I purchased CK3 when it first came out, but have never had the time to play it. Thankfully I came down with Covid last week, so had the week off. I figured it was as good a time as any to jump into it. All of the suggested starting characters seemed uninteresting, so I started as a Norseman from Sjaelland and made it my goal to establish the empire of Denmark.
My first task was to start the dynasty breeding program, because what's better than awesome heirs, right? With the new features in CK3 this was surprisingly easy. By 950 , virtually every member of my house was a Beautiful, Herculean Genius. Who knew eugenics would be so easy? But wait! by 1000 AD I spotted the giant trait! I absolutely had to breed that into my bloodline! However, it seems that the giant trait is much more recessive than the other ones, because even pairing two giants from dynasties boosted by the Blood legacies, it was rare to have a giant child. The only solution to this was to have a heck of a lot of children. Finally after 500 years of breeding, I was able to foster a giant child that was able to inherit the Empire. The results were well worth the wait:
Note how hard it is to foster giant children (giants circled in red). This is after two giant wives and a handful of giant concubines. It's a tough trait to breed for.
A secondary goal was to improve and expand the Norse culture. This turned out less well, as it seems the Norse are stubbornly resistant to development. Despite consistent efforts to improve holdings and building throughout Norse lands, frequent epidemics and the lack of neighbor bonuses seems to have kept Scandinavia in the dark ages. To improve the Norse development average, I instead converted some of the most developed places in the world to Norse culture.
Development levels are the end of the game:
A lot of effort was put into civilizing the north Asian tribes, but as you can see, we made little progress. The barbarian decedents of horde preferred to live in squalor.
Norse cultural exclaves:
As it is, the Norse culture maxed out their Innovations well before the end of the game, so in retrospect this wasn't necessary, but it was an interesting challenge.
A third goal was to establish and expand the Empire of Denmark. This turned out to be a lot easier than expected. Eventually the Empire of Denmark name just didn't fit anymore and it was rebranded as the Empire of Europe. By the end of the game the Imperial De Jure territory truly covered the majority of Europe:
While it wasn't a goal initially, at some point it occurred to the Emperor, that it might be possible to conquer the known world. Sometime around 1100 AD, then Emperor Saemundr made it a house goal to own the world within a few generations. While this didn't quite pan out (several counties were still in depended by 1453, house Klem and the Empire of Europe came very close to world domination:
The main impediment to world conquest wasn't so much enemy troops, but the inability to muster our own troops when and where they were needed. All my siege machines seemed to gravitate to a single Rally point, making it very hard to fight the 10 or so wars at a time that was common during this expansion phase. It turns out our ancient Longship innovation was key here though, as we were able to quickly move troops far up enemy rivers.
While we tried to spread our religion along with our conquests, there we were less successful. Given another 100 years or so maybe we could have united the known world under a single religion, avoiding those pesky crusades in the future:
All in all, by 1453, our military and economic might was unmatched, and frankly, unmanageable:
The final Emperor was a marvel of eugenics:
And so ended the Legendary house of Klem!
(My first CK AAR, so not sure if this follows the format or not, but this was an enjoyable game and thought I'd share)
My first task was to start the dynasty breeding program, because what's better than awesome heirs, right? With the new features in CK3 this was surprisingly easy. By 950 , virtually every member of my house was a Beautiful, Herculean Genius. Who knew eugenics would be so easy? But wait! by 1000 AD I spotted the giant trait! I absolutely had to breed that into my bloodline! However, it seems that the giant trait is much more recessive than the other ones, because even pairing two giants from dynasties boosted by the Blood legacies, it was rare to have a giant child. The only solution to this was to have a heck of a lot of children. Finally after 500 years of breeding, I was able to foster a giant child that was able to inherit the Empire. The results were well worth the wait:
Note how hard it is to foster giant children (giants circled in red). This is after two giant wives and a handful of giant concubines. It's a tough trait to breed for.
A secondary goal was to improve and expand the Norse culture. This turned out less well, as it seems the Norse are stubbornly resistant to development. Despite consistent efforts to improve holdings and building throughout Norse lands, frequent epidemics and the lack of neighbor bonuses seems to have kept Scandinavia in the dark ages. To improve the Norse development average, I instead converted some of the most developed places in the world to Norse culture.
Development levels are the end of the game:
A lot of effort was put into civilizing the north Asian tribes, but as you can see, we made little progress. The barbarian decedents of horde preferred to live in squalor.
Norse cultural exclaves:
As it is, the Norse culture maxed out their Innovations well before the end of the game, so in retrospect this wasn't necessary, but it was an interesting challenge.
A third goal was to establish and expand the Empire of Denmark. This turned out to be a lot easier than expected. Eventually the Empire of Denmark name just didn't fit anymore and it was rebranded as the Empire of Europe. By the end of the game the Imperial De Jure territory truly covered the majority of Europe:
While it wasn't a goal initially, at some point it occurred to the Emperor, that it might be possible to conquer the known world. Sometime around 1100 AD, then Emperor Saemundr made it a house goal to own the world within a few generations. While this didn't quite pan out (several counties were still in depended by 1453, house Klem and the Empire of Europe came very close to world domination:
The main impediment to world conquest wasn't so much enemy troops, but the inability to muster our own troops when and where they were needed. All my siege machines seemed to gravitate to a single Rally point, making it very hard to fight the 10 or so wars at a time that was common during this expansion phase. It turns out our ancient Longship innovation was key here though, as we were able to quickly move troops far up enemy rivers.
While we tried to spread our religion along with our conquests, there we were less successful. Given another 100 years or so maybe we could have united the known world under a single religion, avoiding those pesky crusades in the future:
All in all, by 1453, our military and economic might was unmatched, and frankly, unmanageable:
The final Emperor was a marvel of eugenics:
And so ended the Legendary house of Klem!
(My first CK AAR, so not sure if this follows the format or not, but this was an enjoyable game and thought I'd share)
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