Nintz
King of the Britons
Yay teamwork! 
Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah - Ethiopian CK2 AAR
- Thread starter SuperBeaverInc.
- Start date
SuperBeaverInc.
Groucho
Chapter IV - Black Aswan
November 18, 901 to June 8, 916
November 18, 901 to June 8, 916
In a monumental upset, the underdog Abyssinians have defeated the mighty Kingdom of Nubia. Despite being only ten times their size, the Abyssinians managed to pull off this glorious victory and unite all of the Ethiopian under the rule of our glorious despot and/or king. And now all that stands before Abyssinian world domination is the tens of thousands of soldiers of the Abbasids and Abisalomids.
With that glorious victory out of the way, the royal family expands with a new child, Desta.
She looks suspiciously non-Ethiopian and non-European. Needless to say I'm a bit suspicious. But I'm not sure if that is just something that CK2 does when mixing Ethiopians and Europeans. There is also no Arabic men in my court, so there isn't anyone I can blame. So really the most probable answer to this is that my wife is some sort of witch.
But no time to put this hypothesis to the test. Our old friends, the Hashimids are back. They want to take Sanaa from me again.
They really tried to defeat me. And it was adorable. It was kind of like being mauled by baby bunnies.
In more exciting news, another son. He shares the complexion of his sister. My wife's witchcraft continues. Maybe if I'm lucky I can convince her to use her witchcraft to grant my armies the ability to not take forever to get anywhere.
The war with the Hashimids still continues. Their armies are crushed. Then something bad happens.
Oh no.
The Abbasids took out the Hashimids. Luckily I'm still only at war with the now vassalized Hashimids, and not the Abbasids themselves. At this point, I estimate that I can only field about half the number of soldiers as the Abbasids can. At best. And its only a matter of time at this point.
While King Anbasa had a habit of sticking people onto poles, King Degna II Djan has taken a slightly different route. Gardening.
Sure, it might not seem as intimidating as impalement, but my enemies will tremble in fear of my perfectly grown roses.
Another child of witchcraft emerges. This one is also a genius. Clearly my wife's powers are growing. I must get her to work on that Abbasid plague immediately.
While I await the inevitable Abbasid doomstacks, to the north an opportunity presents itself. The Abisalomids are fighting the Ummayads. With their entire army marching to the other side of Africa, now is a perfect opportunity to strike quickly. And by quickly, I of course mean at a snail's pace as it takes several months for all of my forces to assemble in Egypt. Blitzkrieg is not an Ethiopian specialty.
By the time the Abisalomids show up, Aswan is fully occupied and I'm able to force a peace treaty. Which is good, as there were 18,000 soldiers in Quattara heading to attack me. Aswan is now in Ethiopian hands, and we are one step closer to conquering Egypt.
To celebrate, I decide to kill an Abbasid Caliph.
Everything goes according to plan, and there are no negative consequences for me...
SuperBeaverInc.
Groucho
If you camp at the Horn, they'll get a canal debuff while you get a mountain buff. That's really the only way I see this maybe working out.
If I had some awesome generals with unyielding and defensive traits, that might work. But at present I believe my best general is my king...
The war is also for the duchy of Sanaa, so they don't even have to cross into Africa if they don't want to. They could just besiege and camp out letting war score climb if they so desired.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
Ooooh this is getting interesting. Goodluck with the war!
SuperBeaverInc.
Groucho
Chapter V - The Good, the Fat, and the Ugly
June 8, 916 to September 4, 923
June 8, 916 to September 4, 923
While loading the game I noticed that King Degna Djan II had earned himself a nickname.
OH COME ON!
Fine, whatever, I have a war to fight. As the levies, mercenaries, and retinues assemble in Yemen to prepare for the oncoming Abbasid forces, my heir, Degna Djan turns 16. He turns out pretty good, though his skill trait is only at the third level. Luckily with the martial traits it is possible to increase them through combat experience, so he should hit at least 21 martial skill eventually.
And since things always have a tendency to get worse, the Abisalomids decide that now is a perfect time to break our truce and declare war on me to take back Aswan. And naturally the AI doesn't get the prestige penalty for breaking a truce that I would get. Aswan is a lost cause, as there is no way I can fight off both the Abbasids and Abisalomids, so I plan on ignoring that front and letting them take it.
The first battle of the war with the Abbasids takes place in Dhamar, in the province of Sanaa. 12.8k Abbasids attack 13.7k Abbysinians who had taken up defensive positions in the mountains.
Yellow star is the site of the battle, with arrows being movement, green star being Abbysinian positions after the battle and the red star being the Abbasids position afterwards. After defeating the Abbasid attack, a group of Abbasid reinforcements was spotted moving across the desert heading towards Sanaa. At this point the Abyssinians withdrew back across the strait to Tadjoura in an effort to take up better defensive positions.
Since I was already at war with two of my neighbours, the third one decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to go for a clean sweep. That one ruler in Oman whose name I can't be bothered to learn declares war. Since they are completely unimportant and weak, no real point in worrying about them. They can be dealt with once the Abbasids are taken care of.
With the Abbasids regrouping in Asir, the decision was made to continue retreating into Ethiopia itself. The expectation was that the Abbasid armies would pursue the Abyssinians instead of sieging Yemen. As it turns out, that is exactly what they did. The Abyssinian army set out from Tadjoura and headed to the capital, Gondar, then turned south to Matamma. The Abbasids followed closely behind and crossed over into Tadjoura and onto Gondar.
At this point I used maneuvering to my advantage. A small Abbasid army had begun to besiege Sanaa, while the stack that chased me into Ethiopia had started to suffer attrition losses, and decided to retreat rather than attack my army.. Despite being farther into Ethiopia, by doubling back from Matamma through Antalo rather than Gondar they were able to beat the Abbasids to Tadjoura, securing control of the crossing and seperating the two armies before they could meet up and pose a bigger threat.
The Battle of Sanaa was fairly trivial, with the Abbasid army led by the Caliph heavily outnumbered and defeated. Once the Abyssinians had crossed over from Africa, the Abbasids who had been cut off headed back to attack the Abyssinians who were now defending Sanaa.
After a triumphant victory at the Second Battle of Sanaa, the Abbasid soldiers retreated north to Asir. Since they only number 3.8k the Abyssinians gave pursuit, culminating in the Battle of Kamaran.
This victory was enough to achieve 100% war score, and thus the Abyssinians were triumphant. In the peace treaty the Abbasids paid 936 gold, while King Degna II Djan gained 200 piety and 100 prestige.
King Degna II Djan was sure to give Caliph Al-Muwaffak II a nice thank you card in exchange for all this gold. He even had it hand delivered by a very trustworthy individual...
I didn't actually intend to kill him, since this now means the truce is gone. But I typically always have a plot to kill the Caliph going, and it just so happened to fire right after I won the war.
With the Abbasids defeated, and the something-or-other dynasty quickly taken care of, I need to focus on the home front. As while I was taking care of the war, this happened:
Rebels had sprung up all over the place and managed to besiege several provinces. With all of my forces now freed up, it was a simple matter of rounding up the rebel armies and completely destroying them.
To celebrate the defeat of the rebels, my second son reached the age of 16. He takes after his father in that he is pretty bad. Assuming of course that he is actually my son.
The aftermath of all of this is that I am now short one duchy, but otherwise still intact.
Leonel
Breakfast Connoisseur
There must be war! God wills it!
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
At least your second son can fight.
SuperBeaverInc.
Groucho
Chapter VI - Alexandrian History X
September 4, 923 to March 17, 938
September 4, 923 to March 17, 938
After a break of a couple of weeks while I dealt with exams, I've finally got time to continue on. To start, I'll just show what my constant Caliph assassinations and the instability I've caused has led to. The Byzantines have taken full advantage and are now encroaching on the Holy Land. They have managed to take both the duchies of Syria and Aleppo. They have also managed to show a shocking amount of competent rulership for an AI in that they have had very few civil wars.
Meanwhile, the Duke of Yemen has taken the opportunity to expand his realm and taken the county of Asir from the Abbasids. On one hand this is worrying, since it now gives the Abbasids even more reason to attack me, not that they really needed much convincing to begin with. On the other hand, it creates a very nice buffer between the Abbasids and Yemen, as they will have to take Asir before they can holy war Yemen.
My eldest son and heir is into his twenties now, and has started requesting a wife. The Abyssinian kingdom is getting pretty big now, so I want to get him a little help on the diplomatic front. He already has the genius trait, so his stats are pretty good, but a higher state diplomacy stat wouldn't hurt. To that end, he is married to Margherita Hucbaldi. Her stewardship isn't great, but none of the other candidates had much better.
Since nothing else much happened, they had time to produce a son, who they unsurprisingly named Degna Djan. At this rate by the time I reach the end of the game I might end up with Degna Djan XX.
Finally something exciting happens. Aside from weddings and childbirth. The Abisalomids are having a civil war. And being invaded by the Abbasids. I naturally don't want to miss out on all of the fun, so I immediately declare a holy war for Aswan and a holy war against the Tulunids, who formerly ruled Egypt, for Alexandria.
Just in time for the war, my youngest son, Aman, turns 16. He turns out just as well as my oldest son, with 19 martial skill and the flanker trait. Since all of his stats are around where my current heir is, I won't be nominating him as my heir under my elective monarchy. But this is CK2, so it is always a good idea to have a spare.
The Abyssinian forces led by Prince Degna Djan and the leaders of the two Ethiopian mercenary companies, who both have martial skills in the mid-20s, engage the Tulunid army in Fustat, the Abisalomid capital. With two thousand more men, flat ground, and a combined martial skill of 68 on my army, it really isn't much of a fight, and the Tulunids are easily defeated at the Battle of Helwan.
After chasing down the remainder of the Tulunid forces and besieging Gizeh, the Tulunids are defeated. As it happens, they are also the leaders of the current Abisalomid civil war. So since I'm such a nice guy, I do them a favour and annex the Duchy of Alexandria. Now they only have to fight a two front war.
By this point the Abbasids, who are attacking for Sinai, have ground down the Abisalomid forces, leaving little resistance to the Abyssinians to occupying Fustat and holdings in Aswan.
The only sizeable encounter of the war was the Battle of Semna. After the victory over the Tulunids, all vassal armies were dismissed to allow the reinforcements that had replenished while the campaign was ongoing to be called upon to reassemble in Nubia. 6,000 mercenaries and retinue forces waited there for the about 4,500 reinforcements to meet up. They managed to arrive only a few days after the remainder of the Abisalomid forces attacked hoping to defeat the mercenaries.
This plan clearly didn't work out well for them. With their army broken and their capital occupied, it didn't take long for them to come begging for peace.
Alexandria, a Miaphysite holy site is now back in proper hands. The Duchy of Alexandria was given to the Coptic Pope, who is now a vassal of the Kingdom of Abyssinia. That should totally score King Degna II Djen some Jesus Points.
With it now 938, this the current situation. Things took a sudden turn for the better, as I was expecting this to be a very boring update. Abyssinia now reaches the Mediterranean and the city of Alexandria. If I can gain control of one more duchy within Egypt, I can usurp the Kingdom of Egypt, and then create the Abyssinian Empire.
Since it was two weeks without an update, I think I might do a small update a tomorrow (or tonight if a few people actually comment) just doing an oveview of what the rest of the world looks like.
Leonel
Breakfast Connoisseur
Conquer those last bits of bright lime green now and poise yourself to reclaim the Holy Land in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! God wills it!
SuperBeaverInc.
Groucho
Alexandria gives 3.8k and Aswan gives 3.6k, for a total of 7.4k.
SuperBeaverInc.
Groucho
Chapter VII - Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blob
March 17, 938
March 17, 938
Time for a round up of the goings on in the world that is this particular game of Crusader Kings 2. As you probably expected, the AI has managed to make a complete mess of almost everything.
We start in Africa. While playing I haven't actually been paying attention to developments outside of the Middle East and East Africa. So needless to say, I was quite shocked when I started looking around and realized what exactly I had been up against in the Abisalomids.
They have painted everything east of Egypt green with the exception of two counties in Mali. On the plus side, this means that by the time they can get all of their soldiers to a battle front in Egypt I could potentially have more or less won the war.
Up into Spain, and the Umayyads have imploded. The Kingdom of Asturias has taken full advantage of this, and started swallowing up large chunks of land.
In Britain, the Vikings have almost completely taken over. Almost all of the independent realms here are Norse Vikings. A couple of Catholic rulers are holding out in Wales and Ireland, but they are probably on borrowed time at this point.
Karling Europe, after 70 years of squabbling between them has led to a fractured Germany. And an Italy with its capital in France for some reason. The Karlings still hold onto the Kingdoms of Lotharingia, East Francia, Aquitaine, and Bavaria. The de Cantabria family of Asturias has taken control of France, while the Bosonids have formed Burgundy. Italy is held by the Hucbaldi family, a member of which is married to my heir. A fact I did not realize when I arranged the marriage. The current King of Burgundy is also married to the Queen of Asturias, so that just complicates things more.
Scandinavia is a bit messy. There are two Svipjods, as they are currently fighting a civil war. Denmark randomly owns a large chunk of Norway/Sweden, and Norway has yet to be united. For some reason Scotland conquered a province in Latvia. I don't know how the Swedes managed to get their hands on a province in Karelia, as nothing surrounding it is part of the realm.
In the east, the Prussians have started blobbing in the Baltics, and Poland has unified. The Kingdom of Rus was formed by some Suomenusko Mordvins. Hungary has blobbed all over the place. The Yagbuids from Kazakhstan own a bunch of land in eastern Ukraine for reasons that I can't figure out. And Perms gonna Perm.
Finally in the Balkans, the Byzantines are basically absorbing everything they can get their hands on. They have been working their way up Italy and into Croatia, and occasionally fighting wars against Bulgaria. They have demonstrated remarkably stability for a large AI realm.
SuperBeaverInc.
Groucho
You should see how they are doing in the other game I have going right now. They managed to successfully press their heir's claim to the throne for the Kingdom of Italy. So they now control all of Italy except Rome itself. It is theoretically possible at this point for an AI formed Roman Empire.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
Oh Europe, you're so crazy.
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This is fantastic, subscribed.
SuperBeaverInc.
Groucho
Chapter VIII - Pirates of the Cairobbean
March 17, 938 to January 19, 952
We begin with the sad news that King Degna II Djan, known by some as "The Fat" has passed away. All of his title pass to his son, King Degna III Djan. Luckily he does not inherit the name "The Fat".
King Degna III Djan's reign starts off very well. Seeing the weakness in the Abbasids and Abisalomids, the Abyssinians stike quickly. Without even facing an enemy army victories are scored in two wars. First the Abyssinians seize Sinai from the Abbasids while they are distracted by a Byzantine invasion of Baghdad. Second, taking advantage of an Abisalomid civil war in west Africa, the armies of the King immediately turn around and attack Cairo.
After a couple of non noteworthy sons, a good contender for heir emerges. Hakim is strong, which should hopefully make him a good commander in the future. And if not then there were plenty of male children captured in the last two wars that can maybe be trained to be proper Ethiopians.
Naturally, the Abbasids are unhappy with losing the Sinai. They declare war, because that just seems to be a thing they enjoy doing to me.
The first battle occurs in Clysma, east of Cairo. Because they are inept, they decide to attack a larger army than themselves with superior leaders. Lucky for them, I don't get any defensive bonuses, what with Egypt being a desert and all. 21.1k Ethiopians vs 17.8k Abbasids leads to a pretty predictable result.
With that victory it is time to go on the offensive. The Abbasids again attack, but this time against an Ethiopian army waiting in the mountains. The Battle of Gaza turns into a bit of a bloodbath, with the Abbasids suffering significantly higher casualties thanks to several thousand Ethiopian soldiers arriving after the battle had commenced.
At this point I decide to demonstrate to the AI my superiority, by doing something that it can't comprehend the significance of. King Degna III Djan leads his army on a march to Jerusalem, and successfully captures it. For no real reason than to demonstrate to the Abbasids that I could.
Prince Degna Djan turns 16, and becomes a pretty good military leader. Who becomes heir will depend on how his younger brothers turn out.
This flurry of activity was followed by a large lull in activity. King Degna III Djan becomes "The Wise", which is a signficant improvement over "The Fat". The Abisalomids are constantly in a state of civil war in Mali, so usurping the titles I need to get from them is not possible.
But luckily a different opportunity presents itself. The Abbasids decide that they want to subjugate Persia, ruled by the Saffarids. This presents a perfect opportunity to invade Ascalon. Like in the earlier wars, there is once again no combat as the Abbasid forces are busy getting slaughtered in the mountains of Persia. A quick victory follows, and the Byzantines subsequently invade Galilee. The Abbasids days are quickly becoming numbered.
The Abisalomids finally get themselves together, allowing for the Duchy of Cairo and Kingdom of Egypt to be usurped. This is the final step needed in order to create the Empire of Abyssinia.
So now the Empire of Abyssinia has risen, and moved it's capital to Cairo. A quick invasion of the Duchy of Diametta was also launched. Because the Abisalomids only had one king level title, the entire country broke. Every duchy within the former kingdom is now independent, leaving all of Africa up for grabs. We also seem to be in a bit of a race against the Byzantines to get Jerusalem, so that is going to be a top priority in the future. Also, we are a pleasant mauve colour now.
