Iron Century Piasts: Part 05: 980-1000: Feudalism in Lithuania

I summoned Chernobog, God of Darkness, and had a daughter with him. Chernobog left his mark on Zwislawa, making her left-handed. For a lesbian I had a lot of children, with my husband, my consorts, and even with the devil himself.

My husband refused to ally me, even as he was losing his kingdom. He also went native, and behaved like a filthy Russian now. A lot of our family went Russian. Going native kinda makes sense long term, but it feels really annoying just how quickly characters go native. I feel the mtth should be far lower.

Feudalism in Lithuania

I finally went feudal in 985, but rest of my realm was still mostly tribal, so it meant a lot more gold, and a lot fewer troops. Better quality troops (mostly heavy infantry rather than mostly light infantry), but a lot fewer of them, especially from the vassals.

Pechenegs attacked Ruthenia, but in a rare case of joint cooperation between all three Piast realms, we beat them back.

At this point I was the chosen heir of elders of Poland, Ruthenia, and Novgorod, and with great intrigue powers, but I'll see more benefit from those tribals as allies than vassals.

It was clear that I'll need to sponsor feudal transformation with my own funds, and the best way is some raiding. I can raid, but awkwardly I don't have the 90% ship upkeep discount the Norse do, so it's not clear if the loot would even cover obscene ship cost.

Raiding Time

I summoned the Dark Lord to kill High Chief Vasily of Bryansk, the one who poisoned my father on his wife's orders.

My husband got murdered on orders of some minor chieftess. My other brother did his duty and avenged his death by burning her at the stake.

I didn't want to marry outside my family, so as soon as he came of age, I married Mieszko, my sister's and brother's only shared son. I tried to recruit Mieszko to the Chernobog cult, but I failed. If he's not into satanic orgies, I set him up with some exotic side wenches, at his young age he probably needs more than just his wife.

Catholic King of Germany outright attacked my sister's Poland while it was busy with with Pechenegs. I did the clever thing, and raided German coast to deny him money and split his armies.

My looters were gathering funds for development of Lithuania, while contributing to the war effort. Everybody wins.

Divine Xwedodah Combo

Let's talk family situation. Mieszko had 4 children:

• daughter Scholastyka
• son Wielislaw
• daughter Zofia
• son Miroslaw

Scholastyka is married to her brother Wielislaw, and they have son Mieszko.

I was married to my brother Miroslaw. After he died I married their son Mieszko and my nephew.

It turns out Scholastyka and me are both homosexual, so used my great seduction skills to seduced her and make her my lover, while being married to her son.

Scholastyka is also head of the Slavic church, while I'm head of the Chernobog cult.

There's a lot of divine marriages in next generations too, between siblings and cousins.

I really like where this is going on.

Year 1000

 The daughter I had with the Dark Lord Chernobog.

None of the Elders want to vote for her. It's probably because she's left-handed.

The daughter I had with Chernobog usurped my position as leader of Chernobog cult.

I try to get either my sister-lover or my satanic daughter elected as my heir, but the elders don't want to hear about it. I guess I could bribe them a bit. My husband-nephew is heir to the other three titles.

I've been fighting what turned into Sweden and Finland for some minor scraps of land. They each have 3x more armies than I do, but refuse to use ships, so I just outmaneuver them. I hoped they'd gavelkind by now, but both bastards created kingdom tier titles moments before dying, like they knew.

Poland and Ruthenia/Novgorod aren't that far away from adopting feudalism and starting transformation.

Empire of the Romans pretty much shattered, with three emperor claimants, and a lot of independent dukes. Maybe someday it will reassemble.

In faraway lands Timbuktu went Sunni, so very few African pagans are left. Muslims took Crete as well as most of Spain, but they also have a lot of breakaway vassals.

King of Italy took over Muslim Africa, and Sunni Caliph called for renewed period of Jihads.

These are huge Ghaznavid Persians. Most of the time event-spawned dynasties like Seljuks got nowhere in my games.

Also annoyingly Mecca is Chinese tributary. Yeah, I play without diplomatic range, but this is still dumb.

You can also see 50 Shades of Purple in what was once united Empire of the Romans