Year 1143
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Time to come back after few weeks of break due to room renovation. So before even I start playing I spent hour getting back into swing of things and figuring out where we left off. Invited several courtiers of both sexes ahead of time (we will definetely need them), checked our baron vassals status and overall situation. Well it is a mess cause our genius emperor Meltsayka stats are somewhat not high enough to take over his less skilled brother. This is somewhat bizaire situation. That also forces me into difficult dilemma, but let's tackle those problems one at the time.
First of all as you might (or not) remember we are in race to capture back our holding in Syria. At the end of last part we managed to heroically beat down Cilician Greeks, thus getting ownership of siege of single county current owner of war target. With 2 of 4 holdings currently under our flags, this seem to be a sorted issue. We just need to finish it. Because of that I no longer need my levies so I disband them for now (without any loss as they were still traveling across owned lands).
On 6th of January our plot to kill one of bad Mayors ends in explosive success (but leaks our name) so we make another step in fixing mess regarding one of cities in our capital county. Sadly we didn't have replacement in place. After new "bad" burgher takes off, he messes with my plans by getting rid of only female character in his court :/... Meaning he ensured we will have to suffer his 3 stewardship for longer (3/1 demense limit). I marry off his brother that has 6 stewardship with young lustful 16 stewardship girl to start repopulating that court. My hope is that his better stats together with his wife contribution might push it towards 3/2 at the very least. Then I greet plethora of new arriving characters, demanding conversion whenever possible to lessen the workload of our Patriarch when it comes to converting characters (Jewish generated characters don't accept demand for conversion and they are good source of our clergy candidate).
By the beggining of February we receive surrender from Teleuch. We graciously accept it and sigh in relief that our plans to conquer Syria are still feasible.
It really was scary to see how it seemed like lost cause. But we recovered!
We are still in war though - against Cilician Greeks. We inheritied previous owner claim war as new defender. But we also already captured their ruler and have 100% warscore. The thing is I can ransom him for 145g and leisurely beat his 3 times smaller army. I see no reason why not as we have army there already. So as our retiues with Siege leader start moving to besiege first of enemy holdings I move onto much more complicated matter. What to do with Teleuch county. As it put me on 11/9 holding limit (and we are also 2 duchies over the limit thanks to AI creating duchies in Eastern part of realm) holding it is a no-no. Which basically forces me to decide how will we deal with Syria now. We don't exactly have vassal capacity either (33/34 after assigning yet another duke to Nenetsia). After recent succession we realised that we can't hold onto Syria holdings after change of characters, so we need to adapt some quick approach (well maybe not exactly as I wish to for emperor Meltsayka reign to be 30-40 year affair). If I fragment it into dozen of pagan 1 county realms, not only do we risk adjacent Persians to interfere before our Greek friends do, but also without converting those counties - some new muslim realms popping off with huge armies. That would sway balance of power in region against christianity heavily. Lastly I don't have capacity to hold them regardless. So it pushes me more towards creating big Orthodox Kingdom there and counting on Byzantines to help them. Well maybe not exactly big (as initially thought) cause most of de jure Jerusalem is already claimed by ERE, so that leaves Syria for us. For that I would like to Hellenise those lands. So let's look if there is a big enough supply of Greek characters. There are some but I'm happy with even older character, as they will generate their own courts. What did I miss? Can't pass down title that has ongoing war fought for.
We have to somehow make a stable Orthodox realm here that will survive without our help in the future
Our Greek foe calls for help of some bigger Greek vassal and now over 8.000 extra troops are in the picture. So might need those levies that just disbanded after all. We will call our 10,000 personal levies but not vassals. Emperor still suffers between -9 to -12 relation from levied raised for too long due to his genius idea of campaiging in Uyghur khaganate. Overall many consequences of poor AI decision still linger. For example on 3rd of April we get rid of one of negative province modifiers in Irtysh (well you do remember that during last part Meltsayka as king of Cumania went bankrupt ;D?). That's why I'm still trying to hold onto it to get rid of those as not many characters are at least decent in everything to fix it. Just look how bad it is:
That's still 10 more negative province modifiers to fix. There is 5 more in our previously held counties in the middle of Eastern part of Empire that AI gave out too >.>
Spring comes and our cousin who sits on chinese throne dies. We were expecting this moment and... Nothing changed. Empress Li Guangzong still continues Expansionist China policy and Golden age continues. So something good, something bad. While I'm happy with -30% construction modifiers, Expansionist makes us unable to cash out those 19.000 grace points and Western Protectorate continues to pose a threat to our economic development. Well at the very least it resets some cooldown - allowing me to ask for Master Engineer (who died thanks to game cleaning up courts during succession). Our new bureacrat quickly gets down to business, creating Administrative Outpost in Kudymkar (that has currently 3 different chinese province modifiers: Fireworks guild, Papermill and this Administrative outpost), which is pretty good rng. Also 10 positive province modifiers is good number to have
. Could be even more with trade route and some steward passive job modifiers but for now our Jewish treasurer is busy squezing taxes away from capital in which Permo-Siberian Patriarch converts characters. Before April ends, we succeed in removing unwanted Mayor of Omotninsk city and his brother (with help of his wife) exceeds my expectation as he is just within 3/3 demense limit. One down, 3 more to go!
Doesn't take long for our next target to croak. Thus on 8th of June another city lands in capable hands of handpicked character. This leaves just 1 more mayor (and bishop rival...) to deal with but he is 56 y.o., stressed and infirm (with replacement already in place). Meanwhile our forces in Anatolia once again beat down Cilicians, while our levies march to assemble in Burtasy. As we start besieging with our rapidly reinforcing retinue (120 men per tick) we are looking at 11% warscore. Game kind of lied to me cause ransoming back their ruler showed only 50% in tooltip but took whole 100% warscore. Well that will sting for now due to inability to give away extra county. At the very least we can watch as Byzantine Emperor (and heir to Permo-Siberian empire) marches against Farukid Persia in holy war for Kurdistan (and Western Protectorate did not helped them in this war!).
With some more free time on my hands right now, I spent 1002g on "Compose the Book decision". This was another big decision. We are still fishing for that "On Komi Architecture" book and if I counted correctly it is now 50% chance to roll desired Quality 3 book. Which is possible cause we are Genius character but lack high stewardship value, education and lifestyle. So with 20 years cooldown after writing the book we could aim to get 2 books within Meltsayka lifetime. But writing the book is really rng when it comes how long it takes. So starting second book in character's 50's is less feasible than you would think. What else to consider? The later we start the better (in theory) ruler will be. Decided to push with it now anyway due to topic rng (there are 5 options and game randomly presents you 4 of them; we had instances in this AAR of not getting stewardship topic that messed us up). This time we get the stewardship and I decide on it. My main argument for that - it isn't the most important anyway and can still elude us. We at least have Organiser trait from War focus that increases likelyhood of writing book we want. Then I switch my character focus to Learning and start building observatory then join the Hermetic society. I'm opting to utilize my personal "Prophet strategy" to whip this lackluster genius into shape. It will also help us cover huge lack in Learning (13 at the time). Learning event chain is also quite predictable and we will finish this within 5 years period. Improving our really bad odds of firing prosperity events comes above all.
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Emperor Melsayka start of reign MTTH for Prosperity Events
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Genius - 0.9x
13 Stewardship - 0.9x
New holding slot MTTH - 52,65 years
New Province modifier MTTH - 36,45 years
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This is awful. Only 2 positive modifiers while his brother still had 5 and was still among worst prosperity rulers we had since we graduated from 2 initial pre-generated by game characters x]. So I really want to work toward that 18 Stewardship and Learning at the least with adding Stewardship related lifestyle later. Once Learning Focus +3 attribute bonus kick's in it improves slightly again but there is still a long road before us. For now first Greek castle in Melitene county falls, we start writing down theorem paper (to start accumulating society currency) and our "Branicki bloodline holding" empress is pregnant again. Which is great, cause we only have 1 daughter at the old rip age of 22, which is no-ok. Also I would like to get rid of those "No heir of our dynasty!" and "Title Loss on Succession" alarms on screen by not simply waving them off.
As Autumn approaches, one of our vassals holding favour over us cashes it on us to acquire chancellor position, which doesn't bother me. Our Permo-Siberian Patriarch with perfect accuracy converts our single Jewish courtier (and then we order him to take vows, which he doesn't object to by getting stressed thus we get another 33 year old 18 stewardship temple administrator for future use). More worrying is 13.000 Georgians that answered Cilician call to war - we simply don't have troops to match them at the site. We are fortunate because as they want Teleuch, they march into 23.000 Zikri Persians that are currently on the offensive there, thus infidels that are hostile to all Greeks will help us without knowing. We happily watch from province nextdoor how our Greek opponents get slaughtered and Georgian host shrinks from 13.000 to just 4.000 in single battle
. Unexpected big brain plays.
As Meltsayka pregnant wife is somewhat cranky we get to buy her something nice. Sadly we are not getting any nice trait from it and it had both Kind and Charitable at 10-15% chance. Why do I bother? Cause it would help with diplomacy and alleviate our tight vassal limit. Our Steward collects +800g from taxes (only cause we are at -40% vassal income by being 2 counties over limit). During this time finally our Council accepts new rule. So we start somewhat stabilizing. Before end of year we manage to secure 3/4 of Melitene's holdings and submit our first theory paper to the Hermetics in our little club to review. Sadly eastern vassals still are at (-9) opinion penalty for levies raised too long.
Year 1144
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Our ruler's intellectual efforts starts receiving mixed reviews. Then it starts improving. We also finish constructing observatory (receiving "Study the stars" modifier, which pushes our Learning to 15) and receive our first task - to construct a laboratory. I would very much like that. While it will cost an arm and a leg, now during our administrative woes it will cost little less and it can pay for itself in the long run by offering us place for some invention event chains (once we reach pinnacle in that society). There are some neat artifacts and province modifiers improving wealth as well. So this is a longterm investment. We start by picking localisation outside of castle. While I don't known all ins and outs of that event chain I do remember that having it inside castle poses threat of blowing someone up. I much less care for angry peasants or rivals stealing our Esoteric Knowledge. Then we have to pick our tools and I'm proven wrong on my statement regardings costs. Thought those will scale according to our income but those are fixed prices. Paying 35g for most expensive setup is a joke at this point x].
I rarely get to use Laboratory for inventions but for once will probably use it during this character lifetime. Getting some nice economic province modifier or artifact would be really nice so we don't mind those "most expensive" options.
In February imperial heir is born! While he isn't genius, having any character to play after is better than having none. Junior is holder of 4 bloodlines (he can track down ancestry to all 3 Orthodox Saints and great Architect of Permo-Siberia). Which means next succesful step in getting those bloodlines into our family. Now let's see if we can make it even better
. We continue buying "Premium" options for our laboratory. Then we get rid of smuggler's ring in Turgay (9 negative modifiers to go!).
With coming of Spring we finish receiving reviews and our endevaour ends in success. Meaning some prestige, esoteric knowledge and +2 Learning modifier for 5 years. That puts Meltsayka at 17 Learning
. At the same time Esoteric Knowledge income rises to +9.5/monthly (+113/year). Not great but will improve in time. We are at 173 Esoteric points right now but we are still doing Laboratory that will give us more
. Needs 750 to level up to that 2nd rank that will open ability to Scry, which will be the crux of my approach to that society.
That went smoothly. That's another +Learning modifier for life . Hermetic society surely changes the dynamic towards Learning attribute compared to being still Tribal.
Between May and June we accumulate enough warscore that we can press for white piece. While winning might earn us +150 gold, it also costs our adversaries their claim. Weirdly we want them to keep it, so they can later quickly take over this county. So not only we do save on time, we also build towards the future. Finally we can assign our greek courtier there and get within 10/9 demense limit. We receive news from western Europe that Catholics once again prevailed. Don't get too excited - they fought for scraps.
Dynasty prolonged. You see it correctly - they are 2 Catholic Kingdoms of France: Regular and "Crusader France".
Our income updates (+400g more, putting us again +2.000/year). Meaning that with getting rid of last "over the limit" county we will soar to around +2.400 annual income. That's not bad. Especially as some part of our setup got destroyed, we still are having big opinion penalties and won't be able to quickly fix it due to our hands being tied dealing with seceding Nenetsia and Syrian conquest. Then our laboratory construction concludes giving us another +learning, which basically fixes Learning Attribute (19 at the moment). But we get also some esoteric knowledge (+200) so things are looking up. Still as "Observatory" event chain from focus offers us a choice I decide on Mystic route. I want Necronomicon (+5 Learning helps even more; and we won't be asked to get rid of it like in Monastic Society) but also final modifier "Weird Mystic" grants +1 stewardship on top of +1 Learning, which will help more that just lvl 2 modifer from other route (+2 learning). So once we finish our studies, we can easily leave this focus and still have more than enough learning for Prosperity.
Well that went quickly - in less than 2 years we improved our Learning tremendously. We had no positive MTTH modifiers but now we have maximum amount tied to Learning attribute. That means that Meltsayka now is as good as his brother Emperor was. So now only this remains when it comes to Learning. Let's look onto more materialistic tasks:
Time to once again start creating new architectural wonders of the world. We really want those extra holdings slots and to finish our capital duchy.
Given the timetable it is high time to start another 2 Wonders. It takes less of our gold that I thought it would so why not start not? We still need to upgrade them to level 2, construct some features and wait before "Town is born" event happens but it should happen before Mongols arrive. Soon after that we deal with another negative province modifer going away - this time in Irtysh. Well 8 more to go. Some 2 vassal mayors passed on but we had replacement already in places.
Rest of year is spent on purchasing one missing University, on top of bunch of prestige buildings. We also make another step in our study of stars, missing Diligent (30%) but replacing Trusting with Paronoid, which lowers our vassal limit by 1 but improves our intrigue further.
Year 1145
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We chill out for now. Muhallabids are in big civil war so they are too weak to target them with "Great Conquest" Casus Belli and well we would love to use some time to strenghtem and stabilize ourself too. There are quite few negative opinion modifiers that will time out in 2-3 years. So right now we are sitting at 12.238 gold coins, 2.211 prestige and 398 piety. So for now we slowly accumulate power.
Our first move is to fire our Tverian kin and Councillor. While that Chieftess was loyal, I think her being on our council prevents us from transfering her under Nenetsian Kingdom. There are still 3 vassals that we want to hand off (Tver, Vologda and 1/2 of duchies from Veliky-Ustug double duke). Then with giving Nenetsia independence we are looking at 4 vassals less in the future, which is exactly what we need to progress fully towards Imperial administration. So the objective is worth the effort.
Then we get an opportunity to summon Spirits with some other member from Hermetic society. Well that's because we have supernatural events on. Probably not many of you know but with those settings on, Hermetic society works as counter to Satanic society
. Later we will get an ability to make protective magic circle countering Satanic society powers. We of course try our luck, as good result can give us some +2/+3 attribute modifier. Still haven't apointed any Apprentice (if I had we could select better option) thus I didn't gather any ingredients. I pick some martially focused mayor because we want to pick Martial related method of gathering items (the higest stat our character). Just as I pick one and go onto hunt, we get issued mission to appoint Aprentice. I hope it will acknowledge that we did it second ago without any issue. Then we proceed with ritual. I fail to decipher it in game files so I pick the first option, which turns out a great choice.
Extra 1 stewardship for 5 years barely fxes our demense limit. Meaning no longer we suffer 20% vassal tax penalty. Also 10 less opinion penalty. It was kind of a gamble as we could also get -1 stewardship instead.
With succesful magic ritual, with minimal result we increase our annual income up to 2.688 gold per year x]. I wonder if by end of this part it will once again plummet for whatever reason. Soon after we receive our favourite message about world being dangerous place. Some plots are afoot. But I don't see anything that threatens Meltsayka life. We also improved our Intrigue to 12 and are Paranoid. Just in case I bribe my spymaster for safety and then Patriarch (to excommunicate one vassal that really hates us). TIme to cull some of plots going on in Permo-Siberia. There is currently 86 of them. Only 2 are targetting us (our titles to be more specific). It's not a bad setup - most of them have only plot owner backing them, making them basically non-issue as no one can succeed and they don't join each other. We ask our Spymaster to auto-end them for once, then my game closes itself. It doesn't crashes - it closes itself :O... Luckily we were just around the regular save on 4th July so almost no progress was lost (well except the click to auto-end plots).
Then in August another negative province modifier from bankrupcy sorts itself out ( 7 remaining). Then my worries come into fruition as game offers me Apprentice and thus after accepting for +300 Esoteric Knowledge now I have 2 offices of Apprentice while I should have only one. I wonder which one will be linked to my events (maybe both?).
Well that 300 Esoteric points aren't bad. Less happy about double Apprentices
Plots plummet down to 25. We can live with it for now. We also fire our own plot as another Burgher dies and is replaced with character rocking astonishing 1 stewardship. Obviously that will not do. There is no fixing that with spouse (that to my suprise is more viable method than I thought). We can expect over 273% plot power so it will fix itself "soonish". Also our income soars to really impressive +2.845g/year but we have to take into consideration that we are currently paying over 257g for Great Work Constructions. We excommunicate one of rebelious dukes, then succesfully arrest him (60%) and execute him. He is replaced under primogeniture with his son that hates us much less (-100 to -33 change). Then we move onto next hater in shape of heretic count of Mordva. Not sure how long has he been in the open but locals did not follow him. Nice departure from previous religious woes.
In October we get a visit from Silkroad - long time not seen. Almost 2.000 strong host is greeted with 6.000 border guards
. Rival events keep happening but I don't want to risk either life or lowering diplomacy of emperor even lower, given how streched our limits are. At least another consequence of bankruptcy in Irtysh is nullified (6 more to go). Our rumble with Nomads goes better that usually (we lose 92 man but kill 1.300 of them). Before end of year we extract heretical holdings (but not before he manages to spread his vile ideas to one of local mayors... that dies before we can demand his city and whole situation somewhat fixes itself). We assign new Orthodox Genius in his place and our demense limit once again achieves acceptable balance.
Year 1146
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Ths year is quite uneventful. Some administative adjusting happens but then iin June I find out who was trying to kill us - it was our dear older brother Prince-Bishop Kezhevat. Well he became Lunatic so is somewhat excused. We ask him to stop this madness at once. He submits to our request. Then another burgher gets messed up and before I wife-fix him I have an epiphany. While easy it is not as desired approach I think. Cause low stewardship lowers bonuses to taxation. So what we truly want is to only emergency use that as fix and should aim for both burgher and his wife to have high stewardshp to max bonuses. Especially as baron level vassals to speed up the game don't have councillors and instead just double their own statistic. So we arrange better administrator there and order another assasination.
Meanwhile our scientific adventures continue
Another +1 Learning puts us up to 20 Learning which is nice learning value to have. On top of that we just went to acquire another +5 artifact . 22 Learning without Scholarship focus is great!
Then in second half of year we get another mayor to fix in Perm county with our true and tested method. While this happens I also replace most of my court to make sure all of our candidates accumulate over 60 prestige to be ready at moment notice. More Nomads also arrive from Uyghur's border. You know the drill and so do Permian border boys. Our "Levies raised too long" diminished towards -6/-7 levels.
Finally we meet time requirement to rise in rank. This IMO is the most important level up to be had for quite a long time.
In last months of the year it is finally time to utilize my tricks. First we tyranny revoke bishopric in Irtysh from our rival-vassal. Thanks to having -100 relations with him he was paying us 0 taxes. We can't have such tax-evasion in my empire! Personal dislike is no ground for tax system. With that I have spare holding so I scry! Then I pick the "What will happen to me as emperor" option. It's important. With that and some holdings we can have full control over what happens next. This way it isn't random. We get bad omen so now we have to give away temple we just took. While I wanted good omen more, this still will do for now. So we appoint high stewardship character in Irtysh temple. Game sees that we lost of our holdings and it meets the requirement for scrying success. We get first level of Seer modifier with some extra diplomacy and learning. And thus the legend of Emperor Meltsayka "The Prophet" begins
. While usually it is somewhat burdersome (to refresh that every 5 years) in this AAR I play so slowly that this won't matter much.
While not much Seer modifier provides little bit of everything.
Year 1147
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Another year begins with us having 16.714 golds in treasury, 2.632 prestige and 283 piety to Meltsayka name. Piety tanked cause I sent 3-4 oldest courtiers to take vows and populate still existing Holdings with Monastic members. With concerning outcome as all of them went to most crowded temple in Perm... So it seems like we hit 4 times the same 33% in a row :/. We also have over 42.000 troops but Muhallabids are still fighting their civil war (thus only 15.000 troops). We need them to be at least 95% as strong as us. So it will take time. It is doable - they can reach 29.000 troops and I can disband my levies (11.000) outside our borders to halve them several times down. I also hope that after reuniting they will reach 34-35.000 troops, which would make this whole process far easier.
Now that I think about it, probably we could snatch something off from Persians. By that point it is kind of late for that. Well I hate long marches when there are domestic issues too.
In the far world, Byzantines are losing against Farukids that are in the middle of civil war. Guess who is claimant... It is Abbasid Prince that plotted his way into leading a faction. We might seen the same green blob again after what? 200 years? Well hell. That's a comeback. For us something happens on 16th of June - Emperor get's a nickname. From henceforth he will be known as - "the Wise". Not bad. Not bad at all. But truth to be told it is probably due to him being somewhat mediocre with traits thus avoiding most other nicknames that usually take priority.
We miss our second chance at diligent (which really stings because we had 51% chance to replace slothful with diligent alltogether between those 2 attempts) but our Empress is once again pregnant. Then we get news from one of friends in hermetic society regarding finding some ancient text. Well so our search for Alexandria begins...
Well that's one of those decisions that scale up with our wealth. On other hand Necronomicon is much easier pick. We don't want Lunatic. Even though it can be transformed into "Possesed" trait that has some uses. Just having artifact is enough
We also decide not to become lunatic by reading Necronomicon (we have plenty of opinion malus already and we want to change laws soonish). Then we get another daughter (nice for alliances and spreading 4 bloodline Permyakids around). With that I decide to bethroth oldest daughter to Prince&Heir of Eastern Roman Empire. It might come in handy for many reasons.
Another longterm shot. Let's hope it might help us. At the very least it stops Greeks from turning on us.
In November we finally succeeds in finding hermetic text but no critical success granting us artifact. Well at least some Esoteric Knowledge to move us up the hierarchy of that society. Soon we also get rid of another negative povince modifier (this time in Turgay) leaving only 5. Maybe within few years I will be ready to get rid of those holdings and associated with them 2 extra duchies to make even more room for extra vassals? Time will tell.
After playing I did check it and "Emerald Tablet" that can be acquired from this isn't so great. +2 Learning and +5% technology spread is now more in the "luxury" category that things that I definetely need. Might not hop on such costly adventure again - if we do not need society points.
Year 1148
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This year will mark some bigger project when it comes to cutting vassal down to size. Veliky-Ustug became 3 duchy entity and it won't solve itself out thanks to adapting Primogeniture (our vassals did before us, which suprised me as I was convinced they couldn't if we remain on Gavelkind). So we have to get rid of our chancellor to divide those lands under Nenetsia and other vassa;s. First we excommunicate him then arrest&release until he rebels. Thus we arrive at this point:
Trying to make progress with Nenetsia but this Bozo is an obstacle.
We get also several progression steps in "Observatory event chain" (getting another +1 to attributes), composing book (we don't have to risk our health as just asking our superior in stewardship council member will raise quality, which we desperately need) and our Chinese Engineer once again creates province modifier in capital (this time Blast Furnace that gives nice +50% levy reinforcment rate). Soon after whole "Observe the stars" event chains concludes with us yet acquiring another positive modifier for reminder of this character life.
Did not realise it at the time but right now Meltsayka is really invested in science. Quite a lot for slothful genius Well he keeps it hidden (with Necronomicon) sooo...
We spent most of the year chasing and besieging our rebelious vassal to finally catch him in October near Siberian wasteland in far north
Suprisingly they have some special units. I doubt they are Elephants of Camels so Horse Archers?
We win easily despite them securing narrow flank. They basically played themself as we were killing more of them even with their "Thermopylae enactment". What's more our vassal get's bloodied eye due to this battle. It provides us around 40% of warscore as other force takes his 2nd out of 3 personal holdings. This won't take long. At least I hope so!
Then "mop-up" starts as we have to take over quite a few holdings (the reason we embarked on this trip in the first place). It goes slower that I anticipated even with us B-lining straight towards enemy capital. In the last month of the year unexpectedly prosperity event fires. Extra province modifier - while not great we take those. So that's 2/7 possible prosperity modifiers in Udmurts. Always something! While not the strongest and the cost is way higher than it's worth we eliminate one of possible options for next instance of this event occuring. So let's treat it as buying step towards "Jewish Settlement"
We are more than halfway done with this playthrough but have less than expected average of prosperity events fired. We are not doing too bad on province modifiers side but holdings seem far worse. Need to pick up the slack and pray to RNGesus harder.
Year 1149
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As pre-ultimative year of this part begins I (after long consideration) decide to change our character focus. At this point we are done with Scholarship goodies. What to pick next was quite a decision. On one hand I really would like Theology to get rid of Slothful and replace it with diligence and also get Temperate. That's +4 Stewardship change. Yet we start getting into danger zone of finishing book on different focus. So Business wins out - not only it will also give +4 stewardship between focus itself and trader modifier (which also maxes our MTTH modifiers from that attribute for prosperity events) but also might give us related to book composing lifestyle trait. Some of possible grants are also not too bad and overall costs are hardcapped so they don't scale lineary indefinetely. Lastly it also improves opinion of city vassals, which might improve our taxes in some cases by some miniscule amount. For now it ups our administrative skills up to 17.
As winter months pass, we secure another county from our rebelious vassal (slowly ticking warscore towards 72%), our Patriarch converts some young Italian courtier that is not in our plans and we start receiving good reviews for our latest theorem paper. Soon our Modifier for that event chain gets refreshed to last for another 5 years.
In May another bad modifier in Irtysh county gets sorted out (leaving just 4). Doesn't take long after that for first business pulse event to fire. We get one of more interesting decisions to make:
Those modifiers currently are the best things we can get from this focus. Still imagine stacking it with all other possible modifiers when we were initially feudalising . Irtysh has only 1 city as it is a county we hold to feed it technology for spread so it doesn't matter much.
Let's see if this will reward us with 1st level of trader modifier. Would be neat for how quickly it happened but also putting emperor Meltsayka on exactly crucial 18th point of Stewardship. In a week time Hermetic acquintance propose that we raid laboratory of some Italian heretic (that has over 1.500 gold on him) and then mission to raid laboratory arrives as well. We decline both offers - some measly amount of Esoteric Knowledge doesn't seem worth risking imprisonment. While we are pre-ocupied with different affair our Veliky-Ustug rebels regrouped remnant of their army and try to recapture holdings in Siberia.
We continue slowly siegeing them out, which moves the war effort towards 86% warscore by September. Which marks also the 4th time our Empress becomes pregnant, yet our character gets little paranoid about it. We decide to wave off those doubts and order eastern retinues from Turgay to meet remnants of rebels in battle.
Month after we get hit with RNG bat. Our ruler falls down the stairs. So I decide to cry for help to not risk that 10% chance of death. Luckily we get spotted by our kinsmen vassal king of Nenetsia... who decides to not help us. Which gives us Drunkard trait (-2 stewardship...). God dammit game!
At least soon after that (November) we finish Veliky-Ustug extraction. First we strip Duke Oshmar of his title in Bjarnia (de jure Nenetsia Kingdom), then we perform scrying. It does not have cooldown so we can use this opportunity to level up "Seer" trait for free and somewhat prolong duration of that modifier. The omen is good so we just proceed with extracting 2nd title for betrayal. Thus duchy of Yugra that belonged to Permyakids is once again passed onto different local branch of our family. Can't execute Duke of Veliky-Ustug as he is our kin. At least we gave away his holdings in Nenetsia to Nenetsian king. For now traitor will rot in dungeon, unable to hinder us. And we are enjoying maximum level of Seer Trait, that again puts played character at 16 stewardship (if not for drunkard we would already be at 18 :<!)
I like scrying minigame . Not often I see it utilized. I must check bad outcomes for Realm category of prophecies. Maybe I can exploit it even more by keeping "Reasuring Vision" modifier for longer (giving extra +1 stewardship/learning) as those are seperate modifiers.
Year 1150
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Permo-Siberian warriors are on way back to their watchposts when game informs us about next opportunity to gather ingredients. No gonna lie - I think it bugged out somehow due to having double Apprentices as we did not use any of previous ingredients. But hey I clicked ok and picked hunting for alchemical mats even without checking which apprentice accompanies us. Luckily one of next pop-ups allows me to check - it is Deryab. The character that game specifically sugested us after failing to recognise already appointed character moments before we received mission. He is not great (5 martial) so let's not expect much. That reminds me - by finally belonging to Hermetic society there is unique Great Work feature that we could build - Gardens providing herbs. But that would involve upgrading Primal Taiga even further as we are on 4 out of 4 limit for features. So maybe later. We aren't exactly hurting for gold (over 18.600 and with +2.862 yearly we need to have at least 7.000g for prosperity extra holding slot). Which seems like perfect moment to invest in more Universities in Perm duchy.
11 such buildings are upgraded. Not every city in Perm gets it as some are finishing some other constructions and then are some counties in Bolgharia that simply still lack technology for it. Also skipped Irtysh that still has 50% malus from Smuggler's Rings modifier (and we have Carpenter's guild there to somewhat counteract it but I can wait a year or two for better deal)
Then somewhat unexptectedly we get 2nd son from our empress wife. Turush Permyakid is not definetely ours yet (someone might claim him) but he is Quick, which while not Genius is still an upgrade over nothing his older brother currently represents. But not such things occurs. So no we will have to arrange in the next 20 years for younger son to inherit. We also receive news of new Catholic holy order creation:
So now we have a heir and better spare. Kind of hate such situations as I want to somewhat spread those "4 bloodlines" Permyakids around. Also another Catholic holy order. I think we are only missing Livonian Brothers. Will be funny if Eastern Roman Empires manages to flip Catholicism to being Orthodox Heresy and thus gets all Christian Holy Orders on max Moral Authority xD
We can change laws yet we are uncomfortably sitting at 33/33 vassal limit. Then another tribal vassal adopts feudalism and puts us over. I already was shuffling some counts around to lower the amount but every time any rebelion splits vassal lands, it increases their number even if briefly. So I have to create another duchy. Not many options so we go with Duchy of Qazan next door to Perm itself. That lowers us to 31/33 and even allows us to put some Permyakid distant kin in power. So we start getting back sole power of deciding about Executions.
Only 2 more law changes to enact Imperial Bureaucracy! It makes us unpopular for time being, which means that we also can't revoke 2 bishoprics every 5 years.
As our oldest son (Prince Ylvan) turns 6 we decide on childhood focus for him. I feel frisky so decide to pick Thrift, which may make him shrewd. This way we might have more options to choose among children if something goes amiss. Also after some pondering decided to tick on "Hold the Feast" decision. I might want that "Just" trait from potential event that can happen.
Soon Empress Sernyava informs Meltsayka that he eats too much. Thanks to being Paranoid we can ignore it and probably not have to deal with either Obese or Thin. Oh and I almost forgot. Few months ago Peasant rebelion happened north-east of Perm itself. We send there guards of capital duchy (over 8.000 retinues) to deal with 7.000 rebels. Uppity locals get put down before end of November. Thus we can finally start preparing for feast.
Luckily feast costs are fixed (and 10g at this point is nothing). We make most of preparation before year ends. We also make a match between our youngest daughter 3 years old Kanyava and heir to Kingdom of Nenetsia - 2 years old Prince Zhuneg. King Mosheg II will accept matrilineal marriage as we are both from the same dynasty (even being Lunatic he is). That will have to conclude Permo-Siberian story for now. While this part ends, expect economic raport next
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We broke the curse of having lower annual income at the end of each part that it was before end. Now that's definetely healthy balance! And we are constructing 3 Great Works at the moment x]. I wonder how much more we can squeze from Permo-Siberian economy.
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