Crusader Kings 2 Thread II: Sparkly Vampire Invasion

[Rockphed]

The Why You Should Play As Any Particular Character thread locates one at the Stamford Bridge start date.

Werner von Habsburg, Count of Aargau.

Someone should play as him, rise to the Holy Roman Emperor, and then breed the most inbred ruler of all time. OF ALL TIME!

[Grif]

Someone should play as him, rise to the Holy Roman Emperor, and then breed the most inbred ruler of all time. OF ALL TIME!

Bonus points if you manage to acquire the Duchy of Austria and expand it to its historical borders in 1453. (or 1444 if you're going for EU IV).

[Guancyto]

Fired him up for the lulz.

I dunno about acquiring Austria (that's an exceedingly small de jure, no way the Duke of Austria could ever be powerful), but I did happen to buy the Duchy of Upper Burgundy off the Kaiser. I guess he went into the red a bit buying mercenaries putting down all those Italian revolts, and the Cathar revolts, and the Lollard revolts, and the...

Have a plan in place to acquire Hungary, though. It just requires a truly ridiculous amount of murder.

[Leecros]

Have a plan in place to acquire Hungary, though. It just requires a truly ridiculous amount of murder.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

[Grif]

Fired him up for the lulz.

I dunno about acquiring Austria (that's an exceedingly small de jure, no way the Duke of Austria could ever be powerful), but I did happen to buy the Duchy of Upper Burgundy off the Kaiser. I guess he went into the red a bit buying mercenaries putting down all those Italian revolts, and the Cathar revolts, and the Lollard revolts, and the...

Have a plan in place to acquire Hungary, though. It just requires a truly ridiculous amount of murder.

Nothing against adding the non de jure territories to Austria. It should be your primary title at all times.

[Sanguine]

Nothing against adding the non de jure territories to Austria. It should be your primary title at all times.

The problem with that is that if you inherit Hungary, Austria can no longer be your primary title.

[pffh]

You could rename Hungary to Austro-Hungary if you have the customization dlc (or edit the save file).

[IthilanorStPete]

The problem with that is that if you inherit Hungary, Austria can no longer be your primary title.

No need to go after Hungary, that can wait until EU4. Historically, Hungary was independent for quite a while, then got occupied by the Ottomans, then became part of the Hapsburg empire.

[Closet_Skeleton]

No need to go after Hungary, that can wait until EU4. Historically, Hungary was independent for quite a while, then got occupied by the Ottomans, then became part of the Hapsburg empire.

Two Habsburgs ruled Hungary before then, starting with Albert of Hungary (1438-9) and his very short rule rule and then his son Ladislaus Posthumous.

[Rockphed]

So get one of your younger sons to inherit it. You must remain true to the goal of horrible inbreeding!

[Elemental]

Have a plan in place to acquire Hungary, though. It just requires a truly ridiculous amount of murder.

I've had a few plans like that. Unfortunately, my kings have never had the good fortune to inherit directly and so have had to make do with more indirect methods of "claiming inheritances".
Though I was indeed fortunate that my current King, may he live forever but not really because I want to get rid of his not-so-holiness Agapetus II and his possible successors and said plan requires the King to die shortly after, inherited claims on half of Scotland when his mother died. The job still required a half dozen people to die.

But even so, my imperialist ambitions have slowed considerably. Primarily because my collected kingdoms are getting too big and too spread out and partly because the latest patch has changed a few things and I'm still adjusting. Mostly to the reduced levies and taxes I've been getting and the greater penalties for bankruptcy.


In any case... Does anyone here have any good suggestions as to how I can get claims quickly? Most of my territory was gained by crusade and holy war, and I appear to have hit a road block despite a relatively easy take over of France. Or is this to be expected with dealing with members of your own religion?
I ask primarily because I kind of expected England to be easy because there is no England and hasn't been for centuries, but I'm stuck in Essex and Bedford. Maybe I should play matchmaker with my vassals/cousins and the Anglo-Saxon Earls and Dukes?

[tyckspoon]

In any case... Does anyone here have any good suggestions as to how I can get claims quickly? Most of my territory was gained by crusade and holy war, and I appear to have hit a road block despite a relatively easy take over of France. Or is this to be expected with dealing with members of your own religion?

Find people who have claims on the counties/duchies you want to take over, invite them to your court, make them a landed vassal (I think you can get away with as small as a Barony for this), and then push their claim. As long as you're winning them a lower-level title than the highest you hold (ie, if you're a King, you can win a Duchy this way.. although it often makes for a bit of an uppity vassal) then they'll take over the target title as your vassal, so it joins your realm.

It does get a lot harder to expand in ways that gives you the titles directly to hold or distribute as you wish. It's not too hard to expand via vassal claims if you're not overly picky about who becomes your vassal. (And if they do turn out to be too troublesome, you can always kill them and hope their heir is more compliant. Or push them into open rebellion, crush them, enjoy an opinion boost with the *rest* of your vassals for putting down a rebellion, and get a tyranny-free revocation of one of their titles to hand out to somebody more grateful.)

[snoopy13a]

I've seen some childbirth deaths (only in the events, never to my own wife) but no sickly babies yet.

Also, looks like Elective Succession was heavily nerfed - a -15 penalty to opinion of every elector per elector title beyond the first is pretty heavy stuff.

I've had a few sickly babies. And I've had monks (i.e., family members I've forced to take the vows) run off and get married . No respect for the vows . . .

[Selrahc]

Also, looks like Elective Succession was heavily nerfed - a -15 penalty to opinion of every elector per elector title beyond the first is pretty heavy stuff.

I must confess, I try and limit my Duke+ titles to the minimum possible already, so this doesn't seem like a particularly good nerf to the player. Bet it kicks AI electoral realms in the teeth a bit though...

[Starsign]

I must confess, I try and limit my Duke+ titles to the minimum possible already, so this doesn't seem like a particularly good nerf to the player. Bet it kicks AI electoral realms in the teeth a bit though...

That is very nice as the HRE starts out in Elective. In my vanilla 1.111 game, it just refused to fall apart on it's own. Even after a few assassinations and a switch to Gavelkind, it still flourished. And then the Emperor of Brittania inherited it somehow and now there's a massive Great Britain blob in Europe.

Has there been any changes in culture over at the HRE? I remember practically the entire empire being all of German culture which helped it's stability.

[Farix]

You people are luckier than me apparently, lost a couple wives to childbirth and a couple to typhus/pneumonia on the same day as childbirth (registered as death by disease). Kids keep getting sick to but so far no deaths.

[Artanis]

Wanna see something hilarious? Check the causes of death on all the old historical characters (e.g. the Roman Emperors).

[Sanguine]

Wanna see something hilarious? Check the causes of death on all the old historical characters (e.g. the Roman Emperors).

They all seem to have died of natural causes. What exactly am I supposed to find hilarious?

[Artanis]

They all seem to have died of natural causes. What exactly am I supposed to find hilarious?

They all said "Died in childbirth" for me.

[Flickerdart]

I must confess, I try and limit my Duke+ titles to the minimum possible already, so this doesn't seem like a particularly good nerf to the player. Bet it kicks AI electoral realms in the teeth a bit though...

It mostly screws up new Empires - when you have to have two Kingdom titles to create one (and probably also two Duchy titles, because why not) you're suddenly slapped with a -45 opinion penalty when the Empire is created, even though you had 0 penalty before.

Wanna see something hilarious? Check the causes of death on all the old historical characters (e.g. the Roman Emperors).

Who's descended from the Emperors?

[IthilanorStPete]

Who's descended from the Emperors?

Look at the history for the Byzantine Empire.

[Elemental]

Find people who have claims on the counties/duchies you want to take over, invite them to your court, make them a landed vassal (I think you can get away with as small as a Barony for this), and then push their claim. As long as you're winning them a lower-level title than the highest you hold (ie, if you're a King, you can win a Duchy this way.. although it often makes for a bit of an uppity vassal) then they'll take over the target title as your vassal, so it joins your realm.

It does get a lot harder to expand in ways that gives you the titles directly to hold or distribute as you wish. It's not too hard to expand via vassal claims if you're not overly picky about who becomes your vassal. (And if they do turn out to be too troublesome, you can always kill them and hope their heir is more compliant. Or push them into open rebellion, crush them, enjoy an opinion boost with the *rest* of your vassals for putting down a rebellion, and get a tyranny-free revocation of one of their titles to hand out to somebody more grateful.)

Well, I'm not too picky about who my vassals are, hence the Irish duke of Toledo and the half of the French aristocracy who remained in place after my totally "legal" annexation. So I'm more than willing to press the claims of whomever has them, so I could try another round of invitations. The difficulty here is in acquiring the baronies to give them. But then, I suppose I could just build new castles when I next have sufficient funds available. Shame the economy's taken a down turn since the patch and I've had to rely on mercenaries at the same time.

And widespread murder? Why didn't I think of that earlier! Should get rid of that damnable independence faction in a jiffy, and hopefully with less effort than warfare. Fortunately, the King is old so should not have to weather the potential backlash for long.

[Artanis]

Well, I'm not too picky about who my vassals are, hence the Irish duke of Toledo and the half of the French aristocracy who remained in place after my totally "legal" annexation. So I'm more than willing to press the claims of whomever has them, so I could try another round of invitations. The difficulty here is in acquiring the baronies to give them. But then, I suppose I could just build new castles when I next have sufficient funds available. Shame the economy's taken a down turn since the patch and I've had to rely on mercenaries at the same time.

And widespread murder? Why didn't I think of that earlier! Should get rid of that damnable independence faction in a jiffy, and hopefully with less effort than warfare. Fortunately, the King is old so should not have to weather the potential backlash for long.

Just use the two problems to fix each other: let the Faction rebel, then give their shattered, corpse-filled castles to invitees with useful claims that you want to press.

[tyckspoon]

Fortunately, the King is old so should not have to weather the potential backlash for long.

If you're expecting to change rulers soon anyway you could just go on a revocation spree to free up the landed titles you need. If you need to force the change after that, send your aged king to lead war parties and take a direct hand in hunts until somebody maces him in the head or a boar maims him.

[Elemental]

Damn King won't die! I've racked up a truly insane amount of tyranny, no one likes me, the realm is always on the brink of civil wars I solve solely through assassination and execution, I get almost no troops and money, and now the Byzantines have invaded on behalf of my second son's claim on the Kingdom of Syria.
Perhaps I shouldn't have married the Queen of Armenia... Oh, and I'll lose France on the succession too. And I only just noticed because my two eldest sons look almost identical. Fortunately, all my personal holdings are in kingdoms with primogeniture succession, so that's no issue.

Also, Cathars, Lollards and Waldensians! Oh my!
Any significant benefit in becoming a heretic? Even though I'm currently rather weak, I used to be the equal of any other realm, and will be again if the succession isn't a disaster.

[Grif]

Any significant benefit in becoming a heretic? Even though I'm currently rather weak, I used to be the equal of any other realm, and will be again if the succession isn't a disaster.

Free (holy) wars on other fellow heretics.

[Artanis]

Does anybody know where I can find a list of what each Heresy brings? Like I know that Cathars can have female priests, but I can't find much in the way of specifics beyond that.


Also, whoever said that CKII warps your sensibilities was right. It freaked me out when I realized that I had just thought, "Yes! I'm depressed! Now I can die whenever I want!"

[Hyena]

Cathars have absolute general equality, by which I mean women can lead armies, women can be priests and absolute cognatic law is unlocked. Fraticelli and iconoclast now can create their religious heads.
That's pretty much it.

[snoopy13a]

Damn King won't die! I've racked up a truly insane amount of tyranny, no one likes me, the realm is always on the brink of civil wars I solve solely through assassination and execution, I get almost no troops and money, and now the Byzantines have invaded on behalf of my second son's claim on the Kingdom of Syria.

You could always try making the courtier that hates you the most spymaster. Of course, that might backfire if you're trying to suppress factions and the like.

As a side note, there's now an event where a Joan of Arc-esque woman comes to your kingdom. So, right now, my Marshall is a Cathar woman with 33 martial!

And a quick question about heresies. You can only attack heresies of your own religion, right? For example, a Catholic can attack Lollards and Cathars but not Monothelites or Nestorians?

[Elemental]

Free (holy) wars on other fellow heretics.

If that extends to the parent religion, then I'm all for it.

Cathars have absolute general equality, by which I mean women can lead armies, women can be priests and absolute cognatic law is unlocked. Fraticelli and iconoclast now can create their religious heads.
That's pretty much it.

That sounds great actually. I knew there was a reason I invited all those Cathars to my court.

Also, whoever said that CKII warps your sensibilities was right. It freaked me out when I realized that I had just thought, "Yes! I'm depressed! Now I can die whenever I want!"

It is terrible. And I can't help wishing it would happen. But no, the King remains a decent individual. He's only just lost his kind trait, but I suspect that's unrelated.

You could always try making the courtier that hates you the most spymaster. Of course, that might backfire if you're trying to suppress factions and the like.

Hates me the most? Now, that would be a difficult decision to make. I'm surprised no one tried to kill the King yet. I'd say they all fear him too much, but I doubt the game takes that into account.
As for factions, the main one I need to worry about is the Independence faction. The various "random relation/Frenchwoman" for "random kingdom/France" factions I solve by arresting the person in question as soon as I'm presented with an ultimatum. They'll still go to war with me, even if that person is in prison and at my mercy. Strangely, they haven't caught on to that yet and the castle graveyard is filling up with French princesses and various cousins. Kinslayer or not, it makes no difference with the tyranny I've committed thus far.