Lunas Legion wrote:Impaled Nazarene wrote:Decided to drop my current playthrough and try a minor duke in the HRE. I picked 1111 as the start date because 1066 has a Salian who seems scripted to rule for 40+ years, though there is a young Salian on the throne on this game it is at least a different one who may not live forever. Also starting after the crusade era starts is nice.
I picked Duke Siegfried of the Duchy of The Rhein. A one province duke that isn't an elector... PERFECT! I use cheat menu to join a small dynasty (Hohenzollern) because a 5 member dynasty is better than a 2 member dynasty. Pope calls crusade for Egypt I hire a fuck ton of mercenaries and because Crusade AI is bad and no one assaults settlements I was accruing occupation war score and picking off the tiny armies of the Fatimids (crusade for Shia lands is an easy win every time, except maybe post Mongol Invasion) my mercenaries ended up winning me the crusade putting my fresh 16 year old half brother on the throne of Egypt.
It's been 11 years and because of that juicy crusade piety and prestige I'm most likely going to succeed the incapable emperor.
UNFORTUNATELY, the only thing the Salians like doing more than living for too long is having an antipope.
I can't figure out how to dispose of an antipope as an emperor without surrendering during an antipapal war so I said fuck that, reloaded a save and made the Salian surrender because 4 antipapal wars in 2 years is ridiculous. Now to wait for the incapable Salian to die.
The point of this playthrough will be to have my family regularly elected emperor and expand the power and size of the HRE without doing the blobbing myself. I want to enjoy the catholic and imperial court life, raise children with focuses that are not Martial or Learning, fight pagans and Muslims instead of Christians (revolts and defensive wars excluded), and marry my way across Europe and stop my family from inbreeding.
Not sure if still applicable, but I've found conquering a single province somewhere in the border regions, usually the Baltics, and giving it to someone with a decent powerbase can make them start conquering the Baltic Pagans of their own accord.
Vassals expanding? Yeah that's a great technique and I love doing it. The problem is Christians have a harder time busting vassal blobs. Should be fun to leverage favors to stop the border dukes from becoming a problem.
Also a goal is to stop Bohemia from becoming a kingdom. Only one king allowed in the HRE!
, also own greenland, iceland, and faroe.).
