Crusader Kings 2 Thread III: Keeping Up With The Karlings

[Avilan the Grey]

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.

Well that's better then

[Aotrs Commander]

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.

Well that's better then

Along with a crap-ton of other stuff, including the much-maligned defensive pacts, shattered retreats, toggle gender equality, Sunset Invasion (so you don't need to disable the DLC, just untick one box!) all sorts of stuff, to better let you play how you want to play.

Which is always a very nice consideration!

[Leecros]

With that said, turning off certain game rules will make it impossible to get achievements.

[Aotrs Commander]

With that said, turning off certain game rules will make it impossible to get achievements.

Supernatural events, sunset invasion, shattered retreats and defensive pacts are not among those, however.

[Avilan the Grey]

With that said, turning off certain game rules will make it impossible to get achievements.

Never cared for achievements in any shape, way or form, in any game. To me they are just annoying popups.

[Aotrs Commander]

Never cared for achievements in any shape, way or form, in any game. To me they are just annoying popups.

I can take or leave them. I don't mind they occasion little, reasononably easy sub-target to work on; but the sort of achievements that require to do x thing xxx times, or require whole playthroughs with odd constraints to get (or rare random events), I usually just ignore completely. As Paradox put all the grand strategy ones locked to ironman mode, for EUIV, Stellaris and CK2, they are irrelevant to me in those specific game's case.

(From what I understand, a modest number of Paradoxes are actually challenges for experienced players, rather than just repetition of x thing xxx times, but even so.)

[Driderman]

I can take or leave them. I don't mind they occasion little, reasononably easy sub-target to work on; but the sort of achievements that require to do x thing xxx times, or require whole playthroughs with odd constraints to get (or rare random events), I usually just ignore completely. As Paradox put all the grand strategy ones locked to ironman mode, for EUIV, Stellaris and CK2, they are irrelevant to me in those specific game's case.

(From what I understand, a modest number of Paradoxes are actually challenges for experienced players, rather than just repetition of x thing xxx times, but even so.)

Paradox's achievements are pretty much the only ones I care even a little about, exactly because many of them are pretty good at breaking the boring "do X action Y number of times for much achieve!" mold that a fair amount of achievements/trophies fall into. I may even have started a few games with the sub-goal of hitting one of the more tricky achievements, although I probably forgot about it after some hours. Still looking forward to getting the "finished the game" achievement at some point, although with 874 hours clocked in CK2 without that happening I fear it might never

[The Great Wyrm]

I have 738 hours played, and 54 achievements. I've never played a game all the way through to 1453.

[Corvus]

The new East African portraits and African councillors look great - wish I'd had them for my Makurian campaign. May have to retry it again soon...

[Leecros]

I have 738 hours played, and 54 achievements. I've never played a game all the way through to 1453.

I've only relatively recently gotten all three completed achievements.

I enjoy achievements overall. I think they're nice challenges and things to work towards and typically I Ironman myself anyway, so having to play in Ironman Mode isn't particularly cumbersome and I have never had anything game breaking happen.

I, for one, was actually surprised that The Reaper's Due was so cheap. I expected it to be $15(USD) like most of the other expansions. Which is great because it means that I could buy the content DLC's as well with little remorse.

My first game is going fairly well. Playing as the Abbasids in 1066 for The Abbasids Strikes Back achievement. Heretics in Africa triggered the Jihads early and I immediately declared on The Byzantine Empire who was in the middle of a nasty Civil War. I won it unopposed by the Byzantines before my first Caliph died. Thus I'm dangerously close to already rebelling against The Seljuks and getting a Kingdom.

Admittedly succession is an issue...which is weird considering I'm Sunni. There's only two male members of my family left. My current ruler who is 8 and his uncle who is 9. The old Caliph only had girls except for two sons(one being the aforementioned uncle) firstborn son and my current character's father was thrown in the dungeon for decadence. His firstborn son died of leprosy. Thus leaving only two.

It shouldn't be a problem in a couple of generations, but with diseases buffed like they have been. It is a genuine concern...

[Aotrs Commander]

I bought Reaper's, plus the remaining content packs, plus horselords, plus a couple of the music tracks (180-something hours in and I'm prepared to spend four quid for some varity)... Basically everything but Conclave. I thought about it, but the general issues that it makes controlling vassals harder and makes the education system less controlled doesn't appeal. I might pick it up towards the end (since they reckon only 2-3 more DLCV before they call it a day).

Will have a crack at playing later (wargames first).

[Guancyto]

So, the Reaper's Due is totally compatible with old saves, but if you do load up a reasonably progressed save, SUDDENLY BLACK DEATH BLACK DEATH EVERYWHERE.

[Avilan the Grey]

I have 738 hours played, and 54 achievements. I've never played a game all the way through to 1453.

Personally I always get stressed out because time is limited. I am now in the 1270's and I keep looking at the year going "only X number of years left! gotta hurry!"

[Aotrs Commander]

So, the Reaper's Due is totally compatible with old saves, but if you do load up a reasonably progressed save, SUDDENLY BLACK DEATH BLACK DEATH EVERYWHERE.

Fortunately, I had saved enough money in instatnyl start building hospitals (which were WAAAY cheaper than I expected at 100 gold, I was expecting four times that!)



I haven't started playing yet only enough to have a nosey (definitely good idea to get some new music, the new tracks immediately were obvious and cool).

I noticed I could suddenly create the kingdom of Frisili and the duchy of Finnmark (which I thought I already had, but whatever); I relealised the former came from Flander being moved itno France. (If I'd havetwigged that, i wouldn't have started a new kingdom when I accidently obviated Saxony.)

The only glitch so far is I can create the titular kingdom of k_dyn_reb_674037. So, something's gone off a bit there, gonna check on the forums...!



...

Oh frag, it now remembers what map mode you were in last instead of starting at the default terrain.

FRACK YES!!!!

[Guancyto]

100 gold for the hospital only gets you the basic building; upgrading it to the point where you can actually get some decent disease/depopulation resistance out of it is expensive.

Fortunately they've also got other benefits, to the point where it's basically a mini-holding, giving you tech points, tech spread rate, piety and temple vassal opinion.

[Leecros]

So I've managed to get independence from the Seljuk Sultanate in my Abbasid game and become King of Anatolia. Now, however, I have the issue of being surrounded by Big Boys. I border The Shia Caliph in Egypt, The Seljuks who are still a huge power, and The Byzantine Empire is still a thing despite some major setbacks and I have 15 uppity vassals to manage...Half of which hate me(and my 1 diplomacy).

Right now, I need to unite the two halves of my realm and that'll probably mean another war against The Seljuk...

100 gold for the hospital only gets you the basic building; upgrading it to the point where you can actually get some decent disease/depopulation resistance out of it is expensive.

Fortunately they've also got other benefits, to the point where it's basically a mini-holding, giving you tech points, tech spread rate, piety and temple vassal opinion.

Hospitals are expensive, but I consider them an investment to get that prosperity up. Sure, the prosperity modifiers(at least the level 1 ones) aren't a game changer, but I do find the bonus to income to be delicious and you need an upgraded Hospital to offset the penalty to disease resistance that prosperity gives.

[Aotrs Commander]

100 gold for the hospital only gets you the basic building; upgrading it to the point where you can actually get some decent disease/depopulation resistance out of it is expensive.

Fortunately they've also got other benefits, to the point where it's basically a mini-holding, giving you tech points, tech spread rate, piety and temple vassal opinion.

Yeah, I noticed that later, after having burnt the rest of my cash building my retinue up again...

*skulldesk*

New patch appears to have introduced a few bugs, though, notably unit arrived notifications continuously fire (making that message useable, which is a pretty major problem - that was something I used all the time) and there are reports that if you don't have Conclave, children are not getting education traits at 16 (possibly at 17 but random).

So maybe give it a few days before you go too bonkers, folks...!

[Leecros]

I just watched two epidemics simultaneously wash around my capital and its level 4 Hospital.


So if you want to avoid epidemics... Hospitals are hugely worth it.

[Aotrs Commander]

Anyone without Conclave: children are not getting their education traits at age 16, but at 17 (and thus random).

The devs have kindly posted a workaround:

For those of you without Conclave, open common/defines.lua, find "CHILDHOOD_FOCUS_ALERT_AGE" and change it from 6 to 5. Should resolve this until we patch it.

Won't get chance to test it later, but as that's one of the major glitches of the new patch, that at least is a very good start!

[Sian]

Paradox Grand Strategy games are the only type of game where i specificly use the achievements ... and that is because of the fact that otherwise the games might easily end out being without aim, as i don't have a good idea for who to play, what to aim for etc. chasing achievements (beyond those that are embarrasingly easy such as 'get an alliance' 'win a war' etc) give me a good target so i know who to play, and what my goals are for the specific campaign

[Leecros]

Don't you hate it when you go out to find an Empire-Level title and accidently end up toppling the greatest empire that has ever graced this earth?

Spoiler

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I feel a little dirty using the Custom Empire decision to get that achievement, but custom empires and kingdoms don't turn off achievements and I sort of justified it in a historical sense that there'd be pretty much no way my character could claim to be a successor to the Roman Empire considering my origin. So Emperor of Greece it is...

[Valley]

Well, now I have all the DLCs in my current game (which has been my only game as I started at the earliest point, play rarely, and am bad at it).

The Byzantine Empire is in collapse, as Asia Minor and much of its holdings in the Middle East belong to Islam. On the other hand Islam HAD collapsed into a bunch of struggling domains and holdings, while the Emperors have pushed the Northwestern and Northern borders into Europe.

Spoiler: Byzantine Empire (with a part of Nubia there too)

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I have used the confusion on both side to gain some counties - the Emperor took a few away (such as Jaffa) but now I have more then I started out with. Even grabbed a county from a Islamic Independent Ruler.

Also, my family bloodlines continue to spread. The Empire is riddled with Powerful Rulers who share my blood. Also, I still have family on the Throne in Nubia.

Spoiler: Nubia

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The King has had problems with revolt and many of the Islamic Rulers trying to absorb Nubia but he is powerful enough to handle both. He also has allies who are willing to come to his call when need be, including me.

Spoiler: Ruthenia

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AND now, I have found out one of my kin rules Ruthenia. Buwahahaha! By the end of the game my character will be a worthless Duke of a dead Empire but my Family WILL run the world. Well, some of it anyway.

I find the game is still hard but not impossible. I had some money so hospitals were kind of easy to build and I have had two doctors so far, the newest one is better than the last. And the Reaper cleared out a wife I didn't like - so that helped. Now I have a young new wife.

The Conclave DLC made things interesting but I still love the control over education - it makes it more interesting. And I can still pick educators for the kids to make sure they grow up the proper culture (or don't...buwahahahahaha!). And if you are a child's ward you still have to make decisions. But I do feel that the Powerful Vassals are too quick to become angry when I don't give them a seat. Many of them are family members who I PUT into power and the second they are now a Count they demand more? Oh well, just forces me to watch them closely.

Oh, yeah, I don't play Iron Man. I play for fun and the Soap Opera feel of it. Oh, and spreading the Faith.

Spoiler: The FAITH!

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[Flickerdart]

Yeah, I feel like gratitude in this game doesn't go as far as perhaps it should. Sure, Ambitious dukes should always be looking out for number one, but when you granted a county to a nobody, he shouldn't have all those "desires duchy of X" and "short reign" modifiers. Your reign's shorter than mine, buddy, sit down.

[Avilan the Grey]

So the patch broke Windows again.
Had to uninstall and reinstall the C runtimes for Windows 10 for the game to start after patching.

Two questions:
Is the DLC good? Or can I live without it until it goes on sale? 150 SEK is a little much I think (Paradox has always known how to charge good money for DLCs. The only company better is EA (The Sims...).
Also... If I need to take over a country to say found an Empire... Does make them tribunary help at all? Or am I stuck having to gnaw away on Norway one county at a time for three generations? I need a ton more land to get up to 80% even though I control everything but Norway.

[Aotrs Commander]

So the patch broke Windows again.
Had to uninstall and reinstall the C runtimes for Windows 10 for the game to start after patching.

Two questions:
Is the DLC good? Or can I live without it until it goes on sale? 150 SEK is a little much I think

Must be something with your computer, I've not seen anyone of the Paradox forums have that trouble (and I've been watching the bug reports and such in the hopes of an early fix for the sans-conclave education fix (since thet afore-posted workaround apparently does not always work).

As to the DLC, I've not played much myself yet (when today's round of work is done I will have to make the decision as to play on and do a lot of reloading or faffing with the save files or console with regard to children, roll back to the previous patch or play something else), but the general impression from the community is very positive; currently it's on 98% on Steam.

So it's up to you, really; as per usual, a lot of the useful stuff comes with the free patch (the speed optimisation in particular has been very well recieved, as are the ability to step back from shattered retreats or defensive pacts). (The former I don't mind so much, since EUIV uses the same, but I did a quick tweak with my save file to disable the pacts.)

That said, if you don't use Conclave, I'd be tempted to, whether you buy it or not, roll back to the 2.5 patch for a few days until they fix the education bug at least.

(Paradox has always known how to charge good money for DLCs. The only company better is EA (The Sims...).

To be fair to Paradox, the paid DLC also does support the free patches, which is why Crusader Kings 2 is still getting such four years on (and they reckon there's 2-3 left to go before they call a final day); which is something EA has never attempted. (And EA is nowhere near as good as actually listening to their customers.) Paradox Grand Strat games are good hours-for-pennies ratio expendatures. One playthrough of EUIV (bought in the sale when the most recent expansion came out) clocked more hours (200) than any other game in steam in my case. Compare to say, Grey Goo, which I paid the same £35 for and got about 18 hours out of (fun, but short). So, having spent about £35-40 on CK2 when I bought it recently in the last sale, I didn't bauk at spending another £25 on more expansions (basically everything except Conclave, which I didn't think I'd ever use) this time around. I actually even bought a few of the music DLCs this time, as honestly, after 170 hours or so, I was prepared to fork out four quid for some variety (considering I can and will play to the end, and it's only 1040-ish).

Actually, the very fact I bought EUIV, CK2 and Stellaris this year (the first two when one sale, the third just before it came out because I was impressed enough to EUIV) says their business model is fairly smart; as they put a big sale on, if not everything, most of the game and DLCs when they put an expansion out, they will get a few new customers like me who might buy the main game even if they don't buy the new expansions.

[tyckspoon]

Packed up a bunch of guys on boats, dropped them on top of Rome, and assaulted a couple of holdings for a quick 50% warscore. Still got them home in time to meet up with my home levies and beat down the 10k strong Holy Order stack that had to march the long way through Italy. After that, it was just the usual cleanup - chasing down smaller stacks, sometimes bouncing the big one again whenever they got back together. In retrospect, it might have been a faster war if I'd just left my guys over on Rome and fully occupied the Pope, since he's still only got the one county so far.. didn't want to take the time sieging normally and didn't fancy the amount of losses I'd take assaulting down the one castle that still had its full levy in residence (WTH, Pope? Declare a Crusade and only send half your own actual troops along?)

[Avilan the Grey]

Thanks for the info. Seems I should wait for the bug fixes to come out. I might as well finish my Conclave game first.
Btw I don't see the problem with scattered retreats. And the big problem with defensive pacts, as far as I can tell, is that it's non-historical?

As for the computer problem: It's a Paradox problem, but it's not specific to this patch; if you google the problem it has happened seemingly randomly to random people since Patch 1 way back then. This time it just happened to be my turn.

Oh and I agree. Paradox is good with patches. They are not like Bioware who just stops supporting a game despite known bugs (Ashley Marksman Bug in ME3, which was introduced with the last patch and never fixed despite they were well knowing about it). Paradox patches things until they work. Period.

[Grim Portent]

Most people's problem with defensive pacts is that it doesn't generally make sense that the Pope would work with the Sunni Caliph and the pagan Khans to prevent the expansion of a large Christian nation whose ruler is good friends with the Pope into the Norse pagans of Denmark.

It would make more sense to me if members of your own faith would never help other nations outside your faith against you, but would protect other brothers of the faith from your attempt to absorb them into your lands.

[tyckspoon]

Thanks for the info. Seems I should wait for the bug fixes to come out. I might as well finish my Conclave game first.
Btw I don't see the problem with scattered retreats. And the big problem with defensive pacts, as far as I can tell, is that it's non-historical?

I'm kind of ambivalent about Shattered Retreat; on the one hand, I kind of like how it preserves your own units, although losing control of them during the retreat is obnoxious if, for example, I'd rather disband a unit rather than pay their upkeep for a month while they dash back to wherever they think their rallying point is. It also makes beating up revolts a lot easier, since (as best as I can tell) they *don't have* a 'home' territory to run back to. So you beat the stack once and they get destroyed completely, instead of the annoying whack-a-mole thing where you had to keep chasing them into the next province and killing a few more until you eventually fully wiped the stack or captured the leader.

On the downside, Shattered Retreat makes it a lot harder to fight actual landed enemies. Without them, a beaten army is easy game to follow up on and hammer down until they're no longer a threat (this also grants you a lot more opportunities to capture their generals for bonus warscore/ransom opportunities/removing a powerful leader from play to make future fights easier.) With them, 70-80% (depending on your Pursuit-phase power) of that stack is going to run away from you at an uncatchable speed and be back at full morale when they make their way back to the combat area. It forces you to continue fighting and bleeding against an enemy you've already beaten once, makes it harder to develop warscore from destroying troops, and drags out wars, giving more time for allied troops/mercenaries/whatever to turn a war against you that you probably would win if you could do it quickly.

[Avilan the Grey]

Hmm... Haven't really been bothered by those issues. I found that the easiest way to deal with enemies running away is to start to siege something important, and that army will come looking for you when it's moral has recovered.