What's the plan when playing as a strategos?

[cuendillar]

I decided to try out the strategos monarch challenge, but can't figure out how to expand my realm since the ducal title isn't hereditary. Marrying an heiress gives takes one generation per expansion, which is ridiculously slow. However, all county-level vassals effectively go independent as soon as a ruler dies since the title that kept them united returns to the emperor. Moving for emperorship also seems very hard when not of the ruling dynasty unless I'm missing something.

What to do? The only reasonable plan I could come up with was to somehow get a province from which to holy war my way to a title, but that's a lot easier said than done and I feel there must be another way...

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

Your goal is to get a hereditary title. Here are a few options off the top of my head.

1. Breed for Intrihue and Martial, get elected. Drawbacks: Usually not possible in the first generation unless you rerolled for it. Slow

2. Marry some Strategos daughter of the target kingdom you wish to form. Have your kin marry kids from counts of your target kingdom. Press those weak claims a generation later. Form the kingdom. Drawbacks: slow, uncertain. Yourself and kin may not have kids, spouse may die before their father/mother, not passing claim down.

3. Marry some daughter of a Georgian duke. They're usually not huge like your European neighbors are so are viable war targets.

Drawbacks: slow. May have a united Georgia or Armenia, in which case you might be too weak to handle.

4. Ask the Ecumenical Patriarch for claims on dukes in your target kingdom within the empire.

Drawbacks: Requires good relations with the Patriarch and high piety. Subject to fickle ai whims.

 

[CountAccountant]

In that particular challenge, there are claimants you can invite immediately to grab land within formable duchies and/or kingdoms. I used the land in Corsica and Sardinia. The ducal titles you create there are hereditary, if that matters to you. From there it was pretty easy to snowball with holy wars and the like until elected emperor. It's not the only way to complete the challenge, but it is simple and straightforward to execute.

 

[AlexArgos]

I married the only good woman I could find (the daughter of of the Strategos of the Aegean Islands I think) with the idea of murdering her brother later on but the brother died all on his own.

Meanwhile I just concentrated on building up my holdings and having many kids like the challenge asked (and also to have kinsmen to land in later generation).
After many years of seduction I has good sons (including a genius) but got excommunicated. To lift the excommunication the Patriarch demanded that I take a vow of celibacy. So I went all in with my new devout christian persona and joined the St.Basil monastic society which made me very popular.

After a while I just realized there were no good candidates for the throne and I started voting for myself. I was soon elected (I don't remember if I murdered the emperor or it was just random). To stay in power I formed most kingdoms I could and appointed my wife (which had succeeded her father by then) as one of the new Exarchs. From then on, whatever land I got my hands on (revocations, holy wars etc) I handed out to dynasty members. I also had a genius heir for the throne so it was easy to stay in power.

But mine was just a very lucky run. I had tried playing a Strategos before, even starting in better locations, and before I could get elected the empire imploded with non-stop civil wars. So there is definitely an element of luck involved.

 

[jonjowett]

It's honestly not that hard. First, get all of the counties in the duchy (eg. via plot revocation). This means that your successors will almost always be permanent strategoi. From there, follow the normal path - expand within the realm until the liege outlaws internal wars, then either scheme to undo that law or scheme to replace the liege. The latter is simpler in Byzantium than in many other realms because it's elective.