CK: Norwegian Wood

[Groundhog]

I found life much too easy with Salerno, rising to King of most of Europe before getting bored.

This time for a challenge I've increased the difficulty to Hard, picked a Duke in a pretty poor province, and set the AI to aggressive, so this could very well be a very short game.

[Groundhog]

Meet Magnus Haraldson, son of Harald, and Duke of Trondelag:



A pretty poor ruler, with a serious sickness (intenstinal worm) and no heirs. I need to get this guy married, stat.

Calling your younger brother 'King' must really suck, too.

[Groundhog]

Our corner of the world:



Our two provinces are circled in red. Circled in blue are our vassals. To the immediate south lies our liege and younger brother, Olaf, King of Norway.

To the immediate south is a mixture of pagans and un-aligned catholics.

Our provinces are awful suck with a combined 1.8 income - but then, so are the rest of the provinces in Northern Norway. To the south, in King Olaf and his vassals' territory, there is some valuable land however.

[Groundhog]

Laws:

Semisalic Primogeniture: Oldest child inherits, can be traced through females.

Feudal Contract

Ecclesical Balance

My first goal is to find myself a good wife and reproduce hopefully very quickly, before my Duke kicks the bucket without an heir.

Lowering our standards quite a bit, we target a 17 year old in the court of the King of Navarra, in Castille. She doesn't have the greatest stats (10 5 6 4) but she is Lustful (so much for high standards!), which should help get us some kids ASAP.

Dec 30, 1066: Kingdom of Navarra declare war on Kingdom of Aragon.

Jan 2, 1067: Navarra accepts, and our Duke has himself a wife. We take the duty of 4 gold.

With that out of the way, we need to come up with a strategy.

Our brother, King Olaf of Norway, currently has no spouse and no heirs. At just age 16 that will no doubt change, but for now we need to build up our cash, try and pump out a male heir, and then look to spread our influence south of our provinces, while keeping a VERY close eye on the throne of Norway.

Feb 13: We offer vassalization to Jamtaland, the provinces directly south of us.

Feb 16: Not surprisingly, they decline.

March 27: We gain a claim on Rogaland, on southern Norway. On the very same day, they offer an alliance. They fall under King Olaf as well, and we decline. No point to that what-so-ever.

Dec 2: We start construction of a forestry in our capital.

Dec 28: King Olaf is wed, and is now expecting his first child.

And a relatively uneventful year ends. Outside of Navarra and Aragon, who haven't damaged each other at all, and Byzantine and a few smaller Islamic nations, there wasn't much to bother the historians in 1067.

Unfortunately for us, we are still not yet expecting a child, which could make this a VERY short game indeed. King Olaf's child will also now be head in line to inherit the throne, so if we do manage to get a child of our own we will be hoping it's a girl.

[Groundhog]

We'd love to be able to get our hands on Jamtaland in order to create a new Duke title for ourselves, but it's going to cost far more prestige than we have to claim that right now.

April 15, 1068: Knowledge of hill forts spreads to Halogaland, our piss-poor northern-most province.

April 17, 1068: Mecklenburg absorns Lubek in to its domain.

April 30: Our chancellor, Snofrid, shows signs of stress.

May 7: Argh! Our Duke shows signs of stress! This isn't going to help our chances of breeding an heir...

July 22: Kingdom of Hungary declares war on county of Torki. Torki's allies Kiev enter the fray.

July 27: Emperor of Byzantine declares war on Beydom of Ikonion for probably the Byzantine's 7th or 8th war with infidels these past few years.

September 7: King Olaf of Norway had a daughter. That would be MUCH better news if my Duke could only provide us with a son!!!

September 23: The pope asks that we grant an itinerant bishop a place in our court, and we agree. Eystein Skjegge is our diocese bishop, and a very average one at that.

Dec 13: Emirate of Medina declare war on Kingdom of Egypt. Good luck Medina.

Dec 30: Forestry completed in our capital.

And another year ends, and things look very grim. We have a stressed Duke with an intestinal worm, and despite a lustful wife the chances of us getting an heir look slimmer by the day. Looks like this will be a very quick game after all.

If we don't get an "expecting child" event over the next 12 months, I might just start this all over again. It's a shame really, I did a test run with this Duke last week with the same wife, and we had two sons within the first 2 years.