Crusader Kings

[Peregrine]

You can but only if you revoke it from the person you gave it to first - hard to do unless they are a traitor.

[Peregrine]

Personally I mostly try to keep a pretty small demesne, if my vassals are reasonably loyal. Raising troops from their counties doesn't seem as hard as it was in CK1, and if you have a lot of demesne, even a lot of titles, they will complain about it.

[whomario]

yeah, but who do i give it to ? Are there negatives/positives to having a) many guys have 1 county/duchy (any difference if i give away one or the other ?) or having b) few guys have multiple ?

[sabotai]

The more duchies and counties one vassal has, the more powerful he is. And loyalty can shift quickly. I'd rather have a lot of vassals with 1 county each, but don't like me much, than have one loyal vassal with 2 or 3 duchies. He might hate my heir, a situation might come up where events fire that make me turn on him, he might like me fine, but like someone else more and try to get them on the throne, etc.

If I really want a title to stay in my family, I'd hold onto it.

The main negative to having a lot of vassals is that it's hard to keep all of them happy and having a lot of vassals means you're going to have some pretty weak characters with land.

[Warhammer]

I felt the need to share this. I was playing as Count of Passau in the early 1066 scenario. I wed one of the princesses of the HRE early. That and my RP of a pious loyal count paid dividends with high piety and prestige. That allowed me to get some of my nobles into the House of Saxony, and eventually Duke thereof. The problem was it was the junior family branch.

So my plan changed from being the bulwark of Christendom against the eastern invaders to uniting the two family branches. But, Bavaria was being difficult, and decided to kill one of my Counts, which led to a long (10 year) regency. As that came to an end, I started laying the ground work to take Bavaria instead. But, my awesome Count died on his first great-hunt which was in honor of the birth of his son. Which meant another long regency. But this Count stayed up! He engineered successions in Niederbayern and Innsbruck that led to the Rapoteten dynasty being installed in each area.

Then, in a brilliant culmination, the two recently sundered branches of the family were united, one ascended the Bavarian throne was its Duke, while his wife, the heir to Passau and Niederbayern was at his side. The next day, the Duke was assassinated by his Father-in-Law, which gave the throne to his wife, the head of the recently sundered branch. ARGH!

[whomario]

@ sabotai and Peregrine : Thanks !

What about creating titles ? Are there any disadvantages about creaqting Duchies ? (i am given the possibility to create 3 in sweden)

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by whomario

@ sabotai and Peregrine : Thanks !

What about creating titles ? Are there any disadvantages about creaqting Duchies ? (i am given the possibility to create 3 in sweden)

They cost money, and will add to the size of you demesne, are the obvious cons. They will sometimes allow you to regain claims on provinces, over your neighbors or even your own vassals.....so, for example you might have control over 2/3 of the provinces in a Duchy, but no control/claim on the third. By creating the Duchy title, you now have claims on all the provinces within that Duchy.

[BYU 14]

God this game sounds so deep and immersive. I am really being swayed by this thread, but what seems like it has a very steep learning curve.

How helpful is the tutorial in giving you a good grasp of the game?

[MrBug708]

Actually the curve isnt that bad and if you lose, so be it, try a different county

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Actually the curve isnt that bad and if you lose, so be it, try a different county

OK, you're the straw, downloading the demo, which means I will have purchased it by tomorrow

[MrBug708]

I usually lose because my kingdoms get to big because I was greedy too fast...lol

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Can anyone give some feedback on system requirements? Is this one pretty tough on cards or is it no worse than EU3?

[whomario]

I second that it isn´t that tough to get going. Sure it´s not super easy and there´ll likely be little things and strategies you´ll only discover after dozens of hours of gameplay, but with the fact that there really isn´t any one goal for the player there isn´t a whole lot of frustration at the start either.

I would highly recommend Sweden as a starting point, maybe in 1100 rather than at the start even (smaller family, more ability to put your own print into it).
On their forum many people also recommend Scottland or any of the areas in Ireland (Munster especially i hear)

Paradox also had a little live-play video after release : http://de.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/b/308767819 (starts about 5 minutes into the video)

simply a dev explaining things for an hour and answering questions, really helped me a lot.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Can anyone give some feedback on system requirements? Is this one pretty tough on cards or is it no worse than EU3?

I went to can you run it, because my computer is old, and it says it fails to meet requirements. But it runs fine and loads fairly quickly either way...haha. It does lag after about 100 years of gameplay though, but doesnt really run gameplay in the slighest

[MrBug708]

Another thing to remember is that you don't really ever "win" the game.

[Peregrine]

I recommend Denmark as a fun nation to play - there is a very large dynasty so it's a bit hard keeping track who is who's nephew or cousin, but it always tells you how that person is related to you when you mouse over them, and you can use the dynasty tree. Once the dynasty gets big, remember that you can right-click and hold to move it around to see the part you need. It's not a very big place so it's not too hard.

[Groundhog]

This game is far, far easier to get into than EUIII IMO. I'd recommend starting with a fairly large country first play through just to get the hang of how everything works.

[Bad-example]

Originally Posted by Ajaxab

This is me with Paradox games. They look really appealing and I like the idea of what they seem to be trying to do. But once I install the game and begin playing, I get lost trying to figure out what I should/could be doing. At least for me, they don't seem to be particularly noob friendly. I want to like their games, but struggle every time I begin to fire one up. I neither want nor expect Paradox games to be easier in terms of their challenge or difficulty, but they could be easier in terms of figuring out what one is supposed to do.

This pretty much sums up my experience with CK1. The dynasty threads convinced me to buy but I just lost patience trying to figure things out. I'm really interested to read comments from those new to CK. Or, in other words...

how the learning curve?

[Neon_Chaos]

Played as count William de Normandie of Eu in 1066. Was able to have a plot come to fruition where we made the king change the laws of succession in England to Agnatic Seniority.

I saved the game, left it and played as an isolated count in Ireland. If you thought that England kept exploding in wars whenever there was a regime change.... the new succession laws just completely obliterated the country.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Bad-example

This pretty much sums up my experience with CK1. The dynasty threads convinced me to buy but I just lost patience trying to figure things out. I'm really interested to read comments from those new to CK. Or, in other words...

how the learning curve?

I never played CK nor any other game made by Paradox. I really like it. I haven't had a chance to play it for a few days, but I really do like it.

I do think the learning curve is kind of steep, but I've been reading their forums and asking questions here.

The tutorials help in some regard, although some of them you are really short and you're like WTF? You could have combined this with something else.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

I never played CK nor any other game made by Paradox. I really like it. I haven't had a chance to play it for a few days, but I really do like it.

I do think the learning curve is kind of steep, but I've been reading their forums and asking questions here.

The tutorials help in some regard, although some of them you are really short and you're like WTF? You could have combined this with something else.

Ditto to all this. I've always had the same trouble getting into Paradox games, but something with this one was enough to get over that hump...though I don't know exactly what it was. The tutorial is probably better than it seems, since as Spleen noted, it doesn't seem like much when you're going through it, but it does cover all the bases, rather than just throwing you immediately in the deep end, with no instruction in the slightest, and hoping you'll start to swim....which is how most Paradox games felt in the past.

Try the demo. It should give you a pretty good feel for things.

[Izulde]

Can I just say that I hate the HRE blob?

[MrBug708]

Im using Aragon and have done a pretty good job on the peninsula. I had about a 1/4 of it, the other kingdoms had about a 1/2 of it, with the Muslims controlling the rest. Unfortunately, they decided to fight each other, while they were pretty much systematically crushed by the Muslims and I was only able to grab the last piece of the Kingdom of Castile to at least salvage it. For a while, the Muslims were fighting each other but just managed to unite under one Emir, at least for the time. I've done a good job allying myself with France, except that everytime I do, the King of France dies and I lose the alliance. Denmark also owns a few plots down on the peninsula in what used to be Navarra but they won't talk to me. England isn't going to be much of any help with an ongoing Civil War on their Isle. And the other big ones are fighting each other. The King of Africa (The Hapsburg's managed to unite the area around Tunisia) is working with the King of Latin to try and take over the Kingdom of Sicily, who has the HRE backing them up. I have pretty big armies right now, but everytime there is a Civil War among Muslims, I try and intervene, but before I can capture anything and get them to surrender, they've surrendered and my war ends.

I'm not much of a crusader, especially with needing my troops "just in case", but maybe I need to capture Acre and end the current crusade, so I can get one to capture Portugal.

Ahhhh

[whomario]

i am getting minus points for not crusading, how do i crusade ? Why not give a hot link right on the religion and/or pope screen ?

Had my first succession in Sweden and now am going strong with my 2nd Ruler. Is it just me or is the "elective" system of succession not actually that bad ? So far it seems pretty much agreed upon that the oldest son is the unanimous choice (was the same way in holland as well).

What does "elector titles held" mean btw (opinions screen, gives minus 30 !)

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

I went to can you run it, because my computer is old, and it says it fails to meet requirements. But it runs fine and loads fairly quickly either way...haha. It does lag after about 100 years of gameplay though, but doesnt really run gameplay in the slighest

Said the same thing for my, saying the video card was not adequate, even though mine meets the individual specs. The Demo is fine for about the first 10 minutes, then starts to lag badly, so I am thinking my card is not abel to keep up. Unfortunately 256 is the highest I can upgrade the video card on this rig which is 8 years old now.

I can see this problem coming up a lot in the future, so it might be time to upgrade to a new CPU.

I did like the feel of the game, just not going to buy it now with as slow as it will run on this system.

[whomario]

OK, the 2nd ruler change is not going so smooth, 2 guys rebell and have allies within my kingdom (sth i did not take care of myself, shame on me)

Good thing i have money saved up, go team mercenaries !

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Can I just say that I hate the HRE blob?

I so, so hate it - I really want to see some mods that let me change it somehow - I don't care if its ahistorical, I'd rather have several countries instead of one huge blob, would add a lot to the intriguing. In my Denmark game it's already taken over all of Italy except for two provinces, part of france, and has a toehold in Spain now. The only check on its expansion is the Byzantines, another mega-blob.

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by whomario

i am getting minus points for not crusading, how do i crusade ? Why not give a hot link right on the religion and/or pope screen ?

Had my first succession in Sweden and now am going strong with my 2nd Ruler. Is it just me or is the "elective" system of succession not actually that bad ? So far it seems pretty much agreed upon that the oldest son is the unanimous choice (was the same way in holland as well).

What does "elector titles held" mean btw (opinions screen, gives minus 30 !)

For me in Denmark, I like the elective system but it's not always the eldest son - for me it tends to be a powerful landowner (Duke) or some other person related - since everyone is related in Denmark, the daughter of the previous queen just got elected even though she holds no office and was not tied in any way to the king that just died.

[lighthousekeeper]

im having a real difficult time getting into the game. i feel like stuff happens around me and im not even aware of it. for example, playing as an independent duke, i decide to join a kingdom. the kingdom then drafts my guys to join his army - that's fine. but i really have no way of knowing how many of my drafted troops are getting killed in each battle. or even the makeup of the army in which im fighting (i only see the overall number but not the breakdown of the 'coalition'). then the two fighting kingdoms i guess have a truce or white peace and have some sort of negotiations, but damned if i know what the resulting terms are. a few weeks later i notice i have a new county under my control - was this due to trruce terms or some other thing? i wasn't notified either way. then i realize somehow i became the heir to the kingdom of norway - no clue how that happened all of a sudden. but then a week later someone in norway changes the succession rules and now i'm not the heir anymore, and two other guys start warring (i guess) over the succession. should i get pissed and fight too? was there something i could have done to prevent the change in laws? do i even want to be the heir of norway? what are my odds of success if I try to join the fight? how do i get more money?

the tutorials and manual both suck in my opinion.

[MrBug708]

I tend to stay away from the hre. I picked Aragon because of the Muslims around to fight. I like Ireland because they are all independent

[thesloppy]

LHK, although it will let you do so, it doesn't seem that the game is particularly built for being someone else's vassal. I would stick to being a ruler (at least for your first play-throughs), where the motivations and machinations of the game are at least a bit more obvious, before you determine whether the game is for you or not. If you're just learning to play, doing so as someone else's vassal is kind of hamstringing yourself and the game....which is certainly not to say that you're not playing it "right", or anything. From the issues others have described, I'm not sure that playing as someone else's vassal works quite right...at best it seems like you should be well versed in the intricacies of the game before you do so.

[Izulde]

I took Desmond for a spin. And I have to say, making an Antipope is AWESOME. I went from making a little over one gold a month to making around 8 a month as Duke of Munster. I can't wait to fight the Duke of Meath/Leinster for Ireland backed my cash-hungry mercaneries (if I can ever get the claims)

[kmbgolf]

my heir died at 16 how do i find out how it happened

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by kmbgolf

my heir died at 16 how do i find out how it happened

Well all of my rulers have died of old age except for my previous ruler, and when he died at 34, I got a message saying that the circumstances were suspicious... Depending on the skill of your spymaster (and whether your spymaster likes you) you may find out about the plot beforehand, but otherwise you will never know.

A 16 year old to die with no reason though seems odd, as if it was natural I'd expect the 'ill' or 'sick' trait first.

[Groundhog]

...oh, sorry, I see it was 'heir' and not ruler. Even when vassals have died, if it was suspicious I believe it mentions that on the death notice.

[MrBug708]

Ya...the deaths are a little lacking. When going to war, its kind of easy to figure out what went wrong

[MrBug708]

Also, the illness doesn't just kill the people...dying early isn't really uncommon during these time periods

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

I so, so hate it - I really want to see some mods that let me change it somehow - I don't care if its ahistorical, I'd rather have several countries instead of one huge blob, would add a lot to the intriguing. In my Denmark game it's already taken over all of Italy except for two provinces, part of france, and has a toehold in Spain now. The only check on its expansion is the Byzantines, another mega-blob.

The problem is that the AI is relentless in its push towards an autocratic style of government. I have had a couple of games where the HRE never got big because the big vassals, Lorraine, Bavaria, Baden, and Bohemia kept going to war to declare independence. That pushed the relations low and eventually the HRE broke up quite a bit.

The other side of the coin, most of my games has seen the HRE have its resolutions to increase crown authority rubber stamped and that led to very few wars and no good way for me as a count to get out from under the thumb of my liege.

[whomario]

pretty neat guide for the game : [GUIDE] In-depth Guide to CKII

no idea if everything checks out, but definitely a good and extensive read/explanation on key topics

[SirFozzie]

There's a fun Let's Play/AAR on RPG.net about how when things go bad... they can go REALLY bad:

[Let's Play!] Crusader Kings 2

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

There's a fun Let's Play/AAR on RPG.net about how when things go bad... they can go REALLY bad:

[Let's Play!] Crusader Kings 2

That's a good read...One thing after another

[Neon_Chaos]

I am currently having an awesome game, not just because of what I'm doing but because of everything else going around me.

Started off as Waltheof of Northumbria, Count of Northhampton.Managed to get the Duchy of Oxford from William the Conqueror, and concentrated on simply developing my lands and extending my dynasty, changing my laws to Primogenture.

We endured six Norman Kings of England, until a stroke of luck would see four consecutive Queens. By the fourth Queen's reign, Norman power had all but been drained by the constant rebellions, and we managed to initiate and fulfill a plot where we changed the English inheritance laws to Elective!

It is now almost 300 years in, the English Crown is stable, to say the least, because of the inheritance laws. The three main families who have consolidated power in England are De Brionne, De Normandie and Of Northumbria.

To top it all off, I was fortunate enough to have married the Duchess of Orleans, Berry, and Bourbon. We have 3 sons. When my duke dies and my duchess wife dies, my eldest son will own nearly half of France's holdings, his primary title still being Duke of Oxford creating a giant blob of red in the middle of the blue nation.

[Neon_Chaos]

And... this is the one mod that I am waiting for...

[MOD]A Game of Thrones

[Fonzie]

Oh god yes. Yes yes yes.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

And... this is the one mod that I am waiting for...

[MOD]A Game of Thrones

Me too!! I check the forums obsessively hoping for an alpha release. Hell - even with its flaws the Westeros mod for CK1 still got a ton of playing time from me.

[Groundhog]

Wow. Awesome!

[Radii]

Just started my first game as the King of Sweden so I'm still figuring pretty much everything out and screwing around with different options to see what happens... I tried to change Feudal Taxation from None to Small and see lots of opposition, looks like 9/22 in support of me now. How much support do I need for the change to occur and are there things I can do to sway people to support me? I don't see any direct options in diplomacy but is this the type of thing where I can "send a gift" and maybe buy a vote, etc?

[MrBug708]

50% is needed, should be able to get it eventually

Ya, gifts help it

[Neon_Chaos]

To quote Borat: "Wa wa wee wa!"

Paradox Interactive Forums

[MrBug708]

First post release DLC content released

Crusader Kings II Ruler Designer DLC Announced! - Paradox Interactive