With the new strategy developments, that pushed the "King of Ireland" record down to 21 days (and maybe even lower) I think the category got less interesting to run since you don't really need to play the game anymore (even though it's crazy that this time is possible). Of course they should stay on the boards, but I'd suggest splitting the category into something like any% and one of two possibilities:

• no ruler designer
• original irish ruler (maybe called "The Emerald Isle") so no ruler designer and you'd have to start in Ireland I'd probably prefer the second option, but am open for discussion. What are your opinions on this?

I agree. At this point it's pretty much 100% down to RNG using the Irish King of England to get the lowest times and I can't see any alternative strategy being able to compete.

Personally rather than these I would split into any% and a "must start in Ireland" category. The ruler designer allows for more diversity of strategies and so long as the character has to be or replace one of the historical characters in Ireland you can't go too crazy with it (I tried, lol).

A lot of the brokenness of the current strat comes from being able to start at king tier and with much larger levies than any Irish ruler, you can remove that by requiring a start in Ireland without having to ban the ruler designer.

That said if I had to pick between those two options I would go #1 personally, simply because I think it's better to keep to the minimum number of restrictions possible to define the new category.

My first idea was yours as well, but it's at least possible to get enough counts to accept vassalization as a designed duke of Munster with the faith bonuses and virtues without needing a large military, so that would have the same strategy as any%. https://ibb.co/cgpnPcg (Here a screen to show it.

We can try a no ruler designer, I'm a bit scared a similar broken strat can be found without ruler designer (probably not in 1066 but in 867 it's pretty likely imo with all the tribes around).

In that case I would personally just set the new category as "no ruler designer". That replicates the conditions of the 1.1.3 runs and it's simple and straightforward.