Who here has tried playing in the Balkans?

[Olaus Petrus]

One of the reasons I don't like playing as balkan countries in ck2 more recently is that they don't have one of those de jure empires that they've added in that region at all, so I feel like I'd have to take control of byzantium eventually anyways, and if I was going to do that I'd rather play as a greek or georgian family.

Funnily both Serbia and Bulgaria were among the few states who actually created imperial title during the middle ages, but in game neither has earned historical or fantasy empire.

But who forces you to play as emperor? Being king is good enough for me and I rarely aim to create unhistorical empires or to usurp historical ones. I might do that, if I meet the requirements, but only if it amuses me and if I have good reason to do so. Naturally there's some sort of temptation to take at least Greece (including Constantinople) from Byzantium, but I have allowed them to live in Anatolia.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Funnily both Serbia and Bulgaria were among the few states who actually created imperial title during the middle ages, but in game neither has earned historical or fantasy empire.

True, though neither were proper empires really, just regional kingdoms with inflated titles. The same applies to Nicaea and Trebizond, which were small and relatively weak successor states with pretensions to an existing imperial title.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

True, though neither were proper empires really, just regional kingdoms with inflated titles. The same applies to Nicaea and Trebizond, which were small and relatively weak successor states with pretensions to an existing imperial title.

True, but it could be fun if Serbs and Bulgarians could create titular empires. After all it would be cool to adopt the title Emperor of Serbs and Greeks.

 

[Grubnessul]

But wouldn't that be too easy? Most other Empires are quite big and something to strife for.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

True, but it could be fun if Serbs and Bulgarians could create titular empires. After all it would be cool to adopt the title Emperor of Serbs and Greeks.

Generally speaking I agree with Paradox's maxim of being against the idea of titular titles. There are one or two exceptions (the Latin Empire being probably the most notable) but I would not count Serbia or Bulgaria among them, no matter how interesting they were historically. Both were -- as I think we're agreed on this point -- your average feudal kingdoms to all intents and purposes, and their imperial titles simply a way to piss off the Greeks and claim some sort of Roman legitimacy.

They are absolutely fine being represented as kingdoms rather than empires, much in the same way as the Latin crusader states tend to be duchies rather than kingdoms, as well as places like The Isles.

I think the current de jure empires setup is surprisingly good, and I'm glad Paradox didn't give in to popular demand and add something horrible just for the sake of encompassing Poland and Hungary. I'd prefer Rus was still one kingdom rather than two, and I don't like Dacia being part of the Byzantine Empire, but aside from that I generally approve of the vanilla setup; it's a nice mix of balance and realism.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I think the current de jure empires setup is surprisingly good, and I'm glad Paradox didn't give in to popular demand and add something horrible just for the sake of encompassing Poland and Hungary. I'd prefer Rus was still one kingdom rather than two, and I don't like Dacia being part of the Byzantine Empire, but aside from that I generally approve of the vanilla setup; it's a nice mix of balance and realism.

Speaking of that (and slightly off topic), you did object (?) to the Poland-Lithuania I had in a screenshot of my mod-in-development in the modding questions thread - why, in your opinion, would a Poland-Lithuania sort of Empire-tier state be inappropriate (they would still be called kings and not emperors, anyways, but still emipre-tier)? Would it be more appropriate as some difficult-to-form titular title? It's something I want to put in my mod for lulz, but I want to hear your thoughts on it.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Speaking of that (and slightly off topic), you did object (?) to the Poland-Lithuania I had in a screenshot of my mod-in-development in the modding questions thread - why, in your opinion, would a Poland-Lithuania sort of Empire-tier state be inappropriate (they would still be called kings and not emperors, anyways, but still emipre-tier)? Would it be more appropriate as some difficult-to-form titular title? It's something I want to put in my mod for lulz, but I want to hear your thoughts on it.

Would you mind if I answered that question in your mod thread instead? I'll address it alongside your query about the North African culture group.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Would you mind if I answered that question in your mod thread instead? I'll address it alongside your query about the North African culture group.

Yes, please, feel free to. More posts for the thread.

 

[duhsveti]

Balkans is fun as hell.

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/577848272969272862/F35F1B71B3EE33B973D8384C11CBF72FFD8F0386/

 

[A_Dane]

I've tried to get games going several times as one of the Cometopuli, none of them succesful.

The emperor always seems to hate me, and whenever I manage to get close to forming Bulgaria, he starts taking away all my titles... My initial attempts focused upon staying Bulgarian, but later attempts i even went greek, to no avail.

Did have one attempt where I succesfully created and escaped the empire, but that ended rather quickly after that. (The Byzantines got swallowed whole by the Fatimids, who then attacked me, they were in turn joined by the pechenegs and Cumans.

After that I flew into a fit of rage and nerfed the Fatimids to the crown, and also removed most of the balkans from the de jure territory of the Byzantine Empire.

I've had more luck with the Croatians or Serbians, but generally I didn't find the area enjoyable at all until I nerfed the big guys... I like a challenge, but being swallowed by some monster before 1120 every game is a bit annoying in the long run.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

I had some fun games as Bulgaris in 1187.

 

[WanderingKnight]

I played so far 6 full games (400 years or so stretch), of those 3 on Balkan, 2 with Serbian Dynasty and 1 Bulgarian (so far).

Starting date usually 1066 or close to that year.

I almost always made my own ruler at the beginning with my own Dynasty name and CoA, and always start as a count.

Here is shortly as example one of my game (take it as mini Story, as ones that you have in separate treads for any PI game.

This was my character (made at ruler designer) on day one:

 

[WanderingKnight]

Since I started as Hungarian vassal at the very beginning I conquered few surrounding Hungarian vassals to make me a prince of Temes and when the moment was right I declare independence. Than I conquered Duklia and part of Rashka and made Kingdom of Serbia. After that it was just a game of a balance for me, to keep up my dynasty healthy and stronger and, to play careful with Byzzies and Holly Romans and latter on with Golden Horde.
It did ended at 1414 or so.
This is the last Vlastimirovic:

 

[WanderingKnight]

End Scene :




edit:
never mind, small error

 

[WanderingKnight]

And here are all of my rulers from first to last in the game:




Some of them were very serious mass murderers and few unusual character including one Queen.

 

[nyah]

I had a fun game which I started as the count of Rama, which is a Croatian vassal. I was lucky enough to be granted the Duchy of Bosnia by the king early on, but wasn't really able to expand into Croatia because everybody else was too large. I then continued by taking a couple of counties from the independent Duchy to the East (I forget the name, begins with a D??). Eventually a new Croatian king came along who wanted the revoke a county from me, and I managed to fend him off once and then swore fealty to Byzantium. This gave me freedom to expand within the ERE, which I did so reasonably quickly, conquering enough land to enable me to create the kingdom of Serbia. I also changed my culture to Serbian fairly early on, and made sure my vassals were all Serbian culture.

I then expanded across the Adriatic into Sicily using Holy Wars on the Muslims and de-jure claims on the Christians. Eventually through marriage I managed to get myself on the thrones of Croatia, Hungary and Poland and so ruled a kingdom that stretched from Malta to the Baltic. This continued for some time dealing with rebellions when I had poor rulers, and expansion to the East into Cuman held Russia. I also took Jerusalem and Andalusia through Crusades, and played around with some intrigue in the HRE and ERE, but wasn't really interested in taking those crowns for myself.

All with gavelkind throughout too, and no making my sons bishops or assassinating them, just persuading them to give back the land they inherited.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

Generally speaking I agree with Paradox's maxim of being against the idea of titular titles. There are one or two exceptions (the Latin Empire being probably the most notable) but I would not count Serbia or Bulgaria among them, no matter how interesting they were historically. Both were -- as I think we're agreed on this point -- your average feudal kingdoms to all intents and purposes, and their imperial titles simply a way to piss off the Greeks and claim some sort of Roman legitimacy.

They are absolutely fine being represented as kingdoms rather than empires, much in the same way as the Latin crusader states tend to be duchies rather than kingdoms, as well as places like The Isles.

I think the current de jure empires setup is surprisingly good, and I'm glad Paradox didn't give in to popular demand and add something horrible just for the sake of encompassing Poland and Hungary. I'd prefer Rus was still one kingdom rather than two, and I don't like Dacia being part of the Byzantine Empire, but aside from that I generally approve of the vanilla setup; it's a nice mix of balance and realism.

To be honest if I could I would trade all the fantasy empires of CKII to Empire of Trebizond, Empire of Nicaea, Empire of Serbia and Empire of Bulgaria (either de jure or titular). But I believe I'm in minority.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

To be honest if I could I would trade all the fantasy empires of CKII to Empire of Trebizond, Empire of Nicaea, Empire of Serbia and Empire of Bulgaria (either de jure or titular). But I believe I'm in minority.

And have the Byzantine Empire as titular?

 

[Grubnessul]

To be honest if I could I would trade all the fantasy empires of CKII to Empire of Trebizond, Empire of Nicaea, Empire of Serbia and Empire of Bulgaria (either de jure or titular). But I believe I'm in minority.

Problem is there is little challenge in creating those titles... An Empire of Trebizond/Nicaea/other surviving Byzantine Doux as titular claim of continuing the Empire would be neat, though.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

And have the Byzantine Empire as titular?

In my ideal system there would be only one imperial title in the Catholic world (excluding Latin Empire), but that imperial title could shift in similar manner like imperial title moved between different successor states of the Carolingian Empire. Making it shift from one realm to another would require undermining the power of Holy Roman Empire (especially in Italy), close friendship with Papacy and some kind of legitimate claim to imperial title.

However in my ideal system it would be possible to make Byzantine Empire to collapse into smaller empires if Constantinople is taken. Each holding their own imperial or despotic government and restoring the Byzantine Empire would require reconquest of Constantinople. And Bulgaria and Serbia should be able to create their own tsardoms, which are imperial mostly in name.