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[mainiac]

If it's a really long crusade then it's likely that many of the original participants died.  When you die your country is temporarily removed from the war, erasing your war contribution score.  Even if the son takes up the crusade as quickly as possible he is starting over from 0 contribution.  So it's probably that the HRE racked up a lot of warscore smashing Fatamid doomstacks and breaking their power but the Kaiser died before the crusade ended and Ireland became the leader again.

[Endymion]

Man, crusade scoring sneaking up on you can be such a big surprise. I had a Duke in the mid-1100s who controlled roughly half of the de jure counties of the Kingdom of Frisia. (Which you need to be Dutch to form and I had stupidly ended up Polish.) There was nothing much going on so I joined a crusade, primarily to get the crusader trait for me, my heir, and my anti-pope. I get together some 12k-ish troops, show up, assault a holding or two while watching the larger armies for actual kingdoms seige up nearby.... I take a region but then get pursued by a force several thousand men bigger than my own. A battle breaks out, I lose the battle, of course, and then instantly BAM, war ends, and I am over my demense limit by obscene quantities and my realm has spontaneously doubled in size.

Sure, its good... and now I'm playing some 130 years later and the lands actually have been quite productive and valuable... as lands of my kingdom.(Took 3 blasted generations to end up Dutch.)  Sadly, I think the time is ending. Namely because about half of non-christian world just started a war to take those lands back from me. I had 30k troops and the Swedes as allies to hold them off. So far I've traded 20k for roughly 50k of theirs. The Swedes have managed to send roughly 600 troops to help me.

Of course, even with those victories I'm still able to see that I'm outnumbered 2 to 1 just amongst the regions I can see. If I can hold out for 2 more years I'll have another daughter to marry off. Is it cruel or manipulative to think of a daughters as an alliance bargaining chip and nothing more? Its an evil line of thinking. But this is what you get when you don't pay attention to a crusade war-score. You might just win. And winning that means you just pimped out all your great granddaughters to whoever has the largest army.

Oh, btw... how does one get rid of an anti-pope? I mean, its been good and all, making money hand over fist whenever I've managed to get a diplomatic successor assigned to the post and whenever the real pope has been less diplomatic... but is there any way for me to stop it from being passed on?

[Descan]

Selling daughters for alliances is pretty much how it was.

It's a good historical game that can make you act historically.

[krisslanza]

Selling daughters for alliances is pretty much how it was.

It's a good historical game that can make you act historically.

So wait, do I do it wrong when I try to make queendoms? 

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Only if you don't have the attractive trait.

[krisslanza]

Only if you don't have the attractive trait.

Well my first ruler can do that, but then anything after that is the genetics game...

[Tarran]

Personally, sometimes I just keep my daughters at home breeding with Geniuses in a matrilineal Marriages so I can have good/more family members whenever I make custom families. I like to keep my vassals small, so I need lots of family members.

[Trollheiming]

Also if you're old you can go on a tyrannical banishing spree and die shortly over. If I really want to be cheesy I wait until I'm really low and I'm ill or stressed and then start the banishing.

Iron-fisted tyranny can also be sustained indefinitely at immense profit. It's an interesting alternative to the normal playstyle. I don't think that it's cheesy, either, just good old-fashioned tyrannical fun.

After banishing everyone, I usually have 30 or more holdings in my desmesne, and that means I have zero direct income. This low income means that I can hire new courtiers for one gold each, and I have hundreds in wealth from banishing everyone. So, I buy fifty courtiers at a time, and a few naturally will be 20+ stewardship, low intrigue, and content with my rule. This virtuous combination is what I call a high docility factor. I give those most docile courtiers the mayoralties of my cities, but I keep all the ruling castles under my iron thumb.

Each courtier gets six or seven cities, so he still likes me even though I have hundreds of points in the "desmesne too big" negative relations. These are my brilliant little worker bees, my wage slaves. They'll give me taxes indirectly, and they are quite good at it. Mayors automatically double their stewardship skill, because they give themselves their own councillor bonus. Then I buy fifty young girls for one gold apiece and marry the most docile to my slave mayors as a reward for their service, and so that they can make even more money and hold even more cities with the spouse bonus. They make the money that my castles can't make because of desmesne inefficiencies. My castles are purely a means of political subjugation and oppression, not income, which my desmense malus zeroes out.

It's easy to make 20+ gold a month with never a trace of political dissent for decades. Eventually, usually upon the demise of a particular tyrant, just banish the mayors and get 300+ gold each. They all have low intrigue so they can't escape imprisonment; and if they do manage against the odds, they don't actually have armies anyway, but you will have to lay siege to their towns. Repeat as needed.

As a bonus, you've got a lot of choices for councillors. The councillors needn't even be docile.

[cerapa]

*snip*

That is the most unhistorical and awesome way to rule a kingdom.

You should totally do an LP. Make your rulers lunatics for bonus points.

[Miko19]

*snip*

That is the most unhistorical and awesome way to rule a kingdom.

You should totally do an LP. Make your rulers lunatics for bonus points.

I think they're called Targaryens 

[Trollheiming]

*snip*

That is the most unhistorical and awesome way to rule a kingdom.

You should totally do an LP. Make your rulers lunatics for bonus points.

I think they're called Targaryens 

Oh, lol. I've never played that Games of Thrones mod, but it's quite apt. Maybe I'll try this when I play the game next time.

[Criptfeind]

Don't you get massive numbers of bad events for having such a large domain? I have tried keeping just a few extra castles for only a few years before and I could not do it, not because the relations penalty or the tax penalty, but rather because the events spawned by it were just crippling.

[Mono124]

Ok so in my current game (as Ireland (Yes I lost Jerusalem )) I have basically taken over 70% of Spain, the area south of France, Ireland, and Wales. I am listed top 4 in the number of troops I can raise, and am listed 3rd in realm size. My issue is this... the year is 1249, and the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate have taken over large chunks of land. Now the Ilkhanate have to get past the Byzantine Empire to get anywhere near me, so they can stay how they are for now... however, as you can see, the Golden Horde are seriously close to the Holy Roman Empire, and if they start picking pieces off of it and take it over, I will probably be screwed. I "could" invade the Holy Roman Empire and take its titles for myself... because the Pope is allowing me to get an invasion CB, and with all the mercenaries I could raise an army that was large enough for long enough to take everything the Holy Roman Empire has. Doing this would basically make me unstoppable due to the massive number of troops I would have, and because I would take EVERYTHING the empire has (so all of its holdings would be under me) I would divy them out to lord mayors (who seem to love me enough not to rebel and give me tons of cash) and proceed to curbstomp anything in the game. Do I invade with all the mercenaries to keep most of Europe owned by Europians, or do I let the Golden Horde do what they want and try to take over England, Scotland, France, Britanny, and the western half of Africa?

EDIT: There's also a good chance if I DO invade the Holy Roman Empire it will be a long, bloody war, full of alliances and constant irritation. I should win though... after 50 straight years of sieges.

Spoiler: Screenshot (click to show/hide)

Oh, btw... how does one get rid of an anti-pope? I mean, its been good and all, making money hand over fist whenever I've managed to get a diplomatic successor assigned to the post and whenever the real pope has been less diplomatic... but is there any way for me to stop it from being passed on?

As far as I know you must press the claim the anti-pope has on the Papacy and install him as the official pope.

[majikero]

With Invasion CB, you only get the provinces you manage to capture when you win. Everyone else basically becomes your vassal so you have the entire HRE as vassals.

[Mono124]

With Invasion CB, you only get the provinces you manage to capture when you win. Everyone else basically becomes your vassal so you have the entire HRE as vassals.

As I had said, I was going to just capture everything. Anyway I left them alone, took over the Isle in Scotland, became duke, nominated myself, killed everyone else at once and then the king of Scotland, and took over. I am now quashing rebellions (and starting them) so I can put Lord Mayors in, and then I guess I have to fabricate claims on England. GH has started slowly taking over the HRE, so I only have so much time to bulk up before the end is nigh.