Events of the eleventh session:

Paying the Dane-Geld : Although Dragoon prevented me from conquering Poland last session, the need for his intervention apparently scared Yami; it is true that the Bohemian and Polish kingdoms together would have some difficulty fighting me, if those were all the players in the war. We therefore reached an accommodation: Bohemia is my tributary, which saves me the trouble and expense of actually sending tax collectors across the Baltic, and in exchange the various Borghest kings sit their thrones securely. (At least from the Ynglings.) There was another timeline once, where Poland was a fief of the Ynglings; it didn’t work out so well, in the end, but it was none of the Poles’ fault. There weren’t many of them left, when the Chinese nuked Nuremberg. “Poland is suffering from a fantastic amount of overstretch; it has been bled totally dry. It has no manpower left, no supplies, no oil, and is trying to support an army of 400 divisions of which 60 (!) are armoured. Its dissent is 30%. These days I think very carefully before ordering Polish troops to attack, because the casualties cannot quickly be made good”. These are the occupational hazards of spending a decade in a global total war as the expendable front-line vassals of the Ynglinga Rike. Perhaps this time will be better.

: Although Dragoon prevented me from conquering Poland last session, the need for his intervention apparently scared Yami; it is true that the Bohemian and Polish kingdoms together would have some difficulty fighting me, if those were all the players in the war. We therefore reached an accommodation: Bohemia is my tributary, which saves me the trouble and expense of actually sending tax collectors across the Baltic, and in exchange the various Borghest kings sit their thrones securely. (At least from the Ynglings.) There was another timeline once, where Poland was a fief of the Ynglings; it didn’t work out so well, in the end, but it was none of the Poles’ fault. There weren’t many of them left, when the Chinese nuked Nuremberg. “Poland is suffering from a fantastic amount of overstretch; it has been bled totally dry. It has no manpower left, no supplies, no oil, and is trying to support an army of 400 divisions of which 60 (!) are armoured. Its dissent is 30%. These days I think very carefully before ordering Polish troops to attack, because the casualties cannot quickly be made good”. These are the occupational hazards of spending a decade in a global total war as the expendable front-line vassals of the Ynglinga Rike. Perhaps this time will be better. Great Holy War : I finally managed to unleash the Great Holy War for Saxony that I’ve been planning for several ingame decades. Saxony is rightful Yngling clay, and currently held by an Ivering; additionally it contains the Norse holy site at Braunschweig, meaning that a successful war would give me two achievement points rather than one. Vaniver chose not to dispute this one; even so, the AI put together quite an impressive army, equal to what I invaded with at 14k. However, that took time and allies, and by the time it was ready to fight I had assaulted enough castles to give me the victory. Alfgeir leads his men in a very satisfying victory against the Christian defenders of Saxony.

: I finally managed to unleash the Great Holy War for Saxony that I’ve been planning for several ingame decades. Saxony is rightful Yngling clay, and currently held by an Ivering; additionally it contains the Norse holy site at Braunschweig, meaning that a successful war would give me two achievement points rather than one. Vaniver chose not to dispute this one; even so, the AI put together quite an impressive army, equal to what I invaded with at 14k. However, that took time and allies, and by the time it was ready to fight I had assaulted enough castles to give me the victory. The Swedish Inquisition : Speaking of Iverings, there are still some quite powerful dukes and counts of that ilk left over from the Crusade. Being followers of the White Christ, they are quite vulnerable in the majority-Norse Ynglinga Rike; in effect the only ones annoyed when I revoke a title from an Ivering are the other Iverings. I did however have to spend some time managing my council, as every time someone became malcontent he would block my revocations just to be difficult, and apparently buy enough favours to take half the council with him. I ended up making Nordriki independent again just to get rid of king Bersi – I was also well over the realm-size limit, and in fact still am, so it was somewhat convenient as well as satisfying to be able to fire him not just from the council but the realm. The Inquisition is not yet ended, but the power of the Iverings has been vastly reduced with just one civil war to enforce my edict, and the spread of the religion of slaves has been contained and partly rolled back.

: Speaking of Iverings, there are still some quite powerful dukes and counts of that ilk left over from the Crusade. Being followers of the White Christ, they are quite vulnerable in the majority-Norse Ynglinga Rike; in effect the only ones annoyed when I revoke a title from an Ivering are the other Iverings. I did however have to spend some time managing my council, as every time someone became malcontent he would block my revocations just to be difficult, and apparently buy enough favours to take half the council with him. I ended up making Nordriki independent again just to get rid of king Bersi – I was also well over the realm-size limit, and in fact still am, so it was somewhat convenient as well as satisfying to be able to fire him not just from the council but the realm. The Inquisition is not yet ended, but the power of the Iverings has been vastly reduced with just one civil war to enforce my edict, and the spread of the religion of slaves has been contained and partly rolled back. Ut! Ut! I now found time to turn to the Scots infesting the northern part of Scandinavia, and begin the process of chucking them out with a holy war for Norrland.

I now found time to turn to the Scots infesting the northern part of Scandinavia, and begin the process of chucking them out with a holy war for Norrland. Vox Popoli, Vox Diaboli: I handed out the Saxon provinces to various Ynglings, carefully following the Duchy boundaries to make nice holdings that could in principle become viable Holy-Roman-Empire minors (or even an elector in the case of Braunschweig); unfortunately I forgot to make the castles into province capitals first, and so they were all handed out as “Grand City of Foo”. Thus they became Republics, and inland ones at that; and my grand design of Yngling Saxony was gone, thanks to this damn “democracy”, within a generation. Apparently if you give the peasants a vote, they don’t feel obliged to use it as you intended, and will elect completely random nobodies!

Player and political maps, 1082. Note the Ynglinga Rike stretching well down into Germany – sadly, most of this will have to be made independent again so as to comply with the realm size limit. Also note Khan in Gaul and Egypt. Hadogei missing again from Anatolia; sadly, we may be about to lose him, his presence has been very sporadic recently.