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Behold the Tocharian Empire of Turan!
Charlemagne start, all main DLC (except Sunset Invasion), no mods.
Started as a two-provinces Tocharian Buddhist Count, I swore fealty to the Kashgar (later Kasake) Duchy, then I got promoted to Duke after the previous one died in an "accident".
Then I conquered the Khotan Duchy and got enough provinces to form the Khotan Kingdom (or Ytarimypoy, as called by Tocharians). Meanwhile I became a Chinese Tributary, which helped me to at least not being attacked by China and earning Grace for Strategists and Engineers (and some Imperial Marriages)
I waged war to the nomads to get territories from Transoxania and Zhetysu (having many daughters to marry, even if they were bastards, helped a lot for making alliance with other kingdoms). I also used the Grace I stocked to call a few Chinese Invasions to destroy Tibet, which became too dangerous for my plans.
Then when I finally formed the empire, almost all my neighbors converted to Hindu, making impossible for me to call Holy War CBs. So, due to Khotan being a Bon holy site, I converted to Bon and reformed it around 1200 AD, reviving a religion which in game was pratically annihilated at that point. I also stopped to be a Chinese tributary and after a few GHW I conquered many territories from the Indian region.
I also created two level 4 Great Works (Fortress and University), two level 3 GW (Library and Garden) and other two level 2 GW (Royal Palace and Undergroud City)
Charlemagne start, all main DLC (except Sunset Invasion), no mods.
Started as a two-provinces Tocharian Buddhist Count, I swore fealty to the Kashgar (later Kasake) Duchy, then I got promoted to Duke after the previous one died in an "accident".
Then I conquered the Khotan Duchy and got enough provinces to form the Khotan Kingdom (or Ytarimypoy, as called by Tocharians). Meanwhile I became a Chinese Tributary, which helped me to at least not being attacked by China and earning Grace for Strategists and Engineers (and some Imperial Marriages)
I waged war to the nomads to get territories from Transoxania and Zhetysu (having many daughters to marry, even if they were bastards, helped a lot for making alliance with other kingdoms). I also used the Grace I stocked to call a few Chinese Invasions to destroy Tibet, which became too dangerous for my plans.
Then when I finally formed the empire, almost all my neighbors converted to Hindu, making impossible for me to call Holy War CBs. So, due to Khotan being a Bon holy site, I converted to Bon and reformed it around 1200 AD, reviving a religion which in game was pratically annihilated at that point. I also stopped to be a Chinese tributary and after a few GHW I conquered many territories from the Indian region.
I also created two level 4 Great Works (Fortress and University), two level 3 GW (Library and Garden) and other two level 2 GW (Royal Palace and Undergroud City)
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I chose Astrology for joining the Hermetics and Harmonious for the heir designation
Dat Croatia
Somehow Sweden got the Kingdom of Croatia title, and a few kings later, it ended far away from Croatia.
I love when Paradox games screw not only the history but also geography.
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Went for the White Hun achievement. I may have gone a little overboard...
Had to fight china to get the last few counties, which delayed everything by at least a century lol. Last time I went for this achievement I was too late and the mongols subjugated my entire empire in one war because apparently they can do that.
Meanwhile in Europe...idek man
Had to fight china to get the last few counties, which delayed everything by at least a century lol. Last time I went for this achievement I was too late and the mongols subjugated my entire empire in one war because apparently they can do that.
Meanwhile in Europe...idek man
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Final map of a CK2 MP game I ran for over a year with some friends. Can you spot the humans players ? Hint: we were 4.
Not gonna enter into details because this game was crazy enough (Madrid is currently a Khazar Tengri province, Benevento is Khazar although those adopted Orthodoxy - yeah weird things happened).
Run down of the most important stuff:
- we were originally 5. The 5th player started as the Duke of Flanders, but was too busy and left after a couple sessions. But he still had the time to plunge the Frankish Empire in severe turmoil by chain murdering his liege (including, yes, Charlemagne). Didn't contribute to make France a stable realm and left it open to invasions by the Muslims, and later, by the Vikings and Saxons.
- one player went away for a while (he went to Japan for an internship, so it was pretty much impossible to schedule sessions with him). He started as the Duchess of Kiev, and did have enough time to reform the Slavic faith before having to give up. That left the Slavic religion as a major religion in this world, albeit after the loss of much of their Northern lands to Vikings and Finland their main stronghold is the Empire of Carpathia, as well as the kingdom of Poland, the Warriors of Perun and the Khaganate of Somogy.
- said player came back much later on, but he gave up on the Slavs and instead decided to play as England, a Reformed Germanic Norse kingdom (the AI reformed the Germanic faith by itself). He went on to form the Empire of Britannia, and he has some pretty OP vassals who are busy conquering the world.
- another player started in Scotland, with the aim of establishing a powerful Scottish kingdom. But the Vikings disagreed, launching wave after wave of planned invasions against him. With other realms monopolizing the holy orders, he had troubles defending himself and it was pretty clear it was a very unfun game for him. He tried making his branch of the dynasty die off so another branch, which had converted to the Germanic religion, could take over, but it failed and he had a game over.
- after his game over he decided to restart as the French, Reformed Germanic count of Champagne, and well you can see the result on the map, with a twist - he secretly converted to the Cathar religion, and once he was strong enough openly revealed his true faith. Catharism became the mainstream branch because Catholicism was pretty much restricted to the Papacy by that point, and much of France is Cathar.
- the 3rd player is easy to spot. It's of course Suomi, who reformed his Finnish paganism and became the head of his religion. He's very big, but much of it came from an invasion of Sweden. Sweden had been a major power until that point (reforming the Germanic religion and conquering vasts swaths of land), but the Swedish king had only one kingdom title, so when Finland invaded the kingdom of Sweden he vassalized all of Sweden's lands.
- and then, myself is fairly easy to spot too. Started as the Daufingi count of Salerno - or Lukania as the Greeks would have it. Catholic Lombard, became Italian and converted to Orthodoxy after joining the Byzantine Empire. Slowly united Sicily, then lcuky inheritances granted me the kingdom of Sardinia (which also had lands in Dalmatia and Carinthia), then the kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia too. Joined an independence faction (directed by a Confucian Han who somehow had become Duke of Achaia). The Emperor wouldn't hear the voice of reason and so we had a civil war, but fortunately my side's AI was clever enough to make our superior numbers count. Then I lazily expanded in Italy and mostly in Northern Africa (with an eye on Egypt as next target). Main pride right now is having converted the huge empire of Kanem-Bornu to Christianity thanks to missionaries.
Run down of the most important stuff:
- we were originally 5. The 5th player started as the Duke of Flanders, but was too busy and left after a couple sessions. But he still had the time to plunge the Frankish Empire in severe turmoil by chain murdering his liege (including, yes, Charlemagne). Didn't contribute to make France a stable realm and left it open to invasions by the Muslims, and later, by the Vikings and Saxons.
- one player went away for a while (he went to Japan for an internship, so it was pretty much impossible to schedule sessions with him). He started as the Duchess of Kiev, and did have enough time to reform the Slavic faith before having to give up. That left the Slavic religion as a major religion in this world, albeit after the loss of much of their Northern lands to Vikings and Finland their main stronghold is the Empire of Carpathia, as well as the kingdom of Poland, the Warriors of Perun and the Khaganate of Somogy.
- said player came back much later on, but he gave up on the Slavs and instead decided to play as England, a Reformed Germanic Norse kingdom (the AI reformed the Germanic faith by itself). He went on to form the Empire of Britannia, and he has some pretty OP vassals who are busy conquering the world.
- another player started in Scotland, with the aim of establishing a powerful Scottish kingdom. But the Vikings disagreed, launching wave after wave of planned invasions against him. With other realms monopolizing the holy orders, he had troubles defending himself and it was pretty clear it was a very unfun game for him. He tried making his branch of the dynasty die off so another branch, which had converted to the Germanic religion, could take over, but it failed and he had a game over.
- after his game over he decided to restart as the French, Reformed Germanic count of Champagne, and well you can see the result on the map, with a twist - he secretly converted to the Cathar religion, and once he was strong enough openly revealed his true faith. Catharism became the mainstream branch because Catholicism was pretty much restricted to the Papacy by that point, and much of France is Cathar.
- the 3rd player is easy to spot. It's of course Suomi, who reformed his Finnish paganism and became the head of his religion. He's very big, but much of it came from an invasion of Sweden. Sweden had been a major power until that point (reforming the Germanic religion and conquering vasts swaths of land), but the Swedish king had only one kingdom title, so when Finland invaded the kingdom of Sweden he vassalized all of Sweden's lands.
- and then, myself is fairly easy to spot too. Started as the Daufingi count of Salerno - or Lukania as the Greeks would have it. Catholic Lombard, became Italian and converted to Orthodoxy after joining the Byzantine Empire. Slowly united Sicily, then lcuky inheritances granted me the kingdom of Sardinia (which also had lands in Dalmatia and Carinthia), then the kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia too. Joined an independence faction (directed by a Confucian Han who somehow had become Duke of Achaia). The Emperor wouldn't hear the voice of reason and so we had a civil war, but fortunately my side's AI was clever enough to make our superior numbers count. Then I lazily expanded in Italy and mostly in Northern Africa (with an eye on Egypt as next target). Main pride right now is having converted the huge empire of Kanem-Bornu to Christianity thanks to missionaries.
At this point huge defensive pacts make any war a hassle for all of us, and turn the game into a waiting one. On top of that, we've all achieved what we wanted to achieve, with level 3 or 4 great works and no threat whatsoever remaining. Plus, we have a new player interested in joining, so we've decided to stop this game here and we'll start a new one. MP CK2 is definitely fun though
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I really can't believe you conquered all of that in less than 100 years starting as a duke without cheats AND without your vassals doing some conquering of their own.
I am grateful you ask, will write up a proper AAR in time, and can assure you this is a vanilla Ironman game.
The only setting put to easy is shattered retreat (which is turned off, I generally do so).
Here a teaser of the achievements of Ioustinos, Basileus of Makedon, Shahanshah of Persia, Lord of the Steppe and Despot of all of India.
His exploits mimic those of Alexander the Great himself! Except for dying of poor health age 33.
Now excuse me, I have to invade the Caliphate for Jerusalem and what's left of Syria and Arabia before pressing his claim on the ERE and reforming Rome, while preparing the next feast for the Wolf Warriors he's now part of while being stricly vegetarian as a Jain.
Zeus Io Vult!
P.S. Beg to differ please I started as Count, 1 county. Thebes 769, if you wonder.
I started as Latin Empire in the Latin Empire start, and when I called it a day it turned out I was on the Hundred Years War start.
You start as a French Catholic interloper with a weaker realm than some neighbours who hate you, but 10k event troops and strong claims on duchies in Thrace, Greece, and bits of Bulgaria. I pursued those, and changed culture to Greek ASAP to get on with the vassals, and before I could change to Orthodox there was a crusade for Egypt.
I managed to win that by getting in early and racking up some score. I placed my spymaster and chancellor to see enemies coming and kept vassal ships offshore to bail when I needed to. Once the other Chrisitans showed, I did some sieging. Then I gave Egypt to my brother because what would I do with Egypt? It's only going to be trouble. He thanked me by plotting to murder me for the rest of his life.
So, I got all the starting claims and the rest of the Kingdom of Thrace before the first ruler died. I also went Orthodox and watched about eight crusades/jihads swing Egypt and Jerusalem back and forth while I stayed out of it. I got Bulgaria and Wallachia pressing vassal claims (including a baron for Bulgaria) with not too much gore.
I went with kingdom viceroys, generally putting in somebody I wouldn't mind as a councillor, and had a very stable time of it. Starting as an Empire does make some things a lot simpler.
After that I picked off Serbia on a vassalisation CB, gradually put Venice back in their box, and nicked duchies off Rum when all the other Muslims were busy.
I generally played strong, stable, low risk. I filled every holding slot in my counties with cities, so the finances are good; and I maxed my castles (except shipyards and cataphract buildings). I usually had as many personal troops as total vassal troops. I didn't raise retinues -- I don't do the single unit flank thing, and I was handling raiders easily enough to not need a rapid reaction force.
At one point I inherited Flanders but granted it independence because, again, trouble.
I mostly avoided alliance entanglements, except once I helped Hungary survive HRE border creep by joining their defence against Bohemia. Strangely, after that, the HRE suddenly wanted to marry my children.
I've decided to call it a day now because I'm stronger than everybody else (but not as strong as a jihad, but Egypt/Jerusalem soak those). From here I'd be looking at picking off a bit more of Venice, and a century or more grinding across Anatolia one duchy HW at a time when the other Muslims are busy. Can't see any point expanding into Crimea, and I like Hungary as a buffer state rather than a vassal.
Hmm, if I'd stayed catholic and converted the Greeks, maybe I could have gotten a crusade for Anatolia...
You start as a French Catholic interloper with a weaker realm than some neighbours who hate you, but 10k event troops and strong claims on duchies in Thrace, Greece, and bits of Bulgaria. I pursued those, and changed culture to Greek ASAP to get on with the vassals, and before I could change to Orthodox there was a crusade for Egypt.
I managed to win that by getting in early and racking up some score. I placed my spymaster and chancellor to see enemies coming and kept vassal ships offshore to bail when I needed to. Once the other Chrisitans showed, I did some sieging. Then I gave Egypt to my brother because what would I do with Egypt? It's only going to be trouble. He thanked me by plotting to murder me for the rest of his life.
So, I got all the starting claims and the rest of the Kingdom of Thrace before the first ruler died. I also went Orthodox and watched about eight crusades/jihads swing Egypt and Jerusalem back and forth while I stayed out of it. I got Bulgaria and Wallachia pressing vassal claims (including a baron for Bulgaria) with not too much gore.
I went with kingdom viceroys, generally putting in somebody I wouldn't mind as a councillor, and had a very stable time of it. Starting as an Empire does make some things a lot simpler.
After that I picked off Serbia on a vassalisation CB, gradually put Venice back in their box, and nicked duchies off Rum when all the other Muslims were busy.
I generally played strong, stable, low risk. I filled every holding slot in my counties with cities, so the finances are good; and I maxed my castles (except shipyards and cataphract buildings). I usually had as many personal troops as total vassal troops. I didn't raise retinues -- I don't do the single unit flank thing, and I was handling raiders easily enough to not need a rapid reaction force.
At one point I inherited Flanders but granted it independence because, again, trouble.
I mostly avoided alliance entanglements, except once I helped Hungary survive HRE border creep by joining their defence against Bohemia. Strangely, after that, the HRE suddenly wanted to marry my children.
I've decided to call it a day now because I'm stronger than everybody else (but not as strong as a jihad, but Egypt/Jerusalem soak those). From here I'd be looking at picking off a bit more of Venice, and a century or more grinding across Anatolia one duchy HW at a time when the other Muslims are busy. Can't see any point expanding into Crimea, and I like Hungary as a buffer state rather than a vassal.
Hmm, if I'd stayed catholic and converted the Greeks, maybe I could have gotten a crusade for Anatolia...
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Ioustinos has returned from India, age 68.
P.S. Digged up a screenshot of his inheritage 54 years ago for better strategic understanding (pun intended)- this is what he started out with.
P.S. Digged up a screenshot of his inheritage 54 years ago for better strategic understanding (pun intended)- this is what he started out with.
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I felt like I had to play this one to the bitter end for the bragging rights. I have the Seven Centuries achievement, but not really, since I got it together with Persistent Survivor for a 876-1453 game. Only now do I feel I have actually deserved it.
So see here my women-ledSoviet Slavic Union:
As you can guess from this second screenshot, I mostly played Dobrava Turovs:
I also, never, ever want to do such a thing again.
So see here my women-led
As you can guess from this second screenshot, I mostly played Dobrava Turovs:
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Amen to that, these large realms are so ridiculous to play
In my defense, I wasn't planning to do any of that upfront.
Final conquest of Ioustinos, 890 AD shortly before his death. Below the territory lost to nomad agitation.
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The Monarch's Journey challenges got me back into the game but I felt like doing my own thing instead.
When I was first learning Crusader Kings 2, I tried a Miaphysite Armenia game and promptly gave up early because I found it too difficult to expand. Now that I've clocked over 1000 hours, I decided to give them another shot. The Armenian Pahlavuni start in 1066 is particularly luck-based since they start out with their titles being contested by the Seljuks (basically you have to cross your fingers and hope the Basileus can squeeze out a stalemate or you're boned) but I've played so much EU4 that I'm used to the idea of losing hours of gameplay over stupid RNG things like that.
This was incidentally one of my first serious games where I played as a vassal for the first few generations, almost got a game-over for a few silly reasons: I married one of the princesses of Hungary then pressed a claim for her to become Queen of Hungary. She then promptly slept with one of her vassal dukes (I had the affair covered up, then had him assassinated) then since our firstborn son was in her court, she fricking matrilineally married him off to some worthless Italian baron's daughter and died. That caused him to inherit Hungary, which nearly gave me a game over since the Emperor of Byzantium forbade him from being my successor (my titles would have left Byzantium and gone to Hungary after all) and my inheritor was going to be the stupid non-dynastic Italian grandson that my son had with the Italian baron's daughter I mentioned earlier. As a 57-year old man I had to aggressively wage a war against my own son to get him knocked down to a count so he'd return to my inheritance line, then I had to murder off all of his non-dynastic children to make sure the inheritance line switched back to the Pahlavuni instead of the random Italian baron line. I'm still positive that the Queen of Hungary must have been deliberately trying to sabotage my inheritance line with her meddling.
Now, I know what you're thinking about the map: "He just waited for the Fourth Crusade to give him independence." In truth I had already become the king of Armenia, Daylam (or 'Hyrcania' in Byzantine cultures), and Egypt, and I broke away on my own a few years before the Fourth Crusade. Amusingly I actually got called in to fight against the Fourth Crusade since one of the Byzantine dukes I had allied with had become Emperor due to an internal war, but the Seljuks were still pretty powerful and I wasn't willing to risk draining out my levies defending Byzantium from the crusaders.
Later on, the game gave me a few lucky breaks: firstly, the Crusader Kingdom of Egypt was set to be inherited by a prince in the HRE. Since the Emperor didn't care about Egypt's line of inheritance, he let me bring Egypt's heir into a matrilineal marriage, hence how I took all of Egypt. As for the religion map: don't ask me how, but the Seljuks got ousted by the Gokdepe dynasty, who have been firmly, unwaveringly Yazidi and maintained a deathgrip on the Sultanate of Persia despite numerous civil wars and independence claims. They're weak enough that I could probably invade them but I'm honestly so impressed by this that I figured I'd just leave them be and see what they'd do.
And a bonus. This was from just after Holy Fury got released. I wanted to see if I could form the Volga-Ural empire and I may have taken most of Russia and Finland while I was at it.
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Above is just after the death of the grandfather of the current character, who was a natural demon child (demon worshippers are disabled). At the age of 16, he had inherited the Kingdom of Frisia and claims on the Holy Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire. He first used the excommunication of the emperor who had been elected over him to gain support for his claim on the Holy Roman Empire, then spend several years biding his time and cleaning up HRE vassals that had gone independent (I believe due to invalidation of an independence war when he succeeded in pressing his claim). Then, when some claim wars over the ERE started, he pressed his own (weak) claim, and conquered the Eastern Roman Empire.
He then spent numerous years campaigning (against more of the vassals-gone-independent and against some muslims in Africa and the Middle-East) until, at the age of 55, after 39 years of rule, he combined the two titles he held into the one true Roman Empire - after all, there was no one left to contest the claim that he was the true successor of the Roman Empire. He then spent the last years of his life conquering Arles and the northern parts of France in the name of Rome's imperial conquest, as well as several holy wars in the area of Poland. Finally, he died at the age of 66 after fifty years of rule, reforming the Roman Empire, which can now call on an army of over 70 000 people, and stretches from the North Sea to Sicily and from Sicily to Little Asia.
And his ambitious, shrewd, strong grandson with great martial ability is anxious to expand the Roman Empire to fill up it's former borders...
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