Crusader Kings 2 Thread III: Keeping Up With The Karlings

[Artanis]

So attractive Basque who uses Seduction to get her daughters matrilineally married to attractive people, thus increasing the chance of continueing the scam in the future?

Basque? Pfft. A Basque can merely steal men's hearts. A Cathar, on the other hand, can take their souls

[Sange]

Explain this mod. It sounds hilarious.

Is the Migration CB part of Charlemagne?

Migration CB is from the mod. It's a war for a dejure kingdom. If you win, you get the entire kingdom but lose your old land, like in the Form Hungary decision. It's available to tribes like the Magyars, Avars etc... So I used the CB to bring my Zoroastrian Avar kingdom from the starting position to Pictland and renamed Pictland Pictavarland.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Explain this mod. It sounds hilarious.

Is the Migration CB part of Charlemagne?

Aye, the mod is has several start dates from 477 I believe (right before Odoacer invades Italy held by the WRE under the Young Augustus) to... mid 500s? I know the second-to-last bookmark right now is something about Clovis or the creation of the Frankish kingdom. With I believe a fully scrollable history, just like vanilla has from 1066 on.

Main features other than the world not making sense (the maker has a THING for heresies, so there are a lot of various heresies around), are a dynamic Rise of Islam in which "Islam" may start as a heresy of various local religions depending on the political situation, the migrations as above, dynamic cultures are being worked on (Currently I believe they have dynamic cultures set out for historical changes in Spain, England, France, Italy, and the Balkans, so for example if Slavs are ruling Illyrian, Roman-Illyrian, Thracian, Romano-Thracian, or Greco-Thracian peoples, the different modern Balkan slavic cultures will emerge. Due to some fun events in one of the earliest AARs, there is also a steppe Welsh culture for if the Britons somehow take over the Russian steppes. Stranger things happen), as are dynamic Church Councils (currently I believe most councils are about the development of the Catholic/Orthodox churches, dealing with Arian/Nicene split and later Chalcedonian stuff, but they're planning a more dynamic thing where the Arians can win out somehow and have more church councils based on that).

But basically, it's a historical sandbox. They picked a time where the world really could have gone any which way, (with some embellishment for interest) and throw you into it.

[Malimar]

Huh, Migration CB in a mod, eh?

Without said mod, I just spent a few generations migrating from Denmark to Persia, in preparation for a Reformed Germanic Mongol invasion of India. But I did it the old-fashioned way, with gavelkind succession, leaving a string of allied nations in my wake.

[Sange]

Yeah, playing the mod the history can really get crazy. e.g. in the maker's AAR after 150 years of observer Zoroastrianism was well established in Russia and North Germany, and a Merovingian reformed the Germanic faith.
It can really go anywhere, that's the amazing part of it. Plus, the Rise of Islam and Migration mechanics are really awesome.

[Artanis]

So...this is a thing that happened...

Spoiler

Show

[Sange]

LOL!
The Cathars look pretty strong too.

[Avilan the Grey]

I must admit I don't really feel the urge to start a game earlier than 1066, mostly because I quite frankly find the high medieval era so very much more interesting. Pagans, vikings and rabble? Bleh. I am swedish, we are up to here in frikking pagans.*

I think after this game is over I will again start in Dal in 1066 but with a customized ruler (I started as the default one this time). And with WoL installed, of course.

*Eddie Izzard reference

[Leecros]

I must admit I don't really feel the urge to start a game earlier than 1066, mostly because I quite frankly find the high medieval era so very much more interesting. Pagans, vikings and rabble? Bleh. I am swedish, we are up to here in frikking pagans.*

I think after this game is over I will again start in Dal in 1066 but with a customized ruler (I started as the default one this time). And with WoL installed, of course.

*Eddie Izzard reference

i tend to like the 1066 start because most of the nations are already established. The Old Gods period tend to result in meshes of petty counts, dukes, and Kings murdering each other over scraps of land. The Charlemagne start tends to have only a few powers. I've only seen Francia split into separate plausible Karling Powers once. All the rest tends to see the Francia Empire form and just stick around all game(assuming they don't get conquered by the Umayyads)

[Avilan the Grey]

i tend to like the 1066 start because most of the nations are already established. The Old Gods period tend to result in meshes of petty counts, dukes, and Kings murdering each other over scraps of land. The Charlemagne start tends to have only a few powers. I've only seen Francia split into separate plausible Karling Powers once. All the rest tends to see the Francia Empire form and just stick around all game(assuming they don't get conquered by the Umayyads)

Oh definitely, that is a big part of it.

...I am thinking of starting as dwarf...

[Hydranova]

It turns out Popes sleeping around and fathering bastards that go on to inherit papacy claims and therefore be counted as Antipopes aren't good for Moral Authority. So at around 20% MA when heresies began popping up, I figured I would make a third Antipope.

Now Europe's a madhouse of heresies. Northern Wales is soundly Lollard, Most of Ireland, Wessex, Britanny and.....Northern Germany I think are soundly Fraticelli, with the rest of Europe either Waldnesian (such as Lotharingia (or Burgundy)'s ruler and the main power in Scotland, and the likely successor to maintstream Catholicism) or Catholic. I would give more details, but the religion map is a bunch of dotted lines.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

So, one of the reasons why everyone loves the 1066 start is that there are no more Karlings, right? I mean, 8th century start you have Big Bad Karl himself, 9th century start you have the various Karling Alliances of Doom, but all you get in 1066 is the tiny Duke of Rethel (maybe he even starts as a count) (at least in HIP with SWMH), right? And he's a weak little thing, no problem.

Until one of his descendents becomes the most genius genius ever, the Duke of Flanders single-handedly forces Elective on the Kingdom, he gets elected, and promptly switches back to Primogeniture.

Karling France is back y'all.

Including being, for a time, allied with the HRE.

De Normandie England is hurting.

[Artanis]

After the mention of Seduction Focus on a Patrician, I decided to try it out. Six years in, I have nine bastards, a wife with -627 relations, and herpes.

LOL!
The Cathars look pretty strong too.

The Cathars are mostly my doing

[IthilanorStPete]

After the mention of Seduction Focus on a Patrician, I decided to try it out. Six years in, I have nine bastards, a wife with -627 relations, and herpes.

What is it about Patricians that sets them apart from regular nobles in this regard?

[Artanis]

What is it about Patricians that sets them apart from regular nobles in this regard?

Trade Post count is tied to how many male dynasty members you have. Four legitimized bastard sons is four more dynasty members' worth of money.

[Flickerdart]

nine bastards, a wife with -627 relations, and herpes

5 pages in and we already have the next thread title.

[IthilanorStPete]

Trade Post count is tied to how many male dynasty members you have. Four legitimized bastard sons is four more dynasty members' worth of money.

Right, forgot about that...I need to revisit my Muslim Republic game once I get Way of Life.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

So I have this dream of making an AAR where I illustrate battle-scenes from Paradox games with Total War games. To be honest, depending on faction, you can pretty much go all the way up through almost all the way through Victoria nearly seamlessly, especially with England, using mods. Just need to... wing it a little bit during some awkward gaps. But like, basically 9th century to late medieval/renaissance period is covered by Chivalry II: Sicilian Vespers (if I can get it working), Anything pikes-and-guns is English Civil War or some edited 1648 stuff, then you get into Empire, then Napoleon, which can carry you until the Zulu Mod takes over, until the WWI mod takes over.

I've tested it out by taking some pictures to represent my Victoria II campaign, Russia suppressing the Caucasus, but I think it's better to do with earlier stuff. Except all my Medieval II mods are bugged, so alas, my pictures of King Eldraed de Normandie's Saxo-Norman crusade helping his brother-in-law, the King of Castille against the heathen in Spain shall have to wait.

I do love how my brother-in-law united the kingdoms; his great grandfather was actually the only one of the starting 3 brothers to lose his crown, that of Leon, to the King of Galicia off the bat. Later, the Galician line would lose Leon to Castille who conquered Navarre, and would create Portugal (and lose the actual LAND of Castille as well), and also inherit Barcelona. Then my brother-in-law's grandfather, old at this point, gets together an army and reconquers Galicia, while the more powerful line in Castille manages to somehow get the inbred trait (I traced their line, no idea how), and manages to breed themselves out of existence. The Spaniards are now the united Christian front in Spain (other than tiny insignificant Aragon).

It was interesting to compare my armies to the Spaniards and Moors, we all fielded very different armies. Even more so once the powerful Ziryun Sultanate in Africa came, with two thousand armoured camelry!

[Leecros]

It's always pleasantly surprising when your family members take root in interesting positions when you least suspect it.

I'm playing as the King of Kent(What? I got bored of the English Flag) and at some point i married one of my family members into the court of the Duchy of Brabrant. I don't remember marrying him off for claims, so I probably married him off to a woman with decent stats. Turns out that woman became the Duchess of brabrant after half of her family died and now my family's ruling in Brabrant.

Fast Forward a hundred years in a completely different set of circumstances and I married my heir to the countess of Loon who unfortunately died after giving birth. However her daughter was granted the Duchy of Luxembourg. She and her only Son died in the dungeons of the King of Middle Francia and the title passed to her father, my heir. So now i have my uncle and my son holding duchy titles next to each other that I neither planned for nor expected.

There's also a splinter dynasty of mine in Spain whose origins was a self-imposed exile after fleeing from an imprisonment attempt. They've become a double-count on their own. However, we don't talk about them....

[tyckspoon]

So.. for some reason, the Byzantine Empire in my game has kept 100+ ships raised for nearly fifty years. This has resulted in the current ruler (a roughly 3-year-old girl, incidentally) having a -300 gold treasury. What I want to know is.. just how bad is that? I've never been in debt that deep or that long, at least not with a ruler that survived more than a few months more when everybody either rebelled or the mercs I'd been desperately trying to stave off a superior force with quit or went to the other side.

I ask because I'm playing Amalfi, and the Byzantines hold about half of the land of K:Sicily that I'd like to have. If that insane debt will cripple the Basilissa's armies (she can still raise about 17.5 thousand, according to her profile page, although part of that is showing as 'Hired'.. if those are standard mercenaries I have no idea how she's holding on to them) then I can probably push in on the vassals with my own levies and mercenaries.

Also, on reflection, I do know why the ships are still raised. There was a liberation revolt on Venice a while ago. ~11000 men spawned on a one-county island. The ships were used to deliver the Empire's attempt to clear them.. which failed, because I think with the penalties for making an amphibious assault like that you'd probably need to drop like a 30k doomstack on it to win? But the revolt is still there, and so are the ships. Really annoying, actually, because Venice would be a prime target to try and rip off from the Empire. Except the revolt didn't win enough warscore to enforce demands after merely sieging over Venice, they can't raise ships to go anywhere to try and claim more and/or get stomped out, and the Empire can't raise enough men/ships to dislodge them (and may be stuck in the 'won't disband' bug, although I thought that had been fixed. Or maybe it's just weirded out because of the ongoing 'war' with the revolution.) So there's a permanent revolution on the island, which sucks because that had been a very profitable trading post, and there's no way for the game to change it until the revolution's warscore slowly erodes because they're not *doing* anything.

I'm tempted to cheat-command kill the leader of the revolution just to make that go away, it's kind of silly.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

There seems to be a bug where the AI can't properly lower levies.

[Flickerdart]

So.. for some reason, the Byzantine Empire in my game has kept 100+ ships raised for nearly fifty years. This has resulted in the current ruler (a roughly 3-year-old girl, incidentally) having a -300 gold treasury. What I want to know is.. just how bad is that? I've never been in debt that deep or that long, at least not with a ruler that survived more than a few months more when everybody either rebelled or the mercs I'd been desperately trying to stave off a superior force with quit or went to the other side.

From what I've seen there are only two penalties to having a debt - a morale penalty for your armies, and various random events like "bandits appear in holding." Also, while you are bankrupt, you cannot declare war.

[Malimar]

If that insane debt will cripple the Basilissa's armies (she can still raise about 17.5 thousand, according to her profile page, although part of that is showing as 'Hired'.. if those are standard mercenaries I have no idea how she's holding on to them) then I can probably push in on the vassals with my own levies and mercenaries.

The "Hired" listing might be the Varangian Guard. Vassal mercenaries never get mad about bankruptcy, and are cheap to keep raised.

[tyckspoon]

Tried cheat-murdering the leader of the revolution. Didn't end it, an heir took over. So I looked around a bit and found another way - I teleported the leader into the Basilissa's dungeons.


Also the answer to 'how badly screwed are you when you're several hundred in debt' is 'not badly enough.' Although part of it is me mishandling the war.. I had the advantage of being the local power, so I got my forces together and made a mercs+retinue first strike, and destroyed the target's own forces pretty quickly. And then I made the mistake of letting the Byzzies merge up ~8k men while I had my own (roughly equivalent forces - with terrain advantage and better commanders I would have won) forces split up to siege more efficiently. Didn't notice any special disadvantage the Byzantine troops were under, although I think a good half or so of the forces were from the target and his allies within the empire and not from the Basilissa herself. Ended up peacing out with the warscore I got from the initial beatdown before they started camping out on my land.

From what I've seen there are only two penalties to having a debt - a morale penalty for your armies, and various random events like "bandits appear in holding."

Yeah, I checked her personal holdings and those counties are a wreck. The morale thing was what I was curious about - is there a way to know how harsh it is? Does it scale to the amount/length of being in debt, or is it a flat 'you're in debt, -10%' kind of thing that isn't very relevant if you have a winning position?

[Flickerdart]

Yeah, I checked her personal holdings and those counties are a wreck. The morale thing was what I was curious about - is there a way to know how harsh it is? Does it scale to the amount/length of being in debt, or is it a flat 'you're in debt, -10%' kind of thing that isn't very relevant if you have a winning position?

It's a modifier like "martial advice" or "feasting" so unless there's a "super in debt" version I would assume it doesn't scale. It's very likely that Paradox never expected anyone to fall that far into debt since the only two ways that it's possible to do so are overdrawing on maintenance or event payments like war reparations, neither of which is a good way of going that far into the negatives.

[Avilan the Grey]

What is it about Patricians that sets them apart from regular nobles in this regard?

Plus, they aren't nobles at all. Per definition.

[tyckspoon]

hmm. Well, I have a truce with the Byzantines now, so it'll be a while before I can poke them again. I am a bit surprised they're still stable, tho, what with a female infant ruler with incredibly reduced levies from her poor stats/personal holdings having basically all the penalty statuses. Should be independence factions or at least rulership change factions going up all over. *shrug*

So, what's the next nest I should kick in my bid to find something more interesting to do than watch my gold reserves climb? I could try doing the city-claim > county claim thing to the Pope; he wouldn't vassalize, since I don't have anywhere near a high-tier enough title as a Republic, but it'd be fun. Or I could Holy War on the African Muslims. I'm pretty sure I can take any single one of them. Don't know if I could swing all three of them are that proximate to each other, and definitely be in trouble if the Abbassids get themselves together and join in.

[Artanis]

Speaking of holy wars, when it says "nearby" rulers might join in, just how nearby is "nearby"? It seems like every holy war against a seemingly isolated target results in a jillion others ganging up on me, but there have been times that I've been certain that would happen only for nobody to join in

[Leecros]

Speaking of holy wars, when it says "nearby" rulers might join in, just how nearby is "nearby"? It seems like every holy war against a seemingly isolated target results in a jillion others ganging up on me, but there have been times that I've been certain that would happen only for nobody to join in

I don't think there's a maximum limit on "Nearby"...

[tyckspoon]

Took longer than I was expecting, but I got my opportunity - half the Byzantine Empire went up in revolt. To enforce Elective Succession, of all things (probably because there weren't any dynastic heirs that anybody liked better. Female Child Ruler's heir is Possessed Adult Woman.) So I sniped a county off the revolt. Shame I can't do more than one county at a time, but oh well. Republic CBs are flexible but pretty weak. And now the Abassids are Holy Warring the Empire, and one of my possible target Muslim areas is holy warring the neighboring Ibadis. I should probably join in on that one if they're near enough to be a valid target, actually - I don't think there are any other Ibadi kingdoms around to help them out.