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Author Topic: Crusader Kings 2 is released.  (Read 2122912 times)

Digital Hellhound

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11250 on: November 21, 2016, 07:06:25 pm »

Exactly. You can still put skilled nobodies on your council if you have means of keeping the (understandably insulted) vassals in check, like, say, a skilled nobody spymaster.
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misko27

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11251 on: November 21, 2016, 07:28:12 pm »

Hello, my name is Martha Isauros, popularly known by foreigners and the peasantry as "Martha the Cruel", but formally referred to as Basilissa Martha I. And I am the Antichrist.

Perhaps I should explain a bit. My great-grandfather, and ruler of the empire during the time of the Carolingian wars, was Basileus Konstantinos "Ironside". He was a brave man and a man of tremendous martial ability, but a stuborn man. His embrace of the Iconoclast heresy weakened the empire even as he grew it, reclaiming much of the Empire's traditional territory from the Pagans and Mohamedans. He had many sons, and many of his descendants still rule as viceroys in the lands he reconquered. His eldest son inherited the throne after he died in battle, but his eldest son was also mysteriously killed at the young age of 29. His only real contribution was to renounce the Iconoclasm of his father, and the birth of his daughter Martha, for whom I was named. So his brother, and my grandfather Cristophoros "The Kind" became ruler. I've heard that Cristophoros really was a kind man at first, but as he continued his families work of expanding the empire he grew more vicious and angry later in life. He did, however, love his wife dearly, and it was ultimately their love that did him in; literally, their lovemaking killed the old man.

After him my other father (for you already know the name of the first) inherited the throne, Konstantinos VI "The Resilient". His nickname was true in more ways than one: he grew to be a fierce warrior and devastating commander despite having only one hand and conquered much territory in the name of the empire, but he also survived numerous heartaches in life: the death of two of his four daughters, a stroke incapacitating the third, the constant injuries and deaths in his extended family, and finally, the revelation of his youngest daughter as the Antichrist. Some men would have attempted to kill such a child, but knowing the inevitable he instead changed succession laws to allow them to inherit the throne and spare his other family members from the same fate. This angered his many vassals, and such anger would come to a boil soon after his daughter took the throne; by then, too late.

Too late to change anything. Too late to stop it. With the fools who would have opposed me dealt with, I turn my eyes to the rest of the world. Now is the reign of Basilissa Martha I, and soon the whole world will learn to curse my name.

I mean, having to put up with a crap steward for a few years versus having a perfect council.
The real advantage is using your council to kick troublesome vassals upstairs.
« Last Edit: November 22, 2016, 04:20:24 pm by misko27 »
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Rolan7

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11252 on: November 22, 2016, 11:52:22 am »

Hello, my name is Martha Isauros, popularly known by foreigners and the peasantry as "Martha the Cruel", but formally referred to as Basilissa Martha I. And I am the Antichrist.
Pleased to meetcha!
After him my other father (for you already know the name of the first)
Think I guessed his name :P

(Jeez, quoting is tough on mobile... Thanks for the read!
Recently started reading The Early Centuries: Byzantium, a history which is only a little less fantastical :P Constantine I sure was a character.)
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Tawa

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11253 on: November 23, 2016, 02:50:53 pm »

I'm going to pick up some DLC because of the Autumn Sale and all. I'm thinking Charlemagne, Old Gods, and Way of Life, since I don't wanna spend too much; would you guys agree that these are good picks? I'm not looking to spend more than 15 dollars or so.
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hector13

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11254 on: November 23, 2016, 05:05:58 pm »

Do you have other DLC? Those three a pretty solid ones, adding earlier start dates and Pagans, plus a little bit extra in the way of character focus.
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Tawa

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11255 on: November 23, 2016, 09:46:08 pm »

Nah, these are the only ones I've got right now.

Between the cash I've got left from buying stuff last Christmas and my leftovers from the $15 I put in for those 3 DLCs, I've got enough cash left for something else; I can pick between one of Sword of Islam/The Republic and a content pack (portraits, music, heraldry, etc.), Legacy of Rome and three content packs, or maybe six of the content packs if I don't get something else altogether. Which option would you guys recommend? I've heard mixed views on the quality of The Republic, Legacy seems to be of questionable usefulness outside playing the Byzantine empire, and I've never heard a concrete opinion on how fun playing a Muslim is. I'm not picking up Sunset Invasion or Sons of Abraham regardless, as Sons of Abraham seems way overpriced for what it does and Sunset Invasion is, well, Sunset Invasion.

Also: how do I pagan? I've been going at playing, variously, the Norse and the Fins in the Charlemagne bookmark for about an hour and a half, and I've been encountering the same issue with both: I'm dirt poor and don't have any money to create titles or declare war on a regular basis.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2016, 09:49:29 pm by Tawa »
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Rolan7

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11256 on: November 23, 2016, 09:52:06 pm »

One word: raiding. Initially you don't need to overwhelm the holdings, just scrape that sweet loot from beyond the fort level.
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IronyOwl

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11257 on: November 23, 2016, 10:20:37 pm »

I love Merchant Republics to death, but they do manage to be hideously powerful yet wonky.

Basically, you rake in money hand over fist. You can control cities without penalty directly, and you can build trading posts as little addons to counties (your own or otherwise) which produce vast sums of money while boosting income for all cities and trade posts in their consecutive region. The end result is that you have the dosh to build everything, wage war forever, hire mercenaries rather reliably, and so on. I really cannot in good conscience claim they're not stronger than feudal assholes based on this raw power of gold.

Additionally, each merchant house has its own family palace, conveniently located wherever your current capital happens to be. In addition to obvious advantages in being unconquerable, this palace provides a wide range of benefits at efficient prices, since you were so lacking in gold before. This allows you to build up a nicely sized army (and get some freebie prestige/piety gain, plus fertility and other minor stat bonuses) without ever leaving home.

However, then the weirdness starts. For starters, merchant republics are ruled by five families. This means you are shackled to four other AI jackasses at all times, and unless you manipulate everything just right these oafs will frequently be your liege. See, the leader of a merchant republic is "elected" based on age, prestige, and amount of money he's dumped into campaigning, so unless you're constantly ladling prestige-generating positions on your relatively old heirs, sooner or later the AI is going to take over and ruin everything. Or at least not be very good at his job. On the bright side, being led by the oldest guy in the realm makes this a rather temporary problem.

Speaking of which, trading posts. They're awesome. You build them in a special trading post slot in coastal counties, even when owned by somebody else, and they generate revenue. They also produce a "trading zone" that boosts trading post and city income by a percentage based on the value of the zone's holdings; these percentages can get rather large rather quickly, though they start to taper as you climb. Contiguous areas held by the same family add up, meaning having a coherent territory gives much greater benefits than a bunch of piecemeal outposts.

Which is where it all goes wrong, because you're competing with four other braindead jackasses for space, and when you start getting more posts than other people they start thinking about declaring war on you to claim them, stealing them through plots, or if they're your liege just straight up redistributing them to "more deserving" families. Which is far from gamebreaking, but it's infuriating to build up a nice coherent trading area only to have some clown snap it in half because he was too stupid to build his own.

Speaking of jackasses and trading posts, merchant republics have totally different family mechanics than feudal realms. Each adult male of your dynasty at court sucks out a portion of your income, further dampening your obscene wealth generation. Though since they don't often spend money, this means it accumulates in particular branches of your dynasty until you end up playing as them more than it's lost. Also, each adult male adds to your trading post limit, which means in absolute theory they pull their weight.

Perhaps more importantly, merchant republics are locked into agnatic seniority succession, so you have less of a family line plus that scheming asshole uncle who's trying to murder your son, and more a gigantic gaggle of cousins twice removed you'll be playing as any minute now, seeing as you're taking the throne at 67. Alternatively, you can just designate an heir, if you'd prefer to select young competent rulers over replacing your council every five minutes. Me, I like everybody getting a turn.

Finally on family matters: Bride prices and prestige. A badly needed money sink, marrying high-class ladies requires obscene amounts of gold to purchase. Also, family leaders are regarded as counts and republic leaders as dukes, so other rulers will tend to snub you as "a mere count" despite having more cash on hand at this exact moment than their entire dynasty's projected decade of income. You also cannot do matrilinear marriages, which cuts down on your options somewhat.


So I greatly, greatly enjoy them myself and would certainly recommend them over some fancy new unit models, but they've definitely got some odd points, both balance and playstyle wise.
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Persus13

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11258 on: November 24, 2016, 12:43:37 am »

Legacy of Rome is worth it outside the Byzantines for retinues. Everyone gets them. They start out pretty small, but eventually can be a standing army ala EUIV. They're especially nice in my England game because the AI Viking raiders are super annoying and 5000 cavalry tends to get them to regret their choice of raiding targets.

As for content packs, I'd recommend the portrait packs. Since you're looking at people and not unit models for much of the game, it gives a lot more variety/accuracy.
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Kanil

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11259 on: November 24, 2016, 02:33:24 am »

Basically, you rake in money hand over fist.

...

See, the leader of a merchant republic is "elected" based on... amount of money he's dumped into campaigning

I don't recall ever being not able to handpick my heir in a merchant republic. You can award the title to any of them, and you easily make enough money to out-campaign even the oldest, most prestigious fart in all of Venice. I get that you're marketing the DLC to someone who's never played it, but in practice you typically have to choose to not run the republic all yourself.
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Seems to work fine with my copy. As soon as I loaded the human caravan came by and the world burst into fire.

misko27

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11260 on: November 24, 2016, 03:42:06 am »

I'm going to pick up some DLC because of the Autumn Sale and all. I'm thinking Charlemagne, Old Gods, and Way of Life, since I don't wanna spend too much; would you guys agree that these are good picks? I'm not looking to spend more than 15 dollars or so.
I've heard very positive things about all three, yeah. Maybe Charlemagne might not be, you might not want that, since as far as I know it mostly just extends the start date and if that doesn't interest you it's not a priority purchase. I think Legacy of Rome might be worth adding, as well: it's fairly small, but it's also cheaper than most of the DLCs too and as Persus says retinues are pretty damn useful.

-a merchant snip was here-
I've found Merchant Republics a ton of fun to play as, honestly. Haven't played a Muslim yet so I can't speak for that, and I've only ever played as a Merchant Republic once so we are talking about some seriously small sample sizes here, but it was pretty awesome. Totally different from Feudalism I think, and it scratches the "UPGRADE EVERYTHING" itch I have.

In terms of dosh, though, playing as the Byzantine Empire has redefined rich to me. I mean sure you are fabulously wealthy as a Doge, but you always have places to put that money. As the Byzantines I've had such a ridiculous surplus so far that the only thing that's brought me low has been how incredibly much being the Spawn of Satan pisses off your vassals (meaning 1: a lot of bribes, and 2: A lot less tax). Never realized evil was so expensive. But other than that, I've just been throwing money away at various projects ("You get a fort and YOU get a fort and YOU get a fort!") whenever I notice it's in the quadruple digits again.

On that topic: so now I have control of all of Alexandria, most of the duchies of Jerusalem and Antioch, and absolutely nothing else in the middle east. My question to you all: what next? I feel like going it's important to keep gaining the land most immediately necessary for restoring Rome and/or the Pentarchy (since that's definitely what I'm aiming for here), but on the other hand that basically demands I go to war with Lombardy (since they have literally everything I need; even Tunis) and I'd like to wait until I have some way of taking it all at once instead of the piecemeal approach (if that's at all possible), because I'd be looking at a lot of truces. On the other hand, the Middle East is a huge power vacuum just waiting to be covered with glorious purple, and shoring up my vulnerable flank couldn't be a bad idea. I can show you guys a map if any of you are interested.
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Digital Hellhound

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11261 on: November 24, 2016, 05:30:34 am »

On that topic: so now I have control of all of Alexandria, most of the duchies of Jerusalem and Antioch, and absolutely nothing else in the middle east. My question to you all: what next? I feel like going it's important to keep gaining the land most immediately necessary for restoring Rome and/or the Pentarchy (since that's definitely what I'm aiming for here), but on the other hand that basically demands I go to war with Lombardy (since they have literally everything I need; even Tunis) and I'd like to wait until I have some way of taking it all at once instead of the piecemeal approach (if that's at all possible), because I'd be looking at a lot of truces. On the other hand, the Middle East is a huge power vacuum just waiting to be covered with glorious purple, and shoring up my vulnerable flank couldn't be a bad idea. I can show you guys a map if any of you are interested.

Take the Middle East. Glorious purple will fill the streets of Mecca and Baghdad alike. After that you can do what the Romans were never able to and conquer Persia. Rehellenize the world!
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Teneb

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11262 on: November 24, 2016, 08:08:37 am »

On that topic: so now I have control of all of Alexandria, most of the duchies of Jerusalem and Antioch, and absolutely nothing else in the middle east. My question to you all: what next? I feel like going it's important to keep gaining the land most immediately necessary for restoring Rome and/or the Pentarchy (since that's definitely what I'm aiming for here), but on the other hand that basically demands I go to war with Lombardy (since they have literally everything I need; even Tunis) and I'd like to wait until I have some way of taking it all at once instead of the piecemeal approach (if that's at all possible), because I'd be looking at a lot of truces. On the other hand, the Middle East is a huge power vacuum just waiting to be covered with glorious purple, and shoring up my vulnerable flank couldn't be a bad idea. I can show you guys a map if any of you are interested.

Take the Middle East. Glorious purple will fill the streets of Mecca and Baghdad alike. After that you can do what the Romans were never able to and conquer Persia. Rehellenize the world!
Go for Byzantine India.
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misko27

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11263 on: November 24, 2016, 05:33:36 pm »

Why are these pictures so big? Watch it when you open them.The Shahro are the Shiite Caliphate, Armenia is ironically one of the biggest Muslim powers left, and amusingly it seems like my vassals are doing a decent job of expanding the frontier on their own: I certainly didn't have all of Cyprus when I last checked this, and one of them formed the duchy of Mesopotamia (and now he hates me, because, obviously, a lot of viceroys). The really nice thing about the viceroys is it makes handling my legions of angry vassals a lot easier, since I can just promote the one vassal that hates me least in any area (giving an opinion bonus) and not deal with the others, AND in a worst case scenario I can just strip them of their theme if they are being really annoying. Amalfi, Adrianople, and Venice are Merchant Republics. Also in the corner you can see that part of the bordergore that the HRE has become.

So yeah, I think conquering the rest of de jure Byzantium and at least Jerusalem would be wise. I'd really like to form Rome and/or Pentarchy as soon as I can too, though. Do any of you guys know whether you get the little event popups granting 100 prestige for fully conquering a Roman province if you are still Byzantium?
Ever since Charles tried and failed, Saxons have been on a tear. Had much of Germania at one point (Bohemia got involved and fucked that over eventually), and now Germanicism (?) is at 53% Moral Authority and as soon as one of their rulers reach 3000 piety I might have a problem in the near-distant future.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2016, 05:36:37 pm by misko27 »
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Ehndras

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Re: Crusader Kings 2 is released.
« Reply #11264 on: November 24, 2016, 06:04:30 pm »

NICE.

I always play Norse, reform, and make it my goal in life to destroy Catholicism. 0:)

Update:

In our MP game, I've finally got a good 83% of Scandinavia, formed Sweden and Norge (Norway), and a good half hour into our next play session, will form the Scandinavian Empire.

...At which point I can vassalize my pesky prick of a genius half-brother, his genius wife, and his genius kid, who took the kingdom of finland when my 1st ruler died.

Irony? He only owns Sjaelland, the capitol of Denmark.

Finish Denmark? Not my vassal? Hates me?

Screeeeew you buddy! You're not ruining my dreams of empire!

Bonus: 48% moral authority.

Bonus #2: Pyro converted from Suomenusko to Norse.

Bonus #3: As soon as I take Sjaelland from my cunt brother, I reform the Norse faith.

SUDDENLY, Asatru in the year 800. >:D

Next goal? We take over England, Ireland, and Scottland, then breach mainland Europe and screw with the Franks.

...Staying the hell away from eastern europe. We activated all the Hunnish invasions and the Khans are getting closer and closer... :|

LOLNOPE
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