From Paradox rep: There are currently no achievements in the game, not by oversight, but intentional. They will come later, and by that, I don't mean in a hotfix, it will be a while. Sorry, I know lots of you enjoy achievements, I do too, but we had to focus elsewhere for this game to be as good as we could make it on release!

Just thought I'd post that if anybody was wondering, I was a little curious myself so I went to look for an answer.

King Ogier De Limoges takes the throne of throne of France after the death of the Great Queen.

First act as King: Shag his Brother's Wife :rotfl2:

Well now you sons of a silly person made me buy it. :stare:

First impressions. The interface is confusing. I'm sure I will get used to it in due time, but for now I'm constantly at a loss where to go or what to do. The system felt simpler in the prequel, especially finding what provinces belong to whom and who is related to whom. The information all in all is harder to find.

The counties don't seem to get much love. The original game was full of counties, whereas now they seem to be all duchies or kingdoms. I don't mind being a vassal to someone in the beginning, but there is now much less choice than in the first game, because the dukes simply own most of the provinces by themselves.

The dynasty system seems to be improved. I like how you can gain or lose prestige by marrying. Makes sense that your heir shouldn't marry a bloody peasant without someone snickering behind your back. The family tree is also novel, but I could do without it as well. Intrigue at least for now seems to be a more potential tool than before and I like the humorous touch in the events.

The tutorials were humorous too, but I think it wasn't intentional. Advanced tutorial about economy: "Economy exists. You make money with economy. You buy stuff with money. The end."

All in all, it's Crusader Kings alright. Will have to play a lot more to say if it's better or worse than before and probably wait for a few truckloads of patches as well. It would be unfair to compare this to fully patched CK + Deus Vult.

Just a few days ago I married my cousin, because she had a kingdom claim, she was down with it. Heck she grabbed my junk, and I was just a Duke. She was askin for it.

I wanted my own version of the inbred Charles V a few hundred years earlier. (silly inbreeding Hapsbugs)

We even had kids, our first was a set of twins, one was an imbicile, and the other stuttered. Something "bad" happened to the moron.

I then had extramarital sex with my sons wife and produced a bastard, which somehow died bloated and green, just like his moron half brother. Funny how that happens.

Then I inherit the kingdom of Aragon, and Leon. followed by a brutal war against Galacia which ends in a stalemate.

Then I got a Jihad called on me, and dealt with massive deathstacks from every mudpit from Iberia to the Levant.

Muslims are way overpowered in this game and the pope/crusades are not organized enough, my only complaint I think. Too many crusades seem to fail due to fractured forces, but the Muslim nations always seem to land persistant deathstacks.

HRE and ERE are kinda vastly overpowered as well. They seem to instantly jack crown laws up really high, really early and hamstring you as a Doux/Duke. Leaving you to yawning, and max time compression for years at a clip. Fighting for independance is suicide, you are just screwed, sitting on your claims, because you cannot wage war (nor can you afford to muster a 20k plus doomstack to oppose what they send if you rebel), due to crown laws.

Ugh. It's Crusader Kings, alright. There should be a sticker on the game's box: "Warning! Causes serious addiction!"

I have so far been playing in England. Started as a count, but was promoted to duke almost instantly. This felt a little too easy compared to the first CK where even becoming a duke was an achievement. Now my king was fighting a war and I was just sitting in my little county without doing anything. After the war he all the sudden said: "Hey dude, thanks, take a duke title!" Maybe it was all those "Have a nice war, sire!" -cards that I sent? You know, it's the intention that counts. :)

Now I have expanded to Wales province by province. I own everything in there except for one province. I'm trying to get the count there go independent, then declare war on him and press my de jure claims. I love those: being a duke of certain area, even if in name only, gives me a legal claim to all the counties in it. It makes sense. On the other hand, I'm a little disappointed with fabricating the claims: it feels too simple to just send the chancellor to a province and tell him to get me a claim. I wish they had somehow utilized the plot and ambition feature in this. The feature now feels completely useless.

I feel powerful enough now. I'm waiting and saving money, maybe getting a few more provinces still. Once England goes to another civil war (seems to happen fairly often), I'll hire all the mercenaries I can get and declare independence. Then I declare myself the king of Brythonia. The mercenaries are also a great addition in the sequel. Not only do they make historical sense, but now even a count with enough money can declare war on a much more powerful enemy.

Also, the family members are still a source of endless hilarity. I decided to give my son a duke title, because he was my heir and I wanted him to get some prestige already before I die. I just forgot that obviously he can't be my vassal anymore after that, because I'm a duke too. OK, fair enough. He now has his one province duchy, let him have it. Wait? What is he doing? No seriously, why is he raising levies? What is he going to do with those 250 peasants?

Oh, that's right. In his endless might and infinite wisdom he had decided to declare war on king of England in order to become independent. Needless to say it made it into the annals of world records under the title of "shortest war ever fought."


Yeah, I've seen people complaining about this on the official forum too (which, on a sidenote, is one of the worst cesspits I have ever visited in the internet.) I can't say I totally agree, at least not yet, but then again I haven't had almost any contact with them yet.

They are supposed to be advanced in this era, and they have easy time in Iberia where the Christian kingdoms are fractured. Invading the holy land, on the other hand, is going on a war far away in their heartlands. France could probably stop them, but it's pretty fractured as well and having its own disputes with the HRE and England.

However, the muslims don't seem to do anymore ridiculous sudden moves that they did in CK 1, like for example randomly invading Norway. So far in my game they have been content with staying where they are and strenghtening their power there. All in all, it so far seems very believeable to me. I'll come and join the general raging against them once I have played a little more and got my arse kicked by them. :DL

Playing CKII with Raptor
where I play a count part of the kingdom of Castille, and Raptor started off in Wales.
Since the Crown authority was low I immediatly plotted to take over my neighbouring count but my king said ''NO!!'' when raising the Crown Authority...

Fine...well if I can't have that county then I'll declare war on that kingdom right next to me (only consisting out of 2 provinces) when I got my claim and booted the king out, meanwhile my king was well underway slicing up the kingdom of Leon in several wars and also expanding to the east of Spain.

Navarra where the king I fought earlier now ruled was next on my list, got a claim and went to war. Meanwhile my king died and was his son took the throne a greedy little bastard as while I was trying to get Navarra for my own to grand myself title of Duke he made a claim on it as well...but I took it first :O:

However I message arrived that I should give the County to him....
after giving it a deep thought I declined and rebelled against my king :D
I thought I was doomed but apart from that his armies where weakened by beeing constantly in wars other counties rebelled against our ''Tyrant'' king too :haha: it couldn't get any better and thanks to fiances from Wales I could keep up the mercenaries I hired and managed to humiliate the king of Castille so much that his son took the title of King and he was demoted to Prince :rotfl2:

stuff like that makes the game just awesome.

Now I'm Duke of Navarra :rock:

HunterICX

Sheesh this can be frustrating. There is this apparently 1,000 years old English duke who periodically goes to war against the king of England to depose him, gets beaten badly, then waits and starts all over again. That one last county I want in Wales is his vassal. I have at least three times now tried to go to war with him when he is at war with the king to claim that county as my own, but as soon as I get my armies besieging his holdings, he makes peace with the king and then my war ends too, because the bloody king says vassals can't fight with each other.

It's an annoying stalemate. The king AI is too dumb to revoke the titles of that duke, apparently trusting that he won't start the next civil war after the, I don't know, fifth or sixth attempt at the same idiotic goal. The duke, on the other hand, will rather surrender to the king, spoiling his own little war, than make a separate peace with me and lose one county. Gah!!

Finally! I joined yet another civil war to lower the crown authority. It succeeded perfectly, and once the king became practically powerless, I was allowed to declare war on that idiot duke and claim my precious county of Powys. Then I still had to fabricate claim on Cornwall and take it too to have enough provinces for a kingdom. And then, finally, after over 100 years of vassalage under the cursed Godwyn dynasty, I managed to claim independence after another bloody war. Hooray!

My crowning ceremony for kingdom of Brythain could have gone better. It went something like this, I imagine...
Me: "And now, by the power of God almighty, I crown myself..."
[From the outside]: "TOO-TO-TO-TOOOO!"
Me: "Oh, how nice, you arranged a horn orchestra to celebrate me!"
Courtier: "Uh, sire, we did not."
Me: "Really? Then who is playing those..."
[From the outside, with heavy French accent]: "Sinner! Prepare to meet your devil lord and be cleansed by ze righteous fire!!"
Me: "Huh?"

Yeah, turns out some random French duchess had figured that since I had been excommunicated (on the request of some random Italian bishop I hadn't ever heard of), it was a good idea to declare war on me just for fun. So we went on this short little trip to tell her that a minor duchess starting a war against a man who had just made the king of England humbly bow before him twice now is not a good idea.

Just to be sure that it wouldn't happen again, I appointed an anti-pope. That should take care of that. The random French duchess was also nice enough to apologize for her silliness by paying me lots of money for all that wasted time. So after the little delay I continued the ceremony and happily became a king.

A screenshot of my kingdom (a moment before I formally became a king, but the provinces are all there).

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/3804/empirey.jpg

Once I became a king, the English king realized he still had some claims on my counties and insisted that I'd drive him back to Thames for the third time. He has since admitted that having his dog's niece's best friend's owner's namesake be a distant relative to one of my drinking buddies was a silly reason to start a war for. He has promised not to attack me again for the next 10 or so years.

Funny thing is, that truces in the game seem to be one sided: I never made such promise, and my last truce with him is expiring quickly. So my next plan is to usurp the duchy of Oxford from him (we keep usurping it from each other every few years) and then conquer the province to stop that game.

I echo what has been said in this thread earlier: this game is marvelous!

Also incredibly addictive and a giant time sink. The game is great pure and simple. Glad you are enjoying it!

I attempted a game as the vassal of the HRE. More specifically the Duchy of Toscana. I want to form an Italy for Italians, and push the Norman and Papal scum out, but my liege thinks his emperor title means something. He jacked the crown laws way higher than he should be able to early game, leaving me with my thumb in my rectum.

All he does is kill my damned levies fighting inconclusive wars. I want out.

Considering a war of independance is suicide, I see no other option than to suck it up. But it is not fun. :damn:

I played as a liege to England, Scotland, France, and Galacia, and they all let you brawl to your hearts content. They had no problems with you expanding there realms.

So I am asking, is there an alternative, except sitting on my thumbs, or picking a liege who isn't an emperor?

:down:Hey HRE/ERE? Real Romans are Italian. Fakers.:03:

Well that was short
my only son&heir Al-Duin finally got of age, got married and became incapable....game over :shifty:

love it :haha:

HunterICX

Yeah Paradox games are quite the opposite of other game companies.

Say you play Call of Duty, Assassins Creed, Splinter Cell: Conviction. etc.., you will eventually beat the game. Even if you turn it on easy, and cheat.

But Paradox games. You will lose. They are not happy unless you do. You can even cheat and still lose.
Losing is fun, but it stinks.

Which makes winning so much more fulfilling.

It is nice to see there are alot of intellectual gamers still around, who could appreciate games made by Paradox.:salute:

(here at least, all my friends are morons, still drooling over Call of Duty killstreaks)

There's a plot to start a civil war to reduce Crown Authority, you know. Just need to get a sufficient amount of Dukes to back you up...

Yeah. Will go for it, but I seek independence without a bloodbath. I can form the kingdom, but the Emperor title will always trump it. Making me simply a vassal king ("King in Prussia" situation comes to mind)

Pretty much a duke with a cool title, and a Duchy restriction. (in a game mechanic sense)

Freeeeeeedom!

I will stick with it, preserve titles, and hope to catch them during a civil war.

Or I can game the system and make myself a super-duke. :)
(super-dukes are epic, but very gamey)