
Foreword
Recently, having some time to kill, I browsed towards the AAR section of CK2, hoping to find an entertaining read. I didn’t expect that most of my free time during the next three days would be consumed reading it ; but it happened. And this even prompted me to start this very effort.
So, if you find this story likeable, thank @JabberJock14 and his “Before Plantagenet” AAR for inspiring me. There are certainly other great reads in CK2 AAR, but I don’t have the energy to read them.
One should note that english is not my first language ; so you will probably notice it here and there. Most notably, my game is in french and so will be all text in screenshots. But hopefully it shall not lessen your reading pleasure. Still, when you notice errors, don’t hesitate to send me a PM.
This AAR is based on a CK2 game I started for it a few days ago, and which I played far enough so that events from current chapters will be able to take into account what is coming.
As hints the title of this story, Tórrblóm Saga, we start with a norse character ; called Sigurðr Tórrblóm, (which I’ll write Sigurd Torrblom from now on) at the 867 bookmark. He’s a small ahistorical count created with the game designer in Norway, founder of his dynasty which we will follow.
While Before Plantagenet inspired me about how to exploit minor events (I also discovered the buttons to see relations toward another character and realm power tree) and I like dialogue for character development, I’ll use a more descriptive style to go faster over the tedious parts.
I don’t know how frequently I’ll be able to update this story. I’d like to do 2 parts per week, but it may be less and have some gaps where I’m busy, so don’t expect too much from that side.
That may also vary depending on the size of the updates. I think I’ll prefer shorter and more frequent updates to longer and less frequent ones. I'll use threadmarks to index chapters anyway.
EDIT : I decided upon making updates following the "one place, one time, one action" rule, at least for all those who dwelve into specific character events. This mean that there will be more frequent updates, but way smaller than classical book chapters (though if the story command it, it may end at a good length).
I decided upon this because : 1)I'm not sure about the intensity of my long-term comitment. Smaller updates mean that I can still put some out when I'm busy. 2)It divides the story neatly in logical parts. 3) Because a novel-level of detail on a story spanning 100 or 200 years would be overkill. 4)It makes it easier to read by whole chapters. I've already had that feel of "one more chapter" which ended taking half-an-hour, seemingly unending ; and this is way worse on a computer screen with large lines than it is in a paperbook.
This mean that compared to others AAR this one will probably have an inflated chapter count ; but that really shouldn't be what by which we measure any AAR anyway.
TIP : at the bottom right of each chapter you'll find buttons with arrows : << Index >>. The right arrows allow you to jump directly to the next chapter if you are not interested by the comments.
Setup
The game is on version 2.7.2, with all DLCs but Sunset Invasion and with societies entirely disabled (I keep M&M on for the inventory and the councillor jobs, but I must say it’s a disappointment).
This is not a strictly vanilla game. Specifically, I use a custom mod which mainly changes some defines and traits. For example, congenital traits are more often inherited, drunkard gives a health malus, a character can have a third leadership trait… Various things which frustrated me in my regular CK2 adventures and I tried to improve a bit.
I used also a few game rules differing from the default : more minor epidemics and illnesses (however my mod reduce a bit the probability of cancer for young people) ; historical gender laws ; no surnatural event ; restricted de jure drift and cultural conversion ; slow religious conversion ; disabled matrilineal marriages ; restricted duels (compared to "horribly restricted" default) ; no obligatory release after prisoner punishment (more historical and fun).
More importantly, a few reloads and console commands were used. As the goal is to get a good story, I resisted my urges to reload when an unexpected bad event happened. So don’t worry, the surprises created by RNGod are still here. However, when I noticed I just made a mistake because I wasn’t familiar with a game mechanic, I did reload. For example of errors I corrected this way, at the start I married out of my court a character I wanted to keep and give a spouse to. As for console commands, they were used in a few key points were either I encountered a game-breaking bug or a limitation of CK2 which made impossible something which, from a RP point-of-view, would have been entirely possible.
I made quite a lot of intermediate saves, but I'm unsure if sharing savefiles could prove useful or not.
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