly more levies from our Orthodox Empire to help Catholics.

With start of August nomads arrive in eastern Cumania - you know the drill and so do I. Observed that one of our young Commanders - Magnus not only increased his Martial by +3 (from 15 to 18) but also became "Flat Terrain Expert" giving him +38% troop effectivness in farmlands, plains and steppe. That's is really nice and with that all of our commanders from same generation now at least have 1 commander trait. Still want some upgrade on Salvatore to get up to 16 martial and maybe get some more useful trait than bonus in Forests and Hills. Just as I want to unpause game another band of reavers appears. And boy are they memorable - French Viking berserker leads 900 men to loot Tynea. Not on my watch!

It reminds me that Merowingian bloodline has bonuses to Old Germanic religion (attracts Great Warriors) ​

We catch them and resolve them but it still takes away 12.5% of Tynea province wealth. As month ends it turns out that another Coronation can happen before another 'Call to Crusade'. Great - the sooner we get it the more troops we can take onto Crusade. In advance Free invetiture is enacted. Out of curiosity I check and nope - can't appoint successors to Orthodox Bishops. Would be truly crazy if I could.. We do away with younger Malyyid captive and according to our wishes now it is Emperor Rayda, who is next in line to inherit (at least county of Ryn but I hope that also artifacts). Have to ponder for a moment whether I want to hasten it. There are still 3 claimants to County of Ryn but all of them are from different dynasty. Two od them are 62 and 51 years old, while our current Countess is just 34 years old. So it would work naturally (most likely). Can invite them and accelerate their demise though to make sure. There is possibility that once they are inside our realm they might become heir to the title (cause it can't pass outside our realm). Still that leaves last 12 years old daughter of Khazarian band captain. Well let's clean them fully I guess. Better safe than sorry.

Coronation seems bugged as we keep getting asked to fight for that Bishopric in San Severino and upon accepting war automatically ends inconclusively ('Casus Beli no longer valid"). So there is nothing I can do about it, if it wasn't just bad luck of game assigning the same one of potential tasks to Rayda two times in a row. Can't get money out of Pope either cause he is too poor. It's probably one of things scaling up with income of the one asking, In our case the only possible deal is 5951 gold coins for 602 piety, while Pope has only 4.000. Hmm He has yearly income of over 200 gold coins. So we could feed him gifts 6 times and then get all of his gold back. That would leave him without gold for crusade, meaning he would not employ mercenaries or donate it to the coffer. So we would secure his funds for ourself but make him more vulnerable to getting siege out in Rome. Well I think that this is the move cause what else am I getting out of this? Claim on Kingdom of France (held by teenage Queen) would be cool, if not for this AAR self-rules. Kid you not but we could make one big colony out of France by giving 2 French cities to every mayor in Permo-Siberia =D. But without it it's too costly with no reward. So will settle for Papacy riches instead. No sense in waiting for extra 200 gold (that is pocket change for us right now).

Ok didn't expect that xD That puts a little dent on our yields from recent change of faith. ​

Ain't how it goes. After donating enough gold we are met with negative answer to our request. Even, if we got Papal Investiture and been crowned it still would be sound "No". So we just donated 1.900 gold coins to the Vatican >.> Hmm there might be opportunity in few years to try get those money back through transfer of gold to our heir but right now our scheme backfired. Our elderly Master engineer builds fireworks guild in Tura (+10% levy size, +25% Garrison size and +1 Military technology points of income).

Battle in Western Sayan (Mountain terrain) is terribly slow even though we have 2.5 times as many men. Two narrow flanks prolong this and eat close to 200 of our men but we win by the end. Before last day of year our Patriarch converts our 74 year old Catholic Empress to Orthodoxy. Well that much for easy religion swapping after we convert back.

Year 1258
======================

So the timer for Crusade is online. Anyyy moment now. Anyyy moment now...

Yay! Seems HRE managed to get the attention of Pope. ​

With great stress I click to not pledge my men yet. Why? Cause in 2 weeks we can ask for another Coronation, so maybe Pope picks something else than war on that one bug producing bishop in Italy. It were ages since I played and not much playthroughs since Holy Fury so I'm not certain, whether we are not declining Crusade all together. If it works we are ahead. If it doesn't plan is cooked. What's more Pope donated around 2.000 gold from his coffers at once to Crusade. At least that's what I think happened cause he no longer has all the gold we gave him and Crusade chest started with 3.000 gold coins.

Weeks pass and I watch as gold accumulates. Finally we send our request (3rd attempt) to Pope. Then we wait some more. As answer arrives to us (March) Crusaders raised almost 15.000 gold coins. Not bad - this is almost 3 years of our income! I'm flirting with idea of changing target to Mongolian Khaganate to make sure all of war contributions are ours. This would work twofold - we get money and we eliminate big source of raiding parties. On the negative side - we lose way of training our commanders. Still worth it I think cause we won't need commanders as much then.

Hahahaha! Thank God it doesn't scale with our income. So it turns out the request each time is random and is not being set forever. That's extra +20 Vassal opinion for 20 years that will save us from penalty for using our vassal levies ​

With those hush money paid we then continue with Coronation. Didn't had enough time (last 5 minutes on my GFN session) so I just picked most expensive option to make sure everything will be ok for highest level of Coronation trait. Probably not needed but 1.000 gold isn't much to cry about. Will have to study this event chain and how to max it. After that we just click to join the Crusade. Plan on observing how much more gold is accumulated. If it passes 30.000 gold mark I might swap target to Mongolia. Or I might not - I've not decided yet. Thinking longterm by clearing HRE of heretics now we are ensuring future Crusades will have even more gold and soldiers. By switching to someone on our border we ensure that almost all of money will go to us. More importantly it is time to start rising troops. Just few months after previous penalty from vassal levies vanished.

Our personal levies still haven't recovered from over the limit situation during pilgrimage year before. So we are down 15.000 troops but they do replenish around 50 men per holding each man (so around 500-600 men total). Given that we have still 530 days left it should be enough to get into position to pounce on Germans quickly. Even if we decide to change target we are safe - it will just require re-raising our troops to instantly reposition them.

Preparations continue and we get another trait related event - due to his excimenet about joining Crusade, like Permyakid Emperors of Old, Rayda becomes Zealous (again!). That's put us at 9 traits again. Gold amasses from 15.000 to 18.000 to reach 21.000 by end of March. We start getting string of really skilled lowborns joining us. The second one to come also gives us opportunity to increase our Learning attribute by 2 (putting us at 38!).

Finally our Coronation concludes and we get even more of +vassal opinion than expected.

As most of our demense troops passed through and winter is finally over we start reserving Holy Orders - we will gladly pay a little gold and piety (they should be free once Crusade starts) to get another 17.000 troops working for bigger war contributions . First we hire Teutonic Order + Knights Templar then after they move on we hire also Knights Hospitaller and Knights of Calavatra.

Sadly we develop sickness symptom on Rayda - Vomitting. Despite our huge bonuses to health (+1 health from Brawny, +2 health from artifacts and +1 health from Theology). Let's see how this turns out.

Will they hit British isles too? Will they unify Europe? Which religion will they convert too (Cathar, Christian, Orthodox, Bogomilist)? So many questions! ​

May brings us Aztec invasion from other side of Atlantic ocean and they land in Britanny. This not only will further weaken Holy Roman Empire but will probably make France busy. Turns out my Court Physician office was empty, as recently our Permo-Siberian Patriarch died. We pick one of previously generated Holy Men to take over and our new doctor informs us that Emperor "in his expertise" develops Cancer. Ouch! For now he suggest praying more.

By June huge 2.700 strong nomadic force arrives in Saur. So our still not fully replenished retinue moves on. Turns out that after last battle Magnus got his 2nd commander trait - Unyielding (he had Flatland Experts). Well that's a good combination so we are happy with whole development. We clean up another old claimant to county of Ryn to move onto last possible target. Turns out we were already discovered few times, as we have -20 penalty for being dishonorable.

July arrives and so do another invasion force of Aztecs (this time targeting Hispanic empire). They are now up to 182.000 troops. Now it is getting interesting. Our retinues deal with nomads in Saur (loosing 200 men but killing 1200) and our Nydog Sarin gets "Aggresive Leader" to pair with his Unyielding. That's good albeit little weird cause we have bonuses to Morale defence, pursuit and damage. Theologists from Ecumenical Patriarch also leave Osha, having converted it back to Orthodoxy. Which is really nice. Think we might even got +1% MA for that under "Succesful Inquisition".

Cancer materializes and we get decent treatment support that lowers penalty to health from -3 to -1 (not counting all of our bonuses). That will have to do for now as I'm little affraid to try experimental treatment due to having important task at hand so living just few more years is more important that living much longer. Especially as crusader warchest amassed over 50.000 gold coins. We still have 10 months left in September but our troops from across empire are still flooding in to our south-western borders. We have over 72.000 troops to contribute, which should be enough to park over 3.000 men on each county within targeted kingdom + still have huge stack for dealing with defending army.

Those will be some crazy final years in Emperor's Rayda reign. Heretics, Crusade, Aztecs, Coronation and Cancer. ​

Halfway through October our first two 5.000 strong armies are sent towards central Italy. Wait. Make that three armies. Then month again we sent another army and month after a huge 15.000 army from Vladimir starts it's march. With that our story ends for now as Crusader Chest reaches 72.000 gold and little more than 6 months remain before it officialy starts.

Monothelite Uprising of 1251 visualized. Heretics hordes traveling across northern kingdom of Siberia. ​

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

Here come the Aztecs!

 

[TWR97]

Here come the Aztecs, perfect time to go on a Crusade I'd say ! RIP to the Irish though, they had a good run. Also with the amount of treatise about fishing being written by your rulers, it must be a running gag among the Permyakids that they REALLY, REALLY love fishing.

 

[Sanvone]

@TWR97

Well maybe Irish will weather the storm as so far Aztecs landed on continental Europe. Not sure how trigger happy Aztecs are for attacking anyone and everyone across bodies of water after they landed.

You are absolutely right. We are on some streak about producing them. Probably time to start actively trying to lower the Quality of books we are writing about to get back into Q3 instead of Q4.

Beside that I was playing a little more AI generation as I wanted some graphics for those recent Monothelite uprising to evoke more of an impression as there is something really exotic about idea of thousand of people rising across Siberian north to create their own heretical kingdom in the frozen thundra and decide to move into Forests. Here are few better results:

I'll add one of those to previous part. Just wanted to share. I'm really glad to be able to create some visual context in this AAR because much of that region history is not-existent even in RL. Especially for this time period.

 

[Sanvone]

Part LX (1259-1267)​

Year 1259
======================

Back to the Crusade topic we go! But not before changing our focus from Theology to Hunting. Why? We desperately need as many +health bonuses as possible to offset recent case of cancer on our character. We didn't receive hunting dog on this character previously and thus by also training him (while diligent) we can get additional +2 health. Catholic warchest seems to peak at 72.500 gold coins. Still impressive how much did they managed to raise.

We do manage our troops in Kiev slowly, sending them one at the time towards sunny Italian lands. Acquired 3 more Jews (to have a small stockpile for when we will be busy with fighting). Orthodox MA recovered up to 85.6% so our chances increased dramatically (90,12% courtier yearly conversion chance). After some thought I move my Patriarch to convert Sibir county back back to Orthodoxy (I don't really want to have to deal with huge uprising when most of our forcess will be occupied in Italy).

With start of spring our first 3 armies reach Italian parts of Holy Roman Empire. Still around 25.000 troops are marching through Carpathian mountains. Lolards recovered up to 14.000 troops that their top liege can muster (one of his Catholic kings can call for 36.000 men alone so...). By 3rd week of April Prince Zarny becomes father of his first daughter - Mazava Permyakid and she didn't inherit any traits.

Month later we ask our heir to convert to Catholicism, given the opportunity. With that he will be able to get his coronation ASAP on top of being eligible for receiving Crusader trait soon. Complications do arrive sadly. As I mentioned the weakness of current HRE emperor provoked a vassal rebelion, which puts our original plan under big question mark. Just look at that:

Well that's makes this Crusade a much bigger race against time. ​

Rebels have 49.000 troops under Catholic leadership compared to loyalists 6.000. What's worse it moved their capital into Scandinavia. Most of Northern Italy also rebeled thus I think we are unable to siege as much. All in all - result of this Great Holy War will be much more difficult to predict, when it comes who will get most of the war coffer. There is not small possibility of that whole wealth vanishing, as Emperor Michelangelo has Pneumonia (but Good Treatment modifier is present) and is 64 years old with Catholic heir. Before May is through Pope changes target of Crusade from Italy to Austrasia, meaning we are somewhat out of place with only 45 days to adjust.

Finally Crusade starts at the same time some realisation dawns on me: probably should have switched target to Mongolia. Was tinkering in menu of changing target but was mostly preoccupied with idea of switching to other de jure kingdom. From what I've seen would force me to switch to someone else so I resigned from that idea (not certain if there isn't opinion penalty associated with each switch). Well here we go:

Instantly 16.000 coins mysteriously vanished from war coffers :O I'm calling faul! ​

Well we get initially all the warscore and within months drop down to 25%, as fellow Crusaders pour in. No big battles were fought but the same leader of HRE rebelion is also participating in Crusade so we trully are racing him. If he wins - he most likely will get most contributions. If heretic Lolard emperor dies, we also lose. On second thought - perhaps should do a gamer move and swap target to Mongolia or something.

By September we start taking back score, as we have several ongoing sieges going on. We also get opportunity to fight HRE rebels, which I will gladly make us of - the more of them we kill the slower their war progress will be. Especially troops operating within our Crusade target. This way soon we are fighting fellow Catholic Germans in Meinz:

Nothing that makes you feel as much as Crusader as killing fellow Christians in bid for power and riches! ​

Our initial battle opens well. One of our wings countered enemy tactics and soon we are rolling through their army. Overall not a toughest battle. Then we decide to start besieging local castle, as we have 28.000 to 2.000 advantage in men. But not before assigning almost everyone out of note to become commander, travel there and receive their own Crusader Trait. Not only it adds +2 martial to every vassal in empire (meaning +10% levy size) but also +15 opinion between them. With October we also finish construction of Stage II of Komi University and kill second to last claimant on county of Ryn. Soon Metz castle is our (although it costs us 2000 men). We quickly add local Bishopric via assault, putting Crusade is at +11% warscore. With 42% of score being contributed by us, which makes us eligible for 11.000 gold coins.

All is for naught thought as on 9th of November Lolard HRE emperor is murdered and replaced by Catholic, making whole Crusade invalid. This in turn makes whole war chest gold dissapear without us getting a single coin. Daaamn xD. We got scammed again - not only not benefiting but actually taking some costs.

Surface difference for plenty of wealth wasted. God dammit! ​

This leaves me with nothing else to do than to disband all vassal levies (we got up to (-5) opinion penalty so far), holy orders and start marching my own levies back home. In the meanwhile Aztec Invasion took over whole of Brittany and Kingdom of Badajoz (they still have 171.000 Mesoamerican warriors). Given how many different de jure kingdoms Iberian penninsula has, it might take them a while to eat. Suprised they haven't pounced on either British Isles or French that they are now adjecent to.

Got discouraged with Crusade result. Really wanted that gold to invest it in infrastructure. Well we learned at least something. Guess that we need to be more "gamey" to secure our profits. Hunting focus started whole "hunting for White Stag/Bear" event chain and gave us starting modifier. Also one of our Bishops in Bolgharia got replaced with Catholic. Interesting. So flipping from any other main branch of Christianity to Catholicism can happen organically on it's own. Didn't know that and thought it requires at least province religion to swap.

Year 1260
======================

With new playing session it's time to focus on what is achievable. We still have 2 goals for Rayda's reign - seceding our western lands and retrieving Permyakid books. First would be really nice when it comes to timing, as it would allow for opinion penalty to vanish upon succession. The only potential downside is that due to our borders moving back east we might lose diplomatic range on some courts in Western Europe (meaning less courtiers to steal). Well but it has to be done. For that we will have to do some religion switching, because while Rayda is Catholic we can't use our Excommunications powers over our Orthodox vassals. Still need for our troops to return to not suffer an rebelion without our troops back home ready to react. So for time being we chill and let our penalty from raised levies to vanish. On the second subject there is only 1 different non-Malyyid claimant (she is 13), so I'm waiting to get rid of her. That would ensure us inheriting everything through execution of currently held captive countess of Ryn. I'm not sure if her county will secede, as we are not nominal overlords of lands linking her holding to rest of our Empire (due to weird war result in which we got all holdings but no free holding slot that remained within Chernigov Khagante).

January starts passing by, when I realise one problem - due to being Zealous I can't convert back through religion present in capital (Rajas of India dlc exclusive decision). Well that might be a slight problem. We won't be able to easily convert to Orthodoxy for some excommunications to then convert back to Catholicism (again) in order to be able to secede vassal. We can still do without converting back. Just shows how rarely do I play while flipping religions heavily.

By March our assasination plot succeeds. Who was the sorry sod this time? The 2nd son of our Vladimirian vassal king. Why? Gavelkind is the answer and I would hate it for our effort to once again break apart. Did some marrying in court (mostly for more Italian courtiers) but also Rayda's 19 year old daughter Princess Virtyava was married after her recent "scandal" that resulted in her first child being out of wedlock. She is genius so we want to start that breeding program going. Given our ruler's advanced age I also precautiously marked most important characters to eliminate chance of game deleting them upon succession. Our first levy contingent also reaches home borders. Rest is either north of Carpathian mountains or strictly on them. Attrition for lack of supplies isn't terrible (around 1%). We also got another epic hunt going.

In May our 60 y.o. Master Engineer dies, which forces me to once again interact with China. They are still experiencing civil unrest so I abstained from putting much effort into them. Soon'ish we might find ourself without Scholar-Bureaucrat, which will really sting. So we delve into preparing gift to the liking of current Emperor of Middle-Kingdom - Salunghid Jingzu. He likes Tibeto-Burman yet hates Dravidian cultures. Well we try to find some but it turns out suprisingly hard (cause we get plenty of opinion penalty from Zealous and many high skilled characters are also loyal servant thus won't ever join our court). There are also very few characters in Tibet overall.

Perhaps should have sent some gifts earlier. Now we are again on that "Grace" grind. ​

Month later Mayor of Ust-Kolom dies and we fix him by assigning high (15) stewardship wife to his replacement for now. Orthodox Moral Authority recovered up to 97.3%. Which is impressive. More than I can say for state of my demense levies, which after retrieving yet another portion of them is at 24.5 out of 36 thousand men. We are still waiting on some province conversions though. It's time to start plotting the death of last claimant to Ryn chiefdom. We have some difficulty with getting over 100% plot power due to target remaining within some mercenary band's court.

On the start of September our work on Permyakid Sanctuary finally ends. Komi University ended some time ago so now every Great Work within our borders is at least at stage 2. Sadly few days later our Business-Event architect (Kudym-Osh) dies of depression at the age of 47. I don't think it is bad as we missed for some not certain reason timing on Great Tower leaning anyway. Wait. I might just had an epiphany ^^".... No nevermind. For moment thought that maybe I read 3650 months as days but upon double checking in game file it is 3650 days (10 years) after finishing construction. So my math wasn't off. We do make anti-depressant for our Master Engineer as we only got 50% of grace required for another (and nasty cooldown of 20 years before sending next Eunuch). We should send whoever we can before our character goes to afterlife. Found some commander and send him. Doesn't contribute as much as Eunuch but every bit helps in the long run. Probably should start some breeding program for gifting characters to Chinese.

Great Palace doesn't seem so different in comparison to University. We still have to time feature completion for "Town is Born" for University.​

Once all of our armies were collected I started our internal border adjustment mission. Our Vladimirian vassal-kin was having an unsuccessful war for last county in Kiev duchy against Khaganate of Bukhal to the south, which kept his forces depleted. So I embarked on extracting vassals from under him. Was hoping to make it before they concluded white peace to put extra pressure as the chances of him accepting were - "Maybe". But that didn't happen. There is something helping us though - our Permyakid kid is heavily into red (-945 gold). Making any war effort on his part that much tougher (-25% army morale). Yes out of 8.500 men he can call in, only around 12.5% are his. Hoping as his top liege for potential rebelion during which his vassals will suffer their liege penalty. We first extract bigger Duke of Ryazan (who holds 2 counties/vassals inside Kingdom of Perm). King Kya 'the Frog" accepts. He doesn't even complain much as I did it after my penalties for revoking titles without just cause just timed out (meaning +30 opinion with my vassals). It is -65 opinion though. Cause he was his de jure vassal. So we ask for last duke of Novosil. And then he revolts

Well that's one way to adjust internal border I guess. He did call-in few allies in Bolgharia that will mess our prosperity but well - tough luck. ​

We start amassing troops to Kudymkar and one of our southern contingents catches first enemy (low morale) army in county of Bolghar by November. We assign Magnus there, expecting his Unyielding (morale defence, defence) and Flat Terrain Expert to do nicely. After some consideration - we can absolutely ignore rebels from our de jure kingdom to preserve prosperity - we just need to besiege as much of rebel holdings in Nenetsia and Vladimir to get warscore to force capitulation.

Before end of year we get prosperity event related to stewards and for 440g we grant "Harvest Festivals" modifier (+15% Local Tax modifier) in Udmurts (that has 5 cities).

Year 1261
======================

Year starts with us having nice and even 65.000 gold coins. Some enemies in Bolgharia managed to press onto one of our smaller armies travelling towards muster point in Perm duchy. Tough luck. We also can and do drink from Fountain of Youth to de-age our Emperor from 63 to 61 years of age.
Start of the year as usual is extra cold (winter is severe). We lose some troops but push on with moving our levies onto Vladimirian heartland (located straight behind western borders of de jure kingdom of Perm). Unlucky for us our target has only 4 counties - each not adjecent to other: 1 in duchy of Vladimir, 2 in the south and the last one in Pskov (we gifted it to him relatively recently). So I move Permo-Siberian armies and we start besieging (warscore soars to -24%).

Back in the court we lose quickly 2 spymasters, one mayor and bishop. Our "Confident Seer' modifier also vanished (we can refresh it after war) but it doesn't hurt us at all. We move from trying to assasinate last claimant to our books (198% plot power) to sort out recent mayor as we had Orthodox Ashkenazi on our hands.

Takes up to Summer to organize sieges. We get even more traits and China sorts itself out after Jurchen invasion. ​

Few days into July China Stabilizes, our Court Tutor get's nickname: "the Old' and we get another positive modifier on top of becoming Honest (which is Rayda's 10th trait - maybe Zealous drops off?). All from saintly bloodlines. We proceed with series of Assasinations to make our converted administrator take over office of Mayor of Uva.

Got little to lax and out of sudden find myself having to face 5-6.000 rebels attacking 3.000 retinue force from Burtasy (currently busy with siegeing one of southern personal holdings of King Kya 'the Frog'). They will cross the river but that's it for our advantages. At present we are facing some dilemma - do I pick Italian commander Salvatore for his special 'Advance' tactic but useless "Rough Terrain expertise" (county in question is steppe) or just roll with Scottish Magnus who has 2 more impactful commander traits (Unyielding and Flat Terrain expert)? Thinking the second is more apt. Despite incoming setback our warscore climbs rapidly and one of our armies is almost reaching last county of rebelious king on the Estonian border. Soon to be put under siege to seal the deal.

We got ambushed. We try our best but it doesn't look too promising... ​

Start isn't so bad - they lose more than we do despite both wings flanking us. Seems like their left wing has experimentality leader, that backfired cause commander leading them has +40% Flanking and +60% Experimentality but damage is weirdly low (IMO). Sadly our men decide to charge (without proper bonuses) and despite demolishing enemy center, get countered by their right wing (with their astronimically high 2140 damage) thus we exchange 272 men for their 137 each they. If we did regular charge we could be demolishing opposing center much quicke,r but this "Charge of Opportunity" has no tactic affinities. Thus we lose this battle and over 1.000 of our retinues. Despite this we don't lose much of our warscore - it continues rapidly increasing and before end of year we have 86%.

Back in capital: our Catholic 78 years old French wife died. We also managed to invite last claimant to Ryn county to our Court (drastically increasing plot power to over 1000%) thus securing the kill in the foreseeable future. Byzantine Emperor is up to jokes and asks for that lowly daughter of Mercenary captain hand, which seems like awful game attempt at targetting human player ". We also manage to eliminate last potential obstacle to retrieving lost artifacts. Day before calendar flips, we start working on inheriting our family books by throwing Countess of Ryn into Oubliette and ordering our agents to murder her.

Year 1262
======================

Next January starts with us already getting assassination attempt underway. We do accumulated 68,200 gold coins and while right now our expendures are quite high it won't persist for long. Our 10.000+ relief force is moving to Bakhmut while other armies are siegeing despite winter. Noticed that our old vassal-kin died (he was mangled) and got succeeded by his son Ozhmeg. Well this is slightly less ideal. Still grievances for us taking away another vassal from under him should vanish with change on imperial throne.

But more importantly our plot goes through and soon we achieve one of stated goals - as expected both "Modest Measures" and "Permyakid cookbook" return to imperial treasury. The new vacated county goes to some high stewardship council member from some vassal court and finally I can sigh out in relief. It took some time but we fixed that past mistake:

Took some work, plenty of body bags but we finally took back what was ours. One less thing on "To-Do list" for remaining Rayda's reign.​

February begins with Permyakid emperor receiving hunting dog as gift (+1 Martial, +1 Health) and his oldesst daughter (Mel'shay Permyakid) dies of poor health at age of 44. She was married into Byzantine family but with recent Greek civil wars found herself no longer paired with that's empire top liege. Then to my suprise our Patriarch finally converts heretical province back to Orthodoxy (which reached 100% MA once again). More shocking is realisation that all other Monothelite provinces were already converted by my vassals. We weren't receiving informations about it, as we no longer were Orthodox. With that I can move him to sort out remaining lone Bogomilist county in north-western Perm.

The taint of heresy was fully uprooted from Sibir. ​

We also have battle against rebels. Unexpected, while crossing river into hills. Luckily we have 3:2 advantage in numbers and better commanders so we start winning despite all that. Soon enemies make the same mistake we commited previously (Charging into melee) and despite better terrain advantage they can't overcome us. Whole battle ends one-sidedly, concluding whole rebelion. Our problems don't end though:

I don't even know anymore what is happening. Why do vassals under just defeated vassal seceded?! ​

As you can see on attached picture, bunch of Orthodox vassals under king of Vladimir went independent. So instead of simple 2 clicks to resolve whole issue we now will have to think again. Can take back 2 titles for rebelion so I could acquire both Kingdom titles and select new overlord of seceded realm. Once again I'm mistaken as I can only take back 1 title... Decided to take Vladimir, which also proved bad cause now we can't take Nenetsia under which duke of Novosil is located. Still we have King Ozhmeg in prison so we ask him for that retraction. Upon further analysis of situation it turns out that we will need 3 extractions from Duke of Ryazan. Meaning we can't do this while remaining Catholic after all. It's time to find new wife and convert back to Orthodoxy! Little trivia - some pagan uprising conquered Ingria and thus right now we are eligible to call Teutons for Northern Crusade. Not sure if I want to invite them here. We have enough administrative headache as it is.

Seeking for Genius and old woman, some little inbreeding I haven't realized till now comes into my attention. Turns out there is person called Potyava 'the Unfaithful' Permyakid, that is Rayda's niece (from his brother Oshmar that was to be Duke of Ural but got demoted to just Count of Vishera). She was previously married to Emperor's other brother - Zhebeg Permyakid (who in turn was married to Rayda's previous rival - Chieftess Sanal'ka 'the Rash' of Illyinsk). Pretty sure I was not present in all steps of that process. That said as she (niece) is 41 years old I can rest assured - this union shouldn't result in any offspring. We even get some extra prestige from marrying into famous Permyakid dynasty. Who would have thought ?

After dissapointing Crusade the good of the realm requires going back to Orthodoxy. Diplomatic anexations follow.​

Even with that our heir remains Catholic (ready to go and secede whatever his father carves out of realm. Of course we retain all the Catholic goodies in shape of traits such as Crusader, Crowned by Pope and timed modifiers. The only remaining legacy is that 8 of our Crusader vassals decided to jump into Catholic boat. Well not exactly 8 as some of them were newly conquered Russians in the east (some of them are even pagan). Was checking and I'm under impression that this will resolve itself naturally as their heirs are still Orthodox. On other hand if I was asking them for conversion, even if they would remain secretly Catholic - what harm does it make? They mostly don't have Bishoprics under them for Pope to siphon away wealth from our realm. It might even make for convenient way of converting before next Crusade. Might use it but right now it's time to start excommunicating.

Soon 6 independent Komi realms accept re-vassalizations. This leaves 3 Orthodox Russian realms (2 bigger dukes and 1 single county realm). That will need military help. That's why settling your own culture+religion rulers is so important - in instances such as current we would be able to diplomatically vassalize them immedietely. But instead of that I have to devise new plan. Some time later...

Created 3 new kingdoms titles but none of them gave me option to vassalize. Permyakid Russian Duchess of Chernigov was thinking about accepting our vasssalization but ultimately denied. So instead of that we pressed 2 de jure claims on single county realms (turns out there were 2 one province realms - Orsha and Korosten), then invited claimants that should allow us to swallow both Grand Principality of Turov and Chernigov in one go. Because I will own most of those kingdoms I should (lets highlight this word x]) be capable of Excommunicating after war to deal with wrong culture vassals once and for all.

So we move onto taking over those 2 counties. Meanwhile some of our claimants arrive. Things are pretty chaotic as we just straight focus on their capitals, losing some vassal lands temporarily. Prince Zarny becomes father of 2nd daughter (this time Quick not Genius). We do conclude with whole "invention event that was going on in the background". More and more mayors needs to be fixed, with me simply not having the attention to spare (and well our Patriarch is still doing his 100% yearly conversion chance in north-western Perm). We lose Brave (dayum shame but well it was long time coming).

Remembered to lower the quality of outcome to get what we need (and it worked!). By accident I clicked through one step, in which Emperor Rayda got "Inventor's Insight" modifier for few years giving extra +1 Learning and 10% technology spread rate​

Year 1263
======================

Had to stop playing again and had some time to regroup. Well I think while playing I was desperately trying to deny that our another attempt on seceding western lands ended in vain. It just showed on how unsteady pillars that whole project was due to our vassal vassalizing other russian rulers. At this point there is no denying it further - seceding won't happen within Emperor's Rayda lifetime. Seems like future Emperor Zarny will have quite an administrative task to achieve. There is one more thing that I would like to try (creating Empire title as it might allow me to vassalize those rogue realms that have lands in few different de jure kingdoms). Still we need to give the boot to all wrong culture rulers to make sure our sister-empire won't implode quickly. If it doesn't happen then we will need to eat them 1 county at the time. Obviously ability to create empire title is solely based on us having 80% of de jure land, which with recent secession we don't have. So much for that idea... At this point I realise that we might not have more than 15 years to figure it out as 2-3 duchies will drift towards empire of Permo-Siberia lowering even further our % of ownership of Empire of Rus.

Worked my diplomatic mojo and turns out that after some bribery, our Permyakid Russian Duchess of Chernigov will accept vassalization after all. We obviously take it yet it doesn't bring us over 80% ownership treshold. We also finish 2 single county wars leaving just Grand Principality of Turov on the start of March. Problems do occur as one of neighbouring Byzantine vassals border disputes it for Turov county alone. We are racing against time. Luckily I was already procuring strong claimant so we will have someone to make us hostile to Byzantines and re-vassalize Turov duchy. It's important cause our rogue Russian Grand Prince has only 900 levies to his name when Greeks field over 3.000.

For time being we are going to keep eating income penalties as we went waaay over our vassal limit (66/57), resulting in income plummeting down to 2.500 coins each year. Before end of March we lose another noble mayor in Aznakayevo and find out that only single noble remains within court. What's worse he is 7 years old and has mild case of dysyntery (-3 health) :O...

Well for once heretics will prove useful. They should deter any Greek vassal trying to cross north of rebelion for some time. ​

With Spring we see further chaos on our new front (that I started once I found out option to just war to vassalize fully; not sure how I did not see it previously where I was looking through list several times through each and every option oO). Appereance of 15.000 rebel troops just south of Turov county shall prevent other side from rushing and capturing Turov before our forces arrive.

Some more mayors die (I don't even want to look how bad our setup is right now) but we also get first Genius Orthodox Italian kid in our court We will try slowly breeding them in bulk for both commanders, potential spouses and mayors. Our old Greek mercenary commander is also trying to secede but when he informs us about it, we swap him with different courtier without unpausing and thus crisis is resolved (and our 6.000+ gold in company safe). What's more as I moved there some weaker Italian courtier, he will start creating his own court of Italian commanders, which will make for additional source of skilled commanders (at least occasionally as most of them may become horribly disfigured way before becoming anyway near being experienced enough).

In June our old Paaulician county on the border with Finland gets converted to Orthodoxy. Our imprisoned vassal king suffers yet another rebelion for claimant on Nenetsia. We let him free to help repel it. We observe close to 8.000 Greek tackling 18.000 Iconoclast zealots in Lutsk and it seems they might lose (crossing river and they engaged only with 6.500 men first). Then we get this notification:

Well they do make use of their event troops! Their army is down to 144.000 and partially due to local diseases. ​

Noticed that Aztec Emperor isn't too diligent when it comes to making sure all his vassal are of his culture so we can expect his empire to implode due to all religious and cultural differences. He still has decent shot at reuniting Karling Empire. To my suprise his conquest in Spain will be slower due to number of wars needed there. At least in theory yet AI ruling Hispania is making sure I'm right - new Empress Renata is Zealous Paulician Andalusian and suffers 2-3 rebelions simultaneously. Her son is Italian and her husbands is Khazar Orthodox Khan. Let me remind you that huge chunk of Iberian penninsula was also at some point Cathar. So yea they might fracture as they are not given time to recover lost manpower.

Sadly Greeks barely win and what's more I didn't notice that those Byzantine vassals were already besieging Turov (as they are not marked as red and instead are small army). So they get 21% warscore to our -2%. Well let's try to salvage this anyway. Some nomads show up in North-Eastern Cumania so our troops from Silkroad start marching on.

We continue our sieges but somehow Greek vassal takes ownership over them at some point, which pretty much ensures that we will lose county of Turov to purple blob. Maybe because I added more troops? To hell with that. We play more into marrying our mayors off to stave off the worst of the bleeding. We get some hunting events + notice that one of our courtiers is Jovial as host and re-apply succesful treatment for Cancer.

Year 1264
======================

Another year and we start with over 70.000 gold coins. We diligently toil in siegeing back county of Turov but by the time we reach 25%, our Greek rivals have 64%. We do our best overcome them and with passage of months we start getting pretty close (68% vs 71%) but then our Turovians get attacked by bigger Greek army and Byzantine's vassal warscore shoots up to 96%. Which is pretty much game, set and match.

We do spent extra hermetic ingredient on summoning divine being in summer, but we get just the regular +1 attribute bonus out of it. No divine epiphany for us. As it is our last such item we need to send our character together with his apprentice to gather more. Soon we get restocked with 4 new herbs. Then we do lose Turov county to the Byzantine Empire.

Given that not much is happening to write about I will devote this segment to some project I was doing for this AAR in my spare time. As we are quite deep into this AAR, no reader is probably aware what is inside Permyakid family treasury. Thus I took time and noted down all owned artifacts with some info regarding them:

Spoiler: Permo-Siberian Empire vault

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Permo-Siberian Empire vault:

===================================================================================================
​

- Bones of St. Peter (Quality 5, -10% build cost/time, +0.1 monthly prestige, +0.5 monthly piety, +1 stewardship, +10 same religion opinion, created 13.04.1230, original owner: Saint Varaka 'the Apostle'),

- Dragon Amulet (Quality 4, -10% build cost, +0.75 monthly prestige, +1 stewardship, +5 vassal opinion, created: 13.10.908), [Equipped]
- Water Clock (Quality 4, +0.5 monthly prestige, +2 learning, created 21.06.1037),

- Holy Prepuce (Quality 3, +0.1 monthly prestige, +15% fertility, +0.5 health, created 23.01.1000, original owner: Saint Varaka 'the Apostle'),
- Tang Tapestry (Quality 3, +0.3 monthly prestige, -2 short reign years, created 1.01.1061),
- Skull of Saint Valentine of Rome (Quality 3, +0.08 monthly piety, +2 same religion opinion, created: 25.11.1036, original owner: Emperor Kezhay 'the Gentle'),
- Magnetic Compass (Quality 3, +0.5 monthly prestige, +2 stewardship, +2 learning, created: 25.06.1189, original owner: Emperor Turush 'the Mule'),

- Finger of St. John (Quality 2, +0.1 monthly prestige, +0.5 monthly piety, +1 learning),
- Qi Calligraphy (Quality 2, +0.35 monthly prestige, +2 city vassal opinion, created: 10.04.819),

- Magnificent Painting (Quality 1, +0.25 monthly prestige, created: 17.11.859),
- Head of Saint (Quality 1, +0.05 monthly prestige, +1 learning),
- Tang Sculpture (Quality 2, -5% build time, +0.35 monthly prestige, created: 21.07.798),
- Skull Trophy (Quality 1, +0.05 monthy prestige, created 24.04.893),
- Skull Trophy (Quality 1, +0.05 monthly prestige, created 11.01.864, original owner: Chieftess Oshkamoshka),
- Finger of Saint Christopher of Antioch (Quality 1, +0.03 monthly prestige, created 23.01.1000, original owner: Saint Varaka 'the Apostle'),
- Tongue of Saint (Quality 1, +0.05 monthly prestige, +1 diplomacy, created: unknown date, original owner: Saint Varaka 'the Apostle'),
- Saint's Fingerbone (Quality 1, +0.1 monthly prestige, +0.25 monthly piety, created: 28.07.995, original owner: Saint Varaka 'the Apostle'),
- Figurine of Li Zhenzong (Quality 1, +0.15 monthly prestige, created 6.05.1245),

- Strange Chest (Quality 0, created 2.08.1084, original owner: Saint Setyamka 'the Understanding'),​

==============================
Regalia:
==============================
​

- Ceremonial Robes (Quality 3, +0.5 monthly prestige, +1 diplomacy, created 17.01.1013), [Equipped]
- Amber Crown (Quality 2, +0.3 monthly prestige, +2 feudal/city/tribal vassal opinion, created: 20.05.795, original owner: King Omurtag 'the Affable'), [Equipped]
- Obsidian Axe (Quality 2, +0.3 monthly prestige, +2 feudal/city vassal opinion, +4 tribal vassal opinion, created 20.05.795, original owner: King Omurtag 'the Affable'), [Equipped]

- Noble Scepter (Quality 1, +0.05 monthly prestige, +1 feudal/city/tribal vassal opinion, created: 18.08.832), [Equipped]
- Crown of Lilies (Quality 1, +0.1 monthly prestige, +1 feudal/city/tribal vassal opinion, created 18.08.832),
- Engraved Dagger (Quality 1, +0.1 monthly prestige, +1 feudal/city vassal opinion, +2 tribal vassal opinion, created: 29.07.873),
- Engraved Sword (Quality 1, +0.05 monthly prestige, +1 feudal/city vassal opinion, +2 tribal vassal opinion, created 13.08.921),​

==============================
Library (only 4 books can be equipped)
==============================
​

- The Komi Language, Volume IV (Quality 4, +0.5 monthly prestige, +1 diplomacy, +5 general opinion, created:17.08.887, original owner: King Daniel 'the Bull'),
- A Treatise of Fishing with an Angle (Quality 4, +1 diplomacy, +1 stewardship, +5 general opinion, created: 18.03.1159, original owner: Emperor Meltsayka 'the Wise'),
- A Treatise of Fishing with an Angle (Quality 4, +1 diplomacy, +1 stewardship, +5 general opinion, created: 1.11.1222, original owner: Emperor Turush 'the Mule'),
- A Treatise of Fishing with an Angle (Quality 4, +1 diplomacy, +1 stewardship, +5 general opinion, created: 17.12.1255, original owner: Emperor Rayda 'the Great'),
- Magnum Opus on Transmutative Alchemy (Quality 4, +1 martial, +2 stewardship, +1 learning, created: 30.04.1248, original owner: Emperor Rayda 'the Great'),
- Magnum Opus on Universal Panacea (Quality 4, +2 learning, +1 health, created 7.07.1203, original owner: Emperor Turush "the Mule),

- How to Build A Well (Quality 3, -20% build time, created: 23.11.945, original owner: Emperor Kya 'the Just')
- The Permyakid Cookbook (Quality 3, +1 stewardship, +5 dynasty opinion, created: 19.12.986, original owner: Saint Varaka 'the Apostle'),
- Lessons Taught Me By My Enemy (Quality 3, +1 martial, +1 intrigue, +6 personal combat skill, created: 28.04.1036, original owner: Emperor Kezhay 'the Gentle'),
- On Feudal Warfare (Quality 3, +10% morale damage/defence, +1 martial, created: 4.03.1192, original owner: Emperor Turush 'the Mule'),
- Tang Compedium of Medicine (Quality 3, +15% fertility, +0.5 health, created: 22.04.1237),
- Tang Treatise on Law (Quality 3, +5 vassal opinion, created: 20.01.1243),

- Hymns to God (Quality 2, +10 temple vassal opinion, created: 08.07.785),
- Gastronomic Tonics (Quality 2, +5% plot power increase, created 25.04.833, original owner: King Sarin 'Knuckle-Slammer')
​

=============================
Armory:
=============================​

- Jian (Quality 4, +10% heavy foot troops, +12.5% light cavalry/light infantry, +1 monthly prestige, +2 martial, +12 personal combat skill, created 16.12.877),

- Zhuge Crossbow (Quality 3, +10% light foot troops, +0.25 monthly prestige, +2 martial, +15% plot power defence, +8 personal combat skill, created 24.02.1244), [Equipped]

- Splint Mail Armor (Quality 2, +5% morale damage, +0.5 monthly prestige, +1 martial, +7 personal combat skill, created 10.08.824, original owner: King Sarin 'Knuckle-Slammer'), [Equipped]
- Tang Arm Protector (Quality 2, +0.4 monthly prestige, +10 sex appeal, created: 27.02.1025), [Equipped]
- War-Ax of King Omurtag (Quality 2, +5% light foot troops, +10% heavy infantry, +0.5 monthly prestige, +1 martial, +7 personal combat skill, created: 31.08.811, original owner: King Omurtag 'the Affable')

- Chain Mail Armor (Quality 1, +0.25 monthly prestige, +1 martial, +5 personal combat skill, created: 16.01.938),
- Masterful Short-Sword (Quality 3, +15% leading the center, +0.75 monthly prestige, +15 personal combat skill, created: 30.01.902),
- Bolghar Spear (Quality 1, +5% Pikemen, +0.25 monthly prestige, +1 martial, +5 personal combat skill, created: 12.03.1017),
- Mail Horse Armor (Quality 1, +0.25 monthly prestige, +1 martial, +5 personal combat skill, created: 20.11.953, original owner: Glitterhoof),​

===================================================================================================​

By June Turov suffers yet another Iconoclast rebelion. Suprisingly by the end of the year rebels do manage to get 71% of warscore and weirdly their overlord armies are nowhere to be seen. Odd departure from previous almost instant intervention of Imperial forces. Other Byzantine vassal also tries to liberate single county outside our control in Kiev. Nothing we can do about it, as we are still on truce timer with Khaganate of Bukhal. That said as you remember they were pretty tough enemies so maybe they prevail over smaller feudal army. Greek child emperor finally became an adult. Marking the end of rare peaceful regency.

Aztecs also celebrate another successes in Western Europe. Seems like they started utilizing their troops much better. So far they carved for themself realm of 348 holdings in size. They also introduced some new bacteria to Spanish&French populations:

No provinces affected by disease from across ocean was noticed. Which probably will be a nail to Aztec coffin, as without depopulating Europe, locals will be able to resist soon and culture conversion thanks to depopulation will not happen. ​

Empire of Hispania remains fractured and thanks to it, waits Aztecs out. This is one way to survive I guess. As long as Iberian penninsula isn't fully taken, Aztec empire will have problems with seperated holdings. So far British Isles were lucky to be ignored, as Mesoamerican conquerors went all in deep into continental western Europe.

Overall I didn't do much this year as vassal revolts in former Nenetsia-Vladimir kept popping up against their previous overlord, so I couldn't get a solid grip on what we have to adjust or to make such changes more pernament.

Year 1265
======================

Finally get around to trying wrestle control of my realm back from all the chaos happening. Restructured my list of important characters. Right now we have 4 over the limit Mayors, +3 weak stewardship mayors and 4 over the demense limit bishops. All kids in court have assigned educations and best possible guardians. There is quite a lot of them (38 out of 70 characters in my court) so it took a while. We still have 3 Jews waiting for conversion (because even though game list 100% yearly conversion chance on heretic province we haven't got it yet) now in age range of 38-42 years old. We also have 6 Orthodox Italian couples (soon to be 7th) and 2 Orthodox Scottish couples. Started generating male genius/quick courtiers via "Invite the Holy Men" for any female courtiers as for 25 piety per try we have really good source of good breeding material (as they sometimes are Quick/Genius).

Going one triple mayor by one, we manage to fix one of them by April. Also started marriage game among them to secure future so most of the time in initial months was spent on this. Our Emperor had to find another Court Tutor as our previous Shyrpuz 'the Old' died at 65 years of age (after we concocted him quite a few potions of eudaimonia) and did tremendous service in educating future Permo-Siberian personel. In his place we got Uturku - 40 years old Alan lowborn who is Thrifty Clerk, Quick, Diligent, Lustful, Cynical, Gregarious and envious. Might he do as well.

Across spring I secure at least 3 different Mayor offices for next generation and also start working out the whole vassal mess. We start by asking revolters to peace out with king of Nenetsia (don't want to take away his kingdom from him and it should be easier to just give him back those titles later). After that I start feeding him some fully Komi vassals. Then by accident I give to our distant family member from duchy of Vladimir county of Osha (Sibir) instead of Orsha (Rus).

June marks 2 extraction wars in the southern Kingdom of Ruthenia. I'm trying to get rid of single county Russian counts there to lower our penalty from being over the vassal limit (right now we are at 63/56). Sadly by 20th day we lose our 3rd Empress (Niece Potyava died at 44 due to poor health). That will lower our vassal even lower unless we find some high diplomacy spouse fast. But some interesting news arrive too - some Slavic Russian vassal is overthrowing his Orthodox Russial overlord in Novgorod. If he succeeds and replaces local rulers with his pagan brethren we will get easy way of introducing Komi rulers in all 5 counties. Soon I find 43 y.o. Idunn 'the Youthful', who is our soon to be new Norse Orthodox Empress with really nice 28 Diplomacy to help us with. Can't marry her though as it turns out... So the search continues. We also get rid of Bogomilists in north-western kingdom of Perm. Finally.

As month changes we do lose our Scholar-Bureacrat. Meaning we are pretty much out of chinese officials at the moment and barely missing grace for next (930/1000), Komi empire will have to do without them for quite some time. Soon one of our Ashkenazis gets converted and we move him into one of older mayor's courts.

Meanwhile our 2 vassal armies are slowly siegeing out targeted counties. It goes really slowly though. We don't get top holdings till December. At the very least our income recovered to almost 4.000 gold coins. I continue tirelessly trying to fix whatever we can, but most of the thing remaining need time for next generation of courtiers in city courts to grow up. Our assassinations have bad streak of failures, which doesn't help even though 2 assasinations currently would allow us to sort 2 two multi-mayors.

To my suprise before end of year our new Empress (42 years old Orthodox Levantine, Genius with 19 Diplomacy - Zahra Rasulid) becomes pregnant. Well we are on Primogeniture but it can be a nice suprise. Fingers crossed.

Year 1266
======================

Another year (34th) of Emperor Rayda 'the Great' reign begins. We have only 73.400 gold as we kept spending on bribes etc. Takes whole month to finally remove one Mayor we were targetting but game also removed one of our traits:

Well didn't thought it is possible to beat Cancer due to pure +health modifier stacking. Turns out it is? We are on visible +4.5 health but we took -1 health early in the reign due to being Fat. ​

Wow. How often does this happen without mystical treatment? Treatment that would probably also reverse our traits into their opposites (if succesful), so it wasn't worth in first place to ruin great Emperor to just live longer. That health status change surely is great and might prolong current Emperor's reign quite a lot.

We also conclude extraction war of some Alan countess and move onto last such ruler of Alan culture. Almost done with other war too, so soon we will get 2 vassals less overall. We feed those counties to our Nenetsian vassal to strenghten him so his vassals don't get ideas.

We finally are getting on with removing characters and moving our men into city courts. We also get an interesting choice - Orthodox related event to icons - we might spend 1.000 gold for +1 Stewardship or... Lose some piety and Zealous by declining it. It's interesting choice. In the end decide to lose Zealous (as it was previously blocking converting to capital religion decision). Also extra attribute point so late into Rayda's life isn't worth it. I'm always thinking how cool it would be if with Holy Fury, PDX remade those events to grant artifacts with some small modifiers instead of attributes. Similar to African paganism Masks and Scepters.

Aztec empire is on the offensive again - they just attacked Templar's kingdom in Aquitainne then jumped on French Frisian holdings, that had some change in leadership. Also our long not seen Orthodox exclusive event ​

By June our heir gets converted to Orthodoxy by our now working on 100% Patriarch. Well while it isn't what we wanted it was bound to happen. We still probably will have to convert to Catholicism again in time for next Crusade as Prince Zarny. We move on with extractions and before end of summer we are looking at only 60/59 vassal limit. Then our long awaited child is born and it turns to be a clubfooted girl - Princess Elyuva Permyakid.

October marks outbreak of Slow Fever in Chuvash (Volga-Bulgaria). It quickly spreads towards southern parts of that kingdom. Some of our Councillors even seclude themself. Meanwhile we with 2 kills fix one of weaker Mayors as I spot on that we can matrilineary marry one of our lowborns to daughter of city owner. With all effort so far we still have 4 over the demense bishops but at least only 1 such Mayor and 2 other weak Baron level rulers.

In December we excommunicate some tribal Khazar ruler in southern Ruthenia and extract him too. Young Basileus asks us for hand of one of our daughters and decide to fulfill this request. Who knows, maybe we will need Greek help with Aztec invaders. At worst it will cement the peace after we secede half of our empire. It's not bad to think about it from that perspective - not having to fight over 100.000 strong Byzantine army means saving thousand of gold coins.

Year 1267
======================

This year starts with me dusting off some menu I haven't used in long time - schemes! We navigate through list of all possible plots, because beside our assassinations there is an option to revoke titles from vassals. Accompanied by some prerequisites but we can retrieve accidentally gifted county of Osha in Siberia this way. Even better - it's free when it comes to vassal opinion/tyranny!

Before March we can press this demand, resulting in another (small) civil war. Not exactly the best but it is at least some solution. Game also makes Emperor Rayda lose Honest trait, leaving us at 7/6 soft trait limit. That stings more as we need that extra diplomacy for vassal limit (61/58). We do also engage some tribal army of Alan ex-vassal we are extracting but we will win this as they don't have morale or quality to match us in melee (and their skirmish damage is negligible).

We carefuly adjust internal borders. Better fundaments make for more stable realm. ​

I command our vassal troops to help quell that act of unsubordination. We won't besiege Osha (as I don't want to ruin it's prosperity). One tricky thing about current ordeal is that I'm kind off expecting to die at any moment with 67 years old ruler. Yes we have like +4 health more from modifiers (soon to be +5; deducting that -1 we got in the past for being fat) and beaten Cancer. So it is very likely that we die soon due to "natural causes". We are not exactly in the best of spots as we have wrong culture vassals in the amount exactly matching number of vassal over the limit. Also Slow Fever broke out last year and spread more that I would like it to in western Perm and Volga-Bulgaria:

Well so far our Hospitals didn't help much it seems. To be frank - they aren't properly built yet but I was planning to invest into them right after Crusade =.=. ​

Month after Month, epidemy spreads straight towards our capital and on 2nd of June we get our first infant victim of slow fever in court. Soon 22 of our provinces in which we are invested longterm, suffer that terrible -40% income modifier :/. We at least conclude retrieving tribe in Kursk, then upgrade it and hand it to some distant genius Permyakid kin before transfering it under kingdom of Nenetsia. Soon we lose another Mayor (of Blagovescen) and our handpicked jew doesn't inherit due to negative prestige.

Slow fever slowly moves up and in August it claims 6 more counties (including whole duchy of Perm and even 2/3 of duchy of Ural). Decided to not seclude ourself, as it has nasty diplomacy penalty that could punish us tremendously if we die suddenly. Main problem will be encountered once our craven councillors decide to seclude themself (meaning RIP both assasinations and conversions of characters). We will have to wither it. Our sole extraction war reaches 14% and we have 5 sieges going on as well as over 6.000 strong vassala army hunting Vladimiarian main force (~2.200 men). We inducted new Scottish youngster (Brice) into our commander roster, to maybe develop him (as he has only 13 Martial and is Skilled Commander: meaning if he improves his education it will fix him).

The battle happens but isn't much to be talking about - we crush them in melee. Our new commander Brice of Tynea does level up his education skill, now putting him at comfortable 16 martial value. Talk about good luck. Sadly Emperor latest wife catched Slow Fever (only mild case and was already succesfully treated thus balancing on exactly +0 health). Funny enough it increased her diplomacy enough for us to get +1 vassal limit (as this ilness doesn't impact diplomacy but Court Physician's treatment does). Oh wait - our penalty for not being crowned soon enough (-3 diplomacy) also timed out. So it's probably both of those together.

Looking through children at court I notice some that are depressed, so we make them Eudaimonia potions. One good thing about such extensive breeding program in court is, that I no longer need to care about "Renowned Physician" trait, as in cases such as this our local doctor is getting plenty of experience. For some reason I also found 0 year old Aztec girl in my court, whose mother is dead and father serves in Germany. Which was just in process of being invaded by Aztec empire. Just as precaution I will leave her to remain Nahua culture. In case Chinese get Emperor that is fascinated by them, we might have source of valuable gifts in the future.

In Autumn we get asked whether we want to extend duration of trade route in Tynea. It would cost us 200g. From what I remember we didn't pursue this avenue of stacking province modifiers due to game obliterating them sometime after succession in non-capitals. Still for 200g getting that +30% city tax is nice for time being. It's such a pocket change in cost that we might as well. As expected it gets extended but only for 2 years. Which is mega weird and I previously pointed that out. Just want to pinpoint exact moment where does this modifier vanishes.

Last month is marked by one of our multi-mayors dieing and being replaced due to previous arrangement (city of Cukataw). We slowly proceed with sieges, reaching 52% before end of year. Beside that our Paganic Russian rebel sits at 100% positive warscore against his Orthodox Russian overlord. Once he enforces his demand we get an easy way to revoke some titles in the north. Might be important for next part to move our armies into Novgorod to Komi'nise that area.

//Edit 1: This was one of most challenging parts to play. Game threw quite a few obstacles our way. Had to re-evaluate what I'm doing more than usual due to how playthrough developed during this part.

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

All is for naught thought as on 9th of November Lolard HRE emperor is murdered and replaced by Catholic, making whole Crusade invalid. This in turn makes whole war chest gold dissapear without us getting a single coin. Daaamn xD. We got scammed again - not only not benefiting but actually taking some costs.

I wonder where the war chest goes if the Crusade is invalidated. Does the Pope keep the money? Does the money appear out of thin air when the Crusade succeeds? (i.e. it just doesn't exist)