Year 1268
======================
Slow Fever epidemy continues and in January supply issues in Perm are noticed. Combination of severe winter (-3 supply) and slow fever (-5 supply) means that our 7-8 supply arctic provinces sport ability to sustain only 1.000 troops on them. Forcing our 4.500 strong retinue force to move south. Sadly we don't make it in time, thus 1.600 members of our standing army get obliterated. At least by last week of January, our Russian pagan vassal of vassal in Novgorod wins against his overlord. This gives me ability to easily revoke him. Opt to wait though - maybe he replaces those Russian Orthodox vassals under him with more Suomenusko friends (making our life so much easier). There might be a problem with that, as he is 65 old Leper that already got "Mystically Altered" and is bound to be succeeded by some Orthodox character.
With coming of February just what I was dreading above - happens and opportunity slips because I tarried. Was mostly anxious to do this with our ongoing extraction from Vladimir Duke, as at least in my mind it increased the odds of that Novgorodian vassal rising in arms too. Slow Fever also claims many courtiers making it difficult to notice, if any of my 30 kid courtiers are out of guardians (and I'm too lazy to check it every few days/weeks). Soon we lose our Genius spymaster (Alberto) to sickness as well. Lucky so far we didn't lose any city-vassal (altough some of their courts are getting culled pretty badly).
As you can see we have some serious plague problem :V...
Sieges in Vladimir progress slowly (up to 67% of warscore). In meantime we lose our 55 years old Mayor of Fedorki (newest town), who is supplanted by some randomly generated lowborn - his 2 highborn children are suffering from local epidemy, so finger crossed at least one of them makes it through so we can fix it in around 10 years. Didn't inform you previously but I picked ambition "Make a Friend" and are working through 'swaying' on our son&heir Prince Zarny. Soon we invite him to festival, which offers us choice between losing Humble or getting Honest. We are at 7 out of 6 traits soft limit so losing humble is nice. On other hand with our old Emperor being over the vassal limit, getting +3 diplomacy is juicy. So for Honest we go! Don't think it increased our limit, as we still are at 60/59 max vassals.
We steadily make progress against vassal rebelion towards 91%, before at start of July we suffer another local rebelion in Moskva.
Local ruler angered population (+10% revolt risk monthly) and here we are.
We have some small units closeby and besieging. Won't be enough. Luckily in Burtasy over 10.000 vassal levies gathered. We assign most of our trained commanders (Italian Salvatore + Scottish Magnus and Nydog) and we start marching onto rebel scum. Week later we conclude Vladimirian extraction (we get county of Osha in Sibir back) just as we consolidate all the troops near rebelion into 11.000 strong force. By the time force from Burtasy arrives we will be more than well positioned to deal with that uprising. We also sent new Duke of Ryazan a demand to give us his vassal (Count of Hlynov) that holds 2 counties within kingdoms of Perm and Volga-Bulgaria. Soon he relents, thus we fixed some border gore. While not perfect yet (cause our new subject has 2 holdings) it's works for the goal of seceding Nenetsia-Rus. More importantly now that that vassal war is done, we can scheme again. I can either kill new Duke of Novgorod to make another pagan character inherit or start fixing towns. Like the first option better so here we go for that 700% plot power. Bonus points for me, as that new Duke picked "Scheming" character focus so he will become problem in the future if left unatended. Soon we get information, that our co-conspirators are already on the move.
Throughout the August our forces make it in the vicinity of Moskva's rebelion armies. We got extra character from going on one of many hunting trips, that happen in the background. New commander Dergun is thus blessed with Hunter trait and Brave, which due to him having 19 Martial translates into +39% Pursuit and +19.5% Morale Defence. He is also Skilled Tactician so any upgrade might further boost those by another +3 Martial. We manouver around river to avoid penalties and soon all 23.000 troops in the region are collapsing onto 9.000 Muscovite rebels. Then we get an interesting war declaration
Nice showing of both cultral tactics. Also quite bizairre that 2 county Duke decided to push some claim on ous :O
Battle starts nicely and perhaps it goes even too well. As we are murdering them in skirmish. The other 16.000 rebel troops take the bait and start marching to reinforce their side. We crush those 9.000 rather decisively with our almost 24.000 strong force. Just before the rest of uprisers arrive we basically clean up the battiefield and what's worse (for enemy) they go straight into melee with their light troops. We get both Pike-Column on Salvatore (+120% Heavy Infantry Attack, +300% Pikemen Attack, +60% Heavy Cavalry Attack) and Schiltron Formation on Nydog (+120% Light Infantry Defence, +240% Heavy Infantry Defence, +240% Pikemen Attack, +360% Pikemen Defence, -40% Light Cavalry/Heavy Cavalry/Horse Archers Defence, +60% Archer Attack) and for day exchange around 130 casualties on our side for over 1700 casualties on other side.
Quite a few things happen in the background. First we get declaration of war from Red Ruthenia. Before you ask yourself what kind of new emerging world power that realm is - it isn't. They are surrounded by Byzantines and brag about having whole 2 counties with slightly over 1.000 levies to their name. They will never win. Those fools just miscalculated badly. Still it is an annoyance because, we are still at war - meaning some options that I really would love to use right now are not available. Thanks to Hermetics we got new friend, which fullfiled our ambition, giving another +1 to diplomacy attribute (pushing us to 60 vassal limit). Yet as I revoked Novgorod title we are now at 65/60 vassals incuring some 13% of penalty to taxes from them. Still can't start excommunicating those Russians there, as different vassal holds title of Novgorod kingdom. Having no other choice we decide to revoke it to start excommunicating (earning us -30 opinion from all vassals for 5 years) on top of another -40 for destroying Duchy title we just acquired but only on those vassals we want to replace soon anyway (otherwise we would get -10 opinion on every vassal for 3rd ducal title). Definetely want to speed things up, as Emperor Rayda starts developing symptoms. Most likely slow fever.
As Winter begins (another severe case) few more courtiers here and there die (including Rayda's daughter in-law, that died due to complications related to Gout at 30). Seems we will have another marriage relatively quick. Symptoms turn as expected into - Slow Fever and we let our court Physician apply standard procedure. Think it will be enough as we are still having all those +health bonuses from artifacts, modifiers and can get even more (we still haven't trained our dog).
Year 1269
======================
With new year our steward counts up to over 83.300 coins in imperial treasury and our Nenetsian King by declaring war for Ingria (de jure Rus land) triggers his own vassals rebelion. We still are moving troops into Red Ruthenia to deal with that absurd attack, while rest of troops which beaten the rebels lately move towards Novgorod. To begin extractions! Right now I'm determined to assault those holdings to speed things up. The quicker we replace whole of Novgorod with Komi characters, the sooner we can reduce number of vassals.
We push into Novgorod despite somewhat annoying attrition (well to be honest those are not our troops anyway so we don't care). We trigger first extraction and wait for second from our Patriarch in February. To my suprise I spot that we broke the game again -> due to our Catholic conversion sheningans, somehow our Patriarch still despises us for enforcing "Free Investiture". While we don't have that law visible in corresponding menu nor does it work with Orthodoxy. Seems we will have to change it back, when Zarny will flirt with Pope during next Crusading time.
Takes up to March to eliminate first of many Russian rulers within Novgorod and Rus. County of Borovichi goes to some freshly turned adult distant Permyakid kin with 15 Stewardship and a dream. We add to this 30gold coins (to avoid incuring province negative modifiers from being bankrupt) and the title. Our siege of Red Ruthenia also begins, after their army roaming our western empire got tangled with Nenetsian rebels. Talk about good development when both problematic forces decided to whittle each other down due to simply being hostile to each other. Amazing ^o^~!
Spring time is spent on checking how education is going in court and some marriages between fresh adult courtiers. We finally get to extract another Novgorodian count in June. While our forces in Red Ruthenia are about to take over top holdings there. Sadly Slow Fever still persists and some more of our Councillors refuse to work. At least our plotters still are active and are about to fix 1 of 4 mayors. Empress Zahra becomes pregnant again at 46 years of age. Not gonna lie - wasn't expecting that.
That "Free Investiture" bug really hurts us, as it exactly prevents us at (-30 opinion) from getting another excommunication (we are at -29 from getting it). With first Red Ruthenian castles taken, that war increases up to 39%. Then we get this unexcepted proposal.
Why would I pay that when we have 1700% plot power...
While awaiting further excommunications, we watch as Red Ruthenia slowly falls. Nothing exciting. Well except that in September they called 15 years old Queen Aldona of Poland into battle. It won't change much as their troops aren't enough to relieve any of besieged counties, much less change the course of conflict. Nenetsian rebels lost so we started feeding Nenetsian vassal-king more of our newly appointed rulers in Novgorod to minimize nasty 40% tax penalty from being over the vassal limit. After handing 2 re-adjusted counties to future independent Komi Emperor, it improved from -40% to just -20% tax penalty. Sadly noticed that Kudymkar went down to "Minor Depopulation" despite having level 3 hospital (which grants 'Medium Depopulation protection').
This might come in handy, as our heir so far has only 2 daughters (one of which is at least Quick).
Given opportunity we push through some legislation. Why not Ducal Viceroyalties you ask? We definetely could. Don't think we should - it would shave off another 5 max vassals from our limit. This will have to wait for Prince Zarny reign. Still it's not so bad. Allowing female commanders opens up easier recruitment for those roles and puts us step closer towards Agnatic-Cognatic or fully Cognatic inheritance (to finally start making use of our Genius daughters). We probably won't live for another law change so this will have to do for now. Given some free time I look how our Aztec newcomers are doing and it seems they took kingdom of Germany for themself and now are targetting Hispanic rebels for whole of Seville for themself. Not bad. they also did slightly more implanting of their own culture/religion rulers in conquered lands. They still have over 73.000 troops but less than 20.000 of them are from event spawn. Soon we also heal from Slow Fever!
Last hurrah before, natural causes took our "Great" Emperor.
That's all when it comes to Emperor Rayda. His reign lasted 39 years and despite not everything going as planned, he did quite well. Now onto his descendant Prince Zarny we go. Somehow it seems no vassal decided to go independent. That's quite lucky. We also preserved all of our Commanders, Jews and seems most of our breeding program also survived. We have to appoint our council again, but we have little trouble with that. When it comes to our new Emperor himself... well. We have quite nice traits (Crusader, Erudite, Gregarious, Diligent, Brave and Patient), lousy education (lvl 2 stewardship) yet thanks to artifacts we get 17/18/19/11/18 attributes (Diplomacy, Martial, Stewardship, Intrigue and Learning). Decided to go with 3x Fishing with Ankle + Permyakid Cookbook (+1 Stewardship) instead of Komi Language IV (+1 Diplomacy). Emperor Zarny turns out to be... secretly Taoist but not part of any Secret society. We join Hermetics at once (to start chances at building Laboratory for those province modifiers). Which reminds me about Trade Route in Tynea, that still is there! We will see what happens on expiration date - 9th of December. Time to pick Business focus. We want to start working towards Architect lifestyle. Yet we have quite a few problems despite that - 12/8 demense limit and 64/55 vassal limit. Yikes!
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Emperor Zarny MTTH (28 years old, 19 Stewardship, 20 Learning, Diligent)
=================================================================
New Holding Slot - 31,09 years
Province Modifier - 21,52 years
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As you can see our Prosperity math got worse (not suprising as Rayda was perfectly maxed for it with all 10 improvments for chance of prosperity events). We are maxed on Stewardship, Learning but have only 1 out of 4 traits affecting it. Business focus should give us in the long run with little luck Education level 3 and then Architect improving MTTH from 7/10 bonuses collected to 9/10 bonuses. Last is sadly non-achievable (Genius/Quick or Smart). Still those improvments should knock off around 5 years of medium time to happen. We also need new wife and this is quite a problm - I want to wait 5 more years to marry ou Genius bastard niece - Tekay Kazakovo (from Emperor's sister Virtyava that was married off to Greeks). Our character is perfect tutor for her as she is Indolent (we have gregarious for intervention) and Fussy (we have both Patient and Diligent for choice intervention). So in 6 years she will become quite skilled (assuming she doesn't roll absolute garbage on her stewardship education). So it seems we have to eat those penalties for now.
There is another dilemma with ambition. Decided to go for 5 years of 'Seeing the Realm Prosper', as we still have that nasty Slow Fever going, but it should go away soon (it is going for more than 3 years already). Foolishly spent all 300 of my piety on some Holy Men fishing (for Genius character to marry to one of Italian girls in court), now I don't have enough for excommunications. It isn't huge deal with +15 piety per month yet will cost us 1 excommunication was possible right now. We will stop extracting for now, to accumulate possible revocations and then harvest them as Architect event chain fires (at least that's the plan).
Ok maybe 6 years is little too much to be missing on close to half of our yearly income.
Levies for now are dismissed, single county in Novgorod is given away. Court is secluded (OOF for that -5 diplomacy but it's better than dying or losing our courtiers) and we finally can unpause. Changed my mind and I break that bethrothal with Niece for now to marry some Genius 46 years old cousin. Need those attributes from spouse badly as right now we are rocking -60% taxes from personal demense and probably the same from Vassals. We are still on some grace period I think but are down to +2.765 gold per year. We proceed with marriage and sadly got hermetic event revolving around ritual to protect from Satanist powers. Taking the best modifier that will last whole life costs us maximum number of piety (30), meaning we just added 2 more months before we can excommunicate. At least new Empress improves our demense limit from 11/8 to 11/10. Vassal limit improves by just +1 because both characters have -5 penalty to diplomacy from being secluded.
As our Court Physician asks what to do with all infected courtiers (mostly children) we ask him to continue treating them. We already got some nice result (some 16 stewardship young Italian ready to be used). Year ends without any popup regarding our Trade Route - cementing what we knew earlier - you can't stockpile those modifiers as they are lost after succession/change of capital. The game just stops giving you option to keep refreshing them.
Year 1270
======================
Year starts with suprise. Remember that last year previous Empress Zahra was pregnant? Well she gave birth to Prince Onika of Permo-Siberia on 1st of January. This new half-brother suprisingly works just fine as emergency heir to Empire title. It calms our vassals as well. Despite Emperor Rayda having 9 children only 3 of them were male, Prince Aymort died in childhood due to Camp Fever and Prince Kyldisin was mediocre thus was forced to become monk. We were in real danger of getting game-over as our heir is of different dynasty (child of our cousin from Permyakid branch married into Illyinsk).
Finally Slow Fever starts to vanish. Boy did we got bodied by it. Not only did we got -40% income in provinces (1/4 of all counties that make our economic core) but also we had to deal with losses of our tightly kept Mayors and penalty to diplomacy that further lowered vassal taxes. Not even mentioning prosperity losses :V... Also our grace period went by and our income got slashed down to +355 gold per year... Not to forget that our Council called in "sick leave" meaning that despite 100% Orthodoxy MA we are not working on our future personnel.
As we are not expecting wars anytime soon, decided to start construction of another pair of features in Great Works located in both Perm and Kudymkar. We still need that "Town is Born event" in Kudymkar:
I could increase our supplies by 1 in both but whenever we get hit by Epidemy + Severe Winter we are still at minimum 1 supply so why bother :x. Instead I prefer to bolster our attributes and Levies to make capital more difficult to sack.
Being still retricted we start working on Novgorod again. Via killers. Realized I can quite quickly come into possession of Novgorod county itself, as long as I remove 2 adolescent characters. So by end of May we resolve 5th out of 6 Russian counts there. Sadly some problem occurs - our Nenetsian vassal created duchy again, thus last vassal there once again is outside our Patriarch area of influence. Will have to murder. Perhaps giving him those counties wasn't such a good idea after all.
Slow Fever persists and lingers. Lifts from half of Volga-Bulgaria yet the whole Perm duchy is still affected. Having nothing better to do I start looking for perfect gift to Chinese. After some searching I find one former Guru that will accept our invitation and voila:
Most likely this is the best gift we offered China up to date (not counting Mjollnir). Will buy us both Scholar-Bureaucrat we take back now and Master-Engineer later.
Takes months to pass by, before Perm duchy finally stops being afflicted. We can finally open the gates but my vassal limit improves only a little (62/56). Still that's more gold for us (+2.393/year). Sadly Kolva (county north of capital) got minor depopulation :<... While we still have Tynea and Pilva on max Prosperity it starts getting little scary.
Worked a little on our court and bid adieu to 48 years old Jew that never got converted. Not interested in employing him now.
Year 1271
======================
Did some more breeding control and found our first homegrown 20 Stewardship Italian lowborn woman. What a find! This will help us fix some lowborn over the limit Mayor. Also invited 3 foreign lowborn courtiers with in-between 15 and 19 stewardship. This will help for now. As we finally lean to start once again fixing administrative mess.
January starts with another public project: bringing up the healthcare standard up to snuff. Thanks to once again having Scholar-Bureaucrat (this time Jurchen instead of Chinese) we have slightly cheaper construction, thus we can finally splurge on hospitals.
We have to purchase it in 80 counties. To my suprises some counts already developed that hospital on their own. With that whole future Permo-Syberia will have at least 15% Disease protection and medium depopulation protection on top of +25% Research Spread Speed.
By Spring we do fix Mayor of Postol and our 18 Stewardship character takes over. We also set Mayor of Votkinsk and Mayor Balimer to be fixed upon assassinations. We also had other Mayor ready so that's 3 out of 5 remaining multi city setups ready to be repaired. Now we only have 3 bishops that need similar procedure. Why not 5 anymore? Cause in my infinite wisdom I decided to use "demand to convert", which did convert them from Catholic to Orthodox. Then for unknown reasons they lost all their bishropics (got usurped by new Orthodox characters). So yea we no longer have those penalties on them (but also have to re-assign with tyranny those 4 holdings).
Some time later we get our first female commander from Marshal. She is quite nice and that siege bonus will definetely come in handy. We tirelessly work on murdering our way through Permo-Siberian Bourgeoisie but during those spring-summer months one of our older (71) Mayors in Perm die. He is replaced by his noble son, still those towns could be in better hands. That's said we have not converted anyone skilled in quite some time (despite 90% yearly chance of it happening). We invite some more lowborn brides with high stewardship. All of newly arrived characters are demanded to convert at once to not dillute those Patriarch conversions chances.
Now that we have Full Status of Women, this can happen.We had some highborn female Commanders as Tribals
We also are progressing through hermetic mission in observing the sky. Want more esoteric knowledge to get access to potions of Eudaimonia. Beside that Emperor Zarny can't stop trying to induce his future wife into being secretly Taoist. We won't make use of that. Sorry China! Instead, Emperor intervenes to make her Patient. Our Spymasters keep dying. Even despite latest one confering us +10% Plot Power and +6 prosperity points in capital, they can't manage envy of others in realm. Duke of Ryazan is also murdering his way through to retrieve counties belonging to his previous vassal, we just retracted. That's a problem as he won't agree to stopping his evil ways and if we fail arrest chance our prosperity ambition is lost. He already is set to inherit those 2 counties in Perm and Bolgharia with single assassination. Well probably my only way to salvage current situation is to discourage everyone from helping him monthly.
Hospitals finished upgrading by Summer and then towards end of year we finally managed to finish Hermetic mission. Killed only 2 more Mayors sadly. Followed with asking for Master Engineer from China. Observed that Aztec succesfully invaded England and now after Hispania reunited under new child queen, they invade Maghreb. Then I remind myself about feature in Komi University finishing in 2 months. For that we must remember to not be busy (special flag on character due to various activities we better not click currently).
Year 1272
======================
More court managment is done and we do continue pressing on. Catched that one of our Mayors in Udmurts/Burtasy/Yaik was stolen from us by one of our vassals. That's not very nice as he has over 320 yearly income but luckily as he is still our de jure vassal, we can retract him and so we do. No idea why it happened to be frank. This time it wasn't the case of some vassal being de jure overlord of more holdings in possession of that Mayor than us. We definetely didn't allow this to happen as there is some diligent "impressing vassals with vague promises" thanks to high diplomacy when they ask to transfer vassalage.
February passes in great anticipation as we finish construction of feature in Komi University (without any hiccup \o/). Now in around 30 days we should get another "Town is Born" event for extra (5th) holding slot in Kudymkar. Then on 10th of the same month our Jurchen Master-Engineer builds 'Fireworks Guild' in capital Perm. Not bad - +10% Levy size, +25% Garrison Size (unraised levies add to Garrison anyway) and +1 Military technology point income. Finally it also increases prosperity of the county by +6.
Ohh.. That unexpectedly quick prosperity event but I will take it.
Suprisingly game graces us with prosperity event providing 4th province modifier in Tynea. Well one less in the list to collect and we still wait on "Jewish Settlement" (our favourite +25% City Tax) or Mining modifier we haven't seen yet. Then we go onto shopping spree for some more Universities II (that previously escaped my attention or couldn't be built due to some other ongoing construction taking pllace). That's quickly eats up another 7.000 gold. Well together with another city we get to build thanks to Komi University event.
Two more Mayors die and we will need to replace them. One of them was our kin in Syzran - happily some 15 year old noble girl is present so within a year we will be able to fix it. So far we have not the greatest luck with assasination as we keep getting discovered and failing. We get finally some prosperity opportunity but in... Tura. We take those "Harvest Festivials" anyway for +15% local tax modifier. Where are my Business events to start lifestyle chain though :<?
In October we are standing on 4 over the demense limit vassal bishops (with one that either fixes itself out or we speed it up) and 3 mayors with the same situation (one we are working on, one we need to convert Jewish courtier and one that might need several assasinations). Conversion that we just got but it went towards our recently acquired high diplomacy shrewd Ashkenazi (24 diplomacy). Retrieved some 34 years old lowborn from one of the city court (she is quick) and decide to gamble on generating holy men with piety. Get lucky and in just 4 attempts (100 piety) we do get new Genius male character to marry off.
Before end of the year we once more miss to pause on 1st of November to go for 2 feast per year strat (I was tinkering with my notification and realized I should be doing something on 9th of November), fix another Mayor and advance in Hermetic Society to second rank. Now we have access to both Scrying and potion of Eudaimonia. Which is really neat
. Something must happened between our vassals too, as we lost one vassal in our vassal limit (thus increasing our income slightly).
Year 1273
======================
Well we somehow improved our income to +3411 per year with 44.600 in the bank. We are also seeing the light at the end of the tunnel thanks to another conversion (this time landing on high stewardship Israelite). Decided to order him to become monk (50 piety) but he went to our Brother in freshly conquered lands to the south (those we needed to extract books from Malyyids). So we have to pay him 40g for favour and invite him back. But now we have 22 Stewardship character to be used for some temple fixing soon'ish (in a year as See the realm prosper will time out). That gave me idea - I should create Italian Monastic tutor. This way we can mass culture convert without missing on those +attribute events and need to manually micromanage it in picking right tutors. So it's a win-win scenario. Was also thinking of getting more Monks into the court - while baron level vassals are bugged and don't set education for their heir we could still help them with those +stats on top of trying to breed quick/genius into their courts. But each not-court tutor can only have 2 selected wards so we will need a lot if them. Those are just some ideas anyway how to make the most of the life in CK2 vanilla.
Halfway through February city construction in Kudymkar finishes. We even have prepared young mayor (18) with decent Stewardship (15) married to 17 stewardship spouse. What's nice is that he is depressed thus soon he can be upgraded to 16 stewardship. And we got him from our ongoing breeding program in court
. Just look how nice it is shaping out:
Losing access to some courts in Europe after seceding western parts of empire might be suprisingly more viable. Also what a discovery. That's good way of managing more cities without having to suffer negative penalties from revoking!
By April I made some discovery. As we eliminate another occupant of Mayor office in Karlutka, we get better replacement (5 vs 8 stewardship). That's makes me willing to try and resolve the rest with proper spouse arrangement. We try favour but takes us nowhere but... Out of curiosity I try marrying our great stat half-sister Princess Aileen (20 years, 20 Stewardship, Midas Touched, Diligent) and he would accept even without favour to be matrilineary married! Which means that we could use our female kin for fixing city vassal courts that devolved into lowborns! Previously I was wary of this, as it will increase their prestige thus making such future operations difficulty but maybe I was viewing it incorrectly? We can use it only when something goes south and we no longer have any highborns locally. This way that shared prestige won't matter. We also shouldn't be allowing such mistakes often. So not only do I deal with annoying spam from various suitors across Europe but also help myself manage our city network
.
Problem manifets as soon after arriving to the city, our half-sister develops Great Pox (-20% fertility). We still have the general gist of ways to improve our bourgeoisie. Then we throw a Summer Fair. We are onto this strategy of pumping +18 prosperity points in our capital (prosperity level 1) each year. Given that we don't have anything else to do - why not?
Then we have some work to do with our mercenary band. Well previous Italian commander asked us for the third time to increase size of their company. We declined and replaced him, after yoinking few lowborn Italian commanders. But by mistake I appointed one of our better Italians there (who have Tibetan bloodline and married to Genius Komi wife). Soon we have to start working on acquiring them back (As after replacing they go to random foreign court). They took Genius child with them, that I really wanted. Still we got 2 more Italian characters out of it, so it's not bad. One of which will continue this mercenary band and generate + train more. Without us having to lift a finger.
Summer starts with information about some vassal faction finally becoming dangerous - 72% of top liege power. Given that we are suffering that -20% demense levies from being over the limit, it isn't suprising. What do they want? To increase council powers. Well the demand per se isn't bad but right now it would cascade us into being force to give up everything as we don't have currently the demense size for more. So if we agreed it would put us at -60% demense levies (from current -20%), making future actions enforcing faction demands easier for our dear vassals. Sooo... move our jobless spymaster onto new King of Nenetsia (some Schemer overthrew previous holder) to "Discourage them from joining factions". Maybe it does something to someone already in faction. Maybe not. We have some Nomads in Novgorod to bash!
Regular training of commanders thanks to Nomads.
Nomadic incursion start becoming more and more rare. Partially due to our north-eastern Cumanian vassals expanding into Mongolia (will had to secede them later). Partially due to our garrisons improving and overall number of provinces with cultures responsible for raiding falling down. Well we win but don't improve anyone involved. It does nudges me to check what our Marshall is doing and he was still supressing revolts in Ryazan. So we order him back to organize army (hoping he improves some commanders). Followed by replacing our Genius Greek Chancellor with Orthodox Shrewd Ashkenazi. Why? Cause Ashkenazi has chance of generating us some diplomatic technology points. Rarely but still. He then is assigned to keep improving our relations with our bigger vassal in Nenetsia - maybe he will like us so much, that he leaves faction on his own. That would peel off most of their power.
By July we resolve faction problem in different way. With Assassination of faction leader - Duchess Slyuganka of Kazakh. Sadly we got revealed for our part in it and now her son Duke Sarin is considered to harbor a lot of negative emotions towards us. Can't kill him too, as that would push his lands into other vassal hands. Whoops! Soon this whole faction restarts. Doesn't seem to be prudent way of resolving this particular problem in hindsight.
We also notice that our Italian holder of Tibetan bloodline makes it on his own back to Perm. His wife inherited Duchy of Ob. Everything would be great, if not for a fact that they are married in such a way that their descendants will be Italian. Which can create revolt friction with their Komi subjects. So at some point we will have to retrieve them. We also have to start assasinating Duke of Vasyugan, well on his way to unite duchies of Yugra and Vasyugan in Siberia. Not a problem as his Permyakid wife will help us (Duchess of Yugra). He is also scheming so we can't let him live anyway. This is just a tragedy waiting to happen.
Some news that were happening in the background.
Due to waiting on not existing great hunt (got something wrong), I miss timing for organizing feast again in November... Then we have to repair some of our great works (I just pay as wasn't certain it won't backfire on me to choose 100g). Next got some event I never seen before (but we miss 20% chance on extra +1 learning) and then we get update on Aztecs. Well that's cool - but they managed to establish themself in Europe already. They are currently beating down Hispanic Empire for all their lands in Maghreb. They have 63.000 troops out of which only 6-7.000 are event related. Mesoamericans recently quickly squashed 53.000 strong Catholic Anglo-Saxon uprising in England without losing a beat. You will notice that we have new realm - Aquitaine in southern France. Their king Pons (which is remarkably Slow and Stubborn) liberated them from Byzantine rule and now has 56.000 troops to his name (out of which only 10.000 are sustainable by his holdings). Meaning that after some time, Aztecs will probably gobble him out too, uniting France for the first time in centuries. As after taking Maghreb (which is massively occupied due to non-existing Hispanic army not providing any warscore), Aztecs will have at least the same amount if not more of not-event troops that Aquitaine has now. Lastly Emperor Huetlatoani Tochtli 'the Dragon" despite being medioce ruler somehow survived so far and his oldest son&heir Prince Huecalpixqui Ozomatli of Picardie is turning out great so far - Conscientious (which turn into Diligent) and Indolent + Playful but with guardian that has both Gregarious and Proud traits (allowing great evolution of those less than stellar traits). Depending on which education type AI chooses later, he might out-do his father in competences.
Then as feast starts, we start getting intervention for our future wife and currently ward - Tekay Kazakovo. We get to choose intervention at 14.5 years of age and we pick to make her Diligent (to pair with Genius and Patient). Costs Emperor Zarny getting Stressed but soon we will remove it with Hermetics. Then we get to pick for Indolent evolution either Groomed or Gregarious. Choice is easy as we really want more Diplomacy rather than some attraction on more difficult to lose modifier. Between all of those our future Empress should have +15 opinion of Emperor Zarny due to having 2 identical traits, then we will have even more opportunities to deepen their relation due to sharing same education type (Stewardship). She looks promising and has already way more diplomacy that current Empress Kanyuva (14 vs 9) It will go down a little due to negative -1 from Education but her other stats might improve even more.
Year 1274
======================
Another year and thing finally should start picking up the administrative slack. We failed some assassinations and it is concerning that in last 3-4 years we got almost no Business events related to lifestyle event chains. Really want that trade expedition for 50% chance of improving stewardship education. We managed to save up 47.400 gold coins. We got another conversion last year but just in January noticed that we are all out of targets for our Permo-Syberian Patriarch. While Orthodoxy is still going strong (100% MA and some smaller Greek realm managed to take over Antioch giving our religion all Holy Sites) we can't waste those opportunities. So 2 more Ashkenazis are imported from Crusader France.
In February we deal with Siberian schemer (and get revealed but his young son doesn't seem to mind). We can finally move onto our last bad Mayor to kill (with replacement already ready to take over). Preemptively preventing problems that could arrise. We are also finally looking to possibly start working on Bishropics. Emperor's half-sister married into city of Karlutka also is pregnant (and her mild case (+1 health) of Great Pox (-2 health) got succesfully treated (+2 health)). This is great as no matter what the gender of her child will be, we can work with that. Mission accomplished!
Next month finally provides us with more proper enemy that arrives from Mongolia. Exactly 2.650 Uyghurs show up so our commanders finally will be able to test their mettle. Problem being they are parked on Mountain province. Huh. On the side note as funny as it sounds - Mongolia started Feudalizing itself with still not-existing technology (which was recorded few parts ago). Before our retinues from Saur can move, another 1.500 strong nomad host arrives province to the south-east. We also get vassal testimony against Duke of Kazakh (another schemer out of hobby as well as having some evil designs on duchy of Kazakh). We take it for arrest chance we might use after this year passes.
In May we finally get opportunity to start that Business thing going. We sell our land in Perm for 10 years of -50% Castle Tax in exchange for 150gold coins. It's barely profitable but more importantly we finally get "Aspiring Trader" modifier (+1 Stewardship). From now on Trade route event chain can happen. Also usually it takes the longest to get that first step, so I have my hopes up.
Battle goes on for forever and there is no massive melee at any point. Still we win.
As we deal with one barbarians to the east, western barbarians have some more action across Atlantic ocean. They took Maghreb and suffered ill-fated vassal uprising of various catholics. Rebels have 26.000 troops and Aztec Emperor 57.000. Which means that he will re-arrange many of those counties with proper Aztec Nahua nobles after all. Oh wait. Aquitainne also pounces on them and Aztec problems begin. Weakness was spotted by Aztec neighbours.
We kind of meet with a wall of bricks, as those Uyghur's that are raiding our border keep to occupy Mountain provinces, thus I don't want to push into them on almost even forces. Maybe I should? After checking their commanders (which is easy as that Host has only 3 courtiers) it doesn't look too bad (only one has Patient for some extra but not extremal defence). Was thinking that they might end on just Generic Skirmish tactic (no bonuses), which could be doable but was wrong after checking. They probably would roll with Harass tactics dealing too much damage in skirmish. Then even if we would be (most likely) countering them in melee it would be too costly. Forget it!
During November as we prepare another feast (missed timing again >.>) we lose Mayor of Uva and are ready to start process of resolving this issue ASAP. Beside that we get really good for us event, as Emperor's oldest daughter - Princess Mazava wants to become a nun. Given how unremarkable she would be as ruler we would have to force her to it anyway, if we wanted to play as her younger sister. So this works just perfectly. Finally before month ends our restriction of waging no war ends
.
Ok those are 2 neat events. Have no idea whether that Aztec flavor does anything X_X.
In december we get option to induct Princess Tikshayka into Taoism. We don't do that. This marks her 12th birthday though. She developed interestingely - Quick, Curious, Haughty and Fussy. Reminded myself that Haughty can develop into Ambitious. We also found a perfect guardian for her - Ambitious, Diligent, Patient Courtier with his only attribute over 12 being intrigue. Why does the last part matter? Well because this makes his only choice Cynical trait at 14.5 years of age intervention. Which in turn will ensure Curious developing into Shrewd. If the events line up timing wise that is. If they don't - well we can always try and take over to grant her either Patient or Diligent (depends on what she will be missing). We still will have to change inheritance law for Tikshayka to become our heir but she seem like viable option
. In case we don't get any Genius sons.
Year 1275
======================
Year starts with the bang - rebelion on Manicheans in freshly conquered provinces of Mongolia:
That's one reason for which I don't care to keep expending our realm. This and vassal limit.
Well good thing that I left my retinues that were eyeing previous nomadic raiders exactly province next door (even though that 2.650 strong host left). We will deal with that at once. On the bad side - this will cancel our ongoing feast so RIP our extra prosperity from it = (. We also get assasination on Mayor on Uva to realize it was wasted. Our freshly put there administrator died on 16th of December last year due to his chest pains... He was only 16 and had 18 stewardship :O! C'mon game. Now we are waiting on some conversion cause we are all out of available nobles with high stewardship. Additionally decide to spent my luck to get another Genius Holy Men. This time it costs me 5 tries (125 piety) to generate one. Not bad! Also we luckily manage to finish the feast cause it was just few days away from end.
Battle of Tom goes really slowly. Takes up to April to conclude! Mostly because we spent almost all of that time in skirmish and no - enemies didn't reset the phase thanks to culture unique altaic tactic. We had some success earlier on both wings but still had to 3vs1 enemy center for over a month, before they finally comitted to melee and got slaughtered. At the very least our young Brice de Tynea developed "Defender" trait (+45% Defence in his case). Not weird given how this battle went but I think other traits might be better. Meanwhile we finished Watchtower Network in Perm itself (+10% levies), another uprising erupted in Pereyeslawl (13.000 troops) and our ward finished education (getting nice level 3 stewardship). Extra 200 piety from squashing that religious rebelion doesn't stink either.
So we utilize vassal troops to move and deal with that Pereyeslawl situation. Takes up to end of July to explain them and force them into retirement. We get tangled into another Hermetic summoning of Divine being and even despite sacrificing two remaining ingredients, it backfires badly (-3 stewardship). We just had enough to hold all 11 provinces without penalty Q.Q. In the meantime we excommunicate Duchess of Chernigov, as we retract some Komi vassals from under her. Then we continue suprisingly long so in the end only one vassal remains under her. We also tried joining some plot for one of our vassals to fabricate claim on her county in Snopa but it went nowhere. Finally when she rises up in rebelion, quite a few extra vassal join her. She has up to 24.000 troops overall. We have still over 65.000, which were raised pre-emptively. So that's a quite substantial early advantage. Just have to make sure we siege her quickly to avoid prosperity loss in Permo-Syberia proper.
We used both remaining ingredients (Iron and Copper) and for the first time it went so badly. We were really unlucky.
War starts with us instantly besieging Duchess of Chernigov capital, using our recently acquired female siege specialist (giving us over 20% siege progress every tick). Many chaotic battles across whole empire happens, as our levies try to reach few rallying points. We win in Vasyugan but lose in Yaik (suprisingly that allied rebel duchess managed to get over 3.000 troops). We also barely lose in Ryazan but beat some bigger armies in Bolgharia. Seperate army from Perm is sent to Snopa (in northern Nenetsia) to get other personal holding of our rebelious vassal (so we can get 100% warscore quickly). In between all the fighting we do get another conversion and manage to finally fix City of Uva with assassination. With that we will have to end this part for now. So far in around 3-4 months of fighting we did deplete rebel strenght by around 5.000 troops, while we didn't lose our manpower at all and pushed warscore by 16% in our favour. As always we do all this while Winter is Severe =3... We also have visitors from the steppes - 2 hosts around Saur (2.939 abd 3.635 strong each). So more fighting will have to follow.
Catholic Komi Duke in Komi and big Duke in Vasyugan also rised up. This will prove useful for Architect event chain, if it happens relatively soon.
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