Crusader Kings II

[Hooahguy]

Interesting changes, though Im not sure if I will like the reducing of levies because on one hand this would make me more reliant on mercs if I need to fight a big war that comes up suddenly, but on the other hand I do like how it would reduce the mega-blobs you see every now and then.

Everything else though sounds fantastic.

[Myth]

While I welcome the terrain bottlenecks and reduced levies (in my Venice game, for which none of you guys replied - SHAMEFUR DISPRAY, I got a pink Muslim super empre encompassing literally 1/3 of the known world) the reduced levies will mean an even greater importance of retinues.

It does reduce the benefit of non-holy war expansion into other culture groups however. No particular point in conquering Italy as the ERE since those Italians will hate your guts and won't provide armies.

[Monk]

While I welcome the terrain bottlenecks and reduced levies (in my Venice game, for which none of you guys replied - SHAMEFUR DISPRAY, I got a pink Muslim super empre encompassing literally 1/3 of the known world) the reduced levies will mean an even greater importance of retinues.

It does reduce the benefit of non-holy war expansion into other culture groups however. No particular point in conquering Italy as the ERE since those Italians will hate your guts and won't provide armies.

Yeah, retinues and foreign mercenaries will be huge after this patch for everyone, not just republics or low level rulers anymore. I actually really love that change. It should be very hard to organize your feudal realm toward an offensive war and even tougher to stay on the good side of vassals. If this is done properly it could strike the balance of keeping realms from blobbing too big while still allowing kingdoms to defend themselves.

It will also encourage assassination, title shifting and character educating to get friendly cultures in far away holdings. That foreigner opinion penalty is going to REALLY suck from now on...

I'm concerned about the strength of the Mongols who won't have to worry about any of this. If the Mongols sack Paris I am calling OP



Sorry for not catching your post Myth, I have very little experience playing MR. How would you rate the Old Gods start Merchant game? Worth a go?

[Myth]

If we get some "Travel to Mongolia to elect a new Great Khan so you lose your free armies for 18 months." event with SoA they won't be so OP. But then the Seljuks and the Azteks would crush face.

Do we have Timurids in CKII?

By the way, here is the full changelog of the patch:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

MAJOR
- Ironman mode
- Steam Achievements
- Steam Workshop support
- Religious (non-heretic) rebels
- Support for the metaserver dropped
- Women can now die in childbirth, and there can be other complications, like illness and sickly infants

GAMEPLAY
- Waived the creation conditions (culture, religion) for most kingdoms and empires for human players
- Having a marriage alliance now increases opinion by 30 (quite useful vs liege or vassals)
- Reduced the overall revolt risk
- Fixed a bug where you could not fire the leader of the right flank if the left flank had no leader
- You now get and lose the -1 "raised troops" opinion penalty from vassals every 61 days instead of every 73 days
- You no longer get any liege levies from vassals with a negative opinion of you
- There is now a +50 opinion bonus when a liege is the primary defender in a war against foreigners
- Increased the opinion bonus to +75 when a liege is the primary defender in a holy war (and improved the check)
- A Holding owner's personal martial skill now affects the levy size (exported as HOLDING_LEVY_SIZE_OWNER_MARTIAL_BASE and HOLDING_LEVY_SIZE_OWNER_MARTIAL_MULT)
- Armies on ships are capped at 50% morale
- Levy maintenance costs increased by 50%
- Mercenary maintenance increased by 20%
- Increased the cost of reinforcing retinues by 20%
- Levy sizes now depend on the de jure region they are in (the most in the capital county, the least outside the capital empire.)
- No longer allowed to retract barony tier vassals from their de jure count
- Murderers are now revealed in Observe mode (no "suspicious accidents")
- Non-theocracy lieges are now only allowed to create single county or barony temple vassals (bishoprics)
- Non-theocracy lieges can no longer create neighboring county tier bishops
- You are now only allowed to have a certain percentage of counties under theocracy vassals (MAX_THEOCRACY_COUNTIES_IN_REALM)
- You are now only allowed to have a certain percentage of counties under republic vassals (MAX_REPUBLIC_COUNTIES_IN_REALM)
- Added major events for the enabling of Christian Crusades (the CB) and Holy Orders
- Added major events for the enabling of Muslim Jihads (the CB) and Holy Orders
- Added major events for the enabling of Pagan Great Holy Wars (the CB)
- Added some more detail to many heresies (Cathars can have female priests, etc)
- Added heads of religion for five heresies: d_fraticelli, d_iconoclast, d_yazidi, d_ibadi and d_hurufi
- Added major decisions to create the Fraticelli and Iconoclast religious heads
- Can now elect females as bishops in versions of Christianity scripted to allow that
- Fixed a bug with mercenaries and holy orders not disbanding their special troops
- Rebalanced the Volley Harass combat tactic
- Pagan festivals now provide the advertised opinion boost to vassals
- Heirs denied the chance to join the Varangian Guard no longer get the event where they return home upon inheriting
- The Saoyshant Descendant trait is now properly granted to grandchildren when becoming the Saoyshant
- The Saoyshant Descendant trait is now granted to all descendants regardless of gender
- Removed the checks in certain events for the obsolete Duchy of Oxford
- The heretic_friend_timer modifier is now properly hidden in event 100180
- Councillors in Republics now use titles appropriate to their religion and culture
- The Pentarchy events will now only trigger for Orthodox Byzantine/Roman rulers
- Baron-tier Patricians are now able to fabricate claims
- Eunuchs will no longer ask to be given a title
- Concubines will no longer have marriage ambitions as they cannot get married
- Concubines can now have the ambition to have a daughter
- Added non-Christian/non-Muslim option to event 4140
- Characters of a religion where priests are not allowed to marry will now divorce their wives if ordained
- Traits blocking inheritance no longer apply for Temple titles
- Fixed some bugs with how dead spouses are handled
- Most rebel units now disband if they win
- Fixed a bug with the 'potential' check of traits after a religion change
- Made adventures a bit less common
- Corrected some minor errors in various pulse events
- Increased the default bishop opinion of the Pope
- Increased the opinion of their liege for invested bishops
- Lowered the opinion bonus for bishops vs their liege under Free Investiture
- Slightly lowered tax rates from bishops to both the Pope and antipopes
- New randomly generated bishops and mayors now get the local liege's culture rather than the top liege's
- Installing an antipope as Pope now makes him like you a lot more
- Added event where rebels kill random characters after taking a holding (TOG.1190)
- Cut the Bektashi Shiite heresy
- The decisions to create Hungary and Leon can no longer be taken when at war
- Norse Pagan Reformed barons now use the correct title
- Event 100180 will no longer trigger for heretic characters
- Event 39001 will no longer trigger for heretic characters
- Fixed a bug where minor baronies could go independent when they should not
- Fixed a bug with the war score in revoke vassal title plots
- Reduced the amount of non-claimant adventures out of player empires
- Female rulers can now always get married, even in religions with polygamy and concubinage
- Made prepared invasions by AI vassals in player empires rarer
- Fixed a crash bug with real fathers set from event effects sometimes being deleted
- The Aztecs, Mongols and Seljuks now spawn with more but smaller regiments
- Added more severe opinion penalties to assassination plots being discovered
- Fixed a bug where counties could be deprived of _any_ holder through 'gain_settlements_under_title' and related event effects
- Fixed a bug with the subjugation CB where the winner could become the vassal of the loser
- Fixed a bug with event 3686 where you could fall in love with close relatives
- Fixed a rare memory leak in diplomatic actions
- Fixed a minor glitch with the Aztec emperor appearing in and leaving your court on arrival
- Fixed a bug where the grant minor title message would always say "REGENT"
- Fixed a bug preventing the granting of bishoprics to females even if the religion allows it
- Fixed a bug where the "cousin" relation would not always be correctly calculated
- A character's original birth name is now shown in the tooltip if he or she has a regnal name (e.g. popes)
- Tweaked the outcome of the Improve Relations chancellor job. The effect lasts longer, but is less powerful and somewhat harder to get.
- Fixed a potential CTD in declare war interaction
- Fixed a CTD caused by attacking siege leader dying while siegeview was open
- When ransoming a courtier that has money, that character's money will now be used towards paying the ransom, and if they have enough money for the whole ransom their liege will not have to pay anything at all
- Opinion boost for releasing a prisoner is now +5 opinion per tier of their primary title (so +5 for a Baron, +10 for a Count etc).
- Entering observe mode will now automatically lift FoW
- Charinfo console command is now a proper toggle and does not require additional input
- Added a bottleneck logic to battles where the defender benefits from the surrounding terrain to make the opponent fight on his terms.
- Failing flank is much more punishing now, a surrounded flank or a failing mmid-flank are catastrophic.
- Tweaked Teutonic order to be more infantry oriented.
- Holy orders and Mercenaries are now split into several sub units which can be put on different flanks or different units.
- Now generates courtiers to mercenaries and holy orders so they can be put as leader for the sub-units.
- Fixed some bugs with the customization DLC's renaming of landed titles with cultural names.
- Fixed a bug where fabricate claims plot wouldn't end when the title was destroyed
- Fixed a bug where all constructed settlements were counted as trade posts
- Fixed a bug for multiplayer character selection which enabled multiple people to play as the same character
- Fixed a bug where invaders of the same kingdom weren't hostile towards eachother
- Fixed a bug where removal of certain traits caused the game to stop responding
- Fixed a bug where attached units would remain attached even if the leading unit was an enemy
- Fixed a bug where AI didn't invite people to the fabricate claim plot
- Fixed a bug where you could having a landed title with zero holdings under it's control
- Fixed a bug where character attributes for characters were in some cases incorrectly read
- Fixed a bug where all baron subvassals were transferred upon title usurpation

INTERFACE
- Fixed a bug where titular titles would hide certain other titles
- Fixed a bug where character editor property values went out of range
- Family tree now shows dynasty relation
- Fixed a bug where dead popes would have the incorrect character portrait
- Fixed a bug for the title loss notification for republics.
- Fixed a bug with the ruler consort title being shown for the spouse a day after the ruler dies
- Fixed a bug in some messages with duplicate titles ("King King Karlmann")
- Fixed a bug with some dynasty names of event spawned characters
- Dying a "natural death" below the age of 45 is now called dying of "poor health" instead
- Added a missing tooltip for why you cannot nominate a bishop successor if the current bishop is not of your religion
- If there has only been a single ruler by a certain first name, the regnal number is no longer shown
- Improved the entry texts in the title history view a bit
- The black bastard blood drop is now shown correctly with the new bastard dynasty system
- Lowered the priority of faction messages to reduce spam
- Lowered the priority of heir choices under elective monarchy to reduce spam
- Added 'Random Character' button when selecting character
- Added 'Split in Half' button for units
- Player will no longer get a notification of being besieged if the besieging army is too small to take the settlement.
- Support for native clipboard functionality.
- Support to select text using keyboards
- Added Quick-Split icon menu to quickly split army based on mercenaries, holy orders and retinues.
- Tweaked amount of ships and shipbuilding tech for merchant republics.

DATABASE
- Changed some time period inappropriate names in Serbia
- Changes to the bastard children of Antso IV of Navarra
- Added the missing mother for Jeanne de Beaumont
- Various title corrections in the Latin Empire bookmark
- København is now called Hafn when held by Norse characters
- Changed some time period inappropriate names in Malta and added Greek versions
- Changes to the Plantagenet monarchs
- Corrections for the Dukes of Silesia and other related characters
- Changed some time period inappropriate names in Estonia
- Louis II of Italy now has the correct Wikipedia link
- Fixes and additions for FitzAlans and early Stewarts
- Additions and corrections to the Roman Emperors of the Byzantine Empire title history
- Eudokia is now the Byzantine Empress for six months in 1067
- Added additional names for Ecumenical Patriarchs to choose from
- Fixed the dynasty of the several bastards belonging to the de Barcelona dynasty
- The Duke of Portucale now has an heir in 867
- Fixes to several Slavic dynasty names
- Character 217501 now has the correct Wikipedia link
- Updated Counts of Gilan to ensure proper regnal numbers
- Corrections to Wladyslaw II the Exile and his close family
- Added a dynasty for Grand Prince Feodor of Novgorod
- Hubert de Burgh is now correctly the Earl of Kent and Baron of Montgomery
- Miscellaneous Capetian/Valois fixes
- Anglo-Saxon England now has feudal elective law
- Added new Coats of Arms for Dregovichs, Severians and Radimichs
- Reduced effects of terrain on movement speed
- Battles in Crusade-type wars now only have half the normal impact on warscore

AI
- Powerful kings and emperors will now sometimes set up antipopes
- Cynical rulers may now sometimes switch back to Free Investiture law
- AI characters will now hold Pagan festivals
- Magyars are now more willing to convert even before 930
- Fixed a bug where the AI would sometimes not marry at all if the only suitable candidates were of too low rank
- Fixed a bug that was causing AI armies consisting of a single large regiment to endlessly split off and reabsorb empty regiments
- AI: Will no longer split a stack if the split would create a tiny useless army
- AI: Now takes culture, religion and province wealth into consideration when choosing capitals
- AI: Much higher prio on holding to to the counties in its primary duchy
- AI: More prio on keeping its demesne concentrated in a few duchies
- AI: Will no longer accept a matrilineal marriage if the betrothal was non-matrilineal and vice versa
- When marrying betrothed characters, the AI will now always propose the type of marriage agreed upon in the betrothral
- Fixed some inconsistencies in AI battle odds evaluation
- Increased AI prio on building shipyards
- Fixed a bug that was preventing the AI from starting wars against characters with only barony level holdings
- AI: Higher prio on helping friendly armies in battle
- AI: Better at coordinating attacks together with their allies
- Fixed a bug that was causing the defensive war AI to not work correctly
- AI: Will no longer accept giving away women as concubines to characters whose religion they will not intermarry with
- AI: Will no longer destroy King titles if AI_EMPEROR_CREATES_KINGDOMS is set to 1
- Fixed a bug where the AI would incorrectly calculate retreating units as potential combatants when deciding to move to a province
- AI: Fixed a bug where two AI armies from the same country would change their orders back and forth due to reacting to what the other army was doing
- AI: Will no longer retreat from incoming enemies if it is already moving to attack those enemies
- AI: Muslim characters no longer consider prestige effects when determining who to marry
- Fixed a bug that was preventing the AI from reinforcing allies in battle if the enemy army was moving before starting the battle
- AI: More prio on besieging contested provinces when the enemy has ticking warscore
- AI: Better at coordinating its armies between fronts
- AI: Better at coordinating its armies with allies
- AI: Will now keep imprisoned characters that they don't want to execute/banish/revoke locked up for a while instead of instantly releasing them. The minimum lockup time depends on the importance of the character.
- Fixed several 'lockups' in army AI where armies would get stuck bouncing between two destinations
- AI: Will now consider the actual composition of an army when determining its strength, rather than just looking at numbers
- AI: Now factors in effects of terrain when determining whether to attack with an army
- Rationality now affects how well AI will calculate odds of success when attacking with its armies
- AI: Will no longer overcommit when pursuing small enemy stacks
- AI: Less priority on pursuing small stacks when there are more important targets
- AI: Will now prefer fighting in its own territory when in a defensive war against opponents of superior or equal strength
- AI: Will now consolidate several armies into a large HK stack when fighting a defensive war against a superior opponent
- AI: Will now create Hunter-Killer stacks to chase enemy armies
- AI: More prio on keeping its armies close together when advancing in enemy territory
- AI: Will now lift sieges to attack enemy armies when appropriate
- AI: Will now split up its armies into medium-sized stacks to avoid attrition
- AI: Will no longer assault unless it has at least 10:1 numbers

MODDING
- Added support in traits for tolerance of other religion groups
- Added 'on_vassal_accepts_religious_conversion', which now basically handles all the logic of the Demand Conversion interaction
- Added "evil_god_names" to religions, to be used in event texts
- Added a priest title to religions, that can be used in text
- Added trigger 'is_father_real_father'
- Added trigger 'any_spouse_even_if_dead'
- Added 'priests_can_inherit' to religions
- Added trigger 'historical' (character)
- Added 'score' console command cheat
- Added trigger 'score'
- MTTH in on_action events should now be written 'weight_multiplier'. Added log error.
- Added proper event id system for errors logs, including the namespace
- Added 'family_palace' event target
- Added 'on_become_doge' on-action
- Added trigger 'republic_total_num_of_trade_posts'
- Events with 'hide_window' now fire a valid event option if there are any
- Added system for events marked 'notification' to be shown as messages rather than full pop-up windows
- Added on-action 'on_county_religion_change'
- Added trigger 'has_heresies'
- Added event target 'parent_religion_head'
- The event target 'religion_head' now also works in province scope
- Added trigger 'any_province_holding'
- Added effect 'any_province_holding'
- Added effect 'random_province_holding'
- Added succession law 'Appointment' for feudal vassals of Holy Orders (titles revert back to the liege on death)
- Added event effect 'banish_religion = X'
- Added 'can_retire_to_monastery' flag to religions
- Added 'jewish_opinion' to traits
- Added 'dynasty = culture' possibility to the 'create_character' effect
- The trigger 'has_empty_holding' now also counts holdings under construction
- Exported LEVY_MAINTENANCE_FACTOR to defines
- Added 'monthly_income' field to landed titles for extra income
- Temporary modifiers can now be inherited
- Exported some AI raid parameters to defines
- Added 'hold_election' event effect for merchant republics
- Added support for female versions of event pictures
- Added 'force_picture' field to events, to ignore cultural, religious, and gender variants of event pictures
- Fixed a bug with the effect 'random_sibling' (it included dead siblings)
- Fixed some bugs with the 'can_marry' trigger
- Added 'GetFromFromRelation' text
- Added on_action 'on_adulthood'
- Added battle_warscore_mult setting to cb_types, this modifies the warscore gained from battles in wars using that CB
- Increased the number of galleys gained from shipyards
- Exported define AI_ALWAYS_CREATES_DUCHIES
- Exported define BASE_AI_ARMY_SIZE
- Added prevent decadence trait value.
- Fixed so titles can have their own graphical culture type.
- Added support for any triggers to count matches.
- Added various new on_action hooks to support the achievements.
- added like_better_than trigger
- Added event scope text hooks for dates.

CONVERTER
- Fixed trigger issues for the default national ideas from EU4. Now you should get national ideas based on your culture.
- Added Jerusalem Ideas.
- Added Knights Templar Ideas.
- Added Israel Ideas.
- Added Jewish religion.
- Added Jewish cultures.
- Added support for major heresies to be converted to EU4.
- Added missing horde files.
- Fixed bug where Aztec became eastern tech group.
- Now the Holy Roman Emperor no longer gets cores on his old vassals in EU4.

Sorry for not catching your post Myth, I have very little experience playing MR. How would you rate the Old Gods start Merchant game? Worth a go?

Definitely! You don't have much competition from enemy republics since the other one is much more prone to be roflstomped by Muslims. Venice is an island and the AI rarely has the fleets and time to come and kill you. It's an excellent way to learn the ropes of a MR and to have time to spare. The beauty of an OG start is the huge timeframe available to players.

I get the occasional raiding vikings but my Empire-level retinue and the 200 ships i can raise as a personal fleet means they don't last long...

[Monk]

The Timurids are in CK2. I refer to them as the final boss of the campaign due to their tendency to become stable after invasion. They arrive between 1360 and 1405. Remember that due to the random nature of the horde events, sometimes history off the edge of the map takes a different course and they won't show up.

Might have to give Vence a try sometime soon

[Chaotix]

Morale on fleets capped at 50%.

This means the fleet-bombing exploit is essentially dead. Good luck fighting them Timurids, Monk!

[Monk]

Morale on fleets capped at 50%.

This means the fleet-bombing exploit is essentially dead. Good luck fighting them Timurids, Monk!

God have mercy on us, for the Great Khans shall have none...

[Monk]

Another DLC patch and another forced update! I even had it set to not to! Why!

Amazingly though, 2.0 didn't break my save games. How in the world did Paradox manage that? Well they did at first but that was just mod conflicts, once i updated my mods everything worked flawlessly..

[Chaotix]

Monk, there should be a way to revert back to the previous version if you don't want to chance it.

I remember reading something on the patch preview page about them leaving a older version active on Steam for a few weeks.

[rvg]

Are there any downsides to banishing the Jews other than -2 diplo?

[Hooahguy]

Are there any downsides to banishing the Jews other than -2 diplo?

Yes, yes there are.

[rvg]

Yes, yes there are.

[Beskar]

I just read this. (Spoilers)

*Throws money at paradox*

[Myth]

Are there any downsides to banishing the Jews other than -2 diplo?

To do list:
Ruler Design Adolf of house Hitler
Form Kingdom of Germany
Banish the Jews
Piss off the entirety of Europe and get myself excommunicated

What could possibly go wrong?

[rvg]

Now I just need to wean myself off of Byzantium. Love it so much that I find it difficult to play anything else.

[Myth]

Now I just need to wean myself off of Byzantium. Love it so much that I find it difficult to play anything else.

What do you like about them? The inability to go on Crusade, the lackluster portrayal of Ortodoxy compared to Catholicism and the constant need to fight of strong factions and eastern invaders have put me off so far. Only the promise of restoring the Roman Empire is tempting me.

[rvg]

What do you like about them? The inability to go on Crusade, the lackluster portrayal of Ortodoxy compared to Catholicism and the constant need to fight of strong factions and eastern invaders have put me off so far. Only the promise of restoring the Roman Empire is tempting me.

Free revocations of ducal titles, free retraction of vassals, born in the purple trait, ability to mend the Schism, ability to restore the Roman Empire. Then there are purely Greek perks like the Cataphract retinues. Love. The. Byz.

[Myth]

OK you had me at "free retraction of vassals". Are Cataphract retinues somehow superior to Frankish/German Knight retinues?

[rvg]

OK you had me at "free retraction of vassals". Are Cataphract retinues somehow superior to Frankish/German Knight retinues?

Heavy Cav + Horse Archers. They absolutely rule.

[Myth]

Should I start as the Basileos or go for a Count or Duke? I fear they raise their CA laws too quickly for a Count to be viable.

[rvg]

Should I start as the Basileos or go for a Count or Duke? I fear they raise their CA laws too quickly for a Count to be viable.

I've always played as the Basileos.

[Monk]

Monk, there should be a way to revert back to the previous version if you don't want to chance it.

I remember reading something on the patch preview page about them leaving a older version active on Steam for a few weeks.

I could kiss you, you're absolutely right. In the Beta opt in section of the properties you can opt into the previous version. I was able to opt in and play the rest of my ruler a few days ago.

Let the long AAR continue!

[rickinator9]

I could kiss you, you're absolutely right. In the Beta opt in section of the properties you can opt into the previous version. I was able to opt in and play the rest of my ruler a few days ago.

Let the long AAR continue!

You might also be able to store old versions by just copying the CKII folder somewhere else and running that.

[Chaotix]

Should I start as the Basileos or go for a Count or Duke? I fear they raise their CA laws too quickly for a Count to be viable.

Never played as anything but the Basileus. There are some typical starts (867, 1066) which make for a really easy game.

If you start in 1081 (The Alexiad bookmark) you get the Komnenian Restoration, and it's somewhat more challenging because you have to re-conquer all of Anatolia from the Turks. Or for maximum challenge, try the Latin Empire bookmark.

Playing as a Count or Duke will probably be slow because of Crown Authority, but the 2.01 patch should make it slightly easier for rebellions to succeed because the Emperor gets less levies.

[rickinator9]

Playing as a Count or Duke will probably be slow because of Crown Authority, but the 2.01 patch should make it slightly easier for rebellions to succeed because the Emperor gets less levies.

This is probably my greatest criticism of 2.0. They tweaked levies to make the big blobs less strong by making everyone have less vassal levies. The blobs however have one trick up their sleeve: Crown laws. Demesne laws only add a maximum levy modifier(so they are only useful if the vassal likes you a lot), while Crown laws makes the amount of minimum levies you get higher.

As the duke of Bolghar with no people who hated me, I could only get 200 men from my count vassals while I got 300 from vassal baronies. By the times I created Cumania, I got 1000 and when I passed the first crown law I suddenly got 3000 men from my non-baron vassals.

This shows how broken this system is, because it makes the dukes and lower much weaker while the kings and emperors get just a little bit weaker. Apart from this it lays more emphasis on retinues and mercenaries, making the rich more powerful. This means the merchant republics and holy orders are a lot more powerful because they can afford the mercenaries.

[rvg]

I have to say that overall I like the new game mechanics. Yeah, the amount of levies has dropped by quite a bit, but that only impacts the offensive military campaigns. Defensive wars give a massive relations boost with the vassals (+50 vs foreign invaders and +75 vs infidels) which lead to very nice boosts to levies. At the same time the attacker gets a relations malus with his vassals over raised levies faster than before. All of that helps the defender, which is great.
Boat bombing is dead. Even though I'll miss it dearly, I must admit that is was a cheesy exploit. Hope they reduced the troop count for the Mongols though. Also, this makes a small one province island with standing retinues a very tough nut to crack (yes, Venice, I'm talking about you).
+30 relations boost for marriage ties: yes, please! Matrimonial relatives are actually behaving like relatives now. Helps alliances as well. Interestingly enough I find myself unwilling to backstab allies: I just see that +30 attitude and say to myself "C'mon now, they're family."
Got that little Son of Satan event... tried to raise the boy as a good Christian, nurture trumps nature and all that jazz. Bad idea. Should have killed the little shit at birth. Ended up eating a -50 tyranny modifier + Kinslayer just to arrest and execute the little bugger. He was eleven at the time and had already killed one brother and permanently maimed another one.
So overall, it's a nice change to the game, I like it quite a bit.

[Chaotix]

The Mongols in the Mongol Empire bookmark start with 60,000 attrition free troops. I know this because I'm currently playing a game to get the Khan of Khans achievement...

Not sure if that's more or less than it used to be, also not sure if the Ilkhanate/Golden Horde get more or less than that.

[naut]

Playing as a Count or Duke will probably be slow because of Crown Authority, but the 2.01 patch should make it slightly easier for rebellions to succeed because the Emperor gets less levies.

It's slow until you can inter-marry your dynasty with the powerful factions of the empire. Eventually one of your relatives will be brought to the throne through civil war or the concession of a new Emperor demand. Then switch to Seniority succession. Et voila, duke/count to emperor.

[rvg]

I think I finally found a good way to deal with kingdoms as a Byzantine Basileus. Imperial administration does not provide a good way of dealing with Despots, while keeping the Despot titles under Primogeniture messes up the Born in the Purple succession. however, not creating/usurping the kingdoms means losing a hefty chunk of prestige. Anyway, this is something I was able to confirm just today: you can create any kingdom in which you do NOT plan to hold any real estate (this means that Greece is automatically out). Keep the Empire under Primo and don't land your heirs, but Create/Usurp any number of kingdoms and set their succession to Gavelkind. Keep the titles, they will automatically pass to the next Porphyrogenitos.

Tada!

[Rhyfelwyr]

I finally caved in and got this game, and have just lost at my first attempt!

I played as the elderly King of Iceland. I married, has lots of kids and ensured my heir did the same. I had only one vassal. Since I was part of the de jure Norwegian Kingdom, the King of Norway attacked me to make my vassal his own, which he easily did, since I could only raised 1,200 men to his 4,000+ that arrived on my shore. So, I was reduced to one province. My king then died, and the heir took his place, only to convert to Catharism, become posseessed, have his entire court hate him, and generally go insane. The King of Norway then declared a Holy War, I surrendered thinking I might just be vassalised. But I was not, and I didn't stand a chance anyway. So ended my game!

Any tips for who to go on my next attempt?