It's on Direct Vassals mapmode, so don't get excited.
My Duchess of Lombardy had three sons - one who was literally an imbecile, and who I assassinated, a second son who was pretty decent, and a third son who I married to the daughter of the Duchess of Capua. I later realised that she was heir to more than just Capua, and that she stood poised to inherit everything there which doesn't border the Po Valley/Apulia. I was fearful for a future civil war in the House of Este, but happily, my second son died tragically, and heirless, leaving Ugo as my future Duke. He then died, meaning that his son Ugo stood poised to inherit everything. However, he only inherited Capua and Modena, thanks to Capua's gavelkind succession policy. I assassinated both of his aunts, and ended up lawfully gaining everything you see there - to be fair, one of them went after me as soon as I inherited (I still bear the scars ;_;) and you could just tell that the other was totally going to. Strangely, I now get half as much income as before, despite still having the strongest military of any vassal of the HRE.
I'm planning to rebel from the HRE with this dude, as soon as my vassals warm to me and I get some allies. Swabia just inherited Bavaria, so they would be good, but Bohemia, Mecklenburg and Brunswick would also be good choices.
Christendom:
The Byzantines have been Byzzy - not collapsing, but neither painting the map an imperial purple. They're doing well for themselves, and I'm happy with their current level of strength. The HRE are doing extremely well, and I think the reason why they always do this is because the Papacy is ahistorically weak. I've pretty much ignored the Papacy the whole game. France is in a state of permanent semi-crisis, with Dukes rebelling every 20 years or so. They've never recovered from that war when the HRE snaffled Aquitaine. All of the Iberian Dynasties are extinct - there is not a single Castillian/Catalan/Basque count. The Moors have recently consolidated into Al Andalus, which is terrifying, as England and France (As well as the HRE) were only able to make inroads whilst they were extremely divided.
England is doing pretty well, and has a nice little Cross-Channel Kingdom. Scandinavia has gone to the dogs, and is complete chaos, as has Poland. Poland were doing really well at one point, and had established a territory as large as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but somehow, a Russian Orthodox inherited Poland and all hell broke lose. That was about a hundred years ago, and most of Poland is now Orthodox, whilst most of the nobles are still Catholic. Rus appears to be doing well, but it's fragile, and I doubt it will stand up to the Horde. Hungary and Croatia are at each others' throats constantly - I think Hungarian internal weakness is the only thing keeping Croatia on top.
Periodically, mercenaries invade the HRE, which causes the Kaiser to freak out and levy all of his reserves. This is very annoying, as the wars themselves often drag on for many many years, as the mercenaries can't be found and destroyed. Anyone else experienced that bug?
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