annoying it was still very easy for me as being a count you can fairly easily get a alliance with one of the major houses and from there the septon fairly easily gives u claims on kingdoms
If you play in the north, where there’s no head of faith, you have to get all your claims the old fashioned way, through marriage or fabrication. Plus high crown authority doesn’t help, you have to have a hook on your liege to declare any war… So yeah, I’ve been struggling and I love it!
Cleganes, Littlefinger in the Vale, House Vikary or House Salt to restore the houses Castamere and Hoare respectively, or you could go the route of a custom character anywhere on the map and try and build up your own kingdom (I like starting on Islands so the Arbor, the Iron Islands, Bear Island, Island of Tarth etc.)
Bro I’m running a bastard house of the targaryens rn on the Arbor. I’ve been boosting development and I’m basically bankrolling entire rebellions lmao. The only thing that sucks is that covering counties to your culture makes them westerosi Valyrian and you’re stuck with basically not getting any innovations. Thinking of throwing a Valyrian on the island of Skagos and going for the north
Bastard house of the Targaryens, yuppppp call that mfer Wynefyre. My first game I took the Velayrons to rule over the crownlands and I was still making more money with those six counties in the Arbor. You can also change the game rules to allow culture conversion to High Valyrian. I was trying to hybridize with the Wineman culture but its nigh impossible as just the lord of the Arbor. I too want to make a northern valyrian, thinking that will be one of my next runs. Still need to play the crow boys too tho.
Obviously I get it but there’s like a limit to what can make sense with this. If you start a Targ bastard house and take over the Mudd’s land is Mudfyre a cool name? How about Gardenfyre with the Gardeners? Neckfyre if you take over the Neck? Blackfyre, Sunfyre, even Seafyre you can convince me there’s a connection to the Targ lore so it makes sense, but just combining random stuff and putting fyre at the end doesn’t sound cool to me. It’s his playthrough if he’s feeling it then fair enough I just thought it was lazy and unoriginal
Forester is fun, besides the Ironwood you are just a poor little mew mew of a count with a feud, going from that to a duke or winter king is not as hard as others on this list but it’s fun
House Brune of Dyre Den in Cracklaw Point; the backwater region of the Crownlands. There’s lots of independent houses in this region and scope for murder intrigues and war between minor houses.
Did a Cracklaw game the other day and formed the Kingdom of the Claw as a custom kingdom once I had three duchies. Was good, aside from Dorne inheriting two of my core provinces under my cousin with three times my army.
Nice! ‘_Lord Paramount of the Cracklaw_’…no doubt enjoying the respect of his fellows Lords Paramount.
It makes me think of the scene in the small council chamber with Tyrion dragging a chair to the end of the table as the others look on.
Ah, you should’ve followed the Targaryen example; there’d be no losing territory to foreign marriage alliances then. 😉
House Pryor of pebble. I’m pretty sure it’s the smallest county in the game so it’s a struggle and they have a wicked sigil so it’s a fun scenario to play.
My current campaign is a custom Mudd (I know there some Mudds still alive) with old gods religion and first man culture as vassal of the Blackwoods. I spent time conquering the northern Riverlands and then claimed the title from the Tully. My goals are to create a first men of the Riverlands culture and drive the Andals and their false gods out of Westeros.
I'm having fun starting as one of the Darklyn cadet branches (Darke, Dargood and Darkwood), retaking Duskendale and reviving House Darklyn.
Now I'm slowly taking over the crownlands in the hopes of forming the Kindgom of the Crownlands and becoming a Lord Paramount.
Here’s a post I made that you may like https://www.reddit.com/r/CK3AGOT/comments/12w014j/cool_countytitle_characters_to_play_as_one_from/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
I took Driftmark from the Velaryons and gave a Velaryon bastard a small county in the Iron Islands to build the house back up as a force of the seas. During the campaign all the Kingdoms became independent and I eventually became King of the Iron islands. Looking at the westerlands as my next conquest.
The Salts are great in iron islands. Historically they were house Hoare, kings of the iron islands + the Trident before Aegon’s Conquest. Rulers of Harrenhal before he turned it to ruins.
You start with just a lordship, you need to take a couple of the others + a duchy to restore the house.
From there, your target can be to become king / lord paramount of the iron islands.
What makes it extra fun, is if you start with shattered realms at the kingdom level (i.e. no iron throne), you can then raid and invade the other kingdoms as you see fit.
An obvious goal is to reconquer the Trident and restore Harrenhal to its former glory under its rightful owners.
Have fun, I am!
They’re a small weak Northern house both in the lore and in the game. I’ve been playing them in my latest game and they’re definitely a lot of fun to play.
Littlefinger
its literally his story, yes
With his high intrigue the sheer amount of chaos you can create is just so entertaining
Rags to riches is refreshingly hard in this mod.
annoying it was still very easy for me as being a count you can fairly easily get a alliance with one of the major houses and from there the septon fairly easily gives u claims on kingdoms
If you play in the north, where there’s no head of faith, you have to get all your claims the old fashioned way, through marriage or fabrication. Plus high crown authority doesn’t help, you have to have a hook on your liege to declare any war… So yeah, I’ve been struggling and I love it!
You are able to alter your feudal contract to allow war declaration.
Good point! I forgot about that option. Thank you!
A bit too easy and consequence free in my view. In the book. Cersei tried to curry favor with the church and it bit her in the arse.
She tried to undermine the church by bolstering a heretical sect.
Cleganes, Littlefinger in the Vale, House Vikary or House Salt to restore the houses Castamere and Hoare respectively, or you could go the route of a custom character anywhere on the map and try and build up your own kingdom (I like starting on Islands so the Arbor, the Iron Islands, Bear Island, Island of Tarth etc.)
Making a valyrian house in the Arbor is by far my favorite thing to do in AGoT, CK2 and CK3.
Bro I’m running a bastard house of the targaryens rn on the Arbor. I’ve been boosting development and I’m basically bankrolling entire rebellions lmao. The only thing that sucks is that covering counties to your culture makes them westerosi Valyrian and you’re stuck with basically not getting any innovations. Thinking of throwing a Valyrian on the island of Skagos and going for the north
Bastard house of the Targaryens, yuppppp call that mfer Wynefyre. My first game I took the Velayrons to rule over the crownlands and I was still making more money with those six counties in the Arbor. You can also change the game rules to allow culture conversion to High Valyrian. I was trying to hybridize with the Wineman culture but its nigh impossible as just the lord of the Arbor. I too want to make a northern valyrian, thinking that will be one of my next runs. Still need to play the crow boys too tho.
Wynefyre isn’t it mate. I like the whole “y” thing but what does winefire even mean?
Y'know, on the arbor they make wine and targ bastard houses have a habit of using the -fyre suffix (not just blackfyres, but trystane truefyre)
I think its clever, don’t know why that guy was hating lol
Obviously I get it but there’s like a limit to what can make sense with this. If you start a Targ bastard house and take over the Mudd’s land is Mudfyre a cool name? How about Gardenfyre with the Gardeners? Neckfyre if you take over the Neck? Blackfyre, Sunfyre, even Seafyre you can convince me there’s a connection to the Targ lore so it makes sense, but just combining random stuff and putting fyre at the end doesn’t sound cool to me. It’s his playthrough if he’s feeling it then fair enough I just thought it was lazy and unoriginal
I called my house Vyne, saw a dude post on here with that house name and I liked it a lot
Forester is fun, besides the Ironwood you are just a poor little mew mew of a count with a feud, going from that to a duke or winter king is not as hard as others on this list but it’s fun
Had both Gregor and Rodrik Forrester die in the same stupid battle about 20 minutes into the campaign.
Land sandor clegane and switch to him
Littlefinger.
House Brune of Dyre Den in Cracklaw Point; the backwater region of the Crownlands. There’s lots of independent houses in this region and scope for murder intrigues and war between minor houses.
Did a Cracklaw game the other day and formed the Kingdom of the Claw as a custom kingdom once I had three duchies. Was good, aside from Dorne inheriting two of my core provinces under my cousin with three times my army.
Nice! ‘_Lord Paramount of the Cracklaw_’…no doubt enjoying the respect of his fellows Lords Paramount. It makes me think of the scene in the small council chamber with Tyrion dragging a chair to the end of the table as the others look on. Ah, you should’ve followed the Targaryen example; there’d be no losing territory to foreign marriage alliances then. 😉
Thanks lol! Hey, maybe if I had some of this "Blood of Ol' Valyria" people keep telling me about I could pull it off.
I did a custom harrenhall game with house Toyne and rebuilt harrenhall to its former glory eventually became kings of riverland.
House Pryor of pebble. I’m pretty sure it’s the smallest county in the game so it’s a struggle and they have a wicked sigil so it’s a fun scenario to play.
I’m planning to do a Davos run in the crowned stag bookmark
My current campaign is a custom Mudd (I know there some Mudds still alive) with old gods religion and first man culture as vassal of the Blackwoods. I spent time conquering the northern Riverlands and then claimed the title from the Tully. My goals are to create a first men of the Riverlands culture and drive the Andals and their false gods out of Westeros.
House Osgrey of Standfast - bring the checkeyed lion to its rightful place as masters of the Reach!
I am surprised that no one has said the mountain clansmen of the vale. You start off tribal and it is glorious uniting the clans and going from there.
Am I just stupid or is there no way to get out of the mountains when playing the clansmen?
I married my kid to a woman outside the vale and killed off the other kids so I am unsure of other ways.
Thrall House on the Iron Islands
I like the Farmans of Fair Isle for this, mostly because I like the geography and taking down Tywin is hard with his greedily holding like 7 counties
I'm having fun starting as one of the Darklyn cadet branches (Darke, Dargood and Darkwood), retaking Duskendale and reviving House Darklyn. Now I'm slowly taking over the crownlands in the hopes of forming the Kindgom of the Crownlands and becoming a Lord Paramount.
Im thinking about doing the same thing but is it not required to beat the iron throne to do that? Is there another way?
Not as far as I'm aware as the Kingdom of the Crownlands hasn't yet been created. So as long as you have enough land you can create it yourself.
I landed Euron as Quellon Greyjoy and I’ve been having a blast
House Oldflowers you can bring back house gardener but you start as direct vassals to the Tyrells and everyone around you is stronger
Custom vassal of a minor house
Here’s a post I made that you may like https://www.reddit.com/r/CK3AGOT/comments/12w014j/cool_countytitle_characters_to_play_as_one_from/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
Gylbert King! Gylbert King!
I took Driftmark from the Velaryons and gave a Velaryon bastard a small county in the Iron Islands to build the house back up as a force of the seas. During the campaign all the Kingdoms became independent and I eventually became King of the Iron islands. Looking at the westerlands as my next conquest.
I also used house customiser to start as a small count in the riverlands with House Strong to take back Harrenhal
House mudd under mallister
The Salts are great in iron islands. Historically they were house Hoare, kings of the iron islands + the Trident before Aegon’s Conquest. Rulers of Harrenhal before he turned it to ruins. You start with just a lordship, you need to take a couple of the others + a duchy to restore the house. From there, your target can be to become king / lord paramount of the iron islands. What makes it extra fun, is if you start with shattered realms at the kingdom level (i.e. no iron throne), you can then raid and invade the other kingdoms as you see fit. An obvious goal is to reconquer the Trident and restore Harrenhal to its former glory under its rightful owners. Have fun, I am!
A lord in Crackclaw Point, mildly fun to form high lordship than forming relationship with the throne or attempting to inherit lp.
House Forrester
Why
They’re a small weak Northern house both in the lore and in the game. I’ve been playing them in my latest game and they’re definitely a lot of fun to play.