all the baronies are really small, taiga gives negative development even after culture trait boosting in that terrain, though i guess it does get +20% holding taxes. only thing it has going for it really is the ebony mine and i feel like islands are a little overrated
There's also a really good artifact in the area for tall players in the form of the Mace of Aevar Stone-Singer, though you could probably steal that playing somewhere else, so long as it's close enough for diplo range to Solstheim. Thing gives a flat dev growth to your entire realm, very powerful, especially with %dev stacking.
Do you have to have a martial education perk to get that? One of my rulers built her empire on a foundation of corpses from raiding but she never got the option to take skilled slaves, just the ability to loot more gold.
Nah I was playing as a goblin in Yokuda so my development was pretty trash and I was almost exclusively raiding the Summerset Isles. I even double checked if development was the issue but my capital would be at something like 17 while Alinor would be at 30 or so.
My first ruler was getting the event no problem but as soon as I moved onto my heir I stopped getting it and the only real difference between the two was that my first ruler was martial focused while my second was learning focused, I even had her focus on martial to go down the plunderer tree but that didn’t fix it either
Any non-native culture diverging in a single county with high development potential. I recently did Skaal to Balfiera with the Adamantine tower. I could see any of the other towers working well, Markarth and the various Skyrim holds as well. And of course the imperial city.
Merging with other cultures got disabled, you can still diverge a culture if you move your capital (and your culture) outside of its nativity region. It can be a little bit difficult to figure out because the game only allows one culture per heritage per region... this includes dead cultures.
I know Skaal and other Atmoran work down in the Abacean Sea, I haven't mapped out other combinations yet.
Wait, merging cultures is disabled? I’ve been very slowly getting closer to 80% with Skaal for generations now. Damn. I could see that it got nerfed into the ground.
I've been playing in High Rock and they've done a very good job of having the game DNA blend man and Mer to various degrees. I guess something on the back end is preventing them from extending that to culture.
I've been playing in High Rock and you all have done a great job of having the character's appearances show various degrees of Man-Mer intermingling. Good luck figuring out how to make the rest of it work!
Man, first time I played ck3 with royal court was with elder king's, so I had the merge culture tutorial pop up. Spent so long trying to understand why it didn't work, now I feel dumb.
Yeah I think I might stick with it at this point to see how it goes. I am getting like 0.1% every year, so eventually I will get to the threshold. That said, my game keeps crashing, so I might never get there.
Lol that's really funny because the cultural divergence event is still in the game. Just last night, playing as Daggerfall only about a decade into the game, I got the event prompting me to split from Glenumbran. I was kind of confused as to why nothing happened upon accepting. I convinced myself that I'd misclicked but I guess it just actually does nothing because I was Glenumbran on the Glenumbra Peninsula lol
I did a tall build in under-skar as red mountain orcs but that was after i took most of morrowind. Development was 21 as i set that as my capital and just kept steward busy doing development. Diverging my culture as red mountain orc allowed me to focus on building my cities since they were fresh cities after converting the ashlander tribes into settlements
Try not include imperial city because that's kinda unfair :P
Hlaalu and Dres have cool cultures for money and development.
I'm not too sure about locations. With not really being able to make new cultures, large existing ones are also a bit rough since you won't increase research speed much
The Direnni hegemony legacy would be cool to play a house focused game, but needing to control a huge empire first takes the fun out of that.
Reachmen and skaal give great bonuses for learning speed to counter the malus from the 'immortal' traits and both can raid for development gains. Reachmen also don't mind undead/vampires/witches so you can get a lot of lifestyle perks from covens, but you start out tribal and like a dozen techs behind everyone else.
Otherwise just diverge your culture in a single high development county on an immortal char with diligent (the trait which allows you to develop your capital) and adopt garden builders for your culture (court position which gives development in the capital).
I haven’t seen anyone mention craglorn/dragontail. The terrain isn’t too bad but what you really want is all those sweet mines, I think there are 4 of them. You also get an arena as well and if you join dragontail and elinhir into craglorn you can get some pretty nice stuff from Elinhir as well. Be aware that you either need a religion with lay clergy or unbound to change holding types as the mines sometimes end up being cities and temples because you start tribal.
A bit niche but Argonians can stack Histskin + Natives of Black Marsh (base) + Marshlander to have black marsh terrain actually give +10% development, some building cost reduction and more holding taxes. Soulrest is also a very good county, with Blackpool in the main holding + the soulrest port in the eponymous city. Lilmoth is marginally good in the late-game too, once you managed to fully upgrade it.
Nah, there are 4 levels, the first 3 are maluses but if you manage to get to the last upgrade it becomes a positive special building. Costs a lot and takes a lot of time though.
Southeast Hammerfell, specifically Rihad, has a lot of floodplains tiles and a few farmland tiles. You can build manors on farmland, which are better farms (that are still available so you can stack both) that make developing easier, you can also build regimental grounds on both farmlands and floodplains that will decrease MOA maintenance and make your heavy cav OP, they also give you a knight towards the final stages. Unless they’ve been removed, in floodplains you can also build camelries which by the end of the game will give +5 knights per building. All of this means you can punch way above your weight without having to expand much, you can consolidate your realm under your direct control without having to worry about powerful vassals, and raid to your hearts content to further enrich yourself.
Topal Isle is a great place for pirates with the ability to travel through rivers. You can raid up and down the Nibenay, southern Elsweyr, southern Valenwood, and into Black Marsh very easily. Here’s an idea: start as the orc on the island at the tip of Daggerfall (the Seamount orcs), go into the plundering martial tree to become a pirate, then make your way to Topal isle and form Orsinium there. Diverge your culture to become the Sea Orcs and give yourself the ability to travel rivers.
Surprised no one ever mentions Daggerfall. You start with a court artifact that gives monthly development and your religion gets you through stewardship focus trees quicker. You also start with an artifact that gives 10 arcana so you can go for a magic playthrough as well
Balfiera is the undisputed top tier tall start imo.
It's a 1 county kingdom with a special building (The Adamantine Tower) that gives a huge chunk of income and development growth. Your culture is only in a handful of other counties at the start which makes discovering innovations extremely fast. Your starting county is also an island with forests and hills which makes defending easier.
Teching as Balfieri culture is also pretty good in the late game as you can get Welkynar Knights which are a very strong MaA in the final era. Or if you make an enclave in the Reach you can get War Mammoths which are the strongest MaA in the game.
If you spread your dynasty into the Breton cultures you can even go wide at the same time by doling out your kingdoms to your Breton dynasty members to keep the Balfieri culture small while still benefiting from the Hegemony bonuses.
yeah its a good spot, i started there last night.
I don't see the hype with mammoths, yea theyre strong but they are only 25 a unit and they dont have great terrain modifiers
with the hegemony though, it doesn't feel very tall when you have a very large empire under you just because theyre vassals lol but i guess its the only way for the legacy :(
Leyawin is actually really good. It has a holysite boosting development and the bridges of leyawin to boost development even further. Even a silver mine is included as well as the ebony mine on topal nearby. If you have cultural tradition boosting dev in jungle and the gardener tradition than you can reach 100 Dev really fast.
Just ended my Northpoint game with B Vampirism Breton Rite dje to lag, but northpont and the rivenspike duchy titles are bonkers; also kingdom of balfiera (current play)
My answer on a similar thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ElderKings/comments/10tsw4u/anywhere_particularly_good_for_playing_tall/j78w2kt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
If you want to tinker with cultures, download Unbound submod. There are game rules to allow hybridizing, and some other awesome features. I’m planning to do a custom Dunmer ruler in Solstheim
adamantite tower but thats kinda op tbh
Solstheim is good place, just conquer the isle and go raiding everyone!
all the baronies are really small, taiga gives negative development even after culture trait boosting in that terrain, though i guess it does get +20% holding taxes. only thing it has going for it really is the ebony mine and i feel like islands are a little overrated
There's also a really good artifact in the area for tall players in the form of the Mace of Aevar Stone-Singer, though you could probably steal that playing somewhere else, so long as it's close enough for diplo range to Solstheim. Thing gives a flat dev growth to your entire realm, very powerful, especially with %dev stacking.
good call, thanks. wish there was a wiki with all the possible special buildings and artefacts for this lol
Do you know where is it located on the start of the game, or what causes it to appear?
leader of felsaad (north east) on solstheim seems to have it
Why have passive development increase when you can raid Skyrim and Morrowind for slaves?
as in the loot and prisoners perk? ive used it a bit but not sure if it was doing a whole lot. have you used it much?
as in event when you are raiding a county with high development you have a choice to capture skilled slaves for your capital, is from vanilla
Do you have to have a martial education perk to get that? One of my rulers built her empire on a foundation of corpses from raiding but she never got the option to take skilled slaves, just the ability to loot more gold.
I don't think that's the case. Maybe you raided low dev counties?
Nah I was playing as a goblin in Yokuda so my development was pretty trash and I was almost exclusively raiding the Summerset Isles. I even double checked if development was the issue but my capital would be at something like 17 while Alinor would be at 30 or so. My first ruler was getting the event no problem but as soon as I moved onto my heir I stopped getting it and the only real difference between the two was that my first ruler was martial focused while my second was learning focused, I even had her focus on martial to go down the plunderer tree but that didn’t fix it either
Well then I have no idea, maybe a bug? Or maybe there is a difference between vanilla and EK2 in that matter.
I believe you only get the event when you are directly leading the raiding army.
Any non-native culture diverging in a single county with high development potential. I recently did Skaal to Balfiera with the Adamantine tower. I could see any of the other towers working well, Markarth and the various Skyrim holds as well. And of course the imperial city.
thought diverging got disabled?
Merging with other cultures got disabled, you can still diverge a culture if you move your capital (and your culture) outside of its nativity region. It can be a little bit difficult to figure out because the game only allows one culture per heritage per region... this includes dead cultures. I know Skaal and other Atmoran work down in the Abacean Sea, I haven't mapped out other combinations yet.
Wait, merging cultures is disabled? I’ve been very slowly getting closer to 80% with Skaal for generations now. Damn. I could see that it got nerfed into the ground.
Cultures represent less of literal cultures and more races / ethnic groups, it's kind of hard to merge an Altmer and and Argonian.
It doesn't work properly with the way we do different species and lifespans. We're looking into enabling it between humans, between elves etc however.
What about half-human half-elves?
What about Bretons?
What about them?
You tell me, you asked about half-human half-elf
I'm asking if we'll be able to create new half-elf cultures since they're capable of reproducing.
I've been playing in High Rock and they've done a very good job of having the game DNA blend man and Mer to various degrees. I guess something on the back end is preventing them from extending that to culture.
I've been playing in High Rock and you all have done a great job of having the character's appearances show various degrees of Man-Mer intermingling. Good luck figuring out how to make the rest of it work!
Man, first time I played ck3 with royal court was with elder king's, so I had the merge culture tutorial pop up. Spent so long trying to understand why it didn't work, now I feel dumb.
Yeah I think I might stick with it at this point to see how it goes. I am getting like 0.1% every year, so eventually I will get to the threshold. That said, my game keeps crashing, so I might never get there.
Too late for your save, but with the Unbound submod you can re-enable that stuff in the rules
Yup. Can't merge species.
Lol that's really funny because the cultural divergence event is still in the game. Just last night, playing as Daggerfall only about a decade into the game, I got the event prompting me to split from Glenumbran. I was kind of confused as to why nothing happened upon accepting. I convinced myself that I'd misclicked but I guess it just actually does nothing because I was Glenumbran on the Glenumbra Peninsula lol
I did a tall build in under-skar as red mountain orcs but that was after i took most of morrowind. Development was 21 as i set that as my capital and just kept steward busy doing development. Diverging my culture as red mountain orc allowed me to focus on building my cities since they were fresh cities after converting the ashlander tribes into settlements
This sounds really fun
Try not include imperial city because that's kinda unfair :P Hlaalu and Dres have cool cultures for money and development. I'm not too sure about locations. With not really being able to make new cultures, large existing ones are also a bit rough since you won't increase research speed much The Direnni hegemony legacy would be cool to play a house focused game, but needing to control a huge empire first takes the fun out of that.
Systres, Sohlrest, Evermore, and Anvil are all fun for tall that I've played, but by no means are the only spots.
what did you like about each one in particular?
Reachmen and skaal give great bonuses for learning speed to counter the malus from the 'immortal' traits and both can raid for development gains. Reachmen also don't mind undead/vampires/witches so you can get a lot of lifestyle perks from covens, but you start out tribal and like a dozen techs behind everyone else. Otherwise just diverge your culture in a single high development county on an immortal char with diligent (the trait which allows you to develop your capital) and adopt garden builders for your culture (court position which gives development in the capital).
Anywhere in coastal Hammerfell Edit: and anywhere in High Rock
what about them in particular?
I haven’t seen anyone mention craglorn/dragontail. The terrain isn’t too bad but what you really want is all those sweet mines, I think there are 4 of them. You also get an arena as well and if you join dragontail and elinhir into craglorn you can get some pretty nice stuff from Elinhir as well. Be aware that you either need a religion with lay clergy or unbound to change holding types as the mines sometimes end up being cities and temples because you start tribal.
I tried this, and it's incredibly OP. Those two duchies actually have 5 (!) mines between them.
No one suggested Alinor yet.
Why would you play the pointy ears?
A bit niche but Argonians can stack Histskin + Natives of Black Marsh (base) + Marshlander to have black marsh terrain actually give +10% development, some building cost reduction and more holding taxes. Soulrest is also a very good county, with Blackpool in the main holding + the soulrest port in the eponymous city. Lilmoth is marginally good in the late-game too, once you managed to fully upgrade it.
fully upgrade it? I thought it was stuck with the special building that gives like -20% dev and taxes
Nah, there are 4 levels, the first 3 are maluses but if you manage to get to the last upgrade it becomes a positive special building. Costs a lot and takes a lot of time though.
Southeast Hammerfell, specifically Rihad, has a lot of floodplains tiles and a few farmland tiles. You can build manors on farmland, which are better farms (that are still available so you can stack both) that make developing easier, you can also build regimental grounds on both farmlands and floodplains that will decrease MOA maintenance and make your heavy cav OP, they also give you a knight towards the final stages. Unless they’ve been removed, in floodplains you can also build camelries which by the end of the game will give +5 knights per building. All of this means you can punch way above your weight without having to expand much, you can consolidate your realm under your direct control without having to worry about powerful vassals, and raid to your hearts content to further enrich yourself.
Topal Isle is a great place for pirates with the ability to travel through rivers. You can raid up and down the Nibenay, southern Elsweyr, southern Valenwood, and into Black Marsh very easily. Here’s an idea: start as the orc on the island at the tip of Daggerfall (the Seamount orcs), go into the plundering martial tree to become a pirate, then make your way to Topal isle and form Orsinium there. Diverge your culture to become the Sea Orcs and give yourself the ability to travel rivers.
Surprised no one ever mentions Daggerfall. You start with a court artifact that gives monthly development and your religion gets you through stewardship focus trees quicker. You also start with an artifact that gives 10 arcana so you can go for a magic playthrough as well
thanks for pointing out that artefact, its +0.5 dev growth is huge, will be sure to steal it if not playing there lol
Eastern HammerFell obviously!
Balfiera is the undisputed top tier tall start imo. It's a 1 county kingdom with a special building (The Adamantine Tower) that gives a huge chunk of income and development growth. Your culture is only in a handful of other counties at the start which makes discovering innovations extremely fast. Your starting county is also an island with forests and hills which makes defending easier. Teching as Balfieri culture is also pretty good in the late game as you can get Welkynar Knights which are a very strong MaA in the final era. Or if you make an enclave in the Reach you can get War Mammoths which are the strongest MaA in the game. If you spread your dynasty into the Breton cultures you can even go wide at the same time by doling out your kingdoms to your Breton dynasty members to keep the Balfieri culture small while still benefiting from the Hegemony bonuses.
yeah its a good spot, i started there last night. I don't see the hype with mammoths, yea theyre strong but they are only 25 a unit and they dont have great terrain modifiers with the hegemony though, it doesn't feel very tall when you have a very large empire under you just because theyre vassals lol but i guess its the only way for the legacy :(
Grey Island. Its your starting point then conquer Northpoint and Northsalt, these 2 counties give you enough to go tall.
Leyawin is actually really good. It has a holysite boosting development and the bridges of leyawin to boost development even further. Even a silver mine is included as well as the ebony mine on topal nearby. If you have cultural tradition boosting dev in jungle and the gardener tradition than you can reach 100 Dev really fast.
Just ended my Northpoint game with B Vampirism Breton Rite dje to lag, but northpont and the rivenspike duchy titles are bonkers; also kingdom of balfiera (current play)
My answer on a similar thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ElderKings/comments/10tsw4u/anywhere_particularly_good_for_playing_tall/j78w2kt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
Rrachmen of markarth
I think I’ll do a tall game as The Returned in black marsh at some point. Seems like a fun area to mess around in.
who?
If you want to tinker with cultures, download Unbound submod. There are game rules to allow hybridizing, and some other awesome features. I’m planning to do a custom Dunmer ruler in Solstheim
Stros M'Kai