Crusader Kings III
158 Achievements
2,250
173-230h
PC
The Grandest Tour
Visit ten Kingdom Tier Vassals on a Grand Tour
5
0.02%
How to unlock the The Grandest Tour achievement in Crusader Kings III - Definitive Guide
Hirntoht
TrueAchievements
TrueAchievements
1) Getting at least 10 kingdom tier vassals
The most difficult and time-consuming part of this achievement is of course to HAVE at least ten kingdom tier vassals in your Empire. None of the already existing Empires at the start of the game in either 867 or 1066 are even close to that, so there is no quick way to cheese this. Best do it during or in the aftermath of another campaign in which you aim for any other achievement that requires you to conquer a huge Empire. Some achievements that would work well for this and could get you to the point of having ten Kingdom tier vassals after only a medium length campaign are:
- Any of the major achievements in Iberia. The Empire of Hispania alone, despite its relatively small size, contains between 7 and 10 kingdom titles in its de jure territory, depending on whether the 3 kingdoms that are created by special decisions get created (Aragon, Portugal and Mozarabic Toledo), so you can just conquer a little bit more (e.g. Aquitaine, Mahgreb) to get the 10 full.
- Recreating the Roman Empire as Byzantium (works with every possible start nation of course, but Byzantium is quickest). The Byzantine Empire has more than 10 kingdoms in its de jure, but starts controlling only six of them (none of the titles created yet). You can get 3 more tiny kingdoms relatively easily (Krete, Cyprus and the Republic of Venice), so Byzantium would probably be the quickest one to get 10 kingdom tier vassals for the purpose of this achievement alone if you already have or don't care about the other big Empire achievements.
- Recreating the Empire of Tibet as the Pugyel (Bod Chen Po achievement). Tibet has 9 kingdoms in its de jure. Of course you wouldn't need all of them for the Bod Chen Po achievement, but it's relatively easy to expand further into Tibet's de jure by both diplomatic or martial means if you already recreated the Empire.
- The Darius' Revenge achievement from the new legacy of Persia DLC (which requires you to hold the Persian empire and some core kingdoms of the Byzantine Empire)
Of course Daurama Daura's personal quest to unite Africa will also put you in a position to do the Grandest Tour, but that one will probably take you longer to assemble 10 kingdoms, since most African kingdom titles are pretty big and spread out.
2) Getting your 10 kingdom tier vassals to stay put in their castle for once
In order to chose one of your vassals as a tour stop, they must be at home and available by the time you plan and start your Grand Tour. If they aren't (Because they are travelling, involved in an event, personally commanding an army or imprisoned), you cannot chose them as a tour stop. You obviously plan the Grand Tour when you are at peace and you'll want to have absolute crown authority to minimize the possibilities for your king vassals to be busy leading armies in their own wars. But even then it can be quite a frustrating waiting game to catch 10 kings at home all at once. Kings with a healthy domain tend to have the budget to do activities often at that stage of the game and kings without a healthy domain tend to get into wars with rebelling vassals.
If you are going to conquer some really huge Empire anyway (Roman Empire, unite Africa, world conquest etc.), you can just keep conquering a few more kingdoms until you so many kingdom tier vassals that it isn't an issue anymore to catch 10 of them at home.
If you don't want to conquer even more than 10 kingdoms, a good way to help with this is keeping some of those kingdom tier titles to yourself (or wait with creating them) until right before you are ready to do the grand tour and the already existing kings are at home and then hand those titles out to vassals who are at home and start the tour immediately after that.
Another way would be to put some of your vassal kings into house arrest (only if you happen to have reasons to do so, like a civil war or some of them having committed crimes, otherwise mass arresting monarchs is just a recipe to provoke a rebellion) and releasing them all just before you want to start the tour.
By the way, some major faiths have head of faith titles that are listed as kingdom tier. If one of those should be your vassal, they do count for the achievement even if they don't hold a worldly kingdom title, they just need to be landed anywhere in your realm for you to be able to visit them. If you happen to hold a kingdom tier head of faith title yourself (e.g. playing as the Sunni Caliph), you can quickly create one more kingdom tier vassal by handing that title to your heir (I myself did the achievement during my campaign to reunite the Roman Empire as the Italians and had the Pope as a vassal. He did count as kingdom tier for the achievement even though I had taken the kingdom of Lombardy away from him before).
3) Doing the tour
Once you started the tour with ten kingdom tier vassals on the tour stop list, you just have to complete the tour. Don't worry if one of your tour stop vassals refuses to host you or you get the message that you'll have to skip a stop because the castle is under siege, they will still count as visited. If they die before you reach them, the heir of their title automatically takes their place as a tour stop. The only thing that could still mess up the achievement for you is one of the kingdoms getting destroyed before you visit it or your current character dying before the tour is complete, so just take precautions to travel as safely as possible and you should be fine. If someone should declare war on you while you are doing the tour, don't abort the tour, just select "I can manage things from here" and you can finish the tour despite the war (you just can't use yourself or any of your entourage members or visited vassals as knights or generals while the tour is still going).
The most difficult and time-consuming part of this achievement is of course to HAVE at least ten kingdom tier vassals in your Empire. None of the already existing Empires at the start of the game in either 867 or 1066 are even close to that, so there is no quick way to cheese this. Best do it during or in the aftermath of another campaign in which you aim for any other achievement that requires you to conquer a huge Empire. Some achievements that would work well for this and could get you to the point of having ten Kingdom tier vassals after only a medium length campaign are:
- Any of the major achievements in Iberia. The Empire of Hispania alone, despite its relatively small size, contains between 7 and 10 kingdom titles in its de jure territory, depending on whether the 3 kingdoms that are created by special decisions get created (Aragon, Portugal and Mozarabic Toledo), so you can just conquer a little bit more (e.g. Aquitaine, Mahgreb) to get the 10 full.
- Recreating the Roman Empire as Byzantium (works with every possible start nation of course, but Byzantium is quickest). The Byzantine Empire has more than 10 kingdoms in its de jure, but starts controlling only six of them (none of the titles created yet). You can get 3 more tiny kingdoms relatively easily (Krete, Cyprus and the Republic of Venice), so Byzantium would probably be the quickest one to get 10 kingdom tier vassals for the purpose of this achievement alone if you already have or don't care about the other big Empire achievements.
- Recreating the Empire of Tibet as the Pugyel (Bod Chen Po achievement). Tibet has 9 kingdoms in its de jure. Of course you wouldn't need all of them for the Bod Chen Po achievement, but it's relatively easy to expand further into Tibet's de jure by both diplomatic or martial means if you already recreated the Empire.
- The Darius' Revenge achievement from the new legacy of Persia DLC (which requires you to hold the Persian empire and some core kingdoms of the Byzantine Empire)
Of course Daurama Daura's personal quest to unite Africa will also put you in a position to do the Grandest Tour, but that one will probably take you longer to assemble 10 kingdoms, since most African kingdom titles are pretty big and spread out.
2) Getting your 10 kingdom tier vassals to stay put in their castle for once
In order to chose one of your vassals as a tour stop, they must be at home and available by the time you plan and start your Grand Tour. If they aren't (Because they are travelling, involved in an event, personally commanding an army or imprisoned), you cannot chose them as a tour stop. You obviously plan the Grand Tour when you are at peace and you'll want to have absolute crown authority to minimize the possibilities for your king vassals to be busy leading armies in their own wars. But even then it can be quite a frustrating waiting game to catch 10 kings at home all at once. Kings with a healthy domain tend to have the budget to do activities often at that stage of the game and kings without a healthy domain tend to get into wars with rebelling vassals.
If you are going to conquer some really huge Empire anyway (Roman Empire, unite Africa, world conquest etc.), you can just keep conquering a few more kingdoms until you so many kingdom tier vassals that it isn't an issue anymore to catch 10 of them at home.
If you don't want to conquer even more than 10 kingdoms, a good way to help with this is keeping some of those kingdom tier titles to yourself (or wait with creating them) until right before you are ready to do the grand tour and the already existing kings are at home and then hand those titles out to vassals who are at home and start the tour immediately after that.
Another way would be to put some of your vassal kings into house arrest (only if you happen to have reasons to do so, like a civil war or some of them having committed crimes, otherwise mass arresting monarchs is just a recipe to provoke a rebellion) and releasing them all just before you want to start the tour.
By the way, some major faiths have head of faith titles that are listed as kingdom tier. If one of those should be your vassal, they do count for the achievement even if they don't hold a worldly kingdom title, they just need to be landed anywhere in your realm for you to be able to visit them. If you happen to hold a kingdom tier head of faith title yourself (e.g. playing as the Sunni Caliph), you can quickly create one more kingdom tier vassal by handing that title to your heir (I myself did the achievement during my campaign to reunite the Roman Empire as the Italians and had the Pope as a vassal. He did count as kingdom tier for the achievement even though I had taken the kingdom of Lombardy away from him before).
3) Doing the tour
Once you started the tour with ten kingdom tier vassals on the tour stop list, you just have to complete the tour. Don't worry if one of your tour stop vassals refuses to host you or you get the message that you'll have to skip a stop because the castle is under siege, they will still count as visited. If they die before you reach them, the heir of their title automatically takes their place as a tour stop. The only thing that could still mess up the achievement for you is one of the kingdoms getting destroyed before you visit it or your current character dying before the tour is complete, so just take precautions to travel as safely as possible and you should be fine. If someone should declare war on you while you are doing the tour, don't abort the tour, just select "I can manage things from here" and you can finish the tour despite the war (you just can't use yourself or any of your entourage members or visited vassals as knights or generals while the tour is still going).
