Recommended Posts

It's not a bad idea certainly, and something id like to try when I feel less likely to embarrass myself :D. But time zones and life in general have a habit of getting in the way a lot when you have a group as diverse and dispersed as the Thumbs attempt to do multi-player games, which is why I suggested this 'parallel multi-player' format.

Think what I'll do tonight is try playing as Munster and report back progress, and brkl & orv can laugh, and irishjohn can nod his head in solemn and silent acknowledgement of common woes!

Sounds good! Yeah, I don't know about multiplayer either. I don't even know how it works for a game like this... I guess you just plan ahead to have a few hours free? In any case, looking forward to hearing about it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Paradox multiplayer is simply you join a game, pick the character/country you're going to play from the starting date the host chooses and go. It's pretty simple, just play as though it were singleplayer but other players are controlling certain characters.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Alright, I have no idea whats going on, even after reading that guide, if I played that specific character and thing, I'd probably be alright, lol.

Still waiting for my computer but I'm determined to start a mp player game with Thumbs, because even if I am completely in the dark on this, it's super awesome.

I'm Earl Dub of Fife because it sounded hilarious and I have a De Jure on the a bunch of countys, Scotland and all of Britannia... I juts have no idea how to claim at least one of those so I can start waging war.

I'll update when I do...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As always I'm available for MP basically whenever, if we can actually decide on a time.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As always I'm available for MP basically whenever, if we can actually decide on a time.

Same, given a few days of warning to prepare.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In the interests of doing more than idly discussing it, let's get some input here. Let's start with the usual; whose got time open when, for at least a couple hours that day.

As a heads up, I've never needed it for Paradox games personally, but we might need to use GameRanger if people start having synch issues.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've got all the time in the world most days until 19.00 GMT, then none. Not very good for Thumbs games, I know.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You can even continue from someone else'ss singleplayer save. You can save, then come back and play as someone else. Or you can continue a multiplayer game and bring more people in to play whoever they choose.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

First of all, that guide is amazing. There is just so much to do in Crusader Kings that I think half my problems in previous play through came from decision anxiety. So having someone lay out step-by-step what he considers priorities was incredibly calming and useful.

So anyway, having took over the role of the Duke of Munster I began to follow the guide. The first thing I noticed is that my stats are radically different from those in the guide, but despite that his basic plan sounds good it's time for some wedding bells.

A short while later after finding an appropriate bride for my Duke and his son I felt secure enough to up the speed a bit and sit back, wait, and see what happens next.

The first event was a reminder to find a bride my half brother, it seems id promised to do so early on but it ha slipped my mind. Sadly he's bit of an old git, so no one seems to want to have their daughter married without a realistic chance of producing children.

Despite trying to match up with some equally experienced ladies I had no luck, and therefore resolved to leave him to being a bachelor.

1870 my Duke unexpectedly falls in love, fortunately it's with his wife and so I get a nice little bonus of five piety .

In 1871 my play radically through diverges from the guide first time. After building up my support in neighbouring Ormond I hatch a plot and revoked the title of it's mayor from its current holder with the help of 2 of his vassals and install my son in his place. Thankfully this was remarkably peaceful and I'm in a good position to turn my eyes south to Desmond.

Fortune again smiles on me, and my neighbour in Desmond decides this is a good point to send a large proportion of his levies abroad to help some Spanish relative in a war. This leaves his realm nearly defenceless. I resolve to take the opportunity while it lasts and by 1073 my forces have poured over the border, his main castle is under siege, and victory looks certain.

It is all over by 1074 despite a small counter-attack on my holdings (I’m not sure if it was carried out by return troops or newly raised levies the game's military still confuses me) which I defend by splitting my realm levies away from my personal troops and sending them back north.

With the war now over its time to consolidate. Despite me forcing him to bend the knee Desmond's duke still seems quite well disposed towards me. Furthermore he reveals his ambition to become my court Chaplin. A quick check shows the current occupant to be a talentless drunk, and the ex-Duke to be a exceedingly pious and quite competent man. So as I welcome my new Chaplin to my court, but just in case I take two of his sons and have them tutored by close members of my family.

Where I am now:

Leinster and Killdare seem the two most likely targets for expansion at the moment, my own domain seems relatively stable although my half brother seems to be growing more envious and ambitious.

My plan:

Killdare has a young daughter so I’m thinking of trying of marrying her to my grandson and then killing him off before grabbing the province for myself. Leinster is controlled by my nephew, he seems quite fond of me while his father (my marshall) isn't. If I can drive a wedge between father and son perhaps there's something that can be done here too, or perhaps I just need to kill off my brother quietly, and see if I can tempt his son to take his vacant place.

A few Q's for the gents here:

Is it always difficult to find wives for people who are 50ish? Or are there ways around it.

Ambitious relatives: is there a effective way to buy them off? Or do they have to be 'taken care of'?

And in the game!(someone bound to say this)

Plus any advice comments on my plans for Killdare & Leinster would be excedingly welcome.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You have to keep in mind that for the time, fifty years of age is getting up there. Women in game terms are past their child bearing years (or nearly) and men are getting there. While it's not impossible, you may have to settle for second best, or someone with poor stats but excellent opinion. The character finder is an enormous help there. Don't be afraid to Henry the VIIIth it up a bit and dump the old wife for a fertile young one. (Boy do Paradox games make you into a monster.)

Ambitious relatives present you with three options: Jail, the knife or exile. Exile can be stripped of title and lands or excommunicated so their neighbors fall on them. There's basically no way to come out of a situation like that with clean hands to some degree, but you don't usually have to resort to assassination. You might have the option by this point to talk to your half brother about his plots, and maybe he'll back off. Chances are good he won't and you'll end up with his head on a pike anyway. The Irish nobles are pretty catty in vanilla.

Leinster is the correct choice here.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is it always difficult to find wives for people who are 50ish? Or are there ways around it.

Female fertility dries up almost totally after forty. Male fertility starts a rapid decline after fifty-five, though vanilla fertility rates are so inflated that you'll still see eighty-year-old men having kids sometimes. If you can find some woman past forty in the marriage browser (the button with the two gold rings next to a character's portrait when you left-click on it), the AI will probably be desperate to marry her off, which is good because you might get a better alliance than usual and you don't want your half-brother breeding rivals for your son, anyway.

Also, did you install your son as Count (in charge of the castle) or Lord Mayor (in charge of the town) in Ormond? The latter is excluded from the succession (or rather, supposed to be but it frequently bugs out).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Edited because the merged threads made me look like a crazy person.

I've got all the time in the world most days until 19.00 GMT, then none. Not very good for Thumbs games, I know.

That might be a little problematic for me, living stateside, but all I'm doing is studying for doctoral exams until the end of August, so we'll see.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Edited because the merged threads made me look like a crazy person.

Considering the various forms of family based murder and plotting we are talking about here I think a few non sequential comments might be the least of our problems when it comes to others assessing our sanity.

Speaking of which! My Son is lord mayor in Ormond, tbh I'm not sure I knew what I was doing at the time (it was my 1st title grab), and there doesn't seem to be a way of grabbing the castle & associate barony now.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Has anyone tried the Game of Thrones mod, by the way? I've heard conflicting views on whether it's worthwhile.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Speaking of which! My Son is lord mayor in Ormond, tbh I'm not sure I knew what I was doing at the time (it was my 1st title grab), and there doesn't seem to be a way of grabbing the castle & associate barony now.

You can only press the claims and revoke the titles of your direct vassals (and even then only if crown laws are strong enough to allow it). What you'd have to do is revoke your son's title as Lord Mayor, then click on the top-left shield of the castle and revoke that. The county will then automatically reorganized so that the castle is the primary holding, at which point you'd right-click on the town, hit the "create vassal" button to create your own vassal mayor, then grant your son the county as Count.

Fair warning, everyone will hate you by this point (the entire process will net you a -40 opinion total to all your vassals, including your son), so you'll have to keep all your vassals imprisoned until your short life comes to an end. It might be more convenient either to do all of the above and then promptly die, or to simply have another son. Your call. And no worries, there will be worse disasters yet to come.

Has anyone tried the Game of Thrones mod, by the way? I've heard conflicting views on whether it's worthwhile.

I personally think it's garbage. A few features are really cool, like the so-called "megawar" system and the duels, but the rest just remove interesting aspects of the vanilla game. With no pope, no foreign cultures, and no distinctive geographical features, save for one homogenous all-encompassing kingdom, all five games I've played involve sitting and quietly improving my holdings for centuries, praying for a war to break out so I'll have something to do. If you play as the Iron Throne or one of the Lords Paramount it's more exciting, since you occasionally start those wars, but the experience of the ninety-nine percent is incredibly bland.

I can see people who love the books and are committed to roleplaying enjoying themselves, but as a game it's actually pretty disappointing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It all started out so well, by 1087 both Kildare and Leinster were captured with the help of some mercenaries and everything was looking quite rosy for my duke.

ck2duke1.jpg

However if you know where to look there are already signs of the problems that over the coming decades will almost see my dynasty wiped out.Many of my son's claims are unfortunately un-inheritable and I still have no idea how to remedy this. I ended up giving away half my domains just trying to sort this out. In fact I mess up so badly that I am forced to manoeuvre my grandson into place as my heir. Fortunately the Duke is nothing if not determined and I managed to carve out a new personal kingdom by claiming Connact (in addition to his seat of Thormund), And establish a claim on Brifne.

Finally at the age of 74 my Duke pops his clogs leaving everything to his 18-year-old grandson. I start to believe I may have the chance to reunite my domains, after all my new Duke is barely out of his teens he's got all his life ahead of him to sort out the mess his grandfather created.

However it turns out in this case that a lifetime equates to about 11 months my Duke dies before even seeing his 19th birthday as do my claims to about half of Ireland.

youngduccess.jpg

His sister inherits a small kingdom with a huge and democratic neighbour that my poor administrative skills are pretty much responsible for creating. Worse still the law of the land means there is no current line of succession and she will have no chance to change it for at least 10 years.

Fortunately although I didn't know it yet Duchesss Dervogilla is the kind of woman, that would make Ceresti Lansister look gentle, Luceriza Borgia look moral, and puts Lady MacBeth's plotting skills to shame.

By the time she reaches her 40th year the casualty list is impressive, Four husbands, her eldest son, two bishops, two mayors and an earl, A duke, and three children who were unlucky enough to be born to people who made them a inconvenience. Her eldest surviving son has strong claims on large parts of Ireland and Wales, and she has just married a man just one well placed dagger from the English crown. Perhaps even more remarkable is the one year later she gives birth to a son who now has a claim on one of the English crowns most powerful Ducys and is betrothed to a girl with claims on much of northern Ireland.

ducessoldson.jpgducessyngson.jpg

So my main aim now is to sort my succession laws out once and for all, after all a genius kin slaying Duchess is not going to be the kind of person who makes the same mistake as has her ancestors.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm loving what you've got going so far, Codicier. Learning Crusader Kings 2 is mostly getting fluent in how the game handles marriage, inheritance, and war. After that, it's all just permutations.

Since my Norwegian CK2+ game got broken with one of the latest updates (I'd taken a break for a week after forming the Britannian Empire from the crowns of Norway, Sweden, England, Finland, Scotland, and Wales, with major inroads in Ireland and Denmark, only to find that the save wouldn't load when I came back), I've been playing a vanilla game with the new Muslim DLC. I started as the Kalbid sheikh of Palermo in Sicily and have acquired all of Italy and North Africa between Gibraltar and the Nile, as well as Burgundy, Croatia, Serbia, peninsular Greece, Mediterranean France and Spain, and Germany as far north as Thuringia.

Like I said earlier in the thread, Muslims play completely different from Christians in vanilla, though I'm not sure I like much of it. The decadence mechanic offers an interesting balance between creating cadet lines to ensure heirs in an emergency and executing all your relatives to maintain maximum economic efficiency, but the rest is nothing short of nuts. Muslims can declare war on pretty much anyone at any time, whether holy wars or just regular conquests, which means that the best and most prosperous realm is one that's constantly at war, where all the game's weaknesses are in limelight.

It's a great power fantasy to swallow up a kingdom or so per ruler unless one happens to fall terminally ill during Ramadan, but it's not why I play Crusader Kings 2. I'm already fantasizing about a CK2+ game as a doggedly loyal duke of Saxony or Bavaria once I've finished conquering all of Europe as a two-province Muslim power.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Man my eldest son is greedy. I unloaded a bunch of land onto him so it would stay in the succession, but now he wants more and more and more!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Got back into CK2 in a big way last night. Just wanted to try the Duke of Munster that the LP was done with briefly, a few turns later I realised it was 3:40am and I was now king of Ireland and, somewhat bizarrely, Italy. Taking advantage of crusades can be interesting!

Sadly I was counting on England to still be a fractured mess by the time I united Ireland. It is not so. The English king is actually quite powerful, and is causing me problems as I try to carve out some of Scotland and Wales for myself. I had been shooting for that Empire of Britannia Gormongous mentioned... we'll see if that plan changes. Perhaps I should just work on reclaiming the rest of Italy from the Muslims.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, I've been playing Scotland and I have to remember to butter up England, lest they eat me.

It's interesting how the critical event of William's invasion can play out differently in each game. I think in mine, the original rulers won. In the game I started with my brother, Harold Hardråde won England and suddenly Norway is huge. In my game, most of Norway was ruled by the Duke of the Isles for a long time...

Also, it's really fun to follow the repercussions your actions can have. My Queen was married to a man with a claim for the Swedish throne, so I conquered Sweden in the hopes that my eldest son would inherit. However, I had made the husband a bishop as well for some reason. I think he wanted to be one or something. Anyway, Sweden turns into a Theocracy. Now, a hundred years later, Sweden is splintered into a ton of different factions because he couldn't keep it intact and I had no interest in it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I love how easily things can go wrong, & the strange emergent situations they create. As much as I love my black hearted duchess, the fact CK2 allowed me to accidentally create a medieval Irish republic that is now arguably as powerfull as either the English or Scottish crowns is amazing.

The idea of playing as a monarchy desperately trying to re-establish feudal law before before a democracy grows to powerful to be stopped is never where I imagined I'd be when i started up the game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

How do republics come about?

There are a few scattered all over the map, like Genoa and Venice, that exist at the game start. Towns are much wealthier than castles and free from most plots, so any independent town-based lordship is going to expand like wildfire. Watch, I'm psychic. In your current game, whoever you happen to be, Genoa holds the Balearics and much of southern Italy, while Venice owns Ancona, Dalmatia, and whatever they've been able to grab from the Byzantines in Greece. This runaway success is compounded on the rare occasion when a feudal dynast is elected to a town (which happens invisibly and really isn't supposed to happen at all unless the player initiates). If the town is his first and primary title, all the feudal lands he inherits are assimilated into the republic, with successors generated randomly rather than inheriting or being appointed.

Actually, one of the longstanding complaints on the Paradox forum is that duke-level republics make much better vassals than feudal lords do. They never plot for your title, are never inherited by outside powers, never form alliance networks with other dukes in your realm, and always pay huge sums of money.

So should I really play CK2+ and not vanilla?

For all intents and purposes, you should regard CK2+ as a difficulty mod. Vassals rebel more, kingdoms crumble more, and characters die more. As a student of history myself, I consider it pretty much indispensible, because it prunes out so much gamey bullshit and gives everything a much more authentic feel, but the Paradox forum is full of people that hate the many ways the mod seeks to frustrate the player.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now