Adopt Chinese Imperialism...!

[CrUsHeR]

Adopt Chinese Imperialism[ck2.paradoxwikis.com]

Are there any decent starts to do that?
All DLCs, preferrably default rules, at least ironman/achievement compatible.

> Must be of Khitan, Tangut, or Jurchen culture or Chinese culture group.

I tried this in various start dates as Jiuquan in the past, seems impossible though because you get wrecked by the nomad raiders. You can't defeat equal size horde troops, and they multiply in size every X years.

From my experience of building a Han/Taoist realm in Socotra through education and cultural conversion, i'm aware that virtually any realm could do this.

> Must be feudal.
> Have at least 200 realm size.

I guess if you can't thrive as feudal against the permanent nomad raiders, it is best to start as nomad yourself, conquer a target de jure empire and don't pillage anything.
So probably either Tibet, or something slightly west of this. Tibet seems to be a problem for conquest though because it is partially held by defensive tribal pagans.

Then i suppose you just need to create the kingdoms and one empire, settle as feudal and hope for the best. Apparently 8000 prestige are still required even if you are Taoist, so this would have to happen with the same ruler who settled.



Well, any suggestions are appreciated.

[Hunkthebear]

Becoming the required culture is easy enough, just culture flip via Education/Conversion as you said. You can also Get imperial Marriage and have your Heirs hopefully become your Wifes culture with Education as well.

Become Taoist is similar to the above point.

As for 200 Realm Size, there is NO quick way to reach it, just bear in mind that it does NOT matter WHERE your Empire (it HAS to be an Empire btw) is located as LONG as you have Diplomatic reach to China (unless ruler designer/China Dip range rules are messed with). Once you have 200 Realm Size the 8000 prestige will simply come with time at this point due to the ticking Prestige from ALL of that land.

The hardest parts for becoming Chinese Imperial is Flipping Culture/Religion of your Dynasty, then Keeping the Realm Stable long enough to start culture and Religion Flipping the Land (as always Start with your capital Duchy first).

For Stats, High Steward and Dip are Ideal, Steward for increasing the MTTH (Mean Time To Happen) of Culture Events, and Dip to Keep hostile Elements better pacified.

Once You are Firmly established, its basically playing as normal, Take Land from Weaker Realms and keep Larger ones from attacking you while maintaining Realm stability and the occasional Assasination.

The only Heads up i can give is to Be careful doing this in Catholic/Islamic lands due to the inevitable Crusades/Jihads.

As for Starting Goverments, Nomads have an easy time taking LOTS of land, But MOST of that land is Poor and upon becoming Tribal/Feudal you WILL become MUCH WEAKER and therefor easy picking by your fellow Nomads. Tribes have more stability and more money from Holdings, but again you NEED to be Feudal, so upgrading WILL WEAKEN you unless you take 100-200 years to build up your core Tribal holdings. Starting as Feudal skips these steps, but depending on time date means you will have a potentially harder start (Early start dates favor Tribals/Nomads over Feudal/Iqita Goverments, Abbasids/Umyadds aside). Merchant Republics will NEED to become Feudal, which will dramatically lower income but allow for more land.

All in all, the hardest part of becoming Chinese Imperial is the patience required to slowly build up into a position to do so, with the typical extra difficulty depending on your starting position.

Hope this Helps!

[CrUsHeR]

Yesterday i tried several of the "lesser" nomads around Tura, these all terribly suck though. Usually the leaders and councillors have very bad skills, you have no adult son and might get assassinated or die in combat short after game start.
Might try again with actual Mongol or Khitan later, but that is a very long build-up since you have to slowly chew threw the other nomads first.

Then tried again as Jiuquan in 1066 (King of Xia), which at that time is Tangut & Buddhist, but the rulers in Xia are partially Taoist already. And you can immediately request a chinese physician to educate your son as Han/Taoist.

Took about 80 years to get a philosopher bloodline, and finally the culture/religion flip to Han/Tao in the capital. I also had Liao as Tributary during that time.

The real issue with this strategy is that Taoists have no CBs besides forging claims. Border dispute seems to impact your own realm as well?

Holy sites are all so far away that it is unlikely to ever reach them before the Mongol Era starts.
Also Ü-Tsang has conquered everything south of Xia already, and is chewing up towards Qocho as well on the western flank.



And, well... let's say there is a reason why China tried to build walls in that area for several millenia.
Most of the time you play whack-a-mole with the endless stream of hosts and nomad raiders, which grow to ridiculous sizes after some time.
The really stupid shizzle is that you can't even attack the raiders before they decide to stop in one county and begin looting.

[CrUsHeR]

As for 200 Realm Size, there is NO quick way to reach it, just bear in mind that it does NOT matter WHERE your Empire (it HAS to be an Empire btw) is located as LONG as you have Diplomatic reach to China (unless ruler designer/China Dip range rules are messed with). Once you have 200 Realm Size the 8000 prestige will simply come with time at this point due to the ticking Prestige from ALL of that land.

Yeah the realm size is a pretty big problem. As mentioned, you have absolutely no CBs besides the forged claims.

Not sure which other candidates are there; slightly further west in Qocho or other places in Tura, the holdings are so weak that you can't defend against anything. Example Qocho had about 3K total levies compared to Xia with 10-12k. Muslims are attacking from Persia / Afghanistan, Tibetians from the east, nomads from the north. At least Xia only has to deal with the raiders.

Perhaps it would have to be something exploit-ish, like creating & reforming Scandinavia in 769 / 867 and pushing just far enough east to make contact with China. All you need is the physician for 250 grace.

As for Starting Goverments, Nomads have an easy time taking LOTS of land, But MOST of that land is Poor and upon becoming Tribal/Feudal you WILL become MUCH WEAKER and therefor easy picking by your fellow Nomads. Tribes have more stability and more money from Holdings, but again you NEED to be Feudal, so upgrading WILL WEAKEN you unless you take 100-200 years to build up your core Tribal holdings. Starting as Feudal skips these steps, but depending on time date means you will have a potentially harder start (Early start dates favor Tribals/Nomads over Feudal/Iqita Goverments, Abbasids/Umyadds aside). Merchant Republics will NEED to become Feudal, which will dramatically lower income but allow for more land.

I've seen the option to "settle as feudal" a hundred times when playing nomads, but never thought it was a good idea.

These are the technical results:

> All nomadic counties are lost
> Additional provinces converted per 5000 pop+manpower
> Horde troops are disbanded, but gain 200 event troops per fully nomadic province

Not sure what this means though. You only get the one province you settle in, plus additional provinces per 5000 population?

So let's say with a Mongol Empire ranging from Kara Khorum to the Ural in the north, and Afghanistan to the Caspian Sea in the south, you would have around 200k+ population. This would give you perhaps 40-50 provinces (not sure about manpower relation).

Realm size equals one per settled holding, so with an assumed average of 3 settled holdings in your newly gained empire, you would end up with perhaps 150 realm size at most. Is that about correct?

[Azunai]

settle as feudal makes you lose all nomadic lands, but you keep all lands that contain at least 2 holdings (since they are not nomadic) so you can pretty much conquer whatever feudal lands you want and keep them in the transition as long as you don't raze everything.

the converted provinces per 5000 pop/manpower are the provinces around your capital that instantly switch to your culture (and i think also religion).

when you press the magic button after conquering lots of stuff (for example the abbassid and byzantine empires) you spend quite some time handing out A LOT of titles to random people since you're now feudal and you can't have an infinitely large demesne any more.


i guess easiest way is probably to just start as the byz or abbassids and follow the usual steps to convert culture of your heir and switch to the required religion (i think tibet is also an empire in 769 start, but possibly not large enough?).
the slightly more annoying (but more flexible) way is to pick a random nomad, build up some power and then just conquer whatever you feel like and transform into a feudal empire before going through the steps to convert your culture and religion

[CrUsHeR]

Yes Tibet in 769 looks like a solid option, never tried it myself though because the existing mega-empires are not very compelling.

[Dremall]

I prefer to start as a count tier character, and work my way up. Its fun to eat an empire from the inside out. Just because they exist doesn't mean you need to play as an emperor or king.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Dremall:

I prefer to start as a count tier character, and work my way up. Its fun to eat an empire from the inside out. Just because they exist doesn't mean you need to play as an emperor or king.

Same here :)

Though the premade empires are usually highly unstable, with angry vassals equally or more powerful than yourself. So in the long run, the selfmade empires are much easier to rule because you never allow anyone to become that powerful.

[CrUsHeR]

Okay so here we go. Tried this again yesterday.

https://images2.imgbox.com/13/f4/40dNgmnk_o.png

Started in 769 Oghuz (Yabguid) which is normally a Turkic Tengri without vassals.
I did use the Ruler Designer to start as Han Taoist, and two mods to create a family and give some money / event troops (Sensible New Family and RDU).

Just rest assured that i also played with 100% vanilla Yabguid before and had an even larger empire with all of Tibet included, and it also is easy to convert culture and religion as nomad by having an imperial marriage and set her as tutor (your entire realm will simply switch with your religion). You probably want to do this as early as possible, to make sure that most of the clans you split off are Han/Taoist as well.

This time i just wanted to rush the Taoist Holy Sites and get the Chinese Empire installed before this ruler dies.
Well you can also see the problem i left behind, which is called "Khitai" in the screenshot (renamed the Yabguid Khaganate before).

Basically the key to settle down properly is to give away ALL nomadic counties, and all potential exclaves (like Yangikent with the city outpost). This will prevent your former Khaganate to hold any lands inside your new empire.
Though if you played Nomads before, you'll know that you should give plenty of lands away anyways just to make sure that the Invasion CB is always available.

You also need to create an actual empire beforehand, in this case Tura. Though Tibet, Persia or something in India would work just fine.

Biggest crap is handing out some hundred titles manually; first you should keep all the baronies yourself after invasions, to make sure you can freely choose a settling spot later.
You also need thousands of gold to create all the duchies / kingdoms required for administration. These will give serious amounts of prestige which you might lack from horde upkeep.

After that you just settle down, adopt chinese imperialism. 500g and 8k prestige is all it takes.
Easy Peasy.

[dralizaar13]

Just curious why no one mentions India. I get you want horde etc but Bengal is really easy to build...first the cbs to get rid of small neighbors, the vassalizing cbs to grab the slightly bigger ones, the subjugation cb to use on Kosala early to gain all of its lands. In short doesn't take too long to unify northern, eastern and usually western <due to holy wars> India. Doing the educate route and building grace to get Chinese royal wives and grabbing concubines from China it isn't hard to switch culture/religion. The eastern nations do not tend to holy war/jihad you so you can focus on slowly converting in almost peace. No nomad borders to get raided all the time, no major border foes short of Tibet which you can keep happy and tends to be passive regarding India. The two other large Indian nations you can slowly whittle down till you own all of India...did this and went west taking most of Persia, Saudi Arabia and Mesopotamia...leaving must of the Holy lands and Egypt alone to be bickered over by the holy wars. Rich, quiet, less border raids, controlled fronts, large holding size provinces it is easy to form an empire with good tech, army size and wealth to transition.

[CrUsHeR]

Yeah India would work as start, also Persia in 876.
It would take forever though for both ingame time and IRL time. Let me explain:

Holy wars only work against one duchy. India consists of like... 100 duchies?
Forced vassalization leaves you with a powerful vassal who doesn't share your culture or religion. Also only works on Kings after you create an empire title, since everyone in India is a King. And the prestige costs for that are grotesque.

Revoking infidel titles again throws you in more endless and ugly wars. You lose so many levies during all those sieges, that more revolts are inevitable.
Also the indian subjugation CB costs 500 karma? And only works once every 100 years, and targets of your own culture.
Biggest problem might be that after converting to Taoist yourself as feudal, you have absolutely no CBs besides forging claims and border disputes. And neither territory nor vassals will change religion with you, and definitely not culture.



Meanwhile as Nomad - the invasion CB lets you declare war over a kingdom, but in fact you can take an entire empire with it. You keep all occupied territory, and the owners are removed from all holdings. All nomad CBs also work the same no matter your religion or culture.

If the target realm is at war with someone else, you can also declare invasion on them as well. Matter of fact you can run as many invasions simultaneously as you can handle. The 75% pop requirement only kicks in after you won a war.

And it is extremely fast: With several hordes of 10k+ size, you can simply use the siege assault on all holdings with less than 1000 defenders. The horde will reinforce any losses in no time. This means a siege will take 1-2 days rather than years. And the vast majority of holdings in India and Tibet / Tura / Persia only has around 500 garrison.

Then if you settle down, your new capital and a number of additional territories will be instantly converted to Han/Taoist as well.

As mentioned above, the only time consuming activity is to actually distribute the holdings before settling down. This literally took several hours, perhaps as long as the whole conquest beforehand.
It also helps to have a large dynasty so you can fill all important kingdom titles with them. This will be an insane family prestige bonus in the future. So having a high diplomacy ruler going for seduction focus and creating dozens of bastards is a good idea.

[Myll]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Adopt Chinese Imperialism[ck2.paradoxwikis.com]

Are there any decent starts to do that?
All DLCs, preferrably default rules, at least ironman/achievement compatible.

> Must be of Khitan, Tangut, or Jurchen culture or Chinese culture group.

I tried this in various start dates as Jiuquan in the past, seems impossible though because you get wrecked by the nomad raiders. You can't defeat equal size horde troops, and they multiply in size every X years.

From my experience of building a Han/Taoist realm in Socotra through education and cultural conversion, i'm aware that virtually any realm could do this.

> Must be feudal.
> Have at least 200 realm size.

I guess if you can't thrive as feudal against the permanent nomad raiders, it is best to start as nomad yourself, conquer a target de jure empire and don't pillage anything.
So probably either Tibet, or something slightly west of this. Tibet seems to be a problem for conquest though because it is partially held by defensive tribal pagans.

Then i suppose you just need to create the kingdoms and one empire, settle as feudal and hope for the best. Apparently 8000 prestige are still required even if you are Taoist, so this would have to happen with the same ruler who settled.



Well, any suggestions are appreciated.

Reviving your old question in case anyone does want to venture into Chinese Imperialism on a Divergent Pathway that solves many of the problems you worried about - Raiding parties included, while offering a Rare Achievement pathway (with other achievements more easily gained on this path in certain areas).

- 769 year start, for Aladdin achievement (conquer North Africa as a Han Chinese main character that retains Han Culture throughout the game). Keep that in mind as part of this path.

- Start within the Western Kingdom as a Han Count in Jiuquan county at the edge of the map. Starting religion is Taoist but that gets changed ASAP to a more useful warpath religion that promotes Holy Wars - going to Bon faith in the first generation and converting to a full Bon religion Dynasty by the 2nd to 3rd generation. Find Bon religion females to ask as Concubines and then convert to their religion once you have the Piety to do so. "Secretly convert" and then immediately make it public, realigning your entire realm as Bon religion and you can put a Bon religion female concubine as the Tutor even before you have the Piety, to use Childhood Focus: Heritage or Religion (if already Han culture below 10 years old) to convert the upcoming generation of your upstart realm.

- Raiding parties are progressively less and less impactful, the more that you conquer to both the South into the Tibet area and sprawl Southwesterly.

- Move Capital southward to put the raiding parties to your North and buffered by the growing Western Protectorate's forces who auto-generate armies to take them down, and the Western Protectorate grows as you initially grow (and you expand faster as a Bon Pagan who can immediately 'Conquest' neighboring counties). Get to county Lasa soon as possible, even if you must use the Minister to create a claim. Lasa is one of Bon religion's holy sites plus it has a 6 building slots (already completed) so it's a combination of many benefits and well positioned to grow into a Bon religion Tibetan Empire.

- You cannot become an Emperor as a vassal of the Western Protectorate (game disallows breaking away via creating an Empire), so you must eventually break away through a war of Independence. I had 5 Kingdoms to my name with Primogeniture keeping it isolated (but can designate heir), at the time I broke away, and I owned the Kingdom of Xiyu just Northwest of Tibet.

- Reminder to spy on your Chinese overlord in the county of Dunhuang, and as you expand you will be able to spy on Constantinople. I found that it was easier to go Independent once I as a full tech level above my Western Protectorate (he was 3.0 on all, I was 4.0 on all military tech). You will be outnumbered heavily in the fight for Independence but the AI will split their armies plus attrition because you're Pagan and penalize their entry into your now-Independent realm, as reminder.

- My fight for Independence was after reforming the Bon religion, as I captured all 5 Bon religion holy sites. I went with Unyielding to ensure Holy Wars would trigger, and I even added in access to The Hermetic Society as part of my reform choices - mainly to get the small buffs from Astrology signs that can be useful helpers to choose training paths for the youth, regardless if you actually have a Main Character join the Hermetic Society during your play through. These slight buffs that can up your Martial by a point and Personal Combat Skill by +5 are boons for a Holy Warring empire.

- As you grow South and Southwest, give up your Northern holdings to others so they deal with the raiding parties along with the Western Protectorate. "Not your concern" as the game progresses.

- Legendary Hero pathway is easier in this area of the map. I made 2 in a row in 3rd and 4th generation of the Main Characters. Reason being, once they make level 4 in The Sentinels of Light and go on a Legendary Journey, they can fight Chinese Han Taoists who are quite weak in contrast, in order to complete their journey. There's an achievement (Zero to Hero) for creating a bloodline via this Legendary Hero task and it's simplified with this strategy.

It's quite easy to get the 16K Prestige for Chinese Imperial system of government, when running this path, as my Main character that could choose the Intrigue decision - had over 30K Prestige from creating so many Kingdoms, creating duchies, creating the Tibetan empire, and since you're a Pagan Holy warrior with only one main force gaining the victory - the spoils can be 100% for yourself and you then instantly create new duchies etc. There's a steamroller effect that starts to build in the game once your a super-Empire as a Pagan with a loaded up Secret Society.