Crusader Kings II Spirit-all

wanderingtaoist wrote:

i3, 4gigs and integrated intel chip here. Runs fine. Takes a good while to load (on my setup) but runs nicely afterwards.

Ditto on loading using a laptop with a i3-350M, 4 gigs and an intel HD chip and have no problems. Biggest complaint would be screen size but I like gaming on my couch so it works.

Warning to those of you looking to try the enhancement mod: I had to give it up after crashing issues in one game playing as Norse. In another game as Sicily, my 10 year old son magically became the heir instead of my existing 11 year old heir under primogeniture (and, of course, the 11 year old son had all my excess titles, effectively screwing me).

That being said, the enhancements are really cool. I'm looking forward to them either integrated into the main game or stabilized.

clever id wrote:
wanderingtaoist wrote:

i3, 4gigs and integrated intel chip here. Runs fine. Takes a good while to load (on my setup) but runs nicely afterwards.

Ditto on loading using a laptop with a i3-350M, 4 gigs and an intel HD chip and have no problems. Biggest complaint would be screen size but I like gaming on my couch so it works.

My wife and I just played the demo last night on my Dell Latitude laptop, intel core i5-2520M, 4gig, integrated intel HD GPU and it played quite smoothly at the max res. We'll probably have to dial it down a bit for her HP laptop. My Dell is pretty monster at most games except for non-optimized 3d shooter.

We had a lot of fun with the demo, the amount of detail and fiddliness is insane. We had a little trouble with the marriage and education interfaces where we didn't always see who we expected to see in the list of available people that you get when you click on a province. It seemed to filter the list according to something, but we weren't sure what. We also didn't mess with the military interface too much and were eventually crushed after ignoring it for too long. Fun stuff, though.

What are the non-military means for taking over more territory?

Mixolyde wrote:

What are the non-military means for taking over more territory?

Inheritance (various means, both fair and foul there), banishing your vassals (you get their titles), revoking vassals' titles, your lord granting you titles/land (this never happens to me ).

tboon wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

What are the non-military means for taking over more territory?

Inheritance (various means, both fair and foul there), banishing your vassals (you get their titles), revoking vassals' titles, your lord granting you titles/land (this never happens to me ).

Stabbity stabby stab. This game is like Assassin's Creed: The Strategy Game.

wanderingtaoist wrote:
tboon wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

What are the non-military means for taking over more territory?

Inheritance (various means, both fair and foul there), banishing your vassals (you get their titles), revoking vassals' titles, your lord granting you titles/land (this never happens to me ).

Stabbity stabby stab. This game is like Assassin's Creed: The Strategy Game.

Isn't your vassal's land already your land? I think I need a Feudalism for dummies guide.

I think of this game more like HBO's The Tudors: The Strategy Game.

Mixolyde wrote:
wanderingtaoist wrote:
tboon wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

What are the non-military means for taking over more territory?

Inheritance (various means, both fair and foul there), banishing your vassals (you get their titles), revoking vassals' titles, your lord granting you titles/land (this never happens to me ).

Stabbity stabby stab. This game is like Assassin's Creed: The Strategy Game.

Isn't your vassal's land already your land? I think I need a Feudalism for dummies guide.

I think of this game more like HBO's The Tudors: The Strategy Game.

Sorry, I read that as demesne (your land that you directly control) rather than how you apparently intended it. In that case, war, marriage, and land grants are the only ways I know of.

If there are independent dukes and earls near you, you can straight-up ask them to become vassals. Their response depends on how close you are (not sharing a border is a big minus), how much they like you, and how powerful you are. Also you have to be at least one level higher in rank than they are (dukes won't become the vassals of other dukes, for example, but they might become the vassals of a king). Two levels are even better. (Earls and counts are more likely to become the vassals of kings than of dukes.)

For example, my Duke of Munster conquered southern Ireland by force. Once he had 50% of the counties in Ireland under his (direct or indirect) control, he could spend some gold and Piety to crown himself King of Ireland. Since no independent Irish duke had more than two counties, he vastly overpowered everyone else, and all of northern Ireland folded their cards and fell over like so many dominoes. Checkmate.

Yesterday, I used some Holy Order troops. WHY DID I NOT DO THIS EARLIER? 7k troops with no upkeep? Hell yeah.

When my wife took over some territory in war, a message came up saying that she could usurp a title. Clicking on it brought up an interface with a usurp button and a list of titles. However the button was inactive and the tooltips didn't really help. What exactly is usurping and how is it different than other methods of acquirement?

Also, she stripped a title from a guy she imprisoned after taking him in battle. That was pretty awesome.

Mixolyde wrote:

When my wife took over some territory in war, a message came up saying that she could usurp a title. Clicking on it brought up an interface with a usurp button and a list of titles. However the button was inactive and the tooltips didn't really help. What exactly is usurping and how is it different than other methods of acquirement?

Also, she stripped a title from a guy she imprisoned after taking him in battle. That was pretty awesome.

If you or they are still at war you cannot usurp. Also it is crazy expensive.

Mixolyde wrote:

What exactly is usurping and how is it different than other methods of acquirement?

When you own more than 50% of a duchy, you can claim that title from whoever previously held it (if you're both at peace). Or, if nobody has ever held it, you can create the duchy title yourself.
Doing this will cost some gold, but nets you a prestige bonus, AND a casus belli to gain all the counties in the rest of the duchy.
So if you own 2/3rds of Kent, it's a nice way to set yourself up to gain that last county.

Also, stripping titles is great. Especially from people who rebel.

Ahhh, that's pretty enlightening. You guys are really helpful, and it's much appreciated.

Sorry for all of the noob questions, too.

What are the reasons for inviting people to hang out in your court? Is there a suggested amount of time? Any reasons to kick them out?

Sometimes people who come to your court could have skills you can use in your council, or can become part of the stable of potential landed vassals, spouses, etc. As for ejecting someone, well, maybe a heretic might be booted out. Although you can turn them around with your spiritual advisor.

Also, if you usurp a title, you could find yourself an elector for the leader of another country. I had that happen with the Duchy of Anjou - I usurped it as the King of England and Brythain and suddenly I had a vote on the next King of France. Heh.

Free copy get. I'll be joining you guys soon enough

If I haven't started playing yet, should I wait for next week's patch before I do?

Thanks for the info, Robear. That makes some more sense.

Found this on the paradox forum for CK2

IMAGE(http://whatireally.memegenerator.net/images/Large/13378.jpg)

I seem to be playing the game pretty different from a lot of you. My dynasty hasn't ever had any really good Intrigue stats, so whenever I start to think, "life would be so much easier if this guy just... disappeared..." I check the Assassinate option and find that my chance for success is low and my chance for discovery is high so I forget about it.

Meanwhile, I sort of wish sometimes that my Diplomacy wasn't so high, or that there were more ways of provoking individual vassals into rebelling without pissing everyone else off at the same time (which is what happens if you just strip titles or start arresting people when they're not already rebelling). Right now I've got a particularly troublesome duke in Scotland and I'd love an excuse to march in with an army and seize his land for the crown, but my position there isn't so stable that I can afford to alienate anyone else at the same time.

hbi2k wrote:

Meanwhile, I sort of wish sometimes that my Diplomacy wasn't so high, or that there were more ways of provoking individual vassals into rebelling without pissing everyone else off at the same time (which is what happens if you just strip titles or start arresting people when they're not already rebelling). Right now I've got a particularly troublesome duke in Scotland and I'd love an excuse to march in with an army and seize his land for the crown, but my position there isn't so stable that I can afford to alienate anyone else at the same time.

You can use one of your council members to try to fabricate a claim against his land. Sowing dissent among his vassals might take his attention off you for a while.

hbi2k wrote:

I seem to be playing the game pretty different from a lot of you. My dynasty hasn't ever had any really good Intrigue stats, so whenever I start to think, "life would be so much easier if this guy just... disappeared..." I check the Assassinate option and find that my chance for success is low and my chance for discovery is high so I forget about it.

Meanwhile, I sort of wish sometimes that my Diplomacy wasn't so high, or that there were more ways of provoking individual vassals into rebelling without pissing everyone else off at the same time (which is what happens if you just strip titles or start arresting people when they're not already rebelling). Right now I've got a particularly troublesome duke in Scotland and I'd love an excuse to march in with an army and seize his land for the crown, but my position there isn't so stable that I can afford to alienate anyone else at the same time.

Are you building a spy network first? That make assassinations a lot easier.

Seriously. Killing your family members takes long-term commitment and planning.

Yeah, use a councilor to sow dissent in the province, if you want them to have vassal issues.

Thanks for the info, Robear. That makes some more sense.

One thing to do occasionally is look for unlanded relatives in your court. If you give them a city or bishopric or county taken from an annoying vassal, you've not only got yourself a natural fan, but you've widened the breeding pool and potentially the list of heirs.

I also like to occasionally look for savants in the court, for the same reason. Nothing like finishing a long war with a max of, say, 16 combat skill in your council, and finding that the second son of the Bishop of Durham has a 26 unmodified... He is not eligible for the council until he's got land, so you can promote him and pop him into place at need.

hbi2k may have a gold mine of capable advisors shoveling sh*t and drilling town militias, and not even know it.

Every time I play this game I discover some further subtlety. Brilliant!

hbi2k wrote:

I seem to be playing the game pretty different from a lot of you. My dynasty hasn't ever had any really good Intrigue stats, so whenever I start to think, "life would be so much easier if this guy just... disappeared..." I check the Assassinate option and find that my chance for success is low and my chance for discovery is high so I forget about it.

Meanwhile, I sort of wish sometimes that my Diplomacy wasn't so high, or that there were more ways of provoking individual vassals into rebelling without pissing everyone else off at the same time (which is what happens if you just strip titles or start arresting people when they're not already rebelling). Right now I've got a particularly troublesome duke in Scotland and I'd love an excuse to march in with an army and seize his land for the crown, but my position there isn't so stable that I can afford to alienate anyone else at the same time.

Try raising levies from only his holdings. He'll get angrier the longer they're raised. I've done that to push people over the edge into rebellion.

You can also give the 'court jester' title to help tick someone off.

You can also give the 'court jester' title to help tick someone off.

I did that to a wife I was trying to tempt into doing something I could imprison her for and was immediately dubbed 'the Cruel'. Nice touch!

One of my kings was nicknamed "the Dragon". I've no idea what brought that on. Anyone know?

Robear wrote:

One of my kings was nicknamed "the Dragon". I've no idea what brought that on. Anyone know?

Someone posted the game file that decides nicknames on the Paradox forums. If I read it right, the preconditions are either having the wroth trait and ruling for ten years, or being an excommunicated kinslaying impaler, with kinslayers being twice as likely to get it.

This would be wroth, then. He didn't impale anyone.

mateofalcone wrote:

Try raising levies from only his holdings. He'll get angrier the longer they're raised. I've done that to push people over the edge into rebellion.

IMAGE(http://i443.photobucket.com/albums/qq156/DrakeClawfang/Captions/OFCOURSE.png)

Why didn't I think of that? Thanks!

What's the difference between raising vassal levies and realm levies? I assume both piss off their owners if you do it long enough.