It was an entirely peaceful conversion at that. While I was busy working the politics to get my family back in the running for Holy Roman Emperor, a mass conversion from Christianity to Islam began. That introduced some pretty, dark skinned young ladies into my bloodline who also brought with them some strange ideas about religion.

You see, while emperor, I beefed up my perceived majesty by virtue of a marriage or two between my own family and the caliphs of northern Africa and the Levant. The weirdness came from how religion is modeled in the current versions of CK2. So far, while not particularly historical, it also isn’t particularly weird.

I found myself as but one elector in the HRE body politic but, also, the king of Bavaria. In such an eventuality, the imperial title passes to a different family (in my case, they were also descendants of Charlemagne) but the player’s own royal holdings remain intact. When the death of a monarch takes place while he is in his prime and when his heir is merely a child, the Imperial Electors can be forgiven for seeking a more mature alternative. It is possible to manage the process and control the passage of imperial throne to a relation of your choosing but it is also easy to lose control of that process. Based on what I’ve learned this year, this seems to be a key element of playing the HRE in CK2. My alternative history of medieval Europe really started going off the rails when I lost control of the Holy Roman Empire courtesy of a lack of support for a too-young heir. It’s a bit of a weird start, so I’ll tell you how I got here before getting into some details regarding the conversion process. My ambition, by that time, was to make it until the end of the CK2 timeline and continue the game in Europa Universalis IV.Īs I explained before, despite my explicit desire to avoid starting the game as England, I’m starting my EU4 portion of the game as England.

I previously let you know about it when I got to 1336, proud to still be keeping the bloodline going (which is the raison d’être of CK2 after all). Back when I was toying with Field of Glory‘s scripting and early-medieval battles, I started a campaign in Crusader Kings II, playing as an heir to Charlemagne. You may have noticed that I dropped hints about some gaming I’ve been doing – it is something I’ve been at it for most of 2021.

Crusader kings 2 got