I love all these stories so much. I also have completely fallen down the hole, anymore my current dynasty and my plans are the first and last things I think about each day.
After playing the tutorial up to a point where not much was going on beyond just trying to push into Scotland, I decided to start over somewhere landlocked. Poking around the bookmarked starts, I was really taken by the pitch for Daurama Daura, in North Africa. Medium difficulty sounded good, and while googling about something confusing in her start (her son is for some reason not the player heir at the start, but he is her actual heir; turns out that just gets resolved by an event as soon as you unpause) I learned there’s an achievement for starting as her and uniting Africa under her rule and a reformed version of her faith. This is exactly something I had wanted to try anyway, so it was perfect. Especially given her religion, Bori, is one oriented around gender equality and religious feasting, considers getting possessed a virtue, and accepts homosexuality and witchcraft.
She starts out in control of two of the best counties around, but they’re in different duchies with three counties each, with all four missing counties belonging to my foreign husband, Bayajidda ‘the Slayer of the Snake’ (whose religion and succession laws are male preferential). This obviously could not stand, so I immediately set my first long term goal as: divorce and conquer my husband. He was much stronger than me though, so it would be a while.
In that first event, I chose the option, “the Magajiya do not need men to carry on their legacy!”, which gave me female preference law and added my son back into my house while simultaneously disinheriting him, and made my husband like me less.
Not by much, though, since Daurama was an unbelievably good diplomat – she started at 23 and only got better over time. So, in preparation for conquering my husband, I leveraged our positive relationship and alliance into making him fight a series of wars with me, letting me punch way above my weight. I slowly accrued vassals, who I never ever had to worry about since I was so likeable even my enemies loved me.
Meanwhile I took three consort and started having as many babies as I could. I took the family lifestyle focus to increase my fertility, and soon started building new alliances.
As I said, all of this was to facilitate the conquering of my husband, so I could consolidate power and begin the long grind toward reform and feudalising. However, my husband was similarly conquering and growing. When I was finally ready and divorced and declared, the war turned into the biggest conflict the region had yet seen.
I had five allies on my side to his three, but even so he was slightly stronger. The only reason I pounced was, I had waited until he was already enmeshed in a large scale subjugation war, keeping his armies busy. I was also worried the moment would soon pass where he would eclipse me – I had to act now, or it would be out of my reach for a generation.
It was a mess. There were just so many armies, in so many places. I made some early gains, taking his capital, winning some big battles. But unexpectedly, his enemies from subjugation war became hostile to me, and some unintended battles against them weakened me. He wrapped that war up faster than i though he would, and came at me with his full strength.
I was losing. Not much land had been taken, but I had lost battles, and my army was now definitely weaker than his. At this point, I was doing what I could just to enact a white peace. Toward that end, I took an opportunistic fight when his army was separated from his allies, trying to siege my lands, where I knew I could win. Not enough to end the war, but enough to push toward an end.
Except suddenly the war was over! “Invalidated”, because in that last battle, my ex husband was killed!
And because, like all tribal rulers, his succession was confederate partition, his kingdom had been divided into three or four parts. Meaning, I could immediately go after the few pieces that weren’t already inherited by my own children.
The rest of Daurama’s lifetime was smooth and mostly peaceful. I spent some time reorganizing my vassals, and making sure I controlled my two duchies personally. I was able to revoke those titles without civil war, by granting their holders land elsewhere first to make them love me. I usurped a few titles and gave them to family, then warred for their missing counties. I focused on growing my development and ensuring my primary heir (my second or third daughter; my first was unsuited and had to be disinherited) was properly educated in learning. And I married my children off as often and as well as I could.
And my realm continued to grow throughout, but without much warfare. The first lifestyle I finished was the “august” tree. This, combined with the fact that i was constantly being called to help allies since I had so many, meant I was both wildly famous and beloved. Which meant, at a certain point, every few months I’d get a notification that a new neighbor was willing to be peacefully vassalized.
Daurama never did live to see her faith reformed unfortunately. Building and stabilizing her realm took so long and required choices such that by the time she started working toward the “prophet” perk, she was in her late sixties. During her last communion with the spirits something went wrong and she became “infirm”, and died shortly thereafter, just a few years from seeing her dream realized.
But she left behind a robust legacy, several stable realms, and an heir prepared and positioned such that she was able to accomplish that goal herself in less than a decade.
