Hey, here's a little interesting game I'd like to share. Following in the spirit of "How to Conquer the World in 25 years", I decided to go with something equally gamey but much more gimmicky -- own all of the Brittanian Empire, but as a count. That alone would be too easy however (you could use Nantes:happy, so I expanded the restrictions:
-Start as a Christian
-Ironman mode
-As fast as possible
-Culture change to Welsh (why not?)
We'll start as the Duke of Wessex.
Now you might be thinking "wait, he's not a count!". That is a valid concern, but what matters is that we end up as a count, and we can accomplish that later (using gamey magic). But you know, his stats kinda suck. It would be much better if we were his brother, Alfred the Great of Wessex. So we will.
This is the same game, mind you, but we gave up the duchy title to Alfred. Notice the previous duke is still alive and is the heir. And there's the main trick in this run -- you can basically "die" and pass on your titles without actually dying, by getting yourself willfully deposed. This lets you do ridiculous things such as uniting all the Karling lands within a year, which I've done before.
Next part of the strategy is to take over Mercia. The problem is that Christians suck for conquest as they can't just tribal invasion everything :sad:. As to not rely on fabrications, I start-scummed until the Duke of Mercia had a negative opinion with the pope. Then you ask the pope for indulgences, which gives +10 opinion with him each time, easily maxing it. However, even if Mercia has a negative opinion and you have +100, asking for a claim only works around 50% of the time. Each attempt costs 100 piety, mind you, and you can't infinite-piety loop because that gives you tyranny which ruins papal opinion. It's the most annoying part part of the run, but luckily this is the only point in which I have to use it.
And fortunately it works on the first try. Now go full North-Korea Mode and crush Mercia. Afterwards we have a new mission: save Northumberland from the pagans. Why? Because otherwise we'll need to wage 3 holy wars to take that area back, which is a pain in the bottom. East Anglia is done for, however, so forget it.
One down. In the intermission, I swore fealty to Scotland. Then I attacked Ivar the Boneless for East Anglia.
Also check out my awesome advisers. That's not luck -- I invited all of them over. After winning we will use factions to change Scotland's laws to Elective Monarchy, and then push ourselves as claimant.
Notice that I get it at medium crown authority, even though I should get autonomous vassals. It's neat but doesn't really matter in this run
And now for the second major trick in this run: how do you utilize NK mode in ironman? After all, you can't just pump your intrigue up to 90+, so failing to imprison a vassal would mean you have to fight a war each time. Well, I snooped around and noticed there is a way to imprison someone with no chance of failure.
Oh noes, he ran away! Wait, no he didn't! He can't run away because he's landed, but he can't declare war on me either because he's not my direct vassal. You can imprison anyone with no penalty as long as they're a vassal of a vassal :happy:. So prop up some 0 intrigue loser, transfer vassalage to him, and voila.
Now we war everyone using the classic invite claimant -> land -> push claim, and use de-jure claims for anything that doesn't allow it. And here is the reason why I saved Northumbria before:
Now we'll form Britannia.
And clean up the stragglers.
Now we own all of Britannia. Wait a sec, we forgot about all that "count" business -- we're an emperor! No problem. Land a Welsh dude on Orkney, give him a kingdom, and vote him to inherit the Empire. Destroy all other titles.
Now just depose yourself twice and culture change.
Push for and independence and...
We're done. We're now the Count of Manchester who owns the entire British Isles. All done within 4 years.
Hopefully this was informative .
-Start as a Christian
-Ironman mode
-As fast as possible
-Culture change to Welsh (why not?)
We'll start as the Duke of Wessex.
Now you might be thinking "wait, he's not a count!". That is a valid concern, but what matters is that we end up as a count, and we can accomplish that later (using gamey magic). But you know, his stats kinda suck. It would be much better if we were his brother, Alfred the Great of Wessex. So we will.
This is the same game, mind you, but we gave up the duchy title to Alfred. Notice the previous duke is still alive and is the heir. And there's the main trick in this run -- you can basically "die" and pass on your titles without actually dying, by getting yourself willfully deposed. This lets you do ridiculous things such as uniting all the Karling lands within a year, which I've done before.
Next part of the strategy is to take over Mercia. The problem is that Christians suck for conquest as they can't just tribal invasion everything :sad:. As to not rely on fabrications, I start-scummed until the Duke of Mercia had a negative opinion with the pope. Then you ask the pope for indulgences, which gives +10 opinion with him each time, easily maxing it. However, even if Mercia has a negative opinion and you have +100, asking for a claim only works around 50% of the time. Each attempt costs 100 piety, mind you, and you can't infinite-piety loop because that gives you tyranny which ruins papal opinion. It's the most annoying part part of the run, but luckily this is the only point in which I have to use it.
And fortunately it works on the first try. Now go full North-Korea Mode and crush Mercia. Afterwards we have a new mission: save Northumberland from the pagans. Why? Because otherwise we'll need to wage 3 holy wars to take that area back, which is a pain in the bottom. East Anglia is done for, however, so forget it.
One down. In the intermission, I swore fealty to Scotland. Then I attacked Ivar the Boneless for East Anglia.
Also check out my awesome advisers. That's not luck -- I invited all of them over. After winning we will use factions to change Scotland's laws to Elective Monarchy, and then push ourselves as claimant.
Notice that I get it at medium crown authority, even though I should get autonomous vassals. It's neat but doesn't really matter in this run
And now for the second major trick in this run: how do you utilize NK mode in ironman? After all, you can't just pump your intrigue up to 90+, so failing to imprison a vassal would mean you have to fight a war each time. Well, I snooped around and noticed there is a way to imprison someone with no chance of failure.
Oh noes, he ran away! Wait, no he didn't! He can't run away because he's landed, but he can't declare war on me either because he's not my direct vassal. You can imprison anyone with no penalty as long as they're a vassal of a vassal :happy:. So prop up some 0 intrigue loser, transfer vassalage to him, and voila.
Now we war everyone using the classic invite claimant -> land -> push claim, and use de-jure claims for anything that doesn't allow it. And here is the reason why I saved Northumbria before:
Now we'll form Britannia.
And clean up the stragglers.
Now we own all of Britannia. Wait a sec, we forgot about all that "count" business -- we're an emperor! No problem. Land a Welsh dude on Orkney, give him a kingdom, and vote him to inherit the Empire. Destroy all other titles.
Now just depose yourself twice and culture change.
Push for and independence and...
We're done. We're now the Count of Manchester who owns the entire British Isles. All done within 4 years.
Hopefully this was informative .