Godwin(son).
Also Hohenstaufen, Lusignan, and probably some Plantagenets down the line.
Also Hohenstaufen, Lusignan, and probably some Plantagenets down the line.
The House of Barcelona, of course.
Also, I like the Hautevilles and Montferrato a lot. I will make the Siculo-Normans kings of Italy and conquer the Byzantine Empire with the Montferrats.
By the way, the name "Jiménez" could not be more wrong for the ruling houses of Castille, Navarra and León. Please, don't use it. Don't. It makes no sense. "de Navarra" would be a lot better than "Jiménez". The fact that today it's usually called "Dinastía Jimena" doesn't mean that those people were called "X Jiménez". Even "de Jimeno" would be better than "Jiménez".
It will finally be fun to play a count, so maybe I'll give the Habsburgs another go around. I tried playing the 1066 campaign as Werner von Habsburg, Margrave of Aargau. Then I got really bored, and his son Otto ended up being a depressed, unhappy man. So Werner died in 1096, and Otto committed suicide in the early 1120s. I don't really see any kind of future for this dynasty, but maybe a human player can make something of them. ;-)
Bagratuni, Komnenus, De Hauteville...
Never the Rurikovich though, they need to be exterminated.
Bite your tongue! The Rurikids are great fun as long as you don't go too ez-mode and start with one of the big Princes (Kiev, Nov, Pery) so the initial incompetents have time to wreck your realm some...
It's just that there are 23904382409 Rurikids, any time I try playing as any of them I just feel like I'm just another Rurikovich in a sea of Rurikovich rulers. If I play in Russia I would rather play as a different russian dynasty, or even a non-russian invading dynasty, and wrest control of russia from the Rurikids.
If I'm playing an empire near russia but not having plans of it for myself I always like to try to help a non-Rurikid ruler become king of russia. Once when I was allied with the Danes I helped him become the king of Denmark and Russia by taking on the Rurikid princes one by one, I was mighty proud of my scheming. >:3
I always liked the Hohenstaufen, von Zahingrian (spelled correctly, of course), Angelos, any remaining Phocas, Nakonids, the one non-terrible Doukas, Trencavel, and the Orsinis (vassals of the Pope).
The Orsinis, Trencavel, and Angelos were especially my most-played dynasties.