Into the 14-Naughties

Suddenly becoming Muslim - well having a Muslim Duke - is rather like attacking the Pope for the first time. When you get past the Chicken-Licken moment of thinking the sky is about to fall in, it's pretty much like having any other Doge, or in the case of the Pope, attacking anyone else.

And so the first issue at hand is settling the Piombino question...

Which is pretty straight forward...

And that sorted it's off to grab a bit more land from the King of Italy....

Oh there is one drawback...

But this is actually a benefit in a way, since the revolts were centred on Bari, which at the time was a centre for Waldensian heresy, so the the fact that it is Catholics revolting distracted from the heresy, and made the task of dealing with the heresy that much easier.

In all there were three revolts - all of which were deal with easily enough by the levy.

One thing that did come up was that as a Muslim, you have a lot more choice with regard to casus belli. I was tempted to go for a holy war, thus giving me more choice at the end of the war. However, there was one major problem with regard to mercenaries.

You will recall there is a crusade for Jerusalem going on, and because I am now limited to hiring Muslim mercenaries, the pool of available fighting men was severely limited. Thankfully I still had the troops I had raised before the switch.

Therefore I stuck to a simply de jure claim for Trent, as I didn't fancy getting stuck in a potential regional war, without the ability to hire more men, and without allies - as none of the Polkarios clan would join me.

The war won, the Duke went off to Mecca - for a game of bingo - and then observed Ramadan. At which point I found myself envious of Muslims, particularly in a republic setting, because of the Ramadan feast, the options relating to charitable giving, and the options for improving vassal relationships in general. The Hajj options were better than those offered on pilgrimage too.

Plus if you want a divorce, none of this horse trading with the Pope, just pay up and the wife is gone. Though as I had 4 wives, and had married them rather rashly, it was rather expensive to collect a new brood.

Still when it was settled, and I was rather liking the idea of playing as a Muslim.... so of course....

Obviously I signed up for the crusade, in order to get this...

It did mean that I would have to wait to go on pilgrimage, and hold a tournament, but it didn't affect me going to war to claim Lombardy.... well actually it did, because Italy had joined the crusade, meaning that none of my tradition enemies - Italy, Croatia, the Abbasids etc, were available for a punch up.

The crusade was going badly, not helped by my having no intention of sending any troops, which was causing the Moral Authority of the Pope to fall, which in turn was leading to this...

 So without a war, I fell back on Republican polictics....

Who fancies murdering a patrician.... form an orderly queue....

And it did allow my Duke to engage in his passion for sex.

Being a bear of little brain, I didn't cotton on at first about the two bastard sons he brought with him, but when I gave his lustful nature free reign, it soon became clear where they came from.

Oh and if you are wondering why the crusade was going badly - well apart from one of it's leading members being the King of Italy - perhaps this will prove useful....

It's a feature of 867, pre HRE, starts that unless the player actively participates, or the crusade is on the doorstep of the big Karling kingdoms, that the crusaders are doomed because there are no big stacks, leaving the two or three large Muslim stacks to blitz everyone.

Which leads to this....

And this....

But no matter, with the crusade over it's time to get on with the fun of bashing up the Italians....

Oh no! he's called in the King of Croatia....

Time to send some troops to the Balkans...

I do enjoy killing Karlings.... especially when they are the heir to Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bulgaria - which all sounds impressive until you realise that amounts to about 15 counties that are in a state of near permanent rebellion....

Ok, this is a touch of overkill....

But the king of Croatia is in that bunch, and if I catch and kill him, then the heir will be a 10 year old kid.

And thus the war ends...

Leaving the Duke free to pursue his passions....

Even if the Pope does hate us...

Meh.... what;s he gonna do?

peace:)