What is your favorite dynasty/country in Crusader Kings ?

[olvirki]

I did search for it, but did not get any threads, kind of strange. So I decided to start one

But anyway, I shall start.

My favorite dynasty is the O'Brian dynasty in the duchy of Munster. I started out in 1066, married my sons to princesses, annexed the county of Mide, accepted vassalage from Sligo to the north of Mide and only a few years had passed. Now I fought all kinds of nations, from the small counties in Ulster, to foreign kings such as the kings of Scotland and France, and even particiated in the Crusades. After 60 years the third duke of the duchy of Munster that I played became the king of Ireland.
When that was done (it is possible that the following part happend before I became king of Ireland) my only legitimate son died at the age of 16 and shortly later my bastard son, the eldest son, became my heir.
But after a while I looked around the map and it was a mess, first, France was gone, that was quite cool, but the bad part was that Scotland, Leon and Croatia owned huge parts of europe and were the superpowers, this was the result of the relation bug. I downloaded the beta-patch, but the damage was done, no matter how much I want to play this, I fear the bug has ruined my awesome game as the O'Brian clan.

Anyway, what is your favorite dynasty in this game ? You don't have to describe your game, and if you do you don't have to descripe it as much as I did , it got a little longer than I had expected.
And if you know of a thread with this topic, let me know, no reason to start the same thread over and over.

Edit: My description seemed longer when I was writing it. It is not that big.

 

[postm00v]

Da Romano of Nice (county level). It starts out as a bishopric, so you'll have to mod stuff and you have to make due with a 29 year old ruler with no connections whatsoever. My first ruler was Cangrande, he built up the treasury and started some building projects, but nothing special.

Then there was his son Anastasio, he went crusading and eventually crowned himself King of Jerusalem and Africa. I always had a shortage of heirs in this game, so I was constantly on my guard. But nothing could've saved me from what happened next, my ONLY heir died and I was left with a bastard crazed idiot named Leone.

He pretty much ruined my entire Kingdom with Muslims pouring into my lands from every direction they could. I lost HUGE amounts of land and was forced to demote myself to Duke of Alexandria.

But then, when all hope was lost, came Cangrande II (I renamed him) and he restored the entire kingdom and even adding some counties that formerly belonged to the Muslims.

 

[Inteuniso]

A bit cliche, but the Von Habsburg dynasty. They start out rather horribly in 1066, with only the County of Aargau in their name. Through intrigue, war, and all-powerful luck, I managed to get the Von Habsburgs on the thrones of Aquitaine (who had conquered France), Burgundy, the United Kingdom of Italy and Croatia, and Germany by the late 1100s. I was quite happy with myself, needless to say.

 

[olvirki]

Rather interesting and diverse dynasties have been named here.

@postm00v
Interesting, I have not tried to be/become the king of Jerusalem, sounds fun.

@Intesuniso
I normally choose a country (in this case, dynasty) that did not do well historically so I won't have to "live up to" high expectations. But that is impressive.

 

[Coombes]

The Nubian house, mainly due to the challenge played them in my most rewarding game. Conquered virtually of the mediterrean coast, africa, anatolia and the middle east.

 

[Zsrai]

Two of my favorites are the Spartenos dynasty out of Napoli and the Nakonid dynasty out of Lubeck. Both can easily get destroyed early, but if they can hold out can create some pretty interesting games.

 

[Ruwaard]

Not surprisingly (I'm from (North) Brabant) the van Leuven/van Brabant dynasty; another dynasty is the von Habsburg, however de Vermandois, von Oldenburg, de Hauteville, de Barcelona, von Hohenstaufen, d'Anjou, Bruce, Piast, Arpad, Premyslid and de Macon (de Borgoña) can all be interesting.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

My favourites one's are the ones I wrote AAR's about, so those are : Billung, de Salerno and Gerulfing (van Holland).

In my For the Conquest Mod, playing one of the Godwinson brothers is always fun and if I want an easy, relaxed game then de Hauteville's are always a nice choice.

 

[olvirki]

Interesting that the dynasties named are all over europe and even in Africa.

@Coombes
It might be interesting to play a christian faction around all those Muslim factions.

@Zsrai
How was it to play in the middle of europe stuck between those big kingdoms ?

@Ruwaard
I might one day try to play my country as you did. I will have to start as f.e. Norway if I want to play them early though. And I have wanted to play the Bruce dynasty, especially after I watch brave heart .

@Veldmaarschalk
The sight of your account name startled me for a second , but then I realized you were just naming your favorites like the rest of us.
Btw, I like Britannia by far the most of the regions of this game, so this mod you mentioned is rather interesting. It could be very fun to stop the Normans and make a great Saxon-England empire. *dreams off*

 

[Zsrai]

@Zsrai
How was it to play in the middle of europe stuck between those big kingdoms ?

Honestly, it can be pretty hellish haha. I tend to get picked on, badly, when I play those counties. I think one of my Spartenos games I managed to have the starting characters grandson inherit the Duchy of Apulia, then I made sure that he also inherited my dynastic lands. Suddenly, I had enough land to create the Kingdom of Sicily! ...except that I felt my Spartenos bloodline was tainted by the horrible de Hauteville blood. I stopped playing that game; it wasn't fun anymore when I had that realization that my dynasty was really half de Hauteville haha.

And yes I've played the Spartenos dynasty so often that, almost without fail and no matter what area of the map I start in, one of my major goals in the game is to destroy the Normans in southern Italy. The de Hauteville's especially!

 

[keytool]

Gotta say the best time I had was random. I was stuck in a cabin with nothing else but my laptop, and the only game that worked... Crusader Kings, and I hadn't played for years. Started up as the Duchy of Dioclea, an independent Catholic Serbian land, ruled by the great dynasty of the Vojislavljevics, yet everyone in my court was Orthodox. So my first goal was to convert my lands and family to Catholithism, which ended with most of my family dying! Luckly my Duke was very skilled, and I was able to rule without vassals, and quickly took Ragusa after a marriage conflict. Afterwards I was able to grab some newly independent ex-Byzantine states after a major civil war devestated the Byzantine Empire. My Duke died and left his 4th son, a Catholic taught in Rome, to led the Serbian people to glory. The 2nd Duke created not only the Kingdom of Serbia, but also became involved in the Crusades, ending in the Kingdom of Jerusalm as well. He died, with 2 heirs, and the proceded to divide their father's lands, Into the Kingdom of Serbia and Jerusalm. I was controlling the Serbian Kingdom, and relized he was horrible, and mentally challanged, so I saved and played the Jerusalm Kingdom, and assinated my King-brother. The unification was glorious, but when I looked at the map, I was dismayed. France was controlled by Scotland? Germany is in Norway? Croatia is the HRE? I was lost and confused. Now I just downloaded the really, really, realy old update, and about to start again!

 

[unmerged(226921)]

de Conteville, specifically Robert's branch (County of Exeter in TASS). While Robert starts with one province, he's an interesting choice because he's the half brother to William the Conquerer and full brother to Odo, who was a pretty dubious character historically speaking. My best game with them saw Robert build his province up and get some lucky claims, but nothing too amazing.

His son William became a heretic because his best friend, the grandson of William the Conquerer, was also one. It was a fun roleplay scenario because I was soon after elevated to the Duke of Cornwall randomly by the AI and made friends with other heretics in the Kingdom, so there were about 4 Dukes in England, including the King of course, who were heretics.

Eventually the de Normandie dynasty had a civil war and implemented elective law. Firstly, a Gaelic fellow descended from Malcolm III of Scotland, IIRC the great-great grandson. I eventually became King in the guise of Roberts great-grandson, Geoffrey, and of course quickly switched the law to semisalic.

Eventually I conquered Scotland and Ireland but then became entangled in a series of civil wars, but each ended interestingly. At some point I lost the throne to the wife of a previous King (who had been granted an obscene amount of titles), though she died not long after. I took the throne back at some point as the Duke of Gwynedd, the most senior heir to the initial monarchs, after it had been lost to an opportunistic count who had a claim.

I held the throne until my senior dynasty sadly died out and was replaced by "technically" the same dynasty somewhere in the late 1370's, but the last shared male line relative was the grandson of my starting character, bastards at that. I decided that they'd be considered an entirely new dynasty and stopped playing, quite content to believe I had done enough in that game anyways.

Alternatively, it's fun playing as myself in Ireland in the second scenario, uniting it, and forming a separate Kingdom from England .

Regards,

The Great

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Alternatively, it's fun playing as myself in Ireland in the second scenario, uniting it, and forming a separate Kingdom from England .

I don't think you are allowed to vote for yourself

 

[olvirki]

de Conteville, specifically Robert's branch (County of Exeter in TASS). While Robert starts with one province, he's an interesting choice because he's the half brother to William the Conquerer and full brother to Odo, who was a pretty dubious character historically speaking. My best game with them saw Robert build his province up and get some lucky claims, but nothing too amazing.

His son William became a heretic because his best friend, the grandson of William the Conquerer, was also one. It was a fun roleplay scenario because I was soon after elevated to the Duke of Cornwall randomly by the AI and made friends with other heretics in the Kingdom, so there were about 4 Dukes in England, including the King of course, who were heretics.

Eventually the de Normandie dynasty had a civil war and implemented elective law. Firstly, a Gaelic fellow descended from Malcolm III of Scotland, IIRC the great-great grandson. I eventually became King in the guise of Roberts great-grandson, Geoffrey, and of course quickly switched the law to semisalic.

Eventually I conquered Scotland and Ireland but then became entangled in a series of civil wars, but each ended interestingly. At some point I lost the throne to the wife of a previous King (who had been granted an obscene amount of titles), though she died not long after. I took the throne back at some point as the Duke of Gwynedd, the most senior heir to the initial monarchs, after it had been lost to an opportunistic count who had a claim.

I held the throne until my senior dynasty sadly died out and was replaced by "technically" the same dynasty somewhere in the late 1370's, but the last shared male line relative was the grandson of my starting character, bastards at that. I decided that they'd be considered an entirely new dynasty and stopped playing, quite content to believe I had done enough in that game anyways.

Alternatively, it's fun playing as myself in Ireland in the second scenario, uniting it, and forming a separate Kingdom from England .

Regards,

The Great

Interesting game, loads of wars and inheritances.

Edit. deleted a potential spoiler

 

[crabitalism]

My favourite dynasty is for sure the di Montferrato's. Started as Count of Saluces, took Bologna, inherited my relatives, and eventually became King of Italy. It's 1147 right now, and my king just looks SO AWESOME:

 

[Heszeth]

Like Zsrai I love playing as the Spartenos family. Kicking the Normans out of Sicily and attempting to convert all of Italy into an Orthodox Greek land. and Once Venice and Genoa have become Greek, spreading into Germany, France and Hungary is the goal, setting up Orthodox Greek Kingdoms to continue my work.

 

[Auvar]

In sort of the same vein as the Spartenos family, one of my favorites is the Davides family in the County of Coimbra. They're unique in that Sisnando Davides is the only Christian Berber ruler in the 1066 scenario (not sure if it's DVIP only or not), and especially tricky in that they rule one dirt-poor county right on the border with the Muslim realms of Spain. It's all the usual chaos of 1066 Spain, but you get to be a Berber Crusader too.

I was lucky enough to have Sisnando's heir be a Brilliant Strategist, and even luckier to have the first crusade be called against Burgos...

 

[ConjurerDragon]

My favourite starting positions are the 3 great german houses: Hohenstaufen, Habsburg and Hohenzollern. After my first games where I started as Kings I found it more rewarding to start small and work my way up.

 

[olvirki]

It seems that Italy is quite popular. Exspesially that Spartenos dynasty. But apart from that and the Habsburg people favorites are all over map.

After my first games where I started as Kings I found it more rewarding to start small and work my way up.

I do that as well. I find building up the dynasty is so much fun and it makes you proud to look at the kingdom you founded or managed to take after starting as a county/duchy. The only difference is that i started as a duchy to begin with. Later on I started as kingdom, not as fun.

 

[UniversalWolf]

I like "of Mountain Cheremisa" just because it sounds cool.