Crusader Kings 2 Thread III: Keeping Up With The Karlings

[OrcusMcP]

India is indeed fun, but if you're used to northern europe it's quite different. There are ways to get big fast, and there are ways to stay big, but getting out of India will be tricky if the Caliphate/Seljuks/etc are powerful.

[Artanis]

If you have a tribal holding, and give it to a non-tribal (like any goddamn character after the year 900) you automatically get a -30 approval penalty that is permanent from that person because it is a "wrong kind of government" penalty. This means you must upgrade your holding before giving it to your heir or whatever. I did not know that.

I was more reacting to the part about having to upgrade everything at once.

[Manticoran]

I never played earlier than 1066 before so I don't know. All I DO know is that a Christian Pomeranian 4500 men doomstack crushed all of Svithjods armies all by itself by the end of the 900's. Before that No viking invasion was successful, ever. Except against the eastern pagans.

If I remember correctly the Norse are the most developed of the pagans, and potentially the most powerful, but to balance it out they have by far the most difficult religious sites to control.

As to all of your Norse gripes... Kind of odd to me? I found myself founding the Kingdom, getting all 3 holy sites you need to reform, and conquering all of Finland, Ireland, starting on Scotland, and much of the other Suo Pagans before 1000 pretty easily. My gripe is the inability to switch over to Primogeniture, meaning that I'm quickly going to fragment unless I can found my Empire in the same lifespan as I conquered like 4 Kingdoms, which I'm finding somewhat difficult due to monetary concerns with also having to upgrade all of my territory to Castles, and the fact that raiding seems to give nowhere near as much money as it used to.

[OrcusMcP]

I was more reacting to the part about having to upgrade everything at once.

You don't have to upgrade everything at once, any tribal holding you have at either max fort or max town will upgrade to castle or city depending on how you modernise. Anything that doesn't upgrade will stay tribal and give you penalties. Anyone feudal with tribal vassal gets an opinion penalty, and anyone tribal with a feudal/merchant vassal will also get a penalty.

[Artanis]

Ohhhh kay, I get what you're saying now

[Grytorm]

I have a weird scenario involving tribal vassals. I haven;t played lately but the northernmost duchy in Ireland is held by a bishop in southern Ireland who has no county holdings. The tribal holding despite being very upgraded has never passed become a castle. Makes sense after a fashion.

[Avilan the Grey]

As to all of your Norse gripes... Kind of odd to me? I found myself founding the Kingdom, getting all 3 holy sites you need to reform, and conquering all of Finland, Ireland, starting on Scotland, and much of the other Suo Pagans before 1000 pretty easily. My gripe is the inability to switch over to Primogeniture, meaning that I'm quickly going to fragment unless I can found my Empire in the same lifespan as I conquered like 4 Kingdoms, which I'm finding somewhat difficult due to monetary concerns with also having to upgrade all of my territory to Castles, and the fact that raiding seems to give nowhere near as much money as it used to.

Depends on who you start as, I guess. It's 1006 and I still have not become king. I have found no opening, it's as simple as that.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Some of us also play much more cautiously than others as well.

[Manticoran]

Hmm, yeah. Outside of skyrocketing to the next tier each time you die, I don't see a good way to sustain a Norse faction for very long anymore. The combination of the Tribal minuses plus the forced Gavelkind looks pretty solidly like once you have enough land for two Duchies, you NEED to hit Kingdom, once you have enough land for two Kingdoms, you NEED to hit Empire, or it just all collapses and you lose your chance. You basically need to make your Kingdom in the first life, and Empire/Fylkirate in the second, probably along with conquering most of Britain/Russia if you want to be competitive with the Christian and Muslim blobs.

Used to be once you hit Fylkir you could just go right into Elective Monarchy or Primogeniture(I always preferred Elective), but now there's a lot of problems in the way of that happening in any kind of peaceful manner.

To be fair, that's probably a good thing. Norse were wayyy too easy to conquer the world by 1060 before.

[Grytorm]

It would be neat if you could reform the religion to give it further access to inheritance laws. Perhaps based if you usurp a christian title you could change the inheritance laws somewhat.

Also I think it is a good idea to make the realms somewhat unstable early on. So after you establish the religion things start to fall apart a little. Allowing the development of a mixture of realms instead of creating a player lead blob.

Actually they should add more ahistorical starts, like the megablobs of the north!

[GnomeGninjas]

Is Gavelkind really that bad? Your new character will have claim on their brothers' titles so they should be able to reunify the realm pretty quickly.

[Grif]

Is Gavelkind really that bad? Your new character will have claim on their brothers' titles so they should be able to reunify the realm pretty quickly.

The fact that you need to declare said war in the first place is inconvenience enough.

[Manticoran]

And you can't always WIN the wars against your brothers either, depending on how much territory they're getting compared to how much you are.

[Flickerdart]

As the primary title holder, you get all the money, don't you? Use it to bribe the other family members so they like you better, and dogpile on your least favourite ones.

[Manticoran]

Yeah, that'd be great if it wasn't for the fact that as Norse you need to spend ALL OF YOUR MONEY EVER on upgrading your forts to be competitive with the Christians later and stop having tons of Tribal territory.

[Avilan the Grey]

Yeah, that'd be great if it wasn't for the fact that as Norse you need to spend ALL OF YOUR MONEY EVER on upgrading your forts to be competitive with the Christians later and stop having tons of Tribal territory.

Indeed.
I'm off to 1066. If you see a DeLorian in Norway, that's me.

Anyway, bug or something I misunderstood?
When I changed my successor laws so my oldest son gets the highest title, and I had two duchies, the game said the second one would go to the second oldest son. That's fine, I figured that.
However, when I then changed to that duchy as my primary title, suddenly my oldest son inherited both of them? How come?

[Grytorm]

Because Gavelkind is just really annoying like that.

I also realized something about Seniority succession. It seems like it would be very useful for marriage warfare and organizing your realm. So if you can get a kinsman into a foreign territory you stand a chance of getting the duchy into your realm eventually.

[IthilanorStPete]

Because Gavelkind is just really annoying like that.

I also realized something about Seniority succession. It seems like it would be very useful for marriage warfare and organizing your realm. So if you can get a kinsman into a foreign territory you stand a chance of getting the duchy into your realm eventually.

Yep, Seniority has a habit of bouncing all around your family tree. It can be good for some situations, as you've noted, but you give up a fair amount of control over sculpting your heir and setting up good marriage alliances.

[Avilan the Grey]

Because Gavelkind is just really annoying like that.

But I still not understand WHY. I transfered to Svithjod (the Duchy, not the country) as my primary because it was bigger and more powerful, fully expecting my second son to instead then inherit Smaland. But instead, by transfering, my eldest son got BOTH.

Not complaining at all, but what??

[OrcusMcP]

The different duchies probably had different successions, with one primogeniture and the other gavelkind.

[Avilan the Grey]

The different duchies probably had different successions, with one primogeniture and the other gavelkind.

I thought so, but no.

[OrcusMcP]

Out of curiosity, would anyone be interested in a multiplayer session at some point? Perhaps document our horrible happenings?

[Avilan the Grey]

Out of curiosity, would anyone be interested in a multiplayer session at some point? Perhaps document our horrible happenings?

Theoretically yes.
Don't really have time for it and my timezone might screw things up anyway. But theoretically yes.

Speaking of which, what happened to that succession game you tried to start a few pages back?

[OrcusMcP]

We're waiting for the Horse Lords patch to be out so our save isn't immediately borked.

[Avilan the Grey]

We're waiting for the Horse Lords patch to be out so our save isn't immediately borked.

Ah.

Now I have to decide if I should play a "real" character or a dynasty I create...
Choices choices.

[Grif]

We're waiting for the Horse Lords patch to be out so our save isn't immediately borked.

Indeed. Given how long our games take, I was pleasantly surprised our game managed to endure a year of patches, some of which were pretty game-changing by the end.

[Avilan the Grey]

Started a campaign on a lark with the count of Orkney Isles in 1066. Became king of Norway in 10 years.
I feel a little guilty about restarting it, since I want to have my custom ruler instead.

[Avilan the Grey]

Started a campaign on a lark with the count of Orkney Isles in 1066. Became king of Norway in 10 years.
I feel a little guilty about restarting it, since I want to have my custom ruler instead.

Replying to myself...
Started over yesterday and with a female ruler it took 14 years from being a Countess in the Orkney Isles to become Queen of Norway.
I finally managed to snag it by going deep int debt; my faction never got more than 97% so I just borrowed the 300, bought mercenaries and managed to intercept the king's stacks before they joined with each other or his boats.

Now I have formed alliances with Denmark and England and will start revoking duchies momentarily.

[Avilan the Grey]

Definition of Overkill:
Starting a Holy War for Pomerania, and ending up with England, Scotland, Denmark, HRE and Bysantium on your side.

The war lasted about 2 months!

Edit:
Oddities... When the first in the dynasty, who was female, was out hunting, she (Despite not being gay) took a "wildwoman" as her lover. Brokeback reference? Anyway... all was nice... until they got a son together.
WTH? Not complaining (much) but um... what?

[OrcusMcP]

Oddities... When the first in the dynasty, who was female, was out hunting, she (Despite not being gay) took a "wildwoman" as her lover. Brokeback reference? Anyway... all was nice... until they got a son together.
WTH? Not complaining (much) but um... what?

Ah, another one of those weird immaculate conception bugs. I know with the next patch they are specifically adding "wild men" for women hunters to be seduced by.