Slitherine

Sultan, Conqueror and Holy Warrior 3-3-3+2-1
We got 4 heirs(unfortunately the 3rd and 4th son are better than the heir, the 2nd son is mediocre), a brother, 4 uncles and a sister (marry to the Fatimids?)
At least the Sultana, heir and one of the uncles are loyal.
Savas, the only admin-5 is placed in the only province, he will be replaced later by the heir. Half the population is Shiite or Pagan, all our regions are apparently Turkish, wonder what happened to all the Persians who used to live here? There are few Turkish to the south and west where we want to expand.


Turn 1
Build food and manpower generally, all but the 2 contact regions put everything in build
Edict a Legumes Farm in Navahand, as we are going to need a lot of these in the hamlets we are building.
Recruit local and recruit non-standard(a bit disappointing in this early state, but at least the Elephant is impressive to look at)
The 2 southern armies are told to join up and move to Shiraz as we heard there is wine there.

The 2 eastern and the Baduspanids vassals are ordered to give me their armies.

Turn 2 Diplomatic talks with Fatimids are muddled by cross talk.
Byzant declares war, we will ignore them as a minor annoyance.

The royal purse is opened and 86 MP are hired, this will fill only a small part of the MP bleed, current -58.

The war campaign against the Buyids are made public, started last year.
The Kermans reject the demand to send their army (-10 relations)
The Kakuyids delays sending their army.
Only the Baduspanids sends 4 regiments.

Put most nobles in gold and most clerks in building, we simply have to take the hit from this at start.
Prioritize the two food buildings in our only province.

A claim is laid on Hilah, useful if we split the war on the Buyid in two campaigns.

The "Remove Natural Obstacle" is useless in this none-expanded game so its down prioritized and sold.
Send councillor is up prioritized.

1. Ordu arrive in Shiraz and are disappointed that there is no wine but only an iron mine, the city is sieged and will be starved out.
2. Ordu gather the recruited units and sets off to Sus

Turn 3
Sus and Shiraz are under siege but the walls are still standing in the way of the besiegers, reinforcements are send to both.
They are expected to starve soon.

Craftsman borough is prioritized in Qazvin, Jibal.
Almoravids takes Marrakech from Barghawatans.
Fatimids gives Acre to one of their vassals.
Venice attacks Verona, we can see that they have made a huge investment in armies.
France is at war with Aquitaine, Bourgogne and Upper Lorraine, guess HRE will join soon.
Danemark is atttacked by Sweden and their vassals.
Castilla is at war with Albarracin, guess more Taifa's will join shortly.
Castilla and France join in alliance.

Turn 4
Both sieges progress, and the besieged are starving, but we have to dismiss our first 2 infantry and 2 javelins to keep manpower up, keeping the cheaper vassal troops.

The Sultan wants to send a councillor to his son, so the son has to be the peer in our only province. The ex-governor is our best so he will be reassigned soon.

The crafting district is finished and a flax with good bonus is started.

Navahand has run out of food so the production is increase to support the two armies in neighbouring regions, at the cost of longer production time for our trade borough.

We agree to mutual access with the Fatimids, next turn we will try to trade for some manpower with them.
Also an emissary is send to Bavandids demanding they send us manpower (20%) we can't do this a lot or we get bad relations with them and the dreaded too much diplomacy penalty.

The vassals will have to fight the next 20 turns or so alone against the Byzantines, good luck!
The heir and his province, he prioritized the peasant roundup and hamlet, both manpower generators, the two other very nice building will have to be finished later, also one of his stats should improve next turn due to councillor arriving as his loyalty is already maxed out.
He is also one of the generals that will lay waste to enemy lands, we might take advantage of this later, he can also raid without our nation being tribal, that is our late Turkish culture.
Venice takes Padua from Verona and someone, likely Venice is besieging Verona itself.
France seems to besiege Bourgogne and Upper Lorrain.
Danemark is getting help in their struggle against Sweden by Suomi. An alliance is signed with France.
Castile is attacked by Badajoz and Toledo too as predicted.
England signs an alliance with France.
France now is allied to 3 players, hope they know this leads to French hegemony.

Turn 5 We got a token, standing at 1.
Apparently the Royal treasurer talked about military and not administration as our heir is now 3-3-3 instead of 3-2-3
So another counsellor is sent.
Progress is finally made in the siege, so they are ordered to storm the cities.

The Manpower crisis continues, another 3 levies are dismissed. A hamlet is ordered upgraded to village by edict and priority. Another peasant roundup is ordered in Hazar. 4 out of 7 regions are building MP buildings. 1 food, 1 trade and one military.
Byzant releases Benevenani as a vassal in Peloponnes who declare war on us. The Pechenegs have trusted far inland so the Byzantines enlist some talented units.
Abbasids enlist talented troops to oppose us.
Castile gets some help as Cordoba declares on Toledo. They also seems to have absorbed Leon!
France gets some help, after some setback in the north east, by Normandy declaring on Aquitaine.
Apulia also seems to be in MP troubles too and dismis part of the army.
Almoravids takes another region.
Venice takes another region. Vicenza, the earlier report of Venetian troops in Verona turns out to be Tuscans instead. Venice has put a noble on recruitment and therefore suffers some disloyalty in Venice itself, the none-religion citizen contribute too this too.
The Danes sends gift to the Juts and Skanings, maybe they want to absorb them.

Buyids 175 could recruit more.
Abbasids 100 can keep this up for some time.
Mazyadids 300 way over sustainable.
Seljuqs.
1. Ordu 184
2. Ordu 164
2. Ordu to be dismissed 13
vassals 351 milling around doing nothing!

Navahand is 0 +25 food, good we increased production. The army in Sus uses 11 food
Isfahan is 27 +8 an vassal army is using 4 food. 1. Ordu seems to draw food from Sus first.

Turn 5 We got a token, standing at 1.
Apparently the Royal treasurer talked about military and not administration as our heir is now 3-3-3 instead of 3-2-3
So another counsellor is sent.
Progress is finally made in the siege, so they are ordered to storm the cities.

The Manpower crisis continues, another 3 levies are dismissed. A hamlet is ordered upgraded to village by edict and priority. Another peasant roundup is ordered in Hazar. 4 out of 7 regions are building MP buildings. 1 food, 1 trade and one military.
Byzant releases Benevenani as a vassal in Peloponnes who declare war on us. The Pechenegs have trusted far inland so the Byzantines enlist some talented units.
Abbasids enlist talented troops to oppose us.
Castile gets some help as Cordoba declares on Toledo. They also seems to have absorbed Leon!
France gets some help, after some setback in the north east, by Normandy declaring on Aquitaine.
Apulia also seems to be in MP troubles too and dismis part of the army.
Almoravids takes another region.
Venice takes another region. Vicenza, the earlier report of Venetian troops in Verona turns out to be Tuscans instead. Venice has put a noble on recruitment and therefore suffers some disloyalty in Venice itself, the none-religion citizen contribute too this too.
The Danes sends gift to the Juts and Skanings, maybe they want to absorb them.

Buyids 175 could recruit more.
Abbasids 100 can keep this up for some time.
Mazyadids 300 way over sustainable.
Seljuqs.
1. Ordu 184
2. Ordu 164
2. Ordu to be dismissed 13
vassals 351 milling around doing nothing!

Navahand is 0 +25 food, good we increased production. The army in Sus uses 11 food
Isfahan is 27 +8 an vassal army is using 4 food. 1. Ordu seems to draw food from Sus first.

Turn 6 Our heir is told how to govern, nice!
We help our vassal for the relation gain.

Both our storming of their respective cities took more effort than expected. Took far too many round as our infantry was lacking and the horse only gave +2 support.
The Levies are also raw and hastily levied, this must be fixed, a bowyer is just finished that will help the archers and a levy camp is ordered to try to fix the none-heavy infantry.
Only 10 gold is plundered, how empty the Buyid coffers must have been.
Took 3 rounds before the archers had every opponent exhausted and the Elephant had trampled enough opponent.

To start remedy this we order 1 peasant to garrison Isfahan, 1 Merc Daylami and a Mamluk Cavalry to strengthen the army.

Navahand is still at zero food stored and +25, while Isfahan is 26 and +8, which is one stored down, 2 vassal armies are eating 6 food while just standing around. The province has +42 so we should still be good.
Both Sus (0 +10) and Shiraz (0 +2) are set to all food production in the hope they can support some of the 1.&2. Ordu's food supply.

For some reason Sus doesn't have the just conquered modifier, but Shiraz does, Shiraz was the target of our war campaign, but Sus was not.

1. Ordu is ordered to Darabgerd with orders to storm it immediately, which might fail spectacular, but our vassal is already sieging it so no surprise army should show up and make it to a catastrophe.
2. Ordu is ordered to Sharaban to siege it. It should attract a few of the enemy armies. An archer is left as garrison for now.

2 x Village, Huddled Shanties and Bowyer were finished and replaced by road, a 2nd levy camp for MP and unit improvement and Flax for a missing one in Isfahan and for the bonus gained. And a Musalla to improve piety in Isfahan(could move the Clergy back to piety but for now I need him in infra and we want to build upgrades to it later).

Missing goods:
wood 3 (-7, -8, -8)
cloth 2 (-10, -11)
nuts (-8)
leather 2 (2x -8)
flax (-7)

Surplus goods:
Exotic fruits( native)
Naphtha (native) 3, the stuff is just coming out of the ground and is generally useless.
Coal (uses wood, but gives bonus to some metal production, not currently used)
Precious stone vein (native, need mining exploit and precious stone mine)
Fruits (native)
Horses
Wool 2
Iron 4 (this is used in so much we need more soon.)
Tin vein(exploit + mine, but is only used as bonus)
Stone

I should destroy the Charcoal burner(uses wood -7) and the Shoe maker (leather -8) but I hope we can use them later and actually get some leather and wood.
Wood is only in none-arid, so only 2 regions for now, so they need to build wood cutting(2), trade borough(prereq), logging camp(+1), sawmill(+4). They will all be needed.

Turn 7 Our heir has some interesting consultations with the counsellor.
Only finished building is the Mussala in Isfahan which maxes it out.
Apparently we are hit by a timewarp where we have to retake Shiraz again as a new Buyid army spawned in the city.
1. Ordo storms Shiraz (again!, good thing I wanted to take the next city on the march or this would have been embracing) on the march to Darabgerd.

1. Ordo is ordered to Storm Darabgerd and move to Siraf and on to Bushehr.
2. Ordo continues to sieges Sharaban, the Abbasid army seems to be on the move, maybe they attack?

We destroy the mining exploit in Hamedan as it is an arid steppe so not really mining territory, saving us 8 gold for 1 metal lost.

News from the wider world:
Almoravids have nearly finished off the Barghawata, but an uprising happens in already conquered territory.
Castilla takes another region from the Toledo Taifa.
Danemark and Sweden exchange regions.
Poland is at war with Volhynia, wonder how Rus is thinking about that.

Turn 8 A high priest consult with our heir who immediately realize that "religion is seen by the wise as false, by the common people as true, and by the rulers as useful"!

The order to storm Darabgerd is either lost or ignored ... the reinforcement is redirected there, which is a failing in leadership or treason.

Levy camp, flax, village road are finished and Crude smelter, Mussala are started.
In additions a palisade is started in Isfahan by some nervous nobles.
In all 3 areas the siege continues and they are all starving, mostly in Darbgerd.

Many more peasants are set to produce trinkets for gold.

Turn 9 Nothing ground breaking here.

We will try to storm Darabgerd again, 2 good units and a peasant vs 6 starving levy.
The 2 other sieges needs a little more time.
2 Irregular foot are recruited to speed up sieges.

Finished this turn : Trade borough, Palisades, Flax, Peasant roundup
Dismantled : slave workforce(event)
Started : Subsistence(last slot), Bricks(need 1), Musalla(more religion).

Religion: 2 converted, 1 heretic.
Venice is rather deep in debt, they better finish what they are doing soon or their army will degrade. Also they are sinking quickly into aging.
Fatimids are out of debt, that was fast. But a rebellion in Alexandria is a problem as the army seems depleted.
Apulia's new war wasn't as expensive in Auth as feared.

Turn 10 More spying on nobles!
Some training occurs!

The Storm of Darabgerd fails misserably and will await more troops.
Bushehr is ordered taken by storm to get things moving even if losses will be taken.
Siege of Sharaban should begin to progress in 1-2 turs as their food runs out.

Complete: 2 Musalla, Crude melter,
Dismantle: Exploit, Slave workforce(event)
Begun: Discreet village, Craftsman borough, Subsistence

Training: 2 units
Religion: 2 conversion
Rus has taken Korchesk, the last internal independent.
Almoravids lose a region, Agadir maybe.
Castilla and Badajoz makes peace, Castilla returns an occupied region.
Italian occupied Vicenza is besieged by Verona. Venice is still having some economic problems.

Turn 11 Our fumbling around caused the Darabgerd to go to our vassal.

The Abbasids invaded Shiraz (after moving around somewhat) and got defeated by an vassal army that was standing around eating our food.

The storming of Bushehr there was some confusion around what happened in the battles. After interrogating the commanders battle log.
We see there are 3 battles, but confusingly the losses are not separated by the battle announcements.
1. battle
2 Buyids Dead peasant and bowmen but we took many hits on the other flank.
2. battle
1 Buyids and 1 Seljuqs.
3. battle
3 Buyids and 1 extra in persuit.
Would help if the battle announcements were placed just before the results of that combat.

Reinforcements, 2 Mamluk going to 1. Ordu, the Daylami and 2 foot are still moving forward.
The Garrison archer in Sus moves to join 2. Ordu and 2 new foot are ordered in Sus, last comes in 3 turns.

Complete: Subsistance
Started: Weaver.
Almoravids gain and lose a region.
Apulia takes over Salerno.
Rus seems to have absorb some minor.
Fatimids rearm to retake Alexandria.
Castilla is sieging the last region of Toledo.

Turn 12 Meh, no new is good news.

1. Ordo receives the surrender of Bushehr and a reinforcement is received and a wounded is send back to recover hits. The army moves to Arrajan and sieges it.
2. Ordo is ordered to storm Sharaban as its weakening.

Some vassals attack the borders of Byzant, who is now also involved in a war with Dioclea.

Finished: Peasants, hamlet, Subsistence
Started: Iqta(edict), Roadx2
Castilla takes the last region of Toledo. They have made peace with all except the Albarracinense Taifa.
Fatimids crush the Alexandrian rebellion.
Poland expand into Volhynia.
Venice loses Vicenza to Verona.

Turn 13 We lend a big hand to our vassal in hope they will like us more and send their army!
We are too small to become an evolved seljuq.
We only had to twist some citizens arms a bit for them to donate 127 gold.

1. Ordu is waiting for its H.Inf to come back from healing and continues its siege, they garrison should stave in 3-4 turns in nothing else.
2. Ordu successfully storms Sharaban, leaving an archer as garrison and move on to Hilah next turn.

Finished: Weaver, brick, Discreet,
Started: Levy, hamlet(edict), Refuge (noble), hamlet
France absorbs Berry.
Fatimids somehow gains a regions, bought from a vassal?
Almoravids takes back Marrakesh.

Turn 14 The relations between Rawadids and Seljuqs has deteriorated, we will send them a gift and hope it improves.


Some Vassal tries to storm Arrajan, and gets a very bloody nose.
1. Ordu orders it H. Inf to return from healing and 2 more are ordered produced.
2. Ordu defeats a small patrol protecting Hilah, which is then sieged, with actual progress possible.

Finished: Refuge, Iqta
Begun: Abattis, Musalla.
Castilla absorb Galicia.
Venice regains Vicensa.
The Emir of the Fatimids is complaining about the work his peasants are doing or not doing.

Turn 15 We still need more regions to evolve.
The Sultans health degrades, it will soon be time for him to lead a charge!!!
We spy more on our nobles, they are all traitors!
2 Mercs are recruited and send off to 1. Ordu. both receive extra training.
Byzant asked for peace last turn and we send an envoy with a zero % counter offer for 3 regions, lets see if they see the light.

Our envoys to Rawadids increase the relation to 20 for 120 gold.

An optimistic vassal moves on Baghdad and is wiped out.
Another optimist attacks Wasit, to which the Byuids only say Wasit doing? and wipe the floor with them, the garrison is very large.
A third optimist attacks Arrajan, which we besiege, but gets nearly wiped out. At least 2 Buyid units are damaged which will help us next turn.

1. Ordu will assault Arrajan that now has several damaged units and and is finally starving, the 4 vassal armies here might help too.
2. Ordu the siege is not progressing except the besieged food runs out in 2 turns.

Finished: Abbatis,Craftmans Borough, Levy Camp.
Begun: Hamlet(Edict)

Apulia has invaded Sicily, someone help our brothers!!!
France absorbs Blois, someone help the Free French!
Almoravids siege Meknes, they better end their war soon as they will need to react on the Castilla subjugation of the Free Taifa's.
Fatimids report growth in their economy with 6% up from -100 gold/month to -60.

Turn 16 We know where Tuncay and Altan are, last turn Tarkan, only Uncle Ugur is not known.
And Winter is coming.
Byzant rejected our totally fair demanding zero % peace deal, which we send again.

1. Ordu Battle of Arrajan Seljuq army does most of the work while the vassals just stand around.
2 Infantry joins after the battle.
1. Ordu is ordered to attack on the marsh the city of Ahwaz, extreemly dangerous if an army shows up to defend the city.

2. Ordu and a vassal army inflicts a lot of losses on the defenders of Hilah and are ordered to storm the city next turn, should give a good war score taking the capital of the Mazyadids.

Finished : 2 Hamlet, 1 Musalla.
Begun : Regional road, Flax(2 needed), Trou de loup(for remove hostile), Musalla.
Castilla is attacked by Granada Taifa in defence of the faithful.
Fatimids have finally got enough of the Banu Sulaym (BS Tribe), seeking to conquer their lands. Vassals on both sides are called in.
Rus takes another region from Pechenegs, helping Byzant indirectly.
Poland besieges Kobryn.
Almoravids besiege Meknez.

Turn 17
1. Ordu storms Ahwaz and continues to Basra.
2. Ordu storms Hilah and moves to Al Aqdisiyyah ... (from now on Al Aqdi).

Only a Hamlet is finished this turn.
And in the new regions a Brickwork and an Anchorage is started.

Venice makes peace with Verona, now rightfully owning 2 of the latter's regions.
Fatimids blitzes 2 regions of Alexandria, BS tribees ally, a glorious campaign.
Apulia conquers Siracusa, brutally oppressing the local faithful's as the Normans always do.

Turn 18 Lend a hand (this is going to ruin us, 250G)
Send Councillor

2 Spearcarriers are send toward the front, one of them even got training.

Finished: road, Bandit ... (unwelcome), Trou de loup, flax
Begun: palisade, village, wood cutting.

1. Ordu marchesto besiege the (new) Buyid capital in Wasit
2. Ordu will storm Al Qadi and move on to siege Kufa.
Poland and Rus signs an alliance
Poland makes peace with Volhynia.
Almoravids secures a region.
Castile and Apulia continues their oppression of the faithful.
Danemark seems to have some problems with the Sveas.

Turn 19 We send our councilor again.
We only manage to get one war goal our vassal took the other.
Buyid surrenders in view of our overwhelming power!

We can't declare the Fars province as our vassal holds half of it.
I am sure this governor of our new province is corrupt or unfaithful.
We will increase the likelihood of getting an anti-corruption horse-court.
The province is also a mess, there is only stored one infra and we lose 14 due to all the penalties.
So we use the triage rules 1) stop the accident! To avoid losing any structures we will move some from gold and food(we still have some stored even if we go negative and the armies should move out so no drain next turn hopefully). Changed to -19 food and +5 infra, when the penalties go away it will help on both.
The loyalty and other issues will have to be fixed later.

(no more pics for this so continues in part 2).