[Gothos]

Does anyone have some odd bugs with natural deaths?

Played in Ireland for a bit, started out as duke of Munster, within one ruler's lifetime I merged all of Ireland under one crown. Several rulers later I also control Wales and Scotland, slowly making my way into England (unless you don't get a massive opinion dump for using Request Invasion and winning as foreign conqueror, then I should go back to when I could do it and do it). But this dynasty is... weird. I've had my current rulers and heirs die at ages like 19, 23, 30 and so on, to "natural death". Which is weird, considering they had awesome stats, no negatives for health, no typhoid fevers or consumption or anything else, just natural deaths at this kind of age... And when I played as polish Piasts, or Byzantine Komemnos, that shit never happened. Is there some inherent penalty to health for the Irish or what?

Also from another game, I kept losing random characters to assassinations from a guy that died of old age years before. Weird shit.


Also, now I'm going for a Sword of Islam playthrough with Marrakech/Mauretania, doing great but the multiple wives and low stats of available wives are making it a real chore. Also, the rather weird inheritances make shit complicated, there's baronies and mosques going rogue or out-of-county all over Spain, and it's hellishly annoying. How different should I play a muslim ruler as opposed to catholic and orthodox?

Lastly, has anyone got The Republic and played a merchant republic yet? Is it good?

[MTS]

One of my favourite observations about this game:

Quote

Since I started playing CK2, I've begun to understand Stalin.

Once you have two or more royal titles, the only way to prevent your empire from melting down in every succession is to purge the Party ranks.

Now that I've united the British Isles I'm starting to see the truth of it.

[Gothos]

Meh. As the polish Piast dynasty I held on to the kingdom titles of: Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Norway and Ruthenia without any purges. Breed your leaders well...

[MTS]

Gothos, on 18 February 2013 - 11:53 AM, said:

Meh. As the polish Piast dynasty I held on to the kingdom titles of: Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Norway and Ruthenia without any purges. Breed your leaders well...

See that's the thing, I try and breed good rulers, marrying ladies/dudes with good stats, giving them to guardians with good stats, but they never get nearly as high by the time they reach majority, and without fail they get the one shit trait the guardian has. Ah well, being a medieval powerhouse was never meant to be easy.

Also, last night I was helping in a war with Brittany and some others to gain independence from France, since because I've now united the Isles, that seems like the most logical direction of expansion. Anyway, we were winning, and then France played the trump card, calling in the Holy Roman Empire, and Holy Fucking Shit. Nothing is more depressing than having 10000 men fighting in Normandy and then seeing 15000 men land in Kent and Essex and then having to scramble for survival. Not only that, they didn't even go near Brittany. You're supposed to be fighting the Bretons dammit, not William the Conquering my lovely little empire!

The Caliphates in the Levant seems to be able to dispose of a crazy amount of manpower as well.

[Gothos]

Holy shit, 10,000 troops from all of Brittania? Come on, with just Scotland, Wales and Ireland I had a 32k levy + 5k retinues. What crown authority are you on?
Also, if they don't go near the area that the war is about, just keep running in circles with them until you reach 100% warscore or something. Or just say fuck it, release your levies and let them have their fun and limit your losses.

[MTS]

Gothos, on 19 February 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

Holy shit, 10,000 troops from all of Brittania? Come on, with just Scotland, Wales and Ireland I had a 32k levy + 5k retinues. What crown authority are you on?
Also, if they don't go near the area that the war is about, just keep running in circles with them until you reach 100% warscore or something. Or just say fuck it, release your levies and let them have their fun and limit your losses.

Oh, my levy was around 50k at that point, but a sizable of it was depleted because my allies were shit and forced me to do all the work (Brittany, Valois and Aquitaine) and France and I were pretty evenly matched (on limited Crown Authority by the way). I'd also recently undergone a succession and didn't want to rely on their levies for too long for fear it would escalate into a rebellion, which was threatening to happen (I think one faction had got around 25% of the total levy by that stage). I'd hoped that I could rope in the Kingdom of Sicily for some aid, as I'd married my sister to the then-heir, now king. He liked the French too much to come to my aid though, the bastard.

All worked out in the end though. I used a cheap move and hired two mercenary companies (which spawned in Middlesex) who were able to keep them at bay while I shipped my army back across the strait to crush those pesky Germans. Beat back another 2 10k stacks (thank God for amphibious landing penalties) before the Germans got distracted by Poland kicking in their back door. Thankfully I was then able to disband the mercenaries before they revolted and go back to France to finish the job. Surprisingly my allies hadn't ballsed it up completely, and King Philippe surrendered on like 60-something% warscore, saving me a bit of effort.

Damn near broke at the moment though, that war just about brought me to the tipping point. However when my ruler dies my heir set to inherit the kingdoms of Leon and Galicia, as well as all of Brittania, which also includes the Duchy of Marrakesh in North Africa, so hopefully then I'll have some breathing room. It will also up my total levy considerably. Wondering atm whether I should then carve up France or challenge the HRE for the rest of Spain. With those mountain penalties the Pyrenees look fairly defensible, and the HRE seems less disposed to using their navy to fight wars in Spain - I've noticed they just march their 10k stacks all the way across France rather than use the Mediterranean or head around the North Sea to the Bay of Biscayne.

Also, do you hold on to all the kingdom titles when you become emperor, or give some of them away? I gave Wales to one of my vassals (kept the rest), and he's become quite powerful in a short space of time. Considering revoking his title, but that will piss off the others and might escalate into a full-scale rebellion, which would be annoying to have to deal with right now.

[Gothos]

Well, I have limited experience playing as emperor - just from my time as first the Basileus, and then the Emperor of the restored Roman Empire - and as you grow in power, you might consider doing so. If you only have like 5 kingdoms or less under your empire, it might not be worth it, but over that kingdoms pretty much become your dukes for all intents and purposes. It makes military organisation incredibly easier and more straightforward (yeah go ahead and arrange, embark and move levies from fifty separate dukedoms, I dare you), it narrows down the amount of people you have to keep happy to keep your empire together as well. And if you're on limited crown authority, then man, you have to get to work and increase it. You can only change one crown law per ruler - so either increase/decrease crown authority, or change investiture to papal or free - so it takes time, but I'd say it's worth it. Less for the increased minimum levy (only useful when your vassals hate you), but more so to prevent your vassals from fighting petty wars (limits your levy and, far worse, can make one or several of them more powerful than you'd like) and to prevent titles from going away from your realm on succession. Even while I was a tad annoyed that while most of my vassals were more powerful than most of the other independant states by the late 1300s as Roman Empire and I'd love them to fight their own de jure wars so I don't waste my truce timer on it, I kept Absolute Crown Authority just to prevent them from growing too much. Which failed with the King of England as he had inheritance rights in Norway and around the Baltic and he's grown quite powerful now, thankfully he loves me.

So, to be quite simple about it, I tried to retain a balance where I was in a position to take out about 50-60% of my vassals with my retinues and demesne troops along with the other vassals.

Oh oh! If the newly conquered area shares your religion, and there's remaining counties or dukedoms there when you usurp/create the kingdom title, always keep that title until you have the whole de jure area - Offer Vassalization doesn't consider you a de jure liege if you're the liege of the liege that is, so keep that in mind. As your empire grows, try to keep the strongest kingdom (in your example it's England) and the newly assimilated ones. Also remember that adding another level of management cuts into your profits and levies, but it makes it a lot less of a headache. As Roman Empire it was sooooooo comfy to just spawn a 72k stack in Crete, pop them on the 970+ ships that Greece had, and have a two click army to kick almost anyone's ass right there. Revolt with 4,5k troops somewhere? Click, combined forces of Anatolia and Africa kick it's ass in less than a week. And so on. So yeah, as your empire grows, give away those kingdom titles, as long as you stay personally more powerful than any single one of your vassals. And try to avoid giving more than one kingdom to people, unless they're one of the piss-poor weak kingdoms (like Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia)...

[MTS]

MTS, on 19 February 2013 - 01:31 PM, said:

when my ruler dies my heir set to inherit the kingdoms of Leon and Galicia, as well as all of Brittania, which also includes the Duchy of Marrakesh in North Africa, so hopefully then I'll have some breathing room. It will also up my total levy considerably.

Ah, such naivete...

So I inherited Leon and Galicia, and was able to carve out a nice little chunk of Hispania for myself. A crapton of dukedoms rebelled from France (Navarra, Grenada, Poitou, Tunis, Tripolitania, Sardinia, Provence and Aquitaine) and won, so France is now just limited to her northern holdings, which the south a mess of tiny little wars, which suits me just fine. The HRE are also dealing with the Golden Horde and so weren't paying too much attention to the losses of territory they were having in Spain. Everything looked like it was coming up Britannia.

Then my ruler died. Instant rebellion, as the new heir was Castillian as opposed to Celtic. Those who didn't really like him either decided to join in, so I had quite the pile-up going (something like fifteen dukedoms). Thankfully Wales stayed loyal and most of the rebels were in England so I was able to use her 12k stack to lay the smackdown on some of the southern English lords while I shipped my armies back from Spain, which I'd decided to come back to once the homeland was secure. Took me ten fucking years to crush that stubborn rebellion and bring the Empire back to what it was. Here's hoping the next succession goes better.

As for the kingdoms, I see what you mean. If I give away the king titles, I only have to make them love me and the dukes can hate me all they like. I've always had trouble keeping my vassals liking me though, so I was a bit wary of going to Absolute (or even High) because of the opinion hit. Seems like the benefits outweigh the penalties though.

[Gothos]

Well, it certainly is easier to keep people happy playing as Byzantine and Roman, since you get and keep Born in the Purple from the first, which gives you +10, and a ridiculously massive +25 opinion from Augustus from the second. Failing smart stuff, you could just try to keep bribing them until long reign kicks in, and remember to utilize your spymaster to discourage from factionalism on folks who just plain don't like you (Ambitious guys are a nightmare)...

As for annoying civil wars, take this one. One time on succession as Roman Empire I had a shitload of vassals revolt, and a lot of them in coastal provinces. Since I had Napoli as Serene Republic, they had their trade posts all over the place and they stayed loyal, and I immediately took 1-2% warscore hits from a few dozen trade posts being razed, so before the civil war got really started properly, I was already at -49% warscore... it took a long goddamn while to win that back towards a win, believe me, and the forces were even enough so that I couldn't really afford to go around with doomstacks assaulting holdings.

Curious thing here. As the game goes on and cities get developed, it seems that taking castles by assault gets actually a lot less bloody than taking cities. Curious, that.

[HoosierDaddy]

Can someone let me know if I need like an actual mouse to play this game? My USB's on my laptop got fried. So, could I use the laptops touchpad or is that a no-go?

[Gothos]

Well, it would be TECHNICALLY possible, but you'd go insane trying to. But I have a thing against touchpads, always hated the bastards.

How'd you fry your USB ports?

[MTS]

If you're used to a touchpad it's fine. It's much easier with a mouse sure, but I've had no problems with it.

[MTS]

Gah, factions in this game are so stupid. People who have +100 opinions of me shouldn't be starting rebellions.

[Gothos]

actually, I think there's like a 80 pt treshold above which your vassal won't factionalise. As for potential pretenders (Like Count Fuckwad for Whoknowswhere faction) personally have no say in the matter, it's the faction members and leader that fall under this.

[Imperial Historian]

Enjoying playing this again after a while away. The new factions and retinue dynamics are a lot of fun, enjoying playing as the byzantine emperor. Am now on my third child heir after my ruler dropped dead in his late 20's yet again.

Also does anyone know if the byzantine heir go to children born in the purple preferentially? My heir dropped dead, and instead of his sons (not born in the purple) my other son who was born in the purple was the preferred heir

[Gothos]

Born in the Purple always has preference for the Byzantine Empire. Other titles do not follow that. It may take some effort to make sure all the titles you hold via primogeniture stay with you (and with effort I mean killing family members). You may end up with your nominal heir getting just the Byzantine Empire and like one county, while someone else inherits all your other county, duchy and kingdom titles. Which is bad.

As for characters dying young, when I started as Byzantine for the Alexiad, my first guy - whose story the Alexiad historically is - died like 5 years into the game. Whoopie-doo... Still, Komemnos > Doukas.

[Tapper]

Gothos, on 12 February 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

Does anyone have some odd bugs with natural deaths?

Played in Ireland for a bit, started out as duke of Munster, within one ruler's lifetime I merged all of Ireland under one crown. Several rulers later I also control Wales and Scotland, slowly making my way into England (unless you don't get a massive opinion dump for using Request Invasion and winning as foreign conqueror, then I should go back to when I could do it and do it). But this dynasty is... weird. I've had my current rulers and heirs die at ages like 19, 23, 30 and so on, to "natural death". Which is weird, considering they had awesome stats, no negatives for health, no typhoid fevers or consumption or anything else, just natural deaths at this kind of age... And when I played as polish Piasts, or Byzantine Komemnos, that shit never happened. Is there some inherent penalty to health for the Irish or what?

Also from another game, I kept losing random characters to assassinations from a guy that died of old age years before. Weird shit.


Also, now I'm going for a Sword of Islam playthrough with Marrakech/Mauretania, doing great but the multiple wives and low stats of available wives are making it a real chore. Also, the rather weird inheritances make shit complicated, there's baronies and mosques going rogue or out-of-county all over Spain, and it's hellishly annoying. How different should I play a muslim ruler as opposed to catholic and orthodox?

Lastly, has anyone got The Republic and played a merchant republic yet? Is it good?

I tried a Republic for a short while. The problem is that you quickly get vendetta's against your fellow patricians, which accumulate in a lot of civil strife and civil war with your fellow patrician taking over your trade posts. I guess in a way it is no different from fighting between dukes over titles, but it feels so insignificant since stuff hardly shifts hands on the map. Basically, you play the other republics and forget about the rest of the map.

On the other hand, I like the dynamic the expansion brings to the game when you play as a ruler of a 'traditional' realm.
Being invited to an embargo war by Ancona against Venice is profitable. They paid me (Byz empire) a very decent sum to join them (200g) as well as money for each sacked trade post, as well as offering to pay the indemnities if I lost. Add to that the pleasure of kicking Venice's ass and assessing their strength for a future war, and it was a highly lucrative way of going about your business, especially since all I needed to win was 3k of men - basically, the Varangian Guard.

[Gothos]

I never joined embargo wars, I wouldn't let some smug italian manipulate me into making his enemies weaker curious thing about what you wrote though - Ancona as a merchant republic? only ones I ever got on my games were Venice, Pisa, Genoa, Murcia (whatever the proper name for the republic there is at least), Neapolis and Gotland... I know there's also the Hansa, but that's rather late-game isn't it?

[Tapper]

Gothos, on 27 February 2013 - 12:35 PM, said:

I never joined embargo wars, I wouldn't let some smug italian manipulate me into making his enemies weaker curious thing about what you wrote though - Ancona as a merchant republic? only ones I ever got on my games were Venice, Pisa, Genoa, Murcia (whatever the proper name for the republic there is at least), Neapolis and Gotland... I know there's also the Hansa, but that's rather late-game isn't it?

I have no clue how they came about. I skipped a year or two ahead of the usual start (basically wanted to start without having to fight the Sultan, then ended up doing that anyway) until the reigning Doukas was dead, instead playing as Romanos Diogenes. This turn of events happened in his reign, around 1074.

[MTS]

So I finished my Britannia playthrough, only just beat the Capet dynasty by 1453. Not bad for my first game I think. Anyway, now playing as the Byzantine empire. Started as the emperor in 1066, which I'm now regretting as I probably should have waited to play the Komnenians who are obviously way cooler. Rum looked like a fairly tough nut to crack though, as opposed to the Seljuks, who after my throwing mercenaries at the sultan's 18k doomstack settled for a white peace. After some early wrangling though, I settled up pretty nicely. It's now 1165 and I've mended the Great Schism and am Augustus of the Roman Empire, and my main goal at the moment is consolidating my holdings, prepping myself against possible rebellions when my aged ruler dies and his less impressive though still pretty good heir inherits. Then I'm tackling the HRE for control of northern Italy, as well as expanding along the north African coast. By the time I hit Spain I'll hopefully have already inherited the kingdom of Navarra for my son, which will set me up nicely in Iberia.

I'm not sure how the Empire always gets broken up when played by the AI. Greece, Anatolia and Sicily (which is an easy grab in the early game I found) are goldmines and Greece is my main fodder farm for my armies. The Muslims are generally fighting amongst themselves in the Levant, so expanding slowly southward from Anatolia is a very achievable goal too. They'll also act as a buffer against the Ilkhanate when they eventually arrive. They've also got amazing CBs. No fabricating claims for me, I'm just holy warring all over the place. Annexing five counties at a time is awesome, even if they're fairly useless for at least five years.

With regard to embargo wars though, I love them. As Tapper said, it's minimum involvement for a big reward, and I can always use more cash. I've got Ancona as a merchant republic as well by the way, under the auspices of the HRE. I've also got some weird ones in my empire as well, with republics in the Nile Delta, Sinai, Dalmatia, the Crimea and Al Djazair.