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A_Dane said:
Can't remember if there's any male-line descendants left, but pretty much all the armenian houses are descended in the female line.

There's some arsacids as well around there :)
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I know for a fact that the Arranshahik family connects back, as I make it a point to try and marry into them whenever I play in the east. The rules of cool must be obeyed, after all.
 
brothir said:
I found something that works reasonably well:

1) Reload until you get ~5000 troops.
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In about 30 games I never got more than 3300. How the hell can you get 5k?

Anyway, I play exclusively Ironman, so reload-until-you-succeed strategy is out. I'll try Gilan as suggested.
 
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Resistance0108 said:
Huh? I did the elective trick 10 days ago.
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Then I guess I must be doing something wrong. If I have truce with the shah, I can't push faction demands. If I don't have truce, I don't have the power, so I won't get elective unless I war for it. If I war for it and manage to enfore the switch to elective, there is no way I can get electors to vote for an infidel. What am I missing?
 
I know it's a bit of a plug but I've done it several times and made an LP of it too: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTYQcLFWjhKG-SoCft-SFvxIswc0Moo5v

It's a recent one that is post-RoI. It was played during the open beta of the latest patch and therefore game mechanics are all still the same.

Just start the game and hope the Samanids attack you. Defeat them with your event spawned troops and immediately counter attack them for Khiva. Truce break if you want and take some more of their land or borrow gold from the Jews and boot them out the country and attack the Saffarids. Use the money you received from the Samanid surrender and the Jews to hire mercs and attack the Saffarids while their new holdings are weak after their conquest of the Tahirids (you might even be able to attack them before they end their war). Then it's just a matter of truce breaking and consolodating your local power. I don't usually need to attack the Tengri realms to the north, but they are easy pickings to further increase your power base once you're overcome the early hurdle. Remember not to attack the Hindu realms when their ruler have lots of piety, or else they will hire a large holy order to defeat you. Best to attack when you can see that they have no piety.

A lot of stuff might've gone 'my way' in the above video, but compared to other playthroughs it didn't go as smooth as ones that I didn't record. I actually managed to form the empire within the life of just two rulers before.
 
I did two ruler -> Empire once, but that's because A) Shaheen and his sister were exceptional badasses (Shaheen may have been a genius, I can't remember) and B) Saffarifds somehow lost their war against the Tahirids and most of their event troops to boot. (I became Shoashyant after year ten(!) of being incapable)

I usually gobble up Khiva, the Shiites, and the Shahi ASAP, Saffirids in the current version can often self-neutralize due to a horrible accident Yaq'Qub suffered as a child, rendering him unable to fight rebels. He fights one battle and then refuses to finish the job. It doesn't make him more vulnerable, but it keeps him from attacking you. I once saw a Buddhist revolt that lasted a decade before I put it down for him.
 
Woopzilla said:
I know it's a bit of a plug but I've done it several times and made an LP of it too: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTYQcLFWjhKG-SoCft-SFvxIswc0Moo5v

It's a recent one that is post-RoI. It was played during the open beta of the latest patch and therefore game mechanics are all still the same.

Just start the game and hope the Samanids attack you. Defeat them with your event spawned troops and immediately counter attack them for Khiva. Truce break if you want and take some more of their land or borrow gold from the Jews and boot them out the country and attack the Saffarids.
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I'll need to watch, then, because in all my attempts a) I don't have a chance of beating Samanids' 6k+ troops with my event spawned 3k, so I have to hire mercs for that, b) subsequently I have no money to even dream of repelling Saffarids, let alone attacking them.
 
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Mathrafalovich said:
I usually gobble up Khiva, the Shiites, and the Shahi ASAP, Saffirids in the current version can often self-neutralize due to a horrible accident Yaq'Qub suffered as a child, rendering him unable to fight rebels. He fights one battle and then refuses to finish the job. It doesn't make him more vulnerable, but it keeps him from attacking you. I once saw a Buddhist revolt that lasted a decade before I put it down for him.
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I noticed that, I had one promising start where a Zoroastrian revolt popped up in Saffarid territory right at the beginning and distracted Ya'qub for long enough for me to take Khiva. I was a sucker though and didn't break the truce to take Merv, so things deteriorated quickly afterwards.
 
shulima said:
Then I guess I must be doing something wrong. If I have truce with the shah, I can't push faction demands. If I don't have truce, I don't have the power, so I won't get elective unless I war for it. If I war for it and manage to enfore the switch to elective, there is no way I can get electors to vote for an infidel. What am I missing?
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Once you have elective you can start a faction to put yourself on the throne, and then go to war to push your claim. It's a bit of a pain because the Shah seems to be less like likely to acquiesce to your demand for lower CA (or elective, or whatever). I played a Zoro game this morning as Karen, and.... man is it a pain. (Note: I play with pre-2.0 levies, so the event troops and such are quite a bit smaller, as is your strength compared to your liege)

Fought off successive holy wars by the Safrids and Khiva (thanks, Jews!), then Holy Warred my way North into Turkestan and a bit of Cumania. Swore allegiance to Khiva to keep from getting steamrolled by the Abbassids, but... now I'm stuck. Khiva raised the CA to Medium, forcing me to go to war to lower it to Limited. Several times when I tried that I had immediate holy wars by the Saffrids, and so save-scummed until they were busy with their own problems. Finally got it down to Limited, but there's a 10 year truce before I can push another faction. Took some land from other vassals of Khiva, so I'm easily the most powerful vassal but there's now the ever-looming specter of the Abassids breating down my neck (they took out the Saffrids).

So now I'm pretty much stuck. I can't revolt against my liege unless I want to get steamrolled, and nobody in the area is powerful enough to take on the soon-to-come Seljuks. My current plan is to wait till they arrive (and curbstomp Khiva), and declare independence as soon as war is declared. Then swear allegiance to the Seljuks and pray that they don't revoke my titles. :)

Basically this is my Zoro-vassal game, apparently.
 
You could start as the Saffravids and convert using your capital, however I'd make sure Afghanistan is between yourself and Indian kingdoms, and some state between yourself and the Abbasids until you're at least the whole of de jure Persia
 
Kumicho said:
Once you have elective you can start a faction to put yourself on the throne, and then go to war to push your claim. It's a bit of a pain because the Shah seems to be less like likely to acquiesce to your demand for lower CA (or elective, or whatever). I played a Zoro game this morning as Karen, and.... man is it a pain. (Note: I play with pre-2.0 levies, so the event troops and such are quite a bit smaller, as is your strength compared to your liege).
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Do you mean the option to depose liege and replace him with my preferred heir? Because last time I did that (being a vassal duke and a valid candidate to the throne), after I won the war, the shah abdicated... to his son. (When I chose the 'depose liege' option, the game claimed the throne would go to me.)
 
It seems the magic of whining on the forums (known to work since the time of Usenet) has worked, because my luck turned pretty much the moment I started a game today. Karen dynasty owns Khiva and a bit of Persia (Khorasan) and no vassalizing was necessary. I did lose Tabaristan to Abbasids, but better that than my de jure lands, so they can have it. FOR NOW.

I am concerned though that I'm doing so well only because the son of Ya'qub Saffarid cannot into reigning; he's 19, has been on the throne for 7 years and doesn't have a single wife... Needless to say, his prestige and piety aren't looking great. Well, I'm not complaining about confused enemies.
 
Since RoI I feel, some of the old tricks don't work as well anymore. Mostly because the Samanids became stronger while Karen stayed relatively the same. You are not assured to win an early war against the Samanids now because they have more levies and the sweet 49.9% moral bonus from 0% decadence. And even if you crush them in battle, you will still need time and a few sieges to get that warscore to 100%. More often than not the Samanids will call out the Saffarids for help and then there is nothing you can do.

The whole swear fealty thing only work if the Shah surrender to your demands. If you have to fight you are screwed.

The only reasonable strategy that does not require some crazy amount of luck (like the Saffarids completly ignoring you) seems to be the exile to the steppes. Rush for Turkestan and work from there with your event troops. Muslims ruler have apparently no interest for the region and the local tengri are pretty weak and easy to take on. The steppes are a pain however because of the sheer size, it take ages to gather your levies, provinces are dirt poor and you will get tons of religious rebellion. But it will make you glorious comeback even sweeter. :)
 
One thing you can do about the Steppes is to hold a very small demnese, such as 1 county, and give the rest to vassal. Increase crown authority and feudal vassals. Then, when you raise your troops they should mostly appear in your capital, and only a pitance will be left in the outlying counties. This is generally how I run roughshod over the Steppes.
 
I had a post-Rajas game where I had a pretty successful Zoarastrian game. The only reason I quit was because I lost a Jihad from the Abbasid Juggernaught when I lost a 25k vs 25k battle. My strategy has always been to hope in and conquer the muslim country the Saffarids are conquering too. It takes some precise movements and some luck, but it works. It has the side effect of making the Saffarids have to conquer more territory to win. I then usually wait for the Sultan of Khivan to undergo some kind of rebellion and invade him while he is dealing with that. After that, I wait and hold off Saffarid invasions, accumulating gold.
 
Tuerai said:
Which one?! From the screenshot?
I need to do some sort of Sassanid resurgence.
Do they have a special CoA?
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As per image, Bagrationi dynasty (which rules Armenia & Gerogia) has history files leading to Sassanids. In above game, I conquered Zoroastrian province and converted to old faith and started my perilous existence between powerful neighbours.

Fortunately I did manage to bethro my future heir to Byzantine princess before converting :D

Decarcassor said:
Since RoI I feel, some of the old tricks don't work as well anymore. Mostly because the Samanids became stronger while Karen stayed relatively the same. You are not assured to win an early war against the Samanids now because they have more levies and the sweet 49.9% moral bonus from 0% decadence. And even if you crush them in battle, you will still need time and a few sieges to get that warscore to 100%. More often than not the Samanids will call out the Saffarids for help and then there is nothing you can do.

The only reasonable strategy that does not require some crazy amount of luck (like the Saffarids completly ignoring you) seems to be the exile to the steppes. Rush for Turkestan and work from there with your event troops. Muslims ruler have apparently no interest for the region and the local tengri are pretty weak and easy to take on.
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You can still defeat Samanids. The trick of course is to use Jew gold. Best part is if they attack you and you win, Samanids will be bankrupt and you can easily kick in the door after it. Then you will have more than enough gold to hire a large mercenary stack to stop inevitable Saffarid attack. Just make sure you hire Cuman band and there is little chance you will lose. After this, swear fealty it will be smooth sailing from there on.

If you are really lucky, Saffarids decide to come for Tabaristan and not Dihistan and won't face existential war as losing just Gurgan is tolerable. And Samanids quite often also suffer from Zoro rebels, sometimes even losing to them.

Something which I have not tried though is swearing fealty to Yagbuids as they seem to be able to form kingdom of Turkestan quite rapidly. It might be interesting method but the stupid thing is that being Tengri, you cannot actually demand them to switch to elective which is quite silly.
 
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Holy war the tahirids for khorasan on day 1. Split your army in 4 and siege all provinces in the duchy before saffarids can get there. They usually get to one province before you do but then they walk away. Do keep an eye out for the tahirid army, sometimes the saffarids appear to ignore it.

Once that is won go for tabaristan, and whatever else you think you can grab. Then swear fealty to the saffarids and eat their vassals one by one.
 
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