Part 21: Prince Murchad Must Die 1325 - 1338

We're making more progress on the conversion of our territory in the Levant. The region is steadily becoming more stable and self-sufficient.



We notice that our kinsman on the throne of Norway is fighting desperately against rebels within his kingdom, so we offer him our assistance.



We send two armies over to lend aid, with the fist landing at Akershus.



Once the holdings there fall, we move on to fight the army of the rebel Duke.



We take victory in the field as well, swinging the war heavily in the favor of the Norwegian King.



Soon after, King Gudmund claims victory and and imprisons the traitor.



Our first son to our second wife comes of age. Prince Gilla-Coluim is a hard working, brave, and honest man who is well liked by all in the kingdom. His older brother on the other hand has become even more bitter and angry in his later years. Prince Murchad is always kicking over people's sandcastles, knocking their drinks over and saying "Well excuuuuuse me" insincerely, tearing pages out of King Brian's favorite books to roll doobies with, and all sorts of other unspeakable atrocities.



Gilla-Coluim's ambition shows when he suggests that he can do a better job han our current chancellor - a Duke from Jerusalem. He actually is far better than any other alternative right now, so we appoint him as our new chancellor.



The Holy Roman Empire is run by an old brute known for his cruelty, but admired for his strength and straightforwardness. I guess everyone always knows where they stand with Kaiser Stefan, so his vassals who don't have a bone to pick with him tend to love him. He's also been sitting on the throne of the Empire for so long that many of his vassals have never known another Emperor in their lives. He's still kicking at the age of 86 and has actually outlived all of the children from his first marriage.



The number of men he can call to war is tremendous, making any direct attempt at taking the Duchy of Gwynedd through war to be out of the question.



Our son fabricates claims on the entire Duchy of Kent, giving us a wonderful claim to press once our Truce with the Duke runs its course.



A small peasant rebellion pops up in our Scottish holdings, and being the good king that we are, we prepare our own personal levies to go take care of the problem. Prince Murchad has continued to get under everyone's skin, as well. He's been getting on Metacritic and spamming tons of negative reviews for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, saying things like: 'The absolute worst abomination of a crown Ireland has ever created - end of discussion.' and just completely tanking its userscore. Its really getting to the point where nobody really wants to deal with his shenanigans any more.



We raise an army of adequate size to deal with the rebels, but we're going to do a little reorganization of the command structure before we head off to battle.



By clicking the 'Reorganize Unit' button, we can get to the advanced screen for this unit and alter how the flanks and center are arranged.



First, we move all of the men from the flanks to the center.



All of the men from our different personal holdings are now organized into a single large block.



Next, everyone else finds excuses for things that they need to do and people they need to see, leaving Prince Murchad as the only commander for this unit. Once he's in command of the poorly organized army, we wish him luck and send him off to fight the rebels. It's be terrible if some peasant were to ram a pitchfork into his face or something.



Prince Murchad claims victory over the rebel forces and returns to Dublin full of stories about the battle. Once he settles in, he just constantly goes from courtier to courtier bragging about his k/d ratio.



At this point, enough is enough and even King Brian can't put up with his baloney any more. We reassign our spymaster to 'Build a Spy Network' in Dublin. This increases his chance of performing a successful assassination and reduces his chance of being discovered.



We arrange for assassins to strike at Prince Murchad in the diplomacy screen.



Our first assassin fails to succeed. Murchad's water is poisoned, but instead of drinking it he just splashes it on a damsel's blouse and then hoots at her.



On the following day though, Murchad is found dead. It appears that he was strangled to death on one of his vintage scarves from his vintage scarf collection.



Being the eldest surviving male child of Brian, Prince Gilla-Coluim is next in line as King Brian's heir.



When King Brian hears that Duchess Cristina is plotting against him once again, he wonders for a moment if he had traveled back in time. I wasn't even aware the Duchess Cristina was still alive, and the years apparently haven't been kind to her. Being exposed and humiliated in every plot she has ever come up with has left her a cruel, lazy, stuttering, crazy drunk. On top of everything else, she is excommunicated.



Our marshal's men apprehend her in her capital and have her thrown into the dungeons.



Our son succeeds in fabricating yet another claim against the Duke of Kent for later use.



The Dukes of Jerusalem are beginning to become established enough that one even plots to acquire the Kingdom title from us. He backs down after we confront him with our discovery and remains on mostly good terms with us.



Cristina on the other hand gets thrown into the Oubliette when she asks for better accommodations. I'm not really sure how she got out of our custody before, but it's not happening again.



The Shia Caliphate is weakened by war while we're stronger than we've ever been. Now would be a particularly good time to take advantage of their troubles.



The Emir of Damietta is in open revolt against the Caliph. While he is de facto independent, we take the opportunity to declare a Holy War against him for the Duchy of Damietta.



We declare holy war against the Caliph himself as well. From him, we aim to acquire the Sinai region.



We can raise over 160,000 of our own men if need be. We add thousands of knights and heavy infantry from the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Order to the core of our fighting force, as well.



The first army to launch from Dublin contains thousands of elite troops.



The Duchies of Jerusalem are capable of adding over 20,000 men to the battle as well.



Our forces land in Damietta first, crushing the Caliphs forces and preventing them from defeating the rebellious Emir themselves.



Our own forces launch a series of assaults on the region and force the Emir to surrender.



A young child of our dynasty with great potential is assigned as the Duke of Damietta. We'll tutor him in Dublin ourselves until he is old enough to rule his realm.



With Damietta under our control, our forces move on to occupy Sinai and its surrounding regions.



Holdings start to fall to our forces. With many other distractions keeping his forces busy elsewhere, the Caliph is unable to send a proper number of men to turn repel our invasion.



The Caliph surrenders Sinai to the Kingdom of Ireland.



Our holdings in Jerusalem now stretch into Egypt as well. I think that we'll work on acquiring the entire de jure Kingdom of Egypt in future years.



Our truce with the Duke of Kent ends and we press all of our claims against him in a war back home.



His lands are assaulted by our armies and he has no allies to come to his aid.



Victory is claimed, and several areas of Kent pass to our control from a single campaign.



The Duke of Kent falls back to another ducal title he holds - the Duchy of Oxford. His realm is reduced to three counties in central England.



Poor Queen Pribislava can't keep King Brian from kissing and smooching his beloved books, and its really grossing her out.



The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire still lives at age 93. On the day he was born, the Kingdom of Ireland was still acquiring land from the Kingdom of Scotland after recently usurping the crown.



King Brian is not a young man any more, either. He is a particularly long-lived Ua Briain King compared to his predecessors.



I notice that one of our daughters leaves our court to go to Mansia, so I go to see where that is. Oh, its apparently in the Golden Horde?



Look at those little Russian Catholic Irish Mongolian Ua Briain rugrat boys in the middle of Central Asia.