Paradox Games III: Is being evil a valid cacus belli?

[Herargon]

any good islands?
Once I played as Spain, it was the best cause I survived in the mainland for awhile and when I lost it I just Re-Colonized it! xD.

Japan.

Japan is very, very fun.

Agreed, Japan is also a good choice. Or the United Kingdom, or Cuba.

[Slakonian]

Playing as Greece in Vicky 2..... 22% of my population somehow end up being Japanese. I have a population boom while the Turks were suffering due to many wars to population decrease and now I have Japanese as east to Antioch

[Mefpan]

Playing as Greece in Vicky 2..... 22% of my population somehow end up being Japanese. I have a population boom while the Turks were suffering due to many wars to population decrease and now I have Japanese as east to Antioch

Ah, yes, Japan is working to create the Greatest East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

And east starts beyond Elsaß-Lothringen! Tora! Tora! Tora! Ahahahahaha-ha--

[The Grey Wolf]

This basically sums up my reaction when the Countess of the Duchy of Ulster and Argyll rebelled against me demanding to be granted independence.

I married my son to her and gave her bloody Northern Ireland. She owes everything she has to me.

[Katyuscha]

This basically sums up my reaction when the Countess of the Duchy of Ulster and Argyll rebelled against me demanding to be granted independence.

I married my son to her and gave her bloody Northern Ireland. She owes everything she has to me.

That's my reaction to almost anything anyone in Ck2 does

[Western Pacific Territories]

This basically sums up my reaction when the Countess of the Duchy of Ulster and Argyll rebelled against me demanding to be granted independence.

I married my son to her and gave her bloody Northern Ireland. She owes everything she has to me.

Install the torture mod now.

[Genivaria]

This basically sums up my reaction when the Countess of the Duchy of Ulster and Argyll rebelled against me demanding to be granted independence.

I married my son to her and gave her bloody Northern Ireland. She owes everything she has to me.

And then you remember why we did away with all this feudalism bullshit.

[The Huskar Social Union]

This basically sums up my reaction when the Countess of the Duchy of Ulster and Argyll rebelled against me demanding to be granted independence.

I married my son to her and gave her bloody Northern Ireland. She owes everything she has to me.

She should have bent the knee and kept it bent, now destroy her for her treachery and send a lesson to the realm etched in her blood.

[The Grey Wolf]

This basically sums up my reaction when the Countess of the Duchy of Ulster and Argyll rebelled against me demanding to be granted independence.

I married my son to her and gave her bloody Northern Ireland. She owes everything she has to me.

And then you remember why we did away with all this feudalism bullshit.

You're just mad we threw you in the oubliette.

This basically sums up my reaction when the Countess of the Duchy of Ulster and Argyll rebelled against me demanding to be granted independence.

I married my son to her and gave her bloody Northern Ireland. She owes everything she has to me.

She should have bent the knee and kept it bent, now destroy her for her treachery and send a lesson to the realm etched in her blood.

Carthage will have gotten off too easy in comparison. Butchering everyone besides my grandson, who's engaged to my granddaughter.

[The Huskar Social Union]

And then you remember why we did away with all this feudalism bullshit.

You're just mad we threw you in the oubliette.

She should have bent the knee and kept it bent, now destroy her for her treachery and send a lesson to the realm etched in her blood.

Carthage will have gotten off too easy in comparison. Butchering everyone besides my grandson, who's engaged to my granddaughter.

Good, show them what happens to those who betray their rightful king, do not forget and do not forgive.

Unless they show up unexpectedly and aid you at a key moment, in which case lop some of their fingers off and give them a castle.

[Katyuscha]

You're just mad we threw you in the oubliette.

Carthage will have gotten off too easy in comparison. Butchering everyone besides my grandson, who's engaged to my granddaughter.

Good, show them what happens to those who betray their rightful king, do not forget and do not forgive.

Unless they show up unexpectedly and aid you at a key moment, in which case lop some of their fingers off and give them a castle.

Medieval justice at its finest

[Bralia]

This basically sums up my reaction when the Countess of the Duchy of Ulster and Argyll rebelled against me demanding to be granted independence.

I married my son to her and gave her bloody Northern Ireland. She owes everything she has to me.

Now that's a brilliant idea: Create a character based on Crowley and roleplay in Scotland. And if you get the demonspawn event, you follow that god-damn event tree until the world burns.

[Ontorisa]

Slak's been a bit loony, ever since the incident.

What incident?

Can't say. They're watching me

[Herargon]

What incident?

Can't say. They're watching me

Who, whose woes were seeing through thyne toes? The Basileus?

άλφα, βέτα, γάμμα, δέλτα, ετα, θετα, ζέτα, μυ, νυ, κάππα, ιώτα, λάμβδα, όμικρον, ξη, πι, φι, ωμέγα?

[Ontorisa]

Can't say. They're watching me

Who, whose woes were seeing through thyne toes? The Basileus?

άλφα, βέτα, γάμμα, δέλτα, ετα, θετα, ζέτα, μυ, νυ, κάππα, ιώτα, λάμβδα, όμικρον, ξη, πι, φι, ωμέγα?

pls no of remove reproductive organs

[Herargon]

Who, whose woes were seeing through thyne toes? The Basileus?

άλφα, βέτα, γάμμα, δέλτα, ετα, θετα, ζέτα, μυ, νυ, κάππα, ιώτα, λάμβδα, όμικρον, ξη, πι, φι, ωμέγα?

pls no of remove reproductive organs

TO THE OUBLIETTE WITH THIS MAN! HIS MISDEEDS SHALL NOT GO UNPUNISHED!

Enough. Castrate his vitals, butcherer.

[Imperial--japan]

Francia too stronk.

Just finished another holy war with the Umayyads that ended in a white peace. I couldn't launch any aggressive wars against them for a while given that following Charlemagne's death, my next Emperor was full on Gluttonous, Slothful, Craven, tyrant. My brother was the King of West Francia and Bavaria, and I retained Middle Francia and the Emperor title. He was dethroned, resulting in West Francia becoming France, and for the next 30 years I got to deal with independence wars and wars to lower my authority. I died after about 15 years which resulted in a significantly better Emperor. Too bad they were killed in Personal Combat with some landless German that he was rivals with.

Now my current ruler, with no heirs but immensely liked by pretty much all his vassals, will go on to finish Muslim expulsion from Iberia. When he becomes of age, he'll go on to Marry his genius Saxon wife. In the East, the Abbassid Empire has fractured into a ton of little states, allowing the Byzantines to reclaim some of their land.

[Ontorisa]

Francia too stronk.

Just finished another holy war with the Umayyads that ended in a white peace. I couldn't launch any aggressive wars against them for a while given that following Charlemagne's death, my next Emperor was full on Gluttonous, Slothful, Craven, tyrant. My brother was the King of West Francia and Bavaria, and I retained Middle Francia and the Emperor title. He was dethroned, resulting in West Francia becoming France, and for the next 30 years I got to deal with independence wars and wars to lower my authority. I died after about 15 years which resulted in a significantly better Emperor. Too bad they were killed in Personal Combat with some landless German that he was rivals with.

Now my current ruler, with no heirs but immensely liked by pretty much all his vassals, will go on to finish Muslim expulsion from Iberia. When he becomes of age, he'll go on to Marry his genius Saxon wife. In the East, the Abbassid Empire has fractured into a ton of little states, allowing the Byzantines to reclaim some of their land.

Didn't take Brittany, Bohemia or Spain in general.

4/10

[Imperial--japan]

Francia too stronk.

Just finished another holy war with the Umayyads that ended in a white peace. I couldn't launch any aggressive wars against them for a while given that following Charlemagne's death, my next Emperor was full on Gluttonous, Slothful, Craven, tyrant. My brother was the King of West Francia and Bavaria, and I retained Middle Francia and the Emperor title. He was dethroned, resulting in West Francia becoming France, and for the next 30 years I got to deal with independence wars and wars to lower my authority. I died after about 15 years which resulted in a significantly better Emperor. Too bad they were killed in Personal Combat with some landless German that he was rivals with.

Now my current ruler, with no heirs but immensely liked by pretty much all his vassals, will go on to finish Muslim expulsion from Iberia. When he becomes of age, he'll go on to Marry his genius Saxon wife. In the East, the Abbassid Empire has fractured into a ton of little states, allowing the Byzantines to reclaim some of their land.

Didn't take Brittany, Bohemia or Spain in general.

4/10

Not going to bother with Bohemia for a while. I'd rather take Italia and form the HRE.

[Ontorisa]

Didn't take Brittany, Bohemia or Spain in general.

4/10

Not going to bother with Bohemia for a while. I'd rather take Italia and form the HRE.

Didn't take Brittany, Bohemia or Spain in general.

44.5/10

[Ifreann]

>not playing ironman all the time
>the year of our lord two thousand and fifteen
>meme arrows
get gud noob


Bralia knows how it is.

Getting good is the goal. And it is working out surprisingly well for me. I need to loosen up, I get angry at the game too easily.


BEHOLD! The greatest woman in the history of the Iberian peninsula, Queen Juana I de Valois. This woman started out with awful legitimacy. Less than 50, iirc. The Valois dynasty was still trying to secure its place in Castile. Her father died 4 years before 1530 (there was much rejoicing throughout the realm) and it was she who united Iberia under one ruler. She then proceeded to live long enough (and through legitimacy-tanking royal marriages all the way) to dissolve the Aragonese state and establish the Kingdom of Spain. She died in her 70s, only a year or two after she established Spain. She will be remembered forever as a great female ruler in history and the driving force behind the ascent of the glorious Spanish empire.

Excellent. Excellent.

[Bezombia]

>not playing ironman all the time
>the year of our lord two thousand and fifteen
>meme arrows
get gud noob


Bralia knows how it is.

Getting good is the goal. And it is working out surprisingly well for me. I need to loosen up, I get angry at the game too easily.


BEHOLD! The greatest woman in the history of the Iberian peninsula, Queen Juana I de Valois. This woman started out with awful legitimacy. Less than 50, iirc. The Valois dynasty was still trying to secure its place in Castile. Her father died 4 years before 1530 (there was much rejoicing throughout the realm) and it was she who united Iberia under one ruler. She then proceeded to live long enough (and through legitimacy-tanking royal marriages all the way) to dissolve the Aragonese state and establish the Kingdom of Spain. She died in her 70s, only a year or two after she established Spain. She will be remembered forever as a great female ruler in history and the driving force behind the ascent of the glorious Spanish empire.

I'm way more impressed by that Tuscany. There a coalition there or what?

[Bezombia]

>be me
>finally got the better gender law mod working
>go to try it out in a campaign
>choose ottomans
>ten years in I go to change my succession law
>see I can't change it from Agnatic, think the mod must be broken
>slowly realize my mistake, alt+f4 without saving

i am not a smart kebab

[Bralia]

Getting good is the goal. And it is working out surprisingly well for me. I need to loosen up, I get angry at the game too easily.


BEHOLD! The greatest woman in the history of the Iberian peninsula, Queen Juana I de Valois. This woman started out with awful legitimacy. Less than 50, iirc. The Valois dynasty was still trying to secure its place in Castile. Her father died 4 years before 1530 (there was much rejoicing throughout the realm) and it was she who united Iberia under one ruler. She then proceeded to live long enough (and through legitimacy-tanking royal marriages all the way) to dissolve the Aragonese state and establish the Kingdom of Spain. She died in her 70s, only a year or two after she established Spain. She will be remembered forever as a great female ruler in history and the driving force behind the ascent of the glorious Spanish empire.

I'm way more impressed by that Tuscany. There a coalition there or what?

With France as his ally, there's no chance of a coalition ever succeeding, much less forming. Tuscany's grown a lot more since then and is literally one province away from forming Italy. A monumental achievement for the AI, I've never seen them ever get so close. I have a theory that Tuscany is a human in disguise because he cleverly attacked Bosnia who was allied to Savoy (also allied to France) and the Papal States (allied to me) and took provinces from every one of them. Unfortunately, he didn't hold Rome, he gave it back when the inevitable event fired.

[Bezombia]

Let me, my friends, tell you a story.
This is a both a happy story and a sad story. I call it, The Tragedy of Ardlich the Able.


Ardlich started his life as a peasant in Germany, where he studied to be a priest - a study that failed him, and although he was educated he wasn't a capable priest by any man's opinion.
In 1201, at the age of 13, Ardlich's father passed away, leaving him all his family ever owned. Which was nothing. A year later, when hearing about the new Crusade, Ardlich took his chance and joined the band of Frenchmen heading for Egypt.
When they reached Constantinople, the band overthrew the Byzantine emperor and established a new state in Greece. The resulting power struggle lasted for many months.
Near the end, Ardlich, the most well educated of the band, rose atop his brethren and came to control most of the Crusader state that had been formed. On his sixteenth birthday, he reformed the Crusader state into a normal christian kingdom, and proclaimed himself "Kaiser Aldrich von Ost" - in doing so, establishing the von Ost dynasty. It is here where Ardlich's story truly begins.

Alrich was a stranger in a strange land, however - he was a German king ruling over French vassals and Greek subjects. Also, he was a Catholic king ruling in Orthodox territory. His vassals considered him traitors to their original goal (securing French power in the near east), while his subjects considered him an invader of the heathenic king. Everyone who didn't hate him for his religion or culture hated him because he was too young to rule such an empire.

He took a wife from his court and began to crusade throughout Greece, attempting to secure Catholic positions in the land to hold off the Muslim tide they knew was coming.

When Ardlich was 17, he ordered an observatory built. Between wars and feasts, Ardlich would spend his time staring at the stars, trying to find God in the sky.
When he was 18, he discovered his wife in bed with one of his vassals. Infuriated, both were arrested, and his former wife was ransomed back to France after the Pope in Rome granted a divorce.
He then took a new wife, of German heritage. But nothing could sway him - he had seen the evils that man and woman alike will perform, and was not ready to forget that lesson. He grew eventually to distrust all and confide in none.
After that, he spent more and more time in his observatory. Eventually, he began to notice things. Patterns, in the stars. Some of them would move, not in unison, but in the same direction. He couldn't explain this. Was it a sign? Was God trying to tell him something? The stars seemed to move towards the south. When looking at a map, just south of his realm was Athens.
He invaded Athens, believing it to be an instruction by God. Athens was annexed into the Latin Empire, and Ardlich returned to his observatory to watch for God's approval.
Instead, he found the stars continuing to move. As they always did, and as, it seemed, they always would.

Around that time, when Ardlich was 19, a Jewish man arrived at his court. Ardlich spent many nights talking with this Jewish man, trying to understand his faith.
Ardlich couldn't understand it. God had shown him so much, revealed so much to him in his younger years. Do these other people, in other parts of the world, not get spoken to as well? Is God silent to those who turn their ears the wrong way? Why?

Ardlich and his wife bore a son, Rutger von Ost, and then a daughter, Angela von Ost.
In his studies (he was, after all, a scholar first and a crusader second) he began to examine the rite and rituals of ancient Greece. He had more or less made peace with his subjects, but now that he controlled Athens he wanted to learn to act the way Athenians do.
He found that, in the old years, everyone in Greece was an equal. He studied the ancient religion, and found similarities between their gods and his.

At the age of 20, Ardlich proclaimed that in the Empire of Romania, succession would pass through the eldest child, no exceptions. He also proclaimed that women could hold office just as men do.
His vassals, who were far more zealous than him, detested him for it. They saw him, a former Crusader no less, abandoning the ancient rites that brought him to Greece.

But Ardlich couldn't stop.
He continued to stare at the stars, and began to notice something. Something in the way the stars moved. Something that just didn't make sense.


At the age of 21, Ardlich published his first scholastic work: On the Place of Earth in the Heavens. In it, he stated and justified the idea that it was the Sun, not Earth, that all the heavens revolved around.

The Pope was infuriated by this, and demanded that Ardlich stop his satanic work immediately. Ardlich, having seen the ancient texts, quickly lost faith in the Pope, and slandered him for trying to halt progress.

Some of the more pious in his realm noted that Ardlich was the head of a crusader state, but did not believe in the religion he fought so hard to strengthen. Some of the more cynical in his realm noted that he had done what no other had dared to do - to seek knowledge, not power, and to seek truth, not piety. Some would hate him for it, but a few of his more educated subjects would give him the title "Ardlich the Able" for it.




That's the story so far. The story of Ardlich von Ost - the cynical, heliocentric, German athiest in control of a French-held Catholic crusader state in Greek Orhodox territory. It's the story of a man out of his comfort zone, out of his home, out of his time, and out of his league.