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.