Crusader Kings II

[The Stranger]

buildings are kinda useless. because you can only build in your own demesne and that doesnt play a role when you get a sizeable empire and buildings are too expensive to play a role when you dont have a sizeable empire. because culture only really influences what specific military building you have, it is actually the same story as with buildings, so culture doesnt really play a role. which is too bad :S

religion does play a big role and crusades are quite fun :P holy wars are a nice way to gain land, the best actually :P

[rickinator9]

Crusades aren't fun if the crusaders need to go through your lands to reach the destination...

[Chaotix]

buildings are kinda useless. because you can only build in your own demesne and that doesnt play a role when you get a sizeable empire and buildings are too expensive to play a role when you dont have a sizeable empire. because culture only really influences what specific military building you have, it is actually the same story as with buildings, so culture doesnt really play a role. which is too bad :S

religion does play a big role and crusades are quite fun :P holy wars are a nice way to gain land, the best actually :P

On the contrary, I've found that by investing in new cities and making sure they all have ports and markets, I can pretty much double my income. After building the first tier, the Mayors will usually build the rest themselves as well, so you just have to get them started.

At the Count/Duke level, they are expensive, but the right military buildings could mean the difference between a loss and a victory against a rival count, as they might change the size of your army from say 300 to 400.

Military buildings are less useful at King/Emperor level, but they're good to have in the event of a succession crisis or a multitude of rebellions.

[Beskar]

Also, I actually tested a county with 5 cities, 1 temple, 1 fort, all fully upgraded, here is the breakdown.

Income: 459.1
Army: 17.57k
Navy: 161

So yes, fully upgraded county could take out a starting Kingdom.

[Double A]

I currently have the lists as a building so I have nice heavy cavalry deathstacks. They're worth 3 guys each.


The question is something you should ask yourself. What should you be doing? There are no set goals. The only goal in the game is "get score" and "make sure your dynasty survives."
I really like marrying your daughter to a princess, and then murdering everyone in that family once she gives birth to an heir. The grandchild will now rule the kingdom.

It's more fun when you get a matrilineal marriage with the 4th prince in line for the throne and then murder his brothers, uncles, and cousins. Now France is my eternal ally. :tongue:

[The Stranger]

Crusades aren't fun if the crusaders need to go through your lands to reach the destination...

well thats quite historical then XD

[The Stranger]

Also, I actually tested a county with 5 cities, 1 temple, 1 fort, all fully upgraded, here is the breakdown.

Income: 459.1
Army: 17.57k
Navy: 161

So yes, fully upgraded county could take out a starting Kingdom.

1) that is a 7 slot county, which are rare
2) it will take you way too long too make it even viable in a game if you have to build it up from scratch. by the time you get 17k in a county, kingdoms will have 100k+ easily.

ofcourse building cities in your counties does pay off, but usually the mayors will invest themself so you dont have to. i mean when you have excess cash, what else will you do with it anyway. but it doesnt really matter if you do thats my point. buildings really dont have much influence on the game, and culture specific buildings maybe least of all.

[Kekvit Irae]

Don't forget the age-old question of Castles vs Cities.

Cities:
+ Plenty of income coming your way.
+ Naval ships to transport troops.
+ Mayors don't auto-marry, spreading an unknown dynasty.
- Cant personally hold a city without penalties.
- Some counties have a city as their top holding.

Castles:
+ Plenty of high-quality troops.
+ Can personally hold any number of castles, within your demesne limit, without penalties.
+/- No navies. (will not matter on a land-locked county)
+/- Counts marry and have appropriate heirs. (can spread your dynasty or someone else's)
- Low income.
- Counties can potentially pass from your realm on Medium Crown Authority due to succession.


If you're just going for income in a far-away county that isn't going to see a lot of fighting, go all-in with the cities. If you plan on using the county for troops, going all-in on personally-owned castles isn't a bad idea, since you get 100% of the levies. If you're a duke or a king, then the question becomes, "should I spread out my demesne, or should I clump them all together in one county?"
There's quite a bit more strategy in CK2 than what some people give it credit for.

[Double A]

I have two clumps (Ulster and Jerusalem) and cherry-picked a few places in Spain and one in the Crimea. Best of both worlds.

Oh, by the way, I have 95,000 levies, with a max of 130,000. Transporting them is going to be a nightmare. Didn't bother with 22k because Jerusalem probably needs the extra protection.

[The Stranger]

Don't forget the age-old question of Castles vs Cities.

Cities:
+ Plenty of income coming your way.
+ Naval ships to transport troops.
+ Mayors don't auto-marry, spreading an unknown dynasty.
- Cant personally hold a city without penalties.
- Some counties have a city as their top holding.

Castles:
+ Plenty of high-quality troops.
+ Can personally hold any number of castles, within your demesne limit, without penalties.
+/- No navies. (will not matter on a land-locked county)
+/- Counts marry and have appropriate heirs. (can spread your dynasty or someone else's)
- Low income.
- Counties can potentially pass from your realm on Medium Crown Authority due to succession.


If you're just going for income in a far-away county that isn't going to see a lot of fighting, go all-in with the cities. If you plan on using the county for troops, going all-in on personally-owned castles isn't a bad idea, since you get 100% of the levies. If you're a duke or a king, then the question becomes, "should I spread out my demesne, or should I clump them all together in one county?"
There's quite a bit more strategy in CK2 than what some people give it credit for.

well the status quo is

cities on coastal areas
castles on landlocked areas
churches only to make more of the other 2 :P

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Sword of Islam Dev Diary 3

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?1004-The-Sword-of-Islam-Dev-Diary-3

TL;DR:
Will be released on the 26th, not next week
Muslims will expand faster, have big civil wars
Characters with military education will get additional traits that apply only to battles
More culture-specific buildings

Modding news with 1.06:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?614304-Sword-of-Islam-1.06-Heads-up-for-Modders

TL;DR:
Muslims won't be moddable to be playable without the full-blown expansion (workaround is to make new religion group but it will be limited to the old Catholic/Pagan mechanics)
They added a script option to set dynasties to intermarry to simulate Targaryan family planning :D

[rickinator9]

That intermarrying bit will be helpful for portraying the Ptolemies. Or I will just write an event where you can marry a sister.

[Double A]

That intermarrying bit will be helpful for portraying the Ptolemies. Or I will just write an event where you can marry a sister.

Or you could just marry your half sister. :tongue:

[Monk]

Sword of Islam Dev Diary 3

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?1004-The-Sword-of-Islam-Dev-Diary-3

TL;DR:
Will be released on the 26th, not next week
Muslims will expand faster, have big civil wars
Characters with military education will get additional traits that apply only to battles
More culture-specific buildings

Modding news with 1.06:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?614304-Sword-of-Islam-1.06-Heads-up-for-Modders

TL;DR:
Muslims won't be moddable to be playable without the full-blown expansion (workaround is to make new religion group but it will be limited to the old Catholic/Pagan mechanics)
They added a script option to set dynasties to intermarry to simulate Targaryan family planning :D

I like it. A lot. If the decadence trait is as limiting as paradox makes it sound, this might go a long way to limiting the lethality of Muslim powers. Or at least put a stop to their out of control blobbing in Iberia. Hopefully. if not, nothing a little modding wont fix.

[Hooahguy]

I cant find a good nation to start with. Someone suggested a ruler in Ireland, but it seems very hard to manage. I dont want to do one of the HRE states since its so huge and I often get embroiled into many small wars.
Any ideas on a a good beginner state?

[Kekvit Irae]

I cant find a good nation to start with. Someone suggested a ruler in Ireland, but it seems very hard to manage. I dont want to do one of the HRE states since its so huge and I often get embroiled into many small wars.
Any ideas on a a good beginner state?

Try a nation far away from Muslims until you get a feel for war. Castille is pretty fun to play, but they are too close to the Moors (and Leon) to be even remotely peaceful. I suggest a Scandinavian or a Western European country, like Denmark or Scotland. They have a reasonable powerbase and their economies aren't dead.

[Hooahguy]

Try a nation far away from Muslims until you get a feel for war. Castille is pretty fun to play, but they are too close to the Moors (and Leon) to be even remotely peaceful. I suggest a Scandinavian or a Western European country, like Denmark or Scotland. They have a reasonable powerbase and their economies aren't dead.

Ill try for a Scandinavian one. Last time I picked HRE. Found myself fighting 3 wars within a few months, got so distracted I couldn't concentrate on internal affairs.

EDIT: Tried Scotland. My half brother revolted against me. Initially defeated him in one big battle but now England joined the fight? Cant seem to end that war which Im bound to lose since Im hopelessly outnumbered, and Im surrounded and without new levies.

[Kekvit Irae]

EDIT: Tried Scotland. My half brother revolted against me. Initially defeated him in one big battle but now England joined the fight? Cant seem to end that war which Im bound to lose since Im hopelessly outnumbered, and Im surrounded and without new levies.

Sue for peace. Even if you lose territories, England is so messed up at the start that you can just wait a few years and it will be completely fragmented from in-fighting, ripe for the picking.

[Hooahguy]

So I should surrender? Interesting option. So I looked to do that, and it seems I have to surrender to my half brother, even though I'm winning that war. Would England count as his mercs? Not sure how to placate the invading English. Or maybe they aren't English at all?
Also is there a way to remove him before all of this starts, to nip it in the bud? Dang I need to read into this more.

[The Stranger]

That intermarrying bit will be helpful for portraying the Ptolemies. Or I will just write an event where you can marry a sister.

its done mainly for the GoT mod XD

[The Stranger]

So I should surrender? Interesting option. So I looked to do that, and it seems I have to surrender to my half brother, even though I'm winning that war. Would England count as his mercs? Not sure how to placate the invading English. Or maybe they aren't English at all?
Also is there a way to remove him before all of this starts, to nip it in the bud? Dang I need to read into this more.

dont surrender. surrendering will make ur brother king. go for a white peace if youre losing if not try to enforce demands! hire mercenaries if needed, or kill the english king by plot, this will end the alliance with him and ur halfbrother thus taking england out of the war

[Hooahguy]

So I started a new game as the ruler of the county of Desmond in Ireland, and Im actually doing well. Spent my time arranging marriages for myself and my children. Dealt with a disloyal minister (I have no real vassals- yet) but I havent killed him yet so I need to do that. Sitting by the sidelines as the two states above me are tearing each other apart, while trying to marry into the family of the state which has the obvious upper hand.
As for marriages, made a mistake marrying non-Irish people for me and my eldest son. Should I go back and undo that? I was looking for supplemental traits, not family connections as it seems I should have. But I have two other sons and a daughter so hopefully I can start uniting Ireland under my rule eventually.
Damn this game is fun once you get the hang of it.

[The Stranger]

it doesnt really matter what culture u marry, its the guardian of ur child that decides what culture ur child will become. different religion is a problem however.

you can marry either for skill of ur wife or for her family (aka alliances or claims). I usually use marriage to peacefully expand (by marrying a female ruler to yourself or eldest son) or to get claims which i will later press by force.

[Hooahguy]

I see. Also whats with Casus belli? I have eyes on my neighbor and I sent my guy in to fabricate claims over a year ago, and so far nothing. I even assassinated the other ruler, but still, nothing.

[Kekvit Irae]

I see. Also whats with Casus belli? I have eyes on my neighbor and I sent my guy in to fabricate claims over a year ago, and so far nothing. I even assassinated the other ruler, but still, nothing.

Hover over the Fabricate Claims button on your councilors, you'll see that it's ~10-15% per year (caps at a skill of 13, unless you use a mod). You're going to be waiting a long time if you go that route. There are quite a few ways to get a Casus Belli against someone, but not as much as EU3, sadly.

[Hooahguy]

What are the other ways? The manual and tutorial wasnt clear.

[Kekvit Irae]

What are the other ways? The manual and tutorial wasnt clear.

Invite someone into your court and then press claims, holy wars if the ruler isn't of your religion, de jure claims if you own 50% of a duchy or a kingdom, asking the Pope On A Rope for permission to invade, etc...

http://crusaderkings-two.wikia.com/wiki/Casus_Belli_%28types_of%29

TL;DR: Don't think like a Total War player. Think like a golddigger who married an old guy for his inheritance.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

After murdering his children.

[Hooahguy]

Invite someone into your court and then press claims, holy wars if the ruler isn't of your religion, de jure claims if you own 50% of a duchy or a kingdom, asking the Pope On A Rope for permission to invade, etc...


How would I invite them into my court? I dont see that option. As for the other options, I dont have them. I dont have a de jure claim, they are the same religion, and I cant ask the pope either. Im not a vassal of any kind, and nor have they been excommunicated.
I might just have to wait.
In other news, my first ruler died, his competent son took over. Then he had his two half brothers killed.
Fun!

[Kekvit Irae]

How would I invite them into my court? I dont see that option. As for the other options, I dont have them. I dont have a de jure claim, they are the same religion, and I cant ask the pope either. Im not a vassal of any kind, and nor have they been excommunicated.
I might just have to wait.
In other news, my first ruler died, his competent son took over. Then he had his two half brothers killed.
Fun!

Click on a county you desire, click on the heraldry, then click on Claimants. You'll see a list of people who have a legitimate claim on them. You can invite them to your court, if they like you enough. Just make sure you make them a vassal first, otherwise your pressed claim will result in the noble becoming independent.
Barring that, your best bet is just to wait until your councilor fabricates a claim (save up your gold; it aint free).

One sneaky way of doing things the Crusader Kings way is to marry into the family. Set up your daughter for a matrilineal marriage (so all children born will be of your dynasty), then wait until a child is born, and the murder the everloving crap out of anyone who is the county's heir, including the unfortunate husband. That county (or, if you're lucky, kingdom) will now be your grandchild's. From there, just wait until that child becomes your heir and you're on the way to de jure claims.

[Hooahguy]

Ah, I see.

So my chancellor finally whipped up a CB. Declared war, and seeing as they just got out of a lengthy war, Thormund (sp?) fell easily. I then usurped the "Dutchy of Munster" title, then went about taking over the county next to it. I now own most of southern Ireland. Also killed the former Duke of Munster, and I have eyes on the new guy to kill him too. I gotta replace him with someone who likes me. I still have no sons, so my daughter is next in line. Not sure what to do about that. I set my goal to be have a son, but we will see how that goes.

This game is really fun, glad I bought it.

[Greyblades]

Click on a county you desire, click on the heraldry, then click on Claimants. You'll see a list of people who have a legitimate claim on them. You can invite them to your court, if they like you enough. Just make sure you make them a vassal first, otherwise your pressed claim will result in the noble becoming independent.
Barring that, your best bet is just to wait until your councilor fabricates a claim (save up your gold; it aint free).

One sneaky way of doing things the Crusader Kings way is to marry into the family. Set up your daughter for a matrilineal marriage (so all children born will be of your dynasty), then wait until a child is born, and the murder the everloving crap out of anyone who is the county's heir, including the unfortunate husband. That county (or, if you're lucky, kingdom) will now be your grandchild's. From there, just wait until that child becomes your heir and you're on the way to de jure claims.

Or you could rely on the fact that almost every family in a region is intermarried and just keep murdering the everloving crud out of the poor schmucks who inherit the title until one of your family comes up.

[Hooahguy]

Alright so my second ruler died after 8 years of ruling at the age of 37, leaving his 6 year old heir to rule in a state of chaos. I hate it how most of your ministers leave when the ruler dies. I had a fantastic ministry and now I'm in the process of rebuilding. My current ruler is now 10, so in a few years he will come of age and marry the daughter of the neighboring duchy. Then I kill off the other heirs of that duchy and I will inherit all of it. Provided my guy lives that long.

UPDATE: Ruler came of age, married into the Duchy of Meath, who then declared war for an unknown reason, and we wiped the floor with them. Split Meath into half. Meath ruler (well, his heir. We killed his dad) kept half, my wife took the other half for herself. When we have a child it will all belong to him. Or her. Right?

Also can someone tell me what those checkered and solid lines mean after you finish a siege on an enemy area?

[Kekvit Irae]

Alright so my second ruler died after 8 years of ruling at the age of 37, leaving his 6 year old heir to rule in a state of chaos. I hate it how most of your ministers leave when the ruler dies. I had a fantastic ministry and now I'm in the process of rebuilding. My current ruler is now 10, so in a few years he will come of age and marry the daughter of the neighboring duchy. Then I kill off the other heirs of that duchy and I will inherit all of it. Provided my guy lives that long.

UPDATE: Ruler came of age, married into the Duchy of Meath, who then declared war for an unknown reason, and we wiped the floor with them. Split Meath into half. Meath ruler (well, his heir. We killed his dad) kept half, my wife took the other half for herself. When we have a child it will all belong to him. Or her. Right?

Also can someone tell me what those checkered and solid lines mean after you finish a siege on an enemy area?

As I've said before, unless you are using a specific mod, councilor skills cap at 13. Anything more is wasteful and gives no additional benefit, so just look for people with councilor ambitions and assign them. In fact, it's better if you don't assign your best military guy to the council since you'll be able to lead troops on the field with your 16+ skill vassal and have someone else in the ~13 skill range do councilor jobs.

If you married your wife using a normal marriage, your kid will be of your dynasty and inherit your wife's holdings once she dies. Matrilineal marriage means the kid will be of HER dynasty, which is NOT a good thing if you are a male ruler, but a very good thing if you are a female rule.

The stripes indicate occupation. Occupied holdings provide no income or levies, and contribute to the amount of war score you have (how reasonable the other ruler will be to accept your demands). You'll need to occupy EVERY holding in a county for it to not spawn levies, since holdings are independent of a county. IE: A county has a castle, a town, and a church. You occupy the castle, and leave for another county. The opponent will still be able to raise levies against you using the town and church, but not the castle.
Please note that "occupy" does not mean the same thing as "taking control." It simply means more war score and no levies to annoy you. Taking over a county is entirely dependent on the Casus Belli you have. If you choose to White Peace, everything goes back to the status quo before the war broke out, with nobody gaining or losing territory (which, other than the enemy losing prestige and/or piety, is the reason why you want this if you are on the defensive).

[Hooahguy]

Got it.

And is there any way to prevent wars occurring between your vassals? Thormond and Ormond went to war. Didnt have too much implication, besides my spymaster getting killed. Then I had to execute the winner since he then rebelled. I then went to war against the people who sound like Lannister. Took them over with at first a fabricated claim, then I used a de jure to take the other one since it wasnt included in the cease-fire. So now I own most of southern Ireland, with my wife owning another 3 counties, and our son, when I and my wife die, will own all of southern Ireland 9its a normal marriage).
Man this game is fantastic, really sucks you in, even if it can get a bit messy at times.

[Kekvit Irae]

Got it.

And is there any way to prevent wars occurring between your vassals? Thormond and Ormond went to war. Didnt have too much implication, besides my spymaster getting killed. Then I had to execute the winner since he then rebelled. I then went to war against the people who sound like Lannister. Took them over with at first a fabricated claim, then I used a de jure to take the other one since it wasnt included in the cease-fire. So now I own most of southern Ireland, with my wife owning another 3 counties, and our son, when I and my wife die, will own all of southern Ireland 9its a normal marriage).
Man this game is fantastic, really sucks you in, even if it can get a bit messy at times.

If you are king, you can set your Crown Authority to Medium (or higher) will prevent vassal in-fighting. This has to be set for all kingdoms you own, not just your primary one.

[Hooahguy]

Im a Duke, so I guess I cant really do that. But I suppose once I unite Ireland Ill be a king?

[Kekvit Irae]

Im a Duke, so I guess I cant really do that. But I suppose once I unite Ireland Ill be a king?

You'll be king sooner than that. You only need 50% of the de jure counties to create the kingdom. It'll cost you a fair bit of gold, but it is SO worth it.

[Hooahguy]

Sweet. Now Im totally going to play more instead of doing my Logic homework.

UPDATE: So once again a vassal rebelled. This time France and England joined in. Pretty hard. Had to raise mercs to stay afloat and even then it was very tough. I chased off the foreign armies while capturing the rebelling lord. I promptly executed him. I also captured the King of England and a host of English commanders in battle. Ended up killing one of them for the heck of it, then ransoming the others. When that was all said and done, I betrothed my 12 year old daughter to the King of Scotland. Not sure what that will do but we will see. My eldest son came of age which means I cant marry him off (I forgot to set a betrothal before). Maybe Ill marry him off to an English lord and go from there. Now Im just waiting for my wife to die. Or make me more babies.

Now that I think about it, this game is kinda for psychos.

[Kekvit Irae]

Now that I think about it, this game is kinda for psychos.

Now you're thinking with portals. :yes:

[rickinator9]

You'll be king sooner than that. You only need 50% of the de jure counties to create the kingdom. It'll cost you a fair bit of gold, but it is SO worth it.

Don't forget the 200 Piety, which I usually find the most difficult condition for creating kingdoms.

[Hooahguy]

Don't forget the 200 Piety, which I usually find the most difficult condition for creating kingdoms.

What? Dang this will take a while. I only have like 50 piety, and even then it fluctuates.

[The Stranger]

if you have money you can buy piety :) but its quite expensive and you only get 25 for each time

[The Stranger]

Sweet. Now Im totally going to play more instead of doing my Logic homework.

UPDATE: So once again a vassal rebelled. This time France and England joined in. Pretty hard. Had to raise mercs to stay afloat and even then it was very tough. I chased off the foreign armies while capturing the rebelling lord. I promptly executed him. I also captured the King of England and a host of English commanders in battle. Ended up killing one of them for the heck of it, then ransoming the others. When that was all said and done, I betrothed my 12 year old daughter to the King of Scotland. Not sure what that will do but we will see. My eldest son came of age which means I cant marry him off (I forgot to set a betrothal before). Maybe Ill marry him off to an English lord and go from there. Now Im just waiting for my wife to die. Or make me more babies.

Now that I think about it, this game is kinda for psychos.

if you are going to take the relations hit with other vassals its better to banish him. then you get his lands and money. if not then just let him rot in prison and he will die eventually. so far i've never really used execution and I fail to see what purpose it serves except for roleplaying reasons

and ye, except for your own life and that of your heir, human lives are quite dispensable in the game :P

[Hooahguy]

Ugh. Wife died, then son rebelled and usurped two of my provinces. I went from having six, and about to start a kingdom, to having only four. And my son is a :daisy: and still my heir.

Well, all I gotta do is hold what I have and wait to die so my eldest will combine all of us. Though I got an offer by some Italian lord to marry his daughter. So I did, and now she's pregnant. This might cause problems.

[rickinator9]

if you are going to take the relations hit with other vassals its better to banish him. then you get his lands and money. if not then just let him rot in prison and he will die eventually. so far i've never really used execution and I fail to see what purpose it serves except for roleplaying reasons

and ye, except for your own life and that of your heir, human lives are quite dispensable in the game :P
Execution is pretty handy if someone has you as his heir.

[The Stranger]

why? you can pretty much plot kill everyone.

first u need to capture someone, that already makes it quite useless. but in case u really need someone dead, and you cant get enough ppl to join ur plot and u dont have enough money or intrigue to kill him and you actually manage to capture him then ye... you might consider execution :P

there are just so many quicker ways with less relation penalty which make execution pretty useless.

i only actually execute infidels :P

[Hooahguy]

Alright, so is there a way to "kill myself?" I really want my ruler to die already so his son can unite the two major Irish kingdoms and my current guy just wont die.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Go on crusade? Holy War someplace remote and send one county's levy with yourself at the front.

[Hooahguy]

Theres no crusade happening, though one ended around a decade ago. I didnt participate since I was busy at home.

[Fisherking]

Alright, so is there a way to "kill myself?" I really want my ruler to die already so his son can unite the two major Irish kingdoms and my current guy just wont die.

Fire your spymaster and attempt to kill a Muslim ruler. That is what most people recommend.

[Hooahguy]

Go on crusade? Holy War someplace remote and send one county's levy with yourself at the front.

Actually a crusade just started. Sent myself over there 3 times already, got crushed, and yet still alive.

EDIT: Waged a war to obtain Meath, won and title went to my heir. I then promptly died. Then the Kingdom of Ireland was born! Now all I got to do is put the rest of Ireland under my control and I think then I can move onto the Game of Thrones mod.
:hail:

[The Stranger]

offer the other counts and dukes vassalisation. most if not all will accept.

[Monk]

Actually a crusade just started. Sent myself over there 3 times already, got crushed, and yet still alive.

EDIT: Waged a war to obtain Meath, won and title went to my heir. I then promptly died. Then the Kingdom of Ireland was born! Now all I got to do is put the rest of Ireland under my control and I think then I can move onto the Game of Thrones mod.
:hail:

You are their de jure (lawful) ruler so like stranger said most of them will accept vassalisation if you ask. If they don't, the unification wars will be easy. Half the trouble is forming the title in the first place.

[Hooahguy]

Well, Iunited Ireland. I guess its off to the GoT mod? Maybe I should try to take over England and Scotland too...

[The Stranger]

the got mod isnt finished yet, if i were u i would wait untill the SoI patch is finished and the GoT mod will really gear up.

[Hooahguy]

Taking over Scotland and England it is!

[Ibn-Khaldun]

So, I builted a city in one of my counties but it says that the holding have a wrong holder type? So, do I have to create a vassal(mayor)?

[rickinator9]

So, I builted a city in one of my counties but it says that the holding have a wrong holder type? So, do I have to create a vassal(mayor)?

Pretty much. It's bad, but not any more bad than having city as a county capital.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

If city is county capital then what would happen? Btw, can't I change the county capital type?

[Kekvit Irae]

If city is county capital then what would happen? Btw, can't I change the county capital type?

It's better to let a vassal rule the city/county than take the opinion hit for ruling a city personally. And no, once they are built, you cant change holdings.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Is it wise to build one from each of them into the county if it is possible? So far I have tried to have 1 from each of them.

[Chaotix]

Is it wise to build one from each of them into the county if it is possible? So far I have tried to have 1 from each of them.

Typically I find it pays to have one castle and the rest be cities, with possibly one bishopric.

The income boost you get from cities far outstrips what you get from castles. Since battles are mostly about numbers and commander skill, having the high-quality troops of extra castles doesn't really make up for the fact you could be using the extra money from extra cities to just hire mercenaries if you really need them. And if you don't need them, you can use the money for other things, like building more cities and getting even more money.

The only place a castle might beat a city is in a landlocked area, like HRE, Hungary, or Russia.

I wouldn't ever build a new bishopric, personally. The ones you start out with are good in the early game, but by the time you actually have the spare cash to build new holdings, you are likely far enough along in tech that they start to become mediocre compared to the other two. Also, bishops don't have to pay you anything or give you any troops if they don't like you, so there's that.

[Kekvit Irae]

Is it wise to build one from each of them into the county if it is possible? So far I have tried to have 1 from each of them.

That's not really a bad idea if you have other counties that are specialized or if the county you want to generalize is out of the way or not on the coast. The problem of specializing is that if you specialize in castles, your economy is going to suck hard in that county. If you go all-in on churches, you'll have a strong economy and military, but if the bishops like the Pope more than you, you get NOTHING. And with towns, your military will suffer. So the advantage of spreading out your holding types is that you get a bit of all three, and your other holdings in that county will support a failing holding.

[Ignoramus]

Finally got this and have been playing as Gwynedd from 1066.

Man, that is hard (but good!). I've got all of Wales proper, but due to an unfortunate marriage with the Duchess of Aquitaine, half my family have ended being Occitan in culture. Whenever I manage to accrue the 200 piety to form the Kingdom of Wales, it's always with the wrong ruler. Also finding it difficult to hold on to anything outside of Wales - took Isle of Man about 40 years ago, but now the Scots just pressed their de jure claim to the island.

In a funnier episode, in the previous game I played as them, I made the mistake of marrying my brother to the Countess of Warwick, and then the scumbag Duke of Lancaster pressed his claim on to Gwynedd, just after a bankrupting war with England (Lancaster had split off from England). Then in a moment of folly, I offered my fealty to the King of England, who proceeded to strip me of my titles one by one. :wall: Live and learn.

Also, how do you change your primary title? I haven't managed to find out how to do that yet.

[Kekvit Irae]

Also, how do you change your primary title? I haven't managed to find out how to do that yet.

Click the heraldry (shield) icon on your character sheet and then choose which title you want to set as a primary.

[The Stranger]

Typically I find it pays to have one castle and the rest be cities, with possibly one bishopric.

The income boost you get from cities far outstrips what you get from castles. Since battles are mostly about numbers and commander skill, having the high-quality troops of extra castles doesn't really make up for the fact you could be using the extra money from extra cities to just hire mercenaries if you really need them. And if you don't need them, you can use the money for other things, like building more cities and getting even more money.

The only place a castle might beat a city is in a landlocked area, like HRE, Hungary, or Russia.

I wouldn't ever build a new bishopric, personally. The ones you start out with are good in the early game, but by the time you actually have the spare cash to build new holdings, you are likely far enough along in tech that they start to become mediocre compared to the other two. Also, bishops don't have to pay you anything or give you any troops if they don't like you, so there's that.

you need 1 of each to build more than one 1 of each. so you cant build more cities if you already have 1 city 1 castle but no bisphoric.

like said before, castles in the mainland, cities on the coast (some preferable ruled by doges so you can benefit from it) because cities generally also give more navy.

[naut]

Pretty much. It's bad, but not any more bad than having city as a county capital.
Or a Church! Germany is the worst for that, makes provinces like Hamburg and Bremen worthless!

[Monk]

SoI pre-launch AAR from Doomdark: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?615744-Midsummer-s-Eve-Mini-AAR

Lots of cool stuff but balance still looks screwy. I guess it's up to modders. *hint hint* :deal:

[Greyblades]

I've been playing a bit of that Game of thrones mod. Its pretty good, though random chance is really making things really weird.

I started my first game as tywin lannister, I'm watching roberts rebellion, really trying to get jamie back bt for some reason he wont do it because he has no reason to leave... Ok, I guess that makes sense, with the whole kingsguard being illustrious and- wait I got an event, tywin aparantly lost his cyncism for no reason...
Ok...
Back to the war, looks like roberts having a bit of trouble beating back the tyrells and this fog of war is making things hard to- wait what? Tywin died of natural causes at age 39!? Tyrion aged 12 inherits the westerlands? CRUD!

[Hooahguy]

International diplomacy is headache-inducing. There really should be some sort of option to enter an alliance with another faction without having a marriage taking place. Im getting into position to take over Scotland (though not through marriage, unfortunately) and I want to secure the northern border with Norway. While Im a king and so is he, he refuses to have my daughter marry his son. Plus he likes me so I dont know what the problem is.

[Monk]

International diplomacy is headache-inducing. There really should be some sort of option to enter an alliance with another faction without having a marriage taking place. Im getting into position to take over Scotland (though not through marriage, unfortunately) and I want to secure the northern border with Norway. While Im a king and so is he, he refuses to have my daughter marry his son. Plus he likes me so I dont know what the problem is.

The Ai likely has other plans for that character. Hover your mouse over the 'send' button, it will tell you the various factors affecting the AI's decision making. He probably had the "desires better alliance" modifier which means he wants a better deal, or a deal with a stronger faction.

[The Stranger]

but the desires stronger alliance is often broken. sometimes I have dukes refuse marriage to my offspring while i have the strongest army in the world and the dynasty with the highest prestige. it works better than before but still doesnt work as good as it should

[Hooahguy]

Has anyone here been in a large-scale war? As the kingdom of Ireland, I can put a usurper on the throne of Scotland. And then, I think he will agree to become my vassal since he likes me so much. That is my hope, at least. Though to put this plan in place I will have to send all my forces plus mercs against them. Plus I will have to keep some at home since they love to send troops over to Ireland. Strategically that makes sense, but Id think it would be smarter to just fight me on their own turf.

[Kekvit Irae]

Has anyone here been in a large-scale war? As the kingdom of Ireland, I can put a usurper on the throne of Scotland. And then, I think he will agree to become my vassal since he likes me so much. That is my hope, at least. Though to put this plan in place I will have to send all my forces plus mercs against them. Plus I will have to keep some at home since they love to send troops over to Ireland. Strategically that makes sense, but Id think it would be smarter to just fight me on their own turf.

Rule 1 of warfare: Never go to war with anyone bigger than you unless you have an emergency fund for mercenaries. The AI does buy mercs from time to time, so you need to be prepared for the worst.
Rule 2 of warfare: Never go to war without upgrading your holdings first. 2k troops from a county is better than 500 troops.
Rule 3 of warfare: Never go to war with someone who you cant transport troops to easily.
Rule 4 of warfare: Always levy a navy even if you don't need it. This is especially important when you are chasing retreating armies. The time it takes to embark/move ship/disembark is much less than the time it takes to travel to the next county on foot. You'll arrive ahead of the retreating army, and gain defensive bonuses when they arrive.

[Hooahguy]

Thanks for the tips. I also just realized that I have some claim to every part of Scotland through having a claimant in my court. It would probably be smarter to slowly gobble up Scotland instead of trying to take it all at once. Though once I defeat their preliminary armies they don't hold much threat.

[rickinator9]

Thanks for the tips. I also just realized that I have some claim to every part of Scotland through having a claimant in my court. It would probably be smarter to slowly gobble up Scotland instead of trying to take it all at once. Though once I defeat their preliminary armies they don't hold much threat.

Might also be good saying you should disband armies from time to time. If you've got some 10000 men armies that are now 5000, it's probable that a lot of men are just in the 'bank'. Bring those armies home, disband them and after that reraise them.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

One thing that bothers me is that there are no naval battles in this game. :no: So many times I have had a large fleet near my cost and what I see is some small enemy fleets just come in and unload their troops. It is really really annoying.

Is there a way to mod naval battles into the game?

[The Stranger]

Rule 1 of warfare: Never go to war with anyone bigger than you unless you have an emergency fund for mercenaries. The AI does buy mercs from time to time, so you need to be prepared for the worst.
Rule 2 of warfare: Never go to war without upgrading your holdings first. 2k troops from a county is better than 500 troops.
Rule 3 of warfare: Never go to war with someone who you cant transport troops to easily.
Rule 4 of warfare: Always levy a navy even if you don't need it. This is especially important when you are chasing retreating armies. The time it takes to embark/move ship/disembark is much less than the time it takes to travel to the next county on foot. You'll arrive ahead of the retreating army, and gain defensive bonuses when they arrive.

what I usually do is try to beat the enemy army on a spot that is favorable for me, either on plain terrain when attacking with bigger army or on suitable terrain (terrain minus for him and/or terrain bonus for me) when defending. After this is done, hunt down that army untill it is nearly destroyed (dont destroy it entirely) hoping to capture as many nobles and preferably the leader of the country/nation you are fighting (giving instant 100% warscore). IF the war is not over by then, split off a small part of your army, but big enough to safely siege counties. The rest of your army will chase down the parts of the enemy before they can regroup into 1 big army. I usually hire mercs and pay their costs by ransoming nobles. Sometimes I have income of like 7-8 a month and an upkeep of 20+ and I still pay my debts by ransoming + sacking cities. Wars are usually a big profit for me. Often I keep the mercenaries on after the war and offer other nations help and join in, capture some nobles and make some dough!

another strategy is, to put your entire army into a navy, sail to a coastal area and siege from the coast. whenever a stronger enemy army comes, you hop your army into a ship. if done properly the enemy can never touch you! i usually use this trick when crusading to quickly get 100 warscore against the shia caliphate :P

[The Stranger]

Thanks for the tips. I also just realized that I have some claim to every part of Scotland through having a claimant in my court. It would probably be smarter to slowly gobble up Scotland instead of trying to take it all at once. Though once I defeat their preliminary armies they don't hold much threat.

i have to remind you that if you push this claim you will not gain any land unless you give him land in your demesne and thus making him your vassal.

if you press a kingdom tier claim as a king he will also not become your vassal because equal rank cannot be vassals of each other. be careful that you do not waste alot of time and effort for just a happy neighbour.

what I do sometimes tho is to marry to a claimant and then press that claimants title so that our ofspring will become leader of that country. then divorce and repeat! it is possible to get your dynasty on the throne of half of europe within 1 generation that way :P

[Chaotix]

another strategy is, to put your entire army into a navy, sail to a coastal area and siege from the coast. whenever a stronger enemy army comes, you hop your army into a ship. if done properly the enemy can never touch you! i usually use this trick when crusading to quickly get 100 warscore against the shia caliphate :P

This one works like a charm. Used this to beat France as much-weaker England (total army strength about half the size of theirs). It was a defensive war, but still. France is incredibly ripe for naval attack from a nation that controls the Atlantic coast.

[Arjos]

On the line of the same tacting, when you attack a nation with a bigger army, if you have lots of coastal regions and can act quickly, you can sail to the enemy and pick each of his "contingents" as they try to assemble in a single region...
Thus even if you have only a limited force, you can wipe out a huge army before it forms up ^^

[Monk]

At last the full 1.06 changelog - and good lord it's a big one...


Original post: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?616214-Patch-1.06-Change-Log

Well folks, tomorrow we release patch 1.06 and the Sword of Islam expansion. Until then, for the curious among you, here is the (mostly complete) change log:

MAJOR:
- Muslim Decadence System
- Muslim Polygamy
- Added new provinces, titles and history for Mali, Songhay and Ghana
- Added the province of Aprutium (split off from Spoleto)
- Added the new creatable Empires of Russia, Britannia, Spain, Francia, Scandinavia, Persia and Arabia
- Strong and Weak Claim System
- Overhaul of game text for Muslims
- Added plots to claim titles
- Split up the former Kingdom of Khazaria into many de jure kingdoms
- Split the Kingdom of Rus into the kingdoms of Rus and Ruthenia
- Added the duchies of Susa and Latium
- Revised murder plots completely. No decisions, just events.
- Commander traits added
- Heavily revised combat tactics
- Loads of new events

MINOR:
- AI: Much more eager to join Crusades/Jihads if it has de jure interests in the target kingdom
- AI: Much more eager to join Crusades/Jihads if in the same realm as the religious head
- AI: More stubborn about fighting decadence revolters
- AI: Tweaked Crusade targetting - will no longer target kingdoms with 0 'holiness' value for that religion
- AI: Non-Muslims will not accept marriages for female relatives with Muslims, unless they are vassals
- AI: Now prefers giving baronies/counties to courtiers with static dynasties rather than creating random characters
- AI: Vassals of vassals can now correctly revolt to depose their liege
- AI: DoW now factors in the strength of enemies of enemies
- AI: Willing to join another rebelling vassal's war for the crown only if they'd like them better as _liege_
- AI: Vassals should no longer start wars (except for revolts) if the whole realm is under attack from outside
- AI: Caliphs will now be more aggressive with calling Jihads
- Army AI: Will now assault when appropriate
- Army AI: Fixed a problem where you could trick AI armies into ping-ponging while it was trying to gather its forces
- Army AI: Fixed some issues where it would not count attached units properly
- Army AI: Better at moving across land without marching together with other armies, causing unnecessary attrition
- Army AI: Improved attrition check in targetting calculations
- Army AI: Fixed an issue where it would merge armies to huge sizes by not considering attached forces
- Invasion AI: Fixed an issue where it would choose poor secondary targets if the target province was too heavily defended
- No longer possible to call lieges to war against their own vassals
- Fixed a bug with the succession message not being shown for the ones who inherit titles
- Fixed an issue with the de jure law vote message not going away when trying to approve it
- Slightly increased merc reinforcement rates
- Fixed a memory leak with timed opinion modifiers that time out naturally
- Moved the county of Chalons into Lower Burgundy and Grisons into Upper Burgundy
- Fixed a bug with the depose liege CB sometimes making the new ruler independent (bug in the effect 'abdicate_to_most_liked_by').
- Fixed a bug with the effect 'abdicate_to_most_liked_by' that would invalidate outside wars
- Fixed a bug with the 'grant_title' effect which would assign the liege to the liege of the granter
- Fixed a potential infinite loop in war name generation
- Fixed a bug with the Feudal Elective law being tolerated for Republics
- If the loser in a war is imprisoned, he is now automatically released on peace
- Fixed a bug with created characters sometimes getting duplicate education traits
- People who avoid imprisonment will now always flee to another realm
- Added a whole bunch of cleaned up title coats of arms
- Muslim coats of arms should now use better colors
- No longer allowed to grant titles to prisoners
- You can now correctly press the de jure claims of vassals of vassals
- Fixed a bug with being able to call vassals of vassals of the enemy into wars within the same realm
- When winning (enforce or reverse) a war, all prisoners from your realm held by the enemy are now released
- Added opinion modifiers 'Imprisoned my Child' and 'Executed my Child'
- No longer allowed to ask to join outsider wars against your liege
- Fixed a bug with the depose liege CB in republics and bishoprics
- Rulers deposed with the 'depose' casus belli no longer get any land from their old vassals to remain rulers
- Fixed an issue where a ruler could not offer peace to a rebelling vassal if he had holdings occupied by another (loyal) vassal in a separate war
- Fixed a bug with the hostility icons for loyal vassals in separate wars with rebelling vassals
- If a vassal is at war with another vassal who is rebelling, the war no longer ends if the liege wins and the rebellion is crushed
- Fixed a bug with lieges ending up in two wars if a vassal revolted while a revoke action was pending
- Blocked excomm wars against revolters
- Fixed some issues with succession not being recalculated after certain event effects
- Peace Offers now make it clear whether it's a demand for surrender, white peace or surrender
- Cleaned up all CB tooltips
- The initial Seljuk-Byzantine war is now a full invasion of the de jure kingdom of Armenia
- Added "Scarred" trait
- Fixed a bug allowing rulers of a hostile religion to vote for de jure laws even when not de facto vassals
- Toned down base attribute gain of children from guardians
- Optimized the CPU heaviest events
- Fixed a nasty old crash bug with the defection of the Victual Brothers
- Fixed a hostility bug with allies helping to defend against a revolter
- Fixed an issue with Gavelkind inheritance in baronies, where the youngest child would inherit first
- Fixed an issue with the random seed in delayed events
- Fixed a bug allowing you to usurp titles from your own vassals
- Fixed an issue with vassals of vassals gaining independence when you pressed their claims
- The titular kingdoms of Naples and Trinacria are no longer creatable in-game
- The Ecumenical Patriarch will now refuse to excommunicate a character who has repented, even if the Emperor asks
- Merc navies will now disband when not getting paid
- Fixed an issue with the lower Crown Authority plot when the liege folds to the ultimatum of a vassal king
- No longer possible to grant duchies to barons
- The event effect 'destroy_landed_title' now gives the current holder a strong claim on the title
- The events where the Mongols receive reinforcements no longer trigger if the titles are held by non-Tengri or non-Mongol rulers
- Fixed an issue with attached units and siege outcomes
- Fixed a bug with Revokation plot wars against vassals who lose the title to someone else
- Fixed a bug where a vassal in revolt against his liege would sometimes have the war end inconclusively when the liege got a new liege
- Fixed an issue where children would change guardian if they became landed
- AI spouses of lower rank than you will now always accept education requests- In feudal elective titular realms, _all_ vassals of the appropriate tier are now electors
- The death of a spouse no longer makes characters lose their jobs
- Characters who end up leading the troops of their enemies should now automatically return home
- The opinion penalties for revoking a title are now applied whether or not the target accepts or refuses
- If a vassal refuses a title revokation and wins or achieves a white peace, the 'declared_war' opinion modifier is now cleared (meaning the liege does not get a 'free' title revokation)
- There is no longer a cooldown for calling allies to war who _accepted_ a previous call
- Primogeniture: more heirs should now be listed
- Gavelkind: fixed a glitch with grandchildren
- Removed impassable terrain between Kartli and Albania
- Fixed unit position in the Irish Sea
- Made Sviatopolk Rurikovich (count of Zaozerye in 1066) a legit bastard
- Heretics and infidels are now barred from inheriting anything that the religious head holds
- The portraits for undiscovered murderers should now be hidden in the event window
- Mercs and Holy Order commanders should no longer be shown in the quick marriage window
- Now always allowed to attach your units to your lieges' units
- Added an event where a ruler converts to the native culture
- Adjusted and improved the events where provinces change culture
- Reactivated the lifting FoW for allies in wars
- Doubled regular assassination costs
- The "Arrange Marriage" button now shows random courtiers if there are too few interesting women around
- There is now a slight chance of a random education outcome
- Fixed some issues with war invalidation for banishment of landed characters
- Can no longer banish mercs, holy order heads, or religious heads
- Attached units that are not in the same province as the master unit are no longer hostile to the master unit's enemies
- The spouse will now get a message on divorce
- Fixed some historical issues with Chios and Lesbos
- The liege should now get pressed claims on _all_ titles of characters who declare independence
- If an ally could legally call you into a war, you should always be able to ask to join as well
- Battle Death should now show the unit owner rather than the unit commander
- Vassals of lieges who are fighting their liege will no longer revolt
- Holy War CBs are now valid for Catholic vassals of Orthodox lieges, etc
- Added automatic county conversion events for Muslims (35500 and 35501)
- Pathfinding now prefers friendly territory to enemy territory
- Vassal vs Liege wars should now end with a _mutual_ truce

FOR MODDERS:
- Exported inbreeding trait gain factors to defines
- Exported most relevant files under common to their own folders, so they can be broken up into multiple files
- Added 'immortal' flag to traits; stops aging, character will not die of age or poor health
- Added 'pilgrimage' flag to traits; the character is away and needs a regent, but can still be a guardian, etc
- Added 'name_tier' to landed titles, so that empires can be called kingdoms, etc
- Added 'pass_effect' to decisions and laws, which is not run by automatic functions (useful for setting opinion modifiers when passing laws.)
- Added event target 'fromfrom'
- Added trigger 'in_revolt'
- Added 'divine_blood' flag to dynasties, which allows full consanguine marriages and tells the AI to prefer keepin' it in the family
- Added 'founder_named_dynasties' to cultures
- Can now script marriage consanguinity rules in religions
- Added a 'potential' trigger to Job Actions
- Added 'dismiss_trigger' to job titles
- Added a 'potential' trigger to traits
- Added trigger 'num_of_realm_counties'
- Added effect 'vassalize_or_take_under_title'
- Added trigger 'death_reason'
- Added event target 'killer'
- Added event effect 'objective_succeeds'
- The trigger 'can_be_given_away' is now more restrictive. Checks occupation or sieges of constituent Holdings, contestation in wars, etc.
- Added history command 'conquest_culture'
- Added trigger 'plot_power_contribution'
- Added trigger 'random'
- Added trigger 'any_potential_tribal_county'
- Added effect 'any_potential_tribal_county'
- Added effect 'random_potential_tribal_county'
- Added 'new' target in effects ( character = new ) for newly created characters
- Added death reason 'death_hashshashin'
- Added effect 'make_primary_spouse'
- Added trigger 'has_strong_claim'
- Added trigger 'has_weak_claim'
- Added effect 'add_weak_claim'
- Added effect 'add_weak_pressed_claim'
- Added trigger 'has_regent'
- Added trigger 'is_contested'
- Added event effect 'any_spouse'
- Added event effect 'random_spouse'
- Added trigger 'any_spouse'
- Added trigger 'is_main_spouse'
- Added a 'distance' trigger

[Martok]

Awesome! I've kinda been waiting for this to come out before I got too deeply into the game. Thanks for the heads-up Monk!

[Hooahguy]

Heard that its both savegame compatible and incompatible.
Its like Russian roulette.

[Monk]

Heard that its both savegame compatible and incompatible.
Its like Russian roulette.

Well it's sorta both. Paradox has said that while saves will be compatible and will load up fine without many oddities, you'll see a ton of balance issues if you carry a 1.05 game into 1.06 due to all the changes to the muslim world. To get the best experience you should (if you have a steam copy) set your game to ignore updates RIGHT NOW, if you're wrapped up in a game you want to finish.

It's always a good idea to start fresh with paradox patches.

[Hooahguy]

Yeah thats what Im going to do. Right now my goal is to get Scotland, then I will call it a game.

Also, whats another good nation to play as?

[Monk]

Yeah thats what Im going to do. Right now my goal is to get Scotland, then I will call it a game.

Also, whats another good nation to play as?

One of the Russian dukes offers an interesting game, forming the Rus and trying to survive the storm of the Mongols, ect.

An HRE vassal is good too. Accumulate power within the empire slowly before breaking away and taking on the emperor in an independence war. I did that with Tuscana back in 1.03 and later formed Italy. Good times, lots of opportunity there as well as with the others.

Poland is a rather simple but still fun king-tier game. Lots of options for early expansion.

Denmark is incredibly easy. Eat the eastern pagans for breakfast and begin uniting Scandinavia.

Apulia offers lots of interesting chances for fun. You start with almost all of de jure Sicily, but your family can be a bit of a pain.

Thats all i can think of for independent faction choices. :shrug: Until I see how 1.06 affects the overall balance I'm not going to recommend any of the Iberian kingdoms. Without mods they hardly stand a chance of survival from the 1066 scenario.

[The Stranger]

barcelona, any of the jimena family members. france is good too, or the duke of aquitaine as vassal.

if you look for challenges go for counts near pagan/muslim territory.

[Centurion1]

anybody looking to learnt his game i suggest watching the lets play on croatia (and initially slavonia) He is not a boring commentators never moves the game quickly so you miss nothing, has a couple funny jokes (i actually laughed a couple times) and narrates what he is doing. he also has tutorial videos.

slavonia incidentally is a decent starting country as well.

[Hooahguy]

One of the Russian dukes offers an interesting game, forming the Rus and trying to survive the storm of the Mongols, ect.

An HRE vassal is good too. Accumulate power within the empire slowly before breaking away and taking on the emperor in an independence war. I did that with Tuscana back in 1.03 and later formed Italy. Good times, lots of opportunity there as well as with the others.

Poland is a rather simple but still fun king-tier game. Lots of options for early expansion.

Denmark is incredibly easy. Eat the eastern pagans for breakfast and begin uniting Scandinavia.

Apulia offers lots of interesting chances for fun. You start with almost all of de jure Sicily, but your family can be a bit of a pain.

Thats all i can think of for independent faction choices. :shrug: Until I see how 1.06 affects the overall balance I'm not going to recommend any of the Iberian kingdoms. Without mods they hardly stand a chance of survival from the 1066 scenario.
My first CKII game was actually with HRE. Though I accidentally picked the king, not a vassal. Oops. Found myself at war on like 3 fronts, which is never good considering I was still learning the basics.

[Kekvit Irae]

anybody looking to learnt his game i suggest watching the lets play on croatia (and initially slavonia) He is not a boring commentators never moves the game quickly so you miss nothing, has a couple funny jokes (i actually laughed a couple times) and narrates what he is doing. he also has tutorial videos.

slavonia incidentally is a decent starting country as well.

If you want to plug someone, at least give a name or a link, because a quick search reveals two people doing a LP of Croatia. One is OfficerDew, who cant be arsed to fix his technical issues in post processing, and has a REALLY intrusive "Funny Minecraft Video" annotation that goes for the ENTIRE video. The other is TekkorGJC, who sounds like he bought his microphone from Walmart. Neither are good examples.
A good example of a CK2 LP, in my opinion, is 1066 Castille, by quill18 (https://www.youtube.com/user/quill18). No long, intrusive annotations, and a good microphone. No post-processing, but he's doing it on a livestream.

[Monk]

Sword of Islam has been officially released on Gamersgate. Still waiting on the steam release, but for everyone else: GET YOU SOME!

http://www.gamersgate.com/DLC-CK2SI/crusader-kings-ii-sword-of-islam

Also released:

Songs of the Caliph:
http://www.gamersgate.com/DLC-CK2SOC/crusader-kings-ii-songs-of-the-caliph

African Unit sprite pack:
http://www.gamersgate.com/DLC-CK2AUP/crusader-kings-ii-african-unit-pack

Even though its ON gamersgate, you'll still have to use the in-game store if you wanna download it. :dizzy:

[Beskar]

I really love the duchy changes, finally, got actual pretty borders!

Also, the new empires are not titular, they are dejure.

There is a great new swarth of Kingdoms in the East, which looks to be interest stepping points to building a glorius kingdom.

Seljuk Turks as a titular Kingdom is removed, and it is simply the Sultanate of Persia. Also the Shia and Sunni Capihilites are no longer in the game, but there are the dejure Empires of Arabia and Persia.

[johnhughthom]

Nice to see a reasonable price for a Paradox expansion.

[Monk]

Seljuk Turks as a titular Kingdom is removed, and it is simply the Sultanate of Persia. Also the Shia and Sunni Capihilites are no longer in the game, but there are the dejure Empires of Arabia and Persia.

Indeed. With the new naming conventions, the Sultanate of Persia automatically becomes the Seljuk Sultanate. It keeps the turks in power, keeps their flavor on the map, but now strengthens them and gives them de jure loyalty bonuses for almost 60% of their starting provinces. Brilliant move on paradox's part to solve their stability problems, and it was one I was going to do myself in my mod. I elevated them to an empire level title but also awarded them the k_persia title to the ruler. It was working like a charm. This change however is much less round-about and accomplishes the same thing. :yes:

I'm running observe games while i wait for the DLC to launch on steam and also updating my mod. So far so good.

Unfortunately Iberia is still the same muslim stomping session it was in 1.05, but i suppose that's why we have mods, eh? :grin2:

[Centurion1]

If you want to plug someone, at least give a name or a link, because a quick search reveals two people doing a LP of Croatia. One is OfficerDew, who cant be arsed to fix his technical issues in post processing, and has a REALLY intrusive "Funny Minecraft Video" annotation that goes for the ENTIRE video. The other is TekkorGJC, who sounds like he bought his microphone from Walmart. Neither are good examples.
A good example of a CK2 LP, in my opinion, is 1066 Castille, by quill18 (https://www.youtube.com/user/quill18). No long, intrusive annotations, and a good microphone. No post-processing, but he's doing it on a livestream.


It is TekkorGJC and im sorry if he isn't up to your standards of lp. I enjoyed it and I learned quite a bit about the game. Hopefully one day I will find someone worthy of being watched for LP's.

He also addresses questions you ask him as I sent in a message to him and he got back to me pretty quickly. Sorry I forgot the name.

[Hooahguy]

Started a game as Scotland. Big mistake.
Ive been through 3 separate civil wars. Two by vassals, one by my brother. Then when I banished him everyone got upset. Most of pretty much everyone is really angry at me for being "a tyrant."

I have no idea how Im still in power. Hopefully my son will do better.

[Centurion1]

Started a game as Scotland. Big mistake.
Ive been through 3 separate civil wars. Two by vassals, one by my brother. Then when I banished him everyone got upset. Most of pretty much everyone is really angry at me for being "a tyrant."

I have no idea how Im still in power. Hopefully my son will do better.

those lairds are bothersome. makes you wish the england would cross the border flying the dragon sometimes....

personally starting out ive found that smaller nations or duchys under a large empire work the best.

[Hooahguy]

Executions in this game are flawed. If a vassal revolts, and you win and imprison him, there should be no penalty for executing him, if you choose to.

In fact, there needs to be a "fear" bonus for your vassals. If I was a vassal and my liege executed another vassal for treason, Id think twice before revolting. In my current game with Scotland, my half brother and one of my vassals revolted. I defeated them and put them in jail. I wanted their land so I could give it to my more loyal vassals, so I executed them both. Banished the other one (my brother). I got huge penalties and the tyrant trait. Seriously?

Now, if you needlessly execute people then yes, you should get penalties, and the more you execute the more severe the penalties should be.

But there should be no penalties for executing traitors.

I hope this is changed in the next patch.

[Monk]

Executions in this game are flawed. If a vassal revolts, and you win and imprison him, there should be no penalty for executing him, if you choose to.

In fact, there needs to be a "fear" bonus for your vassals. If I was a vassal and my liege executed another vassal for treason, Id think twice before revolting. In my current game with Scotland, my half brother and one of my vassals revolted. I defeated them and put them in jail. I wanted their land so I could give it to my more loyal vassals, so I executed them both. Banished the other one (my brother). I got huge penalties and the tyrant trait. Seriously?

Now, if you needlessly execute people then yes, you should get penalties, and the more you execute the more severe the penalties should be.

But there should be no penalties for executing traitors.

I hope this is changed in the next patch.

Feudalism didn't work that way, and the fact that there are penalties represents in a very abstract and simple way how vassals reacted to unlawful displays of their liege's power. The time period covered by Crusader Kings was one where the idea of rightful rule by laws and lineage was pretty much all that any one cared about in the christian world. Ignoring that and murdering someone for their title and their land should have huge repercussions for whoever did that because you're essentially acting completely out of the societal norm set by both man AND God.

When you defeat a rebelling vassal you are allowed to revoke a single title from them (provided your laws permit you to do so) without penalties. Any more than that and your vassals will start to think you aren't respecting the social order of things. From their point of view, the rebel is locked up and isn't hurting anyone, why on earth would you need to take MORE of his titles? It makes them feel nervous, like they could be next, and the game represents this by the tyrany level. It's perfectly fine and keeps you from doing gamey things like trying to hold every county in your kingdom as part of your personal demesne (even though its still kinda possible). If anything, there should be more penalties than there already are to keep a liege from going crazy executing people for no reason - but for an easy to play game like CK2 it's fine as it is.


Banished the other one (my brother). I got huge penalties and the tyrant trait. Seriously?

Yes seriously. Like i said, if you disrespect the social code of conduct your vassals will feel VERY uneasy about their positions beneath you.


But there should be no penalties for executing traitors.

There's no penalty if they die while in your dungeon of natural causes.

[naut]

$10 to play as Islam, when I already could free? Bog off.

[Hooahguy]

Feudalism didn't work that way, and the fact that there are penalties represents in a very abstract and simple way how vassals reacted to unlawful displays of their liege's power. The time period covered by Crusader Kings was one where the idea of rightful rule by laws and lineage was pretty much all that any one cared about in the christian world. Ignoring that and murdering someone for their title and their land should have huge repercussions for whoever did that because you're essentially acting completely out of the societal norm set by both man AND God.
Theres a difference between executing a lord because he insulted your mother and executing a lord because he tried to overthrow you. Hardly unlawful to get rid of a guy who a few weeks before tried to kill/imprison you for whatever reason.



When you defeat a rebelling vassal you are allowed to revoke a single title from them (provided your laws permit you to do so) without penalties. Any more than that and your vassals will start to think you aren't respecting the social order of things. From their point of view, the rebel is locked up and isn't hurting anyone, why on earth would you need to take MORE of his titles? It makes them feel nervous, like they could be next, and the game represents this by the tyrany level. It's perfectly fine and keeps you from doing gamey things like trying to hold every county in your kingdom as part of your personal demesne (even though its still kinda possible). If anything, there should be more penalties than there already are to keep a liege from going crazy executing people for no reason - but for an easy to play game like CK2 it's fine as it is.
As it stands the only way to keep your vassals in line is to butter them up. There needs to be some sort of fear system in place.



Yes seriously. Like i said, if you disrespect the social code of conduct your vassals will feel VERY uneasy about their positions beneath you.
Again, you are ignoring that one of my vassals just rebelled against me They should know that I am their king and I will not tolerate traitors. If they are so uneasy about staying in line then Ive got bigger problems.



There's no penalty if they die while in your dungeon of natural causes.
Yeah, but that can take decades and they still wield some influence.

Again, what Im mainly pressing here is some sort of system where executing a traitor isnt punished, or not nearly as much, as they currently are.

[rickinator9]

$10 to play as Islam, when I already could free? Bog off.

You do know that islamic rulers were in no way, shape or form different from christians, right?

[Voigtkampf]

I don't think that throwing a rebellious vassal into shackles and executing him was ever something that was frowned upon in medieval times. Little bit of flogging and four-horse-stretching-exercise was always good for general moral, eh?

On the topic of fear, yes, fear should be a major factor in the game.

[The Stranger]

i agree about fear, but nobles of a rulers own realm were barely ever executed. If a noble was executed it was usually a foreigner (though usually pow were ransomed i think) or the tudors were in charge. ofcourse peasants were executed all the time.

[Voigtkampf]

I haven't ran numbers, but I recall a lot of history lessons with brothers, cousins and other potential throne pretenders losing their heads without even as much as lifting a finger to start a rebellion. On the other side, the foreign nobles were almost always ransomed, or would usually die forgotten in some dungeon if not enough money was raised.

[Monk]

Good lord trying to rebalance the game post 1.06 has been a nightmare. Think i finally hit a good mark though, once i get the next version of my mod out i'm through messing with balance. So tedious.

Played some as Sevilla and love the new changes. Muslim rulers feel like a completely different game now with the numerous traits, event lines and reworked CBs for them. Piety is pretty much the only stat that matters for them, way more than prestige, its an interesting kind of gameplay. I also love how the hajj event line is essentially a personal adventure for your character. Really fun way to build your ruler and affect him in ways outside of his education.

Decadence is also a pretty fun mechanic, but it's easy to manage as a small dynasty. I'd imagine if i were playing as the Fatimids it'd be much harder, but on as one of the Iberian dynasties it's easy to keep low - and the benefits of doing so are incredibly powerful. Bonuses to both demesne income and morale? I don't think it's overpowered as even with all the bonuses I struggled against numerically superior foes.

The only bad about the changes is how crazy powerful muslims in Iberia are now. They were strong before but the patch didn't even attempt to buff the Jimena brothers, in fact it actually nerfed them a bit. Each of the three northern kingdoms lost de jure territories in the south that they could have used for early expansion. :no: In my mod I've significantly boosted their starting strength to a point where it makes sense but I'm really surprised Paradox didn't just do this themselves.

[Chaotix]

Good lord trying to rebalance the game post 1.06 has been a nightmare. Think i finally hit a good mark though, once i get the next version of my mod out i'm through messing with balance. So tedious.

Played some as Sevilla and love the new changes. Muslim rulers feel like a completely different game now with the numerous traits, event lines and reworked CBs for them. Piety is pretty much the only stat that matters for them, way more than prestige, its an interesting kind of gameplay. I also love how the hajj event line is essentially a personal adventure for your character. Really fun way to build your ruler and affect him in ways outside of his education.

Decadence is also a pretty fun mechanic, but it's easy to manage as a small dynasty. I'd imagine if i were playing as the Fatimids it'd be much harder, but on as one of the Iberian dynasties it's easy to keep low - and the benefits of doing so are incredibly powerful. Bonuses to both demesne income and morale? I don't think it's overpowered as even with all the bonuses I struggled against numerically superior foes.

The only bad about the changes is how crazy powerful muslims in Iberia are now. They were strong before but the patch didn't even attempt to buff the Jimena brothers, in fact it actually nerfed them a bit. Each of the three northern kingdoms lost de jure territories in the south that they could have used for early expansion. :no: In my mod I've significantly boosted their starting strength to a point where it makes sense but I'm really surprised Paradox didn't just do this themselves.

Been playing as Granada myself.

Was doing well for myself until the Pope decided to drop a Crusade on me in 1090 (!!!). Very strange and annoying because, you know, Jerusalem is sitting pretty in Fatimid hands. I am vastly outnumbered, but because of the large counties and heavy movement cost in Iberia, I'm able to take back my counties right after they move to a new one (they sit in the same county till they can take all 4 or 5 holdings). Four wives at once means I was able to bring in three other Emirs on my ruler's alliances alone; the rest don't seem incredibly willing to help, though.

As far as the Jimenas - in my game Castille is actually the strongest state in Iberia right now, as of before even the crusade and due to no effort on my part. The Emirate of Valencia took over Barcelona, but then got swamped by Castille and France on both sides, and Castille took a large chunk of their land in central Iberia. He also took a few holdings each from his brothers, from the looks of it, although Galicia was holding strong as well. The balance of power between myself and the other three Emirates (I kicked out Mallorca and took two provinces from Sevilla but left the two northern ones untouched) is such that we would have to get two of us to take on Castille; alone I would be too far outnumbered.

[rickinator9]

In my game, the christians were dead or near-dead in 1100. Valencia, Seville and Bajadoz all went to war against the christians. While it was good for me(I'm playing mallorca), it's kinda boring to just take on 2 big blobs. I think I should try out Monks tweak mod.

[Monk]

Been playing as Granada myself.

Was doing well for myself until the Pope decided to drop a Crusade on me in 1090 (!!!). Very strange and annoying because, you know, Jerusalem is sitting pretty in Fatimid hands. I am vastly outnumbered, but because of the large counties and heavy movement cost in Iberia, I'm able to take back my counties right after they move to a new one (they sit in the same county till they can take all 4 or 5 holdings). Four wives at once means I was able to bring in three other Emirs on my ruler's alliances alone; the rest don't seem incredibly willing to help, though.

As far as the Jimenas - in my game Castille is actually the strongest state in Iberia right now, as of before even the crusade and due to no effort on my part. The Emirate of Valencia took over Barcelona, but then got swamped by Castille and France on both sides, and Castille took a large chunk of their land in central Iberia. He also took a few holdings each from his brothers, from the looks of it, although Galicia was holding strong as well. The balance of power between myself and the other three Emirates (I kicked out Mallorca and took two provinces from Sevilla but left the two northern ones untouched) is such that we would have to get two of us to take on Castille; alone I would be too far outnumbered.

Interesting, that's a polar opposite of every observe game i've run. This game can be so wacky. :confused: In every test game I ran the poor Jimenas got rocked. 8 out of 10 times they were dead before 1100, the last two times they were still alive but clinging to only a single holding.

From my observations unless the AI unites itself ASAP in Iberia, the northern kingdoms are doomed. Most of their problems come from them wanting to holy war as soon as the game starts. If they choose to press their claims instead, they usually do well, but are still heavily outnumbered when facing the southern powers. I've been trying really hard to equalize the balance of power so that Iberia is more of a 50/50 flip from game to game. Right now I think i've got a 60/40.

In my last test game as Sevilla, Castile united Leon and Navarra beneath its banner and together in an alliance with Galicia invaded Badajoz. Unfortunately for them i had just absorbed Granada and jumped in to defend. Huge battle (that could have gone either way) ended in my favor and I crushed the northern alliance. Afterward, the Fatimids called a Jihad for Galicia and.. well, that was how that test game ended. :laugh4:

Locked down struggling against the might of the Caliph the north was severely weakened. Galicia fell, which opened the way for my eventual conquest once I formed Andalusia.

[Hooahguy]

Update on my Scotland game:

After making sure Scotland proper was settled down, I began expanding into Ireland. Slowly but surely I conquered. A crusade just ended so the Irishmen could only field around 200 men each so conquest was a breeze after I obtained CBs.
My wife died a decade ago so I married the female ruler of the Duchy of Meath, which contained 5 counties.

She had two kids and a husband. Killed the husband, but then she immediately remarried, and got preggers with the new husband. Killed the new husband, then we got married. I then killed her two kids, and when the kid she had with her dead 2nd husband was born, I killed him too. Then we had a daughter.

But before I could kill my wife so I would inherit the Duchy of Meath, I died.

So I (in the reincarnated form of my heir) killed my dads wife, but I didnt inherit her lands. So I had to conquer Meath as well.

And then I married the heir of Norway, but then the King of Norway chose a different person to be his heir so now Im just married to a princess of Norway. Well, time to kill the Norwegian heir.

Anyways, Im now the ruler of Scotland and Ireland. My vassals are mostly happy, and peace reigns, as I look towards England...

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/001/253/everything_went_better_than_expected.jpg

[Monk]

Welp. Manzikert happened, just not how you'd expect...

https://i.imgur.com/kPwBc.jpg

15 year Jihad ends in victory for the attackers. The Seljuks collapse in a decadence related invasion of nomads, Byzantine empire falls into civil war in the aftermath. I swear to god I had nothing to do with this (okay maybe a little, but not in the ways you'd expect! :laugh4: )

[Hooahguy]

Is that the Sword of Islam DLC?

[Monk]

Is that the Sword of Islam DLC?

Yep. 1.06 SoI with a test build of my mod. It was an observer game that i came back to after making dinner. :laugh4:

[Chaotix]

I tried to take a screenshot to show you my game's version of Iberia, but PrintScreen gave me a picture of my desktop instead. How do you take screenshots, Monk?

Anyway, I managed to white-peace the Crusade, somehow. I pretty much had to stall around until Mauretania decided to pitch in, and then things got interesting. First, our combined 7000-strong stack got pulled into battle with the King of England's advance guard, which allowed the Pope's bigger stack to come in and crush us right off the bat.

So... I frantically waited around for troops to regen while they started sacking my territories in earnest, with me unable to quickly take them back. In the meantime, my 85-year-old Emir died and was replaced by his grandson, who promptly died of Typhoid Fever and was replaced by his son, a 13-year old. However, with the deaths came the money that my heir had been storing up from the county I gave him - enough to hire a band of mercs and sustain them, in fact. So I sent the mercs off to sack Rome in the meantime while my 500-man army played damage control with allied reinforcements. I managed to keep my own realm from being entirely conquered for long enough to take almost all of the Pope's holdings (he never bothered to defend them, and the mercs actually paid for themselves what with all the conquering they did) - and I was around positive 30 warscore with around 6 of my own holdings conquered when the Pope sued for peace. Feels good, man.

But I think things are going to get only more interesting in the future. Castille now holds approximately half of the Iberian peninsula all by itself. I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to combat them - I'm afraid not offensively, for at least a while. I'll post a screenshot if I can figure it out. It's wildly different from most Iberian cases I've been hearing about, and it's actually kind of impressive.

[rickinator9]

I tried to take a screenshot to show you my game's version of Iberia, but PrintScreen gave me a picture of my desktop instead. How do you take screenshots, Monk?

Anyway, I managed to white-peace the Crusade, somehow. I pretty much had to stall around until Mauretania decided to pitch in, and then things got interesting. First, our combined 7000-strong stack got pulled into battle with the King of England's advance guard, which allowed the Pope's bigger stack to come in and crush us right off the bat.

So... I frantically waited around for troops to regen while they started sacking my territories in earnest, with me unable to quickly take them back. In the meantime, my 85-year-old Emir died and was replaced by his grandson, who promptly died of Typhoid Fever and was replaced by his son, a 13-year old. However, with the deaths came the money that my heir had been storing up from the county I gave him - enough to hire a band of mercs and sustain them, in fact. So I sent the mercs off to sack Rome in the meantime while my 500-man army played damage control with allied reinforcements. I managed to keep my own realm from being entirely conquered for long enough to take almost all of the Pope's holdings (he never bothered to defend them, and the mercs actually paid for themselves what with all the conquering they did) - and I was around positive 30 warscore with around 6 of my own holdings conquered when the Pope sued for peace. Feels good, man.

But I think things are going to get only more interesting in the future. Castille now holds approximately half of the Iberian peninsula all by itself. I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to combat them - I'm afraid not offensively, for at least a while. I'll post a screenshot if I can figure it out. It's wildly different from most Iberian cases I've been hearing about, and it's actually kind of impressive.

F11 let's you take screenshots.

[Beskar]

f12, f11, shift+f12. shift+f11 and there is f10 too and shift+f10, I think.

[Monk]

After over a month of solid testing and experimenting with my mod, it's nice to look at this game as a source of recreation again. I had very nearly forgotten how addicting it can be. Nearly.

I absolutely love how "easy" it is for muslims to expand in SoI. You can gobble up a lot of territory, but you're always at a risk of a crippling succession crises and the rise of new dynasties to replace you, should you become too decadent. Striking the balance is an incredibly fine line and it's one that encourages expansion and smart title management. I love it. It fits my play style perfect.

1.06 SoI w/ TweaksMod

Andalusia in 1101

https://i.imgur.com/opBnx.jpg

Started as Sevilla and with my meta game knowledge of which were the best counties, struck out hard and fast against my neighbors and stole away the best provinces that I could. From there, it was a juggling act of getting more and more piety while pressing de jure claims from usurped titles. The new county conquest CB is fantastic, but it can drain your piety quick if you aren't careful.

The Northern Kingdoms are still alive despite making some real bonehead moves, which I can hardly blame them for. I defeated them soundly in 1075 at the Battle of Toledo when my Sultan rode to the aid of his worst enemy at the eleventh hour. The stuff of poetry really. After that, Castille fell into a succession crisis and sapped most of its strength. The King of Navarra declared holy war for Aragon which set the peninsula on fire. Everyone jumped in trying to defend their faith. Everyone that is but the good Sultan of Andalusia (me), who used the crisis as an excuse to annex many of the smaller powers in the south of spain. By the time the war ended, Leon, Castille and my greatest enemy and rivals the Dhunnunid Emirate were all shadows of their former selves.

I used the opportunity to anex Beja and numerous provinces from the weakened powers. Time will tell how things shape up but for now, everything seems to be running rather smoothly. To be honest the Holy War for Aragon is what really tiped the balance in my favor. Castille and Leon were powerhouses before that, now? Heh. Their kings have been significantly weakened by the lost of piety and the gradual decline of their demesne size from the many internal wars they've been forced to fight.

https://i.imgur.com/FLMM8.jpg

Jerusalem has fallen to Western Crusaders, led by the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. She's really the only true power of Western Europe at the moment. France has suffered multiple crown authority wars and has seen their power fall to dust. They are trying hard to get back on their feet but after I threw out their attempted invasion of Iberia five years ago, they look really shaky. They somehow managed to get a foothold after that, not sure how. Probably gonna to put an end to that within the next decade or so.

https://i.imgur.com/ZXyUW.jpg

A new power is rising on the shores of the Baltic. Oh my, this is a new trend in my mod and something rather unexpected, but I am loving it nonetheless. The limitations now imposed for fighting Holy Wars now means that these guys have a huge chance to breathe where before they did not. I'm watching with great interest what happens..

[Kekvit Irae]

A new power is rising on the shores of the Baltic. Oh my, this is a new trend in my mod and something rather unexpected, but I am loving it nonetheless. The limitations now imposed for fighting Holy Wars now means that these guys have a huge chance to breathe where before they did not. I'm watching with great interest what happens..

Wouldn't limitations on a Holy War give the Mongols a free ride to conquer all of Europe? They can do Tribal Invasion, whereas everyone else has to do either De Jure or Holy War to reclaim territory lost to them.

[Monk]

Wouldn't limitations on a Holy War give the Mongols a free ride to conquer all of Europe? They can do Tribal Invasion, whereas everyone else has to do either De Jure or Holy War to reclaim territory lost to them.

Not really. While the mongols get the tribal invasion CB which targets king level titles, they're really not as stable as they were back in 1.03. Ever since 1.04 i've seen a lot of games where they have serious stability issues, the Il-Khanate is really bad for that. In my games it's never a coalition of nations that defeats the mongols, it's the mongols breaking up due to 50 independence wars at once that kills them, if they get killed at all. :shrug: And thanks to the decadence changes, if the horde converts to islam they become a joke almost immediately. They hit 100% decadence within two years of converting, which gives them over a 50% penalty to morale and a huge income hit. It's rather funny actually.

Thus far I have not observed the AI unable to win Holy Wars, the only difference is the speed at which they are willing to declare them. I have an AI modifier running on the CB entry that tells the AI it cannot consider the CB valid until it's character has 150 piety. Once it hits that 150, it starts scanning for a good place to Holy War. The introduction of the timer hasn't in any way inhibited the ability of the AI to win, it only limits the time it takes to expand using only a Holy War CB. The Crusade CB has not been altered in any way, so that doesn't affect the timer either.

To be honest I could never get a reliable test at the Horde dates due to the Hordes always converting and falling into infighting. If it does affect the late game to a degree that it's unbalanced in favor of horde factions I suppose i'll have to think of something else, but in the first 200 years it solved a lot of the game's issues.

[Monk]

Double post:

I should pay you kekvit because you give me the best ideas: Special "Horde Fighter CB" for Christians, untested but basically this is the entry under the tribal_invasion_CB


ROOT = {
OR = {
AND = {
religion_group = christian
FROM = {
OR = {
AND = {
has_landed_title = e_il-khanate
NOT = {
religion_group = christian
}
}
AND = {
has_landed_title = e_golden_horde
NOT = {
religion_group = christian
}
}
AND = {
has_landed_title = e_timurids
NOT = {
religion_group = christian
}
}
NOT = {
religion_group = christian
religion_group = muslim
religion_group = pagan_group
religion_group = zoroastrian_group
}
}
}
}

This lets any christian ruler use the tribal invasion CB against any of the horde factions, and ONLY the horde factions.

https://i.imgur.com/tucAr.jpg

Valid against the horde but NOT Pagan Lithuania.

https://i.imgur.com/45Bj0.jpg



edit 2: Fixed. It now works correctly, allowing christian rulers to declare an invasion of any tribal land, so long as they have the title of one of the hordes. The CB is not valid toward any pagan, christian or muslim group otherwise. :yes:

Edit 3:

Now that I think about it you could probably make it even more inclusive by including AND tags for each of the horde titles. As in instead of one all inclusive OR, break them up into AND brackets that check not only for the title, but to also ensure that the target is pagan. This would limit the Christian's (or whoever's) ability to use this CB on the horde after they converted.

edit 4: HAHA DONE. Original Code updated.

edit 5: AAAAAAAAHHHHH SOMEONE STOP ME.

Noticed that the CB was still subtracting 500 piety for some reason, looked in the on_add flag and there it was plain as day. Paradox has set up the CB to subtract -500 piety from anyone who is not a horde. Simple fix:


on_add = {
if = {
limit = {
ROOT = {
NOT = {
religion_group = christian
OR = {
has_landed_title = e_il-khanate
has_landed_title = e_golden_horde
has_landed_title = e_timurids
AND = {
mercenary = yes
NOT = {
num_of_titles = 2
}
}
}
}
}
}
ROOT = { piety = -500 }
}
}

Now it will check the target to make sure they are not christian before subtracting the piety. The special Muslim Invasion CB still requires the piety. Too much fun.

[Kekvit Irae]

I've been given an idea for a CB. Time to work again...

[Hooahguy]

I had probably the most vicious series of wars recently.
First, I decided that Scotland needed all of Scotland, not just most of it neglecting the very top which belonged to Norway. So I declared war for a de jure on that county and raised my troops.

Man that was stupid. Not only did I lose Norway as an ally and a massive war that saw my entire eastern seaboard under attack, it eventually led to The Wars for Irish/Scottish Independence.
I eventually won The Norwegian/Scottish War, but it cost me many men and coin.
That’s where it went from bad to worse. The king died, leaving his 12 year old son on the throne. Two vassals rebelled, and they were put down within the year. Then another two rebelled, and I had to put them down. Then most of Ireland split off. We were worn down from the numerous wars, so we let them leave since we figured at the time we couldn’t do another war. Big mistake. When we finally decided to take Ireland back, it took almost 15 years of warfare and a marriage (to the Duchess of Leinster) to do so. Pretty intense, sustained warfare sucks.

[Monk]

What a disaster.

Andalusia - 1131

https://i.imgur.com/tKhRu.jpg

Thirty years after the sudden death of Hatim dynasty head and the Kingdom of Andalusia, also known as the Hatim Sultanate, has fallen to hard times.

While succeeded by the capable son Abu II, a terrible succession crisis ripped through Andalusia as the heirs fought for dominance. Abu would win the wars that followed and asert himself as a great leader of men, defeating his half brothers the Emirs of Beja and Granada respectively.. but he soon had to pay the price of his father's ambition and successes. Embarrassed by their defeat at the hands of the Andalusian muslims, the French king declared Holy War for Valencia. The powerful Almoravids declared support for Andalusia, but the French had friends of their own: the HRE. Fresh off success in conquering the holy land, the Emperor lent his crusade hardened army to the use of the French King. And what a war that followed.

Thirteen years of conflict and tens of thousands of lives lost on both sides. The Almoravids fell into succession crisis when their Sultan died at the Battle of Alacant in Denia province. But still, the Andalusia forces refused to surrender, continuing to win victories and bounce back from every defeat incurred. That is.. until the loss of their great sultan. Both sides had been playing the assassination game, and in a cunning ruse, the Sultan of Andalusia was lured to an old, run down tavern one night while on campaign..

https://i.imgur.com/CKKrK.jpg

With his death, his heretical half brother assumed the throne - sparking a second succession crisis. Facing opposition at home and a renewed assault, the new Sultan folded and accepted the terms of peace. Greatly weakened by the war losses and the internal problems that comes with being a heretic, the new Sultan was unready for the Second Crusade. Swelled with confidence by the Holy Roman Emperor's capture (and successful defense) of Jerusalem, the pope declared that the Second Crusade would be targeted upon Iberia, to lend aid to the beseiged northern kingdoms of Leon and Castille which still clung to life.

https://i.imgur.com/jlTZ2.jpg

The sultan knew he could not hold, but he commited his forces regardless. By the time of the Second Crusade many of the great Andalusian heroes who had risen to fame in the kingdom's rise to power had been lost. Either from old age or lost in the massive war against the french, few men of martial skill remained to lead the glorious armies of Andalusia on the field. The Battle of Aljustrel was a bloodbath, seeing both sides completely wiped out. Crusader forces numbered at 6,000 while the Andalusian army was at 8,000, but through incredible leadership and against all odds the crusaders won the day, despite being outnumbered.

Knowing that reinforcements for the europeans were on the way while his own army was in shambles, the Sultan had little choice but to surrender. The crusader kingdom of Portugal was founded in 1125 as a result of the Second Crusade. The once mighty Hatim dynasty appears as if it's days are numbered...

[Monk]

Pride goeth before the fall.

Andalusia - 1160

https://i.imgur.com/4FBV9.jpg

Ya'far I Hatim was not the most capable to ever wield power over his fellow man, nor was he the brightest. He could not lead an army particularly well. He could not manage finances in a way that a ruler should, and he could not hatch a plot to make breakfast.. but he was persistent. A member of the Ibadi heresy and having taken power over a failing kingdom, Ya'far had mercilessly ground down his opponents through simple brute force of attrition. Every pretender, every opportunist, every man or woman who sought to rise up in Andalusia's time of weakness was mercilessly put down. Against all odds and expectations he had presided over the recovery from the worst defeat ever incurred in the Sultanate's short history.

Two long and ugly wars against the crusader kingdom of Portugal had left Andalusia tired, but she was whole again for the first time in forty years. The Andalusian muslims were a power to once again be feared, and as his successor Abu III took the throne, it appeared that Christendom had reason to quake. Abu III was everything his father was not. A cunning strategist, brilliant manager of money and beloved by his people for his generosity, kindness and piety. In so many words he was the man destined to throw the French from Iberia once and for all and unite the peninsula beneath one banner. With a court well in order, the pretenders to the throne locked away in jail and an army numbering at 20,000 at his command, Abu set out on Hajj to prove his piety to his people. A journey to Mecca...

The Sultan never returned.. The road to Mecca is perilous, bandits, lack of supplies, storms, any number of things could have claimed his life. It did not matter, all that mattered is that he never returned again, his kingdom passed to his newborn son - Ya'far II, and that's when they struck.

https://i.imgur.com/PSqIj.jpg

Weakened severely by the loss of such a great organizer of men and once again divided on both the question of faith and now effective leadership, the Pope declared a crusade to retake southern Spain once and for all. And they succeeded. The old ties to the Almoravids had perished in the terrible, decades long succession crisis that had griped the african power leaving the Hatim Sultanate well and truly alone. Facing internal pressures as well as an enemy supported by all of central Europe, the Hatim power structure was destroyed at the Siege of Sevilla. There, a combined army of mercenaries, holy warriors and the army of the sultanate was utterly crushed by the weight of the encroaching Third Crusade.

You know, sometimes there are games where nothing goes right. :laugh4:

[Greyblades]

Tell me about it, I see way too many messages telling me my ruler took a blow to the head in battle. Nothing like a vegetable king to lose a kingdom over. Doesnt really help that every time I get lucky with a regent's stats some brainless twit replaces him through politics, you'd think they would at least have the dignity to survive long enough for me to execute them once I'm back in power but nooo, they have to die of age 3 days before thier regency is up leaving me without vengeance. Jackass.

[Chaotix]

Ouch.

My own Granada campaign got crushed by a crusade as well (A second one. I survived the first crusade and managed to expand into Aragon, and then the Pope had the courtesy to call another one on me!)

Anyway, been playing as the Sultanate of Rum since then (1080 start). Taking on the Byzantines and all their Orthodox buddies is fun, but decadence is through the roof due to my Seljuk cousins. It would be sitting at 100% constantly if every new dynastic uprising didn't knock it down 50%. Luckily it seems they are only targeting the larger Seljuk Sultanate, though, which is causing the majority of the decadence. It's still a major hit to my desmesne army morale, though. At this point I just want the rebels to win so I can be the one calling the shots in my dynasty and drop decadence down to where it should be.

[Monk]

Ouch.

My own Granada campaign got crushed by a crusade as well (A second one. I survived the first crusade and managed to expand into Aragon, and then the Pope had the courtesy to call another one on me!)

Anyway, been playing as the Sultanate of Rum since then (1080 start). Taking on the Byzantines and all their Orthodox buddies is fun, but decadence is through the roof due to my Seljuk cousins. It would be sitting at 100% constantly if every new dynastic uprising didn't knock it down 50%. Luckily it seems they are only targeting the larger Seljuk Sultanate, though, which is causing the majority of the decadence. It's still a major hit to my desmesne army morale, though. At this point I just want the rebels to win so I can be the one calling the shots in my dynasty and drop decadence down to where it should be.

You can imprison anyone who is apart of your dynasty who isn't your son with no penalties, only their parents will care. Give the person you want to be your heir a large part of your demesne (at least one full duchy), give the rest of your sons baronies or counties if you can. When your heir takes over, ruthlessly imprison his brothers before they can revolt, kill/imprison cousins or keep them unlanded and use them as battlefield commanders. Armies commanded by your dynasty will actively take away decadence as long as you are winning battles and sieges. :yes:

[Chaotix]

You can imprison anyone who is apart of your dynasty who isn't your son with no penalties, only their parents will care. Give the person you want to be your heir a large part of your demesne (at least one full duchy), give the rest of your sons baronies or counties if you can. When your heir takes over, ruthlessly imprison his brothers before they can revolt, kill/imprison cousins or keep them unlanded and use them as battlefield commanders. Armies commanded by your dynasty will actively take away decadence as long as you are winning battles and sieges. :yes:

Yes, that's all well and good, but what do you do if all those decadent family members are in your distant cousin's court all the way out in Persia, and they're still affecting you in Turkey? Can't imprison those ones. Well, actually, I invited a few from the first generation to my court and they accepted because I could press their claims, then I deviously threw them in jail the minute they arrived. The next generation is a bit smarter and in some cases landed themselves, so they won't accept my invitations.

You have to assassinate them to really do anything about, and you can't start plots for the most part so it's going to be expensive, low hit-chance assassins. And they breed like rabbits anyway so there's not much point in doing anything but waiting till my kinsman the Sultan of Everywhere gets overthrown by a mob of angry Everyones.

Once that happens, Rum is small enough that I can take care of it on my own - and they're directly under my jusridiction, as you said.

[Centurion1]

Been playing a wales campaign its a great bit of fun!

United all of wales, the isle of man, and somerset. My old king was a total bamf but this new guy SUCKS

been sticking to only giving my heir land and the brothers get sent off in matrilineal marriages so i dont worry about hem (keep one or two for necessity obviously)

literally nothing on earth worse than a weak heir.

[rickinator9]

Been playing a wales campaign its a great bit of fun!

United all of wales, the isle of man, and somerset. My old king was a total bamf but this new guy SUCKS

been sticking to only giving my heir land and the brothers get sent off in matrilineal marriages so i dont worry about hem (keep one or two for necessity obviously)

literally nothing on earth worse than a weak heir.

Protip: Be the guardian of your heir

[Centurion1]

Protip: Be the guardian of your heir

Protip: give better pro tips if your going to say pro tip. of course i do.

[rickinator9]

Protip: give better pro tips if your going to say pro tip. of course i do.

How do you get a bad heir if you educate him yourself? Just click the best option(usually the top one).

[Kekvit Irae]

Protip: give better pro tips if your going to say pro tip. of course i do.

A protip is something that is blatantly obvious, even to an idiot, so rick did use a protip properly.

http://www.meh.ro/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/meh.ro6021.jpg

[Monk]

How do you get a bad heir if you educate him yourself? Just click the best option(usually the top one).

Genetic traits are hard to overcome, "weak" or "dwarf" can be especially bad. If you get unlucky and end up with a few of the harder to shake negatives then you're in trouble, even if you educate yourself.

[Kekvit Irae]

Genetic traits are hard to overcome

One word: Filicide.

[naut]

Ensuring the best Muslim heir takes the reigns it tough work!

[Centurion1]

meh he had good traits believe it or not then ended up with an indulgent wastrel. its too bad. His father was the wise and his grandfather the merry. This guy is going to be the dumb***

[Hooahguy]

I was actually a moron and totally forgot about educating my heir (yeah yeah I know) and now the king has only one trait: misguided warrior. Or something like that.

[The Stranger]

so how is the muslim expansion? any good?

[rickinator9]

It's really good. €10 isn't that much for unlocking 1/3 of the world and generally getting an unique experience.

[Centurion1]

i agree with muslim expansion though i think they should have had it all form the start, alas thats the way of the gaming industry now a days.

hooah as far as misguided warrior def could be worse options.

[rickinator9]

i agree with muslim expansion though i think they should have had it all form the start, alas thats the way of the gaming industry now a days.

It's called Crusader Kings 2 for a reason. CK1 didn't even have muslims.


hooah as far as misguided warrior def could be worse options.
Martial is generally useless as a king, unless you want to be Alexander the great. Most kings have courtiers or vassals to do their dirty work.

[johnhughthom]

It's called Crusader Kings 2 for a reason. CK1 didn't even have muslims.

I must have dreamt all those muslims inheriting titles in the British Isles then. I'm pretty sure the game was also moddable to make them playable.

[The Stranger]

its quite hard to have a crusader game without muslims :P unless it was only the teuton crusades XD

[rickinator9]

You didn't mention the moddable muslims were christians with another religion.

Edit: This mod looks really interesting: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?612823-MOD-Lux-Invicta/page27

[Centurion1]

It's called Crusader Kings 2 for a reason. CK1 didn't even have muslims.

Martial is generally useless as a king, unless you want to be Alexander the great. Most kings have courtiers or vassals to do their dirty work.

Thats a horrible reasoning for not having them. they did it for a quick buck....

and i said there are worse traits to have. not that it was awesome.

[Monk]

Thats a horrible reasoning for not having them. they did it for a quick buck....

and i said there are worse traits to have. not that it was awesome.

I doubt it was that calculated from having looked through the game files. It's pretty clear paradox had to cut a bunch of stuff they wanted to include at launch like viceroys, a relic system tied directly into crusading, choosing regents and expanding that role in your government, ect. Most of this stuff is actually in the game files but incomplete. Lots of localisation calls left unfinished or event chains that end abruptly, or link to events that don't exist. CK2 is probably going to get a lot of mini-expansions, and i'm fine with that, considering how good the vanilla game was to begin with. Paradox has done enough good to endear themselves to me as a customer that I'm willing to put up with DLC, and the quality of their DLC thus far has only confirmed that decision.

While I like SoI but Paradox sorta shot themselves in the foot in the way they chose to implement it. They gave it to everyone with 1.06 but then asked you to unlock what was essentially already downloaded to your hard drive. Ack. That's going to get under some people's skin for sure. However, the new events, CB types, family system and the decadence mechanics added a lot of depth to the muslims. Something they desperately needed since playing them before didn't feel any different than playing the as the west. There are now two distinct ways to play based on what religion you've chosen and I felt that was more than enough to justify a $10 DLC. Some people probably feel differently though.

[Centurion1]

I'm not bashing paradox they make some of my favorite games. And I'm happy to see them make money because I don't want them failing

[naut]

GODDAMN UPDATES! Argh, that's the third time I've had a really enjoyable dynasty made unplayable because an update knocks over my save file. Anyone know a way to roll back to the previous version (using steam)?

And to make it worse, it's all crappy mutliplayer fixes that I care not one iota for! Insult meet injury. =/

[johnhughthom]

Rolling back isn't an option on Steam.

[Monk]

Rolling back isn't an option on Steam.

This unfortunately. :no:

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Turn off auto update for CK2

[johnhughthom]

Turn off auto update for CK2

Useless when your game is already updated, and doesn't work like that anyway. All that means is that the game won't update automatically, it'll still update next time you start the game. The only real way to ensure Steam doesn't update your game is to put it on offline mode before the new update comes out. Unless they've finally listened to the thousands of complaints about the feature and done something about it.

[Monk]

Useless when your game is already updated, and doesn't work like that anyway. All that means is that the game won't update automatically, it'll still update next time you start the game. The only real way to ensure Steam doesn't update your game is to put it on offline mode before the new update comes out. Unless they've finally listened to the thousands of complaints about the feature and done something about it.

Not to mention that if you tell the game to verify your cache, automatic updates get turned back on without you knowing or steam bothering to tell you. Steam does a lot of things right, but updates are not one of them. :no:

At least not for games of this nature. For MP games the auto update is great

[naut]

I had just won independence from the Fatamid Sultanate and had designs on becoming King of Syria! =(

[Hooahguy]

UGH. WHY DO THEY DO THIS TO US???

I just finished 20+ years of civil war in the Kingdom of Scotland!

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/540680239855424562/B2304A3B7939D0822B4508116AC5B23307631655/

[Chaotix]

Funny, and this patch was supposed to be "fully compatible with 1.06 save games".

My Rum Sultanate game is still going strong, so I actually believed them until I checked this thread. :laugh4:

[rickinator9]

UGH. WHY DO THEY DO THIS TO US???

I just finished 20+ years of civil war in the Kingdom of Scotland!

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/540680239855424562/B2304A3B7939D0822B4508116AC5B23307631655/

I'm pretty sure they are angry because they don't have their de jure counties. I can see some of the counts are de jure of the dukes are 'independent' under your rule. This is what makes them angry.

I myself discovered the benefits of having feudal elective succession if you don't have too many vassals. You can basically just pick the best heir out of your family.

[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?!

https://i.imgur.com/iF65f.jpg

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. :no:

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. =)


---



WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

https://i.imgur.com/iF65f.jpg

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. :no:

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).

6090


---


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).

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 ?

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=6107&d=1341580674

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! :grin2:

[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! :grin2:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=6113&d=1341622966

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]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=6113&d=1341622966

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. :yes:

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. :yes: 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:

Aragon - 1138

https://i.imgur.com/gFeZO.jpg

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. :no:

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. :laugh4:

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:

https://i.imgur.com/SkBnj.jpg

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 :confused: :grin2: 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. :2thumbsup:

[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. :clown:

[Hooahguy]

An Irish minor is a good start. That was my first successful game. Ended up taking over all of Ireland and a part of Scotland over 100 years. Then patch 1.06 came out.

[Zim]

Quick question. Do characters ever give up an ambition? My character's wife wants to be spymaster, but is terrible at intrigue.

[Hooahguy]

I dont think so. At least I havent seen it happen. Maybe it wears off with age.

[Zim]

Here's hoping.

Update: I gained a claim on a small Welsh Duchy, pressed it, and won! But, it turns out it was just to put my daughter in law in charge there, and she now has a higher rank than me. Too bad it wasn't my heir's spouse. :clown: Still, a nice lesson in the game's warfare and diplomacy. Also rid me of some of my spare family members as they joined the new court.

Also, it's tough to find good marriage partners. Minus 40 prestige to marry my son to a courtier and no other women around.

[Monk]

Quick question. Do characters ever give up an ambition? My character's wife wants to be spymaster, but is terrible at intrigue.

All characters can cancel their ambitions to gain new ones as time goes on, but the AI is pretty stubborn. Unless your wife decides she wants to kill someone and starts to plot against them it's likely she will keep her current ambition. There's no penalty for denying a character their ambition unless they confront you about it via events, which doesn't happen often with spouses.


Also, it's tough to find good marriage partners. Minus 40 prestige to marry my son to a courtier and no other women around.

Learn to love betrothals. They were implemented to give players a bit of a jump on the AI. The AI will find good matches for all its important characters within a few weeks of them hitting 16, but are coded to specifically not use betrothals. Keep an eye on the up and coming children of the world and snag them for a betrothal before they hit 16.

Still, sometimes you have to marry a nobody to get a decent spouse with stats. :shrug: The prestige hit is only bad while you stay on the count tier. If you can move up to duke it will barely affect you.

[Zim]

Ok. I'lll keep an eye on her and any events. It may be a moot point soon as the Earl (of Desmond) isn't getting any younger. I'll be switching to his son soon.

Won my first piece of land from Munster. Go allies plus mercs! Funny, Munster's ruler is still a Duke and I'm still an Earl despite having twice the land. ~;p Apparently I can usurp the title for the Republic of Munster, I just need some more money first...

Edit: And...I'm a Duke!

[rickinator9]

Just so you know, there's a new CKII wiki here (http://ckiiwiki.com/Main_Page)

[Zim]

Alright, I bumbled my way along about 100 years over the last day. Lots of ups and downs, the latter of which were mostly my own doing. Revolts, bankruptcy, worries about a shortage of heirs and, most recently a war between my character and and his only heir, a nephew with delusions of Grandeur and a petty dukedom.

Now the Kingdom of Ireland and succession are both secure and I'm not sure what to do. I expanded a very little bit into Wales but I'm not sure if I want to continue. May just focus on trying to get my family members' abysmal stats up.

[rickinator9]

Alright, I bumbled my way along about 100 years over the last day. Lots of ups and downs, the latter of which were mostly my own doing. Revolts, bankruptcy, worries about a shortage of heirs and, most recently a war between my character and and his only heir, a nephew with delusions of Grandeur and a petty dukedom.

Now the Kingdom of Ireland and succession are both secure and I'm not sure what to do. I expanded a very little bit into Wales but I'm not sure if I want to continue. May just focus on trying to get my family members' abysmal stats up.

Unify the Celts!

[Zim]

Well, I do have a number of claims on Scottish Duchies. I'll need to save some money for a merc army or two to put the odds in my favor.

Conveniently Brittany is still independent of France so there's another eventual target.

Alternatively, England is divided and I believe I have a claim on Northumberland. Might be interesting to go that way.

At any rate, short term I'll clean house and keep at Wales as fast as I can get claims. That should give me the boost I need for future conquests while still allowing a breather to improve at managing my vassals and family.

Mini Update: Played a short (1 hour or so) run earlier this evening and pressed the claim of one of my vassals to the Isle of Man. On the home front the Duchess of Ulster and Duke of Connacht married and between them hold a good chunk of my territory between them. I'll have to keep an eye on them, although I do have very high relations with the Duke.

[rickinator9]

Wait for their next succession. New kings in the british isles almost always have succession crises.

[Monk]

Mini Update: Played a short (1 hour or so) run earlier this evening and pressed the claim of one of my vassals to the Isle of Man. On the home front the Duchess of Ulster and Duke of Connacht married and between them hold a good chunk of my territory between them. I'll have to keep an eye on them, although I do have very high relations with the Duke.

Kill the duke and marry the widow :grin2:

[Zim]

Wait for their next succession. New kings in the british isles almost always have succession crises.

Ha. It does seem true this game. England has been a mess, depending on which of their duchies is gunning for independence. I'll have to consider it. I must admit there's a part of me that feels slightly leery of conquering too much because I'm afraid at some point it won't feel like I'm playing Ireland anymore. On the other hand if I want to be anything more than a regional player I'll need to. Decisions...


Kill the duke and marry the widow :grin2:

Ha!. Too late unfortunately. I was wrong. That duke hated me and rebelled when I played a couple hours just now. I beat him, imprisoned him and eventually let him go in my infinite mercy. Then his wife declares was on me. :doh: Since my cruel then King passed and left his Kingdom to his wishywashy son I merely stripped her of her title. Apparently another vassal had her killed off, though, as she died under suspicious circumstances a year or so later. :clown:

Took another Welsh province, and have a claim on a third. I'm briefly helping England in a civil war, although we may butt heads soon as they have some Welsh provinces I'll be wanting. Meanwhile two of my counts/dukes are fighting it out over Ulster for some reason.

[Voigtkampf]

Sword of Islam review by yours truly Monk. (http://www.strategyprime.net/crusader-kings-2-sword-islam-review/) Very nice work.

[TinCow]

Ok, CK2 players, advise me.

CK2 is currently on sale on Steam (part of the summer sale). CK2 itself can be had for $10 USD, and there is an additional pack for $30 USD that includes the following: Crusader Kings II, Crusader Kings II: Dynasty Shields, Crusader Kings II: Mongol Faces, Crusader Kings II: Songs of Albion, Crusader Kings II: Songs of Faith, Crusader Kings II: Ruler Designer, Crusader Kings II: Songs of the Holy Land.

I'm interested in CK2, but currently occupied with other games and any purchase would be for playing later... and I might theoretically never get around to it. I'm fine with spending $10 and possibly never playing the game, but $30 is a lot more of a waste. Is that $30 pack good and worth the extra money?

[Monk]

Ok, CK2 players, advise me.

CK2 is currently on sale on Steam (part of the summer sale). CK2 itself can be had for $10 USD, and there is an additional pack for $30 USD that includes the following: Crusader Kings II, Crusader Kings II: Dynasty Shields, Crusader Kings II: Mongol Faces, Crusader Kings II: Songs of Albion, Crusader Kings II: Songs of Faith, Crusader Kings II: Ruler Designer, Crusader Kings II: Songs of the Holy Land.

I'm interested in CK2, but currently occupied with other games and any purchase would be for playing later... and I might theoretically never get around to it. I'm fine with spending $10 and possibly never playing the game, but $30 is a lot more of a waste. Is that $30 pack good and worth the extra money?

All the DLC is completely optional and, aside from Sword of Islam, is purely cosmetic and only adds small flair to the game. Most of the songs only play at certain points in the game and under different small circumstances. You will never hear "Songs of Albion" if you're not a character in the British Isles, for instance. Don't spend more than you have to.

Getting the base game for $10 is a steal though. Highly, highly recommended.

[Hooahguy]

I think its mostly a waste.
Its mostly music and faces DLC.

[TinCow]

Awesome, thanks for the info. Purchased the base game for $10 USD, and also picked up Legend of Grimrock for $6 USD. :bow:

[Monk]

Sword of Islam review by yours truly Monk. (http://www.strategyprime.net/crusader-kings-2-sword-islam-review/) Very nice work.

Thanks Voigtkampf. Reviews aren't really my thing but it was a fun experience. :thumbsup:

I really hope Paradox adapts a new DLC strategy soon. They need to find a way to uncouple their DLC from their free (and awesome) content patches. I'd rather not see large swaths of the game being locked unless you buy DLC.


Awesome, thanks for the info. Purchased the base game for $10 USD, and also picked up Legend of Grimrock for $6 USD. :bow:

:bow:

[frogbeastegg]

I really hope Paradox adapts a new DLC strategy soon. They need to find a way to uncouple their DLC from their free (and awesome) content patches. I'd rather not see large swaths of the game being locked unless you buy DLC.
This is the new strategy. The old strategy is forcing everyone to buy patches expansions. I'm not keen about the new approach but it's an improvement over the old '3 features and a tonne of patching for £14.99' dealies.

I'm curious to know if Sword of Islam has appropriate music if you do not buy the music pack DLC. It doesn't look like it based on what I've seen, and I had review code for both so I can't test it myself. If you have to buy the music separately that's pretty crazy!

[Monk]

This is the new strategy. The old strategy is forcing everyone to buy patches expansions. I'm not keen about the new approach but it's an improvement over the old '3 features and a tonne of patching for £14.99' dealies.

Oh dear. :confused: Well in that case it's certainly an improvement but then again it's not hard to improve on terrible.


I'm curious to know if Sword of Islam has appropriate music if you do not buy the music pack DLC. It doesn't look like it based on what I've seen, and I had review code for both so I can't test it myself. If you have to buy the music separately that's pretty crazy

I have maybe 200 hours in CK2 and i am ashamed to admit I have no idea if they added new music in SoI. I never noticed if they did and play 90% of my games with the game's music off. I know they released "Songs of the Caliph" for a microtransaction but that only had two songs in it.

[rickinator9]

I really hope Paradox adapts a new DLC strategy soon. They need to find a way to uncouple their DLC from their free (and awesome) content patches. I'd rather not see large swaths of the game being locked unless you buy DLC.


I get your point, but this is the best way it can be done. There's people who actually play multiplayer. If they would not have the files on their build, while the guys with the DLC would, they would not be able to play together. Add more DLC and you have got a community that is so divided there's not enough players for multiplayer.



I'm curious to know if Sword of Islam has appropriate music if you do not buy the music pack DLC. It doesn't look like it based on what I've seen, and I had review code for both so I can't test it myself. If you have to buy the music separately that's pretty crazy!

I never noticed any new music whatsoever. I think that's what the music dlc is for.

[Beskar]

FFFF- 75% off Swords of Islam.

[Monk]

FFFF- 75% off Swords of Islam.

This is truth. SoI can be grabbed for $2.50 for the next 34 hours on steam.

[Zim]

A few pics from my Ireland campaign.


The mighty Kingdom of Ireland, plus the Isle of Man and Welsh possessions. Since Irish unification the Isles have teetered between the three powers of Scotland, Ireland, and England. The last few decades have seen Ireland as the most powerful of the three as the other two Kingdoms were split between a King and independent dukes. However, just as Ireland enters a new phase of expansion both Scotland and England have gotten their acts together and if England finishes off the sole remaining independent Duke in their lands they may be on top again.


https://img850.imageshack.us/img850/5904/irelandb.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/850/irelandb.jpg/)


The King of Ireland, a trusting sort skilled at diplomacy but poor at intrigue.


https://img217.imageshack.us/img217/3015/kingmq.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/217/kingmq.jpg/)


The rest of the map. The two "Roman" Empires are the major powers. France has remained strong and is attempting to bolster a failing reconquista. Iberia is a mess. Meanwhile, in the east the Fatimids are undoing the French Levant.


https://img43.imageshack.us/img43/7940/worldra.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/43/worldra.jpg/)

[Monk]

Very impressive maps, Zim! :bow:

Looks like the Seljuks have imploded, which may explain Byzantine dominance. Momentum in Armenia can really determine a number of things for that area of the map and i've seen it go either way, with a trend toward Seljuk/Fatimid dominance. Hopefully the Byz will slow down the Hordes, provided they stay alive!

[TinCow]

This is truth. SoI can be grabbed for $2.50 for the next 34 hours on steam.

Is that something I should be grabbing to along with my $10 CK2?

[Monk]

Is that something I should be grabbing to along with my $10 CK2?

If you ever plan to play a Muslim ruler than absolutely. I wrote a short review of it for Voigtkampf's site but allow me to sum up as best I can. SoI is essentially an expansion pack that splits CK2 into two very different but very fun worlds of gameplay. Playing Muslim is completely different than playing Christian with that DLC and is all sorts of fun. $2.50 is an unthinkably good deal for everything you're getting.

If you never plan to play on that side of the map, however, then feel free to ignore it.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Just picked it up. Guess I should play as a Muslim now. :P

[Centurion1]

its only 10 dollars now. i want to die.

[Zim]

Quick question, my level of Crown Authority says wars between my vassals are forbidded but Ulster and Connaght have gone at eachother repeatedly over the last few decades. Am I missing something?

[Monk]

Quick question, my level of Crown Authority says wars between my vassals are forbidded but Ulster and Connaght have gone at eachother repeatedly over the last few decades. Am I missing something?

They are still permitted to fight certain wars against each other. A lower vassal may still try to depose his direct liege even if CA is at medium.

If you have multiple King titles, or control multiple de jure areas, remember that the laws interact with their de jure areas only. Say you have the King of Ireland title and raise CA to medium: this applies to every province that is considered de jure (lawfully) apart of Ireland. Provinces that fall outside of that de jure (for instance, those that belong to Scotland) will NOT be subject to those laws, even if you are the de facto ruler of those lands.

This is also true if your vassals claim land that belongs outside a de jure kingdom. So if some of your dukes have provinces that fall outside of Ireland's laws, say in Wales, they may fight each other over possession of those Welsh provinces because they aren't considered to be affected by the crown laws of Ireland.

[Zim]

Interesting. In this case lands outside Ireland isn't yet an issue. I've pretty much been adding them to my demesne. I'll have to keep an eye on and provinces I give away there.

[Chaotix]

Interesting. In this case lands outside Ireland isn't yet an issue. I've pretty much been adding them to my demesne. I'll have to keep an eye on and provinces I give away there.

A word of advice, especially apt in the British Isles: if you get enough territory to create or usurp another kingdom, don't do it. Not if you don't want vassals to constantly be rebelling and plotting to take control of that kingdom from you, anyway. It gives them an extra -25 (I think, may me more/less) to opinion if they're a Duke in a kingdom that is not your primary title, and they will desire it.

Instead, wait until the provinces de jure drift into your kingdom (check the de jure kingdoms tab, it takes 100 years) and once you have converted all the territory in that kingdom, create it as a titular title.

[Monk]

This game is $10 on Steam for another hour and a half.

And from all indications a ton of people took steam up on the chance. The average number of simultaneous players for CKII has jumped a full two thousand. Talk about a rousing success for Paradox.

[rickinator9]

And from all indications a ton of people took steam up on the chance. The average number of simultaneous players for CKII has jumped a full two thousand. Talk about a rousing success for Paradox.
I think we can also assume many players have picked up SoI before the sale. Pdox wouldn't be so crazy to sell a month old DLC at such a price.

[LeftEyeNine]

For a game that has 25 pages of discussion, let me be the total idiot:

Should I get this game ?

Edit: such question as in "what makes this game stand out ?"

[rickinator9]

For a game that has 25 pages of discussion, let me be the total idiot:

Should I get this game ?

Edit: such question as in "what makes this game stand out ?"

You should totally get this game. The game doesn't focus on warfare(what most medieval games do), although that doesn't mean there's no warfare. The game shows how it must have been to be a medieval ruler. You can choose to play a king with vassals or even one of those vassals. There's also the intrigue and trying to become more powerful(like going from a duke to a king).

I'm pretty sure there's also a demo on the steam page.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

And to think Paradox was initially worried this game would be a no-profit labor of love...

SoI is so crazy. Started a game as Cyrenicia, it feels more like I'm waging an Ork WAAAAAAAAGHHHH than CK2 as a Christian. The Hajj and Ramadan things are neat. I also like only superficially caring about the succession, vassals, and diplomacy. Your half brother revolted? Round up da boyz and stomp 'im! Dirty Alexandrian Shiites think they can holy war me? They don't got enuff dakka! Killemall!

Next stop, the Caliphate! Get im boyz! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Monk]

And to think Paradox was initially worried this game would be a no-profit labor of love...

I think it's a big help to the game's popularity that it's relatively easy to learn while at the same time being a surprisingly fun and deep game. The fact that it's character driven instead of faction driven is what has me hooked so much. Well that and it's pretty fun, though it looks like Paradox support is slowing down for the game. 1.05 had hotfixes nearly three times a week, but we've only gotten one big hotfix for 1.06. Probably cuz they didn't break everything this time! :laugh4:

I guess that's a good thing in a lot of ways. It lets me mod without worrying about porting everything over again every couple days.

[rickinator9]

Well that and it's pretty fun, though it looks like Paradox support is slowing down for the game. 1.05 had hotfixes nearly three times a week, but we've only gotten one big hotfix for 1.06. Probably cuz they didn't break everything this time! :laugh4:

Most Paradox employees are on vacation right now.

[Hooahguy]

Its truly amazing how one can go from stable to chaos in such a short time.
My Kingdom of Scotland was doing fine until my king died. Both my male heirs had died so a decade before I married someone and had a male son. So he inherited at age 10.

The entire kingdom revolted save for a few counties. At first it was just one vassal. I held him off with the help of mercs. Then another revolted. Then England attacked, claiming all of Scotland. I had no forces left and all my cities were under siege, so I surrendered Scotland. I only had Ireland left. Then a vassals claimed Ireland, and she had 3,000 soldiers and I had none. So I let her become my new liege. Now I am the duke of roughly half of Ireland. I was able to put down a smaller revolt by one of my vassals but its rough.

Amazing how I went from rags to riches in roughly 3 years.

[Chaotix]

Its truly amazing how one can go from stable to chaos in such a short time.
My Kingdom of Scotland was doing fine until my king died. Both my male heirs had died so a decade before I married someone and had a male son. So he inherited at age 10.

The entire kingdom revolted save for a few counties. At first it was just one vassal. I held him off with the help of mercs. Then another revolted. Then England attacked, claiming all of Scotland. I had no forces left and all my cities were under siege, so I surrendered Scotland. I only had Ireland left. Then a vassals claimed Ireland, and she had 3,000 soldiers and I had none. So I let her become my new liege. Now I am the duke of roughly half of Ireland. I was able to put down a smaller revolt by one of my vassals but its rough.

Amazing how I went from rags to riches in roughly 3 years.

I think you mean riches to rags. :laugh4:

Wow, that's a real horror story though. Never had something that terrible happen to me. I've had big crises like that, but they always came once I was already a big shot. So I remained mostly in power but lost say a few provinces to rebellion and had to spend the next ruler's reign getting them back, one duchy or county at a time.

[LeftEyeNine]

Its truly amazing how one can go from stable to chaos in such a short time.
My Kingdom of Scotland was doing fine until my king died. Both my male heirs had died so a decade before I married someone and had a male son. So he inherited at age 10.

The entire kingdom revolted save for a few counties. At first it was just one vassal. I held him off with the help of mercs. Then another revolted. Then England attacked, claiming all of Scotland. I had no forces left and all my cities were under siege, so I surrendered Scotland. I only had Ireland left. Then a vassals claimed Ireland, and she had 3,000 soldiers and I had none. So I let her become my new liege. Now I am the duke of roughly half of Ireland. I was able to put down a smaller revolt by one of my vassals but its rough.

Amazing how I went from rags to riches in roughly 3 years.

I agree it's amazing a game can evolve like that.

I'm being tempted.

[Hooahguy]

Wow, that's a real horror story though. Never had something that terrible happen to me. I've had big crises like that, but they always came once I was already a big shot. So I remained mostly in power but lost say a few provinces to rebellion and had to spend the next ruler's reign getting them back, one duchy or county at a time.
Tell me about it. One minute I was the proud ruler of Scotland and Ireland. The next, Im barely holding on to a sliver of Ireland.

And yeah, I meant riches to rags. Oops. I guess I was just so shocked that my mind involuntarily put the latter first in an attempt to deny what just happened. :laugh4:

[Nigel]

I kind of had an up-down experiene like that - although not quite so dramatic.

In my current (and so far first and only) game I started as a duke of Saxony in the North of the HRK.
Several of my rulers ruled as dukes, some of them very succesfully. I kept thinking "a nice goal for this game would be to become Kaiser some day". Then, all of a sudden one of my rulers has the chance to usurp the Danish throne and become King of Denmark (while still a vassal of the HRK).

Great!
Only now the old Kaiser dies and of course his son gets elected. So with a young Kaiser on the throne it seems ages for a new chance to run up for the emperor's robes. But the young lad becomes greedy, revokes a few titles, banishes a few dukes and soon gains the title "The Cruel". Everyone hates him and it is not long before the first lords rise in rebellion. My own luck raises, I keep making friends and some month later I find myself as candidate for his succession - leading the Duke of Swabia by 1 vote. Now I seize the moment and initate a plot to, well, get rid of the unpopular Kaiser. There is no shortage of supporters and soon I can place the imperial crown on my head.

Excellent!
I have gone from Duke to Emperor in 1 generation.
But now I realize in what a mess the HRE is. I have to give away titles and offer white peace left and right; even surrendering to some lords' demands for independance becomes inevitable. At the same time my own son, although married, has two daughters and believes in pleasure in Heaven more than fun in this world - making it highly unlikely that a grandson will be born from my heir.

I soon realize that I will never get the support needed to elect him as successor for the HRE and that all I can do is to use my emperors power to give him a good start when, after my death, he will inherit the crown of Denmark and the Duchy of Saxony. Now my new goal is: "let's see how I can stabilize my realm and ensure the survival of my dynasty".

[Hooahguy]

I kind of had an up-down experiene like that - although not quite so dramatic.

In my current (and so far first and only) game I started as a duke of Saxony in the North of the HRK.
Several of my rulers ruled as dukes, some of them very succesfully. I kept thinking "a nice goal for this game would be to become Kaiser some day". Then, all of a sudden one of my rulers has the chance to usurp the Danish throne and become King of Denmark (while still a vassal of the HRK).

Great!
Only now the old Kaiser dies and of course his son gets elected. So with a young Kaiser on the throne it seems ages for a new chance to run up for the emperor's robes. But the young lad becomes greedy, revokes a few titles, banishes a few dukes and soon gains the title "The Cruel". Everyone hates him and it is not long before the first lords rise in rebellion. My own luck raises, I keep making friends and some month later I find myself as candidate for his succession - leading the Duke of Swabia by 1 vote. Now I seize the moment and initate a plot to, well, get rid of the unpopular Kaiser. There is no shortage of supporters and soon I can place the imperial crown on my head.

Excellent!
I have gone from Duke to Emperor in 1 generation.
But now I realize in what a mess the HRE is. I have to give away titles and offer white peace left and right; even surrendering to some lords' demands for independance becomes inevitable. At the same time my own son, although married, has two daughters and believes in pleasure in Heaven more than fun in this world - making it highly unlikely that a grandson will be born from my heir.

I soon realize that I will never get the support needed to elect him as successor for the HRE and that all I can do is to use my emperors power to give him a good start when, after my death, he will inherit the crown of Denmark and the Duchy of Saxony. Now my new goal is: "let's see how I can stabilize my realm and ensure the survival of my dynasty".

Wow that sounds intense! Ruling over the HRE cannot be very enjoyable at all.

What Im finding interesting about my current game is that after I lost kingship Im basically where I was in my last game when I tried to unite Ireland.

Though I wont be playing this game for a while. Too involved in Skyrim.

[Chaotix]

So... my Genius Brilliant Strategist Sultan of Rum with all positive traits and two military skills, who was passing his time killing rebels...

Now, you're thinking I'm going to say killed or maimed in battled. Nope. He got plot-assassinated at the age of 22 by one of his jealous stepmothers. Threw the whole realm into chaos for two decades until his heir came of age, and it completely threw me for a loop.

It makes complete sense in-context of the game, though. When it happened I first thought "Why him??" and then I thought "Oh". I had been putting down a new decadent uprising every 20 years or so, with my decadence back up to 100% before I could even put down each rebellion. My kinsman the Seljuks of Persia had finally lost their own dynastic uprising, so the opportunity was ripe. This Sultan decided he was going to purge the entire realm of Seljuk rulers except for the royal family (it was getting bad - the Hashashin were starting to wipe out my courtiers). And he was successful - too successful, in fact. I guess imprisoning some of those half-brothers of his came back to bite him in the end.

None of his three sons turned out to be Geniuses or even Quick, unfortunately, but my new Sultan is a Grey Eminence, and pretty much finished the job his father started. AND married off all his stepmothers to get them out of the house. My jail had about 80 Seljuks in it at its peak.

So now my plan is to keep a dynasty consisting solely of my Sultan's immediate family, and imprison all brothers and their children upon succession to keep the family small. Unfortunately after a good 40 years as vassals the Seljuks of Persia have taken back their throne... I'm gonna have to find some way to get rid of them once and for all. I can't go back to having 100% decadence all the time.

[rickinator9]

Ugh. That's... terrible. I can't even imagine what it feels like having more than 25% decadence. I usually just kill all of my brothers once I succeed. It's almost starting to feel like a tradition.

[Zim]

Thanks, Chaotix. It's too late for the Kingdom of Wales, but I'll keep that in mind about any other Kingdoms I get a chance to usurp.

I just had a four hour or so session. Very little territory changed hands but it was one of the most eventful I've had.

Some quick Highlights:

-King of Ricard, after initial setbacks, singlehandedly saves the Andalusian Crusade, but thPope sees fit to give all the conquered land to Scotland. Satisfied at having done his duty, he returns home and strengthens the dynasty, securing marriage alliances with Britanny, Norway, and the Holy Roman Empire. For a time his eldest daughter Derborgaill is his heir, but several sons are born and Ricard II stands in line to gain the throne. War with England breaks out over their repeated attempts to fabricate claims on Irish lands and Ricard I passes before the war ends. Young Ricard II and his regent finish it, adding the English held realm of Gwent to his lands (around the same time the Duchy of Ulster singlehandedly conquers Galloway, which had split from Scotland). Shortly after, his regent attempts to have him killed. He succeeds scant days after Ricard II comes of age (right as I'm pausing so I can imprison him). Now the even younger Gilla-Patraic becomes King, with his halfsister (he was born by Ricard I's second wife, a Norse Princess) Derborgaill as regent. Derborgaill, having bided her time and played the innocent for the long years since losing the heirship, has Gilla killed (in the same manner as Ricard II even. A hunting "accident") and becomes the Queen of Ireland at the age of 22. Heir heir is a son with an older sister....he better watch out.

One of the most interesting things about this is that I would have expected some trouble or even rebellions from going through three rulers in a few years. While both the young Kings received mixed attitudes to their ascension, the new Queen is almost universally loves. I was even able to release the Duke of Connacht, who had -100 relations with Ricard and had to be jailed. She also has respectable stats (better than her brothers') and a matrilineal marriage with a Prince of the HRE. I hadn't considered it previously but this turn of events might be worth starting an aar...

[Chaotix]

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...

[rickinator9]

Thanks, Chaotix. It's too late for the Kingdom of Wales, but I'll keep that in mind about any other Kingdoms I get a chance to usurp.

I just had a four hour or so session. Very little territory changed hands but it was one of the most eventful I've had.

Some quick Highlights:

-King of Ricard, after initial setbacks, singlehandedly saves the Andalusian Crusade, but thPope sees fit to give all the conquered land to Scotland. Satisfied at having done his duty, he returns home and strengthens the dynasty, securing marriage alliances with Britanny, Norway, and the Holy Roman Empire. For a time his eldest daughter Derborgaill is his heir, but several sons are born and Ricard II stands in line to gain the throne. War with England breaks out over their repeated attempts to fabricate claims on Irish lands and Ricard I passes before the war ends. Young Ricard II and his regent finish it, adding the English held realm of Gwent to his lands (around the same time the Duchy of Ulster singlehandedly conquers Galloway, which had split from Scotland). Shortly after, his regent attempts to have him killed. He succeeds scant days after Ricard II comes of age (right as I'm pausing so I can imprison him). Now the even younger Gilla-Patraic becomes King, with his halfsister (he was born by Ricard I's second wife, a Norse Princess) Derborgaill as regent. Derborgaill, having bided her time and played the innocent for the long years since losing the heirship, has Gilla killed (in the same manner as Ricard II even. A hunting "accident") and becomes the Queen of Ireland at the age of 22. Heir heir is a son with an older sister....he better watch out.

One of the most interesting things about this is that I would have expected some trouble or even rebellions from going through three rulers in a few years. While both the young Kings received mixed attitudes to their ascension, the new Queen is almost universally loves. I was even able to release the Duke of Connacht, who had -100 relations with Ricard and had to be jailed. She also has respectable stats (better than her brothers') and a matrilineal marriage with a Prince of the HRE. I hadn't considered it previously but this turn of events might be worth starting an aar...

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.

[Centurion1]

so your good at the game?

[rickinator9]

so your good at the game?

Somewhat good. I usually don't get any revolting vassals unless it's either:
1: The start of the game
2: Muslim relatives
3: Regency
4: A foreign vassal

[Chaotix]

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.

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.

[rickinator9]

If you play a ruler without dynastic heir, it's really annoying when your wive dies from disease while pregnant.

[Chaotix]

If you play a ruler without dynastic heir, it's really annoying when your wive dies from disease while pregnant.

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.

[The Stranger]

plot killing suddenly stopped functioning for me. even when im well over 100% plotpower I no longer get the option to execute the plot. yesterday it was working fine :S anyone experienced something similar?

[Chaotix]

plot killing suddenly stopped functioning for me. even when im well over 100% plotpower I no longer get the option to execute the plot. yesterday it was working fine :S anyone experienced something similar?

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.

I've had a lot of practice with the Seljuks. My Sultan plot-assassinated at least 10 Sultans of Persia in nearly as many years (most of them children; interestingly enough they kept sending the maid to smother them, you'd think after the 5th one kicked the bucket they'd get the hint not to trust the maid!), and it has made them incredibly weak for the coming Ilkhanate invasion. Many more Seljuks (though not Sultans) have been killed via hired assassin, though, and still more have been imprisoned. As of 1209 or so, I have the dynasty reduced to maybe 12 male members that are not in jail, and that includes my Sultan, his three living sons, and one grandson. With the dough I've got rolling in I can put together enough funds for a new assassin every 2-6 months depending on the cost, and it shows.

[The Stranger]

yea i read about it now, but its weird because i started a new 1.06 game yesterday and i still got those 75% and 90% chance descisions. then i started another one today and it was suddenly gone :P