The Rise of Socotra - a Crusader Kings 3 Story

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Ya'qub, Part Four:  Grievances in the Desert

The rebellious vassals bring 7,500 troops to battle.  Ya'qub is left with only 3,700 of his own.  And he is 130 gold in debt.  But he still has his allies, and all 3 come to his call: call in all three: Queen Eudosia "The Wicked" of Nobatia, Emir Abad of Baqlin, and Petty Queen Pelagia of Naqis.  Combined they total almost 12,000 troops.




The enemy immediately moves to besiege our capital at Ta'izz, and so Ya'qub sends his forces there.  Baqlin is first to meet up with us while Nobatia is still across the sea.  Naqis never made it across the Red Sea:




Just a few weeks into the war, Halwasid invaded Naqis.  Naqis asked for my help but I could not come north with rebel forces laying siege to our capital.  I had to hope that Naqis would hold out on their own.

Meanwhile, Ya'qub sees that the AI has left 1,300 troops alone beside the besieging army and counts on the AI not reinforcing their troops.  So he does not wait for his Baqlin allies to catch up and attempts to strike while the iron is hot.




But Ya'qub has miscalculated!  The rebels give up their siege to reinforce the 1,300 and now Ya'qub is about to find himself in a bad battle, outnumbered and fighting an enemy defending the mountains.  Baqlin is racing to catch up but they are a month behind, and by the time they arrive the Diskarkha attack forces have already been whittled down by the defenders.  Perhaps if they had all attacked at once the attack could have worked.




Our troops retreat south to the Horn of Africa, while Baqlin retreats north.

The Diskarkha lands in Africa have always been somewhat of an afterthought of the kingdom.  Conquered for a hodgepodge of reasons, the various count and duke-level leaders here have been free to expand, be conquered, and in some cases been granted independence on the whims of previous Maliks.  So while a few of the Shieks/Gerads here are involved in the rebellion, it comes as no surprise that their support is nominal and when problems arise they are still coming to Ya'qub for aid:




Sheikh Umar of Gidaya and Sheikh Nawhi of Qalaafe both say that Emir Isa's son Khalil was to marry both fo their daughters.  Yet Umar is among the rebels!  Why can't I just arrest him now that he's here in the palace?  Emir Isa is the Emir of Oman and one of the major rebelling parties.  Of all these people asking for Ya'qub to settle this dispute, only Sheikh Nawhi is loyal and not taking arms up against him.  Why are they even asking me?  Do they realize that nobody really cares about the Horn territories and they're only clinging on to the first real bit of attention their backwards provinces have received?  (Obviously it's a poorly thought out event interaction, I'm just having fun with it.)

Naturally we side with Nawhi.  He isn't the one trying to kick Ya'qub out as king.  Perhaps this just drives Umar further to rebellion, but I also think his claim seems best.

Ya'qub spends the month recovering in Sanaag.  Makuria arrives and bolsters their numbers.  The rebels have given up on chasing down Baqlin and instead are sieging the desert provinces of the Akinids.  Ya'qub caught a small band of forces trying to move north to meet with them, and cut the army down.  And despite all of this, the following month once again Umar and Nawhi found his camp outside Berbera with a new grievance:




Ya'qub had done nothing to settle the emnity between these two Shiekhs, and now they come to him bickering about who may attend the other's feasts.  In a moment of losing his patience, Ya'qub orders them both to attend each other's feasts.  Said in a heated moment, it seems to strike the right chord and the two vassals leave in a somewhat content manner.  This is impossible: do they not know there is a war going on?




After they leave Ya'qub asks his advisors, "Why can't I just imprison the rebellious traitor again?"

The advisor responds, "My lord, Naqis has been conquered by the Halwasids."




Ya'qub could only hope his sister-in-law got away safely.  But he was still stuck in the Horn of Africa, camped outside his seige of Berbera, and the demands of his vassals kept finding their way to him.  Next was the Emir of Sanaag, the vassal whose lands he was currently hiding out in, regrouping his strength.




Emir Jamal had been one of Ya'qub's bitterest opponents when he first took the thrown.  But a position as Marshall and the years seemed to mend their gap.  Up until the revolt.  In the failed assault at Zafar, Jamal had been badly wounded and the physicians had said he would not last much longer.  He had given up his position and returned to his palaces at Sanaag.  And promptly did not die.  It was now 5 months past the battle and the Emir was still not dead, and feeling so wonderfully not dead that he had decided to leverage his lord into a little blackmail of his own.  Give him more leeway and he'll still be a good vassal.  If not he'll rise up and the other half of the kingdom will rebel.

Ya'qub relented.  Crown Authority was lowered.  Jamal continued to not die.

After what had felt like years but had only been 6 months, Berbera finally fell.  Ya'qub had regrouped his forces to over 7,000 strong.  He decided to set out north again.

But one last bit of business in the Horn before he left:




Asiya had come of age, and Ya'qub sensed an opportunity.  Already his half-sister was married to Jilib but as that had been done by his father the alliance did not hold through (Game Mechanics Aside:  I do not know why all alliances seem to die with the ruler.  Well, most of them.  Some stay for some reason.), but here Asiya was betrothed to the Gerad's 10-year-old son in the hopes of securing another 2,300 men for the war.




Gerad Aul would come to our aid!  Feeling emboldened, Ya'qub continued north across the Bab-el-Mandeb.

The rebels ran from his approaching armies.  Frustratingly so, as the AI always seems to know exactly when it can attack before you can reinforce, or when it can retreat at the last moment to get away.




So with the rebels laying siege to the desert holdings of the Akinids, we decide to go after Prince Ibrahim's palace at San'a.  This does what I had hoped; the rebels turn their armies around and move to save San'a.  We outnumber them and will take our fight to them in the deserts to the east, where they will not have any defensive bonuses.

Except my AI allies screw me again, and here do not join in on what would have been a sure victory.  Instead they leave my armies to fight the rebels alone.




At the same time we are working against our foes diplomatically, trying to weaken the rebel faction.  Sadly our efforts in diplomacy are about as effective as our efforts on the battlefield; we are rebuffed in both places.




Our forces retreat back to the Horn, and the AI uses this opportunity to lay siege to our capital at Ta'izz.  By the time we return it is March of 1078 and they are close to capturing and we are forced to make a bad attack onto one of their neighboring stacks to keep them from finishing their siege.  At least we have the sense to retreat early from this fight, which gives us control about which province we retreat to.  I choose Mandeb, to keep the troops close by.  But unless my allies can start coordinating better, we are going to lose this war.

And then the wheels really fall off.




The Iskenderids are the latest ruling dynasty of the Seljuk empire.  They have over 13,000 troops to bring against us.

On the bright side, at least this will take care of those Oman rebels.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Ya'qub, Part Four:  Grievances in the Desert

The rebellious vassals bring 7,500 troops to battle.  Ya'qub is left with only 3,700 of his own.  And he is 130 gold in debt.  But he still has his allies, and all 3 come to his call: call in all three: Queen Eudosia "The Wicked" of Nobatia, Emir Abad of Baqlin, and Petty Queen Pelagia of Naqis.  Combined they total almost 12,000 troops.

What did Queen Eudosia do to earn her epithet?  Maybe she poisoned her stepdaughter with an apple?

[pindicator]

I'm not sure. She has two murders attributed to her, so perhaps those? The CK3 wiki says getting "the Wicked" as a nickname is part of a mental break event. It would be neat if they gave a tooltip that showed how they earned that epithet.

[pindicator]

Ya'qub Part Five:  Jihad & Civil War

We've touched on Emira Saaman a couple times over the updates, but she is quickly becoming one of my favorite vassals.  First being the only child of Emir Eliya II when he was murdered by Emir Reza of Mecca, she managed to hold onto power and onto her home Emirate of Hadramawt and then she expendad her lands, expanding in Adal without any help from myself.  Now she has declared war on Abyssinia for their central lands in Showa - and she is winning.




She would go on to win and conquer the Emirate of Showa for herself, taking a number of new vassals.

You can see the main fighting of the civil war in the upper right of the screenshot:  the rebels still occupy the deserts of the Akinids while we hold onto the coastal lands by the capital.  They do not come into the mountain strongholds because we would win those fights and we do not advance because I cannot get my AI controlled allies to do anything remotely supportive.  I do start a siege at Zabid, the southern-most county of San'a'.

Looking for ways to get out of debt, Malik Ya'qub decides to start imprisoning fornicators and others who have broken laws.  Once imprisoned he then ransoms their release.  This works splendidly for Walia Paymaneh of Qualnsiyah, who is flush with gold.  But not so well with Walia Ubba of Jubba-north, who is broke and only has 3 gold to her name.  We raise 33 gold total for the efforts.  When Zabid falls we don't capture anybody important enough to ransom back.

Then we scrutinize the ledgers.




Ya'qub scrutinizes the ledgers and comes up with another 55 gold.  This all was nice, but we're still in the red.

The AI moves back through San'a' to take Zabid back and we use that time to take back Dathina:




During this time, the Yemeni culture makes an important discovery:




Heraldry gives us additional prestige per month, but also allows us to have the High Partition succession law.  There isn't a huge difference from our current Partition law, but there is a guarantee in it that the Player Heir will get at least half of the lands.

Right after sieging down Dathina, we get caught in the mountains outside the capital.  If the allies will reinforce we should win.




They do and we win! 1700 killed compared to 1300 lost, and we captured an enemy Faris which was ransomed back for 10g.

Ya'qub wants to go to the rebel capital at San'a' but the allies move into Akinid to take back the sieged provinces.  Without support, Ya'qub has to follow his allies and they use the time of the retreating rebels to take back a province.  They would have taken more back but the AI gave up a siege when it was at 465/475 for no apparent reason other than I moved my nearby stack (there was no enemy nearby).

Unfortunately we dallied too late and the rebels were able to siege down the capital while we were taking back lands in the desert.  But Oman got too adventerous and split away from Prince Ibrahim's forces, moving into Rada.  There we pounced on his forces.

In November we get a new Stewardship Perk, which I use to unlock the Extort Subjects decision.  We're finding some of these events are a little buggy when it comes to rebellious vassals, as the vassal the game chooses for me to extort is one of the rebelling vassals, Emir Isa of Oman.




I probably should report these as bugs, it is killing the immersion for me.  But it is also funny to see Ya'qub get his revenge in more subtle ways against his vassals.

Perhaps that's also why I came down hard and picked the tyranny choice.

Speaking of Oman, it is being overrun:




Also, the south is being overrun by peasants:




But we took the capital back that May!




With the capital back, the War Score is up to -8%, and we have an opportunity.  One victory and I might be able to get a white peace, then focus on the Iskenderids in Oman.




We fight in the mountains, but with a 3-to-1 numeric advantage I was counting on our numbers telling.  It does and with a positive war score this 7-years-long rebellion is finally at an end:




Ibrahim agrees to white peace.  I would have loved to punish him, but we have to deal with Iskenderid before they can take all of Oman.




In the preceding month Ya'qub's oldest son Kafa came of age.  With the war over it is time to find Kafa a wife.  He is an above average Martial and Diplomacy stats, but everything else is terrible.

I ask the game to only show me characters with inheritable traits, sort by stats, and Ya'qub's half-sister tops the list.  CK3, you are really not helping your stereotype here.

But wasn't she married to House Jilib in my attempt to win back Mogadishu to our dynasty?  What happened there?  It appears the husband, Barakat Jilib, was slain in battle by one of my brother Malik's knights.  Oh no, this was right after I married my daughter into House Jilib and asked them to come to war for me.  Undone by my own plans!

Well, perhaps it is not all lost: Nisha and Barakat had a son and he is the heir of Mogadishu and of the Diskarkha dynasty.  His name is also Kafa. This Kafa is a Slow fool, but the plan succeeded as long as he lives.  If he should die, then the rule passes on to Hamalmal Jilib, Barakat's younger brother and wife of my daughter Asiya.  But my other plan of spreading the Diskarkha dynasty by having Nishan marry matrilineal has not come to fruition, and so I invite her back to my court.  (Her stats are great, and I am a little tempted to marry Kafa to her, but I think maybe not.)

Instead we marry Kafa to the Beautiful Zerebekka Warsangali.  Of no titles or lands and of a very minor house, hopefully I can have a good trait pass on to my heir for once in this game.




Nishan I invite back to court.  When she arrives we'll try to find her another matrilineal marriage.

Emira Saaman dies too young.  Only 40 years old, she drank herself to death.  Her conquests are split between her sons, with Hadramawt going to Emir Eliya III, while Socotra is now ruled by 4 year old Emir Reza.  He also has inherited lordship over the vassals of the newly conquered Showa; hopefully he can hold on to them.

Now we go to Oman.  The game wants me to go by boat, but we are poor and cannot afford to hire boats:  these troops will walk.  It is a bit of luck that we did, as the Yakutid Emirate lands 3,500 troops in Duqm right as we begin to approach:




My allies abandon me again to go the faster route by sea, but the holdings between these two are so distant that the Yakutids cannot reinforce before the battle resolves, and we are able to defeat their armies in turn.

I hate to ruin all the big build-up to fighting the Iskenderids, but in the end the war turned out to be a big disappointment.  Because like Ya'qub before them, the Iskenderids fell victim to their own rebellious infighting:




Due to this rebellion we would see troops at times across the straight of Hormuz, but nobody would ever cross back into Oman.  We took back our holdings and then signed a white peace in 1185.  A very uneventful jihad.

During that time we also got white peace with the peasant revolt.  Despite a string of sieges and no defeats to their name, the peasants agreed to disband.




Because the peasants could not take my capital the ticking war score was going against them: +90% for me for holding my capital, +31% for war score, and -63% for all their sieges.  That seems wrong, they had control of almost the entire Horn of Africa.

But there was another holy war that kicked off as we were taking back our lands in Oman:




The Abbadids, a power in Southern Spain, had somehow inherited a county west of Baqlin.  Using that as their base they allied with the Danakil tribe and declared holy war for Baqlin.  No rest for Ya'qub as now he must rush back west to save his ally and relatives in Baqlin.

[sunrise089]

Good update, I was getting worried there for a bit.

[Mjmd]

"Instead of merely being obsessed with their own personal status"

Man doesn't that encompass a large chunk of human history and behavior.

As buggy as some parts of the game may be, it does seem to do a descent job encompassing the difficulty of holding power and passing power.

[shallow_thought]

I've come late to these threads, but am really enjoying them. The game itself seems a bit too dense for me - too much going on, a scary looking learning curve, but I like the "living world" feel it generates when things line up (well, filtered through a human storyteller, at least).

Although it seems to have become a bit random right now, perhaps that is also true to some periods of history?

[pindicator]

Good update, I was getting worried there for a bit.

So was I.

As buggy as some parts of the game may be, it does seem to do a descent job encompassing the difficulty of holding power and passing power.

Wow does it. I could do some things and be more ruthless with my heirs to make sure that there is only one and that the partition is a little neater. But that doesn't seem as fun. I think the game is more enjoyable when you're overcoming those things and working through your heir's brothers getting territories too.

Although I have been going through some documentaries on the Ottomans and how they would just kill off all their brothers as soon as the next Sultan took the throne. Perhaps that would save my rulers some trouble down the line...

I've come late to these threads, but am really enjoying them. The game itself seems a bit too dense for me - too much going on, a scary looking learning curve, but I like the "living world" feel it generates when things line up (well, filtered through a human storyteller, at least).

Although it seems to have become a bit random right now, perhaps that is also true to some periods of history?

I think the randomness is me losing the narrative thread a bit. There's a lot of little events I don't put in for the sake of telling a good story, but I don't feel I've been at top form lately. This rule has been a little more chaotic than most, though: so many wars! A lot of those are my own fault (I never should have allied Baqlin), but some of them have been just being the wrong place at the wrong time.

In any case, glad you're enjoying it

I've played to Ya'qub's death, and while I would like to wrap it up in one update it might take two more. There's a lot that happens for him before the end!

[pindicator]

Ya'qub, Part Six: Back in the Black

To get all the way back to Baqlin, I disband my troops.  Disbanding troops during war comes at a penalty and the game will give a warning ahead of time saying how long you have to wait before you can call those troops again.  For this instance, it will take 7 months for them to "find their way home".  But that is 7 months I do not have to pay them, and it will take almost that time for them to walk back west anyway.  So we disband and hope Baqlin can hold out.

Baqlin is marching their troops west, through the Saudi Arabian desert.

Speaking of marching a long way, here is a better visual on just how far away the Abbadids are coming from:




Normally this isn't a concern and the troops would take a long way to arrive, but they are able to just raise their troops in the holding adjoining Baqlin.  And while it may take a couple months for those troops to gather there, it will be faster than us walking from Oman.

We can see 9,000 troops already in Baqlin.




We may not even have 7 months.

Back at home, Kafa and Zerebekka have already provided Ya'qub with a granddaughter.




Parween has some of her mother's good looks, but Comely is unfortunately the smallest of the 3 beauty traits.

In October of 1185 we finally get back in the black, thanks to an event noting a windfall of taxes.  It helps to have good stewards collecting taxes!

I end up waiting longer than 7 months for my levies to replenish, but by March of 1186 I decide I cannot wait any longer.  Ya'qub raises his army of 4,900 in Awssa, south of Danakil, and begins marching north.

At this time we successfully imprison Ya'qub's youngest brother, Prince Malik for his role in the rebellion.




Once in prison we take Dathina from him and Ya'qub controls all the holdings within the Emirate of Yemen once again.  I really wanted to punish Ibrahim and Isa as well, but they were both too strong of a vassal and only had 19% chance to succeed each.  Being in war, we could not afford another rebellion and so they were given a pass ... for now.

Malik was supposed to sit in prison and rot, but then a few months later Ya'qub decided he needed to clear out his prisons from all the recent wars and ransomed off everybody that would give funds.  Somehow Malik got crossed up in the administrative paperwork (in otherwords, I  forgot I had just put him in jail) and he was let out.  He ran to Ibrahim's court and there he stayed ... until he showed up again, later in the reign.

As we move north into Baqlin, the Abbadids have already taken the capital and surrounding territories and are close to finishing their next round of sieges.  These would certainly bring Abbadids up to 100 war score and to prevent that we send our troops into a hopeless battle:




The Abbadids give up their sieges to reinforce and we lose 1,000 men in the defeat.  But this buys Baqlin time to retake their capital and the war score drops down to -27.

Also lost in the battle is Prince Ibrahim, who is killed by an Abbadid faris.  While in some ways this seems like divine retribution and the ultimate punishment for his failed attempt to put Princess Sheeftah onto the Diskarkha throne, it also feels a bit hollow for him to escape punishment directly at the hands of Ya'qub.




In his place now rules his oldest son, Sulayman.

In December the Baqlin forces retake their capital and the war has new life.




We take boats to join their forces, and do not have to wait long for the Abbadids to come.  Our numbers are about even, just shy of 8,000 to each side.  Which makes the result so surprising:




But the Abbadids are just too good at fighting.  The advantage counter was in the -60s and we are slaughtered. Over half our armies killed and Emir Abad would later die of the wounds he sustained in battle, leaving Baqlin leaderless.

The War Score jumps to -100 as we retreat, and before our armies return home the peace treaty is signed.




Baqlin is left with two counties, which split when Emir Abad dies.  His two sons, Ya'qub's grandsons, are quick to sign alliances.  We will be back to kick out the Abbadid menace, but it will not happen in Ya'qub's reign.

Towards the end of the war, our Renoun got high enough that we were able to take the next Dynastic Legacy.




Assertive Rulers will give us a shorter Short Rule penalty period, give us a larger vassal limit (if we ever get that large), and make it so our vassals are less likely to join claimant and liberty factions.  That last one could have been useful earlier in Ya'qub's rule!

As the war ends, Ya'qub's second son Halil comes of age.




He is Forgiving, Fickle, and Wrathful.  I betroth him to Samira Sabbid, daughter of the Sabbid Emirate, to secure another alliance on my southern flank.  With Mogadishu and Sabbid both my allies, hopefully they don't fight each other.  I suppose she is also 4th in line to inherit Sabbid, should I really wish to try my hand at assassinations.  We also give him the county of Ganale down in Somalia {which Ya'qub had inherited from an heirless vassal) as an attempt to have the succession distribute more how I want.  Currently he's to be awarded the county of Dathina and I don't want to see the Emirate of Yemen split up again only right after I've recombined it (by taking the lands back from Prince Malik).

You might be forgiven for thinking that we were about to have a respite and break from all these wars.  I certainly was looking forward to it.  But then, less than a month after Baqlin signed peace, our wife Eudosia now calls for aid




I'm really getting tired of all these wars.  I suppose I could have just let this one go:  Liberty Wars would only mean she has to lower her Crown Authority if she loses.  But I want to keep a strong land for Ya'qub's sons to inherit, and so once again we send our troops west to save Eudosia.

[pindicator]

Ya'qub Part Seven:  A Life at War

23 years of war.  Diskarkha has been at war almost continuously since invading Jubba in 1165.  And now after less than a month's break we are back into another, trying to help our unfaithful wife hold on to her lands.




Eudosia's forces are being wiped out and we are still in retreat, but we dutifully turn our troops around and head back to Nobatia.  By the time our troops arrive, her forces have been routed and it is solely us against the rebels.  Numbers are about even: their 2,500 to our 2,700.

Despite all this warring, Ya'qub has never really been very good at it.  His results have been mixed at best and it is rather a wonder that he has not lost any lands.  Which is all my way of building up the fact that once again Ya'qub runs headlong into a battle he thinks he should win, only to find a narrow defeat:




Losing with only 59 of the enemy's troops remaining really stung.  Worse: the time it took for our forces to retreat to the south end of Nobatia, regroup, and then head back north was all the time that the rebels needed to take the capital.

Except the difference is that we are on friendly territory and so our troops will replenish their forces each month.  The rebels have been besieging in hostile lands and so they were not replenishing numbers.  So when we return to Faras in October we have a considerable number advantage.




We arrive in October and this time defeat the enemy.  Faras is retaken by January.

The war will drag on for another 4 years but it was won here.  Ya'qub is able to slowly siege holdings and keep the majority of his troops in friendly soil, while the rebels must come out into Nobatia in order to make any gains.  Eventually Eudosia is able to muster a second army of a few hundred, which help bolster our ranks.  It is a methodical and relatively boring war.

Which means all the fun stuff happened back in Diskarkha:




Or rather, Mogadishu first!  Gerad Aul has passed away and now the grandson of Ya'qub, Emir Kafa, now rules Mogadishu.  If you recall it was Nishan who was married matrilineal to the grandson of Gerad Aul back in Part One.  And despite Nishan's parentage being called into question and her husband dying, Mogadishu is back to being ruled by the Diskarkha dynasty without a drop of blood being spilled.  Sometimes these plans actually work!




And sometimes the AI schemes work against you!  Emir Jamal II is still somehow not dead, and has backed a scheme that ended up with him in control of Socotra!  Not only that, but he is now the Emirate of Socotra!  How did he do it?  First off, he does not rule directly:  he backed a faction to install Princess Taneen bint Eliya and to overthrow Emir Reza, who was only 11 at the time.  Princess Taneen is the aunt of Ya'qub and the youngest sister of Ya'qub's father, Malik Kafa I.  That revolt was successful and Princess Taneen held the Sheikhdom of Socotra title.  Because Jamal backed her and her new title was a lower rank than his Emirate title, he now became her direct lord and she his vassal.

Reza, now holding the Emirate of Socotra title but no actual lands in Socotora, then destroyed the title in 1192.  And that was when Jamal scooped that title up and made himself Emir of Socotra.

But here is the twist:  Taneen has no children of her own.  And so when she dies Socotra will be inherited by me, and we will be able to usurp that title of Emirate of Socotra back from Emir Jamal II, should he live long enough to see the day.  This is the same Jamal whose physician said he was mortally wounded in the first battle of Ta'izz back in the time of the rebelling vassals, and said to perish any moment.  Yet here he is, alive and plotting decades later.  The man is a cockroach.

Finally, in 1192, we are able to siege down enough territory and retake enough sieged Nobatia holdings to have peace and win the war for Eudosia.




During the last few years we have filled our coffers by going down the Avarice branch of the Wealth Tree.  Sell Minor Titles has let us turn Prestige into Gold, and Extort Vassals has been used to grab more gold at the cost of Tyranny and Opinion.  All in all we have almost 750 gold to work with.

But even more liberating is that the first time since invading Jubba we are at a real peace and Ya'qub is finally able to shape his own destiny.  But first: he will let his levies replenish a little and expand the men-at-arms.  Currently we're at 3400 troops out of a maximum of 5800.

However, Ya'qub has been molded by a life at war, and his respite is only a brief 6 months.  By August 1192 he spies an opportunity at Shirazid to his south and decides the time is ripe to strike.  Shirazid is weak to the south and already in war wtih one of my vassals for lands in Adal.  I am goign to declare for the county of Zaila, which is a territory my vassals are not attacking for.  Hopefully the vassal wins along with me and we can expand two wars in the time of one.




Except once I declare, the war with my vassal disappears ...?

I believe I just invalidated my vassal's war by declaring on Shirazid myself.  Well that is annoying, as they were winning the war and would have brought in far many more counties than just Zaila on their own. In any case, my 4600 is against the 1300 of Shirazid, and they don't stand a chance.  We meet them in Awssa and slaughter their army to the man.

After a year the sieges are won and we are able to enforce our demands for the county of Zaila.




Although the game is having trouble placing our name on the map, with the irregular shape of our kingdom.  We will have to come back to Shirazid just to get rid of the overlap!

With the war over Ya'qub uses his funds to upgrade the military camps in Yemen.  Hide Tents turn into Camp Cooks in all 3 holdings in Yemen.  Apiece they will give +75 levies, +2% archer damage/toughness, +2% skirmisher damage/toughness/pursuit.  The percentage bonuses do stack, and since our Cultural Unit is a skirmisher I've been focusing on boosting their damage with these buildings.  The established best method is to push for Camelries because Knights are just so much better than anything else in the game, but I am keeping to the theme of my culture instead.




Emir Jamal II is again making trouble in my lands, this time with Sheikh Liban of Qalaafe.  Ya'qub tries to mediate, but comes across as insensitive, and both vassals have a lessened opinion of him for it.

By late fall 1194 Ya'qub is ready to expand again, and this time finally for the prize which he had set his eyes on at the start of his reign: Halwasid!




Holy War for the Emirate of Medina follows.  Halwasid has 4,700 troops and Diskarkha has 5,700, but we have allies that boost our numbers up over 10,000.

But Ya'qub does not wait for his allies, instead rushing in to meet Halwasid in the desert




And once again, Ya'qub loses the initial engagement.

As we retreat, Halwasid is able to use the time to siege down a barony in Mecca.  However, we are able to return in force with our allies and Halwasid retreats in face of our superior numbers.




By the following year we have retaken the barony and begin advancing into Halwasid on our own.

Also, somehow i'm in another war?  Sharka declared on Dawaro but now one of my vassals took Dawaro and so they're at war with me.  That's 1500 troops in my south to worry about.




My allies siege down Medina and a nearby holding while I stay nearby in support, in case the Halwasid army appears.  Halwasid is sieging down Mecca during this time, which won't matter as much because we are just so much larger.  However this backfires a bit, as Halwasid finishes their siege and my allies run down south to retake Mecca, only to have Halwasid catch us in the desert.




My commander seems pretty good with a 24 rating, but Halwasid has a 41 commander and they once again take it to my troops despite my outnumbering them.  Emir Jamal II is back on the battlefield and slaying enemies, as you can see here.  However, my allies finish the siege at Mecca nd come to our aid thanks to battles taking months to resolve.  We win the fight.

After this it takes one more siege to bring us to 100 war score, and we are able to take all of Medina for our own.  We send our troops south next, to deal with the pesky Sharka, and by early 1198 Diskarkha lands have expanded again.




You can see Shirazid has fallen into disarray.  My vassals in the former lands of Abyssinia continue to attack Shirazid on their own.  To the west, Kaffa has also fractured, so we could continue expanding into Ethiopia if we so choose.  In the north, Jerusalem has expanded into Egypt, taking Cairo, and also into the desert of the northern Arabian peninsula.

With the lands back at peace, and now holding 9 counties himself (2 over the limit of 7), Ya'qub begins to think about his own succession and how he should pass his lands down among his 2 sons.  With Heraldry we have unlocked the High Partition succession law, and Ya'qub begins to work towards enacting it:




The main difference between Partition and High Partition is circled in red.  This won't be a big change for Ya'qub handing down his lands between Kafa and Halil.  Halil now stands to inherit the newly conquered lands in Medina while Kafa will get Yemen.

Also, there are finally starting to be a number of unlanded Diskarkha males, and so this seems a good time to start giving them lands.  Also, this is further reason for more war: to find them lands of their own!

But one person who Ya'qub decides to give lands to first is his own brother, Malik:




The rebellion has been many years in the past, and Ya'qub has softened in his wrath towards his youngest brother.  Malik has a strong family of his own and looks very able to pass down these lands within the Diskarkha line.  And so he gives Malik 2 territories within the Emirate of Medina; lands that will make him a vassal of Halil after Ya'qub passes away.

But the vassals are still not ready to pass High Partition.  To win them over, Ya'qub throws a feast.




This game has been out for a year and I just realized there was a button to let you see the feast participants.  Hopefully they give it a makeover in the upcoming Royal Court expansion because it is rather bare-bones, but at least we can see here who is at the feast and who declined the invitation.

But is Eudosia finally warming to Ya'qub?  After the early years of affairs and spurning his advances, the two have now at least found a friendship together, solidified over the feast.

Indeed, it seems everyone has finally taken to the ruler, as the powerful vassals all agree afterwards to pass the High Partition law.

Ya'qub uses the good will to move the empire back into High Crown Authority.




And then there is one more surprise!  One final bridge mended after wrongs done by both parties over the years:




After Malik had rebelled and raised his armies against Ya'qub, after Ya'qub had imprisoned Malik and taken his lands of Dathina away from him, now the two brothers were finally reconciling.  It was a gesture between the two brothers but also a larger more symbolic gesture that the realm as a whole was finally stable after years of warring.  Finally there would be peace and Diskarkha could build itself up and expand Nestorianism to the world.




Or we could just do it all over again.