Crusader Kings II

[Monk]

They changed the system with the 1.06 update.

Now plot kills work by events. You get a bunch of people to join you, and based on how high your plot % is it will take a certain mean time for one your conspirators to come up with with an assassination plan. Then a set number of days later the plan is put in motion. If you fail, you have to wait for a conspirator to come up with another plan and you might get revealed.

So yeah, it's a big nerf. You can't kill entire royal families almost immediately any more with the right courtiers in place. However, you can do some serious damage over time, and if you have over 200% plot power it usually takes only a month or so for the trigger.

It's based on a few things now. Plot power determines your chance of success, but now the number of plotters involved determines how often your plot can strike. There's now a big incentive to get as many people on board with your campaign to kill someone as you can, and feels a lot more dynamic than before.

In my previous game I set myself up to inherit the kingdom of Castile and attempted to murder the king with 5+ plotters.. i swear to god it was like a historical parody. He dodged every single one, including a runaway carriage, a falling stone from a battlement, a mistimed hunting accident and a misfire at an archery range. I never have seen such luck! But never once found out who was after him either..

After the 5th attempt i gave up and declared war.

[Nigel]

LOL

Nice story, Monk.

Well, imho the new system is more realistic and makes for more interesting play.
No more "guaranteed success - execute at your convenience" if you only get high enough plot power.

[rickinator9]

Well if you have good intrigue, you rarely get hit with a plot before you can detect it.

My ruler, despite being a Genius had all sorts of traits like Honest that reduced his intrigue to something like 3 or 4. The stepmother that bumped him off was an Elusive Shadow.

Might be because my name means 'Powerful ruler'

[frogbeastegg]

Strangely enough, I've almost never had a wife die during pregnancy. I think it might have happened maybe once with one of my Sultans, but then it didn't really matter because he still had three left. And I was actually expecting death during childbirth and stillborn babies to be present in the game, considering this is medieval times we're talking about. I guess they either thought it was too serious of subject matter or figured it would just be too much work with no dramatic effect on gameplay. I mean kids and wives do die young and pregnant, it's just never when the wives are in the actual process of having kids.

CK1 featured higher death rates from illness and battle, and also had women and/or children die in childbirth. That was cut from CK2 in order to keep the character history data files from becoming obscenely large and grinding the engine to a halt. Kind of a shame, but an understandable decision.

There must be some mods which tweak mortality rates. Might be worth taking a look?

[Zim]

That's a cool turn of events. I forgot how fun primogeniture could be, Elective and Turkish Open succession have spoiled me.

Also, I always find it weird playing as the character who assassinated my last ruler. Kind of want to kill them on some level, but then if you got assassinated in the first place it probably means the new ruler is a better one...

It is a bit wierd. At least the one she assassinated was the younger son I only had for a year or so...

She does have quite good stats and since I tend to roleplay as a "nicer" ruler someone more pragmatic might be interesting.

Why do I never have such things? My succession is almost always secure and I have never been assassinated or plotted to death unless it was revenge.

Probably just a better player than I am. The Ireland game had been my first and I hadn't been managing my characters much. Just starting getting the hang of managing my heir's education.

[Monk]

CK1 featured higher death rates from illness and battle, and also had women and/or children die in childbirth. That was cut from CK2 in order to keep the character history data files from becoming obscenely large and grinding the engine to a halt. Kind of a shame, but an understandable decision.

There must be some mods which tweak mortality rates. Might be worth taking a look?

Yeah, this is essentially the reason. The game tracks every character ever born. No, really. Every character ever, even those who are in the history files dead has to be checked for events and various conditions for every in game day. When a character dies they are still stored in the history files, and the game continues to track their progress until the end of the game at 1453. It doesn't matter that they are dead, the game is still tracking them.

This is why if you plan to start adding a bunch of new events to the game you risk seriously slowing down the engine unless you include the player only tags.

Why do I never have such things? My succession is almost always secure and I have never been assassinated or plotted to death unless it was revenge.

Crusader Kings II is a bit like Dwarf Fortress in that, at some point, your skill at the game actually hinders the fun you can have just a bit. Sometimes half the hilarity is seeing it all blow up in your face, or struggling against the inevitable collapse of your dynasty after a series of events sets you into a decline. I firmly believe that Crusader Kings II is a game meant not only to chronicle your rise to power, but also your fall. Losing is fun.

[naut]

I'm really enjoying the huge epithet list and how each of my rulers get a swanky little nickname to go along with their reigns. My current king is Sultan Khalid 'the Merry'. =)

[Hooahguy]

CK2 is up for another community vote. Probably be the last time its an option to go on sale, as the last day of the summer sale is tomorrow.

[LeftEyeNine]

Y NO SWURD OF IZLAM ?

[Nigel]

The game tracks every character ever born. No, really. Every character ever, even those who are in the history files dead has to be checked for events and various conditions for every in game day. When a character dies they are still stored in the history files, and the game continues to track their progress until the end of the game at 1453. It doesn't matter that they are dead, the game is still tracking them.

Whow, this is odd. Even those who are long dead.
Does this mean that the savegame file is getting huge over time?

[frogbeastegg]

Whow, this is odd. Even those who are long dead.
Does this mean that the savegame file is getting huge over time?

Yep. That's where the family tree and ancestry data comes from.

[The Stranger]

yup, but theyre textfiles, so theyre still not that huge

I'm now playing as the Capets, within 2 generations I added the entire dejure byzantine empire to my holdings (so Im now emperor) as well as 80% of the Britannia and Frankish Empires. But my dynasty is still so small, there basically only is the royal family, if my three sons and I die the line goes extinct (just like the salians who will pretty much go extinct after this generation because all the males died and all the women are married. im thinking about saving them, but it might be too much hassle with the new plot kill mechanism.

so its still pretty intense because i'm playing as warrior kings, so theyre leading from the frontlines all the time. my king has become wounded atleast 3x now :P

[Nigel]

Yep. That's where the family tree and ancestry data comes from.

hmm, interestingly, in my current (and only) game the size of the savegame file has gone from 13 MB to 32 MB in the first 100 years and now seems to stabilize there (almost 200 years into the game now).


Anyway, here is another thing I have been wondering about:
How long does the "released prisoner" effect last. It gives you a +10 opinon bonus for all vassals, but you loose out on sometimes 25 sometimes 140 gold for ransom. So knowing how long the effect lasts would help me a lot in deciding if it is worth it.

Many thanks,
Nigel

[rickinator9]

Anyway, here is another thing I have been wondering about:
How long does the "released prisoner" effect last. It gives you a +10 opinon bonus for all vassals, but you loose out on sometimes 25 sometimes 140 gold for ransom. So knowing how long the effect lasts would help me a lot in deciding if it is worth it.

30 months. It's only worth it with landless prisoners, such as courtiers. That doesn't say you should release prisoners during the war.

Had to make a post about it here. While playtesting the elder scrolls mod, two guys plotted against me for autonomous vassals. Never received a message about it as my spymaster was in the plot. At least there were only 3 counties involved.

[The Stranger]

actually doesnt work that way, releasing a landless courtier wont give you a bonus with your dukes or whatever. the person has to be a count (alltough i might be wrong there) or higher and he has to be one of your vassals, for example as england if you capture and release the french king, it will give you bonus what so ever (except an instant 100% warscore if you are at war with france) and ofcourse a big ransom if he can afford it

[Double A]

So... I just got back from Europe and started playing again. I have a big, decentralized kingdom - Ireland, southern Scotland, Iceland, Finnmark, Kola, 2/3 of Iberia (western part), Morocco, Tunis, Tripolantia, all of KoJ, Sinai, Damascus/southern Syria, Crimea (but not the peninsula), "Poland" (3 places in Warsaw and 3 more on the coast), and a few blobs in the HRE area - right now it's Brabant, Carinthia, Genoa, Provence, and Bavaria. Thanks to some meticulous planning, I have 10 kingdoms and I'm also allied with France (my dynasty), who control just about everything east of my Iberia and west of the HRE, England (which I've set up so my grandson'll probably inherit, and Croatia (will be in France's place in a generation).

As you can probably imagine, transporting troops is an absolute nightmare. I desperately need advice on moving 120,000-160,000 levies, because it's reaaaaally tedious and agonizing. Sure, I normally don't need all of them, but I kind of do when I'm going up against what's left of the HRE.

[The Stranger]

mass them all in a few regions and then transport them from there in big chunks

[Double A]

That's what I do. Should I care how many boats I levy?

[Nigel]

Each boat can only carry a certain number of troops - so yes, the size of your fleet has to match the size of your army.

[Double A]

I know, but I generally make it so I can just barely fit my army on the boats. Do you guys care it if's like 20 over?

Oh, and fun news. I have 42k troops in the Holy Lands, but only 182 boats.

[The Stranger]

nope i dont care, usually i have like 10 more pop, in case i merge armies along the way :P. the only thing i do tho is dismiss the boats of my own demesne because boats are darn expensive. latergame when i have tons of income i dont care about that anymore either, but early on it can be a real drain on your income.

i agree tho it is tedious and one of the reasons why games tend to get boring when you reach a huge empire that no one can really stop.


fleets are really op, cuz there is no more attrition on sea, they took that out some patches back :P so you can just have 100k in the sea and invade the coast, if the nation you fight happens to have a long coastline you can end the war to 100% warscore in a 1 single round of sieges :P

[Double A]

Alright, my son is married to the princess of England, which is still Agnatic. Apparently, his wife's claim isn't inheritable without a war, but it looks like I can't invade England on her behalf. Will I be able to do this when I die because she'll then be my wife? I really want to inherit England to form an empire, really tired of lowly dukes flubbing their noses at a guy with 11 kingdoms.

And yes, I already know having 10 extra kingdoms is a terrible idea.

[LeftEyeNine]

So I couldn't stand it and got the latest pack of Sword Of Islam as well.

Here comes the question: Is tutorial apt enough to make you get the hang of the game ?

Remember: I've been a total stranger to Paradox games.

[rickinator9]

It will be enough to get you going. One rule with Paradox games is that you learn a lot through Trial&Error. The CKII Wiki has a beginners guide: http://ckiiwiki.com/Beginner%27s_Guide

[The Stranger]

Alright, my son is married to the princess of England, which is still Agnatic. Apparently, his wife's claim isn't inheritable without a war, but it looks like I can't invade England on her behalf. Will I be able to do this when I die because she'll then be my wife? I really want to inherit England to form an empire, really tired of lowly dukes flubbing their noses at a guy with 11 kingdoms.

And yes, I already know having 10 extra kingdoms is a terrible idea.

you can probably only press it during a regency. if you hoover over the claim you will see when you can press it. you can also press it when a woman is in power but since its agnatic this wont just happen.

[Double A]

So I guess I got to go to murdertown. Again.

This makes three royal families and a duchy.

[frogbeastegg]

So I finally got Civ 5 out of my system sufficiently to play some Sword of Islam. Phew!

Can anyone recommend an interesting Muslim faction? I'm currently playing Mali so I can experiment with the new features in relative peace. Once I have a grip on how it all works I intend to start a proper game. I'd been wondering about the Seljuks in 1066, or the Mongols after they convert, or Saladin. On reflection that might not be the best idea. Huge pre-built juggernauts of constant warfare are not exactly my gameplay cup of tea; if I'm going to play an aggressive game I prefer to build my own empire - and I do plan to play a very aggressive game for once as the Islamic gameplay ruleset seems designed with that in mind. I don't want anything too small or challenging for this first proper game. Something medium-sized, nicely positioned, decently wealthy?

Secondly, are there any particular aspects of Sword's gameplay I should aim to try out ASAP? Anything which makes the Muslim factions particularly cool?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Try the North African Duke just to the west of the Shia Caliphate. You're within the de-jure kingdom of Africa but the actual king is far to the west and pitifully weak. Smash and grab your neighbors, take the crown of Africa, and then either attack the Italians or take on the Shia juggernaut.

As for gameplay, the coolest stuff are the new events for Muslim characters. The duke I'm referring to hasn't gone on the hajj so you can do that. It's on the intrigue screen. You can also observe Ramadan, which is a more in-depth feast (but you only have to do it every few years).

[Monk]

Try the North African Duke just to the west of the Shia Caliphate. You're within the de-jure kingdom of Africa but the actual king is far to the west and pitifully weak. Smash and grab your neighbors, take the crown of Africa, and then either attack the Italians or take on the Shia juggernaut.

As for gameplay, the coolest stuff are the new events for Muslim characters. The duke I'm referring to hasn't gone on the hajj so you can do that. It's on the intrigue screen. You can also observe Ramadan, which is a more in-depth feast (but you only have to do it every few years).

You're pretty low on the crusade priority list too with that choice. The Fatimids and Andalusia being #1 and #2 on the list, in practice, from all of my experiences.

[Double A]

So this is weird. I've had gravelkind all game (which I started before 1.06b), but my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th kings all had at least one kingdom upon their deaths. I've always had the eldest son inherit everything but a duchy and a few counties. My current guy and his father (6th and 5th kings respectively) both have/had one son, so I can't really test if it's fixed right now. Could it just be that I'm Irish?