Crusader Kings III
88 Achievements
1,435
0-0h
Xbox Series
Norman Yoke
As Duke William of Normandy in 1066, subjugate England
15
0.1%
How to unlock the Norman Yoke achievement in Crusader Kings III - Definitive Guide
1. Start as William the Bastard de Normandie in 1066 - The Fate of England. Make sure to have Ironman enabled.
2. Raise your Crown Authority to 2 so you can revoke titles later on.
3. Assign some better vassals to your council and start swaying your Bishop for a few extra men.
4. You start the game at war with the King of England and you have an additional army of 4400 soldiers (Duke William's Host) available in Normandy (Northern France). Make sure to also raise your own levies and knights after unpausing the game for a few seconds.
5. Unfortunately Englands army is bigger than yours so you will need to use terrain to your advantage, hire some mercenaries or Men-at-arms and/or find some powerful allies. The latter can easily be achieved by marrying your children off. Select "Alliance Power" for sorting. You don't need to check "matrilinear" for your daughters because you don't want to play longer than a few years.
6. With the help of your new allies win the war against England. I attacked their capital Londres first, then conquered some counties around there, keeping my armies close together for the frequent clashes with the English forces.
7. After winning the war move your realm capital to any city in the Kingdom of England. Londres is a safe option.
8. Do NOT use the "Embrace English Culture" decision just yet. The discription clearly states that only Norman or French vassals (in England) will convert to the English culture with you. However, most of your vassals in England will be Anglo-Saxon or even Scots. You need to get rid of them first. You will also be way above your domain limit, but resist the urge to give your counties away.
9. First deploy your armies because you will likely have to fight. Then one by one imprison your non-Norman vassals and then revoke their titles. I didn't check if they were in England and I also revoked the Barony titles to be sure. Some of them will resist arrest and force you into a war.
10. Once you win the war you will have imprisoned those rebellious vassals and can revoke their titles. That in turn gains you new non-Norman vassals which had been vassals to the Dukes you just got rid of and which you should now also dispossess.
11. When you are done, let the game continue for a few seconds, then check back in the vassals list if any non-norman vassals remain.
12. Once you're sure to have only Norman (or French) vassals take the "Embrace English Culture" decision. The achievement should unlock as soon as you let the game continue.
You will want to finish the process within William's lifetime. Some players have reported the achievement not unlocking for any of his heirs even after meeting all the requirements. I also encountered that issue myself.
William is a powerful Commander, so not using him to command your army is a tough choice. Losing him in battle might be worse though.
2. Raise your Crown Authority to 2 so you can revoke titles later on.
3. Assign some better vassals to your council and start swaying your Bishop for a few extra men.
4. You start the game at war with the King of England and you have an additional army of 4400 soldiers (Duke William's Host) available in Normandy (Northern France). Make sure to also raise your own levies and knights after unpausing the game for a few seconds.
5. Unfortunately Englands army is bigger than yours so you will need to use terrain to your advantage, hire some mercenaries or Men-at-arms and/or find some powerful allies. The latter can easily be achieved by marrying your children off. Select "Alliance Power" for sorting. You don't need to check "matrilinear" for your daughters because you don't want to play longer than a few years.
6. With the help of your new allies win the war against England. I attacked their capital Londres first, then conquered some counties around there, keeping my armies close together for the frequent clashes with the English forces.
7. After winning the war move your realm capital to any city in the Kingdom of England. Londres is a safe option.
8. Do NOT use the "Embrace English Culture" decision just yet. The discription clearly states that only Norman or French vassals (in England) will convert to the English culture with you. However, most of your vassals in England will be Anglo-Saxon or even Scots. You need to get rid of them first. You will also be way above your domain limit, but resist the urge to give your counties away.
9. First deploy your armies because you will likely have to fight. Then one by one imprison your non-Norman vassals and then revoke their titles. I didn't check if they were in England and I also revoked the Barony titles to be sure. Some of them will resist arrest and force you into a war.
10. Once you win the war you will have imprisoned those rebellious vassals and can revoke their titles. That in turn gains you new non-Norman vassals which had been vassals to the Dukes you just got rid of and which you should now also dispossess.
11. When you are done, let the game continue for a few seconds, then check back in the vassals list if any non-norman vassals remain.
12. Once you're sure to have only Norman (or French) vassals take the "Embrace English Culture" decision. The achievement should unlock as soon as you let the game continue.
You will want to finish the process within William's lifetime. Some players have reported the achievement not unlocking for any of his heirs even after meeting all the requirements. I also encountered that issue myself.
William is a powerful Commander, so not using him to command your army is a tough choice. Losing him in battle might be worse though.
2 Comments
Are any of the English vassals/lords that you can appoint happy with you? Should you select people who have a positive opinion of you? And how many years does it take to get any learning perks to live longer?
By sjtimmer on 18 Dec 2022 07:21
The former bug that caused you to not get the achievement for the featured character's scenarios like this one if they died and you played on as their heir is fixed, I got the achievement as William's heir just fine.
This guide is good if you only aim at getting the achievement fast and don't want to continue the game after that. If you do want to rule the British Empire as the dynasty of William the conquerer, you should probably not force it with the Anglo-Saxon vassals, since revoking titles and/or imprisoning lords without a valid reason will get your tyranny level up fast and will cause ALL of your vassals to hate you and eventually rise up against you. Ways to do this without getting tyranny level are:
a) don't try to sway the Anglo-Saxon Lords and wait until they found an independance faction against you. Temporarily lower your military power by fighting an easy war and taking some losses to help them reach the power threshold to rise against you (Make sure you have external allies and enough fame to call them to your aid so you can defeat the rebels). Since they rebelled against you, you can now imprison them and revoke their titles without getting tyranny (always revoke the titles, don't execute them, because if you execute them, their heir will take over)
b) have your spymaster find secrets at your court and at the Anglo-Saxon duke's courts to eventually find a valid reason to imprison them or revoke their titles
c) offer their underage heirs English guardians and check the box to convert their culture, then just wait until they inherit the title (or accelerate the succession by a few little muder schemes). You might need to sway them a little first to accept the guardian with the culture conversion.
You generally only need to get rid of the Anglo-Saxon Dukes. After that, you can appoint English dukes and give them the remaining Anglo-Saxon Counts as their vassals, since the achievement only considers your DIRECT vassals, your vassals can still have vassals of different cultures.
This guide is good if you only aim at getting the achievement fast and don't want to continue the game after that. If you do want to rule the British Empire as the dynasty of William the conquerer, you should probably not force it with the Anglo-Saxon vassals, since revoking titles and/or imprisoning lords without a valid reason will get your tyranny level up fast and will cause ALL of your vassals to hate you and eventually rise up against you. Ways to do this without getting tyranny level are:
a) don't try to sway the Anglo-Saxon Lords and wait until they found an independance faction against you. Temporarily lower your military power by fighting an easy war and taking some losses to help them reach the power threshold to rise against you (Make sure you have external allies and enough fame to call them to your aid so you can defeat the rebels). Since they rebelled against you, you can now imprison them and revoke their titles without getting tyranny (always revoke the titles, don't execute them, because if you execute them, their heir will take over)
b) have your spymaster find secrets at your court and at the Anglo-Saxon duke's courts to eventually find a valid reason to imprison them or revoke their titles
c) offer their underage heirs English guardians and check the box to convert their culture, then just wait until they inherit the title (or accelerate the succession by a few little muder schemes). You might need to sway them a little first to accept the guardian with the culture conversion.
You generally only need to get rid of the Anglo-Saxon Dukes. After that, you can appoint English dukes and give them the remaining Anglo-Saxon Counts as their vassals, since the achievement only considers your DIRECT vassals, your vassals can still have vassals of different cultures.
By Hirntoht on 04 Sep 2023 20:12
"Moving the Realm Capital within the de jure territory of Kingdom of England enables the Embrace English Culture decision. A strategy you can use to get this fast is to apply the "North Korea" strategy, where you imprison and revoke all land from all your vassals until none are left anymore, in which the achievement will be triggered and earned. A bit simpler approach is to revoke all the duchies of non-English vassals and transfer non-English counts to English dukes if you have at least one in the realm - the achievement checks direct vassals only."