Update on my CK game above:
Oh what difference three years can make. The prodigal son has returned, been married off to a nice Occitan girl (who is also a prodigy, hopefully producing a line of prodigies) and has been invested as Duke of Luxembourg, paving the way for his succession.
In the East, Egypt pretty much ceased to exist. Not sure what happened, but it looks like a combined crusade under Danish and Venetian banners shattered Egypt into seperate sheikdoms and conquered much of coastal North Africa and the Levantine. The Il-Khanate have had better luck where the Golden Horde failed, establishing a foothold in what had been the Qarakhanid Sultanate's rich homelands (in Mazandaran and Khwarizim), though they're constantly having to fight to retain that foothold. The massive Seljuk-Byzantine Empire appears to have been a beneficiary of the dissolution of Egypt, with a number of territories in Mesopotamia pledging allegiance. Anatolia is almost entirely Muslim now, as are parts of Greece and much of Southern Russia. The picture is looking fairly grim for Orthodoxy.
20 year update:
The year is now 1252, and events have taken the kind of turn that remind me why I love this game *and* why it frustrates the hell out of me at times. They say there is a thin line between genius and madness, and my brilliant prodigy 3rd son crossed it. And became a heretic to boot. So I was left with:
1. Crazy farking eldest son who I gave an Archbishopric down in the most worthless end of Iberia.
2. Sane, but woefully understatted second son, who is Duke of a 1-county duchy.
3. Brilliant, crazy, heretic 3rd son who I (wisely now in retrospect) only gave Luxembourg to.
#1 was out of the question. Dude's stats were near zero on everything. #3, even while crazed, had better stats than #2. But he *is* crazy, and a heretic. BAD reaction penalties to all vassals. I'd watch my empire disintegrate, and eventually he'd likely be excommunicated--which would mean every two-bit noble from Bordeaux to Bratislava would be claim-jumping my titles. My descendants would be fending off challengers for generations to come.
Then I noticed that #2 had a son himself, who while not yet of majority age, had excellent stats and was himself another prodigy. That sealed it. Gave # 2 some spare titles up in the mish-mash that is England, which was enough to push him to the lead of the succession line. He's had two bouts of realm duress since then, and had to put up some serious fights, but now the Empire seems secure, and with a robust heir already in line for the throne.
Meanwhile, son #3 bit off more than he could chew by picking a fight with the Genoese. Even tag-teaming with two other potent duchies, the Genoese waited them out and bankrupted them, eventually obtaining the title to Luxembourg in the bargain. Genoa genuinely worries me, but they're also handy to have on my SE border as a counterbalance to Germany, Burgundy, Venice and Sicily.
In the East, the Il-Khanate had a pretty good 20 year run, but then the Qarakhanids got serious and annhilated them. They also flattened the Golden Horde on its
third attempt to secure a foothold west of the Urals. From what I can gather, the Qarakhanids can field an army of about 120,000 if they do a grand mobilization. The Russian Prince of Cheremisa had a pretty good run, coming fairly close to being able to establish the Kingdom of Rus. Then he got into a bad war with said Qarakhanids, and recently lost a swath of territory all the way to Smolensk. The barbarians truly are at the gate of Eastern Christendom, but not the ones we were expecting.
The Turko-Arabic Byzantine Sultanate has lost a fair chunk of territory in Anatolia, which has dissolved into anarchy, but they've solidified their territory in Mesopotamia and Persia.
I'm still really looking forward to exporting this thing to EU3.
EDIT: Forgot to add, somehow crazy eldest son lost his crazed trait. He's still depressed, and still has cumulative traits that are worse than the average 5-year old, but....he's next in line for the Papacy.
Apparently decades of sitting around making frescoes out of peanut butter and becoming fluent in Boogawooga are a great way to demonstrate piety.
I have no idea what sort of drama this is going to entail. So many options, so little time. I'm kinda wondering if I can rework my inheritance laws and make prodigious use of assassins so that Crazy Pope-Brother inherits the throne instead, then change the Papal State's inheritance law and make it a hereditary title. Talk about putting the Holy back in the Empire. I can't even fathom how how many different ways that would break the game. I've annexed the Papal State before, and it usually pops back up by event after a while, often in Venaissin (to simulate the Avignon Papacy). But I've never broke the game in such a way that the Pope (while being a family member) could inherit all my titles. I've no idea if that would change me into the Papal State with a bunch of secular titles in addition, or make the Pope a King with an additional title of King of the Papal State, or what.
Of course, he'd be Pontiff-Emperor Imbecilus I, but at least he has non-feeble sons who could in theory inherit.
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Topic: The Show off your Empires Thread (Read 87424 times)