Getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥ as Bohemia

[Claudius]

So, I start in the 864 start and convert to christianity early on. However, none of the large kingdoms near by ever are willing to marry for allegience and the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ northern tribes curbstomp me cause I can never get the 5k army size that they seem to just ally into easily.

[BaCaz]

Deep breath.

Try a new approach.

[Heraclius Caesar]

even with that nice goldmine? thats rough

[50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey]

You have to be doing several things incredibly wrong.

I just fired up a new Bohemia game as the bookmarked start. You start with 2800 troops yourself. You also have the massive buffers of Poland, Hungary, and Ruthenia between you and the tribes, none of which go down easily or quickly.

You also have SIX young children to marry off. From a paused game start I can get alliances with the de Normandie House (the future Kings of England), the Duchy of Bavaria right next door with a strong army of 1500, numerous other duchies in the area with strengths of 1k+, and tons of other options, including good long term strategy ones with claims, etc.

In addition to this, Bohemia is most definitely at least in the running for the single strongest Duchy in the game. Yes, I'm aware that it's not farmland and all that jazz, but the territory is great in terms of forcing defensive engagements where you have a MONSTROUSLY huge combat advantage, plus you have one of the best income special buildings in the game.

You can get rid of the potential succession problems almost right at the game start also by first increasing Crown Authority to limited, then changing succession law away from elective to confederate partition, then playing normal family management strategies from there on out.

Once you can consolidate your control over JUST the entire Duchy of Bohemia, your army will be 4k+, and your income will be on par with most Kingdoms double or triple your technical realm size. On top of this, tribals armies are quite limited, along with their tech, so even a couple ~500-1k allies can help you, with your own pretty impressive forces, beat larger tribal armies, since you'll all have significantly more (and better types of) men-at-arms.

In short, if what you describe happening to you is indeed an accurate reflection of what went down, I can only suggest that your fundamentals on playing are WAY, WAY off, because Bohemia is one of the easiest, most forgiving, and potentially strongest starts on the whole game.

P.S. - This isn't even getting into the fact that you're an Elector for the HRE, probably the single strongest one besides the current Emperor, giving you essentially free reign to gobble up your surrounding neighbors in the HRE until you're stronger than the Emperor himself, at which point you can claim it for yourself, or do whatever you want basically, since few factions are in a position to challenge the HRE, let alone both the Empire AND it's strongest vassal, who is likely stronger than the emp himself.

[angel of derp]

Originally posted by 50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey:

You have to be doing several things incredibly wrong...

P.S. - This isn't even getting into the fact that you're an Elector for the HRE...

He's doing the 867 start, which is different than the 1066 start. There's no HRE since Karl's time, and no electors.

In 867, Bohemia isn't Catholic. It's Slovanskan. So there are no simple Catholic alliances to be had.

(I'm not sure you can Convert Catholic at the start, but if you cannot, by the time you convert to Catholicism, there usually aren't many great marriage alliances to be had (Otto of Angria, maybe). As for Slovanskan alliances, most of them look like garbage to me. Small and insignificant.)

The big positive is that East Francia is terrible in 867 (again, no HRE). The issue is that Bavaria's best shot at the HRE can include taking Bohemia, and it's simple to do so for Karlmann, IMO. Holy War for Duchy, bye bye Bohemia.

Bohemia in 867 just isn't that interesting to me as a start. Being stuck on the fringes of Karlingland isn't fun for me. I'd rather start in Greater Poland or Pomerania for a Slovanskan start, or maybe Rurik the Rus (since that's mostly Slavic anyway).

[Bernd Wichtigtuer]

During the 9th century Bohemia has only 2 feudal earldoms and 3 tribal ones. That is a bad start for a feudal ruler. However, if you have trouble getting married, then there are a few suggestions:
-be gallant (there is a warrior-skill that grants +25 marriage acceptance)
or
-be feared (executions will make you feared by other rulers and leads to a better acception of marriage with weak personalities, but breeds hatred and brings assassination attempts from those arround the victim. That's very powerful in a lot of regards, as long as you kill "the right ones")
or
-be a saint (with virtues and the support of the pope, money will flow and so will fortune)

There's no right and wrong in this game, a lot of ways lead to success but not all are certain. It also depends on the skills of the starting character, so there is a bit of luck involved.

[Claudius]

Originally posted by 50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey:

You have to be doing several things incredibly wrong.

I just fired up a new Bohemia game as the bookmarked start. You start with 2800 troops yourself. You also have the massive buffers of Poland, Hungary, and Ruthenia between you and the tribes, none of which go down easily or quickly.

You also have SIX young children to marry off. From a paused game start I can get alliances with the de Normandie House (the future Kings of England), the Duchy of Bavaria right next door with a strong army of 1500, numerous other duchies in the area with strengths of 1k+, and tons of other options, including good long term strategy ones with claims, etc.

In addition to this, Bohemia is most definitely at least in the running for the single strongest Duchy in the game. Yes, I'm aware that it's not farmland and all that jazz, but the territory is great in terms of forcing defensive engagements where you have a MONSTROUSLY huge combat advantage, plus you have one of the best income special buildings in the game.

You can get rid of the potential succession problems almost right at the game start also by first increasing Crown Authority to limited, then changing succession law away from elective to confederate partition, then playing normal family management strategies from there on out.

Once you can consolidate your control over JUST the entire Duchy of Bohemia, your army will be 4k+, and your income will be on par with most Kingdoms double or triple your technical realm size. On top of this, tribals armies are quite limited, along with their tech, so even a couple ~500-1k allies can help you, with your own pretty impressive forces, beat larger tribal armies, since you'll all have significantly more (and better types of) men-at-arms.

In short, if what you describe happening to you is indeed an accurate reflection of what went down, I can only suggest that your fundamentals on playing are WAY, WAY off, because Bohemia is one of the easiest, most forgiving, and potentially strongest starts on the whole game.

P.S. - This isn't even getting into the fact that you're an Elector for the HRE, probably the single strongest one besides the current Emperor, giving you essentially free reign to gobble up your surrounding neighbors in the HRE until you're stronger than the Emperor himself, at which point you can claim it for yourself, or do whatever you want basically, since few factions are in a position to challenge the HRE, let alone both the Empire AND it's strongest vassal, who is likely stronger than the emp himself.

wrong start dude. in my game I only start with maybe 1000 troops max

[Claudius]

Originally posted by BaCaz:

Deep breath.

Try a new approach.

I figured I would say ♥♥♥♥ it and try the custom ruler. So with those 400 points I made a 16 year old who had 6dip,12mil,6stew,6int,12learn,6prow with Beautiful Hale and Quick. This let me get Blood Father right away and as a catholic get solid marriages. Using the marriage gold and then what I got from the pope gets those early men at arms fast enough to avoid getting steam rolled by raiders + pagang invasions. It feels like cheating but it works with ironman so ♥♥♥♥ it

Edit: Getting the Table of Princes cultural innovation before the blood father dies is literally my priority. In his lifetime idealy I would consalidate power, fix sucsession, and build the nice gold mine before 900ad

[Claudius]

Originally posted by Heraclius Caesar:

even with that nice goldmine? thats rough

Saddly us peasant bohemians in 867 havent built it yet, but ooo boi is it coming. PS. found the ideal starting strat all is well

[50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey]

My bad, I missed the fact that OP was talking about the 867 start. However, my statement still holds - they are doing multiple things very wrong if that is what they are experiencing.

In 867, there is not a single tribal ruler within hundreds of miles of Bohemia that has an army greater than 1k. Granted, your own army is also only at 800 or so, but there are no '5k tribal armies' that can conceivably form at this point.

As for the marriage difficulties, it's because you're not Catholic, you're Slovanskian at the start, which is considered hostile to Catholicism and thus not eligible for marriages.

However, you can convert to being Catholic for 250 piety (you're just 100 shy of doing it immediately at game start). Which you should probably make one of your first priorities. Speaking of which, the Slovanskian religion has a tenet that gives you 100 piety for holding feasts.

You can also try swearing fealty to rulers. Ludwig the German of East Francia is an obvious choice, though he is personally pretty weak and East Francia typically has some rough times at this start date (hello, Haestinn!)

A less obvious solution is to use the Conquer casus belli to take one of the counties in the Duchy of Duklja down near Croatia. You're only 1 opinion point off of being able to swear to the Byzantine emperor at game start, and if you conquer one of those counties you'll border him and be able to vassalize to him directly, which should effectively provide close to 100% immunity from tribals, none of whom will ever declare on the Byzantine emp.

So anyways, yeah, you're just not playing well. The 867 start isn't as good for Bohemia as the later one, but it still isn't bad at all, and much of what I said in my previous comment about the Duchy itself being awesome still 100% applies. Try a different approach.

[Claudius]

Originally posted by 50 Shades of Gandalf the Grey:

My bad, I missed the fact that OP was talking about the 867 start. However, my statement still holds - they are doing multiple things very wrong if that is what they are experiencing.

In 867, there is not a single tribal ruler within hundreds of miles of Bohemia that has an army greater than 1k. Granted, your own army is also only at 800 or so, but there are no '5k tribal armies' that can conceivably form at this point.

As for the marriage difficulties, it's because you're not Catholic, you're Slovanskian at the start, which is considered hostile to Catholicism and thus not eligible for marriages.

However, you can convert to being Catholic for 250 piety (you're just 100 shy of doing it immediately at game start). Which you should probably make one of your first priorities. Speaking of which, the Slovanskian religion has a tenet that gives you 100 piety for holding feasts.

You can also try swearing fealty to rulers. Ludwig the German of East Francia is an obvious choice, though he is personally pretty weak and East Francia typically has some rough times at this start date (hello, Haestinn!)

A less obvious solution is to use the Conquer casus belli to take one of the counties in the Duchy of Duklja down near Croatia. You're only 1 opinion point off of being able to swear to the Byzantine emperor at game start, and if you conquer one of those counties you'll border him and be able to vassalize to him directly, which should effectively provide close to 100% immunity from tribals, none of whom will ever declare on the Byzantine emp.

So anyways, yeah, you're just not playing well. The 867 start isn't as good for Bohemia as the later one, but it still isn't bad at all, and much of what I said in my previous comment about the Duchy itself being awesome still 100% applies. Try a different approach.

So, it turns out that the 5k army I had to fight was this very unlucky alliance of Lower Silesia, Greater Poland, and Lustia that ended up ganking me at the same time. I have replayed the 867 start a few times since and generally becoming catholic early on isnt an issue. The largest armies I see in normal games are 3k and those get slapped down pretty easily. Swearing fealty is generally a bad idea since the nearest large kingdom collapses pretty soon after start, becoming a vassal of byzantine emp isnt a bad idea though