The Rise of Socotra - a Crusader Kings 3 Story

[Gustaran]

Abyssinia was the largest Coptic kingdom around, and now they were willing to marry.  The Negus had just lost his spouse earlier this year (yes, completely a coincidence; i had nothing to do with it!)

Of course, pindicator.  It's beyond me why anyone would get the idea that you were somehow involved... *cough*

[Commodore]

Abyssinia was the largest Coptic kingdom around, and now they were willing to marry.  The Negus had just lost his spouse earlier this year (yes, completely a coincidence; i had nothing to do with it!)

Of course, pindicator.  It's beyond me why anyone would get the idea that you were somehow involved... *cough*

With that intrigue score, I'm sure the good Emir would be shouting "HEY! I THINK WE SHOULD ASSASSINATE THAT COPT LADY!" if he was actually in charge of murdering. 

You keep on spending your sons on the battlefield like this, you won't have too much of a realm split upon your death. "I see your careful assassination plotting, Mr. High Intrigue, but have you ever tried...fighting constantly while having a Prowess of 1?"

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

With that intrigue score, I'm sure the good Emir would be shouting "HEY! I THINK WE SHOULD ASSASSINATE THAT COPT LADY!" if he was actually in charge of murdering. 

You keep on spending your sons on the battlefield like this, you won't have too much of a realm split upon your death. "I see your careful assassination plotting, Mr. High Intrigue, but have you ever tried...fighting constantly while having a Prowess of 1?"

Maybe the Emir read the part of Second Samuel where David sends Uriah to die in battle, thought it was a great idea, and didn't think to check for any Prophet Nathans in his court. . .

[pindicator]

Abyssinia was the largest Coptic kingdom around, and now they were willing to marry.  The Negus had just lost his spouse earlier this year (yes, completely a coincidence; i had nothing to do with it!)

Of course, pindicator.  It's beyond me why anyone would get the idea that you were somehow involved... *cough*

With that intrigue score, I'm sure the good Emir would be shouting "HEY! I THINK WE SHOULD ASSASSINATE THAT COPT LADY!" if he was actually in charge of murdering. 

You keep on spending your sons on the battlefield like this, you won't have too much of a realm split upon your death. "I see your careful assassination plotting, Mr. High Intrigue, but have you ever tried...fighting constantly while having a Prowess of 1?"

Hey now, I'm not even starting half these wars! Although it would be great if we could slim the sons down by a few. If I don't get a Kingdom Title by the time Abraham dies, we're going to have some real Rurik levels of splintering the realm.

[Brian Shanahan]

Abyssinia was the largest Coptic kingdom around, and now they were willing to marry.  The Negus had just lost his spouse earlier this year (yes, completely a coincidence; i had nothing to do with it!)

Of course, pindicator.  It's beyond me why anyone would get the idea that you were somehow involved... *cough*

With that intrigue score, I'm sure the good Emir would be shouting "HEY! I THINK WE SHOULD ASSASSINATE THAT COPT LADY!" if he was actually in charge of murdering. 

You keep on spending your sons on the battlefield like this, you won't have too much of a realm split upon your death. "I see your careful assassination plotting, Mr. High Intrigue, but have you ever tried...fighting constantly while having a Prowess of 1?"

Hey now, I'm not even starting half these wars!  Although it would be great if we could slim the sons down by a few.  If I don't get a Kingdom Title by the time Abraham dies, we're going to have some real Rurik levels of splintering the realm.

I suggest some super glue in that case.

[pindicator]

Abraham II, Part Four: Blood Runs Thick

While Alodia and Abyssinia are mustering, I help Damot finish up their independence war.  We siege down Wellega and capture a few people in positions of power, which is right when the allies have gathered.  Together our armies move east towards Sanaag.  Hafun had a couple mishaps in tryign to siege down Hobyo: they had the usual AI dance where they try to figure out just which army is following which and so sieges start and stop and then start up again.  Here they've figured things out and finish Hobyo right before I finish the siege at Berber.

And here I make a mistake and raise the rest of my armies.  Why was this a mistake?  Because now my AI allies do their own dance and decide that they need to go follow the army up in Yemen and not the armies in hostile territory.




They pick the worst time to do so as the tribal kingdoms are coming north to confront us at Sanaag.  The siege at Berber finishes before the enemy arrives, but the enemy catches our allies in nearby Gogesa, and we race our armies to join in the fray.




The armies met at two separate battles, but the main force at Gogesa pit over 6,000 troops on each side.  This was a bloody, blood fight, as many of my knights were wounded or killed.  Sheikh Talib of Hobyo, my best knight in my retinue, was mortally wounded in this fight, as was Wali Idris and our knight Mesfin Tewodros.  But the heaviest loss came when Eliya finally brushed up against death too many times and fell in battle:




He is survived by his only child, Eliya.  This means the succession issues are not any less muddled as all the claims Eliya had are now taken on by his son, Eliya.  The younger Eliya is only 12 and is now my player heir.




The death of his oldest son causes yet another mental break for Abraham, and he turns to Hashish to cope with the pain.  The other options both came with Health penalties and I feel like I'm going to need keep him alive as long as possible to have a chance of creating a kingdom while he is still alive.

But the battle was not yet finished and the death toll not yet complete:




A month later Bhima, the 4th son of Abraham, fell to the blade.  He is survived by his grandon Mukhtar, who is 1 year old.

Not wanting to risk my alliance with Alodia, I forbid Samir from being a knight.

In March the battle is finished, and it was a bloody affair:




What was known as the Slaughter at Gogesa was not the kind of slaughter we had seen at previous victories: we were the side that took the slaughter despite drivign off the Hafun troops.  Losing twice their number!  This was a very costly victory, and here I should have perhaps retreated back to friendly territory so our levies could replenish.  On the other side, Amlale of Sanaag died. 

Instead I pushed forward to the capital of Sanaag.  We take the palace and capture a member of the ruling family for ransom, but in that time the tribal kingdoms were replenishing their forces and when they returned I had no choice but to run




And here I saw the writing on the wall.  They would hunt us down and destroy the troops, or weaken my allies further and others would join in.  So here I accepted defeat: Hobyo would go to Hafun's control.  The war was not a complete waste; we did make money from the ransoming of several people.

Opportunities jumped up immediately back in Yemen:  The Emir of Sulayhid passed away and his realm split between his two sons.  With their armies weak we took the opportunity to jump on the first, Kinda Sakun




I have double the strength of Kinda Sakun and their ally, Zabid; so I do not call in any allies right away.  However, this war that should have been a quick and straight forward affair was anything but.  Shortly after I started the war, Abyssinia found themselves in a war with their northern neighbor, Baqlin.




We would not be able to aid them, as the perils of declaring a Holy War came to bear:  the neighboring Ash'ari country, the Shiekhdom of Akinid, joined in to the defense of their neighbor and brough 2,000 troops south with them.  I immediately called in Alodia to our aid and retreat from my siege at Kinda Sakun; we would not finish before we are wiped out.

But our troops are somehow so SLOW that we are caught by Akinid at the mountains of Dathina.  How are my troops so slow that we are caught on friendly territory from behind like this? Perhaps it is a military perk taken by the Akinid leader being militaristic?  But then they catch my retreating army again!  You should not go faster than a retreating army in this game.  I lose more units and my composure.

Meanwhile the Christians have started their first Crusade for Jerusalem.

Staying on our religious sidenote, our Bishop died.  Our starting Bishop was quite wonderful with a high Learning score and could convert tribal provinces in 3 years and Muslim provinces in 6.  The new guy was less amazing:




Actually, he was awful.  14 years to convert a county, after he finished the job at Mandab.

It was Alodia that won the war for me.  After my troops had been reduced to only 500 men, Alodia arrived with over 2,400 and beat back the Akinids.  Together we seiged down Kinda Sakun and the war was finished.

Abyssinia, meanwhile, was forced to concede their northern duchy to Baqlin.  Without our help they were not enough to beat back the tribal kingdom on their own.

Waiting a few months for levies to repopulate, I then went for Zabid next.  This time I used the Subjugation casus belli for my war declaration as I did not want to have to worry about neighboring kingdoms joining in the fight.  We engaged the 500-man army of Zabid with our 880, and in the first battle captured the Wali.  Not wanting to drag out the war longer, I decided to use him to secure our victory rather than ransoming him back and having the war take longer.  And so Diskarkha grew again.




Just 3 more provinces and 650 gold for the titles and we would be the kingdom of Yemen!

Another victory for Christiandom as the Crusades succeeds and the Kingdom of Jerusalem is born!




Queen Ida was given reign.  I would try many times to marry a son to her - even matrilineally - but she would not marry to my kingdom.  Still, the Christian world now had a foothold in the Holy Land and that would open up more opportunities for diplomacy.

But in case we thought things were going too well, they would not stay that way.  Only a few days after Jerusalem was captured the Islamic world took their frustrations out upon Diskarkha.




Akinid along with their allies Baqlin were declaring for the Sheikhdom of Ta'izz.  They brought almost 7,200 troops and combined with Alodia and Abyssinia we combined for just under 7,000.  This was a war that I absolutely could not lose if I was going to hold on to any hope of forming Yemen.



Additional Happenings:

• I got one of the new events where my son, Nasr, whom I had set up as ruler of Socotra, suggested that we have a playdate with my daughter Shokouh.
  
• I befriended the leaders of Abyssinia and Alodia both.  Then I befriended my wife.
  
• Samir's wife tried to seduce Abraham.  I turned her down for the Piety, which was helpful for declaring Holy Wars later
  
• And another event where Abraham was being seduced by a courtier.  I took the Piety again - not just for the Piety but because to follow through would cause Honest Abe to gain stress
  

The Final Years of Abraham II's life will be covered tomorrow!

[Commodore]

This Father's Day, celebrate with a heartbreaking tale of a lazily ambitious dad whose innumerable wars for territory consume half his sons' lives.

[pindicator]

This Father's Day, celebrate with a heartbreaking tale of a lazily ambitious dad whose innumerable wars for territory consume half his sons' lives.

[pindicator]

Abraham II, Part Five: A Lifetime's Ambition

Akinid is allied with Baqlin and together the two are about even with Alodia, Abyssinia, and myself in troop count.  I bring my allies in immeidately.  If they can fight Baqlin off then I need to be able to defeat Akinid on my own.  Currently I have bout 1,000 troops total and Akinid is invading with 2,200.  I need to hire some help:




To be honest, this hurt a bit to hire.  I was nearly at 400 gold and had already created the Duchy title for Yemen, so I was only 3 counties short of being able to create the Kingdom of Yemen title.  But if Akinid succeeded in this war then it was all doomed anyway.  So I bit the bullet and spent half my money on hiring mercenaries.

And then Abraham got to show off his singular military genius.




In March of 1099 our available forces of 1,700 are just about finished their mustering.  To the west, Abyssinia is bringing a force of 3,100 towards us, planning to cross at the Bab al Mandab.  Akinid has 2,200 troops at Rada' split into two groups.  Further complicating things, the chiefdom of Hayq has arrived with 2,600 forces raiding at Mandab.

Whatever we do, we want to avoid those raiders.  So naturally Abyssinia heads straight for them.




Abraham II decides he will stick together with his Abyssinian allies and fight the raiders together.




Only it does not work like that!  Abyssinia is not hostile with the raiders; only I am!  So while my force of 1,700 fights (and loses), the Abyssinian army just stands by and watches.  (This fight was one of the single most frustrating things of the campaign and caused me to close the game and walk away for several days.  Why the raiders would be hostile to me, and hostile to my enemies, but not hostile to my allies seems completely assinine and aribrary.)

We lose the battle and retreat to the far east of the kingdom, to Kinda Sukan.  Baqlin arrives in Akinid with 5,000 troops; Alodia brings their 2,400.  All the teams have their players, but my numbers have been lessened down to 1,100 troops.  So I use the rest of my gold to hire a Men-At-Arms regiment of my unique cultural unit, the Abudrar.




The Abudrar is light footman regiment that has 10 more Attack and 10 more Pursuit than regular Light Footmen.  They also have bonus for fighting in hills and mountains instead of forests and taiga.  And they also have a penalty for fighting in flat desert.  I will only have a couple by the time I arrive to the fight, but I figure i need every soldier possible.

As I am moving my forces back towards Ta'izz the attackers make their move, coming across the mountains and hitting Abyssinia at Dathina.  Alodia is there to aid.




It really is difficult to coordinate forces in this game, and here it works in my favor.  The armies of Baqlin have pushed straight through while Akinid was trying to siege down Rada'.  Realizing too late what was going on, the Akinids are racing south to reinforce their outnumbered allies.  But these first few weeks of the battle would tell as the number advantage that Abyssinia and Alodia held would be use to slaughter many Baqlins.  The Akinids would arrive at roughly the same time my troops (levies already replenishing) would arrive from the east.  The result:




But a heavy blow was struck at home again:




Abaraham's 5th son, Nasr, the child who had been given Socotra to rule as Abraham had moved his court overseas to Ta'izz, was slain in battle.  With a Prowess of 3 one could argue that he should not have even been looking upon the battlefield let alone fighting in it.  He had died before his betrothal could turn to marriage and had no heir, but the inheritance laws seemed merky and the island of Socotra was passed not back to Abraham but instead to the Shiekh Eliya, Nasr's oldest nephew.

Abraham turned to his coping method of choice to mourn the loss of yet another son:




The Baqlin armies would retreat by sea to their home territories while the Akinids would retreat north.  With Abraham in a stupor his commanders used this time to go straight for the Akinid palace.

Meanwhile Eliya has come of age and turned into a very capable steward.




He is given the Council position of Steward immeidately.  But did anybody else notice that he's converted to a heretical religion?

We take the Akinid palace in June of 1100 but that only brings us to 94% war score.  Meanwhile Baqlin has returned across the Bab al Mandab and combined with the remnants of Akinid's armies they are sieging Ta'izz.  We naturally tick up in war score from owning Ta'izz but it will not reach 100% before the siege completes.  We must confront the Akinids one more time:




It is another bloody affair.  Shiekh Murusade of Mareeg dies including two other of my knights.  But we win the battle and reach 100% war score!  Demanding their surrender gives us 183 gold.  Not the entirety of what we had to spend, but we are now back to 280 gold.  If we can get to 400 and capture 3 more territories then Abraham still can obtain the title of King of Yemen.  Abraham is 62 years old now, in 1100.  Could he still live to see the coronation?

With the mercenary band only on hire for a year more, we attack Mahra the very next month.




Mahra has an ally in Hakkari, but they only have 300 men and are located in southern Armenia.  They will take a long time to arrive.  So it will be our 2,100 against Mahra's 1,200.

However, Mahra manages to dodge our armies.  We succesfully siege down Mahra but then with only 5 months left on the mercenary contract I try to bring them back to Dathina where Mahra is sieging my lands.  The AI, showing its superiority over Abraham's martial score, yet again escapes to the sea.  Abraham, showing the superiority of his children, calls in Alodia to help.

While we wait for Alodia to arrive, Mahra is able to retake their capital.  But finally, in August 1102, Alodia arrives and lands to the east of Mahra.  We attack in a pincer:




Mahra is defeated and retreats to the east.  Again they are able to escape by sea before we can catch up.  But with the numbers of us and Alodia combined we lay siege to both counties simultaneously now.  On May 25 we finisih our sieges and enforce our demands for Mahra.




During the war against the Akinids, Abraham's youngest son, Zulfiqar, came of age.  We attempted to marry him to the Queen of Jerusalem, but she will marry no man even with promises of matrilineal heritage.  There were a few Byzantine counts who offered a few hundred troops for the chance to marry their daughters, but Abraham was wary of entangling himself with Byzantine politics for only such a small gain.  In the end we found a courtier with the Beautiful congenital trait and decided that Zulfiqar would have to make do with having the most beautiful wife in all of Diskarkha.  Hopefully they pass that trait on to their children.

One province left to reach the Kingdom requirement and Ahqaf is right there to the north without any ally and only 300 troops.  Our ambitious Abraham cannot resist:




It was a very uneventful last battle.  Ahqaf was sieged down summarily and we enforced our demands on July 11, 1104.  The provine was given to a courtier with high stewardship.

Now we have the required 9 de jure counties and 2 de jure duchies within Yemen.  Though the name placement is a bit awkward.




All we need now is the 400 gold to create the title.  At the current rate of income that will take 7 years.  Can Abraham survive to be 73?

He lasted 2 more years and then succumbed to old age.  Now Diskarkha is divided between his 4 surviving heirs.




Abraham was very ambitious but ultimately fell just short of his goal to create the Kingdom of Yemen. His legacy saw him bring Nestorian to Mogadishu and the Horn of Africa as well as the Yemeni coastline. He also had a life of constant warfare and somehow succeeded despite his abysmal martial ability.




Abraham is survived by his 4 children:

• His son Samir, now Gerad of Mogadishu
  
• Daughter Habiba, married to Negus of Abyssinia
  
• Son Zulfiqar, Emir of Mahra
  
• Daughter Shokouh, betrothed to Doux Nenad Dragosic of Rashka's son (we got involved in Byzantium politics in the end anyway)

He is also survived by 8 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren, among them our new player Emir Eliya and the new Emir Mukhtar of Socotra, Bhima's only child.

Lost in battle along the way were the sons Ras Eliya, Youkhanna, Sheikh Bhima, and Ras Nasr.

We will give a more thorough look at the new 4 Nestorian realms in the next update, before we begin play with Eliya

[Commodore]

RIP, Abe II. If your grandson is half as good at killing your sons as you were, he'll have a united kingdom in no time.