Year 1177
======================
We continue from previous tumultuous chapter. First of all we have to apply some medical treatment ASAP, cause previous gout treatment just expired. But before that I start with potion of Eudaimonia to get rid of Depressed. Sadly we get royally screwed because we only had 1 healthy ingredient (kidney) but game presented us only 2 other unhealthy options. Well can't back down now so time to proceed with treatment. Court Doctor does his work before outr mixture kicks in. We got succesful regular treatment, which is like the biggest part of our health penalty offset. Then to my suprise potion at least for now removes Depressed. So far so good?
Seems like even our bad for task ingredients delivered. Mmm - tasty Eyeball potion!
To be honest we have some positive health modifiers that I wasn't mentioning: +0.5 health from Tough Soldier (Martial education), +0.5 health frrom Holy Prepuce artifact (from Crusading in Italy) and +1 health frrom Theology Focus. Now bolstered by +2 Health from Good treatment to offset -2 health from Gout and -1 Health from Infirm. Emperor might yet live couple of years. So I succcesfully import 4 out of 5 bribed Ashkenazis into our court. Then our assasination of Ust-Kolom city Mayor fires twice. First revealing our involvement, then succesfully eliminating bad vassal. The same way one of our own characters was killed - chariot riding off the cliff. Permo-Siberian classic one could say. So we can continue but at the moment we don't have any city targets. There is 4 over the limit Bishop in Bolgharia. Some other are just 2/1 so with little random generation luck we can fix them. Going back to Syrian matters:
As we bought ourself a little more time, lets enlarge this future independent Greek realm by another Duchy worth of regions to the north.
After our retinues marched from Baalbek to the eastern border of Syria, our young and skilled vassal king Antonios went to work. He has over 13.000 troops so it is nice that he starts eating those one county Sunni rulers in the south. We will focus on North to speed things up. Enemy despite having only 5 martial, fields a respectable 5.000+ troops with just 1 castle (but also personally holding 2 temples). Seems Iqta goverments has it's perk if you don't have more castles. He rushes some regiments of our Greek vassal but I think he will be ok, as this will buy him extra time to gather his forces up. We will wait a moment for him to deal with initial enemies up, after which we will proceed with tackling northern counties 1 at the time with help of Syrian levies.
Ou - that's very nice. He rolled the one province we really want prosperity in out of 8. And he wasn't even specifically there.
After unexpected prosperity boon, we assign our Marshal there as well. As we are nearing finishing Udmurts we shall have another province ready to go. Might not be Tynea as it is still level 1, Perm doesn't matter but unexpectedly Pilva is at final prosperity level. We also receive compliance from our Serbian count in Teleuch that was Catholic and now is Orthodox. We quickly shove him underr our Syrian vassal.
With Spring we finally start unpacking Zikri north. Once again those counts have over 5.000 troops, but with Syrian levies we do have over 11.000. I allow them to raise levies instead of arriving before they can do it, so we will have easier time assaulting holdings after their standing army is beaten. This still leaves King Antonios with over 9.000 troops for his conquest. Our battle goes well, for the price of 250 men we kill slightly over 3.000 enemies. They still have around 1.000 troops behind castle walls, so we have 10:1 advantage. Have still to wait beforer we can commence going over the walls but this at least allows us to regain more of morale (which was awfully low for those levies).
We discover something is amiss :/
Scheme is brewing back in Empire. One of our vassals acquired quite some plot power for the task of killing our emperor. Joke is on him, as we spotted him and he is on our list for removal. He refuses ending his plot. We will use this opporrtunity to make him rebel (alone) and to extract county of Bolgharia for us (as we have plenty of extra space with 8/11 demense limit). There is little time to lose (it is still May) when this pops up:
Ou - seems our Muhallabid adversaries won't have spare time in foreseeable future to reconquer Syria.
Team #Pope finally decided where the Crusade landed. Not bad choice, given we just pushed Muhallabids out of Syria. If they lose Egypt it will pretty much cement Chistianity in the region. Sadly for our holy efforts, bunch of single county muslims in the region joined both our and our vassal holy wars as adversaries. We decide to increase the pace and do our test assault. It isn't so bad - we lose only 800 men to kill 1.000 behind level 5.5 fortifications.
After repeating this strategy, we conclude first holy war by end of June. I realize we run out of capable Martial Greeks so I invite more. Our Syrian Greeks do just fine, and overwhelm swarm of Muslim armies with their 11.000 strong army. We really are putting pressure on Muslim world - beside us and Crusaders, Armenians are also pushing into Jibal duchy (central Persia).
As our retinues from Perm arrived, we finally could confront our scheming vassal. We land first 80% arrest chance and then by accident instead of releasing him I revoke his county. Yet it doesn't invoke tyranny penalty. Uff! So this way we get into possession of first county in duchy of Bolgharia (that we hold and plan on holding). We also finally manage to kill one of not working Bishops and the game rolls character good enough to get rid of penalty.
By Autumn we have half of the holdings in Al Bichri under our flag, but we kind of lost the critical mass needed to roll over and are forced to besiege. So we send there our Chinese Master-Engineer who grants +30% Siege speed. Then it is time to embark on some administrative cleanup - I extract from 2 vassals to get to single county within Veliky-Ustug (de jure Perm) that has fallen under Nenetsia. Problem being, we have to revoke it with tyranny in the end because it is under double countess that holds land both in Perm and Nenetsia. Well our revocation timed out and we didn't get penalties for extracting vassals realm wide (thanks Imperial Administration <3). Recovation goes without issues and soon everything is back in order - our internal borders little cleaner.
Before end of year I fire scrying button (that during all that action was forgotten and lost) twice getting good then bad omen. It works perfectly as good omen was moment before we won first holy war in Mudar duchy, while bad omen was spent on appointing greek count (thus losing title) after. We proceed to win 2nd out of 3 holy wars for Mudar and embark on last with remnants of our retines and Syrian levies (down to just around 6.000 troops). King Antonios at least is about to capture last holding in targeted county so this will help to reduce number of potential enemies going forward. Then I check on our experiment with technology spread cap in Irgiz:
Forget checking technology cap - we haven't even reached 6th level of Castle Infrastructure. Seems like those modifiers are multiplicative instead of additive
Year 1178
======================
We enter next year with over 19.700 gold and +3.568 annual income. Not bad! Having nothing better to do at the moment, as our retinues are siegeing the last county in Mudar (with their levies besieging our Syrian vassal holdings, which we exploit) I look how team #Pope is doing. Crusade is at 0%. Not bad. Especially as Muhallabids are at 39% of decadence with yearly income of slightly over +6%. While our Muhallabid program is intensively scaling up we don't get the credit for any of it. We did marry 2 youngest male Muhallabids to 4 wifes each though.
By February Syrian Greeks finally take over county of Safed. Well we definetely got bruised a lot and took a lot of manpower damage. Despite that we finished our task, thus made Syria quite bigger in the process:
I think leaving rest of Mosul to Armenia might be great to shield Syria from upcoming Mongols in the future.
For now we must recuperate Syrian manpower. But it went really well - we didn't die and did the most vital enlargment of Syria. Now they have around 20.000 troops to field and it will be even more after becoming independent. Sadly as I was occupied in the far south, some nomads started raiding Kudymkar itself. They didn't manage to siege through province fort but still lotted 75% of province wealth, which resulted in us getting only 1/4 of income from all cities located there :/. Of course we beat them down ASAP after spotting it but it does costs me around 100 yearly income (until it recovers). During all this time we also were slowly upgrading castle in county of Bolgharia to make it up to snuff. Tynea also experiences critical success of Marshal (thus +6 prosperity) and reaches 2nd prosperity level.
As Summer arrives, Apathetic modifier returns. So I make another potion and this time can pick more healthy ingredient (kidney). Soon it resolves and Meltsayka is in the clear again. Given that I have now some time let's embark on Pilgrimage. This will give us something to do, increase piety and make some use of free time. Meanwhile we are also making another theorem for Hermetic Society (improving learning with it's modifier up to 31 is never bad). On topic which: let's spend accumulated technology points:
Cities&Temples Infrastructures maxed.Thanks to redistributing all of technological progress we (unlike AI)we are able to make breakthroughs that slowly spread across our realm.
Was thinking about spending it all on Burtasy to give it away but there are 3 cities with Universities so the technology spread is quite fast. Instead we once again pushed our technology higher in capital to start spreading to rest of duchy and thus helping us later (technology spreads quicker if the difference in levels is higher between target and sum of higher tech demense counties). Did spent around 3.000 gold coins on some missing University 2, bunch of cheap (50g) City Fortifications I (to avoid suffering so much due to looting) and some Monastics schools as well (mostly in Bolgharia duchy that just unlocked tech level required). It still leaves me with bunch of gold. I think we invest that in another Hospital upgrade across Perm and Bolgharia - 11 such upgrades are purchased. Total cost - around 5.000 gold coins. That will do for now.
As our ruler embarks on Pilgrimage, his skilled son and heir takes over so we don't suffer any penalties. Our Syrian vassals for time being perform cleaning up operation, targeting some baron muslims that remained within borders (Bektashi Order and some single holdings mayors). One of them even managed through his Ecclesiarch to convert Palmyra to Orthodoxy. It is nice as overall conversion effort goes slowly due to maximum Sunni MA. We didn't put a dent in it despite quickly winning 4 holy wars lately. Even though Jerusalem is Orthodox, Baghdad Zikri and Qurtubah was Cathar for ages, they somehow remain on such high MA. They also lowered their decadence intake from +6/year to just +4. Still at around 40% decadence though. Finger crossed they don't win Crusade (they are currently winning but also now suffer lack of funds modifier).
In our travel to recently conquered Antioch, we get quite lucky. Getting option for Charitable gets rid of Greedy. That unexpectedly makes Emperor Meltsayka quite a material for Saint. We do remain Proud and have "Known Murderer modifier" sadly which can prevent it. After checking, sadly Proud still blocks our chances at getting canonised. We at least should gather enough piety after Pilgrimage event chain ends to fulfill ambition of "becoming Paragon of Virtue". Maybe we get at least "True Christian Knight at least". Wait I will check. Turns out no - cause we still need Humble (and Diligent we never acquired). So that's off the table too. Well at least as we finish Pilgrimage, we do get not bad trait in Pilgrim (+5 opinion from each religion member is nice to have).
One of more fruitfull pilgrimages. Put's Meltsayka really close to being possible Saint. Can also surveil recently conquered Antioch himself.
As our Emperor experiences spiritual enjoyment, let me tell you funny story that I noticed at the end of last part. Remember our Mercenary Company? The Permian Band? I was checking on them from time to time across decades. They basically stopped getting any gold since some time ago. But last time I checked I spotted something alarming:
Turns out when there was a streak of ambitious Mercenary Captains like 10 years ago and by accident I took back one who wanted to betray us, and due to not paying attention landed him. That's like 2 instances of me not realising who am I dealing with, which makes him super lucky dude 
So effectively by accident I extracted our Mercenary band funds they managed to acquire since we re-established them. Without having to sacrifice one of our rulers onto Martial education. Well that's more than good. Now we can excommunicate him to get those rightfully ours fortune back. We excommunicate him and after our retinues arrive we begin extraction operation by provoking him to rebel.
Year 1179
======================
After taking a break in real life, it's time to sit back to CK2. We continue with besieging our ex-Mercenary Captain in Turgay while I do click through many holdings in Perm to spend around 3.000 gold coins on bunch of constructions (Universities, Monastic Schools but also some Temple/City towns). There are still more (as we still have cities without even University I in them. But it will have to wait a moment. I also want to tell you about discovery that I accidentally made after 1.800 hours logged in Crusader Kings 2. As you probably know, technology screen is really opaque. Not only you have to hover over non capital counties to look their tech levels but you also have no way of viewing more detailed information for non-capital provinces. Or do you? As I was reading some technology modding forum topics I found out that there is a not obvious detailed information window in place I never thought about looking.
PDX is really great at shoving useful tooltips deep inside UI. Feel somewhat like a fool x] Still that's explains the result of Irgiz experiment. Must reconsider all +technology spread buildings as they appear to be better than initially thought.
This leads me to conclusion of our experiment regarding technology spread (started over 10 years ago). There doesn't seem to be a bonus technology spread cap but also those bonuses seem multiplicative with bonus spread chance (calculated from demense difference and neighbour difference). As such it is really difficult to get around 100% chance. Irgiz in last decade improved 0.5 technology level for example. Even Perm that has +395% technology spread doesn't get 100% spread chance per year on it's highest difference tech. And as I was looking around whole empire that interests me, there are some steep difference. Our demense is quite high but eastern fringes are only at +5% technology spread (as they just begin their first universities due to lacking technology previously). Which means that our technology investments are far from gone. I was thinking about sponsoring hospitals all the way towards level 3 with Library + Laboratory (+50% technology spread) but not only will this be painfully expensive right now (from quickly checking it seems to cost around 3.000 gold coins per hospital and we have close to 100 counties in the North so we are still looking at around 300.000 gold coins expense xD Yikes.) but also technology (Construction 4) is still not present in plenty of eastern provinces. Given that Mongols will "happen" within 40 years we have in theory 136.000 gold to use. Realistically way less due to ongoing expenses. Nowhere near the required amount. It also a high time to start redirecting those funds towards incoming danger.
Having nothing better to do, between January and February we push our beaten up retinues in Syria to attack Tiberias county. We get lucky as their levies are raised due to some other small Muslim ruler warring them but on low morale. We quickly beat them and before starting the siege we capture their ruler, thus enabling us to instantly end the whole holy war in just 1 battle
. County as it is within de jure Jerusalem goes to our King Antonios directly. So no vassal of his might be immune to king's influence. We finally (with so many single county holy wars) started damaging Sunni Moral Authority (down to 82%). Good. This will make converting new lands easier. We declare war on another 1 region ruler (Count of Madaba). We bait him to move out of his province and then move in. He goes back and we have a battle with desert terrain modifier (and we have light cavalry to take advantage of this). Meanwhile another burgher in Burtasy gets "micromanaged" keaving us with just 2 bishops, that have way more than they deserve.
Thanks to concentrating everyone in single flank we win against 300 more numerous army (3.400 vs 3.700) with relatively light losses within skirmish phase. Meanwhile our vassal king of Syria is cleaning up his realm of remaining single baron muslim elements. We conclude our theorem in Hermetics (improving Learning up to 32). Another of our tribals advances to Feudalism (2 remaining) and I spot that Syria has an interesting object within it's borders:
That's neat. Basically Muhallabid's own wonder. The only one built by AI across world to this date.
Out of curiosity I check the trade modifiers but because there is no trade zone there, the bonus does nothing. If figured that earlier I could set up another Orthodox Merchant Republic (to make competition for Byzantine Republic of Amalfi). Even though trade has diminished returns it still seems to provide between +30% to +40% of city income on Italian Republics. For reference Kudymkar currently has +135% income bonus from province modifiers (which includes trade route from business focus). So that's not unsubstantial, especially as then it get's multiplied by character modifiers (which means further x1.6-1.8). We don't even include how much trade post make themself at this point
".
Hospitals in Perm finish their libraries one by one, we slowly progress with siege progress and for some reason I'm down to 6.500 gold coins. Weird I was at 8.500 when I stopped. We also assisinate another bishop (4/2 holdings) and roll better but not better enough (13 vs 7 stewardship which still means 2 demense limit). By May castle in Turgay falls (resulting in positive 68% of warscore).
In Summer I import more future brides and fully stock young Mahdi Muhallabid on those. Sadly he turned out to be Level 4 diplomatic education so the chances of him becoming decadent are low. Still he at least got that fertility bonus (on top of another from lustful). Then I brew 2 hermetic potions for 2 monastic bishops/vassals to prolong their life (and increase their stewardship bonus a little I guess). We conclude war for mercenary funds and screw it up. As I revoke his title he instantly goes away to foreign court (but still within our diplomatic range). He luckily has some kids and they aren't tied to landed marriages. After a while I think of a way to fix that mess. We execute our ex-Mercenary captain and his oldest son inherits. He is still at court within our realm but he is bethothed to female heir of Persian Orthodox county. So we will have to work some magic I guess the moment he becomes adult. We will keep an eye on him for time being. I try inviting him to our own court by ofering to be his guardian but it backfires, as it lowers our possible plot power from 129% to 90%. Shoot. We will have to invite him to our realm the moment he becomes adult to prevent bethrothal (his female counterpart is older though).
We finish another Syrian war by November but get only half of holdings in this region, No idea what happened that we got only 2 baronies when all of them were under the same ruler. We also finish another hunt with Meltsayka's son (acquiring 4 ingredients). With that we are restocked for time being. No wait - we didn't usurp anything we just vassalised those muslims. No idea why. Ohhhhhhhh. I accidentally clicked "border dispute" instead of holy war and that explains why I was around 3.400 gold short >.>. Mistakes surely were made!
For last month in the year we do embark on correct casus belli against last breakaway state in Madaba. I also change character focus from Theology (after another seclusion that still missed 10% on diligent) to Rulership as we kind of want to pass away already. Getting rid of extra health might just help with that, as will getting stressed or depressed.
Year 1180
======================
Year starts with new male Muhallabid being born in our court. He is the grandson of our first Muhallabid invited (but from his daughter line). Sadly as she was converted he starts as Bedouin Orthodox. We will tutor him under his Zealous Sunni kin and hope for it to do the trick. We also assign him Etiquette childhood focus, hoping for worst as aways
Next big development happens in February:
Lucky roll due to being at 7 out 6 possible traits.
With that we all of sudden are in the realm of becoming the 3rd Permyakid Saint and 4th Orthodox Saint overall. We have right now only positive traits - Brave, Zealous, Kind, Temperate, Patient and Charitable (if we don't mention Gout + Infirm). With over 2.200 piety the chance is definetely there. As I look the probability seems pretty high (to my suprise). So if nothing happens we might have yet another bloodline. Not that I want anything from that but Prince Turush will be having not 3 but 4 Orthodox Saintly Bloodlines at the same time. Mostly curious what potential nickname will Emperor acquire postmortem.
Spent initial months administering my court that grew due to inheriting some courtierts from revoked muslims. Also recalled our Ecclesiarch from 20% conversion chance in Antioch as we start to need replacement and our court officials aren't getting younger. We have 7 desirable targets and 5 not desirable targets (4 Muhallabid male courtiers + one female Zealous court tutor for fixing wrong religion Muhallabids) in capital at the moment. And of (fricking) course within few weeks first of our Muhallabids gets converted (thus getting rid of his 3 extra wives and he was only 24). Well next roll will be 7-4 odds in our favour then.
In last week of June, King Antonios of Syria embarks on holy war for Mosul on one of the counts we left there. Well that is outside my power to influence and I wanted to leave it to Armenia to even out their horrendous borders. They won against Farukids and claimed most of Jibal (central Persia) but since that long war they seem inactive (it wasn't that long since then to be frank). It won't be an easy war as defenders have access to around 14.000 troops and our guys have 16.000 but well - we don't care much. More interestingely despite Eastern Roman Empire still being in civil war (they have been at it since 1173 and struggle to push advantage but at the very least current Basileos is dealing with any peasant uprising that happen) due to actions of Republic of Amalfi Greeks are embarking on holy war for Milan, currently under Paulician Italian Queen Eleonore. This is good timing as she is married to Khagan Buzer II of Chernigov (our neighbour) who is Orthodox thus her heir from that marriage will bring back Kingdom of Italy to Orthodoxy. Fascinating that once again Khazars are making inroad into Italy x]. Further complicating retaking of Rome for ERE. Also Croatia after being chomped on by Italians is now in hands of Orthodox king but still from "von Kufstein" crusader dynasty.
During mid of Summer Pentarch of Antioch (and Ecclesiarch of local count) managed to convert his lands to Orthodoxy, marking 4th such province within King Antonios future realm. Read somewhere that Jerusalem and Antioch have to be Orthodox in order for Holy Order creation decision to become available. Would not mind it happening. Cause we are still rolling without holy orders when Catholics enjoy up to 50.000 Holy Order troops. We at least can conclude our fight for Madaba before long. More administrative fixing occurs. Two baron vassals die and it needs fixing. But Permo-Siberian court doesn't necessarily have right people at the moment. As I look around I spot in ledger, that Papacy reversed their crusade warscore (that was -13% last time I checked and now they are at 49%). That's interesting as I already stopped putting any hope into Crusaders when they dipped below 0%.
Takes up to Autumn for our Greek 24 Martial new count to arrive. We push him into Madaba and pass him to king Antonios. After a while his +70% Levy size from Martial attribute will definetely help. With that Syria at the moment has 128 realm size, which is the biggest vassal in our 464 realm empire. Another 102 holdings are in our Nenetsian project so between two of them we are at almost half the holdings that want to get rid of (230 !).
In November another Muhallabids gets "spawned". This time it is Sunni girl. We at once see to her education and guardian. We also order retinues (after years in Syria) to return to Burtasy tribe. We are done there and from now on Syria is on it's own. Which marks the end of Komi intervention in Middle-East. But as we are finally at peace, we get nice and relative quick Rulership popup.
Was studying those events not long ago. Basically most of them have 50-50% chance of success. If nothing happens you either failed or succeeded but got the reward you can't get (education upgrade) or already have (trait). In this case I definetely will pay 50g from my own coffers as -15 opinion penalty even for 2 years is more impactful and we are definetely not trying to be cheap by getting -50% tax modifier in capital.
To my suprise we quickly get Diligent. Well, well well. Would you look at that. In the twilight of his years Emperor Meltsayka got last possible prosperity modifier. It basically lowers his MTTH for new holding slot from 28 years down to 25 years and province modifier to 17,5 years. In other words that's 9 out of 10 possible modifiers (here we lacked education as Meltsayka has Martial due to AI meddling and regency). He still places among best that I have recorded (as good as Sarin I "The Knuckle-Slammer", Sarin II "The Leecher", Emperor Kezhay "the Gentle" and Saint Emperor Setyamka "The Understanding"). First Sarin rulled for 53 years (812-865 / Assasinated), second Sarin for 5 years (888-893 / Cancer), Emperor Kezhay "The Gentle" for 30 years (1021-1051 / stress) and our Saint was reigning 37 years (1051-1097 / natural death). So now as Meltsayka is on his 40th year of reign we are on the brighter side of plans materialising. Ironically just as the player thinks about killing him x]. He is our 14th character and 8 of them I have recorded in special file for prosperity modifiers probability. What I want to highlight is that getting those 8-9 modifiers is totally possible longterm with some planning (mostly regarding smart - Genius/Quick/Shrewd). We also did have some succession hiccups. And our next character will start with 9 out of 10 possible modifiers from get go
.
Year 1181
======================
January has good news - the Persian Marzoban, who bethrothed heir of Permian band captain got himself a new, 21 year old wife. Thus increasing his chances (at 39 years of age) to acquire male heir. Which will streamline the whole "taking over our rightful funds" operation. He is still within our diplomatic range so we are still with options - they just will take longer. Beside that as I wifed-up both bad mayors to avoid further bleeding for time being, we are looking at 11.400 gold coins in the coffers and 3.458 annual income. We also catched up infrastructure wise in Bolghar county when it comes to castle standards.
As I'm checking denizens of our dungeons I release a bunch of random courtiers that don't benefit me in any way. We find one extra Muhallabid woman there and weird things happen. After releasing her, she remains at our court - yet her husband is outside our diplomatic range. So now she probably can't get pregnant?
Team #Pope pushes Egyptian Crusade towards 76%. That is so impressive for AI given Muhallabids still had around 40.000 troops to their name when it started. They do suffer from 45% decadence (with around +4% each year) despite not-decadent Sultan. That lowers their Morale somewhat (around -14%) but is not enough to explain their poor showing while not being involved in multiple wars. So they seem to be on straight way towards being irreversally crippled.
First we see this modifier as it is exclusive to Forest/Jungle terrain type (of which Udmurts is the only one). Nice to see it as it will save some money in the long term. Other option would gave me around 1.000 gold but I don't think it is worth bothering
That's what? 3rd province modifier during Meltsayka reign. Puts Udmurts at 5 out of 7 possible modifiers. We lack Great Library (+25% Technology spread) and Center of Worship (+0.25 piety/month and Temple Tax +25%). Well that's definetelly putting us closer to where we should be. That also made me remember - as we have chance of becoming Saint we might get another "Burial Site of Saint X" province modifier (-4% Revolt Risk and +0.5 tax income to every holding). It's ain't much but we could either check if it can stack or spread it around. I like the second option as we still have unused capital change on Emperor Meltsayka. We could move to Tynea to allow more prosperity gain to be had. It probably will ruin our trade route in Kudymkar (current capital) upon succession but to be honest it ain't the best place anyway (we still have to move back there for last missing holding slot with Crown Focus). Also having Saint Burial in province with our grandest cathedral (Hagia Epimoni - Holy Preserverance) isn't bad fluff wise. But there are some things to do before that.
As we will move to slightly lower (haven't had time to spread enough) technology county it would be prudent to do things that are most efficient now. One such thing is creation of more retinues. Especially as we will be seceding Syria soon, and with it our limit will go down. At the moment we are at 25.020 out of 33.465 retinue limit. So we have quite some room for more soldiers. We have enough space to squeeze 10x Defence retinues and 1x Shock Retinue (for shieldwalling duties). Yet we still have 8.100 retinues from tribal days in Perm. All of them consist of Trapper retinues (100 LI + 50 AR) so that's 54 regiments of them. Meaning 9,180 retinue limit we could be spending better. More if I decide to disband both retinues guarding borders by Silkroad and Burtasy. Then it is basically all the limit we were using right now. I want to spend it on infantry because that's what we were teching up for. Pikes seem the best given incoming Mongols but also frequent incursions from steppes. We could spent it all on Pikemen, that would give us around 46 Defence regiments. But that ain't ideal because in melee to counter Charge tactics we still need 1% of Heavy Infantry. So I would like 3 retinues with HI. Why 3? Cause I want to keep current spread of 1 retinue force in Burtasy, 1 in Irtysh (Silkroad) and 1 bigger in Perm (because recovering from looting takes a long time - right now we recovered only up to 78%!). Bought shock prematurely (extra archers don't do anything for us as we already have 1% for Shieldwall). After realizing that I delete shock retinue and instead purchase 3 Baltic Warriors Retinues (Finno-Ugric culture exclusive). Not only do they have 50 HI more than Shock but also they come with Defensive and Morale bonuses that are more useful when fighting against Horse Archers. So I delete Trappers at Perm and move out newly created retinues (that will slowly reinforce towards 6.900 men (5.000 Pikemen, 1.000 Archers and 900 Heavy Infantry) province to the west. It's poor so we don't risk them getting killed when some raiders targetting our rich counties appear. Will wait for some time before deleting border guards and redoing them.
In June pilgrims visit grave of Saint Emperor Setyamka "The Understanding". We get option to pay 350g to get 50 piety "thanks" to Zealous trait by making big public donations, yet I don't think Emperor will. We can also make some cash from them (+250g) by sacrificing some piety (-10 piety). Last options gives both prestige and piety (25/10) annd 75% at Gregarious. While I like that it won't change anything despite once again putting us above trait limit. Given how low Rulership events MTTH is and Meltsayka being currently stuck at Hermetic Mission of finding text (something bugged out but I keep it to not get another mission cause we have over 5.000 hermetic knowledge already) it seems likely we will lose something relatively quick. I would rather not as all of those traits are great. So we will pick the gold this time. Perhaps God punishes us soon after as on our 100% Orthodoxy MA, Paulicianism appears in Kanin (Nenetsia). Well good luck with that as I have some Ashkenazis to convert so it's up to local rulers to manage this crisis.
Another mayor dies due to food poisoning and we have to invite another bachelorette to marry his replacement as his kids are too small to be viable prospects to use. Then 2 intervention events fire for our ex-mercenary captain kid (with money). We make him Patient for free and then have an interesting choice. We can make him diligent at the cost of getting stressed. I like that not because I care about him having high education. I care about hastening our Emperor's death
. And well it also takes care of 1 Rulership event :]. So we take that. As month changes game finally updates cost of reinforcing our retinues - well it ain't nothing! Over 670 gold coins each year x].Could lower it by 20% with Marshal but I think extra prosperity is better.
Our Scottish breeding program takes off. Some time ago I invited Mr. Patrick and demanded conversion to Orthodoxy. Thus our first true Orthodox Scotsman
. Only problem I married him off back during Syrian Great Conquest to noblewoman thus it was matrilinear marriage. Because he was lowborn. While I don't care for dynasty, kids start as Komi instead of Scottish. So I will have to educate them back into right culture. Halfway through July our younger daughter (remarried since Nenetsian fiasco) gives birth to baby boy (Hulyanka Permyakid). Well that's a 4 bloodline Permyakid without any claims to worry about. Which is great
. Great to use later to spread the bloodline around. Bonus point as he should inherit Emperor's Meltsayka saintly bloodline if it happens. Then another county (Archa) in Syria converts to Orthodoxy. Now that I check on it - seems King Antonios won another county in the north from Bedouins.
I delete Silkroad crew and purchase 12 Defence retinues more. That's puts yearly cost of reinforcing retinues up to 1.000 gold
O). Ok I might reconsider cause we have still 3rd tribal retinue returning to reform as well. So that Marshall will make a serious income difference while lowering their reinforcing costs by 20%. Then I also remove returning Burtasy crew to purchase another 9 Defence + 1 Baltic Warrior regiments and with that we fully start transitioning from tribal to feudal retinues. Meltsayka brews potions for 3 barons (getting rid of all ingredients).
We salute our trusted tribal retinues. They saved us uncountable amount of money due to both fighting as well as keeping vassals in line with their high numbers.
Time flies to November when we finally can once again change some laws. I decide to push Viceroyalties one step back. With that we get 5 extra to vassal limit. Was thinking about using Viceroyalties for technology income (inheriting from high learning character every 10-20 years) but I'm afraid it will spread my excommunications too thin. It is interesting idea but right now current technology pace should suffice for our monetary capability. So lowering it down to nothing might make administering Permo-Siberia easier, as right now we have 28/50 vassal limit (despite having 68 vassals when we include barons). There are several Dukes to take care of so that number will go up. Seems I can also change laws regarding Vassal War declarations. We move it toward ban on Internal wars (only external are allowed). While initially I thought that it will just save us some revocation wars now and then after pondering it is much better - should prevent any feudal vassals from "recollecting" cities under our super barons. We will eat that -5 opinion penalty and I don't have currently any reason to push it further. Now onto another 10 year cooldown.
Now we can move capital to Tynea. We also send Spymaster to not only help with Technology spread but also occasionally generate more prosperity. From now on both Summer Fairs and Feasts will increase prosperity in Tynea.
Some small raiding party (500 men) appears out of Novgorod. We don't care - it is the duty of local rulers to deal with such nuisance. We instead organise a feast. (As I was editing I realised I messed up - we could push viceroyalties all the way towards none in one go >.>. Somehow I was tunnel vision and it completely escaped my eyes. We have no use for Viceroyalty kingdoms so we just ate additional law change cooldown).
Year 1182
======================
Year start with the banger. Greeks got tired of killing each other after 8 years (and going nowhere) and settled on white peace. But just look at this situation of the unexpected Basileus:
Didn't see that coming. No idea why. Despite Greeks being only on 2/3 of their manpower, Catholics ain't the danger right now. If he arrange for some marriage with Holy Roman Emperor that it would be different story but his children are already matched. There is also almost no catholic provinces. Oh wait - he has theology focus...
Meanwhile team #Pope managed to fumble things from over 90% warscore to 63%. Was holding breath to get notification about finished Crusade at any moment last year. But it seems ain't happening. On the plus side for Christian brethren - Sultan Aarif is rocking around -40% Morale of Armies due to both decadence and being bankrupt (-250 g). Yet he now fields 30.000 levies. So it is still in the air, as Catholics might be spread around smaller armies.
We conclude the feast as more assasination events (targetting our vassals) fire. I also have to move our growing retinues back cause they are reaching that county supply limit in Severe Winter (because of course it is severe
). Then by March our Permo-Siberian Patriarch finally converts one of the Ashkenazis. Then by February our good treatment modifier expires (lowering our stats by 2 and health as well). According to my calculation Meltsayka at 59 years of age is now at -3.5 health modifier. So I don't plan on renewing it. To kill some time let's held a Grand Tournament in Tynea.
By end of May another Muhallabid child appears - 1st son of Mahdi. We appoint correct guardian and move on. We watch as our vassals and guests get wounded (including some of our courtiers we work on) until I see familiar face:
Haven't seem him in long time. I believe it is first Orthodox iteration of that legend x] I could even gift him a body armor our ancestors got from some Nomad. We could even start breeding/tutoring Horse culture characters in the realm (well it isn't exactly Elk) but let's not turn this AAR into pure comedy
Later I get excited as King Antonios wages holy war on Sultan. But it turns out to be the Sultan in Baghdad - not Egypt. If he jumped on Muhallabids it would be great as Catholics once again pressed him up to 89% warscore so it could be easy pickings with 20.000 Syrian levies. Sadly one of tournament victims turns out to be one of Ashkenazis we were trying to convert. Well he was 38 years old and we probably would lose them soon but still.
With beggining of July funny notification alarm pops off - our truce with Muhallabids expires in 55 days. And guess what - I can still declare another Great Conquest on them - targetting either Arabia, Egypt for real prizes or Persia (1 duchy) / Iraq (also 1 duchy). There doesn't seem to be much sense in going after Egypt which is fought for by Catholics and seems they are having the advantage. Which also means that Mending the schism for AI is probably off the table. But we can cripple Sunni faith by taking their last 2 holy sites (Mecca&Medina) by picking Arabia as Great Conquest target. Giving it to our Syrian Vassal and then connecting those will make him quite powerful (enough to deal with huge independence revolts) and be quite a stop for incoming Mongols. The costs of such decision is that we must survive for few more years (I was ready to just "extreme treatment" Meltsayka) as our nice heir is turning 30 years old. It will also cost several hundreds gold extra for our levies that will have to fight instead of retinues (we recently started from scratch)(they can still defend home front). On the plus side #TeamPope will directly or indirectly help us by fighting in Egypt while we move onto Arabia. Muhallabids won't be able to deal with 2 fronts at the same time, soat least one of Christian wars will prevail quickly. Ideally Permo-Siberian forces. But if Crusaders win first, then it could remove a big chunk of Muhallabid forces due to them losing whole Egypt. While not conductive for the prime goal of this AAR, I think I'll try it anyway (it still can fail in case of Emperor Meltsayka dying, in case of which we might white peace after Crusaders win their war). Let's call it little "fanservivce"
.
First we have to provide some health treatment to lower our health penalty. Tournament kills our son-in-law so our 34 years old daughter is once again a widow. He was our Marshall (who specialised in light infantry) so we have that to remedy as well. Well as we got a child out of her I think it is great moment to just marry her off to Chinese Prince. This will make a great use of our grace and spare daughter. Especially as current Emperor Li Zhenzong is just 42 years old. As for Marshall - I find some shrewd and diligent Georgian with 20 Martial (so extra events that increase prosperity might fire). Soon our treatment is done and we get another success (but not critical success). Mayor of our previously richest city in Kudymkar dies, and we can finally start working on making our handpicked and converted Jew taking over.
Age difference is quite big yet as long as peace treaty persist we are happy. I wonder if this will continue through Mongols in case current Han dynasty prevails.
Bolgharia county reaches max prosperity in meantime. Takes up to August to our new chinese son-in-law to arrive. Finally tournament ends leaving us with winner in shape of Permyakid dynasty bastard and slight prosperity boost in Tynea (our new capital). Before end of month our Patriarch converts one female Muhallabid to Orthodoxy (matters little as her son doesn't convert with her).
With September nomadic elements arrive once more. One in Kudymkar (that just recovered from previous looting =.=) other in Burtasy and Syrt. Ranging from 2.000 to just 700 riders. Seems our reinforcing retinues will have to start working. Still it takes a month to move between our capital counties... So I raise and sacrifice part of local levies to minimize impact of looting. We still lose around 20% of province wealth (that was slightly over 500). During ensuing fight I'm not exactly happy with tactic chances: almost 1/3 for Generic Skirmish, the same for Shieldwall and Volley. We really want Shieldwall on them. Volley is really bad as it can lead to being countered (+200-300% dmg) from Swarm tactics Horse Archers utilize. We end the fight losing 400 men but killing 600. Oh boy do we have a long road ahead of us when it comes to making better use of those.
In November our Ex-Mercenary Captain's kid grows up. But I can't invite him to our court. So I buy a favour and then invite him to court, while his bethrothal still haven't went through, Another province in Syria (Madaba) converts to Orthodoxy. Then month later our Ecclesiarh (Patriarch) + Court Physician dies. We replace him with smart candidates from among Holy Men we invited (11 tries). Then suddenly Crusade ends and we are left with nothing! I was delaying war declarations initially to first deal with current raiders and let winter pass but then our retreating levies made us unable to declare and the moment vanished I think. Now Muhallabids have only 15.000 troops and I'm not neighbouring them. Ehh! Also played myself with that treatment for few next years :/... Also women everywhere!
Well good for our Catholic cousins but I wanted to bully Muhallabids even more. Also victim in question lost way more than I expected. Beside that - somehow gender equality made it into rulling several big realms currently. Truly a Crusader Queens game.
Year 1183
======================
We start year with cleaning up another 2 nomad bands in southern Perm. After consolidating all troops into single column it goes much better. Also new Queen of Egypt instantly declares holy war against just beaten down Muhallabids as she has 19.000 troops more. Target - Makuria. Soon we get rid of all thieves roaming across our lands. Retinues reached size of 5.000 men, our imperial treasury passed 11.200 gold mark and our income plummeted down to 3.338. We have like 4 small vassals to fix. But at least last negative penalty from some "dishonorable act" vanished thus making the last disliking us vassal change his opinion. We can reform our succession laws and we do in all held Imperial and Kingdom titles from Gavelkind to Primogeniture. It was a good ride but right now I don't need +2 demense limit and with Primogeniture not only could I make use of more sons&daughters but also destroy titles (we still hold 3 duchy titles). So we make that transition. Yes it generates -40 opinion on some vassals and additional -40 penalty on one vassal in Turgay but only for 10 years. And we finally get rid of -10 opinion from being over the duchy limit across board.
I realize in time that I have to change it everywhere (each Kingdom seperately) and we do that without problem Otherwise we could have "funny" situations in the future. Bye-Bye Gavelkind. You truly was the best <3
Also spent initial 4 months on inviting more skilled stewards. Can't manage with just Jews atm and we have to start fixing somewhat neglected internal affairs (now that we know that we might live somewhat longer even with -1.5 health overall). Then after demanding conversion I send 4 of them to take the vows (all of them end up in Perm temple which was 1 out 3 possible locations :I). Then we start arranging marriages with others and assasinating Mayors. I also do revoke with tyranny 2 bishoprics from non-Monastic Priest in Kolva + 1 from 4 county bishop in Bolghar to appoint one of newest Monastic Members there as new ruler (25 years old Bedouin with 25 Stewardship). We still need to fix our Kudymkar but with another -45 opinion penalty for next 5 years I think I'll chill for now. We instead organise a Summer Fair.
Time goes peacefully until in September our initial Muhallabid dies. Well he did his duty. Now we have 9 possible Muhallabids to create even more. Not sure if it will be needed, as their dynasty even without our help is already at over 50% decadence. First time in long time our Spymaster also steals some technology from Eastern Roman Empire (possible as I have few technologies lower than Greeks so we can keep getting those +50 tech points events).
In last quarter of year we get occasion to get "Administer the realm" modifier in Turgay but I don't bother with it as we won't be building there. Then nothing happens until the end of year when our Syrian vassals wins against Farukid Sultanate - taking 1 duchy that was between Syria and Baghdad. Emperor as guardian of future Permyakid king of Nenetsia gets to intervene and makes him shrewd. That should make him much more capable king in the future.
Year 1184
======================
We start with close to 13.000 gold coins, our retinues are 2/3 done and our income is still quite small. Once they finish reinforcing in little more than a year, we will recover 1.000 of yearly income. For now we proceed with failed assasinations (we have still 2 mayors to fix and 2 Bishops in Bolgharia).
In March another of Muhallabid men becomes father of another baby girl. We also go on search for genius match for our prince&heir Turush. He will seduce her first then marry, then he will keep seducing other women to get rid of Chaste, get lustful and maybe get few more lovers to increase Permyakid family size. Then unexpectedly:
Each option has 50% chance of success. What I didn't know is that you can gain several rewards at once. Now we only lack Just trait and final possible administrator modifier level
Well as we are low on possible events (just re-appointed my Apprentice) rulership is giving back. What a rare sight! Soon (April) we finally get rid of our latest assasination target and after 6(!) failed attempts we finally fix that city. One more to go (and well 1 that we could but don't have to fix). Then another conversion occurs and luckily it is one of wives to Muhallabids. One of them (Mahdi) also got his 2nd son (Sunni so no issue).
With May we can make another Summer Fair. We also fix the last city vassal only for another Burgher to die and present new "opportunity" to micromange. But I don't have candidates as of now. So we just let the time pass. Summer fair has some decisions but as they are among - pick between +10 prestige, piety or opinion with someone I'll save myself the effort to report on them. Another county in Syria is Christianised (Sunni is down to 63% of MA).
This persist till July when Summer Fair ends, another of our older Muhallbids die. We still have 10 important enough to care about (so about 10% of all living Muhallabids are in our court. Future Empress of Permo-Siberia is also... Muhallabid xD). Given that nothing happens I decide to organise a Grand Debate (special decision for rank 4 Hermetics). Totally forgot it was an option. Lets see what it has in stock for us.
In coming months another county (Aleppo) also becomes majorly Orthodox and I have some thoughts. Lucky we are still at 100% due to many Holy Wars we just did but Basileos being Catholic really is not good longterm as that -15% MA due to only partial control of holy sites. When I was encouraging AI to mend the shism wasn't exactly thinking of such approach x]. Luckily Greeks will pick another Orthodox ruler next so it will be a-ok. Another good development in that they didn't restart their last inconclusive civil war. Thanks to that they could replenish their manpower (over 70.000 levies). The same happened in Persian Orthodox Shahdom of Daylam. So now between Persians, Armenians and our Greek Syrians that's more than 60.000 troops pushing east in race to take over fractured Farukids.
Islam is in the retreat. Muhallabids upon old Caliph death will fall even further cause their African realm is seperated by single independent count (thus no land connection and without Suez Canal they definetely don't have naval connection). You also see desintegration of Persia.
Soonish we get another prosperity occasion from Spymaster. But he rolls for Perm... Which for once isn't bad due to that region having only 2/3 prosperity levels. So we invest to bump it a little higher. As we begin our Hermetic Grand debate, rebelion breaks up in... Palmyra (already Christianised Bedouin county!). Funny enough we don't have to do anything because our vassal King was on his way in his new holy war for Mosul. So those troops will be defeated despite outnumbering our Greeks 3:1 because those rebels have only light troops (infantry, archers and cavalry). Soon it comes to pass (November) and we conclude war business without having to lift a finger
. Sadly our city of Lesnoy to which we just appointed new steward not long ago losses it's mayor and we have another Human Resource problem =<.
Wish all of those rebelions went like this - took arms to be instantly obliterated.
Grand Debate ended in Autumn and the result was the best possible outcome. We get some extra opinion and I think decision might paid for itself but no trait. At least just in time to start organizing another feast and maybe we will squeeze 2 during this season (which bumps our prosperity growth from events up to +18 each year). As we send the invitations out, Damascus converts to Orthodoxy.
Wow it took less time than expected. Also I think this is the first time that I ever has won this. Not that it matters in this case but this event is the only way of upgrading Learning Education.
In December horoscope for Prince Turush finally concludes and he receives another +1 to his base Intrigue. Well that is definetely not bad. Noticed that Meltsayka's daughter (wed off to Chinese Prince) also became pregnant at 36 year of her life. Well that is really nice
. Soon after that she delivers healthy girl - Nyumina Permyakid. So we are slowly spreding those bloodlines around. So among revelries of Emperor's feast we end this part
Well we are still fluctuating so it isn't the worst. Each gold spent has tremendous consequences though at this point.
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