HF really asks me think out of the box. There are so many duchies now, mindlessly repeating holy wars don't get me anywhere. And I am learning and finding new tips!
1. Prewar raiding and murdering.
Playing as Sigurdr Ring, taking Saxony early on with Pagan Subjugation CB became much harder than before. It can easily bring 9k stack. I guess I could take my time to become stronger - build up prestige buildings, take neighboring states with King of.. CB or Force Vassalization CB, etc, etc. Wait! I can't use King of.. Subjugation CB because than I can't use once in a lifespan Pagan Subjugation CB on Saxony. Maybe that was the intention of making Saxony stronger...
But I found an alternative and reliable (meaning I can use it on Ironman) strategy;
1. Choose Seduction Focus, invite high intrigue girls, and start seduction. After seducing each girl, send her as a wife or concubine of any adult male in the capital.
2. Send raiders to Saxony capital. It doesn't matter if I can't get any raiding gold. The focus is making it locally hostile, beat it's defenders, and capturing the king or his adult heir either through sacking the holding or battles.
3. Start war if a. King of Saxony is in my prison. or b. His heir is in my prison and I am a master seducer.
That's it, start war with Saxony, choose King of Sweden Ambition. Declare war with everyone in de jure Sweden. End Saxony war immediately since the king is in my prison. And finish the rest.
2. Seduction + Cosmopolitan + Equality = Murder any foreign ruler at will
In the above tip, I didn't explain how capturing the heir would be an instant win. It isn't, but close. I had already filled the enemy's capital county with girls. Some are my lovers, but the rest are just regular girls. It doesn't matter to a master seducer. Even with very low personal Intrigue, murdering a foreign king is pretty easy once you have enough women in his court.
Now the problem is, most of major enemies are of different religion group, and you can't send women there. And average enemy court has only a few of them. BUT, now with Cosmopolitan nature, you can send your pagan courtiers to the enemy court as a wife of a man there, usually a courtier. Unfortunately, that's still not enough when there are only a few courtiers and they can't take concubines. That's why I also need Equality doctrine. I can maternally marry my male courtier to the enemy court, often to a female ruler. And for each pagan husband in the enemy court, I can send three high intrigue concubines.
3. Take West/Middle Francia with the last Merovingian guy in Eu.
After HF, Francia has so many counties that it's impractical to take it with a series holy wars. Fortunately, I don't need to. There is the last decedent of Merovingian dynasty in Eu as a monk courtier. As a pagan petty king, I could send gift and make him a guardian of my children (I had to send gift to his count too so I could do this), and buy a favor with 400 ducats, force invite him, grant him a temple to remove monk trait.
I also have heirs of West/Middle Francia in my prison that I captured with rading, and working on sending girls to his court. Soon I will have rulers of West and Middle Francia in my prison and press Merovingian claim, and will get Francia instantly.
4. Raid on enemy capital or king/duchy level vassal capitals, even if they are not your border.
The real benefit of raiding is capturing enemy children and sacking holdings. The raiding gold is small and insignificant. Children of enemy dukes and kings are ransomed for much better gold, or better yet, can net you a kingdom without a fight through inviting claimants and murders.
If you can raid, you can raid inland not bordering counties just as well. You just loose daily raiding loot. But as I said, it's really insignificant. It is far better to raid a duchy capital with multiple children of the duke, even if it is not adjacent to your realm or coastal.
5. With Equality, you can land female claimants and press their claims instead of waiting for them to give birth to a your male dynast. I mean, who has time for that? And you can use old females too. It is generally easier to get female claimants of large kingdoms for obvious reasons. - Easier to invite, easier to capture from raiding, easier to make them your courtiers (by making them concubines)
That's it. As I had posted before, Cosmopolitan and Equality are two game-breaking strong tools, and Seducer is the most powerful trait of all, that the game is still not fully prepared to face what players can do with them.
1. Prewar raiding and murdering.
Playing as Sigurdr Ring, taking Saxony early on with Pagan Subjugation CB became much harder than before. It can easily bring 9k stack. I guess I could take my time to become stronger - build up prestige buildings, take neighboring states with King of.. CB or Force Vassalization CB, etc, etc. Wait! I can't use King of.. Subjugation CB because than I can't use once in a lifespan Pagan Subjugation CB on Saxony. Maybe that was the intention of making Saxony stronger...
But I found an alternative and reliable (meaning I can use it on Ironman) strategy;
1. Choose Seduction Focus, invite high intrigue girls, and start seduction. After seducing each girl, send her as a wife or concubine of any adult male in the capital.
2. Send raiders to Saxony capital. It doesn't matter if I can't get any raiding gold. The focus is making it locally hostile, beat it's defenders, and capturing the king or his adult heir either through sacking the holding or battles.
3. Start war if a. King of Saxony is in my prison. or b. His heir is in my prison and I am a master seducer.
That's it, start war with Saxony, choose King of Sweden Ambition. Declare war with everyone in de jure Sweden. End Saxony war immediately since the king is in my prison. And finish the rest.
2. Seduction + Cosmopolitan + Equality = Murder any foreign ruler at will
In the above tip, I didn't explain how capturing the heir would be an instant win. It isn't, but close. I had already filled the enemy's capital county with girls. Some are my lovers, but the rest are just regular girls. It doesn't matter to a master seducer. Even with very low personal Intrigue, murdering a foreign king is pretty easy once you have enough women in his court.
Now the problem is, most of major enemies are of different religion group, and you can't send women there. And average enemy court has only a few of them. BUT, now with Cosmopolitan nature, you can send your pagan courtiers to the enemy court as a wife of a man there, usually a courtier. Unfortunately, that's still not enough when there are only a few courtiers and they can't take concubines. That's why I also need Equality doctrine. I can maternally marry my male courtier to the enemy court, often to a female ruler. And for each pagan husband in the enemy court, I can send three high intrigue concubines.
3. Take West/Middle Francia with the last Merovingian guy in Eu.
After HF, Francia has so many counties that it's impractical to take it with a series holy wars. Fortunately, I don't need to. There is the last decedent of Merovingian dynasty in Eu as a monk courtier. As a pagan petty king, I could send gift and make him a guardian of my children (I had to send gift to his count too so I could do this), and buy a favor with 400 ducats, force invite him, grant him a temple to remove monk trait.
I also have heirs of West/Middle Francia in my prison that I captured with rading, and working on sending girls to his court. Soon I will have rulers of West and Middle Francia in my prison and press Merovingian claim, and will get Francia instantly.
4. Raid on enemy capital or king/duchy level vassal capitals, even if they are not your border.
The real benefit of raiding is capturing enemy children and sacking holdings. The raiding gold is small and insignificant. Children of enemy dukes and kings are ransomed for much better gold, or better yet, can net you a kingdom without a fight through inviting claimants and murders.
If you can raid, you can raid inland not bordering counties just as well. You just loose daily raiding loot. But as I said, it's really insignificant. It is far better to raid a duchy capital with multiple children of the duke, even if it is not adjacent to your realm or coastal.
5. With Equality, you can land female claimants and press their claims instead of waiting for them to give birth to a your male dynast. I mean, who has time for that? And you can use old females too. It is generally easier to get female claimants of large kingdoms for obvious reasons. - Easier to invite, easier to capture from raiding, easier to make them your courtiers (by making them concubines)
That's it. As I had posted before, Cosmopolitan and Equality are two game-breaking strong tools, and Seducer is the most powerful trait of all, that the game is still not fully prepared to face what players can do with them.
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