Crusader Kings II: Deheubarth campaign - Thrace, Herat
The Byzantine emperor died a few months after he lost Kingdom of Armenia to me and that ended the truce between us.
The new emperor approached me with a marriage proposal and hence he was out of defensive pact. As usual, I declared war on him.
Initially I was attracted to pressing a vassal's claim over the Duchy of Anatolia, which would net me 2 counties. However, I noticed that I needed just one more county to create the Kingdom of Thrace (a first for me) and so I pressed for another vassal's claim on Traianopolis.
In the midst of war, I realised that my vassal, King of Crusader Egypt had earlier declared war on Byzantine for Nikomedia, which was a county of Thrace kingdom. I contemplated reloading and go for Anatolia duchy but I didn't because there might be a chance that he would not succeed. I, however, did prolong the war despite having achieved 100% war score in order to help him by whittling down the Byzantine armies as much as possible.
A caliph, who was a duke vassal of Timurids, was rebelling against his liege. I normally don't go after target that's vastly weaker than their liege, such as this, but due to availability of large amies (from my vassal King of Lloegyr) next door, I decided to try it out. I even repelled his liege armies once. He wanted to do it again but changed his mind after seeing the reinforcement.
Usually, without winning a significant battle the warscore would be stuck at 99% and the opponent would refuse to surrender. Surprisingly, this wasn't the case, thankfully. Incidentally, this was the first holy war I declared in a long time. Can't remember the last one.
I knew I wanted this duchy to be part of King of Lloegyr's realm but I was hoping to grant it to a kinsman who was the king's vassal. I found one: Duke of Jibal, who also held the Duchy of Khorasan, which was next door to the Duchy of Herat. Both the latter two duchies were part of the Kingdom of Khorasan. Seems perfect...except that he was a heretic! Damn it.
In the end, I did grant the duchy to him. I'm hoping that either King of Lloegyr demands him to convert or my chaplain successful does so. Soon, I hope!
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