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pindicator

Welcome to the Island Paraidse of Socotra!

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Table of Contents

Emir Abraham II (r. 1066 - 1106)

Malik Eliya (r. 1106 - 1146)

Malik Kafa I (r. 1146 - 1163)

Malik Ya'qub (r. 1163 - 1199)

Malik al-Muazzam Kafa II (r. 1199 - )

Introduction

Home of the Diskarkha dynasty, our emirate is led by Emir Abraham II.

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The Emir is Lazy, Ambitious, and Honest. How does one become both Lazy and Ambitious, by the way? They just really want everything but don't want to put the effort in to getting it? He is a poor Diplomat, an average Steward, and just terrible in everything else. This guy rolls randomly every game, and when I first looked at him he was far, far better; I am saddened by these stats.

Emir Abraham leads the last nation on the planet that adhers to Nestorianism. There are some counties around modern-day Iraq that have the religion in game (and wikipedia says a small Nestorian church survives to this day in modern Iraq), but in game they may not last long as the Seljuks are in control of a lot of land to our north.

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To the north we have the trailing arm of the Seljuk empire along the northern Arabian coast, and to the south are smaller Ash'ari states, with a few Ibadi and Zayidi tribes still holding out. The Muslim faiths have started to spread south into the horn of Africa although most of the faith in the counties is still Waaqism, the unreformed Oromo-Somali faith.

Farther west are the Coptic Christian states: Abyssinia, Alodia, and Makuria. There are even a few Jewish faith counties in Ethiopia; it was tempting to play as one of them too. I most likely will have to look to them for allies since I will not be allowed to marry into Islamic faiths. However, Nestorianism is also has an Eastern Syncretic tenet, so I will also be able to forge alliances in India.

More detail on Nestorianism in the spoiler:

One goal I am going to have for myself is to control all 5 Nestorianism holy sites - or at least have them held by Nestorian rulers. This will mean I need to spread the faith to the Holy Land, Mesopotamia, and on India's western shore. Eastern Syncretism will make converting lands in India prohibitively long, so I will either need to get creative or reform the faith at some point. I would like to "save" the Nestorian faith counties in Iraq, or at least convert them back to the "true religion" if they ever get conerted to Ash'ari.

However, before that we need to build a power base - and even just survive. Socotra sits in the far south of the de jure Kingdom of Yemen, so we will need to expand northward to claim that title. Or we could migrate to the Horn of Africa and attempt to move our power base over to the Ajuraan or Adal kingdoms. But there are problems with both of those: holding types.

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Much of the Horn of Africa is still Tribal. We already covered how to convert from a Tribal to Feudal ruler when you are Tribal. But there is still work to be done if you are Feudal and take over Tribal land. The game says that the tribal holdings you take need to be upgraded to Feudal before they will pay you any taxes or levies. This costs 500g per county. Another option is to subjugate the Tribal ruler and so they will pay me a small amount of taxes and levies until they upgrade on their own.

So going into the Horn of Africa might have weaker opposition, but we will have to develop the counties ourselves. Or we can try to expand into the stronger Islamic states that are already Clan. Those are stronger opponents. Another option would be expanding east into India. Those are already Feudal lands. The problem just may be getting there as our diplomatic range will only let us interact with the very northwestern portion of the coast.

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Lastly, we are not strong ourselves. We have 298 levies and 200 Pikemen (the latest patch now has everybody start with random men-at-arms). If we cannot find a good alliance then we may have to build up and develop internally before attempting to conquer off our island. Even the weakest tribal county has an army to rival ours. We make 1.5 Gold per month, and make a similarly poor amount of Prestige and Piety.

This will be a far greater challenge than Lithuania was. It is possible I get targeted by a large neighbor and just get eaten early on - which would make this a short playthough. I think the 867 start is easier so maybe if I get clobbered I'll go back and give that a try.

Cyneheard · June 9th, 2021, 14:40

This will test my theory of “win the first war and then you’re golden.”

It might require two wars.

Should be fun to watch though, I rarely mess with tiny minority religions in super-hostile environments.

Commodore · June 9th, 2021, 14:53

I love it.

Tribal and Feudal are known, what's the deal with Clan organization? I guess given the clans nearby are super-hostile Islamic it's not an issue either way yet.

How does one build and develop a single island like this? Back when I played CK2 "development" was always more external than internal.

pindicator · June 9th, 2021, 15:17

Clan is the term they use for the Muslim world's government. Taxes and Levies are given based off the vassal's Opinion of their liege. At 100 Opinion it goes up to 30% taxes and 60.5% levies, so it can be better than Feudal in the highest amounts. There are some drawbacks where every vassal wants to be in an alliance with you (and will get an Opinion penalty if they are not), but the rest of it is pretty much the same as Feudal. Clans also get the Conquest casus belli, which was let us just expand every direction we wanted to as a Tribe. Feudal does not, and I'll have to fabricate claims or find other ways to get a casus belli. (Of course, people of Evil faiths I can just attack.)

Also, one big geopolitical thing concerning the world on Sept 15, 1066: The Seljuks and Byzantiums start at war, with the Seljuks trying to conquer the kingdom of Armenia.

Herman Gigglethorpe · June 9th, 2021, 15:57

(June 9th, 2021, 15:17)pindicator Wrote: Feudal does not, and I'll have to fabricate claims or find other ways to get a casus belli. (Of course, people of Evil faiths I can just attack.)

The phrase "fabricate claims" gives me nostalgia for the time spent playing as an Irish Duke and hiring mercenaries to conquer the other counties. (This was before the "Petty Kingdom" concept existed in the game.) Can Socotra even hire mercenaries? Not every location in CK2 could, and I wonder if that's the case in CK3.

Mjmd · June 9th, 2021, 22:21

This seems super hard! I love it. Is there any additional costs / benefit to island nation from an economic / military stand point (for instance do you need to pay extra for an invasion fleet?)

pindicator · June 11th, 2021, 14:30

Abraham II, Part One: Rocky Starts

The immediate goal is expansion. And when I look at what all the people in the neighborhood have for troops, Socotra is shockingly below the curve. The weakest tribal state boasts 50% more troops than us. Part of that is Abraham's fault: he has a terrible Martial score. 8 is the baseline for all stats. Above that you get bonuses; below that you get maluses. With a score of 1, Abraham gets -14% to his levy size. In addition, the AI is not going to be shy about hiring Men-At-Arms, while I am trying to save up to buy Mercenaries to hammer Sulayhid in one go. In the end we field just over 500 men. The weakest tribal nation is Mareeg with 762.

We do have a pretty nice council.

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With only 1 vassal - the island of Socotra has two holdings: the castle at Tamrida and the city of Qualnsiyah; Ali is the Wali there - there aren't many people to worry about making happy, so we can just worry about picking the best. And here the dice rolls were more favorable. All my councillors are above average in their respective stat except the Steward, and it just so happens there is a far better Steward available to invite to my court. I decide to pay the 10g to invite him in.

A couple other housekeeping items: we were low on Faris (knights) and so I spent the 150 Prestige to invite more. I start a Sway Scheme on my Bishop because he's literally the only one who doesn't like me. My Steward is only making 0.1 gold per month with Collect Taxes so I have him Improve Development instead. I spend 10g to make my Bishop also my Court Physician; he has a Renouned Physician trait and so should do well keeping us alive longer.

And speaking of Diplomacy, it's now time to make some Alliances. It's time to get married.

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Abraham marries Saubhagyadevi Solanki, the younger sister of Thakur Xemraja of Valabhi. Thakur was not the largest army I could ally with at 524 troops (Nabut in the west can field over 800), but I am more interested in his sister's claims. She has pressed claims on the Raj (duchy) of Saurashtra and Gurjara Mandala. These claims will transfer as unpressed claims (meaning they go away if I never call a war for them) to our children. So this could open up future expansion into India. At least, this was how I thought it should work: Valabhi has Equal gender laws, so men and women should both inherit equally. Pressed claims, like those shown on Saubhagyedevi, should pass down to children as unpressed claims (who then have to go to war for them for them to become pressed again). And yet the children we had later on did not inherit her claims. Was it because the gender laws of Nestorianism are Male Dominated? But I thought that only meant daughters could not get implicit claims; it does not state that they do not get implicit claims from their mother. Does Saubhagyadevi need to die first? If anybody knows this clearer I would appreciate the explanation.

Valabhi's troops plus my own get me just over 1,000. But we have another marriage we can make: my son and heir, Eliya!

When your own character gets married you get a Wedding Celebration event, where you can choose whether to receive Gold (wedding gifts) or Prestige (let the subjects enjoy themselves). I took the 75 Gold; I'll need every coin.

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But we also had another alliance we could make! My son and heir Eliya was 6, and we reached out to the Coptic Mesfin (Duke) of Damot and arranged a marriage with his 1 year old daughter, Zauditu. Damot was the largest nation I could ally with, and their 800 troops could prove invaluable.

I also had another idea for getting more alliances, but it sadly did not work like I hoped.

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Abraham had 4 perks assigned at the start of the game on the Family Hierarch branch. Now these were decent perks, making his children have better stats, decreasing stress gained, and allowing him the powerful Befriend scheme - but I was looking over at the Diplomat line and eyeing two perks in particular: Forced Vassalage gave a Casus Belli to vassalize smaller neighbors, and Defensive Negotiations allowed you to propose one alliance outside of marriage. That last one especially seemed good to me. And so I decided it was worth taking the 125 Stress and use the Once-Per-Lifetime ability to Reset Perks.

It was a bad decision.

To start, Forced Vassalage was redundant. I already had Holy War cassus belli because all my neighbors were of different faith, whether Islamic or Waaqi. So all Forced Vassalage would do was let me pay for Prestige to war against a neighbor instead of Piety. Second, everybody nearby had a -80 penalty for doing an alliance because we were of a different faith. The Coptic Christians had the same penalty as the Islamic faiths. Even the eastern religions in India had that same -80 penalty despite me being Syncretic with their faith. So the only thing that this really did was cause me a mental break.

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Which I decided to ignore. Surely I'll find a way to decrease my stress over 5 years ... right?

The second option was a little tempting: I could have converted to Orthodox. But I couldn't turn my back on the Nestorian faith!

Now that i knew I had about 1,800 troops to play with I took a long time here to try and figure out my way of approaching this. I could take over any number of the small tribals, but the land would get me nothing for taking it over myself and next-to-nothing for a tribal vassal (my fame was the starting level, so 8% tax / 15% levies). I decided that using mercenaries to go after Sulayhid was the best way to go. But I didn't want to just take one county, I wanted to be able to declare holy war for a whole duchy. This means I will also need 500 Piety/Devotion to reach the next Level of Devotion.

The answer to all this was more gold. I would need 255 gold for the mercenaries, and I could go on a Pilgrimage at the cost of 100 gold. So a total price tag of 355 gold and I was at 100 - not counting anything else that might come up along the way. So how to get gold? One idea came to me: ransoming prisoners. I could not raid, since I was not tribal; but I could still go to war and capture prisoners.

Busaso was not the weakest tribal, but they were the weakest within my range of being able to declare on. With 760 units, I attacked and spent 225 Prestige to bring in both my allies. I waited for Valabhi's 560 troops to arrive and then we attacked.

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It might have been overkill to bring them both in, as Dumat's 800 never arrived. Valabhi joined our troops and beat back Busaso and then sieged the palace down. Unfortunately raiders had just looted the county right before we arrived and so we were denied the 15 gold that would have normally been available for sieging down the palace.

But our luck turned in another way with an event:

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I could have taken a 46% chance at 100g, but decided to take the safe route here. I also got another windfall at the end of the year when my Steward's good skill we gained 50g more. Also towards the end of the year, my second son was born:

The siege went on until July 1068 when the palace walls were finally breached. Here we hit paydirt as we captured two prisoners:

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The chieftain's son and a courtier from their palace were taken, and we sold the child back for all the chieftain's 33 gold (normal price would have been 50). After the ransom, then we demanded the county. I planned to then give the counties to a courtier, but here unfortunately found one of the new trait changes in the new patch: Ambitious rulers now gain stress for giving away counties if they aren't above the domain limit. The 50 stress would put me into another mental break and was absolutely not worth it here. I would have to hold onto the province myself for now.

So doing the math, was this war worth it? I spent roughly 1.5 gold per month in raised levy and man-at-arm costs. The armies were raised from May 1067 to July 1068, a total of 15 months. Plus there was 2 more months of man-at-arms full maintenance to pay for them to restock up to full. So we'll call the costs of the war at 24.5g. We did not get any loot, thanks to the raider who showed up right before we did, but we did earn 33g in ransom. We made about 8g. Wait, there was also the 10g in troop transport costs, so we lost 2g over doing nothing.

Maybe not worth it. Although having a spot to raise troops that I would not have to pay for boats to ship them from after would be very helpful going forward.

Let's try it again!

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This time I used my Forced Vassalization casus belli because I wanted to have a vassal upgrade the holding from tribal to feudal for me. And since I was unable to give a county away without gaining stress, this seemed the way to go. This time I only called on Valabhi as an ally (they only cost 75 prestige), and I waited for their armies to arrive before our 1,000+ troops went up against Mait's 680. We won and then waited for the siege to finish.

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The heir went for 50 gold and Dhiidhin only had 5 gold left for the other son, which I took anyway.

For this second war, it lasted 14 months at about 1.7g per month in troop costs, totalling about 24g. We ransomed 55g, and so made 31g. Definitely a win on this one. We also gained one vassal who hated my guts. It didn't take long for him to start an Independence Faction.

Perhaps I was getting ahead of myself here, but I started thinking about what I wanted out of the war against Sulayhid. I didn't want just 1 county and then have to worry about the ire of the Muslim kingdom coming down on me. I wanted to cripple them and bolster myself in one go, and to do that I would need to take a whole duchy at a time. Which meant I needed a lot of faith. It seemed I would get the gold sooner than the faith, so I decided that I needed to go on a Pilgrimage for Faith.

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Here either the Wiki is wrong or the game didn't display the information correctly: going on a Long pilgrimage is supposed to give you 675 Faith. I didn't feel spending another 25g to go on a very long pilgrimage for 250 more faith was worth it - not because it wasn't a good deal but because I needed every piece of gold. However, at the end I only get 375 faith, credit for a medium length pilgrimage. I think I would have paid 25g for 500 gold, but perhaps it was still right to pinch my pennies. I also got the Love Thy Neighbor event, which let me choose between better relations with other religions and more taxes or worse relations and faster levy recovery. I went with the taxes!

It wasn't long after returning that Dhiidhin kicked off his revolt for independence. I out-numbered his troops on my own, but called in my allies anyway because it doesn't cost Prestige for a defensive war.

Dhiidhin actually ran from our forces, so we started to siege down Mait again. And then the game got really interesting:

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Fafan had saved up for mercenaries and so we were staring at 2,000 troops. Perhaps if all my allies gathered we would be close to equal. But Domat was still arriving from the west and only Valabhi had arrived. Fafan would not give us the luxury of combining forces and defeated us in turn. Knowing that drawing the war on would only cause me to waste money, I decided to cut my losses.

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Then the game reminded me just how fast 5 years can go by:

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This time with an option to convert to Judaism, instead I went for Reclusive and immediately spent 150 Prestige to drop more stress. So far the only good changing my perks around had done was gain me a Reclusive trait, sadly.

After the war I checked again: my mercenaries were hired out. Had Fafan taken my Yemeni band? Whomever hired them meant I would not be able to do so for 3 years. And I could not take on Sulayhid without them.

I needed a change of strategy.

Gustaran · June 11th, 2021, 16:28

(June 11th, 2021, 14:30)pindicator Wrote: Abraham marries Saubhagyadevi Solanki, the younger sister of Thakur Xemraja of Valabhi. Thakur was not the largest army I could ally with at 524 troops (Nabut in the west can field over 800), but I am more interested in his sister's claims. She has pressed claims on the Raj (duchy) of Saurashtra and Gurjara Mandala. These claims will transfer as unpressed claims (meaning they go away if I never call a war for them) to our children. So this could open up future expansion into India. At least, this was how I thought it should work: Valabhi has Equal gender laws, so men and women should both inherit equally. Pressed claims, like those shown on Saubhagyedevi, should pass down to children as unpressed claims (who then have to go to war for them for them to become pressed again). And yet the children we had later on did not inherit her claims. Was it because the gender laws of Nestorianism are Male Dominated? But I thought that only meant daughters could not get implicit claims; it does not state that they do not get implicit claims from their mother. Does Saubhagyadevi need to die first? If anybody knows this clearer I would appreciate the explanation.

Stuff like that is why I hesitate to buy this game.

Krill · June 11th, 2021, 16:58

Are the pictures broken for anyone else?

pindicator · June 11th, 2021, 17:15

I'm hosting with Dropbox, but that's what I hosted with the last thread too

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