Crusader Kings 2

[Mangalore]

I'm having quite a bit of fun with this game. Being a tyrant is awesome!

The nice thing about the game are the reversal.
Just had a king (called "the Cruel") die in battle, successor ascends the throne, BAM, successor gets assassinated on day 1 and the kingdom gets split in two because of a second kingdom title, sister of the original king now inherits half a kingdom at civil war with all the perks of a woman in a sexist environment and at the age of 47 with only few living children left. This might spell the end of the Great Danish kingdom...

Boy, now things will get complicate...


The contrast between smooth sailing and crisis is what makes this so great. With other games you peak out fast as soon as you consctructed a safe base, after that you simply choose to beat up the AI until you get bored, in Crusader Kings by design you can never beat the AI completely since you instate new competition as you vasall all the time.

[Påsan]

Thats why I hate all my Vassals and most of them ends up In jail.

[molonthegreat]

So, in the original game, Elective law meant the vassal who was the most powerful (IE, demense size/titles, adjusting for a few other factors) got to be the heir. In this game is it...actually elective? I can't just take the son of my choice, give him a bunch of titles, and he'll automatically hit heir status?

Yep, it's elective and no matter how many titles your son has he and the other dukes only gets one vote.

[Kanaric]

Yep, it's elective and no matter how many titles your son has he and the other dukes only gets one vote.

My sons always get elected owning no territory. I just nominate them.

[John I Tzimisces]

Yep, it's elective and no matter how many titles your son has he and the other dukes only gets one vote.

well, I'm honestly more concerned with what influences your vassals to vote for someone (or not), rather than their voting power. IE...is your relation to your vassals what compels your vassals to support the heir you've nominated? Is it their personal relationship to your nominated vassal?

[molonthegreat]

My sons always get elected owning no territory. I just nominate them.

Then your vassals must love you, I keep out if elective since it makes the most powerful Dukes pretenders and things can turn quite bad if your King is not beloved.

well, I'm honestly more concerned with what influences your vassals to vote for someone (or not), rather than their voting power. IE...is your relation to your vassals what compels your vassals to support the heir you've nominated? Is it their personal relationship to your nominated vassal?

I'm quite certain that it depends on the personal relationships in the realm.

[NONOPUST]

Patch Notes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It will be save game compatible. This is the preliminary change log:

v1.04

MAJOR:
- Revised the Message Setting system
- Religion groups are now marked playable in the religion file (no more hard coded rule)
- AI: Improved marriage acceptance. Smarter about "Desires Better Alliance". Values prestige gain or loss higher.
- Added some useful status info to the delayed character tooltip (similar to the info in debug mode)
- Cooldown added to excommunications (only for the same Pope though)
- Doubled the flanking damage bonus in combat
- Increased the flank leader Martial skill bonus in combat by 50%
- Nerfed taxes given by bishops to Anti-Popes by 50%
- Holy Orders now cost maintenance if you're in at least one offensive, non-Crusade war
- Halved all peasant revolt risk factors
- Added an "Isolated County" revolt risk modifier and cut the special events that used to simulate it
- Peasant Army size is now determined by the biggest holding garrison size (so they will always be dangerous)
- The Succession War CBs now have the proper success outcome
- Fixed a bug with the usurpation of titles that would hand over all vassals too
- AI: More wary of expensive assassinations
- AI: Fixed some issues with the correct Casus Belli choice
- AI: Tweaked vassal revolt risk to depend more on ambition from traits
- The duchies of Cornwall and Brittany are now de jure part of the Kingdom of Wales
- Buffed the Caliphates and the Seljuks. Nerfed the Byzantines.
- Added vassal Seljuk mercs; the Ghilman
- Now shows a portrait of the target in available player plots
- Hooked in missing plot icon in available player plots

MINOR:
- Upped the chances of dying due to disease a little bit
- Increased the effects of the genius, quick, slow, imbecile and inbred traits
- Reduced the levy size effect of some of the "recently occupied" modifiers
- Nominated bishops are now properly disinherited at once
- Combat events will not happen until three days into a combat (to avoid commander deaths and such when overrunning tiny forces)
- When an Anti-Pope is installed in Rome, the old Pope no longer becomes an Anti-Pope
- Waived the opinion penalty for held elector titles for elective duchies and below
- Fixed a CTD issue that could occur in tooltips when hovering over Holding modifiers as they expire
- Vassal mercs can now always be employed by their liege, no matter their religion
- Scaled wealth effects and triggers are now based on nominal peacetime income
- Fixed an error in the opinion warning when banishing characters (not the correct figure.)
- The game will now also auto-generate an appropriate number of traits for children with not enough scripted traits
- Added a text warning/explanation for DoW on a revolter
- Traits are now read from multiple files, facilitating modding
- Fixed an issue with event ids in a namespace
- Fixed an issue with flipping "random god names" tooltips in fire event effect tooltips
- Fixed a bug with the decision 'Demand Duchy from liege' with duke tier lieges (should not be available)
- Fixed a tooltip issue with the "any" type event triggers
- Better tooltips for event triggers 'higher_tier_than' and 'lower_tier_than'
- Re-enabled selection of the same type of plot again for players
- Fixed an issue with save/reload of the last selected plot/ambition
- Fixed an issue with protected inheritance not always working under Gavelkind
- Exported MAX_ELECTOR_TITLES_LEGALLY_HELD to defines
- Exported the max duchies held opinion penalty to defines
- Exported the tax penalty for bishops loyal to the Pope or Anti-Pope to the defines
- The "recently conquered" holding penalties are no longer applied during civil wars or wars between vassals
- AI: Fixed a bug where the AI would grant titles to vassal mercs
- Added 'same_guardian' trigger
- Slightly nerfed William of Normandy's initial army size
- Switched the portraits of Harold and William the Conqueror
- Changed some title colors to conform better to their cultural region
- Added proper history for the Prince-Bishopric of Agen
- The Earl of Atholl is now a _legitimate_ bastard

[BURNY26]

I have a courtwoman who has a claim on some welsh county. But I have no idea how to press it through? When I want to declare war to either the welsh king or the count or baron or ... ,it is grayed out...

[Ferdiad]

Anti-Pope got seriously nerfed.

[Cahoma]

I have a courtwoman who has a claim on some welsh county. But I have no idea how to press it through? When I want to declare war to either the welsh king or the count or baron or ... ,it is grayed out...

Codeword here is Woman. If your laws doesn't allow you to grant women land, you can't press their claim. Or something like that...

[hellheaven1987]

Anti-Pope got seriously nerfed.

Damned, how does anti-pope actually work? Besides, if I crush Papal States does that mean Pope die off (I was planning to do that in my heretic Welsh game so I don't need to face 7000+ Holy Order)?

The new patch needs to nerf HRE and France though; Byzantium is hardly powerful be honest (since those Romans are boxed by two super powers).

[Ferdiad]

If you have 500 piety and your excommunicated you can set up your own Pope, the Anti-Pope. All the Bishops taxes go to the Anti-Pope and he then pays you so you get lots more taxes. You also got easy Excommunications and Invasion CBs.

[hellheaven1987]

If you have 500 piety and your excommunicated you can set up your own Pope, the Anti-Pope. All the Bishops taxes go to the Anti-Pope and he then pays you so you get lots more taxes. You also got easy Excommunications and Invasion CBs.

Wait a minute, so does that mean a Cathar heretic can set up his own Pope too?

[Ferdiad]

No.

[hellheaven1987]

No.

Nooooooo!!!

That left me no choice but to adopt my final solution - invade Rome and turn it into a Cathar holy ground!!! May HRE would not go crazy about this (but then Apulia is completely overrun by Muslim now and HRE is not caring, so I should be fine too).

[BURNY26]

Codeword here is Woman. If your laws doesn't allow you to grant women land, you can't press their claim. Or something like that...

Im an Irish queen ,doesnt that imply women can have land?

[Ferdiad]

Wat, your post makes less sense than your sig.

[Cahoma]

Im an Irish queen ,doesnt that imply women can have land?

Can you grant land to women? Because I'm sure I've had laws that allowed a female ruler, but where I couldn't grant land to any female courtiers.

[hellheaven1987]

Can you grant land to women? Because I'm sure I've had laws that allowed a female ruler, but where I couldn't grant land to any female courtiers.

The gender law only allows woman inherit land if there is no male, unless you are Basque (which only Navara is in the begin of game). You can, of course, swear loyalty to Navara, change your culture to Basque and left that kingdom all together.

[John I Tzimisces]

If you have 500 piety and your excommunicated you can set up your own Pope, the Anti-Pope. All the Bishops taxes go to the Anti-Pope and he then pays you so you get lots more taxes. You also got easy Excommunications and Invasion CBs.

well, bishops who have higher relations with the anti-pope than the pope, anyhow. And then, of course, the liege of the anti-pope gets a cut of the taxes, which is the bit that's getting nerfed.

I'm glad to see a byzantine nerf tbh. I see them get pretty nasty civil wars but I haven't yet see them dissolve or become crippled in the 1066 scenario, which is to say, you won't see a remotely historical outcome from manzikert, and anatolia, rather than be plunged into centuries of near anarchy, becomes the insanely wealthy base for their 100k man armies.