What to do next...

[AwesomeKeith]

I'm playing in 1066, first ever 1066 game I've stuck with for more than a decade, and within 50 years of starting as Apulia I united the Kingdom of Sicily, began Normanizing it (though I had hoped to flip my characters to Italian. Oh well!) and now I'm in a bit of a bind. I don't know what to do. Bordering me are the HRE, the Romans, and the Pope. I can't expand against any of them, so that leaves a custom Empire in Greece and the Empire of Italia out of the picture for now. I'm not going to invade North Africa because I'm doing light roleplay and not doing anything too crazy. So, my question is... Should I remain independent and become a Crusader King when that starts, join the HRE and begin absorbing Italy, or join the Byzantines as their only Catholic vassal, and then try to seize power there?

Oh, before I forget, my heir is married to the Queen of a fully united Croatia so I'm going to inherit that in 2 generations, and the Kingdom of Sicily is fully de-Gavel'd and made Primo.

 

[Apelstav]

I haven't played on the vanilla map in ages but couldn't you do a reverse Aragon and conquer Sardinia and the Balearic Islands and then get into Spain? Also I wouldn't really view a limited expansion in North Africa as all that crazy, say something like Tunisia. You could release it and RP it as trying to safeguard Sicily from invasion and pirates.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Some ideas:
- You could do an invasion of Africa with the long-term goal of forming the Arabian empire and safeguarding Jerusalem.
- Swearing fealty is also an option, but the ERE will likely try to revoke your stuff unless you convert (despite it being tyrannical), and the HRE may use you to its own ends as well (particularly if it feels like going to Africa).
- If the Italian part of the HRE breaks free, annexing it yourself will grant you the opportunity to form Italia, if you want to go for that, but you will of course upset both the Kaiser and the ERE then as they will have claims on your stuff.
- As suggested above, heading into the Iberian peninsula is also an option (either by marriage to the kingdoms there or by holy warring from the start), eventually allowing you to form Hispania.
- You could marry into Croatia (and eventually Hungary), form Carpathia, and roleplay the defender of western Europe from the Orthodox rulers in the east (and possibly Muslims and Mongols).
- You could try marrying into France to reclaim your Norman homeland, eventually forming Francia.

 

[yourworstnightm]

Two Sicilies? Meh, Three Sicilies or Four Sicilies or even Five Sicilies sounds so much better.

 

[AwesomeKeith]

So far, suggestions I really like are invading North Africa as a step to Jerusalem, BUT, I would release most of it as independents because that's a lot of land that I don't want to deal with the different culture and religion. The other ideas I like are forming Italia (using Croatia which I am set to inherit as the third Kingdom title), and taking Spain.

 

[Silversweeeper]

So far, suggestions I really like are invading North Africa as a step to Jerusalem, BUT, I would release most of it as independents because that's a lot of land that I don't want to deal with the different culture and religion. The other ideas I like are forming Italia (using Croatia which I am set to inherit as the third Kingdom title), and taking Spain.

Culture/religion conversion is fairly easy, and as long as you don't overextend yourself or end up in bad wars the occasional revolts due to culture/religion mismatch will likely net you quite a bit of prestige and piety, which always is handy. Regardless of whether you want to keep the whole of the African coast or not, the duchies of Sicily and Tunisia make for a nice demesne (with any counties you cannot hold personally granted to a celibate or old guy) due to their proximity to one another, the number of potential holding slots, and the fact that most of the counties there are coastal.

 

[AwesomeKeith]

Culture/religion conversion is fairly easy, and as long as you don't overextend yourself or end up in bad wars the occasional revolts due to culture/religion mismatch will likely net you quite a bit of prestige and piety, which always is handy. Regardless of whether you want to keep the whole of the African coast or not, the duchies of Sicily and Tunisia make for a nice demesne (with any counties you cannot hold personally granted to a celibate or old guy) due to their proximity to one another, the number of potential holding slots, and the fact that most of the counties there are coastal.

My demesne is the entire duchy of Apulia including baronies I build in it and it'll probably stay that way quite awhile. My big issue with North Africa, which I did invade... Is that it triggered Jihads and then Crusades. Now there's massive holy wars all around me just as I finished some major conquests in North Africa.