Legends and Plagues - Pindicator Plays the Newest CK3 DLC

[Commodore]

Looking forward to the rest of the Tales of Smbat the Luckless.

[pindicator]

Count Smbat, Part Three: Plagues

The Byzantines have invaded the Abbasids over the Emirate of Cilicia




It's the first war of the game between the two superpowers.  The Byzantines are out-numbered, but the Abbasids are fighting many wars, and losing most of them.

Notice the clot-like looking blemish on the map, near the area of fighting?  That is the first plague that I have.  Normally there is a plague icon which will display and let you view the world's plagues and see how bad they are / how many characters have died from each one - but for some reason it is not showing up this game.  I can only see the name and what countries are affected on the plague map mode:




The Armenian Pox!  There are no Armenians in the area.  How dare they besmirch our good name!

Most plagues are about like this:  they travel along the coastlines, rivers, or characters can carry them to distant lands (like if they are traveling through infected counties).  With a plague in the middle of a war, I expect this to spread farther.

Then some game-changing news:  the Caliph is dead!




Died during a siege.  I'm not sure which war this was, but the Zunj rebellion was showing up in the capital so I would have to guess they killed the Caliph.  His son takes over, though his son is not yet old enough to rule so a regent is ruling in his stead. The Abbasid Empire does not fracture yet, but the cracks are certainly showing.

Back home, I figure since I'm not going to be fighting any time soon I might as well develop my lands some.  I build farmland in the capital of Aran:




Farms and fields are one of the best money making improvements in the game.  The returns on buildings is something like 20 years on average, though if I had some good stewardship perks I could cut the cost and construction time by a fair bit.

Our heir gets his third trait event making him Honest.  He ends up being Content, Humble, & Honest.  These all help boost his Diplomacy and how much his vassals or liege will like him, but they will be awful for Intrigue, and could leave him more suseptible to schemes.  I notice Sahak also has a strong Learning score, so I send him off to my Steward (a Master Philosopher) to finish his education.

Meanwhile I try to work off some stress by going on a Hunt.  There was a deer sighting in Aran, so I choose to hunt roe, and we don't have to go far.  I appoint my Physician as Master of the Hunt (the game says has excellent aptitude for it) and we are off for some relaxing time in the woods.  Yet everything seems to go wrong on this hunt:  I have to scold my "excellent aptitude" physician for wasting time picking herbs instead of staying focused.  The hunt is interrupted by some dirty peasants that we have to kick out of the woods (which pisses them off but what do I care?).  And then Mayor Manuel was the only one of us who shot anything:




Or rather, anyone.  We hid the body well enough and to my knowledge it was never found.  But still, a very disappointing hunt.  And now the locals are mad at us!

Worse, I find that because Count Smbat has the Shy trait, going on a hunt doesn't actually burn off stress:  it gives him more!  (Considering how the hunt went, that shouldn't be a surprise...)  This in turn gives us our first Mental Break of the game:




I decide to soldier on.  I'll have to figure another way to get my stress down (also I get +10% monthly gold while stressed thanks to the Greedy trait).

874 was an uneventful year.  The new young Caliph continues his wars against multiple opponents.  One of his vassals, Sheikh Abu'l-Ward of Turuberan, takes a county off of Prince Tornik of Tau-Klarjeti.  I beat Count Vasak II in a game of Tabula.

875 is much more exciting:




Prince Ashot has broken away from the Abbasids!  The lower right says that the Caliph gave in to a faction's demands:  that must mean that Prince Ashot started an Independence Faction and the Caliph let him go without a fight.  Suddenly the game has changed: we do not necessarily need to fight our way to the Armenian throne.

(Also, notice the plague?  This is not the Armenian pox, but something new.  It still never made it's way up to our lands.)

By April, Prince Tornik swears fealty to Prince Ashot.  A month later, I decide to do the same.




I am even able to negotiate lower gold and levy obligations.

Immediately I start a Sway scheme against Prince Ashot to get him to like me more.  And we set off to officially pay homage and bend the knee, as well as bring him a gift of gold.







The trip will take us just over a month to reach his court in Ani, and with only one county showing any danger I decide to roll the dice again.  Normally I pay for any and all mitigation (never too careful), but since I'm telling a story here I feel like I have an obligation not to play it too safe.  Still, it isn't too eventful:  we are challenged to a dual along the way (I lose but come out fine), I recruit a second wanderer to join us, and I patronize the shrine of a local saint to help the locals like me again (remember that thing in the woods?).  Then we arrive at Princ Ashot's court:




350 Prestige, 25 Renown, and my liege likes me 20 points more.  This feels like money well spent.

The trip back is very uneventful.  Ran across a guy in the woods being chased by wolves.  His stats sucked, though, so I let the wolves have him.




When we return, I find my wife has given birth to a second son, Pharen.

Sahak comes of age in 876AD and we need to find him a bride.  Unfortunately our status has not improved his marriage prospects, and there are no good alliances to be had.  So I find a wife for him in an unlanded lady in the court of the Basileus, Georgia Drakontopoulus.  She has the congenital trait Intelligent (+3 all stats) that has a chance to be passed down to their children.




The peasants finally revolt in May.




However, I also receive word from Prince Ashot that he wants to make me his chancellor.  Me ... with all of 2 diplomacy.  I think there was a better choice to be had there.  Meanwhile we wipe out the peasants and find their leader is a really good fighter.




We'll work on getting him to like me more, but I do end up making him my Marshall (sorry Movses!)

Meanwhile the young Caliph loses more of his hold on the north, and more lands splinter away.  Some swear fealty to Prince Ashot as well, and the Armenian Principalities grows considerably:




Notice Tblisi coming independent there, a grey island in the middle of the Armenians?  I have a claim on that!




We beat their smaller army and then lay siege to Tblisi.  By July it falls and we have enough counties in the duchy of Georgia to make ourselves a Duke - though I have to save up the 250 gold first.  We would get it just in time, in March of 878.

Then, our first local plague appears:




Ashot's flux, which was far better named than I realized.  It started showing in the fall of 877 and by January of 878 was on our borders. 

Because in April 878, he died of it:




And the kingdom was split between his two sons.
I smell opportunity.

[thestick]

 

Why did you decide to swear fealty to the late King Ashot? You said you had the money to become a duke; did you do so, or did you use the money for something else after the cliffhanger?

[pindicator]

I did become a Duke, but I somehow forgot to take a screenshot of that happening. I swore my fealty because I can still expand by invading people outside of his territory - and it may be easier to expand within his territory now as well!

[haphazard1]

Events are looking up for Count (now Duke?) Smbat. Mostly because things have gotten bad for other people, like dying of various plagues or in sieges. Such is the struggle for power and position, I guess.

Loved how the late prince made Count Smbat his chancellor, despite being totally unsuitable for the position. What factors affect something like that? Is it just random, or how much your overlord likes you, or what? What did the position mean for Count Smbat? Duties, special perks, other?

Thanks for the entertaining update.

[Krill]

I always enjoy reading these updates

[pindicator]

Loved how the late prince made Count Smbat his chancellor, despite being totally unsuitable for the position. What factors affect something like that? Is it just random, or how much your overlord likes you, or what? What did the position mean for Count Smbat? Duties, special perks, other?

You get prestige per month, your fellow vassals like you more, and you get a bonus to XP if you're in the corresponding lifestyle tree. So as a Duke, I was getting 1 prestige month, +10 Opinion for fellow vassals, and +10% Diplomacy Lifestyle XP (which is useless because I'm set to Military still).

As for why he picked me to be Chancellor? That's a great question. The AI will pick their most powerful vassals more often than not, and I did have a good size of land. But they probably could have shuffled someone (anyone) over to be Chancellor and then picked me for Spymaster or Marshall. In fact, we'll see that the new King makes me Spymaster straight away. So I would guess it's because they aren't programmed to shuffle people over - and he already had powerful vassals in the other spots.

Edit: Glad you all are enjoying them! Writing up Duke Smbat's final chapter right now.

Edit x2: I am mistaken, we are actually a Prince! Something to do with Armenia or perhaps our bloodline.

[Mjmd]

I'm not going to lie I really like that your character actually has to travel and there is danger to do so for the events. And there is danger of them being usurped while way. In your other write ups it always felt a bit too free and now I'm super excited for whatever results.

[pindicator]

Prince Smbat of Georgia, Part Four: Opportunity is a Fickle Thing




With the death of Prince Ashot, the principalities of Armenia are split among his two sons.  Prince Smbat, the oldest son, gets the Kingdom of Hayastan and keeps the nominal title of the Armenian Principalities.  And yes, this means there are now two Prince Smbat's.  I will refer to the ruler of Hayastan by his family title as well to help with the confusion.
Arshak gets the Kingdom of Georgia, and becomes my liege.  He has 1 county and 2 vassals:  us and Prince Tornik of Tao-Klarjeti.

Surely this young kid will be easily handled.  He even makes Smbat his spymaster.

Since we've become the Duke of Georgia, I moved my capital to Tblisi and then immediately regretted it:  moving my capital outside of the Struggle area means I am no longer a part of the Iranian Intermezzo and no longer get the bonuses for being an Interloper in it!  But I had wanted to give Khachen to Sahak, and this meant I keep the whole of the duchy of Georgia for myself.




Oddly enough, now that I'm no longer in the Iranian Intermezzo I can see the Plagues button in the bottom right and access information about the plagues.  This really smells like a bug, though when I played a game in spain before this I could access both the struggle and the plague buttons.  In any case, we can now see that Ashot's Pox wasn't really all that deadly (as long as you weren't named Ashot) as it only killed 6 people.  Plauges come in 3 severities: minor, major, and apocalyptic.  This was a minor one.  It only killed 6 people.

As I mentioned before, King Arshak makes me his spymaster.  My first task will be to figure out a way to take the kingdom from him.  I come up with a plan:  on the Administrator branch of the Stewardship tree there is a perk called Meritocracy, which opens up the Claim Liege's Throne scheme.  Since Arshok is weak, I'll use that to take the kingdom.  I switch my Lifestyle focus to Stewardship and +3 to the trait, but this only gets me to 11 (earlier i had an event which reduced my Stewardship by 1) and so I don't have enough for the extra domain.




It's been 5 years since my mental break, and I still have not lowered my Stress level, so another one fires.  Directly preceeding this Prince Smbat got in a fight with his wife Aigidia about going fishing (a Prince does not fish!) and, well, since he wasn't too happy with her, he decided to release his tension in the company of other women.

Which he then immediately regretted.




He then gives it to his wife...




While the marriage may have not been the best, Prince Smbat was doing far better with his youngest son.  Pharen was the quiet relief for the stresses of the day, and one day in particular came up and surprised the Prince with a wholly unexpected display of love.




Work within the castle walls is not all awful.  Bishop Ashot, who has been with him since the beginning, who pilgrimaged with him and forged specious claims with him now is the only person who he can really releave his burdens upon.  As they work together to chronicle Smbat's first military victory in Kakheti over Count Bagrat, Smbat realizes that Ashot is his best friend.




Funny enough, getting a best friend stresses out Prince Smbat again, and so another trip to the brothel is needed.

However, late in 880 the Stewardship XP finally builds up and we are able to unlcok the first perk: Meritocracy!  Now we will use this to claim the throne of King Arshak and ...







Shoot.  I was not aware of that requirement.

Rather annoyingly it does not tell me how many counties is 51%, but I can find it out by going to the Kingdom Title page and looking at the requirements to create/usurp the title.  I need to control 7 counties.  This is doable, I already control 5.  Though only 3 are inside the Kingdom of Georgia.  So I need 4 more.

Where to get them?




-37 is workable, but still a ways off.  I begin a Swap scheme on Catholicos Tigran, and ask my Spymaster to find secrets in Prince Smbat Bagratuni's court, where the Catholicos resides.  Either we make him like us enough to grant us a claim, or we find something we can use over him.

Because we are perhaps the unluckiest character I have ever played as, Prince Tornik dies a few months later.  And the Catholicos likes his son a lot, so much that he won't even entertain the thought of giving us claims to his lands.  Fine, I'll do it the old-fashioned way:  we set Bishop Ashot to work on fabricating a claim to the neighboring county of Kartli.

While Prince Smbat may not have been the most loving husband (Aigidia demands he fund the construction of a regalia befitting his status; the greedy prince again turns her down), he absolutely was a doting father.  Sahak, our heir, comes to us in March of 881 with another heartfelt expression from son to father:




In 882 we finally refill our levies back to their maximum.  I add a couple hundred pikemen as well - becoming a Duke/Prince unlocked a 3rd man-at-arms regiment.  We are getting close now.  And in October, Bishop Ashot comes through with his claim.

Naturally, a month later I get my hook on the Catholicos:




Houri is the wife of Gagik Arranshahik, the oldest son of Movses - so a distant cousin, but more importantly a member of our family.  (Also, she's a giant.  She's taller than any other person in the court.)  And to have the Catholicos in an affair with her was the worst kind of shameful.  No, the worst part was he was caught by everybody leaving so everybody knows!  And since everybody knows, there goes my chance at getting a hook over him or blackmailing him!

Also, how did my spymaster not find this out?  How was everything just falling short for him??

To say that Prince Smbat was upset by this was a bit of an understatement







I mean, I get it.  He wouldn't give Smbat the claim on Prince Tornik's lands and is keeping him from tyranically taking over the kingdom, but I'm not sure murdering the guy is going to help you out.  Also, nobody in his court hates the guy.  It's a 5% chance for success ... and it's found out right away.  Prince Smbat reluctantly gives up the murder scheme - at least he wasn't discovered.

But the bad news keeps coming for our Prince.  In December 883 his best friend, Bishop Ashot, dies.




Another mental break.  Prince Smbat tries Hashish to cope.

It's a dark time for our character.  Nothing is going to plan, his marriage is a difficult thing.  He must find a way to push on.  He still has the claim that Bishop Ashot put on the county of Kartli.  He can still raise the levies and chase down the dream of becoming King.




Or maybe that's just one thing too much for him to take.  Prince Smbat went to bed that night after declaring war for Kartli, and he never woke up.




Smbat really had a way with timing.  I've never played a character that had the rug pulled out from under him so many times.  No wonder he was constantly stressed out.

I hope his son fares better.

[thestick]

This is like Lucy pulling the football away, wow. Was dying right after declaring the war a (narratively amazing) coincidence, or is there some game mechanic involved?