Toggle Background Color
India, Part 5
Old Habits Die Hard
Narendranarayan (or Naren as his friends call him) begins his reign by declaring war on the Cedi Kingdom.
When your ruler dies and his heir takes over, all the truces you had are cancelled. The same goes for your enemies. Thus a good way to get around the 10 year truces to have the other guy murdered. It's one of those strange little quirks of CKII that it's considered more honorable by your vassals to murder someone than break a truce.
So confident is Naren in his victory that he doesn't even bother to call up his vassals, deeming his private army and levies to be sufficient.
His vassals are unsure what to think of the new maharaja and decide to withhold some of their levies..
That's right, I outnumber the Cedis so badly I don't even need my vassals' levies. When you're dealing with small threats like this, using your personal forces to deal with the problem is a good idea. You see, the longer you call up your vassals' levies, the more they dislike you. I believe there is a stacking penalty of -1 malus to liege opinion for every 61 days your vassals's levies are called up.
You'll also notice a blue arrow pointing to something called a "retinue". Now, if you've being reading through all the LPs or are a CK player yourself, you'll know what a retinue is. For those of you who aren't part of either of those groups, retinues are a feature added in Legacy of Rome. They are more or less your private standing army. They only cost money when they are reinforcing, so once that's done, you have a free army that you can have up for as long as you want. This is very nice for larger realms that have to deal with a bazillion peasant revolts (and believe me, we'll see a lot of them). Plus having a few more troops never hurts. Retinues can be expensive to buy, but they pay for themselves very quickly.
My personal preference for retinue composition is 1:1:1 of Steel Bow, (470 archers, 30 elephants), Skirmish (400 archers, 100 heavy infantry), and Shock (400 heavy infantry, 100 archers). This is an archer heavy army, but it's excellent for assaulting holdings and it has war elephants. You can't go wrong with war elephants.
The green arrow points to our maintenance costs. As long as those levy are called up, we're paying that amount per month. If we were to call up our vassals' armies, they'd have to pay for it.
One more thing, since we came onto the throne, we lost the "long reign" bonus that Ramapala had. But since a fair amount of our vassals are Buddhists and Jains, we don't have to worry about the "short reign" malus.
BTW, according to the spell check, "malus" isn't a word. You've probably figured out it's supposed to be the opposite of "bonus".
With the old maharaja dead and the new one focused on a war, a separatist movement in Gwailor sees its chance to break free of its foreign Bengali ruler.
Speak of the devil. We got our first peasant rebellion.
That's the full size of it. This rebellion does not have a ghost of a chance to succeed. But peasants don't like foreign rulers controlling them and any province with a culture different than your own gets a +2% chance per year to revolt. That doesn't look like much, but when our realm has over a 100 provinces, that's going to add up.
Fortunately, peasant revolts only succeed if the person they are rebelling against has been completely devastated by another power. Additionally, peasant rebellions are composed mostly of light infantry, the worst kind of military unit in the game. Peasant rebellions shatter when fighting disciplined troops, so even if you're outnumbered, you can win. Though if you're outnumbered by a peasant rebellion, you have bigger problems.
Naren is a bit too zealous in battle and pays for it with a slash across his face.
We got a wound. This will give us a small health malus (-1 health and -1 martial), but it will recover in time.
During his recovery, a cook brings a fine meal. Naren thinks of his fellow soldiers and their plain rations, and considers whether he should eat the food before him.
"No thanks, Budh," says Naren. "It's a fine meal, but I think I'll have bread and water, thank you."
We get the Temperate trait, boosting our stewardship skill!
Let's take a look at Naren shall we?
He has phenomenal diplomacy, which is very handy for keeping a large realm like this together. He also has a trait, Honest, that we haven't yet, I believe. Honest (+3 diplomacy, -2 intrigue) is great for diplomats, bad for spymasters and schemers. Being a Buddhist gives him a boost to learning, but everything else is rather poor. Temperate goes a long way to increasing our stewardship. Once he recovers from his wound, his martial should go back to 2. Intrigue will have to be increased via ambition most likely.
You'll probably see a bunch of claims listed. These claims are unfortunately for things already in our realm and all of them are weak.
Desperate to save her kingdom, Maharani Kakanvati calls upon the Followers of Arjuna, the holy defenders of Hinduism.
Sheesh, look at those numbers. We might need to call on our vassals after all.
I looked up "Arjuna" on Wikipedia and it turns out he is one of the heroes of the Bhagavad Gita as well as a badass.
So what is our desperate queen like?
She's a master of stewardship, she's got decent martial and learning and she's improving her intrigue. She also has a trait which I believe we have not seen before, Greedy. Greedy decreases diplomacy by one, but increases global tax rate by 10%. Also, Greedy is the opposite of Charitable, so obviously you can't have both, barring weird glitches. Given her traits and her age, it's likely she's improved her stats via ambition.
Naren's wound heals, leaving a vicious scar. But this scar is the mark of a warrior and legitimizes him in the eyes of his soldiers.
When you lose the Wounded trait, it is replaced by the Scarred trait, which gives you +.10 prestige per month. A scar will also appear on your character portrait. It's a neat touch.
Seeing the massive horde of holy warriors, Naren calls up his vassals' levies for aid.
Later, he publicly embraces the doctrines of Jainism like his father, in an attempt to build a bridge between his father's reputation and his own. Naren, however, has no intention of following the doctrine of ahimsa.
Converting to Jainism will give us all those juicy bonuses. We'll lose 4 learning, but learning is honestly one of the least important stats a ruler can have. We'll lose the ability to get ambitions to remove negative traits, but we have none to begin with.
We choose the Digambara school of Jainism to get an additional point of health. The other would give us an additional +5 vassal opinion, but considering we get +30 for being a Jain, there isn't much point now.
In case you're wondering, the reason that the Digambara are known as the sky-clad is that Digambara monks wear no clothes.
Like his father, Naren also receives news of his wife's pregnancy when he is on the field.
Don't worry, I'm not to post all of these. Just the ones I feel are important.
Naren also studies bookkeeping on the battlefield, just like his father.
More stewardship!
His armies assembled, Naren goes forth to crush the Cedis. Oddly, the Followers of Arjuna are nowhere to be found, replaced instead by a mercenary company.
Why on earth Kakanvati replaced the FoA with a mercenary company is beyond me. I will be testing whether Indian holy orders will fight other Indian religions, but every time one is hired, it's disbanded before I get there. Not to mention I don't use holy orders that much because they compete with subjugation. I'm pretty sure holy orders have no upkeep when defending against infidels, but Indian religions don't consider members of other Indian religions infidels. Sorry I can't help here.
Jalela attempts to persuade Naren to return to the religion of his fathers, but Naren feels the benefits of publicly following Jainism to be worth more than the words of the Buddha. Fortunately, he is both an eloquent speaker and a learned man and Jalela is silenced.
Yes, Jalela, after spending 500 prestige to get out of Buddhism, I totally want to get back in.
As his army annihilates the mercenaries in the plains of the Cedi Kingdom, Naren gains an excellent knowledge of what tactics work and do not in those areas.
We get a leadership trait! Leadership traits improve the fighting capabilities of whatever flank the character is leading. If Naren were to lead a flank, his troops would improve when fighting on farmlands and plains.
And the Cedis just lost their mercenaries.
Naren now has a daughter, named for her aunt.
Babies!
However, something is wrong. Bhogavati isn't breathing right and Naren fears that his daughter will not survive infancy.
Bhogavati has the sickly trait. Being sickly gives a health malus of -2.5 and won't be removed until the ages of 2-6. Her daddy's Digambara trait should offset some of the damage, but there is a very real chance that Bhogavati won't make it.
Some men might deal with the stress by sleeping with whatever woman threw herself his way. Naren is not one of those men.
When you're as powerful as Naren is, women will throw themselves at you. Seriously, he'll get a lot of these. I want the piety and Chinnambike has no good traits.
His sister-in-law dies in childbirth.
Yes, I used the character debug window. I use it for figuring out health and fertility. As Hariyadevi is dead, she has neither of those.
Fortunately, her child survives.
History will remember her as one of the most brilliant women of her time.
I showed this one because of Bibibai's genetic trait - genius. Genius is hands-down the best genetic trait in the game, in my opinion. +5 to every stat is nothing to sneeze at. I'll be keeping an eye on her.
Her levies depleted, her mercenaries dead, and her holdings sieged, Kakanvati sues for piece. Naren gets what he came for.
That's one notch on the belt for Naren.
Not one to let grass grow under his feet, Naren turns his attention to the Kalyani Chalukya kingdom, which his wife has a claim on. Naren's assassins inform that Somesvara's defences are too great for a successful assassination. Naren decides to hold off on it.
We need this guy dead. He's got a very son who will need a regent should Somesvara meet with an unfortunate accident. But at these odds it's not worth it. Had I sent my spymaster to build a spy network to where Somesvara was leading his troops, I'd have better odds. But I mistakenly thought he'd be at the capital, so I'll have to wait a few months to move the spymaster again.
Naren sends out his officials to find the finest women of India to be his concubines.
Concubine time! We're looking for good genetic traits and Lakshman has Strong. We pick her up.
While on a campaign to assist one of his allies, the Raj of Kalinga Ganga receives an unpleasant message - the new Maharaja of Pala has declared war on Kalinga Ganga. Upon hearing the news, a creative stream of oaths and curses flows from the Raj's mouth, the likes of which the author has deemed fitting to not transcribe.
The Kalinga Ganga Raj has some of our territory. Let's go beat him up.
His niece Amrapali comes of age. She is a master of all things military, but since she is a woman, she can lead no armies. But Naren feels she might be useful as a tutor.
Giving a military education to a woman might sound strange but I do it for the same reason Naren feels it's worth keeping her around - she can act as a tutor to future generals. It's not the best idea, but it works.
The armies clash and the sheer weight of the Maharaja's armies will do the Kalinga Ganga army in.
We've got this one in the bag.
After the battle, a messenger runs up to Naren. He delivers a letter to Naren then waits for Naren' reply. Naren opens the letter. The letter is from his mayor, asking that he lower his taxes. Writing a flattering and soothing letter full of vague assurances that still manage to say nothing, Naren sends the letter back with the messenger.
This is an event that you'll randomly get from your mayors. The first two options are available to everyone, the first keeps your taxes the same, but makes your mayors mad, and the second lowers your taxes and makes your mayors happy. Since we have such a high diplomacy score, we can pick a third option and choose the best of both of them, keeping our taxes the same and making the mayor happy.
Far away, Pope Conon II calls a Crusade on the Sultanate of Rum for Anatolia. All Naren hears is that a bunch of heathens are gathering to beat up other heathens. As long as these "crusades" don't come near the Palas, Naren is fine with them.
Like I said, Rum is boned.
During his downtime waiting for a siege to end, Naren decides to call up some of his officials and work together on creating a new plan for the palace gardens.
This is another part of the "Improve Stewardship" ambition
A few days later, Naren receives the news that his mother has died. He makes plans for her funeral for when he gets back to the capital.
Mom died. While sad for Naren, this doesn't mean anything big in-game.
Naren finishes the design for the new garden. He has learned much from his officials and has found one of his passions in life - gardening.
More stewardship! Not only do we get +2 stewardship, we get the Gardener lifestyle trait, which gives us a further +2 stewardship. Lifestyle traits are gained from event chains and you can only have one of them at a time. Gardener is one of the better ones, in my opinion.
Naren is now a competent manager of his realm and income.
One ambition down!
He seeks to increase his skill in battle next.
Naren continues to learn new tactics on the battlefield.
Flanker increases our ability to fight on the right and left flanks, but decreases our ability to lead the center. However, a high enough Martial score can mitigate the penalty.
Meanwhile for some reason his brother Ramapala tries to avoid him. Naren wonders why it is.
I got nothing. This event fires sometimes and I have no idea why. I'm someone else in the thread can explain it.
Finally, the Raja gives up. Naren comes back home to hold his mother's funeral.
Since we got a province for one of our counts (that's what a thakur is), he'll like us more.
After the funeral, Naren receives some unexpected news. Somesvara, the Maharaja of Kalyani Chalukya has died! His young son now occupies the throne and a regent rules in his stead. To make it even better, Kalyani Chalukya's troops have been drained by a long war.
There's no time like the present and Naren prepares for war once again.
He's going to get his wife one of the best presents a man can give - an entire kingdom.
This was very unexpected. The game said that Somesvara had died of poor physique, which I'm pretty sure means that the RNG just screwed him over. But this is very good for us, since now that there is a regency, we can push our wife's claim on the kingdom! Any of her kids (but not the concubines' kids, I believe), including our son, Narendranarayan II, will inherit her kingdom when she dies. Thus we can both dramatically expand the size of our kingdom and even, better gain a lot of Dravidian land. We couldn't take this land by subjugation due to our different culture groups, so this is a very lucky break. I think the game is trying to make up for Kirtivarma living forever.
So in short, make sure you marry Dravidian royalty, especially since the kings you put on the throne can launch their own subjugation wars, giving your kids more land!
Next time: The longest war we've fought yet.