Paradox Games

Note that Hellenic paganism is extremely difficult to get, in case you're worried about historical accuracy — IIRC you need to have either reformed the Roman Empire or be a lunatic in a Greco-Roman region, or both, and the event to trigger it is quite rare.

EDIT: Pagetopper'd!

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on May 28th 2019 at 6:10:13 AM

It's player-triggered if you hold one of the holy sites. So you can make it happen if you want. (Be prepared for a realm that hates you and being ground zero for crusades.)

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

Any Italian, Roman, or Greek cultured character with the Scholar, Mystic, Possessed, or Lunatic trait OR who has the scholarship focus and completely controls at least one Hellenic holy site and had their capital in Italy or Greece may "Delve into the Classics" and attempt to revive the Hellenic faith. There is also a one-off event to do it when restoring the Roman Empire, which also gives an event to try to bring back classical Roman culture.

And skipping all of that I'm hog wild for starting Shattered runs, with the entire world knocked down to counties and everything randomized. With nothing but sixteen year olds in charge. An even mix of men and women.

I started playing Crusader Kings 2 and I've gotta say, it's a shame that it was sitting unplayed in my library. This game is wonderful.

I was playing a game as a Count in Bohemia and I had a rather interesting event. My party and I were traveling as part of a hunt (?) and we came across a solitary Inn. Inside we found a nervous looking Innkeeper who offered us wine and lodging for a reasonable price, naturally, we agreed.

I then pressed OK on the event.

Immediately afterword a new event popped up. My party had noticed that there was a foul smell coming from underneath the floorboards. We found... manure. At which point a flame caused the pent up Methane to explode, killing me and ending my playthrough.

It was a successful assassination attempt.

I wasn't even mad, it was amazing

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on May 28th 2019 at 8:05:20 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

Wait until you see the one with the scroll repository

I do wish they'd add the ability to pick assassination methods to Crusader Kings 2.

Imperator lets you do that and I'm still amazed that my assassin got away with going full Roose Bolton on two targets without getting caught.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 28th 2019 at 7:18:28 PM

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

Started a new game in the base game of this for the first time in a good while as Wessex. We are being constantly inundated with a huge amount of epidemics but managing to make it through while I build up my territory.

Unfortunately despite all my preparations and stuff the Pope refuses to grant me an invasion against Mercia -_- Stupid Free Investiture malus, and not even donating a shit ton of money to the Church got rid of it, even though Mercia’s currently ruled by a woman.

Edited by theLibrarian on May 29th 2019 at 6:45:19 AM

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Every time I play Byzantine Empire (which is once every three playthroughs), I reform them to Hellenism.

There's something absolutely hilarious about seeing the Olympians absolutely steamroller everyone around them, by coming back from the brink at the least expected moment.

Alternatively, try and recreate the Norman Conquest. Or unite India. Or Recreate Imperial Persia. Or make the Great Central African Empire. Or the Abyssinian Empire.

As for favorite event - that's got to be the Burning of Rome in Holy Fury. Mostly because everyone and their dog in Catholic Europe will hate the everloving fuck out of you for doing that. Even the weak ones - ''especially' the weak ones.

I hold the secrets of the machine.

It also permanently nullifies the organized religion moral authority bonus for Catholicism by offsetting it with a 1000 year 20% penalty.

I remember someone doing it to clear out all the Pope's shitty church holdings, then converting back and being dismayed that their moral authority was permanently in the gutter. I think they got around it by converting to Fraticellism.

Speaking of Fraticellism, that's another thing I'm having issues with in my game; Wessex is a hotbed of the thing and I'm constantly having people convert to it.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

I haven't played CK 2 yet, but I can already tell the game'll make me feel like the most ignorant SOB in world.

The Hellenism talk reminds me of something I actually wanted to ask a few days ago:

What's everyone's favourite "obscure" religion (so not mainstream Christian or Islamic branches etc) to play as?

I often found myself gravitating towards playing as Manichaeans. Been doing a pretty successul Uyghur campaign◊ recently, uniting large parts of the Steppes, Persia and India under Manichaean rule.

Tried to put a relative of mine on the Byzantine throne once, but sadly he died without an heir before he could jump-start the conversion of the empire.

Manichaeism had been a serious competitor to Christianity, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism at one point in history, causing Rome, Persia and China to all crack down on it.

Fittingly enough, my dynasty has a bloodline based on a previous ruler's more... zealoust approach to Manichaeism.

The Religion of Light is back and it's angry.

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

I've never really played an obscure religion. I tried a Zoroastrian game once but that didn't pan out because the Caliph was a jackass who kept stealing my land from me.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Have you tried going underground? I think that's how successful Zunist campaigns are usually done as well.

Point is, Manichaeism is in a pretty good position in Charlemagne because the Uyghurs start out as that.

I also once did a game as Manichaean Tibet.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 29th 2019 at 4:38:21 PM

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

Zoroastrianism is great, but you're better off in 867 than 769. Either start as Karen, or the guys who start at war for like half of Persia then convert to capital religion.

Zunism is neat, but it has a fatal flaw - judgement of the sun is far too limited. Let me just dump a whole bunch of prisoners in the scorching desert sands and let Zun sort it out.

I also have a weird soft spot for Slavic Paganism, in part because it's so unnecessarily hard to reform.

Slavic Paganism is like Polish stuff, right?

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Polish, Russian, Serbian, Croatian - actually, almost all of Eastern Europe except the Baltics and Scandinavia.

But yeah, it's stupidly hard to reform. Why, you ask? Because reformation requires control of three religious sites, moral authority above 50% and 1000 Piety.

Items 2 and 3 are no problem. Item 1 is Nintendo Hard - because the sites are spread out so far apart that you're going to have to conquer half of Eastern Europe just to start the reformation.

While you're Unreformed, you're restricted to Tribal Government and Elective Gavelkind. Which means your realm is going to splinter so damned fast you won't even know what happened, and you have to start all over again, or pull some Tywin Lannister grade plots to reunify the conquered regions.

I hold the secrets of the machine.

Basically, you can easily reform Germanic, Romuva, or Zunist paganism at a little over one kingdom. Just to get three holy sites to reform Slavic paganism, you're pretty much ready to form an empire. Tengrism is similar in scale, but since you're probably a nomad, massive conquest like that isn't too hard. Hellenic could also be reformed at a little over a kingdom, but you need to tangle with Blurple or be Blurple, and to do that, you need to be either a big-ass kingdom or an empire yourself.

Or use strong claim duels to murder all your brothers and reunify everything. If you have high personal combat skill and they don't, it probably wouldn't even be that hard.

Edited by Balmung on May 29th 2019 at 3:50:18 AM

I probably should have thought of that in my current campaign. In three generations I'd managed to unite two kingdoms. King dies. The second Kingdom, which I hadn't actively formed by title, split off and united. After mopping up an errant duchy that keeps splitting off for some reason, I declared war against the other Kingdom. I get an event about pompous soldiers slaying my unit and leaving me alive. Instead of letting the situation go at that and just winning the war like I was already doing, I challenged the commander to a duel. I lost. I accepted imprisonment for the sake of survival. Got sacrificed to the Guardian instead and now lost the claim on that Kingdom entirely.

My hatred for the Fraticelli has now reached violence levels. I got utterly fucked when they rebelled against me right on top of my capital, thus robbing me of most of my levies, then stole my capital and most of my levies. So that game's a fucking wash.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Naw. Let 'em win, convert to Fratricelli, and rebuild your army.

No, they won, and took my territory from me.

All of my fucking progress and buildup gone, with pretty much no way to get it back. So no, fuck Fraticelli.

Edited by theLibrarian on May 29th 2019 at 11:56:39 AM

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

@Balmung: Actually, Zoro-ing in 769 is a little easier. Playing as the Bavandids makes you an Abbasid vassal, and being a player vassal under the already-unstable Blobbasids is an absolute joy. Join factions and watch the Caliph squirm as his empire disintegrates under the pressure of multiple induced civil wars as everyone takes a shot at once. I once managed to take control of an independent shard (Syrian Sultanate) via forcing elective monarchy on a weak Sultan, released most of my South Egyptian vassals as separate powers, then took the Duchy of Baghdad from the Green Abbasids in Holy War before I was asked to hand the top title back to a new Muslim sultan. It won't surprise you that by 900, the Middle East was in complete anarchy, and I was running around Persia killing everything in sight.

@Drunken Nordmann: Another fun option is to start somewhere in West Africa. African paganism's warrior society (Children of the Storm) is a beast due to fetishes and masks, and Totem Guardians is a fun, fairly strong reform.

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

Ouch, Librarian. Sorry, I didn't remember that those rebellions took land, I just thought they converted it to their faith and then settled back down. I wouldn't say fuck the religion, just fuck all religious rebellions period. With a nuke. From orbit.

Meanwhile my sixth ruler reformed the Ragaidi faith then held his ground to bash down a host trying to claim the Kingdom he'd done everything to build up. It's satisfying when you have 3k in retinues and another 5k in levies and several thousand warriors held under vassals willing to defend the faith.

Under the reforms we're equal opportunity warmongers. I chose absolute equality, polygamy warmongering, and Temporal leadership. So we're kind of like old school Islam without the rampant sexism. Kind of regretting not throwing prosetylizing in there, but at the time I knew we'd be warring a lot. It's just mostly gonna be against other faiths and that's going to open the door to mass revolts if I don't do something to fix the counties.

Edited by Journeyman on May 30th 2019 at 6:56:13 AM