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Chapter One: The Lioness of Georgia
So here we are. We are playing as the queen of Georgia in 1185, two years before the Third Crusade. Followers of Wiz's Azerbaijan LP might recognize the Ildeguzids to our southeast.
This is our lovely queen, Tamar. Right away you can see she has excellent stats and a very powerful ally in the form of the Byzantine Empire. However, I find that the Byzantines make for unreliable allies and will usually call you in for some de jure war over in Bulgaria while you're fighting for your life against the Cumans. Yes, the Cumans are very much threat.
While Tamar has good stats and great traits, I think she has the wrong stats for her situation. Intrigue or Martial are much more deserving of 21 points rather diplomacy, seeing that we need as many troops as possible and all of our domestic problems will be solved through murder.
A much more reliable ally is our relative in Alania. However, we will be competing for him for holy wars. Eventually, we'll absorb him into our growing state.
Now for enemies of note:
Number one on our threat list is the great Saladin himself. Fortunately he only borders one of our provinces and in this playthrough he'll be pretty lazy. Still, his sheer numbers make him very dangerous.
Number two on our threat list is Togrul II, head of the Seljuk Beylerbeylik. He's not as big as Egypt, but he is very expansive, and it's a matter of time before he borders our lands.
Number three on the threat list is Khan Koncek of the Cumans. While he outnumbers us, he doesn't have any powerful religious allies to call upon, unlike our Muslim friends to the south.
After these guys, we have several foes that aren't as dangerous.
Sultan Kilij is dangerous only if he doesn't tangle with the Byzantines first, otherwise he's easy pickings.
Berlerbey Jahan of the Azerbaijan Berlerbeylik, a shining beacon of tolerance in an unforgiving world. That won't save him from the various powers that want his land.
Ibrahim of Khiva is rather powerful, but he's too far away to be a threat.
Al-Nasir of the Abbasid Caliphate. Oh how the might have fallen. Once one of the most powerful dynasties in the world, the Abbasids are stuck controlling a small portion of the kingdom of Mesopotamia. Once the Mongols collapse, the Abbasids will become completely terrifying, rivaled only by an equally terrifying HRE.
If we attack any one of these people, any one of the others can join in. (Except for Koncek) This means we have to very careful about our fights. Fortunately, they all hate each other, so we can grab territory while they're distracted. As a matter of fact, this is the center of our strategy.
Kicking people while they're down. Cumans fighting the Rurikid hornet's nest? We steal their land. Muslims fighting a Jihad? We steal their land.
We've got one other problem - this guy. He will start a faction at the beginning of the game and IRL he attempted to launch a coup against Tamar by putting her ex-husband on the throne. Fortunately for Tamar, he failed and spent the rest of his life in disgrace. Instead of humiliating him, we'll just have him killed.
Like that.
These guys had no heirs, so their land went to me. Very important, since Tamar only starts with two counties.
Next, I get married matrilineally to the prince of Denmark. He had the highest stewardship of all the candidates, but all he'll be doing is making sure Tamar gets a good heir. He also has a strong claim on Denmark, but we're not going to worry about that.
This happens shortly after the game begins. I guess it's time to join in for that piety so we can get those delicious Pope claims and Pope mone- wait, we're Orthodox, we can't get either of those things.
We can get these those, so it's not all bad.
I have to apologize for something. I didn't screencap the war with Rum, but if you compare this picture with the one at the top, you can see we have much prettier borders.
Next Time: David and Goliaths