Emperor Raynaud IV of Francia, 1264-1286 AD

(Previously on Royal Dispatch.)

Over in East Franconia, my troops have invested most of the duchy when the Bohemian-Bavarian army surprises our flank. I throw a few thousand warm bodies on the war-pile and capture King Henryk himself, bringing the war to a delightfully premature and victorious end.

As predicted, controlling the duchy of East Franconia allows me to create the kingdom title of East Francia. That in turn inspires an independent East Francian count to offer herself as my vassal, which then allows me to just legally usurp the duchy of Hesse. Then another local duke bends the knee as well! I like this new country of mine, so accommodating.

So for the long term plan of creating the empire of Germania, the next and last big target is the kingdom of Bavaria. I send my archbishop to make with the fabricatin’ of claims, while I turn my de jure gaze to the north.

This splatter of cartographic feces besmirching my pure French blue border are the remaining independent counties of East Francia that refuse to bend the knee, mostly because they hate the French. Understandable but no excuse for such impudence. I bide my time a bit, letting my armies and treasury build back up while watching these foolish lordlings and their petty squabbles.

Then I attack everybody at once.

I’m not messing around here! Well except for that bit of territory controlled by Sweden, they’re actually big enough to matter so I’ll leave them alone for now. But why bother embarking on a dozen baby wars when I can make a huge mess of things simultaneously.

That’s right, we’re doing 16 wars at the same time. Let’s see what happens! Oh and my second daughter Isabell comes of age, so I marry her to a decent Russian guy named Yeremy Oskyldr.

The Super War goes a bit confusingly at first, with me accidentally “losing” a couple battles because I inadvertently retreat while misdirecting my armies. But in short order the county of Marburg is the first to fall, followed by Waldeck. Then Minden. Then Bremen. I’m probably not managing my armies very efficiently as they’re overcrowding all these little provinces and dying off a bit from attrition, but still we’re gradually knocking down all these dominoes.

The county of Stade falls next. Then Osnabrück. That’s six wars won, bringing the ongoing total down to ten! My son and heir Raynaud’s long-awaited child bride Hodierne de Durban finally comes of age, and so they are duly hitched. Lüneberg falls to French forces.

But you know what they say about getting complacent!

It appears that the jihad has returned to my doorstep. I need to finish up this brace of vassalization wars quick so I can attend to the big business coming my way from Spain. I call up my usual holy warriors and my familial allies in Italy to help hold the fort for a bit, I hope.

A couple months go by with no evidence of jihadists in French territory just yet. My holy warriors cool their heels near my capital, waiting. Back north, Danneberg capitulates.

Here come the infidels! Of course, to them, I am the infidel. Who’s to say but G-d?

I don’t have forces nearby to deal with them, so figure I’ll just let them rage a bit through the countryside. Meanwhile Stendal falls, as does Oldenburg and then Hannover.

A lifestyle event comes up to survey my realm, but it’s going to stress out my lazy ass to the point of mental breakdown.

The survey comes with valuable bonuses, so it’s worth it! I take the Reclusive trait which has some penalties, but seems to make sense for someone who’s already both Lazy and Shy after all.

In screwed-up family news, turns out my daughter Cécile is plotting to murder her brother, my son and heir Raynaud? Rude. I attempt to capture her, but she escapes and flees. She can go hang out with my fugitive ex-wife, who is her mother after all.

Hildesheim falls. Down to only four remaining de jure wars before I can turn my full attention to the jihad, which is grinding away slowly down south due to how heavily fortified my provinces are. Hamburg falls.

I start getting sloppy with these remaining de jure wars as my troops are tired and undersupplied, losing a couple battles because of dumb mistakes and prolonging the final foe-crushing. Still there’s progress as I regroup, as Magedburg falls, and then Gleichenstein, leaving only Mansfeld.

My longstanding court physician dies, so I appoint my highly educated genius lunatic wife to replace her. That should be fine!

Mansfeld falls! Sixteen wars, seven years, one mental break, and an ongoing jihad later, the balance of the kingdom of East Francia is under my wing. Sadly since this is mostly a case of taking over existing vassals, there’s not an opportunity to plant my heir Raynaud on a throne yet. I could give him one of my home duchies I guess? Let’s put a pin in that for now.

I’m very glad I spent all those generational years and mountains of gold to develop the French heartland, as it’s really put a crimp in the jihad. They’re still pretty much sitting where they landed.

The advanced state of fortifications mean that all the time I was mucking around in East Francia with numerous battles and sieges, these hostiles led by the Man Sultanate have only managed to occupy one (1) of my castles. The sultan’s armies are starting to suffer from attrition too, the Sultan himself is already deeply in debt, and my armies are headed back west to engage in stern disputations.

My army, bulked up with the ever-patient holy Knights Templar, casually slices off a third of the invading force before they can take a second castle. They retreat out to sea, then come back for another beating. I’m disinclined to chase them down into Spain, since I can sit at home and not lose money on supplying troops abroad. Sultan Fadl ibn Mubashir is welcome to exhaust himself spraying his soldiers’ blood all over France.

Speaking of exhaustion, it would appear being a shy lazy recluse has only multiplied my mental issues.

I’m melancholic now, but shy, lazy, and reclusive would seem a proper recipe for melancholy, so can’t really complain roleplaying-wise. Le sigh dramatique.

Even so, I get quickly tired of waiting and duck down across the Spanish border just long enough to win a couple minor battles and take one castle, which is enough to smother the jihad.

Sultan Fadi is already bankrupt but must pay me an absurd amount of gold in defeat, all but guaranteeing his sultanate will fracture into civil war. Too bad!

My daughter Agnès comes of age. She’s an Amazonian genius, so I insist on betrothing her matrilineally to another genius, who is also handsome—a good French Catholic boy named Nicolas Forez-Biel. He’s only 11 but they should have cool babies someday.

I also have a game decision to make: my high Prestige and gold mean I’m eligible to implement the Opus Francigenum, which is a sort of executive order decreeing that Francia should be the world’s cultural capital. This pumps up the development of a few French provinces (none of which I own directly), while also increasing my crown authority to the Absolute level and giving me a free technology. I could raise the crown authority manually, but I’m always a bit leery of Absolutism as it comes with a stiff vassal opinion penalty. But what the hey, no sense making the late game too easy, and plus I do approve of the culture (mine). Let loose the opus!

One fun side effect of winning a holy war is I’m now considered very holy myself. In fact, I’m so holy that (once in my lifetime) I’m allowed to declare a holy war for entire kingdoms, rather than just the usual duchy levels and below. Wouldn’t it be fun to jihad the Sultanate of Man right back???

Indeed it would, so I let my armies reconstitute and declare holy war for the sultanate of Man itself, which is the largest chunk of de jure territory the Sultan currently controls. Unfortunately my usual holy knight thugs are already involved in a crusade for Syria that I have as usual avoided, but my armies are sufficiently swole to handle this on my own, I hope.

Hilariously, Sultan Fadl immediately dies of gout the day after I declare war, so now I’m fighting his 14-year-old son Sultan Fadl II. He’ll be a less capable adversary on the merits, but it’s a shame because he’s not drowning in debt like his father was. Pity the creditors give up on death.

Nevertheless, even with Fadl II summoning his own holy order I cannot answer with my own, I outnumber his troops by more than two to one. The size of these armies—I have over sixty thousand troops, to Fadl’s twenty-eight thousand—means that it’s rare for any one battle to decide the war. So while I can siege a few castles at a time, I can’t invest his whole kingdom at once because he can keep ducking around my lines to hit flanks.

So it goes a little grindy, and I have to break and run from several sieges when Fadl’s armies creep around. But the outcome was never really in doubt, and I grab a goodly chunk of Spain and a great many titles.

And this also gives me the perfect place to sock away my heir Raynaud 5 as the newly crowned king of Andalusia, under my imperial oversight of course. I’m a little concerned that he doesn’t have any kinds yet with his young wife. Something to watch.

Another side effect is I get to found a university in Madrid.

Which gets me the nickname of “Raynaud IV the Scholar.” Royal nicknames used to be a lot more common and varied in Crusader Kings 2 but have been severely dialed back in #3, which is kind of a shame. But I’ll take it.

As for why my son hasn’t fathered any kids of his own yet?

Damn. Well I’m not going to sleep with my daughter-in-law, and in fact it’s probably for the best that Raynaud knows about this little proclivity, even though it brands her with the “Strumpet” trait. Shame really. Raynaud immediately imprisons her, and then she gives birth to a son—named Raynaud—which is supposedly legitimate? Man I’m glad I shipped those two off to Spain.

Otherwise, at age 54 my health is poorly due to my melancholic nature, and my vassals are generally still pretty angry about all the long wars. I decide to chain up the hounds for a few years to let things settle down and build up a lot of gold for what will no doubt be a tasty succession crisis on my death, considering the high penalties for our culturally fueled Absolute crown authority.

Incidentally, little Raynaud 6 should be a good guy to play, as he’s a Handsome Genius! Just like me. But get a load of this—my daughter Agnès, the genius Amazon, has given birth to twin boys who are both Handsome Geniuses.

And little Guiges is also Herculean! He’s an actual super baby. He is a prowess score of 10 already and he was just born. One perk of Absolute crown authority is the ability to designate your heir, and I’m seriously tempted to make Agnès crown princess just to get access to her amazing genetics. Normally I prefer to let the natural succession progression take its course, but an Emperor Guiges would qualify for the “Strengthen Bloodline” decision, which gives lots of bonuses on inheriting good traits.

Oh what the heck!

I’m sure Raynaud 5 will understand, in time. Agnès will have a lot on her plate when she ascends, since on top of everything else there’s an opinion penalty for female rulers in our culture. She’s tough though. I have faith in her.

What shall I do with my remaining time on this plane though? Well there’s always Bavaria. I fabricated claims for two of three counties in the Bavarian duchy of Currezia, so might as well pick those up.

Right as hostilities commence, tragedy strikes as Empress Philippa dies of a heart attack.

Well she was nice, for a lunatic. But of course the empire must persevere. For my new wife, I marry a lovely infertile Cispaline named Agnese Adorno, who’s a genius with a very high Learning skill. She’ll make a good court doc.

Bavaria’s armies lead me on a merry and dispiriting chase, and I foolishly try and catch them with my big lumbering force. I do eventually, but at the cost of maintaining tight sieges on the target lands, which prolongs the war. That in turn presents opportunity to a massive Muwalladi peasant revolt back over in Andalusia, as well as threat of an ultimatum from a resurgent Liberty faction.

Finally I get my act together and successfully extract those two counties from Bavaria. Now I have to march and then sail my armies all the way from middle Europe to southern Spain to deal with this rebellious rabble. Unfortunately they will no doubt sack a few castles before I can get there, because there’s quite a lot of them.

Just one of the challenges associated with such a large and far-flung empire as mighty Francia, sadly.

While all this has been going on, my daughter and designated heir Agnès had two more children—third son Payen and first daughter Blanche—and she’s also attracted some inappropriate royal attention from my vassal King Mannassès of Wales.

The bum gets thrown out, and rightly so. Agnès will have a tough enough road without scandal tarnishing her reputation further. Perhaps it’s the stress of all this that gets me tagged with the Exhausted trait, worsening my health and overall survival prospects even further.

Fortunately, my troops actually manage to arrive just in time to prevent the Muwalladi wildfire from spreading too far in Andalusia, and the rebellion is put down. Now I really need to just not do any more wars!

But that doesn’t stop other people from doing wars. My brother Aymar gets killed on the field of battle, and the resulting stress tips me over into another mental break. Fortunately my reclusive nature actually allows me to simply ignore current problems, reducing my stress level as I retreat into my mind palace.

Unfortunately that does not save me.

An illustrious end to the Raynaudian series. Ladies to the front! Give ‘em hell Agnès.

Next: The holy blood.