I don't have CK2, but I did recently buy Europa Universalis IV. (Made by the same company, it's a similar game except it starts about 400 years after CK2 and it's all about kingdoms and countries rather than specific individuals.) I got squished by Austria when I tried to play Venice so I decided to try playing France... and I've had the dumbest luck. I managed to get all my French holdings back from the English at the end of the100 years war. (Which admittedly wasn't all that hard. England ain't in a position to defend that land.) I inherited Burgundy. (Yes, that's right, just straight up inherited the whole thing without having to go to war with them at all. It wasn't even like a personal union deal, I just got it.) England had a far bigger navy than I could ever muster, but as luck would have it I managed to have military access and about 16,000 troops in Scotland when England decided to try taking one of Irish Kingdoms allied with Scotland. I ended up completely breaking up England. They lost Wales, (Which I then vassalized and annexed.) they lost all their Irish holdings, Scotland has taken back all the land it formerly owned... England is just completely out of the game at this point.
On top of that, Austria and the HRE have been having tons of problems with rebels and lots of their provinces just flipped to being mine for some reason. (And Austria actually lost control of the HRE, believe it or not.) I conquered Savoy and managed to get into a personal union with another Holy Roman Empire kingdom. The only thing that would make this better would be if I like inherited Scotland at this point.
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MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
I wish it had somehow warned me that my spy wasn't going to have anything done for 400 000 turns
maybe could have made him do something useful
also i tried to play CK2 and it overwhelmed me and i panicked and closed it
how is that even a game i dont understand
so, having managed to get a game going where I actually won a war and didn't turn my family into some kind of Oedipal nightmare in less than one generation, my suggestions for getting over your trepidation is this:
The interface is deceptive. It looks like a conquest game, right? No. Holdings are important, but all your real assets are individual people, mostly related to you, plus courtiers and other hangers on. Up in the top right of your screen is the pause button. Use it liberally. In the upper left of the screen is everything you care about. Spend some time at the beginning with the game paused and just get to know your family tree. Make sure no one is unmarried, choose an easy ambition for yourself like "improve <skill I am bad at>", and make sure none of your younger courtiers is under the tutelage of an imbecile of some sort. Check to see if you or anyone at your court has a Claim on any territories you don't currently hold. You need a reason to go to war, and Claims are a good way of doing it.
Then check out your Council. Each of them has three tasks they can accomplish. Of importance at the very beginning will probably be having your chancellor try to fabricate some claims against a weaker neighbor with few allies (look at your neighbor's ruler card and at his family), improving your relationship with the local bishop, (they won't help you with troops unless they like you more than the pope, and they like the Pope a lot) and improving tech.
Then you're ready to hit unpause and let the game start moving forward. Keep checking your family tree and pay attention to the updates. Locate marriages that will result in alliances with more powerful interests, educate the children of your court so that each generation is better than the last, and, you know, get what you want by taking it from someone else who thinks it's his.
CK2 in many ways is an avoid rebellion simulator. Because rebellions are by far the most threatening to holding on what you've built up. And the way to prevent / win rebellion is relatively easy: Make your people happy. And by far the biggest reason rebellions happen is because they don't like the new guy. So the most efficient set up is to be prepared to have the next ruler make people happy. If someone is a bit grumpy with a +30 long reign modifier, he'll rebel right out of the gate when he gets a -30 from 'short reign' instead.
Things to make people happy:
1) Give them honorary titles, gold, land, council positions. Always try to keep a gold reserve. gifts prevent wars, mercs win wars, especially early on.
2) Mouse over their opinion and see if they want anything in particular. A Duke will dislike you being the lord over a count that is his by right for instance.
3) Allow them to educate your kids. Only use them with same religion, culture, decent traits. Or just let them educate younger daughters etcet.
4) Have good traits. Educate your next in line yourself, because trait modifiers are a pretty big deal. Three green traits and no red traits is a civil war prevented.
Ways to make money:
Always imprison plotting landholders. (The prison symbol popping up) They will either rebel in a generally foolish war (Which allows you to take a title away from them without penalty), or you get 70 to 140 gold from freeing them.
Make your bishops like you more than the pope. They'll give you money instead.
Make cities and castles have at least 0 opinion for maximum income off them.
Only improve the castles in your demesne. Having 2 castles in your capitol is pretty great, because you can get the economic bonus twice, and the troop levy bonus twice.
Be vikings. Raiding breaks the game moneywise.
Ways to win wars:
Buy a mercenary company.
Make sure your army has good leaders.
Cheap tricks
The AI never considers the possibility that a fleet may hold a devastating army. So place an army smaller than the AI on a defensible position, they'll try and fight it, and then run in your main force off the boat. This means you can almost always fight the decisive fight with positive modifiers. (If you just land off the boat, you'll have negative modifiers)
Don't chase down beaten AI stacks if they're low on men (mouse over). Small armies suck at sieges, and importantly the AI will not disband their armies to regroup with newly gained levies if even 1 man of the stack remains. Beat them once, and then start sieging.)
I don't have CK2, but I did recently buy Europa Universalis IV. (Made by the same company, it's a similar game except it starts about 400 years after CK2 and it's all about kingdoms and countries rather than specific individuals.) I got squished by Austria when I tried to play Venice so I decided to try playing France... and I've had the dumbest luck. I managed to get all my French holdings back from the English at the end of the100 years war. (Which admittedly wasn't all that hard. England ain't in a position to defend that land.) I inherited Burgundy. (Yes, that's right, just straight up inherited the whole thing without having to go to war with them at all. It wasn't even like a personal union deal, I just got it.) England had a far bigger navy than I could ever muster, but as luck would have it I managed to have military access and about 16,000 troops in Scotland when England decided to try taking one of Irish Kingdoms allied with Scotland. I ended up completely breaking up England. They lost Wales, (Which I then vassalized and annexed.) they lost all their Irish holdings, Scotland has taken back all the land it formerly owned... England is just completely out of the game at this point.
On top of that, Austria and the HRE have been having tons of problems with rebels and lots of their provinces just flipped to being mine for some reason. (And Austria actually lost control of the HRE, believe it or not.) I conquered Savoy and managed to get into a personal union with another Holy Roman Empire kingdom. The only thing that would make this better would be if I like inherited Scotland at this point.
Back when I was playing EU3, I had a Spain (started as Castile) game once. I broke apart France at some point because they kept warmongering me, and I had Royal marriages with England, Sweden, and Austria. I managed to inherit all these of those eventually. There was glorious Spanish rule across the entire European map.
In as testament to how much vikings break the game, I had a CK2 start as Ivar the Boneless go to over 500 holdings owned in less than a hundred years. (1/6th of the game time) All of the UK, all of Scandinavia, a decent strip of land along the northsea coast, Brittany, and the northwest of Spain. Ivar starts with 4 counties to his name in Scotland and about 10k troops for an invasion where he competes with his brother. CK2 is not a game where you should be allowed to pick your targets at will and have more money than you can spend on sensible things. (Also in that starting war, intentionally screw over your brother by letting him fight all the initial fights while you siege land. The land is divided based on who sieged what).
Ok i played for like an hour and then one of my vassals started fighting another one of my vassals and what
This has to do with the level of control you have over your kingdom. At the lowest level of Crown Authority, vassals may squabble with one another and do more or less exactly what you are doing; lay claim to, attack, conquer and subjugate neighboring holdings. If you go one step up from that, Vassals may no longer fight with each other because there is some sense that ALL their shit is actually yours, and they are merely administrators, whereas the ground level of Crown authority is more like a confederation.
sarukun on
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MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
I cannot get a trustworthy mentor for my child-king for the life of me
The first one turned the poor Dubliner into a cultural Arab, which I had not known was possible. Then he gains the "Just" trait (all positive modifiers!) and she talks him down from it, explaining that justice is just an arbitrary concept that the little people worry about
then the next guy I have teaching him is supposed to be imparting some of his Stewardship skill, but instead he lets the little tyke get "Zealous", which is a pretty ok military trait, and then talks him out of it
what the hell am I paying you people for? the royal brat is 13, his best score is an eight and it's in martial, which I didn't try to teach him, and his traits are Trusting, Cruel, Wroth, and Shy. You can talk him out of being a just ruler but you can't teach him to not torture squirrels for fun?
This is my current Crusader Kings II game, after inheriting the crown of the Holy Roman Empire from my father:
My wife has a strong claim on England which I might act upon in the future. Gonna stop for now though since I took a look at the number of vassals and thought to myself, "nope".
The AI never considers the possibility that a fleet may hold a devastating army. So place an army smaller than the AI on a defensible position, they'll try and fight it, and then run in your main force off the boat. This means you can almost always fight the decisive fight with positive modifiers. (If you just land off the boat, you'll have negative modifiers)
Don't chase down beaten AI stacks if they're low on men (mouse over). Small armies suck at sieges, and importantly the AI will not disband their armies to regroup with newly gained levies if even 1 man of the stack remains. Beat them once, and then start sieging.)
pretty much only way I know how to deal with mongols
a 200k army that is mostly horseman and ignores supply is almost impossible take on otherwise
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
edited August 2013
so, after getting myself back into Civ after years and years away (basically hadn't played any Civilization at all since the first month of Civ 4's release), I'm playing at Prince difficulty now to continue the easing back-into-it process
the Shoshone seem completely overpowered - I basically have 5 cities now and while yes I had periods where people (my own people and also America) were just super pissed at me for having sooooo many cities, by the time I improved all the luxury resources I had in my territory I basically have a secure supply of 9 different luxury goods, including copies of 2 of them for trading for MORE luxury goods
on the same goddamn continent, just at the end of the Medieval era
your borders start out just swallowing everything
plus I then choose the religion and tech upgrades from ruins where I can and bam, found Pantheon, choose Religious Expansion, and shit just goes nuts from there
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
so I came up with a solution to the problem of having an idiot ruler:
I gave him a war for his 16th birthday. Sure enough, some asshole with a morningstar caved in his face and incapacitated him for the rest of his life. He died at the age of 27, leaving the lesser kingdom of Mearth to his much more capable brother
now there are four counties remaining in Ireland that do not belong to me or my vassals, and I took one of them just by sending a note to the Earl saying basically, "you better recognize or I am going to fuck up your life" and they recognized my sovereignty over Ireland and promised not to make trouble.
so, after getting myself back into Civ after years and years away (basically hadn't played any Civilization at all since the first month of Civ 4's release), I'm playing at Prince difficulty now to continue the easing back-into-it process
the Shoshone seem completely overpowered - I basically have 5 cities now and while yes I had periods where people (my own people and also America) were just super pissed at me for having sooooo many cities, by the time I improved all the luxury resources I had in my territory I basically have a secure supply of 9 different luxury goods, including copies of 2 of them for trading for MORE luxury goods
on the same goddamn continent, just at the end of the Medieval era
your borders start out just swallowing everything
plus I then choose the religion and tech upgrades from ruins where I can and bam, found Pantheon, choose Religious Expansion, and shit just goes nuts from there
George Washington is so pissed at me
It's funny cause Washington's unique ability is cheaper border expansion, but Pocatello starts with twice as much land. Destined to be great neighbors.
Basically, your job is to absorb all of America in the name of the Shoshone.
I love it when Civ randomly puts me in actual historical situations..
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
so, after getting myself back into Civ after years and years away (basically hadn't played any Civilization at all since the first month of Civ 4's release), I'm playing at Prince difficulty now to continue the easing back-into-it process
the Shoshone seem completely overpowered - I basically have 5 cities now and while yes I had periods where people (my own people and also America) were just super pissed at me for having sooooo many cities, by the time I improved all the luxury resources I had in my territory I basically have a secure supply of 9 different luxury goods, including copies of 2 of them for trading for MORE luxury goods
on the same goddamn continent, just at the end of the Medieval era
your borders start out just swallowing everything
plus I then choose the religion and tech upgrades from ruins where I can and bam, found Pantheon, choose Religious Expansion, and shit just goes nuts from there
George Washington is so pissed at me
It's funny cause Washington's unique ability is cheaper border expansion, but Pocatello starts with twice as much land. Destined to be great neighbors.
Basically, your job is to absorb all of America in the name of the Shoshone.
I love it when Civ randomly puts me in actual historical situations..
The irony is pretty great too. Such as when Japan votes to ban whales as a luxury in the world congress.
so, after getting myself back into Civ after years and years away (basically hadn't played any Civilization at all since the first month of Civ 4's release), I'm playing at Prince difficulty now to continue the easing back-into-it process
the Shoshone seem completely overpowered - I basically have 5 cities now and while yes I had periods where people (my own people and also America) were just super pissed at me for having sooooo many cities, by the time I improved all the luxury resources I had in my territory I basically have a secure supply of 9 different luxury goods, including copies of 2 of them for trading for MORE luxury goods
on the same goddamn continent, just at the end of the Medieval era
your borders start out just swallowing everything
plus I then choose the religion and tech upgrades from ruins where I can and bam, found Pantheon, choose Religious Expansion, and shit just goes nuts from there
George Washington is so pissed at me
It's funny cause Washington's unique ability is cheaper border expansion, but Pocatello starts with twice as much land. Destined to be great neighbors.
Basically, your job is to absorb all of America in the name of the Shoshone.
I love it when Civ randomly puts me in actual historical situations..
The irony is pretty great too. Such as when Japan votes to ban whales as a luxury in the world congress.
Oooh you can do that in BNW? I was just telling me friends the other day that horses should become a luxury resource in the modern era, and whales should get science boats instead of fishing boats.
so, after getting myself back into Civ after years and years away (basically hadn't played any Civilization at all since the first month of Civ 4's release), I'm playing at Prince difficulty now to continue the easing back-into-it process
the Shoshone seem completely overpowered - I basically have 5 cities now and while yes I had periods where people (my own people and also America) were just super pissed at me for having sooooo many cities, by the time I improved all the luxury resources I had in my territory I basically have a secure supply of 9 different luxury goods, including copies of 2 of them for trading for MORE luxury goods
on the same goddamn continent, just at the end of the Medieval era
your borders start out just swallowing everything
plus I then choose the religion and tech upgrades from ruins where I can and bam, found Pantheon, choose Religious Expansion, and shit just goes nuts from there
George Washington is so pissed at me
Yeah, I have heard the early game for Shoshone is bananas, but they don't really have anything to deal with military civs, so you can kind of get swallowed early if you start next to, say, Alexander.
so, after getting myself back into Civ after years and years away (basically hadn't played any Civilization at all since the first month of Civ 4's release), I'm playing at Prince difficulty now to continue the easing back-into-it process
the Shoshone seem completely overpowered - I basically have 5 cities now and while yes I had periods where people (my own people and also America) were just super pissed at me for having sooooo many cities, by the time I improved all the luxury resources I had in my territory I basically have a secure supply of 9 different luxury goods, including copies of 2 of them for trading for MORE luxury goods
on the same goddamn continent, just at the end of the Medieval era
your borders start out just swallowing everything
plus I then choose the religion and tech upgrades from ruins where I can and bam, found Pantheon, choose Religious Expansion, and shit just goes nuts from there
George Washington is so pissed at me
It's funny cause Washington's unique ability is cheaper border expansion, but Pocatello starts with twice as much land. Destined to be great neighbors.
Basically, your job is to absorb all of America in the name of the Shoshone.
I love it when Civ randomly puts me in actual historical situations..
The irony is pretty great too. Such as when Japan votes to ban whales as a luxury in the world congress.
Note that they are not banning the harvesting of whales.
So... I decided to scrap my game as France. Scotland took all of England, yes, but... now all of Europe hates me. Like, all of Europe. I've gotten into so many damned wars that my manpower literally went from 70,000 men to less than a thousand. I think as France you absolutely need at least some strong ally in Europe. Maybe even Austria. (I screwed myself over there because Venice really beat up on Austria to begin with and Austria had a ton of problems early on in the game so I didn't think being their friends would be a good idea. But eventually they got back to the point where they were every bit as powerful as you might expect Austria to be.)
Been trying to play as Venice lately. I'm surprised at how incredibly easy it is to take territory from the Ottomans. They seem to have lots of rebellions and it's not hard to get lots of powerful allies to join in on your attack on them. Austria still seems to be the biggest threat, but I might see if it's possible to ever become friends with them. Poland is also a super good friend for Venice, the only problem is they usually also are really good friends with Austria. Castille is also a potential ally since Aragon often considers Venice a rival, and if Castille is taking over Aragon militarily, well, it makes becoming their ally all the easier.
so, after getting myself back into Civ after years and years away (basically hadn't played any Civilization at all since the first month of Civ 4's release), I'm playing at Prince difficulty now to continue the easing back-into-it process
the Shoshone seem completely overpowered - I basically have 5 cities now and while yes I had periods where people (my own people and also America) were just super pissed at me for having sooooo many cities, by the time I improved all the luxury resources I had in my territory I basically have a secure supply of 9 different luxury goods, including copies of 2 of them for trading for MORE luxury goods
on the same goddamn continent, just at the end of the Medieval era
your borders start out just swallowing everything
plus I then choose the religion and tech upgrades from ruins where I can and bam, found Pantheon, choose Religious Expansion, and shit just goes nuts from there
George Washington is so pissed at me
It's funny cause Washington's unique ability is cheaper border expansion, but Pocatello starts with twice as much land. Destined to be great neighbors.
Basically, your job is to absorb all of America in the name of the Shoshone.
I love it when Civ randomly puts me in actual historical situations..
The irony is pretty great too. Such as when Japan votes to ban whales as a luxury in the world congress.
Note that they are not banning the harvesting of whales.
Merely the trading of whales.
yeah but when a luxury is banned you no longer get global benefits from it
makes me saaaaaad
in my experience, Polynesia just hates the fuck out of some whales
So I just found out it was possible to rush a wonder with a great engineer and still have someone finish it before you between turns.
Also just finished off the Nederlands and used my leftover general to build a great fort stealing 2 sugar plantations from Poland that were right next to the old Nederlands territory. I'm a jerk.
Great Generals are fantastic when someone has nifty resources on your borders
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
Because I don't generate a lot of Great Generals the way I play, I usually save them for when nifty resources are juuuuuuust outside my borders and at risk of being swallowed by someone else if my own borders don't expand the right way.
I did it once with coal and a luxury resource that were just outside my reach, right up against Russia. She was not amused and was already guarded against me so later she denounced me and then not very long after declared war because I had no military.
Except I had rocket artillery stationed in the Citadel that was murdering everything that crossed the border. And ranged troops stationed in all my major cities. And a massive treasury. And a tech advantage. Wiped her off my continent in not too long.
so, after getting myself back into Civ after years and years away (basically hadn't played any Civilization at all since the first month of Civ 4's release), I'm playing at Prince difficulty now to continue the easing back-into-it process
the Shoshone seem completely overpowered - I basically have 5 cities now and while yes I had periods where people (my own people and also America) were just super pissed at me for having sooooo many cities, by the time I improved all the luxury resources I had in my territory I basically have a secure supply of 9 different luxury goods, including copies of 2 of them for trading for MORE luxury goods
on the same goddamn continent, just at the end of the Medieval era
your borders start out just swallowing everything
plus I then choose the religion and tech upgrades from ruins where I can and bam, found Pantheon, choose Religious Expansion, and shit just goes nuts from there
George Washington is so pissed at me
It's funny cause Washington's unique ability is cheaper border expansion, but Pocatello starts with twice as much land. Destined to be great neighbors.
Basically, your job is to absorb all of America in the name of the Shoshone.
I love it when Civ randomly puts me in actual historical situations..
The irony is pretty great too. Such as when Japan votes to ban whales as a luxury in the world congress.
Note that they are not banning the harvesting of whales.
Merely the trading of whales.
yeah but when a luxury is banned you no longer get global benefits from it
makes me saaaaaad
in my experience, Polynesia just hates the fuck out of some whales
Nah, it's a protection strategy; if the whales don't make people happy, they won't be fucked with. Citadels are amazing things too-- back before the expansions hit, I had one set up next to a river, on a hill, with hills on all sides and mountains to the east and west. I think I lost maybe two crossbowmen holding that tile, which was a choke to the majority of my empire.
so, after getting myself back into Civ after years and years away (basically hadn't played any Civilization at all since the first month of Civ 4's release), I'm playing at Prince difficulty now to continue the easing back-into-it process
the Shoshone seem completely overpowered - I basically have 5 cities now and while yes I had periods where people (my own people and also America) were just super pissed at me for having sooooo many cities, by the time I improved all the luxury resources I had in my territory I basically have a secure supply of 9 different luxury goods, including copies of 2 of them for trading for MORE luxury goods
on the same goddamn continent, just at the end of the Medieval era
your borders start out just swallowing everything
plus I then choose the religion and tech upgrades from ruins where I can and bam, found Pantheon, choose Religious Expansion, and shit just goes nuts from there
George Washington is so pissed at me
It's funny cause Washington's unique ability is cheaper border expansion, but Pocatello starts with twice as much land. Destined to be great neighbors.
Basically, your job is to absorb all of America in the name of the Shoshone.
I love it when Civ randomly puts me in actual historical situations..
The irony is pretty great too. Such as when Japan votes to ban whales as a luxury in the world congress.
Note that they are not banning the harvesting of whales.
Merely the trading of whales.
yeah but when a luxury is banned you no longer get global benefits from it
makes me saaaaaad
in my experience, Polynesia just hates the fuck out of some whales
Right, but what I'm saying is the the Japanese continue to murder the whales, they just throw everything they harvest away because it is a well known fact that Japan will subsidize motherfucking Goddamned anything way past the point of usefulness or getting a return because, well, Japan.
Because I don't generate a lot of Great Generals the way I play, I usually save them for when nifty resources are juuuuuuust outside my borders and at risk of being swallowed by someone else if my own borders don't expand the right way.
I did it once with coal and a luxury resource that were just outside my reach, right up against Russia. She was not amused and was already guarded against me so later she denounced me and then not very long after declared war because I had no military.
Except I had rocket artillery stationed in the Citadel that was murdering everything that crossed the border. And ranged troops stationed in all my major cities. And a massive treasury. And a tech advantage. Wiped her off my continent in not too long.
Citadel + Rocket Artillery =
(That is a nothing where many units used to be)
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
edited August 2013
yeah and even if your rocket artillery dies
it's not like you didn't have the 10 turns it took for it to possibly die to build a new one
which I did (in 3 turns)
which I didn't end up needing as a replacement for the one in the Citadel, so I exploded Rostov
I rolled Portugal. I started on a small peninsula, over looking a bay. But I was very quickly pressed by my neighbor, Morocco.
Because of that I kept too small I think, with only 2 cities total. Nonetheless, I was the culture leader and I was able to lead the middling pack in tech. I was going to go for a Cultural victory, but by the time I researched the National Visitors Center, America had just built the Great Firewall. So The Internet was out, but I had more or less been tracked as a Diplo win anyway, with Patronage being my second full Policy tree after Tradition.
In the end America beat me to victory by two rounds. They launched into Space at 349 (Standard) and well... the very first World Leader vote would have convened the following round (350), and I had it locked with 5 votes over what I needed.
I'm not exactly sure how I could have turned it around, I didn't have a big enough force to really put a dent into them, let alone do anything but fight defensively. If they had been my neighbors I probably would have at least attempted, but it they were quite a ways away from me, and I didn't have a coherent navy until pretty late-game.
Emperor is a bit too easy for me, so I guess I'll keep trying Immortal and develop a feel for when I need to intervene militarily to stop the break-away Civ, before they totally dwarf me in tech and size.
Just crushed a king game. Venice is great. My army was never as big as my Denmark neighbor's, but i kept on bribing him to go to war with my science rivals (korea and babylon) with my fuckton of money. Soon i had outpaced everyone on science by a large margin.
The other great thing was that denmark didn't really have a religion of their own, so they were spreading mine throughout the world in their conquests. They voted in my religion as the world religion, and i bribed a bunch of folks to make freedom the world ideology. With my forbidden palace and having all the money (cs allies), pretty easy walk to a diplomacy victory from there.
Gonna try playing a 'regular' game of king and see how it goes.
So I wanted to try getting my Science Victory with Korea, since last time Alexander ruined everything, and I ran out of turns.
And it turns out that motherfuckers just do not learn lessons about fucking with Korea, and whether or not you should do it.
I was on the same continent as Alexander again, so I made sure to have a decent army from the get-go.
Plus it was me and Ghandi and Nobunaga, and we were the choicest of bros for fucking 6000 years, so when Alex got too big for his britches, we sent him packing.
Then out of fucking NOWHERE, in like 1920, Ghandi's like "Fuck you, denounced". Out of NOwhere. He thinks I'M spreading too rapidly, even though he's got like 10 more cities than I do, and I haven't build a damn thing since the mid 1800s. 50 or so turns later, he's just like "Okay, fuck it, War".
Which sets off a chain reaction. Japan's at war with the Iriqouis, but he figures "fuck it, the 2nd and 3rd biggest armies on the planet ain't shit". So now I'm at war with my two bros, India and Japan. Then Germany's like "Never waste a chance to screw someone in the back...!" And Boudicca's like "Gotta get me a piece of that action." So I have four people who want my blood across 2 continents.
Well, the jokes on you, I finished airports in almost every city, chucklefucks. I didn't lose a single city. I went close to 100 turns without losing a single unit. Towards the end of the 1800s I had been able to finally get my science game running after struggling with low happiness, stingy neighbors, and mucking around with Alexander's bullshit on the battlefield and with the citystates, so I was able to make it first to basically every major military tech well before Ghandi lost his fool mind. I've got nukes. I've got Rocket Artillery. I've got Uranium. I begin the great cleansing. My armies march across the face of the earth, burning everything in their path. Delhi receives the first taste: their entire army is north; their southern flanks have been ignored, because there is little military presence there; this is where I build the first Atomic bombs. Within 100 turns, my Battleships own the sea. My Bombers cleanse the air. My Giant Death Robots make the earth tremble.
5 turns from eliminating Japan, India, Germany, and the Celts, in the 2030s, having nuked a good chunk of the northwestern hemisphere, my last space ship component finishes building. Colonists are frozen in stasis in clear plastic pods clustered around a massive glass window so that the entire earth may see their hundreds of middle fingers pointed squarely in their direction as the ship speeds into the stratosphere, and beyond. The colonists sleep dreamlessly as they offer their unconscious regards to the planet that could not learn it's lesson. They do not even see the radioactive wasteland they are leaving behind.
Alpha Centauri awaits: will Planet learn the lesson of not fucking with Korea before it is too late?
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When you play the game of thrones you win or you die. There is no middle ground.
On top of that, Austria and the HRE have been having tons of problems with rebels and lots of their provinces just flipped to being mine for some reason. (And Austria actually lost control of the HRE, believe it or not.) I conquered Savoy and managed to get into a personal union with another Holy Roman Empire kingdom. The only thing that would make this better would be if I like inherited Scotland at this point.
so, having managed to get a game going where I actually won a war and didn't turn my family into some kind of Oedipal nightmare in less than one generation, my suggestions for getting over your trepidation is this:
The interface is deceptive. It looks like a conquest game, right? No. Holdings are important, but all your real assets are individual people, mostly related to you, plus courtiers and other hangers on. Up in the top right of your screen is the pause button. Use it liberally. In the upper left of the screen is everything you care about. Spend some time at the beginning with the game paused and just get to know your family tree. Make sure no one is unmarried, choose an easy ambition for yourself like "improve <skill I am bad at>", and make sure none of your younger courtiers is under the tutelage of an imbecile of some sort. Check to see if you or anyone at your court has a Claim on any territories you don't currently hold. You need a reason to go to war, and Claims are a good way of doing it.
Then check out your Council. Each of them has three tasks they can accomplish. Of importance at the very beginning will probably be having your chancellor try to fabricate some claims against a weaker neighbor with few allies (look at your neighbor's ruler card and at his family), improving your relationship with the local bishop, (they won't help you with troops unless they like you more than the pope, and they like the Pope a lot) and improving tech.
Then you're ready to hit unpause and let the game start moving forward. Keep checking your family tree and pay attention to the updates. Locate marriages that will result in alliances with more powerful interests, educate the children of your court so that each generation is better than the last, and, you know, get what you want by taking it from someone else who thinks it's his.
Things to make people happy:
1) Give them honorary titles, gold, land, council positions. Always try to keep a gold reserve. gifts prevent wars, mercs win wars, especially early on.
2) Mouse over their opinion and see if they want anything in particular. A Duke will dislike you being the lord over a count that is his by right for instance.
3) Allow them to educate your kids. Only use them with same religion, culture, decent traits. Or just let them educate younger daughters etcet.
4) Have good traits. Educate your next in line yourself, because trait modifiers are a pretty big deal. Three green traits and no red traits is a civil war prevented.
Ways to make money:
Always imprison plotting landholders. (The prison symbol popping up) They will either rebel in a generally foolish war (Which allows you to take a title away from them without penalty), or you get 70 to 140 gold from freeing them.
Make your bishops like you more than the pope. They'll give you money instead.
Make cities and castles have at least 0 opinion for maximum income off them.
Only improve the castles in your demesne. Having 2 castles in your capitol is pretty great, because you can get the economic bonus twice, and the troop levy bonus twice.
Be vikings. Raiding breaks the game moneywise.
Ways to win wars:
Buy a mercenary company.
Make sure your army has good leaders.
Cheap tricks
Don't chase down beaten AI stacks if they're low on men (mouse over). Small armies suck at sieges, and importantly the AI will not disband their armies to regroup with newly gained levies if even 1 man of the stack remains. Beat them once, and then start sieging.)
Back when I was playing EU3, I had a Spain (started as Castile) game once. I broke apart France at some point because they kept warmongering me, and I had Royal marriages with England, Sweden, and Austria. I managed to inherit all these of those eventually. There was glorious Spanish rule across the entire European map.
This has to do with the level of control you have over your kingdom. At the lowest level of Crown Authority, vassals may squabble with one another and do more or less exactly what you are doing; lay claim to, attack, conquer and subjugate neighboring holdings. If you go one step up from that, Vassals may no longer fight with each other because there is some sense that ALL their shit is actually yours, and they are merely administrators, whereas the ground level of Crown authority is more like a confederation.
The first one turned the poor Dubliner into a cultural Arab, which I had not known was possible. Then he gains the "Just" trait (all positive modifiers!) and she talks him down from it, explaining that justice is just an arbitrary concept that the little people worry about
then the next guy I have teaching him is supposed to be imparting some of his Stewardship skill, but instead he lets the little tyke get "Zealous", which is a pretty ok military trait, and then talks him out of it
what the hell am I paying you people for? the royal brat is 13, his best score is an eight and it's in martial, which I didn't try to teach him, and his traits are Trusting, Cruel, Wroth, and Shy. You can talk him out of being a just ruler but you can't teach him to not torture squirrels for fun?
My wife has a strong claim on England which I might act upon in the future. Gonna stop for now though since I took a look at the number of vassals and thought to myself, "nope".
pretty much only way I know how to deal with mongols
a 200k army that is mostly horseman and ignores supply is almost impossible take on otherwise
the Shoshone seem completely overpowered - I basically have 5 cities now and while yes I had periods where people (my own people and also America) were just super pissed at me for having sooooo many cities, by the time I improved all the luxury resources I had in my territory I basically have a secure supply of 9 different luxury goods, including copies of 2 of them for trading for MORE luxury goods
on the same goddamn continent, just at the end of the Medieval era
your borders start out just swallowing everything
plus I then choose the religion and tech upgrades from ruins where I can and bam, found Pantheon, choose Religious Expansion, and shit just goes nuts from there
George Washington is so pissed at me
I gave him a war for his 16th birthday. Sure enough, some asshole with a morningstar caved in his face and incapacitated him for the rest of his life. He died at the age of 27, leaving the lesser kingdom of Mearth to his much more capable brother
now there are four counties remaining in Ireland that do not belong to me or my vassals, and I took one of them just by sending a note to the Earl saying basically, "you better recognize or I am going to fuck up your life" and they recognized my sovereignty over Ireland and promised not to make trouble.
It's funny cause Washington's unique ability is cheaper border expansion, but Pocatello starts with twice as much land. Destined to be great neighbors.
Basically, your job is to absorb all of America in the name of the Shoshone.
I love it when Civ randomly puts me in actual historical situations..
Gonna do it
In the name of historical commentary!
The irony is pretty great too. Such as when Japan votes to ban whales as a luxury in the world congress.
Oooh you can do that in BNW? I was just telling me friends the other day that horses should become a luxury resource in the modern era, and whales should get science boats instead of fishing boats.
Yeah, I have heard the early game for Shoshone is bananas, but they don't really have anything to deal with military civs, so you can kind of get swallowed early if you start next to, say, Alexander.
Note that they are not banning the harvesting of whales.
Merely the trading of whales.
Been trying to play as Venice lately. I'm surprised at how incredibly easy it is to take territory from the Ottomans. They seem to have lots of rebellions and it's not hard to get lots of powerful allies to join in on your attack on them. Austria still seems to be the biggest threat, but I might see if it's possible to ever become friends with them. Poland is also a super good friend for Venice, the only problem is they usually also are really good friends with Austria. Castille is also a potential ally since Aragon often considers Venice a rival, and if Castille is taking over Aragon militarily, well, it makes becoming their ally all the easier.
We've banned them from reality.
Next on the ballot: Dogs and their ability to look up.
yeah but when a luxury is banned you no longer get global benefits from it
makes me saaaaaad
in my experience, Polynesia just hates the fuck out of some whales
Also just finished off the Nederlands and used my leftover general to build a great fort stealing 2 sugar plantations from Poland that were right next to the old Nederlands territory. I'm a jerk.
I did it once with coal and a luxury resource that were just outside my reach, right up against Russia. She was not amused and was already guarded against me so later she denounced me and then not very long after declared war because I had no military.
Except I had rocket artillery stationed in the Citadel that was murdering everything that crossed the border. And ranged troops stationed in all my major cities. And a massive treasury. And a tech advantage. Wiped her off my continent in not too long.
Nah, it's a protection strategy; if the whales don't make people happy, they won't be fucked with. Citadels are amazing things too-- back before the expansions hit, I had one set up next to a river, on a hill, with hills on all sides and mountains to the east and west. I think I lost maybe two crossbowmen holding that tile, which was a choke to the majority of my empire.
Right, but what I'm saying is the the Japanese continue to murder the whales, they just throw everything they harvest away because it is a well known fact that Japan will subsidize motherfucking Goddamned anything way past the point of usefulness or getting a return because, well, Japan.
Citadel + Rocket Artillery =
(That is a nothing where many units used to be)
it's not like you didn't have the 10 turns it took for it to possibly die to build a new one
which I did (in 3 turns)
which I didn't end up needing as a replacement for the one in the Citadel, so I exploded Rostov
I rolled Portugal. I started on a small peninsula, over looking a bay. But I was very quickly pressed by my neighbor, Morocco.
Because of that I kept too small I think, with only 2 cities total. Nonetheless, I was the culture leader and I was able to lead the middling pack in tech. I was going to go for a Cultural victory, but by the time I researched the National Visitors Center, America had just built the Great Firewall. So The Internet was out, but I had more or less been tracked as a Diplo win anyway, with Patronage being my second full Policy tree after Tradition.
In the end America beat me to victory by two rounds. They launched into Space at 349 (Standard) and well... the very first World Leader vote would have convened the following round (350), and I had it locked with 5 votes over what I needed.
I'm not exactly sure how I could have turned it around, I didn't have a big enough force to really put a dent into them, let alone do anything but fight defensively. If they had been my neighbors I probably would have at least attempted, but it they were quite a ways away from me, and I didn't have a coherent navy until pretty late-game.
Emperor is a bit too easy for me, so I guess I'll keep trying Immortal and develop a feel for when I need to intervene militarily to stop the break-away Civ, before they totally dwarf me in tech and size.
Scratch that, I can imagine both playing and winning on Emperor
I just can't imagine it being very fun.
The other great thing was that denmark didn't really have a religion of their own, so they were spreading mine throughout the world in their conquests. They voted in my religion as the world religion, and i bribed a bunch of folks to make freedom the world ideology. With my forbidden palace and having all the money (cs allies), pretty easy walk to a diplomacy victory from there.
Gonna try playing a 'regular' game of king and see how it goes.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
And it turns out that motherfuckers just do not learn lessons about fucking with Korea, and whether or not you should do it.
I was on the same continent as Alexander again, so I made sure to have a decent army from the get-go.
Plus it was me and Ghandi and Nobunaga, and we were the choicest of bros for fucking 6000 years, so when Alex got too big for his britches, we sent him packing.
Then out of fucking NOWHERE, in like 1920, Ghandi's like "Fuck you, denounced". Out of NOwhere. He thinks I'M spreading too rapidly, even though he's got like 10 more cities than I do, and I haven't build a damn thing since the mid 1800s. 50 or so turns later, he's just like "Okay, fuck it, War".
Which sets off a chain reaction. Japan's at war with the Iriqouis, but he figures "fuck it, the 2nd and 3rd biggest armies on the planet ain't shit". So now I'm at war with my two bros, India and Japan. Then Germany's like "Never waste a chance to screw someone in the back...!" And Boudicca's like "Gotta get me a piece of that action." So I have four people who want my blood across 2 continents.
Well, the jokes on you, I finished airports in almost every city, chucklefucks. I didn't lose a single city. I went close to 100 turns without losing a single unit. Towards the end of the 1800s I had been able to finally get my science game running after struggling with low happiness, stingy neighbors, and mucking around with Alexander's bullshit on the battlefield and with the citystates, so I was able to make it first to basically every major military tech well before Ghandi lost his fool mind. I've got nukes. I've got Rocket Artillery. I've got Uranium. I begin the great cleansing. My armies march across the face of the earth, burning everything in their path. Delhi receives the first taste: their entire army is north; their southern flanks have been ignored, because there is little military presence there; this is where I build the first Atomic bombs. Within 100 turns, my Battleships own the sea. My Bombers cleanse the air. My Giant Death Robots make the earth tremble.
5 turns from eliminating Japan, India, Germany, and the Celts, in the 2030s, having nuked a good chunk of the northwestern hemisphere, my last space ship component finishes building. Colonists are frozen in stasis in clear plastic pods clustered around a massive glass window so that the entire earth may see their hundreds of middle fingers pointed squarely in their direction as the ship speeds into the stratosphere, and beyond. The colonists sleep dreamlessly as they offer their unconscious regards to the planet that could not learn it's lesson. They do not even see the radioactive wasteland they are leaving behind.
Alpha Centauri awaits: will Planet learn the lesson of not fucking with Korea before it is too late?