Crusader Kings II Thread IV: Time to Create a New Title

[Rockphed]

Wow. My recent Ironman attempt starting as a nobody Norwegian Count has been... pretty intense. The early years were a lot of waffling about. Trying to expand a little, grab some realms while the Danish and Swedish larger empires gobbled up neighbours like snacks. Somehow I managed to get strong enough fast enough so that when the realms inevitably broke down, I could grab the Become King ambition and build up the Kingdom of Norway.

Now, maintaining a Kingdom is hard when you run elective gavelkind. And reforming the kingdom into feudalism would require first reforming the religion. This is where my problems start. I managed to grab the three Scandinavian holy sites, but lacked the moral authority to reform the faith. What followed was about four generations of almost getting the moral authority high enough, then losing a holy site to inheirtance, and getting the holy site back, only for the moral authority to fall because someone else failed their invasion. I eventually decided that I'll just have to grab the infidel sites and get all holy sites. So I prepare raids, manage to complete raiding, and then just as I prepare to invade and take over, I get killed by my devil worshipping daughter. Who then quickly dies from devil worshipping. The one I take over rules for about three years, before he sacrifices himself to cthulhu. So I'm left with this underage girl whom everyone hates for being female and young and yet, somehow, she manages to take over most of Germany and Holland, ensures that, even if not directly held, all holy sites are held by members of the Germanic faith, reforms the religion and becomes Fylkir. Has a single son. Who is Genius to boot. All seems to be going well.

*snrk* But no, of course not. After I reform to a feudal system, I lose a lot of power, so Germany declares a war of independence to go along with several religious revolts. I lose the german territories, but manage to put down the revolts. My son inherits Uppsala from my Half-brother, so he leaves my court. A while later I check in on him... and he's a kin-murdering devil worshipper hated by everyone. And then he declares war on me. I win the fight, throw him in jail, and... yeah.

This game is fun

Stories like this are why I have zero intention of getting monks and mystics.

[tyckspoon]

So, I am running a venice game with maximum size revolts. Italy (and just about everywhere else) has been ripped apart by massive revolts. For a bit Catharism beat out Catholicism and Catholicism had 0% moral authority from all the successful heretic revolts. Rome is in the hands of the Fraticelli pope. I think the Byzantine Empire is confined to Menorca and Mallorca.

My problem is that I had the county of Ravenna for about a month before it was ripped out of my hands by a Fraticelli rebellion. Any suggestions on beating the provincial revolts? They inevitably have 14K soldiers pop up and I want to either squash them before they pop up or preempt them by converting the province before they get the chance to pop up. What I really want is to get a second duchy and turn Venice into a kingdom, but that is a bit in the future.

Rebel armies are made almost entirely out of Light Infantry, I believe, which means they have intimidating numbers but are pretty useless in an actual fight. A significantly smaller army with a good solid core/high proportion of heavy troops should be able to beat them or at least kill thousands of them at a go while technically 'losing' to morale from being outnumbered, much like Tribal players are encouraged to feudalize when their huge swarms of mostly Light Infantry start taking unacceptable losses to Heavy Infantry-equipped neighbors. A sacrificial Mercenary company or two should do the job or at least reduce them enough to clean up with your own levies/retinue. (Light Infantry don't do a lot of damage in any phase, so while their weight of numbers means they'll probably 'win' fights, they won't actually kill a lot of Heavy Infantry soldiers - after a couple go rounds of murdering 2 thousand revolting troops and losing 2 hundred of your own soldiers it's a much more even fight.)

As for trying to stomp on them before the army actually forms, that's basically just throwing your Marshal on there to suppress rebellions, putting your Chaplain there to proselytize, and hoping the RNG likes you enough to have that work before something triggers anyway. Can't guarantee it'll do much good if the 'main' religion has little to no moral authority still. Parking your retinue and/or a mercenary company on the county may also work - I don't know if the game will spawn an army there if the county is already occupied by 'enemy' troops.

Alternately: Just surrender to them. Declare a Holy War/de jure claim war/whatever to retake the county. They'll have the negative modifiers for having just taken over a county and most of the event-spawned rebel stack will disband after they 'win' their war.

[Neon Knight]

I've been plugging away at my first Mumu game (business and divided gaming attentions have made it slow going), and I've had some success conquering my neighbors but ended up slowed down dealing with the unhappy vassals. I had a question: are there any tricks to racking up war score really quick? I had an "issue" where I'd invade a single province neighbor, defeat their army, and then siege and occupy their territory, and not have enough war score to enforce my claim. I had to wait for their army to rally a bunch of times and come back to be inevitably defeated yet again. Is that really the way things are supposed to go?

[SZbNAhL]

I've been plugging away at my first Mumu game (business and divided gaming attentions have made it slow going), and I've had some success conquering my neighbours but ended up slowed down dealing with the unhappy vassals. I had a question: are there any tricks to racking up war score really quick? I had an "issue" where I'd invade a single province neighbour, defeat their army, and then siege and occupy their territory, and not have enough war score to enforce my claim. I had to wait for their army to rally a bunch of times and come back to be inevitably defeated yet again. Is that really the way things are supposed to go?

Occupying 100% of enemy holdings ought to give you an automatic 100% warscore. Unless I'm missing something, either you've hit a weird glitch, or they had other territory you've overlooked (probably a baron-tier holding in somebody else's county). Or I'm wrong about warscore mechanics.

[tyckspoon]

Occupying 100% of enemy holdings ought to give you an automatic 100% warscore. Unless I'm missing something, either you've hit a weird glitch, or they had other territory you've overlooked (probably a baron-tier holding in somebody else's county). Or I'm wrong about warscore mechanics.

It should be noted that 100% of holdings means 100% of holdings - you have to occupy all the barony-level stuff as well, not just the capital holding. If you do have all the holdings in your target county and you're still not at 100%, you could just let ticking score do the job for you; if you control all of your target area and haven't hit 100% yet, you gain warscore slowly as long as you still maintain control of the target (one of the things the most recent patch did was make this ticking score accumulate faster.) Since your opponent can't raise an army without a county to raise them in, you can probably send your levies home as soon as the local castle has enough garrison to fend off the enemy's remaining army and just let the ticking score take care of the rest of it.

Things that give warscore:
Sieging down holdings. Holdings in the targets capital county/Duchy count for more, but anything they/their side of the war owns is valid.
Beating up armies, bigger armies are worth more. When you get into really big fights (Crusades, Kingdom or Empire against another similarly sized foe) one or two battles can make up around 60% of total score.
As mentioned, controlling the target area. If you're a defender, holding your counties is worth score. If attacking, completing sieges and maintaining control of enemy territory.
Imprisoning the enemy leader or his direct heirs - capturing the enemy allows you to instantly force them to concede the war. Capturing the enemy's current heir is worth.. I want to say 50%? It's a huge swing. Other characters in the line of succession are worth less, and you may prefer to ransom them back instead if you're doing well otherwise. If you notice your enemy is personally leading an army, try to hit that army repeatedly for the chance of capturing or killing the guy.

I think that's about it - it's mostly fighting armies, capturing holdings, and if those don't give you enough, letting ticking score count up to make up your last few percents, because you've probably effectively won the war at that point and you just need the game to acknowledge it.

[Flickerdart]

I've been plugging away at my first Mumu game (business and divided gaming attentions have made it slow going), and I've had some success conquering my neighbors but ended up slowed down dealing with the unhappy vassals. I had a question: are there any tricks to racking up war score really quick? I had an "issue" where I'd invade a single province neighbor, defeat their army, and then siege and occupy their territory, and not have enough war score to enforce my claim. I had to wait for their army to rally a bunch of times and come back to be inevitably defeated yet again. Is that really the way things are supposed to go?

I started a Mumu game to get the feel of things after not playing for a while. I noticed two things:

• A two-province duke doesn't have enough men left over after fighting a one-province count's army to siege that count's keep.
• Mumu is really rich compared to where I used to play (Eastern Europe and Asia)

The answer to your plight is - mercs! Borrow money from the Jews if you need to, hire a band of ne'er do wells, and use them to pursue the enemy while your own men siege. If you want to save money, wait until you have 2 claims and declare both wars before hiring them.

[Rockphed]

I started a Mumu game to get the feel of things after not playing for a while. I noticed two things:

• A two-province duke doesn't have enough men left over after fighting a one-province count's army to siege that count's keep.
• Mumu is really rich compared to where I used to play (Eastern Europe and Asia)

The answer to your plight is - mercs! Borrow money from the Jews if you need to, hire a band of ne'er do wells, and use them to pursue the enemy while your own men siege. If you want to save money, wait until you have 2 claims and declare both wars before hiring them.

What is your martial? Did you have your marshall train troops and let them recharge before attacking?

I recently moved forward with my attempts to spread venetian power throughout the mediteranean. I now own the county of ferrara. I would holy war the rest of my duchy, but the doge is not me. Maybe I should holy war Modena and give it to the Doge so he can form the kingdom of Venice and I can make my duchy. Also, I almost lost my county to about 10 holy wars that popped at once. I was saved by all the holy orders popping at once. Then the Fraticelli pope, who owns Rome, declared a crusade for Jerusalem. I don't expect that to work well for him.

[Mabn]

so, a few months ago I had a bring idea. You know, all my ckII characters act like jerks because it's mechanically advantageous. Instead of doing that, I'm going to start as an opm, never plot, and never declare war! I'll import to EU4 when I'm done and just see how much of the world I can take on a pacifist run. Well, it's around 1000 and I'm a king inside the realm of Francia with a few relative dukes outside my territory, so that's all well and good. The problem I'm coming up against is that now that I'm taking a step back, I'm noticing the AI characters are even more awful human beings than I was. Like, treacherous, murderous, thieving scum of the highest order. And I really want to murder or depose some of them, but that would sort of eliminate the point.

[Rockphed]

So, update on my attempts to spread the doctrine of trade across the land:

I have spent uncountable amounts of money to hold the Serene Dogeship for the last several characters. I almost ran out of male members of my dynasty, but I found a couple in other courts to invite. I am working on getting a relative made pope, which is not easy in the least. I am Serene Doge of the Serene Republics of Corsica and Sardinia, Italy, Sicily, Venice, Pisa, Genoa, and Saxony. I am considering granting Saxony to one of the doges there and letting it be a rival merchant republic. I already turned one of the African duchies into a rival merchant republic. My plan is to steal some of their trade outposts and spread my glorious trade empire across the Mediterranean! And, so long as I don't take counties, all the cities I take don't count against my vassal limit. My continued dominance of everything is assured.

Which leads to an interesting question: Should I form the HRE or should I for the Empire of Italia? E_Italy will be cheaper to form and actually has de-jure vassals in the area I want (though most of them are already my vassals anyway). Is there some way to form both and then get rid of E_HRE? The mongols have already shown up, and while I think the Arabian Empire might be able to take them, I want some large realms to back me up when the Mongols come for Italy. I have 9600 pikes in my retinue (which has a tendency to eat my mostly tribal enemies for dinner), which would grow by about 20% when I make an empire, so I want an empire, I just don't know which one. Any suggestions?

Interestingly, the British Isles are pretty much all Cathar. So is one of the spanish kingdoms. There are a few Fraticelli rulers left, but otherwise the heretics have been driven out. Occasionally, the Fraticelli pope declares a Crusade for something. The last one was for Andalusia; before that were 2 crusades for Italy and a crusade for Jerusalem. The catholic pope, on the other hand, has fired 4 crusades, 3 of which have worked: there was one for Aquitaine (won by the current ruler of Aquitaine), one for Jerusalem(won by the duke of Apulia, I think), and 2 for Saxony (of which I won the second due to having rushed Military Organization 4).

@Mabn: If they are your vassals, you can probably try to imprison them and then win the war. If they are not your vassals, change your rules so you can do excommunication wars (but not offensive holy wars) and get them excommunicated. When you win an excommunication war, I think your religion gets some moral authority and the targets abdicates in favor of their heir.

[Mabn]

@Mabn: If they are your vassals, you can probably try to imprison them and then win the war. If they are not your vassals, change your rules so you can do excommunication wars (but not offensive holy wars) and get them excommunicated. When you win an excommunication war, I think your religion gets some moral authority and the targets abdicates in favor of their heir.

Well the Popes permanently hate me for my various forms of not murdering people for them and the landed characters who flee instead of being arrested haven't declared war on me for maybe 100 years for some reason. Thanks for the suggestions though. I figure I've put the game aside for a while and come back to it.

[SZbNAhL]

I have discovered the true OP ability of Lucifer's Own. It's not giving your enemies plague or regrowing your missing limbs or even turning your councillors into demonic mind-slaves. It's the high priest's passive "obedience" modifier.

Picture the scene: I'm the King of Wales in the late 800s, recently feudalised and ready to expand. Halfway through a war for some opm tribe in Ireland, I get a pop-up informing me that I'm the new high priest. I look through the member list, and realise that the Dukes of Northumberland and Hwice are also members. Despite being a distant realm with no de jure sovereignty and a totally different culture, both willingly swear fealty to me. No expenditure of dark power, no increase in suspicion level. Within a decade I'm emperor of Britannia. Or, uh, Prydwyn. Still Welsh. Anyway, I look around a little more and find that the King of Bavaria is one of us. I send him a letter, and suddenly Bavaria's part of Prydwyn. I make a mental note to read the society's members list more often.

Cut to 1068 (by which point my Irish grandson's on the throne):

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All without declaring a single war.

[Avilan the Grey]

This is one of the reasons I won't buy Monks and Mystics.
The main one of course is that just like Sunset Invasion (that i didn't buy either) it's way too unrealistic for me.

[Rockphed]

This is one of the reasons I won't buy Monks and Mystics.
The main one of course is that just like Sunset Invasion (that i didn't buy either) it's way too unrealistic for me.

I actually think Sunset Invasion is an interesting idea. It gives people on the western map something to come try to eat them about when the Mongols are finally getting to eastern europe. In my current game, the Mongols arrived in about 1000 and are still mucking around in Tibet and Afghanistan in 1095. Well, they somehow have a couple counties on the Horn of Africa, but I think they are having problems with the Arabian Empire.

That said, the only time I have seen an Aztek invasion was my Amalfi game that went weird. I ended up turning off all the secret religious cults in all future games just because of how annoying it was to have my country's religion switch every 10 years. I think Catholicism was pretty much extinct, but then so was just about everything else. Most of the world was Tengri. Everyone who wasn't Tengri tended to be secretly Tengri. If there had been an effective way to root out the secret religious cults, I might have left them in.

As for my current game: I just placed the mother of some of my kinsmen on the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire. Merchant republic retinues are kinda insane (though maybe that is just having a retinue of 10K pikes). The only problem is that if there is too large a force seiging Venice and I try to break them with my retinues, I lose all my retinues and have to start over. Thankfully, the largest bunch of raiders to show up so far has only been 4000 strong and I have 10400 pikes in my retinue.

I, myself, am Serene Doge of Venice, Italy, Sicily, Pisa, Genoa, Corsica and Sardinia, and Saxony. I am contemplating giving Saxony their freedom as soon as I have all of Saxony.

[Leecros]

I actually think Sunset Invasion is an interesting idea. It gives people on the western map something to come try to eat them about when the Mongols are finally getting to eastern europe. In my current game, the Mongols arrived in about 1000 and are still mucking around in Tibet and Afghanistan in 1095. Well, they somehow have a couple counties on the Horn of Africa, but I think they are having problems with the Arabian Empire.

I've made multiple rants in these discussions about how the Hordes: Mongols, Timurids, Seljuk, etc. Just haven't been the same since Raja's of India came out. I remember the old Massive Armies of Death in the Days of Yore where the Mongols would sweep the whole way across Europe or the Middle East. Nowadays, they just sort of appear and implode(if they appear at all).

[Rockphed]

I've made multiple rants in these discussions about how the Hordes: Mongols, Timurids, Seljuk, etc. Just haven't been the same since Raja's of India came out. I remember the old Massive Armies of Death in the Days of Yore where the Mongols would sweep the whole way across Europe or the Middle East. Nowadays, they just sort of appear and implode(if they appear at all).

In my Alexiad game, the mongols swept down and took most of the middle east before converting to catholic. The king of England and Jerusalem was Mongol. Even here, the mongols are a force to be reckoned with, they are just taking a bit of time to break up the Arabian empire that stretches from The Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush and from the horn of Africa to the Caspian Sea.

[tyckspoon]

As for my current game: I just placed the mother of some of my kinsmen on the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire. Merchant republic retinues are kinda insane (though maybe that is just having a retinue of 10K pikes). The only problem is that if there is too large a force seiging Venice and I try to break them with my retinues, I lose all my retinues and have to start over. Thankfully, the largest bunch of raiders to show up so far has only been 4000 strong and I have 10400 pikes in my retinue.

Nah, Merchant Republics do get a boost in Retinues - it's due to the combined factors of having more money than standard Feudal lords, so you can afford them more easily, and because Trade Posts count as holdings toward increasing your Retinue cap, so you can have bigger retinues earlier than anybody else. Don't neglect building up your family palace and/or capital city and other owned cities as well, tho - the levies from them won't be as effective as your retinue, but they're pretty handy for more disposable bodies in a fight so your retinue isn't getting focus-fired too badly.

[Rockphed]

Nah, Merchant Republics do get a boost in Retinues - it's due to the combined factors of having more money than standard Feudal lords, so you can afford them more easily, and because Trade Posts count as holdings toward increasing your Retinue cap, so you can have bigger retinues earlier than anybody else. Don't neglect building up your family palace and/or capital city and other owned cities as well, tho - the levies from them won't be as effective as your retinue, but they're pretty handy for more disposable bodies in a fight so your retinue isn't getting focus-fired too badly.

I think one of the most important considerations is that with a fully upgraded garrison a trade outpost boosts your retinue cap by about 100. I have 22 trade outposts, level 4 military organization and am currently king level. I'm pretty sure that works out to 8000 higher retinue cap than a feudal lord with the same holdings. I hadn't considered if family palace and trade posts increased holding number, which bumps up my retinues by a lot.

[Leecros]

In my Alexiad game, the mongols swept down and took most of the middle east before converting to catholic. The king of England and Jerusalem was Mongol. Even here, the mongols are a force to be reckoned with, they are just taking a bit of time to break up the Arabian empire that stretches from The Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush and from the horn of Africa to the Caspian Sea.

I'm not saying that The Mongols can't ever be powerful. In a game as large and complex as Crusader Kings 2, that would be fallacious.

Honestly I can't even say that I really have anything to go off of outside of personal experiences for the same reasons. It's possible/probable that I'm just getting very unlucky/lucky in what The Mongols decide to do. However, I haven't seen The Mongols/Golden Horde/IlKhanate threaten to cover the world in hoerses since Rajas of India came out.

[Rockphed]

I'm not saying that The Mongols can't ever be powerful. In a game as large and complex as Crusader Kings 2, that would be fallacious.

Honestly I can't even say that I really have anything to go off of outside of personal experiences for the same reasons. It's possible/probable that I'm just getting very unlucky/lucky in what The Mongols decide to do. However, I haven't seen The Mongols/Golden Horde/IlKhanate threaten to cover the world in hoerses since Rajas of India came out.

Oh, even when the Mongols first showed up with 3 times as many troops as I could raise in my entire empire, they only ever took a couple counties from me. Which was weird since I couldn't have hoped to stop them and I controlled almost all of Cumania and most of Perm. That should have put a big target on me. I'm pretty sure they have a CB that allows them to take a kingdom, but it might not work on Christians. They used a CB that claimed either a single county or a single duchy. Either way, not nearly enough to bring the fight to the Black Sea.

[Flickerdart]

What was the update that disabled assassins? Before that, you could just murder Mongol Khans before they came of age; IIRC they didn't have access to their powerful CBs under a regent.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I think that was Charlemagne? Something around mid-to-late 2014.

[Leecros]

I remember having a huge debate with someone about them removing the assassinate button. They were against it. I was for its removal.

It was definitely Charlemagne.

[SZbNAhL]

Today I discovered that horses can be more than just chancellors

Spoiler: Screenshot(s)

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Oddly, despite his 0 learning, he's a pretty good doctor. Even if he does sometimes use questionable methods

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Also, I appreciate his bedside manner (read: terrible puns)

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[Leecros]

Oddly, despite his 0 learning, he's a pretty good doctor. Even if he does sometimes use questionable methods

Spoiler: Screenshot

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At least he didn't use his axe-cane
I was going to pick a scene where House hit a patient's dad in the gut with his cane, but I couldn't find that clip online :/

[Rockphed]

I approve of your empire of Britannia having control over the Mediterranean Coast of France. And it looks like most of northern Italy.

I'm about at the point where I have to decide how big I want to get. The Mongols seem to have fizzled (which is sad), but Egypt currently has about 50K troops they can call up. I'm not sure I could call that many even if I brought all the Holy Orders in. And this isn't 50K of the rebellion mix of light infantry, light cavalry, and archers. It is heavy cav, heavy infantry, and camels. I'm pretty sure they would flow over my massed pikes like water flows through a burlap dam. Oddly enough, even with 70% threat, I cannot join the defensive pack against them.

I almost took the throne of Byzantium, but my Grand Prince died just as the war was starting to go my way. His son is now my heir, but he only has a weak claim. My plan, insofar as I have one, is to get myself placed on the throne and then use my new, larger empire to press south along the Mediteranean coast until I can re-form the Roman Empire. Then, I think I will switch to Orthodox, mend the schism, form the Orthodox holy order, and see about switching back and taking the holy order with me.

[Grytorm]

Well, once again I have been playing, of course as Ireland, not stopping until I actually succeed as house Ua Chinneslag. This game has gone really well. About three or four characters in and my character is married to the Queen of Scotland and my heir is married to the Queen of England. So given enough time I will easily create the Brittinian empire.

[Rockphed]

I think I have just about gone as far as possible with my Venice game. I stole the byzantine empire and am 9 counties away from reforming the Roman Empire. I just need Tunis and Jerusalem. I have a city in Tunis, so I could take the county, but I am also sitting at 90% threat. I can, and have, taken on all the other religions at once, but between France, Africa, Jerusalem, and the various Germanies, I'm pretty sure I would get trounced. Jerusalem is led by a "the liberator" who still has 50K troops sitting around.

The worst part is that I went from 30% to 80% threat by offering vassalization to a pair of dukes. I just wanted to forego the bother of warring them for a single county.

[tyckspoon]

I think I have just about gone as far as possible with my Venice game. I stole the byzantine empire and am 9 counties away from reforming the Roman Empire. I just need Tunis and Jerusalem. I have a city in Tunis, so I could take the county, but I am also sitting at 90% threat. I can, and have, taken on all the other religions at once, but between France, Africa, Jerusalem, and the various Germanies, I'm pretty sure I would get trounced. Jerusalem is led by a "the liberator" who still has 50K troops sitting around.

The worst part is that I went from 30% to 80% threat by offering vassalization to a pair of dukes. I just wanted to forego the bother of warring them for a single county.

For a single county claim you can probably blitz the target and force the war to end before the various coalition forces can actually arrive in the war zone, and possibly even fend them all off if you can catch them and fight them in detail as individual armies rather than one huge deathball. Form up your retinues and a mercenary company or two then just go assault the place you want to capture. Send in your levies as a second wave if the mercs are getting mauled too badly to continue or you just need an extra army to prevent your target from back-capping places you've already siege out.

[Flickerdart]

Or you can just wait for a bit until the heat dies down. Do an intrigue focus, murder some powerful lords, or just wait until they die and the "short rule" penalty of the new guy drastically cuts the number of men they have.

[Rockphed]

For a single county claim you can probably blitz the target and force the war to end before the various coalition forces can actually arrive in the war zone, and possibly even fend them all off if you can catch them and fight them in detail as individual armies rather than one huge deathball. Form up your retinues and a mercenary company or two then just go assault the place you want to capture. Send in your levies as a second wave if the mercs are getting mauled too badly to continue or you just need an extra army to prevent your target from back-capping places you've already siege out.

At some point they added a rule that you can't push war score over 99% without "a victory in a major engagement" or waiting 3 years. I probably should wait a bit for my finances to recover (somehow I am down to about 2K gold and 56K of retinue is expensive to replenish). Somehow one of the families usurped the Teutonic Knights and went independent. Then they took the Knights as their primary title and accepted my offer of vassalage. So I am now back to 98% threat. On the other hand, I can take counties and duchies off rebelling people just fine. I should do more of that. I just need to figure out how to get Jerusalem to have a big civil war.