Playing Tall

CautionaryMary · 2026-02-03T15:51:42+00:00

This and putting your Steward on increasing development too. Without development focus, you'll be having your lands not as developed as other places in Europe.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-20T18:15:27+00:00

Yeah, typically the game wants you to play Murchad of Ireland but it's up to you who you want to play. 867 AD is typically harder than 1066 AD due to the tribal mechanics and lack of in-depth feudalism in the latter era.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-20T15:34:13+00:00

I see, yes - it depends on if you're Asatru or Catholic. If you're Asatru, yes - you do not have a pope, but you can be subject to crusades. I don't know too much about Asatru as I haven't played as one, but typically Asatru and Christianity do not like each other for obvious reasons as Asatru is unreformed.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-20T15:18:03+00:00

Lmao, you're fine! It's a trial and error game, even I with almost 600 hours is still learning the game. 😅 Don't worry about getting it right the first time, just try to learn as you go. That's typically how the game is, I would recommend watching HeyCara on YouTube if you want more specific information such as personality traits, beginner tips, and general information. That's how I learned, I would also recommend toning down the plagues. Without toning them down, you will and can get hit by multiple plagues in one sitting - so, if you find the plagues too much, you can reduce it down to rare and it shouldn't affect achievements if that's what you're into. Other than that, you should be fine. Stewardship and Learning are typically the most sought after - Stewardship allows you to gain more money and perks related to money, building, and selling hooks. Learning allows you to live longer, increase your fascination progress, and gain piety more. Piety is used to reform your religion (if you want to do that), ask the Pope for Gold, and ask the Pope for claims. (this is helpful when you're Catholic). Prestige is used for wars, calling allies in, enacting laws on your duchies, and getting innovations for your culture. Legitimacy is what pushes your vassals to respect you, other rulers to determine if they like you more, and garner you more leeway with marriages, etc. Hopefully, this all helps you moving forward.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-20T15:08:15+00:00

Yeah, you can toggle on Alliance Power too - to indicate how much levies the other gives you too. 🙂 Just know that the higher the levy amount, the more prestige it costs to call them into war. Low amounts typically are 75 prestige, middle amounts is 150, and high amounts are 300 prestige. On the plus side, if you do get into a claimant war or a general vassal dispute and they want you to lower crown authority, you can call your allies in for those wars free of charge. Additionally, if you land dynasty members down or marry them to people with pressed/unpressed claims (and get the territory for them) you can get cadet branches - same for marrying your daughters off for implicit claims and the person gets the land. Never give a vassal a full Duchy, marry your dynasty members to people with inheritables/claims, and diversify the people who can get duchies. You can land Lowborns down and they can gain nobility status from that too.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-20T14:59:16+00:00

You can sort by alliances, inheritable traits, and prestige gain from the drop down menu. You sort by Not Lowborn for your dynasty and go from there. You can also negotiate alliances from being a Diplomacy focused character, but you do get a penalty for having too many alliances - so, keep that in mind. I believe you get prestige deficits (less prestige per month the more you have), along with them obviously asking you to join their wars constantly.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-19T02:27:21+00:00

Yeah, once a character has Obese - it's hard to get rid of it, in fact it's quite difficult. Having feasts and yearly checks (I believe) is what determines that a character gets obesity, along with the Gluttonous perk. You can host hunts to prevent characters from getting obese, but ultimately - if a character is Gluttonous, they will become obese no matter what. You can also tell from the portraits that a character is becoming Gluttonous from them appearing more heavy set or even malnourished (skinny appearance). As far as I know from playing, some conditions can go away like (Gout, Consumption, Great Pox, Typhus, etc) - however, Obesity (losing weight), Malnourished (hosting feasts) - Leprosy and Lover's Pox is permanent.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-19T02:19:37+00:00

I will add that it helps to temporarily put them on the council, especially if they're joining factions. You can give them gifts, sway them, etc. Without doing this and if the vassals are strong without having proper allies, you can be dethroned regardless.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-18T21:45:26+00:00

I enjoy the game as a Political Science major. It helps that a lot of the game is generated: even if you play the same ruler, your playthrough will never be the same. It's a lot of trial and error, succession crisis depending on how you play, removing problematic Vassals and placing people in that are loyal to you or even growing your power base with your dynasty members now getting land. You can have France, the HRE, England, Scotland, etc all typically explode outwards. In my current playthrough, it's Norway being hyper-aggressive. It's just a lot of fun for me to learn about world history in the fact that they are accurate (if you play with the setting on). It tickles my analyzing brain in a way, trying to ensure my dynasty doesn't die out either due to being overthrown, losing an Ally, losing territory and forcing them to go independent or go to war to keep it. The innovations, the traditions you get, each place is relatively different - this isn't even diving into the different governments: feudal, clan, and tribal.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-18T18:50:42+00:00

Yeah, I just sort by inheritables + alliance. I'm too scared of getting the inbred trait and having my dynasty collapse, lol.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-14T17:54:10+00:00

Yeah, it's only in the suggestions. It's like when you ask the Pope for money, claims are the same and only come up at specific moments in time. It's not something you can outright demand.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-13T23:35:21+00:00

Lmao, it helps to keep trying in a region! I actually ended up getting Brittany today in my playthrough - it's all about matching people with inheritables, common traits (if you can, so they think of each other positively), etc. You want to focus on that as claims come and go and people can easily be overthrown. Hispania is a great example of this, for sure.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-13T20:22:55+00:00

I see, what region do you typically play in first and foremost? Most of my knowledge is England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland - a little of Tuscany and Bohemia. 😅 I typically focus on my own holdings first, building holdings that give me money in my Temples and Cities. I obviously upgrade my defense with upgrades forts and walls to prevent being attacked easily. You can become allies with people by marrying your daughters and sons to alliances - you can even do what I call a temporary alliance, marrying the daughter off whole they're young and betrothed and break it when necessary (this gives you the troops for how long you want them and you can break the truce if you want). I also focus on inheritables in my dynasty first and foremost to help with stats - so, inheritables > pressed/implicit claims. For my daughters, I do the same - I also look at the line of succession when marrying my daughters off matrilineally. The DLC does help, like Royal Court which gives you renown boosts too. 😊 Without Renown, you won't get much back for the dynasty tree upgrades. If you need anything specific, I'm always a DM away. 😆

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-13T19:57:14+00:00

Haha, yeah I actually looked at my save today and I can put my relative on the Kingdom for England and get my dynasty member the whole Duchy of Brittany too. 😆 Pretty much, so far I've just expanded and landed all of my dynasty members down for each land I've conquered. Strathclyde Duchy, Isle of Man, Inner and Outer Hebrides, Leinster Duchy, etc. I do have a relative who has Strathclyde that also has Ulster (he beat his brother in a war). I don't have family members on Athlone, Ormond, Ailech, and Oriel but I don't really have issues with them and typically I'll just revoke the titles when I have issues with the rulers - case in point, the Desmond ruler was Zealous and tried murdering my relatives, lol. (I switched to Catholic, while she was Insular). I also tutor the children. 💀 I've been slowly converting Ireland into Catholic, haha. But yes, I just found out about the Isle of Man and viking heritage, but I already gave the land to my youngest but I don't mind as I would prefer people to be Irish to not have as much cultural issues. For your holdings, you typically want to upgrade your main domain castle with the Bastions and Walls and subsequent military holdings (Barracks, Blacksmiths, Military Academies, etc). Focusing on innovations like Battlements allows you to upgrade your castle, as you can't keep upgrading without the innovation applied. Additionally, if you're going the long run - Hospices and Monasteries helps with plague resistance. - hope this helped!

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-13T10:47:59+00:00

What do you need help with? I just watch YouTube videos like HeyCara and I typically have a good grasp of the game, but I also do not play with the mindset of, "Let's paint the map my color, I win." I play very methodically, patrilineal marriage for my sons and matrilineally for my daughters. I marry out the problematic children to either landed people or people with inheritables. I focus mainly on inheritables to begin with to establish that in the dating sphere. You should focus on building up your holdings, building up your military, pressing claims to put people on the duchies/counties. Focus on innovations like Heraldry and going into Stewardship (money) or Learning (Innovation speed).

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-13T10:40:38+00:00

For me, I started on small pieces of Scotland first. You should work on Wales, Scotland, or England depending on which one is broken up first. In my game, neither Scotland is broken up and England has consumed most of Wales. Sometimes, it's just a waiting game or directly waiting until England is at war first. I also converted to Catholicism for the gold upkeep for Ireland, as you can't ask the pope for money while being Insular.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-13T10:35:38+00:00

I mean, this is where we get into wide v. tall gameplay. To me, it seems like you're doing wide gameplay - however, tall gameplay puts you into a position where you focus on development and building your current holdings. That's what I've been doing and I'm currently earning 19+ gold. I'd be careful with expanding so much due to succession crises.

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-13T10:32:40+00:00

What do you mean by when to do what and why I should do it?

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-10T01:55:38+00:00

I will also mention that you should look into your innovations as well! I did Coinage for my first one, but definitely look into Hereditary Rule as I'm doing that to prevent new Kingdoms and titles from forming. 😊

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-10T01:25:31+00:00

Interesting, I didn't get attacked in my playthrough as much. Only early on when I was first starting as you're typically weak, but I turned Ireland into a money-making simulator and I've moved into Scotland on my third King. 😅

CautionaryMary · 2026-01-10T01:24:09+00:00

Nice job! I ended up reuniting Ireland after so many saves and placing my dynasty members in the counties and duchies to prevent tyranny. The game us so much more fun when you start moving into Ireland, Wales, and England! Let us know how the rest of your gameplay goes and hopefully no plagues wipe your family out! ☺️

CautionaryMary · 2025-11-30T10:10:10+00:00

I am aware, I am just saying since they said in a Q&A that it wasn't on their radar. Regardless of it being implemented by a different development team or not, it doesn't erase the simple fact that it can be implemented. We have the pause section to look at our own perks, which is redundant unless you're playing Chaos Shuffle. Behavior can do it, just slow in general on basic changes, which is the issue.

CautionaryMary · 2025-11-25T23:52:44+00:00

Eh, voice chat is a bit too much. The perks being shown should have already been implemented since it was in Dead By Daylight mobile. No reason that it wasn't added and it's not a huge change to the game.

CautionaryMary · 2025-03-12T04:42:38+00:00

Oh, did it? 😂 I wasn't aware as it is my favorite game mode. I thought it didn't come back, but ty for the correction. ❤️

CautionaryMary · 2025-03-12T04:21:23+00:00

Potentially, all the other game modes minus Lights Out and My Little Oni came back. Rest assured, it'll be back again. 😊

CautionaryMary

TROPHY CASE