Champion the faith of the Country Basques or not?

[dwarfpcfan]

So I just begun a new playthrough after finishing my norse Britannia playthrough.

I decided to take another stab at the region around Iberia with my third favorite culture in the game, the basques. I didn't want to start pushing into Iberia until I felt I was in a strong enough position so I started as a custom ruler in the Duchy of Gascogne since he starts as Basque culture.

My original plan was to speed run to get access to the decision to Champion the Faith of the Country Basques since it's a pretty fun decision from a flavor perspective (even if it's possibility is of dubious historicity as far as everything I know of Basque history and culture).

Anyway, playing normally I initially pushed into Iberia and captured most of the Kingdom of Navarra. My ruler started at 16 and had a really good relationship with his liege Charles the Bald and his son. Then they both died and two kings succeeded them in rapid succession. The 2nd one was an 11 year old who subsequently went on to annoy most of Francia and 5 factions almost immediately formed as within 1-2 years he was crowned.

On a lark I decided to form a claimant faction of my own after successfully using the meritocracy perk in stewardship to get a claim on his title just to see what would happen. And to my surprise 6 of the most powerful dukes in Francia jumped from their faction to mine and when I pressed my demand... the 12 year king stepped down and I was king of France.

So now my dilemma is what's my next move I own all of Francia as a basque ruler and a not insignificant chunk of Iberia, my vassals all like me and I have High Partition thank to visigothic codes from Basque culture so my succession is safe.

My original plan was to press for independence from Francia and claim Navarre since my last time playing as a vassal of Francia, Charles the Bald and his successor both seemed to dislike me for no reason I could make out. But this time I just became king of France without having to declare war, the fellow dukes of the kingdom supported me.

My character has very good relations with the church (thought he is secretly a witch because I got the event really early before all this happened).

Now the opportunity to Champion the Faith of the Country Basques has opened up along with the ability to form a holy order (meaning I'll be able to do both, I have the money and piety+prestige).

So basically I'm just asking opinions. As pure flavor should I do it?

From a purely mechanical perspective Catholicism is definitely superior with the ridiculous ability to get 500 gold a pop from the pope and Catholic holy sites being better then Era Zaharak holy sites. Plus France has some nice unique christian buildings like Notre-Dame to boot.

So what does everyone think?

[kalanyr]

Unless you have a pretty decent Empire or you're extremely Tall as a Kingdom you're probably going to get Crusaded into next week if you try and champion the Country Basque's faith. Especially since you hold France (Paris is one of the priorities of the Catholic Church).

[dwarfpcfan]

yeah I thought about this, crusades are usually a joke to beat back but I've never held any christian priority targets as a non christian this early in the playthrough. Even my last basque playthrough when fate of Iberia just came out I only got my hands on Santiago around 4-5 rulers in and by that time I was already completely unstoppable

[Yhvh10]

Better to go to spain and champion basque faith from there. Less chance of a directed crusade. But as the others stated. Yeah... crusades will be an issue. And the distance from other powerful pagan rulers means your going to have issues finding good alliances. Maybe some of the norse? But usually their armies arent the largest. Certainly not large enough to beat back a 50k+ crusade early on.

[dwarfpcfan]

I decided to stay catholic for now and my ruler died with a very good son. Right now I'm focusing on enriching the realm. Might take it if available with a later ruler but for now I'll stick to catholic with being the strongest king in Europe I'm well positioned

[kalanyr]

Originally posted by Yhvh10:

Better to go to spain and champion basque faith from there. Less chance of a directed crusade. But as the others stated. Yeah... crusades will be an issue. And the distance from other powerful pagan rulers means your going to have issues finding good alliances. Maybe some of the norse? But usually their armies arent the largest. Certainly not large enough to beat back a 50k+ crusade early on.

The Asatru are weird because they are extremely powerful in 867 but drop off a cliff pretty rapidly after a) the pre-generated Vikings and their bajillion event troops drop off and b) the Viking Age comes to an end and Viking Adventurers stop showing up to claim random Duchies with armies superior to the entirety of Ireland. So they can probably handle really really early Crusades but things get much dicier by like 950.

[Yhvh10]

Originally posted by kalanyr:

Originally posted by Yhvh10:

Better to go to spain and champion basque faith from there. Less chance of a directed crusade. But as the others stated. Yeah... crusades will be an issue. And the distance from other powerful pagan rulers means your going to have issues finding good alliances. Maybe some of the norse? But usually their armies arent the largest. Certainly not large enough to beat back a 50k+ crusade early on.

The Asatru are weird because they are extremely powerful in 867 but drop off a cliff pretty rapidly after a) the pre-generated Vikings and their bajillion event troops drop off and b) the Viking Age comes to an end and Viking Adventurers stop showing up to claim random Duchies with armies superior to the entirety of Ireland. So they can probably handle really really early Crusades but things get much dicier by like 950.

Yeah good points. Honestly I usually set Scandinavian Adventures to Apocalyptic. I find it to be more fun and the Asatru seem to inflict alot more pain on the North Sea territories. Only downside really is that I've noticed Norway and Sweden take alot longer to stabilize due to all the Jarls adventuring.

Either way, unless you actually play as the Asatru, stabilize the North under a solid dynasty(s) and form the kingdoms and/or Scandinavia/North Sea... and then move to spain and champion the basque there really isnt anyone to align with as a Basque pagan ruler.

I did a playthrough where I created a super-god Viking Warlord, sailed to spain, ended the Iberian Struggle, championed the basque pagans and created the Hispanian Empire. By the time my super-god character died, I had an Empire, access to Great Holy Wars and a solid power base.

Some call it cheating, I call it... migration led by alpha chad. XD

Either way it was enough that we were capable of resisting the endless swarm of Crusader Knights pouring over the mountains and swarming out beaches. Honestly it was actually a pretty fun playthrough.

[dwarfpcfan]

Norse as a culture are the strongest culture at the moment thanks to having an entire DLC dedicated to them and all the goodies that come with it (super strong men at arms, unique traditions and events, unique decisions, etc) the reason they poof off is just because A.I so rarely manages to successfully feudalize the region to keep them ahead and eventually their early game advantage gets compensated by other cultures getting much better tech, income etc through devellopment

But it's not even a question in the hands of a player that the norse are the most powerful culture.

[vortex_13]

I've done it before. The AI will immediately declare a crusade for your French holdings. They can't get your Spanish holdings though since Crusades are disabled for Iberia during the struggle.

[dwarfpcfan]

Originally posted by vortex_13:

I've done it before. The AI will immediately declare a crusade for your French holdings. They can't get your Spanish holdings though since Crusades are disabled for Iberia during the struggle.

I ultimately decided to leave basque Paganism for another playthrough. My first ruler who had the decision available stayed catholic and his soon took over. I'm currently playing him right now he's still healthy but in his late 50s.

Since I've decided to stay catholic for now, I'm ultimately trying to decide what direction to take. taking over Iberia shouldn't be too hard since I already own a large portion of it on top of all of France. Or I might shoot for taking over the rest of the Frankish Kingdoms to form the Empire of Francia or something similar.

I'm powerful enough that I can decide who I want to be my next bit opponent/enemy/target.

Being catholic and having High Partition out the gate from Basque Culture definitely makes this a much smoother early game then any other playthrough I've done so far. And France is a really nice kingdom to hold as well.