Dealing with a mega empire, a duchy at a time.

[jwalche]

You are a small time emperor facing a huge empire comprised of a dozen de jure kingdoms. It's tough to win a war against such a gigantic enemy. And recently I have perfected a strategy for this situation.

First, you need to be an emperor yourself.

Then you must have full women's right and ability to make concubines, as well as ability raid. A reformed pagan with Equality would be ideal.

Now, very much needed, even though not absolute must, are Bloodthirsty Gods and a warrior lodge rank 2.

-------------

And here is how it work.

First you send your raiders to enemy's duke vassals' capitals. But make sure that the duke has a child, and the child's mother is in that capital. Most of dukes will have a wife and a young child from that wife.

When your raiders raid the capital holding, there is some chance of capturing the mother. Warrior lodge rank 2 and leading the siege personally increases the chance dramatically, around 80~90%.

Take the mother as you concubine and land her to a county with no vassal. If you captured all her children as well, then give her a kingdom title too. If not, just gift 15 gold and you can imprison her for 100%.

Execute or Sacrifice (Bloodthirsty Gods) her.

Her child becomes your vassal. If he wasn't already imprisoned. Now give him gold gift and a kingdom title. Then imprison and sacrifice him / her too.

The duke is now your vassal king. If your army is strong, he won't refuse when you revoke his kingdom title that you gave to his wife or son.

After trying all border / coastal dukedoms. Start a holy war to the enemy emperor, so that your army can revisit those dukedom capitals where you failed to capture the mother of the duke children.

When you have re-stormed all the target dukedom capitals, change your religion to invalidate the war you started.

Send your raiders to the new border dukedoms.

Repeat.

 

[Reman]

Let's say you've taken the mother as concubine without capturing her kid. Does her kid become your vassal even if he's in another realm? Does controlled realm inheritance affect this at all?

What's the purpose of the holy war exactly? That part also doesn't make much sense to me.

Otherwise, this is a very interesting strat

 

[jwalche]

Let's say you've taken the mother as concubine without capturing her kid. Does her kid become your vassal even if he's in another realm? Does controlled realm inheritance affect this at all?

What's the purpose of the holy war exactly? That part also doesn't make much sense to me.

Otherwise, this is a very interesting strat

The basic rule of external inheritance is that, when you inherit a title higher ranked than your current, you become a vassal of the new higher ranked title's current liege.

So if you land any of a duke's child a kingdom title and kill the kid, the duke becomes your vassal king.

But since you can't have an emperor vassal, if the enemy is a king, you can't have him this way. You either need to have his exact heir as your vassal king and plot murder the enemy king, or take enough of his de jure dukes and counts to usurp his kingdom title first.

By the way, you can still make enemy vassal king independent. Right now I am plot murdering Tibet's vassal king's sister who is my courtier. When I succeed, she will actually die on the next day, so I will have time to give her an one county empire. The next day, she dies, and her brother will become an independent emperor. I like the idea of a smaller Tibet. Even smaller than now.

When you make the mother as you concubine, she becomes your courtier.
When you land the mother and kill her, her landless kid inherits her mother's land. And when he does, if he becomes your vassal.
When you give the kid a higher ranked title than his landed father's the father inherits the kid's titles. And when the father does, he becomes your vassal as well.
All in the same day.

If the father was an enemy count, now he is your duke. He will be a vassal of your vassal king, and will be executed along with his other kids on that day.

If the father was an enemy duke, now he is your king. You can't just imprison and execute him the same day. So you first ask nicely to revoke his new kingdom title. He will agree in 1~2 weeks. And will die with his other kids.

Now unfortunately, your raiders sometimes fail to capture the mother. You can't immediately go back and raid again for 2 years. But you can call a holy war, turn off your raider's raiding option, and charge on the burning castle again, for another chance to capture the lucky mother.

Why holy war? Because you want to end the war as soon as you capture those lucky mothers, and then send your raiders again to a new set of enemy dukes. With holy war, you can end it simply by changing your religion. And there will no truce at all.

 

[jwalche]

Here, look at all the island counties of Byzantine already gone. And all the coastal duches of Byzantine gone. Also see that I am in war with Byzantine. I can end it at will by switching my religion. But some of my raiders were converted back to regular army and are having a second try out of those few duchy capitals.

Why only duchy capitals? Because the counts will come with the dukes for free. But those direct counts' capitals are of course visited by my raiders.

BTW, I didn't take all the Byzantine's duchies this way. I first invited, and favor married all the adult children who would come without my raiders, and their fathers had been taken care of already. But majority of Byzantine dukes don't have an adult kid. So they have mothers. You can't immediately make a captured kid your courtier and land him/her. But you can land the mother. And you sacrifice the mother, you get the kid as your landed vassal.

I didn't need the strategy on Francias. Just inviting their adult children and regular marrying their daughters were enough to dissolve West Francia, and Middle Francia follows it. My sons had probably more than couple dozen marriages combined, to take whatever counties in the world before my raiders were sent.

But Lombardy, Africa, Saxony and many Indian kingdoms had to be visited by my raiders so I could finally usurp their kingdom titles. Avaria is only left because it is on war with Serbia and I can't usurp its title while it is having a war. Right now, Umayyad, Armenia, and Ayudha are almost there.

Western Protectorate is reduced to just two counties. It seems to have more only because I have been lazy with the wives. But they are in my dungeons, safely protected from seeing all my tyranny. So when I land them and gift them, their opinion will be 100 and they will agree to go back to my dungeon for 100%.

And when I finally declare invasion wars, both Tibet and Byzantium will be in much more agreeable position to be taken.