进阶开局小指南

这是一份针对我比较喜欢的开局的指南，也就是在1066年作为一个伯爵或公爵开始游戏。但如果你开局时是某人的封臣，你的第一个目标可能就是接管你的领主的土地。如果你不想这样玩的话，你最好还是作为一个独立的领主开始游戏。 Note that independent counts get a +50% bonus to their levies in their capital, while vassal counts do not get any bonus. In addition to the capital county bonus, independent dukes and above get a +25% bonus to levies in their holdings within the capital duchy. (For vassal dukes and kings, the bonuses are +25% for capital, and +15% for capital duchy).

I tend to go for ahistorical conquests, as radically different from history as possible. To that end, a couple of interesting vanilla map starts in 1066 are the Count of Napoli, who is the only Greek Orthodox in Italy and Lübeck, which starts nestled between three incredibly strong powers and a single county with a claim next door. There are obviously quite a few more but these serve as good examples since both of these are extremely difficult to survive, much less do well with, so I pull out all the stops as I will outline below. Be warned that some of these tactics are quite gamey.

Day 1

在你考虑解除暂停之前，你有很多事情要做。

评估你的邻国

周边的王国是否比你强？他们有针对你的宣战理由吗，特别是篡夺你的头衔而不是仅仅让你变成封臣的那种宣战理由？

如果你是独立的: 是否对一个级别比你更高的邻居或是法理领主进行宣誓效忠会更加安全？注意，你有可能在得到回应之前就被攻击！同样如上所述，你可以通过减少你的征召兵数量来换取你的安全。

同时也需要考虑你能使用的潜在的宣誓效忠的理由。如果计划进行迅速扩张，尽快让公爵或者是和你相同的文化和宗教的伯爵级别角色变为你的封臣，这能让你毫不费力地增加实力。对一个实力更弱但是级别更高的统治者进行宣誓效忠能使你通过派系反抗来获取权力，通过一场战争来同时获得高级头衔以及其所属的封臣。

婚姻

主条目：进阶婚姻指南

你需要在第一天就找一个妻子，因为大多AI也未婚并且它们会很快开始抢走最好的妻子。关注遗传特质，生育能力，以及管理（增加你的直辖领上限）。理想的妻子是年轻，点石成金者，天才，强壮，以及色欲。

你可以使用安排婚姻来找到一个有高管理能力的妻子。如果你能找到一个文化相同的，那就更好了。你未来的妻子必须是和你在相同的宗教组，否则AI将永远不会同意安排婚姻。使用角色查找器只找未婚女性，按照管理排序。由于按照属性排序，天才（最好的遗传特质）以及点石成金者（最好的教育特质）会显示在最前面。如果需要，你可以输入"天才（genius）"或者"点石成金者（midas）"进行搜索。

Consolidation of power

暴政统治

通过暴政统治你逮捕所有的封臣，并且夺取他们所有的头衔。如果你的邻居盯着你的土地，在第一天就这样做, 在你的邻居评估你的力量并决定是否攻击你之前。如果你有足够的虔诚，一路逮捕到男爵。

如果你在执行你的暴政统治之前能等待一段时间，那会更容易，因为你将有机会获得内阁和虔诚让你的计划更顺利地进行。在逮捕你的城市封臣以及主教封臣时他们会有更多钱，同时你会在你的首都有更多的军队（通过军事总管的"训练军队"任务）以应对他们的反叛。

在第一天，你可能没有足够的虔诚进行一个完整的暴政统治。进行逮捕，为消除我的罪孽购买赎罪券（天主教） 或者给予施济以赎罪(自愿慈善)（穆斯林并且你的教派有哈里发），最后以驱逐囚犯结束来获取额外的虔诚。

现在保留所有的头衔，忽略任何"持有不符合政体的直辖领地类型"以及"超出直辖领上限"的通知.

Dropping Dead Weight

In getting rid of your crappy/high intrigue courtiers who now hate you, you have 2 options - you can matrilineally marry them off (not available for Muslims), which I like to do with the high intrigue ones since attempting to imprison them may just end up having a high intrigue guy in another court doing nothing but perpetually plotting to kill you, or simply imprison/execute them. With the marriage option, their new wife/court couldn't care less about you so it will be more likely they focus on their new surroundings. When matrilineally marrying any courtiers you want to get rid of initially, try and pick landed women (obviously especially Matilda) - this prevents the AI from getting early inheritances before you even have a dynasty and keeps them independent at least for another generation. They won't thank you for this but when you're not facing Denmitaly in 20 years, you'll thank yourself.

As far as who to keep, basically any courtier who you cannot replace with a higher stat. Generally, 15+ is my 'ok I'm keeping this guy' breakpoint. Obviously this does not apply to spymaster as a -100 spymaster is just begging anyone who has even the slightest reason - or even none at all - to murder you to have a guaranteed win via plot. Also remember to get rid of any women who hate you - the high intrigue ones will contribute to plots against you. Usually family members and women don't care about tyranny but sometimes they do - I'm not sure the exact qualifications as I haven't tracked it down, anyway just marry them off if they do - we're going to try to get superwomen asap so go ahead and get rid of the crappy ones too while we're at it. As with matrilineals, I try to marry them to the highest rank landed male I can find - by taking some random girl from my court this prevents them from gaining alliances/inheritances. It's a small thing but so are you.

Choosing a capital

主条目：Capital#Strategies

Now that you personally hold every county in your realm, you should decide which to make your capital.

It should be in this preference order: any province you have with more than 1 castle, any province with more than 3 holdings, or the highest legalism progress you have. If you have a province that has a whole level or 2 of legalism higher than it may take precedence over the others. Theodosia in the Crimea area for example starts with +2 legalism which is incredibly good compared to the surrounding areas.

Don't actually click the "make capital" button until you've given away excess counties -- you might get lucky and not have to press it at all.

Redistributing your realm's holdings

By now you have every barony (or a couple rebelling vassals we will deal with after we unpause if not) and dropped, one way or the other, everyone who hated you that wasn't incredibly useful in some way. If you are over your demesne limit you will need to create some vassals. This may also, if you are lucky, save you some time in finding new courtiers to fill your now desolate court. More than likely though they will be just as crappy as the last ones. These new ones will not only not know that they are plucking the keys to their new barony out of the corpse of their predecessors but also have a +20 from granted baronies.

Account for your future wife's stewardship bonus before determining if you need to drop baronies. Dropping baronies should be done in the following order:

1. Temples outside your capital
2. Cities outside your capital
3. Temples in your capital
4. Cities in your capital
5. Counties outside your primary duchy, non-culture/religion counties

Muslim rulers will have other considerations: mosques don't have an income penalty and give piety; Jizya significantly increases income, especially in cities (decreasing the penalty); some cities in Muslim regions are significantly developed. It is harder to make a definite order, so use your own judgement and compare income and future potential.

Building a new council

If you are lucky, some of the vassals generated at the end of your tyranny will have decent stats. Probably not, either way it's time to do probably the most tedious work which is to fill your council with top talent. This will become much, much easier later on when many courtiers are claimants eager to leave their current court. Initially, however, you are completely at the mercy of the RNG.

Open up the character finder. Select "men", "adult", "my religion group", and "not ruler". Sort by the stat you want, work your way down. Get a chancellor first, because his boost to your state diplomacy will increase foreign opinion toward you and make bribes much more effective. Alternatively, depending on your religion/culture/game rules, you might be able to take female courtiers with high attributes as concubines and then appoint them as councilors. This is especially helpful in cases where your diplomacy stat isn't high enough to invite them normally, as well as potentially saving bribe money.

It is ridiculously difficult early on to invite someone who hates their liege and loves you and have them accept, and it is one of my pet peeves with this game. Later on the 'unable to press my claims' modifier will make it a ton easier to find people to invite but right now you are out of luck.

A courtier (with no reason to move) is a potential invitee if their opinion of their liege is 12 or lower. You must then increase their opinion of you to be 75 more than (double their positive opinion of liege, or half their negative opinion of liege). Bribes are your main tool here. In some cases, you can abuse the "entrusted ward" bonus. Be sure your bribes will tip them, because your income is probably horrendous despite having a bit of cash.

Hopefully you can quickly find someone with 15+ skill, going straight down the list. Eventually you will find that charitable great steward with the cruel greedy arbitrary liege. If you're incredibly patient, you can sometimes grab unmarried men by suggesting for them a wife who would hate their liege, and then inviting their wife.

Using your new court

Your invitations are now flying through the air via the magic medieval post office. You may also be putting down a rebellion from a failed imprisonment. Luckily, those who witnessed your tyrannical attempt at imprisonment are gone, and by the time you put down the rebellion, you will have a free revoke. If you can't revoke due to Crown Authority then you may end up killing/banishing again but for only one or two with any new vassals starting with +20 it isn't as big of a deal.

Arrange marriages

Find wives for your unmarried men, focusing on women who will tutor your future council members and heirs. Also consider marrying in high-intrigue, content women so you can plot against other courtiers as needed.

You may wish to leave lowborn councilors unmarried, so that when they die, you inherit back the bribes and salaries you paid them.

Council tasks

The main reason you kept the baronies in your capital is for your marshal and steward to apply their magic. If you own a city, you get -75% to income. However, if you got a decent steward and he applies a +50% it's only -25%. If you have Trade Practices 2 then it's only -5%. With much higher income cities, you will quickly notice your capital city outstripping any castle you have. Temples remain negligibly useful with sub-castle income but I keep them in the capital until I have something better simply for the levies, which brings me to the fact that the marshal job will also increase levies for all your holdings in a county, so the 300 to 375 troops with just the castle becomes a 700 to a respectable 1k-ish combat group. Just so you know, even if you get it to the point where you have no penalty it will always be annoyingly red with the icon up top.

Send your spymaster to Study Technology in a province where key technologies are higher than your capital. Most likely, you want to improve Legalism and Military Organization. The following locations are frequently good: Firenze in Italy (later starts), Alexandria in Egypt, Constantinople in Greece, and Dwin in Armenia.

Your chancellor should probably be sent to Improve Relations with a scary neighbor or a powerful vassal. This is less because the diplomacy mission is secretly useful and more because it has no chance of dying and keeps him from leading troops. The chaplain is probably busy converting but after that just put him on Culture research to improve Legalism.

Preparing your realm for long-term survival

Start upgrading your holdings, beginning with your capital's castle. If you expect to stay in your location for a while, start with economic buildings, so you can upgrade military buildings faster in the future. If you stay put for a long time, it may be worthwhile to also upgrade your city and then your church, even though you only get some of their income. See Holdings#Strategies.

Acquire a coastal duchy. The maneuverability of ships gives you many advantages in warfare. You may even be able to defend against larger enemies, by offloading your army into enemy territory just long enough to distract their army from sieges in your realm.

Once you get to the point where you own at least an entire duchy of coastal provinces without conquest modifiers, you are now officially a monster yourself and unlikely to be wiped out (except by disasters such as a Jihad). I will leave this guide at that point, as you are not a small fish any more and should be able to pursue normal avenues of conquest/expansion.

I hope this guide helps and feel free to post any feedback in the discussion page.

指南