Crusader Kings

[RZST]

any you guys heard about it?
its based on the HoI/Victorian Engine, and made by the same people iirc.

i havent found an official site yet only the forum :(
Official Forums (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=80)
Screenshot Page (http://207.44.246.62/hellzone_Strategy_Crusader_Kings.shtml) (im already loving it)

thoughts?

i think this will be a great game, albeit a hard one to go into :p. HoI took me a while to actually know what i was doing, i hope CK is much easier to learn :)

edit: i guess this is the official site o.o; official site (http://www.strategyfirst.com/games/GameContent.asp?iGameID=35&sLanguageCode=EN&sSection=Overview)

[Scipio]

IM geussing it is around the crusades time? NO thanx MTW is good enough for me I would like to see an ancient one maybe for Alexandarian time and such also a roman one wouldnt hurt http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

BTW I must complement you on your sig pic and avatar did you make them yourself?

[RZST]

it starts at 1066 to 1453. so its not just the crusades
another good preview (http://pc.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=4512) < read that one. has some pretty interesting stuff.


Quote[/b] ]as game saves will be compatible with Europa Universalis 2, further expanding the history available for that title.
-dude, this means that you can actually play from CK to EU hell maybe even to WW2

edit: yes sir. made em myself just today :p figured id start makin a sig for this here forum since everyones doing it already :p.

[Efrem Da King]

hmm....


I want to buy CK EU2 And V. Play all the way from early middle ages to 1920.

[Alrowan]

people on the Vic forums were talkng about a save game prog that would work from Eu2 and one to work to HoI


As for this game, ill be getting t the moment it ships, think MTW strategy mode, but 10000000x more in depth

[Trax]

I think this is the real official site.

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/crusaderkings.asp

[Basileus]

Havent been overy ipmressed by paradox games but i think i´ll buy this and try it out..

[RisingSun]

followed it for a while, kind of forgot about it. It will be very complicated with all the extreme realistic fuedal relationships, I understand.

[Russian Threat]

I&#39;ve been tracking this one, as well. Thanks for the link to the screenies, m8 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[Trax]

BTW Crusader Kings went gold few days ago http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[Ivan Bajlo]

As one poster on Paradox forum said...

I was keeping my eye on CK progress until I found out Progress is a name of city in Russia. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Paradox has same problems as with many other gaming companies - releasing unfinished games.

Fortunately unlike other they actually keep publishing new patches for a pretty long time and unlike other patches which only fix biggest bugs, they often rework entire game engine so you get completely new gaming experience with each new patch. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

And since they make each game so you can mod 90% of things each game should last you at lest two or three years. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Trax]

First CK beta AAR has been posted http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-balloon.gif

The Deeds of Salamon, King of Hungary (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=133924)

[RZST]

yeah i read that in the forum too.
all i have to say is http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Another AAR....

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134743

When you see that and see MTW campaign mode, you can only cry...

Louis,

[The Wizard]

Seems a bit too... accurate to satisfy Activision&#39;s year report.



~Wiz

[Alrowan]

i tihnk CA and these guys should team up to make the worlds best strategy game, CA can focus on the battle side, paradox on the campagin mode, and then come up somewhere with both aspects. Id quit my job just to play a game like that

[Russian Threat]

Quote[/b] (Alrowan @ Mar. 25 2004,14:48)]i tihnk CA and these guys should team up to make the worlds best strategy game, CA can focus on the battle side, paradox on the campagin mode, and then come up somewhere with both aspects. Id quit my job just to play a game like that
Great idea Forget jobs, I&#39;d quit life just to play a game like that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-party2.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Trax]

Quote[/b] (Alrowan @ Mar. 25 2004,22:48)]i tihnk CA and these guys should team up to make the worlds best strategy game, CA can focus on the battle side, paradox on the campagin mode, and then come up somewhere with both aspects. Id quit my job just to play a game like that
Isn´t going to happen any time soon considering, what Johan had to say (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2670598&postcount=4) about MTW http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

[RZST]

hehe ouch http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif
some ppl there seem to, not like, MTW :p o well.

ill still be playing mtw till CK comes out

[Alrowan]

lol, hes just sayin that cus he couldnt figure out how to fight the battles, he needs the PC to manage that for him

[Alrowan]

well id suggest heading over to this link to see a tonn of screenshots from some lucky guy who got the game b4 its official release HERE (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137643)

aslo there is a new AAR HERE (http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134727)

[Nowake]

The game is awesome. I made a preview in november about it. The diplomacy is the best I ever heard of.

[frogbeastegg]

The more I hear the better it sounds, I&#39;m only just getting to grips with EU2 but CK is practically a game made for me - history, depth, strategy, variety, more history, unlike EU2 it has a setting that really interests me, the only thing missing is MTW style battles. It appears to out do MTW in every respect bar battles, the game even has uglier people than MTW&#39;s freaks, beetle browed loons, and princesses with acid burns. This game is officially now on my I want it NOW I have to get this game list, that list has been empty for years.

Anyone know the UK release date? I would guess months away http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif Oh well, time to exercise my patience...

[ShadeFlanders]

Citaat[/b] (frogbeastegg @ April 06 2004,12:59)]Anyone know the UK release date? I would guess months away http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif Oh well, time to exercise my patience...
If you have VISA you can order it directly from Paradox, they guess they will ship it around 24th of April. Seeing that the price for buying it from them (30€) is a lot lower than buying it here in the store (probably 50€) I didn&#39;t hesitate. And I&#39;ll probably get it a lot earlier then if I wait for the official release date.

[frogbeastegg]

Would the game be in English if I ordered it directly? The game itself probably would be from what I can gather, but what about the manual?

[ShadeFlanders]

Citaat[/b] (frogbeastegg @ April 06 2004,14:35)]Would the game be in English if I ordered it directly? The game itself probably would be from what I can gather, but what about the manual?
hmm, good question. But I think that will be in english too since they said that the Swedish and UK version of the game are exactly the same. I think that includes the manual. But the manuals paradox produce are usually crap anyway.

[Alrowan]

aparently the manual is ok for this game...

lol

well any manual is better than the victoria one

[Efrem Da King]

rofl You can say that agian mate.

[ShadeFlanders]

Actually I think the EU 1 manual was the worst ever. It was crammed full of historical info (which is nice) but had only a rather sparse description about how to play the game. And the tutorial was long and tedious with no option to save your progress

[RZST]

*looks at CK&#39;s campaign map*
...
*looks at MTW&#39;s campaign map*
...
...
*cries*

[Efrem Da King]

Quote[/b] (ShadeFlanders @ April 07 2004,12:32)]Actually I think the EU 1 manual was the worst ever. It was crammed full of historical info (which is nice) but had only a rather sparse description about how to play the game. And the tutorial was long and tedious with no option to save your progress
Victoria has NO tutorial.

[ShadeFlanders]

Citaat[/b] (Efrem Da King @ April 08 2004,07:40)]Victoria has NO tutorial.
Yes but the manual alone is still better then the manual + tutorial of EU1 combined. The vicky manual is also very crappy tough.

[Alrowan]

the best manual for any paradox game was the HoI one.. but at 100 odd pages who would bother?

[The Wizard]

I remember spitting through those Zeus, Caesar, Pharaoh, etc manuals... those were big but very well-written.

[frogbeastegg]

As long as a manual is well written I don&#39;t care how thick it is. I always read the manual and if it doesn&#39;t help or is badly written then it does the game no favours in my eyes.

I went ahead and ordered CK from Paradox; the game is in English only, the developers get more profit, I save wear and tear on my boots trekking about looking for the game in town, I will probably get it a lot earlier (still no date for the UK), and most important of all it is about £10 cheaper even after postage I am guessing the documentation may be in English, after all they do expect you to know enough English to play the game...

[Efrem Da King]

Wrong again. They exept YOU to know enough english to be able to play the game.

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (Efrem Da King @ April 08 2004,12:01)]Wrong again. They exept YOU to know enough english to be able to play the game.
I don&#39;t follow... Also again?

[ShadeFlanders]

Citaat[/b] (frogbeastegg @ April 08 2004,11:24)]...I am guessing the documentation may be in English, after all they do expect you to know enough English to play the game...

Citaat[/b] (EfremDaKing @ April 08 2004,11:24)] They exept YOU to know enough english to be able to play the game.

lol, Efrem, what are you smoking?

[The Scourge]

Apparently ,the game&#39;s already in some stores in Denmark.
Think I might just take look later http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif
Some great AAR&#39;s.A good AAR writer can make a game sound ten times better than it really is ,although I&#39;m sure it&#39;ll be a great game anyway.

[RZST]

those danes... *raises fist in anger*

[The Scourge]

Quote[/b] (Ky Kiske @ April 08 2004,11:00)]those danes... *raises fist in anger*
Believe me mate.Where I live &#39;I&#39;m usually about a month or two behind the rest of the world.
That&#39;s why ,this time I&#39;ve got to jump up a brag about it &#39;because it&#39;s not that often I get the chance.
So http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Efrem Da King]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ April 08 2004,07:19)]
Quote[/b] (Efrem Da King @ April 08 2004,12:01)]Wrong again. They exept YOU to know enough english to be able to play the game.
I don&#39;t follow... Also again?
Always the recriminations... But where is the praise???

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (Efrem Da King @ April 09 2004,03:01)]
Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ April 08 2004,07:19)]
Quote[/b] (Efrem Da King @ April 08 2004,12:01)]Wrong again. They exept YOU to know enough english to be able to play the game.
I don&#39;t follow... Also again?
Always the recriminations... But where is the praise???
Recriminations...praise...on/to what/who?

So still http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Efrem Da King]

I&#39;m just messing with your head mate.



Revenge for you moving my game related thread to a forum where I couldn&#39;t post in it anymore.



But I think that you have learned your lesson.

[Efrem Da King]

NOT MOOOOHAHAHHAA

[frogbeastegg]

Have you been eating pep pills again Efrem? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ht_jumping.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Now back to your regularly scheduled CK. A new AAR (or at least one new to me but since I don&#39;t look at the AArs very often that is not hard) The House of de Hauteville (http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134727).

[Efrem Da King]

hmm I think that CK will be too complicated to be fun. It depends on the interface. Victorias inerface is something that you have to Get around to enjoy the game.

[RZST]

but then all paradox games are like that :). not for your average gamer to play.

[noodle]

Am I right in saying that CK also has a multiplayer campaign mode? Something that CA have been avoiding so much that I&#39;m now sure they&#39;re just doing it out of spite.

I&#39;d buy it for that alone

[The Scourge]

Quote[/b] (noodle @ April 12 2004,08:27)]Am I right in saying that CK also has a multiplayer campaign mode? Something that CA have been avoiding so much that I&#39;m now sure they&#39;re just doing it out of spite.

I&#39;d buy it for that alone
I&#39;d love to play a grand strategy game on-line.
Has anyone here actually had any success playing a game like EU ,or Civ on-line?
I&#39;ve tried to find on-line games of both Spartans and Lords of the Realm 3 this weekend ,on game spy ,but so far no luck.

[Voigtkampf]

Guess I&#39;ll get a copy of it soon, maybe tomorrow; it will probably have to wait for me until the end of the week, because I&#39;m once more due for some field trip. God knows I avoided it for almost a month But when I get around to it, I guess I&#39;ll make a review for the org as well, if it&#39;s not way too old by then

[frogbeastegg]

My preordered copy has arrived just this morning Weee A whole week before it is supposed to be reaching people Now to play and take screenshots, if anyone sees a frogbeastegg running about the Paradox forums that is me. Any screenshot requests here?

[Efrem Da King]

hmmm.....







CAN YOU PLAY WARS OF THE ROSES????


IF so get me picture of britain if not then get me pic of russia.








Please.

[Alrowan]

hmm, well ive seen a tonn of pics on the forums, most satiate what i desire, but what i want to know now is how complex the menue systems are, are they counter-intuitive like vicky, or easy to learn like EU2?

[frogbeastegg]

No war of the Roses in the default scenarios, there is only Hastings 1066 start, The Third Crusade 1187 start, and Hundred Years War 1337 start. The Hastings start is misleading because it starts in Jan 1066 with William already on the throne with the Godwinsons as his loyal vassals http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-inquisitive.gif Pics of Rusia coming up...

So far I have played for about an hour, skim read the manual, and flipped through the quick in-game tips and I have managed well enough. It took me months to get anywhere with EU2, I&#39;ve not played Vicky, but in CK I have already conquered Wales, handed lands off to a vassal, appointed advisors, proposed and dealt with diplomatic marriages, educated a couple of royal sprogs, hit someone with a trout, run out of manure in several locations resulting in a slump in farming, and sent death threats to a 2 year old king who refused to bend the knee like a good brat http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-grin.gif Now I get to start a new game, becasue the patch invalidated my old save game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

[The Scourge]

Read two reviews.One on Strategy Games On-Line really loves it ,and another that I can&#39;t remember where hates it ,but I think it&#39;s more because he can&#39;t get it to run well on his machine.
On thing that concerns me a little ,is that a few are saying it&#39;s a little too easy.
No offense frogbeastegg ,I&#39;m sure you&#39;re a good player anyway http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[Efrem Da King]

Well if you can&#39;t play wars of the roses then what sort of game is it???


How good are cannons


I want to got and blow the sh*t out of people MTW style

(a fav tactic of Richard the 3rd, unfortunatly his cannons were facing the wrong way at bosworth http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif )

[Trax]

Quote[/b] ]The Hastings start is misleading because it starts in Jan 1066 with William already on the throne with the Godwinsons as his loyal vassals

I read, that they are going to change this soon, the scenario will have new startdate (after Hastings)

[frogbeastegg]

Cannons? Well so far the newly discovered short bow is considered the high of cool technology. In 1066 literally everything is left to research, people don&#39;t even know about simple things like clothing. I will try and play around with a later scenario as Russia to find out about cannons and take some screenshots.

So far the game is quite easy, but then I am playing on easy since I had a lot of trouble learning EU2, I&#39;ll ramp the difficulty up when I load my savegame. In my England 1066/mark 2 game I have conquered Wales, have tonnes of gold, all of my vassals are 100% loyal, no one has declared war on me or even sent hate mail, built all the economic upgrades available in my own provinces and watched my vassals do likewise. It is now 1078 and England is at peace, the only problem is the fact the heir to the throne looks like a pig crossed with the back end of a donkey No wonder his poor young wife has gone all &#39;ecclesiastical&#39; recently with a few &#39;chaste&#39; traits to boot

[the Count of Flanders]

hmm, I hope my copy has arrived when I get home from work

[The Wizard]

Well, the AARs and you guys are making me interested in this game... would be the first time I&#39;ve ever played a game like this so I think I might give it a go http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif



~Wiz

[frogbeastegg]

To further the point of difficulty in my second English 1066 game it is now 1091 and I am king of England, Scotland and France, controlling Wales (no king of Wales title that I can find) with 51 vassals France is a massive country and I laid it out in a single blow, just beat up the personal army of the king and lay siege to his castle until it fell. I then used 775 prestige to call myself king of France and forced the &#39;king&#39; in the ruins of his castle to recognise me as the rightful king. I gained more than 2000 prestige, 30 vassals and a few new lands for my king to play with in his demesne - crazy

Don&#39;t ask how I ended up fighting France, long story involving them doing something obscene with the vassal I had controlling York, getting him on their vassal list instead of mine. So being the nice king I am I demanded Mr. York returned, when he politely told me to go to hell I declared I had a claim on the title and marched to war. France and Brittany were so friendly with their fair weather chum they declared war on me, so I mobilised all my armies and a few vassals and the rest is history. Way too easy, the Hundred Years War over before it can even begin, a huge country conquered with one battle and a siege, and the Norman conquest re-enacted in reverse. The only bad side effect is that I now have a &#39;rather bad reputation&#39;. Oh, I forgot to add that somehow I have been controlling the Pope for the last 3 years. I can smash up entire countries in one blow, but can I persuade anyone to be my vassal peacefully? Nope, I&#39;ve not figured that one out yet... It’s rather pathetic, my king with his three crowns and list of titles longer than his arm asking a one man band in a crappy backwater island (Isle of Man) to be his vassal and being refused. How can this puny weakling say no to the ruler of such a massive kingdom with great big armies, Papal support and more cash than a very cash rich person?

I think I shall really have to ramp difficulty up a notch or twelve. That and finish reading the manual, there must be a way to check vassal relations quickly, now I have 51 to check it is painful to go through them individually.

If any of this sounds negative, well it is a fun game and with more learning, higher difficulty and a few more patches to tweak I think it will become even better. I’m waiting for the Crusades era to kick in, research to really get flying, and life to generally become more interesting as time rolls on.

The music is a bit…odd, I’ve identified Carmen’s Toreador song, and Ieda (spelling is probably wrong for both), the rest is quite similar. Not bad, but it doesn’t quite mesh with the game’s atmosphere sometimes.

Pictures of Russia taken and added to the Arena space, just waiting for them to transfer over...hmm, I suppose I can do that myself. Even in a 1337 start I could find nothing to do with cannons, they aren&#39;t mentioned in the manual either.

[frogbeastegg]

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/games/frogbeasteggCKRussia.jpg
Russia in 1337, Russia is the big purple blob at the top of the screen. Part of the empire won&#39;t fit on screen so the final province is in the screenshot below. I have no idea what the fancy sword/flag arrangement means, I took this screenshot as Germany since the Russians weren&#39;t visilbe on the choose a kingdom list, they are probably squirreled away in the count or duke lists instead, since you don&#39;t have to play as a king.

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/games/frogbeasteggCKRussia2.jpg
Yes, that isolated purple blob is the final part of Russia that won&#39;t fit onscreen with everything else

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/games/frogbeasteggCKEng1.jpg
This is England in 1066. The Creepy looking man in the top right corner is king William the Bastard

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/games/frogbeasteggCKEng2.jpg
This is England in 1091 in my current game. The new king is Richard, the one who&#39;s wife went all celebate and chaste...look at that portrait and you can understand why Note that the kingdom is now shaded in brighter orange than before, picture 1 was taken before the patch was applied, picture 2 after. The big crusifix under king Ugly&#39;s picture means I control the Pope, and in CK you can actually control him - excommunicate and recommunicate at will, so long as your pet Pope has more prestige than your chosen target. The two brown provinces slap bang in the middle of my French empire are:
On the right side: The old king of France is his old capital, which I didn&#39;t get even as a vassal for some reason...
On the left side: Some annoying province having a private war with my other lords, now my vassals. Again I don&#39;t know why I didn&#39;t get this province with the rest of France as they are French vassals...

[RZST]

omfg...*faints*

[The Scourge]

But you&#39;ll never take our FREEDOM

[Efrem Da King]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif If there aren&#39;t cannons then I ain&#39;t getting the game

[RZST]

ok 1st of all this is not in any way like TW series. so you wont command individual units but rather armies.

to my knowledge cannons werent invented on 1066...

[Efrem Da King]

Yes I know all that. I have HOI and Victoria and have played EU2.


While cannons weren&#39;t around in 1066 they were in 1337

[Trax]

According to FAQ the highest siege equipment invention is trebuchet.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=139359

[Efrem Da King]

So cannons aren&#39;t in the game in way shape or form....

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Is this like MTW, where you can command armies on a tactical level, or is all of the combat abstract?

[The Scourge]

Abstract.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Ah, right. Still, I may buy it.

Efrem, if you can&#39;t actually see them blow chunks out of people, what&#39;s the big deal about cannons?

[Efrem Da King]

Well you can imagine them blowing chunks out of people... Thats what I do with victoria.

[Lehesu]

Quote[/b] (Efrem Da King @ April 17 2004,08:10)]Well you can imagine them blowing chunks out of people... Thats what I do with victoria.
Victoria the game, right? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Leet Eriksson]

I am interested in this game,shame you can&#39;t play the muslims(or the mongols),but i&#39;m interested in the feudal system,i hear you can manage armies and the units are more than EU2&#39;s infantry,cavalry and seige,there are horse archers and the sorts although i know the battles are abstract i&#39;m still interested.Also if possible i&#39;d like to see a picture of the domain of the byzantines.and i&#39;d like to know wether you can control the pope if your the byznatines or not.and one last thing is it possible to play as a small vassal country?

[RZST]

ya its sad you cant play muslims, i think your also cant play byzantines since they fuction differently from the christian nations.
i have no doubt paradox could do it but it will be delayed for atleast another 6 months i think.

byzantines were orthodox right? so why would the pope even think of doing that?...well it is a game but still :p

yes from my knowledge you can play as a vassal :)


hey frostbeastegg, can you post a picture of the whole europe? with the political thingy on? not sure if there is something like that.

[Leet Eriksson]

They only said mongols,muslim and merchant leagues are not playable you sure byzantium is not playable?,i hope they ain&#39;t a merchant league,becuase nothing beats kicking muslim,pagan,and catholic ass like the Byzantines.Pity if i can&#39;t play them...although i know the russians are playable,they are orthodox as far as my knowledge goes on the eastern european region....

[RZST]

yes but the russians were more feudal than byzantine politics...err you get what im saying?

[Leet Eriksson]

Ah well,guess i&#39;ll try playing someone else,just not playing the byzantines is pushing it far http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

[The Wizard]

The Byzantine system of pronoai set by Alexius I was quite feudal. So if Russia can be played, so must Byzantium be playable.

I really think I&#39;m gonna buy this game... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-yes.gif



~Wiz

[frogbeastegg]

You can play as the emperor of Byzantium, but not any of the Arab/Horde nations. I can&#39;t find Russia (or Novgorad as it is called) on the playable list either, but that list is very long and split into 3 parts. You can play as a king (obvious) a duke (under a king, so you are a vassal, but you can claim independence and make counts/dukes your vassals and slowly build up to a crown) or count (lowest, is a vassal to either a king or duke, again you can make others your vassals and climb to a higher perch).

Units in armies are: knights, light cavalry, horse archer (Arab/Horde only), archers (both shortbow, longbow and crossbow types), heavy infantry (you can research swords, maces and axes), pikemen, light infantry.

Picture of the Byzantine empire, also one of thw whole world, I&#39;ll see what I can do. The world will have to be taken in several pictures since it is massive.

You can control the Pope if you are Catholic; the Pope&#39;s closest blood relative always controls him. I am not sure if Byzantium can control him or not, I&#39;d guess not because they aren&#39;t Catholic unless something unexpected has happened to their religion.

To get back to the point of difficulty I shall change my mind slightly on how easy the game is. There is this tiny &#39;problem&#39; (not a bug, more a stupid design decision in the eyes of many on the Paraodx forums) that vassals will rebel. Fine, expected, just go conquer them and take back what is rightfully yours. Except doing that gives you a load of BB points, so more vassals rebel. There is no way to claim back lost lands without going to a full blown ‘unprovoked’ war, if someone rebels you have to smile and let them go, except that harms your prestige so other vassals start to rebel. Try to fight rebellion and you lose, try to ignore it and you lose, try to prevent it...well eventually someone will rebel. So while I can go conquer France without too many problems with manufactured claims and a lot of fake stuff, but I can&#39;t claim back my own lands granted to disloyal vassals with a genuine claim because it costs too much in BB. Pathetic. What kind of king ever allowed rebellions to go uncountered?

Also diplomacy is lacking, unless there is something hidden deep in the interface and not in the not so helpful manual. There is no way to improve your relationship with anyone, so offering marriage seldom works, offering vassalisation has never worked for me. There is also no way to see how a person views you unless they hold land in your domain, so if I want to see if the king of France is friendly or not tough luck. Compared to EU2 diplomacy is unbearably simplistic. You can:
-fake claim on a title (prepare for war)
-declare war (if you have a claim on a title)
-offer marriage (seldom works)
-offer vassalisation (never works)
-offer peace (if at war obviously Very limited options, either you force them to recognise your claim, do nothing for white peace, recognise their claim and that is it, you can also ask for gold but who cares about that?)

So even if you do go to war on your ex-vassal to take back what is yours you will get a BB hit for going after him even though you are given a legitimate claim on his title (the claim allows you to declare war, it does not protect you from BB), you beat him in battle and subdue him totally, go to the negotiating table and all you can do is recognise his claim and let him go, white peace letting him go (two options for losing essentially) or demand his lands for yourself (huge BB hit, only way to get your land back). There is no option to let him swear allegiance again and continue to hold the land under you, no option to demand he gives the title to a heir to serve under you, no option to demand hostages for his good behaviour, no option to arrange dynastic marriages, in short nothing outisde of two lose options and a win that is more of a lose. To make matters even worse taking his land usually puts you over your demesne limit so you lose money and efficiency until you give it to someone else Usually about this point someone else will rebel.

So once someone rebels it is essentially game over. Prevent rebellions is the obvious solution, but how? No way to improve relations with gifts, titles do nothing (I gave Robert, brother to William the Bastard, the title of Duke of Cornwall when his loyalty dropped, but he just hated me even more), marriage to your family may help but they often refuse and it gives them claims on your throne as well as wasting a valuable resource and making me feel terrible. All you can really do is keep scutage tax low and keep your rep clean, but that is not exactly possible and it takes forever for loyalty to improve at those settings. By the time Robert has worked his way from &#39;disloyalty incarnate 0.0&#39; to &#39;devotedly loyal 100.0&#39; he will have rebelled...let&#39;s see it would take 20 months to go from 0.0 to 100.0 assuming you charged no scutage and nothing bad happened. Vassals can leave you at 50.0 loyalty, it is not hard for loyalty to drop that low almost over night with no warning. Even worse it is so hard to check loyalty, you have to go around clicking on each and every shield in your realm to get the readout for that particular noble

Also on the point of loyalty and rebellions changing any law immediately drops vassal’s loyalty to 0.0, so it is a worthless option since it is as good as clicking ‘surrender’.

A good game, but this aspect really needs work.

Oh, and since the interface was mentioned a while back it is mostly ok but some thing are hidden away or illogical. If someone has a title in your realm and you want to give them another you have to click on their shield to call up their court screen, then assign the title from there. If someone does not already have a title you just click on your own court screen and choose to assign a title, anyone with an existing title is missing from the list which made me think it was impossible to give more than one title to someone until I found the solution by accident.

Anyway I have started a new game as England; that previous one died because a single lowly French count rebelled (expected and understandable, I could have survived it easily) and that triggered the endless cycle of destruction I outlined above. I have played a few other games since then, but they all died in rebellions because I couldn’t get my land back without a lot of BB, but nor could I let it go. I’d like to add that those last games were peaceful; I didn’t go and conquer Wales, Scotland and France so rebellion cannot be blamed on that. I have now given up on changing laws, as it is impossible to survive, quite why the option is there when it is unusable is a mystery.

Well at least the loyalty of your vassals is historically accurate, even if the inability to repress them isn’t http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Leet Eriksson]

OH YEAH BABYByzantium here i come

(just incase for the indelicate ears:i&#39;m ordering the game online,and NOW)

[Voigtkampf]

Oops, I was away this week and didn&#39;t have time to check arena screenshots for any entries - not that there are many of them, anyway - so it was good that you did it yourself, Lady frogbeastegg. I&#39;ll let you know when I start off next time, but this was just for some three, four days, so I didn&#39;t bother.

I don&#39;t know who messed up, FedEx or UPS, I only know that I still do not have my promised copy of Crusader Kings Oh, well, our fair princess has submitted almost enough material for a decent review herself, so I won&#39;t do anything like that myself - I see a fair sense of doing a review only if the game is still fresh and unknown to most of the people.

BTW, hands away from a RTS called War Times. I mean it.

I&#39;ll be getting the Battle for Troy this evening (this one is confirmed), so I might post a review of that baby instead.

[Efrem Da King]

What is it????

[Voigtkampf]

What is what? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif Battle for Troy?

Click me just the way I like it… (http://www.valu-soft.com/products/troy.html)

[frogbeastegg]

One world map of CK in 1066, cobbled together by a frog and paint shop pro:

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/games/frogbeasteggckworldmap.jpg

It&#39;s massive on screen, the place names are not readable, but it will load quickly. The map is in realm mode, so each colour is a different kingdom, it should be simple enough to spot the countries you are interested in on it.

As far as reviews for CK go, well I don&#39;t think the game is in any fit state to be reviewed yet. I don&#39;t mean it crashes a lot or has a load of bugs, more that the manual is bad, the tutorial is worse, and a lot needs tweaking by &#39;enhancement&#39; patches that were supposed to be simultaneous with the release but the game is out earlier than Paraodx intended. I don&#39;t exactly like the idea, but since those patches are mostly to fix issues like William being king of England in Jan 1066 with the Godwinsons as his vassals I can be tolerant, if it was a bug fixing frenzy I would be most displeased. It is a good game, it is worth getting, but it really needs patching and some time to learn before a fair review can be given.

[The Scourge]

Quote[/b] (voigtkampf @ April 18 2004,06:18)]What is what? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif Battle for Troy?

Click me just the way I like it… (http://www.valu-soft.com/products/troy.html)
Agamemnon lead the Greeks ,who are wearing Corinthian helmets about 2 thousand years too soon ,and fighting skeletons no less.
Still let&#39;s know how it goes http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[Voigtkampf]

Quote[/b] (The Scourge @ April 18 2004,09:57)]
Quote[/b] (voigtkampf @ April 18 2004,06:18)]What is what? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif Battle for Troy?

Click me just the way I like it… (http://www.valu-soft.com/products/troy.html)
Agamemnon lead the Greeks ,who are wearing Corinthian helmets about 2 thousand years too soon ,and fighting skeletons no less.
So, what&#39;s your point? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-toff.gif

[The Scourge]

Don&#39;t really know.Just doesn&#39;t look all that from the screen shots.
Anyway this the first i&#39;ve heard of the game ,and there&#39;s only a few screen shots.
From the box it looks a bit AoE&#39;s ,but I&#39;m curious to know what you think after playing it so do please gives us a review .

[Voigtkampf]

LoL, I mean really In this attempt of subtle humor with hidden allusion to R:TW and, to a certain part of dedicated fans, an unacceptable introduction of historically inaccurate units, I think I didn&#39;t use the proper smiley. It should have been this one. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[The Wizard]

I must say, if what froggy says is true, with such limited feudal options and diplomatical options, this game is not as interesting as it was at first glance. I think I&#39;ll wait for a few more patches to come... keep me updated. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif



~Wiz

[The Scourge]

Quote[/b] (voigtkampf @ April 18 2004,11:19)]LoL, I mean really In this attempt of subtle humor with hidden allusion to R:TW and, to a certain part of dedicated fans, an unacceptable introduction of historically inaccurate units, I think I didn&#39;t use the proper smiley. It should have been this one. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Well you got me sussed then http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif
But as for the game .I&#39;ve tried doing a search ,but I can&#39;t get much info at all.
Don&#39;t they have a site somewhere?

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ April 18 2004,06:29)]not a bug, more a stupid design decision in the eyes of many on the Paraodx forums
This is why I stopped playing Paradox games, however enjoyable they are. The devs just don&#39;t let you (me) enjoy the game. You just have to play it the way they intended it, and every new patch further restricts your options. The explanation is that e.g. EU2 was not a world conquest game. Well, what if I want it to be? That&#39;s what the customization is for after all. If I want to play without BB points, why not let me do so, and conquer the world as a German minor? Leave the BB system in for those who want to make their lives difficult, but allow it to be disabled for those who have a different idea of fun, which doesn&#39;t include artificial obstacles. And the patches just up the difficulty, create less of a laid-back game, and are generally put forward by people who are so jaded with regular gameplay that they need new challenges. Yes, their continued support is great, and the games have immense replayablilty, but eventually I just got fed up by exiting the game and editing the save file every time I annexed some fool who attacked me, just so that I would be even able to play around with diplomatic options (arguably the best thing about the EU engine). And that&#39;s even not mentioning all the cheating the AI does. Similar to the total war stage of the TW games, when the whole world attacks you eventually, and very anticlimactic - you are in fact getting punished for being successful.

Thanks for the review, froggy.

[Efrem Da King]

If you want world conquest get vitoria

[Voigtkampf]

Quote[/b] (The Scourge @ April 18 2004,17:29)]
Quote[/b] (voigtkampf @ April 18 2004,11:19)]LoL, I mean really In this attempt of subtle humor with hidden allusion to R:TW and, to a certain part of dedicated fans, an unacceptable introduction of historically inaccurate units, I think I didn&#39;t use the proper smiley. It should have been this one. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Well you got me sussed then http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif
But as for the game .I&#39;ve tried doing a search ,but I can&#39;t get much info at all.
Don&#39;t they have a site somewhere?
Crusader Kings link (http://www.paradoxplaza.com/crusaderkings.asp)

Battle for Troy link (http://www.paradoxplaza.com/crusaderkings.asp)

Wasn&#39;t sure to which game that was referred to, so…

Just got my copy of Battle for Troy last night, this evening I&#39;ll grind my teeth into it.

[the Count of Flanders]

Just a word of warning to anyone thinking about buying this game (I have it since friday), it is still very buggy. The AI does some pretty stupid stuff: like the king of france mobilising all his vassals only to do absolutely nothing with those armies for years on end untill his vasals rebel and kick his ass.

[the Count of Flanders]

Quote[/b] (hrvojej @ April 18 2004,18:10)]...you are in fact getting punished for being successful.
You see, it&#39;s full of realism. But I&#39;m sure they&#39;ll fix the BB for smacking down disloyal vasals.

[Shahed]

Thanks for that image Froggy. Looks very detailed. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-inquisitive.gif

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (the Count of Flanders @ April 19 2004,07:28)]
Quote[/b] (hrvojej @ April 18 2004,18:10)]...you are in fact getting punished for being successful.
You see, it&#39;s full of realism.
Yes, but what I&#39;m saying is that I have enough of that in real life. From a game, I prefer a pat on the back. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[frogbeastegg]

Well I found out a bit more about all that strage Victorian brass band music in CK - it&#39;s from Vicky and is never actually used in game. This does beg the question of why it ends up in the CK music folder in the first place... Anyway I&#39;m fed up of the bare handful (about 8 repeating endlessly)of grandiose wannabe medieval tracks that actually do play in the game, so I&#39;m going to stick my own music in. That just leaves the problem of finding some decent medievalish music, I&#39;ve got 5 very short tracks and could use about another 20. Something with a bit of bounce to it, if everything sounds like &#39;there is no rose of such virtue&#39; I&#39;ll get depressed http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

hrvojej you will doubtlessly be pleased to hear that many on the CK forums are calling for conquest to be made so hard it is barely worth while or even possible on a semi-large scale. Oh joy. I don&#39;t see why they can&#39;t leave it so you can go forge an empire if you want to, even if it is inaccurate historically. If they set inheritance laws up that prevent situations like Matilda inheriting the throne of England and other big accuracy crimes why not allow players to create a nice empire or two if they want? If conquest is made as hard as some people want the Normans would never even have got to England, let alone conquered it. You can&#39;t even have regents, that 2 year old boy does actually run his dukedom himself, with the same help from his court as an adult. No fair - I was planning to set up a good queen as regent because her dear husband had an &#39;accident&#39; while jumping out of the 6th floor window of his tower

Peace is all very well, but it&#39;s nice to let loose the dogs of war very occasionally. Besides there are only so many marriages you can arrange before you begin to feel voyeuristic. Even worse you do find yourself wondering what the heck is the matter with your son and heir when he can&#39;t produce a child after 4 years of marriage to some relatively pretty young thing, and not even a bastard child with someone else I swear he must be interested in boys or something http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-inquisitive.gif I mean the problem isn&#39;t her because of that little accident with a &#39;friend&#39;, resulting in a dear little boy who is a natural leader and I&#39;m grooming him to be my future Marshall. Maybe the problem is that he looks so ugly he should be required by law to have a bag over his head at all times, even the most ambitious woman in the realm would run screaming from this prince http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif It took ages to find the guts to search out a wife for him in the first place, poor dear has my utmost sympathy Well I did get my pet Pope to excommunicate her cruel father who agreed to the match, so that&#39;s some slight comfort maybe. Now if the inheritance laws were more realistic for England I could just kill him and his wife would inherit because he has no son, bah

:froggy goes off and cries, her dreams of being Eleanor of Aquitaine and Matilda and setting up a alternate version of history where they won their civil wars, and then another game of conquering the UK, France and Holy Land to forge an English empire in tatters, but with a few dynastic births to hope for but only in a way not involving that fat twerp getting within 20 miles of his unfortunate wife who has suffered enough already:

[The Scourge]

Can&#39;t really make a judgment on CK yet ,maybe a bit of tweaking here and there is in order.
But if when I was playing EU , I could go and conquer at will with no consequences ,the game would have been off my hard drive in no time at all.
Most of the fun came in playing the political game ,and trying to manufacture a CB , getting around the BB rating.
Don&#39;t see it as a punishment for being successful .You&#39;re being punished because you&#39;re seen as a threat to world peace and stability.

[The Wizard]

So if I take it right this game doesn&#39;t have the deep gameplay the AAR&#39;s want you to believe is there?



~Wiz

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (The Wizard @ April 20 2004,15:57)]So if I take it right this game doesn&#39;t have the deep gameplay the AAR&#39;s want you to believe is there?



~Wiz
I haven&#39;t really read the AARs, just the Lion in Winter. It does have depth, but at the same time it doesn&#39;t. Some aspects like warfare and diplomacy are rather skimpy, but others like your characters and dynasty are incredibly detailed.

I feel no matter what I say I think I will be both selling the game short and making it sound too good. Let me say that this is a disapointing game, but becasue it is merely really good instead of amazingly great, rather than because it is crap. It is disapointing in the same way MTW was disapointing - becasue you can see where a bit more polish and work would have made it sparkle like nothing else available right now. I&#39;ll post a copy of my wish list for the next patch, that pretty well sums up what I don&#39;t like or think needs work. I&#39;ve added a few notes in italic brackets to cover the gap between forums.

1. Vassals and BB - we need to be able to repress rebellions without the situation spiralling out of control.

2. Women inheriting - I was looking forward to building a scenario based on the civil war between Matilda and Stephan with an eye to her winning and becoming queen, that is currently impossible. Ditto controlling Eleanor of Aquitaine and raising hell. It shouldn’t be common to have queens, but it should be possible in a few countries at least. England needs it for historical reasons. Women need to be able to inherit titles and thrones, but only as a last resort kind of thing, if the husband dies and has no children then in England the holdings went to the wife. Marrying widows for their lands was a valid practise back then, and it would be good to have in the game. Maybe if in the case of the crown it would only go to a woman if there were no children, grandchildren or brothers of the dead king, making queens possible but incredibly unlikely…something similar would work for other titles and holdings. Of course in the interests of accuracy a queen would have a big problem with loyalty until she was firmly established…

3. Marriage - something needs to be done to make this easier to arrange, in the information and interface side anyway. (popular request, basically make it easier to find prospective spouses, easier to send the proposal, easier to track the results, but not to make it easier to make the AI agree to marriage)

4. Relations with other countries/people - can we get some kind of feedback on whether they like us or not? In EU2 you can tell that France hates you for that last war, in CK you can only guess and this makes arranging marriages etc harder IMO. If someone hates me they will not let me marry their darling daughter, but how can I know if they hate me or not without feedback?

5. The crusade piety penalty feels a little steep to me, needing to crusade is good, but being forced into nearly endless war is bad. Of course I haven&#39;t done much crusading so far… (penalty for me currently is -4 piety per month I lose that even while fighting, for about 50 years of game time You gain piety back by conquering and winning in peace treaties, so basically while the crusade mode is in effect you *have* to fight almost non-stop because piety is vital - it makes your BB go down)

6. Performance - I&#39;m playing on a great PC (P4 2.4, Radeon 9800 pro, 1GB RAM etc) and it is very slow and jerky, even at the start of the 1066 game. Only one CTD so far though.

7. More diplomatic options - I want to send gifts to people to improve my relations with them, just like in EU2. I also want other ways to end wars, apart from me losing (i.e. gaining nothing), gaining gold, or me taking their titles and getting hit by lots of BB. How about offering to let the person become your vassal but keep his lands etc, they will start with low loyalty and you only get a medium BB hit, similar to in EU2. Also possibly include marriage in the peace deals (My son marries your daughter, you give me 500 gold and become my vassal. In return I stop killing your armies and protect you. Fair?)

8. BB score - can we have it listed in numbers as well as text? Similar to in EU2.

9. Improve the tool tips - show the actual effects of traits. (again a popular request)

10. Can we have some kind of family tree? Something that shows your entire dynasty in one screen, rather than having to hunt around character screens to find out if Robert de Normanie (3rd with that name) is royal or not.

11. Removing children from the court screen sounds great, it breaks my heart to find a great steward only to find she is 0 years old and useless.

12. Vassalisation by diplomacy - I would ask if it is even possible but I have seen people talking about success with it. It never works for me, I don&#39;t know why or what I need to do to make it work. Showing relations and allowing diplomatic gift would make it easier to understand this aspect of the game, but if they can&#39;t be included can we at least get some idea of how this works via a tool tip?

13. Assassination - can we have some idea of how likely an attempt is to succeed or not? Something either as a percentage (We have a 22% chance of killing this character) or as a statement (It seems unlikely our attempt will succeed).

14. The events (call estates general, marriage duty of eldest daughter etc) - can we have a little more background on them? Just some idea sketched out in a few sentences as to what is happening, EU2 has this and it would really improve the atmosphere of the game.

15. Group peace and individual peace - sounds great, just like in EU2. (people are asking for ways to include your vassals in peace treaties, right you peace only applies to you so your vassal will keep fighting.)

16. Bastards - I too have only seen male bastards, can we have some female ones too? Also is it just men who can have bastards or can women have them too? I think I saw a woman with a bastard son but I&#39;m not sure... Anyway all things fair in love and war (well not in war ), and women having bastards would add considerably to the game since this caused quite a few storms in history when the heir to the throne turned out to look more like the jester than the king.

17. Armies - please let us disband the whole army in one go as well as individually (very popular, right now you disband regiment by regiment and when you have 5 regiments in a large army...)

18. All those message/history logging requests - agreed, there is so much going on that is unreported, or can slip past you if you blink during a busy time in the event log. (asking for more messages to genorate pop ups, event log entries, history log entries)

19. A screen or overlay that shows you the loyalty of all your vassals - for the love of all that&#39;s holy please let us monitor loyalty easily PLEASE I spend so long moving around clicking on shields just to see if people hate me... (again popular request)

20. A screen that shows all the provinces in your realm, how much they earn, who owns them (you, vassal, which character), what they are building, current state of army (levied or not, how many men, what kind of soldiers, location). An at a glance state of your kingdom, basically.

21. Traits - um, a character can have opposing traits and that&#39;s a bit crazy. I had a lustful, chaste king (sound like another game we know?)

22. Changing inheritance laws - basically it is next to impossible unless you are a tiny realm. Where is the point in being able to change them if changing the law destroys your realm by default? A big loyalty hit/penalty is needed, but -100% loyalty is way too steep to be practical.

23. Can we have a message when someone comes of age please? That way we know we have someone to marry, grant lands to, and use as an advisor. Likewise a message for people joining/leaving our court.

24. Can the message for people dying/inheriting be made a bit clearer please? It is often hard to tell which character the message is talking about – in my current game I have 2 Anselm de Normanies and at least 3 William de Normadies.

25. Assassins - please touch up the assassins so you don&#39;t get heavily clobbered for being successful. Coupled with some feedback on how likely the attempt is this should make assassination a valuable, but not over powered tool. Although perhaps a small increase in the amount of gold it costs would be a good thing.




An update on my crappy son and his lovely young wife - they did have a child after about 9 years, but he died before he was even a year old. The bastard I thought she had, well the boy didn&#39;t have the bastard trait but there was no father listed in his profile, so what he was and who is father was is a mystery. He died too, illness at the age of 10.

An example of what this game can do when everything falls into place: I noticed my king was second in line to inherit an old duke, second behind a boy of 1. I sent an assassin to kill the boy so I would be the sole heir, the first assassin failed but the second succeeeded. I was now sole hier, and the old buffer obligingly died of old age just over 2 years later. I inherited a dukedom consisting of 2 provinces without any fighting or title grabbing, however I still gained BB points for killing the boy. Now if this kind of thing could bre done more often it would be incredible, but sadly most people have 6+ heirs and my king is not one of them. Also the BB and piety hits you would get from killing that many hiers would be worse than the amount you would get by conquering by force.

Scourge in response to your point about playing a political game in EU2 I would have to agree - that is most of the fun. However it is nice to go crazy from time to time and conquer Europe. In a game with good balance and options both approaches should be present and viabale, that way you can choose which you want. In a game called total war you know not to expect too much peace, but in EU2 the game is built in such a way to handle both if allowed. Personally I haven&#39;t found BB a problem in EU2 while conquering, but I haven&#39;t played all that much. In CK BB is crippling, and in CK the focus is more firmly on fighting than it ever was in EU2.

[Rosacrux]

Have you got the first patch that&#39;s out? I am planning on investing my money on this game (it does sound promising...) and I really care about your detailed opinion on it.

[frogbeastegg]

Yes, I have the 1.1 patch and I have played both 1.0 and 1.1 at some point. Both versions have their own advantages and disadvantages as far as raw &#39;fun&#39; goes, but I would say overall 1.1 is a big step in the right direction. Hmm, how to sum this up?

This is a £25 game rather than a £35 game, well worth getting and with a lot of potential, but the less you pay the happier you will be and not just for reasons of economy. It needs work, there is a lot that has to be done before the game meets the potential it has, I spend much of my time when playing it wishing for some feature, tweak, addition, fix but the important thing is I am still playing, when I am writing my beginner&#39;s guide update I am planning things to try in CK. I am actually posting on the CK forums about what to include in a patch to improve the game - that in a way says it all. Did I ever post about the assorted MTW/VI patches and what needed adding? No, because although MTW needs a lot doing to it in my eyes the game is not worth the effort. CK is.

If those 25 points listed above are addressed this will be the best strategy game I have ever played hands down. As it stands with 1.1 it is in the top tier along with MTW in the so good, but if only they would do this it would be amazing

[The Scourge]

Well Paradox do have a reputation when it comes to supporting their games ,and it&#39;s not unusual for one of their games to be patched at least about four or five times before they really start to shine.
the good news is that the patches usually come pretty fast.

[frogbeastegg]

How fast roughly? I know their good reputation, but the only other Paradox game I have is EU2 and that was on patch 1.7 when I finally found a copy. How soon can I expect 1.2?

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Victoria was out in November and is now at 1.03 (1.03 was out in February).

For TW fan that&#39;s really fast... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Louis,

[The Scourge]

Quote[/b] (Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe @ April 21 2004,08:02)]Victoria was out in November and is now at 1.03 (1.03 was out in February).

For TW fan that&#39;s really fast... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Louis,
Yeah that sounds about right ,so don&#39;t lose faith.

[hrvojej]

Quote[/b] (The Scourge @ April 20 2004,08:19)]But if when I was playing EU , I could go and conquer at will with no consequences ,the game would have been off my hard drive in no time at all.
Just to clarify: a small option to click before you start a new game BB points on/off is what I&#39;m talking about, just like you have difficulty, aggressiveness, and whatnot settings. You could still play the game you want, while I could also play a game of conquest if/when I felt so inclined. It doesn&#39;t detract from the game at all, on the contrary - unlike the restrictive thinking it adds to the game, and it exhibits a far more tolerant view than everybody will play the game I want, or else. This is the kind of design decision I cannot fathom.

edit: And you do have plenty of consequences anyway: revolts, lowered income, war exhaustion, increased stability hits and costs, etc. Not to metnion that the AI cheats many of those, so they are essentialy there to hamper the player specifically.

[Voigtkampf]

Finally, finally got the game, but I&#39;m too tired to go for an install. Off to get my due four hours of sleep. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-zzz.gif

[the Count of Flanders]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ April 21 2004,07:24)]How fast roughly? I know their good reputation, but the only other Paradox game I have is EU2 and that was on patch 1.7 when I finally found a copy. How soon can I expect 1.2?
Good reputation? They constantly bring out games that are bug-ridden and that aren&#39;t really playable till the 3rd-4th patch. I always feel like I am paying to be a beta tester. Vicky v1.3 is still unplayable IMO due to a very nasty pop income bug that messes up the whole economic model.
Still I&#39;m having fun with CK, but I should have waited for another 6 months to buy it because by then it will be a great game (probably).

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (the Count of Flanders @ April 22 2004,07:23)]Good reputation? They constantly bring out games that are bug-ridden and that aren&#39;t really playable till the 3rd-4th patch. I always feel like I am paying to be a beta tester. Vicky v1.3 is still unplayable IMO due to a very nasty pop income bug that messes up the whole economic model.
I meant their reputation for always patching their games, rather than the non-existant rep for releasing complete, stable games.

I&#39;m going to try and mod the game quite a lot now, things like events to end crusades after 3 years instead of 50, and to make the crusading season a bit more frequent to balance things out. I&#39;ll see how many of the niggles I can fix for myself. :remembers how it took several hours of work to successfuly mod the music into something more peaceful with more tracks, because the was notihng said about the tracks having to be listed in alphabetical order for some strange reason: Wish me luck - I&#39;m going to need it

[The Wizard]

From what I&#39;ve read, this is sounding like some halfassed EU2 in another setting, seeing as there are all kinds of settings that should be in the game, but were left out, while they are in EU2...

[the Count of Flanders]

Quote[/b] (The Wizard @ April 22 2004,03:55)]From what I&#39;ve read, this is sounding like some halfassed EU2 in another setting, seeing as there are all kinds of settings that should be in the game, but were left out, while they are in EU2...
there&#39;s no comparing the two games, they are completely different. EU is about grand politics, CK is a simulation of the feudal system.

[frogbeastegg]

An update to my modding of CK - everything I want to tweak is hard coded. Oh joy, 50 years of crusades with endless piety penalties while doing anything other than the last few seconds of a province capturing battle http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[frogbeastegg]

I&#39;m now playing a new game as the duke of Ulster, this one is going so well I&#39;m writing it up into a story. You can find Blood Red Hand (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=24;t=17419;r=1;&#top) in our own Mead Hall, if you are bored enough to want to read it.

Playing as a small dukedom avoids some of those problems I mentioned - no vassals can rebel if you rule everything yourself. Crusade expectations for my tiny realm should be minimal, just like the income.

[The Wizard]

Quote[/b] (the Count of Flanders @ April 22 2004,10:39)]
Quote[/b] (The Wizard @ April 22 2004,03:55)]From what I&#39;ve read, this is sounding like some halfassed EU2 in another setting, seeing as there are all kinds of settings that should be in the game, but were left out, while they are in EU2...
there&#39;s no comparing the two games, they are completely different. EU is about grand politics, CK is a simulation of the feudal system.
What I meant is that it could easily have all kinds of settings that made EU2 so good implemented in it -- it is the same engine, after all.

[Rosacrux]

Frogbeastegg and all

I just got this game, returning home after a tiresome day at work. Found wife taking a nap, so installed and gave it a shot.

Well... it looks good but... how the heck does it play??? I started off small as a tiny little Byzantine count, but I kinda lost control and account of what was going on and why.

Froggie would you be so kind (extremely kind, actually) and point me to a rigid starting sequence and some basic game elements? Or point me at some kind of straring guide anywhere on the net?

I&#39;ve skimmed through Paradox forums but most stuff I&#39;ve found was for the advanced player (and I am not even novice player yet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif )

Thank you very much in advance

[frogbeastegg]

No such thing as a rigid starting sequence, but I can give some general pointers.

Count is not really a good place to start IMO, as you have everything left to do. Start as an independent duke in some small backwater (Ireland, Scotland, those kind of places) or as a powerful king with a realm he can rely on (England), this way you won&#39;t be ordered around by a stupid AI intent on ruining you. You also have more to play with, but less hard work to do.

The moment the game starts PAUSE Now check your character, his family, his courtiers. Makes notes, who is married to who, who has what children, who holds what titles (title=count, duke, king, prince etc), what ages people are, what stats they have - basically get to know your people well.

If your king is married to a woman over 35 and has no/few sons consider having her killed so you can marry someone younger and more fertile. Ditto any sons you might have who are already married. Basically make sure your family will be breeding.

Look at your laws (click on your coat of arms, then on the sceptre), especially your inheritance laws. You do NOT under any circumstances want gavelkind law EVER I cannot make that clear enough, gavelkind will split your kingdom up on death and spread it between every son you have. This is a BAD THING You want (semi) salic consanguity or (semi) salic primogeniture. Look them up in the manual. Now the problem is changing those laws, if you have any vassals you will immediately lose all their loyalty and provoke a revolt (dumb, being fixed in a future patch), so ALWAYS change your laws when you are small and stick with them. You are most likely to be small at the beginning of the game.

Church laws and realm laws are different, you can change them without penalty, but must wait 10 years before you can change them again. For church law pick regal supremacy unless you like the Pope giving you strange foreign bishops who steal your lands. Realm laws, well I like feudal contract as it boosts vassal loyalty and increases the number of heavy infantry and knights in my armies.

Once you have set up your laws as you want them (or as close as you can get if you can&#39;t alter inheritance safely) click on the advance tab. All of those categories are advance types, you will never get all the advances and must prioritise the ones you like best. I go for chain armour in military (gives armour that boosts the troop types that make up my armies), power in economy (gives roads, roads increase tech spread rate), and whatever I feel like in culture. Focus now and stay focused, once you have roads you can change economy to something else because you have got the main important tech.

A note on tech and research - you don&#39;t actually research. Tech has a random discovery time, the more advanced it is the longer the meantime to happen for the discovery event. When you focus your research you are actually reducing the meantime to happen, not putting money towards a set target or waiting out a set time limit. This means you can literally discover the advanced goat in one day or one decade. Tech will spread from province to province, when you &#39;discover&#39; a tech only your capital will have it, and it will slowly spread to other lands from there. You also get tech as researched by other nations spreading into your lands, this is how you manage to get a lot of your advances. Roads, advanced roads, schools and some other, more advanced buildings will speed the spread of tech, and that is a very good thing indeed, so build them everywhere

I find you don&#39;t really need to do anything with your treasury settings, at the beginning.

Now go to your court screen (coat of arms, then click on the people) and assign one person to each of the five jobs (marshal, steward, chancellor, diocese bishop, spymaster) never leave these jobs empty Each person in a job will add their relevant stat (marshal=marshal stat, etc) to your rulers and boost it. Even a paltry 1 makes a difference. Assign the courtiers with the highest stat in that area to the correct job. Note you can make women stewards, spymasters and chancellors, but not bishops or marshals. Never accept a marriage proposal for any of these characters, as they will leave you.

Marriage, that thorny problem you need to grapple with to get anywhere. Basically there are several rules of thumb:

1.Never, ever accept marriage proposals, as you will lose your character to the other court. If you propose the marriage the two characters and their children will stay at your court, giving you more human resources to play with.

2. You can only propose marriages for your own family. If you are playing as the of Ulaids you can only arrange marriages for people called XXXX of Ulaid. Yes, this does mean the only way to marry your 12 stewardship steward is to let the AI propose or to bring him/her into your family. Obviously this is what you use low grade (aka not important like heirs) family members for - marrying those high stat people.

3. Your ruler and his primary heirs should always be married, and always churning out brats. I do hope you are not as squeamish as me, or this game will give you conscience problems. If your wife is past 40, or has spent several years without getting pregnant and you still need heirs (if you have less than 4 sons is my rule) kill her and marry some young thing and try again. I feel so mean http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

4. Keep it in the family. No, don&#39;t marry your precious daughter to her brother (game won&#39;t let you), dump her with your cousin instead and then all their children will carry your name, and make your family powerful and numerous. Cousins (they have your name but don&#39;t have parents listed on their screen) should marry and produce children with your family name for your court. You can then use those children to marry your heirs etc. You can also set up lines of breeding so a certain family produces children with a high stat in one area, you draw your stewards etc from these people. This takes a generation or two to set up.

5. STATS Never, ever marry your ruler or his heirs, or anyone if you can possibly avoid it, to a low stat idiot. The children resemble the parents, so look for high stats (8+) and marry them.

6. Lust is good, chaste is bad. Lust increases the characters fertility, chaste reduces it. Um, quite obvious how that works and why you want to get that lust trait, and avoid chaste characters like the plague. To get the lust trait you simply have to go with &#39;indulge the passion&#39; in the pretty wench/strapping young man event, this gives you a bastard and a chance to get the lust trait.

7. Bastards, get them in great numbers They can inherit, they have your name, you can do things with them, and best of all you might get a rep for lust in the process. If a pretty wench/young man catches your eye get over there ASAP

8. Age. So you&#39;re a 56 year old man, she&#39;s 16, does that make you a pervert or something? Probably, but you need children and there is no &#39;your bride has fled the country in horror&#39; event. Basically young girls are what you always want, but men are fine until they are 60+. I feel ill now.

:gaps for breath: Now you know the basics of your realm, have enacted some changes and know what marriages you need. Time to get going. Still leave the game on pause though, or the AI will beat you to all the good stuff.

In the first generation you should marry your ruler first, then sons in order of importance. Get the best brides you can from the continent, search out high stat treasures and send a proposal to their liege. Do this endlessly while still on pause, spam the AI with requests for as many good people of yours/theirs as possible. Now unpause and wait for the responses. Note who accepts and who doesn&#39;t, pause the game once all your proposals have been answered, and fill any gaps you may have left. Once all your good characters are married start thinking about your crapper characters, either marry them within your court or propose to more foreigners. If you have females filling any of those jobs (spymaster etc) make sure to marry them to someone or the AI will spam requests at you. When you have every single person married your matchmaking duties are done, for now at least.

From here it depends on who you are and what you want to do. Try to build training grounds in each and every one of your personal demesne provinces, this boosts recruitment speed for your levies, in essence giving you a bigger army. Watch the loyalty of your vassals and make adjustments as needed to keep them at 100%.

Any questions?

[Rosacrux]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif

questions? That was overwhelming... have to try it when I go at home... wonder if my spouse shall fall for going out to have a cup of coffee with one of her girlfriends... I certainly hope so.

If yes, questions shall come in tommorow.

Thank you, thank you, thank you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[The Scourge]

I made my wife a countess ,and she went and rebelled on me.
Maybe I should have paid her more attention?
Oh well ,I&#39;ve got a feeling she&#39;s soon going to meet with an unfortunate accident.
Anyway ,Thanks for the tip about not accepting marriages for your more talented courtiers .
Bit late ,for me but...

[Rosacrux]

Holy banana, this game is overwhelming. I played around for a couple of hours and came up with a few questions:

- are there any positive implications by giving away my courtiers in marriages? At least the less talented ones, those I won&#39;t be able to use effectively, why shouldn&#39;t I give them to the first untermensch asking for their hand? And if I do, what do I gain?

- A strange thing happened: I was playing as Prince of Trapezous and I had started a war against the nearby muslim emirat (they had shattered the Gheorgians). I send an army in a province of them but in the course of the war (and while I was sieging them) my prince died. Funny enough, my whole army was disbanded (and reduced to a nuissance, after returning to their provinces). Why?

- Also, in same instance, it was not my son (my sole adult son at the time, despite my constant efforts with several wives) that inherited me, but one of my vassals Why? Was it because my son was my vassal (given him a province I grabbed from the Muslims) at the time? Or because I had elective law?

- The plague and Typhoid things (VERY nasty things, actually) are completely coincidal or not? Also, the same question about the degradation of my province (I&#39;ve mostly played the game with a poor province).

Those are just a few of my questions... got more coming http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Thanks in advance

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (Rosacrux @ May 13 2004,09:44)]Holy banana, this game is overwhelming. I played around for a couple of hours and came up with a few questions:
See? That bit I wrote last time barely scratched the surface http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-grin.gif


Quote[/b] ]- are there any positive implications by giving away my courtiers in marriages? At least the less talented ones, those I won&#39;t be able to use effectively, why shouldn&#39;t I give them to the first untermensch asking for their hand? And if I do, what do I gain?
All marriages you arrange give you prestige, the higher ranking the people involved the more you get. You also get children, and sometimes with a lot of work you can arrange things so your or one of your people inherits land.

To inherit land (the inheritance laws are screwed from my English POV as women can&#39;t inherit squat) you need to find a title holder with no sons (call him barrenA), or one son (doomedA), and a single daughter (targetA) of childbearing age. You also need to make sure barrenA is operating under one of the SEMI salicwhatever laws, as that will allow any children his daughter has to inherit. Marry some guy of yours (creepA) to the daughter, pray for a son (boyA). Kill any sons the title holder may have, until boyA is at the top of BarrenA&#39;s inheritance list. Now give boyA some land with a title equal to what he will inherit, this is important as it will keep him as your vassal after he gets barrenA&#39;s lands. Now wait (or arrange) for barrenA to die, boyA inherits and brings the land into your kingdom. You can now try to revoke his title, or just leave boyA to play with his new land.

You can&#39;t marry rich widows or delicate young heiresses who have wound up holding large tracts of land, because they don&#39;t exist. Only children of women can inherit,. not husbands or the women herself. Screwed up, badly screwed up, and it ruins half my cunning plans :mutters under breath about crap inheritance laws:


Quote[/b] ]- A strange thing happened: I was playing as Prince of Trapezous and I had started a war against the nearby muslim emirat (they had shattered the Gheorgians). I send an army in a province of them but in the course of the war (and while I was sieging them) my prince died. Funny enough, my whole army was disbanded (and reduced to a nuissance, after returning to their provinces). Why?
I&#39;ve not seen that before. The prince was definitely your character, and not a vassal? I haven&#39;t had anyone drop dead while commanding an army.


Quote[/b] ]- Also, in same instance, it was not my son (my sole adult son at the time, despite my constant efforts with several wives) that inherited me, but one of my vassals Why? Was it because my son was my vassal (given him a province I grabbed from the Muslims) at the time? Or because I had elective law?
Elective law will pass on your titles and holdings to your strongest vassal. Make sure your chosen son is the strongest by giving him more land and titles than anyone else. If your current character is old it is even worthwhile to give your heir all your lands and titles bar one province and your best title. This way he will accumulate prestige and have a smoother transition to power.

Make sure you marry your son before giving him titles Vital, for some reason 16 year olds in this game find toothless grannies of 70 deeply erotic, and will always choose them for wives over the pretty young 16 year olds. On the rare occasion they manage to control their fetish and choose someone actually capable of having children they tend to pick low stat, ugly morons with bad traits. Obviously this is not good for your future heirs. The same applies to any daughters you may grant titles to, they pick low stat cretins for some reason. You will also be sobbing when you see your titled children arranging a marriage for their own children...yep, you guessed it, they love to marry old age idiots to their children too.


Quote[/b] ]- The plague and Typhoid things (VERY nasty things, actually) are completely coincidal or not? Also, the same question about the degradation of my province (I&#39;ve mostly played the game with a poor province).
All of the disease things, except maybe the black death, are random and a real pain in the rear. They appear randomly, and disappear randomly. I once had typhoid in Essex for over a decade. The province income increase/decrease events are equally random.


Quote[/b] ]Those are just a few of my questions... got more coming http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Thanks in advance
I still have loads of questions myself, but I am so busy writing my Ulster AAR I don&#39;t have time to play any more.

Scourge your wife is the same as any vassal, if she&#39;s rebelling go and take a close look at all your other vassals and pray it is not too late Children get a tiny loyalty bonus when you give them power, so they are very slightly less prone to rebellion, but the difference is barely noticeable to me. I would guess spouses get the same loyalty boost, but when measuring the invisible who can say?

[Komutan]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ May 13 2004,04:32)]Scourge your wife is the same as any vassal, if she&#39;s rebelling go and take a close look at all your other vassals and pray it is not too late Children get a tiny loyalty bonus when you give them power, so they are very slightly less prone to rebellion, but the difference is barely noticeable to me. I would guess spouses get the same loyalty boost, but when measuring the invisible who can say?
The loyalty bonuses are not invisible.If you let the pointer stay above the loyalty percent of your vassals a few seconds, you will see what effects them.
If your son is your heir, he gets 2%(monthly) loyalty bonus for family ties, and 2% for succession order.Your 2nd successor gets %1,6 for succession order.But your wife gets no bonus at all for being your wife.I think she should get a bonus for family ties.

[frogbeastegg]

Strange, the tooltip I know about and use often, but I never get the family related loyalty bonuses listed. I only know they exist because I have seen it on the forums. I do have the trait tooltip mod installed, it shouldn&#39;t affect the loyalty tooltips though. I&#39;ll do a clean intall and slowly add the mods back in and see if any of them affect the loyalty tooltips, who knows I may even be able to get my custom soundtrack working this time...

[Dîn-Heru]

Following Froggy&#39;s advice of sending out a whole lot of marriage proposals for my 16 year old 2nd son as the Duke of Munster I got three acceptances, now he has three wives all with pretty decent stats.

Lucky guy(or unlucky if they don&#39;t get along, if you know what I mean... ;) ) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[frogbeastegg]

Have you got 1.2 Dîn-Heru? They were supposed to be fixing that so that if one AI accepted all others would now refuse. I never managed to get more than one spouse, so I thought it was fixed. Maybe it is on the 1.3 list.

[Dîn-Heru]

Yes I have 1.2.

Perhaps it was because all the replies came in at once, so the game didn&#39;t register it or something like that.

[Rosacrux]

Oh, this game is fun... came in 1/2 hour late for work today because I missed to check the watch while playing a morning quickie session while zipping on a cup of coffee... luckily my spouse was already gone or I&#39;d had more trouble http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Froggie, I just looove this game. I had another funny incident, and I&#39;d like your advise.

Playing as the Prince of Hellas, I had the event about the disloyal vassal (although all three of my vassals were 100% loyal... go figure) for all my three vassals and I laid claims on the respective titles (not all at once, one at a time).

In the first two wars I waged against my disloyal (?) vassals, I had the help of the Byzantine Emperor. 2 or 3 of his regiments came in and helped me defeat the bugger quickly.

The same thing happened in my third expedition (Thessaly was the last to go) but... well, after I accepted the surrender (including the title of count and some cash) instead of owning the province, the Byzantine Emperor now owned it

What was that all about?

Also, I noticed that while the imperial corps were fighting alongside my forces, I had t pay a huge amount of money to the emperor... (upkeep cost for his troops?)

Darn, this game is extremely fun I have had 11 (yes, 11) kids from my lustful prince and chaste () wife, and married two girls wisely, so now their husbands are first in the line to inherit the Prince of Aegean and Epirus titles http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-toff.gif

[frogbeastegg]

The disloyal vassal event is either broken or retarded - it always triggers for vassals who are, and remain, 100% loyal, at least it works like that in my games.

If you are a vassal you will be supported by your leige when you go to war, in your case Byz stepped in to kick butt at your side. This is not always a good thing - the highest ranking commander present when a siege ends gets the province under his control. If your liege sends support he usually commands his army personally, in effect stealing your victory. Your liege can also make peace without consulting you, if he is winning he tends to demand those provinces he has captured.

I would guess that in your first and second sieges you had control of the province when entering peace negotiations, so when you demanded the titles they went to you. In the third seige the emperor must have snuck in and stolen your victory, so when you demanded the titles they went to the province holder - your liege.

I played a very short game as a vassal of the king of England. I tired to conquer Wales so I could become king of Wales, but William I kept stealing all my seiges and getting the titles in peace negotiations. I gave up on that game...

I don&#39;t think you pay upkeep for your liege&#39;s troops. Are you sure the money went to the emperor? Did it go in one big lump sum or in monthly installments?

When those husbands become princes they will be your equals, and therefore independent. Don&#39;t count on controlling their new lands.

You chose a chaste wife? Chaste is a trait to avoid like the plague, as it lowers fertility dramatically, just as lustful raises it. Every time you get the &#39;pretty wench/strapping young man&#39; even you want to indulge the pasion until you get the lustful trait, you never want to choose refuse the passion because you will end up with the chaste trait. As the game tooltip says chaste is nothing to do with being a virgin, it&#39;s all about staying fauithful to your current partner.

I had a lusty, chaste king Robert of England once, poor chap must have been so confused. He finds it impossible to remain faithful to just one partner, but at the same time he finds it equally impossible to have an affair.

[Rosacrux]

Oh, that happened? Darn emperor... now how do I drive him out when he can mobilize 60.000 men to fight my meager 3000? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Well, my wife had extremely good stats and that&#39;s why I married her in the first place, not to mention that she is the first in line for a cute county after two brothers.

But despite her being chaste, she is breeding like crazy She bred 9 kids (I had two bastards from the pretty wench event - 11 kids in total)

So, the princes won&#39;t be mine, huh? What if I kill them off? Won&#39;t their kids (sons of my daughter now in my court) be the nominal heirs? And since they are underage, shouldn&#39;t I take them?

As for the upkeep goes: While the Byzantine emperor was fighting alongside with my troops, I was paying like 5.6 golds to him. I had 5.9 Gs. in total, so that left me with 0.3 earning each month. Oh... now I come to think of it, I may have misread it and it was the upkeep for my mobilized forces http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif

I&#39;ll check it out next time.

Thank you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (Rosacrux @ May 14 2004,11:52)]Oh, that happened? Darn emperor... now how do I drive him out when he can mobilize 60.000 men to fight my meager 3000? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
To become independant you must assume a title equal to or greater than your liege - become a king and you should be free.

You can&#39;t declare war without a claim, and even if you win your war with a claim against your liege you will still be his vassal with your new lands, unless those lands make you equal to him.


Quote[/b] ]Well, my wife had extremely good stats and that&#39;s why I married her in the first place, not to mention that she is the first in line for a cute county after two brothers.

But despite her being chaste, she is breeding like crazy She bred 9 kids (I had two bastards from the pretty wench event - 11 kids in total)
She must have had a very high fertility in the first place, 9 children is a lot


Quote[/b] ]So, the princes won&#39;t be mine, huh? What if I kill them off? Won&#39;t their kids (sons of my daughter now in my court) be the nominal heirs? And since they are underage, shouldn&#39;t I take them?
It&#39;s all in the title, regardless of who takes those prince titles they will be your equal, and therefore free of your control. The only way to make those princes your vassals is to get a title higher than prince yourself. Those brats may be under age, but some nice person will take over as rengent for them. In game terms the baby will rule alone, you just have to imagine that shadowy figure abusing their influence.


Quote[/b] ]As for the upkeep goes: While the Byzantine emperor was fighting alongside with my troops, I was paying like 5.6 golds to him. I had 5.9 Gs. in total, so that left me with 0.3 earning each month. Oh... now I come to think of it, I may have misread it and it was the upkeep for my mobilized forces http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif :
Sounds like upkeep for your forces.

[The Wizard]

Ok, my mom pulled the following smart move:

She told me that she would buy the game for me when I gave her my next good grade. Well, I just pwnd a Spanish test... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif



~Wiz

[Dîn-Heru]

This might be a silly question, but what is this BB thing you talk about?

[frogbeastegg]

BB, bad boy, aka reputation. The more unpleasant stuff you do (conquering, murdering etc) the higher this number gets. It affects vassal loyalty, and diplomacy, and if it gets too high the whole world will declare war on you. The number will go down with time, according to various factors that changed in the 1.2 patch and were not fully explained. Giving out titles decreases BB, as does piety by some formula. There are other, unknown factors that affect reduction too.

BB in CK is not nearly as compex as BB in EU2, unfortunately.

[Dîn-Heru]

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. I belived it was something like that, just wasn&#39;t sure. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Rosacrux]

CK update

For the past five days (in the little free time I&#39;ve got) I am trying to take Thessalonike (one of my favorite Greek cities nowadays http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif ) to the path of glory.

I am now into the 4th generation (around 1180) and I control 5 provinces myself and 12 through my lieges - I even managed to elect a few years ago my son in law as Pope (but since I haven&#39;t got a kingdom yet, he became independant and took Arta with him... bloody SOB).

I am having extreme fun with this game. I have recovered once from tarnished BB but now I am falling there again, and I don&#39;t think all the favors of the world shall buy me a place in heaven now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

My sole problem is the Byzantine emperor. I got the prestige to challenge him, but he&#39;s way too powerful (the bloody bugger has a 20-province demesne... geesh, talk about not trusting your relatives http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif ) and I am reluctant on doing this. I am slowly working my way towards the Kingdoms of Naples and Kroatia (I was very close to the crown of Serbia, but the Emperor beat me to it... bloody hell) to become independant of my liege, but truth is I&#39;d love the crown of Byzantium http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-toff.gif

A very interesting occurence: the second prince (son of the original prince) was married twice. The first wife gave him 6 kids (5 survived to adultery) and a couple of pretty wenches added two more. The second wife (my man got her when he was 54) gave him 7 more kids (6 survived) and another little bastard (literaly) was added by a passing wench. 14 kids made it, nevertheless impressive, no?

BTW Froggie, I&#39;ve installed the LUCKS package and it severely ruined some of my gaming experience - hordes of CTDs for instance, not to mention that the disease_stress modification ruins the game in no time (try to play with a court diseased and/or crazed by 2/3s...).

I&#39;ve kept only the cultural conversion mod and I am using the 1066 bugfix and everything goes swell
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

Ah, Froggie, I just remembered something. From time to time, the emperor seems to be eager for money and I see the duty to liege meter to rise to extreme heights (and my net income dive to extreme depths).

Do you know how the mechanism for this works? Can&#39;t I simply refuse to finance this megalomaniacs world-domination dreams? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (Rosacrux @ May 20 2004,09:31)]CK update
I am now into the 4th generation (around 1180)
That&#39;s further than I&#39;ve got, I keep giving up and restarting in the second generation after a decade or two of crusading. The piety losses are just too much; even if I conquer like a mad frog I still lose more than I gain back. Bah patch I should play Orthodox to escape the expectations, but the Catholics are more interesting to me.


Quote[/b] ]I even managed to elect a few years ago my son in law as Pope (but since I haven&#39;t got a kingdom yet, he became independant and took Arta with him... bloody SOB).
As far as I know the Pope is always independent, you can become papal controller but that just means you can excommunicate people. You can also become Pope yourself...


Quote[/b] ]I am having extreme fun with this game. I have recovered once from tarnished BB but now I am falling there again, and I don&#39;t think all the favors of the world shall buy me a place in heaven now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
You think tarnished is bad? So did I - until I worked my way to despicable. Oh dear, I became king but at what a terrible cost I can have no vassals and will spend the next few decades doing penance and giving sweets to children to repair my reputation. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

Even low BB is a problem, as it affects vassal loyalty dramatically.


Quote[/b] ]A very interesting occurence: the second prince (son of the original prince) was married twice. The first wife gave him 6 kids (5 survived to adultery) and a couple of pretty wenches added two more. The second wife (my man got her when he was 54) gave him 7 more kids (6 survived) and another little bastard (literaly) was added by a passing wench. 14 kids made it, nevertheless impressive, no?
Survived to adultery? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif Sorry I shouldn&#39;t laugh, adultery=having an affair with someone who is married/while married yourself. Adulthood=on becoming an adult.

14 children, impressive. Someone has managed more than 25 on the CK official forums, but I don&#39;t take much notice of the CK general discussions anymore since I feel the place has a bad atmosphere now, so the record may have altered. I think my best is something like 9: 2 bastards and the rest legitimate. It&#39;s a wonder I got that many, since that was king Robert of England, the single most ugly man the in the CK world.

All of the characters I have played (Culad of Ulster, William the Conqueror, Robert of England) have started off as &#39;old&#39; men of 40 or more, and they die before they are 60. The only young character I’ve played is doing well on the fatherhood front, but the game is getting bogged down by those wretched crusade expectations.


Quote[/b] ]BTW Froggie, I&#39;ve installed the LUCKS package and it severely ruined some of my gaming experience - hordes of CTDs for instance, not to mention that the disease_stress modification ruins the game in no time (try to play with a court diseased and/or crazed by 2/3s...).
I haven&#39;t installed LUCKS, it is far too early for it to be bug free. I have the tooltip mod and the cool courtier mod, but that is all.


Quote[/b] ]Ah, Froggie, I just remembered something. From time to time, the emperor seems to be eager for money and I see the duty to liege meter to rise to extreme heights (and my net income dive to extreme depths).

Do you know how the mechanism for this works? Can&#39;t I simply refuse to finance this megalomaniacs world-domination dreams? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
I&#39;ve not played as a vassal yet. I would assume duty to your liege will be at least mostly scutage, so perhaps the emperor has put scutage taxes up?

[Dîn-Heru]

How exactly do you crusade? Do you only declare war on any pagan or muslim country, or is there a special button that I can&#39;t see?

The reason I ask is that as the Duke of Munster I conqured Ösel, which was pagan, but it didn&#39;t seem to do anything with the crusade expectation, and they only seem to grow worse.

[frogbeastegg]

Beginner&#39;s guide to crusading: 1001 reasons why I hate organised religion

Crusade expectations are permanent until you get a message pop up telling you the crusades are over. The crusade expectations will grow as more land comes under he control of your dynasty, so the more you conquer the more you must conquer.

The crusade season will last for over 100 years, there is no set end and I have never kept going long enough to experience one. I have seen people say that they were expected to crusade for over 300 years Reportedly if you conquer all the non-Christian provinces on the map the crusade will end, but that takes a long time and a lot of resources.

You crusade by attacking and conquering Muslim/pagan provinces - if it isn&#39;t Christian in some form it is a valid target. On winning the siege in the province it will come under the control of the highest ranking person in the besieging army, so make sure YOU personally lead your armies with your character, or else your marshal/underling will take the province and become your vassal. On taking the province you are awarded a sum of piety with no message or anything to alert you. Provinces are worth different amounts; the historical targets like Jerusalem are worth more but are harder to take. You will only receive the piety points during the crusade season, when the sword and banner are beneath your portrait.

I found I was losing far more than I could ever regain, as England (king of England, Scotland, France and Wales) I set out to beat up the Almohads in Spain, using all the troops from my personal demesne. I took one small, crappy province and gained 20 piety, but lost more than 40 because it took so long to reach and capture the damn place. I took a quite few more places but eventually my personal armies were totally exhausted and my piety was getting worse by the month because the land I took increased my expectations. I couldn&#39;t fight on, but I couldn&#39;t get peace either because my warscore was always 0. This is because on taking a province ownership was mine, meaning I had nothing to hold over the heads of my enemies. I quit that game in disgust when the Almohads sailed off in their little ships and invaded both France and Scotland They wouldn’t protect their homes; they actually set sail as I was still conquering them

As Ulster I don&#39;t even have the manpower to take one crappy province, well I suppose I can take one province, but then I will get crushed by the lord who owns the demesne the province belongs to. I don&#39;t even have the money to ship my troops over to the mainland. That game is dead because of the piety loss, which I cannot replace. You can build churches, increase church donations from your treasury and so on to offset this penalty, but the technology for churches hasn’t reached me yet and my donations are on maximum already.

You gain piety by granting bishoprics, but only when creating a new one (giving the title to a character who has no current land), not expanding an existing one. It’s better to conquer land, and then make it into bishoprics. You can only give men with ecclesiastical education bishoprics; no one else qualifies. Of course the problem is that eventually you run out of characters to give land to, the AI vassals are suicidal, when your bishops die you will not always get to chose their replacement, and the land still increases your expectations. All titles can be given away to religious guys, count=bishop, duke=um…big bishop, king=er, really big bishop – sorry, I don’t remember the correct names You give the higher titles away in the same way as you give the duke/king titles, by giving enough land to make up the title to a vassal, then going into their court and granting them the higher title.

War and then peace, that is the limits of diplomacy with the non-Christians.

This is why I always quit and start a new game when the crusades begin.

[Rosacrux]

Froggie, you should really try to play as Orthodox... heaps of fun, you can focus on the political-military-Bene Geserit part of the game and forget about crusades, piety and other nuissances http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-toff.gif

Actually, playing as any (or almost any) Byzantine vassal, the game is too easy (and even on top difficulty): in one or two generations, provided you&#39;ve done your duty by gaining some more power by aquiring a couple of provinces and ideally another duchy title too, you get to inherit the Byzantine throne. The elective law works for you, you know.

After that the game can become a nightmare or a walk in the park, depending on your strategy and/or buildup.


P.S. Damned, I always get adulthood and adultery mixed up
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

It&#39;s a good thing I am still far from adulthood (mentally, at least) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-curtain.gif

[frogbeastegg]

I&#39;m thinking of playing as emperor of Byz next, it will be the first &#39;serious&#39; game that will get past 1100. No crusades :smiles slightly and stares off into space, considering the huge possibilities that presents:

I&#39;ve reinstalled the game, left it modless and repatched it to 1.2. I have almost got my custom soundtrack working at long last. I&#39;m going to go on a Thief marathon, trying to finish both the original games before the third comes out on the 16th June. I will probably find time for the occasional 20 minutes of CK though, just for variety.

[The Wizard]

Can you play as the Georgians ...? They would seem like an interesting starting point...

And yeah, I finally ordered the game. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[Alrowan]

ive been palying as duke of gwynedd, who became king of wales, who became king of england.

so now my welsh dynasty is fighting the muslims in the iberian peninsual with some success. Piety is at -1500 though... only because i like to cull my hiers nd create a strong line

[The Wizard]

Well, got the game yesterday... played around a bit, and got hold of (according to my own estimate) approx. 50% of the game mechanics...

But I&#39;m thinking that I&#39;m missing out on some of the more interesting aspects of the game - intrigue. In other words: how does the spy master work?

Also, I took up playing the county of Holland, in the 1187 scenario. Great place, big income for a dynasty with a demesne of one province. However, my idea is to become Holy Roman Emperor. I understand you need enough prestige, as well as an equal status, to do so, so I thought that I could start by doing what the historical counts of Holland did as well, namely fight over Westfriesland and Zeeland, and against Sticht Utrecht, Frisia, Gelre, and Flanders. However, that gets me into war with my liege, the duke of Brabant. Not very realistic - like the duke of Brabant ever did anything about the counts and bishops of the Low Countries fighting each other non-stop. But when I do so, it gets me the duchy of Brabant and the kingdom of Germany on my tail.

So here&#39;s my question:
How to get the position of duke of Brabant? I&#39;m thinking intrigue and such, hence the question above. I&#39;m never going to win a war with, for instance, the count of Westfriesland, who&#39;s the son of the duke of Brabant, which means a few thousand soldiers from Holland against several ten thousand from the duchy of Brabant and the Holy Roman Emperor himself...

I did, for instance, garner enough prestige to claim and take the title of an Irish duchy (the one with the harp), thus becoming duke. Still, that&#39;s just not my idea of reaching my goal, so I went to my last save...

So... help a poor old Dutch count trying to gain a greater future for his family...



~Wiz

[frogbeastegg]

Too many strange names, I don&#39;t follow what is going on. The count of thingy is attacking oozit, and is declared war on by thingimajig...? Can&#39;t you tell I focus on the UK? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/geishatongue.gif

Er, how about I go play a very short Holland game to get some idea of who is who, what is where, how the alliegances lie, and then I can follow. Goal is to become duke of Brabant? I&#39;ll be back later...

So much for my putting the game on the shelf until 1.3 after my Ulster save games got eaten.

[frogbeastegg]

Ok, I&#39;m back and yes that did not take long. You really don&#39;t like make life easy for yourself, do you Wizzy?

Your problem is large, obvious and one you won&#39;t solve quickly or easily. Allow me to illustrate:

http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/games/frogbeasteggckdemo.jpg

This is your liege. The dark green lands are his own personal demesne, attacking them will declare war on him. The lands in the brighter shade of light green are those belonging to his vassals, notice Holland is light green. The duller light green is land belonging to the holy Roman empire, if I hadn&#39;t selected the duke of Brabant you would see that his lands and those of his vassals are also in this pale green. The duke of Brabant is the emperor&#39;s vassal, and the emperor will step in to protect him.

So when you follow your historical strategy you steal your liege&#39;s lands, putting him at war with you and his own liege. You cannot win.

That rules out force of arms. Taking a look at the duke&#39;s succession, well intrigue is out of the question too. He has several male heirs; you will never be able to afford the gold+piety it will take to kill them all, at least not to kill them all in good time (like less than a decade). Even worse you have no way to worm into his succession, so you won&#39;t be able to inherit from him yourself. His lands would just go to a randomly generated character.

To be honest there isn&#39;t much you can do about becoming duke of Brabant/HRE right now. You need to build more power first, remember how I said the emperor will join the war to help his vassal? The same applies to you, start a war and your lord and the emperor should join in. Pick very carefully, the AI is as dumb as a rock, don&#39;t attack something big like France Now when you have chosen your victim declare war on them, and watch your lords at work. You must use your own army to win a siege, then quickly sue for peace with the owner to claim ownership. If you don&#39;t your lords can force peace on you, and if their armies are present during the siege they will get the province, leaving you empty handed. It is a tough balancing act.

You need a wife, there are some very nice ladies over in Derby, England. Great stats and young too.

[The Wizard]

Oh, I have a wife - a son from a courtier (which isn&#39;t mentioned as my wife) and a daughter from a Scottisch lady (historical - the wife of the count ingame, Floris III, actually was Ada, daughter of the King of Scotland). I married them off and got massive prestige, plus gold as well (taking duties and such).

Also, I tried what you said as well - I attacked a Prussian tribe, but I left too early, grabbing land for my actual enemy, the duke of Brabant... hehe http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Holland building a Baltic empire... interesting...

Anyway, on to another subject - I also have this game going in the 1187 scenario as duke of Armenia. I conquered the sultanate of Rum, and am now high on the F2 list... I made a few new vassals for lands I conquered personally, and I saw one of them switch his shield from one of his provinces to the other... How to do that?



~Wiz

[Rosacrux]

The shield switch thing is automatical, the seat of power goes automatically (be it you or any of your vassals) to the highest income making province of your/his demesne. In my extremely fun current game (started off in teh 1066 scenario as prince of Peloponnese, and with cunning&might I managed to bring myself by the 1180s to king of Aleppo, with 7 princes as vassals and a 6-province demesne) I had a nice little war going on with the Seljuks for some time (he wouldn&#39;t accept peace no matter what I gave him) and while I was conquering various provinces, my seat of power changed every couple of months http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

btw the most difficult faction to play with - in my experience - has to be Georgia... no way it can survive the muslim - pagan onslaught (if you have settings of aggresive, at least) in the harder dificulty levels. I&#39;ll give it another try later.

Great, great game... or did I mention that already? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[The Wizard]

Right... progress report: Floris died and his son is now count of Holland. I invaded the Baltic again, arriving somewhere in march 1200 in some backward Baltic tribe&#39;s backyard, neighboring Lithuania. I think it&#39;s Letland...

Anyway, I took one province and sieged it to red, but then my idiotic liege got there with nearly all the troops from his demense, on his heels followed his own liege, the king of Germany. So, there went my little plan; Kurs (the tribe which was conquered) was given to some randomly generated idiot and I was once again left with nothing.

But I decided to wait until my lieges&#39; armies were disbanded, and when they did, I declared war on the tribe neighboring the province of Kurs (now a county and vassal of the duke of Brabant... sigh), and before any troops of my idiotic liege got there, success Yay http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

So anyway, how exactly does intrigue work? I&#39;m thinking I&#39;m missing out on some and doing things wrong...

And yes Froggy, I like a bit of a challenge http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif



~Wiz

[frogbeastegg]

Intrigue: you assassinate people, that&#39;s it. You get a BB hit whther you are successful at keeping your involvement secret or not, if the attempt fails you also (I think) gain BB. It always costs money and piety, but you fork out more if it fails (I think).

Um, basically you pay a lot no matter what happens, and you have no options other than murder. Unless I, too, am missing something...

Shame, just like diplomacy it is a big gaping hole of a missed opportunity. Let&#39;s hope they pay heed to players requests and add more options in the patches. :waves small placard asking for better diplo, intrigue, and female inheritance:

[Dîn-Heru]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ June 07 2004,15:08)]Intrigue: you assassinate people, that&#39;s it. You get a BB hit whther you are successful at keeping your involvement secret or not, if the attempt fails you also (I think) gain BB. It always costs money and piety, but you fork out more if it fails (I think).
I don&#39;t think you lose piety by assassinating unless it is discovere that you are involved.

I think the text reads somthing this. It will cost XX gold to assassinate this character: Should you be discovered you will lose XX gold, -100 prestige and -100 piety.

[The Wizard]

So, I saw this Danish guy with the big cross next to his little pic signalling he was on Crusade.

I have seen the little notification of the Pope calling for one, but how do you join it? Also, I have the flag with cross and sword...

Not that I&#39;m gonna go crusade... I don&#39;t have enough piety http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Oh, BTW, froggy, there&#39;s a Queen of Georgia when you choose Georgia as your kingdom in the 1187 scenario. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif



~Wiz

[frogbeastegg]

The queen of Georgia is a dead end - her children will never have her name, so your game ends with her. Women can&#39;t inherit, but they can be given land, therefore you will never end up with woman inheriting land ala Matilda of England.

The only way to play as a female character is to give them land, save your game, then reload as that particular county/duchy. It is very temperamental, much of the time the female character will vanish when you reload the game, and you are stuck with a randomly generated man. If she does stick around and you marry her, it is almost always to someone with a different surname to her (unless you can grab a cousin), and the children get the father&#39;s name.

This annoys me no end, not because I want to play as a female character, more because it screws over half the inheritance laws, thereby cutting out a massive chunk of potential gameplay. Just imagine finding a princess like Matilda in the game, marry her and she inherits the English crown, making your children kings of England in addition to wherever you rule now...

There&#39;s a lot more I could say on the subject, but I won&#39;t bother or this will turn into a rant I really hate the way they have worked this, just like bastards being male only, what a game spoiling mechanism - so utterly predictable and ignoring so many great opportunities for cunning expansion

The cross on the Danish guy&#39;s portrait signifies he is papal controller, not a good thing to be right now in buggy 1.2 When a crusade is represented it is shown as a giant white banner with a red cross and sword on your ruler&#39;s portrait (the one visible on the main map screen).

There was a how to guide on crusading a couple of pages back in this topic...

[The Wizard]

Isn&#39;t there some kind of Beginner&#39;s FAQ somewhere ...?

And maybe I&#39;ll join the official forums...



~Wiz, going back to expanding his demense in the Baltic http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[frogbeastegg]

There are some faqs and help threads on the offical forums, but nothing I would call good for newbies. If you post questions they will be answered, for the most part very helpfully, but be warned that I have seen some real jerks running about.

CK really needs a beginner&#39;s guide, but there is nothing that even begins to fill this capacity.

[[DnC]]

I ordered the game (+ EU2 - because of the ability to continue a CK game in EU2) sunday and it should arrive tomorrow. I just hope my mom is home to accept and pay (with my money ofcourse http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif) for the games, because I can&#39;t due to work. I had to order it because none of the shops here have Paradox&#39;s games.

Crusader Kings sounds really interesting It could possibly become an addictive game for me, but ofcourse I&#39;ll have to wait and see.

[Rosacrux]

Quote[/b] (The Wizard @ June 07 2004,11:41)]Isn&#39;t there some kind of Beginner&#39;s FAQ somewhere ...?

And maybe I&#39;ll join the official forums...



~Wiz, going back to expanding his demense in the Baltic http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif
Froggie has written up some stuff that helped me alot in my initial venture into the CK world. She&#39;s got the knack for it, seems so. It&#39;s not a beginners guide, but it&#39;s something... also, the FAQs at Paradox forums are quite revealing, once you get a grip of the game mechanics and are ready to dive into the more advanced stuff.

[DnC] Good luck with your new endeavor I hope you&#39;ll find in CK a great game, like I did http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[The Wizard]

Oh, I&#39;m not really having problems with the game; the learning curve isn&#39;t that steep IMO... I was just expecting to not know 50%, but apparently that&#39;s not true: marriages do nothing about relations except give you a chance of inheriting some territory, or giving you some claims, diplomacy is non-existant, and intrigue is nothing but attempting to kill people. Dissapointing, really...

BTW, the count of Holland has become the duke of Samogitia, and is higher on the F2 list than Aragon http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif



~Wiz

[Rosacrux]

Yep the diplo model (if you accept, with heaps of effort, it&#39;s existence) is really dissapointing. They did though say that this will be somewhat ammended in 1.03 and probably they&#39;ll fix it by the time of the next patch - Paradox has made a name for supporting and patching to the point of unrecognizible, all their games. And especially they hear what the game fans, those roaming the Paradox Forums, have to say http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

I am writing this in bold, just in case some CA guy comes along http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[[DnC]]

The package still hasn&#39;t arrived today. But just maybe it will, but I doubt it..
I guess tomorrow it will come. I was looking forward to playing it today http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[The Wizard]

If it&#39;s from Paradox, it&#39;ll take somewhere between 8-10 business days officially. It took nine for me.

It&#39;s a good game though, but it&#39;s a bit dissapointing that many things that were in EU2 (like the intrigue and diplomacy), or so I&#39;ve heard, could&#39;ve easily been in CK (same engine) but aren&#39;t. A pity.



~Wiz http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flat.gif

[[DnC]]

I ordered it from pcmedia.nl and it should take some 2-3 days if I remember correctly.
I haven&#39;t ordered from pcmedia before, so I decided, albeit more expensive, to make use of rembours (pay the delivery guy - TPG Post in this case mostlikely - in cash) which added € 8,50 to the total price, whereas other payment methods require only an additional € 2,50 extra (administration costs I think).
I feel a little bit more safe doing it this way..

Anyways I do believe it to be delivered tomorrow. Hopefully someone will be able to answer the door and make the payment

[The Wizard]

I have a few questions...

The first: How to make war on fellow christians without losing massive prestige by grabbing their titles? There must be a quicker and easier way than the gambling that is intermarriage...

The second: I became duke of Samigitia, but my provinces won&#39;t turn German/Catholic I had my first conquered province in the Baltic turn Catholic but remain Lettigallish after I had controlled it for 15 years...

I did something I didn&#39;t want after some time after becoming duke, so I reloaded. In the game which I chose to re-play, the province with my ducal shield turned Catholic and German within a few days of me becoming duke... when I loaded the previous save, this never happened...

eh?



~Wiz http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif

[frogbeastegg]

You can only declare war on Catholics if you have a claim. Claims are faked, inherited, or found in random events. I have found one slight way around this: usurp title. Steal a cheap title, say count of X from a guy who has several provinces or is a vassal of someone you want to take out. Then declare war using this claim. You can now capture all of that guy&#39;s provinces, and if you hold the right places you can gain the title/claim by usurping it, which actually gives you prestige. So you buy one claim, and get several &#39;free&#39;.

Conversions are handled by random events, just like technology discoveries and many other things. You either get lucky, or don&#39;t.

[The Wizard]

Oh right... attacking a small count, and his liege will always declare war (stupid AI)... then crush them...

Smart thinking froggy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif



~Wiz, going off to conquer Polotsk http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[frogbeastegg]

1.3 is out

link (http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?t=150519)

Readme:
*****************************
* NEW FEATURES
*****************************

NEW DIPLOMATIC OPTIONS

- Alliances
* Implemented a bilateral (*not* multilateral) alliance system between characters.
* The number of allies you are allowed depends on your realm’s diplomatic attributes.
* Only disloyal vassals may ally outside their realm and this alliance will be dissolved if the vassal’s loyalty recovers.
* Alliances dissolve when one of the characters dies.
* An alliance is dissolved if you are discovered when attempting to assassinate someone in your ally’s court.
* You may join wars that your allies are fighting.
- Gifts
* It is now possible to send gifts to other countries.
* The maximum amount of a gift is capped at 1000 gold (but multiple gifts may be given)
* Giving a gift to a vassal will increase his loyalty if it is a significant amount relative to the vassal’s demesne income.
- Truces
* A state of truce is now applied between two characters when a peace is accepted.
* The truce is in force until one of the character dies or the truce is broken by a new declaration of war.
* Breaking a truce results in a prestige hit to the trucebreaker. This amount is reduced if the trucebreaker declares war in support of a vassal.


NEW EVENTS

- Regency Events – a set of flavour events that may trigger when a ruler is not of age.
- Illness Events – a set of events that generate specific illnesses from the generic illness and stress traits.
- Courtier Events – a set of events that bring Courtiers to life with ambitions of their own.
- Advisors Events – a set of special events for the marshal, the chancellor & the steward.
- Trait Events – many new trait-generating events have been added
- Power Balance Events - when a province’s class is given very little power it may trigger a set of events that make it become increasingly disloyal unless rectified.
- Evil Events – a set of events that can present a challenging for low-efficiency demesnes.


NEW REALM POSSIBILITIES

- Fifteen new potential Kingdoms and Duchies have been added to the game.





*****************************
* GAMEBALANCE
*****************************


WARFARE CHANGES

- A regiment now must be at 10% (or more) of its maximum strength to be allowed to mobilize.
- Regiments will now suffer a minimum attrition of 1% when in neutral territory and of 2% when in hostile territory, regardless of size.
- The size of an army is now capped with respect to its effect on the duration a siege.
- Pillaging now gives the effect to the CONTROLLER of the province, not the owner.
- Kings and dukes now revoke titles if their demesne is completely lost, even if at war and even if all their counts are 100% loyal.
- If a province is taken by a religious enemy, an active regiment from that province now becomes a mercenary regiment under its former owner’s control instead of disbanding.
- Lieges now get their vassals’ units as mercenary regiments if that vassals is eliminated by a religious enemy.
- A province’s potential force (unmobilized regiment or unplaced recruits) is wiped out when a province is taken by a religious enemy.
- Enemy troop losses are now included in the calculation that determines the war score.
- Any existing wars are now transferred and merged upon inheritance.


PROVINCIAL CHANGES

- Increases to the power of a class in a province are now made in 5% steps and reduce the power of each of the other classes equally (an increase of 5% to one will reduce the other three by 1.67% each). There is a corresponding change in each class’ loyalty.
- The demesne penalty modifier for royal posts and grand palaces has been changed to reduce the efficiency penalty of provinces where they are built, but to eventually allow the income modifier to become 0.
- Adjusted castle support costs to reflect the fact that they are stacked - rather than replaced – when built.

COURT AND CHARACTER CHANGES
- Rulers now get random cousins only if there are no dynastic heirs.
- A female is now always transferred to her husband’s court when she marries, and a male always remains in his existing court.
- Court migration has been enhanced to allow for more movement of random and/or displaced courtiers between realms.
- A courtier will not migrate if he/she or his/her spouse currently holds a court appointment (except through inheritance).
- Children may now be born with the hunchback, lisp, harelip and clubfoot traits.
- Children whose parents are from the same dynasty now have a chance to become inbred.
- The leper trait now correctly causes a character to become sterile.
- A child’s religion is no longer changed to the realm’s religion as a result of education unless he/she is given an ecclesiastical education.
- The result of each child’s education now depends on many more factors than the education of his/her parents.


VASSAL CHANGES

- If a vassal attacks you, your other vassals no longer grow more disloyal towards you.
- Coming to the aid of an attacked vassal no longer incurs bad boy and vassal loyalty penalties.
- Not coming to the aid of an attacked vassal now incurs a prestige penalty.
- Granting a title to a vassal (or a character that thus becomes your vassal) now increases his loyalty.
- Granting a Duchy title to a vassal now transfers all County vassals you have that have that duchy as their default duchy to the new Duke.
- Granting a King title to a vassal now transfers all Duke vassals who have their demesne capital in the default domain of the granted King title, and all count vassals located in the default domain of the granted King title (with the exception of those who have their demesne capital in a the default domain of a duchy title held by the granting King).
- It should no longer be possible to inherit non-feudal titles.
- Traits with global attribute effects now correctly affect vassal loyalty.


CRUSADES AND HORDE CHANGES

- Removed the bad boy penalty for attacking religious enemies.
- Crusades expectations are now reduced by the number of provinces in your demesne that have non-Christian religion (-0.2 piety for each). Note that if the province subsequently converts to Christianity this reduction is lost (but you get a one-time piety bonus for having done so).
- The size of the Mongol Invasion and any subsequent reinforcements now depends on the difficulty setting of the game. There are also some flavour events that have been added for the Hordes that may reduce their size.


RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS ISSUES CHANGES

- The cost for excommunicating someone is now dependant upon the titles and vassals that character has, as well as his/her piety.
- The Papal controller’s sons are now only considered for bishop offices if they have ecclesiastical education.
- The Papal controller now always gets male random courtiers if he has fewer than 70% male courtiers.
- Bishop candidates must be catholic.
- Non-adults cannot be made bishops.
- Non-adults cannot be elected as Pope.
- Papal “bishopric theft” has been eliminated. Upon election, the new Pope’s former demesne provinces are returned to his former liege.
- Only Catholics can be excommunicated now.
- Excommunicated characters are now hated quite a bit by everyone.
- Only Catholics benefit from reduced claim costs from excommunication.
- It is no longer possible to excommunicate the pope.
- An excommunicated person can no longer become a pope.
- Removed the loophole from excommunicate/revoke prestige gain on the Pope.
- Added a small piety bonus for giving land to the religious orders when they are created.
- Orthodox characters may now also become saints.


MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES

- It is no longer possible to usurp titles with 0 statically mapped provinces. (Such as the Pope)
- Tweaked assassination costs to make it more expensive in bigger courts.
- Your badboy rating is now reduced when someone successfully assassinates someone in your court.
- The degree of the bad boy penalty for assassination now depends on whether you are discovered or not.

- Bad boy now reduced by 33% when a ruler dies.
- Removed the prestige exploit from marriages.
- There are now duchies covering all provinces.
- Revised a lot of conditions for various events to tweak their probability.
- Revised a lot of triggers and conditions for events to make them fire more logically.
- Some base province income values adjusted (Thesaliniki now condiserably richer, Russian provinces tweaked, Low Counties tweaked)




*****************************
* INTERFACE TWEAKS
*****************************

- Only adult characters are now shown in the court interface.
- The real age of a character is now shown, not the rounded age.
- The loyalty of a vassal is now shown in the brief character info tooltip.
- Alliances (new feature) are shown in blue on the relationship mapmode
- Reworked color-setup in realm mapmode.
- Changed the order of prestige/piety in the province window.
- Added the regular province tooltips to realm mapmode as well.
- Fixed a display bug on attrition on unit screen.
- Sliders settings are now adjusted and limited automatically after a law has been changed.
- Added Sue for peace action for vassals IF you are at war with them (this can happen through inheritance).
- Fixed a few action screens where it was impossible to select bottom entries.
- Changed the autosave frequency possibilities.
- Added a shortcut key &#39;m&#39;, to toggle the message log to be visible or not.
- Added the diplomatic cheat byzantine.





*****************************
* AI IMPROVEMENTS
*****************************

- The AI is now better at deciding when to instigate or join a war.
- The AI now considers a ruler’s traits when deciding whether to declare war.
- The AI will now selectively declare war on vassals of a religious enemy they are at war with, so it may grab provinces as easily as the opponent.
- AI Vassals will now trust their liege to mobilize and use their troops if they are fighting a common enemy.
- The AI will no longer keep requesting mobilization of vassals’ regiments if they are too small.
- The AI is now better at mobilizing its troops, in attacking enemies, selecting its military targets and in defending itself and its vassals. This is a leaner and meaner military AI.
- The AI is now better at managing and demobilizing regiments that are no longer needed for specific targets during a war.
- AI will no longer revoke titles when at war.
- AI will no longer revoke the title of the player before other vassals.
- AI will now pillage provinces when it can – unless it has a claim on that province.
- The AI is now considerably better (and more reasonable) when negotiating a peace.
- The AI may now assassinate anyone assassinating it, or assassinate anyone far above the badboy limit.
- The AI will now correctly build all beneficial province improvements and takes many more factors into consideration when prioritizing the order that it does so.
- AI is now better at avoiding bankruptcy.
- Improved and tweaked the marriage AI.
- AI should now be quite a bit better at selecting the appropriate education for its children.

- AI spam has been reduced.





*****************************
* SUPPORT FOR MODDERS
*****************************

- Added ability to use modifers in actions to modify the AI_chance for each action.
- Added a scalable effect commands for events.
- Added conditions for character and province events: difficulty, aggressiveness
- Added a region trigger for provinces.
- Added character condition: ruler
- Added a ruler target for character targets.
- Added the mother/steward/chanchellor/marshal/spymaster/chaplain target option.
- Added a courtier_defect effect. (for = target_char to defect to.)
- The has_province_effect condition now works for characters, and then checks for the capital of their court.
- Added an efficiency condition for character events
- Added Context Switching Conditions
* For province conditions: owner, controller
* For character conditions: capital, realm_capital, location, liege, father, mother, spouse, any_demesne_province, any_same_religion_province, any_same_culture_province, any_province, realm_ruler, ruler_csc, steward_csc, chancellor_csc, marshal_csc, spymaster_csc, chaplain_csc, any_courtier, any_vassal, any_child, any_same_culture_ruler, any_same_religion_ruler, any_ruler, any_allied_ruler, any_precursor
* csc conditions can be nested (province events can use nested csc to check character csc conditions)
* csc conditions do not allow the context of event effects to be changed
* WARNING: The “any_xxxxx” csc conditions are very CPU intensive and should be used with extreme caution to avoid performance reduction or complete lock-up




*****************************
* 1066 SCENARIO CHANGES
*****************************

Poland
- made lots of minor changes to the Piast dynasty members,
- added Emnilde (757) second wife of Boleslaw the Brave,
- removed 759, as unhistorical/unmarried character,
- added a bunch of pseudo-historical portraits for Polish Kings (thanks to Matejko and Kasperus )
- removed 13500 and 13502 as doubles of King Kazimierz Karol and princess Swietoslawa/Swatawa
- made Kievan Princess Dobronega (13501) correctly mother of Boleslaw (et al.)
- removed 20392 as unnecessary (new ruler in Mazovia)
- changed 20393 as a correct Archbishop of Wielkopolska
- changed 20388 into an Archbishop of Krakow/Malopolska, removed his wife (that someone added in 1.02)
- added marriage of Adelajda (753) with Geza of Hungary
- added/corrected marriages of Boleslaw (756)
- added marriage between DObronega (13501) and Kazimierz Karol
- corrected slightly marriage of Wratislav and Swietoslawa
- deleted a bunch of marriages between doubles
- made Wladyslaw Herman (764), King&#39;s brother, a Duke of Masovia and Count of Plock
- made KRAK (Malopolska/Krakow) an Archbishopric
- made C428 a vassal of KRAK (same ruler anyway)
- made changes to .eug file (new ruler faces, removed KRAK as playable)
- made Boleslaw (762) a Duke of Silesia (rather than only an overlord of Silesia)
- put the structures (forts, churches etc.) in correct provinces
- Various minor province updates.

Bohemia
- added Ludmila (8502) and corrected parentage of other children of Wratislav
- removed 12600-12611 as doubles of the Bohemian ducal family
- made Opava (C440) part of Silesia rather than Bohemia

Byzantium
- made a bunch of minor changes to the characters
- made a bunch of minor changes to the dynasty names (including Greek spelling and removal of female form for the game consistency)
- corrected spelling of Greek names
- removed doubles of dynasty names
- added missing children of Konstantinos Doukas
- added missing son of Andronikos Doukas
- added missing children of Ioannes Komnenos
- made Maria of Bulgaria a wife of Andronikos Doukas, not Michael Doukas
- removed unborn/non-existing children
- made Eirene Doukas daughter of Andronikos rather than Ioannes
- made Zoe Doukas daughter of Konstantinos, rather than Ioannes
- improved vastly stats of Alexios Komnenos and reduced stats of Michael Doukas
- Nikephoros Palaiologos is not a son of Ioannes Komnenos any more
- added random characters from Laskaris, Angelos and Kantakouzenos families
- added historical characters of Sergios of Naples and his son, Sergios
- added historical characters of Roupin of Armenia and his son Konstandin Roupinid
- corrected minor mistakes in majority of characters
- Emperor of Byzantium is now also Prince and Count of Thessalonike
- Michael Doukas is now Prince and Count of Adrianople
- Ioannes Doukas is now Prince and Count of Nikomedia
- Ioannes Komnenos is now Prince and Count of Sinope
- Manuel Komnenos is now Count of Amisos
- Alexios Komnenos is now Prince of Kappadokia, and Count of Paphlagonia and Ankyra
- Isaakios Komnenos is now Prince of Antioch and Count of Alexandretta
- Romanos Diogenes is now Prince and Count of Ikonion
- Manuel Angelos is now Prince and Count of Lykia
- Ioannes Kantakouzenos is now Count of Ephesos
- Theodoros Laskaris (non-historical) is now Prince and Count of Nikaea
- Sergios is now Count of Naples
- Roupin is now Prince of Armenia Minor and Count of Lykandos
- Lykia has now semi-salic consanguinity law to simulate power center of
Angelos family
- Nikomedia has now semi-salic consanguinity law to simulate power center of Doukas family
- Ikonion has now semi-salic consanguinity law to simulate power center of Diogenes family
- Kappadokia has now semi-salic consanguinity law to simulate power center of Komnenos family
- Nikaea has now semi-salic consanguinity law to simulate power center of Laskaris family
- Ephesos has now semi-salic consanguinity law to simulate power center of Kantakouzenos family
- Armenia Minor has now semi-salic primogeniture law to simulate power center of Roupinids and the fact that it will blossom into a kingdom shortly
- added historical Stephen Vujoslav, his sons Mihajlo and Radislav, and their sons
- added non-historical wives of Vujoslav characters with offspring
- made Mihajlo Vujoslav Prince of Serbia and Bosnia, and Count of Rashka, Hum and Rama
- made Radislav Vujoslav a Count of Zeta

Burgundy
- resurrected Duke&#39;s wife and brought her back to Burgundian court
- killed Duke&#39;s ex-wife (should be long dead)
- brought Henri&#39;s wife from Catalonia to Bourgogne (to prevent her from stealing entire ducal family within the few days from the scenario beginning)

Germany
- Gave the Duke of Milan his historical Father and Mother.
- Gave the Duke of Milan a full borther as well as his current half brother and made him Count of Maine.
- Added the County of Pavia to the Duke of Milian&#39;s Demise
- Added the County of Piedmont to the Count of Savoy&#39;s Demise
- Adeed the family to the Count of Passau to make it more histroically accurate
- Removed the Count of Nassau and added the province the King of Germany&#39;s demise (the first count I can find dates from about 1154)
- Ok I lied the Count of Nassau hass begun a new career as the Count of Baden, but I doubt anyone will notice
- Removed the Count of Leingen, can&#39;t find anyone holding a title here till about 1263
- Added the Count of Metz and family
- Added a count of Nieder Bayern and his family
- Removed the Count of Wurtemburg (can&#39;t find anyone holding this title in 1066)
- Removed the Count of Furstenburg
- Removed the counbt Cleves
- Removed the Count of Celle
- The Bishop of Bremem is now the historically correct Bishop
- Hamburg is now part of Bremem
- The Count of Koln has been replaced by the historically correct Bishop
- The Count of Osnabruck has been replaced by the historically correct Bishop
- In both cases their wives have been removed
- The correct Count of Oldenbrug has been added
- All Germany Duchies now use Semi-Sallic inheritance

Scotland
- Made the counts of Moray Dukes of Argyll (it was the best Title I could find for them)
- Gave them control of Sutherland and Ross
- Expanded there family so they are now decended from the Scottish Royal Family
- MacBeth now makes a guest appearance in the character file.
- Made Maelmuir Dunkeld to be Duke of Atholl, gave him controll of Argyll as well
- Moved Gospatrick of Atholl to make him Duke of Berwick (moved his family as well).
- Gave Maldred of Atholl the title Duke of Galloway (histroically he was King of Cumbria)
- gave him the provinces of Carrick, Galloway and Cumberland
- Upped the Count of Mar to Duke
- Manged to find the correct historical Duke and his son (all hail the power of Burke&#39;s Peerage). The dates are guess work
- Gave Mar control of Buchan
- Added a father & sister for the count of Angus. The actual count and his relationship to the new characters is pure guess work

Orkney
- The Dukes of Orkney can now claim decendance from the Scottish Royal family

Spain
- Removed a few clones
- Made Catalonia independant of Aragon
- Changed the dynasties of some of the characters
- Changed some the starting laws

Croatia
- Moved the counties C460 Varadzin and C462 Krizevci from Hungary to Croatia.
- Created the Duchy of Slavonia, gave this to Zvonimir Dimitar.
- Moved the Duchy of Zara (=Dalmatia) from Byzantine to Croatian control.
- Various minor updates to the ruling dynasty.

Hungary
- Made Lazlo Arpad duke of Temes
- Created the Duchy of Slovakia, moved Geza there from Temes. Gave him C443 Nitra as demesne.
- Various minor updates to the ruling dynasty.
- Moved Ottokar of Styria from Vas to Steiermark.
- Ottokar now has a wife and kids.
- Moved the county of Vas from German to Hungarian control (and created a generic count there).

Sweden
- Made the King of Sweden also duke of Västergötland to fix a problem where C294 Närke and C295 Dal had no liege.

England
- Removed a Large number of Place Holder Counts
- Moved the survivng Atheling&#39;s to the court of the King of Scotland
- Moved Waltheof from Northumberland to Northampton
- Set Morcar as Duke of Cumberland (simulating the Saxon Earldom of Northumberland)
- Set Edwin as Duke of Lancashire (Simulating the Saxon Earldom of Mercia)
- Promoted William FitzOsbern to Duke of Warkwick and gave him substantial land holdings in the Midlands.
- The Duchy of Norfolk is now a little bit smaller

Bugs
- Fixed a couple of minor Dynasty problems in the low countires
- The Tribe of Savoie is no more
- Fixed a few date problems with characters
- The Duke of Leinster is now the same Dynasty as his son and Grandson
- Palmyra is no longer a selectable country
- The Duke of Tunisia has been made a king
- Ulfhild Olafssdottir, although not technically married at scenario start has
had it changed so her marriage is still running in 1066.
- Removed the marriage between the dead Guillaume de Heismes and his granddaughter...

1066_scenario_provinces.inc
- updated all provinces to have correct required sub-structures for religious buildings and fortifications
- some additional improvements added to rationalize the added substructures (notably tile factories added to provinces with large churches or domed churches, although I left then out of provinces that have just a regular church on the basis that they might have imported the stone)
- updated all provinces to have most of the necessary advances to build the structures they possess.
- all caste powers updated to ensure no caste begins with 15% power or lower.
- some advances added to some provinces to rationalize structures in that province.





*****************************
* 1187 SCENARIO CHANGES
*****************************

- Occitanised the characters needing that.

1187_scenario_provinces.inc
- updated all provinces to have correct required sub-structures for religious buildings and fortifications
- some additional improvements added to rationalize the added substructures (notably tile factories added to provinces with large churches or domed churches, although I left then out of provinces that have just a regular church on the basis that they might have imported the stone)
- updated all provinces to have most of the necessary advances to build the structures they possess.
- all caste powers updated to ensure no caste begins with 15% power or lower.
- some advances added to some provinces to rationalize structures in that province.
- Removed a lot of grand palaces that provinces can&#39;t afford as a result of the changes made to that improvement.
- adjusted a few of the advances - generally richer (base value) provinces are now also somewhat more advanced technologically.





*****************************
* 1337 SCENARIO CHANGES
*****************************

- Tweaked setup of provinces in 1337.
- Some dynasties added: Hohenzollern, de Holand, de Ufford, de Lacy, de Frenes, Mormaer, Strathbogie and Randolph.
- Ulfsdöttrarna in Närke are now women.
- Ages of the people of Blå dynasty made normal.
- A few 200+ year old people fixed.

Sweden
- Magnus Eriksson also king of Norway

Germany
- von Wittelsbach dynasty expanded (62731-73)
- King Ludwig now also count(IRL duke) of Upper Bavaria. Stefan to German court
- 62731 Ludwig, son of king Ludwig, Duke of Brandenburg. Removed generic 62300
- 62749 Rudolf is now Pfalzgraf
- 62760 Heinrich now Duke and count of Lower Bavaria
- von Meissen dynasty (62400-402). 62400 duke of Meiseen, Türingen.
- duchy of Thüringen and land to Meissen ^
- Swabia disintegrated, dukal title removed
- New dynasties in Fürstenberg & Breisgau (62320-43),
- Württemberg (62300-62306), Baden(62310-17), Schwaben(62350-54)
- Ulm a Free City (republic)
- Chur, Trent made bishopries
- Lübeck and Hamburg Free Cities
- duchy of Frankonia disintegrated, title dismissed
- von Nassau family (62360-77) in Nassau
- Mainz a bishopry
- Pfalz see above
- Leiningen dynsty in Leiningen (62380-86)
- Franken made a Free City (Frankfurt am Main)
- Anhalt dynasty (62390-98), liege Saxony
- Saxe-Wittenberg dynasty, duke of Sachsen (62100-113)
- Passau now a bishopry, bishop 62111 Albrecht
- Johan III von Holstein given to dynasty 116 von Holstein
- Gerhard (III the Great) von (Holstein-)Rendsburg now also duke of Slesvig
- renamed the guy above to Gerhard III to avoid further confusion from the guy below
- 51970 Gerhard von Holstein(-Plön) only count Holstein, vassal of Gerhard III
- von Braunschweig dynasty (62800-62844), governing Göttingen, Braunschweig, Lüneburg
- Bohemian dynasty fixed, also linked with the branch in Luxembourg. removed 62613 dupl. of 62600
- Kingship of Germany now elective
- Oldenburg dynasty expanded. Johann is the new count.
- dynasty in new county Valais (62140-44), liege SAVO

France
- duchy of Toulouse and surrounding land to king of France
- Foix dyansty fixed
- occitan culture in a lot of provinces and characters
- enlargened Brittany dynasty
- Vendome dynasty in Vendome (55006-13)
- Brienne dynasty in Eu. Guines to Raoul de Brienne, count of Eu
- Thouars dynasty in Thouars (55930-39)
- Chalons (Franche Comte) to Burgund
- expanded Chalons dynasty in Auxerre.

Iberia
- Jaume el Conquistador is now a man
- Leon and Castille now ruled by 57500
- Urgell ruled by Jaume
- lots of other changes

Lowlands
- 62742 Guillaume de Hainault now count of Hainault, Holland, Zeeland. Removed generic 55005 and 55610 (duplicate of 62742). added dynasty (87011-12)
- new duchy Brabant. (87040-87055)
- Loon a county, (62160-62170)
- Gent, Brugge to duchy of Flandern, Louis of Nevers duke.
- Münster independent bishopry, liege GERM
- Loon a county, (62160-62170) liege GERM
- Breda to Brabant
- dynasties in Gelre, Kleve, Jülich expanded
- Friesland disintegrated. Westfriesland to the counts of Holland (ie the counts Hainault).

England
- Gwynedd vassal of England
- ruling Plantagenet dynasty expanded
- Durham a bishopric
- some dynasties for the earls:
- Edmund Plantagenet c of Lancaster and Leicester
- Henry P. in Derby
- Humphrey de Bohun c of Hereford
- his brother William de Bohun in Northampton
- FitzAlans in Sussex (Arundel)
- Warren family in Surrey
- de Holland in Kent
- Beauchamp in Warwick
- de Audley in Gloucester
- clifford in Westmoreland
- de Courteney in Devon and Exeter to him
- de Vere in Oxford
- de Ufford in Suffolk
- de Lacy in Lincoln and Salisbury
- Richard de Mandeville controls the Isle of Man
- king Edward has a claim on FRAN

Scotland
- Carrick and Strathclyde to king David
- replaced all generic and created dynasties (53020-530780, 53502-14)
- Ross in Ross
- MacDonald on the Western Isles
- Randolph in Moray
- Beaumont in Buchan
- Mormaer in Mar
- Stewart in Angus
- Strathbogie in Atholl
- MacDuff in Fife
- Campbell in Argyll
- Dunbar in the marches (Berwick+Galloway)

Italy
- Grisons(Ticino), Cremona and lombardia to Milano
- correct rulers in the Italian republics
- expanded Piemonte dynasty
- Saluzzo dynasty craeted
- Parma to Verona
- Modena to Ferrara, new ruler there
- Urbino feudal county, Montefeltro dynasty

Balkans/Greece
- Samos to Genoa
- duchy of Aegean vassals of Venice
- duke of Achaea is Robert d&#39;Anjou, duke of Calabria (irl Taranto), Nicholas de Joinville rules it in his place.
- despotate of Epirus independent from BYZ.
- duchy Vidin vassal of Bulgaria

East
-Cumans, Khazars and Alans subjects to the Golden Horde
-lots of Russian states subject to the Mongols.

1337_scenario_provinces.inc
- updated all provinces to have correct required sub-structures for religious buildings and fortifications
- some additional improvements added to rationalize the added substructures (notably tile factories added to provinces with large churches or domed churches, although I left then out of provinces that have just a regular church on the basis that they might hve imported the stone)
- updated all provinces to have most of the necessary advances to build the structures they possess.
- all caste powers updated to ensure no caste begins with 15% power or lower.
- some advances added to some provinces to rationalize structures in that province.
- Removed a lot of grand palaces that provinces can&#39;t afford as a result of the changes made to that improvement.
- adjusted a few of the advances - generally richer (base value) provinces are now also somewhat more advanced technologically.





*****************************
* BUG FIXES
*****************************

- Fixed any reported crashes.
- You can no longer receive a claim on titles you already possess.
- At the start of each day, claims on titles currently held are removed.
- Fixed a bug which made it possible to sometimes grant titles to a vassal’s courtiers.
- Fixed some bugs with vassal loyalty changes (100 times too big in some cases.)
- Children of the same father won&#39;t get the same names as often.
- The one-time-bonus from building an improvement now works as intended.
- Grand shipyards now display properly
- Mercenaries and rebels and units with anonymous commanders should now siege properly.
- Fixed several minor inconsistencies with technology.
- Fixed the problem with duplicate event effects happening in MP.
- There should only be one papal controller determination message in MP.
- Fixed a problem with grand mobilisation happening multiple times in MP.
- Fixed the chat after player eliminated CTD in MP.
- Fixed all reported problems in event files.
- Fixed several broken event commands.
- Fixed the opinion_of modifier.
- Fixed a few problems with the EU2 converter databases.
- Fixed any other reproducible bugs that were reported





*******************************
* And much, much more...
*******************************




Downloading...now.

[[DnC]]

Yep, downloaded it.. Now I only need the game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[The Wizard]

Well, first I&#39;ll abuse the 0 province usurp title thing on the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Order... then I&#39;ll install http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Rosacrux]

1.03 is unstable. Can&#39;t play past 5-10 years gametime due to unrecoverable CTDs.

A shame, this patch looks so extremely promising, it would greatly enhance gameplay yet it&#39;s useless...

Ah, back to 1.02 until they fix it...

[frogbeastegg]

Patch 1.3 has been withdrawn.

[The Wizard]

Triple gah.

[The Wizard]

This happened when I tried to register on the Paradox forums...

The following errors occurred during your registration:
- The administrator has banned your email address. To contact the administrator click here
- The string you entered for the image verification did not match what was displayed.



~Wiz http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flat.gif

[frogbeastegg]

1.3a is now available, same link as last time.

Try registering again Wizzy, and see what happens.

[The Wizard]

It doesn&#39;t show the registration validation pic... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-inquisitive.gif



~Wiz

[[DnC]]

Wiz, if you want I could register for you.
The registration worked for me, so it&#39;s possible to work again.
I could just use your msn e-mail and put in a temporary password. Both can be changed.
After the registration is done I could PM you here with the details.
So what is the accountname you want? The Wizard?

[The Wizard]

BTW, can someone tell me how long it takes before the administrator lets you post?

It&#39;s kind of pissing me off that it&#39;s taking so long...



~Wiz http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flat.gif

[[DnC]]

EU2 arrived, but instead of CK I got Soldner: Secret Wars http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-inquisitive.gif
So now I&#39;ll have to send it back and have them send me CK this time

By the way Wiz, you did what I told you? Used a non-hotmail adress?
I have no idea how long it can take before you can post, seeing as I haven&#39;t posted myself yet.

Anyways got my new Radeon 9800 Pro today aswell, just have to test it and then I&#39;ll play some EU2 and start as the Dutchies http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (The Wizard @ June 14 2004,16:34)]BTW, can someone tell me how long it takes before the administrator lets you post?

It&#39;s kind of pissing me off that it&#39;s taking so long...



~Wiz http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flat.gif
It took about half an hour for the validation email to arrive.



[DnC], have fun with your new toys, thief III with my radeon 9800 is a joy to behold.

[[DnC]]

My GeForce Ti 4200 128MB runs CS alot better then this Club3D ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (256bit) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
I read it might have something to do with OpenGL not working quite right with ATI cards?

On the other hand Thief 3 runs better
I think MTW will also run a bit poorer (with the other card it did, as with CS), but I&#39;ll have to check that another time. Hopefully not, since the bloody card is some € 250 (I know, I know, a really good (next gen) card costs some € 400-600, but that&#39;s a bit too much for now) A freaking GeForce Ti 4200 shouldn&#39;t outperform it I can remember when it was said that the 9700 Pro&#39;s were about twice as fast as Nvidia&#39;s Ti 4200-4600&#39;s and the 9800 should be an improved version of the 9700 if I&#39;m correct..

/end rant..

Gonna patch EU2 now (forgot) and then start the tutorial.

[frogbeastegg]

I noticed a *huge* difference to MTW with my 9800 compared to my old geforce 3 (worse than your old card, I know). I did have to fiddle about with AGP settings inside MTW though, make sure you haven&#39;t got too much memory being used; I set mine to 90MB and it&#39;s smooth as glass in 4v4. If I let it use more than 100MB it begins to get jerky.

I&#39;ve never played CS, nor have I used opengl with this card, but I don&#39;t see why there should be a problem. Try some different drivers, that may help.

[[DnC]]

I don&#39;t seem to get more then 53MB memory with the AGP setting in MTW?
Unit sizes on default btw? How well does it run on huge sizes?
And how well does NTW run on default unit sizes (with some 4 arties for example?)? Does it get run well, somewhat, mediocre or really choppy? With my GeForce Ti4200 it ran quite well, but I still need to test it with this new card. Just thought I&#39;d ask since I&#39;m gonna stop computing now and won&#39;t have time until tomorrow after work.

It seems CS doesn&#39;t run very well on (certain) Radeon cards..
Ah well, maybe a new driver will fix it. Only gives me more incentive to play Thief 3 and EU2 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

PS. Just did quick tests and MTW doesn&#39;t run smooth in a 4vs4 on default unit sizes.. Could the AI also make the game run a little slower then in an MP 4vs4?

Edit: Call me pigheaded, but I just had to know what was causing the CS 1.6 random fps drop problem... and I think I found it.. well except for the solution. Apparently ATI is looking into the problem. It should work fine with the 3.6 Catalyst drivers, but I&#39;m not going to revert to those just for CS.

I guess I&#39;m overly critical with this new card http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[frogbeastegg]

I have unit sizes to the one above default, 4v4 against 7 AIs is fine, I can set up to 128MB of AGP in-game, I don&#39;t have NTW. I did try huge unit sizes once out of sheer boredom, it still worked fine.



Further thought on your paradox forum problem, Wizzy. When did you try to register exactly? The forums have been very slow today, between 12:00-4:00 PM UK time. At some points I was unable to get near them, annoying because I was trying to check my AAR thread.



Now for the game itself, CK 1.3a is an improvement over the previous versions. I have only played for about half an hour as Ulster in a new game on a clean install, I encountered far more events with a greater variety in them, no more manure problems every other month http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/geishagrin.gif I can still see room for improvement, but I&#39;ll not comment much until I have had more time to play.

[[DnC]]

Note: Edited my last reply.

What drivers do you use frogbeastegg? I currently use the Omega drivers (the latest I think). And what are your OpenGL and D3D settings?

Sorry for all the questions, but I just want to get this thing to work properly http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

I&#39;m definitly gonna stop now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[The Wizard]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ June 14 2004,19:31)]
Quote[/b] (The Wizard @ June 14 2004,16:34)]BTW, can someone tell me how long it takes before the administrator lets you post?

It&#39;s kind of pissing me off that it&#39;s taking so long...



~Wiz http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flat.gif
It took about half an hour for the validation email to arrive.
I seem to be in some, and I quote, moderation queue to be allowed to post.

Hmm... unique at least...



~Wiz http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/barrel.gif

[frogbeastegg]

1.3b is now out, same link as usual. A few changes, nothing much.

[the Count of Flanders]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ June 16 2004,10:15)]1.3b is now out, same link as usual. A few changes, nothing much.
fixing those annoying &#39;crash to desktop&#39; bugs does make a whole world of differenc tough (to me at least)

[Rosacrux]

Quote[/b] (the Count of Flanders @ June 17 2004,06:04)]
Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ June 16 2004,10:15)]1.3b is now out, same link as usual. A few changes, nothing much.
fixing those annoying &#39;crash to desktop&#39; bugs does make a whole world of differenc tough (to me at least)
99% of those (at least for me) have been taken care of with 1.03a. But 1.03b is a welcomed addition, if only for the screwed up dynasty bug.

I am going to enjoy many hours of 1.03b until 1.04 comes out - I am still waiting for sortable lists, an Orthodox Patriarch, correct inheritance laws, further tweaking/enhancing of the diplomacy options and many others, but the game is excellent as it is now, a vast improvement over 1.2 - a true enhancement pack and not a mere patch, as the devs put it.

[The Wizard]

True, but I miss my beloved eastern factions. It must be sentiment, but I prefer conquering the world as the Late Turks in VI over slowly expanding my family&#39;s power in CK.

Ahh, the wonder of annihalating armies thrice the size of your own with simple Turcomen, sipahi, Armenians and a mix of archers which can fight.

Sometimes I just need that to recover a bit from the abstract world of CK.



~Wiz

[the Count of Flanders]

Quote[/b] (Rosacrux @ June 17 2004,06:29)]
Quote[/b] (the Count of Flanders @ June 17 2004,06:04)]
Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ June 16 2004,10:15)]1.3b is now out, same link as usual. A few changes, nothing much.
fixing those annoying &#39;crash to desktop&#39; bugs does make a whole world of differenc tough (to me at least)
99% of those (at least for me) have been taken care of with 1.03a. But 1.03b is a welcomed addition, if only for the screwed up dynasty bug.

I am going to enjoy many hours of 1.03b until 1.04 comes out
Must be my system then cause under 1.03a I had a CTD about every 2 hours and sometimes while saving (resulting in corrupt savegame). Haven&#39;t had those problems with 1.03b yet.
Game is waaaay better now compared to 1.02. Only 1 thing: the muslems from Spain are consistently steamrolling through western Europe.

[Rosacrux]

For the time being I am quite alright with the abstracity of CK... then I&#39;ll be quite alright with the abstracity of EU2 (plan on building a robust Byzantine nation in CK and import that to EU2 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif ).

My gaming future for the next 3-4 months, is abstract as it goes.

But, as a TW addict, I&#39;ll get some decent shots of TW fix, with HTW and (if it comes out before RTW http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ) WesW&#39;s MedMod 4.0.

When RTW comes out... it will be the first game I&#39;ll learn to mod before learning to play it... so at least for 3 or 4 weeks (until pharaonics, dogz, catz, pigz, druidz, womenz and pokemonz will be banished to hell) I&#39;ll still need CK-EU2 to actually play a bit and let some steam go http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[Rosacrux]

Quote[/b] (the Count of Flanders @ June 18 2004,02:00)]
Quote[/b] (Rosacrux @ June 17 2004,06:29)]
Quote[/b] (the Count of Flanders @ June 17 2004,06:04)]
Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ June 16 2004,10:15)]1.3b is now out, same link as usual. A few changes, nothing much.
fixing those annoying &#39;crash to desktop&#39; bugs does make a whole world of differenc tough (to me at least)
99% of those (at least for me) have been taken care of with 1.03a. But 1.03b is a welcomed addition, if only for the screwed up dynasty bug.

I am going to enjoy many hours of 1.03b until 1.04 comes out
Must be my system then cause under 1.03a I had a CTD about every 2 hours and sometimes while saving (resulting in corrupt savegame). Haven&#39;t had those problems with 1.03b yet.
Game is waaaay better now compared to 1.02. Only 1 thing: the muslems from Spain are consistently steamrolling through western Europe.
Yes, that is quite an issue. Over at Paradox forums lots of interesting solutions to this problem wander around... dunno if any of those makes it into 1.04 or if the devs are going to invent something else.

Isn&#39;t the support of Paradox very exemplar? They listen closely to their fans, discuss possible solutions to gameplay or other issues, use the fan-made modifications, always consider their feedback, improve their games constantly even 2 or 3 years after the initial release... definitely the best support in this industry.

One can only feel sad when comparing Paradox to CA... abstract or not http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif


EDIT: Language.

[frogbeastegg]

Making big hints to CA in case they stumble on this thread or not, watch the language Rosacrux.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/geisha_hairpin_2.gif Which reminds me, in accordance to those slightly reformed rules we are now editing posts to remove bad language.

[Rosacrux]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ June 18 2004,02:48)]Making big hints to CA in case they stumble on this thread or not, watch the language Rosacrux.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/geisha_hairpin_2.gif Which reminds me, in accordance to those slightly reformed rules we are now editing posts to remove bad language.
Froggie, I wonder, in your parts of the universe the word snip: think along the lines of blood spilled everywhere is considered bad? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

I am really, really puzzled... Never occured to me that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Plus, I find your remark about ...my remark, rather rude... but I&#39;ll pass on that. You are a lass after all and I am supposed to be a gentleman http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

EDIT: If I edit one I have to edit the lot.

[frogbeastegg]

Yes, in my part of the world that one counts as very bad, just as some of the words considered mild around here are not elsewhere; I&#39;ll be editing the ones I know about even though I personally consider them mild. Mine field, a mine field I tell you

Er, you realise now I have to edit your last post too?

[Rosacrux]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ June 18 2004,05:00)]Er, you realise now I have to edit your last post too?
Holy sh...mikers, you had to, didn&#39;t you? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[the Count of Flanders]

Quote[/b] (Rosacrux @ June 18 2004,02:06)]Isn&#39;t the support of Paradox very exemplar? They listen closely to their fans, discuss possible solutions to gameplay or other issues, use the fan-made modifications, always consider their feedback, improve their games constantly even 2 or 3 years after the initial release... definitely the best support in this industry.

One can only feel sad when comparing Paradox to CA... abstract or not http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
The support is great, but let&#39;s not forget that paradox consistently releases bug-ridden games (more like letting your comsumers beta-test and pay for it too). Version 1.0 of any paradox game is simply unplayable. At least MTW is enjoyable straight from the box.

[Rosacrux]

Quote[/b] (the Count of Flanders @ June 18 2004,06:32)]
Quote[/b] (Rosacrux @ June 18 2004,02:06)]Isn&#39;t the support of Paradox very exemplar? They listen closely to their fans, discuss possible solutions to gameplay or other issues, use the fan-made modifications, always consider their feedback, improve their games constantly even 2 or 3 years after the initial release... definitely the best support in this industry.

One can only feel sad when comparing Paradox to CA... abstract or not http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
The support is great, but let&#39;s not forget that paradox consistently releases bug-ridden games (more like letting your comsumers beta-test and pay for it too). Version 1.0 of any paradox game is simply unplayable. At least MTW is enjoyable straight from the box.
So true... but again, after three patches (as with CK) the game is a bl... errr... well, a fantastic game, and most importantly it incorporates a host of changes proposed by the players themselves.

The most important part of Paradox support is that they are a)patching every game to the death (even 2 or 3 years after release)
b)listening closely to the community and change their product accordingly to the majority of the fans

No other gaming company comes even close to that. Even Firaxis, who&#39;s got an exemplar record for sticking with the community, releasing numerous patches, adopting community mods and incorporating them in their games, frequent on the community messageboards and do many live chats with the fans, comes miles behind Paradox. CA just doesn&#39;t have the knack for it. They&#39;ll never behave like that and that really a bit dissapointing.

[SwordsMaster]

Hi all,
I just got the CK game yestarday, and installed it this morning. The poblem is, anywhere where a button or message is supposed to be it says :Unknown string wanted. I reinstalled the game, but that didn´t help.

I´m running win millenium, but I think it should work anyway.

Any help appreciated. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[frogbeastegg]

Have you installed any mods etc? Have you got 1.3b installed? I&#39;ve encountered this only with mods when there is a typo somewhere in the button labels/tooltips, or the author hasn&#39;t bothered to make any. I&#39;ve not seen it in the vanilla game.


Status report on my brand new 1.3b game: I have gone from duke of Ulster (yes, again; I do like Ulster as it&#39;s more challenging than England, independent, and close enough to &#39;home&#39; to be interesting) to king of all Ireland, ruler of two Baltic/Russian provinces and owner of Venice. Envy me, I have more than 20 gold and 4,000 troops from Venice alone My heir is a fabulous little boy, but at just 6 his health and future is still fragile. Good thing I have a couple of spares, one of whom is also very talented; unlike their dear country cousin (yes, I got inherited by a country cousin; all 3 of Cuald&#39;s sons died before they were 8) father. My vassals love me, my reputation is spotless, and my tech levels are increasing nicely. My crusade expectations are completely negated by those two pagan provinces, so I can sit back and be peaceful. It&#39;s only 1106, and I&#39;m on my second ruler.

1.3b is a vast improvement, there are still things I don&#39;t like, but they are not standing in the way of my fun too badly. I think I may look for another rich, lonely, isolated province to pick off, Venice is really the powerhouse in my realm, offering more money and more troops than all my Irish provinces put together, even barring vassals and their cut of the gold.

I have to give special mention to my ruler&#39;s sole daughter, she&#39;s a real gem. She&#39;s got a stutter, is depressed, cowardly, lazy, has bad stats (think 0,0,1,2), but on the positive side she&#39;s really into religion and is very honest; she&#39;s only 15 too, so plenty of time for her to become suicidal or manic too Who wants to marry her?

[SwordsMaster]

Its the vanilla version, Im trying to patch it but the paradox server seems to be down, so I´ll try again later.
It happened to me with Vicky once, but I reinstalled and it was all fine.

Dunno whats going on...

Thanks for the reply anyway. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[RisingSun]

The unkown string thing happened to me when I was playing The Great War mod for HOI whenever a plane or zeppelin did something.

frogbeastegg- Does anybody ever play anyone besides the English/Irish/French? Sheesh, you&#39;d think once in a while somebody would play Byzantium or something. Or maybe a Scandinavian duke, etc.

[Mablung]

Hmm maybe i should buy this game, it sounds awesome. In your opinions, is it better or worse than M:TW, it sounds a lot more detailed. I really like the idea of vassels

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (RisingSun @ June 21 2004,02:47)]frogbeastegg- Does anybody ever play anyone besides the English/Irish/French? Sheesh, you&#39;d think once in a while somebody would play Byzantium or something. Or maybe a Scandinavian duke, etc.
Yes, loads over at paradox do; several people here are playing outside of those countries you mentioned too. I just stick to the ones in the areas I know something about during this era, Ulster is a lot of fun as it has everything I&#39;m looking for - fun, challenging, expansion into a kingdom that requires work and a long time, not starting a vassal or a king; a realm that really needs to work to be successful without being so hard/cash poor it is boring. Every little achievement counts.

Byzantium is actually one of the most popular factions, but it starts out massive and powerful; I&#39;ll stick to Ireland for now.



mablung of the heavy hand, I&#39;d say that this is better than MTW&#39;s campaign by several miles, but the battles are abstracted and you can&#39;t fight them as in MTW. I have grown to hate MTW but CK I really like, make of that what you will.

[Rosacrux]

Well, mablung, if battels is your cup o&#39; tea, CK won&#39;t give you the shivers, I can tell you that. But you are into a detailed historic Grand Strategy game, with lots of options and intriguing gameplay, CK is for you.

RaisingSun

I haven&#39;t even played French, English or German by now. I am usually plyaing Orthodox (Byzantine or Russian - Chernigov is extremely fun to play, as is Kappadokia with the uber-Prince) and from Catholics I&#39;ve only tried Appulia, Leon and Castille.

Any Byzantine player is great and the lack of Crusade pressure makes the game even better... but in most cases it&#39;s rather easy to get elected Byzantine Emperor pretty early and that spoils the fun for me.

When I play Byzantine princes I edit the savegame to move Byzantium from elective law to one or the other salic law. That way, you have to really fight your way to the crown http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Froggie

Yes, 1.03b is an incredible improvement over 1.02.

In my prince of Kappadokia game (started with 1.03a) I have managed to produce (the prince is king of stats in CK) in the 3rd generation a super-daughter (9-13-19-21 or something like that) and in a few years into adulthood she became crazed and got pneumonia. I had previously married her off though and she had a couple of kids before getting out of control http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[the Count of Flanders]

In my last game I started with Flanders. You start out petty powerfull and a few assasinations here and there and you have a pretty strong basis to start from. Next I declared war on the king of France (he was crazy, so I allied with the other big dukes) to gain independence. Next plan was to help the reconquista where the christians were getting whipped. I got whipped too however (despite picking on the weakest muslem states). Offered my allegiance to Byzantium and licked my wounds. Tried again to kick some muslem ass this time in northern africa and succeeded with byzantine assistance.
Next the byzantine emperor dies making my 69-year old pneumonic duke emperor (damn elective system). Seeing that he could die any moment now I had to change laws to keep my dynasty in power -> changed to semi-salic consaginuity immediately. Of couse some greek nobles objected (surprisingly, not too many tough), but after a forcefull intervention these were replaced by more &#39;competent&#39; frankish nobles.
Now I am slowly converting the Byzantine empire to a frankish catholic kingdom, replacing nobles where I can. And I&#39;m also crusading like crazy, north africa has fallen to my might. The duchy of Flanders is now a title given to the most competent heirs of the crown to prepare them for their grand future. Bring on the mongol invasion

[Dramicus]

I started a game as the Duke of Brandenburg (I edited my family into the game) I started out by conquoring the baltic pagans, including finland. Once I was strong enough, I allied with almost 70% of the German empuire and declaired war on the king. Strangely enough, none of his vassals came to his aid. After a short war my dynasty was in power and I changed the laws to keep my family line in power. I then began my long and sometimes frustrating conquest of europe...

200 years later, the Emperor of Germany commands France, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Lithuania(sp) England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, and all of the balkans...

I am going to continue until 1419 where I will export the game to EU2 and continue until 1820.... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[Mablung]

Hmm, Froggie, it sounds awesome I prefer the strategy side. Is it worth getting EU2?

[soibean]

Quote[/b] (Efrem Da King @ Mar. 10 2004,03:46)]hmm....


I want to buy CK EU2 And V. Play all the way from early middle ages to 1920.
basically all ancient games up to the invention of gunpowder are great... but when you get to games that just has units of guys with guns firing at eachother I get bored really quickly
give me sword, shield, or magic any day

[frogbeastegg]

EU2 is more strategically than CK, but they are both better in that aspect than MTW. I like them both, but CK is my clear favourite because of the setting and dynasty building. Bear in mind CK is still early in the Paradox patching process, so there are a few issues; on the whole it is now fixed up and perfectly playable, I just don&#39;t want to sell this to you and lead you to expect something nearly flawless. It will receive many more patches in the future, with Paradox that is always guaranteed.

[The Wizard]

I still miss fighting battles, but now am enjoying gaining control of the Holy Roman Empire slowly and steadily through marriage.



~Wiz

[Mablung]

Cool, unfortunately I need more money I&#39;m meant to be getting a PS2, R:TW and now CKs, thank god for my bday http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[[DnC]]

Is it hard to do a WC from early on (1066) till CK&#39;s end?

Anyways, today phoned pcmedia if they received the wrongly delivered game that I had send back to them and whether they send the right package this time, but apparently they didn&#39;t have CK in stock anymore and it could take until next week before it arrives again.. Just maybe it&#39;ll still arrive this week. If I still not have the game, I&#39;ll have to make a phonecall next week to them and get an update. Either CK is in high demand or it&#39;s ordered few in numbers.

Waiting patiently until it arrives and I&#39;ll be able to play from 1066, and crusade like a madman, to at least 1820 (at the moment I&#39;ve installed the no-time-limit patch for EU2 and I&#39;m thinking about using it again when CK arrives).

PS. Boy oh boy EU2 can be tough to conquer other countries with

[Ii Naomasa]

My lord Our best thinkers have come up with a most spectacular invention: CHICKENS

So, am I playing Crusader Kings or Burger King? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif I know that&#39;s not exactly how that &#39;discovery&#39; is worded, but I just about busted a gut the first time I was told that we came across the chicken technology, even though I knew what it was referring to.

I ordered this game directly and it arrived about a week ago. The only thing truly negative I can say is that I&#39;m currently working on a new relationship and it&#39;s hard to tell a girlfriend early on, Let me reconquer Catholic Spain first, much less, Sorry, I was busy killing off my king&#39;s old wife so he can get it on with a nubile young princess and have more babies.

Crusader Kings is a blast. I dislike the way crusades tend to be a lose-lose situation (as has been mentioned in the thread already) and how it seems no one but you ever goes on crusades unless its your allies or vassals after you declare war...and then they go on rampages attacking multiple factions and often getting more their homelands captured than anything else. At first I was put off by how unwieldy a large empire is, but eventually realized how accurate that aspect is. After all, the King of Ireland should have a hard time keeping the lords of previously pagan north eastern European lands in line. I&#39;m constantly checking on my dukes and independent counts to see if any are thinking of revolting. Then my king goes insane and all bets are off...

Very fun.