View Full Version : Crusader Kings II
EDIT:
Don't forget to check out our awesome Crusader Kings II Modding general thread, linked in my sig!
Contests and Giveaways
Somewhere along the way we got it into our heads to play this game with fabulous prizes on the line!
The first Crusader Kings II Challenge was held with the ultimate goal of returning the old Roman Empire back to it's de jure glory. You can read about the player's attempts to do so in the thread here: Crusader Kings II Challenge - An Empire Divided. (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?141150-Crusader-Kings-II-Challenge-An-Empire-Divided)
Will we do future challenges/contests? Its a possibility! If you have ideas for one, don't be afraid to post and tell us :yes:
Original Post:
You cannot hide from me orgahs. I can see some of you playing it on my friends list!
I need some opinions on this one. The first was always a curiosity that I never took the time to get into. But ever since my 200+ hour love affair with EU3 I find myself giving serious consideration to any paradox grand strategy. And this ones no different.
Thoughts? Opinions? Is it as buggy as to be expected from a paradox release? Is it really rough? I played the demo but sadly its a touch limited (with no save!). So i am at a loss as to its overall quality.
For those curious the launch trailer is below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzkVTDfxIUI
Voigtkampf
02-16-2012, 22:44
I played the preview version, and really liked the new style of gameplay (more realistic than general medieval strategy games, this being more of a strategic RPG), alas, with so little time recently, I couldn't really go into depth. Now I am still struggling with finding some time for the full game, just managed to play for half an hour so far, but I once again like it. So far there is only one issue that can ruin your day, and that is the fact that AI seems to be able to carry out assassination attempts galore, not really requiring any money for it, and being utterly relentless in it. It reminded me somewhat of my old M:TW days with my spy rush tactic; I'd mass spies in a certain country, move to the neighboring one, stay there one turn, rebellions break out (there were a LOT of spies there!) and I move to the next province. Rinse and repeat. Here, the AI seems to be cheating with assassinations. But its not a gamebreaker.
CountArach
02-17-2012, 08:10
This potentially could be my favourite Paradox release in years. The characterisation is immensely deep and the gameplay is really challenging. The AI still does some implausible things, as with all Paradox titles, such as France attacking into Spain against the Muslim countries. The game has an incredible amount of depth, with all your Baronies, Towns and Bishoprics having their own 'courts' that will plot and scheme against each other to try to get the best results fo rhtemselves. You can just let it play out as they want or you can assassinate people who you don't want any more.
Think of this as Game of Thrones in a real-world context.
Its out? Damn, I lost track of the days in my SWTOR binge, I was gonna buy this one the moment I read a good review (and probably even a bad one). There goes by drinking money :laugh4:
Indeed. It snuck onto the market over Valentines Day if i recall. I was too busy then or I would have made a thread on release.
I played the preview version, and really liked the new style of gameplay (more realistic than general medieval strategy games, this being more of a strategic RPG), alas, with so little time recently, I couldn't really go into depth. Now I am still struggling with finding some time for the full game, just managed to play for half an hour so far, but I once again like it. So far there is only one issue that can ruin your day, and that is the fact that AI seems to be able to carry out assassination attempts galore, not really requiring any money for it, and being utterly relentless in it. It reminded me somewhat of my old M:TW days with my spy rush tactic; I'd mass spies in a certain country, move to the neighboring one, stay there one turn, rebellions break out (there were a LOT of spies there!) and I move to the next province. Rinse and repeat. Here, the AI seems to be cheating with assassinations. But its not a gamebreaker.
Sounds like something that will get a patch eventually. :yes: I didn't notice that in the demo, but to be fair, i was so busy trying to keep things together in the demo that I really couldn't do anything else! The tutorials really dont feel like they give you half the information you need, especially when it comes to the council mechanics.
This potentially could be my favourite Paradox release in years. The characterisation is immensely deep and the gameplay is really challenging. The AI still does some implausible things, as with all Paradox titles, such as France attacking into Spain against the Muslim countries. The game has an incredible amount of depth, with all your Baronies, Towns and Bishoprics having their own 'courts' that will plot and scheme against each other to try to get the best results fo rhtemselves. You can just let it play out as they want or you can assassinate people who you don't want any more.
Ah the blue blob returns. It seems its a continuing problem in these types of games! :laugh4: Hopefully that will get balanced as I saw a number of threads complaining about it on the paradox forums. I know the feeling about the depth, i only got a taste but what I tried i definitely liked. I was really shocked by how little control most Kings begin the game with, with your vassals scheming and (at times) warring with one another. I have to admit I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to stop my vassals fighting each other until I realized I couldn't. Not without major law reforms that take decades to implement.
frogbeastegg
02-17-2012, 15:42
I've been playing this for serialised review on 'Matchsticks for my Eyes' so a lot of my thoughts will end up there. I'll link when the first part goes up. All the same, it will be nice to discuss a little.
CK2 makes my inner medievalist go squee. It's complete gravy for anyone with an interest in the period. The 'time machine' and historical characters are the subject of my first serial article, so for now suffice it to say I'm impressed.
Design-wise, they have addressed some of the biggest gaps in CK1. Female inheritance is finally present and inheritance laws are one giant step closer to historically correct for the majority of Christendom. Barons and mayors are present. Plots and intrigue are in. Crown authority is reworked. There's a wider array of religions, although you are still limited to playing as a Christian. Empires are in. Anti-Popes have come to town. There's a lot of additions.
For the most part it's fair to say that when it comes to games like EUIII et al I'm more a fan of the concept rather than the execution. CK2 addresses some of my long-standing Paradox grumbles, and may well manage to field several others. It's too early to tell on issues like AI quality or gameyness. I can say that it's got atmosphere, personality, and IMO is intuitive and plays quite sensibly - although that could be due to the ungodly number of medieval history books I've read. It doesn't feel like it's missing chunks of content - yet. The music is simply wonderful.
The game is fantastic at producing stories. Everywhere I go people are reporting awesome games. Everywhere except here, gah! Since I know I won't be using this material in the serial, here's a recap of my first go. It's in the form of wall of text stream of conciousness I'm afraid, sorry. I'd edit it into better shape but then it would lose half the feel. I set out to play as the King of Sicily in the Third Crusade scenario and ...
"Gah! I've accidentally picked the eldest son instead of the king of Sicily. I can't be bothered to restart; I'm first in the succession anyway so I'll be king sooner or later. In the meantime I'll stay peaceful and build up my demesne, then I'll have a stronger base to crusade from. Wars? Rebels? More wars? Yet more wars? What's my AI father playing at - is he trying to get us all killed!? Now his vassals are rebelling too and are headed for *my* lands! ARGH - quick, mercenaries! Oh no, oh no, oh no - Muslims! Bankruptcy! Phew, just about survived, now maybe I can disband my armies and get a bit of cash. More rebels! Nooooo! Yes! AI Daddy has won his war and made peace. I survived. Somehow. Just. Now I have no money and most of my armies are dead. Oh, he's giving me a lot of new land in Africa. That's nice. Wait - it's all completely useless: no levies, no income, nothing but a bunch of angry Muslims until 20 years have passed from conquest. Gee, thanks AI Dad. Another war?! More rebels! But I nearly had some actual money for once, why me!? Argh Muslims again! Oh no, my useless African lands are invaded - quick, to the ships! Over 2,000 more Muslims! Bankruptcy! I'm doomed, doomed forever! Foiled plots in my court! Oh look, some male relative is trying to steal my ducal title, also more rebels. My chaplain has turned heretic, off to prison you go. I have none of the money, ever. Argh, Muslims! Yay, little brother came to my rescue in one province. Oh, AI Dad won another prestigious war and here's me hanging on by the skin of my teeth fighting the bajillions of invading armies he attracts without reward or recognition. Bah! I should rebel against him if I ever get some money. Oh confoundations - more rebels all over everything! My new chaplain has turned heretic. Woo, take that, imprisonment for you rebel count dude! Now to arrest the other rebel vassal I just defeated - argh he escaped and has rebelled again! It's not fair, it's just not fair at all! Now what? My spymaster's been arrested by Byzantium - dastardly scum! Ok, re-rebelling escaped prisoner dude has no army except his castle garrisons so while I can hardly hurt him, he can't hurt me at all. Hey - the Pope sent an army in after rebel dude. That's nice. But why? I don't understand. Oh well, gift horse and mouth and all of that, let's just be happy that hideous death has been staved off for a bit longer. AI Daddy released my levies so I can scrape together an army to finish to escaped rebel re-rebel dude. And done. The realm is quiet at last. My armies consist of 3 guys total because everyone else is dead, but now maybe I can have some peace since dear AI Daddy isn't at war with anyone and the last crop of rebels are all dead. And breathe.
Oh noes, more messages! Two more useless African provinces for me? Thanks AI Dad. I'm going to start plotting your murder now because it's clearly a case of you or me. Woo, Children at last! I was beginning to think that the happy couple couldn't figure out what to do. It 'only' took them 9 years. Twins. Better and better. Whaaaaat!? You have got to be joking! The boy has the trait 'drooling moron' and the girl hates me because from the hour of her birth she's planning to usurp my titles. Nooooo! Doomedness unto the next generation! Wait! I'm impressed with her go-get attitude and if I kill her brother she can be my heir. Now, to save up 50 gold and pray I get lucky. Should I kill AI Daddy or moron boy first? Hmm, decisions decisions. 38 gold, getting close to murder time - argh my second brother's trying to kill me. I'll hunker down and pray I keep getting lucky in the defensive rolls since I can't afford to do anything about him yet. My third chaplain has gone heretic - is it something in the drinking water? 45 gold, nearly, nearly. More wars! There goes all of my gold. I was so close to the 50! I am cry. There go the rebels again. And there go my vassals, sick of serving a bankrupt army-less weakling. Argh, Muslims! GIANT Muslims! I'm just going to sit here quietly and hope they don't head in my direction since 100 chaps with pitchforks won't manage to kill nearly 3,000 chaps with swords. Oh hurrah they're going to kill the Pope instead! That's fine. Argh, different Muslims all over my African lands again! What a surprise: my character died of stress leaving a 1 year old drooling moron to inherit. My new chaplain has accused one of my best vassals of heresy, suppose it makes a chance from becoming a heretic himself. Now his sister is trying to kill moron boy. That's good. Then I can be her and have stats better than 0 in everything. Oh wait, my uncle has come to take everything I own including the cookie jar and I have no army and just a single gold piece. Can I be my uncle? No, I can't be my uncle because drooling moron boy isn't dead so I'm trapped as him, unable to do anything at all from my single remaining useless African province waiting for the next blob of Muslims to come party. Damn! This is all your fault, AI Granddad!"
That's 11 years, or 3 hours, worth of play. Fun! Biggest lesson learned: if you accidentally select the wrong person to play as, kill your AI Daddy before he squanders your starting money and leaves you unable to afford assassins. Alternatively: don't be the vassal of an AI liege in a very challenging, aggressive kingdom. Or maybe: when gifted useless provinces, pass them along down the feudal food chain so someone else suffers ... although I'd probably have been required to defend my vassal anyway.
As you may be able to tell from my repeated "Argh, Muslims!", the wartime AI isn't great. AI Daddy sent all of his troops across to Africa whilst his various enemies sent most of their troops over to Sicily. If it hadn't been for my frantic efforts at home defence AI Daddy wouldn't have done nearly as well in his wars. Those useless African provinces were the main cause of my downfall; I had to keep sending my mainland armies over to defend them, leaving me stretched much too thin and having to pay for ships as well as soldiers. If I ignored them then the AI got large amounts of warscore against me and peace became impossible.
I begin to question whether the plot mechanics are off balance. Someone figured out prior to release that due to the way the menu of potential plots works, female characters are blocked from nearly everything. Most of them will only have the option to try and assassinate people. Characters are supposed to initiate plots instead of sitting around like vegetables. Thus it was speculated that there would be a rash of crazed female murderers. Paradox said this wouldn't happen. However, I'm finding that nearly all of the murder plots I learn about are formed by female characters, and that there's quite a few of them occurring once the game's been going for a few years. It's too early for me to say whether it is a problem or not but I'm starting to do that sceptical squint of mine.
NB: If you care about knowing where reviewers obtained their game, my copy was provided by Paradox. Sadly they failed to offer me money in exchange for a 9/10.
CountArach
02-17-2012, 16:21
I begin to question whether the plot mechanics are off balance. Someone figured out prior to release that due to the way the menu of potential plots works, female characters are blocked from nearly everything. Most of them will only have the option to try and assassinate people. Characters are supposed to initiate plots instead of sitting around like vegetables. Thus it was speculated that there would be a rash of crazed female murderers. Paradox said this wouldn't happen. However, I'm finding that nearly all of the murder plots I learn about are formed by female characters, and that there's quite a few of them occurring once the game's been going for a few years. It's too early for me to say whether it is a problem or not but I'm starting to do that sceptical squint of mine.
In my Munster game the only murder plot that I've seen is from my Count's spymaster trying to kill a Bishop so that he can take over as the new Bishop. So far I haven't seen any female murder plots, but then again I'm only about 20 years into one game.
Voigtkampf
02-17-2012, 19:02
...I'm finding that nearly all of the murder plots I learn about are formed by female characters...
If I say "figures-art (in this case game) imitate RLTM", does that make me sexist or simply insightful? :devilish:
But in all honesty, I'd kill for a game that would marry TW series (as far the graphic, combat and gameplay are concerned) with Paradox strategic depth. Wouldn't mind working on one myself.
frogbeastegg
02-18-2012, 12:38
Part 1 of my CK2 serial has been made available (http://www.matchstickeyes.com/2012/02/18/guest-post-one-hour-with-crusader-kings-ii-by-rachel-mcfadden/), if anyone's interested. Behold the time machine! I'm trying to focus these segments on gameplay categories or on neat features which are not being talked about much. I don't intend to go the 'cool story' route since the internet is flooded with them.
johnhughthom
02-18-2012, 12:45
Very nice read, perhaps we should encourage schools to make CK2 part of the history curriculum. :smiley:
Greyblades
02-20-2012, 00:02
Anyone else a little bummed out that you cant take more than one provice per war in this game, or that navies cant attack eachother?
I've got the demo now. I finally finished the tutorials, and played around a little in the main game this morning. I like what I see so far, but it's still early. Love the interaction between & amongst characters, though!
Decided to buy this for a number of reasons. The first being I love the genre and am really wanting something different, the second: I need something to take my mind off ME3 and all the work i've been doing of late. A fresh experience and a change of pace was definitely needed and CK2 gave me that in abundance.
I am assuming the 1.03 patch fixed a lot of complaints because some of the things mentioned, both here and in the official forums, I'm just not seeing. People said crusades need to be stronger, but there's been two successful crusades in my game, and a third is currently underway. People said France is too powerful, but their expansion has been quite tempered and not at all the breakneck blue blob I expected. (it still could use a balancer though)
All in all I am seriously impressed, both by the depth of this game AND how fun it is. I played it for something like 5 hours on Sunday. When i looked up it was time for my first class. :confused:
In typical paradox fashion I scouted around for suggested newbie countries. Everyone suggested either an Irish duke or a german prince to really get a feel for the game in a controlled, relatively safe environment. So to that end I chose Munster in the south of Ireland and set about uniting the Island. I swear its like my family was determined to see everything ruined. After uniting the Duchies of Munster and Connacht my good for nothing heir decided to plot the death of his brother. Under my succession laws all titles held by the ruler are divided amongst the ruling children, so naturally, less children, more for the rest. I attempted to arrest him but failed and ended up in a bloody civil war. Gah!
Won the civil war and spent years licking my wounds. Changed the succession laws so that the oldest child inherits everything. I also killed my good for nothing son in prison, unfortunately that made everyone mad because my Duke was a kinslayer. Look guys. Its not like I wanted to... he nearly destroyed the realm! He was gonna kill his brother! No one wanted to hear anything of it and I ended up in a second civil war ten years later. Double Gah!
The joke was on all of them, after winning two terrible civil wars I ruthlessly confiscated titles from the traitors and expanded the powers of my ruler's personal holdings. My family tree was a mess with those both in prison, those exiled for being traitors and those who were killed in battle, but my ruler was ten times more powerful because of it. I now had the most powerful and no doubt most experience army in all of Ireland, outnumbering my rivals at least two to one in any engagement. With my family finally brought into line I could once again resume my conquest of the island, bringing the rest of the Irish lords to heel. It was far easier than fighting numerous civil wars against my own family, and toeing the line between savior and kinslayer i can tell you that!
About twenty years ago in 1125 I declared myself King of Ireland and am currently trying to assert hegemony over the welsh lords, more out of fear than anything else.. You see France may not be blobbing like crazy in their wars but,you know, lemme just show you.
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/506890852520211631/EA5C3F821483CA3CCCD149CBE2482EFAA68A8B45/
England collapsed in 1115 in a succession crisis that lasted until 1130, numerous lords fought over the crown of england.. but it seems France ended up inheriting everything. Now I'm scared o_o
Ibn-Khaldun
02-21-2012, 11:50
I downloaded the demo and CK2 looks very interesting. However, I am not going to pay 40€ for a game! I guess I'll just have to wait a year or so until it get's cheaper.
My first game has ended in failure sad to say, and it all started when a deposed, imprisoned vassal petitioned the pope to have me excommunicated.
First off, who's the disloyal pahtak that's been allowing him to correspond to people in between torture re-education sessions?
It wasn't enough that I lose a war against the Scots that drained 10 years and thousands of troops (for both of us, scotland split into a civil war following its conclusion) but one of my vassals decided at that moment to try to usurp the crown of Wales away from me and declare himself a King. I'd recently created the title "King of Wales" and gave it to my monarch. I thought it was quite fun, King of both Ireland and Wales and all. :yes:
I was winning the war when all of a sudden my cousin on the throne of England (placed there after I kicked the french out of the British Isles no less!) sides with my rebellious vassal. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhghhggghhh. I still wasn't 100% from the ten year slug fest with scotland, So the English rolled over me and Wales broke away from me as an independent Kingdom. The realm was completely drained and I desperately needed a chance to rest - that's when the deathblow came.
My own brother launched a plot to dethrone my monarch and claim Ireland for himself. Treachery! Civil war! And my own armies were in shambles. As soon as the fighting started I noticed almost all of his forces were intact, while mine were in pieces after almost 18 years of fighting.. had.. had he been deliberately holding back? Can the AI do that?
I don't care. What really matters is I lost the ensuing civil war (quite badly) and it all came to an end. I could have kept playing as I still had a few counties, but my few remaining loyal vassals were such a mess getting out of that hole would be impossible. Game over.
Oh well. 120 years and i'd united all of Ireland/Wales only to be overthrown by a coalition of disgruntled vassals and ungrateful relatives. Family, its a kick in the pants!
I'm a bit frustrated it all ended like that, but this game has surpassed all expectations for me. Absolutely amazing narrative potential and really quite fun, even when you lose.
Tempted. Really tempted.
Perhaps after another 50 hours in Skyrim and after The Witcher II and Deux Ex: HR... But I'm not sure I can wait that long. It's all your fault, Monk, you evil thread about CK II opener :mean:
Tempted. Really tempted.
Perhaps after another 50 hours in Skyrim and after The Witcher II and Deux Ex: HR... But I'm not sure I can wait that long. It's all your fault, Monk, you evil thread about CK II opener :mean:
I apologize for naught. ~D
The game isnt without its quirks, but then, what Paradox game is? Empires especially seem a bit too powerful with both the HRE and the Byzantines being a tad too resilient. I'm really looking forward to further balancing patches for that reason.
Other than that though? I've been completely shocked by how much I enjoy CK2. Its in contention for my favorite grand strategy at the moment.
Anyone else a little bummed out that you cant take more than one provice per war in this game
If you have multple claims, you can choose "Press all claims", if you are doing a Holy War, you fight over a duchy. But other then that, it is a little annoying but if you are desperate, take the prestige hit.
Greyblades
02-22-2012, 17:45
Prestiege hit? You mean for the press all claims bit? That would be nice but I sometimes really want to play the warmounger and its annoying just getting the claims, I would really like the system from EU3 where I could dictate terms and declare war whenever I wanted if I was willing to take the badboy hit. Wouldn't be so bad if making false claims didn't take years of waiting on my chancellor to hit that 10% chance of success.
Ok I've come across an annoying problem, when you are in a succession crisis and one of your vassals that is fighting for independance has its ruler die; for some reason the war is over, yet I dont get the lands back and I lose all claims I have on the land. I've found sometimes that I can just offer vassalization to get them back but I feel I really shouldnt have to go to the bother whne my troops were about a day from winning the siege before this imposed peace.
Honestly it gets really frustrating sometimes when my wars end without a victor because the other side's leader dies, doesnt happen every time but It gets annoying, I really feel I shouldn't have my wars end automatically without my imput.
And yet despite all that I'm still addicted to this game.
Fisherking
02-22-2012, 20:12
My first game has ended in failure sad to say, and it all started when a deposed, imprisoned vassal petitioned the pope to have me excommunicated.
First off, who's the disloyal pahtak that's been allowing him to correspond to people in between torture re-education sessions?
It wasn't enough that I lose a war against the Scots that drained 10 years and thousands of troops (for both of us, scotland split into a civil war following its conclusion) but one of my vassals decided at that moment to try to usurp the crown of Wales away from me and declare himself a King. I'd recently created the title "King of Wales" and gave it to my monarch. I thought it was quite fun, King of both Ireland and Wales and all. :yes:
I was winning the war when all of a sudden my cousin on the throne of England (placed there after I kicked the french out of the British Isles no less!) sides with my rebellious vassal. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhghhggghhh. I still wasn't 100% from the ten year slug fest with scotland, So the English rolled over me and Wales broke away from me as an independent Kingdom. The realm was completely drained and I desperately needed a chance to rest - that's when the deathblow came.
My own brother launched a plot to dethrone my monarch and claim Ireland for himself. Treachery! Civil war! And my own armies were in shambles. As soon as the fighting started I noticed almost all of his forces were intact, while mine were in pieces after almost 18 years of fighting.. had.. had he been deliberately holding back? Can the AI do that?
I don't care. What really matters is I lost the ensuing civil war (quite badly) and it all came to an end. I could have kept playing as I still had a few counties, but my few remaining loyal vassals were such a mess getting out of that hole would be impossible. Game over.
Oh well. 120 years and i'd united all of Ireland/Wales only to be overthrown by a coalition of disgruntled vassals and ungrateful relatives. Family, its a kick in the pants!
I'm a bit frustrated it all ended like that, but this game has surpassed all expectations for me. Absolutely amazing narrative potential and really quite fun, even when you lose.
Interesting you chose the Irish.
Old Irish proverb; “As long as you have relatives you will never want for enemies.”
I have only played about 9 years as Scotland (and that took 4 hours) and have emptied my treasury trying to get my people on my side. Of course my children hate my guts and I have a :daisy: for a spy master. My good Chancellor dropped dead while trying to fabricate a claim.
I don’t know where it is all going but it would be nice to have some cash. Prestige is what I have loads of, just not much else.
Interesting you chose the Irish.
Old Irish proverb; “As long as you have relatives you will never want for enemies.”
Hah! This game seems designed around that proverb then. More often than not, my worst enemies are not dastardly mongols or foreign kings, but treacherous vassals and plotting siblings. Balancing your internal relations while still effectively expanding your influence abroad can be a real headache, but its a good kind!
RPS did a write up a couple days ago on CKII which can be read at this link (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/23/wot-i-think-crusader-kings-ii/). I think they did an amazing job summing up everything i love about this game in quite a humorous article.
Greyblades
02-24-2012, 22:31
So there's this one time, I got bored of messing around with only taking one county at a time and assassinated the entire scottish royal family in one day.
4127
My guy ended up as King Uhtred the Great, King of Enland, Scotland, Wales and Denmark.
Veho Nex
02-25-2012, 00:00
So there's this one time, I got bored of messing around with only taking one county at a time and assassinated the entire scottish royal family in one day.
4127
My guy ended up as King Uhtred the Great, King of Enland, Scotland, Wales and Denmark.
lol, thats great.
I wanna know, anyone want to play MP some time?
Greyblades
02-25-2012, 00:46
Well, I'm game any time between 5PM-2AM GMT on fridays and saturdays, college is pretty uninvolving right now
Veho Nex
02-25-2012, 02:49
Thats between 9am-6pm PST for me. Do you have the game on steam?
Greyblades
02-25-2012, 03:19
Yeah.
scottishranger
02-25-2012, 05:27
Im down. Just name a time and ill try to make it.
The lessons learned from my Irish game are being put to good use as Castille.
https://i.imgur.com/puwnz.jpg
Its been a rocky 120 years but I have emerged as a true force to be reckoned with. Reuniting the northern kingdoms is almost more trouble than it's worth. Since everyone in Spain starts as apart of the same dynasty it means that from the start you're locked in a power struggle with your dynastic ties. My first attempted ended in six years due to my brother assassinating my king and absorbing my kingdom, not unlike what happened in the launch trailer... :sad3:
This go has been punctuated by periods of bloody conquest and pitched battles against rebellious elemants inside my own borders. I'm learning that having "super-duchies", made so by giving more than one duchy title to a noble is a very bad idea. Sure, he may be grateful now - but just wait 20 years down the line. Soon he'll be getting visions of granduer where he can rule his duchies without you looking over his shoulder. After all, he's almost your equal de facto, if not de juro. A marriage here, an assassin there, and he will soon become your worst nightmare. My realm was nearly torn asunder twice by such men.
Over the last 30 years i've been instituting a ruthless campaign of decentralization of my vassals. Thus far it has worked flawlessly, not only in keeping my vassals content that they can boast and brag they are the duke/duchess of x, but with no one man/woman holding enough power to topple their neighbors without a good web of alliances. This is especially the case after I pushed my crown authority to the point where they can no longer war against each other.
The Reconquista is going well but it's not been without its own close calls. The last war against the muslim lords in the south nearly broke the bank and seriously drained my manpower. Of course they didn't come out of it any better, as you can see. Mauretania used to control ALL of North Africa as well as the south of spain, but after my war with them they completely fractured and are fighting for their life in a civil war. I'm watching eagerly to see who wins and rebuilding my strength in the meantime, continuing to consolidate my power.
Elsewhere France has started to chip away at Africa, they came into the Iberian penesular about 80 years ago to fight one of the emirates there, but the ore power they grab the more they pay for it. Their interal strife has kept them occupied for the last 40 years and they aren't much of a threat to anyone right now, which the HRE has abused to take away vast parts of their territory.
Not shown here is a huge empire controlled by the Rus. They've effectively blocked Byzantine expansion and are looking like the top dogs of the campaign. I'm glad I'm on the other side of the map, i'd hate to fight them...
The First Crusade was a rousing success with Poland, of all nations, declaring final victory and capturing Jerusalem. Unfortunately, twenty years after the fact they were thrown out, and the Second Crusade has been an unmitigated disaster. I'm sure the Pope would love for my 20k strong army to join in the fighting but I've got my hands full at home.
This game is way too fun.
Greyblades
02-25-2012, 22:54
Their interal strife has kept them occupied for the last 40 years and they aren't much of a threat to anyone right now, which the HRE has abused to take away vast parts of their territory.
How? I could have sworn it takes over decade of truces and waiting for false claim attempts just to take one provice from someone.
If you build false claims then absolutely it takes forever. Getting real claims through dynastic ties is how you end up getting much larger areas of land at once. I think the HRE took about full 3 duchies within France all within ten years of each other due to that, one flipped without a conflict and from there they just pressed their dukes' claims to gain more.
Fisherking
02-26-2012, 18:34
I keep having problems that I don’t expect.
I make a new title and it tells me I lose claim to my original holdings.
I marry an heir to my lands to a Countess only to find later that the kids took her name and I have no heir. (got lucky twice, I killed her and my eldest son and got the land and my youngest child is heir. There were steep odds against me too.)
Some others were so complex I won’t even go into them but some of this is just baffling and I know the general laws and the lay of the land.
I really don’t understand why my lands could be lost or what to do about it.
I keep having problems that I don’t expect.
I make a new title and it tells me I lose claim to my original holdings.
I marry an heir to my lands to a Countess only to find later that the kids took her name and I have no heir. (got lucky twice, I killed her and my eldest son and got the land and my youngest child is heir. There were steep odds against me too.)
First thing you'd want to do is check the type of marriage you got into. If it was matrilineal that means the children take her dynasty and not the male's.
I really don’t understand why my lands could be lost or what to do about it.
Heirs and succession is really odd in this game and can catch you off guard. You'll want to establish the right succession laws from the very start of your game. Your lands can be lost when by the laws of succession, you lack a capable heir to take over after your current ruler dies. You can see the line of succession for everything (even down to individual cities and counties) by mousing over the coat of arms for that particular holding. Lands of vassals can also be lost to lords outside your realm, so you really need to be ontop of things.
As to what can be done about it? Honestly, if it comes to the point that you get the pop up saying you're about to lose something, chances are its too late to fix it. Assassins can be good for clearing out unwanted lines of succession but aren't viable unless your ruler has high state intrigue. The best way to ensure that your lands stay with you, is to micromanage your heir. Always try to marry your family up in the world. If you're a count, marry a duchess, if your a duke, marry a princess, ect. Always get marriages that propogate your dynasty, not the other guys'. This isnt always possible but its something you should strive for.
One of my favorite tactics after securing a new Duchy is to use the intrigue option to invite a noble to my court. This will give you a new male courtier to use as a pawn. Matrilineal marriages are usually hard to establish, since those with power want to keep their dynasty in control, but a lowly courtier doesn't care, he just wants to move up in the world. So i marry my daughter to him, with the understanding any children will be apart of my dynasty. The very next day, i award the lucky guy his very own duchy. In 20-30 years, my dynasty will be ruling after him. This could create problems down the road (potential pretenders to the throne) but its a good way to spread your bloodlines through the kingdom.
I've also noticed that dukes/counts/barons will institute their own laws of succession below yours. The duchy of Valencia, for example, became the republic of valencia due to the duke instituting open elections for his succession. This caused a huge uproar and led him to declaring independance/starting a civil war with me because suddenly, his government and my government were not working happily together. Other than causing strife, this can have the cause of titles passing outside your realm due to someone having a succession law that says that old guy living under a rock in Germany has more rights to the duchy than you do. To fix that, you'll want to raise crown authority (if you are a king) high enough to the point where titles cannot pass from your borders. If you aren't a king, you have to play the dynasty game and hope for the best.
edit: wow that turned way longer than I thought... :sad3:
Fisherking
02-26-2012, 21:23
The marriage went without warning that it was a Matrilineal marriage. I can live with that. It was something that won’t be repeated.
On the other hand, creating a new title and taking it seems to have cut me out of the first. I don’t understand why.
If need be I will see if I can give away that second title, though I don’t know that having a vassal of equal rank is such a good plan.
My next move will be to get my new County of Cathness holding independent and then as a vassalage to me, and that will be complex, no doubt.
I took a page from you and took Munster. Funny enough, dad was Holey Roman Emperor, via mum of course. And for some reason my younger brother is now in line for that title, but not me.
I was heir to her Duchy but who knows now.
One large bone I have to pick with the game though is that there should be 5 kingdoms and no Duchies in Ireland. That was part of the problem with uniting them.
Still, I don’t understand why I can’t hold Munster and Leinster at the same time.
If you managed to get the island you must have run into the same problem?
The marriage went without warning that it was a Matrilineal marriage. I can live with that. It was something that won’t be repeated.
On the other hand, creating a new title and taking it seems to have cut me out of the first. I don’t understand why.
If need be I will see if I can give away that second title, though I don’t know that having a vassal of equal rank is such a good plan.
You cannot have a vassal of equal rank, period. A duke is lawfully equal to a duke and, therefore, will not be burdoned to take orders from one. Just like a King would not take orders from a king, or a count take orders from a count. In order to hand out duchies you have to establish yourself as a king, in order to hand out counties, you must be a duke and ect.
You must be one level higher on the social ladder than the title you wish to grant. If you give someone a title that is equal to your own they will become independent.
My next move will be to get my new County of Cathness holding independent and then as a vassalage to me, and that will be complex, no doubt.
I took a page from you and took Munster. Funny enough, dad was Holey Roman Emperor, via mum of course. And for some reason my younger brother is now in line for that title, but not me.
Sounds like you're running under gravelkind succession. That means all the titles are split up between the children, with the eldest getting 30% of them, and afterward the other siblings get an even share. Your claim to the throne was likely given away to a brother while you got something else. You should change that asap to primo, so that your oldest son inherits everything. Stay away from Seniority unless you want your 80 year old uncle getting the crown over your 5 star 16 year old son.
edit: it should also be noted that getting someone elected emperor has a funny effect on title inheritance. In my honest opinion I think its a little buggy, but i havent seen its effects enough to say that with confidence. But I've heard stories of people having claims to 4-5 duchies, getting elected emperor, and then losing those claims once their emperor dies.
One large bone I have to pick with the game though is that there should be 5 kingdoms and no Duchies in Ireland. That was part of the problem with uniting them.
Still, I don’t understand why I can’t hold Munster and Leinster at the same time.
If you managed to get the island you must have run into the same problem?
You can, but people don't like it, to put it simply. You'll have to deal with unhappy nobles who see you hoarding all the titles until you unite the island as a kingdom. When i played Irish the very first thing I did was work to change the succession laws, then tried to build ducal claims on my neighbors with my chancellor. All you'll need to do is claim a single county from them, then you can press further claims that you'll get when you hold half a de juro duchy.
White_eyes:D
02-27-2012, 04:23
edit: it should also be noted that getting someone elected emperor has a funny effect on title inheritance. In my honest opinion I think its a little buggy, but i havent seen its effects enough to say that with confidence. But I've heard stories of people having claims to 4-5 duchies, getting elected emperor, and then losing those claims once their emperor dies.I was playing as the emperor of the HRE with Gavelkind inheritance laws(on the Kingdom level) and when my 2nd-gen ruler died some of the titles were passed around to his kids.(Had the 3rd gen-heir Kill his other brothers for their titles...received "kinslayer" from it and had some fun times with that:clown:)
But it seemed to act buggy after that. When my 3rd-gen guy died, it seemed to act kinda like Primogeniture and only the oldest son received everything. While it saved the lives of (most) of his siblings, it was acting buggy with how the bohemian gavelkind law was working and I had to abandoned it.
So there's been some wondering about how strong the Byzantines are in this game, and empires in general for that matter. A lot of people on the CK forums are of the belief its impossible for empires to die in the current balance, well...
I had to post this, ladies and gentlemen I give you the death of the Byzantine blob:
https://i.imgur.com/TH7dc.jpg
Through a combination of internal pressure and cultural tension the Byzantine empire has imploded into a colorful sea of successor states, each one vying with the other for the right to call themselves the heir to the Roman legacy. I have double checked by selecting the Byzantines and looking at their stats. Down to having only 3 vassals and a pitiful 1000 men out of a possible 6000 strong army, the emperor is in DIRE straights. Constantinople is on the verge of falling to siege.
This has COMPLETELY changed the dynamic of the asia minor political situation. I am almost wishing I picked a nation in that neck of the woods just so I could be there to take advantage. Alas, my own kingdom needs my attentions.
Wow that looks really good. I heard they used the same engine in Sengoku, which is just a beautiful game compared to most titles of the genre. Payday soon! You bet this is on the to-buy list.
It really is. I said it before but I think it's worth saying: this game is in my contention for best paradox/grand strategy of all time. Its just that good. I'm really wondering what I missed by not playing the first game and cannot wait for more patches to come for CKII.
I also realize the irony in me posting (initially) to collect other users thoughts, and then ending up the biggest contributor to this thread. :laugh4: I'll try not to post here as much but I did want to offer a few tips to people who have the game but are struggling a bit. I wouldn't call myself an expert but I'm approaching the 200 year mark in my castille game, so that's something at least!
1. Make sure your council is always hard at work. What they do is really up to you but there's two things you ALWAYS want to be doing. First, tell your spymaster to uncover plots in your capital. You have a base chance to always discover plots whether your spymaster is actively counter spying or not, but doing this boosts that chance significantly. If you discover a plot in its infancy and the character who is the mastermind likes you enough, you have a chance to resolve the situation peacefully. If you dont discover it in time it usually leads to a civil war.
Secondly, always, ALWAYS tell your court chaplain to build relations in Rome. Excommunication is the single most powerful tool you can use against your fellow catholics, but you cannot get excommunicated if the Pope likes you. Avoiding getting excommed should be near the top of your priority list
2. Wars are the best way to lose useful characters - never think that this game is like EU3 where characters hardly ever die when in battle. Sieges are bloody, and if you attack a province dealing with an outbreak of a disease it can quickly turn into an absolute mess. This is a bit gamey, but in my opinion you should always tell your king to stay at home (unless you're caught up in roleplaying and want to be the warrior king on the front lines)
Raise your crown authority to anything above Low, that way you can manually assign the leaders of your armies. Give command of the army to people who are either low on the totem pole (courtiers, barons, ect) or Dukes who hate you. You shouldn't have any shortage of people who have at least decent martial stats, so don't worry about that. What you cannot risk is losing your supporters even if you're fighting for your life against a foreign invader. There's no point in winning a war if you lose your most trusted advisers - this is how civil wars start!
3. Always keep an eye on who your vassals are allied with in the allies tab. The natural reaction when seeing your vassal is allied to a lot of your other vassals might be to think nothing of it. Actually, this is the worst possible situation you can ever be in. A vassal who has built a strong web of inner-realm alliances is a far bigger threat than any blob on the map. If he rebels, he's going to bring all those allies against you (unless they like you more).
Inner realm politics is like a constant cold war. You want to limit the personal power of your vassals while maintaining a strong base from which to fight. To that end you should always keep a dimense size of at least 50% your limit if not more. Even if everyone in your realm likes you, all it takes is a bad succession to find yourself fighting for your son's survival against men who his father thought as his best friends. Opinions are fickle, a strong personal army last forever.
It's also a VERY bad idea to give any Duke more than one duchy. From time to time they will get the "desires Duchy X" ambition for themselves, which serves as a negative to their opinion to you. My first natural inclination was to just give them what they wanted, and while this will satisfy them for about a decade, its not long before they start getting too big for their boots and they try to take on the crown for independence. Remember, its all about balance.
4. Keep an eye on the culture of the tutors your children get sent to. Children who grow up with an Irish duke, for example, will take on his culture. Lets say you're playing as France and your wife is Irish so you let her tutor them. Sounds good right? Unfortunately, your children will take on her culture and when they take over your realm, your vassals will hate them because they view them as a foreigner. Always, always send your children to nobles who have the correct culture to be tutored.
On that same note: when choosing a tutor for a child think about what you want your child to become. The card furthest left in a characters traits will tell you what kind of person that character is. You'll see things like "brilliant strategist" "midas touched" ect. Personally, I like to send heirs to get tutored by those with high bonuses to Stewardship and Diplomacy, this will give you a boost to income and relations respectively. I tend to send the second or third sons to get better martial training as I like them leading my armies. With any luck they will die in glorious battle and not even think about contesting the throne when their brother takes over ~D
5. When you take over a new province sometimes all of the vassals who used to serve there get thrown out. Unless you want to control every single holding in a province (making your demesne unmanagably large) you'll need to assign new vassals to those holdings. Dont worry, the game actually rewards you for this since you get more income from cities if a mayor rules them than if a feudal lord (you) does. To create new vassals, bring up the province menu and right click on one of the buildings there. If you can make a new vassal, the "create new vassal" button will not be greyed out.
6. Finally, dont forget to check the "include all lower titles" checkbox when you're handing out landed titles. This will ensure that when you give out a county, all the vassals of that county will go with it. If I want my brother to control county X, then naturally, i want him to be the lord of all the vassals there. If i forget to click that, then while he'll have the title of "count of X", i'll still control most of the vassals who live there. In short this simply allows more power to the people who hold titles in your lands. Some people dont do this and actually limit the power of those beneath them.
Honestly i've seen good arguments on both sides, but I tend toward stronger servants. It makes management less of a headache.
I've learned all of these lessons the hard way. Here's hoping you guys don't have to suffer like I did. :yes:
Well this is what that pause in the GoT forum game did to us :D
Thank you Monk (and lots of other people) for the heads up, got the game few days ago and forged an Hauteville empire from Mauretania to the Nile ^^
Having some lag lately though and I'm trying to sort that out :S
It's a very enjoyable game I must say!
BTW about the dukes, wait to see all your vassals fighting eachother for claims lol
They are still loyal at least...
Duchies are fine to grant on different families, but keep crowns for yourself, gave one to my son and my possessions split, ungrateful youth!
Greyblades
02-28-2012, 21:08
Tell me about it, playing as england, try to conquer Wales and Ireland before one of them gets it in thier head to become king, its a real pain having the duke of glamorgan repeatedly plotting to take one of my crowns.
BTW about the dukes, wait to see all your vassals fighting eachother for claims lol
They are still loyal at least...
Yeah, it can be a real annoyance! When i played the demo I kept wondering why in the world my vassals kept fighting, and why I wasn't getting notifications if they were at war. Come to find out its all in how your realm's laws are set up. I always try to make a beeline up the crown authority tree for that reason. If you push it high enough your vassals will no longer be allowed to fight each other. :yes:
Tell me about it, playing as england, try to conquer Wales and Ireland before one of them gets it in thier head to become king, its a real pain having the duke of glamorgan repeatedly plotting to take one of my crowns.
I think that is a weakness of the law and title system in general. Currently there's no way to actually unify de juro kingdoms, you have to hold them separately. It would be nice to be able to do so or have the ability to form an empire of your own.
If you push it high enough your vassals will no longer be allowed to fight each other. :yes:
Done that and they rose in rebellion to lower it :P
But that's when my king got "the Great", needless to say lots of dukes ended in the dungeons ^^
I agree about unifying crowns or at least being able to become emperor...
Greyblades
02-28-2012, 22:13
There's a mod for making empires, didnt help much, and when I gave one of my vassals the kingdom of england he proceeded to steamroll over Scotland, Wales and Denmark and became so powerful the only thing keeping him from rebelling was the long reign modifier. Caused me to quit right there when it turned out I only had one vassal left, though on a whim I cheated myself some money and I tried to assassinate the kingdom back into my hands, didnt work, all I did was depopulate the english nobility by 50 kings.
all I did was depopulate the english nobility by 50 kings.
lol! XD
Biggest challenges for me in my first campaign were fighting the Great Company hired by the Pope in a claim war for a barony (very tough commander!) and an holy war with the egyptian Caliph, who assembled 12k men, all I had at that time were 3k (got attacked after a war in Kabylia) and I managed to lure them in deserts where they lost 60% of men, then I hired the Hospitallers and was a victory march :P
didnt work, all I did was depopulate the english nobility by 50 kings.
Good lord man, that's not regicide that's genocide. o_o
Biggest challenges for me in my first campaign were fighting the Great Company hired by the Pope in a claim war for a barony (very tough commander!) and an holy war with the egyptian Caliph, who assembled 12k men, all I had at that time were 3k (got attacked after a war in Kabylia) and I managed to lure them in deserts where they lost 60% of men, then I hired the Hospitallers and was a victory march :P
I hear if you give the holy orders titles in your kingdom it significantly reduces their upkeep for offensive wars. I haven't tried it myself, though I was seriously tempted after the Knights Templar saved my behind with a charge at the 11th hour in a war for Granada.
Fisherking
02-29-2012, 08:13
The change of power is the biggest hurtle . I get the idea that if the son is on good terms with dad when he goes, it all goes smooth. If son hates dad it will all go south.
I have to work a real mess out. My first guy married a princess who became a ruling duchess and the empires and commenced to live for ever. Now a bunch of Irishmen are heirs to the HRE.
That kingdom is not going to mesh well with the other. Worse yet, son hates dad which is going to make for a bumpy ride and while dad is known as the wise son will not have that going for him.
It could be a short lived dynasty at this rate.
!!!!!
They made it? And it's out. WHERE HAVE I BEEN!
Had to change the culture of my line of succession through some intrigue. Accidentally got the line converted to English culture by constantly marrying girls of the de Normandie dynasty, when i found that my current heir hadn't taken the culture of his castilian tutor (even though my other children had, for the most part) decided he needed to go.
Sent him on a fool's crusade to take Jerusalem, only problem is he didn't have the good sense to die and instead became a huge hero by winning nearly every battle he was in. Occupied 4 provinces despite me only giving him 5k men to crusade with and just would not die, no matter how many sieges I threw him up against. He won great prestige for the kingdom though, and no doubt recieved a hero's welcome home. That is until he got a knife in the back later that night. Oh sure.. everyone suspects me, but no one can prove a thing. :martass:
The line of succession is Castilian once again, as it should be.
!!!!!
They made it? And it's out. WHERE HAVE I BEEN!
Indeed. That's a good question. ~D
Greyblades
02-29-2012, 16:04
Sent him on a fool's crusade to take Jerusalem, only problem is he didn't have the good sense to die and instead became a huge hero by winning nearly every battle he was in. Occupied 4 provinces despite me only giving him 5k men to crusade with and just would not die, no matter how many sieges I threw him up against. He won great prestige for the kingdom though, and no doubt recieved a hero's welcome home. That is until he got a knife in the back later that night. Oh sure.. everyone suspects me, but no one can prove a thing.
Wow, personaly for such a good general I think I would risk rebellion.
Wow, personaly for such a good general I think I would risk rebellion.
The craziest thing: He was only like martial 4 when i first sent him out, by the time he came back he'd wracked up so many +martial traits he was downright scary. I was seriously tempted to do just that in all honesty as I'm sure he would have made a good King.
Greyblades
02-29-2012, 16:19
I suspect a king like that could take on all his vassals at once, what were you thinking?
I suspect a king like that could take on all his vassals at once, what were you thinking?
Thinking I don't want it all to fly apart so soon after completing the Reconquista. :laugh4: France and I have been in a starring match for the last 15 years and the political situation is getting unstable. Probably going to be war soon and I dont want to give my vassals a reason to be opportunistic when the casualties start to mount.
But under different circumstances you're absolutely right, that guy would have made for a beast. I probably could have conquered all of North Africa and taken on the Shiaa Caliphate with a king that good.
Poor guy - he could have been the greatest King to grace the throne of Castile, to be done away with due to his culture and the threat of internal rebellion while a potential enemy stands at our door. Wasn't even his fault really - too bad. :martass:
I tried being a vassal this time (picked Bohemia), boy you are in for some maltreatment XD
Enemies in the Emperor's court fabricate documents and you end up in the dungeons; seniority succession gives you the worst possible heirs, most of all you can hardly manage peaceful years of reign, long enough to change that bloody law XD
At least you really don't have to worry about foreign enemies, but only your own possession :P
In the end I dropped it, got around stabilizing the duchy by the 3rd (or 4th can't remember) heir, but my demesnes were in such a bad shape, I didn't care to sat down for years and watch them recover...
I'm playing as Harald Hardrada, he is a beast! I got the Lion, Great and Conqueror titles in the same war lol!
Fisherking
02-29-2012, 21:05
Well, there are bugs in the game.
In mine I am still waiting for someone to die before the maelstrom begins. But when I was looking around for good people to invite to court, I noticed England’s southern end is all taken over by someone, so I had a look at who did it.
It turns out that some Arab Kingdom from the southern map edge made an amphibious assault. They seem to have taken everything except Cornwall all the way up to the Welch Border.
I have to assume it is a Baronial War, as York and North Umbria are not at war.
With no naval warfare islands are tough to keep a handle on.
I pre-ordered it, and I'm so glad I did. My first game as the House D'Hauteville was great fun - Robert I of Apulia was a complete badass, who managed to unite the whole of Southern Italy, found the Kingdom of Sicily, and make tentative inroads into capturing the island of Sicily itself before dying at the age of 82. My first son, Bohemond, was a bastard; Robert was an incapable hunchback who died a year before his father; King Guy was king for a mere year before being slain, childless, in battle against the Saracens; and the lustful King Rainulf, my best son, had married the lustful Countess of Passau - in what was apparently a matrilineal marriage. By the time I realised my mistake, Rainulf and Passau had pumped out five sons and four daughters at the age of 31/32, all of some German dynasty. Shortly after, the rule of the House D'Hauteville came to an end in Sicily, despite there being absolutely tons of members of the dynasty hanging around in the Kingdom.
I'm on my second game now, as Duke Ugo d'Este II of Lombardia. Had an excellent game sofar - captured Brescia, lost a province in the Alps to a vassal's stupid marriage, and inherited the Duchy of Apulia from Ugo's mum. Currently, the Holy Roman Empire is engulfed in a ferocious civil war featuring French intervention, who are presumably still annoyed that the HRE somehow got the whole of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Had a particularly awesome war against Bavaria - straight after capturing Brescia from the massive Duchy of Toscana/Capua, Bavaria declared war on me for it, in alliance with Capua. Thanks to the geography of the Alps and an attack by Muslims on the Capuan heartland, I was able to pick off their armies one by one, and render their massive numerical advantage useless. My third daughter came of age, and I married her to the 19 year old King of Croatia - unfortunately, I could not then call him into the war to help me as he was busy fighting for the Hungarian throne. Happily, he dropped dead very soon after, and I married her again to the second son of the brother of the King of Bohemia. Apparently, this warranted an alliance, and Bohemian forces swept into Bavaria like a tide - Czechmate. I fought the Bavarian-Capuan alliance to 100% warscore, and forced them to abandon their claim to Brescia.
It also doesn't feel like it needs many patches, unlike any other Paradox game I've played. Good work guys, this is definitely the best release in years.
Well, there are bugs in the game.
In mine I am still waiting for someone to die before the maelstrom begins. But when I was looking around for good people to invite to court, I noticed England’s southern end is all taken over by someone, so I had a look at who did it.
It turns out that some Arab Kingdom from the southern map edge made an amphibious assault. They seem to have taken everything except Cornwall all the way up to the Welch Border.
I have to assume it is a Baronial War, as York and North Umbria are not at war.
With no naval warfare islands are tough to keep a handle on.
If you played CK I then that ain't a bug, that's standard practice.
CKI was really, really buggy. The current release of DV, the expansion, is still a public beta.
I'm on my second game now, as Duke Ugo d'Este II of Lombardia. Had an excellent game sofar - captured Brescia, lost a province in the Alps to a vassal's stupid marriage, and inherited the Duchy of Apulia from Ugo's mum. Currently, the Holy Roman Empire is engulfed in a ferocious civil war featuring French intervention, who are presumably still annoyed that the HRE somehow got the whole of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Had a particularly awesome war against Bavaria - straight after capturing Brescia from the massive Duchy of Toscana/Capua, Bavaria declared war on me for it, in alliance with Capua. Thanks to the geography of the Alps and an attack by Muslims on the Capuan heartland, I was able to pick off their armies one by one, and render their massive numerical advantage useless. My third daughter came of age, and I married her to the 19 year old King of Croatia - unfortunately, I could not then call him into the war to help me as he was busy fighting for the Hungarian throne. Happily, he dropped dead very soon after, and I married her again to the second son of the brother of the King of Bohemia. Apparently, this warranted an alliance, and Bohemian forces swept into Bavaria like a tide - Czechmate. I fought the Bavarian-Capuan alliance to 100% warscore, and forced them to abandon their claim to Brescia.
Very nicely done there Subotan :bow:
In my experience the HRE are always aggressively marrying among the french nobles trying to get claims, so seeing duchies flip every now and again isnt a big surprise. A bigger surprise would be France managing to stay together. With the latent stability of the HRE France can feel the pressure at times. Sometimes they keep it together and become the BBB we all fear, and sometimes they don't and end up fighting for their starting counties all game.
frogbeastegg
03-01-2012, 21:02
CK1 had a lot of issues. At launch it was barely half a game. Paradox had to scramble to throw something together after a deal with another studio fell through, IIRC the whole game was made in a matter of months. Patches and the expansion helped, yet the game always had holes in its fabric and plenty of bugs. CKII is the game I thought I was getting all those years ago when I preordered CK1, and a good helping more. It only needs more plots and events adding, a few tweaks here and there.
I saw a comment on the official forum about how losing is far more enjoyable than winning. They're right. CKII provides some excellent loss stories, situations where it all goes horribly wrong in a natural and entertaining way. By natural, I mean that it doesn't feel as though the game it out to get you.
Due to various things I haven't had nearly as much time to play as I'd like. CKII is the kind of game which can eat up hours like children eat sweets. One minute it's 4 in the afternoon and I have half an hour before I need to think about cooking, the next it's 8PM and I'm wondering why I'm hungry.
Have I mentioned how much I love the title screen music? I love the title screen music! Each time I start the game I have to sit and listen.
How are people finding the loading times? I'm running it on a freshly defragged drive and it seems to take an age to load, longer than Victoria II AHD despite being considerably smaller on disc.
My second article is out (http://www.matchstickeyes.com/2012/03/01/crusader-kings-ii-feudalism-domain-thing/). It's mostly aimed at new players, and explains the basics of the feudal system and how it works in the game. Basics, not froggy's guide to CKII. I don't know if there are any new players here who do not have some knowledge of the historical feudal system, so maybe someone will find it useful or maybe not.
CK1 had a lot of issues. At launch it was barely half a game. Paradox had to scramble to throw something together after a deal with another studio fell through, IIRC the whole game was made in a matter of months. Patches and the expansion helped, yet the game always had holes in its fabric and plenty of bugs. CKII is the game I thought I was getting all those years ago when I preordered CK1, and a good helping more. It only needs more plots and events adding, a few tweaks here and there.
I saw a comment on the official forum about how losing is far more enjoyable than winning. They're right. CKII provides some excellent loss stories, situations where it all goes horribly wrong in a natural and entertaining way. By natural, I mean that it doesn't feel as though the game it out to get you.
Due to various things I haven't had nearly as much time to play as I'd like. CKII is the kind of game which can eat up hours like children eat sweets. One minute it's 4 in the afternoon and I have half an hour before I need to think about cooking, the next it's 8PM and I'm wondering why I'm hungry.
Have I mentioned how much I love the title screen music? I love the title screen music! Each time I start the game I have to sit and listen.
How are people finding the loading times? I'm running it on a freshly defragged drive and it seems to take an age to load, longer than Victoria II AHD despite being considerably smaller on disc.
My second article is out (http://www.matchstickeyes.com/2012/03/01/crusader-kings-ii-feudalism-domain-thing/). It's mostly aimed at new players, and explains the basics of the feudal system and how it works in the game. Basics, not froggy's guide to CKII. I don't know if there are any new players here who do not have some knowledge of the historical feudal system, so maybe someone will find it useful or maybe not.
Initial load time (first boot up) takes around 45 seconds to 2 min. In game loads (loading saves) are almost instant. I have 8gb of RAM and a well cared for HD though so take that as you will :laugh4:
The Stranger
03-02-2012, 00:36
You cannot have a vassal of equal rank, period. A duke is lawfully equal to a duke and, therefore, will not be burdoned to take orders from one. Just like a King would not take orders from a king, or a count take orders from a count. In order to hand out duchies you have to establish yourself as a king, in order to hand out counties, you must be a duke and ect.
You must be one level higher on the social ladder than the title you wish to grant. If you give someone a title that is equal to your own they will become independent.
Sounds like you're running under gravelkind succession. That means all the titles are split up between the children, with the eldest getting 30% of them, and afterward the other siblings get an even share. Your claim to the throne was likely given away to a brother while you got something else. You should change that asap to primo, so that your oldest son inherits everything. Stay away from Seniority unless you want your 80 year old uncle getting the crown over your 5 star 16 year old son.
edit: it should also be noted that getting someone elected emperor has a funny effect on title inheritance. In my honest opinion I think its a little buggy, but i havent seen its effects enough to say that with confidence. But I've heard stories of people having claims to 4-5 duchies, getting elected emperor, and then losing those claims once their emperor dies.
You can, but people don't like it, to put it simply. You'll have to deal with unhappy nobles who see you hoarding all the titles until you unite the island as a kingdom. When i played Irish the very first thing I did was work to change the succession laws, then tried to build ducal claims on my neighbors with my chancellor. All you'll need to do is claim a single county from them, then you can press further claims that you'll get when you hold half a de juro duchy.
i united ireland in 50 years (3 generations), 50 years later now and i am king of france and ireland XD
it is not too hard to be honest. just take one of the dukes and you should be fine. ursurp all the counts and then you will be able to create the title of king. from there just offer vassalisation to what is left over. they will readily accept, atleast in my case :P
the game is awesome imo but i agree with frogg that it needs more or more complex ambitions and plots. most of the time i can only choose to kill my wife as an ambition and i havent really had any particularly complex or interesting plots. thats the only thing sofar which really dissapointed me. as well as the absence of a quickload button :S now i have to resign and then load from the single player menu again. and every 5 times the game will freeze, tho i am quite sure that is a problem of steam... (i hate steam).
The Stranger
03-02-2012, 00:43
So there's been some wondering about how strong the Byzantines are in this game, and empires in general for that matter. A lot of people on the CK forums are of the belief its impossible for empires to die in the current balance, well...
I had to post this, ladies and gentlemen I give you the death of the Byzantine blob:
https://i.imgur.com/TH7dc.jpg
Through a combination of internal pressure and cultural tension the Byzantine empire has imploded into a colorful sea of successor states, each one vying with the other for the right to call themselves the heir to the Roman legacy. I have double checked by selecting the Byzantines and looking at their stats. Down to having only 3 vassals and a pitiful 1000 men out of a possible 6000 strong army, the emperor is in DIRE straights. Constantinople is on the verge of falling to siege.
This has COMPLETELY changed the dynamic of the asia minor political situation. I am almost wishing I picked a nation in that neck of the woods just so I could be there to take advantage. Alas, my own kingdom needs my attentions.
funny this is the complete opposite of my game. im now in 1170 and i started in 1066. the byzantines are the most powerful nation in the world having complete control of the balkans, minor asia up to the caucasus and the lower part of the boot of italy.
The Stranger
03-02-2012, 00:53
lol! XD
Biggest challenges for me in my first campaign were fighting the Great Company hired by the Pope in a claim war for a barony (very tough commander!) and an holy war with the egyptian Caliph, who assembled 12k men, all I had at that time were 3k (got attacked after a war in Kabylia) and I managed to lure them in deserts where they lost 60% of men, then I hired the Hospitallers and was a victory march :P
as puny ireland i have been owning france in a claim for the french kingdom. i also conquered england but i did not get the kingdom, i just put a different king on the throne. i did own them quite easy but the king was on a crusade so i guess that made a huge difference.
however ive found the following tactic immensely effective and it allows you to win vs much bigger nations (with bigger armies) you hire 2 merc comps and raise your vassals. you combine one army of mercs with your vassals and you send them in first. they will attack the armies of your enemies before they can assemble to form a big army. this way you can dominate a country which can raise thousands of men with just an army of 3000. the other merc army will be used to siege places. and ofcourse ransom back all the nobles you capture to pay for the upkeep of your mercs. this is truly cripling and you need to actively hunt for nobles to pay for upkeep.
in my war vs france i could raise a 1000 levies from my county and vassals. france could raise 8k. however i hired 2 of the small companies, used the above tactic and dominated france. in the end i made so much money from capturing nobles that i could hire all the 5 mercs which were available to me and still make more money by the war than i was losing from paying their upkeep.
sooo... pope calls crusade for ascalon. i go declare on the biggest meanest caliphate, the Holy war for the Ascalon!!! I hire the Templar Knights of NII and raise my vassals for war! I sail to the holy land with 17000 men. I lose like 2000 to artrition on the way. My vanguard of about 6000 men gets attacked by a 12000 strong army of the Caliphate with the Caliph leading the army. My main army arrives just in time to come to aid and we crush their army completely. like 4000 losses vs 11000 kills. I capture the Caliph and end the crusade in one battle! I am happy as can be, impose my demands, claim ascalon and think ye!!!...
turns out i declared war on the wrong caliph for the wrong piece of ascalon -_-
frogbeastegg
03-02-2012, 13:01
Initial load time (first boot up) takes around 45 seconds to 2 min. In game loads (loading saves) are almost instant. I have 8gb of RAM and a well cared for HD though so take that as you will :laugh4:
That's a similar time and setup to my own, so it must be something to do with the game itself. Strange. Vicky 2 AHD loads in almost half the time. Oh well, it's not important since the game only needs to load once per session.
The Stranger
03-02-2012, 14:32
one thing that is really bugging me now is that the kings of europe do not cooperate in a crusade. there are like a bazillion noblemen all declaring their own crusade and occupying different territories. therefor there is no possiblity to get a conclusive victory. resulting in one crusade lasting for a 100 years -_- it should be a joint venture, with possible rivalries ofcourse but if one of the crusading nobleman conquers the territory and another crusader conquers another they should be able to sue for demands together and each gets what they have conquered, thus ending the crusade.
Paradox has posted a post mortem dev diary discussing the reaction to Crusader Kings II. They talk about (in limited terms) what went into making the game, how the game has been recieved, as well as what they have planned for the future. Of particular interest are the things they intend to patch into the game.
So, what are we planning for the future? Crusader Kings II will have many major DLC packs that are actually more like small expansions. Every time we release a major DLC, we will also release a major free content patch. I cannot say exactly when we will be adding what, but here are some things you can expect for free in the coming months:
Enhanced, more focused Crusades with a "contribution" score
Causes of Death
Asking to join an ongoing war
Lots of more plots and ambitions
Events, events, and more events
Improved GUI where it's needed the most (plots, marriages)
Flexible de jure liege structure
More de jure kingdoms
You can read the entire dev diary here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?889-Crusader-Kings-II-Post-Mortem-Dev-Diary
The Stranger
03-03-2012, 00:40
sooo i just became the holy roman emperor, next to being the king of france and the king of ireland on sundays. by god im so busy...
Ways to keep vassals happy #145: have an affair with your duchesses. Her husband was so mad but since she had all the power i got to reap the rewards of a huge +75 bonus to relations. With no consequences i might add since my King's wife was dead. Well, bastards are kinda a consequence i guess. :laugh4:
https://i.imgur.com/QO5QP.jpg
The reconquista has been complete for 80 years, ever since then I've been struggling with both interal politics and trying to curb France's attempts to grab power. I've had mixed success in both areas but overall France simply cannot hold a candle to me. Militarily, culturally or technologically. I can levy 70k men when my vassals are in high approval (35k when they are not) and own 8k from my own personal base. France can only manage a fraction of that. They keep losing crown authority wars and its killing their power in the long run.
To be honest I think I am going to call it a game if and when i push France out of Iberia. This has been one wild ride of a campaign but i feel that would be a good place to hang it up and start again. I've built such a good groundwork that even when civil strife does happen to crop up at home, its easily picked apart and dealt with. I've learned so much about this game from both my Irish campaign and my castile one. If anyone is wondering whether Iberia is worth it, my recommendation is an enthusiastic yes. Its a much more complicated game than Ireland and can teach you the intricacies of vassal/lord requirements. But it requires a bit of luck at the start due to the way claims fall on the different kingdoms.
Here is the world at 1301
https://i.imgur.com/IOVxE.jpg
The Rus looked really strong ending the 1100s but then out of nowhere the horde came knocking. It wasn't even a fair fight if you want my opinion, within 20 years the Horde had absorbed pretty much the entire Russian steppe. They've been marching west steadily since then. A slow dread march that, at the time of this screenshot, just finished swallowing Poland. To be honest I think the collapse of the Byzantines served as a big factor for the Horde to just walk over the steppes - at least initially. With only one threat to focus on they easily steamrolled the Rus and are looking like nothing can stop them. Again, i'm glad I'm over on this side of the map... :sweatdrop:
The HRE is coming out of a full century of internal strife and constant succession wars. They at one point lost pretty much all of Italy to smaller itallian states who took the opportunity to break away, but have since fallen back into the fold, one by one, as the structure of the empire is solidified. Its a good thing the HRE finally got its act together because the Horde has come knocking. The two aren't doing much, but I think its only a matter of time.
The remnants of the Byzantines continue to fight. Syria and Georgia have become the breakout stars of the assorted chaos with both successor states taking over large chunks of the map, Right now either one has a really good chance of going on a conquering spree. Unfortunately, Georgia has lost at least half its territory to Trebizond in a recent uprising. So unless they can reabsorb that soon, i'm not sure about their chances! The lawful ruler of the empire has by now lost absolutely everything and only controls one relatively small blob of land, they've even lost Constantinople by now.. He's currently fighting 6 wars, each of them have the potential to wipe him off the map once and for all.
A surprise has cropped up, legit crusader states! The largest is controlled by Sweden which holds most of Ascalon and the coast. Georgia holds Jerusalem and a stretch of land a bit more inward - together they have successfully defended their little pieces of land for the last 70 years. It's been a sight to see.
Lastly Scotland has become a surprise powerhouse, establishing a firm hold on Ireland and fighting numerous wars against the English since 1230, and winning most of them. England seems hell-bent on attempting ducal claims but each and every time they get sorely beaten.
Here is the world at 1301
https://i.imgur.com/IOVxE.jpg
That's a beautiful map of the world you have. I can only wish the hordes were so successful in my game; alas, it is not so.
In my current game, the Christian world has been divided into 3 great powers, each of them capable of singlehandedly taking the remaining smaller kingdoms all at once. Needless to say, the Mongols are not half the threat as they were historically.
https://img638.imageshack.us/img638/1894/81762237.jpg
In the corner of Europe is my powerful Kingdom of Navarra, controlling all of Iberia, Mauretania and most of Egypt. My policy of scrambling duchies up by splitting every single duchy into one province counties and transferring them to dukes on the other side of the kingdom has made for a fairly stable kingdom despite its massive size. A full half of Iberia and most of Mauretania has converted to Basque culture thanks to my cultural settlement program- my goal is to convert all of Iberia to Basque culture by game end.
https://img571.imageshack.us/img571/401/61032270.jpg
The Holy Roman Empire, ruled by the Von Lenzburg family. Norway became part of the HRE very early on in the game, leading to the Emperor launching crusades into Finland and Russia. They do suffer from some stability problems, however, not least due to the Norwegians and Russian dukes rebelling every decade thanks to long distance penalties/foreigner penalties.
https://img195.imageshack.us/img195/1908/87710959.jpg
And finally: Megazantium. Outcomes like this is why people say the empires are overpowered. Right now, Byzantium has both the Mongol Khanates boxed in, and it has been that way for the past several decades. The Mongols are too scared of the Empire's power to declare war on them, and thus languish in their corners of the map.
https://img196.imageshack.us/img196/4016/92333851.jpg
And finally, the ledger. I am currently leading in military power over Byzantium, but this is with 90% of my vassals being buddies with my ruler thanks to the shared Crusader trait. On the other side, the Emperor has just newly ascended to the throne, which limits the amount of support he has at this point in time. However, in ten years, the power balance would be overwhelmingly in favour of the other side.
A better comparison would be to look at the number of holdings they have- a whopping 727 to my 341, or more than twice what I have. Once they get over their brief period of not-quite-instability, they'll be able to roll over the Mongols entirely.*
Mind you, I'm not angling for world conquest or anything, it just irks me to see the Byzantines strutting around with their gigantic empire while I had to work my way up from my troubled starting two provinces. Pah, silly Romans. :shame:
*Note that the ledger only shows levies. The Mongols actually have much more troops than what is displayed in the ledger, thanks to their event-reinforcements.
The Stranger
03-03-2012, 05:21
i own half of bloody europe and i cant get more than 60000 :S you guys only have spain and top that.
no fair
i own half of bloody europe and i cant get more than 60000 :S you guys only have spain and top that.
no fair
Spain has a ton of manpower apparently. Pushing your levy/crown authority laws to high also is a huge help :D
That's a beautiful map of the world you have. I can only wish the hordes were so successful in my game; alas, it is not so.
In my current game, the Christian world has been divided into 3 great powers, each of them capable of singlehandedly taking the remaining smaller kingdoms all at once. Needless to say, the Mongols are not half the threat as they were historically.
Great maps there, Sylon. Looks like you're quite a bit better at this game than I am. I've had to scrape and claw my way to hold onto Iberia while keeping france at bay, while you've managed the same and taken North Africa decades ahead of me. Well done. :bow:
Good luck dodging the mailed Imperial fist! No doubt if it came to a confrontation it'd be bloody for sure.
As for the balance situation: I don't think the problem is Empires, per say, its more how fast levies seem to replenish. And since empires get lots of levy pools they suffer very little long term penalties for constant civil war, which is the opposite of how it should be. The limited peace options dont help much either. Would like to see the AI not be willing to white peace in civil war situations - since thats usually why wars get dropped, that or the claimant dying early on.
Empires are definitely a tad too resilient in those respects, but I think the HRE is worse than the Byzantines. I've seen a few games where the Byz have imploded now but so far have never seen the HRE go down without some sort of player intervention. :shrug:
As for the Mongols in my game I was really surprised. When they first arrived it looked like they were floundering. I ended up getting caught in a REALLY nasty civil war, so i got distracted. When i looked back about 20 years later the Rus were gone as were a number of Khaganates in the Crimea. Everything was Horde territory. Their slow march west has been scary to watch.
Fisherking
03-03-2012, 08:14
No matter what your goals are, this game is fun.
I took Ireland and inherited the HRE in 1110. But my ambitions are a little different.
I am seriously thing of giving that crown away so I can go back and follow the path I had planed.
Everyone is going to hate an Irishman on a German throne and the whole thing will end up in pieces for a generation or two.
I would also rather that I fight for what I have and not just have it because of who my mother was. It is a great path to power but a very bloody one this early in a game.
It is still basically my fist campaign and I am new to Paradox.
Gosh, I only just discovered how to pick my bishops.
I may still be discovering things two months from now that would have made all this much easier.
There is so much depth in this game I think I have almost every day paused just to take care of some other task.
Within my court I have claims to almost every throne and about a quarter of the duchies of Europe and this is only some 50 years into the game.
The Stranger
03-03-2012, 13:36
Spain has a ton of manpower apparently. Pushing your levy/crown authority laws to high also is a huge help :D
Great maps there, Sylon. Looks like you're quite a bit better at this game than I am. I've had to scrape and claw my way to hold onto Iberia while keeping france at bay, while you've managed the same and taken North Africa decades ahead of me. Well done. :bow:
Good luck dodging the mailed Imperial fist! No doubt if it came to a confrontation it'd be bloody for sure.
As for the balance situation: I don't think the problem is Empires, per say, its more how fast levies seem to replenish. And since empires get lots of levy pools they suffer very little long term penalties for constant civil war, which is the opposite of how it should be. The limited peace options dont help much either. Would like to see the AI not be willing to white peace in civil war situations - since thats usually why wars get dropped, that or the claimant dying early on.
Empires are definitely a tad too resilient in those respects, but I think the HRE is worse than the Byzantines. I've seen a few games where the Byz have imploded now but so far have never seen the HRE go down without some sort of player intervention. :shrug:
As for the Mongols in my game I was really surprised. When they first arrived it looked like they were floundering. I ended up getting caught in a REALLY nasty civil war, so i got distracted. When i looked back about 20 years later the Rus were gone as were a number of Khaganates in the Crimea. Everything was Horde territory. Their slow march west has been scary to watch.
to be fair, the HRE was quite resilient historically :P
No matter what your goals are, this game is fun.
I took Ireland and inherited the HRE in 1110. But my ambitions are a little different.
I am seriously thing of giving that crown away so I can go back and follow the path I had planed.
Everyone is going to hate an Irishman on a German throne and the whole thing will end up in pieces for a generation or two.
I would also rather that I fight for what I have and not just have it because of who my mother was. It is a great path to power but a very bloody one this early in a game.
It is still basically my fist campaign and I am new to Paradox.
Gosh, I only just discovered how to pick my bishops.
I may still be discovering things two months from now that would have made all this much easier.
There is so much depth in this game I think I have almost every day paused just to take care of some other task.
Within my court I have claims to almost every throne and about a quarter of the duchies of Europe and this is only some 50 years into the game.
funny, im in about the same position as you. but it is really annoying to hold the title and you will spend nearly all your time trying to keep your vassals in check and fighting civil wars (definitly after a succesion) so ye... it would be smart to give it away or let it pass to a diff ruler when you die.
Great maps guys:2thumbsup:
My Duchy of Lombardy <3
https://i.imgur.com/oIGGG.jpg
It's on Direct Vassals mapmode, so don't get excited.
My Duchess of Lombardy had three sons - one who was literally an imbecile, and who I assassinated, a second son who was pretty decent, and a third son who I married to the daughter of the Duchess of Capua. I later realised that she was heir to more than just Capua, and that she stood poised to inherit everything there which doesn't border the Po Valley/Apulia. I was fearful for a future civil war in the House of Este, but happily, my second son died tragically, and heirless, leaving Ugo as my future Duke. He then died, meaning that his son Ugo stood poised to inherit everything. However, he only inherited Capua and Modena, thanks to Capua's gavelkind succession policy. I assassinated both of his aunts, and ended up lawfully gaining everything you see there - to be fair, one of them went after me as soon as I inherited (I still bear the scars ;_;) and you could just tell that the other was totally going to. Strangely, I now get half as much income as before, despite still having the strongest military of any vassal of the HRE.
I'm planning to rebel from the HRE with this dude, as soon as my vassals warm to me and I get some allies. Swabia just inherited Bavaria, so they would be good, but Bohemia, Mecklenburg and Brunswick would also be good choices.
Christendom:
https://i.imgur.com/YfuSQ.jpg
The Byzantines have been Byzzy - not collapsing, but neither painting the map an imperial purple. They're doing well for themselves, and I'm happy with their current level of strength. The HRE are doing extremely well, and I think the reason why they always do this is because the Papacy is ahistorically weak. I've pretty much ignored the Papacy the whole game. France is in a state of permanent semi-crisis, with Dukes rebelling every 20 years or so. They've never recovered from that war when the HRE snaffled Aquitaine. All of the Iberian Dynasties are extinct - there is not a single Castillian/Catalan/Basque count. The Moors have recently consolidated into Al Andalus, which is terrifying, as England and France (As well as the HRE) were only able to make inroads whilst they were extremely divided.
England is doing pretty well, and has a nice little Cross-Channel Kingdom. Scandinavia has gone to the dogs, and is complete chaos, as has Poland. Poland were doing really well at one point, and had established a territory as large as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but somehow, a Russian Orthodox inherited Poland and all hell broke lose. That was about a hundred years ago, and most of Poland is now Orthodox, whilst most of the nobles are still Catholic. Rus appears to be doing well, but it's fragile, and I doubt it will stand up to the Horde. Hungary and Croatia are at each others' throats constantly - I think Hungarian internal weakness is the only thing keeping Croatia on top.
Periodically, mercenaries invade the HRE, which causes the Kaiser to freak out and levy all of his reserves. This is very annoying, as the wars themselves often drag on for many many years, as the mercenaries can't be found and destroyed. Anyone else experienced that bug?
The Stranger
03-03-2012, 23:32
omg... my entire empire is going to implode. being the HRE will give any mortal soul a headache 2x as big as his realm.
scottishranger
03-04-2012, 06:02
Still going as King of Sweden. King Erik II the Pious has crushed about 10 revolts in the last 20 years, 4 led by his disgruntled brothers who thought they could rule better than him. Put Erik, despite his piety, has smashed each one in turn! along with that his wife the Queen consort dared to even revolt against me, so I had her imprisoned for her petulence. But... then my only daughter and heir died so I was forced to free her in order to make some sweet sweet babysss! And thankfully its worked and I have a nice baby boy who is growing up nicely. In foreign affairs I have managed to take a county away from Norway.. and thats it seeing as I have had civil wars every few years. But Poland, which was growing into a blob, has just been split in half by the Duchy of Mazovia, which makes me pretty happy right now
The Stranger
03-04-2012, 15:14
do you guys also look to marry your male heir into big houses with agnatic cognatic primogeniture who have a woman as heir. and then wack off the ruler so that your grandson will inherit those holdings?
Fisherking
03-04-2012, 16:13
It is not what I eagerly seek out but I have done that, yes.
But you need to be lucky to get away with it. I even had to kill off a couple of sons to get the job done in the end.
The Stranger
03-04-2012, 16:53
why not? its an easy way to gain land :P
Fisherking
03-04-2012, 19:11
Marrying heirs to heirs takes a lot of research and time. Marrying heirs to rulers is bad because the kids are a different line. They have to be bumped off so you can get an heirs your self.
To me it is too much trouble and too much money spent. It costs as much or more than stealing the thing. If a duke marries a countess or an heiress that is fine but as I usually marry for a good spymaster killing my wife is usually not an option.
Montmorency
03-04-2012, 19:42
Do any of you just play the loyal subject?
The Stranger
03-04-2012, 20:18
no...
btw i encountered something that seems to be a bug. i am currently the HRE and i gave one of my vassals the kingdom of Aragon (which i got by marriage) and she then conquered the kingdom of Leon and made that her primary title. so far so good. she was ofcourse totally happy with me because i gave her a kingdom so she was 100+. now a few years later suddenly she goes from 100+ to 100- and a 103% chance of rebellion...
WHY!!! i dont get this. when i check her status it seems that the +happiness she got cuz i gave her a kingdom have dissapeared but all the + and - that are still there dont add up to -100
Fisherking
03-04-2012, 20:45
There seem to be some problems.
I know when I load up some times it seems everyone has changed their minds and decided to hate me.
I know there are some random factors but they should not jump into saved games.
The Stranger
03-04-2012, 21:02
Marrying heirs to heirs takes a lot of research and time. Marrying heirs to rulers is bad because the kids are a different line. They have to be bumped off so you can get an heirs your self.
To me it is too much trouble and too much money spent. It costs as much or more than stealing the thing. If a duke marries a countess or an heiress that is fine but as I usually marry for a good spymaster killing my wife is usually not an option.
hm i found war to be rather crippling here in terms of eco, even if you are winning it empties your coffers. very different to RTW (or the other TW games after it) where war was about the most lucrative you could do if you didnt care about massacring everybody. i really have to hunt for prisoners of war to make sure i dont go broke :P (this was at the start of the game tho, now i got alot of money due to inheritence and such but still if i would hire mercs instead of rely on my vassals i would go broke)
hiring mercs costs so much and your income is usually rather low (for me just enough to pay for my own troops + 1 1500 merc company, and i own a 9/9 demesne...)
all though i did come across a neat trick, give land to the holy companies and then make them your vassal (make sure you put them in a region with the same culture as yourself) then you can hire the companies for 40 piety instead of 170 and since they are your vassal you dont have to pay for upkeep!!!
Fisherking
03-04-2012, 22:18
You know, I tried to take England in the 1066 as Norway. They had the smallest army and to build up I had to take Mercs.
I didn’t know how long I could keep them going with what they cost of course so I wanted to rush in and kill off what I could and disband them. But I had to bring them all the way form Norway.
To make a long story short, I beat both armies and took England and kept the Mercs to the end.
Each time I took a settlement or county I got money from loot. Sometimes a couple of hundred.
I also used up the Mercs and they got cheaper as they got smaller.
So captured nobles are not the only way money is made from war. Of course the better developed the county the more the money, and I never noticed getting a cent anywhere in Ireland.
The Stranger
03-05-2012, 00:55
ive noticed that those starting scenarios are beafed up. you got a lot more money as the Bastard as well and a huge army...
ive never gained a couple of hundred from looting tho... thats alot. ive gained like 10 to 30 at most... maybe this was before the latest patch?
its possible to duke it out with countries who have 2x as much armies or money as you. i like the way waging war is here, its a real challenge. but its not impossible if you do some good manouvering.
frogbeastegg
03-05-2012, 23:26
Do any of you just play the loyal subject?
I did in one game, as a duke in the Kingdom of Sicily. The AI drove me to utter ruin in the space of a few years. When it wasn't declaring war after war on large Muslim realms, it was giving me useless lands which left me strategically vulnerable. It loved to ignore the enemy armies and the numerous rebellions back home, and, since the AI had taken the troops abroad, I was the only person left to do anything about these massive armies rampaging across my dukedom. Mercenaries are the only reason I survived longer than a year. I spent the entire brief game bankrupt, out-numbered, and fighting frantically to survive. Each time I managed to pull through the AI would give me more useless provinces and over-stretch my resources. By useless I mean zero income, zero manpower, super-high revolt risk due to different religion and culture, and across the sea. Each time I scraped my way to almost-recovery after the last war, off the king would go on a new one. I swear that my liege had a trollface avatar!
After that, I'm sticking with independent realms.
Fisherking
03-06-2012, 07:42
I did in one game, as a duke in the Kingdom of Sicily. The AI drove me to utter ruin in the space of a few years. When it wasn't declaring war after war on large Muslim realms, it was giving me useless lands which left me strategically vulnerable. It loved to ignore the enemy armies and the numerous rebellions back home, and, since the AI had taken the troops abroad, I was the only person left to do anything about these massive armies rampaging across my dukedom. Mercenaries are the only reason I survived longer than a year. I spent the entire brief game bankrupt, out-numbered, and fighting frantically to survive. Each time I managed to pull through the AI would give me more useless provinces and over-stretch my resources. By useless I mean zero income, zero manpower, super-high revolt risk due to different religion and culture, and across the sea. Each time I scraped my way to almost-recovery after the last war, off the king would go on a new one. I swear that my liege had a trollface avatar!
After that, I'm sticking with independent realms.
Oh, but those are perfectly good lands across the sea. You just have to hold onto them for 25 or 30 years to make them pay.
My in-laws managed to lose their kingdom in Spain so I went to get it back.
When I looked around for lords to populate the place, it looks like they all died off. In fact it would seem that other than one or two who have no interest in joining me, the Spanish as a whole are extinct.
The French have a county or two along the border and I have Galicia.
The rest is a patchwork of Kingdoms with duchies scattered randomly about and warring with each other, for the time being.
All the people in the Game of Thrones game talking this up are making me seriously consider getting it. Does anybody know how large a download it is if I get it via Steam?
I don't know how large it is on Steam, but it shouldn't be any larger than the Gamersgate download, which was less than 1GB if I remember correctly.
frogbeastegg
03-06-2012, 13:27
Oh, but those are perfectly good lands across the sea. You just have to hold onto them for 25 or 30 years to make them pay.
25 or 30 years. Ha! My game was over in a grand total of 11 years! I'm still amazed I managed to hold on for that long with King Suicide McDeathwish as my liege.
IMO you need either power or peace to make provinces like that viable. If you're able to defend them, that's great. If you don't need to defend them, that's great. If you can't afford to raise both your army and navy at the same time, and are dragged back into war within weeks of each peace declaration, you're doomed. They count for a lot of warscore against you.
Does anybody know how large a download it is if I get it via Steam?
748 MB, if you like the genre and have spare cash, definitely buy it, it's very detailed, well researched and most of all: addictive XD
The Stranger
03-06-2012, 19:16
All the people in the Game of Thrones game talking this up are making me seriously consider getting it. Does anybody know how large a download it is if I get it via Steam?
i bought it for the same reasons and i havent been dissapointed :)
800 mb depending on how fast ur connection is it would take around 1 tot 5 hours.
i once downloaded the witcher 2 via steam because i was too lazy to go to the store and i wanted to play it asap. terrible mistake, it took almost 2 days to download :S
gosh i hate steam.
Fisherking
03-06-2012, 22:06
i bought it for the same reasons and i havent been dissapointed :)
800 mb depending on how fast ur connection is it would take around 1 tot 5 hours.
i once downloaded the witcher 2 via steam because i was too lazy to go to the store and i wanted to play it asap. terrible mistake, it took almost 2 days to download :S
gosh i hate steam.
Wow! I thought mine was slow when it took about 40 min. I guess I did well.
The Game I am enjoying at the moment from what started as a William the Conqueror game and took it from there.
I am currently King of England, Scotland and Wales (trying to get some Fabricated claims in Ireland). I currently own Normandy, Brittany, Holland, Flanders (so the channel is English ruled) and I currently own most of Southern Spain (I originally took gibrator and gave it to kinsmen and they just branched out and expanded from there, themselves).
Big Events so far:
HRE got decimated
Internal struggle, opportunist neighbours (France, Scilly, Poland) and Pagans (which Poland ate). Kingdom of Bohemia broke free, so did the duchies of Saxony (big area northwest), Brandenburg, Holstein, Bavaria and Savoy. Burgendy, Upper+Lorraine territories were lost to France. Poland took the lands which the Pagans of Pommeria took from the HRE.
Castile owns North of Spain, I own South Spain via Proxy Warmongering Vassal and Muslims are a thin line between them operating out of Toledo.
Siciliy owns itself, Italy from the HRE, and Tunis/Tripoli area. Their Queen is Queen of Siciliy, Italy and Africa. Though last time I looked, there was a big independence plot in the North (Italy part) so that might be crumbling.
Norway has fragmented into Pieces, Denmark is also now King of Lithuania. Sweden hasn't really done anything.
Pagans have been pushed back majorly by the Orthodox nations (mainly Novgorod). Byzantines are pretty much in Balkans and Asia Minor. Sejuk Turks owns from Persia to Damacus. Shia Empire owns from Eygpt all the way down to Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia area.
The Stranger
03-07-2012, 11:30
Wow! I thought mine was slow when it took about 40 min. I guess I did well.
oh well i dont know, i didnt download it. i installed from the disc so it took about 10 minutes or less.
however i did notice with the witcher that my downloads from steam are way slower than when i download from websites or whatever :S
The Stranger
03-07-2012, 11:32
The Game I am enjoying at the moment from what started as a William the Conqueror game and took it from there.
I am currently King of England, Scotland and Wales (trying to get some Fabricated claims in Ireland). I currently own Normandy, Brittany, Holland, Flanders (so the channel is English ruled) and I currently own most of Southern Spain (I originally took gibrator and gave it to kinsmen and they just branched out and expanded from there, themselves).
Big Events so far:
HRE got decimated
Internal struggle, opportunist neighbours (France, Scilly, Poland) and Pagans (which Poland ate). Kingdom of Bohemia broke free, so did the duchies of Saxony (big area northwest), Brandenburg, Holstein, Bavaria and Savoy. Burgendy, Upper+Lorraine territories were lost to France. Poland took the lands which the Pagans of Pommeria took from the HRE.
Castile owns North of Spain, I own South Spain via Proxy Warmongering Vassal and Muslims are a thin line between them operating out of Toledo.
Siciliy owns itself, Italy from the HRE, and Tunis/Tripoli area. Their Queen is Queen of Siciliy, Italy and Africa. Though last time I looked, there was a big independence plot in the North (Italy part) so that might be crumbling.
Norway has fragmented into Pieces, Denmark is also now King of Lithuania. Sweden hasn't really done anything.
Pagans have been pushed back majorly by the Orthodox nations (mainly Novgorod). Byzantines are pretty much in Balkans and Asia Minor. Sejuk Turks owns from Persia to Damacus. Shia Empire owns from Eygpt all the way down to Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia area.
nice, i love what spain somehow does to nobles who you give land. i gave one of my vassals the queendom of aragon, she then went on to conquere the kingdom of leon which was 2x as big, and then reconquered all the lands of northern spain that the kingdom of africa had taken from Castille. she expanded to like 4x the land of what i had given her :P
You guys talked me into it. It's been a hectic ride so far. I started off as Connacht, and managed to slowly expand until I had a little under half of Ireland. Unfortunately, this led both of the remaining Irish factions to simultaneously declare war on me. I'd just about got them under control through liberal application of mercenaries when my treasury ran out, and said mercenaries defected to my enemies. I had to surrender to one bunch and cede a province, whilst I managed to force a white peace with the other. Unfortunately, my king then died (at friggin' age 29), and the entire southern half of my realm split off and went to my brother. I managed to assassinate him and get my realm back (first try - lucky), and am currently in an uneasy truce with the other Irish powers...
...in other words, it's addictive :beam:.
The Stranger
03-07-2012, 11:39
hahaha yeah :P Connacht Rules!!! i started as them as well :P
have any of u guys gotten the multiplayer to work? i cannot join games of other people :S
The progress of my current game:
https://img36.imageshack.us/img36/7462/89502277.jpg
The Navarrese Empire, 1303. I have just emerged victorious from not one, but two wars against the Byzantines, taking advantage of their civil war to grab some of their possessions in Sicily. I also took the liberty of driving the French out of Africa, and crowning myself King of Africa and Egypt. The Beige colour in the bottom right hand corner of the screen is the Basque Kingdom of Abyssinia, which is ruled by a distant relative of mine of the house Jimena after I conquered it. The distance penalties were too great for me to hold any land or even keep my vassals from revolting there, so I gave it away. It's a bit risky, since they border the Ilkhanate in Somalia and Yemen, and indeed the Ilkhanate has declared war on them once before. I had to assassinate their ruler, plunging their realm into civil war, in order to save my hapless relative.
But that is but a mere footnote to what is about to happen. While on campaign in Naples, King Typhus II the Just brought his collection of scriptures from Alexandria and Tyre. As his troops battled the Byzantines and ravaged the countryside, he studied them fervently, and as the Byzantine host shattered and retreated from the western Mediterranean, he came to a startling epiphany. By studying the older scriptures of Christianity, he came to the conclusion that the teachings of Catholicism were false, and that true understanding of the word of God could only be attained by casting aside the excesses of the Church.
At this point, most of Europe heeded the teachings of the Holy See. The Muslim Caliphates had been destroyed, the Holy Land reconquered for Christianity. Even the Golden Horde of the eastern steppes had converted to Catholicism, their conversion while being the target of a crusade being hailed as a miracle sent by Christ. A ruler, should he find himself disagreeing with the church, would be wise in such an environment to keep such views to himself. But Typhus II was not a man to keep silent about matters of faith. Unable to contain his religious zeal, he openly proclaimed his new faith of Waldensianism, and called for all loyal Christians to cast down the Church and the false Pope and embrace the true faith.
https://img703.imageshack.us/img703/6815/10776742.jpg
The year is 1303. The Catholic world is about to be thrown into chaos, as the most powerful Catholic ruler has denounced the faith and called for the destruction of the Holy See. Blades are being sharpened. Forces are being marshaled. Which will triumph over Europe to become the true faith- Catholicism or Waldensianism?
Hehe. After I declared independence from the HRE, the Kaiser decided to convert to Lollardism. The chaos that followed was awesome.
The progress of my current game:
https://img36.imageshack.us/img36/7462/89502277.jpg
The Navarrese Empire, 1303. I have just emerged victorious from not one, but two wars against the Byzantines, taking advantage of their civil war to grab some of their possessions in Sicily. I also took the liberty of driving the French out of Africa, and crowning myself King of Africa and Egypt. The Beige colour in the bottom right hand corner of the screen is the Basque Kingdom of Abyssinia, which is ruled by a distant relative of mine of the house Jimena after I conquered it. The distance penalties were too great for me to hold any land or even keep my vassals from revolting there, so I gave it away. It's a bit risky, since they border the Ilkhanate in Somalia and Yemen, and indeed the Ilkhanate has declared war on them once before. I had to assassinate their ruler, plunging their realm into civil war, in order to save my hapless relative.
But that is but a mere footnote to what is about to happen. While on campaign in Naples, King Typhus II the Just brought his collection of scriptures from Alexandria and Tyre. As his troops battled the Byzantines and ravaged the countryside, he studied them fervently, and as the Byzantine host shattered and retreated from the western Mediterranean, he came to a startling epiphany. By studying the older scriptures of Christianity, he came to the conclusion that the teachings of Catholicism were false, and that true understanding of the word of God could only be attained by casting aside the excesses of the Church.
At this point, most of Europe heeded the teachings of the Holy See. The Muslim Caliphates had been destroyed, the Holy Land reconquered for Christianity. Even the Golden Horde of the eastern steppes had converted to Catholicism, their conversion while being the target of a crusade being hailed as a miracle sent by Christ. A ruler, should he find himself disagreeing with the church, would be wise in such an environment to keep such views to himself. But Typhus II was not a man to keep silent about matters of faith. Unable to contain his religious zeal, he openly proclaimed his new faith of Waldensianism, and called for all loyal Christians to cast down the Church and the false Pope and embrace the true faith.
https://img703.imageshack.us/img703/6815/10776742.jpg
The year is 1303. The Catholic world is about to be thrown into chaos, as the most powerful Catholic ruler has denounced the faith and called for the destruction of the Holy See. Blades are being sharpened. Forces are being marshaled. Which will triumph over Europe to become the true faith- Catholicism or Waldensianism?
Oh my. At the height of your power your Ruler has just thrown Christendom into chaos. I'm almost envious, no matter what happens that can only end in fun.
Stomping out heresy is probably one of the hardest things to do in this game (other than take down empires, heh heh). Lollardism was responsible for a nasty twenty year period of instability within my own realm. I thought i'd never get it under control, but I finally managed to imprison or execute everyone who was ever involved with it. It directly resulted in solidifying, once and for all, my Ruler's base of power in Castille. I'd broken up so many powerful duchies into little chunks and built such a vast array of inter-realm alliances that.. well, I already mentioned my 70,000 strong army. ~D
Thats one thing about CKII that is infinitely rewarding, i think. Whenever civil wars come along, if you can win, you have the chance to become even stronger than before. But you have to be patient, you have to act with the correct tool, and you have to be a little lucky.
The Stranger
03-08-2012, 11:43
on what difficulty setting are you guys playing? and if you have tried different settings, does it make big difference?
The Stranger
03-09-2012, 20:03
ok... i just got defeated in 1,5 year after starting a game. i was a count on the lower part of sardinia and i had like 4 muslim nations declare a holy war on me :S before i could blink i had an army 5 times the men i could muster in my only province :O
New patch update. It seems to be a couple of added Kingdoms, but the Wales kingdom is a big change in terms of gameplay.
What they need to add is a Kingdom de-jure CB. Will make things a little more.. "exciting". Also a way for you to realign vassals, so you have barons with the right counts with the right dukes who are with the right kings.
I've lost and re-loaded an earlier save about 4~ times as the Duke of Barcalona/King of Aragon. Either I get a Jihad from Africa/Andulasia or invaded by France (although that shouldn't happen again with my chancellor constantly there + marriage into the Capet line).
Fun game.
New patch update. It seems to be a couple of added Kingdoms, but the Wales kingdom is a big change in terms of gameplay.
What they need to add is a Kingdom de-jure CB. Will make things a little more.. "exciting". Also a way for you to realign vassals, so you have barons with the right counts with the right dukes who are with the right kings.
Noticed this as well. I've already noticed much more CBs in the game so a kingom de-jure CB might not be out of the question. Maybe someway throught the plot system as well, will be interesting what they do going forward. What I like is they're already talking about 1.05 which is, apparently, coming soon and promises to be a "major" content patch. I cannot wait.
I loaded up my Castille game post 1.04 and there didnt seem to be any errors or oddities, but i'll still probably start a new game. I'd like to see how the new "nerfed" byzantines compare to their pre-patch cousins.
Fisherking
03-10-2012, 08:47
Noticed this as well. I've already noticed much more CBs in the game so a kingom de-jure CB might not be out of the question. Maybe someway throught the plot system as well, will be interesting what they do going forward. What I like is they're already talking about 1.05 which is, apparently, coming soon and promises to be a "major" content patch. I cannot wait.
I loaded up my Castille game post 1.04 and there didnt seem to be any errors or oddities, but i'll still probably start a new game. I'd like to see how the new "nerfed" byzantines compare to their pre-patch cousins.
Maybe I am overlooking the obvious but what is a CB?
The patch washed out my graphics. At least on the machine I first checked it on, which is not my best.
I wont get around to checking play for a day or two, however.
edit: never mind about CB... It took me a min.
Noticed this as well. I've already noticed much more CBs in the game so a kingom de-jure CB might not be out of the question. Maybe someway throught the plot system as well, will be interesting what they do going forward. What I like is they're already talking about 1.05 which is, apparently, coming soon and promises to be a "major" content patch. I cannot wait.
The problem with a de iure kingdom casus belli is that it throws game balance out of equation. France will declare war on Brittany day 1, Mauretania and Africa will unite their respective ends of North Africa in a few years, and any vassal of an empire that manages to create a kingdom title will be able to steamroll over the rest of the empire. I say it works perfectly fine as it is.
The problem with a de iure kingdom casus belli is that it throws game balance out of equation. France will declare war on Brittany day 1, Mauretania and Africa will unite their respective ends of North Africa in a few years, and any vassal of an empire that manages to create a kingdom title will be able to steamroll over the rest of the empire. I say it works perfectly fine as it is.
Hm, thats true, i guess i didn't think of it that way. The last thing the game needs is out of control blobbing, especially since it feels like they're doing a good job of getting a handle on it.
Fisherking
03-11-2012, 20:43
The 1.4 patch, to me went sideways.
I think most of it was better before.
I know that the list of improvements looked promising but the implementation of some unannounced changes seems kind of odd.
Children now seem only about 50% likely to pick up the specialties of their tutors. Marriages are harder to make and can still go wrong.
I am not at all clear on why the BE was Nerfed, could be a mistake over all.
Much is not working as planed/stated. Vassals are fighting when they shouldn’t but the law penalties are still in place. And much, much more.
Also you will find it much more difficult to find counsel members or anyone with decent stats and occupations. Most NPCs have no traits and only a specialty.
The Stranger
03-12-2012, 01:10
ye ive been reading on it alot. i havent really played much since the patch been out.
i like the harder marriages, given that its harder for a count and easier for a king. cuz in 1.3 i could marry the royals as a count but not marry a count as a royalty. because they would want a better alliance.
Me and Secura have been playing online as Scotland (me) and Connacht (Secura)
This one is a little out of date as I own Typhus now (my CK2 crashed so only Secura has the saved file) but this is how it is currently looking:
https://i.imgur.com/GsJNz.jpg
I currently recreated modern day Scotland, got high-crown authority, and a few other perks. Had the unfortunate string of deaths with rulers at one point which almost severely crippled me.
Secura is currently King of Ireland and Portugal.
I recently ran into a stroke of luck that my blood line now has a claim on the Kingdom of England (my original ruler was married to William the Conquerors oldest daughter) and after a really bloodly aftermath, all the lines of the sons have been wiped out so it appears I have my great-great-great-grandfathers (I think) claims upon the throne, which my rulers brother (Duke of Lothian) is actually in a winning war for. (England is broken up into many pieces with Lancaster, York and Bedford all with their own claims for the throne). So this might cause a mess since I might lose the duchy of Lothian to England which might be soon owned by my brother who naturally has a claim upon my own throne.
Fisherking
03-12-2012, 21:00
It might be in your best interest to see to it that your brother has an accident.
The Stranger
03-13-2012, 12:56
isnt it so that if you had pressed it claim that he will become a vassal of you?
Secura is currently King of Ireland and Portugal.
I had been making inroads into Wales too, on the verge of taking two of the bottom provinces (currently working on the one with Cardiff in, and the one to the left of that I already own but have to bring back into line due to a rebelling brother) which would then give me a claim on that duchy; I'm going to have to fabricate some more claims if I want to take the remaining Welsh duchy and then move onto claiming Brittany, though.
Ideally, I would like to move onto removing the Muslims from Spain, but it's so difficult due to Mega-Mauretania and the Iberian Catholics gaining more ground due to my conquest of Portugal. I recall marrying into the Galacean royal family though, which should ease the process if I inherit.
Fisherking
03-13-2012, 19:15
isnt it so that if you had pressed it claim that he will become a vassal of you?
Not for a kingdom, unless you are the big E of something.
frogbeastegg
03-13-2012, 20:30
Crusader Kings II: the unofficial training tool for org Forum Admins! :laugh4:
How are people finding the new patch? I haven't had chance to test it out yet, thanks to a few other things taking up the time I intended to play. It looks like it should shake the game up pretty strongly, between the CB changes, increased illness, and misc others.
I'm going to start a new game for the patch and can't decide who. I've played Sicily (worn down, isolated, then manoeuvred into effective defeat by generation 2), Meath (went so smoothly I sort of lost interest), and Kingdom of Jerusalem (death by 500,000,000 angry Muslims). I played Poland and Byzantium in the demo. I prefer to be an independent, relatively small without being too puny. Or I may throw all of that to the wind, and undertake the near-suicidal task of keeping Saxon England alive.
How are people finding the new patch? I haven't had chance to test it out yet, thanks to a few other things taking up the time I intended to play. It looks like it should shake the game up pretty strongly, between the CB changes, increased illness, and misc others.
Mortality has shot through the roof from illnesses. I've noticed that contracting a disease is a much bigger deal than it ever was - and now that "oh no i'm sick!" event is something to really dread. Case in point, i brokered a marriage alliance between my heir and the king of navarra with his daughter. She arrives in my lands and all is well and good, a week later she's dead. The only clue to her death is the Ill trait :sad3:
I noticed at least half my cabinet dropping dead within 10 years of that. I'm not sure if someone was going assassin crazy or not, but many of them had the Ill trait. I wish there was causes of death...
I'm going to start a new game for the patch and can't decide who. I've played Sicily (worn down, isolated, then manoeuvred into effective defeat by generation 2), Meath (went so smoothly I sort of lost interest), and Kingdom of Jerusalem (death by 500,000,000 angry Muslims). I played Poland and Byzantium in the demo. I prefer to be an independent, relatively small without being too puny. Or I may throw all of that to the wind, and undertake the near-suicidal task of keeping Saxon England alive.
One of the Rus duchies if i may be so bold. Many of them start with claims on each other (due to their dynastic ties), and they offer a game on the "edge of civilization" as it were. Uniting into the Kingdom of Rus is difficult, so is dealing with the early Pagans who are practically knocking on your door. And then comes the horde! They look like a fascinating game and are my next stop after my current project.
First game post 1.04 and this time doing so as a vassal! Duke of Armenia, faithful servant of the empire. :bow:
https://i.imgur.com/vlwmx.jpg
Here's a look at the "direct vassals" map close to 40 years in game. I've expanded my own power considerably but there's still much more room for improvement. I've been focusing on economic and military build ups while I wait for a chance to do anything. The Emperor has been busy fighting wars almost nonstop, and i've helped here and there, but for the most part he's left me alone. He seems to focus on drawing his strength from the Western Duchies more often than the Eastern. That may change though, the more i build my power. Currently I'm the second most powerful Duke in the empire but I need to be careful. Someone has been assassinating my nobles all game, and they've been doing it unde rthe noses of my spymasters. I don't like it and its got me on edge.
Still. I've built a considerable web of alliances in the eastern empire and a growing power base in Armenia. My long-term goal is to eventually break away from Byzantium and form the Kingdom of Armenia, but that is centuries off I feel. Attempts to curb the Emperor's strengthening his crown authority thus far have been.. problematic.
I've noticed two things in this game. Number one, people die way more often. There's a ton more uncertainty in life now that Paradox has upped the mortality rates. Getting maimed is a huge deal. If you send a maimed character to prison dont be surprised if they die within six months. Health is now a erious issue and your characters are more fragile than ever. War time casualties seem to be around the same as before, however.
And two: vassal penalties for raising their troops has been significantly strengthened. You now get the penalty much quicker, and it rises faster. Makes prolonged campaigns a nightmare and is a huge incentive to build a strong demense of your own.
https://i.imgur.com/TA4Le.jpg
The Reconquista has failed - France and the Holy Roman Empire have stepped up in a desperate attempt to keep muslim forces from breaching into southern France. The First Crusade was fought not in the middle-east, but in Spain. The HRE's strip of land there was the target. Poland is going crazy and has completely obliterated Hungary. My boss, the emperor, is jumping at the chance to mop up the remains as you might be able to notice.
Southern Italy has falen to invaders from Sicily and Matilda of Tuscany is leading the charge to try to drive them back. She's doing a good job actually, i wouldn't be surprised to see the HRE take over all of Italy before 1120.
edit: apologies for terrible screenshot quality, not sure what happened! Will get better quality screens next time
f11 for the map one. Which is more clear on colours at least. Also a bugfix patch is out.
rickinator9
03-16-2012, 12:45
f11 for the map one. Which is more clear on colours at least. Also a bugfix patch is out.
Will it show duchies?
Anyway, I am playing as the Komnemnoi of Paphlagonia. My dynasty got a lot of land from marriages. I have the duchies of Paphlagonia, Trakesion and Coloneia in my pocket, and I will inherit the duchy of Anatolia soon. My heir will inherit the duchy of Armeniakon. I plan to take Charsianon next, either through marriage or war. The thing that's a bit weird is that there weren't any big civil wars since a usurped(from the Doukas family) took the throne of the heir of the beginning emperor. Whenever there's going to be a civil war, I'm gonna be in it. Pictures will be posted later.
Will it show duchies?
When you take the mapshot, it will display whatever viewing mode you had active at the time; this is pretty simple block colours when it's de jure kingdoms or player view (as you can see in Tiaexz's screenshot), but I guess it would end up looking like a patchwork quilt in duchies view mode. :P
rickinator9
03-16-2012, 19:36
https://i40.tinypic.com/24zyl8y.jpg
Paphlagonia after the inheritance of Charsianon.
I'm about to have my biggest gain yet. My heir will inherit the duchies of Paphlagonia and Nikaia. I appropriately named him Basileus 'Anatolikos' Komnemnos. I had to invest about 800 gold to take all of the male members of the Nikean Doukos branch down. But despite the kind of protection you have, the knives of Paphlagonia will always get you! But that isn't even the best going on in the empire. The emperor is old and will probably die within a few years. His heir is a very bad heir. He's an imbecile, he is incapable and needs regency around the clock. I'm pretty sure that when he succeeds, I'm not the only one who sees an opportunity.
The emperors estates are pretty weak, Thrace had been lost by them about 100 years before this picture, now the imperial court is in northern Bulgaria.
Fisherking
03-17-2012, 10:48
I just started a game as the Marshals. Maybe I can get one of all those sons to have an heir.
I just want to see where it goes.
The Stranger
03-18-2012, 22:21
anyone wants to play a multiplayer game?
rickinator9
03-18-2012, 23:42
I don't know how but if you live in GMT +1 I can join. Just need to do the testweek and then I will have some more free time.
https://i40.tinypic.com/24zyl8y.jpg
Paphlagonia after the inheritance of Charsianon.
I'm about to have my biggest gain yet. My heir will inherit the duchies of Paphlagonia and Nikaia. I appropriately named him Basileus 'Anatolikos' Komnemnos. I had to invest about 800 gold to take all of the male members of the Nikean Doukos branch down. But despite the kind of protection you have, the knives of Paphlagonia will always get you! But that isn't even the best going on in the empire. The emperor is old and will probably die within a few years. His heir is a very bad heir. He's an imbecile, he is incapable and needs regency around the clock. I'm pretty sure that when he succeeds, I'm not the only one who sees an opportunity.
The emperors estates are pretty weak, Thrace had been lost by them about 100 years before this picture, now the imperial court is in northern Bulgaria.
Very impressive. :bow:
In my game while I expanded my personal power in the east, the Emperor (or should I say, Empress? The Imperial court had a female ruler for over 120 years!) expanded her powers just as adeptly. She ruthlessly imprisoned nobles and stomped out plots so effectively that no one could do anything. In fact.. she instituted absolute crown authority really quickly and from there, it was near impossible to plot anything! The best I managed was two duchies before it became clear I wasn't going to be moving up in the world. :no:
I think I'm gonna try one of the Russian principalities next. :yes: They look like a really interesting game.
rickinator9
03-19-2012, 14:08
Very impressive. :bow:
In my game while I expanded my personal power in the east, the Emperor (or should I say, Empress? The Imperial court had a female ruler for over 120 years!) expanded her powers just as adeptly. She ruthlessly imprisoned nobles and stomped out plots so effectively that no one could do anything. In fact.. she instituted absolute crown authority really quickly and from there, it was near impossible to plot anything! The best I managed was two duchies before it became clear I wasn't going to be moving up in the world. :no:
I think I'm gonna try one of the Russian principalities next. :yes: They look like a really interesting game.
I stopped with that save, as I noticed the emperors had pretty much expanded into Iraq. I wanted to recreate the roman, or at least the byzantine empire to it full glory. That dream subsequently collapsed. Anyway, after I gained Nikea, I inherited the duchies of Adrianopolis and Thrace(Constantinople is mine!) through my heir. I gained my independence and all of my counts loved me. After the old ruler died, disaster struck. The heir was a woman! After fighting several civil wars and wars against the Byzantines, Paphlagonia was exhausted. Still there was the possibility of civil war, so I joined the byzz again. That was the point where I quit.
I have started a new campaign in 1100. Against all odds(most of the middle-east was ruled by the seljuk dynasty), I took out Rum in the 1140s. I took little Armenia from Aleppo. I conquered the Syrian coast from the little states and the Shia caliphate. I took Edessa from Edessa(former aleppo, after losing some land to huge damascus).
A game as the russian principalities seems nice. The AI usually unites into the Rus. Nothing can stop them. There also doesn't seem to be any mongols to tame them, the event pops up but I don't notice anything.
The Stranger
03-19-2012, 16:46
I don't know how but if you live in GMT +1 I can join. Just need to do the testweek and then I will have some more free time.
yup. gmt+1 amsterdam time zone. perhaps it would be fun to play a game with other orgahz who are playing ck2
A game as the russian principalities seems nice. The AI usually unites into the Rus. Nothing can stop them. There also doesn't seem to be any mongols to tame them, the event pops up but I don't notice anything.
Forming the Kingdom of Rus seems a forgone conclusion for someone. The problem is being the one to get there. The Pagans might be divided but they are no push over, and in the early game they can levy way more troops than you can. Which means you can't just go crazy conquering your fellow Rus, you have to keep a good balance between choosing enemies and making friends. Its an interesting and unique campaign thus far, one that's been filled with surprises.
Has anyone else noticed Poland going berzerk post 1.04? Every game i've played they expand quickly and become truly frightening by 1120.
rickinator9
03-19-2012, 21:35
I play on 1.03b and poland is very tame.
I tried to play a game as rostov, and I took out the brown pagans to the east. The strength of the rus is that they are all the same dynasty, and can help themselves out. I quit the game when another family member from galich attacked me and destroyed all the levies I could get.
After that I started a game just before the byzzies retook constantinople.
Edit:
· Buffed the Caliphates and the Seljuks. Nerfed the Byzantines.
Damn you!
After that I started a game just before the byzzies retook constantinople.
Edit:
Damn you!
Hah, they need all the help they can get! In my experiences post 1.04 the Seljuk keep it together but still cannot mirror their historical counterparts. I've not seen any drastic Manzikert moments in the early game for the Byzantines, but their overall stability does seem to be lowered. It takes exceptional emperor to keep things together, which unfortunately, i saw in spades when i attempted my Byzantine vassal game :laugh4:
The Caliphs seem more unstable believe it or not post patch. The Shia in particular seem to be a coin flip away from either prosperity or collapse. I've seen large vassals successfully win their independance in two different campaigns now. :yes:
One thing I love about CKII is, barring certain almost inevitabilities (fall of saxon england, strength of western empires, ect) the game is highly "unstable" and can go either way. Sometimes the Reconquista works and Spain unites against northern Africa - sometimes it fails and the French are fighting for their life against a scary muslim united Iberia. Sometimes the Mongols get thrashed by Europe and thrown into a corner, but sometimes they unite an empire that spans the entire game map. Sometimes the fun of the game doesn't even revolve around you, its based in watching another "what-if" unfold in a completely new way.
I think I am gonna pick a nobody count in the far edge of the map one of these days and turn the game speed to max and just watch. ~D
rickinator9
03-19-2012, 22:13
Odd, the mongols always failed to even take one country in my games.
I have seen a game where all the byzantine duchies gained independence when the old emperor was knocked off the throne, not sure how that happened. After that the empire was reduced to thessalia.Then the old emperor took his title back and we still kept being independent. All the while the seljuks were attacking our duchies.
I usually don't have much problems keeping a unified empire in the previous patches. I will have to see that in the new patch. Just throw a grand tournament and pretty much everything is cemented again.
Historically though, the devs should have a modifier making seljuk family members hating eachother, because the seljuks had a lot of trouble keeping territories under it's banner(FM took these for themselves).
I'm up for a multiplayer game.
Odd, the mongols always failed to even take one country in my games.
There's a screenshot earlier in this thread (from me) where they took over pretty much everything east of Poland. It was pretty scary.
Historically though, the devs should have a modifier making seljuk family members hating eachother, because the seljuks had a lot of trouble keeping territories under it's banner(FM took these for themselves).
I wouldn't put it passed them. In their CKII post-mortem one of the things they mentioned was the desire to add a bunch more events into the game. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot of historical events that are aimed to keep things a little more grounded in reality.
A game as the russian principalities seems nice.
I got bored of my Hauteville game (controlled everything from the Atlantic to Arabia and from the Alps to Africa) and started a Novgorod game days ago :)
Thanks to the alliances it's going smoothly, but Hungary claimed most of Turov, Kiev and Galich, backed by the HRE: pretty scary combo :P
Good thing Poland started a war with them ^^
had a lot of trouble keeping territories under it's banner
Give duchies to your kinsmen and you'll see assassinations daily XD
I think they are pretty stable at the start date, because that's how it was in history, iirc by 1070ish they gained most of the Middle East...
Give duchies to your kinsmen and you'll see assassinations daily XD
Admittedly that is something I dislike about the game in many respects. In order to have the best vassals, you simply go to character panel, search for same culture and religion, then give it to the guy with the highest stats. I want to give lands and titles to my children, brothers, uncles, to have the entire dynasty run through the core of society, then have them marry into other families across Europe, spreading their seeds, power via blood.
Instead, you end up having a child who is a psychopath which kills all your family and your heirs if you give them a duchy title.
Admittedly that is something I dislike about the game in many respects. In order to have the best vassals, you simply go to character panel, search for same culture and religion, then give it to the guy with the highest stats. I want to give lands and titles to my children, brothers, uncles, to have the entire dynasty run through the core of society, then have them marry into other families across Europe, spreading their seeds, power via blood.
Instead, you end up having a child who is a psychopath which kills all your family and your heirs if you give them a duchy title.
I still do it nonetheless :P
As you I prefer to part the land among my kin, thanks to imprisoning in the end I manage to stabilize it for few decades, then it's rinse and repeat every generation :D
But I agree that for them it's far too easy to kill heirs, I can understand if they declared war and won sieges after sieges, but assassinations are so cheap...
the seljuks
BTW checked my ongoing game and in 1092 they are in a dynastic struggle ^^
The Stranger
03-21-2012, 01:13
Im currently playing as the Duke of Toulouse (I modded the game so I started independent from France, and the Duke of Flanders as starts independent as well). It has been a very interesting game so far with some stuff happening that many people complain about that it does not happen often enough.
I started in 1066 and the Duke of Toulouse is 19 year old and unmarried. I married myself to the Duchess of Toscana with ofcourse the prospect of gaining it through my heir later. I later marry my first born son of this marriage to the queen of Castille (Castille already usurped Galicia).
I gain some land by Holy wars against Murcia (I take the Balearic Islands) and Sicily (taking all of sicily). The Duchy of Apulia is very strong and actually forms the kingdom of sicily before I can but overreaches and loses half of Southern Italy (half of the boot) to the African emirates.
I fight defend my duchy succesfully against a series of wars vs the African Emirates, Valencia and France (right after I beat the King of France for a claim of a county, the duke for whom the King pressed the claim, attacks me independently.. what an idiot...)
The Christian kings and dukes in Iberia are going for an early Reconquista, led into battle by the duke of Barcelona and assisted sporadically by France or Britanny. They also help each other out. Although now they are involved in a nasty succession crisis where the Queen of Castille (yes who was married to my heir) is claiming the throne of Leon and she is winning!
I try to gain land to usurp the kingdom of Sicily and while i do that my wife, the duchess of tuscana rebels against the kaiser and calls me for help. So naturally I come to aid and together we fight for 15 years and in the end gain independence! The war made me crazy rich, because i captured alot of dukes and counts in battle. I won many battles while being outnumbered 2/3 also!
But in the end all the money I earned was lost because just before the independence war ended I got attacked by Aquitaine, again, for that same county I beat them for 2x. And they march into my home duchy with 6k troops. So i go mad and hire the Great Company and some other 1500 merc company and kill them. But by now I'm paying like 30+ gold a month on troops and I am fighting on 3 fronts (France, Germany, and Sicily while also being called into a war in spain although i never sent any troops) and I only have 10+ a month income. My old duke, who was always leading troops in the frontlines, in the end became king of sicily just before dying in battle.
So some epic stuff happening. Now all that needs to be happening is the collapse of the BE and a succesfull crusade (it has been called but nobody dares to go :P and I was too busy fighting a ton of wars)
1) The Iberian kingdoms are beating the muslims there
2) A duchy broke away from the HRE (although with player help)
3) Winning battles while outnumbered
something weird happened too, the queen of castille made my heir, heir to a bisphoric and thus eliminating him from my line of heritage... so my grandson inherited the throne. really weird.
That reminds me, it is easy to mod to play as other factions (except republics).
Open up:
*\crusader kings ii\common\religion.txt
Then add this under the headings for the religions (except Christianity)
playable = yes
That reminds me, it is easy to mod to play as other factions (except republics).
Open up:
*\crusader kings ii\common\religion.txt
Then add this under the headings for the religions (except Christianity)
playable = yes
I could kiss you for that.
Cheers!
Tengri here I come :D
rickinator9
03-21-2012, 16:35
Still about that multiplayer game, we could ask a moderator permission to make a thread in the throne room?
Ibn-Khaldun
03-21-2012, 23:54
I don't think you have to ask their permission. They are more than happy to see some activity there.
frogbeastegg
03-22-2012, 12:59
Still about that multiplayer game, we could ask a moderator permission to make a thread in the throne room?
The King is correct: no need for permission. We're always happy to see members taking the initiative and will do what we can to support their efforts. If you feel you need something to help with the game, ask a member of staff and we'll see what can be done.
The Stranger
03-22-2012, 19:34
i will have time for a good multiplayer game in about 2 weeks :P but we can host a thread already and see if we can get some players!
So a game as Novgorod ended in utter disaster and really frustrated me. Poland got a claim on my duchy through marriage into the expansive Rus Dynasty. Since they were steam rolling everyone at the time* they could muster an army of 6k men. It was over before it even started, especially after all my allies refused to help.
I pondered doing another try but decided on a different direction. I wanted to play a vassal game and I wanted to eventual "break out" moment. To that end... the Duchy of Tuscany. If CKII had a "challenge mode", this would be it.
Oh boy.. Female Ruler, the ONLY (!!!) member of your dynasty and stuck with gravelkind succession until the Holy Roman Empire gets to High Crown Authority, or until you become independant. This means that if you at any time create more duchy titles they will be lost upon succession if you have more than one heir. Not hard enough for you? Lets add in the fact that the only starting claims you get are on the Papacy.
The year: 1128
https://i.imgur.com/Xe7Aq.jpg
The Duchy of Tuscany has just declared independence under their Duke Sante I, son of Matilda of Tuscany. The road to get here was largely boring, with moments of peril and heart stopping moments where everything almost ended in an instant. I've never used assassins so much in a game, or had to rely so heavily on intrigue to keep my power.
Matilda was for me, and perhaps is overall, the best ruler in the game at the 1066 scenario. her stats are off the charts which let you build a huge demense. The problems she has are the ones i highlighted above. She's literally the only member of her dynasty living and you're stuck with gravelkind. Getting a matrilineal marriage wasn't that hard, (settled on the second in line to the Aragonese Throne) but what proved infuriating was getting sons. When you have a woman on the throne you've only got half the time to make babies that you would with a man, so you're racing to get that good heir before your ruler passes child bearing age. You can get lucky sometimes and get pregnant after 40 or so, but its super rare, or requires a crazy fertile spouse.
In 1084 there was a huge scare, my only male heir contracted typhoid and very nearly died. Any other game I wouldn't have minded, but Matilda wasn't giving any more children (and never did) and her two daughters had been married off to foreign kings. I was on the edge of my seat until he finally pulled through. I've also had to keep the line of succession clear with assassins. Sometimes Matilda's (and later, Sante's) daughters abroad would give birth to sons while at home, all that was ready was daughters to inherit. The heir system got really weird in its selection so i had to reset it twice. Each time my heart skipped a beat when i hit that "assassinate" button. :sad3:
The war against the HRE was a crazy one. But ever since Matilda i've been building my economy, preparing for this day. I get +16 per month so that means.. you guessed it. Mercenaries. The Emperor got Excommunicated and a massive civil war broke out. I took the chance and declared independence, calling together a mercenary arm of around 5,000 to compliment my own force of 6,000. Looting and ransoming captured vassals from the empire kept me in the green while i kept up the pressure. When it was all over I'd humiliated the empire and managed to break way. Now? Now comes the real challenge. The Empire is still dealing with dissent but they're solidifying. I have no doubt they will come back for another round in Northern Italy - I need to be ready for the rematch, and soon.
Notice something interesting? Yep! Toulouse has declared independence from France! And they've kept it too, the French king has absolutely no power over his vassals. He can only level around 4k. Even though France has moved into Iberia, the only one to gain from those conquests was the Duke of Aquitaine who now controls more land than the rest of the French vassals put together. If he breaks away he'll take half of France with him. Amazing stuff.
It's good to be King Duke.
* Poland isn't nearly as out of control as I thought and this seems to be the reason why. The Rus are on Gravelkind, so if you marry into their dynasty chances are you'll get a claim on a random duchy when their dynasty figurehead dies off. (forget his name) So if Poland lucks out and gets those claims, you can bet they press them. This results in Poland on a conquer frenzy in some games - in my current game they're doing woefully bad.
EDIT
Okay this is just too good not to share. So a few years after declaring independence the wife of my duke died. I decided to remarry and then... If you can't beat them...
https://i.imgur.com/u7pwG.jpg
I couldn't believe it. The wife of my Duke was cheating on him with the Kaiser of the HRE. Not only that, but she got pregnant by the Emperor! The feud between the Duchy of Tuscany and the Holy Roman Empire just got personal...
The Stranger
03-23-2012, 10:34
how can you marry the duchess of venice? ah nevermind, the HRE conquered venice.
btw Toscana seems like a cakewalk compared to an independent Cagliari.
rickinator9
03-23-2012, 13:27
I'm gonna make the thread later today... when I'm not playing Crusader kings 2
I was thinking of taking a 1160 start, so the byzantines are somewhat weaker and the middle east is fractured.
rickinator9
03-24-2012, 23:09
Here's the thread for the multiplayer game: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?140734-Seven-Deadly-Sins-Crusader-Kings-2-Multiplayer-game&p=2053434197#post2053434197
How does multiplayer work for this game?
Does it have a hotseat type function, or do all players have to be online at the same time?
Ibn-Khaldun
03-25-2012, 16:53
Haven't played multiplayer for it but I think you have to be online in the same time since the game is RTS.
rickinator9
03-25-2012, 19:35
We'll see and experience it soon.
rickinator9
03-27-2012, 20:33
The biggest frustration I can have in this game is when you declare a holy war for example charsianon, the charsonian duke(or beylerbley in this case) goes rebel against their master. Your war is now inconclusive. Devs, fix this, quickly.
The Stranger
03-28-2012, 12:03
yup you are not alone in this, probably they will fix it since many people have been complaining about it.
I exploit that like a madman XD
Soon as an empire is facing rebelions, I declare war against the smaller "usurpers" and avoid fighting imperial armies :P
The Stranger
03-30-2012, 10:52
conqered 3/4th of iberia in 25 years. bossss
rickinator9
03-31-2012, 00:24
conqered 3/4th of iberia in 25 years. bossss
I heard that you had an issue of incest in your dynasty?
The next DLC pack was officially announced and is something that's, surprisingly, both interesting and nonesential. It's a built in character editor. Want to redesign your dynasty coat of arms? Want to find out what would happen if William of Normandy was actually a woman? Well it's totally possible, as well as completely redesigning the portrait and age of your starting character.
Announcement link: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?597846-First-Major-DLC-What-you-requested!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nvf8X_bXDHI
This is something that you guys here requested last autumn, so we have now made it for you.
Basically, its a ruler designer, where you can edit your character, dynasty, traits, stats and much more at the start of the game..
Who do you want to be today? When you start a new game of Crusader Kings 2 it is the question that every player faces, still finding that perfect character to play is always the challenge. You may have found the perfect place but well the man who has it just isn't quite right. A stat is a little too low, that trait is a little annoying, he could really do with a son and heir, the less said about the nose the better, and why does he have such a stupid name? Well now with the new CK2 ruler designer all these are in your hands. Customise your character your way. Tweak and change any aspect of the character or even create an all new character and dynasty to play with. Create your portrait, change the name and dynasty and even customise your coat of arms. Change traits and stats at will and decide the size of the immediate family. The game that lets you choose your goals now will let you
choose your character.
I love this idea. This is a really cool adition to the game but strikes me as something that is wholly optional. It's not a new faction or de jure empire that I would kick myself if I didn't buy, it's just a fun little character editor. Historical purists will likely want to take a pass on this one ~;)
The DLC is set to be released on April 17th.
EDIT:
Also, the free content patch that's coming with the DLC introduces a lot of stuff that folks have been begging for. Crusades that have contribution scores (no more crusading all on your own!).
Crusades now target entire de jure kingdoms (changed from duchies), with the King contributing the highest score overall seizing the kingdom if the crusade is a success. The contribution table, combined with now targeting de jure kingdoms means that crusades are about to become a hell of a lot more powerful...
Read up on the 1.05 mini dev diary here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?597830-CK-II-1.05-Development-Diary-1-of-3-March-30th-2012
rickinator9
04-01-2012, 00:14
Not really interested in that dlc. It just seems to be such a small part in a huge game. I think I would also miss the feeling of having a very well educated ruler, because you can just make a good one anyway.
As for the patch, I'm curious what it will include. I sure hope something to nerf the HRE, because they usually have the entirety of Italy except the kingdom of sicily.
Fisherking
04-01-2012, 17:54
I don’t know where I stand on the “Next Patch” thing.
Last time the Nerfed the ERE but it doesn’t seem to have mattered a lot.
They Buffed the Muslims which for me and a lot of others has made Iberia unplayable.
They changed the AI priorities on marriage and alliances, which results in Harold Blood Ax always winning in England by calling his HRE new allies.
They always sound good on paper…or digital, but never quite work out as planned.
As for what is revealed about the 1.05 patch: The crusades thing doesn’t even sound that good on paper. As it stands now the HRE is going to win every crusade and wind up being the only show in town.
I don’t know where I stand on the “Next Patch” thing.
Last time the Nerfed the ERE but it doesn’t seem to have mattered a lot.
They Buffed the Muslims which for me and a lot of others has made Iberia unplayable.
I'm not really sure what you mean by any of that. The only buffs to the muslim factions that I'm aware of went to the Caliphates (the Islamic empires) and the Seljuks, both of which are nowhere near Iberia and never interfere in it in my games. The three games i've played past 1230 have had varied results in Iberia. :shrug:
I agree on the ERE bit though. The empire seems a little more unstable but still requires an act of divine influence to fragment. I'm amazed it it did so in my very first game, looking back.
They changed the AI priorities on marriage and alliances, which results in Harold Blood Ax always winning in England by calling his HRE new allies.
I've never seen that, every game still ends with William taking over England for me. The only oddity i've seen from the marriage change is that now Poland or Hungary (one or both) like to meddle in Rus politics.
As for what is revealed about the 1.05 patch: The crusades thing doesn’t even sound that good on paper. As it stands now the HRE is going to win every crusade and wind up being the only show in town.
The only thing I really don't like about it is crusades now targeting de jure kingdoms instead of duchies. I feel that could be really overpowered, unless something is done about the balance of Europe vs Middle East. Other than that, contribution scores is something that is really needed if they want to make the system feel at all fun and rewarding. The crusade implementation as it currently stands is kinda silly.
The only oddity i've seen from the marriage change is that now Poland or Hungary (one or both) like to meddle in Rus politics.
Both kings have a Rurikovich mother or grandmother, who is dead, so they have claims on all the Rus' duchies...
One Rurikovich in Turov has a claim on the kingdom of Poland aswell...
frogbeastegg
04-01-2012, 20:43
The next DLC pack was officially announced and is something that's, surprisingly, both interesting and nonesential. It's a built in character editor. Want to redesign your dynasty coat of arms? Want to find out what would happen if William of Normandy was actually a woman? Well it's totally possible, as well as completely redesigning the portrait and age of your starting character.
I thought this was an April Fool's joke until I followed the link and saw that the announcement is too old for that.
Not sure what I think about this one. In CK1 this was possible via some relatively simple modding.
rickinator9
04-01-2012, 23:10
I hope 1.05 will feature more assasinations and plots. As it stands right now, I haven't ever had an assassination attempt on my character. And well, about plots, I mostly just get the 'Kill the crazy woman at your side' plot.
I haven't really noticed the buff on the caliphates. Shia took everything around egypt and it didn't go much further than that. Still the same now. Sunni caliphate is still a minor nation, totally relying at the mercy of the Seljuks.
The only thing which would buff the AI a whole lot would be the ability to make betrothals. They don't do that now. Although then you would get the problem of sometimes getting england in Rus or something.
Betrothals were a player device, because in CK1, you would have to wait till they come of age, then suddenly, they ended up married off randomly without a chance for you to send marriage proposals. It isn't something for the AI, because then everyone will become betrothed to everyone making it impossible for the player who doesn't have the advantages of the computer.
As for the DLC, it is completely optional and it is something players (including myself) have wanted and always had to resort to modding to create. It doesn't harm anyone and if you don't want it, don't buy it! That is what makes this DLC great in my opinion, the fact it is "so on the side", no one has to feel forced into it and can happily go without.
Fisherking
04-03-2012, 15:45
The DLC is fine. The patch 1.05 has some other large changes they have not told us about yet.
The Crusade change is needed to make it more useful but I do worry that the HRE is going to dominate them, as they seem to do now.
They will release more about the changes each Friday until the patch comes out on the 17th of Apr.
The DLC we can take or leave, as has been pointed out. The patch, we are stuck with via Steam.
frogbeastegg
04-03-2012, 23:42
:shrug: I'm disappointed because I was hoping for something more, something players can't easily do for themselves. The CK2 equivalent to a new mission pack, rather than a graphical UI for notepad editing. Or, if that wasn't possible, something grander in scale, something which won't be mostly obsolete as soon as the first generation passes.
Since my review copy was free, I was intending to buy the DLC to return something to Paradox. I'm not going to buy stuff just for the sake of it though; in this case I'll be passing. Maybe they will put the two music pack DLCs up at the same time. That's 'useless' DLC I can talk myself into buying - love the music.
The patch, we are stuck with via Steam.
This is my main steam nightmare these days. There's at least one game I'd rather play at a lower version than the one steam enforces, there have been some where I'd like to disable DLC and can't, and I'm very worried about the forthcoming Civ 5 expansion. If I don't like the new mechanics the entire game will become worthless as it fully integrates with the original.
There was talk about steam hosting beta patch tests for CK2. If that goes ahead it will be possible to download a separate beta version of CK2 ... if I understood some old posts correctly. That means it will be possible to trial the changes, then lock steam into offline mode to prevent the full game from patching if the changes are undesirable.
rickinator9
04-04-2012, 23:18
I would actually like to adjust something on the crusades. The guys who contributed most get an entire dejure kingdom now. Why shouldn't a independent kingdom be created there, instead of letting a european state expand there(they usually don't really care about the land they have in the holy lands). I would like to see the kingdom of jerusalem in my games, instead of the HRE which is dominating Muslim lands.
I, like you guys, are concerned about the save-game compatibility. I have an AAR running right now(have it on this forum) and I suspect I can say goodbye to it the day the patch comes out.
Dev diary 2 for 1.05 talks about more issues of the upcoming patch. Some good, some bad. Original post link: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?598993-CK-II-1.05-Development-Diary-2-of-3-April-6th-2012
Highlights:
*De-jure kingdom lines will now be dynamic instead of static. If you hold a duchy for over a hundred years, that duchy will shift its de-jure lines to belong to you by law.
*Creatable titular titles - Characters will now be able to create a titular title if they hold the scripted events that will allow them to. The ability to make a "Kingdom of Venice" is given as an example.
*many more de-jure kingdoms from the start
* Ducal claims now become de-jure claims, including those for kingdoms. Kings and Emperors will now have the ability to declare war on someone due to their occupation of a county that falls within their de-jure kingdom.
Some very good, some very bad in this news. I love the fact that de-jure kingdoms can now be a bit more flexible with the march of time. There's no reason why I shouldn't be rewarded if I put in the blood, sweat and tears of holding onto a conquered duchy for over a hundred years.
I also really like the idea of titular titles now being created. No real reason to not have them in there imho.
As was discussed before, the concept of a de-jure casus belli could be good in some ways but has the potential to send blobbing way out of control. I do not like the sound of it at all. This could be very bad expecially in light of the new dynamic de-jure system. Imagine a world where the HRE is not only powerful, but even if it manages to lose some counties - it could just declare war again (and again and again) to get them back. Really frightening. :no:
Fisherking
04-07-2012, 07:42
I would like to see France lose some of its desire to take over Iberia and something to limit the number of times a character can get an excommunication on any other individual character.
There is no way just yet to know what impact the patch changes will have. But using experience as I guide you can see the possibilities.
In general I would say that if it isn’t broken then don’t fix it. All the nerfing and buffing has a domino effect.
A CB for kingdoms is both good and bad. They go away or are gained after 100 years but that is a long, long time.
When I bought the game Spain was fairly easy. Now it is darn near impossible. All of the little changes seem to be magnified if you play there.
More difficult marriages and alliances is felt most there. Increased Muslim aggression has a very definite result.
Lots of small changes have had a very negative effect on STARTING in Iberia. It certainly is no disadvantage to interlopers. Though I have seen Muslims taking England and Brittany. Which by the way were later blobed by the HRE.
Its time for the final dev diary before we get our hands on the new update, and here it is (in case you forgot) http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?600445-CK-II-1.05-Development-Diary-3-of-3-April-13th-2012
Highlights:
*Over 300 completely new events. The examples given include a friendship and rivalry event line(s) as well as event series tied directly into negative traits. There was also a regency event series mentioned.
*A new plot for independent rulers to strip vassals of titles.
*improvements to the Kill plot to make it target characters more logically.
*Improvements to the plotting system that let you discern much more information at a glance, as well increased functionality in the UI
*Causes of death (finally!)
Not a whole lot of surprising stuff here, to be honest most of the final part of the dev diary sounds like stuff that is focused on improving functionality which i wholeheartedly approve. I've been dying to have cause of death included since the first time i played.
I like the idea of plotting to remove titles but it does strike me as a bit gamey. While i certainly welcome its addition it sounds easy to abuse, won't know for sure til I try i guess.
frogbeastegg
04-14-2012, 13:53
Those are all very welcome changes. :yes:
xploring
04-14-2012, 14:47
I like the idea of plotting to remove titles but it does strike me as a bit gamey. While i certainly welcome its addition it sounds easy to abuse, won't know for sure til I try i guess.
That's strange, unless my memory is going funny, I remembered reading there are going to be 2 new plots. One for the liege and one for vassals. Can't remember exactly what the vassal's one do but it was to counter the other one. But the post doesn't seem to be edited so maybe I was imagining it.
Someone mentioned in another thread you can use your chancellor to fabricate claim against your own vassal, so this new plot for the ruler doesn't look too bad to me. Makes managing your realm a bit easier I guess, if the player wants to use it.
Someone mentioned in another thread you can use your chancellor to fabricate claim against your own vassal, so this new plot for the ruler doesn't look too bad to me. Makes managing your realm a bit easier I guess, if the player wants to use it.
Is that right? Wow i never even considered doing that and yet its a very obvious thing. Interesting. In that case I guess this is the next logical (and much more sensible) step in claim/title management.
rickinator9
04-14-2012, 15:01
I want them to give the chancellor the ability to speed up culture change. I hate you have a 1% revoltchance you can't do anything about. The Rumites changed some greeks to turks in like 25 years, I have to wait 75 years to make them change culture.
xploring
04-14-2012, 15:05
Is that right? Wow i never even considered doing that and yet its a very obvious thing. Interesting. In that case I guess this is the next logical (and much more sensible) step in claim/title management.
I never thought of it until I read it in this thread (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?600086-Gameplay-tips-everyone-may-not-know) either, which has some very useful gameplay tips. Some more features/tips here (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?599315-Thread-of-Little-Features-you-%28maybe%29-didn-t-know!), they are probably obvious for experienced players. The double right-click one is really important though.
I like the idea of plotting to remove titles but it does strike me as a bit gamey.
I concur, but there are occasions (traitors or newly conquered counties), where imo it's silly that your vassals feel threatened or disrespected if you strip defeated enemies of their titles, most of all to appoint your kin! Instead you get mass dissatisfaction XD
I want them to give the chancellor the ability to speed up culture change.
I thought it was related to state diplomacy, also religious conversion of the province might help, in my Hauteville games takes me very little to have at least 2 or 3 settlements "normanized"...
Fisherking
04-14-2012, 16:44
For what ever reason NPCs are much better at this than the Player. I know in a couple of games my vassals convert them years a head of me.
It would be great if they made a Justicair or Prime Minister for your counsel. Someone who could add their values to the whole range and work on converting the population to your culture.
In Spain it seems one may change after 50 to 100 years. That may be like one county in 20 or 30 changes culture. It must be the slowest place to convert.
Well, I just got comprehensively swindled by the AI.
I started as Connacht, and after finally uniting all of Ireland under my rule I set my sights on England. I'd somehow acquired a claim to the English throne (I have no idea how), and when the combined Anglo-Scottish Kingdom imploded, with several of its duchies simultaneously rebelling, I seized my opportunity and staked my claim. Beset as they were by myself, the French, and their own dukes, I didn't think it too suspicious when I was offered the throne of England at a mere 55% warscore. Unfortunately this turned out to be a bit of a white elephant. The English managed to keep all their territory by declaring it to be part of the Kingdom of Scotland (damned legal loopholes, should have read the fine print); furthermore, to add injury to insult all of their internal strife passed to me and so I found myself at war with 3 different duchies. On the plus side, I now have the legal means to bring the entire United Kingdom behind my banner (the Welsh, who have sizeable holdings in Spain, are closely linked to my dynasty). Should be fun :beam:.
Well, I just got comprehensively swindled by the AI.
I started as Connacht, and after finally uniting all of Ireland under my rule I set my sights on England. I'd somehow acquired a claim to the English throne (I have no idea how), and when the combined Anglo-Scottish Kingdom imploded, with several of its duchies simultaneously rebelling, I seized my opportunity and staked my claim. Beset as they were by myself, the French, and their own dukes, I didn't think it too suspicious when I was offered the throne of England at a mere 55% warscore. Unfortunately this turned out to be a bit of a white elephant. The English managed to keep all their territory by declaring it to be part of the Kingdom of Scotland (damned legal loopholes, should have read the fine print); furthermore, to add injury to insult all of their internal strife passed to me and so I found myself at war with 3 different duchies. On the plus side, I now have the legal means to bring the entire United Kingdom behind my banner (the Welsh, who have sizeable holdings in Spain, are closely linked to my dynasty). Should be fun :beam:.
Love it! Sounds like the AI got crafty on you but you've got the ability to still come out ahead. Good luck in the unification of the Isles!
As for where your claim came from it's quite possible it was handed down through an obscure cousin by way of marriage. If you've been marrying inside the isles then it's not a big surprise that either your character, or one of his family members, ends up with a distant claim on the throne. In my first Irish game I had the fun of fighting a war for the throne of England and ended up installing my brother as the monarch there. We ruled side by side, Ireland and England, for a good twenty years - until he stabbed me in the back. :no:
Here's a shot of my current game -
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/576701767831398530/4E16DBCDFA5A4682D6C76A4E673171D91C3204AC/
1152 and the Rus dynasty is united. I started as the Duke of Rostov, which seems to be the way to go if you want to unite the Rus duchies quickl and effeciently. Not only are you the strongest of the northern duchies, but your brother in Ryazan will back essentially any war you want him to. Combined you two are the stongest force within the Rurikovich dynasty.
Poland has emerged as a serious contender but that won't last. I've invited a number of claimaints to their titles to my court and plan to press their claims one by one. The child monarch of Poland is in such a bad state, fighting both me and Hungary, that I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up fracturing after I beat his armies into dust.
The Cumans are my equal in both land and martial strength, I've been wanting to take them on for years now but I don't think either one of us would come out looking good, and the longer I delay a war against the Cumans the more I feel like it would be a waste of time. The mongols are coming in around 70 years and I'm simply not sure I can stop them. I have a feeling i'll not only be responsible for my dynasty's rapid rise to power, but also its fall from grace.
Double post to remind you guys that tomorrow is the content patch. 1.04 had a smooth transition save-game wise, but with all the new events and features coming our way 1.05 might not be so lucky.
If you have a particularly fun game going (and are on steam) then do yourself a favor and switch steam to offline mode tonight, in all likelihood you won't get the chance to tomorrow before you are forcibly updated with the new version. Better to be safe than sorry when it comes to finishing up your saves. :yes:
Complete 1.05 changes have been posted. Patch notes are at the following link, as well as reposted for your convenience: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?601445-Patch-1.05-Change-Log
MAJOR:
- You can now ask to join many types of wars
- Participants in wars now get a contribution score which determines how much prestige and piety they get when the war ends
- Crusades now target entire de jure kingdoms. The Pope declares the war and other rulers can then join the attacking alliance. The one who contributes the most gains the targeted kingdom.
- Streamlined marriage interface allowing matrilineal betrothals
- Loads of new events for regencies, friendships and rivalries
- Plot to revoke the title of a vassal
- The Kill Plot is now more available and targets a wider selection of logical characters
- Portrait clothes are now uncoupled from ethnicity
- Added Causes of Death
- Added some purely naval mercenary units
- Improved military AI
- Armies can now be "attached" to each other, which means they will just follow the lead army
- Duchies can now be assimilated into another de jure kingdom (takes 100 years)
- Now possible to create titular titles at double cost if you hold the scripted capital
- Empires are now allowed to create kingdoms
- You can now only create kingdoms if you are already a king or emperor, or hold more than one duchy titles
- Added the kingdoms of Frisia, Lotharingia, Bavaria, Pomerania, Aquitaine and Brittany
- The kingdoms of Galicia and Navarre are now de jure kingdoms
- The kingdom of Al-Andalus is now called Andalusia and can be created by anyone in the Arabic culture group
- Changed "Ducal Claim" wars to "De Jure Claim". De Jure kings and emperors can now take counties in their de jure realm
- Assassinations are now more expensive depending on the rank of the target
- All factions in civil wars are now hostile to outside attackers
- Cannot end civil wars until the temporarily independent vassal has no holdings occupied by outsiders
- Tribal Invasion CB: Now destroys all duchies and kingdoms in the conquered realm
- Children now always get the same education type as their guardian
- The Holy Order troop size now scales with the moral authority of the church
- Republics now get a special CB to seize coastal provinces
- Republics (count or above tier) now get a tax bonus from all cities in their realm
- Republics (count or above tier) now get an extra tax bonus from all coastal cities in their realm
- Republics (duke or above tier) now get an extra tax bonus from their capital city
- Women and illegitimate bastards no longer get pressed (inheritable) claims on their parents' titles
- You can now press the claims of female courtiers and vassals in wars if the target title does not have Agnatic succession
- AI: Vassals should now try to defeat peasant rebels on their own
- AI: Will no longer raise forces in besieged counties
- AI: Nearby religious brethren will now tend to join defenders in Holy Wars
- AI: Lowered general vassal revolt risk and DoW aggressiveness
- Cut the Religious Assistance CB
- There is now a "Plot" button in the character view, offering a more flexible way of picking plots against characters
- Fixed an issue with weird (often infinite) build times that could occur after reload
- Vassals will no longer hate you for newly acquired Holdings that take you above the demesne limit. You have two months to get rid of them.
- Heavily revised vassal revolt risk calculations
- Made the revolters in independence wars start gaining ticking war score, and do so immediately
- Fixed a crash when switching between tabs in the Plot View
MINOR:
- Embarked armies no longer suffer attrition
- Withdrawing a small enough army from combat no longer leads to a general retreat
- Rebalanced combat a bit - more morale damage, less kills
- Fixed a bug preventing claimants to the Caliphates from ever revolting
- Fixed an issue with succession CB holders not using it because they are currently the heir presumptive
- The opinion effect of gifts now depend on the State Diplomacy of the giver and the greed of the recipient
- Gift recipients who are not your vassals (or below) will appreciate gifts more
- Landless characters now also get an AI personality from traits
- Added more and greater opinion modifiers from characters having the same traits
- The console command "debug fow" is now just "fow" and works in Release builds too
- The invite to plot selection list of characters now excludes those who would never ever join
- Better tooltip for the "not willing to join plot" icon when inviting people to plots
- Glowing borders on selected titles in the Title View
- More likely to see different unit type models on the map
- Added console command "charinfo" to toggle debug information in character portrait tooltip
- AI: Honorable and dishonorable (personality from traits) characters should now respond more plausibly to invitations to murder plots
- AI: Improved councillor appointment
- AI: More careful about trying to pass de jure law changes during wars
- AI: Smarter about revolting during the lieges offensive wars
- AI: A bit more reluctant to accept ending a plot
- AI: Will now want to raise or hire a more overwhelming force
- AI: Smarter about creating and usurping titles
- AI: Smarter about handing out titles
- AI: Will now actually look at the defines MAX_ELECTOR_TITLES_LEGALLY_HELD and MAX_DUCHIES_LEGALLY_HELD when handing out titles
- AI: Checks if mercs are an option when evaluating DoW
- AI: Fixed an issue with piecemeal raising of ships
- AI: Fixed several issues with Mongol Horde DoW logic
- AI: Landed spouses will no longer revolt
- AI: Fixed some bugs with bishop nomination
- AI: Fixed a bug where the AI could ignore some rules when granting titles (could grant contested titles, etc)
- Children born to parents in a matrilineal marriage should now end up in the mother's court
- Fixed a bug with abdication from war in elective monarchies that could result in premature Game Over
- Crown authority in titular kingdoms and empires can now also be lowered by lost civil wars
- Fixed a crash when just about to revoke the title of someone, and that person dies
- Added some more loading tips
- Fixed a bug with the "prisoner" event effect when releasing characters from someone other than their liege
- Unit owners now get a fraction of the prestige and piety gained from battles (and not just commanders)
- Increased the piety and prestige gained from battles a lot
- Characters can now only pick the Amass Wealth ambition once
- Fathers will now like their children a lot
- Fixed a bug with the inheritance of Claims
- Fixed some errors with the tooltips in event 301 ("A Bastard is Born")
- Tweaked the succession situation between Flandres and Hainaut in 1066 to avoid Flandres becoming part of the HRE
- The members of the House of Vermandois are now members of House Karling
- Vassals now only like succession laws in secondary kingdoms if they are de facto below it
- Gavelkind law in secondary kingdoms has no opinion effects unless the ruler has more than one holding there
- Added early kings of England to the history files
- Temple type holders will no longer desire their liege's titles for de jure reasons
- Temple type holders will no longer be upset with their liege for having the wrong government type
- Fixed a bug with protected inheritance not working correctly between two realms, both with protected inheritance
- Nerfed the Pagan warrior cult building by 33%
- The text for the assassination action now mentions the cost
- Can now only repeat the same plot type, not ambitions
- Improved DoW warning texts
- Changed the initial succession laws of the Spanish kingdoms to Gavelkind
- Gave the Victual Brothers their ships back
- Bohemund of Taranto is no longer a bastard
- Fixed a bug where a dead husband of a newly pregnant wife would not count as a husband
- The conduct diplomacy button is now hidden for dead characters
- Fixed some issues with the "elector titles held" penalty in empires
- The Hordes lose the Tribal invasion CB if they go Christian
- Fixed a bug with the 'is_mercenary' trigger
- Gave Pisa some starting buildings in 1066
- Tweaked the Holy Order levy composition
- Adjusted the map so that the Duchy of Tyrol is no longer split in two
- The Kingdom of Byzantium can no longer be created
- Vassal mercs now cost half maintenance
- The Kill Spouse plot decisions are now less likely to actually succeed
- Open succession law (the Muslim default) now makes succession crisis revolts much more likely
- You are now allowed to usurp titles from other vassals within the same realm if you have a claim on the title
- Fixed a bug with the tooltip for the 'has_objective' trigger
- Fixed some issues with some male hair styles being invalidated when they should not be
- Mercenary captains should now wear helmets again
- You no longer get Piety from handing out the same title to the Church multiple times
- You no longer get Piety from handing out duchies and above to clergy
- The Piety from giving a county to the Church is now 50 (down from 100)
- Boosted the arrival strength of the Timurids
- Uncles and aunts are now also valid successors in elective monarchies
- Removed the warning text and special AI acceptance rulers when marrying a member of the _same_ dynasty matrilineally
- Fixed a bug with Fertility set from modifiers
- Holdings under construction should now also correctly benefit from councillor jobs
- Fixed an issue with historical settlements not being cleared entirely correctly on save game load
- Fixed a bug with certain event target trigger tooltips
- Added a tooltip to the "character" trigger
- Corrected some title adjectives
- Fixed a bug with the 'claimed_by' trigger tooltip
- Fixed a mismatch between potential revolters in the alert and in the Intrigue View
- Mercs of the same culture group as you can now always be hired, no matter the distance to your capital
- Lieges of dead characters are now saved and shown
- The decision to repent (getting your excommunication lifted) now gives the correct opinion modifier, making the character immune to a new excommunication for 10 years
- Fixed a bug where successors could be temporarily disinherited when Temple holdings were assigned a new holder
- Fixed multiple issues with the law change plots
FOR MODDERS:
- The line "nudge_allowed=yes" in "settings.txt" will turn on the in-game map positioning editor (there is a button called "Nudge" in the starting screen.)
- The de jure liege of titles can now be changed through events and scripted history ("de_jure_liege")
- You now see all plots in "observe" mode
- Exported MAX_GENERATED_TRAITS_FOR_HISTORICAL to defines (controls the maximum number of random traits that are generated for historical scripted characters)
- Added a 'destroy_landed_title' event effect
- Added a 'give_minor_title' effect
- Added trigger 'holding_type'
- Exported some merc and holy order hire cost factors to defines
- Mercenary companies can now be scripted with a "strength_growth_per_century" value (in landed_titles.txt)
- The Legalism effects on demesne size is exported to "defines.lua"
- Added plot type 'realm_titles'
- Added trigger 'held_title_rating = [num/target]'
- Event modifiers are now read from multiple files
- Cut the non-functional trigger 'num_of_ports'
- The trigger 'monthly_income' now actually works
- Timed opinion modifiers with value 0 are now added, but not listed in tooltips (useful as a kind of flag in events.)
- Added 'creation_effect' to character objectives
- Exported DOW_AGGRESSION_FACTOR and REVOLT_AGGRESSION_FACTOR to defines
- Added event trigger and effect; 'custom_tooltip'
rickinator9
04-17-2012, 15:37
I hope they have nerfed the mongols. They are unbeatable as of now. After the convert event they will be more united. As far as I know, they can summon 4 or more of these 'Mongol armies' which have no upkeep and come with 20000 men each.
I hope this patch is savegame compatible, otherwise I will have to quit my AAR or try to go to that point once again.
johnhughthom
04-17-2012, 23:38
If you have a particularly fun game going (and are on steam) then do yourself a favor and switch steam to offline mode tonight, in all likelihood you won't get the chance to tomorrow before you are forcibly updated with the new version. Better to be safe than sorry when it comes to finishing up your saves. :yes:
I hope this patch is savegame compatible, otherwise I will have to quit my AAR or try to go to that point once again.
Gah, wish I'd read this earlier. Just turned on the comp to play another few years for my AAR, and just noticed "Steam has finished downloading Crusader Kings 2" come up... Crosses fingers for save game compatability.
Gah, wish I'd read this earlier. Just turned on the comp to play another few years for my AAR, and just noticed "Steam has finished downloading Crusader Kings 2" come up... Crosses fingers for save game compatability.
~:( sorry guys but reports from the official forum are saying that it's not save game safe.
Paradox has apparently changed a ton of revolt modifiers and reworked rebelling vassals as well as independence war checks. Some who are attempting to load old games are reporting constant rebellions. Good luck, but it isn't looking good. :no:
johnhughthom
04-18-2012, 00:10
Doh! :wall:
My own fault really, knew a patch was coming soon and should have paid more attention. I'll fly through a few years and see how it goes. Thanks for the heads up, at least now I know what to look out for. :laugh4:
Just checking through the Paradox forums myself. Seems to be a few complaints about the editor dlc. It sounds very restrictive, personally I think if someone is paying for that they should be able to edit what they want, even if they make super characters and make the game easy. It isn't something I would buy, and if I did I would only change a few things around for roleplaying reasons, but charging for something that seems to have little real effect seems cheeky. Nearly as cheeky as a freaking ad on my start screen. :stare: Are Paradox turning into Bioware?
Doh! :wall:
My own fault really, knew a patch was coming soon and should have paid more attention. I'll fly through a few years and see how it goes. Thanks for the heads up, at least now I know what to look out for. :laugh4:
Just checking through the Paradox forums myself. Seems to be a few complaints about the editor dlc. It sounds very restrictive, personally I think if someone is paying for that they should be able to edit what they want, even if they make super characters and make the game easy. It isn't something I would buy, and if I did I would only change a few things around for roleplaying reasons, but charging for something that seems to have little real effect seems cheeky. Nearly as cheeky as a freaking ad on my start screen.
I haven't had a chance to play with it yet. I'm waiting for the release on steam before buying it - it appears that a number of bugs slipped through Q and A but Paradox has already promised a hotfix coming in the next day or so. Some of the complaints may be related to oddities in that regard, as to its restrictions i cannot say one way or another.
:stare: Are Paradox turning into Bioware?
Oh stop it you. In order for them to get to that level William the Bastard would have been a DLC addition added at launch. ~;)
johnhughthom
04-18-2012, 00:49
Oh stop it you. In order for them to get to that level William the Bastard would have been a DLC addition added at launch. ~;)
:laugh4:
I did feel guilty immediately after posting that, when I remembered I have received three free games from Paradox this year. :oops:
:laugh4:
I did feel guilty immediately after posting that, when I remembered I have received three free games from Paradox this year. :oops:
~:)
I submit to you exhibit B for paradox being awesome: Hotfix inbound less than 24 hours after the content patch.
Folks, some major bugs slipped into 1.05. Apologies. We'll release a hot fix later today, fixing the following issues:
- Fixed a bug with all children getting the exact same education trait
- The mouse wheel now works for scrolling in all windows again
- Autopause on events in full screen mode now works again
- AI: Made smarter about when to join Crusades/Jihads. Reduced "dogpiling".
- MP: Fixed issue where the client was able to change starting date in the lobby, causing all kinds of issues
- Fixed a bug with de jure assimilation of duchies when the king himself held counties in it
- Fixed an issue with some plots where plotters did not get what they plotted for
- Fixed an issue with war contribution scores turning negative and strange in huge, drawn-out wars
- AI: Less keen on picking the 'Revoke Vassal Title' plot
- Exported WOMEN_INHERIT_PRESSED_CLAIMS and BASTARDS_INHERIT_PRESSED_CLAIMS to defines
- Added some missing French and German translations
I'll be waiting for this hotfix to dive into the game proper.
Also!
Steam is dragging their feet in releasing the ruler designer. The DLC is up on GG, but for some reason Valve is holding it up on their service and Paradox has no idea why.
If you bought your copy of CKII on steam and are frustrated, do not panic! You can buy the ruler designer from other outlets and activate the code they give you on steam. I just bought mine from amazon and can comfirm the code they gave me activated fine with Steam. :yes:
edit:
Played around with the ruler designer and I can see where some people are disappointed. The adding of traits is balanced so that positive traits will add years onto your rulers life before you start with a max starting age of 50. The other side of that same coin is that negative traits will remove years from the starting age, with a minimum of age 16. This means that it's impossible to customize a super king who has every positive stat in the game, without paying some kind of "penalty." It works out honestly, and it's not hard to create rulers whom are still good, just not overpowered.
The interesting thing is that customizing an existing character, while it changes your dynasty to a custom one, will NOT wipe out that character's claims. For instance I decided to customize one of the Rus dukes for a test run and turned him into a woman. I changed her dynasty to something other than Rurikovich and headed in game - sure enough, she had all the claims the default duke had.
So far I like what I see from the DLC and it's exactly what I wanted. I don't think i'll be using it in every game I play, but I'll certainly use it whenever I want to completely rewrite history with a custom dynasty :yes:
I hope you guys will forgive the recent double posts but I had a pretty cool idea and I wanted to share it with the CKII players we have at the .org. There was a a bundle of DLC released yesterday. The Ruler Designer was obviously the biggest, but the game's soundtrack was also released in three packs, each $2 each. Paradox has taken a really fun route with the DLC to date, in that everything is either cosmetic or nonesential, so it struck me that a lot of you folks may have passed on this stuff. In light of that, I thought up a fun game for us to play. A challenge if you will.
CKII orgahs I give you the 1205 scenario: An Empire Divided.
https://i.imgur.com/7ptbW.jpg
In the aftermath of the fourth crusade Byzantium had fractured into three states. Byzantium itself, the Latin Empire controlled by western crusaders, and the Sultanate of Rum. The challenge I propose is thus. Take one of these three contenders for the state of the Empire, and claim your rightful place as the successor of Rome. How do you do that? Take your faction from the above, to this.
https://i.imgur.com/AkFJg.jpg
These are the de jure lines of the Byzantine Empire at the start of the 1204 start date as of patch 1.05. Achieving this will etch your faction's name into history as the true successor of the Roman legacy beyond a shadow of a doubt. To add some fun to this challenge I'll buy all the currently released DLC for the first person to push their faction to these de jure lines. Allow me to sum up!
Proposed challenge: Proclaim yourself the successor of the Roman Empire
Proposed Rules:
1. Only a start date of Janurary 1st, 1205 can be used.
2. Usable factions: Latin Empire, Byzantine Empire, Sultanate of Rum
3. No mods allowed! The only modding you are permitted to do is modding the ability to play as the Sultanate of Rum
4. No custom character. Let's keep it historically plausible.
5. You are permitted to try as many times as you wish.
6. The challenge will end when one person has reached the de jure extent of the Byzantine empire, as shown in my current screenshot, with one of the aforementioned factions.
7. No cheating! No console commands may be used other than fow commands, which I do not consider to be cheating. This is supposed to be fun more than anything. ~:)
Proposed Time limit: A time limit of one month will be imposed. So if we started today, the deadline would be May 18th. At the end of this time if no one has obtained the goal of a full Resurrection of Byzantine glory, players may submit their best attempts and the one who got closest will be declared the winner.
Proposed Prize:
First prize: All DLC currently purchasable for Crusader Kings II. This includes the soundtrack, mongol portraits, historical Coat of Arms, and the Ruler Designer.
Second Prize: A choice between the complete soundtrack DLC bundle or the Ruler Designer.
What do you guys think. Would you arena-ites be interested in me running this challenge?
scottishranger
04-19-2012, 03:00
Very interesting challenge! I will start tomorrow haha!
I believe cheating can be made visible within the save game file? Not completely on this, but I think there is a method which you can test which used to be in effect for EU3:DW achievement system. If so, might be an idea to ask for save game uploads.
Perhaps doing an AAR with important dates or factors might be a key.
Either way, I am tempted to join in simply for the fun of it (so not wanting any prizes, simply the challenge) and I will choose.. the Latin Empire.
I believe cheating can be made visible within the save game file? Not completely on this, but I think there is a method which you can test which used to be in effect for EU3:DW achievement system. If so, might be an idea to ask for save game uploads.
Perhaps doing an AAR with important dates or factors might be a key.
Either way, I am tempted to join in simply for the fun of it (so not wanting any prizes, simply the challenge) and I will choose.. the Latin Empire.
I think that's a great idea actually. Coupled with asking for an end game save state that really should be enough to spot any cheaters ~;)
Here would be a list of Revised Rules for the challenge, with that in mind. The only thing changed would be the final requirements to have a winning entry made valid.
1. Only a start date of Janurary 1st, 1205 can be used.
2. Usable factions: Latin Empire, Byzantine Empire, Sultanate of Rum
3. No mods allowed! The only modding you are permitted to do is modding the ability to play as the Sultanate of Rum
4. No custom character. Let's keep it historically plausible.
5. You are permitted to try as many times as you wish.
6. The challenge will end when one person has reached the de jure extent of the Byzantine empire, as shown in my current screenshot, with one of the aforementioned factions.
7. No cheating! No console commands may be used other than fow commands, which I do not consider to be cheating. This is supposed to be fun more than anything.
8. Participants will be required to submit a final save game state as well as screenshots as proof of their deed.
9. Participants will be required to recap key events in their rise to power for their fellow members in the style of an AAR. Said AAR does not have to be extravagant! However, this is about fun, and what's more fun than showing off how you rebuilt Rome in a weekend? ~D
frogbeastegg
04-19-2012, 14:16
There's another hotfix inbound (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?601466-PATCH-RELEASED-%28v1.05b%29-Checksum-PMKX&p=13719840&viewfull=1#post13719840). This one addresses randomly generated male characters appearing with 0 base stats.
rickinator9
04-19-2012, 15:23
I think that's a great idea actually. Coupled with asking for an end game save state that really should be enough to spot any cheaters ~;)
Here would be a list of Revised Rules for the challenge, with that in mind. The only thing changed would be the final requirements to have a winning entry made valid.
1. Only a start date of Janurary 1st, 1205 can be used.
2. Usable factions: Latin Empire, Byzantine Empire, Sultanate of Rum
3. No mods allowed! The only modding you are permitted to do is modding the ability to play as the Sultanate of Rum
4. No custom character. Let's keep it historically plausible.
5. You are permitted to try as many times as you wish.
6. The challenge will end when one person has reached the de jure extent of the Byzantine empire, as shown in my current screenshot, with one of the aforementioned factions.
7. No cheating! No console commands may be used other than fow commands, which I do not consider to be cheating. This is supposed to be fun more than anything.
8. Participants will be required to submit a final save game state as well as screenshots as proof of their deed.
9. Participants will be required to recap key events in their rise to power for their fellow members in the style of an AAR. Said AAR does not have to be extravagant! However, this is about fun, and what's more fun than showing off how you rebuilt Rome in a weekend? ~D
Why no Epirus and Trebizond? Will be a pretty difficult challenge. Even the scenario when you have taken constantinople from the latins is difficult.
Why no Epirus and Trebizond? Will be a pretty difficult challenge. Even the scenario when you have taken constantinople from the latins is difficult.
You'll have to excuse my ignorance on the start date at hand, i chose what i considered to be the three largest contenders for the fate of the empire. Epirus and Trebizond would be an added challenge to an already challenging scenario, but if a player wants to start from them and forge an even greater empire then I don't see why not. :yes: I can include them in the list of approved factions without much trouble, I think.
I am in the process of finalizing the challenge now and would welcome any and all feedback you guys have to offer. This is for our members, so whatever makes this more fun for you guys I am completely open to.
Why no Epirus and Trebizond? Will be a pretty difficult challenge. Even the scenario when you have taken constantinople from the latins is difficult.
I think it is more like "3 Great Destinies". You have Rum which historically becomes the Ottoman Empire, you have Byzantium, the last remaining stronghold of the old Roman Empire, then you have the Latin Empire as complete outsiders. From a narrative point of view, this is more interesting of a concept.
From a game-play point of view though, Byzantium would be the easiest to achieve the objection on (due to de-jure changes in 1.05), Latin Empire being the hardest.
johnhughthom
04-19-2012, 18:20
Sounds like something to occupy myself with after the patch killed my AAR. Would everybody make their own thread with updates on their campaigns, or would you have one thread for all participants?
I think limiting it to Rum, Byzantium and the Crusader would be good, as Beskie said, the "3 Great Destinies" with the different participants showing a different perspective.
Sounds like something to occupy myself with after the patch killed my AAR. Would everybody make their own thread with updates on their campaigns, or would you have one thread for all participants?
I think limiting it to Rum, Byzantium and the Crusader would be good, as Beskie said, the "3 Great Destinies" with the different participants showing a different perspective.
I'll be making a thread for the challenge itself so we don't clog up this thread. Posting your exploits there, as well as final entries, will be heavily encouraged! It will be here in the arena sometime today, keep an eye for it! ~D
I tried one game already and I gave up.
I married into Sicily, thinking that they would be the hardest and most profitable gain I could get. Epius declared war so I was using my resources to fight them (I was winning), then I ended up in a massive civil war which came to a bloody conclusion when Byzantium got involved. (my remaining 6k worth of armies getting crushed by a 12k stack, leaving me and the rebels completely defenceless to oppose their might)
By the looks of it, I will have to play the first couple of years as an absolute tyrant in order to have the strength to fight the Byzantines.
Looked like a fun era though, there were a great number of wars going on.
johnhughthom
04-19-2012, 19:28
I think I'd need to change my play style to have any chance of winning this. I'll be getting towards the end of my first year, thinking I'm doing well, then check the forum to see eighteen people have already completed the challenge and I haven't even fought a single battle...
1.0.5c is now on Steam. Should make the challenge worth trying. I expect the winner to be a Byzantine though, they do have the advantage.
I am disliking the Design Ruler DLC though. It is far too strict. I was trying to recreate Jamie Lannister, and just giving him a good martial trait bumps him up to like 34 years old. So here is the "base" I used, if anyone feels like getting the look I came up with.
https://i.imgur.com/UmISi.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/OX6FH.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/OXQj5.png
Challenge thread is up at this link: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?141150-Crusader-Kings-II-Challenge-An-Empire-Divided
I encourage you guys to share your attempts there. :bow:
Rules have been revised to not be so stressful for our members who have less time on their hands.
and I lost my costume after entering the game. I think I might end up just save editing a characters traits in the future, which makes it disappointing to do.
Okay...
So I joined a crusade where I did the most work as in taking the most territories. At the end of it, it said King of France was biggest contributor (boo) and then it gave all the land to the already present Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Not sure how this is working..
rickinator9
04-20-2012, 14:46
Tiaexz
Here's the change log for the hot fix (v1.05c):
- Fixed a bug with some randomly created characters getting 0 base skills
- Fixed a bug with war contribution score not always being given from occupied Holdings
- You no longer gain intrigue for succeeding with murder plots
- AI: Revolters now a bit smarter about when to pick the Independence CB
- AI: Adjusted down the Crusade joining a bit more
- Increased the delay between Crusades
- Exported REVOLT_DISTANCE_FACTOR, REVOLT_OTHER_INDEP_RISK and REVOLT_OTHER_INDEP_RISK_CAP to defines
- You can no longer start military type plots against someone you have a truce with
- Fixed a bug where children born after the father had died would themselves immediately die
- AI: Should not revoke titles off vassals while at war with someone big
- Rebellious vassals who do NOT seek independence will tend to keep the the peace while there are independence revolts going on
- Fixed a bug with a duel event (100411), where a ruler could banish himself
Maybe that's where your problem lies.
I want to see a more M2TW feel to religion. Rather than having the whole region have one religion, let them have multiple religions. Each religion has a percentage of the regions believers. Having Higher state religion percentages in your empire will increase religious authority.
I have 1.5c as the patch and got the correct checksum.
But yeah, even then, it declared King of France the winner but KoJ got all the territory except the territory I took, which reverted to some Muslim Emir. Was really weird.
Post 1.05 western empires have been seriously nerfed, mostly due to the independance war changes. If one vassal rebels they can usually handle it. Two? Still, probably handle it. Any more than that and it's a good bet at least one of those wars will end with a new independant faction:
https://i.imgur.com/eIQaq.jpg
Toscana and Provence both look to be in very good positions to win their independence early in the game, especially if they work together. Weak emperors are now a huge problem for our familiar grey blobs. Will be interesting to see how this further pans out as I play deeper into the campaign.
In my Rumite campaign everything is going smoothly, I control the eastern Mediterranean, Crimea, Epirus and the Peloponnese; plus almost the whole of Anatolia...
But now I border both the Golden Horde and the Il-khanate, let's just say I don't feel comfortable XD
In my Rumite campaign everything is going smoothly, I control the eastern Mediterranean, Crimea, Epirus and the Peloponnese; plus almost the whole of Anatolia...
But now I border both the Golden Horde and the Il-khanate, let's just say I don't feel comfortable XD
Impressive! Perhaps we have our first contender for the prize? ~;)
Be sure to keep us updated in the challenge thread with your screenshots!
rickinator9
04-20-2012, 21:03
In my Rumite campaign everything is going smoothly, I control the eastern Mediterranean, Crimea, Epirus and the Peloponnese; plus almost the whole of Anatolia...
But now I border both the Golden Horde and the Il-khanate, let's just say I don't feel comfortable XD
Date?
Those mongols are hard to take down. You might be in trouble.
https://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p543/rickinator9/CK2%20random/ck2_11.jpg
He is far too fat. Is there any way I can make his descendants have a somewhat more pretty face? Not talking DLC.
Date?
1247ish, I can handle an invasion with smart deployment and movement, thus detrimenting them into a white peace (I have almost 10k gold and an 100k army). The real problem is that they will halt my expansion :P
Anyway the Il-khanate is facing rebellions every year and the Züchi-iin Ulus has a very large Bulgar nation building up at its border; a quite powerful Hungary at its heel; rebellious Pechenegs and groving Rus duchies.
Those mongols are hard to take down. You might be in trouble.
That is true, but I don't particularly need to take any of their land...
I hope both will realize that a Sunni conversion is what they need, or prey on weaker foes :P
rickinator9
04-20-2012, 21:44
That very large bulgar nation can't stand against those free mercs they have. Be on the lookout for backstabs.
Secura came and saw my save, and this is how she summed it up.
"You played 15 years and you have done.. nothing?"
Ouch. That is the price of the Crusade bugging indeed.
rickinator9
04-20-2012, 21:52
Post 1.05 western empires have been seriously nerfed, mostly due to the independance war changes. If one vassal rebels they can usually handle it. Two? Still, probably handle it. Any more than that and it's a good bet at least one of those wars will end with a new independant faction:
https://i.imgur.com/eIQaq.jpg
Toscana and Provence both look to be in very good positions to win their independence early in the game, especially if they work together. Weak emperors are now a huge problem for our familiar grey blobs. Will be interesting to see how this further pans out as I play deeper into the campaign.
You haven't even looked at the byzz.
You haven't even looked at the byzz.
They seem a bit scattered in that shot, true, but that's a civil war for the throne not independance.
Byzantium is holding together well in my current game, however they aren't expanding much. It's actually refreshing to see. Empires are no longer then rock solid institutions they were a couple patches ago and take a very good ruler to hold together. Incidentaly the HRE has reclaimed Toscana and Pisa, who rebelled at the start of the game after around 25 years, once they got a ruler worth his salt. Bugs and quirkiness aside I am really enjoying life post patch.
And THIS is why i like causes of death!
https://i.imgur.com/iekV7.jpg
Poor Duke William. He was set to unite all of England but dies in 1068 from a bought of pneumonia. With their would be king dead, the Normans prove to be little threat and Saxon England survives. Under the rule of King Harold.. the great? :shocked:
https://i.imgur.com/NGpYO.jpg
rickinator9
04-21-2012, 03:29
I had a pretty nice happening in this game. Trebizond began expanding on the Crimea and beyond. The GH conquered them and evoked the 'king of Trebizond' title. The GH somehow collapsed and now a lot of small states emerged in the steppe. Trebizond was now divided into four states: The Crimea, Chersonesos, Armeniacon and Trebizond proper. Soon, the wars started and the target was the Crimea. Crimea was partially subdued under Trebizond. Armeniacon was divided between Byzantium and Rum. Chersonesos and Trebizond became vassals of the Byzantine empire. That was the epic tale of Trebizond.
I will have a full report tomorrow in the challenge thread.
The Stranger
04-21-2012, 09:52
what is the prize? or challenge?
johnhughthom
04-21-2012, 13:47
Secura came and saw my save, and this is how she summed it up.
"You played 15 years and you have done.. nothing?"
Ouch. That is the price of the Crusade bugging indeed.
Hmm, I'd hate to think what Secura would say about some of my games, I have gone over 100 years as a one county family in the original.
what is the prize? or challenge?
The challenge is to recreate the Byzantine Empire's greatest extent, with the Byzzies, Crusaders or Rum from a 1205 start. Prizes are dlc for the game. Or just check the thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?141150-Crusader-Kings-II-Challenge-An-Empire-Divided), you lazy Dutch man.
rickinator9
04-21-2012, 14:15
The challenge is to recreate the Byzantine Empire's greatest extent, with the Byzzies, Crusaders or Rum from a 1205 start. Prizes are dlc for the game. Or just check the thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?141150-Crusader-Kings-II-Challenge-An-Empire-Divided), you lazy Dutch man.
The De Jure isn't the real extent of the Byzantine Empire. They never expanded above the danube River, or so far into the desert.
johnhughthom
04-21-2012, 14:24
The De Jure isn't the real extent of the Byzantine Empire. They never expanded above the danube River, or so far into the desert.
Pfft, I'm calling you nitpickinator9 from now on.
BTW as for patch notes, playing with Rum I encountered some bugs: sometime I can see my vassal's council members (marshal or steward usually) and the regent event (a new regent should get appointed due to his skills and winning a duel) seems broken, as the same regent remains, unless it's supposed to go that way, but they didn't write "the same regent remains in office" text...
BTW as for patch notes, playing with Rum I encountered some bugs: sometime I can see my vassal's council members (marshal or steward usually) and the regent event (a new regent should get appointed due to his skills and winning a duel) seems broken, as the same regent remains, unless it's supposed to go that way, but they didn't write "the same regent remains in office" text...
The council in general seems to have been bugged a bit thanks to 1.05. Council members will leave their positions sometimes for no obvious reason. In the past I always knew why a council member left, eg i appointed him to a duchy so now he has his own court, ect. But now, sometimes you'll have council members leave but they dont seem to be following any reason for it. Thankfully it doesn't seem to happen that often and most times you can rehire them back.
johnhughthom
04-21-2012, 19:23
That actually happened to me a few times pre 1.5.
sometimes you'll have council members leave but they dont seem to be following any reason for it.
Another one, that I know of, is if their spouse dies...
Okay...
So I joined a crusade where I did the most work as in taking the most territories. At the end of it, it said King of France was biggest contributor (boo) and then it gave all the land to the already present Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Not sure how this is working..
Just encountered something like this. It turns out if a catholic ruler already owns the de jure kingdom that's being fought for, in this case, the KoJ, then you are fighting to restore land for that guy's faction. So basically, the pope called this crusade to expand the KoJ's borders, not to let anyone grab land.
However. If no one holds the de jure kingdom being fought for, then the one with the largest contribution score is given the kingdom.
I thought as much, but yes. The crusade cost me really dearly too and I found out too late.
What is silly though, after a few years, KoJ collasped and half of it is owned by cyprus, and the other half is back in Muslim hands.
rickinator9
04-23-2012, 19:03
Has anyone noticed the 'Join war as allies' feature is being spammed by the AI. I went to war against the latins as Rum and all of a sudden France joins in. Nasty!
Has anyone noticed the 'Join war as allies' feature is being spammed by the AI. I went to war against the latins as Rum and all of a sudden France joins in. Nasty!
In the challenge scenario the Latins start with many frankish characters, so that's no surprise. The AI is much more careful about which wars it joins in 1.05c. If it dogpiles in you better watch out :yes:
Just got the game tonight. Took the stereotypical route and made William of Normandy into the Conquerer. Beat both the Saxons and Norse by 1071, and now I'm biding my time waiting till I have enough cash to usurp Anjou. After that, hoping to go after Wales pretty soon.
So far, I'm enjoying the game a lot. It's very time-consuming and difficult to pick up, though - the only other Paradox game I've played was the demo for EU2.
rickinator9
04-25-2012, 08:51
If you play a lot, you'll learn the basics very fast. I haven't even mastered the advanced strategies.
The Stranger
04-25-2012, 09:34
Just got the game tonight. Took the stereotypical route and made William of Normandy into the Conquerer. Beat both the Saxons and Norse by 1071, and now I'm biding my time waiting till I have enough cash to usurp Anjou. After that, hoping to go after Wales pretty soon.
So far, I'm enjoying the game a lot. It's very time-consuming and difficult to pick up, though - the only other Paradox game I've played was the demo for EU2.
ye its a bit overwhelming at first :P i had the same, never played a paradox game. i could only play on normal speed everything else was too fast, now 3 months later i find the fastest speeds not fast enough except for the times that i am too slow to hit the pause button :P
rickinator9
04-25-2012, 11:31
I find my own 4.5 speed(my system is below system requirements) the best.
I'm unsure if someone has mentioned this already, but there's a Game of Thrones mod in the making, the forum for which can be found here (http://citadel.prophpbb.com/forum3.html).
It's going to be based around Robert's Rebellion initially, though they're keen to expand onto other campaigns once the mod is running perfectly; alot of care and effort is going into it, which you can see for yourself in a few of the screenshots milling around, such as this one:
https://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d12/JodoKastTRL/Roose1.png
Family members (note his second child's parentage!), religion, titles held, nickname, even the creepy Bolton eyes... this one screenshot alone has me excited for a proper release. :3
I'm unsure if someone has mentioned this already, but there's a Game of Thrones mod in the making, the forum for which can be found here (http://citadel.prophpbb.com/forum3.html).
It's going to be based around Robert's Rebellion initially, though they're keen to expand onto other campaigns once the mod is running perfectly; alot of care and effort is going into it, which you can see for yourself in a few of the screenshots milling around, such as this one:
https://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d12/JodoKastTRL/Roose1.png
Family members (note his second child's parentage!), religion, titles held, nickname, even the creepy Bolton eyes... this one screenshot alone has me excited for a proper release. :3
I have to say, while I was playing I thought to myself, "this would be the perfect game for a Game of Thrones Mod," and "that means there must already be one in development". Eagerly awaiting its fruition.
rickinator9
04-25-2012, 19:04
Hmm, I hope they don't raise the bar too high, otherwise my pc won't be able to play it.
I have to say, while I was playing I thought to myself, "this would be the perfect game for a Game of Thrones Mod," and "that means there must already be one in development". Eagerly awaiting its fruition.
The original Crusader Kings had a Game of Thrones mod too, but I think these guys can be more faithful to the novels with all the new changes in the sequel.
On the vanilla game, I'm currently playing a game where I started as a custom Countess of Reggio; I'd like to form Sicily, but I've only got 8/17 provinces and lack any claims to the rest of it. Still, I managed to ascend to Queen, by claiming the titular Kingdom of Trinacria. Now to consolidate my demesne (and convert them from Orthodoxy/Islam!), fend off the vengeful Tripolitania/Kabylia and cross my fingers for a claim on Salerno or Apulia. ^_^
The Stranger
04-25-2012, 22:46
are you a duke? if so invite a claimant to a county and give this claimant a county in your duchy and then press his claim, this should add the county to your lands and this give you the 9/17 you need. or take the long road and use marriage or take the even longer road and use fabrication XD
ps if none of the claimants wish to accept the invitation then marry them to a courtier, the women are easiest since they dont need matrilinial to come to your court, but if there are only men among the candidates marry them matrilinially
rickinator9
04-25-2012, 23:40
That won't work. He doesn't have a kingdom that's de jure and as such will stay independent using this method.
PS: Stranger, you don't have to give the courtier a title. Being in the court will do.
The Stranger
04-25-2012, 23:46
nope, being in court only works if you are pressing a dejure claim for a courtier, giving him a title and then press a same or lower tier title will expand your lands. if you press a title that is similar or higher to your own or higher to what he has he will become independent
thus
if you press a courtier claim for anyone in the dejure lands of france he will become your vassal.
if you give a dukedom to a courtier and then press any duke tier claim it will be added to your land
but
if you press a kingdom tier claim for a courtier as a king he will become an independent king
or if you press a duke tier claim for a count he will become independent if the claim is not on your dejure. (i am actually not sure about this, but i think its right)
A shot from my current game. The Russian Bear has awoken 6 centuries early...
https://i.imgur.com/E0ImL.jpg
Or should I say the lion? I replaced the Duke of Rostov with a custom character and their symbol is that of the golden lion :yes: . I wanted to have one overarching goal for this game: Survive the Horde by any means necessary. To that end I quickly worked to unify the de jure Rus together into one Kingdom and it proved to be a scary experience. Even though I won big against Novgorod, a mislcalculation allowed the southern Rurikovich duchies to unify together beneath Turov. Normally that's not a problem, but Turov had Primogeniture which means they had solidified their hold.. and they were more powerful than my own forces. A cold war settled on the orthodox settled lands of the steppes. My custom dynasty, the House Alexandrov controlled the north, while the Rurikovich family controled the south. When we went to war we tore each other apart. The war for control of Turov ended up being the bloodiest and most back and forth war i've had in CKII. Usually it's over in the first few battles, but this one? Good lord. I lost the first round of engagements, rounded up some mercenaries and won the second round, putting us at Status Quo.
Round 3 (6 years into the war mind you) was a split decision, with each of us losing thousands of troops and my bank breaking. My poor duchess got "the careless" because i went into the red at least three times. But in the end my persistance paid off and I won, destroying the Duchy of Turov and asserting hegemony over the Southern de jure Rus lands. The downside was my levies were in shambles after a prolongued conflict and I had accumulated a HUGE relations hit from raised levies penalties. This was the very definition of war exhaustion. I had to utilise the new plots of rulers to remove some very nasty contenders who could have thrown the realm into chaos in its weakened state. The term "Russian politics" has become synonymous with a knife in the back, a feeling expressed both in jest and in total seriousness. One does not cross the newly crowed Kings of the Rus without expecting quick retaliation. Honorable or otherwise...
The war with Turov was over 40 years ago, and it's been a long road since. I've tied my dynasty into the fates of Norway, Denmark and Hungary. A child of Alexandrov blood is but a heart beat away from the successions in each of those nations. That will be my greatest victory I think. If I could get one of my sons on the HRE as well, that would just take the cake.
While seeing the map turned that awesome Russian green is amazing, the biggest coup ge grace is seeing House Rurikovich almost entirely destroyed. Their legacy is pretty much gone, only small counts here and there claim their descent from that line. Most of the line has been intermingled with the Cumans and as thus isn't even Russian anymore. After the Crimean war of 1130 that severely weakened the power of the Cuman Khaganate, I gave their last surviving successor with any real stats worth it a duchy out of pity. He is now the Duke of Crimea, but he owes everything to the Alexandrovs. House Alexandrov is the Rus. To say anything else is treason.
The Horde is coming but I'm ready. Even if I lose I'll be giving them one crazy fight. I'm making 21 per month and building provincial upgrades all the time. Oh.. and check this out.
https://i.imgur.com/PRqdS.jpg
The Byzantines and the HRE have been contained completely by outside powers and their own internal pressures. The Byzantines lost a war with the Turks which resulted in domino of civil wars. They have no crown authority now and sit at autonomous vassals. They are pathetically weak, the only reason their empire even exists is due to the divided state of the muslim world. The Turks could take them out but they can't seem to keep their empire in order. Mosul keeps rebelling and is giving them a huge headache, but they were more than happy to swallow up most of Armenia when the Doux of Armenia rebelled. ~;)
Some fun narratives have been cropping up in this campaign, and I have to give that credit to the character designer. I know it's limited and perhaps not as extensive as we might've hoped, but creating a custom dynasty changes the campaign in a whole new way. Every character (well not every one, but a lot of them!) are introducing their own little fun narratives into the game. I really care about all of these guys, because I feel like they are my characters. Perhaps far more than I would have just John Malkovich'ing into them without customization.
Like when 15 years removed from the Rus Unification Wars, the newly formed Kingdom of Rus went against its first true test, the Bulgars. The war was evenly matched when at the Battle of Cheremisa, the Alexandrov brothers Dimitry and Alexiv were killed while leading the flanking actions. They were perhaps my greatest generals - a little after that my queen, the original starting character and the founder of the dynasty died, leaving a son to rule after having lost two brothers and a mother to the war. He gathered the reinforcement levies and marched east to lead the final sieges himself... He still rules to this day and has since earned the moniker "The Great"
have I mentioned I love this game? Yes I think so.
rickinator9
04-25-2012, 23:58
With 30000 men, you won't stand a chance against mongols.
Your confidence is overwhelming :laugh4: I still have a full century to prepare. I'm still expecting to lose but getting my dynastic ties so deeply ingrained with my neighbors has given me some reliable allies, which i fully intend to keep.
It's gonna be world war one and win or lose I'm gonna have a blast!
The Stranger
04-26-2012, 00:54
you guys really give too much credit to the mongols
chose ground wisely, preferably near the water (since you can avoid attrition that way while on water :P), if not possible then doomflank on a mountain county preferably with a rivercrossing.
theyll bring what? 60k? you can take that np if you play smart
Alexander the Pretty Good
04-26-2012, 02:35
So I just took the plunge since it's $20 on amazon. What ruler or country do you guys recommend for starting? Is the tutorial any good? I'm going to really dig in over the weekend but some direction would be welcome.
scottishranger
04-26-2012, 02:51
To start out you might want to be an Irish county. That will prevent you from getting overwhelmed. When you feel confident enough to be a King, I would suggest either Sweden or Poland. Both have pagan neighbors which will get you an introduction to warfare, and both have a decent number of vassals but not to much.
The Stranger
04-26-2012, 03:06
or if you like spain, take the duchy of barcelona, nice one to start with, allthough i dont know what differences the new patch have made for their starting position in 1066. i think it might be alot harder as them now, so in that case ireland would be good.
Welcome to the game ATPG! :grin2: The tutorial is fine and will get you comfortable with the UI, how to declare war, how to use plots, and so on. But beyond that it's not much help. Like any Paradox game you're going to need to run some training campaigns to get a good feel for all of the mechanics. Until you learn more about the mechanics don't worry about losing, instead only concern yourself with learning and having fun.
To start out you might want to be an Irish county. That will prevent you from getting overwhelmed. When you feel confident enough to be a King, I would suggest either Sweden or Poland. Both have pagan neighbors which will get you an introduction to warfare, and both have a decent number of vassals but not to much.
Sweden is a relatively poor (in terms of money) game. I consider it more advanced solely due to the fact that if you don't manage yourself smart in the early game, by the mid-game you're broke and essentially not much of a threat to anyone. If you want my advice go Ireland first and foremost. Any of the counts there will introduce you to the absolute basics of character relations. You will learn the hard way of what to do/not to do, this thread also has helpful tips for anyone new to the game :yes: You willl also have the chance to form duchies and later the Kingdom of Ireland with very little outside hindrance. It's a great training sandbox.
After you feel comfortable I would follow Stranger's advice and go to Spain. Any of the Jimena brothers offer a great game for someone trying to learn more how to play. Iberia will teach you the intricacies of the character relation system, it's there you'll learn about multi-faction wars, title claimaints, de jure duchy importance and so on. Poland is also a good choice when your understanding of the game is intermediate and you want to get a bit deeper into things.
you guys really give too much credit to the mongols
chose ground wisely, preferably near the water (since you can avoid attrition that way while on water :P), if not possible then doomflank on a mountain county preferably with a rivercrossing.
theyll bring what? 60k? you can take that np if you play smart
Catching them on favorable terrain for your side is really the key. If you fail to do so their free 20k attrition proof doomstacks will get ya, which is what I am afraid might happen. It can be easy to get caught out of position on the eastern side of the map and facing down an attacking force on even terrain. Not something I want to do with the Mongols. :no: But if I keep my coalition alive and continue to strengthen my levy pools it'll be a fun fight if nothing else. ~;)
That won't work. She doesn't have a kingdom that's de jure and as such will stay independent using this method.
It's alright, my Chancellor eventually fabricated a claim on Salerno, which I seized with both hands! The real difficulty in claiming the rest is that Genoa has rooted in deep and they're more capable of spamming mercenaries than I am.
My dynasty has moved onto it's third character now, which looks to be a tough ask since he's only sixteen and heavily reliant on his uncle. Still, his demesne includes the Kingdom of Trinacria and Naples (titular only, heh), the Kingdom of Sicily (save Apulia) and the Kingdom of Africa (rather, Tunis and Tripolitania, both given to me by the Pope for a successful crusade).
My cousin currently holds Jerusalem, having inherited from his father, who was the third son of my starting character; he's managed to fend off some attempts to reclaim the land (both de jure claims and jihad), but I'm unsure how long he can hold off against the Caliphate. Still, it's good to see my dynasty name stretching across various parts of the Med. :P
Man, appointing an antipope lets you rake in the cash. In the early-game, when I only controlled 5 counties, my income jumped from 3.75 gold/month to 18 gold/month, simply from all those taxes my bishops had been evading.
Also, a question for you guys - is it possible to change your capital city (e.g. from a castle to a town)? I ask because I'm fairly certain that I only receive full taxes from holdings that I personally own, and if I try to add a city to my demense when my capital is a castle I get a major penalty.
The Stranger
04-26-2012, 11:33
I think it is possible, but I think you will still get the penalty. and it wont net you more cash. the -30 wrong type bonus is negligble for the money you get anyway.
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