First time I've achieved this in a game as an Irish count. I had to take the last kingdom, Scotland, from my character's sister. A few years before that, she had invaded me with her allies using a potentially game-ending "Press All Claims" casus belli and even my grandfather, the king of England, was waging war against me, so I had to kill him and take his throne in order to use his levies against my sister.
pfff
I did it while gay:
face facts, I look better in purple. It's ok, there's no shame in it.
For some reason I find the fact that being gay is a 15% fertility penalty kind of amusing. It's just like, "how did they come up with fifteen percent?"
For some reason I find the fact that being gay is a 15% fertility penalty kind of amusing. It's just like, "how did they come up with fifteen percent?"
they probably threw out an arbitrary number on purpose
I also find it amusing that being lustful, or a hedonist can help balance it out
personally, I think my ruler just forces her husband into dress before getting it on
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
For some reason I find the fact that being gay is a 15% fertility penalty kind of amusing. It's just like, "how did they come up with fifteen percent?"
they probably threw out an arbitrary number on purpose
I also find it amusing that being lustful, or a hedonist can help balance it out
personally, I think my ruler just forces her husband into dress before getting it on
It's kind of annoying that it is never randomly generated
Does anyone have good advice on fighting back invasions from Asia? I started playing as a Zoroastrian ruler in 867 and I managed to restore the Persian Empire before the Seljuk invasion hit me. I have about as many men as the Byzantine Emperor and the Seljuk stacks are still too much to handle because of all those horse archers. Fighting them in the mountains doesn't really help. I can't use the boat trick since they spawn in Khiva. Is there any point at which supply limits start affecting invasion troops?
I enjoyed playing as the Karen a lot since it was very difficult to get the upper hand at times. But against the Seljuks it seems impossible and I can only imagine that the Mongols and Timurids will be even worse.
By the way, hey, there's apparently a new expansion coming up.
I can't really see any option which would end well for me (Egypt and Byzantium are also powerful as fuck and since I'm Zoroastrian, anyone can declare war on me anytime). I kinda wish the Seljuks were pagan and not Sunni because that would leave open some possibility of being able to take them over at some point in the future or even continue playing as their vassal.
yeah I dunno how to handle them without boats and yeah the later invasions get worse
I think the last invasion I fought ended up with a stack of about 200k men? Or maybe it was more than that. I brought about 500k of my own to that battle?
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
My vassals do a pretty lousy job of upgrading their provinces, so I worry that even if I manage to fight back the Seljuks somehow, I'm going to have to take over Egypt and Byzantium in order to be able to stand up against the Ilkhanate. I think I might even convert to Orthodoxy since it sucks not to be able to have any allies and it would make conquering Byzantium easier.
The invasions are pretty broken when your nation is right on the edge of the map.
I managed to beat the Seljuks by whittling down their doomstack in consecutive wars. I destroyed what was left by hiring multiple groups of horse archer mercenaries and using those together with my levies.
I'm now almost in the year 1050 and I own the entire Arabian peninsula, Damascus and Oultrejordain, so Egypt's not that big of a threat anymore. But since Zoroastrians only marry other Zoroastrians and I gave most of the provinces I conquered to family members, there's now constant wars between my vassals. Children end up with all kinds of claims and almost any noble inside my realm has also a claim to my title which is starting to get really annoying. There's only one Satrap left in my realm who isn't a member of my family.
I've created what is basically a giant inbreeding program.
I have two campaigns going right now. One one on my laptop, one on my desktop
Desktop:
Started as Duke of Aragon, which turned into King of Aragon, expanded my kingdom aggressively through Muslim lands via Holy War, eventually managed to take control of Castille as well, had half of Spain under my rule.
Extremely popular king died, brat child took over, entire kingdom destroyed, Muslims took back almost all of their territory, other Spanish allies completely wrecked. Can't take back a single county via Holy War due to constant civil war. Now, the HRE is breathing down my neck, having taken over almost all of France... I'm next
Laptop:
Started as Duke of Morray (Scottland)... almost no military power. Boxed in on both sides by Norwegian Empire. Held Scottish crown for about three weeks. Currently trying to curry favor with the king to grant me another Duchy, while fabricating claims on some minor counties in other kingfoms, since crown authority has tied my hands in Scottish lands... it's moving VERY slowly compared to Spain. in Spain, there's always something to do. In Scottland? A lot of waiting and diplomacy.
Right now I'm basically waiting for the Mongols to take me out. I wanted to leave some duchies to the Seljuks so that the Illhanate would attack them first and not me, but my vassals quickly destroyed and assimilated what was left of them. There's now what is in effect a giant super-satrapy at the border of my empire and I have to keep its holder locked up in my dungeon so he won't go for my crown.
I think that from now on, I'm going to imprison my nobles any chance I get. I imprisoned my heir's wife after she gave birth to my grandson so she wouldn't rebel against me. Not thinking about letting her out as long as my current character lives.
Children end up with all kinds of claims and almost any noble inside my realm has also a claim to my title which is starting to get really annoying. There's only one Satrap left in my realm who isn't a member of my family.
I've created what is basically a giant inbreeding program.
if you can keep them from pressing their claims, they should lose them within a couple of generations.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
So, I like naming potential heirs after Real life people, so I can keep track of them. I had a boat load of children, including a pair of genius twins. I named them "Patrick" and "Sherry", after my boyfriend and his sister. I also had a daughter with the 'ugly' trait, so I named her after my detested stepsister, "Linda" I snickered to myself, thinking I was clever.
So, the Rift to Hell happened, and one of my options was to sacrifice my most precious thing, with Linda's portrait popping up.
This was my reaction:
Thankfully, her ugly mug stopped the rift.
Regarding my twins, Patrick became a very capable ruler going on crusades, and amassing a bunch of traits. His sister was made into a Spymaster for a neighboring kingdom. My boyfriend exclaimed "She's a spymaster?! She (real life sister) can't keep her mouth shut, she's not going to make it."
Sure enough, she was assassinated by an unknown person shortly afterwards, much to our amusement.
I'm still having trouble with warfare. Anytime I try to wage war, it seems I miscalculate how many troops the other side has. So I either have to start as a King, or be content with the title I have already. Only time I ever suceeded was in Ireland, and that's due to the fact its just an island.
I usually use the realm tree button on the target's character screen to check. It's useful even if you're fighting another one of your liege's vassals, and it's way easier to check than looking through the independent realm ledgers when its not a vassal.
There are still a few things to keep in mind, such as this is an overestimation of what they can actually raise because their laws and vassal opinions reduces the raisable amount. Luckily you can also see what their vassal's think of them on the same screen, to help give an idea.
This also doesn't include their allies, so you'll want to check that (also accessible from their screen). Fortunately, usually allies haven't been a problem for me (except for the Karlings).
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
It's basically a combination of winning the post-succession revolt and managing vassal opinion.
When grooming my heir, I focus on diplomacy. Usually I already have high diplomacy myself, so I tutor, and that also lets you weed out other negative traits (things like craven and gluttonous are bad). Unless I can find a marriage that would get me a claim on a large plot of land, I also arrange marriage with a high diplomacy spouse (you get half your spouses stats to your state stats).
In my roman empire game, I usually gave my heir a kingdom, but since I'm still gavelkind in this game, I haven't done that because it seems to limit what land I can grant my heir. I think I could fix that at this point (reformed the religion), but anyway, it's a good strategy because it builds up their prestige, and vassal lords like that.
Sometimes, when I'm getting close to the end, I'll check my vassals to see who might cause problems. Ambitious vassals are real bad. Remember that you can't be part of a faction if you're in jail or if you're a child. So it might be worth arranging an accident. Or if your vassals love you enough, revoking some of their titles or just plain throwing them in jail (obviously you can avoid the opinion penalty for other vassals if you discovered a plot against them).
I also make sure to save up some gold, for bribes or mercs (mostly bribes once I get big). I also make sure my retinue is a good size.
Eventually, you die, and you are now your heir. Stay paused for a bit, and check the opinions of your non-imprisoned vassals. Start distributing bribes. Kings are especially important, and you get the most effect out of bribing vassals with certain negative traits, like greedy and gluttonous, so focus on those first. Next, distribute honorary titles. Mix up your council. If your heir held land, the council will probably be crappy and you can replace all of them with powerful vassals who appreciate being on the council.
At this point, it's good to see what factions vassals are ending up in, so you might want to unpause for a few days before pausing again. Move your chancellor to improve diplomatic relations with an important vassal. Do the same with your spymaster to uncover plots to prevent a vassal from being in a faction. Instead of ending plots, you may want to imprison plotters. If a weak person is leading a faction, I usually don't curry their favor because a count seems less likely to present an ultimatum.
Until things are more stable, don't declare any wars unless you are pressing a claim or otherwise boosting a vassal's opinion. Any drain to your forces in a war will increase the relative power of any factions.
If everything went right, there probably won't be a revolt at this point. But sometimes I die too early, or my original heir dies and I'm left with a second son that wasn't groomed for the throne. Or I just did a bad job raising my heir. Or your vassals are terrible people. Either way, the factions refuse to melt away. When the ultimatum is given (or if I think I'm going to get one, although that's hard to guess), I raise levies immediately, and start moving them to safer areas. This is also where the retinue comes in handy, and if you have spare gold for some reasons, you may want to raise some mercs, especially if you're relatively small. If it's independence, and they gave the ultimatum when they were closer to 30% instead of higher, you can probably win without too much difficulty. I rarely have other factions get big enough (I think empires tend to cause independence factions more than other types, and others value stability enough that they don't trigger until higher percentages).
Edit: Also, as ongoing opinion management, I usually send my other children to be tutored by my more powerful vassals.
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
yeah I haven't had much issue with assassinations recently (the auto stop plot feature they added a few months ago helps), but I've still had heirs get sick and die
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
I picked up my Zoroastrian/Persian campaign again recently and was declared Saoshyant (chosen savior of the world). What I didn't know was that the trait "descendant of the Saoshyant" can only be inherited patrilineally. I had only daughters! Still have to face the mongols.
I might do a pagan campaign next but I think I'm gonna start in 1066 because the 867 start seems overall pretty imbalanced. I don't like how weak the Catholic factions are. In my current game, the Andalusian caliphate and the Byzantine Empire are currently in the process of dividing Italy between themselves.
I'm guessing peasant rebellions, if you notice he's over his demesne limit by...889. I too am awaiting Sons of Abraham, if only to give me an excuse to do another playthrough I don't have time for
Posts
well, let's see
Romuva is donesies
Suomenusko is one country away from oblivion
norse will be driven to the british isles
tengri is getting slapped silly by the muslims
and I've been pounding away at the christian holdings
the best religion will be hot and ready for the Khan, like a little caesar's pizza
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
My Lord, my efforts to press a few more taxes out of the peasants of Gascony have been met with resistance
We might have a rebellion on our hand
Ceterum censeo may I suggest that His Lordship get betrothed to a suitable lady to secure the line of inheritance through a second heir
I'm failing to see the problem here?!?
i've always loved intrigue and would like to put my skills to formal use
yes I think so, so I'm gonna do this:
pfff
I did it while gay:
face facts, I look better in purple. It's ok, there's no shame in it.
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
now it's getting a little easy so i'm thinking of switching to cathar hungary
it's because they finally get a king who knows how to match his shoes with his belt
But there's supernatural dangers to my reign
they probably threw out an arbitrary number on purpose
I also find it amusing that being lustful, or a hedonist can help balance it out
personally, I think my ruler just forces her husband into dress before getting it on
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
Oh sweet sinkhole repair
It's kind of annoying that it is never randomly generated
I enjoyed playing as the Karen a lot since it was very difficult to get the upper hand at times. But against the Seljuks it seems impossible and I can only imagine that the Mongols and Timurids will be even worse.
By the way, hey, there's apparently a new expansion coming up.
I think the last invasion I fought ended up with a stack of about 200k men? Or maybe it was more than that. I brought about 500k of my own to that battle?
The invasions are pretty broken when your nation is right on the edge of the map.
I'm now almost in the year 1050 and I own the entire Arabian peninsula, Damascus and Oultrejordain, so Egypt's not that big of a threat anymore. But since Zoroastrians only marry other Zoroastrians and I gave most of the provinces I conquered to family members, there's now constant wars between my vassals. Children end up with all kinds of claims and almost any noble inside my realm has also a claim to my title which is starting to get really annoying. There's only one Satrap left in my realm who isn't a member of my family.
I've created what is basically a giant inbreeding program.
Desktop:
Started as Duke of Aragon, which turned into King of Aragon, expanded my kingdom aggressively through Muslim lands via Holy War, eventually managed to take control of Castille as well, had half of Spain under my rule.
Extremely popular king died, brat child took over, entire kingdom destroyed, Muslims took back almost all of their territory, other Spanish allies completely wrecked. Can't take back a single county via Holy War due to constant civil war. Now, the HRE is breathing down my neck, having taken over almost all of France... I'm next
Laptop:
Started as Duke of Morray (Scottland)... almost no military power. Boxed in on both sides by Norwegian Empire. Held Scottish crown for about three weeks. Currently trying to curry favor with the king to grant me another Duchy, while fabricating claims on some minor counties in other kingfoms, since crown authority has tied my hands in Scottish lands... it's moving VERY slowly compared to Spain. in Spain, there's always something to do. In Scottland? A lot of waiting and diplomacy.
I think that from now on, I'm going to imprison my nobles any chance I get. I imprisoned my heir's wife after she gave birth to my grandson so she wouldn't rebel against me. Not thinking about letting her out as long as my current character lives.
if you can keep them from pressing their claims, they should lose them within a couple of generations.
So, the Rift to Hell happened, and one of my options was to sacrifice my most precious thing, with Linda's portrait popping up.
This was my reaction:
Thankfully, her ugly mug stopped the rift.
Regarding my twins, Patrick became a very capable ruler going on crusades, and amassing a bunch of traits. His sister was made into a Spymaster for a neighboring kingdom. My boyfriend exclaimed "She's a spymaster?! She (real life sister) can't keep her mouth shut, she's not going to make it."
Sure enough, she was assassinated by an unknown person shortly afterwards, much to our amusement.
I'm still having trouble with warfare. Anytime I try to wage war, it seems I miscalculate how many troops the other side has. So I either have to start as a King, or be content with the title I have already. Only time I ever suceeded was in Ireland, and that's due to the fact its just an island.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
There are still a few things to keep in mind, such as this is an overestimation of what they can actually raise because their laws and vassal opinions reduces the raisable amount. Luckily you can also see what their vassal's think of them on the same screen, to help give an idea.
This also doesn't include their allies, so you'll want to check that (also accessible from their screen). Fortunately, usually allies haven't been a problem for me (except for the Karlings).
boy you know what's hard? being a foreign king of Scottland
they just looooove to rebel
It's uh..going well.
how do you keep up these empires over multiple heirs?
Every time my guy dies I lose half my holdings
When grooming my heir, I focus on diplomacy. Usually I already have high diplomacy myself, so I tutor, and that also lets you weed out other negative traits (things like craven and gluttonous are bad). Unless I can find a marriage that would get me a claim on a large plot of land, I also arrange marriage with a high diplomacy spouse (you get half your spouses stats to your state stats).
In my roman empire game, I usually gave my heir a kingdom, but since I'm still gavelkind in this game, I haven't done that because it seems to limit what land I can grant my heir. I think I could fix that at this point (reformed the religion), but anyway, it's a good strategy because it builds up their prestige, and vassal lords like that.
Sometimes, when I'm getting close to the end, I'll check my vassals to see who might cause problems. Ambitious vassals are real bad. Remember that you can't be part of a faction if you're in jail or if you're a child. So it might be worth arranging an accident. Or if your vassals love you enough, revoking some of their titles or just plain throwing them in jail (obviously you can avoid the opinion penalty for other vassals if you discovered a plot against them).
I also make sure to save up some gold, for bribes or mercs (mostly bribes once I get big). I also make sure my retinue is a good size.
Eventually, you die, and you are now your heir. Stay paused for a bit, and check the opinions of your non-imprisoned vassals. Start distributing bribes. Kings are especially important, and you get the most effect out of bribing vassals with certain negative traits, like greedy and gluttonous, so focus on those first. Next, distribute honorary titles. Mix up your council. If your heir held land, the council will probably be crappy and you can replace all of them with powerful vassals who appreciate being on the council.
At this point, it's good to see what factions vassals are ending up in, so you might want to unpause for a few days before pausing again. Move your chancellor to improve diplomatic relations with an important vassal. Do the same with your spymaster to uncover plots to prevent a vassal from being in a faction. Instead of ending plots, you may want to imprison plotters. If a weak person is leading a faction, I usually don't curry their favor because a count seems less likely to present an ultimatum.
Until things are more stable, don't declare any wars unless you are pressing a claim or otherwise boosting a vassal's opinion. Any drain to your forces in a war will increase the relative power of any factions.
If everything went right, there probably won't be a revolt at this point. But sometimes I die too early, or my original heir dies and I'm left with a second son that wasn't groomed for the throne. Or I just did a bad job raising my heir. Or your vassals are terrible people. Either way, the factions refuse to melt away. When the ultimatum is given (or if I think I'm going to get one, although that's hard to guess), I raise levies immediately, and start moving them to safer areas. This is also where the retinue comes in handy, and if you have spare gold for some reasons, you may want to raise some mercs, especially if you're relatively small. If it's independence, and they gave the ultimatum when they were closer to 30% instead of higher, you can probably win without too much difficulty. I rarely have other factions get big enough (I think empires tend to cause independence factions more than other types, and others value stability enough that they don't trigger until higher percentages).
Edit: Also, as ongoing opinion management, I usually send my other children to be tutored by my more powerful vassals.
Which in my experience typically means almost nothing...
The only thing you could do to combat this is to dump all your land on him at birth, but if he gets assassinated then you are really fucked
so apparently you can conquer the entire world in 25 years with the count of Nantes.
I might do a pagan campaign next but I think I'm gonna start in 1066 because the 867 start seems overall pretty imbalanced. I don't like how weak the Catholic factions are. In my current game, the Andalusian caliphate and the Byzantine Empire are currently in the process of dividing Italy between themselves.
i am calling bullshit
also who else is psyched for sons of abraham, i know i am