Tigranes

I was going to get it, but their stupid region locking means I can't until I'm back in the States. Maybe I won't bother at all then. Idiots.

I'm getting to be something of a specialist, really. We disband the mercenaries to avoid bankruptcy, but the Mosul horde has been destroyed. Unfortunately, there's probably more where they came from. Perhaps at 80%, little BIlly will be more amenable to wrapping up our diplomatic transaction... They let kids watch Monty Python over there? The depths to which Christians will sink! Game keeps crashing so I am resorting to frequent autosaves, and the last week I've been interviewing about a hundred people. Hopefully a chunky update makes up for it.

We re-mobilise the beylerbeik to join the surviving mercenaries, hoping to gradually wear down the Mosulian horde. Yeah, yeah. Running out of money and men, we throw all we have into the Battle of Osrhoene. I'm hoping it is a great victory, because then all future children of the beylerbeik will need to learn how to spell Osrhoene. It seems that my strategy of removing myself entirely from the front line has worked wonders.

In light of the situation, we hire yet more mercenaries. We still have 106 gold, but this will drain quite quickly due to the increased monthly wage bill. I guess we'll need to set some money aside for baby showers, too. We gather a numerically superior force and bear down on the filthy Mosulians. For some reason, we appear to have massed into one big chunk down the centre, only to be surrounded on the flanks by the distributed Mosulians. This is not going well.

1 month into the new war, the enemy has yet to appear, and everyone is angry they're missing Christmas. I try and tell them we don't celebrate Christmas, but they won't listen. I tell them to go smash some Antiocheians, just to keep them occupied. Wait, guys, come back! Come back! The diplomats are here! There's no way we can stand up to 9000 Mosulians; thankfully, we've built up a healthy reserve of cash and can hire some mercenaries for the cause. Let's just hope they can get here by the deadline... Guess not. Our second set of troops also are caught running away.

My second child is a daughter. I know this because she already has longer hair than me. Wait, what? Who are you? What's happening? Guess you're being diplomatised against. That's not fair! Look at all the land he has! Look, I'm a bit busy now for all that family stuff, ilkay? I assemble every able-bodied man in the beylerbeik on the Eastern frontier. The war for Antiocheia is still ongoing, but not much happening except for a few straggling Christians wandering around. I'd like to relieve myself of front-line duty, but apparently my crown authority is too low and I wouldn't accept my order to replace me as the leader.

An army of devout Christian crusaders visit our beylerbeik, and ask for permission to pass through. Apparently they're on their way to Jerusalem, to participate in the crusade against filthy Muslim infidels. We extend the grace of Allah to them and provide safe passage, of course. Wait, what? This is my reward for all my kind deeds? Guess Allah doesn't do karma. This is the bastard that did away my leg. To be fair, he seems to be a skilled warrior and a veteran of the first crusade. He's also 69 years old. A worthy foe, indeed. Good to know I wasn't maimed anywhere important. Come to think of it, I should probably stick to what I'm best at, and none of those things happen outside my bedroom.

Feargus is born with a lisp. It's to the credit of our advanced medicinal technologies that we were able to detect it before he can speak. Back in the battlefield, Bohemond appears to have passed away before we could go and pass him away. Unfortunately, the de jure heir was his original liege, the Duke of Apulia, with whom I am now in direct conflict. It looks like Bohemond had no son or other eligible heir. The beleaguered residents of Antiocheia duly respond by recolouring their entire principality. It's a pretty nice birthday gift for a seven year old brat. Billy runs to his creepy old neighbour for help, in a desperate bid to prevent our inevitable diplomatisation. I'm not afraid of you, Roger. This presents a problem. Although we now occupy all of Antiocheia, this amounts to only a fraction of Billy's back yard, and there's not much more we can do to force defeat. Fortunately, current laws of diplomacy dictate that the longer we occupy our claimed lands without interruption, the higher the warscore will go. Within a couple of years, we should be able to win the region. Again? Baby-making is pretty fun, I've found.

We lay siege to their castle, their men, and their typhoids. A mayor asks for lower taxes, but I diplomatically rebuff his request. Mainly, I complimented him on his luxurious hair. I also attempt some battlefield romance, but nothing ever comes of it. I guess truly cinematic storytelling will have to wait for the next generation. Thank God. Maybe it was the typhoid that put her off. The Ortokids arrive a little too late; we are already sieging their provinces, and they won't be able to complete a takeover. Meanwhile, I am finally blessed with a son. After much deliberation and rolling of dice, we decide to name him Feargus.

2. Inter-Regional Diplomacy 1102-1106 Hi, everyone. My name is Brian, and I'm a Beylerbey. I own the Obsidianite Beylerbeilerbeyler...uh, Beylerbeylik. As you all know, I've been diplomatising the nearby heathens to our happy fold, so that we might all be one happy beylerbeylik together. And I still have no idea what the hell I am watching. The tea-boy tells me that the nearby Ortokid Beylerbeylik has declared war on the Christian principality of Antiocheia. This is not good news. Antiocheia is tiny, and with the other Christian principalities gone, the Ortokids will be able to expand, and close off our diplomatic route to Asia Minor. Sokman, which I hope isn't his birth-name, rules the slightly larger but largely poorer Ortokid Beylerbeylik. Clearly, it wouldn't do to let our competition beat us to potential assets. There's only one answer here, and that is... Diplomacy, of course. One of our workers has a legal claim on these lands, and this gives us the diplomatic right to go in and diplomatise their butts thoroughly before the Ortokids get in on the act. If we can get in before the Ortokids, they won't be able to finish off their war, and we will secure the coastline. Duke Bohemond responds by calling on his original homeland of Apulia to help. Sadly, Bohemond has forgotten the sixth rule of diplomacy: it only works up to a certain distance. Coincidentally, it's roughly the same distance an army can travel without half the men deserting. We diplomatise the Bohemondians, one by one.

DS3 was built from the ground up with couch-coop in mind. In other words, the experience of sharing the same screen, playing together (rather than people wandering off), not having to suffer split screens if you are on the same machine, etc. After that, there seemed to have been certain limitations, possibly with the current generation console capabilities, that made the camera restrictive, too restrictive for comfortable 4-person coop. Anyway, if you fancy a multiplayer where everyone can go wherever they want and have their own screens, unfortunately, DS3 is unlikely to get that, well, ever - the publisher is no longer funding Obsidian to support the game.

That group happens to be the hottest girl group in Korea these days, but yeah, I'm not a big fan of them either.

Oh, it's gotten me beers in the past, but to be honest, I prefer Korean girls. And I'm currently located in pretty much the street for well-dressed girls in Seoul. I go out for walks.

I would, but it's an uphill battle for short Asian men, and I'm an old fuddy-duddy doctoral student. Sometimes you do see pieces of American Pie walk around the streets, though.

Back in May, I put myself on a waitlist (the first one, really) for a new apartment to return to in September in Philly, having permanently vacated my old. I was told that as the first one on the list I was pretty much guaranteed something. Of course, since then I'd heard nothing and all my emails went unanswered, so today I bought an international calling card and called them. After a few pointed words about the idea of a business not returning customers' emails, I was told that nobody had given their notice within the 60-day deadline, meaning short of unusual circumstances, there would be nothing available. This posed a problem, since (1) I really liked that place, (2) I had a very good price, hundred or more below the current listing, and (3) I didn't really look anywhere else. So now I'm looking to secure an apartment that is available, but only 25 days after I arrive in US, and weeks into the school term. So I'll need to secure some sort of short term stay somewhere, as well. Yeah, being legally adult sucks *developed nation blues*

In New Zealand, we have a similar system of loans, except some great idiot decided it'd be nice to abolish the interest rates as an election promise. So now you have thousands of idiots that get nothing out of university except several tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money they won't bother to pay back except at the minimum legally required rate of like three cents a week. Anyway, seems nice, and of course that's very similar to how most other students that get funding support get it, one way or another.

Yeah, that article is basically a monkey taking several existing bits of information and mixing them in a blender.

Crusader Kings is $10, Sword of Islam is $2.50.... I paid $60 for both. I don't regret it, but thems are big sales.

Not now, Sally, I need to do some procreating. Guess not. Needed to hold more than hands, I guess. I think this one' s my third wife. Are you my third, Mahsa? Looks like I need a new moderat- uh, steward. So yes, this is a relatively straightforward LP where we shall take the custom-named Obsidianites through thick and thin, starting from 1099, the First Crusade. The fortunes of the Obsidianites will depend on the idiosyncracies of each leader, Brian included. I will explain game mechanics as we go, but you can ask too. The meta-stuff was a late night lark, and will play some or little or no part depending on how we go. Mainly, I wanted a way to make each leader-character have a clear personality. I'd like the formatting to be less horribly ugly, but the new board system really sucks for proper fonts, colours, formatting, and having more than 5 pictures per post. We are Muslim because the recent Sword of Islam DLC has some spiffy stuff, like polygamy, for them. Right now, though, it's prone to crashing, so hopefully this will keep going...

I see you understand the finer points of diplomacy, Godefroy. Meanwhile, the Crusaders' strategy appears to be simple: every ****, Harry and Pope Urban will sail to Jerusalem, and kill three times their number in Muslims. They all died. Then some more French landed. They all died too. Those French just don't give up, do they? In the North, the Crusader Kingdom of Edessa has been swallowed up by nearby Muslims, and Armenia and Antioch, the last independent Christians, are also under threat. I might need to go do some pre-emptive diplomatising, soon. But what I really need first, now that I have three wives, is a son. It's scandalous, I've been holding hands with all three of them for months now and none of them are pregnant! Are we done yet with the rough and tumble?

What the heck, let's take care of the third step, too. Halve the wedding costs! Somehow, the Kingdom of Jerusalem retains the region of Irbid, previously the home of Tancred the Incapable. Approximately one year into his Kingship, Godefroy experiences what it feels like to have someone give you a pie, then take it away from you and leave only one corner of the crust. I guess the Pope felt sorry for Godefroy. But I don't, because he still retains the region of Tortosa, part of the Dukedom of Tripoli and of course the Kingdom of Syria. I wouldn't be a great diplomat if I didn't kick people while they were down. Given that it took 6 of us to kill 2 of them last time, this seems like reasonable odds.

Truly, Allah is Great. It seems that while I've been nuptualing, the Kingdom of Jerusalem had folded faster than a company under French management. The Shias reach a peace agreement and conclude their Jihad. Sadly, because Sunni troops are currently occupying Jerusalem and everything North of it, the Shias mostly end up with desert. Told you we picked the right side. Only a few days later we conclude our own Jihad; the Seljuks, as primary contributors, win the remaining lands. We get some high fives and Allah-bless-yous. Truly, there is no room for mid-sized enterprises in this market. Nevertheless, I am now known to all as a Mujahid, the glorious vanquisher of Tancred the Incapable and his two angry heathens. I celebrate with a smashing red turban. But nothing could be more important than the second step to orthodox Muslim glory: a second wife.

Curses! Duqaq the Duck is sieging Tripoli! He must know of my plans for the Kingdom of Syria, and not only that, his army is larger than mine. Something must be done. When in trouble, I run away from my problems and find another source of expansion. We join the Sunni Jihad. Our belated holy war is off to a great start! No sooner than the day after raising the levies, our forces report a great victory over two heathens that were asking around for some kebabs. We lost six men. They will be remembered as martyrs. I personally lead the great army, consisting only of men from my demesne. I shall let no Bey usurp my path to first spot on the Jihad credits. We march to the Northernmost reaches of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and find it lightly defended. Only a truly heroic and talented Duke could prevent our men from overrunning the region...

My second nuptial pleasantries are interrupted by a Jihad. Seriously, guys. I'm only up to one wife and you want me to come fight? Godefroy has hardly donned his battle gear for the first Jihad when he's hit by a second one. He can probably understand how I feel with the two nuptial interruptions. Oh, you want a real explanation? The first Jihad was by the Sunni Muslims, the second by the Shia. I guess it's a race, now. We're obviously on the Sunni camp, because that's where all the cool kids are at. You need to follow your market, kids. Instead of joining the Jihad, I take a little while to stay at home, assess the situation, and do some uninterrupted nuptialising. Weed-smoking hippies roam the countryside talking about how they're going to stab everyone. See, the way Jihads work is that the greatest contributor to a Jihad wins the conquered lands for themselves. Except contribution is counted by how many men you lead to their deaths, and how much lands you conquer. As a smaller Beyerbey, I don't have enough men to lead to their deaths to begin wtih. Another reason is that really, as far as new lands go, Jerusalem isn't that high on my priority list. It's kind of far away, you see. What I'd really like to do is conquer all the lands shown in green here, which would allow us to form the de jure Kingdom of Syria. This would give me an automatic promotion from Beylerbey to Sultan, chief benefit being I no longer have to call myself something as ridiculous as a Beylerbey. As you can see, the Beylerbeylik of Damascus currently controls half of those lands. Beylerbey Duqaq rules Damascus, and is the primary target of my diplomacy. His grandfather was a Sultan, and he is a church-loving, zealous, just, kind and brave fellow. Given these characteristics, the first step in my diplomatic strategy is to call him Duqaq the Duck.

We are also big on technology. Personally, I'm very fond of Spiritual Art, and look to make great developments over the next few decades. I would die a happy Beylerbey if the Obsidianites were reknowned for advancements here. Subtle. But for now, we must look to more immediate concerns. As every good Muslim knows, the first step to a successful career is a wife. (The second step is a second wife.) We scour the lands for suitable ladyfolk.. Her name smells like tea (literally), she can count to thirteen, and she's twenty-three younger than I am. The pretty icons show that she is a spiritually oriented, diligent, humble and patient, but also cruel. She's perfect. We celebrated with wine and seven different types of jalapenos. My nuptial pleasantries are interrupted by Muhammad Hazaraspid, who believes he is a superior marshal to Timariot Togay. I can't tell, since you both look exactly the same with that ridiculous headdress. OK, look. I'm just going to zone out now. Somebody let me know when he's done talking about his sex life.