A Small Beginning
It all started long ago when Rurik of the Rus and his band of men decided to take their destiny into their own hands and venture forth into Eastern Europe. This was my first Crusader Kings III game. To give me a bit of focus and a goal I decided to see if I could keep the Rus Germanic pagans and remain Germanic rather than assimilating with the Slavic people of the area.
Crusader Kings III is a super deep game. In the beginning I was just clicking around and seeing what everything did. I started expanding and just getting a feel for things. I formed the Kingdom of Gardariki and was slowly consolidating my power. I still wasn't really sure what was going on and the next war proved that I wasn't prepared. A random leader near me declared war on me. Despite having more troops, I lost. I was once more a mere Jarl.
She didn't last long. Something happened to her. I guess no one will ever know what really happened.
This would start a trend in this play through. Murder, lots of murder. I mean, why go to war and fight people when murdering them is just so much easier.
I created the Kingdom of the Rus because I wanted to create my own kingdom to make my mark on history. It seems our family is already making a mark on the world. Gardariki has changed hands a lot. When the non Rurikid Queen Anastasia “died” my great-grandfather’s son (who was still alive at this time) inherited the Kingdom of Gardariki while I held the Kingdom of the Rus.
I did a lot of scheming trying to get it back by skull duggery but they were very powerful and I had other targets for my soldiers to take over. At least it was still in the family.
Joining the Kingdom of Sweden
Seeing as it was my first game and I kept being attacked I decided it would be nice to be part of a larger group because I was getting attacked from all over and Gardariki was so big and I couldn’t really do anything about it. So I went to the King of Sweden and asked him if he would like to incorporate my land into Sweden. He accepted and without realising it this would be the first step towards our future. My liege, noticing my prowess in battle and my prestigious name, invited me to join his council. This gave me ideas, ambitious ideas. I started a Claim Throne scheme. I mean, why not, Sweden was getting large and it would be possible to unite all of Scandanavia and Eastern Europe under the Norse. I was the most powerful noble in Sweden and all the councillors respected my authority. Everyone knew I was the real power behind the throne. Might as well make it official.
I don’t understand succession law. I successfully took the title but it just applied to my personal holdings in Eastern Europe. When I swore fealty to the King of Sweden he gained my Kingdom of Rus title. So we have effectively swapped titles. I really did not see that coming. What the hell am I going to do now? How will we unite all of Scanadanavia?
Maybe the gods were punishing me for my hubris. My wife and I were both afflicted with the Great Pox. Maybe the way to deal with this is just to marry far and wide and hope that I get into the line of succession in lots of places. We can salvage this situation. Nevermind, it turns out that the AI really likes giving land to the holder of the de jure title. I joined the Rus Empire which had been created to bring together all the different Norse kingdoms. It was called Rus because the geographical Swedes had the Kingdom of Rus title despite not being Rus and I had the Kingdom of Sweden title despite not being Swedish. These things happen. Very soon after I joined, the Emperor was like “You’re the King of Sweden, so you should govern Sweden” and I got what I always wanted.
The Norse thrived under the Empire. We had a lot of land. We had 4 Kingdoms within our control. Things have gone from a time where I joined Sweden because I was scared of getting wiped out to now where I am part of a massive Empire. Things are looking good. My family has over 100 members. Maybe its time to get a leg up. Maybe its time to take the Empire for myself.
The Rus Empire at the height of its power
A distant relative of mine (named Skuli) was in line to inherit the Empire (after a few bribes to vote for him were given out). It was time to take destiny into our own hands. It’s murdering time! Wait, what is that sense of forboding I feel? Its probably nothing
Turns out Emperor Baldr was actually a good leader and built up the Empire. Skuli and his descendants were not that good at running a realm and over time constituent Kingdoms fought for independence and won. Skuli and his descendants often asked for my help but I didn’t really see much sense in it and eventually I fought for independence too. Once I had my independence, the once great Empire had one county left and it was easy to take it.
I am sorry Emperor Baldr. We will never know what history would have been like had you stayed but I am sure you would have done a better job. I will reform the Empire one day and bring glory to the Norse. Killing Emperor Baldr was the only time I honestly felt bad for killing someone. I got too power hungry and paid the price. The realm was in splinters and it would take time to reforge.
The Gods Smile Upon Us
Odin be praised! Our gods smile upon us! The Asatru are powerful in our lands. We will bring the glory of the Asatru to all of Europe. Let us just check how far it has spread. There is this weird Middle Eastern religion in Scandanavia. Cat-holic? They like cats? It started in the Middle East somewhere, I am told. And then Europe started embracing it. It is centred in Italy and its spreading. These heathens need to be removed from Scandanavia, especially because they hold the sacred county of Uppland. It’s time to spread Asatru and capture all the Asatru Holy Sites we can. The county of Kiev is holy to our people but we might need to fight some distance to take it.
Let’s first get these Greeks out of Scandanavia.
I might have a lot of land but I don’t have a lot of men, and the heathens hold a part of Sweden that should be owned by the Norse. Maybe we can collect allies. Finland is Asatru and so is Norway. So we might be able to do it.
Why did I do this? I have no hope of winning. But Norse never surrender. I thought maybe I could hold the land for long enough and the Byzantines would be too busy elsewhere, but I wasn’t so lucky. We have no hope in hell of winning this the normal way. We need psychological warfare. What if enemy generals just die in their sleep, or just strangely go missing. Imagine planning a campaign for months and then the general is suddenly gone. All his stuff is still there but the person themselves? Gone. Never seen again. And if it keeps happening? That would be pretty disheartening. So I went down the full Schemer path. You can Fabricate Hooks, have two Hostile Schemes and all your schemes are more powerful. Ok, killing the generals is cool, but what if we try to kill an Emperor?
Let’s Fabricate Hooks on some prominent Greeks and then pressure them into helping me kill the Emperor.
Hmm. Some soldiers deserted after their Emperor died. Its time to put this murdering thing into high gear. Let’s kill some generals!
And we did it! When the generals died their forces dispersed
A moment of silence for all the Greek generals that had to die for our victory
Honestly, I didn't think it was possible
Ok, time to unite Sweden and get all the holy sites so we can finally reform the faith. Roughly a hundred years after we kicked the Greeks out of Scandanavia Sweden is looking much better
We haven’t taken every county in Sweden but we are getting there. Sadly those damn cat-holics have taken some land in Scandanavia and it will take a lot of effort to unseat them. At least we have Uppland back and we have Thrandheimr which give us 2 holy sites. We have lost all our ancestral Eastern European land but we will get it back. For now we need to keep expanding and consolidating Sweden so we don’t get pushed around anymore.
To reform the faith we need one more holy site and there is one just across the sea from us, in York.
Anyways, those damn non believers have been a thorn in my side. The last 100 years have been really good for the Norse people. Thanks to our people’s tireless work we were able to successfully unite Sweden and even invade England and take control of York. The time has come
In 1282 AD, Asatru became an organised faith
The gods did not bless Hunthjofr with good looks, but he was exalted among men, the most pious, the anointed.
He was a very learned man and he was well known in Scandanavia as the most pious of the Norse. He organised all the adherents of the Norse into an organised religion. Now the Norse were united and their religion was stronger than ever. Hunthjofr went to Valhalla at the ripe old age of 84 and was the longest reigning Swedish monarch ever.
The Norse Shall Rise
While all that religious stuff was going on the Kingdom of Finland imploded for some reason and the land was inherited by one of my vassals so my land doubled in size overnight.
We will continue to build up. Nothing can stop us now. Once we got big enough it was time to reforge the Empire that would make the earth tremble and make history remember the name Rurikid. Also, I made my own religion called Odinite just to cement my dynasty’s mark on history. Any proper religion needs a holy war. So I called all faithful Norse to join me and attack the non believers to our south.
As the feudal area draws to close the Scandanavians have been united in a glorious empire that has almost all of Scandanavia, Finland and Eastern Europe.
I made another Norse faith just for fun. It was fun to see so many Norse faiths on the map.
We brought the Norse culture far and wide
We played all the way from 867 to 1453. Our dynasty reached Glorious and our dynasty had 26 houses.
All in all it was a very enjoyable campaign. I played it at a slower game speed so I could really take my time and see what was happening. Not knowing the game and being forced to try things and not knowing what would work actually made it a lot more exciting. The Byzantine Greek murder fest was very unexpected but very funny. I like that the game allows you to do things like that. It wasn't easy or something you can use anytime. It's just that the AI was super intent on keeping that single county and they didn't have anyone to help them. And I had to have every single schemer perk otherwise it would have been impossible. I still only had 30% on the emperor and luckily we got it. Also it was super expensive to pay all those bribes. I had a lot of money but not enough men so I used my money to make advantage.
And then I still needed to mop up the Byzantines that were left. So it wasn't a foregone conclusion or an exploit you can use to always win. The scheming gave me another tool to use. If it was just military it would have been impossible and boring. I would prefer having a small chance than no chance. I don't know if what I did was intended by the game but it was fun nonetheless. Having 30k people bare down on you and not knowing if you would survive definitely added pressure to the game which made it very exciting.
Other highlights:
Marrying into the Golden Horde just because I wanted a big ally so I just sorted by size and then they called me to join them in attacking the Byzantine Empire which got totally trashed
Educating my daughter in the ways of Odin and making her my head priest
Taking and holding York despite being very far behind in technology and men.
Sacrificing countless non believers to Odin
Swapping titles and being kicked out of geographical Sweden and seeing RUS all over Sweden was hilarious
Every time I would sacrifice someone I would say "Praise Odin"
Fighting for the glory of Odin in a Holy War was fun
Playing as Eastern Europe and Scandanavia means we were being in development. Joining Sweden and eventually getting settled there helped give me time to learn the game. I realised that I would need to development Sweden which took time and money. Development is quite slow in Crusader Kings anyways. I still had Francia controlling some parts of Sweden and like the Greeks they had more people than me and unless they were distracted they would just come to defend their land so I just decided to take over the rest of Scandanavia. Towards the end of the game I had almost reached the Black Sea.
Maybe if I had been able to develop sooner I could have taken on Western Europe but who knows.
Having a plan from the very beginning to keep the Rus Germanic and try to reform the faith was something that kept pushing me forward and gave me focus. I was like "Ok, how do we get this land". Joining with Sweden was helpful as it gave me a lot of potential allies and it wasn't just me against everyone around me. And it was nice being with all the Germanic people.
All in all, a very fun campaign.
Thanks for reading!
It all started long ago when Rurik of the Rus and his band of men decided to take their destiny into their own hands and venture forth into Eastern Europe. This was my first Crusader Kings III game. To give me a bit of focus and a goal I decided to see if I could keep the Rus Germanic pagans and remain Germanic rather than assimilating with the Slavic people of the area.
Crusader Kings III is a super deep game. In the beginning I was just clicking around and seeing what everything did. I started expanding and just getting a feel for things. I formed the Kingdom of Gardariki and was slowly consolidating my power. I still wasn't really sure what was going on and the next war proved that I wasn't prepared. A random leader near me declared war on me. Despite having more troops, I lost. I was once more a mere Jarl.
She didn't last long. Something happened to her. I guess no one will ever know what really happened.
This would start a trend in this play through. Murder, lots of murder. I mean, why go to war and fight people when murdering them is just so much easier.
I created the Kingdom of the Rus because I wanted to create my own kingdom to make my mark on history. It seems our family is already making a mark on the world. Gardariki has changed hands a lot. When the non Rurikid Queen Anastasia “died” my great-grandfather’s son (who was still alive at this time) inherited the Kingdom of Gardariki while I held the Kingdom of the Rus.
I did a lot of scheming trying to get it back by skull duggery but they were very powerful and I had other targets for my soldiers to take over. At least it was still in the family.
Joining the Kingdom of Sweden
Seeing as it was my first game and I kept being attacked I decided it would be nice to be part of a larger group because I was getting attacked from all over and Gardariki was so big and I couldn’t really do anything about it. So I went to the King of Sweden and asked him if he would like to incorporate my land into Sweden. He accepted and without realising it this would be the first step towards our future. My liege, noticing my prowess in battle and my prestigious name, invited me to join his council. This gave me ideas, ambitious ideas. I started a Claim Throne scheme. I mean, why not, Sweden was getting large and it would be possible to unite all of Scandanavia and Eastern Europe under the Norse. I was the most powerful noble in Sweden and all the councillors respected my authority. Everyone knew I was the real power behind the throne. Might as well make it official.
I don’t understand succession law. I successfully took the title but it just applied to my personal holdings in Eastern Europe. When I swore fealty to the King of Sweden he gained my Kingdom of Rus title. So we have effectively swapped titles. I really did not see that coming. What the hell am I going to do now? How will we unite all of Scanadanavia?
Maybe the gods were punishing me for my hubris. My wife and I were both afflicted with the Great Pox. Maybe the way to deal with this is just to marry far and wide and hope that I get into the line of succession in lots of places. We can salvage this situation. Nevermind, it turns out that the AI really likes giving land to the holder of the de jure title. I joined the Rus Empire which had been created to bring together all the different Norse kingdoms. It was called Rus because the geographical Swedes had the Kingdom of Rus title despite not being Rus and I had the Kingdom of Sweden title despite not being Swedish. These things happen. Very soon after I joined, the Emperor was like “You’re the King of Sweden, so you should govern Sweden” and I got what I always wanted.
The Norse thrived under the Empire. We had a lot of land. We had 4 Kingdoms within our control. Things have gone from a time where I joined Sweden because I was scared of getting wiped out to now where I am part of a massive Empire. Things are looking good. My family has over 100 members. Maybe its time to get a leg up. Maybe its time to take the Empire for myself.
The Rus Empire at the height of its power
A distant relative of mine (named Skuli) was in line to inherit the Empire (after a few bribes to vote for him were given out). It was time to take destiny into our own hands. It’s murdering time! Wait, what is that sense of forboding I feel? Its probably nothing
Turns out Emperor Baldr was actually a good leader and built up the Empire. Skuli and his descendants were not that good at running a realm and over time constituent Kingdoms fought for independence and won. Skuli and his descendants often asked for my help but I didn’t really see much sense in it and eventually I fought for independence too. Once I had my independence, the once great Empire had one county left and it was easy to take it.
I am sorry Emperor Baldr. We will never know what history would have been like had you stayed but I am sure you would have done a better job. I will reform the Empire one day and bring glory to the Norse. Killing Emperor Baldr was the only time I honestly felt bad for killing someone. I got too power hungry and paid the price. The realm was in splinters and it would take time to reforge.
The Gods Smile Upon Us
Odin be praised! Our gods smile upon us! The Asatru are powerful in our lands. We will bring the glory of the Asatru to all of Europe. Let us just check how far it has spread. There is this weird Middle Eastern religion in Scandanavia. Cat-holic? They like cats? It started in the Middle East somewhere, I am told. And then Europe started embracing it. It is centred in Italy and its spreading. These heathens need to be removed from Scandanavia, especially because they hold the sacred county of Uppland. It’s time to spread Asatru and capture all the Asatru Holy Sites we can. The county of Kiev is holy to our people but we might need to fight some distance to take it.
Let’s first get these Greeks out of Scandanavia.
I might have a lot of land but I don’t have a lot of men, and the heathens hold a part of Sweden that should be owned by the Norse. Maybe we can collect allies. Finland is Asatru and so is Norway. So we might be able to do it.
Why did I do this? I have no hope of winning. But Norse never surrender. I thought maybe I could hold the land for long enough and the Byzantines would be too busy elsewhere, but I wasn’t so lucky. We have no hope in hell of winning this the normal way. We need psychological warfare. What if enemy generals just die in their sleep, or just strangely go missing. Imagine planning a campaign for months and then the general is suddenly gone. All his stuff is still there but the person themselves? Gone. Never seen again. And if it keeps happening? That would be pretty disheartening. So I went down the full Schemer path. You can Fabricate Hooks, have two Hostile Schemes and all your schemes are more powerful. Ok, killing the generals is cool, but what if we try to kill an Emperor?
Let’s Fabricate Hooks on some prominent Greeks and then pressure them into helping me kill the Emperor.
Hmm. Some soldiers deserted after their Emperor died. Its time to put this murdering thing into high gear. Let’s kill some generals!
And we did it! When the generals died their forces dispersed
A moment of silence for all the Greek generals that had to die for our victory
Honestly, I didn't think it was possible
Ok, time to unite Sweden and get all the holy sites so we can finally reform the faith. Roughly a hundred years after we kicked the Greeks out of Scandanavia Sweden is looking much better
We haven’t taken every county in Sweden but we are getting there. Sadly those damn cat-holics have taken some land in Scandanavia and it will take a lot of effort to unseat them. At least we have Uppland back and we have Thrandheimr which give us 2 holy sites. We have lost all our ancestral Eastern European land but we will get it back. For now we need to keep expanding and consolidating Sweden so we don’t get pushed around anymore.
To reform the faith we need one more holy site and there is one just across the sea from us, in York.
Anyways, those damn non believers have been a thorn in my side. The last 100 years have been really good for the Norse people. Thanks to our people’s tireless work we were able to successfully unite Sweden and even invade England and take control of York. The time has come
In 1282 AD, Asatru became an organised faith
The gods did not bless Hunthjofr with good looks, but he was exalted among men, the most pious, the anointed.
He was a very learned man and he was well known in Scandanavia as the most pious of the Norse. He organised all the adherents of the Norse into an organised religion. Now the Norse were united and their religion was stronger than ever. Hunthjofr went to Valhalla at the ripe old age of 84 and was the longest reigning Swedish monarch ever.
The Norse Shall Rise
While all that religious stuff was going on the Kingdom of Finland imploded for some reason and the land was inherited by one of my vassals so my land doubled in size overnight.
We will continue to build up. Nothing can stop us now. Once we got big enough it was time to reforge the Empire that would make the earth tremble and make history remember the name Rurikid. Also, I made my own religion called Odinite just to cement my dynasty’s mark on history. Any proper religion needs a holy war. So I called all faithful Norse to join me and attack the non believers to our south.
As the feudal area draws to close the Scandanavians have been united in a glorious empire that has almost all of Scandanavia, Finland and Eastern Europe.
I made another Norse faith just for fun. It was fun to see so many Norse faiths on the map.
We brought the Norse culture far and wide
We played all the way from 867 to 1453. Our dynasty reached Glorious and our dynasty had 26 houses.
All in all it was a very enjoyable campaign. I played it at a slower game speed so I could really take my time and see what was happening. Not knowing the game and being forced to try things and not knowing what would work actually made it a lot more exciting. The Byzantine Greek murder fest was very unexpected but very funny. I like that the game allows you to do things like that. It wasn't easy or something you can use anytime. It's just that the AI was super intent on keeping that single county and they didn't have anyone to help them. And I had to have every single schemer perk otherwise it would have been impossible. I still only had 30% on the emperor and luckily we got it. Also it was super expensive to pay all those bribes. I had a lot of money but not enough men so I used my money to make advantage.
And then I still needed to mop up the Byzantines that were left. So it wasn't a foregone conclusion or an exploit you can use to always win. The scheming gave me another tool to use. If it was just military it would have been impossible and boring. I would prefer having a small chance than no chance. I don't know if what I did was intended by the game but it was fun nonetheless. Having 30k people bare down on you and not knowing if you would survive definitely added pressure to the game which made it very exciting.
Other highlights:
Marrying into the Golden Horde just because I wanted a big ally so I just sorted by size and then they called me to join them in attacking the Byzantine Empire which got totally trashed
Educating my daughter in the ways of Odin and making her my head priest
Taking and holding York despite being very far behind in technology and men.
Sacrificing countless non believers to Odin
Swapping titles and being kicked out of geographical Sweden and seeing RUS all over Sweden was hilarious
Every time I would sacrifice someone I would say "Praise Odin"
Fighting for the glory of Odin in a Holy War was fun
Playing as Eastern Europe and Scandanavia means we were being in development. Joining Sweden and eventually getting settled there helped give me time to learn the game. I realised that I would need to development Sweden which took time and money. Development is quite slow in Crusader Kings anyways. I still had Francia controlling some parts of Sweden and like the Greeks they had more people than me and unless they were distracted they would just come to defend their land so I just decided to take over the rest of Scandanavia. Towards the end of the game I had almost reached the Black Sea.
Maybe if I had been able to develop sooner I could have taken on Western Europe but who knows.
Having a plan from the very beginning to keep the Rus Germanic and try to reform the faith was something that kept pushing me forward and gave me focus. I was like "Ok, how do we get this land". Joining with Sweden was helpful as it gave me a lot of potential allies and it wasn't just me against everyone around me. And it was nice being with all the Germanic people.
All in all, a very fun campaign.
Thanks for reading!
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