Crusader K+ngs II

[Dewar]

That's a bummer, DMorsing. A outlander baby rarely survives to adulthood, since they have the maluses for a regency and foreignness. It just takes one more bad turn for the entire country to take up arms. Did the throne pass to another relative or is your game ended for good?

 

Also, don't worry about playing on max speed. Most players of Paradox games who I know also do that, in between the years where they have stuff to do. It's not good to have too many goals, anyway.

 

Not sure if it was really applicable in this case since the child was so young, but I don't know if it was ever mentioned in the stream so I wanted to say something. A child othen takes on the culture of their teacher, and almost always takes on their religion. That's part of the advantage of teching your heirs yourself (or at least by someone else in your family,) it garantees that they have the same culture/religion as you.

 

It's been my experience that max speed skips some events and pop-ups that would normally pause the game. I usually stick with the speed right below max myself.

[Gormongous]

It's been my experience that max speed skips some events and pop-ups that would normally pause the game. I usually stick with the speed right below max myself.

 

Each speed is an exponential increase on the previous one, except for 5x I think. That one is tied to some physical system spec and just runs as fast as your computer is able, which with some of the event-heavy mods like The Winter King or The Prince & the Thane is barely faster than 4x.

[Gormongous]

Just a heads up, Crusader Kings II and all its DLC (including, for the first time, The Old Gods) is 75% off on Steam for the next forty-eight hours. You can get the base game and everything ever released for it for $33.50 or so, but everyone should at least get the four big DLCs if anything: Sword of Islam, Legacy of Rome, The Republic, and The Old Gods.

[juv3nal]

Just a heads up, Crusader Kings II and all its DLC (including, for the first time, The Old Gods) is 75% off on Steam for the next forty-eight hours. You can get the base game and everything ever released for it for $33.50 or so, but everyone should at least get the four big DLCs if anything: Sword of Islam, Legacy of Rome, The Republic, and The Old Gods.

 

 

Just came in here to post about that. Looks like Paradox knows how to strike while the iron's hot. I was definitely on the fence, but 75% is too deep to pass up.

[DMorsing]

For anyone coming into this game like me, there's a fantastic pseudo tutorial in form of a let's play at http://lparchive.org/Crusader-Kings-2/

[Gormongous]

Looks like the Steam database leaked the unannounced August DLC. There will be an Europa Universalis IV savegame converter, which I'd be more excited about if my best games weren't ages ago and now incompatible, and a "customization pack." I've never played Hearts of Iron 3, but people say that it has something similar where you can tweak who holds what and where at a given start date. Who knows.

[Badfinger]

Ok guys that know about Crusader Kings.

 

I had control over the duchy of Munster, with Ormond and Thormond as my counties (I started with the same person as Nick & Chris/the Let's Play). The count of Desmond gets all mad, plots against me. I find out the plot, confront him, he goes to war. I smush him and imprison him then revoke his title. I now have 3 counties in my demense, which is more than my petty king can handle. WHAT NOW?! So I believe I have a save just before I made a decision, and also just after. My son was my Chaplain, but I gave him the titles to one of my counties and he left the court. Was this a terrible decision? What is the right way to deal with this? What is the Thumbs way to deal with this (assassinate everyone)?

[Dewar]

1) Get a wife with higher stewardship

2) Get a steward with higher stewardship

3) There's a type of research that ups your demense size, I forget what it's called but it's at the bottom of the right hand research track

3) Find a person who really really likes you and make him a count

4) Find a family member who is humble, if possible, and definitely not ambitious, and give him a county

 

It is certainly not bad to give your son a county. Him "leaving your court" simply means that now that he has his own title, you don't have direct control over every action of his. He can get married on his own, make decisions reguarding his own vassals, etc. He's still a part of your Kingdom. If possible, you should marry your sons off before you give them a title though, as they typically make poor marriage decisions.

[Badfinger]

I'm less than 10 years into the game, there feel like only so many machinations I can do. All my direct family members are married. My Steward I believe is passable? I still have some vassals who don't like me, so also struggling with the potential effects of dying and having fucked succession.

[Dewar]

You could try adding some nobles to your court from the Decisions menu on the Intrique screen. You might get someone who would make a better steward or someone that you have a lot of compatible traits with that has a good opinion of you.

 

A passable steward (or any counsil position really) should have 10+ in the relevant stat.

 

If your wife has particularly poor stats, the thumbs thing to do would be assasinate her and find a better replacement. If you decide to do this, remember you don't have to take the game's suggestions for wives, you can pull up a list of everyone in the game from one of the buttons on the bottom right, filter by female, unmaried, adult, (optionally same religion and culture as well,) and then sort by stewardship.

 

The other thing you can do is just hang onto the extra county for now, stomach the penalties, and hope that your situation improves.

 

Edit: I guess your Steward's skill isn't relevant to this, just yours and half of your wife's. See this article: http://crusaderkings-two.wikia.com/wiki/Demesne

[Gormongous]

If your wife has particularly poor stats, the thumbs thing to do would be assasinate her and find a better replacement. If you decide to do this, remember you don't have to take the game's suggestions for wives, you can pull up a list of everyone in the game from one of the buttons on the bottom right, filter by female, unmaried, adult, (optionally same religion and culture as well,) and then sort by stewardship.

 

That's actually not that useful. The bride browser already filters for anyone who won't accept your proposal. In rare instances, you might find an eligible wife from someone who needs to be bribed to let you marry her, but I don't really think it's worth the effort.

 

Badfinger, I say give it to your son, flag all his children as "important" so that you know when to educate them yourself, and then go from there. Your son might even inherit your title before it becomes an issue at all.

[Dewar]

That's actually not that useful. The bride browser already filters for anyone who won't accept your proposal. In rare instances, you might find an eligible wife from someone who needs to be bribed to let you marry her, but I don't really think it's worth the effort.

 

Badfinger, I say give it to your son, flag all his children as "important" so that you know when to educate them yourself, and then go from there. Your son might even inherit your title before it becomes an issue at all.

 

I disagree. The automatic bride finder tends to balance possible alliances over stats, and generally doesn't pick wives from kingdoms that are far away or different cultures. I generaly am able to grab a wive with a 20+ in at least one stat by manually browsing.

[Gormongous]

I disagree. The automatic bride finder tends to balance possible alliances over stats, and generally doesn't pick wives from kingdoms that are far away or different cultures. I generaly am able to grab a wive with a 20+ in at least one stat by manually browsing.

 

Well yeah, but you can do that in the bride browser, too. All the bride browser does is filter out all the automatic "no" answers.

[seamus2389]

Is it a bad idea as an emperor to give away all of your kingdoms to vassals?

 

I tried it with my current Byzantine game and it ended with 6 of the 10 kingdoms declaring a war of indepence with the HRE joining in to dethrone me for a cousin. In my previous game as Sweden I kept all of them bar Norway and Lithuania cause they were the weakest. My idea was always it's better if they are all dukes cause then if one rebels the other dukes in the kingdom won't necessarily join. In my Sweden campaign I ended up taking them Norway after the king joined a rebellion but I am wondering is it a good system that  I am making a balls of.

 

Also playing as Byzantine is interesting cause Constantinople seems to work differently from other cities. In a previous rebellion an army was sieging it and I got a message say the people of the city have formed an army which gave me an extra 40,000 men and when the HRE took the city I got a -100% warscore and lost the empire.

[Gormongous]

Is it a bad idea as an emperor to give away all of your kingdoms to vassals?

 

Generally speaking, it's always not a bad idea, but it requires a lot more work than does giving away all your duchies to counts. If you have more than a few kings, half your realm can revolt and coordinate in a way that wouldn't be possible if they were all dukes, so it's vital to breed diplomacy-focused heirs and feed any kings constant gifts to keep them happy. Basically, you can't play as fast or rough once you start having kings under your thumb.

 

Even though you're probably right to look askance at giving out crowns, it actually didn't occur to me that the negative consequences you mention are likely to happen, because I never start as an emperor and by the time I become one, my breeding and building programs are far enough along that every heir comes to the throne with eighteen-plus diplomacy and a thousand gold. I'm sure if I was starting at 1066, I'd get my ass kicked too.

 

Also, worth a mention that if you're one of those crazy bastards that taxes their feudal vassals, handing out crowns is a terrible idea, because you're cutting yourself off from all duke-level income. But then, that's only a last-ditch measure for most.

 

 

EDIT: Also also! Making sure none of your vassals are related to each other (and therefore can't call each other into civil wars) does wonders for a stable realm.

[seamus2389]

 my breeding and building programs are far enough along that every heir comes to the throne with eighteen-plus diplomacy and a thousand gold

 

I should look into a breeding program for my heirs. I should also pay more attention to my vassals, I tend to ignore them unless I get the dangerous faction warning then it's all gifts, titles and spymasters trying to get dirt on the leaders.

 

I went back to save I made before I handed out the titles cause I figured if It all went pear shaped I didn't want to start again as the Byzantines.

[Irishjohn]

Hmmm. I just started taxing my feudal vassals. Didn't even know I was being a crazy bastard. Damn it.

[Gormongous]

Hmmm. I just started taxing my feudal vassals. Didn't even know I was being a crazy bastard. Damn it.

 

Oh, it's a perfectly valid strategy in the short term. There's just no way you're going to get through a succession with taxed vassals, so you've got to end it sometime.

[Irishjohn]

Oh, it's a perfectly valid strategy in the short term. There's just no way you're going to get through a succession with taxed vassals, so you've got to end it sometime.

Hmmm. Thanks! Just got some DLC, first non-Irish game. Picking my home country actually fluked me into some great starting games in a strategy game for once.

[Nappi]

Is there a way to "add" (de jure) counties to existing duchies? Similarly can one add duchies to existing kingdoms without first breaking them apart and then gluing them back together? Because that seems to cost a lot.

[Badfinger]

The De Jure designations are based on what historically the duchies and kingdoms actually were, so they can't be changed.

 

Let's say you were playing Crusader Kings 20th century and had created the de jure Kingdom of the United States. You can still go conquer Duchy of Cuba and add it to your realm, but it's not a de jure part of the USA.

[Nappi]

Sorry, my bad. What I meant was can I add a recently "acquired" county to a duchy I created earlier if that county is de jure part of the duchy? Same thing for kingdoms. 

 

I play as the king of Ireland and and decided to conquer Wales. After acquiring 4 or 5 counties I was able to create a couple of duchies and the kingdom of Wales. I of course did this immediately because I have no idea how to rule. I then acquired a couple more counties in Wales, but when I click on the badge of Wales only the initial 4 or 5 counties are outlined in blue. The other de jure counties of Wales are, I think, part of Kingdom of Ireland. I also have counties that are not a part of any duchy even if they are de jure part of a duchy I own.

 

So is it possible to add counties to their "natural" duchies and duchies to kingdoms once they are created without tearing things apart? Or did I fuck it up by creating the duchies and kingdoms too early, or by pressing wrong claims, or something?

[Dewar]

Oh, it's a perfectly valid strategy in the short term. There's just no way you're going to get through a succession with taxed vassals, so you've got to end it sometime.

 

Wait what? I've never had any problem taxing my vassals.

 

Nappi. When you create the dutchy, any county that is a dejure part of that dutchy is included, regardless of who owns it. In fact, creating that dutchy gives you a claim on any county that's in the dutchy that you don't already own. No reconstruction of dutchies is required once you claim that county.

[Nappi]

Ok. I thought they weren't because if I click the badge of the duchy it only lists the initial, say, 2 counties that I had when I created the duchy with the third one only appearing in the list once I toggle the "de jure" switch. I tried destroying a duchy and creating it again and at least on the map things looked different, but I'm not sure if it actually affected anything.

 

Why I'm asking this is that I am now the king of both Ireland and Wales, but I can only nominate my son as the heir/successor in Ireland, i.e. he is not in the nomination list for Wales. I thought I could mend this by giving him a county in Wales (again, I have absolutely no idea what I should be doing in this game, but I have been doing ok so far) but that didn't help at all. I thought the problem was that the county does not appear to be a part of the kingdom of Wales (although it is a de jure part of said kingdom).

 

 

Also, and this is very basic, how does this succession business actually work? If I nominate my son (one with the crown beside his portrait) but the vassals prefer, say, my brother, who would I continue playing as if I happened to die?

[Dewar]

When you die, you will play the person in your bloodline (signified with the tear drop of blood on the portrait) who inherrits the largest chunk of your current lands.

 

Being eligible to be voted in a country requires one of these:

• All (gender-law allowed) dynastic children, grandchildren, siblings, nephews and nieces of the current title holder. If any of these don't belong to your dynasty, they won't be eligible, unless they are landed inside your realm,
• All current electors (including dejure and foreign ones),
• Any claim holder on that specific title.

Counts aren't electors, only dukes are, so that's why giving him that county didn't change his situation, but you shouldn't have to give him any land at all since he is a dynastic son. Unless, is he maybe your step-son, or a bastard?

 

Edit: There's no need to monkey with the dutchy anymore. Breaking it and recreating it might change what the regular dutchy display says but, in general, it's the dejure display that matters. Because having the dutchy instantly gives you claims over any dejure counties you don't own, Kingdoms tend to split along the dejure dutchy lines anyway. If that one county you're missing is independant, you should consider offering them vasalage. If it belongs to a larger kingdom, be prepared to fight over that area as they might come looking for that dutchy title.