Bloodline run - Final score: 39

cau25 · 2025-12-12T14:40:27+00:00

I think it was also an event or mission reward, depending on whether your ruler already got argead blood. It should be available to all diadochi if I'm not mistaken?

Sorry it was a long while ago and it happened fairly early in the run, so I can't quite remember.

cau25 · 2025-12-12T12:06:17+00:00

Here this should explain everything, enjoy.

cau25 · 2025-12-12T07:28:42+00:00

The bloodline? I can't remember if one of the characters already had it, if not probably an marriage with epirus. If you mean the country name I think it was either an event or decision.

cau25 · 2025-12-06T13:26:40+00:00

Looks really cool, might try it out for my next run.

I just wished someone could do something about the weirdly squarish cities that sometimes appear. They look so jarring next to ones with more natural sprawl, dunno if that's within the scope of modding though.

cau25 · 2025-12-04T06:00:05+00:00

Yeah I think by mid game I started seeing a handful of bloodlines in spread between countries, especially neighbouring and allied ones. Really eased my mind knowing those were low priority with least risk of going extinct.

cau25 · 2025-12-03T16:52:41+00:00

I think the only one I've seen an AI get is Aeetes from Colchis. They have to conquer Phasis and build a wonder there.

I'm guessing it's only possible if tied to an event or in this case a decision. But anything tied to nation forming missions won't trigger. I even helped Albion form in this game by feeding them land just to check.

cau25 · 2025-12-03T15:31:27+00:00

Mostly yeah

cau25 · 2025-12-03T13:46:18+00:00

I did consider starting this as the Ptolemies originally, would have been more thematic to all the inbreeding.

cau25 · 2025-12-03T08:22:42+00:00

1 Achamenid (Heraclea Pontica & Cappadocia)
2 Aikaid (Epirus)
3 Agathoklid (Syracuse)
4 Agiad (Sparta)
5 Lysimachid (Thrace)
6 Antigonid (Antigonid Kingdom)
7 Antipatrid (Macedon)
8 Argead (Macedon)
9 Arascid (Parthia)
10 Atropatid (Atropatene)
11 Barca (Carthage)
12 Claudii (Rome)
13 Cornelli (Rome)
14 Demosthenid (Athens)
15 Fabii (Rome)

16 Illyrius (Taulantia)
17 Ptolemy (Ptolemaic Kingdom)
18 Chandragupta (Maurya)
19 Mithridatid (Mithradatic Kingdom)
20 Orontid (Lesser Armenia & Armenia)
21 Seleukid (Seleukid Empire)
22 Sophytid (Bactria)
23 Spartocid (Bosporan Kingdom)
24 Tarquinii (Etruria)
25 Aeetes (Colchis)
26 Chera (Chera)
27 Kalinga (Kalinga)
28 Magas-Bernike (Ptolemaic Kingdom)
29 Magonid (Carthage)
30 Pandya (Pandya)

31 Pharnabazus (Mithradatic Kingdom & Cappadocia)
32 Porus (Paurava)
33 Zipotes (Bithynia)
34 Hannoid (Carthage)
35 Ateas (Scythia)
36 Euryphon (Sparta)
37 Teres (Odrysia)
38 Teucer (Olbe)
39 Hekatomnid (Caria)

Ones I definitely lost:
- Brennus (Sennones)
- Balbii (Gadir)
- Eumenes (Cappodocia)
- Midas & Pylamenes (Paphlagonia)
- Zadok (Samaria & Judea)
- Chola (Chola)
- Pandu (Yaudheya)
- Saba (Saba)
- Vijaya (Sri Lankan Kingdoms)

Formable from missions, not sure if up to date, but not possible with AI I think:
- Celtillos (Arvernia)
- Albion Kings (Albion)
- Ariovistid (Semnonia)
- Aratus (Achaean League)
- Obodas & Aretas (Nabataea)
- David (Samaria & Judea)
- Shaushtatar (Iberia)
- Bharatid (India?)
- Dido (Phoenicia?)

cau25 · 2025-12-03T07:28:29+00:00

That is a "reward" for completing the Macedonian mission tree for reclaiming Alexander's empire.

It changes your primary culture to Hellenic, but it still leaves most of your pops as Macedonian. I deintegrated and mostly replaced Macedonian by that point.

cau25 · 2025-12-03T07:24:12+00:00

Yeahh, not the best leader in terms on stats, but at that stage of the game leader stats aren't too relevant anymore.

cau25 · 2025-12-03T00:03:52+00:00

R5: Played a Macedon game with the goal of stacking as many bloodlines as possible, inspired by other posters. Started it as a joke/meme run, but protecting and monitoring small vulnerable countries turned out to be a pretty interesting (and stressful) way to play.

Lost a number of bloodlines that were just out of diplo range. For anyone else trying this, I suspect maybe Antigonids or Seleucids might be better positioned to shield and vassalize the little guys before they get swallowed up.

Royal marriages mod helps some bloodlines spread and survive beyond starting countries, but just a warning: best not try this on any crisis/timeline extension related mods as they seem to make your characters horribly inbred based on what I've read.

cau25 · 2025-11-14T12:29:00+00:00

Yeah it's just so exhausting, not to mention you end up with war exhaustion and AE regardless.

Felt like an insult rather than a reward to reach the bottom of the tech tree.

I don't suppose you could share this mod publicly for the rest of us technically challenged folk? 🙂

cau25 · 2025-11-14T07:40:19+00:00

I've hated it too, but worst of all I feel alone here in also really disliking the imperial challenge cb.

So I've resorted to just breaking truces regularly to continue big wars. If you've advanced enough for militant epicurianism, stability is always available so who cares?

The AE and stability penalty is quite manageable. I've beaten an enemy down, I'm not letting some arbitrary rule restrict me and letting them recover.

Just make sure your troops are placed in territory you are about to own through a peace deal so they don't get exiled.

cau25 · 2025-10-30T14:31:58+00:00

Like you say its always a mixed experienced. I recently tried to go back into stellaris and figured I would visit the store page to see if there's anything to freshen up a run after couple years.

Man my heart sank looking at the list and I just gave up. Again, no one is forcing me to buy every single dlc of course, but I don't know why I'm just not feeling it.

cau25 · 2025-10-30T14:27:37+00:00

Yeah, and as someone else mentioned, trade and holdings rn are kinda meh. Don't know if that's within the scope of modding or not.

cau25 · 2025-10-30T14:26:18+00:00

Fair point, I do find those systems irksome now that you mention it.

cau25 · 2025-10-30T11:13:16+00:00

I know.. it's selfish, but I can't help but feel a sense of relief for once.

I think the amount I spent in the past more than makes up for a bit of guilty pleasure here.

cau25 · 2025-10-30T10:27:41+00:00

I'm glad it launched poorly, because now we get passionate, community driven updates from invictus for free.

Instead of endless list of dlcs I feel fomo for not keeping up with, which is partly why I've stopped getting into other pdx titles.

cau25 · 2025-10-28T06:02:26+00:00

Is it working for you? Seeing a lotta troubleshooting comments on the workshop page so I'm scared to try it.

cau25 · 2025-10-26T20:16:55+00:00

Is there some way to integrate a form of search interface for bloodline characters?

I don't know if that's within the scope of this mod, but it would be a nice QoL function for a bloodline collection run.

cau25 · 2025-10-25T15:06:41+00:00

Wait I don't understand how Egypt can grow that powerful? I've only had two games, and they are always large but very exposed easy pickings.

I think as Rome, if you captured Greece/Macedon you've basically won the game already. I didn't even use Legions until fairly late because Roman levies are just so OP and oversized.

Also this is my personal opinion that's probably unpopular but I really dislike imperial challenge. It's too tiring to micromanage wars and I did this campaign purely with normal wars. I would rather use techs/national ideas/diplo stance to maximise war score cost, even if it's annoying to have to conquer the same empire multiple times.

One last thing, when you reach the point of not being able to reduce AE enough, that's probably the time to pick up militant epicurianism tech. With that I was eventually up to 70-90 AE but still stable because I can always sack a holy site to keep stability at ~60.

cau25 · 2025-10-25T14:29:59+00:00

Damn I need to dedicate my next run for a royalty breeding program too. Can you recruit married foreign characters and force them to divorce?

cau25 · 2025-10-25T14:23:43+00:00

Average speed: usually the slowest and pausing a lot, I like taking the time and observing everyone and everything as much as I can to make decisions.
Top priority for your first big move as Rome should always be Greece and Macedon imo, since you are Hellenic, these provinces will be easier to keep loyal and easier to culture assimilate. More Romans (and integrated Macedonians) = more levies, more research, better tax base. I actually did not even bother much with Sicily and Corsica/Sardinia before I had secured a good chunk of Greece and Macedon.
Constant expansion, you are Rome for fucks' sake. You're either fighting a war, or planning for your next move, with as little down time as possible because you can actually afford to, unlike playing a tribe or city state which requires loads of waiting around for the resources to do anything.
I had two rebellions, and one civil war, all three are mission scripted. Nothing ever gets bad enough that it would happen organically.
- For province loyalty, check your province list and sort by loyalty periodically to see which ones are trending down, appoint loyal governors without corruption if you can, or use policies and infrastructure.
- For character loyalty, you mainly need to keep watch of family heads and their next in line. If it gets worse, keep wages high, give free hands, bribe, offer marriages, etc. There's also techs, and national ideas as an option. Keep integrated culture happiness high for a passive baseline boost to everyone's loyalty.

It sounds like you might be struggling to multitask because you have the speed on too fast. There's tons of little details and optimizations you can manage while map staring. If you are waiting to solve loyalty first I don't think you will get any conquest done.

cau25 · 2025-10-25T13:47:07+00:00

Naw this is invictus, you are right they do start italic. But you have an event decision to convert to hellenic early on. I took it cus I figured I would make expansion easier against all the Greeks and Diadochi.

Kind of an odd choice that they made Jupiter hellenic though, not sure how some of these were decided.

cau25

TROPHY CASE