The world is a pretty wonky place in the year 867. Charlemagne's legacy is in tatters as his Karling offspring have broken the old empire into their own kingdoms. Muslim invaders press at the remaining Christians in Spain, and Norsem*n ravage the British Isles and lands all around the North Sea.
With literally hundreds of places to start, I chose this guy. Hyfaidd ap Bledrig, Lord of Dyfed, independent but certainly surrounded. To the immediate north, the Principality of Gwynedd is the most powerful single entity in Wales. To the east are a mix of independent counties and then across the River Severn, the Petty Kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex. Northern England is being ravaged by the combined efforts of Ivar the Boneless, Jarl of the Suðreyjar, and his Danish compatriot Halfdan Ragnarsson in Jorvik. Across the Irish Sea, the Irish tribes don't present much of a threat but Scandinavian raiders prowl the waters, ready to land and pillage anything they can reach.
Cosy isn't it? Dyfed, modern day Pembrokeshire, doesn't really have a lot going for it. Small, isolated, it's an easy target. But then there's not much fun in "easy" is there?
CK3 is an open game with no victory conditions so players have to set their own. Joe, starting in a similarly exposed situation as the Count of Zeeland on the Frisian coast, is aiming to become the King of Frisia and turn that small nation into a military and economic powerhouse. Our plucky Welshman has perhaps loftier goals.
House Bleddri will make Britain into a Celtic nation once again and restore the legacy of Arthur Pendragon.
This will be tough, and uniting all of Britannia is something I have not yet achieved. The basic plan is:
Phase 1 - Establish control over my local region, the Duchy/Principality of Deheubarth.
Phase 2 - Establish the Kingdom of Wales.
Phase 3 - Conquer England.
Phase 4 - Conquer either Ireland or Scotland/Alba. This will give me enough of a mandate to then form the Empire of Britannia.
Along the way, any non-Brythonic cultures such as Norse or Anglo-Saxon will be replaced with Welsh, but any that belong to the Brythonic (Welsh, Cornish, Cumbrian or Pictish) or Goidelic (Irish or Gaelic) groups will be left well alone. We have nothing against fellow Britons, remember.
At some point, I'll have to choose this tactically, we'll also renounce Catholicism and return to Celtic/Insular Christianity. The religious conversion isn't required for the "Reclaim Britannia" objective, only the cultural side, but I think it adds a nice bit of extra roleplay to the playthrough.
Phase 1 was completed relatively quickly. My initial income was mainly gained from using my Spymaster to find secrets in King Alfred of Wessex's court and then blackmailing people for money. Count of Gloucester is a deviant? Gimme money. Somerset is a sodomite? Money please! Alfred's daughter is a cannibal?! Gold, now!
With all of south Wales now mine my income was getting better and I could claim the title Prince of Deheubarth. Against the backdrop of Europe in 890, it's a pretty tiny slice of territory. Italy seems to have collapsed and been swallowed up by West Francia and Burgundy, Ireland is half dominated by Norse invaders (not uncommon) and Bulgaria is being eaten from the inside out by an independent Wallachia.
Anyway, back to Wales, because it's about to go belly-up.
Norse realms in CK3 start off with a "Tribal" government type where basically they have to hold their territory together by force alone. Economic and scientific development is stifled, but in return you can raid neighbours for gold and prisoners (which you ransom back for more gold) and grab huge swathes of land very quickly without needing to manufacture a casus belli. The Prince of Gwynedd experienced this first-hand when the Jarl of Lothian sailed down the Irish sea, stormed Ceredigion and took the whole region in one go.
sh*t.
Suddenly my immediate neighbour has gone from a relatively friendly fellow Welsh Catholic prince to a bloodthirsty Viking. Very bloodthirsty as it turns out, because right after he took Gwynedd, he came for Deheubarth.
Oh dear.
Oh no.
Even spending what was left of my limited treasury on mercenaries wasn't enough, Caerdydd was sieged and put to the torch, and despite my army defending in the hills of central Wales the Norsem*n were more than a match. All that territory I had taken was now gone.
Luckily for me, just before the Jarl of Lothian came for me, I had taken the county of Ferlix (now Radnorshire) which is right in the heart of Wales in the Principality of Powys. With all of Deheubarth lost, Ferlix become my sole holding. Ouch. I'm back to square one, scraping by in a tiny county too small to support my army and I've lost the sea view.
Joe's not having a good time either. His County of Zeeland was also seized by Norsem*n, and since that was his only holding he got presented with a Game Over instead. Luckily, one of his family had taken part in the First Crusade, which in our game has happened around 880, and successfully taken the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the Abbasid Caliphate. This cousin, as a knight in the crusade, was granted the County of Gaza for his efforts, so Joe at least was able to continue his family dynasty in another, but no less dangerous, part of the world.
Something I've come to realise about Crusader Kings however, is that there's always a way out. Usually you just have to be patient, examine your surroundings, and bide your time. And time was all it took.
The Jarl of Lothian fell ill. He's 62, wounded from constant battle and now bed-ridden. I assign my Spymaster to assassinate him. He has 4 children and being tribal, is locked into a succession type called "confederate partition" where all his land will be equally split between all his children. When he dies, the Jarldom of Lothian will explode into it's constituent parts.
The illness took him before my spymaster could, success! Time to strike.
But not to reclaim Deheubarth. That land was still under the control of Lothian proper and the new Jarl was still too powerful for me. Her brother however had inherited Gwynedd and was very weak with no allies, so my forces swept down from the hills of Powys and kicked the Norsem*n back into the Irish Sea. I'm a Prince once again, of Powys and Gwynedd, so I'm willing to call Phase 1 complete. Again.
We called it a night on that. My position is still precarious, despite taking back a chunk of Wales, Jarl Svanhildr Ivarsdottir of Lothian is still a very dangerous woman. I have however just managed to murder her Danish husband which has broken her alliance with the very powerful Denmark. On paper her army is now smaller than mine, and through some handy diplomacy I have the Petty Kingdoms of Wessex and Kent as my allies to call upon when needed. Reclaiming Deheubarth is certainly next on the list, hopefully I can do it before Jarl Svanhildr is able to remarry and form another alliance, and once done I should be able to finally form the Kingdom of Wales.
Ireland has recovered spectacularly, the only Norsem*n left are in Ulster, so once I have consolidated Wales it will be time to ally with Alba and Meath so I can push the Norsem*n and Saxons out of England.
A quick check-in on Joe and his little county of Ghazza before we go. He's managed to make some good money and re-invest it into infrastructure to build up a really solid income. Now he's got to make sure his little Dutch enclave in the Holy Land survives. From the man himself:
"I've definitely been a victim of Confederate Partition; my liege’s rather than my own. In Crusader Kings 2, you needed to be Dutch to form Frisia, but I was left with a pitiful French liege after the King of Lotharingia died and Frisia was split off, so that requirement to be Dutch must have been removed. The land was picked apart by the Norse leaving the Dutch peoples scattered to the wind. Being a Good Christian, the Count of Westfriesland had joined the 9th Century Crusade for Jerusalem and his nephew had been rewarded with the county of Ghazza in the Kingdom of Heaven. His first opportunistic war, against the Sultan of Egypt, resulted in invalidation, after the (unsuccessful) Crusade for Syria triggered. Progress is slow."
