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Thread: How to master this game?

  1. #1
    The Wandering Storyteller's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default How to master this game?

    I am a total noob when it comes to Crusader Kings II now I have all the DLC

    I'm starting a youtube series but am not sure where to start!!!!

    Can you please give me some tips? Some help? Anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!





















































  2. #2
    Akar's Avatar I am not a clever man
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    Default Re: How to master this game?

    Start small and don't be afraid to get utterly destroyed, that's part of the fun! I've got like 2000 hours or so in the game so I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have.

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  3. #3
    The Wandering Storyteller's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: How to master this game?

    Quote Originally Posted by Akar View Post
    Start small and don't be afraid to get utterly destroyed, that's part of the fun! I've got like 2000 hours or so in the game so I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have.
    That's the exact plan! I'm going in with no idea of what to do and where to start - but a few questions:

    1) How do you build buildings? As a total war/civ player it's easy to just click the building and build it. How do you see your economy grow? Is it like pausing and pressing turn all the time?
    2) How do you manage your court? How do you gain political influence? How do you raise and recruit armies?
    3) How do you manage provinces? How does one even know what he's doing - like in RII you would be just building and upgrading your province - and you build buildings to gain money on top of that - how does it work in Crusader Kings II?
    4) One of the tutorials I am watching is that CK2 is meant to be a dynasty game, not like a faction game. How is diplomacy managed here?





















































  4. #4
    Akar's Avatar I am not a clever man
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    Default Re: How to master this game?

    1. A) You click on the province, then on the holding in the province. This will pull up a overview of the provincial holding and allow you to see the buildings and upgrade them further.


    1. B) As for seeing your economy grow; economic changes and growth occur every month. This is when money is added and withdrawn from your savings and when new additives and multiplicative factors are applied to the growth. If you build a building on the 15th of June, you won't see a benefit from it until the 1st of July.

    2. A) There are two aspects of your "court" as you called it. The first is the actual "court" as the game calls it, which is simply every in game character that is currently residing within your capital province. These are characters you can draw on for marriages, council positions, generalships, and so on. You don't really need to care about these characters unless they hate you, in which case they are likely to join plots against you. You can right click someone and have them removed from your court if the conditions are met.

    The second aspect is the council. These are typically either the most influential, the most powerful, or the most skilled characters in your country. Someone can only be appointed to the council if they are in your court or a direct vassal of yours. There are between 5 and 7 councilors, depending on the size of your country. These are typically the people you actually need to worry about, as depending on your laws, the council can have quite a bit of power over the country.


    What you call "political influence" is essentially Piety and Prestige, which are earned in a small amount monthly, as well as for completing events, winning battles, and so on.

    2. B) Armies are raised from the military tab. You have four different areas you can acquire troops from. Firstly, is your demense. These are all of the provinces and holdings that you directly own. You can increase the amount of troops you have through buildings. Manpower recharges slowly over time. You pay for these troops monthly, but only when they're raised. Secondly is from your vassals. All of your vassals will provide you a portion of their demense troops upon request. You do not have to pay upkeep for these troops, but you do lose -1 relations every month with every vassal who's troops you have raised. Thirdly, you have mercenaries. This is pretty self explanatory. These are expensive troops you pay a one time lump sum for as well as a monthly upkeep. This army will always spawn in your capital or adjacent to it. Finally, you have Retinues. This is the closest thing you can have to a standing army. You pay gold to recruit a regiment that starts as 1 man and then replenishes all the way up to full strength. Once at full strength, they don't have any maintenance cost. You can toggle the speed at which your retinues replenish (and therefor how much you pay for upkeep). These and your demense troops can be handy to keep in reserve to protect yourself against rebellion. Why use your own troops to fight a war when you can use your vassals?


    3.) That's pretty much how it works in CK2 too as well. Each province has multiple holdings (up to 7, I think?) and each holding has it's own set of buildings for it. These buildings increase all aspects of your economy. There are three types of holdings: castle, city, and church. I think I answered this question already above, but if I haven't feel free to follow up.

    4.) This is correct. Rather than playing as "The British" or whomever, you are instead playing as a specific family or dynasty. Think of it as instead of playing as the French, you're playing as the Capets. Your goal isn't so much to keep France alive as it is to keep your family alive. If this means you end up having to betray the King of France mid war to try to seize his throne or backstab him and join the Holy Roman Emperor, that's what you have to do to survive. The game ends when you have no more family left that can inherit your titles, rather than when your country is destroyed. I've had games where I started as a count, worked my way up to Emperor, lost the Emperorship, saw the entire empire including my Duchy get annexed by the Golden Horde, lead a revolt against the horde, and then reclaimed the Emperorship. All that matters is that your family survives.

    I think I answered all your questions, but if you have any others feel free to ask away.
    Last edited by Akar; April 26, 2020 at 09:04 AM.

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  5. #5
    The Wandering Storyteller's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: How to master this game?

    Hey Akar, thank you for this magnficient help you gave me

    I tried playing as the Marathas and got wrecked - the Mughals were sending armies and I had no idea what to do. It is clear I need to learn CK2 all over again. Where do I start? I got the DLC but I'm unable to enjoy any of it until I can figure out what to do in the campaign. It's no piece of cake like total war or civilization is where you click your faction, build armies and then build buildings.

    What campaign should I start? Where should I go? What was your personal exp with CK2?





















































  6. #6
    Akar's Avatar I am not a clever man
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    Default Re: How to master this game?

    Well, for starters you probably don't want to play as a large factions to begin with. Usually in strategy games the larger your empire the easier the game gets, but it's the opposite in CK2. The larger your empire gets the more complicated things become, and the more things you need to be doing at once. Every tier of government (count>duke>king>emperor) amount of things you'll need to manage. A lot of the enjoyment for me is in figuring out what to do, you just need to put yourself in a position where you can do that without getting on by the AI.

    The easiest way to start I think is to play as a count in France or the HRE, and ideally one who has more than one territory to their name. I would recommend starting after the viking age start date, so you wont have to deal with the annoyance of raiders as a new player. I personally like to create my own ruler and family since that adds to my enjoyment of the game, but it doesn't really change the difficulty any if you start as a historical character. Starting as a count means you'll have a duke (probably) to answer to, as well as a king, and perhaps even an emperor. This means the level of autonomous decisions you'll have to make are far, far fewer. You'll only have to deal with things on a local level. You won't be able to declare war on anyone else unless you both share the same lord (i.e, the same duke) or they are in another faction. You cannot be declared war on unless your liege is declared war on, so you'll have a degree of protection as well. Eventually, you can become powerful enough to challenge your own duke and take his title or even be granted a title by your duke's liege just to spite him.

    As for my personal experience, I started before they ever had DLC so I've gotten to play the game while it evolved and it let me be more slowly acclimated to the changes. Much easier to learn it that way than to be dropped in once all the DLC are out, but you're in for a treat as soon as you get the swing of things. I almost always start as a count with as little territory and power as possible since it usually only takes me a single generation to become an Emperor. Then it's just a matter of keeping control of things until they inevitably collapse and you have to start all over again.

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  7. #7
    The Wandering Storyteller's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: How to master this game?

    I see, its a lot of stuff. Should I just try and figure out what I'm doing? And eventually just play along?





















































  8. #8
    Akar's Avatar I am not a clever man
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    Default Re: How to master this game?

    Sorry it took me so long to respond, I didn't see your post here until just now. Hopefully you're still neck deep in CK2 (and your enemies/families blood).

    But yeah I think the best way to learn is to just dive in and immerse yourself. My most fun games are the ones where I lose but still come out with a great story at the end. I play the game really as an incredibly complex RPG, just focusing on what my character would do and trying not to meta game it too hard.

    Check out the TWC D&D game!
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