Achieving world conquest?

[MyNameIsOmali]

Hey, I know a lot of people prefer playing as small rulers as vassals, and thats what i've been doing lately (and enjoying it). But I thought it might be fun to try to achieve a world conquest, so I was wondering what kind of strategies people generally employ when trying to do this? Play as a muslim and use holy wars? HRE and push claims for kingdoms? Ignore truces? Gamey or not, what kinds of things should one do when trying to conquer most of the map or the entire thing?

 

[Anenu]

Play as the Fatimids. As the only Shia nation worth mentioning they get holy wars on everybody along with a fairly powerful starting point of Egypt with multiple options of expansion. Your best bet would be to expand until you encompass the kingdom of Africa and then attempt to take Sicily or if the Byzantines looks weak you can take a shot at Greece. If you stick to the coast you can eventually build a mega nation that can transport literally hundreds of thousands of troops all across the world via boat meaning you can use troops from Egypt to fight wars in Spain. Plus being the Caliph means you eventually get access to Jihads and as a Muslim you can also do invasion CB's which cost piety but give you an entire nation.

 

[DeaTh-ShiNoBi]

Play as the Fatimids. As the only Shia nation worth mentioning they get holy wars on everybody along with a fairly powerful starting point of Egypt with multiple options of expansion. Your best bet would be to expand until you encompass the kingdom of Africa and then attempt to take Sicily or if the Byzantines looks weak you can take a shot at Greece. If you stick to the coast you can eventually build a mega nation that can transport literally hundreds of thousands of troops all across the world via boat meaning you can use troops from Egypt to fight wars in Spain. Plus being the Caliph means you eventually get access to Jihads and as a Muslim you can also do invasion CB's which cost piety but give you an entire nation.

I'm pretty sure Invasion CB only gives a Kingdom (still very powerful). I agree that playing the Fatimids are easily your best bet for world domination. Muslims have the least restrictions on waring with other nations.

 

[Anenu]

I'm pretty sure Invasion CB only gives a Kingdom (still very powerful). I agree that playing the Fatimids are easily your best bet for world domination. Muslims have the least restrictions on waring with other nations.

You are correct an invasion gives you only the kingdom you are fighting for, for example declaring war on France for the Kingdom of Aquitaine and you will acquire all of the kingdom of Aquitaine that France rules. Be warned however that unlike Christian invasions you do not gain the land all the people (assuming they do not hold lands outside the conquered area) will simply become your vassals meaning that you will now have a land filled with foreigners of a different religion, you can thankfully revoke all their titles though since they aren't the right religion but that can take time, crown authority and will almost guaranteeing put you over the demesne limit if even for a short time.

 

[unmerged(26764)]

The problem with world conquest is it gets awful tedious after a while.

The problem with doing it as a muslim is decadence gets out of control after a certain size. After about 1000 holdings -- maybe 1/3 of the map or so -- a single son can generate absurd decadence. As long as you keep up the holy wars and invasion, you can keep knocking it back down but it's really not fun. You feel like there's this constant death clock you can't control ticking against you. If you're going to start as muslim, at some point you're going to want to find some way to become Christian -- which isn't an easy switch to make the game do.

Your best strategy is probably to start in the middle of the map with a Christian power with the Aztec invasion enabled. Use a lot of papal invasions to expand into as many Christian kingdoms as you can. Once the Mongols and Aztecs arrive, everything to your east, west, and south you should be able to holy war. As soon as you can do it, take the Roman title. Become Orthodox and form Rome. You can then use the Roman conquest CB to mop up most of the rest of Christian Europe where you can't holy war. Also mending the schism will let you holy war Catholics. If you need to, embrace an Orthodox heresy and you can holy war everyone.

 

[Fishy101]

Valinn, I saw Lessing's post saying you have a guide. Mind posting the link?

You never responded to my PM.

 

[unmerged(496122)]

Another classic way to get a good headstar would be starting as a christan in spain, uniting hispania, ask the pope for a invasion of france witch should be bigger than hispania at that point. Then you procede by asking the pope to invade HRE with should be bigger than both france and hispania combined unless it has lost to many lands to independence wars.

After that you cn just stemroll the entire pagan and muslim world leaving only a few christian kingdoms in centersl europe, brittain, scandinavia and the ERE unless thay have been crushed by the fatamids.

If you wait for the mongols to arrive thay should crush and turn most of the russian ortodox relams pagan aswell and open them up for invasions

Offcourse you could allways go heretic aswell but i fnd that to be less rewarding.