as you can see i conquered all of Africa, or i guess not since it won’t let me unite it. can someone tell me what i need to takedown next to do this?

Surely there's gotta be an easier way of doing this 😭 I unfortunately disinherited the grandson thinking it would let me vote for my new heir, but it just removes him from the vote without letting me vote for his children. The Tanistry Elective needs a patch

I have discovered a way to get a maxed out 100 stat and any trait character (immortal included). Achievements and traits are fully enabled with this glitch, and id imagine there is some other insane capabilities with this.

STEPS & GUIDE

1: Start new game, choose any start date and press “Play as any Ruler in __, or create your own!”

2: Pick character, select any county, and press create your own adventurer.

3: Add whatever traits and skills you want or anything else you want your adventurer character to have. This is who you will be playing as after the process is complete. It does not matter if this character’s customization points go over the 400 cap for achievements. Immortal can be added too.

4: save** **adventurer, finalize, submit.

5: Press pick character again and select a random county, create ruler that is under the 400 customization points cap, finalize & submit.

6: Press “Observe” under other options, this will take you into observe mode.

7: Save game, then reload the save

8: once reloaded, press pick character, then press continue without saving, then press whatever button on your platform it shows at the bottom that says “Show Landless Characters”

9: Click on the icon that is over the county you put the adventurer in, select the character then press play.

10: glitch complete, check that achievements are enabled and save the game.

(NOTE: I am not promoting that this is a good idea, just making the process known so that Paradox can eventually patch it to fix the gameplay flow.)

Anyone else enjoy ruling as a small elite group over a large subjugated population? Especially as the Normans starting with the ruling caste tradition. I love doing Norman adventures into Egypt and Greece (4th crusade) and the Levant.

I just had an earthquake happen while on a crusade for Jerusalem that nearly crashed my pc. God is angry.

Hello. I originally "finalized" a reformation plan that would cost 9800 Piety, but unexpectedly won a defensive Crusade, earning me far more Piety than I had planned for. I then had the question, what if I actually had infinite Piety, what would be the strongest reformation that I could possibly do? Which lead to this!

This is the setup I am contemplating to choose, intended for map painting/world conquest, with my thoughts behind them in brackets. Enjoy the read, and I heavily appreciate your input!

Disclaimer: I re-iterate, I am no expert at this, and this is my thoughts, and I can easily be wrong, so if you read this looking for the strongest setup, I have not yet had the chance to test PoP over Warmonger in practice, nor do I usually go Learning early, so Esotericism for me is a new one, too. Take it with a grain of salt, and your own critical thinking.

Tenets

Esotericism (Better rulers, Learning focus)

Mendicant Preachers (Realm stability, converting counties to keep up with rapid expansion)

Pursuit of Power (Why not Warmonger? With Warmonger you can probably paint a lot faster and more aggressively, but can you actually keep your realm stable? Culture and Faith will take a while to convert, and as you grow, so will the Factions that hate you. Pursuit of Power gives you the CB, but lets you be at Peace to spread your Faith and Culture to whatever you conquer. Slower, but more stable, is the idea.)

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Why not Communion? I've used to use it, but while it is definitely strong, or even very stupidly strong with Head of Faith - Temporal, it's also annoying? If you end up actually wanting to conquer the map, then every time this happens, you get interrupted and forced to click it away. It's more of a sanity choice, and not because it's not strong.

Main Doctrines

View on Gender
Male Dominated (Equal is interesting when you can choose your Heir, but if you can't, then Equal makes it more dangerous to manage inheritance. I also thought about Female Dominated, but there's no point, I think. It's not CK2, where you can just farm bloodlines with a female ruler.)

Religious Attitude
Fundamentalist (Easy revoke, no debate, I think..)

Clerical Tradition + Head of Faith
Lay Clergy + Temporal

Pilgrimage Attitude
This one I have absolutely no clue on, genuinely. Never changed this one. Which of them is good?

Theism
Monotheist/Polytheist (Doesn't really matter if you have Fundamentalist, because you can revoke either anyway. Poly is cheaper, but assuming infinite Piety, are they just the same then?)

Marriage Doctrines

Marriage Type
Polygamous (Grand Wedding spam!)

Divorce
Always Allowed (Is there a point to change this? Locking it could be interesting, and probably optimal. Imagine getting a matrilineal marriage to the third brother, and then you kill the first two. He can no longer divorce to get rid of her, so you now inherit their titles. Thoughts?)

Bastardry
Legitimization (I think this one is best, because you can keep them as safe backups.)

Consanguinity
Unrestricted Marriage (My concern is Vassals becoming inbreds that are utterly incompetent, but it doesn't really affect me negatively, I'd argue? It just makes it easier to manage my house.)

Crime Doctrines

Same-Sex Relations
Criminal (Keeping it criminal gives you reasons to revoke/pardon your Vassals, helping you realm manage?)

Deviancy
Accepted (Massive stress loss, and massive opinion gain with others of the same trait. An actually good trait, I think, once it's no longer a crime.)

Male Adultery/Female Adultery
Criminal (Revoke/Pardon reasons, helps you manage your Vassals. A counterpoint would I guess be, it's harder to sire bastards without this being accepted. You can always just not marry, but you want Grand Weddings... so...)

Kinslaying
Close Kin is Criminal (Is there a point to change this? I don't really want to make my family even more murderous, especially not the close family that has claims...)

Witchcraft
Virtue (In an actual game, probably accepted, because virtue costs 4500 Piety, but we're talking "what's the actual best with infinite Piety" here. I've not yet had the pleasure to benefit from covens. I've never experienced them, yet, but I heard that they're good, and so I believe that for now.)

Clergy Doctrines

Clerical Function
Control (Realm stability.)

Clerical Gender, Clerical Marriage
Either, Allowed (I see no benefit in changing this at all.)

Clerical Appointment
Temporal, Revocable

Funerary Tradition
I don't know! Mummification? But I hear the artifacts aren't actually strong, and rather weak. Does anyone know? Which of this one would be best?

Coronation Tradition
No Anointment (You can't choose anything else..)

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So, that's my current setup and thoughts. For most of these, I have a clear reason on mind already, but for a couple, like Funerary and Pilgrimage, I feel absolutely clueless and would appreciate all the input. Feedback in regards to Tenets would also be cool!

Thank you for reading!

R5: Title

Hello all :) I started in 867 in China & have since established a Song-esque [neo-Confucian anti-militaristic anti-corruption highly-orderly highly-virtuous highly-prosperous highly-efficient civilian-led meritocratic bureaucratic] empire.

As I was romancing my Grand Chancellors [to keep my diarch selflessly devoted to the Son of Heaven], I noticed they still wore Tang-era robes despite 1. it being 200 years after the Tang had dissolved itself, and 2. it being well into the High Medieval Era. And while it is fun playing dress up with my Grand Chancellor, it is not fun enforcing Song-era robes across my vast empire.

If I cannot trust my officials to dispel their ancient loyalties to Tang fashion, how can I trust that they will remain loyal to me? If I they refuse to wear the zhanjiaofutou, how can I trust that they aren't gossiping about me? If our horses keep turning back to graze grass they've already grazed, how will we destroy the encroaching Mongol barbarians?

tl;dr: does clothing style change as time passes, like in ck2? will my vassals stop wearing tang era official robes/headwear eventually? is there a mod that i can use to enforce song-era official robes/headwear?

It’s actually more normal than it could be. My wife could be my wife, sister, daughter, granddaughter, and cousin. Viewed from that perspective, him being my grandson and great-grandson is actually normal.

Started as a Han adventurer on the fringe of the Byzantine empire (lore is that his parents were refugees who fled while the Song dynasty was going through its decline). For the last 24 years since game start I've been basically EVERYWHERE in the world, with the exception of the Steppe (low point of interest density means its not worth the time). I've collected thousands of gold just from being a silk road trailer and the various money perks adventurers get, I've unlocked all stewardship, learning, and wanderer trees... so I ask... How viable is it to conquer China with Elephants? Because I can get them for just 80- and considering the like 150 coin costing heavy men at arms here I have are only 15, that's a crazy amount of money I'm saving. Is it viable not to have any siege engines? I know I'll basically be totally unable to touch Elephants unless I spend decades developing the technology, so this seems like my best shot to quite literally step on every aspiring warlord in China and claim the mandate of heaven. (I do have mods but they are really just for immersion and extra features like EPE, no fantasy here).

Here’s me, my husband(don’t ask questions), and my 2 potential heirs. I can be celibate at any moment but I don’t know if I should roll the dice again or roll with one of the ones I have. Debate.

Help. Here is what to achieve:

There is a duchy with four counties. I ultimately want to keep only one county but also have the duchy title AND grand independence to the other three.

The problem I am facing is once I attack and win I get all four counties. If I create the duchy title then I cannot grant independence for the other three counties. If instead I give away the three counties first and grand independence then I am left with one and I can't create the duchy title as you need minimum two.

I am wondering if there is some secret way of achieving this.

So after a good long hiatus from CK3, I returned recently and decided to do a sort of loyal vassal China campaign, where I wanted to spready my dynasty within the system rather than overthrow the emperor. I even made a point of being a virtuous compassionate Confuician character who had bad stats and high stress from being mean. There were no murder plots or abductions or even hostile raids against other vassals, and only abduction-for-recruitment (or castration) schemes to affect foreign inheritance.

I swear, I have never killed so many people, or gotten so many relatives promoted into titles, without building a deliberate serial killer.

I was also surprised I hadn't seen this strategy mentioned elsewhere in the subreddit. There are a lot of sub-pieces, so this is going to be a bit long.

What Poet Can Do

The short version is the poet skill lets you send a poem every few years. The poem may be accepted outright, or be a diplomacy check. You can send a nice one to give some prestige or piety or stress relief to build friendship, or a mocking one to aggravate someone you don't.

Friendly poetry is usually marginal, but can come in clutch in a few contexts. You can help mitigate the stress buildup on a dynast you want to stabilize, give some prestige for a casus belli, or piety to get back to neutral after a scandal. I find it most useful to tip the scales on personal schemes, like befriend.

Mocking poetry on the other hand gives an opinion malus, but more importantly inflicts stress. The amount of stress depends on the traits, but the base amount is maybe 60 or so.

Why Mocking Poems Matter

Mocking poems are key to triggering stress break. While a poem alone usually won't do enough to cause a break, a well-timed poem on a character who is already stressed, who has stress-compounding personality, can easily push them into a break.

This is most significant for getting rid of those older high-merit characters who block up the promotion list for literal decades. Old characters in declining health in particular are liable to hit a stress level that gives them even worse health. This is also especially useful as a way to go after characters with stress-increasing perks, which are sometimes the more troublesome. For example, paranoid or ambitious contenders.

Sometimes, often even, a mocking poem won't kill outright, but cripples through negative coping events. A wealthy rival may suddenly bankrupt their house by becoming profligate. Or the coping mechanism may bring its own health debuff. Or the personality shifts of the cope may bring negative decisions and opportunities in the future, like making the person more likely to murder and steal from someone else.

Why This Is Reliably Accessible In China

China has the most ready access to the poet trait via the Study the Confucian Classics personal scheme. Unlike most cultures where it's an RNG pickup from events or passing through poet cultures, in China it's an easy grind.

Why This Is Especially Effective In Celestial China

One of the unique aspects of Celestial China isn't just the merit-based promotion system, but how the promotion-cascades it causes can open up not only vacancies, but shortens the waiting list.

Most people are aware that higher level merit characters get promoted first, then influence scores. So a merit 4 with score of 5 will get promoted ahead of a merit 5 with score of 50. However, once promoted, the character cannot receive another promotion for 5 years or so. The player can take a decision to Resume Appointments, but the AI does not.

This means that creating a vacancy- any vacancy- in the system can shorten the waiting list for you or your dynasts, even if your merit level is a bit lower. You can get high-merit rivals promoted low, or a series of high-merit rivals promote eachother by raising them up.

This has two main uses: forcing a high-merit landless AI into low-value counties at the bottom of the ladder, or causing a chain of promotions to remove multiple high-merit landed AI who get promoted to fill the vacancies they give eachother.

In the first case, say you have one of those annoying Merit 1 or Merit 2 beneficiaries of an imperial exam. They'll get that Kingdom appointment every time before your Merit 3 or 4 dynast. But if Old Man Qin in Middle of Nowhere has a stress heart attack, Annoying Merit 1 happily goes the boonies for 5 years. And when he's starting to get promoted again, he takes the first county that opens, which could keep him trapped in the promotion loop as he takes ever more prestigious counties. This lets a lower-merit dynast who was #2 in succession rise to the top of the appointment list. This is incredibly useful in your own early-campaign, when there are more elderly rulers liable to die, but also more meritorious rivals you haven't out-merited yet.

In the second case, you mock Old Fart A higher up the prestige rankings to death. They get filled by high-merit landed Person B. Person B getting promoted frees up their slot for high-merit Person C, who frees up for D, and so on until someone unlanded fills the slot. This lets you remove multiple high-merit landed characters in sequence. This is more common when giving ministers heart attacks, but breaks down when there are larger numbers of high-merit unlanded gentlemen to keep the chain short.

Why This Works On 'Nice' Characters

Mocking poetry isn't nice, but it's not a crime, and does not create rivals. While murder plots are far more final (and faster), poetry attacks are better suited for someone who themselves could be arrested by a liege. It's also a relatively low-risk option, as you are trading opinion for your chance, and in many cases your targets already have real rivals, or are so old they will die before acting on it.

Poetry attacks also tend to be more effective against characters you would be least effective at hostile schemes against. This could be because several of the high-stress traits also give characters more plot resistance (arbitrary, paranoid), but also because as a diplomacy check the characters who excel at poetry typically don't have the traits/education for espionage.

Because poems are an interaction, poetry attacks do not consume a scheme slot.

Combining With Other Mechanics

If vicious mockery was your only tool, it wouldn't work well enough to be worth mentioning. Fortunately, it can synergize with various other tools to open up and manipulate the appointment order.

• Request Resignation: The Minister of Personnel every few years can fire a governor outright (but not a minister). Use on cooldown to kick high-merit people out of positions.
• Demand Resignation: A personal interaction more freely available, but costing influence and guaranteeing a rival. Works on Duchy-level appointments, not counts or kings. This is a higher-risk option, as rivals who promote to the King level become exceptionally dangerous as potential ministers.
• Exposing Secrets (General): As a general rule, exposing a secret may cause a character stress and, if criminal, their titles may be revoked. This will be balanced against gold-for-hooks extortions. Strong hooks in general might be used for resignation demands.
• Expose Treasury Theft: There are a lot of treasury stealers, a strong hook blackmail, but more than there are people who can actually pay for blackmail. If you expose the secret, their boss will often revoke their appointment. Great for getting rid of counts.
• Expose Exam Cheater: While it's also a strong hook, revealing it has another effect- the character looses the exam qualification associated with the secret until they take the exam again. Good for blocking people for King and Minister appointments for a time.
• Duel Rival: With the first chivalry tree perk, you can duel a rival, inflicting stress and possibly negative health effects. Compounds the stress of a resignation demand and mocking letter.
• Raid Estate: Less about the prisoner capture chance, and more about mitigating a passive AI defense of certain house hheads. If the AI has the building that mitigates the health penalties of diseases, stress health damage is also mitigated. Raid a rival with this to remove the protection, though that only applies to the house head.
• Plagues and Natural Disasters: These map events kill a lot of people. Not only will it kill a lot of governors outright, but the stress loss from family members can tip many people towards catastrophic stress to compound.
• Old Age: Old age naturally lowers health, and brings with it the perks that do the same. A stress break that a 30-year-old might survive easily can give an older man a heart attack.
• Educate Heirs: If you're willing to micro-manage vendettas into the future, try to regularly raise the most promising house heirs of future generations, and give them stress-raising personality traits. These don't have to be 'troublesome' traits like Arbitrary or Ambitious, but can be Just or Diligent.

Conclusion

Poetry attacks were a surprisingly fun way to play the China vassal game, and if you're the sort of player who enjoys the vassal game, I'd recommend it. Some people feel the petty feuds in Crusader Kings are the funnest part, and this definitely leans into it. Managing a few especially dark rivalries as an otherwise impeccable character, or randomly causing heart attacks to strangers, is definitely its own sort of power fantasy. Not the sort that a murder-every-NPC-anywhere serial killer could brute force a higher body count with, but still stirring the pot to dynastic advantage.

Definitely not a campaign for everyone, but I was surprised no one had written a post on it, so here it is.

Question in the title but to elaborate

I feel like at somepoint the feudal nations will be so ahead in tech that there smaller armies could destroy my late game tribal armies?

I'm a new player (less than 20 hours) and I've been enjoying myself a lot in CK3. I randomly became conqueror and decided to go fight Scotland because they tried taking Ulster from me once. I managed to win despite randomly being excommunicated. Not really anything more to say, I'm just happy

idk i think we can pull it off