A Plotters' Guide to Rooting Out Your Enemies

Never Rule Through Consent

For a start, many inexperienced and naive rulers attempt to rule through being loved by all. Be this done through bribes, justice or mercy, the result is that the ruler becomes the ruled. You are a medieval king, not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Ghandi or Yoda or something. You're ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Darth vader and you're going to make sure your vassals know it.

If you rule through appeasement, sooner or later, your tresury will be bankrupt from bribes and your greedy vassals will demand appeasement through your lands and titles. They will revolt.


Never miss a chance to start a civil war (so long as you can win)

There is no better way to rule your vassals than to have a good old civil war to prove your superiority. Not only does it give you an excuse to throw that pain-in-the-ass duke in a dungeon cell, but it will allow you to round up anyone else that had any thought of betraying you. They will all jump on the civil-war bandwagon, and they will all end up in in your dungeon!


The True way to Rule

In truth, there is only one way to rule, and that's to root out all the scum in the kingdom from powerful dukes to rebellious heathens.

Most importantly, never miss an opportunity to throw someone in the dungeon. Powerful (and dangerous) duke plotting to kill your heir? Dungeon.
An obscure vassal plotting to kill another obscure vassal? Dungeon.
A random courtier plotting to kill some foreigner? Dungeon.
Your wife is plotting to kill that woman you had an affair with? Hell, throw them both in the dungeon.
Throw everyone in the dungeon. Dungeon dungeon dungeon.

The advantage to this is that (even if the discovered plot was by one of your most loyal vassals) no vassal is more loyal than a vassal in your prison cell. Just keep them there, in the dungeon, and never let them out. Eventually they will die of old age and their kid will take charge. Rinse and repeat.

Take Back Control!
So your country is plagued by imm- ehem, foreigners. Time to take back control!
As we all know, foreigners are a problem that every great kingdom must overcome, including yours! They are troublesome; they want "independence for [insert your unwashed foreigner here]" and they will always despise your rule, but fear not! For they can be rooted out.

Initially, play the nice guy and watch carefully. A few nobles will distinguish themselves as troublemakers. Whilst this is going on, soften up the less troublesome ones with fancy gifts and titles. Watch these troublemakers carefully, but lie low for now. Get your armies ready; sooner or later they will rise up and you will crush them (they can't help themselves.) When this happens, crush their armies and throw them in the dungeon!


Der Volksmeinschafft
Now this is where the magic happens, especially when ruling a foreign country with foreign nobles. Any noble of foreign culture, revoke their title immidiately! Then, recruit a noble from the intrigue tab (the noble will be of your culture) and make this noble the ruler of the landed title.
Before you know it, the country will be ruled by a master race of your culture (because yours is the master race) and the peasants will be left with no choice but to endure centuries of racial oppression. In other words, you win!


Captured here is my playthrough as Great Moravia (mostly the Bohemian culture land and some of the southern polish land.) You will see that I have a mix of religion and culture to eradicate.

Brotherly Love

Having a big family is good right? Wrong. You should be plotting to kill your siblings (especially male ones) from the age that you first learn to think. They never really loved you anyway; they just want your titles, and, of course, you want theirs.


How to murder your siblings

Murdering your siblings can be difficult if you do it wrong, so here I will explain how. A quote often associated with Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and The Godfather II is "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." In other words, make your brothers think you love them. This can be done by appearing naively generous: grant them landed and honourary titles; even better, have them in your court! You can't kill your brother if he's buggered off to a court in Ireland where he will plot against you and return (with an army) at your weakest moment.

The next step is to begin plotting their murder, one by one. Be careful not to mess this bit up! Get as many plotters on board as possible. Hell, even get your other siblings in on the plot (you're next you stupid fool!)

If you are lucky enough to live in the world of the Old Gods, try to ship your brothers off to fight for a mercenary company. Most of them will come back in a coffin or minus their eyes. But beware, for that geeky runt of the litter may return as a badass warrior and kick you off your throne.

If you screw up
So your brother wasn't convinced by that poisionous viper you tried to give him as a "present," and has run off to some far away court. Damn. Well the bad news is you can't kill him, but so long as you keep your vassals ♥♥♥♥♥ whipped, and you suck off the pope enough you should be alright.

Oh, and if you're worried that murdering all your siblings might end you up in hell, don't worry. You live in medieval Catholic Christendom, and a decent sized bag of gold given to the pope should be enough to get you into heaven.

So everything's been going well. Your siblings are all dead, the foreigners have been kicked out, at least half your vassals like you, and the other half are in your dungeon. Great!


Dealing with republics
Things can only go on like this for so long, and before you know it, you'll be scrolling down your vassal list (most of the portraits should have bars in front of them) when you think "Hey, why does that vassal hate me so much?" You scroll over the red -57, and lo and behold: "Wrong government type."

No problem right? a little landed title and bag of gold will do the trick. Nope, because republic rulers are bloody stubborn, and simply refuse hands down to accept your gift.

For the most part, these republics just become something you have to live with, but if you feel the stress building, a good civil war should deal with most of them. Use the dungeon method, plot to kill them if you can, but for God's sake don't try to make them your friend!

Muslims
So you're unlucky enough to have a muslim kingdom as your next door neighbour. They are unfriendly, they hate you, they smell funny, and you're just dreading the imminent Waaaaargh, Jihad, that is going to come your way. For a start, make sure the muslims are securely the far side of your border. If you are struggling with this, build a wall, issue a travel ban, and put your chaplain to work.

Claiming anti-muslim benefits
It's not all bad news! If you're a Christian, you can claim benefits from the pope that will assist you in holding off (and perhaps even profiting from) the muslims. Such benefits include a free "holy war" cassus belli to be used at your discretion, an envoy containing "200" (but sometimes 30 depending on whether your pope is a ♥♥♥♥) coins, and even military support from your Christian neighbour who's simply glad enough to do anything to stop himself becoming in your position.
God willing, your cries of "Deus Vult!" will eventually replace that of "Allahu Ackbar," you will conquer their lands, and can begin the delicious process of filling the dungeons and ethnic cleansing.

Don't worry; this sounds harder than it is. Remember that your race was already the master race through natural selection anyway, and all you are doing is releasing your natural potential.

Keeping the bloodline pure

Those striped lines indicating foreign cultures in your land may not seem to pressing, but beware, for they will pollute your race with filthy inferior genes. Deal with this by putting a noble of yours in charge as quickly as possible. If you wish to remove these ethnic minorities from your land, some tried and tested methods include goverment funded hate propaganda, scapegoating all your peoples' fears (most of them being your fault) on said ethnic minority, taking all their wealth and worldly possessions, and - if time is short - build camps and chambers.

The masters of the master race

No bloodline is purer, more masterly, than yours, and you must keep it this way. Send your court chaplain away to some God-forsaken (literally) corner of your realm, and while he's gone, get your son and daughter to make a baby. This way you will remain superior, and no one will ever be able to overthrow you.

The Empire to Last a Thousand Years

Presuming you were reading carefully the rest of this guide, you shouldn't be far from the Empire to Last a Thousand Years. All foreigners should be safely outside your kingdom, any ethnic groups should have been... dealt with, your siblings should all be dead, your children should all be inbred, and most of your vassals should be in the dungeon.
You've proven your superiority to your kingdom, all that is left is to show it to the rest of the world! It comes as a granted that by now you should have maximum crown authority (those vassals in your dungeon will do anything you want), and providing you have enough land, your army should be unstoppable. Conquer everyone. Don't bother with allies; they are inferior to you. Just send your army of inbred master-race soldiers at the enemy and you will win.

Once you have built the Empire to Last a Thousand Years, victory is yours! You can revell gleefully at the end-game summary, and watch as the portraits of your previous rulers gradually become more deformed and more inbred (and superior!).

Oh, and as a final point, since you murdered all your siblings as a family tradition dating back for generations, your lineage will probably die out long before your empire does. But oh well.

This guide was intended for entertainment purposes (as well as genuine utility.) Any perceived racism or references to controversial real-world events are purely fabricated within your head, and were not intended.

If you notice any spelling or grammatical errors please let me know in the comments, and if you liked my guide be sure to rate it up!