Mother of Us All - CK3 Wiki (2024)

This article has been verified for the current version (1.12) of the game.

This a comprehensive guide for one of the harder achievements, “Mother of Us All”.This achievement requires the player to start as “Countess Daurama Daura of Kano” in the year 867, the only recommended starting character in Africa. The achievement goal is to unify the continent of Africa and convert it to a reformed African faith.

This strategy guide is divided into sections for each relevant game concept. Most of that discussion could also be considered as basic guides for game mechanics. Players already familiar with the game mechanics are advised to skip to the step-by-step strategy guide.

Reform the faith[edit | edit source]

This section will discuss the reformation of the Bori faith.

The Old Bori Faith[edit | edit source]

The player begins with the Bori faith, an unreformed Hausan religion with decently useful tenets. The three tenets of Bori are great for accumulating the huge amount of piety needed for reformation.

Adorcism

This tenet enables the decision to acquire Possessed, which is viewed as a Virtue to the faith with this tenet. This is useful to boost piety gain for the reformation and increase learning focus experience. However, this trait will bring with it a minor health penalty.

Esotericism

This tenet designates all three Mystic tiers as a Virtue, enabling characters to gain or enhance the trait via a Learning focus or Pilgrimage, with the likelihood dependent on their learning attribute. The trait enables the “Hold Mystical Communion” decision which grants the character 300 learning experience as well as a medium boost to the stats for 100 piety. There is a minor risk of getting ill or losing 1 level of devotion, but the loss of devotion is preventable through an option to annul the decision.

Ritual Celebrations

This tenet grants a minor opinion boost to courtiers and vassals and awards 100 piety when starting a feast. It is a reasonable source of piety, but gold is a scarce resource in the early game and that renders this tenet less optimal.

Reformed Bori faith[edit | edit source]

New tenets[edit | edit source]

To achieve the goal of converting the whole African continent the player should consider one or more of the following tenets.

Mendicant Preachers

This tenet provides a “+33% Conversion Speed” modifier to province conversion and gives extra rewards for completing Pilgrimages. The tenet also designates Temperate as a Virtue for extra piety.

Sanctioned False Conversions

This tenet provides a “+30% Conversion Resistance” modifier to province conversion and the unique “Amnesty for False Conversions” decision. The decision immediately converts the counties with “Suspected False Converts” modifier which randomly occurs in heretic counties within the realm. The probability of getting this modifier is greater if the heretic religion is closer or similar to the player's faith, therefore it could be useful when dealing with heresy insurrection due to low fervor.

Islamic Syncretism

This tenet makes Muslim faiths consider the player's faith astray instead of evil. This can be ideal when confronting both Muwalladism in Maghreb region and Ash'ari in Egypt. The player would also face fewer populist revolts due to wrong faith, but the downside is that it will convert Muslim provinces slower.

Pursuit of Power

This tenet provides the player with the Invasion CB which will be lost through feudalization. However, it does impose a -10 direct vassal opinion modifier which could be problematic.

Warmonger

Like the previous tenet, it also enables Invasion CB, and if the reformed faith is designed to have a head of faith, it also enables great holy war.

Reincarnation

This tenet provides a “+20% Conversion Resistance” to province conversion of the faith. The reincarnation mechanic is potentially useful and could grant Shrewd to potential heirs, although the probability is low. When family members are hailed as reincarnations of their ancestors provide 75 Renown.

Monasticism

This tenet allows players to disinherit their heirs by making them devoted. It should be noted that it comes at a great cost to piety and legitimacy.

Doctrines[edit | edit source]

Doctrines are largely irrelevant, but a few alterations to some key doctrines are recommended.

View of Gender: Male/Female Dominated

Any option other than equal will require fewer children to be disinherited. Since the tribal government does not allow manually changing gender preference of succession law, it would be costly to have too many children to disinherit for the sake of the integrity of the realm.

Religious Attitude: Fundamentalist

The player can convert heretic or heathen counties much faster with this doctrine.

Marriage Type: Monogamous

This doctrine allows for only one spouse. The fewer children that are born the fewer children to disinherit.

Clerical Tradition: Lay Clergy

This doctrine is a requirement for the Temporal doctrine.

Clerical Gender: Either

Appointing a child as the court chaplain serves as a free disinheritance. Selecting a genius offspring with high learning to be the court chaplain would speed up conversion of provinces.

Head of Faith: Temporal

Appoint the player character as head of faith, then consider consecrating the bloodline. This gives a +75% county conversion boost for the consecrated character and a 25% boost to their descendants.

Reformation[edit | edit source]

To initiate the reformation, the play will need around 4500 piety. The player also needs to control three holy sites, one of which is the realm capital Daura; the other two relatively nearer are Garumele and Wandala to the west, which are fairly easy to conquer. It is recommended to focus on learning lifestyle and choose perks in the Theologian tree, specifically the Prophet perk that provides a 50% reduction in piety cost for reformation.

Convert the realm[edit | edit source]

Most of the time, the court chaplain should be converting faith in the realm counties. It is advisable to have Learning lifestyle perks Zealous Proselytizer and Religious Icon unlocked for every ruler. Conversion should take 3-5 years if the court chaplain has a decent learning skill.

Vassals can help with conversion. When granted a different faith county, the new vassal should start to convert the county immediately. Characters with higher learning completes it faster. Granting vassals difficult-to-convert provinces (i.e. provinces with high development or organized faiths like Ibadi). Like the player, vassals can only convert one county at a time, therefore granting each new vassal one county only should speed up the conversion process. Mind the vassal limit when creating new vassals.

Many conquest CBs will end with many new hostile or evil faith vassals. Their titles can be revoked without gaining tyranny but end in revolts that other low-opinion vassals can join. If the player character is not prestigious, lacks renown or dread it has a higher chance to happen. Some perks in the Scholar tree can help with low opinion but it is mostly unavoidable after larger conquests.

Heresy outbreaks happen when the faith has low fervor. It converts provinces to a heretical faith of the parent religion of which Bori should only have one. After that, it will spread to neighbouring counties and convert their rulers. It is sometimes possible to convert a heretical vassal with a gold gift. “Amnesty for False Conversions” is useful in this situation. These outbreaks may help with conversion as they increase the fervor of the faith. If not dealt with other vassals might conquer their territories for the player.

Expansion[edit | edit source]

The player starts with a two-province countess and one of the main goals is to unify the entire African continent, which consists of around 450 counties. The tribal government provides the player with plenty of CBs to conquer a lot of territory in one war. These CBs are costly and some require high levels of fame or devotion.

Once per lifetime CBs[edit | edit source]

Subjugation

This CB only costs 500 prestige for tribal government rulers. However, the player could only use subjugation as CB when the target is also under a tribal government. When the war is won, the target will be vassalized, and if they have the same or a higher rank, the player will also usurp their highest title. If not used with care, it could vassalize powerful disloyal foreign heathen vassals or worse, many smaller hostile vassals.

Invasion of Kingdom

This CB requires the character to have 2000 prestige or piety. Most of the time, the target will be heathen, which means a huge amount of prestige is required to start the war. In addition to the war cost, level 4 of fame is required, which can be hard to accumulate early on when the realm is small. Like subjugation, the player will also vassalize hostile vassals after winning the war. Keep in mind that if the opponent holds provinces outside the war target, they will remain independent and all land directly owned by them within the target kingdom will transfer to the player directly.

Holy war for title

This CB is unlocked once the faith is reformed and can only be used against rulers with hostile or evil faith. The kingdom tier CB requires 750 piety and level 4 of devotion. Holy wars will lower the fervor by 10 so it should be used sparingly on lower-tiered titles. The advantage is that only vassals of the player faith will be vassalised, every other province goes to the player. Peasant revolts are not usually difficult to counter but in high development the levies of the revolts can reach high numbers that could prove difficult. It is advised to convert these counties as soon as possible. Keep in mind, if the player attacks a target with neighbouring rulers of the same faith they can join the war in defence making the war more difficult.

Other Useful CBs[edit | edit source]

Kingdom tier claims for others

If the player character exhausts the large CBs and is still young, they can claim titles for someone else if the player character is of a higher tier than the claimed title (duke if the title is a county, etc). Courting claimants to the player court is at first difficult, but having a Royal Court with a high Court Grandeur or the Vibrant Court Dynasty perk will make it easier to invite or appear in your court as guests for recruitment. The player might also use schemes to make a claimant like them or use marriage to invite claimants to the player realm. Upon arrival, the player should convert them and then press their claim. The new ruler vassal might immediately lose their title due to factions but the title will remain inside the player realm regardless.

Player claims

The player can claim titles for themselves by using the Sanctioned Loopholes perk in the learning lifestyle. The perk enables the player to buy claims for 250 piety per county. During later stages, the player will accumulate piety quickly due to activities such as funerals or pilgrimages, artifacts, and special buildings.

Seize all de jure land

This CB unlocks in the last era of the game and should be used to conquer any remaining territory of the player de jure titles. It is an expensive CB that costs a lot of prestige, especially when the counties left to be conquered are scattered inside multiple duchies or kingdoms.

Lifestyles[edit | edit source]

Throughout the game, the player will focus on three of the five lifestyles: diplomacy, stewardship, and learning.

Diplomacy[edit | edit source]

All important perks in this focus can be unlocked very early. Forced Vassalage and True Ruler are the most important. Befriend can also be beneficial. The trait rewards for completing the trees are not particularly useful. Invest more into other lifestyles.

Martial[edit | edit source]

Since the player will not face great military threats because the neighbouring tribal rulers stop being a threat early as the player expands and the Organized faith realms rarely invade Central Africa, investments in this lifestyle are unimportant. If the player does get several perks unlocked through the grand rite of witches, events or travelling, invest those into the strategist tree for a stronger army. The Bellum Justum perk also provides cost reductions useful when the CBs get very expensive in the late game.

Stewardship[edit | edit source]

It is advisable to mainly focus on Administrator tree as it would stabilize the realm and make the army larger to conquer new lands. As a tribe ruler, the player does not need to construct a lot of buildings or increase taxes from vassals, it is instead recommended to alter the focus once the Administrator trait is unlocked.

Intrigue[edit | edit source]

The abduct scheme is useful for converting rulers while remaining peaceful with them. Dread is useful to keep the realm intact. It is not recommended to invest a lot into intrigue focus but if the player does get several perk points unlocked, Torturer tree helps keep the vassals too afraid to revolt. In addition, dread can help with demand conversion interaction should unreformed Bori outbreaks happen. Mind if your dread reaches 20 or above, the decision Amnesty for False Conversions will not be available.

Learning[edit | edit source]

This has always been the main focus of this campaign. Usually, it is helpful to get at least one lifestyle trait unlocked in addition some perks from other trees. Scholar tree would do the biggest difference by raising the opinion of foreign heathen vassals, and thus allow the player to convert them with a higher success rate. As mentioned, the player needs the first three perks in the Theologian tree to speed up the conversion. Also, Know thyself allows the player to prepare and plan for the succession, which is helpful when the realm is reasonably big but the dynasty is not quite renowned enough to help the heir deal with potential revolts.

Surviving succession[edit | edit source]

Inheritance[edit | edit source]

Because primogeniture succession law is usually only accessible after unlocking the late medieval era, the player must narrow the number of heirs down to manageable numbers through other means. It is especially vital with a confederate partition succession law or when the player has multiple titles of the highest rank. There are several ways to disinherit offspring.

Disinherit as dynasty head

This method is expensive and risky, costing prestige, renown and legitimacy. The player can only disinherit if the target is inside the diplomatic range.

Appoint heirs as court chaplain

According to the game mechanism, all theocratic characters are automatically disinherited. However, if the player changes court chaplain from a child to someone else, the child’s eligibility for inheritance will be restored.

Ask heirs to take vow

This method requires the corresponding tenet to unlock. If the player considers succession a constant problem in the future, it is recommended to include that tenet when reforming the faith. Be mindful of the legitimacy cost.

Get heirs killed on the battlefield

Sometimes the best way to prevent heirs from inheriting is an early death. Make the martial-gendered heir and have them attack armies outnumbered. Note that primary heirs caught in battle or sieges add to the war score.

Multiple kingdom inheritance strategy

If the player character's highest title is an empire and they holds multiple kingdom titles but have fewer eligible children than the number of kingdoms held; upon succession, the primary heir will keep all the counties in the primary domains and other children will each get one of the kingdoms and remain vassal of the primary heir. Thus it may help to keep as many kingdom titles as possible, however, it will not work if they hold more than one empire title as the second child will be granted the second empire and thus become independent. Under confederate partition, even if the second empire title is not currently held, the second child will get it anyway as long as there are enough lands to create it.

Survival guide upon succession[edit | edit source]

If the realm is unstable on succession, the player will face faction threats if the player character is unpopular. The player should form amiable and popular heirs through education, keep many allies for the heirs to call in for protection, and a decent sum of gold for activities and gifts to troublesome vassals. Gifts are much cheaper for tribal rulers.

When succession occurs, the old long-reign positive opinion modifier will be replaced with a short-reign negative modifier and thus create opinion loss. However, the short reign negative modifier could be greatly shortened by the dynasty legacy, special buildings, artifacts, high legitimacy or other sources. Thus securing as many modifiers and perks as possible could be important. Nonetheless, the new ruler will face factions demanding independence or lower authority levels. The heir must be prepared to form alliances with several strong vassals. Thus the heir needs to have several available children, preferably of different genders, who could be either married or betrothed to those vassals or their offspring. To diminish the inheritance problem in the future, the heir should also have not too many children. Four issues would be more than enough to keep the faction in check. The player could also imprison as many vassals as possible before the death of player character. Due to the doctrines the player chose, adultery will be a common cause for imprisonment for both male and female rulers.

Enhance the dynasty[edit | edit source]

Dynasty Empowerment[edit | edit source]

The dynasty will be growing stronger as the game progresses, however, for future generations, the player might want to speed up the process through legacies as well as several decisions.

Legacy

For this part, the player should focus on Blood, Erudition and Glory. Start with Blood, at least complete level two for a greater chance of good congenital traits. As the realm grows bigger, the player will be able to take down greater enemies with a larger army, and for war, the +10% prestige/piety gain modifier in the Erudition and Glory are advisable to have; after that, aim for level 4 Glory legacy as it will significantly shorten the short reign penalty.

Witch Coven

Create a Witch Coven as soon as possible as it would be difficult to create when the house grows big. Sometimes the player will get a courtier with either witch secret or trait, and they will try to convert the player character. Since Bori faith allows witchcraft it is beneficial to accept it. Once the player character has the secret, it will unlock a personal scheme to convert others. Immediately convert the heir and family members, and then take the decision “Found Witch Coven”. Doing so will permanently give all members and future members of your house a strong buff that provides +10% Fertility, Medium health boost, +10 Hostile scheme power/resistance. It will also unlock the grand rite decision which grants a random perk every 10 years.

Strong Blood

This dynasty perk is also a useful unlockable and should be prioritized as soon as possible. Unlike the witch coven, it will affect all dynasty members instead of just house members. In addition to a small health boost, it also enhances the possibility of inheriting good congenital traits and, since it will affect other houses of the dynasty, it ultimately allows the player to marry the children to distant relatives who will also be getting good congenital traits without facing the risk of producing inbreeds.

Other Decisions

Other decisions could benefit the dynasty such as "Consecrate Bloodline" and "Dynasty of Many Crowns". However, they are not as helpful as those mentioned above, and the dynasty of many crowns just does not fit in this campaign since it is required to keep all land inside your realm.

Culture Shift[edit | edit source]

Countess Daurama starts as a Hausan, however, it does not mean the family need to stay Hausa throughout the campaign. In the current stage of the game, cultural shifts could yield great benefits when converting from an underdeveloped culture to an advanced one. On the continent of Africa, the most advanced culture is probably the Egyptian. So the plan is pretty simple, take the Kingdom of Egypt from the Tulunids, grant all lands to new vassals except for the duchy of Cairo, move the realm capital to Cairo, and convert to Egyptian culture through decision. Once taken, the player can enjoy all the innovations the Egyptians unlocked.

Advance the government[edit | edit source]

Adopt feudal ways[edit | edit source]

Several conditions are required for feudalization:

• Have Absolute Tribal Authority
• Have an Organized Faith or a West African faith like Bori
• Level of fame is higher than 2
• Development in Capital County is higher than 10
• All Tribal Era Innovations (except for region/cultural) unlocked

Except for technology, all other four could be unlocked pretty early, and all technology could be researched in the 1050s. However, it does not mean the player should feudalize as soon as possible. Settling from tribal to feudal significantly enfeebles the realm: it will replace tribe with castle and destroy all buildings within and replace some of them with random castle buildings, which would, empirically speaking, shrink the tax income and size of levies by about 50% and thus make the player extremely vulnerable to other tribes. Besides, upon converting to feudalism, the player will need to start to pay man-at-arm with real gold instead of prestige, which would further pressure the already underdeveloped economy. The player could instead do a more gradual version of feudalization.

Waiting a little longer, the subject kingdoms in the realm could feudalize before the player. This certainly triggers a negative opinion, but it is still manageable since they will suffer from “the feudalization debuff” and become too weak to revolt, even if they don’t like the main character as they used to.

However, the player should keep the realm on level 3 of tribal authority since level 4 only enables the decision of feudalization but has -30 opinion modifier instead -10 on level 3. It could be simply raised to level 4 when the player is ready to feudalize. It is suggested to do it after most of the strong tribes have already been conquered, excluding those in Ajuraan area. A much safer plan is to conquer literally all tribes and then feudalize, and it should be done around 1080CE if the campaign is progressing decently.

Step-by-step strategy guide[edit | edit source]

Getting into the game, the player will notice that Countess Daurama, the Mother of Us All, has a set of excellent stats as well as useful personalities, great education and even greater lifestyle traits.

Despite being matrilineally married to her husband, their only child is not of the mother’s dynasty. Don’t worry, there will be an event fire probably within a year that offers options to deal with this problem. In that event, it is recommended to select the option that changes gender law to female preference and also disinherit the son. As it is mentioned before, it preferable to have an unequal gender law as it would lower the number of eligible children for inheritance. The player could always restore the inheritance to him later if he turns out to be great and/or fails to have another good heir.

Before unpausing the game, declare a conquest war for the neighboring County of Gobir. After that, conquer Tahoua and create the Duchy of Gobir for more prestige. If the player is fast enough with these early wars, they could get both counties before they are sacked by other raiders in the neighborhood. Once the Duchy is created, it is time to raise raiders and start to accumulate some gold for later conquests. Start looting the Kebbi and Air, and going farther into Dendi or Nupe. However, any county farther than that would not be recommended as it will cause too much attrition to the army.

The next goal will be forming the Kingdom of Hausaland, which needs six counties in total. If the husband dies early, his land will be divided and make the Kingdom easier to create. And if not, get another county on the west to create a kingdom title. If the Mother has unlocked “True Ruler” perk, it is also possible to vassalize the husband, and then the player could have the court chaplain fabricate a claim on his land to revoke those titles from his children after he dies.

After the Kingdom of Hausaland is united, the next war should be a ducal conquest of the Duchy of Bornu to secure the second Holy Site, and also pave the way for another conquest, a conquest for the County of Wandala get a third holy site. However, it is relatively hard to have the Mother herself reforming Bori as she, during most of her life, will be mainly focusing on Diplomacy and War. Thus the player will need a more learning-oriented heir who can accumulate a great amount of piety for the reformation. Additionally, during Daura's reign, she should be able to vassalize several count-tier rulers with her extraordinary diplomatic skill, mostly among the land to the east that shares the same faith with her.

If the campaign progress has gone well so far, the player will be able to create the Empire of Kanem-Bornu by advancing to the east. Upon reaching the border with Coptic countries, it is recommended to turn around and start to conquer those different faith tribal rulers to the west. By that time, there will be at least one “great power”, usually Ghana, which could be potentially subjugated and absorbed into the realm. But before that, the player will have to assess his/her own military strength as those heathen rulers will not be as weak as the tribe to the east. The help from strong allies is extremely important during this period when the Daura dynasty is in its infancy to become the sole great power of Africa. With land seizing CBs mentioned above, continue to push westward to the South Atlantic Ocean, which would probably take about 200-250 years in total. Stay tribal during this period even if most of the kingdom vassals have adopted feudalism around 1050CE. After united all tribes, the major military conquest could be paused for perhaps twenty years and the player should focus on enforcing religious unity within the realm. Meanwhile, if the situation in the Horn of Africa is still a mess, the player could potentially waltz in and conquer the Kingdom of Ajuraan and/or the Kingdom of Outer Ajuraan. However, they could be simply dealt with later after the conquest of Sunni regions in Africa.

Before invading the Muslim world, the player should make sure that they could defeat either the Umayyad or the Abbasid. Usually, by around 1100CE, both of the two caliphate are very powerful. Try to find an opportunity to backstab them when they are busy fighting the Catholic Crusaders. Grab Egypt with a Holy War for Kingdom CB, take the richest land of Egypt into the player character's domain, move capital to Cairo, fight of the Muslim populist uprising (there will be quite a few times before the conversion of at least half of Egypt). When the realm is stable enough, the player could finally settle down as feudal emperor and shift culture to Egyptian.

Alternatively, the player could take, instead of Egypt, the Kingdom of Andalusia, which is equally developed but consists of more counties. However, the player will be facing a much larger revolt, about 10k for the first time, and since more counties are joining the faction, the revolt is much more frequent than in Egypt. Also, if the realm capital is moved to Cordoba or Sevilla, the “Unify Africa” decision will be disabled as the realm would technically be considered European.

After the defeat of two major Sunni powers, which should take not more than 100 years, the player will also need to tackle another Christian Power that has land in Mediterranean North Africa. It would usually be the Byzantine or Kingdom of Italy, which should not be that much of a trouble, especially with both Andalusia and Egypt inside the realm. Even if the Catholic church remains dominant in Western Europe, their Crusade is more likely to target Iberia, Near East and Anatolia; Egypt is rarely targeted if those three above are still heathen, thus there will not be much threat from the Pope.

Once taking control over all African region, the player can finally take the “Unify Africa” decision which would immediately convert several heretic or heathen county as well as vassals in Africa. By that time, the player should have at least 95% area converted, thus it would only require a decade or so to finish the job and get the achievement.

Note:The player is not require to convert provinces with your heretic religion (old <religion name>) to get the achievement. You can still get the achievement if some of your provinces are heretic. All heathen provinces must be converted.