The Rise of Socotra - a Crusader Kings 3 Story

[pindicator]

So you can throw someone in prison whenever, but if you don't have a good reason for it (in this case him refusing to convert it considered a good reason) then you get Tyranny. Tyranny is like negative Opinion with every vassal so you don't want to do it too much. Honestly I could probably do it a bit more for min-max gaming.

In addition you get a certain odds of success for whether they will be imprisoned successfully. I think this is an Intrigue check? Maybe related to their levies and power? Regardless in this case it was only around 50%. When it rains it gives you a consequence: with vassals they'll revolt, with courtiers they'll leave, etc. I got lucky and hit the 50% roll so he went to prison.

Once in prison any action like that is always going to succeed. So my taking his title away succeeded at 100%. And that action actually did give me Tyranny because I had already punished him once for denying conversion by imprisoning him. But he couldn't refuse because he was in prison, and I didn't have many vassals anyway so I just decided to do it.

Edit: for minor holdings like cities or additional baronies within a county there is never any Tyranny for removing one of those "lesser nobles"

[pindicator]

Eliya, Part Three: Building Within





We help him with the most immediate threat first: if Dhufar should win the war then Mahra would no longer exist and the Persian Empire would be at my doorstep.  So I declare and bring my growing army (now up over 2,000 strong) to siege down the province.  Dhufar may have been on Zulfiqar's level but he is no match for these kinds of numbers and is stomped out.  With only one county to his name, it just takes one siege and that war is done.

One down, two to go.  We move on to Oman:




You see Zulfiqar bringing his troops to the sea here.  Perhaps you are thinking he is going to sail for Oman's capital, or hit one of Oman's northern provinces while I march from the south.  This is because you are sane.  Zulfiqar, I am starting to believe, is not.  These troops set sail for Persia.  They would land north of Oman and begin sieging down Persian castles in the area.

Meanwhile, over 4,000 Persian troops arrive at Dhufar and retake the county.  However, they then do not move on to end the war by sieging down Ash-Shihr, but instead beat up Zulfiqar's army a little and call it a day.  They sail home and the war continues.

During this war we earned enough Renoun to unlock a second Dynastic Legacy.  I thought about switching branches, but we stay down the Glory branch and unlock the second in line: Renowned Name.




Renowned Name gives us +10% Monthly Prestige, +1 to Number of Knights, and -10% Mercenary Hire Cost.  Nothing as singularly strong as the first Legacy, but altogether they are 3 nice boosts for the rest of the game.

We finished the siege at Oman's capital, captured some rich lords and ransomed them back, and then saw that Oman had ran through Yamama and the center of the Arabian Peninsula to arrive at Najran from the north and start to lay siege to it.  However they were not fast enough and my army came back to confront them.




From here we would chase Oman's forces back into their lands and defeat them again.  That would give enough war score for Zulfiqar to demand their surrender.  And then it was just Persia.  I was not allowed to join into the war against Persia because it was not a Holy War, but at least that war was an offensive war by Zulfiqar.  If he lost then Persia could not demand any lands, only money.

During the last months of this war, Kafa came of age.




Kafa ended up becoming Humble, Sadistic, and Gregarious.  He has the worst military education, achieving the Misguided Warrior trait.  But he is also earned a Military Engineer trait, meaning his sieges are 30% faster.  And of course, still Sterile.

We go in search of a match to fit his particular ... situation, and at first glance this is too good to be true:




Queen Ida of Jerusalem was married young to Albert de Namur, who died of old age when Ida was 25.  They had no children and she had never accepted any invitations for marriage again.  However Ida would go on to have children of her own: Prince Kuno, Princess Ramhilde, and Poppo von Sulzbach.  Only Poppo's father was known to the world at large, but Kuno and Ramhilde might as well have been divinely conceived.  And even though Kafa had little chance to produce an heir even with a fertile wife, here at least he could be of use by securing an alliance with the holy land.  On December 27, 1119 the two kingdoms were aligned through this marriage between Kafa and Ida.

Less than a month later it all fell apart.




For reasons unknown Ida changed her mind and had the two of them divorced.  Perhaps the marriage had been a moment of weakness on her part, and she realized she had to be faithful to her dead husband's memory.  Perhaps the politics of being a queen in a man's world were such that she feared nobody could take her seriously as long as she was married.  Whatever the reason, we called Kafa back home and searched again for a wife.




Foresaking alliances, we instead sought out the most fertile woman in the land for Kafa and settled on Helene, a lowborn French Catholic woman.  There were no women with the Fecund trait, so Beautiful an it's +30% would have to do.  If Kafa could produce an heir then his place would be secured.  However, should he fail or should Maka produce a male heir first, then I made up my mind that Kafa would be Disinherited.

Kafa also became my primary commander.  Every time we would go to war, Kafa would lead the armies.  Yes, he was not a good commander.  But that was the point.

It would not take long for the game to test my decision.  Maka would give birth to a baby boy just a few months later.




I see this game has a sense of humor.

Despite there not being any close relation between Maka and Eliya, Eliya has another son with the Sterile trait.  Perhaps the problem was Eliya all along?  This is a kind of reprieve for Kafa.  But it also will make things even more difficult should Maka produce a healthy boy later on: we would have to disinherit two sons.  At least Eliay should be more inclined to take the vows, as he is not the primary heir.




Now that I am out of any wars, I decide to try and change the Succession Law from Confederate Partition to just straight Partition.  However, all of my powerful vassals need to agree to any change and here there is one who does not.  I start a sway scheme on the hold out.

We also start some internal development.




Dathina would get a small harbor, Mandab small plantations, and another small harbor at Socotra.

By the way, Uncle Zulfiqar is at +48% War Score against the Persians.  I don't understand how he is doing it.  But part of the reason may have been that the Persians were entangled in a lot of different wars.  The Persians lost the big war, and were replayed with the Toruntayids, who now rule the empire.  They do not mess around and send 4,000 units south to my uncle.  He is forced to sign peace in 1123 and gained nothing.




Nestorianism is being spread quite well across Yemen.  The archbishop goes to Hadramawt but soon all of our controlled lands would practice the faith.

The next years go by rather quietly.  We do find an opening to attack Asir, as they were being beat on by other neighbors and had fallen to only a couple hundred troops.  Taking advantage of their weakness, Eliya declared for their county of Tihamat, within the de jure kingdom of Yemen.  It would take 3 years, but the war would be won without too much difficulty: only that of chasing down AI units and forcing them to engage.

Makda came of age during this war, and there was another suitor too good to pass up:




Maharaja Karnadeva II of Solanki was unmarried and brought with him a kingdom of over 2,500 troops.  We looked a little bit more around but when it was clear there was nobody else nearly as good as Karnadeva then Makda was married off for the alliance.

We would call Solanki into our war against Asir and they were an awful ally: sailing along the Red and Arabian Seas but never landing or confronting the enemy.  Finally they would help us defeat the enemy at Tihamat when they were tryign to retake the county, and afterwards follow our troops to alleviat Ta'izz.




Then we pressed our claim for Tihamat and ended the war.

With the war concluded, we returned to our efforts to pass Partition succession law.  This time the 5th powerful vassal approved and we changed our succession law for 500 Prestige.  I would also pass High Crown Authority for more levies and taxes as well as more control within the realm.




The peaceful development continued as now that both Uncle Zulfiqar and myself were at peace, I could finally ask if he would become our vassal.  Zulfiqar had become Eliya's friend over the wars and the years, and this shared opinion would help Zulfiqar accept that he was indeed in de jure Yemen and belonged to the greater kingdom.




You can also see how our income has grown to almost 9 gold per month.  This was party due to the buildings, but more to the increased Control level of each province.

We spent the rest of our money on a feast, as vassals were a little cloes to unhappy due to the new laws.  In addition, Eliya was getting stressed out and could use something to ease his tension.  But of course, the most inopportune thing happened




Diskarkha would answer their new ally's call!



Other Happenings:

• Sadly there wasn't much of a narrative for these 10 years of gameplay. I'm hoping something more entertaining to present itself going forward.
  
• A guess arrived with a claim on Ras Hafun.  That's the county that Uncle Samir tried to conquer before Sanaag took it out from under him.  I would declare just to install the man's claims, but I have not yet found the right moment when Sanaag is weak.
  
• Maka gave birth to another daughter, Princess Souzan.  This is my first child without a genetic defect
  
• Hadramawt and Najran would both be converted by the end of this part.
  

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Eliya, Part Four: A Romance or Two

The vassals were a little irked at having just gone through some changes to the succession laws as well as higher crown authority and Eliya wanted to smooth things over.  So while the armies were gathering to sail east, the lords of Diskarkha gathered in Ta'izz for a feast. 




Eliya instead took all the credit for the great preparation and then partied hard with his uncle Zulfiqar.

But it was a distraction from his own problems at home.  Destiny had cursed Eliya with 2 sterile sons and 2 daughters, so while Diskarkha the realm was flourishing and expanding there were questions about how stable his family's hold really was in the generations to come.  Eliya decided that the best thing to do would be to have more sons, and so to accomplish that he would really focus on his wife, Maka.  He would romance her.




The three types of Personal Schemes you are allowed to do are to Sway, Seduce, and Romance.  We had already done a Seduce Scheme, and become our wife's Lover, and now we were attempting the Romance Scheme to become her Soulmate.  Lover and Soulmate both give a +25% Fertility bonus each.

By the time the feasting was over the armies arrived at Solanki.




The Maharaja asked us to join another war - this time a pair of a vassals who wanted lower crown authority - and we figured that while we were already bashing one vassal we might as well bash a few more.  We actually lost our first battle where we had 3,000 to their 2,000 troops; I dont' think I've ever lost a battle with the numbers that much in my favor before.  But we regrouped and beat back the army at a second battle.  Eventually the vassal who was rebellign for independence was defeated, but the vassal who was asking for lower crown authority won their war.

The focus of Eliya's reign has always been internal.  However, we are not above passing up great opportunities.  And so when Asir to the north was down to 1 alliance and 100 troops in its army, it seemed like the time to expand.




Hobyo would bring another 1,000 troops to help, but Hobyo was way to the south in the horn and they would not arrive before the war was decided.

The county of Asir would fall in July and the county of Aqiq in November, and the war was over with hardly any actual fighting being done.

After the war, Gerad Talib of Lasta died and now his realm has split.  It is also no longer Tribal, but Feudal.  Lasta is ruled by his oldest son, Gerad Nur.  Ras Bworo now rules the splintered Tadjoura.  Our alliance sadly died with Talib.  But Lasta is still Nestorian, even though Tadjoura is Coptic.

We came back home to what seems like a minor miracle




Kafa and Helene had a girl!  And more than that, she had taken after her mother and gotten the Beautiful congenital trait.  Sheeftah's birth made Eliya breathe a little easier; he would at least have someone to pass the realm down to.  But he would sleep better if Kafa had a son.  Still, the "sterile" son sired an heir!

Eliya himself would have another girl that August, and named her Shokouh.

But Eliya pictured a way that he might help his son produce a male heir and further secure their dynasty.  So Eliya started his own scheme to seduce Kafa's wife, Helene.




He was doing this to help the family, Eliya rationalized.  That Helene was Beautiful was just a bonus.

Over the months Eliya made the most of his opportunities to get closer to Helene.  A reading in Ta'izz, a dedication to her.  Finally the night comes where Helene sends a letter to our lord:




9 months later, Helene gives birth to a boy, and names him Ya'qub.  We both know who the father is:




I'm just glad he isn't born Sterile.  Eliya doesn't exactly have the best track record here.  But now the danger is that should the secret of Ya'qub's heritage be revealed then it would be very bad for both Kafa and Eliya.

To celebrate, we launch an invasion of the Akinids.  Emir Jalil has just lost his allies and so we are able to siege both his counties before he can finish the siege at Ta'izz.




Also, our wonderful Archbishop died and was replaced by this ... person.  Archbishop Ubayd was not the best that the Patriarch has sent to us, and with him being dumber than most.  However, he was still knowledgeable - kind of alike a religious savant but only average in religion instead of great.  Conversion time didn't decrease by much so I didn't complain too loudly.

By December the Akinids were defeated and Emir Jalil became my vassal.  I demanded he convert but the Emir rejected me.  So instead I decided on a long scheme of swaying the Emir to my good side.  It would take many years, but the Emir's opinion of Eliya would grow thanks to the attention.

But now almost all of the de jure lands of Yemen were under our control




Only the far east county of Dhufar was still held by the Persians.  There were probably opportunities to start a drawn-out war with them over the territory, but Eliya never pulled the trigger.  Or rather, he was usually caught up in some other war when a good opportunity came by.

But the Christians were not nearly as timid




A second successful Crusades against the Persian Empire had brought about the Kingdom of Syria led by King Etienne from France.  Noticing that he was still unmarried, I looked to see if the King would be interested in a match.

He was, but not with any of my daughters




Little Sheeftah, the daughter of Kafa and Helene, was only 3 years old but King Etienne seemed content to wait.  With the marriage not being matrilineal now the heritage of Ya'qub was paramount to keep secret.  Should Sheeftah inherit any lands it would not be our family who they would pass on to from her.

Eliya's third daughter, Shola, would come of age shortly after and she in turn was married to Petty King Athanasios of Nobatia, a duchy-level realm to the south of Egypt.  In general, if you are not marrying for an alliance, then you want to marry to the highest-level ruler you can as that will at least give your family more Renoun.  Marrying a king would give us an additional 0.8 Renoun per month (but nothing yet or a betrothal).  Seeing that we were only making 3.4 Renoun per month, this would be a big boost in unlocking further Dynastic Legacies.

It does not take long for my new allies to ask me to aid them:




Syria had called us first, and we did not want to lose a powerful ally in the Holy Land, so our troops were already sailing up the Red Sea when the Maharaja sent his request.  He would have to hold out, I decided, and continued sailing north.  We would cross Gaza by foot before renting boats again and sailing north to Syria.

Meanwhile, the other branch of the Diskarkha family was expanding into the tribal lands surrounding Mogadishu when tragedy struck.




Uncle Samir died leaving no sons behind, and so his oldest daughter Sundaridevi now ruled.  Sundaridevi had married Eliya's cousin, Mukhtar, who was the ruler of Baydhabo, but sadly their union had produced no children.  It seemed to be a Diskarkha family tradition to be in constant succession crisis!  Still, they had been starting to push back against the tribal neighbors before Samir's death.  He had taken the county of Jilib and now was attacking Qalaafe.  Yet the realm's power had really derived from Samir and with his death, Sundardevi was not able to muster the same force forward into war.  Worse, she no longer had an alliance with Alodia for aid.

Back to Syria, and our 3,500 troops landed at Tripoli in January of 1134.  From there it was a march north to Aleppo where we met up with the 5,300 soldiers under King Etienne's control.  Our combined strength was more than enough for the 5,000 peasants.




And here I will end this update where it began:  with our troops sailing to India.

Other Happenings:

• Eliya gained a free Intrigue Perk from an event. I decided to use it on Dreadful Ruler (+30% Dread Gain) because I don't see him continuing down this line. However, perhaps I should have gone down Seduction with how he has been acting since. I'm having him focus on 2 branches in the Stewardship tree, and then maybe we'll come back to Intrigue after.
  
• The Toruntayids were ousted by a faction war and the Seljuks put back into power. Now it is the Persian Empire again.
  
• We got an event to save a woman from being called a witch. She had the Pretty trait, which I thought was a Beautiful trait (because they look very similar), so I had an idea to save her and bring her to court to marry my second son, Eliya. But with only Pretty (+20% fertility vs +30% for Beautiful) I don't think I will use her for that.
  
• Started building a lot of infrastructure. Coastal cities got the starting tradesport and desert plantation buildings for income growth, and then once those were everywhere I built the earliest Military Tent buildings (Hide Tents) to give more levies and boost my skirmisher and archer units
  
• Maka gave birth to two more daughters. That's 2 sterile sons and 5 daughters, for those keeping track at home.
  
• We discovered Burhs! This technology will let us build many Duchy-level buildings. For buildings, every holding has 4 spots and the capital of each duchy gets an additional spot for the duchy-level building. With how mountainous our lands are I'm going to build Archery Ranges everywhere. This will boost archers and our cultural unique skirmisher unit.

[Commodore]

Congrats on your healthy baby songrandsoncousingrandnephew. Living that Mississippi life here in the Gulf of Aden I see.

[pindicator]

I can't quite see grand nephew. But also: first cousin once removed

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Eliya, Part Five: Helping Out

Diskarkhan troops arrived in India in late winter of 1135 and joined what seemed to be an easy mop-up of a war. Solanki was looking very strong and I was wondering if we were even needed out here. We landed to news that Tihamat al-Yamani had been converted to Nestorianism, which left only the Akinids as the last hold out for Islam in the kingdom.




We laid in for the siege. Sindh did not show their troops and Solanki kept theirs nearby so there was no danger. It felt like there was no danger. But danger managed to find the Malik anyway.




After successfully giving birth to 6 children, the 7th was not in fact Maka's lucky number. She died in childbirth and Eliya named the daughter - his 5th daughter - after his late wife. He would marry again, still hopeful for more sons to secure the dynastic line.




I had never gone far down the Avaricious Branch before, and this was my first time using Extort Subjects and Sell Minor Titles decisions. These are both far better than I first thought: Extort Subjects lets you take either Popular Opinion penalty or lose Control in a county in exchange for gold, and Sell Minor Titles lets you convert Prestige into Gold. Both of these were used to help raise funds and create more infrastructure within Diskarkha.

My notes last post were off, and here was where I built my first Archery Range in Ta'izz:




I would later build a second one in San'a. I have not heard conclusively if I need to hold the county myself to get the bonuses here or if they stack for everyone in the realm. There were tales in earlier patches of people stacking the Jousting Grounds to get Knights so strong and numerous that they would just steamroll regular armies. I also built more regiments of the Abudrar, my unique skirmisher unit. Again, considering all the mountains in Yemen it seemed like a very good investment.

In any case, the war with Sindh was wrapping up nicely when the Maharaja said, "Hey, while you're over here, how about giving me a hand with these peasants?" I relented, wanting to do what was right for my oldest daughter and her husband. So we headed south.




Not shown was the 4,500 Solanki troops. They were a little ahead of us and met with the larger peasant stack first. It would end in disaster:




Makda was on the battlefield?! Who let's their pregnant wife take up a sword and go into battle? Who let's their preganant, dwarf wife with ZERO prowess go into battle!!?

The news of his daughter's death hit Eliya hard, and he found release in the brothel, earning the Rakish trait. Perhaps he was a bit of a rake all along with how he had treated his son. Meanwhile the alliance with Solanki was now over. It had all been based on that marriage and now with Makda dead there was no more alliance to be had. We took our troops home and let Solanki finish the war on their own.

The sadness of Makda's death could not endure, though, for Prince Eliya came of age in the following month.




With no strong alliances to be found, we found a lowborn lady from Byzantium with the Fecund trait, good for +50% Fertility. There had been plans to marry him to a Pretty courtier, but Theoktiste was a better find.

And then Malik Eliya decided that if it had worked with one son, it could work with another.




At first, Theoktiste would not even give him the time, so we had to do a Sway Scheme on her to get her Opinion of the Malik into the positive. But then, whether it came from a truly paternal desire to extend the bloodline, or whether he was becoming ever more the rake that his brothel trips were hinting at, Eliya the elder started his seduction of his second son's wife.

Eliya was also given the duchy of Hadramawt. Before being able to create an archery range at San'a, I first had to create the ducal title there, and that put me over the limit of 2 duchies. It is not a hard cap at 2, but instead for every additional duchy you have your vassals get an Opinion malus against you. Here I decided that I wanted Hadramawt to go to Prince Eliya anyway, and so he became the Emir there.

I also realized here that Eliya had received claims on his mother's lands in Tadjoura. (Why had this not worked with Eliya Sr. and his mother from India?) But here Prince Eliya had a claim on Tadjoura, and since they had broken off from Lasta and become Coptic, I decided this was all I needed to spread the faith some more.




We crossed the Bab-el-Mandab and with Tadjoura having no allies to call upon, we made quick work of the war. Eliya now ruled a second county.

And then more work was needed down south as Hobyo was attacking and winning against our cousins in Mogadishu. We could not just stand by and let this happen. For reasons I do not understand, we were not able to aid our dynasty-member's war, and so the only course of action was to declare Holy War on Hobyo ourselves. We decided to land in Mareeg and then make our way north, to prevent Hobyo from finishing their conquest there:




But then tragically - hilariously - we fought the wrong armies. Forgetting that this war against Hobyo would also make us hostile to our cousin's forces, we landed right on them and slaughtered Mukhtar's armies to a man. Suddenly our attempt at helping our cousins was leaving them very vulnerable to any neighboring tribal leader who migiht seek to conquer them.

We did manage to avoid killing our cousin's armies the rest of the war. The Hobyo tribe was conquered, their lands taken, and then given to a Yemeni courtier who was a good administrator but not good at warfare. Ideally our cousins would be able to conquer him later on.

Of course that didn't go as planned. Hafun to the north invaded, and so once again we had to send our troops south to "intervene"




And then again, with Sanaag. Although Sanaag was more that we saw an opportunity to get some revenge on what that realm had done to Abraham in the generations prior. When it was done we had finished our own Nestorian Crusade against the Horn of Africa, and most of the lands came out under our control. Diskarkha-Hiraab would snatch up Hobyo and jumping ahead a bit the lands down south of Yemen would end up looking like so:




Now I fully do not plan on holding onto these lands, but I've made a little mistake in how I allocated them. I gave rule of all 3 Hafun counties to one person, so he will be stronger than I should have left him. I also thought I wanted to wait until my vassal could make the lands Feudal before releasing, but now I think I just want to let them go and watch for Hiraab to gobble them up.

There is a Decision in this game where your dynasty can earn a Dynasty of Many Crowns boost. To get it you need 10 different kingdoms with rulers of your dynasty. They all have to be independent as well. I think I may aim for this, but I at least want to let our southern cousins form the Kingdom of Ajuraan. I will need to release ex-Hafun lands for them to get this. (The easiest way to do this is just to conquer 10 kingdoms worth of land and then grant everyone independence at once, but that feels too cheesy for me.)

Besides, I want a Nestorian backline to my south that I will not have to worry about. The tribal realms of Sanaag and Hafun were a constant threat to our family and now they are no more.

It took all the time of these wars for us to first Sway Theoktiste to start liking us before we could finally Seduce her. ANd so Eliya now was helping in another way: by giving his son the heir that he assumed he could never give himself.




Eliya would have less luck in pickign the right reading, but the scheme was taking root and Theoktiste was showing interest.

Helene would return here and give the Malik her attentions once more. But Eliya would not be distracted.




Okay, maybe a temporary distraction. He is Rakish, after all.

But a few months later, the time finally was right and Theoktiste warmed more and more to the Eliya's advances. Until finally:







Prince Eliya caught them! And then shared the secret with the world. Our king received the shame of becoming an Adulterer, which cost him a Level of Devotion. And so did Theoktiste. Prince Eliya did not put her in prison, thankfully, but he set his father as his Rival. The two were estranged after.

The only silver lining was that no bastard was conceived. Still, Prince Eliya would have to bear that burden himself.

Malik Eliya had reached far and been burned badly here. His attempts at creating a strong dynasty instead left him estranged from his son. His attempts to give his oldest daughter a strong marriage ended in her death on the battlefield. He had even slaughtered his own cousin's troops when trying to help save them from Hobyo.

Snakebitten, Eliya turned towards finishing up Sanaag. The tribal war was a little messy: Sanaag's own vassals had revolted halfway through, causing more units to appear than first anticipated. But after that war there would be no more meddling, no more wars. Eliya would build up the realm quietly.

Daughters and granddaughters grew up and married. Souzan came of age and was married to a Byzantine Count. With no good alliances to be had, we next looked for rulers as marrying a ruler will increase our family's renoun. Sheeftah came of age and married King Etienne; she is now Queen of Syria. Whenever his desires overcame him, it was a trip to the brothel to relieve some stress. No more aunts or daughters-in-law for Eliya.

With King Eliya now reaching 60 years it was time to start arranging his affairs. Prince Eliya currently stood to inherit San'a and all its provinces. I did not want to split San'a and Yemen, and so I created the Duchy of Socotra and gave that to Eliya. Whether inspired by the generosity or if the passage of the years had dulled his anger, Prince Eliya reached out to bury the hatchet:




Prince Eliya even had a child with Theoktiste, a girl! Little Saaman had also inherited the Fecund trait from her mother. And just like one of Eliya's kids to have mostly girls.

With the wars in the Horn of Africa complete and the relationship with his son patched, Malik Eliya felt a weight off his shoulders that he did not even realize was there. He felt so light that it felt if he were just to let go then all would be weightless and free. It seemed such a peaceful thought.




And so he did.


Other Happenings:

• Eliya married again after Makda's death. Parvin Rezaid was a courtier from Zabid who was both Hale and Intelligent. She bore twins for the Malik: both girls, naturally. But both also inherited her mother's Intelligent trait.
  
• Zulfiqar died in the battles for Hobyo. This had also increased Eliya's stress and helped cause him the mental break that led to him earning the Rakish trait.
  
• Before I could build a 2nd archery grounds at San'a, i had to first create the duchy title. This in turn put me over the limit of 2 duchies, so all my vassals hated me a little for having 3. I gave Hadramawt to my second son, Eliya, since that was what I wanted the game to send his way when it came time for inheritance.
  
• I began Integrating the Duchy of Asir into Yemen. Normally this process will happen on its own within 100 years, but by using my Chancellor i can speed it up to happen in 60. This will make Asir fall under the de jure kingdom of Yemen when it is complete. Normally I might not bother, but the Empire of Arabia is vast and I may not conquer it myself. Even the Kingdom of Arabia to my north is quite large. I may end up making my own custom Empire this game, depending on in which direction I keep expanding.
  
• Petty King Anastasios of Nobatia died, and now Eliya's granddaughter Eudosia rules as queen there.
  
• The succession went off very well. Prince Eliya received no further titles than what had been gifted to him. Prince Kafa has to give away 3 counties as he is well over his domain limit.
  

[pindicator]

Interregnum Report

We now play as Malik Kafa. 




With very average stats around, we are Humble, Sadistic (sinful to Nestorians), and Gregarious, as well as being a Misguided Warrior and Military Engineer. We already know about the Sterile congenital trait, but he has also picked up a pair of Lifestyle traits: Hunter & Overseer.

The 42-year-old is married to Malika Helene, and together they have 2 children*. Their daughter, Sheeftah, has just turned 16 and is now Queen of Syria. Their son, Ya'qub is the heir apparent and still tutoring at 13 years old. One of our early choices will be finding him a tutor (you always seem to get to pick anew when you take over). Currently Helene is too old to bear any more children so if we are to try for more sons then we will have to do so with another wife.

*Yeah, we know it's really 1 child, but if the world ever finds out who little Ya'qub's real father is then we're in for a whole lot of succession crisis.

Malik Kafa inherited 9 holdings from his father, a result of the Partition succession law. Since he is not as good a steward as Eliya was, we will need to give away 3 holdings to stay under the domain limit. I have already decided on the 3 provinces to give away, focusing on keeping all the holdings in the duchies of San'a and Yemen:

• Mait, on the horn of Africa, was given to Ali of House Razinid, for his good stewardship
  
• The island of Socotra was given to his brother Eliya II, in an attempt to improve relations between them
  
• Aqiq in the far north was given to Mansur, a lowborn.

Now the vassal situation looks like this:




This is after giving all of my Powerful Vassals (boxed in yellow) positions on the council and giving away the extra holdings. People just do not like Kafa that much. One idea we may still try is to "hide" disgruntled vassals, by creating the duchy titles for Sanaag and Asir and then making the person who likes me most the Emir and the one who likes me least in that area their subject. I could possibly hide Sheikh Jamal and Sheikh Husan this way.

Another thought is we were going to eventually give the horn duchies their independence, so why not do it sooner rather than later if they stir up a revolt which may be too difficult to hold off. I do not plan on granting anybody independence straight away, but if one of them is part of a faction I may use that as a way to peel them off.

I do want to touch a bit on the family tree. When we started out it was just Abraham and his son Eliya, Ras of Innarya. Things have gotten somewhat larger:




We are in the bottom left, with our daughter Sheeftah and son Ya'qub branching off below. A few people to our right you can see Prince Eliya II and his daughter Saaman. All of the women who are married I tried to show what title they have married into (or were married into for those who have died). I've used the European rank names rather than mix up what is Sheikh/Count/Ras/Gerad/Islan/etc and all their similar titles on up. (Except where I lapsed and used the cultural title instead.) Although Petty Queen should be Duchess - those are culturally different names for the same rank.

There are only 2 additional cadet branches in our dynasty so far. Here is House Diskarkha-Hiraab, created by Emir Samir:




When Samir died his lands were divided among his three daughters, as his youngest son Abdale was a bastard and thus illegitimate. Sundaridevi married Mukhtar Diskarkha, her cousin and Count of Baydhabo, but together they have no children to pass on their lands to. Because of this, when Sundaridevi dies her lands will be passed on to her next oldest sister, Saubhagyadevi. (They all seemed to have taken their names after their grandmother, who is you remember was from Valabhi in western India. Actually this is my fault: I decided to have Samir raised with his mother's culture on a whim.)

Saubhagyadevi has had two husbands. Her first husband Ali was lowborn and married matrilineal so her oldest daughter is of house Diskarkha-Hiraab. However, Ali was slain in battle at the young age of 23 and so she married again, this time patrilineal and Abdulah of Hiraab, who was of the Jilib Dynasty. They had a son, Aul Jilib, and he now stands to inherit her County of Hiraab. But further, he stands as the ultimate heir of Mogadishu as Saubhagyadevi is the primary heir for Sundaridevi. On top of all that, her daughter Iftiin is currently betrothed to Samir's youngest son and her half-aunt, Abdale.

The third daughter, Faadumo, did not inherit any titles from Samir, but did marry the Count of Hiraab in her first marriage. Her second child and oldest son, Samir, is of that marriage and he inherited the County of Mareeg from his father. Faadumo then married the Count of Hobyo in her second marriage and they have a son (her 4th child) who currently stands to inherit that county.

Short version: There is a real threat of this House being lost to the annals of history and their lands passing on to House Jilib. We'll see if Kafa tries to intervene here.

Next is House Shihrin, which is on much better footing (and much more straight-forward):




Zulfiqar's daughters both married Shieks and had children of their households. Only Tanaz's husband died and she has remarried to a lowborn individual. Emir Fadl is one of my direct vassals and Emir of Mahra. And his brother, Sheikh Abdul-Wahab, is his vassal, ruling the county of Al-As'a'. All of their children are too young to marry still and none of them are yet betrothed.

Wheh, enough of a dive into the family history. Maybe we'll jump back in a few generations.


Kafa's father did a very good job of spreading the faith within his realm, and here is how religions are seen across the area.




Realms in the wider region:




Not a whole lot we haven't touched on in the reports, except look at that Egypt! The Persians continue to splinter off vassals every couple years, and are currently losing yet another war to the Byzantines. They have almost lost all their influence in the Arabian Peninsula now. Ideally we can fill the gap!

And the world map:

[Gustaran]

Great report, I am always looking forward to the next episode. 

[pindicator]

Kafa, Part One:  Better to be Feared

Kafa really tried to get the people to like him.  Honestly, he did. 




He gave away holdings, he gave away council positions, he gave prisoners their freedom.  He would give and give and give and the lords of Yemen only turned their noses up at him like he was offering them dinner scraps.

He gave a large feast for all his vassals and courtiers.




And when the wine ran out he gave out his own gold to provided more.  And what happens when he gave out so much?




They get drunk and spill it all over him!




They murder the brothers of our neighbors and hide behind Kafa's robes!




And they take back the taxes they owe Kafa, their Malik!

So Kafa decided early on that if his vassals would not respond favorably to love, then perhaps they would respond favorably to fear.




With Kafa's Sadistic trait giving +35 Natural Dread, and the Dynastic Legacy of Serve the Crown giving +15 Dread, the extra +30 from Intimidation Lifestyle would allow Kafa to stabilize at a whopping 80 Dread.  Of course, it would take a little bit of time to grow up to 80 at the normal rate of 0.5/month.  But there were ways to speed that along:




Executing this random lowborn who had been taking up space for 9 years would gain us 12 Dread.  Because Kafa is Sadistic it would also releave Stress.  Sadly there was not many people in the prison worth executing.  I even ransomed some low level courtier for 10 gold.  I would grant another their freedom on the condition they join my court: he had 18 Prowess! And there was an Egyptian princess in our dungeons!  I had no idea how she got there but she was so very tempting to execute.  However I didn't want all of Egypt mad at me.  I probably should have done it anyway.  Perhaps this is what Humble + Sadistic looks like

Well we clearly were going to need more prisoners if Kafa was going to intimidate his vassals into loyalty.  And it just happened that Persia was weak:




The Byzantines would shortly finish their war and take Azerbaijan off the Persians/Seljuks.  But they would become embroiled more in their civil war and largely ignore us as we brought 4,500 troops into Dhufar and then sailed for Basra.




We sieged down Abbadan and Basra without any confrontation as the Persians were still busy fighting each other. And here we did pick up the prisoners we were looking for.  But I did not execute them yet - even though they would not fetch a ransom.  I had another plan in mind for them.




A welcome surprise!  Our daughter, Sheeftah, Queen of Syria, gifted us 75 gold for our fight against the Persians.  It was much appreciated, both to myself and Kafa as it gave him Stress reduction as well.

This was followed by another surprise in the game:




This was the second time I had gotten this event and the second time where it happened when I was looking for a way to divorce my wife!  Here there was no relation at all between Kafa and Helene and yet this was just the excuse which would allow us to divorce.  Helene was 45 now and while we had an heir I still wanted to try and get another.  So we divorced and looked for who was available to marry:




There were not many good options, but Kafa settled on marrying Parvin Rezaid here.  She had fantastic congenital traits to pass on to any children, and she also had great stats to help with the realm.  Her downside was her age; would they be able to have a child together before she became too old?

Prince Ya'qub came of age shortly after, and here I decided that a little marriage between cousins was okay:




This would ideally set up the realm to expand into Egypt down the line when Ya'qub's children eventually rule.  Or perhaps we will have an offshoot kingdom and new house come up like Mogadishu has become with the Diskarkha-Hiraab line.

Returning to the war, Persia finally responded by sending 1,900 troops to retake Dhufar.  Yet when I gathering my forces from their sieges in Mesopotamia, the Persian Civil War was lost and Atabeg Yaman of Isfahan is deposed.  Now the Persian Empire is ruled by Sultan al-Muazzam.  He has only 1,200 troops to his name.  The 1,900 in Dhufar were loyal to the old Sultan and have disappeared.  With the Persian Empire further weakened I change my strategy and move to siege provinces in southern Iran, heading towards Persia's capital.

We caught a few smaller stacks trying to organize and wiped them out quickly, but largely were allowed to siege down holdings unmolested.




Parvin has become pregnant!  Quite a surprise by our "sterile" ruler.  (I wonder if it's Kafa's child?)  She would give birth to a son by the end of the year.  Sadly he did not take any of her congenital traits - but at least he was not Sterile either!

We would hit 100% war score, gain a few more prisoners, and win the war for Dhufar a few months later.  I did execute a pair of prisoners for Dread but regretted it after; I should have tortured them first.  We have the first Torturer line perk, Dark Insights.  Every time we torture someone we get a 50% chance to up our Intrigue or our Prowess by 1 (up to +5 in each).

The extra Dread would make my brother, Prince Eliya II, become Terrified of me.  The tooltip is a bit vague, but Dreaded rulers can cause their vassals to become Intimidated (lower chance of joining factions against you) or Terrified (very low chance of joining factions).  There's no internal number given so I just have to accept it's better.  But now in this gameplay, people still disliked Kafa, but nobody was joining factions against him.  Only 1 or 2 dared and they did not have the strength to sufficiently challenge him.

After the war we also had a large war chest, of almost 900g.  I decided to spend most of it on upgrading our Castle holding at Ta'izz from a Motte to a Keep.




Aside from giving the capital more defense, gold, and levies, it would also unlock the next tier of buildings for the economic and military buildings I had previously built in the holding.  If we get more gold, we'll continue to upgrade buildings, but I like to keep a couple hundred on hand in case of emergencies.

Kafa was not his father, however.  He was not a builder at heart.  He was a warrior, misguided as he might be.  His eyes were forever on the horizon.  And to the east, there had opened up an avenue to a new duchy who was also embroiled in a civil war and weakened by infighting:




But Kafa did not have the Devotion needed to declare Holy War for a full Duchy.  He would have to go on Pilgrimage first, spending the rest of his war chest.  Then it would be time.



Other Happenings:

• Divine Right tech was finished!  This tech lets us press several claims in a single war, +10% monthly Piety, -10% Short Reign duration (the time when your new leader takes an Opinion penalty), -20% Title Creation Cost, and opens up the Palatinate Feudal Contract.  Our next tech is Advanced Bow Making to open up Crossbowmen.
  
• The Princess of Egypt died in my dungeons of old age a few years into the game.  I probably should have executed her.
  
• In my time looking around for someone for Ya'qub to marry, I stumbled across Princess Shola, Kafa's half-sister.  She was once Petty Queen of Nobatia until her husband died, and then had been in court there while her daughter now rules.  But since then she has re-married to Prince Kuno of Jerusalem.  And Queen Ida still rules in Jerusalem!  She is 74 years old and has converted to Adamist, but still rules.
  
• Kaffa's half-sister Sabba married Thakur Ratan-Singh of Dhamalpur.  He was only a Count-level ruler for purposes of Renoun, but there really was no better.
  
• Nobatia called us in to fight off their upstart vassal who wanted independence.  We sailed our armies there straight from Persia only for them to win the war right as we arrived.
  

[Commodore]

So what's the ambition at this point? Nestorian Revival? Periplus of the Erythraean Sea Empire? Most Novel Incest?