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[Sheb]

So my Epic Grandma repelled a Fatimid jihad on Tunis, leading a combined force of Norman knights and holy orders troops for many years, refining her martial skills and becoming an expert at leading heavy infantry on plains.

A few months later, the Pope declared a crusade for Jerusalem. I assembled my troops in Sicily, but just as Epic Grandma was reviewing the troops before setting sails, she died of depression after loosing her 5th husband.

I just wished she could become a Crusader. You will always be one in my heart.

Now her great-grandson has to manage the mess of succession somehow.

[Grim Portent]

Ireland is such an easy conquest as Vikings, even with 60% threat none of the fools were in a pact against me so I was able to conquest all their coastal counties at once then blitz the three remaining inland counties even though they had joined the pact by then. Gave all the land to my grandsons, helping cement my dynasty as the sole true power in Scandinavia. 3 of 5 norse kings are my family so far, and I intend to increase that number.

Also, I have decided that the easiest start to viking runs is as a Norse ruler of Saxony. Since you start as a King you can subjugate Sjaelland and then use your proximity to single county norsemen to make them join you willingly, which eventually ups your power enough that the multiple county counts will join you. Getting the Jarls is harder, but they'll join once you've raided enough gold from the Franks to make the kingdom titles. If they still refuse, well you have de jure claims on their lands and outnumber them 10 to 1.

EDIT: Also, starting as Saxony keeps Paderbor out of Frankish hands and makes it that much easier to reform the faith, which is always a hassle when Saxony's AI rulers get kicked in by the Franks.

[EuchreJack]

I'm not sure if new players are aware of this (I certainly wasn't), but when attacking someone that is likely to bring in other rulers, its best just to attack everyone at once (if you can).  Otherwise you can't take the land of the enemy's allies.

[Lukewarm]

People can join you willingly? How do you do that?

[Cruxador]

People can join you willingly? How do you do that?

Did you try asking nicely?

[Lukewarm]

I've only ever axed people to join me. It's not very nice.

[Teneb]

People can join you willingly? How do you do that?

Only in certain situations. Any ruler can join defensive holy wars against a ruler of their religion, for instance.

[umiman]

They'll say something like "to my honored blah blah blah Doofmuncher XI, your cause is just. We would like to join you plskthx."

[Simon]

I took a new approach to this game - I started out by rolling the imaginary dice and randomly picking a character to play, bearing in mind, that after he dies I do the same thing - over and over again, all over the map. Whatever I roll, that's what I play. I try to "roleplay" the characters, going by the traits and abilities they have, so I weigh them in when considering the proper response to an event, and so on. Soooo.....

1. rolled the High Chief of Radimichia, which is a county somewhere in present day Poland/Belarus. IMMEDIATELY got attacked, and vassalized, by a larger neighbour, who then proceeded to make my ducal (that should've been mine) his primary and thus renamed his whole country to Radimichia. My char was Craven, but Proud, so I took that as an excuse to help my conqueror in his next conquests. Managed to subjugate 3 or 4 neighbors, becoming a rather vicious regional power in the process. Then... I died and was reborn as a...

2. whoremonger of a count in the Byzantine Empire. Seriously, this guy had like 13 children and helluva mistresses. This one was rather boring, only civil revolts and such. Died of stress after like 15 years, which is funny, because he got this trait when I tried to maintain multiple romances at the same time.

3. rolled the equivalent of a count in an Indian kingdom. Traits - Dumb, Cruel, Proud. What an awful combination. The king died soon enough and the kingdom got split into two between his sons. The one I got under was kinda weak looking, constantly refused my requests to put me on his council so naturally, I declared a war on him. Did kinda well, destroyed his army and conquered around 1/3 of his holdings when.. I died.

4. did I mention number 3 was dumb? Well, screw that, I got reborn as a drooling, weak-minded imbecile of a woman countess on the border of Abbasid Empire and India. By some divine favor she didn't have a regent, was 60-ish and married to a Muslim man. Oh, did I mention she was a Hindu vassal of a Muslim sheikh? This freak of nature died soon enough, and with her, the Hindu rulership of said county.

5. King of Mercia (BTW, the biggest player on the British Isles, except the Picts). Finally, something REALLY interesting. Ambitious lunatic with the Great Pox, preset ambition to become King of England. No problems, declared war on a petty kingdom next to me, died in battle two years later. Fuck.

6. and we're in the present. I'm a 60 something count of Holland in the Empire of Francia, which just got attacked by the Umayyads. Participated in two revolts, one successfully (to depose the King of West France).

What's happening in the world you ask? Well, the Abbasid blobbed, like it often does. But soon after number 3, it.. de-blobbed? It got splintered really badly into a lot of successor dynasties, one of which is ruling the Sultanate of Egypt and looks like it is on the rise.

Lombardy has holdings in North Africa. Aaaaand, we already have an antipope in France before 850.

Sweden (Svibjod) formed in Scandinavia, but is nowhere near as frightening as in some of my games.

The Khans are doing what they usually do, growing in size and waiting. Elsewhere, India is divided into 7 or 8 kingdoms.

Looks like I've set Mercia on the right way, since it owns most of England. BTW, some Viking conquerors somehow got hold of Brittany, it formed under their Germanic Pagan rulership, only to be liberated by a Catholic peasant revolt, and then renamed itself to Kingdom of Breizh.

Catholic Bulgaria and Croatia are giving the Byzantines a hard time on the Balkan front, in the Middle East it is threatened by random Sultanates.

That's about all for now.

[MrRoboto75]

That's an interesting way to play.  I should try that myself sometime.

[Rolan7]

How do you randomly choose your new identity?

[Wysthric]

That's an interesting way to play.  I should try that myself sometime.

It is - it focuses on making an interesting game rather than building one dynasty up, which is vulnerable to savescumming if shit goes wrong, I find.

How do you randomly choose your new identity?

Every time you load up, it opens the lobby screen. Simply click the dice in the bottom right to get a new identity.

[hector13]

You need to be playing a non-Ironman game, else you can't change from your initial character.

[Simon]

Yup, can't do that on Ironman, I found out the not-so-hard, yet involving too-much-loading-screens-way.

Although I disabled autosaves, refrain myself from saving almost at all times (no saving before attacking, or making crucial decisions), the only time I saved like mad, was when I was playing the imbecile woman, who had no dynastic heir. So when she died, the game just quit, and didn't make a save - thus, I saved each half-year, and then loaded the one the shortest period before her death, and kept on playing from there (she died few months after that either way).

[Quartz_Mace]

In just a couple hundred years, I've brought the Larestan dynasty from a single county that was nearly wiped out the single most powerful vassal of the Arabian empire and controller of 75% of the Persian empire. I personally hold 4 kingdoms and 11K troops (8,000 levies and 2,500 retinues). I have a total of 44K troops with vassal levies accounted for and I am ludicrously wealthy (2,000 gold saved up. +30 gold per month) Although I'm currently beneath the caliph, I married my character to a female of his dynasty with a weak inheritable claim on the empire. All I need to do is ensure that child inherits and start a faction to install myself on the throne (should be pretty easy to do. I have roughly 90% of my liege's troops. The child who will get the claim on succession is a Mirza, and I can always hire plenty of mercs to outnumber my liege if not enough people join in my faction. Even if I can't install using claim, I should be able to get independence and possibly even fracture the Caliph's empire enough to later invade.