Crusader K+ngs II

[Griddlelol]

Lost again! So I pushed a claim on a duchy (?) in France, won the resulting war and...nothing happened. Did I do something wrong? How do I take those lands, or at least make the people there my vassals?

[Dewar]

Are you sure the claim was for yourself? If it was for someone else in your court, three things have to be true for you to get the land under you.

 

1) The title has to be below you (so you'd have to be a king to take a duchy this way)

2) The person whose claim you are pushing needs to be related to you, or already have land in your court

3) France cannot have high or absolute crown authority as that prevents lands from passing from the kingdom through inheritance.

 

Edited to reflect information that Jaraknarn remembered that I didn't. Also, I had no idea about the flag color.

[Jaraknarn]

The game "tries" to do a "good job" of letting you know which of the claims you can press that will lead to you controlling the land.

On the declare war menu, if the claim you are pressing has a green flag next to it that is good and means you will get it. If its blue that means you are unlikely to gain control of the holdings. These are usually female claimants that arent landowners.

The best rule of thumb is to press the claims of your relatives, the ones with the "same dynasty" trait and your landed vassals. However you can "convert" blue claims into green by giving the claimant a titles in your realm, it doesnt matter how small, just make sure its a castle/barony.

[Gormongous]

The best rule of thumb is to press the claims of your relatives, the ones with the "same dynasty" trait and your landed vassals. However you can "convert" blue claims into green by giving the claimant a titles in your realm, it doesnt matter how small, just make sure its a castle/barony.

 

Thankfully, a few patches ago, they changed it so that assigning a church or town holding to a character didn't automatically transform them into a priest or mayor, so there's even a little leeway there, although you'd never want to do it on purpose.

[d L c]

I had the exact same thing happen (today), I put it down to a bug...?  Not even the person whose claim I was pushing got the land; on the Enforce Demands pane the results were just a prestige loss/gain.

[Griddlelol]

I have no idea...I will play some tonight and try to figure it out.

 

What might have happened, was that I declared war, then over the course of 5 years, I died, and my son inherited the duchy. Maybe he didn't have a claim at that point, and was just fighting the war for what essentially amounted to prestige. 

 

It was actually pretty cool, I drove off the opposition's army, and they accidentally bumped into a large rebel army who pretty much slaughtered them. 

[d L c]

I think in my case the one place relevant to my claim was occupied by another power.  I didn't notice because of the bizarre circumstances of the war: I was fighting for a duchy from someone whose only constituent title was a barony, in a country independent from him...  Still feels weird that I didn't get the duchy even if not the barony.  I thought you could, for example, win a duchy even if the constituent counties were occupied by rivals and you didn't get them.  Perhaps it would be impossible to leave him as an independent baron...?

[Gwardinen]

I started a game as the Duke of Bavaria and am feeling pretty stifled. My ambition has been to gain a new title, but the Kaiser has no interest in giving me one and my Chancellor is utterly failing to fabricate any claims. So I'm just sitting here while my rowdy vassals continuously plot to increase council power and have a weirdly high rate of heresy to boot.

[Jaraknarn]

I started a game as the Duke of Bavaria and am feeling pretty stifled. My ambition has been to gain a new title, but the Kaiser has no interest in giving me one and my Chancellor is utterly failing to fabricate any claims. So I'm just sitting here while my rowdy vassals continuously plot to increase council power and have a weirdly high rate of heresy to boot.

Germany is a hotbed for those damned heretics, Im sure the event fire chance is bumped up around there.

[Griddlelol]

Wow, having a great game as the duke of Swabia. I sewed my dynasty into the most powerful families of Germany, and then declared independence. Killed my brothers and their heirs and took a bunch of land for myself.

 

The timing of my independence was perfect. I waited for a big war between HRE and what turned out to be Venice, then declared my independence and only had to contend with a very small contingency split off from the main invasion force. So much fun!

 

Then all my neighbours started declaring war on me, calling me an asshole and a tyrant, but thanks to some crafty marriages in Poland, I was able to call in my allies to help me deal with a war on 3 fronts. Ah!! This game is awesome. Still so much I don't know, and I'm still not great at using marriage as a tool to inherit, but I absolutely love this game.

 

edit: How does one gain more vassals? I'm no where near my limit. Do I just grant landed titles to people?

[SuperBiasedMan]

You can grant lands to people to make them vassals, or diplomatically offer for independent people to become your vassal. You could also go to war to claim another person's vassal I think?

[Griddlelol]

Yeah, in the end I just gave lands to my sons. Was the easiest way. 

[Griddlelol]

Is there a way to cause other people's vassals to revolt? My duchy is slap bang in the middle of the HRE, and the only time I can grab more land is if there a revolt going on to distract the vast armies available to the Emperor.

 

So...is there a way to get people to revolt who aren't your own vassals? 

 

I could probably get some land through marriage, but I find that super difficult! 

[Jaraknarn]

You can use ur chancellor to Sow Dissent but ive never had much success causing rebellions like that. If you feel too small to take on ur local enemies you could try and spread your demense a bit further a field. Assassination is always a sure fire way to stir stuff up. If you can kill the emperor a succession war might break out.

If you were still part of the HRE you could use the faction system to team up with other disgruntled vassals. Or just declare internal wars against your fellow vassals for their holdings.

[Gormongous]

You can use ur chancellor to Sow Dissent but ive never had much success causing rebellions like that.

Yeah, the "sow dissent" action has basically never been viable. It gives a tiny opinion malus by default, with a chance to get a larger malus by event but an equal chance of the vassal's overlord finding out. It's also difficult to target and often chooses barons or mayors over counts and dukes.

[Griddlelol]

Ah, never thought about assassinating anyone to start a succession war. I'm an independent faction, used the last rebellion to make a bid for independence and have been that way for multiple generations now.

 

I guess I'll play around with it and see what happens.

[Dewar]

As a caution, if a rebellion does start and you're a credible threat to them, it's pretty common for them to white peace with their overlord once you declare war, so you have to be ready to act fast.

[Griddlelol]

Yeah, I tried twice, but the imperial army just turned around, killed my men, then went back to suppressing rebellions. 

[Cordeos]

Lets play a trait guessing game! These are from the new DLC

 

 

My guesses:

1. lost eye

2. lost hand

3. lost leg

4. lost jaw?

5. ?

6. ?

7. ?

8. ?

(row 2)

9. has cough

10. fever?

11. ?

12. vomiting/stomach illness

13. migraines

14. shoulder pain?

15. ?

16. ?

17. back pain

18. ?

19. ?

20. wounded

(row 3)

21. ?

22. ?

23. runny nose

24. ?

25. gout

26. ?

27. ?

28. crabs

29. ?

30. scurvy

(row 4)

31. viking lvl 1

32. viking lvl 2

33. ?

34. ?

35. ?

36. Doctor

[jennegatron]

Lets play a trait guessing game! These are from the new DLC

 

 

My guesses:

1. lost eye

2. lost hand

3. lost leg

4. lost jaw?

5. Good at Husbandry

6. Good at hunting

7. Has glistenin' fish lifters and is a big strong boy

8. Is a fragile little weak boy

(row 2)

9. has cough

10. fever?

11. Has become a cube

12. vomiting/stomach illness

13. migraines

14. shoulder pain?

15. Rickets

16. Sun burn

17. back pain

18. Just so sleepy

19. Your pokemon has hurt itself in confusion!

20. wounded

(row 3)

21. You got a cannon shot through you and now there's just a hole in your torso

22. You ate all the sand inside a hourglass and now your tummy hurts

23. runny nose

24. So sad, you can't stop crying

25. gout

26. You've been poisoned by Snow White's mother's apple

27. Alien take over, forgot to wear your tin foil hat

28. crabs

29. Can't stop dancing

30. scurvy

(row 4)

31. viking lvl 1

32. viking lvl 2

33. Grandpa Viking

34. Master Shoveler

35. Really good at math

36. Doctor

[Gormongous]

There are a lot of good things about the new patch (moving d_flanders into k_france and d_brabant into k_lotharingia, reducing the stupidly huge and ahistorical k_frisia, for example) but one thing that everyone can appreciate is that there's now a "custom game rules" page that exposes about two dozen variables that people had hitherto had to mod to change. Check it out:

 

Game Rules have been added to the game - Whenever you start a new game, you can change the rules to customize your experience:

- Major Epidemic (requires 'The Reaper's Due'): Dynamic/Delayed Dynamic/Historical/Deadly
- Gender Equality: Default/Historical/All
- Mongol Invasion: Historical/Random/off
- Aztec Invasion (requires 'Sunset Invasion'): 14th Century/Random/Off
- Shattered Retreat: On/Off
- Defensive Pacts: On/Off
- Dynamic De Jure Drift: Default/Restricted/Off
- De Jure Assimilation Duration: Very Short/Short/Default/Long
- Supernatural Events: On/Off
- Culture Conversion: Default/Restricted/Faster Melting Pots/Slower Conversion/Combination
- Religious Conversion Speed: Default/Slower
- Raiding: Historical/Unrestricted/Off
- Adventurers: Normal/Rare/None
- Interfaith Marriages: Restricted/Open
- Matrilineal Marriages: On/Off
- Custom Realms (requires 'Charlemagne'): On/Off
- Story Events (requires 'Charlemagne'): On/Off
- Vassal Republics: Restricted/Unrestricted
- Vassal Theocracies: Restricted/Unrestricted
- Invitation to Court: Default/Open
- Diplomatic Range: On/Restricted/Off
- Regencies: On/Off
- Provincial Revolts: Normal/Rare/None
- Defensive Attrition: On/Tribal Only/Off
- Pagan Reformation: Allowed/Disallowed/Players Only
- Assassination: Plots Only/Direct Action
- AI Seduction (requires 'Way of Life'): On/Off
- AI Intrigue (requires 'Way of Life'): On/Off
- Provincial Revolt: Normal/Rare/None

 

What's more, the majority of these options don't disable ironman mode or achievements! Finally, someone in charge of Crusader Kings 2 isn't obsessed with making you play their game their way. Hopefully they can expand the system out and include even more options with future patches...

[riadsala]

i would love for a power user such as yourself to do some suggested settings for what you consider a good set-up. I think it's about time I returned to CK2

[Gormongous]

i would love for a power user such as yourself to do some suggested settings for what you consider a good set-up. I think it's about time I returned to CK2

 

It depends if you want to know what settings I prefer or what settings I think would make the most newbie-friendly game. I could do both!

 

I will say, I'm very disappointed that there's no option to disable the "favors" sub-system from The Conclave DLC. It's the worst part of the game now, by far, because you're constantly being inundated with offers of favors and requests for favors when, unsurprisingly for a resource introduced in a late-stage DLC, favors are extremely situational, to the point of being useless. One of my characters got a favor from his lord, the Holy Roman Emperor, when they were both in their twenties and the former died in his sixties with the favor unspent, despite my best efforts and despite the emperor being the most powerful man in Christendom. If you don't want a certain law enacted, don't have an external claim to press, and are in no danger of attack from another vassal, a favor from your liege is literally useless. Worse is a favor from a fellow vassal who's not on the council. If you don't have an alliance with them and don't want to marry any of their family, you'll die with that favor unspent. If there were an option to replace favors with the council with voting based on opinion score, I would say that Crusader Kings 2 has never been better. As it is, it's definitely a good game, but there are caveats.

[Paul Smith]

Hey, this might not be the bestest thread to post this, but my laptop doesn't run CK2 very well so on a whim I bought the first CK in the recent GOG sale. The interface and mechanics seem more opaque and different to CK2. Is it worth investing the time to learn CK1?

[Gormongous]

Hey, this might not be the bestest thread to post this, but my laptop doesn't run CK2 very well so on a whim I bought the first CK in the recent GOG sale. The interface and mechanics seem more opaque and different to CK2. Is it worth investing the time to learn CK1?

 

I think that the first Crusader Kings is a fine game, but its design was a mess and it's very frustrating to learn the interface and then discover that there's some arbitrary stuff there that's not explained by bad messaging. I would not even think about playing CK1 without the Deus Vult DLC (the only DLC and basically a paid patch) and the "Deus Vult Improvement Pack" mod, which is a fan patch of the paid patch.

 

Once you've got all that, the game itself is reasonably straightforward. You generate prestige through events, through holding titles, and fighting wars, then spend that prestige to buy claims that you press in war. It's much less character-driven and there are plenty of systems that functionally do nothing (the peasant/burgher/cleric/noble meter in each county can be safely ignored, as can the friend/rival system) but I think the germ of what makes CK2 great is present in the prequel.

 

It's also worth noting, this most recent patch for CK2 has drastically improved the game's performance. It's running twenty or twenty-five percent faster for me, with less hitching during saves, and some people on the official forums are reporting up to forty percent increases in speed. You might want to boot it up again, just to check?