CK2 - I. Am. A. Pole! - The adventure of the Sieradzki Dynasty

[Avilan the Grey]

Spoiler: What to do when you're the last member of your family?

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Sixteen years old, having murdered her father and brother Anastazja Sieraldzki held a small, independent Chiefdom squeezed between four High Chiefs and their territories.
The only thing she had was her wits and her willingness to survive.


Directly to the east was the most powerful Chiefdom: Lesser Poland.
Anastazja made her decision, swallowed her pride and asked the High Chief if he could extend his protection to her Chiefdom... And maybe... more?
The answer was "yes". This included a son, a bastard, that she had no choice than to accept as part of her family. At least she was not the last one anymore.

Spoiler: Things are improving. Slowly.

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Even after Anastazja married a local shaman she pulled the strings of her liege. Enough to get a second county, even. However this was not enough. She knew what she had to do to secure her family's future.
She decided to break with tradition and laws and attack a fellow vassal (the only other vassal, and much weaker than herself. She had to get enough land, to get enough men, to be able to expand quicker than her lover. After her council as well as her lover had blown a lot of hot air over her decision, she was free to turn her army south, outside of the Chiefdom to acquire new land.

Spoiler: Things are improving. Less slowly.

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With the two new Chiefdoms under her control she was able to force her lover to give her independence. She actually, in one fell swoop, had doubled her army!
With new powers came new ambitions! Would she dare!?
...Yes. YeS! She did!
She started with turning her army around and attack her former lover. She had to; he was suddenly the weakest High Chief and she must have a title to unite her sons. Otherwise everything would fall apart if she died. She had already experienced chest pains at the age of 17! Luckily, or by the help of the gods, they have disappeared. But for how long? Her first husband had also died from chest pains during all this... The gods can be cruel and fickle indeed. At least her former lover was easily defeated. She felt that she had to secure her new realm even more though and once again opted for breaking with both law and tradition and banish him. She had to hope she wouldn't anger people enough for them to murder her... but if she didn't her former lover would surely murder her.

And here we timeskip a looong time of absolutely nothing while waiting for funds to reach 152 gold. All I had to do was to make sure she didn't die.

Spoiler: A royal improvement!

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Finally she had the means to officially be crowned as Queen of Poland! She didn't rest, though but instead turned her armies west, trying to get all the Polish Chiefdoms under her banner.

[Avilan the Grey]

Spoiler: Two Steps Foward, Two Steps Back

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Queen Anastazia finally managed to unite the entire Polish territory AND Pomerania under her rule.
Unfortunately the quest for glory got the best of her; she turned her armies west, to liberate Saxony from Norse Tyranny. After five years of constant war she was slain an axe to her gut.
Stanislav I, her firstborn, took the reins and had to immediately sue for White Peace, because his half-brother declared independence together with one other High Chief.

His quick, and rather horrible, solution was to poison his brother with the help of his brother's wife, who despised him. The other Chief needed to be brought back with force.
Unfortunately an experimental procedure to cure smallpox cost Stanilav his leg, and since he was in the field and couldn't heal properly his stump got infected... Hopefully there was enough time to force the last errant Chieftain to return to the fold before the gods would call him to the heavens...

[Avilan the Grey]

Spoiler: Stumbling forward yet again

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Stanislav, against all odds, survived the botched amputaton. He also, to everyone's surprise (including his own, despite not showing it) managed to unite Poland once again.
He nominated his remaining half-brother as heir, but the other vassals still insisted on his nephew. He knew why; the nephew was only six, and surely they only wanted an easy Liege to manipulate.

[Avilan the Grey]

Spoiler: Taking a Leap Forward

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The King is Dead! Long Live The King!
...Stanislav did indeed leave a mark: The shortest reign so far in Polish history. And a dent in the courtyard.
Depression can do sad things to a man, but at least his heir, Jakusz I had what it took to rule.

Jakusz immediately took over. Unfortunately for the lords of the Realm, he was militarily weak, but had an abundance of drive, skill and wits. He was no longer the child they had hoped for.
He was also a follower of Christ and proceeded to quickly force the weaker subjects of his realm to convert.

[Avilan the Grey]

Spoiler: King Jakusz: Lucky or Clever?

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Jakusz I' attempts to convert his unruly kingdom was met with a lot of resistance. Not all of it from within, even.
In the middle of conquering Brandenburg in Holy War, he got the news that a planned... bath... would occur. The fools botchered it though and the old infirm fool still lived (if you could call it that). No matter... Jakusz soon had other problems. The Norse was back, with a huge army this time and demanded one of his coastal counties. At first he was going to say "No" then he realized that it was not actually his county. He could give it away, but the small cost of prestige would actually be worth it, because it was the High Chief of Pomerania's lands. Weakening him would most definitely be beneficial in the long run.

No sooner had he signed the treaty with the Norse before he got good news and bad: The Norse had voluntarily converted to the True Faith, but one of the dukes of Saxony had poached Jakusz' army in Brandenburg.
Jakusz had no choice but to borrow money and throw in a huge army of mercenaries to keep his price. It worked out in the end, but it was close. He needed help.

King Jakusz decided to join the Dominican Holy Order to help speed up the conversion of his subjects to Christ.

[Avilan the Grey]

(Not sure if anyone cares, but i will get back to this either tomorrow, or on Tuesday).

[Avilan the Grey]

Coming up for air. I did a dumb thing and wiped my Linux installation and intstalled Arch Linux from scratch.
Now I am done enough to be able to rekax. Tomorrow night will be gaming again.

[Avilan the Grey]

Test load: Game in Linux.
Starts. Runs pretty well but not awesome (goes really fast and smooth, then stutters, repeat).

Spoiler

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[Avilan the Grey]

Okay, finally back at it.
After two Linux installations and one re-installation of Windows (the reason I first decied to install Linux was because my old Windows installation needed to be flushed anway, since several files were corrupt to the point where I could not upgrade any drivers) I am now back in the saddle!

I had to give up the experiment with gaming in Linux, apparently ASUS computers are especially annoying to get to work, graphic-card wise and yeah...
I could get the NVIDA drivers to WORK, but something was fudged up so the GPU, even in plain 2D desktop environment was always going between 80% and 100%. So... to avoid overheating... I went back to putting all games back under Windows.

ANYWAY, welcome back to the Chronicles of the Sieradzki dynasty!

Spoiler: A Few Calm Years

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Jakusz I decided to dedicate himself to God even more, and decided on a pilgrimage all the way to Jerusalem!
It was an amazing experience, and it must have made God see him in a more favorable light! Just weeks after coming back to Poland his wife was pregnant!

Unruly Norsemen are... Unruly forever, it seems. Luckly Jakusz was able to imprison his former invade-turned-ally-turned-traitor. He also managed to finally unite all the lands his mother had conquered. The same week as he won the battle his wife brought him another son! Not only that, but she was immediately pregnant again...! Jakusz was truly blessed, it seems.

...But then... Satan raised his ugly head. A Hellmouth! A gateway to the Underworld! jakusz I ordered all his priests to perform an Exorcism at the site of the gap and Satan was pushed back! Maybe this too, was a sign in disguise from God? A sign of a blessed reign despite hardship? It might be... His wife gave birth to a THIRD son!

[Wookieetank]

I didn't realize that hellmouths were even a thing in CK2. Granted I typically play Muslim leaders in an attempt to convert all of Italy to Islam for giggles. Managed to take over Sicily and Southern Italy and get both of those converted as my best attempt so far. (if I'm gonna play a history simulator, I'm gonna see how wildly I can get it off track )

[Rockphed]

Ah, the "Gates of Hell" event. I'm not sure I have seen one since I actually bought the game (I spent a while playing the demo when the itch took me). What all did you do to try to shut it? I don't know if it is still there, but there was always a choice to say "it's just a hole in the ground" which gave a chance for cynical, cost some piety, but otherwise got rid of the event. I'm pretty sure that every choice has a (possibly 0) chance to close the hole, and a chance to leave it still open.