Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[EnigmaticHat]

My playstyle emphasizes keeping vassal opinion high at all times, and having as many single county vassals as possible.  Mainly to maximize revenue and levies, as each mid level vassal and vassal who doesn't like me takes a cut of my sweet sweet taxes.  But it also helps to make rebels weak and rare.

There are probably other ways to succeed at CK2, but my preferred way is to make each successive ruler someone that the vassals will love.  There are many little tricks I have to accomplish this, most of which you guys probably already know.


Ok, different topic, which stats do you guys prefer?  I value diplomacy very highly compared to the other 4.  If I had to make a list of most to least important it would probably be: diplomacy>intrigue>stewardship>martial>learning.  Diplomacy for the all important relationship pluses, intrigue for protecting myself and murdering others.  Stewardship has a tax buff and desmense size buff, which is nice BUT I find that it isn't worth it to build up your personal holdings too much because you have to give them away if the next ruler has low stewardship.  Martial is a very important stat, but its most important function (leading armies) can be safely delegated to others and doing so will make your ruler live longer.  Learning has few short term benefits that I know of, so fuck it.

[Descan]

Learning is, I'm pretty sure, related to tech-rate. Not a short-term benefit, no, but long-term it's useful.

[umiman]

You need martial especially if for some bizarre reason you're not relying on retinues. Martial dictates how many levies you can raise, especially from your own lands. The difference can be quite staggering. One of my 15 martial emperors could raise 40,000 men from his personal demenses while a middling 6 martial guy could only raise at most 25k.

Stewardship is nice, but the affects it has on demense size has been nerfed pretty substantially since release. It seems to give good benefits to a certain point, at which any potential gains are completely worthless. Again, an example would be one of my 12 stewardship emperors having the exact same demense size as a 6 stewardship one (I use 6 a lot as it's what you can train yourself to with ambitions.)

Learning is derpy. Nice to have but not vital. Tech gains can be altered way more via universities, winning battles, and advisor missions anyway.

[a1s]

Ok, different topic, which stats do you guys prefer?  I value diplomacy very highly compared to the other 4.  If I had to make a list of most to least important it would probably be: diplomacy>intrigue>stewardship>martial>learning.  Diplomacy for the all important relationship pluses, intrigue for protecting myself and murdering others.  Stewardship has a tax buff and desmense size buff, which is nice BUT I find that it isn't worth it to build up your personal holdings too much because you have to give them away if the next ruler has low stewardship.

Mine are stewardship>intrigue>diplomacy>martial>learning. Demesne size is awesome and, considering I don't go for the popularity contest, pretty important (if the next ruler is slightly worse at it, I usually keep the extra holding. If they are much worse, I get to make some loyal vassals. They are too powerful for my taste, but at least they'll support the new, weakened ruler through his reign. Once the heir comes of age, I try to conquer him some new lands) People who object get to meet with a little accident. Diplomacy is nice, meh. Martial can and should be delegated. Learning has no use for me, technological development is something my spymaster is in charge of.

[EnigmaticHat]

You need martial especially if for some bizarre reason you're not relying on retinues. Martial dictates how many levies you can raise, especially from your own lands. The difference can be quite staggering. One of my 15 martial emperors could raise 40,000 men from his personal demenses while a middling 6 martial guy could only raise at most 25k.

Stewardship is nice, but the affects it has on demense size has been nerfed pretty substantially since release. It seems to give good benefits to a certain point, at which any potential gains are completely worthless. Again, an example would be one of my 12 stewardship emperors having the exact same demense size as a 6 stewardship one (I use 6 a lot as it's what you can train yourself to with ambitions.)

Learning is derpy. Nice to have but not vital. Tech gains can be altered way more via universities, winning battles, and advisor missions anyway.

I use retinues, I just don't NEED retinues.  My philosophy towards the game is this: why should I spend thousands of medieval-bucks upgrading my castles when I could spend some refilling levies to holy war some infidels into a shiny new duchy that will give me, in new counties that I can award to anyone I want, a bunch of new levies.  And then save the money for mercenaries or bribes or something.  Now if I have the breathing room, I'll upgrade my castles and research military organization and all that.  But in the end, I feel safe having a tiny portion of the realm's total armies, provided my vassals are weak and like me.

I do agree with what you're saying about martial.  I noticed that only very recently for some reason.  Maybe that puts it on par with stewardship or intrigue, but I can still live without it and care very little.

[Karlito]

(I use 6 a lot as it's what you can train yourself to with ambitions.)

You can train yourself to 8 with ambitions.

[Duuvian]

I educate male children in my realm with high martial teachers. Females are educated in diplomacy or being a steward, because those have a fertility bonus.

Sometimes I remember I should have a good spymaster so I educate a few children with good teachers of intrigue. Sometimes I don't and Poland's spymaster has eight through fourteen intrigue skill.

I find it quite common for randomly generated Bishops to have 20+ learning, so I don't educate children in that unless one is destined to become a Bishop at some point as a way to remove them from the line of succession. To be honest I don't know what benefits it brings to educate will-be bishops in learning instead of steward. With steward they might make more money to improve their holding or spawn more children before being elevated to bishop unless theocratic holdings are different and make better money from having learning or affecting technology throughout the whole county. I ought to remember to grant bishop inheritances to really old members of dynasties I like who are less likely to make more dynastic members, but then again I could simply marry them to a lusty young stewardess from the other side of Europe and have them make as many dynasty members as possible.

Spoiler: Big screenshot (click to show/hide)

Shortly after that screenshot a Duke and a Duchess tried to pass the King of Poland title to Kielbasa's brother, Pizza, who is their fellow Duke and who is visible in the screenshot. Pizza had 100+ relationship score with the King, the faction leader had 40ish I think, and the Duchess didn't like Kielbasa due to being ambitious and slightly foreign. Pizza had around 26 martial skill. They had 120% of Poland's possible levies at the start of the war. I'm not sure how that happened, maybe one hired some mercenaries? My available levies were very worn down from fighting pagans too, so that's more likely. Kielbasa had only one alliance, with his mother, the widowed one county Queen of Aragon.

The Ducal faction declared war following successful but costly wars against Lithuanian pagan states in the attempt to form the Wendish Empire. Poland had gold only for the cheapest of mercenary bands, and mustered a smaller force which lost it's battle against the Ducal forces. It did deplete the Ducal army significantly, by almost half, due to the Ducal army having to cross the Vistula river to reach Kielbasa's army. Just as I'm watching the Ducal army of 7000/12500 or so lay siege to counties bordering Kracow, the Empire of Cumania decides that was a good time to take a few border counties that one of their Dukes has a de jure claim on.

I decide to keep playing as it's Ironman mode, and see what can happen when you lose the big title of the realm to a faction.

The thing that saved Kielbasa is that his aforementioned mother, the Queen of Aragon, managed to die at that opportune moment and left him an inheritance of over 450 gold. I had hidden what remained of Kielbasa's army in the Holy Roman Empire and reinforced it with whatever levies I could raise from loyal holdings. While the Ducal army was deep in a siege in a neighboring county, I hired as many mercenaries as I could afford for a very short while. This consisted of fleeing Kracow and then consolidating with the surviving army, and then marching to the Ducal army. The resulting victorious battle was so bloody for both sides that the cost of the several mercenary bands' upkeep was reduced enough that I didn't have to release them as I thought I would. Peace was quickly offered and titles revoked from non-dynasty members as appropriate.

I then hired both Catholic holy orders available at the time as they have an initial cost in piety and no upkeep when defending against non-Christians. This led to Cumania losing very badly to a mix of holy orders and depleted mercenaries with a few Polish levies mixed in. The Cumania Duke with the claim which started that conflict decided to declare Independence from Cumania after that debacle and I took the other Counties in that Dukedom as Cumania's peace treaty no longer applied to him.

[scrdest]

I think that when it comes to Intrigue, you can simply marry a high-Intrigue wife and make her a spymaster for better outcome. Children with high Intrigue who aren't the heir apparent tend to quickly become self-made orphans.

[Dutchling]

I always go for high Diplomacy. Stewardship comes second (and first when I look for a spouse) and I ignore the other stats completely.

[Duuvian]

For my character, I choose a person to marry depending on

1: Do they hold, or will they inherit a Kingdom or better title? (you also will get an alliance)
2: Same as 1, except it requires some assassination of their siblings or parents.
3: Do they have a claim to a Kingdom or better title that I could defeat in a war for their claim, possibly while they are dealing with vassals declaring independence?
4: Any of the above except is it a Duchy in the vicinity of my realm instead of a King or Empire title?
5: Is my hold on the realm tenuous enough that I am doubtful I can keep my hold on it and can I marry one of the more powerful Ducal title holders or their inheritor, preferably one who does not currently enjoy me being in charge?

Failing finding one of those or choosing between two otherwise equal choices and assuming a need to create an heir quickly:

1: Are they a genius or strong?
OR
 Will it get me an alliance with the current Holy Roman Emperor or other powerhouse character?
2: Do they have good fertility boosting attributes?
3: Do they have very high stewardship value to offset my character's very low stewardship ability so I can keep my demesne limit high?
4: Can I really not find someone to replace an incompetent council member through inviting to my court people who like me more significantly more than their liege, or claimants? I'd probably only do this if I needed a good general and martial educator and everyone in the realm was around 10 skill.

[Wiles]

The new beta patch is out

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

MAJOR
- Added a "Depose Antipope" Casus Belli
- Added an "Antiking" faction. The leader usurps the liege's primary title, deposes the antipope and passes papal investiture. The Pope can be called into the resulting war.
- Not possible to set up an antipope within 50 years of one being forcibly deposed
- Fixed bug in Linux where the game became totally unplayable if you ALT+TAB
- Now possible to play in Ironman mode with the ruler designer and mods (but you won't get achievements)
- Significantly reduced the amount of event-spawned troops across the board to better reflect the rebalanced levies
- Fixed crash bug in the Mac launcher

MINOR
- West African Pagans can no longer have higher CA than Low
- Fraticelli now get investiture laws
- Waived the non-neighboring rule for theocracy title grants, but made it moddable
- Now allowed to grant one higher-than-duke tier title to a theocracy
- Blocked granting away your capital county if you have moved your capital
- Disallowed revoking and plotting to revoke a title that you just gave to someone
- Antipopes now correctly lose the status if they change religion
- Antipopes now lose their status if their liege is not the same religion
- Fixed some memory and thread safety issues with the trigger 'check_variable'
- Added a blocker flag to first generation Jewish courtiers, preventing conversion demands
- Increased the revolt risk for wrong culture and religion a bit
- Antipopes now have papal clothes
- You now have to be independent to create an antipope
- Added Jewish buildings
- Added Jewish retinues
- Fixed a bug with patricians pressing claims
- Improved the "pagan converts to spouse's/concubine's religion" decisions to work with all heresies
- Mending the schism is also now possible for Orthodox heresies that have taken over and become the main branch
- Tweaked various religious events
- Lowered the mean time to happen for certain story events
- Fixed a bug with the de facto liege of primary holdings
- Now patricians will be picked sometimes when using the random character button
- Added trait "Battlefield Terrain Master"
- Fixed bug where independent characters couldn't be assigned a religious title
- Fixed issue where liege took barony vassals entire county as capital when he didn't own the county
- Fixed missed check for unlanded when usurping title
- Fixed crash bug when looking at religions in game setup
- Corrected Orthodox patriarch name lists
- Added missing reason tooltip for why you cannot make an antipope of a bishop of another religion
- Added missing crusade names for some heresies
- Fixed a bug with the ending of the Shepherds' Crusade
- Fixed some triggers that weren't correctly checking for the Jewish religion group
- Non-Jewish rulers with Jewish councillors can now get some special technology improvement events
- Fixed a very rare crash in combat
- Marriage, betrothal, and concubinage can no longer be arrange while imprisoned
- Fixed bug in the Crusade CB where a courtier could not get the king title he deserved
- There is now automatic peace with rebels if you get a complete victory
- Fixed bug where the unit reorganization window didn't pop up and split of troops was not selected
- Fixed the invasion CB for Muslims so it becomes invalid when the target converts religion
- Fixed bug where a regiment managed to detach itself from its army completely
- City and bishopric rulers can no longer get claims through inheritance
- Corrected several heretic religion descriptions
- Added some missing Fraticelli college of cardinal text
- Added a minimum cap for bottleneck chokepoints

DATABASE
- Made sure the Vikings have enough ships in 867
- Strengthened 867 starting positions for Rurik, Dyre the Stranger and the Khazars
- Added Jewish Khazar names
- Made some minor fixes to male Iberian names

AI
- AI: Adjusted succession marriage reasoning
- AI: Better at calculating odds of victory when attacking
- AI: Should now be more careful about attacking with inferior numbers
- AI: Will now re-raise its forces if current levies are significantly smaller than the potential amount it can raise
- AI: Will now use the Spymaster to suppress factions
- AI: Will now use the Chancellor to improve relations with vassal faction members
- AI: More careful about appointing disgruntled Spymasters
- AI: Will now always honor the terms of an existing betrothal

MODDING
- Triggers are now automatically sorted by their computation complexity so modders won't have to think about it
- Added trigger 'is_recent_grant'
- Exported 'matrilineal_marriages' flag to religion script (no longer hardcoded for Muslims)
- Exported 'can_have_antipopes' flag to religions (now decoupled from 'investiture')
- Added event target 'betrothed'
- Added history command 'add_matrilineal_spouse'
- Added trigger 'is_married_matrilineally'
- Added support for the 'player_allow' trigger in factions
- Added a configuration "mp_max_lead_days" which is defaulted at 7, this prevents the server from progressing more than a week ahead of the slowest player
- Added do_not_disturb character flag to help optimize triggers and lock character availability for journeys, feasts etc
- Added any_claimant effect
- Fixed error with character and province event effect where they could not trigger cause they missed a trigger
- Added a new -debugscripts command line option that will output our internal asserts of the triggers and effects so modders can see what went wrong with their scripts
- Added EVENT_TROOPS_SIZE_MULT define as a global multiplier on match_mult
- Fixed an issue with namespaces and how delayed event ids are saved
- Fixed so duplicate entries of a character's ID won't create duplicate characters.
- Added BOTTLENECK_CHOKE_TROOP_CAP in defines which defaults to 300

INTERFACE
- Fixed bug where province view was toggled when siege ended

I'm glad they're reducing the amount of troops given in events. In my current game I had three concurrent rebellions which all got the "rebels flock to banners" event. I currently have 300k rebels merrily tromping about my empire.

[Dutchling]

No fix to crusades prematurely ending?

[EnigmaticHat]

Oh thank god, my Zoroastrian game had the entire region being torn apart by religious rebels.  I had to use mercs to fight off even single rebel armies, AND I had to surrender to one of them, despite having the eighth largest army in the world.  And that's not even mentioning what happened to my dear neighboring Cumania when they converted to Orthodox...

(do the religious rebels count as event troops?  If they don't then the horror will continue)

[ed boy]

I've been thinking about goals to do when your empire reaches unassailable sizes and you have no outside threats.

How hard would it be to exterminate everybody outside of my bloodline?

If I marry all my female relatives matrilineally, then that maximizes the size of my dynasty. In a large enough empire I can generate enough money that assassins becomes cheap. Whenever I conquer a new province I can make sure that one of my relatives is given the territory, and as I slowly conquer the entire world I can expand my range of influence.

How possible would it be to have this include mayor-level holdings? Feudal holdings would be doable, as once those pass into my dynasty they generally won't leave, but I don't know how the AI would react if I gave them a lower-level holding. Would they keep it, or pass it onto someone in their court, or create a new character for it?

Similarly, for an extreme goal, how possible would it be to ensure that every single character in the game (including courtiers) is my dynasty? I can make sure that my own court is without outsiders without hassle, but how often does the AI have courtiers appear in theirs? I know there are intrigue options to expand your court, but I never use them so I don't know how they work, or what culture/religion the incomers are.

[umiman]

Keep expanding.

You'll find that you'll reach critical mass at certain empire sizes wherein your ability to control your vassals and manage such vast tracts of land becomes impossible to handle and all your hard work will collapse into nothing.

My critical mass is about 30 kingdoms worth of size.

It's the Roman way.