Obscure formable kingdons/empires/cultures?

[Lilly Satou]

Title, looking to finally play for fun instead of grinding achievements

[Jun]

rome empire as hellenic

/s

[dwarfpcfan]

Restore the Kingdom of Cornwall can be a particularly challenging one for a new player

[Kapika96]

Bactria? Requires you to own a bunch of North Eastern Persia. You have to be Tajik or Afghan culture and Buddhist, Zoroastrian, or Manichean. IIRC historically it was a very Greek influenced part of Persia.

Hindustan? Not really that obscure, but it's an awesome one so I'm mentioning it anyway. You need to be an Islamic ruler with a bunch of land in Northern India, including Delhi. Based on the Delhi sultanate. Forming it automatically makes you admin, and gives you primogeniture straight away. It's a lot of fun unifying India under Hindustan. And if you start as a Turkic/Iranian culture the default name for a hybrid with India would be Hindustani. I'd recommend starting as the Oghuz turks (probably best military culture in the game), taking advantage of OP nomad mechanics to grow and do an overrun kingdom on India, and go from there. Oh and hybridise with Rajasthani for mystical ancestors. It's especially strong with admin gov since titles often come back to you so you can give them to family members multiple times for loads of easy renown.

Beth Nahrain? Definitely an obscure one. Requires Syriac culture and converts you to nestorian. Creating a Syriac nestorian empire in the middle east using Baghdad (one of the best counties in the game) as your capital? Definitely a cool idea. Plus being friendly with catholics/orthodox while not being either and having a 3rd major type of christianity with its own pope is pretty cool.

[Inflammatus]

Kingdom of Man as a viking

[Don Lord]

Zunbil was pretty fun for a Middle Eastern run.

Also had fun as a Nordic adventurer invading Sri Lanka (Svartalfheim) and syncreting the two religions.

Barcelona, to Iberia, to adventurer son, to conquering and fragmenting Byzantium to form a Latin empire.

Rurikid (Novgorod) was cool.

Nestorian Socotra was good. Made a giant empire and toured around as an evil sultan, torturing dudes and banging their wives and daughters.

Byz Kommenos start during the Turkish invasion was also fun.

[jpcerutti]

What are your favorite things to do in game? Culture/tall? Wafflestomp? Scheme/intrigue?

You can form the Kingdom of Toledo (Mozarabic Christian ruler in Iberia with a special building, development & religious reformation bonuses) or Andaloo (Andalusian & Norman cultures blended) - but I like the Reconquista.

There's also just oddities, like East Banto or Benny Israel (sp I'm pretty sure wrong), which is formed on the coast of India.

[Mati_Lublin]

Bosporan Kingdom is kinda tricky. You need specific culture (Central Germanic or Eastern Roman heritage), control duchies of Crimea and Azow and be independent. Aaand you can't be emperor.

[Grimbart]

Restore the old basque Kingdom of Vasconia and, as a bonus, revive the ancient basque religion Euskal Erlijioa.

Forming the Kingdom of Baleo-Tyrrhenia by conquering the Duchies of Sicliy, Sardinia, Corsica and Mallorca.

There is also the Empire of Outremer, a crusader superstate.

[titanopteryx]

One unique culture in Africa combined with a faith also in Africa is female dominated. That's unique in this game. In the 800s start there's a suggested character down in Africa who had that culture and faith. Slot in Right to Prove in her culture and you get shieldwains.

[Don Lord]

Originally posted by Grimbart:

There is also the Empire of Outremer, a crusader superstate.

Fun to form, but boring once you get there since you smash the Arabs along the way.

Picking a fight with the Byzantines for Cypress and Southern Anatolia adds some spice.