http://i.imgur.com/N0B0I.jpg
Edith is fairly popular and I admit I liked her myself, but the right of the state never sleeps. After some bribes I manage to hire a bunch of her servants to help me in becoming a bachelor again.




http://i.imgur.com/Lru9O.jpg
A little ride in the countryside should do it. And if it won't...




http://i.imgur.com/DKPtA.jpg
...At least Edith appreciates good wine as much as I do, I think she'd like it if we spiked her drink a little.




http://i.imgur.com/PZq6J.jpg
The carriage suffers a horrible accident right next to the steepest cliff of Scotland, and my poor wife falls to her death.




http://i.imgur.com/SlzIE.jpg
But because I'm not a monster, the least I could do was make sure she'd die happy.




http://i.imgur.com/YhJ1N.jpg
Oh Edith, the Lord called you away from us at such young age. Truly you were the best of your family. Well, the last at least.




http://i.imgur.com/UH2is.jpg
As much as it pains me to see you leave me all alone in the cruel world, I still hope you can feel consolation in knowing that you helped your ancestral family lands to become part of the Northumbrian dynasty and find eternal hilarity in the name of your heir. Know that I shall mourn your passing...




http://i.imgur.com/QE8Yy.jpg
...At least as long as it takes to find a new heiress of a rich family. For surely you agree that the deal we did in front of the Lord and his servant was very clearly worded: "Till death do us part." So don't feel bitter when I don't say "see you in after life", honey. Rest in pieces. Amen.




http://i.imgur.com/sM8yv.jpg
How lucky I am. My new wife is already a Duchess and I don't have to go through the inconvenience of killing her family. If everyone in the world was like this, life would be much more easy for people like me. I even get paid for this!




http://i.imgur.com/fx2bS.jpg
To celebrate my marriage and future ownership of Bedford, I waste my wife's wedding money to build a new castle in Gwynedd. My old one was gettinf drafty.




http://i.imgur.com/l1CBl.jpg
Andrea the younger brat has become adult as well. I keep him around so that he won't start making trouble. Knowing there is one less dagger aimed at my back makes me feel much more relaxed.




http://i.imgur.com/aE5fu.jpg
But since I can't marry all the heiresses in the world, or even England, I send Andrea to live with yet another lonely Duchess in Gloucester. And conveniently ensure that all the future Dukes of Gloucester shall therefore be of my dynasty.




http://i.imgur.com/9JlBD.jpg
Then I remember having a daughter as well and send her to Norway to marry a local Prince. Of course I insist that the Prince then takes her surname and not the other way around.




http://i.imgur.com/AdCIV.jpg
After seeing to it that my offsprings are doing something useful, I can concentrate on making more of them.




http://i.imgur.com/QEWEJ.jpg
Oh, the birth of a son never gets old, especially knowing what he stands to inherit. Since Bedford is one of the biggest Duchies in whole England, he needs a suitably noble and epic name that the chronicles can remember him by. Therefore I decide to pay my respect to the local culture and call him "Spam". Duke Spam the First. That has a nice ring to it.




http://i.imgur.com/G7SKK.jpg
And now as for my wife...cough...bloody hell...




http://i.imgur.com/rnKkq.jpg
Ugh...it's not poison, alright. I've mixed enough to know the symptoms. It's just a flu, but strong enough to keep me tied to bed for the moment. Plotting will have to wait.




http://i.imgur.com/k8Q7p.jpg
My ilness must be the work of the devil! It's evident from seeing that heretics have crept into my domain and are preaching their sinful lies of women being equal to men!




http://i.imgur.com/RGhSo.jpg
Something must be done, lest my throne is in danger. I send my Court Chaplain to start the inquisition. There is no innocence! Only degrees of guilt!

http://i.imgur.com/Y2h7i.jpg
At least my daughter has managed to get a new child to enrich the culture in Norway. Good!




http://i.imgur.com/nVQQC.jpg
As if the flu wasn't doing its best to kill me, the wife of my idiot son Benedetto is now also plotting my demise. You'd think the son would have guts to do it himself, blast it!




http://i.imgur.com/traH7.jpg
Of course such serious threats need serious measures, so Sigrid wakes up next to the severed head of her favorite servant. I get an apology an hour after that.




http://i.imgur.com/vhVTf.jpg
My victory over the harpy is crowned by my victory over the heretics that tried granting her kind some rights in the first place. Long live patriarchy!




http://i.imgur.com/F7M6Z.jpg
Looking at the mao for a change, the world is starting to look silly. England and Finland have at last become annoyed with people confusing their names and decided to unite under a single crown. Crown that shall one day be mine, I hasten to add.




http://i.imgur.com/Sazwh.jpg
And you can always count on those rascal Finns to cause trouble in the kingdom. Good for me again.




http://i.imgur.com/93Njh.jpg
No! More heretics! First I burn the Court Chaplain that didn't get them all the last time! Then I start burning everyone who looks like a heretic.




http://i.imgur.com/3FeHZ.jpg
As much as I love the smell of burning flesh in the morning, my presence is required in the grand tournament our King is having. Good! Since I can't get the smell of victory off of my clothes anyway, I can't lose!




http://i.imgur.com/EsbW2.jpg
Just as I'm trying to decide if I should use my brown horse with black spots or black horse with brown spots, my servant again babbles something about our approaching doom. I tell him to run along.




http://i.imgur.com/HQHOw.jpg
While traveling to the tournament, I need something to amuse myself with. Killing infants never gets old, especially when they are of the Fedlimid family (the rats who killed my bride What-Was-Her-Name-Again and stole Munster from me!)




http://i.imgur.com/NScDg.jpg
Note to self: next time I hire someone from people known as chronic alcoholics, I'll take a Finn instead of an Irishman. At least those forest folk manage stab someone whenever they are drunk.




http://i.imgur.com/9rwO8.jpg
Sigh. Killing the snooping authorities just isn't nearly as satisfying.




http://i.imgur.com/xG4CL.jpg
Well, if I can't get the older of the Fedlimid brothers, I can at least plot to get rid of the younger one.




http://i.imgur.com/7uD03.jpg
Where's your wide smile now, Beardy McBeardstein?! I'll get you too right after your brats and avenge the poor...sheesh, someone bring me a chronicle and remind me already what her name was?




http://i.imgur.com/BZbdo.jpg
Of course killing Fedlimids like flies doesn't stop me from marrying my son Spam to their eldest daughter, who will then inherit these rich lands of Munster.




http://i.imgur.com/TDG5M.jpg
Speaking of killing: just as I remember that I still have an useless wife myself, my Spymaster brings me news that make my whole world collapse. My eldest son, who always was to me like my right...err, left hand, is plotting to kill me in order to inherit early.


I can't believe hearing this! I remember like yesterday all the long nights we spent together learning the finest tricks of the family business. I can still see the excitement gleaming in his eyes when he got his first dagger as a birthday gift! I held his hand when he tested it on his first serf! And how proud I was of him when he finally moved away from my court to opress peasants of his own! After all we have been through, this...this is what he does?!


[Sniff] my little Benedetto is all grown up! I'm so proud of him!




http://i.imgur.com/xlvoj.jpg
This occasion must be celebrated properly! I invite Benedetto to visit home and have one of those moving Father-Son talks that one of those monks in the monastery is always blabbing about.




http://i.imgur.com/HP5uW.jpg
He...he defies me?! Oh how well I have taught the lad!

http://i.imgur.com/WYq30.jpg
I'll have to tell him later how proud I am of him. At the moment more urgent thing is that the old king finally choked on his moustache and there is a new brat on the throne. He doesn't exactly like me, and I don't want to start a war when I'm busy disciplining my son.




http://i.imgur.com/2nEdX.jpg
So I offer my penpal in Rome a little quid-pro-quo deal.




http://i.imgur.com/5V3Mm.jpg
I've always wanted to receive one of these letters.




http://i.imgur.com/WJUmd.jpg
Since the King officially doesn't belong to the Pope's club anymore, the nobles all around the English Kingdom start founding their own.




http://i.imgur.com/NhL7q.jpg
The new king starts coughing blood and suffering from weird bald spots on his head just one year after taking the throne. He dies quickly and we all agree together that it was an illness.




http://i.imgur.com/VgJ7o.jpg
OK, back to Benedetto. Since he now seems to have officially reached adolescence, I have to remind him why you don't mess with your father beyond certain point. I swear, if I had beaten him more when he was a kid, this would never have happened. Stupid liberal monks, I should have never listened to them. Well, I can still do it and invite my friends too.




http://i.imgur.com/kG6BC.jpg
I knew I kept that wife around for something.




http://i.imgur.com/A6yrm.jpg
Speaking of wives: JACKPOT!!!




http://i.imgur.com/nFeWI.jpg
Sorry dear, but I'm afraid you just became obsolete. It's like our marriage always was: nothing personal.




http://i.imgur.com/7FTLW.jpg
Really, I'm sorry, but I'm in a little hurry and can't arrange anything more fancy for you. Good thing you don't have any relatives left to ask me dumb questions.




http://i.imgur.com/ljHpk.jpg
And now, for my Future-King-Making-Machine, we shall...WHAAAAT??!! What do you mean you don't want to marry me??! I'm the freaking don Andrea II! What do the stupid Kings have that I don't?!




http://i.imgur.com/AaUy4.jpg
Hrmph. Nordics. I hate them. My greatgreatgreatgrandfather Waltheof hated them too. OK, where was I. Oh yeah, putting the fear of God to my son Benedetto, that's right.




http://i.imgur.com/pg8PA.jpg
Like one son wasn't enough to worry about, now that brat Spam has got himself into a jam back in Bedford and asks good old godfather Andrea to bail him. Well, since not doing it would mean that I laid with that horrible fish lady for nothing...




http://i.imgur.com/aSwcv.jpg
I buy Spam 5445 soldiers, wrap them in gift paper and send them marching to Bedford.




http://i.imgur.com/YnFef.jpg
That was enough to make the enemies of our family understand not to mess with us any further. All hail Spam! (I can't believed I just said that.)




http://i.imgur.com/I2JjN.jpg
Stupid Benedetto still won't give up. He has build quite many little holdings here and we keep sieging them one after another.




http://i.imgur.com/h8qhS.jpg
OK, boy, the game is over. Give it up and I won't withhold your weekly pocket money. What? Did he really say "Come on, you pansy"?!




http://i.imgur.com/r9DGQ.jpg
He is as stubborn as I am, and even gets the light comedy references right. At least I can for once be sure that my wife didn't cheat me.




http://i.imgur.com/40uFt.jpg
That of course doesn't stop me from taking his last castle, where me and my troops find him hiding in the cellar, quickly trying to burn what looks like the latest issue of "Playcount" and a bottle of lotion.




http://i.imgur.com/coEl1.jpg
OK, it was all fun and games son, but you and I have a lot to talk about your future.

http://i.imgur.com/aThGe.jpg
OK, next thing on the agenda: I'm a bachelor again. And Eadhild of Whicce is going to inherit the Duchy of York, even though she doesn't know it yet.




http://i.imgur.com/JeRcH.jpg
Her old father Oswine is married to a crone who is about as capable of becoming pregnant as I am.




http://i.imgur.com/kVIZd.jpg
And his only heir is Mr. Funny Hat. Seems pretty straightforward to me.




http://i.imgur.com/UC3O9.jpg
I get lots of help from another guy with a funny hat, who is apparently bitter for not having as cool hat as the soon to be deceased Mr. Funny Hat.




http://i.imgur.com/ydb8t.jpg
Ah, the balconies again. If the Englishmen were there building Rome, it would have collapsed before Julius Caesar was even born. The cherry on the top is that the idea comes from the very same Eadhild whom I'm about to marry soon.




http://i.imgur.com/8m4Rg.jpg
Apparently Mr. Funny Hat isn't dumb. I told Eadhild she shouldn't have put the "free flight lessons" placate next to the sawed off railings.




http://i.imgur.com/tncsV.jpg
Oh well. Despite of her failure, I still grudgingly agree to marry her, provided that she pays a huge amount of gold to be my next wife.




http://i.imgur.com/AZHi7.jpg
Eadhild is very eager to correct her previous mistake and now suggests that we instead blow Mr. Funny Hat to pieces with loads of cow manure. Her affection to the bovine excrement reminds me of that dimwit Abbondio, but the idea is decent nevertheless. Go go cow girl!




http://i.imgur.com/t5C0k.jpg
I wonder what tipped the Hat Man off this time: the smell of the crap, the fact that it had been smeared all over the walls, or that his little sister Eadhild was waiting for him there, asking if she gets his pony if he happens to die anytime soon.




http://i.imgur.com/zPdDc.jpg
Bah, women shouldn't be entrusted with killing anyone! Fortunately the other guy with a pointy hat has managed to acquire some good wine with extra spices. Good!




http://i.imgur.com/lW2eA.jpg
It worked perfectly, except that the idiot wrote a greeting card to go along with the bottle, saying "With love from the future Duke of York Andrea II."




http://i.imgur.com/zwDOJ.jpg
On the top of suffering a public embarrassement, my new wife Eadhild refuses to speak to me and claims it wasn't fair to get someone else to kill his brother.




http://i.imgur.com/gIuJv.jpg
On the top of that, while Eadhild messed everything up, someone of the Whicce family managed to get laid and now I have to get rid of this little brat Eadhburh too. I hate killing little girls. They make much better wives than coffin stuffings.




http://i.imgur.com/JXI0P.jpg
It appears most of her court agrees. Except for this one guy Wiglaf, with whom young Eadhburh forgot the first rule of a long living ruler: Keep your Spymaster happy.




http://i.imgur.com/1jwo7.jpg
I have hardly said "you're hired" when he already informs me that Eadhburh's first try at the pillow war game had a tragic ending.




http://i.imgur.com/VdYSm.jpg
Since my new wife is now officially old Oswine's heir, I decide to make sure she stays that way too.




http://i.imgur.com/XlSle.jpg
Eadhild is still mad at me, but fortunately there are always other people with grudges towards rulers I need to get rid of.




http://i.imgur.com/L35R3.jpg
And besides, I don't need my wife talk to me when I'm making babies, so the difference is trivial.




http://i.imgur.com/GuvLC.jpg
Oswine likes trips to the countryside too. My new friend Wiglaf knows an excellent cliff from which his grace would certainly like to admire the scenery.




http://i.imgur.com/Q05qT.jpg
Crap. Not only did he prove to be more nimble than I expected such an old geezer to be, he even saved the driver who swore it was me who suggested the sightseeing there.

http://i.imgur.com/xDgF7.jpg
I can't have him blabbering about my schemes to all my possible future father-in-laws. Benito and the boys need to take care of this.




http://i.imgur.com/bGETw.jpg
It's impossible to get competent underlings these days. Besides, Benito owed me a beer!




http://i.imgur.com/5th8K.jpg
Good thing Wiglaf has already removed that idiotic sign my wife put in the balcony to kill Hatty, so Oswine won't suspect anything when taking a walk there.




http://i.imgur.com/5yPlt.jpg
But just to be sure, Wiglaf has another idea as well...




http://i.imgur.com/4b0B5.jpg
My, he really is a creative and eager man, isn't he. If he wasn't so rotten to the core, I'd invite him to my court.




http://i.imgur.com/cWW7o.jpg
Oswine and I have a talk about the misunderstandings there have been between us. I can't stand the old fool yakking all the time, but this time I'm there to push him personally over the edge.




http://i.imgur.com/14GaG.jpg
And down there was waiting my disloyal friend Wiglaf, who propelled the mauled Duke into the air with so much cow excrement I could smell it from a mile away. My former father-in-law was last smelled flying towards the general direction of France.




http://i.imgur.com/DR4jb.jpg
My, England has become a dangerous place, hasn't it. You never know who wants to kill you. I'd better some extra security just in case.




http://i.imgur.com/iH32O.jpg
Of course, Eadhild isn't exactly thrilled to have me come home covered in the intestines of his closest family again. Downsides of being succesful is getting estranged from your loved ones.




http://i.imgur.com/bNIKN.jpg
Good thing that my nine months of waiting is finally over and the stork brought me the long awaited parcel, whom I decide to name Broom just for giggles.




http://i.imgur.com/hT93y.jpg
Just as I'm in the middle of wondering how to get rid of my now useless wife Eadhild, I get informed that Wiglaf got ahead of me and killed her before I could even ask. I send the man a bottle of champagne to thank him for saving me the trouble.




http://i.imgur.com/JhtLR.jpg
Whew. I've spent enough time in York. Time to go back home and inspect the condition of the castle. In the darkest and wettest part of the dungeon I find an oddly familiar looking man stripped to his undies and with a piece of paper saying "kick me" nailed on his back.


"Who is this?" I ask.
"You son, Sire." The guard replies.
"More specific."
"The one that wanted to kill you."
"More specific."
"The one that you then beat and threw in prison."
"More specific."
"In May."
"More specific."
"On Sunday?"
"Mo...oh, right! Benedoltto of something. I had to buy a wardrobe full of new clothes since I couldn't get the blood of his family off my old ones."


I suppose I never had that serious talk with him? And looking at him now, he doesn't look capable of having one with the right half of his face two times the size of the left one and oddly red-blue. Since I need to make room in the dungeon, I send him back to...wherever he lives.




http://i.imgur.com/V5CXa.jpg
Right after he has limped into the proverbial sunset, I remember that he is my heir. I can't have my heir looking like a May day balloon. No heiress is going to take him seriously like that. So I start looking for new ones. Loo of Scotland has matured quite nicely, but he doesn't feel sneaky and greedy enough for my liking.




http://i.imgur.com/CoeG9.jpg
Whereas my other sons Spam...




http://i.imgur.com/TqaxE.jpg
...And Broom are still just kids. I suppose I have to wait for a while before I decide who gets the crown.




http://i.imgur.com/ljm8J.jpg
Waiting is boring. Back to killing Fedlimid infants.




http://i.imgur.com/eDmQW.jpg
And building stuff.




http://i.imgur.com/WOlNB.jpg
Some blabbering old man claims that if we pay him lots of money, he will share his deepest thoughts with us. Since I have lots of money and no better way to waste it, I decide to humor the request.




http://i.imgur.com/ZArV2.jpg
The authorities are again giving me trouble. Why is some fool from Gloucester even interested if I want to make the Fedlimids of Munster an extinct species?




http://i.imgur.com/LU7K3.jpg
Well, at least my chancellor still knows how to get brownie points from the King. That should keep him from interfering with my plans to eat his Kingdom from the inside out and burst out of it's chest to grow into...Oops, sorry, wrong film.

http://i.imgur.com/04iOA.jpg
Waiting is still boring. Time to throw a party! That's what we Italians know the best, especially if it's not our money!




http://i.imgur.com/m1rXu.jpg
Hooray, a wonderful start! I was afraid the peasants would just dance around a pole and sing, but it seems we can get some food old fashion hangings here too!




http://i.imgur.com/rqvDE.jpg
I thought if the group was called "The Jumping Jews of Jerusalem", it simply can't be bad. Turns out I was wrong. Time to change the name of their show to "Bouncing Heads of Hooligans".




http://i.imgur.com/xc2ni.jpg
Thieves, imbeciles and now cheating in archery contest! Who hired these fools?! Off with his head too!




http://i.imgur.com/sFAbF.jpg
The most hilarious part of the whole party was seeing chimps beat their trainer into bloody mass. I pay the leader monkey well and they promise to come next year too.




http://i.imgur.com/BtNMX.jpg
OK, back to family business. I have scoured through all England in vain to find a new wife, but then I hear a rumor that the King of Norway has some daughters left and not too many sons. Cäme tö think åf it, I häve älwäys liked cödfish.




http://i.imgur.com/1Un7s.jpg
I wonder if the Norwegian brats make funnier noises than English and Irish ones as they die?




http://i.imgur.com/ZYpjy.jpg
It's a sign of a great heir when one of his future vassal Dukes already wants to kill him. Who am I to argue?




http://i.imgur.com/qtIXU.jpg
Treachery! Just as I'm drawing a new masterplan to in white to the blue ACME paper (yes, it included an anvil too), I find out that my very own servants are plotting against me. I forgave them publicly. And after that...




http://i.imgur.com/1S7wO.jpg
Well, will you look at that. As soon as I'm not there to personally lead them, the overpaid fools can't even throw a kid over a wall. And these are to be my future subjects?




http://i.imgur.com/Jm0ug.jpg
I still can't travel to Norway, for I'm afraid that someone is trying to hurt me. Just today I found a spy rummaging through my comic collection. He had seen too much. I sent him back home with two less eyes.




http://i.imgur.com/eIPGr.jpg
Meanwhile in Norway, my conspiring friends have managed to wake up the kid's pining for the fjords and rented him a floating bathtub to sail with.




http://i.imgur.com/Xl4w9.jpg
Note to my over eager underlings: next time you want to drown the kid, removing the whole bottom of the boat and having it sink before the brat can even get on board is not the way to go.




http://i.imgur.com/J8yY8.jpg
Bah, since it's taking forever to kill even one of the Norwegian princes, I send Aldo and the boys to take care of the other one.




http://i.imgur.com/RKUH2.jpg
How many times have I told you not to scream "Don Andrea sends his regards" when killing people?!




http://i.imgur.com/iIcSr.jpg
My God! An assassin! An assassin in my very own castle! Bloated eyes, empty stare and smells like a codfish. The trail leads to the tuna cannery.

http://i.imgur.com/2BaAR.jpg
Enough of this idiocy! I'll go there myself!




http://i.imgur.com/PfjTy.jpg
And as for my father-in-law, who is about to join the other fathers-in-laws in whatever weird afterlife they may have...




http://i.imgur.com/RrkLT.jpg
He is waaayyy too popular for my liking. Come on! You can't tell me he didn't try to kill you too every now and then for no reason whatsoever. Clearly the man is a dangerous lunatic!




http://i.imgur.com/lX0dQ.jpg
Change of plans. First I make him pay me for marrying his daughter.




http://i.imgur.com/JdXzl.jpg
And then use the money to pay Igor from Novgorod to take care of the problem for me. What better wedding gift for my new wife than the almost brand new crown of her father?




http://i.imgur.com/N2zRX.jpg
The father-in-law-number-something left behind a book that the monks claim to be very valuable. I say it has way too few pretty pictures and too much boring text, so I instead use it to warm up my bathing water. I need to get rid of the scent of the fish before every stray cat in England attacks me.




http://i.imgur.com/yHwiN.jpg
Far more to my liking is this golden crown I got from this deal. None of my ancestors ever had such a cool baubble.




http://i.imgur.com/P3MMM.jpg
Thing in England continue as per usual. A civil war erupts again tearing the Kingdom apart. The interesting detail in this particular one is that it's started by that fool Fedlimid from Munster. For once I'm eager to raise levies in King's service.




http://i.imgur.com/gz956.jpg
The King rewards my sudden loyalty by suggesting my daughter marries his son. Truth be told, I had no idea I had a daughter. This changes so many things.




http://i.imgur.com/bQSXF.jpg
I turn my liege down being sure that I can find a better deal somewhere. And sure enough, the Bohemian King Spytihnev is very happy to accept the initiation of his youngest prince into my family.




http://i.imgur.com/1d1QG.jpg
Poor Spytihnev should have really checked how many male heirs he has before accepting that.




http://i.imgur.com/kzn9a.jpg
His son Sezima could as well hand over the crown to me, but there is something more satisfying in getting it after the funeral.




http://i.imgur.com/pW2Kg.jpg
Now where is Bohemia again? I can't seem to locate it on the map.




http://i.imgur.com/BToZi.jpg
Oh, here it is. The pitiful Eastern buttock of the Holy Roman Empire. Whatever. I want it anyway.




http://i.imgur.com/ImFBl.jpg
So: just business as usual, Sezima. Don't worry, I'm getting really good at this. It won't hurt a bit.




http://i.imgur.com/GUiVu.jpg
Sezima has quite a few enemies, but truth be told, I'm tired of waiting these foreigner fools get something done.



http://i.imgur.com/mKfLh.jpg
Far more convenient to just hire Fabio and the boys to pay him a visit. They are killing him in Bohemia. Ja, in Bohemia, where assassins are rarely wearing underpants.




http://i.imgur.com/6Y5ah.jpg
There. My daughter is now officially betrothed to the future king of Bohemia, and every single brat they ever conceive will be of house Northumbria. Politics is great when you don't even need to get bloody to conquer whole kingdoms.

http://i.imgur.com/h61Q9.jpg
Speaking of Kingdoms, my inheritance in Norway doesn't look at all what I'd want it to look like. So I kick my wife around to return order to my future property before some stupid usurper Duke undoes everything I have worked for.




http://i.imgur.com/029UJ.jpg
As we know, beating your kids is the answer to all the problems in the world, and apparently we can add wives to that list too.




http://i.imgur.com/eEUFn.jpg
Speaking of kids, there is still this...oh, my memory fails me again. The one that is supposed to inherit me, even if he is already old, hasn't plotted even one Duchy for our family yet and is otherwise a complete dolt too.




http://i.imgur.com/cnYmY.jpg
Whereas his son is much more clever and younger. But by the law the throne should belong to my less than succesful son.




http://i.imgur.com/bisoa.jpg
So I invite him to talk about changing the law a little. He gets his old room back too just to show I'm not bitter over our last argument.




http://i.imgur.com/ZPm1V.jpg
Even at the age of 41 and after all my careful, fatherly guidance, Benedetto hadn't learned to understand that "an offer you can't refuse" is not a figure of speech.




http://i.imgur.com/i1KR9.jpg
My grandson, conveniently also named Benedetto, is now a little disgruntled with me for teaching his father this last lesson of the trade.




http://i.imgur.com/hP0CF.jpg
However, when I explain that I did it just for his own good, he is far more understanding.

http://i.imgur.com/WvKwg.jpg
After we toast with Benedetto the Younger for the health of our family, I go to sleep safely knowing that the future of the family assets is in good hands. But my dreams are disturbed in the middle of the nights as I feel less than good hands around my neck, trying to strangle me. My ever vigilant guards impale the would be assassin before he can snap my neck, but the other one gets away. And as we in the family business know, dead men tell no tales.




http://i.imgur.com/tMQOX.jpg
At first I suspect it might have been my heir Benedetto, but since I can't kill my heirs all the time, I instead blame my daughters father-in-law, king Spytihnev of Bohemia. You can't trust a man who has the word "Spy" in his name!




http://i.imgur.com/xdU3P.jpg
My plotting and feuding is interrupted by a grandson I've never heard of. He starts whining why he isn't getting nice things when everyone else has them.




http://i.imgur.com/pJWXS.jpg
This brat is really getting on my nerves!




http://i.imgur.com/M9ogA.jpg
And as for my no good wife, the Queen of Norway: why hasn't she already made a Northumbrian baby to inherit the Kingdom? I'm not getting any younger here, you know!




http://i.imgur.com/ywfLM.jpg
Dealing with monarchs is very stressing. Just as soon as I'm done again beating sense into my wife, I'm already travelling to Bohemia to stage a generic suspicious accident to Spytihnev. It succeeds, and now another obstacle is removed from our dynasty inheriting this land.




http://i.imgur.com/m9iGp.jpg
Ah, finally I have some time to relax.




http://i.imgur.com/BlYZb.jpg
Even the King isn't bothering me anymore, since he won the civil war against Fedlimids.




http://i.imgur.com/AbKt5.jpg
And guess what happened to the old man himself? I'll have to pay him a visit in the dungeon one of these days.




http://i.imgur.com/nVXaz.jpg
Just as I'm leaving him back to rotting in his cell, the old man begs me to help him in war against someone trying to usurp his title. Poetic justice, baby!




http://i.imgur.com/AtGCC.jpg
My newly found joy in the suffering of my nemesis inspires me to make one more offspring with my new, somewhat beaten looking wife.




http://i.imgur.com/LV624.jpg
Since he is going to be the King of Norway, I have to come up with a suitable name for him, so that the locals will accept him.




http://i.imgur.com/MrNLW.jpg
Then just for relaxation it's time to play whack a rebel.




http://i.imgur.com/cej1Q.jpg
And for being such a great man that I am, the King finally recognizes my valor and grants me the position of a chancellor! See?! I'm not old at all yet! On the contrary, this is just the beginning, for I have only started to live! Next I will...




http://i.imgur.com/8arTs.jpg
Guuurg. :dead:

Alright, it's all yours lads. Here is the link to the save once more.

Onwards on board of HMS Hilarity!:salute:

Sooo...new patch coming next week and doesn't look like it will necessary like old save games (the dreaded words "semi-compatible" have been uttered from the horse's mouth.)

Abandon ship?

They said the last patch was semi-compatible and it seems to work fine, so I suggest we find whoever is going to play the next character, give him the save file and then hide behind something in case anything explodes.

I concur. We should try if it's playable. Would be a shame to abandon it now...

I have some old saves from my recent attempt to oust the cursed Capets from the throne of France (ended up as king of Ireland and Jerusalem, as well as vassal of the Holy Roman Empire), and of course our succession save. I'll apply the patch and do a few test runs to see if it makes my count pregnant or turns him into a Smurf.

I'm up for another generation as well, but would prefer not playing to generations in row. I have only so many jokes until it becomes stupidly repetitive, which it definitely would if you had to endure another 50 - 70 years of me.

OK, the patch didn't seem too weird on my France game. I let it run for a few years and didn't notice any serious oddities except for having suddenly gone over my demesne limit by two and having a ducal title I wasn't sure I had before (completely possible I did, it has been a while since I played that save.) My laws had been reset as well, but they were easy enough to fix. Couldn't access the new succession laws, but that might have been a feature rather than a bug. The characters were as they were supposed to be and the balance of power looked like what I remembered it to be. All in all, I'd say this patch is compatible with the old saves.