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[loose nut]

Blood allegiances and blood enemies can create relationship triangles between dynasties as if two of your blood allies are blood enemies with each other a decision must be made who to support resulting in a break of the allegiance for one with a massive relationship hit.
This will make managing a large vassal-base as a pagan quite hard as one has to manage both blood enemies and allegiances while also keeping in mind the various triangles they form. This will keep pagans extremely volatile with an extreme amount of drama and infighting as was historically the case.

Is weregild implemented in The Old Gods? That could be another aspect of all these vendettas.

[PanH]

Anyone managed to become somewhat important with zoroastrians or west africans ? Zoroastrians (Karen) are quite interesting, but seriously, there's nothing for west african, it's bland religion, nothing special, which is a shame. It could have been nice if the gold income was there, but it's a poor region IG, which is kinda stupid. And once you got all of Mali, invading the Muslims at north (only direction) is suicide. You can yield, what, 3k soldiers ? 1k3 more with the only malian mercenary captain, but you can't do anything facing a 10k army. Defensive religion means you'll easily get garrisions of 1-2k, but the only way to invade is to steal a county when a muslim vassal rebels.

[FritzPL]

Right now, my situation is like this:

I started the game as Cornac Mac Caillian, Count of Dublin, vassal of King Ivar the Boneless(the guy that owns half of Scotland). I was thrown in deep water, not knowing anything about Old Gods, so I spent good 15 mins figuring out the interface, because it's been some time since I last played CK2 too. After that I went on to finding myself a good wife, realizing that being Irish is not good in a petty Norse kingdom, changed culture, and began intrigues. Intrigues play a big part in my gameplay, mostly the killing plots, but that I will talk about later.
I was really low on money, I had to savescum a few times when I failed to invade Catholic cunts Counts, because they kept joining together and owning me. I realized that this was not the way to go for now and tried a peaceful takeover. Since Irish Catholics refused to marry my people because infidel bullshit, I went for the island of Mann - the current ruler was a ~12 year old girl, whom I betrothed to my son of similar age. Unfortunately, feces impacted the turbine, with the girl declaring war to my liege. Who had about 2000 men under his command. After Man got annexed, I broke betrothal, and went on with the similar tactic on Shietlands, since nobody really cared about them. This time, though, I plotted to kill the only son of an old count who resided there, and failed miserably - his daddy died of natural causes, and Ake(the boy) came to power. Over a flock of sheep and 5 rocky isles with nobody but a few grumpy fishermen on them. Still, it was a territory.
Then I did a wierd thing - I had my son marry Ake's mother, Yrsa. Yrsa was exceptional at intrigue, having 21 in that skill, highest in realm - which I only realized when she came to my court. I discovered the character browser thing under the minimap, and it really helped me finding the best council members. Granted, I only found a guy with 21 learning and recruited him as my Seer, but come on, you don't get people with more than 15 in any skill.
Right now my situation is like this: Cormac has died a few years ago, and due to Agnatic-Cognatic Gavelkind, his eldest son, Gilla-Crist(?) inherited County of Dublin, his brother got his hands on a County of Vejlsajskaraoskra(sorry, don't remember). This was unfortunate, and annoying - if I went on a war with my brother, I would have gotten a nasty trait that would screw with everything I made Gilla as Cormac. So instead, I used plotting to kill him. And I succeeded. Luckily for me, he didn't have any children, and I inherited the County of Unpronouncoblia. Taught me a lesson, though - never use Gavelkind succession laws.
Also, I discovered the joy of raiders - raise the entire levy, make them raiders, put them on all your galleys, send them to rich Sultanates, , profit.
Right now, I'm planning on meddling with Ivar the Boneless' dynasty, trying to inherit some of his shit - going to be hard, considering how he's already got fully adult grandsons. I will mostly go for declaring independence and becoming the Norse Kingdom of Ireland.

[PanH]

Raiding is even better when you have retinues to do it. Sadly, there's no fleet retinues.

About Gravelkind, I kinda like it, but you have to get rid of unwanted sons : making them priest/godi/whatever (by giving them a temple), killing them (careful with kinslayer). You can get temples with pagan conquest, so it can be pretty easy (but there's something about gravelkind, heir and concubine's child too, so yeah).

[Wiles]

About Gravelkind, I kinda like it, but you have to get rid of unwanted sons : making them priest/godi/whatever (by giving them a temple), killing them (careful with kinslayer). You can get temples with pagan conquest, so it can be pretty easy (but there's something about gravelkind, heir and concubine's child too, so yeah).

Since the last patch giving a character of the norse religion a temple no longer excludes them from inheritance.

[Descan]

I started playing as a Zoroastrian count on the Caspian Sea in 1066.

Holy SHIT that is hard.

Had to reload a few times because my damn count wouldn't impregnate ANY of his 1 wife or 3 concubines and finally got assassinated in a chain of reloads.

Everyone hates me because I'm an infidel so plotting is almost right-out. (can occasionally get a full plot. Expensive, though)

And once I've FINALLY taken the dukedom after like, 30-40 in-game years, the Sultan of the Seljuks revokes it. Christonacracker.

[PanH]

About Gravelkind, I kinda like it, but you have to get rid of unwanted sons : making them priest/godi/whatever (by giving them a temple), killing them (careful with kinslayer). You can get temples with pagan conquest, so it can be pretty easy (but there's something about gravelkind, heir and concubine's child too, so yeah).

Since the last patch giving a character of the norse religion a temple no longer excludes them from inheritance.

Yeah, saw that. It's for all pagans too, not norse only (at least, it did it for west african religion too  ). Also, West African religion sucks even harder than I thought. They get the vassals opinion malus for raising levies too long, while unreformed pagans shouldn't have it.

I'd recommend playing Zoroastrian as 869, the Duke of Karen (something like that), you're independant, got ~4k event troops at start, and are surrounded by people who can declare holy war on you. It's quite fun. There's also a independant zoroastrian count (Gilan or something), and you can try to free some zoroastrians lords from the muslims rulers.

[Cthulhu]

I'm playing the Most Serene Republic of Venice.  I'm old and I'll probably lose the Republic when I die, but my son is second most likely to win.  The expected successor, Giacomo Tradonico, is a favorite, but his son is a chud.  All I have to do is outlive Giacomo and my family keeps the Republic.

[Teneb]

I'm playing the Most Serene Republic of Venice.  I'm old and I'll probably lose the Republic when I die, but my son is second most likely to win.  The expected successor, Giacomo Tradonico, is a favorite, but his son is a chud.  All I have to do is outlive Giacomo and my family keeps the Republic.

I hope that by outlive you mean assassinate. Really, it's the most logical solution. Just start a plot and stay in power.

[Cthulhu]

Of course I do.

[Descan]

Why don't you just shove more money into the election campaign?

Also, I was playing the 1066 start because if I DIDN'T start small, I'd control all of Persia within 100 years. :/

[Cthulhu]

He's too far ahead.  Was too far ahead.

I caught him in a plot to kill me, put him in the oubliette, and let him die.  His house collapsed and I got the election.

[Mongol13524]

I don't quite get how you're supposed to expand as a tiny catholic count/duke/petty king in CKII

Wait decades for claims to be fabricated? Press de jure claims you don't have the money to make or manpower to enforce? Fast forward for decades, holding on to a slim hope that something might actually happen? (I should probably add that the only game changing DLC I have is Sunset Invasion and Legacy of Rome.)


Also, how do you find the claimants for a de jure title? I know about the "find title" feature, but that just seems to bring me to the province view for titles that actually exist (the one in the corner that shows the holdings).

[Descan]

Above the holdings and below the portrait when you click on a province is the Kingdom and Duchy, one on top of the other, of that province. Click that, and it opens up a page, wherein the top-right of that page has "Claimants" button that you click to find any claimants, should they exist. If it's grayed out, no one is a claimant.

[mainiac]

It shouldn't take decades for claims to fabricate unless you have a really bad diplomat.  Years is more typical.  Expanding as a one county ruler is easy, it's protecting yourself that's tricky.