To inherit or not, that is the question...

[bamff]

Okay, well it is my question of the moment...

The following transpired in my latest crack at my current Serbian campaign...

We are just into the High period, Serbia is looking pretty strong both economically and militarily. I have a nice grouping of provinces, all looks reasonably well.

To the south, Sicily have conquered all of Africa, and are steadily pushing the Byz into oblivion, controlling Nice, Rum, Antioch, Edessa, and almost all province south of antioch/Edessa.

In the North, the Danes had painted almost all of the map white, but the Lithuanians have launched a comeback and now control the northeast and have pushed the Danes back to Volhynia and Levidea.

In the west, the Castille-Leonese control all of Iberia, and most of what will become modern day France. All of these powers have enormous numbers of troops charging all over the map.

Anyway, in 1216, the Castille-Leonese King offers the hand of his daughter Catherine to my Tsar, Stafan I. Stafan accepts and they are wed.

Seven years later, the Castille-Leonese King turns up his little Spanish toes, and lo and behold Algarve, Cordoba, Portucale, Leon, Castille, Granada, Valencia, Murcia, Aragon, Navarre, Tripoli, and Savoy all become Serbian states, along with their massive garrisons of troops!

Now I don't like to look gift horses in their mouths, but I am concerned that these events that have resulted in an almost tripling of my conquered territories have thrown the game a touch out of balance....

So - before I write it up - I have decided to open this question.

Do I (a) accept the fortunate hand that fate has dealt me and push on; or
(b) go back to my last "SAVE" point and see what transpires.

Over to you, my fellow guild members.

[Heidrek]

Take the territories. You'd probably want to try and take them at soem stage anyways and this way you get them without loss. Those are some good teritories as well. Iron rich and wealthy, and come with Garrisons so not too much trouble with unhappyness.

Have a crack, I've never inhereted a teritory, let alone an empire!

[seireikhaan]

Dang...I've never inherited a single territory. I'd take it, if for no reason other than to say that I've done it.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

Dang...I've never inherited a single territory. I'd take it, if for no reason other than to say that I've done it.

Exactly what I'd do! I didn't even realise that this actually happened!

[Norkus]

Dang...I've never inherited a single territory. I'd take it, if for no reason other than to say that I've done it.

Agreed. It has never happened to me before either so I say take it just because you can.

[caravel]

Okay, well it is my question of the moment...

The following transpired in my latest crack at my current Serbian campaign...

We are just into the High period, Serbia is looking pretty strong both economically and militarily. I have a nice grouping of provinces, all looks reasonably well.

To the south, Sicily have conquered all of Africa, and are steadily pushing the Byz into oblivion, controlling Nice, Rum, Antioch, Edessa, and almost all province south of antioch/Edessa.

In the North, the Danes had painted almost all of the map white, but the Lithuanians have launched a comeback and now control the northeast and have pushed the Danes back to Volhynia and Levidea.

In the west, the Castille-Leonese control all of Iberia, and most of what will become modern day France. All of these powers have enormous numbers of troops charging all over the map.

Anyway, in 1216, the Castille-Leonese King offers the hand of his daughter Catherine to my Tsar, Stafan I. Stafan accepts and they are wed.

Seven years later, the Castille-Leonese King turns up his little Spanish toes, and lo and behold Algarve, Cordoba, Portucale, Leon, Castille, Granada, Valencia, Murcia, Aragon, Navarre, Tripoli, and Savoy all become Serbian states, along with their massive garrisons of troops!

Now I don't like to look gift horses in their mouths, but I am concerned that these events that have resulted in an almost tripling of my conquered territories have thrown the game a touch out of balance....

So - before I write it up - I have decided to open this question.

Do I (a) accept the fortunate hand that fate has dealt me and push on; or
(b) go back to my last "SAVE" point and see what transpires.

Over to you, my fellow guild members.

A very rare occurance. Out of interest how was your taxation set when you inherited the provinces? As to what you should do, well that's up to you. I'd say that it could make for a very interesting game if you continue.

[Ironsword]

Take them. It sounds like there are still enough powerful Empires left to deal with who still make the game interesting.

Like everyone else; this has never happened to me as yet... Did it just pop up and say, like, these are now yours?

[bamff]

A very rare occurance. Out of interest how was your taxation set when you inherited the provinces? As to what you should do, well that's up to you. I'd say that it could make for a very interesting game if you continue.

Taxation was at "Normal" for almost all of my existing provinces, and "High" for Venice and Constantinople. I had my economy humming along, treasury is full of florins, so I had no need to upset the populace by overburdening them with taxes....

Like everyone else; this has never happened to me as yet... Did it just pop up and say, like, these are now yours?

I have also never seen it happen before, although I had read of it happening. I got the message about the Spanish King dying, and will confess that I dismissed it without reading it, so I do not know whether there was anything different in the message this time...the first I knew of it was that the entire Iberian peninsula suddenly turned dark blue!

[seireikhaan]

Bamff, I don't s'pose that we might be seeing this in the Pics and History thread, will we? I'd love to see it, if possible.

[bamff]

No worries, kamikhaan - I certainly will do. I just wanted to decide which way I was going to jump before writing it up.

Initially I was torn - on the one hand, it was a complete novelty that I had not encountered before. As a result, I did not want to dismiss it out of hand. Also, up until reaching "high", I had to make do with armoured spears as my main spear wall unit. Now I can train voynuk bladesmen and halberdiers, but I still view these two more as the flanking killer units...The Castile-Leonese seem to have been pre-occupied with chiv sergeants, and have gifted me a great many of these units.

On the other hand, it felt a bit like a "cheat" to suddenly score such a large chunk of territory...

I suppose there is potentially an issue with the ongoing loyalty of the various Castile-Leonese generals. They all seem extremely loyal at present, but they aren't Serbian, are they? So I suppose the loyalty question, allied to my inability to train replacement/reinforcement units may keep it interesting...and as somebody else noted, Sicily, the Danes, and Lithuania are all still very strong....and we all know who is coming to the party in just a few short years....hmmm...come to think of it, those Spaniards may get to prove their loyalty in blood when the horde arrives....

[seireikhaan]

Hmm, you know, I've heard before that your taxes need to be relatively low(ie-not 'very high') to have any chance for this. Which might explain why I've never had it happen, on account of the fact that I have a rather high tendency to break my peasant's backs, regardless of my current financial standing, so long as they remain sufficiently loyal.

[bamff]

Another possible factor is that the loyalty in all of my "Serbian" provinces was 200% at the time - so maybe the combination of low taxes and population happiness worked in my favour?

[Aldgilles]

Well, it is such a rare ocurrance (happened to me once in years of playing) you should try how it works to the end. I'm curious t what happenes next, but if I remember correctly loyalty was not an issue with the new provinces...

[Martok]

Wow bamff, that's one hell of an inheritance. My old roommate once inherited a bunch of Spanish lands as well (he was playing an English campaign), but even that doesn't compare to this!

Well, it is such a rare ocurrance (happened to me once in years of playing) you should try how it works to the end. I'm curious t what happenes next, but if I remember correctly loyalty was not an issue with the new provinces...

No, there's shouldn't be any major problems with loyalty. When my friend inherited most of Iberia in his English campaign, most of the Spanish generals appeared to be quite content with their new liege lord; and the provinces themselves were content as well.

[seireikhaan]

Only issue might be religion. Serbs are Orthodox, while the Spaniards are Catholic. Martok, bear in mind that your friend was likely inheriting a lot of nice, like minded catholics to go along with his own, so that would've made it easier to coralle them.

[Martok]

Only issue might be religion. Serbs are Orthodox, while the Spaniards are Catholic. Martok, bear in mind that your friend was likely inheriting a lot of nice, like minded catholics to go along with his own, so that would've made it easier to coralle them.

Doh! You're right. For some reason, I was thinking bamff was playing the Sicilians at the time I posted that.

I still doubt there'll much difficulty with the Spanish generals swearing allegiance to the Tsar. The provinces themselves, however, may be somewhat restive. (It's been a while since I played an Orthodox faction, so I can't remember offhand what kind of loyalty issues they have with Catholic provinces.)

[bamff]

One further bizarre little twist that I have just noted.....

Among the various Castile-Leonese that have sworn loyalty to Serbia, I note that there are two CATHOLIC BISHOPS!

Why these two and no others? Could it be because these two are 4 stars (and I am guessing that the others were lesser?)

[seireikhaan]

Well, that certainly is odd...

Are they still preaching catholicism, or did they turn into orthodox priests when they 'converted'?

As for only those two... I think its anyone's guess, unless those were somehow the only two bishops they had. You didn't by chance inherit a fleet as well, did you?

[bamff]

No fleet, no inquisitors or other agents, just two Catholic Bishops....both of whom are still identified as "Catholic Bishops".....all that appears to have changed is their nationality markers.

I wonder if it matters that they were all the way over in Tripoli at the time of the inheritance?

Another curious aside - some other previously Castile-Leonese provinces are now French, some independent....so it would appear that some Spanish generals preferred to join a Catholic faction...or not to join any....

[Aldgilles]

My best guess is that another one of their princesses was married to a French prince (so he inherited some of the lands, too). But those bishops, I have no idea.

[seireikhaan]

Honestly, I have absolutely no clue. I'm utterly baffled as to why you inherited two religious agents who are both still spewing that "heresy" they originally were paid to spew. Really odd indeed, I've never heard anything like it.

[Martok]

That's pretty darned odd about those two Catholic bishops, man. I'll rummage through my brain to make sure, but I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before.

Another curious aside - some other previously Castile-Leonese provinces are now French, some independent....so it would appear that some Spanish generals preferred to join a Catholic faction...or not to join any....

1.) It's entirely possible that the French have prince married to a Spanish princess as well.

2.) You won't necessarily inherit *all* a former faction's lands, even if your king/prince is married to the only living princess from that faction.


I can personally vouch for this, as it's happened to me in reverse: When I've suffered civil wars as a result of my faction leader dying without a direct heir, a number of my provinces have sometimes switched to a different faction. In every single case, it was because I'd married princesses into those factions.

[seireikhaan]

Hey Bamff, I don't suppose there's any way that we could get a screenie of those two bishops, is there? I'm very curious as to what that's lookin' like.

[bamff]

Will see what I can sort out kamikhaan - one thing that I will have to sort is the screenies thing. I had a program on the old beast that I used to convert TGA's to jpg format...not sure what I will wind up doing on the lappy....

[bamff]

As promised...here, for your viewing pleasure are two catholic bishops who were "flexible" enough to swear allegiance to an Orthodox king!

[Martok]

That is just funky, bamff.

Now that I've gotten a look at these two gentlemen, I have a possible theory as to why they might not have disappeared. Given that both bishops have 4 stars, the odds are probably pretty good that they're hero units. Now I've not really paid sufficient attention to be sure, but I have a feeling that perhaps hero *agents* live on, even if their faction dissolves.

No idea if this theory actually holds water, but it could explain why those bishops are still around.

[Ravencroft]

NICE there...

Although I could also argue that agents, don't die when placed under your command.

[predaturd]

first congratulations you have increased your strenght and lands noticeably with diplomacy

now what i think you should do is carry on with your great diplomatic play :)

[ArtistofWarfare]

That's pretty darned odd about those two Catholic bishops, man. I'll rummage through my brain to make sure, but I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before.



1.) It's entirely possible that the French have prince married to a Spanish princess as well.

2.) You won't necessarily inherit *all* a former faction's lands, even if your king/prince is married to the only living princess from that faction.


I can personally vouch for this, as it's happened to me in reverse: When I've suffered civil wars as a result of my faction leader dying without a direct heir, a number of my provinces have sometimes switched to a different faction. In every single case, it was because I'd married princesses into those factions.

I'm very cautious of marriage arrangements with other factions period.

a) If it's another princess marrying into my faction, I don't want to wind up with a pile of provinces out of nowhere that I can't control...I mean, some would be nice, but not like what the OP here went through. Definitely not until I'm pretty powerful and can control these acquisitions.

b) I just don't ever like marrying my princess into another faction. She's my princess, if we can't form an alliance without her- we can't form an alliance. The big reservation though is of course...being lunged into civil war and simultaneously losing a percentage of my provinces in 1 turn.

c) I like my princesses to be spies, while maintaining their mobility around the campaign map so that I can bring them home and marry them to a General of mine if the need arises. I just feel more comfortable using my daughters as loyalty boosters than alliance makers.

[Martok]

I'm very cautious of marriage arrangements with other factions period.

[SNIP]

c) I like my princesses to be spies, while maintaining their mobility around the campaign map so that I can bring them home and marry them to a General of mine if the need arises. I just feel more comfortable using my daughters as loyalty boosters than alliance makers.

Ditto that. Ever since that campaign I mentioned (in which I lost provinces to other factions when I plunged into civil war), I almost never allow my princesses to marry into other factions, instead hitching them to good generals/governors who are of only so-so loyalty. I'll only marry them into another faction if:

1.) I really really *really* want an alliance with them
2.) I want to help keep that faction alive (they're a usefull ally/buffer state/etc.)
3.) I have a princess to spare (i.e., I don't need her to marry one of my generals)