King Sigismond of Aquitaine, 1061-1081 AD

(Previously on Royal Dispatch.)

My queen Richwara gives birth to my lovely second daughter, Arsinde. All right, we know how this plays out. Just have to keep at it! I’m only 19 years old, still very much a breeder. Anyways, time to declare a lil’ war on West Francia for Avalois.

Most characters in Crusader Kings are nice enough looking within a standard deviation. Characters who have attractiveness traits (Pretty, Handsome, etc.) tend to look a little more model-esque, as I don’t think we’re trying to simulate what looked hot in the Middle Ages (pale, tubercular). But King Rorgon of West Francia has the Homely trait, and he is indeed a bit funny lookin’.

Real It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia situation. My army is five times larger than his, so I don’t expect any trouble. I reduce his force by half in one battle, occupy Avalois, then settle in for a leisurely pursuit of his remaining army.

Richwara gives birth to my third daughter, Eve. What were the chances! Because of my raft of girls, my heir is still my cousin King Amédée of Brittany. He’s a nice enough guy I guess. He has five kids, four of which are sons! What is up with that. He’s of the cadet branch Pardiac, which is technically part of House Thouars, but it would be kind of sad to see the realm pass into the hands of a cadet branch of the dynasty rather than the founding house.

My fabricated claim on the county of Bresse in Burgundy comes through, filling in the blanks on the “Next War” to-do list. The current war with West Francia concludes quite predictably, and taking Avalois gives me enough sway to create the Duchy of Burgundy (again, not inside the kingdom of Burgundy). I grant the duchy to one of the existing counts, the five-year-old Guillaume Salvaing. You got a rough road ahead of you, kid. But I been there too.

I take a break from war to chill out, earning gold back and letting my wartime aggression fade from the mind of my vassals. I’m invited to a feast at the palace of my vassal the Duke Ordoño of Toulouse—you remember, the guy who led the rebellion against me when I was a baby? We’re pals now. I even made him my spymaster! I’m sure that’s a good idea.

During the feast, I fall into easy conversation with his wife Duchess Tahira. Where’s this going, I’m thinking … but then I inadvertently expose the affair Tahira is actually already having with yet another of my vassals, so her husband tosses her in prison. Why do these stories always end with the wife in jail?

Time to hit the “Richwara is pregnant again” macro. I’m not even trying to manifest here, I just want more healthy babies. Any gender at all! Really.

Anyways, time for another mini-war, this time versus King Jaspert II of Burgundy for the county of Bresse. As with West Francia, Jaspert’s army is small, and his only ally is one of my vassals.

Next up in the family, Richwara gives birth to Richwara.

Sure, fine, fourth daughter named the same as my wife? WHY NOT.

Burgundy is rapidly defeated on the battlefield. Controlling the county of Besse allows me to usurp the duchy of Upper Burgundy, which I grant to … my old bully Mathieu, as he’s the most eligible Thouars who’s not already an heir for some other title. Life’s a funny ole thing.

The advantage of absorbing these two foreign duchies is that it allows me to declare war for the remaining de jure counties in those duchies that are still outside my realm, without requiring me to fabricate claims. Still following that, counselor?

Well if you are, then you know it’s time once again to declare war on West Francia, which still controls three counties in my shiny new duchy of Burgundy. My attacks have contributed to West Francia’s general instability of late—the throne has changed hands seven times in the past 10 years. The current King Amaury Karling-Denis is starting his second administration in fact, after being forced out a few monarchs ago.

But I’m going to wait a little while for my vassals to calm down. When you embark on offensive wars, you gain a temporary opinion penalty in your court. Normally you take a breather between conflicts, but my foes are so much weaker I’m militarily ready to go again right away. For appearance’s sake, we’ll enjoy a six-month armistice. Maybe Richawara will get pregnant again in this interlude?

While I’m waiting, West Francia gets embroiled in yet another claimant war, and once again the kingdom of Brittany has ended up in their alliance. Would my cousin King Amédée go to war against me? He might! Perhaps I’ll let that war boil over a bit more to at least exhaust my potential foe(s) somewhat.

I’m abruptly accosted in the garden by the visiting and landless Princess Hildegard, singing of her love for yours truly.

She’s twice my age and married. Hard friendzone.

West Francia’s King Amaury dies of injuries sustained on the battlefield, so his five-year-old son Raynaud is the new sovereign. Sorry Ray, I was your age on the throne once, but imma need that county. Still, I have to wait a bit as my treasury is depleted from construction projects and bribing my way out of the latest Crusade for Jerusalem. Two eyeblinks later, Raynaud is out and King Guilhelm Saint-Valéry is in. Dude has a lot of troops and allies! Probably the strongest king West Francia’s had in awhile, curse the luck. Will have to wait in the wings a bit more on that front.

(Asynchronous chronology department: while later looking over the title history for West Francia, I notice that Raynaud, who was king for barely a year when he was five years old, apparently spent the next thirty years wandering and landless until he was finally taken prisoner by Viking raiders and “strangled with his own intestines.” What a life!)

One of my vassals took the initiative and conquered the de jure claim I set up versus the Kingdom of Burgundy, so it’s time to start fabricating my way to another duchy over there. While that’s happening, I realize that King Guilhelm’s impressive list of allies in West Francia are actually just his own various vassals. So his army is about half the size of mine. Let’s dance! And the dance is for my de jure county of Auxerre this time.

Guilhelm has moved his capital right across my border, allowing me to quickly siege there as well as the neighboring war target of Auxerre. He takes his war army to the east and sieges my county of Besancon.

We all take our respective sieged castles. Guilhelm dies of illness, and his son replaces him as King Raynaud III (a different Raynaud than the one who later gets strangled with his own intestines). Welcome to the party, pal. I move my armies down to smash the invaders.

They run, but not fast enough.

A few more running battles commence, which are militarily decisive but rather brutal for my less-capable noble knights. I lose two dukes in one fight, and one of them is my old bully Mathieu! I finally found a way to kill him after all.

West Francia’s resistance crumbles, and Auxerre joints my realm. Time to hit up my other punching bag in Burgundy. But it looks like I’m not the only one with that idea, as Duchess Mònica of Corsica—vassal of the King of Italy—is warring against Burgundy already. Italy is my main neighbor of concern at the moment, as their army is about the size of mine. I’d much rather pry counties away from a weakened Burgundy than a tough Italy.

Ergo, I declare war on Burgundy post-haste, with the express purposes of taking the county of Forez as well as interfering with the Corsican advance. Burgundy is now allied with the Byzantine Empire, which gives me a little pause. But Byzantium is already mired in four other wars, so I doubt they’ll traipse all the way over to France for this one.

Orrrrrrr will they! Well it’s still a long way to Byzantium. Let’s hope Bardas takes his time.

My daughter Echive comes of age. As my eldest, there’s always a chance she might end up inheriting, so I marry her matrilineally to smart Italian guy name of Giacop Aleramo. I also start a romance scheme with my wife Richwara to see if that will restart the baby situation. And it immediately does, as Richwara gets pregnant right away! I love that woman!

But then!

Can you believe this Duke Ordoño guy! Putting the moves on my pregnant queen right in front of me! And look at that pretty amazing tunic thing, why don’t I have one of those! Of course I challenge him to a duel and … he beats me soundly. I will get this rat one way or another. Eventually.

And then Richwara loses the baby. Sadness.

I wrap up the war with Burgundy just as Byzantine troops actually do start creeping around the border. Fortunately the Italians gave up on the area. For now.

I send Richwara a love poem as part of my romance scheme, focused on her Ambitious trait.

Cold, my queen. Cold indeed. But she’s pregnant again! So maybe she was just busy with that.

Then I get an interesting letter from King Folco II of Italy.

Why not, I say? I mean, this could be something of an obstacle as we each try to bite off chunks of Burgundy, but it will prevent any surprise Italian Jobs on my border for awhile.

My daughter Arsinde comes of age. I marry her to Chieftain Rostislov Sofiovich waayyyy over in Moldavia, just because his liege Queen Sofia Marinovna has an even larger army than mine. Too far to likely matter, but might come in handy someday.

I get a chance to send Richwara another romance poem, and this time I praise her wisdom. She responds!

This is a little weird but I’ll take it! I’ll be your Helen in the bedroom!

Right now I’m pretty much just waiting for my post-war truces with West Francia and Burgundy to run out, and of course for that baby to pop out. Can’t wait for the gender reveal, when we burn down a peasant’s hovel to discover pink or blue smoke! (from expertly dyed burning peasants)

Well I’ll be! Adelinde, a girl! I’d just like to point out in the direct line of succession since I started the game, my player characters have produced a total of 36 children—27 girls to 9 boys. That’s just genetic misandry is what it is.

I dispatch my archbishop to begin fabricating another claim in Burgundy while waiting for my truce with West Francia to run out so I can hit them again. My scheme to romance Richwara concludes with the usual boar-in-the-woods erotic danger scenario, and we are now soulmates. And it turns out my new baby daughter Adelinde is sickly.

Truce safely expired, I launch the war against West Francia for the county of Tonnerrois. My daughter Eve comes of age, and she’s really good at warfare, so I marry her matrilineally to a fella named Arnulf von Cham, who’s both a giant and has the inheritable trait of Hale (which offsets the health penalties of giantism). My Bene Gesserit breeding program to create a race of pretty, intelligent, healthy giants continues.

In far more important news:

This long-sought innovation means I can finally shift from confederate partition inheritance to just plain old partition inheritance. Titles still get divided among eligible heirs, but the key difference is that dormant titles will not be automatically created. This means I can control (however inefficiently) territory across multiple kingdoms under one crown title, without having uncreated kingdom titles spawn and divide (as happened when the kingdoms of Aquitaine and Brittany were separated).

I’m five counties away from becoming the permanent French culture head, which will make guiding the technology stuff possible at last. Richwara is pregnant once again, by the by.

The war for Tonnerrois rolls along on schedule, ending with multiple counties sacked by yours truly and the county safe in my realm. I’ve now engaged in so many brief wars over a short period that I have substantial opinion penalty among my subjects. So I’ll cool that off for a bit.

That blackguard Duke Ordoño of Toulouse, now my official rival, escalates his own aggression to an official attempt my life.

I survive the poisoning (though I’m too distracted to recognize it as such, consciously). But nevertheless I now have seven years of a severe health penalty, thanks to him. It was foolish of me to let him stay on as my spymaster—I clean forgot he was still in that job, even after he beat me up in a lover’s duel. That no doubt made it easier to scheme against me. I sack him immediately, but he’s too well established to move against directly. Have to bide my time and try to stay alive! What a jerk!

Richwara gives birth to my new daughter Bonne. Looks like I’m trying to break my father Jacques’ record for having daughters. Only two more girls for the tie!

Next: The welcome death of a jerk duke.