Hello and welcome to beautiful Lithuania!
Table of Contents
King Sventaragis (r. 1066 - 1090)
Introduction
Realms Beyond had a brief love affair with Crusader Kings 2 when it came out: there were walkthroughs and a few succession games before things dried up. I'm hoping that there's interest to do something similar with CK3 now that it has been out for a while and gotten its own first expansion which features and fleshes out the Norse characters more. However, for this game I'm going to focus less on the gameplay and more on the storytelling. Crusader Kings has always been a series about families and characters, and so to keep the thread fun and engaging I am going to gloss over a lot of technicalities and focus on the bigger stories. So if you want to know why something works or what something means in the game, you might need to ask because I'm going to try and not get too bogged down in that level of detail in my reporting.
For this game I will be playing as High Chieftain Sventaragis of Lithuania. Let's meet the fellow:
He's 42 yeras old, married, and has 1 child. At the very bottom you can see he has 4 siblings: 2 brothers and 2 sisters. His father and grandparents have died (that's how he became chief) but his mother is still alive.
Characters have 3 main personality traits, and pick up other types of traits through decisions and events along the way. Sventaragis is Content, Humble, and Gluttonous. In addition he is a Tough Soldier (education trait), a Reaver (commander trait), and Gallant (lifestyle trait).
These traits influence my character's stats, which in order are:
But Crusader Kings is more a game about famliies than individuals, and our family name is Palemonaitis. You can see our crest to the right of our traits and stats. It's a Noteworthy household name, so we're not the smallest and people have heard of us, but we aren't nearly as big as the descendants of Rurik who have created the Russian duchies to the east. The head of our house and dynasty is our cousin, High Chieftain Kukovaitis, who rules in neighboring Samogitia.
Here's how our corner of Europe looks if you are only going by Households:
Between our stats and family name you can see our religion (Vidilist) and culture (Lithuanian). I won't dig into those too much, but religions all have their own traits and bonuses, and personality traits can be either Sins or Virtues. They also influence your realm's laws and marriage. Vidilist is becoming very isolated and that will shape a lot of our diplomacy going forward. Here's a map of the local religions:
Religions also have Holy Sites, which are shown by the tree-like symbol for Vidilism. Right now we have 1 in our country, the county of Braslau. There are 2 others controlled by other Vidilist rulers, and 2 more which have been taken over by heathens(!!!)
Older tribal religions like Asatru, Slovianskan, and Vidilist are becoming more and more boxed in by the Christian religions: eggshell white Catholicism from the west and south and purple Orthodoxy in the east.
Let's look at our family more now.
We are married to High Chieftess Gaila
Gaila is Just, Diligent, and Callous, and an Astute Intellectual per her education. The Just trait is considered Virtuous by Vidilists, so she gets extra Piety each month. She has good Learning traits, average Stewardship and Intrigue, and terrible Diplomacy and Martial skills. These matter because your spouses traits will add on to yours for governing the realm.
We have a son and heir, Skirmantas:
Since Skirmantas is so young he hasn't had a chance to develop any traits yet. As he gets older he'll be assigned a guardian, who will help guide and develop his traits.
Because he's my son he also has claims on all my titles, but no lands for himself yet.
Finally, there is one more person we are going to look at for our introduction to Lithuania: our only vassal, Mingaila:
Mingaila is also of my dynasty and rules over the Chiefdom of Gardinas in the far south of Lithuania. But he also has claims on the High Chiefdom of Samotagia ruled by our cousin, as well as claims on all the individual Chiefdoms. (Chiefdom and High Chiefdom is the tribal equivalent of County and Duchy for feudal lands.) He has 3 children of his own, and likes my character will enough (+32 out of -100/100). Actually, most everybody likes the High Chieftain of Lithuania, except for my Marshall. (But Rodslaw of House Mazowiecki is a Catholic Pole, and I really have no idea how he found himself in my court as he is the only living member of his house.)
We can see how all the characters we've talked about are related better on the Palemonaitis Family Tree:
Kukovaitis shows up twice because his parents were distant cousins who married. That can happen a lot in this game, especially if you do it intentionally!
I think that's as much as I'll get into for Lithuania today. My next update will cover the life and rule of Sventaragis. I don't plan on regular updates, but I'm going to aim for somewhere around every couple days up to a week. (It will depend on how long some of these characters will live!) We'll get into what some of the prompts at the top of the screen are advisign me of and get into our lifestyle tree.
Also, if anybody has any input on how they think I should play this character or what my goals should be then I can try and incorporate those in. Should I try to press my vassal's claims and conquer my cousin's kingdom? Do I fight back against the encroaching Ruriks and Piasts? Or stay gluttonous and content in my own realm? Considering Sventaragis does like warfare I think we will need to give him 1 or 2 wars at least. I hope to role play more than power game, but if you have an idea please share!
Finally, I didn't really touch base on lifestyle, but which Lifestyle should I go for?
Our character has already filled out the Gallant branch of the Martial tree. Should we go for another Martial branch or something else altogether?
Table of Contents
King Sventaragis (r. 1066 - 1090)
- Introduction Below
- Part One: Final Preparations
- Part Two: Greatest Baltic Warrior
- Part Three: Carving a Kingdom
- Part Four: Defender of Dievas
- Part Five: Leaving a Legacy
- Interregnum Report
- Part One: The Shy King
- Part Two: How to Make Friends and Influence Vassals
- Part Three: Wars for the Holy Land
- Part Four: Uncommon Wealth
- Part Five: Lithuania Noir
- Part Six: What We Leave Our Children
Introduction
Realms Beyond had a brief love affair with Crusader Kings 2 when it came out: there were walkthroughs and a few succession games before things dried up. I'm hoping that there's interest to do something similar with CK3 now that it has been out for a while and gotten its own first expansion which features and fleshes out the Norse characters more. However, for this game I'm going to focus less on the gameplay and more on the storytelling. Crusader Kings has always been a series about families and characters, and so to keep the thread fun and engaging I am going to gloss over a lot of technicalities and focus on the bigger stories. So if you want to know why something works or what something means in the game, you might need to ask because I'm going to try and not get too bogged down in that level of detail in my reporting.
For this game I will be playing as High Chieftain Sventaragis of Lithuania. Let's meet the fellow:
He's 42 yeras old, married, and has 1 child. At the very bottom you can see he has 4 siblings: 2 brothers and 2 sisters. His father and grandparents have died (that's how he became chief) but his mother is still alive.
Characters have 3 main personality traits, and pick up other types of traits through decisions and events along the way. Sventaragis is Content, Humble, and Gluttonous. In addition he is a Tough Soldier (education trait), a Reaver (commander trait), and Gallant (lifestyle trait).
These traits influence my character's stats, which in order are:
- Diplomacy: 8
- Martial: 15
- Stewardship: 11
- Intrigue: 3
- Learning: 7
- Prowess: 15
But Crusader Kings is more a game about famliies than individuals, and our family name is Palemonaitis. You can see our crest to the right of our traits and stats. It's a Noteworthy household name, so we're not the smallest and people have heard of us, but we aren't nearly as big as the descendants of Rurik who have created the Russian duchies to the east. The head of our house and dynasty is our cousin, High Chieftain Kukovaitis, who rules in neighboring Samogitia.
Here's how our corner of Europe looks if you are only going by Households:
Between our stats and family name you can see our religion (Vidilist) and culture (Lithuanian). I won't dig into those too much, but religions all have their own traits and bonuses, and personality traits can be either Sins or Virtues. They also influence your realm's laws and marriage. Vidilist is becoming very isolated and that will shape a lot of our diplomacy going forward. Here's a map of the local religions:
Religions also have Holy Sites, which are shown by the tree-like symbol for Vidilism. Right now we have 1 in our country, the county of Braslau. There are 2 others controlled by other Vidilist rulers, and 2 more which have been taken over by heathens(!!!)
Older tribal religions like Asatru, Slovianskan, and Vidilist are becoming more and more boxed in by the Christian religions: eggshell white Catholicism from the west and south and purple Orthodoxy in the east.
Let's look at our family more now.
We are married to High Chieftess Gaila
Gaila is Just, Diligent, and Callous, and an Astute Intellectual per her education. The Just trait is considered Virtuous by Vidilists, so she gets extra Piety each month. She has good Learning traits, average Stewardship and Intrigue, and terrible Diplomacy and Martial skills. These matter because your spouses traits will add on to yours for governing the realm.
We have a son and heir, Skirmantas:
Since Skirmantas is so young he hasn't had a chance to develop any traits yet. As he gets older he'll be assigned a guardian, who will help guide and develop his traits.
Because he's my son he also has claims on all my titles, but no lands for himself yet.
Finally, there is one more person we are going to look at for our introduction to Lithuania: our only vassal, Mingaila:
Mingaila is also of my dynasty and rules over the Chiefdom of Gardinas in the far south of Lithuania. But he also has claims on the High Chiefdom of Samotagia ruled by our cousin, as well as claims on all the individual Chiefdoms. (Chiefdom and High Chiefdom is the tribal equivalent of County and Duchy for feudal lands.) He has 3 children of his own, and likes my character will enough (+32 out of -100/100). Actually, most everybody likes the High Chieftain of Lithuania, except for my Marshall. (But Rodslaw of House Mazowiecki is a Catholic Pole, and I really have no idea how he found himself in my court as he is the only living member of his house.)
We can see how all the characters we've talked about are related better on the Palemonaitis Family Tree:
Kukovaitis shows up twice because his parents were distant cousins who married. That can happen a lot in this game, especially if you do it intentionally!
I think that's as much as I'll get into for Lithuania today. My next update will cover the life and rule of Sventaragis. I don't plan on regular updates, but I'm going to aim for somewhere around every couple days up to a week. (It will depend on how long some of these characters will live!) We'll get into what some of the prompts at the top of the screen are advisign me of and get into our lifestyle tree.
Also, if anybody has any input on how they think I should play this character or what my goals should be then I can try and incorporate those in. Should I try to press my vassal's claims and conquer my cousin's kingdom? Do I fight back against the encroaching Ruriks and Piasts? Or stay gluttonous and content in my own realm? Considering Sventaragis does like warfare I think we will need to give him 1 or 2 wars at least. I hope to role play more than power game, but if you have an idea please share!
Finally, I didn't really touch base on lifestyle, but which Lifestyle should I go for?
Our character has already filled out the Gallant branch of the Martial tree. Should we go for another Martial branch or something else altogether?
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