Okay, so I have dumped MANY hours and attempts at getting this achievement. I have played through about 6-8 hours worth of attempts using the most updated version of the game (as of this thread) with Conclave DLC (and Conclave Pack) active, everything having been in vain. While Googling for advice, I have come across two notable guides, one on Steam's Community Guides: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=243061881 , and the other on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/2smp43/the_completely_logical_invasion_of_england_a/.
The largest issue, at first, I ran into was that the Conclave patch completely changed the "conscript merchant ships" decision; a wholly necessary decision. Somehow it's not available when you declare war on a ruler who's lands are not contiguously connected to your own (i.e. for island hopping). Because of this I had to rollback to patch 2.4.5, pre-Conclave so the decision was available.
Using the information from both guides, I began as Hasteinn Hasteining in Nantes on the 867 Viking Age bookmark. Before pressing unpause, I divorced my wife, educated my only son to whatever Norse courtier had Midas Touch or at least Naive Appeaser, changed feudal taxation to large, played around with my council to ensure I had the best people appointed, set my ambition to Paragon of Virtue and took the Hunting focus, and then immediately Conquest DoW Cagliari (Sardinia). From there, I did the same to Chandax (Crete), and then to Aydhab (Northern Red Sea/Abyssinia). In order to have access to ships for raiding, I made sure to have Hasteinn lead my armies and be stationed in Aydhab. I then Conquest DoW Arborea (the other Sardinian province), took the conscript merchant ships decision, loaded up as close to 2000 warriors as possible (the conscript decision only gives you 20 ships), sailed up the Indus, and raided Nandana and Bhera to secure a Hindu woman for a concubine. I was lucky enough to capture two Hindu women raiding Bhera after being unsuccessful in Nandana.
The key to the early portions of this strategy is to be as absolutely quick as you can because Hasteinn is middle aged and there is always the looming threat that Anjou, Italy, West Francia, or the Byzantines will DoW you for their de jure land. Also, both guides pick something other than Hindu because Buddhist and Jain offer better stability and flexibility than Hindu. I chose Hindu because, 1) I am also going to try from the Kali Maaa achievement, 2) seeing that I am going to be constantly at war, the Hindu Holy War CB + holy order mercs are going to be needed, and 3) the Hindu provinces I raided are either very small or are OPMs, whereas locations with the two other religions are larger and further away. Another early problem I faced was becoming unlucky and not securing Indian women for concubines BEFORE the Arborea War warscore was at -100%, leaving me stranded and resulting in a total restart.O
After securing two newly minted Hindu concubines, I sailed back to Aydhab, received an event message explaining that one of my concubines was pregnant with my child (I see you wasted no time, Hasteinn...), walked up to the Mediterranean, sailed to Arborea, and steamrolled the ruler. At that point, Carlu's Steam guide suggests handing out the landed titles to individual unlanded courtiers so that they are independent, freeing you of any threat of war from envious neighbors. Hasteinn is a warrior leader with a high martial stat, but a low stewardship stat, so you wouldn't be able to hang onto those lands without going over your demesne. I lowered my levies, handed out titles to all lands except Nantes, and sailed back home. The pregnant concubine delivered a stillborn daughter, but survived herself.
I followed Carlu's advice and waited to convert. However, I immediately started educating my son with the better of the two Hindu women for a chance of the religion flip.
A huge challenge to establishing a beachhead somewhere on the British Isles using the "prepared invasion" CB is a trifecta of stressful problems. First you need to pick a minor kingdom that you can conquer quickly, doesn't have allies (or has weak ones), but still big enough to make an impact for your future wars. All of my attempts that came this far saw a slew of weird blobs in England and Scotland. Secondly, for whatever reason, EVERY TIME I tried to PI a part of England, I felt like I was fighting a losing Crusade because *every* Christian ruler on the British Isles eventually joined against me and I got gangbanged. Thirdly, is the issue of how many troops one receives during the two years before the PI is exhausted (pre-DoW). I couldn't manage to dig up definitive information, other than from the wikis that explains that the number of troops scales (http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Casus_Belli#Prepared_Invasion), but doesn't give number ranges.
Despite numerous failed attempts, I decided to bypass English territories and go for Scotland. During the pre-war PI period, I collected around 4k troops. For extra insurance, I hired the Irish Band and the various, small merc bands. I still managed to hang on to about 900+ special event troops that Hasteinn begins the game with. So, with all of those troops, plus my levies, I managed to scrounge up slightly less than 9000 men. I DoWed Scotland, landed my troops at Fife, sieged most of it, saw that the Scottish army moved from neighboring Gowrie and moved my troops there. But before I could complete the initial siege, the Scottish army moved to Fife to de-siege it, and then I pounced them, almost completely stack-wiping them. I made sure to keep checking the war info panel so that I wouldn't blindsight myself to another gangbang. The Irish OPMs started to trickle in as my army was crushing the Scottish, but was whittling down my own. I got lucky during what seemed like the last resisting push, and took the Scottish King as a hostage during the battle. Immediately suing for peace, Scotland was now MINE (finally...)!
After all of the attempts, curses, and a few gallons of quality hefeweizen, I decided that the moment after acquiring Scotland, but before anything else, I would just save my game and walk away from it, saving it for another day. The few weeks since that point, I've both dreaded playing again from having the game troll me with the inevitable negative events, rebellions/revolts, greedy neighbors, or simply operator errors, and have been devising stratagems, strategies, and theorycrafting my next moves. This is where I can very much use the community's advice.
The largest issue, at first, I ran into was that the Conclave patch completely changed the "conscript merchant ships" decision; a wholly necessary decision. Somehow it's not available when you declare war on a ruler who's lands are not contiguously connected to your own (i.e. for island hopping). Because of this I had to rollback to patch 2.4.5, pre-Conclave so the decision was available.
Using the information from both guides, I began as Hasteinn Hasteining in Nantes on the 867 Viking Age bookmark. Before pressing unpause, I divorced my wife, educated my only son to whatever Norse courtier had Midas Touch or at least Naive Appeaser, changed feudal taxation to large, played around with my council to ensure I had the best people appointed, set my ambition to Paragon of Virtue and took the Hunting focus, and then immediately Conquest DoW Cagliari (Sardinia). From there, I did the same to Chandax (Crete), and then to Aydhab (Northern Red Sea/Abyssinia). In order to have access to ships for raiding, I made sure to have Hasteinn lead my armies and be stationed in Aydhab. I then Conquest DoW Arborea (the other Sardinian province), took the conscript merchant ships decision, loaded up as close to 2000 warriors as possible (the conscript decision only gives you 20 ships), sailed up the Indus, and raided Nandana and Bhera to secure a Hindu woman for a concubine. I was lucky enough to capture two Hindu women raiding Bhera after being unsuccessful in Nandana.
The key to the early portions of this strategy is to be as absolutely quick as you can because Hasteinn is middle aged and there is always the looming threat that Anjou, Italy, West Francia, or the Byzantines will DoW you for their de jure land. Also, both guides pick something other than Hindu because Buddhist and Jain offer better stability and flexibility than Hindu. I chose Hindu because, 1) I am also going to try from the Kali Maaa achievement, 2) seeing that I am going to be constantly at war, the Hindu Holy War CB + holy order mercs are going to be needed, and 3) the Hindu provinces I raided are either very small or are OPMs, whereas locations with the two other religions are larger and further away. Another early problem I faced was becoming unlucky and not securing Indian women for concubines BEFORE the Arborea War warscore was at -100%, leaving me stranded and resulting in a total restart.O
After securing two newly minted Hindu concubines, I sailed back to Aydhab, received an event message explaining that one of my concubines was pregnant with my child (I see you wasted no time, Hasteinn...), walked up to the Mediterranean, sailed to Arborea, and steamrolled the ruler. At that point, Carlu's Steam guide suggests handing out the landed titles to individual unlanded courtiers so that they are independent, freeing you of any threat of war from envious neighbors. Hasteinn is a warrior leader with a high martial stat, but a low stewardship stat, so you wouldn't be able to hang onto those lands without going over your demesne. I lowered my levies, handed out titles to all lands except Nantes, and sailed back home. The pregnant concubine delivered a stillborn daughter, but survived herself.
I followed Carlu's advice and waited to convert. However, I immediately started educating my son with the better of the two Hindu women for a chance of the religion flip.
A huge challenge to establishing a beachhead somewhere on the British Isles using the "prepared invasion" CB is a trifecta of stressful problems. First you need to pick a minor kingdom that you can conquer quickly, doesn't have allies (or has weak ones), but still big enough to make an impact for your future wars. All of my attempts that came this far saw a slew of weird blobs in England and Scotland. Secondly, for whatever reason, EVERY TIME I tried to PI a part of England, I felt like I was fighting a losing Crusade because *every* Christian ruler on the British Isles eventually joined against me and I got gangbanged. Thirdly, is the issue of how many troops one receives during the two years before the PI is exhausted (pre-DoW). I couldn't manage to dig up definitive information, other than from the wikis that explains that the number of troops scales (http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Casus_Belli#Prepared_Invasion), but doesn't give number ranges.
Despite numerous failed attempts, I decided to bypass English territories and go for Scotland. During the pre-war PI period, I collected around 4k troops. For extra insurance, I hired the Irish Band and the various, small merc bands. I still managed to hang on to about 900+ special event troops that Hasteinn begins the game with. So, with all of those troops, plus my levies, I managed to scrounge up slightly less than 9000 men. I DoWed Scotland, landed my troops at Fife, sieged most of it, saw that the Scottish army moved from neighboring Gowrie and moved my troops there. But before I could complete the initial siege, the Scottish army moved to Fife to de-siege it, and then I pounced them, almost completely stack-wiping them. I made sure to keep checking the war info panel so that I wouldn't blindsight myself to another gangbang. The Irish OPMs started to trickle in as my army was crushing the Scottish, but was whittling down my own. I got lucky during what seemed like the last resisting push, and took the Scottish King as a hostage during the battle. Immediately suing for peace, Scotland was now MINE (finally...)!
After all of the attempts, curses, and a few gallons of quality hefeweizen, I decided that the moment after acquiring Scotland, but before anything else, I would just save my game and walk away from it, saving it for another day. The few weeks since that point, I've both dreaded playing again from having the game troll me with the inevitable negative events, rebellions/revolts, greedy neighbors, or simply operator errors, and have been devising stratagems, strategies, and theorycrafting my next moves. This is where I can very much use the community's advice.
