House Balog
Kingdom of Hungary & Croatia
End of game, 1453
The Balogs under Harald took the throne of Hungary in 1316 when King Oszkar the Fat died and in a fair and honest election amongst the vassals, They have ruled ever since.
Yeah, very interesting world, let's start at Britannia.
Scotland - They've been doing well for themselves, still under the Dunkelds, could of probably taken all of Ireland and made themselves king of that if they wanted but they decided to invest in trying to conquer Scandinavia, they started with Norway and for a time held the throne but eventually got throne off it so at some point they went and tried to conquer Sweden instead, which they succeeded at. Pretty good position for trying to form some sort of North Sea Empire I would presume.
England - Is still under the Godwins who have never been ousted from the throne the entire game, but they haven't done anything either. Probably would fall to Scottish power if push came to shove.
Wales - They've done well I think, Establishing a good powerbase in Ireland and even a couple holdings in the Netherlands, I'd almost say they are in a good position to form a trading empire, possibly discover the new world or something.
France - The Capets still control it, of course expanding into Iberia, probably destined for some brutal wars with the HRE or something.
Holy Roman Empire - Well they've been quite invested in Iberia too, as well as North Africa as a whole, they are also Primogeniture which in my opinion was too easy for the to attain, I'd suspect that future warring with France over Iberia would allow upstarts like Venice to step in and weaken them a bit.
Venice - Suprising upstart in Italy, doing quite well for themselves, could probably unite Italy in the right circumstances.
Denmark - At the start it had potential and was ripping through Russia with a vengeance, then the Mongols came... Denmarks gone now, with the Duchy of Slesvig remaining as a bastion of Danish culture.
Ilkhanate - Established themselves a power base in Finland and converted to Catholic, Yeah all of Finland is considered Mongolian now.
Poland - Done well for themselves, established themselves as a Baltic and Black Sea power and even gone so far as making advances in Sicily
Golden Horde - Don't think they've been a real danger to Europe, except utterly destroying Denmark, Oh and they converted to Orthodox and as it stands are the people in any sort of power to be normal Orthodox...yeah
Rus - They formed early and have enjoyed themselves a pretty wild ride, Queen Amalia of the Árpáds back when they were the Rulers of Hungary got a claim on the throne and (in one of the boldest actions by AI I've seen) promptly conquered it, proving that you can indeed fight a land war in Russia, you just have to be Hungarian. It stayed in the Árpáds until Oszkar the Fat's son had it usurped from him by the House Poth in 1317 who held it continuously until the 1432 when a Descendant of Oszkar retook the throne. Its slowly in decline I think, every nation on its border snapping at its heals
Byzantium Empire - Doing very well for themselves, especially in the art of conquering the Muslims. They are also Nestorian, an Orthodox Heresy, it gained power at some point and has just stuck, has many possibilities in its hands though I suspect it would most likely go about recreating Megas Alexandros' empire.
Christian Kingdoms of Egypt - What I call the several Kingdoms that have popped up since the Fall of Muslim power thanks to Crusades and Romans. They are an interesting lot, we have: The Kingdom Of Jerusalem(Nestorian) Kingdom Egypt (Catholic) and the Kingdom of Nubia (Nestorian), Theres also a french holding which controls the City of Jerusalem itself as well as the coastal area. Interesting region I think, could possibly lead to of interesting wars in the future (If the game could continue)
Muslims and such - Yeah they just got trashed, Turmids are the only ones who had a chance to reclaim any glory in the region and the just failed. Interesting note though, one of the Muslin mercenary companies formed their own little nation down in Ethiopia.
Not much to say beyond I think the Catholics won, Islam has been bushed to the far corners of the map and the only ones who call themselves pure Orthodox is the Golden Horde.
Well we did okay I think, started as a count (of course, I ain't gonna start from a well established Dynasty, are you crazy?!?!) and made my way to Duke pretty quickly, (in-spite of losing my first count in the first eight fucking years)
Could of probably carved out a larger empire I suppose but that's not how I play and I like the way things turned out. It leaves a lot of things to ponder how they would turn out in the following era instead of "LOL HERP A DERP WORLD CONQUER".
This is my first Crusader Kings campaign to ever reach the end date, including Crusader Kings 1 campaigns which is pretty awesome.
I had a lot of fun and will definitely be starting a new Campaign soon and I definitely suggest anybody who doesn't have CK2 to get it as soon as they can. (at the time of this post its on sale on Amazon with a bunch of other Paradox games for $12.50 USD which is a really good deal)