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

[Rockphed]

Bc the african Muslim guy has 15k troops and France has 29k while i have 16k.

16 versus 29 is a tall order. 30 vs 46 has better chances (since if they, like most computers) tries to spread out their invasion, you can concentrate and pick them off, or if they put them all in one spot they suffer attrition and you can concentrate and take them out. Between Africa and France, Africa might be easier. Africa has more coast, so you can use your navy to escape your troops or to lure their stack to attack your stack. Just be sure you have at least 1 holding to land the rest of your troops in. Also, be aware that troops on ships only have half morale.

[tyckspoon]

I am, as soon as I figure out how to defang 2 factions with 140% power, about to conquer England. Then they will just have Jerusalem, which I do not seem to have a claim on.

My attempts to break up Baluchistan aren't working. However, I could holy-war the one and only duchy in Baluchistan and then Usurp it.

Also, somehow my dwarf first daughter is my heir rather than my high-martial, high-diplomacy, high stewardship, born-in-the-purple second daughter. Any suggestions on fixing it? I suppose I could give her sons temples to get them out of the line of succession.

For the factions, put your spymaster to work on the strongest member of the faction (other than the actual leader; I don't think this works on the guy whose plan it is) - one of the options for Scheming lets you force a character out of factions for a period of time. Spying on them personally with Intrigue focus can also achieve this. You can also try bribing or otherwise improving the opinions of some of the faction members, which can cause some of them to drop out of the faction if they like you enough. You can also just yield to their demands, if one of the factions wants something that isn't too harmful/something you can fix later on without too much trouble. And of course you can just prepare to have to fight against half your realm in the ensuing faction civil war, that's always fun.. possibly winnable, too, because the faction strength pretty much just counts raw available troop numbers. They don't know that you can drop an extra few thousand men worth of mercs on them, or that your marshal has been off suppressing a rebellion somewhere else and you actually have 30% more levies available if you bring him back to your home county to Train Troops (this is why I prefer to build/revoke extra castles in my capital county rather than hold just the top castle in more counties, incidentally - you get more use from Train Troops/Raise Taxes council jobs and get more applications of the Capital County levy bonus), or that those 4k worth of Light Infantry retinues you raised and got reinforced while they were waffling about whether or not to try to enforce their demands are actually pretty worthless in a fight.

Not sure what your inheritance laws are; I'm guessing ..Agnatic-Cognatic Primogeniture? It's not in any way guaranteed to give you a better heir, but unless you have full equality for women the easiest way to disqualify the dwarf daughter is probably to have a son. Or.. check and see if your first daughter has the Despot honorary title, somehow? That gives the same preference as Born in the Purple, so it would default back to birth order.

[Nerd-o-rama]

So the Mongols ate Persia and the Seljuks are now a rump state. That's good.

However, the Mongols also converted to Sunni Islam (and Iqta government). Is this okay or are my allies in Jerusalem (Queen Deirdre the Holy met her end in glorious battle at an inopportune moment, but I've got my half-brother on the throne there and a couple vassal counties in modern Lebanon so it's fine) going to be facing Hordjihads?

EDIT: Also now I'm King of Lithuania. This is what happens when the Pope calls a Crusade and you are literally the only person to show up.

[Rockphed]

For the factions, put your spymaster to work on the strongest member of the faction (other than the actual leader; I don't think this works on the guy whose plan it is) - one of the options for Scheming lets you force a character out of factions for a period of time. Spying on them personally with Intrigue focus can also achieve this. You can also try bribing or otherwise improving the opinions of some of the faction members, which can cause some of them to drop out of the faction if they like you enough. You can also just yield to their demands, if one of the factions wants something that isn't too harmful/something you can fix later on without too much trouble. And of course you can just prepare to have to fight against half your realm in the ensuing faction civil war, that's always fun.. possibly winnable, too, because the faction strength pretty much just counts raw available troop numbers. They don't know that you can drop an extra few thousand men worth of mercs on them, or that your marshal has been off suppressing a rebellion somewhere else and you actually have 30% more levies available if you bring him back to your home county to Train Troops (this is why I prefer to build/revoke extra castles in my capital county rather than hold just the top castle in more counties, incidentally - you get more use from Train Troops/Raise Taxes council jobs and get more applications of the Capital County levy bonus), or that those 4k worth of Light Infantry retinues you raised and got reinforced while they were waffling about whether or not to try to enforce their demands are actually pretty worthless in a fight.

Not sure what your inheritance laws are; I'm guessing ..Agnatic-Cognatic Primogeniture? It's not in any way guaranteed to give you a better heir, but unless you have full equality for women the easiest way to disqualify the dwarf daughter is probably to have a son. Or.. check and see if your first daughter has the Despot honorary title, somehow? That gives the same preference as Born in the Purple, so it would default back to birth order.

I might have given my oldest daughter that title. I do have Agnatic-Cognatic Primogeniture.

And the two factions are independence (for like half my beautiful map-painting) and elective succession. About 1/3 of the lords of the realm are my relatives, so elective might work in my favor, but it also might end up splitting my desmense. I should probably try to lower vassal taxes (which will get me a bit of respite) and hand out bribes like candy. I am sitting on nearly 10K gold. Is there an achievement for having 10K gold?

Alternatively, I could wait for the rebellions and put them down by hiring The Great Company (current complement in excess of 16K) and taking out their stacks with my 25K of levies from Thrace and Nikea.

[Nerd-o-rama]

"You were doing well, until everybody died."
-God, regarding the Black Plague spawning in Ireland

Well I mean not everyone died, just the main branch of my family down to the second youngest daughter. My rivals in the kingdoms are just fine. As is the invalid little girl on the throne of England who I successfully nabbed Lothian from, outlasting the guy who declared war on her and every one of his sons.

Maybe there are consequences to being a jerk in this game after all...

Also wow the LAST daughter would be a way better ruler. Maybe someone will bump off Queen Caitlinn before she matrimarries.

[Eldan]

Does anyone know if there's an up to date version of Elder Kings somewhere? I really want to try it, but all the threads I can find look very old and I can't get hte versions there to run.

[Leecros]

well, the most recent version is over on the Elder Kings subforum here. You need a paradox account to access it. The link on that page leads to here. Which is where I downloaded it.


That is the most recent version and if you can't get it working, then I'm not sure what to say. Maybe see if you can get help on the subforum for it.

[russdm]

Have played the demo recently, and found a way to play other characters. I am not that impressed with the choice of available ones in the demo. It goes King of Poland, Duke of Bohemia, Duke in Byzantine Empire, Duchess in Italy. It would be nice to change that somehow.

Managed to play King of England, and lose his starting army. That was fun. I do have some questions after my playing. Then played King of Scotland.

1) Is there any reason to pay money into City holdings or Temple holdings beyond earning money to buy more castle holdings?

2) Do I get any real useful tax from City or Temple holdings?

3) Is there any right or wrong way to put money into holdings?

4) How much do assassinations cost? How can I fulfill my Flickerdart murder quotient?

5) Is Tutorial island the best choice? or is another place better?

[I really enjoyed playing as the King of Poland, was somewhat enjoying the Duke of Bohemia, but wasn't as thrilled with the Duchess one. I haven't tried the Byzantine guy yet. I liked Holy Warring Pagans to finish making up the Kingdom of Poland.]

[mythmonster2]

1) Is there any reason to pay money into City holdings or Temple holdings beyond earning money to buy more castle holdings?

2) Do I get any real useful tax from City or Temple holdings?

3) Is there any right or wrong way to put money into holdings?

4) How much do assassinations cost? How can I fulfill my Flickerdart murder quotient?

5) Is Tutorial island the best choice? or is another place better?

[I really enjoyed playing as the King of Poland, was somewhat enjoying the Duke of Bohemia, but wasn't as thrilled with the Duchess one. I haven't tried the Byzantine guy yet. I liked Holy Warring Pagans to finish making up the Kingdom of Poland.]

1: Not really, no. You get much more return on investment by pumping up your own holdings instead of boosting up your vassals, especially baron-level vassals.
2: Cities can give you good taxes, especially if you make republics. So much, in fact, that they had to put in an artificial limit on how many republic vassals you can have.
3: Personally, I always go for the Castle Towns first, then the walls (or the castle, whichever one gives you multiple bonuses), then troops.
4: I'm not sure how up-to-date the demo is, but you can't pay for assassinations anymore by default. Instead, you have to start a plot to kill that person and it'll be random chance. You can enable paying for assassinations, in which case I believe it's 150 for an attempt.
5: Ireland's a pretty good place to start, alternatively one of the Spanish kingdoms if you wanna jump right into fighting the infidel.

[Rockphed]

1: Not really, no. You get much more return on investment by pumping up your own holdings instead of boosting up your vassals, especially baron-level vassals.
2: Cities can give you good taxes, especially if you make republics. So much, in fact, that they had to put in an artificial limit on how many republic vassals you can have.
3: Personally, I always go for the Castle Towns first, then the walls (or the castle, whichever one gives you multiple bonuses), then troops.
4: I'm not sure how up-to-date the demo is, but you can't pay for assassinations anymore by default. Instead, you have to start a plot to kill that person and it'll be random chance. You can enable paying for assassinations, in which case I believe it's 150 for an attempt.
5: Ireland's a pretty good place to start, alternatively one of the Spanish kingdoms if you wanna jump right into fighting the infidel.

1: If all your holdings are as built as possible, it can be useful to drop some money onto vassal holdings. Especially if they provide you with most of their levy but their holdings are poorly upgraded. Also, if you build a new city or temple, it is useful to upgrade their money making for them off the bat so they can afford to upgrade themselves. This...will not come up in the demo.
2: Cities give very, very good taxes. To the point that I can fund my entire empire on the taxes from the cities in my 7 counties plus the taxes on my 9 castles. I currently have minimum feudal taxes, but there really isn't any reason to except that I currently have 10K gold and it makes me happy to have it.
3: In the demo, I think walls and barracks are the order of the day. Despite your lack of archers, Heavy Infantry will carry the day against all but the most stubborn of opponents.
4: In the currently released game you cannot just kill people by throwing money at them (as evidenced by my frustration with the Mongols and Baluchistan). This also means that your enemies cannot kill you by just throwing money at you, which I think was sometimes a problem. In my about 150 hours of play, I have only ever been killed by a plot once, and I was a 10 year old whose regent decided that he needed to die.
5: Depends on what you feel like doing really. The nice thing about starting in Ireland is that you don't have any enemies who are very much stronger than you, so you get to grow your understanding of the game at the same rate you grow your realm. About the time you get a full kingdom, you will experience vassals rebelling. When you get 2 kingdoms under your belt, your relatives will start plotting to take one from you. As soon as you get a border with England, you will start having to worry about fighting off a stronger, more aggressive realm who probably has claims on all your territories.

[tigerusthegreat]

Does anyone know the logic behind whether you can fabricate or revoke a title by intrique? It seems kinda random unless i am high intrique

[Malimar]

Does anyone know the logic behind whether you can fabricate or revoke a title by intrique? It seems kinda random unless i am high intrique

The game has literally never allowed me to begin a plot to fabricate or revoke, no matter the circumstances, so I have no idea. I pretty much treat it as an AI-only option.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I want to revoke by plot all the time (because of the neat trick where even if you fail they rebel and you can imprison and revoke anyway) and I think there are several different restrictions that aren't listed. You can't seem to revoke someone you have a truce with, for starters, and I think there's also an unlisted limit based on relative state Intrigue.

[tigerusthegreat]

The good news is France and Africa aren't problems anymore.....

The bad news....

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That monster has 55k troops altogether. The worse news is that while I have around 20k now, my good king died, leaving me with a crappy one and a female heir. His wife is actually a duchess in the HRE, and they only have a daughter (I suspect that if you are married and rule in different countries you won't have any further children).

I established the Empire of Hispania, and destroyed the Kingdom of Andalusia. Pretty much means the entirity of my vassalage will be pissy with me for a while (10 years or so). I have a pretty strong personal military so I am not worried about vassal uprisings. I just wish I had a male heir that I could raise.

[Leecros]

I want to revoke by plot all the time (because of the neat trick where even if you fail they rebel and you can imprison and revoke anyway) and I think there are several different restrictions that aren't listed. You can't seem to revoke someone you have a truce with, for starters, and I think there's also an unlisted limit based on relative state Intrigue.

I think they also have to have multiple landed titles. Typically when I have the option to revoke titles via intrigue, it's when they have Multiple Duke titles(for dukes), or Multiple count titles(for counts), or they personally hold a county outside of their demesne(for dukes).

I could be mistaken though, I haven't used that function for awhile.

[SZbNAhL]

Does anyone know the logic behind whether you can fabricate or revoke a title by intrique? It seems kinda random unless i am high intrique

I think the rule is that you can only revoke the ones that wouldn't be convenient

But seriously, as per the wiki the requirements are that the target isn't a merchant republic, your religious head or a vasalised holy order or mercenary company, doesn't have a truce or non-aggression pact with you, was granted the title at least 12 months ago and is at least one of:

1) A county outside of a duke's duchy.
2) A duchy controlled by a duke with no de jure counties in his realm.
3) A secondary title of a count with multiple counties.

Oh, and you can't be content, for some reason.

[Leecros]

1) A county outside of a duke's duchy.
2) A duchy controlled by a duke with no de jure counties in his realm.
3) A secondary title of a count with multiple counties.

Oh, and you can't be content, for some reason.

Well, I was kind of right...


Also yeah, Content locks you out of a bunch of intrigue options because "Your character is happy with what you have"

[tigerusthegreat]

Dlc is on sale on steam

[Flickerdart]

Is this the "new DLC, all old DLC is on sale" sale? Because the discounts seem too low - Reaper's Due is just 25% off!

[Malimar]

Is this the "new DLC, all old DLC is on sale" sale? Because the discounts seem too low - Reaper's Due is just 25% off!

Isn't it usually "new DLC is full price, the last few DLCs are a little bit off, really old DLCs are butt-tons off"?

[Nerd-o-rama]

Of course they couldn't wait a week till I had money. I want the ability to take over the world as a Jewish Horde already.

[Aotrs Commander]

Isn't it usually "new DLC is full price, the last few DLCs are a little bit off, really old DLCs are butt-tons off"?

It is, but this time most the old stuff apart from the base game is only, like, 50% off. Probably because they had a big sale for some other reason not long ago.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Well for ten bucks I got the Old Gods and Legacy of Rome. I feel like this made the game harder, even just continuing to mess around in 1066 Ireland. Did the AI get increased levies to compensate for Retinues? Other than that it's probably just confirmation bias on all these new events and slightly more organized raiders.

Next up will be figuring out how to Viking I guess. Possibly how to Viking Rus.

[Flickerdart]

Next up will be figuring out how to Viking I guess. Possibly how to Viking Rus.

Vikings are easy mode, viking Rus is easy mode viking.

Rurik of Holmgardr (Duchy of Novgorod) can get easy marriages with Scandinavian vikings, and with the least bit of cunning that can turn into great inheritances. Rurik is surrounded by OPMs and schmucks - he can pillage and conquer without pretty much any consequences, and effortlessly become King of Rus. He is close to the Germanic holy sites, though he will have as much difficulty as anyone getting his hands on the Catholic-held ones. Just avoid becoming Slavic, and you should be golden. Because of the inheritances, Rurik can easily become Emperor of Scandinavia, which is much easier than Russia. If you prefer to build an empire through conquest, becoming Emperor of the Wends works just as well.

Dyre of Konugardr (Duchy of Kiev) begins in a precarious position next to the Magyar horde, and is well-suited to playing the waiting game. As soon as the Magyars defeat Bulgaria and settle to form Hungary, all the land they own east of the Carpathian Basin becomes independent. Then he can rush in and conquer it all. He has river access to the Black Sea, giving him great raiding opportunities. His only threats come from the steppe hordes - which can spontaneously unify in freak inheritance accidents - and from Rurik, who is stronger and better in every way. After you have become King of Ruthenia, you might as well convert to being Slavic, since the people will like you better and the holy sites are all close by.

Becoming Emperor of Russia is a lot harder, because it will put you at odds with Rurik and his allies, the steppe hordes, and later the Mongols and the Timurids. Plus the land is poor and huge. It might be easier to go whup the Hungarians and become Emperor of Carpathia, and then continue expanding into Poland and the ERE. Just make sure that Prince Arpad is dead before attacking Hungary, that guy is a beast.

---

Fun historic note
Most of what's going on in Eastern Europe in 867 (and 769) is made up by Paradox, because there were so few records and they were largely foreign (we have not been able to decode pagan "strokes and incisions"). However, Rurik was almost certainly a real person; folk history suggests that the Slavs had driven off Norsemen that extracted tribute from them, but later invited them back to serve as rulers. The interesting part is the disagreement about how many Varangians showed up - whether three (Rurik, Askold, and Dir), two (Rurik, and Strange Dir) or one (Rurik and his guard). Because of the scarcity of contemporary sources, it's difficult to establish which was accurate, because the words/names for the three options would have all been spelled similarly in Norse writing.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah one of my main goals in this game is forming historical empires as entities those empires have, in more recent history, tended to kick around in the name of imperialism. Forming Britannia as Ireland, or Russia as Kiev (or I guess Novgorod since at least it's not Moscow) would be two major examples that I will not explain at all since that's against board rules and I'm pushing it even talking about my motivations.

And yeah I'm familiar with at least the legends around Rurik. Is there anything Vikings can't do?

[Rockphed]

So the latest patch broke vassal limits in my games. They are ironman. My levies as Byzantium went from 150K to 12K. My vassal limit went from about 50 to 23. In my Wales game, my vassal limit went from somewhere in the 20s to 12. Any suggestions on fixing it?

[Flickerdart]

Yeah one of my main goals in this game is forming historical empires as entities those empires have, in more recent history, tended to kick around in the name of imperialism. Forming Britannia as Ireland, or Russia as Kiev (or I guess Novgorod since at least it's not Moscow) would be two major examples that I will not explain at all since that's against board rules and I'm pushing it even talking about my motivations.

Forming the Russian Empire this early isn't exactly historical in the first place. Moscow doesn't even exist yet - it was founded in 1147 and wasn't an important city until the Mongols came and ruined everything.

[Wardog]

I started a new game recently (after a long time not playing, and not having much experience in any case).

I decided to do an Irish start (as that is recommended), but to make things a bit more interesting I decided to play as Queen Medb. (Viking Age because I don't have the DLC for an earlier start, Chief of Connachta , female ruler, Germanic Pagan given that Celtic Pagan isn't an option, and really cheesy min-maxed traits).

So, after a 28 year reign and a bloody rampage across the land, I'm now Queen of all Ireland (complete with multiple human sacrifices to celebrate by victory). And I even had time to spawn seven children. Despite getting posessed.

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Ironically, Ulaidh was one of the easiest territories to conquer.

(And rather embarassingly, I've just realised I spelt her name wrong in-game - is there any way to change that?)


Can anyone advise what I should do now? (I've married off/betrothed all my children, so that's taken care of). Particularly as regards all my titles and territories - I'm over my demense limit, and I don't know enough about how succession works to know the best way to manipulate that.


Also, having a peek around the map I noticed this:

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If I call up all my levies, and raise a tribal army or two, I should easily have enough troops to siege all the castles etc, and the pope doesn't have any allies, and no vassles of note. Am I missing something, or would it be really easy to conquer Rome? Or would I just get a Crusade or something called against me?

[Malimar]

Also, having a peek around the map I noticed this:

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If I call up all my levies, and raise a tribal army or two, I should easily have enough troops to siege all the castles etc, and the pope doesn't have any allies, and no vassles of note. Am I missing something, or would it be really easy to conquer Rome? Or would I just get a Crusade or something called against me?

Popey usually has surprisingly large numbers of troops, I suspect because he has tons of cash to hire mercenaries with. Plus if you conquer it, Catholic Italy will usually holy war for it and hand it right back to the pope.

[Flickerdart]

The challenge for a pagan who has conquered a kingdom is keeping the kingdom - between "short reign" opinion penalties, viking planned invasions, and Catholic holy warring, holding on to your land grabs can be easier said than done.