So I started an easy mode game earlier... And managed to marry my heir to the female heir of the Byzantine Empire. I've only just become a duke.

 

I was playing a Russian grand prince, struggling to figure out how I was going to create the empire of Russia. I holy warred my way into almost having the kingdom of Volga Bulgaria when my brother, the grand prince of Rostov and several other duchies and counties, gets overthrown, and then given to me. I rapidly play host to several feasts and gifts to keep everyone happy, then grab my kingdom of Rus, soon foolowed by Volga Bulgaria. All in under 20 years. Thanks a bunch random unhappy vassals of my brother.
So now I am conquering my way through Perm to hopefully reach Emporer, and then I can vassal my now distant cousin to complete the empire. Then I have a few hundred years to build up as much baronies as possible to fend off the mongol horde before they can get to us.

I love this game.

 

I've never played that side of the map mostly because of the incoming mongol hordes ready to rape. I always play it nice and safe and fuck around Brittania.

Thing is... I'm playing my first game with Sunset Invasion installed and the first Aztec ships have been spotted. I imagine they're basically Mongol hordes who are a bit redder and like human hearts.

 

And they are a lot easier to stop... because they invade by see it means you can combat their 100k stacks with your own 200k owns without losing men to famine etc. I could stop both invasion armies without much trouble.

 

Crusader Kings 2: The Old Gods. It is expected Q2 of this year.

 

PRAISE BE TO ODIN!

 

Old news but good news.

 

A quick fyi: The Republic is currently available on Steam for -75%.

 

Update for my Russia Saves Europe game.
After the creation of the Great Empire of Russian Saviors, I further my expansions south, reducing the kingdom of Cuman into barely two counties. Then I hear word of the Ilkhanate showing up, which is my signal to start panicking. I finish screwing over my subjects by jacking up max levys on everyone, while my money goes into short term build projects (like portcullis and fast army things). I start marrying anyone and everyone who's remotely close or powerful. My daughter goes to Denmark, my secondborn son (with a strong claim on the throne, I was desperate) goes to Sweden, my sister to the Zealous emporer of the Holy Romans, and my brother to the daughter of the Byzantines.

And then the byzantines go into civil war, and because I was too busy spending money and throwing parties and hunts to improve my vassal happiness and my own martial score respectively, I didn't notice how he got trounced. So then I had to go marry by other brother (who also had a strong claim) to he new Byzantine Emporer's daughter.
Deep Breath, and here they come.

An army of 40,000 marches on the north, an army of 60,000 to the midlands, and a small force of 20,000 are all assaulting my three easternmost territories, and a pitiful little 8,000 man group just hit what remained of Cuman. I hit every panic switch I've got, and call in allies. Sweden and Denmark and Leon of all places (thanks dad for securing that alliance 40 years back) all vow to send help (only denmark actually helps, with a small force of 8,000). Yay. What happened to Byzantines? They are in another civil war, please call back later. Fuck. And my holy roman brother in law is a holy roman son of a bitch that doesn't take kindly to we orthodox types.

So I pause, cry a bit over my doomed empire (The Invasion was to take over an entire Kindom of Perm, which lie directly next to my main base in Volga Bulgaria) Then I call up my own armies, sacrificing huge tracts of land to be burned by the mongol scourge as I get everyone ready to hit them when they finish raping and pillaging their initial landing places. I've got 3 armies of 30,000 each, but sadly one of them is marching from Ruthenia and taking too damn long. So I go with my 60,000 against his 60,000. I put my best generals to the task, and charge.

I watch the battle, as their generals are a time and a half more competant than my own best. If my soldiers can hold out for just a little longer, then Ruthenia will march in and another 30,000 men will surely win the day. Thankfully, help comes in the form of a vassal who didn't get the memo that THE MONGOLS ARE INVADING until later, and his 10,000 troops end up marching late, but stil arriving before Ruthenia. And then we start winning. Its ugly and brutal, but once we stop lobbing arrows at the horses and charge into melee, their moral starts shattering. (Important note: pikemen fuck up horses)Ruthenia finally shos up just as we chase them off the field. Massive victory won that day!

So I put my now much diminished army of 60,000 to chasing their greatly diminished army of 20,000. "Piece of cake" I think. "The fool" they think, as their 20,000 somehow manage to demoralize my great army into fleeing the battle. Then his second army of 40,000 merges with what remains of his first army, to a total of 55,000, facing off against my 45,000. And then I get a mesage from the Holy Roman Empire. The zealous old son of a bitch choked on too much sin and depravity, and his 8 year old son (and my nephew) has ascended the throne. He happens to like Uncle Russia, as a fellow christian defending against horrible heathens. So I fall back as he rushes over 25,000 men of god. Meanwhile, while I wait for my ally, the kingdom of perm steadily falls to the mongol might as county after county burns. Finally we make a stand at Kama, where the mongols planned to advance even further into my own personal duchy. But we make our stand: Russian and German heavy infantry, supported by a late group of 15,000 Byzantines. 85,000 men of god against 55,000 heathens. And it is a terible battle, hundreds die every day, and we are neck and neck, our mass of men against their great generals. But finally quantity proves its own quality, and they are broken. Swiftly we charge after them, hounding them for weeks. Their initial force of 100,000 is finally reduced to a mere 5000 when he declares peace with me, having conquered all of Perm.

Fucker, getting free peace like that, I had him right where I wanted him.

But my initial goal was a success, their massive force that fed on nothing but the sky and the blood of their own horses was decimated. Soon after I declared holy war to retake tracts of land, regaining much of my lost territory, and finally hunting down and eliminating the great Golden Horde.
Now to deal with the fact that my great empire now abutts the great ilkhanate, who has embraced the Shia religion and has no close christians to hate but me. Can I turk back the Mongols a second time?

 

Ouch, wall of text dude. The enter key is not verboten.

 

Playing on CK2+

For some reason, I like playing as France. Started the game as Toulouse, proceeded to take France, hang around a couple of years, then push out into Brittany, Navara, Aragon, and Castille. Meanwhile, the HRE literally collapses on itself, leaving behind a few dozen warring nations with competing claims, and Hungary and Bohemia proceed to form the Magyar Empire after crushing Croatia and Poland.

With a family member in Ulster, my dynasty proceeds to create to Frankish Empire, the Irish Empire, and Byzantium dies to let the Latin Empire be born.

Galacia/Leon expands madly south, taking the entire West Africa and southern end of the Spanish Peninsula. I manage to use the initial marriage to Tuscany to reform Lombardy and conquer all the Italian republics, then realise that the Republic of Barcelona under me has managed to put trade posts across the entire map, starting from the Irish Empire, proceeding south along France, then East across the entire bloody ocean until Jerusalem.

In the interim, Geogia takes a huge swathe of land, taking everything between Russia (also now an Empire) and the Persian Empire (Which controls everything east of Jerusalem/Egypt, basically). Denmark explodes northwards, taking Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Norway to form Scandinavia (Empire). The Pope declares a crusade for Jerusalem, and the Fatimids find that their 30k Doomstacks are nothing compared to the sheer power of Six Empires. Jerusalem is given to the Frankish Empire, and is given to a cousin.

Abyssinia takes the opportunity to control everything south of Egypt, and descendants in Barcelona conquer Tunis, setting up a separate republic which proceeds to take over the entire Kingdom of Africa for their Empress.

At the moment, the world is broken up into nine superpowers, two medium sized nations, and a smattering of individual counties/baronies.

The Spanish Empire, Irish Empire, Frankish Empire, Magyar Empire, Scandinavia, Russian Empire, Georgian Empire, Latin Empire, and Persian Empire (Muslim form, forgot the title) form about 95% of the world.

The Spanish Empire, Irish Empire, Frankish Empire, Magyar Empire, Scandinavia, Russian Empire, Georgian Empire, Latin Empire, and Persian Empire

Irish Empire: Kingdom of Ireland, Kingdom of Man and the Isles, Kingdom of Scotland, Kingdom of Mercia, Kingdom of Wales, Kingdom of Wessex.

Scandinavia: Kingdom of Finland, Kingdom of Denmark, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Norway.

Russian Empire: Kingdom of Kiev, Kingdom of Novgorod, Kingdom of Lithuania.

Magyar Empire: Kingdom of Croatia, Kingdom of Bohemia, Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Hungary.

Georgian Empire: Kingdom of Geogia, Kingdom of Azerbaijan, Kingdom of Alania, Kingdom of Wallachia, Kingdom of Khwarizm, Kingdom of Cumania.

Latin Empire: Byzantine starting Kingdoms plus Kingdom of Syria and Kingdom of Bulgaria.

What I find the most amusing, though, is how I restructured the Titular Kingdoms using De Jure drift.

Brittany holds Anjou, Naples took over most of northern France into northern Burgandy while Lotharingia extends into Flanders. The Kingdom of Aquitaine contains nothing of the duchy, but holds every part of southern Germany, while a sole duchy is the De Jure holdings of Sardinia.

Still, been an interesting game, watching Empire after Empire form, making it near impossible to actually conquer anything now.

 

http://s41.beta.photobucket.com/user/Aurion_Shan/media/ck2_3-.png.html

This is going to rock.

The De Hautevilles completely imploded via trying to fight like ten wars at once; Benveneto and Calabria are ruled by a uncle/nephew pair who apparently hate each other. I'm holding off on attacking Calabria because their current Duke is a good guy who was awesome to my first ruler and I'm roleplaying a little.

Snagged Apulia and Lukania in ~1080; Apulia fell to some of the North African Muslims (think it was Tripolitania). I decided to be less than neighborly, especially when the Pisans attacked them.

Lukania got overrun by the Zirid Sultanate of Africa, but the Zirids apparently shot their wad on mercs so hey easy expansion.

e: To elaborate, the first time I fought the Zirids I didn't fight a field battle against a force of >200 men. The second time they came after me, they had a 3k stack. ._.

Pisa owns most of Sicily proper- I'm at the absolute min requirements for the Kingdom formation (Agrigenton in Sicily and Malta are vassal-held). Pisa's been jizzing all over the central Med, and the resulting chaos is absolutely awesome.

Venetian families have been falling all over themselves to bribe me. I'm pretty sure they've coughed up >500 gold. They've also got trading ports in 8 of my 9 counties. That might have something to do with it.

1st guy lived to be ~80, and sat on his infirm ass for a decade before kicking the bucket. New ruler is a Brilliant Strategist, his Queen is a genius, his genius son is in the screen, and he has a genius daughter.

Levies are still crap, but the Venetians are basically bankrolling me. It's lovely, I'm used to having to penny-pinch like a fucker.

Beating on local Muslims (attacking Malta and Agrigenton, and couple successful Holy War defenses against the North African Muslims) gave my first guy a shit-ton of Piety and he wasn't even a good general. And the new guy has the Holy Warrior general trait. North Africa is gonna get raped into oblivion.

Edit 2: Upon checking, Despot Sergios I had almost as much Piety as Prestige, and he had a mad Prestige score for a game-start ruler because of the war wins.

...Not that he had anything in particular to do with most of them. Fucker.

Edit: Also, the Fatimids apparently own Achaia. This despite the Seljuks failing utterly to take Armenia.

The Fatimids have also over-run all of Abyssinia, but just lost the Kingdom of Jersualem to the King of Hungary. Hungary somehow survived the shitty dynastic situation at the start and Hulked out on the pagans in Wallachia and the poor bloody Croats (who seemingly have been attacked by LITERALLY EVERYONE in the last two decades). And then they marched an army from Hungary all the way down the boot to smash the one Zirid force that was too large for me to handle.

I love it when the AI does my work for me (while thinking it's doing its own work since they have their own war going seperate of mine).

Both rulers have married members of House Arpad, so we're pretty tight.

So. Yeah. By far the best pre-1150 situation I've ever been in barring starting as a King.

Update: 1112: Hungary currently going boom. The King died, the inheritance was split, the new Kings have wars going against Muslim Emirs encroaching on Jersualem and there's a civil war in Hungary.

Jerusalem is already coming apart at the seams, the first independent King got killed in battle after less than a year of ruling.

Also, I blew all my money on upgrading Apulia's economy. Waiting for the chance to sieze back Gaeta and Lukania from my bloody relatives would take far too long.

Update 2: Got bored in 1175. Republics+Spanish Christians overran the entire Western Med. No one left to fight, really.

----------

Started a new game, yin to the last game's yang; very sedate pace so far. Republics aren't going insane (Pisa lost a big war early, Genoa/Venice have been quiet). De Hautevilles are Kings of Sicily. I own 4 counties, they have 8; snagged one Taranto/Lukania via De Hauteville revolt after seizing Salerno/Amalfi and getting the ducal title thanks to the Zirid collapse into nonexistence.

Byzantines having a fuck-off massive civil war after the Seljuks siezed Armenia. The Duke of Trebizond convinced like 3/4 of the Empire to support a pretender, and the outlying Duchies in the revolt are getting nibbled. France surprisingly stable, Georgians actually expanding for once (into Alania).

edit: 1095 - Annexed 2/3 of Apulia, seized the ducal title. I love neighbor revolts. Kingdom of Sicily down to 5 counties to my 6, since they lost Messina to the Kalbids of Sicily the same way. Current character getting oooold, and his oldest two sons are already dead.

On the plus side, my third son is Duke of Thracesia via marriage. The other two sons have no titles as of yet (one's an imbecile >_>).

Byzantine CW ended in white peace. Fatimids and Seljuks failed horribly attempting to double-team the Byzantines. Seljuk succession crisis led to them falling to an invasion.

The decadence invasion mechanics really need to be tweaked. Limit it to the de jure borders of the primary title of the invadee. Or have all active independence wars succeed. Or something. Shit's ridiculous.

Castille is starting to get a little bit blobby in Spain, but they're liable to collapse as soon as the current King dies.

The Duke of Leinster just became King of Jersualem. I got nothing.

 

I have no idea how this happened.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/595872174799883977/BC659CA0A47DB1487E0124D8F658C095DE8B2891/

Two popes in Rome, one a 0 year old girl. Utterly befuddled.

[Edit]: Apparently the girl's father is the previous pope. Who was celibate. I'm confused.

 

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e284/Aurion_Shan/ck2_5.png

herpy derpy durr i r ambitious and tempar...tmp...*drool*

Why am I so tempted to try and make him my heir?

 

Been playing the new Elder Kings mod, which is set in Bethesda's Elder Scrolls world. It's an early release, and there's still plenty to fix and change, but already it's a lot of fun. I recommend downloading it if you haven't already.

 

It's out? When they said April Fools release I thought it was a joke. Rage.

Edit: Tried to play as Imperial City. Started out OK, then suddenly out of nowhere (as a guy), had 4 kids with other men. Few years later, had another dozen kids with another dozen men. I suspect something's up.

 

Mpreg in mah CK2? Must be a slash fan on the mod team!

 

The Game of Thrones mod's added Europe for April Fool's, don't know if that appeals to anyone. Although burning Paris with Dragon fire sounds mighty appealing.

 

I've been playing as a republic in CK2 [vanilla+dlc].

The most recent CK2 update caps the number of trade posts [previously unlimited] which you can have as a family of a republic. You start with a cap of 4, can push it to 10 with family palace upgrades, and get a bit higher with unlanded dynastic males. So, with all families having maxed palaces your republic can achieve 50 trade posts, plus extras for unlanded men. Maybe 70 TPs, give or take, at 10-15ish per family.

The problem with that, is that my republic and primary title is at empire-level. I'm the Grand Prince of Scandinavia, Lithuania, England, and assorted colonies. That allowance of 50+ TPs is far too small to even cover my own realm, let alone take advantage of my neighbours.

I've tried raising up mayors to duke and king-level, both from my dynasty and random courtiers, in an attempt to create new republics within the republic so to speak, but that didn't work [it does if you're an ordinary kingdom; not a republic]. The only way to create new republics is for me to grant duke/king-level mayors independence.

Does anyone have any tips on increasing my TP cap, creating subordinate trade republics, or anything else?

 

Nope. You can't. This change has made merchant republics a regional power only. Gotland will have the Baltic, Pisa and Genoa the western Mediterranean, and Venice the eastern. And because a merchant republic can't AFAIK have merchant republic vassals, a super-size merchant republic means trade is either going unexploited or going to rival republics.

The answer? Build up a sizeable warchest and go feudal once you're huge. Give your heir a castle and when he inherits, grant the merchant republic to a relative or even another family entirely. Create new merchant republics for each significant area. Your income will take a hit in the short-term, but long-term the taxes from three or four merchant republics will outstrip the income from one.

Or, y'know, mod it out.