Becoming Byzantine emperor as pagan conqueror

[Void Walker (ChaosMaker)]

I was recently thinking about starting new game in which i acualy start as Viking, mostly as one of the sons of Lodbrok or Lodbrok himself, of course this strategy whoud also aply to other pagan rules with invasion casus beli (like tengri nomads). In general plan looks like this:

Start as pagan (Tengri/Germanic) -> Conquer something (Byz or Byz neighbor) -> Become emperor and somewhere aroud (before or after) change to greek orthodox. -> Playing as Greek Orthodox emperor (for hellenic revival).

Question here is what is the best (and quickest) way for a pagan origin ruler that has some form of invasion casus belli to become a Byz emperor ?

In my first try i conquered some of Bulgaria, and then became vassal of the emperor, hopeing that i coud try to get myself elected, i ended up locked cuz i didnt had big numbers of martial, therefore i coud not become marshal or byz comander (he didnt wanted to make me one), and my son had like 2 martial in age of 16 xD, i teoreticly coud wait eternity for some good martial heir to my titles, but even then i whoud not be 100% if i acualy had votes to claim a throne xD

[werdry]

Steal their daughters, make some childers out of each, poof, one of kids is a new BYZ emperor. Make him your heir and suicide. Yey, you're a BYZ emperor now.

[Void Walker (ChaosMaker)]

Stealing daughters first is super luck based (even campturing one is hard not mentioning more), secondly Byz has imperial elevtive, no one will vote of infindel. Thirdly, you need to raid constantinopole, and that coud be hard even with 10k raiders (depending on byz condition at time) :)

[finrod]

By far the easiest is Krum of Bulgaria. Start as Telerig of Bulgaria, don't marry, so Krum remain your heir, vassalize Serbia/Epirus/Avaria, die. Play as Krum, conquer, conquer, conquer, change to christianity and become byz vassal. Get elected and from here is all about succession crises. Alternative is to create random empire/Carpathian empire, conquer Greece or Thracia and change culture through new capital with greek culture.

[salatrin]

If you play one of the brothers(not the 2 in england as they have already used their prepared invasions for their lifetime),ud have to reform the religion first so you can go feudal when u gain a castle, or you can start as a pagan that is already feudal.

Either way, you can launch a prepared invasion against either Byz itself or one of its neighbors but the idea is to get a KINGDOM title first.

Then become a vassal of Byz, and yes getting elected will be super hard but u dont need to be elected to be emperor.

As a Kingdom level vassal in empire, your able to form a plot for a claim on the emperor(can only plot for claim 1 level higher then current rank so u need to be kingdom level to plot for emperor)

Then u just need to get at least 3 plotters and 75% or 5 plotters and 100% plot power, then once u get the claim, you can start a faction for the empire or just attack the emperor directly if you feel strong enough.

The point is, getting elected isnt the ONLY way to do it. Once you become a vassal if your plan is to go Hellenic, you'd prob need to convert to Orthy first which will make the other vassals hate you less and make them more likely to join u in plots and/or factions for the empire.

Also, if you manage to make councillor, you can rack up some favors with the other strategos of the empire that you can then use to either join your faction for the empire when that time comes, or, if you somehow ever become eligible for election, use those favors on any one of those strategos tha may be commander or councillor to support you in succession which only lasts for so long but use them at a time where ur sure the emperor will die soon(by plot, or disease or whatever)