title loss on succession means, that the character you'll be playing with after your current one dies, won't inherit the title (someone else will and you can check out the line of succession by looking at the tooltips on the shields in the character screen). that's mostly due to succesion laws (gavelkind splits up evenly, elective might have the dukes vote someone else than your preferred successor).
the worst part about spain is maintaining it, once you've grabbed all the kingdom titles. the jimena family is huge and a thorough purge might be necessary to keep things in order. you'll also have to manage different culture groups and convert the heathen (when you hand out counties, check the culture group of the guy you're giving it to, since he might convert the county to his culture group and religion). i keep my counts limited to one county each and my dukes limited to one county + weak duchy (check how big the de jure duchy is before you hand it out) if possible (no family members apart from the heir get titles at all).
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current game as rhodos:
started out as count of rhodos, brother of the duke of cibyrrhaeot. as my brother was unmarried, i was the heir to the duchy. unfortunately paying for assassins was out of the question for a poor county like mine. still i had to do something, before my brother manned up and produced heirs of his own. thus i raised my flag in rebellion and demanded the duchy for myself. surprisingly my brother fielded fewer troops than me and lost a few battles. that gave me a headstart but i never had enough troops to actually conquer his sole county. so it went to and fro a few times, when he got some troops and started chasing mine or i got some and started chasing his. finally he got a knock on the head in one of the battles and died soon after.
unfortunately he had managed to produce a daughter and instead of me, she took the crown, which meant the war was not over, yet. she was far too young to rule, though, so her regent did the intelligent thing and made her surrender to me. finally after years of slow progress i crowned myself doux of cibyrrhaeot. a doux with two counties and claim on another one, that was illegally occupied by a neighbouring duchy. a period of growth and repairs followed before i decided where i wanted to go next.
in the mean time, the basileus had died and his imbecile son took the throne. fortunately he managed to die in the first uprising and so the empire went back to more able hands. the next emperor asked me to be marshal and i agreed, flattered by the offer and expecting glory. i arrived in byzantium only to be sent to train troops. i swore to never forget that humiliation.
time went by and i took a hard look at the muslim world. there was some turmoil going on and at first i couldn't quite make out why. it took me a while to notice, that the shia caliph was a heretic druze. some called that a sign of the apocalypse, but i decided to call it an opportunity. as i was planning my first foray into the holy land, death came knocking and my son took the helm.
as the new doux i had to postpone my father's plans. the empire was at war and my troops were fighting battles under the banner of the basileus, instead of mine. the seljuk turks had launched an invasion, but were slowly losing ground. eventually they surrendered and my troops returned home. the basileus, believing himself unstoppable, tried to institute high crown authority laws, that would have made it even less probable for me to get the last de jure county of my duchy back. it didn't take long until a pretender rose up against the tyranny and tried to replace the old emperor. still being angry about how my father had been treated by that gluttonous swine on the throne, i decided to join the rebellion. turns out i wasn't the only one willing to join. the basileus still commanded a huge force, but he couldn't be everywhere, so the time was on the rebel's side on this one. in the end the old basileus was forced to abdicate and die a broken duke, instead of the shining light of orthodoxy he had aspired to be.
realizing, that the new basileus (brother of the old one) was still unmarried, i offered him one of my daughters. he refused. bastard. his heir (another brother) was unmarried as well... and he accepted my offer. lucky guy. the basileus... not so much. he died screaming the name of the duke who ordered his death, mine. the new basileus, my son in law, never tried to avenge his brother, so i guess he didn't really mind that much.
the won succession war meant a very low crown authority in the empire and i used this to grab the last remaining county of my duchy in a quick war, as i was by now able to pay for mercenaries.
in the mean time the holy land had splintered into handy little chunks i could conquer without risking too much. still i played it safe and instead of going full holy war, i decided to just press my wife's claim to the lands around antiochea. i did win the war and my wife became duchess. unfortunately she became independent as well and did not seek the protection of the basileus. stupid bitch. of course she was immediately attacked by muslims as well as neighbouring dukes alike. i managed to join her troops in defence of her three measly counties, but once my funds had run out, she was on her own and lost it all. two counties went to syria and one to one of the greek dukes. i raged. due to the still low crown authority i was at least able to take back the one county, that had been taken by my orthodox neighbour.
i decided that playing it safe was a cowardly thing to do and bravely went full on holy war once my coffers were filled again. disclaimer: this decision was in no way prompted by the caliph fighting the same guys on another front, so i could basically just waltz in and take over, without much fighting. it took a few wars and some poking the muslim world, but in the end most of galilee was mine. so much of it in fact, that i could safely pronounce myself despot of jerusalem, without actually owning the county of jerusalem. but i was old and the benefits of declaring myself king would have meant nothing to me. i decided to let my heir do that crowning stuff and hope the basileus wouldn't grab the title instead of me. in the mean time i started christianizing the holy land. or rather... i sent the guy i appointed as my head charlatan to do that, because he was expendable and good at preaching.
taking a look at the family situation i realized, that my heir was a massive moron. naturally i had him excommunicated, sent to prison and executed ... that'd teach him. i did miss, that his wife was pregnant, however, so instead of my decent son, my new heir turned out to be my moronic son's offspring. this in turn meant i'd have to live a bit longer and fear for my awesome despot title for some painful 16 years. turns out 16 was too long. after slightly more than a decade of consolidating power in the holy land, the doux of galilee (decided this sounded more impressive than doux of cibyrrhaeot) kicked the bucket.
as an 11 year old doux i was given a regent, whom i despised. his character was nothing a future despot would want to be like and i was glad when he was replaced by a better man, after a decent hand to hand wordfight. the moment i had enough support by the church, i grabbed the crown of jerusalem and put it on my head. under the benevolent rule of the basileus i had become primus inter pares among the vassals.
the caliphate was a mess and taking an opportunity here and an opportunity there, i managed to get jerusalem proper as well as the surrounding areas under control. seeing how i was in a good position to split the caliphate up between its holdings in egypt and arabia, i made a bold move for the sinai. a massively retarded bold move. i got lucky and captured the caliph himself in a battle and was able to force him to surrender in a war, that was about to turn really ugly for me.
the basileus, though technically my relative now, didn't help at all in my war, so i decided it was time to part ways. he was getting old anyway and it was only a matter of time before the empire would end up in a succession war. these were my thoughts when he turned 60. he lived till 82.
those were happy years for the peasants and burghers. i didn't join any wars, built everything i could and generally hoarded money for the big rebellion. then finally one fine day the joyous news of the basileus' death arrived and i immediately declared my war of independence. well... not exactly immediately... i waited for some other distracting uprisings, naturally. i managed to wriggle free, mere months before the new basileus crushed the last of the rebels. god's will i suppose.
the new basileus turned out to be a capable man (also married to one of my aunts), which was bad news for me. he wanted the title i had, and he'd stop at nothing to get it. he had me excommunicated five times. while each time i was able to get accepted back into the church some days later, due to my high piety, it did become annoying soon and i decided to have my sons become catholics. i was actually rather glad, when the basileus finally declared war. it was a dirty war with a lot of backstabbing and mercenary hordes roaming the land. in the end i prevailed... maimed and incapable of coherent thought after a knock on the head.
seeing my troubles, the sheikh of cairo decided to attack me for my sinai holdings. while i watched my armies assemble, i drew my last breath and fell into a coma, i didn't wake up from again.
the despot had died and was followed by a king. for the first time in history, the kingdom of jerusalem was ruled by a catholic. a scottish catholic. oh boy.
as a catholic i was able to buy some letters of indulgence to get enough piety to hire a holy order. my muslim foes didn't see that coming, but they were quick to understand, that the latest developments were disastrous for them. never had they faced a scottish teenager before.
the sheikh of cairo was quickly beaten and humiliated, the syrians, who had assumed me too weak to withstand their attacks, were brought to their knees and forced to eat haggis.
it was at this time, that jerusalem proper had finally recovered from all the conquest and i moved my seat of power from rhodos to the holy land. while packing my bags for the move, i noticed, that there were some people sitting in my dungeon. some of them had been sitting there for quite some time. turns out, that the caliph was still my guest. my funds were running low so i debated ransoming him to his people. unfortunately his regent had developed an unhealthy spending habbit, while his master was away, so he couldn't pay. fine, i said, your head on a pike it'll be then. and for my 16th birthday i had his head chopped off and presented to the scottish population of jerusalem the head of the muslim, who had liked me the most...
