Crusader Kings II Spirit-all

Robear wrote:

I keep trying to tell people, these games are not "just another wargame". There is real thought and learning occasioned by them.

I think the greatest ah-ha moment with Paradox grand-strategy games came from this thread. I can't quote the author unfortunately, as we're going back years (default credit obviously goes to tboon). But the simple upshot was that some vet suggested that we only mildly influence a greater game flow.

We're traditionally given complete agency in games. We spark the A to the B to the C. The game world both waits and revolves around our actions. The advise I was given for approaching CK2 & EU4 was the classic analogy of 'dipping your hand in the stream'.

The game flow (A.I.) is constantly churning along with or without you. Your influence is simply dipping your hand in the water, altering events slightly. But the flow marches on either way.

This gave me a greater understanding and appreciation for the down moments in these games. A common criticism I've heard and felt is people frustrated with just waiting for something to happen. Typical for sandbox titles for sure.

But realizing and appreciating that you're simply a peon in a greater global simulation takes the pressure off of delusions of grandeur. It allows you to settle in and play your minor role of a greater scheme. Perhaps you might eventually take over the world, but that's not what the games are necessarily about.

I really need to get Cuba Libre on the table.

And yeah, the thing about getting into the flow of the game and moving with the current instead of against it is the heart of Crusader King, and why I think it works to get you into the mindset of these historical characters. It's not exact, of course. There's some liberties taken, and some details abstracted. But when I play I keep finding myself in situations that feel like the problems experienced by medieval rulers I've read about.

Not to mention I have a much better grasp on the geography of the area.

Thank you, Gremlin, for the tips on the last page. That was quite helpful

Just wanted to add that last night's session proved why you should never quit on a game until you're forced to. Two generations before the Aztecs invaded Scotland and reduced my kingdom to a single county. Now, I'm married to the queen of Hungary, my brother somehow became Holy Roman Emperor, and the Pope just called a Crusade against the Aztecs. I have no idea how it will play out, but it's nice to see tens of thousands of troops on my side this time around. And even if I lose my Scottish holdings altogether, my son will inherit a nice plot of land in Eastern Europe.

More opportunities to ban the wearing of pants and install horses as vassals.

Cliffhanger ending!

Why yes, I'll take one, please.

I predict some incredibly kooky random events.

Bonus points for "Let's Talk About Sects"

One thing that I still don't understand is how you actually stop playing the game. I mean, how do you physically turn off the game and go to bed at a reasonable hour? I still don't get that.

I usually wait until my current character dies. Pick up with the heir in the next session.

Oh, you said reasonable hour...no idea how to do that.

When you find out, let me know.

I started a game as the petty king of Svitjod, with a vague goal of reforming the norse religion, but it was proving to be quite difficult. Getting 3 of the 5 holy sites isn't too tricky, but I need 50 moral authority to reform it, and it's around the 30 mark. The biggest increase I could make to MA was by either controlling the other holy sites which are in difficult to reach places, or completing a successful invasion. So I thought what the heck, I've not tried an invasion before, let's get Wessex. I didn't honestly expect it to be successful but it turns out 18k troops is enough to win most any war in the year 870. Kinda wish I'd invaded Lotharingia now, where the other two holy sites are, but I didn't know I'd get that many men.

Anyhoo... after my successful invasion of Wessex I've got a whole bunch of problems and thought I'd see if anyone can suggest the best way to deal with them.
1. Vassal inheritance warning! I guess the line of succession for some of my new vassals mean I'll end up losing some provinces anyway.
2. Demesne is too big, some of them are the wrong holding type, and all my vassals are bloody catholics! What's the best way to divvy up the realm?
3. My ruler is about 55 with two sons, and gavelkind is my only option for succession (unless I successfully reform norse religion soon). Since I'm the king of Sweden, I think that's ok, since my eldest son will get the king title, and the other son will hold a duchy and be a vassal of the eldest. Is that right?
4. Moral authority is still only 43....

It's been a while, so please take everything I say with a grain of salt (until someone more knowledgeable comes along and clarifies it).

If it says your demesne is too large, it means you own too many properties. If it says they are of wrong type, it means you're holding cities (and temples/churches?) when you're a landed nobility. As landed nobility, you "should" only own castles. But this is not a problem. It's an opportunity, especially if it's in lands that are of "wrong" religion. Make sure to give out the "wrong" holdings, and any surplus holdings you can live without, to people from your court that are of your religion. Sometimes it helps to find the most troubling county and give it to one of the more powerful dukes in your kingdom, as he will then spend his resources getting it under control and defending it, rather than focusing his ambitions on you.

Your sons are a bit tricky. I'm not sure how the Norse behave, but normally a "lesser" son will have plans for the throne. You do NOT want to make him (or let him become) too powerful. The catch being, if something were to happen to the elder son before he inherits (e.g. he gets assassinated by the younger brother), your younger one will become the inheritor and if you make him too weak you're up the creek without a paddle.

Gavelkind means that all your titles and belongings will get split evenly between your heirs. I believe it will go in order from the highest title to the lowest title, from the eldest to the youngest. There are a lot of suggested strategies to deal with this if you wish to keep all your hard earned demesne together for your heir.

Paradox is conducting a survey of how people felt about past CK2 expansions.

I was just about to play this game but then realized I never bought it. I didn't buy it on the last sell because I got DLC paralyzed. Oh well, so now I'm playing EU3 instead since apparently I bought it. Maybe I'll pick it up in the next sell.

There is a copy of it available on the steam keys thread Baron.

Thanks I'll check it out.

I'm currently reading a book about Jakob Fugger, Richest Man Who Ever Lived. It reads like CK II fanfic, complete with bribing the Papal elections, colorful stories about risks inherent to lending to monarchs and problems with choosing the correct aristocratic offspring to support. Recommended.

It never ceases to amaze me how much effort they put into researching the societies and leaders as well as the histories of the world for this game. While it is definitely Euro-centric, they've applied a lot of thought and analysis to the problem of replicating and directing plausible behaviors by players as well as NPCs. It's quite amazing even after years of playing.

Yeah. There's a few places where the post-Roman feudal model doesn't fit, but by and large they've done a great job of expressing the historical forces that caused people to make the decisions that they did.

It's also why I hope they eventually expand the map to China, because there's some great history in the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, and it's an opportunity for them to work out another way to tweak the simulation.

Gremlin wrote:

Yeah. There's a few places where the post-Roman feudal model doesn't fit, but by and large they've done a great job of expressing the historical forces that caused people to make the decisions that they did.

Such as the need to have sex with everything in sight.

Rat Boy wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Yeah. There's a few places where the post-Roman feudal model doesn't fit, but by and large they've done a great job of expressing the historical forces that caused people to make the decisions that they did.

Such as the need to have sex with everything in sight.

You take that back. My syphilitic monarch is *loyal* to his horse concubine.

Tanglebones wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Yeah. There's a few places where the post-Roman feudal model doesn't fit, but by and large they've done a great job of expressing the historical forces that caused people to make the decisions that they did.

Such as the need to have sex with everything in sight.

You take that back. My syphilitic monarch is *loyal* to his horse concubine.

It's not the monarchs you have to worry about; it's the heirs.

Started watching a dev-team playthrough of the upcoming DLC, Monks and Mystics. It's still a work in progress (placeholder art on storyboards, etc.), but it looks intriguing so far. Of interesting note is the base religion of your country/region of origin will dictate the available guilds you can join. For example, only middle-eastern groups like the Shiites can join secret societies like the Assassins.

The devs are trying to join an Satan cult group presently and the only thing I'm left wondering is the authenticity factor. It's very interesting content but I'm curious exactly how much meddling with alt/taboo philosophies happened back then. I'm okay with bending the rules for entertainment's sake, but I'd prefer if the game's narrative points at least stay in line with standards of the day. I guess I'll start worrying if they introduce killer space robots into the mix or something.

Either way, I can't wait for the new DLC to launch so I can start a new campaign. Not exactly sure when it happened, but my CK2 purchasing habits in particular have shifted from 'purchase on discount' to 'purchase day one' somewhere along the line. I wonder if it's because the game has just become such a mainstay of my gaming diet over the years, I've no qualms anymore about investing upfront.

Aaron D. wrote:

The devs are trying to join an Satan cult group presently and the only thing I'm left wondering is the authenticity factor. It's very interesting content but I'm curious exactly how much meddling with alt/taboo philosophies happened back then. I'm okay with bending the rules for entertainment's sake, but I'd prefer if the game's narrative points at least stay in line with standards of the day. I guess I'll start worrying if they introduce killer space robots into the mix or something.

Cults and secret societies certainly existed in the middle ages, many of them tied to religions. Sometimes they actually succeeded in taking over cities, or even larger areas. Even the Papacy was corrupt at times, and various groups and leaders were alleged to have been involved in all sorts of practices, even Satanist ones. Magicians and alchemists maintain traditions that often clashed with the Church and society.

I'd say it's plausible. Anyone with a strong history background care to comment?

I don't know about Satan cults, exactly. The Templars were accused of worshiping Baphomet, described as an idol in the shape of a cat or a severed head. (The goat-headed detail is a 19th century flourish.) These were seen as plausible enough to justify the king's actions. The Europeans generally believed that Muslims and other outsiders similarly worshiped demons and idols.

The Cathars, Bogomils and other sects were definitely taboo philosophies, along with some more esoteric stuff like alchemists and secret courts. Depending on the time and place, there were quite a lot of mystics running around. As an example, as near as we can reconstruct, the Cathars believed in two gods (a good one and an evil one, fairly gnostic stuff), reincarnation, and didn't believe in marriage or reproduction.

Though it was also a bit different than the modern stereotypes. The full-on modern depiction of satanism and witches is more a Renaissance thing, in the same way that medieval vampires were more like walking corpses than suave bloodsuckers. The Malleus Maleficarum was first issued in 1487, so late medieval. King James (yeah, that one) wrote a treatise on demons and necromancy.

Sorry, was mashing up Medieval with Renaissance, definitely.

That's pretty common. We have more late-medieval and Renaissance visual culture than we have early medieval. Though even that has evolved: witches brooms used to be shown with the bristles pointing forward (like a horse's head) not today's pointing backwards (like a rocket).

Which is a good way to demonstrate that our modern conception of some of this stuff derives first from 20th c. monster movies, and then from 19th century occultism, and only once you get past that do you even start to approach the medieval beliefs. (Silver bullets were for witches; the first werewolf association was in the 1700s with the Beast of Gévaudan. Also witch-hunts were rare; the witch-hunt period is from 15th c. to the 17th or so.)

The Romans and Greeks had a lot of secret mystery cults, but they mostly died out before the middle ages proper. And there were folk beliefs, which weren't particularly well documented. Fairies were more attested than modern movie monsters, though they were the strange kind of fey that had more to do with dwarves, Norse mythology, and the survival of pre-Christian beliefs. (They were also associated with the spirits of the dead. Sometimes. It's complicated.)

The various heresies were, to a greater or lesser degree, secret cults, for varying values of secret and cult. And the catholic Catholics had some stuff we'd find odd today. Saint Catherine's visions were one of the factors that ended the Avignon Papacy, for example.

There were also lawsuits against pigs.

I don't know how much the game's representation lines up with the historical record yet. Though this is also the game with Glitterhoof, and you can find the Necronomicon if you poke around in the right corners.

Gremlin, you and I need to hang out.

...when the heck does Gremlin find the time to type out these ginormous essays of posts?