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

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 23: 1226-1230: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

I had 3 kingdom titles, and my oldest son and heir 2 more after his late mother. With 5 kingdoms there's no reason not to just get himself crowned Emperor.

Our family also had 2 double kings and 3 single-kings. In Christian countries we didn't rule, we were extensively intermarried with nobility. So if anyone deserved to be the Emperor of the Christian world, it is a Habsburg.

There are just two problems - Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire, and Emperor of the Holy Land. Kaiser is a far greater problem, as the HRE is not even a real country - it's collection of realms, including 2 double-kingdoms, and 2 regular kingdoms, and they should be free.
And even more annoyingly the Kaiser claims some land that's rightfully part of my realm.

Given all those issues, it's time to abolish the HRE, by force. Recognizing my leadership role in Christianity, 8 Christian kings joined by cause.

That was the most embarassing performance I've seen. Kaiser's armies were scattered all over his vast realm, and before they even showed up, Kaiser's armies in Germany were crushed, and demesne and many other settlements occupied, and the Kaiser surrendered without even fighting to the end.

I had one more son to handle - I gave Filibert a county, unfortunately he then died of pneumonia.

As Love Gardens of Provence got finished, I started building my second Great Work - Great Harbor of Nice.

My alliance with Georgia ended due to two unfortunately deaths, but Georgia was completely unconcerned by that, and attacked Timurids in a Holy War. That's ballsy. She completely wrecked the Timurids. So all those wars where I helped Georgia survive, paid off.

And so at age of 58. Or 62. There are conflicting theories about that, king Adam died.

His successor is king Hugh of Arles, France, Aquitaine, Sicily, and Africa. 12/21/12/17/13.

Scotland, Poland, Anatolia, Crusader Kingdoms, and (offscreen Maharastra) are other Habsburg realms

Scotland mostly did it by itself - I only gave them about 2/3 of de jure Scotland, after that they wer on their own. Anatolia and Maharanstra are doing very well for themselves as well.

Poland and Crusader Finland, not so much.

Hugh is for sure going to be an Emperor of something, I'm just not sure of what. There are so many options like Francia, some new title, Latin Empire, or maybe even restore Eastern Rome?

I'm not in a huge rush

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 22: 1219-1226: Fifth Crusade for India

I have 4 surviving sons:

• Hugh, king of Sicily and Africa
• Alois, duke of Toulouse, used to be married to duchess of Franconia, but she died, and now he remarried a total nobody
• Gotthard, landless, married to duchess of Lisboa
• Filibert, landless, married to a Georgian princess third in succession

I need to arrange some land for the younger two, and the best way to get that land is a nice crusade.

I asked the Pope to do something ambitious, and invade the biggest realm in India. And as before, I started gathering troops 200 days before the crusade, and it was not soon enough.
I had a bit over 50% participation, and my son became king of Maharastra.

I got a second bloodline - Crusader Blood of King Adam, for "single handedly bringing victory to the Christians in several Crusades", with +5 Christian opinion and some other minor bonuses. Nice!

And so we had 7 king tier rulers of Habsburg dynasty:

• me - Arles/France/Aquitaine
• son Hugh - Sicily/Africa
• nephew Hans - Polnad/Estonia
• son-in-law Wolfram - Scotland/Ireland, under HRE
• really remote relative Helene - Crusader Finland from 3rd crusade, under HRE
• closer relative Matthias - Anatolia from 4th crusade
• son Gotthard - Maharastra from 5th crusade

I'll need to find something for Filibert now. And let's hope Gotthard can defend himself there. I first wanted to get him Persia, which was surrounded from two sides by Christian powers, but went for a more risky option instead.

My councillors called a favor to vote for execution committee, so I had to reverse it. That took bribing the men and seducing the women, but it worked.

In the Provence Love Gardens there's a Fountain of Youth now - whoever drinks from it ages 20% more slowly.

I had severe chest pains and stress for a while, so I expected to die anytime, but after a few years it passed, and I'm back in good health. And there's something I really need to do.

Nearly the whole India challenged our crusading armies, and they had so many elephants, but in the end the result was clear

A much bigger question is - can my son survive there for 30 years without any alliances until the next Crusade is organized?

Timurids got some sort of realm - it would be vast if I didn't intervene, but it's still respectable

Best case scenario they fight the Hindus so the Hindus are too busy to fight my son

Worst case scenario, they turn back towards Georgia, but their power level is not too much higher, so they'd probably win but with severe losses

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 21: 1210-1219: Timurid Invasion

Just a year after fall of the Aztecs, a new horde emerged, led by Timur the Lame - 29 year old Buddhist Mongol, 12/29/14/16/15. This one was at least feudal, with agnatic gavelkind.
He can have all of India for all I care, as long as he doesn't cross into Georgia or Mesopotamia, I don't plan on getting involved.

Of course as soon as I said that, Timur decided to invade Georgia. That's not only a Christian realm, for their weird kind of Christianity, two of my younger sons are married to Georgian princesses.

In a great battle of Alamut, they attacked me into mountains, and we both reinforced with basically our whole armies. Their 54k vs my 52k, and they lost half their army, while mine was still standing. I love how decisive CK2 battles can be - in EU4 one battle against the Ottomans means nothing, here it can break a country for generations.

With Georgia defended, we finally had some peace. And some time to engage in petty vassal politics. I passed law fully legalizing women holding land - something that was historically on questionable legal grounds, but we cannot judge someone too harshly just because the God punished him by only giving him daughters.

Timurids still had decent army, and bullied their neighbours, but they had no potential to become an overwhelming threat.

And now is the time for the 5th crusade. I thought we'd go against the Aztecs or the Mongols or the Timurids, but they're all defanged.

I'm conflicted between asking for Persia or for Maharastra. I even have a spare son who just turned 16 who might be a good king of some place real far away.

That's the shortest lived major horde as they picked a war with my ally almost right away

Also this game would be so much different if I didn't have Suez Canal and navigable rivers on

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 20: 1201-1210: Fall of the Aztecs

Amazingly the Mongol khagan got instant massive revolts - 45k minor clan rising, 30k Persian liberation, and some tiny Tengri, Suomenusko, Sunni, and peasant revolts. All the other nomad clans started instantly fighting each other. Wonderful. By the time they sort it out it might be 1444.

On my way home my troops joined another fight against the Aztecs. After that Aztecs got into embargo war with republic of Amalfi - feel free to win this one, if that's what the mightly empire from another continent got reduced to, I'm OK with that.

My wife queen of Sicily attacked king of Africa for her second title. That's some casual feudal war for a change. My wife tragically died of depression soon after, leaving our son Hugo in charge of both. Unfortunately it happened too unexpectedly, and I never arranged any marriage alliances for Hugo, so he'll pick some random lowborn wench.

I found alliances for my other children, but couldn't find anything for myself, so I took a genius daughter of a minor baron.

A big Berber Catholic liberation rebellion erupted against the Aztecs. Unfortunately not only nobody can help them, everyone's automatically hostile against liberation rebellions. And the way CK2 works, rebels always have 0 tech, so they're in year 700, while everyone else is in year 1200. This is especially bad for sieging.

They were stuck at +60% to +80% warscore, but getting nowhere, so I did my best, and raided the Aztecs to disrupt their attempts at fighting the rebellion. Sadly the rebels sacked Fes and killed some of my distant family - 4 boys.

While the rebellion was losing steam, Aztecs were so weakened by it, by their previous wars, by rebellious vassals, by my raiding, that when sultan of Andalusia declared religious liberation war on them, they had nothing to defend themselves with. I joined the sultan, and now there's a new Catholic ruler in Maghreb. The Sunset Invasion is over.

All the threats to Christianity fall, as if God willed it.

Meanwhile, Teutonic Order attacked some high chieftess of Frozen Wasteland, and they somehow lost. Probably to the winter. It doesn't matter, missionary activity is going well, and Lithuania and Finland both converted.

At one point there was even Finnish Revolt by some Hindu Finnish vassal. How did that happen? No idea.

The Aztecs have been thrown into the Great Sea

The Mongols are still everywhere, just busy fighting each other - there's 21 independent Mongol hordes, in addition to all other kinds of hordes

Catholics are doing really well.

Mongols went Buddhist, so that's the second greatest religion by area.

Hindu, Orthodox, and Sunni are very far behind.

It's going to be annoying on conversion as best EU4 religions (Orthodox, Coptic) are worst CK2 religions.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 19: 1199-1201: Fall of the Mongols

The Mongols after 47 years of lollygagging finally declared a real war, invading U-Tsang, Buddhist monastic feudal state, the strongest of their neighbours.
At this point they had 86k event troops, and 36k of other troops vs U-Tsang's 36k, and Mongol troops are much stronger horse archers and other cavalry, so outcome of that was never in doubt.

Mongols came out of this with minimal losses.

Well, I have a plan. Emerald Tablet - one of the most desired artifacts of the known world. It's a high price, but it was enough to convince Emperor of China to send troops to shatter the Mongol Empire.
The Mongols invaded Song China same time they invaded our world, half a century ago. It was time for a double revenge.

I definitely did not stand aside, and contributed full might of my army as well. The main fighting was in the Far East. landed around Volga and Caspian Sea, but I could be no more than a minor nuisance.

The nuisance plan worked, and Mongols sent a third of their armies to face me. I fought them in a glorious battle of Kangly, where 38k of my troops fought 26k of theirs, and we even killed slightly more.

The Mongols really couldn't handle this - with some armies fighting me, some armies fighting China, and even more armies wandering between us confusing by what they should do.

The Mongol empire got crushed. The former Mongol khagan still has an enormous army, 28k including 61k event troops, far stronger than any single civilized realm, and will likely start gathering back the clans as soon as Chinese and Christian armies leave. Hopefully he and various nomad clans will spend another 50 years fighting each other before they try to challenge the civilized world!

And hilariously I found another Emerald Tablet just a year later, so it ended up costing me very little. Well, about 2000 for that search expedition, which only had modest chance of succeeding, but still. So by the time the Mongols reunite, I have decent chance of pulling it off again.

Time to go home and join another war with the Aztecs.

Meanwhile the Shia Assassins got destroyed. Ghaznavid realm somehow shattered into 5 pieces while I wasn't paying any attention. After fall of both Caliphates these were the last centers of Muslim power. What's left now is just a chain of weak realms from Syria to West India, and some minor hordes.

The main fighting was in the East between Mongols and China

China had horrible loss ratio, and kept losing battles, but they inflicted pain on the Mongols as well

I don't think they'd win without my help

The second front, with some of my troops caught unawares, and suffering huge losses.

The Mongols could definitely defeat me or force me back onto the boats with what just arrived, but after losing battle of Kangly they ran away to face China instead.

In addition to warscore from occupations and battle of Kangly, I cost them a third of their troops which weren't there to fight China, letting China win.

With Mongols and (no idea how) Ghaznavids shattered, the East looks so fragmented

Still no idea what happened to the Ghaznavids, its sultan still holds 5 crowns, so was it enormous independence faction?

It's all going just great

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 18: 1193-1199: The Sunset Invasion

There were two issues, far more urgent than anything else - stopping the Aztec Invasion, and restoring Catholic rule in Crusader Kingdom of Maghreb.

Best I could manage to do about Maghreb is finding some still Catholic relative of previous kings who took vows of celibacy, and pressing his claim.

Both issues then merged, as Aztecs decided to declare invasion war for Maghreb in addition to Ireland - doubling their total invading force to 165k, split halfway between both invasions.

Aztecs got completely wrecked. Facing whole might of HRE, Arles/France/Aquitaine, king of Scotland/Ireland, supported by two Holy Orders. We faced them in a glorious battle of Dundalk faced 41k Aztecs against 27k defenders, where half of them fell on the field, with barely 3k losses on our side. They might be numerous but they know nothing about fighting.

Soon even greater battle of Tara took place, with full might of 64k of good Christians, vs just 55k of the heathen invaders. And they got completely smashed again. And in many smaller battles. It was mainly their lack of cavalry and poor leadership that doomed them.

Unfortunately their invasion of Maghreb went a lot better - the infidel ruler got overthrown with nobody to help him, and my claimant's CB became invalid because there was no kingdom of Maghreb left.

The best thing about fighting in Ireland is that we can drown them in so many places

Too bad the Kaiser decided to accept Aztec surrender instead of continuing until all are slain

The end result was turning Ireland into a mass graveyard of troops from both sides of the Great Sea, with invaders having only 70k left of their initial force. Aztec Emperor died of severe stress seeing all the carnage, with his much less capable relative taking over. Soon that relative died of depression, leaving their realm to a different infidel dynasty.

Overall, it was a draw. Only one of their invasions succeeded and half their troops were dead, but they took over 11th largest country by development, and still had second largest army after the Mongols ready for further aggression.

The Kaiser was celebrating victory, but I had none of that. I gave a big speech where our policy was clearly stated:

• No Peace with the Aztecs
• No Recognition of the Aztecs
• No Negotiations with the Aztecs

We will drive them into the sea! We will drown every last one of them! And one day, we'll build great ships able to cross the Great Sea, and drive them into the next great sea as well!

Before I could deal with the Aztecs, I had some other issues to attend to. Queen of Georgia was fighting more traditional infidels. Unfortunately her marriage to my brother ended, as he died of gout at ripe old age of 16. Seriously, this DLC is so stupid sometimes. Since there was no real point in that war, I recalled my troops, even though I was technically still in it.

I also had to defend my wife Queen of Sicily from 3 simultaneous wars.

My vassals were really tired about those wars, and were conspiring, but I had no time to waste. Aztec Emperor got into fight with his vassals, so I had to help them. Aztec ruler got overthrown, and half of his remaining troops were dead, but they were still far from defeated.

As soon as new one took the throne, he declared a conquest of a county in Andalusia. You know, you could at least wait until my troops are going to leave right? Only 18k of their event troops was left afterwards. They even suffered a Waldensian uprising, but that was an embarrassing failure.

We might have failed to prevent Aztecs from establishing themselves, but they're now merely a strong unstable regional power, they do not pose existential threat to Christianity.

The Aztecs at least had the balls to attack strongest Catholic power, and what used to be one of the strongest Catholic powers before that Yazidi takeover.

The Mongols didn't have a single war with anyone who mattered, just some smaller hordes and minor tribes

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 17: 1187-1193: King Adam the Sword of the Blessed Virgin

Before I could do anything, I had a claimant to defeat. And as soon as I crushed one, another started gathering his army. Good that I have a spacious dungeon for them.

I basically bribed queen of Georgia into marrying my brother, and having Catholic Habsburgs inherit Georgia. Great use of money. It resulted in me being called into war after war to defend Georgia. No wonder she was so willing to go along with this.

I asked Pope for coronation ceremony, and he demanded that I join a war on king of England, whom my father defended from the whole Catholic world. Well, that was my father and this is me. Funnily enough once previous king was overthrown, his excommunication got lifted, but the new king soon had a tragic accident, and previous king was back on the throne. As if God willed it.

Between that and all the wars my relatives pulled me into, I had no time to rest.

Fourth Crusade was actually not as well planned as I thought - it targetted sultan of Syria, but it was war for Anatolia - that meant about same amount of land, but since sultan would keep his title, his realm wouldn't shatter into individual duchies. In any case, I got it with 50% participation, and my cousin became Queen Irmeltrud the Sword of the Blessed Virgin of Anatolia, and I got very well rewarded. She was matrilineally married to uncle of king of Sicily and Africa as well, so there was a decent chance of them inheriting that.

Once my wife gave birth to a daughter, I pressed her claim for Sicily. That succeeded, but previous king somehow kept half of it anyway.

Some Zikri bastard inherited second crusader kingdom of Maghreb, and then he flipped Yazidi. He soon picked a fight with his vassals and I intervened on their side.
Unfortunately his son took over, and once he died, the old sultan was back on the throne. And he had a lot of sons to go through before Catholics were back in line of succession.
Well, I'm going to go through every single one of those infidel bastards until they're all dead!

HRE rebellion overthrew one Kaiser and installed another.

I tried to send missionaries to Lithuania, but it ended up poorly.

There's been a rumor of some strange boats from across the Great Sea, but that's not possible. And then it turned out it was actually possible, with those demons landing in Ireland.

Kaiser's 34k is no match for their 84k of mostly heavy infantry, but if I help as well, maybe we can stop them before they reach Paris.

The Mongols have been dicking around for 40 years now

The Aztecs opened by invading the biggest realm in known world, not counting China

Annoyingly kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland are held by another branch of Habsburg dynasty so keeping them contained on the island means losing good dynastic land. Either way, we fight.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 16: 1183-1187: Last days of King Poppo

I got into some marriage alliances, including with boy king of England. Somehow he got himself excommunicated, and everyone tried to overthrow him - including Knights Templar who gathered army of nearly 100k mercs to do so. That of course completely bankrupted them, and mercenaries turned against them. That was interesting development.

The Jews destroyed what was left of Shia Caliphate. It's bad time to be a Muslim of any kind. Yazidi Iraq also got completely wiped out.

Mongols were doing so poorly. Not only they were still stuck unifying the steppes, they kept getting attacked by hosts who wanted their share of the pastures.

First crusader realm, kingdom of Egypt, Jerusalem, and Arabia proclaimed itself Empire of the Holy Land.

The Pope proclaimed 4th crusade against Shia Syria, which was probably the best target.

While preparing for the crusade I had another claimant to deal with. Unfortunately my health deteriorated and in spite of my doctor's best efforts I didn't survive to join the crusade.

The kingdom was taken over by king Adam. 8/15/18/13/19 ambitious Fortune Builder. His wife is the rightful queen of Sicily and Africa, so it's pretty clear where that's going.

King Adam has really good stats, traits, wife, and political situation - if they have a son, that son might very well be the first emperor in the family

Queen of Thrace and Bulgaria is quite close to reestablishing Eastern Roman Empire, that's impressive

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 15: 1172-1183: King Poppo Son of Satan

I thought about creating Empire of Francia, which is de jure Arles, France, Aquitaine, and Brittany. I control 3 of its kingdoms (Brittany doesn't exist) and 90% of its territory, but weirdly its title creation requirement is to own a kingdom outside these 4. Oh well, it's probably going to happen at some point, it's supposed to be a megacampaign.

I was in extremely poor health, so I tried to spend as much time as possible with my family - especially with my sister princess Christine, who was very dear to me. Many people say her daughters looks so much like me, what a mystery this is. A few times I was near death, but eventually I fully recovered.

A got to rule over 10 years, and managed to convince my vassals to make Aquitaine inherit by primogeniture like my other titles. It would be really awkward otherwise.

I have extensive dynastic plans for kingdoms of Sicily and Africa. All 3 siblings of current king are married to Habsburgs. We'll get those titles.

A surprise 40k horde spawn in Capua, which was inexplicably held by a Sunni Cuman, relative of some past khagans. I had to defend Sicily from it in multiple wars, and I even lost some battles - the secret with hordes is that my levies recover, but their event troops don't, so even a loss is a win, as long as it was sufficiently bloody for them.

The Mongol khagan was slain in personal combat by a woman. Next one shat himself to death. What a double embarassment for all Mongols! The third khagan is wasting his time just like the previous two.

Shia Jihad against Georgia ended up in white peace, making it the most successful Jihad so far.

We got our first inbred Habsburg, emir Adelmio II of Fes. That was shockingly not due to any inbreeding on our side - his mother of Estrid dynasty was already inbred.

There were many wars, but in the end very little changed this decade.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 14: 1162-1172: Conquest of Aquitaine

My family was so extensively intermarried with nobility of other countries that it finally happened - my late first wife was daughter of king of Aquitaine, and now my oldest son and heir had claim on kingdom of Aquitaine held by a baby - baby who's my non-dynastic grandson as well. It's a very complicated family tree.

That was won, but my grandson Ricard still kept his second crown as king of Valencia.

My another kingman was king of Crusader Finland - it was basically oversized duchy, extremely undeveloped, with no de jure territory. He had insane amount of gold, piety, and prestige from the crusade, but didn't do anything useful with it.

Manfred got attacked in vassalization war by the Kaiser, and called me in, but I really couldn't do anything - by the time my troops would reach Finland, he'd have surrendered anyway.

Duchy of Tuscany somehow fell apart, so I diplomatically vassalized various counts in it, and recreated it as part of my realm.

Still, that's 6 kingdom titles for Habsburg dynasty:

• me - Arles and France
• my oldest son Poppo - Aquitaine
• my nephew Wolfram - Scotland and Ireland, in HRE
• distant kinsman Manfred - Crusader Finland, in HRE

As well as dukes of Fes in Maghreb, Praetnium in Egypt, and 3 of my vassal dukes.

I got attacked by 30k troops of Capetian claimant to France. While defending my claim I died at age of 70, and my son Poppo, Son of Satan, is now 3-king of Arles, France, and Aquitaine.

Popopo is a stressed and depressed lunatic in awful health, first married to Rurikid princess of Kiev, and now to daughter of Ghaznavid sultan, the most powerful Sunni ruler.

Poppo is probably not going to survive long, and he'll be succeeded by a 4 year old son, who is definitely not yet ready to rule over one of the most powerful Christian realms.

Song China managed to defeat the Mongol invasion, I think they have about 20% chance, so good job China!

Mongol event troops fell from 116k to 91k and they're still trying to consolidate their rule over steppes, with no conflict with settled powers yet.

Shia Caliph declared Jihad against Orthodox Georgia, probably understanding that attacking Catholics is suicidal.

First few successions were really easy, this one could be a mess if Poppo dies soon

That claimant with 30k troops attacking me is unlikely to do well

HRE is doing amazingly well considering they lost half of their original territory to my independence

Mongols are still taking their sweet time, it's been 20 years so at this pace they'll fight some actual feudal country by 1200 or so

My wife is a Ghaznavid princess, I guess it makes sense to marry into biggest font on the map.

Serbia is a fun case - Italian merchant republics kept attacking king of Croatia to abolish that title, as they had some cities on Croatian coast. Eventually the very queen of Croatia said fine, and crowned himself a king of Serbia instead. She also married a Jew, what a weird woman.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 13: 1154-1162: King of Arles and France

While we were engaging in our petty disputes, the Mongol horde was coming, trampling everyone who resisted underhoof.

They could be here in just a few years. At least I had a lot of money donated for the crusade by good Catholics, so I built up universities, hospitals, new cities, new military buildings.

I also established first royal retinue of 2500 pikemen, 2500 archers, and 500 heavy infantry (1 Defense to 1 Skirmish ratio). German cultural retinue are the Knights (150 heavy cavalry + 100 light cavalry per unit), which aren't that great in general, and are particularly godawful against horse archer hordes.

Kingdom of France collapsed, and as the most powerful ruler in that region I intervened. Thank to my immense prestige, Papal support, and force of arms to convince any doubters, I got crowned as king of France. I'm not yet sure if both titles should stay together or go to different sons as is tradition.

There was another urgent matter that Egypt had a Sunni Turk next in line. I got queen's infidel husband killed, and managed to get that heir over and convinced him to follow Jesus.

Since this went well enough, I invited claimant to throne of Syria, got him baptized, and pressed his claim. Shia Syria took over Crete, Euboia, and some Anatolian coastline, and was the last serious Muslim power in the Mediterranean Sea. Unfortunately his heir was Shia and I was unable to deal with it, so Syria went back to Shia.

The Mongols are taking their sweet time, fighting other hordes. It's probably taking so slow as horses chasing each other around on the steppe is just taking forever. So far they went from 116k to 102k of initial event troops - but they will get reinforcements.

Their invasion of China is still ongoing.

After Eastern Roman Empire collapse, queen of Thrace started unifying the dukes, so maybe it will reemerge after all?

The whole Syria expedition was a debacle, they should have been crusade target. Egypt is also not completely secure.

The Mongols are coming and there will be a big war between them and the settled people. Best case scenario - those settled people will be Indians.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 12: 1145-1154: Third Crusade for Finland

I had so many relatives I was running a Medieval marriage agency.

I had the usual share of minor feudal conflicts where my allies called me. I had an adventurer attack me. I lowered feudal taxes, and instead forces Pisa and Venice to give me tribute as their overlord.

Once Kaiser died, his disconnected possessions it Italy all seceded, and me and Pope both tried to get some of that diplomatically. The new Kaiser was my nephew, so our relations definitely improved.

One of my vassals somehow got herself a lot of land in France, so I started a small war to connect that.

In 1152 we heard rumors of great Mongol Horde with 126k horsemen. They started by invading China, and the Steppes simultaneously.

The Pope called the third crusade, and that was the dumbest one possible - on high chief of Finland with his 6 counties, 5 of them tribal. It was like the 4th target in the region, winh kingdom of Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania being far better targets. And none of them even close to something half-decent like Syria or Iraq, or even India.

Well, I was not going to miss the action, and inevitable rewards, so I had my troops on the boats ready to land the day it started. I ended up having 72% participation, and my kinsman Manfred got to be a king of this worthless frozen wasteland. I had plenty of gold, and had full intention of spending it to build up the realm just like my father did.

Oh and due to dynastic stupidily, heir to kingdom of Egypt, Jerusalem, and Arabia - is a Sunni Turk. So all those Catholic gains might get reverted really quickly (unless his vassals depose him, or succession gets fixed by stab in a back).

There is nobody who can stop the Mongols from reaching our borders. Ghaznavids, Georgia, Hungary, and Croatia can levy 10k troops each, of much lower quality than the Mongols, so they'll get swept aside in a single battle.

HRE, Arles, and Egypt can maybe do 20k-30k each, and supplement it with some mercs and holy orders. U-Tsang can do 25k in mountains, and Indians can offer some resistance as well, so if the Mongols somehow go South there's a chance they'll burn through most of their troops by the time they conquer India.

If Pope didn't waste Third Crusade on some minor high chief, we could maybe gather whole Christendom to take a stand around Ruthenia or Georgia, but next crusade is very far away - also I need to ask Pope for the target, instead of letting him choose.

Then again, epic AI stupidiy is always a distinct possibility.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 11: 1137-1145: Repaying Debt For Independent Support

I celebrated independence by calling a Grand Tournament. We had summer fairs, and hunts, and feasts. I built Provence Love Gardens as most magnificent in the known world, and in time they'll get to be known as one of the world wonders.

Kaiser wanted to get new land after loss of Arles, and declared Holy War on a Jewish county in Ireland. The Jews can't get any rest no matter how far they run away. As I predicted Danzig meant war, the Kaiser attacked Egypt over some random leftover barony in county of Danzig that got to Egypt by some weird inheritance chain.

My allies king of Aquitaine and queen Sicily dragged me into a stupid fight between each other. I guess they're running out of infidels to kill.

My various allies kept dragging me into all kinds of wars - and I joined and sent my troops as I definitely owed them that for their support for my independence war.

There was this really annoying issue as son of Queen Beorhtgifu the Sword of God of Maghreb (amazing name) joined Knights Templar and wouldn't marry my sister, but also wouldn't break the betrothal.

My distant cousin who's queen of Scotland also created second title as queen of Ireland for herself. She's the first double-queen in the family, and she's still under Kaiser.

A fairly successful Yazidi event horde created Yazidi sultanate of Iraq. It's totally unrelated to Yazidi rebellion which overthrew last Sunni caliph, just in the next province over.

Sunnis had a bit of ressurgence as a Sunni Bolghar horde conquered most of Russia, most of the hordes are Sunni, and Ghaznavids are very strong. It's all very distant. The nearby Pecheneg horde settled down in Wallachia and converted to Catholicism, with so few Pechenegs left in the steppes they'll likely get absorbed into other hordes.

China turned 3 kingdoms worth of East and South India into its tributaries. Why Hindus tolerate such humiliation?

Amazingly previous Maharaja of Bengal found himself in a matrilineal marriage with a Greek Orthodox Countess Epiphania of Napoli, and that family later converted to Catholicism, so now kingdoms of Bengal and Bihar are ruled by a Greek Catholic. Unfortunately he only has a bastard son, so next in line is Buddhist Bengali uncle. It would be really funny if the Third Rome got established in Bengal. He's getting holy warred by Buddhists and Hindus, but so far he's doing OK.

All this matters mostly for choosing where third crusade will go. All targets are either faraway like Ghaznavids, or miserable like Syria or Estonia, or I'm not even sure how it would work like Orthodox Kievan Rus under a Sunni horde. Or maybe a non-Muslim target like Jewish Abyssinia or Yazidi Iraq?

National borders are not changing much, just the usual feudal ebb and flow due to cross border successions and minor skirmishes.

Catholicism is doing so well it's hard to come with a good crusade target.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 10: 1135-1137: Holy Roman Rebellion

I used all my connections with the Pope to get new Kaiser excommunicated before he had a chance to get crowned.

I couldn't get anyone to join my factions, so I just declared independence war on the Kaiser!

I had so many dynastic alliances I called rulers of Sicily, Maghreb, Acquitaine, and Croatia into the fight, as well as my cousin dukes landed in both crusades.

Kaiser had 3 times as many troops as me, as well as far too much gold to hire more, so I really needed those allies. Our border was more or less on the Danube - I was sieging Kaiser's holdings South of the border, Kaiser was sieging my holdings North of the border.

Somehow he got himself imprisoned by some African chief, and had to pay big ransom to get his freedom. How did that happen? I have no idea.

My allies did not follow my advice to siege, went North, and got themselves beaten up. Then Kaiser decided to rush South, and got half his army killed crossing the Alps.

Somehow Kaiser had enough long before the war was over. After just 1 year and 5 months he granted me independence.

To celebrate independence of Arles, I started construction of Magnificent Garden in Prevence - something that weirdly only independent rulers can do.

Shia Caliph tried starting another a Jihad for Arabia to get Mecca back, but it's going poorly for him, even with barely any Christians bothering to show p on the other side.

Kaiser's remaining vassals have no love for him, and the longer he stays excommunicated and uncrowned, the more likely they are to revolt. Disconnected lands in Italy which are not part of his de jure realm might also fall off. My holdings of Bar and Thuringia/Meissen will likely go independent as well. I'm not totally sure how it works.

HRE traded Arles for Scotland and is still the most powerful realm in the known world.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 09: 1126-1135: Peaceful Reign of King Egidio

My father and Kaiser were best friends and it blinded him to reality of what the Holy Roman Empire has become.

When the empire was established by the Pope crowing of Charlemagne, it covered not just Germany and Italy, but the whole Francia as well. Kaiser promised to lead Christians to victory over the infidels, and respect their traditional rights.

Recent Kaisers have done none of that. The Pope is the true leader of Christianity, calling for and leading crusades which broke Muslim oppression over Egypt, Holy Lands, Africa, Arabia, and most of Iberia. When there is conflict over feudal succession, the claimants appeal to the Pope to resolve their disagreements.

Meanwhile Kaiser is stuck in North Germany. Over the last 60 years, he abolished traditional rights of the council. Instead of fighting the infidels in holy crusades, he keeps sending troops to pointless border wars with France and Pomeranian Pagans. Worst of all - Kaiser usurped Pope's holy right to nominate bishops, and for a while even setup his own false Pope!

This cannot continue. I just need to convince other vassals of this truth - and the Holy Roman Empire needs to be destroyed or at least the Council must regain its traditional rights.

But first, succession. I took German culture of my father, even though I was raised Basque by my mother. I had a war to finish to put my nephew in charge of Vienna. I got crowned by the Pope.

The Pope proclaimed by father Blessed, and I had nothing to do with it. Well, he'd be surprised by this.

My attempts at convincing others to join my factions failed.

My older brother was constantly causing trouble in my council, so to get rid of it, I pressed his claim for kingdom of Scotland. That made Scotland for the Holy Roman Empire. Oops, I guess I strengthened the Kaiser. At least I got rid of my brother, I really don't like him.

My first son died, so I got the next one baptized by the Pope himself for God's favour.

My cousin Kaiser Werner the Effeminate got excommunicated by the Pope, and soon died of severe stress, as God's punishment for his sodomine ways. The Hory Roman Empire changed dynasties once more, now with duke of Trier taking over as new Kaiser.

Meanwhile, reconquista of Spain was going so well that 2 of 3 remaining infidel rulers converted to Catholic, and some Yazidi peasants overthrew the last Sunni Caliph. This completely eliminates the threat of jihads as Sunnis have nobody to call them and Shias are far too weak.

The Jews reestablished kingdom of Abyssinia after their previous Coptic rulers got overthrown.

Pressing my brother's claim to Scotland cost me a big duchy and gave Kaiser another strong vassal.

If I want independence or at least council powers, that was a terrible move.

Now there's a new Kaiser and we can do something about limiting his powers while he's still weak.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 08: 1119-1126: The Second Crusade for Maghreb

Before the crusade I legitimized my two adult bastard sons. One is Basque after his mother, but in spite of that I made him my primary heir as my trueborn sons are all quite old now. The other is a proper German, and I asked Pope for him to be my beneficiary of the crusade.

I really wanted to be the top contributor, so I gathered my troops half a year before the crusade, so on its day the boats sailed for Maghreb.

Technically we didn't even have a big advantage, as a lot of infidel rulers from Asia declared their participation, but I had no intention of waiting for them to join. Or of waiting for other Christian rulers to steal my glory. First I attacked Tlemcen where sultan's vassals were already fighting, then marched on his capital.

I pretty much won the crusade with my sieges, but the way participation is counted is total bullshit, and my occupations (worth over 100% of warscore) didn't count for much, while some minor battles (worth about 1% of warscore) somehow counted, so I ended up as only 3rd at 20%, with Adelmo von Habsburg getting just duchy of Fes, while Queen Beorhtgifu the Sword of God, Anglo-Saxon of Hwicce, ended up taking the main title.

Occupations count for 10 points per day, like that's in any way whatsoever relevant, so blitzkrieg win is nearly worthless. Battles are worth 200 points per day per 1000 enemy soldiers, so it's crazy easy to accumulate score while costing us warscore by throwing your troops at enemies.

That's all ridiculously unfair, but at least the infidels have been removed. And most importantly I got a ton of gold for my contributions.

So I took ambition to forge bloodline and started building 9 cities, 9 castles, and 7 temples exactly to get Builder bloodline before I die. This timing is extremely important, as then most of my family will get it. If I wait for the successor then most Habsburgs won't have it.

Unfortunately the game would not let me pick the bloodline I wanted, instead of insistint I'd get one for winning a lot of wars. It's bullshit that there's no way to refuse bloodlines, so I had to mod it. Win 15+ wars is trivial without even trying to do anything special. To be fair, none of the bloodlines are particularly good.

Some bastard tried to challenge me to a duel, even though I'm one leg in the grave already. I agreed, and used my skills at deception, so he lost his eye.

Strangely my 35 year old wife Melusine Capet, rightful queen of France, died in childbirth, only giving birth to a second daughter.

I married one of my lovers Adelasia, and arranged for our 8 year old bastard son Ugo to be betrothed to queen of Croatia, matrilineally. One of my bastard daughters I sent to become a concubine of the Chinese Emperor.

King Otto died at age of 66, leaving the realm to his legitimized bastard Egidio, while fighting some minor border cleanup wars.

Egidio is a 3/10/13/11/11 content Fortune Builder, competent at many things but master of none. He's likely to be unobjectionable to his subjects.

Hearing Voices of Jesus let me plan and execute Crusade flawlessly

My beneficiary only got one duchy

Unfortunately that one battle about to start in Tangiers was worth 5x more than me getting all the warscore

This was controversial heir designation, and his stats aren't even that great (content? Basque?) but I prefer playing younger characters, especially with Reaper's Due killing people left and right

There's a lot of Sunni leftover to clean up, but Catholic realms of Castille/Leon, Maghreb, Sicily/Africa, and Egypt/Jerusalem/Arabia - all victorious in part due to my help - can deal with it

Also German Kaiser took over Danzig from Poland. Nothing to see here, nothing to see.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 07: 1112-1119: My Nephew One And Only Roman Emperor

Kaiser successfully passed Realm Peace through the council this time, so I sent my troops to help my ally Queen of Sicily, and Holy Order of Knights of Sardinia in their fights against the infidels.

After my wife died I married claimant to throne of France, but until we have a baby it's all meaningless, and I'm old.

My nondynastic nephew Werner the Effeminate became the Kaiser, costing me 2 counties, but no big deal. Why the electors voted for someone with such nickname? I might be the most powerful vassal, but I'm not one of the electors. He's also matrilineally married to my oldest daughter Cecilie. Their children are 5 good Habsburgs, with duke Werner appearing as their double great grandfather.

He totally loves me, as I took his case back when he was a lowly count and pressed his claims to his ancestral duchy of Raetia. Also because he's "Effeminate" and doesn't mind at all that I'm his uncle.

Crusades were still on a timeout, so I did some border cleanup. I took part in many fights between the faithful and the infidel, as well as minor feudal disputes.

The Pope couldn't decide which crusade to call, so when I was finally at peace I asked him to attack Almoravids of Maghreb - the most powerful Muslim realm. Loss of Maghreb would shatter all Muslims this side of Jerusalem.

Seljuks lost second decadence revolt in a row, so they won't do much either. The nearest Muslim great power are Ghaznavids in Khorasan.

Unfortunately I'm 59, infirm, depressed, with measles, lover's pox, infirm, possessed, and lunatic. Only Voice of Jesus I'm hearing is keeping me alive, and that voice might have just achieved its goals.

There's still two years ahead to prepare the crusade, and it's likely that one of my sons will fight and hopefully win it. Which son? None of them are very impressive, and I'd rather nominate one of my nephews but that's unfortunately not possible. It might be my last decision.

Also a fun fact - asking for a crusade gives me -100 with the Pope for 40 years. Seriously? Fortunately the Pope and me are both very old and sick men, so it will be up to our successors to sort this out.

Eastern Roman Empire got destroyed by a civil war, and I'd be surprised if it got resurrected

There are strong Orthodox rulers like Georgia and Kievan Rus, but they're too far.

Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Armenian minors are all too weak individually. At least they're at no risk of any major invasion, with Seljuk and Fatimid power broken, Catholics too busy, and hordes too far away.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 06: 1104-1112: New Capital in Arles

I had a lot of bastards, most passed as cuckold's children, but a few I acknowledged, and used to arrange more alliances. Unfortunately this backfired as my allies kings of France and Aquitaine started fighting and I was forced to choose sides. At least it doesn't make literally everyone on the map hate you like in Total War games.

I started hearing voices of Jesus, and received a gift of speaking in tongues. Unfortunately nobody could understand what I'm saying, and this really interfered with state diplomacy. -20 diplomacy from a single modifier is crazy.

Finally in 1109 I had brief moment of peace, which I used to move my capital of kingdom of Arles from county of Basel to castel Arles in Provence. Ancestral batory of Habsburg has been long given away, as coastal or near coastal holdings are far superior. New capital is far behind in technology behind Basel, but it's really for the better.

I finally connected my Burgundian and Carinthian holdings.

I somehow managed to switch from seniority to primogeniture with my kingdom without even making my vassals hate me. Strange. Seniority is defensively the strongest succession type, as any losses get magically reassembled, and with small dynasty (29 living members, 1 king, 5 dukes, 2 counts) it's not too bad, but once our dynasty grows it will be really horrible, with collection of distant cousins in their 70s like it's US elections.

Peasant rebellion of nearly 10k erupted in my lands, even defeating Kaiser's first army, but I just watched it from my castle until it went away.

Kaiser tried to enforce peace again, and I managed to just barely squeeze a victory over duke of Corsica and Modena, cleaning up my borders considerably.

Egypt was doing great, even captured Mecca, but then ran out of money, leading to "Swiss Invasion of Arabia" by their Swiss mercenaries. I did not expect this phrase ever. The Swiss Invasion failed.

Catholic faith was really strong - Pope would just excommunicate someone like king of France, and then various rulers would rush to follow Pope's orders and depose him.

I became Grand Magus of the Hermetic Order and wrote Magnum Opus on Transformative Alchemy. Then I noticed that I can only have bonuses from 4 books max, it used to be unlimited a few patches ago.

I'm not going to rush independence just yet, but it's definitely something to consider. Especially if I could get a few fellow vassals to do it with me, and got some foreign support. Or maybe if I could get the Kaiser excommunicated.

Egypt, Sicily, Denmark, and Georgia got really strong.

Next crusade due 1117, if it targets Maghreb, it will be the end of organized Muslim resistance this side of Jerusalem, but the Pope might do something dumb like target Bengal.

That -20 diplomacy penalty is really annoying, it would be 20 otherwise. There's mtth of 10 years for it to go away, at this age I doubt I'll survive that long.

If I'm not too busy I plan to join the crusade. If I somehow manage to save some money and get crusade rewards for a total of about 15k, I can use it for Builder bloodline. That's a longshot for sure.

Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 05: 1096-1104: Coronation

I removed all the peace checks from coronation decision and events.

I spent all the money I had on the most lavish ceremony possible, invited kings of other Catholic realms, and gave big donation to the church to get Pope to travel from Rome to crown me. It only makes sense to legitimize rebirth of kingdom of Arles, previously ruled by Karlings and Welfs, but defunct since death of Rudolf III Welf in 1032.

This and my participation in the First Crusade solidified my friendship with Pope Victor III, who asked me to do something about duchy of Milan, which was currently held by a sinful kinslayer sodomite. Duke had strong armies and was married to daughter of grand mayor of Ancona.

Fortunately my prestige as a crowned king let me arrange marriages for my children and siblings into families of dukes of Bavaria, Tuscany, Saxony, and Lower Lorraine, and kingdoms of Lotharingia and Castille.

Still, between them they had enough troops to challenge the Kaiser - duke of Milan 5k, and grand mayor merced up to 8k, against my 10k total and another 10k of my allies. Fortunately they split their troops.

Emperorship kept switching with 3 different houses taking it after Salians, but Salian son of emperor Heinrich declared himself king of Franconia - 4th kingdom within the HRE after Bohemia, Lotharingia, and my Arles.

New Kaiser somehow decided to press my vassal's claim to county of Zagreb.

I became HRE's Steward. Kaiser wanted my support to pass some laws, and I agreed in exchange for a sizeable gift. While I was fighting minor war for Styria Kaiser called for enforced realm peace, but someone else called in their favor to cancel that idea.

I made my half-brother my spymaster, and he tried to murder me twice. In retrospect I shouldn't have been surprised. I threw him into prison, but a few good times with his wife and I softened up and released him.

Shia caliph exiled to deep Abyssinia successfully defeated its king and forced the kingdom to be abolished, and then tried to reclaim Egypt in a jihad. It failed just as Sunni jihad before it. Christian Egypt might very well be the most powerful kingdom in the world right now. Unfortunately its king Errand the Sword of Jesus de Normandie took religion too seriously, is celibate, so his Crusader Bloodline might very well die with him.

I thought that would be the end of Egypt's troubles, but the Orthodox Roman Emperor, under pretence of some tiny Orthodox minority (literally 1 province with 1 holding) living in Egypt, declared Religious Liberation war on Egypt. I did not see that coming. It's apparently some rare event only CB, and you can use it even between religions that can't holy war each other.

I had to send help to Egypt, even if it was really minor. We crushed the Orthodox Emperor, and then king of Egypt continued the crusade by taking Jerusalem from the Shia Caliph. This wasn't any epic fight, just a minor border skirmish, and Jerusalem was free form infidel oppression.

I had one more Christian duty - king of Castille, father of my sister's husband, was fighting infidels for Toledo. What's that even, uncle-in-law?

There's a lot of fighting between Catholics and infidels in Iberia and minor islands, but it wouldn't surprise me if second crusade irrevocably broke Muslim power.

Crusades have been unusually successful and we're only just beginning

Kingdom of Arles is growing slightly bigger every time.

Electors was to make my vassal duke of Styria next Kaiser, so I'd lose that, but it's really no big deal.