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Crusader Kings II - and how not to suck?


Tryhard
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So I saw there already was a topic here but it's been ded for like 7 months and I didn't want to necropost. I tried to play it before at a friends but I couldn't get into it because I'm kind of stupid.

Well, I actually picked it up recently and I still don't really know what I'm doing though I've gathered more of the concepts this time. The in-game tutorials really weren't very helpful for me though, so I was wondering if anyone has a guide for beginners or a favoured video tutorial on how to play the game 'cause I think I need them. It's a cool game, especially for roleplaying I'd imagine but it's very overwhelming for me, I'm just used to total war and shit.

and to talk about the game if you don't suck like me

I have the Old Gods DLC but none of the others - which ones would be recommended more so than the others?

Edited by Tryhard
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You have already got the best DLC. Son of Abraham and Rajah of India are interesting. You should also get Legacy of Rome because they introduced the retinues system which is great for newbie. Ruler Designer is also great if you want power play. The rest are not worth it. Also, avoid Sunset because it's buggy and weird.

I dont know if there's a guide for beginners but I can probably answer your questions. So ask on.

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If you know anyone more experienced who owns the game and is up for it, go multiplayer as their vassal. It worked [citation needed] for me under Integrity's wing!

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So I saw there already was a topic here but it's been ded for like 7 months and I didn't want to necropost.

good man.

anyway, i remember this being a huge help when i was learning to play.

this guy is also mega cool and will totally help you with specific questions

i'll write something about dlc (long story short: above guy is mostly right but also wrong) later

EDIT: COMPREHENSIVE DLC ANALYSIS

SWORD OF ISLAM you should only buy if you want to play a muslim, and you should not buy if you have no interest in playing a muslim. i love muslims.

LEGACY OF ROME adds nothing of merit except for retinues as that dude mentioned. the thing with retinues is they're flagrantly imbalanced if you game the system and the system is ...really easy to learn how to game. whether this adds to or detracts from your game, ymmv.

THE REPUBLIC is butt. merchant republics are butt. buy it on huge sale if you're a completionist. the republic adds nothing but the ability to play merchant republics which, unlike muslims, are butt.

OLD GODS is so cool. it's the first recommendation for anybody anytime because ~860 europe is so great. only complaint is fuck defensive pagan bonuses, but those are in the main game (albeit limited) now. note that combining vikings with legacy of rome produces unstoppable fuckery.

SONS OF ABRAHAM is really cool imo and probably my second general pick after old gods. it lets you get favors from the pope and lets heresies supersede their parent religion which is great. not a high priority, but just full of Generally Cool Things if you play crisschins or muslims much.

RAJAS OF INDIA is either great or stupid depending on how you feel about india. i think india is really cool, so i like it. india has the problem of feeling Generally Irrelevant to most games since affecting the western world in any way involves conquering a whole swath through to the mediterranean which won't happen until you're fully swag and the game isn't really fun anymore.

SUNSET INVASION fucking owns, that guy up there is a tool.

PORTRAITS and UNITS and MUSIC packs: buy some for your preferred region(s) when ck2 goes on 75% off sale somewhere, you can get them for like a dollar apiece.

RULER DESIGNER: get it on sale. it's alright, but not something you want to fiddle with while you're learning the game. also i'm mad because it doesn't work with ironman mode, which you have to play to get cheevos.

SO IN SHORT, considering that you own the old gods, i recommend buying One dlc depending on what region you want to fiddle around in: india for india, abraham for europe, islam+abraham (shh) for muslim, republic if you're a dipshit. buy legacy of rome if everybody having a standing army excites you; do not buy it if it doesn't. do buy it i guess if you really have a hard on for restoring the roman empire (it does feel pretty good tbh but then you get to Boring Unstoppableness). buy no dlcs if you want to be a badass pagan baller.

buy sunset invasion immediately.

EDIT2: oh yeah, the converter dlc owns too

EDIT3: related to that screenshot the customizer dlc may be the only dlc that's objectively better than sunset invasion.

Edited by Integrity
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Alright, I'll check out that LP - should be good. I've also found some videos from a guy called Eviscerator03 that look good on YT.

(funny how all of them start out in Ireland and I was pretty much going to go somewhere in Ireland already)

I think I'm mostly having trouble with succession and military in general - the levies from vassals is given by how much they like you, sure, but then enemies seem to amass much more than me generally - I've seen mercenaries, but they're all a bit expensive despite having a bunch o' dudes in them. I heard mercenaries used to be a lot cheaper. I don't really get succession at all.

Oh yeah - and is fabricating claims generally the only way you're going to get off taking over at the start? I dunno if it's just my luck but takes a while before it actually happens. Eventually there's de Jure claims, yeah, and I think there's weak claims if you marry into that county/realm, but is that about it? There's a lot of depth currently lost on me, and I don't know if I'm playing 'slow' or what.

I had a decent game going beginning in Dublin and taking over the Duchies of Tara and Leinster - total of 4 counties. At least I've got those names down. But for example - it currently says "Title loss on succession" - for both counties/the duchy of Leinster going to the second son and the county of Kildare going to the third son - I assume that's probably bad to fragment kingdoms, so I guess you shouldn't have as many heirs/sons? And I haven't really "given out" regions to anybody, should I do that?

I'll think about the DLCs.

(fucking aztecs r u srs)

Edited by Tryhard
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In addition to Integrity's (and Magical Amber's, mb) services, this thread http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/184778/crusader-kings-2-come-for-the-gameplay-stay-for-the-fratricide (yes >penny arcade, shut up) is full of commentary that at least gives a wealth of cryptic hints as to how one might git gud, cowardly suggestions such as building up a reserve of 2000 gold to be dropped on mercenaries at any given time aside

Edited by Rehab
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Succession is very simple. It's up to your religion and your current succession law. About fabricating, it's up to your chancellor, if he's good then he can fabricate claim very fast. And it's also up to where you start, either you have to play the courting game to take some lands or you can eat away your neighbor by force. This page has everything you need: http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Crusader_Kings_II_Wiki

For short, you can read about succession in here: http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Succession

And Casus belli in here: http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Casus_Belli

Btw, Aztec will invade your lands in their canoes...that's about it for the dlc. However, the same thing will happen for you in the name of Seljuk and Mongol....for free...so there's no reason why you should pay money to get that.

Edited by Magical Amber
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I think I'm mostly having trouble with succession and military in general - the levies from vassals is given by how much they like you, sure, but then enemies seem to amass much more than me generally - I've seen mercenaries, but they're all a bit expensive despite having a bunch o' dudes in them. I heard mercenaries used to be a lot cheaper. I don't really get succession at all.

levies are based on the actual troops they can raise (more developed province = more troops) and how much they like you. one reason you might find yourself losing against your peers is that when you're waging a defensive war, you get a pretty hefty opinion bonus with all your vassals. if you're defending against foreigners or heathens, you get a HUGE opinion bonus with all your vassals. this equates directly to more troops, so if you're the aggressor in a war where you have equal Top Levies, they'll end up outnumbering you. this does work in your favor sometimes, too!

Oh yeah - and is fabricating claims generally the only way you're going to get off taking over at the start? I dunno if it's just my luck but takes a while before it actually happens. Eventually there's de Jure claims, yeah, and I think there's weak claims if you marry into that county/realm, but is that about it? There's a lot of depth currently lost on me, and I don't know if I'm playing 'slow' or what.

pretty much, yeah, depends on your start. in general, your major methods of expansion are:

reconquista by taking your de jure land. problem is, this can only expand you up to a single duchy/kingdom/empire (though that's not particularly problematic) at a time, and you have to do it county by county.

fabricate claims on a neighboring province. can take fooooreeeever and be really boring and sucks, but sometimes that's all you can do.

acquire legitimate claims on a neighboring province/duchy! pick a duchy, go find the Claimants button, and mill through them sort of at random until you find somebody with a Strong claim. marry them into your dynasty, preferably to somebody in your own line of succession. if you're acquiring a title that's lower rank than your primary, you keep the land in your realm as long as the claimant is of your dynasty OR is your vassal. find somebody with a claim you can press on a county and give them a shit church or barony somewhere then press it! technically they're your vassal, so they'll stay your vassal. careful, though, if you try to press a claim for a duchy like this and you're just a duke, he'll become independent and take whatever land you gave him with him.

holy war. holy wars own and you usually get entire duchies for them. try to get your neighbors excommunicated so you can steal their shit.

I had a decent game going beginning in Dublin and taking over the Duchies of Tara and Leinster - total of 4 counties. At least I've got those names down. But for example - it currently says "Title loss on succession" - for both counties/the duchy of Leinster going to the second son and the county of Kildare going to the third son - I assume that's probably bad to fragment kingdoms, so I guess you shouldn't have as many heirs/sons? And I haven't really "given out" regions to anybody, should I do that?

check your LAW tab. generally, you start with GAVELKIND succession. GAVELKIND succession fucking sucks. basically, your heir gets your primary title. all other titles you have are divvied up among the succession base. when you hold one duchy, your realm stays intact. when you hold three duchies, you get three independent realms. IF you can manage to make the Kingdom of Ireland, your successor would get the primary title (King) and any other sons you have would get duchies, which are subordinate to the kingdom, so your realm would stay intact. if you made the kingdoms of ireland and wales and then died, your primary son would get ireland and your secondary would get wales, two independent nations. gavelkind is a huge headache.

what can i do integrity-sama?? change succession laws! you can do this based on Crown Authority (also in the LAW tab) but in general higher means more options. if you have LOW crown authority (the second level) you can enact ULTIMOGENITURE succession. ultimogeniture is honestly pretty great; the youngest potential successor inherits all of your titles. if you have three duchies and no kingdom, he gets all three. if you have a kingdom and three duchies, he gets all four. problem is, this guy can end up being king babby-san and may die fast/face some horrible revolts. if you pump yourself up to HIGH crown authority (the fourth) everybody will hate you and it will take like three generations but then you can enact PRIMOGENITURE succession and your oldest son will inherit all titles in this fashion. i think the irish and only the irish can enact TANISTRY which is allegedly really amazing (elective [everybody votes on the successor to all titles] but only your spawn can be nominated instead of anyone in the realm) but i've never done an ireland game.

note that each title of your top rank has its own laws, so you might end up with a gavelkind kingdom of wales and an ultimogeniture kingdom of ireland. every title you CREATE (not usurp) automatically starts with the crown laws of your primary.

Oh yeah, anybody looking forward to the Charlemagne DLC? Don't know much about it personally but it seems to be Q4 2014 at least, and it looks cool (interesting part of history for me personally).

charlemagne is going to be so cool.

Btw, Aztec will invade your lands in their canoes...that's about it for the dlc. However, the same thing will happen for you in the name of Seljuk and Mongol....for free...so there's no reason why you should pay money to get that.

the difference i think you will find is that aztecs are fully sick and alpha and cool. plus, the people who get ramrodded by the aztecs are almost strictly separated from the people who get ramrodded by seljuk or the mongols.

sunset invasion has the bonus of making paradox interactive video game history nerds wet themselves in pure rage, which makes it cooler.

EDIT: oops i forgot to namedrop primo

Edited by Integrity
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snip

Well I did have another shot at Ireland - actually did manage to get the kingdom - takes quite a while to get some stuff going, though. I don't know if that's just me or if it's a more slow paced game. I took a look at the link Rehab posted and some guy conquered the world by 892. ~_~

I went with primogeniture succession right away after my original dude ruled for 10 years while I was just messing around - the rest does make a lot more sense. I assume you can't have crown authority until you're a kingdom as I didn't see it until then. (would make sense)

I checked and I believe Scotland and Wales also have Tanistry. So probably just the Celts.

i'm learning kinda sorta maybe

sunset invasion has the bonus of making paradox interactive video game history nerds wet themselves in pure rage, which makes it cooler.

i can appreciate considering i've had contact with creative assembly video game history nerds who yell historical accuracy but don't care that their boo-boo rome 1 total war had roman assassins, amazons and screeching women

HIt091h.jpg

Edited by Tryhard
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nah, it does take time to get rolling unless you play like an extremely gamey mother fucker, in which case you can do the 892 WC or whatever the hell you want to because this is a paradox game and that means it can be shattered.

i can appreciate considering i've had contact with creative assembly video game history nerds who yell historical accuracy but don't care that their boo-boo rome 1 total war had roman assassins, amazons and screeching women

creative assembly dorks rule.

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Well I did have another shot at Ireland - actually did manage to get the kingdom - takes quite a while to get some stuff going, though. I don't know if that's just me or if it's a more slow paced game. I took a look at the link Rehab posted and some guy conquered the world by 892. ~_~

Well, that guy is amazing. But he didnt play the game the way the game should be played. Dont take example from him.

You know what make me feel slow? In real life, some guys managed to conquer vast lands in 10 or 20 years. Meanwhile, it took me 2 generations of Emperor to have that same amount of lands. That's just....when I realized that, I knew why they are called genius.

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I'm going to love Charlemagne. The custom Empires and Kingdoms are a huge thing, so now I won't have to fight some megablob country to get a few counties I need to form a de jure kingdom. The earlier start date sounds pretty cool, too, because I'm getting kinda sick of playing in Ireland (where my dad's ancestors are from) whenever I want to pretend I'm playing as one of my own ancestors, and want to play as the region of Europe where many of my mom's ancestors lived but it's Germany so it's either part of the overpowered Karling territories in the Old Gods start or the overpowered HRE in the other starts (either way, way too overpowered to be fun). In the Charlemagne start I can play as that last holdout of paganism in Germany and try to get my shit together before Charlemagne himself comes and wrecks it. Should be fun.

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Well, that guy is amazing. But he didnt play the game the way the game should be played. Dont take example from him.

You know what make me feel slow? In real life, some guys managed to conquer vast lands in 10 or 20 years. Meanwhile, it took me 2 generations of Emperor to have that same amount of lands. That's just....when I realized that, I knew why they are called genius.

Nah, after I blitz total war again and again it does get boring to play fast like that.

Luckily I just don't know how to do that, haven't played any other Paradox games really.

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it really does suck after playing that fast. i the roman empire fully in like forty years and by that point i was on full steamroll mode and it was really boring for the next fifty while i reclaimed the imperial borders in wars i couldn't possibly lose.

well, besides the war i did lose with hungary's fucking bullshit magyar event troops, had to wage one war just to decimate the stack and white peace out

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I played a little more enough to claim the kingdoms of Wales and Scotland (that was renamed Alba for some reason, I think it's because there was a revolt, Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for it) and convert all three laws to Tanistry, and while I do get to vote on shit it seems that some people in my dynasty are still going to obtain it over the Irish heir. Maybe primogeniture would have been a better option but I kept crown authority at low.

chlvzIW.jpg

Also: is giving away duchies (or maybe kingdoms if I get to that point) recommended? Some people ask for it, but it looks like duke vassals seem to have their own armies and they even attack each other at low crown authority. (I believe medium forbids this)

From what I understand you have negatives to opinions for every duchy you hoard above two though or going over the demesne limit.

also england strong as fuck - this was like 1179 so I was speeding through a little bit.

And I got a friend who recently picked this up as well and though Parrhesia mentioned the multiplayer, how does it exactly work? The same, just pick whoever on the map? Since we'd both be starting out, could we just pick a ruler and a vassal and play that way co-op? Or would it be better just to be two seperate independent rulers?

I might play some of it.

Edited by Tryhard
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And I got a friend who recently picked this up as well and though Parrhesia mentioned the multiplayer, how does it exactly work? The same, just pick whoever on the map? Since we'd both be starting out, could we just pick a ruler and a vassal and play that way co-op? Or would it be better just to be two seperate independent rulers?

I might play some of it.

parrhesia and i did this for while until a patch broke it and it owns really hard if you're good buds

i murdered one of his dudes for i don't remember why but it was really funny

never give away kingdoms if you can help it. king vassals get a huge opinion penalty, and you don't have a "too many kingdoms" penalty with your vassals. keep all your kingdoms, especially if you can keep your inheritance such that one guy inherits all of them.

duchies are fair game, though. it's probably better to keep your dukes weak but i like keeping each duke with one duchy and all its de jure land so i can keep them separated.

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never give away kingdoms if you can help it. king vassals get a huge opinion penalty, and you don't have a "too many kingdoms" penalty with your vassals. keep all your kingdoms, especially if you can keep your inheritance such that one guy inherits all of them.

duchies are fair game, though. it's probably better to keep your dukes weak but i like keeping each duke with one duchy and all its de jure land so i can keep them separated.

That's sound advice for now, but after Charlemagne comes out there are going to be limits on the number of direct vassals you have (probably in the patch that will come with the DLC). Once that happens, you basically have to set up the "proper" feudal structure.

And, Tryhard, England is going to be a pain to take down. Even with Ireland, Scotland, and Wales under your control. So forming the Empire of Brittania before your character dies is going to be tough. Try to fight them when they go into revolt (this was a much better solution a year or so ago when every revolt member would become temporarily independent instead of forming one big "English Revolt", but it still is probably the best method to beat England, which is almost always stronger than Ireland, Scotland, and Wales combined), or possibly try to get a few smaller areas on the European mainland to bolster your number of troops for war with England (Is Brittany still independent or did France absorb it?).

My recommendation to hold your realm together is to try to destroy the Kingdom titles of Scotland and Wales so that it all will stay under your control (I'm pretty sure). This will piss off your Scottish and Welsh vassals a lot, so try to do it when your character is old, really sick, or severely injured so that you die quickly and all will be forgiven.

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