Crusader Kings help

[Despot of the English]

I've had CK for a few days now and the main problems I am encountering is expanding my domain. I know about advancing my province and constructing buildings etc.

I want to start the game as a lowly Count with one county but find it impossible to expand. I get to a stage where I am pretty powerful military wise, attack a province and all of a sudden I get slapped and pounded by armies many times my size and then game over!

So what's the best way to expand as a Count? I read on another CK thread about guys being king of this and king of that and I'm really jealous!!

Thanks for any help

[Rosacrux redux]

Haven't played CK for a while now, but I've faired pretty well with it so... here's my advice for what it's worth.

1. Do not start your first game with a lowly count. It's not an extremely hard game as other Paradoxian games (EU2 & Victoria) but it's fairly hard until you get a firm grasp on the game mechanics and whereabouts. If I where you, I'd start with a fairly easy duke (there are several quite interesting and easy Russian dukes to play around with, but you'll have the horde knocking on your door soon enough, so consider better Apulia or one of the strong Byzantine princes like Komnenos) and find out how to play the game first, and then try the challenge of a sole count.

2. There are certain ingame mechanics that give you a claim on some other province. Lacking a claim, you can't wage war against a particular target. To ammass the needed prestige value to place a claim yourself, as a count, is highly unlikely to happen for the first generation of your leader.

3. Your opening strategy and early expansion depends greatly upon your starting provinces-era-neighbours-luck. Meaning, it's a completely different strategy altogether if you start with the rich and large Apulia and a completely different strategy if you start in a backwater county in Ireland or in proximity to the heathens or in the strong arms of Byzantium. What are the counties (again: I suggest duchies/principalities for your first games) you wish to play with?

4. The diplomacy aspect is very, very, very important in this game. If you attack a smallish, lonely county with 1/2 your army, you shouldn't be certain you'll win: Probably, he's vassal of some strong Duke and the latter follows a powerfull king... so they'll gang up on you and... game over. If you play 1.04 you'll have to take care the alliance factor into that equation as well. So, if you are a count, the only places you can expand without arousing the rest of the lads are pagan and muslim lands. A general rule of thumb: in the early game stages, pagans=easy, muslims=very hard (if you play any western power save Byzantium and without the beta patches - those eliminate a great deal of the gap between muslims and westeners, especially in Spain).

To write anything more, you'll have to ask a more specific question. What county are you playing/do you want to play? What's your economic condition and your military size? What are your neighbours? Got any claims on them? etc. etc.

[nokhor]

Rosacrux's advice is better than mine in that its much easier to start as a duchy or king. but i also wanted to start my first game as a count with just one county, which i'm still on. what i had to do was become a vassal. in my case i was a vassal of the king of germany. and then once i had a claim, i attacked somebody outside of germany, say a french county. then i let france and germany duke it out while i conquered that county and then quickly made peace with france while they were still fighting germany. its very finicky and with bad luck and a mistep can backfire in an instant. but i got enough counties that way to become a duchy, and then i invaded some muslim lands again backed by my overlord the king of germany. that german king was like a second father to me. always backing me up when i got in way over my head, losing thousands of troops and money just so i could gain a measly little county with a couple of hundred men. i wept when the mongols killed him. but thats another story.

[SwordsMaster]

play some of the southern italian counts. You are a vassal of Byzantium, and have easy access to muslim lands which are easy prey for you (Sicily) and the Byz can keep their muslim allies occupied long enough as for you to entertain yourself in short campaigns.

[Despot of the English]

1. If I where you, I'd start with a fairly easy duke (there are several quite interesting and easy Russian dukes to play around with, but you'll have the horde knocking on your door soon enough, so consider better Apulia or one of the strong Byzantine princes like Komnenos) and find out how to play the game first, and then try the challenge of a sole count.

Sounds like a good idea.

2. There are certain ingame mechanics that give you a claim on some other province. Lacking a claim, you can't wage war against a particular target. To ammass the needed prestige value to place a claim yourself, as a count, is highly unlikely to happen for the first generation of your leader.

That's the major problem I've been encountering as a lowly count: I rarely have enough prestige to wage war in the first place. When I do I get my arse re-arranged.

3. Your opening strategy and early expansion depends greatly upon your starting provinces-era-neighbours-luck. Meaning, it's a completely different strategy altogether if you start with the rich and large Apulia and a completely different strategy if you start in a backwater county in Ireland or in proximity to the heathens or in the strong arms of Byzantium. What are the counties (again: I suggest duchies/principalities for your first games) you wish to play with?

I started an interesting game as a Spanish Count on the border with Islam. Then I found out that one of my sons was heir to a dukedom, so I was naturally excited. However, the Muslims invaded and put paid to any claims I had by removing my head and putting the kingdom to the sword :(

To write anything more, you'll have to ask a more specific question. What county are you playing/do you want to play? What's your economic condition and your military size? What are your neighbours? Got any claims on them? etc. etc.

Currently I am the Count of Brabant and appear to be quite rich and have a good military but I cannot construct any more buildings and I don't think I have enough prestige to wage war.

play some of the southern italian counts. You are a vassal of Byzantium, and have easy access to muslim lands which are easy prey for you (Sicily) and the Byz can keep their muslim allies occupied long enough as for you to entertain yourself in short campaigns.

I'm liking the sound of that. A southern Italian count waging war on the Siculio-Muslims!

Rosacrux's advice is better than mine in that its much easier to start as a duchy or king. but i also wanted to start my first game as a count with just one county, which i'm still on. what i had to do was become a vassal. in my case i was a vassal of the king of germany. and then once i had a claim, i attacked somebody outside of germany, say a french county. then i let france and germany duke it out while i conquered that county and then quickly made peace with france while they were still fighting germany. its very finicky and with bad luck and a mistep can backfire in an instant. but i got enough counties that way to become a duchy, and then i invaded some muslim lands again backed by my overlord the king of germany. that german king was like a second father to me. always backing me up when i got in way over my head, losing thousands of troops and money just so i could gain a measly little county with a couple of hundred men. i wept when the mongols killed him. but thats another story.

Perhaps that's something I could try as the Count of Brabant? I think I have enough prestige to stake a claim on a backwater French county.

Excellent advice guys! I will be back!

[el_slapper]

THE important thing in Crusader kings is piety - and it is often overlooked. prestige might be cool, it can help build an empire, but whether the empire does last is ultimately a question of piety.

Piety is linked to the notion of "badboy". When you are a nice person, your badboy is at zero. When you claim a title, you earn 1 badboy point. When you annex the aforementioned province, you earn 2 badboy points. When you diplo-vassalize a province, you earn 1 badboy point. An assassination attempt costs one, plus one additional if deiscovered.

Badboy is the reverse of good reputation. It harms in 2 ways. First, it brings more war against you. Second, & here lies the danger that destroyed many empires, it reduces you vassal's loyalty by 0,4/100 a month per badboy point. Therefore, if you claimed 4 provinces & annexed 3, your badboy is at 10, each vassal will lose 4/100 of loyalty each month, & will soon reach zero, then leave your overlordship - with a war, that is. Not cool at all.

The only way to reduce badboy, other than inheritance(whice reduce it by a mere third) is having piety. High piety. The accurate formula is unknown to me, but around 1000 piety, loyalty loss is reduced by 1/100 a month each year.

As piety is reset through inheritance, I therefore tend to manage my realm so : when young, crusading as much as possible to exceed 1000 piety, then use prestige available to expand in christian territory - always watching my reputation out. The most accurate way to know your badboy is to open the screen of one of your vassals, & hover the mouse pointer above its current loyalty. 1 badboy point = 0,4/100 loss of loyalty due to reputation. Keep it in mind every time you plan a nasty action.....

[Despot of the English]

I started as the Count of Napoli and declared war on the Sicilian Muslims. Then my liege the Byzantine Emperor sent a few thousand troops and together Sicily was conquered. However, I got no reward.
Two dead Counts of Napoli later I discovered the County of Salerno right next door to me. It was ruled by a Count but one who was independent from anyone. Great! So after gaining enough prestige I laid a claim, invaded and promptly conquered it. No one else got involved!
I seized the title and created another: Prince of Camponia (sp?). My piety is only about 7 or so, so I guess I must be quite a bad boy! A bad one but a happy one .