Crusader Kings II - Paradox Entertainement (02/12)
- Thread starter Tellus
- Start date
Oh my god that's painfully brutal.
The Gurm will fucking die before completing his series... in fact, I don't think he gives a damn about completing it anymore, since most of his money now comes from the TV series.
So I've been watching this game for a loooong while, and finally downloaded the Demo. You only get to pick 4 powers to play from, and only 20 years to play it. Having no clue how to proceed, I just picked Bohemia and pushed Play. It's around 1060 or so when the game starts, and Bohemia is part of the HRE. At some point, there was some legislation article that popped up saying I could vote on the Limited Crown Authority - but I didn't know how. The Kaiser also raised some of my levies, taking my Duke, Chancellor, and Martial off to fight in Mecklenburg. I managed to put my remaining Council to work - stuff like collecting taxes and setting up spies and preaching and stuff - and I managed to find the Holdings tab to build a couple of market expansions. I even found a nearby lordling to set up a marriage for my brother.
But... damn if I could figure out much beyond that. And that was just picking and clicking and guessing. It seemed like not much going on, but it being the Vanilla Download, I know there's a whole slew of other DLCs out there (eventually) for me to pick from. It was just sort of boring. I think because I didn't know all that I *could* be doing.
Like, during the Mecklenburg war, I never took part apparently. Despite my forces being at the Kaiser's command. How does that work exactly? How could I have joined the war appropriately? I did raise my levies, led them off to fight, and suddenly found the 4k Mecklenburgers in my path rather than them defending their homeland. So my forces were wrecked and all that stuff. Luckily no one bothered me.
But yeah, the Demo has a Tutorial I plan to try tonight/tomorrow, but otherwise... anyone got any tips?
But... damn if I could figure out much beyond that. And that was just picking and clicking and guessing. It seemed like not much going on, but it being the Vanilla Download, I know there's a whole slew of other DLCs out there (eventually) for me to pick from. It was just sort of boring. I think because I didn't know all that I *could* be doing.
Like, during the Mecklenburg war, I never took part apparently. Despite my forces being at the Kaiser's command. How does that work exactly? How could I have joined the war appropriately? I did raise my levies, led them off to fight, and suddenly found the 4k Mecklenburgers in my path rather than them defending their homeland. So my forces were wrecked and all that stuff. Luckily no one bothered me.
But yeah, the Demo has a Tutorial I plan to try tonight/tomorrow, but otherwise... anyone got any tips?
'Kay so, your Empire went to war with Mecklenburg, which means the Kaiser is fighting them. You are not. You are however a vassal, so you are considered to be "at war" with them, which means they consider your forces to be part of the Empire, and they WILL fight YOU if you happen to get in the way. And since they are at war with the actual ruler they also get the chance to besiege and take your lands in order to increase their warscore. They aren't actually gunning for you in particular though, they are going after your boss.
Now, since Bohemia is so far away from Mecklenburg you really should just ignore the war. You are not fighting them, let the Kaiser do that. The more troops he has to throw into the meatgrinder the weaker he becomes relative to you (and his other vassals). In turn that means he will be less able to centralize authority and make you actually listen to him. Furthermore, you are not expected to help beyond the soldiers you actually send when he raises the levies. Your own personal troops do not need to be deployed.
If you get a vote then your options will be in that message. You only get a vote if both of these are true: a. the Council GETS a vote on these matters, and b. you are on the Council. Otherwise the Kaiser isn't asking, he is informing you that it has happened.
I haven't played the vanilla in...years actually, but you might be able to click on a button on each of those characters to forbid them being able to lead armies.
As for general points, early in the game there really isn't that much to do. You need to micromanage construction and use your council to generate extra money/tech points so that you can start to build advantages, but you likely won't be warring often. As the Duke of Bohemia your first priorities should probably be murdering all (or at least several of) the counts who are under you, and their families. That way you inherit their castles, and can increase your own income, and your levies. You could also imprison them and revoke their titles, but there's less murder in that plan so I'm not sure why you would.
This will have the side effect of having any vassals you have who are left hate your guts, but if you control all the counties in the duchy it really doesn't matter. From there find a weak neighbor (normally a count) and try to force them to become your vassal (or if you aren't at the upper limit on counties just make war upon them and take it for yourself).
To do this you need a claim. You chancellor is the one who will form it, the middle button of their missions is the "Fabricate Claims" mission, and they have a percentage to complete their work every month. The fastest is about 20% per year. So it can take a while for them to finish. You will have to pay for that claim when it is fabricated out of your personal wealth, so be sure to keep that number relatively high.
Also, be sure that the weak neighbor you are bullying has the same direct superior as you (in your case the Kaiser.) Otherwise you will have to go up the chain and fight the vassal who DOES have your direct superior above them. Which might mean you are fighting another Duke. Bullying counts is much easier, especially early in the game.
Wow, thanks much! I knew I didn't need to war, but I figured I was trying to learn, so... not the smartest, but still figuring things out. I did notice, for example, before I could even collect all of my forces into a single army, the vassals were bitchy that their forces had been fielded for too long at a rate of -1 relations. So. Yay, right? Otherwise, my guy had 6/6 demesne, so not much more I could have done directly, right? I didn't play it for too many years in that first sitting. It's an older laptop and Paradox is prone to crashing, so I hedged my bets and quit the game after 20-30 minutes or so.
I'd like a new computer for this game, but that's not in the cards yet. And I'm certainly not about to if I can't figure out how to play
Right, so any offensive war (or if you aren't at war as was your case) your vassals are going to dislike having to provide their levies to you. Why? Because they are the ones paying for them. Anytime the levies are raised the person they comes from is paying money for their upkeep. Now, most of that money is yours since your own personal lands are the source of most of your levies (this is less true once you become a king or emperor), but the rest will be paid by someone else. What this translates into is a negative opinion modifier that will steadily build over time, and will only decrease AFTER the levies are lowered (or they all get killed). This means that later in the game, when you have to deal with more vassals it is often more efficient to simply assault castles, cities, or temples than besiege them since it ends the war faster, and if all the levies get killed in the assault then your vassals won't keep having their negative opinion increasing.
Note, this does not apply to defensive wars (or at least not religious defensive wars, but I think its all of them). Since you are defending the realm the vassals are more willing to pay for you to take their troops off to war.
Oh, one other thing. That negative modifier, it can make your vassals start to plot against you, or even make factions and cause more demands to be made. Why does this matter? Because those levies you've raised are all your soldiers. So if you get a bunch of them killed for no reason, can't raise more, and find several of your powerful vassals starting to chafe then they might rise up in rebellion if you refuse their demands. And all their soldiers will leave. And they will be free to raise THEIR own levies to fight you, and they don't send all their men out when you call them up. So it is very possible to face a cataclysimic civil war while also trying to invade a large kingdom or empire if you aren't careful.
Right. You couldn't have any more personal land. Most you could have done is seize more counties and then hand them off to courtiers who would be suitably grateful.
I was trying to figure out how to do more interaction with my various courtiers. Either I'm missing something or there simply aren't that many options in Vanilla Demo.
It may come down to the fact I'm merely spoiled having read so many AARs after all the DLCs.
B-29_Bomber
Banned
That assumes he's a duke.
If he's a count then giving counties away to courtiers makes them independent.
Going by what I remember from Vanilla you should be able to grant landed titles, send gifts, and imprison them at least. You bring interactions up by right clicking on their portrait if that wasn't explained.
Also this. He talked about Bohemia though, so I assumed it was the duchy.
I should point out that if you have the regular game and want to learn the game mechanics the most often pointed at start is as one of the counts in Ireland, usually the one in Dublin because his father owns the county next door and will drop dead in a few years time and you are his heir. The biggest polity you have to worry about in 1066 is England but they are facing dual invasions from Harold Hardrada of Norway and William the Bastard of Normandy so you have a good 25 years at least before they turn your way, maybe more if one of those two actually wins.
Things are still a bit silly.
Robert saw a rebellion where Viserys was backed by the Vale (House Waynwood now replaced by House Saul), the North (Robb taking offence at his namesake for imprisoning Dad) and the Riverlands. Although I'm married to the Lady of the Trident's sister, we sat this one out. I was hoping to use the chaos to pounce on the Lannisters in order to nick the High Lordship of the Crossing, but they supported Bob, and sent an army of 15k to hold the Neck stopping the North from engaging, and also routing a Valeman force sneaking along the shores of the Bite. By 7k plus vassals and allies couldn't compete with that. So I sat in Seagard, watching armies process through the Riverlands. Bob routed the Southern rebels, then died, leaving the throne to Stannis' son Edric. The irony.
Ed beat the Beggar king, and somehow, the Crossing and Castamere were transferred back to the Riverlands. Which allowed me to press a claim, and I know have two of the four provinces in the High Lordship. More distressingly, my very promising but pneumonic heir has just died aged 18, leaving his younger brother in line for the Lordship. Said brother is rather less blessed in the stat department. Need to see if I can fix things before he comes of age.
Planet of Hats
Donor
I feel like it's almost not worth starting a new game until Jade Dragon comes out, and yet here I am.
It's the 840s and I'm doing a challenge based around building an Occitan-Catalan kingdom comprising Aquitaine, Barcelona, Valencia and the Balearics, and nothing else until the era of the Crusades. Part of the challenge will involve how I staff Crusade conquests, if any: I'm going to try keeping them loaded with local conversos at the count level, to try and reflect a more multicultural kingdom.
Also trying not to blob out this time.
It's the 840s and I'm doing a challenge based around building an Occitan-Catalan kingdom comprising Aquitaine, Barcelona, Valencia and the Balearics, and nothing else until the era of the Crusades. Part of the challenge will involve how I staff Crusade conquests, if any: I'm going to try keeping them loaded with local conversos at the count level, to try and reflect a more multicultural kingdom.
Also trying not to blob out this time.
So because Krigare challenged me to do a game of CK2+ with Lithuania, I decided "why not?"
100 years to forge that tribal pagan mess into a decent feudal Chalcedonian Kingdom, and what happens? Damn king DIES!!! NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THOSE IDIOTS LIVED PAST 49!!!! So 13 year old King, with only pagan vassals and with shitty holdings because I became feudal the year he became king!!
Long Story Short, I ended up hating Lithuania!! Creating a Zoroastrian Empire with the 9th century start was easier, than this Gavelkind feudal-tribal mess!!
Time to go back to play Prussia and annex them all into the Kingdom of Prussia!
My game at this point:
100 years to forge that tribal pagan mess into a decent feudal Chalcedonian Kingdom, and what happens? Damn king DIES!!! NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THOSE IDIOTS LIVED PAST 49!!!! So 13 year old King, with only pagan vassals and with shitty holdings because I became feudal the year he became king!!
Long Story Short, I ended up hating Lithuania!! Creating a Zoroastrian Empire with the 9th century start was easier, than this Gavelkind feudal-tribal mess!!
Time to go back to play Prussia and annex them all into the Kingdom of Prussia!
My game at this point:
KitFisto1997
Banned
Dutch Empire...? Wot.
I've had similar experiences in my CKII games, but it mostly happens in Britain, where I'll get any number of Kingdoms rising up in de-jure English territory.
Dutch Empire...? Wot.
I've had similar experiences in my CKII games, but it mostly happens in Britain, where I'll get any number of Kingdoms rising up in de-jure English territory.
I used the CK2+ option to disable de jure Empires, basically only ERE and HRE are de jure, and those guys went from Frankish Empire, to Carolingian Empire, to complete mess, to Dutch Empire, while I was trying to fight back a Huge Hungarian Blob that dominated all the regions to the east of me.
And if you think that the Dutch Empire is bad, the strongest Kingdom in Iberia is the Sultanate of Navarre and Afghanistan is the strongest state in Persia!
KitFisto1997
Banned
I used the CK2+ option to disable de jure Empires, basically only ERE and HRE are de jure, and those guys went from Frankish Empire, to Carolingian Empire, to complete mess, to Dutch Empire, while I was trying to fight back a Huge Hungarian Blob that dominated all the regions to the east of me.
And if you think that the Dutch Empire is bad, the strongest Kingdom in Iberia is the Sultanate of Navarre and Afghanistan is the strongest state in Persia!
Is Afghanistan Zunist, Zorastrian or Muslim in your game? (Please be reformed Zunist).
I've pulled off some pretty wicked shit as Zunist Persia and my Emperor is currently a disfigured 63-year-old immortal.
I've also had the Hungarians rape and pillage their way through Eastern Europe to the point where the entirety of OTL European Russia has glorious Magyar culture.
On the CK2 normal game you have the Empire of Hispania, Russia, Scandinavia, Wendish, Persian, etc...none of those exist on mod game, I formed the Zoroastrian Kurdish Empire, in this game:
Is Afghanistan Zunist, Zorastrian or Muslim in your game? (Please be reformed Zunist).
I've pulled off some pretty wicked shit as Zunist Persia and my Emperor is currently a disfigured 63-year-old immortal.
I've also had the Hungarians rape and pillage their way through Eastern Europe to the point where the entirety of OTL European Russia has glorious Magyar culture.
Afghanistan is Zunist! And there's a Mazdaki Satrapy in the middle of Persia! And the Sultanate of Navarre is Chalcedonian!
The religious map is a mess! Afghanistan only has one Zunist province! Same number of Buddhist provinces in their Kingdom!