CK2 - Completing Conquista

[Mist]

Castle Merovech sounds great! I hadn't planned on buying a new computer game for a long time, but this is very interesting, especially if it is like you say: As well made as it looks.

There still should be a demo out there, it's not fully representative, there were six patches by now and they improved gameplay and interface a lot, but should allow you to play with essentials.

If you can think of something Arabic-y to make out of "pling" please do name someone after me

Up to Cyneheards creativity in that case If you don't show up in reports before the game comes back to me, I'll have a Mosque named after you somewhere.

Enjoying the reporting, seems I have quite a bit to relearn for this play round

Yup. The dynamic is sufficiently different from all the Christian games I played.

Last update was mostly standard housekeeping.

I ploughed money into Castle Towns and Villages a lot, since that raised our income most per amount of gold investment. The payoff seems to be Castle Town>Castle Village>Castle City>>City Improvements>>>Mosque Improvements. Also, somehow connected to this is an idea that I got recently after finishing the turnset - Mosques might count as feudal holdings like castles. Raising taxes for nobles might get us money from mosques and we should be able to take them over with no "wrong holding type" penalty.

The boss in bed event gave me a serious chuckle. Died from excitement, seriously Unfortunately made us lustful and I couldn't dodge the bastard. We didn't really need a bastard this time.

As for war for Almeria - pure opportunism. The Iberia is a very violent place in this game, Sevilla ate Cordoba within a year, Galicia got Cadiz not long after. The big emirates seem to be at constant war with local Christian kingdoms with situation stalematish. At the time Aragon was mauling Zaragozza a lot, so I decided to relive the other emir from what's rightfully ours expecting no serious opposition.

-***-

Emir was unhappy. His affair with Basima bore a very concrete fruit. The little bastard had a cheek to look just like him. Outrageous! And now he was facing a potentially unhappy wife, potentially unhappy mistress and one husband in power that wouldn't be happy either way. So damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Sometimes it wasn't good to be an emir.

He rejected the brat, he didn't want the mother to get any stupid ideas. He might start thinking he actually *does* love her. And that would be just weird.

And there was his royal pain in the ass of a cousin who got himself into yet another war around Sicily. C'mon kid forgot about that bloody island already and get a life.

Sigh. Yes, I'll honour my obligations and send a runner to the kafirs in Neapol with formal war declaration. No, there will not be an army behind that runner this time either. Can't you see I'm fighting a bloody and difficult war here? And besides, you're a big sultan and I have utmost faith you can do it yourself.

The actual war he did start was boring. A bunch of sieges with absolutely no resistance in the open field from enemies, which unhelpful people tended to pin on the fact said enemies were hard pressed by heathens from Aragon in the far north of Iberia. Emir himself quietly thought it's because he's a badass like that, but being his humble self, he did not argue the point. Few uneventful sieges later the opposition surrendered and emirate of Granada was whole again.

The same year, Wali of Tamisa had good grace to die due to acute case of wasting space, few months before his child came to the world. Emir understood the poor young man though, pregnancy periods can be difficult on fathers. Nevertheless the law clearly stated that crown inherits the castle in that case and who was he to oppose it when it ruled in his favour?

His grandson, Tamim, was another bright spark in life. Young man was developing splendidly, and when his tutor deemed to declare him adult, he grew into a brilliant young commander. Adept at defence and full of unpredictable ideas. Badis appointed him marshal hoping that weight of responsibility will stop the rot of too much time, money and power.

Brilliant Strategist. Just. Brave. Kind. Deceitful. Unpredictable Leader. Defender.

It also came to his attention that his first wife was rather possessive of their marriage. He applied the old wisdom of never getting between a woman and object of her jealousy and stayed well clear of this one.

That's first wife and lover's husband against the lover

Thankfully, it was brief.

And afterwards Badis made well sure to stay in his wife good graces.

A bird honey? How about a falcon? Just look how lovely it flaps.

Another progeny was conceived and born

and some Imams needed a reality check

all of which together made emir want to Just. Get. Out. Of. There.

Like, right now.

[Cyneheard]

Mosques might count as feudal holdings like castles. Raising taxes for nobles might get us money from mosques and we should be able to take them over with no "wrong holding type" penalty.

This is partially true.
Mosques:
- can be held by Muslim rulers with no "wrong holding" penalty. They provide 0.2 piety/month when that's done. Not enough to make them better than castles IMO, but they're still better than nothing. And since you keep on having to give away demense properties to prevent decadence...
- Provide no taxes if held by a vassal. It does not matter what your feudal laws are.
- Provide 100% of their levies, as modified by opinion as per usual.
- HOWEVER, if your heir holds a mosque as his capital and inherits, then he'll make the mosque his capital for the province. Not sure how problematic that can be.

Then again, decadence is pretty easy to manage if we're bloodthirsty scum, which we seem to be. So giving away demense holdings may not be that wise for decadence purposes.

[Mist]

Not much to say about the last update.

Male family members on the council don't add to decadency, might be important for the future.

Tamim came out pretty good, didn't marry him, because matches on offer for emir's grandson were just bad. Didn't grant him land, because he'd get married himself, and I'm sure we wouldn't like the result.

Iberia keeps being one violent place, Genoa, France and HRE collectively ground Mallorca to dust making it cede Sardinia and fall apart into small pieces. Conquest of Murcia is us grabbing one of those.

Inheriting Tamisa was a really lucky break, the baron there had a pregnant wife, child was born some two months after his death.

Apart from that, one unwanted bastard, some more infrastructure and soldiering on.

-***-

It was very rarely that emir stopped to think about that other grandson. Oh how he disliked that kid, completely no promise and as arbitrary as Badis himself. One just shouldn't allow snotty brats to do as they please, that's a straight recipe for a disaster. So when news from his tutor were of mediocrity, he was not surprised. Neither was his tutor when the reply ordered the wastrel to be thrown into a cell somewhere.

Arbitrary. Gregarious. Deceitful. Proud.

Back home his wife got miraculously pregnant again giving birth to another daughter later on. He never figured out how did that keep happening.

His relentless application to charity was finally recognized.

Word also came that his thinkers figured out how to make better fortifications, he sent back orders to have them thinking about better infantry weapons.

He was also informed that the other grandson complained about the conditions in jail and pleaded mercy. He wrote back to throw him into a deep, dark hole.

And when it was time to find a tutor for his eldest daughter, there was no shortage of volunteers. Unfortunately, they were all bad.

And when he thought he'd go crazy from all that court business interrupting him from waging a proper, boring war. The sieges came to conclusion. One after another.

The war was over. He had to go home to greedy bastards,

young and lustful wives,

news of heretical jihad,

plotting spymaster,

failings of flesh,

and soul.

And when he could take no more, he saw his own death and he welcomed it with open arms.

[Cyneheard]

I'll start tomorrow on the save.

And now I need to go through the thread and grab all of the name requests...

[Cyneheard]

Arab-ish forms

Haphazard - Hazzard
Selrahc - Selim Raq
Merovech - Holding name
Pling - 'ablingah ('abla is "full-figured", and -ah means feminine. Best I can do, I think. Although if possible, I'll make 'ablingah Temperate)
Bobchillingworth - Mashriq (Robert is a derivation of "bright fame" in Old Germanic. Mashriq is "bright." Thank you google translate, although it's a PITA to figure out which vowel to use)
Mardoc - Mardoq

EDIT: Ya'll have a day to give me some more names to work with. I'm inheriting at 21 and will likely have 3-4 wives....

[Mardoc]

EDIT: Ya'll have a day to give me some more names to work with. I'm inheriting at 21 and will likely have 3-4 wives....

Looks like you missed my volunteering

[Cyneheard]

Mardokh or Mardoq? Got to fix that -c which isn't a valid Arab transliteration.

[Mardoc]

Mardokh or Mardoq? Got to fix that -c which isn't a valid Arab transliteration.

Let's go with Mardoq

[Bobchillingworth]

Although your transformation of my name is very clever, could I use Bobdul instead? =)

[Cyneheard]

Note: I may end up feminizing some of these names.

I am more than willing to assist on non-turnsets in Arabization of name requests. I only took 2 semesters of Arabic, and forgot most of the grammar, but I've got enough background to work through Google translate and transliterations.

And @Bob: Fine. But if I need more female names, you're becoming Bobdullah.