Part 31: Brutus Salad Explains Invasion Mechanics

Hello There, My name is Brutus Salad and I like invasions. I’m here to explain a very important feature of Invasions that Kersch neglected to mention/ was unaware of. One thing I notice was that Kersch explained the requirements for an invasion was to have fewer holdings in your realm than the invasion target and papal approval, this is not necessarily true, you need Papal approval for the Invasion and fewer holdings or Papal approval and a claim on the target’s primary title. “Now Brutus,” you say “that may be great if I’m a small King or Duke with a lot of money but not a lot of land, but how do Invasions help me if I’m an Emperor and it would be much easier to declare war for the primary title on my own?”

Well let’s look at a screen from earlier in LP

Look at that second effect if Kersch successfully invades Norway, “Takes all occupied titles form King Einar”, this is a very deceiving sentence as it sounds like you’ll only get Holdings that King Einar directly holds. This is not the case,you get any county that you occupy with the Invasion CB. So If I’m William of Normandy and I occupy this:

I will get this as my direct demesne.

What this effectively means is that you can completely remove any vassals to the former king of whatever country you’re invading and replace them with friends/sons/ inbred idiots if you want.

On the flip side this can be used to completely fuck over an invading force*. If I’m Harold Godwinson and I surrender to William early in the war:

Then he gets all of one county for his trouble.

Additionally since he’s not of the same culture and was just recently at war with his new vassals , it’ll be all of six months before they rebel and put me, Harold Godwinson back on the throne again.

*Just one minor note: I’m fairly sure the ‘Tribal invasion’ CB that the Il Khanate, Golden Horde and Timurid Empire get will take all your lands if you surrender regardless of how much the invader has occupied, so you probably will not want to surrender right away if you are fighting Mongols.