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I'm happy to say that everything mentioned works really well in the game.
When you are the only Norse guy and most of your lands are Slovianskian, it makes more sense to convert yourself than to convert them.
After that, Orthodoxy is by far the best possible choice of religion for Russia because of Byzantium. There is world of difference between going Orthodoxy vs staying pagan.
If you're pagan, you're on your own, and other realms get to declare holy wars on you. While theoretically manageable, you have enough enemies in that part of the map as it is (Khazaria, for one) even without Christians declaring on you.
But if you're Orthodox, suddenly Byzantium likes you a ton, willing to marry their princesses to you, willing to send their 40k doomstacks to fight your wars for you. And no Christian can declare a holy war on you. Same time, because there's no other Orthodox in the region outside of Bulgaria, you get to declare holy wars on all the tribals around you and accumulate a lot of lands in a short time.
With that out of hand, let's talk pagan religions. It's harder to reform them because you need to hold 3 holy sites, for Slovianskian that means controlling Russia, Ukraine and Poland, so quite a bit of land. This might take time making you lag behind in terms of technological advancement. But if you manage it then you can adopt some tenets that are unavailable to Christians (Human Sacrifice the most prominent example).
But for early game - Norse paganism is good because of how it encourages military expansion. Human Sacrifice also allows you to get a lot of piety from prisoners if you decide to go the pagan reforming route.
So generally speaking, in the beginning I'd advice you to stay a viking - throw your weight around, make use of the fact you can have concubines, raid England and France for tons of gold you will use later on when going feudal. And then, settle down, convert to Russian, go Orthodoxy, enjoy your friendship with a superpower.
Alternatively, you could try forming a somewhat of "vikings league" by staying Norse and being friends with your kin in Sweden and the like. But feudal is better late game because of insane buffs your troops can get and last but not the least primogeniture, so viking is definately not a stage you're looking to stay in forever. Just make the most out of it before moving on. Hope that helps.
Now in CK3, you always have the Conquest CB as Tribal. It costs Prestige against other religions, and Piety against your own.
In both games, his son already starts as Slavic Russian, and there is no reason to change that.
So the most important question is, can you rather afford paying Prestige or Piety for your conquests while still playing Rurik. Since your MAA regiments and buildings also cost a lot of prestige, i would almost say that Piety is easier to maintain, meaning that switching to Slavic with Rurik would be the better choice.
Then again, Piety may generally be a bit harder to get than Prestige. Raiding, hunting, feasts and such all give decent amounts of Prestige. While Piety is mostly gained by winning battles against hostile religions, pilgrimages and religious (choices in) events.
You can raid with both religions; Norse allows to raid with ships, so you can actually get a lot more money and prestige while staying Norse. If you have time for that.
1. Stay Asatru as Rurik, but become Russian asap ( piety is way too expensive for early mass conquests )
2. Educate extra sons as Russian + Slavic, and make sure you get several
3. Don't forget the lifetime subjugation on the largest targets
4. Converting to Orthodox only costs 250 piety, with the Apostate lifestyle trait (scholar)
> doesn't really matter when you do it, ideally when your vassals have high opinion
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2229450024
Honestly, nothing else to it. You don't even need any allies at any point.
P.S. - you don't wear a crown by default after forming Russia, but being Orthodox and selecting the Byzantine Emperor Crown, it seemed to have picked the correct Tsar Crown
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2229454920
I'm a hardcore Ireland/Iceland only player.
It's rare because you need to complete it in one go, loading a save will mess up the achievement.
I had a lot of fun doing it again as Pinsk. Rurik has easy time because of starting as a big shark. But a small county surrounded by big guys both to the north and to the south presents a challenge, so it's fun.
Generally I probably love this region the best in terms of gameplay. Many small realms to conquer, CB isn't an issue, lots of opportunities. I tried playing as King of France after that and felt much more limited in terms of what I can do, also far less challenge if any.
Actually real russian history was a bit more complex.
While Byzantium seemed like a nice option - in fact Kievan Rus was quickly shattered and going into decline mostly because of their Byzantium ally. As they were too unreliable, too close and too rich, so instead of being ally they simply drained all resources and manpower from Kievan Rus pushing them into swamp of internal wars.
Real Russian Empire was formed around game timeline by Moscow that allied with Golden Horde (yup, allied) as they proved to be far more reliable allies then Byzantium. And absolutely unrelated to Kiev, so game is wrong by placing Kiev as a capital for empire title.
I got it with his grandson, and the first existing son Helgi also died in battle. But yes all in one session, and without the three lifetime subjugations it would have taken some tricks like assassinating to end truces.
How would it work as Pinsk? It clearly says you need to be Rurik or his descendants.
But it's free win with Rurik just because you already start with 100% of the Novgorod Kingdom, from then on you can't really fail anymore.
Generally the entire region is for some reason the easiest, even easier than Ireland due to being Tribal and becoming a strong Emperor rather than a tiny King.
I had spent the past 2 days trying various random starts, most of the time it is absurdly stupid.
Example start as Georgia in 1066. Get your de jure lands back, easy. Then you brother in law from Alania declares a Conquest war on you which he can impossibly win. Although you are de facto the only possible ally for him in the entire region.
Afterwards the Byzantine Emperor, whose butt i just saved from a rebellion, has my family member murdered so our alliance ends. And he declares a de Jure war over my capital duchy in Abchazia.
Generally they need to rework lots of the stuff, like the de jure realms and the AI factors. So the cultures who historically survived intact have at least a chance to do that in the game.
Like the HRE turning into Abbasids 2.0 and conquering France and all of eastern europe, something i've never witnessed in CK2.
A short while ago they announced Byzantium for Civ 6 DLC. People in the comments said introducing Byzantium while there is already Rome and Greece is like making Kievan Rus, Russian Empire and Soviet Union separate things.
This really gives some perspective as even for someone who plays games that have to do with history and thus has some minimal knowledge Russia is perceived as a single region with a single tradition, statehood, culture etc. Things like Kievan Rus vs Russian Empire, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarus culture means little to them.
It's mostly gavelkind that caused infamous feuds and prevented Kievan Rus from getting anywhere as a realm though.
You mean more like vassalized, yes? Giving them yarliks to rule at their pleasure and all. Calling Muscovy of the time an equal ally of Golden Horde is a bit rich really.
Yep. CK3 devs are entirely confused about everything Russian.
1) Moscow exists in 867
2) If your ruler happens to be female game applies matronym instead of patronym - Olena Olenovna Rurikid lmao (that's aside the fact Olena is Ukrainian version of the name to begin with)
3) Somewhere around Novgorod there is a ruler by the name of Chieftain Tolik
4) It mixes up the titles as Tsar was realistically a ruler of Kingdom-tier realm, not Empire-tier. But this is somewhat redeemed by the fact Russia really wasn't an empire in the game's timeframe.
No. Lack of strategic resource - iron. They were forced to buy weapons from a Byzantium - and raiding is best source of money for tribals in game ;)
Game isn't take iron in mind & school history in most (or even all) countries ignoring it importance too - this why people don't understand true reasons of vikings invasion in England and how they were able to trieve for some decades by creating a monopoly on iron in Northen Europe. Real vikings was not crazy berserkers and not refugees searching for a better place to live - they actually had their own plans and strategy :)
Yes and no. Northen russian duchies (including Moscow) were main source of weapons for Horde (buying iron ore from them). They relationship wasn't lovely, true, but you can't be really nasty with your arms dealer :)
IMHO it's actually better then confusing Muschovy. If only they removed stupid norse culture names too... but we all know this doesn't gonna happen :)
You're wrong here. Tsar comes from "caesar" and was counted as superior title to kings - firstly by russians themselves, later ...
Actually same with Greece and Rome. :)
That is actually the modern nationalist perspective on history.
Same like when people put the modern Germany from 1933-1945 or 2020 into context with the HRE, or even the germanic tribes from 2000 years ago.
My "favorite" are the english TV documentaries, telling how "special" the british people are.
1) The British defended against the Romans
2) The British defended against the Saxons
3) The British defended against the "Vikings"
4) The British defended against the French
Completely successful in all 4 cases, well done
It's more about them willing to generalize everything and put it on rails with little account for regional specific.
Strictly speaking Tsar is a bit weird title. As you surely know Russian emperors held all kingdom-tier titles in addition to emperor title, so their titles were really long and had things like "tsar of Poland" among it.
By that logic we can assume that Tsar is kingdom-tier and Emperor is empire-tier so Emperor > Tsar.
And yet, there is also another logic. Many reforms were made to simply adjust to European common practises, so Tsar and Emperor meant actually same things and Russian emperor was (and is) frequently referred to simply as Tsar.
So basically I answer my own question here :) Because in Russian Empire the emperor at the same time held all the kingdom-tier titles for all his kingdoms, effectively Tsar = Emperor. So the way they have it right now in the game (King => Tsar) makes no sense.
There is also another problem that derives from that. I'm trying to play Russian Empire in a way I just explained - holding all kingdom titles in addition to empire title, so all the dukes are my direct vassals.
But the game and some people at the forums suggest that I'd be better off giving all my kingdom titles to other people so they manage things locally. When I tried this with other realms it led to more stability and less factions. No idea whether that would be better on the tax side of things.