How do you expand as a small time ruler in CK2 mod WWSMS?

[MonkeySage]

When the World Stopped Making Sense...

I'm playing as the Romano-British Dois of Wessex, and I'm trying to gain a kingdom title....

Trouble is, I have no casus belli than tributary and there are no claimants I can invite... And besides that, I don't want to give the title to someone else, I want the titles for myself so that I can actually create a kingdom.

Holy War doesn't work because they intentionally deactivated holy wars for this mod... Not that that makes any sense at all to me, but whatever.

There are no De Jure wars i can wage, and fabricating claims takes entirely too long.


I'm bored and I want to actually DO something with this character...

[tyckspoon]

In most earlier starts, your activity would be expected to come from tribal and/or pagan activities - Conquesting your neighbors, going raiding, and the like. Playing a "civilized" character in very early times is liable to be frustrating for exactly that reason; the game isn't built for it, and most of the activity designed for those characters is supposed to exist in a more developed world. You could try to find a way to switch religions to one of the pagan religions that allows county conquests. Failing that, making your entire intended Kingdom or Empire into Tributaries is actually a pretty decent way to spend time while you're waiting for forged claims to mature - you get a pretty decent prestige, economic, and military boost from it. Having a really good Chancellor makes forging claims a lot less painful; use the character search to find the most capable diplomat around who is willing to pack up and move to your court.

The makers of the mod appear to want to tie Holy Wars to a historic event/era, much like you can't do coastal conquests until the Age of Vikings starts and Great Holy Wars (Crusade/Jihad level wars) don't trigger until the time of the First Crusade unless something big happens to trigger it before that. It's fairly easy to turn a CB off, but searching suggests they're having some issues figuring out how to link it into the event they want (the rise of Islam as a major religion.)