Regarding playing as pagan. No need to do it so complicated. as I said, the code is play charid. The charid is found in te file, yes, but in the latest patch the charid should be present ingame.
He's got a host of lovely traits - Deceitful, Gluttonous, Slothful, Shy, and Wroth.
Athalcor, Saithis: Yes, aworldEuropean conquest is looking very unlikely due to a combination of gruelling civil wars and super-Byzantium.
Theotian: Thank you for having your first post on my AAR! I'm honoured. And yes, I'm trying my best to keep my vassals in prison, but I'm only trying to fight the current ones to white peace, rather than enforcing prison on them, and those that are in prison already seem to have a very short lifespan.
Magnos III: I'm not sure about that... I think if I wrote another CK2 AAR it would be about a different part of the world. And I'm not exactly in a position to play much at the moment.
morningSIDEr: Hopefully indeed. But they're very stubborn - they won't even take white peace when they're losing. It may call for a little judicious assassination.
ZechsMerquise73: ...you want some more? I'm going to have to disappoint you...
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There won't be any action here for a while, since I have managed to incapacitate my Windows partition, and I can't yet run CK2 on the Mac. This will continue when I either fix the Windows or when the Mac version comes out. But until then, you won't be seeing much here.