Hardest Starts in Modded CK3

[@JJ-sq1fv]

Hardest start is whatever i pick because i am bad at the game 🗿🗿🗿🗿

[@Soul_Tomato]

Me in every strategy game 🤝

[@TrajGreekFire]

The upcoming Crabfeeder might be harder than Maelys

[@Soul_Tomato]

Oh I’m sure but the update didn’t beat this video (to my dismay)

[@TrajGreekFire]

@@Soul_Tomato hopefully it will release before the end of summer

[@zackhawn5944]

Are they adding more bookmarks along with Dragons?

[@TrajGreekFire]

@@zackhawn5944 yeah Rogue Prince has Viserys, Colrys, Deamon and Drahar with Qhorin Martell missing for some reason

[@Soul_Tomato]

Dance of the Dragons bookmark seems confirmed by dev diaries

[@TheSoliization]

that absolute monstrosity behind maelys will forever haunt my nightmares

[@Diciotto_amaro5]

I did a nice campaign as black numenoreans in Realms in exile, if they did not remove it yet the emperor gets a chance to migrate towards the ex-capital of arnor in the middle between gondor and aragorn in the north, you get quite a nice space for expansion, but your faith gets you enemies and your genetics usually go up in smoke quite fast. Nonetheless, purge purge purge!

[@Soul_Tomato]

I think the Black Numenoreans are actually pretty strong tbh because their unique MAA are so strong

[@Diciotto_amaro5]

@@Soul_Tomato the royal guards are quite nice, but their culture misses a monster MAA, unlike many others that can create hybrid cultures easily, they are isolated from having an op army like other major players in the world. Still in my top 10 though

[@dragonking4756]

To hold the western roman empire together as a custom character is easy but as honorius its really Hard

[@Soul_Tomato]

Historically accurate honorius

[@snipsmcgee9386]

8:10 The "Harkonnens" 😂

[@hawkinthebox4695]

I kept hearing that too 🤣

[@Blablatomatos]

Here's a few more I'd suggest for hard starts Galapagos islands (After the End) not nearly as hard as Svalbard but both are isolationist and the Galapagos counties are only 1 holding so hunts are physically impossible. Devving is also easier. The only option for growing traits in your family is getting them early on and marrying into the family to upgrade them. Siberian opms (After the End) 3 development, barely any development to expand into and raid, and larger countries around you that will prey on you if you try to expand. Woodhearth (EK2) you're in the middle of an unwinnable war and are soon to be hit with more, but it offersa really cool necromancer larp if you're into that That's all I can come up with off the top of my head anyways, there's certainly a lot more.

[@Soul_Tomato]

Thanks for the additions!

[@wyssmatt2804]

For Elden kings 2 i recommend a goblin playthrough, it's not that easy and really fun to have to go from absolute scratch to a great empire

[@Soul_Tomato]

Gobbo mode always a good mode

[@billykid6745]

mhm I agree, goblins and rieklings have it rough, playing a riekling is hard because of how often you get raided or declared war from the more powerful dark elves near you; and goblins are just tough to find any good alliances, especially if you're playing one of the goblin starts in the summerset isles

[@firespark8455]

Bronze Age gutians is really difficult with the Sumerian revolt like you mentioned. Fallen eagle also has the hunnic invasions of India which if you start as a weak ruler next to the Huns you could be in for a bad time. I also think in 532 the Rouran are only a few decades out from bumin’s revolt. When the 632 start date comes out both Sassanids and eastern Rome will be really difficult especially if they recreated what they did for belisarius with Khalid ibn al walid.

[@Soul_Tomato]

Oh yeah totally forgot about the small hunnic tribes. They get wrecked lol

[@kanokun18]

I feel like i got lucky with my Maelys start, Aegon didnt fight me until i took over all of Essos and the stepstones. I bought all the mercenary companies i could then invaded dorne. Before the baratheons arrived i already sacked Sunspear and the armies of the seven kingdoms kept coming one at a time. So by the time the bulk of their forces came to dorne i already had a high war score. Managed to bait their main army with 1000 levies then swung my 50k behind them and kept dividing and conquering them. Won the war, killed off all the Targaryen men, killed all the women except 16 year old Rhaella and took her as a queen captive. Kicked the Lannisters out of Casterly Rock and gave the Westerlands to the Reynes, slaughtered the Tulleys, and gave the Reach to Derrick Fossoway. Baratheons tried to make their own kingdom. Killed Steffon Baratheon and his wife then raised Robert myself. Had a bunch of kids that were suspiciously getting assassinated or disappearing. Maelys ended up dying at like 60 and his 9 year old son Daeron was make king at 9. Robert was his hand, he married a Reyne girl and all was well.... except the endless rebellions, so many rebellions.

[@wallybonejengles5595]

When I played the Monstrous I went along the chivalrous path and did not sacrifice the lad. This allowed me to betroth him to a Tyrell and get an alliance. I ended up winning by taking Dragonstone fast. That is the heirs seat and a direct Targaryen holding. The AI wants it back. With all my allies gathered there I beat back the main host while the Reach (I got lucky) caused distractions. We moved on to Kingslanding while they retreated to the sea and won the war. Barristan was defeated in single combat. Though the things he did to get there were never forgotten, the rule of the Monstrous was long and well remembered. The vassal lords who fought against him were banished to the wall, and their sons allowed to take up their inheritance. The former king and his heir were sent as well. He chose to marry the younger bride, and raised her son to be Lord Paramount of the Stepstones. Then he raised the descendants of Aerion Brightflame to rule the Disputed Lands. He began to cover up his conjoined twin and address the divisions within the realm. He unified the house of the dragon and peacefully reformed the faith of the Seven, With the King as its High Septon. This faith embraced the wisdom of the North and their Old Gods, and the entire realm save for stubborn pockets of the zealous converted willfully. Even the Ironborn were brought into the fold. Maelys Blackfyre ruled until the age of 89 and his son ruled for long after him, and then his son died fighting pirate raids in the Stepstones. It was then Queen Daenys Blackfyre who lost to a rebellion and was usurped by a Rosby for some reason.

[@TheyAreInTheSky]

I hear Chrono Trigger music and I'm already locked in.

[@Soul_Tomato]

Ah a fellow of taste and quality

[@HontounoShiramizu]

It's hard to listen to the video when you're humming the tune to yourself though. And it's impossible not to do that.

[@chrisrubin6445]

Basically no economy? the Iron Islands have like 7 mines! I always conquer them just to steal the mining revenue!

[@Soul_Tomato]

Mines are alright but the development is like 2 across the whole thing

[@ZMorri]

The mines are heavily nerfed in the Iron Islands. Better than nothing of course, but all give something like .4 gold instead of the 1.0+ most players are used to with mines.

[@Totidoful]

You underestimate how much money you can make by raiding western Essos. With building gold income nerfed in AGOT, raiding is overpowered. And the free cities are rich and give ann easy step ladder as you consolidate more lands and can gradually raid the more powerful free cities. Then you can hybridize to fix dev and get independence if you want. I did this in a run when the 7 Kingdoms stayed united and it felt easier and so much faster than most starts in AGOT

[@instantcookedromancazk9557]

After Watching this video and knowing that I’ve successfully won as Maelys, Iron islands, and Black Numenoreans I will now try to play every challenging position in this video, starting with Narsus because he seems to have the most masochistic start.

[@Soul_Tomato]

Narsus is literally the hardest start I think in any ck3 mod so if you can do it you’ve basically won

[@fiestofelix4455]

Check out Astuar_Estuar post on his Narses run on the Godherja subreddit. He did a interesting strat combining hiding behind forts, attrition and AI abuse... Still took him several restarts if I'm not mistaken

[@instantcookedromancazk9557]

@@fiestofelix4455 damn I’ve got my work cut out for me then, that Reddit guy used just about every defensive trick in the book while leading a mostly ai horde.

[@HontounoShiramizu]

One way I've found to win impossible wars was to have an army leader with the organizer trait and split your army so that your main force (or big enough force to be of interest to the enemy) baits enemy armies in a wild goose chase while a smaller group slowly sieges the enemy territory. In a defensive war just running in circles can be a winning strategy, but you will lose a lot of money for the upkeep.

[@cub-square]

Jokes on you I played Svalbard and it was amazing. It was hard and I had to play smart. In three lifetimes i forged an High Kingdom of Arctis. It was my fave playthrou until new version broke it😢 Edit: Jokes on me in previous version they had diplo range. Kinda stupid decision on dev part imo

[@cub-square]

Raiding was tough, no one likes you, your de jure king is quite strong. I conquered him by using a succesion crysis of guys who vassalized me

[@Soul_Tomato]

Yeah the diplo range negation sucks but isn’t there a perk you can get to extend it?

[@lobo2367]

Would be interesting if you also added how hard they are overall. "This is the hardest start in any mod." "This is kinda hard in the mod, but easier that vanilla CK3." etc

[@geokou7645]

Again with every single CK3 video I see I think of how it would apply to a dune mod and get sad it doesn’t exist.

[@Soul_Tomato]

@@geokou7645 man a dune mod would be sick tbh

[@D0ban]

The idea of playing as the Maormer and invading Tamriel is so entertaining but it's above my skill level for sure

[@Soul_Tomato]

It’s great fun for sure. Just takes a few tries for the RNG to not instantly f you over

[@just_addd_water_to_your_ramen]

​@@Soul_Tomato another so.ewhat hard start is as the Duchess of Kogoruhn in EK2

[@dogdog2098]

Top things to do in Alinor: 1: Leave

[@aryianmirzaie6670]

Was chilling and watching the video and remembered we still don't have warhammer mod for ck3... BTW love what you doing in the channel

[@Soul_Tomato]

Warhammer mod is in work from what I know but when I tried to reach out to the team they poopooed any further inquiry. But thanks!

[@aryianmirzaie6670]

@@Soul_Tomato thanks for the information

[@dogdog2098]

An interesting challenge run is to play with the Ayleids in valenwood. These are the degenerate Daedra worshipping ones who fought against Alessia and Pelinal and fled after their defeats against the imperials. Their religion makes them evil to basically everyone because they are fundamentalists and worship Daedra and they also have to deal with having warmongerer as one of their religious traits. However if you’re able to stabilize in one way or another they snowball really hard because their faith is built for war and you can hybridize your culture with the wood elves

[@varancz82]

Yes, AGOT is there

[@Soul_Tomato]

Of course

[@varancz82]

I would cry after all that videos about interesting houses and then it wouldn't be here​@@Soul_Tomato

[@Soul_Tomato]

Hahaha no I wouldn’t forget my roots like that

[@lauritsballing2629]

8:09 the spice must flow

[@safruddinaly5822]

Really love agot and godherja starr

[@aru2577]

memories coming back to me with the chrono trigger bgm

[@Soul_Tomato]

One of my favorites

[@joshraymond979]

theirs a pronvince in brazil that is one county and is the genuine house that ruled brazil during the empire period she starts off with a claim to

[@Soul_Tomato]

That’s true. Put that in one of my 20 interesting facts videos I did for AtE actually

[@georgestoebig105]

TIL there’s a World of Darkness mod for CK3 that I definitely want to try now.

[@Soul_Tomato]

Oh dude it’s HUGE

[@aldogga3320]

Hey Soul Tomato love ur vids. If I had one suggestion tho, I would love to see some more Princes of Darkness content, I feel like I never hear enough about that mod.

[@Soul_Tomato]

It’s a big mod but it’s also a setting I’m not terribly interested in which I think is the same for a lot of people. It’s very well done but unless you like LOVE vampires and werewolves and stuff it’s just not that interesting thematically. I’ve played a little of it (and have a recent video of it) and plan to come back after the new update.

[@mine0lord027]

I might do a guide how to beat cenware as narces. I have done it several times and it is probably the hardest thing in ck3. Would really recommend it anyway since it becomes unbelievably fun when you start to win battles.

[@Soul_Tomato]

That would go hard

[@ShadowWolfRising]

There needs to be more Let's Plays of the Maormer.

[@Soul_Tomato]

I may come back to it once the mod updates

[@kaiser9488]

I've played Soissons for hours and I just can't beat the Franks, I've come a long way so I could retry but I feel like the Franks will just hand it to me again. If i remember correctly, Afrianus has kind of trash stats, not a lot of money, and not too many good alliances that won't take a year to come reinforce you.

[@johnquach8821]

What do you think is the hardest Realms in Exile Lotr start? I wonder...

[@Soul_Tomato]

Hardest is Balin rn easily

[@johnquach8821]

@@Soul_Tomato Ok that makes sense due to Balrog struggle mechanics and is lore accurate.

[@Otterly_luna]

This was an amazing video idea! :D

[@Soul_Tomato]

Thanks!

[@wokealarm6203]

starting a blackfyre aint no joke

[@Soul_Tomato]

Blackfyres are unironically my favorite house because I love fighting against the odds

[@amalekh]

As for EK2 you should've included wood orcs in the middle of wood elf lands. You are very much surrounded, always outnumbered by elven alliances and always attacked by them. In mine playthrought only through MAA abuse I was able to survive being declared every year with 20k elven troops

[@Soul_Tomato]

Ah yeah a good choice too

[@mine0lord027]

Maelys got stupid hard after they added loyalty factions. (I don't know if they fixed it yet.) Since even if you got a Allie like dorne or the reach they might be in such a faction. making it impossible for them to join your side. no matter how much they like you.

[@gogollephilosophe8013]

Nice ! I tried Honorius but I didn't success because the cohesion system of this mod is really unforgiving

[@Soul_Tomato]

Oh yeah he’s Herculean for a reason

[@ethienosinsky5186]

Sygarius is bloody impossible unless you get a lucky assassination against the Frankish king

[@Soul_Tomato]

Lore accurate Sygarius be like

[@ShayGamerD3]

I agree that AGOT is rather peaceful mod overall. With Melesys, though, while it's difficult, you need to win just a single war, and then you're relegated to managing Iron Throne, which is rather boring, especially that early in the game, when no serious issues can arise. I hope they'll make Wildling invasion event and White Walkers invasion event, otherwise, whenever I reach Iron Throne level, or even sometimes paramountcy level, I usually stop playing, since you're relegated to manager then.

[@Soul_Tomato]

I think a lot of excitement is going to have to come from invasions and such yeah

[@konyjoseph8731]

Wish i saw what your thoughts would have been on the hardest start in Guardians of Azeroth mod as i myself just gotten into it.

[@Soul_Tomato]

I never play it unfortunately :(

[@cathulionetharn5139]

Regarding the godherja one, -Sjalvolki emperor gets like 10k huscarls, and he has the perk that makes them have siege ability BUT ai is braindead, and if you can get them to try to chase you and break sieges to chase you or to break your sieges they eventually die to starvation I had to change character and gift myself gold to not run out on just paying my units wages tho, maybe if I finicked with royal court I could be more efficient Another threat is the vassal swarm, you basically have to try and kill them without getting caught by main stack AND kill them one by one so they don't stuck up on you. Mind that was like before tournaments? I think?

[@Soul_Tomato]

Hmmm so I wonder if the same would apply today

[@wolffrdu6463]

The hardest in elderking 2 is the malapiit khajiit, one he is a vassal of an imperial with a faith that hate you, two, every other vassal is the faith as the lord and their faith start with an holly order at the start of the game so you will have holly order whipe your ass if you do not take attention to the piety of the other vassal you attack, and third, verry hard to find any allies because you are a count, at least when you wait for the assassination to be done you can raid, but since your army is small you will get reght often Edit : ho and elswere can come and took the land you are in loosing the game (they do not do holly war)

[@Soul_Tomato]

Oh that sounds awful lol

[@liamhowlin5936]

Even if you beat the Franks as Soisson different tribes do the same thing the Franks do. Makes it borderline unplayable. Like what’s the point if every 10 years a 12k army shows up on my border

[@Soul_Tomato]

Some of those invasions are pretty easy tbf. You kinda gotta blob up and be strong enough when they come to take the force

[@randomelite4562]

Man, I’d love to do a hardest run for Shogunate… if the Asia mods actually worked in MacOS

[@Soul_Tomato]

Do they not?

[@melvinbrotherofthejoker436]

Bro bought a Mac 😂

[@randomelite4562]

@@Soul_Tomato They don’t sadly

[@UCeagle79]

This is great video idea. Also do you know where the best place to find mod lists or how to install complicated mods like the mods that combine total war / crusader kings / bannerlords? I

[@Soul_Tomato]

If you go to my overview video on crusader wars I explain how to install it. I also have a general video explaining how to install mods. For more complex lists just pay attention to requirements and what the mod itself impacts. I typically go less is more but people can run 50+ mods no issues too

[@shinsenshogun900]

How about a hard start in the Asia Expansion mof in the Far East?

[@Soul_Tomato]

I’ve yet to try Asia Expansion so that will have to wait until next month when I give it a more proper look

[@dogdog2098]

Another fun challenge run in elder kings are the imga of valenwood 🦍🦍🦍

[@Soul_Tomato]

Oh for sure. I’ve done one on the channel

[@wilhelm7450]

Is Shogunate updated to latest version?

[@Soul_Tomato]

I think so

[@TrajGreekFire]

Realms in Exile has no chapter

[@Soul_Tomato]

Should be fixed now. Accidentally added a space near the time stamp

[@TrajGreekFire]

@@Soul_Tomato and more comments for the algorithm

[@omarwaleed3342]

EZ

[@Soul_Tomato]

Skill issues all around

[@TheWaywardWanderer.]

First

[@Soul_Tomato]

Nice