Abraham II, Part Two: The Invasion of Yemen
Going back to the Government Type map from the introduction, there are a scattered number of provinces within Africa that have Feudal holdings. The following map actually shows the government type of the top ruler, but at the beginning of the game these largely line up:
Each green lump shows where a cluster of Feudal holdings are. There's a grouping of them east of Abyssinnia, where the Emirate of Shirazid reigns. Shirazid is over 2,500 strong and would be very difficult to crack. On the far south coast there is Mogadishu. With 3 feudal holdings, Mogadishu only has about 1,600 troops. With 800 from Damot and 600 from Valabhi, we could conquer Mogadishu together. And taking over feudal provinces would actually improve my own tax and levy base, so that we could actually go north next and conquer Yemen.
The first issue is that Mogadishu is too far away for me to attack directly. So I need to attack a weak Tribal nation on the way. Hobyo has been weakened by tribal raids and had only 484 troops, so were the easiest target.
I only called Valabhi in to the war, and waited for their troops to arrive. Combined we had 1,000 and Hobyo fell in April 1073. Sadly we did not capture anybody important so did not make any money off this war.
I also have not yet given up on the idea on getting an alliance with another Christian ruler, with the Defensive Negotiations perk. My idea now is that if I can successfully use the Befriend Scheme to make friends with a foreign ruler first, then I could possibly get them to join. So when the next Diplomatic Perk comes in, I grab Benevolent Intent from the August line to give +30% to my Sway Scheme power. But this is for the next phase of expansion, when we go after Yemen. For now I need to conquer Mogadishu. And with the Yemeni mercenary band hired out, I decided to spend my money on Men-at-Arms.
My current Men-at-Arms are pikemen, which work well in the hilly and mountainous areas. However, the terrain of Mogadishu is all Drylands and Desert. I was tempted to hire the Yemeni cultural unit, the Abudrar: a Skirmisher type unit with double the Damage and Pursuit over Light Footmen. However, the Abudrar also have a penalty on fighting in Desert, and so I decided to go with Camel Riders. We have enough gold to hire 200 (2 regiments). Then I need to wait 10 months for the regiments to fill their ranks.
But before the ranks were filled, opportunity struck:
Mogadishu appeared to have hired additional mercenaries to bolster their 1,000-strong force and the numbers were earily similar. They still sat back and watched us siege down Hiraag which made me suspect that they knew they were at a disadvantage. The numbers were no longer as clear as it appeared at the beginning, but we still needed to take our chance.
Our force of 2,100 against Mogadishu's 2,200. Considering their earlier hestiancy I figured the odds were better than the even odds we were getting from the pre-fight indicator. It would not be the last time that this seemed to understate our odds! In addition, I was running out of funds and once you go in debt that starts to impact how your troops fight. I needed to go now if I was going to go at all.
As the battle swung in our favor, Abraham found friendship with the leader of Damot, Mesfin Bekele. Also below you can see why I suspect our troops were winning despite the numberical disadvantage: combined our three kingdoms brought a large number of men-at-arms up against the common levies of Mogadishu. We would end the fight inflicting double the casualties we took. We also captured Akil Adeer of Marka. His ransom would keep us solvent through the war.
While the war with Mogadishu waged on, I received a pleasant letter from Amlale. The Chieftain of Fafan had created the duchy-level title for Sanaag, which made Busaso a clear next target for him. Receiving letters from him could lead to befriending him and potentially averting an invasion. I accepted his invitation and without any idea of which topic to broach decided to extoll the virtues of family. His response was less than kind:
Yet the man would persist! The following year, we received the letter event again from Amlale while our forces were sieging down Mogadishu. Again I tried to write him back and this time wrote about military campaigns. Again he sent a rebuke back as a reply, and I thought this would be the end.
When the siege of Mogadishu was over, we were able to force the Emir to the table and take our demanded counties. This put us a little over the domain limit, so Busaso was given to our Steward, in the hopes that he would be able to earn enough gold on his own to turn it into a Feudal Holding.
In the meantime, our levies and troops at hand doubled to 1,100 and our taxes would continue to climb until we were making around 3 gold per month. This was much better than taking tribal lands! With counties we could actually grow off of we could build up our military strength and look for an opportunity to strike Yemen.
My next target was neighboring Mareeg. Here I used the Forced Vassalization casus belli and again here I do not think it was worth it. I did not want the tribal land for myself, but i still would have been better to have just use Holy War, then install someone who likes me immediately after the war. But as for the war itself, we had double Mareeg's troop count and the war reflected exactly that:
And during this war we received yet another letter from Amlale! I was so tempted to just pick a different option: ignore the letter for stress reduction or frame it on my wall for prestige. But I really wanted an alliance and friendship with him and so I tried for a third time to answer his letter. I spoke again about family, as the options were all repeats from before. And again he called me a Sycophant. Shortly after, the Befriend Scheme ended in disaster:
I hope you don't think this is the end of Amlale, because the very next year he sent me a letter for the fourth time.
At a certain time you realize certain people are just superficial. Or schizophrenic. And Amlale must be one of those as he again asked to exchange letters. We've tried this 3 times before; I know how this will end. So I frame it on the wall and take the prestige.
I spent the next year or so building levies back up to maximum. But I was very aware that I was under the clock now. If Abraham II were to die right now then we would be in an awful position: our 2nd son would inherit Mogadishu, and our player heir would only have Socotra, and we'd be essentially back to square one. There were two ways forward: remove all Abraham's other sons from succession so Eliya would inherit it all, or obtain a Kingdom title before Abraham dies. The kingdom title was more my taste, and still the most straight forward answer there was to take over a duchy in Yemen. Taking a duchy in Yemen would allow us to create the kingdom title for 400g. Another option would be to continue to expand around Mogadishu and aim for the Ajuraan kingdom title; but that would mean creating TWO duchy titles and a kingdom title, for a total of 800g. So the best route still seems to bide our time, build up, and then strike Sulayhid.
It only took a little more than a year for the chance to present itself:
With Sulayhid at war and losing I decided this was the opportunity. I declared on them for the Duchy of Yemen and called in my allies. Combined we were just over 2,400 troops up against Sulayhid's 1,500. However it took some time for our forces to gather. My troops marched west along the southern coast of the Red Sea until we met up with Dumot, and then crossed the straights to Al-Mandab.
I needed to take care to avoid the 3,000 troops from al-Yemani. But if I could do that then we should be able to hit Sulayhid's troops and then win this war. I started to siege at Ta'izz next, but Sulayhid kept his troops away enough to avoid a confrontation. There was a second barony in the province, so all we really should need to do is complete sieging down all the provinces in the duchy.
And then things started to get complicated.
Emir Ali ibn Muhammad of the Sulayhid Emirate arranged a marriage with the Emirate of Yousifid in the middle of the war, and now Yousifid was joining in with their 3,200-strong army. It would take some time for them to come south, and things were complicated by al-Yemeni still being at war, but this was suddenly becoming dicey. I decided to stay my ground and try to siege down Ta'izz first. Al-Yamani finished their sieges in the north against San'a' and was able to finish up their war.
Suddenly I was the only enemy to Sulayhid and their side's 3,500 troops.
Then I saw another stack coming south and I realized I needed to wrap this war up FAST. I was only at 40% war score but I could always get White Peace. It would cause stress because Abraham was Ambitious but that would just have to be dealt with.
But wait! Those are not Yousifid troops; those are from Asir! The Emirate to the north of Sulayhid had declared war for the sheikhdom of Tihamat al-Yamani. Perhaps we were still in play after all! With Sulayhid's forces coming towards Ti'azz I withdrew and retreated west across the Red Sea.
Then some luck fell my way as al-Yamani sent 2,000 raiders into Sulayhid. The 3,500 from Sulayhid & Yousifid combined were split and the raiders clashed against 2,000 of them. Meanwhile, Yousifid was sending another 1,600 troops down south along the west coast of the Red Sea, and we were able to catch them and defeat them separately. Sadly we took more losses than we should have, as there was a bug where both our armies were approaching each other and my army crossed to the province they were at the same day their army crossed to where my army was at - but my allies were still there. So for two weeks they battled without my troops, before I could come back and help rout the Yousifids.
With Yousifid and Sulayhid weakend, we crossed the Red Sea again looking to defeat the remaining forces decisively. And yet the Sulayhids were ale to withdraw in time and prevent a confrontation. But we would just siege down Ta'izz again.
Until the next war declaration came, that December:
Sanaag had finally come for Busaso. All those letters - had the Emir only been pretending at being friends while he gave the pretense for war with his fake outrage? But whatever the reason, I was willing to write Busaso off. I just needed to focus on Sulayhid. With one half their army defeated, it was time to confront the other half. We began to seige Ta'izz and with the new dynamic garrison system the siege would be quicker since the barony had only recently been conquered.
Sulayhid turned around and rallied to stop our siege. And here I really wish I had done a better job with screenshots, but I'm going to have to write out what happened instead.
After a couple months of sieging, Sulayhid had regained some of their strength so that their stack was about 1,800 strong. We had about 1,700 at Ta'izz; but for some reason Damot had separated their 450 remaining troops to the south of the barony. When Sulayhid came towards us the battle preview indicated that this would be a wipeout; they were going to obliterate us according to the game. This did not make sense to me, but I tried to run only to find that they were faster than me again. We would have to fight it out. We still outnumbered them, as Damot would surely come to our aid when battle was joined.
It was the bug that they had said they had fixed this patch! The same bug which I had used to my benefit in the conquest of Lithuania was now working against me. The battle that was supposed to be a wipe-out was instead a very close battle - but as the numbers were falling on both sides it became clear that we were going to only narrowly lose this. And Damot could have been the heroes! They could have won this for us! Instead they just stood nearby and watched. I thought you were my friend!!
With our forces defeated, Valabhi and I were forced to retreat all the way south to Mogadishu. Damot was then easily defeated separate from us and forced to return back to their homelands. With our alliance scattered that was it, we were not going to win this war. This game that had been so close to achieving our goal was slipping from our grasp.
Oh come on! Now you're just piling on!
Sulayhid came to me with a treaty for white peace. They had sold off another son to marriage and added a third member to their alliance, so I felt I had no choice but to accept. It would probably become worse otherwise. But then I forgot that White Peace also gives Stress to Ambitious characters:
And that's where I've left it. Qalaafe is trying to conquer Mareeg. Sanaag has 2,600 troops in Busaso.
We were so close and now we're just trying to hold on.
*****
Other Happenings:
Going back to the Government Type map from the introduction, there are a scattered number of provinces within Africa that have Feudal holdings. The following map actually shows the government type of the top ruler, but at the beginning of the game these largely line up:
Each green lump shows where a cluster of Feudal holdings are. There's a grouping of them east of Abyssinnia, where the Emirate of Shirazid reigns. Shirazid is over 2,500 strong and would be very difficult to crack. On the far south coast there is Mogadishu. With 3 feudal holdings, Mogadishu only has about 1,600 troops. With 800 from Damot and 600 from Valabhi, we could conquer Mogadishu together. And taking over feudal provinces would actually improve my own tax and levy base, so that we could actually go north next and conquer Yemen.
The first issue is that Mogadishu is too far away for me to attack directly. So I need to attack a weak Tribal nation on the way. Hobyo has been weakened by tribal raids and had only 484 troops, so were the easiest target.
I only called Valabhi in to the war, and waited for their troops to arrive. Combined we had 1,000 and Hobyo fell in April 1073. Sadly we did not capture anybody important so did not make any money off this war.
I also have not yet given up on the idea on getting an alliance with another Christian ruler, with the Defensive Negotiations perk. My idea now is that if I can successfully use the Befriend Scheme to make friends with a foreign ruler first, then I could possibly get them to join. So when the next Diplomatic Perk comes in, I grab Benevolent Intent from the August line to give +30% to my Sway Scheme power. But this is for the next phase of expansion, when we go after Yemen. For now I need to conquer Mogadishu. And with the Yemeni mercenary band hired out, I decided to spend my money on Men-at-Arms.
My current Men-at-Arms are pikemen, which work well in the hilly and mountainous areas. However, the terrain of Mogadishu is all Drylands and Desert. I was tempted to hire the Yemeni cultural unit, the Abudrar: a Skirmisher type unit with double the Damage and Pursuit over Light Footmen. However, the Abudrar also have a penalty on fighting in Desert, and so I decided to go with Camel Riders. We have enough gold to hire 200 (2 regiments). Then I need to wait 10 months for the regiments to fill their ranks.
But before the ranks were filled, opportunity struck:
Mogadishu appeared to have hired additional mercenaries to bolster their 1,000-strong force and the numbers were earily similar. They still sat back and watched us siege down Hiraag which made me suspect that they knew they were at a disadvantage. The numbers were no longer as clear as it appeared at the beginning, but we still needed to take our chance.
Our force of 2,100 against Mogadishu's 2,200. Considering their earlier hestiancy I figured the odds were better than the even odds we were getting from the pre-fight indicator. It would not be the last time that this seemed to understate our odds! In addition, I was running out of funds and once you go in debt that starts to impact how your troops fight. I needed to go now if I was going to go at all.
As the battle swung in our favor, Abraham found friendship with the leader of Damot, Mesfin Bekele. Also below you can see why I suspect our troops were winning despite the numberical disadvantage: combined our three kingdoms brought a large number of men-at-arms up against the common levies of Mogadishu. We would end the fight inflicting double the casualties we took. We also captured Akil Adeer of Marka. His ransom would keep us solvent through the war.
While the war with Mogadishu waged on, I received a pleasant letter from Amlale. The Chieftain of Fafan had created the duchy-level title for Sanaag, which made Busaso a clear next target for him. Receiving letters from him could lead to befriending him and potentially averting an invasion. I accepted his invitation and without any idea of which topic to broach decided to extoll the virtues of family. His response was less than kind:
Yet the man would persist! The following year, we received the letter event again from Amlale while our forces were sieging down Mogadishu. Again I tried to write him back and this time wrote about military campaigns. Again he sent a rebuke back as a reply, and I thought this would be the end.
When the siege of Mogadishu was over, we were able to force the Emir to the table and take our demanded counties. This put us a little over the domain limit, so Busaso was given to our Steward, in the hopes that he would be able to earn enough gold on his own to turn it into a Feudal Holding.
In the meantime, our levies and troops at hand doubled to 1,100 and our taxes would continue to climb until we were making around 3 gold per month. This was much better than taking tribal lands! With counties we could actually grow off of we could build up our military strength and look for an opportunity to strike Yemen.
My next target was neighboring Mareeg. Here I used the Forced Vassalization casus belli and again here I do not think it was worth it. I did not want the tribal land for myself, but i still would have been better to have just use Holy War, then install someone who likes me immediately after the war. But as for the war itself, we had double Mareeg's troop count and the war reflected exactly that:
And during this war we received yet another letter from Amlale! I was so tempted to just pick a different option: ignore the letter for stress reduction or frame it on my wall for prestige. But I really wanted an alliance and friendship with him and so I tried for a third time to answer his letter. I spoke again about family, as the options were all repeats from before. And again he called me a Sycophant. Shortly after, the Befriend Scheme ended in disaster:
I hope you don't think this is the end of Amlale, because the very next year he sent me a letter for the fourth time.
At a certain time you realize certain people are just superficial. Or schizophrenic. And Amlale must be one of those as he again asked to exchange letters. We've tried this 3 times before; I know how this will end. So I frame it on the wall and take the prestige.
I spent the next year or so building levies back up to maximum. But I was very aware that I was under the clock now. If Abraham II were to die right now then we would be in an awful position: our 2nd son would inherit Mogadishu, and our player heir would only have Socotra, and we'd be essentially back to square one. There were two ways forward: remove all Abraham's other sons from succession so Eliya would inherit it all, or obtain a Kingdom title before Abraham dies. The kingdom title was more my taste, and still the most straight forward answer there was to take over a duchy in Yemen. Taking a duchy in Yemen would allow us to create the kingdom title for 400g. Another option would be to continue to expand around Mogadishu and aim for the Ajuraan kingdom title; but that would mean creating TWO duchy titles and a kingdom title, for a total of 800g. So the best route still seems to bide our time, build up, and then strike Sulayhid.
It only took a little more than a year for the chance to present itself:
With Sulayhid at war and losing I decided this was the opportunity. I declared on them for the Duchy of Yemen and called in my allies. Combined we were just over 2,400 troops up against Sulayhid's 1,500. However it took some time for our forces to gather. My troops marched west along the southern coast of the Red Sea until we met up with Dumot, and then crossed the straights to Al-Mandab.
I needed to take care to avoid the 3,000 troops from al-Yemani. But if I could do that then we should be able to hit Sulayhid's troops and then win this war. I started to siege at Ta'izz next, but Sulayhid kept his troops away enough to avoid a confrontation. There was a second barony in the province, so all we really should need to do is complete sieging down all the provinces in the duchy.
And then things started to get complicated.
Emir Ali ibn Muhammad of the Sulayhid Emirate arranged a marriage with the Emirate of Yousifid in the middle of the war, and now Yousifid was joining in with their 3,200-strong army. It would take some time for them to come south, and things were complicated by al-Yemeni still being at war, but this was suddenly becoming dicey. I decided to stay my ground and try to siege down Ta'izz first. Al-Yamani finished their sieges in the north against San'a' and was able to finish up their war.
Suddenly I was the only enemy to Sulayhid and their side's 3,500 troops.
Then I saw another stack coming south and I realized I needed to wrap this war up FAST. I was only at 40% war score but I could always get White Peace. It would cause stress because Abraham was Ambitious but that would just have to be dealt with.
But wait! Those are not Yousifid troops; those are from Asir! The Emirate to the north of Sulayhid had declared war for the sheikhdom of Tihamat al-Yamani. Perhaps we were still in play after all! With Sulayhid's forces coming towards Ti'azz I withdrew and retreated west across the Red Sea.
Then some luck fell my way as al-Yamani sent 2,000 raiders into Sulayhid. The 3,500 from Sulayhid & Yousifid combined were split and the raiders clashed against 2,000 of them. Meanwhile, Yousifid was sending another 1,600 troops down south along the west coast of the Red Sea, and we were able to catch them and defeat them separately. Sadly we took more losses than we should have, as there was a bug where both our armies were approaching each other and my army crossed to the province they were at the same day their army crossed to where my army was at - but my allies were still there. So for two weeks they battled without my troops, before I could come back and help rout the Yousifids.
With Yousifid and Sulayhid weakend, we crossed the Red Sea again looking to defeat the remaining forces decisively. And yet the Sulayhids were ale to withdraw in time and prevent a confrontation. But we would just siege down Ta'izz again.
Until the next war declaration came, that December:
Sanaag had finally come for Busaso. All those letters - had the Emir only been pretending at being friends while he gave the pretense for war with his fake outrage? But whatever the reason, I was willing to write Busaso off. I just needed to focus on Sulayhid. With one half their army defeated, it was time to confront the other half. We began to seige Ta'izz and with the new dynamic garrison system the siege would be quicker since the barony had only recently been conquered.
Sulayhid turned around and rallied to stop our siege. And here I really wish I had done a better job with screenshots, but I'm going to have to write out what happened instead.
After a couple months of sieging, Sulayhid had regained some of their strength so that their stack was about 1,800 strong. We had about 1,700 at Ta'izz; but for some reason Damot had separated their 450 remaining troops to the south of the barony. When Sulayhid came towards us the battle preview indicated that this would be a wipeout; they were going to obliterate us according to the game. This did not make sense to me, but I tried to run only to find that they were faster than me again. We would have to fight it out. We still outnumbered them, as Damot would surely come to our aid when battle was joined.
It was the bug that they had said they had fixed this patch! The same bug which I had used to my benefit in the conquest of Lithuania was now working against me. The battle that was supposed to be a wipe-out was instead a very close battle - but as the numbers were falling on both sides it became clear that we were going to only narrowly lose this. And Damot could have been the heroes! They could have won this for us! Instead they just stood nearby and watched. I thought you were my friend!!
With our forces defeated, Valabhi and I were forced to retreat all the way south to Mogadishu. Damot was then easily defeated separate from us and forced to return back to their homelands. With our alliance scattered that was it, we were not going to win this war. This game that had been so close to achieving our goal was slipping from our grasp.
Oh come on! Now you're just piling on!
Sulayhid came to me with a treaty for white peace. They had sold off another son to marriage and added a third member to their alliance, so I felt I had no choice but to accept. It would probably become worse otherwise. But then I forgot that White Peace also gives Stress to Ambitious characters:
And that's where I've left it. Qalaafe is trying to conquer Mareeg. Sanaag has 2,600 troops in Busaso.
We were so close and now we're just trying to hold on.
*****
Other Happenings:
- My bishop has converted Busaso and Hobyo to Nestorianism. With Mendicant Preachers tenet we are rather fast at conversion: it took only 3 years for each county.
- Eliya came of age and is a Skilled Tactician, as well as gaining the Flexible Leader commander trait.
- Yemeni Culture reached the High Middle Ages. Our cultural head is researching Arched Saddle which would let us get armored horsemen men-at-arms.
- Amlale sent me a 5th letter before he declared war. And this time we actually touched on a topic that he wanted to speak of! Things seemed to be doing well, but then he declared war
Suffer Game Sicko
Dodo Tier Player
Dodo Tier Player
