Duke Guy II of Poitou, 987-999 AD

(Previously on Royal Dispatch.)

Long live Duke Guy II! How’s that dynasty tree looking?

Getting pretty unwieldy with all these kids having kids which have more kids. Speaking of which, my two sons Jacques and Guy (the fourth Guy!) are already a problem.

As per the rules of confederate partition inheritance, when a ruler dies, not only are all titles divided equally among eligible heirs, but any dormant titles are automatically created and divided among heirs as well. So, with the death of Duke Guy I, the duchy of Brittany was created and added to Duke Guy II’s realm, which already included the duchy of Poitou.

This means that if Guy II dies, each of his sons will get one of his two duchies, splitting the realm in half. Very frustrating! The medieval technology required to change this law—allowing one heir to get all titles—is out of reach for now.

Technological progress covers physical things like buildings and armies, but it also covers laws and social developments. Progress in technology is divided by culture. For example, French culture gradually researches and acquires various technologies, while English and Spanish cultures do the same in parallel. All improvements progress very very slowly and simultaneously on their own—like on the scale of decades and centuries.

However, each culture has a culture head who can choose to speed up certain technologies. The culture head is the ruler who is a member of the culture, and rules the most counties where that culture dominates. I’d love to speed up the law that would allow me to fix my inheritance problem, but I’m a French ruler whose realm is mostly Occitan in culture. (The French culture head is the neighboring king of West Francia, whose lands are almost all French.)

I could switch my own culture to Occitan and steer that culture’s path, but they’re already pretty far behind. Instead I’ll just have to embark on a generational approach to (a) using my steward to gradually convert Occitan counties to French culture, and (b) eventually taking over West Francia.

Alternately, I could try to liberate myself from the kingdom of Aquitaine and create the wee kingdom of Brittany, guaranteeing that even if the duchies are split among male heirs, both would still be vassals of the heir who gets the overall kingdom. But that method requires a significant war against my own current liege, King Louis III of Aquitaine. I can start an independence faction to ally with other malcontents, but that can take awhile waiting to gain enough power to make threats backed by war.

Speaking of war, while I was still playing Duke Guy I, the future Duke Guy II got embroiled in a holy war with his Norse neighbor in the Breton county of Cornouaille. That probably looked winnable until the Vikings called up a giant army of holy warriors. So now I have to cement my position as a new ruler while also dealing with a chancy war.

Fortunately I have a goodly amount of gold to hire mercenaries, plus a couple mediocre allies to supply cannon fodder. The Norse hordes outnumber us, but they’re scattered. I maneuver the two largest enemy forces into fighting on unfavorable terrain (a river crossing, and combat right after landing their ships from the sea). This keeps them off-balance enough that after several running battles, I manage to capture the enemy count himself, ending the war.

Even when outnumbered, the Norse champions are brutal fighters, killing and maiming a number of my own nobles in the process. For our troubles I’ve secured another county in Brittany that I didn’t need, but that’s a better result than losing the war. And my amputated leg stump healed!

Acquiring that extra county of Cornouaille put me over my personal domain limit, so it’s time to do one of my favorite things—give out minor titles to adoring, grateful relatives. Look at how happy Cousin Étienne is! Bon chance, Étienne.

So back to my kingdom dilemma. Either I fight my liege for independence and create my own small kingdom in Brittany, or use a scheme to gain a claim my liege’s much larger kingdom title of Aquitaine, and then fight him for it. If it’s the same war anyway, may as well enjoy a richer reward on success. Make with the scheming!

That scheme must plod along for a projected four years before reaching fruition, helped or hindered by random events along the way. I’d love to bribe some people to speed it up, but King Louis is extremely scary, and everyone is terrified of crossing him. The dude is a literal giant!

And he’s a sadist! Would you want to plot against your sadistic giant king? He’s pretty old at 69 (joli), so with luck he’ll die soon and be succeeded by his less scary son. But he’s got all kinds of health bonuses due to his healthy lifestyle. Curse you giant healthy king!

While letting my scheme cook along and trying not to die unexpectedly myself, I somehow found time to produce another child with Duchess Mechthild. We welcome our beautiful new daughter “Gerberge.” Must be a Bavarian thing

I don’t know if it’s the inactivity due to long-term scheming, or my family’s general inability to keep ourselves in our pants, but now I’m apparently vibing with my own sister:

That’s gonna be a no from me dawg. Seems unfair that I gain stress from my decision to decline incest. Guess I must have found other outlets for these feelings, as my wife the kind and unsuspecting duchess is pregnant once again.

This “claim throne” scheme I’m using against my liege is new to Crusader Kings 3, and not something I’ve tried before. So I’m apprehensive as to exactly how it plays out, since I’m not ready for immediate war with my irate king. But everything works out smoothly (so far), and I now have a legal pretext to claim the throne of Aquitaine. King Louis the Giant Sadist is indeed displeased.

His opinion rating for me went from 45 to -61, so it’s fair to say I need to watch my back and hope he conks off sooner rather than later.

Now that I have a claim on the kingdom, the next step is to start a claimant faction. Normally I could then attempt to persuade and/or blackmail other lords of Aquitaine to support my claim, but see above re: fear of sadistic giant. We’re all just gonna have to wait until the big guy is toes up, and we can go to work on his heir.

Duchess Mechthild gives birth to Robin, my third son. He’ll also get a portion of my titles, but since there are already two other sons, it’s really the same issue as before. A year after that, Mechthild is pregnant yet again. We’re an industrious power couple enjoying an erotically vivacious middle age! Don’t be jealous.

In preparation for the old king’s passing, I start making alliances with other Aquitainian dukes. First up is Duke Fernando Frédéricez of Gascogne (he’s Basque, hence the name). I betroth my lyrically named daughter Gerberge to his younger brother Frédéric Fernandez. Interesting thing they got going on with the names in that family. Anyways, Gerberge is 2 and Frédéric is zero years old, so will be awhile before that consummates. The alliance is consummated immediately though.

Oh and Mechthild gives birth to another daughter, Mélusine. I quickly betroth her to Duchess Matilda Enekez (also Basque) of Toulouse, via her son and heir Ordoño Íñiga. She’s zero and he’s 5, so yet another long-term nuptial situation for an alliance which is effective immediately. I spend 12 months and a bit of gold to build up my county’s infrastructure. Just like clockwork, Mechthild is pregnant again. King Louis is now 74 years old and his health is at last slightly fading. I have enough support among the nobles to stage a plausible revolt, but Louis has a large army and a lot of gold. I’d rather fight his heir right after coronation, when he’s weakest. And so I wait.

My son and principal (though regrettably not only) heir Jacques comes of age. Not much out there in the gene pool, so I betroth him to a nice and capable-seeming French girl, Sarrazine de Gourney. Mechthild gives birth to another daughter, Euphrosine. Nice that she’s named after the sister I wanted to do incest with. Some sort of unsubtle message there, wife?

My liege King Louis, immortal giant sadist, abruptly goes to war on his neighbor, the King of West Francia. It’s probably not a conflict I can take advantage of since West Francia has been falling apart for years, and their king’s army is tiny and already losing two other wars. Still, bears watching. People have accidents all the time in wars.

Or at home. My third son, Robin, had been sickly at birth, then recovered, then abruptly expired. RIP Robin.

The war in West Francia had barely begun when something of much greater import happened out of the blue.

It’s our old pal the Sultan! And this time he’s attacking lands far to the south that I don’t care about—they’re not even within the bounds of the Kingdom of Aquitaine. The Sultan has an even bigger army than King Louis, and tons of gold, so if all goes well he will deplete what remains of Louis’ strength at just the right time.

My second son Guy comes of age. You have to be careful with second sons—always possible something unfortunate can befall your principal heir. Best to marry him for genetic potential rather than alliance where needed. I find Guy an intelligent-traited lowborn Visigoth girl for betrothal. He can wait a few years. Incidentally, Guy is homosexual, which in game terms means he has a secret to keep and is less likely to have children.

And then, out of nowhere, something truly bizarre happens.

Indeed I do not know why! It appears the old sultan died, his son al-Mundir II took over the war, and somehow abruptly won the whole shebang in a sweep? And since my top liege’s culture dictates titles, I’m now an emir instead of a duke.

Next: But I don’t want to be an emir!