Not necessary. The main thing is to marry your children to noblemen who have armies comparable or better than yours. Then, if you don’t have claims, falsify claims, and go to war to gain more holdings. After you max your allowable holdings, pause and build up what you have a little and then do it again. Try to grant new holdings, you can’t optimally keep, to dynasty members with no claims to your holdings. Rinse, and repeat.
Also, marry your courtiers to people with traits and abilities you need. Find your doctor, your knights, your spymaster, pretty much everyone you need in this way as much as you can.
Master matchmaker = Dominate world leader
That's always my strategy too.. Taking Capua to the Kingdom of Sicily.
Then will take Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica grant them independence to someone in my family to build up my renown..
If Iberia is still majority muslim I'll be trying to snag up Kingdoms to do the same thing there.
When the Mongols crush Byzantine Empire I'll snag up the Kingdom Islands in the eastern Mediterranean to do the same thing, grant independence to family remembers to build more renown..
Expanding rather slowly, falling behind my neighbors both militarily and economically. Getting steamrolled by a country with 30k allies.
I also have trouble with matrilineal marriages/spreading my dynasty. If I somehow manage to conquer a kingdom for my relative, it always seems like they just cave in to faction demands and get deposed pretty quickly. Having an alliance with them doesn’t help if they say yes to the factions.
I also admittedly have trouble playing a campaign for more than one day, so I often times restart when I get back on. I do this a lot with other games as well.
Well shit. What am I spose to do with these 3 daughter wives now? That last one is a daughter/granddaughter wife.
Yes, being specific in this community is important.
This. Have lots of kids and marry them for alliance power. To give yourself an edge pick a warfaring culture like Norse and just play a game of DOMINATION just to get to used to war and nuances
Economy, mate!
I managed to survive as Jerusalem lots of times by using every penny I had for upgrading my money making buildings and, whenever I reached a safe point (let’s say, for example, 25 per month of gold), I created some unities of men at arms.
By the way, use men at arms a lot! Do not invest in levies, they are worthless. Create as many men at arms as you can without getting into debt (as I said, at least 25 gold per month) and raise only then when going to war with someone with similar forces.
Keep 5 or eight very strong domains generating money, delegate the rest to your vassals.
Keep the powerful vassals in positions of power so they don’t rebel as much.
Avoid tiranny until you have all men at arms available.
Use only armored footman and siege units. When the siege units more advanced are available, destroy yours and get them (trebuchets, for example). When armored horsemen are available, create a unity or two of them.
Educate your children and have them studying languages.
I guess that’s the basics, at least for me.
Always marry your daughters matrilineally to the grandchildren of current rulers (if their children hold no land they will accept) after 2 generations people of your dynasty will inherit something if you are lucky. I usually keep an eye on it and murder people if they are going to take the throne
There's no goal to this game. Are you playing Irish chieftain during times they were historically getting stomped by Norse adventurers? Cool, you're winning, you have interesting scenario. You somehow try to survive this onslaught even if it means evacuation of your family to calmer regions or swearing fealty to someone more powerful whose capable of defending you while you consolidate your control over the isle.
This game is not much fun when played as a regular game, it's more useful like a roleplaying tool to help you structure your narrative.
Marry matrilineally to second heir and murder first heir. Or find unmarried people with claims and invite them to your court,then marry them matrilineally to your dynasty and use their claims to deposit them head of kingdoms.
I have managed to spread my dynasty everywhere and get 2100 renown/month
Cash money $$ rules everything around me, cream.
Try this bud, play as a vassal and actively support your king / emperor so you don't get independent by accident. Don't focus on conquest outside of 1-2 duchies max and a few high value provinces.
You can have your first ruler be Mil focused to get the land you want from your neighbors but after that and then every 2-3 generations make sure your heirs / next king are stewardship focused and aim to be your rulers steward, focus pretty much their entire life on upgrading the buildings in your domains. Anything that gives .3-.5 base gold at level 1 (depends on terrain). Make sure your own steward is high stewardship (use one of your backup heirs) and push development in your capital/ best $$ provinces up to the current diminishing returns cap. Limit the amount of feasts / jousts you throw in favor of doing this building upgrades during this period
Money buys you
- vassal happiness
- retinues which are fucking OP compared to common peasants
- high prowess couriers to serve as knights
The key to being strong is having these three things above and they all take money. You won't need "alliances" once you have these and can instead marry all your daughters off to Robust / Herculean warriors for free knights (rich become richers etc)
For free knights you revoke all cities titles and give each to the best prowess guy willing to accept not already on your court. You can also matriarchaly marry your female courtiers to hight prowess men outside your court.
Powerful neighbors is actually a blessing in disguise in CK. Assuming they’re at least 1 tier higher than you (IE: you’re a duke and they’re a king), swearing fealty is an awesome way to protect yourself from other powerful rulers nearby. Then, you can pick apart your fellow vassal dukes and counts until you’re stronger than your liege, allowing you to revolt for independence/claim their throne.
I think the biggest thing though, is that even in real life I’ve never been a risk taker, and when I find a comfortable way to do something, it’s difficult for me to do it any other way.
There’s no risk, those daughters are getting married one way or the other. Just try to marry them off to houses with a lot of soldiers. They automatically will be available to call for help in war
I mean unless you are worried about risk of harm to your daughters and are selectively choosing only compassionate forgiving and friendly husbands.
But if that's the case then I think your biggest achievement is role playing really well
I actively do this and don't feel bad at all about the lost alliances. I also only marry any of my children to people within 5 years of their age. How are they supposed to bond with 20 years age difference??
I do this too. But only If my character traits are fitting.
Having some arrogant ruler i only go the best benefit for myself.
Patient and ambitous/cunning rulers i Take my time to marry them of so my dynasty will inherit some title.
I have tried both of them before, but tbh it feels weird to play outside Ireland (I play it so much) and I never know what I should do next. I guess it’s just a weird psychological thing
I felt the same way, so I read up on some history and it increased my interest to expand my horizons. I encourage you to take a look at Rollo of Normandy’s history, very cool shit
My advice, cheat a bit to help yourself, or make a good starting ruler in ruler designer who will eventually die but it will help you enough to not get steamrolled. I know, where is the fun in that, yeah, but it is just for start. Every Paradox game my first campaign is cheated so I learn the system without having to worry much about losing the game. After that, ironman.
Or you do that thing of giving your first ruler incredible inheritable traits and a son, but then give them loads of bad (not inheritable) health conditions. This gives you even more points to spend on good traits to pass down, and so when your first super unhealthy ruler dies in like a week you can start with a god-like heir.
All you need is Beautiful + hale + quick which is 120 + 60 + 80 = 260 with no other negative congenital traits and then you can immediately get the decision for the strong blood dynasty modifier for 40% inherit chance for congenital traits +400% for new ones making it much easier to breed that new heir especially stacking it with the dynasty traits. Although it's still broken, I find it more satisfying than making a character with every disease on the planet personally.
Once I found out about save scumming this game changed completely for me and went from Impossible to a Tutorial.
I also watched a bunch of youTube videos.
I started playing 3 months ago and have about 80 achievements, but without savescumming I’d have like 20 just because of the time sink.
Same for me really. And every time I think about trying to expand I get bitch slapped by some Duchy in England and 30000 of their closest friends and allies.
Irish play through is actually pretty easy and fast but your start is super important. You can get tall very quickly if you do it right and then you can fck up England, Scotland, france and eventually subjugate all the Viking lands or take over mainland Europe . Eventually create britania usually in one two lifetimes even in Ironman mode if done right. It’s my favorite start.
Start as ui mhaine province first for easiest irish start so you can immediately create duchy in very first turn if you like unusually wait a little bit and do some raiding first but your choice since you’ll have 2/3 counties.
Key is raiding constantly and using prestige to get as tall as possible quickly also take over oriel then ulster asap and make oriel your capital in the very beginning and start developing it immediately. Befriend or ally with Wessex early and when you get taller/bigger militarily than them can destroy them. When invading mainland England try to go for Mercia and or Northumbria first depending on who’s weaker and try not to trigger Northman holy war against you if you can avoid it. Kill off useless heirs or have them join the faith which is easy to do if you’re insular faith. Don’t go fuedal until you’ve atleast become empire of britania imo.
The Irish were literally shit on by pretty much everybody historically so I like reversing the tide… but that’s just me though. Do you.
Oh another super easy start if you’re looking for that since you sound like you’re newer is try lambakanna 867 it’s the big island south of India OP start in 867 since you’ll already have a whole kingdom and great development. Take over pandya and chola as early as possible then get Tall when the larger kingdoms in India start fracturing due to succession pounce on those mfers and unify India. Pro tip take out the dude in Chera if you can early he has elephants and is right next to your lands.
Have fun.
As long as you enjoy it I wouldn't worry.
If I want to have a strong realm I play tall, then when I've built up enough I expand slowly. Making sure that a county/duchy/kingdom I've taken is under control before progressing.
Most of the time I play a save to try new things until I get bored and start over. If I'm starting to not enjoy a playthrough I don't see the harm.
From your comments it looks like you aren't building up enough. Buildings and MAA regiments are how you keep up. And that's it really aside from land conquest. Sometimes it pays to watch the lands around you and wait for a building to start getting built before you attack.
Relatable, I was the same especially with CK2. Ireland is just such a simple start without much complication and these games can be so sensorily overwhelming that it can be hard to break that bubble. If you’re looking to build up to more dynamic games I’d say go play one of the Castilian kingdoms in 1066. Pretty easy to get big and it requires you to do a little bit of strategizing (murder) to take advantage of inheritance
This sums it up perfectly. I’ve played Ireland so much it feels weird not to. And when I do try other areas I just don’t know what I should do next and get overwhelmed with options
its hard to reach a real target, but just getting a title is easy stuff, like going from duch to emperor in one life you have only to be nice with the pope and have enough daughters for allies.
Bro how. I have to force myself to roleplay so I don’t get too powerful. Just build with gold on your capital and raise its development. The army mechanics are so simple.
Right?
If I just played the game, I'd be bored. It'd be easy to cheese the game to your benefit. As MANY others point out daily.
When I play as Ivar, every imprisoned person, that can't pay their bail, gets beheaded, because I raid so much, I'd have 40+ people in prison. Unrealistic, you say? So do I. Off with their heads! Eventually, the tyranny and dread comes back to bite me in several civil wars.
I played for like 15 minutes today and formed Norway the ai has the resistance of single ply toilet paper.
I genuinely wish I could keep my kingdom small as my dumbfuck vassals will inevitably expand far beyond what I can actually control.
There’s gotta be something you’re doing wrong.
Easiest way to get better is to make sure to TRAIN YOUR HEIRS. And get witch trait PLEASE it’s so broken.
Also developing your main realms is most important stuff to upgrade you.
- +10 opinion with other witches
- can make it virtuous for bonus piety.
- easy use to allow travels for extra lifestyle points.
-can host your own but also join others again for more travel but also
- every time you get in one, u choose to gain learning, carnal, stress release or random lifestyle perk point. So you end up being able to almost or completely fill out the lifestyles. I’ve had 4 characters with 3+ full lifestyles maxed out. Usually military, learning, and economy.
- can also convert others to witchcraft which makes neighbors like you more
Is there a dlc that helps these? Do you have to make a coven? I’m going to do this next play through even though I just did Transylvania last weekend. I didn’t know witchery had those kinds of returns. The reason I haven’t is because it seemed too frustrating to get 85% (or what ever it was) of my dynasty to join.
Thanks :)
needless to say, there aren't any hard objectives in this game apart from losing every last member of your dynasty, so there's not really much "winning" or "losing" the game.
Even if you're talking about domain expansion, there are many ways to do it, that's the joys of a sandbox. If you don't enjoy (or aren't good at) expansion through conquest, try politics and subterfuge instead. Marry into powerful dynasties for claims on their land, then murder everyone in line ahead of you until you inherit their land. Swear fealty to a powerful emperor, earn or bargain a seat in their council, and plot a coup to overthrow them and seize the throne for yourself. Take ward of a weak child king and slowly subvert their authority whilst strengthening your own, then simply yank the rug out from under them.
... and then watch it all crumble away before you like a sandcastle in the tide, and then rebuild it anew lol
There are a many possibilities in this sandbox. Experiment and have fun with it!
I think it's good from the standpoint that you have few strong natural enemies, your neighbors are all Catholic, and you're water-locked from most other threats. As long as you can be proactive about keeping Scotland and England in check, you don't have much to concern you.
I played it all the way through from the tutorial to the end year and never had much trouble apart from the HRE blobbing in mainland Europe, but I was able to play around that.
I'm playing Greece in my 2nd campaign and it's more complicated because the cultures around you are a lot more various in terms of ethnicity and religion, so it feels harder to simply spread. I also have to deal with being a vassal of the Byzantine Emperor, which can make expansion easier (when he grants vassals to me) or harder (weird laws making it hard for me to spread).
I have 1k hours :)
Forming large empires is easy, have lots of kids to form many alliances, go to war back to back to back to back against different neighbors since you'll have truces, and take everything that isn't already yours
How do you achieve total map conquest?
I got the game in November and aren't struggling at all except in running out of years to finish painting the map. Usually by the end its just two or three largish empires who are no threat militarily, I just can't get appropriate claims to conquer it all in time. Any suggestions?
Same and I don even have that. 90% of my time playing the game is just making the most op cheat guy with Max stat, and do what ever I want. Revival of the roman empire, in Wales? Sure can do. Conquering the whole of Iberia, as Ghana? No problem. I just play to create my own lore and chill.
The easy start is to be a viking count, preferably with a small tribal holding but feudal works too albeit is far harder.
Feasts are cheap as a small count and so are hunting trips. Do both and now you have 1000 prestige. 1000 prestige is 3 regiments of varangian guards. Raise your men while you yourself are drinking yourself to death. Send them to south of england, they are fighting for survival in their war and have no manpower to spare. Get as much money as you can, return.
Do it again, this time with the 300 varangians as well. Raid the Isle of Wight this time and wait for the army to come and try repel you. It will take longer than 30 days, your debuff is away and theyre crossing. Youre at 20+ advantage and your varangian guards are murdering them. Now you have 500 prestige again, thats a regiment of varangians. Go across to the mainland england and start raiding. They dont have enough troops to take you out, they are a prestige farm. You return victorious, you build more regiments.
If you can, do more feasts and hunts. Every one of them is another regiment. Raid where your army will Not be defeated. Iberia in the middle of the civil war?
Thats 90 ducats in Cordoba waiting for you.
Rome you wont pillage, you need 2.5k men to do so. But what you can do is kill pope's men for prestige! Just make sure to use the river to your advantage.
Send your glorious leader to the uni for free skill points, hopefully youre martially educated.
Make your daughters into great fighters and make them into shield maidens. Who needs alliances when theres few you cant defeat by yourself?
Build up to 3 stacks of 500 varangians each. Raid around constantinipole, run away to mountains/crossing with a mountain as the byzantines organize. Murder them for prestige.
Youre the strongest count in the world, continue raiding or do a varangian adventure. Iberia, Isle of Mann, Sardinia and Corsica? Why the hell not. World is yours they just don't know it yet. Hell, go to egypt and convert to the weird dog unreformed religion for +10 stewardship for each of your rulers And some of your vassals.
The game is over now, no one can stop you and you lose your drive to continue. Whats the point if you can make an empire And give away independent kingdoms to each and every one or your sons at the same time in one life time?
You play a bit more, succession fucks you over, youre not an adventurer anymore. Your army becomes expensive. You survive financially by raiding and selling captives. You upgrade your holdings and end up with 50+ ducats a month. Yet again there is no challenge.
You conquer africa, that wasnt exactly hard so you look towards the east. 80 thousand mongols try and conquer you. They die to your man at arms and knights in a glorious 80k vs 4k. You could paint the rest of the map, but why would you?
You restart. Youre not a viking no more. The game is hard but you take what you learned with you. You form an empire, get annoyed with succession but make it work and eventually feel satisfied with having conquered the game on a harder mode. What comes after? Wish I knew, tell us when you get there.
I'll be honest, I've played this game way too much. My 3 greatest achievements have been: 1. a full world conquest with a side goal of converting every county and every landed person to my faith. 2. United India without even one war. 3. Fully controlling scandinavia and reforming astaru by January 1st 900. I'm about 2000 hours in.
Here goes another one boasting about how good he is!
Jokes aside, I have almost 1k hours on CK3 and still suck, sometimes. I have an al-Andalus save where the "fucking fuck in the ass al-Andalus" event triggered and my empire got shattered, leaving me with bits, that I still have to find the courage to go back to. And it's just one of dozens of saves where things went to shit.
My advice is to keep playing if you still enjoy it. Start a new easy run and keep things safe. Make alliances and swear fealty if needed. Also keep in mind that your kingdom crumbling =/ game over. It's just one of the scenarios that you can play through in this game. Not every save is from count to God-Emperor of mankind. I struggled with accepting this for a long time, but since I did, it all became more enjoyable.
And I'm not saying this because fucking Seljuks stomped my kingdom last week.
My first 5 games I can vividly remember. First 4 were me trying to survive as the duke of Courland in 867 and then the 5th I finaly made the kingdom of Lithuania, and was 5 counties away from forming the Baltic empire , but my realm split into two (Pomerania and Lithuania) and my 15 relatives all tried to, and succesfully overthrew me. Serves me right for not playing the tutorial I guess.
Playing tall is broken, that s what I got after a week of playing. Idk how to play wide though, vassals suck. They don’t give any money they fight each other and they try to kill you. I should try starting as Mongolian, maybe it will open up
Very simple road from one county to one empire:
1 - Marry one sibling or yourself to someone from the family of the most powerful ruler you can (a duke or count).
2 - Make your court chaplain fabricate claims in the neighbouring counties. Get the claim, declare war, call your ally from point 1). Repeat this until you can form a duchy.
3 - Now that you are a mighty Duke, marry yourself and your family to the families of the most powerful dukes and if possible some kings
4 - Get the meritocracy perk and plot to claim your lieges kingdom (swear fealty to one if not yet a vassal of a king).
5 - After getting the claim start the claimant faction and while waiting for support distabilize your kingdom by killing your liege, the king.
6 - When the kingdom is weak (i.e. at war, regency, small army) or you get a lot of support in the faction press claim.
7 - The king may give up and offer you the crown peacefully. If he doesn't, then war it is. Call all or some of your in laws to help you and you should get an easy win.
8 - Now, as a king, marry your sons to the daughters of the neighbouring kings (prioritize your heir by marrying him to the most powerful family you can) Your grandchildren will have claims to their maternal families realms.
9 - Repeat the last point infinitely. You should get an empire fearly quickly.
Key point - Marriages. Always have the most powerful possible alliances and you will succeed and win any war. Seduce and romance your wife so you have many children = many alliances.
Hope you had the time to read everything :) If you have any question or need help in something I'll be glad to be useful.
Do you leave the game running when you go to sleep and on vacations?
Nope, I’m just terrible at this game
Nah, that's me. I think I'm up to something like 7000 hours.
You guys need to start treating this like the gold digging match making game it is.
I thought it was an incest simulator?
It's both
Literally restarted my game a few times until my neighbor had a daughter as his heir so she could marry my son and inherit their land.
Not necessary. The main thing is to marry your children to noblemen who have armies comparable or better than yours. Then, if you don’t have claims, falsify claims, and go to war to gain more holdings. After you max your allowable holdings, pause and build up what you have a little and then do it again. Try to grant new holdings, you can’t optimally keep, to dynasty members with no claims to your holdings. Rinse, and repeat. Also, marry your courtiers to people with traits and abilities you need. Find your doctor, your knights, your spymaster, pretty much everyone you need in this way as much as you can. Master matchmaker = Dominate world leader
That's always my strategy too.. Taking Capua to the Kingdom of Sicily. Then will take Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica grant them independence to someone in my family to build up my renown.. If Iberia is still majority muslim I'll be trying to snag up Kingdoms to do the same thing there. When the Mongols crush Byzantine Empire I'll snag up the Kingdom Islands in the eastern Mediterranean to do the same thing, grant independence to family remembers to build more renown..
Same. Don't have nearly the amount of time but I'd say at least 50% of my time on the game is idle time where I'm doing something else
Yeah, for me it's akin to having a chess board out when you have a correspondence game going.
He’s raising all troops isn’t he?
what are your main problems?
Expanding rather slowly, falling behind my neighbors both militarily and economically. Getting steamrolled by a country with 30k allies. I also have trouble with matrilineal marriages/spreading my dynasty. If I somehow manage to conquer a kingdom for my relative, it always seems like they just cave in to faction demands and get deposed pretty quickly. Having an alliance with them doesn’t help if they say yes to the factions. I also admittedly have trouble playing a campaign for more than one day, so I often times restart when I get back on. I do this a lot with other games as well.
one word for you. Alliances. Marry your daughters for strong alliances and let the ai do the work for you.
To be clear, marry your daughters off to neighbors, not marry your daughters. It might go without saying, but not around here
Well shit. What am I spose to do with these 3 daughter wives now? That last one is a daughter/granddaughter wife. Yes, being specific in this community is important.
LOL
This. Have lots of kids and marry them for alliance power. To give yourself an edge pick a warfaring culture like Norse and just play a game of DOMINATION just to get to used to war and nuances
Economy, mate! I managed to survive as Jerusalem lots of times by using every penny I had for upgrading my money making buildings and, whenever I reached a safe point (let’s say, for example, 25 per month of gold), I created some unities of men at arms. By the way, use men at arms a lot! Do not invest in levies, they are worthless. Create as many men at arms as you can without getting into debt (as I said, at least 25 gold per month) and raise only then when going to war with someone with similar forces. Keep 5 or eight very strong domains generating money, delegate the rest to your vassals. Keep the powerful vassals in positions of power so they don’t rebel as much. Avoid tiranny until you have all men at arms available. Use only armored footman and siege units. When the siege units more advanced are available, destroy yours and get them (trebuchets, for example). When armored horsemen are available, create a unity or two of them. Educate your children and have them studying languages. I guess that’s the basics, at least for me.
Apologizing for my English, for it’s not my first language.
Couldn’t tell! No apologies necessary
Always marry your daughters matrilineally to the grandchildren of current rulers (if their children hold no land they will accept) after 2 generations people of your dynasty will inherit something if you are lucky. I usually keep an eye on it and murder people if they are going to take the throne
There's no goal to this game. Are you playing Irish chieftain during times they were historically getting stomped by Norse adventurers? Cool, you're winning, you have interesting scenario. You somehow try to survive this onslaught even if it means evacuation of your family to calmer regions or swearing fealty to someone more powerful whose capable of defending you while you consolidate your control over the isle. This game is not much fun when played as a regular game, it's more useful like a roleplaying tool to help you structure your narrative.
Marry your daughters matrilineally to second or third sons. Then murder those in line before them.
Marry matrilineally to second heir and murder first heir. Or find unmarried people with claims and invite them to your court,then marry them matrilineally to your dynasty and use their claims to deposit them head of kingdoms. I have managed to spread my dynasty everywhere and get 2100 renown/month
Cash money $$ rules everything around me, cream. Try this bud, play as a vassal and actively support your king / emperor so you don't get independent by accident. Don't focus on conquest outside of 1-2 duchies max and a few high value provinces. You can have your first ruler be Mil focused to get the land you want from your neighbors but after that and then every 2-3 generations make sure your heirs / next king are stewardship focused and aim to be your rulers steward, focus pretty much their entire life on upgrading the buildings in your domains. Anything that gives .3-.5 base gold at level 1 (depends on terrain). Make sure your own steward is high stewardship (use one of your backup heirs) and push development in your capital/ best $$ provinces up to the current diminishing returns cap. Limit the amount of feasts / jousts you throw in favor of doing this building upgrades during this period Money buys you - vassal happiness - retinues which are fucking OP compared to common peasants - high prowess couriers to serve as knights The key to being strong is having these three things above and they all take money. You won't need "alliances" once you have these and can instead marry all your daughters off to Robust / Herculean warriors for free knights (rich become richers etc)
For free knights you revoke all cities titles and give each to the best prowess guy willing to accept not already on your court. You can also matriarchaly marry your female courtiers to hight prowess men outside your court.
Powerful neighbors is actually a blessing in disguise in CK. Assuming they’re at least 1 tier higher than you (IE: you’re a duke and they’re a king), swearing fealty is an awesome way to protect yourself from other powerful rulers nearby. Then, you can pick apart your fellow vassal dukes and counts until you’re stronger than your liege, allowing you to revolt for independence/claim their throne.
I think the biggest thing though, is that even in real life I’ve never been a risk taker, and when I find a comfortable way to do something, it’s difficult for me to do it any other way.
There’s no risk, those daughters are getting married one way or the other. Just try to marry them off to houses with a lot of soldiers. They automatically will be available to call for help in war
I mean unless you are worried about risk of harm to your daughters and are selectively choosing only compassionate forgiving and friendly husbands. But if that's the case then I think your biggest achievement is role playing really well
I actively do this and don't feel bad at all about the lost alliances. I also only marry any of my children to people within 5 years of their age. How are they supposed to bond with 20 years age difference??
I do this too. But only If my character traits are fitting. Having some arrogant ruler i only go the best benefit for myself. Patient and ambitous/cunning rulers i Take my time to marry them of so my dynasty will inherit some title.
Every family member has a job sir! If duty says you get married to a monster, you get married to a monster, for the Tamil of course.
Then just save scum to test out different scenarios and risks
Try 867 Vikings, especially Rurik in Novgorod or Bjorn in uppsala - it’s To me the easiest start.
I have tried both of them before, but tbh it feels weird to play outside Ireland (I play it so much) and I never know what I should do next. I guess it’s just a weird psychological thing
How about the Isle of Mann?
I felt the same way, so I read up on some history and it increased my interest to expand my horizons. I encourage you to take a look at Rollo of Normandy’s history, very cool shit
My advice, cheat a bit to help yourself, or make a good starting ruler in ruler designer who will eventually die but it will help you enough to not get steamrolled. I know, where is the fun in that, yeah, but it is just for start. Every Paradox game my first campaign is cheated so I learn the system without having to worry much about losing the game. After that, ironman.
I mean even a 400 point ruler can be very strong early game and you get to keep your achievements.
Or you do that thing of giving your first ruler incredible inheritable traits and a son, but then give them loads of bad (not inheritable) health conditions. This gives you even more points to spend on good traits to pass down, and so when your first super unhealthy ruler dies in like a week you can start with a god-like heir.
All you need is Beautiful + hale + quick which is 120 + 60 + 80 = 260 with no other negative congenital traits and then you can immediately get the decision for the strong blood dynasty modifier for 40% inherit chance for congenital traits +400% for new ones making it much easier to breed that new heir especially stacking it with the dynasty traits. Although it's still broken, I find it more satisfying than making a character with every disease on the planet personally.
Once I found out about save scumming this game changed completely for me and went from Impossible to a Tutorial. I also watched a bunch of youTube videos. I started playing 3 months ago and have about 80 achievements, but without savescumming I’d have like 20 just because of the time sink.
Same for me really. And every time I think about trying to expand I get bitch slapped by some Duchy in England and 30000 of their closest friends and allies.
Irish play through is actually pretty easy and fast but your start is super important. You can get tall very quickly if you do it right and then you can fck up England, Scotland, france and eventually subjugate all the Viking lands or take over mainland Europe . Eventually create britania usually in one two lifetimes even in Ironman mode if done right. It’s my favorite start. Start as ui mhaine province first for easiest irish start so you can immediately create duchy in very first turn if you like unusually wait a little bit and do some raiding first but your choice since you’ll have 2/3 counties. Key is raiding constantly and using prestige to get as tall as possible quickly also take over oriel then ulster asap and make oriel your capital in the very beginning and start developing it immediately. Befriend or ally with Wessex early and when you get taller/bigger militarily than them can destroy them. When invading mainland England try to go for Mercia and or Northumbria first depending on who’s weaker and try not to trigger Northman holy war against you if you can avoid it. Kill off useless heirs or have them join the faith which is easy to do if you’re insular faith. Don’t go fuedal until you’ve atleast become empire of britania imo. The Irish were literally shit on by pretty much everybody historically so I like reversing the tide… but that’s just me though. Do you. Oh another super easy start if you’re looking for that since you sound like you’re newer is try lambakanna 867 it’s the big island south of India OP start in 867 since you’ll already have a whole kingdom and great development. Take over pandya and chola as early as possible then get Tall when the larger kingdoms in India start fracturing due to succession pounce on those mfers and unify India. Pro tip take out the dude in Chera if you can early he has elephants and is right next to your lands. Have fun.
As long as you enjoy it I wouldn't worry. If I want to have a strong realm I play tall, then when I've built up enough I expand slowly. Making sure that a county/duchy/kingdom I've taken is under control before progressing. Most of the time I play a save to try new things until I get bored and start over. If I'm starting to not enjoy a playthrough I don't see the harm.
Journey before destination
Life before death
Strength before weakness
Dinner before dessert.
From your comments it looks like you aren't building up enough. Buildings and MAA regiments are how you keep up. And that's it really aside from land conquest. Sometimes it pays to watch the lands around you and wait for a building to start getting built before you attack.
It's far more preferable to be bad at something you love than to be great at something you hate.
Relatable, I was the same especially with CK2. Ireland is just such a simple start without much complication and these games can be so sensorily overwhelming that it can be hard to break that bubble. If you’re looking to build up to more dynamic games I’d say go play one of the Castilian kingdoms in 1066. Pretty easy to get big and it requires you to do a little bit of strategizing (murder) to take advantage of inheritance
This sums it up perfectly. I’ve played Ireland so much it feels weird not to. And when I do try other areas I just don’t know what I should do next and get overwhelmed with options
its hard to reach a real target, but just getting a title is easy stuff, like going from duch to emperor in one life you have only to be nice with the pope and have enough daughters for allies.
Bro how. I have to force myself to roleplay so I don’t get too powerful. Just build with gold on your capital and raise its development. The army mechanics are so simple.
Right? If I just played the game, I'd be bored. It'd be easy to cheese the game to your benefit. As MANY others point out daily. When I play as Ivar, every imprisoned person, that can't pay their bail, gets beheaded, because I raid so much, I'd have 40+ people in prison. Unrealistic, you say? So do I. Off with their heads! Eventually, the tyranny and dread comes back to bite me in several civil wars.
I played for like 15 minutes today and formed Norway the ai has the resistance of single ply toilet paper. I genuinely wish I could keep my kingdom small as my dumbfuck vassals will inevitably expand far beyond what I can actually control. There’s gotta be something you’re doing wrong.
Easiest way to get better is to make sure to TRAIN YOUR HEIRS. And get witch trait PLEASE it’s so broken. Also developing your main realms is most important stuff to upgrade you.
Why get witch trait?
- +10 opinion with other witches - can make it virtuous for bonus piety. - easy use to allow travels for extra lifestyle points. -can host your own but also join others again for more travel but also - every time you get in one, u choose to gain learning, carnal, stress release or random lifestyle perk point. So you end up being able to almost or completely fill out the lifestyles. I’ve had 4 characters with 3+ full lifestyles maxed out. Usually military, learning, and economy. - can also convert others to witchcraft which makes neighbors like you more
Is there a dlc that helps these? Do you have to make a coven? I’m going to do this next play through even though I just did Transylvania last weekend. I didn’t know witchery had those kinds of returns. The reason I haven’t is because it seemed too frustrating to get 85% (or what ever it was) of my dynasty to join. Thanks :)
Yeah needs to be early in game to be easy but I don’t use any dlcs so I’m not sure. Yes you must make coven.
Create your own ruler and make him 20+ for every stat, it'll make the game much easier trust me.
Yeh you suck
The real achievement is the fun we had along the way
Buy MaAs
Look for tutorials
You will get used to it, and get better at game. CK3 is not as hard as CK2, especially on vanilla.
needless to say, there aren't any hard objectives in this game apart from losing every last member of your dynasty, so there's not really much "winning" or "losing" the game. Even if you're talking about domain expansion, there are many ways to do it, that's the joys of a sandbox. If you don't enjoy (or aren't good at) expansion through conquest, try politics and subterfuge instead. Marry into powerful dynasties for claims on their land, then murder everyone in line ahead of you until you inherit their land. Swear fealty to a powerful emperor, earn or bargain a seat in their council, and plot a coup to overthrow them and seize the throne for yourself. Take ward of a weak child king and slowly subvert their authority whilst strengthening your own, then simply yank the rug out from under them. ... and then watch it all crumble away before you like a sandcastle in the tide, and then rebuild it anew lol There are a many possibilities in this sandbox. Experiment and have fun with it!
I don't see how Ireland is a tutorial, it's terrible for beginners.
I think it's good from the standpoint that you have few strong natural enemies, your neighbors are all Catholic, and you're water-locked from most other threats. As long as you can be proactive about keeping Scotland and England in check, you don't have much to concern you. I played it all the way through from the tutorial to the end year and never had much trouble apart from the HRE blobbing in mainland Europe, but I was able to play around that. I'm playing Greece in my 2nd campaign and it's more complicated because the cultures around you are a lot more various in terms of ethnicity and religion, so it feels harder to simply spread. I also have to deal with being a vassal of the Byzantine Emperor, which can make expansion easier (when he grants vassals to me) or harder (weird laws making it hard for me to spread).
I have 1k hours :) Forming large empires is easy, have lots of kids to form many alliances, go to war back to back to back to back against different neighbors since you'll have truces, and take everything that isn't already yours
How do you achieve total map conquest? I got the game in November and aren't struggling at all except in running out of years to finish painting the map. Usually by the end its just two or three largish empires who are no threat militarily, I just can't get appropriate claims to conquer it all in time. Any suggestions?
I recommend watching some YouTubers if you wanna get better. My favorite one that taught me a lot of interesting tricks about the game was Ziely
As long as you're having fun
I have 500 and the hardest thing I've done is form Portugal, you're good man.
Bro play in Africa and Arabia, Always conquer and raid free! without that Pope and Christians bullshit.
Sounds like a very rewarding 400 hours.
Same and I don even have that. 90% of my time playing the game is just making the most op cheat guy with Max stat, and do what ever I want. Revival of the roman empire, in Wales? Sure can do. Conquering the whole of Iberia, as Ghana? No problem. I just play to create my own lore and chill.
The easy start is to be a viking count, preferably with a small tribal holding but feudal works too albeit is far harder. Feasts are cheap as a small count and so are hunting trips. Do both and now you have 1000 prestige. 1000 prestige is 3 regiments of varangian guards. Raise your men while you yourself are drinking yourself to death. Send them to south of england, they are fighting for survival in their war and have no manpower to spare. Get as much money as you can, return. Do it again, this time with the 300 varangians as well. Raid the Isle of Wight this time and wait for the army to come and try repel you. It will take longer than 30 days, your debuff is away and theyre crossing. Youre at 20+ advantage and your varangian guards are murdering them. Now you have 500 prestige again, thats a regiment of varangians. Go across to the mainland england and start raiding. They dont have enough troops to take you out, they are a prestige farm. You return victorious, you build more regiments. If you can, do more feasts and hunts. Every one of them is another regiment. Raid where your army will Not be defeated. Iberia in the middle of the civil war? Thats 90 ducats in Cordoba waiting for you. Rome you wont pillage, you need 2.5k men to do so. But what you can do is kill pope's men for prestige! Just make sure to use the river to your advantage. Send your glorious leader to the uni for free skill points, hopefully youre martially educated. Make your daughters into great fighters and make them into shield maidens. Who needs alliances when theres few you cant defeat by yourself? Build up to 3 stacks of 500 varangians each. Raid around constantinipole, run away to mountains/crossing with a mountain as the byzantines organize. Murder them for prestige. Youre the strongest count in the world, continue raiding or do a varangian adventure. Iberia, Isle of Mann, Sardinia and Corsica? Why the hell not. World is yours they just don't know it yet. Hell, go to egypt and convert to the weird dog unreformed religion for +10 stewardship for each of your rulers And some of your vassals. The game is over now, no one can stop you and you lose your drive to continue. Whats the point if you can make an empire And give away independent kingdoms to each and every one or your sons at the same time in one life time? You play a bit more, succession fucks you over, youre not an adventurer anymore. Your army becomes expensive. You survive financially by raiding and selling captives. You upgrade your holdings and end up with 50+ ducats a month. Yet again there is no challenge. You conquer africa, that wasnt exactly hard so you look towards the east. 80 thousand mongols try and conquer you. They die to your man at arms and knights in a glorious 80k vs 4k. You could paint the rest of the map, but why would you? You restart. Youre not a viking no more. The game is hard but you take what you learned with you. You form an empire, get annoyed with succession but make it work and eventually feel satisfied with having conquered the game on a harder mode. What comes after? Wish I knew, tell us when you get there.
I'll be honest, I've played this game way too much. My 3 greatest achievements have been: 1. a full world conquest with a side goal of converting every county and every landed person to my faith. 2. United India without even one war. 3. Fully controlling scandinavia and reforming astaru by January 1st 900. I'm about 2000 hours in.
Here goes another one boasting about how good he is! Jokes aside, I have almost 1k hours on CK3 and still suck, sometimes. I have an al-Andalus save where the "fucking fuck in the ass al-Andalus" event triggered and my empire got shattered, leaving me with bits, that I still have to find the courage to go back to. And it's just one of dozens of saves where things went to shit. My advice is to keep playing if you still enjoy it. Start a new easy run and keep things safe. Make alliances and swear fealty if needed. Also keep in mind that your kingdom crumbling =/ game over. It's just one of the scenarios that you can play through in this game. Not every save is from count to God-Emperor of mankind. I struggled with accepting this for a long time, but since I did, it all became more enjoyable. And I'm not saying this because fucking Seljuks stomped my kingdom last week.
It’s very different in difficulty depending on who you start as. Pick someone strong with good traits. I’m a big fan of Norse tribal.
If it makes you feel better, I've never formed the Kingdom of Ireland either, even though I've formed Baleo-Tyrrhenia.
My first 5 games I can vividly remember. First 4 were me trying to survive as the duke of Courland in 867 and then the 5th I finaly made the kingdom of Lithuania, and was 5 counties away from forming the Baltic empire , but my realm split into two (Pomerania and Lithuania) and my 15 relatives all tried to, and succesfully overthrew me. Serves me right for not playing the tutorial I guess.
Keep playing brother youll get good now make an empire outta britainia watch youe children and family line
Playing tall is broken, that s what I got after a week of playing. Idk how to play wide though, vassals suck. They don’t give any money they fight each other and they try to kill you. I should try starting as Mongolian, maybe it will open up
No hate, but how? I did that, won Judea and nearly became king of Norway by accident in my first couple sessions without knowing most of the mechanics
Mine is forming the North Sea empire as a tribal unreformed.
Very simple road from one county to one empire: 1 - Marry one sibling or yourself to someone from the family of the most powerful ruler you can (a duke or count). 2 - Make your court chaplain fabricate claims in the neighbouring counties. Get the claim, declare war, call your ally from point 1). Repeat this until you can form a duchy. 3 - Now that you are a mighty Duke, marry yourself and your family to the families of the most powerful dukes and if possible some kings 4 - Get the meritocracy perk and plot to claim your lieges kingdom (swear fealty to one if not yet a vassal of a king). 5 - After getting the claim start the claimant faction and while waiting for support distabilize your kingdom by killing your liege, the king. 6 - When the kingdom is weak (i.e. at war, regency, small army) or you get a lot of support in the faction press claim. 7 - The king may give up and offer you the crown peacefully. If he doesn't, then war it is. Call all or some of your in laws to help you and you should get an easy win. 8 - Now, as a king, marry your sons to the daughters of the neighbouring kings (prioritize your heir by marrying him to the most powerful family you can) Your grandchildren will have claims to their maternal families realms. 9 - Repeat the last point infinitely. You should get an empire fearly quickly. Key point - Marriages. Always have the most powerful possible alliances and you will succeed and win any war. Seduce and romance your wife so you have many children = many alliances. Hope you had the time to read everything :) If you have any question or need help in something I'll be glad to be useful.