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To Ireland and Beyond: A Munster AAR

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Hello everyone!

I was wondering if there would be any intrest in reading and following up on a AAR with the Duchy of Munster in Ireland.

Back when I first bought Crusader Kings, this was the nation I tried, with the advice of some people here on the Paradox forums. I lost intrest in the game for a number of reasons. Now that the game has been patched and I have time, I've come back to it, and decided I wanted to try Munster for several reasons.....it looks like a good chance to expand without serious threat, it's in a nice location, I wanted something 'middle of the road' in difficulty, and this WAS the first nation I tried. :) I seriously considered others....Spain, Apulia, Sweden or Denmark....but decided that this might be good.

Munster would also be my first 'real' game since I came back to the game and applied patch 1.05. I played as a county in England for about 40 years to get used to things and what not, read as much as I could find on the game here and on the Web, and then applied some graphic and event mods, testing the game with other nations for short periods to make sure they worked. So this would be the trials and tribulations of my first 'full' game. I intend to play till at least 1419 and if things are going well export it to EU II and continue there.

The basic setup...as I said, I'm using official version 1.05. I ended up applying THREE event mods....the newest versions of SMACK, BOPAK, and the events from Gigau. Partly I'm not sure which one I'll like the best, and since I'm playing a small and kinda out the way nation, at least at first, I wanted as much going on as possible. My testing shows events will come at the rate of 1-2 a year, about the same with the AGCEEP in EU II, so that should be fine. All of the events DO fie, but I have the SMACK ones laid 'on top' so for the others I may get some 'Unknown String' errors....my testing showed as much. The event details and the events themselves work fine, though. If I feel too many are coming later, I'll remove one. I also have a number of graphic mods installed.

Munster starts the game with two counties directly under their control, and a third under the control of a vassal. I intend to give the other county not under my direct rule to my oldest son, so that I can get some prestige. I'll still lose some due to other two sons not having land, but I'll gain about 3-4 points a year. My ruler is rather old, so my immediate goal is try to gain enough presitge to claim a title of a neighboring county before he dies, so it passes on to his son and he can attack it. I will also try to make alliances with England and Scotland so that they leave me alone. Then I'll work my way up to become King of Ireland....which is my long term goal. After that....who knows?

Without the search function working, I can't be sure, but it does'nt look like a Munster AAR has been done before.

I'll even let people give me advice and tell me what to do, since I'll be a newbie at this game. ;)

So, would there be intrest in me starting this?
 
Sounds interesting, I'll keep watch. :)

I played a Desmond AAR at a later scenario date, but if I can be any help I'll try.
 
Well, like all irish provinces I would not so much call Munster 'middle of the road' as 'highway to poverty' - but I'll be reading!
 
Thanks guys. I'll start the game today....I think. :) With Vicky Reolutions just being released time is going to be tight. ;)

I did'nt know that someone else had done a Munster AAR -- I intend to do mine in a different style, from a historical narrative told by me as I play through the game. And as I said, being a first real game I'll be happy just to take over Ireland. :)

I can go ahead now and post the basic steps I did to get the game set up after running it.

POST #1 -- THE START OF THE AAR

First, I have the game set at the next to highest levels of difficulty and aggression -- Hard and Aggresive. The game starts on Dec 26th 1066.

The basic situation has Toirrdelbach O'Brien rulling as the Duke of Munster with two counties. I'm losting prestiage due to the sons not having land. He's 57, so I'm just hoping to have him last 10, maybe 15 years, and try to gain enough prestige to grab a title for my sons. The best I can do to stop the loss of prestiage is to give the oldest son, Muirdertach, the title of Count of Tuadmumu. That leaves me with the county of Desmumu to rule directly.

Toirrdelbach has three sons -- Muirdertach (25), Tadg (19), and Donnchad (16). Toirrdelbach has the trait Charismatic Negotatior. His wife, Gormalith, is also quite old (56) so I can rule out any more kids.

I also have one vassal, the Count of Tuadmumu, to my east. (Munster is on the SW part of Ireland) Madil Sechluinn is 42 and has only one child (11), a young son. I'm hoping I can marry into that family and gain control of the county peacefully rather then having to use force or revoke a title. With giving Muirdertach land, I now gain +3 prestige a turn.

I go ahead and inspect my laws. I'm happy with Semisalic Consanguinity and Ecclesical Balance. I change the last to Feudal Contract since it seems to fit my needs better. For the tech advances, I decide on Siege Equipment, Mining, and Schools to best expand my small and poor nation. I now go ahead and tweak my tax settings. I'm now gaining .10 in loyality a month from the Nobles and .40 from the Clergy. I don't change the power settings of the classes (40 percent for Nobles and 20 for the others). I'm making .7 gold a month in profit. I start the game with 25 gold, 100 Prestige, and 100 Faith.

I can marry some of my court away but decide to wait for Jan of 67 before sending any offers out. I also only have the diplomatic skill for one, maybe two, alliances so I decide to send out offers to the Duchy of Dublin and some neighboring counties next game year.

Finally I set my court. I have six people there....my wife, my two youngest sons, another O'Brien (probaly a cousin or what not) and two faithfull retainers. Lorcan O'Brien (60) is the cousin and I make him the Marshall with a skill of 12. Aibinn Tuadmumu is my retainer (probaly related to my vassal) and he's only 17. He's apointed my Chanclaor with a skill of 7. Tadg is made the Spy Master at a skill of 10 and Seoan O'Flynn, the other retainer aged 27, is made the Seward with a skill of 5. Those are the best skills I have for my court. That leaves my wife and my other son, Gormlaith and Donn respectfully, as my Couriers.

With everything set, it's time to start the game. I let the game run a few days until I hit the new year of 1067.

More to come later. :)
 
Getting a better steward would seem to be a priority.
 
Allright, had some time to play tonight, so here's a new part....where I finish doing my setting up stuff and improve that Seward. ;)

PART #2 -- THE SETUP YEARS (1067-1068)

As 1067 opens up, I look around Ireland for both marriage and wedding chances. I have no women in my court who I can marry, but three out of my six court members can be -- the three O'Briens (my two youngest sons and the cousin). So I aproach nations I want to be friendly with that have women able to be married to, with offers. All three are accepted, and soon I have three women in my court, to increase it to size 9.

Donnchad is married to Marie O'Dochartaigh (20) from the County of Galway, to my north and part of a Duchy.
Tadg married Loblath O'Baoghill (25) from the County of Silgo, also to my north.
And finally, Lorcan, my Spy Master, married Ailleann O'Braonain (35) from my county of Urmumu. I know she's rather old, but marrying someone from my vassal was deemed to be important to me.

And you gotta love these crazy Irish names. :D

Anyway, with the new people, I make a couple of court changes. Coblath is made the new Chancellor with a sill of 10. And Aibinn is made the new Seward, even though it's still a skill of 5.

I also sign a alliance that same month (January 1067) with the Duchy of Dublin, to my east. This should make me safe for the time being, although Ireland is pretty quiet.

I'm making .07 faith a month still along with my .03 presige, and I gain some of that with the marriages. Money has also increased, so that I'm making 1.7 a month, and I also tweak the settings so that my nobility loyality goes up to match that of the church.

There's not much gold, so I have to wait a while for enough to build anything in my county, and try to get events to allow me to get the 300 prestige to grab a nearby title so I can go to war and take the first step down the road for the King of Ireland.

Time passes quickly. Ireland is peacefull, as expected. My retainers have kids with their wifes, and one passes away at a early age. Small wars happen in other parts of Europe.....the Muslims gain some ground in Spain, the Duke of Apuilia grabs more titles, some land is taken from the pagans on the fringes, and the Byzantine Empire makes a white peace.

Some events happen to my Duchy during these two years:

October 1067 -- my Seward Aibinn finishes her education and gains the trait Midas Touched. This also increases her rating to 10, so now she's a pretty good Seward. :)
December 1067 -- the new technology Divine Rights spreads to my lands.
January 1068 -- the Pope asks me if I will accept a bishop into my lands. I agree, it only costs me a small ammount of gold and gives me a small piety gain. The bishop, Dunchad, is made the Diocese Bishop.
December 1068 -- a Royal Feast is chosen to be held. Again, small ammount of gold lost, small ammount of presige gained.

I imagine this is going to be the patern as the game goes into 1069 and beyond....working of the events as they come up and hope to grab a title before my ruler passes away.
 
It's slow going in Ireland. It could be worse. You could be Faeryer! ;) It's times like these you want that ancient claim discovered event.
 
At last a gameplay AAR :)

I would suggest to do the following, to make some more money. (These are things I would do)

- Increase the crownduty, so that your nobles only gain 0.1 loyalty a month
- Decrease your churchdonations so that the clergy also just gains 0.1 loyalty a month, you get some less piety from it but piety can be more easily gained with events and you start with 100 piety already, which is already good. Piety is mostly usefull to lower your badboy, you don't have badboy yet so, no need for that high a piety
- start researching economical techs that increase the province-income without you having to invest money (two-way field system and so on)
- start researching cultural techs that increase the loyalty of the people in your province, if you have those techs you can start raising the tax without losing loyalty
- To profit from the research in school and mines you have to invest money to built improvements, like schools and tile-factories and, it will be very long before you have enough money to built all these things. So you won't get a quick profit out of them
- The first thing I would built would be 'recruiting grounds', troops are very important

Good luck with your quest

stnylan said:
It's slow going in Ireland. It could be worse. You could be Faeryer! It's times like these you want that ancient claim discovered event.
Click to expand...
:)
 
Sorry for the delay with the next part. Between needing to rebuild my computer, work, and other things, I just ended up being busy.

Thanks for the advice with the tech....I'll stay with what I'm working at now to the first level and then switch over.

PART THREE -- PEACEFULL IRELAND (1069-1080)

Time passes rapidly in Ireland. While wars are fought in other parts of Europe, life continues in Munster as it always has. Kids are born to the family members of the O'Briens and a couple pass away. Educations are finished, traits are won and lost. Gold slowly comes in, as much as can be raised while getting .1 support from the noblity and clergy, and prestige slowly goes up.

In January of 1069 Donnchad, one of the two sons serving his father, gains the trait Chaste.

A small war in northern Ireland broke out in July of 1069 as the County of Ulaid sought to gain control of the County of Tir Eoghian. Each has a claim on the other, so a war was expected sooner or later. The war is a short one as it ends in October. Tir Eoghian agrees to give up it's claim on Uliad and the title of Count of Ulaid goes to Tir Eoghian. Despite the defeat, Ulaid stays alive, just agreeing to become a vassal.

A more disturbing war follows this one. England seems like it does'nt have enough going on with wars aganist Scotland, France, and Wales and attacks the small county of Tir Connail in November of 1069, also in the north. This war lasted a year, but the outcome was perdictable. In November of 1070 England annexed the county into their country.

In May of 1072 Stonepit technology is gained by Munster. The researchers now shift to Farming Techniques to increase the yield of the land and therefore taxes.

A bad event happened in September of 1072. Fires raged across the county after a very dry and hot summer and the effect was to leave the county in as bad shape as it had been looted.

This bad event was followed by another bad one. Just the next month a message came from the Pope, passed on by his faithfull bishop in the land, that he wanted the policy of Lay Innestiture revoked. Torridelbach does'nt like the Pope meddling in Irish afairs and basicaly tells him what he thinks of the Pope's edict. The result could be guessed....the nobles cheered the Duke of Munster for standing up to the Pope but the old Duke was Excommunicated. Despite this, the bishop stayed in the land, his wife and family stayed loyal to him, and so did the people. (Gained 50 prestige for doing this, which is why I picked the refuse option.)

In March of 1073 Marshal Lorcan dies. The title is passed on to the second best solider in the land, the Duke's other son Donnchad.

The next month researchers finally finish how to build a basic Battering Ram, which will help when war is finally entered into. The Duke tells his people to keep working on imrpoving it.

By Aug of 1073 the damage done in the previous year had healed (looted status stops)

In October of 1073 Bishop Dunchad takes ill and dies. Despite the Excommunicated status of the ruler, the body is given full rites before being returned to Rome.

In April of 1074 the ruler of Tir Connail, who had been defeated by the English and forced to become part of their Kingdom a number of years previous, dies. He has no hairs, so control passes to a cousin, who refuses to accept the lordship of the English. The English are not happy, but fully engaged in wars in other areas, they accept the decision and the County becomes soverign again, although England mantains a claim on it.

The First Crusade is called in September of 1075, with Jerusalem being the target. Between the small size of the country and the Excommunicated status of it's ruler, Munster is not expected to perticipate. (And no one seems to have done anything by 1081, when I quit playing to write this up!)

January of 1076 sees the spread of a new weapon into Munster -- Shortbows, not very strong but can be fired en masse at a enemy.

March of 1076 sees the ruler of Urmumu, the loyal vassal to Munster, dying and his son takes over.

More bad news for the Duchy of Munster of 1078. In March, it's reveled that a Thieves Guild has been established there, and no one is sure how to get rid of it (including me!)

By September of 1078 enough money had been finally gained, 250 worth, to start contruction on a Forestry project in the county.

January of 1079 has another technology, how to raise and take care of Chickens, spread into our lands.

This is followed by the Two Field System in July of that same year. Researchers now shift their focus to better Farming Equipment.

1080 is a big year in several ways. Gormalith, the faithfull and loving wife of the Duke, passes away in Feb. The Duke griefs but is soon urged by his advisors to marry someone else. At the age of 71, he knows he does'nt have much longer to live, but a new wife would make things easier for him. Shopping around Ireland for a suitable candiate is done.

In March the new Forestry in the county is dedicated.

May sees another war break out. The long time allies of Munster, the Duchy of Leinster, attacks the county of Mide, in the center of Ireland. Munster agrees to go to war to support their ally but no troops are raised. Mide is soon seiged but the siege goes nowhere. Realizing this, Leinster agrees to peace for a claim on the county and gold in September.

The Duke sees a chance to gain something here. In the past, trying to make vassals out of other Counties in Ireland was hopeless....Munster was seen as too weak. But with Mide defeated, a vassal offer of protection is sent. It is quickly accepted, and the papers are signed in October of 1080.

November sees not one but TWO techs gained....Soft Leather and Wood Ploughs. Research is now started on Road Building.

Finally, in December the Duke of Munster remaries. The lucky lady is a older woman, 54, the Steward of Urmumu. This was the first offer to be accepted, and it is hoped this will bring the lands closer together.

1081 starts with Presitage of 240....good, but just not quite high enough to claim a title yet. The Duke of Munster is losing faith, as he is 71 years old now and knows his time on this Earth is short. Something will have to be done.....
 
It is going to be tight, will you get the 300 prestige to claim a title or will Toirrdelbach die just before that and you will have to start over again.

Since you are excommunicated, the cost of grabbing your titles is much reduced, check out your neighbours, see if they have a claim on you. If so then they might start to attack you once your current ruler dies and the loyalty of his vassal is low
 
It's getting to the point where do you go for a different claim because its gettable, rather that potenitally lose the prestige when he dies.
 
Sorry for being so slow with the next part, everyone. Between computer problems that required a partial rebuild (and still not fully fixed) and beung very busy at work, I just have'nt had time to play. I finally have enough going on to be able to post a short update.

PART #3 -- THE RISE OF MUNSTER (1081-1084)

Old age was coming fast upon the Duke of Munster, but he did not despair. He wanted to pass on claims and land to his three sons. All of them had done well. The oldest had his own County while the other two served their father in his court and held important positions. All were married and had several kids. The alliance with the Duchy of Leinster was holding. The target the Duke was most thinking of was the County of Calway, just to the north. But he needed enough prestige around Ireland to grab that claim....

Meanwhile, new technology continued to spread in the Irish lands. June of 1081 saw the development of a road building network. Although one could not be built right away, it held promise for the future. Researchers now worked on trade pratices. This was followed a year later by the spreading of the several liberal arts to allow schools, and popular customs now became the new focus.

Also during 1082 a new Pope came to power, also Italian. Furious over the lack of any response from Europe to the First Crusade to liberate the holy land, he started a war himself by goading the Byzantine Empire and Kingdom of Hungary to declare war on the Kingdom of the Futjimas and the Sulknete of Jeresulem. This started a chain reaction as numerous declerations of war were handed out, as if all Christian Europe was waiting for was someone to take the first plunge. Muslim states attacked Muslim states and Christians aganist Christians, but soon a dozen of the strongest countries in Europe were in a state of war with Jeresulem.

A new war advance was gained by Munster in the final month of 1082, the slinged javelin. By the time the army of Munster was over 1000 strong, fully trained, high morale, and led by a good commander. In addition to the troops that the Duke could call upon from his son and his two vassals, he could field a army twice that number. They were eager for war and would soon get their chance to take the first step to unite Ireland.

The final steps needed to grab a claim was more marriages, more mixing of the families and clans. A number of children, mostly the Duke's grandkids, were arproaching the marriage age of 16. Plans were made to marry them off to other young people who had claims on their own counties and duchys titles, thus allowing claims to be invented.

The first marriage came to pass in December of 1083, as Colcu, the oldest son of Muirdertach, in line to become the next Duke of Munster, married Nest, the daughter of the vassal of the county of Urmumu. Both kids were 16.

The final two political marriages were aranged in Septmber and October of 1084. Two more of the Duke's grandkids, one son and one daughter, reached that special age and were married off the family of Lenister and Mide respectfully. Finally, the Duke of Munster has enough support and evidence through family blood to invent a claim. He wastes no time.

On October 18, 1084, the 75 year old Duke of Munster announces that through family ties (some of them thin, newly 'claimed' by marriage, and hundreds of years old) that he is now claiming the title of the County of Colway for himself. The same day, a demand is sent that this claim be reconized over Ireland. Everyone but the affected county and Duchy who they belong to, Ulster, excepts. The Duke of Munster wastes no time in declaring war and doing a grand mobalization, to which the faithfull vassals respond.

As the troops march north to fight in the First Irish War, the Duke has one pressing thought on his mind....will I live to see the end of this?
 
Well maybe not. Plenty of ways to die in a war, even if your not already knocking on the pearly gates. But at least he got to claim that title.
 
Just to let you guys know, I'm sorry about the delay. I have not given this up so soon. :) I've just not had much time to play due to unforseen circumstances and I want to have enough to make a good post here. Right now, not much has happened in my game....there was the war, the rebuilding, and then I'm getting ready for a second war. I think I'll post here once that second war is over and my Duke dies. Yes, somehow, he's STILL alive, at the ripe old age of 82! And I swear I did'nt cheat. ;) Well, he did die once.....but then the power went out, so I just used my last save. :D
 
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