Crusader Kings 2 Thread II: Sparkly Vampire Invasion

[Cristo Meyers]

... WHY ON EARTH DID I NOT CONVERT TO GREEK CULTURE SOONER.

My 12k Cataphract stack just defeated a Jihad force three times their size. I won 30% warscore off that fight alone, only losing about 3k of my stack.

EDIT: Aaaaand I'm doomed. Cataphracts got wiped out, Ilkhanate declared war on me as well as the HRE. AND an adventurer raised a host to attack me.

The adventurer can just be assassinated. It's not pretty, but it works.

The Mongols and the Germans...yeah...good luck.

--

So even though I've been handing out formerly-Moorish castles like candy to the various holy orders, I've discovered that the Grandmaster of the Knights of Calatrava is trying to have me killed. They already sent one adventurer after me (before he came down with a nasty case of steel poisoning) and then the Grandmaster himself made an attempt on my life. I sent the assassin back in pieces and then my own, but he failed too.

Bloody ingrate.

[Avilan the Grey]

The adventurer can just be assassinated. It's not pretty, but it works.

Not after the next DLC he can't.

[Cristo Meyers]

Not after the next DLC he can't.

Wonderful

All the more reason to drop assassins on the sucker until he's a red smear on the carpet now then...

[Avilan the Grey]

Wonderful

All the more reason to drop assassins on the sucker until he's a red smear on the carpet now then...

They are removing the "assassinate" button, it has to be done through plots of some sort. They are however deepening and revamping the whole thing so killing adventurers is still doable, apparently. But you have to do more than to pay money.

[GreenSerpent]

No, I mean he raised a host because I couldn't afford to assassinate him. Fighting off that Jihad and rebuilding my retinue stacks had burnt out my cash. I was at -1000 after I lost a Holy War.

Lost one kingdom so far to the Mongols... I won against the HRE at least.

[Avilan the Grey]

Yay. The cheat worked.

Funny though, men must have urges, or something...
When I switched over to my son, I didn't get the expected "Betrothals can marry" ping, instead it immediately showed his betrothed as Wife. Cool.
However, he already had a son, with a cortier. I guess if nothing else I can legitimize him later, but I didn't get a ping for that. Oh well I hope they go forth and multiply (him and his Polish princess).

In other news (after switching back to my "true" character): The king of England is needy. Exactly 0.5 seconds after my daughter married his son, he calls me into the war with Scotland.
I say yes, of course, and then sadly tell him I have no boats... but if I see any Scotsmen in my castle, I'll kill them.

So, as it stands, for the moment I have alliances with:
England
HRE
Poland
Denmark
...and ERE.


The Norweigian one fell through, because the stupid prince died at the age of 17. Natural causes, whatever that means at the age of 17... Since my eldest daughter was getting a bit old (22 when her husband died at 17) I threw her at the Emperor's son in the ERE. Yes I took a prestige hit for it (stupid non-Catholics). Can't hurt.

As king, I find I need to spend far less time securing loyalty within my lands with marriage (if I have a throwaway daughter, sure, but...) With enough foreign powers to aid my wars, I can concentrate on Feasting and being a genarally Swell guy that all adore. Except the ones in my jails of course. I think I have 10 prisoners now, although 3 of them are from my father.
In fact, I think the rest of Lage I's reign will be to just secure Saphmi and then consolidate his land for the rest of his life. He is 42 now, and have prestige through the roof. None of the Dukes are in the red, and only a few of the Counts. And if anyone tries anything... Half of Europe will steamroll their behinds for me.

[Avilan the Grey]

Okay. Conquered everything I feel King Lage I would be interested in. At the age of 43 I have now started to consolidate my power. Up until now it has been a frantic race to not get deposed or assassinated.

Now I can focus on bribing and assassinating and above all a big breeding program for my court. All my advisors still rank from bad to mediocre.

Oh and my worthless daughter died a year after marrying the king of England.
Seems selfish, somehow.

[Malimar]

Now I can focus on bribing and assassinating and above all a big breeding program for my court. All my advisors still rank from bad to mediocre.

I did breeding programs with my courtiers in a couple games, breeding everybody for whatever trait they're best at (high diplomacy with high diplomacy, high martial with high martial, etc.). Easiest to do in Muslim games, where the best males can be pumping out babies with four women and the worst men get nothing.

But my courtiers never seemed to actually improve much, even after centuries of this. I discovered that making sure all your courtiers are well-educated is more effective at getting good stats than trying to breed stats up.

Nowadays, my breeding strategies are simpler: export anybody with bad heritable traits (Imbecile, Slow, Ugly, Inbred, etc.), sometimes import courtiers with good heritable traits (Genius, Quick, Strong, Attractive), and make courtiers with good heritable traits marry before those without.

[Avilan the Grey]

Thanks for the tips.

My next game will probably be my first with a designed ruler. I just can't decide what era to put him in; I love the idea of 200 (or more, if Charlemagne comes out soon) time BUT at the same time I am really not interested in the history before 1066 (yes, even as a Scandinavian. Viking history is "Hey I got a sword. And a boat. I write good poetry and kill people") and I prefer starting with most of the big players in place (William, HRE, Poland...). It's just more fun to muck up history I am familiar with. Earlier history is far more of guesswork, especially the further north and east you go. There are Frankish and English Cronicles, but in Scandinavia? 50% of names are from myths, not history.
Plus apparently playing a viking lord is basically Easy Mode (what I have heard) and haven't you founded the Empire of Scandinavia by 1066 you are doing something wrong...

Just can't decide.

[OrcusMcP]

Thanks for the tips.

My next game will probably be my first with a designed ruler. I just can't decide what era to put him in; I love the idea of 200 (or more, if Charlemagne comes out soon) time BUT at the same time I am really not interested in the history before 1066 (yes, even as a Scandinavian. Viking history is "Hey I got a sword. And a boat. I write good poetry and kill people") and I prefer starting with most of the big players in place (William, HRE, Poland...). It's just more fun to muck up history I am familiar with. Earlier history is far more of guesswork, especially the further north and east you go. There are Frankish and English Cronicles, but in Scandinavia? 50% of names are from myths, not history.
Plus apparently playing a viking lord is basically Easy Mode (what I have heard) and haven't you founded the Empire of Scandinavia by 1066 you are doing something wrong...

Just can't decide.

If you like playing with big players already established, then the Middle East/Persia/India in 867 is still pretty good, and even Iberia and North Africa is pretty solid.

EDIT: Plus, especially if you like established history you get a lot more of that from the Muslim/Byzantine/Indian world.

[Flickerdart]

Plus apparently playing a viking lord is basically Easy Mode (what I have heard) and haven't you founded the Empire of Scandinavia by 1066 you are doing something wrong...

Offensive pagans are balanced around the idea of quickly ballooning and deflating empires - the intent is that you forge a mighty nation using your Strong Genius Brilliant Strategist ruler with 20s in all stats, and then he dies, and then every vassal revolts and you have to rebuild everything.

In practice, it's not hard to sufficiently placate vassals until the Short Reign penalty goes away. If you want a viking that's a bit more of a challenge, start with someone outside of Scandinavia - the Duchy of the Isles is reasonably weak (although Scotland itself is even weaker), and both Novgorod and Kiev have to deal with many small countries instead of chunky ones that are easily absorbed. Plus, the wrong religion and wrong culture penalties make vassal management actually somewhat challenging.

[OrcusMcP]

Offensive pagans are balanced around the idea of quickly ballooning and deflating empires - the intent is that you forge a mighty nation using your Strong Genius Brilliant Strategist ruler with 20s in all stats, and then he dies, and then every vassal revolts and you have to rebuild everything.

In practice, it's not hard to sufficiently placate vassals until the Short Reign penalty goes away. If you want a viking that's a bit more of a challenge, start with someone outside of Scandinavia - the Duchy of the Isles is reasonably weak (although Scotland itself is even weaker), and both Novgorod and Kiev have to deal with many small countries instead of chunky ones that are easily absorbed. Plus, the wrong religion and wrong culture penalties make vassal management actually somewhat challenging.

I have a feeling that the Vikings (and pagans in general) are going to work far better once the Charlemagne tribal mechanics are finalized. When vassals have to be called like allies it should be harder to roflstomp everyone.

[Driderman]

Either I missed some major overhaul or I've managed to create a bug where every army on the map is hostile to me and I can siege the holdings of other nations regardless of whether I'm at war with them or not.
Playing as catholic Poland, I guess I should just restart and get it fixed, but this Total War state is kinda fun so far

[ObadiahtheSlim]

It's a known bug. A save and restart will fix the everyone hostile state. I'm not sure what causes it, but I've seen it come up when trying to join in a war and it failing. One time when I offered to join a holy war and another time it seemed to happen when the war leader changed following the death of the previous one.

[Flickerdart]

I have a feeling that the Vikings (and pagans in general) are going to work far better once the Charlemagne tribal mechanics are finalized. When vassals have to be called like allies it should be harder to roflstomp everyone.

Is there any info somewhere on how tribal mechanics will work?

[IthilanorStPete]

Offensive pagans are balanced around the idea of quickly ballooning and deflating empires - the intent is that you forge a mighty nation using your Strong Genius Brilliant Strategist ruler with 20s in all stats, and then he dies, and then every vassal revolts and you have to rebuild everything.

In practice, it's not hard to sufficiently placate vassals until the Short Reign penalty goes away. If you want a viking that's a bit more of a challenge, start with someone outside of Scandinavia - the Duchy of the Isles is reasonably weak (although Scotland itself is even weaker), and both Novgorod and Kiev have to deal with many small countries instead of chunky ones that are easily absorbed. Plus, the wrong religion and wrong culture penalties make vassal management actually somewhat challenging.

In addition to this, it's easy for the Scandinavian pagans (or the Magyars) to conquer their holy sites and reform their religion early on, which lets you get up to Medium Crown Authority and change to a decent succession law.

[OrcusMcP]

Is there any info somewhere on how tribal mechanics will work?

Not yet, just going off what was in the features vid from last week.
What we know so far:
-Tribal holdings are very minimal, and are built with prestige rather than gold.
-Takes a lot of time to develop to the point where you have towns/castles as a tribe.
-Vassals are treated more like allies and have to be called into wars.

-Plus, maximum crown authority will be tied to your legalism tech. You can't get to particular crown authority laws without researching the required tech.

[Artanis]

So I decided to try my hand at playing a vassal, and chose the Old Gods Doux of Calabria.

...yeah, it almost felt like I was cheating. Just as much expansion opportunity as any Sicily-area minor, but effectively 100% immune to attack from both foreigners and fellow vassals. Hell, I even won a holy war for d_Sicily with the Emperor's troops simply by swatting the Muslims' local stack with mercs and then getting to all the sieges first (including one with just seventeen of my own troops). I was King of Sicily within twenty years.

Also, for some unknown reason, the Emperor gave my heir (whom I had landed) Adrianopolis when he decided he'd rather keep the newly-conquered Krete for himself

I think next time I'll try something a little more like an actual vassal and a little less like an independent with iddqd enabled

[Avilan the Grey]

My personal favorite Succession Law is Elective, because it keeps all the stuff for one ruler, AND you get to game the system to pick your best son / grandson / newphew / brother (even father) instead of the moron with 0 intrigue and 1 learning and 0 stewardship you managed to raise because the game hates you.
Of course you have to pay attention and know the rules, or you'll lose everything.

Also:
ARGH! How am I to hold a winter feast when the grandson of the king my father disposed refuses to go to jail like a good traitor and I am forced to spend November and December stamping his pathetic army in the dust? Just for that I will revoke your title and give it to the dumbest farmer I can find.
(Funny, his father, the son of the ex-king, LOVED my father. And me.)

[Flickerdart]

My personal favorite Succession Law is Elective, because it keeps all the stuff for one ruler, AND you get to game the system to pick your best son / grandson / newphew / brother (even father) instead of the moron with 0 intrigue and 1 learning and 0 stewardship you managed to raise because the game hates you.
Of course you have to pay attention and know the rules, or you'll lose everything.

Have you tried 867 Scotland? The start is very rocky (because you're surrounded by vikings) but if you can solidify your position quickly you can survive to make use of the amazing Tanistry succession law. It's just like Elective except the only legal heirs are ones from your dynasty, and as far as I can tell there's no malus for holding too many elector titles.

[Malimar]

Tanistry was my favorite, until my stupid vassals decided to elect a Slow guy when they had, like, five Geniuses in the dynasty to pick from. My sense is that with Elective, your vassals will vote for your chosen candidate if they like you enough, yes? (Haven't actually played with Elective yet myself.) But under Tanistry, they'll always vote for whomever they want to with no regard for your opinion in the matter.

I actually really like Seniority. It doesn't give you much ability to groom your heirs, but if you make sure to marry all your men to countesses and duchesses, you'll eventually start accumulating new territories every few years without having to fight a single war. Once I married a dynasty member to the Byzantine empress, and next generation brought the Byzantine empire into the HRE without a drop of blood spilled. (Which made my empire way bigger than I wanted to deal with, so I immediately gave most of it away, but I got to keep the Varangian Guard, which was nice.)

One problem is that once you go Seniority, you'll never be able to go back, because good luck having a ruler last ten years. Another is constant short reign penalties. Another is that your culture winds up changing frequently, which you can just switch back to your capital's culture if you want but good luck keeping your demesne's culture-specific buildings intact for more than a few years at a time.

[AgentPaper]

Have you tried 867 Scotland? The start is very rocky (because you're surrounded by vikings) but if you can solidify your position quickly you can survive to make use of the amazing Tanistry succession law. It's just like Elective except the only legal heirs are ones from your dynasty, and as far as I can tell there's no malus for holding too many elector titles.

While Tanistry looks like Elective+ on the surface, it's actually far inferior, for one little reason: Tansitry grants a +5 bonus to vassal opinion, while Elective grants a whopping +20. No other law provides nearly as massive a bonus. Tanistry's "only your dynasty" feature is a sort of false bonus anyways, because if your vassals dislike you enough to vote in someone you don't want, then you almost certainly have much more immediate problems, namely large factions that will tear your empire apart. There's a bit of middle ground where one is an issue and the other isn't, but it's not common enough to make it worth using Tanistry for.

[Flickerdart]

While Tanistry looks like Elective+ on the surface, it's actually far inferior, for one little reason: Tansitry grants a +5 bonus to vassal opinion, while Elective grants a whopping +20. No other law provides nearly as massive a bonus. Tanistry's "only your dynasty" feature is a sort of false bonus anyways, because if your vassals dislike you enough to vote in someone you don't want, then you almost certainly have much more immediate problems, namely large factions that will tear your empire apart. There's a bit of middle ground where one is an issue and the other isn't, but it's not common enough to make it worth using Tanistry for.

Eh, there are certainly advantages to Elective too, but I always seem to run out of good eligible candidates there, since Elective (unlike Tanistry) only lets you vote for distant relatives who are IIRC Duke or above.

[Avilan the Grey]

Eh, there are certainly advantages to Elective too, but I always seem to run out of good eligible candidates there, since Elective (unlike Tanistry) only lets you vote for distant relatives who are IIRC Duke or above.

Uh what? You can definitely name your unlanded sons as candidates?

[Rockphed]

Uh what? You can definitely name your unlanded sons as candidates?

Sons of the present ruler and electors are eligible for election. It might be anyone with a certain type of claim.

[tonberrian]

Children of the current ruler, or their children if the ruler's child is dead, can inherit, as well as any de jure titleholders one title down (dukes can also be elected to emperorship). Afaik, there's no difference between the two cognatic inheritance rules for elective.

This means if you have multiple elective titles you want to go to a distant member, you should grant them duchies in each of the de jure areas.

[Flickerdart]

Uh what? You can definitely name your unlanded sons as candidates?

Sons, yes. Distant relatives, which is what I said, no.

[Guancyto]

This means if you have multiple elective titles you want to go to a distant member, you should grant them duchies in each of the de jure areas.

And then tear your hair out as the other dukes go "oh no, two duchies is too many!" and declare a plot-war and raise someone else up as a new ruler of the secondary duchy.

*grumblegrumblehewasstrongandmartialtoogrumble*

[Avilan the Grey]

Sons, yes. Distant relatives, which is what I said, no.

Never been in that situation.
The weirdest choice so far was in a short game where I ended up ursurping my father as king, then having to pick him as successor because I only had daughters (and 8 of them).

This morning, btw:

"Happiness" is... when your groomed (and popular) heir dies of sickness (he was weak, dammit) costing you your alliance with Poland because his only son was an inlegitimized bastard. Thank god for Elective Monarcy so I could nominate my only brother (that is still alive and not eunuch). He has good stats, but doesn't like me (and his wife hates me, plus she is lowborn!!!). At least his son is legitimate, has good traits and is shaping up. I am wondering if I am still alive when he's 16 if I can nominate him instead of his father... But he's married to a farmgirl.
The biggest problem is that all his kids were already married with lowborns. Idiot. Except his youngest daughter, who is now the queen of England (well to be, she's 15).

Argh.

Edit: Btw, everything I have learned about governing a medieval kingdom I have learned from Richard IV.

Spoiler: FRESH HORSES!!!

Show

[ObadiahtheSlim]

. Afaik, there's no difference between the two cognatic inheritance rules for elective.de jure areas.

You still need to be at least absolute cognatic to grant a landed title (not counting special religious temple rules) to a woman who doesn't already have a landed title.