Note: This map was created after every war currently going on had been artificially ended in white peace.
I usually avoid creating an empire before abandoning gavelkind for primogeniture. In this campaign, however, when I inherited Burgundy and Lotharingia in 886, I decided to start my imperial ambitions early. I expected the empire to be in constant danger of falling apart. However, after the first Emperor, Lothaire the Holy, died in 925 and left his second son in control of both Burgundy and Lotharingia, I was flabbergasted to see that the empire remained perfectly stable. Even after that second son, Louis the Holy, pressed his claim on a third kingdom, France, in 945—even after he'd accumulated 8000 prestige, while his brother, Emperor Lothaire the Blessed, lagged behind at merely 5000!—he stayed happy and never rebelled. (Disappointingly, he failed to accumulate the 1200 $ necessary to unilaterally declare independence and create his own empire before dying in 976 at age 51.)
Not to be outdone by his brother, the aforementioned Lothaire the Blessed usurped Germany and Bavaria from King Berhart the Monster in 926 (through war) and 927 (by peacefully vassalizing several scattered German princes), respectively. The vagaries of gavelkind succession forced him to grant these kingdoms to his sons or risk losing the Kingdom of Italy, his main power base, but neither son posed any more risk to the Empire than his brother did. (Indeed, the new King of Germany, Roger the Wise, was overthrown—and replaced on the throne by his father—literally three times between 953 and 957…)
Lothaire the Blessed also presided over the protection of the Langobard duchies of Benevento and Salerno (and Venice to boot) from Greek encroachment; they've been tributaries to the Empire of the West since the 920s, when Emperor Theocharistos the Wise was arrogant enough to declare an Imperial Reconquest of the Beneventan lands. (The Duchy of Gaeta was conquered separately, by a Greek claimant, in 966.) The slightly-different shade of purple in southern Italy is Amalfi, which rose to kingdom tier in 970. Muslim Africa has held the single county of Naples since 954. Affairs in southern Italy have held steady for a while.
Really, this campaign has been surprisingly uneventful. At this point, the HRE has been removed from the de jure map, as the Empire of the West has absorbed Burgundy, Italy, Lotharingia, Bavaria, Germany, Sardinia, and (on the same day as this map's creation) France (in approximately that order), while Brittany (conquered through holy war against the Sunni King of Andalusia) and León (conquered through holy war by a King of France) are in the process of being assimilated. Currently, Emperor Antoine holds Italy and León, while Antoinette, Angelbert, Angelbert (a different one), and Foulques rule over Lotharingia, Germany, Bavaria, and Sardinia, respectively—every single one a Karling. Italy, León, Lotharingia, Bavaria, and the Empire have primogeniture, while Germany and Sardinia remain under gavelkind. I would revoke and destroy some more kingdoms, but I'm pretty much at my vassal limit. (The Western Empire lands in England used to be under the titular duchies of Chester and Hwicce, which were held by a vassal of the Kingdom of Mercia before they were inherited by the King of Sardinia and automatically destroyed.)
The King of Hungary really shouldn't have been able to create an empire, but he apparently managed to re-create a dynamic empire (the Khanate of a Budslav, held by Ágoston a Budslav, a Sunni Székely, between 929 and 940) that lacked the title_emperor_basic_allow condition. Still, the Magyars managed to subjugate two Wendish kingdoms (the Sorbs and the Pomeranians), so I guess they deserve a reward for that. (The Obotrite and Lutician kings, as well as four separate Czech counts, remain both independent and pagan—the Obotrites even managed to assimilate the Duchy of Lübeck—but they're sandwiched between Catholic Frenchmen and Orthodox Hungarians, and survive only at the Christians' pleasure.)
Aquitaine, wracked by rebellion, was conquered by an opportunistic Catholic Pecheneg claimant (though I'm not sure how he got a claim), Kortan the Fearless, in 1013; his son (converted to the Avar culture by his guardian, Duke Buzer the Lame of Somogy and Slavonia, the OPM at the intersection of three empires!) is set to inherit.
The Duke of Africa, Qammuda, Fezzan, and the Nafusa Mountains apparently unilaterally declared independence from the Kingdom of Africa in order to create the Kingdom of Banu Hilal in 963. The Duchies of Qammuda, Fezzan, and the Nafusa Mountains are more than halfway to being assimilated.
The Empire of Adal was created by Queen Kifle the Just of Abyssinia, Yemen, and Adal, a Coptic Ethiopian, in 977. Unfortunately, the Sunni Caliph soon declared a jihad for Adal (the only crusade declared so far in this campaign), which he handily won in 982. (The Kingdom of Medri Bahri has been pagan since its creation in 948 by Fasilidas the Zealot.) The Empire of Arabia has assimilated the kingdoms of Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Antioch, Upper Mesopotamia, the Maghreb, and the Canaries, but has 98 Imperial Decay and an Extremely Decadent Dynasty, so it presumably will fall apart sooner or later.
Seljuk Arghiyan and Ghaznavid Kabulistan have been rather lackluster. India has been pretty consolidated so far, but hasn't yet been unified into an empire. It doesn't seem that the current triple king, Madanapala the Holy, will manage it, since he's already 51 and has only 82 $ in his pocket.
Chief Frigyes of Árva (sandwiched between Catholic Moravia and Orthodox Hungary) appears to be the sole independent Arian ruler on the map.
Empress Photeine the Black (a Makedon—the great-great-granddaughter of Basil the Lionheart—but about to pass the Empire to the Kontomytes dynasty, longtime rulers of Sicily) is ruling over an undecayed Roman Empire. Somewhat oddly, all the steppe nomads have converted to Orthodox Christianity—except for one OPM Karaite Khazar on the west shore of the Caspian Sea.
(Whoops! I didn't notice that the current Emperor of Hungary was Catholic rather than Orthodox. His father and predecessor was Orthodox, though, and most of his land is Orthodox—and, IIRC, right before I ended all the wars to make this map, he was badly losing a rebellion or two against his Orthodox vassals, including the King of Royal Hungary.)
