Count or Duke, like most other people -- my favorite game I started as the Count of Braunschweig, who is a vassal of the Duke of Saxony. I got lucky with some forged claims early and grabbed Lubeck and Hamburg. I then followed that up with a DoW for independence, then immediately usurping the title of Duke of Holstein, which ends the war (of course, Saxony attacked me two months later; however, we had almost the same amount of provinces and I'd managed to save up just enough to beat up his main army with the Breton Band). I then used my de jure claims at the right time to take Holstein from Denmark, which kicked off some sneaky 50 years where I cautiously used various claims to take Jutland piece by piece (thankfully Denmark and Norway have almost constantly been at war in this game, allowing me to nibble away at the Dane's backside). Then I had a shocking moment where the BE successfully pressed claims on the HRE, creating a new Roman Empire. I had about four months to get used to fuschia being everywhere before basically every single vassal in the old HRE declared war (and a fair bit of the BE as well). There were so many revolts that there were almost no provinces to siege -- those that could be were crammed with armies of 9 to 10 realms, all suffering attrition in their attempts to drive out the Empire. I never saw a single BE doomstack before hitting 100% and becoming independent, along with most of the old HRE (Bavaria is still part of the BE and some bits of Italy as well). I'm not planning to be a Duke for much longer though, I'm hoping to add to the list of melancholy Danes.