Advice for Pagan Ironman

[Salvanas]

I've got a good couple hundred hours in CK2 but I've never done an ironman game before. Especially with the changes to fudalization and the new conclave expansion I'm just looking for some advice. I've played pagans before and enjoyed it, just never in Ironman.

 

[CoSMoS]

Well, do you have any special preferences with regards to the starting area and so on? It depends a bit on who you wanna play as.

 

[KingNothing]

Plus pagan doesn't mean a whole lot, most are tribal or nomadic, but I think there are a few feudal ones as well, I believe Serbia and Croatia are feudal in the 769 start as well as pagan. I wanna say that Viking in 867 Brittany may also be feudal.

 

[Aries666]

Lithuania is pretty good, it's easy to unite that Kingdom and Romuva is easy to reform as all the holy sites are close by.

Norse is good fun expect to do lots of raiding. However it can be more challenging to make your first Kingdom (making your first Kingdom is a priority as a pagan with gavalkind). One drawback though is 2 germanic holy sites are tough to get.

I'm currently doing a Zunist game and this has proven to be the most difficult game I've played, though this is more to do with a mega stable Abbasid blob.

 

[KingNothing]

Norse is good fun expect to do lots of raiding. However it can be more challenging to make your first Kingdom (making your first Kingdom is a priority as a pagan with gavalkind). One drawback though is 2 germanic holy sites are tough to get.

Well you only need three holy sites to reform the religion. Although in my last game I had to conquer a forth just to get the moral authority high enough.

Raiding was actual kinda hard to do while still tribal due to not getting very many vassal levies. So I had to pay for the troops, and the boats, and at the end I was barely turning a profit. Although I do prefer to sack holdings. It may have been more profitable to keep troops small and use few boats and just go for available loot.

 

[Aries666]

Well you only need three holy sites to reform the religion. Although in my last game I had to conquer a forth just to get the moral authority high enough.

Raiding was actual kinda hard to do while still tribal due to not getting very many vassal levies. So I had to pay for the troops, and the boats, and at the end I was barely turning a profit. Although I do prefer to sack holdings. It may have been more profitable to keep troops small and use few boats and just go for available loot.

That was what I meant, it's difficult to get 20% additional authority from County conquests and temple building/sacking.

On raiding, Ireland is your friend an independent count will not raise their levy when you raid them so you can just keep going round the island until you fill your capacity.

 

[Cliges]

Norse is good fun expect to do lots of raiding. However it can be more challenging to make your first Kingdom (making your first Kingdom is a priority as a pagan with gavalkind).

It's fairly easy to form any of de jure Norse kingdoms with the subjugation option.

 

[Aries666]

It's fairly easy to form any of de jure Norse kingdoms with the subjugation option.

Sure as long as you start as one of the obvious strong starts but not so much if you start in Iceland for example.

 

[Cliges]

Sure as long as you start as one of the obvious strong starts but not so much if you start in Iceland for example.

Yeah, I guess that might be the exception, but also the only one that would really pose a challenge. Never bothered to start there, though.

 

[Donelloth]

Taking the ambition to be king cuts the cost of forming the kingdom in half so thats extra useful for pagans since they are often strapped for cash.