Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 30: 1279-1288: British and Roman India

Normalcy was returning quickly after Wuhan Flu passed. All the bastards born during lockdown orgies needed marriages to arrange, vassals and peasants had to be converted to the true faith, borders needed to be cleaned up, buildings needed to be erected, and so on.

One of my vassals duke of Raetia conquered himself basically the whole Finland, briefly held by infidel invaders, so I crowned him a king of Finland and released him as independent on condition of paying me tribute for the rest of my life.
It created many gaps in my realm, but they'll fill in with time.

I did the same to a Kurdish duke of Khozistan in Persian Gulf, which somehow ended up as my vassal in some inexplicably way. And to count of Lower Don. That leaves my weirdest remote possession as half of Iceland, owned by merchant republic of Amalfi.

Once glorious Habsburg kingdom of Scotland/Ireland, reduced to just Ireland after Britannia got created, now completely collapsed, and my family only holds county of Dublin there.

Then I noticed that my kinsman king of Maharastra was second in line to British Empire. The accident happened and mi very distant cousin Dieter, descendant of one of the crusades, became emperor of Britannia and king of Maharastra and Telingana. He's Catholic, but nobody's perfect.

Not even a year later, my brother's line ruling over Bengal, Orissa, Gondwana, Bihar, and Kamarupa went extinct, and I inherited it. I didn't even notice it - but his both children were my vassals and died of Wuhan Flu, and he died of depression and cancer a while later.
I'll need to figure out what to do with all that land.

The Pope called 7th crusade to be against Hindu Sindh. With whole might of Britannia next door they'll probably do just fine even though it's the first time I'm not participating.

I have a chance to prove that I'm a descendant of Alexander the Great. My scholars are working on tracking the true genealogy.

Two greatest realms in the world are both held by Habsburgs, and 5th somewhat patched up Georgia in held by my wife

I really don't want to hold lands that far, so I'll setup junior branch of the family there somehow.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 29: 1271-1279: The Wuhan Flu

A horrible plague came from China - the Wuhan Flu! It was spreading thorugh the Silk Road through Persia to Egypt and Constantinople and into Europe.

My wife queen of Georgia got Wuhan Flu, but survived, but both our legitimate sons died of it. This unfortunately meant that succession plan for the great realm of Geogia failed - and even worse my next few heirs were non-dynastic nieces!
That might have been the worst RNG of the campaign so far.

I had to quickly legitimize my bastard son Armand, and started seduced every good looking woman at the court, getting a lot of new bastard sons and daughters.

Then a miracle happened, and my oldest son's wife bore a posthumous son, a miracle baby, heir to both New Rome and Georgia. God Wills It!
Gotthard was also for a while 3rd in line to kingdom of Germany, but that was a bit much, and dynastic reshuffle in Germany ended that.

Inexplicably, my wife's biggest vassal inherited kingdoms of Serbia, Croatia, Epirus, and Sardinia/Corsica, costing her half her realm.
So much for this great RNG. Some heathen rebels broke away from Georgia.

My lover and vassal queen Irmeltrud of Anatolia died of the Wuhan Flu, as did her husband, who sort of hated me for some inexplicable reason.

Wuhan Flu inexplicably missed the India, and only got to the Steppes after circling through all of Europe.

For very long time Rome resisted, but it eventually got it. My demesne in Provence resisted even longer, and it ended up as one of the last places in Europe to get the Wuhan Flu.

We isolated ourselves in the castle, with orgies and witch trials, and such good fun. By the time we left the castle, the world was somewhat depopulated, but largely the same, and it will likely recover fully in a decade or two.

Meanwhile elsewhere, my kinsman's Crusader Finland fell to pagan event horde, so he's now only a king of remote Lapland.

Habsburg line who used to rule Poland/Estonia got reduced to just duchy of Estonia as both titles got destroyed by wars.

My kinswoman queen of Thuringia got reduced to an OPM, and then lost that last province to a peasant revolt.

What's left of our dynastic holdings is just 1 Habsburg emperor - me - and 5 Habsburg kings - Maharastra, Bengal, Ireland, Lapland, and my vassal Anatolia.

Lollards managed to break free from Empire of the Holy Land and setup a duchy of Kerman. It did not last long, but another Lollard rebellion spawned duchy of Meissen.
Heretics and rebels are definitely more of a force, but the feudal system is still largely holding on.

The most damaged by passing of the plague was definitely my wife's kingdom of Georgia - reduced from one of five strongest kingdom to shattered remnant of its former self by vassal inheritance.
Then again, maybe it would have happened anyway, that vassal was member of Croatian royal family, and 4rd in line, and people ahead of him died of cancer, Wuhan Flu, and severe stress respectively, so it wasn't that much of longshot.

At first it seemed that we might completely avoid the Wuhan Flu

Unfortunately my both legitimate sons got themselves duchies on Anatolian coast, and were completely unprepared when the Wuhan Flu came for them

Unfortunately it eventually reached Provence but with some social distancing, nobody died in the castle. Except for the witches we burned. People do strange things in long term lockdown.

Much more understandably there was a baby boom during the lockdown

My grandson, the Miracle Baby, born after 

Unfortunately Georgia he was supposed to inherit lies in ruins, and it's not clear that my wife Baia the Nice will be able to even hold on to all the pieces. Rulers called "the Nice" tend not to do well in this cruel world.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 28: 1263-1271: Nice Clean Borders

I got my distant cousin Irmeltrud the Unchaste rule over Anatolia, and she became my vassal.

Then after some weird vassal claim shenanigans I got a vassal Jewish king of Bulgaria and a random Sunni duchess. I'm not mass revoking Catholics, but that's definitely going too far.

As a result my borders are finally quite nice, and my sons all have some land to rule.

Catholic unity started breaking down, with emperor of Britannia setting up his own alternative Pope. That brings their moral authority from about 170% to about 120%, so a few more antipopes and maybe they'll be in some real trouble?

Timurids ended their miserable existence. They will not be missed.

Song dynasty got overthrown in China by Zhao dynasty. This is supposed to reset my Chinese mana, but it didn't. Is this a known bug?

And together with this news, some horrible new disease erupted in China and is spreading towards us through the Silk Road. It already reached Georgia, so soon it will cross our borders. I'm sure it's all just hype and everything will be perfectly fine.

I'll ban all international flights just in case. I've heard some crazy scholar in the Hermetic Society made a prototype flying machine, that's definitely too dangerous in those times. What if it bring the disease. What if it flies too close to the Sun, and falls down on someone's head? Just crazy.

With my font being over my tributaries, New Rome looks so nice

My family's Orthodox Bengal and Catholic Maharastra are doing shockingly well

My other family kingdoms of Finland, Estonia, Ireland, and OPM Thuringia are not doing so well.

I don't expect too much damage from the Chinese disease. It could mess up succession, but no realm seems too fragile, most royal families are just too big at this point. A Habsburg is 4th in line to Brittania, and a non-Habsburg 3rd in line to Georgia, but I don't expect it to be that deadly.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 27: 1261-1263: Emperor Asclettin

It took only one more revolt, and after crushing 6 revolts in a row, Georgia finally had a moment of rest. Other realms don't seem to be quite as badly affected, but rebels definitely ramped up a bit.

I had far too much money for my own good so I kept building new Great Works in spite of rapidly increasing cost based on how many I already have:

• Love Gardens in Provence
• Great Harbor in Nice
• Hagia Sophia in in Constantinople
• Great University in Venaissin
• Royal Palace in Forcalquier

Last few years of Hugo's reign were spent trying to convince his dukes to convert to Orthodox Christianity and cleaning up the borders slightly.

Hugo died at age of 59 - or whatever his real age was, Fountain of Youth messes it up a bit - to be succeeded by his oldest surviving son Asclettin.

Asclettin is a 11/24/10/10/3 Occitan Brilliant Strategist, who thinks of war and not much else.

His wife Baia queen ofg Georgia, Daylam, Armenia, and Al-Jazira is arguably the best catch in the world, and they already have two boys together, as well as a daughter who travelled to Song China for whichever reason to marry into Song imperial family.

His heir Uc is due to likely inherit the greatest realm since Roman Empire, stretching from Frisia to Khorasan, with some gaps.

Asclettin is a legitimized bastard himself, and continuing glorious tradition, also already has one bastard son.

Asclettin and Baia are together ruling over an enormous empire, inhabited largely by rebellious infidels

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 26: 1255-1261: Orthodox Emperor

It's exactly halfway through the campaign, and it desperately needs some modding.

CK2 starts really unstable, but by the time it reaches late game, all the factors that made it unstable are gone:

• unlanded characters like rebels always use tech 0, so even if they had good numbers (and they don't), they'll never manage to siege anything down, and will slowly die to attrition
• adventurers get rarer and their max size is capped at 30k, they're also at tech 0, so they turn from serious danger to minor nuisance
• scripted invasions like Aztecs, Mongols, and Timurids (and a few more from before 1066) already happened
• tech, artifacts, and buildings gives crazy bonuses to vassal happiness
• tech, artifacts, and laws give lieges huge advantage over their vassals
• unstable tribals are replaced by stable feudals
• without gavelkind realms stay fairly stable, at most one king gets overthrown and his family member takes over
• the world gets religiously (and to lesser degree culturally) unified

I don't want to revert what was done, and bring second wave of the Aztecs or such. Everyone got where they got fair and square. I also don't want to manually intervene every decade or so, as then that's not much of a game. I'd have made these changes in advance, except I don't play CK2 all that often.

However moving forward the following will changes:

• more frequent random hordes
• stronger random rebels (still at tech 0, but bigger nuisance)
• stronger adventurers
• vassals very unhappy about laws that give liege too much power
• heresies start and spread much more often

And speaking of some good chaos, I expelled two Holy Orders from my lands, and we openly adopted Orthodox faith - including my son king Karlmann of Bengal who just won the crusade.

I didn't do any mass revocation nonsense, I just tried to diplomatically convince various vassals to convert.

Due to her father's mysterious demise, my son's wife Baia became queen of Georgia, Dailam, Armenia, and Al-Jazira. She soon faced 2 Sunni, 2 Paulician, and 1 Peasant uprisings in 6 years, and I had to help her deal with that. Maybe she's not that representative, she's ruling over unusually religiously and culturally diverse lands, for comparison I have zero non-Christian provinces.

What I did is not supposed to increase the frequency, just double their strength? I'll have to see how it goes.

Also Song China went full civil war mode - and I didn't touch any of that, just an interesting coincidence.

Orthodox faith has serious heresy problem, Catholics not yet, as they have really high moral authority, but we'll see how long that lasts
Indian faiths have no heresies, so my changes affect them the least

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 25: 1239-1255: Empire of the New Rome

I went secretly Orthodox, and had some conversations with friends about religion. At first there were very few of us, but it soon got out of control, and more and more people were secretly Orthodox, and quite often someone would get found out and get in trouble.

I created Empire of New Rome, abolishing 5 of my kingdoms into one - and while at it, also made succession in New Rome absolute cognatic primogeniture.

My vassals had silly ideas - one of them proclaimed himself a king of Thuringia, and since that was a disconnected exclave, and he was a distant relative, I just told him he can be independent king if he so wishes.

Some random Frenchman proclaimed himself a king of Swabia, and that was definitely too much. I revoked it and destroyed this title, even it really annoyed many vassals.

My kinsman king of Anatolia went Jewish for some reason. I think it must have been through a secret society, there's no other way the whole realm would convert at once like that. It didn't work out for him, he got overthrown, and his son and heir was a good Catholic.

Well, I might disagree with the Pope on the nature of the Holy Spirit, but we agreed that Bengal is a great place to export excess relatives to.

The funny thing is that there was actually a Catholic claimant to kingdom of Bengal, as it was briefly Catholic, and somehow claims survived many generations lates - she was a really old Danish woman. And then she had an accident just before the 6th Crusade started. I guess God did not Will her to become the Queen of Bengal.

I used the usual - show up before anyone else strategy to get 99% participation score, so my third son got kingdom of Bengal. By oldest died of cancer at age of 33 during the crusade, so my second will be my heir. My fourth bastard son died of rabbies. This is not going well.

It might be time to go open with our Orthodox faith. The world has been too stable.

Timurids are on brink of extinction

Leftovers of Mongols Empire, renamed Borjigin, are just happy taking tribute from everyone in their tiny corner of the map

The world is split between Catholic West and Buddhist East, and it's time to add the third option.

That brief Jewish Anatolia, that sure was brave.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 24: 1230-1239: Constantinople

On inheritance I had to finish a few wars, including weird vassalization war against some duke in Persian Gulf - looks like my vassal duke of Amalfi traded all the way to India, and took a city there, and things got out of hand. So now I border the Timurids.

Unlike previous kings of Arles who were mostly members of the Hermetic Society, I joined The Great Trade League.

I fell in love with a Greek princess, so I got for her duchy of Thrace - unfortunately without Constantinople at first. A lot of love adventures later, and I found myself ruling in Constantinople, and seriously entertaining secretly converting to her faith.

It's time for Imperial crown, just difficult to decide on Empire of What. Options are:

• Francia - would only have 3/5 de jure kingdoms, feels boring
• Latin Empire - 0/5 de jure kingdoms, doesn't grand special bloodline if I create it this way, I'd need to crusade against Byzantium to get it
• some custom Empire - instant 5/5 de jure kingdoms
• Byzantium - I'd need to flip Greek, conquer 3 duchies in the area, and it would change to their weird succession system with no way out
• HRE - I'd need to somehow become king of Germany, which is wrong way, and would have terrible succession system. If I wanted to be the HRE, I could have simply bribed the electors a century ago.

It's also nearly halfway through the first game, so it's a good idea to consider what kind of EU4 conversion I want. I'll probably flip religion as Catholic-only world is fairly boring, then keep expanding and turn my eventual blob into some kind of HRE, except modded to make unification harder.

I don't necessarily have to reach 1444 before conversion, I could stop sometime before that and fill in the narrative gap with however I want the conversion to go.

Meanwhile, the rest of my family:

• Norwegian king of England conquered Scotland and proclaimed himself emperor of Britannia, so my former double-king is now just a single-king of Ireland
• Crusader Finland went on a conquering spree and is now a triple-queen of Crusader Finland, regular Finland, and Lapland
• Anatolia is fairly stable
• Queen of Estonia/Poland somehow lost Poland so she's a single-queen now
• my brother Gotthard, king of Maharastra, is bullying all Indians like he wants to conquer all of India by himself. And I was wondering if he'll even survive until next crusade