Crusader Kings II Spirit-all

I am worried about when they die though. Then you get the penalty for short reign and throwing in high crown authority might make it difficult to hang on to the crown.

More questions!
If my liege raises levies in my county, does that effect the amount that I can raise? Do I have to pay for them? Where can I see this? It happened in my game yesterday but I couldn't tell what the effect was.

I also keep seeing messages that "So and so favors so and so for the title of duke of whatever". What effect does this actually have on the game?

So, this game is on sale for 50% off right now on Steam. I'm planning to wait for it to go 75%, but if it doesn't 20 bucks seems like a pretty good price, right?

Only thing is, this game scares me. Any tips for the newcomers which will inevitably soon be entering into Grand Strategy for the first time?

SortingHat wrote:

So, this game is on sale for 50% off right now on Steam. I'm planning to wait for it to go 75%, but if it doesn't 20 bucks seems like a pretty good price, right?

Only thing is, this game scares me. Any tips for the newcomers which will inevitably soon be entering into Grand Strategy for the first time?

$40-$50 is the right price, to be honest.

Aside from the very good advice you're sure to get from the rest of the peanut gallery, I'd say don't be afraid of failure. You'll almost certainly crash and burn several dynasties before you get the hang of even a decent fraction of the game's mechanics. But instead of seeing the failure as a negative, revel in the ways your family decays and collapses! The emergent storytelling in this game is second to none.

SortingHat wrote:

So, this game is on sale for 50% off right now on Steam. I'm planning to wait for it to go 75%, but if it doesn't 20 bucks seems like a pretty good price, right?

Only thing is, this game scares me. Any tips for the newcomers which will inevitably soon be entering into Grand Strategy for the first time?

I paid $40 and felt like I underpaid. Crusader Kings II is an amazing game.

Dysplastic wrote:

More questions!
If my liege raises levies in my county, does that effect the amount that I can raise? Do I have to pay for them? Where can I see this? It happened in my game yesterday but I couldn't tell what the effect was.

No. Yes. Click on your shield, it should have your income and expenses at the bottom. the cost is "Military Expenses" if I recall correctly.

Dysplastic wrote:

I also keep seeing messages that "So and so favors so and so for the title of duke of whatever". What effect does this actually have on the game?

I think it is for elective inheritance, but not 100% sure. Someone wants to vote for someone specifically for a given title that is inherited via election.

In one game, this Baroness kept favoring her dead son for her barony. Since she was a vassal of mine, I got a popup every damn month that 'Baroness X favors Such N. Such for the title of Baron'. for forty-odd years. Of course it was a bug, but I imagined she was driven insane by the death of her son.

ZaneRockfist wrote:
SortingHat wrote:

So, this game is on sale for 50% off right now on Steam. I'm planning to wait for it to go 75%, but if it doesn't 20 bucks seems like a pretty good price, right?

Only thing is, this game scares me. Any tips for the newcomers which will inevitably soon be entering into Grand Strategy for the first time?

I paid $40 and felt like I underpaid. Crusader Kings II is an amazing game.

This. If any game published this year deserves all the sales at full price that it can get, that game is Crusader Kings II. Most polished game Paradox has sold.

Yeah I actually find with these games the best way to learn is to fail.

Start as king of scotland or some other out of the way kingdom and just take your time and play with it. You will almost certainly have great difficulty after the first ruler dies and a succession crises is triggered but you then then know WHY you failed and you won't make that mistake again.

Just keep hovering over *everything* and right-clicking on anything that stands still. You'll discover cool things, like a list of reasons why a particular person likes or dislikes you. That alone - hovering over the relationship score - is an invaluable piece of information and in turn leads you to a better understanding of game mechanics.

For example, if someone dislikes you because you have more elector votes than they like, probably all of your nobles do. You know it's time to dole some out to your family (and then figure out how to make those people happy). But if they dislike you because you are of a different ethnic group, you know to keep the gold flowing, because nothing else is going to change their mind.

The absolute beauty of this game is that it's *not* hard to learn how to play. But do yourself a favor and read the thread before you try it. You'll learn a ton.

tboon wrote:
Dysplastic wrote:

More questions!
If my liege raises levies in my county, does that effect the amount that I can raise? Do I have to pay for them? Where can I see this? It happened in my game yesterday but I couldn't tell what the effect was.

No. Yes. Click on your shield, it should have your income and expenses at the bottom. the cost is "Military Expenses" if I recall correctly.

Dysplastic wrote:

I also keep seeing messages that "So and so favors so and so for the title of duke of whatever". What effect does this actually have on the game?

I think it is for elective inheritance, but not 100% sure. Someone wants to vote for someone specifically for a given title that is inherited via election.

In one game, this Baroness kept favoring her dead son for her barony. Since she was a vassal of mine, I got a popup every damn month that 'Baroness X favors Such N. Such for the title of Baron'. for forty-odd years. Of course it was a bug, but I imagined she was driven insane by the death of her son. :)

You remember my earlier game where one of my sons married a Swedish duchess? And they have elective succession? Well, the king of Sweden was plotting to take her duchy, she (and a lot of other people) were plotting to overthrow the king of Sweden, and somewhere in the middle of it she went legitimately insane and got the trait. The favored succession of that tiny island changed so many times...

I feel like the different kind of succession laws are one of the most complex things of this game, especially since the naming is difficult to really hang on to. I should probably read up on them in the wiki.

I'm out of town this week, and I decided to leave my laptop at home and just rely on my iPhone. I can't stop thinking about my Barcelona CK2 game... These iPhone games seem so trifling!

When I last played, my duchy passed to my son who somehow had gotten involved in a matrilineal marriage to an Italian princess. I guess I must have unthinkingly accepted the marriage proposal from her family, rather than having offered one to her. This all of course led to a crisis of succession, which I avoided only through an abrupt change to elective succession law. Here's hoping that in the next patch Paradox includes a warning never to accept a marriage proposal on behalf of a woman.

Dysplastic wrote:

I feel like the different kind of succession laws are one of the most complex things of this game, especially since the naming is difficult to really hang on to. I should probably read up on them in the wiki.

There are 4 succession laws in the game currently:

Gavelkind: All titles are split as even as possible amongst all heirs.
Primogeniture: All titles are inherited by the oldest heir.
Seniority: All titles are inherited by the oldest member of the dynasty.
Elective: All vassals one step below you (i.e. barons if you are a duke) get to vote on who inherits (not necessarily in your dynasty, they may vote for themselves).

Then there are the gender laws that modify the succession laws:
Agnatic: Only males may inherit
Cognatic: Only females may inherit (I've never seen this in the game but it is allowed)
Agnatic-Cognatic: Both males and females may inherit.

So Agnatic-Cognatic Primogeniture is just a fancy way of saying that the oldest heir, male or female, may inherit. Agnatic Gavelkind means that all titles are split amongst male heirs. Etc.

This is a good writeup of the succession laws, detailing pros and cons of each (may need to have registered with Paradox to see this). The entire guide is well worth reading as it explains how a lot of these systems work and how to use them to best effect.

New Sword of Islam dev diary.

This is looking pretty darn cool.

tboon wrote:

Then there are the gender laws that modify the succession laws:
Agnatic: Only males may inherit
Cognatic: Only females may inherit (I've never seen this in the game but it is allowed)
Agnatic-Cognatic: Both males and females may inherit.

Correction:

Agnatic: Only males may inherit.
Agnatic-Cognatic: Females may inherit, but only if there is no legitimate male heir.
True Cognatic: Females stand to inherit on equal grounds with males.

There's no option that gives females a greater right to inherit than males.

You are, of course, correct. My bad. Looks like I should read that guide again too.

Also apparently the reason you've never seen True Cognatic around is it's only available to Basque dynasties, so you'd only see it if you've messed around much in Spain.

Man, I need to get back into this game, but... Diablo... so many demons to click....

Plus, if you click on the laws tab and hover over the kind of succession you have it will give a pop-up explaining exactly what you have so you don't need to memorize the terms.

Picked this up in the steam sale. Decided to start off somewhere out of the way while I got hold of the basics (having played Hearts of Iron, I know how Paradox games don't tend to help you get started) so off to Iceland I went.
Got Duke Isleifur I 60+ year old Duke married off to a 24 year old princess from Northern Spain and his heir married off too. Then the old dog managed to get his new wife pregnet, see the birth of his second son before promptly dieing.
Next guy comes in, decided to plot against his vassel in Vestisland to strip him of his title. Having got a couple of big players from the court involved, he carries out his plan successfully. By this point he has 3 kids and a 4th on the way, 2 boys and a girl. The 1st born is an imbecile, leaving the Duke with no option but to try and come up with a way to makesure he doesn't come to power.
Oh and he keeps being the centre of rumours about the occult and kipnapping kids. This game is awesome

onewild wrote:

Oh and he keeps being the centre of rumours about the occult and kipnapping kids. This game is awesome

Hah! Awesome stuff, man. Glad you are enjoying it.

Dysplastic wrote:

I feel like the different kind of succession laws are one of the most complex things of this game, especially since the naming is difficult to really hang on to. I should probably read up on them in the wiki.

Yeah, it can be hard to get your head wrapped around it at first, especially when you are trying to get some claims through stuff.

Lobo wrote:

When I last played, my duchy passed to my son who somehow had gotten involved in a matrilineal marriage to an Italian princess. I guess I must have unthinkingly accepted the marriage proposal from her family, rather than having offered one to her. This all of course led to a crisis of succession, which I avoided only through an abrupt change to elective succession law. Here's hoping that in the next patch Paradox includes a warning never to accept a marriage proposal on behalf of a woman.

All too easy, I agree. And it doesn't help that you can get locked in a betrothal because the AI refuses to marry when the time comes!

On sale for 10 of Her Majesty's pounds with a slew of DLC. Now to get totally confused...

I kind of want this, but I think I am going to wait, I already have one Paradox game on my plate (Hearts of Iron 3) that I know is going to take a long time to get going good on, I don't think putting another one on the pile would be a good idea, especially with a Steam sale likely in the next few weeks.

It's not a pile game, Kamikazi. It's amazing.

I have Vic2, EU3, and HoI3 on my pile.(edit: maybe BoA2 as well. I forget.) Never completed a tutorial, much less a game.

Considering buying this on sale. I have a problem. I can't stop wanting Paradox games. It's like a weird gamer Brokeback thing.

Help me.
Please.

Robear wrote:

It's not a pile game, Kamikazi. It's amazing. :-)

Well it would certainly get put behind what I am currently playing (SPAZ and Metro 2033), therefore pile game

duckilama wrote:

I have Vic2, EU3, and HoI3 on my pile.(edit: maybe BoA2 as well. I forget.) Never completed a tutorial, much less a game.

Considering buying this on sale. I have a problem. I can't stop wanting Paradox games. It's like a weird gamer Brokeback thing.

Help me.
Please.

And this is me, but I have been able to resist all except HoI3 so far.

Paradox games fall into the category of games I like to think about playing, or games I like the IDEA of playing....but games I rarely actually play.

Purchased for a paltry $12.50. I have yet to find a Paradox game I've had the patience to master, but it's always been fun trying.

Kamakazi010654 wrote:
duckilama wrote:

I have Vic2, EU3, and HoI3 on my pile.(edit: maybe BoA2 as well. I forget.) Never completed a tutorial, much less a game.

Considering buying this on sale. I have a problem. I can't stop wanting Paradox games. It's like a weird gamer Brokeback thing.

Help me.
Please.

And this is me, but I have been able to resist all except HoI3 so far.

Paradox games fall into the category of games I like to think about playing, or games I like the IDEA of playing....but games I rarely actually play.

This was true for me, but CKII is easily the most accessible of all of the paradox games. It's a lot easier to get involved in what's going on given the family dynasty aspect...and maybe having a game of thrones on tv.

That is an absolutely incredible amount of gaming for $12.50.

75% off on Steam today, woot. you Sir Steam have a deal.
However I think Paradox's sale system is odd, all games 50% for a week then on particular days individual games drop to 75% for 24hours only.
People who grabbed CK in the first few days at 50% off then saw the following day a further 25% reduction, rather than being joyful at the $20 saving might be miffed at missing out on a further $10?