Tribal World Conquest?

[Kilij]

So I've had the idea for quite awhile of starting myself on Youtube with CKII, Total War, Dark Souls, and other games I like. I myself love insanely difficult challenges, perhaps masochistically so, the most difficult of which probably being a Dark Souls run with my RPG-gamer friend where we played on new game+ with new characters with the aggression mod while gravelorded the whole time. As for CKII, I'm quite accomplished also, having 2000+ hours ingame, all the achievements(not that that's actually hard, just time consuming), and several challenge runs under my belt such as Semien without swearing fealty, Georgian opm start flipping to Zoroastrian, and conquering the Byzantines and Abbasids starting as a Slavic pagan opm and staying unreformed the whole game. Since then, I've had several ideas for a challenge runs that I should record, like playing Kalat in 769 or Kasmira in the Late bookmarks.

One of the ideas I've had brewing since Horse Lords and the nerf to light inf and archers is a tribal world conquest, and unlike the other two ideas, it's not specific and there's plenty of tribal options to choose from. However, I don't actually know if this challenge would be hard and for all I know, it may have been done before. Given when I usually play tribes, I convert gov type asap, I profess my inexperience in longer-term tribal play. Therefore I ask you all for your experiences if you've played a long game as a tribe, what you think of this challenge idea, and who you think I should play as, I'm mainly debating pagans and between Mande or Finno-Ugric cultures, but I'm certainly open to ideas.

Thank you kindly,
-Kilij

Edit: Challenge has begun, watch part one here! Latest Upload- Part 12

 

[CoSMoS]

If you're open to abusing the 500-prestige tribal armies, I don't think it would be particularly hard for a player of your experience. If you force yourself to stay on elective gavelkind, that makes it more challenging obviously, but as tribal you have access to regular gavelkind if you convert away from paganism - you may switch back to pagan later again - which isn't THAT horrible once you're an emperor, so... yeah. I'm not saying it's easy or anything, but once you get rolling, it's not impossible for a decently skilled player, which you sound to be.

 

[kmh42]

Your biggest enemy is gavelkind! Elective or not, when you realm is big enough it gets split. You need a very strict breeding method but the time you need to conquer the hole world with the county conquest casus belly there is no way to stay unified the whole time. Also you can not make all countthe es tribal. So you will have feudal vassals (or vassals of vassals) and they will also make troubles.

I like tribal very much and I played it a lot since the last patch but sooner or later tribal reach its limits.

I wish you luck and I am curios over you playthrouh

 

[Kilij]

Yeah, the tribal armies would make things easy if I stay at war so they don't disband. When I normally play, I usually end up using them for 2 or 3 wars before I want peace maybe to change a law or something. I'm somewhat gamey since I have to be to an extent, but by choice I like to keep things fun and do things like breed a large dynasty, actually use retinue, and semi-roleplay even in challenge runs. One perhaps strange thing about my playstyle is that I love gavelkind(I've written a whole argument for gavelkind somewhere in the forum), with +3 demense to build a powerbase base(also why I think a Jain playthrough would be easy even outside of India), what's there to fear when the other sons only get a single county and a kingdom/empire that I can claim if they split off, but of course with tribes, it's probably not that powerful a bonus, though I've not seen what a fully upgraded tribal demense in a good duchy is capable of.

And @kmh42 I think I get what you mean by courtiers, I've noticed sometimes when I land courtiers now that they get the wrong government type like landing a courtier to tribe but generating republic gov-type. I've thought it was a bug since the courtiers were supposedly tribal in my experience, but I can always resort to hiring holymen or something. I also don't know whether I'll stick with unreformed Paganism or even Paganism. Since I'm staying tribal, it isn't huge difference given I'll still be restricted to some form of gavelkind and that pagan attrition is really powerful and may be the key to besting the tougher "bosses" of the game. Without holywars, you just have to play a bit less recklessly and it can even be a good way to encourage booming playstyles(at least if feudal) while waiting for duchy claims and prompt outside the box strategies strategies for fast expansion like raiding for princess concubines if pagan or helping the pagans and trashing the moral authority of other organized religions while proselytizing abroad as Jain/Buddhist.

Also another thing I've thought of. Do tribal vassals ever use the councilor option to convert culture? It's a really fast way to convert culture, but I've not seen vassals ever convert county culture. I don't even know if tribals get the regular mtth culture conversion, and if not, maybe I want non-tribal vassals instead for that and increased income and troop quality should I choose high tribal organization. Otherwise, I was thinking keeping everything mostly tribal and was perhaps thinking staying at low tribal organization since you get a ton of troops by calling to war as apposed to vassal levying and now with conclave it limits the council. Overall, I just don't really know what operating a huge tribal realm would be like, but the more I think about it, the more fun it sounds.

 

[kmh42]

I managed to become tribal emperor of Scandinavia and Britannia which was great. Till succession...

I meant counties not couriers sorry. I was referring to the problem which acurse when all holdings filled will baronies.

The problem you mention is a bug when you ask me.

 

[Kilij]

Yeah, I'm thinking I wouldn't like elective gavelkind, even if I love regular gavelkind, you don't get to build as good a central power base as a tribe and the titles don't quite split the same way so having other son break off might not be as convenient once I have multiple empires. I may or may not stay unreformed or pagan, on the other hand I can always do this challenge unreformed another time.

Anyhow, I think I got my recording software all set up just fine and I've this week off so perhaps I will start now. Any suggestions for who to play? If not, I'll probably go with some Mande guy, not sure who, though I don't think it would matter either way whether I choose a chief or high chief given this is more of a long term challenge.

 

[szmik]

I'd suggest Yugra or Perm.

 

[kmh42]

I suggest Haraldr Fairhair, Jarl of Ostlandet, 867 and King Sigurdr ring of Svipjod, 769. With Haraldr you can form Scandinavia in one generation, with Sigurdr in two. Norse are your best bet for WC I think. Easy to reform and strong casus belly's.
After many restarts with haraldr I managed to become emperor, reformed, feudal and King of Ireland and Scotland just with this one char.

 

[Tapio]

I'd suggest Yugra or Perm.

They're nice, plenty of easy pickings (horselords) down south. Novgorod and Murom are probably the easier ones.

 

[Kilij]

Yeah, Norse would be the easiest, bar probably Muslim tribes, but I likely won't do those for this, maybe save Norse for if I decide to redo this challenge staying unreformed pagan with elective gavelkind.

Yugra and Perm were two I was highly considering myself, yet now I'm unsure whether I want to thrash the nomads before they consolidate or let them become a major threat to add to the longer term challenge, now I'm leaning toward the latter, perhaps Murom is still a good option either way though. Also, I did a tiny little test run as the Mande chief of Ooulata and I was right to assume it wouldn't make a difference, you can take over Mali so fast that now I would probably just choose Ghana or Songhay for simplicity's sake if I go with Mande.

Anyhow, I'm going to make some sorta channel premiere video soon with probably Semien footage to also test my uploading capabilities.

 

[KingNothing]

You can always break gavelkind, or elective gavelkind by just not getting married and using the seduction focus.

 

[Tapio]

You can always break gavelkind, or elective gavelkind by just not getting married and using the seduction focus.

Or concubines. Risking game over for complete inheritance probably isn't worth it in a WC game.

 

[indika_tates]

I think tribal WC is not possible. You can reform your religion to avoid gavelkind but this is not enough. At high tribal organization your vassals will have -30 relations with you and each succession another -20. And if you don't abolish the council you will be on AI hands where your vassals decide you can't declare war on someone because they don't want to, or you can't revoke this title or imprison that guy. You just can't develop your provinces to have decent levies and without castle building the same happens with retinues. Spamming tribal armies at 500 prestige won't save you forever.

And there will be massive rebellions over time. There are a lot of things you can't do when tribal. I'm not sure but some of the inheritance laws require not to be tribal if I recall correctly. I'm interested on seeing how your campaign go if you start it

 

[CoSMoS]

Why would you want to go to high tribal org. if you don't wanna reform government?

 

[indika_tates]

Why would you want to go to high tribal org. if you don't wanna reform government?

Because if not you are on the hands of the AI for everything (council)

 

[Kilij]

I think tribal WC is not possible. You can reform your religion to avoid gavelkind but this is not enough. At high tribal organization your vassals will have -30 relations with you and each succession another -20. And if you don't abolish the council you will be on AI hands where your vassals decide you can't declare war on someone because they don't want to, or you can't revoke this title or imprison that guy. You just can't develop your provinces to have decent levies and without castle building the same happens with retinues. Spamming tribal armies at 500 prestige won't save you forever.

And there will be massive rebellions over time. There are a lot of things you can't do when tribal. I'm not sure but some of the inheritance laws require not to be tribal if I recall correctly. I'm interested on seeing how your campaign go if you start it

I'm glad to hear you think it impossible, that tells me I picked the right challenge and makes me determined to prove otherwise. I doubt I'll be gunning for high tribal authority though, maybe they'll be some benefit like religious revocation that I might go for medium for, but I can always lower it back down. Should be interesting to see how I handle tribal mechanics and it will likely be somewhat of a learning experience.

I will do this campaign, that's without a doubt, currently I'm having trouble with audio, I realized my microphone wasn't working so it was using my computer's built in mic which doesn't treat my voice nicely. I tried reinstalling the drivers, but it still isn't working, might've done it wrong though, either I'll figure it out or maybe have to buy a new mic/headset.

 

[CoSMoS]

Because if not you are on the hands of the AI for everything (council)

Ah, sorry, I forgot about the Conclave changes there - I'm still on 2.4.5. But doesn't the relation hit vanish after you reformed your religion (or converted)? It used to be just for unreformed pagans.

 

[Kilij]

Because if not you are on the hands of the AI for everything (council)

Actually, Isn't it the other way around? I think minimum disables the council and raising it gives it more power? Either way I'm sure Conclave will add to the difficulty.

 

[kmh42]

Actually, Isn't it the other way around? I think minimum disables the council and raising it gives it more power? Either way I'm sure Conclave will add to the difficulty.

Exactly! Higher TO enables Council powers. So do not raise it. You got no benefit out of it except feudalization and higher centralization. But even on low centralization you are able to get a 10+ demesne.

 

[KingNothing]

Or concubines. Risking game over for complete inheritance probably isn't worth it in a WC game.

You don't need to risk a game over though, once you have a male somewhere in your dynasty you are good to go.

With concubines the problem becomes you can only have one child, which can be problematic. With seduction, you can keep producing children forever, and if one gets genius or strong, you then legitimize him. I think you can even legitimize the girls and matri marry them, so that they will have boys that can inherit if something goes wrong.

If your legitimized heir dies, you can just quickly legitimize another.