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Not The One On Top, Not The One That Writes History... Yet: Part XXI - The One On Top, The One That Writes History (1242 - 1253)
Let's finish this.
So, Queen Raisenda. She's kind of a problem. Why? Well, you've probably noticed that she's a dwarf. That's the problem. Now, you might have had a male dwarf as your character and did just fine, and that's true, because Dwarf doesn't have a vassal opinion malus.
It does, however, have an attraction malus, so every single male in our realm now takes a -30 malus to their relation with Raisenda. That can be an issue.
Thankfully, we prepared for this with a strong Diplomacy score and filled coffers, and the succession goes off without a hitch.
Gotta get that piety. When you're slinging around Pope claims like I am, you've got to get piety ASAP - not to mention we're chasing an empire.
The future succession is also secured with our second son (first one's an imbecile, but will still play an important role later).
Scotland is having some problems - seems like their inheritance didn't go as well as ours did. What a shame.
In '43, we get to work on taking out Navarra, because we need that crown and we need it fast.
And fast we are - it barely takes two months.
So let's just keep that momentum going and continue taking provinces - this time not to get a kingdom title, but to enough de jure Francia land.
This fellow actually manages to call in some allies, though!
And surprisingly enough, they manage to muster enough people to actually make me consider upgrading this war to a level 2 engagement.
And so I do that. For those interested, here's my war levels and what I bring to that war:
Level 1: Retinues only.
Level 2: Retinues and one more type of army (mercs if rich, personal levies if not).
Level 3: All types from level 2.
Level 4: All types from level 3 plus vassal levies.
Most engagements at this point are level 1, very few level 2 and some level 4 (when we take on empires or large kingdoms).
And that's that. Took a bit longer, though - since we needed to wait for the mercs to come down from Vermandois, we rolled over into '44.
People are now starting to consider us for the next Emperor...
...but we've still got a ways to go before we actually win that way. Nah, we're going to have to take a different direction. Also, note the Medium CA. We're leaving it there because we want it there for now.
Next, I do something rather dumb, but considering that I'm basically racing towards the finish line, I don't really care - I did it before with Navarra too. Pushing claims of vassals is normally a dumb idea, since it fucks with de jure borders, pisses people off, causes war and in the worst case scenario brings out the megadukes. However, in this case we're operating under the "fuck the future, only now counts" doctrine, so we don't care.
And yes, that's England. Seems it revolted away from Scotland. Shame.
Another crusade comes along, and we join up again for the opinion boost with the Pope - it doesn't help a lot, though.
Hm, I wonder what the Mongols are doing...
...well, they seem to be doing well for themselves, but they're not heading in our direction, so who cares? Answer: We don't.
Now, there's a little bit of stabbing going on here for two reasons.
One, truces suck. We're in a hurry here.
Two, the next guy in line is our firstborn imbecile...
...and apparently, the Pope doesn't like him, so we can get a claim on his only province.
In '48, the war is over. Doesn't get a lot easier than a one-province guy.
And now we can also take the kingdom. However, there's one problem:
This guy is still the heir to that title, and I'm not picking him as my heir.
Thankfully, his shit intrigue makes that easy.
Next up, we have one big problem - we're really low on piety, and we don't have an easy way to get it. Indulgences are expensive as shit, but we're rich and we're in a hurry, so this is our best option.
Remember the war over Rennes? Well, it's still going on. I can't be arsed to bring up boats and England can't be arsed to come over either, so we're both just sitting here, waiting for the ticking warscore to eventually reach 100%.
Roger comes of age, and he's meh.
His wife, however? God damn, that's good. The two should work well together.
In '49, England finally lands some troops, they get murdered, and now we finally have all the provinces England held.
We're getting closer and closer to the empire, but we're not there yet. We need one more province, but where could we get that?
The Emperor going for Aquitaine? Who's the beneficiary?
Awww yeah. Thanks Emprah, you're a pal. Too bad I'm going to backstab the shit out of you soon, but hey, it's still appreciated.
As you could expect, the war doesn't last long at all...
...and we're now in position to finally make the empire, except we still need more piety.
However, it can't hurt to start preparing for the final stage of "the plan". The great thing about Elective as a vassal is that almost everybody becomes eligible to get their claim pushed through a faction.
In '52, the crusade finally ends, and we become eligible to push our faction. In the meantime, I've also accumulated 400 piety.
It's time for the real final battle, folks - time to assemble all the troops.
Time to deliver the final ultimatum.
Time for the final revolt.
The numbers are heavily on our side.
The Emperor's troops simply can't match up.
And the war ends almost as quickly as most other wars.
We made it - we're Emperor!
Now, this is something I should have waited for - I could have pulled the old switcheroo trick here (raise CA, create new title which inherits raised CA, raise CA there again), but fuck that, let's get this done.
The Franks have won! Or, to be more exact...
...the Karlings have won! Now, for some loose ends...
Aquitaine still needs to be taken out, and usurping the crown makes that easy.
It implodes the realm, and allows us to diplo-vassalize all the dukes after giving them a gift. Add to that a quick war against that count in Lombardia, and...
...we're done. From vassal count to double emperor in two hundred years. We exploited lieges like our lives depended on it, played the vassal game like a champ, rolled with the punches, and came out on top!
Not The One On Top, Not The One That Writes History... Yet: THE END