I'm looking for a relatively peaceful game (tag ideas)

[Vityviktor]

I'm interested in a state (kingdom of republic, not tribe) relatively big (not a city state) which could be played in a relatively peaceful and forgiving way. I mean, I wouldn't like to see me forced to unleash an "all or nothing" war early in the game in order to neutralize a dangerous potential enemy or acquire some sort of vital land. I'm specially interested in peaceful civ management (building, interacting with pops, etc), of course with the possibility of expansion when I think it's neccesary.

Any ideas?

 

[Ampalemvi]

Some suggestions : Egypt, Maurya, Bactria, Bosporan Kingdom

 

[olivenkranz]

Honestly Carthage is pretty chill.
On second thought, it only was after I took Sicily and Latium in the first ten years of the game ... 1 war.

 

[olivenkranz]

Honestly Carthage is pretty chill.
On second thought, it only was after I took Sicily and Latium in the first ten years of the game ... 1 war.

I've got about 80 years or so remaining and its pretty boring for me atm, so... I got Spain, most of Italy (it'd be too tedious fighting Rome for Vallis Arni) Africa. Could give the save if anyones interested; no mods, Ironman.

 

[Nostalgium]

Anything in Britain, but especially the larger tags (Dobunnia, Brigantia, Icenia, Centica, ... I think it's Durotriga? Cornwall, anyway) are quite relaxed unless you're going for Perfidious Albion. You do a bit of war in the early years - subjugating anyone on that list not you, mostly - and consolidate yourself an area roughly analoguous to England. Then you can take things at your own speed, forming Pritannia as a Tribe, civilizing and building up a centre of civilization of your very own, and push on to form Albion and get one of the best map colours in the game. From there, you can either invade the mainland at your own pace, or do what I did - launch frequent slave raids into France and act like some kind of Antiquity-style aliens - higher beings coming from afar in ships to take away livestock and people to their mysterious home. You're out of the way of major players, got some interesting options once you've consolidated your heartlands, and goals to keep you occupied during the early/mid game.

EDIT: I noticed you asked for "not a tribe", which this obviously doesn't fulfill, but it fulfills all your other criteria. Even the early game wars aren't all-or-nothing, and you can easily get yourself a significant alliance network that deters any conflict not on your terms before even unpausing.

 

[Ixtli613]

Tarim Basin states. Tucked safely into a corner, easy early game and it even feels right to play then as a non-expansionist trade-heavy nation.

 

[Surimi]

It might seem a weird choice, but Judea.

Judea can be an incredibly difficult tag to expand with (hence why Kingdom of David is considered a VH achievement) but if you're willing to grow leisurely it's actually a very safe tag to play because you start as a tributary of the Antigonids. The Antigonids will usually get wrecked pretty hard, but once they do you can just ask Egypt or the Seleucids to become your overlord instead, and once of them is your overlord you are basically safe forever.

Better still, there's an incredibly cool and underused mechanic in Imperator whereby you can steal disloyal provinces from your neighbours. Judea is a perfect country to try this out with, and you can easily steal chunks of Palestine and Syria. Just be careful not to steal too many provinces from your overlord as you don't want them to break your tributary status. That said, if things go horribly wrong and you do get attacked you can often peace out of a lost war by becoming a tributary again without losing any land.

Also, Judaism is OP as hell. You can keep using Moses' omen power to get free province investments and turn Jerusalem into some monster trade hub.

The only thing to beware of is that your overlord will take over any wars you get into, including independence wars, and they will use this to steal your land, so it's important to keep everyone happy.

 

[Vityviktor]

Better still, there's an incredibly cool and underused mechanic in Imperator whereby you can steal disloyal provinces from your neighbours. Judea is a perfect country to try this out with, and you can easily steal chunks of Palestine and Syria. Just be careful not to steal too many provinces from your overlord as you don't want them to break your tributary status. That said, if things go horribly wrong and you do get attacked you can often peace out of a lost war by becoming a tributary again without losing any land.

How??

 

[olivenkranz]

It might seem a weird choice, but Judea.

Judea can be an incredibly difficult tag to expand with (hence why Kingdom of David is considered a VH achievement) but if you're willing to grow leisurely it's actually a very safe tag to play because you start as a tributary of the Antigonids. The Antigonids will usually get wrecked pretty hard, but once they do you can just ask Egypt or the Seleucids to become your overlord instead, and once of them is your overlord you are basically safe forever.

Better still, there's an incredibly cool and underused mechanic in Imperator whereby you can steal disloyal provinces from your neighbours. Judea is a perfect country to try this out with, and you can easily steal chunks of Palestine and Syria. Just be careful not to steal too many provinces from your overlord as you don't want them to break your tributary status. That said, if things go horribly wrong and you do get attacked you can often peace out of a lost war by becoming a tributary again without losing any land.

Also, Judaism is OP as hell. You can keep using Moses' omen power to get free province investments and turn Jerusalem into some monster trade hub.

The only thing to beware of is that your overlord will take over any wars you get into, including independence wars, and they will use this to steal your land, so it's important to keep everyone happy.

Antigonids took Macedon and Thrace, gave Syria, Egypt never joined the fray. What now? That doesnt look like the script... lol

 

[Surimi]

How??

You need to befriend the governor of the province you want and they need to have less than 40 loyalty. Being friends with a foreign ruler gives -5 loyalty and inspiring disloyalty gives another -20, so it's usually not too difficult. You'll get a character interaction called "entice governor" which causes the governor to defect along with any neighbouring provinces they control with less than 50 loyalty. It costs a flat 20AE every time you do this and gives you a big relations hit with the country, and they also get a CB on you, but if you're the ally or tributary of a powerful nation they probably won't ever use it.

Antigonids took Macedon and Thrace, gave Syria, Egypt never joined the fray. What now? That doesnt look like the script... lol

The Antigonid capital is in Syria, and it looks like they still control part of Syria so that probably hasn't changed. This means their lands in Palestine will be under a governor, and probably gradually losing loyalty because they don't like being ruled by Greeks. This means it probably won't be too long before you can steal them (although there's a bit of RNG involved).

There will probably be more Daidochi wars over time, and the situation will change. Hopefully what will happen is that the Seleucids take the rest of Syria, because again Syria is outside their capital region and will probably end up being disloyal (allowing more land stealing).

If Egypt doesn't take Palestine, they could be a good overlord for you later as you won't be able to take much useful land from them anyway (just part of Palestine and Nabatea once they conquer it).

It's a very RNG dependent strategy. I played in a very similar way while doing Tyrian Purple, and it took a bunch of restarts to get the right conditions, but if you're not invested in meeting particular expansion goals it can be a very chill and relaxing way to play, and you just have to exploit the situation and take opportunities as they come.

 

[Abirami aka Pete]

I agree with @olivenkranz that Carthage can be very chill, and gives you the room to focus on pops, characters and cities. of course Rome is going to come for Sicily and Sardinia if you don't neutralize them early on. you don't even need to conquer Rome if that's not part of your game story, you can just make them tributaries or break it up with local italic allies.

an alternative, much smaller in scale, are Carthage's clients like Emporia (and before 2.0, Gymnesia): big enough that you have something to do, generally untouched by major wars.

 

[olivenkranz]

You need to befriend the governor of the province you want and they need to have less than 40 loyalty. Being friends with a foreign ruler gives -5 loyalty and inspiring disloyalty gives another -20, so it's usually not too difficult. You'll get a character interaction called "entice governor" which causes the governor to defect along with any neighbouring provinces they control with less than 50 loyalty. It costs a flat 20AE every time you do this and gives you a big relations hit with the country, and they also get a CB on you, but if you're the ally or tributary of a powerful nation they probably won't ever use it.



The Antigonid capital is in Syria, and it looks like they still control part of Syria so that probably hasn't changed. This means their lands in Palestine will be under a governor, and probably gradually losing loyalty because they don't like being ruled by Greeks. This means it probably won't be too long before you can steal them (although there's a bit of RNG involved).

There will probably be more Daidochi wars over time, and the situation will change. Hopefully what will happen is that the Seleucids take the rest of Syria, because again Syria is outside their capital region and will probably end up being disloyal (allowing more land stealing).

If Egypt doesn't take Palestine, they could be a good overlord for you later as you won't be able to take much useful land from them anyway (just part of Palestine and Nabatea once they conquer it).

It's a very RNG dependent strategy. I played in a very similar way while doing Tyrian Purple, and it took a bunch of restarts to get the right conditions, but if you're not invested in meeting particular expansion goals it can be a very chill and relaxing way to play, and you just have to exploit the situation and take opportunities as they come.

Tyre is the Capital of Demetrios. If the have a territory or two in Syria its not the capital.

 

[Surimi]

Tyre is the Capital of Demetrios. If the have a territory or two in Syria its not the capital.

The map isn't zoomed in enough to tell. Where did the Antigonids capital end up?

As long as it's not in Palestine, you're fine. In fact, if it's not in Syria that's even better as it means you can take Antigonid land in Syria. Edit: I should probably specify that I mean the region of Syria, not the province of Syria.

If for some reason it did end up in Palestine, you'll either have to wait for someone else to conquer that area or restart. In my experience, having the Antigonids do well in the initial wars is extremely rare, they usually get partitioned by Egypt and the Seleucids.

 

[olivenkranz]

The map isn't zoomed in enough to tell. Where did the Antigonids capital end up?

As long as it's not in Palestine, you're fine. In fact, if it's not in Syria that's even better as it means you can take Antigonid land in Syria.

If for some reason it did end up in Palestine, you'll either have to wait for someone else to conquer that area or restart. In my experience, having the Antigonids do well in the initial wars is extremely rare, they usually get partitioned by Egypt and the Seleucids.

Its in Tyre/Tyros

 

[Surimi]

Its in Tyre/Tyros

Cool. That's in the province of South Phoenicia, which is in the region of Syria. Basically, it means that the Antigonid ruler will directly govern any Antigonid provinces in Syria and you can't steal them. But you can still steal Antigonid provinces in the region of Palestine (the region Judea is in) by making the governor there disloyal as described above.

Basically, yeah, don't worry. Wait and see what happens, and if you notice a neighbouring provinces loyalty is getting low consider making friends with the governor because you might be able to take it. Even if you get stuck in a bad situation, being a small nation means you can tech really fast so it's not a complete failure either.

 

[Armfeldt]

So it might not be exactly what you asked for, but I am currently having a blast as Massilia. After some initial small conquests I took my greeks to Britannia where I founded a new republic on its southern shores. The old Mediterranean territories were released in the ancient greek fashion, to govern themselves. Now I'm chilling and focusing on building up a decent economy. If you are speedy you can grab the achievement this way, but you don't need to in order to have a really enjoyable game.

 

[Herennius]

Something similar on my personal "IR bucket list" is a run with a tag with the Piratene heritage, then going out port raiding to get the pops I need to form a small, but prospering urban state (technically Greek and Indian states get ability through their MT trees as well, but it takes quite a time and delays your plans too much, if plan to solely use it for progressing). The heritage condition narrows this to five tags after 2.0 and 3 of them are not suited for a peaceful game and don't met the government form requirement of the OP:

- Massaesylia (settled tribe) will clash inevitably with Carthage
- Frentania (settled tribe) starts out as Roman Feudatory...
- ...while Genuatia (settled tribe) will come into Rome expansion focus soon

This leaves the Democratic respective Plutocratic Republics of Gerrha (located on the eastern side of the Arabian peninsula) or Oponia (Horn of Africa):

- Gerrha starts out bigger, but is somehow squeezed in between Seleukids and Maka, so you might get in trouble and your own potential territorial expansion will result in major wars.
- Oponia starts technically as city state, but you have some uncolonized land around and you can immediately climb a rank by colonization. Getting the entire province under control would only mean taking out the city states of Mosylon and Mundia and if needed you can later expand either along the African coast.

 

[olivenkranz]

Something similar on my personal "IR bucket list" is a run with a tag with the Piratene heritage, then going out port raiding to get the pops I need to form a small, but prospering urban state (technically Greek and Indian states get ability through their MT trees as well, but it takes quite a time and delays your plans too much, if plan to solely use it for progressing). The heritage condition narrows this to five tags after 2.0 and 3 of them are not suited for a peaceful game and don't met the government form requirement of the OP:

- Massaesylia (settled tribe) will clash inevitably with Carthage
- Frentania (settled tribe) starts out as Roman Feudatory...
- ...while Genuatia (settled tribe) will come into Rome expansion focus soon

This leaves the Democratic respective Plutocratic Republics of Gerrha (located on the eastern side of the Arabian peninsula) or Oponia (Horn of Africa):

- Gerrha starts out bigger, but is somehow squeezed in between Seleukids and Maka, so you might get in trouble and your own potential territorial expansion will result in major wars.
- Oponia starts technically as city state, but you have some uncolonized land around and you can immediately climb a rank by colonization. Getting the entire province under control would only mean taking out the city states of Mosylon and Mundia and if needed you can later expand either along the African coast.

Theres an achievemnt as Mosylon "The Spice Must Flow"