Gah. That puts me in a really shitty position, actually, since my heir has had four daughters and no sons, and the Uncle due to inherit has terrible stewardship.
just get the daughters married matrilineally and hope they have son's, ensure your ruler stays alive long enough to see it, kill all other male heirs... PROFIT?
Or kill your wife and get a new one. She clearly has a problem bearing sons.
just get the daughters married matrilineally and hope they have son's, ensure your ruler stays alive long enough to see it, kill all other male heirs... PROFIT?
Or kill your wife and get a new one. She clearly has a problem bearing sons.
Unfortunately the daughters were all already married off to nobodies since I didn't have direct control over that until it was too late. I got a divorce rather than killing my wife; murdering a princess of the Byzantine Empire didn't seem like a particularly good move! She was super old though, and not likely to bear any more children anyway so she had to go. With no conveniently single princesses available, I went with someone young and fertile with great stats, who turned out to be the daughter of the currently independent Earl of Bedford. With my King now aged 52 time was running out, so I also switched to family focus. She gave me a son almost right away... a sickly hunchback who died almost immediately. Finally at age 54 I get another son... who is also a hunchback and born ill, but not actually "sickly". Thankfully he pulls through his illness... just in time for dad to die of depression, putting the kingdom of Scotland into the hands of a 0-year-old hunchback who everybody hates due to a combination of his deformity and short reign.
Luckily I'd arranged a good regent who had enough stewardship to keep hold of the demesne... except that it turns out if your regent doesn't actually like your character they can just nominate someone else regent and bail on you. So after only a year my douche of a regent dumps baby Quasimodo (Babymodo? Baby Q?) back on his mother. This is actually a pretty sweet deal. As I mentioned above his mother was chosen mostly for her stats, so she's still more than capable of holding the kingdom together for now... uh... oh. Huh. Didn't know that could happen:
So my uncle, who like everybody else hates me, becomes my new regent but because I am literally an infant I'm unable to understand the process by which he's actually done this. At this point several of my vassals have been forming factions for some time and they're getting scary. I need to placate them with honorary titles (they're only at -7 and -11 opinion) but anything like that needs to be approved by my regent who hates me and won't let me do anything. And so I do the one thing I'm surprised to discover I can still do, I bribe my regent for access to my own kingdom, at age three.
Finally in control of my own destiny, I hand out honorary titles like candy and prop up my power base by putting three otherwise useless idiots in positions of power because they have the "content" perk and won't oppose me. I feel rather like Cersei putting Mace Tyrell on the small council at this point. What follows is a thoroughly entertaining clusterfuck. A Viking adventurer decides my king (now age four) is a soft target and invades, and is beaten. My uncles play musical chairs with the regency, each time for reasons "beyond my comprehension" as above. One of my vassals is caught by my spymaster talking shit about King Babymodo behind his back, so I try and fail to imprison him, sparking a civil war. I wreck his shit and throw him in the dungeons, and only then do I notice that he's the son of a chief who did the same thing to Babymodo's grandad. My regent changes again due to intrigue "well beyond my present ability to comprehend", and this time its not one of my uncles, but a courtier. This guy is a nobody, just a random noble, and yet he's somehow without any claim at all taken effective control of the Kingdom of Scotland. But at least he likes me so bravo to you, sir!
Incidentally if I had died during any of this, the crown would have reverted to the appropriately named Chief Lennon the Lecher who has fifteen children, only five of which are actually legitimate. I don't even want to think about trying to manage that clusterfuck, so I really hope little hunchbacked baby Michael turns out to be a secret genius when he hits adulthood.
Stories like Mr Rays are what got me interested in CK2 and what keeps me playing after all this time. I just last night got the devil spawn event to kick off for the first time. Will report back how it turns out.
Yeah, I'm starting to realize that this is a game that's actually just as fun to play when you're losing. When I'm on top its just a case of slowly absorbing more and more territories and building my empire, but when shit falls apart like in the story above and I go into damage control mode, that's when the fun stories emerge.
In more recent news, Michael made it to adulthood after all! He's an intricate webweaver, apparently. He's also greedy, craven and deceitful, so not a great starting point for a new dynasty, but at least he's honest and kind, which more than cancels out his hunchback penalty. People actually like him now! Except for his wife, the Princess of Aquitaine, who wasn't too happy to be married off to a hunchback. So I gave her 20 gold worth of shiny things and now she likes him after all. Politics.
I was over my vassal limit, so I decided to create a Dutchy to combine all of my Irish territories into one, putting my Uncle Kenneth in charge. Kenneth has since then taken another Irish county for himself and declared himself "King of Ulster". I'm not sure how this works exactly; he still seems to be subservient to me (although he's started a faction) but nevertheless his title is now "King" and not "High Chief" which should be the tribal equivalent of a Duke. In any case some kind of "Irish revolt" event triggered, spawning a massive Irish army, apparently dedicated to uniting the Kingdom of Ireland under one banner and kicking out the invading Scots. I was able to beat them back only because of the "Raise tribal army" intrigue option, which spawns an army of 2500 troops for 500 prestige. It was a very close battle with over 5000 men on each side, so I definitely would have lost without the tribal army. Which is making me dread the inevitable switch to Feudalism.
*Edit* Just had a son. He's a genius. But also ill. Pleaselivepleaselivepleaselivepleaselive...
*Edit2* Nope, pneumonia I have a daughter but I'm pretty sure she can't inherit under any circumstances since as a tribal I'm stuck on "women get nothing, ever".
*Edit3* Okay, this is probably enough CKII play-by-play for one day, but this really is a pretty fun little drama unfolding. I finally have a healthy male heir, currently age 0 with no stats or traits whatsoever. My Kingdom now encompasses a "Prince-Bishopric" because I gave an existing Bishop control of a county and then pressed his claim for the county next door. I've never had one before and didn't even know that "Prince-Bishop" was a title you could have so I have no idea how those get inherited. His heir is currently listed as "unknown".
The "King Kenneth" situation resolved itself; he died of old age and then his heir disappeared under "mysterious circumstances", effectively wiping out that branch of my original bloodline and the faction supporting him. I'd noticed earlier that he'd made his marshal into a count to govern the Irish county he took for himself, and since he was next in line for the Dutchy / High Chiefdom of Ulster and has the "ambitious" trait, I think its pretty obvious that he Klingon promoted himself. So now he has four counties, a Duchy, wants the remaining Irish county that I held onto (Ulster) to complete the set, and has the "ambitious" trait. Basically I now have a much worse problem.
Yeah, I'm starting to realize that this is a game that's actually just as fun to play when you're losing. When I'm on top its just a case of slowly absorbing more and more territories and building my empire, but when shit falls apart like in the story above and I go into damage control mode, that's when the fun stories emerge.
Heh.
In my India game, my empire stretched from India to Constantinople. It was 1200 or so, my emperor was less than 30, I could summon up over 175k vassal levies. I had finally broken the back of the Caliphate, I was ready for the Mongols, and I was ready to finally strike at the soft underbelly of a deeply fragmented Europe. Hindu holy war CBs ftw.
And then I promptly got depresed, stressed, and dead. My two year old daughter inherited.
That's when I discovered that children inherit whichever of their parent's castes is lower.
Suddenly, taking that genius Sunni woman as a concubine seemed like a bad idea in retrospect.
I held on until about 1210 or so before things blew up. I didn't bother fighting factions. They had over 300% of my strength. I let everything go. I found myself so weak it became safer to just let my few remaining vassals go, since they were so spread out that I couldn't effectively support them. I was Empress of India, holding ten provinces, most of which were my demense, in Sauvira amd Constantinople.
I carved out more of the best counties around Constantinople - giving me a 10 county demense! I switched to Jainism when I came of age. I still had my retinues from when I was an Empire in more than name, 16,000 elite troops. I was well ahead of the curve in Europe for technology. I fabricated a claim in Rome, and then took it from the Pope. I converted Rome to Jainism, and then fabricated a claim on the county of Devon. I invaded Devon, and used that launching point to conquer Britain.
I knocked out a ton of achievements that run: The British Raj, Kali Maaa, What Schism?, Red Sea Resort, Looking East and West, and Wise Guy.
Next up: a quick run at being Carloman. I played for ten seconds before leaving for work, and I picked up Kinslayer in the best possible way (the way that nets me all of my brother's land).
(Oh yes. And the Mongols in that India game? I only answered pleas for help so that I could watch my family fall to the Khan. That's what you assholes get for leaving me.)
Shadowhope on
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
+3
Options
AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
That doesn't have to be a problem. It can sometimes be pretty useful to make Ambitious guys both happy and independent if you can find a way to set up a means to get their stuff back into your kingdom via marriage / inheritance law somewhere down the line. As a guy who actually enjoys playing Tanistry / Elective a lot, I'm often pretty okay with letting a brother / uncle / whatever go their own way somewhere nearby for a while then trying to reclaim their lands later.
Sometimes they do literally insane things like gifting the Duchy of Naples to the Byzantines for no reason at all but some sort of pure AI-driven spite, but usually it works out manageable.
That doesn't have to be a problem. It can sometimes be pretty useful to make Ambitious guys both happy and independent if you can find a way to set up a means to get their stuff back into your kingdom via marriage / inheritance law somewhere down the line. As a guy who actually enjoys playing Tanistry / Elective a lot, I'm often pretty okay with letting a brother / uncle / whatever go their own way somewhere nearby for a while then trying to reclaim their lands later.
Sometimes they do literally insane things like gifting the Duchy of Naples to the Byzantines for no reason at all but some sort of pure AI-driven spite, but usually it works out manageable.
In my case, I was down to 10k levies, with my remaining vassals forming factions, and people of my former empire trying to attack me for the scraps that ended up in their de jure kingdoms/duchies. Since my goal at that point was to establish the British Raj, and since the Mongols literally cut my realm in half, I was happier to just leave my former empire to its fate - I had no desire to salvage it. Better to cut the few remaining scraps loose, and invade England.
Also, I'm now just 15 achievements away from getting CK2 to 100%. I'm starting to think that it'd be fun to try to get them all. Saxons Everywhere, Unite and The Outside Bet seem like they'll be the hardest.
We'll see...
Shadowhope on
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
That doesn't have to be a problem. It can sometimes be pretty useful to make Ambitious guys both happy and independent if you can find a way to set up a means to get their stuff back into your kingdom via marriage / inheritance law somewhere down the line. As a guy who actually enjoys playing Tanistry / Elective a lot, I'm often pretty okay with letting a brother / uncle / whatever go their own way somewhere nearby for a while then trying to reclaim their lands later.
Sometimes they do literally insane things like gifting the Duchy of Naples to the Byzantines for no reason at all but some sort of pure AI-driven spite, but usually it works out manageable.
In my case, I was down to 10k levies, with my remaining vassals forming factions, and people of my former empire trying to attack me for the scraps that ended up in their de jure kingdoms/duchies. Since my goal at that point was to establish the British Raj, and since the Mongols literally cut my realm in half, I was happier to just leave my former empire to its fate - I had no desire to salvage it. Better to cut the few remaining scraps loose, and invade England.
Also, I'm now just 15 achievements away from getting CK2 to 100%. I'm starting to think that it'd be fun to try to get them all. Saxons Everywhere, Unite and The Outside Bet seem like they'll be the hardest.
Are any of you guys any good at modding? I'm reading through the wiki/tutorials trying to figure it out but i'm not very good at this sort of thing. Is there any way to mod paganism so reformed pagans can send missionaries?
Are any of you guys any good at modding? I'm reading through the wiki/tutorials trying to figure it out but i'm not very good at this sort of thing. Is there any way to mod paganism so reformed pagans can send missionaries?
Randomly looking through files, I believe the "Pagans can't be missionaries" line comes from \crusader kings ii\common\job_actions.txt (under the chaplain/seer/religious person).
It's basically:
action_inquisition is the proselytize button, I believe.
FROM = the state sending the chaplain (you)
action_inquisition = {
attribute = learning
trigger = {
OR = {
owner = {
FROM = { NOT = { religion_group = pagan_group } }
#You are not part of the pagan religious group (Germanic, Reformed Germanic, etc.)
independent = yes
#The target is independent (basically: the highest liege in a realm)
NOT = { religion = FROM }
#The target does not have your religion
religion_group = pagan_group
#The target is pagan (...maybe they changed this at some point, but I thought Muslims could try to do this Christians and vice versa.)
OR = {
NOT = { religion = aztec }
year = 1350
}
#Can't do it to the aztec until after 1350
is_reformed_religion = no
#Can't send to a reformed pagan, basically
capital_scope = {
province = ROOT
}
#The target province is the capital
controls_religion = no
#The target is not the religious head of the religion
FROM = {
higher_tier_than = COUNT
OR = {
independent = yes
higher_tier_than = DUKE
}
}
#You're either a king/emperor or an independent duke
NOT = {
has_opinion_modifier = { who = FROM modifier = opinion_sent_preacher }
}
#You haven't tried to send a missionary recently.
is_within_diplo_range = FROM
#Target is within your diplomatic range (wiki says around 700 + modifiers)
}
any_province_lord = {
OR = {
character = FROM
is_liege_or_above = FROM
}
#Otherwise, you are the province owner or the liege (or the liege's liege) of the province owner.
}
}
}
events = { 900 901 902 903 }
}
You could try throwing a comment (a #) in front of FROM = { NOT = { religion_group = pagan_group } } and see if it works (...although you may need to do their weird mod setup of recreating the folder structure in [My Documents]\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II. May need to comment out religion_group = pagan_group as well.
I've spent the last two nights trying to get the Duelist achievement. The strategy I used it to play as the Byzantine Emperor in the 867 start, so I'm young and powerful from the get-go, with plenty of safe holy wars to build piety. The idea is to first get Zealous. Then, excommunicate a person, imprison them, blind them, and duel them. Since blind people get -10 to combat, the duels should be easy.
About fifty percent of my attempts, I got zealous from the Observatory event chain, and then lost it within six months to a year of turning to war. Without zealous, I can't duel people for being excommunicated. In one attempt, I was killed in a duel with a blind person. In another, I was up to five wins, and then got ill and died. In another, I died in battle against revolting peasants, despite outnumbering them 12-1.
I've given up on that achievement for the moment and I'm working on Saxon's Everywhere, Unite. I'm the queen of Saxony and I have an heir married to a woman with a claim to England that I'm about to press. Things look promising.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
I started play my first non-learning scenario game, picking a petty irish king. My spymaster told me that my spymaster is plotting to kill one of my nephews ... well, at least he's honest.
I have a couple mechanics questions that have come up:
- When I get the alert to the affect of "some titles won't pass to your heir," is this because I had a second son and succession is still gavelkind? What are the options for rectifying this?
- When I look at the suggest plots, the current one is to kill my wife. Any particular reason this is being suggested?
- I'm still getting my head wrapped around the different types of claims. I ended up going to war to push a claim that (thanks to my lack of reading) was a claim by one of the members of my court. So, once the war was won, he took over the county as an independent kingdom :sad: At least he has 100 approval of me ... What do I look for / how do I make sure I get the county, or at least the claimant as a vassal, in the future?
I started play my first non-learning scenario game, picking a petty irish king. My spymaster told me that my spymaster is plotting to kill one of my nephews ... well, at least he's honest.
I have a couple mechanics questions that have come up:
- When I get the alert to the affect of "some titles won't pass to your heir," is this because I had a second son and succession is still gavelkind? What are the options for rectifying this?
Kill all your other sons, obviously. Alternatively, be okay with your realm splitting up.
- When I look at the suggest plots, the current one is to kill my wife. Any particular reason this is being suggested?
no, murdering your spouse is always available as a plot and it's likely that it's the only one you have access to right now
- I'm still getting my head wrapped around the different types of claims. I ended up going to war to push a claim that (thanks to my lack of reading) was a claim by one of the members of my court. So, once the war was won, he took over the county as an independent kingdom :sad: At least he has 100 approval of me ... What do I look for / how do I make sure I get the county, or at least the claimant as a vassal, in the future?
In order to have control of a ruler once you press his claims he has to either be:
-a member of your dynasty
-already your de factor vassal
If he's not in your dynasty, give him a county inside your lands and then press the claim, then he'll be your vassal after the war.
I started play my first non-learning scenario game, picking a petty irish king. My spymaster told me that my spymaster is plotting to kill one of my nephews ... well, at least he's honest.
I have a couple mechanics questions that have come up:
- When I get the alert to the affect of "some titles won't pass to your heir," is this because I had a second son and succession is still gavelkind? What are the options for rectifying this?
Kill all your other sons, obviously. Alternatively, be okay with your realm splitting up.
If you're not tribal, you could also try switching out of Gavelkind. Primogeniture is usually recommended, but I still prefer Ultimogeniture - you can switch to it at lower Crown Authority and there's less chance of your heir keeling over from old age once he inherits.
WotanAnubis on
+1
Options
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
OK, thanks for the info.
I'm only about 5 years or so in, and already have had the following happen:
- I plotted to revoke the title of one of my vassasls, an unkempt Norwegian who despised me. Apparently he wasn't very popular anywhere in Ireland, as everyone jumped on the plot train. I successfully blackmailed him into giving up the title, at which point he threatened to get revenge, moved back to Norway, and died within a year.
- I have a lover who is my nephews wife, from a marriage I arranged after he came whining to me about being single.
- I am currently at war with a kindly childless couple in a county on my border which I fabricated a claim against. I almost feel bad about this, they both have an ambition to have a daughter ... and are both in their 50s :sad: But, they also had the weakest Levy, and I am the rightful king of Ireland ...
I've been trying for days to get the Bring It On achievement, using the strategy outlined in this guide.
Absolutely no success.
I take a break from that to do Saxons Everywhere, Unite! No problem. I form a Saxon duchy under Carl, I work my way up to kingdom status under Francia. I eventually marry an English princess, put her on the throne. After she immediately lost the throne, I waited until her child got her claim, and then waited until that weak claim could be pushed, and then I broke a truce with England and conquered it. Easy. So then, I decide to try the Outside Bet. It's the most common achievement that I don't have. I got it on the second try - despite my 4.5k mercenary stack turning against me after I ran out of money (forgot to dismiss ships). Easy.
I went back to try the duel thing again.
Absolutely no success.
This game is going to give me the lunatic trait IRL.
I'm thinking that Iron Crown would be a good one to do next.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
+1
Options
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
I should do a vanilla run one day to get some achievements. But I do so love 1 year truces (among other tweaks I do).
I started play my first non-learning scenario game, picking a petty irish king. My spymaster told me that my spymaster is plotting to kill one of my nephews ... well, at least he's honest.
I have a couple mechanics questions that have come up:
- When I get the alert to the affect of "some titles won't pass to your heir," is this because I had a second son and succession is still gavelkind? What are the options for rectifying this?
Kill all your other sons, obviously. Alternatively, be okay with your realm splitting up.
It's perhaps worth pointing out that the character you keep on playing will most likely have claims on the other characters' titles
So it's easy to get them back since the primary heir keeps the retinues and the capital
I started play my first non-learning scenario game, picking a petty irish king. My spymaster told me that my spymaster is plotting to kill one of my nephews ... well, at least he's honest.
I have a couple mechanics questions that have come up:
- When I get the alert to the affect of "some titles won't pass to your heir," is this because I had a second son and succession is still gavelkind? What are the options for rectifying this?
Kill all your other sons, obviously. Alternatively, be okay with your realm splitting up.
It's perhaps worth pointing out that the character you keep on playing will most likely have claims on the other characters' titles
So it's easy to get them back since the primary heir keeps the retinues and the capital
In progress Ironman games are apparently going to break with the Horse Lords expansion. I'm not entirely sure about normal games, but it's something to keep in mind when starting a new game in the next two weeks.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
In progress Ironman games are apparently going to break with the Horse Lords expansion. I'm not entirely sure about normal games, but it's something to keep in mind when starting a new game in the next two weeks.
One of the reasons why I've been holding off playing...
The adventures of King Michael the Hunchback continue! I took a look at what it would take to appease my over-ambitious vassal (Alpin), and decided that it would require giving him an unacceptable amount of power. Then he joined an existing faction, putting the faction's strength up to 75% of mine and my mind was made up, Alpin had to go. I decided to make a plot to revoke one of his counties to cut him down to size a little, and also switched my focus to Intrigue and started spying on him so that I could counter any sort of sneaky fuckery he might try himself. It wasn't long before my spying turned up some rather interesting things about his sexual proclivities, and with that I'd found a perfect pretext to have him arrested. He resisted of course, so I was forced to take him down the hard way, and he sat in my dungeons for seven years. Unfortunately he was only 20 when he rebelled so he wasn't going to die of old age in a hurry, and his three counties weren't providing me with any levies in the meantime. Executing him would give me "Kinslayer" since he's part of my dynasty, so I decided to set up a plot to kill him in secret instead. Soon enough I had a shot at him in the form of a fake escape attempt in which he got murderized, but unfortunately my "inside man" in the prison ratted me out and I gain both "Known Murderer" and "Kinslayer" in one go. Whoops. Not only that but now his heir fucking hates me (turns out killing someone's dad gives you -100 reputation), so I've successfully pissed off everyone and created an equally powerful vassal who hates me even more, albeit a five-year-old one. I briefly debate reloading but stop myself; I took a risk, I can suffer the consequences. And since I'm already a known murderer I might as well start plotting to kill Alpin's five-year-old heir. This is who I am now; King Michael the Hunchbank, unrepentant murderer. There is no going back now. Then 6 months later the Pope calls me on the Pope-phone offering to absolve me of the sin of kinslaying for the low low price of 50 gold, so I decide that I actually am repentant after all. Very, very repentant indeed, oh my yes, praise Jeebus! Anyway, my second plot eventually succeeds, five-year-olds being notoriously poor at defending themselves from assassins, and this time I get away with it scot free. The new high Chief of Ulster is Alpin's brother so he still doesn't like me very much, but he only has the -30 "you killed my close relative" penalty rather than the -100 "you killed my dad" penalty, and having been absolved of kinslaying this is now a little more manageable. I manage it by throwing honorary titles and shiny things at him until he likes me again.
Meanwhile, England is getting weird. For those who don't know, Old Gods England starts as five separate Kingdoms; Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, East Anglia and Cornwall. Aethelred is King of Wessex, the most powerful Kingdom, with Alfred the Earl of Dorset serving as his heir. In reality Alfred and Aethelred were lifelong friends, Alfred inherited from Aethelred after he died and went on to unite England as King Alfred the Great, with neither of them having any children of their own. In bizarro England they've founded two separate dynasties that hate each other's guts and currently rule the kingdoms of Wessex and Kent, both consisting of only 4 counties. Yes, Kent is a Kingdom now apparently, but doesn't include the actual County of Kent :rotate: Hwice also exists and is also 4 counties, with the six remaining non-Jorvik counties all currently independent. Oxford decided it was a good idea to declare a holy war on Jorvik alone. Spoiler alert; it wasn't. Jorvik is still strong, although I've been raiding them regularly for the sake of poetic justice. You think you're tough raiding England, Vikings? Here in Scotland, we raid the Vikings.
Good god, the seducer pick for NPC's are utter bullshit. I've been cuckolded at least twice by the same neighboring count. I should have ran him through when I challenged and maimed his ass in a duel.
Good god, the seducer pick for NPC's are utter bullshit. I've been cuckolded at least twice by the same neighboring count. I should have ran him through when I challenged and maimed his ass in a duel.
The seducer focus in general seems to be pretty broken, and AFAIK its been nerfed and used to be even worse. It seems to invariably result in a character with a dozen bastards and the title "X the Lecher". For example, Lennon the Lecher who I mentioned above. One of his few legitimate sons, Constantine the Lewd, is actually even worse, carrying on his proud tradition of creating a ridiculous number of bastards. Like his father he only has five legitimate heirs, only he has twenty-one bastards.
So what's the highest number of kids you guys have ever seen someone squeeze out? Someone on the crusader kings subreddit posted a screenshot of someone who had forty-something kids, mostly bastards. Also, what's the oldest character you've ever seen? I just had my steward die aged 81 which is the longest I've ever had a vassal live for, although looking at the character opinions screen under "search all" and sorting by age reveals that the oldest person in the world is currently age 83.
Welp, I found it. The most broken combination possible. Germanic Republic.
When House Lords drops I'll probably use this to play the complete game and finally put that to rest.
Mongol Jain.
Yeah, I think the Germanic Republic is by far the easiest way to play the game. Everyone may hate you, but nobody has enough clout to crush your republic because it's also a kingdom (and possibly an empire if you've smashed Sweden on your way up).
Playing a Jain ruler is great because you get a health bonus, everyone loves you just for existing, you don't get new reign penalties, and you are always free to nominate who your heir is so you don't have to worry about your first-born son being a sixty-something idiot when you die, because you have a twenty year-old lined up.
Good god, the seducer pick for NPC's are utter bullshit. I've been cuckolded at least twice by the same neighboring count. I should have ran him through when I challenged and maimed his ass in a duel.
The seducer focus in general seems to be pretty broken, and AFAIK its been nerfed and used to be even worse. It seems to invariably result in a character with a dozen bastards and the title "X the Lecher". For example, Lennon the Lecher who I mentioned above. One of his few legitimate sons, Constantine the Lewd, is actually even worse, carrying on his proud tradition of creating a ridiculous number of bastards. Like his father he only has five legitimate heirs, only he has twenty-one bastards.
So what's the highest number of kids you guys have ever seen someone squeeze out? Someone on the crusader kings subreddit posted a screenshot of someone who had forty-something kids, mostly bastards. Also, what's the oldest character you've ever seen? I just had my steward die aged 81 which is the longest I've ever had a vassal live for, although looking at the character opinions screen under "search all" and sorting by age reveals that the oldest person in the world is currently age 83.
But what exactly is broken about it? Like I don't see much benefit in having tons and tons of bastards...
Posts
Or kill your wife and get a new one. She clearly has a problem bearing sons.
3DSFF: 5026-4429-6577
Unfortunately the daughters were all already married off to nobodies since I didn't have direct control over that until it was too late. I got a divorce rather than killing my wife; murdering a princess of the Byzantine Empire didn't seem like a particularly good move! She was super old though, and not likely to bear any more children anyway so she had to go. With no conveniently single princesses available, I went with someone young and fertile with great stats, who turned out to be the daughter of the currently independent Earl of Bedford. With my King now aged 52 time was running out, so I also switched to family focus. She gave me a son almost right away... a sickly hunchback who died almost immediately. Finally at age 54 I get another son... who is also a hunchback and born ill, but not actually "sickly". Thankfully he pulls through his illness... just in time for dad to die of depression, putting the kingdom of Scotland into the hands of a 0-year-old hunchback who everybody hates due to a combination of his deformity and short reign.
Luckily I'd arranged a good regent who had enough stewardship to keep hold of the demesne... except that it turns out if your regent doesn't actually like your character they can just nominate someone else regent and bail on you. So after only a year my douche of a regent dumps baby Quasimodo (Babymodo? Baby Q?) back on his mother. This is actually a pretty sweet deal. As I mentioned above his mother was chosen mostly for her stats, so she's still more than capable of holding the kingdom together for now... uh... oh. Huh. Didn't know that could happen:
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/450706892980777016/1208703743F5C7FCC6184EB112D6900028464B48/
So my uncle, who like everybody else hates me, becomes my new regent but because I am literally an infant I'm unable to understand the process by which he's actually done this. At this point several of my vassals have been forming factions for some time and they're getting scary. I need to placate them with honorary titles (they're only at -7 and -11 opinion) but anything like that needs to be approved by my regent who hates me and won't let me do anything. And so I do the one thing I'm surprised to discover I can still do, I bribe my regent for access to my own kingdom, at age three.
Finally in control of my own destiny, I hand out honorary titles like candy and prop up my power base by putting three otherwise useless idiots in positions of power because they have the "content" perk and won't oppose me. I feel rather like Cersei putting Mace Tyrell on the small council at this point. What follows is a thoroughly entertaining clusterfuck. A Viking adventurer decides my king (now age four) is a soft target and invades, and is beaten. My uncles play musical chairs with the regency, each time for reasons "beyond my comprehension" as above. One of my vassals is caught by my spymaster talking shit about King Babymodo behind his back, so I try and fail to imprison him, sparking a civil war. I wreck his shit and throw him in the dungeons, and only then do I notice that he's the son of a chief who did the same thing to Babymodo's grandad. My regent changes again due to intrigue "well beyond my present ability to comprehend", and this time its not one of my uncles, but a courtier. This guy is a nobody, just a random noble, and yet he's somehow without any claim at all taken effective control of the Kingdom of Scotland. But at least he likes me so bravo to you, sir!
Incidentally if I had died during any of this, the crown would have reverted to the appropriately named Chief Lennon the Lecher who has fifteen children, only five of which are actually legitimate. I don't even want to think about trying to manage that clusterfuck, so I really hope little hunchbacked baby Michael turns out to be a secret genius when he hits adulthood.
That's a great story! Hunchback reigns supreme! May his reign be prosperous, and may he conquer the shit out of some counties!
3DSFF: 5026-4429-6577
While I've had the devil spawn event go off, it's never worked right for me.
Once, the devil spawn even became my spymaster. She turned out totally loyal.
In more recent news, Michael made it to adulthood after all! He's an intricate webweaver, apparently. He's also greedy, craven and deceitful, so not a great starting point for a new dynasty, but at least he's honest and kind, which more than cancels out his hunchback penalty. People actually like him now! Except for his wife, the Princess of Aquitaine, who wasn't too happy to be married off to a hunchback. So I gave her 20 gold worth of shiny things and now she likes him after all. Politics.
I was over my vassal limit, so I decided to create a Dutchy to combine all of my Irish territories into one, putting my Uncle Kenneth in charge. Kenneth has since then taken another Irish county for himself and declared himself "King of Ulster". I'm not sure how this works exactly; he still seems to be subservient to me (although he's started a faction) but nevertheless his title is now "King" and not "High Chief" which should be the tribal equivalent of a Duke. In any case some kind of "Irish revolt" event triggered, spawning a massive Irish army, apparently dedicated to uniting the Kingdom of Ireland under one banner and kicking out the invading Scots. I was able to beat them back only because of the "Raise tribal army" intrigue option, which spawns an army of 2500 troops for 500 prestige. It was a very close battle with over 5000 men on each side, so I definitely would have lost without the tribal army. Which is making me dread the inevitable switch to Feudalism.
On the bright side, this just happened:
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/450706892981493104/6EE041A80B03BB39E2F6781D8B41FF8DDD8ADF23/
D'awww.
*Edit* Just had a son. He's a genius. But also ill. Pleaselivepleaselivepleaselivepleaselive...
*Edit2* Nope, pneumonia
*Edit3* Okay, this is probably enough CKII play-by-play for one day, but this really is a pretty fun little drama unfolding. I finally have a healthy male heir, currently age 0 with no stats or traits whatsoever. My Kingdom now encompasses a "Prince-Bishopric" because I gave an existing Bishop control of a county and then pressed his claim for the county next door. I've never had one before and didn't even know that "Prince-Bishop" was a title you could have so I have no idea how those get inherited. His heir is currently listed as "unknown".
The "King Kenneth" situation resolved itself; he died of old age and then his heir disappeared under "mysterious circumstances", effectively wiping out that branch of my original bloodline and the faction supporting him. I'd noticed earlier that he'd made his marshal into a count to govern the Irish county he took for himself, and since he was next in line for the Dutchy / High Chiefdom of Ulster and has the "ambitious" trait, I think its pretty obvious that he Klingon promoted himself. So now he has four counties, a Duchy, wants the remaining Irish county that I held onto (Ulster) to complete the set, and has the "ambitious" trait. Basically I now have a much worse problem.
Heh.
In my India game, my empire stretched from India to Constantinople. It was 1200 or so, my emperor was less than 30, I could summon up over 175k vassal levies. I had finally broken the back of the Caliphate, I was ready for the Mongols, and I was ready to finally strike at the soft underbelly of a deeply fragmented Europe. Hindu holy war CBs ftw.
And then I promptly got depresed, stressed, and dead. My two year old daughter inherited.
That's when I discovered that children inherit whichever of their parent's castes is lower.
Suddenly, taking that genius Sunni woman as a concubine seemed like a bad idea in retrospect.
I held on until about 1210 or so before things blew up. I didn't bother fighting factions. They had over 300% of my strength. I let everything go. I found myself so weak it became safer to just let my few remaining vassals go, since they were so spread out that I couldn't effectively support them. I was Empress of India, holding ten provinces, most of which were my demense, in Sauvira amd Constantinople.
I carved out more of the best counties around Constantinople - giving me a 10 county demense! I switched to Jainism when I came of age. I still had my retinues from when I was an Empire in more than name, 16,000 elite troops. I was well ahead of the curve in Europe for technology. I fabricated a claim in Rome, and then took it from the Pope. I converted Rome to Jainism, and then fabricated a claim on the county of Devon. I invaded Devon, and used that launching point to conquer Britain.
I knocked out a ton of achievements that run: The British Raj, Kali Maaa, What Schism?, Red Sea Resort, Looking East and West, and Wise Guy.
Next up: a quick run at being Carloman. I played for ten seconds before leaving for work, and I picked up Kinslayer in the best possible way (the way that nets me all of my brother's land).
(Oh yes. And the Mongols in that India game? I only answered pleas for help so that I could watch my family fall to the Khan. That's what you assholes get for leaving me.)
Sometimes they do literally insane things like gifting the Duchy of Naples to the Byzantines for no reason at all but some sort of pure AI-driven spite, but usually it works out manageable.
In my case, I was down to 10k levies, with my remaining vassals forming factions, and people of my former empire trying to attack me for the scraps that ended up in their de jure kingdoms/duchies. Since my goal at that point was to establish the British Raj, and since the Mongols literally cut my realm in half, I was happier to just leave my former empire to its fate - I had no desire to salvage it. Better to cut the few remaining scraps loose, and invade England.
Also, I'm now just 15 achievements away from getting CK2 to 100%. I'm starting to think that it'd be fun to try to get them all. Saxons Everywhere, Unite and The Outside Bet seem like they'll be the hardest.
We'll see...
I like a man who lies honestly.
The Outside Bet is insanely hard.
I'm also still missing United the Kingdoms (done it so many times, but never in Ironman), so I figured I might start in England
But the problems is I always feel like I'm sitting on my hands whenever I start a game in Western Europe in 769
Randomly looking through files, I believe the "Pagans can't be missionaries" line comes from \crusader kings ii\common\job_actions.txt (under the chaplain/seer/religious person).
It's basically:
action_inquisition is the proselytize button, I believe.
FROM = the state sending the chaplain (you)
action_inquisition = { attribute = learning trigger = { OR = { owner = { FROM = { NOT = { religion_group = pagan_group } } #You are not part of the pagan religious group (Germanic, Reformed Germanic, etc.) independent = yes #The target is independent (basically: the highest liege in a realm) NOT = { religion = FROM } #The target does not have your religion religion_group = pagan_group #The target is pagan (...maybe they changed this at some point, but I thought Muslims could try to do this Christians and vice versa.) OR = { NOT = { religion = aztec } year = 1350 } #Can't do it to the aztec until after 1350 is_reformed_religion = no #Can't send to a reformed pagan, basically capital_scope = { province = ROOT } #The target province is the capital controls_religion = no #The target is not the religious head of the religion FROM = { higher_tier_than = COUNT OR = { independent = yes higher_tier_than = DUKE } } #You're either a king/emperor or an independent duke NOT = { has_opinion_modifier = { who = FROM modifier = opinion_sent_preacher } } #You haven't tried to send a missionary recently. is_within_diplo_range = FROM #Target is within your diplomatic range (wiki says around 700 + modifiers) } any_province_lord = { OR = { character = FROM is_liege_or_above = FROM } #Otherwise, you are the province owner or the liege (or the liege's liege) of the province owner. } } } events = { 900 901 902 903 } }You could try throwing a comment (a #) in front of FROM = { NOT = { religion_group = pagan_group } } and see if it works (...although you may need to do their weird mod setup of recreating the folder structure in [My Documents]\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II. May need to comment out religion_group = pagan_group as well.
About fifty percent of my attempts, I got zealous from the Observatory event chain, and then lost it within six months to a year of turning to war. Without zealous, I can't duel people for being excommunicated. In one attempt, I was killed in a duel with a blind person. In another, I was up to five wins, and then got ill and died. In another, I died in battle against revolting peasants, despite outnumbering them 12-1.
I've given up on that achievement for the moment and I'm working on Saxon's Everywhere, Unite. I'm the queen of Saxony and I have an heir married to a woman with a claim to England that I'm about to press. Things look promising.
I have a couple mechanics questions that have come up:
- When I get the alert to the affect of "some titles won't pass to your heir," is this because I had a second son and succession is still gavelkind? What are the options for rectifying this?
- When I look at the suggest plots, the current one is to kill my wife. Any particular reason this is being suggested?
- I'm still getting my head wrapped around the different types of claims. I ended up going to war to push a claim that (thanks to my lack of reading) was a claim by one of the members of my court. So, once the war was won, he took over the county as an independent kingdom :sad: At least he has 100 approval of me ... What do I look for / how do I make sure I get the county, or at least the claimant as a vassal, in the future?
-a member of your dynasty
-already your de factor vassal
If he's not in your dynasty, give him a county inside your lands and then press the claim, then he'll be your vassal after the war.
If you're not tribal, you could also try switching out of Gavelkind. Primogeniture is usually recommended, but I still prefer Ultimogeniture - you can switch to it at lower Crown Authority and there's less chance of your heir keeling over from old age once he inherits.
Because Crusader Kings.
I'm only about 5 years or so in, and already have had the following happen:
- I plotted to revoke the title of one of my vassasls, an unkempt Norwegian who despised me. Apparently he wasn't very popular anywhere in Ireland, as everyone jumped on the plot train. I successfully blackmailed him into giving up the title, at which point he threatened to get revenge, moved back to Norway, and died within a year.
- I have a lover who is my nephews wife, from a marriage I arranged after he came whining to me about being single.
- I am currently at war with a kindly childless couple in a county on my border which I fabricated a claim against. I almost feel bad about this, they both have an ambition to have a daughter ... and are both in their 50s :sad: But, they also had the weakest Levy, and I am the rightful king of Ireland ...
This game is great.
Absolutely no success.
I take a break from that to do Saxons Everywhere, Unite! No problem. I form a Saxon duchy under Carl, I work my way up to kingdom status under Francia. I eventually marry an English princess, put her on the throne. After she immediately lost the throne, I waited until her child got her claim, and then waited until that weak claim could be pushed, and then I broke a truce with England and conquered it. Easy. So then, I decide to try the Outside Bet. It's the most common achievement that I don't have. I got it on the second try - despite my 4.5k mercenary stack turning against me after I ran out of money (forgot to dismiss ships). Easy.
I went back to try the duel thing again.
Absolutely no success.
This game is going to give me the lunatic trait IRL.
I'm thinking that Iron Crown would be a good one to do next.
It's perhaps worth pointing out that the character you keep on playing will most likely have claims on the other characters' titles
So it's easy to get them back since the primary heir keeps the retinues and the capital
yeah, it's ezpz to take them back
One of the reasons why I've been holding off playing...
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Meanwhile, England is getting weird. For those who don't know, Old Gods England starts as five separate Kingdoms; Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, East Anglia and Cornwall. Aethelred is King of Wessex, the most powerful Kingdom, with Alfred the Earl of Dorset serving as his heir. In reality Alfred and Aethelred were lifelong friends, Alfred inherited from Aethelred after he died and went on to unite England as King Alfred the Great, with neither of them having any children of their own. In bizarro England they've founded two separate dynasties that hate each other's guts and currently rule the kingdoms of Wessex and Kent, both consisting of only 4 counties. Yes, Kent is a Kingdom now apparently, but doesn't include the actual County of Kent :rotate: Hwice also exists and is also 4 counties, with the six remaining non-Jorvik counties all currently independent. Oxford decided it was a good idea to declare a holy war on Jorvik alone. Spoiler alert; it wasn't. Jorvik is still strong, although I've been raiding them regularly for the sake of poetic justice. You think you're tough raiding England, Vikings? Here in Scotland, we raid the Vikings.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
Seven achievements left.
I'm thinking trying to burn through Khan of Khans this week, before the expansion drops.
The seducer focus in general seems to be pretty broken, and AFAIK its been nerfed and used to be even worse. It seems to invariably result in a character with a dozen bastards and the title "X the Lecher". For example, Lennon the Lecher who I mentioned above. One of his few legitimate sons, Constantine the Lewd, is actually even worse, carrying on his proud tradition of creating a ridiculous number of bastards. Like his father he only has five legitimate heirs, only he has twenty-one bastards.
So what's the highest number of kids you guys have ever seen someone squeeze out? Someone on the crusader kings subreddit posted a screenshot of someone who had forty-something kids, mostly bastards. Also, what's the oldest character you've ever seen? I just had my steward die aged 81 which is the longest I've ever had a vassal live for, although looking at the character opinions screen under "search all" and sorting by age reveals that the oldest person in the world is currently age 83.
When House Lords drops I'll probably use this to play the complete game and finally put that to rest.
Mongol Jain.
His children and grandchildren all died before him
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
But what exactly is broken about it? Like I don't see much benefit in having tons and tons of bastards...