"I suppose having all the lords of England rise up at once and utterly crush your dynasty out of existence inspires a need to restart," Eddy murmured as Crusader Kings 2 started.
"Yeah," Leon agreed. "For my part, I'm not the invincible king of France I thought I was."
"At least there will be more in the game this time," Luna put in. "Sorry that happened, but you really need to keep your anger in check. Executing people without cause is grounds for being dethroned, having your titles revoked, and then being killed yourself, as happened."
"I managed to catch and execute three of the rebelling dukes before I went down."
"But that didn't change the result. You were defeated, had the kingship taken, and then, when you escaped and launched a faction revolt - without an heir - the one who took over as king killed you, incurring some small tyranny himself, but making you lose the game."
"Oh well. Fresh start. Who are you going to be, Leon?"
"Venice. More money, more mercs."
"Yeah, but you're not going to be in charge all the time."
"What do I care? And if you get enough trade posts and build enough cities, you can take in so much money that your dynasty can be perpetual rulers anyway."
"I guess. Me, I'm going to go for Scotland this time. We're doing the 700's start this time, right?"
"Yes," Luna answered. "More challenge, especially for non-pagans."
"Who else is joining?"
"Shining Armor and Rainbow Dash."
"Any special rules you want everyone to follow?" Eddy asked.
"Hmm. What rules would you put in yourselves?"
"Everyone else had to be my vassal," Ed answered.
"Unacceptable. You knew I wouldn't accept that."
"It was a nice try, though.
"What about ruler ranks?" Leon asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Like, shouldn't we be prohibited from being the Byzantine Emperor or something? Because that would be kind of easy."
"Oh, indeed. I'll think about it, but you're right."
"Sorry I'm late," Shining said, joining them. "What did I miss?"
"Nothing all that important. We were discussing how this restart should be set up."
"Right, who's here and when do we begin?" Rainbow asked, coming onto the channel.
"That's everyone," Luna said. "Good."
"Any rules?" Shining asked.
"We were just discussing a few. I might forbid anyone to start with an Empire-rank title, for instance, on the basis that's that would just be giving them victory on a platter."
"Yep," Rainbow said.
"Leon and Edward had their own... rules," Luna said carefully. "But enough. We need to select, or create, characters."
"I say we each make our own, as a rule," Rainbow suggested.
"Not a bad notion, but it will take some time."
The pegasus thought about it, then replied, "I can handle it."
"Good. Everyone select a character to redesign. Anyone king on downwards is acceptable."
Leon selected the Venetian Doge and began remodeling him.
"Name; Luigi. Dynasty... Di Lecce. Culture; Italian. Religion; Catholic."
It took a bit longer to redesign the dynasty flag, but in the end he set up something with a green stripe down the left side, a white down the middle, and a red one on the right.
"Italy before Italians," he whispered to himself. And it was partly true; the Kingdom of Italy started out as the Kingdom of Lombardy, with the dominant culture being the Lombards. But not entirely, for Italian culture did exist, most eminently in Venice itself.
Leon chose Midas Touched for his education, then selected a number of traits. Negative ones took years away from his character's age, while positive ones added on. He took Wounded, Deceitful, Lisp, Legitimized Bastard, and Harelip. In exchange, he put in Kind, Just, and Temperate.
"Married; yes. Sons; one."
He sighed as he finished and waited for the others to be done as well.
"Done," Luna said. "Ruler of West Francia."
"Me too," Eddy said. "King of Pictland, warrior extraordinaire."
"Count of Gotland," Rainbow replied.
"Khan of Magyar," Shining answered.
"Me too," Leon said. "Doge Luigi, of Venice."
"I'd say we're all ready to start. I'd like to add a couple more rules before we start though."
"Yes?"
"One; no scheming to kill anyone that isn't an adult."
"Yeah, okay," Leon said, nodding."
"Two; no executing another player's character if you capture them."
"Aw, blast," Eddy mumbled.
"Three; no taking another player's last holding on the map. You can reduce them to the rank of count, but that's all."
Rainbow's hooves clunked together loudly. "Okay, but then I get to force them to be my vassal."
"That is allowed. Four; using cheats is absolutely forbidden, and anyone caught using them will be banned from Minecraft for a week and be kicked out of our group for the same amount of time."
"Why would you need to add that, anyway?" Leon asked. "Like we'd actually cheat."
"I'm just throwing it out there, in case anyone is tempted. And five; if by some reason you become part of the Byzantine Empire you will not blind or otherwise harm prisoners in your care, with the exception of execution."
"Can we execute adventurers?" Leon asked.
"Yes, though that counts as tyrannical."
"Yeah, I have a hard time liking them, them and people who declare invasions on you. I got reduced from hard-won king of Ireland to count of Ulster because of the fricking king of Norway; I don't know why you can't just execute them without incurring tyranny, the way you can with rebels."
"I see. Well, those are the rules."
"Oh, if any of us are Germanic, can we be forbidden to raid certain groups?" Leon asked.
"No. That's not going to be a rule."
"Man..."
"In any case, I think we should start. Are we all ready?"
"Yep."
"Uh huh."
"Right on!"
"Ready."
"Starting..." A blue bar began to fill at the top of the screen; presently, Leon found himself staring down at the lone province of Venice, a Duchy-rank territory.
"I'll keep the game paused for a few minutes to let you all get comfortable, choose your council members, and all that," Luna said.
Leon sorted out his Cabinet and set the various characters to work. He selected his son as his designated heir. He tried to be careful. As it was, his current character, in his forties, could probably be expected to last twenty more years; he wasn't sure why but while tribal - and some feudal - lords didn't seem to last long past fifty, republican leaders tended to live much longer. He wasn't sure if that was something to do with the game or whether it was just him, but he liked it.
"I'm starting the game up now," Luna said. "Triple speed, in three... two... one... and we're on."
Leon set his Chancellor to get a claim in Segna, a province in Slavic Croatia. He wasn't thrilled with having to pay for a claim, but he couldn't stay a one province minor forever. He intended to get he Duchy of Croatia for himself and elevate his Duchy-rank Republic up to King level. His Court Chaplain was in Rome to improve relations with the Pope.
"Raiding people in this game is a lot of fun," Eddy said. "I'm landing in Orkney, and the bloke there's already like, 'You've raided my lands, I hate you!' Nothing you can do about it, though, ha ha!"
"You can raid as a Christian character?" Luna asked, sounding puzzled.
"You can, as a tribal character," Leon explained. "Tribal and nomadic governments can raid neighbors, though they can't raid people further away, with the exception of the Vikings. Feudal governments, Iqtas, and Merchant Republics cannot raid, with the same exception as before."
"Oh. So all those lords in Ireland..."
"Yep. They can raid their neighbors, and basically raise enmity with each other. So far, I've almost never seen Ireland formed by the Irish; it's usually someone else, like the king of England or Scotland, that actually create that title."
"Probably because they don't get Primogeniture," Luna noted. "It takes awhile before they can get the technology for it, and as they start out as counts anyway, with the exception of maybe one, they can't usually get it."
'Yeah, that sets them back. Oh, hold on, this random courtier is trying to kill my wife." Leon hit the option to jail the aforementioned courtier. "There," he said, as prison bars overlaid the offending character's picture. "That gets you out of the picture."
"Speaking of Primogeniture, most people don't get it even when they have the technology," Shining put in. "I've seen kings lose a second king title when they died because they didn't change the succession laws."
"I saw the King of Hungary lose Poland because of that the other day," Leon agreed. "I think the main problem is in getting all your vassals to have a positive opinion about you. There's too many wars to lower tribal organization and crown authority for everyone to like a ruler easily."
"Heh, tell me about it."
"So, what's your plan, Leo?" Ed asked.
"Upgrade my family palace up to level four," Leon replied. "More tax, and more levies. Then I'll upgrade hidden passageways up to max too. And maybe swipe stuff from Croatia."
"Just don't try to claim any of my stuff," Shining warned.
"Why would you think I'd do that?" Leon asked innocently. "Just stay out of Croatia and Carinthia and we'll be fine."
He heard a faint chuckle in response. "The duchy or the kingdom?"
"Both."
"I'm going to go to war for a claim myself," Luna said. "A claim for Middle Francia."
"Oh good. Time for House Karling to go down. I get sick of having them constantly infighting," Eddy said. "Even when the West Francian King wins the war with his brother, he loses the second title because he can't get Primogeniture."
"Even Ultimogeniture is better, and you can get that right off the bat," Leon agreed. "If everyone likes you enough."
"I've never heard of a real life situation where the youngest person was always the heir to the throne."
"Neither have I, though it might have happened here and there. My knowledge of history doesn't cover that topic."
"Wow, Mr. History Man actually admits he doesn't know everything."
"Don't push it. I could plan to kill your character."
"As if."
"Oh really?' Leon said, clicking on Ed's character and initiating a plan to kill him, auto allowing planners to join the scheme. "Just don't get too big for your britches."
"They don't wear britches up here. We wear kilts instead. That's why we're technologically superior to you Italians. But have it your way."
"Hmph."
"Ugh, how am I supposed to get any money from raiding when this big army comes to fight me?" Rainbow asked in frustration. "Every time I go to raid Germany, they always have some army form in a few days to kill me."
"You could raid other Vikings."
"Wait a minute, you can really do that?"
"Yeah. Be careful, because they have their own armies. But I'd advise upgrading your current holding first."
"That'll take awhile."
"You can use prestige for some upgrades instead of money," Ed pointed out.
"Oh, right. And you get prestige from raiding. Okay, thanks for the tip, Ed."
"Doing my job."
"After that, try launching an invasion against a Lithuanian duchy," Leon suggested. "Like me, you need to expand soon."
"Thanks. Why Lithuania, though?"
"It's close. Easier to reinforce quickly than in some county in Ireland. Or you could wait until one of them forms a kingdom, and invade that."
"Okay. That won't help me form Scandinavia, though, not directly. I'd rather invade somebody in Sweden or Norway."
"You could, but right now, they're a lot stronger than you are."
"Good point, I guess."
Leon watched as the days in the game passed. He got some increased relations with the Pope, as well as a tithe from his Steward, with which he started building a trading post in Venezia.
"Do we have Sunset Invasion going?" Ed asked.
"Yes; we all had to have the same DLC," Luna replied. "Be prepared in the long run."
"Really long run, when it's 773."
"Then you should have plenty of time to get prepared."
"Aztecs will be absolutely brutal when they come," Leon said. "Never mind their armies; it's the disease that's to be afraid of. I've read it takes your health down by 8.50."
"What?! Are you serious?"
"Yep."
"So I survive pneumonia and tuberculosis only to die from a fictional disease."
"Yeah, that's about it."
"But that's only if they win and get a territory, right?"
"No, I think the disease begins soon after the invasion. How long it spreads and how much damage it does, I'm not sure, and I haven't been invaded by them because I haven't got to that point in the game yet."
"Yikes. Better throw them back at the beaches then, or the closest place to them."
"Leon, it's not going to kill you if I subjugate Bulgaria right now, is it?" Shining asked, a tone of humor in his voice.
"Nah, just stay out of Croatia and don't invade me."
"Shouldn't be too hard."
"Alright. I have to admit, it's kind of weird playing as people who depend so much on horses."
"And that bothers you, why?" Ed asked. "You're a pony, and a civilized one at that, not an animal."
"No, but the resemblance is... striking."
"I told you guys a little while back that we invited some humans to ride on our backs during the Ponyville rodeo," Rainbow said. "Ponies are used to that kind of stuff, but knowing about horses and ponies in your world and knowing about the style of riding makes some ponies in Equestria nervous about humans coming here."
"Hence the, er..." Leon tried to find a reasonably respectful word.
"Stupid and idiotic film about humans invading and conquering Equestria," Rainbow said for him. "Yeah, I saw it. It's garbage, as far as I'm concerned, but some ponies take it seriously."
"Not the majority, by any means," Luna injected. "Most are willing to give humans a chance. It's usually a surprise to our people to find that humans don't think of themselves as a species so much as groups of different cultures, religions, and ethnicities."
"I usually don't think of the word 'human' unless I'm talking to a pony, for example," Leon said. "I usually see myself as Catholic, American, Breton-descended, that sort of thing. Faith, country, ethnicity, in other words, like you just said."
"Indeed. There are other pony nations in our world other than Equestria, but nonetheless, the majority of ponies live here, hence the idea of species over nation. Of course, some would label themselves pegasi, earth ponies, or unicorns over just ponies, but less so than a person from your world would consider themselves German, British, or Arab."
Leon nodded, though of course no one was able to see it. 'Ah, got a claim on Segna," he murmured.
"Get mercs before you invade?" Eddy suggested. "Your starting levies won't cut it."
"Roger that. I'll wait until I have enough money."
"Just don't die before you get a chance to claim it. Oh, and it might not be a good idea to get Byzantium angry with you, seeing as they regard you as their lawful prey."
"Yeah, thanks."
"Wish I had money," Shining muttered. "I'm getting less than one gold per month."
"You should get more once you subjugate Bulgaria and institute feudal taxes. That works wonders. Just beware the independence factions."
"Oh, yeah. I'll keep an eye out for 'em, don't worry."
"Negative thirty relations due to government," Leon said sympathetically. "Luckily, your horde should be able to beat them. Of course, you also have to keep the other clans happy..."
"That's what really concerns me."
"What...?" Luna said, surprised. "I... Karloman seems to have died mysteriously, and the war's over, with me as the one sole ruler of both kingdoms."
"Did your mother talk to you a short time beforehand?"
"Ohhhh. Is that what did it?"
"Yeah. She has him assassinated or something. Just form the Empire of Francia before you die and lose your other kingdom."
"I will. The AI almost never does that, and then the Karlings are always infighting over kingdom titles, which they keep losing again due to gavelkind succession."
"And right now, Primogeniture is a long way off."
"I'm actually jealous in this game of other government types," Luna admitted. "You don't have to worry about succession so much as a republic."
"No, but either I have to be elected as an old, old man, which means I don't get very long to rule, or spend a bunch of gold getting to the top, with or without assassinating the current Doge, you understand."
"I kind of have a Primogeniture setup," Shining said. "Kind of. One son inherits all titles. Only real difference is, the one with the most prestige gets them all, not necessarily the oldest. I still prefer it to Gavelkind, though."
"Only thing you can do as Gavelkind is get a higher title than you've got currently, because a king can't be vassal to another king, or a duke to another duke," Leon added. "That, or go and disinherit the other sons by giving them bishop titles, which I would prefer not to do. I mean, I don't mind if that's the career they want, but I don't want to force it on them."
"Hmm."
Leon watched as Shining annexed Bulgaria in short order. Hordes were made entirely of cavalry units, giving massive hitting power. The trade off was that the units had to be replenished either with money or prestige; nomadic rulers, at least early in the game, had difficulty maintaining any lasting prestige, due to the fact that so much counted on it; even laws had to be changed using prestige. The result; a hard-hitting, mobile army, but one that required plenty of upkeep. And, of course, as Leon had said earlier, the people who were subjugated tended not to like it very much, and formed independence factions.
In the meantime, Leon declared war, hired mercenaries and raised his meager levies, and used ships to transport the army to Segna, after which he simply disbanded the vessels. It would take a while for them to be rebuilt, but it was better than paying the outrageous price for their upkeep.
The Slavic Duke of Croatia had no forces to match the professional mercenaries, who crushed his army in short order. Unfortunately, what he and other pagans did have was a very, very low supply limit. Leon was glad that his army wasn't too big, or he'd have lost most of his forces by now. Still, if the war lasted into the winter, he was going to lose men, though not enough to cancel the siege. It was just one of those things. And the negative net balance he was getting due to the mercenaries wasn't helping either.
He checked out the rest of the world as the siege continued. Ed had already expanded, annexing nearby Pictish counts and dukes. Rainbow hadn't expanded, but he noticed that her character had over four hundred gold, so she was busy raiding. Luna was busy subduing nearby lands as well.
He did manage to siege down the province he wanted, even though he suffered some attrition, and forced his opponent to make peace. He immediately set his Court Chaplain to convert the county before dismissing the mercenaries and his own forces.
Right, one province down, two more to go. He was irritated that he'd have to conquer the rest of the duchy before being able to usurp the title, and thereby have the ability to make the Kingdom of Venice, or rather, the Most Serene Republic of Venice, but he was more pleased than not. Having a duchy of his own, as opposed to the other patrician families having only their trade posts and mansions, would give him a leg up in the game. The one big problem, he mused, would be in keeping the Byzantine Emperor happy until he had power to rival theirs, which would be another few hundred years. Of course he'd have problems with the other families, but those were issues he could potentially take care of.
Looking around the world, he noted that the Abbasid Empire was currently engaged in a civil war regarding some person's claim to the throne. It wasn't a very big revolt, though, and it would likely get crushed. He checked the character currently holding the imperial title, and found that he was currently engaged fighting Orthodox rebels, as well as Orthodox heretics. He looked and saw that the guy's decadence was up to 69% already, meaning that a revolt concerning that decadence couldn't be far away.
The more the Muslim states are split up, the better.
The Umayyid Sultanate, the other major Islamic state, located in Spain, was attacking Asturias, a small Catholic kingdom in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. It commonly formed the Empire of Hispania after taking enough of the remaining pieces of Spain. It wasn't initially as strong as the Abbasids were, but it could, if given a chance, take bites out of southern France, or rather, the Kingdom of Aquitaine. It generally was a major target in Catholic crusades, though Jerusalem was considered a higher priority by the Pope.
"Oh, question," Eddy said.
"Say on," Luna answered.
"Can we make it a rule that we have to gang up on the Aztecs when they come?"
"You mean, as in join the person who gets attacked?"
"Yeah, assuming its one of us that gets it."
"I'll take that into consideration. Since they start with well over a hundred thousand troops, it's an idea with merit. How about this; we're only required to defend each other from the Aztecs, but it will be optional to aid AI nations?"
"I guess that's fine, thank you."
"But that happy day is a long way off," Luna continued. "We'll have plenty of time to expand before then."
Leon returned to his business. He didn't look forward to having to conquer the rest of the Duchy of Croatia ten in-game years from now, but luckily, he didn't have to- the Duke of Dioclea, a Slavic Serbian Duke, declared a war of subjugation on the Croatian duke. The war was won within a couple of years, and Leon couldn't help but smile at his good fortune. The only casus belli he had, though, was for a holy war, so other Slavics might choose the join of their own volition. He wasn't about to let that stop him, though.
After collecting about four hundred gold, he hired a couple mercenary bands, of 1,500 men each, declared war, transported his armies to Segna quickly, and set about beginning the work of conquest. After a couple of weeks besieging a province, an enemy army showed up, about half the size of his, and began trying to take Segna. Leon threw his army against them, and destroyed the enemy force totally.
"Bad move, Serbia," Leon said quietly. "Very bad move."
A message suddenly came before him, telling of the Empire of Francia being formed. "Nice one, Luna," he commented.
"Thank you," the Lunar Princess answered. "I'm just glad that my realm will not split into a bunch of separate states forever when my current character dies. How are you doing, Edward?"
"I'm doing fine," the British player answered. "Going to unify Scotland and completely take the Duchy of Orkney, and then I'm going to conquer Ireland to get more troops. I'll also convert to feudalism as soon as I can, but not before upgrading my market places in my holdings to their fullest extent."
"Good. Better still, upgrade everything to their fullest extent."
"Going to try, but that's unlikely. Better to go feudalism as soon as possible and get better troops and taxes."
"I agree, but you could also set up a republic."
"Hmm. More money, but troops aren't as good. I think I'd prefer to stay a kingdom, but that's not a bad idea. Maybe if I play Pictland in single player, I'll do it."
Leon managed to beat another enemy force, but other Slavics had joined. He still had more men, but the advantage wasn't very large. If they got him to attack them where they had favorable ground, the result could be bad indeed.
Fortunately, he managed to capture a province before beating another two enemy armies, which brought his war score up to 100% and allowed him to first take the two provinces he wanted and then usurp the duchy title.
"Just one short monetary step to being Serene Doge," he said contentedly, dismissing his levies and the mercenaries.
"Not a bad start at all," Luna said approvingly. "Granted, the AI helped you a bit."
"Ah well. People make mistakes, we can't expect the machines we make to be flawless."
"True; very true."
"Ah, good, Segna has converted to Catholicism," Leon murmured. "Send Chaplain to Veglia and do the same; there, he's working."
As he began accumulating money, Leon once more checked up on the state of the world. The Abbasids had won their war against the rebels and, as he checked, they declared a jihad for Armenia against the Byzantines. The Umayyids had managed to take enough of Spain to create the Empire of Hispania, changing their color on the map from green to yellow, and were trying to expand into Mala. England was still split up by multiple dukes and petty kings. Luna's Francia controlled most of France save for Brittany, as well as most of Germany. Shining was at war with the Khazarid hordes from more nomadic provinces. Eddy had united Pictland and was annexing the last Norse-controlled province of the Duchy of Orkney. Rainbow was still a one province minor, but was likely to change soon; she had declared a war of subjugation on a duke in northern Lithuania. Russia was split between various Slavic and Suomenusko warlords, as was Finland. Svipjod was in the process of uniting Sweden. India was a mess of kings, dukes, and counts, as usual.
A dinging noise came up, and Leon realized that he could create the title he desired. He immediately declared the foundation of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, a King-level title.
"Nice," Eddy said.
"Thanks. Now I get to keep my new duchy even if I lose the election." Leon immediately started a vote on low crown authority and got it. It was the highest level of crown authority a republic could get to, unfortunately, but it was reasonable in Leon's eyes; the idea of having a government that allowed people to vote was to limit the power of the government. Ultimately, republics didn't have many civil wars that were caused by people wanting less crown authority, but vassals could declare war on one another, which could be problematic in itself, although, if one was a vassal and not the doge - or Serene Doge, now - there were opportunities that could be had in such an arrangement.
Leon checked his balance, as well as his chances for his heir - who was relatively young, and therefore wouldn't have much of an age bonus - to gain the liege-ship when his current character died. The odds, unfortunately, were none too good, at least right now. He'd have to dump money into the campaign fund to have much of a chance. Of course, it wasn't likely he'd die just yet. He probably had some time left. Before he had to hand over the reins to his son, he wanted to upgrade his mansion at least once, preferable twice, thrice if he could manage it; that would raise his trade post limit, allowing him to build more trade posts on prosperous land.
"I'll try taking over Brittany now," Luna announced. "Do you have any problem with that, Edward?"
"Nah. I want all England, Wales, and Scotland. Leave them alone and you're good."
"Alright. Too bad it will require crushing individual counts; this will take more time than I'd like," the Princess grumbled. "I suppose I can create and give the duchy title to one of the two Breton counts I already have, therefore requiring less money to be spent on claims, but that's still bothersome, especially with the re-raising of levies that is required."
Leon watched as Ed finally conquered the remaining island in the Duchy of Orkney. "All that effort for one island?"
"Yeah. Better we get it than the Norse guys. It's closer to us anyway."
"Next target?"
"Iceland, then I'll start working on Ireland for real. Or maybe the other way around, depending on where I'm able to get claims more easily."
The world continued to change. Leon sent his chancellor to Slavonia, his next intended target, though only after relations with the Byzantine Emperor were at +100.
"Ah. I'm sorry, friends," Luna said suddenly, "but once again, I must end the session, raise the moon, and take care of business in another busy night."
"Ugh," Leon groaned discontentedly.
"And I was just about to take out this Irish bloke."
"I don't like it any more than you do, Luna replied, "but I will not neglect my duties to Equestria."
"And I have some reports to complete," Shining added."
"Worry not, dear friends," Luna said calmly. "We will meet again soon enough. Until then, peace be with you."