Crusader Kings II Spirit-all

The HRE is an entirely different kind of challenge. Still figuring it out as a Duke. I feel like a puppet sometimes as the emperor keeps calling up my guys to conduct wars...

So has anyone gone crusading yet? The crown of the kingdom of Jerusalem is there for the taking. (And taking (and taking....))

Actually ... no. lol

I've been called on a number of crusades, but since I was playing Georgia and the crusades were to put down Eurpoean heretics I was never involved. Or it may have been because Georgia's an Orthodox culture. Not sure, actually.

Rarely have I had so much fun losing.

I played a fairly long game, starting as the Earl of Shrewsbury. My liege, the Duke of Lancaster, really enjoyed rebelling against the King of England. However, he made the fatal mistake of refusing to grant me the Duchy of Hereford, once I was eligible for that title. During the fourth Lancaster rebellion (which may have been led by a new Duke), England had the slight advantage war score wise, but both sides had wittled their armies away. I saw that I could give the Duke his long-sought independence by raising my levies and dishing out for some sellswords ... but remembering that the snubbing I had been given, I instead swore my fealty to King William. Lancaster quickly surrendered, and William quickly died, soon followed by my own death. King Robert of England enjoyed repeatedly sending the new me to Jerusalem to lose large armies to the infidels. Luckily I kept escaping with my life, only to be returned to try again. Somewhere along the way, my wife, the Countess of Gloucester, decided it was time to make a one-county rebellion. Her belief that the on-going war would stop her from being crushed was a mistake; after she was locked up, I was afraid she might be stripped of her title. Not wanting my heir to lose out, I formed a plot with a random courtier who hated her for reasons he wouldn't go into, and she managed to slip and fall onto a knife in her cell.

Sometime late, Robert died at the age of 36, leaving a young child as his heir. More than half of England began various fights of independence, and I thought the time was ripe. Somehow, I failed to remember that I really only had two counties to my name, as I had given the others to my well-trained but ungrateful sons. I bought a mercenary unit, and when my heir lead a 4000 strong army to lay siege on my capital, I sent the 2000 or so troops I had, mostly mercenaries, to lay siege to Gloucester. Unfortunately, I ran out of money more quickly than I had counted on, and the mercenaries turned on me. It was around 5am, and I decided to give up on that game (though, I only barely resisted the urge to start another).

Just starting a new game, after a disastrous run as King Stenkil of Sweden, whose imprisionment and assassination of his brother led to a 4-year war with his vassals, the bankrupting of his holdings, a mysterious death, and a rather poor showing by his 2-year old heir. Alas.

History this time focuses on Aragon. It's only 1068, and I have already been pulled into an alliance-driven war with the nearby Muslims, married both of my sisters off, and am hoping for a child so that my reign can continue should I meet an unfortunate end on the battlefield. I am uncertain as to when I should quit the field; my small force of 300 joined with my ally's 3,000k men, but now that they are laying siege to the enemy, can I withdraw?

You won't have to worry if they really do have 3,000,000 men.

Yes, you should be able to withdraw. It should be as simple as moving your men from the county. Unless your liege combined your army with his, though I don't know if the AI is capable of that. Even if it is, I don't know if you're stuck.

You can also disband your army. That's probably the quickest way unless you want to attack elsewhere ... like taking some land from the Christians while they fight the Muslims. That's what I do.

Robear wrote:

You won't have to worry if they really do have 3,000,000 men. :-)

But if he's part of the war, the Moslems can still attack him, right? He's dependent on a Peace for safety.

Also, if his liege raised the Duke's men, the Duke can't march them away. They are gone for the duration of the war, until the King releases them.

Robear wrote:

But if he's part of the war, the Moslems can still attack him, right? He's dependent on a Peace for safety.

Also, if his liege raised the Duke's men, the Duke can't march them away. They are gone for the duration of the war, until the King releases them.

True, looking at it again, he's Aragon and mentioned an "alliance" so it's not likely his liege bringing him in, but his brother, a fellow king. (They are kings in Spain, right?) He should have free reign to do what he wants.

Good point about the attack from whoever they're fighting.

The AI *can* attack the provinces of minors in a war, though they rarely do. I've also found there is almost no value in it as the holdings of the main protagonist in the war are the only ones that add to war score. So unless you want to ensure a minor partner can't raise fresh troops there's little point in sieging them. I'd argue it's better to let them raise troops as you do get warscore from defeating minors on the field.

garion333 wrote:

True, looking at it again, he's Aragon and mentioned an "alliance" so it's not likely his liege bringing him in, but his brother, a fellow king. (They are kings in Spain, right?) He should have free reign to do what he wants.

Good point about the attack from whoever they're fighting.

Back-stabbing evil bastards, but yes, they each a King Back-Stabbing Evil Bastard.

TheHipGamer wrote:

Just starting a new game, after a disastrous run as King Stenkil of Sweden, whose imprisionment and assassination of his brother led to a 4-year war with his vassals, the bankrupting of his holdings, a mysterious death, and a rather poor showing by his 2-year old heir. Alas.

Oh no! Sounds like quite a rough time.

I've been meaning to write up my Swedish game for a little while now. Stenkil the Great started by assassinating his brother and law, which luckily wasn't discovered despite taking a few tries. Things have been cruising along pretty well since then with a righteous war against Norway along with a few conquests against the Norse heathens. There was also a bit of a stir when two of the king's sons and one of their wives successfully carried out a conspiracy to see Prince Erik dead, most likely because his mother had chosen him as the heir to the Duchy of Uppland. Stenkil didn't mind one bit and was even secretly cheering them on.

At this point the kingdom is at a bit of a crossroads, as one of the children of one of the king's vassals has a claim upon the thrones of both Denmark AND Norway. The 60 year old Stenkil knows that the prudent choice would be to fortify his holdings so as to assure a clean succession, though another part of him wants to see out one last adventure. The time also seems ripe for war, with Norway having been in a near constant conflict with the kings of England since the invasion of William. Denmark, too, is embroiled in a sizable civil war against the Duke of Slesvig. What say you, the esteemed council of Goodjer stabbers?

Quite a bit of fun so far. Here is a screenshot from 1088. Do note the minor Swedish expedition on the Baltic coast. Certainly the first of many.
IMAGE(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7203/6819698860_5fc3c01be3_z.jpg)

Possible patch today?

tboon wrote:

Possible patch today?

It has been released.

I may have stayed up til 230 trying to unite Ireland. Holy sh*t is it expensive to declare a kingdom.

NathanialG wrote:

I may have stayed up til 230 trying to unite Ireland. Holy sh*t is it expensive to declare a kingdom.

But now you are a fellow king and you can join us in our halls where we feast merry and proud!

NathanialG wrote:

I may have stayed up til 230 trying to unite Ireland. Holy sh*t is it expensive to declare a kingdom.

In my last game I succeeded in uniting Ireland. Which apparently pissed off England so they came and crashed my party.

Farscry wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

I may have stayed up til 230 trying to unite Ireland. Holy sh*t is it expensive to declare a kingdom.

In my last game I succeeded in uniting Ireland. Which apparently pissed off England so they came and crashed my party. :(

England is in NO position to invade anyone. Scotland may be a problem and they hold one of the last three provinces that I need to make my claim de facto as well as de jure. Although they seem to have rebellion problems right where I need them to at times.

Now those rebellions are screwing me. I rarely feel like the mechanics of this game are unfair but when I am occupying some county and then something happens and all of a sudden I am NOT occupying anything because another war has ended I get pissed. There should be an option to continue pressing my claim against whoever the current owner is. I have armies standing right there!! They should not have to go home, disband, wait for me to declare a new war and then march back.

Another go at King Sancho of Leon, starting in 1066. A few weeks after the start, his sister Urraca rebels - and brings along every other major noble in the next few weeks. I go from crushing her personal force to utter, ignoble defeat, and I surrender the crown. She reduces me to two duchies, and my vassals mostly don't like me. A few hate me.

I get word that my marriage to a Norwegian princess of some capability has come through. She's gonna be pleased when she shows up. But I make her my Spymaster anyway. She's philosophical about the whole situation, and she points out something interesting - my heir and my liege's heir are both the same person, one of my brothers. And I'm *his* heir... Hmmmm. He is the King of Castile.

Okay, well. Nothing to lose. So I put my new wife to the test and have her send an assassin against my brother. With only a 24% chance of success, and a 32% chance of discovery, I learn that the King died choking on his own blood, with no idea who did him in. I am now the King of Castille, and it now includes my personal demesnes - and Urraca is left with two provinces, Zamorra and Validolid. Turnabout is nasty, I now have 7 provinces to her 2.

I begin eyeing the kingdom of Galicia, another one to which I am heir. I leave it alone, because, hey, heir! I figure it's safer to take out Urraca, but then consider that she can probably bring in Galicia, Navarra and Aragon. But then Urraca launches an ill-considered claim war on Galicia (which is twice the size of her kingdom of Leon) and I see my opportunity. I attack Galicia after he's deployed and begun fighting. I chase his armies around, and he pulls in Navarra and Aragon, but I smash them too. I settle in to sieges, and call up 1500 mercenaries to speed the process.

Unfortunately, before I can finish the Muslims take Validolid from Urraca. But that's okay. I end the war with Galicia, and Urraca is grateful, and I now control two of my 5 ancestral kingdoms. The biggest ones at the moment. Of course, the Mohammetans are tramping around my borders. But I've married a daughter off to a Prince of England; hopefully that will result in some future assistance in fending them off.

All of this happened in the space of only four years.

The best thing to do when starting in Spain is to murder as many relatives as possible. I send out assassins there before I even unpause the game for the first time. 50 gold for about 4-7 provinces? I will take it.

Yeah, but the consequences of failure can be extreme.

I've been looking into the conversion mods (specifically to keep my game of Vicky2 going into WW2) and the EU3 to Vic2 is coming along, but still very buggy apparently, and the Vic2 to HoI3 is basically pre-alpha right now.

I haven't looked at any mod projects for CK2 yet, but given how new it is, I'm sure they aren't far along. Besides, you'd almost need to wait, and create a conversion mod from CK2 to EU4.

DanyBoy wrote:

I've been looking into the conversion mods (specifically to keep my game of Vicky2 going into WW2) and the EU3 to Vic2 is coming along, but still very buggy apparently, and the Vic2 to HoI3 is basically pre-alpha right now.

I haven't looked at any mod projects for CK2 yet, but given how new it is, I'm sure they aren't far along. Besides, you'd almost need to wait, and create a conversion mod from CK2 to EU4. :)

Yeah, I used the EU3 -> Vicky2 mod but had to go in and fix a lot of stuff. And it never felt right but it was playable at least.

Speaking of mods, I'm using some CK2 mods right now (need to be registered to get to these links):

Death Causes - adds a "trait" when a character dies that tells how they died. Paradox will patch this in eventually but it really is nice to know how a character died.
CK2 Heraldry 2.0 - updates/adds historic Coats of Arms to families in the game.

There are a number of balance mods that I am looking at as well. Master Mod List is here.

I know whats up when you proclaim yourself a Duke and then start to expand your domain. When you come at the King you best not miss.
NSFW:

tboon wrote:

Speaking of mods, I'm using some CK2 mods right now (need to be registered to get to these links):

Death Causes - adds a "trait" when a character dies that tells how they died. Paradox will patch this in eventually but it really is nice to know how a character died.
CK2 Heraldry 2.0 - updates/adds historic Coats of Arms to families in the game.

Nice finds. Do you know if the Death traits mod is just using info already provided by the game? It kind of sounds that way, though it makes me wonder why Paradox wouldn't have made that info available to the player from the start. Regardless, I'm definitely going to check that out.

ebarstad wrote:
tboon wrote:

Speaking of mods, I'm using some CK2 mods right now (need to be registered to get to these links):

Death Causes - adds a "trait" when a character dies that tells how they died. Paradox will patch this in eventually but it really is nice to know how a character died.
CK2 Heraldry 2.0 - updates/adds historic Coats of Arms to families in the game.

Nice finds. Do you know if the Death traits mod is just using info already provided by the game? It kind of sounds that way, though it makes me wonder why Paradox wouldn't have made that info available to the player from the start. Regardless, I'm definitely going to check that out.

Yeah it's information that's already in the game. He just went through all the death events and added an appropriate trait, plus the little trait icons. For example, when a character dies of disease, there's an event for that. The mod maker changed the event by adding add_trait=death_by_disease (or something like that) to it. So when you look at the character, that trait has added and the trait icon shows up. Pretty nifty idea. Now, it's not perfect (for example, "Death by Accident" is pretty nondescript) but most of the time it works pretty well.

Oh, I really like the Death Traits mod. For the curious, you can install it on your current save, but it only works for deaths that happen after it's been installed.

My current character (Duchess of Transylvania), who had married the heir to the throne of Hungary and who was set to become queen, was foiled when her husband committed suicide ("Died of Depression"). The current King is 63 years old and is constantly at war. She was this close. Now she is married to the Prince of Sweden and the current heir to the throne of that kingdom. He became heir when my duchess decided to season her sister-in-law's bowl of soup with something a little stronger than salt.

This game is great.

As I play more, I believe the secret to the game's appeal is the stories it creates. This is not dry "...and then massed my armies and invaded Sweden" stuff. This is tales of unexpected heroism, the low-born rising to high places, corruption, betrayal, cliff-hanging escapes and the mighty brought low. And that's where the pleasure comes in.