Emperor Guiges of Francia, 1348-1355 AD
My Own Private Excellence.
(Previously on Royal Dispatch.)
Let’s check that lineage!
Agnès ran the show for 62 years! What a lady. Now we’re back to the sturdy Thouars template of bearded dudes. But it seems likely that Guiges will not hold the throne for too long, being that he’s already 68 years old and in poor health.
But Francia is big now! Really big.
I doubt I’ll get into any wars, just to keep things stable. Right away though a few dominoes fall of bordering independent rulers who offer themselves as vassals—guess they had some personal beef with Agnès that prevented them from stepping forward. In short order I have enough new territory to form the northern kingdom of Sjælland.
Factions spring up right away of course, from angry Andalusian Muwalladi peasants to vassals who desire independence, more liberty, or both. I begin to work on placating everyone with gold and good times as best I can. And it’s also time to hand out all those kingdom titles that Mom was saving for this very eventuality. Ten of them all told!
I start digging through each kingdom’s de jure duchies and appointing new kings from the vassals who like me the best—Thouars kin if at all possible. New king roll call! Boson Thoars-Basel is the new king of Bavaria. Adalbert Motluel takes of over Léon. Guy with a great name: Cytelbearn Cenrædson Thouars-Lizarra, new king of Navarra. Rasso Waldenstein is the new king of Asturias. Hildebert “the Foolish” Thouars-Cordoba takes over Galicia. Mathieu “the Heartbreaker” Cleriuex is the new king of Hungary. The last loose Spanish kingdom of Valencia goes to Æthelhere Thouars-Shaftesbury. Hail the new king of Moldavia, Aimery Thours-Bourg. Despite some of these weird last names, all of these eight new kings are Thouars.
On the non-Thouars front, that newly arrived kingdom of Sjælland goes to the guy who came in as a new vassal and made it all possible, Mikołaj Landsberg. And the kingdom title of Pomerania goes to Masław Awdaniec. The former actually controls most of the latter guy’s de jure territory, so who knows what will happen there.
The only kingdom title I keep is dear old Aquitaine. The end result of all these title handouts and resulting vassal shuffling is the burgeoning factions have all gone quiet, for now. Just as Mom planned.
And going back another generation to the master plan hatched by Raynaud IV—it’s time to get that blood up.
Agnès made the Thouars blood holy, and while Guiges may have one foot in the grave already, his other foot is kicking ass! Genetically that is. Not many more generations left before the game end date is reached, but the babies born in that time will be Superior Beings. Hilariously this gains Guiges the royal nickname “Blood-Father.” Metal.
While Mom was still Empress and I was but a duke, my wife Lucinetta died of natural causes, and so Agnès arranged a new marriage with a lowborn Polish lady named Kazimiera who has a high Intrigue skill (mine is less so). I’m 69 years old now, while Kazimiera is only 34, which I guess was enough to still make us viable reproducers when taken together. Welcome to my new fifth son, Guiges.
What can I do to safely expand the Empire without risking a long or costly conflict, given my advanced age? Looking over at my my mother’s not-quite-completed Carpathian project, it turns out the two independent principalities of Oltenia and Muntenia are willing to become vassals if I permit them to continue practicing their Orthodox faith. Why not!
This allows me to create the kingdom of Wallachia as well as the empire of Carpathia, and gives me enough fame to found the University of Cambridge. Third ruler with the “Scholar” nickname in a row (which overwrites my previous “Blood-Father” nickname unfortunately). And I haven’t even done a war yet!
I wonder—there are a bunch more of these grand principalities scattered around with Orthodox and Kabbarite rulers. If I offer them religious freedom along with vassalage, how many will take the bait?
Turns out the independent principalities/duchies of Bugeac, Hrodna, Cherven Cities, and even Lesser Poland are down to clown, along with the counties of Cherkassy, Perayaslavl, Korosteń, and Turów. That’s enough to allow me to create the wee kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia, which convinces the de jure duke of Wołyń to come over as well.
After all this, I’m at 43 of 90 required counties to form the Southern Baltic Empire. Francia’s army is by far the largest in the world, and (as an expert diplomat) I can use the Force Vassalization casus belli on rulers substantially weaker than myself. Such as King Arnulf III Meran of Bohemia.
Arnulf sends out his brave army of 15,000 troops to meet my own force of 10x that number head-on. The Bohemians are completely annihilated in one battle. I march to their capital, swatting aside some hastily-hired mercenaries along the way. While the sieges commence, the duke of Moravia inquires as to whether I would accept his vow of fealty. Of course, of course, welcome to the empire, here’s your orientation packet, please see Francois in HR to get your badge and coffee mug.
Bohemia keeps scraping up small desperation brigades to harass my siegers, but they’re too small to even threaten such detachments. King Arnulf gets himself captured trying to break the siege on his capital, ending the war and introducing him to a new life of Francian servitude.
I can also now (in peacetime) create the kingdom of Great Moravia, which just contains the single duchy of Moravia, so not sure what’s so great about it. And somehow, at the age of 70, I have fathered my third daughter, Alix.
Though I’ve made progress with this Southern Baltic Empire thing, the big prize to clinch it would be the kingdom of Poland. Unfortunately I don’t have a valid way to take it all in one swipe, and I’m too old to fool around with the time-consuming claim fabrication process. So I spend some prestige to invite more title claimants to my court, as maybe I can get lucky and throw my weight behind a Polish pretender. Meanwhile, I take a few other small Baltic bites by declaring forced vassalization wars on the independent duchies of Prussia and Minsk, and the county of Trakai.
While the armies are forming up, a jackpot!
Guards, please show Aranka to the deluxe suite. I’ll attend to her war for Poland directly. Three more Polish claimants follow, and I invite them all to stay awhile.
Trakai falls immediately. Prussia takes a little more convincing, in the form of sacked castles and slain soldiers. And once they gain my undivided attention, Minsk surrenders soon after.
The independent duchy of Latigalians offers to become my vassal, which in turn allows me to create the kingdom of Lithuania. I’m now at 71 of the required 90 counties to create the Southern Baltic Empire. I need a year to let my troop levies refresh before the next action though.
After twelve months of rest and relaxation and somehow still being alive, I pick one of the Polish claimants and prosecute their extremely righteous claim to rule Poland as my vassal. The war begins briskly, with Poland being a very large and compactly populous kingdom. But as per usual, Francian power cannot be denied for long. I’m most pleased to grant the Polish crown to my new friend and vassal, King János III Pohanský. (I liked him a little better than Aranka.)
And with Poland securely in hand, I create the Southern Baltic Empire as part of greater Francia—the fifth imperial title held by the glorious Thouars dynasty. And somehow I have a new baby, a fifth son, Jaufré. I’m 75 years old. Definitely giving Empress Kazimiera a little side eye at this point.
I should also note that as we pass the year 1353, we’re now less than a hundred years from Crusader Kings’ mandatory end date of 1453. Probably just a few generations left before we tote up the big dynasty score in the sky.
At this stage of titanic potency, there are few real challenges remaining in the world for Francia. The Byzantine Empire is still quite large in land, though far weaker in terms of armed forces. But it’s difficult to take down an empire at a stroke—likely impossible. The best you could do is take a whole kingdom away. One empire cannot wholly subjugate another speedily, at least not with the casus belli available to me.
So, I shall simply increase. Since I’ve decided to leave Italy alone as long as it’s ruled by another Thouars, I’ll alternate between pushing north into the scattered realms composing the Scandinavian Empire, and pushing south into Muwalladi-held Africa.
Or maybe there’s another thing I could do, like die!
Oh well! Never thought Guiges would stick around long anyway. On to Emperor Hélie, a strapping young lad of 46.