Stage 1- Picking a start.
The first question in a WC game is always going to be: where do you start? Conventional wisdom says to pick the Magyars, or some other overpowered pagan. We're not going conventional here, however, not by a long shot. Instead we're going to start off with the Christian Karlings.
The Karlings are the successors of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great. As such, their dynasty hold a very impressive stretch of land encompassing most of central and western Europe. The only close competitor for this is the Abbasid Sultan in Middle East, but he has a host of problems which make him unsuitable for this. If you do regular WCs, then you would know the experience of conquering their lands from the outside as an invader. As you would expect, it's fairly difficult and time consuming. This is because, as anybody who attacked the Karlings knows, they are all allied to each other due to being close family. But, that very same dynastic bond also gives you a weakness to exploit. What if instead of attacking from the outside, you absorb them from the inside, using inheritance? Then you can start talking. Now, normally, they still wouldn't be the best choice due to being stuck as Christians (Christian are absolutely horrendous for world conquest). But due to recent changes, this is no longer a problem. Now in my opinion, the Karlings are now the most powerful start, no matter what your end goal is.
Stage 2- Unifying the Karling realms.
The Karling realm is mighty, but it is not unified. It is divided into six.
We shall need a plan of action, a clever and calculated starting point. I actually experimented a bunch with Karling inheritance, and found the best start is as either West Francia or Aquitaine (they're basically interchangeable). We are going to start as this fellow, Charles of West Francia.
As well as a start point, I believe we need an end point. For this end point, I want to become someone else. i want to end up as this fellow, the son of the King of Bavaria, Prince Arnulf.
There is a reason I picked him, which will only really become clear later on. But for now, let's put all this inheritance stuff aside and begin the game. First, we need to do some starting prep. Starting as Charles, we are going to bolster our council.
I searched through the character finder and found this beautiful, beautiful man pictured above. Note the 25 intrigue. He's currently for working for one of my vassals, but I want him on my council. I don't have enough diplomacy to invite him, so I'll need to find some other way. I could always marry him to a courtier and then invite him by proxy, but in addition to being unreliable, that is awfully
slow. I need to do it much faster. For example, within a single day.
Yes, he is now MINE. FOREVER. As you see, I imprison and banished one of my barons in Paris, and gave the holding to this super-spymaster. Now no matter what happens, as long as I control Paris he's going to be my pawn. Unlanded courtiers can randomly escape or disappear, but not so for barons. And unlike counts, barons will never join a faction or attack you on their own volition. This imprisonment and banishment worked pretty well and is coming in pretty useful, no? A wise man once thought: how about we kick it up a notch, say, remove every single vassal? That strategy actually has name, known as North Korea mode (NK mode). In the past it could be used to raise massive amounts of levies and make the game trivial, but has since has been changed to cripple your levy count. But honestly, I don't care about that. I never even used levies in the first place. We're going to use NK-mode, and now I'm gonna start imprisoning all my vassal dukes and counts. I'm gonna maximize my imprisonment chances using this guy:
Now at first this doesn't seem practical, as a councilor is stuck at a province once he's assigned to it. However, you can get around that by firing and rehiring him. He's going to hate you for it, but who cares about that? Everybody is going to hate our guts anyway because of NK mode. This will continue fine and dandy as long as none of the arrests fail. That will make the vassal declare war on you, and defeating it in a war would take precious time. In fact, it's such a waste of time that I am making an oath now that I will never fight a war over a failed arrest any time soon.
Oh no, one of our arrests has failed (as expected in ironman mode). This indeed, is a dreadful situation. Well, since I can't fight him, there is only one way out of it.
We're going to have to surrender in face of this insurmountable threat. I'm sorry I failed you, Charles. I think this is the end for you.
One day before the day of judgement, I begin thinking. Surely, I can't sit by and do nothing. Charles may be done for, but the rest of his family will live on. I must do what is best for the Karlings! I'll begin by committing what might called "insurance fraud" on the Jews. Taking a loan and then kicking them out (300+200=500 gold).
Now the family will inherit some money. But you know what, I don't like his younger son, Carloman. You don't want him to inherit anything. There must be a way to disqualify him from succession. Well, perhaps I could give him a church career or something, but I only have one day left! I need something fast and painless.
Now that might appear cruel, but I swear it was the only choice! It was necessary to secure the inheritance and prevent gavelkind from splitting it up. With this, the mighty Charles falls. Now let's resume the game and assess the damage.
Ah, that doesn't actually look too bad. Our brother, Louis, inherited the realm, therefore doubling its size. But how much did it cost? Well, in time investment, it cost 7 days. In money... we gained about 600 gold. But was that one-time lump sum worth all this trouble?
Oh wait, it's not one-time at all. In fact we lost nothing by doing all these shenanigans besides dynastic score, and this is beginning to look mighty exploitable. Ah, it is indeed exploitable. Now, my friends, you can see the pieces clicking into place.
