CK3 Best Strategy to Make CRAZY GOLD! - Playing TALL Guide 

Consider joining the discord! a great community over there already! - discord.gg/XZ3sm8kNbp

[Quote] "So you can better focus on each character's story." - A perfect reason why this strategy looks so interesting and fun! Great video; I'm really beginning to realise that having dozens of vassals, courtiers and kids running around your court is more trouble than it is worth!

The thing with the cities is interesting. I always thought that castles grant you more gold, because you directly hold them. Especially given that you can't hold cities yourself.

I always play tall in every strategy game I've played, all the way back to Civ II, so this is really handy. For some reason it's a relatively unpopular strategy, so having a guide for it right off the bat is neat.

Sardinia is great. It has a special silver mine that gives you a good amount of gold. Every county can have one or more trade ports. And it's easily defensible with a smaller force. You can hit enemies as soon as they land while they are suffering from the Recently Disembarked penalty. And if they try to run from you they will suffer a ton of attrition.

Playing like this is very effective, it can allow you to focus on your primary duchy holdings and empowering you to punch WAY above your weight and expand into a larger kingdom/empire if you so chose to later, also it helps a lot with succession crisis' due to you being so rich it makes it easier to reclaim lost holdings with men at arms or mercenaries if necessary.

I tried it as bohemia and it worked very well: the HRE protects you early, and you own entirely your province and it's the only area with czech culture, so no inheritance problems and you can grow your average development. When you feel confident in your gold, you can just claim the throne or easily get elected. The only real negative is that your capital is hills, so it's a tiny penalty. Whatever you do, aim to conquer Baghdad as soon as you can: the house of wisdom is INSANE for playing tall, it gives you a ton of learning and it's an extremely high development area.

10/10 editing unironically. Quick short edits that explain enough and keep the video easy to make are my favorites. Means there's more chance for a second or third video.

I also add Wiseman Trait to my character so that every 5 yrs I can "Hold Mystical Communion" which gives you 300 learning xp +1 to learning & Marshall as well as stress loss it only costs 100 piety.

I'm in the middle of a game where I started out as sardinia. Played tall till it was maxed out - mines and all. Then I worked my way through Africa down to Mali where I took the Manding province with their two gold mines. Imposed my sardinian culture on them and after maxing everything I earned a little short of 400 gold a month.

I have done a Hybrid Tall Wide empire on the game im playing right now, i began as the lower counties of sardinia and played tall for some time, then i began conquering the mediteranean islands, and developing them as well,on the mid game i began conquering the mainland, first Tunis, then Hispania, North Africa in general, by this time i created my own faith, things began escalating from here, and now in 1062 i reached the high middle ages, and conquered and restored the Roman Empire.What i learned from all this, is that CK3 is quite easy compared to CK2. My dinasty is close to 1000 members and due to the faith, they are all super humans, and many are perfected ones. ps:Used the fate mod.

Watching this video again after a year, definitely one of the best videos on CK3, thank you.

Amazing, incredible, fantastically helpful. Even if going wider at some point, these tips/strategy are helpful.

Thank you for that video. It was really well explained.

I recently picked up the game and as soon as I kinda-sorta figured out what I was doing, this was the strategy I instinctually gravitated towards. Maybe it's because I hate going to war so much or maybe it's because I really like to nurture and invest in a manageable number of characters and holdings, but this play style is INFINITELY more enjoyable to me than trying to conquer half a continent for the hell of it.

Awesome guide Considering to take Hæsstein of Montaigu, then take over Sicily and just build that up. The raiding should provide a good deal of early cash, and there'd be an army to protect early game. Looks like Sicily has both farmlands and a mine

Just started playing the game a few days ago and I'm absolutely hooked. I suck more than a vacuum cleaner at the game atm but I really want to try playing tall like this.

a lot of the time i never go larger than a kingdom or dutchy for the reasons you mentioned...its nice ruling over 5-10 people instead of 25+.... just grant independence and retake the land a couple generations later to grant it out again.... there does come a point to where you make more gold than you know what to do with...

I guess I never really thought about doing a playthrough like this however you’ve given me some really good ideas going forward with a new Play through I’m just gonna be the money man that funnels all of his gold to the king and his army in order to conquer the whole world

Some great ideas. Thanks !

great humor and very helpful. THANK YOU

If I recall, Aquitaine France has either special French buildings or super good land. My Hapsburg ruled Burgundy really enjoyed the riches the French donated to me. Funded my personal expulsion from the HRE.

I think you have explained an otherwise rather boring topic in a really entertaining way, i especially liked your video editing. keep up the good work.

Dont forget to take the "This is my domain!" unlock under the Avaricious lifestyle tree since extortion (while nerfed) is still very strong. You just have to remember to have atleast one count level vassal.

Loved the Representations! they are very funny

Just discovered these videos, they are awesome!

Interesting idea: play tall in ck3 try to get your dynasty on as many independent thrones as possible then convert to eu4 and try to PU them all

Nice guide, it really helped me out! Can you make an intrigue guide next?

One more thing for the tech tree There are some focuses that increase the development limit to increase the rate of development even further I believe it’s in the bottom left of civic

Wouldn’t playing as a smaller culture also help? If you play as the duke of Brittany or Bohemia you can pretty much guarantee your character to be the cultural head, allowing you to pick innovations like manorialism. Also the Czechs in particular have the Kutna Hora silver mine, which takes in the beaucoup bucks

Thanks for the video! Informative and enjoyable! Keep it up :D

I love playing like this, It's a nice break from the wars and murder. It makes the game really oddly relaxing to me when I can just chill and watch numbers go up lmao

Amazing video. Haven't found good tutorials for ck3 yet. I like your style. Also to add to the list of possible places for building tall: the kingdom of Egypt because of the flooded plains. You can build one thing there that gives you massive boni as well. Then Sicily cause of the mine. And India in general especially Sri Lanka

thank you for this video. I am new to the Game and was struggling, this has help me alot. THANK YOU!

What I did was start as Austria in 867, which is a count at first but very quickly your liege will become a king so you can create the duchy title. There’s a farmlands tile there + a university. Then I collected a lot of prestige and created a divergent culture with Industrious, Garden Architects, Pacifist, Agrarian. The rest of the stuff I did was what you suggest in your video, also, holding feasts a lot helps with the development of the county. Then I just watched my development skyrocket and in a short while I was earning twice as much as the Byzantine emperor.

Superb vid. Thank you

You only make full gold on the domain that you hold directly, if you lease it to vassal, you get only 10 percent. I make a similar and took Paris. I built up paris, and hold all the barony by myself, and i was a king with only one county. I ended up making a lot of gold from just paris alone, and I don't have to worry about succession because my heir will always get the kingdom capital.

In my opinion the best place to play tall in is Sardinia. In a few holdings, there is an insanely broken mine building which gives a ton of gold per month. Plus it is an island and mainland empires very rarely try to take it over.

Great stuff, I like this path. Some of this I've stumbled on in my playthroughs, but several are new to me and will be very helpful. Like the new religion - I've always been hesitant but maybe I should try it.

Very good guide. And the little animation in the start was fun.

Fantastic vid, thanks

Amazing video, thanks

10/10 Editing! 😂👍

im going to try this!

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this on this channel already but I don’t playing in the HRE is a good choice for tall players, I started as Holland with a few counties and a tall game plan but then I got elected by the HRE which will happen if you become too tall, and once you are emperor you can’t abdicate or anything

Love the shoutout to spiff

On God forming the arch duchy of Austria is the single most fun vanilla start i ever did, it’s small enough to play tall and big enough to dream. Especially since it has such rich history, as Austria was a major player in the germanic world through nearly all of its history. I found that playthrough really let me balance learning the balance between conquest, negotiations and intrigue

When you were talking about how development is key all I could think of is Steve Ballmer

Bottom half of Cagliari has the silver mine as a special building in the capital which boosts gold per month by a full three, Sardinia is pretty nice for tall play too not to mention you have the option to attempt to take rome

Loved this vid, great humor. Take my sub

10/10 Editing!

Pagan (Burma) is extremely good for playing tall as well. The special building in the capital makes nice gold once you build it, lots of farmland in the area as well. Additionally, India is just a stone's throw away.

Started as a county in Corsica quickly rushed Sardinia to get those sweet sweet mines in Cagliari and now I have 20k in my treasury. Declared war on the Pope, never got excommunicated, took Rome and now I have more gold than I know what to do with. Playing tall is really broken.

Thanks for the info!

The Kushite religion (related to ancient egyptians and shit) has two holy sites that give stewardship for level of devotion. So t max devotion you get +10 stewardship and thus +2 domain. Egypt and Nubia also have floodplains which are insanely good although they lack manor houses.

Great guide

try playing as the bryzantines, their court chaplain can accumilate 20,000-50,000 within a century, all you need to do is to jail them (you ending up with little tyrant penalty) and banish them, taking over of all their gold, it works atleast in my gameplay, making me the richest guy in the whole map.

When does the making glass monument become available? Started with a character like you showed, in Bohemia, and it does not appear. Do i have to get out of Tribal first? Thanks for this guide. Looking forward to trying it.

My favorite thing to do in ck2 was to try to install my family members as the rulers of far off duchies and kingdoms. Only had control of the British Isles but my family was on the throne in nearly all of Europe and the Middle East with 3 different religions.

Liked for the SpiffingBrit reference 😁

if you pair golden obligations with fabricate hook ability in the Intrigue tree you can fabricate hooks on some of the most powerful characters in the game for huge sums of money. Fabricate hook usually has a 90% success rate as well.

Somebody appreciates the editing

If you also want to expand a little bit and have a fun roleplay you can start as brittany and conquer cornwall asap. Ally with west francia and diplomatically conquer england and wales and later on proclaim brittania. Some of the most fun i had was doing this in MP RP with friends who couldn't believe brittany could be this strong

10/10 editing

I've always liked playing tall in all strategy games, even when it's not viable lol I'm relatively new to CK, but my tall plays have been way more fun than traditional campaigns of map-painting. My current tall Georgia run was so fun, starting as a duchy to a small kingdom, to 3 kingdom crowns on 1 incredibly gifted monarch

great guide

bohemia is just far and above the chillest playing tall experience, being able to control the whole duchy with a high stewardship domain limit and the mine, surrounded by mountains in your lil valley. also the czech culture being busted.

well shit, I've been playing the game like this already. Nice vid thanks for posting it.

Makes me want to play ck3 right now

Great guide, definitely trying this for my next run. Unless I massively missed it, you didn't mention dynastic legacies however, what do you recommend for that?

"You'll want a family full of geniuses so you'll want-" Me: eugenics, incest, and a DVD copy of Gattaca, got it.

vretislavs in bohemia and brians in ireland 1066 are good. you can situationally swap between stewardship, martial, and learning. i only play the recommended starts because they have gameplay designed for them generally have the most to do.

i`m new to this game. how do you hold a city if you are feudal? since vassals only give you a small percentage from a city

How do you do that editing thing where you can move around the pictures lol

Amazing video thanks

I like to add mods for special buildings it makes your lands more interesting rather than just taking one random province

Playing in holland, i've formed the kingdom of frisia, 1230 AD and my capital has 54 development, 10 more than constantinople

what do you do while you wait for your buildings to be built?

The lunatic trait is helpful for the bonuses provided. But now lunatic has some negative events too. More random now, and the glass monument event seems a lot less likely to trigger. But more positive events for lunatic aswell.

There's a lot of good spots around India for playing tall. Here's a few of my favourites. (Incidentally, Hinduism is a great religion as Bhakti can give you +20% lifestyle experience and +10 clergy opinion). -The neighbouring counties of Gaya and Pataliputra are amazing. A mix of farmland/plains, 8 holdings between them, containing the only prebuilt university on the 867 start for 10% experience and some nice stat boosts and renown, and the Mahabodhi for a nice development and opinion boost (Buddhist only, though) -Cholamandalam has five holding slots, is mixed coastal/farmland, and has the Brihadeeswarar for development and renown. Nearby Madurai has 7 holdings and is also mixed coastal/farmland. Possibly the best area in the game for a pure sim city playthrough. I also like nearby Kerala with its five mostly coastal holdings, though the jungle land type will hold back development. -Vengipura is the less desirable plains land type, though still semi-coastal, and only has 4 holdings, but the Kollur diamond mine prints money. This is where the capital is on my current game. -Dagon is partially jungle which is a bit of an issue, but all four of its holdings are coastal, and the Shwedagon has a very nice mix of bonuses. -Pagan has six holdings (a mix of farmland and plains) and a solid unique temple, but is inland. -Indraprastha, Chanderi and Dhara all have development boosting special buildings and 4-5 holdings. -Kataka has six holdings and is mostly coastal/farmland. Neighbouring Viraja has five holdings and the same land makeup. No special buildings, though. As an aside for people interested in Eastern games, don't sleep on Khotan. A ring of oasises, and a lot of the counties have 5-7 holdings. You're also near enough to Mongol land to convert culture and steal their unique unit. Or you could play the other way and start Mongol for their free armies, then move your capital to Khotan to start developing.

10 out of 10 editing

the one in india is def my favourity as you can make a lot of money, have high developement, are really ahead in innovations and you can make a best of an army by using the elephants and building the cavalry dutchy buildings.

I like becoming Norman then elevating the Isle of Man. (This is my favorite thing to do at the 867 start.)

I remember how in CK2, you could send your spymaster to Constantinople to gain more tech points.

Cool. This will be an even better way to play with royal court

Caslav County in Bohemia also had a unique mine which is op af

Bohemia is also good bc i had a save where the castle in caslav alone earned me 20 by 1130 and i started in 1066

Great guide, I am trying your tipps right now. One question, how do I get money from the pope? I did it once but since then he never has enough money for me.

The very best County to start in is, as a Tall Playthrough -- The County M a d u r a i , in the Duchy Rasch von Pandya -- Kingdom of Tamilakam - this sweet littly County has 7 ! Building Slots ((and is the one and only on the entire Map AND ! It´s Farmland just the Cherry on Top)) But with only Citys later on, (and One Tempel you have to Build because the game wants to) that´s the Place u wanne start of as a Tall Player.

Basque (Navarra), Czech (Bohemia), and Sardinian starts are also stellar. If you can last 200 years from 867, there's really no county like Sjælland for Danish culture once Norse does its culture split. The key to playing tall is development in a small culture, using passive spread of development to get a high average development point rating, while also having counties with tons of holdings so you can stack county bonuses to development growth. Basque counties have early access to tons of universities and Spanish special buildings, as well as a Catholic holy site in Santiago; Czech counties have access to easy development and the mine; Sardinia has access to all the Italian universities and Rome itself, as well as its own mine. FWIW, you want special university buildings in your personal holding to get the Lifestyle XP bonus. But how can you do that if you want to be culture head? Give the minor counties to your vassals! One tip you missed in this guide, which is maybe not worth redoing the entire video for, is that your vassals have their own councils and will occasionally do the grow development task every ten years or so. If you give a county to a Lord-Mayor, say, every so often his Steward will chip in an extra point of development.

Somebody over on Reddit mentioned that Church holdings can actually produce more gold than cities! As they give you 50% tax and 100% levies if they have over 50 opinion!

3:16 was the best part of the video, it made my day

Sardinia has a county with a gold mine, which boosts your earnings a lot early game.

This whole time.... i was playing tall 😅 i do like making custom characters n starting from the bottom up..

Visby in 867 is a very interesting tall start, although it can be a bit of a challange in the beginning.

Looooooove the tall build!!!

Could you do nomadic fall of the eagle video or 2

I used this guide to play as Bohemia in 1066. After 200 years I'm sitting on 200k and over 300 monthly income. I did not expand.

help. i have successfully learn, adapt, and implement all steps in this guide and now I don't know what to do with all these gold

Good Video!