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

[Rockphed]

Seniority succession would work but I don't think you can change succession laws at your rank.

You can change succession law for a county, but the kingdom needs to have the requisite crown authority if it is formed.

[BannedInSchool]

Well, I guess that Delhi belly is a phrase for a reason.

In this case I guess it would be Indus Outdus. (Eh, best I came up with.)

Hmm, I don't know what Francia did, but it's got four revolts going on right now. One independence and three claims on the Empire. Woo, free land!

[Maryring]

I have had a very weird happening within my game. For some reason every single one of my five kids have gotten dull, or in one instance gotten Genius downgraded to Quick, just out of the blue. None of them had the Struggle childhood focus either. Anyone know if something happened, or have I just had incredibly bad luck?

[Corvus]

Had a rather unusual situation occur in my current game.

The Empress had two sons. Both turned out gay.

The eldest died of stress without issue.

The second son managed to have three children despite being chaste and gay. It helped that two of them were twins.

All three of those kids also turned out gay.

The next generation is just starting out, so we will see if the trend continues...

[Corvus]

Dev diaries are still mostly dealing with map changes. They just went through Africa, and a lot has changed there, except in thee ast which basically only saw borders redrawn.

In the north, Mauretania is now called Mahgreb and forms a new de jure Empire along with Africa called Mahgreb. Means the Arabian Empire isn't quite so large. It also has additional provinces and holdings to make it a bit stronger.

Mali has about twice the number of provinces it used to and has been split into three kingdoms - Mali, Ghana and Songhay.

But that is not all - they have finally filled in the central African region, meaning that east and west Africa can link up without going through the great green blob in the north. The area around Lake Chad now has two new kingdoms and a new de jure Empire.

And there is more - the trans-Saharan trade route has been added. It is like the Silk Road, but worth a lot less until you can build trade posts and build certain unique production buildings in them, like the gold mines in Mali which historically made them extremely rich.

As someone who plays in Africa a lot (mostly for the challenge of surviving while neighbouring the great green blob), they are certainly welcome additions.

[Rockphed]

The last couple dev diaries have been about the crusades. They are working on 5 special crusades for the next expansion (though one of them is a fix of a bugged chain from Sons of Abraham). There is the shepherds crusade (crusade fails, peasants try to do what the nobles cannot.), a Children's crusade (unlanded and no inheritance noble child gathers army to take crusade target.), the 4th crusade (relative of Bassileous flees to merchant republic and gets them to hijack crusade. Latin empire forms on a win.), the Northern Crusade (If the Teutonic Knights are unlanded at some point, they go attack northern pagans. If they win they form the Teutonic State.), and the Reconquista (Spanish dukes and above can spend money, piety, and prestige to prepare a reconquista. Over a year they get events that give better chances of success with gold and troop bonuses. Then they can declare a war that targets up to 2 duchies. Christians and Muslims can offer help to which ever side suits their interests.).

[snowblizz]

Got this off Steam when it was available for free and been poking at it now and then and still not gotten a hang of a lot of it. They got a sale on, again, running and I've been ogling the DLCs but not sure which, if any, are worth it. Eventually might wanna try Muslim, Indian and I guess Chinese too. So far been mucking about as "Sweden", Norman dukes in France and Sicily.

Do any of the DLC improve gameplay a lot? Hard to say I udnerstnad there are many and I guess matters a bit on interests.


And while I am typing, I don't understand duchies. Near as I can tell only serves to create friction towards my vassals second I create a kingdom. Still can't quite get a handle on how to earn money. Some of the recent failures (getting murdered and becoming heir with no negative modifiers and getting a crusade against me as king of Jerusalem all boosted income greatly) tells me having super happy vassal seems to be the key, but again they tend to get annoyed about absolutely everything.
Tried read up a bit but not really found anythign I cna make muhc sense of. Eg wiki is half-filled with stuff not applicapable if only got base game it seems.

Demesne sizes seem absolutely tiny to me. Guess can tinker with game ruels for that?

[Rockphed]

To make money, try to maximize 3 things:

1. Your state stewardship. All holdings you own produce their base value times (90% + 2% per point of stewardship).
2. Your desmense holdings (within your desmense limit unless you want to go full north korea mode). If you hold 3 castles, you get 3 times the income of if you hold 1 castle.
3. Your city vassals (and their opinion of you). Cities give (by a fair margin) the best taxes. Also, they will never pay taxes to somebody else, so even when they hate you they are building up money to improve their city, unlike catholic bishops who will pay taxes to the pope instead of you.

If you get some coastal land in a holy war, give the city, then the county, then the duchy to an unlanded courtier, and a merchant republic will form. They aren't great for direct taxes (they only pay half, though they can get very, very large incomes), but their trade posts will boost the income of cities.

Also, have your steward collect taxes in your capital. This works even better if you own more than 1 holding there.

[Artanis]

To make money, try to maximize 3 things:

1. Your state stewardship. All holdings you own produce their base value times (90% + 2% per point of stewardship).
2. Your desmense holdings (within your desmense limit unless you want to go full north korea mode). If you hold 3 castles, you get 3 times the income of if you hold 1 castle.
3. Your city vassals (and their opinion of you). Cities give (by a fair margin) the best taxes. Also, they will never pay taxes to somebody else, so even when they hate you they are building up money to improve their city, unlike catholic bishops who will pay taxes to the pope instead of you.

If you get some coastal land in a holy war, give the city, then the county, then the duchy to an unlanded courtier, and a merchant republic will form. They aren't great for direct taxes (they only pay half, though they can get very, very large incomes), but their trade posts will boost the income of cities.

Also, have your steward collect taxes in your capital. This works even better if you own more than 1 holding there.

2.5: Also, build Castle Towns in your castles.

[snowblizz]

To make money, try to maximize 3 things:

1. Your state stewardship. All holdings you own produce their base value times (90% + 2% per point of stewardship).

Right, that ties into another issue I have which is lousy stats on eveyrthing. Some of the "scenarios" the starter countries, give you good rules but then it seems off the deep end. Oh yeah, that puzzled me. When looking for spouses it seems basically older ones ahve better abilities younger ones few if any. Do these improve? Logically they should but I must say I really feel like only way to find persons with high stats is to maryr those too odl to be of any use. Anyone snagged young it looked like remain absolutely useless. Snagged a couple of baronesses with Genius but that has not helped my kids any so far. :D

Somehow feels like beyond the initial "historical" powerhouses I can't get a decent person brought up.

One of my play thorughs it seemed like none in eourpe had nay abilities to speak of. 9-10s on everything whether princes, princesses or commoners I wanted to hire.

2. Your desmense holdings (within your desmense limit unless you want to go full north korea mode). If you hold 3 castles, you get 3 times the income of if you hold 1 castle.

So far I tend to try and up the demesne limit with centralisation as much as possible because it seems the only way I can get anything out of things.
I read you should concentrate demesne to few duchies, which makes sense, but then I wonder is it more beneficial to build a castle as a barony or hold another county.

3. Your city vassals (and their opinion of you). Cities give (by a fair margin) the best taxes. Also, they will never pay taxes to somebody else, so even when they hate you they are building up money to improve their city, unlike catholic bishops who will pay taxes to the pope instead of you.

If you get some coastal land in a holy war, give the city, then the county, then the duchy to an unlanded courtier, and a merchant republic will form. They aren't great for direct taxes (they only pay half, though they can get very, very large incomes), but their trade posts will boost the income of cities.

Also, have your steward collect taxes in your capital. This works even better if you own more than 1 holding there.

I've created a couple of merchant replics, and as "Sweden" you start with one but mostly been only problems with them. I've clearly not gotten a hang of how to work one. I actully tried creating one in Tyre but now can't give a county nor duchy to the mayor there. I am running into some limit of x/x% and 10% only for merchant republic vassal or something. Actually ran into the same problem vis a vis prince-bishoprics I made one of my sons a bishop by mistake apparently and can't give him more titles becasue that runs into another 3/10% limit of holdings for vassal titles or some such. I can't decipher what it's telling me really.


Obviously thre's a lot of nitty-gritty I don't get. Always been surpsrised by the low numbers of troops I can raise. Now after haivng to muslim jihads declared against jerusalem I saw my potential numbers for my own and vassal both were over 10k. Wish I could access those troops. I think am still capped by "new adminitration pentalies". It's a bit of a female dog trying to defend the newly created crusader states. Though accurate.

Ah yes, it's basically only possible to snag one county at a time in wars? Or have I missed a trick. Really annoying to have to defeat the entire Holy Roman Empire every time I want to snag a prince-bishopry that De jure belongs to me (that one is out of my Empire of Scandinavia game, had to reload that one cause I clearly had jumped into a shark pool). Other than wresting a title like duchy or kingdom from someone (which you can't do without capturing counties anyway) playing as French Normans game gimes me the opportunity to take England wholesale.

Been developing holdings but inevitably run into the problem that I would need to shuffle titles around a bit and wasted my precious money.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Everyone else covered the economics pretty solidly, so I will handle the DLC question.

My DLC Buying Guide, listed in order from oldest-to-newest. Bold is best, normal is ok, italics can be ignored.

Sword of Islam: Unlocks Muslim rulers. Only worth buying if you want to play Muslims. I personally love playing as Muslims, but YMMV.
Legacy of Rome: Greek Orthodox flavour and Retinues (small standing-armies). Must-Have, later DLCs are balanced around retinues.
Sunset Invasion is an anachronistic Aztec invasion. Fun if you want to shake things up, but I bought it just for the portraits for mods.
The Republic: Unlocks merchant republics. Like SoI, only get it if you want to play as a merchant house.
The Old Gods: This adds a LOT of new content; a new earlier start date (867) as well as letting you play as pagan and Zoroastrian characters. In addition to all that, it makes rebellions (heretical, peasant, or similar) much more fun
Sons of Abraham: This one has tons of new religious content for the major Abrahamic religions, plus making Judaism playable. With this, you can actually interact with the College of Cardinals to elect a pope, go on pilgrimages, borrow money from the Templars, interact with Muslim religious debates, lots of fun.
Rajas of India: Unlocks playing as Buddhist, Hindu or Jain. I find the Indian subcontinent to be kinda boring to play on, as do many others, but the religious mechanics themselves are cool.
Charlemagne: 769 start date. Is kinda unpolished as start dates go, with very little historical research to rely on outside of Charlemagne himself.
Way of Life: Adds "character focuses", that allow your character to focus on different aspects of life. The first real Roleplay DLC, is fantastic.
Horse Lords: Another situational DLC, this one is good if you want to play as a nomadic horde, or along the Silk Road. Otherwise, meh.
Conclave: This one is an internal politics overhaul. Some don't like it because it made internal politics harder, I love it because it made internal politics INTERESTING. Could not recommend more, but others disagree with me.
Reaper's Due: Actually makes diseases threatening, the Black Death finally happens. Otherwise, the Black Death is kinda disappointing without this.
Monks and Mystics: This one kinda gets into fantasy territory again. Well-written events on one hand, but devil-worshipping on the other. Saving grace is that it adds a pretty nifty inventory system.
Jade Dragon: Interacting with China as an offmap power is pretty cool, but if you're not playing in Tibet, the north-eastern Steppes, or eastern Persia, doesn't really affect your game. I do like the little China screen personally though!

[Eldan]

****ING black death, speaking off. Just killed off 25 members of my dynasty in about three years, so I lost a game that was going very well.

[snowblizz]

Everyone else covered the economics pretty solidly, so I will handle the DLC question.

My DLC Buying Guide, listed in order from oldest-to-newest. Bold is best, normal is ok, italics can be ignored.

Sword of Islam: Unlocks Muslim rulers. Only worth buying if you want to play Muslims. I personally love playing as Muslims, but YMMV.
Legacy of Rome: Greek Orthodox flavour and Retinues (small standing-armies). Must-Have, later DLCs are balanced around retinues.
Sunset Invasion is an anachronistic Aztec invasion. Fun if you want to shake things up, but I bought it just for the portraits for mods.
The Republic: Unlocks merchant republics. Like SoI, only get it if you want to play as a merchant house.
The Old Gods: This adds a LOT of new content; a new earlier start date (867) as well as letting you play as pagan and Zoroastrian characters. In addition to all that, it makes rebellions (heretical, peasant, or similar) much more fun
Sons of Abraham: This one has tons of new religious content for the major Abrahamic religions, plus making Judaism playable. With this, you can actually interact with the College of Cardinals to elect a pope, go on pilgrimages, borrow money from the Templars, interact with Muslim religious debates, lots of fun.
Rajas of India: Unlocks playing as Buddhist, Hindu or Jain. I find the Indian subcontinent to be kinda boring to play on, as do many others, but the religious mechanics themselves are cool.
Charlemagne: 769 start date. Is kinda unpolished as start dates go, with very little historical research to rely on outside of Charlemagne himself.
Way of Life: Adds "character focuses", that allow your character to focus on different aspects of life. The first real Roleplay DLC, is fantastic.
Horse Lords: Another situational DLC, this one is good if you want to play as a nomadic horde, or along the Silk Road. Otherwise, meh.
Conclave: This one is an internal politics overhaul. Some don't like it because it made internal politics harder, I love it because it made internal politics INTERESTING. Could not recommend more, but others disagree with me.
Reaper's Due: Actually makes diseases threatening, the Black Death finally happens. Otherwise, the Black Death is kinda disappointing without this.
Monks and Mystics: This one kinda gets into fantasy territory again. Well-written events on one hand, but devil-worshipping on the other. Saving grace is that it adds a pretty nifty inventory system.
Jade Dragon: Interacting with China as an offmap power is pretty cool, but if you're not playing in Tibet, the north-eastern Steppes, or eastern Persia, doesn't really affect your game. I do like the little China screen personally though!

Just what I needed, thanks. Soo confused picking thorugh some of the info due to how all these hook into eachother.

[Rockphed]

Everyone else covered the economics pretty solidly, so I will handle the DLC question.

Legacy of Rome: Greek Orthodox flavour and Retinues (small standing-armies). Must-Have, later DLCs are balanced around retinues.

Retinues are, in my opinion, crucial for republics and nice, but not essential, for feudal rulers. The added flavor if you gain byzantium somehow is nice.

The Old Gods: This adds a LOT of new content; a new earlier start date (867) as well as letting you play as pagan and Zoroastrian characters. In addition to all that, it makes rebellions (heretical, peasant, or similar) much more fun

The next expansion, Holy Fury, will also unlock playing as pagans and some better features for them. There aren't nearly as many good starts for pagans after 1066, however, so The Old Gods is probably still worth getting for the earlier start date and better rebellions.

Horse Lords: Another situational DLC, this one is good if you want to play as a nomadic horde, or along the Silk Road. Otherwise, meh.

I am told this is also nice if you want the steppes to resist Byzantine colonialism.

Jade Dragon: Interacting with China as an offmap power is pretty cool, but if you're not playing in Tibet, the north-eastern Steppes, or eastern Persia, doesn't really affect your game. I do like the little China screen personally though!

Jade Dragon also unlocks the Silk Road.

[SZbNAhL]

****ING black death, speaking off. Just killed off 25 members of my dynasty in about three years, so I lost a game that was going very well.

In my current (Indian) game, the Black Death killed off all five people between my Marshall (who was also my single largest vassal) and the throne of an otherwise tiny (single-duchy) revolt against me. Turns out that when you inherit a revolt agaisnt your ruler, you automatically rebel and take all of your territory with you. And that brought an independence faction up to 150% of my size, so they rebelled as well. Turned a controlled revolt to seize territory without incurring tyranny into one of the worst civil wars I've ever experienced.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Ah, yeah Holy Fury. From what I've seen of it, it'll probably end up being Bolded as a must-have just for the updated Crusade mechanics alone!

[Rockphed]

Ah, yeah Holy Fury. From what I've seen of it, it'll probably end up being Bolded as a must-have just for the updated Crusade mechanics alone!

Updated crusades are in the free update. The special crusades (4th crusade style conquest of Byzantium, Children's Crusade when a non-heir child tries to raise an army to conquer Jerusalem, Northern Crusade where the Teutonic Knights try to expand Christianity northward, and reconquista of Spain) are Holy Fury only. There is also a Shepherd's crusade, but that is already a broken event chain in Sons of Abraham that they fixed and updated to the new system.

Other interesting features include a random world generator (randomly/procedurally places religions, cultures, kingdoms, and empires on the map), warrior societies for pagans and their tribal neighbors, and a new pagan reformation mechanic. The hype train is very strong.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Updated crusades are in the free update. The special crusades (4th crusade style conquest of Byzantium, Children's Crusade when a non-heir child tries to raise an army to conquer Jerusalem, Northern Crusade where the Teutonic Knights try to expand Christianity northward, and reconquista of Spain) are Holy Fury only. There is also a Shepherd's crusade, but that is already a broken event chain in Sons of Abraham that they fixed and updated to the new system.

Other interesting features include a random world generator (randomly/procedurally places religions, cultures, kingdoms, and empires on the map), warrior societies for pagans and their tribal neighbors, and a new pagan reformation mechanic. The hype train is very strong.

Is it? Still probably a bolded must-buy, but on the lower end of it now.

[Thufir]

Is it? Still probably a bolded must-buy, but on the lower end of it now.

For me it's enough of a must-buy that I expect to be getting it for full price rather than waiting for a sale (which I basically never do for any game) and I'm specifically avoiding starting any games where I'm going to be Catholic or Pagan or playing primarily in Europe or Africa until I have it. It all just looks so good!

[Corvus]

Holy Fury looks like it is going to be the biggest DLC by far given the sheer amount of content they are putting in to it. Almost feels like one last grand hurrah.

While it is mostly focused on pagans and Catholic crusades, there is going to be stuff for everyone in it.

[keepLooking]

Don't get this game seriously, as well as other ones by Paradox. It plays pretty entertaining with money cheat, but without it's just a stress trigger

[Caelestion]

Get this game, seriously, but only if you like grand strategy games. Obviously, if it's a stress trigger and you can't play without cheating, well then it's probably not the game for you.

[Rockphed]

I have (almost) never lost a game in a way that I would have survived if I had enough money. Normally I overextend and get hit by a dozen holy wars and an independence revolt simultaneously.

Speaking of losing, I am currently trying to do a Soccotran Republic run, and am having problems keeping Egypt from eating me. I could probably do okay if I stuck with Feudal, but going from Feudal to Tribal tends to distract me from my goals. I want to stay Nestorian if at all possible, though I realize that going Sunni is a nice defensive mechanism for a bit. Problem is that when I swapped all my courtiers and lands swapped and swapping back was hard.

Any suggestions?

[IthilanorStPete]

Did anyone else back the Kickstarter for the board game? I'm really looking forward to getting it in a few months.

[Leecros]

I have (almost) never lost a game in a way that I would have survived if I had enough money. Normally I overextend and get hit by a dozen holy wars and an independence revolt simultaneously.

I can't honestly remember the last time that i actually truly lost a game(All of my dynasty dies/becomes unlanded). There have been times where I was forced to convert or abandon the goal that i wanted to carry out by the end of the game.

But actually losing in CKII is kind of hard...

Did anyone else back the Kickstarter for the board game? I'm really looking forward to getting it in a few months.

I really wish that i did...but at the time I didn't have the extra cash to spare.

[Rockphed]

I can't honestly remember the last time that i actually truly lost a game(All of my dynasty dies/becomes unlanded). There have been times where I was forced to convert or abandon the goal that i wanted to carry out by the end of the game.

But actually losing in CKII is kind of hard...

The last time I actually lost was one of the times I was playing as the Jewish Avars. In this case, I am using "lose" to mean "decided that reaching my goal was untenable". Perhaps the most annoying thing is that there isn't a good way to conquer non-tribal lands and turn them tribal. Is that a Horse Lords thing?

[Caelestion]

Did anyone else back the Kickstarter for the board game? I'm really looking forward to getting it in a few months.

Absolutely. It's CK2 in a board game - what's not to like?

[tyckspoon]

I can't honestly remember the last time that i actually truly lost a game(All of my dynasty dies/becomes unlanded). There have been times where I was forced to convert or abandon the goal that i wanted to carry out by the end of the game.

But actually losing in CKII is kind of hard...

There's some rough starts that'll do it - starting as a foreign-religion Count in a region where your neighbors can all Holy War you is pretty touch-and-go, for example. After that I think it would usually take an especially bad Black Plague or having your lands be in the way of something like a Crusade or Invasion that you weren't able to stop, and even that should be survivable unless you haven't put any effort into dispersing your dynasty around the world a bit - if you've sent your spare sons off into marriages in separate kingdoms or were able to matri-marry daughters to people low down in the succession priority you probably have a surviving playable dynasty member somewhere, even if they're relatively lowly. (And if you're having to play one of them because the Black Death killed everybody else, well, they're probably a *lot* closer to the seat of power now.)

[IthilanorStPete]

There's some rough starts that'll do it - starting as a foreign-religion Count in a region where your neighbors can all Holy War you is pretty touch-and-go, for example. After that I think it would usually take an especially bad Black Plague or having your lands be in the way of something like a Crusade or Invasion that you weren't able to stop, and even that should be survivable unless you haven't put any effort into dispersing your dynasty around the world a bit - if you've sent your spare sons off into marriages in separate kingdoms or were able to matri-marry daughters to people low down in the succession priority you probably have a surviving playable dynasty member somewhere, even if they're relatively lowly. (And if you're having to play one of them because the Black Death killed everybody else, well, they're probably a *lot* closer to the seat of power now.)

Even a Duke can be vulnerable to Holy Wars; I once started a game as the Abbasids in 1066, when they're vassals of the Seljuks, and promptly got beaten by a Fatimid holy war in the first few years.

[Thufir]

The last time I actually lost was one of the times I was playing as the Jewish Avars. In this case, I am using "lose" to mean "decided that reaching my goal was untenable". Perhaps the most annoying thing is that there isn't a good way to conquer non-tribal lands and turn them tribal. Is that a Horse Lords thing?

Horse Lords or no, if the counties have extra holding slots you could just build a new tribal holding and keep the existing holdings as vassals. Actually turning a county with holdings in it into a full on tribal one though, that would be complicated. You'd need to be nomadic so you could pillage all the holdings until they're destroyed, then settle as a tribe. And then once you've settled I don't think you can go back to being nomadic to repeat the process with new conquests.

The only times I've actually lost in CK2 were a) early in a campaign and b) down to my liege's failure rather than mine. And in two of those cases I was able to just reload the last autosave and get a different result the second time around. The way you're using it, I don't know that I've ever decided my goal was untenable, but I did abandon one game because after a cascade of bad luck it was going to be at least several in-game decades before I could start having fun again.