I really like Georgia, you're stuck between 3 empires, two of whom got holy war casus belli on you. Fun time. 
I started a game in 867 as king of Armenia. I spent the first 100 years being bullied by the byzantine empire(who have de jure imperial claim to the whole of armenia) and the abbasid empire(who didn't use holy wars but an "invasion of armenia" cb, I don't know what that is ?).
I managed the byzantines by simply yielding any provinces they asked for, getting a 10 year truce each time, then getting a couple back from any random rebelling vassals, yield these back when asked, rinse, repeat. Not very glorious, but hey...
The Abbasid where a trickier business. Asking for ALL my land, plus different religion so they won't even vassalize me, plus five times my numbers including all the merc I can hire. Fortunately armenia is pretty much only mountains and the AI is very prone to attrition retardedness. I'd mobilize everyone, flee to my province the farthest away from the frontline and let them grind down their men in those horrible mountainous provinces it takes 2 month to move from (in case you're not familiar with that area, do not, I repeat, DO NOT, EVER, move your troops into vaspurakan).
Once they'd be down to 15k from their original 120k through attrition alone (they do that all the time :/) I'd go in for the kill, then get a white peace and that sweet,sweet 10 years truce. Not very glorious either, but, hey again.
Meanwhile I expanded to the north into desunified pagans, then my vassals themselves started to expand north, then I got strong enough to get preemptive truces by attacking in any successions crisis my monster neighbours had, which gave me enough peace time to start non defensive wars, which got me MOAR PROVINCES HAR HAR and MOAR POWER HAR HAR and now
I bully them.
I managed through marriage to get my dynasty on the thrones of spain, which was completely useless but fun ( one day I'll tell you the story of Godstantin the Great, King of Asturias, for once very aptly surnamed; he started as a 4 year old king, with penalties with all his vassals since he was from a different culture and religion, vassals who were also pretty much all claimants to his thrones. Instant civil war. I helped him the first time, but when the second started he had been turned into a frankish catholic by his tutor so I coulnd't offer to help. Yet he survived that one, and half a dozen more,against absurd odds. He would finally abdicate to his son -but become his regent- when he lost an excommunication war against his neighbor and kinsman the king of Aragon).
Managed to get it on the throne of the empire of Francia also but they didn't stick. He was already adult and the penalties were to big. For a moment I believed in a myaphisite europe but he apparently accepted an ultimatum from his vassals without even fighting and I coulnd't help.
And on the throne of Byzantium, which weirdly created what looks like a one-way alliance : the emperor would start a war for one of my provinces, I'd beat him back or yield depending on the circumstances, then a couple years later he'd ask my help against peasant rebels (which he didn't get
). the fuck...
My southern problem, the Abbasid Empire, has almost disintegrated and been pushed back to egypt, eaten to the east by a persian revolt that founded a huge manichean persian kingdom, and to the south by the independance of the kingdom of arabia, slightly less powerful than the persians but with much less internal trouble, so they kind of match each other and have had up to now the good taste to fight each other, leaving me alone so I can snatch a couple provinces from the weakest from time to time.
However the Abassids still have provinces far to the west, up to southern Maghreb, they can't be completely written off and have the numbers to make a comeback but they're plagued by internal crisis fro now.
The biggest threat in fact is Byzantium again; they benefited from the Abbasids fall too, and expanded into northern Arabia; now they almost border me to the west and south and got huge holdings in southeastern europe and crimea.
the next decades will probably be dedicated to weaken them.
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Topic: Crusader Kings 2 is released. (Read 2116047 times)