Join our Discord here! We're currently doing some CK3 Multiplayer on weekends, and there's always good gaming going on - discord.gg/6Tq3ut5 I hope y'all enjoy this slightly different video today! I had a lot of fun exploring some different starts, and writing up why I think they make for fun campaigns. I'd love to hear your personal favourites and stories too, so feel free to share! Already working on another set of starts I enjoy - there are so many 'hidden' decisions and options and titles you can create under the right conditions... CK3 at its most interesting?
4 года назад+2
Hey if you want to start as a count, Asatru and Norse that is also Feudal, why not just play the legendary count Haestein? He starts off tremendously powerful and can invade anywhere in his vicinity but his death is sure to fracture his newly formed Kingdom if he is heir Ragnar has not been properly prepared. Edit: Oh I just saw that he was literally the next one.
Start as Austria in 1066 create Arduchy of Austria. Get independence and then have one of your heirs called Franz Josef and restore the Austro Hungarian borders. Thats what I did
Starting as any vassal in the Indian kingdoms in the 860's can quickly become very hectic and I love it. There's ten different faiths in the area and most of them fight to get control of the holy sites. Being independant in the area is kinda fun, but as a vassal you get massive amounts of interactions with your liege, house heads and dynasti heads. There's even a ruler who reached a age of 114 somewhere... who wanted to marry my youngest son for some reason. It's kinda epic.
I enjoy the struggle of an underdog. A run I ultimately failed but enjoyed was staring with Vladamir. A count over a small plot of land with only a single castle to your name Russian conflict on every side with a powerful Tribal kingdom eyeing you up and consistently tormenting you
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I love runs with large historical goals. For instance, I just completed a run as the last landed Karling in 1066. Historically they died out with his family, but I revived it, took over France, and we went on to restore Charlamaigne's borders... thus restoring the family's prior glory. I wish there was a list of cool things and hidden decisions you could do. Some of this stuff just randomly pops up out of nowhere. Anyways, thanks for another great video!
@@bigkuriboh3814 I know, I'll sit there for like 30-40mins then go for a smoke or two and watch a few CK videos trying to get an idea oh who to play then go back sit down and repeat
My favourite so far is starting as Count of Genoa. Took me 13 hours 37minutes to reach the "Restore The Roman Empire" decision on Ironman, and I did it in 1 sitting on my first day of streaming on twitch.
My fav is Aachen 17year old ruler, feudal. A position mostly unaffected from france/Germany war, nearly no raids, neighbour's with 180 to 500 troops at the beginning. No historical wife/children. Edit: cologne next to you and you have the Aachener something special building in your starting town
Aachen is fun. Your neighbour vassals become stronger really quick if you don't snatch land. The real problem is Sweden. It's a general one for the start date. They eat up everything. And your king is weak. You have to pledge allegiance to west or east Fancia. But you can become quite powerful.
most of my games as aachen west or east eats my king and i have mostly france or bavaria as king. most disappointing is how weak italy is. its always after a few years part of west francia.. hardest enemy early is trier when they want to attack you after 5mins or holland a bit later
@@IksEnwie In 1.0 the start was more chaotic. Now it’s better balanced out. It also depends on what and how many sons the Karlings have. I don’t even notice Italy haha.
if you really want follow historically & in reality of restoring Persian empire you should play as Karen, Dabuye or Bavand dynasties which are decedents of Sassanid dynasty which conquered by Arabs & they are decedents of Achamenid dynasty and know this by the law of Farrah just decedents of Achamenids can inherit throne as well as they are descendent from prophet Zoroaster. but know this as well that play as Karen is very hard & must be lucky.
Prince Erik the Heathen, 1066, as the last living descendent of Ragnar Lodbrok and one of the last Asatru believers in Sweden you will be able to restore the old faith to its former magnitude.
I'd recommend Rhodri the Great, Prince of Gwynned and Powys in the 867 start. He has good stats and can easily form the kingdom of Wales - something you'd really want to do, since otherwise his many titles are split between his many kids. You need to fight off endless Viking invasions to survive or expand, and murdering the Ragnarsons makes it a little easier.
I just came to say I actually started the Kusinagara play-through and oh my god, it's wild! When I started the old guy was a Diplomacy mastermind, but unfortunately gay, so I couldn't really help fathering Heirs. My sons took their sweet time to produce kids but the second son, who was also my spymaster, had a son, so I sent my heir on a suicide mission. The second son became heir but unfortunately he was also batshit crazy, went on a serial killer spree in my court and I had no choice but executing him after he killed several courtiers and council members, his own mother and wife (who was riding my top liege and had children with him). So my grandson became heir and after the old lad stuck around for whopping 13 years and died at 90, I got to play the kid! Also got a pet dog AND cat with him. By far the most fun playthrough ever.
Hey Party I'm from a country in the north atlantic called the Faroe islands, like Iceland we speak a language very true to the old norse, so with this in mind I'd like to give some pointers to the pronounciations of those Norse names. Hæsteinn was the easiest, but with Hrolfr you don't necessarily pronounce the H in that fashion, since Old norse is a spoken language only, the spelling of these names isn't really relevant, but instead a guideline I guess. The H is most likely there in order to make it more intuative, so using their design I will try to convey my pronounciation (which is sure to be off, since noone knows what is right). Instead of going with the english soft roll of the R you have to bring it forward to the area just behind your teeth more or less and then make it pretty pronounced really, same goes for the latter R in the name. In faroese we designate which gender a certain word has with: male -ur, female -a or genderless no end in the words, so "Rólfur" would be how his name would be spelled today. Hroðolf is a bit harder, but it's the same story with the R. "ð" is a weirdo, in faroese we gave up on pronouncing it, but in icelandic they still pronounce it and it's a soft "th" as in "the", but the name translates to the modern Rudolf so think of that when you pronounce it Ro-th-olf where the "th" is the "th" from "the". Great video and thank you so much for the help to a noob
One of my favorite start is the County of AAchen (Aix-la-Chapelle), the old Carolingian capital. You are a count with 2 of the 3 county of the Duchy, the 3rd one is farmland (good for economic) Aachen has 5 building slots. You are right beside COLOGNE one of the christian holy site so you can get it to eventually have your blood-line consecrated.
the first game i played was Mihajlo because I am Serbian (i used my family's naming conventions). I stayed independent until Byzantium was out of hand, swore fealty, and dismantled the empire from within and took over. A fantastic and really different game is Daurama in Africa. I am currently playing her with a female dominated dynasty, trying to have all councillors and vassals and champions be female. And spread the Bori (female dominated) religon to all of Africa. I am so close to uniting all of Africa, just another 30 counties or so!
I really like this video. A similar video I'd like to see is a list of ten starts for beginners, because as someone just getting into the game I'd rather have a fairly easy kingdom to play as to learn my way through the game.
Funny that PartyElite also made the mistake as ItalianSpartacus and assumed that the Rolf in Helsingland is the same Rollo the Walker who formed Normandy. He is not. Yet again, the Rollo who established Normandy is in Trændheim (todays Trondheim) in Norway, as an unlanded character with the dynasty de Normandie already in place. We can only hope PDX makes an event out of him.
Is he the guy with high piety? I tried a run starting in trondheim (probably duke/tribal leader) to try some religious stuff, but he died before he got elevated to religious icon!
You can play as Rollo, just conqueror some land quickly, then grant him a title then switch players. He is the Marshal for Chieftain Rögnvaldr in prandheimr, Hrolfr de normandie
anyone with a mine or a slot for a mine should be a great start. e.g. nitra, innsbruck, gottingen, caslav. you can then field a lot of light cav for pursuit and enjoy having those 'slaughter in xx' battle reports.
A changelling one, at first at least. In 1066, Edith Swanneck "the Fair" in England , lover of the King of England and mother of their legitimized bastards. They will serve as knights in your court when they grow up. Age: 41 If you want to keep the dinasty alive she has to have her own children as soon as possible and make sure they will inherit titles. The good thing is that she has a good inheritance trait to pass on their kids. Look for a husband with another one and with some luck the future kid will inherit both. Tip to ensure the kid of your dinastywill inherit: sending knights alone against a hostile army can be quite lethal for them.
I really love starting in Dublin in 1066. You're a Catholic with a dad about to die to your south and (tbh) a fairly achievable path to conquer brittania
With yesterday's update I started a Mongol campaign. I've formed the Mongol Empire in the far Northeast Asia. Once you form the Mongols you get access to thousands of troops. Now to just sweep east and south and spread the empire. Oh what fun!
I like Alfred the Great and King Godwinson. Alfred because it's challenging, and he starts off with intelligent, which makes him and his heirs that much better. Godwinson because it's fun to keep England Anglo-Saxon, and it's probably the hardest start in the game, so even better.
My favorite start has been Prince Bleyydn of Gwynedd (north wales) 1066. Starts out with a lot of children to marry off to other leaders allowing you to form a lot of alliances. You can marry your daughter to some of William the conqueror children as well. You can decide to take an active part in the War for the English crown which starts right away or just sit back cause neither side is interested in fighting you at the moment. You can easily conqueror your irish neighbors or the Southern Wales dukes in the south
Sri Lanka in 867 is really cool. You start off as a kingdom and already have an heir, and your location means that you won't have to worry about borders that much. You also have about 2000 troops so that expansion isn't so hard. You start as Theravada Buddhist which gives you flexibility with going into Indochina as well as mainland India, too. I think it's a great start for people looking to see what gameplay is like outside of Europe since there's even new terrain like jungles that you won't see out west.
yeah! had an amazing run there for like 150-200 years and almost had 3 kingsdoms before everything got split between my children and i only had sri lanka again left
I'm also doing a Ski Lanka run. Every fun, and after 3 generations I'm the Emperor. One why I dealt with "extra" heirs was to imprison them and force them to take vows. Yes you get some tyranny, but t hff at can be managed.
5:05 You can see the county of Léon at the edge of Brittany. That one is a norse independant feudal count too, just as info if you wanna start something harder than Haesteinn but still in the same location. 1066 Léon is a alot of fun to. You start as a normal christan feudal lord but vassal to the duke of brittany. Quite a hard start but has alot of intrige and diplomacy gameplay possibilities since you start with alot of powerful neighbours who love to bully you if you don't have some nice alliances.
I made the mistake of starting as the holy Roman empire on my third playthrough before I ever even conquered Ireland as Munster That was a...very confusing and challenging game
Dude holy crap. You're freaking hardcore. Dude I didn't hesitate to push that tutorial start button for Ireland. No previous experience with CK2 or anything. I played the tutorial for 28 hours. Straight. Literally went on from 7pm, through the night, into the morning, into the night again, and then 'till 10pm the next day. After 28 hours I was finally ready to start a real campaign. So glad I did the tutorial first.
@@LevCallahan i did it and had no idea and just started a few games to really cement it. As france i destroyed people and found my forte as what to play as and do
@@LevCallahan Fuck dude, I've barely been awake for 28 hours straight, let alone played a game for that long. I can't imagine being able to function enough to play a grand strategy game after being awake for that long.
Whenever I launch this game, I'm up for a 6 hours session at the very least haha. And it feels like a single hour every signle time. It's this kind of fascinating games. You just get sucked right into it.
The Rollo (Hrolfr) who would settle Normandy is in the game but not playable, he is part of the count of Traendheims court, his dynasty name is even De Normandie already
Speaking of Frisia, in the 867 start date there is a guy in the county of Holland named Count Radboud of the Folcwalding Dynasty, one of the hard starts I ever played, discovered this guy in CK2 but only later did I learn that this has a deep history with the Frisian people of old, this Dynasty already starts as having a level of splendor of being noteworthy (4th level) since its founder can be traced from the old kings of Frisia namely King Aldgisl, interestingly you just discover it in the game, a good playthrough if you want to take back the Frisian crown, although absent in CK3 I still tried to achieve the "good old days" and "Frisian coast is long" achievements with this dynasty...
Haraldr Fairhair of Vesthold in 867 is a great start too. Tribal, just at the middle of Norway with two chiefdoms and great stats (high martial, quick trait, only 17 years old). Norseman also can have concubines and scandinavian election succession, so it's very easy to groom a great heir. I'm on the second generation rn with half of Scandinavia under my control, as I conquered all the small chiefdoms while the big guys were focused on England.
An interesting but difficult pick is the count of suenek in armenia 1066. The character begins with the incapable trait and is independent and sandwiched between both the byzantine and seljuk empires. I played it and was crushed multiple times with holy wars killing me every time. But I eventually restored the empire of greater armenia without swearing fealty or converting faith from the apostolic faith.
A lot of these great starts are also very hard starts. I'm playing the Ost Friesland guy right now. It's soooo hard trying to stay Asatru. Had to restart several times re-rolling his stats. And it still doesn't seem the hardest of these starts. You have to have good or decent intrigue and kill your uncle before he has an heir, as he *immediately* goes to limited crown authority, and aims to revoke your title because of your faith. The other way is just extremely slow and a lot can go wrong in that time. 4:07 In my experience you don't have time to do that, you need an alliance before he goes to war with you. He is far stronger so you need a good alliance, but I only managed 1 time to get a good alliance with Halfdan Whiteshirt because of an attraction perk. AI are already unreliable and had to bait the uncle's army to stall for time. Then your next liege, the king, can try it too later, but doesn't happen as often. Raiding is almost impossible because you just get your army killed and with just Ost Friesland you can't raid at all with your tiny army. You don't get much benefit staying Asatru for raiding. Then you need fabricate hooks and swaying for conversions, abduction to win wars and earn money. preferably some stewardship for holding as many counties and making money (also from hooks), and good learning to convert the counties. Anyways those are my experiences with that character
I've been playing for the last two weeks. I'm surprised we couldnt start at the fall of rome. Play as the vandals, conquor the visigoths or as the visigoths. break off from the western roman empire, or play as attila. I play Age of Empires, I can go back to that but this has a new system of playing I'm picking up rather fast.
This is my first paradox game...I watched several tutorials on how to play this game...but they were of no use...then I watched a RUclipsr playing as a count and going up to become a ruler. so, I started as an Indian Ruler in Mumbai(a count) till the end of my ruler's life I managed to become a Duke....now there would be a succession crisis and my sons would tear apart my empire.
I absolutely love playing as the savoie dukes of piedmont, the wife of the holy roman emperor is your sister and gives you most of your the jure counts as vassals early, so you can go toe to toe against lombardy or swabia
There actually are a few county-level starts where your player character is Mazdayan/Zoroastrian--they're mostly in the northern part of the Alavid Sultanate around the Mazdayan holy site in the area
@@PartyElite There's the Sassanid house of Bavandid controlling a county under the Hashimid (zaydis), and there's also the duke of the karen house. Both are in the Daylam de jure kingdom territorries .
I did find one in 867, and it's High Chieftain of Ungvar .....dynasty Bijela Hrvatskic(kinda wrong Bijela Hrvatska and its not Dynasty )....at frist I thought I was crazy...bcz ther is like legend or in Croatian History that Croatia came from White Croatia(bijela Hrvatska somewhere in area of Moravia,poland,Czech,Kiev Rus you can find about that on Wikipedia,and in game they put that near border of bulgaria and Moravia on border of Krakow ) and as u know ther is kingdom of Croatia already in game I didn't believe they added that maybe by accident
I love the Visby start in 867. You own just one county sized island in the middle of the ocean, Sweden and Denmark near you, and you are an independent tribal Asatru. It's a perfect start for anything you want, you can go on an adventure and settle in a different country, you can establish yourself as the ruler of Norwegian lands (might even make it to emperor title in one lifetime), or England, or whatever, or swear fealty to any country, or you can try to stay independent for long as possible without conquering any other lands, just building more and more military power to become the untouchable viking island the entire world hates but can't do anything about.
Lol yeah ppl just think they're hot shit for playing him because of the count start and lack norse ladies or good genetics in his diplomatic range. But the truth is he's stronger than almost every king on the map, and has the benefits of tribal raiding plus the already feudal government. It wouldn't be a stretch to say he's the easiest campaign in the game. Honestly this is a role playing game not a mechanically challenging one. Anyone with just about any army size can manipulate the AI to win battles. No, its more about the fun of rewriting history.
My personal fav is Duke Bernard of Barcelona. You have nice decisions to make like creating the Kingdom of Aragon and you start right away with a strong learning character and pretty young, which will allow you to discover new decisions triggered more easily via the learning skills. Bonus : you have strong claims against the Duchy of Toulouse and you own already the county of Poitiers, so you can expand in France if you dare so.
You talked about potentially butchering the name pronunciations, but as a casual studier of Greek and Latin and casual history buff myself, you actually did pretty damn good with the pronunciations. Not gonna lie.
A really fun start (in my opinion) is playing as the duke of Aragon (1 Holding/alto Aragon) It is a hard but achievable start and you try to do the decision "Forming the Kingdom of Aragon" after you took the rest of Aragon from the Spanish Muslims and Barcelona from the franks.
I really enjoy starting as the independent kingdom at the bottom of India on the Island. I can't remember what they're called. But im sure you'll know who I'm referring too. It's a big challenge going against Chola in the beginning or you offer fealty to them to start with and overthrow them later.
My personal favorite so far is Duke Vratislav of Bohemia. Fast start, excellent holdings, and just need some money to make a second Duchy and a kingdom, and from there you can depose the Kaiser and become holy Roman emperor, stay out of external affairs and focus on expanding your dynasty by poaching congenital traits with your many sons, and focus your power along the generations, or you can unite the Czech-Slovien people and take Nytria from Hungary, or steal Silesia from Poland if you want to grow your realm a bit. Bohemia is one of the best choices to take to play talk as well, as a mine gives you an insane amount of income, especially as you upgrade it.
The prince Al-Quasim of the Idrasid start made me more angry than I've ever been in this game. It was going great but I was frustrated by my leige starting wars and losing my lands and the absolute pathetic lack of skilled courtesans in the region. Ended up working to erase the magrebi off the map, which I ended up succeeding at lol
For anyone trying the Saka start I highly reccomend considering the Kasyar dynasty as an option instead. I did the Vijayanagar kingdom start multiple times and usually I get defeated within the first decade by the dukes in Guge declaring on me and everyone ganging up. If you start as Kasyar though because you don't have a kingdom title you can swear fealty to nearby Qocho or the Samanids and adopt their religion while still developing your own culture. Qocho wil likely transfer you a vassal into your duchy which is nice but you will be at risk from attacks from the Samanids who are powerful at the start. Alternatively you can swear fealty to the Samanids and convert to Islam and slowly devlop you duchy and culture and your county of Kashgar is almost as good for a building up playthrough as Khotan is, it has 6 instead of 7 holdings. Playing as Maturidi Islam makes the Scholar and Theologian trees OP as **** for ruling a stable realm and you can pretty much have era after era of peaceful (no factions) rule if you go down those trees. It also makes it extremely easy to gain indepedepence from your liege, just buy a claim on a nearby kingdom when your finally developed enough using the scholar tree and boom press your claim and you are independent and your former Muslim liege will have no claims on any of your land. Just some advice for anyone wanting to do the Saka culture playthrough. It is very slow to start but so much fun once it gets going.
Duke Ramon Berenguer of Barcelona in 1066 is a good choice. He's the Catalan culture head, and the more powerful of only two independent rulers in 1066 with access to the Visigothic Codes innovation that provides the option of gender equal succession and early access to high partition. His realm's location in Iberia also provides access to the Reconquista innovation. Suggested early moves are either conquering and usurping the Kingdom of Aragon or conquering and forming the Kingdom of Sardinia (the better option in my opinion, since Lavender>>Brown). After that, there are plenty of nearby heretics to wage holy war upon.
Just a small correction, Nowruz is not said like Nov-ruz the W should be pronounced like in "new" ("Now" basically means new in Persian anyway and "Ruz" means day, Nowruz is the holiday after new year and lasts 13 days)
I like to Begin as kid in West Franchia, his name is Eudes from Anjou. You Begin inside The realm of Franchia, in County level, and You have a pressed claimant in Duchy of Anjou and you are close to members of your dynasty such as uncles, brothers , etc... Is fun because You Begin good in diplomacy, and is Very Challenging to expand and become king, but, not Impossible, and You have The possibility to fight in Holy Wars with The Pope. I start my First game with This character in specific,make a New cadet branch, and now in my 4° generation and because my alie of byzantine Empire, i fight against vikings to push a large kingdom in their Domain close to my realm, i make The Empire of West Franchia. And i am a female Emperor. The year Begin in 867. Ps: Is my First time playing This game and i Love It. Eudes is my first character. And your videos help me Allot!!!!
Just to share my pick, it is folques of tourraine in 1066. However, this gameplay requires william of normandy to win the invasion of england and create english culture for some historical roleplay. Inherit or depose your brother who holds the counties of anjou, conquer other counties required to form the duchy of anjou, and consolidate your power. Then have one of your descendants marry one of the english princesses then murder scheme your way so that only that princess youre married to will be next in line to the throne of England. Congratulations! Your descendants will now inherit England and you can change your house name to Plantagenet if you want
It's my favourite start too :P I'm puzzled noone mentions it. But the start is quite challenging since may strong characters has claims to your county.
In 3 playthrough i chose Oghuz Il, easily maxing out horse archers form Turan or tatar empires and wait until maxing tribal tech, then acquire constantinople and make it capital and adopt feudalism so that man at arms don't ruin my economy. Then turn every empire and kingdom title to feudal elective and win unwavering loyalty of every vassal and ensuring succession free of civil wars.
If you want a challenge you can also try 867 era Kabul under the Shahis.Surrounded by very strong Muslim realms on all sides and internal tensions regarding religions,with a bit of a crappy economy due to the mountains,the level of challenge feels strong while not being as veteran tier like the Saoshantate,requiring cunning and planning to prosper.
The Aba family in Ungvár is interesting. They founder was the 3rd king of Hungary and the second hungarian king dynasty. They survived the Árpád and became independen rules in the "Age of Petty kings"(in Hungary). As a count you can fast became duke and have claim to king of Hungary and duke of Yeresaf. I only dont understand why the founder of the dynasty catholic because in the ducuments says: "he was taltoist that is why the nobles choose him to king and some" documents says: "he was isrealite, because he was the leader of the rebels of Khazar Khaganate, who was escape from there when the magyars migration in to Carpathian."
PLEASE do a playthrough with Haesteinn of Montaigu! You'd crush it... BTW keep up the good work... I don't have the time to follow all the vids and am loving the CK 3 streams (I watch on my own time) and I'm already falling behind on Bannerlord Ahah. This was the best channel I have fount in the last 2 years for strategy (and I have been following strategy RUclipsrs for over 10 years!)
I'd also say Count Bruno of Angria in 867 is a nice start! At the beginning it's sort of a cluster fuck, but only for a short while - you should be able to handle yourself more or less and you're in for some surprises here and there :)
I did my ancestry and I’m: Romanian, Greek, Baltic, Polish, Russian...I want to start as my ancestor...what’s a good province in a straight line from Bosporus to Rita?
Starting as the Hapsburgs from aargau and climbing your way up to Duke of Austria and eventually holy Roman empire I reckon will be pretty fun, especially if you try the way they did it if you know what I mean
Not 100% but I thought the Rollo of Normandie was the marshal of the duke of Trændalag. He even have the name rholfr(or something similar) de Normandie
It’s a bit different mechanic than Civ - you play as a character (or a dynasty) - not as a Civilization. Pretty easy to grasp after watching some tutorials on RUclips. :)
Thanks for the great CK3 videos, they're very informative. I have a question though, how do you go about finding these interesting starts? Is it browsing forums, word of mouth, or are you able to find these rulers in the game itself before you start a new game? I love the game but I have trouble finding interesting / cool / unique starts. Thanks!
For a run as a Crusader king and forming Outremer, I like Rogier-Raimond de Cummings in 1066. He is a 2 county vassal to the duke of Toulouse, though there are several fellow vassals you can gobble up and possibly become a duke yourself. I like him for two reasons. First, he's Occitan, which is a Frankish Culture (so it qualifies for most Outremer checks) with the Visigothic Codes Inspiration, the same on Basques have to be able to take High Partition and Equal Succession in 1066, great for keeping your holdings in the Holy Land together between successions. Secondly, he has a distant cousin in his court who has a son, both of his dynasty and far enough from inheriting anything that, baring any wartime casualties, would make perfect candidates for the benefactor role when the Pope calls for the Crusade.
Bucovina. Got to emperor of Carpathia and emperor of the lower baltics within one generation. Being able to just attack basically anyone makes super easy to just pick around targets
Great video! With chieftain Hrolfr after creating Norman culture you could even reproduce the Norman conquest of Southern Italy and kind of recreate the Hauteville :)
I'm almost trying the last two! Except I'm starting from a county level from within Croatia... XD I've been restarting and reloading quite a few times XD
Not sure Hrolfr is "the" Rollo. While we don't know where he was from, I think it's mostly agreed he's either Norwegian or Danish, not Swedish. That said, Paradox has a certain nationalism to their games, always making Sweden better than they were historically...
I wonder how Royal Court handles cultural changes like Norman, where you actually CAN choose not like the Visigoth change where you just change to a different culture no matter what! Being a Historical Fantasy game(yes, FANTASY, CK doesn't necessarily follow actual history making it a fantasy) I don't like that I MUST become Visigothic, even if now we can technically change back or reform into one similar to it!
I started at Bjorn Ironside. The Munso family controls all of pagan Italy, Scandinavia and England. My family weirdly spreads Sweden culture in Spain and North Africa on their own. He has almost 200 decedents everywhere. Oh, Vatican burned. I am the Falkyr now lol. It’s not even 1066, so soon as I become an Empress, I’ll be able to choose my heir, finally.
I loved starting as King Sancho II of Castille. Just quickly assassinate your 2 brothers and (Garcia first to become Head of Dynasty) then take out Antso of Navarra (if not allied with France and if so assassinate him and his heirs until they aren't allied to France) then take out Alto Aragon and Barcelona and consolidate North Spain to then Reconquista the rest of Iberia and form Hispania by (in my games anyway the 4th or 5th Heir)
Could it be that they got rid of prince laszlos kingdom of poland claim. I just started the campaign bc he looked fun and he doesnt have the claim you have in this video. only a claim on the duchy of greater poland. weird
My Hrolfr had a stewardship skill of 6 and his wife was useless. Had only a domain limit of 3. Every stat was poor except for Learning, because he had a Learning education. I ended up only being able to take 2 extra counties, and then being locked for years until my liege became King of Sweden. And even then, my levies/taxes were so low, I couldn't possibly muster up an army for an independence war. None of the other vassals wanted to join a war for independence, and I didn't have the intrigue skill to get hooks or anything on them. Ended up land locked and doing nothing for years...
I'm playing as the count of Holland radbod who should be the Frisian culture but is Dutch somehow... the frisian culture is in the game files but I can't get to unearth it anywhere, anyone got tips using console commands or whatever?
These are great and I'm adding them to my list, but why oh why can I not find a good guide to Mongolian starting locations? I need help on becoming the Great Khan and there is almost no good quality content on this awesome location :'(
Unexpectedly OP ruler is the count of Murom in the duchy of Ryazan, the kingdom of Vladimir. Why is he op? Well he has the muroma culture, which is present in only one county which means if you develop that one county at Max you will have the highest possible average development in the game giving you insane research speed and on top of it you have metsänvartija as your men at arms and those guys are extremely op especially in that forestry terrain and against horse archers of the steppes
My first game of CK3 is still going and I have conquered all of Ireland as Meath, Conquered the British Isles to create Alban, Then conquered the old Carolingian Empire borders, then conquered Jerusalem and the kingdom of Arabia, inherited half of Iberia and all of modern Morocco, and finally I finished conquering all of France....The Empire of Alban is Stronk.
Should of mentioned the Taifa of Córdoba. Pretty sure it was considered the first and only Muslim republic government ever established during the medieval age it's also ridiculously difficult to play as.
Join our Discord here! We're currently doing some CK3 Multiplayer on weekends, and there's always good gaming going on - discord.gg/6Tq3ut5
I hope y'all enjoy this slightly different video today! I had a lot of fun exploring some different starts, and writing up why I think they make for fun campaigns. I'd love to hear your personal favourites and stories too, so feel free to share! Already working on another set of starts I enjoy - there are so many 'hidden' decisions and options and titles you can create under the right conditions... CK3 at its most interesting?
Hey if you want to start as a count, Asatru and Norse that is also Feudal, why not just play the legendary count Haestein? He starts off tremendously powerful and can invade anywhere in his vicinity but his death is sure to fracture his newly formed Kingdom if he is heir Ragnar has not been properly prepared.
Edit: Oh I just saw that he was literally the next one.
Start as Austria in 1066 create Arduchy of Austria. Get independence and then have one of your heirs called Franz Josef and restore the Austro Hungarian borders. Thats what I did
Starting as any vassal in the Indian kingdoms in the 860's can quickly become very hectic and I love it. There's ten different faiths in the area and most of them fight to get control of the holy sites. Being independant in the area is kinda fun, but as a vassal you get massive amounts of interactions with your liege, house heads and dynasti heads. There's even a ruler who reached a age of 114 somewhere... who wanted to marry my youngest son for some reason. It's kinda epic.
Dayum
Ck3 never fails to make me smirk all the time.
Ruleress
@@supergigachad2587 are you sure? Lol
I enjoy the struggle of an underdog. A run I ultimately failed but enjoyed was staring with Vladamir. A count over a small plot of land with only a single castle to your name Russian conflict on every side with a powerful Tribal kingdom eyeing you up and consistently tormenting you
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I love runs with large historical goals. For instance, I just completed a run as the last landed Karling in 1066. Historically they died out with his family, but I revived it, took over France, and we went on to restore Charlamaigne's borders... thus restoring the family's prior glory. I wish there was a list of cool things and hidden decisions you could do. Some of this stuff just randomly pops up out of nowhere. Anyways, thanks for another great video!
This was the exact video I was looking for. Picking a starting point can be daunting.
I’m one of those people that just sits there picking a character for like an hour
@@thehumanarchives170 I'm the same, the other night took over 3 hrs in total
@@rhzyo okay thats a bit much.
@@bigkuriboh3814 I know, I'll sit there for like 30-40mins then go for a smoke or two and watch a few CK videos trying to get an idea oh who to play then go back sit down and repeat
@@rhzyo okay in that case I completely get your point, especially the smoke and RUclips part xD in fact this is exactly what I am doing right now :p
My favourite so far is starting as Count of Genoa. Took me 13 hours 37minutes to reach the "Restore The Roman Empire" decision on Ironman, and I did it in 1 sitting on my first day of streaming on twitch.
That sounds intensely fun yeah!
@David Winehouse I have a sleep disorder and it's normal for me to be awake for 40+ hours at a time.
@@jytic6338 hope youre feeling okay friend
Link your twitch i have insomnia too lol
My fav is Aachen 17year old ruler, feudal. A position mostly unaffected from france/Germany war, nearly no raids, neighbour's with 180 to 500 troops at the beginning. No historical wife/children. Edit: cologne next to you and you have the Aachener something special building in your starting town
Aachen is fun. Your neighbour vassals become stronger really quick if you don't snatch land. The real problem is Sweden. It's a general one for the start date. They eat up everything. And your king is weak. You have to pledge allegiance to west or east Fancia. But you can become quite powerful.
most of my games as aachen west or east eats my king and i have mostly france or bavaria as king. most disappointing is how weak italy is. its always after a few years part of west francia.. hardest enemy early is trier when they want to attack you after 5mins or holland a bit later
@@IksEnwie In 1.0 the start was more chaotic. Now it’s better balanced out. It also depends on what and how many sons the Karlings have. I don’t even notice Italy haha.
i forgot nearly the best part about the start position. you always find a hook against your king, to get into his council
cool, danke!
Hey party you actually have the wrong guy as rollo. Rollo actually exists as an unlanded character with the house name "de Normandie"
@@charliecartwright491 Is there any way you can achieve this on Ironman Mode tho?
In trondheim i believe
@@luce5707 if you want the actual Rollo, nope. If you are OK with ruler designer and just role-play yeah
@@Cipkanikolaj Give Rollo a landed title, then switch characters to him. Done, you're now Rollo.
@Barry, 63 Can you create a character on Ironman?
I love how he pre-emptively apologized for the pronunciation and then proceeded to nail nearly every one.
if you really want follow historically & in reality of restoring Persian empire you should play as Karen, Dabuye or Bavand dynasties which are decedents of Sassanid dynasty which conquered by Arabs & they are decedents of Achamenid dynasty and know this by the law of Farrah just decedents of Achamenids can inherit throne as well as they are descendent from prophet Zoroaster. but know this as well that play as Karen is very hard & must be lucky.
Prince Erik the Heathen, 1066, as the last living descendent of Ragnar Lodbrok and one of the last Asatru believers in Sweden you will be able to restore the old faith to its former magnitude.
i always find that start very hard due to prince erik always revoking my title after about a year
I'd recommend Rhodri the Great, Prince of Gwynned and Powys in the 867 start. He has good stats and can easily form the kingdom of Wales - something you'd really want to do, since otherwise his many titles are split between his many kids. You need to fight off endless Viking invasions to survive or expand, and murdering the Ragnarsons makes it a little easier.
I agree, I love playing as Rhodri the great, trying to reassert welsh dominance of the British Isles
I just came to say I actually started the Kusinagara play-through and oh my god, it's wild!
When I started the old guy was a Diplomacy mastermind, but unfortunately gay, so I couldn't really help fathering Heirs. My sons took their sweet time to produce kids but the second son, who was also my spymaster, had a son, so I sent my heir on a suicide mission. The second son became heir but unfortunately he was also batshit crazy, went on a serial killer spree in my court and I had no choice but executing him after he killed several courtiers and council members, his own mother and wife (who was riding my top liege and had children with him). So my grandson became heir and after the old lad stuck around for whopping 13 years and died at 90, I got to play the kid! Also got a pet dog AND cat with him.
By far the most fun playthrough ever.
This is absolutely bonkers.
Hey Party I'm from a country in the north atlantic called the Faroe islands, like Iceland we speak a language very true to the old norse, so with this in mind I'd like to give some pointers to the pronounciations of those Norse names.
Hæsteinn was the easiest, but with Hrolfr you don't necessarily pronounce the H in that fashion, since Old norse is a spoken language only, the spelling of these names isn't really relevant, but instead a guideline I guess.
The H is most likely there in order to make it more intuative, so using their design I will try to convey my pronounciation (which is sure to be off, since noone knows what is right).
Instead of going with the english soft roll of the R you have to bring it forward to the area just behind your teeth more or less and then make it pretty pronounced really, same goes for the latter R in the name. In faroese we designate which gender a certain word has with: male -ur, female -a or genderless no end in the words, so "Rólfur" would be how his name would be spelled today.
Hroðolf is a bit harder, but it's the same story with the R. "ð" is a weirdo, in faroese we gave up on pronouncing it, but in icelandic they still pronounce it and it's a soft "th" as in "the", but the name translates to the modern Rudolf so think of that when you pronounce it Ro-th-olf where the "th" is the "th" from "the". Great video and thank you so much for the help to a noob
I'm vacationing there in July 2022. Any suggestions?
One of my favorite start is the County of AAchen (Aix-la-Chapelle), the old Carolingian capital. You are a count with 2 of the 3 county of the Duchy, the 3rd one is farmland (good for economic) Aachen has 5 building slots. You are right beside COLOGNE one of the christian holy site so you can get it to eventually have your blood-line consecrated.
the first game i played was Mihajlo because I am Serbian (i used my family's naming conventions). I stayed independent until Byzantium was out of hand, swore fealty, and dismantled the empire from within and took over.
A fantastic and really different game is Daurama in Africa. I am currently playing her with a female dominated dynasty, trying to have all councillors and vassals and champions be female. And spread the Bori (female dominated) religon to all of Africa. I am so close to uniting all of Africa, just another 30 counties or so!
I really like this video. A similar video I'd like to see is a list of ten starts for beginners, because as someone just getting into the game I'd rather have a fairly easy kingdom to play as to learn my way through the game.
Funny that PartyElite also made the mistake as ItalianSpartacus and assumed that the Rolf in Helsingland is the same Rollo the Walker who formed Normandy. He is not. Yet again, the Rollo who established Normandy is in Trændheim (todays Trondheim) in Norway, as an unlanded character with the dynasty de Normandie already in place. We can only hope PDX makes an event out of him.
Is he the guy with high piety? I tried a run starting in trondheim (probably duke/tribal leader) to try some religious stuff, but he died before he got elevated to religious icon!
Yeah I was kinda grimacing at that wondering why he thought that this character was the progenitor of the Norman Dukes.
You can play as Rollo, just conqueror some land quickly, then grant him a title then switch players. He is the Marshal for Chieftain Rögnvaldr in prandheimr,
Hrolfr de normandie
Really good video. So much better than the typical top 10 videos that are just the same everyone knows.
anyone with a mine or a slot for a mine should be a great start. e.g. nitra, innsbruck, gottingen, caslav. you can then field a lot of light cav for pursuit and enjoy having those 'slaughter in xx' battle reports.
A changelling one, at first at least.
In 1066, Edith Swanneck "the Fair" in England , lover of the King of England and mother of their legitimized bastards. They will serve as knights in your court when they grow up.
Age: 41
If you want to keep the dinasty alive she has to have her own children as soon as possible and make sure they will inherit titles.
The good thing is that she has a good inheritance trait to pass on their kids. Look for a husband with another one and with some luck the future kid will inherit both.
Tip to ensure the kid of your dinastywill inherit: sending knights alone against a hostile army can be quite lethal for them.
I really love starting in Dublin in 1066. You're a Catholic with a dad about to die to your south and (tbh) a fairly achievable path to conquer brittania
England was hard to take after conquering Ireland
With yesterday's update I started a Mongol campaign. I've formed the Mongol Empire in the far Northeast Asia. Once you form the Mongols you get access to thousands of troops. Now to just sweep east and south and spread the empire. Oh what fun!
What char/nation
I like Alfred the Great and King Godwinson. Alfred because it's challenging, and he starts off with intelligent, which makes him and his heirs that much better. Godwinson because it's fun to keep England Anglo-Saxon, and it's probably the hardest start in the game, so even better.
My favorite start has been Prince Bleyydn of Gwynedd (north wales) 1066. Starts out with a lot of children to marry off to other leaders allowing you to form a lot of alliances. You can marry your daughter to some of William the conqueror children as well. You can decide to take an active part in the War for the English crown which starts right away or just sit back cause neither side is interested in fighting you at the moment. You can easily conqueror your irish neighbors or the Southern Wales dukes in the south
Sri Lanka in 867 is really cool. You start off as a kingdom and already have an heir, and your location means that you won't have to worry about borders that much. You also have about 2000 troops so that expansion isn't so hard.
You start as Theravada Buddhist which gives you flexibility with going into Indochina as well as mainland India, too. I think it's a great start for people looking to see what gameplay is like outside of Europe since there's even new terrain like jungles that you won't see out west.
yeah! had an amazing run there for like 150-200 years and almost had 3 kingsdoms before everything got split between my children and i only had sri lanka again left
I'm also doing a Ski Lanka run. Every fun, and after 3 generations I'm the Emperor. One why I dealt with "extra" heirs was to imprison them and force them to take vows. Yes you get some tyranny, but t hff at can be managed.
5:05 You can see the county of Léon at the edge of Brittany. That one is a norse independant feudal count too, just as info if you wanna start something harder than Haesteinn but still in the same location.
1066 Léon is a alot of fun to. You start as a normal christan feudal lord but vassal to the duke of brittany. Quite a hard start but has alot of intrige and diplomacy gameplay possibilities since you start with alot of powerful neighbours who love to bully you if you don't have some nice alliances.
I made the mistake of starting as the holy Roman empire on my third playthrough before I ever even conquered Ireland as Munster
That was a...very confusing and challenging game
Wow, damn dude, that is hardcore.
Dude holy crap. You're freaking hardcore.
Dude I didn't hesitate to push that tutorial start button for Ireland. No previous experience with CK2 or anything. I played the tutorial for 28 hours. Straight. Literally went on from 7pm, through the night, into the morning, into the night again, and then 'till 10pm the next day. After 28 hours I was finally ready to start a real campaign. So glad I did the tutorial first.
@@LevCallahan i did it and had no idea and just started a few games to really cement it. As france i destroyed people and found my forte as what to play as and do
@@LevCallahan Fuck dude, I've barely been awake for 28 hours straight, let alone played a game for that long. I can't imagine being able to function enough to play a grand strategy game after being awake for that long.
Whenever I launch this game, I'm up for a 6 hours session at the very least haha. And it feels like a single hour every signle time. It's this kind of fascinating games. You just get sucked right into it.
Having a ton of fun with Kru in Africa. Pagan (Akom). 2 Counties at start. In my first character's 25 year rule I formed the Kingdom of Adiukru.
That's what I did too!
The Rollo (Hrolfr) who would settle Normandy is in the game but not playable, he is part of the count of Traendheims court, his dynasty name is even De Normandie already
He's playable so long as you're not playing ironman. Gain another county, land Hrolfr, then switch character over to him.
Like @@makom2405 said, conqueror land quickly then grant it to Hrolfr, I did it
Your pronunciation of László is spot on!
Cheers from Hungary.
I have had much fun playing with the Duke of Cornwall and restoring the full Kingdom of Cornwall becoming The Trojan in the process :)
Speaking of Frisia, in the 867 start date there is a guy in the county of Holland named Count Radboud of the Folcwalding Dynasty, one of the hard starts I ever played, discovered this guy in CK2 but only later did I learn that this has a deep history with the Frisian people of old, this Dynasty already starts as having a level of splendor of being noteworthy (4th level) since its founder can be traced from the old kings of Frisia namely King Aldgisl, interestingly you just discover it in the game, a good playthrough if you want to take back the Frisian crown, although absent in CK3 I still tried to achieve the "good old days" and "Frisian coast is long" achievements with this dynasty...
Haraldr Fairhair of Vesthold in 867 is a great start too. Tribal, just at the middle of Norway with two chiefdoms and great stats (high martial, quick trait, only 17 years old). Norseman also can have concubines and scandinavian election succession, so it's very easy to groom a great heir. I'm on the second generation rn with half of Scandinavia under my control, as I conquered all the small chiefdoms while the big guys were focused on England.
you can ez get scandinavia with Haraldr still alive. the start is so broken its insane
Great as always!!
An interesting but difficult pick is the count of suenek in armenia 1066. The character begins with the incapable trait and is independent and sandwiched between both the byzantine and seljuk empires. I played it and was crushed multiple times with holy wars killing me every time. But I eventually restored the empire of greater armenia without swearing fealty or converting faith from the apostolic faith.
A lot of these great starts are also very hard starts. I'm playing the Ost Friesland guy right now. It's soooo hard trying to stay Asatru. Had to restart several times re-rolling his stats. And it still doesn't seem the hardest of these starts.
You have to have good or decent intrigue and kill your uncle before he has an heir, as he *immediately* goes to limited crown authority, and aims to revoke your title because of your faith. The other way is just extremely slow and a lot can go wrong in that time. 4:07 In my experience you don't have time to do that, you need an alliance before he goes to war with you. He is far stronger so you need a good alliance, but I only managed 1 time to get a good alliance with Halfdan Whiteshirt because of an attraction perk. AI are already unreliable and had to bait the uncle's army to stall for time. Then your next liege, the king, can try it too later, but doesn't happen as often. Raiding is almost impossible because you just get your army killed and with just Ost Friesland you can't raid at all with your tiny army. You don't get much benefit staying Asatru for raiding. Then you need fabricate hooks and swaying for conversions, abduction to win wars and earn money. preferably some stewardship for holding as many counties and making money (also from hooks), and good learning to convert the counties.
Anyways those are my experiences with that character
I've been playing for the last two weeks. I'm surprised we couldnt start at the fall of rome. Play as the vandals, conquor the visigoths or as the visigoths. break off from the western roman empire, or play as attila. I play Age of Empires, I can go back to that but this has a new system of playing I'm picking up rather fast.
This game is about feudalism and in those times feudalism wasn't yet shaped.
This is my first paradox game...I watched several tutorials on how to play this game...but they were of no use...then I watched a RUclipsr playing as a count and going up to become a ruler. so, I started as an Indian Ruler in Mumbai(a count) till the end of my ruler's life I managed to become a Duke....now there would be a succession crisis and my sons would tear apart my empire.
Awesome Video! Thanks a Ton!
I absolutely love playing as the savoie dukes of piedmont, the wife of the holy roman emperor is your sister and gives you most of your the jure counts as vassals early, so you can go toe to toe against lombardy or swabia
There actually are a few county-level starts where your player character is Mazdayan/Zoroastrian--they're mostly in the northern part of the Alavid Sultanate around the Mazdayan holy site in the area
Ah wild - I tried so many restarts and searched the faith in the character finder with all filters as open as possible with 0 results.
@@PartyElite There's the Sassanid house of Bavandid controlling a county under the Hashimid (zaydis), and there's also the duke of the karen house. Both are in the Daylam de jure kingdom territorries .
I did find one in 867, and it's High Chieftain of Ungvar .....dynasty Bijela Hrvatskic(kinda wrong Bijela Hrvatska and its not Dynasty )....at frist I thought I was crazy...bcz ther is like legend or in Croatian History that Croatia came from White Croatia(bijela Hrvatska somewhere in area of Moravia,poland,Czech,Kiev Rus you can find about that on Wikipedia,and in game they put that near border of bulgaria and Moravia on border of Krakow ) and as u know ther is kingdom of Croatia already in game I didn't believe they added that maybe by accident
I love the Visby start in 867. You own just one county sized island in the middle of the ocean, Sweden and Denmark near you, and you are an independent tribal Asatru. It's a perfect start for anything you want, you can go on an adventure and settle in a different country, you can establish yourself as the ruler of Norwegian lands (might even make it to emperor title in one lifetime), or England, or whatever, or swear fealty to any country, or you can try to stay independent for long as possible without conquering any other lands, just building more and more military power to become the untouchable viking island the entire world hates but can't do anything about.
Haestien is OP. I had 3 play throughs with him. formed the Hispania, Italia and African Empires.
Him and Halvar the Fair, He's not Fair he's OP
@@_Gorrek_ Who is Halvar?
@@zkatom3773 meant haraldr, damn norse names lol
Lol yeah ppl just think they're hot shit for playing him because of the count start and lack norse ladies or good genetics in his diplomatic range. But the truth is he's stronger than almost every king on the map, and has the benefits of tribal raiding plus the already feudal government. It wouldn't be a stretch to say he's the easiest campaign in the game. Honestly this is a role playing game not a mechanically challenging one. Anyone with just about any army size can manipulate the AI to win battles. No, its more about the fun of rewriting history.
Gerek I am pretty sure you refer to Harald Finehair lol
My personal fav is Duke Bernard of Barcelona. You have nice decisions to make like creating the Kingdom of Aragon and you start right away with a strong learning character and pretty young, which will allow you to discover new decisions triggered more easily via the learning skills. Bonus : you have strong claims against the Duchy of Toulouse and you own already the county of Poitiers, so you can expand in France if you dare so.
You talked about potentially butchering the name pronunciations, but as a casual studier of Greek and Latin and casual history buff myself, you actually did pretty damn good with the pronunciations. Not gonna lie.
A really fun start (in my opinion) is playing as the duke of Aragon (1 Holding/alto Aragon) It is a hard but achievable start and you try to do the decision "Forming the Kingdom of Aragon" after you took the rest of Aragon from the Spanish Muslims and Barcelona from the franks.
I really enjoy starting as the independent kingdom at the bottom of India on the Island. I can't remember what they're called. But im sure you'll know who I'm referring too. It's a big challenge going against Chola in the beginning or you offer fealty to them to start with and overthrow them later.
My personal favorite so far is Duke Vratislav of Bohemia. Fast start, excellent holdings, and just need some money to make a second Duchy and a kingdom, and from there you can depose the Kaiser and become holy Roman emperor, stay out of external affairs and focus on expanding your dynasty by poaching congenital traits with your many sons, and focus your power along the generations, or you can unite the Czech-Slovien people and take Nytria from Hungary, or steal Silesia from Poland if you want to grow your realm a bit.
Bohemia is one of the best choices to take to play talk as well, as a mine gives you an insane amount of income, especially as you upgrade it.
The prince Al-Quasim of the Idrasid start made me more angry than I've ever been in this game. It was going great but I was frustrated by my leige starting wars and losing my lands and the absolute pathetic lack of skilled courtesans in the region. Ended up working to erase the magrebi off the map, which I ended up succeeding at lol
For anyone trying the Saka start I highly reccomend considering the Kasyar dynasty as an option instead. I did the Vijayanagar kingdom start multiple times and usually I get defeated within the first decade by the dukes in Guge declaring on me and everyone ganging up. If you start as Kasyar though because you don't have a kingdom title you can swear fealty to nearby Qocho or the Samanids and adopt their religion while still developing your own culture. Qocho wil likely transfer you a vassal into your duchy which is nice but you will be at risk from attacks from the Samanids who are powerful at the start. Alternatively you can swear fealty to the Samanids and convert to Islam and slowly devlop you duchy and culture and your county of Kashgar is almost as good for a building up playthrough as Khotan is, it has 6 instead of 7 holdings. Playing as Maturidi Islam makes the Scholar and Theologian trees OP as **** for ruling a stable realm and you can pretty much have era after era of peaceful (no factions) rule if you go down those trees. It also makes it extremely easy to gain indepedepence from your liege, just buy a claim on a nearby kingdom when your finally developed enough using the scholar tree and boom press your claim and you are independent and your former Muslim liege will have no claims on any of your land. Just some advice for anyone wanting to do the Saka culture playthrough. It is very slow to start but so much fun once it gets going.
Duke Ramon Berenguer of Barcelona in 1066 is a good choice. He's the Catalan culture head, and the more powerful of only two independent rulers in 1066 with access to the Visigothic Codes innovation that provides the option of gender equal succession and early access to high partition. His realm's location in Iberia also provides access to the Reconquista innovation. Suggested early moves are either conquering and usurping the Kingdom of Aragon or conquering and forming the Kingdom of Sardinia (the better option in my opinion, since Lavender>>Brown). After that, there are plenty of nearby heretics to wage holy war upon.
Just a small correction, Nowruz is not said like Nov-ruz the W should be pronounced like in "new" ("Now" basically means new in Persian anyway and "Ruz" means day, Nowruz is the holiday after new year and lasts 13 days)
great job. i'm sure it took a long time to research and decide. and then, you had to script all the lines. so, great work!
I like to Begin as kid in West Franchia, his name is Eudes from Anjou. You Begin inside The realm of Franchia, in County level, and You have a pressed claimant in Duchy of Anjou and you are close to members of your dynasty such as uncles, brothers , etc...
Is fun because You Begin good in diplomacy, and is Very Challenging to expand and become king, but, not Impossible, and You have The possibility to fight in Holy Wars with The Pope. I start my First game with This character in specific,make a New cadet branch, and now in my 4° generation and because my alie of byzantine Empire, i fight against vikings to push a large kingdom in their Domain close to my realm, i make The Empire of West Franchia. And i am a female Emperor.
The year Begin in 867.
Ps: Is my First time playing This game and i Love It. Eudes is my first character. And your videos help me Allot!!!!
Just to share my pick, it is folques of tourraine in 1066. However, this gameplay requires william of normandy to win the invasion of england and create english culture for some historical roleplay. Inherit or depose your brother who holds the counties of anjou, conquer other counties required to form the duchy of anjou, and consolidate your power. Then have one of your descendants marry one of the english princesses then murder scheme your way so that only that princess youre married to will be next in line to the throne of England. Congratulations! Your descendants will now inherit England and you can change your house name to Plantagenet if you want
It's my favourite start too :P I'm puzzled noone mentions it. But the start is quite challenging since may strong characters has claims to your county.
In 3 playthrough i chose Oghuz Il, easily maxing out horse archers form Turan or tatar empires and wait until maxing tribal tech, then acquire constantinople and make it capital and adopt feudalism so that man at arms don't ruin my economy. Then turn every empire and kingdom title to feudal elective and win unwavering loyalty of every vassal and ensuring succession free of civil wars.
If you want a challenge you can also try 867 era Kabul under the Shahis.Surrounded by very strong Muslim realms on all sides and internal tensions regarding religions,with a bit of a crappy economy due to the mountains,the level of challenge feels strong while not being as veteran tier like the Saoshantate,requiring cunning and planning to prosper.
Armenia was a good suggestion actually! So far my only serious run has been with Ivar the Boneless, forming the custom Kingdom of the Isles.
“Fall in love with the demonetizing Jains of India.” That killed me. Lol.
The Aba family in Ungvár is interesting. They founder was the 3rd king of Hungary and the second hungarian king dynasty. They survived the Árpád and became independen rules in the "Age of Petty kings"(in Hungary). As a count you can fast became duke and have claim to king of Hungary and duke of Yeresaf. I only dont understand why the founder of the dynasty catholic because in the ducuments says: "he was taltoist that is why the nobles choose him to king and some" documents says: "he was isrealite, because he was the leader of the rebels of Khazar Khaganate, who was escape from there when the magyars migration in to Carpathian."
PLEASE do a playthrough with Haesteinn of Montaigu! You'd crush it...
BTW keep up the good work... I don't have the time to follow all the vids and am loving the CK 3 streams (I watch on my own time) and I'm already falling behind on Bannerlord Ahah.
This was the best channel I have fount in the last 2 years for strategy (and I have been following strategy RUclipsrs for over 10 years!)
Thanks for such kind words! Greatly appreciated, and glad you've been enjoying =)
I'd also say Count Bruno of Angria in 867 is a nice start! At the beginning it's sort of a cluster fuck, but only for a short while - you should be able to handle yourself more or less and you're in for some surprises here and there :)
I did my ancestry and I’m: Romanian, Greek, Baltic, Polish, Russian...I want to start as my ancestor...what’s a good province in a straight line from Bosporus to Rita?
This video in a nutshell: You'll be tiny. Try not to die!
Starting as the Hapsburgs from aargau and climbing your way up to Duke of Austria and eventually holy Roman empire I reckon will be pretty fun, especially if you try the way they did it if you know what I mean
Very fun suggestions!
Not 100% but I thought the Rollo of Normandie was the marshal of the duke of Trændalag. He even have the name rholfr(or something similar) de Normandie
Hrolfr of Normandie is the real one, the dude that made the video made a mistake
I am interested in this game.. albeit I am a bit intimidated... how complicated is it? more than CIV or less
It’s a bit different mechanic than Civ - you play as a character (or a dynasty) - not as a Civilization. Pretty easy to grasp after watching some tutorials on RUclips. :)
Thanks for the great CK3 videos, they're very informative. I have a question though, how do you go about finding these interesting starts? Is it browsing forums, word of mouth, or are you able to find these rulers in the game itself before you start a new game?
I love the game but I have trouble finding interesting / cool / unique starts. Thanks!
It's like he read my mind this is exactly the video i was looking for
For a run as a Crusader king and forming Outremer, I like Rogier-Raimond de Cummings in 1066. He is a 2 county vassal to the duke of Toulouse, though there are several fellow vassals you can gobble up and possibly become a duke yourself.
I like him for two reasons. First, he's Occitan, which is a Frankish Culture (so it qualifies for most Outremer checks) with the Visigothic Codes Inspiration, the same on Basques have to be able to take High Partition and Equal Succession in 1066, great for keeping your holdings in the Holy Land together between successions. Secondly, he has a distant cousin in his court who has a son, both of his dynasty and far enough from inheriting anything that, baring any wartime casualties, would make perfect candidates for the benefactor role when the Pope calls for the Crusade.
Bucovina. Got to emperor of Carpathia and emperor of the lower baltics within one generation. Being able to just attack basically anyone makes super easy to just pick around targets
Been trying to figure this game out for a few days. Overwhelming.
It took me a solid month to understand CK3, and I'm still finding new things.
@@whiteknight074 I just don't get it. I'm always out of money and always getting attacked by overwhelming numbers.
keep learning and watching vids, and play more obscure, isolated countries. or watch a vid on countries that are easy to start as
I didn't find it hard with this one because of CK2. It took me over 2 months to understand it. It's so enjoyable after that.
Great video!
With chieftain Hrolfr after creating Norman culture you could even reproduce the Norman conquest of Southern Italy and kind of recreate the Hauteville :)
Everyone missing my boy Dyre
also prince lhachen ready to form the empire of tibet, a god among men
I just started playing as Dyre the Stranger, its awesome. I actually looked him up on Wikipedia and its dope
I'm almost trying the last two! Except I'm starting from a county level from within Croatia... XD
I've been restarting and reloading quite a few times XD
Duke Zvonimir from Croatia is a very good start which I recommend.
Please do a video with more 1066 starts. Thanks!
When you take Neustria the best thing to do is immediately invade kingdom for Francia proper, then create Norman.
Not sure Hrolfr is "the" Rollo. While we don't know where he was from, I think it's mostly agreed he's either Norwegian or Danish, not Swedish.
That said, Paradox has a certain nationalism to their games, always making Sweden better than they were historically...
I wonder how Royal Court handles cultural changes like Norman, where you actually CAN choose not like the Visigoth change where you just change to a different culture no matter what! Being a Historical Fantasy game(yes, FANTASY, CK doesn't necessarily follow actual history making it a fantasy) I don't like that I MUST become Visigothic, even if now we can technically change back or reform into one similar to it!
i can’t stop playin persian empire
I started at Bjorn Ironside. The Munso family controls all of pagan Italy, Scandinavia and England. My family weirdly spreads Sweden culture in Spain and North Africa on their own. He has almost 200 decedents everywhere. Oh, Vatican burned. I am the Falkyr now lol. It’s not even 1066, so soon as I become an Empress, I’ll be able to choose my heir, finally.
very relevant!
You can have a Zoroastrian start as the descendant of the sassanids (ancient rulers of Iran) as the bavandids
I loved starting as King Sancho II of Castille. Just quickly assassinate your 2 brothers and (Garcia first to become Head of Dynasty) then take out Antso of Navarra (if not allied with France and if so assassinate him and his heirs until they aren't allied to France) then take out Alto Aragon and Barcelona and consolidate North Spain to then Reconquista the rest of Iberia and form Hispania by (in my games anyway the 4th or 5th Heir)
Could it be that they got rid of prince laszlos kingdom of poland claim. I just started the campaign bc he looked fun and he doesnt have the claim you have in this video. only a claim on the duchy of greater poland. weird
My Hrolfr had a stewardship skill of 6 and his wife was useless. Had only a domain limit of 3. Every stat was poor except for Learning, because he had a Learning education. I ended up only being able to take 2 extra counties, and then being locked for years until my liege became King of Sweden. And even then, my levies/taxes were so low, I couldn't possibly muster up an army for an independence war. None of the other vassals wanted to join a war for independence, and I didn't have the intrigue skill to get hooks or anything on them. Ended up land locked and doing nothing for years...
My latest one i started in greece and converted to helllenism. And i already had the holy site of sparta in my territory.
Kinda disappointed they didnt keep the 760 start date..
I'm playing as the count of Holland radbod who should be the Frisian culture but is Dutch somehow... the frisian culture is in the game files but I can't get to unearth it anywhere, anyone got tips using console commands or whatever?
These are great and I'm adding them to my list, but why oh why can I not find a good guide to Mongolian starting locations? I need help on becoming the Great Khan and there is almost no good quality content on this awesome location :'(
I'll do some more digging in the area!
@@PartyElite That would be awesome! Looking forward to seeing what you find
Unexpectedly OP ruler is the count of Murom in the duchy of Ryazan, the kingdom of Vladimir. Why is he op? Well he has the muroma culture, which is present in only one county which means if you develop that one county at Max you will have the highest possible average development in the game giving you insane research speed and on top of it you have metsänvartija as your men at arms and those guys are extremely op especially in that forestry terrain and against horse archers of the steppes
I like to pick characters with unique faiths and cultures, and try to make those dominant culture/religion
My great Great great Grand Cousin 3 times removed from my mother side makes me the rightful ruler LOL Love CK !!
My first game of CK3 is still going and I have conquered all of Ireland as Meath, Conquered the British Isles to create Alban, Then conquered the old Carolingian Empire borders, then conquered Jerusalem and the kingdom of Arabia, inherited half of Iberia and all of modern Morocco, and finally I finished conquering all of France....The Empire of Alban is Stronk.
My favourite was Duklja in 867. You start off as Slavic pagan and everyone wants to fuck you up for it. Really fun
The Tao Klarjeti also make for a fun but challenging start to create an Armenian dynasty...
Going to save this video to a playlist. So many good starts in the video and in the comments
Should of mentioned the Taifa of Córdoba. Pretty sure it was considered the first and only Muslim republic government ever established during the medieval age it's also ridiculously difficult to play as.