Odd Idea, Is It Possible in Ironman?

[Faerillis]

I just recently got an idea for a rather unique playthrough that could eventually be carried on to EUIV without being too massively overpowered... actually probably making me much weaker in EUIV than at the end of CK2.

I want to make a (Christian) Merchant Republic as a culture that would normally flip so that it can be kept — preferably/probably Lombards because they get the sweet new German portraits instead of looking like mud and get an achievement — and control every island on the map but no proper landmasses. But I was hoping to do this without starting as Venice in 769, preferably ruling from either Palermo or Cagliari.

Is there anyway to make this happen? Would it require some weird/esoteric exploits or any particular starts anyone would recommend as a Nomad/Viking to come take over and settle as a Republic?

 

[Snow Crystal]

Be hardcore, start in Iceland

 

[CaptainPolyp]

I'm not sure this would require much exploit. If you want to move you capital as merchant republic, then you would need some convoluted manipulation (exploits?), but if you choose your capital island well, I don't think you'll need to move. To conquer some counties (by building TP, claiming city, then claming county), you'll have to pay quite a lot to build a TP in the first place (Iceland, islands near Brittany; where the leap is big).

I would begin as Gotland obviously, and take a county with as much holdings as possible as MR capital, in the mediterranean sea.

The only problem will be to take Socotra, the Maldives and Sri Lanka (there is also an Island near Gujarat, and maybe in the Indus delta but I'm not sure). They are not connected to the Mediterranean sea, so I don't think you will be able to use your Merchant republic CBs to conquer these. You may need to fabricate claim which is luck based.
But a nice thing is, at least you'll get the silk road trade posts in Socotra (and Sri Lanka?) when conquering these counties (even if you cannot build trade posts in eastern see area by yourself, you can own existing ones).

That is, if you take the difficult road. The easy road it to conquer everything as tribal (germanic) and found the republic afterwards (maybe this is cheating).

Finally, the compatibility with EU4:
I don't know what you plan to do for the counties which are not islands in CK2 but which are in EU4 (Hormuz for instance... Venice too??? although I'm not sure). You'll have to decide.
I don't know what you plan to do with Ireland and England/Scotland. In EU4, a MR cannot be bigger than 20 counties. If you conquer those, you'll be far too big (even if you conquer every island in CK2 map, you'll be bigger than 20 counties I think).

 

[CaptainPolyp]

I forgot:
If you play in restricted diplo range, I think you can leap from Crete to Socotra (have Socotra in diplo range), but I'm not sure you can leap from Socotra to the islands near Gujarat (to declare the war and conquer the county).
So care about your game rules.

 

[Avil]

I actually did similar thing. But with one fault in my logic: the thing is british isles are isles, too. So from that point I just start from Iceland, accidentally get some bizarre religion (like shia heresy or Buddhism) and at some point just turn into norse Great Britain with weird religion.

 

[Bernard95]

Only flaw with that plan is if you stay in the Italia region, your realm is slowing going to go Italian. Even if you choose to stay Lombard, your vassals are going to keep hitting that "Italianize" decision whenever they get the chance. While it's not going to kill you obviously, it may prove a little problematic in the long run with the -20 foreigner malus.

 

[klopkr]

The only problem is that you need to take some continental land to get to india. If you don't mind getting that and releasing though it's totally doable and my favourite way to play this is as iceland.

 

[Six-Toed Sprocket]

Picts? Even Orkney, although in my editions, those islands get attacked like mad from the Norse nearly constantly, I always see about 6 different Norse rulers attacking simultaneously for one province.

If you turn Pictland into an MR directly and survive a few initial years, you basically become an unbelievable powerhouse by the 900s with 3-4 very powerful dukes running families which expand very quickly. I dont think I was even the prince of Pictland very often and I was raising like 6k troops alone, and the whole of England had been conquered. Tempted to try it with a heresy in a new run through.

 

[gimel]

Stupid question: do converter starts qualify for achievements?

 

[Caeserion]

Stupid question: do converter starts qualify for achievements?

No. Converted saves are basically mods so achievements are disabled.

 

[Six-Toed Sprocket]

I only play Ironman, it just means you cant be picky about heretics. But with the monastic & order dlc, it is possible to drain down the moral authority of the catholic faith. I quite like the idea of a dynasty that slowly chips away at moral authority over time, before switching to a heretic belief. To be honest, it significantly adds to the challenge and makes it much more fun.

 

[Faerillis]

I'm not sure this would require much exploit. If you want to move you capital as merchant republic, then you would need some convoluted manipulation (exploits?), but if you choose your capital island well, I don't think you'll need to move. To conquer some counties (by building TP, claiming city, then claming county), you'll have to pay quite a lot to build a TP in the first place (Iceland, islands near Brittany; where the leap is big).

I would begin as Gotland obviously, and take a county with as much holdings as possible as MR capital, in the mediterranean sea.

The only problem will be to take Socotra, the Maldives and Sri Lanka (there is also an Island near Gujarat, and maybe in the Indus delta but I'm not sure). They are not connected to the Mediterranean sea, so I don't think you will be able to use your Merchant republic CBs to conquer these. You may need to fabricate claim which is luck based.
But a nice thing is, at least you'll get the silk road trade posts in Socotra (and Sri Lanka?) when conquering these counties (even if you cannot build trade posts in eastern see area by yourself, you can own existing ones).

That is, if you take the difficult road. The easy road it to conquer everything as tribal (germanic) and found the republic afterwards (maybe this is cheating).

Finally, the compatibility with EU4:
I don't know what you plan to do for the counties which are not islands in CK2 but which are in EU4 (Hormuz for instance... Venice too??? although I'm not sure). You'll have to decide.
I don't know what you plan to do with Ireland and England/Scotland. In EU4, a MR cannot be bigger than 20 counties. If you conquer those, you'll be far too big (even if you conquer every island in CK2 map, you'll be bigger than 20 counties I think).

I've never really used Tribal/Viking Conquests before but it sounds like it is the most viable option for such a playthrough, since it seems they may have "fixed" some of the exploits. Which is unfortunate because there are definitely some places where it would make a lot of sense to let the players adopt the idea of being a Merchant Republic. I honestly didn't know you could settle Viking Invasions as Republics to be completely honest, I just assumed they were always feudal. Selective breeding and indiscriminate murder seem like they'll be quite necessary to get the Portraits I am hoping for but... what can you do?

I am still a little torn on where to settle to be honest, as Palermos is the best option long term but Karalis makes more sense in that you can much more easily form a Kingdom there and is more defensible during the initial ramp up and Corsica would be much easier to get a good invasion together for. Either way, my first war after the Conquest and before Conversion will likely be to make The Papacy a Tributary State (as I learned from a Byzantine game, that is some really good money right there)

As for islands in the Indian Ocean? My plan is to either A. Wait for a Crusade on Egypt or Arabia and then give away the duchies to other rulers and/or create swathes of independent Duchies that we will protect from the Muslims OR B. Wait for a Lunatic ruler who will "declare the Duchy of Sinai an Island", conquer Socotra and then have his Successor grant those counties to four of the five Holy Orders.

EU4 on the other hand? I honestly don't know too many of the mechanics that well, as it doesn't hold as much interest for me as CK2, but I may well mod the ideas/government of my Kingdom to better represent the intent behind it.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

I've never really used Tribal/Viking Conquests before but it sounds like it is the most viable option for such a playthrough, since it seems they may have "fixed" some of the exploits. Which is unfortunate because there are definitely some places where it would make a lot of sense to let the players adopt the idea of being a Merchant Republic. I honestly didn't know you could settle Viking Invasions as Republics to be completely honest, I just assumed they were always feudal. Selective breeding and indiscriminate murder seem like they'll be quite necessary to get the Portraits I am hoping for but... what can you do?

The best way is probably to farm prestige by raiding so that you can use the prepared invasion CB to conquer your island in the mediteranean sea with event troops (or British Isles but I understand that you would prefer the Mediterranean). You will conquer the titles but remain tribal. Afterwards, you will just need to convert to Christianity, and work towards the requirements to convert to republic (market and tribal organization).

And as pointed out by Klopkr, you need to take non-islands lands to get Socotra because you need boats to get in this Island (no strait allowing to get there without boats).
Maybe you can get the Islands near Gujarat without boats (and from there go for Socotra, Maldives and Sri Lanka). There is a strait to get into these islands so you don't need a port in Egypt (you can just get there by foot)... problem is, This is very far from the Mediterranean and I'm not sure you can get a valid CB to conquer the province, or even be in diplo range.
Maybe you should check in a test game with the console (if needed), or just stay with your idea of getting ports on the Red Sea by conquering Sinai.

About EU4, I made a mistake in my first post. You can only have 20 stated provinces as MR. So if you convert with more than that, I think you will still be a MR... you will just have all of the provinces above your 20 main provinces as territorial cores.

 

[Faerillis]

The best way is probably to farm prestige by raiding so that you can use the prepared invasion CB to conquer your island in the mediteranean sea with event troops (or British Isles but I understand that you would prefer the Mediterranean). You will conquer the titles but remain tribal. Afterwards, you will just need to convert to Christianity, and work towards the requirements to convert to republic (market and tribal organization).

And as pointed out by Klopkr, you need to take non-islands lands to get Socotra because you need boats to get in this Island (no strait allowing to get there without boats).
Maybe you can get the Islands near Gujarat without boats (and from there go for Socotra, Maldives and Sri Lanka). There is a strait to get into these islands so you don't need a port in Egypt (you can just get there by foot)... problem is, This is very far from the Mediterranean and I'm not sure you can get a valid CB to conquer the province, or even be in diplo range.
Maybe you should check in a test game with the console (if needed), or just stay with your idea of getting ports on the Red Sea by conquering Sinai.

Nearest Mediterranean island to Socotra is Cyprus which is, unfortunately, not quite close enough to get a chance to Fabricate a claim but luckily Socotra is just in range of Kutch and Kutch is in range of the Maldives so it definitely allows the completion of Island Dominance in the South. As for the British Isles, I can't count their entirety for this game; Mann, Orkney, etc... definitely though. What size of island is too big is going to be up for a considerable debate IE Ireland seems too much, Newfoundland is a must have despite being bigger. I will likely take larger islands like Ireland and Madagascar and split them up as vassals though.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

Nearest Mediterranean island to Socotra is Cyprus which is, unfortunately, not quite close enough to get a chance to Fabricate a claim but luckily Socotra is just in range of Kutch and Kutch is in range of the Maldives so it definitely allows the completion of Island Dominance in the South. As for the British Isles, I can't count their entirety for this game; Mann, Orkney, etc... definitely though. What size of island is too big is going to be up for a considerable debate IE Ireland seems too much, Newfoundland is a must have despite being bigger. I will likely take larger islands like Ireland and Madagascar and split them up as vassals though.

There's no debate about the size of the isles you can take actually. Your playthrough, your rules ^^
Having Iceland (and the Canaries) will be very interesting when importing in EU4; it allows you to start colonizing very early.

Edit: see next post about Uwal.
OK for Kutch not being in range... so you'll just need the Sinai (or other Egyptian/Arabian province) for getting boats.
Another solution is fabricating claim on Hormuz... this is an island in EU4 (and a silk road trade post in CK2).
Your choice tho.

And I just realized Kutch is not islands in EU4. You'll have to give it to a released vassal, or sell the province

 

[CaptainPolyp]

I forgot Uwal (in the Persian Gulf, modern Bahrain)... it should be in range of Krete, it has a strait with mainland Arabia, so you don't really need to take non-island lands such as Hormuz (in CK2) or Sinai to get a port. It should be in range of Socotra too.

 

[Six-Toed Sprocket]

I've never really used Tribal/Viking Conquests before but it sounds like it is the most viable option for such a playthrough, since it seems they may have "fixed" some of the exploits. Which is unfortunate because there are definitely some places where it would make a lot of sense to let the players adopt the idea of being a Merchant Republic. I honestly didn't know you could settle Viking Invasions as Republics to be completely honest, I just assumed they were always feudal. Selective breeding and indiscriminate murder seem like they'll be quite necessary to get the Portraits I am hoping for but... what can you do?

Any county which is tribal and on the coast can be made a merchant republic, the key is moving the capital to that province just before making a MR. I never worked out how you could make the Hanseatic League unless you start Saxon in Charlemagne.

I would say there should be a way of making any province an MR, provided it is independent, or being granted MR by the highest leige (emporer or king). To be fair, a simple mechanic allowing some kind of special recovation of cities for leaders with exceptionally high stewardships would allow for it.... I think.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

Any county which is tribal and on the coast can be made a merchant republic, the key is moving the capital to that province just before making a MR. I never worked out how you could make the Hanseatic League unless you start Saxon in Charlemagne.

I would say there should be a way of making any province an MR, provided it is independent, or being granted MR by the highest leige (emporer or king). To be fair, a simple mechanic allowing some kind of special recovation of cities for leaders with exceptionally high stewardships would allow for it.... I think.

you can make the Hanseatic league with any tribal; even a Scot or Irish (or Tibetan if you manage to conquer your way to the Baltics). You can make any city the capital holding of its county, and convert from tribal to MR (this holding will be your capital holding). I think the capital county (with the city) must be in your primary duchy. I did this with Oman duchy/county/city (while holding all of Arabia)
You don't require your capital holding to be a tribal holding to convert. It can also be a city to convert to MR, or a castle to convert to feudal.

(although before converting I build a tribe in every feudal county with a free slot so that it becomes a city when converting to MR... you don't refuse a new city for 45-70g. This means that you can take feudal counties, build a tribe which will later become a city and just before converting to MR, change the capital holding for a fully upgraded city which was already there when you conquered the county, so that the holding you personally hold in your desmesne is not a city with few improvements).