The Main Game (Vanilla CKII)
- Successfully defending against a Mongol Invasion. Bonus points if you push them off the map and send the riders back from whence they came! In real life only a handful of countries successfully fought off a Mongol Invasion, in game they are exceedingly strong. To be able to actually defeat them is therefore no small feat.
- Any time you, the player, achieve something that seems impossible in the scope and the setting of the two games, such as unifying and establishing the Empire of Britannia early, or surviving in Abyssinia
, or bring a fallen Dynasty back into prominence. You can achieve the impossible. - Leading a successful Crusade, and earning the admiration of your vassals and allies. Bonus points if you create the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
- Seeing your plotting and political manoeuvring come to fruition as you ascend in power and prestige.
- In the same vein, going from being a lord of a paltry 2 counties to owning a Kingdom consisting of 14 instead. Modest in the grand scheme, but still impressive.
- Installing your dynasty onto the throne(s) of great kingdoms and empires, bringing prestige to your family name.
- All of this goes double if you manage it within a single lifetime. Imagine being born as some count in a relatively impoverished backwater, and ending your days as one of the world's foremost rulers.
- Victory through intrigue! Instantly ending an unwinnable claim war by assassinating the claimant. Isolating your enemies by assassinating the spouse who secures a powerful alliance. Tywin Lanister or the Salarians would be proud.
- With the removal of assassinations, plotting the character's demise now becomes the main way of disposing of them. Pull enough people into your plot, and with luck... success.
- Using a proper understanding of the combat system - the mobility of ships, attrition, good commanders, retinue specialization, and terrain - to defeat bigger armies than your own!
- As a Catholic ruler, forcing the Papacy to submit to your will. This involves becoming an emperor, setting up your own antipope, and claiming the Papacy for your antipope. You'll have to fight the mercenaries hired by the Pope, along with any Catholic ruler who supports him. If victorious, you now have the Pope in your pocket, making it much easier to keep your Catholic vassals and neighbours in check.
- Undermining your liege as a powerful vassal. Bonus points if you reduce him or her to a Puppet King or queen. Add more awesome points if you undermine his or her religion as well by being of another religion yourself.
- If you have a pet cat, it's possible for the cat to become injured or killed in battle. One of your options with this event is to personally hunt down and kill the enemy commander. Successfully killing the bastard who hurt your kitty is very satisfying.
The Expansions (Sword of Islam, Legacy of Rome, Sunset Invasion, The Republic, The Old Gods, Sons of Abraham, Rajas of India, Horse Lords, Reaper's Due, Jade Dragon, and Holy Fury)
- Defeating the Aztec Invaders and driving them into the sea. They came across the ocean and began slaughtering the cities of Western Europe in massive human sacrifices, but you proved stronger and threw them out. You receive a pop-up when the last territory of the Aztec Empire falls, declaring that one day Europe will go across the Atlantic and take revenge.
- Invading China. Throughout the game, China is a massive superpower that regularly harasses and lords its power over the west. By invading China you prove that your realm is the greater power, and you install a member of your family on the Dragon Throne.
- Or being invaded by China and winning. Not only do you get 2000+ gold in war reparations, but you get a ton of prestige and a good amount of piety on top of it.
And so the Dragon recoils... - Reforming a faith doomed in real life and allowing it to flourish in your name. These take the forms of:
- Taking the few ailing provinces of Zoroastrianism, reconquering the Empire of Persia for the traditional god, restoring the High Priesthood, and becoming "the Saoshyant".
- Forming the Kingdom of Israel, constructing the Third Temple, and restoring the High Priesthood as a Jewish ruler.
- Reforming and restarting Hellenism, restoring the old state religion of the Roman Empire, and declaring yourself Pontifex Maximus.
- Making one of the heresies the official faith, such as Catharism or Lollard Christianity, and unseating the Pope in Rome with your own.
- Extra awesome for the Norse is that the character you are reforming the faith with has fought to seize the Holy Sites of the Nordic Faith and becomes ''the Fylkir of all Norsemen''.
- Expanding your Republic into new territories, becoming a regional power and controller of multiple trade hubs under your family's name.
- Crushing other merchant republics in your region to become the undisputed merchant empire of the region.
- Taking down the Abbassids as a Zoroastrian ruler is a seemingly impossible task given the latter's tendency to blob the Middle East. However, with the right amount of daring and luck, an aggressive Zoroastrian can hit the Abbassids hard before they have a chance to build up their numbers. A few lost holy wars will push up their decadence to an unsustainable level, causing a revolt to fracture the bloated Arabian Empire. It then becomes a simple matter of pushing the remaining Muslim states back into the deserts from which they came and restoring the true faith to the Persian Empire.
- Restoring The Roman Empire (Legacy of Rome) and the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Rome; not only do you reunite Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, ending the Great Schism of 1054, but you also get the Reconquest Casus Belli for every single Kingdom formerly under the Western Roman Empire, turning Rhōmaiōn back into the beacon of civilisation.
- Gets even better with the Holy Fury expansion - you can revive Hellenism and do all of this, marking the return of the true Roman Empire, with the power and fury of the Olympians by your side. It even comes with the flavor text "Let the Galileans burn for a change."
- The Sons of Abraham expansion has an event chain where your child is the Antichrist. Almost everything that happens as a result can qualify.
- The once-per-playthrough appearance of a Jeanne d'Archétype, with all the insane martial stats that come with her. Whether you choose to play her legend straight or subvert the popular opinion amongst the nobles in your court, though...
- The Scholarship focus makes it possible for you to have awesome For Science! moments. By choosing to study the stars, you will eventually stumble upon heliocentrism. Along the way, you can openly snub your religious head (if you're not said head yourself), when he asks you to stop. At the very end, you can publish your results, angering the clergy and faithful, but also earning considerate prestige.
- Or alternatively, you could try figuring out the mysteries of the firmament, and get your hands on The Necronomicon. There is also a chance you will go insane with the knowledge you've found. Your heir will remark after your death that someone broke in and stole a dusty old tome, after murdering two oddly-behaving servants, whose bodies were in a confusing state of disassembly.
- In "Horse Lords", a Mongol Khagan who conquers enough of Mongolia before the 13th Century can declare themselves to be the greatest of Khans, gaining the title Genghis Khan.
- As any nomad, completing the nomadic achievements, as they test your knowledge of nomadic mechanics and your ability to pick wars to fight when the entire world is likely to be in defensive pacts against you:
- "One Arrow Alone can be Easily Broken but Many Arrows are Indestructible" note ;
- "Steppe by Steppe" note
- As any nomad, completing the nomadic achievements, as they test your knowledge of nomadic mechanics and your ability to pick wars to fight when the entire world is likely to be in defensive pacts against you:
- In Reaper's Due, your ruler can become immortal.
- Not that you can't be maimed, disfigured, or lose eyes and limbs to disease.
- You do, however, have a two-in-three chance of shrugging off the touch of The Grim Reaper itself, causing Death to throw their hands up and leave in impotent frustration.
- Using Charlemagne as a Human Sacrifice to Odin. The Old Gods strike back!
- Holy Fury adds Coronations, which are almost always this. You can chose to get crowned by the Pope himself or get crowned by a local Bishop who may be your most loyal vassal (or possibly a heretic, giving a spiritual middle finger to the Pope). You can even get crowned in a battlefield, perhaps in the middle of a war your predecessor started.
- One possible event added in Holy Fury for getting a bloodline can result in your character being nicknamed either The Dragon or The Dragoness. It's so cool that one of the requirements to actually get the nickname is for the variable this_has_super_cool_nickname_trigger to be false.. After they die and a fair amount of time has passed, there is a chance that people will start to believe they really were a dragon, complete with their portrait changing to a picture of a dragon and their culture becoming Dragon. If this happens, rulers of their bloodline get a special event for executing people by burning them alive.
- Legendary Journey; after your warrior lodge has enough renown, you can go to an infidel kingdom and fight their best warriors to the death. Some of the warriors are a man who wrestles and kill a stag with his bare hands, an Oriental kungfu master, a literal bear, and an old man who turns out to be a very muscular genius. Finishing the journey causes your name to be worshiped in your realm, a woman faints simply by gazing at your heroic figure, and you create your own legendary bloodline.
- If you have the right traits, it is possible to start an event chain that ends with you slaying Cthulhu himself.
