Crusader Kings 2 Thread III: Keeping Up With The Karlings

[Avilan the Grey]

A third of my family look Greek. Not a problem, but the Byzantine genes are strong. At least I have a full-blown alliance with the Byzantine empire as well as Norway.
Denmark? Not so much, mostly because he didn't have any marryable kids.

Edit: There is a significant benefit to being a Family Man when the majority of powerful nobles in the realm is of your close family. In 5 years I will be able to pick an ambition, and I'll think I'll stick with that, boring as it may be.

[Avilan the Grey]

Spoiler: Ah, the joy of military pacts...

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Denmark didn't want to give the whole of Gylland to my mother.
So I promised to marry the princess of England.

[Avilan the Grey]

The king of England* is a paranoid idiot. He accused me of piracy, and despite reassuring him, he broke our pact. So I broke the betrothal.

Anyway, after coming of age I kind of instigated an 11 year long war. Sorta. Maybe.
It started with me taking over the rest of Gylland after my mother died. While I and Poland, my loyal ally, was teaching the Danish king a lesson, and taking a third of his land, the king of Norway attacked me. I didn't have time to deal with him so I had to let him run around sieging things while I defeated Denmark.

Then the "fun" started. The king of Norway was outmatched, but while I was chasing him in circles my nobles started rebelling.

So yes, it took me 11 years from declaring war on the Danish king to peace settling in the last rebellion. Ugh.

*He's also a Breton. Not sure what happened over there.

[The Great Wyrm]

Real life has bordergore, too:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/w...e-country.html

[Leecros]

Speaking of Border Gore...

Timur has finally appeared in my Mongol Empire game and i am so excited! This is only like the 3rd or 4th time that i have ever seen him in my many hours of playing and the best part is that he's not even going after me. He's going after India.

At first I was a bit concerned and viewed him as a rival, but after thinking on it for a moment I came to a revelation and decided to help him in his wars.Finally! After 200 years of Mongol Dominance there is a chance for a second Great Tengri Power and he has plenty of room to expand into. India is untouched by The Hordes and it's time for them to be brought down beneath a Great Khan.

Afterall, there's plenty of room on that subcontinent for him. with careful manipulation, he'll weaken my enemies and make a great ally...at least until the Empire of the Great Khans reaches The Great Sea.

Assuming that happens...I am starting to run a bit short on time to make that dream a reality...

edit:

okay. "Too Busy Conquering the World and you're next!" is probably the most amazing justification for refusing an alliance request ever.

[Avilan the Grey]

I don't reload often but yesterday I forgot to save.
After 2 years of great happenings.

Replaying it and instead of taking half of Denmark and Preussa in 2 years... It took me 4 years to get the danish part and got nowhere with Preussa. Oh well.

[Avilan the Grey]

You know elective monarchy works so much better for you if you don't rule for 68 years. When you outlive both sons with your first wife and your grandsons gets passed over because they are first too young, then they get surpassed by the son of your second wife... and not taking it well so you have to remove the duchies from them to teach them a lesson.

By the end of this king I was hoping he would die ASAP because even his newer sons were losing (as the kingdom grew, less and less people supported the son. By the time the father had finally died he had ruled for 68 years and was over 80.
By the end I literally tried to kill him. I made him Stressed. I made him lead all his armies personally. I made him have sex a lot. He died by natural causes. Damn good genes, that.

Incidentally this was also the first time in this game I had a proper dynasty going. With the exception of the first ruler and her son, the Elective system had bounced it all around among cousins and half-brothers. She ruled for 50 years, her son for 10 or so. Then quick successions: 2 years here, 6 years there... back and forth across the dynasty tree.
This was the first coherent family line. Gramps, dad and son all after another.

[Avilan the Grey]

I'm 180 years away from the end game.
Denmark is irritating. It still exists.

More to the point though:
Next playthrough I want to leave Scandinavia. My two ideas are either the 1066 start as the duke of Brittany, and do what he was poisoned for threatening to do IRL: hit William in the back, taking Normandy while William invaded England.

OR try my hands at a sub-saharan nation. This is where I really need help, I think. Has anyone played as one?

[Flickerdart]

OR try my hands at a sub-saharan nation. This is where I really need help, I think. Has anyone played as one?

They're not great. I haven't played one since the India map changes, but generally what happens is that you get boxed in by angry green blobs unless you expand so aggressively that Genghis Khan himself asks you to tone it down a bit.

[Mabn]

OR try my hands at a sub-saharan nation. This is where I really need help, I think. Has anyone played as one?

I found them a balancing act. Either you conquered two kingdoms and reformed your religion right away only for the Umayyed to destroy you since you don't have attrition bonuses and your territories haven't converted to get defensive bonuses. Or you conquered two kingdoms and waited to reform, in which case elective gavelkind screws you over and your provinces don't convert anyway because your moral authority is low. Or you stay put in Mali for the entire game, never reform, and go watch a movie and the game plays out.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

If you go 1066 you may have more of a chance. Wagadu can give the Almoravids a run for their money.

[Leecros]

Genghis Khan

Did somebody say...Genghis Khan?

Spoiler

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I finally finished my horde game in anticipation of the upcoming expansion...although considering i started as a mongol in the Old Gods start date....Ghengis Khan doesn't exactly exist. I just sort of subverted him...

Now that i have managed to play through a game fully, I think I know what I would do to make horde play more enjoyable.

It was actually pretty monotonous after i conquered the entirety of Tartaria, because I was just so much more powerful than any other Khan. They rarely managed to actually organize a concerted effort against me and when they did, they were often easily dispatched due to their individual disparity between the Khan and Khaganate. Also it was very rare for them to actually challenge my rule of the Khaganate directly through prestige, because by the time i conquered Tartaria, I was just so much more prestiegous. I feel as if the Khaganate should change more often and one way to actually fix that would be to fix the strength difference between the Khagan and the Khan. I don't know the exact numbers, but I could have five times more holdings than any one Khan. I think that should maybe be nerfed to like a 2:1 ratio. Of course, it may be less of a problem if Khans actually made an effort to collect empty holdings(the only ones that count for Nomads) instead of just giving holdings to vassals. When my Khans did wage their own subjugation wars, instead of conquering the land and burning it to the ground...They would often just assign vassals and move on. That's not...how it should be done(at least in CKII). Nomads should keep holdings to burn to the ground.

The other problem on top of that is that my Khans were always constantly fighting each other. At one point, nearly every Khan had a feud with every other Khan and they were just killing each other. There was one Khan whose family was around from the beginning who actually accrued quite a large power base within the Empire. He was far stronger than 3 or 4 other Khans combined...but he never made any power plays. He never tried to take the Khaganate for himself and when he did, I just threw money and titles at him until he was satisfied. My rule was never really challenged -at all- after the first 100-150 years.

Now then...Pillaging land...I burned the land from Mongolia to Italy. I would have burned more, but the act of going up to the alert, clicking it and going to the bottom left of the screen to confirm was causing my hand to actually hurt where it was rubbing against the desk in the same way hundreds of times. They really need a pillage all command or hotkey it and I did look up to see if there was a better way to do it...I didn't find one. It's a bother, because as a Nomad you aren't supposed to really have Vassals. You get a -10 to your vassal limit and need to collect empty holdings to actually increase your population and gather manpower for your horde.

Anyway, It was worth it, because dat cash. Nearly 600k worth of wealth with my capital fully upgraded and nearly 200,000 horse archers in my personal horde(because no other horde retinue really matters).


Achievements Got:

• Go West Young Mongol
• One Arrow Alone can be Easily Broken but Many Arrows are Indestructible
• Pax Mongolica
• Steppe by Steppe
• Great Hunter
• Persistent Survivor
• Protector Burner of the Holy Places

Probably my best single run in terms of achievements outside of the first game i played when achievements first came out. I also wanted to get the achievement for conquering Constantinople, but that one specifically requires you to be a Turkic steppe horde and Mongol doesn't count as that.

The Timurids also didn't expand nearly as much as I wanted them to... :/

[Corvus]

OR try my hands at a sub-saharan nation. This is where I really need help, I think. Has anyone played as one?

By sub-Saharan, are you referring to the west Africans or east Africans. I had a very successful Makurian (Nubian) campaign. Mind you this was pre-threat days and I couldn't get away with half of what I did back then now.

[Avilan the Grey]

Hmm... I don't know. My first thought was West African, earliest start date before the Muslims unite on top. I'm not that fascinated with pagan religions so my plan in that case, if I ever make contact with Catholic spain is to convert to Catholicism at that point.

[Aotrs Commander]

By sub-Saharan, are you referring to the west Africans or east Africans. I had a very successful Makurian (Nubian) campaign. Mind you this was pre-threat days and I couldn't get away with half of what I did back then now.

Threat as a mechanic seems to largely fail at what it does. I've basically been ignoring it entirely, and just conducting blitzkreig with my retinues plus Varagian guard + holy order.

According to the next patch notes, though, the AI is preportedly stopping at inviting EVERYONE, just to enough to get something like 125% of your army size or something. (And call to arms is back, apparently, though only having started playing on the most recent version, I never missed it).

[Leecros]

Threat as a mechanic seems to largely fail at what it does. I've basically been ignoring it entirely, and just conducting blitzkreig with my retinues plus Varagian guard + holy order.

It did actually sort of have an impact on my Mongol Empire game. Since Feudal lands held by nomads had barely any levies protecting it, They could almost blitz me as quickly as I could them. The biggest effect of this was when they managed to get me to -90% warscore in my invasion of France before I could make any large forward progress.

That and Hordes just are more affected by it in general, because they actually have a number to how many troops their armies can be reinforced by and assaulting fortresses burns through that manpower like it was nothing.

[Avilan the Grey]

It did actually sort of have an impact on my Mongol Empire game. Since Feudal lands held by nomads had barely any levies protecting it, They could almost blitz me as quickly as I could them. The biggest effect of this was when they managed to get me to -90% warscore in my invasion of France before I could make any large forward progress.

That and Hordes just are more affected by it in general, because they actually have a number to how many troops their armies can be reinforced by and assaulting fortresses burns through that manpower like it was nothing.

I expand much slower; both because I'm a rather bad player but also because if I expand too fast, my suspension of disbelief is fractured... I have only truly triggered the Threatening Mechanic when I simultaneously had a military alliance with England, HRE, Hungary and The Byzantines. Suddenly everybody else on the map jumped into defensive pacts against me.

[Avilan the Grey]

Denmark Usurped and Destroyed. Off to create the Empire of Scandinavia ASAP!

[tyckspoon]

Decided to give Muslim a try, starting in Spain in Old Gods era. I ate other local counts and then took over most of Christian Spain, declaring myself King of Leon and forcing my independence from the Big Spanish Blobdom. I then spent the next 50-odd years in an alliance with said Big Spanish Blob, culminating in a successful Invasion of Aquitane. That particular ruler then proceeded to hang around to age 83, with the last 10 of those years Infirm. The last part of his life was spent mostly cleaning up matters in Aquitane and occasionally sniping a county off the remainder of the Big Spanish Blob, with an eye toward eventually taking over the Hispania title for myself. Ancient Muslim King's heir executed a Holy War on united Brittany, bringing the whole Duchy/Petty Kingdom/Kingdom into the fold in one go. That got fobbed off on one of his brothers; it's a bit too far away from my heartlands. I was just considering turning heretic so I could Holy War my way through the rest of Muslim Spain when I was notified that Crusade had been declared on me. The rest of Christian Europe wants Aquitane back. This'll be fun.. wonder if I can gather enough boats together to go drop 10k dudes on top of Rome before everybody else gets their stuff together?

[Aotrs Commander]

Woo! Patch notes are out for Reaper's Due!

Looks pretty good and they haven't said it's definitely not compatible with older saves, so it should work reasonably (back up and/or note your final saves, though!)

Immortality is A Thing that can happen now - they devs said they'd also like to implement it to EUIV converted saves too, which has me ridiculously over-excited.

If nowt else, it should do some serious culling of all those characters and whatnot..!

[Leecros]

Decided to give Muslim a try

I've always found playing as a Muslim interesting. I don't do it very often, because I do have a mild distaste for the Decadence system. However, it always ends up in some more interesting games from a family perspective. All of those family members who escape your attempted imprisonment have to end up somewhere and I've seen them carve out their own little realm before.

Immortality is A Thing that can happen now - they devs said they'd also like to implement it to EUIV converted saves too, which has me ridiculously over-excited.

I'd imagine it'll be limited(can still die in battle/of disease) and/or extremely hard to get

[Aotrs Commander]

I'd imagine it'll be limited(can still die in battle/of disease) and/or extremely hard to get

From what I gathered, the coding has been around for a while for the modders, it's just the first time the main game will be using it; you can still be killed, but don't age (not sure about disease, that could go either way, but as this is coming in the Diseases-R-Us expansion, I'd hazard probably immune to disease.)

[Leecros]

From what I gathered, the coding has been around for a while for the modders, it's just the first time the main game will be using it; you can still be killed, but don't age (not sure about disease, that could go either way, but as this is coming in the Diseases-R-Us expansion, I'd hazard probably immune to disease.)

Sure, I know at least Elder Kings(The Elderscrolls mod for CKII) uses immortality for a number of characters. I believe in that mod that it protects you from dying from any health-related effects(Injuries, maiming, diseases), but not instant-death events.

Although i'm sure that can be easily changed.

[Flickerdart]

We know from the achievements that Immortal characters can be killed somehow, likely by execution and plots but possibly also in single combat. I wouldn't put it past Paradox to let disease work as well, and only age-related things being blocked (so no random checks to see if ruler should die based on age).

The real issue is when your Immortal ruler gets Infirm...

[Aotrs Commander]

We know from the achievements that Immortal characters can be killed somehow, likely by execution and plots but possibly also in single combat. I wouldn't put it past Paradox to let disease work as well, and only age-related things being blocked (so no random checks to see if ruler should die based on age).

The real issue is when your Immortal ruler gets Infirm...

No, infirm is an aging-based event; you definitely can't get that.

They've also said that immortal females who become so while still in their prime can still bear children... Apparently one of the devs had gotten an immortal queen (one of the Indian religions I think), who kept cannibalising her children...!



They also said they'd like to put it in EUIV, so I'm hoping that it'll come in the next conversion version; I've still got 400-odd years to go in my Rome game, so I'm hoping by the time I'm ready, I'll both managed to acquire an immortal ruler and it'llb ready to go into EUIV.

(As leader stats being entirely at the mercy of RNG was my least favourite bit of EUIV.)



Shall I be the first one to point out where immortal + horse is going to be going...?

[russdm]

So, it's now Highlander: Crusader Kings? "I am Duncan McLeod" and everything.

[Avilan the Grey]

Is it confirmed that immortality is Expansion only? I hope so, because the prospect of immortality just sank my interest in this DLC.
It is WAY too far off the "Actual historical" thing for me. The Satanic Child is already a little too much for me, but I enjoy the rest of the DLC. This?

I guess I opt out of this DLC.

[Flickerdart]

No, infirm is an aging-based event; you definitely can't get that.

Incapable, then. Blow to the head and boom, never dying, never living.

[Rockphed]

Saw an ad for it on facebook and figured it should be noted here: Lots of stuff on sale in the Paradox store right now.

Having said that, I start grad school next week and will not have time to play CKII for about 2 years, so I won't be buying it. I was looking forward to re-establishing the Roman Empire as the Duke of Salerno. I finally have money to buy it with and there is a sale, but I won't have time to play.

[Artanis]

Is it confirmed that immortality is Expansion only? I hope so, because the prospect of immortality just sank my interest in this DLC.
It is WAY too far off the "Actual historical" thing for me. The Satanic Child is already a little too much for me, but I enjoy the rest of the DLC. This?

I guess I opt out of this DLC.

The patch with the expansion includes "game rules", allowing you to turn certain things - including supernatural-ish stuff - on and off. So if you don't like it, you should be able to turn off all of those things.