My playstyle is
Pragmatic Villainy. I will use whatever underhanded tactics I can as long as I don't get tyranny for it, barring a couple instances where I've revoked a mayor so I could install somebody of my choosing as a doge. I also won't execute random lowborns I capture; there's no percentage in hanging some random girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and isn't worth a ransom. But I forge claims all the time, and I'll kidnap or kill vassals if I have a strategic reason (e.g. I had an Old Slavic chief I kidnapped and demanded join the 9th century already so he'd stop hating me, and I've blown up persistently troublesome doges on occasion).
I think I've executed
one vassal in my entire 319 hours of playtime, and I had one hell of an excuse: the sumbitch not only murdered a close relative of mine but had the stupidity to get caught doing it, then rebelled when I tried to send him to prison. I would have revoked Lithuania from him but I was also in an NAP with him and couldn't revoke, so I had him beheaded.
I try and hold to the
Evil Overlord List as much as possible, but my particular style ends up being
Pragmatic Villainy in the same vein as you, or perhaps a
Villain With Good Publicity. I'll plot and scheme and murder my way through half of Europe, but I'll try my damned hardest to not get caught, and I'll generally avoid doing something that gets me tyranny (This guy's in my dungeon but executing him would cost me tyranny? No problem, there's always the oubliette!). I'll use as much means as I can to keep my viceroys in their
de jure borders (Powerful vassals mean they have a chance of overthrowing me, but in their
de jure borders they just sit and impotently rage), but I generally keep a hands-off approach to internal realm management aside from that - if the vassals are plotting against each other, that's less time they have to plot against me or mine. The only exception I make to this is embezzling plots - my viceroys pay me taxes, and anyone who embezzles from my viceroys reduces the amount of taxes they can pay me. That's a no-go for me.
If I get random spawned rebellions, I immediately execute the ringleaders. If it's a landed vassal who rebels, I'm liable to strip him of his duchy and keep him locked inside the oubliette for a few decades until he keels over - unless they seriously infuriate me, in which case it's castration or even instant execution. The duchy? I give that to one of his count-vassals who actually like me. Adventurer threats? That's what the plot-assassinate button is for. Pretenders? Well, I'm no kinslayer, but would you like this backwater county on the edge of my realm surrounded by Muslim powers? I'll even throw in independence for you. I can always Holy War it again later. Courtiers and vassals trying to seduce me/my wife/children? Try doing that without a dick, you treasonous bastards. Annoying Caliph declares the forty-second Jihad for Jihadistan? I will march my invincible tagmata all the way down to Mecca and sack the place just to get back at him. And then I'll castrate him once I've imprisoned him.
But I'll avoid doing anything that actually gains me Tyranny, or the Dishonorable trait (I'll save-scum assassination plots purely so I won't get caught), except if it's only like 5 tyranny for something that really shouldn't be considered tyrannical under the circumstances, then I'll just tank the hit and not piss anyone else off for five years.
