Becoming the Emperor should be set as your Ambition. It'll be in the Ambition list. When you have all of the King titles, then you'll be able to set it in motion.

 

I've read online that the only emperor titles in the game are Byzantine and HRE. Do you need the mod talked about above to create other titles?

Lets say if I were to conquer the British Isles or some shit?

 

Yes, you need Wizmod or whatever it's called now (CK2+ I think).

You can become the Emperor of Britannia if you have the crowns or Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales. There's a bunch of empires which can be created. I think you can only forge one empire though. So as the Emperor of Britannia, I can't then conquer the Iberian Peninsula and become the Emperor of Iberia as well. Instead the Iberian kingdoms become non-de jure parts of my Britannian Empire.

Tehan mentioned that you can usurp someone else's Emperor title, which would allow you to have two Emperor hats on.

 

Emperors can't create king titles either, which is apparently hard-coded to keep the HRE from forming the Kingdom of Germany at game start. But if you give enough of the relevant land to a duke they should form the kingdom themselves.

Not sure if the AI forms the modded-in empires... if it does, you could give all the relevant king titles to your heir and let them form it, and then uniting the two once you fall off the perch.

Forming an Empire isn't an ambition in CK2+, it's a decision in the intrigue menu, like having a feast or inviting a courtier or buying an indulgence.

 

I checked the intrigue menu and it isn't listed as a decision. This is the second time I've tried (in my previous game I united all of Britain).

 

Tehan, has anyone made a Game of Thrones mod for CK2? The two properties seem like they were made for each other.

 

Nikhil: Are you running the latest version? I think some of the early versions didn't have it. Here's the download for .32, the latest version, but your save game won't be compatible. Try going to the de jure empires overlay and making sure there is an Empire for you to form - once you personally own every de jure king title within the de jure empire, there should be a decision to form the Empire. It takes quite a bit of gold and piety too, if you're lacking in either department.

Yak: Not yet. A lot of the game is externalized in various easy-to-edit .txt files, but the map is a bigger challenge. But someone released a Tohou mod where Gensokyo was an island off Norway, so it is possible to edit the map - so a Game of Thrones mod is pretty much inevitable.

Late, but... you should work out what's going to be your permanent demesne, grab it early, and keep it forever. Make sure it'll always be under your demesne limit - your base for your primary title plus any legalism bonus, don't rely on a stewardship bonus or you'll be screwed over when an inevitably retarded heir inherits. When you're rocking a huge long rule bonus, don't be afraid to blatantly steal a county from a minor vassal to expand your demesne, especially if it's particularly built up or has a lot of holding slots.

Build up your castles first. Castle village, town, and city. All three repay the investment within a few decades, and that's without factoring in the stewardship bonus to income. I almost always jack up burgher tax to max, and once I'm done building the cash buildings in my castles I build them up to at least level one ports and markets and level two of each if I'm rolling in dosh. At that point the AI governor has enough income, even after paying the exorbitant taxes, to expand themselves at a fairly decent rate. The AI has an infuriating (but, admittedly, historically justified) tendency to focus on walls and defences first, so if you leave them to their own devices they won't build the income-boosting additions for decades or even centuries.

Vassal tax is iffy - it can be a nice income boost, but the relations boost will come back to haunt you when someone shitty ascends to the throne. Church tax is also iffy, because if a bishop (or prince-bishop or king-bishop) likes the Pope more than you, he'll pay the taxes to the Pope instead of you - so if you jack up church tax they'll like you even less, and give to the Pope more. However, if you have an Antipope, any bishops in your entire realm that like the Antipope more than the Pope will pay you. Even though it got nerfed in the latest patch it's still pretty damn profitable.

Advanced moolah - republics. If you give a county title to the mayor of a town in that county, the county becomes a republic - a burgher vassal. They get a permanent -10 (could be more in vanilla, can't remember) relationship malus for being ruled by a feudal lord instead of an elected burgher, but they pay burgher tax instead of vassal tax. With the wrong ruler and burgher tax maluses they rebel at the drop of a hat, but being cities, only have archers/light infantry/pikemen instead of the devastating light and heavy cavalry that castles can provide. Another problem is that they're weak targets during a war - since their capital is a town instead of a castle, the tiny garrison can be broken by much smaller forces than a castle would require. In one of my early Iberian games I made a few republics early on and for the next century every time I got into a fight, the enemy would beeline towards the republics and jack up their warscore by taking them easily.

Advanced moolah - building new holdings. Once you've got cash coming out your ears, start building them. I like to stack up towns everywhere for the dosh, but some people prefer baronies to give to sons or churches for the piety. Experiment.

Advanced moolah - holy war for profit. Muslim cities are usually well built up, to the extent that sacking a town can be worth upwards of 20 goldmonies, but their forces are usually equal to or even less than an equivalent Christian power. When your income is a few paltry gold a month, a war against a Muslim power can easily pay for itself and then some - especially if you get lucky in combat and bag a few Shieks or Emirs to ransom. If you get targeted by a Holy War or a Religious Defense, then a win pays you a sizeable lump sum based on the aggressor's income. And remember, if you're involved in a crusade or defensive war against heathens, Holy Orders (if any have been founded yet) require no upkeep outside of the initial piety required to hire them. Abuse this shamelessly, it's what they're for. And sometimes the Pope throws a couple hundred goldmonies your way if you're in a holy war, but that can't really be depended upon.

This post sponsored by loadsamoney.

 

So after claiming my rights to invade the Isle of man I went to war with the Duke of the isles based in Carrick. Those are the only two seats he holds so once I hammer him there, It's all cool.

Problem.

Can't land my fuckin' troops on the isle of man or Carrick.

 

You can't dock at an enemy province. Instead, your ships stop in the sea directly next to the enemy province, then you select your troops and order them to march onto land. I suppose it's meant to simulate a beach landing. It takes a while to do a beach landing, and if your troops have to attack an enemy army already present in the province, then you'll face a severe penalty.

Once you occupy the enemy province [or perhaps just the first barony], you'll be able to land your troops directly at the docks.

 

When this happens, I will jizz my pants. After that, I will play as the Stark annd ruthless crush everyone I can with my awesome frozen e-peen, while muttering "Winter is Coming" like a sixteen year old fangirl. There will be blood, and it will be sweet.

 

I personally go with cities on coastal provinces (where the ports make for even more cashy-money than normal) and castles for inland provinces so I can get more soldiers.

 

Should've mentioned that. Coastal cities can build twice as many income-increasing buildings. Been playing Appulia lately, and glorious Italy completely lacks landlocked provinces, so it didn't even occur to me.

 

Such funny things happen when you're engrossed in your own little corner of the map. Like half of France being taken over by Andalusia. The northern half.

 

This is true. My last game saw such wonders as a Scottish king in Ethiopia (Mugabe approves!), the Emirate of Genoa, the Serene Republic of Sicily, and Wales somehow taking over England.

So, here's a question for the board. Most of the cultures in the game get some kind of unique building in their castles that nudges their military in a unique direction (English longbows, French Knights, Italian Pikemen, etc).

Any thoughts on who gets the best building?

 

The pagans, at least those in the northern part of europe, have a pretty sweet building named The Warrior Cult, I think? It gives them a huge bonus in troop count. Pretty sweet indeed.

 

Yeah, especially since Warrior Cults will stack with any cultural buildings you get.

The Christians are supposed to have a unique religious building too, but it doesn't trigger unless one of the knightly orders (Templars, Hospitallers, etc) gets territory, and that seems to be a pretty hit-or-miss thing.

 

Things were going slow domestically so I decided to join in the effort to liberate northern France.

Holy motherfucking shit the muslims can spawn hordes. They'll regularly land two or three forces of 10k soldiers and rape shit. How does anyone survive when playing in spain?

 

The thing about Spain is that the holy war mechanics make it really easy to blitz and take over tons of territory quickly. You just have to out-blitz the Muslims. It's generally not too hard as long as the Iberian muslims don't start bring in help from North Africa (which is nicely historical).

Plus, lots of people take advantage of the fact that all the Spanish kingdoms are only an assassination or two away from inheriting each other.

 

I started a spanish game for the reasons outline above and quickly ran into a problem. I need to increase my demense size because five is a little too small for the amount of land I've just attained. Any hints?

 

The two things that go into your demense limit are your ruler's stewardship, your Legalism research level in your capital.

You can also bump up your demense limit quite a bit by going to Gavelkind succession. That's a bit hazardous though since Gavelkind splits all your territory between your sons; if you go for that option, I'd suggest keeping the number of kids you have down and making sure all but one of your sons have "accidents" at some point (Fortunately, the AI seems to have a lot of sibling warfare/assassination under Gavelkind to help out with that).