Crusader Kings

[Neon_Chaos]

Why I don't play Crusader Kings 2 anymore...

I'm waiting for 1.05!

Paradox Interactive Forums - CK II - 1.05 Development Diary - 1 of 3 - March 30th 2012

Paradox Interactive Forums - CK II - 1.05 Development Diary - 2 of 3 - April 6th 2012

Paradox Interactive Forums - CK II - 1.05 Development Diary - 3 of 3 - April 13th 2012

Primarily, Cause Of Death will really help with immersion and roleplaying.

The new Crusades mechanism and the dynamic dejure system also look to be very interesting

[Izulde]

They didn't do much with plots, it looks like. Just added more kill options, which is snore.

That said, I love the changes they've made with the Crusades, and the dynamic de jure is going to add a lot of fun and replayability. Very, very nicely done.

[MrBug708]

I wish even natural deaths had reasons...ie cancer, heart attack et al

[Honolulu_Blue]

I just bought this game over the weekend.

I have never played any "Crusader Kings" game before. My only experience with any of these Paradox type games - Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, etc. - was about 20 minutes trying to play Europa Universalis 3 and being utterly confused.

So, what's the best place to find a good guide to Crusader Kings 2? I would love to learn how to play this game and what everything means, etc.

[MrBug708]

Pick a big country in a stable time, and learn as you go. That's probably the best way IMO

[Fonzie]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I just bought this game over the weekend.

I have never played any "Crusader Kings" game before. My only experience with any of these Paradox type games - Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, etc. - was about 20 minutes trying to play Europa Universalis 3 and being utterly confused.

So, what's the best place to find a good guide to Crusader Kings 2? I would love to learn how to play this game and what everything means, etc.

I found this place to be very helpful: Crusader Kings II Wiki. The Beginner's Guide is particularly good.

[PineTar]

YouTube Crusader Kings 2 getting started. Much more insightful than the in-game tutorials.

[DaddyTorgo]

Had something very cool happen to me last night - slowly starting to get this game I hope.

One frustration before I relate the story - it's a pain trying to raise sufficiently large armies. How can I help that process along?

Anyways - on to the coolness.

So I started a game as the Duke of Apulia (southern Italy, on the Adriatic). I managed to expand down almost to Sicily with my first ruler over the course of his life.

Married off my daughters to some influential Europeans - including one to a King (Hungary/Bohemia, forget which as I'm at work right now). Got some nice alliances through them. Then he died.

His son inherited his Duchy and carried on consolidating power. Then I came into contact with some Muslims down on Sicily. So of course I holy-warred them and took over all of Sicily (minus the one tiny province on the West coast that belonged to a different Muslim family - which is next on my target list). Just finished that war late last night.

My new ruler married his son and heir off to a Eastern European duchess, who controls land in present day Albania/Montenegro (basically right across the Adriatic from Apulia). Thinking there was that their kids would inherit and I would have new lands.

There was another Muslim ruler who took over Salerno from my vassel Duke Robert of Bari. So I pressed my claim and whupped their ass and won Salerno back for Robert.

I now control all of Italy south of Rome except for Capua and Naples (the lone holdouts - who I'm working to vasselize/conquer/bring in via marriage), except for the one Muslim holding on the far West of Sicily (again which I'll work on bringing into the fold).

So I save up some cash and create the title "King of Sicily." So now I'm a King! Hooray!! Long live the King!!

Oh but wait - it gets better. My only son & heir gets sick and dies, and his 4 year old daughter takes over for him through the regency of her mother. So she is now the ruler of that Duchy in Albania when she comes of age, and the heir to the Kingdom of Sicily!

bawhaha!!! Master plan works out sooner than I thought!

I might have to divorce my new wife (my first wife died so I remarried an Eastern European princess) or something to ensure that I don't have any kids that mess up the line of succession though.

Getting the hang of this - although my vassels do seem to get angry at me pretty quickly - I wish I could like...reshuffle titles among them without them getting pissed at me (haven't tried yet - can I do that as a King when i couldn't as a Duke?). And I'd still like to find out tips for more effectively mobilizing a large army - I think all of my conquests to date have been augmented by mercenary armies.

[DaddyTorgo]

Errm - i dunno about the long-term playability of my game...I think I've handed out a couple Duchies maybe rather too freely to family members (brothers, etc), instead of handing out baronies.

I suppose I can revoke the Duchies and take the anger-hit or crush those guys in battle though and try to salvage it.

My mistake.

[JPhillips]

Armies just take time. You need to build up castle villages/towns to get money and then invest in army generating buildings. I've only gotten about halfway in the game due to stopping to wait for 1.05, but I hear the endgame's major problem is armies that are too large.

[DaddyTorgo]

Cool. I don't want world-beating armies or anything crazy. Just want something decent so I can defend myself.

I also think it's kind of annoying in general in the game how there's no ability to "block" an enemy army with your army. They can travel right through your army on the way to an interior province. Seems kind of a weird design decision IMO.

[Barkeep49]

My frustration right now, having started as William the Conquerer is the wars that break out everytime there's a new ruler. Gets old real fast.

[JPhillips]

Yeah, it's really hard to keep England together. I went from William to his grandson and I'm doing nothing but fighting my vassals. Of course my 0 diplomacy doesn't help.

[DaddyTorgo]

Any thoughts by any other players on which of the "reality mods" to use?

[JPhillips]

I haven't tried any mods.

I do love seeing the new cause of death message. I had a nice chuckle the first time I saw a bishop die from syphilis.

[DaddyTorgo]

So my granddaughter inherited the two provinces in Serbia along with the Kingdom of Sicily. Matrilinerally married her to a son of the King of Sweden. She had 2 kids and led a successful campaign to put down rebelling nobles before succumbing to illness at age 26. Her husband is now regent for her infant son (age 2) until he comes of age. Having irritating issues with rebelling nobles again though - going to have to put them down hard way.

[DaddyTorgo]

So I didn't find it quite as easy as maybe I should have, but now I think I finally get the whole management-of-my-vassels thing.

[DaddyTorgo]

I could be on the verge of pulling off some SWEET expansion through marriage.

King Dubrosov I of Sicily (his mama was a Serbian Duchess and he was raised there after I married his daddy off to her) and his lil sister Princess M, are both setup to gain a ton through upcoming marriages if I can pull it off.

Dubrosov is set to marry the Daughter of the Queen of Croatia (Croatia of course boarding my Serbian Duchy). She's currently 2nd in line for the throne behind a brother who's a couple years older, and her ruling mother. If I can knock them off I'll be ruling Serbo-Croatia and Sicily - with just the HRE bits in the way of my making the Adriatic a personal swimming pool.

Meanwhile, Princess M (Matilja? something like that), is set to matrilinerally marry a Northern European prince (I want to say Finland) who stands to inherit a whole parcel of Duchies from his daddy in Finland/Northern Europe - so those should come in relatively without any incident/underhandedness.

[JPhillips]

Good luck holding provinces that far away.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Good luck holding provinces that far away.

Well Croatia is right next to me, so that will be easy. Finland is going to be a bitch though, yes. Not sure what I'm going to do about that to be honest (assuming the marraige comes to pass).

[JPhillips]

Yeah, I was talking about Finland.

I'm stuck trying to figure out how to kill my eldest son so that his brilliant brother will be king of England and Wales.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Yeah, I was talking about Finland.

I'm stuck trying to figure out how to kill my eldest son so that his brilliant brother will be king of England and Wales.

Assassino!!! assassino!!!

Not sure I'll be able to hold onto Finland honestly - I may just have to let it go in the end from what I gather. I had to get her married off though - my ruling-family shrunk quite a bit due to circumstances (rebellious ungrateful family members), so it's just Dubrosov and his sister really now and I needed to ensure that there was new blood and plenty of potential heirs.

It'd be cool if there was some form of land-barter system in the game. Say "Okay HRE...I'll trade you Finland for your Southern European/Italian counties (which frankly I would much rather have than Finland)."

[JPhillips]

The chance for success on assassination is low and the chance of getting caught is high. I don't think I'd succeed without ruining all my vassal relationships.

I'm trying to take him into battle as often as possible hoping for a maimed or killed event.

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

The chance for success on assassination is low and the chance of getting caught is high. I don't think I'd succeed without ruining all my vassal relationships.

I'm trying to take him into battle as often as possible hoping for a maimed or killed event.

Excommunicate him, jail him, execute him. It's solved many a problem for me, most recently the imbecile (0s across the board) who was set to inherit the Kingdoms of England and France. Alternatively start a plot against him. If you can get to 100%+ support you have a 90% chance of killing him off.

[DaddyTorgo]

FYI

This post is ALL SORTS of awesome

Maximizing score the North Korea way

Originally Posted by the basics

Are you fed up with surly vassals rebelling against you? Annoyed that they hold titles that could be helping your prestige and therefore score? Want to assassinate folks at will? Well, read on!


In a fit of pique, after yet another failed rebellion by my vassals, I banished all of the imprisoned vassals and seized their lands. Before I could redistribute the titles, I had more rebellions. So I put those down and banished them too. This went on for a while until I had crushed, imprisoned and banished all of my vassals of Count level or above. I held all the titles possible in the kingdom. And I enjoyed peace, as there was no one left to rebel.

Ah, you're thinking, sure that's great, but when your desmesne is too big, you take lots of penalties. That's true. When I did this, my tax income dropped to zero. So how to bring in revenue? The barons of towns are still making money. When they get enough, imprison them, banish them (thereby seizing their money), and create a new vassal to take his place. I call this "farming" the barons. Assuming you have a reasonable number of towns and enough piety you can actually make a lot more money doing this than you can from tax revenue.

Do all that and, congratulations, you've crushed all possible dissent, seized the country for yourself and devised a coercive economic model that can keep you going.

[Fonzie]

My goodness, that's brilliant.

[DaddyTorgo]

I think it's awesome. I'll definitely have at least one savegame where I play that way (and I mean...it might be a little ahistorical, but I mean you could argue that it's sort of Vlad Dracul-esque), but I mean...I think it removes a lot of the fun aspects of the game so I won't want to play every savegame that way.

Might be fun in the forthcoming Westeros mod if you took say...Gregor Clegane and played him that way though.

[bhlloy]

This game is a ton of fun when shit actually happens and it's not just mega blobs conquering everything in their way. I started a new Gwynedd/Wales game to try and survive a little longer without getting eaten by England in 10 years the way I usually do... turns out in this game England is crazy unstable, succession wars and vassals breaking away and beating the shit out of each other every couple months. I was able to stay under the radar the first five years and pick up Dyfed but Gwent and Glamorgan had been conquered by Lancaster and were part of England. So I figured I was pretty much SOL and would have to look elsewhere to expand, until England broke up again and Lancaster was fighting the remnants of that kingdom plus a couple other ex-vassals, took advantage of it to take both counties after a few tries so I'm just trying to build up enough cash and piety to form the Kingdom of Wales before my current ruler dies. Hopefully once I can do that I'm important enough to marry off a son to England (who are really pretty weak and only maybe 6-8 provinces around London) to get an alliance there.

So yeah, a lot of fun. Seems to vary a lot game by game but this one is great so far.

[GrantDawg]

I just started playing last week (and should have known there was a thread here about it). Been having a blast with it. After a few practice starts with England (waiting for 1.5 to get stable), I took on Ireland with the Duke of Munster. It took me one generation to form the Kingdom of Ireland. Then in the second crusade (I participated in the first nominally, but it was a huge failure), I was the largest participant and won the kingdom of Jerusalem. Knowing there was no way I could hold it, I gave the kingdom to my nephew. He has held out so far (though he has absolutely no tax revenue or levies), but he still has 30 more years of penalties to deal with. Meanwhile, I married the Duchess of Brittany (well, she was the heir when I married her. The Duke died within three months of the wedding and believe it or not it was not me). My first wife produced four daughters, and I really needed a son. My new wife then went on to produce three more daughters, until finally giving me two sons. The game is really fun, but there are times when I sit there and go "now what?."

[tyketime]

Unless I'm reading this wrong, CK2 is on sale for digital download at Amazon for 50% off ($19.99).

[DaddyTorgo]

LMAO - So I married my Croatian princess and successfully impregnated her with a boy. Then I assassinated her brother, who was heir to the throne of Croatia. But I was discovered. So her mother assassinated me.

But my newborn son is now the Heir to the Kingdoms of Croatia + Sicily, so a win for my family!

[Neon_Chaos]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I just started playing last week (and should have known there was a thread here about it). Been having a blast with it. After a few practice starts with England (waiting for 1.5 to get stable), I took on Ireland with the Duke of Munster. It took me one generation to form the Kingdom of Ireland. Then in the second crusade (I participated in the first nominally, but it was a huge failure), I was the largest participant and won the kingdom of Jerusalem. Knowing there was no way I could hold it, I gave the kingdom to my nephew. He has held out so far (though he has absolutely no tax revenue or levies), but he still has 30 more years of penalties to deal with. Meanwhile, I married the Duchess of Brittany (well, she was the heir when I married her. The Duke died within three months of the wedding and believe it or not it was not me). My first wife produced four daughters, and I really needed a son. My new wife then went on to produce three more daughters, until finally giving me two sons. The game is really fun, but there are times when I sit there and go "now what?."

Ireland is definitely the best way to go for a beginner. That's where i learned the ropes before I moved on to the very volatile world of Spain!

[bhlloy]

Spain is definitely intense alright. If you piss off all the Muslim states in the south before you are strong enough you can die a pretty early death

[thesloppy]

I love Spain. I can't seem to start anywhere else.

[sabotai]

Spain is fun because there's a lot of action and it's survivable.

I tried games as one of the Italian Counts or Dukes and usually get swallowed up by Muslim nations quickly. I keep trying to play as Sardinia, but I never last more than a year or two.

[Peregrine]

I've been playing as Scotland in my latest game - it's funny, I'd expect to have huge problems from England, like in all versions of EU where they get gobbled up, but in CK2 1066 England is such a mess, constantly getting invaded and having to fend off their own vassals from going rogue. There is really a built in hazard for England in having Morcar and Ealdwin from the same family as dukes - all it takes is one death and you have one guy controlling the lands of two dukedoms - in my Scotland game by the time Ealdwin broke away he held four ducal titles and controlled over a third of the country - that's just a nightmare waiting to happen.

[Shepp]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

I've been playing as Scotland in my latest game - it's funny, I'd expect to have huge problems from England, like in all versions of EU where they get gobbled up, but in CK2 1066 England is such a mess, constantly getting invaded and having to fend off their own vassals from going rogue. There is really a built in hazard for England in having Morcar and Ealdwin from the same family as dukes - all it takes is one death and you have one guy controlling the lands of two dukedoms - in my Scotland game by the time Ealdwin broke away he held four ducal titles and controlled over a third of the country - that's just a nightmare waiting to happen.

In my last game as England one of them had an unmarried son who was heir to the both duchies. I made sure to marry him to one of my daughters. That way I had a marriage alliance with him at the very least in case something happened to his father or uncle.

I've also found that you really have to plan ahead for the succession of a new king. You have to have enough money or titles on hand to bribe the hell out of your vassles to keep them loyal after the death of the old king.

[bhlloy]

So I had a situation come up that I hadn't come across before - the prince consort to my queen was the ruler of 2 of my vassals and also the heir to a county in Scotland, the ruler of that county died (ironically I had been trying to kill him for years with plots at 80+ power and had failed every time) and now my prince consort's liege is the scottish king and my two counties belong to Scotland? WTF moment...

Anyhow, the heir on all three of these counties is my second son (not my current heir) Does that mean that his liege becomes Scotland unless he is also on the throne of Wales at the same time? Or as he's part of my dynasty will I get those counties back when the prince consort dies? Either way sounds like I have some close family members to kill off to get my stuff back.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Shepp

In my last game as England one of them had an unmarried son who was heir to the both duchies. I made sure to marry him to one of my daughters. That way I had a marriage alliance with him at the very least in case something happened to his father or uncle.

I've also found that you really have to plan ahead for the succession of a new king. You have to have enough money or titles on hand to bribe the hell out of your vassles to keep them loyal after the death of the old king.

They really are pretty easy to deal with as a human player. But the AI just can't.

[JPhillips]

Wow. The 7000 combined prestige/piety bonus for forming the Kingdom of Jerusalem was a nice surprise!

[Shepp]

I had a pleasant suprise in my current game as king of England. The pope had called for a crusade and I raised an army of about 5000 troops. When they arrived at the holy land they immediately took Jaffa and Jerusalem. The muslims counter attacked and my army was wiped out. I was going to raise another army but got side tracked with some revolts and pressing other claims in Ireland. The next thing I know I get a message that said the pope had won the crusade and I had been granted the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem. I'm gessing this was because even though the muslims destroyed my army, they never besieged the holdings to reconquer the provinces. Anyway I'm now the king of England and Jerusalem.

[whomario]

The new expansion Sword of Islam has been released that lets you play things from the muslim side of things

Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam expansion released today! | Crusader Kings 2

core game has also been updated

[Icy]

Just got it form steam... and i have yet to play a serious game, hope i'll have more time during the summer.

[lighthousekeeper]

so if some random person from your court (not on council and not an heir) wants to get married, is there any benfit to marrying them off?

[Groundhog]

LOVING the Sword of Islam expansion. I had yet to start a serious game with CKII at all, and started in Sevilla with an Islamic ruler (custom ruler, although I didn't max him out, just changed the name and appearance really). Into my 2nd ruler now and really enjoying the differences between the Christian and Islamic games.

[Peregrine]

I just picked up the Sword of Islam expansion as well as some of the minor DLCs - seems very cool so far.

[PilotMan]

Gamersgate has CKII for less than $15.

Crusader Kings II - Buy and download on GamersGate

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

Gamersgate has CKII for less than $15.

Crusader Kings II - Buy and download on GamersGate

Wow. If you don't have it, get it. Well worth it.

[dubb93]

I'm still trying to get a complete grasp of this game. I'm in my first playthrough that has made any head room. I have a question on how/why something happened. Here is the background and what happened. Maybe someone with a greater grasp of the game than I do can answer.

I started as an earl in Ireland. Fast forward nearly 100 years later I'm the King of Ireland and Scotland. I control every Irish county and all but three Scottish counties. The three counties I don't control are owned by an Independent Scottish Duke(the son of the former King). I also have a small chunk cut out of England. There is no King of England. It is divided into small duchies and is in a state of civil war. The Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire has set up shop in the islands north of Scotland and calls Moray Firth capitol of the entire Holy Roman Empire. My primary title is the King of Ireland and as such all of my English and Scottish lands are considered apart of the Kingdom of Ireland.

My king was rendered incapable due do a head injury suffered during war with the former King of Scotland. His crazy wife, who is daughter of the Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire, declared herself Regent and in the few months prior to my King's death gave herself several of my counties and started to embezzle Ireland's gold. They had no children, the King had no children, and upon his death both Ireland and Scotland went to his brother.

This is where it gets weird. Things are already bad(to say the new king isn't popular would be an understatement), but I'm pissed at the former King's wife and immediately revoke her titles(this doesn't help matters). She declares war. The Duke of Ulster hears of what I did and also declares war. I quickly use my own personal levies to overwhelm the former Queen and she surrenders to me fully. I lock her up in the dungeon.

While this war is going on I hire mercenary armies and send them north to do battle with the Duke of Ulster. They quickly defeat his army and start to lay siege to his primary castle. He hasn't surrendered yet, but this is a pretty clear victory for us. The mercenary army called The Swiss Company wiped out his entire army.

Seeing a full fledged civil war in Ireland my cousin, the Duke of Gallaway, declares his independence in Scotland. He has wanted to be King of Scotland ever since my prior King won the crown on field of battle. I guess he figured I should do the hard work and then hand over the gain to him. Whatever. I begin to send my personal army to Scotland to deal with him. He will be outnumbered about 5 to 1.

Now this is where it gets crazy and I don't understand how or why what happens happens.

The Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire is able to usurp the Duchy of the Isles from one of my dukes. The Kaiser becomes the Duke and the other two counties become his too. All three of the counties in this Duchy were won in battle and apart of the Kingdom of Ireland. As far as I can tell there shouldn't have been any way he could have met the requirements to usurp it. He controlled 0% of the counties and would have been required to control 2 of the 3. Can anyone explain this? The Duke he usurped is now in my King's court so he didn't turncoat.

It's kinda annoying knowing that I'm going to win the war with my Duke's and once again unite Ireland and Scotland, but now all the islands between Ireland and Scotland are going to belong to the Holy Roman Empire and their 140,000 levy size. I don't understand it.

[Peregrine]

Hmm that's pretty weird Dubb - so he didn't control any of the Isles counties - was the HRE even in the area at all? Only obvious explanation I can think of was that your duke somehow got involved in a war against the HRE - maybe they had a vassal who had a claim on that duchy, declared war and took it over? Still seems strange it would have played out like that - you would have seen troops in the area, did you see any?