Legends and Plagues - Pindicator Plays the Newest CK3 DLC

[pindicator]

Complete coincidence

[Commodore]

Complete coincidence

It's not stressful to be at war?

[pindicator]

Not particularly. There are certainly things like leading armies in battle or picking certain events that give you a chance of death in themselves. However the stress system is very opaque in what gives you stress and what takes it away. Also, I double-checked the wiki, and stress does not start to affect your health until you get up over 200. I don't think we were that high for much time at all - most of the time we were between 100 and 200.

I'm not sure exactly how the game picks the date that your characters dies. Your health stat is hidden, but the game does give you some hints - take a look at how Smbat's face was looking in those last pictures for instance. There is information on the wiki about how your health has a chance to lower every year to simulate the natural lifespan, but I haven't found anything on how it picks the day and month.

[Sullla]

Came for the political intrigue, stayed for the random peasants devoured by wolves.

[haphazard1]

Whoever called him 'Smbat the Unlucky' earlier certainly hit the mark. Ouch.

So the new young prince takes control with a newly-declared war on his hands. Will he achieve glory, or does a darker fate await him?

Thanks for the update! This has been a very entertaining game so far.

[pindicator]

Prince Sahak of Georgia, Part One: A Successful Hunt

With the death of Prince Smbat, the realm was split between his two sons.  We carry on as the oldest, Prince Sahak, and inherit the capital of Tblisi, the duchy of Georgia title, and the counties of Kakheti and Khachen.  Meanwhile, our younger half-brother Pharen becomes count of Aran and Hereti, and becomes Sahak's only count-level vassal.  And as we recall from before, King Arshak still rules over all of Georgia.




As Prince Sahak I have the following traits:
- Content (-1 Intrigue, +2 Learning)
- Humble (0.5 Piety/month)
- Honest (+2 Diplo, -4 Intrigue)
- Thrifty Clerk (+4 Stewardship)
- Pilgrim (+5% Monthly Piety, +5 Travel Speed, +5 Travel Safety)
- Loyal (+1 Diplo, -1 Intrigue)
On the whole I have average Diplomacy & Stewardship, poor Martial & Learning, and terrible Intrigue.  His Prowess is also poor.'

Prince Sahak already has 3 children:  2 daughters, Gadar 5 and Leyli 3, and a son named Smbat, age 2.

I set my lifestyle focus to Domain, under the Stewardship tree.  This ups my Stewardship stat to 13, and increases my domain limit to 5.  I see we also have Meritocracy already researched.  Perhaps I could try to do with Sahak what his father could not.

One of the first things I do as Prince Sahak is to negotiate an alliance with my brother.  Household members do have the ability to create an alliance in this manner.

Then I ask Catholicos Tigran for gold.  Luckily he likes me more than he did Prince Smbat.




As long as you have the piety to spend and your head of faith likes you, there is the option to ask for gold after every so often (2 years? I'm not sure the exact cooldown).  So as long as we have the piety, then the money spigot doesn't turn off.  Another great reason to go on pilgrimages as a new ruler.  Lucky for me, Sahak here has already done a couple.  It's probably good that we didn't declare a feud against his house, because now the Catholicos actually likes us.

There's also another thing we can use piety for.  If we're not a king or an emperor, we can ask our head of faith for claims:




So yeah, why are fighting Prince Giorgi after all?




We fought one battle which I won, but seeing that this was now pointless to my goal, I ended the war as soon as possible.

We have the claim, but King Arshak is allied with his brother, King Smbat of Hayastan.  However, there's another problem:  we don't have enough prestige to declare war.  We need 150 and we have 98.




So to get some prestige, we go on a hunt in Gavazi.  I hunt the roe.




We need a new Master of the Hunt, as our Physician Aspuraces has become infirm in his old age and is no longer up for it.  In fact, he is now a terrible physician, but it would cost me 200 prestige to replace him.  So we will just have to not get injured or sick for the time being.

I appoint Movses as my new Master of the Hunt and we are off.




During the hunt we find some poachers and I hang them.  As an event this gives me +10% Taxes in the holding where we're hunting, but also -30 Popular Opinion.  My vassal and kinsman Gagik tries to steal me away to tell me something about another courtier, Vosgi, but I tell him to keep his mind on the hunt.  And then Mayor Artavad almost ruins the whole party by stepping in a bear trap.




Finally we catch up and I let my knight Giorgi take the shot.  He hits and the hunt is a success! 




As a prize I get to take home the antlers, which give me a bit of prestige and court grandeur.  Court grandeur only really matters for Kings and Emperors - for when you get to hold court.  But I can "equip" up to 4 trinket artifacts, and so I equip this one and start getting the effects now.




375 Prestige is more than enough to declare the war.  We outnumber our liege's forces, but the main problem is that he is allied to his brother, King Smbat of Hayastan.  Meanwhile we have no allies.  I could betrothe some of my daughters, but they are still very young.  Instead I decide to hire mercenaries.  I spend 168 gold to hire the Oghuz Band of Mangyshlak for a 3 year contract: 740 men composed of levies and bowmen.




Now the numbers are even.  I would prefer to have them be in my favor, but I am impatient: I press my claim now.

King Arshak refuses.




Then war it will be!

[pindicator]

Prince Sahak of Georgia, Part Two: The Two Kings' Army

Prince Sahak's fourth child is born at the beginning of the war: his third daughter, Nane.




While the family celebrates their fourth child, 2100 men are mustered and march to siege Lori. We will strike at the capital and take it before the two kings can arrive with their armies, and win the war!

At least, that was the thought. In reality, we are caught at Lori by the two kings' combined army.




And lose decisively.




We lost 700 men and killed 250. That's all right, I deserved that. Although losing 50 legitimacy for simpling losing a battle really hurts. I should have waited for his troops to siege my holding and then attacked them. When you are sieging a holding the owner of the holding always gets the defensive bonus, even if they are the one initiating the fight. So their troops advantage along with their defensive buildings were too much for me to overcome. One problem we were having was that our capital Tblisi was on plains, but the hills around provided better defense.

We sat back a bit to refill our levies, and the two kings' army began to siege our capital at Tblisi. We refilled our troops, but a sad realization came to me: the men-at-arms that were stationed at Tblisi were not refilling! Well, that made sense. Still, we could not get to full strength. I waited as long as I could, until the siege was about to break through - and then we attacked.

And were defeated again.




Was I going to come all this way just to fail? Was I too impatient in reaching for my goal? We were at -70% War Score, and the enemy was moving to siege down our holding at Telavi in Kekheti. If they succeeded they would almost certainly get enough war score to force me to conceed. Then imprisonment, Sahak would be killed, titles possibly revoked. Prince Smbat would have to take the throne as a child, which meant we would have to deal with a regent. It was all spiraling out of hope. Sahak couldn't help but become a bit reflective in his defeats.




Yes, the journey was difficult, but the destination would more than make it worthwhile. Sahak drew inspiration from his pilgrimage: he was not yet beaten! He would find a way!

His army regrouped and moved to retake Lori. Newly conquered holdings have less walls, so there was a good chance we could retake the capital before Telavi fell.




We did not! But we got it 5 days after and managed to slip away before his army caught us. In fact, there was a brief period where the war score did hit -100%. There is also a little bit of a delay from when the AI hits -100% to when it enforces the surrender condition on you, and I just barely snuck in under that buffer.

After this we fall into a bit of a stalemate, where the AI does not want to fight me in the hills, but I am not certain I can take him on the plains due to being outnumbered.

The war drags into its 2nd year. Another daughter is born to Sahak. Something must be done as the stalemate cannot go on forever. If the 3-year contract for the mercenaries were to expire then our armies would be easily conquered.

I do the only thing I can think of: I sell all my artifacts, ask Catholicos Tigran for another 100 gold, and scrounge up enough gold to hire another 700 mercenaries. Our ranks swell to 2200, and we move to engage the Two Kings' army, which has begun sieging Hereti.




In August we catch them, and despite the number advantage the battle pitches back and forth. But we prevail!




500 men killed on each side. A victory only brought out by out-numbering the enemy. I leave 200 men to retake Kakheti, and give chase with the bulk of my army. We catch the two Kings just across the border in the duchy of Abkhazia, and score our second victory of the war. The bigger victory was that the two kings finally split their armies in defeat, with Arshak's going to Tao-Klajeti, and Smbat's retreating all the way south to Hayastan.

When Arshak invaded again, he was alone - and with only 400 men he would be easy to defeat.

Meanwhile I was running out of time. My first mercenary contract was going to be up in a matter of months and I did not have any money to continue their contract. I riskily split my forces to siege Arshak's capital at Lori and also to engage his forces. However, King Smbat would reappear from the south and force me to give up my siege before it got too far.




Remember the poachers we hung in the first act? That -30 Popular Opinion finally culminated in a peasant revolt. And Kakheti was the exact province that King Arshak was aiming for. Not to be deterred by some peasants, he ran his army right towards them - they whittled down his forces and my army was right there to fight him right as the battle ended. We defeated King Arshak and then turned south to immediately fight King Smbat, who was arriving too late to help.




After defeating both armies individually I sent everything to Lori. My first mercenary company disbanded during the siege; their contract had run out. I still had another mercenary company, however, and still outnumbered the diminished army of the two kings.

I got a funny event saying I had earned a nickname of 'The Loyal'. Clearly an Ironic nickname in my character's case.

As I captured Lori, their armies converged on Hereti again.




I chased them off of the siege. By now the AI knew it was too weak to engage me so it would run whenever I got close. But they were too slow this time, and the two kings did not move their armies at the same time, so I was able to wait and time my approach so that I would catch the slower of the two and only fight King Smbat at Hereti. Meanwhile King Arshak ran off to Lori, to try and retake his capital.




He would not succeed. We caught up to him outside of Lori, and defeated his army again. This time we captured King Arshak and forced him to sign over his throne.

Victory!







You can now see our holdings from space.




I don't think I expressed just how stressful this war was. It lasted over 5 years and I had to constantly gage when to chase armies or when to siege holdings for most of the time. And then when we finally did get the advantage we were running against the clock of my mercenaries' contracts running out. I had to put the game down for a while after this point as it just had stressed me out so much to get that win.

[haphazard1]

Lots of excitement in this update. Prince Sahak claims a title as king, but has quite a few setbacks along the way. Where does this leave him going forwards? Will the defeated rulers seek revenge, or will Sahak's new position give him enough influence/military might to resist? Also, how do relations with his brother work? Is there much (or any?) loyalty there?

Thanks for the reports and explaining things. It has been very entertaining.

[El Grillo]

Well done, and good luck in the turns to come.

I had a fun time just looking at the map. Out of curiosity, what's going on with that east Asian region in blue with two Üs as its name?

[pindicator]

Out of curiosity, what's going on with that east Asian region in blue with two Üs as its name?

Just one Ü in its name - looks like there's an independent duke or count over there that has split it's lands in two.