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

[TheTeaMustFlow]

I'm really beginning to think these religious cult mechanics are a little out of whack. The only way I've stopped the Warriors of Perun from flipping my country every generation is by joining and deliberately sabotaging them. Also, the entire Byzantine Empire just flipped Catholic so goodbye forever Orthodox MA. Maybe everyone will revolt and I can just pick off whatever Doux owns the Hagia Sophia.

Mayve this is just the 867 start being itself though.

No, they're pretty ridiculous at the moment. In the succession game I'm currently following, virtually every ruler in Christendom is secretly Fraticelli or Orthodox. That includes the publicly Fraticelli and Orthodox rulers, by the way.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Update: everyone in Europe but me, Britain, and what would have been the Holy Roman Empire if the AI had ever gotten its crap together is now flipping Sunni. It's like 1090. GG Jesus, we had a good run.

[Greymane]

Update: everyone in Europe but me, Britain, and what would have been the Holy Roman Empire if the AI had ever gotten its crap together is now flipping Sunni. It's like 1090. GG Jesus, we had a good run.

I think this is why I prefer to play my games heavily modded. It usually stops madness like that from happening. Better get to warring on the Saracen. Deus vult!

[Nerd-o-rama]

I think this is why I prefer to play my games heavily modded. It usually stops madness like that from happening. Better get to warring on the Saracen. Deus vult!

Yeah Orthodox don't really do Crusades. It's more the Ecumenical Patriarch saying in passing "oh hey if you could pop down to Antioch and do a Holy War I'd really appreciate it". And that will take the rest of the game just to chew through Anatolia.

And then the Sunni Emperor of Byzantium revokes the Hagia Sophia and he's reduced to bumming around Kiev asking for donations.

I should have just reformed Germanic instead of converting...or Slavic. Slavic would have been easy without being ludicrously overpowered.

[Greymane]

Yeah Orthodox don't really do Crusades. It's more the Ecumenical Patriarch saying in passing "oh hey if you could pop down to Antioch and do a Holy War I'd really appreciate it". And that will take the rest of the game just to chew through Anatolia.

And then the Sunni Emperor of Byzantium revokes the Hagia Sophia and he's reduced to bumming around Kiev asking for donations.

I should have just reformed Germanic instead of converting...or Slavic. Slavic would have been easy without being ludicrously overpowered.

Oh. Oh dear. I didn't realize you were the nicer version of Christian. Well your MA must be bottoming out something awful. I find that Orthodox deals most heavily with Muslim aggression, and has the least amount of tools for fighting back. Catholics can at least get a Crusade in now and again.

It sounds like you just might need to wait for the Mongols show up before you can make a good shake up. Did you do a Kiev start?

And pagan religions tend to be pretty sweet if you can reform them. For all your continent-smashing needs, Germanic is best. Slavic is at least novel, and rarely do I see it reform.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah the goal here was "Start as Dyre the Stranger, rapid expand into Ruthenia (plus Crimea, got to have effing Crimea if you're any flavor of Russian, and it was a really easy Planned Invasion for my noob self), convert to Orthodox/Feudalism/Russian, bloom out into Russian Empire and then wait for Temujin" in an attempt to make a game that would stay interesting in later centuries. Basically a historical run but keeping my focus on Kiev and Crimea instead of moving to Novgorod because I am one of those Americans who is extremely patriotic to an ancestral homeland his grandfather never even saw, let alone his parents or himself.

The problem came when the Byzantines couldn't keep up the good fight and got subverted by two cult flips in a row, first to Catholic and then to Sunni, and I was pretty much counting on them and semi-annual holy wars against Slavics and Sumenuskos to keep MA up. Now they're basically useless and I'm running out of pagan Rurikids to murder. It was especially disappointing because they'd managed to grab both Antioch and Jerusalem with minimal prodding from me. Just seeing whole empires get flipped instantly like that is what bugged me enough to start reporting on it.

As for alternate paths, Reformed Germanic might have been doable as Catholicism was very late getting to Scandinavia and I did start out as a ridiculously powerful Viking myself (without a port. You can't drop off raid loot without a port. See why I needed Crimea?). Slavic would have almost certainly been doable because 3/5 of their holy sites are in Russia and have basically no competition from anyone. Although since Rurik's son flipped Slavic historically fast it would have put a bit of a damper on the Holy War nonsense unless I waited to convert until after Novgorod was gone...I guess I could also still flip Catholic. People keep leaving "Catholic Bibles" (as opposed to Orthodox Bibles) conspicuously open for me to read...wait, where is everyone getting so many of these things? The printing press won't reach Europe for another 300 years. These books are insanely valuable.

Anyway though, we'll see. It's like 1150, I've got a seven-holding capital, a Russian Empire riddled with pagans and Bogomilists, a +2 Axe, and the Fingerbone of St. John. Come at me, heathens.

[SZbNAhL]

Highlights of my 867 game as Cornwall:

• I got to experience the new secret religion mechanics as a closet Lollard. After three years, there are more Jews in the realm than genuine Catholics. And the Jews are mostly closet Lollards. Gregarious is OP.
• I conquered all of Ireland save Ulster with my first ruler (who due to customisation was already late-forties when I got him). I was just starting to feel good about myself when I noticed that the King of Brittany holds all of the British Isles save myself, Wessex and part of Scotland, plus all of Norway and most of France. This is just a good game for the Bretton culture, apparently.
• The Pope let me off being a Kinslayer for 50 gold (is that a new event or just a really rare one?). He was promptly punished for this corruption by being unseated by ... Victual Brothers. I honestly didn't know that that could happen.
• My eldest son lost seven children to pneumonia. There wasn't an outbreak or anything, he just lost seven children over the span of about twelve years to the exact same disease. Did they overhaul the murder system to replace "suspicious circumstances" with fake diseases or something?

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Closet Lombard? You mean Lollard, I presume?

Yeah, they SERIOUSLY need to fix the secret religions stat, it's pretty ridiculous.

As for the Victual Brothers, if a mercenary company doesn't get paid, they can declare war on the former employer to take over an independent country. It happened in history in Greece in the time period. The Catalan Company was hired by the Byzantines, and when they weren't paid, they started to wreck the countryside. They eventually took over the Duchy of Athens in 1311, and ruled it until 1390, when the Florentine-backed Navarrese Company, which had in the meantime taken over Morea, took over the lands. These mercenary Companies would basically run Greece until the Ottoman conquest in 1456. That's over a hundred years of Greece being ruled by Spanish mercenaries putting up fake French and Italian lords as puppets over Greek peasants, claiming to be Emperors of Rome.

[SZbNAhL]

Closet Lombard? You mean Lollard, I presume?

Let's all just pretend I didn't do that.

[Nerd-o-rama]

On the plus side, I started a 1066 Leon game and finally succeeded in uniting the brothers' kingdoms through murder. I never did get Sancho, other than a hilarious misfire where I accidentally killed Sancho of Aragon instead of Sancho of Castille, but I did successfully whack-a-mole his infant children and murder his first wife, and he then proceeded to die of a heart attack when attempting to father a third child with his new wife. Game in general is looking up, too, since all the Iberian Muslims are dealing with Zikri revolts to the point where my dukes can successfully attack them on their own, so as long as I can correctly manipulate the succession I should be golden for a very early Reconquista.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go feel incredibly filthy for smothering two infants in a video game.

Edit for minor update: succession briefly problematic but resolved peacefully by shoving a moron off a balcony. That'll teach me to go on Pilgrimage after 50 though.

[Malimar]

One of my wives killed one of my other wives, so I put her in prison. Then I elected to teach her a lesson by torturing her.

The method by which it chose to torture her was to tickle her with a feather.

And for this I got the nickname "the Depraved".

[russdm]

Definitely will buy this game, and maybe some DLC. I have been periodically playing the demo.

Was duke of Bohemia, made Duchy of Moravia, then burned money to murder my liege. Succeeded, then attempted same with kid. Oh, and my liege fought some wars. Spent money to improve holdings. Made some interesting marriages, then married 18/19 yr old son to 35+ princess from Norway. A daughter to an Irish guy, and then another daughter wanted to marry a ruler, but I handed her off to a bastard.

Fabricated a claim on Paris, pressed it. Was hoping to make war. I may have to play the leader of the HRE, and do some smashing. I also have my game to do list. Oh, and I tried to assassinate the pope, didn't work, but I didn't get found out. Got to try again.

To Do:
1) Make trouble
2) Profit
3) Judicious killings - Target everyone

[Nerd-o-rama]

I do need to go back and play Vladislav now that I have the full version of the game, he's fun. Personally I'd have gone east with conquest because there's more pagans that way.

What you really want to do, though, is suck up to the other dukes in the HRE until they'll all vote you for Emperor, THEN off your liege.

I do recommend one of the Irish leaders whwn you get the full game though, for some experience as an independent ruler who's not on anyone's conquest paths or having to manage a huge cluster of vassals.

[russdm]

I do need to go back and play Vladislav now that I have the full version of the game, he's fun. Personally I'd have gone east with conquest because there's more pagans that way.

What you really want to do, though, is suck up to the other dukes in the HRE until they'll all vote you for Emperor, THEN off your liege.

I do recommend one of the Irish leaders whwn you get the full game though, for some experience as an independent ruler who's not on anyone's conquest paths or having to manage a huge cluster of vassals.

Oh, offing the lord wasn't an issue to me. It was funny having a few people have the "Attempted Murder: -50" relations hit. I give it to the pope, who tried to return the favor. I even ended up in jail as Vlad. And eventually got enough cash to get ransomed out. Then killed my boss. I just took the hits for being found out when the attempts failed or succeeded. It was simply too much fun.

Then took over as Vlad's boss, via a hack in the demo, and tried same with Pope. Oh, and as Vlad, my liege boss had some holy war with Hungary (I think part of hungary was being attempted over), I tried to end that conflict via murder inc. That 50 gold for it was well worth if it didn't work out. Just save enough for a few attempts in a row, and accept the hits, including piety. I was in negatives.

For a real game, I would probably so how much wreckage I could produce in Ireland, then bounce to England/Scotland for fun, then Norse places, then try forming an Empire of Man based in Jerusalem. Go all Warhammer style. Maybe by getting Charlemagne to use for that.

Planning on picking up Main game, rule designer, legacy of rome, then old gods and Charlemagne. Later, some of the others, put those seem most important. I definitely want to mod the colors so Crusader Jerusalem is always white colored.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah word of advice since you seem to love murder, they took the "press button to stab" option out of the main game many patches ago, and now you have to form plots (conspiracies of yourself and many NPCs) which take longer and have more risks. You can turn the murder button back on, but it disables achievements.

That does sound like a good set of DLC. I've also been enjoying Way of Life and Sons of Abraham gives some fun new events, options to borrow money, and more Holy Orders (the Curia mechanics are currently beyond me but they seem fun too. It also enables Extreme difficulty, aka playing as the Jewish Duke of Axum/Semien or Khan of Khazaria). I think next on my list will be either Sword of Islam for way more character options or Reaper's Due for fun events and people curing my smallpox with castration.

[russdm]

Yeah word of advice since you seem to love murder, they took the "press button to stab" option out of the main game many patches ago, and now you have to form plots (conspiracies of yourself and many NPCs) which take longer and have more risks. You can turn the murder button back on, but it disables achievements.

I am merely following the Law of Flickerdart: "When in doubt, Murder solves it". Or was it some required assassinations quota? Can't recall.

[Gnoman]

I'm having a strange problem where achievements are always disabled because Steam is not running. I launch the game from Steam.



Also, all my attempts to play as Saxony end in 5 years when West Francia decides to swallow up the country and kills off my entire dynasty. Annoying.

[Leecros]

Also, all my attempts to play as Saxony end in 5 years when West Francia decides to swallow up the country and kills off my entire dynasty. Annoying.

playing as Saxony is really hard, because Francia will come for your delicious, delicious land.

I managed to do it once. It involved running around with my armies and crushing their levies while they were trying to group up into a larger, more effective force. It also involved a lot of luck.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I'm having a strange problem where achievements are always disabled because Steam is not running. I launch the game from Steam.

Is Steam in Offline Mode and/or are you not connected to the internet? Either of those will block achievements.

I believe you also need to log in on the splash page that comes up when you start the game (and obviously play on Ironman but I assune you're doing that already.)

If it's none of those sounds like a bug or some kind of antivirus conflict.

[Greymane]

It's been more than a little while since I last played CK2, and after stumbling across the thread, I decided to fire it up again. I have all the DLC (because I'm a hopeless addict, even if I wasn't playing it as of late), but I haven't played since before Horse Lords released, so I'm unsure of all the changes that have gone down.

I installed the HIP mod, and got rolling as a minor count in central France. I start fabricating claims immediately, and normally to get the ball rolling, I revoke my baronies from my vassals and use those for higher levies to start beating my neighbors. Well, apparently they fixed that little exploit and the levies of those holdings are gutted the second I take them due to being the wrong holding type.

But I guess that's fair. It was always pretty easy to start as a count when I could steal my baronies (pissed off vassals mean nothing when you have no vassals), and then start curbstomping everyone around me. Now I have to save up for mercs or hit them while they're weak like everyone else.

The other strange things were the groups introduced in Monks and Mystics. And I immediately thought my Cynical, Lustful, Cruel count would be okay with siding with the Great Adversary. Cue utter hilarity as I embark on a life of debauchery, corrupting priests, and forcing possessions on people. Wife is cheating on me with the French king? Drag her away to the dungeons and sacrifice her. Officially she "vanishes without a trace". I'll marry the Attractive young lady who inducted me into my awful order instead. And then get a funny event where we find a well-known priest, beat him up, and pretend to be him and sow dissent and misinformation, causing provinces to fall into heresy.

It uh, doesn't quite feel like normal CK2, but it was really amusing.

[russdm]

Bought base game, while buy DLC later. Installing. Will do some practice runs, maybe post up some Summaries of gameplay done.

How do I change the color of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to always be white in the game? Where exactly do I find that to change?

Update: Nevermind, already looks like it is white. Playing in Jerusalem, with no limits on demense, vassels, and direct action for assassinations. Will play another game as Ireland. Probably later.

Update 2: Baudy (I change the names around for the kingdom somehow, Can anybody help with this?) died defending the realm, but managed to sire an heir. Also winning at 75% against a Jihad.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

1) Societies need some... fine-tuning to really fit with other gameplay. Satanic ones turn it into full fantasy RPG.

2) How do you mean, changed names around? Like, does it say something other than Jerusalem now? Sometimes a title can change based on the culture of the holder. In the mods I play, Saxon England is called "Englaland", Norman England is "Angletierre", and English England is "Englonde" iirc.

[russdm]

2) How do you mean, changed names around? Like, does it say something other than Jerusalem now? Sometimes a title can change based on the culture of the holder. In the mods I play, Saxon England is called "Englaland", Norman England is "Angletierre", and English England is "Englonde" iirc.

Character names, so like being able to use Baldwin, James, Edward, Matthew, Peter; then names like Miriam, Mary, Martha, Salome, etc. Isn't there a master list from which the game draws the names it puts you before you can change your kid's name to whatever you want? I was thinking of changing that some, to put in some names I would like to see crop up for grandkids and such.

(Have played a total of 2 hours. Mainly Jerusalem, and then Habsburgs. I did some Ireland though. Probably going to commit more time this week. Some playthroughs I want to do: Germania (Hohenzollern), Danubia (Habsburg), Brittannia (British Isles), one featuring Jerusalem. With continuing them to EU3 DW (I bought EU3 Chronicles), and from there to Vic 2 and to HOI at some point. I like the idea of continuing the gameplay over to the next Paradox game.

[Artanis]

Character names, so like being able to use Baldwin, James, Edward, Matthew, Peter; then names like Miriam, Mary, Martha, Salome, etc. Isn't there a master list from which the game draws the names it puts you before you can change your kid's name to whatever you want? I was thinking of changing that some, to put in some names I would like to see crop up for grandkids and such.

This is indeed the case. It's based on culture, and is in the common/cultures/00_cultures file.

In addition to the name lists, said file also includes the chances of a child being named after their parents or grandparents.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Yeah, so if you want anyone of that culture to be able to pick a name, just put it into the culture file listed above. If you want it to be one that slowly gets introduced into the world, start custom-naming your kids it, and soon others in your culture might pick it up from your families spread.

[Greymane]

1) Societies need some... fine-tuning to really fit with other gameplay. Satanic ones turn it into full fantasy RPG.

So I noticed. I've messed with both Satanists and the Hermes science/magic guys, and in both cases I got some very extreme benefits for very little risk, and ended up leading the society in about 20ish years. I'm not opposed to supernatural events, per se, but they did seem a little much at times.

As of right now, I'm just trying out the mechanics I've hitherto missed out on. When I try for an actual game I, like Nerd-o-rama, favor old homelands of my ancestors that I have no modern connection to. So I play in Norway and Spain a lot. Though I sprinkle in just some of the cultures/peoples/nations from history that I just plain love. Like steppe nomads and anything Rome. And the more I learn about history, the more I actually admire the French. It looks like they've drastically changed how non-feudal lords work, so I'm shying away from them at the moment.

Maybe a nice simple game about family and money is in order. Republics are great fun. History question: I don't suppose anyone knows if there were any cities in Iberia or Norway that were particularly wealthy due to trade?

Edit: Looks like Bergen or Kaupang would be fine for Norway. I can't seem to find wealthy Iberian cities during the medieval era. Only in the age of discovery.

[Grim Portent]

My main problem with satanism in game is the event spam for burning other satanists alive for no apparent reason. Happens a bunch and it's usually someone I've never even heard of before, since they tend to be courtiers and baron tiers.

I'd like to see it's event rate toned down more than it's success rate lowered.

Same with the divine communion thing the Hermetics have. Happens way too often and is way too boring for such a common event.

[russdm]

Where do I find the folder? I had a disk to install EU3 with but used Steam for Crusader Kings 2. Tried searching for it. I have Windows 10. Is there somewhere that I can find out how to access the folders with information for CK 2 on this windows version?

[tonberrian]

Where do I find the folder? I had a disk to install EU3 with but used Steam for Crusader Kings 2. Tried searching for it. I have Windows 10. Is there somewhere that I can find out how to access the folders with information for CK 2 on this windows version?

Usually it's in the steam install directory, which is usually something like Program Files/steam/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings 2.

[russdm]

Usually it's in the steam install directory, which is usually something like Program Files/steam/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings 2.

Found it. Did some tweaking. There. That should be ten characters. or More