Brittany is the best kingdom in game.

nkibilko · Dec 20, 2014

I've been having more fun in this game than ever lately; My kingdom is so stable that i can just focus all my energy on raiding, upgrading my castles, and landing my family in other kingdoms. Right now i have the largest personal demense in the WORLD at 11. With this current ruler i can muster about 20k troops (focused on stewardship for this guy), but with a high martial leader its over 30k. I'm in the top 10 for worlds army, and with the right ruler its like 5th largest. All this is with just a 6 county kingdom. You may accuse me of using "gamey" succession, but whatever, this rules: I personally hold all titles in the kingdom, except cities and bishoprics of course. I am Breton culture, so i use the awesome tanistry succession, which gives a vote to any landed character in the realm.. but im the only one with land, so im the only one with a vote! BRILLIANT. I literally hand pick my heirs from the best of the best... i created a few other kingdoms titles with tanistry, and my entire dynasty is breton, so i have loads of great people to choose from. It's almost OP

I've never been more content, my breton penninsula is all i need. Has anyone else exploited this and loved it?

At one point i could have formed an empire, and considered forming one with Brittany as the only de jure kingdom, so i almost made brittany it's own empire; but im not a fan of the emperor crown for celtics, haha. Is there any bonuses to being an emperor other than faster tech, more vassals, and bigger retinues? Maybe i should have done it.

438A22B608DE53F249AA5F6DDE94B0B635BA973C

334DE790FBD6A6FDE32E296036C4EDAFA1CE57F7

3F68BAF16EA50A544AF26AB81B4EF99516499117

6958430B10516076A0486B5422192D634B598ECD

Bernard95 · Dec 20, 2014

Nice! I've been doing basically the same thing using regular Elective instead of Tanistry, since I decided to make the Haesteinnings Norman and then English eventually.

Talq · Dec 20, 2014

Is there any bonuses to being an emperor other than faster tech, more vassals, and bigger retinues?

Do they need more? Especially as there are no cons.

But recall larger retinues is 25% larger, tech is 17% faster, you can have kings as vassals, and you can diplo vassalise dukes (although at that point its only an issue if weirdness had happened). And prestige, and...

Ganymedes5 · Dec 20, 2014

That's a cool strategy. I never went for Brittany because I figured that its neighbors would end up being too powerful. Maybe if I start in Charlemagne's era, but then I may get overrun by vikings.

Drake_Hound · Dec 20, 2014

Well that is how things get nerfed, but yeah that tactic works

Used to work fine for gavelkind too, till they gave away my Capital and spare troop counties to random strangers in line of succession

even in elective gavelkind >.<
So carefull now before they change tannistry too lmao.

Ganymedes5 · Dec 20, 2014

Drake_Hound said:
Well that is how things get nerfed, but yeah that tactic works

Used to work fine for gavelkind too, till they gave away my Capital and spare troop counties to random strangers in line of succession even in elective gavelkind >.<
So carefull now before they change tannistry too lmao.

When I first started playing, I hated that too. Then I realized that it was actually making my game more interesting. I could make an Irish Raj of India if I really wanted to, but world conquest isn't as interesting as the story of the grandson of the last good king coming back to retake his capitol...or whatever.

Jonathan Palfrey · Dec 20, 2014

Interesting, thanks for the story.

|emon · Dec 20, 2014

nkibilko said:
im the only one with land, so im the only one with a vote! BRILLIANT. I literally hand pick my heirs from the best of the best

Man, you are SO GREAT, that I don't even. Have fun.

From the screenshots I see that you're losing two wars?

Jaywebbs · Dec 20, 2014

Talq said:
Do they need more? Especially as there are no cons.

But recall larger retinues is 25% larger, tech is 17% faster, you can have kings as vassals, and you can diplo vassalise dukes (although at that point its only an issue if weirdness had happened). And prestige, and...

There is one con, you will get the negative reputation hit for any De Jure vassals of Kingdoms you hold.

thadian · Dec 20, 2014

Brittany is okay. I prefer Sjaelland.

I don't like the Christians which seals the deal for me. Sometimes, I like to use Ruler Designer and just pick some odd ethnicity/religion for the starting location and have an odd game.

Fimconte · Dec 20, 2014

Jaywebbs said:
There is one con, you will get the negative reputation hit for any De Jure vassals of Kingdoms you hold.

It's a non-issue, since you can just destroy the titles or hand them out as viceroyalties.

thisistherevolt · Dec 20, 2014

thadian said:
Brittany is okay. I prefer Sjaelland.

I don't like the Christians which seals the deal for me. Sometimes, I like to use Ruler Designer and just pick some odd ethnicity/religion for the starting location and have an odd game.

I do that a lot. Try an Irish Orthodox, Kurdish Norse , or a West African (Expert Mode) Finn sometime.

nkibilko · Dec 21, 2014

Bernard95 said:
Nice! I've been doing basically the same thing using regular Elective instead of Tanistry, since I decided to make the Haesteinnings Norman and then English eventually.

I can't believe i didn't think of that on my own. I always want to go Norman but tannistry is just so good, but yeah, so is elective when you're the only voter! Doin it >

thadian said:
Brittany is okay. I prefer Sjaelland.

I don't like the Christians which seals the deal for me. Sometimes, I like to use Ruler Designer and just pick some odd ethnicity/religion for the starting location and have an odd game.

I start as Haestienn of Nantes and NEVER CONVERT, EVERRRRRRR. Christian games tend to bore me pretty quickly. I've gotta have my raids and blots and braids and beards.

nkibilko · Dec 21, 2014

|emon said:
Man, you are SO GREAT, that I don't even. Have fun. From the screenshots I see that you're losing two wars?

Yeah, because when one of my 47 (literally) dynastic allies calls me to a pointless war, i always say yes to avoid the prestige loss. Of course i never send any kind of support unless i can benefit, and as we all know, there's no downside to accepting to help and not actually helping.

Halcyan · Dec 21, 2014

I have played Haesteinn games in Bertangaland before. One thing that I recall is that Brittany (along with the British Isles and Iceland) have a pretty lousy selection of mercenaries....

nkibilko · Dec 21, 2014

Halcyan said:
I have played Haesteinn games in Bertangaland before. One thing that I recall is that Brittany (along with the British Isles and Iceland) have a pretty lousy selection of mercenaries....

You don't need mercenaries when you have 11 castles 75% upgraded and a retinue of 4500. I'm at like 3x my retinue cap right now, because ive managed to maintain all of my units since the time i was controlling Brittany and Great Britain.

Speaking of maintaining retinues, i did something a while ago that i thought was pretty awesome; I maintained retinues through 2 changes of culture and ended up with a 12k retinue consisting of Housecarls, Knights, and Longbowmen. This was before the retinue nerfs though.

Halcyan · Dec 21, 2014

nkibilko said:
You don't need mercenaries when you have 11 castles 75% upgraded and a retinue of 4500. I'm at like 3x my retinue cap right now, because ive managed to maintain all of my units since the time i was controlling Brittany and Great Britain.

Speaking of maintaining retinues, i did something a while ago that i thought was pretty awesome; I maintained retinues through 2 changes of culture and ended up with a 12k retinue consisting of Housecarls, Knights, and Longbowmen. This was before the retinue nerfs though.

You might against hordes (like if the Aztecs invade Brittany) and possibly against adventurers, which are scaled based on your levy size.

DukeDayve · Dec 21, 2014

You're having fun with that and that's great - it's your game to play how you want. I'd be bored to death in just a few minutes though. The complete lack of challenge, absolute certainty of a peaceful succession and the ability to pick the best of your dynasty as heir every single time would simply kill any enjoyment of this game for me. Most of my fun comes from the possibility that my heir might turn out to be terrible (because I never ever ever educate them myself) and the possibility that a foreign power might declare war and try to steal land from me when I'm fighting against a faction rebellion that has rebelled against my craven, slothful, arbitrary new king/emperor who just took the throne 3 days ago.

nkibilko · Dec 21, 2014

DukeDayve said:
You're having fun with that and that's great - it's your game to play how you want. I'd be bored to death in just a few minutes though. The complete lack of challenge, absolute certainty of a peaceful succession and the ability to pick the best of your dynasty as heir every single time would simply kill any enjoyment of this game for me. Most of my fun comes from the possibility that my heir might turn out to be terrible (because I never ever ever educate them myself) and the possibility that a foreign power might declare war and try to steal land from me when I'm fighting against a faction rebellion that has rebelled against my craven, slothful, arbitrary new king/emperor who just took the throne 3 days ago.

lol to me those are the worst things about the game

DukeDayve · Dec 21, 2014

nkibilko said:
lol to me those are the worst things about the game

But you're literally invincible. What enjoyment can you get when you're invincible? There's no risk, there's no reward (how can you strive for anything when you're certain it will succeed AND you gain nothing from it because you've already achieved supreme power and invincibility)?

Brittany is the best kingdom in game.

Banned

Field Marshal

Field Marshal

Captain

General

Captain

First Lieutenant

Sergeant

Lt. General

Captain

Colonel

First Lieutenant

Banned

Banned

General

Banned

General

Eater of Garlic

Banned

Eater of Garlic