Update time. To continue where I left, Adalbert the court dwarf has a dynasty of court dwarfs. Meet his son:
It's time I show how my little kingdom looks today. I found room to expand in Poland. Gradually I got the duchy of Greater Poland, and the duchy of Mecklenburg. I also got the duchy of Brandenburg, which was conveniently next to my capital yet completely out of reach because of medium crown authority. However, when the emperor died and someone started the German War for Seniority Succession (and succeeded), crown authority disappeared completely. On the one hand, that;s how I like it because it let's me get more lands. On the other hand, my vassals are fighting among themselves. And since most of them are Billung, they all have CB's on each other's lands. That's the downside of expanding I guess. When I was battling the king of Sweden for Rügen (de jure part of Mecklenburg, so rightfully mine) my brother decided it was time to press his claim on the kingdom of Germany. Bad idea. I did encounter a glitch of some sort: I got a message that faithful levies had appeared in my capital. Not much later the succession war suddenly ended, at the same time I made peace with the king of Sweden. One of the annoying features of this game is that sometimes a CB becomes invalid in the middle of a war; for example, when the opposing king dies, or, if a civil war ends (if there's a civil war every party becomes independent for the duration of the war, but when peace is made the "opposing leader" could end up with a liege lord (his king, likely). But anyway, I don't know why this brother's war ended, but I did end up with 2k worth of faithful levies. Levies which I don't have to pay upkeep, nor receive raised levies penalties, nor prevent me to declare war. I'm not complaining
Below you see the the independent countries with the lands de facto belonging to Germany (in yellow, without Rügen). There's a county somewhere in the Balkans that I didn't know it existed before I made this screenshot, and the republic of Ferrara that got into the hands of the Billung dynasty when the duke of Thuringia played a role in some independence war. At least I think that's what happened, I'm not keeping track of everything my vassals do
It could be some inheritance of the italian branch of my family (the first thing I did when I started the game was to marry one of my brothers to an Italian duchess).
So, that's where I was when the shit hit the fan: the emperor died. Somehow seniority succession doesn't lead to popular emperors, because every duke suddenly decides to push his claim on the HRE. After helping the duke of Lower Lotharingen (not the court dwarf by the way, he's long dead) to a warscore of 100%, the emperor died... cancelling the CB and the war. The duke of Wolgast (the one county duchy of Pomerania) became the new emperor by seniority... and this was the guy that started the German War for Seniority Succession. So he got something out of it after all: not only the HRE, but also the duchy of Franconia (the lands cutting my kingdom in half). Apparently he didn't make friends, so the duke of Upper Lotharingen pushed his claim. With my help he succeeded. Easily, I must add: the HRE already was broke before the first war, but owning a single county doesn't make for wealthy emperors. So now we're at a point where the HRE isn't a Salian, and as a bonus the head of the Salians is in the jail of the new HRE. All I have to do is to push my claim for the duchy of Franconia, and Germany is whole. Even this emperor isn't popular, as I got called to enter a new succession war immediately after this one ended. I don't feel like fighting for a one county Balkan lord, so I declined.
After the war an Italian lord gave me some gold, I have no clue why...
I have created a simple retinue, consisting of a shock, defense and knight retinue. As far as I could tell this doesn't count towards my levy size, yet there's still a retinue penalty visible in the levy size calculation. I suspect this is the HRE's retinue. I don't know, and I can't find anything on it either. Anyway, I'm happy with my retinue.
The Billing Breeding Programme is also taking form. I'm keeping my sons at home until they're married (or maybe I'll just keep them at home until they inherit their lands from me, although the penalty for the amount of duchies I own is already up to -20). I made sure to pick good brides: my heir got an Arabian princess with the genius trait. Even though she turned out to be a mastermind theologian lesbian they have three sons. No genius trait. By the way, my wife has the genius trait, and it showed up in my youngest daughter. For my second son I picked the daughter of the king of Norway, not only for the alliance but also for the strong trait she carries. Their first son turned out an imbecile though
I married a daughter to some russian principality, and a daughter to the Basileus of Byzantium. They have two sons born in the purple. Maybe that alliance can be put to good use some time in the near future.