Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 19: 1120-1134: One China

I still had 40% of China to liberate, two pretenders to overthrow, and Mongols to push back into the steppe.

Foreign rules kept sending me commanders, eunuchs, physicians, and artifacts. It was honestly unbearable span, and it was tedious to even check their stats - mostly mediocre. A few sent me some gold and that was the best tribute.

Some even asked to be my tributary. Because of that county in Greece my vassal accidentally inherited, I even got some tributaries in Greece. Now one might argue that's an argument to turn on diplomatic interaction range in game rules, but that causes more problems than it solves.

Damn Buddhist king of Maynila I installed went Hindu. Barbarians of Mindanao, after endless tries, finally managed to win their independence from the Inca menace.

Somehow a Sunni revolt took Java from the Incas, even though there shouldn't really be any Sunnis there in the first place.

I had a chance to use kingdom-level CB against Song at cost of 5000 prestige and 1000 karma, but really I'm not sure it was worth it, as now I'm stuck with a vassal king.

I got so crazy good at assassinating people it was like playing with 1 year truce timers.

I was one county away from eliminating the last pretender to Chinese throne, when my vassal grabbed his title and took his lands there. Fortunately that just meant one extra war, and all the claimants were gone. And with that, China was 96% mine.

There were still 7 counties held by Mongols, 1 county by a duke who'd love to be my vassal, but he'd need to be at peace first, and 1 county by my cousin who somehow became a duke under Japanese king. All not worth prolonging campaign for.

I never actually had a war against Greater Pegu republic, but it kept shedding land to independence factions, and I usually managed to convince those rulers to join me instead with minor bribery. This way I even got Borobudur Temple on Java. At current rate they won't have anything beyond their capital in 100 years.

I'm plotting to kill grand master of Assassins as I'm next in line, but that might take a while. This plot is why I didn't kill the next Mongol khagan to reset truce timer and got those land few counties.

Vassals mostly like me, at least there aren't any serious factions, and if there were, I'd crush them.

Incas are barely hanging on. Mongols are doing a bit better, and even managed to win some battles against me, but really, they can't face unified China.

And with that I'll end the campaign. I think that's about all I wanted to do with Tianxia mod.

I'm not sure if I'll come back to CK2, as I played thousands of hours of this game, and CK3 has been out for a while, and supposedly it's decent. And there are so many other games to try.

More powerful than any historical China ever was, and with ridiculously good personal traits.

From this point on I could do easy world conquest (or at least India, Tibet, and Japan conquest) using vassal king claimants, but this is rather tedious and not very challenging.

Buddhism is very difficult to spread due to very low religious authority (unless you play in India and go on a holy site conquering spree), but we did pretty well.

Monk society was definitely helpful - and I only really used it because Buddhists don't have far superior Hermetics (or Satanists, or Warriors, or anything except Monks).

Culture spread in CK2 is really slow, but Shan culture spread to a lot of random places including my  Chinese capital on far North edge of this map

Meanwhile in Europe it's a huge Catholic vs Sunni war. Catholics got Egypt and Jerusalem, but Sunnis managed to sold onto Spain. Latin Empire was huge for a while, but got kicked back to just North Italy.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 18: 1110-1120: Emperor Niran of Dai China

First there was my puppet emperor's Mongol war I needed to finish, and all the usual busywork of succession.

I was bored with monk society, and interestingly there was a Shia character in my court somehow, so I joined the Assassins and became secretly Shia.

As part of initiation, they made me kill my uncle, which I was totally fine with.

Somehow I inherited a duchy in Japan, which makes some sense as there's some degree of intermarriage ongoing, a duchy on India's borders, which also makes sense as it's family connection, and also a county in Greece, which is completely baffling. Exclave independence game rule will make them independent on succession, so I don't really need to care.

I found out a way to deal with the Incas - they had vassal king of Maynila, and I found a claimant whose claim I pressed - making Maynila independent, and Inca Empire shrunk by a third.

I controlled 50% of China, so it was really time to decide - become claimant emperor to China, or get my own empire.

The main downside of becoming emperor of China is annoying government type which does not allow revoking infidels, and removes holy wars - not like I had that many as Buddhist, but I had them against Incas.

But in the end I declared myself emperor of China in 1115 as it was my only chance to experience mod's content for it. I chose Dai as my imperial name.

This unlocked decent CBs inside China - I got duchy CBs almost for free, and for ridiculous price of 1000 karma and 5000 prestige I could even get a kingdom CB, sometimes.

And Assassins gave me modest murder plot chance bonus, so I could reset those truce timers more easily.

There were no special events, but by 1120 I got enough China to be able to declare myself real emperor of all de jure China. It was a bit premature, as I only controlled about 60% of it, but with truces being reset by assassinations so often.

And I got my first flavor event right away, some distant ruler sent me a commander as tribute, except that commander wasn't much good, so I gave him to my vassal. Still, it's a start.

Assassins also have very little flavor so far, just endless "assassinate this guy" missions, and some plotting bonuses as reward. It's totally all right for power level, but less interesting than I hoped for.

North China is still not pacified

Mongols and Incas are still not destroyed

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 17: 1101-1110: Maharaja Niran II the Bean Counter

I setup second Japanese king, kicking out Mongolian Mongols out of Japan. This inspired one of my puppet "Chinese Emperor" of Song to start the long work of liberating North China from Mongol oppression.

The Umayyad Qin Emperor who's not my puppet had the same idea, and then a son of my puppet emperor. Their first war against the Mongols went really well, second failed miserably, and the third I'm fighting for them.

I also got into some fights against the Incas, but while many people died on both sides, little land changed hands.

And then while my troops were fighting the Mongols, I died at age of 70.

New maharaja of Guangxi is his grandson Niran II, 28 year old Shan Buddhist like his ancestors. 13/15/27/10/20, Midas Touched, Kshatriya, Shrewd, Craven, Honest, Chaste, Ambitious, Paranoid, Stressed. These are good stats, but fairly bad traits for someone who needs to live long and have a lot of children.

At coronation, Niran II controls 45% of China not even counting his tributaries, so it seems sillier and sillier to not pronounce himself an Emperor, either of China, or of a new empire.

Incas and Mongols were major focus of last decade of Niran's life, but actually opportunistic fights against minors were how he got the most new territory.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 16: 1087-1101: Battle for Sumatra

There were still some Chinese Empire claimants left - Wu and Song, as well as Korean Qin which used to claim the Dragon Throne, but then went African Pagan, which is apparently too much for the racist Chinese people.

I let them play their silly games in exchange for some gold. My tributaries were stretching from straits of Malaya to Korea.

But why stop there? My Japanese nephew with 30k troops declared invasion on me, which reminded me of Mongol occupation of Japan, so I found a Japanese regional kingdom claimant, and declared war on Mongols on part of Japan that was under Mongol rule for now. It's really chaos over there with two Mongol khagans, and multiple vassal and independent Japanese feudal rulers, maybe they'll liberate themselves someday with my occasional help.

I felt unusually generous with my nephew and even gave him a county after I crushed his silly invasion. He died of leprosy soon anyway. What a sad life.

Incas occupied everything East of Sumatra except Temple of Borobudur itself, so I extended my protection to parts of Sumatra to stop them, and then I holy warred one duchy on West Java.

Unfortunately Inca CBs can teleport across multiple duchies, and they CBed and conquered some minors on Central Sumatra, even though it's a very long walk. So the idea of containment failed.

I had to fight another war on Sumatra against them just to defend my tributary - on paper I had more troops, but tributary was just 2 counties, so they could quickly assault and 100% that war unless I split my armies to defend both counties, and with jungles and rivers everywhere it was hard to get a good battle, overall quite an awkward fight.

Somehow Umayyads from Spain - Han culture, Taoist dynasty, but still Sayyid - got installed on one of Chinese pretender kingdoms by faction demand. That's crazy. Also annoying as that breaks tributary relation I had with previous dynasty.

I took one coastal duchy from the Umayyads all the way across Mongols - maybe I should begin pushing Mongols back into the steppe? The blue Mongolian Mongols that is, I'm actually on good terms with purple Japanese Mongols. It's all quite complicated.

I also started building Grand University in my capital - it's a shame that a realm as big as mine has no Great Works.

The Mongols and the Incas might have lost their event troops, but they still have regular troops, and all their broken CBs. I really ought to eradicate them both, but with my CBs being duchy at time, I don't really see how.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 15: 1073-1087: New Royal Capital

The Republic of Greater Pegu came back under my family's rule, but we didn't want to fight each other again. We got into some silly fights anyway, as our allied and tributary minors fought, but we both just pretended to get involved, and didn't have any real battles.

And later my family lost it again. They have such obscene amount of wealth, they could bribe the electors so much they'd elect a baby or even a woman, but they're clearly too incompetent or too stingy to do so.

I controlled 39/230 counties of China - and rapidly growing from there, and I could have definitely declared myself Emperor of China, like so many others (currently Han, Chu, Song, and Zhou), but it was really premature. For now I was just opportunistically grabbing coastal land to connect my realm into one nice coastline with good font on the map.

Three highest technology cities were Pegu (my capital before character switch), Hangzhou (in East China), and Lavapura (my capital since character switch).

As Hangzhou was just on my borders, I needed to conquer it for myself, and move my capital there. Having capital that far North and on the border is not great, as it's exposed to every Mongol raider and every enemy army, and it even got sieged a few times and sacked once, but it will get better once I conquer some lands around it.

I struggled a lot with cruelty, and the monk society very much did not appreciate that, but I finally got over it. Meanwhile I became a possessed lunatic while on a pilgrimage, but apparently monks have no problem with that. I really need to reach the top rank so monks give me the magic power of insta-converting infidel provinces.

After decade of casual fighting, I nearly connected my lands - only one duchy is slightly disconnected with Greater Pegu's county between us. That's close enough.

Proclaiming myself Emperor of China is increasingly tempting, but there are other things I could do instead. It would definitely help if I understood mod's "Mandate of Heaven" system to know if I should.

I'm also very annoyed that infidels hold 4/5 of our holy sites, but going for India from here would be such an enormous detour. Destroying the Incas is also tempting.

Japan is a really chaotic story, many local kings, Mongol Emperor, second Mongol Emperor, and Korean Qin Emperor all fighting for control, it just keeps breaking down and reforming. 

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 14: 1068-1073: Independence League

The wife I had was some lowly relative of a court. Soon after I became a king she had an accident - and somehow I was blamed for it. I married my distant relative instead.

I helped my cousin fight the Incas a bit when they were passing through my lands, but he was mostly doing fine, and ended up destroying what few event troops Incas had left.

I was busy with a much more important problem - vassal rebellion.

In what should be an impossible event, somehow my house lost elections for Republic of Greater Pegu. Somehow from geniuses of greatness known all over the world, our patrician and candidate was imbred incapable lunatic, 0/7/0/1/10.

Well, it was time to end this, so I joined independence league. Somehow directly declaring independence is not possible in merchant republics.

Unfortunately my cousin as faction leader was leading the fight, and I just provided troops. Getting independence from my cousin would be hard, but House Gao did not have income or retinue of House Mookjai, so this was a shockingly easy fight.

In addition to kingdom of Guanxi, a few other duchies and counties became independent of Greater Pegu. It's still 4th biggest realm in the world, and I'm only 7th.

While I'd prefer if the republic went back under our dynasty, I feel no ill will against them - my plan is to conquer China after all.

Sunan won the elections, and then lost half the republic

Guangxi is still in 6 pieces, but that can be fixed

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 13: 1064-1068: Wang Niran of the Guangxi Kingdom

There was a war I was in the middle of losing as I sent my troops to fight the Incas. Once I got my troops there, it was an easy win, but I caught Camp Fever, and at this age it was likely to be fatal.

Fortunately my court physician treated me enough to give me a few more years - and that was my oldest daughter. She did not want to marry anyone, and preferred life devoted to the faith, so I gave her a temple duchy taken from the Hindu infidels. Unfortunately the heathen peasants she tried to enlighten murdered her. The Buddhist faith is not doing too well.

Mongols of Mongolia attacked Mongols of Japan and won. As both titles had different inheritance laws, I sent bags of gold up there, to help that inheritance happen earlier. The more Mongols fight each other, then less they'll bother us. Japanese Mongols instantly got into trouble with both peasants and their Japanese vassals. Hopefully their whole horde falls apart.

My lands were still in 9 disconnected parts. It wasn't quite that bad as it was mostly coastline with small gaps, but I started a few fights to reduce the border gore. Without good CBs and with very scattered land it's going to take very long time.

Inca Emperor was depressed after losing his first invasion, and at first he focused on conquering remaining pagan minors on the Southern Islands. Then he died, and his baby son attacked us again for Java. Damn, I did not recover from the previous war yet.

I couldn't even join the war, I was dealing with my unruly vassals, and in the end I died of camp fever. The Second Inca Invasion so far has been a stalemate, but our troops reinforce while theirs don't, so it seems unlikely that they could win, even without my help. Incas have only 40k event troops left, and Mongols just 12k, so I'm not really too worried.

Wang Aroon was succeeded by his son Niran with an Arab concubine. Niran, 18, is a Grey Eminence, Genius, Patient, Envious, Temperate, Just, Cruel, and Possessed. At 18/13/22/21/16, he's a very formidable character. Buddhists get ambitions to reject their bad traits, so he'll probably get even better.

It was a pretty smooth succession. As usual, if I can pick my successor, I pick youngest adult son, as I don't like a 45 year old inheriting and only ruling for a few years.

The Guangxi Kingdom consists of 5 bigger areas and 3 random counties. I'd like it to cover the whole coastline from Malaya to Korea.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 12: 1056-1064: The Inca Invasion

My wife not only lost her war, but got imprisoned, and deprived of even a county. I couldn't even ask to bail her out. Well, I still have a few concubines, so I guess I'll spend time with them instead.

The Inca Emperor got even more troops, and continued subjugating minor islands.

Meanwhile 5 different independent Inca armies invaded Mongol-occupied Japan. They all got obliterated.

After the Mongol khagan died, his different relatives inherited Japanese and mainland parts of his realm. The Mongol ruler who inherited Japan settled down as its feudal ruler, and instantly got into trouble with the locals. And then the two khagans started fighting, so their event troops are dying in droves.

I got a super rare ability to wage holy war on Hindu queen of Champa - normally Buddhists cannot do that, but she's a known Satan Worshiper, and that unlocks everyone's holy wars. First time ever. I targeted Hindu holy site at Angkor, to reduce their religious authority from 69% to 56%.

Angkor didn't even stay as my vassal - the cousin to whom I granted it died of smallpox, and another cousin, direct vassal of Greater Pegu as duke of Aceh, got it instead. It doesn't even matter, what I need is the coastline connecting my capital to China.

Well, the time has come. Inca with their 153k troops attacked my cousin with merely 45k. The cousin was an idiot. Instead of spending his 80k gold on hiring every possible mercenary, he only hired two companies.

I didn't expect to win, but I joined with my 15k to kill as many of the infidels as possible. At first it went really poorly, so I went almost bankrupt hiring just one mercenary company.

We won about 21 battles, lost 7. They sacked most of my cousin's demesne, but after we turned the tide, my cousin even occupied their poorly fortified home island.

Of their 149k starting event troops, they were left with just 51k. Plus about 30k troops they can raise locally. So not quite obliterated, but drastically weakened.

Nobody joined us. It was just my cousin and me, each doing about half the fighting, even though he had twice as many troops as I did.

Almost the darkest times. The Incas sieged Pegu's heartlands (they'd get a few more provinces), and kept winning most battles. There were too many of them to get any advantageous fights, they'd just reinforce with more troops.

I didn't think we'd win, but I was going to kill as many as I can, and kept unsieging what they took to prolong the war.

I had very limited mobility, as the Incas were swarming, and it took forever for my ships to sail between two coasts around the Malay Peninsula. Kra Isthmus Canal would be great. It's actually narrower than in Panama.

My cousin didn't believe in my prolonged war strategy, and sent half his army to the capital of Inca invasion force. The whole war was for those two counties in the middle of Java, but that's where the last Buddhist we hold is - the Borobudur temple.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 11: 1052-1056: Empress Huilang of the Wu

Turns out I was confused by the Shanwei Empire name. Han Emperor inherited Tang Empire, but he was a tributary of Shanwei in spite of being much more powerful, so it's still Han Empire, just looks like Shanwei on the map. Now that clears it.

Despite my best hopes, Han Empire got wrecked by the Mongols practically without any resistance, even though they weren't outnumbered by that much, 60k to 40k or so total.

I was wondering when the Mongols would settle down, as nomads generally do at certain size, but the answer is never - they are specifically hardcoded to never use this decision. Well, if their event troops die, then their settled vassals are likely to rebel, so that will get rid of them, hopefully, someday.

As Mongol-Han War was over, I resumed my wife's claim war. After some more trouble, my wife, now proclaiming herself Wu Empress, got what's left of Tang.

Not like it did her much good, she was hit by independence revolt, claimant faction revolt, and foreign invasions pretty much immediately, and my forces were all spent just getting her on the throne in the first place. There should seriously be some truce timer with factions for this, otherwise every pressed claimant instantly loses their throne most of the time.

The only good news was that we had a child. Unfortunately that child was a daughter, so nothing will come out of this whole misadventure.

With everything going wrong in China, the Incas landed on island just East of Java, threatening the only Buddhist Holy Site we still had.

In principle my cousin grand mayor Chanarong "the Silver Blood" Mookjai has enough silver and gold and other shiny thing to hire every mercenary between Japan and Constantinople and push Incas back into the great sea, but will he?

Meanwhile I neglected missionary work, so I have a lot of angry infidel vassals, who can see my depleted army and are plotting to rebel.

For a brief moment it seemed like maybe she'd have a few years of calm to have a son, build some support among her vassals, and for my armies to recover so I can help. None of that happened, and she was cursed with a useless girl.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 10: 1040-1052: Almost Emperor of China

As I finally passed religious conformity laws, I could revoke 8 Chinese Taoist counts, as well as assortment of mayors and temple holders, to get the realm to spiritual peace. Well, they could also just convert, but only one of them agreed to that.

Missionaries were spreading the true faith there as well, just as they successfully converted my Hindu peasants in the South before. With far too much effort I even got to tier 4 in monk society, so I could instaconvert a province to Buddhist, currently every 3-4 years.

My chancellor kept looking for the ancestral homeland of the Shan people, and surprisingly found it in Champa of all places.

I had truce with queen of Champa, but various relatives of Vietnamese dukes were practically begging me to help them recover their lands located between Guangxi and Champa, and so I did.

Tang Emperor got wrecked by the Mongols, offering very little resistance.

I pressed my wife's claim to 2-county "Chinese Empire". Then a surprise happened - and the target inherited the whole Tang, and by some mod triggers, their two claimant empires merged, so I was actually accidentally pressing wife's claim for half of China.

That was a bit too much for me, so I called emperor of Japan into this war, but during that, Mongols invaded Japan and subjugated it all.

I got the war for China to stalemate with enough occupations to get the cap, but I couldn't get any decisive battle, as the emperor of (after far too many renames) Shanwei kept a doomstack - well, relative to what little troops I had from all the constant fighting.

I thought about hiring some mercenaries for decisive battle, but Mongols invaded Shanwei, and I really didn't want to help the Mongols, so I basically withdrew and left the war stalled.

I'll let Mongols beat him down, then get decisive battle against his leftovers. Otherwise my wife will inherit this fight anyway. Mongols are down to just 39k event troops from starting of about 100k, but Shanwei only got 20k remaining of his 25k max - and I only 8k of my theoretical 20k max.

And if he somehow wins? Well, then I'll crush his blooded leftovers anyway. He's supported by two 10k allies in this war, so it's not totally impossible.

Well, even if my wife accidentally became Empress of North China, that wouldn't make that much difference, as she's been childless so far, and spend far more time in company of young handmaids than in my bed. But surely those unnatural rumors of what they do there can't be true?

The Mongols completely ignoring the Khitai khagan of Zubu who controls most of the steppe and going straight for heart of China. The Incas are supposedly common, maybe there will be Inca-Mongol war for Japan?

Or Incas will minmax as well and invade China through Taiwan.

Kingdom of Guangxi currently consists of awkward 8 parts along the coast, but Zhong and Champa are too weak to keep those apart for long.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 09: 1030-1040: King of Guangxi

I had gavelkind inheritance, but my third son was a total imbecile, so I really had to switch to primogeniture.

My son in law emperor of Japan dragged me into defending his Manchurian holdings against the Mongols. I had too few troops to make much difference, and even fewer ships to transport them there - even for Lavapura to Guanxi, my army had to split in half.

One independent group of Mongols was raiding all the way to South China, at least I could deal with them.

Emperor of Japan made it as painful as he could, but in the end he had no chance of stopping their hordes.

My wife died so I married my niece, who's claimant to remnants of Wu Empire, now renamed Han. It was of course pointless claim, it's 2 counties with no future, even if once that was a strong regional state.

My father started construction of Great Lighthouse of Pegu, third great work in the realm. He died of old age, with my uncle becoming the new Grand Prince, also very powerful and competent ruler. My cousin who'd be next in line - maybe not so much.

Buddhism suffered major blows as Pala dynasty which held two of its holy sites lost them both to Hindu heathens. To counter this a bit, I sponsored missionary work in South China, and found a claimant to Cambodia, converted him, and split the Champa-Cambodia double kingdom by force.

Unfortunately queen of Champa managed to sack my capital, and take hostage a lot of my family, so after the war I had to pay her a lot of gold to get them released. Claimant's Cambodia fell apart a bit, with some vassals winning independence. Either way, I got rid of strong hostile country.

Finally, taking one county at a time (except for one holy war for Hainan, as it was somehow still Pagan) I got 13/24 counties of Guanxi, and proclaimed myself a king.

Backup plan of going for Guangdong also went quite well, with 8/19 done.

And it was quite close. Initial chaos of that region is pretty much over, and Chu and Song Emperors mostly swiped everything I didn't. Normally AI is slow at that, but they have duchy level CBs and I only had county level CBs.

Now I'll at least have duchy level CBs for the rest of Guangxi against Chu. It shouldn't be too much work to get second crown of Guangdong as well, and then de jure that against Song.

I'm also heir to my half-brother, and then I'd get crown of Lavo, and then I'd be able to get some of my uncle's vassals under me.

So far having those two disconnected parts has been awkward, I'm not sure if I should let Lavo go, or try to connect them - crushing Champa-Cambodia was definitely helpful step towards connection, but it would still be a huge project.

Meanwhile Catholics are doing a lot better than expected - Latin Empire is strong, crusade for Egypt succeeded, and most recent Jihad for Sicily collapsed.

This time Mongols don't waste time going West against Khitan and Cuman hordes. They defeated Tang and Yamato already, and are invading Tang the second time already.

Qin went Pagan, so lost their claim to China, but I manually let them keep their name, as mod would call them with e_dyn_random_numbers.

China is currently getting divided into Mongol, Tang, Song, Chu, and Guangxi parts, with remaining areas shrinking fast, but that could change fairly quickly.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 08: 1018-1030: Raja Aroon Mookjai of Lavapura

When my father granted me and my brother some land conquered from the infidels to manage, we were also given Chinese imperial princesses as wives.

It turns out what we got was not exactly top tier marriages - my wife's family lost all their land by now, and my brother's wife's family only had 3 counties left. This just shows that feudal rulers would agree to give their daughters to sons of merchant princes only in great desperation. Pala King of Bengal, cousin of my father, and with shared interest in defending the true faith and no border conflicts, would refuse even as little as a non-aggression pact in spite of their perfect personal relations.

On the other hand, as soon as I became a feudal character, Emperor of Japan agreed to marry my daughter. What a silly discrimination.

I joined the monk society presided by my father, but monks refused to get me beyond novice status due to my alleged cruelty.

For some baffling reason, my brother's duchy was released as a tributary state.

I was pretty much locked out from every direction, so I sent my chancellor to South China to maybe figure out how things are going on there. I hoped him to find evidence that Guangxi was long lost homeland of the Shan people over which we should rule again. That somehow didn't work out, but I found a count whose county was currently occupied by illegal pretenders, and who asked for my help.

After gaining foothold in China, it was much easier to expand, even if only one county at a time. The Guangxi (Chinese coast just after Vietnam) and Guangdong (next one along the coast) areas were all completely fragmented.

I got to 8 counties split between those two kingdoms before I got truces with everyone there. The goal is to obviously become the king of one or the other.

I also wouldn't mind connecting my holdings in Lavapura and China by crushing the infidel Champa and barbarian Zhou, but that might be a bit too ambitious.

Filthy heathen maharaja of Champa challenged me to a duel, based on some baseless rumors not worth repeating. It was my first duel ever, but with divine guidance, his life ended there.

Meanwhile the Mongol Empire showed up and invaded portion of Tang China. The Incas are supposedly still coming.

My holdings in duchy of Lavapura (west of Champa) and 8 counties in South China outlined. It's a bit border gore, but as Buddhist duke I have very limited CBs.

Politically, Tang used to dominate North China before Mongols showed up and took Hebei.

By my count there are 8 claimants currently - Tang, Zhao, Chu, and Song have strong realms in China and real hope for eventually uniting the region.

Qin in Korea and Zhou in Vietnam are really foreign kingdoms with fake claims for sake of prestige, but they have some real power.

Ming recently showed up in South China, trying to race me for local dominance.

And then there's my nephew's Wu in East China of 3 counties, too small to even see, and really king of Liangzhe's puppet. It's unclear why king of Liangzhe won't proclaim his own claim.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 07: 1008-1018: Emperor of Greater Pegu

Thanks to my high rank in the monk society, I got huge discount on constructing new temple holdings, paying only about 180 instead of the usual 480, so I mass built Buddhist temples in every province without one (except for tribal, and 2-holding provinces, and such).

All that temple construction made Buddhist 100% authority religion, which is really hard since we have no religious head, and only 3/5 holy sites, so our natural authority is just 50% excluding temporary events.

Things were going well, but there was a big thorn in my side, constant pirate raids:

• Thai Hindu pirates, under Khmers, tributary of Sailendra Empire
• Sumatran Hindu pirates, under Khmers, tributary of Sailendra Empire
• Sumatran Pagan pirates, tributary of Sailendra Empire
• Java Hindu pirates, tributary of Sailendra Empire

Notice something in common here? I tried my best to be a good neighbour, but Sailendra Empire responded with just this treachery, and they never accepted our control over West Sumatra and Borobudur Temple, and so they needed to be destroyed.

Once they got destroyed, and pirates mostly subjugated, I noticed I only missed 2 counties to go empire tier, so I went North to fight some Mongol Pagans for them. I didn't even notice that they awkwardly had 10k event troops, but they charged right into my armies into mountains like they're crazy crazy, so that did them no good.

At this point I pretty much achieved what I wanted, so normally they wouldn't be much point continuing. However, I'm actually going to switch to one of feudal dukes from my family.

I have 7 choices:

• son Aroon, duke of Lavapura (current Thailand), 18 year old, 11/18/23/8/15, married to Chinese pretender princess
• son Kiet, duke of Phetchaburi (current Thailand), 20 year old, 11/14/15/11/19, married to Chinese pretender princess
• son Som, count of 2 counties in duchy of Maura Enim (Central Sumatra), 17 year old, 7/11/13/9/14, he can conquer himself rest of his duchy with ease, it's just last 2 pagan counts
• brother Som, duke of Aceh (North Sumatra), 27 year old, 15/16/11/11/12
• uncle Sunan, duke of Padang (West Sumatra), 31 year ord, 17/11/3/13/13
• cousin Kamol, duke of Karinci (Central Sumatra), 15 year old, 9/11/10/7/16
• cousin Vanida, duchess of Bhamo (North-West end of my realm), 14 year old, 4/4/4/5/9, betrothed to my nephew

There's still 2 sons and 1 uncle in the capital ready to take the republic if anything happened to me, after bribing themselves election victory.

I think of those Aroon would be the most obvious choice.

Oh and the Incas are coming, and if I let AI control Greater Pegu, it might very well get overran, not to mention the title lost to other patrician houses, so whoever I'll end up playing as will face huge challenge soon.

Buddhism is doing decently, but not amazingly. Strangely West India is overwhelmingly Hindu not Muslim this time; while most of India is Jain or Buddhist.

Greater Pegu isn't really facing any threats right now, and it's filthy rich.

I wonder how well the Incas would do here against AI. They'd probably struggle to conquer the mainland, but Java would be really difficult to defend, and Sumatra would likely eventually fall as well. But who knows really, I only saw them once, and the situation is so different this time.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 06: 991-1008: Collapse of the Khmer Empire

Succession went really well, vassals were all weirdly happy about it.

Buddhish faith was doing great as well. We recovered 3 out of 5 holy sites. Pagans on West Sumatra were being converted or subjugated one by one.

But there was still huge thorn in my side - Hindu Khmer Empire to my East dominating the region. I invited two nephews of the emperor, who both gladly accepted the true faith in exchange for my support.

There was just a small problem that the infidels had more troops than I did. I thought their emperor would be slow to defend his country, as he was involved in the eternal Chinese Civil War, but he somehow did the right thing and focused on me. However as his levies and mercenaries followed separated ways, I dealt with each separately, and that was his undoing.

The Khmer Emperor I installed got himself into a civil war almost right away. I intervened against the rebels and seized some coastline that was de jure mine, but then rebels won anyway, and another infidel got the throne. Oh well, can't win every time. Soon Khmer Empire pretty much collapsed between rebels and Champa invasion, and Sailendra Emperor took the leftovers as his tributary state.

As a good Buddhist I joined the monastic society, donated generously to charity (considering my wealth, it didn't cost me much), went on pilgrimages and so on. None of that relic stealing nonsense my grandfather was falsely accused of. I became quite zealous because of it. After I advanced in ranks, I gained power to instantly convert any province in my realm to true religion, about every two years, at minor cost of angering peasants a bit. We'll finally teach those Hindu peasants the truth.

I also gradually consolidated my control over Western Sumatra coast. What started as a few scattered trade posts turned into 20% of de jure Southern Islands Empire coming under my control. I don't have any specific plans for major expansion there, but Pagan and Hindu pirates raiding my coastline are sure annoying and things might escalate. Also it's very possible for the Incas to come here someday.

As I predicted my yearly income is about 2500, and my stat total went from 95 to 137.

Meanwhile the Catholic Crusade outright targetted the Orthodox Roman Empire, angering the Pope. I know it's been in the game for a while now, but I haven't ever seen this. What they got was tiny, but remnants of the Orthodox Empire shattered.

In China Civil War, Tang Empire is very far ahead of every competing claimants, but simultaneously it's very far from actually winning, only controlling North-East China.

Orthodox Roman Empire was quite big, now it's shattered into each duke for himself

My position is really strong, but as I'm just a merchant prince, diplomacy is really hard. Even my cousin Pala king of Bengal refuses to agree to an alliance.

I would really love to have strong Buddhist allies in every direction, but feudal rules look down on me, even though I'm stronger and far richer than they are.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 05: 979-991: Prince Mayor Kiet II

After playing a merchant republic for a while, I realized base game is really lacking here. There's supposed to be 5 families competing against each other, but you literally cannot do anything to each other except plot to kill the whole family tree. So I added some mod I used before that added at least plot to seize each other's trade posts.

It was time to advance the Buddhist faith, and for that I declared a claimant war for Borobudur on Java, against queen of Java that was barely holding together.

As that ungrateful Hindu barbarian wouldn't convert to Buddhism even though I pressed his claim, I gave my concubine (too old to have any more children) and court priest the holy site and its whole county instead. It's not quite the same as having Pope as a lover, but it's the closest thing I can do as a Buddhist. I setup similar retirement in a temple for another of my concubines.

Inspired by my example, Pala 2-king of Bengal declared war on Pratihara 6-king of basically whole West India, to get duchy with holy site of Varanasi. As he was married to my daughter - and that was really hard to arrange - he called me into this fight. I was much weaker than either of them, but together our armies had easy victory. Unfortunately the Pala king would not replace Hindu priests there, so it was in contested state.

After that I got to military organization 4, which means no more defensive pagan attrition, so I went on conquering spree, leading troops personally again, and almost dying of scurvy.

Not like I had much longer to live, my last act as a prince mayor was leading troops against peasant rebels.

I hated my son, so I bribed people to vote my grandson into office. Kiet II is 15/15/27/15/23 Midas Touched, Quick, Just, Erudite, Ambitious, Chaste, Kind, and Diligent. Basically a perfect ruler. And I can likely increase that by another 20 points in a decade.

He's even perfectly married to my daughter Tasanee, perhaps a little less impressive 5/6/16/3/10 (they come from different concubines, so they're not even that related).

His other grandfather is king of Annam who proclaimed himself Zhou Emperor of China, but his realm really turned into a Khmer puppet. It's currently ruled by his fairly distant cousin.

His regular cousin is the Pala king of Bengal. In spite of his grandfather best efforts, there are currently no links with Sailendra Empire to the South or Khmer Empire to the East.

This is a ridiculously good second character, especially considering I have no access to Hermetics, almost no artifacts, no stats bonuses from great works etc.

One big failure of my first ruler was failure to fix bad laws and abolish council, so I get almost no vassal levies. Decent taxes I guess, but my income comes primarily from my trade anyway.

I don't think it's even possible to connect North and South Mookjai trade zones. That province in the middle with route bifurcating has port on the wrong side.

Next two yellow provinces along the route are part of my South Mookjai trade zone, the map mode is just confusing.

That bad map design costs me like 20% of trade income.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 04: 962-979: Republic of Bad Luck

My first goals now are to get filthy rich, and to pass laws to reduce council's powers, as every former tribal starts with 7 council powers (over laws, wars, granting titles, revoking titles, imprisonment, execition, and banishment).

4 competing merchant families emerged, each trying to compete for doge elections, but they wouldn't have patience to wait for my death, were plotting, and got themselves thrown into oubliette. And it was crazy how many accidents their families were suffering from. No idea where this bad luck comes from, I obviously had nothing to do with it.

A more interesting question is - is there any way for me to seize their trade posts other than my eradicating their whole house and then rolling 1 in 4 chance to get it redistributed to me?

One downside of going merchant I forgot about was that suddenly various kings of Chinese pretender emperors started considering my family too lowborn to intermarry with.

I fought some nearby pagans to improve Buddhist religious authority, but it wasn't anything serious. The realm being divided between coastal Pegu and highland Shan, barely connected by a narrow passage was constantly a problem, so I started conquering minor Buddhist rulers around that narrow passage.

Now that I had sufficient money, I started restoration work on Shwedagon Pagoda in Dagon.

I was getting richer and richer, but there was still far to go. So I thought - what would be my medium term goals?

• make huge trade zone for my family, from Bay of Bengal to Sumatra, getting hopefully 2000 gold a year
• improve Buddhist authority - currently we only control 1/5 holy sites, and 3 are hopelessly West, but I could maybe liberate one in Java from the Hindus
• so island hop through Pagan tribal islands to get closer to Java and Buddhist holy site there
• somehow destroy the Hindu Khmer Empire, even though it's crazy strong right now, and even has pretender Chinese Emperor as a tributary
• maybe crush Da Yining, as I had plausible path to empire of Burma, but I only had 31/51 counties, and they had most of the rest

And so far it's going decently:

• I got to 950 income
• island hopping got 4 islands, mostly not doing it faster, as each of them is primitive tribal county which needs tons of money to be of much use
• even got one county on Sumatra (last Muslim county there - rest were taken by the Khmers) - so Muslim threat is gone
• and Da Yining kingdom collapsed completely with fairly minimal involvement by me - I just took one county from the rebels while in was in civil war, but apparently everyone else had similar idea, joined the pileup, and that kingdom is no more
• I even found a claimant to county of Pajang which contains great work Borobudur and second Buddhist holy site - and queen of Java is getting wrecked by multiple wars so hard it should be no problem
• and somehow it's been a while since I last had any raiders - I guess Pagan eradication is having effects
• unfortunately council still holds 6/7 powers, the only one I managed to take from them was granting titles

I had excess sons, and as merchant republic all adult relative men in court take ridiculously generous salaries, so I got rid of two of them by granting them some lands. Merchant republic succession works really weird, so they're basically completely out of succession order.

Borders are as clean as they ever get, with nice big font

I'm expanding through island chain West of Sumatra. To my East are two empires I don't like - Khmers are the worst as Hindus. Salendra Empire are Buddhists, but they thing those tiny islands I liberated should be theirs instead

Trade map is confusing, as it shows Silk Road trade routes and merchant family trade zones together

But basically I'm stuck with tiny trade zone as Vangz blocks me from the West, and Nungz from the South, even after their many previous owners had terrible accidents

I'm building second trade zone way to the South, but my income would drastically increase if I could only connect them

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 03: 959-962: Prince Mayor of the Pegu Republic

I had a long todo list:

• get duchy of Pegu (-30 with all vassals if I do)
• get county of Pegu (-15 with all vassals if I do)
• get city in county of Pegu (-15 with all vassals if I do)
• make that city primary holding in the county
• gain 1000 prestige to get CB on duke of Thaton
• conquer duke of Thaton to get majority of de jure kingdom of Pegu
• create kingdom of Pegu
• make that kingdom my primary title
• get peace so I can move my capital
• move my capital to historical capital of Pegu (no other moves allowed for very long time)
• form merchant republic

Helpfully as I was fighting nearby pagans to gain prestige, duke of Pegu decided to plot against me, then rebelled when I tried to imprison him, so that covered first two points without any penalties, as well as got my 1000 prestige.

Unfortunately a filthy Hindu inherited Thaton, so I lost my vassalization CB. So instead I got a Buddhist claimant, granted him land I got from pagans, and pressed his claim. So that ended up working even better.

I tried spying on the mayor, but it was hopeless, so I just took that -15 penalty. They'll all get over it. And with that, I could create my merchant republic! The first one ever on the Indian Ocean.

Going from a landlocked Sanamahist tribal count at 16 to Buddhist king-tier prince mayor at 41 was quite a journey, but we're just getting started!

Meanwhile, my grandson became Pala king of Bengal, but my daughter / his mother got captured by some barbarians, so that part of my family is not doing great.

It would have been easier to become merchant republic as a tribal islander, and both easier and more funny as a Mongol horde.

Now that the tribe settled down, there's nothing that could possibly go wrong, we'll just trade with everyone, and be all peaceful, right?

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 02: 947-959: Maharaja of Shen

The whole South-East Asia (the area East of India and South of China) is split about evenly between Buddhist and Hindus, with pockets of various Pagans.

Buddhists have only one society - some kind of monks - and it's of course awful compared with every other society, but since I had no other choice, I joined them. I wasn't very good at this, and ended up stealing one of the bones of Buddha, and murdering one of the monks who caught me. It turns out I didn't murder all the people who saw, so they kicked me out.

King of Bengal who made us go Buddhist passed away, and the throne passed to his son - betrothed to my daughter. I ended up forming a lot of marriage alliances with Buddhist rulers around me, but I couldn't really cash in on that.

As a Buddhist, I just didn't really have any good CBs. There was a 6k tribal Sanamahist rebellion in the Da Yining kingdom to the North, I guess those guys really want those CBs. They managed to win themselves a 3 county realm.

I really wanted to get myself a coastal city, but the only way I could see involved creating two kingdoms - kingdom of Pegu to get proper coastal capital county, and first some early kingdom to get necessary vassalization CB - and best I could do was shitty 3-duchy kingdom of Shan. Back when I was pagan, my plan was to get much better 6-duchy kingdom of Ava through ambition to become king, which gives me good CBs, but non-pagans don't get that.

First problem was that as a tribal, I was really too damn poor, so I forced some neighbours to pay me tribute, but really it wasn't much.

In the meantime I also had to fight a lot of peasant rebels, and joined Bengal's many wars to gain some prestige, personally leading troops in battle for some prestige, and also because my stats are ridiculously good for such early game (+20% movement speed, +20% leading center, 21 martial, 82 personal combat skill).

I finally became king of Shan in 957, which got me good CBs, at very steep cost of 1000 prestige each. I could only afford one so far, so I declared vassalization war for Pegu, against my rival (former ally; all due to all that relic stealing business).

In this fight I even captured a Great Work - Shwedagon Pagoda, but it needs 480 gold for restoration work before it's useful, and I don't have anywhere near that kind of money.

Now being a Maharaja of Shen is absolutely not where I'm going with this long term.

My Moojkai kingdom, which if things go right, will become a merchant republic.

The easy way of just going feudal seems a lot less interesting.

Tianxia Hsenwi: Part 01: 936-947: Chief Kiet Mookjai of Hsenwi

My two Tianxia campaigns so far required a tons of mid-game modding, but I want to do one that will just work. So I'm playing as a regular pagan, Shen culture Sanamahist 3-count tribal chief of Hsenwi and 2 other counties. Hsenwi is still there as a 2 province minor in 1444 in EU4.

Playing at half sized demesne was mostly fine, but it really forced not having council, as without that +2 demesne size from abolishing council, demesne is really too tiny, and vassals rebel all the time. So I'm back to full sized demesne, except I removed that +2 bonus, so it's about 3/4 of regular demesne. And now I can actually play with the council if I somehow wanted (but I probably won't).

The character is Kiet Mookjai, Strong, Ugly, Stubborn, Skilled Tactician, 4/13/7/6/4.

My Sanamahist religion has 22 counties and 0 moral authority, so it will be fun. Or I'll switch to Buddhist or something if I have to (real Sanamahists were forced to go Hindu).

I was originally planning the extremely longshot campaign of reforming Sanamahist religion - getting 3 holy sites, going from 0% to 75% moral authority and so on. Multigenerational project, all while unable to get out of tribal, as unreformed pagan.

I start as tribal completely surrounded by non-tribals, mostly of wrong religion. I somehow convinced a Chinese duke to give me his daughter for a wife, and this wedding was the biggest event in Hsenwi history so far.

There really was no way to go to any real war, so I've been raiding my feudal neighbours, and after a while, once his lands has been too devastated by raiding to be able to levy any troops, I invaded his territory. A king to the North tried to side with him as his tributary overlord, but he was too busy with vassal rebellion to do anything.

I tried to do that again, but Sale king of Ava saw those devastated lands, and went in first. This way of waging war is fine for a small tribe, but it takes years of raids, and by the time you weaken your target, someone else might move in instead, and it was all for naught. Except gold you looted, you sure get to keep that.

Now that I was upgraded from a common Chief to a High Chief, I could arrange a better marriages for my daughters - and I tried my best to get such marriage alliance with Pala king of Bengal, even though it took a lot of convincing.

After two successful neighbour subjugations, and some successful daughter marriages, I declared war to abolish kingdom of Ava, and called duke of Lien (who was a constant thorn in my side in previous campaign) and king of Bengal into this war. King of Ava was also fighting his own vassals. King of Bengal would sure prefer not to have a competing kingdom on his borders, and duke of Lien could use a break from Chinese Civil Warception (he was defending his pretender to the throne from some revolts) for something more manageable.

Unfortunately king of Bengal turned out to be too busy in another war and never sent his troops over, and duke of Lien died of old age, so his troops after helping a bit went back home. No I mostly had to win this war against Ava myself. Personally leading the troops, as my skills as a leader are crazy good.

It turns out king of Bengal had ulterior motives in this fight, and sent Buddhist missionaries to my realm, whom I couldn't just throw out without risking our alliance. So while it was all really bad for my prestige, we all converted, from High Chief down to the lowly peasant.

I'm not sure where to go from there. I could try to become a feudal king, but I'm also tempted to start a merchant republic in Pegu or so.

Meanwhile thanks to my easier decisions to proclaim yourself emperor of China from previous campaign, here's been like 10 claimants:

• Zhou - in Vietnam (by my decision) - Khmer Empire already made them a tributary
• Qin - in Korea (by my decision)
• Cheng - East China (by my decision)
• Wu - East China
• Han - South China
• Chu - Central China
• Shu - West China
• Tang - North China
• Jin - North China, dead now
• Liao - Khitan horde, not declared yet, but they have special decision, so they sure will
• Jurchens - that's less likely, but mod also gives them a special decision, it's just very hard to do

Well, events forced this, so we're Buddhists now

There's only one remaining Samahanist ruler - tribal vassal high chief under Da Yining to my West. Weirdly same Mookjai dynastic name with a different shield, I guess Shan dynasty name pool is very small, so it could happen by random.

Tianxia China: Part 17: 1089-1094: I'm Emperor of China Now

Mongols managed to conquer their small piece of China, at great cost.

My distant cousin, overthrown Khmer Emperor, managed to escape imprisonment by the traitors, and ran to my court. I declared war to restore his rule, but I have my doubts if he'll be able to keep it. And soon enough he faced another revolt. I can't keep helping him forever.

With Jin beig so battered, by cousin was proclaimed the one true emperor of all China, which renamed the dynasty to Zhao. I think the mod does far too many such renames. This also messed up de jure tree of China. A much dumber thing happened, and game gave all my daughters "Chinese Princess (unmarried) - This woman is a member of the extended Chinese Imperial Family and cannot marry normally". They also cannot inherit, so my inheritance switched to my grandson. This is sort of intended to emulate the "request imperial princess" China interactions, but she's 5 steps removed from the Emperor. Honestly this mod is coded so terribly, I don't know why don't I just keep the map and throw away the rest. Well maybe because the map is also glitched, especially naval stuff. I really don't want to talk shit about fellow modders, but you really need to scale your ambitions to match your ability, as bugged features are a lot less fun than not having those features in the first place.

I needed to disable this, or it would wreck every single character in my dynasty. There's actually a game rule about it, but it's explained really poorly. So my daughter is back to being my heir.

Mongols laughed at his claim, and declared war on a piece of coast that was technically under my rule. Well, here's your test cousin, if you can defeat the horde, then you might be a real Chinese Emperor. And he really didn't, I had to send my own troops to defend China. Then my cousin died, leaving throne to a baby.

Since I was the one defending China, and baby cannot be a real emperor, many vassals agreed that I should be the emperor instead.

As if by sign from Gods that I was doing the right thing, a new doctor finally cured my cancer.

War for China was easy. The problem was that winning completely messed up my demesne laws, and instead of my carefully thought out laws, there's trash AI usually sets up, and it will take literally 120 years to fix it. I'm actually not completely sure how laws merge between titles, but if I simply got independent, and proclaimed myself emperor of China, then I'd definitely keep the good laws, and that would take a lot less than 120 years to do for sure.

Mongols, due to all the losses I inflicted upon them, soon faced independence revolt, which is definitely winning. Inca Emperor faced big independence revolt, which is also definitely winning. Both are over as a real threat.

And with this it's great time to end it, since there's really nothing that could stop me now.

Some takeaways:

• I tried playing as a vassal as an interesting change, but I really didn't have many interactions with my liege or fellow vassals
• playing the mod required constant manual fixes, it tries too much, and the result is a mess; I think it would be extra awesome if those features worked properly, but since they don't, just ship expanded map and the working stuff
• Incas were a nice surprise; both Incas and Mongols were fairly balanced - being intimidating, but not really overpowered. I think even without my involvement they'd run out of steam.
• Once again I really don't like Confucian Bureaucracy government type - not having city vassals with separate laws messes up everyone's economy; this could be corrected by tweaking vassal obligation laws (or at least which ones AI picks) and I knew about it, so my laws are sane, but it breaks AI's economics.
• After Japan and China, I guess I could try somewhere in Korea, Indonesia, and South-East Asia next - these have a lot less custom coding, so it would be just fairly regular game with fairly regular religion, just with a different map

I didn't even try to get anyone into my faction, just one person faction rebellion

I think the result in terms of laws etc. would be different if I declared war on my emperor instead of faction ultimatum, CK2 is full of quirks like that

Not only I own China (and have CB to take all of Jin in 5 wars, but really 2 and one assassination with some small tricks), my stats are ridiculous - 14/30/16/22/31. There are very few characters with even one trait 30+, nobody with multiple. Of course if I continued stacking long term bonuses, by the end of the game my heirs would have 50+ stats.