Kafa, Part Three: War Within and Without
Four wars going at the same time, although Bisha helped end their war early by attacking our siege on their capital. In that battle we captured their leader and they were put to 100% War Score
I could have just ended the war there but instead I greedily ransomed the leader back for gold and waited for my armies to siege down the capital. I also tortured him first, which earned Kafa his second Dark Insight stat, this one for Prowess. We would also torture one of his captured knights for a third Dark Insight point in Intrigue.
With the peasants, I gathered the rest of my levies and defeated the small stack at Dathina. But now with Shirazid coming towards Yemen I decided to leave the large stack of 2,300 rebels alone and wait to see what Shirazid's armies would do first. My armies stuck together in the north, by Bisha.
Shirazid avoided the rebels for the start, laying siege to Dathina.
Then we got into a 5th war:
I really don't remember my justification for joining. Gojjam is a part of Lasta and was Nestorian. And I think part of me was like "Sure, what's another one at this point?"
Eventually Bisha was forced to sign over their county and their gold, and the Sheikh of Asir took control. For my part, I earned a Weak Hook on the Sheikh. But at least we were back down to a more reasonable 4 wars.
Still, Shirazid's ally Numayr brings 2,000 troops in from the north and the battle scene looks a bit like this:
But my allies from Nobatia were also coming across the Red Sea to lend their aid.
With our forces combined we hit the rebel stack first. The AI was doing a good job of evading it and they were about to break through at Ta'izz. Instead we won the fight and captured the peasant rebel leader. Down to 3 wars now.
Continuing south, we move against Shirazid next. The AI has done their classic "split our forces and do nothing" strategy, so I think we should have little trouble.
They were too slow giving up their siege at Dathina, and by the time they moved to reinfoce we had defeated the first part of their army, slaughtering them to a man.
It was slaughter after slaughter:
Shirazid has no army now. There are only the 2,000 troops from Numayr, which have stopped to siege at Zabid. And 2 other wars: Qalaafe in the south and Lasta in the west.
Well, Shirazid had a few hundred men left. And he did the only thing he could with them:
Socotra being invaded we would not stand. Kafa countered by invading into Shirazid, starting sieges at Dakkar and Zaila. Kafa was spending more and more time in the dungeons now as well; his Dark Insights creeping up every few tortures. The wars gave him a constant supply of captured knights, lowborn, and nobles alike. After Dakkar falls we finally reach 100 war score to our favor and we can force them to pay us concessions for peace.
Yet after peace we are still hostile with one another. They are at war with Abyssinia and I am also at war with Abyssinia through Lasta. The war mechanics here are wonky at times. In total, the war against Shirazid lasted 2 1/2 years.
Now we focused our attention west, towards the lands of Ethiopia where Coptics and Nestorians waged war:
Oh, somewhere around here we lost the war in the south and Qalaafe won Mareeg off of Diskarkha-Hiraab. I didn't take good notes about that war as my attention was focused in the north.
The county under the stack of 676 is Gojjam itself and has been captured by the enemy forces of Alodia, Damot, Showa, and friends. Our troops were already nearby after invading Shirazid and we headed west to immediately liberate Gojjam. That stack of 676 was actually working to retake Gojjam - no idea where the enemy forces are here - and so I moved into neighboring Angot and Begemder, seiging those provinces down. On Sept 6, 1159 Gojjam was retaken by Lasta and the war had new life breathed into it: we were only at -11% here now.
Alodia would return, however, with over 5,000 troops of their own:
In January of 1180 Nur Afari dies and Lasta is now ruled by Talib II. This is the person my half-sister Sheeftah married, so now it is more imporant to win this war. We get more dynasty renoun for being married to independent rulers, and so I want to keep Lasta indepenent.
I waited in defensive terrain for Alodia to begin the siege at Gojjam again. And when they did that was when I struck. When you are seiging a county and the opponent moves to fight your troops, the invading person is always considered the "attacker" even if they did not start the fight. More accurately, the game always gives the defensive terrain bonuses to the army which is defending the siege, regardless if they started the attack or not. In every other instance the army that starts the attack is the attacker and the one who was already in position on the county is the defender. So here I was able to pick the attack and also get advantage of the defensive mountainous terrain in addition to the defensive bonuses from the holdings in Gojjam.
But Alodia did not stay, they ran.
And I did not patiently wait, I chased.
We met them at Hayq, which was neutral territory and so the Alodian army received all the defensive advantage. And yet if you look at the image above it is my army with the +27 Advantage shown. Most of that is due to my Commander's traits: my commander has a 25 stat while there's has only 8. You can also see how the men-at-arms counter and are countered by the color surrounding their icon: red means they fight at disadvantage, green at advantage, and grey is neutral. So my pikemen might get an advantag for fighting in mountains but the enemy heavy footmen troops counter them so they end up being at disadvantage. Both our archers fight at advantage. My light footmen fight at neutral advantage while there's are countered and fight at disadvantage. And so on. There are bits where certain units counter each other specifically, and others where some get terrain bonuses to either toughness or attack, so it is complicated to break down exactly why the units are highlighted like they are.
But that +27 does a good job of distilling just how much of an advantage I got as a whole in the this fight.
And we end up with a resounding victory:
Over 2,100 killed and the enemy commander taken prisoner. However we lost over 500 of our own troops and several of our vassals were slain: Sheikh Samir of Fafan and Emir Qawurd of Akinid both fell to the sword. Why can't it be the troublesome vassals who die in battle? Emir Jamaal of Sanaag would be a wonderful person to have disappear. Instead I begrudgingly make him my Chancellor since nobody else is good enough for the job. I suppose Emir Qawurd and I were tense, but we got along. His son just plain hates me now and does not have the respect his father did.
In any case, Lalibala took the capital of Damot and that was enough to pop us up to 100% war score. Then the war was over.
4 years of solid war, all for a single county. And I suppose, not losing my kingdom.
I didn't go too much into detail here about it, but Kafa spent a lot of time in thie dungeons during these wars, torturing everybody who wasn't of consequence. He managed to reach the maximum stat gain from Dark Insights (+5 to both Prowess and Intrigue). After that I became a lot more picky about my torturing: only if the sadistic ruler needed a stress release, or if the person really deserved it.
After this war, there were several small wars that were fought. North of Oman, we took the province of Dharka. The Emirate of Shabelle split off of Shirazid and was weak, so we sent our troops to take it for our own as well.
Kafa was misguided warrior in name, and so we went with wars in every direction because of it. These territories didn't always serve a greater strategic goal, but they were free land ... more or less.
But there was more conflict at work in Diskarkha besides just the wars. Underneath the surface a web of family intrigue was beginning to surface. After the war with Shirazid had finished and as our troops were moving to defend Lasta, it was Kafa's brother, Prince Eliya II, who accused my vassal and brother-in-law, Sheikh Reza of Mecca, of having an affair with his wife, Theoktiste. We have to side with our broher here. I do not torture Theoktiste but instead ransom her back to Eliya for 50g. Although I'm not sure why he would want her back, or pay me 50 gold for her. But I don't quibble the money.
The feud between Reza and Eliya did not end there. As our troops were beginning to invade Shabelle, things took a far more sinister tone:
Reza murdered Eliya over his wife! I could not sit back and let Kafa's brother (or half-brother, really) go unavenged and so Reza was brought to the dungeons to meet his justice
While it was tempting to torture Reza for his crime, I also did not want to deprive my sister of her husband. Reza had the very desireable Intelligent congenital trait and i so wanted more people within the dynasty with good traits. Kafa also did not want to let him go with a slight punishment, and so while he decided what to do Reza was confined to house arrest.
Instead Kafa took out his anger on the Emir of Shabelle. As that ruler was captured, he was then tortured, and the war ended. Shabelle's lands were now Diskarkha's lands.
As I wrote in my notes: wrong time, wrong place buddy.
Eliya had just one daughter, Saaman. (If you remember Eliya's adventures it trying to give Eliya II an heir...) But she had the Fecund trait and was married matrilineally, so there was hope that she would continue to produce many offspring for our dynasty. I took to marrying a few daughters of the family by matrilineal marriages when I could not find a suitable alliance; we seem to be teetering at the edge of not having enough valid heirs, and I did not want our dynasty to wither like Diskarkha-Hiraab branch had:
Diskarkha-Hiraab is a dead-end family now. All of Samir's children were either bastards or daughters or died before having their own children. All the crests under the children there are those of different dynasties. The one daughter that married another cousin within Diskarkha didn't have any children. What this means is that within a generation or two Mogadishu will be ruled by another family, and we will have to come back and reconquer it. Or wrestle it back by marriage.
Reza then admitted to Kafa that Theoktiste's son, Konstantino was not Eliya's child, but was a product of their affair. Without Eliya to save her, Theoktiste is thrown back into the prisons.
The family revelations don't stop there, however:
Didn't it seem convenient that the Sterile Kafa had so many children? And yet we never doubted our wife. Not once. Until the proof was put before our eyes and we saw ourselves that Nishan was not Kafa's daughter but really the daughter of our Marshall, Murad.
Kafa did not reveal his secret right away. This was all coming at him so fast, he needed to slow down and think. He needed to think about the realm. He needed to think about his honor. He needed time to sort all of this out.
But time was not on his side.
A few months later, on the eve of preparing his next war, Kafa was found dead.
Natural causes ... right?
