tunapirate posted:Admittedly, a balance of -8 for swearing fealty under high obligations seems like it could be overcome by showering the Caliph with praise and gifts. The speed at which you cored out the Phoenician realm points to the value in throwing resources at buddying up to the Umayya to gain protection-by-vassalage. Harder for them to protect against a call coming from inside the house! The family is overdue for a revolution, in any case. yea i've started swaying -- but the Phoenicia comparison doesn't really work fully, it only really worked because our liege (the king) directly controlled all the territory we were requesting; if/when we swear fealty to the Caliphate, we'll be butting heads with other vassals just as powerful, and because we're in a Struggle zone our casus bellis are sort of determined by which phase of the struggle we're in definitely better the current situation though, if it works hashashash fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Apr 12, 2023 |
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Apr 12, 2023 20:53
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 Part 9 — God and Gunpowder — 875 to 925 Over the course of only twenty-five years, Adonibaal had risen from illegitimate bastard to become the prince of Canaan and Galilee, Cilicia and Teberya, and power behind the throne of Phoenicia. All this was inherited by his two sons — Yavdi, who travelled to Cilicia to assume the lordship there, and Yehomilk, who took charge of all the rest. Yehomilk was only fourteen years of age when he inherited his father’s name and mantle, but already, it was obvious that he was cut from a very different sort of cloth.   Educated by his mother, who was the daughter of a prominent Hebrew merchant, and drilled by his father’s castellans, who had learned their trade in the raids and forays into Cilicia, Yehomilk grew to become a zealous man of the sword. He was large and strong, a brilliant strategist, and a devotee of the Zadoki sect of Judaism.   But he also ambitious, and while Adonibaal preferred to rule from the shadows rather than risk a civil war, his son was not so reserved. Yehomilk wanted to be the ultimate authority in Phoenicia, and it wouldn’t be long before he had his chance to make it so.   In the year 878, the king made the very unpopular decision to drag Phoenicia into a series of costly wars in Crete. He of course summoned his vassals and their levies — Yehomilk obeyed this command, but rather than sail for that distant island, he marched his forces on Beirut instead.  Unable to resist, the king could only make increasingly-desperate overtures for peace as his walls were breached, as his citadel was seized, and even as he himself was clapped in chains and tossed into a dark cell.   And just like that, Yehomilk was ruler in truth as well as name…   He was not content, of course. Yehomilk made arrangements to crown himself king, and more than that, he already had his eyes set on a campaign against the Caliphate, drawing up plans for a march into Syria and Jordan, Antioch and Egypt. He had dreams of reclaiming Jerusalem for his faith, of crossing the waters of Nile and Euphrates with steel in hand. After all, he was the scion of a long line of generals and conquerors — Mago and Eshbaal, Canmi and Metallo. Why not him as well? Why not Yehomilk?  Because he would be assassinated, just a few months later.  The identity of the assassin was unknown; he could have been funded by anyone — the relatives of the overthrown king of Phoenicia, the many Muslim lords of Syria, even the Great Caliph himself.  Perhaps even Yehomilk’s own brother, Yavi, who immediately sailed to Gazza and was acclaimed prince of Phoenicia.  With his brother murdered and realm in disarray, Yavi suspected that the Great Caliph was behind the killing, and so believed that he was on the verge of war with the Caliphate. Thus, without delay, he expanded his retinue to a sizeable 2500 soldiers — including a troop of 25 war elephants, drawn from the herds of Asiatic elephants that wandered the Syrian steppe and Anatolian highlands.   He also funded the expansion of hamlets and towns, and the construction of towers and citadels.     Prudent measures, no doubt. Yavi was proving a worthy heir to his mother and brother, and a capable ruler in his own right… but unfortunately for him, all his accomplishments would be eclipsed by those of his bitter enemy, the Great Caliph. Nasr ibn Mansur was, by all accounts, a genius and polymath — he founded a house of wisdom and learning in his capital, he fostered philosophy and encouraged innovation, he personally tinkered and probed and experimented with all manner of infernal science and magic, single-handedly driving thinking and technology forwards by leaps and bounds.   So is it really such a surprise that, in the year 883, he invented an entirely new form of weaponry —  According to the rumours, Nasr had been in a hashish stupor when he had an epiphany, and created this thing of metal and black powder. He lit a fuse, pulled a trigger, and… and fire and lightning leapt forth from his hand. Though his earliest experiences with this ‘firelock’ or ‘handgun’ were largely failed experiments, Nasr quickly grasped its potential, and he began the wholesale production of these devastating weapons, and the training of men to wield them. And by the turn of the century, he had hundreds of soldiers armed with handguns.  Rumour and story, tradetalk and hearsay; these things trickled into Gazza, where Yavi put two and two together and came out with five. Refusing to believe that the Almighty God would grant the heathen such valuable secrets, he was certain that these hellish inventions had only one source — hashish. And so Yavi began dabbling and experimenting with that substance himself, hoping it might glean him with some insight into the making of the handgun…  Instead of imparting any secret and revolutionary knowledge, however, the hashish simply inebriated Yavi, making it almost too easy for an assassin to poison him at the height of the summer of 886.  This time, the assassin was caught and apprehended, and after a ruthless session of ‘questioning’, he gave up the name of his contractor — Suffet Bostar, the powerful lord of Antioch, and brother-in-law to the Great Caliph. But what could be done, when this lord was under the direct protection of the Caliph himself? The court mourned, Yavi was laid to rest, and the crown passed to his youngest sibling, a woman who was called Elissa after her mother.   She was known to be trusting and compassionate; but she was also exceedingly intelligent, lustful, and a bit of a drunkard. In fact, according to later chroniclers, it was in a fit of drunkenness and lust that Elissa infamously proclaimed her conversion to another sect of Judaism —    Kanai Judaism, founded on the prophetic dreams of the daughter of Simeon bar Khokhba, master and messiah, was a strange blend of mysticism and legalism that allowed for equal inheritance and multiple spouses…   Drunken scandals aside, Elissa was also a capable diplomat, and it was her who began to take sure steps to fend off the inevitable Caliphate invasion, negotiating alliances by marrying her children off to prominent lords in the north.     Not long after her accession (and conversion), she decided to move her family and court to Tyros — which, over the centuries and millennia, had dwindled into a small town that was overshadowed by the bustling cities of Acre and Beirut.  Even so, Elissa vowed to revive the of fortunes of Tyros, and there, in the place where her most distant ancestors had hailed from, she crowned herself malik of Phoenicia.   Elissa was not so foolish as to believe her new kingdom would be allowed to prosper, however. The forces of the Great Caliph had completed their conquest of Egypt, won another great victory in Persia, and were now launching a jihad into the heart of the old Seleukid Empire — Mesopotamia.  The invading Muslims were actually outnumbered, but the handguns and the ‘firearm knights’ that wielded them proved devastatingly decisive in the decisive Battle-on-the-Tigris, and Elissa realised that she could not hope to defeat a force so strongly-armed. The formula to the making of these weapons was closely-guarded, however. All she could do was dispatch spies and strongmen to the courts of the Caliphate, and hope that they could steal these secrets before the forked swords of Islam were turned on the Levant.   But it was a desperate hope, and Elissa daughter of Elissa would perish before seeing it come to fruition. She was succeeded by her own daughter and spitting image — Elissa.  In the same year of 924, in the city of Madinah, Caliph Nasr also passed away in his sleep, and tens of thousands flocked to his funeral to watch his burial.    He was inherited by his grandson Nasr II, far cruder and far less sophisticated than his namesake, and determined to end this struggle for the Holy Land, once and for all.   And where else would he begin, but with Phoenicia. 
hashashash fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Nov 10, 2023 |
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Apr 13, 2023 19:28
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hashashash posted:
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Apr 13, 2023 19:39
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Yikes -- yikes !!! Do you have the option to convert to avoid a great holy war in CK3?
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Apr 13, 2023 19:42
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Apr 13, 2023 19:44
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tunapirate posted:Yikes -- yikes !!! It's not gonna be THAT great of a holy war, let's be honest. Caliphate's gonna roll into Phoenicia with Mechwarriors and poo poo while we're still impressed by, like, boats you don't need slaves to row.
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Apr 13, 2023 19:47
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Well that's terrifying
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Apr 13, 2023 19:53
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wow that's like, 200+ years early
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Apr 13, 2023 20:43
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Don't panic everyone! We have provinces in Anatolia, we can buddy up with the Hellenic League and eke out a living there until this whole Caliphate and/or gunpowder thing blows over!
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Apr 13, 2023 21:01
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lol well ok we had a good run EVERYBODY BACK ON THE BOATS
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Apr 13, 2023 21:16
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“Poor predictable Phoenicians, always picks elephants.” “Good ol’ elephants, nothing beats those!”
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Apr 13, 2023 21:47
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Ralepozozaxe posted:“Poor predictable Phoenicians, always picks elephants.” Here me out: elephants, with guns
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Apr 13, 2023 22:02
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Gotta wait for the Timurids for the elephant cannons
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Apr 13, 2023 22:20
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Tulip posted:wow that's like, 200+ years early just wait till the industrial revolution pops in eu4
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Apr 13, 2023 23:05
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well it was a good run while it lasted, its over for phoneciabros
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Apr 13, 2023 23:13
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tunapirate posted:Yikes -- yikes !!! i've looked around, but there's no decision or anything, so i don't think so
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Apr 14, 2023 00:09
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take another adventure and land in Canada, and marry the pope. it's the last thing anyone will expect.
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Apr 14, 2023 00:24
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Told y'all we just shoulda headed west and not stopped til we hit the New World.hashashash posted:i've looked around, but there's no decision or anything, so i don't think so You have to do it through the religion menu.
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Apr 14, 2023 01:23
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Hell yeah
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Apr 14, 2023 05:59
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Tulip posted:Here me out: elephants, with guns drat. Jerusalem posted:A wise man once said that war never changed.  drat, 2007.
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Apr 14, 2023 06:50
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Technowolf posted:Told y'all we just shoulda headed west and not stopped til we hit the New World. ah yea, loaded a save and it was there. never realised that, you'd think there would be an alert or something
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Apr 14, 2023 12:58
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Arbite posted:drat. i was thinking of these from 2004  and also these from 2021 
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Apr 14, 2023 15:59
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hashashash posted:ah yea, loaded a save and it was there. never realised that, you'd think there would be an alert or something there's never been a better time for rank cowardice!
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Apr 14, 2023 16:05
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I say we stick around. I'm interested to see how that struggle thing plays out. And I genuinely think being on the losing side is an interesting perspective we rarely see in paradox LP's
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Apr 15, 2023 11:13
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Savescum here, and if everything falls apart we can jump to some kid playing an Alternate History game.
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Apr 15, 2023 18:19
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who cares if we win or lose the entire premise of the LP is hopping perspectives in fact i agree with the above that we rarely get to see Ls in LPs, much less permanent ones. play the characters as you will, eat poo poo if you must -- the show will continue
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Apr 15, 2023 18:38
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Wait, how did I miss another LP starting that's already done all the conlanging for a public dominated world? Fantastic
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Apr 16, 2023 14:08
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Part 10 — Jihad — 925 28th of July, 924 AD — from the pulpit of the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, the Great Caliph issues a declaration of jihad against the infidels clinging to the coasts of the Levant.  13th of January, 925 AD — answering his summons to war, the lords of Syria and Egypt rise en masse, crossing the border into Phoenicia with banners fluttering and swords raised.  7th of February, 925 AD — together with her newly-won allies from Galatia and Assyria, the malik of Phoenicia meets the masses of Muslims outside the walls of Tyros…  …  …  12th of March, 925 AD — and after a month of battle, the ad hoc alliance of Jews and Christians is shattered by the Firearm Knights of the Caliphate; the defenders are massacred, dozens of nobles are killed and captured, and the city is put to the sword.      14th of May, 925 AD — the malik of Phoenicia secretly boards a ship with her immediate family and vassals, and sails forth from her seat. Tyros is left to fire and ruin.  The war is lost.  Phoenicia is lost.  All is lost. 
hashashash fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Nov 10, 2023 |
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Apr 18, 2023 19:08
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So… yeah… I’ve got no idea why losing the jihad for Phoenicia lost our lands in Cilicia as well, but I decided not to savescum, and just roll with it. I made a couple strategic marriages, so the LP isn’t over, but I’ll save that for the next update
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Apr 18, 2023 19:09
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RIP
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Apr 18, 2023 19:19
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Incredible. Somehow this became unbookmarked and I had no idea the CK3 portion was already being played so this has been quite a read today.
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Apr 18, 2023 20:28
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Good choice rolling with it. It makes the story more interesting, even if it's frustrating to play and write.
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Apr 18, 2023 20:56
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Well, that was fast.
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Apr 18, 2023 21:15
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easy come easy go, we had a cool world going but it's game over, so i'll see yall in the next thread
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Apr 18, 2023 21:31
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Well drat. Although I have to admit, the Caliphate's borders do look pretty good right now. I look forward to see where we end up from here! Crimea, perhaps?
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Apr 18, 2023 22:10
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Just noticed the cheese colored papacy in Constaninople (or whatever it would be called in this timeline).
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Apr 18, 2023 23:11
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...right, where to next? I hear Iberia is nice this time of year.
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Apr 19, 2023 07:30
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I hear if we go far enough east the Caliphate ends and there's a whole bunch of new exciting religions for us to convert to e: also elephants
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Apr 19, 2023 11:20
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Clearly there must be a Canaanite equivalent of the vanilla CK3 Nestorians. Time to syncretize with the Taoists and Bönpo, in provinces that most of us don't recognize.Chronometry posted:...right, where to next? I hear Iberia is nice this time of year. But which Iberia?
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Apr 19, 2023 15:35
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man, the religious rebels for this area in this timeline are going to be Cannonites, aren't they?
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Apr 19, 2023 17:46
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