How to gain quick casus belli.

[Ghost Face]

Usually i choose somewhere east or north and do holy wars etc.Now i decided to do iron mod in england.+190 hours and i still dont know how to attack christian.Doing Casus belli is too slow and only 1 city we can take at each time.So how can i gain casus belli quickly?

[Fallout155]

if you get to create dutchy you can attack all countys under it same works for kindoms etc

[Sol]

Instead of targetting counties, target a kingdom or duchy - that is, find someone who has a kingdom or duchy title, send your councillor, spymaster and religious fellow there. You might have to say no to 1-2 county fabrication claims to get the Duchy or Kingdom fabrication claim.

[Evil Crusader]

And the bigger you are, the faster you can spread your influence. Once you are at least a King, you can start gobbling up whole Duchies via claimants.

[Langkard]

Get the very best chancellor you can find. A chancellor with a 20+ diplomacy will fabricate claims much more quickly than one who has 15 or so diplomacy. If you're using a chancellor with a diplomacy below 15, then you can expect fabricate claims to fire very rarely.

Plot. An assassinated ruler often leaves his heir with vassal problems or if it is gavelkind, you may even succeed in splitting up the duchy (or kingdom, etc.) to make it easier to grab bits.

Fabricated claims for duchies or larger are much more expensive than claims on counties, so be ready and have a supply of cash on hand to pay for those rare big claims.

[aaronmv]

Originally posted by Thadian:

Instead of targetting counties, target a kingdom or duchy - that is, find someone who has a kingdom or duchy title, send your councillor, spymaster and religious fellow there. You might have to say no to 1-2 county fabrication claims to get the Duchy or Kingdom fabrication claim.

This is partially wrong. Your chancellor can't fabricate claims on Kingdoms no matter how good he is, even if he had a score of 30. The best he can do is claims on duchies. Additionally, the chance to fabricate a claim maxes out at a score of 20...additional points do nothing to increase your chances of success.

[stars2heaven]

If you are trying to get land from christians while being a christian yourself, getting it via the fabricate claims route is the slowest in the long run. Try getting claims through marriage instead. It takes a generation worth of time, but you can get an entire kingdom for your efforts. If you play the marriage game enough, you can have tons of landed vassals with all sorts of claims to press as well. This is really the better option. Be prepared for lots and lots of micromanagement though, and lots of time spent sorting through claimants lists.

[My Name is Mud]

Fun story: Playing as a unified Ireland (and about half of Scotland) I managed to talk the Pope into giving me an Invasion CB against England. You can only get Invasion if you are smaller than who you are targeting (so you'll need help) and the Pope has to like you a lot more than the other cuontry's ruler.

I called in the Holy Roman Empire as allies, and managed to take all of England in one shot with their help.

The HRE then promptly betrayed me and backed some other goof to claim the king of England title and I lost everything.

But for about two weeks there I thought I was actually on to something.

[My Name is Mud]

Originally posted by stars2heaven:

If you are trying to get land from christians while being a christian yourself, getting it via the fabricate claims route is the slowest in the long run. Try getting claims through marriage instead. It takes a generation worth of time, but you can get an entire kingdom for your efforts. If you play the marriage game enough, you can have tons of landed vassals with all sorts of claims to press as well. This is really the better option. Be prepared for lots and lots of micromanagement though, and lots of time spent sorting through claimants lists.

I really don't get how to make this method work. Literally any title worth claiming (any major title near your own land, if you're trying to marry it into your family) the game won't let you marry those people into your family because the marriage will be blocked for "political concerns". I've had no luck with it at all.

[aaronmv]

Under the new patch, I believe you can also ask the Pope to grant you a claim on a title. Of course it depends on how much he likes you. You can just click on the flag of the title and then sometimes there will be a "Request Claim" button where "Revoke" would be (if you controlled it yourself).

Come to think of it, maybe this is what those moronic adventurers are doing...doubt it though.

[stars2heaven]

Originally posted by Death From Above:

Originally posted by stars2heaven:

If you are trying to get land from christians while being a christian yourself, getting it via the fabricate claims route is the slowest in the long run. Try getting claims through marriage instead. It takes a generation worth of time, but you can get an entire kingdom for your efforts. If you play the marriage game enough, you can have tons of landed vassals with all sorts of claims to press as well. This is really the better option. Be prepared for lots and lots of micromanagement though, and lots of time spent sorting through claimants lists.

I really don't get how to make this method work. Literally any title worth claiming (any major title near your own land, if you're trying to marry it into your family) the game won't let you marry those people into your family because the marriage will be blocked for "political concerns". I've had no luck with it at all.

It's hard to talk specifics here because there are so many possibilities and they all depend upon the specific environment in which your find yourself in game. You aren't always looking for a direct claim, necessarily. Weak claims are sometimes sufficient. It involves watching, and waiting, for opportunities to manipulate the heirs of other titles by assassination or other methods. Itt involves inviting people with claims to your realm (who can't resist you trying to marry them off). Maybe you will have to kill off their spouse or wait to marry off their kids. Sometimes you have to watch for the possibility to get a child or a woman on a throne so that a certain person gets to press a claim.

There really is a lot that can be done and it all depends on the random things that pop up at any given time while also taking a lot of planning ahead.

[Evil Crusader]

Originally posted by Death From Above:

I really don't get how to make this method work. Literally any title worth claiming (any major title near your own land, if you're trying to marry it into your family) the game won't let you marry those people into your family because the marriage will be blocked for "political concerns". I've had no luck with it at all.

Because you are going at that unsubtly. The game isn't -that- stupid.
Go for the third daughter, or the fourth son, then work your way up by slowly extinguishing other lines, and/or press any weak claims against the regencies.
Expansion is possible, just not easy as pie.

[Sohei]

Invite all claimants to your court that are likely to accept. You can decide later on if you actually want to press their claim or not. The claim may or may not benefit you or be worth the effort to ensure it will be part of your realm but the courtier might be useful anyways. A bunch of courtiers with claims just gives you some more options.

[Evil Crusader]

Originally posted by Sohei:

Invite all claimants to your court that are likely to accept. You can decide later on if you actually want to press their claim or not. The claim may or may not benefit you or be worth the effort to ensure it will be part of your realm but the courtier might be useful anyways. A bunch of courtiers with claims just gives you some more options.

And lowers overall fertility, as you have a (hidden) malus when over 30 courtiers.

[Surimi]

Don't forget you can also get claims from the pope (it's actually quite easy once the crusading era starts, although you often don't have much choice over which claims you get). As long as there's a chance of the pope giving you the title (i.e. the diplo screen says "maybe" and not "no" you can keep badgering him until you run out of piety and eventually he'll give in).

This was actually one of my main sources of expansion in my last British-isles game.

Also note that even if someone has a weak, non-inheritable claim, actually pressing their claim will uprade it to a strong heritable one even if they only spend a day on the throne. Playing as Shahi (the Hindu Afghans in 867) I managed to get the whole of Pratihara by marrying a very minor princess, pressing her claim (she got immediately kicked out) and then doing it again with my next character (who as a result had a claim he wouldn't otherwise have had).

Always look for that "weak calim can be pressed" notifier!

[Bilgediver]

It is literally how I did it. A lot of luck and micromanagement is involved. For example, If you are "big and important" enough, find an unmarried female ruler or heir and marry your dynasty into their line. Also, invite nobies with claims to other duchies/kingdoms and marry your daughters to them matrilinealy. Even if it works only 10% of the time often you are at least spreading your dynasty out (because remember every character is working to further their own goals, my current empire hasa duke who crusaded and declared the Kingdom of Jerusalem, thankfully I was an Emperor so all of a sudden the Kingdom of Jerusalem became my vassal).

In my current playthrough while King of England I somehow noticed that my dynasty found itself as the ruling dynasty of France (I knew I sent off marriage ties in there somewhere). I grew enough prestige to declare myself an Empire before I married the sole daughter heir of France to my son (and heir), and in doing so my Heir literally inherited all of France.

Generations later I somehow found the Kingdom of Bavaria whose heir is their daughter (despite them having a son, agnatic-cognatic....weird). I married my "grandson" to their daughter and since my grandson is literally a vassal, if his son inherits Kingdom of Bavaria he will remain my vassal Duke as well.

I agree technically marriage is a good way to gobble up empires and kingdoms, but crusades is easily the quickest to gobble up half the map.


My main question is if the Pope calls a crusade, and 10 catholic factions are joining, how is it I was the one who got all of Portugal? Is it because I "involved myself the most" in the Percentage score?