My father and grandfather were in warrior society Champions of Perun, which resulted in a lot of duels, a lot of wounds, and that's probably what killed my grandfather. The Cold Ones (Slavic Satanists) tried to recruit me, but I chickened out, as it seemed to dangerous.
My only other option was the modded society Great Trade League, which is just perfect for a greedy character.
Conquest of Lithuania and Rus
With such a long list of traits, what kind of person am I? Well, I'm quick, shrewd, greedy, and arbitrary. Exactly the kind of person who'd first take over his brother's Lithuania. But I'll take good care of Lestek, and be his tutor until he grows up.Next thing to do is to attack Kievan Rus. It's only slightly bigger than me, but had a lot more loyal vassals.
It's not a good war to fight, as I have no advantage. I have no boats, they have slightly bigger army, are on defensive, sieges count for very little against tribals, and the game bugged out and didn't even count most battles to the warscore. AI even weirdly had competent commanders. I don't even control my army, as half of it are vassal levies. I hate allies in every game. At least I had a stash of inherited gold from raids I could use to hire mercenaries to pad my ranks.
There's also a question of game rules. I have shattered retreat on, but no movement lock. I'm not sure these are good values. Maybe either have shattered retreat off so battles are very decisive, or have movement lock on to make getting AI into battle easier?
How far I needed to go to convince Yevpraxia to marry me and merge our realms
Kievan Rus also had some Pecheneg land, but it flips nomad on succession without some serious investment tribals can't afford
Marriage of Mieszko Piast and Yevpraxia Rurikid
During this war king of Rus died, and his older unmarried sister inherited the throne. I could see no other way than to divorce my cheating wife, and marry defeated Yevpraxia.I needed some console commands to break Yevpraxia's previous betrothal and to make her say yes, but it's a much better story this way.
My new wife Yevpraxia was the last living descendant of Rurik. It's a patrilineal bloodline so it won't inherit, but it's fine.
She's a 22 year old 7/14/9/3/3. Dull ambitious diligent tough soldier and child of a concubine. She's still unhappy about that war, but I'm sure we'll have many children together.
Slavic Reformation
My traits changed slightly during first few years of my reign. Now I'm Grey Eminence, quick, shrewd, content, arbitrary, greedy, humble, kind, zealous.I finally had 4 holy sites, and just barely enough piety and moral authority to reform Slavic religion. And so it goes...
Piast, grandfather of my grandfather, was actually Thunder-God Perun who came down to Earth. As God's great great grandson, I'm divine. I'm the rightful ruler of all mortals, in temporal and spiritual matters.
The infidels all deserve to be given blessings of Perun, and missionaries should spread the great news from Ireland to Cathay. Only as last resort, armed missionaries.
My children are also divine, and should marry other divine beings, not common mortals. Just as Gods and Goddesses must both be worshiped, all my children have the same right to rule. A council of elders will be instituted to choose which of them will rule the mortals before joining ancestors in the sky.
Spirits of my divine ancestors can be seen on the night sky. They will also show the future in a properly performed goat sacrifice ceremony.
So the traits (with mod for 6 instead of the usual 2 doctrines):
- Leadership: Temporal
- Nature: Proselytizing
- Doctrine: Children of Perun
- Doctrine: Divine Marriage
- Doctrine: Astrology
- Doctrine: Equality
- Doctrine: Ancestor Worship
- Doctrine: Haruspicy
What it means for gameplay
All these bonuses, as tooltips describe them:- The reformer will become the new Head of this religion
- Great Holy Wars are allowed
- This religion encourages missionary work
- Rulers waging war against members of their own faith lose Piety
- Fleets can navigate through major rivers
- Short reign penalty is disabled
- Rulers can spend Piety to improve their Courtiers' Attributes
- Close-kin marriage is allowed
- Close-kin marriage amongst nobility is considered a divine union
- Characters are assigned Zodiac traits on birth and by decision
- Grants access to the Hermetic Society
- Absolute Cognatic law is enforced
- Female rulers are not penalized
- The Religious Head can decide upon dead ancestors to give special status
- Enables Eldership succession law
- Diviners read the signs before war to try to improve troop morale
Overall this combination isn't too powerful, and better combinations (Warmongering/Dogmatic, Temporal, Agnatic/Enatic Clans, Temporal, whatever for last doctrine) with just vanilla 2 doctrines are a lot better than what I got with 6. Divine Marriage is pure roleplay, Equality just advances laws you can pass 100 years into the game, Haruspicy does basically nothing, and Eldership is maybe better than Elective Gavelkind, but will probably end up hugely annoying.
It's a huge Poland, but maybe a quarter is my culture and religion, and even they are mostly angry
What were my other options
I'm a bit surprised it worked. My other options were:- get third holy site from Bulgaria, going through Pechenegs land or through Hungary - it looks like less clay on the map, but would probably be even harder
- ask king of Germany for mass conversion to Catholic
- become secretly Catholic to follow my first wife's religion
- ask emperor of the Romans for mass conversion to Orthodox
- flip Romuva, I can get 3 holy sites by just cleaning up minors, reform that
- flip Germanic, conquer big chunks of Scandinavia, reform that
For other reforms, I thought about getting hierocratic leadership (a single religious head), but it seems to have a lot fewer features than actual Papacy or Caliphate.
There's also obvious Religious Tax doctrine, but it doesn't seem to work for tribals, so my greed would no t be satisfied by it.
Transition
To celebrate the reformation, I released all the prisoners who were still stuck in my dungeons.I left Great Trade League, and I'm planning to join the Hermetic Society once cooldown timer allows me, to study ancestor-spirits in the night sky.
There's 10 years of -40 penalty with all vassals due to going Eldership, and I have very unstable realm already, full of Russians, Lithuanians, Pomeranians, Romuvas, heretics, and so on. At some point I'll try missionary work, but first I need to bring true faith to my own realm.
If I survive next decade or so, it should get a lot easier. Or I could just let some vassals go, I only needed that much land for the reform.
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