Options as a count: How do you ascent in the hierarchy?

[Urloc the Great]

How do you ascent in the hierarchy as a count?

1. What focuses to pick?

2. What general strategies are advised?

3. What is better in the 1066 Start: a) Starting as the last of the Karlings OR b) starting as a count of an elector in the HRE?

 

[_Perun_]

Starting a game as a count is pure creativity. As long as you can secure your lands and dynasty, you can do what you want and make any mistake possible and still pull the campaign on. And if you dont pull it on, you can just start anew and make other hilarious mistakes.
If you will accept the advice people are going to give you abo, you will narrow your personal experience.

 

[Sunshine Moon]

Yeah, depends on the situation too. If you're surrounded by similarly-small realms, I prefer to just eat up the smallest to biggest one at a time, with each step becoming big enough to munch on the next...different if near some big kingdoms, of course.

 

[jonjowett]

Starting a game as a count is pure creativity. As long as you can secure your lands and dynasty, you can do what you want and make any mistake possible and still pull the campaign on. And if you dont pull it on, you can just start anew and make other hilarious mistakes.
If you will accept the advice people are going to give you abo, you will narrow your personal experience.

While I agree with your general point, I think it's reasonable to talk a bit about the basic strategies for survival. Here are my two cents:

• Some moves are forced - for example, if your liege has a different religion, you don't have much time to convert or find damned good allies. Similarly, if you're independent and your neighbours look hungry, don't be afraid to swear fealty.

• It's always a good idea to build up a nest-egg of a few hundred gold: tactical use of favors or mercenaries can be a life-saver. The most effective way to do this as a count is to invite unlanded unmarried courtiers with no family, and kill them. (Once you have over 100 gold, you can use gifts and favors to invite juicier targets.) But the business focus works fairly well too, I suppose.

• It's usually a good idea to preserve your levy as much as possible when you're small - it takes a long time to replenish. Whenever your levy is raised, think very carefully about everything that will decrease it - even by a small amount. Those 10 men you lost to attrition might be the difference between being able to siege a holding and not.

Once you've done all that, you should be able to survive. The rest is completely up to you - there are so many options!

 

[TL_]

Swear loyalty to a big liege and work inside the empire. Focus on improving your stats through a Learning focus like Theology or Scholarship, or picking up good traits with Rulership. With excellent stats you will find yourself appointed to the council. Most of the time I don't care about voting on laws at all, but you get a lot of great perks

• Rich source of prestige on a constant basis
• A small salary to help offset your taxes
• A good source of favors from fellow councilors, allowing you to force wars/alliances/etc.

Even better, you may find that the King creates the duchy your county is inside and gives it to you to help increase your opinion/reduce his vassal count once you're a councilor. This is even more common if you're playing inside the Byzantine Empire where Themes regularly get passed to someone different.

Assuming you aren't given the duchy for free... save up your troops and find a weak neighbor, ideally one inside your duchy. Now use your mercenaries/marriage alliance/retinues/troop advantage from upgrading buildings/troop advantage from finding a very high martial marshal to train troops. Once you have two counties you're doubly likely to get that duchy title and you can start to snowball on other one-province counts. Eventually you can create the ducal title on your own.

 

[fr-rein]

Seduce your liege. Dress up nicely, leave them a note to wait you near fountain, let your love grow...

If that's not an option than waste all gold on glitterpoof, become drunkard, kill sons in drunken rage and try it with daughter.

It isn't necessarily optimal, but quite fun

 

[Urloc the Great]

How do you ascent in the hierarchy as a count?

1. What focuses to pick?

2. What general strategies are advised?

3. What is better in the 1066 Start: a) Starting as the last of the Karlings OR b) starting as a count of an elector in the HRE?

Thanks for the helpful advices, but I still need answers question 3).

 

[Serenity84]

When you're in a large duchy, start fabricating on the other counts there. If you're under a duke that makes you powerful enough to challenge him and you can fabricate or plot for the duchy.
Also check if there is another castle in your counties that you can revoke.

Try the "Deus Vult" achievement. You start in Flanders and if you want to do it in time for the first crusade you have about 30 years to become a duke. And do it without wiping out your levies and gold.
I've read some people say they went on to become king of France, but the duchy is really all you need to win the crusade

 

[yezhanquan]

Thanks for the helpful advices, but I still need answers question 3).

To me, neither. You're literally better playing as a count of any other religion, since you can rely on temple levies and taxes.

 

[Metanetwork]

As a count, your main advantage is that you don't care about tyranny. You can get gold by searching for rich courtiers, imprisoning them, and executing or expelling them. Repeat ad infinitum.

If you are under a duke and want to overthrow them, the arguably best focus is the intrigue focus. You can spy on your liege until you get an event to imprison them, then declare a faction revolt and have automatic 100% warscore. If you can't do that, you can spy on other vassals to force them to join your factions. Once the liege has elective succession, you can make a faction on his primary title.

If your direct liege is higher than duke, just conquer 51% of a de jure duchy (usually by fabricating claims) and create the title.

You don't need to be the same religion as your liege all the time. If your direct liege is not independent, you can refuse title revocations and keep spying on him at the same time, while also being able to call in allies.

I've not tried the counts of Vermandois or the prince-electors. But if you try that, I suggest that you give your temple holdings to characters of any other religion than catholic. You'll be guaranteed to get some taxes and levies out of the holding.

 

[Geglash]

Thanks for the helpful advices, but I still need answers question 3).

Whichever has more castle holdings in their county. A single county with 2 baronies has two times the number of troops, as almost all of your raisable army comes from your personal demense. You can even take on easily a small duke who has only one county and a couple of vassals.

 

[WomboCombo]

Be best buds with the King so he gives you a Duchy.