u/SideQuestHero_

This is an update post to my first one where I was super paranoid about Ghengis Khan curb-stomping me: https://www.reddit.com/r/crusaderkings3/s/QWut3h3w8I

So, yeah, I had no reason to be concerned about him. I thought he would immediately take over all of Mongolia when he spawned; it was pretty trivial capturing his single county Empire. It was even easier considering the game thought it would be a great idea to make my character a Conquerer a few years after Seizing the Mandate of Heaven. However, I decided to have some fun with him. After stomping out his Invasion War and then Force Vassalizing him, I made him my Minister of War and Master of the Hunt, made him my best friend via Ritualized Friendship, and married my kids off to his. What made it even funnier was that my ruler at the time was gay and he was bisexual. And so, after both of our wives died, we ended up becoming soulmates on top of that. It was equal parts hysterical and surprisingly wholesome.

After taking China, the rest of the map was pretty easy; tedious and time-consuming (especially with the lag I was experiencing), but easy. Because I still had 200 years to achieve total world conquest, it mostly became a background goal. My primary goals after claiming China became entirely development-focused: fully building out every county I could and bringing them to 100 development, making my entire realm Celestial, spreading my culture to as many counties as possible, and acquiring every Innovation in the game, including those from the Silk Road and all of the regional ones.

For most of those goals, the greatest challenge I faced was one I was not expecting nor prepared for: The Hans. These guys completely overran my realm in the years following my rise as the Son of Heaven; kingdoms and empires long held by my dynasty were swiftly and easily usurped by men and women far more familiar with our new form of government. I'd revoke their titles and give them back to my dynasty only to check back on them a few years later to see another Han having taken their place. It resulted in me gaining enough renown via Mystical Ancestors to complete every Dynasty track, but it took almost 100 years for my dynasty to catch up to them in Merit.

The second greatest challenge I faced was one I'm sure you could already guess: the lag. I was going as fast as the slowest setting at max speed until I turned every setting to its lowest, and even then it was only a little faster. I don't blame Paradox for this, tbh; A game as complex as CK3 is obviously going to lag when the entire map is a form of Administrative and a third of the world's 60k population is of your dynasty. Shockingly, while the game did stutter and freeze a LOT, I think my game only crashed 2 or 3 times after taking China. Also, the amount of time it took for the game to load when I wanted to start a Great Project was staggering; Though I will say, it was a good way to force myself to get up and stretch, use the bathroom, or get something to eat.

As you can see from the screenshots, I mostly achieved my goals. The Bubonic Plague swept across the entire map and chunked the development of many of my less developed counties, on top of nearly killing 10k people. I got every Innovation other than Peerage because I didn't feel like converting to or hybridizing with a Frankish culture. Most but not all of the map was converted to my culture (thanks China). I wasn't even the only independent ruler on the map or completely Celestial; there was a single unlanded nomad left after having feudalized the entire Steppe over 100 years ago and some random Meritocratic noble who was somehow an unlanded king in Tibet. I'm not upset about all of this tho, I think it's more funny than anything else.

And so, after 3 months of gameplay, I finally completed a full 867 to 1453 playthrough as well as my first successful world conquest! Will I ever do either of these again? Probably not; I mostly had the game on in the background while I did other things the last 100 years after the Bubonic Plague died out. As satisfying as it was to have a hyper-stable, hyper-developed realm with the most "Benevolent Scholar-King" Culture-Religion combo I could think of, it got pretty boring just kinda watching the clock tick down while the system mostly ran itself. I gleaned some amount of fun hosting Grand Tournaments and achievement hunting where I could, but still.

I'll probably be taking a break from the game until By God Alone drops, I am still very excited for it. I might stream it as well once I get back into Twitch. But this run has kinda burnt me out on the game.

TL;DR, Very proud of my Roman Empire but worried about Genghis Khan. Am I set to deal with him?

R5: Currently attempting my first go at a full 867-1453 run, switching between playing tall and wide every 50 years or so. Started out as a Clan Catholic Persian as the Duke of Palestine (King of Jerusalem once I had the money for it) with 5-star Stewardship and good learning. I more or less bidded my time and played tall or grabbed the odd piece of land that became available for me to take until the Abbasids popped. Once they did, I went full aggression and took all the land I needed to form the Outremer Empire and moved my capitol to Baghdad. By then, I had managed to claim enough land to do the Iranian Resurgence ending. Unfortunately, Catholicism was uninvolved, so I couldn't take it. I did, however, have a BUNCH of piety saved up over my character’s life; so I figured I'd roleplaying him discovering Zoroastrianism, converting and creating his own branch (same as my Reformed Hellenism, but with Monasticism instead of Household Gods) to complete the Intermezzo. And so, in a single lifetime (barely, my first character died a few months afterwards), I had managed to become Saoshyant, Divine Emperor of Outremer and Persia.

Now normally, I would have stopped there and started a new playthrough; my main character dying right as I accomplished a pretty significant feat seemed like a good way to end things off. However, due to a combination of my son and heir being way better than my original in most ways and managing to actually get attached to them for once, I decided to keep going and see how far I could go as heir of the Saoshyant's throne. So, over the course of their reign and the reign of their daughter, I went back to mostly playing tall while creeping my way through Africa towards Iberia to eventually move my capitol over there to then complete the Iberian Struggle (which I did, though I said screw it and just did the Status Quo ending).

At some point, to my surprise, The Byzantine Empire collapsed. I have no idea how, I wasn't paying any attention to them. My best guess is that someone who became a Conquerer and formed Carpathia took enough of their land to destabilize enough to pop and just… decided not to capitalize on it? Again, no idea, but I digress. Well, by this point, I had my culture organized in the same way I do now minus Mystical Ancestors. So, I figured I'd seize the opportunity and put By The Sword to use. Within about 60 or so years of scooping up the fractured empire, seizing Italia and Dismantling the Papacy, and fighting off Scandinavia (one of the Lothbrok boys’ descendants also became a Conqueror, I guess), in the late 1000’s, I managed to hybridize with Greek, change to Administrative and Restored the Roman Empire.

My final goal two goals before achieving World Conquest is to completely feudalize the Steppe and, once China finally enters the Tension Era, Claim the Mandate of Heaven and become (and learn how to manage) a Celestial Government. Unfortunately, I learned about the bug that causes you to lose the Roman Invasion CB upon succession after enough time had passes that I wasn't willing to go back as far as would have been required. But, while I had it, I managed to scoop up the majority of the land I have now.

And so now, after hybridizing my way into having Mystical Ancestors and War Elephants, I've more or less been enjoying a pretty chill game of “Find the least developed counties and make them as developed as possible” while allowing the best and most loyal of my extended family to chip away at the lands that have yet to be conquered (fixing the internal border gore will be another goal of mine). I have at least 2 hospice buildings in every county in the empire and am actively upgrading them when I find one in need of it, so I'm not super concerned about the Black Death when it comes. What I *am* concerned about is Genghis Khan.

I've never played a single playthrough this long before, I usually stop before ever hitting 1050. I have, however, done a botch world conquest attempt as Temujin before when I was still fairly new to the game, so I know how terrifying the Mongol Empire can be even when poorly managed. Will he just swoop in and automatically take all of my land in Mongolia? Do I need to be hard-focusing my military until I can be certain I can win against him?

Edit: For clarity: Yes, I am being serious. I recognize all of this may come across as humble bragging, but I'm serious about my concerns. I've heard everyone say you're better off letting yourself become vassalized than fighting him, and I've never gotten this far in the timeline before. I don't know how worried I should be.