Crusader Kings 2

[Goofy]

Alright so I'm a bit late to the party again - please excuse my laziness - but thanks for the discussion anyways, guys.

It should be noted, you can train your son until he's 13-14 then swap to someone else if you don't want him to get your own personal trait (midas touched, brilliant strategist or whatever). I do that very often, so I can pick 3-4 of his traits, he gets the personality I want from someone else and then I eventually get to use him.

Oh, you're right, I had almost forgotten that one. Definitely a useful trick. Back when I was new to this game I got some real bad heirs because of the moronic (yet skillful) guardians so I guess I've just not thought about it after that. That has changed since I read your post the day you posted it, though. Actually I recall it popped independently to my head at around the same time.

one gain plenty more piety by a small holy war or doing anything else religious. in my opinion it just a waste of trait.

Oh, you see it that way. Of course there could be more useful traits than that, but personally I don't wait until a more useful one appears. I rather get a decent trait on the spot. Although I'm not striving for Content, naturally.

As for the favourite traits, the ones I usually get if I can are Kind, Charitable, Gregarious, Humble and Midas Touched, of course. I'll choose Wroth over Kind if I'm in a bad need of army strength, but generally I find Kind better because of the vassal relation bonus (and higher diplomacy skill). Zealous isn't bad either. I guess the preferred basic traits are pretty much the same for everyone.

i believe it is 8. i recently had a situation where i consistently lost traits once above that number. it might have been a fluke, but it happend several times in a row.

Actually in this recent Muslim game of mine I had a character with at least 11 traits (including everything in the display line of traits - education trait, Hajajj, Scarred, Wounded etc.) for decades rather than years so it's either different for Muslims (don't think so) or you had some bad luck.

that is one of the stupid things in this game, too often one will become craven when leading an army but not while sitting at home. certainly, war might make one skitterish, but not so much in the eyes of ones men while leading them into battle.
the brave trait would protect against this happen.
my characters has a tendency to die rather young and horribly maimed.

Now this is funny, in my new Castille game my Tough Soldier character first turned into a Skilled Tactician and then into Brilliant Strategist. Quite the opposite of what happened in that earlier game. It's so cool to play this game after a break of one year, I'm still stumbling upon new cool patch features all the time.

Content is only ok as a vassal because your liege will like you more. Otherwise ambitious is much much more powerful, if maybe a little harder to get. I will always give titles to content or humble characters, never to ambitious, and I avoid proud.

Yeah, I don't think I've seen an Ambitious vassal that didn't cause problems. And of course I always prefer Ambitious to Content for my character, but you don't get the former that often.

As for keeping vassals in check, early on martial matters more, since the size of your demense is more likely to be close to the size of your vassals' territory. Later on the sum total of your vassals territory is probably much more than yours, in which case stewardship to raise your demense cap or diplomacy to offset any traits your vassals don't like is the way to go. Unless of course things are stable, in which case go for martial, and enjoy an enormous military.

Yeah, pretty much what I thought. In my current Castille game (20 or so years into it) I'm holding most counties within my kingdom to prevent powerful vassal revolts while I'm arranging things for the long term. I got Kinslayer already, too - I had to get rid of a kinsman holding the Duchy of Léon and three counties within it. And now my only allies, Navarra and Galicia ruled by my relatives, hate me for that. My economy sucks at the moment because of exceeding the demesne limit but at least there aren't problems I'm not ready to face, especially since my current (2nd) character is still a minor.

Actually I was about to do a stupid mistake already. In the beginning of the game my kingdom, Castille that is, had gavelkind succession. My heir was my brother, the King of Léon, and for some incomprehensible reason I thought it was bad because he was not a character inside my realm. So I changed the succession law to ultimogeniture... At the same time I was the heir to Léon, so if either of us had died I would've ended up with a character with two kingdoms, and I was too stupid to realize what's going on until I had changed the law.

My brother declared a claim war on the King of Galicia, a brother of ours as well, however, but I helped the Galicians and Léon got beaten badly. In the beginning of the game I had cherished the idea of having three or four separate Christian Kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula - I intended to leave my brothers' kingdoms untouched, I swear - but because that bastard for a king had already attacked a mutual ally I thought I had the right to do the same to him. So now I am the king of both Castille and Léon. I'm a bit unsure if I should get Galicia for myself, too. From a rational point of view I should do that of course, but I like the idea of having an allied Kingdom or two in the Peninsula rather than making all that land mine. It's boring to have the colour of your realm all around the place on the Independent Realms map if you know what I mean. Although I'm not sure I can trust those maggots anymore, since the first claim war.

Alright, alright, I can see you are not buying it. I'll go get Galicia.

...

So, as you can tell, I ended the previous game as the Umayyad sultan. That was because of, by the time I decided to leave the game uncontrollable, decadence. I guess the only way to keep that under control would be to limit the growth of your dynasty, but how exactly do you guys do that? The decadence revolutionists are awfully powerful.

Wow, my first wall of text in quite a while. I had almost forgotten how it feels.

[Basil II the B.S]

Well, try to keep as low as possible the number of sons and try to keep them at your court. They are easy to control in terms of marriages (eg don't actually ever allow them to marry, unless you die and start playing as one of them) and to kill if it's the case.

Kind of dumb, the Catholic King of Jerusalem converted to Levantine local culture and became the Catholic Sultan of Jerusalem. Before being wiped out by two jihads on his ass at the same time.

[Goofy]

Well, try to keep as low as possible the number of sons and try to keep them at your court. They are easy to control in terms of marriages (eg don't actually ever allow them to marry, unless you die and start playing as one of them) and to kill if it's the case.

Yeah, the problem in that first real Muslim game of mine was that I didn't know how to properly fight against decadence. I love having a lot of dynasty members I can give fancy titles and posts to (well the ones with no powerful claims anyways) but that seems to be a huge mistake as a Muslim ruler. Next time I'll be a lot wiser. And yeah I always keep my sons in my court, I never give them land save the heir.

Kind of dumb, the Catholic King of Jerusalem converted to Levantine local culture and became the Catholic Sultan of Jerusalem. Before being wiped out by two jihads on his ass at the same time.

Isn't that weird, right? I mean the Sultan thing. Shouldn't that be a Muslim-only thing? In my current game there's the Sultan of Barcelona, and he's Christian too.

[Stavros_Kalmpou]

Yeah, the problem in that first real Muslim game of mine was that I didn't know how to properly fight against decadence. I love having a lot of dynasty members I can give fancy titles and posts to (well the ones with no powerful claims anyways) but that seems to be a huge mistake as a Muslim ruler. Next time I'll be a lot wiser. And yeah I always keep my sons in my court, I never give them land save the heir.

After the Rajas of India, I personally have had no problems with decadence, since most of them are kind enough to accept my demands to straighten up.

[Goofy]

After the Rajas of India, I personally have had no problems with decadence, since most of them are kind enough to accept my demands to straighten up.

That sounds totally foreign to me - my relatives were so reluctant. Well, most times they would agree to straighten up just to turn decadent again after a time not that long, usually. And with each new ruler I'd soon rut out of piety since I had little cumulated beforehand. Now, in my current game my noble cause is to accomplish the Reconquista and push my earlier beloved Moors out of the Peninsula.

I wonder if the decadence thing might be bugged for me, though. I've had weird things happening with children's education all the time - characters accepting guardian proposals without me asking them, but the weird thing is that on multiple occasions I've had a character with like -200 opinion penalty on me because of "Lost Ward" or whatever that's called. At least that sounds damn bugged. I never made them mentors in the first place.

[Basil II the B.S]

On a side note, generally 90% of my family is on the frontline, no matter what. If they are bad generals they generally fight in easy battles against rebels. This ensures a good number of them gets killed on the battlefield. It's a good way to tighten up things if they are getting out of hand.

Essentially you don't want to go exinct if for some reason your main line dies but you don't want tons of candidates to your titles either.

[Salah ad Din Yusuf]

Isn't that weird, right? I mean the Sultan thing. Shouldn't that be a Muslim-only thing? In my current game there's the Sultan of Barcelona, and he's Christian too.

Sultan (Shultan in aramaic and shalit in hebrew) means ruler in arabic. It can refer any ruler.

[Goofy]

On a side note, generally 90% of my family is on the frontline, no matter what. If they are bad generals they generally fight in easy battles against rebels. This ensures a good number of them gets killed on the battlefield. It's a good way to tighten up things if they are getting out of hand.

My commanders are hardly dying in battles. So far this summer I've only lost like three... The reason might be that I'm not waging war a lot, and I win maybe 75 % of the big battles because of the normal difficulty, better preparing and, most times, superior troop numbers. Anyhow, I like the idea of keeping my dynasty alive and lively, and I also like giving surplus titles to my kinsmen to increase my dynasty prestige (though with careful consideration) so most times I'm not interested in killing them anyways. The ones causing a mess are an exception to the rule, of course, but in that case plotting would be the easy way to get rid of them.

I like to educate a lot of my kinsmen for commanders though. You'll never have enough good ones.

Sultan (Shultan in aramaic and shalit in hebrew) means ruler in arabic. It can refer any ruler.

You didn't quite get it. Why would a game made in English refer to a Christian ruler (duke or king) with an Arabic word? Makes zero sense, unless it's a historical fact that certain Christian rulers were indeed called Sultans in the western world, which I think unlikely.

[eXistenZ]

Well, try to keep as low as possible the number of sons and try to keep them at your court. They are easy to control in terms of marriages (eg don't actually ever allow them to marry, unless you die and start playing as one of them) and to kill if it's the case.

Kind of dumb, the Catholic King of Jerusalem converted to Levantine local culture and became the Catholic Sultan of Jerusalem. Before being wiped out by two jihads on his ass at the same time.

Decadence has become an empty feature now. Never give land to family members, and you're in the clear.

[John I Tzimisces]

edit

[absinthia]

has anyone made themselves a merchant republic, either by chance or design?

i have attempted to create a republic but to no avail.

i got the idea during a long running campaign when i created for a familymember a Reupublic of Saana and noticed i was his heir.
it did not work out though, some old kinsman inherited the pastrician house and not me. possibly it is the difference in succession laws.
yet i had ellective succession and thought that would be compatible, but perhaps not with the patrician succession.
something must have gone strange with this republic as it is only my family succseding and they are all old men.

then i made a test, using Bjørn Ironsides of Sweden.
due to stupid gavelkind rules i had to make my grandson patrician rather than my son.
i did not create kingdom of Sweden, but stayed duke. thinking the grandson would keep his primary title as they were equal in level.
but no, the realms did not merge.

so what would it take to inherit a patrician house and become republic?

[Salah ad Din Yusuf]

You didn't quite get it. Why would a game made in English refer to a Christian ruler (duke or king) with an Arabic word? Makes zero sense, unless it's a historical fact that certain Christian rulers were indeed called Sultans in the western world, which I think unlikely.

Why would they refer to greek rulers with doux and despot, greek words? Cultural distinction. If a king is of levantine culture he would refer to himself as sultan.

[Goofy]

If a king is of levantine culture he would refer to himself as sultan.

Alright, that's exactly what I meant - if it's a historical fact it makes sense. Though I'm not sure if the Emir/Sultan of Barcelona in my game is Levantine. I'll probably need to check that out. Thanks for the confirmation.

Why would they refer to greek rulers with doux and despot, greek words?

That's not quite the same as the case with a Christian sultan - I'm not wondering at the use of the word sultan, since it's an English word too these days, but rather why a Christian ruler would be called sultan, a word associated with Muslim culture. But you clarified that anyways. Just as a further example, I would be just as confused if I saw an independent Arabian Muslim doux in the game, since he should be an emir rather than doux.

Sorry if I seem to be making things bigger than they are, this is definitely not a big deal to me but it makes me curious.

Decadence has become an empty feature now. Never give land to family members, and you're in the clear.

How so? They will still become decadent (and procreate, although not as intensely according to my observations). Besides, most of the decadent dynasty members in my latest game were unlanded.

[Stavros_Kalmpou]

doux is not the greek translation of Duke. Instead, it is Doukas, but they changed it, propably due to the dynasty of the same name.

[absinthia]

unless i am mistaken doux is actually French for sweet.

[Goofy]

Makes things even more interesting then.

I believe the Barcelonian sultan/emir thing might have been bugged. I checked things out and couldn't find anything related to that anymore. And I know for sure he wasn't Levantine.

[Basil II the B.S]

doux is not the greek translation of Duke. Instead, it is Doukas, but they changed it, propably due to the dynasty of the same name.

Nah, Byzantines used a lot of Latin terms, even after Greek became the only spoken language. Doux goes back to the Roman Dux, commander, almost the same as Duke actually.
Dux (insert name of the region) was regularly used within the history of Byzantines until the very end, therefore it is actually accurate to use it.

[Salah ad Din Yusuf]

Alright, that's exactly what I meant - if it's a historical fact it makes sense. Though I'm not sure if the Emir/Sultan of Barcelona in my game is Levantine. I'll probably need to check that out. Thanks for the confirmation.

There were christian sheikhs, possibly emirs. Why not sultans?

[Goofy]

There were christian sheikhs, possibly emirs. Why not sultans?

This is getting circular now so I'll leave it here. Thanks for pointing that out though.

[ShockBlast]

Hey guys.

I`m quite interested in the mechanics of this game.

So if I become Kaiser or the HRE, for the example, should I give all the King titles away, keep one for me, or keep all of them?

I checked up the kingdoms and it seems the Kingdom of Germany is quite big enough and it can grow even bigger if I swallow Pomerania, and with time become the jure part of the Kingdom of Germany.

I`m leaning for keeping a King title for myself and making that kingdom quite powerful.

Is it a good strategy?