Crusader Kings 2 Thread II: Sparkly Vampire Invasion

[IthilanorStPete]

Reading the wiki on combat tactics and the thread it's based on has seriously blown my mind. The random run of the mill levies you get from vassals are gimped compared to a well built Retinue stack (or your own levies if you are strategic about what improvements you build). It's crazy.

Wow, after reading that...I knew there was more complexity to combat than I thought, but I didn't know there was that much! There's a ridiculous amount of information there. Looks like the key is specializing in one or two types of units, both in general and when organizing the flanks of armies.

[Forum Explorer]

So I've got a small problem.

First game, picked up CK2 package when it was on sale. I'm missing Old Gods DLC and Sons of Abraham but I think that's it.

Anyways so naturally I decide to play as an Irish lord and unify Ireland.

That went well, and my family ruled for about, oh one generation. Then I promptly got kicked out of power by a well timed rebellion.

Well whatever, I thought. I'll get it back soon.

And I did in my next generation. But with a twist. I figured since my Lord was so old I should just get his Heir in power instead to save time. My lord proceeds to live for a super long time and the King dies, passes the throne onto his son, who is not my heir.

Some confusion happened around here, as Ireland inherited a couple of thrones in France which ultimately lead to some inheritance problems.

See at this point there were 4 major powers in Ireland (which included large parts of France and some Scotland) all with a strong claim on the throne. I was one of them and was related to 2 of the others. Thus began the ever cycling civil wars. One king would rule, only to be overthrown. The usurper would be so weakened by the effort though that the next usurper would be able to do the same to him. The the first family line would have rebuilt it's strength enough to overthrow those guys. The cycle only broke when I basically sat out a civil war to build up my strength, usurped the throne, and then crushed the rebellion.

Anyways it wasn't pleasant for my family tree so in order to avoid it I decided to change to Tanist Succession. Yeah my heir didn't like it, but he was 10 at the time. He forgave me later. That worked for about 3 generations, considering my family tree had been very prolific and owned basically all of Ireland. It helped that my favorite way of stopping rebels would be to revoke their title and give it to kin.

The point being that after the best emo ever (depressed but ruled for over 40 years, had 6-7 children, and fought so many wars) died, something weird happened. The heir was this ***hole genius who had some good stats except in diplomacy which was something like 1-2. He died from what I chose to think was an STD (he had a Lover and Lustful), ruling for only 4 years. This left his freshly born son on the throne. And by freshly born I mean fresh. He was 1 year old.

Which raises the question. Why did it suddenly switch from Tanistry and how can I get it back? Because the civil wars are starting up again and my imprisoning everyone who plots against me is ending up with a lot of counties with no heirs.

[Flickerdart]

Which raises the question. Why did it suddenly switch from Tanistry and how can I get it back? Because the civil wars are starting up again and my imprisoning everyone who plots against me is ending up with a lot of counties with no heirs.

You can't switch succession laws during a regency, so however it happened, you're stuck. Make good use of your spymaster's Build Spy Network task and assassins to keep factions down.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Reading the wiki on combat tactics and the thread it's based on has seriously blown my mind. The random run of the mill levies you get from vassals are gimped compared to a well built Retinue stack (or your own levies if you are strategic about what improvements you build). It's crazy.

I knew about the general use of different units (horse archers are very good, light cavalry is a waste of space and their only use at all is to counter archers, archers are good in phase 1, heavy infantry can survive phase 1 better and is good in phase 2, heavy cavalry is basically heavy infantry except they make phase 1 end faster, pikemen counter cavalry... I generally focused on heavy infantry + archers in my compositions), and the fact that commanders made big differences, but... wow, combat tactics for different flanks? Man, this game really is deep.

Edit: There's "Advance" and "Awesome Advance". There's also "Awesome Charge" and "Awesomer Charge".

[Forum Explorer]

You can't switch succession laws during a regency, so however it happened, you're stuck. Make good use of your spymaster's Build Spy Network task and assassins to keep factions down.

Status report: 28 years later.

There have been so so very many revolts. More then one assassination. And there are currently 16 prisoners in my dungeons. Most of the counts who aren't in my dungeons inherited the title from when their parents died in my dungeons. Oh and I reinstated Tanism after I killed or bribed everyone who had a negative opinion of me.


Pope's my pal though. Gave me papal forgiveness for murdering so many of my kin. Maybe he met some of them.

[HamHam]

So marrying into the ruling families of Europe and then pressing my new kinsmen's claims with the sword has brought France, Germany, and Poland into the Empire. Poland in particular was crazy as it had split into separate kingdoms of Poland and Pomerania and two infant brothers sat on each throne, both at war with the other for their title. I walked into the middle of it after a while and put my niece on the throne. So then Poland under a new Makedon queen was part of the Empire but was at war with Pomerania and Bohemia (which had also broken off from Poland at some point) so I pressed her claim on both of those.

I have a member of my dynasty on the throne of Aquitaine, and a claim I could press but I'm not sure I want to since he is already family after all.

I have not been able to get anyone with a claim on Bavaria so far, nor any of the Orthodox kingdoms in Hispania.

Many of the Norse kingdoms have converted to the true faith. Most significantly Sweden. But Denmark and Wales (which controls a fair chunk of England) remain steadfastly pagan. In fact much of the conversion of England has been reversed, and the isle is pretty solidly Norse.

The Sunni's in the east have almost been wiped out, which means I can soon move against the Umayyads without having to worry about a second front back in Arabia. The Shia kingdom that is basically what's left of Persia is doing better by comparison, but really their main defense has been a stupid mountain range on their border and the fact that the provinces in the area can't supply the Legion at this point. And they can still call up enough troops that levies are not enough by themselves, potentially. So wars in that area are slow and expensive.

[AgentPaper]

Been having a pretty nutty game so far. Started as a countess in the byzantine part of Italy, and after a few wars managed to worm my way up to Queen of Sicily. I've been happily expanding mostly into Muslim territory, taking most of Africa, Algiers, and now Aragon and Granada.

What's nutty, is that 1) The Karling Blob has fallen apart. Italy is ruled by a non-Karling (though still mostly unified...most of the time), Aquitaine, West and East Francia, Lotharingia, and Bavaria are still separate from each other (and all agnatic elective if I recall correctly), and they're actually ground to the Slavs.

2) All of the pagan religions aside from West African are alive and kicking. The Slavs have all of their terriotory plus some catholic, as I mentioned, the Romuvans have formed Lithuania, and while the Suomonesko are still fairly disorganized, they have most of their territory as well. Tengri is just sort of hanging on. They have a large kingdom in the east, but Hungary itself is struggling, though none of it's neighbors are really strong enough to eradicate them completely. Even the Nubians are still around, with all of their territory.

3) Byzantium, after doing fairly well early on (they held Jerusalem for a bit, took some territory here and there), has now been utterly demolished. They lost two wars to the Shia Caliphate, first for Anatolia and just recently for Greece. The Byzantine Empire now consists of Mesopotamia, Croatia, and...well me.

Is there any way for orthodox countries to have a crusade? The Catholics have just started doing so, surprisingly winning against the massive Abbasid blob and forming a neat little kingdom of Jerusalem, which shows no signs of going away. Seems like if ever there was a time for the Orthodox to get crusading, now would be it. If not, then I guess I've got a long, bloody slog ahead of me, taking back the empire duchy by tiny little duchy.

At any rate, I'm glad things have gone the way they have, it should make for a very interesting game of EU4 when I eventually convert the save. I've been intentionally trying to take things slower than I normally would, not expanding too quickly or gulping down entire kingdoms in one go through ring and dagger. My goal is to become emperor, re-form the Roman Empire, and make a Roman Lake before converting, which shouldn't be too difficult to pull off before 1444 (or whenever the game ends, I forget).

[Leecros]

Is there any way for orthodox countries to have a crusade?

Despite having target weights set, the Orthodox religion has no crusade equivalent. Which is rather silly considering the fact that literally everyone else, even pagans, do.

okay, that's not entirely true....I don't think that Hellenic Paganism has Great Holy Wars, but i don't even think you can even play them through the Ruler Designer anymore. Which is weird since they had an update at some point that made them equivalent to a reformed pagan religion. Rather than being an organized religion and not being able to demand conversion still.

[Sanguine]

Despite having target weights set, the Orthodox religion has no crusade equivalent. Which is rather silly considering the fact that literally everyone else, even pagans, do.

It's actually not that silly, Orthodoxy never really had a history of Crusades or Holy War, and I've seen some people argue that they shouldn't have the Holy War Cassus Belli.

Plus the Miaphysites also lack Crusades. At least I've never seen a Miaphysite crusade.

[Leecros]

It's actually not that silly, Orthodoxy never really had a history of Crusades or Holy War, and I've seen some people argue that they shouldn't have the Holy War Cassus Belli.

Plus the Miaphysites also lack Crusades. At least I've never seen a Miaphysite crusade.

No, it's not silly from a historical perspective, but sometimes balance and playability should come first. Not having holy wars means that Orthodox will pretty tough time at holding back their muslim neighbors. Even one successful Jihad against the Byzantine Empire will pretty much mark the end of them, because there's no way they can cope with the rate of expansion at that point. The (probably) Sunni's can take whole kingdoms in one fell swoop, where the Orthodox nations can only take individual dutchies.

The crux of the matter is that just because someone didn't do something historically, doesn't mean that they couldn't or shouldn't be allowed to. This of course brings up the whole debate as to how historical should we go, but in this situation i think it's a question of balance rather than historicity.

[Guancyto]

I assume the Orthodox having Holy Wars is a matter of balance, since every other organized religion does and without it they'd be pretty screwed.

This is a heavy contrast to a Crusade, where their lack of one is deliberate. Crusades were and are a feature of the political power of the Pope and relative centralization of the Catholic Church, while Jihads came a lot later and were a response to the Crusades. (The Reformed Pagans get them because... well, we're already in the realm of historical fantasy, might as well go whole hog with it!)

Whereas in Orthodoxy there's nothing like that ever, and in fact the idea of the Ecumenical Patriarch calling for a war on behalf of all Orthodox (including his Caesar) is so fundamentally anti-ethical to Orthodox theology that getting one is even more ahistorical than reformed paganism or mending the schism (which let it be said, is pretty bloody ahistorical).

There's been a lot of call to let all mainline Christian rulers join a Crusade and that would be fine, but having the Coptic Pope or the Ecumenical Patriarch call one... the religion would have to have become Orthodox in name only.

[Leecros]

I know why Orthodox doesn't have crusades/great holy wars/ cookies & milk, whatever you want to call them. I just wish that i could swim in holy war and blood to relieve my frustration at playing an orthodox minor and watching large sections of the byzantine empire go away as i just sit over here in Greece or Bulgaria, or Sicily, or wherever and just sigh dejectedly...

[HamHam]

Mechanically, there is a difference between a Crusade as something that all members of that faith can join, and a kingdom level CB against heathens. The former might not fit Orthodoxy, but they could instead have a way to got to war for entire kingdoms in a more normal fashion (ie calling their specific allies).

[OrcusMcP]

Mechanically, there is a difference between a Crusade as something that all members of that faith can join, and a kingdom level CB against heathens. The former might not fit Orthodoxy, but they could instead have a way to got to war for entire kingdoms in a more normal fashion (ie calling their specific allies).

Orthodoxy does get Invasion CBs, but due to Autocephalous Patriarchs it's hard for it to work the same way it does for Catholics or Muslims.

[HamHam]

Do you guys think it makes sense to 'restore the Roman Senate' by switching to Elective?

Also I finally got tired of the constant raids by Norsemen and sent the Legions to subjugated Britannia. That might not be enough though, and I may need to continue straight through Denmark and maybe even further north east.

[WitchSlayer]

Do you guys think it makes sense to 'restore the Roman Senate' by switching to Elective?

Also I finally got tired of the constant raids by Norsemen and sent the Legions to subjugated Britannia. That might not be enough though, and I may need to continue straight through Denmark and maybe even further north east.

I do that all the time no matter what empire or kingdom I play. At the 867 start I always make it my mission to annihilate the vikings and crush their pagan gods into the ground.

[Flickerdart]

Do you guys think it makes sense to 'restore the Roman Senate' by switching to Elective?

Elective, even after the nerfs, is probably still the most powerful succession law that's generally available.

[Farix]

Welp I screwed up.



Started an Old Gods game as a count in Wales, with the intention of forming it and hopefully being an outpost in Norse Brittania. Within my starting rulers lifetime I've managed to form the kingdom in large parts thanks to my genius son with the diplomacy rating of 27. Married him off to a strong daughter of the duke of Jorvik, which turned Catholic pretty much immediately along with the rest of the Norsemen on the Isles. Super-diplomacy son inherits and ends up with 1 of 6 territories in Wales thanks to having a ton of brothers, so family squabbling abounds. Figured I'd leave to at gavelkind too since going Primo just kinda takes a lot of the challenge out of the game.

His son in turn inherited the strong trait before I married him to the heir of Jorvik's new ruler (missed my chance to get the land a bit earlier). Problem is his wife inherited before he did so the AI got control of my grandkids. Of course the AI is awful at marriages and drops the strong heir of Wales and Jorvik off to some random 30 year old daughter of a backwater Scottish noble. OK still no problem, just do the right thing and assassinate any grandsons, shes old and their wont be many and once you get control you can set things right, have some grandaughters as backup just in case. Even better since my genius just got Syphilis and is as stressed out by it at the age of 45.

Turns out the British Isles were riddles with Syphilis during the 900's cause 10 years later my stressed, Syphilis afflicted 55 year old ruler's still going strong while his strong 35 year old son catches it and drops dead in a heartbeat. Now I'm stuck with my daughter, also married to a backwater Scot noble who isn't anywhere near succession, as my heir and I'm facing the end of my line if I can't get a son or get her remarried matralinially. Course the Pope just loves my wife cause there's no way he's giving me a divorce and my councilors are dragging their feet in convincing him otherwise. Only the sudden death of the Pope and some quick bribing of his successor has allowed for the chance to get a son. Now all my hopes rest on my 58 year old stressed and Syphilis infected genius ruler to get a son before he dropped dead and lets his daughter inherit.


Moral of the story: don't assassinate your grandkids, unless you have a viable backup.

[Hydranova]

Know what else? Don't marry your strong, Brilliant Strategian second-oldest son to the Queen of Castille, get embroiled in wars, and when you die go from the Carpathian Emperor to the King of Bohemia (which is being incorporated) due to a bunch of Independence factions and King Such-and-Such of Hungary factions depleting whatever remnants of the event-given doomstack you had, THEN being forced by your son to give up the throne of Bohemia for becoming a duke. At least things are so we're each other's heirs.

Oh, earlier I won a crusade for some Greek duchies, as well as the Kingdom of Greece. Not wanting any problems from my neighboring Byzantines, I promptly gave the Kingdom of Greece to the Leader of the Knights Templar (which eventually resulted in a Female Grandmaster, funnily enough)....while the actual territory went to the Hospitallers. Resulting in a Kingdom of Greece in the British Isles.

[HamHam]

With Rome controlling most of the map, I was starting to think the rest of this game would be kinda boring. Then the Mongols happened.

I was in the middle of a crusade to mop up what was left of the Shiates in Persia when the Ilkhanate showed up at my doorstep and invaded. Looking at their troop numbers they didn't seem that bad really. So I called up 100k something levies from Arabia, put the Legion at the head as a vanguard, and marched to meet them.

My armies were completely wiped out. Without putting any real dent in the horde. Part of it is the damn horse archers being super OP I think. My armies just cannot compete on even terms. And with the supply limits of the Persian mountain counties being all 20kish I can't effectively assemble an army that can win through sheer numbers either.

I've called a general mobilization of the entire Empire, and called up the Order of the Holy Sepulcher. But I may just need to give up territory until they reach someplace I can actually assemble an army, like Baghdad.

[Farix]

IT BEGINS!

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[IthilanorStPete]

IT BEGINS!

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Nice. Quick question - is that a mod changing the icon for your character from a gold star to a golden drop, or is that a Sons of Abraham change?

[Farix]

Nice. Quick question - is that a mod changing the icon for your character from a gold star to a golden drop, or is that a Sons of Abraham change?

Mod, playing this game with CK2+

[Cristo Meyers]

IT BEGINS!

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Oh dear...

Save yourself the trouble and just drown all your other children now. The odds of them seeing their teens with this guy around is pretty much nil.

[Flickerdart]

Anyone know what the deal with the Clucy event is? I get a strong scam artist vibe from it, but it just seems like a "pay gold, get piety" sort of thing and there are no consequences regardless of the choice you make.

[HamHam]

This game is super silly some times. Like, I'm trying to improve my martial ability, and now I'm being trained by a crazy drunken samurai. The other one that involves you playing medieval 40k is pretty funny as well.

Or the assassination plot involving bowmen on a grassy knoll.

[Hiro Protagonest]

The other one that involves you playing medieval 40k is pretty funny as well.

Warhammer Classic exists and existed before 40k.

[HamHam]

Warhammer Classic exists and existed before 40k.

I don't mean it's about medieval warfare (well, it might be but who knows), I mean you are playing it in medieval times. In like a tavern. With wooden figures.

[AgentPaper]

...nutty game...

Just wanted to report, things have been getting even more nutty. As expected, I was able to take the emperor title from my liege pretty easily, but not before he lost yet another Jihad, this time for my holdings in Africa. I probably should have defended it for him, but was a bit preoccupied with other wars. Things got a bit hectic for a while, with a lot of ruler deaths and periods of weakness, but eventually I was able to stabilize and am now war-mongering my way back to a healthy Byzantine Empire.

Elsewhere, the Catholics lost Jerusalem to the Shia menace, but then pulled off a very successful Crusade for Greece. This was good since it meant a weaker Shia menace, but bad since I now had to take it back from them piece by piece (I'm still about halfway through with them). They've also done another Crusade for Jerusalem, making a slightly less healthy state, but this time owned directly by Aquitaine, and in a much weaker Muslim world, so maybe it'll stick. Would be nice if it did, at least long enough for me to finish beating them up, since I'll be taking Jerusalem soon enough anyways.

Speaking of Aquitaine, all of the Karling kingdoms have remained separate, and none are controlled by Karlings anymore, so I suspect they will stay that way. This has led to a very interesting and fairly stable Europe, with West and East Francia co-existing peacefully alongside Aquitaine, Bavaria, Lotharingia, and Italy.

Further afield, the Norse are still kicking around, and have a solid foothold in Russia, but haven't reformed. There's still a few holdouts in England, who annoy me with raids in Iberia from time to time. Romuva continues to be successful, and has actually reformed, which surprised me. Tengri is mostly dead, having lost most of Hungary and being hit by the Sunni Seljuks from the rear. Suomonesko is starting to show signs of weakening, but still controls a lot of territory. West African still exists, but is controlled fully by a Shia sultanate. (though since nearly all of their territory is West African, maybe they'll have a comeback?) Perhaps most surprising is that the Nubians are still all around, despite a few holy wars against them, and still christian. I think I'll leave them alone for a while.

Anyways, things were looking scary for a while there, but I'm really getting into a good stride now, winning holy wars left and right, taking back a lot of Greece, all of Armenia and Georgia, most of Iberia short of the Spanish kingdoms (who didn't really expand much), just re-took all of Africa and Alexandria, and am about to snipe out Antioch during a revolt if things go well. Definitely a huge improvement over a decade past when there were literally no Patriarchs whatsoever.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll play through this game in CK2, but I definitely plan to transfer it into EU4 once I get to a good point. Probably after I've re-formed the Roman Empire, mended the Schism, and re-taken most to all of the Mediterranean coastlands.

[Leecros]

So i've gotten back into the Elder Kings mod after it was updated last week to work with the latest version of CKII. I've decided to play as an ashlander nerevarine cultist and try and push out and overthrow the tribunal temple and while i did manage to take complete control of Vvardenfel and had to swear fealty to the King of Morrowind for protection. The Nerevarine Cult is still going strong within my court...even though all of my territories have converted to Almsivi.

The most interesting situation though is probably the fact that the Orcs of Orsinium and the cult of malacath are dominating Daggerfall, conquering the kingdoms of Wayrest, Northpoint, and most of Sentinal(In Hammerfell).

The cult doesn't just stop in west Tamriel. A small sect of Orcs have conquered Solstheim and the remnants of the Tribunal Temple who took refuge there after being pushed off Vvardenfel.

There's also a good example of why you should pay your mercenaries, as The Blackbow Bandits have torn apart Elsweyr.