Slitherine

Turn 45. World affairs at the end of the message.

As a result of attrition and slight help from archers all units either got disable Support bonus or Exhausted trait. Good thing that it took 2 Impulses to move out from the region, because 1st fight was a draw. If 2nd would be a draw I wouldnt get the region.



I can't Assault this. Starving will take about 8 turns. On the other hand that one of few times on Suicidal when I can Pillage their region, but I want to hold it down in the future. Also Im not showing conquered regions renovations for now. 51 Relationship is a good time to try to gather first batch of Vassal Troops. Meanwhile I send it requests for Heavy Cavalry. No results so far.





We burned Clergy for 205 Gold. New character has amazing AMP and traits. He will be governor of the next province for sure. For now I assign him to Peasant for Perk. Another Witchcraft Trial targets Non Dinasty Noble with average stats and unknown Loyalty.





Initiation Ritual ends in a record time. I Edict for Pastoral Council. Loyalty Chars move to new territories.





Lets see what goes around the World:

1) Seljuks joined Jihad. Ghaznavids are falling to the pressure. It looks like Seljuks decided to leave Buyids alive for now. Ghaznavids can join Jihad to save themselves.



2) Malwa biten off chunk of Kalyani Empire, but they have time to rearm and comeback.



3) Fatimids almost finished their backstabbing Vassal



4) Dioclea and Pechenegz holding tight.



5) Unexpectedly Derbent Vassalizes Khazards that were doing good.



6) Zirids managed to push back tribals



7) Talking bout Tribes. Unexpected invasion by Byzantines



Normandia almost down. Wessex almost Annexed.



9) HRE likely won't be a serious player this game. Have to think on how to get to France and England in the future.

Smart move by AI. They come out of the garrison to save Food. Starvation will take too long. I move to take region which grown to 6 POP last turn, so their defenses are down. I leave 1 Merc on top of their region so they stay besieged on the next turn. Hopefully Vassal lands me his troops next turn (this turn roll failed) so I can use another stack to nest on top of them.





I start Insulting Latvia to generate Claim for the future attack. Latgalia proposes a Peace, but I reject looking for smth better. The idea is to get Peace proposal, kill them and Accept next turn. Actually what happened is AI forces got repelled by by 113/2 ~ 50 CP Garrison, so their plan failed.





Noble survives Witchcraft due to his high Piety stat and decent Military. Altho we stole 185 coins belonging to him. Our growth to 8 done, so we can slow down and fill up empty slots. I refocused Freemans back to Gold, while pulled some Peasants to Infarsturcutre while keeping up +20 Food in all regions. Right now goal is to build Pastoral Councils, Horses, Livestock and 3 tier 1 Piety everywhere.





I play Reinforce a March on Narva, dump chances of it and Attract Migrants to Very Low and increase Build Harbor to Very High for 350 Gold total.

Vassal lends me his troops. So we get our first fleet. I assign Sitgy (-20% Upkeep) to lead it. I gonna go for Raids agaisnt Suomi using it for now. I hire 1 more infantry and 2 archers to get myself Harass stack of 6 mediums + 6 skirmishers I will use against Latvia Capital. My main stack does Pillage + Assault. The idea is to swipe his Sally out army and land on top of their last region to prevent Capital spawn i.e. very tough garrisons.









We build Food Storage to upgrade to Communal Larder soon. I go for Warrior Assembly to patch up our temporary Manpower issues. Play Peasant to Freeman and dump Chances for 3 Decisions. My Ruler Health degraded to Poor and hes 59 years old, so we feel he gonna pass soon.

Our plan works. Their garrison comes out in the open, so we can clap them 2 times since they have only one place to retreat, Not an easy battle anyway due to +2 Defense forest. Our SAUs Veteran status and 2 Attack General help. I will try to not exploit this anymore. But thats a legit tactic you can use in Multiplayer.







My main stack can attempt Assaults for 4 Impulses and ends turn with Raid command against Polotsk. Our Ships go on the Raid against Suomi leveraging their Raider trait.





Traders Borough shows up. Instant construction in order. I pull another Witchcraft. Time to persecute Average quality character with low Piety and Military stats. Latgalia sends me Peace deal I will accept after wiping them out this turn. Can't DOW Latvia. Waiting for Insults to generate a Claim first.

We rolled Significant Casualties on last turn, so the last Latgalia region falls without any resistance. Despite that my Raid at the end of the turn fails. Ships are successful pulling 125 gold. I get Claim from Insults on Latvia, so I will Declare War on them this turn, but take a chance to circle Pillage regions while restoring my Effectiveness. Witchcraft Trial succeeds for 600 Gold and new AWESOME character with 2 Offense combat stat that I use on harass stack.









I start rolling regions dump off for 4 Knights. I still want to keep minimal amount to hold onto the Provincial archers Mercs. I assign Capital Province governor to Peasant and send him to another province for the extra perk bonuses he can't provide for region in the province he governing already. I assign Governor to our new Province from now referred to as Province 2. I find Chiefs House in the rotation and shuffle POP - Freemans and Nobles on Gold, Priests on Infrastructure, Peasants on Food.





I hire 2 extra Mercs, build Craftsmen Borough to free up Inrastructure AND disassemble useless structure good for Early game only. As far as Trade Goods go I miss a few Legumes, Livestocks and Metal. All those buildings worth it. Everything else goes to the pin. Heres the example:









No new RGD, but I spend 750 Gold to outkit what I can get in Expert mode.

We continue our Pillage trips while waiting for Effectivness to come back up. I'm showing Food display that indicates why its nice to have Allies. My ships can draw from their ports, so I can Raid far away lands. Another reason is Passage Right and Allies can house your troops on their territory and enemy can't do nothing about it. Often far away lands have sub50 Loyalty, so only way to restore HP is to build Health event trigger structures or chill on high loyalty Allies/Passage Right territories.



Meanwhile we keep farming Initiation Rituals and Authority Events consistently produce 2 with decimals. Province 2 does Pastoral Council. Capital Province finally gets Worship Place and PseudoRotation Ritual. No new RGD, but I outkit my future for 450 Gold.

Deal with Hungary goes through on the first attempt, so we don't Pillage and get hit by Manpower drain from 4 Heavy Cavs accounted in Upkeep. We also save Hungary from Slavic rebels. Gotta make Vassal stack count in the next 2-3 turns before Disbanding them. Knights will stay on top of Wolves region trying to remove for 50+ Power, while being ready to rotate and kill any Rebels that might pop up on new territories.





Now for Advanced Movement section. The plan is to end Harass stack first move on top of region I intend to Pillage. My main stack will be Assaulting walls from the get go using the fact they don't have a General there. I will leverage my Veterans and 2-0 General. on the next turn Harass stack spends 1 Impulse to Assault their Capital and can afford 2 Draws before retreating, At which point my Main stack will arrive to finish a job.



After successful Assassination attempts we find that Bladis loyalty is lower than 30. I don't keep him in Court anyway, Actually it will be ok if he Rebels and potentially takes a few regions. I can get rid off him that way faster. I used CTRL + F function to find region where he stationed.



I queue up last Chiefs House in the Capital Province. Play From Peasant to Freeman RGD.

I guess in the new patch Assault cancels after you pass the first Unwalled region. That fact kind of saved me because they moved 0-1 General on top of my target region. Despite negative 13 Authority I barely managed to put region Loyalty below 50. I will shuffle both stacks trying to capture 3 regions per turn.







You can see Manpower issues, but I can't really disband anyone, so some troops gonna report deserters next turn. We start to get those already. My fleet successfully Raided Prussia for 90 gold. I will pull them back to my port for now and Stingy Character goes to Heavy Cav stack.





No new RGDs. Capital Province builds Traders Borough. Province 2 goes for Pigsty in 2 turns. Nothing else worthwhile happens.

No pushbacks or RGDs as far as I know. Opponent sallies out, but I'm assigned as Sallying force. Complete destructions follows. My Peasant who didnt get in shelter in time crushes Rebels peasant. ANother screens show how I get regions. I map out next 4 turns to finish Lativia ASAP.










I finally get into Unstable tier, so Pillaging becomes easier to pull off. Sweden trolls me by converting my only Priest to Catholicism via Proximity check. In the future I will move 100+ CP army to force convert him back. Gypsy moves into my capital. I will let her be for now. I get +1 from High Stewardship and Nobles event I havent saw in a long while.





Capital province builds Pastoral Council and Worship place. We receive Recruit Non Standard RGD, but keep it for the future. Dissasemble bunch of buildings in the new regions.

Another interesting mechanic. Opponent character pushed back from the lost combat counts as Diplo Exchange or RGD for the purpose of triggering AutoGarrison. So I get my Cavalry to fight on the underlying terrain.









All these combats and gained regions push me into Positive Authority rather swiftly. I use combats to farm Authority for Edicts. My Ruler will die soon, so it will be nice to be above 0 Authority when this happens. We also want Positive Authority to counteract Unstable Loyalty penalty. We also get another negative token. Newly gained regions help to mitigate Manpower issues, which allows me to tolerate Deserters for more turns.



Nevermind, my Ruler dies this turn and no Succession happens. We get trone Transfered to the perfect char with some of the best Traits for the midgame and 2 Attack stat, so he can fight in the field. Hope to keep him in power for some time. Our next Heir has weak Authority stat, so I plan to get rid of him. His lower health should help. No Wife or Concubines, so 0 Chance for a newborn. Maybe I will finally play Gain Character in the future. Lets see how action develops.









Noble decides to free Edict for Tier 2 roads. So Capital Province will finish taht and Pastoral Council. I play Build Harbor (Very High Green) and receive incredible sum of money from Diplo extortion. I use 450 gold to change odds for the last set of decisions. Traders Borrow request for Province 2.





Hopefully Harass stack can take out penultimate Latvia region next turn, so I can finish off Latvia two turns from now to finally disband those costly non-Vassal supports.

TURN 55 State of Affairs review in the end of the post.

Easy garrison crush on the last turn. Both stacks ended their turn on the same region. That allows me to finish my Blitzkrieg by rearranging the units. I disband Levy Archers AND Medium Vassal troops. I KEEP their discounted archers and 1 Baltic Warrior. All our CAV has Improved Equipment. Ruler leads us to glorious Coup De Grace. Extortions gained us some Manpower.







Finally I get Livestock source in one of my Province Capital regions. I build Horse Herd at the same time. Province 2 still builds their Traders Borough. I do a typical mass Dissasembly of unimportant stuctures in the newly conquered regions.





No new RGDs. After I'll get my backup copy of Persecution RGD type I will dump them in the VEry Low Odds cuz I love my current Character roster. No more rotation is necessary. Heres the example of list of not so good structures I get rid off to optimize Growth for slots into Specialization later on.



I let Diplomacy pause pause for a single to give AI opportunity to send me Proposals and then start sheding off regions for units.

Lets see whats going round the globe:

1) Buyids has a single region left. Ghazanavids under serious pressure. Nothing new in India.



2) In Caucasus some smaller nations disappear. Georgia changes their Ally status to Vassal of Byzantines. Seljuks start a war against Byz



3) Hungary fights their former Vassal. Pechnegs Peaced out with Byzantines and Rus losing their northern territories.



4) Fatimids pushed back, while Byzantine makes more progress in North Africa



5) Nothing new in the other parts of the world. Only England, Scotland and France made a significant progress.

In last region we notice that Manpower hits focused one of our Infantry, but luckily we survive. Leader death after the first draw helps. Cavalry losing combat Evasion roll overwritten by Steady, but in any case despite Exhausted support we get only 1 Damage and 1 Effectivness loss. Medium Cavalry rules in Assaults against medium Infantry. 6 Cavalry can typically grind through 10 Medium units replacing wounded after Draws.







My main stack will sit on top of this region waiting for the weakest units to restore effectivness. I Retaliate and Pillage against threatening Independents. I try to request units from my Vassal to get more discounted supports and Noble Cavalry. Send exact same Proposals like this to Hungary, Poland and Smolensk, so I have more of a chance to get rid off those regions quick. Smolensk sends insults, but region will be transferred to our permanent control soon.







We build 2 Pastoral Councils in the province 3, Province 2 does Worship Place. Our first region reaches 12 POP, so we Edict for Rustic Fort! Capital Province also starts Crude Smelter for more metal income.



I assign low loyalty average quality Character and cast Assassinate Peer we got this turn. I pay 600 gold to put decisions related to Send Troops to Very Low odds.

Seems like Vassal took away my archers since we have no active Wars, but I still crush Independents. I will be chilling with my Main stack for one turn waiting for Effectivness and Pillage status to return back to normal. I hire 8 Merc archers for my main stack. Military Reform will push their Ranged Combat to 11, which rounds up to a +4 Support bonus!







Unexpectedly we have a Coup. As I said in the first episode I don't mind to get rid of my ruler since his Admin Stat is low. Let me quote my message from the other thread:

Loyalty degradation from Mercs is overstated. its a rare chance to have -5 Loyalty trigger mostly later in the game.

Relevant factors that influence the chance of secession are Character loyalty, National Authority (or Local Authority as extra factor if a Peer of the Realm, even if deployed as general), Character Treasury and units under his command (mercs increase a chance), Ruler Administration, Ruler Piety (only if not pious and the would-be rebel is), lack of son for the ruler and a loyal general with units in the capital with at least 100 Combat Power.

The latter is very important as an army with a loyal general in the capital will improve the chance of resisting a coup by 50%, and help Generals to Rebel less often. If you are over Demesne limite, chances increase significantly with each region over.

A less able ruler (with some Administrative scores of 0 or 1) is more likely to be overthrown in a coup while an able ruler (with some score of 4 or 5) is less likely to be affected.

We hit many of those rules for super fast Coup. Now I have to preserve my current Dynasty because we have TRULY stuffed Court. ALL characters have great Perks and stats. So lets review our Ruler first.











And new characters in the Court respectively. I assign them to Utility peasants and to Provinces. Also I successfully Assassinated my Relative last turn. Now I can pay 600 gold to dump kill decisions to Very Low.









Capital Province edicts Worship Place. Province 2 improves Worship Place to Sacred Altar gearing up for the Great Temple path.

Prussia weakened Independents, so I can move on to a new Pillage rotation route. I spent so much gold in a single turn that I actually though why do I need Merc archers right now. I disband them admitting last turn mistake. We get another Negative token. No accepted Unit Sends last turn, so I do another round, but include Sweden alternative trade this time.







I Edict for Pastoral Council and Sacred Altar in the Capital Province. Province 2 goes for Noble Houses (freeman conversion), while Province 3 for Pastoral Council. No new RGDs and I almsot finished outfitting my Expert mode choices. Unresets pop off from time to time due to -18 National Authority, low Local Loyalty and Local Authority. Thats a trade off we have to take.

My main stack continues to Pillage location, while Heavy Cav puts out Unrest in the region of the Capital Province. I start sending Gifts to Polotsk to normalize our Relationships. I send Massed Archers to my Vassal to request them later on i.e. Launder.







We get Corrupt Governor random event. The higher your Governor Authority is, the less chance of that and other events occurring. Disbanding Mercs on my own territotry creates Bandit Lair, but I don't care this much since it a Commerce structure. Province 2 does Noble Houses. While Province 1 next 2 structures

Volhynia DOWs me just because they are haters. I'm actually fine with that. Won't be fighting them, but that fact allows me to request troops from Vassal when I'm ready. As you can see by resource count deals goes through. New stack of Heavy Cavalry will patrol southern borders to put out Unrests and Rebels. Pskov Rises up out of Hungary terriotry instead of Rebels. I get anotehr Corrupt Governor event.







Capital province builds Trader Borough and Small Harbor. Province 2 builds 2nd copy of Bowyer in our Kingdom and Goats Herd. 3rd Province builds 3rd copy of Bowyer and I play Gift to Peer on Non Lineage Governor with unknown loyalty.

Here's my idea for defenses. If Vohlynia attacks immidaite targets they will ahve to deal with tough Garrison with 1-1 General (peasant carries him). I they try to pass by My main stack doing his Pillage tour can catch them. Pillages keep my afloat as always. Bloodlust leader combined with -30 National Authority allow me to Pillage region that otherwise wouldn't be eligible.







Daughter is born and we get rare for our Kingdom plus Authority from Nobles or High Stewardship.



I receive 3rd copy of Hire Non-Standard units, so I empty my Remove Local obstacle decision on Bramble. Capital Provicne builds Burial Ritual. Province 2 target is Chief House and Trance Ritual. Prvince 3 goes for Hunting Party.

Sweden agreed to Transaction, but we don't have Alliance or Passage Rights with them, so our movement cancels for both stacks I send Passage Rights to Sweden. Gift away my 2 regions to become neighbors with 2 German separatist states. Stop Gifting Polotsk and send last Gift to newly formed Pskov. They are small, so can become my Vassal in the future.



I got 4 Offensive Spears from Swedland, which combined with 8 Heavy Cavs stretches my metal. I edict for 2 Crude Smelters in Capital province for +4 Metal production on the next turn to negate current -6. Another +1 from Stewardship. Chief Houses pull their weight. Peasant create Pond in one of my land locked regions for nice Fish bonuses.



Province 2 and 3 go for Chief Houses. I get Build Harbor, but don't play it yet because I have 30 gold left, while the cost is 100. Don't want more Loyalty penalties from the Deficit. Rus clapped Vohlynia meanwhile, so we are not in danger at all. Maybe I will use my stack to conquer them in order to get Authority from combats...

Our main stack in the region where 100 Power required to remove Bandits. Stacks we got via Diplomacy plan to merge and Retaliate against unwalled Independents for XP farm.



I build Mining Expoitation and edict Crude Smelter in Capital province for Metal. Province 2 goes for Modest Barn, while Province 3 for Worship place. Peasant Roundup produces Draft Levies which I sell off. I get noble death random event for +50 gold.

Lausitz taken over by Rebels instantly after region transfered. Same bug as HRE before, which I won't exploit, so I let them be. Secondary stack starts retaliating.



I send Manpower for Metal trades and units to my Vassal tht I want to get later on at a discount.





I play build Harbor in one of my regions, Deploy Spy Network in Seljuks to gain better info and potentially steal Progress token later. Capital province builds Warrior Assembly and edicts for Mask Maker. Both good structures unlocking our future needs. Province 2 aims for Exchange Post and Worship Place.