Crusader Kings II (and General Paradox Thread)

[Smeghead]

There is a very well made Game of Thrones mod out there.

Also, The old gods release date set to 28th May

[Valkyrie-Lemons]

Fantastic, I won't have any uni work to be getting in the way for me to play Old Gods!

[Phailhammer]

I'll have one assignment to finish off. I can wait a few days.

[Smeghead]

Ok so I got a rather long and confusing story to tell from my current CK2 game.
I play as the Gildehusen family in the Republic of Gotland, a vassal of Sweden, and as such I had very little impact on the events that lead up to this.

The Tale of two families and one throne

The Stenkil family started out ruling the Kingdome of Sweden, but in 1085 they got overthrown by the Hjort family who then had the last Stenkil king (a child) murdered, demoting the Stenkil family to only rule the Duchy of Uppland.

The Hjort family would fail to impress or expand, leaving the road open for Norway to become the dominant nation in Scandinavia. They seemed more interested in staying on the throne then expanding and would increase the crown authority to medium. In 1107 the head of the Stenkil family started a civil war over the crown authority, a war that would last 24 years (never seen any wars last that long). Stenkil always had the upper hand but was never able to secure victory over the Hjort, ending the war with a white peace.

As an act of revenge against the Stenkil's act of defiance the Hjort king instituted high crown authority and managed to get it passed. The Stenkils responded by having the king excommunicated.

The King was forced to join in a crusade to have his excommunication lifted (a crusade doomed to fail). A period of almost 30 years would pass without incident between the two families until around 1160 when another civil war started, this time it was Duke Halsten II from the Stenkils who had set his sight on reclaiming the throne for his family and driving out the Hjorts once and for all. However he died a natural death in 1162, leaving the war to his son Ragnvald.

So far so good right? Well this is where things get complicated. When Halsten started the civil war the grand mayor of Gotland (not my family) joined him against King Sigurd of the Hjorts; leaving me at war with Sweden. But when Halsten died the grand mayor decided not to support Ragnvald, making us allied to king Sigurd, just as another civil war started as a few counties declared a war for the crown laws against the king.
Then the grand mayor started a faction wherein he supported Count Nils of Åland's claim to the throne of Sweden. But Nils is a member of the Stenkil family so now the King of Sweden is fighting 3 civil wars, where in two of them are members of the same family wanting to take the throne; completely independent of one another. So we are at war with the King again.

But then Ragnvald bites it(natural death again) passing the war over to his son Ingmar, but the nature of the war changes as he is now fighting to put Johan Filipson (Stenkil) on the throne instead.

The Faction for lowering the crown authorities fail, but then joins Ingmar (but since Ingmar is only a child, the leadership of the war passes to Duke Tolir (not from the Stenkil family).

At this point Nils dies in combat, and once again the republic is back on the side of the King just as the Norwegian duke of Norrland declares war over the county of Medelpad.

At this point the Grand mayor dies, passing the title to my family, and I am then offered to join the civil war on Tolir's side to support the Stenkils, an offer I will take.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Hjorts sound kinda douchey. I should start playing as a minor vassal...

[Smeghead]

Yeah, I think they also tried to assassinate Ingmar because suddenly he is incapable at the age of 12, and died shortly afterwards. In any case I joined the war to put the Stenkils back in power and succeeded, so now the Hjorts are back down to counts at best.

Oh, and another fun thing happened in this game.
As a minor vassal my levies will often be raised by the king and my character fights battles that I have no control over.

One of my characters was sent into a big battle and during this one battle he; 1) got wounded. 2) recovered from the wound, gained the scared trait. 3) became incapable from a new wound. 4) died in battle. all in the very same battle.

I joked that he was so eager to get back into the battle that he had his men carry him on his sickbed into battle and him swinging his sword around wildly.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

How'd he recover from his wound so quick?

[PlasmaCow]

I've seen very quick recoveries as well, so if it's a big battle that lasts several days, it's entirely possible (and evidently is).

[Smeghead]

Ohhh.... would you look at that, apparently you can get claims on cities in the provinces you have tradeports in (I haven't played much as a republic so I haven't noticed until now).

Also, the Stenkils had a civil war between two family members over the throne and now the Hjorts started a new war over the throne.

[Valkyrie-Lemons]

Yep, and when you take the city you can then claim the county. Great for snatching up weak, independent coastal counties.

At least, I'm pretty sure you can.

[Smeghead]

Oh how I love you M&B Napoleonic wars

[Valkyrie-Lemons]

That was beyond hilarious.

M&B Napoleonic Wars is a classic purely by the fact you can pick a class that just plays music. Whoever thought of that idea needs to win the Nobel Prize for Awesome.

[Ptangmatik]

I remember once I was sniping into a compound from behind a barricade. A guy with a flute marched out and right up to us, then just stood there playing the flute on the other side of the barricade. When the rest of his team was dead I executed him point blank with my musket.

Good times.

Also the cannon is MAD in that game, shame the walls aren't destroyable.

[Smeghead]

Well it depends on the game mode. In sieges; basically everything is destructible

[Smeghead]

CK2:TOGDD 5

And something from my Bulgaria game.

But first to explain what makes this screenshot so special: Eddie Izzard - Jerusalem



Ironically; the Kingdom of Jerusalem have nothing in the actual Jerusalem

Also, that female character I was playing in that screenshot turned out to possibly be one of my best characters ever.


She turned the duchy into a kingdom and added 2 duchies to it. 2 of her daughters became queens (of Scotland and Norway), and when she died in her late 70s she had over 5500 points (all previous characters had only gotten 7078 in total)

[Smeghead]

Got the old gods, played it for a bit; loved it.

Playing norse is really funny. You can have a permanent raiding army in Ireland, just moving from province to province earning you tons of gold and prestige (it also counts as being at war so you don't get the events that makes you lose prestige). There are also some funny events; something I think was a WoW reference went something like: "during a raid he found an axe with a strange purple sheen to it and with a + carved into the handle, giving him +2 martial skill."

However, it has one flaw; you are stuck with Gavelkind (I think until you either convert to a non-pagan religion or your religion is reformed), which made me respond to the news that my wife was pregnant again by saying "F**K! Stop...um...f**king!"

[Valkyrie-Lemons]

Yeah, you're stuck with Gavelkind until you have a reformed Pagan religion or adopt Islam or Christianity.

Anyways, I've been playing for a bit and I've had a landless character event (Peasant revolt) and this event (pic below) during one of the pagan festivals.


Awkward...

[Smeghead]

Epic Loot!

Edit: Heh, my current character's sister just had an 8 year old boy imprisoned. She is only 6.

[Smeghead]

I said it in the steam awareness thread but it should be mentioned again; 75% off on ck2 and all pre 'The old gods' DLC

[PlasmaCow]

huh, I wrote a post about the sale last night as well, but it seems to have vanished into the ether...

I grabbed all the DLC I didn't already have.

EDIT:
turns out I posted it in the "Big Relationships" thread last night. *doh!*

[Valkyrie-Lemons]

I'm kinda bummed that the old gods was released this week as I'm away in scotland for the week. Maybe I can use this trip as a scouting opportunity to see which provinces to plunder when I get back. : D

[Smeghead]

I've noticed that you'll have to pay attention to holy wars against anyone of your pagan religion if you wanna be able to be able to reform it. The moral authority required to reform is 50%, and as a Norse nation that might be a bit hard to reach if the vikings are kicked out of the UK.

Oh and something fun to do as a Norse nation; raid Rome and Venice, neither of them seem able to defend themselves for long and they got TONS of money.
Also in my game I invaded and took Rome, and no one has tried to take it back for 50 years.

I do kind of hope they nerf the prestige gain from raiding. as it currently stands you get one prestige per gold you loot, and it is really getting silly.
One of my characters that started out with -50 prestige when she came to power at the age of 22 managed to complete the ambition "Become exalted amongst men" at the age of 25 by raiding.

Something cool with the Norse are that female characters don't suffer as many penalties as female Christians; being able to be priests and don't give a relation penalty to vassals amongst other things.

Something else I found funny in my current game; an Italian mercenary group conquered Scotland, and it has ruled the country for decades now. I've seen mercenary companies rise and attack nations in the hopes of taking them before; but I've never seen one succeed and with a nation as big as Scotland before.

[Smeghead]

Behold! The Norse empire! and I'm only 200 years into the game.


I didn't conquer all of this of course. The parts in France and Spain were taken by adventurers who just recently decided to become my vassals (probably because I kept helping them in all their holy wars).
A lot of the UK was also conquered by my vassals without my help.

I have however lost a few things; like Rome, but not until after having had it for over 100 years and even converted it to Norse pagan

[Preacher]

I foolishly missed the recent sale of Crusader Kings II, is it worth 40 bucks, or should I just wait a couple of months for the next time it goes on sale?

Also, apart from the Old Gods which I'm getting regardless because Vikings, any of the 25 DLC packs worth picking up?

[Phailhammer]

Most of those 25 packs are music and character portraits, so maybe get them if you want a bit of extra flavour. There's also a ruler designer in there somewhere, I think.

There are three other expansions, apart from The Old Gods:

- Legacy of Rome: Expands upon the Byzantines/Romans
- Sword of Islam: Playable muslims
- Sunset Invasion: Aztecs