Crusader Kings II Co-op Game Thread!

The Game Room
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The general term is holdings: a castle, city or temple. The title going with a holding is baron, mayor or bishop. The “top” holding is county-level and the de jure liege of the lower holdings in the county.

Generally, you get a tax penalty if you have a holding that is not a castle/barony. So give those away, to a family member, or kinsman, or in the worst case by right-clicking the holding and creating a character.

Once you get over your demesne limit, give away your baronies, keep your counties. It’s okay to a little over the limit, but long term it’s a loser. Vassals will hate you, taxes will go down, revolts will happen.

The only limit on county titles held is your demesne limit. Note that with gavelkind succession, you get a significant bonus to the limit. Whether it’s worth the trouble or not depends on a lot of things.

If your highest title is a duchy, you can have as many as you like. It can sometimes be better to have many duchies than one kingdom title.

Once you become a king (or emperor), each duchy past the second gives you a -10 penalty to your vassals’ loyalties. Three or four isn’t too bad a problem, but if you’re like me, you’ll have duchies coming out your ears. I give them to my sons, my younger brothers, sisters with matrilineal marriages, and occasionally my wife or mother (if their heir is me or my heir).

There’s generally no penalty to having multiple kingdoms. Except if you are an Emperor and have an elective succession law (as is the case for the Empire of Hispania). There, you get a -15 penalty per kingdom (even the first), because your vassals think you’re trying to control the imperial election too much. This is the hard part about managing an empire.

While the country is expanding, I give out titles as they’re created and everyone is more or less happy. The hard part is when you can’t expand much–you don’t have titles to give out. I got around this slightly this game by building holdings. But once those run out, it will be harder to keep vassals happy. That’s when you’ll see duchies peel off kingdoms and kingdoms peel off empires.

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Actually, I’d prefer creating a character to giving away a holding to someone with Ambitious trait or who was not of my religion/culture. (Never give away holdings to ambitious people! It will be no end of annoyance!) The nice thing about using the “create vassal” button is that it automatically creates a character who is of your own religion/culture. Sometimes people like that can be hard to come by in your court, depending how things have been going.

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I mentioned somewhere I tend to play as a “breeder” . I always make sure I’ve a bunch of relatives. I also make sure to marry people of my own culture and religion within my demesne (or sometimes even outside) so that will be not lack of those, and to have the children of vassals with the “wrong” culture/religion educated by people with the correct one. I never use the “create vassal” button, mostly for “role playing” purpose. I feel vaguely guilty about creating a new noble when they are many deserving people at my court. Also, it cost much more to create a new noble than to invite someone at your court. But I’ve never been in a position where money is no concern because I’m running a huge empire as it’s going to be the case.

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Make sure to marry a spouse with a very high Stewardship. It helps a bit. I’m partial to Stewardship myself (in both ruler and spouse) because it means more money and more titles you can hold directly. I understand however that many players are partial to diplomacy instead, because it helps a lot with your relationships with vassals, allies, etc…

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“Create vassal” button? Where’s that?

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If you bring up a county overview page (the one that shows all of the holdings), right-click on a holding, and “Create new vassal” is one of the options. It only works if there’s not already a vassal in charge of the holding.

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1299 : First thing to do when you ascend to the throne : finding your succesor, and it’s a lot of work.

Let me introduce you to Emperor Jaime III. As you can notice he’s not a particularly talended man (and neither is the new empress). And he’s facing the daunting task of running an empire. Just looking at the number of shields is frightening. Where to begin? Moving the capital (which is now in Burgos) to a region with more holdings (Barcelona or Granada) while the technological difference still isn’t too wide and while there’s ample possibility to upgrade the local infrastructure (my father was obviously a technophobe, and didn’t implement any technological advance, apparently) seems like a good idea. After wondering for a while whether it’s worth the short-term (one reign or such) loss and which city to pick, I’m told that “I can’t change again my capital during my reign” Again? I’m yet to have begun my reign. Apparently it’s not at option anyway, so the capital will stay at Burgos for the times being. I implement a number of trechnological advances.

This being done I need a successor, in case I would find a poisonous snake in my bed the next day, so I begins to look for someone suitable. It doesn’t take long. Let me introduce you now to 21 years old Tello II, duke of Navarra, and also the son of a first cousin (no genealogy picture, the genealogy tree has become so complicated it’s barely possible to open it completely). See the difference? I immediately elect him as y successor (but not immediately realize that I must hold choose him as successor to the various crowns I hold : Portugal, Aragon and Castille. Surely, my vassals will realize how wise this choice is, and his absurdly good talent for diplomacy will do the rest? Of course, they won’t. Did I mention they all hate me as much as it’s humanely possible? They will choose en masse the duke of Aragon, much more powerful (maybe it’s the reason?) but not particularly remarkable and rather old.

My candidate will be readily accepted for the crowns of Portugal, Castille and Aragon, though, which would mean a major split of the empire upon my death. After hoping for a change for some months, I grudingly have to follow the lead and choose the duke of Aragon as successor for these three crowns, whole maintening the candidacy of Tello II for the empire. The next few years will be entirely dedicated to internal politics, specifically to get Tello II on the throne.

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Second thing to do when you ascend to the throne : getting rid of your titles.

Part one : Counties

I have 13 county titles and can manage only 9, which means that my vassals hate me (-40). I have to get rid of some. And I can’t just drop them unto my successor, since as you know, it’s not yet established who he will be, and for all I know might never be. I try to select the less developed counties but at the same time to keep consistent blocks of territory. Finally, I decide to abandon the titles of Denia, Plasencia and, reluctantly because it’s the cradle of our family, Urgell.

I must then choose the new counts (no way I’m giving anything to someone who currently holds even a mere barony). I decide to pick family members (despite having some concerns about all the inbreeding that is already taking place), who are unlikely to inherit something else (good luck making sense of the genealogy tree), who like me (note that they will begin to hate me as soon as they will become count anyway), and who are vaguely competent (no caveat here, but the last of my concerns). It’s not like I’m lacking relatives, so I can find people who fit all the criteria.

And then I discover this gem : some random courtier and probably remote cousin is heir to the kingdom of Burgundy (and an assortment of duchies and counties). Note that one of my half-brothers is heir to the crown of Wales too, but this was intended by my father. Gomez will become count of Urgell (I mistakenly believe at this point that the crow authority is high, but even when I realize it is not(*), the risk of losing Urgell to Burgundy, seems worth the prize of getting Burgundy to Urgell. Gomez and the old queen being each other heirs). I make sure to find him a wife so that he will produce little Jimenezes as heirs as soon as possible.

The two other new counts aren’t particularly notable, but in order not to offend them, I will note that Hermenegildo (yes, that’s a name) will become count of Denia, and Arias count of Plasencia.
Part two : duchies

My vassals also hate me because I have too many duchies (-50) and as a result too many elector titles (-75). It’s fortunate that bad relationships can’t go lower than -100. I’m unwilling to give out duchies like candies. Especially since the smallest ones have already been granted to vassals by my predecessors. After some thought, I figure I can give away without too much risk the duchy of Badajoz (Gil Jimena will become duke) and the duchy of Valencia (Alvar Jimena) to minor counts. And I take the drastic move of simply suppressing the titles of duke of Leon and duke of Granada (neither can be recreated by a vassal) despite it meaning a big hit on my prestige and in the case of Leon, upsetting a couple counts. This will of course mean also less monthly prestige, but you can’t have your cake and eat it, can you?
Part three : kingdoms

The reduction is the number of duchies held still wasn’t enough, and despite considering various possibilities, I concluded that I couldn’t hand out or suppress any of those I still had. So, a kingdom had to go. I had inherited the kingdoms of Castille, Leon, Portugal and Arragon. I suppressed the title of king of Leon. Again a massive hit against my prestige and a couple pissed off counts (but my relation with them was beyond repair anyway), but what needs to be done needs to be done (and my successors can recreate all these titles at will).
Part four : empires…No, I’m pulling your leg : baronies

After that clean-up, my relationships with my vassals had, generally speaking, improved. But many of them had issues with me being the direct liege of baronies within their domains. For two of them, I decided that they would hate me anyway, so I wouldn’t budge. For others, who were more ambivalent, I chose to settle the issue. Depending on the case I either granted the contested barony to them, or to someone else so as to limit their power and turn their ire towards other vassals. I envisioned transferring them to my (hopeful) heir, but feared it would make some electors irritated at him and thus prevent his election. So, I transfered three baronies to vassals, and one to Tello II.

I’m sure my predecessors, upon reading this, have been plenty pleased to see how I wasted away so many titles they had fought hard to obtain. But you know what? They’re dead, and I’m in charge!
While doing all this I noticed that though France still owns Rosello, Hispania is also encroaching on her in Dax. Don’t be taken aback by the appearance of the count, we have some Norse amongst our relative. They’re mostly harmless (although I intend to fight these cultural splits by properly educating children of the nobility. There are way too many Andalusians, in particular). I don’t know who gained this county, but I was pleased to see it.

I also noted that all provinces of Hispania are Catholic, which I didn’t expect. Good job by the previous Kings and emperors Castillan culture is struggling more, however. As, I said, I intend to accelerate the process by promoting Castilan culture amongst the next generation of rulers.

(*) Two comments 1) I believe that, as a member of my family, Gomez would become my vassal as king of Burgundy even if he wasn’t landed. But not being absolutely sure, I gave him a county anyway. 2) I wasn’t aware that two things, crown authority and bishop investitures, can be different in the different kingdoms you hold. It happens to be the case here. I will have to “normalize” that at some point.

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Third thing to do when you ascend to the throne : making people happy

When I became Emperor there were some plots going onand factions organizing. Note that these are just samples. The whole lists were much longer. That couldn’t be good.

At first, I mostly asked people who had joined plots to desist, hoping it would improve their respect for me. Unfortunately, they were mostly unimportant people, and dealing with each plotter would almost be a full-time job for an Emperor. And plots are growing like mushrooms after the rain. So, you only need to take care of something else for a moment and someone “dies suspiciously”.

So, I had to rather look at each plot individually, and telling the main conspirator to abandon it. I didn’t try to figure out the intricacy of each of them. I would have had to spend all my time reading the genealogies. Anything that seemed at first glance to be intended to enlarge someone’s demesne had to disappear. Some plots between unimportant people who didn’t appear to be connected with someone important I left in order to catch some flies with honey (mostly bishops whose faithfulness is very relevant for my income) and some that targeted people I’d rather be rid off were looked on with benevolence (in fact all of those targeted the same person, the duke of Mayorca, who really was a pain)

There were also some people I had good reasons to jail, but unfortunately, all of them were well-behaving, respectful and not very powerful vassals.

That being taken care of, I began organizing fairs, hunts, feasts and of course my inauguration’s grand tournament. Most of the time, that has been quite beneficial, and I became gregarious and briefly, until some time later I found out it was too much work, diligent. An equally festive but more individual way of being loved has been making love. I’ve no much real interest in the powerful duchess Isabel of Beja, nor do I need children, but bedding her proved to be a very efficient way to keep her content and faithful.
Finally, low taxes too make people happy. Needing their support, I exempted the nobility from taxes. Burghers asking for the same treatment were received coldly, on the other hand. With most people pacified, I’ll have to reviews my policies (More taxes? Investiture of bishops? Strong state authority?) in the future.

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Fourth thing you do when you ascend to the throne : getting rid of inconvenient people.
At this point, I wasn’t facing universal hate anymore. Some lords were rather happy with my rule, even. There were also some reluctant but not unredeemable vassals, in which cases a diplomatic mission carried out by the most efficient Tello II helped. But there still were some bothersome people. One was the duke of Aragon, still my heir apparent, and who commanded too much respect and was too powerful. Even though he was the main target I had in mind, he would go through these first years unscathed. The gavelkind law in his duchy will eventually solve the issue of his power, anyway.

However, for different reasons, other people wouldn’t do so well. Since I wasn’t so hated, I could expect some support for my plots, and also could assume that not every single noble would take their chance at a revolt if I were to wage war.

My first concern was my wife. Not because she was past childbearing age, since I had a completely different heir for the crown in mind, but because she had no helpful competence. Two years and a half after the beginning of my reign, she happened to be ambushed by brigands (you can note the stats of my advisers on this picture). I could now remarry. I noticed that a young duchess from Burgundy was a potential match. I hesitated a moment, but she wasn’t any more capable than my previous wife, and all things considered, I prefered a competent spouse now rather than a hypothetical Jiménez possibly inheriting a small duchy sometimes in the future (even more so since I have the hope that the whole kingdom of Burgundy will become part of Hispania soon thanks to count Gomez). So, I married a commoner, which wasn’t a very prestigious thing to do, but finally allowed me to properly manage all of my demesne.
My second concern was the rogue duke of Mayorca. he wasn’t really powerful, but his hate for me was beyond any repair, and I wanted as much faithful nobles as possible for the election. I plotted the revocation of his title and he submitted.
My third concern was the duke of Sicily (I remind readers that most of Sicily is part of the Hispanian Empire). He took upon himself, with the support of some other vassals, to conquer Reggio, in southern Italy. So far, so good. However, I’m only moderately interested interested in powerful and expanding vassals. Also, it seemed to me that the county of Palermo, that is rich enough to support up to six major holdings, was more befetting an Emperor than a Duke. I plotted his revocation, and, I would say fortunately (since if possible, I wanted the county of Palermo rather than the duchy of Sicily) he didn’t bow down. I raised all my forces (I was impressed myself), numbering about 75 000 men. When I think that my great great great great great granfather (yes, I checked) Sancho I was happy to gather 4000 men! With such an overwhelming force, there’s no point in recounting this war, except for the sideshow of the attempted landing of Sicilian forces in Hispania, where I discovered an unknown facet of my personality.
The duke of Sicily was crushed and he was stripped of his title of count of Palermo, where I immediatly began to build a new castle. He kept his duke title, but is ruling from his prison cell.

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Now my reign truly begins, even though I’m 52 already. I’m mostly accepted if not yet loved, and known as Jaime III the gentle. My main goal has been achieved, as, soon after the revocation of the dukedom of Mallorca, Tello II has been elected as heir to the crown of Hispania, and subsequently, to the crowns of Castille, Aragon and Portugal. If he actually succeeds me, it will be the first time the crown isn’t transmitted in direct line from father to son.

I needed 5 years to clear up the situation (it’s now 1304…when does the game end, by the way?). I kept building some troop producing improvements in the main holdings (Barcelona, Burgos, Porto, Granada), and spend almost a whole year simply taking care of children’s education (which included a number of bribes to convince Danish nobles or such to let their children and courtiers be mentored by Castillans) with the double goal of cultural integration and education of competent adults. Many children were mentored by adults mostly incompetent, good at nothing, and full of all sort of harmful vices, often by lack of other options, simply because there aren’t enough marriages and children for nobles or mayors to have good courtiers. So, I will next engage in a large marriage campaign. Which will include also my close relatives. I’m not sure yet if I will try to seek alliances, since I likely won’t rule very long and my heir being a remote relative, he won’t benefit from them.

Here’s a map of Europe in 1304. The Fatimid empire is strong, not engaged in any war, not decadent. France likewise. My half-sister has a claim on the kingdom of Wales but its current heir is my half-brother. So, as long as it stays this way (the king’s wife had been jailed by my father, but she was murdered there, and he took a new young wife), there’s no point in attacking it. My next target is likely to be Pisa, since I have a couple claims on it. I suspect that fabricating claims would be absurdly costly at this point (I didn’t try yet) so I don’t think it would be a promising avenue.

Three things to note on the map : Hungary is mostly in Italy, the kingdom of Burgundy, that might become part of Hispania soon is…a bit dispersed, and the Byzantine Empire took a severe beating (bottom right of the map : Greece belong to the Ilkhanate). Speaking of the Ilkhanate, I had the surprise to see that during my war against the duke of Sicily. Even though it alerted me to the fact that something was going on, I still have no clue what these Mongol troops were doing in Portugal.

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The game ends in 1453, on the date of the Ottoman Turks’ entry into Byzantium. There is a piece of software that that converts a Crusader Kings 2 file into a Europa Universalis 3 file, but I think we’d rather play a new CK2 game, at least right now.

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First time I bumped into the Mongols in this game, I was Poland, and thought I was kicking ass. I saw a stack of 10k Mongols moving around, so I figured they were pretty beefy, but, hey, so am I. So, I declared war early against them, to try and wipe them off the map. I get a stack of 15k soldiers into their territory, see a stack of 11k, attack them and smile to myself as I sip my glass of water…only to see the numbers plunge like the stock market on Black Friday. I left the battle with pretty much nothing, and I think I killed about 1200 of theirs.

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They’re tough. I’ve beaten them a couple of times, but only by fighting only when I had numerical superiority and a defensive bonus.

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Thanks for this comments, because a crusade has been called against the Mongols (more precisely against Greece), and I was precisely wondering whether or not to join it. If they’re as though as you say, maybe I will leave other kings in charge of the coming disaster.

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Mmm… High risk, high reward. A Crusade is the perfect time to strike, because you’ll have so much support. If you do try it, make sure to assassinate the Khan before you start. That’ll fragment the Mongols at best and at worst will reduce his forces by a third or more.

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1304-1305

Having thought this over, I had decided I wouldn’t waste my resources on a large war for a mere county. So, I intended to only attack the really weak if some claim appeared amongst my vassals/relatives, to search for a suitable alliance (I hoped with the Holy Roman Emperor) and to launch a holy war against the Fatimids. Pisa would wait (the ducal de jure claims aren’t going anywhere anyway) except if some opportunity presented itself.

But the holy war wouldn’t happen because as soon as I had decided that, the opportunity did present itself. What was left of the Byzantine Empire declared an Embargo war on Pisa. So, I had this followed by my own declaration of war for the county of Girgenti in Sicily.

I barely had embarked (most) of my army when the duke of Valencia revoked the title of his vassal the count of Valencia. I was a bit irritated by this coup, especially since I had made this man duke only some years ago, but though I tried to think about a way to prevent the duke from seizing this county, I couldn’t find any. especially since the duke called to war about half the nobility of Hispania.

It also turned out that there was no way to create a marital alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor or his heir. So, I had to resign myself to betroth my daughter to the heir of the kingdom of France, prince Thiebaut, instead (you can see in the background the armies of a variety of Hispanian nobles marching against the doomed count of Valencia). France would be the allied I needed for my future holy war against the Fatimids, and I wouldn’t be the Emperor who would take back Rosello :frowning: .

Talking about Rosello, I was informed that the the duchy of Luxemburg had become part of the de jure Kingdom of France. I was worried that the same thing could happen soon to Rosello, but some highly knowledgeable advisers explained to me that it can’t happen to an isolated county, only to a whole duchy.

My young half brother Mendo, heir to the Kingdom of Wales, was now old enough to be educated. I chose duke Tello II as his mentor, in part because he was one of the best mentors available, but mostly because if everything turns as planned, Mendo, king of Wales will become vassal of Tello, emperor of Hispania, and having been educated by him will certainly strengthen their relationship.

I had underestimated the military power of the Empire. I expected a long, proacted war against Pisa, since the republic owns a lot of territory, but in fact, the only complication was to ship appropriately sized armies to a variety of coastal areas. Especially since the Emperor of Byzance had already eliminated Pisa’s standing army. I avoided besieging Pisean trade posts in my territory, since I rather enjoy the the nice profits they bring in. I entrusted military command to all nobles who didn’t like me, regardless of their competence, in order to show them that I hold no grudge (only one, and a minor one at that, would die as a result of the war, though).

While my armies were sailing around, beginning sieges and so on, I began looking into this marriage issue. I brought to my court the extremely talented Menendo Menendez, a Jimenez relative who was wasting his time serving a minor Hispanian lord, made him my steward and could betroth him to another Genius. I intend to make of him a landed vassal when I’ll have an opportunity to do so. I married away everybody in my court whose presence wasn’t useful (never seen a court that empty) and began instead to search for young, celibate, and acceptably gifted women willing to join the court. It was a slow process because I simply didn’t have much time to dedicate to that (*)

Gaeta Fell on March 1305, Napoli and Butera on June, and on July, despite being a long way from being utterly defeated, Pisa surrendered, presumably in order to keep fighting her other enemy, the Emperor of Byzance. I was pleased to look at the new map of southern Italy, much prettier than before. And I still had a ducal claim on Malta, to be used in ten years, assuming I’m still alive by then. The only issue was that the Dukedom of Girgenti was now Pelayo of Sicily’s dukedom. However, he was so grateful for my support of his ducal claim that I could have him freed from the cell where he had been rotting since our last little disagreement. And this action pleased my other vassals, which is always a good thing.

Following this war, I ruled over a nice chunk of Southern Italy, in other words of the de jure kingdom of Sicily. I came to the conclusion that conquering more of it was, all things considered, a worthy goal. Especially since this king title, not coming with any electoral right in Hispania, wouldn’t bother Hispanian lords. Of course three more counties are needed so I probably won’t see this come to fruition, but I nevertheless sent my Chancellor to fabricate a claim in Brendesion.

(*) Note : I tend to limit myself when it comes to inviting existing characters to my court, because it’s too prone to abuse (to give an extreme example, you can easily gift the heir of a powerful ruler, invite him over, and marry him matrilineary with your daughter). So, I follow the general principle of only inviting over people who end up generally better off as a result, with more relaxed rules when they’re amongst my vassals).

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1306-1307
Now, I could turn my attention to this planned holy war against the Fatimids. Except that…no, I couldn’t.

The issue here was that the Queen of Burgundy already was fighting another claimant to her throne, the count of Nice, and didn’t seem to be able to handle both wars. And, remember, her heir is my vassal the count Gomez of Urgell. Ther was no way I would let her lose her throne. So, I offered to join her war against the duke of Savoy, offer that she gratefully accepted. This time, the war would be longer and more costly than expected. Not that the enemies were too powerful but navigating, feeding your armies, besieging fortresses and chasing evading armies is much more complicated in the Alps than in coastal Italy.

While I was preparing the expeditionary army, the duke of Valencia won his war and incorporated to his demesne the county of the same name. The castle of Minestra had been build in Palermo, and I immediately started the building of a new city there, wanting to ameliorate as quickly as possible this high-potential county. I also decided being temperate (like previously being diligent) required too much effort, and I gave up on that, even though it meant not being nearly as able to manage my demesne. I’m relaxing quite a lot with age. Some say way too much, but surely they’re just envious.

The count of Nice eventually surrendered in June 1306. Seeing the pitiful state of the Queen of Burgundy’s army by this point, I thought I needed to help her with the duke of Savoy and his ally the duke of Alsace too. So the ink was barely dry on the first treaty (or rather the chains barely rusted on the count of Nice’s wrists) that my troops were already moving North (has there been a precedent of Hispanian armies fighting in Germany? I couldn’t find one in the archives.)

Despite two revolts taking place in Hispania at the same time, and despite having to arrest the duke of Barcelona (one of the high lords of Hispania who still have a grudge against me), Avignon fell in October 1306, the Alsatian armies were destroyed and their castles besieged. Geneva fell too on August 1307, and the duke of Savoy surrendered soon after. I could finally have some free time organize the great hunt I had envisioned for several years. I’m not going to boast about the pack of wolves and the huge bear I fought single-handedly, of course, but the trophies are displayed in the main hall if you want to have a look at them.

The marriage between my daughter and the Dauphin of France took place on May 1307. By that time, I used my spare time to marry the dozen of young women I had attracted to my court to vassals. I say vassals, but except in one case, all married a Jimenez (I excluded some relatives because of personal flaws or simply because they weren’t of Castillan culture). I’m not sure it was the best choice, especially given there is already about 280 of us, but on the other hand, it’s possibly better than having them intermarrying as they’re doing now all the time.

The building of the city of Misilmeri was completed in Palermo on January 1308. in 19 yo Sancho Jimenez was made baron of Mistreta and 21 yo Ramiro Jimenez mayor of Misilmeri. Both were chosen because they had rather correct aptitudes, so I’d rather have them as direct vassals that I could use than serving some random Count or Baron. Now that all six holdings are created in Palermo, I will in priority develop this province economically (especially the two new holdings, in order to give their new lords the means to develop them themselves).

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During the late summer of 1307, the Pope called for a crusade against the Mongols in Greece. The king of France joined in, so there went, again, my intended holy war against the Fatimids.

The duchess of Brittany started an Independence war against the king of Wales. I might have to intervene as I did in Bourgogne to avoid the squandering of my half-brother heirloom (Wales following a primogeniture law, he would inherit everything. His little sister is second in line. Both are young kids). I think he should be able to handle the situation, but someone could take this opportunity to attack him too, so I must keep an eye on this.

My Chancellor succeeded in fabricating a claim in Brendesion. This was costly (500-600 gold and a lot of prestige) but since there’s the kingdom of Sicily on the line, it was worth it. This will be an easy and obvious target.

My main question is whether or not I should be involved in the Crusade against the Mongols. I would be some months late, but not much happened yet (although the king of France is leading the fight, and he has significantly larger armies than me). However, I really don’t have a clue about how likely a victory is against the Great Khan. And also, I want to avoid at all costs a French victory. France is already way too powerful, having apparently no issue with holding on England. I’m also not sure I want to have a common border with the Ilkhanate. I already have the Fatimids to deal with, I’d rather not risk being attacked by the Mongols or even by the Byzantines on reconquest mode. So far I’m undecided.

The ruins of the Byzantine Empire in 1308

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Assassinating the Khagan? Hmmm…Let’s see: cost 500 gold, chance of success 10%. Chance of being discovered 50%. My spymaster would improve that a bit, I assume, but a success doesn’t seem very likely.

Assuming that I can’t assassinate him, what are the odds? Besides beign really large, are Mongol armies particularly efficient?

Picture of the Khan and Khanate. Looking more closely, I notice that he had been fighting a succession crisis for the last 7 years (starting in 1300) agains 34 of his vassals but that his warscore happens to be 100% at the moment. So, assuming this war isn’t “locked” in some way due to a bug (no reason to assume so, I just find weird to look it up precisely when the warscore is 100%), I guess his armies might be exhausted, but on the other hand, he will have free hands, and probably now faithful vassals for having “crushed a major revolt”.

Any thoughts?