Favorite tall play region? Custom Kingdoms/Small Empires okay.

[Adrik Thorsen]

The problem I run into with playing tall is that you can't really do it effectively until you get primogeniture. Until then you get reduced down to a single holding unless you're always expanding, and unless that's a big and wealthy county like Cordoba, you're a bit SoL.

There's a couple of workarounds - using scandinavian elective and hybriding to get Visigothic codes work pretty well.

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

There is no kingdom more lucrative to playing tall than Tamilikam at the southern tip of India.

Madurai is a 7 holding county with 6 farmlands. The duchy itself has a holy site county for Jains.

Nearby Chola is also farmland and contains a decent wonder for any Eastern religion and the one above it a holy site for Hindus.

Can play ridiculously tall with these three duchies, or two and another critically rich duchy like Delhi.

 

[Adrik Thorsen]

There is no kingdom more lucrative to playing tall than Tamilikam at the southern tip of India.

Madurai is a 7 holding county with 6 farmlands. The duchy itself has a holy site county for Jains.

Nearby Chola is also farmland and contains a decent wonder for any Eastern religion and the one above it a holy site for Hindus.

Can play ridiculously tall with these three duchies, or two and another critically rich duchy like Delhi.

Ah yes, Sri Lanka. I did that for a bit when I did the Far From Home achievement run.

My most recent has been... Valencia, sort of. I took De Jure Valencia, and the Duchy of Barcelona and made a custom kingdom with the Capital in Mallorca.

 

[Pigposting]

Livonia is my favorite go-to tall kingdom because you have access to 3 romuvan holy sites and they're primed to raid the north sea, giving you something to do other than building your domain. You can even swap to norse, grab the raiding legacy, then move back to Livonian/Latigan. Raiding really goes hand in hand with playing tall because of the FREE PRESTIGE you get from random if you have the legacy, prestige you could use building up your cultural traditions, like let's say doubling down with State Ransoming.

Also vikings tend to try to invade d_estonia for the occasional challenge. Don't ever give them land EVER because those claims are hard to shake off even if they take the land back from them.

 

[Vegetalss4]

What that means?

I haven't tried it myself, but looking at the wiki and posts and making some educated guesses:

Table of Princes is a tribal era innovation availible to Czech or Slovien cultures which let's you pick up House Seniority succession. In effect you can get it right from the beginning of the game (Possibly Czech/Slovien starts with it, I haven't checked but even if they don't you can probably research it before your first ruler dies).

Then you build a bunch of castles in your bohemian baronies and give them to members of your dynasty.
You do this because when a new King/emperor takes the throne, their feudal vassals (possibly also Clan, I haven't tested) can decide to go pay homage to the king for a boost to both of their dynasties Renown (and possibly a gift to the king which increases the renown gained).
Since they are of your dynasty this gives double renown compared to a random dynasty.

The idea would be that you then play a series of really old rulers, whose family members show up to pay homage before the king dies shortly afterwards with the process repeating.
The cost is that you are playing a bunch of really old kings who have a tougher time dealing with all the things that takes time, such as building up your desired lifestyle traits or prestige/piety for stuff (through the prestige could get a boost from barons paying homage a bunch of time before it's their turn).
If you weren't playing tall then the constant short reign penalty might also be a concern, but personally holding all of bohemia is possible enough that this might not be relevant at all.

 

[WJS]

Limbuwan is an interesting place.

It's Kirati culture, its own religion, in the southern Himalayas. In my campaign I had to convert to Hinduism to prevent being holy warred to death, but it's a place where you get to play a Tibetan who's more exposed to India than Tibet. Makes for interesting challenges and goals.

I eventually made my custom kingdom of Indrakil from Limbuwan, Paro, and Bumthang. Essentially Big Sikkim.

 

[Chip Block]

Limbuwan is an interesting place.

It's Kirati culture, its own religion, in the southern Himalayas. In my campaign I had to convert to Hinduism to prevent being holy warred to death, but it's a place where you get to play a Tibetan who's more exposed to India than Tibet. Makes for interesting challenges and goals.

I eventually made my custom kingdom of Indrakil from Limbuwan, Paro, and Bumthang. Essentially Big Sikkim.

if you want a proper challenge try manipur, it's landlocked between pala india and burma, and has its own pagan faith (similar to kiratis)

historically it was independent until the 20th century in some form or another

would surely make a decent aar for someone with determination

 

[Chip Block]

Limbuwan is an interesting place.

It's Kirati culture, its own religion, in the southern Himalayas. In my campaign I had to convert to Hinduism to prevent being holy warred to death, but it's a place where you get to play a Tibetan who's more exposed to India than Tibet. Makes for interesting challenges and goals.

I eventually made my custom kingdom of Indrakil from Limbuwan, Paro, and Bumthang. Essentially Big Sikkim.

also why were u holy warred? kirati faith has eastern syncretic - does that not protect u from holy wars from eastern faiths?

 

[WJS]

also why were u holy warred? kirati faith has eastern syncretic - does that not protect u from holy wars from eastern faiths?

I checked; I played before the change to Eastern Syncretism. It'll play differently now.

 

[Chip Block]

I checked; I played before the change to Eastern Syncretism. It'll play differently now.

huh, when was that changed? was it documented?

 

[guglik0]

One of the Rus kingdoms in the 1066 start date is quite interesting since the whole region is owned by your close relatives. Maintaining the power balance without expanding is a great challenge and great for roleplaying as well.

 

[WJS]

huh, when was that changed? was it documented?

In 1.5, I think. Eastern Syncretism used to do the same thing as other syncretism tenets and make related religions hostile instead of evil. In other words, virtually nothing.

 

[Chip Block]

In 1.5, I think. Eastern Syncretism used to do the same thing as other syncretism tenets and make related religions hostile instead of evil. In other words, virtually nothing.

ah yeah, i was thinking they changed the tenet but you mean they just fixed/buffed the tenet, yeah ur right, they also did something with gnostics

 

[BishopBrennan]

Socotra. You can either just chill on your little island paradise or try and take on the mighty Islamic empires

 

[cavveman]

Duchy of Benin is a fun place to build tall. As long as you hold the county of Benin.
It gives 75% more development + 0.2 development. 75% more holding taxes also.
With Yoruba culture you will also get the hidden city tradition. That gives extra 35% development in jungles in general.
+ extra fort level.

All benefits in detail with that duchy

 

[Hvymtlboy]

Denmark, flat and coastal...

 

[x4077]

It sounds large - but technically it should give you an empire with just 6 counties.
As those other random 74 counties aren't part of any kingdom in your new empire, you would be able to grant all your vassals in them independence!

I thought that when you formed a custom empire everything you currently held became dejure to that custom empire title, thus you shouldn't be able to grant any of them independence because they are dejure in your primary title. Is this not the case?

 

[Blodhevn]

I thought that when you formed a custom empire everything you currently held became dejure to that custom empire title, thus you shouldn't be able to grant any of them independence because they are dejure in your primary title. Is this not the case?

that is sort of true. it goes as follows. you need to completely control the dejure or hold its title. so to make a custom kingdom, you need to hold 2 duchies titles & any additional fully controled duchy or duchy title even if you only hold 1 county from it would become the new dejure kingdom. but if u held 3 duchy titles and 1 duchy with 4/5 counties without holding the title you wouldnt actually get that duchy as dejure.

but since there is a county requirement of like 80 to form an empire, you can just hold tons of random counties all over so that you dont completely control the dejure and it will not be part of dejure.

 

[AlipheeseXV]

I thought that when you formed a custom empire everything you currently held became dejure to that custom empire title, thus you shouldn't be able to grant any of them independence because they are dejure in your primary title. Is this not the case?

like what @Blodhevn explained, but one tier higher:
For your custom empire, you need three kingdom titles and 80 counties. When you then take the dicision to form your empire, every kingdom title you hold or completely control will become de jure part of your custom kingdom.
So if you hold the kingdom titles of Venice, Crete and Cyprus, they will provide you with 6 counties. Now conquer additionally 74 counties all over the place without fully occupying any further kingdom title completely.
This should give you an empire with just 6 de jure counties.

 

[alextarg]

The problem I run into with playing tall is that you can't really do it effectively until you get primogeniture. Until then you get reduced down to a single holding unless you're always expanding, and unless that's a big and wealthy county like Cordoba, you're a bit SoL.

You have to hybrid culture with catalan soon enough to get visigothic code, it's not primo but high partition isn't bad until your tech gets you to primo