Crusader Kings II: The Triumph of Ragnar

[Badfinger]

The Europa Universalis IV demo is out on Steam, which I think may be of interest to people in this thread.

 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/236850/

 

It is absolutely of interest, thanks.

[Kadayi]

I've been stumbling around through a bunch of restarts. The extent of strategic knowledge I've actually accrued boils down to this:

1) how to minmax the ruler creator/customizer

2) if you're saving up money to do something, save up enough money to do that thing PLUS enough for the second cheapest tier of mercenaries (and some duration of upkeep)

because:

a) you never know when someone is going to mess with you and require you to call in mercs

sometimes the ENTIRE cheapest tier of mercs will be on jobs for other parties ( "oh I'm fine, I'll just bring in some mercs. I can afford those...wait no I can't." )

 

so yeah, I'm pretty bad at this game.

 

I'm a serial re-starter until I feel I have the hang of a game. I very quickly established a beginning approach: -

 

1) Make your own King/Earl whatever using the DLC. Firstly it means you don't have to deal with existing family ties. Secondly you can give yourself a good starting character without a bunch of terribad traits. Traits I pick are Midas touched as education and quick, patient & content for general traits. Then I spend enough points to take my character up to around age 35 to round out a few of the lower scores. You end up with a well rounded ruler with good stewardship. Getting lusty or hedonistic might seem like a good idea to increase fertility, but they're both a constant drain on your piety and your standing with the clergy. You're far better to get a lusty wife in truth. However saying that, the game throws up some odd rolls when you get down to it. I had a ruler with 4 sons, whose wife died and I ended up marrying him to a lesbian Norwegian princess partly on the basis of her having a great stats, but also mayhap it might put and end to his fetundity (too many heirs to manage already). I was even blessed with his lordship suddenly deciding he liked the boys more than the girls himself after a tournament, however despite the astronomical odds of conceiving, the pair of them went at it like rabbits and managed to squeeze out 4 girls before he gasped his last, leaving me to manage the succession bloodbath that followed. Also with Lusty your character will always jump at any leg over opportunity which can lead to all sorts of problems, where as without it you're able to make a choice (and unless you lack for sons the best choice is 'not tonight Josephine').    

 

2) Before you even unpause, take a good look around your court and Vassals and identify whose beneficial and who you can marry off matrilineally to some far away terribly traited foreign courtier. My fave way of dealing with early title claimants, and people who have terrible stats & traits in general. 

 

3) Also (and again before you unpause) get in a few debutantes to populate your court (I tend to get 5). They'll cost you 1 GP each, but are useful to marry off to valued courtiers and vassals and often times you can marry off the less than desirable ones to some hapless lord whose territory you covet early on meaning they're weakened in the long term. Hell I managed to marry off a 77 year old dowager to a 40 something earl who actively wanted kids simply because he was more impressed with her pedigree than anything else.Once she died I then managed to convince him to marry a chaste debutante with truly terrible stats.   

 

4)  Also before you unpause, have a good scan for unmarried women with good stats and decent positive traits. You yourself might take a bad prestige hit from marrying a commoner however there's no good reason not to marry some into your court and use them as educators of any children that are there. The youth of today are the potential chancellors, marshals and stewards of tomorrow and if you can raise them yourself you'll be all the better for it. Similarly before any of your own children are 6 it's no bad thing to educate a few court kids personally as they'll likely inherit your positive traits and pass them on to their children also. 

 

5) Line up people who are favourable to you to take over your bishopricks.

 

6) Don't give honorary titles to people who like you already, save them for people who have a mildly negative opinion of you (though not so negative that they might poison you) 

 

7) Make sure to mark down people of interest so that you're informed as to what they're up to. Very useful for keeping tabs on court children as they age, so you can choose who educates them (and try and avoid negative traits). Also it's well worth doing the occasional scan for bright children elsewhere in the world and marking them so that you can try and marry them into your court when they are of age. Betrothals are a damn useful tool as well.  

 

8) Getting in advisers from outside isn't easy and generally requires bribes to encourage them. But sometimes it's a necessity, especially if you lack for a decent chancellor or spymaster. Best to target courtiers with decent stats rather than those already in a position.

 

9) With selecting a wife, Stewardship is the stat you want to look out for the most, however a wife with high intrigue is also able to take on the role of spymaster (the only role women can take)  and that can be beneficial. 

[Nappi]

Kildare

February 10th, 1093

 

"Our daughter will arrive, soon. I feel her stirring."

 

"I am overjoyed, awaiting her arrival. What shall we name her?"

 

"She will be born in an incredible time. Our country is close to being united. Gardeners can become mayor, and fraternize with the King!"

 

"It is true, my love. I feel that she can be anything. Maybe they will speak of her. Maybe she will marry into royalty."

 

"But that is too lofty a goal for a lowborn!"

 

"Perhaps, but I feel that we can dream. Let us name her after your mother."

 

(softly touches her belly)

 

"My darling Dub Dil, I cannot wait to hold you in my arms."

 

 

June 23rd, 1114

 

"Mother? Father! The fire consumes our house! Oh, God, why have you done this? We must leave immediately!"

 

"Where is Bub Dil? Where is your brother?"

 

"Father, he must be in the house with Mother!"

 

"I am going in after him."

 

"Father, no, please!"

 

"Father!"

 

(house consumed by fire)

 

June 24th, 1114

 

"How can I go on living, when my world has been taken from me?"

 

(dies)

 

San Francisco

July 28th, 2013

 

 

"Dub Dil has died."

 

"Ha! It's just Dub Dil. That's it. Dub Dil. Dub Dil has Died. Dead Dub Dil"

 

"Doggone Dead Dub Dil, Deba deb deb dub dil"

 

...

 

"That's Dub Dil! The least important person on the entire island has died."

 

...

 

"There are probably dogs that are more famous in this country."

 

"Well, there probably are. Our dog. Glory to me, and my dog."

 

(click)

 

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I let our son in my court and eventually made him a vassal. Dub-Dil might be one of the most influential women in Ireland right now. I hope I'm informed when she dies.

EDIT: I think will actually load a save and try to make him my heir.

[RubixsQube]

I don't know whether to be happy for Dub-Dil or sad that in the universe of CKII that Chris/Nick control, Dub-Dil will never know her true glory. It's kind of sad to be faintly aware of your existence in a parallel universe, I think.

 

Oh Dub-Dil.

 

Thank you, Nappi.

[Gormongous]

PSA: the 1.11 patch broke compatibility with older saves (a programmer added an entry at the beginning rather than the end of the traits list, meaning that everyone in the game has the traits one before what they should have, "Born in the Purple" becomes "Blinded," and so on). Paradox has acknowledged the mistake but will not be fixing it, so if you want to continue with your pre-1.11 saves (which I assume everyone does), you'll need to register an account on the Paradox forums so you can download this mod, install it to the "%Username%\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II\mod" directory, and enable it in the launcher.

[l3illyl3ob]

PSA: the 1.11 patch broke compatibility with older saves (a programmer added an entry at the beginning rather than the end of the traits list, meaning that everyone in the game has the traits one before what they should have, "Born in the Purple" becomes "Blinded," and so on). Paradox has acknowledged the mistake but will not be fixing it, so if you want to continue with your pre-1.11 saves (which I assume everyone does), you'll need to register an account on the Paradox forums so you can download this mod, install it to the "%Username%\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II\mod" directory, and enable it in the launcher.

 

I hope they see this before attempting to resume again. This is mega important! You can also edit the files directly, but using a mod is best.

 

The reason they're not fixing it is because doing so would break games started after the patch in the same way.

[Gormongous]

I hope they see this before attempting to resume again. This is mega important! You can also edit the files directly, but using a mod is best.

 

The reason they're not fixing it is because doing so would break games started after the patch in the same way.

 

Well, it ends up that there was still need for a hotfix because a bug in the event files was causing hundred-plus meg saves, so they fixed the traits while they were at it. Now it's full steam ahead with no mods needed, just as long as you didn't load your save between the release of 1.11 and 1.111.

[Nappi]

What is the status of this? Are you done or can we still expect new streams? How about a final disastrously ambitious, all-in, Nick unchained push for Irish world domination? 

 

Ragnarök.

[Nick Breckon]

What is the status of this? Are you done or can we still expect new streams? How about a final disastrously ambitious, all-in, Nick unchained push for Irish world domination? 

 

Ragnarök.

 

I'd like to do at least a "final" episode, where we accelerate to warp speed and see what happens.

[Nappi]

Sounds good!  

[plasticflesh]

I've only ever played ck2 on 'no input accelerated time warp' and its still pretty compelling. Hearing about my lord spawning baby after baby, getting and recovering from head colds, throwing feasts on his own, and so on...

[StrakAttack]

Wanted to add the YouTube link to the compilation of the Ragnar story from the Idle Thumbs podcast. I didn’t watch the stream but fondly remember the discussion from listening to Idle Thumbs.