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03-25-12, 03:31 AM | #46 |
Sea Lord
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I have been an idiot. I should have remembered the most important lesson from CK 1: make love, not war. I have been wasting my time and resources on useless wars for single counties, when I could have just as well been making babies and getting it all that way.
I'm correcting the mistake as we speak, though. Once I got Oxford and pressed the claim of my vassal for the county of Dewon, I realized that England has been divided by only very few individuals who have ridiculous amounts of titles. And daughters. The duke of Lancaster was overjoyed when I proposed that his daughter would marry me, a king. Think of the prestige, man! Unfortunately my dear future father-in-law, who was like a real father and a genuine idol to me, never got to enjoy that prestige, because in the wedding he suffered an accident involving steps of a tower and banana peels. My baby mach...dearest wife made me a few children. Unfortunately our marriage was a short one, because after a few children, she too went to investigate the tower and didn't notice the bright yellow bastard on the steps. I was overwrought with grief and can only hope that her heir, my son, can be as good ruler to the lands of Lancaster as she was. While I will never get over the loss, I'm sure this was the will of the almighty. Funny thing how I always told her: "Dear, we should have only a few sons, not more, because then they will start arguing about the lands and cause a huge civil war in the future." My poor first born son was lonely without her mother. I tried to fix the problem by getting him a friend. The duke of York (and a few other prestigious titles) fortunately had a daughter of about the same age as him. I'm a little worried how it goes, though. The duke seems to be cursed for his sinful life, and for some reason all his sons have been meeting their fruity end while playing in the tower of his castle. I have forbidden my son and his future wife (now the heiress of the duke) from ever going there. My people have been worried and asking: "sire, this is a temperate zone (whatever that is), where do all these bananas come from?!" How should I know?! Maybe they migrate or something! The swallows could carry them. African swallows! - - - - - - On a more serious note, how do you guys handle vassals? I have so far noticed that making my brothers vassals is a bad idea, but more distant relatives such as uncles are pretty safe. Do you give lots of land to a few vassals or divide them among many vassals (that would make the rebellions easier to put down, but then you would have to take care of the relations more). The antipope is great. I can randomly excommunicate anyone I don't like in my realm and take everything they have. It's almost too easy. Especially good for rebellious vassals, since then you can take their titles away without anyone complaining. I have noticed that if you put down a rebellious vassal in a war, you can only revoke one title. That doesn't make any sense: he has clearly shown that he wants my head on the block, so why would I let him keep any titles at all? The warscore is pretty wonky. It seems that I can slaughter the English king's doomstack and it gives me a few percents of warscore. Then he retreats to the North, finds a few hundred of my Irish allies in there being drunk and doing nothing, drives them back to the sea and it suddenly makes my warscore go to negative?
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03-25-12, 09:04 PM | #47 |
Commodore
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Michigan, USA
Posts: 601
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Personally I opt for having lots of weak vassals over a few strong ones. I tend to have lots of counts, and then just a few dukes so I don't have my hands full if things go south.
As for the not being able to strip titles, I have no idea, I suppose its just a gamey rule. Obviously yes I'd strip the guy of all power and banish him from my realm but you have to do it in a 10 step program of giving him chances until you finally have taken all of his lands and then can banish him. The warscore is wonky as hell no doubt, but I think it has factors and 'points' under the hood we don't understand. For instance I was at war with scotland as England I had to nearly take all of scotlands lands for my war score to get 50% but they took york and I get -75% out of no where. That said I defeated the king of scotlands army at a war score of -90% and captured him and instantly got a 100% and the war was over. |
03-26-12, 04:07 AM | #48 |
Rear Admiral
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It doesn't get any better then rebelling against your king, defeat his mighty army and capture him in the process
but that's not even the best part...shortly after that the pope excommunicates him So....*slides thumb over the blade of his axe* KNEEL! HunterICX
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03-26-12, 06:36 AM | #49 |
Sea Lord
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It's official: the kingdom of Brythain has finally united the lands between Wales and Northampton, the ancient home county of my dynasty. This was mostly because the duke in the middle of these lands decided to go heretic. Being a good catholic that I am (what do you mean "-200 piety"?!), I declared bunch of holy wars on him to bring the only true faith back to these lands.
It sort of worked. I got the lands, alright. But then my subjects realized that the heretics have much more fun in parties and they started converting to heresy instead. It's spreading like a wildfire. I think my "screw the pope" policies for the last three or four generations may have helped in disillusioning my people. The inheritance scam worked perfectly: I now own all in all about 47% of the English counties and am still going to inherit at least a few. Once it goes above 50%, I'll usurp the title of king from that current monarch, whoever he is. I these days count them more as wars than persons and I'm not sure if they are even Godwins anymore. What I didn't see coming, however, was the second most important lesson from CK 1 to bite me in the arse: "Your first born son and the most likely heir is inevitably an imbecile." Once my old king kicked the bucked and sonny inherited, I saw that he had been busy while being vassal under the English king: not only had he managed to get himself excommunicated, he also had converted to heretic himself. A bastard son crowned it all, but at least he had at some point managed to get properly laid as well. Also, all my careful tutoring was right next to wasted, he was now literally a walking collection of sins and bad traits. Ooo, joy... I divided the kingdom heavily among sycophants to avoid demesne limits and rebellions. The current king was already in his 40s when he inherited. I'm waiting for him to die, so that the next heir can inherit the duchy of York and there will be progress again. You know what the best part is? I was so sure of this drooling moron's inevitable success when he was born, that I wanted to have some fun and ironically named him "Bernard".
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03-27-12, 05:39 PM | #50 |
Der Alte
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: New Jersey, USA
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I just had the oddest game.
I am playing as a duke in england, forgot his name ATM, he didn't last long. The fella NE of English crown lands with 3 counties. I (out of luck) assassinated the King Of England, which ended the war with Norway (for some reason) Willy the bastard was easily dealt with afterwards, without any intervention by me. I marry Urrakka of Navarra. Then get 3 lucky assassinations off. She is now queen of Navarra, with my son in line. I then plot on 2 English kings and kill them, to the point where my hier is in line for the throne of Navarra and England. I am on top of the world. Sadly England seems to be jumping into every stupid holy war the HRE decides to push, and kills my Duke in combat (as he was leading an army) Then all hell broke loose. My heir was 2 years old, and he was assassinated by Urrakka who was heir to everything. Dynasty over. Meltdowns happen so fast. Urrakka is just a nasty woman. Always is, in every game I play. No wonder I screwed all my courtiers.
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If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. -Winston Churchill- The most fascinating man in the world. |
03-27-12, 09:24 PM | #51 |
Commodore
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Michigan, USA
Posts: 601
Downloads: 38
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You can have all the experience in the world and a grand scheme laid out but this game will brutally punish you everytime.
I try my best to find the balance between kissing ass, and grabbing power. Its hard, but if you can have enough friends and few enemies you can 'survive' the game. My biggest problem is I always get greedy and inevitably everything goes south and fast. |
03-28-12, 03:57 AM | #52 |
Rear Admiral
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You tell me
Rebelling against your king while that brat has 10.000 men.... ow and assasinating him....brightest Idea...he assasinates right back at yah and he does succeed HunterICX
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03-29-12, 09:03 AM | #53 |
Sea Lord
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Great. Just great. Now it's history that comes foiling my plans. History of all freaking things! I never thought my major subject in uni would make me curse when playing a game (otherwise occasionally of course).
I finally did it. I took the crown of England. It took ages, because the game has a weird "you can't usurp a title when the holder is at war" rule. The English king was fighting literally decades with somebody, and just as he stopped one war, he or someone else started next. Once he finally stopped even for one day for tea and biscuits, I knocked on his door and said: "Hi I own, like, over half of your kingdom, so hand over the crown." Then became a problem: I noticed that as his last evil trick against my plans, the English king had in his infinite wisdom implemented a seniority succession to England. So all of that precious land and power was going to someone completely else than my heir. Sure, still to the dynasty, but I had worked 200 years to get that bloody title just out of spite. I was not going to lose it after just one generation! So let's change the inheritance law... Then came history and foiled all my plans. History, which helpfully reminded me what the medieval society was like. First of all: I couldn't implement a primogeniture, because the crown authority law was only medium. And I couldn't raise crown authority, because I myself had lowered it from high to medium in order to make my rebelling vassals like me more. OK, OK, I get it that there are laws even in medieval England! Fine! Let's not implement primogeniture then! We'll make this a happy elective democracy, where everyone who wants to live is going to vote for my son. Oh wait, I can't do that either. Why not? Because the game, once again historically, says that I can't rock the boat if there is even one vassal more important than a freaking count that has a negative opinion of me. Reading this made me want to quote king Foltest from the Witcher: "I'm a %¤#* king!!" No, no you're not. You're just a man with a funny shiny hat. Power equals vassals. That's history for you. After that people who didn't like me started mysteriously slipping on banana peels again. I replaced them with the best yes-men I could find: so what if this guy is an incapable imbecile dwarf, he bloody likes me and the other guy doesn't! So now England is a happy elective kingdom, where everyone who doesn't vote for my son gets an extra ration of vitamin B6. At least until I can implement higher crown authority and make it a primogeniture. Oh, and when I said that the first born son is inevitably an imbecile, I didn't think fate would take it so literally. Guess which trait my current ruler has? The vassals hate him, ladies especially because they all have "attraction for imbecile" penalty. Oh, and then one male duke had that too. I'll let you imagine which trait he had.
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Хотели как лучше, а получилось как всегда. |
03-29-12, 09:16 AM | #54 |
Navy Seal
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Stavka
Posts: 8,211
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Didn't you have any slightly less incompetent second-born that could be arranged to take the throne instead of the useless first-born?
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03-29-12, 09:29 AM | #55 |
Grey Wolf
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Dark forest
Posts: 793
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Classic CK: just when you have finally accomplished everything you dreamed of, all goes wrong.
Still, this is a game where I don't mind losing.
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“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.” -Henry David Thoreau |
03-29-12, 09:50 AM | #56 | |
Rear Admiral
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Quote:
HunterICX
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03-29-12, 10:05 AM | #57 | |
Sea Lord
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Quote:
Once I realized that I was going to lose my kingdom to an imbecile (literally), I tried assassinating him multiple times, but it didn't succeed and eventually I ran out of money too. I also tried seeing if there was any loophole I could use to put him in prison and execute him, but no. I even tried giving him a bishopric, but it didn't succeed either, because I had already made him a duke in Ireland for early prestige gain. Then the already old king passed away, and ding, all hail King David II "The Moronic". In retrospect I should have just imprisoned and executed him and take the tyranny penalty, because the old king was going to die soon anyway. It's still manageable. He isn't going to expand the kingdom a lot, because all the time is spent watching the vassals, but on the other hand he has forced me to pay extra attention to the stability of the realm. I don't think I have ever, either in CK 1 or 2, switched vassals so often and spent so much time in finding the most compliant sycophants to be my dukes. Once his hopefully more competent son inherits (yes, the imbecile at least managed to get laid), the stable kingdom creates opportunities for some crusading or otherwise productive stuff. Disclaimer: "That's the plan!" Aye, I'd say it's one of the funniest things in this game, the positive frustration. "Why doesn't anything ever go as I wanted" is actually a good thing for once.
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Хотели как лучше, а получилось как всегда. |
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03-29-12, 10:24 AM | #58 |
Navy Seal
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Stavka
Posts: 8,211
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If you had an elective monarchy, couldn't you just vote for a competent heir and have him elected? I'm not sure what determines who your vassals vote for, but I managed to get non-first borns to be elected when I tried a few times (Usually when other children were in line to inherit titles or claims) so I think they follow your vote if they like you enough.
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Current Eastern Front status: Probable Victory |
03-29-12, 10:43 AM | #59 |
Sea Lord
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England became elective only under the imbecile. Only he got the title because, as I said, the former English king was too busy having wars to listen to my old ruler telling him facts about his quickly disintegrating realm. Had it not been for the imbecile, I would probably have had vassals like me more, wouldn't have had to lower the crown authority and England would now be a primogeniture like any other civilized kingdom.
Curious by the way, have you found any historical characters from different eras? I know that at least el Cid exists, and traced Alexander Nevsky down today. Then the kings are probably all historical when the game starts. Habsburgs exist as a dynasty, or so I've heard: I think they start as counts. Any others?
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Хотели как лучше, а получилось как всегда. |
03-30-12, 11:33 PM | #60 |
Sea Lord
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Patch 1.05 should be here in a few weeks. Paradox has released some information about it, and so far it sounds good. The crusading mechanism was good as it was, I think, but I still like it that they are paying extra attention to it, since it is (or should be) a major feature in the game.
I'm just hoping they add at least at some point the ability to ask the pope for a crusade. Right now the AI handles it, and doesn't always do a very good job. Uh, sure guys, let's all attack together a meaningless little North African province in the middle of the Sunni caliphate, while at the same time the muslims just ransacked all the wine cellars in Northern France. The distantant targets might also be, why the AI kings rarely go on a crusade in the first place, and the meaningless little North African province can stay as the crusade target for over 100 years. Maybe if there was a possibility to have a few crusades for different targets going on at the same time? The first DLC has also been announced. I'm underwhelmed. The "major DLC" is a vanity feature that many other games have implemented from day one? Name your own dynasty? Build your own character? I can't see myself paying for this, unless it's part of a larger pack. I wish they had focused more on a real expansion-like DLC that could have been more expensive, but added some major ingame content, like playable muslims and pagans. This one, in my opinion, goes right down to the "horse armor" and "pink skin for your favorite gun" category.
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Хотели как лучше, а получилось как всегда. |
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