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Tips on getting your nation stabilized

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So I started as a Suomenusko tribe, in the area that's the duchy of Urga (I can't recall the tribes name at the 867 start.) I through subjugation and conquest I was able to claim the Kingdom of Perm within 2 generations. I was then able to subjugate Rus to gain that kingdom. I lost Perm shortly after due to gavelkind succession, but after a few wars of the 3 siblings fighting over the 2 kingdoms. It ended up with myself as king of Rus, my sister as queen of Perm and my brother as Duke of Perm, which somehow gained it's independence. I let it be because by this time my sister was too old to have children and didn't have any. This meant I was her heir. I decided to deal with the duchy of Perm later.

Next was where the fun began, as Hungary had expanded and had control of Ruthenia. This put us in a couple skirmishes over bordering counties. I was able to abuse the vast amount of rivers and pagan homeland attrition to turn Hungary's 20k+ army into something below 10k that I could destroy. I eventually whittled him down and got him to accept my demands. I then immediately declared war to subjugate Ruthenia, before he could recover his troops. With the help of my various Suomenusko allies I was able to defeat him, effectively neutering his power in the area and granting me tons of land. He was still a worthy foe, but only controlling Hungary meant he no longer had the overwhelming forces he previously had.

Now this is where things get really messy. I've now inherited tons of Slavic dukes/counts that hate me. I've inherited the kingdom of Perm and took the duchy of Perm some time after taking Ruthenia. But over the last 3 or so successions I've had female rulers and heirs (which pisses people off) and my rulers have not ruled very long. At my most recent time I'm playing as a 6 year old girl. I was attacked by Hungary again, I fought them off. Then Poland and Cumania declared on me, I fought off Poland. During all these wars my vassals have declared wars for independence or claims to my kingdoms. When Kiev declared on me, it thankfully cancelled the war with Cumania, as the county they wanted was part of Kiev. So I'm currently fighting 3 vassal rebellions and not sure I can actually win as my forces are overwhelmed and there's little friendly territory left.

Now I love the overwhelming odds stacked against me and there was no greater feeling than crushing Hungary and Poland using superior positioning and tactical retreats, but at this moment I want to abandon this game. My only 2 goals were to create the Empire of Russia, and reform the Suomenusko. I haven't been able to do either do to lack of funds or piety. My 3 most recent rulers have not ruled long enough to accumulate piety, but I do have tons of money from the reparations of the Hungary and Poland wars I won. Anyone have some tips on how I could possibly come back from this?
 
Imprison then banish every single vassal of the realm, and replace them with nice same religion and culture ones, create mostly of Church-vassal duchies to make up for the faith you are gonna burn for banishing. Tedious, long and boring but it will stabilize the realm and grant you enough piety to reform likely.
 
If you don't want to go quite as gamey, I'd suggest hiring some mercs. Aside from being useful for fighting the rebellions, while hired they also count as your personal troops for calculating faction percentage strength. So, if you have a large group of mercs, factions will require more members to pass the needed threshold to start the rebellion.

Also, make sure you are upgrading your legalism, noble opinion and military organization techs. The first cuts down the short reign penalty and duration, the second is obvious, and the third allows for more retinues, which helps in the same way hiring mercs do.
 
The first thing you need to do is end the vassal rebellions as quickly as possible so that you can stabilize the realm. You said that you are fighting 3 right now, but you didn't specify what those 3 are for. If they are to change a law, give in to the demand. You can change the law back when you are in a better position. If they are to put a claimant on the throne, kill the claimant. If you can do it by plotting, that's better. But, you might need to do it through the diplomacy screen. Killing the claimant might not be a good option, if they are of your dynasty and if you have landed a lot of dynasty members. It doesn't sound like you can afford the kinslayer trait right now. But, if you have few landed kin, kill, kill, kill. If the rebellion is for independence, figure out if it is worth fighting over or not. Perhaps, you can give in for now and retake the territory when you are more stable. It depends on how large the rebellion is.

At the very least, end two rebellions so that you can focus your efforts on just fighting one for now. Once, you have the wars all over, it's time to figure out why your vassals don't like you. Check the tooltip. You might find that your expansion has caused some funky lines on the map. Counts in the de jure territory of a Duke might be reporting to you directly. Transfer the vassalage to the Duke.

Finally, it's time to start imprisoning people that don't like you. If you can do so at this point, try to imprison them one at a time. You actually want to fail at this. They will rebel, but it should be easily manageable because it's just one vassal. When you win the war, revoke their title and give it to someone of your culture/religion. If your imprisonment attempt succeeds, don't worry. Just release the guy for a relationship boost with your other vassals. Send the guy you imprisoned a gift to at least get his relationship score back to where it was.

Make sure that you have a good spymaster who likes you so that you are notified of plots. Do the imprison thing with plotters who don't like you or who are of the wrong religion/culture.
 
It's important that your council members (especially the spymaster) likes you. Otherwise they might join plots against you and often adding around 20-80% strength to a plot.

I often opt for a spymaster with slightly lower stats but has positive relations with me.
 
sosasoser said:
The first thing you need to do is end the vassal rebellions as quickly as possible so that you can stabilize the realm. You said that you are fighting 3 right now, but you didn't specify what those 3 are for. If they are to change a law, give in to the demand. You can change the law back when you are in a better position. If they are to put a claimant on the throne, kill the claimant. If you can do it by plotting, that's better. But, you might need to do it through the diplomacy screen. Killing the claimant might not be a good option, if they are of your dynasty and if you have landed a lot of dynasty members. It doesn't sound like you can afford the kinslayer trait right now. But, if you have few landed kin, kill, kill, kill. If the rebellion is for independence, figure out if it is worth fighting over or not. Perhaps, you can give in for now and retake the territory when you are more stable. It depends on how large the rebellion is.

At the very least, end two rebellions so that you can focus your efforts on just fighting one for now. Once, you have the wars all over, it's time to figure out why your vassals don't like you. Check the tooltip. You might find that your expansion has caused some funky lines on the map. Counts in the de jure territory of a Duke might be reporting to you directly. Transfer the vassalage to the Duke.

Finally, it's time to start imprisoning people that don't like you. If you can do so at this point, try to imprison them one at a time. You actually want to fail at this. They will rebel, but it should be easily manageable because it's just one vassal. When you win the war, revoke their title and give it to someone of your culture/religion. If your imprisonment attempt succeeds, don't worry. Just release the guy for a relationship boost with your other vassals. Send the guy you imprisoned a gift to at least get his relationship score back to where it was.

Make sure that you have a good spymaster who likes you so that you are notified of plots. Do the imprison thing with plotters who don't like you or who are of the wrong religion/culture.
Click to expand...

I thought I posted what the rebellions were over, but I must have forgotten. One war is for the Kingdom of Ruthenia, one is for the Kingdom of Rus, and the third is for Independence. I thought of giving into the Independence, because I would be able to retake them later, but it was a large chunk of my realm that wasn't already fighting me. A previous rebellion had ended due to the leader dying, so I thought of trying to kill the leaders, but unfortunately you can't plot as a child. I guess I could use the diplomacy men but it seems to have a high cost and low chance of success irrc.

The lords of Ruthenia hate me mostly cause I'm a foreigner/infidel. They are mostly Slavic (some Norse and Tengri mixed in) while I am Suomenusko. Some of them do dislike me because of the vassals that are de jure under them are under me. I guess I could have given some of those to them to placate them but I never thought it was big enough of an issue. Pretty much everyone hates me because I am a female, my heir is a female and I'm only 6 years old and only ruled for a very short time.

Thanks for all the advice, I may try to get back into it and try to salvage what I can. It's just really hard to enjoy the game when all your hard work is set back by a bunch of assholes. I'd hate to lose Ruthenia to Hungary again as he's a pain to deal with, his armies are larger than mine, probably because he has more holdings per county or whatever.
 
It does suck, but it happens and keeps the game interesting.

In future games, you just need to remember to regularly check factions and vassal relations. It doesn't take that much time to do. I pause at the beginning of every year to do maintenance stuff. That includes building my holdings, increasing retinues if I can, checking the faction list for any problems, and checking my highest-level vassals to make sure they aren't pissed off about something.

Honestly, doing even that much can make the game get a bit boring. My current Norse empire stretches from Iberia to Russia. It includes the British Isles. I haven't had a faction revolt in almost 150 years.
 
You can give in to the independence war. And even to the Ruthenian war, but if Rus is your main holding, you will need to defend that.

Even if you lose all three wars, as long as you still have a holding, it would be fun to reclaim all your holdings from scratch again.

Wait til your 6 year old girl becomes older and marry her off (preferably matrilineally), and then force the husband into wars to reclaim your lands. The hard part is the matrilineal marriage.
 
sosasoser said:
It does suck, but it happens and keeps the game interesting.

In future games, you just need to remember to regularly check factions and vassal relations. It doesn't take that much time to do. I pause at the beginning of every year to do maintenance stuff. That includes building my holdings, increasing retinues if I can, checking the faction list for any problems, and checking my highest-level vassals to make sure they aren't pissed off about something.

Honestly, doing even that much can make the game get a bit boring. My current Norse empire stretches from Iberia to Russia. It includes the British Isles. I haven't had a faction revolt in almost 150 years.
Click to expand...

Yeah I had a previous game that I started as Portugal and formed Hispania. I ended up owning all of the Iberian Penisula, all of north Africa up to Egypt, most of France, and even had some land in Norway. I was pretty damn stable, and it got really boring which is why I stopped it eventually. I usually try to set a goal for myself (usually forming an empire.)

I do agree that it at least keeps things interesting. And until this point I was fine with the revolts and other adversity cause it really tested my ability to overcome greater foes. It was incredibly rewarding to push back Hungary even while fighting internal wars.
 
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