Crusader Kings 2

[iudas]

Is there any way that I can increase my chances of a succesfull assassination?

Send your spymaster to build a spy network in the province where the target resides.

[Musthavename]

Alright, this is weird, not sure if this is a bug.

I'm King of Ireland. I have 8 daughters (yes, I know...). Now, i've got primogenture (spelling?), and the eldest daughter is in a marriage to the King of Scotland (who is also of my dynasty) - the plan being that the eldest child they had would become King of Ireland and Scotland. Now, for some random reason, my second eldest has been selected as my heir completely out of the blue, despite being younger. Annoyingly, she's married to the King of France in a patrillineal marriage, so if she were to inherit my titles I presume it would be game over on her death unless I went on an asssasination spree since the heir would not be of my dynasty.

The only thing that's happened is Scotland has entered a civil war - but why would this cause the game to suddenly ignore the "eldest inherits" law?

Edit: Really weird. About 2 years later it returned to normal with that civil war still ongoing.

[Vanoi]

One last question guys

For anyone who has the CK2plus mod, i am trying it out, but have a question. Is almost every country NOT supposed to have any technology level whatsoever?

[nhytgbvfeco2]

in vanilla only muslims start with good tech, except for military tech which almost every one has on the lowest level

[Vanoi]

in vanilla only muslims start with good tech, except for military tech which almost every one has on the lowest level

Well i stopped using the CK2Plus mod anyways. thought it would make the gamer better, only made it 10x harder.

Guess i am just bad at the game, but it takes me like 20 or 30 years before i can do anything really in Ireland.

[Cúchulainn]

Something that really must be addressed is the out-numbed bonus.
The fact that the smaller army always loses the engagement, regardless of terrain or morale.

Case in point:
During a crusade my 6k army was attacked by a 7k Sunni Caliph army. This wasn't an ambush were they are attacking me during a siege.
I was waiting for them in territory occupied by me. They lost approx 2k men, I lost everyone.
That has happened even when I am attacking Muslim armies.
Out-numbed Al-Andulas by 1k men, destroyed their army.
Despite the fact that for the last decade I was running from them.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

i had my 3k army defeat a 5k army attempting to cross a river to attack me, so being outnumbered does not automaticly mean you lose.it's quite common that i win battles while being outnumbered, and sometimes i lose battles while i outnumber my enemies.
the reason you're loosing might be not just because of superior enemy numbers, but superior enemy tech and thus equipment, or their general is far better then your general. there are many modifiers.

[Påsan]

Best way to expand by far is holy wars and crusades. I started out as the isles in western scotland. Taking Ireland and Scotalnd took forever. However after stabilizing there I went on a series of crusades and holy wars that have gained me most of southern Spain and Portugal, Morocco, Sicilia, Tunis, Denmark, Genoa, Corsica and the duchy of Alexandria. I am insanely powerful and make 35g with more than 50 000 raisable levies.

Holy war have so many advantages like instant claim to ALL territory, Crusader Orders (I use them to hunt around for armies while my levies does the sieges) you get financial aid from the pope and you can wage war after war if you dont give a crap about Muslim leaders opinion of you. Also you get the crusader traits and the pope and the church loves you.

When I take a territory I just give all the territory to people of my own culture (Scandinavian) and they will convert the populace for you.

[Mangalore]

I'm about to rule a kingdom of children... After my last king managed to change the succession to primogeniture he got busy smashing every vasall that didn't like it. Now he's dead and my new king aged 11 has his regent smash every vasall that doesn't like it. Currently alot of dukes and duchesses are still having their diapers changed because everyone else is trying the game of thrones and gets owned. The fun part is that my denmark is far more stable than neighboring Sweden (locked in a three front sucession war for nearly a decade now) but you wouldn't know it from the map... only from the end result once the sieges end.

Maybe my new king will inherit a new order allowing him to inherit Brunswick (got to assassinate his younger brother though...) and conquer Scandinavia...

[Ciabhán]

For anyone who likes to form the Kingdom of Ireland, how long does it take you to do so?

I can pull it off in 10-15 years from Earl. Save up for the first upgrade to castle. Build that and you have a larger army than your neighbour. Take a neighbour and you have more soldiers than anyone else on the island. It snowballs fast. The only thing that doesn't make it even faster is that annoyingly long 'recently conquered' penalty.

[xcorps]

Something that really must be addressed is the out-numbed bonus.
The fact that the smaller army always loses the engagement, regardless of terrain or morale.

Case in point:
During a crusade my 6k army was attacked by a 7k Sunni Caliph army. This wasn't an ambush were they are attacking me during a siege.
I was waiting for them in territory occupied by me. They lost approx 2k men, I lost everyone.
That has happened even when I am attacking Muslim armies.
Out-numbed Al-Andulas by 1k men, destroyed their army.
Despite the fact that for the last decade I was running from them.

Two words.

Heavy Cavalry. You will own Muslims.

[SLN445]

Soooo how does inheriting other kingdoms work? should i marry my children to heirs or kings/queens of other factions? ect

[Vanoi]

I can pull it off in 10-15 years from Earl. Save up for the first upgrade to castle. Build that and you have a larger army than your neighbour. Take a neighbour and you have more soldiers than anyone else on the island. It snowballs fast. The only thing that doesn't make it even faster is that annoyingly long 'recently conquered' penalty.

How do you get cacus bellis on everyone to invade them?

[xcorps]

You need to invite courtier who have claims to titles, invent it with your Chancellor, and use Usurp. You can roll up Ireland in a single kingship. After you have established the Kingdom, the independants will usually accept your offer of vassalship. By the time your heir becomes King of Ireland, it's possible that you have revoked all the titles in Ireland into your demesne and when he takes the throne all he has to deal with is mayors and bishops.

I ran into a brick wall at that point. Scotland and England were united under a single ruler. I went to Iberia, but the Muslim hordes overwhelmed me. I should have waited for the Holy Orders to form.

I started a new game in Brittany. Third ruler in the line has about half of Ireland. I think I need one or two more counties to form the Kingdom. Unfortunately, my King was assassinated or something, and his heir is Slow and has no diplomacy or or Stewardship. (how does THAT happen when you have a genius touch of midas mother). I have to deal with a demesne of 11/4, not sure how I'm going to proceed at this point.

[Ferdiad]

Try becoming a different religion as well.

[Vanoi]

You need to invite courtier who have claims to titles, invent it with your Chancellor, and use Usurp.

I have invited courtiers to my court before and used their claims to declare war on other counties. however this does not help me, considering even if i do win the war, i do not gain control of the county. The courtier who i invited does.

As for the Chancellor, i have done it before. It just takes forever to work.

As for usurp i have also done it, but only on other duchies. I have never seen it work for a county.

[xcorps]

You have to bring the courtiers that you are going to press a claim for into your dynasty. I'm not exactly sure how that mechanically falls out. I was able to get a courtier that had a claim on Ulster and Dublin. I married him to someone that was a blood relative and pressed the claim. (I think I had also titled him, I can't remember) After I won, he was my vassal.

You can't usurp a county, it's just for the Duchies and Kingdoms. But it does give you causes belli on the other counties in the usurped Duchy.
There's 3 duchies in Ireland. If you get 1 county of one, and two counties of the other two, you have causes belli on three more counties without any effort except the usurp fees. But from what I've seen, once you have two, the rest of Ireland accepts you when you offer vassalship. (Assuming you create the Kingdom, I wasn't able to get a county to accept when I was a Duke). You are pretty much restricted at first to just the adjacent counties. Anything that doesn't border your realm gets a diplomacy hit (a big one) for being a distant realm. Probably be able to overcome that later in the game as your power increases.



xxxxx
Do NOT get excommunicated. Unless you are prepared for your ass to be handed to you on a silver platter. I didn't realize until just now that it's causes belli, and you become everyone's jailhouse .
Offering peace get's you kicked off the throne, and your new ruler has to deal with rebellions, negative income, and no troops.

So yeah. Time for an autosave.

[Goofy]

Alright, this is weird, not sure if this is a bug.
I'm King of Ireland. I have 8 daughters (yes, I know...). Now, i've got primogenture (spelling?), and the eldest daughter is in a marriage to the King of Scotland (who is also of my dynasty) - the plan being that the eldest child they had would become King of Ireland and Scotland. Now, for some random reason, my second eldest has been selected as my heir completely out of the blue, despite being younger. Annoyingly, she's married to the King of France in a patrillineal marriage, so if she were to inherit my titles I presume it would be game over on her death unless I went on an asssasination spree since the heir would not be of my dynasty.
The only thing that's happened is Scotland has entered a civil war - but why would this cause the game to suddenly ignore the "eldest inherits" law?
Edit: Really weird. About 2 years later it returned to normal with that civil war still ongoing.

This happens to me usually with every character. However, it usually takes only a couple of months (well, maybe one year) to return to normal. At first I was wondering what caused that, but now I'm quite sure it's a bug. Not a very remarkable one, as it is in effect only a few months - two years is quite a lot though.

Two words.

Heavy Cavalry. You will own Muslims.

Yeah. Later on I start focusing on HC stables. They're quite effective because there's no spear advantage against cavalry in this game.

I don't know if there should be one though... Now troop numbers play a very big role.

Soooo how does inheriting other kingdoms work? should i marry my children to heirs or kings/queens of other factions? ect

It works in the same way as all inheritances. So, you can't inherit a kingdom unless the ruler of that kingdom is of your dynasty.

Marrying your daughters to princes might still help you if you can do that matrilineally. The children will get a claim on the crown and will be of your dynasty, and if they take over the rule in the realm through a civil war you may get in the line of succession.

Kingdoms are quite unlikely to inherit outside the realm though.

[SLN445]

Oh thats another question, what do the different types of marriages do? mainly Matrilineally.

[xcorps]

A matrilineally marriage means that the husband joins the wife's dynasty and all heirs are of the wife's dynasty. You can get rid of potential title claim crisis by setting up a matrilineal marriage. The husband is basically "kicked out" of your dynasty. For instance, if there is a half brother that has a claim to one of your duchies and you marry him off in a matrilineal marriage, his children will not inherit his claim, though the husband will still keep his own claim.

It's very difficult to set up one of your daughters for a matrilineal marriage for even a count though.

You have to be careful about who you marry your daughters off to. It's possible that succession laws will give her children a claim to one of your counties, or even a duchy if you screw up. You might end up fighting a claim war against the HRE in the middle of a crusade 100 years after you marry her off.

The different inheritance laws that apply for different dynasties make it extremely likely that at some point there will be a claimant to one of your titles pop up somewhere very unexpected. You have to pay attention to who has claims to your stuff. If you are following for instance agnatic primgenature succession but a dynasty that you married of a child to is basque, they might be following absolute cognati elective, and that could create unexpected claims because the dynasty you married into isn't paying attention to whether their claim meets your inheritance laws. I somehow managed to get into a fight with the Poles over Ulster. Apparently a daughter I married to a Byzatine prince survived him and was married off to a Pole. The child of their marriage had a claim, and the Poles used it.