Sure thing.

 

My eternal thanks, kind sir.

 

My first act after taking every county of Norway I had a claim to was to take a few that I didn't, bringing me up to 47% of the Kingdom - despite owning the vast majority of its actual land. Regardless, 'truces' prevented me from pushing further and taking what is rightfully mine.

Once Norway was closed off to me, I turned my gaze south, to Lithuania and its pagan riches. I raised up my levies, thousands upon thousands of men, and took a duchy before deciding that Muslim lands were probably a lot more worth the effort. So, that in mind, I raised my personal levies - those of my vassals being angry at me for marching them across Holy Rome and some spending months by boat trying to get to Lithuania from England.

I claimed my own Duchy from Mauretania, that of those two counties I gave to the Pope. Turns out Mauretania was taking this war a lot more seriously than I was. Four thousand men rose up to fight 2500. I lost. To a two-bit African kingdom.

Then the Pope founded the Knights Templar. Hired them immediately and used them to conquer a pretty large part of the Kingdom of Africa - enough to crown myself as its King, at least - as I waited for my own levies to replenish. I spent time building up my holdings until I could raise 4k men by myself, a decent percentage of which were cavalry and heavy infantry.

I married one of my granddaughters - matrilineally - to the third-in-line to the Scottish throne and, when they had a son - named for me - I slaughtered everyone in the line, crowning myself King of Scotland.

Then I married the only daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor. I figured his Doomstacks would probably be helpful in the war to come.

By the time my preparations were complete, my Vassal Levies were no longer incurring any penalties for me, and I marched upon Mauretania with twenty seven thousand men. I took it and crowned myself king. Only then did I realize that I'd - at some point in the recent past - invited the second-in-line to the French throne to my court. I married him to one of my daughters, they fucked, had children, and suddenly I was king of France. Not that it meant much - in my game, France is seven counties, with me and Anjou making up the majority of the nation.

I noticed my character's age at this point, and realized that I wanted Sancho to go out in a blaze of Glory. I sent the Templars to take Sicily for me while I did what I've promised to do for forty years - take the Kingdom of Norway as my own.

My soldiers marched on the capital and claimed the last of their unoccupied holdings as King Sancho The Conqueror - greatest King the Iberian Peninsula had ever seen - passed from this world at the age of 103.

 

This game has it out for me. Every time I get a war score of a non-European county up to 25, my war somehow ends inconclusively. For example, I was going to take Minsk, and I had 5k soldiers siege every county of Kiev, when suddenly my war ended for no apparent reason. Disbanding my levies, I noticed that we were crusading for Alexandria, so I opened a crusader on the shia caliphate and went to town on them. Conquered two whole regions in Africa when suddenly, my holy war for a county I had already conquered ended, as you guessed, inconclusively. Since the Shia caliphate is so far, I decided to try one closer to home, the Baja lands. No sooner had I gotten. War score of like 30, my war ends with no damn reason as to why. Head over to Kiev again, check if they are at war, aseeing that they aren't, I go to war again. Part way through, they somehow because part of the kingdom of Rus.

This makes me mad, as right. Is I'm the King of Ireland, Scottland, and Brythonia. With an approximate levie size of 16k, and I can't conquer anywhere. Fortunately, with all of these troops I can put down upstart nobles that pop up every succession, but it has begun to get annoying. And even worse, I sniped Gloucaster from the Norway/England powerhouse during a rebellion where their vassals from Bedford rebelled, and apparently the idiot I installed won't become my vassal. Is there any way to institute a singular culture in my populace? I have Saxons, Scotts, and Irish, with a few Bretons.

 

Don't DoW as an old fuck or against an old fuck unless you think you can finish the war before they die. Don't DoW if your title claimant is an old fuck, pretty much period. Don't DoW against rebel counties/duchies unless you think you can force a settlement before they peace out with their leige or find a new one.

Yeah, I kind of hate all the ways wars can end inconclusively.

 

I don't think you can. You can transfer cultures between adjoining counties, but that precludes you from introducing a new culture to an island. You might be able to get a culture transfer between Scotland and Ireland at that spot where troops can walk across; I'm not sure.

Here is a link to a CKII guide which discusses culture transfer: Culture; Unity Through Homogeneity.

The guide discusses culture and culture groups without explaining exactly what it means. Briefly, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Breton cultures are all part of the Celtic culture group, so they have less revolt risk and inherent dislike for each other. Saxons, on the other hand, are West Germanic, so because they're a completely different culture group to the Celts, they get a much larger negative foreigner opinion and twice the peasant revolt risk.

 

Man this game is hard as fuck. Also very entertaining. First Paradox game I have ever played. Should I look up to another one too? Or is CK2 the best of em?

 

There are four different types of grand strategy game by Paradox. Crusader Kings 2 is the Medieval politics one. Europa Universalis 3 is the Renaissance/Empire building one. Victoria 2 is the Colonial/Economics focused one, and Hearts of Iron 2/3 are the WWII simulators.

 

Also, Victoria will make your head hurt far more than the rest. And I think HoI is boring as shit, though Xiph would disagree.

 

I tried playing HoI2 as my first Paradox game. I gave up after a few hours and it's the reason I never bothered with another Paradox game until... well, this thread.

I'm still not sure whether or not I like Crusader Kings as a game, but at least this time I'll give it a proper play.

 

HoI is the most one-dimensional of the lot, since it's really all about military and economics, with culture/diplomacy/etc. all taking a back seat.

CK is probably the most diplomacy focused game, while Victoria is heavy on economics. The Europa Universalis series is the only one that, at least in my opinion, really balances all the different aspects ... but it's also the one with the oldest and (in some ways) least polished installment in the series.

 

Damn, Im kinda stuck. I cant declare war, no casus belis. Tried to make an antipope - would't work becoz the nations Im after are cristians. Overthrowed the pope too.. just wasted money and prestige for nothing.. Heh.

Now Im trying to forge claims. Is it luck based or something? Besides ofc the skill level of the chancelor ...
Plus, Will the conqueror is getting old.. when he dies riots are gonna rip england apart. I already took out the most powerfull duke under me, and his heir.. so now his tittles lie with a 2 year old kid or something.. which Im marrying to my daugher when he ages, If I live long enough...

Err. I guess Im too focused on the military aspect of the game. Perhaps I should try Hearts of Iron ...

 

You can always use the Invasion CB for 500 piety. It's how I took Scotland.

I married my daughter to the heir of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Duke's son didn't want to marry her matrilinealy at first, but as soon as he came of age I invited him around to my court for a bit of a chat and held a sword to his throat until he said, "I do." He did his duty and fathered a whole bunch of kids of my dynasty. With that sorted, the way was clear to take out the Duke. The Duke was a stab-happy old bastard, so I had him locked away in my dungeons for years until he died.

The Duke of York was a bit of a whiner; always complaining about his heirs being assassinated as infants by the Duke of Lancaster, not that he could ever prove anything. So, once things were setup properly with the Lancasters, the Duke of York mysteriously died, leaving his duchies to be inherited by the Lancaster's and thanks to that sword-point wedding, eventually came into my family. A gavelkind succession will prevent any of my dynasty from that union inheriting the lot and becoming too powerful.

 

So there are some things I didn't get. I've been playing for about an hour now as Sweden, and

1. How quickly do I get back my levies? It seems like I never am.

2. Civil war seems to have broken out, but I can't participate.

This game is sooo fun thoug. Lot more realistic than either EU, or Victoria.

I still like HoI the best though. Anyone played the Kaiserreich mod before?

 

1. As long as you disband them on your own territory, it should only take a few months to bring them back up to spec. If you've lost them all, well, it'll take a good year or two to bring them back to full.

2. Vassal wars happen and you can't intervene, as far as I'm aware. The only way to stop them is to go up to Medium Crown Authority.

 

I'm loving this game at the moment. One little problem.

I'm fucking terrible at it.

I started out with Tyrconnel. It's basically my home county of Donegal irl so I felt like it would be a good start. Married into the HRE and a few other powerful families and things were going well. I wanted to expand into tyrone and spent about 200 years trying to make that happen but for the life of me I couldn't gain a CB. Things were going well though. I had some great rulers and things were looking up- HOLYMOTHERFUCKINGSHIT WHERE DID THAT INVASION COME FROM.

Connaught raped me out of nowhere with speed only seen in the Blitzkrieg.

Tried other counties in Ireland and failed with all of them.

I'm really just not grasping the mechanics at the minute. Does anyone have tips on how to gain CB or even just survive? -_-

 

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?592642-Capturing-territory-questions

That thread discusses how to gain CBs and capture territory from your neighbours.

 

Quick question (I thnk):

I did what yak mentioned and managed to marry my daughter matrilineally to the heir of the throne of France. He is actually a sibiling of the king. Right now, I can declare war on france to give the throne to my son-in-law, but he wont be my vassal since he isn't from my dinasty.... (Or so the tooltip says)

Suppose I overthrow the french king or assassinate him right now. I can later invite my grandson to my court and wage war against my son-in-law(now a King) on behalf of my grandson? And once he gets the throne, will he be my vassal?

(Right now my grandson doesnt have a claim on the kingdom of France, I dont really know why.. And he is like 1 year old)

Also, if the king of France manages to have a son my hopes of annexing France are utterly fucked.. heh.

 

I'm not entirely sure on inheriting foreign kingdoms myself. For example, I'm the Emperor of Britannia and my current wife is the Queen of Leon, an independent nation. My 5th son, Aelle, is the Queen's 1st son and her non-dynastic heir because Aelle is of my dynasty. I'm tutoring Aelle personally.

I thought that I'd come up with a brilliant plan. I'd off wifey and her kingdom would fall to my 5th son. As Aelle's father, tutor, emperor, and head of his dynasty, Leon should come into my domain and I would probably be my son's regent until he came of age. Not so. Aelle became the King of Leon alright, but Leon was still completely independent of Britannia and some nobody had been chosen as my son's regent. I couldn't even be his tutor anymore because that would be putting him in the hands of a "foreign power". I'm not a "foreign power"; I am your father!

edit: I reloaded the save and tried it again, but made Aelle a baron first, meaning that he was my vassal. Aelle and his barony still became part of the Kingdom of Leon and independent from me. When I made another son the King of Ireland, he was still under my rule as Emperor.

Also, I think that if you're a king, then you can't have a vassal who is a king. Your highest possible vassal is always one step below you, ie. a duke. For example I was the King of Scotland and Portugal. I decided to distract my eldest son, heir, and vassal baron by giving him the muslim lands of Portugal. Big mistake. He was a king in his own right, and while he loved me for giving him his crown, he was also automatically and completely independent from me. I suppose the two crowns would've been re-united when I died, but I didn't play that far.

My eldest son had ruled one of Scotland's baronies which subsequently became the property of the Kingdom of Portugal, though the County remained mine. A city and barony which I owned in Portugal remained under my rule too. When I called my son to war against England, he was able to muster his Portugese levy up in Scotland to march down and help us.

I wanted to give my son the city and barony which I held in Portugal, because it was causing a lot of friction between us, but there was no way for me to do so. He wasn't my vassal, so I didn't have the option of granting him a landed title any more. We had CBs against each other to claim our de jure baronies, but neither of us pressed them.

Your grandson seems to be in the line of succession [you can check by hovering the mouse over the flag of France], but I don't think he'll have a claim on France unless he has an opportunity to rule and misses out. For example, if your son-in-law becomes king and then dies, all of his children who don't become king will have a claim.

Err... I'm assuming that the position of king in France is passed along by Agnatic Primogeniture. I haven't looked.

The Duke of Toulouse in my game is wondering why he has five healthy daughters and a string of dead sons.

 

Started again with Ireland and so far things have been going smoother. At present, I'm the Duke of Connaught and Ulster and control the counties of tyrconnell, Briefne and Oriel. Leinster started a war which they had to back out of quicktime while I raped them but I didn't chase their lands as I was eyeing Ulster and Tyrone first. Forged a claim for Ulster and was about to invade when something I genuinely did not forsee happened.

Some cunt in Tyrone sent a group of eight year old boys to Rome and in return, the Pope excommunicated me.

Cue Scotland and England throwing rocks at me while they masturbated furiously at the thought of a foothold in Ireland. They descended like the fucking plague but I'm managing to hold them off. Just.

More on this story when I'm less shaken.