View Full Version : Crusader Kings 3
Right, I've started this so let's get a proper fred on the go and share our misfortunes. I know Phonics is playing a bit and I'd be surprised if Disco doesn't. We may even lure Cord back to regale us with tales of tunnel wenches he's impregnated.
Anyway, as the classic starter point in the last game was Ireland I've decided to go as far away from that as possible. Myanmar it is!
https://i.ibb.co/3FtM9Rx/1.jpg
The light white-highlighted bit on the left is my starting point, the Duchy of Pagan, playing as this excellently-hatted gentleman:
https://i.ibb.co/DQghyhD/4.jpg
He is fickle, gregarious and gluttonous so I find him very relatable.
And the goal? Well let's do a possibly-realistic one and a I'm-probably-too-shit-to-make-this-happen one. First off is trying to reunite the Pagan Kingdom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan_Kingdom), the less likely one? The entire Bengal Empire....
https://i.ibb.co/09dVZhj/5.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/q5MmbkT/6.jpg
So I began, as all good CK saves should, by trying to fabricate some claims. Well, what I actually did was sort out my council and whatnot, but after all the admin was done I THEN started trying to fabricate some claims on my neighbour to the North who has just the two counties. A good starting point, I feel. The first year or so were very quiet. I found a new wife, had a daughter, got my existing son/heir some education and life was peaceful but boring. Then I realised that with my super high diplomacy stat.... well, could I just ask this guy if he wants to be my vassal? If he likes me enough then maybe and I'm going to be getting diplomacy perks so maybe there's a chance I don't have to use these claims. I'd need to hire soldiers to do it as our realms have similar military strength.
I begin a scheme to get this lad to like me more and then by chance (ish, I think it's because I'm a diplomacy wank) I get the chance to invite a neighbouring ruler for a court visit. And who should one of the options be but Count Maha Thanbawa, the man whose land I'm determined to take by hook or by crook? Excellent, let's bring him over.
What's that, game? He's immediately turned up and tried to Indecent Proposal me???
https://i.ibb.co/HYn8mSx/7.jpg
Alright maybe I don't feel so bad about my own schemes for this guy. The missus won't be chuffed if I say yes to this and the multi-event court visit had gone well so far so I said no and hoped he wouldn't flounce off. I didn't have the intrigue skills to try and listen in so I just rebuffed him and we got on with the rest of the visit which went really well. I paid him empty compliments and showed him the gardens and whatnot and everybody had a lovely time and his opinion of me went up a good whack and while he won't accept vassalage YET he's less against the idea now.
Only catch is that I took ill during this visit, so I had my court send for a physician and.... well....
https://i.ibb.co/X5pGVzG/2.jpg
So as you can see, one of my options is a man wearing only a leaf, who the game identifies as a treacherous villain and when I click onto him he also has the traits Arbitrary and Sadist. Who the fuck suggested this guy?
Obviously I took the other one and was initially wondering whether I'd have been better entrusting my future wellbeing to the sadist when she suggested treating me by putting a toad on my chest. But it worked! I AM HEALTHY AND INVINCIBLE. So I am continuing my efforts to steal this fellow's lands or make him my subject and bring his lands with him and because I'm such a smooth-talking, sweet-hatted motherfucker it's going well so far. I can't wait to become best friends just so I can ask if he fancies me as his ruler. I'm sure that won't hurt his feelings at all.
I also seem to have ended up with a half-decent heir, in no small part because the wife I chose seemed to end up being an excellent tutor for him for reasons I don't understand and it wasn't intentional. He's also come of age and immediately looks like he's readying himself for war, which given my track record in these games is probably wise:
https://i.ibb.co/3pcQYFp/8.jpg
Shindig
11-09-2020, 05:40 PM
He has his Dad's pigtails. That's all you needed in those days. Fuck a DNA test.
Oh no I'm safe on that front, he was the heir I had when I started the game. He's not the offspring of that twat who was lusting after my other half.
Tempted to try, but I know I will drop it within two hours.
Raoul Duke
11-09-2020, 06:03 PM
Great opener, and excited to watch the trials, tribulations and ultimately gore-laden failure unfold
phonics
11-09-2020, 06:05 PM
It's on Gamepass which at this point is such a good deal it would be pointless not to have it. I would never buy the game on it's own.
Rumours we will be having a 3-4 player MP game tonight among a group of friends who only picked up the game this week so I'll try share some tales.
I also feel like I should keep a count of how many of the classic Welby Murderspirals I've tried to instigate.
Currently 0. :cool:
phonics
11-09-2020, 06:24 PM
That's a point, can you help me out on that. When should I be murdering people?
My entire playstyle is just 'fabricate claim, invade, repeat'. So I need to expand.
That's a point, can you help me out on that. When should I be murdering people?
My entire playstyle is just 'fabricate claim, invade, repeat'. So I need to expand.
I mean, given my previous in this game I can tell you how to do it badly. The obvious one is if you've got somebody set to inherit something from you outside your dynasty that'll revert to somebody in your dynasty if you bump them off, or if you've got a claimant on your land or whatever.
phonics
11-09-2020, 07:23 PM
How do I set up having family that will inherit something though? How can I tell? Surely none of my wives will inherit anything cause they're women.
You can get matrilineal stuff (it's rare) and stuff where male and female heirs can both inherit, etc.
So, quick update as I start a new session.
Main thing of course is my expansion plans. So to the north of me I have this fella:
https://i.ibb.co/BG15dPM/3.jpg
Now... I have claims on both of his counties, which he's not very impressed with and I can press that whenever I choose so long as I don't die first. However I've also been befriending him and have my spymaster helping me improve his opinion of me so I still think there's a chance that I can just get him to agree to be my vassal. He's also the fella who tried to Indecent Proposal me and the missus at my own banquet so he's clearly a shady bastard and I will revel in trying to take his land from him one way or the other. However, I was looking at the notifications it gave me and it told me there's another Northern neighbour I can declare war on, because of this:
https://i.ibb.co/SdZNLHm/2.jpg
Interesting. He also doesn't hate the idea of me becoming his boss so I might just try to diplomacy my way to that one as well. Not least given he hasn't once asked me if he can go for a "private meeting" with my wife, so I already like him more than the other fucker and feel less inclined to ruin his life. While checking all this I learned something else of us, which is that because I have the most counties I am actually the head of the Burmese culture which means I can choose the direction we try to progress in and whatnot. But one innovation we already have and I am very excited about is....
https://i.ibb.co/8PhWKCh/1.jpg
:cool:
So yeah, plan for this session is to try and progress toward northern expansion, get my son ready to take over when something dreadful inevitably happens to me and try not to let the VD-riddled northern neighbour bonk
Okay so.... some updates. Firstly, just a cool mechanic. So the Ari religion leans partly into astrology so every so often I am allowed to divine the stars to see what I think the future holds.
https://i.ibb.co/fXPyMks/1.jpg
So in this case the stars think a great battle is coming so my guy starts thinking more about martial stuff and gains boosts to that for a decade but loses a bit of Learning, which is an interesting way to implement the astrology stuff.
I'm also SUPER close to getting this fella to just agree to being my vassal.
https://i.ibb.co/2YgQn8y/2.jpg
The -2 points can't just be overcome by getting him to a 100 opinion of me because that's not 1:1 (it looks like it's roughly a third) so I decide to invest in some men at arms (not elephants, too pricey :() to see if I can increase his opinion of my military strength enough and honestly my diplomacy is so high I think there are another vassal or two I could sway given time and maybe start to get myself a second duchy or maybe work towards getting this kingd-....
https://i.ibb.co/JvBmBZj/3.jpg
Well. Shit. Okay. So this is who I am now and honestly I've been lumbered with waaaaaay worse:
https://i.ibb.co/FbgMfjS/4.jpg
He's patient, just, a low-key all-rounder and a brilliant strategist so I may just be able to turn him into a bit of a beast on the military front to help me try and gain new lands. I really feel like if I'd been quicker off the mark in learning stuff I could have achieved some cool stuff with diplomacy with the dad but whatever, now I've got a Holy Warrior in charge. First on the agenda is getting him a second wife because I didn't realise I'd married him off to somebody 20-odd years older than him and I need some babies otherwise my heir is my idiot half-brother.
But apparently my marital advice is coming directly from Pornhub because one of the options for a new wife is my newly-widowed stepmother....
Disco
12-09-2020, 02:47 PM
How do I set up having family that will inherit something though? How can I tell? Surely none of my wives will inherit anything cause they're women.
Inheriting much via clever marriages was always a bit beyond me (I got Norway once but don't ask me exactly how) but in general you want to marry your children to the sons and daughters of other rulers, the more powerful the better. The higher up the line of succession they are the greater likelihood they have of inheriting a title themselves or getting a claim on said title (which you can push or which they may pass onto their, ie your, children and heirs which can then be pushed at a later date). The results may not always be an expansion of your own territory but if it's anything like CK2 then the game is looking for how well your dynasty does rather than how much of the map you've painted.
So, some things have occurred. Almost none of them good, other than me now having a daughter (nearly) called He-Man, as suggested by the game as a "Good Burmese name."
https://i.ibb.co/k3XVw82/1.jpg
The military training was going well, I had my councillor looking to fabricate some claims and I was in the process of gaining some allies by marrying off daughters. Then my shitbag of a religious leader, who already didn't like me and refused to endorse me, accusers me of being a cousin-shagger:
https://i.ibb.co/5WbYmTT/2.jpg
There's no evidence of this in the game and I managed to argue him down but he hates me even more for proving him wrong. There was only once answer for this....
https://i.ibb.co/gT741XV/5.jpg
Good riddance, fucker. My character is Just so he did stress out a little over this but I went on a hunt and killed a great big boar so he feels a bit better now. His martial prowess didn't help him, however, when trying to apprehend some deserters and one of his own champions left him with a wound that turned infected. Sent for a physician and just hoped the naked fella who answered the call for my father wouldn't reappear, and was instead given the options of a drunk or a deviant. The drunk seemed more learned so I took the risk. She did.... something....
https://i.ibb.co/vYg5JNq/4.jpg
.... with a hot iron, but whatever dubious thing it was (I am not heartened by her name nearly being 'Bottom'), it worked! Just as the chest-toad saved my dad, something dreadful being done with an iron has saved me. I even briefly had a badass scar (https://i.ibb.co/W2jjcsh/3.jpg) but sadly that has now fully healed.
However, disaster has since struck. My Bengali ally called me to help him in a war, and the fucking moment my levies left my land my northern neighbours ganged up and declared war on me. With my Bengali allies having troubles of their own and my other allies having to take the time to pass a mountain range to get to me it was too late. I got rinsed in one battled and surrendered in the second because I was just going to get curb-stomped. Their forces were too many and even my promising your martial character wouldn't turn the tide. I'm now the county of Sagaing down.
https://i.ibb.co/xSGTCKC/6.jpg
So, new plan. Keep fabricating claims, use my gold to build up men-at-arms and improve holdings to be able to get a bigger army long-term, but it's not looking promising. I really wish I'd cottoned onto the diplomacy of my previous character sooner. If this all goes pear-shaped and I don't think there's much I can realistically do in a short enough time to make it a fun game I may restart with the same character and see if I can do a better job but we'll see. For now, it's the slow build to giving these twats a punch in the mouth in future.
phonics
12-09-2020, 04:53 PM
I had a quick browse on how to get a handle on murder and Castile seemed set up well as no-one has any kids at the start date. I murdered my brother to become the Duchy of Andalucia and then found that I was one murder away from being King of Spain so that was the end of my uncle. I formed the Kingdom of Spain and was dubbed ‘Father of Spain’ or as I prefer ‘Big Daddy Spain’.
That’s when it might have got to my head slightly. My sister who had helped me off uncle King of Spain was pregnant and I was 2nd in line so I had no choice but to murder her.
And then I found out Spain has split succession so all titles are split between my children equally. So I murdered all my children but one and my wife just in case she got pregnant again.
I’ve killed 7-9 people in less than a decade. All of them my relatives. No one suspects a thing.
That's a classic Welby Murderspiral right there. :cool:
Well, almost, THE classic one saw almost every murder found out and my Queen of England named "Catherine the Devil."
I won some wars. :cool:
In a turn of events that is a DREADFUL SHAME INDEED the fella who invaded me found himself bereft of allies so I called my mates and went and biffed him in and got my county back. Sadly I'm not advanced enough on various fronts to press all claims at once but he shall be mine eventually. However then another dickhead tried to invade me for some of my land from the south. Hired mercs, kicked his cunt in, won the war, ransomed off my prisoners, happy days. The wars were fairly uninteresting so I won't get into more detail.
Much more interestingly is that it told me I have a lawful right to imprison one of my vassals who is also my half-brother. First thing I noticed is that, well, he dresses like this now:
https://i.ibb.co/B6QynM6/1.jpg
He's maimed, disfigured and I can imprison him lawfully because he has unlawfully executed my half sister. As far as I can tell the Bengali fella I married her off to (because she's an ambitious sadist and I had no interest in her hanging about) died in battle round my way (not sure if it was one of the above two wars or the other one I spotted happening round my southern border that I didn't take an interest in) so she's ended up back in his county at which point he's then done her in. Without knowing the reasons (if there's a way to find out the specifics I don't know it) it's not worth the risk as I only have a 19% chance of imprisoning him without causing a war, so fuck it.
https://i.ibb.co/nf9YCtH/Shithead.jpg (https://ibb.co/sQnNHz0)
Meet Gorm. Gorm is an arsehole.
I am the Duke of York and am quite happy owning pretty much all the North of England. But what's this I see, Chester has somehow become independent of Wessex and just happens to be De Jure part of my lands. Lovely stuff. They only have the one ally, I have eight. I am a mensch. This'll be easy.
The one ally in question is Gorm here. Despite the fact my army numbers 4000 and his is about 600, he has thus far ripped the head off two of my sons, and killed my spymaster as well. And I'm being quite literal when I say 'ripped the head off' the sons. He's properly actually ripped their heads off. The man is a terminator. He has saved the independence of Chester single handed (well, him and my idiot brother getting me embroiled in literally every war going). Every time I kill his army he comes back and takes a son.
It's now my mission to hunt him down and kill him. By which I mean I'll poison his soup and run away like a big girl.
My suggestion would be finding a home on a different continent to Gorm, and even that sounds like it might not be enough
Gorm is dead :youpi:
I had nothing to do with it. Rubbish story really, but there is clearly an even more terrifying Gorm-murdering maniac lurking somewhere in the Swedish interior. I ain't going there to find out who.
I assume Jormungandr and Fenris teamed up.and jumped him in his sleep.
Not much to report, I gained a county and learned that my daughter and son-in-law apparently live naked all the time but the most notable thing is that my character, who is a bit of a wet blanket who gets stressed out when nasty things happen outside of the battlefield, LOST stress when my nutjob half-brother died:
https://i.ibb.co/sCdq1X6/1.jpg
phonics
13-09-2020, 04:35 PM
So here is where I need help.
https://i.imgur.com/FDHrrZZ.jpg
My realm is secure and I'll inherit everything at this point. What CAN I do from here? What are the possibilities to do? (apart from obviously just reacting to what happens to me)
I have loads of prestige but no idea what to do with it. Do I upgrade buildings with my gold? I know I can start a Holy War but I need to build up piety for the big chunks so I'm waiting.
edit: And who are these two people fighting inside my country when I'm not at war?
edit2: Followup
https://i.imgur.com/ysBE8RE.png
Does this mean I need to fight a 126 man army to get all that green stuff?
phonics
13-09-2020, 04:55 PM
Please ignore the previous post. I made the mistake of making plans.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/270326079648956433/754746923239342190/unknown.png
Disco
13-09-2020, 05:45 PM
People fighting inside your lands are likely your vassals fighting each other.
phonics
13-09-2020, 06:24 PM
I just keep getting Jihaded in a Holy War and losing. I think I'm just going to give up some random land I have.
Alas, alas the King (well, Duke) is dead.
https://i.ibb.co/bXnZTwG/1.jpg
A good long reign and honestly he's done really well for me.
A bigger domain than he started with by 3 counties. If we can make inroads to taking the Duchy of Thumondari then we maybe won't be a million miles away from recreating the Kingdom of Pagan.
https://i.ibb.co/dBybBGF/2.jpg
The ol' fella also gave us our first Dynasty Legacy, so I opted for one that should help me get better characters in future.
https://i.ibb.co/ngx5rGw/3.jpg
And here's the new lad, named for his granddad and more of an administrator but he's already made good progress in stewardship so hopefully I can rake in the moolah. Also pulling a people's eyebrow there which I reckon has to be a good sign.
https://i.ibb.co/Pwyr4wk/4.jpg
I won't post it here but all the nude characters is weird, especially when it showed me my dead daughter who'd been maimed before dying in battle (to another naked woman. What sort of wars are they having on the subcontinent?)
Today I discovered that you can be a womaniser all your life, sire ten children with your wife and hareem of concubines but all it takes is a bout of stress brought on by one dead brother to send you absolutely mad for the cock.
I also played a bit of Crusader Kings 3 lol.
The People's Eyebrow lad is dead. he survived 20 odd years and was a beast of a steward but I spent most of his reign on max speed as I didn't get into many wars, mostly using his skillz to build stuff, improve the military, etc.
I think with the new kid, who's also pretty decent, it should be possible to make some progress towards being a king.
Also disappointed at a lack of Gorm in that Cord post. I know he's dead but I also feel like Gorm wouldn't be too hindered by a little detail like that.
Gorm probably killed Cord and is now posing as him.
Please don't kill me, Gorm.
phonics
14-09-2020, 08:27 AM
Yeah once I became King I had no idea what was going on anymore. My country kept changing size with no wars going on.
My guess is that CK3 isn't as good as CK2 sort-of was at warning you if land in your realm has an heir outwith your realm but I've not had it happen to me yet to try and dig into what's gone on.
phonics
14-09-2020, 11:52 AM
Yeah but it also got bigger. I had half of North Africa for 10 years randomly.
Hm, yeah. That's odd.
Hard to even guess without being able to dig into it.
Disco
14-09-2020, 01:53 PM
Probably a vassal inheriting or doing a Holy War of their own, if crown laws still work the same way then vassals will have quite a lot of freedom early on.
The crown authority broadly seems the same, yeah.
I need to look into the inheritance laws again because I thought what I had was basically gavelkind renamed but it turns out it's different because my cultural "fascination" became Gavelkind so I knocked that shit on the head pronto.
I'll keep this update short as it's only interesting at such point as it goes horribly wrong.
New lad in his sweet hat:
https://i.ibb.co/2MR2f7d/1.jpg
To make this kingdom a thing....
https://i.ibb.co/KFGh6Yz/2.jpg
.... I need:
- 750g (500 for the kingdom, 250 for the duchy I need to create first.) I'm a predominantly a steward so this shouldn't be too tricky if I can avoid getting caught up in all the war. IF.
- 2 duchys of this kingdom. I have 1 but I only need one specific county to make it to.
- 12 counties. I have 10, but once I take the 11th I should hopefully be able to sweep up the 12th as there's be one county I don't have but is de jure mine.
The two main obstacles to this are:
- An untimely death.
- Me fatally misunderstanding my situation.
LET'S GO.
Well I'm now king exactly as planned and it's all been really uneventful.
phonics
14-09-2020, 07:46 PM
Well I'm now king exactly as planned and it's all been really uneventful.
See this is my problem. Once I succeed the next goal is so out of reach that I lose my way and restart.
To be fair I have short-term goals to be getting on with by way of getting the de Jure duchies all into my kingdom and then I can see how realistic the Bengali Empire is.
I would broadly agree though that a good small-scale save is usually more fun than actual success.
I forgot to mention that I got CUCKED, as if I were part of a Vince McMahon storyline. One of my counts came and told me that my wife had been at it with some mayor and that my heir may not be mine. No proof of the latter but he's a handsome devil (I've managed to make beauty into one of my recurring traits apparently as the kids all have it :girl:) and he's got some other traits that make him similar to me, so whatever. I imprisoned the man who was slipping her one and took all his money which helped me found the kingdom and replaced the slag with a younger model and despite the number of kids we (? :uhoh:) have churned out it was long since confirmed to be a loveless relationship so no stress gained for my lad. #yolo
Gave this a go last night.
Started as the ruler of Bretagne. Got married, had a kid to complement the bastard kid that the game already gave me.
Decided to fabricate a claim on a neighboring town with the aim of taking it over. Once that was done and I was preparing to WAR over it, that region of the map suddenly turned red. Those bloody bastards got to it first. Oh well.
Some random woman asked me to have a shag with her before she leaves to go somewhere. I perused my options and none of them came with negative consequences, so I chose the one that had a ~70% chance of revealing a secret and got right down to it. Once we were done she told me how much she enjoyed it, but no secret. Guess that's that.
Until some months later, when she came back telling me that I now had a(nother) bastard child. The option of having them both live in my court would raise my stress, so instead I told them to fuck off, which apparently relaxed me greatly.
In the meantime, my claim fabrication on another chunk of land came to fruition. Before embarking on war, I decided to seduce the daughter of the man who's land I was about to take, because why not? (my character being a great seductor, apparently) With a chance of success in the high 60s, I was pretty confident this would work, and somehow help my non-existent long term plans. The bitch was not seduced.
Undeterred by my romantic failure, I embarked in a war to claim what was (un)rightfully mine. After clicking the GO TO WAR button, I realized that that meant going to war against the entirety of France and its "vastly superior" army. Come on lads, I have nothing against you, I just want this small chunk of land. I decided that the smart thing was to abort this plan (and by abort I mean click save, go to war, lose decisively, and click load after).
So now, as I wondered what to do from here, I got news that some other cunt was fabricating claims on my land. I was not going to let such shenanigans happen, so I started a plot to assassinate the bastard. I also tried to seduce his daughter.
Before the lad was murdered, or the daughter seduced, he declared war on me. I rallied my troops, tried to hire some men-at-arms with my non-existent money, and went to war to defend my people. A few months later, my army was running towards the sea and Nantes was now part of France. Some advisor or other also told me that my capital (is it a capital?) was out of control. With that, I decided to call it a night.
Good game.
I love that whereas my CK2 plan for basically everything was "I'd better do a murder" yours for CK3 is "I'd better fuck this dude's daughter."
Also I'm getting strong Martin Prince / Nelson Muntz in Shelbyville vibes from you picking on some small backwater and France suddenly looming up behind them.
"Spring forth, burly protector, and save me!"
Until some months later, when she came back telling me that I now had a(nother) bastard child. The option of having them both live in my court would raise my stress, so instead I told them to fuck off, which apparently relaxed me greatly.
I love these bits in the game. The 2nd character in my save was mid-40s when I took him over and he came with a ready-made nemesis and he was fucking delighted when she died.
The stress system is complete bonkers.
I will give it another go today or tomorrow. Might try Bretagne again, but focus on maintaining my independence for as long as possible. I will have to figure out how to build up my cities and armies this time (in between the daughter seducing, of course).
Is it just me, or is this one more accessible than the previous one? I vaguely remember opening up the old one, spending an hour or two mostly staring at the screen and clicking at random menus without zero clue of what was I supposed to do, and then just calling it quits. Maybe it is just the realization that there is nothing that you are supposed to do and just treating it like The Sims: Medieval edition that did the trick.
This is definitely more accessible and shows you more information and prods you in the direction of stuff you need to know better.
But yes, after my initial "what the fuck is going on here?" with CK2 realising that there isn't an objective other than what you've set for yourself is quite freeing. One of my favourite CK2 saves I was a big fat fella called Adalbert who was a count in the very middle of the Holy Roman Empire. The plan was to become a Duke and then maybe see if I could at least be one of the people in the vote for Emperor but so much stuff kept happening I could barely hold onto my Duchy but it was great fun. Some of it is stuff where you kinda fill in the gaps to make up for non-obvious game logic too. Like in that one my liege demanded I come and help with some minor civil war / rebellion he was putting down but by the time I'd marched my army across Europe it all stopped, however I still got the trait of "War Hero" or whatever it was which made everybody like me more so I just like to imagine he got back there and lied.
Maybe you should try and find Gorm and play as him, I'm considering it for my next save. :cool:
I keep talking about my next save because I'm sure this one is due to go horribly, horribly wrong very soon.
phonics
16-09-2020, 12:05 PM
I think it should almost skip the dynasty thing. Like you can't move onto your heir, you get given a random new character somehwere else in the world.
Maybe you should try and find Gorm and play as him, I'm considering it for my next save. :cool:
Now, that is a plan. Game objective: kill Cord.
Sir Andy Mahowry
16-09-2020, 12:52 PM
You don't have the cojones.
I think it should almost skip the dynasty thing. Like you can't move onto your heir, you get given a random new character somewhere else in the world.
I mean you can just do that yourself if you want. The odds of your actions having affected even your medium-distance neighbours are so slim that 99% of the time it'd be little difference to just starting a brand new save in the same year as your last one ended.
You don't have the cojones.
Maybe I will just shag his daughter.
Shagging Gorm's daughter. :harold:
If you do that he breaks free of the game and deletes your System32 folder mate.
Not Gorm's, I would never even think of that. Cord's.
And of course, we are talking about CK3 virtual Cord here. :uhoh:
Threatening to nonce a kid he doesn't even have. :nono:
phonics
16-09-2020, 04:46 PM
This conversation lead to me to decide what my next quest would be. It involved this google search.
https://i.imgur.com/8bDzwW2.png
Could everyone who hasn't already post the names of 'their' selected characters? I am going to ignore conquering land, in favour of something far more valuable, hearts.
I am going to go on a world tour of cucking the globe starting with the characters in this thread/friends from discord. Just breeding the juiciest boys and gals in the land.
I'll find mine when I log in. I already have the handsome / beautiful trait baked in I think. :cool:
Aren't the initial stats random?
I don't remember the name of my lad. Whoever is the ruler of Brittany at the start of the game.
Vercetti
16-09-2020, 07:42 PM
At the risk of outing myself as the gimp kid who shows up with his Gola trainers, while you're all shambling about in your Adidas predators, I've started a game on CK2, having discovered it was free on Steam.
I started as the King of England. Having no idea what I was doing, I was starting to get bored with nothing happening, and my Bulgarian wife refusing to bear me a child, but I hung in there. I'd been plotting to off the frigid cow, but nothing had happened for months, so I cancelled the plot, and made peace with my lot in life. Eventually, she gave me a son.
Within half an hour of boredom starting to set in, I'd been killed by some traitorous scumbag, who then assumed my position with the ice queen, and allowed someone else to take the throne.
Playing as my son, Eric, from the age of two, was uneventful, but I harboured ambitions of coming of age, and eventually fucking their shit up. Sadly, the new King, wise soul that he obviously is, imprisoned me, until I died aged 20, in the oubliette. The jokes on them, though. I went through puberty down there.
I then ended up playing as the traitorous scumbag. I was made Commander of England, but ended up going into hiding, aged 70, and then swiftly died.
I still have absolutely no idea how anything works.
That sounds worse than my playthrough. :D
Disco
16-09-2020, 07:53 PM
I still have absolutely no idea how anything works.
This is exactly the right way to play it.
Interesting revelatory thought: Gavelkind (or the stupid new name they've given it), is the worst idea ever invented anywhere. God it's a load of old shite. Like really properly awful. Why must I essentially lose every game of Crusader Kings I've ever played to a bloody bit of shit legislation. Yes, lets give all the soldiers to the younger brother that'll work. Keep halving the realm every twenty years? Splendid idea. I bet those giant Viking bastards next door won't take it as an ideal opportunity to bum me into the next century will they.
Also, Pepe :uhoh:
Hark at Disco advocating playing not knowing what you're doing when his AARs used to featuring him lolling off the Golden Horde with one half of his empire and giving most of Europe wedgies with the other.
Also that is a piping hot take on Gavelkind, Cord.
Started a new game in Bretagne, this time as the ruler of the Leon region instead of the 'Petty King' (I didn't know you could do that), with the goal of conquering Bretagne and then trying to keep those French bastards off my lands.
Decided to focus on the monies (stewardship?) and building up my main city. Claims were fabricated, armies were raised and the regions right above and right below me were conquered. They did not put too much of a fight, to be honest. Unfortunately, while this was going on, the French bastards conquered Nantes, reducing my potential lands.
After that there was a period of waiting. I needed to increase control of the newly taken lands and build up my army, since Mr. Petty King had a bigger one than me. While waiting for the preparations to be completed, my main man decided to shag his daughter in law. For the stress, you know, since he had the trait 'lustful' right next to the trait 'shy' (so, same as like 90% of the internet). You see, talking to people stresses him greatly, but stealing his son's wife keeps things in balance. Five children were also produced, in total. Two boys and three girls.
Before I could launch my attack, Mr. Petty king died, so Vannes and Rennes where divided among his two kids. Tried to assassinate one, because why not, but failed miserably. Whatever. Once my army was built enough I launched my all-conquering attack.
The siege of Vannes was going well but, in what has to be a troll move, those wankers decide to convert to a weirdo religion before I was done with them. Their new faith was not enough to stop my pointy sticks though, so my man became the Petty King of Brittany, which was now divided into two religions.
I though that I would now rule it all, but instead, the two conquered kiddos kept control of their regions and, understandably, hated their ruler (-100 opinion, both of them). I tried to force one of them to convert back to catholicism and he refused, which meant that now I could imprison him, but with only a 16% chance of success, I haven't done that (yet).
A few years later, my character died. Now Brittany is divided with my new character as the petty king in Leon, his brother in control of two other regions, and the two other regions controlled by the loser brothers that hate me. The goal now is to ensure control of my Duchy (I think that is what it's called) by converting those cunts back to catholicism, either offing or charming the loser brothers, and building up my defenses before any shenanigans begin. Also, my prestige is basically at zero and my faith (piety?) at -170 or something like that, so I will need to figure out a way to deal with that.
I though that I would now rule it all, but instead, the two conquered kiddos kept control of their regions
What cassus belli did you use? Was it subjugate? I think if it's that you're basically just forcing them to join your gang.
You might be able to revoke their titles and give them to some bootlickers but that, of course, comes with its own risks.
I have no idea what I used. It just said "your claim" or something like that.
I will try to imprison one of the cunts. The other I don't know what I'll do with. We'll see. Maybe I will shag his daughter.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I married my new character's son and heir to his own cousin, who is currently the first in line to inherit. My cunt brother better not decide to have a son, or I might have to do something about it.
Bit of inbreeding, very regal.
Disco
17-09-2020, 06:00 PM
Hark at Disco advocating playing not knowing what you're doing when his AARs used to featuring him lolling off the Golden Horde with one half of his empire and giving most of Europe wedgies with the other.
Also that is a piping hot take on Gavelkind, Cord.
Well I only posted the ones where I won.
+1 for gavelkind being shit, I could never quite get away from trying to paint the map so I always switched away asap.
What's gavelkind? Not sure I have run into it, but it sounds like I want to avoid it.
Disco
17-09-2020, 06:20 PM
It's where your eldest son/child gets your primary title and your other children/heirs get the rest split between them. Fine for spreading your dynasty but personal holdings tend to get more disparate and therefore less efficient. It can also break up your nation if you have more than one title of the same level as your primary one (ie a Duke with a second duchy or a King with a second kingdom then you'll lose one if you have more than one eligible heir).
Hmmm. Isn't that the standard mode? The one you start with? When my original char died, my heir got my capital, but the other kid got my other two regions.
If it is bad, how do I get rid of it?
Disco
17-09-2020, 06:36 PM
I'm only going by CK2 but there should be a tab that shows your crown laws, one of which will be inheritance, it should also then give you options to change or will tell what hoops you have to jump through to do so. It always used to be linked to crown authority which is a bugger to raise so the meta options was always to go Elective (pick whoever you like) early then switch to Primogeniture (eldest son gets everything) later as that was the easiest way to keep your shit together.
And 'bad' is relative, Gavelkind tended to be unpopular because everyone expects Primogeniture to be the norm, it's more predictable, and players tend to like map painting rather than dynasty spreading.
Well things were going smoothly but slightly boring-ly. Fended off a foreign invader who was after a county, increased my kingdom with another Duchy or two, etc.
And then I went and got murdered by own son. if I only I could have foreseen that the ambitious sadist would turn on me!
https://i.ibb.co/nj9Z5xv/image.png
That hat / tache combo though. :drool:
Also basically all of my vassals loathe me because I did not get away with the murder unknown.
Also my own brother attempted to murder me.
And is my heir as I have no kids.
This is about to get interesting.
EDIT: Me and Cord were talking about Gavelkind and I think the thing with it is is that while it probably made sense in real life for the dynasty spreading reasons Disco mentions it's an annoying game mechanic because you suddenly lose half your shit.
I'm only going by CK2 but there should be a tab that shows your crown laws, one of which will be inheritance, it should also then give you options to change or will tell what hoops you have to jump through to do so. It always used to be linked to crown authority which is a bugger to raise so the meta options was always to go Elective (pick whoever you like) early then switch to Primogeniture (eldest son gets everything) later as that was the easiest way to keep your shit together.
And 'bad' is relative, Gavelkind tended to be unpopular because everyone expects Primogeniture to be the norm, it's more predictable, and players tend to like map painting rather than dynasty spreading.
This is basically how it still works, though they've renamed the standard Gavelkind to Confederate Partition or something. It seems to be even harder to get rid of this time around, as I can't even raise my crown authority at all yet as my current culture group (Anglo-Saxon) hasn't yet come up with the idea.
Pepe - basically the benefit is that theoretically you get less rebellions from within your family as most should be kept happy by inheriting something, but in my experience it just leads you to having bitty lands where either a neighbour will end up more powerful and start hoovering you up, or one of your relatives will inherit enough to decide to challenge you for your characters primary title. It's always been a bit of menace.
I will have to look into it later when I fire up the game.
Yeah Gavelkind is an innovation that unlocks Confederate Partition, which starts out by doling everything out equally and then you can weight it more towards the heir getting more stuff.
To get rid you need:
- The Royal Perogative innovation as this lets you increase your crown authority to change the succession laws appropriately.
- The Primogeniture innovation, which isn't one of the Innovation options until much later in the game than I currently am (late 900s) so I'm not getting rid of partition succession laws for a good while yet.
Raoul Duke
17-09-2020, 08:54 PM
Are there any good Let's Plays anyone can recommend? Ideally more on the explanatory/tutorial side of it
Hm. Many A True Nerd did videos on "A Practical Guide to Torture, Madness, and Profit" and "The Ultimate Lifestyle & Character Build Guide" before he started his actual playthrough (in which he does also explain some things as he goes) but honestly the tutorial on this one's alright. It's very much "teach you the basics NOW GO PLAY AND WORK SHIT OUT" but the tooltip system is also pretty good it seems to me. Basically just popping up as and when a thing happens for the first time going "Right, here's what the fuck just went on."
I've not sought out anything like that beyond the in-game tutorial though because as this save proves I am a master of the game. (Getting this in now before my character gets strung up or subjected to endless rebellions.)
Disco
18-09-2020, 08:28 AM
Paradox seem to have a knack for making games where you can fairly safely ignore the systems you don't understand but then also reward you when you actually get around to learning them.
Yeah most of what I knew (not much) in CK2 I learned just by playing because the tutorial was diabolical.
Right, so going into a morning session here's my actual status. Firstly, here's the Kingdom of Pagan as it stands:
https://i.ibb.co/4Sh1xcg/1.jpg
Which I'm pleased with. With a mix of war and diplomacy most of the de Jure Kingdom of Pagan is now mine with just one Duchy holding out. That Duke doesn't despise me but he has a lot of allies in my kingdom which is bad for various reasons which I'll come onto.
Next up, the patricide / regicide double-whammy I've just taken over:
https://i.ibb.co/nj9Z5xv/image.png
On the facial hair and hat front he's rock solid. He's a solid steward and decent in Intrigue which might help him but his education trait is for Stewardship so I'll likely steer him into that. There are some perks in there which pertain to control, vassal opinion, etc. which are going to be handy for him if he can get his hands on them soonish. As discussed he's an ambitious sadist, the latter of which means people just don't like him much on a base level though it does give him a fairly high Dread score, which means people are scared of me and a bit less likely to join factions against me and do as they're told, which could come in handy but might not be enough. This is where I like CK3 because to survive as this guy I might really need to lean into what this guy's strengths are as a character (rather than the state of his kingdom) if I'm going to survive this because..... well..... everybody fucking hates this guy.
Let's have a rundown of some vassals, shall we?
- Duke Zarni fucking hates me. Lowest possible opinion of me, -100. He didn't like my dad, I get negative opinion because I'm a sadist and a known murderer, he considers my branch of Buddhism to be astray, wants a seat on my council (the only thing he's good for is Spymaster and even I'm not stupid enough to give that job to a vassal who hates me) and just basically wants more power.
- Count Pyit. One of my champions, which is worrying, COULD hate me less but not much. He also wants a seat on the council as well as just disliking me for my fascinating array of personality defects but is a buffoon so he's not getting one.
- Count Zarni (not to be mistaken with the Duke further up) is the de jure liege of one of the duchies I personally hold. This might abstractly be a good thing if he kicks off about that and starts an uprising I can't win if it means I can just give it to him for a nice opinion buff but obviously this would also make a man who hates me more powerful. Hm. This is going well, isn't it? Next up....
- Count Bayinnaung. Currently imprisoned by me. He was put there by my dad and holds it against me too. I'm sure he tried to rebel against the father but he still thinks that murdering him was a bit stiff, old boy, what. Tempted to just execute him to get a bit more dread. We'll see.
- Count Kyit. Doubly hates my sadism because he's got the compassionate trait. Good stuff, I sense we'll be friends.
- Another Count Zarni? Where are these fuckers coming from? Anything, this one has a sweet, sweet 0 opinion of me. Useful given he's my spymaster. There's a further smattering of counts and whatnot who merely sort-of hate me and one who ACTUALLY LIKES ME but is only a mayor so honestly who cares. But then we get to the problematic one.
- Prince Tannet is my brother, a Duke, doesn't much care for the fact that I offed our dad but also tried to murder me so yeah, we're not the best of buds and I suspect I will never get his opinion above -100 because while that's the lowest it can get his total tallies up to....
https://i.ibb.co/xCMBTCF/2.jpg
-203. Excellent.
On top of all that my religious leader hates me which means I won't get levies from "church" holdings, though I'm not sure they actually amount to much right now. On top of all this there's some fella over in India who I had to beat up enough to get a White Peace in the last save before the character was murdered so I could fend off another rebellion or whatever it was, which means he still has his claim.
The cherry on the cake of all this is that while my military is theoretically pretty strong some of my vassals are stronger, especially if you include their allies including the duchy to the South who would be prepared to take me down with about half my vassals currently.
The chocolate sprinkle on top of the cheery on the cake of sadness is that I don't currently have an heir. Well, a correction: I don't have a child. My heir is my brother who tried to murder me. My wife is pregnant though, so I may have my own heir soon if I can just survive long enough.
That's one small sliver of good news so let's see if I can find any others:
- While I don't have kids of my own there other unmarried children in my family so I should be able to get some alliances (not necessarily good ones) quite quickly by betrothing them.
- I'm starting with 415 gold. This is a good starting point if I need to save up for some mercs in the event of a rebellion.
- As I mentioned before, I've got a good dread stat currently. it's 45/100 so while I am widely despised this might be enough to stop at least some people actually having the balls to step up to me.
- My council is actually pretty decent, with a couple of unlanded guys in there it might be worth me giving some titles to.
In short, things could be about to get spicy. The time of the murderspirals might have been a long time coming but it could be upon us because honestly some of these motherfuckers are going to cause me nothing but problems. And I'm already a known murder so honestly.... how bad could it get?
That initially promised to be as lively as I expected but it's since settled down.
A few things: I immediately made some alliances by marrying off half-siblings and whatnot but sadly despite their strength I had to prioritise other alliances ahead of this house with the excellent motto:
https://i.ibb.co/ZNhP3BT/1.jpg
Secondly, it did not take long for the first attempted murder on my life:
https://i.ibb.co/3YZCzBB/2.jpg
However, as you can see I survived and of course tried to arrest the brother which I thought would be harder and I might have to go to war over it but...
https://i.ibb.co/Xy50hSP/3.jpg
He's so fucking scared of me I got a massive buff on top of my military advantage. :cool:
I executed him of course, but first I thought I'd try my first bit of torture as my character is enough of a mental that this sort of thing really chills him out and reduces stress.
https://i.ibb.co/Tbh256M/4.jpg
However through torturing him and then looping his head off my dread is now 89/100 so I think that's why it's all calmed down. Everybody's simply too terrified to risk fucking with me. I'll be interested to see what it's like when I get the chance to try and really lean into the religion but it really is great that there are more legit approaches this time around. I don't remember tyranny being that viable an option in CK2 unless you were so powerful you could just roflstomp uprisings because you just ended up being taken down by rebellions sooner or later but in this there are ways of doing it either through being a psycho as this character is so far (important caveat!) or as I briefly saw with my martial-focus character where you can just have such strong control over the populace it's hard for anybody to rise up against you. That on top of pure diplomacy and stewardship being good options without just resorting to fabricate > invade > rinse repeat.
Vercetti
19-09-2020, 10:10 PM
I started again, this time as a mustachioed Georgian geezer, with delusions of playing out Uncle Joe's origin story. If he were a time traveller.
Not too much happened early doors, until a plot by my brother was discovered. Apparently, I have the ability in this system to imprison any of my subjects, and the ability to castrate them. So I imprisoned and then topped my brother, earning me recognition as a kinslayer. Castration didn't come up as an option, sadly.
Eventually, having launched one failed attempt at taking over another patch of land and not much else, I died in a freak accident, at the age of 42.
Next man up was my other brother. I tried to keep my head down, this time, and concentrated on trying to sire an heir. Within a year or two, however, I was invaded and bummed by some Albanian gimp who systematically took my defences apart, and wouldn't accept my offer of peace. In the end I lost one of my three patches of territory, got maimed, and spent my last few years of life struggling to get around, before another accident took me, aged 45.
I'm not actually sure who the current bloke is, but I imprisoned and then killed the child who was ruling the patch of land I'd lost, thereby inheriting it back, and reuniting my kingdom, like a fucking hero. With my tail up after murdering a child, I fancy bowling into Tiflis and succeeding where my original geezer failed. I'll probably end up dropping dead after being gored by a midget, though.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsHj3Q8WcAIwnlH.jpg
Disco
20-09-2020, 12:43 PM
There's a nudity setting, automatic Game of the Year. And I wish I could tell you I wasn't starting my first game in Cumbum because of the name yet here we are.
Yeah the nudity is great fun when it says "Oh your daughter's dead FYI" and shows you a maimed corpse with its tits out.
Hadn't seen Cumbum but there's a place near my kingdom called Bumthang which is good.
I forgot to update for a few days.
I think my last update had my original character conquering all of Brittany, but being hated by the two cunt brothers. Well, the cunt brothers decided to form a rebellion, but I completely donned them. Proceeded to imprison and execute the two cunts. Then I set myself to retake Nantes from the French, which was going well but my character died before the war was over (not during battle, he just died).
His son took over and sealed the deal. The next several years were spent converting weird religion idiots, securing the area, squishing peasant rebellions, and building shit. I also conquered two more little regions.
That character died at some point and was replaced by my current character, which is a bit of a don. He is particularly excellent at war stuff, but I don't have anything for him to go conquer. France fell apart and is now a complete mess, but currently what remains of France and the kingdom of Aquitaine are allies and in charge of all the neighboring regions. While I [I]could[I] take each of them individually, together they would squish me. Therefore, my character just sits there waiting for some battle to be had, but he will probably just spend his entire reign twiddling his thumbs. Maybe if the pope declares a Holy war I can send him to kill some Arabs so at least he has something to show for himself.
His heir has a stutter, and I married him to a woman with a lisp. Their son is bound to be a star.
I will bring some screenshots next time.
The Holy War was a good idea. My sister is now the Queen of Jerusalem. :drool:
Given I've done a fair bit now with Stewardship and have an idea of the benefits of diplomacy (especially if you're trying to hoover up stray counties) I would like to have a good bash at a piety/learning playthrough or character because everything else seems genuinely viable so far.
In a bit of a conundrum:
My first son and heir is pretty average. Not bad, but not particularly good either. His younger brother, while not all that either, is decent at stewardship and ok at diplomacy, so he would probably make a better ruler. Can I disinherit the first son? I know the answer is yes, but how easy is it? What will the consequences be? I guess I should probably just try and see what happens.
Disco
20-09-2020, 10:16 PM
Given I've done a fair bit now with Stewardship and have an idea of the benefits of diplomacy (especially if you're trying to hoover up stray counties) I would like to have a good bash at a piety/learning playthrough or character because everything else seems genuinely viable so far.
My current man is doing Learning, buying claims with Piety feels pretty tasty.
Oooh, that sounds good. How are things in lovely Cumbum?
In a bit of a conundrum:
My first son and heir is pretty average. Not bad, but not particularly good either. His younger brother, while not all that either, is decent at stewardship and ok at diplomacy, so he would probably make a better ruler. Can I disinherit the first son? I know the answer is yes, but how easy is it? What will the consequences be? I guess I should probably just try and see what happens.
The son will hate you, I dunno if anybody will much care? This game's pretty good for telling you consequences to stuff before you actually pull the trigger but I dunno, I've not done it myself. I considered offing my heir as I'm still playing as the patricidal sadist just now but the alternatives aren't a lot better so whevs.
Disco
21-09-2020, 12:48 PM
I've started again somewhere where I understand all the terminology and the names are at least parsable. Currently doing a 1066 game as the Duke of York, the classic can we keep Harry on the throne challenge.
Isn't 99% of the terminology just a different word for something else anyway?
Get back to Cumbum and get messy, you coward.
Disco
21-09-2020, 03:29 PM
Well yes but when the game refers to Knights and I spend half an hour trying to work out what it means only to discover it's got an alternate cultural name it gets a bit annoying.
I also lost Cumbum via inheritance, one of my unpronounceable sons lives there now.
It's a pity your Cumbum game isn't as strong as your EXCUSES game.
Disco
21-09-2020, 05:28 PM
What can I say, it gets the most practice, rest assured we will return to Cumbum with fresh knowledge.
For now, I've barely unpaused the game and my (unmarried) brother the Duke of Mercia and Lancaster is killed in the first battle against the Norwegians so my holdings are embarrassingly large.
https://i.imgur.com/N47tcSv.jpg
Disco
21-09-2020, 05:38 PM
I also found this in my screenie folder which I shall post just to make Webly feel inadequate. :harold:
https://i.imgur.com/tmdrOYH.jpg
Shindig
21-09-2020, 05:49 PM
That's one way to achieve world peace.
Gorm would have mullered all them puny Romans.
Conquered France and now I am way in over my head. To make matters worse, the don of a character I was doing died and everyone hates my current one, which does look kind of useless. His son looks even worse too.
Apparently, I can create a bunch of titles (duchies I think). Why should or shouldn't I do that?
You gain prestige for doing so and if the people you give them to actually like you it'd give you some more powerful vassals who're on your side. Plus it's just less micro management as if you grant somebody a duchy they'll manage the counties for you so you'll have less vassals that you're directly responsible for.
Well after the aforementioned lively start the sadist patricide man's reign was pretty chill, probably helped by a good amount of dread to keep the worst of the factions and rebellions away. I mopped up the Duchy to the south of me and have started making inroads into India. Honestly there's barely anybody in the subcontinent who'd have a chance against my nearly 5000-strong army so if I can just get the claims and whatnot then working towards the Bengali Empire is not, from a pure manpower perspective, going to be that hard. I doubt getting diplomacy perks to allow more vassalisation options is going to work as I'm starting to run into a lot of other kings (or renames thereof) so it's probably going to be more of the familiar fabricate / invade / rinse / repeat cycle I expect.
Still, the patricide popped his clogs and now his son is in charge. He's not amazing at any one thing but has a good intrigue education. I'd already married him to a diplomacy savant so I'll have her assisting with that side of things and do a bit of intrigue focus as I've not gone into that tree at all yet. It looks a bit.... meh? Being able to give yourself 30 dread as a baseline as nice but basically most of one tree is dedicated to successfully fucking people and one is dedicated to getting benefits from torturing folk (that'll stress my new character the fuck out but I should maybe have dabbled in some of this as the last one) so I think it has less utility than the other trees so far but we'll see, maybe I'm not giving it time to show its true worth.
The first five years or so of this reign have mostly been spent putting down factions who want Crown Authority lowered which I've achieved so far with Sway schemes and marrying off spare kids to powerful vassals for alliances. I'm sitting on about 1200 gold average at the moment though so once I think that's settled down we'll see how best to use it.
Disco
23-09-2020, 12:59 PM
I feel more drawn to the perks which give passive buffs rather than ones that improve certain actions, they feel like better value. I also like how the game seems to provide more opportunities to expand or make money than in 2. It actively tells you about useful claimants and I feel much less constrained by cash flow. Building a new holding now seems a much more attainable prospect rather than something you have to plan a hundred years ahead.
What is everyone using for retinues? I have an upgraded siege equipment group and it feels super OP, siege time has gone from 5 months to about 5-6 weeks. I was drawn into a war between France and the HRE and my merry little band had smashed most of Holland and Belgium before the French had taken the target county. Aside from that I'm going Footmen/Heavy Inf and getting buildings to suit but I have no idea if using skirmishers would end up causing more casualties.
phonics
23-09-2020, 01:14 PM
I click the Raise All Armies button then click on the bad guy and hope my number is higher than theirs.
Yeah gold is much easier come by this time even if you don't go balls-deep into Stewardship. I also agree about the passive buffs. Intrigue does give you some of that but some of them feel like they're more about stopping things happening which is just fundamentally less fun than Diplomacy, say, when you suddenly have more options for claiming land. This is only me dipping my toes into Intrigue so far (this guy had already pumped [oi oi] a load of points into the Seduction tree when I took over him) so I'll have a proper play with it and see how it works but it really feels like the stuff I'd rather just let my spymaster worry about.
Having a siege equipment man-at-arms definitely makes a huge difference. I wouldn't ever not have that now because let's be honest, sieges are a pain in the arse. Getting a leader with some Martial upgrades that buff it and the siege workshop really is overkill.
I currently have (all maxed out in terms of numbers):
Armored footmen
Light footmen
Light (I think?) cavalry
Bowmen
Onagers
I'm tempted to swap out the light footmen and get me some elephants but they're super pricey for something I won't ever actually see.
Disco
23-09-2020, 01:37 PM
They seem expensive across the board, an 800 man retinue cost me 3 gold a month to upkeep.
I assume that's when in-use?
They're definitely not cheap anyway, though I'm so worried about anything dreadful happening I try to keep a 400-500 gold buffer on the go at all times. I'm keeping it higher (around 1200) at this point of my save because I keep having to give people "gifts" to stop factions overwhelming me but once it settles down I'm gonna consider buying the big fancy duchy building which costs a grand but will give me big Development buffs.
One issue I'm having is there are a bunch of improvements that require a Keep but I'm not sure if I can build one or not. I certainly can't see it in the culture improvements bit and it's not an option to build in any Holding I can see.
I've jumped on the free CK2 download on Steam and have been putting a fair few hours in. Currently on a very early run in Italy having fathered a "clubfooted" girl, boy with a "lisp" and an "ugly" boy. :joy:
Disco
23-09-2020, 05:41 PM
I assume that's when in-use?
They're definitely not cheap anyway, though I'm so worried about anything dreadful happening I try to keep a 400-500 gold buffer on the go at all times. I'm keeping it higher (around 1200) at this point of my save because I keep having to give people "gifts" to stop factions overwhelming me but once it settles down I'm gonna consider buying the big fancy duchy building which costs a grand but will give me big Development buffs.
One issue I'm having is there are a bunch of improvements that require a Keep but I'm not sure if I can build one or not. I certainly can't see it in the culture improvements bit and it's not an option to build in any Holding I can see.
Unless I'm reading this wrong it's 3 unraised and 9 raised. In hindsight I shouldn't have raised the second Footmen anywhere near this early but I've sunk the money into it now. Perhaps I'll save them for crucial wars/battles but then are they worth it if you're not going to use them much?
https://i.imgur.com/rqF6FKo.jpg
I'll check my costs next time I play but that seems much pricier than mine.
Disco
24-09-2020, 01:05 PM
Could be that Footmen are just more expensive, that would make some sense. Good luck with elephants in that case.
I'm sure I have 5/5 armored footmen and the cost isn't the equivalent of what you're paying. They do look better though so maybe they're better upgraded. I'm sure even the elephants weren't looking to cost me 3 unraised. I'll have a proper look later but it does certainly seem like they're more to be raised in a pinch at the prices you have, if you're not convinced a levy swarm will be enough to do the job.
So mine aren't as strong but I don't think that factors into it, and they're also pricier than I thought:
https://i.ibb.co/h24L3xW/1.jpg
I guess I was probably just remembering the initial price before I upped the amount I have. And give you have more than me the cost seems about the same per 100.
The initial cost for the elephants would be 2.94 raised, .84 unraised.
275 damage though. :drool:
Lol at worrying about the cost of bloody WAR ELEPHANTS. That's the kind for stuff you get no matter what.
If I was going to get to see them trampling people there'd be no question about it, but what I'm paying for is basically just a +x%.
That's not to say I won't do it.
phonics
24-09-2020, 06:09 PM
Unless I'm reading this wrong it's 3 unraised and 9 raised. In hindsight I shouldn't have raised the second Footmen anywhere near this early but I've sunk the money into it now. Perhaps I'll save them for crucial wars/battles but then are they worth it if you're not going to use them much?
https://i.imgur.com/rqF6FKo.jpg
Wait would the Men-At-Arms add men to my army? No wonder I lose every big war.
Disco
24-09-2020, 06:31 PM
Yes, not many though and I've no idea if they're actually worth it (apart from the siege equipment group, who are massively OP).
They are supposed to be more talented than the common soldiers, aren't they?
Yeah I'm sure when I've thought to check my battle stats that the men at arms properly munch levies.
I've no idea of the exact weighting yet, Phonics, but basically when you hover over at army it'll give it a rating where I think Elite is the highest, made up of quality of troops (i.e. what percentage of your army is trained, heavily armed lads and what percentage is farm boys) plus the commander they have and the quality of their knights so an elite army would take down a bigger force of scrublords, within reason.
Jimmy Floyd
28-09-2020, 09:07 AM
I've got this game to try and fill some of the yawning autumn months ahead. I've not played the previous versions but have played Paradox games before. Even after the sudden realisation upon loading the game up that I fundamentally don't understand pre-Westphalian statehood or any of the relevant terminology, which caused my head to explode in about six stages, I thought it would be a reasonably easy game to pick up.
I thought wrong. After a couple of tutorial goes to get used to it (Narrator: he did not get used to it) I somewhat foolishly played as Asturias, thinking I would sit in there for a while building up money/prestige and then eventually aim to try and get some of the rest of Spain back from the Arabs. I even got France as an ally through marriage, so thought I was sitting pretty (Narrator: he was not sitting pretty).
Next thing that happens is that about 4 different Moorish princes/generals decide to invade me at the same time, claiming different parts of my territory. I call in good old Charles the Bald with his vast French armies to help us, but really I should have known that allying with the French would be a complete waste of time, as they strolled into Iberia, ponced about, avoided all battles despite having superior numbers to the Islamic hordes, and then ponced out again, leaving us to burn in the name of Allah and have our territory halved within about 3 years.
I had an army to see off maybe one of the Moorish princes, but I couldn't deal with multiple fronts and ended up just surrendering. However, the annoying thing is that my various brothers and cousins (all vassals holding different bits of northern Spain) have nice chunky armies that could have helped deal with at least some of the Islamic bumming - however, rather than help out, they spent the whole war(s) pointlessly duffing each other up on the sidelines, even while all serving as my councillors.
How on earth do I get my useless family onside for wars? Even the ones with a really high opinion of me (such as my blind heir) I can't seem to find a way to get them involved.
Vassals provide soldiers to your army automatically, don't they? Also, when a war is declared, sometimes I get a message that says that I can invite house members to the war or something like that. Did you get that?
This is one game where trying to understand everything that is going on is not the right way to play. You just have to go with it and see what happens. Basically, you are in it for the lols.
Jimmy Floyd
28-09-2020, 10:41 AM
Nope, I didn't get anything like that and they had their own ('neutral') armies sitting about getting pissed on rioja while the Muslims tear us a new one.
I do love the kind of role-playing, family-building, fucking around aspect of it. Never seen that sort of thing so well implemented in a game. It's more fun than the political/economic slog I was expecting from other Paradox games I've played.
Disco
28-09-2020, 01:11 PM
If you have actual allies they can be invited to join your war but family members may not automatically be allies. You can right click on them and propose an alliance (I think) and some marriages will give you one. You can see current allies by clicking on yourself and looking for their coat of arms (the one on the map also changes to have some little flags above it too).
Iberia can be a rough spot to try and learn in as you tend to get piled on pretty quickly. I would also avoid the earlier start date as quite a bit of Europe gets raided by Vikings for a while. It's a shame there's only two dates as a post Norman England would be a nice, familiar place to learn in.
I've been mucking about with intrigue perks and they really are quite powerful. In particular abducting your enemies just after you declare war on them (I feel this will be patched out quite soon as it feels very cheesy). Or my new favourite, fabricating hooks; I'm playing as the lone Habsburg in 1066 and it was very easy to get zero taxes or levies and to slip my family members into line for some nice juicy titles. The only issue I see is it being very stressful for characters with particularly virtuous traits.
Nope, I didn't get anything like that and they had their own ('neutral') armies sitting about getting pissed on rioja while the Muslims tear us a new one.
I do love the kind of role-playing, family-building, fucking around aspect of it. Never seen that sort of thing so well implemented in a game. It's more fun than the political/economic slog I was expecting from other Paradox games I've played.
This game only makes sense once you realize that it is not your usual 'conquer the world' affair and treat it as The Sims: Medieval Edition' instead. I could never get into CK2, but I am loving this one.
Conquered France, lost it, conquered it again, and now I am wondering how I am going to keep away the Muslims who have taken over most of Spain and are moving northwards.
I'll do a proper update tomorrow as some stuff has actually happened but in the meantime have a glimpse at my new character (I would like to stress I have not amended his appearance / attire, this is him as he was first presented to me.)
https://i.ibb.co/WnnH9Wt/image.png
Shindig
28-09-2020, 08:51 PM
A born winner.
Raoul Duke
28-09-2020, 09:11 PM
Did you mean to crop out the stats for length and girth?
I didn't want to show off.
phonics
28-09-2020, 11:37 PM
I've given up on a 876 start. I picked a small random nobody and kept myself to myself and spent my entire time being raided by people with slightly more men than me and having my raids defeated by people with slightly more men than me. Yet, I still managed to build up my income enough that when a neighbour declared war and beat them in the field, siege their city but my war score only went up to +20%, soon after 2 other people declared war on me and I managed to lose all 3 wars while never losing any individual battle. Baffling.
Jimmy Floyd
29-09-2020, 08:52 AM
I had another go last night in 867 as Prince Hywel of South Wales (not going to attempt to spell the name of the actual principality I'm ruling) and had a lot more success (not uniformly, but I didn't get turbo-bummed). Siphoned off Gwent, Brecon and a conquered Hereford as lordships for my three sons, which I'm hoping will cause some fun and laughter down the line.
My useless bishop was costing me 50 piety every year or so due to his terrible learning stats. I can't get rid of him so the only option was to try a murder. The assassin got into his one-bed flat in Swansea and then bottled it, not only failing to murder him but also blurting out my name as the conspirator. I am therefore hated by slow old Bishop Emrys and still have no way of getting rid of the bastard.
My steward is also absolutely useless (10 being the highest stat of anyone in the principality) so I have no money. A Czech guy with 18 stewardship turned up from nowhere and I had him lined up to take over, before he unhelpfully got killed by the Mercians during a siege, condemning us to years more of shit tax takes.
Wales is now split in half, the roughly equally sized and equipped Gwynedd being the northern half. In an ideal world I'd like to try and unite the kingdom of Wales, but I might have to be patient as they are allied to good old Charles the Bald of France, whose follicle deficiencies do not stop him from having the biggest army nearby. Prince Rhodri of Gwynedd also has 8 kids so it might be a bit of a challenge to get there via scheming/marriage as well.
It's a great game: so much to it, of so little consequence, and yet such fun.
Disco
29-09-2020, 01:45 PM
I'm sick of the sister-fucking Swiss mucking up my carefully laid plans.
My plan to have most of Burgundy fall into my lap has now necessitated marrying 2 sons to the same duchess, a war to get one of them out of prison, the subsequent murder of the other and the seduction of said Duchess before a suitable heir could be produced. Not to mention the multiple wars joined to keep her in office.
I then died of stress.
That does sound pretty stressful, to be fair.
Disco
29-09-2020, 01:57 PM
On the upside, when my mum dies, I'll get the duchies of Savoy and probably Piedmont too. I can then make the kingdom of Burgundy and start sowing Europe with little Habsburgs and see how famous we can get.
Well i think the game has somehow managed to lose (or not save when it appeared to have done so) my entire session from yesterday so I'm now back to about 20 years prior with no holy order helping me claim some land I'd taken through Holy War, etc. and most importantly the naked bear I had taken over is now back to being a 14 year old gimp.
That is really rather irritating.
Disco
29-09-2020, 04:55 PM
That's a bit rubbish, no rolling autosaves either? I know the manual ones aren't stored locally, or at least not in the same place.
To change tack slightly, how does one become naked? I'm yet to see a single one or see the option.
Re: the saves it seems (possibly post-update) something has gone wrong with cloud saving, so I have the automated rolling saves but it didn't like them and it only tells you it's not happy with the save file on the load screen which I hadn't been checking. So I dunno why that suddenly started being a dick.
As for nudity I'm guessing maybe it's more prevalent in the part of the world I'm playing in, Cord has just started an Africa save so we'll see if he encounters any. You can change your character's appearance using the little icon at the top middle-right of the main character screen, amend their clothing or whatever. It lets me pick culturally inappropriate clothing (as in European stuff, not just 'baws oot') so it might let you also have the nakedness option, I'm not sure.
The lads down in Kru are all quite sensibly attired, Ian. I think there must be something about you that has spawned a dynasty of perverts.
I suppose as the head of the Burmese culture I have to take some responsibility for those but I'm not taking the blame for India being at it.
Jimmy Floyd
30-09-2020, 11:03 AM
I had a right shitter last night. My heir and all of his family bar one son were wiped out by bubonic plague, leaving me (a man in his late 50s) with a nine year old as heir apparent. That nine year old then developed the congenital trait 'Possessed', i.e. by demon spirits, so I face a possible hereditary line of mental cases. I was tempted to try and bump him off and shift the heirship to another son, but that seemed harsh on the kid, so instead I arranged his betrothal to one of my daughters. It's a little inbred, but then this is Wales. When they're old enough to get jiggy I'm hoping we won't yet have been annihilated by the Vikings and can then look to try and spread into North Wales, an amibition I have already failed in two claim-wars due to their geezer Prince Rhodri having 39 rating as a military commander (it seems no amount of numerical superiority can overcome this issue).
It's the first game I've encountered where losing / fucking up is as much fun as winning.
Stick with it, Jimmy. I look forward to your long line of inbred psychopaths.
39 rating as a military commander
Fucking hell.
I didn't even know you could go that high.
What is the max number?
I've no idea if there is, in theory, a maximum but I assume that he's been born with a decent base then got an 4* education trait from somebody and picked up other traits along the way and then maybe a good boost from having his spouse specifically helping him with Martial stuff?
39 is monstrous though. I was well pleased to see that my Spymaster was up to 32 intrigue.
I'm happy when I can get double digits on anything.
Jimmy Floyd
30-09-2020, 11:43 AM
His military rating for the character is 24 but when you go into a battle with him, his commander strategy rating (I assume that's what the chess pieces mean?) is 39.
I'm disappointed if my character doesn't have at least on attribute at 15ish+.
I suspect it won't be clear for a while until people have played multiple long saves with different focuses but I suspect that the bloodline stuff in the Dynasty Legacies is the way to go, because it reinforces good traits, increases the chance of not just retaining good traits but developing new ones and also of losing / not developing bad ones. I've gone for the first couple of legacies in that tree and my children already frequently have the trait Comely or one of the better ones so it's not that hard to get stuff like that in place.
EDIT: Ah, that makes more sense. I can't remember exactly what that number is made up of, it probably tells you if you hover over it.
phonics
30-09-2020, 11:52 AM
It's Prowess + Military rating I think.
Disco
30-09-2020, 01:01 PM
The little closed helm with a chess piece next to it is Advantage which is a damage modifier I believe. So a higher number doesn't necessarily make one side better as it depends on the base stats of your troops. It also varies during battles so there's probably a random roll going on in there somewhere.
Jimmy Floyd
30-09-2020, 01:07 PM
Well it certainly modified his damage to basically not suffering any at all, even though I had double his numbers and more than enough men-at-arms in the mix.
Disco
30-09-2020, 01:17 PM
I'm yet to see a small force defeat a larger one without the aid of terrain or something but equally I've not actually tried.
I can't tell yet what the game really wants in good armies, even when you win a battle there aren't a huge amount of actual casualties. I'm beginning to think pursuit might be the key to that but in what sort of ratio I don't know. Current game I'm spamming archer MaA and the building that buffs them but it's tricky to tell if that's having much of an effect.
Were you throwing handfuls of Welsh rarebit at a castle they'd holed up in or something?
Jimmy Floyd
30-09-2020, 01:36 PM
It might well have been an attempt to charm them to death by showering them with bunches of daffodils, yes. I'm a novice. I did manage to beat the useless Mercians previously though so I'm not completely off, I just think old Rhodri of Gwynedd is probably hard as nails.
Disco
30-09-2020, 06:50 PM
It has to be that, nothing else makes sense.
How much trouble do you get in for missing a crusade? I said I'd join but I really can't be bothered now but if it gets me excommunicated I could be fucked.
Is it not like joining an ally's war where if you agree but don't go then you won't lose anything but you can't gain any of the prestige, etc.?
It is like that. No one seems to notice, you just don't get monies for your participation.
I have found crusades to be quite profitable, btw.
I don't think I've ever been strong enough or near enough to join in.
I had to go all the way to Syria for one, but ~1000 gold and my cousin as the new queen made it worth it.
Disco
30-09-2020, 07:10 PM
Wow, look at all the asshole allies in here.
Syria is the target in mine but balls to going up against the Persians for it.
Jimmy Floyd
01-10-2020, 10:22 PM
Well, it's safe to say things haven't really gone according to plan for my inbred Welsh dynasty. We left matters with my old man (Prince Hywel) ruling south Wales, while his rival the unbeatable Prince Rhodri ruled the north. Both of them were getting on by this point and soon snuffed it at around the same time. My new character was Prince Ifor, Hywel's grandson - a bit of a survivor, really, having survived the plague that wiped out both his parents and his only sibling, and also lost an eye in battle. I have heirs, too - although, this being Wales, my sons are also my cousins. That is but a minor detail and Prince Ifor has a knack for somehow clinging on against all odds.
My new foe in north Wales was Prince Tomos, who is very much in the Jordi Cruyff mould when it comes to following on from great fathers. Quickly, one of his lords broke away or declared independence in some way (I'm still not really sure how this happens) and so north Wales was then fractured, split between Gwynedd and Powys. I managed to end up at war with both of them, and unlike in Prince Rhodri's day, I now had the leadership advantage as well as the numbers, which led to me pressing home a fabricated claim on Cardigan, adding the first bit of extra Welsh land to my name. So far, so good, right?
Well, the next thing that happens is that Jorvik (the largest of many Viking forces in Britain) decides to invade me for my Duchy. This isn't great news, since he has five thousand men, and I don't. I didn't even bother to fight, spending the whole thing holed up in the west while they rampaged across the rest of my kingdom, and in the end I just did the decent thing and surrendered early. This means that I now rule absolutely none of the lands that I started with - but, as ever, Prince Ifor somehow manages to survive (he's packed a lot into 27 years), and I remain the ruler of my two conquered lands, Cardigan and Hereford. My two uncles/brothers-in-law (welcome to Wales) used to have power and armies, even plotting to depose me at one point, but now they are reduced to mere commoners who I have invited back to my new court in Hereford, or Hennffordd, as the Welsh pointlessly call it.
The new picture in Wales is a little complicated (see below - I rule the dual white-ish bits, having used to own that plus all the Jorvik land) and I can only imagine the Vikings are going to continue pissing everyone off. I've also been excommunicated and my wife has the pox, but in our three kids (Arthfael, Elfin, and Gwen) we can hopefully keep the flame alive at least for a little longer.
https://i.ibb.co/JrLnYdF/wales.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)
I've heard those vikings are right bastards in the early start.
I dunno what Ireland is like this time round but in CK2 England / Wales / Scotland was always tricky and it sounds like Cord had a messy time of it too.
Jimmy Floyd
02-10-2020, 08:03 AM
I did another 20 minutes after that post and lost Hereford as well (to the Swedes). It's basically impossible as native Brits, the Vikings are just far too strong, constantly declare war on you and there's nothing you can really do about it.
I will persevere until the bitter end, however.
Disco
02-10-2020, 01:15 PM
Ivar (who I think is Jorvik) starts with a bunch of free troops too, enough to dominate the British Isles on his own. I think luck or hiding is the only way to escape them.
I found a fun new wheeze last night, kidnapping foreign leaders, converting them to my religion and then sending them home again. Perfect for plunging your powerful neighbours into costly internal strife. France is now in about eight bits.
I have been a bit surprised that the Demand Conversion stuff sticks.
With people outside your demesne anyway.
Disco
02-10-2020, 01:39 PM
If you kidnap them then you can make it a condition of their release. Hooks might work but I prefer using them for marriages or achieving my Trumpesque tax/levy bill.
Yeah what I mean is why wouldn't you go "Oh yeah I'll convert to your religion, 100%" and then the moment you get inside your own borders be like "lol lads you'll never believe how I got that idiot to release me"?
On the original timeline of this save before the save thing buggered me I had about three strong hooks on the go and they were a good cash cow.
My game took a turn for the worse.
My last lad, who was a bit of a shambles, still managed to reconquer all of France and then a bit some. He was getting on age-wise (mid sixties) but I figured we should be fine, since his daughter looked competent enough, with good learning stats, and a husband who is a complete don in the accounting (or whatever you call it) side. Also, since my lad only had the one (alive) daughter, I figured she would inherit everything I was running, so I would hopefully avoid the mess that usually accompanies splitting your kingdom among your children after your character dies.
Well, my character died and his daughter (in her fifties) took over. Immediately, France was given to some rando, I am still not sure why, leaving me with about a quarter of my territory only. I also got part of Aquitaine, for some reason. Not only that, but everyone is chimping out because my new character does not have Breton as her culture, but Cisalpine (sp?) Also, the game started giving me warning messages that I had no valid heir and that if I died, that was game over. I don't quite get why, since my new Queen of Brittany had three sons and two daughters at that point. The oldest son has died since.
Anyway, I managed to designate one of the daughters as a heir (only cost me 1000 prestige :moop:), so I think that I can at least continue playing once my current character dies now. Apart from that, I am wondering what to do. The French have a bigger army than me, so that is a no go for now (although I did complete don them in a defensive war for Rennes). My heir is also Cisalpine, so I will probably have to figure a way to get a Breton son at some point. Not any time soon though, since she is married to the son of the cunt that was given France when my previous character died. I hope something good comes out of that, but clearly I have zero clue how to deal with the marriage business. Should I stick to marrying cousins or what?
What succession laws have you got? Do they have any weird quirks for gender?
I still have the default ones. Confederate partition with male preference or something like that, I think.
I wonder if that's what's boned you. Dunno, it's been quite straightforward for me so far, fortunately, so I haven't had to reacquaint myself with the delightful nuance of partition laws.
I am sure that it has to do with that, but I don't quite get how France ended up in the hands of someone else, or why none of my current character's sons counts as a valid heir. Oh well, maybe I should do like my character and spend all day in a brothel to relieve my stress.
Disco
02-10-2020, 09:40 PM
Sounds like France is Male only Partition, I think it starts that way. There's also a Succession tab on the Realm panel that shows where all your titles will go.
phonics
02-10-2020, 09:44 PM
We should have a multiplayer game. Does anyone want to name a time this weekend where we could set something up for 2 hours or so?
Disco
03-10-2020, 09:04 AM
I'm around tomorrow but I don't really know when.
Disco
06-10-2020, 12:59 PM
I too have been burned by French succession bullshit. Spent ages nobbling the French (with relatively few infant murders) and getting my dynasty on the throne only for them to have a load of daughters and lose it in a generation.
I'll be providing another thrilling update on my game soon. I'm now back to the point where initially naked bear-man took over but this time he's dead too.
Disco
06-10-2020, 01:28 PM
The nudity thing seems to be religion based, you have to be an Adamist it seems.
Does that make sense for the part of the world I'm in?
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/10/06/you-can-continue-a-crusader-kings-3-world-in-europa-universalis-4-then-victoria-2-then-hearts-of-iron-4/
That sounds great, but you just know that it must be a disaster.
*327 hours later*
"In conclusion, you basically guaranteed a Nazi victory in World War 2 when you murdered that baby to become the King of Lappland in 935."
Disco
06-10-2020, 04:50 PM
Does that make sense for the part of the world I'm in?
Hmm, maybe it's a tenet then, and therefore available to multiple different faiths. I'd like to have a go at making my own religion at some point, there are some tasty looking options in some of them.
Disco
07-10-2020, 05:54 PM
Current state of my game (I'm Burgundy), trying to get my spawn onto as many thrones as possible and we were up to about 7.5 Fame/month which felt pretty good. I'm such an unnatural shape because I fancied having a vote in Imperial elections so I sprawled into Franconia and thanks to High Partition as long as my capital is there it should all stay together.
https://i.imgur.com/koOBQNU.jpg
A demesne that's in multiple bits. :sick:
Decent amount of money rolling in though. I think my lad was currently on about 10 a month without a Stewardship focus. You on Stewardship just now? I imagine being further along the timeline helps a bit and everything is probably more developed there than in humble Burma.
Disco
08-10-2020, 10:01 AM
Intrigue (the scary version) he'd been ruling for a while and had two full duchies to himself so the income is deceptively high. Plus I've been abusing the option to sell/extort money for hooks and then ploughing the cash back into buildings etc with every ruler who could.
Yeah I've never felt quite comfortable enough to plough gold into buildings but I've done it a bit.
Disco
08-10-2020, 10:53 AM
It's really worth it, especially the ones that buff MaA, I'm now of the opinion it doesn't matter what flavour you go for as long bad you stick to one and build a load of the corresponding buildings.
Yeah I think it's the elephant building for Burma that doesn't specifically help you make elephant MaAs or make them cheaper but gives your Men At Arms a boost.
Disco
08-10-2020, 12:58 PM
I only know of the special duchy capital buildings that offer some buffs along with the generic ones you can build everywhere. But you're right, they only affect combat stats not the upkeep or numbers (although there are techs that do that).
I did do my big Duchy building for Burma and it boosts, among some other things, Learning which I think is helping me with the Innovations. I certainly seem to be getting through them a bit faster.
Though that might be deceptive as my last few decades of this character I didn't have to pause that often, relatively speaking.
Disco
10-10-2020, 11:01 AM
Byzantium is going crazy in my game, no hint of instability either which is most unusual.
https://i.imgur.com/T3rzHLv.jpg
Jimmy Floyd
10-10-2020, 07:15 PM
I don't understand how that can hold. I'm playing as France now (I bring misery onto myself) and just trying to keep the various nonces that run Anjou, Toulouse etc in line is hard enough, never mind having about 100 similarly-flagged duchies/kingdoms under you as that Byzantine emperor must have.
Are they about to get monstered by Big Genghis? Does the Horde happen in the same way in CK3?
Disco
11-10-2020, 11:16 AM
Genghis is long gone, the Mongols never got much further than that and eventually split into several bits. I may have cursed Byzantium with that post, they got an infant Emperor not long after and Hungary and a few other bits split away. They had a good run though, it all held together and even expanded for a good 250 years.
Disco
11-10-2020, 11:30 AM
It's all a bit of a mess now.
https://i.imgur.com/VQCZC5Q.jpg
mugbull
13-10-2020, 08:35 AM
And how did Scotland end up in Russia?
Disco
13-10-2020, 04:49 PM
I think that was all Sweden at one point, I assume someone inherited a bit of Scotland and a bit of Finland and Scotland was the higher title. You see it a fair bit, there's bits of Andalusia up in France which I reckon got there the same way.
phonics
27-10-2020, 07:04 PM
Can someone give me a guide to fighting?
Every game I try seems to go exactly the same way. At some point after building up, multiple people I've never heard of declare seperate wars on me at the same time. Both of them will have slightly more men than me each and I don't have enough gold for Mercenaries. I lose both wars/die in battle and reset. Where am I supposed to go from there or win/prepare for these wars in the first place. I click 'call my allies' and they never turn up in time.
More nearby allies, if your vassals aren't obliged to give you ALL their troops internal alliances can help too.
Which part of the world are you in? Some of them it's just fucking unavoidable in my experience.
phonics
27-10-2020, 07:32 PM
I'll go back to an old save to explain my situation and to see if I can learn my lessons
I own the outlined piece, my Husband owns all of Kano and my son is inline to inherit them all.
https://i.imgur.com/hYGdVhL.jpg
Husband calls a war and asks me to join with here:
https://i.imgur.com/s7hcUvY.png
We begin to smash it.
Portrait boy declares war on me, I walk back cause we're smashing the war.
https://i.imgur.com/ez5riwD.png
Everyone circled also goes to war with me, my husband dies in the other war that we win but I get nothing out of it and I've lost all my land to the other 5 people and my heir has no titles.
Disco
15-03-2021, 11:54 AM
So custom religions, they feel a bit broken.
I made a new form of expansionist (yet still somehow Pacifist) Buddhism with me as the head and including Communion as a tenet. I lose Holy Wars as a CB but gain Conquest CBs for any adjacent neighbour and all the while any member of the religion can petition me for an indulgence (100 gold a pop ta very much). I may run out of things to spend the money on.
I've not played this in months. Should probably get back to it though maybe a new save rather than picking up my plan to reunite the Empire of Bengal. Everything was going a bit smoothly for me to be long-term hooked on that save I think.
Maybe see if I can play as Gorm from Cord's save.
Disco
15-03-2021, 12:13 PM
I'm also a convert to what I thought was the shittiest form of partition succession, turns out all you need to do is be an Empire and it's great. Powerful vassals who collect multiple titles get knocked back every generation whilst I sit pretty at the top, plus Buddhists can take concubines and inheritance is equal for men and women so realms are split up even more because there's a million people to inherit.
Yeah my Burmese lot were Buddhist and the succession wasn't as annoying as gavelkind always, always was in CK2.
Disco
15-03-2021, 01:24 PM
I like how much it changes the game playing at that end of the map or with an 'eastern' religion. For instance adultery is not sinful but the game keeps giving me the pop ups about court affairs etc where the only available response amounts to 'Whatever mate, we don't really care' which is enormously refreshing.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/making-a-crusader-kings-3-ruler-with-every-setting-on-maximum
I fucking love Nate Crowley.
Disco
26-03-2021, 06:25 PM
This Holy Communion lark may be a poisoned chalice. Did I just spend 4k on mercenaries instead of walking across my country, then created every spare title I could and barely noticed the expense, yes. Is the game now basically 75% clicking on Indulgence notifications, also yes.
Disco
04-04-2021, 10:33 AM
Infinite money has had some odd consequences.
https://i.imgur.com/mznXwMt.jpg
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/making-a-crusader-kings-3-ruler-with-every-setting-on-maximum
I fucking love Nate Crowley.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-death-of-my-maxed-out-crusader-kings-3-ruler-started-an-apocalyptic-witch-fight
More Gigaknight. :drool:
Disco
21-06-2021, 04:55 PM
This is how it's supposed to look right?
https://i.imgur.com/eJ2KLaE.jpg
That's quite a jaunty colour scheme so yes, I'm in favour.
Shindig
22-06-2021, 08:00 AM
Top Spain vs Bottom Ireland.
Loving this at the moment. Achieved independence from the Byzantine Empire as Armenia (or 'Hayastan'), and am only a few piety points away from reviving the Old Armenian Empire. I'll spend the remaining 100 years trying to create a formidable inbred specimen of a king with endless inheritable traits.
Coming from EUIV, this seems a lot easier though. You can get your dynasty on a lot of thrones pretty fast, meaning you always have a lot of troops helping you out in wars.
Disco
30-06-2021, 05:54 PM
I think this one feels easier because they've done a much better job at presenting the mechanics and all the information you need (apart from the ledger, I want that back) but it's definitely simpler than EU4, I've never really gotten anywhere with that.
I'm in the middle of a Byzantine game and if you qualify for cataphracts I can recommend cataphracts, most of my wars only need my own 2-3k men at arms and they absolutely murder levies. Could be just heavy cavalry in general but they seem very powerful.
Yeah EU4 is far more secretive with a lot of its mechanics. Trade alone is a headache to get used to. CK3 suits me fine in that respect, I'm much too impatient to micromanage and/or research a lot when playing video games.
Cataphracts are definitely great, you do get them as Armenia and I recruited them as soon as I could. I have a bad habit of attacking into the mountains though, at which point they're not quite as effective. :D
Lofty
24-12-2021, 10:50 PM
This is on gamepass, played the tutorial, not sure if it is for me. Might need to start a random game and go shagging for the full experience.
This is on gamepass, played the tutorial, not sure if it is for me. Might need to start a random game and go shagging for the full experience.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ive-already-made-an-estonian-giant-farm-in-crusader-kings-3
This, surely, is the route for you.
Lofty
25-12-2021, 06:21 AM
Yeah so that's happening.
Disco
22-09-2022, 03:18 PM
Anyone ever gotten into a Witch Coven in this? I got one going in a tall Maldives game recently and it seemed pretty good, transferred that to an India game and once your realm gets to a certain size and you convert enough of your relatives it's insane. Regular Great Rituals give you almost as many Lifestyle perks as your normal focus and they're spread across all the categories without you having to switch plus some crazy relation buffs and stress relief. High development southern India is overpowered anyway (and most importantly already Feudal at the early start date) so add this and I've run out of Fascinations to research with 30 years to spare before the next era and nothing of my own left to spend money on.
Disco
28-09-2022, 04:26 PM
I think India is an extremely powerful start without stacking development, but if you do...
https://i.imgur.com/kFPtx5w.jpg
You get some pretty spicy blocs of allies that can murder you on the way up but you very quickly have enough money to just spend your way out of any trouble. Hire all available mercs, no problem. Gifts for every vassal from each new ruler, barely makes a dent and kisses goodbye to every faction so far. No elephants either, I actually think it would have been harder with them. Learning focus was also perhaps not necessary as we're having to wait 75+ years for the next era to start but it's fun to get Innovations in 5-6 years each and the health boosts are well worth it.
Fucking hell, that's muchos gold.
Disco
28-09-2022, 06:26 PM
Too much really, it just piles up. I might see how much I can burn through fighting the Mongols once they arrive.
Disco
06-10-2022, 02:39 PM
Woof.
https://i.imgur.com/ydYHQMG.jpg
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