It's Gavelkind.

 

Thanks for the responses. Yes, I have Gavelkind, have to wait till I get peace before I can change it. Elective might be a bit confusing, since I have relatives around Iberia.

Strange, that you can game Gavelkind in favor of a younger son, but not in favor of your eldest/heir.

 

In all honesty, if you play smart you can make elective the best type there is, all you need to do is destroy all duchies, this means that you're the only person with a vote, meaning you can pick the best heir for your shit.

 

Clusterfuck of vassals when you're an empire though. Elective is good as a transition piece, in my experience, even with dukes who can vote.

Just played through Castile a bit. Formed the Hispanic empire before I signed off for the sessions. Fuck muslims man. I had 'acquired' Galacia, Leon, and Castile as kingdoms, but then Mauratania came and Portucale and the rest of Galacia, so I took Ireland and somehow lucked into Norway as well. Mauratania still had twice my troops, but I blitzed them every time they had a disagreement over something, plus I pimped out the holy orders of Catholicism about every ten years.

Pissed me off though, that even with 1000+ piety (higher than the person asking) I kept getting excommunicated because of free investiture, as opposed to papal. Next time it happens i'm making an anti-pope.

P.s. the spaniards have the shittiest genetics ever.

 

Ayreon has posted a CK2 giveaway on steamgifts.com. You must be a member of DLP's Steam group to see it.

https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showpost.php?p=663178&postcount=1416
http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/nfbsX/crusader-kings-ii

 

Hey yak. can you compile a * How to be a sucessfull lord in ck2 * sheet of tips or something. with trick to avoid bullshit civil war and other nasty consequence of rapid expention.

 

Micromanage the fuck out of everything you can. Building in your demense, who educates your kid (if your stats suck) who your kids marry, what vassals you have and how many titles they have, which of your allies you can actually expect aid from, and always know where you can quickly conquer a few counties. Macro in ck2 is basically "where do I send my deathball (s) of soldier to conquer this region the fastest to increase the war score?".

Quick list:

Raise your kid for 5-7 years then ship him off to a culturally compatible underling who has better stats than you. Focus on stewardship so you can keep a large demense.

Keep a small (proportionally) reserve and constantly spend your money upgrading the buildings in your demense so your personal army is equal to at least half of your total nation's army. This way if nobles get uppity you can smack down anyone who rebels (and bribe the rest with titles and gold). After a rebellion happens look at all the guys who sided against you and take them out of power ASAP.

You can aggressively expand your domain by inviting courtiers with claims on foreign counties, granting them a county in your domain (if you're a duke) then pressing their claim on the county you want. If you can, marry them to one of your courtiers and offer to educate their kid.

In terms of ruler stat priority: stewardship> military command-diplomacy> learning.

Maintain cultural dominance and control of your earls/dukes/whatever the fucks. The penalty might not seem like much for you when you are recruiting foreigners by giving them land, but if you die and your heir is young the penalty can be huge when stacked on the other ones. Religion too if you can help it.

Control your demense with extreme attention to detail. If you can help if gather sole control of the de jure titles in your first duchy that way you dont have to worry about combining the different stacks from all over the empire. Given that you've been upgading these the whole game and they're near your capital, they should be pretty strong and have high tech levels, making them good for bulldozing any rebels or rebellious factions quickly.

Merely marrying a family does not create actual allies. You need them to like you better thsn whoever you're fighting against, and not be too far to not care, to actually get help. If you can, joim their wars when you're free to get them to like you. Sometimes you'll have to actively search for a chance to enter their war, the CPU knows if your character would say no and wont ask (based on your current character's opinion of the ally) even if you want to.

Watch for incremental penalties or bonuses. The virtues give positive ones and the deadly sins negative ones, plus religion and culture. Having raised leevees too long will lower theie opinion also. Having regular feasts and hunts if your military score is high to keep them liking you. These also offer you the opportunity for character advancement (tournaments too).

Just a few things id wish id have known when I started playing and got to the Empire or double Empire stages.

 

I disagree with a lot of those.

The opinion traits matter way more than actual stats. Stats help, but traits that make your vassals like you are the most important. Just, Kind, Brave, Diligent. All confer a +10 opinion bonus, while some others you may end up with if you're just going with the highest statted character have a -10, and opinion is the most important thing in the game. This is why it is always best to educate yourself, because you can make it very likely your heir ends up with those good traits and prevent them from getting the bad ones, it's not just virtues versus sins (some virtues are largely worthless and lustful is fantastic), it's specific traits. Similarly hunts, feasts and summer fairs are useful because they have random events that can net you these traits (each activity nets you different ones though).

If your vassals have a 80 or above, they will not plot or faction against you. Full stop. This is why having small amounts of large, consolidated vassals with their De jure land (because if you have a direct vassal or personal land that is de jure theirs they will have an opinion penalty) is the best way to play the game. It is also why anything above medium crown authority is stupid, and why gold is better spent on keeping opinion up than it is on upgrades. Let your vassals deal with that shit, just keep them happy. This results in the strongest levy for land and the most stable realm. Also why diplomacy is the best stat. Who cares about succession when your gifts give such huge bonuses any temporary penalties can be immediately offset?

I have played dozens of games where I have a single county to my name and a huge empire. You don't need to micromanage much at all, just what keeps everyone happy.

 

Speaking of rapid expansion, something crazy happened in my last game.

I started has a welsh duke in 867, with the goal to create the Empire of Britannia. However, instead of four realms, their will only be two: Ireland and Wales. Scotland and England were assimilated into Wales and became titular kingdom.

I had just finished conquering the duchy of Munster (who was ironically lead by the Queen of Scotland) and last part of Britannia outside my control when Brittany was invaded by the Uyamid Emirate.

I looked at the map and saw that the Muslim invasion of Europe managed to get all of Hispania, minus two county in the Kingdom of Galicia (and of my dynasty), and Francia, minus Burgundy who had lost the duchy of Dauphine. Worse, most of France and Aquitaine had been assimilated by the kingdom of Andalusia and all of Hispania had been assimilated.

As a good Christian ruler, I could not stand to see Christian land in the hand of infidel. I launch a holy war for Brittany with my four thousands personal levis and fifteen thousands retinue. Ended because the casus belli was no longer valid (no idea why). Got the time to recover, launched a second holy war, same thing happened. Frustrated, I launched the third holy war, but this time I raised all my vassal levy and rush to occupy the whole of the six counties. In less than two years, I’ve won.

The Emirate enters civil war and the Kingdom of France is created as an independent state in Valois and Normandy, but under Muslim leadership. Holy war for Normandy easily won. Same for Valois, Orleans and Champagne.

Dismissed my troops and I spent a few years consolidating my new acquisitions. I was finally ready to start a holy war for Poitou, who had a less than a decade to be assimilated in Andalusia, when the Pope called a Crusade (my leader was 8 years old, and lived to be 80).

I won the Crusade with 96% of war contribution by conquering Poitou and killing five or six stack of 20k troops. Just when I started to enjoy my victory, the game froze.

After a few minutes of panic, the game started again. My demesne limit was around 372/8 (if not more). All Hyspania, Mali, Fes, Tumbuktu, most of Francia was now under my direct control. I must have spent an hour and half giving distributing my new lands to my unlanded dynasty members.

I spent the last century managing my new Empire and improving the building in my personal domain (75g a month helped). I gave back their independence to the Kingdom of Brittany when it was one year away of being assimilated in the Empire of Britannia, same for France and Aquitaine. Once France and Aquitaine had assimilated their original territory, I gave the Empire of Hispania to the King of Castille, just after changing the succession to tanistry.

I still can’t believe that one crusade gave me all of Western Europe minus HRE and Italia.

 

Avoiding - vassal opinion is basically how you avoid civil wars. As a result, I don't have any idea what you mean by bullshit civil wars. You really should be able to see almost all of them coming years away.

Have good traits, don't be an randomly-arresting asshole, don't go way over your demesene limit. Having a fair amount of Stewardship helps. Prestige helps.

Don't let Ambitious vassals get big. Their skills may be useful, but their ambitions are not.

Gold is good and Godly.

re: Education, it largely depends on what you're doing. If you're mostly administrating, go Stewardship. If you're surrounded by enemies, mixing in some Martial-educated characters can be helpful.

Oh, and choose your spouses very carefully. That should probably go without saying.

 

This is a misconception. The ambitious trait simply makes a character want what should be rightfully theirs. An ambitious character with all their De jure land is exactly the same as a non ambitious character, except with higher stats. The ambitious penalty only happens if you have land (or direct vassals) that should be theirs.

As far as plotting goes, a non ambitious character will plot against you if they hate you just as much as an ambitious character will. If they like you they won't, regardless of how big or ambitious they are.

 

I thought I was done with this game, but Paradox just had to go and make another expansion: Sons of Abraham. This enhances the Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

 

WANT.

/<10chars

 

Ohh man oh man, All of my want.
Totally going to make a Jewish Balkans for EU4 now.

 

Johan has also mentioned about six more expansions after Sons of Abraham if the sales are high enough to warrant it for CK2.

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1p272v/we_are_the_independent_publisher_developer/ccy0hxb

 

Was playing the game of thrones mod for CK2. Figured i'd try it out, started as House Hightower. After wasting about 2 lifetimes doing basically nothing but working on my infrastructure, I get an offer from the King of the Reach to conquer some lands for myself, and all I have to do is shoulder the burden of his debt. Since I had the money, I thought sure, why not?

Queue me going to war with the King of the Reach. First of all, what? Second of all, the guy must have been an asshole, since I was able to ask just about every single one of his vassals to turn on him. Call up all my vassals and conquer his capital, then win the war and pay my (his) debts to the Iron Bank. What the actual fuck just happened?

 

Iron bank offered to support you and give you the debt holders titles if you win. The AI is horrendously bad at money management and you'll get a couple of those popping up whenever you are the strongest vassal.
Basically they were behind on payments and you said yes to going to war for the bank to get their money back in exchange for their support usually a bunch of mercenaries. It's the same thing Stannis does at the wall. Honor the debts and they'll give you soldiers to win the war.

 

I really hate it when I have a very accomplished character (20+ two stats, 10+ the other two), who tutors his son and teaches him all the right characteristics...Then the PoS son never gets over 8 in any category, and while dear old dad is hanging on and conquering stuff, he loses all his good traits for bad ones.

 

Now you know what it feels like to be a parent.

"What do you mean you want to be a priest? Why don't you study something useful like Stewardship!"

 

If he's full of good traits but has stats that bad, then he must have a combination of level 1 education (pretty bad luck considering the chances of it with a level 4 educator) combined with tons of 0 rolls in each stat at each stat up each year, resulting in terrible base stats as well. Though with both his parent and educator having such high stats, that would require some seriously bad luck. Like ridiculously bad.

Basically, holy shit does the RNG hate you.