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LACKADAISICAL

LACKADAISICAL

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Feb 3, 2011
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I'm playing an ironman game as a Hindu merchant republic in the british isles, and I've encountered a big problem. I've been taking land from my neighbors through holy wars, but I have no way to grant it to other hindu characters. Since I'm a republic counties have a city as their chief title, and as such can only be given to people in the merchant caste. Trouble is I have no way of getting people of that caste. I started as Haesteinn and converted through a concubine, so me and all my vassals have no caste (I guess we're untouchables). The invite noble to court button always results in someone of the warrior/ruler caste, and they can't hold cities either. I want to play as an indian religion, but I can't convert to either jainism or Buddhism through a concubine and it isn't possible to get any jain or buddhist provinces for the convert decision, and I don't really wanna start over either since getting a non-standard republic in Ironman mode is sorta tricky. Any tips/methods by which I can get some merchant caste NPCs?
 
You definitely can convert to Buddhism and Jainism using a concubine, provided you can get one. (At least you can as a non-Hindu, I haven't tried as a Hindu.)

I don't think it's possible to get anyone with the merchant caste trait other than moving to India. Being a non-indian and converting to Hinduism does seem almost broken due to nobody having caste traits.
 
I am able to conjure up courtiers with caste traits using the invite noble/present debutante, but only in the priestly caste or the warrior caste. I assume breeding with these people will just leave them as casteless people, based on my own caste? And no, Hindus cannot convert via concubine: they need to use the decision, which only works if you have a county with the desired religion in your realm.

I have a few Catholics in my realm, so one thing I've been doing to manage land is give a catholic a bunch of land and then demand conversion, since the land-granting restriction only applies to other Hindus. Obviously, this is a big pain.
 
Yeah I'm pretty sure you can't be breed the merchant caste out of nothing, they'll only inherit an existing one from a parent. Your only chance may be to conquer your way within diplomatic range of the Maldives, conquer that, and then convert.
 
Use the search tool and manually find merchants to invite to court?

@ above: Probably custom ruler DLC
 
Mummolus said:
How did you actually *do* this, anyways? I've been trying to pull it off since RoI released and I'm having no luck whatsoever.
Click to expand...
It's sorta tricky and can only be done by small rulers. As a standard feudal count, take enough land to form a duchy. Wait until some threat to your land comes up--peasant revolt, invasion, etc-- and make whatever title is in contest your capital. Next, give the county which you want to be the capital of your republic to a mayor so that he becomes a lord-mayor. Wait until he gives out the lesser titles, then imprison and banish him. Give away all titles but your capital and the city which you got from banishing the mayor, and then surrender the war, thereby losing your capital. This will force your capital to be the city, which will convert your realm into a merchant republic.

This only works on realms that are rather small, for some reason. If you do this as a king or even as a large duchy, you will get a "game over, you became a republic" screen... I don't know why.

In the end I converted to Buddhism to avoid the caste system entirely. It's a shame, 'cause the ability to raid is super handy as a Republic, but at least I get to keep concubines and thus can fill my court with sons to up my trade post count.
 
Alright, I've got a good system for anyone else interested in doing this. My ruler is now usually Hindu, but all my vassals are Buddhists. The malus is negligible, and they bring in random buddhist courtiers for me to land, allowing me to ignore the caste system. This way I can holy war and raid without worrying about who I can land, plus it creates an india-like environment where I can switch back and forth, since my courtiers have converted most of Ireland to buddhism and I have hindu provinces in my desmesne. Now if can just find some Jains to land I'll have a real india-west to work with.

Now the main problem is that I don't have access to Hindu-specific decisions as a Republic... no feats, no gurus, nothing. Not sure if this is intended or not.
 
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Well, I'm playing a buddhist realm, and I found that one of my counties had randomly converted to Jainism while another had randomly converted to Hinduism.
Think the current ratio is around 1 in 10 or so.
I have no idea why they decided to convert to Jain/Hindu either since all my couriers are either buddhist or tengri.

So I suppose that it the RNG had favoured differently, you might've had a Jain province in there somewhere.
 
LACKADAISICAL said:
It's sorta tricky and can only be done by small rulers. As a standard feudal count, take enough land to form a duchy. Wait until some threat to your land comes up--peasant revolt, invasion, etc-- and make whatever title is in contest your capital. Next, give the county which you want to be the capital of your republic to a mayor so that he becomes a lord-mayor. Wait until he gives out the lesser titles, then imprison and banish him. Give away all titles but your capital and the city which you got from banishing the mayor, and then surrender the war, thereby losing your capital. This will force your capital to be the city, which will convert your realm into a merchant republic.

This only works on realms that are rather small, for some reason. If you do this as a king or even as a large duchy, you will get a "game over, you became a republic" screen... I don't know why.

In the end I converted to Buddhism to avoid the caste system entirely. It's a shame, 'cause the ability to raid is super handy as a Republic, but at least I get to keep concubines and thus can fill my court with sons to up my trade post count.
Click to expand...

So if I'm understanding this correctly, you take the land for the duchy but don't actually form it until someone declares a war for your capital, that way when you surrender you don't lose the entire duchy and your capital switches?
 
Mummolus said:
So if I'm understanding this correctly, you take the land for the duchy but don't actually form it until someone declares a war for your capital, that way when you surrender you don't lose the entire duchy and your capital switches?
Click to expand...

No, you must form the duchy or it won't work (count-level merchant republics are not playable). The county with your city in it should not be a target for the war.
 
LACKADAISICAL said:
No, you must form the duchy or it won't work (count-level merchant republics are not playable). The county with your city in it should not be a target for the war.
Click to expand...

Okay, there's something I'm just not getting here. If you've formed the duchy already when the threat arises, won't that be the title in contest? And won't you lose that when you surrender, leaving you as a count-level mayor, hence game over?
 
Your primary title won't necessarily be the one in contest. For example, I did this as Haesteinn of Nantes. I conquered two provinces in Ireland, formed Munster as my duchy title, and got an Irish liberation revolt. At that point I moved my capital from Nantes to Ireland, and granted Nantes to the mayor of one of the cities in that county. I imprisoned the mayor and banished him, and gave away all titles in ireland and nantes so that my only titles were my Irish capital, my duchy, and my city in nantes, which thanks to the mayor had been made into the couty capital, thus making it eligible for a merchant republic. I then surrendered to the liberation revolt, thus losing my capital and my counties there but not my duchy (duchies are not taken in liberation revolts and they can't usurp it since you cannot usurp titles from merchant republics), and forcing my capital into the city in Nantes.

It is sort of confusing if you haven't done it before, and you need to understand how county capitals work. If you have any non-city holding in a county, that will become your capital instead of the city; that's why banishing the mayor is needed. Hope that's more clear, but the process is sort of weird to describe.
 
It is buggy, and I'm not totally sure of the conditions under which it works. I tried it as Rurik recently and got a game over screen once I became a republic, but it works pretty consistently as Haesteinn as long as I become a republic before I form a kingdom or take too much land. Maybe it has something to do with realm size... also, Haesteinn starts as a count and Rurik/others start as a duke, so maybe starting as a count and working to a duke influences it somehow?

Just my findings if other people wanna experiment more:

The aforementioned method worked for me using:
-Haesteinn as duke of Munster w/ Nantes as republic capital (which was how I made the republic I'm talking about in the OP)
-Haesteinn as duke of some south England duchy

Resulted in a game over screen as:
-Rurik as Novgorod
-Haesteinn after prepared invasion of England (realm size too large?)
-Magyars (losing feudal title through form hungary decision)
-Sigurd Snake-In-The-Eye (Sjaelland)
-Byzantine Empire


So I haven't gotten this working as anyone but Haesteinn of Nantes, and only when his realm is under a certain size. I can't really understand why, so I hope some other people try to experiment and see who/if they can get this trick working with. The only tips I can give are... be Haesteinn, and become a republic before you take too much land.

It would definitely be nice if there was a better way to do this, because I enjoy republic mechanics but they are so damn restrictive. I also can't stand how you're not allowed to move your capital... sucks if you starts as any republic be Venice, since they're the only one with a 7 slot capital.
 
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