Overview
Detailing how to restore/become the Roman Empire and get the achievement Rise from the Ashes
Introduction
Greetings aspiring Imperator!
So you want to restore the Roman Empire to her former glory and get the achievement Rise from the Ashes? You’ve come to the right forum!
This guide is meant to function as a cheat sheet for this specific achievement to make sure you’re on track. And hopefully this prevents you from cursing out loud when you’ve spent 100 hours into a game and failed the criteria to form the Roman Empire.
This is not meant to show you how to form the Roman Empire the fastest way/speedrun the achievement.
TL;DR:
1. Be the Byzantine Emperor or Emperor of Italia (you must have taken the Unify Italy major decision for the Restore the Roman Empire decision to show up).
1b. For the Unify Italy decision to show up you have to be Italian culture (Sicilian, Lombard or Cisalpine do not count).
2. Control the following duchies: Latium, Venice, Romagna, Sicily, Genoa, Capua, Apulia, Thrace, Antioch, Palestine, Athens, Tunis, Croatia and Thessalonika.
3. Be Christian or Hellenic or Roman Culture group
4. Have 5000 prestige.
As the Emperor of Italia
So you have decided to challenge yourself and picked a lowly count in the Italy region or somewhere on the periphery of it. Admirable, here are a couple of things to watch out for:
If you did not start as an Italian count you must culture switch to Italian at one point. To do this, select a county with the Italian culture and set your realm capital to it. Then in the decisions menu you will find the option to Convert to local culture (this costs 300 prestige).
Now that you have converted to Italian, the major decision Unify Italy will appear in your decisions menu. To unify Italy you will need the following:
Unify Italia
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Hold the title Empire of Italia
The entirety of the Italia region
The entirety of the Illyricum region
Have Italian culture
8000 prestige.
Take note: Taking the Restore Carolingian borders decision disables the Unify Italia decision.
The Italia region consists of the following de jure:
Kingdoms of Italy, Venice, Romagna, Sicily, and Sardinia.
Duchy of Istria.
The Illyricum region consists of the following de jure:
Kingdoms of Croatia and Serbia.
Duchies of Krain, Carinthia and Friuli.
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Afterwards, the decision to Restore the Roman Empire will appear with its own specific requirements. See the ‘As the Byzantine Emperor’ section.
As the Byzantine Emperor
You have decided to quickly nab this achievement playing as the better half of the former Roman Empire. How diligent, here are the things to watch out for:
When you hold the title of Byzantine Emperor the decision to Restore the Roman empire shows up in your decisions menu which has the following requirements:
Restore the Roman Empire:
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You must be Christian or Hellenic religion or Roman culture.
5000 Prestige
Completely control the following duchies:
Latium, Venice, Romagna, Sicily (don’t forget Malta), Genoa, Capua, Apulia, Thrace, Antioch, Palestine, Athens, Tunis, Croatia and Thessalonika.
Visual:
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Hellenic(?)
Back in Crusader Kings 2, restoring the Roman Empire came with a separate decision for a complete Hellenic Revival by restoring the Hellenic faith. As of 1.0.3. converting to the Hellenic faith (it is implemented in the game) is infeasible due to the steep cost of about 125k piety.
For those of you who do want to see a Hellenic Roman Empire I suggest the following strategy:
1. Convert to an Unreformed Pagan faith by marrying a Pagan and Adopting faith.
2. From there, convert to Hellenism.
3. It is recommended that you make sure you hold ALL the holy sites of the Hellenic faith to immediately reform it. Considering you are the Roman Empire by now, you probably already do.
Is it worth it? No.
Is it fun? Probably not, but it is aesthetically pleasing.
Personally I want to try out a Zunist Roman Empire to pretend I am Emperor Aurelian. I’ll get back to you with pictures when my ironman saves stop corrupting.