Crusader Kings II Thread V: Umayyad Bro?

[Rockphed]

How'd you get that many bloodlines? Just marrying strategically?

Start with 1 as an Ua Nial. Married one kid to a Karling, one kid to a Ragnarkid, and then married two of the grand children to Hungarian Royalty (who have 2 to start). And I might just get my current character cannonized (no sins, but a couple of red maluses, lots of virtues, high piety). She has a PCS of 117.

[tonberrian]

I wish the game allowed you to steal artifacts. I don't like searching for people who have what I want, inviting them, then murdering them and their entire family for a chance at getting the gold.

I mean. I'll still do it. But I won't like it.

[Artanis]

I wish the game allowed you to steal artifacts. I don't like searching for people who have what I want, inviting them, then murdering them and their entire family for a chance at getting the gold.

I mean. I'll still do it. But I won't like it.

I think there's a chance to steal artifacts from rulers whose holdings you pillage while raiding.

[Rockphed]

I think there's a chance to steal artifacts from rulers whose holdings you pillage while raiding.

Does anybody know how many holdings I would need to pillage to get ravager and sea queen? Also, can I get the sea king/queen bloodline if I have the Ragnar bloodline?

[tonberrian]

Does anybody know how many holdings I would need to pillage to get ravager and sea queen? Also, can I get the sea king/queen bloodline if I have the Ragnar bloodline?

It's like 25 or 50. And I'm pretty sure I've done that.

[Keltest]

It's like 25 or 50. And I'm pretty sure I've done that.

I believe its 50. Ive done it once or twice, but it can be a bit hard to do if you aren't Scandinavian simply because it requires you to be tribal longer than I think you really want to be.

OTOH if youre Scandinavian then sacking rome umpteen billion times to fund your empire makes getting it trivial. Especially if you take a county down near Italy for easy drop-offs.

[Rockphed]

I believe its 50. Ive done it once or twice, but it can be a bit hard to do if you aren't Scandinavian simply because it requires you to be tribal longer than I think you really want to be.

OTOH if youre Scandinavian then sacking rome umpteen billion times to fund your empire makes getting it trivial. Especially if you take a county down near Italy for easy drop-offs.

I am the Queen of Eire and am currently figuring out how to smash the Anglo-saxons to bits. I'm not quite sure how long ago the Norse warrior lodge went on a legendary journey, but I think I would need to get immortal to be able to go on the next one, more's the pity.

[IthilanorStPete]

Start with 1 as an Ua Nial. Married one kid to a Karling, one kid to a Ragnarkid, and then married two of the grand children to Hungarian Royalty (who have 2 to start). And I might just get my current character cannonized (no sins, but a couple of red maluses, lots of virtues, high piety). She has a PCS of 117.

Nice PCS. I feel more satisfied about my triple-bloodline character; only three compared to your four/five, but I earned all of them without marrying into any pre-existing ones.

[snowblizz]

BTW what DLCs are Bloodlines from?

Once again something I see in the UI but have never seen in game so must be from some bit of the game I not got.

[Maryring]

Holy Fury.

[Wardog]

I started a new game recently, after a long hiatus, with a particular goal/playstyle in mind: being the Pope's champion warlord.

Viking Age start, playing as the Count of Capua. (Custom character, moderately optimised: Brilliant Strategist, Quick, Wounded, Kinslayer. That last one turned out to be more significant than I anticipated).

The reign of Count Andrew:

Spoiler

Show

My first act was to make myself a vassel of the Pope. My second was to declare a holy war for Salerno (taking advantage of the ongoing holywar for Apulia), which got me Taranto (but not Salerno itself, because that was already under Christian control). I then plotted, schemed, and fabricated claims to pick up various counties in southern Italy and expand me, er, I mean the Pope's domain. (Unfortunately, the Kingdom of Italy managed to grab a big chunk of SE Italy before I could, and the Burhanaddins holy warred Calabria and I wasn't powerful enough to take them on yet). But still, I was doing pretty well, and managed to get all the Duchy of Salerno, plus several other counties. I also married an Irish princess and had seven children. (Primus, Secundus, Tertia, Alarico, Quartus, Sexta, and Septimus. You can tell which one was born when I wasn't paying attention to the popups). The pope at one point started plotting to kill my firstborn, but I managed to persuade him to stop.

All I needed was some cash to create the duchy.

So I borrowed money from the Jews.

That was when the Pope flipped out.

It seems that he was just about willing to tolerate a kinslayer as a vassel. But a kinslayer who was also in debt to the Jews? Unacceptable!

So first, he started plotting to kill me, and I couldn't persuade him to stop, even when I got his opinion of me about 50%. Then he offered be a job as a commander, which I accepted (while wondering if this was part of a scheme to make it easier to kill me off). Then he excommunicated me (and demanded >250 gold as repentance for my sins before he recommunicated me, which was about twice what I had at the time). Then he made me his martial. Because obviously just because I am an excommunicated kinslayer that knows he is trying to have murdered doesn't mean I can't command his armies

Then he died, and the next pope was a bit more reasonable, only wanting 150g to recommunicate me.

Eventually I died (at 49, of natural causes), and Septimus inherited everything (I had switched to ultimogeniture) as a minor.

Here ends the reign of Count Duke Andrea* "the Black".

* because I converted from Lombard to Italian.

The reign of Duke Septimus "the Tenacious":

Spoiler

Show

Despite being a minor, I successfully retained the loyalty of my vassels, and continued to expand the realm (including at one point invading Ireland to install my mother as queen on Munster).

Now, some time earlier, the Umayyads had captured Provence, so when the year 900 rolled round, the Pope called for a crusade to get it back. I pledged my support, and started beefing up my army in preparation. Although as it happened, by the time the crusade launched, the target had been changed to the Kingdom of Sicily. I threw my armies into the fray, and managed to defeat several enemy armies and capture a few holdings (while also having to put down a "we want gavelkind" revolt lead by my eldest brother, followed by a "make my eldest brother duke" revolt lead by one of my other brothers). I also

The crusade was victorious, my nominated beneficiary (Alarico) was granted the county of Kantantheros, and I got given over 4000 gold (nicely fulfilling my "become wealthy" ambition).

The Kingdom of Sicily was granted to "Anterio the Pilgrim", a grandson of the King of Italy. Who immediately declared a de-jure war for Solerno on the Pope. I hired two mercenary companies, and together the Pope and I were able to defeat the crusader king. Taking advantage of his depleted armies (and my 8000+ mercenaries), I then immediately declared a claim war to install one of my courtiers as the count of Cosenza. I then noticed that this claimand was a muslim, so I then immediately declared a holy war and took it back for myself the honour of the Pope.

Shortly after that, King Ettore "the Sword of the Lord" of Italy declared war on the Pope (getting himelf excommunicated in the process), seized some of the Pope's land and made himelf the king of Romagna. I wasn't strong enough to do anything about it then (so concentrated on trying to grab a few more isolated counties), but after he had had to deal with a major rebellion, I declared an excommunication war on him, which I eventually won, forcing him to abdicate, and causing his kingdom to split in three, because he was still using gavelkind.

As of now (933), Italy has annoyingly recaptued most of Romagna, as well as taking Kabylia in a holy war, which will make my plans to take them on harder. Also, my mother died, and due to lack of thought when distributing holdings, my brother the count of Benevento became king of Munster, taking his county with him.

On the plus side, the Burhanaddins took Sicily in a holy war, and I immediately took it off them, and that combined with a few claim wars and inheritances reduced the King of Sicily to a single county (Kantantheros, which my brother now has a claim on, so as soon as the truce is over, I can take it too). I also managed to take Tripolitania.

short summary: the Pope really shouldn't try to kill his most powerful vassel, because he might need him when the most powerful crusaders turn on him and try to carve up his lands.


PS: question:
The Papal States is a kingdom, and the Papacy is a king-tier titular title, so I would have thought that any "foreign" duchies I controlled would de-jure drift into it, but they don't. Do the Papal States / Papacy have special rules that prevent this, or am I missing some necessay trigger?



Edited for spelling and formatting

[Yaktan]

For those who are more experienced, where exactly do I need to control to make the empire of Outrejordan? The tooltip just says the "near east" which is a little vague...

[tyckspoon]

I
PS: question:
The Papal States is a kingdom, and the Papacy is a king-tier titular title, so I would have thought that any "foreign" duchies I controlled would de-jure drift into it, but they don't. Do the Papal States / Papacy have special rules that prevent this, or am I missing some necessay trigger?

Edited for spelling and formatting

I thiiink it only works if you are the actual King to be drifted into, and the lands have to be under your uncontested control for the entire period? Sounds like there's a fair amount of back-and-forthing on some of those territories which would interfere with drift. It's also just a fairly long process if you haven't set the game rules to make it faster - something like 50 - 75 years of possession, which is often going to be the active lifespans of two or three rulers.

For those who are more experienced, where exactly do I need to control to make the empire of Outrejordan? The tooltip just says the "near east" which is a little vague...

There's a way to check on this in the UI, but I haven't done it in a while and trying to explain Crusader King's UI without direct reference is kind of obnoxious.. IIRC it's in the Realm tab of your character screen, where it lists out the names of the provinces you own. The banners on top of that screen should show the higher-level titles that flag belongs to - IE, if you're looking at a county you can click on 'Duchy of So-and-So' to see the other counties that make up that Duchy, if you're in the Duchy level view you can click on the banner for 'Kingdom of I'm Going To Own This' to see which duchies make up that kingdom, all the way up to Empire.

[SZbNAhL]

For those who are more experienced, where exactly do I need to control to make the empire of Outrejordan? The tooltip just says the "near east" which is a little vague...

Do you mean Oultrejourdain? Because that's a Duchy in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, so de jure the Arabian Empire. Anyway, the counties in it are Madaba, Kerak, Monreal and Negev.

[Yaktan]

No, I mean the empire of the same name. After I got Jerusalem from a crusade, I got a decision available to make this empire (I already have Alba, Latin, and Bulgaria (I think, it is the one just north of the byzantine) but why stop there?)

The decision says I need all of the near east, and it will destroy the Muslim Caliphates. Since making the Latin Empire did not require me to have all of Byzantium, just certain specific parts, I was wondering if there was somewhere specific I need to take to count as having the near east, like Mecca?

Also, does Anatolia count? Egypt? I have most of Anatolia, but the rest will be harder to take, since they all converted to catholic and I already farmed out the kingdom to a relative to avoid the bother of keeping all dozen or so kingdoms I had voting for the same heir. (I am playing without demense limits, and I lost a bunch of counties when I let crimea vote for someone else, which was odd, since that did not happen when Eire, Scotland, or Wales went to a different heir than the empire... but maybe that is because I had the Overarching empire there, but not in Crimea?)

I am still learning the nuances of inheritance effects, etc.

[tyckspoon]

No, I mean the empire of the same name. After I got Jerusalem from a crusade, I got a decision available to make this empire (I already have Alba, Latin, and Bulgaria (I think, it is the one just north of the byzantine) but why stop there?)

The decision says I need all of the near east, and it will destroy the Muslim Caliphates. Since making the Latin Empire did not require me to have all of Byzantium, just certain specific parts, I was wondering if there was somewhere specific I need to take to count as having the near east, like Mecca?

You can usually get additional info on a decision's requirements if you don't already meet them. I don't remember if it's right-clicking for info or just mouseover the decision until it spawns the extra info thing, but it should be there - just have to find the part of the interface that triggers it. Similar to how you make the numerical summary of a character's opinion expand out into the detailed modifiers.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

So there is no empire of Outrejordain, but there is the empire of Outremer, which I presume is what you meant.

The way to tell what "regions" are, is like this. Click on a province. Next to the coat of arms of the highest liege is a little green button that has what look like a mini map of 4 provinces on it. Hovering over this will tell you what regions this province is part of. Clicking it will highlight all of the provinces in one of those regions. Clicking it again will cycle through all the regions that the province is part of.

[Wardog]

I thiiink it only works if you are the actual King to be drifted into, and the lands have to be under your uncontested control for the entire period? Sounds like there's a fair amount of back-and-forthing on some of those territories which would interfere with drift. It's also just a fairly long process if you haven't set the game rules to make it faster - something like 50 - 75 years of possession, which is often going to be the active lifespans of two or three rulers.

It normally takes 100 years, but the process usually starts as soon as a king gets control of a "foreign" duchy. And I don't think me not being the king makes a difference. In a previous game once, playing as the high chief of Ugra I think, I got subjugated by a foreign king, and my duchy started to drift into his kingdom. And then when I conquered some other duchies in my de-jure kingdom, they started to drift into his kingdom too.

So I would assume that if I was a vassel of the Pope, and controlled some duchies in Sicily, or conquered some duchies in Africa and then gave them to the Pope, those would drift into the Papal States too. But they're not drifting at all.

Is it the fact that the Pope also has a titular title (The Papacy) that stops this?

[Yaktan]

So there is no empire of Outrejordain, but there is the empire of Outremer, which I presume is what you meant.

The way to tell what "regions" are, is like this. Click on a province. Next to the coat of arms of the highest liege is a little green button that has what look like a mini map of 4 provinces on it. Hovering over this will tell you what regions this province is part of. Clicking it will highlight all of the provinces in one of those regions. Clicking it again will cycle through all the regions that the province is part of.

Oh, yeah, I got the names confused. In any case, it is now moot, since the decision went away, presumably because I gave the Kingdom of Jerusalem to my relative. And then she started holy warring syria for me. (well, she was doing that already, but it finally worked the 4th time, after I punched them a couple times) I appears you need to be King of Jerusalem to get the decision available.

[tyckspoon]

Oh, yeah, I got the names confused. In any case, it is now moot, since the decision went away, presumably because I gave the Kingdom of Jerusalem to my relative. And then she started holy warring syria for me. (well, she was doing that already, but it finally worked the 4th time, after I punched them a couple times) I appears you need to be King of Jerusalem to get the decision available.

Yeah, it's basically the decision to declare the Empire of the Christian Crusader States, which requires owning the Holy Land to make it stick.

[snowblizz]

So there is no empire of Outrejordain, but there is the empire of Outremer, which I presume is what you meant.

The way to tell what "regions" are, is like this. Click on a province. Next to the coat of arms of the highest liege is a little green button that has what look like a mini map of 4 provinces on it. Hovering over this will tell you what regions this province is part of. Clicking it will highlight all of the provinces in one of those regions. Clicking it again will cycle through all the regions that the province is part of.

I have been actually wondering the same thing since I was given Jerusalem as a kingdom. As a Kingdom of Egypt (now, a 2nd crusade was victorious by the Swedish turned Norwegians) I've also had that option but it refuses to tell me what consist of "near east".

The problem with your suggestion is, is that all provinses currently belong to some empire de jure (existing or not). Outremer would replace some of them, but which? If I check now I get e.g. Arabian Empire on what I hold (I'm crusader king of Egypt and hold a lot of palestine, the arabian peninsula and so on), but various Caliphates on other lands. I can't find any way to find out what "Outremer" actually consists of. Other than I have to hold the Duchy of Jerusalem. And not even the Kingdom oddly enough. Currently my good for nothing nephew sits on the duchy itself (or county, I forget, but he is blocking that condition at least).

Not sure but Kingdoms of Egypt, Jerusalem and Syria sounds like no brainers, but what else? Kingdom of Arabia? Do I need Byzantine lands? Syria (unformed) is de jure is part of a Shia or Sunni caliphate... honestly forget which, one of the branches is currently not doing so good because they stood in my way. Something like 4% authority.

[Maryring]

This should help you figure out what you need to create Outremer.

To make it clear, there are two different links there. The first is the requirements for the decision to be available, the second is how to learn what is part of a particular region.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

No, my suggestion is still right, I know because I went in game and did it myself yesterday. The game tells you exactly what’s in the Near East. No clue if it makes the empire de jure or not but. You can check whether or not you’re able to make the empire or not.

For repetition, click on a province. On the province screen, next to the coat of arms of the top liege, there’s a green button. Clicking that cycles through highlighting all the regions that province may be a part of. Near East is roughly Arabia and the Mediterranean coast from Antioch to Gaza, as this button will show.

[snowblizz]

No, my suggestion is still right, I know because I went in game and did it myself yesterday. The game tells you exactly what’s in the Near East. No clue if it makes the empire de jure or not but. You can check whether or not you’re able to make the empire or not.

For repetition, click on a province. On the province screen, next to the coat of arms of the top liege, there’s a green button. Clicking that cycles through highlighting all the regions that province may be a part of. Near East is roughly Arabia and the Mediterranean coast from Antioch to Gaza, as this button will show.

I'll have to try and checking again, last time I looked I only got Emprie of Arabia and various Caliphates. Or is this "Arabian Empire" actually it?

I don't understand how no wiki seems to list what the "Near East" constitutes, it is as if it wasn't actually determined.


Edit: I find the UI terribly cluttred and unintuitive at times. It took me several tries even after asking here to find how to prozelyse outside ones own territory.

[Artanis]

To help Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll, here's a screenshot pointing to the button he's talking about:




(The screenshot is technically from the After the End mod, but the UI is the same.)

[Wardog]

Edit: I find the UI terribly cluttred and unintuitive at times. It took me several tries even after asking here to find how to prozelyse outside ones own territory.

How do you do that?

[snowblizz]

How do you do that?

It is apparently only doable in pagan or infidel or some such capital regions. I finally found it when selecting the prozelyse action and noticing the *red* regions sometimes "off-screen" and that you can actually send a guy there. Green being own territory you can convert and purple being ones of the "correct" religion. Grey areas you can't interact with.

A good way to kill off unwanted familymembers apparently, becuase it's highly dangerous to the character sent.


I'm going to have to look for that button, it doesn't seem like something I've ever seen actually. I spent some time last night trying to remeber where I left off playing last time and trying to find why I can't find anything.

[Maryring]

Another thing you can do is just click the "find title or region" in the lower right corner and type in Near East, which'll show you the exact outline of the Near East region. It'll show you that it stretches from Sinai in the west, to Al-Jazira in the north, and the whole of middle east in between, all the way to the ocean.

[snowblizz]

Another thing you can do is just click the "find title or region" in the lower right corner and type in Near East, which'll show you the exact outline of the Near East region. It'll show you that it stretches from Sinai in the west, to Al-Jazira in the north, and the whole of middle east in between, all the way to the ocean.

I've just now found the button in question. Never seen it before. If someone said it was introduced with a patch yesterday I'd have no problem believing that.

[Leecros]

It's not a button that's often used and I often forget it exists myself. I'm not surprised.