u/Linneris

I started a playthrough in the Warcraft: Guardians of Azeroth mod, as Tyrande Whisperwind. After that, I loaded the vanilla game and saw... this. The three characters are supposed to be night elves, but are displayed incorrectly with mod assets not loaded.

I started at age 18 in the East Francian duchy of Angria. Became a scholar-adventurer, did some contracts. I got a hook on the king of Lotharingia and could buy a county there, but I decided to try to get more money and fame and buy a duchy, as the king of Lotharingia had one for sale.

My journeys eventually got me as far as Scotland. I raised 1600 gold and achieved the third level of fame, which made me eligible for buying a duchy. I returned to Lotharingia, only to learn that the duchy for sale cost 3000 gold and the king didn't like me nearly enough to let me buy it even if I had the money. I considered settling for a county, but the prize county of four baronies was no longer available for sale, and I didn't like any of the counties that were available.

I moved east, back into Angria where I started my journey, as it was a big duchy and I hoped it had some better counties available. To my surprise, the duke of Angria actually owned three duchies and had two of them for sale for 1000 gold each. Ostfalen, the one near the border, was constantly being raided, so I bought Westfalen, the duchy farther away from the border. It was so undeveloped that I only had a single county for a domain and didn't even have a castle for a capital. My only holding was a temple. I built a castle, got two more counties in my enormous duchy, and began building up.

Things were going up. My new liege, the king of East Francia, made me his steward and master of the horse. I fully expected to play tall as a vassal, but then I saw that the third tree of the stewardship lifestyle unlocked a scheme to forge a claim for the liege's throne. I successfully forged it (with 61% chance, despite my low intrigue), declared war, called in my allies, and marched straight to the king's capital while he was distracted by a war with Scandinavia. I captured the capital, took the king prisoner, and immediately enforced my demands. I was now Queen of Germany.

And then I got lucky. Germany and Bavaria were entangled in some border gore where Germany had taken most of Bavaria's de jure territory, while de facto Bavaria was in German territory. I usurped Bavaria and vassalized its remains. While I was saving up gold to usurp Bavaria, Lotharingia fell apart, so I vassalized its remains too.

From there, it was just a matter of saving up enough gold to create a third kingdom title and form the Holy Roman Empire. And there I am, fresh off my coronation, as a 60-year-old Kaiserin!

(If you're wondering why my character's name and house name are blanked out, it's because I named her after myself.)

I control the territory of Germany, Bavaria, Lotharingia, and Frisia. I'm now saving up gold to form the empire of Germania, but maybe I should form the Holy Roman Empire instead? I heard that the elector mechanic is annoying to manage, so why would I create the HRE rather than Germania? What are the pros and cons?

Edit: If the wiki is to be believed, I can't create Germania as a Catholic, I'll have to create the HRE. That resolves the question, then.

I hovered over the "Purchase Truce" menu item, out of curiosity why it's disabled, and it told me that High King Sigurdr is High King Sigurdr. You don't say!

I'm playing an adventurer. I enjoyed a tavern story to lose some stress, but after that the option became greyed out and stayed so for years. In the Russian version, the tooltip always said the expiry date was on the day before, no matter how many times I returned to the tavern.

I launched the English version to take this screenshot, and it says I won't be able to enjoy a story again for almost two years. Is it a bug?

Went to the council screen to appoint a new steward and marveled at my pretty impressive council... except for that patriarch with 2 learning. And my character is Compassionate, so murdering him is out of question.

In my playthrough, one of the Iberian dukes got the Conqueror trait, expanded to conquer most of Iberia, and now his descendant somehow became Holy Roman Emperor, so the HRE now controls 2/3 of Iberia and some lands in Africa and the former Byzantine Empire.

Now the HRE is involved in a war with Lotharingia, which also became a powerhouse thanks to a hereditary Conqueror trait. I just hope they won't ally against me.