Crusader Kings 2

**eXistenZ** · February 01, 2015, 06:40 AM

Ive started as charlemagne, and it has been more annoyance untill now than anything else. factions all the times, and even when you become the HRE, everybody around you has a bigger army than you. You get an event to conquer saxony, and when you complete that, 1 second later 14000 rebel troops from widukind. Ad then the umayadds go for southern france (since muslims still havent been nerved)

**Gandalfus** · February 01, 2015, 06:56 AM

Yeah, I defeated Widukind or whatever his name is and then got no event to Do anything despite waiting about 15 years... And in that time I was in constant scraps with the massive Ummayads who just gobble up Asturias... I dislike playing the pre 1066 settings because without there being a divide in Islam they just manage to conquer everything.

**Yayattasa** · February 01, 2015, 08:32 AM

In my current gameplay the Umayyads converted to judaism, then to orthodox, then back to judaism. The Abbassids balkanized after a decadence revolt and it's already 1140, so they won't have time to prepare for the mongols. Oh, Seljuk died a natural death before launching his campaigns (I settled him in one of my baronies and got a matrilinear marriage into my dynasty). All in all, a good gameplay, though the germanics did not stand a chance to form their empire.

**~~Basil II the B.S~~** · February 01, 2015, 02:53 PM

I don't find Muslim factions that powerful in the 876 start, unless you play Zoroastrians of course.
Both Byz and the Karlings have a fairly easy time holding them off. Rise of the Shia helps as well.

**eXistenZ** · February 01, 2015, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by Basil II the B.S

I don't find Muslim factions that powerful in the 876 start, unless you play Zoroastrians of course.
Both Byz and the Karlings have a fairly easy time holding them off. Rise of the Shia helps as well.

starting in the 769 bookmark im now at 867, and the abbasids have taken almost all of asia minor. Byzantines cant defend themself at all.

**~~Basil II the B.S~~** · February 01, 2015, 08:18 PM

I don't have Charlemagne yet, but yeah, from what I've seen in that start Abbasids have pretty much the de jure lands of the Arabian and Persian empire, that's a gigantic blob for anyone to take. I suppose Paradox have made them in a way that they are likely to fall a apart, but likely isn't synonym of granted.

Still a fairly interesting challenge.

What's up with the Italian signature anyways?

**eXistenZ** · February 02, 2015, 12:01 PM

AC2 reference. I guess its up for renewal.

a game of 250 years has gone to

in basicly 1 minute. Since vassals with 100 opinion didnt vote for my chosen heir (who had as many good traits as possible), I had to implement ultimogeniture (was at medium CA). My ruler dies at 55, i play a 8 year old. My tutor decides to go derpy and give me cruel and content (while she was kind and ambitious), two requests for lower CA bring me back to autunomous vassals (couldnt even turn them down), follow by a independence declaration of 170% of my troops. (then why the

did you want lower CA if you're leaving anyway....)

And all what way of life focus gave me were

traits like stressed and depressed.

**~~Basil II the B.S~~** · February 02, 2015, 12:33 PM

Lol I'd be mad. The few times I had to deal with elective monarchies, I had awful luck and I generally prefer a careful ultimogeniture too. It generally results in some complications but there isn't really a way around . What are you playing as anyways?

**eXistenZ** · February 02, 2015, 12:47 PM

Started as Charlemagne. Before the dlc's, Elective monarchy was quite easy to maintain, but apparently they now coded it so that voters will prefer same culture candidates. And for catholics thats a problem, since you cant easily revoke/completly conquer titles and then hand them out to who you want the way muslims do. Bavaria and Italy constantly voted against me, and then frisia started to do annoying as well.

And yeah, i quited the game. The challenge was out anyway with being the HRE and having level 4 military organization, (which negates the pagan attirition), I was just playing on speed 5 to see what some of the focus traits do. And it was very dissapointing: rulership gets you depressed immediatly, theology focus didnt seem to do anything, and the hunter focus made you hunt a white stag you never got, giving you stressed, which made it so you couldnt hunt anymore (cause you cant have a negative health trait).

Will rack up some chievs in another game, but after that im off to EU4 I think

**~~Basil II the B.S~~** · February 02, 2015, 05:51 PM

Ugh those broken addons. For instance I love EU3 but the way hordes work in Divine Ruin basically killed any interest in playing in Asia.

**Candy_Licker** · February 03, 2015, 02:02 AM

Originally Posted by eXistenZ

Started as Charlemagne. Before the dlc's, Elective monarchy was quite easy to maintain, but apparently they now coded it so that voters will prefer same culture candidates. And for catholics thats a problem, since you cant easily revoke/completly conquer titles and then hand them out to who you want the way muslims do. Bavaria and Italy constantly voted against me, and then frisia started to do annoying as well.

And yeah, i quited the game. The challenge was out anyway with being the HRE and having level 4 military organization, (which negates the pagan attirition), I was just playing on speed 5 to see what some of the focus traits do. And it was very dissapointing: rulership gets you depressed immediatly, theology focus didnt seem to do anything, and the hunter focus made you hunt a white stag you never got, giving you stressed, which made it so you couldnt hunt anymore (cause you cant have a negative health trait).

Will rack up some chievs in another game, but after that im off to EU4 I think

Sounds awful. Reinforces my stance that the WoL dlc is a cheap unbalanced game breaker like the last ones. I appreciate it that they made elective harder to maintain, especially in the HRE voters should try to prevent that a dynasty gets too powerful. As the Ottonian dynasty was replaced, the Saxon Lords caused quite some trouble for many years because simply because the new Kings weren't Saxon. With relations of +100 relation of +100 it sucks ofc..

I'm playing the GoT mod currently, god I had a frustrating experience that caused me to ragequit. It's way harder to work your way up, since lieges have way better castles. Even with 2 counties I wouldn't stand a chance against his one. So I played the inheritance card, my heir had inherited a duchy, and as soon as my old ruler died I would take over with my heir. I couldn't do anything with my old ruler for decades since I he wasn an excommunicated dishonorable murderer, universilly hated. So just before the old hag died my heir found it a smart idea to become a rival of the Iron Throne and revolted against his liege with 200k men. So my only decent character would be banned to the nightwach. As I finally inherited the duchy with his incompetent brother, the capital holding was completely depleted ( takes a really long time in this mod till your levy recovers) So since I was so weak, the first vassal directly revolted. I defeated him, put him in prison, and since I had mercenaries in service, I thought I could make more use of them and start a de-jure war against another duke. I won that too. But yeah, he was pissed of that I subjugated him so ofc he would rebel against me right away. And now the first revolter escaped from prison and would also revolt against me again, leaving me with 2 revolters at the same time. As one of them called in a powerful lord, while my dynasty allies refused because my ruler was a wuss, I ragequit. I had waited for decades to rise up (I've never needed this much time before), and my dumb heir decides to screw things up before I can take over)

The AI really knows how to screw things up if it has any control over your fate.

**Yayattasa** · February 03, 2015, 06:51 AM

The theology focus allows you to become a pilgrim. It almost always get me the 'Holy' name. Stewardship focus is nice because it gives you +3 and architects will come sometime asking to build castles for you for reduced price (400 gold). Hunting focus is cool allowing you to hunt the white stag (or white bear) and organize great hunts. For some reason, I ALWAYS get wounded or maimed during those. The hunting focus also has the dog, which may launch curious events.

I always start with stewarship if my demesne is too big (I've maintained 7 counties and 3 baronies for over 200 years doing that) or scholarship (its event chain always launch easily, and it's quite cheap too).
Never use seduction or intrigue. Rarely use war focus (in its most common event someone always gets wounded). For some reason, the trade focus event chain launched just once in my current gameplay (7-8 generations I think).

If I'm the highest liege, then I might use the carousing or family focus.

**eXistenZ** · February 03, 2015, 07:20 AM

^^ Yeah but they didnt have to do a dlc for that. Things like pilgrimage and hunting were already in the game (and now basicly moved behind a paywall), and you could set ambitions to increase your skill. Its just annoying that the end of event chains of those focusses doesnt seem to fire at all in most cases (as you can see by the achievements), the epic hunt for example seems to have 1% succes chanche. And you pick up a lot of negative health traits along the way.

**Candy_Licker** · February 06, 2015, 02:54 PM

Anyone tried the Lux Invicta mod?

I've started playing, and I'm loving it. Crazy alternate history mod with no blobs but countless religions. Complete anarchy with every religion/heresy/culture/important dynasty you can imagine. Has lots if cool stuff like the Slavery mechanics from GoT

**General Maximus** · February 09, 2015, 07:20 AM

Half of my court has lover's pox, 1/3 of the vassals are known as "the Unfaithful" and such. And I have replaced my character's wife every few years because all of them have 2-3 lovers and I want a faithful one.

I seriously think they should nerf the seduction focus.

**eXistenZ** · February 09, 2015, 09:19 AM

Originally Posted by General Maximus

Half of my court has lover's pox, 1/3 of the vassals are known as "the Unfaithful" and such. And I have replaced my character's wife every few years because all of them have 2-3 lovers and I want a faithful one.

Including your sisters? mine said yes quite fast, but maybe she is just easy

**General Maximus** · February 09, 2015, 09:27 AM

Originally Posted by eXistenZ

Including your sisters? mine said yes quite fast, but maybe she is just easy

I was playing a honest, faithful and chaste duke, so I wasn't even the one behind all that. But in every game it is a huge mess now. Everyone is banging everyone of the opposite gender and whole world is full of bastards and rivals and imprisoned mothers.

Which is where my court has the scenario I mentioned earlier. Playing a morally strong duke but the duchy is ruined because all his wives keep sleeping with courtiers and vassal counts, while 95% of the courtiers themselves are debauched.

**Yayattasa** · February 10, 2015, 09:08 AM

Didn't help too much to me at all. It's actually funny to find the odd duke with over 15 children (I'm speaking about 2.3.2, not 2.3 btw).

**Gandalfus** · February 11, 2015, 12:12 PM

I found a russian duke with about 17 children, and only two of them were actually his. The other 15 were the children of various assorted counts and courtiers.

**General Maximus** · February 11, 2015, 01:36 PM

Was playing the game in the Third Crusade start date. Funny how Richard the Lionheart got cuckolded by his duke resulting in a bastard daughter, but didn't imprison his wife (a daughter of a minor count, somehow) or punish the duke. Then he went on to take three lovers and have 7 bastard children, including one from the same duke's wife, as that man died not long before from a wound and his wife was now married to some courtier.

He actually had only one legitimate kid in his life.

He went on to have 5 more bastards until his wife assassinated him out of rage. So much for a historical character.