Part 9: State of the World - 1170

Ireland's yearly income seems healthy.



Our army continues to grow in size, too. Look at those vassal opinions! Martain can call up tons of levies from his vassals.



The laws of Ireland. Martain is charming enough that I think we can get away with raising city taxes back up and changing crown authority to medium. Its likely that we'll stay at medium crown authority for the entire game, but I might try going to High at some point because that prevents lesser titles in y our realm from passing to other realms through inheritance. Once crown authority hits medium, I think the next crown law change will be to go back to Free Investiture. It just helps with Bishop relations too much. It actually raises your opinion with any other vassal of yours who controls a bishop as well, which would be all of our dukes.



The king of Scotland is in a dungeon somewhere in Norway. His vassals hate him and he can only raise about a third of the troops that we can on a good day.



The King of Norway has lived approximately forever. His intrigue is so high that nobody can touch him with plots, and his state diplomacy is really high with the aid of his wife and chancellor so he has good relations with his vassals. Our saving grace here may be that his current heir is possessed and pretty damn crazy.



The military might of Norway. We won't be able to just confront them head on until they start suffering from some internal turmoil again.



The Kingdom of Rus inherited the throne of Sweden. It's a tremendous Orthodox power. You can also see that mainland Norway is doing relatively well here. Denmark is stronger than it looks, too. Poland has all but disappeared. They've been swallowed up by the Holy Roman Empire and the Rus.



France, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, and Croatia all remain somewhat stable after about 100 years. Sicily and other parts of southern Italy - including the southern half of Sardinia are held by Muslims.



The Christian Iberian kingdoms have vanished. They've been completely wiped out by the Iberian Muslims.



The religious map mode in Iberia.



The Byzantine Empire remains stable and powerful. It looks like the current Emperor decided that Constantinople just isn't his style and moved the capital.



The Shia Caliphate controls all of Egypt, Syria, Jerusalem, and Ethiopia, with their capital in Mecca. They can raise something like 80,000 troops and seem pretty stable under a talented Caliph.



The World Map - 1170