Crusader Kings II

[Hooahguy]

I always found trying to please all my vassals really difficult in terms of what to give them. Oftentimes they want something, or have a de jure claim on, something else that someone owns.
So why should I throw one vassal under the bus to make another one happy?

[Kekvit Irae]

I always found trying to please all my vassals really difficult in terms of what to give them. Oftentimes they want something, or have a de jure claim on, something else that someone owns.
So why should I throw one vassal under the bus to make another one happy?

More often than not, said vassals have really bad traits. The absolute worst one is Ambitious, with gives a whopping -50 opinion and makes the vassal demand more and more stuff. These are the guys who you do NOT want to put into a position of power. At the very least, make them a Count and transfer them under the rulership of a Duke and let the poor Duke deal with the ingrate. Choose vassals that compliment your own skills. If you are Brave, other Brave vassals will like you more, but Cowards will hate you.
Smaller kingdoms are much easier to manage, since you can own the number of counties up to your demesne and not take any penalties. Use this to secure a (relatively) large chunk of land close to each other without having to deal with the hassle of Counts or Dukes.

And when in doubt, spark a civil war. When you win (and you should), imprison the traitor, strip the primary title from him, and leave him to rot in the oubliette. As a last resort, give the most important counties, except your own demesne, to your heir.

[Monk]

WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A screenshot from my mod but not really resulting from any changes I've made, just the AI acting organically. Complete byzantine collapse before 1100 by way of a Shia Jihad AT THE SAME TIME as a Sunni Jihad. Shia muslims went for Greece, Sunnis went for Anatolia. Not even the Byzantines could hold them both off.

I'm thinking about messing with the starting Fatimid decadence.

[naut]

I always found trying to please all my vassals really difficult in terms of what to give them. Oftentimes they want something, or have a de jure claim on, something else that someone owns.
So why should I throw one vassal under the bus to make another one happy?

A good rule of thumb is to keep 2 adjacent Duchies and all Count titles under those Duchies in your ruler's control. This will enable you to command a large personal army to put down revolts and fight wars. Also ensure that no vassal has more than 1 County each and they are within their de jure boundaries. This will ease realm management. In the screenie below I own all the Counties and Baronies for Tripoli and Antioch (and additionally Jerusalem and 2 baronies there). My personal levies are 10K. My vassals account for an additional 18k, but each vassal is a Count of 1 title and no more, so the most they can individually raise is in the region of 1.5k. =)


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WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A screenshot from my mod but not really resulting from any changes I've made, just the AI acting organically. Complete byzantine collapse before 1100 by way of a Shia Jihad AT THE SAME TIME as a Sunni Jihad. Shia muslims went for Greece, Sunnis went for Anatolia. Not even the Byzantines could hold them both off.

I'm thinking about messing with the starting Fatimid decadence.

Yep. This is my current game. The Byz get almost instantly attacked by Muslims, for me it was the Fatamids (Akbarids).

Attachment 6090


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Another thing I've noticed is Sweden always collapses under internal and Norwegian pressure? Anyone else get this?

[Monk]

Yep. This is my current game. The Byz get almost instantly attacked by Muslims, for me it was the Fatamids (Akbarids).

Attachment 6090

I saw your screen on steam. Yeah, I'm not sure if I want to touch them or not. They seem to be able to swing either way. Sometimes the Byz stay together and sometimes they just get crushed under someone and collapse.. I sorta like that flexibility. Lots more testing I feel like before i can come to a conclusion there.

Another thing I've noticed is Sweden always collapses under internal and Norwegian pressure? Anyone else get this?

Norway has been a monster since 1.05's balance. Sweden is unfortunately stuck with a lot of poor provinces and dynastic troubles whereas Norway has none of that. If they pacify the northern pagans they (norway) have a pretty good chance to run over Scandinavia.

[naut]

Well I gained Syria! Murdered the Egyptian sultan and a full blown civil war erupted allowing me easy pickings. =)

[The Stranger]

why do the genoese always expand so fast while the venetians who have a similar CB never expand at all :S (starting scenarios 1066)

[Nigel]

Hi friends,

I have recently started playing CK2 and it is great fun.
Even so, I am sometimes dazzled and confused about things that happen which I really dont understand why. I guess I will come here more often in the furture seeking help and understanding.


One of the things that puzzle me are the colours in the dilomatic view.
I figured out that green is my own realm, blue are allies and red are enemies.
But what are the brown and black colours representing ?



Any help would be very wellcom
Nigel

[Greyblades]

Black means the country has no relation, Yellow/brown means you have a cassus beli. against them.

[naut]

why do the genoese always expand so fast while the venetians who have a similar CB never expand at all :S (starting scenarios 1066)

Interesting, I've experienced the same, the Genoese taking much of north africa while the Venetians sit pretty. =/

[Monk]

Well I gained Syria! Murdered the Egyptian sultan and a full blown civil war erupted allowing me easy pickings. =)

I'd love to see a screenshot!

[Hooahguy]

Black means the country has no relation, Yellow/brown means you have a cassus beli. against them.

I had no idea that the colors meant this. I thought that yellow meant they liked you or something.

[rickinator9]

I had no idea that the colors meant this. I thought that yellow meant they liked you or something.

That's what the opinion mode is for. It's a great mode to see who hates who. You just click on someones holdings and you can see their relations with the world.

[naut]

I'd love to see a screenshot!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Most of Anatolia revolted, but they've managed to regain a foothold and I'm sure it won't be long until they regain the entirety. Importantly for me Aleppo revolted, giving me a free pass to get that sweet, sweet de jure land I needed! There are a few other Duchies (Jerusalem, Jourdain, Damascus) that I am hoping to gobble up, but I need to consolidate and reorganise what I have first.

That's what the opinion mode is for. It's a great mode to see who hates who. You just click on someones holdings and you can see their relations with the world.

Doesn't help if you're Muslim, almost everyone hates you! =3

[Monk]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Most of Anatolia revolted, but they've managed to regain a foothold and I'm sure it won't be long until they regain the entirety. Importantly for me Aleppo revolted, giving me a free pass to get that sweet, sweet de jure land I needed! There are a few other Duchies (Jerusalem, Jourdain, Damascus) that I am hoping to gobble up, but I need to consolidate and reorganise what I have first.


Doesn't help if you're Muslim, almost everyone hates you! =3

Your screenie is broken for some reason but i spied it on steam, very impressive! I'd be worried about a counter attack from Egypt within the next few years, but it looks like you weren't the only one to slip away. Hopefully they stay occupied so long they lose their claims on you.

In the middle of an HRE game at the moment. Started as the lowly count of Freisland on my way to forming Germany from within the HRE, breaking away, and hopefully completely taking over as a highly centralized state. Locking the HRE to Autonomous Vassals has had some interesting and very cool results. For one most of the AI there stays on Gavelkind, which means that a lot of the vassals stay broken up and small. Sorta like how the HRE eventually became as time went on. The new way to centralize after locking them out of CA is to play the diplomatic game. Switch to elective monarchy asap and slowly start forging claims on your neighbors. Its a very slow game but very fun. The HRE also doesn't blob out of control since they cant raise their CA anymore thanks to my changes, but they still have the potential to be really strong. All in all, great changes and something i'm keeping going forward.

Been to the Paradox forums. Looks like 1.06b attempted to balance Iberia to be a little more fair. Personally I didn't see it myself, but lots of players are reporting a more stable Iberian experience. I still like my version of Iberia better but it's nice to see Paradox are listening to feedback. I think I'm done messing with balance, it's way too tedious for my liking. Let's me focus on much more "fun" things, like event coding. Woo.

[naut]

In the middle of an HRE game at the moment. Started as the lowly count of Freisland on my way to forming Germany from within the HRE, breaking away, and hopefully completely taking over as a highly centralized state. Locking the HRE to Autonomous Vassals has had some interesting and very cool results. For one most of the AI there stays on Gavelkind, which means that a lot of the vassals stay broken up and small. Sorta like how the HRE eventually became as time went on. The new way to centralize after locking them out of CA is to play the diplomatic game. Switch to elective monarchy asap and slowly start forging claims on your neighbors. Its a very slow game but very fun. The HRE also doesn't blob out of control since they cant raise their CA anymore thanks to my changes, but they still have the potential to be really strong. All in all, great changes and something i'm keeping going forward.

My last game was Lübeck, may have to return there. Changes sound very, very interesting. I resorted to editing my save file to keep the HRE at autonomous vassals, but your tweak is much better.

[Monk]

My last game was Lübeck, may have to return there. Changes sound very, very interesting. I resorted to editing my save file to keep the HRE at autonomous vassals, but your tweak is much better.

I love it personaly. The gameplay is much more dynamic and diplomatic. You're now forced to fabricate claims a lot more, use plots for titles, and plot to kill people who are blocking your rise to power. In short, it makes you use ALL of the game's tools to remain effective. The only downside is the Emperor loves to take one of my counts and make him a duke in his own right. Ugh. WHY YOU DO THIS AI? Oh well. It's an easy De jure war to re-establish power. Just odd.

The HRE's power fluctuates much more realistically i've found when you make this change. If they can stay together by way of a strong emperor they become a real force to be feared, but because of autonomous vassals they are always trying to deal with internal problems. The Ai is constantly fighting and pushing the bounderies of power and the emperor is trying to keep them in check. It's how the HRE should have been from the start imho.

I'd like to see the Fatimids nerfed a bit but I won't be the one to do it. Balancing iberia was enough trouble.

Speaking of which, a few new changes to my test build demanded a new game so here it is:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Aragon - 1138



Iberia hard mode: start as a custom character in control of the Kingdom of Aragon, 1066, dont go crazy with buffing your stats. The kingdom of Aragon is in such a sorry state at the start of the game, even with my buffs, but they've got great potential.

Pushing de jure claims against the one province muslim minor powers of the north is obviously the best way to go. But then you're stuck with a bunch of muslim counts! I decided to push to medium CA asap so that I could revoke infidel titles and clean up my internal organization while pressing continuous de jure claims against the southern muslims. What resulted was a court at home who LOVED me for continually winning wars and an ever growing demesne as i mercilessly revoked any title that was held by a sunni character.

Ever since tinkering with the HRE i've come to love elective monarchy. Did your first born get saddled with the imbecile trait? No problem, elect his genious sister instead. As long as you play the diplomacy game correctly (as in, your duke vassals like you) they will always back whoever you're voting for. The downside of course is if you get saddled with no good candidates, next generation might see another dynasty on the throne of your kingdom.

I've had to strike a good balance between expanding my own personal power and fighting in defense of Christendom as a whole. Castile has gotten into some serious hot water twice now only for me and my men to come riding to the rescue. The King of Castile owes me big time. The biggest challenge was waiting for a good time to seize the duchy of barcelona. I had a claim on it (fabricated claim on an entire duchy, Thank you high diplo chancellors!) but they were much more powerful than I was and they had great commanders. That's when the Pope declared the most hilarius crusade in history: A crusade for the Kingdom of Pomerania...

What.

I didn't care! Threw every character I had into that and got some seriously nice buffs to my martial commanders, when Barcelona got entangled in a war to help out Castile in their holy war for Badajoz I jumped them. They called in Castile but I spammed mercs at them and destroyed them with determination and overwhelming fire power. I've spent the last twenty years consolidating my power in Iberia but unfortunately so have the muslims.

The Almoravids have moved into Granada and are just as powerful as I am. Holy Orders should even the score but if they called in the other powers of Iberia into a fight, then not so much. Iberia is a powder keg - all of the south is allied, all of the north is allied, the next war is gonna set off a huge explosion of violence no matter what the CB is.

Meanwhile:



I'm not even mad at this. I can't be. This was the greatest power play i've ever seen the AI pull off. The Fatimids weren't expanding much, dealing with internal decadence problems. They looked like they were going to fall into an invasion soon or at least suffer a pretty big succession crisis. The Seljuks were at war with the Byzantines, they succeeded in taking Armenia but were having trouble locking down Anatolia - and that's when the Fatimids struck...

An invasion of Mesopotamia after the Seljuks had been fighting the Byzantines for at least a decade. In one fell swoop the Fatimids broke the Great Seljuk Empire in half and sent it spiraling into a half dozen independence wars. The Seljuk dynasty lost control of everything and has faded into obscurity.. and now the Fatimids have been slowly absorbing the Seljuk successor states.

God help us all.

[Nigel]

use plots for titles

Is this actually possible in the vanilla game? Or only in a modded version?

I seem only to be getting plots to kill someone. It would be great to have plots to obtain titles, or even just plots to obtain claims (as an alternative to fabricating them).

[naut]

Is this actually possible in the vanilla game? Or only in a modded version?

I seem only to be getting plots to kill someone. It would be great to have plots to obtain titles, or even just plots to obtain claims (as an alternative to fabricating them).

Yes it is possible, it may depend on the level of crown law though.

[Zim]

Keep meaning to get this but it's hard to justify the money. And to think I missed a 50% (or 60% or somewhere around there) sale a few weeks back.

[Hooahguy]

It will most likely be on sale on steam soon.

Also I think Amazon has it on sale now, though that deal might be over.

But its totally worth it.

[Zim]

Well, I couldn't resist and went ahead and got the game. Going to try it out tonight.

[Monk]

Well, I couldn't resist and went ahead and got the game. Going to try it out tonight.

As per anyone i will direct you to pages 2-5 as they have the greatest concentration of "noob" knowledge than the other pages. Not that they aren't worth looking at either, mind you! If you have any questions feel free to drop back here.

good god, we're up to 23 pages Orgahs I am proud.

[Zim]

I'll give them a look. I guess extensive EU3 knowledge is worthless?

[rickinator9]

I'll give them a look. I guess extensive EU3 knowledge is worthless?

That's right. If you want to have a 'safe' start, it is generally advised to take one of the Irish minors.

[Monk]

I'll give them a look. I guess extensive EU3 knowledge is worthless?

Yeah. The best way to compare the two is that EUIII focuses on the evolution of statehood and nations, while CK2 focuses on the evolution of characters and personal relationships within a medieval government. Aside from a few mechanical similarities (needing a CB to declare war, ect) they are both very different games which attempt very different things.

[Voigtkampf]

I am amazed to see how much the Orgahs love CK2, makes me cringe since I don't have enough time to play it. I still need to get around and review Sword of Islam expansion; is it worthy of CK2?

[Monk]

I am amazed to see how much the Orgahs love CK2, makes me cringe since I don't have enough time to play it. I still need to get around and review Sword of Islam expansion; is it worthy of CK2?

My only gripe with SoI is how it was delivered. Paradox gave it to everyone in the 1.06 patch, but then asked you to pay to actually unlock it. It ruffled some folks feathers, partly very understandably. They need to find a way to uncouple their DLC from their content patches imo, which added the best stuff (combat that actually works and isnt a number grind) for free.

As for whether SoI is actually worth $10? A resounding yes. Balance concerns aside (because you can fix them with mods. Hint hint. ) it has effectively split Crusader Kings 2 into two very viable and different games. Playing as a muslim ruler feels completely different than playing as a Christian one, which just wasn't the case pre-SoI. It added pretty much everything a mini-expansion should: new mechanics, art, events and CBs.

[Voigtkampf]

Sounds just about perfect, thanks! Looking forward to trying it out.

[Zim]

Alright, loaded up as an Irish minor. Which to pick was easy when I noticed one of the starting rulers was a distant relative.

So far I've done all the intermediate tutorials and am just getting started with my game. I'll be back later with my tale of woe after my inevitable destruction.