Prussian Amazons: Part 80: 1387-1399: Family Politics

I've been sort of playing on fast forward, as I don't have many things to do, but I'd still prefer to let the world evolve a bit more.

A lucky accident got Mali inherited by claimant married to my daughter, getting my family on most major thrones.

I pushed some family to thrones of Byzantium and Portugal. Portugal was notable, as they actually managed to win two battles against me - it's just so rare I legitimately lose a battle in this game, but I overestimated how long my army will stay in fight before reinforcements arrive, so they wrecked my first army and then my reinforcements.

Even that project is ending, as most rulers of the world are somehow related to me, so it feels silly to try undermining them.

I maxed out all technologies and have enormous stash of tech points doing nothing, and I had enough left over that I could about develop province from zero to max economy and halfway culture by now.

I became cruel just because I poisoned my whoring husband's gay lover, screwing my diplomacy again. Then I even lost charitable, dropping my diplomacy to miserable 11. I hope I'll fix it somehow, it would be silly to have 6/4/6, especially when I'd technically be 13/4/8 if it wasn't for the cap, and that's without my epic tier learning and intrigue.

I somehow accumulated like 40 claims - presumably whenever weird vassal inheritance happened I got them somehow. There's no way to cancel claims, and it made UI awful, so I revoked them opportunistically and granted lands to my children.

So far my family politics, counting just independent realms, emperors, all related:

• Arabia - Egyptian Wilks, my descendant 2 and 3 generations down and and married to my son
• Byzantium - Greek Isauros, married to my son, my grandson heir
• Deccan - Mahrati von Rugen, my descendant 5 generations down
• Mongol Empire - Mongol Injuid, my descendant 4 generations down
• Rajastan - Panjabi Saindhava, my descendant 4 generations down

Kings, related:

• Aragon - French de Chaumontois, my great grandson
• Asturias/Brittany/France/Mauritania - French de Chaumontois, my great grandson
• Bihar - Prussian Wilks, my great grandson
• Gujarat - Panjabi Kampalid, betrothed to my great great granddaughter
• Khiva - Bedouin Wilks, my great grandson
• Luxembourg - French Kill, my grandson
• Mali - Mande Kukurayid, was married to my daughter until she died of gout, my grandson heir
• Portugal - French de Durban, two oldest children married to my children
• Saryupara - Hindustani Rashtrakuta, was married to my son, my grandson heir
• Syria - Italian Wilks, inbred, my descendant in a few too many ways

Kings, not related:

• Armenia - Harashid Avar, Byzantium will probably de jure eat him county by county
• Abyssinia/Nubia - Ethiopian Zagwe
• Badajoz - Andalusian Ismalid
• Castille - French de Chiny
• Perm - Mongol Gantulga

It shouldn't be too hard to marry some daughters or granddaughters into these royal lines as well.

 Installing a claimant is always just step one

King of Greece is not happy about new Byzantine Empress

Borders aren't changing much anymore

I decided expeditions against Deccan aren't really worth it since it's my family anyway 

Dynastic map looks even more impressive

Byzantium, Portugal, Mali, Saryupara have Wilks in line of succession

Prussian Amazons: Part 79: 1377-1387: Crowns Falling Down Everywhere

I somehow lost lunatic, but I'm still shy deceitful possessed werewolf. I also got dedicated carouser for +2 diplomacy, and apprentice board gamer, so maybe those problems are over.

I also lost highly suspicious modifier I got due to my past use of dark powers. There's actually simple way to avoid it - don't mass sacrifice prisoners for dark powers, just the minimum number of virgins necessary. Not like it matters much now, it's just prestige penalty, but supposedly next patch makes it harsher.

A lot of realms got abolished:

• OPM Burgundy I released got abolished by one of Francia's vassals.
• Arabia abolished kingdom of Mesopotamia.
• Persia got abolished, and I'm not even sure by whom.

Francia managed to take over most of Luxembourg when I wasn't looking, and that was the final straw. I got tired of their antics, so I abolished their empire and left them as 4-way kingdom, on way to gavelkind. That abolition released kingdom of Navarra (which got prompty attacked by Castille) as well as a bunch of dukes outside their 4-way de jure land.

I helped Mongol independence revolt too - that was a surprisingly difficult war due to massive provinces our armies had to walk to.

Gujarat subjugated Andhra I kicked out of Deccan, but at least it's not Deccan. Of course Deccan then attacked Gujarat for Andhra, so all that great expedition was for nothing... My ability to project power that far is so limited. I regret not taking just one province more for port in Basra - especially since one of my dukes inherited Baghdad, so I control most of that region anyway.

My daughter in law with event horde made herself a custom kingdom of Saryupara, and so far used her event troops reasonably.

Of two daughters Tawaret of Arabia and Jauguttis of Syria had, older Lavinia was heir to Syria while younger Carola got Arabia - so at least for now they won't unite.

Amazingly there's still an independent Catholic city in deep Mali.

I have a new idea for converter game, so I created a trait I and all my descendants have.

Independent Catholic city in deep Africa

It's quite amazing

Great War to Abolish Francia 

A lot of countries fell

Deccan back to its previous size

Saryupara much bigger and trying to get a chunk of Rajastan
Also there's now France, Castille, (recreated) Aragon, Portugal - they'll have so much fun colonizing Aztecs.

Prussian Amazons: Part 78: 1365-1377: Old Age Deterioration

Quite a few of my vassals got -40 immortal suspicion. What's wrong with being immortal?

I lost my ambition and diligent, really ruining my diplomacy all the way to 13. At least I managed to upgrade my education to Midas Touched, getting me even more stewardship, learning, and martial. You can upgrade pretty much any education as long as you stay on right focus, but mtth is poor.

I got seduction focus, and seduced my daughter and her husband. Two of my daughters came out of this threesome.

I didn't want to have vassal king of Burgundy so I revoked her vassals (which I can do pissing nobody except him thanks to imperial administration), then released her as an OPM. Have fun.

I pressed some blind lunatic's claim on Francia just to destabilize them a bit. My claimant soon died, a gay Greek inherited (he later went native and became French), and I kept meddling - defending Portugal and Castille from their 3 wars, and making sure rebellion for kingdom of France against king of France/Asturias/Mauretania/Brittany worked.

Eventually another emperor inherited, had claims on vassal kingdoms, so simply revoked them all to recentralize the power.

I meddled in affairds of Deccan, eventually killing its emperor, and pressing claimant to Andhra to cut it down a bit, and then obviously defending Andhra almost right away.

I got attacked by 120k host. I basically ignored her, and then it turned out that 1 temple and 2 cities (not even whole county) are worth 46% of warscore. Like wtf? Why can't I mod these numbers to be even halfway sane?

Pope declared another crusade for Italy, which obviously I ignored. It will time out in about 8 years.

Former emperor of Abyssinia after being reduced to count finally got both kingdoms of Nubia and Abyssinia, but due to silly title creation restrictions can't recreate empire he used to have and holds 100% of.

My great grandson Khiva/Baluchistan managed to subjugate another big chunk of Persia with my grandson's emperor of Rajastan's help. Maybe he deserves an imperial title as well. Khiva is pretty big.

My grandson king of Syria married empress of Arabia, so their daughter - who's Italian Wilks - is now next in line to both thrones.

Castile managed to subjugate duchy of Aragon, so that one won't be on the map either.

My daughter in law duchess of Saryupara got 120k event horde. So far she's just being attacked by a host, which just causes very slowly ticking warscore.

It only takes age difference into account, so technically...

How is that 46% warscore? It's not even whole county! 

Good things come to people who marry my children. It is known. 

Such distant interventions are awkward, but it's not like I have anything better to do.

Also how the hell Ceylon isn't a strait, and has no crossing penalty?

Deccan, Arabia/Syria, Byzantium, and France will probably be strongest blob after conversion

1191 Buddhist, 37 Hindu, and 9 Jain provinces

I doubt we'll be able to 100% that, Indian on Indian penalty is too big

The Great Italian Migration

An Italian girl is next in line to Arabia and Syria, so maybe that will still change somewhat

Or maybe not, it takes a long time, and a lot of foreign rulers go native

Prussian Amazons: Part 77: 1354-1365: History Never Stops

I restored low but nonzero attrition and removed siege defence technology bonus instead. I doubt it will help peasants much, but these are right settings for late game overall.

One of my vassals inherited Burgundy, so I have a vassal king again. Also at some point I got vassal kingdom-tier republic of Venice.

I finally solved my low diplomacy issue by giving my pet cat a lavish funeral, which gave me charitable for +3 diplomacy. And then I messed up in grand debate and got shy for -2 diplomacy. And I even lost Brave, but I don't exactly have a shortage of martial.

I helped a rebellion agaist Francia get independence - that resulted in kingdom of Portugal, duchy of Castille (which somehow turned into a kingdom, even though it was just one duchy - I thought you need 2 duchies), and a lot higher chance of colonization happening than before.

There was 83k Granada liberation revolt against Egypt's holdings in Spain. Portugal, Castile, Aragon, and Granada all coming into existence just in time for 1444, without any help from special events? What kind of unholy RNG magic is this? Well, not strong enough magic it turns out, as Arabia with half the rebels' size managed to crush them as they had 769's tech.

King of Abyssinia/Nubia managed to abolish empire of Abyssinia on which he had claim, so it was some next level silliness.

Weirdly former emperor and now OPM got himself a 50k event horde, which he used to reconquer Nubia, so it was extremely convoluted gavelkind.

Rajastan managed to 99% war to abolish Bengal Empire. Then it went down to 96% and froze like that. I thought it was bugged somehow, so I joined to see what the hell - ticker is not active due to mixed occupation, occupation score is capped at +100% (even though it's like 200% really), battle score is -3%, that adds up to 96%. Of course AI doesn't know about the cap, so it keeps trying to occupy more.

I helped attackers as they were my grandson and great-grandson, so now North India is bordergore of minors, while South India is all Deccan Empire.

Everything that's been happening here would make a great story

Gabra was emperor, with Tessema as vassal 2-king

Tessema got independent by faction war

Tessema abolished Gabra's title in another war

Gabra got event horde

Gabra conquered one of Tessema's 2 kingdoms

Meanwhile their great grandfather Zula the Great is spinning in his grave

I wonder if it will ever reunite

How did she figure it out? 

Kingdom of Portugal with North African holdings?

Kingdoms of Castille, and Aragon?

What kind of RNG magic is this?

Those rebels actually managed to siege some stuff before Arabian army showed up, but they fight like crap, so they got wiped anyway. Otherwise we'd have Granada too.

Big political changes in Spain and North India

Prussian Amazons: Part 76: 1354: Just How Good Is Empress Weslikan IV

I never had a character quite as amazing so let's take a look.

I'm going to ignore all karma, piety, same/opposite opinion bonuses, as they don't really matter.

Base

Base stats aren't just what you get in childhood - Personal Castle, ambitions, and some events affect them.

It used to be more common, new content mostly adds temporary modifiers instead of affecting base stats.

• Diplomacy: 6
• Martial: 10
• Stewardship: 10
• Intrigue: 8
• Learning: 9
• Health: 5.1
• Fertility: 35%

Education and heredity

I tried my best to improve her to Midas Touched by staying on rulership or business focus, so far no luck.

These rather hard to change traits give:

• Fortune Builder: +6 stewardship, +1 learning, +1 martial, -1 diplomacy, +10% fertility
• Genius: +5 all attributes, +1 combat, +5 vassal opinion
• Strong: +2 martial, +1 diplomacy, +1 health, +10% fertility, +1 personal combat, +10 attraction, +10 vassal opinion, +10 tribal opinion
• Buddhist: +4 learning
• Vajrayana Buddhist: +1 health
• Sympathy for Pagans: no relevant bonus
• Immortal: +10 health, actually immortal
• Magus of Hermetic Society: +3 learning

So far that gives:

• Diplomacy: 11
• Martial: 18
• Stewardship: 21
• Intrigue: 13
• Learning: 22
• Health: 17.1
• Fertility: 55%
• Combat: 2
• Attraction: +10
• Vassal opinion: +15
• Tribal opinion: +10

Artifacts

She has amazing stash of artifacts, such as book:

• Magnum Opus on Contemplative Theurgy: +2 learning, +1 diplomacy
• Magnum Opus on Ritualistic Theurgy: +1 learning, +1 stewardship, +1 intrigue
• Magnum Opus on Stellar Astrology: +1 learning, +1 martial, +1 intrigue
• Magnum Opus on Planetary Astrology: +2 learning
• Magnum Opus on Universal Panacea: +2 learning, +1 health
• Magnum Opus on Transmutative Alchemy: +1 learning, +2 stewardship, +1 martial
• Necronomicon: +5 learning, -1 diplomacy
• Emerald Tablet: +2 learning, +5% technology spread

Equipment:

• Longsword: +2 martial, +1 combat (torso)
• Golden Bracelets: +2 feudal opinion, +2 city opinion, +2 tribal opinion (wrists)
• Dagger of Glory: +3 feudal opinion, +2 city opinion, +6 tribal opinion (ceremonial weapon)
• Necklace of Radiance: +2 feudal opinion, +2 city opinion, +2 tribal opinion (neck)

Inventions;

• Radius Astronomicus: +3 learning
• Magnetic Compass: +2 learning, +2 stewardship
• Spectacles: +2 learning
• Cipher Disk: +1 learning, +2 intrigue, +10% plot power
• Plate Armor: +1 learning, +1 combat, +5% morale damage (torso)
• Handgun: +1 learning, +2 combat  (weapon, unused)

And other stuff;

• Head of a Famous Holy Man: +1 learning
• Magnificent Painting
• Ingredients
• various redundant weapons

Adding it all together with previous, we get:

• Diplomacy: 13
• Martial: 22
• Stewardship: 26
• Intrigue: 17
• Learning: 48
• Health: 18.1
• Fertility: 55%
• Combat: 2
• Attraction: +10
• Vassal opinion: +15
• Tribal opinion: +20
• Feudal opinion: +7
• City opinion: +6

Other traits

These tend to be more fluid:

• Lunatic; -10 attraction, -5 vassal opinion
• Possessed: +1 combat, -10 attraction
• Mystic: +1 stewardship, +2 learning
• Poet: +1 diplomacy
• Diligent: +1 all attributes, +5 vassal opinion
• Kind: +2 diplomacy, -2 intrigue, +5 vassal opinion
• Deceitful: +3 intrigue, -2 diplomacy
• Brave: +2 martial, +1 combat, +10% morale defence, +5 vassal opinion
• Ambitious: +2 all attributes
• Trickster: +30% experimentality, whatever that does to combat
• Lover's Pox: -5 attraction
• Pilgrim: +5 same religion opinion

So far we have:

• Diplomacy: 17
• Martial: 27
• Stewardship: 30
• Intrigue: 21
• Learning: 53
• Health: 18.1
• Fertility: 55%
• Combat: 4
• Attraction: -15
• Vassal opinion: +25
• Tribal opinion: +20
• Feudal opinion: +7
• City opinion: +6
• Same religion: +5

I'm really trying to get diplomacy higher, so getting rid of deceitful and even better replacing it by honest (+3 diplomacy -2 intrigue) would do wonders here.

Modifiers without expiration time

• Raven Familiar: +1 intrigue, +2 stewardship (from devil)
• Weird Scholar: +1 stewardship, +1 learning (from necronomicon)
• Werewolf; -2 diplomacy, +1 combat (from lunatic)
• Religious Studies: +1 learning (probably from theology focus)
• Blessing of Mammon: +3 stewardship (from devil)
• State of the Art Laboratory: +2 learning (from hermetic society)
• Trader: +2 stewardship (from business focus)
• Business Contacts: +10 city opinion (from business focus)
• Amateur Schemer: +1 intrigue (no idea)
• Pet Cat: +1 intrigue, +1 health (random event, it will expire eventually, just doesn't have a date)

And then there's a bunch of extra modifiers, mostly from hermetic events.

Future Plans

For sake of converter, intrigue and learning are irrelevant, other values are divided by 3 and rounded up, so any value of 16 or higher is converted to 6. Martial and stewardship are way above the cap, so they don't really matter.

Since she's immortal, the difference between 4 (10-12), 5 (13-15), and 6 (16+) diplomacy is huge.

Right now she'd convert to 6/6/6 Immortal Entrepreneur (+10% trade efficiency). It's a bit weird as immortal takes a trait slot, and she doesn't get third even though she definitely lived long enough for it.

And seriously, of all the things she is, trade efficiency is the first thing that comes to mind? That's literally diplomacy-linked trait, but then converter treats all numbers 10+ as same for sake of traits.

He second trait should obviously be Scholar instead. Third would probably be Free Thinker. Or I'll just mod the rules to scale with attributes and see what it gets.

Prussian Amazons: Part 75: 1345-1354: Late Game Rebel Experimentation

So here are invention rules. You choose war, prosperity, or knowledge, and then you get one of 3 outcomes (not counting fails):

• war, best - handgun artifact
• war, good - giant crossbow province modifier for 100 years
• war, ok - plate armor artifact
• prosperity, best - compass artifact
• prosperity, good - blast furnace province modifier for 100 years
• prosperity, ok - great mill province modifier for 100 years
• knowledge, best - radius astronomicus artifact
• knowledge, good - cipher machine artifact
• knowledge, ok - glasses artifact

I'm not sure why but sometimes you get multiple choices, so with some rerolling I ended up with all the inventions.

For rebel testing I decided to remove attrition from the game completely to see if that gives peasants a chance - if not, they might just as well get disabled. Actually even early game peasants are mostly just nuisance, but late game they're even more pointless.

I got a chance to test my changes:

• 52k host attacking 116k Decan Empire, and able to walk over without attrition from Bengal
• 14k Visigotic peasants against 8k Andalusian Badajoz
• 32k independence revolt against 4k Abyssinia (bankrupt and without allies)

So problem number one is that landless characters have zero technology, so their siege time is at this point 2x slower than normal - and normal is very slow. And their troops fight like crap - total bonus at max tech is 60% attack, 60% defense.

So even removing attrition as a factor, they'd have real hard time doing anything.

And indeed, Deccan host didn't even siege anything, just got wrecked uneventfully.

Peasants had better luck - they took 2 years to siege first castle, then over next 2 years they sieged 2 temples, leaving them just one city short of achieving a whole county. AI Badajoz showed zero interest in fighting them.

Eventually Francia attacked Badajoz for another county, so I thought they'd accidentally get them - instead one of Badajoz's vassals rebelled, and peasant rebellion ended inconclusively. What?

I don't think there's any way to give rebels something ressembling contemporary technology. Maybe the whole system needs to be remade? Supply limit could be based on passage of time or province development, so everybody gets it.

And then sieges could be unlinked from tech, or maybe rebels could get some modifiers. Or maybe sieges could just be faster overall? I almost never siege, just assault 90% of the time.

The part where their troops fight like crap isn't actually that unreasonable.

Abyssinia war at least looks reasonable, but due to slow late game sieges (even when you have matching technology) it's taking its sweet time even with such overwhelming numbers.

Probably the least I can do is remove siege defense from tech - you get ton of it from just building high level building and from larger garrisons. Piling up direct tech bonus on top of it results in rather excessive late game sieges. Not like that many people ever play "late game", so I'm not suprised they never addressed that.

And then when independence revolt won that faction turned out to be just one guy - king of Abyssinia and Nubia and its former emperor. So I guess faction revolts also don't really work late game.

Also annoyingly there's no way to see siege progress in neutral war, but those peasant's ticking warscore went to almost halfway before even one siege ended.

As for other things:

A nice thing I discovered that "stay at peace for 5 years" ambition is not cancelled by peasant rebellion, only actual war.

Luxembourg created a custom kingdom.

Last Zikri county is gone. Sunni clan rebelled against Mongolia in probably the last notable thing any of these infidels would ever do, but rebellion fizzled as its leader died, and heir was Buddhist.

That sadly didn't end up Islam for good, as there's still Sunni 5-countess under Marrakech under Francia.

If this peasant rebellion doesn't succeed, peasants might as well be removed from the game

And of course silly peasants just went home 5 years later when claimant faction rebellion spawned in their target county

Uncapped host size, still didn't achieve anything 

All non-Indians are gone 

One person independence faction

He's just going to usurp empire as soon as empire is not at war

Peasants split their forces, then went home mid-battle 

Kingdom of Abyssinia

Next to 2 county empire of Abyssinia

Prussian Amazons: Part 74: 1336-1345: End of Christianity

It didn't seem like it would be exciting enough, so I decided to create some chaos:

• drastically reduce attrition (as that made peasants irrelevant, they'd die before even first battle). The whole attrition system become really silly late game anyway, but rebels are the worst as they get 769 tech even if they get massive stacks somehow.
• host size cap increased from 30k to 120k. This doesn't actually increase their sizes (which are about half the target) unless they target a huge blob.
• increased vassal unhappiness from disallowed wars and imperial administration, as bonuses from technology and artifacts are silly

Sadly there wouldn't even be that many peasants as most countries are religiously and culturally uniform.

I wish vassals had factions for allowing vassal wars, for disallowing viceroyalties, for ruler gavelkind etc. These are the things which should matter for them, not council power silliness. Oh actually there is a faction for gavelkind succession (as well as seniority, primogeniture etc.), I've just never seen AI go for anything except ahistorical elective.

If nobody gets wrecked by this soon, I'll ramp it eve harder.

And I turned that invention attempt into a free decision every 5 years for Hermetic Society leader, because what's the point of leading Hermetic Society if I can't even invent something? Well, vanilla mtth probably makes sense if I started with Hermetic Society, it's just silly when I try to squeeze it into last 200 years.

And of course invention gathering failed. Second one got me a Handgun. And third a second Handgun. Well, somehow I thought I can't have duplicates. Well, that will make collecting all 6 a lot harder.

It feels like a bug, as every other way to acquire artifacts prevents duplicates, and duplicates never give double bonuses. Maybe I should edit that?

Peasants thanks me for my changes by spawning on top of my retinue in Rome. Even with attrition reduced by a factor of 10, their stacks did poorly everywhere.

The problem is that base supply ranges from 6k to 10k (before penalties for winter, disease etc.), at most +50% coastal, and that's what they're getting. Meanwhile their liege gets up to 100% for technology, and +50% for every own realm holding.

So in a 3 dessert holding province with max tech I have 21k supply vs theirs 6k. All I did was slow down rate their stacks are melting.

And even such desert castle can easily have 4k garrison plus levy. My capital has 9.3k, so good luck sieging that, even if I ignored peasants completely. Of course that's rather extreme case.

Pope declared another crusade for Italy. Which totally makes sense as there's not a single peasant province of any Christian variety left. It lasted ridiculous 1337-1345 because there was nothing except ticker for it.

Muslims are down to 1 Zikri county and 2 Sunni pastures with Buddhist clan heir.

There's still 48 Hindu and 18 Jain counties, as Buddhist rulers consider this low priority work.

Even that Catholic merchant republic is now gone, as Francia subjugated Aragon and wiped it out. Francia is some serious big blue blob.

I tried some raiding all the way to India, but only got junk. Well, and a ton of gold, but it's not like I have shortage of that.

So far my anti-blob measures failed to do anything at all. I'll try to ramp that up until something starts happening, then I might ramp it back down to sensible level.

 Because rebels in ck2 use level 0 tech (so even worse than 769 start where most countries have some) their supply limit here is 6k

So it doesn't matter that they spawned at 18k. Even with my mod to massively reduce attrition, it only made Persia wait longer before wrecking them.

I think that's the only way to get duplicate artifact

I'd say that's probably a bug, as in vanilla duplicates do nothing

They probably just left this open in the engine for mods, and forgot to fix that event

8 years of waiting for the timer, and that didn't even affect Catholic authority much

It's unusual for Catholicism to be completely wiped out (other than bugged pony clans), but there needs to be some way to disable this silliness

Prussian Amazons: Part 73: 1321-1336: Second Oldest Person in the World

I pondered pressing some claimants to split other blobs, but I couldn't fight any of them, as my family is married to pretty much everybody who matters, so I can't attack anyone.

I can't even cheese and join their enemies - that works around truces, but not against non-aggression pacts.

King of Syria, married to one of my daughters, captured another and made her his concubine. I think she was married to his rebellious vassal. He died real soon afterwards, so there's not much revenge to do anyway.

I helped my grandson sultan of Khiva take Baluchistan from Persia. He might be a Bedouin barbarian, but he's family. Well, 1 of 4 duchies of Baluchistan Persian held at least. Then I helped Persia with their Sunni vassals. I have no idea why AI won't just ethnic cleanse every now and then.

One of my immortal friends died leading troops at young age of 99. I killed other two, as I don't like competition. So now I'm second oldest at 86, and Halima who gave me the secret of eternal life is oldest at 93.

Last Catholic province disappeared, and so did the Fraticelli. Weirdly last remaining Christians are Lollards. Then Catholics briefly reemerged as Aragon's vassal merchant republic was Catholic, and his peasants flipped, but that didn't last long.

It's same story as with Egypt - vassal merchant republics are far better at preserving old religions than secret societies.

Sunnis got a bit of resurgence as one of pony clans became Sunni, and as heresy of very low authority Zekri they even managed some random flips.

I somehow managed to get cancer, which seriously feels like bullshit. I have a lot of bad traits, mostly from my times in cult of Kali Purusha, so I was wondering how to lose them. Apparently easiest way are becoming Shia (open or secret), joining Assassins and using their miracle drugs, or becoming open Muslim, going on Hajj, and getting stoning the devil event. Not really planning to do either of these.

I got event which let me get Just for temporarily giving up Jylland, then I got it back mildly annoying my vassals, as it was the Just thing to do.

I also played with some graphical mods. Not really sure if I like it better or not.

I tried to figure out why invention attempt event doesn't trigger, testevent console command suggests it should so it's just really bad luck. I'm not even sure why it should be an event, and not a decision you can take with some esoteric knowledge payment and like 10 year timer.

 Another kidnapping, but he died in battle 2 years later before I could do anything

That's the most extreme revolt to loyalist ratio I've ever seen

Emperor has 1 demesne, and 1 count vassal who doesn't even like him, but was probably too distracted to notice the faction happening

I'm not even sure what happened - emperor and claimant and cousins with similar traits and stats

You can also see some UI mods here - with new font, borders, and nonrandom flags

India still split between 4 powers (plus Gujarati independence revolt), but Gujarat is losing ground fast

Also 4 generations later tiny duke of Merv I installed turned into double king bigger than Persia

Prussian Amazons: Part 72: 1308-1321: Complete Set of Great Works

I made it so immortal characters can write multiple Magna Opera, wrote the remaining ones and gave away quality-3 my ancestors wrote to rewrite them properly too.

The gathering to create Hermetic inventions can happen once every 14 years of peace - well, it's really damn hard to stay at peace, so I disabled that check just like I disabled many previous peace checks. So far none of them triggered, but there's still like 120 years to go.

There were 6 characters over 90, so I invited them all over. I killed 3 of them, 3 others died natural death very quickly. I actually have two immortals at court, but Halima helped me achieve immortality, and I'm friends with the other too, so they can live, for now. Sadly EU4 converter doesn't convert commanders and doesn't even have immortal traits for them, immortal martial 29 commander would be quite useful - that would be like 5/5/4/2 maybe.

There are probably other immortals, but they didn't reach age at which it becomes obvious. It would be really funny if it turned out I'm not the only immortal on conversion.

Emperor Jaspert of Francia accused me of piracy and broke our alliance. Well, if he wants to see piracy, I can show him some! Of course I got no useful loot except some gold and prestige.

I was trying to clean up some borders, but annoyingly when I declare for my vassal duke's de jure claim, and that duke dies, war ends inconclusively. Weirdly when that war ended, our non-aggression pact which he broke got automatically reestablished. It's a bit silly.

The Assassins resurfaced in Alamut, which I took from them once before. Now they're called "Fedayeen". I'm not really sure what's going on, presumably some secret society stuff. Unlike the Hashshishim, Fedayeen did not get destroyed upon becoming unlanded.

Somehow I inherited 2 Silk Road trade posts, nowhere near my past or present demesne. I can't give them away - they just sit there and give me free money.

I revoked protection from Zikri minors in Spain, and replaced them with Buddhists. I mean, in the end it's just a different flavor of kebab, and all kebab needs to be removed.

In one of my werewolf episodes I ate my granddaughter, but nobody knows that, so it's all right.

South Indian blob recreated Deccan Empire.

Another event horde emerged - OPM Buddhist Mongol feudal duke of Syr Darya. And as usual he wasted his event troops on minor wars for one county at a time.

Previous horde Bektashi Order got decided to actually use it to abolish duchy of Zhetysu, one where I started Arslan of Ili campaign really long time ago.

Second Assassin order - I unlanded them, but that doesn't destroy this one

I don't think I've ever seen this one 

A few years back I picked the most backwards place on the map for a campaign

Map expanded a bit since then, but it's as backwards as ever

With Mongol Empire collapsing, steppes are getting feudal

Borders change much more slowly now that I'm not undermining every foreign country

Prussian Amazons: Part 71: 1298-1308: Failed Treasure Hunt

My sister Gulbis, wife of former and mother of current Bengal Emperor, declared war on me, but travelling all the way from Bengal took her a lot of time. Doesn't she have anything better to do, like look after her grandchildren? And then she'd keep half her army on boats, so I couldn't do anything except wait for very slowly ticking warscore.

Pope declared crusade for Italy as well. There was just one problem - not a single holy order was Catholic, and the only landed ruler seemed to be merchant republic of Valencia under Buddhist Aragon - and Aragon joined on my side. Bugged pony clans joined.

The crusade was such a joke that even some Zikri asked if they can join for fun.

Vassal king of Africa refused my order to go gavelkind, and rebelled instead, so I revoked his title, and granted it to one of his former vassals as a viceroyalty.

I tried raiding foreign infidels and rebellious vassals for loot, but I mostly got junk. After too many tries I got Magnetic Compass for +2 stewardship +2 learning and some prestige. Didn't everyone have them by that era anyway?

There's such a shortage of independent minors that Bektashi Order - now Zikri - got event horde. They're technically landed with 2 castles in deep Mongolia, but it's another event horde that just chills doing nothing.

I checked Wikipedia who the hell those "Zikri" even are, and apparently they're basically Sunnis from Baluchistan with a few extra caliphs in 1400s. Strangely in game they cannot have a caliphate, which sounds like research fail.

The Zikri also created custom Badajoz next to custom Granada - which is the only custom kingdom I didn't uncustom by replacing it with a real one yet (Burgundy with Burgundy, Syria with Syria, Tigris with Mesopotamia, Thrace with Greece, and removing leftovers of Hamadan and Esfahan).

My demon children came of age, but nothing happened. I supposed nanny witch event chain got broken somehow, and without it nothing ever happens. Oh well.

I keep getting pregnant way past natural age - that's apparently side effect of immortality.

I noticed in character search that there's quite a few really old characters - with ages like 95, 101, 111, 124, 127. I'm tempted to eliminate them, as legend has it that there can be only one immortal.

I got max economic technology in my capital, so all the extra points just do nothing. A lot of my demesne is maxed out on buildings too.

De jure map. Spain is most interesting with 2 custom kingdoms.

Oversized Mesopotamia is leftover of Shia Caliphate.

Just land already!

The "Crusade" is fake news!

Nobody has ever seen a single "crusader".

Prussian Amazons: Part 70: 1287-1298: Love Story of Jaspert and Gerkus

Here's interesting factoid about demon genetics - there's 50% chance of demon child being fake. And apparently 5th and 6th of my 7 demon babies lack the evil gene.

I wanted to reward Halima for helping me achieve immortality, and since she was 44 and childless I wanted to get her a satan baby, but she wasn't interested in joining the cult.

I thought about finding her a regular husband for company at least, but she has "For one reason or another, this character will not get married" modifier I've never seen before. Oh well. Somewhat later I brew her a potion of eudaimonia to cure her stress. Eternal life in stress doesn't sound that fun.

Since I got everything I wanted from satan, I just left, leaving the society to raja Bawasa "the Dragon" of Kuru - which is way better nickname than I ever got.

As soon as I joined the Hermetic Society I became ambitious on first 10% roll. Weirdsy Sunni countess of some Mauretanian counties under France was the leader. I assumed that means I could loot her, as I can loot infidel vassals of people of my religious group - but since emperor of Francia was married to my daughter, that made his infidels unlootable.

So instead I tried getting Sword of Mohammad in Persia, but RNG was just not lucky, in spite of a lot of tries. I wouldn't be able to use it, but it's nice to have plentiful loot.

I had two more natural children Alvydas and Milyuns. So that's a total of 6 natural, 2 fake demon, and 5 real demon babies. So far demon babies caused no trouble whatsoever. I wonder if I broke the event chain somehow.

And here's the love story. My daughter Gerkus, married to emperor of Francia Jaspert, got captured and forced to become concubine of a lowly count of Bearn. This should bring a CB, right? On both of them - one for the deed, the other for failing to protect my daughter.

Well, at least now I could raid daughter of former Great Maga, and I got Cipher Disc, amazing artifact with +2 intrigue, +1 learning, and +10% plot power. Usable only by Hermetics. There's 6 unique hermetic inventions, and I know duchess of Kiev has compass. I wonder what she's plotting... I tried inventing one once, but my group of scientists got into arguments and project failed.

I decided to go to war with Francia and Arabia simultaneously. That got me into fight with my tributary Greece too as they're allied with Francia. Not even a problem.

I captured and hanged Jaspert's second wife while she was pregnant. The injustice being done to Gerkus is unforgivable, and Jaspert didn't even attempt a rescue.

I got that damn count killed too with poisoned wife. The Cipher Disk was pretty damn useful in it. Then I invited Gerkus back and got her remarried. True love always finds its way, even if that way involves sack of Paris, hanging of pregnant woman, and poisoned wine.

My issue with Arabia was just a simple embargo war, which I won easily. I probably should have setup some Black Sea merchant republic, my Italian ones are just too far, so Damietta keeps reestablishing its trade posts.

Meanwhile elsewhere:

My alliance with Khiva ended when my brother died. They changed them so many times I no longer remember how it even works. So your son and my nephew is now your heir, and that doesn't count for potential alliance reasons? That seems excessively narrow.

Byzantine Empire attacked Arabian Empire for emperor's claim on Egypt while Arabia was facing two rebellions. That would be a huge blob, but they failed, I assume because Byzantines were always on or near negative money as they were sending it all to me, so their troops were fighting with huge morale penalty.

The 3 Indian blobs kept attacking each other, but it seems indecisive so far. Former Adana horde somehow managed to turn into a tiny Avar kingdom of Armenia. Overall except for Zikri minors in Spain there's very few independent countries out there.

And I discovered that apparently people who owe you a favor can still join factions against you. Like what?

That could have been a scary big blob 

He did pay for this 

After all obstacles got removed, the lovebirds could finally remarry

Totally reasonable stats.

I still need 2 Magna Opera, but I can only write one for the rest of the game, so I'll first see which of the missing two I can maybe loot.

Without the skill cap (which can be modded out), she'd be 13/7/9 on conversion.

Prussian Amazons: Part 69: 1280-1287: Empress Weslikan The Immortal and 7 Demon Babies

My next step on path to immortality was fighting a snake barehanded. I celebrated victory by proclaiming The Cessation of Violence Act.

My whole plan in Kali Purusha was to have demonic baby. I can only do that freely as a leader, and the clock was ticking as I was 31 already, and the bastard just wouldn't die. Fortunately I got a mission to do so, which I used on myself.

Weirdly that's a known bastard without a father. How the hell do everybody knows that?

I just drank whichever deadly liquid Halima prepared without even reading game files, and it worked. I am now immortal. Kali Purushna blessed me. Actually that had nothing to do with Kali Purushna, and my plan to play as strong genius daughter of satan just failed miserably.

Well, right now I'd probably just be 6/4/6. I'd need to get my skills to 18, and 14/24/34/29/36 is not quite there. 1 skill point would be like 4500 extra mana over course of the game.

I got demon daughter I wanted, Mila, and I still plan to make her best daughter ever, since "immortal" doesn't actually mean that I can't die - just that old age can't kill me and diseases would have serious trouble doing so. Plotting demon child might actually succeed.

Soon after that stressed and depressed Brahminrakshasa came out of hiding and I got him killed. And what do I want? More demon babies! Let them fight! I feel 7 would be a good number.

By the way, I got demon babies a few times before, but for one reason or another I could never play as them. And this time when I can be a demon baby factory, game decides to go as far as to make me literally immortal just so I don't have a chance to play a demon baby.

Which brings me to the question - can satan's babies become imbred if I were to do it over and over? Like if I made my daughter pregnant with satan, and kept doing that?

My family is 4 natural children:

• daughter Gerkus, 19 - married to emperor of Francia
• son Arelis, 16 - married to sister of Bengal Emperor (who's technically heir, but probably won't be)
• daughter Grasus, 9 - bethroted to maharaja of Gujarat/Malwa/Bengal/Gondwana
• strong daughter Betten, 5 - bethroted to duke of Aquitaine

And 7 demon children, born 9 months apart:

• daughter Mila, 4 
• son Prusas, 3
• strong daughter Betten, 3 
• son Gauronas, 2
• hunchback son Nomedas, 1
• strong daughter Gelennis, 0
• strong son Actune, 0

Lack of a single genius is disappointing, but that's enough demon babies.

My cousin emperor of Rajastan decided to declare war on me, not even in own name but of another cousin's. In addition to being rather stupid I have no idea how he could do being bankrupt - it might be favor war that they forgot to add bankruptcy check to wars called by owing favor to claimant.

He's walking right into my troops, like he knows it's all futile.

I drank blood of Glitterhoof, what's a snake for me

First of Seven 

RNGesus or his dark equivalent

Worked like a charm first time, I didn't even check the files

I think having really high stats thanks to Hermetic Society influence greatly increases chance of event chain triggering in the first place

Afterwards I checked, and chances at 22+ martial are:

100% nasty fail chance if she was a fraud

75% for antilope sacrifice working, or else you lose hand and get severely injured

67% for defeating snake when going brave, or else 25% chance of instant death

57% of drink working, or else instant death and getting reincarnation

There were less risky options too

I'm doing every possible kind of magic - immortal hermetic werewolf satanist

You can't declare wars on negative money, but AI did it anyway

I suspect Conclave as usual 

There's no way through

Prussian Amazons: Part 68: 1272-1280: Final Humiliation of the Infidels

It was time for another map cleanup. I gave France, Greece, Egypt, and Nubia empire-tier titles; turned custom Tigris into real Mesopotamia, and cleaned up de jure map to match this.

Persia could get imperial title as well, but unlike others it didn't prove itself stable. I'm playing with mods that make it easy to destroy titles, so maybe recreating should become easier as well?

Of course king of Syria did not take it well and declared abolition war on Egypt's new Arabian Empire, but the newly restored empire survived that.

To hide my worship of Kali Parusha I went on Buddhist pilgrimage, and got depressed and cynical.

I even appointed my horse as chancellor to really throw everybody off the track. Would Kali worshiper really appoint a horse chancellor? Then since I'm arbitrary I changed my mind, abducted him, and sacrificed him to Kali. Turns out he was a virgin, getting me 10x as much dark power. Such a strong attractive horse and nobody wanted him yet? Oh well, more dark power for me.

I quickly got to second position in the cult, and as a good Kali worshipper I tried my best to kill the Brahminrakshasa - with plotting and dark power.

Dark power gave him disease, but he healed himself somehow, possibly also using dark power.

I tried to plot, but as count under duke under viceroy under me there was very limited plotter pool. I finally got an idea - I gave him titular viceroyalty of Visby, then told Germany he's no longer his vassal, which went OKish, as that's not de jure Germany. As direct vassal and known satanist basically everybody in my realm could join the plot.

Sadly he went into hiding, plot never triggered, and even cancelling it to bait him out failed.

I even got the plague myself - I wonder if it was his doing - but used dark powers to heal it.

Weirdly I turned into a werewolf and ate my physician. Why can't I eat Brahminrakshasa? Hermetic Society can have multiple magi, so it's not a big deal if leader lives, but Kali Parusha cult has limit on one Brahminrakshasa, so I need to kill the previous holder to get access to all powers.

And I got another attempt at immortality. After very expensive search a West African pagan with 32 marshal appeared, and I made her my marshal. She made me sacrifice a ridiculously expensive antelope. Let's see how it goes. Immortal 6/6/6 ruler in EU4 would be interesting. Dev Notes claim this actually works.

My project to make Fraticelli dominant over Catholics succeeded! And then Zikri triumphed over Sunnis. I don't want to just destroy them, I want to humiliate them first.

Religious stats:

• Indian: 1063 Buddhist, 78 Hindu, 46 Jain
• Christians: 14 Fraticelli, 10 Catholic, 4 Lollard
• Muslims: 13 Zikri, 8 Sunni
• Others: 1 Zoroastrian

I wasn't really thinking much about it, but I scored some big wins for my dynasty:

• granddaughter of my claimant to Merv married my brother and managed to establish kingdom of Khiva with my help.
• my cousins got Rajastan andh were even fighting over it with each other
• my (non-dynastic) nephew holds Bengal Empire, and if anything happens to him his sister is bethroted to my brother

Marienburg maxed out every possible building. I'm just 3 economic techs from max, and it's quite a while until end of the game, so I might even max out my whole demesne.

666 Dark Power

A dark prophecy of 6/6/6 immortal ruler in EU4 coming?

It's about 10% chance IIRC

Trying to get to the top

I can't even blatantly arrest him as he's hiding

Take that Pope! 

Chancellor horse blood brings dark powers

I think this is unrelated to Kali Purusha, pursuit of immortality, or Glitterhoof

It's just a side effect of going lunatic

This is the most magical reign I've ever had

Could it work this time? My first attempt ended tragically

Take that all the damn Caliphs!