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

[moossabi]

If he is heir to a duchy, the current vassalage of the duchy will dominate over a county or barony, but be overwritten by a duchy or kingdom. If he is heir to a kingdom, a granted duchy, county, or barony will leave with him, but a granted kingdom will keep him in your empire. If he is heir to an empire, there really isn't anything you can do.

Thanks for the help.

This would've been easier if I hadn't already handed out all the titles associated with the gavelkind faction I just crushed...

[Rockphed]

Thanks for the help.

This would've been easier if I hadn't already handed out all the titles associated with the gavelkind faction I just crushed...

Go on a holy-war. It will be fun and you can probably form a new duchy afterward.

Alternatively, if the guy has a claim on a duchy, give him a county and then press his claim.

[moossabi]

Go on a holy-war. It will be fun and you can probably form a new duchy afterward.

Alternatively, if the guy has a claim on a duchy, give him a county and then press his claim.

Sadly he died of an illness and his child somehow came after his brother in the line of succession. Cue my god-awful luck with plotting to kill (it was up for two decades, only fired once and it was a failure that gave away my involvement) and the brother has started LARPing as a rabbit and has too many kids to reasonably take control of the duchy. Oh well.

I also decided to try a holy war because "hey, the Abbassids are busy on the other side of the world fighting a different war, what could possibly go wrong?" I siege one holding before a 14k stack waltzes over and demolishes my 16k stack with ease. I think I'll be taking a break from the game for a while...

[Rockphed]

Sadly he died of an illness and his child somehow came after his brother in the line of succession. Cue my god-awful luck with plotting to kill (it was up for two decades, only fired once and it was a failure that gave away my involvement) and the brother has started LARPing as a rabbit and has too many kids to reasonably take control of the duchy. Oh well.

I also decided to try a holy war because "hey, the Abbassids are busy on the other side of the world fighting a different war, what could possibly go wrong?" I siege one holding before a 14k stack waltzes over and demolishes my 16k stack with ease. I think I'll be taking a break from the game for a while...

What kind of soldiers do you have in your 16K stack? If you have lots of light infantry, your stack looks bigger than it fights as (though it sieges better), whereas if you have lots of heavy cav, heavy infantry, and pikes, your stack fights above its weight. Archers and light cav are the only soldier types that deal damage in all 3 phases, so they can help wear down enemy morale before the heavies clash, but they tend to lose moral and health quickly once heavy units enter the fray.

Also, what kind of general was leading your stack? I find that good generals can make an army fight at about 1.5 times its listed size. Good, in this context, meaning 15+ martial. If your enemy has a good general, you might be utterly doomed.

[Avilan the Grey]

From what I have seen of the newest expansion...

Meh. Not worth it.

1. Not adding enough features that I would like.
2. Adding things that feels completely ahistorical (providing you get the "Emperor of China" screen even in Europe and not only playing in India (or China)).

SO, no I will not be getting that. It's the third expansion I have opted out of and the first one that I have done so because of "Meh".
Sunset Invasion: Not picked up because no, ahistorical, just weird, and well... Not to my taste at all
Monks and Mystics: Ahistorical, too much magic (completely ditching the "Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane" that the few "Supernatural" events have had until that point).
This one: Just not interesting.

[Nerd-o-rama]

The China events have a limited diplo range along the eastern side of the map and the Silk Road, which is something. I kinda agree on Monks & Mystics being a Satanic Magic update. CK2's always been kind of over the top, but...it's a bit much.

At least they've nerfed Secret Religious Cults for everyone, including those of us who don't own it.

[Leecros]

2. Adding things that feels completely ahistorical (providing you get the "Emperor of China" screen even in Europe and not only playing in India (or China)).

Eh, just because you get the screen doesn't mean you'll get to interact with them/they'll get to interact with you.

SO, no I will not be getting that. It's the third expansion I have opted out of and the first one that I have done so because of "Meh".
Sunset Invasion: Not picked up because no, ahistorical, just weird, and well... Not to my taste at all
Monks and Mystics: Ahistorical, too much magic (completely ditching the "Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane" that the few "Supernatural" events have had until that point).
This one: Just not interesting.

Generally I don't mind the Ahistoric/Magic/supernatural stuff, but I absolutely understand why others might be less inclined to enjoy that kind of thing.

One of the good things about Crusader Kings II that's often criticized by people who dislike Paradox's DLC policy is that the DLC is modular. You really don't need to buy every DLC available. Just the ones that you think or believe will adhere to your interests and you can do so with little real drawback.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah. They gate factions and optional game mechanics behind DLC, not absolutely vital stuff like you get in EU4 DLC. Not buying anything you don't want is actually an option here.

[Avilan the Grey]

Yeah. They gate factions and optional game mechanics behind DLC, not absolutely vital stuff like you get in EU4 DLC. Not buying anything you don't want is actually an option here.

Yeah, plus often a LOT of the mechanics actually come in the free update that comes with each DLC.

[Rockphed]

Yeah, plus often a LOT of the mechanics actually come in the free update that comes with each DLC.

Such as the much maligned secret religious cults. I'm just glad they added the rule to forbid anyone from forming secret cults. I played a game or two without that rule and it was just ridiculous.

[russdm]

Would buying a few of the missing DLC work better on steam? If I need to get some?

Is there some instructions for modifying it so members of certain religions all despise one another, and that some nations/kingdoms cannot be formed except by certain groups?

(APOLOGIZES for Any UNDEAD behavior)

Also, can I some links to CR 2 Let's Plays that are still active on this forum, That way people who haven't decided if they want the game and DLC's can see it in action. That encouraged me to buy the game to play, and have fun with it.

[Leecros]

Also, can I some links to CR 2 Let's Plays that are still active on this forum, That way people who haven't decided if they want the game and DLC's can see it in action. That encouraged me to buy the game to play, and have fun with it.

The only one going on I think right now is Valley's Let's Play:Road of Queens(CKII India AAR)

With that said... OrcusMcP's Let's Plays are also good reads. So Much for the Glory of Rome and The Scotsman of Venice

[Nerd-o-rama]

There's some pretty great LPs on SomethingAwful but they randomly require a paid membership to read threads at various times and are also SomethingAwful, so.

If you ever wanted to watch someone attempt to recreate Blackadder in CK2, though, this one's on the LPArchive. Same site also has a tutorial LP that's like three years out of date or I'd link it too.

I'm not sure how you bought the game originally but Steam Sales are great for picking up DLC, especially older ones like Sons of Abraham or Horse Lords that have hit 50% off range.

I don't know anything about modding but it certainly seems like it would be trivially easy to either increase the "wrong religion" opinion malus between characters or add in new modifiers that apply to specific religions (Catholics disliking Muslims more than they dislike Buddhists, say.)

There's also a few cultural restrictions on forming certain titles already in the game, so that also seems feasible. (The Holy Roman Emperor title can only be formed by Christians in the German or Latin groups, I think, although once formed it can be inherited or usurped by others. Catholics can obtain the Byzantine Emperor title, but they can also, unlike Orthodox or Iconoclasts, swap it out for the Latin Empire honorary title. I'm positive that the Mongol Empire can only be formed by Altaics. And so forth.) So that functionality is in there. You might check on the Paradox Plaza forums for modding tips.

[Guancyto]

If you're not worried about redoing your changes every now and again (when you get a major patch, mostly) and you're only making the mod for your own benefit, modding CK2 is as easy as messing around with text files.

Many of them even have comments to describe what a particular modifier does (catholic=3000 on a kingdom title would be sort of bizarre on its own, but the comments helpfully explain that it's crusade weight).

In this case you'd want to go into common/landed_titles/landed_titles.txt and look for the empire you want, then add an allow. For instance, here's part of the code on Russia's formation:

allow = {
hidden_tooltip = {
OR = {
ai = no
culture_group = north_germanic
culture_group = east_slavic
culture_group = finno_ugric
}
}
}

This means that Russia can only be formed by a ruler of the North Germanic culture group (Norse, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian), the East Slavic culture group (Russian), or the Finno-Ugric culture group (Finnish, Sami, Lappish), OR by a player. hidden_tooltip just means that hides the tooltip that would result from this.

If you want to narrow it down more, here's the conditions for forming the Kingdom of Greece:

allow = {
hidden_tooltip = {
OR = {
ai = no
culture = greek
}
}
}

This allows the title to be formed either by a Greek ruler, OR by a player.

Here's the Kingdom of Cyprus:

allow = {
OR = {
religion = catholic
is_heresy_of = catholic
}
}

means that the title can be formed either by a catholic, OR by a catholic heretic.

although you won't see it often,

allow = {
AND = {
culture = greek
religion = orthodox
}
}

means the title can only be formed by a ruler that's both Greek AND Orthodox.

Modding for others/persistence isn't that much harder (the real sticky wicket is getting it to be compatible with other mods). As for the other, that's a good question! EU4 had mechanics for doing that (Orthodox had reduced opinion penalties among Christians), but that doesn't seem to be a valid modifier for CK2 religions. If I had to hack something together, I'd use a hidden trait.

Something like...

especially_filthy_infidel = {

hidden = yes
religious = yes
muslim_opinion = -25

}

And then an associated hidden event to add the trait to every Pagan upon coming of age, which is a little more involved and this post is already long. These links will help you!

https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Title_modding
https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Trait_modding
https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Event_modding

[SZbNAhL]

Does anyone know if the "apple of immortality" event chain is bugged and/or intentionally doomed to fail?

Spoiler: Spoilers for immortality event chain

Show

I got through every event flawlessly (admittedly with some save-scumming, but what benefits a man his honour if it costs him immortality?), got to the garden and ... failure. Whether I try to bribe the traitor or give a passionate speech (and I've tried both twice), I fail the quest. I've even tried the "give up" option in case it was some kind of secret test, but nope, the mystic leaves and the event chain ends.

I don't want to waste hours repeatedly trying the same two options if there's no chance of success, but I'd also feel pretty silly if I gave up my one chance of playing an immortal character just because I overlooked something.

[tyckspoon]

Immortality's just a low-odds thing even in the best situation; there's no guaranteed success at any of the steps. It's possible your results for that last event are pre set, so save-scumming it won't make any difference, but if it's not (and your mystic guide isn't a fraud) then reloading it a few more times and being consistent about your choice should see you succeed.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I think the mystic being a fraud or not is set at the beginning of the chain, not sure if anything else that affects the outcome is, but it might be.

[Guancyto]

Everything is save-scummable; if your mystic is a fraud, your odds of success are still present but pretty negligible for everybody that isn't willing to spend a truly spectacular amount of time reloading. If you have a save from when you had just started the chain but before the mystic showed up you can enormously improve your odds by getting a mystic that's the real thing (you can sort of tell by their base Learning stat, if it's terrible they're probably a sham, if it's high they're probably real; the Learning mystic you can tell 100% because if they're real their base Learning is sky-high).

Speaking of, I got immortality in my latest game, but it... maybe it's just me, but it's sort of made the game pretty boring? Dealing with succession and a fractious realm is half the fun of Crusader Kings, when you live forever and you have a +120 Long Reign bonus everything feels sort of... blah. I find myself hoping the Mongols will show up early to at least provide a challenge for the vast Norse realms and their immortal witch-queen.

I guess it is fitting that my immortality, though long sought-after, has brought me no joy.

[Grim Portent]

Yeah, it's been one of the known issues since some of the old mods that used Immortality. Without some kind of big problems to go with it like huge opinion maluses Immortality is kinda dull unless you got it as a really weak ruler, and even then the little bonuses that add up usually make you a good ruler before too long.

Vampire mods got around it by making everyone hate vampires, but even then it wasn't a real problem once you got any sort of real power.

[Leecros]

There's also a few cultural restrictions on forming certain titles already in the game, so that also seems feasible. (The Holy Roman Emperor title can only be formed by Christians in the German or Latin groups, I think, although once formed it can be inherited or usurped by others. Catholics can obtain the Byzantine Emperor title, but they can also, unlike Orthodox or Iconoclasts, swap it out for the Latin Empire honorary title. I'm positive that the Mongol Empire can only be formed by Altaics. And so forth.) So that functionality is in there. You might check on the Paradox Plaza forums for modding tips.

I feel that it's important to note that even though some titles have certain formation conditions; anyone can inherit or claim it under the right circumstances. I have seen Sunni Byzantine Empire on more than one occasion and I have even managed to do a Shia Byzantium in the series I've been working on for Youtube(don't...don't watch it. It's awful, but it's there if anyone's interested).

Vampire mods got around it by making everyone hate vampires, but even then it wasn't a real problem once you got any sort of real power.

That's sort of a fundamental problem with CKII in general. Once you have any sort of real power, everyone hating you kind of stops mattering. Even once you have one full de-jure Empire, you just have so many troops and so much wealth that you can throw one, or the other, or both at a problem and generally fix it.

[Avilan the Grey]

That's sort of a fundamental problem with CKII in general. Once you have any sort of real power, everyone hating you kind of stops mattering. Even once you have one full de-jure Empire, you just have so many troops and so much wealth that you can throw one, or the other, or both at a problem and generally fix it.

It can easily be tamed by trying to play at least a tad realistically. Don't throw yourself in there metagaming. Roleplay your current character and you'll grow slower just from that (Don't go "In 200 years my goal is to have all of England" but instead "This count's primary goal is to become best friend with the king, not to overthrow him. So I'll stick to that"). Also to not always reload when disasters happen... If your kingdom is split into 3 parts... let it happen, don't reload until your king somehow survives the pox and becomes 92 years old.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I only play on Ironman, not because I want achievements or to be a hardcore gamer, but to stop myself from savescumming.

I mean you still can savescum an ironman game but it's really inconvenient.

[Leecros]

It can easily be tamed by trying to play at least a tad realistically. Don't throw yourself in there metagaming. Roleplay your current character and you'll grow slower just from that (Don't go "In 200 years my goal is to have all of England" but instead "This count's primary goal is to become best friend with the king, not to overthrow him. So I'll stick to that"). Also to not always reload when disasters happen... If your kingdom is split into 3 parts... let it happen, don't reload until your king somehow survives the pox and becomes 92 years old.

It can be temporarily curtailed, but unless you permanently gimp yourself for the entirety of the game; you will eventually reach that point. CKII at it's greatest extent is a nearly 700 year log game(769-1453) and preventing yourself from becoming really powerful in that time period either requires extreme dedication to not expanding very much(if at all) or a disaster. There's also the fact that there's a fairly large region on the map that mostly requires you to expand as quickly and as much as possible or get swept away by The Mongols.

I only play on Ironman, not because I want achievements or to be a hardcore gamer, but to stop myself from savescumming.

I enjoy achievements, but I've mostly stopped trying to go out of the way for them. I have something like 60% of the achievements already. Most of the ones that I have left almost require an entire game dedicated to them, or a large amount of luck.

[Aotrs Commander]

Everything is save-scummable; if your mystic is a fraud, your odds of success are still present but pretty negligible for everybody that isn't willing to spend a truly spectacular amount of time reloading. If you have a save from when you had just started the chain but before the mystic showed up you can enormously improve your odds by getting a mystic that's the real thing (you can sort of tell by their base Learning stat, if it's terrible they're probably a sham, if it's high they're probably real; the Learning mystic you can tell 100% because if they're real their base Learning is sky-high).

As I understand, if the Mystic is a fraud you automatically fail on the last test, (because they are a fraud), even if you pass all the others.

It can be temporarily curtailed, but unless you permanently gimp yourself for the entirety of the game; you will eventually reach that point. CKII at it's greatest extent is a nearly 700 year log game(769-1453) and preventing yourself from becoming really powerful in that time period either requires extreme dedication to not expanding very much(if at all) or a disaster.

That woudl appear to be the case, My first (and currently only) game (admittedly on easy) is to hundred years from the end and, well...

Spoiler

Show

The only reason I've not continued to expand is because I'm waiting for the Aztec shoe to drop. (The Mongol event triggered... But they never showed up!)

[Avilan the Grey]

Again, it depends on how you play. Admittedly I tend to only start in 1066, because quite frankly I find pagans frakking annoying both to play as and play against. I simply find them uninteresting at best and a pestilence at the worst.
Anyway, I have only once managed to create the Empire of Scandinavia, and although my Swedish kingdom tend to be rather large (most of baltics, most of finland, all of Denmark I usually grow too slow to both conquer Denmark and Norway (I have to choose, and quite frankly Denmark is so SO much richer).I have never, in any of my 1000 hours of playing, have had enough money, prestige or land to form a custom empire.

I either suck at this game, or you guys metagame far more than you admit.

[Leecros]

I either suck at this game, or you guys metagame far more than you admit.

It's probably more along the lines of metagaming more than I realize rather than being afraid to admit it.

[Rockphed]

So, question about retinues: when should I start building up my retinues? It always seems that if I start too early, I do not have enough money to do things like build improvements to my holdings and create titles. On the other hand, they form a solid core to an assaulting army and can easily turn the tide in a battle.

Also, is it better to keep my retinues in a single flank or to spread them between all 3 flanks of my army?

[Avilan the Grey]

It's probably more along the lines of metagaming more than I realize rather than being afraid to admit it.

I did mean it along the lines of realizing, not "afraid to admit on a forum"

[Rockphed]

I did mean it along the lines of realizing, not "afraid to admit on a forum"

My favorite tactic for growing my empire is finding some poor lost heir to a throne, inviting him to my court, killing off his wife and kids, matrimarrying him to my female cousin, and then pressing his claims in rapid succession until I have taken his brother's 4 kingdoms. I never actually did that, but I did manage to get a single heir to afghanistan, baluchistan, arabia, and nubia once. I managed to take 3 of the kingdoms before the plague hit and killed him. Or maybe I took one of the kingdoms and then the plague hit and the only survivor only had a weak claim so I ran out of time on war declarations for some reason. This was in an Alexiad game, so I started out as a fairly powerful Byzantine empire (though I think I white peaced my first couple conquest attempts and I ended up with an Islamic Empire in all but name controlling everything from Egypt to Afghanistan). Then I did things like putting my cousin on the throne of Khazaria or Cumania and things just got a little silly. I almost wish I had gone Altaic for the more cavalry based armies.

[Guancyto]

I mean, using advantageous marriages to collect whole swaths of land at once was sort of the Habsburg's modus operandi, and taking in claimants and pushing their claims in exchange for favorable conditions was Medieval Politics 101, so neither are really metagaming. (Also the best ways for Catholics to collect land amongst themselves; claim fabrication is essential early on but it is slow)

On the other hand using an antipope to vassalize the pope the second you become an Empire and then using that to invade and conquer the Holy Roman Empire in one shot totally is metagaming, but I do love getting the little popup that declares that the Papacy is now de jure your vassal.