Crusader Kings 2 Thread II: Sparkly Vampire Invasion

[tonberrian]

So on a terrible whim, I've modded all the muslim religions to have a maximum of 40 wives.

[Leecros]

So on a terrible whim, I've modded all the muslim religions to have a maximum of 40 wives.

I estimate the muslim world disintegrating into various factions sometime between 1 and 100 years from the time you did that...

[Artanis]

So on a terrible whim, I've modded all the muslim religions to have a maximum of 40 wives.

I forsee a LOT of decadence revolts.

[HamHam]

In the Glorious Year of Our Lord 964 the Roman Empire has been reborn! All hail Emperor Leon VII the Glorious!

The religious situation is getting kind of weird. Ireland and Poland are now the only major Catholic hold outs since I repaired the Schism, but Hungary not only went Tengri, it has now created Reformed Tengri and have their own Holy Order. It has also blobbed over all of what would be Crimea. If they absorb Cumania this could get interesting.

Meanwhile the Norse have taken over Scotland and made Norway into a Kingdom and taken a big chunk out of England. Also Flanders apparently. And Denmark.

The Slavs aren't doing bad for themselves either.

Islam on the other hand is losing everywhere it seems.

Politically, France has pretty much unified it's territory, Asturias is slowly taking over Spain, the eastern German duches are a mess of independent states, with Bavaria as the largest.

Poland is currently ruled by an old queen... who has a Slavic Pagan heir who isn't even a Piast. Well, that should turn out interestingly.

I still have lots of the Mediterranean I need to retake. And apparently a rising Pagan Hungarian empire to deal with in the north.

[IthilanorStPete]

In the Glorious Year of Our Lord 964 the Roman Empire has been reborn! All hail Emperor Leon VII the Glorious!

The religious situation is getting kind of weird. Ireland and Poland are now the only major Catholic hold outs since I repaired the Schism, but Hungary not only went Tengri, it has now created Reformed Tengri and have their own Holy Order. It has also blobbed over all of what would be Crimea. If they absorb Cumania this could get interesting.

Meanwhile the Norse have taken over Scotland and made Norway into a Kingdom and taken a big chunk out of England. Also Flanders apparently. And Denmark.

The Slavs aren't doing bad for themselves either.

Islam on the other hand is losing everywhere it seems.

Politically, France has pretty much unified it's territory, Asturias is slowly taking over Spain, the eastern German duches are a mess of independent states, with Bavaria as the largest.

Poland is currently ruled by an old queen... who has a Slavic Pagan heir who isn't even a Piast. Well, that should turn out interestingly.

I still have lots of the Mediterranean I need to retake. And apparently a rising Pagan Hungarian empire to deal with in the north.

Sounds like a pretty interesting game; I'd love to see some screenshots of the map. You certainly were able to reform the Empire quickly, but the ERE starts in a strong position in 867.

Oh, and in perhaps the funniest bit of historical alteration I granted Venice to a bunch of Jews.

EDIT: Hah! Excellent.

[HamHam]

Oh, and in perhaps the funniest bit of historical alteration I granted Venice to a bunch of Jews.

EDIT:

SCREENSHOTS!

Spoiler: Rome right after establishment

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Spoiler: The Hungarian Menace

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The most annoying thing so far about this I've discovered is that their stupid heathen religion lets them send raiders into my country without declaring war and it is super annoying.

Spoiler: The mess that is the British Isles

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Seriously, you have like three different religions at war over it. And the Orthodox and Catholics in the south are further divided into a bunch of minor kingdoms.

Spoiler: Germany was also a mess

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But the Emperor decided to dedicate his twilight years to consolidating Imperial territory, through diplomacy or war as needed. So my 10k man doomstack of 7k retinues and 3k Vikings (who again I only have to pay 3 gold a month for) just went around declaring war on any one or two county minors I couldn't persuade with gifts of money. A convenient civil war in France also helped.

He also had this bizarre plan after his wife died to assassinate his lover's (the Duchess of Athens) husband so he could marry her, but then after she turned him down and married some other dude. So he decided to marry himself a 17 year old Princess of Italy.

It was a very nice wedding.

Immediately after which he keeled over dead of a broken heart. Or possibly typhoid.

Spoiler: But he left his son a much more stable situation in Lotharingia .

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Admittedly that doesn't help much with all the vassals that immediately want to revolt.

[Rockphed]

It is a MASSIVE exercise in restraint to try playing a loyal vassal, but as with everything in CK2 it is just as fun.

I find playing a vassal much more rewarding than playing an independent Lord.

[Flickerdart]

I find playing a vassal much more rewarding than playing an independent Lord.

I can think of nothing less exciting. In a game where you sit around and wait for something to happen, why would you want to restrict the number of things you can do?

[Rockphed]

I can think of nothing less exciting. In a game where you sit around and wait for something to happen, why would you want to restrict the number of things you can do?

Is the king of bohemia restricted more or less than an independent count? I would rather be the king of bohemia than the holy Roman emperor, though not by much. Which is not to say that becoming Lord of all I survey is not rewarding, just that once I attain the purple things get lots more complicated for not a lot more reward. Also, it can be nice to be able to attack enemies without fear that I will get ganged up on the next time I show weakness.

[Leecros]

I can think of nothing less exciting. In a game where you sit around and wait for something to happen, why would you want to restrict the number of things you can do?

I dunno, i rather liked my one King of Arabia game where i wore the crowns of Arabia, Syria, Persia, and Egypt. I was still a vassal to the emperor though...But the emperor couldn't really do anything, but as much as i allowed him to. It was an interesting change of pace.

[tonberrian]

So apparently the marriage settings mess with the gender distribution. There is an absolutely huge number of eligible muslim women now.

[HamHam]

So the Tengri turned my way sooner than I had expected.

Spoiler: The Holy War Begins

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It started out with just a couple of small duchies but it didn't take long for all the major Christian and Tengri powers to get in on the action. At the same time, the Bavarians were leading a war to take Austria from the Poles.

Spoiler: Armies were Raised

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The crazy thing is that these Tengri are apparently far superior in battle than any of the Muslims, because during my Crusades for the Holy Land I was easily dominating in battles between equal sized armies. But in this war, the handful of times we engaged in pitched battle with equal armies I mostly lost, and even victory my own losses were significant.

So it was a good thing that their order of battle was so disorganized, because they seemed to have an endless supply of 3k man stacks to throw at me. If those had joined together and attacked all at once I would have been in trouble.

Someone had called up the Order of the Holy Sepulcher, and they were running all over southern Hungary and Greece chasing war bands.

Spoiler: After Three Bloody Years, they finally accepted White Peace

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And then almost immediately a bunch of my vassals make an independence faction and revolt.

But they are all tiny and spread out over the Empire so my army can just crush them one at a time. Which it does.

But a bunch of them were in the Holy Land and immediately got declared on by Muslims and crushed. Luckily I got them to White Peace before any of them got taken over.

The AI really needs to take into account hostile neighbors before wanting independence. Like, the Jews I could almost understand wanting to flip over the Sultans, but what my Greek Orthodox Duchess of Jerusalem thought she was going to accomplish is beyond me.

I think I'm going to have to take the offensive against Hungary. But I'm going to have to wait for my Levies Raised Too Long modifiers to go back down, because based on last time this is probably going to be an all out war.

Spoiler: The Succesion in Poland is all kinds of Messed Up

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The King is a Polish Slav (who's mother was Catholic).



But his son and heir is a Pomeranian Catholic.

EDIT:

Part of me wants to see what a crazy pagan Hungary would look like in EUIV.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Ugh, great, I decided to load up this game again and now I'm getting a solid black heraldry bug that I got a while back but went away.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Ugh, great, I decided to load up this game again and now I'm getting a solid black heraldry bug that I got a while back but went away.

I think there's a cache file somewhere that you have to delete... I vaguely remember doing that before to fix it. Search the paradox forums for "black shield bug" or "black flag bug" and you should find a solution.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Yeah I looked it up on Google. But then it didn't let me get Steam achievements on Ironman because the game was modified (I also don't think I can do that with ruler designer characters ). I put it back in and the flags are still working fine.

[Leecros]

I'll be honest, i don't really see the major challenge in playing the Jewish Khazaria. Starting in the Old Gods bookmark, get your things in order and immediately strike at Pechenegs and take the rest of Itil. Use your massive goldpile to raise mercenaries to crush them and then usurp the Kingdom of Cumania. In one fell swoop you get a bunch of land and break your most powerful early competitor into pieces. Granted, you're not out of the woods. You still have the byzantines and arabia to fight through to get to Israel, but really at that point you don't have any more challenges than a normal Tengri run would...except you'll spend awhile as a religious mess as you convert your provinces.

Unless there's some crippling events around them that i as of yet don't know about...

[Hiro Protagonest]

So I decided to play as Poland, William The Conquerer start, in my most recent game.

Good news: Your best commander has 21 martial skill.

Bad news: Your best commander is your king.

Good news: Your empire is formed by conquering heathens.

Bad news: You're surrounded by heathens.

Looks like the easiest way to go about this is to acquire claims normally, since then people of their religion can't just hop in but you'll still get checks from the pope for fighting heathens.

[Flickerdart]

So I decided to play as Poland, William The Conquerer start, in my most recent game.

Good news: Your best commander has 21 martial skill.

Bad news: Your best commander is your king.

Good news: Your empire is formed by conquering heathens.

Bad news: You're surrounded by heathens.

Looks like the easiest way to go about this is to acquire claims normally, since then people of their religion can't just hop in but you'll still get checks from the pope for fighting heathens.

I haven't played 1066 Poland since before Old Gods, but even then it was pretty tricky. Your best bet is probably to strike south against the Pechenegs, since they don't have any useful allies who can come to their aid quickly enough. After that, consolidate your gains, make some advantageous marriages for alliances, and then like you say, forge claims. Also, keep an eye on who's who up there - Norse, Romuva, and Slavs won't come to help each other out in holy wars.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Well, I've been grabbing little territories to my north with the goal of forming the Wendish Empire. So far I've gotten two territories and have a claim on a third, and am working on the fourth (I've still got a truce with the guy who controls the territory I have a claim on and the territory I'm working for a claim on). The pagans are all Romuva currently, except for some viking raiders that aren't part of the empire anyway.

Also, my wife, who was Lustful and bore six children, has become Celibate.

[Flickerdart]

Well, I've been grabbing little territories to my north with the goal of forming the Wendish Empire. So far I've gotten two territories and have a claim on a third, and am working on the fourth (I've still got a truce with the guy who controls the territory I have a claim on and the territory I'm working for a claim on). The pagans are all Romuva currently, except for some viking raiders that aren't part of the empire anyway.

Don't be afraid to conquer stuff that's not part of the empire. Those territories still give you money and troops for righteous struggle against the pagan.

Also, my wife, who was Lustful and bore six children, has become Celibate.

After 6 kids, I think most people would too.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Well I could, but why bother with the Pechenges when I could just do Holy War after Holy War? Plus, once I get enough to found the empire, I can just press de jure claims on everything else.

Worst part is probably the fact that you start at minimal crown authority with Gavelkind succession. Luckily, Elective isn't that bad. My heir is betrothed to a Genius *checks profile*... who is homosexual. She wasn't homosexual when she was 11! Well, it's just betrothed, not married, so that should be easier to deal with, and I'm finding a few more Geniuses right now.

[Guancyto]

Homosexuality isn't really a big deal for spouses, though. The penalty to fertility isn't very large, and although every landed ruler has perfect gaydar, they only care if it's the liege that bats for the other team.

[Rockphed]

Homosexuality isn't really a big deal for spouses, though. The penalty to fertility isn't very large, and although every landed ruler has perfect gaydar, they only care if it's the liege that bats for the other team.

This makes the "We found a homosexual noble, how shall we deal with him?" event chain all the more bizarre.

On the other hand, I think I once saw a homosexual king with 6 children by age 35 after two generations of a single son at 40.

[Flickerdart]

Well I could, but why bother with the Pechenges when I could just do Holy War after Holy War?

Because when you holy war one Romuva the rest will pile up on you and grind you into the dirt unless you're powerful enough to handle all of them.

[HamHam]

I continued to expand my borders but the most interesting thing that happened was that my daughters killed my only son. At which point I had no choice but to kill my eldest daughter's husband and remarry her matrilinearly. Luckily she hadn't had any kids yet.

Spoiler: This Independence Rebllion was interesting.

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That's a hell of a lot of dudes that just decided to show up to this party. The rebellion also involved the Kind of Italy. AND Hungary decided to invade in the middle of it all.

A crusade against... Baghdad, I think, went all kinds of wrong when the Salejuks, instead of conquering anyone, instead decided to join in and their huge doomstacks showed up and drove my army from the field. I was forced to immediately White Peace or lose all my retinues.

Spoiler: You can see what survived of my army here

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This is somewhat doubly impressive because my standing army is stupid OP. I actually learned how combat works, and now I have one flank of just Cataphracts, the middle is Archers, Pikes, and Heavy Infantry, and the Varangian Guard (who I just keep hired all the time now) make up the final flank. The result is that their tactics just destroy people. Usually the flank fighting the Cataphracts collapses first after getting slaughtered be repeated Charges and Swarms, and then they just roll up the rest of the army.

Spoiler: You can see here how one sided this makes a lot of battles

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.

This must have convinced the Caliphs that Rome could be beaten back.

Spoiler: Some years later they chose to try and take back Mesopotamia from me.

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The Emperor, now an old man, none the less took the field against the infidels, and promptly died in the opening battles.

But his daughter persevered, and focused her attention on destroying the Selejuks.

Spoiler: Here's what's left of one of their stacks being driven to the ground.

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Spoiler: You only had like eight years to rule, but you were Best Empress

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My biggest problem on succession was the Despot of Africa who was a nephew back from my grandfather and immediately there was a faction to put him on the throne.

But I had some goods on him and got him to rebel, and after crushing him I blinded him. Problem solved.

I've begun dealing with rebellious vassals by making kingdoms, giving them to loyal Greeks, and then passing any problem vassals off to them.

Spoiler: Here's the state of things at present, circa 1013

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Spoiler: Without them they really didn't stand a chance.

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So the Selejuks got nowhere.

Spoiler: The Tengri are certainly active.

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Spoiler: Germany is so screwed

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Spoiler: Poor England

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[IthilanorStPete]

I continued to expand my borders but the most interesting thing that happened was that my daughters killed my only son. At which point I had no choice but to kill my eldest daughter's husband and remarry her matrilinearly. Luckily she hadn't had any kids yet.

Ah well, you have to do these things sometimes.

This is somewhat doubly impressive because my standing army is stupid OP. I actually learned how combat works, and now I have one flank of just Cataphracts, the middle is Archers, Pikes, and Heavy Infantry, and the Varangian Guard (who I just keep hired all the time now) make up the final flank. The result is that their tactics just destroy people. Usually the flank fighting the Cataphracts collapses first after getting slaughtered be repeated Charges and Swarms, and then they just roll up the rest of the army.

Spoiler: You can see here how one sided this makes a lot of battles

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.

That's probably better than my strategy as Rome; I used Cataphracts as the core of my armies, but mostly I just threw huge numbers of troops at my enemies. These were some of my battles against the Mongols (though this was before the big nerf to troop numbers):

Spoiler: Big images

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Mongol invasions can get ridiculous, but you have to whittle down their doomstacks somehow.

Spoiler: Here's the state of things at present, circa 1013

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Interesting mix of things...I don't usually see Russia get that fractured. Looks like Bavaria and Hungary have had some interesting wars.

Spoiler: Germany is so screwed

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[HamHam]

That's probably better than my strategy as Rome; I used Cataphracts as the core of my armies, but mostly I just threw huge numbers of troops at my enemies.

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.

In other news, I had this whole plan to get Bulgaria when one of their Princes accepted a matrileneal marriage with one of my daughters but then it seemed like it might fall apart because my new son-in-law got really insistent about joining the Order of the Holy Sepulcher...

But then I realized that with the territory I had taken from Hungary to the Danube I actually had more of the Kingdom of Bulgaria than the King did so I could just usurp his title.

So I did.

And then I asked him and all his former vassals to become my vassals, and without the stupid "I am a King!" modifier it took hardly any bribes to do so.

Then I gave him back his kingship and his vassals.

I've basically been ignoring my Orthodox neighbors, because I have too many heathens to fight to waste time fighting with other Christians over parts of the former Empire that I don't really care about. And on that front I have been sending missionaries to various places, and I managed to flip Brittany at one point (although it has since been split up between Ireland, Norse Scotland, and France somehow). And Poland has flipped to Orthodox as well (for now, based on what was going on there previously the state religion seems to change every generation).

EDIT:

Also what I find funny is that Poland is about the size I think of it being, but it's significantly west of where it should be.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Because when you holy war one Romuva the rest will pile up on you and grind you into the dirt unless you're powerful enough to handle all of them.

Well, so far, two of my three conquered territories were gained through Holy Wars, although the second one did have me on edge a bit (basically I lost a battle against a slightly inferior stack so I just decided to bring my army home and disband everyone for a month, then I got back up, hired a new mercenary band, and rolled back in). However, I'm working on getting a third claim on a county that's owned by a duke, so once I get that I can just claim all three and force that guy to fight me with only any allies he can call in.

[Flickerdart]

Also what I find funny is that Poland is about the size I think of it being, but it's significantly west of where it should be.

I find that forming Poland rather than Bohemia is a much better move for Great Moravia, since it lets you declare de jure wars on an otherwise impenetrable block of pagans. This also places Poland much further west than it would normally be, since Great Moravia has very little overlap with de jure Poland.

[Leecros]

I've got to say, My Khazaria game is going quite well. I've managed to form Tartaria and am working at consolidating my rule and converting my provinces.

As far as the major powers i need to defeat on my way to Jerusalem. The Byzantine empire is staggering under the throes of a civil war. Many of the Doux's have risen against the Emperor who is Iconoclast and managed to convert...probably about half of the de jure Doux's. As far as Arabia goes, they're suffering from their own sort of civil war in the sense of a religius war. The Shia Caliph has siezed control of a large part of Arabia and all of Mesopotamia. In the mess, The Persian Shah is throwing their lot into the regional power ring.

All in all things are probably nearly ideal. Obviously, there's always room for improvement. The entire region could fracture and i could just walk in....But considering the fact that typically I see two major powers in the region: The Byzantine Empire and Arabia. The fact that there's Five regional powers is kind of a big deal. Of course it's hard to say what the Byzantines do. The Civil War is a toss-up. It's 20% in the opposition's favor, but it was 60% a few months ago. If the opposition wins and things go back to the status quo, then they could wreak some real havoc in the Middle-East. However, if Iconoclast defend their crown, I could see there being civil wars going on in the Empire for a long time.


Obligatory image:

Spoiler

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