Crusader Kings II

[Secura]

Will it show duchies?

When you take the mapshot, it will display whatever viewing mode you had active at the time; this is pretty simple block colours when it's de jure kingdoms or player view (as you can see in Tiaexz's screenshot), but I guess it would end up looking like a patchwork quilt in duchies view mode. :P

[rickinator9]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Paphlagonia after the inheritance of Charsianon.

I'm about to have my biggest gain yet. My heir will inherit the duchies of Paphlagonia and Nikaia. I appropriately named him Basileus 'Anatolikos' Komnemnos. I had to invest about 800 gold to take all of the male members of the Nikean Doukos branch down. But despite the kind of protection you have, the knives of Paphlagonia will always get you! But that isn't even the best going on in the empire. The emperor is old and will probably die within a few years. His heir is a very bad heir. He's an imbecile, he is incapable and needs regency around the clock. I'm pretty sure that when he succeeds, I'm not the only one who sees an opportunity.

The emperors estates are pretty weak, Thrace had been lost by them about 100 years before this picture, now the imperial court is in northern Bulgaria.

[Fisherking]

I just started a game as the Marshals. Maybe I can get one of all those sons to have an heir.

I just want to see where it goes.

[The Stranger]

anyone wants to play a multiplayer game?

[rickinator9]

I don't know how but if you live in GMT +1 I can join. Just need to do the testweek and then I will have some more free time.

[Monk]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Paphlagonia after the inheritance of Charsianon.

I'm about to have my biggest gain yet. My heir will inherit the duchies of Paphlagonia and Nikaia. I appropriately named him Basileus 'Anatolikos' Komnemnos. I had to invest about 800 gold to take all of the male members of the Nikean Doukos branch down. But despite the kind of protection you have, the knives of Paphlagonia will always get you! But that isn't even the best going on in the empire. The emperor is old and will probably die within a few years. His heir is a very bad heir. He's an imbecile, he is incapable and needs regency around the clock. I'm pretty sure that when he succeeds, I'm not the only one who sees an opportunity.

The emperors estates are pretty weak, Thrace had been lost by them about 100 years before this picture, now the imperial court is in northern Bulgaria.

Very impressive.

In my game while I expanded my personal power in the east, the Emperor (or should I say, Empress? The Imperial court had a female ruler for over 120 years!) expanded her powers just as adeptly. She ruthlessly imprisoned nobles and stomped out plots so effectively that no one could do anything. In fact.. she instituted absolute crown authority really quickly and from there, it was near impossible to plot anything! The best I managed was two duchies before it became clear I wasn't going to be moving up in the world.

I think I'm gonna try one of the Russian principalities next. They look like a really interesting game.

[rickinator9]

Very impressive.

In my game while I expanded my personal power in the east, the Emperor (or should I say, Empress? The Imperial court had a female ruler for over 120 years!) expanded her powers just as adeptly. She ruthlessly imprisoned nobles and stomped out plots so effectively that no one could do anything. In fact.. she instituted absolute crown authority really quickly and from there, it was near impossible to plot anything! The best I managed was two duchies before it became clear I wasn't going to be moving up in the world.

I think I'm gonna try one of the Russian principalities next. They look like a really interesting game.

I stopped with that save, as I noticed the emperors had pretty much expanded into Iraq. I wanted to recreate the roman, or at least the byzantine empire to it full glory. That dream subsequently collapsed. Anyway, after I gained Nikea, I inherited the duchies of Adrianopolis and Thrace(Constantinople is mine!) through my heir. I gained my independence and all of my counts loved me. After the old ruler died, disaster struck. The heir was a woman! After fighting several civil wars and wars against the Byzantines, Paphlagonia was exhausted. Still there was the possibility of civil war, so I joined the byzz again. That was the point where I quit.

I have started a new campaign in 1100. Against all odds(most of the middle-east was ruled by the seljuk dynasty), I took out Rum in the 1140s. I took little Armenia from Aleppo. I conquered the Syrian coast from the little states and the Shia caliphate. I took Edessa from Edessa(former aleppo, after losing some land to huge damascus).

A game as the russian principalities seems nice. The AI usually unites into the Rus. Nothing can stop them. There also doesn't seem to be any mongols to tame them, the event pops up but I don't notice anything.

[The Stranger]

I don't know how but if you live in GMT +1 I can join. Just need to do the testweek and then I will have some more free time.

yup. gmt+1 amsterdam time zone. perhaps it would be fun to play a game with other orgahz who are playing ck2

[Monk]

A game as the russian principalities seems nice. The AI usually unites into the Rus. Nothing can stop them. There also doesn't seem to be any mongols to tame them, the event pops up but I don't notice anything.

Forming the Kingdom of Rus seems a forgone conclusion for someone. The problem is being the one to get there. The Pagans might be divided but they are no push over, and in the early game they can levy way more troops than you can. Which means you can't just go crazy conquering your fellow Rus, you have to keep a good balance between choosing enemies and making friends. Its an interesting and unique campaign thus far, one that's been filled with surprises.

Has anyone else noticed Poland going berzerk post 1.04? Every game i've played they expand quickly and become truly frightening by 1120.

[rickinator9]

I play on 1.03b and poland is very tame.

I tried to play a game as rostov, and I took out the brown pagans to the east. The strength of the rus is that they are all the same dynasty, and can help themselves out. I quit the game when another family member from galich attacked me and destroyed all the levies I could get.

After that I started a game just before the byzzies retook constantinople.

Edit:

· Buffed the Caliphates and the Seljuks. Nerfed the Byzantines.

Damn you!

[Monk]

After that I started a game just before the byzzies retook constantinople.

Edit:

Damn you!

Hah, they need all the help they can get! In my experiences post 1.04 the Seljuk keep it together but still cannot mirror their historical counterparts. I've not seen any drastic Manzikert moments in the early game for the Byzantines, but their overall stability does seem to be lowered. It takes exceptional emperor to keep things together, which unfortunately, i saw in spades when i attempted my Byzantine vassal game

The Caliphs seem more unstable believe it or not post patch. The Shia in particular seem to be a coin flip away from either prosperity or collapse. I've seen large vassals successfully win their independance in two different campaigns now.

One thing I love about CKII is, barring certain almost inevitabilities (fall of saxon england, strength of western empires, ect) the game is highly "unstable" and can go either way. Sometimes the Reconquista works and Spain unites against northern Africa - sometimes it fails and the French are fighting for their life against a scary muslim united Iberia. Sometimes the Mongols get thrashed by Europe and thrown into a corner, but sometimes they unite an empire that spans the entire game map. Sometimes the fun of the game doesn't even revolve around you, its based in watching another "what-if" unfold in a completely new way.

I think I am gonna pick a nobody count in the far edge of the map one of these days and turn the game speed to max and just watch.

[rickinator9]

Odd, the mongols always failed to even take one country in my games.

I have seen a game where all the byzantine duchies gained independence when the old emperor was knocked off the throne, not sure how that happened. After that the empire was reduced to thessalia.Then the old emperor took his title back and we still kept being independent. All the while the seljuks were attacking our duchies.

I usually don't have much problems keeping a unified empire in the previous patches. I will have to see that in the new patch. Just throw a grand tournament and pretty much everything is cemented again.

Historically though, the devs should have a modifier making seljuk family members hating eachother, because the seljuks had a lot of trouble keeping territories under it's banner(FM took these for themselves).

I'm up for a multiplayer game.

[Monk]

Odd, the mongols always failed to even take one country in my games.

There's a screenshot earlier in this thread (from me) where they took over pretty much everything east of Poland. It was pretty scary.

Historically though, the devs should have a modifier making seljuk family members hating eachother, because the seljuks had a lot of trouble keeping territories under it's banner(FM took these for themselves).

I wouldn't put it passed them. In their CKII post-mortem one of the things they mentioned was the desire to add a bunch more events into the game. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot of historical events that are aimed to keep things a little more grounded in reality.

[Arjos]

A game as the russian principalities seems nice.

I got bored of my Hauteville game (controlled everything from the Atlantic to Arabia and from the Alps to Africa) and started a Novgorod game days ago :)

Thanks to the alliances it's going smoothly, but Hungary claimed most of Turov, Kiev and Galich, backed by the HRE: pretty scary combo :P
Good thing Poland started a war with them ^^

had a lot of trouble keeping territories under it's banner

Give duchies to your kinsmen and you'll see assassinations daily XD
I think they are pretty stable at the start date, because that's how it was in history, iirc by 1070ish they gained most of the Middle East...

[Beskar]

Give duchies to your kinsmen and you'll see assassinations daily XD

Admittedly that is something I dislike about the game in many respects. In order to have the best vassals, you simply go to character panel, search for same culture and religion, then give it to the guy with the highest stats. I want to give lands and titles to my children, brothers, uncles, to have the entire dynasty run through the core of society, then have them marry into other families across Europe, spreading their seeds, power via blood.

Instead, you end up having a child who is a psychopath which kills all your family and your heirs if you give them a duchy title.

[Arjos]

Admittedly that is something I dislike about the game in many respects. In order to have the best vassals, you simply go to character panel, search for same culture and religion, then give it to the guy with the highest stats. I want to give lands and titles to my children, brothers, uncles, to have the entire dynasty run through the core of society, then have them marry into other families across Europe, spreading their seeds, power via blood.

Instead, you end up having a child who is a psychopath which kills all your family and your heirs if you give them a duchy title.

I still do it nonetheless :P
As you I prefer to part the land among my kin, thanks to imprisoning in the end I manage to stabilize it for few decades, then it's rinse and repeat every generation :D

But I agree that for them it's far too easy to kill heirs, I can understand if they declared war and won sieges after sieges, but assassinations are so cheap...

the seljuks

BTW checked my ongoing game and in 1092 they are in a dynastic struggle ^^

[The Stranger]

Im currently playing as the Duke of Toulouse (I modded the game so I started independent from France, and the Duke of Flanders as starts independent as well). It has been a very interesting game so far with some stuff happening that many people complain about that it does not happen often enough.

I started in 1066 and the Duke of Toulouse is 19 year old and unmarried. I married myself to the Duchess of Toscana with ofcourse the prospect of gaining it through my heir later. I later marry my first born son of this marriage to the queen of Castille (Castille already usurped Galicia).

I gain some land by Holy wars against Murcia (I take the Balearic Islands) and Sicily (taking all of sicily). The Duchy of Apulia is very strong and actually forms the kingdom of sicily before I can but overreaches and loses half of Southern Italy (half of the boot) to the African emirates.

I fight defend my duchy succesfully against a series of wars vs the African Emirates, Valencia and France (right after I beat the King of France for a claim of a county, the duke for whom the King pressed the claim, attacks me independently.. what an idiot...)

The Christian kings and dukes in Iberia are going for an early Reconquista, led into battle by the duke of Barcelona and assisted sporadically by France or Britanny. They also help each other out. Although now they are involved in a nasty succession crisis where the Queen of Castille (yes who was married to my heir) is claiming the throne of Leon and she is winning!

I try to gain land to usurp the kingdom of Sicily and while i do that my wife, the duchess of tuscana rebels against the kaiser and calls me for help. So naturally I come to aid and together we fight for 15 years and in the end gain independence! The war made me crazy rich, because i captured alot of dukes and counts in battle. I won many battles while being outnumbered 2/3 also!

But in the end all the money I earned was lost because just before the independence war ended I got attacked by Aquitaine, again, for that same county I beat them for 2x. And they march into my home duchy with 6k troops. So i go mad and hire the Great Company and some other 1500 merc company and kill them. But by now I'm paying like 30+ gold a month on troops and I am fighting on 3 fronts (France, Germany, and Sicily while also being called into a war in spain although i never sent any troops) and I only have 10+ a month income. My old duke, who was always leading troops in the frontlines, in the end became king of sicily just before dying in battle.

So some epic stuff happening. Now all that needs to be happening is the collapse of the BE and a succesfull crusade (it has been called but nobody dares to go :P and I was too busy fighting a ton of wars)

1) The Iberian kingdoms are beating the muslims there
2) A duchy broke away from the HRE (although with player help)
3) Winning battles while outnumbered

something weird happened too, the queen of castille made my heir, heir to a bisphoric and thus eliminating him from my line of heritage... so my grandson inherited the throne. really weird.

[Beskar]

That reminds me, it is easy to mod to play as other factions (except republics).

Open up:
*\crusader kings ii\common\religion.txt

Then add this under the headings for the religions (except Christianity)
playable = yes

[Monk]

That reminds me, it is easy to mod to play as other factions (except republics).

Open up:
*\crusader kings ii\common\religion.txt

Then add this under the headings for the religions (except Christianity)
playable = yes

I could kiss you for that.

[Arjos]

Cheers!

Tengri here I come :D

[rickinator9]

Still about that multiplayer game, we could ask a moderator permission to make a thread in the throne room?

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I don't think you have to ask their permission. They are more than happy to see some activity there.

[frogbeastegg]

Still about that multiplayer game, we could ask a moderator permission to make a thread in the throne room?

The King is correct: no need for permission. We're always happy to see members taking the initiative and will do what we can to support their efforts. If you feel you need something to help with the game, ask a member of staff and we'll see what can be done.

[The Stranger]

i will have time for a good multiplayer game in about 2 weeks :P but we can host a thread already and see if we can get some players!

[Monk]

So a game as Novgorod ended in utter disaster and really frustrated me. Poland got a claim on my duchy through marriage into the expansive Rus Dynasty. Since they were steam rolling everyone at the time* they could muster an army of 6k men. It was over before it even started, especially after all my allies refused to help.

I pondered doing another try but decided on a different direction. I wanted to play a vassal game and I wanted to eventual "break out" moment. To that end... the Duchy of Tuscany. If CKII had a "challenge mode", this would be it.

Oh boy.. Female Ruler, the ONLY (!!!) member of your dynasty and stuck with gravelkind succession until the Holy Roman Empire gets to High Crown Authority, or until you become independant. This means that if you at any time create more duchy titles they will be lost upon succession if you have more than one heir. Not hard enough for you? Lets add in the fact that the only starting claims you get are on the Papacy.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The year: 1128



The Duchy of Tuscany has just declared independence under their Duke Sante I, son of Matilda of Tuscany. The road to get here was largely boring, with moments of peril and heart stopping moments where everything almost ended in an instant. I've never used assassins so much in a game, or had to rely so heavily on intrigue to keep my power.

Matilda was for me, and perhaps is overall, the best ruler in the game at the 1066 scenario. her stats are off the charts which let you build a huge demense. The problems she has are the ones i highlighted above. She's literally the only member of her dynasty living and you're stuck with gravelkind. Getting a matrilineal marriage wasn't that hard, (settled on the second in line to the Aragonese Throne) but what proved infuriating was getting sons. When you have a woman on the throne you've only got half the time to make babies that you would with a man, so you're racing to get that good heir before your ruler passes child bearing age. You can get lucky sometimes and get pregnant after 40 or so, but its super rare, or requires a crazy fertile spouse.

In 1084 there was a huge scare, my only male heir contracted typhoid and very nearly died. Any other game I wouldn't have minded, but Matilda wasn't giving any more children (and never did) and her two daughters had been married off to foreign kings. I was on the edge of my seat until he finally pulled through. I've also had to keep the line of succession clear with assassins. Sometimes Matilda's (and later, Sante's) daughters abroad would give birth to sons while at home, all that was ready was daughters to inherit. The heir system got really weird in its selection so i had to reset it twice. Each time my heart skipped a beat when i hit that "assassinate" button.

The war against the HRE was a crazy one. But ever since Matilda i've been building my economy, preparing for this day. I get +16 per month so that means.. you guessed it. Mercenaries. The Emperor got Excommunicated and a massive civil war broke out. I took the chance and declared independence, calling together a mercenary arm of around 5,000 to compliment my own force of 6,000. Looting and ransoming captured vassals from the empire kept me in the green while i kept up the pressure. When it was all over I'd humiliated the empire and managed to break way. Now? Now comes the real challenge. The Empire is still dealing with dissent but they're solidifying. I have no doubt they will come back for another round in Northern Italy - I need to be ready for the rematch, and soon.

Notice something interesting? Yep! Toulouse has declared independence from France! And they've kept it too, the French king has absolutely no power over his vassals. He can only level around 4k. Even though France has moved into Iberia, the only one to gain from those conquests was the Duke of Aquitaine who now controls more land than the rest of the French vassals put together. If he breaks away he'll take half of France with him. Amazing stuff.

It's good to be King Duke.


* Poland isn't nearly as out of control as I thought and this seems to be the reason why. The Rus are on Gravelkind, so if you marry into their dynasty chances are you'll get a claim on a random duchy when their dynasty figurehead dies off. (forget his name) So if Poland lucks out and gets those claims, you can bet they press them. This results in Poland on a conquer frenzy in some games - in my current game they're doing woefully bad.

EDIT

Okay this is just too good not to share. So a few years after declaring independence the wife of my duke died. I decided to remarry and then... If you can't beat them...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I couldn't believe it. The wife of my Duke was cheating on him with the Kaiser of the HRE. Not only that, but she got pregnant by the Emperor! The feud between the Duchy of Tuscany and the Holy Roman Empire just got personal...

[The Stranger]

how can you marry the duchess of venice? ah nevermind, the HRE conquered venice.

btw Toscana seems like a cakewalk compared to an independent Cagliari.

[rickinator9]

I'm gonna make the thread later today... when I'm not playing Crusader kings 2
I was thinking of taking a 1160 start, so the byzantines are somewhat weaker and the middle east is fractured.

[rickinator9]

Here's the thread for the multiplayer game: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...post2053434197

[Nigel]

How does multiplayer work for this game?
Does it have a hotseat type function, or do all players have to be online at the same time?

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Haven't played multiplayer for it but I think you have to be online in the same time since the game is RTS.