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This all adds up to quickly ramp up your level of control when you take over new lands. Also, pick the Authority focus in the martial lifestyle tree, and go down the ‘Serve the Crown’ perk route. If you have some Renown, unlock the first two dynasty legacies in the ‘Law’ path, as these give you extra Control growth. Since you’re taking over a massive amount of the world, you’ll want to do as much as you can to avoid annoying your subjects. You’ll also want to switch Religious Attitude to Pluralist.
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You want to have the Clerical Tradition switched to Lay Clergy, as then you’ll be able to hold temples directly rather than through the church, giving you extra gold and piety. You can set up a new denomination of your faith and choose the tenets under which you run it. Basically, start as you usually would - expanding and not being too rash. Do this until you have 10 times the number of counties in your realm as you have in direct holdings. This way, you’ll get 100% of your domain holdings’ output at first.
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So what is ‘North Korea’? Basically, you ignore the existence of vassals, titles, and everything the game wants you to care about, instead directly holding everything yourself. There are a few steps you’ll have to take to pull off this strategy, and full credit to YouTube channel Reman’s Paradox for an excellent video run-through of how it all works. How to do the North Korea strategy in CK3
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