Crusader Kings II

[jpublic]

So. I started as a Danish count, because Vikings are awesome.

I decided my ambition was to be the royal chancellor, and sent mine over to his county to improve relations.

About a year later, whilst I was negotiating a marriage for my half-brother heir (who was actually a better man than I was, at the time), my leige decided to go after some heathens in Finland. As a loyal vassal, I picked up 250 or so levies, and joined his forces. I was about 1/8th of the total army - about 2000.

We invade the Finnish province, and are handily beating down the defenders of 1200, when out of nowhere a force of 2500 shows up and demolishes us. I'm captured, and my captor demands 70G ransom.

Whilst my regent sets abotu earning some money and arranging marriages for my council, I watch the farce that is my leige's holy war. The defenders now number somewhere near 8000, and any expiditionary forces he sends nearby get immediately pounced on.

In about 5 years, we have the 70G. We go to ransom me off and... 3+'s. 5-'s. Welp, I'm screwed.

I decide to give up and quit when I notice that 8000+ force start heading for Denmark. He's going to get spanked.

[ShivaX]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

Wait can you have establish mistresses or know about other people's mistress?

I didn't think to kill my wife to take her kids. Although I think her dad popped out another boy or someshit. I tried to kill him instead so she'd get the title.

Apparently. My plot uncovering said this chick was plotting against someone and in her relations she was listed as "Lover of soandso" or the like. In my case my wife was trying to kill my kid from another wife (Muslim dynasty). Since that kid had health issues and noone really liked him and the other kid was like Superman I just kinda looked the other way.

Edit: 8000 is a pretty huge army. Not many places can field that, its usually restricted to the HRE or the like early on.

[jpublic]

I loaded up the game to look at it. It looks like the duke my king decided to attack has close relations with like 15 different guys and they all teamed up to fight off the heathen Danes.

[Libuke]

Holy wars will also have a lot of people joining in to help the person being attacked.

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by ShivaX

Apparently. My plot uncovering said this chick was plotting against someone and in her relations she was listed as "Lover of soandso" or the like. In my case my wife was trying to kill my kid from another wife (Muslim dynasty). Since that kid had health issues and noone really liked him and the other kid was like Superman I just kinda looked the other way.

Edit: 8000 is a pretty huge army. Not many places can field that, its usually restricted to the HRE or the like early on.

Wow that's harsh man. What if your kid was like Teddy Roosevelt. Sure HE would have killed your wife and threw you in jail, but you don't know. Should of had your Military commander educate him. Toughen up.

[LordDon]

There was an update to the GoT mod, adds Wildlings.

[jpublic]

I need to stop playing Counts. I keep on getting shanghai'd into doing things for my king, and then getting killed.

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by jpublic

I need to stop playing Counts. I keep on getting shanghai'd into doing things for my king, and then getting killed.

If you play as a king, you know underlings get treated like shit. Unless you make the come up I guess.

[jpublic]

So I tried as the King of Leon, and that went...poorly.

I guess I just don't know what I'm doing. My sister was in charge of a couple counties, and whilst I was assisting my brother's war against the infidel (mostly by watching his back against invasion from other Muslims) she decided to revolt.

So I pulled back and invaded her, and during that conflict my king died, leaving my warmongering brother as the heir to my kingdom. Then HE died in battle, and another brother now ran both kingdoms, as well as his own.

I guess this dynasty is going to end up controlling most of Spain through getting killed off?

[Libuke]

You do know if your king declares war and then loses the war only he will suffer any long term affects.

For example the Denmark Holy War you talked about. Once Denmark surrender nothing would change but the king losing prestige and the Catholic Church losing some authority.

If you start as a count you have to think small. Maybe trying nothing more then getting another county under your control from a noble in your own kingdom.


In my latest game I started as Count of Ireland (Or Earl as Ireland likes to use). I first took over some nearby counties to install myself as a Duke and Eventually became The King of Ireland. (Which I fully control now). I am now slowly taking parts of Scotland over, with plan to become Emperor of Britannia. I am into the fourth generation of my Dynasty. It has not been that fast.

However, I might put that aside as the Muslims are getting big in Spain so it might be time for a Holy War (which if I win will get me a bunch of new land, instead of just a little at a time). I can field over 10,000 men then combine that with some Holy Orders and I should be able to win even if the Muslims get a bunch of Allies.

[jpublic]

So I just spent the whole day playing this.

I decided part of my problem was that I wasn't taking the long view of anything. I wanted stuff to happen on a faster pace, and I needed to take a generational view.

So, I continued my game of Galicia. My initial character, Garcia, just played it safe, and mostly stayed out of wars while building some alliances. Well, except for helping the king of Scotland on some wars with the English. Whilst he was doing that, the Castille got eaten by a combined effort of Leon and Dhunninid.

Garcia was suceeded by Timmy the Wise (I felt silly), whom I've been playing for the rest of the day - he's almost 60 now, and has outlived his first heir (thank god, the guy was a waste of space).

During Timmy's reign, Leon ended up getting eaten by Dhunninid and Aftasid. During that, I managed to snip off a couple counties from Leon. Luckily, Dhunninid and Aftasid aren't close, so whilst they were fighting I snipped another liece of Leon from the latter and declared myself king of Galicia and Leon. Aftasid wasn't thrilled with me, and tried to take it back, but I had deeeeeep pockets to buy help (and managed to pick up a Holy Order for help too) and with Dhunninid causing its own troubles and Navarra in the midst of a holy war, he had to give up.

So my plan - court Dhunninid to keep him liking me (or my heir) and snip pieces of Aftasid slowly.

[jpublic]

Well, that went poorly. Aftasid called a holy war, and before any allies could arrive I lost. And my deep pockets weren't quite deep enough to maintain the war.

Oh well, ended with a score of 5000. Not bad for a first try.

[ShivaX]

The Castille area is rough early on. Between everyone having claims on each other and the resulting backstabbing and the large Moorish armies to the South, things can go sideways pretty easily. The upside is that odds are at least someone in the dynasty will usually survive unless theres a total Muslim takeover.

[jpublic]

I tried playing an Irish earl. Damn it's easy. Took me barely 75 years for my heir be able to declare himself king, and his heir finished conquering the island in another 5.

Now I'm considering where to go next. I'm hoping I can snip some land on the main island soon...maybe I can conquer Wales.

[AntonThaGreat]

Originally Posted by ShivaX

The Castille area is rough early on. Between everyone having claims on each other and the resulting backstabbing and the large Moorish armies to the South, things can go sideways pretty easily. The upside is that odds are at least someone in the dynasty will usually survive unless theres a total Muslim takeover.

Yep... when playing as Leon, I solved this by immediately killing off all my neighboring family rulers. Since we had a triangle of inheritance, both the territory to my east and west went to me. Though, their relatives weren't too pleased about this.

[Superman's Dead]

Originally Posted by jpublic

I tried playing an Irish earl. Damn it's easy. Took me barely 75 years for my heir be able to declare himself king, and his heir finished conquering the island in another 5.

Now I'm considering where to go next. I'm hoping I can snip some land on the main island soon...maybe I can conquer Wales.

moving from Ireland to England/Wales can be really rough depending on how all of the wars that start the game off go. Always make sure you work on claims as early as possible because the longer you wait the more likely it is a more powerful kingdom takes over

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[ShivaX]

Originally Posted by AntonThaGreat

Yep... when playing as Leon, I solved this by immediately killing off all my neighboring family rulers. Since we had a triangle of inheritance, both the territory to my east and west went to me. Though, their relatives weren't too pleased about this.

That works great until some Moor gets a bug up his ass and declares a Holy War against you and all the Christians in the area are low on troops from infighting. Thats pretty much whats happened to me every time.

[jpublic]

Actually, what I don't get is how those moorish kingdoms seem to be able to summon ludicrously huge armies out of nowhere.

At one point I decided to take some of my personal armies out for a little visit to the holy land to aid in the crusade, and damned if I didn't see THREE 10+ enemy armies. I stayed just long enough to land, get beaten to a pulp (and luckily escaped) and ran back home.

When I was playing in the Iberian pennisula, the moorish kingdoms there seemed to field 7k+ armies on a fairly regular basis.

[ShivaX]

From what I've seen having played a bit of one of them, Muslim nations tend to have a ton of troops, but no mercenaries (I think I could hire from a list of 6, all fairly weak and one was just ships). They also lack any Holy Orders or the like later on. So they're really powerful early on, but once you get some cash and the Crusades start, they can quickly get overwhelmed.

Plus Holy Wars tend to draw in the big empires from North Africa that invariably form.

[graddy]

After watching a few YouTube tutorial, I think I have a decent grasp on this game. Could someone suggest a good place to start that isn't too hard?

Playing king of Castille was pretty rough.