I took a new approach to this game - I started out by rolling the imaginary dice and randomly picking a character to play, bearing in mind, that after he dies I do the same thing - over and over again, all over the map. Whatever I roll, that's what I play. I try to "roleplay" the characters, going by the traits and abilities they have, so I weigh them in when considering the proper response to an event, and so on. Soooo.....
1. rolled the High Chief of Radimichia, which is a county somewhere in present day Poland/Belarus. IMMEDIATELY got attacked, and vassalized, by a larger neighbour, who then proceeded to make my ducal (that should've been mine) his primary and thus renamed his whole country to Radimichia. My char was Craven, but Proud, so I took that as an excuse to help my conqueror in his next conquests. Managed to subjugate 3 or 4 neighbors, becoming a rather vicious regional power in the process. Then... I died and was reborn as a...
2. whoremonger of a count in the Byzantine Empire. Seriously, this guy had like 13 children and helluva mistresses. This one was rather boring, only civil revolts and such. Died of stress after like 15 years, which is funny, because he got this trait when I tried to maintain multiple romances at the same time.
3. rolled the equivalent of a count in an Indian kingdom. Traits - Dumb, Cruel, Proud. What an awful combination. The king died soon enough and the kingdom got split into two between his sons. The one I got under was kinda weak looking, constantly refused my requests to put me on his council so naturally, I declared a war on him. Did kinda well, destroyed his army and conquered around 1/3 of his holdings when.. I died.
4. did I mention number 3 was dumb? Well, screw that, I got reborn as a drooling, weak-minded imbecile of a woman countess on the border of Abbasid Empire and India. By some divine favor she didn't have a regent, was 60-ish and married to a Muslim man. Oh, did I mention she was a Hindu vassal of a Muslim sheikh? This freak of nature died soon enough, and with her, the Hindu rulership of said county.
5. King of Mercia (BTW, the biggest player on the British Isles, except the Picts). Finally, something REALLY interesting. Ambitious lunatic with the Great Pox, preset ambition to become King of England. No problems, declared war on a petty kingdom next to me, died in battle two years later. Fuck.
6. and we're in the present. I'm a 60 something count of Holland in the Empire of Francia, which just got attacked by the Umayyads. Participated in two revolts, one successfully (to depose the King of West France).
What's happening in the world you ask? Well, the Abbasid blobbed, like it often does. But soon after number 3, it.. de-blobbed? It got splintered really badly into a lot of successor dynasties, one of which is ruling the Sultanate of Egypt and looks like it is on the rise.
Lombardy has holdings in North Africa. Aaaaand, we already have an antipope in France before 850.
Sweden (Svibjod) formed in Scandinavia, but is nowhere near as frightening as in some of my games.
The Khans are doing what they usually do, growing in size and waiting. Elsewhere, India is divided into 7 or 8 kingdoms.
Looks like I've set Mercia on the right way, since it owns most of England. BTW, some Viking conquerors somehow got hold of Brittany, it formed under their Germanic Pagan rulership, only to be liberated by a Catholic peasant revolt, and then renamed itself to Kingdom of Breizh.
Catholic Bulgaria and Croatia are giving the Byzantines a hard time on the Balkan front, in the Middle East it is threatened by random Sultanates.
That's about all for now.