Crusaders Kings 2

I do agree to an extent. I would also argue that in reality the current situation would have more relevance than any traditional alliance.

Look at the first World War for instance. It didn't make one lick of sense for the Brits and the French to be allies if you looked at the past.

The fickleness of alliances in CK2 is something that is probably very much true to history. It stands to reason that if their interests do not align then there is very little incentive for them to work together.

Yeah, you have a point. It's sometimes difficult to imagine what it was like a few centuries ago. We're living in an era of relative peace. Sure, there is fighting, but it is mainly civil wars or terrorist organizations. The idea that the UK would declare war against Norway and invade is ludicrous to us now.

I was also thinking more of a cultural history modifier. That the perception of noble characters should be influenced by the interaction with a culture. As it is, it's mainly "if you are not of the same religion, I like you less". I know religion is a key aspect of the game (it is "crusader" kings, after all), but cultural modifiers based on "history" would make for an even more immersive game, I think.

Last night, I had an hour-ish, so I worked on clearing up France and intelligently attributing holdings and titles. Man, I felt like Oprah. "You get a holding! You get a holding! You all get holdings!". I gave counties to every unlanded adult in my court.  Since I had way more counties, I started inviting characters with good stats to land them (even if most of them would not report directly to me, I felt I was augmenting the genetic pool of my realm).

Another HILARIOUS moment followed : you remember I betrothed my daughter to the Carpathian emperor's second son for the non agression pact? Then the emperor died and the first son inherited the throne, accepted to go ahead with marrying his brother to my daughter and with whom I eventually made an alliance? And I had concerns about my carpathian grandchildren (and more) having claims to my empire? Well, the concerns are no more. Take a load of this : I was looking at the list of nobles that were interested in coming to my court, I came across my son-in-law, the carpathian prince!! Seemed he was peeved and he didn't think he had much future there. I invited him to my court, he accepted. Not only that, but I guess my daughter worked some pretty wacky mojo because he was already converted to the germanic religion (probably helped in his decision to come to me). He is now the Jarl of Orléans. My daughter is back in the safety of my people. And he has a claim on the empire of Carpathia (a major claim, at that. Which will be passed on to his germanic children). And on top of that, I STILL HAVE MY ALLIANCE WITH CARPATHIA. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

I don't think I will use that claim, though. It would only amount to having another emperor that likes me. I can't vassalize an equal, so he would stay independent (taking Orléans with him). But, if the eventual successor of the current carpathian emperor ends up hating me, I can always replace him with my (unlanded I hope) grandchildren.

Oh, and France has a new Queen : a 17 year old shieldmaiden with an exceptional talent at stewardship. I betrothed her with my remaining unmarried teenager.   I also named her Stewart of my Empire, completing my set of five councillors who have a +100 relationship towards me. More loyalists in the decision making.

Things are going well. I would be wary of your son in law. You don't want to fight a war to put him on the throne if all it means is that your grandchildren who are not of your dynasty will be the main rivals of your grandchildren who are of your dynasty...

Being related doesn't mean anything in that case.

Now if you can work your way to seizing a Kingdom from Carpathia down the line that would be beneficial.

That can fire back though but you're not playing ironman so why not give it a try when the opportunity arises.

Be wary of ambitious vassals. Things may be looking up now but there is no telling how it will go down once your current ruler kicks the bucket.

Indeed. I would even go so far as saying that most of the middle ages' wars were caused by family member rivalries. Family (or even dynasty) definitely doesn't mean that much. However, I see two positive things out of having a germanic character (not of my dynasty) on the carpathian throne (assuming he doesn't convert to christianity once on the throne) :

1) a germanic character would annoy and enrage his vassals, who might very well rebel. With a bit of luck, the empire would fracture. It happened in a previous CK2 game, where my French duc successfully fought his claim on the HRE (given by his mother, a HRE princess). His rule was very short, as a rebellion to overthrow the ruler erupted. If there's a way that I could ensure maximum chaos and garanteed fracture of the (some?) kingdoms of the Carpathian empire, this would be my #1 plan.

2) at the very least, a germanic emperor would put Carpathia out of christian crusades and prevent them from joining my enemies in holy wars, effectively helping me having free reign in Europe.

Another option is to skip a generation (hoping the claim transfers as well), with marrying the grandchild to a child of the dynasty in a way to inherit the claim. But as I'm still playing as elective gavelkind, playing the claim inheritance game is useless. You absolutely don't know who will come out on top of the election. Matter a fact, right now, the elected heir is a landless wife of a jarl. With average attributes. And she's 5 or 10 years old younger than my ruler, so by the time she inherits (if my ruler dies of old age, fingers crossed), she's also going to be rather old. :/   Meanwhile, my two choices only get one vote - my own... (a thirty year old super diplomat or the 17 years old shieldmaiden Queen of France (23 in stewardship and 13 in martial. Very weak diplomacy, but I should be making more money and so would be able to buy myself my vassal's love. )). Not the best election so far. I hope it'll move before my ruler kicks the bucket.

Good thinking although I'm pretty sure the Germanic character would convert (which is also historically accurate).

I may be wrong but it's probably a strong claim so it should pass to the next generation.

Elective Gavelkind sounds like a nightmare... Sure you get a bigger demesne but that's a real pain. The upside is that you can't run out of heirs I guess.

The shieldmaiden queen of France sounds like a cool character.

Yeah, you are probably right. But it's nice to image the chaos if he wouldn't, though.

I was thinking of a unused second generation strong claim being transfered to a third generation. Example : my new vassal, the emperor's brother (Strong claim), then his children whom I would try to marry to my dynasty (second generation claim, don't know if it's strong or weak, though) and then their children of my dynasty (third generation, don't know if the claim even makes it through here).

Yeah, you can have hit and misses with elective gavelkind. It's just the vote process that bugs me. Are the voting vassals basing their votes on who they like most or on who they think would make the best leader? Both?   I've been pretty lucky so far. I think I only had one medium ruler and another very close call (I'm looking at you, weak leper). On the other hand, I've also had a ruler whose very worst attribute was 11 and a few with a least one attribute in the 20s... I've made the case for elective gavelkind before, and I still like it the best. The pool of electable candidates makes it worth while. If only vassals were voting intelligently. Or, if you could influence their votes. As it stands, even favours don't work to change their votes.

I don't like it. Too many things are out of control. I'd rather have my choice and deal with the difficulty of handling a smaller demesne.

Regarding the claim my concern would be that they might end up turning into weak claims. I'm not completely sure how the game handles that.

Carabas wrote:

Too many things are out of control. I'd rather have my choice and deal with the difficulty of handling a smaller demesne.

Chaos is a beautiful thing, my friend.

That said, it's really weird. Last night, the designated heir had an accident. A venimous snake entered her sleeping chambers during the night through the fourth story window. The poor lady didn't make it. So weird, I have no idea how this could have happened.

Joking aside, it was a miracle it was successful, what with my character having 5 in intrigue.  I was able to bribe her chieftain husband in backing the plot, so I was pretty sure I would get no real backlash if it failed.

So far, the votes were redistributed and the new heir apparent (with 7 votes) is a 65 year old warrior. Not bad stats, actually, but he will be long dead once my ruler kicks the bucket (fingers crossed), so it's of no consequence. The second in line, with 4 votes, is more of a problem. His biggest attribute is diplomacy, with 17. I mean, it's not that bad, but considering he has NOTHING else, it's a poor choice. And I can't get past 87% for the plot, so, so far, I'm going to have to live with it, hoping something moves on that end. Among the next two candidates, with two votes apiece, is my dauphine, the Queen of France (gained a vote! ). I'm really hoping she'll gain more traction.

Fingers crossed she will.

Now, 5 in Intrigue is a bit low don't you think? You may want to shift your focus so you can boost it a little. It couldn't hurt.

My favourite stat is actually Stewardship because I tend to rely on gold to get ahead. Intrigue would be my second choice simply because it does really help with pruning the family tree.

I've always been a diplomacy man, myself. I've always used diplomacy as a tool for controlling vassals. The carousing focus is almost op. While I consider Stewardship a close second, I tend to also favour Martial, roleplaying with norse culture. I've rarely (never?) had an intrigue based character. It would be a different game that's for sure!

I've had characters with different stats and Stewardship and Intrigue are the ones that match my playing style. Stewardship gets you a significant bonus to the number of holdings you can personally control and I like having plenty of gold to get me out of a tough spot. I like Intrigue as well because I'm always scheming plus it fits the idea of a conniving and wily ruler.

I've come to realise that I only resort to warfare when I have no other option or when I'm almost certain that I will win. Perhaps that comes from playing Ironman only but that's the reason why I'm a bit wary of being too cocky with a Martial focused lord (plus when you start getting into duels you can end up with some nasty surprises no matter how good your guy is which is also both realistic and historically accurate).

Diplomacy is pretty nice that's true but when you have a Midas Touched guy in charge getting loads of money to bribe everyone then an average Diplomacy stat is no longer an issue.

Learning is ok I guess. You can get some breakthroughs and the Hermetic society does have some nice perks but that's not necessarily my main focus.

In the end it's the choice of the spouse that matters the most. Getting a really gifted spouse is of paramount importance and I usually tend to try and make up for my ruler's shortcomings or boost his strongest stats.

I did pick up my game and made quite a mess... I did snatch Brittany and France and a few other kingdoms but I couldn't grab Aquitaine (I would have had to break the truce and that comes with hefty negative modifiers).

My child of Destiny only lived to be 50 so it felt as if his work was unfinished.

My next guy was trapped with very few ways to expand for fear of uniting Catholic rulers against him. Soon enough he was the target of a holy war which went south pretty fast since his allies were on the other side of the Mediterranean and he was clearly outmatched. The solution seemed pretty clear and he switched to Catholicism which put an end to the war but opened up an entire new mess with succession laws...

I then made the mistake of switching to Elective Gavelkind and that broke up my entire domain and all the kingdoms ended up being passed around instead of being in the hands of my main guy.

It's been a while since I played with this and it really messed up my plans. My ruler is no longer a direct descendant of the child of destiny so I don't even have the bloodline bonus and in the process I lost all my artifacts.

The only consolation is that the Great Work is still under way.

Now I'm trying to get back the right bloodline on the imperial throne but it's a terrible mess...

Oh noooooooooooo! Did you switch to elective gavelkind following our discussion? I'm so sorry if I pumped you up for it and it screwed up your game!

I don't play with the bloodline feature, so yeah, that's not a factor in my game (and what's up with the artifacts? All artifacts always follows through inheritance for me). But yeah, elective gavelkind really must be prepared. If you start off with it, then it's ok, but it's a much different mindset. You have to look at your duchy/kingdom/empire from a dynasty point of view, not a family one. Having great children is good to feed your dynasty, but not much else. But having great kinsmen is also as good (so marrying kinsmen (and making sure the children are born into the dynasty) to great characters and hoping the children inherit the traits is worthwhile). I would have waited a generation before switching, just because it's bad to have landed children when your ruler dies and passes on the title to a non-family heir. The children of the previous ruler have the option to go independent and the game will automatically create titles that have not been created and pass them on to them. My empire was fractured in that way a few generations ago. I was able to vassalized two of the four children that became independent, but one of them became the King of England (title I had not created) and who stupidly lost a few counties to catholic Wales, which took me a generation or two to get back. So yeah, didn't make that mistake twice. Never land children, create all titles and don't hold too many titles yourself (it is gavelkind after all, so the excess titles will redistributed). If your children are great characters, land them after the non-family heir inherits. If you're lucky, maybe your children will get enough votes to actually be named heir (happened twice in eight inheritances). But there's a consolidation period when you inherit for sure. You can fabricate claims or plot to revoke titles on the counties you want for your new ruler (or, if you can catch a vassal red-handed in a treasonous plot, revoke the title for free). But it has never been a big deal in my previous inheritances (aside from the one I described above).

Did I understand what happened in your game, or was it something else entirely?

I feel your pain. I hope you'll be able to recover your kingdoms soon!

P.S: but like I said before, though, chaos is a beautiful thing. Embrace it.

I wouldn't be playing Ironman if I couldn't live with the consequences or embrace the chaotic nature of this game but you did put the idea of playing with Gavelkind in my head.

The good thing is that instead of dragging on through the ages to paint the map in the pink colour of Burgundy I now have to contend with neighbouring kingdoms that are in the greedy hands of my kin and the huge Byzantine and Abbassid empires (no kidding they are both huge).

Plus I now have and adventurer with a claim on my imperial title who is coming for me...

Let's see if I can survive through this mess and keep up my main title. I've invested so much in Lyon it's pretty good technologically speaking plus I had an event that opened up a new holding (pretty cool event I believe it has to do with the Rulership focus) and my Great Palace is still under construction with people flocking around just to gaze at it in awe (I've spent so much money on that it would be a shame to end up with nothing to show for it).

I did sponsor a mercenary band as well which may not have been such a grand idea since I'm now in between a rock and a hard place.

The one thing I'm happy about is having been able to move one rank towards gender equality so at least I can get a little more usefulness out of female characters (when you don't get to create matrilineal unions girls aren't as useful and I can't rely on them to snatch commoner with godly stats from other courts).

Last but not least I got the achievement for kicking the Aztecs out which is actually pretty cool considering they can sometime totally mess up the map.

CK3 is going to be a thing and looking at the first screenshots I get a Civ6/Sims vibe which is not good. The map looks fine but I'm concerned they're going for a more casual approach. Eye candy is not what the game needs IMHO.

There is also a big controversy because they've removed some phrases from the game as they have been used by extremists. I think that is a bit awkward. I have very little patience with Fascists so I can understand why they'd do that. It's still a bit silly to remove historical sentences that added flavour to the game.

I hate when people use history to further a political agenda that is completely dissociated from the event or phrase they are wrongfully referring to.

Yeah, they published a twitter message saying they would announce a new game mid October and it wouldn't be Victoria 3. It was clear CK3 was coming. I didn't think it would be this soon after the last CK2 DLC, though.

I got the same vibe as you, Cara. This game didn't need 3D models. I fear the time spent on aesthetics will be less time spent on the mechanics. You're right in bringing up Civ. The 6th game (and even the 5th) took such a wide-audience turn that it pretty much killed what made the game great. I'm also fearing the same for CK2. It wouldn't be so bad that lessen the learning curve, but the nice thing about the game is possibilities you have at your fingertips. Sacrificing functionality for casual playing would betray what makes CK2 such a great game.

Anyway, it might be premature for such pessimism. We'll see. Fingers crossed.

As for the Deus Vault thing, I can't say I blame the developers. They're navigating angry waters. It's a small price to pay not to fan flames.

The problem with CK2 is that they did something stupid when they included India. They bit more than the engine could chew and as a result they had to rely on shortcuts to make it work (i.e. deleting extraneous characters who now vanish in oblivion when you're not looking).

I wish they never expanded the game so far East but that's how it is. I would have preferred if they had polished the game mechanics.

Right now what I expect is for CK3 to look pretty and cute and to do away with the steep learning curve in order to attract a new audience. The focus on so called RPG elements doesn't reassure me.

I don't know if you've seen the first dev diary. They explain the four main design goals with the third game :

Quote :

Character Focus: Crusader Kings is clearly and unequivocally about individual characters, unlike our other games. This makes CK most suited for memorable emergent stories, and we wanted to bring characters into all important gameplay mechanics (where possible.)

Player Freedom and Progression: We want to cater to all player fantasies we can reasonably accommodate, allowing players to shape their ruler, heirs, dynasty and even religion to their liking – though there should of course be appropriate challenges to overcome.

Player Stories: All events and scripted content should feel relevant, impactful and immersive in relation to the underlying simulation. That way, players will perceive and remember stories – their own stories, not the developers’ stories.

Approachability: Crusader Kings III should be user friendly without compromising its general level of complexity and historical flavor. It’s nice if it’s easier to get into, but more than that, it should be clear what everything in the game is, what you might want to be doing, and how to go about it.

I don't know if they were referring to general design goals or improvements on the previous instalment. The first three are pretty much there in CK2. I also read they would heavily favour action-reaction between characters (player-A.I. or A.I.-A.I.) instead of random event, like CK2. I'm torn on this one. On one hand, it might make for a more immersive game if you could trace every consequence to it's action. But I rather like the randomness of CK2. Adds a bit of chaos to the game and makes for an uncomfortable throne, as all thought out plans can crumble at a moment's notice. Keeps you on your toes and makes you realize damage control is as important as long term planning.

And they confirmed nomads and merchant republics won't be part of CK3.

I've also just stumbled up the next dev diary (came out yesterday). Dynasties will be empowered. Each dynasty will be founded by a house, but eventually, distant relatives of the same dynasty will be able to create a cadet house under the same dynasty (with a different coat-of-arms and motto). The dynasty head will also wield a lot more power over it's members (like disinherit, denounce, push claims). Dynasties will also have Renown points, which is basically how known the dynasty is (and thus will make diplomacy with other dynasties easier).

I'm not thrilled about the whole thing but then I've grown rather discontent with Paradox as a developer and a publisher. Maybe they will prove me wrong but I really doubt that.

My game is still going strong and I've managed to get the law for improved full female status so I can make females commanders and advisors which means that I no longer waste great female courtiers.

I'm also trying to create a new bloodline as I did switch away from the one I had funded earlier.

Switching religions made such a mess but it's fun to have a ruler with 14 kids.

Most big realms are in the hands of my dynasty so I think we did manage to outdo the Karlings there.

Haha, good job! Gender equality for the win! But really, gender equality means double the chance of having a great character, especially in an elective succession format (double the chance of a dud as well, but I'm a gambling man at heart). What culture is your ruler? And what's your territory?

Yeah, big families are a godsend. After a few generations, it becomes basically impossible to lose the game via dynasty extinction. And good job for placing your family in the right spots. Soon, no one will be able to stop you.

Nobody has been able to stop me for centuries.

I'm the Emperor of Burgundy with the capital in Lyon so French culture but my holdings are Ibadi (a Muslim subgroup). I've kept switching religions around so my guy was a Muslim for a while and now he is a Catholic I even tried being a Jain for fun.

With the right people not having the best stats is not such a problem (you have enough chains of events to boost what you need) but having a full demesne is something that makes the game much less of a pain (which is why I'm a big fan of Primogeniture).

Gender equality also meant I had to contend with a few female adventurers (including a sibling who was a friend which made it a bit awkward).

As far as painting the map pink, I didn't go too far. I'm having fun trying things out with the huge amount of gold my emperor is getting and I have a mercenary company and a some great works and I've invested loads of gold into improving holdings.

The good thing about having an imperial title is that you can keep kings and queens under your thumb. I actually pressed claims for kingdoms and it worked pretty nicely in the past.

I've finished my game. I reached the mid 15th century with my dynasty all over the map.

I had a setback though when I failed at conquering Spain and then a claimant took over my throne and I was demoted to Duke level. Pride before the fall. It took me a few generations to get back to King level and just before the end of the game I was back at Emperor level. When the game ended my ruler was married to the Empress of Spain and just had an heir who would join together our empires. It was a bit frustrating to end the game at this point.

Over 7 centuries starting as a count in Lyon I had 35 different rulers: 10 dukes, 5 kings and 20 emperors. I only had 1 female ruler (the last but one).

My longest reign was 59 years and the shortest reign was just 4 months.

It's been quite the journey. I didn't manage to paint the map in one colour but having a dynasty with hundreds of members (some of them in high places) always feels good. Although to be honest it was hard to avoid the kinslayer trait at times...

I forgot to respond to your post when you posted it, but good job! So I guess you don't have the option to continue the game after the set end date, à la Civilization? I don't know why companies feel the need to curtain sandbox games. If there's an end date, just stop recording the score and let the player have fun till the end of times. It would have been so satisfying for you to see the result of you hardwork. How big was the spanish empire?

35 different rulers is a lot! Do you remember how many of those had good stats? Do you just make do with your new ruler when he sucks, or do you go the suicide way?

You have my respect for going from an emperor to a duke. I try, I really try, to respect the direction my game goes in, but the will to reload is strong in me.

Thanks. The Spanish empire was pretty big and things were going smoothly so it was a bit of a letdown. I even exported the save to Europa Universalis 4 to have a quick look at it in the 15th century but it was a bit frustrating considering that I might have been able to unify both empires if I had a few more years. I didn't continue this particular game with EU4 but that's how you can keep on playing.

I play Ironman because that's the only way to make sure not to be tempted to reload when the RNG gods hit you and of course I hit plenty of bumps along the way but I found that a crappy ruler can be improved with the right focus and a little bit of luck. When all else fails getting your ruler killed is of course still a possibility.

Going back to Duke level was a pain but in the end it's actually coming back that matters. I don't necessarily plan on painting the whole map one colour but sometimes things turn out well without pushing hard for that particular outcome. I still think that I could have made more of the Child of Destiny event line but it's always a bit tricky since you never know how long the character is going to live. The hardest part over such a long game is not too become too complacent. That's how you make mistakes, when you start taking things for granted and then you end up falling down but that's just the kind of wake up calls one needs sometimes to get back into the action.