Help with Brittany 1066

[kingfisherofthesea]

I'm playing Brittany 1066 as King Konan II. I'm midway through his life-cycle @ age 47. Total: 5 sons (including that one bastard son, Alan I have at the start whom I've already legitimised); 2 daughters.

I cleaned out most of the counts and consolidated the realm, I now hold 3 counties which is my max demesne limit. I have 2 count vassals: Hoel's kid Mazhe (Kernev + Nantes) and a new count I created (Broerec). Allied with Gwened (Powys got absorbed by Warwick) from my wife's brother (700 troops), Poitou Duchy (My eldest son's wife Agnes - 2.3k troops), Cornwall County (2nd son's wife Rioantdrec - 500 troops), Warwick Duchy (My 2nd daughter's fiance who is heir-apparent - 3.2k+ troops).

The problem started when England(William the Bastard) went to war with France over his daughter-in-law's claim on Anjou while France was busy holy warring the muslims in the Iberian peninsula. I could press my weak claim on Duchy of Champagne I inherited from my mom, and I decided why not? Although I had been saving up to take Normandy I land my troops in France but nothing to really kill or siege because William had cleared up almost everything. I bought some Catalan mercenaries (1.6k) to help speed up the sieging in Paris and Troyes. I suffered a bit of attrition (0.2-0.3) as it was quite far from home and I had traveled a bit and ran out of supplies. France called off their holy war and ceded to William (which made Anjou independent) to focus on me.Next thing I know, France's ally Barcelona had marched 3.8k troops towards me. I think, no problem I have 5k+ troops combined. We clashed in Mortaine, and at first I was winning. Then my center broke and all hell let loose. I lost about 2k+ men. I tried bethrothing my eldest daughter to William and even letting him educate her as a last ditch attemt, but he wouldn't form an alliance. I had to surrender as there was no way we were going to recover after that, lost 180g.

I didn't have a choice but to banish my cousin Jafrez to get 110g and inherit all the Penthievre children. I was hoping to avoid that as I didn't want to flood my court (40+ people). I still want to get Normandy in the near future. But to do so I have to swear fealty to William to get at it from the inside, which I am hesitant to do so right away as I have to pay a portion of my tax and look for opportunities to break free in the future. Keeping Normandy right after I conquer it is also not going to be easy with different culture counts. I'm seeing that William is 52, and he might be dying soon, so I was thinking maybe I should wait it out until he dies and maintain my independence while challenging his son. But at the same time, I'm also quite old, and I don't want to pass a weak claim on Normandy to my son. Should I join England now and strike Normandy in the near future, or wait it out from the outside?

[SKull]

Wait it out for sure. France is best had when it fractures after sucessions or just the second they get embroiled with the Muslims in Spain, which it sounds like you have tried already. The right idea, bad luck with the timing. And England is always dangerous; hard to reach quickly and surprisingly powerful if it unites. Keep both France and England divided with alliances, and make sure they never form their empires around you.
Attack weaknesses in both directions and use arrests and revocations to replace foreign vassals with Breton ones. It may not seem like much, but you definitely don't need the foreigner hit on your internal diplomacy.

But the first step needs to be to up your demesne to max out in Britanny. Your vassals there need to be extremely temporary. Get caught in a civil war with your pants down and it could be game over immediately.

[ojpete]

I can't answer that for you, both have their merits and drawbacks, and that's part of the pleasure and agony of a stragegy game. However, I will advise you to wait for a civil war to break out before you attack. If you attack as soon as there is a succession, then the new king will get a boost in popularily that might well stabalize the kingdom, since they are being attacked by a foreigner. But, good luck!

[SKull]

Originally posted by ojpete:

I can't answer that for you, both have their merits and drawbacks, and that's part of the pleasure and agony of a stragegy game. However, I will advise you to wait for a civil war to break out before you attack. If you attack as soon as there is a succession, then the new king will get a boost in popularily that might well stabalize the kingdom, since they are being attacked by a foreigner. But, good luck!

Yes, but not with the gavelkind successions in France. If France overnight has four new kings there is bound to be easy pickings until the politics settle. Sometimes they never seem to settle at all, and you can gobble it up one county at a time.

[zoellerama]

Start over. :)

[kingfisherofthesea]

Originally posted by SKull:

Originally posted by ojpete:

I can't answer that for you, both have their merits and drawbacks, and that's part of the pleasure and agony of a stragegy game. However, I will advise you to wait for a civil war to break out before you attack. If you attack as soon as there is a succession, then the new king will get a boost in popularily that might well stabalize the kingdom, since they are being attacked by a foreigner. But, good luck!

Yes, but not with the gavelkind successions in France. If France overnight has four new kings there is bound to be easy pickings until the politics settle. Sometimes they never seem to settle at all, and you can gobble it up one county at a time.

That's not possible. King Phillip has only one county at the moment. The best is to wait for a civil war amongst the dukes and swoop in.

Well, I joined England and immediately regretted it because it has medium kingdom authority, meaning I can't start a war on a fellow vassal neighbour (i.e. Normandy). This makes me so mad because I don't have many years left to live. I'm currently conquering Anjou which broke free and became independent because William started a war with France previously to install his daughter-in-law as Duchess.

Is there any way to influence the other dukes to join my faction to lower crown authority?