Right, sorry about that.

Yes, I just noticed that the son and heir of the kingdom of East Francia is already the king of Bavaria. Likewise the king of Italy is the brother and heir of the king of Lotharinga. Essentially that would make for 3 superpowers right next to each other early in the game.

I think I'm going to play somewhere in central Europe soon. It looks really entertaining.

 

Game of thrones mod's updated. Cadet houses easier than ever to form. And Ironborn just got so much better with The Old Gods.

 

Still some bug in the new release though. Infidel malus to wedding is a pain in the ass. Can't marry anyone but Ironborn if you're playing them. I'm not sure how much I like the new invasion CB because it's pretty easy to win any war with it. I mean, if you manage to beat the Reach in the AFFC scenario (hiring 2 mercs unit should do it), you find yourself with the biggest superpower of westeros under your power.

Managed to rule it for 18 years before Euron died. During those years I did conquer the Stormlands from Aegon because he was about to lose to the Iron Throne and I wanted to get some profit from there.

The Reach asked for independence when Euron died and I let them because I was in the middle of two civil wars (succession and independence). Still, right after those were set, Megawar erupt between Iron Throne and a Lower Crown Authority Faction. I take advantage of that and bring Dorne within my Kingdom.

Plus, the Looting system is just...I think overpower would be the word. Everytime I finish a war, I put all my troops in a boat, drag them up to the Crossing or the Westerlands and just loot everything I can. Most of the time I get 250-500 gold with barely any fighting.

 

Uh... isn't that canonical? Iron Wives and Salt Wives, Ironborn ladies for proper marriages and ladies taken from the mainland for concubines.

 

Mostly canon, one example not true to that that I can think of off the top of my head would be that one of Quellon Greyjoy's wives was a Piper.

Digging a little deeper, Harras Harlaw's mother was a Serrett.

Likely one or two more examples, so Ironborn/mainland marriages are rare. Certainly marrying their women off to mainlanders would be especially abhorrent to them.

 

Tywin also seemed to think he could get Balon to marry Cersei.

It's unusual, but it's not impossible like it is in the mod.

 

New update finally allows you to revoke vassals from your direct vassals. No more bizarre spread of vassal holdings!!

 

Would anyone have a copy of The Old Gods spare? :/

 

I wouldn't care much if it wasn't that marrying any other kind of Iron Lady gives you a prestige malus because you're not marrying someone of your rank...I'm losing like 300 if I marry a lowborn or a courtier.

Problem is, it's not only with Ironborn. If you're faith of the seven you can't marry (i.e.) Daenerys because she's of the Valyrian religion. Same with any R'hllor that manages to spread.

With a world as small as Westeros (not a lot of kingdom) if you restrict with religion also...

 

Just got Old Gods. Excellent.

It improves and gives more depth to an already superb game. CK2 is without a doubt in my eyes one of the best games of the last five years.

 

Dammit. I'm hoping to pick Old Gods up cheap during the Steam Summer Sale or on Amazon.

I'm playing a vanilla muslim game now, my first, and I'm not finding it fun. I'm kicking arse as Sicily, taken over most of southern Italy, and on the verge of sacking Rome, but it hasn't been a fun game.

Blah.

I tried the Game of Thrones mod, but need to wait for their next hotfix to make it compatible with 1.101.

Wiz released a more stable post-Old Gods version of his mod, so it might be time to give that another go. I've liked the Christian games I've played on CK2+.

 

Not a fan of playing Muslim either to be honest. Maybe it's because of all the time I spent leading Irish troops through southern Spain kicking ass.

 

Muslims are fucking silly. The decadence mechanic seems to work at first, then you take over Spain, England and France and pretty much nothing you do will stop you from gaining decadence. You can give your sons king level titles sure, but good luck to you when their children reach 16 and start bleeding decadence themselves. You have to constantly be fighting people. Back when I had huge fucking retinues this wasn't as big a problem but with the nerf...

It wouldn't be a problem if this was slightly more manageable and the Christians and Pagans had a similar handicap. It would be a nice way to simulate or threaten collapse of the huge player states (something that CK2 doesn't seem to do a lot) that can pop up but it seems too...inevitable.

But nope, Christians seem more stable and Pagans have to deal with the huge succession malus until they reform, then I can't think of anything that would make them collapse, though I've only played the Mongols so YMMV.

He said that it was a small, preliminary fix though -and he immediately nerfed shit- so I'd wait a week or two until something more concrete comes out.

Apparently the Karlings all start with claims/inheritance rights on each other like the Jimenas. So what does he do? Gone!

 

My current game began as a Duke in what was to become Abyssinia. First time playing since buying the DLC. As it stands (began in Gondar, highlighted):

[IMGUR]foDD14U[/IMGUR]

Went for a totally different playstyle on returning to the game, focusing on a side of the map I've never really bothered with and dividing up new conquests equally among the same dozen-ish vassals, permanently keeping them happy and distracted with each new heir. Between that, spamming End Plot and concentrating more on political maneuverability than financial/military, it's been my most successful game so far in terms of lineage and sheer map control in a little over a century.

Also playing as Miaphysite now, though started as Sunni, by matching an heir with Nubia. Easiest religion to play by far - no higher authority to answer to but God himself, and the ability to launch Holy Wars on just about anything that moves is useful when dealing with Gavelkind and needing the odd strategic Bishopric.

Growing a little tired of the cakewalk that North Africa and the Mid East are becoming (with Absolute Imperial Authority and decent vassal approval ratings I can now call up 150k+ troops without even skimming demesne and retinue) and not keen on venturing too close to Cumania in the process of mopping up what's left of Persia, so via some clever long-term diplomacy now have current heir and daughter in place to usurp a couple of the major houses in Western Europe. Within two generations, the rulers of England and Aquitaine will be of the Ahmadid dynasty, and I'll have so many crowns I'll need to revisit shelf space.

[IMGUR]MWSf7DH[/IMGUR]

CK2: Doing it right.

 

That's excellent. I usually lose patience with big empires like that. Especially without lots of coastal provinces and ships to rapidly deploy troops.

For anyone who hasn't played there yet: All of the waters around the Arab Peninsula [Red Sea and Persian Gulf] are purely decorative. The waterfront provinces can't build ports, and aren't considered coastal by the game. It's a long ass march to anywhere.

The Caspian Sea and Aral Sea are similarly devoid of naval possibilities.

 

The Caspian actually exists now, accessible via rivers. Not sure if the provinces on it count as coastal - it might just count as a freakishly large river, mechanics-wise.

 

That's exactly the case. The Caspian Sea is accessible by river, but none of its provinces are able to build ships. That was one of the first things I tried after Old Gods came out. I wanted to build a strong muslim dynasty around the Caspian and its river to the north based on swift movement of troops by navy, but soon discovered that I couldn't build ships on the Caspian, and only the Vikings can navigate rivers anyway.

 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Crusader Kings II\common\religions\00_religions.txt

Add

to every religion you want to be able to travel via rivers.

Yes, it's linked to religion. Yes, it's silly.

 

I'd give it to every religion and see what happened.

When I'm finished my couple of running games I might look at how to mod the Caspian provinces if no one else has already done it.

 

I vaguely recall Wiz of CK2+ fame saying that it's hardcoded so that all ocean patches have to connect when he was trying to get the Arabian Sea in - I think he ended up bypassing the problem by sneaking the Suez Canal in. If it was just a matter of switching a value from river to ocean I'm sure it would have been in the base game.