Interesting Starts for A New CK2+ Player

[Last_legion]

I just downloaded the mod and I am planning to start a new playthrough. I have all the DLC's excluding Horse Lords and I have deactivated Sunset Invasion.

I have experience with playing the game but I am not yet used to the mod. Are there any recommended starts to learn about the new content?

 

[Sir Godwin]

A good starting date would be to start in the Charlamange era, there you will see some of the new interesting things such as a unified christianity under the Chalcedonies faith, as well as how the AI will form empires, it would be best to start as an english duke to get the feel for the changes and working your way up to a king to learn about the new decisions for being kings

 

[TheStrangerOrg]

or 867, there are many interesting historic characters there on the verge of carving out great empires or failing in the attempt.

The norse viking lords, those that invade England, Russia and France. The Saffarids, the Hafsids in Crete, the Paulician Patriarchy, the Agbahlids

 

[Last_legion]

Anyway to try a Messallian start in the game?

 

[zeress]

The millennium bookmark is really interesting iirc. One of my personal favourites.

As for messalians I am unsure, but I will look into it if no one answers before I return from Japan in the next few days.

 

[Azhcristokos]

If you are a masochist, try starting out as the Paulician Patriarch in Asia Minor in...867, I believe it is? Paulicians are now a glorious Christian heresy that functions as a mix of Christianity and paganism and they can raid, crusade, and holy war everyone of a different religion - even other Christians. Also, like the Nordic Fylkir, the patriarchate is considered a hereditary title that can be held by a secular ruler. He starts out as a OPM I think but I've seen an AI PP grow to cover Anatolia and become king-tier...

Edit: Also, if you choose to activate the Shattered World mode and select ancient religions, Messalians start out in full control of Azerbaijan, I think. I always seem them replace the Nestorians as the main branch within a month or two of starting out.

 

[TheStrangerOrg]

they have an interesting history, but historically they were fought by the byzantines and often allied with muslims in the region, while in the game afaik, this doesnt work that way. They do have a friendship with the neighbouring emirate, but often those friends go to war quite quickly.

I've been looking into it, to see if I could get them to cooperate more, but sadly the nature of the game doesnt really allow little dwarfs like this to prosper around qiants such as ERE, as they did sometimes historically.

I had an idea to change this, but i doubt that its possible to mod. I would really like to see it possible that independent counts and dukes can wage war against count and duke vassals of empires and kingdoms of a certain size as long as those realms have low CA or Autonomous Vassals CA. Because right now, those vassals kinda get all the perks, they can conquer at will with the holy war CB, but they can't be attacked in return.

 

[Azhcristokos]

That would be a very interesting solution indeed. I would have no idea how to mod it in, but that would make give you a lot more breathing room.

I think the Paulician Patriarchate that was successful, albeit only temporarily, in my Hungary game did so by allying with the Byzantines. One thing to consider is gaining the Icon Breaker trait by raiding and looting the temples of other nearby Christians. It vastly increases the opinions that Muslims have for you because of your shared hostility towards the use of icons in religious worship. I think the bonus is like 20 or 30 to opinion, actually.

The only time I've played Paulician though was as a superpowered designed ruler of Armenia, because I am not good enough to succeed as a OPM in Anatolia. Cool thing is that if the Patriarchate is not held, you can create it by holding a holy site and having high prestige and piety.

 

[StarDolphin]

Depends what you want to do. I'm playing a Byzantine game right now with the goal to revive the old religion (and doing an AAR on it ). If you want to play reviving old religion, Most western countries are good, and Byz is really good.

Shattered Realm is fun, but if you play super-expansionist you'll basically win right away, since the AI cannot put a realm together fast enough. Still, can be a fun 50 year game or so

If you want to enjoy forging an empire from nothing (which is a bit better than Vanilla, where the empire borders are pretty much defined), pick anything outside the HRE and Byz empires. (probably not the Caliph, I suppose)

If you want to play with the (very cool) faction system, get a count in the HRE or Byz empires and go at it.