Ways to Play

[Diablo del Sur]

Hi, I've been reading posts around and i found that a lot of people made their "own histories" or ways to play. For example, today i saw one that wanted to create a "Pirate Empire" conquering every island on the map, ruling the seas and looting and exterminating coastal cities; and I've seen several that played "migration mod", trying to move their faction from Aragon to Jerusalem by foot; and that sort of thing. What do you think about this?

What else in your opinion could be a cool way of playing? Try to explain briefly how they should be played and why would it will be fun, and we can do a list. I'll start:

-Creating a Pirate Empire
-Migrate a Faction

[Duck of Death]

Im curently trying to win the long game as Scotland without ever keeping any territories beyond my initial three.
Its kind of a challenge since it takes a while to build an army stack with just 1 fortress and 2 cities.

But, after 150ish turns Ive got all of England and Spain as my vassals

[Caesar Clivus]

Im curently trying to win the long game as Scotland without ever keeping any territories beyond my initial three.
Its kind of a challenge since it takes a while to build an army stack with just 1 fortress and 2 cities.

But, after 150ish turns Ive got all of England and Spain as my vassals

Interesting. I'd love to hear progress reports of this campaign

[Diablo del Sur]

Im curently trying to win the long game as Scotland without ever keeping any territories beyond my initial three.
Its kind of a challenge since it takes a while to build an army stack with just 1 fortress and 2 cities.

But, after 150ish turns Ive got all of England and Spain as my vassals

I dont understand, you dont conquer any regions and yet you have Spain and England as Vassals? Impressibly good! Or if you do conquer, what you do with them afterwards?

And, doesnt the victory conditions require you get some specific provinces?

[Losthief]

I dont understand, you dont conquer any regions and yet you have Spain and England as Vassals? Impressibly good! Or if you do conquer, what you do with them afterwards?

And, doesnt the victory conditions require you get some specific provinces?

vassalship counts as owning a province via the victory conditions i believe.

....i'd imagine he gifts them back after taking them/making them vassals.

[Hypomanic Crusader]

HRE Migration to Middle East

I've always wanted to get a massive HRE migration on the go. You start off with what - 10 or so generals. Sell off the lands to the highest bidder, mainly the Pope to get papal fervor, declare a crusade on Baghdad make an empire there so when the Khwaz's get destroyed it'll be Catholicism, or should it be the Imperial Reich not Islam saving the world from the Pagan filth. Be easier to do given the better quality units. Plus with 10 full stacks of gens it'll be quite easy to form a nice empire quickly. Reason why it will be fun is that your presented with a logistical and military challenge and given when you play HRE normally its a cake walk just by the sheer numbers and superiority to begin with it'll be fun to unleash the Emperors forces on something worth of their might.

[Duck of Death]

vassalship counts as owning a province via the victory conditions i believe.

....i'd imagine he gifts them back after taking them/making them vassals.

Yes.
I took over Ireland from the rebels and all but London from the English.
Then the english were weak enough that they agreed to be my vassal in exchange for all their territories back. After that I just have to gift them 10k gold every 10 turns or so to keep them loyal. But, they give me 4-5k gold every turn in tribute so it works well.

Did the same for Spain (Aragon not the Castilians).

Now Ive got control of over 20 territories.

Next up I think will be Norway which should eventualy get me over 30 territories.

After that it might get tricky since I need to keep my vassals from attacking eachother, thus forcing me to choose and loose one of them. So far I will have France and HRE as buffers for that. So, I may need to look at either the Romans or Sicilians to push me over the 50 threshhold.

This is all assuming the French dont get uppity and try to ruin my plans

Ill post an update in a couple days.

[TheP]

As Sicily (I play them a lot due to a great starting position so long as you keep the pope on side, with him in your pocket you can do what you like and Venice will be tied up with the factions in the north so you're free to expand at your leisure) I like to play as (if I had to give it a name) "Merchant Princes" where I keep my armies small-ish (free upkeep Militia in cities and no heavy cavalry or expensive elites in castles) and recruite plenty of merchants to put on valuable resources. Then I wait untill I've built up a substantial war chest and have well developed cities and castles so I can recruit high quality troops, using these and a strong navy it's a piece of cake to take and costal provinces you want (like say for example... all of North Africa).

[Ichon]

I'm playing one as Scotland moved migrated to Swiss and playing as the Cantons- so far I am just getting closer to 1400s when the real action starts though.

I did play also as Moors who gave all lands except Tunisia to K-shah and played as late Saracen pirates or early Barbary corsairs.

There are alot of possibilities.

[MedievalDragoon]

I'm playing one as Scotland moved migrated to Swiss and playing as the Cantons- so far I am just getting closer to 1400s when the real action starts though.

I am going to try this!

[ImperialAquila]

I once played as Genoa and moved to Corsica, Sardinia, and the small island near Spain (my new capital). I gave all my regions to the Papal States (including the newly-conquered Milan). Perfect relations with the Pope and allied to every faction (At least for the first half of the campaign. Aggressive factions forced me to take sides). I made myself the Pope's favorite and personal crusader. Newly conquered regions are either gifted to the Pope or to their respected owners. I rely heavily on merchants to fund my Republic's "Defense Forces".

I once had a Byzantine Empire that restored the glory of Rome. Unfortunately the saved game became bugged.

My HRE campaign is by far my favorite. I reconquered territories of the former Western Roman Empire and expanded it further with Poland and Hungary. My alliance with the Byzantines made sure that there is a buffer state when the Mongols and Timurids arrive.

I'm currently playing another Byzantine campaign. This time, I moved to Ireland and gave Cyprus to the Crusader States, Rhodes and Crete to Venice, the city north of the Black Sea to Kiev, and the rest to the Seljuk Turks. Right now there's not much action on the British Isles. I allied with Scotland and I'm planning on eliminating England.

[The Source]

of course that if you plan to migrate as a catholic faction you might like to edit the chapter house settings

[Duck of Death]

Suffered a bit of a setback in my Scottish campaign.

England and Spain were my vassals but when I sent an army to invade Norway, France apparently moved south and took northern Spain.

Aragon (who had owned Spain) then broke their vassalship with me and since I dont want to war with France yet (theyre strong, also they have moved west into Germany) I had to let it go.

My snowy invasion was succesful however, and I now have Norway as my vassal. So Im back to copntroling 20 territories.

Now my plan is to head to north Africa and sweep across it taking out the Moors. Once I get to Tunis (controled by Sicily), Ill try to manipulate them into attacking me... angering the Pope and setting up my bribing my way into getting a crusade called on one of Sicilys Italian territories.

If I can wear them down, Ill make them my new vassal by gifting all thier lands back plus north africa

[Byg]

If I can wear them down, Ill make them my new vassal by gifting all thier lands back plus north africa

I used to play no more than two or three settlement games a few years ago.

But if you are limiting yourself to three then how can you get them to be your vassal by gifting all their settlements back? To do this you must be keeping more than three?

It is even harder if whenever you conquer a settlement you must abandon one of your three so you literally never have more than three.

[Duck of Death]

But if you are limiting yourself to three then how can you get them to be your vassal by gifting all their settlements back? To do this you must be keeping more than three?

It is even harder if whenever you conquer a settlement you must abandon one of your three so you literally never have more than three.

Oh, I dont mean that I must never have more then 3. I just give new territories back to get them as vassals. I only keep my original 3.

Like early when I was working on England, I personaly controled every british territory except London.
It was at that point I gave them all back getting them to agree to be my vassals.

Edinbourgh, Aberdeen and Inverness are my only 3 permanent settlements.
Anything else i take over I soon trade back through diplomacy.

I had to sit on 8 norweigen territories for about 1o turns until thier last settlement finally agreed to be my vassal in exchange for all of those territories (that were formerly theirs anyway).

Basicaly, in the end I left Norway and England with all their original possesions, they just are now part of the scottish empire. Kind of the way Alexander treated some of his conquered lands when he went through the middle east wahaha.

[Caesar Clivus]

I really hope you get the victory conditions for this Duck. When I get the time, I might have to try a campaign like that

[Karthago]

I like the Sicily approach has traders/merchants with little army. I think I may do that...shouldn't be too hard if I keep the pope happy.

One I like to play (that probably isn't historic at all, but that is probably not the point of thread anyway ;p)...is abandoning all my cities as the Crusaders and becoming an island nation. I usually am able to sell my cities to another faction. Then I do raids from the islands to the muslim factions with armies and many priests. I also try to become a merchant/trader based faction. I always find that a lot of fun.

Guess it would be even less historic if I migrated the Crusaders to somewhere in Europe and attacked the Christian factions ;p

[Caesar Clivus]

Duck do you have problems with your vassals attacking you? Whenever I've gotten a vassal they always seem to attack me sooner rather than later and I'm forced to go medieval on their disobedient asses.

[Duck of Death]

Duck do you have problems with your vassals attacking you? Whenever I've gotten a vassal they always seem to attack me sooner rather than later and I'm forced to go medieval on their disobedient asses.

In past games Ive had this happen, but this time since my whole strategy is winning through vassals, Ive been extra carefull to keep my vassals isolated from eachother and from me.

Now as Scotland I have control of England and Norway and earlier I had Aragon. The only one directly touching me is England so Im sure to keep them at 'outstanding' or 'perfect' in relations.

So far though, as long as I keep them happy, keep my reputation high, and keep them away from eachother, I havent had any backstabbing.

Im sure its going to get harder late in the game. Im at turn 130 now.

[Judeman266]

Whenever I create vassals I usually destroy the advanced military buildings before I return the settlements, that way they can't recruit advanced units and are reliant on you for protection. They make a good buffer when fighting a large/strong faction.
I usually gift them a small amount of regular tribute for 20 turns or so to keep them satisfied and if they don't use it all it comes back to you.

The problem is they eventually gain some testicular fortitude and try free themselves. It is pretty easy to put down rebellions if you weakened their military structure enough. But b/c I'm using RR/RC and BGRIV this can get pretty tricky especially when your king isn't nearby. This is because of the advancement from feudal to professional army.
One plus is it should be difficult for them to find allies because their reputation has suffered b/c they broke the vassalage by attacking you rather than using diplomacy.

The only factions I have found extremely difficult to keep under vassalage are the Moors, HRE, France, Egypt, ERE, and the Turks.

This is especially hard when playing on H or VH so I lowered it to M/VH. In my current campaign I'm playing as Castille and I think these factions simply have too many provinces and will never think they are too weak to fight you if you keep only your main territory.

To counter this I gifted my port cities to my loyal vassal Portugal (double marriage alliance) but this only worked for a while because France decided to blockade one of the ports. I eventually decided that staying with only my main regions wasn't going to work so I had to reconquer France and keep Bordeaux, Caen, and Toulouse. I finished the Reconquista, and took Algiers, and Tunis. I also placed forts with 5-10 units near their capitals and it has worked. The only problem is I'm pretty sure I'm close to the recruitment limit so I should be screwed pretty soon.
I also had to take Rome and kill the then Pope and make the next Pope my vassal. I returned the city but luckily, I have a lock on the College of Cardinals. So I had to wait awhile but my reputation recovered.

I'm thinking of conquering the island fortresses/cities of Rhodes, Crete, and Cyprus to give me further reach, but it has gotten pretty hard because of professional recruitment.