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[Grim Portent]

Just reformed the Norse faith, uh... now what? I'm probably going to start working towards a feudal reform too now, and that'll take a LONG time. Might work on uniting Scandinavia (I'm literally one county short of Norway, plus a few holy lands), although keeping a low Threat is annoying.

It's still fairly early, too. I want to try to spread the Reformed Norse through Europe (maybe into Brittan?) but that's bound to be slow.

Reformed Norse is one of the most powerful forces in the game.

Here's my advice. If you have the Norse coastal conquest casus belli you can conquer all of Ireland in just a few years with retinues and mercenaries. In order to afford them you should raid Venice and Rome as often as you can. England and Scotland take longer to conquer, but once you have Ireland under your belt you can pick off Wales with some rapid Holy Wars and settle in for a longer slugging match with the Picts and Anglo-Saxons.

If you become Feudal your army will take a huge knock for several decades as you lose your vast hordes of tribal warriors, but the pros generally outweigh the cons in the long run. Late game Tribals just can't compete with late game Feudals because of the sheer disparity in power between light infantry and heavy infantry + cavalry. Because of this you might be best off taking on Francia now rather than later. A full Scandinavia tribal horde can actually drive the Franks several duchies back from Germany with little trouble where the Feudal Scandinavians just can't raise a big enough army at first.

Once again, raiding Venice and Rome should be your most common activity. It should be one of the first things you do as each new character to get the Viking trait and generate some sweet revenue to improve your lands and hire warriors.

[Kanil]

My king just expired, leaving behind a pair of daughters. Ultimogeniture means I end up in control of the younger one, which is good, as the older one was married to the king of Germany... ... who's currently plotting to kill me. Also he doesn't like me enough to stop plotting, either.

I could ignore it, or send my diplomat, but seducing him sounds like fun. If he acknowledges the kid, then it gets to have two parents with snazzy king-tier golden outlines. If he legitimizes it, I can just have another one.

Being the cuter of the two sisters, the romancing ends up being pretty straightforward, and pretty soon I'm pregnant. King-tier outlines, here I come! I've even got enough piety to legitimize the kid.

Nine months later, little Ana shows up, he acknowledges, I legitimize, and then promptly die in childbirth.

Oops.

I guess he got me, in the end.

[hector13]

Best assassination attempt ever?

[Sirbug]

Found a count that is both master seducer and eunuch. Looks like he seduced a wrong man's wife.

[Sirbug]

God damn it. Born in Purple affects Byzantine succession, but not Greek. And I can't make my firstborn Despot because he's married to a landed woman.

[Sirbug]

I found myself next to a horde with germanic faith. I wonder how did this happen and what to expect of them.

[Cruxador]

Just reformed the Norse faith, uh... now what? I'm probably going to start working towards a feudal reform too now, and that'll take a LONG time. Might work on uniting Scandinavia (I'm literally one county short of Norway, plus a few holy lands), although keeping a low Threat is annoying.

It's still fairly early, too. I want to try to spread the Reformed Norse through Europe (maybe into Brittan?) but that's bound to be slow.

Reformed Norse is one of the most powerful forces in the game.

Here's my advice. If you have the Norse coastal conquest casus belli you can conquer all of Ireland in just a few years with retinues and mercenaries. In order to afford them you should raid Venice and Rome as often as you can. England and Scotland take longer to conquer, but once you have Ireland under your belt you can pick off Wales with some rapid Holy Wars and settle in for a longer slugging match with the Picts and Anglo-Saxons.

If you become Feudal your army will take a huge knock for several decades as you lose your vast hordes of tribal warriors, but the pros generally outweigh the cons in the long run. Late game Tribals just can't compete with late game Feudals because of the sheer disparity in power between light infantry and heavy infantry + cavalry. Because of this you might be best off taking on Francia now rather than later. A full Scandinavia tribal horde can actually drive the Franks several duchies back from Germany with little trouble where the Feudal Scandinavians just can't raise a big enough army at first.

Once again, raiding Venice and Rome should be your most common activity. It should be one of the first things you do as each new character to get the Viking trait and generate some sweet revenue to improve your lands and hire warriors.

Taking a nice little island will make Mediterranean raiding much more efficient, and there's several one-county islands to choose from.

[Quartz_Mace]

Continued with a historically started game in which I have thus far worked my way up from a random Muslim count to Sultan of Persia and things have gotten out of control.

I just lost an entire generation of rulers (thank Allah 1 of the children had a grandson) to my Voice of Satan son. First my ruler died of old age, despite not being 50 yet and having a family focus. Kind of wierd, but not impossible. Said ruler had 5 sons, 2 landed (better of the 2 has titles and so inherits first, the demon child, and 2 not very good options). I start ruling as my best heir and consider killing the demon child, but my plot power's too low and I'd get 40 tyranny for imprisoning him, so I just ignore him and go about my business.
Things go well for ~4 years, then my character gets an event. He's feeling a little woozy... Oh he's dead.

Enter son #2. Again, 40 for imprisonment and I'm currently trying to fix my dynasty's decadence, so that gets my attention as I pray I get a chance to kill that child. I have a son already, so I hand him a couple of titles in case I need to use him. Less than a year after taking power, this character starts feeling woozy. And now he's incapable and infirm. Well, probably won't live much longer, so I might as well drive up my tyranny. The little demon's finally put away and left in a cell to rot, then said threat grows up. 29 Intrigue skill. Off with his head and my character is revenged before promptly passing away.

Well time for the grandson. A Bedouin Sunni (like his liege the caliph) with sub-par stats. I've been trying to convert back to Persian because that's who we are and I'd prefer the horse archer retinues. I pick a Persian with almost 20 in both martial and stewardship. When I finally come of age, I find my self with moderate stats and my preferred culture finally(my great-grandfather converted to get along with his liege, but now I have high enough tolerance to avoid mitigate the penalty) and it's time to keep expanding.

I'm currently a vassal of the Abbasid empire which has blobbed big time and just repelled a crusade and stole a duchy from the Byzantine empire. I've been hiding under the empire for protection from outside forces and infamy. Somehow, the Shia caliph is a vassal of the Sunni caliph. Also, Danmark took Sweden and Italy is a united kingdom.

[Lukewarm]

Gahh. I want to reform the Slavic faith, but I piddled around too long with forming Ruthenia and mindless one-state expansion, so now Lithuania, Poland and Croatia are all formed and far more armed then I am. I think I hit a maximum of three thousand troops with all of ruthenia by personally dumping money into the most prosperous ones, but then my ruler died and Gavelkind split everything between his two sons.  I'm not able to compete with the massive armies that Poland, Croatia, or Lithuania's allies can field, and if I stay unreformed then I'll be a fish in a barrel when nearby countries start modernizing, and the kingdom's only going to continue to split as everyone breeds. I think I'll restart, but act faster this time. Maybe I can get to that Temple on the island before Pomerania or Poland does. 

What I want to know is how Rus ( a blob of land of significant size, but piss poor economy) manages to consistently churn out armies of 3000+ while hardly having any counties of greater then 5 tax. How does it get the money to either build levies or afford mercs? I just want to be a economic superpower, is that so much to ask?

[Quartz_Mace]

So, it appears that despite being a Sunni Muslim, I was just forced to join a Shia Jihad because I'm allied with the Shia Caliph. I'll just make it a proxy war because that fool has no chance of winning (he wants to take Anatolia from the Byzantines with only 6k troops against their 13k + mercs), but I wonder if I could get the Kingdom if I contributed enough...

Oh, also apparently I don't understand how threat works. (I thought it only affected the liege of a realm, not anyone underneath, but I'm accumulating it as a vassal.)

Edit: and now the Sunni Caliph has also declared a Jihad for Anatolia! Well, I guess I'm going there now.

[Sirbug]

What's up with Shi'a anyway? Every decade I get a message of their rise, but nothing seems to change.

Anyway, I held back my first Jihad and it gave me popularity boost needed to bounce back to limited crown authority. How nice. I think I should celebrate it by declaring Holy War for what is left of Jerusalem.

[Descan]

"Shia Rise" is a notification of a war against the person the event happens to, by a newly-created 9? ish year old Attractive and I think Quick Shiite Caliph. The Shiite Caliph has no land, but if they happen to win the war, they get the kingdom the war was declared for. Usually it's Egypt or a Levantine state, though I've seen some wars in North Africa area. If they lose the war (and they usually do) then the Shiite Caliphate disbands until the event fires again.

[Sirbug]

The other day independence faction rebelled, but before I could pull my loyal troops together they asked to accept my surrender. I wonder what happened. I suspect they ran into one of my vassal's troops and an important character got captured, but I'm not sure it will even contribute to warscore this way.

[Quartz_Mace]

The Sunni jihad is triumphant! The Shi'a was a massive failure,
Though. I didn't realize at the time, but when I was sieging provinces in a corner of Anatolia, I was actually contributing to the Shi'a Jihad because I was part of that on paper, so when the Sunnis won, those few provinces actually remained in the Byzantine empire due to being occupied by a third party. Oh well, I tried for a kingdom at least. I doubt I'd have actually kept them anyway.

Now, on to important things: expanding so that I can control the entire Persian empire and possibly become independent on the way. Or maybe I should keep trying to marry for a claim on the Abbassid empire and usurp the caliph.

[Sirbug]

It turned out that my mercenary rush tactics doesn't work very well against 2K-strong forts. Had to pay contribution to Syria.
Also, remember kids, don't press de jure claims against Muslims. You will have succession trouble 'til the end of
Paulicians hanging around at my borders. I think I need to do something with all those heretics that have holdings in my land, but I lack crown authority to just revoke them all.

Once I secure Tunis and Rome, I can restore Roman empire, but it seems I'm sitting out the next 50 years or so until my threat ticks down.