Crusader Kings II Thread V: Umayyad Bro?

[Eldan]

So, I was playing southern Italian duke in the viking start, made my way up to King of Sicily by abusing the collapse of Byzantium into several smaller principalities and their endless revolts. I spent about 150 years never looking much beyond my borders and perhaps I should have. Scandinavia, Northern France and England are solidly reformed Germanic, Byzantium is a rump state in Greece while Anatolia is Arabian, Constantiople itself is Khazar and the Balkans are now the Despotate of Epirus and whta's left of Europe is a mess of one and two province states that follow some heresy or another. There are simply no major Christian states left except Sicily.

Luckily, my newest king is a 25 year old fanatical zealot crusader, so it's time to do some cleaning up.

[tyckspoon]

Luckily, my newest king is a 25 year old fanatical zealot crusader, so it's time to do some cleaning up.

Deus Vult! Sounds like you can probably shoot for at least Empire Italia from there without much difficulty, maybe set up some client crusader states too.

[BannedInSchool]

Hmm, is there a known bug where if an army has its movement locked, gets attacked, and then you tell it to retreat that it disappears into the ether? Because that seems like something that happened to me.

[Rockphed]

Hmm, is there a known bug where if an army has its movement locked, gets attacked, and then you tell it to retreat that it disappears into the ether? Because that seems like something that happened to me.

I think there is a known bug where armies that retreat after they have broken the enemy retreat, but I haven't heard of that one. If you can reproduce it, make a bug report over at paradox. Actually, make a bug report as soon as you make sure that the army actually evaporated.

[Eldan]

Deus Vult! Sounds like you can probably shoot for at least Empire Italia from there without much difficulty, maybe set up some client crusader states too.

It went pretty well. He just died, and at his death, France consisted of roughly five equally sized parts: Crusader Normandy, Sicilian Provence, Scottish-Germanic Aquitaine (didn't get there yet, damn vikings) and the Theocracies of the Teutonic and Templar Knights.

[BannedInSchool]

I think there is a known bug where armies that retreat after they have broken the enemy retreat, but I haven't heard of that one. If you can reproduce it, make a bug report over at paradox. Actually, make a bug report as soon as you make sure that the army actually evaporated.

Yeah, it was in Ironman so hard to check and it's gone now anyway. And hard to reproduce on purpose, getting attacked when your movement is locked, but it is the second time I recall thinking this happened. Now that you mention it, the enemy army may have been retreating, which is why I clicked on the county again to have my army stay put, so it might be the same bug more or less in trying to automatically give movement orders to an army that's forbidden from changing movement orders.

[SZbNAhL]

Today I got this event for the first time:

Spoiler: Screenshot

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Paid that guy 2000 gold for some Empress-tier crown jewels. And he runs off. I didn't even know that that was a thing that could happen!

And to top it all off some former prince bishop I conquered just became Pope and excommunicated me (he still has a -87 opinion) right when I was finally poor enough to claim a Papal loan. Time to explore the antipope mechanics, I guess.

[tonberrian]

Image is broken.

[SZbNAhL]

Image is broken.

That's odd. Screenshot links from Steam normally work here. Can you see this one?

Spoiler: Alternative upload

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[tonberrian]

Both are working now, weird.

[Corvus]

April 2 is when we are getting the free "Great Works" update.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Can't believe it's free, that's super exciting. I really love this cathedral-building addition!

[BannedInSchool]

Huh, guess I've never played as a vassal before because I keep being surprised and frustrated and shooting myself in the foot here. (Death to tyrants (when they're not me))!

[V'icternus]

Sometimes it's nice to play as a vassal.

It's suddenly not your responsibility to make sure the whole empire doesn't fall, and you can have rivals within your lands that are still kind of on your side.

You and the Duke of Anjou may hate each other, but when the English invade, you fight side by side. That sort of thing.

And, when you get bored of playing a vassal... well, there are ways of solving that little problem.

[SZbNAhL]

My current game started as an attempt to play as a vassal. I ruler-designered over some two-county Count in the Duchy of Aquitaine at the Charlemagne start, thinking the big guy would be enough to protect against outside threats. He was repeatedly defeated by Middle Francia in a series of claim wars, then died fighting a pointless battle against some Scottish vikings. Without a competent ruler (read: me) leading a Catholic power, the faith collapsed, with Moors seizing southern France and Germanics taking over the whole of the British Isles save a few heretics in Wales. By the time I decided enough was enough and broke away from the corpse of France, the only other Catholic nation was Lombardy (with an antipope). Until the Crusades triggered and I got Holy Orders, I legitimately thought I was going to lose for the first time*. Even now, It's just me, Lombardy and my third cousin's crusader kingdom of Germany.

*Discounting games where I intentionally give myself ridiculously hard starts, like Jewish Ireland or the Santa Clause incident.

[Leecros]

Sometimes it's nice to play as a vassal.

one of my favorite playthroughs for the game was me playing as a Shadow King and being the power behind the Abbasid Caliphate. I was a vassal to the Emperor, but he couldn't do anything without my approval because I easily had control or influence over three-quarters of his empire.

Why didn't I claim the Emperorship? Mostly because I didn't want to have to deal with The Byzantines while I waged my own personal wars in Africa.

[Keltest]

So it turns our, Scotland is really far away from the Holy Land, so whenever a crusade is called there, it takes me a freaking long time to show up.

Also, I seem to be having a situation where I cant assign commanders to an army, even though I am king, have several otherwise unoccupied commanders, and am not actively fighting any battles with it. Is this a known bug, or is there just some invisible score im lacking in?

[russdm]

Wondering if anyone has played with the "Great Works" and what they think of it?

[Keltest]

Wondering if anyone has played with the "Great Works" and what they think of it?

I have. I'm making a university in Gowrie right now, and its taken four generations to get it halfway done, and that's with periodic crusades basically funding it without me working for the cash. I quite enjoy it, it gives me something to watch and plan for when im waiting for England to go into a civil war or something.

[tonberrian]

Honestly I'm inclined to believe the bonuses aren't worth the effort you put in to get them, compared to artifacts. Which is probably more saying that Artifacts are too easy to get.

I haven't tried it yet, but can you stack the bonuses granted by the university? Could you literally turn gold into stats?

[SZbNAhL]

Wondering if anyone has played with the "Great Works" and what they think of it?

I haven't finished any yet, but they're certainly keeping me invested in a run I'd otherwise have retired from by now (the one where I saved Christianity, if anyone's keeping track). I had a big empire and loads of money I wasn't using for anything, and now I have new things to spend it on and possibly new events to explore.

[Keltest]

Honestly I'm inclined to believe the bonuses aren't worth the effort you put in to get them, compared to artifacts. Which is probably more saying that Artifacts are too easy to get.

I haven't tried it yet, but can you stack the bonuses granted by the university? Could you literally turn gold into stats?

Yes, sort of? Assuming I understand how you mean that, it costs about 900 gold +upkeep while building to upgrade a work to the next tier, at least on my university. Each tier comes with 2-3 "slots" which can each be upgraded to give you a bonus for like 400 gold (plus more upkeep while building). Mine is giving me diplomacy, intrigue, learning, and a couple other bonuses like faster army travel. One of the options I could have picked had a chance to remove stressed. One of them added an extra non-landed title I could pass around. Cool stuff like that.

[tonberrian]

Yes, sort of? Assuming I understand how you mean that, it costs about 900 gold +upkeep while building to upgrade a work to the next tier, at least on my university. Each tier comes with 2-3 "slots" which can each be upgraded to give you a bonus for like 400 gold (plus more upkeep while building). Mine is giving me diplomacy, intrigue, learning, and a couple other bonuses like faster army travel. One of the options I could have picked had a chance to remove stressed. One of them added an extra non-landed title I could pass around. Cool stuff like that.

No, I know that, I was wondering if you could stack those between multiple universities. Stacking two of the + diplomacy.

[Keltest]

No, I know that, I was wondering if you could stack those between multiple universities. Stacking two of the + diplomacy.

Oh. I don't know. Probably? Would kind of defeat the point of having more than one Great Work if they couldn't stack.

[tonberrian]

Huzzah! Completed the Immortality chain for the first time.

[Flickerdart]

Iron Century patch (3.2) is out! So far I get a crash to desktop a few days in whenever I try pretty much anything, though.

[SZbNAhL]

Ah, they've overhauled the tech categories. I think I like them better this way - merging city and church infrastructure makes it almost worth spending points on and the new combat techs keep me from just pouring everything into heavy infantry. I'll probably try the new start date when my current game ends.

Speaking of my current game, we've gone from Catholicism in collapse with my Aquitaine as the only Catholic realm to both the Umayaads and the carpathians converting, so that I now have nobody to holy war against. Also Bavaria inherited Lombardy and after a few assassinations my heir is also the heir to both, so HRE here I come.

[Caelestion]

Tech categories have changed? I hadn't noticed.

[Keltest]

Tech categories have changed? I hadn't noticed.

You still have the same number, but they do different things now. Instead of light infantry, heavy infantry, cavalry etc... you now have infantry, which includes all foot units including archers, cavalry, skirmish techniques which includes light cavalry, archer and cav archer damage and gives you better tactics, Melee techniques, which is the same for all melee units (light/heavy infantry, pikes, heavy cav, etc..)

[Caelestion]

Ah, yes. That's better. Thanks.