Early game as a count - What to do?

[Javaslinger]

So I'm been playing as counts until I get my feet wet and there seems to be a great deal of thumb twiddling necessary as you invariably have to wait to fabricate claims on some nearby county.

Is there another option to 'get started' so to speak?

 

[perpetualmuse]

Typically, if you start as a single province Count, you are more or less stuck until you can fabricate a claim. You can try to marry into another county or a duchy, but by the time this pays off, you will likely have already been able to take it over. Also check your intrigue screen as sometimes you might have a plot to fabricate a claim. As you're waiting, you can save up quite a bit of gold, which will help you when you finally try to get free of your liege (since you'll need mercenaries). This period right at the start that is just waiting and based on luck is the reason I usually start my games as a Duke. At least as a Duke you can press someone else's claim to get extra counties if you don't manage to fabricate the claims yourself.

 

[Lwantssugar]

Your only other option for expansion is through inheritance, which like claim fabrication involves lots of waiting. However you can use it to inherit any title that doesn't use elective or Turkish succession (inheriting an elective is still possible just not as feasible)
I'll try to explain it as simply as possible:
Find a county you want, preferably one on your border. Examine the count's family, if he has multiple children pick a daughter of his and marry your oldest son or whoever your heir is to her. Once they're married start plotting to kill any older siblings she has, if you wish you can wait until your son has a child of his own just to be sure, do whatever you deem nessisary to kill off your daughter in law's male siblings. If her father is old by this time it's unlikely he can have more children to replace them, so, if all your daughter in laws brothers are dead she will be heir. At this point you can either kill her father or wait for him to die.

Once the father dies your daughter in law becomes the title holder and your grandchildren will be heir. At this point you can stop getting your hands dirty if you wish and let nature do its thing. This process also involves waiting but is good for taking entire duchies or kingdoms without any wars being fought, also gives you the player a chance to really figure out intrigue and hopefully see the signs of the AI trying to do the same to you

 

[Javaslinger]

Turns out I did have a plot to fabricate claims to the dutchy I was in. But damn if there was a single solitary soul willing to join my plot! And I'm not sure if anyone was close enough to warrant efforts to improve their perception of me... Still, something to keep any eye on in the future...

 

[Effixel]

I started in 1.06 as a 1066 two-county count, the count of Charolais (Duchy of Burgundy, Kingdom of France, for those who want to give it a try). I was quickly able to seize other counties from other fellow counts as my liege owned only one county, and then declare independence, usurp the duchy and seize my former liege's land, all within one lifetime. Of course I had to fabricate claims, but it went rather well. I think this guy is a good one to start as a count.

 

[nyah]

Fabricating can take some time.

Make sure you find good marriages for your heir so he can maybe inherit, but also find matrilineal marriages for all your daughters and build up the size of your dynasty. Try to get your dynasty into power in as many places as possible even if you don't control them directly.

You could also plot against your liege to try to gain a claim on his duchy (assuming your liege is a duke).

Try to spend some money on improving the infrastructure of your main holding. Castle town and the others which increase your income to begin with. Increase your church and city taxes also to increase your revenue. Use your steward to collect taxes.

 

[TheStrangerOrg]

marry to the duchess of tuscany

 

[unmerged(26044)]

As other posters said, starting out as a Count, your most powerful weapon is your genitalia, not your army. You need to find the most eligible girls in Europe who would marry your sons, and make sure they come from big families, so they are likely to be fertile.

For a fast promotion, hopefully you can marry your sons to girls who are the only child of a duke or a king, if they have an inheritance law that will work for you. A few unfortunate "accidents" can take care of any pesky brothers-in-law.

It might be good to start the game with a particularly rich county (say, in northern Italy) or as a count who happens to own two counties already. If you can afford enough mercenaries, you can without too much difficulty conquer an independent county, or one with a weak or heretical count. Try to inherit or conquer several counties that lie in the same duchy, so that one day your family can aspire to the ducal title. It probably won't be the duchy that your first county lies in.

 

[nyah]

marry to the duchess of tuscany

It is always possible to find those easy inheritances, like the duchess of Tuscany. However, it feels wrong to me unless you are a direct neighbour. I played a game as Lombardy and in that situation it seemed okay to marry to Tuscany, but as the count of Boulogne it's just too gamey. Marry for alliances, fabricate claims, and claims you get through marriage are a bonus. Look out for opportunities to press your weak claims.

 

[MartinSWE]

There is ofc the Count of Oriel (in Ireland) that start the game with a strong claim on the County of Tyrone (his father was the Count of Tyrone and was usurped I believe). With Oriel and Tyrone the Duchy of Ulster can be formed and from there the game can pick up speed pretty good. Ofc Ireland may not be the most 'fun' place to start in but that´s one alternative to avoid some 'thumb-twiddling'

 

[FietsPomp]

Unless your duke-liege owns all other counties, you should be able to rise to duke-hood within 1 generation. Fabricate and save up about 120 gold for mercenaries so that you can take the duke title of your liege.
And as always, marry child-starved dynasties, grant counties to county claiments to get more. I usually have only 2 counties, all others i give away in order to expand. You should be able to rise to king/emperor within about 5 generations.

 

[Comradebot]

I think in my latest game starting as a one county Count (House de Haro of Viscaya), I've only taken a single county via fabrication (though, I admit, I'm only sitting at six counties now). Otherwise, I've pressed legit claims and piggy-backed off my fellow Iberians holy wars.

The only fabrication I've done to gain territory has been on the County of Navarra, as I was in desperate need of getting a duchy before Gavelkind wrecked my day completely (that, and obviously I'd like to take Navarra for myself, before those stinky Jimenas Castillian the place up). That, and I'm currently looking at taking Dax and Bearn via inheritance thanks to my first ruler's brothers (hey, if I'm gonna be stuck with Gavelkind I'm gonna make the best of it).



And that's the ticket. Sitting around just waiting for a claim to fabricate isn't always the best strategy. Sure, it can be a nice move, but you need to actively hunt for inheritance opportunities (or nearby infidels in need of a killing... including heretics!). Starting off with just a single county is I'd say the absolute best time to have a high intrigue ruler. Not only did I kill some folks to further the ends of House de Haro, but I also actively worked behind the scenes to murderize the members of House Jimena in order to help unite the crowns under a single ruler. Worked like a charm... managed to make myself Spymaster of Castille, and then I proceeded to kill my own king and his two brat kids, while Galicia successfully claimed Leon. The united Castille steamrolled an acceptable chunk of Muslims, and in the meantime the King of Castille-Galicia-Leon made the mistake of revoking one of my counties... so I worked with his eldest son to kill him too. Gave me a vastly weaker liege to get my independence from (the same son, who was pissed I killed his dad... even though he asked me to kill his dad...), and returned the region to a nice little status quo. Muslims are too weak to beat us now (especially with Holy Orders), and no king (myself included, finally snagged the Navarran crown) has the power to stomp the others into the dirt. Of course, the Fatimids are successfully invading the HRE for all of De Jure Africa, sooooo.... yeah. Who wants to bet they holy war my ass next?


PS: Fix the Fatimids

 

[mr_human_555]

Most of the time I started playing as a count, and I agree that for Christian counts the first thing you can do is to hope that the fabrication of county claims went quickly enough. For the army, I suggest you go into full tyrant mode by banishing your mayor and bishop, which also gives you temporary income bonus and a title to give to future county claimant once you become a duke.

In my latest game I started as the count of Mali (Farin Lahilatoul of House Keita). A muslim count is slightly easier to play thanks to the conquest CB once you get enough piety. However, the tricky part is that whether you decided to form the Kingdom of Mali or not; you know those occasions when Mauretania blobbed right? Forming Kingdom of Mali will put me in an eventual losing war with the Almoravids and will severely hinder my World Conquest plan.

So what I did is that I swear fealthy to Mauretania once I gained independence, then proceed to dynasty-purge the Almoravids. With 7 counties and a duke of Songhay title (the duchy of Mali is taken by the sultan and he gives it to his son , but I'm doing a dynasty purge after all so sooner or later I can create another duchy), I am in a very good position to inherit the kingdom of Mauretania once the dynasty-purge is complete. And how I collect enough people who hate the sultan?
I summarize my plan into these steps:
- Invite a few holy men / nobles
- Find some infidel girls with zealous trait & high intrigue. If they're lowborn / their parents are not ruling somewhere it's a plus
- Marry those girls to one of your new courtier, possibly the courtier with low intrigue score
- After all those girls arrive at your court, kill the male courtier
- Paddle those girls to the sultan's court through marriage. They will hate the sultan enough & willing to plot for free / some golds
- Rinse & repeat until you reach desired plot level

After ~10 Almoravid males and ~6 males from the duke of Tangiers (who inherited the sultanate first), eventually it's my turn to become the Sultan of Mauretania. Then I proceed to banish the last 4 maghreb count and replace them with my own Mande count. Sadly I have to culture shift my dynasty & those counts to Catalan due to my dream of becoming an emperor (and I did become one on my third character).

Be careful though, those high-intrigue girls can also kill you. My first character died in a manure explosion...

 

[unmerged(424234)]

Banish city and church owners, claim their money, hire mercs, holy war sand people, create the duchy, invite county claimants, land them, push their claims, banish them, rinse, repeat. Money from sieges and prisoners should be enough to keep your mercs without disbanding them while you're on your conquering spree.

If you don't want muslim lands you used to create duchy, you can grand them to pope afterwards (though I would keep them, because of high tech).

 

[BigHamster]

Well aside gay technics like mass banishment, simpliest for me is liege title fabrication.
1. Become his marshal/steward/ect.
2. Saw some railing on his balcony.
3. Plot to fabricate claime on title. As you killed his father at step 2, you gonna have a lot of ppl to hate him.
4. Plot to aquire his title.

Sometimes you dont even raise you army in these scheme.

 

[Comradebot]

Banish city and church owners, claim their money, hire mercs, holy war sand people, create the duchy, invite county claimants, land them, push their claims, banish them, rinse, repeat. Money from sieges and prisoners should be enough to keep your mercs without disbanding them while you're on your conquering spree.

If you don't want muslim lands you used to create duchy, you can grand them to pope afterwards (though I would keep them, because of high tech).

What in the hell is the point of starting as a one county ruler if you're just gonna game the system to become as big and disgusting of a blob as possible as fast as possible? If my goal is to reach the "boredom threshold" as fast as possible, I'd start as William the Conqueror rather than take advantage of flaws in the AI. Advice like your's should come with the disclaimer "It's super-gamey power gaming that'll get you kicked out of most multiplayer games".