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[Shadowlord]

The common suggestion of starting in Ireland is actually a good one. What I did myself which made things a whole lot clearer was to start as Dublin, without using ruler designer. Then I used my family connection to a neighboring province to take another province, and so on, and shortly became a duke, then had over half of Ireland, and became King... The more you take the more power you have, and in that game I went on to conquer all of Ireland, Brittany (northeast France), various additional parts of France, Wales, a third of Scotland, and England, and founded the Empire of Alba and removed numerous irritating English nobles from power who I had neglected to remove in my war of conquest, before the new DLC and patch hit and screwed up my (ironman) game, and I stopped playing since it wasn't possible to roll it back to the previous version (because Ironman).

There's definitely more of a sense of accomplishment going from one county to an entire empire, and I learned more than I ever did in any of my previous campaigns (which included several attempts at the byzantines, most ended by stacks of doom from the south, one or two by rebellions after I lost most of my armies repelling stacks of doom).

[Satarus]

I tend to prefer the eastern areas. But HRE looks good only cause it doesn't seem I'd have any trouble since they are powerful.

Any suggestions?

My favorite start is the Duke of Flanders in TOG start.  Start by forming factions against your liege and he'll probably transfer some de jure vassals to you. You can plot to revoke their titles.  Then forge claims on the part of Normandy that Brittany holds.  A few more claims within the realm will get you the duchy of Normandy and make you an elector if you can force elective succession.  From there it's up to you.  You can try for the throne of France, or you could expand and recreate Frisia. If you have the boats, you could even go for Britannia.  It's all up to you.

[RedKing]

I'd avoid HRE until you really want to get into the politics and factions. HRE is powerful, but it's constantly beset with internal factionalism and revolts. And if the emperor is weak, some of those revolts can be substantial. You're also much more restricted in where you can grow your borders unless you're on the fringes.

[kaian-a-coel]

This game, I swear.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The green stuff is the total extent of my territory. I have venice, five small counties in the ankle of italy, the kingdom of Jerusalem, and the duchy of Acre.

Since the first crusade began in late 966, I've done nothing but fight muslims. First there was the crusade itself, which lasted a good six and a half years and killed more than a hundred thousand men. Maybe two hundred thousand, I can't remember exactly. I nicked the kingdom (now the Most Serene Republic of Jerusalem) from the Knights Hospitaliers by a small margin.

But the king of egypt doesn't like me here, and declares a holy war. With the help of the pope and holy orders, I win, declare a holy war back at him (hurrah for being able to DoW with my 11k holy knights raised) and nom Acre.

Twenty years of peace pass.

Then the son of Serafino the Crusader, Livio Participatio, decides he wants to be a holy warrior, too. So I declare war on the Abassids for their capital duchy. What happens is that the shia caliph calls for a Jihad on my arse. Another six and a half years and another hundred and fifty thousand deaths later (though for each christian who died, three mahometans fell, so I count that as a win), the sunni caliphate had to move their capital to anatolia, and the shia caliphate was at 4.3% moral authority.

Quite pissed at the whole thing, I press a punitive holy war against the shia caliph.

Instant sunni jihad.

God damnit.

And here we go again, for five years this time. And significantly less deaths, the muslims had exhausted their manpower (while I had two holy orders as my vassals and a net income of 80 gold a month. I made a TON OF MONEY with ransom alone. this happens? No big deal. Raise 17k mercenaries and throw them at the enemy.)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here's the situation after twenty years of constant warfare. Clearly, christendom is prot...

*missing screenshot of umayyads owning aquitaine*

DAMNIT KARLINGS, YOU HAD ONE JOB!

And they're invading west francia now, GREAT. Pope please?

*pope calls for crusade for aquitaine*

Much appreciated.

I land 17k levies from the holy land and holy orders on the coast of spain, and start smashing muslims. Everything goes well, and the only thing I'm disappointed about is that I won't get the land because there's a claimant. Well whatever, the infidels will be pushed back and weakened, so that's always good.

*shia caliph declares war for a child's claim on the duchy I took from him five years ago*

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF I can't get a break can I?

With my troops stranded in spain, I raise the two remaining available holy orders, throw a few mercenaries in there because I can afford it, and ship the doomstack to jerusalem.

That's where I stopped playing for the day. I firmly intend to continue playing this save. Now it's personnal.

[umiman]

Whenever I accidentally win control of Jerusalem, I always immediately give it independence for the above reasons.

[Vendayn]

kaian-a-coel, what year did you end up starting?

Also, I ended up trying the Byzantine emperor in the old god start. Did rather good, lasted a good 30 or so years (think got to 31 years) (for a noob that barely knows how to play, playing a hard to play emperor seems good to me). Tried my best at staying friends with Armenia/Georgia...seems right (maybe its the colors). Was doing great, beating back the Muslims. They were being rather ganged up on my everyone, so in my game they were actually losing.

And...half my empire revolts. Which is where I left off.

If I do end up losing (or just starting over). I've learned FAR more at managing stuff (forgot to manage dukes properly, so in the future I'll have to keep that in mind. I forgot to check on my Dukes like people say you have to as byzantines) and keeping people happy. I know you guys and everyone else says europe/ireland...but that is just too boring for me. Outside of maybe England...my preferred area is italy/greece/africa/spain and the eastern areas. Europe honestly gets me kinda bored, it happened in Total War games too. Dunno why. I've always liked the middle/eastern places and africa. And spain on the occasion.

I think next I want to try Venice (or maybe someone else in the region) and taking Kingdom of Jerusalem. That sounds fun. I always liked playing KoJ in 1257 ad mount and blade mod, was one of my favorite factions. I know there is a start specifically where KoJ appears, but I think I'd like making it more than starting as it.

But yeah, I'm the guy that sees a tutorial or a starting area regarded as a tutorial and goes "boring" and elephants his way through the china shop I have more fun learning from mistakes and doing it the hard way in games (which I learn better from, but that is me), than being bored as hell in a region I'm not that interested in. Don't look at guides (not often anyway) or videos, just learn from doing. And hey, my byzantine game went great until I forgot to manage my dukes properly. A lot of people were happy until one duke revolted leading an entire revolution. My guy had tons of kids, a friend, blood relations in armenia/georgia.

Oh and I did assassination plots on a muslim kingdom The one south of Sicily in Africa I targeted, and half his empire turned against him. I didn't really know how it worked, but figured it out easy enough.

[umiman]

Whenever I accidentally win control of Jerusalem, I always immediately give it independence for the above reasons.

Clearly your rule is weak, then.

As weak as a polar bear that can't figure out how to use legs.

[kaian-a-coel]

Whenever I accidentally win control of Jerusalem, I always immediately give it independence for the above reasons.

Well if I wasn't "over 9000 mercenaries" Venice, keeping it would be a bit harder. I have 15 trade posts nearly maxed out and the income is in a completely different dimension. Money >>> Levies.

kaian-a-coel, what year did you end up starting?

867. I have charlemagne but I wanted a more familiar setting for my first time as a republic.

[Vendayn]

Whenever I accidentally win control of Jerusalem, I always immediately give it independence for the above reasons.

Well if I wasn't "over 9000 mercenaries" Venice, keeping it would be a bit harder. I have 15 trade posts nearly maxed out and the income is in a completely different dimension. Money >>> Levies.

kaian-a-coel, what year did you end up starting?

867. I have charlemagne but I wanted a more familiar setting for my first time as a republic.

Have any tips as starting as Venice during that time? (I don't have charlemagne, I'm waiting for Winter sales)...have most of the DLC (just a few/couple missing besides the new expansion). Don't really need to be hand-held or anything like that, but just some tips or something to start off. Also who did you choose to start as? Did you start as the leader or one of his vassals?

I think Venice does fit me better gameplay wise than Byzantines would, since I love mercenaries (Carthage in Rome 2 are great for that ) +trading/economy Seems Venice is good for both.

[umiman]

Whenever I accidentally win control of Jerusalem, I always immediately give it independence for the above reasons.

Well if I wasn't "over 9000 mercenaries" Venice, keeping it would be a bit harder. I have 15 trade posts nearly maxed out and the income is in a completely different dimension. Money >>> Levies.

kaian-a-coel, what year did you end up starting?

867. I have charlemagne but I wanted a more familiar setting for my first time as a republic.

How are retinues in the current patch?

[kaian-a-coel]

Have any tips as starting as Venice during that time? (I don't have charlemagne, I'm waiting for Winter sales)...have most of the DLC (just a few/couple missing besides the new expansion). Don't really need to be hand-held or anything like that, but just some tips or something to start off. Also who did you choose to start as? Did you start as the leader or one of his vassals?

I think Venice does fit me better gameplay wise than Byzantines would, since I love mercenaries (Carthage in Rome 2 are great for that ) +trading/economy Seems Venice is good for both.

First thing to do is spamming trade ports. Grab the one in Venice itself before unpausing the game, and try to get most of those around the same sea zone quickly. They're worth tons of cash.
I started as the leader, but who is the leader will change a lot, until you get enough money to offset the age of your heir. (PROTIP: you have a "designated heir" honorary title, use it to choose who's your heir).
Getting land is a three step plan: 1) build a trade port (or let another family do it) 2) declare war to seize a city in this province 3) declare a second war to seize the county itself.

How are retinues in the current patch?

I saw that they cost much, much more money than they used to (and even at peace), so I decided not to bother.

[EnigmaticHat]

-snip-

I feel like this scenario ends with Venice as a theocratic cyberpunk mega-corporation in the future.  With the city itself looking like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[scriver]

Next DLC announced. This time focusing on RP and such, it seems, which I like (if it ends up being good content, of course). Also announced they're going open beta this time, which is probably a reaction to how much criticism they got over the state of their last DLC on release.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I enjoy releasing a DLC that reintroduced incredible amounts of CTDs and instability, then immediately making another one before making the newest versions stable enough to mod.. Guess this 2.2+ branch is just useless now until they patch it before the DLC release.

[Vendayn]

I do seem to CTD a lot with CK2. Even though its up to date on steam (don't think I opped for beta, unless it does it automatically)...maybe it is because I play iron man mode and its a buggy mode. Dunno, but not a big deal. Doesn't crash often.

Also, having TONS of fun as Kingdom of Jerusalem Its a later start than I usually begin. But in my game (2nd time as KoJ, first was mostly testing it out), the Byzantine emperor's wife died early on...I had a princess who had 6 years old bethroled to the emperor. Who later birthed a child which isn't the heir (think close though)...but is regarded as my blood. Still really cool and leaves it open for me to take over if I want. Which I might try when the emperor dies. But I'd prefer just to stay as a vassal of Byzantines (which I did as soon as I was able to). I LOVE byzantines and their history (to be honest, more interesting to me than when they were the Roman empire)...so I always "ally" them. If I was a muslim, I'd do the cheat to marry anyone, turn on iron man mode and STILL "ally" byzantines. I know there isn't really official alliances, but I can always swear fealty and become a vassal (dunno if muslims have that with byzantines (I don't see why they wouldn't vassal, but haven't tried), but I'd cheat and force the game or edit the save if not). I could be orcs from middle earth and still want to ally byzantines (BYZANTINE FAN can you tell? )

But anyway. Joined a war with byzantines pretty quick into the game, gained a province (love holy orders which I gained really early. Which might have been luck? My very first KoJ game I never got them at all within 5 years (or was that bad luck?)). Beat back a jihad (right in the start they jihaded for greece and they got owned), did a crusade back at them. Successful crusade and got good traits from that...going really well.

I think this might be my preferred time period in the game, is when KoJ formed and is relatively new. And a lot of stuff going on. Byzantine emperor is nearing his death though, unless he grows to be really old.

But, a lot more fun (for me) than the other ages I tried. I love it Then again, maybe because I've gotten lucky...a lot...in my current game lol. Though, I think even with the bit of luck I had (like marrying into the byzantine empire)...its still tons of fun even if I get bad luck. Might be still new and sucky at CK2 but I think this particular time period might be easier (to me anyway). I just hope it doesn't go to shit when the emperor dies.

Btw, should I attempt to create kingdom of isreal? Stay as KoJ? Wait and see what Byzantines do when (if) the emperor dies? He isn't really that old (definitely up there though), but dunno how long he'll end up living.

My main problem is figuring out what to do next...besides the obvious of beating back muslims. Everything is going really good, so maybe I shouldn't do anything right now lol.

(edit: I think when I play next. I'll try to get the Byzantine empire as my own when the current emperor dies. I'll have to do some assassinating, but if I can kill the current heir and put mine in its place...

I think doing that makes sense, especially since I went broke (for a little bit) making all his vassals like me But I'm more liked by his vassals and court people than he is rofl.)

Also, I end up enjoying this more than the Total War series. Which I ended up auto resolving battles in the end and enjoying the simple campaign map more. CK2 was just hard to get into (huge learning curve for me lol), so I never really played with all the time I've had CK2. But, after giving it a try, its great. I really enjoy (like I said) the KoJ time period. I should have expanded my horizons than just old god start, which I didn't really have fun that much fun with. Other than KoJ and BYZANTINES I'd probably actually give England a try at some point. Cause I actually DO like England (otherwise that area is kinda boring for me).

But, what I like about CK2 is how personal it all is. Takes a lot of learning, the intrigue and everything...hardest part of the game to learn lol. But I'm pretty much used to it. It isn't just making a huge empire...there is a lot more to it. A lot easier (for me) to get into than the Europa Universalis series they also make. And I'm really looking forward to that next DLC, makes the personal part even better.

Btw, I should have added it...the Muslims ended up making a huge blob at one point (for a very brief period). A well placed assassin ended that That was cool to see it collapse in on itself lol. Otherwise, I'd have been just overrun lol.