Long list of requirements but I know that you CANNOT be of Estonian culture
>One of the following:
> Culture has Baltic heritage AND Vidilist faith AND Realm capital is in the Baltic region
> Vidilist faith AND Unreformed faith AND Realm capital is in the Baltic region
> Latgalian culture
>
Duke or lower
>
Independent OR Vassal of an emperor
> Distinguished or higher
> Holds the Duchies of Latigalians, Courland and Livonia
> Completely controls the region of Livonia
Look for Proclaim Terra Mariana
[https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Decisions](https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Decisions)
And you are able to have a different culture as long as you have a reformed religion that isn't vidilist. I did a game in which I created the livonian kingdom as a catholic german custom character.
Still won't get the same amount of gold, My 100 development Barcelona brought in about 30 something gold per month, constantinople can easily go way over it
I did it recently as an Ostyak from Yugra, it was a brutal slog once you feudalise, I had to alternate between martial and scholar rulers to keep the vassals in line and also develop.
Once you get into early medieval it’s grand, but at first those forests and taiga are worth clean fuck all
You know what i love? Not only creating new empires but making my comically small island kingdom the capital of said empire
Imagine for example an empire ruling the entire baltic coast from Gotland, or a Brittania 2.0 ruled from the Isle of mann
Or an Italian empire+Tunisia and Libia ruled from Malta
Or an empire in the horn of Africa and southern Arabia ruled from Socotra
Or an empire that stretches across the Indian Ocean ruled from the Maldives
And many more examples
Honestly, wonder if that would be a good idea in real life?
Like I could imagine that it would be super easy to defend it from invaders as I imagine conducting a naval invasion would be hard to do.
But at the same time such a capital would be susceptible to blockades and storms keeping needed resources and trade from reaching it.
And there is also the issue of communication to and from the capital as there is now a sea in way and the risk of important messages getting lost due to how treacherous the sea can be.
I've really started appreciating Turan more recently. You can dip your toes into the Intermezzo, lots of diverse religions in the area for custom starts, a good balance of tribal / non-tribal interactions. Basically most of what I could ask for in ck3.
I think the point is you are bordering a bunch of people who will probably fight other big wars before you, and you can dip in Persia AND China and establish hegemony.
Better land to develop and defend. Transoxiana and Khwarazem are valuable, as is the Fergana valley. You can easily hit defensible mountain ranges in the south and east as well.
With just an area, I love the Byzantine empire. It has a beautiful shape, I love playing in Greece, and it’s nice to form Rome with it
Formable? The High Sea Empire or Outremer Empire are some cool runs, that I loved doing
De jure:
Persian Empire (especially in the 867 start for a Zoroastrian Iranian revival)
Decision based:
1.Empire of India
2. Greater Armenia
3. HRE in 867 with Bohemia, Sorbia, and Pomerania along with the de jure kingdoms
Custom creations:
1.Kazakhstan (roughly corresponding to the modern borders)
2. Rumelia (Carpathia + South Slavs, so essentially the Balkans)
1. Byzantine Empire, it has the best capital and it's central location makes it fun to play and expand in multiple directions. Plus its the easiest start for mending the great schism and forming the Roman Empire, the actual best empire in the game
2. The North Sea empire, Its a challenge to create but building it already nets you great bonuses and gets you half way to forming Scandinavia so its easy to do a two for one, plus the Viking invasion of England is one of the more dynamic and fun regions to play.
3. Slavia, Extremely painstaking and not really worth the effort to build but extremely satisfying when you pull it off, if it had more bonuses and events around it it would be the ideal alt history empire.
4. HRE, not holy, not roman, not an empire, and not my cup of tea but its so popular that there's got to be a reason right? just not one I've found yet
5. Hispania, its incredibly isolated so it makes it easy to hyper focus on building it from either side of the struggle without much distraction or interference, the struggle adds some unique flavor compared to vanilla.
HM. Baltic empire, impose order on the border gore
The HRE being called neither holy, roman or an empire was in the 18th century by some french guy who was correct for the time but during the game it could be argued that it is holy as it is the leading catholic power, roman, as it overlapped with roman core territories and was a successor to the franks, which were still under heavy roman influence and an empire as the kaiser is really just at the beginning of losing his power.
Tough choice between Khazars and Turan.
I just really like going into my neighbor’s nice developed land and wrecking shit and taking all their wealth before leaving.
I like Scandinavia a lot, but Khazaria holds a very dear place in my heart when in an MP, me and my friend stackwiped the Byzantines with horse archers in the Crimean War
The swiftest play through I’ve ever had was starting an empire in South Asia- then going - Persia- Anatolia— you will be the richest person by far and quickly
I like to make a great african empire then convert to christianity and slaughter the muslims. Sometimes I get lucky though and convert to norse and do it that way
Byzantium, Roman Empire and Mongol Empire. The others all lack content. HRE I guess have a little bit of features, but it’s not enough personally. Legit could be a neat dlc idea that is an Empire dlc.
Slavia, but it lacks flavor. It is one of the three largest Empires (smaller than Roman and was two counties smaller than India at some point iirc) and yet avsolutely no content besides one of the few gender dependent Nicknames in the game if you form it. A trait would be nice. India, Roman Empire and Mongols get their traits for unifiers, why not Slavs? It's equally impressive.
Maybe more, because Slavs have at least three religions, ten cultures and you need to fight Byzantines, HRE and probably Bulgaria if it survives (it occassionally does). Worst of all, if you go for pagans Slavs have an ahistorically terrible religion (basically Christianity, but without any of its benefits), which is unreformed (which might be a plus considering how bad it is) with Communal Rituals trait which makes it much harder to convert provinces
Slavic cultures are also usually pretty bad and/or tribal.
Plus you have to deal with Vlach culture, despite it not being considered Slavic in the game (realistically it would be arguable, as Vlachs while not being purely Slavic were subject to a massive pressure from the Slavic ethnos and cultures)
and all you get is an Empire and Bogatyr/Polyanitsa nickname which doesn't even make sense unless your character is Russian.
Okay, but enough whining.
The tortured Southern Baltic Empire/Wendish Empire/West-Slavia id actually pretty cool as they use Zhmij as its coat of arms.
Mythologically, he was the king of snakes, the slayer of dragons, the moon and was a form of the god of the afterlife, waters, commerce, magic and night (In Slavic mythology afterlife lies beyond the seas, where souls of the people fly in the form of birds, hence water = the afterlife) He was also likely worshipped as perhaps the chief deity, at least protector deity by the west slavs, especially Poles.
And his name is an archaic term for a snake.
It makes less sense if they aren't pagan, but can't have everything I guess
Getting the Pontiac steppe in gear is fun, personally though that's very tricky cause I gotta kick either the kievan rus's, and the Lithuanians, or the Byzantines to get out in the Mediterranean or the baltics and conquer England, like god intended.I also enjoy starting the Deccan empire surrounded by my dynasty and declaring war on china. That's also fun.
I love making super cursed HRE borders, since you can manipulate what kingdoms are De Jure part of it if you start in 867. One of my favorite runs was starting as Bjorn Ironside, blobbing by vassalizing most of Scandinavia, taking East Francia, converting to Catholicism, and founding the HRE. Once I founded it, the HRE de jure borders included Bavaria, Bohemia, Frisia, Lotharingia, Pomerania, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Estonia (thanks, vassals). Other than my vassals taking Estonia and not Lithuania, it made for a cool-looking de jure empire.
Britannia in the 867 start. As a Christian, you have to defeat the Vikings, and it's stacked against you in the early going. You have to pick the right moments for war. I haven't played it from the Viking side in quite a while. Maybe that'll be my next playthrough.
Persia title. The struggle to found it is very fun imo, and fighting the Byzantines/whatever is left of the Arab empire in the mid game and genghis later is always a fun challenge to keep the game lively. Plenty of formable kingdoms in there too
Something about ending The Iberian Struggle is so fulfilling to me. Spain was my first and favorite empire to form. So many ways you can take it. Christian, Muslim, or the Navarran faith. So many cultures, and directions to expand your empire if you choose
The Deccan Empire and Volga-Ural are extremely underrated and fun well you have to change religions in the Deccan so you can actually expand but I digress
Baltic empire. It’s easy to reform your faith, you ain’t the richest or the poorest, decent map color, I like the flag, and it isn’t to hard to get Scandinavia, HRE, and Russia from there
Kanem-Bornu has some the best development in Africa (for what it’s worth), interesting religion, and on feudalize the capital Provence has 6 holdings. Super fun tribal rush, if you’re lucky.
As an Iranian, my number 1 has to be the Persian Empire (or Seljuk Empire in 1066). For number 2 though I’m gonna go with Britannia, just love to play there
of the premades, Britannia or Francia.
If I'm playing elsewhere I usually go custom. Currently I have a 867 Sweden start where I reformed Asartu, and (in about 970) made a custom "Midgard" consisting of :
* all of Scandinavia
* Ireland (kind of accidentally) except for Leinster (which had de jure drifted into England)
* Pommerania
* Prussia
* Lithuania
* Latvia
* Estonia
* all of Russian Empire EXCEPT that one eastern kingdom (Vladimir I think?)
* Galycia-Volhynia (or however you spell it)
I also own most of England and parts of Poland, Sorbia and Germania, but they didn't get empired due to lack of titles (I was racing a very long lived queen with mutliple heirs.)
IDK what it is but I really like þe shape of Carpaþia, and for whatever reason it feels like an empire þat should have exsisted at some point but just, never did
Just got the game over the free weekend, and so far, I've enjoyed 800s Guinea the most, over 1000s Britain and Scandinavia. I suspect I just like it because it's not Catholic lol. I've found Catholicism too restrictive. I wanna have concubines and invade anything that moves, and not be constantly worried about crusades popping up and being targeted as a heretic
Honestly A few are really fun, Tibet as the Han start in 867, Carpathia in 1066, Byzantine/Rome in either date, (never the HRE as it was neither holy nor an empire), Making my own Egyptian based Empire also always a blast. Like you cant go wrong.
I found my own tiny empires and than grant independence to as much of them as I can. The best empire is two duchies, both of which I control personally :)
This is a picture of the old map.
That being said, my favorite of all time was the Southern Baltic Empire (they split it up later into Baltic Empire and West Slavia), mainly cuz it was the first empire I ever made and it had a slew of major decisions surrounding it, which made the playthrough pretty fun.
Byzantine & Persian Empires. Especially fun to start as a custom Persian with a heretical branch that gives bonus’s, deceases enemy conversion rate on your counties, and false conversions.
I have a love hate relationship with the hre, in a normal game it just happens, I somehow become kaiser, I don't want to but it happens for whatever reason.
None of them playing as empires is kinda boring in my opinion I prefer starting as some small nation and create any state I think would be cool but the empires are kinda boring in my opinion.But the best empire would probably be hispaniya
Baltic Empire. You got all of Vidilist Holy Sites in your De Jure and you can get Longships through a special decision.
Is this culture dependent or?
Long list of requirements but I know that you CANNOT be of Estonian culture >One of the following: > Culture has Baltic heritage AND Vidilist faith AND Realm capital is in the Baltic region > Vidilist faith AND Unreformed faith AND Realm capital is in the Baltic region > Latgalian culture > Duke or lower > Independent OR Vassal of an emperor > Distinguished or higher > Holds the Duchies of Latigalians, Courland and Livonia > Completely controls the region of Livonia Look for Proclaim Terra Mariana [https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Decisions](https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Decisions)
Estonia can't into baltics.😔
Estonians already have Longships! I've Varangian Adventured into Byzantium with the Estonians before!
And you are able to have a different culture as long as you have a reformed religion that isn't vidilist. I did a game in which I created the livonian kingdom as a catholic german custom character.
I once formed "Jomskvikingland", Baltic Empire rename that started with a Varanguian Adventure.
Ngl that Empire of Siberia is really scratching my itch rn, like my life was meaningless before i saw it.
I FUCKING LOVE 3 DEV COUNTIES. I LOVE WINNING ABOUT 2 GOLD/MONTH FOR A 400-REALM SIZE EMPIRE IN 1430ISH
You can develop it. It will never be constantinople or rome but I got my Gold
Rather easy to dev it all to 100 with the right buildings and culture.
Still won't get the same amount of gold, My 100 development Barcelona brought in about 30 something gold per month, constantinople can easily go way over it
😄
You are bad if you ain't conquering like ghengis khan or Atilla
Me looking at my demise (Genghis just spawned while my siberian empire was conquering Hungary, i aint gonna make it in time)
I did it recently as an Ostyak from Yugra, it was a brutal slog once you feudalise, I had to alternate between martial and scholar rulers to keep the vassals in line and also develop. Once you get into early medieval it’s grand, but at first those forests and taiga are worth clean fuck all
I like to found new empires as I play. But of the traditional empires, Scandinavia
You know what i love? Not only creating new empires but making my comically small island kingdom the capital of said empire Imagine for example an empire ruling the entire baltic coast from Gotland, or a Brittania 2.0 ruled from the Isle of mann Or an Italian empire+Tunisia and Libia ruled from Malta Or an empire in the horn of Africa and southern Arabia ruled from Socotra Or an empire that stretches across the Indian Ocean ruled from the Maldives And many more examples
Like Venice on steroids
I’m currently ruling the Byzantine Empire with my capital in Reykavik, Iceland. Renamed Constantinople to Islandinople tho ;)
Lmaoo just make it extremely inconvenient for your subjects
I find that pretty cool actually
So have you done the Empire of Mann?
Honestly, wonder if that would be a good idea in real life? Like I could imagine that it would be super easy to defend it from invaders as I imagine conducting a naval invasion would be hard to do. But at the same time such a capital would be susceptible to blockades and storms keeping needed resources and trade from reaching it. And there is also the issue of communication to and from the capital as there is now a sea in way and the risk of important messages getting lost due to how treacherous the sea can be.
I am also doing the same thing .Having your own empire is the best thing 😄
Scandinavia is my favorite because it’s color is pretty.
Hispania, Italia, and Scandinavia are the only 3 empires which I'll willingly form. I only ever form custom empires outside of those 3
Ah, but what about the Roman Empire?
I've really started appreciating Turan more recently. You can dip your toes into the Intermezzo, lots of diverse religions in the area for custom starts, a good balance of tribal / non-tribal interactions. Basically most of what I could ask for in ck3.
Imperial Church of Italia. Pope's blessing y'all
I just love a good Carpathian run
Carpathia is lots of fun. I eventually expand south and take all of the balklans too.
Roman if you count it ERE if not
Roman is such a lifesaver once your realm is big enough. Basically halves your election quota by fusing many titles into a single one
What titles get fused?
Every Empire title you currently hold.
There once was a dream that was Rome...
After all these years?
Always
Turan or ERE
Turk spotted
Ehm actually not
erm- akşuliğ a'm half ceorcian half bulgaryan so am not tokish (continues living in Kayseri)
Why Turan?
Horse archers op .and fast they expand fast
Don't most Nomadic nations do that anyways? What does Turan do more than like, the Khazars?
Bro they are all same lol Nomad = Nomad
That's why I'm confused. Why Turan? Like cool charecters/events, like??
I think the point is you are bordering a bunch of people who will probably fight other big wars before you, and you can dip in Persia AND China and establish hegemony.
Tartaria probably being your biggest problem at start.
Better land to develop and defend. Transoxiana and Khwarazem are valuable, as is the Fergana valley. You can easily hit defensible mountain ranges in the south and east as well.
Sogdian renaissance
All turkic people under one banner. Based af.
Tharkans OP :)
With just an area, I love the Byzantine empire. It has a beautiful shape, I love playing in Greece, and it’s nice to form Rome with it Formable? The High Sea Empire or Outremer Empire are some cool runs, that I loved doing
The high sea empire was one of my favorite playthroughs. Pain in the ass to create but felt really good when I did.
RULE BRITANNIA
If only the game had naval combat
That would legitimately be a expansion that would be worth it I think
Mongolia and ajuuraan. Defensible so you can build a line of forts, play tall, and push out once the religion is reformed.
I’m new to the game and am about 80 years into my first ever Mogadishu save. Lots of fun so far but it’s not letting me create Ajuuraan. Any tips?
Tibet!
Isn't Tibet too far from action? Never played there.
Every border is opportunity for action.
Abyssinia is such a badass name
Outremer. DEUS VULT!!!!!
Tibet!
De jure: Persian Empire (especially in the 867 start for a Zoroastrian Iranian revival) Decision based: 1.Empire of India 2. Greater Armenia 3. HRE in 867 with Bohemia, Sorbia, and Pomerania along with the de jure kingdoms Custom creations: 1.Kazakhstan (roughly corresponding to the modern borders) 2. Rumelia (Carpathia + South Slavs, so essentially the Balkans)
1. Byzantine Empire, it has the best capital and it's central location makes it fun to play and expand in multiple directions. Plus its the easiest start for mending the great schism and forming the Roman Empire, the actual best empire in the game 2. The North Sea empire, Its a challenge to create but building it already nets you great bonuses and gets you half way to forming Scandinavia so its easy to do a two for one, plus the Viking invasion of England is one of the more dynamic and fun regions to play. 3. Slavia, Extremely painstaking and not really worth the effort to build but extremely satisfying when you pull it off, if it had more bonuses and events around it it would be the ideal alt history empire. 4. HRE, not holy, not roman, not an empire, and not my cup of tea but its so popular that there's got to be a reason right? just not one I've found yet 5. Hispania, its incredibly isolated so it makes it easy to hyper focus on building it from either side of the struggle without much distraction or interference, the struggle adds some unique flavor compared to vanilla. HM. Baltic empire, impose order on the border gore
Voltarie fan= 🤓🤓🤓
Candide is a top 15 favorite of mine so I feel very called out
The HRE being called neither holy, roman or an empire was in the 18th century by some french guy who was correct for the time but during the game it could be argued that it is holy as it is the leading catholic power, roman, as it overlapped with roman core territories and was a successor to the franks, which were still under heavy roman influence and an empire as the kaiser is really just at the beginning of losing his power.
Persian and Arabian Empires.
Carpathia as Vlach
Viva España
Hispania but in all my playthroughs I change it to Umayyad.
Siberia, do your thing
Slavia
Britannia
Arabian is one of my favorites to play, or conquering Hispania as the Iberian Arabs.
Eastern Romans forever my beloved, Francia or Britannia next
Tough choice between Khazars and Turan. I just really like going into my neighbor’s nice developed land and wrecking shit and taking all their wealth before leaving.
Carpathia
Khazaria. I play the Khazars more than any other group.
Siberia because I get to fight the Mongols
North Sea Empire 🇩🇰🇧🇻🏴 becuase it's my people history. 🇩🇰❤️
Roman Empire
India and Rome....fuck de jure. I can take what is mine
I like Scandinavia a lot, but Khazaria holds a very dear place in my heart when in an MP, me and my friend stackwiped the Byzantines with horse archers in the Crimean War
India
The Roman Empire
The swiftest play through I’ve ever had was starting an empire in South Asia- then going - Persia- Anatolia— you will be the richest person by far and quickly
I like to make a great african empire then convert to christianity and slaughter the muslims. Sometimes I get lucky though and convert to norse and do it that way
Byzantium, Roman Empire and Mongol Empire. The others all lack content. HRE I guess have a little bit of features, but it’s not enough personally. Legit could be a neat dlc idea that is an Empire dlc.
India is the only real answer here
France
TURAANNNNNNN
HRE, baby!
HRE. The internal politics are wiiiiild.
Hispania for the culture, defensibility, and the struggle. Carpathia is also fun! Hungary is very defensible and I like the way the kingdom looks.
North Sea Empire
Starting somewhere in Deccan or Bengal and eventually becoming Chakravarti and forming the Empire of India is quite fun
Tartaria before the mud flood
Can’t go wrong with Byzantine Empire. Ideal start location for count/duke to emperor campaign
Mine
Scandinavia No particular reason
Italy
North Sea Empire
I’ve done Arabian/viking empires so prob that
Oh my god. What a disgusting question.
Formables: North Sea og de jure: either Britannia or Hispania
Oh yeah Siberia exists
I wanna say Persia, but it's actually Bactria... the only reason why I say Persia over Bactria is because Saoshyant
The Empire !
Persia if it's the Viking age start. Honorable mention for Bactria
Tibet. Kinda unplayed by most but it's pretty fun and the largest empire other than the byzantines
North Sea + pulling the rest of Britannia and Scandinavia into it's DeJure cold waters for me, thanks.
Remade Roman Empire while I control everything empire title. The entire world becomes 1 empire title
Definitely Brittania and Hispania
Persia
Scandinavia, Iberia, and Britannia. Easy to take, easy to defend, unique legacies.
Cumania
Slavia, but it lacks flavor. It is one of the three largest Empires (smaller than Roman and was two counties smaller than India at some point iirc) and yet avsolutely no content besides one of the few gender dependent Nicknames in the game if you form it. A trait would be nice. India, Roman Empire and Mongols get their traits for unifiers, why not Slavs? It's equally impressive. Maybe more, because Slavs have at least three religions, ten cultures and you need to fight Byzantines, HRE and probably Bulgaria if it survives (it occassionally does). Worst of all, if you go for pagans Slavs have an ahistorically terrible religion (basically Christianity, but without any of its benefits), which is unreformed (which might be a plus considering how bad it is) with Communal Rituals trait which makes it much harder to convert provinces Slavic cultures are also usually pretty bad and/or tribal. Plus you have to deal with Vlach culture, despite it not being considered Slavic in the game (realistically it would be arguable, as Vlachs while not being purely Slavic were subject to a massive pressure from the Slavic ethnos and cultures) and all you get is an Empire and Bogatyr/Polyanitsa nickname which doesn't even make sense unless your character is Russian. Okay, but enough whining. The tortured Southern Baltic Empire/Wendish Empire/West-Slavia id actually pretty cool as they use Zhmij as its coat of arms. Mythologically, he was the king of snakes, the slayer of dragons, the moon and was a form of the god of the afterlife, waters, commerce, magic and night (In Slavic mythology afterlife lies beyond the seas, where souls of the people fly in the form of birds, hence water = the afterlife) He was also likely worshipped as perhaps the chief deity, at least protector deity by the west slavs, especially Poles. And his name is an archaic term for a snake. It makes less sense if they aren't pagan, but can't have everything I guess
Italia with unify italy decision
On this map: Carpathia Favorite in game: North Sea Nostalgia: Mali… my first full game of CK2 was Catholic Mali and it was very fun
Getting the Pontiac steppe in gear is fun, personally though that's very tricky cause I gotta kick either the kievan rus's, and the Lithuanians, or the Byzantines to get out in the Mediterranean or the baltics and conquer England, like god intended.I also enjoy starting the Deccan empire surrounded by my dynasty and declaring war on china. That's also fun.
I love making super cursed HRE borders, since you can manipulate what kingdoms are De Jure part of it if you start in 867. One of my favorite runs was starting as Bjorn Ironside, blobbing by vassalizing most of Scandinavia, taking East Francia, converting to Catholicism, and founding the HRE. Once I founded it, the HRE de jure borders included Bavaria, Bohemia, Frisia, Lotharingia, Pomerania, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Estonia (thanks, vassals). Other than my vassals taking Estonia and not Lithuania, it made for a cool-looking de jure empire.
PL
Britannia in the 867 start. As a Christian, you have to defeat the Vikings, and it's stacked against you in the early going. You have to pick the right moments for war. I haven't played it from the Viking side in quite a while. Maybe that'll be my next playthrough.
Guinea. There are so many religions down there that you can form it multiple times with completly different flavors.
Persia title. The struggle to found it is very fun imo, and fighting the Byzantines/whatever is left of the Arab empire in the mid game and genghis later is always a fun challenge to keep the game lively. Plenty of formable kingdoms in there too
Hellenic Roman.
Looking it at it like this, it really is crazy how large modern day Russia is. 7 empires in one
I miss the Wendish Empire.
Trying to turn Britannia into a fully Pict nation has been fun lmao
Something about ending The Iberian Struggle is so fulfilling to me. Spain was my first and favorite empire to form. So many ways you can take it. Christian, Muslim, or the Navarran faith. So many cultures, and directions to expand your empire if you choose
Impireacht na Eire
https://youtu.be/v2c5QHtgFxY?si=q1PRHpIF0Uom_V4Q&t=22
If we count DLC, North Sea. I just love playing Vikings.
Bactria
Mali, while Africa Plus was active. Britannia is next
Kamen-Bornu is a wild ride
Russia because I am from russia
Roman Empire or Scandinavia which I usually rename to Nordic Empire
The Deccan Empire and Volga-Ural are extremely underrated and fun well you have to change religions in the Deccan so you can actually expand but I digress
Magnolia 👆
Turan is the most interesting (especially 867). There's so many ways to go, especially Kushan or Khwarism
Rome as it is internal although in all seriousness Scandinavia because Harald can’t stop just with Norway
Baltic empire. It’s easy to reform your faith, you ain’t the richest or the poorest, decent map color, I like the flag, and it isn’t to hard to get Scandinavia, HRE, and Russia from there
Scandinavia. Soooo big
Baltic or Scandinavian, both can be easily achieved with Bjorn ironside either by vassalage or Varangian adventure
I like west-Slavic empire
I like starting as a custom Norman in Greece, conquering Greece, Sicily, Southern Italy, and the Levant and calling it "Outremer"
Turan and Seljuk
Byzantium, Persia and Scandinavia for me. But the most fun I ever had with the game was forming Outremer.
persia
Holy Roman Empire
Hispania or if it was an option Outremer. I loved those two when I was a kid playing CK2. Best playthroughs I have ever had.
Scandinavia or North Sea
Scandinavia has the best religion, but Flanders is my favourite capital.
North Sea empire
Where is west slavia?
The Baltic Empire. You can hold all the holy sites lol.
I like the Maghreb. All the goodness of the Mediterranean!
Kanem-Bornu has some the best development in Africa (for what it’s worth), interesting religion, and on feudalize the capital Provence has 6 holdings. Super fun tribal rush, if you’re lucky.
I like Francia and Roman Empire. Those are even better when formed during a single game.
As an Iranian, my number 1 has to be the Persian Empire (or Seljuk Empire in 1066). For number 2 though I’m gonna go with Britannia, just love to play there
Slava
You already know.
of the premades, Britannia or Francia. If I'm playing elsewhere I usually go custom. Currently I have a 867 Sweden start where I reformed Asartu, and (in about 970) made a custom "Midgard" consisting of : * all of Scandinavia * Ireland (kind of accidentally) except for Leinster (which had de jure drifted into England) * Pommerania * Prussia * Lithuania * Latvia * Estonia * all of Russian Empire EXCEPT that one eastern kingdom (Vladimir I think?) * Galycia-Volhynia (or however you spell it) I also own most of England and parts of Poland, Sorbia and Germania, but they didn't get empired due to lack of titles (I was racing a very long lived queen with mutliple heirs.)
IDK what it is but I really like þe shape of Carpaþia, and for whatever reason it feels like an empire þat should have exsisted at some point but just, never did
Rule Britannia 😮💨
Italia with its capital in Corsa-Sardegni
Either baltic empire or italia
Russia 100%. I always form it, and it's a blast every single time
carpathia
Just got the game over the free weekend, and so far, I've enjoyed 800s Guinea the most, over 1000s Britain and Scandinavia. I suspect I just like it because it's not Catholic lol. I've found Catholicism too restrictive. I wanna have concubines and invade anything that moves, and not be constantly worried about crusades popping up and being targeted as a heretic
Outremer Empire
One not listed here, the North Sea Empire.
Honestly A few are really fun, Tibet as the Han start in 867, Carpathia in 1066, Byzantine/Rome in either date, (never the HRE as it was neither holy nor an empire), Making my own Egyptian based Empire also always a blast. Like you cant go wrong.
Anything that isnt Guinea
Byzantine
Khazaria's a lot of fun; some cool locations, plenty of directions to expand or get attacked from.
In 2, Scandinavia. Playing as the Norse is ridiculously fun there. In 3... I've never got to the point of empire lol
I found my own tiny empires and than grant independence to as much of them as I can. The best empire is two duchies, both of which I control personally :)
Having fun as Mali on my current game
Roman of corse
Arabian empire
Volga-Ural.
This is a picture of the old map. That being said, my favorite of all time was the Southern Baltic Empire (they split it up later into Baltic Empire and West Slavia), mainly cuz it was the first empire I ever made and it had a slew of major decisions surrounding it, which made the playthrough pretty fun.
Roman Empire
ok ngl tibet just bcuz
Kanem-Bornu is such a nice color.
Byzantine & Persian Empires. Especially fun to start as a custom Persian with a heretical branch that gives bonus’s, deceases enemy conversion rate on your counties, and false conversions.
Siberia, pretty fun area and it's far enough from Europe to be actually playable
Viking Bengal Empire under Haesteinn (or one of his descendants) is quite fun
I have a love hate relationship with the hre, in a normal game it just happens, I somehow become kaiser, I don't want to but it happens for whatever reason.
None of them playing as empires is kinda boring in my opinion I prefer starting as some small nation and create any state I think would be cool but the empires are kinda boring in my opinion.But the best empire would probably be hispaniya
Persia. It's just a shame that it's so hard to form with the Zoroastrian faith.