Crusader Kings 2 Succession/Learning Game

enlightenedbum

Hi!

So over in the CK2 Multiplayer thread, there have been lots of questions about the game, especially with the recent Steam summer sale making it dirt cheap so quite a few new players have begun playing. I thought we could help y'all out in a fun experience for everyone. So in this thread, we will be playing a Succession game!

What is Crusader Kings 2?

Crusader Kings 2 is a strategy game from Paradox Interactive, the makers of all sorts of grand strategy games that span a vast time period, from 1066-the late 20th century. In this case, we are playing their game focused on Europe of the Middle Ages. Specifically, the second of those games. It's probably the best, or at least the least buggy, game they've made. In it, you take control of a dynasty, not a country, and try to guide them as successfully as you can to rank with the great families of history.

What's a Succession game?

For those of you who didn't participate in either the Civ4 succession game or the LP Paradox thread (that sadly crapped out with us all powerful in the 18th century), a succession game is a game where a number of players take control in succession. In Paradox games, that will be when the current ruler dies.

Who gets to play?

I'll be taking the first turn, as is my tradition as thread maker. Depending how people want to do it, we can either then alternate between experienced players and newbies (who would presumably ask questions as they played) or we can load up with the experienced people (basically the people who played in the MP game, so @jdarksun, @Phyphor, @shalmelo, @pollodiablo, @Brian Krakow, etc.) demonstrating the variety of things you can do and then we can see what newbies have learned by watching. I have no preference, personally.

Who do we want to be?

Because most of the newbie questions (and this is a learning thread) seem to be focused on how to handle the base game, we will be playing as a Christian ruler. I'd be open to playing a second game with a Muslim family exploring the Sword of Islam expansion pack later, but for now, we'll stick with Christians. That said, which Christians I haven't decided. I'll offer five options though. If you feel strongly about somewhere else we can consider that as well.

My suggestions:

1) Ireland! Specifically, this dude:



Pros:
Ireland is a safe, easy location with expansion available with obvious medium term (King of Ireland) and long term (Emperor of Britannia) goals.
Everyone can play along with reasonable expectations of success.

Cons:
It's really safe and kind of boring.
Everyone's done it at least once. Including an excellent learning LP over at Something Awful.
Ireland is kind of poor.

2) Germany! Specifically, the Duke of Brandenburg:



Pros:
Germany is rich
Nearby Pagans if you can beat the Emperor to them
In the Holy Roman Empire, which can be fun

Cons:
If the Emperor manages to raise crown authority quickly, we could be in for some boring times
The Emperor probably takes our natural expansion opportunity towards the Baltic himself

3) Spain! Specifically, the King of Castille:



Pros:
We're a King!
We can become a multiple King quickly with some stabbing.
Lots of Muslims to fight/expand into! The Reconquista is fun.
An Emperor title can be formed relatively quickly if you succeed.

Cons:
Muslims can be tough if they're all allied and you fall to infighting
Converting can be slow work
France is an asshole, usually

4) Sicily! Well, the Duke of Apulia for now:



Pros:
Easy to become a King
Natural expansion
Rich land

Cons:
After the initial stuff, have to go overseas, which can be a pain
Aggressive muslims make the early going a bit difficult
Our Culture wouldn't match our territory's culture, with the minor problems that creates

5) Russia! This guy, specifically:



Pros:
Part of the Rurikovich dynasty, the dominant one in Russia
Probably the easiest of the formable empires
I haven't played out there yet
Lots of plotting!
(Eventually) rich land

Cons:
Lots of plotting could lead to short turns
We'd eventually bear the brunt of the Golden Horde
Orthodox, so no crusading for us

If you want to post in the thread, vote for one of those (or a different idea) in some readable color.

If you would like to play a turn, also mention that in another color

UPDATES
The Reign of Sancho II "the Pious" Jimena, King of Castille (1066 - 1100) and Leon (1076 - 1100) played by enlightenedbum
Update 0 - Initial Position (1066)
Update 1 - Sancho's First War (1066 - 1073)
Update 2 - Sancho Conquers Leon and Raises His Heir (1073 - 1079)
Update 3 - Sancho Kicks Butt (1079 - 1087)
Update 4 - Peace is For Losers - INVADE! (1087 - 1092)


The Reign of Fernando II Jimena, King of Castille and Leon (1100) played by mynameisguido
Maimed (1100)

The Reign of Sancho III Jimena, Emperor of Hispania, King of Castille, Leon, Galicia, Aragon, and Portucale (1100 - 1135) played by Brian Krakow
La Ciudad de los Sanchos (1100-1102)
Five Wars, a Wedding, and a Funeral (1102 - 1110)
The Reconquista is Completed a Few Centuries Early (1110 - 1118)
The Worst Allies Ever; Also A Jihad is Defeated (1118 - 1124)
In Which Sancho Is A Gigantic Dick (1124 - 1135)

The Reign of Emperor Blasco I Jimena, King of Aragon and Portucale (1135 - 1164) played by Durinia
Kinslaying! (1135 - 1140)
Further Reconquest, Conversion (1140 - 1153)
Leon Reclaimed, Sevilla Lost (1153 - 1160)
Blasco Fails to Retake Sevilla (1160 -1164)

The Reign of Emperor Fruela I "the Great" Jimena (1164 - 1200) played by Kana
Fruela Surrenders in the Conquest of Sevilla (1164)
Heathen Hordes (1164 - 1165)
Friends! (1165 - 1166)
Crusade! (1167 - 1171)
Peace! (1170 - 1184)
The Opposite of That! (1184 - 1187)
Fruela Gets It On (1186 - 1195)
In Which Fruela Invades the HRE (1196 - 1197)
HRE Invasion Fails, Another Jihad (1197 - 1200)

The Reign of Emperor Juan I "the Cruel" Jimena (1200 - 1234) played by Shadowhope
Juan's Entire Reign (1200 - 1234)
(In which Juan fights off several Jihads, conquers much of North Africa, and arrests various family members)

The Reign of Emperor Ordono I Jimena (1234 - 1236) played by KetBra
Restructuring (1234 - 1236)

The Reign of Empress Elvira I Jimena (1236 - 1268) played by KetBra
The Spanish Civil War, Seven Centuries Early (1236)
Conclusion (1237)
[url="http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/24184671/#Comment_24184671]Aggressive Assassinating = Assassinated[/url] (1237 - 1268)

Abandoned due to dominance

The Reign of Count Penny Arcade of Napoli (1066 - 1096) played by Yogo
Greece Falls (1066 - 1096)

The Reign of Doux Niphon I of Arcadia (1096 - 1123) played by SanderJK
Muslim Dominance (1096 - 1123)

The Reign of King Hellas I of Sicily (1123 - 1157) played by KetBra
King At Last! (1123 - 1128)
Aggressive Expansion (1128 - 1157)

Vic

I guess I would have to call myself experienced at 100 hours played, though I would like to stress that experienced does not mean competent in this case. I would love to sign up though!

Teucrian

I'm up for trying the Reconquista.

And would happily play a turn.

Phyphor

Sure
Russia! Orthodoxy! Or Spain

mynameisguido

Sure, I'm down

I'm down for anything, and at about 20ish hours played I'd probably be considered pretty newb still.

Gigazombie Cybermage

Man, this looks like my cup of tea. How much is it?

Banzai5150

I'm still in the early learning phase and constantly bug @Elvenshae with my questions, but... if you need a body to do stupid things? I'm your Man!

Kana

Teucrian wrote: »

I'm up for trying the Reconquista.

And would happily play a turn.

I'm also down for playing in a succession game (fairly experienced) and vote reconquista

enlightenedbum

OK, unless there is a major swing against Castille, we will be playing as them.

In the mean time, post a preference as to how to order this.

RNG, alternating, experienced -> newbies (newbies get to deal with huge, highly collapsable empire!)?

The Fourth Estate

Sure!
Apulia all the way.

Capfalcon

Onward! To Constantinople!

Sure, Castile is fun.

shalmelo

We're really using cyan for signups?? I hate you all

If you want the Reconquista done right, you've got to do it yourself

I've got no real preference on how we want to structure the turns. Probably best if we have a couple of vets take the first few, but after that whatever works...

Phyphor

shalmelo wrote: »

We're really using cyan for signups?? I hate you all

If you want the Reconquista done right, you've got to do it yourself

I've got no real preference on how we want to structure the turns. Probably best if we have a couple of vets take the first few, but after that whatever works...

Use the proper forum theme!

shalmelo

Phyphor wrote: »

shalmelo wrote: »

We're really using cyan for signups?? I hate you all

If you want the Reconquista done right, you've got to do it yourself

I've got no real preference on how we want to structure the turns. Probably best if we have a couple of vets take the first few, but after that whatever works...

Use the proper forum theme!

But I'm laaaaaaaaaaazy...

SanderJK

I would consider myself reasonably skilled and i'm up for anything

enlightenedbum

Those colors were just suggestions. Teucrian is the only one who managed to figure that out. Kudos.

Phyphor

We are just very suggestible!

Teucrian

I just didn't know what color the light blue thing was. . . and it did say any color.

Cyan you say.

enlightenedbum

Bad news y'all: our brothers the Kings of Leon and Galicia managed to have children. BOOOOOO

I took a ton of shots so I have to edit things and might get two updates out of it... and I only played 6.5 years.

Phyphor

Damn that's annoying. Growing when we're so tiny is hard enough

How aggressive are the muslims?

enlightenedbum

Good news is the King of Leon is excommunicated, so my plot against him has a much better chance of success, which would put us third in line behind a couple infants.

Teucrian

Infants are often poor at self-defense.

Phyphor

They do seem to lack basic self-defense skills

Teucrian

It's shameful really. You wish they'd have the self-respect to take a karate class or something.

Given their shameful slacking, I can't say those babies deserve the crown more than we do.

enlightenedbum

I would maybe have to invade and seize the throne to protect them against the Muslims. Obviously. Or I could just plot against them too.

Assuming one of these backers gets off their ass and actually murders our little brother.

Teucrian

Right. What seems unethical to the untrained eye is really just simple kingly responsibility.

What I think is remarkable about this game is not merely that it turns even compassionate men into realpolitik monsters but just how quickly that conversion happens.

Capfalcon

Teucrian wrote: »

Right. What seems unethical to the untrained eye is really just simple kingly responsibility.

What I think is remarkable about this game is not merely that it turns even compassionate men into realpolitik monsters but just how quickly that conversion happens.

Macbeth's problem was that he didn't use murder enough!


I told a friend of mine about a game where I started as the duke dude and ended up ruling over the England and Ireland.

My friend was staring open mouthed at me by the time I got around to the part where I murdered an entire bloodline in two years so I wouldn't have my crown go to someone else. Intrigue 23 spymasters get anything they want as far as I'm concerned.

enlightenedbum

Update 0.1: Our Starting Situation. Also We Get Married! (1066)

So here we are. We're the little yellow Kingdom centered on Burgos, where we have two castles. We also personally hold Soria, with vassals in Viscaya and Asturias de etc.

Our younger brothers rule in Leon to the West and Galicia further to the west. A cousin of ours is King of Navarra, and another cousin the King of the one province minor Aragon. All the green dudes are Muslims, as well as the yellow sheikdom of Lleida underneath the Valladolid pop-up. This is good news as there's plenty of land to expand into and bad news in that they all hate us and can ally against us fairly easily.



This is us! We're currently Sancho II Jimenez. We're 30 years old, have a modest treasury, minor prestige and piety and are generally unremarkable, except for our quite good martial statistic. As you can see our siblings were all given land by our father, who was King of all the Catholic land to our west and divided it among his sons. The jackass. Also note that we're unmarried. That will be our first task.

Historical note: Sancho here first allied with his brother Alfonso to beat up their third brother and divide Galicia between the two of them. Then he invaded Leon and exiled Alfonso as well. He was assassinated in 1072, passing all three crowns to Alfonso. We're kind of a jackass, historically speaking. Also, spoilers: we've outlived historical Sancho already.



So, let's get married! If you click the little rings next to a bachelor or bachelorette, a list of eligible nobles will be brought up. We could merely become betrothed to some underaged girl, but we're already 30 and we plan on being a general personally with our high martial score, so we want to get to work pumping out children immediately. At the moment, this list is sorted by rank. As you can see, we could marry Matilda, Duchess of Tuscany and get our sons some Italian territory, but that's lame. We'll let Matilda be.



Instead, we'll marry Adela, a Princess of the Holy Roman Empire. It'll be nice (Spoilers: Well, in theory!) to have the Kaiser backing us up against the Muslims, and she's lustful so should be able to get us some children quickly.



Also, before we actually start the game, we have to choose a plot. We're currently the heir to both Leon and Galicia, as the eldest Jimenz brother. I try to start with the closer and more powerful of the two, so we plot to assassinate our brother Alfonso, the King of Leon. You can also try to assassinate people through the diplomacy screens, but that's expensive and we need our money to improve our economic situation and possibly for mercenaries. We'll try to do it with this.



Our court is middling in its quality, except again, our Marshal. Rodrigo Diaz kicks ass, and increases the levies in our two castles in Burgos by a significant percentage (~50, I believe). Our steward is sent to collect taxes in Burgos, our bishop to research cultural techs (sending him to improve relations with the Pope would also be a good idea), our chancellor to fabricate claims on Navarra's territory as there are just too many cousins for us to slaughter them all and inherit directly, and the spymaster will try to uncover plots in case Alfonso is trying to do to us what we're doing to him. If you don't have that kind of threat, it's a good idea in the early game to have the spymaster study technology in your high technology areas like Byzantium or any of a number of Muslim areas (Alexandria, for example).

Historical note: Senor Diaz here is better known to history as El Cid.



Thought I'd check the religious map at this point. Worth noting that the Muslim held area to our east is still predominantly Catholic. So if we can take those territories, they'll come online faster than the Sunni ones, where we'll either have to wait 20 years or for our bishop to convert them.



Oh hey, we finally started the game! Just briefly though. So the Emperor accepted our offer of marriage to (I think) his sister. When the ruler or the heir gets married in Christian lands, you can either get a dowry equal to something like 5 months of income or a prestige bonus. We need all the money we can get, so dowry it is! Close observers will note we spent some money bribing our sister in Leon to want to assassinate our brother.



So now that we're married and hopefully soon to have a child, let's check out the legal situation. We're currently Agnatic-Cognatic Gavelkind, which means if there are no male children, a female child can inherit and that all titles are split among eligible children of equivalent status. That can be... inconvenient. It does have the advantage of increasing our demesnes limit, so we could hold 9 instead of 7 baronies directly. We're nowhere close to that yet though. Currently our heirs are our two brothers.

We can change the law after we've ruled for 10 years, assuming our vassals like us and we're not at war. What we can change it to depends on our crown authority. Right now it's limited, which requires our vassals to give us a small percentage of their forces if we call the banners and allows us to appoint generals for our armies in the field, which is a huge deal. We can always get our best commanders out this way. We want to elevate it to medium, and eventually to high, because those allow us different succession laws:

You can always change to gavelkind or elective, which allows us to select an heir from all available members of our bloodline (or at least ones vaguely close to us in the tree). It pisses off our kids though, so if we were to give them land that might be bad. At medium crown authority, seniority succession becomes an option. As the name implies, seniority means the person highest in the family tree at any given time takes the crown. This is useful for uniting family titles, but increases the number of people who can plot against you, meaning that reigns could be short and your realm could become very unstable. Lastly, at high crown authority, you can switch to primogeniture, which simply means that the eldest son gets all the titles. It's nice, simple, and fosters stability, but doesn't have any other advantages.



So let's go ahead and move it on to medium. Another effect of medium is that our vassals can no longer declare war on each other, only on foreigners. Which means their troops will spend more time available to us and none of them will become a super vassal who can challenge us in the field. Each ruler can only change one of the crown laws once for his entire reign. Though I think if the Pope demands that we end Free Investiture, that would be an exception to the rule. Anyway, I can't move it to high after this, so that (and changing the succession law to primogeniture) will be left to the next ruler. I may change it to elective because...



Normally crown law votes are subject to the Dukes of the realm. However, we have no dukes. So our vote is the only one, and we win the vote. Go us. Similarly, elective succession gives a vote to the ruler and to each person one rank below him (exception: emperors are also elected by dukes). So an elective count would be subject to mayors and barons, an elected duke is subject to counts, an elected king is subject to dukes. So if we were elective, we'd win automatically, and we could choose our heir from among the children. At least until we allow a Duchy to exist under us.



However, we can't just dictate tax rates. We want harsh city taxes, as they have lots of money, which we need to develop some infrastructure (and pay mercs). This will make our mayors hate us a little, but whatever. Suck it, mayors. Our counts and mayors get to vote on this, so it takes some time before it's ratified and our income goes up to where it should be.

So that's what we did before we actually started playing. Now we can actually start doing stuff! Hooray!

Oh, also, I forgot to do much with it, but we can adjust our technology focus. We're doing pretty well in Burgos already. Mostly I'd recommend putting your emphasis on tactics, farming, and legalism and not micromanaging it too much.

Coming later tonight or maybe tomorrow: our first war!

Brian Krakow

Sign up.

enlightenedbum

Update 1: Sancho's First War (1066-1073)

With war breaking out all over the Iberian peninsula, I decided to join in and try to grab part of the highly divided Duchy of Aragon, specifically Zaragoza. The two wars you can see in the bottom are Galicia's war for Sevilla, which they would lose horribly, and Savoy fighting a war of independence against the Kaiser, which we joined to be polite but totally ignored in both cases.



As mentioned, we can choose our generals, because we have at least limited crown authority. Crown authority affects you even if you're not subject directly to any particular crown. Also, if the crown doesn't exist, the game assumes crown authority is autonomous. Anyway, we're easily the best commander who isn't busily making us have 50% more dudes, so we're commanding the center. Then a couple dudes with 13 martial score get the flanks. I could fire El Cid or call him back and then make him a commander, but I think the additional reinforcements he provides are more useful. If you haven't learned how, click on the name of the commanders to change commanders.



Huzzah! The Kaiser has honored our alliance, and so he'll come sweeping down with a billion Germans and crush our enemies for us. Score. Not pictured: our brothers and cousins all joining us, except Galicia which is kind of distracted.



So this is a thing that happens. The longer you have your vassals' armies under your direct control, the angrier they get at you. This isn't a huge deal except just after succession (which resets it anyway) or if you have them up for a LONG time and the penalty gets to -30 or something where they're a threat to rebel. Still, worth noting.



We seem to have brought the Queen with us in the camp. Or at least let's hope so. Anyway, hooray! We won't have to resort to cheaply dying to become Leon + Castille!



Things in the war are going well, the Muslims are off fighting Barcelona and ignoring us, so I grow overconfident and use our money to build a castle town. Income buildings go up first, unless you're in truly dire need of more troops. Which we sort of are, but whatever!



The lords and mayors finally got around to approving my harsh city taxes. Income is now going up fairly quickly. Up to 4.5 already (woo).



Our son is born! Fernando here will be the next King of Castille, providing he survives longer than his father. Someone go ahead and claim him.



Oops, I didn't notice this stack of Muslims before it was too late to run away. They outnumber us by 500, but we've got better commanders. Maybe we can pull this off?



Oof, no, no we could not. That was a disaster. Where are my Germans?



Here you can see I've disbanded our armies. Why? Because that's the only way to get reinforcements. You have to send the armies home and then call them back up. It's a pain, but we double our forces. Still not nearly enough.



So let's hire some mercenaries. We're poor, so we want some cheap mercenaries. Specifically, let's take the Saxon Band. We should be able to siege a castle in time to pay them the third month of wages. This is actually a fairly big risk, if we can't pay them they might rebel and try to seize our territory. That would be... bad.



Fortunately, in the battle, we capture not one, not two, but three Walis. That solves our money problem quite nicely. This was partially lucky, but I think I would have managed by about a day anyway.



When you capture dudes, you can see them in the prisoners tab of the intrigue panel. You can release them which makes your vassals like you as you're merciful, ransom them (10 gold for random courties, 25 for barons/mayors/bishops, 70 for counts, 150 for dukes, 250 for kings, I think? Not sure about emperors, as I've never captured one), or execute them. If they're members of your realm, you can also banish them, taking all their stuff and pissing off your vassals. Also pictured: our kind of crappy plot power against Alfonso.



Anyway, we're going to ransom them for money to pay our Saxons.



Because this province has been sieged back and forth quite frequently already, there's a small garrison. In that situation, especially with mercenaries as they replenish automatically unlike your own levies, it's sometimes a good idea to assault holdings directly without waiting for a siege. When you want to do that, hit the little sword above the siege status.



So we got this event, which allows us to have a chance to become lustful or chaste. I went for lustful, as I'd rather have a couple backup heirs, even if we are gavelkind. We can make them bishops if necessary, or just switch to elective. I wouldn't have even included it, but...



This happened three days later. Apparently our wife was the pretty girl in question. Say, where are my damn Germans, anyway?



Oh. Since the most recent patch/Sword of Islam, this seems to happen to the Empire, pretty much every time. Savoy, Provence, Tuscany, and Lombardia all rebel, at minimum. Provence won their war, as did a couple minor counties. Tuscany and Lombardia had less success. I forget what happened with Savoy in the end. Also, Mecklenberg invaded for Brandenberg, which I believe is at ~50% war score when I stopped. Which is a first in my experience.



We have a second son, Enrique. Score. Neither of them are particularly interesting, no dwarfism, clubfoot, genius, slow, etc. traits.



Ack, it's the mafia! Or heretics. Our bishop has to take time off from researching cultural techs to convert these people back to Christ.



Eventually, behind the power of our mercs, war score gets to 100%. If you control the territory you're attempting to gain in the war, the score will slowly tick up automatically. Similarly, if you're attempting to become independent and your former liege controls none of your territory, war score will tick up automatically. In this case, battles + possession Zaragoza got us up around 82% so we had to wait a little bit before hitting 100%. You don't always need to get to 100% to enforce peace, but once you do, your opponent has no choice but to surrender.



Hooray, we've won our first war! That increases the size of Castille by 20%, and Zaragoza itself is a fairly nice province, with potential for expansion once we have lots of money.



Unfortunately, as it turns out, the AI managed to convert the province to Sunni before we took it. That means that in addition to the five year conquest period where the province doesn't make anything for us, we also have a 15 year period after that where it is much less productive unless we convert it. We'll get on that as soon as the heretics are gone. Also notice that our flag is on the left side of the town and church in addition to the right. That means we hold those directly. Which is terribly inefficient. So let's fix that!



What we could do is just right click on the town and create a new noble to run it, and then do the same for the church. But a more productive thing to do is to give them to existing mayors and bishops, so that their income increases and they build improved holdings in our cities and churches more quickly. There's lots of ways to find them, but the simplest is probably: go to the town/church we want to give the holding to (in this case, the city of Burgos in our capital province (Burgos, naturally). Click on the little flag on the left. That'll bring you to that holding's summary and from there you can get to the mayor's diplomacy screen. Grant him a landed title, and the city you want to give him, like so:



Repeat for the bishop.

That's it for this session. Next time there will probably be fewer mechanics stuff, though we do have children to educate. We have about 70% plot power against Alfonso now, so that might happen, in which case I'll try to off his kids as well. Our levies will need some time to replenish, but there are a couple more single province sheikhs in the Duchy of Aragon that we can go after, hopefully before they convert their land to Islam.

Questions? I'll probably play it tomorrow late afternoon or evening, so if you want me to try something suggest it quickly!

Teucrian

Capfalcon wrote: »

Macbeth's problem was that he didn't use murder enough!

Recasting all of Shakespeare's plays as if they were games of Crusader Kings II:

Old Hamlet, fresh off pressing his strong claim on the throne of Norway and slaying Old Fortinbras in battle becomes the victim of two plots by his unlanded, ambitious, spymaster brother Claudius, first switching the inheritance law to seniority, cutting young Hamlet (being educated by the Earl of Brandenburg) out of succession, and then an assassination putting Claudius on the throne. This prompts dueling plots: Claudius, to kill Hamlet and Hamlet, to kill Claudius. Both compete to get the support of Gertrude's high intrigue score who has married Claudius in order to preserve important alliances. Hamlet's backer, the player king, creates the first assassination opportunity but Hamlet passes for +20 piety. Meanwhile, backers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern bring their assassination event to Claudius, but the attempt fails, the plot is revealed, and Hamlet successfully imprisons and executes both his vassals.

Meanwhile, in Norway, young Fortinbras raises his levies and rebels against Denmark, using his inherited strong claim on the throne of Norway. By the time Fortinbras is able to siege Elsinore, the assassinations have gotten so out of hand that low ranking cousin of the family Horatio proves to be the sole dynastic claimant on the Danish throne. Horatio, in an untenable position, agrees to a vassalization offer from Fortinbras.

I'd play that mod.

kuhlmeye

So uh...

I started a new game with one of the suggestions from the op: Duke of Brandenburg. I managed to have two sons right before I died at the ripe age of 25. This left Brandenburg in regency with a 2 year old as duke, and Anhall went to my brother, who was 0. So then I had to sit through 14 years of regency. In the meantime, the pagans just north of me took Lubeck, and then were attacked by the Kaiser. I got out of regency, when 4 years later I promptly died while leading troops for one of the many civil wars going on. Did I mention that the Kaiser had been excommunicated?

Anyways, a it's been maybe 30 years, and I've played as 3 characters so far. All my current bishops love me, all my vassals love me. And then I start getting a couple of votes to for Emperor. I figure, what the hell, I'll vote for myself. In the middle of war to take back Lubeck, the Emperor dies, and guess who had the most votes. I did. So now I'm playing as the Emperor. First, I finished up all of the outstanding independence wars, raised city taxes, and raised crown authority.

What should I do now?

enlightenedbum

Whatever the hell you want.

Kana

the great thing about crusader kings 2 is sometimes just maintaining what you have is a full time job

kuhlmeye

Yeah. Most of the dukes have good opinion of me, barring a couple. I'll probably try expanding east into pagan country.

It's so much different to play in the HRE vs. the Ireland game I had. So many more options. Also much more overwhelming.

Liking the LP so far. I don't know if I'll have time to play a ruler though.

enlightenedbum

So much just happened! Two updates, one tonight, one tomorrow.

enlightenedbum

Update 2: Sancho Conquers Leon, Raises An Heir (1073 - 1079)

So almost immediately upon starting, I notice a rebellion in Leon. I also notice that he hasn't responded to it. Investigating further, I go to this screen (realm tree in the portrait). Mousing over his levies show us that he has... 100 men available. Well now.



Sorry, Alfonso, but we're going to be needing your land now. Attacking an ally (in this case, by blood), costs us 50 prestige, but we'll make that up by having a second king title pretty quickly.



Meanwhile, the Emirate to our south declares war on Alfonso for the Duchy of Castille (hey, that's ours!). That will give them the county of Valladolid if they win. Which would be unacceptable, obviously. On the plus side, their army intercepts and slaughters the armies of our traitorous cousins, who sided with Alfonso. Possibly because they see the writing on the wall if we win this war.



While we're off at war, our eldest son, Fernando, turns six years old. This means he's ready to be educated. You can pick any noble in your court to educate children of your blood. Kids will tend towards the traits of their teacher, which includes religion and culture, so if you want to keep your culture pure, watch out for that. Alternately if you accidentally convert a ruler to a different culture, make sure to have your heir taught by someone of your original culture. Or, if you're Krakow, don't give a damn and have something like five consecutive monarchs of Sicily be differing cultures.



Personally, I like having some control over the traits my kids get. The only issue is that we don't have a great education ourselves (only a rank 2 military education). But surely that won't end up mattering! Especially when almost immediately end up getting this event that makes Fernando diligent (+1 to a bunch of stuff).



And this one, which makes him temperate (+2 stewardship).



Our chaplain manages to convert the heretics back to the Church. Huzzah! He's sent to convert Zaragoza back from the heathens who have taken over there.



Little Fernando continues to have an eventful childhood. Here he becomes deceitful (lowers his diplomacy, increases his intrigue).



Sorry I didn't show much of anything from the war, but since they had no troops, it was mostly sieging things. The Muslims took Valladolid, I sieged Leon proper and one other province. We win! We're King of Leon woo. Of course, this only takes his title of King of Leon. He remains in possession of two duchies (Asturias and Leon). And he's our vassal now.



Fernando adds patient to his list of traits. He's going to kick ass! Like 15+ everywhere!



Our chaplain continues a good string of rolls, and converts Zaragoza back to Christ. Which means it will become a useful province in 1078 instead of 1093. Score.



As I mentioned at the start of the update, there was a civil war in Leon when I invaded. As the new King of Leon, we inherited the plot of our sister to become queen. Since we had actual troops it was easy to mop up. Since she was a rebellious vassal, she gets thrown in jail and loses her claim on Leon. However...



Since she was rebelling against our brother and not us, I just let her out of jail. This improves our relations with our vassals and there's no real cost as she doesn't hate us and won't rebel again.



Next, I want Valladolid back. Because this is a de jure war, our target can't automatically get the backing of other Sunnis near him. If we declared a holy war for Castille, they could join in. Always make sure you're using the right casus belli for the job!



Unfortunately for us, the Salian Dynasty has fallen. Instead, the Duke of Brunswick has taken over. And lost Brandenburg to the pagans (!!!). And is facing a war from the powerful Duke of Lower Lorraine to depose him. And all the Burgundian dukes that failed to win their rebellions against the Salians are rebelling again. The Empire is kind of a mess.



Fernando earns his fourth virtue against no sins, becoming Kind. This opens up some unique events, I believe. Also, Kind gives him +2 diplomacy, cancelling the penalty from Deceitful. He's going to be awwwwwwwwwwesome!



I timed this war declaration for when this emirate (I really should remember their name, sorry) was trying to conquer Barcelona. As such, our armies face no resistance and we quickly occupy Valladolid and Toledo. They surrender not long after.



I forgot to take a shot, but Alfonso was plotting to get his crown back. I sent El Cid to arrest him (the marshall has an ability to suppress revolts that dramatically improves your chance of arresting people in the same province, El Cid is ridiculous so it was ~+30%). He was successful. So our brother's in the dungeon, hooray.



We had a bunch more sons off screen, which was making Gavelkind a risky proposition and I was growing increasingly paranoid about the Pope demanding that we switch to papal investiture before I could store the extra sons away safely in bishoprics so I switched us to elective. We're the only Duke in Castille, so this lets us pick our heir. I choose Fernando, as he's obviously a bad ass. If we survive long enough that all of our kids become adults I'll put it up to the thread.

Coming tomorrow:

Update 3: Sancho Kicks Butt (1079 - 1087)

enlightenedbum

OP updated finally.

I'm kind of trying to get to page two before tomorrow evening.

Kharnastus

So I think my game has a bug. Whenever I ask the pope for a crusade against a muslim for instance, it tells me every prereq is filled except for having the same religious head. This seems to imply that the computer thinks that the muslims have the pope for a religious head, or that I as a catholic have the muslim religions leader as my religious head. yes?

Brian Krakow

Catholics can only use the invasion (which is different from a Crusade) casus belli against other catholics. It's a bit silly, but WAD.

Kana

On the other hand invasion isn't really necessary against infidels anyway. Holy wars are way easier to start and you still kick out all the lords when you seize their lands anyway.