Well, you're losing on building a better economy and buffing your troops. So yeah. Might not be the best thing to skip on.
Buildings are more about building up your own powerbase to rely less on alliances (or to empower your position). Plus with the new system, you might want to construct buildings that benefit your military inside your realm just to get the bonus for your troops.
I'm personally investing a lot in my personal holdings so it's easier to survive the partitition and deal with factions.
It's pretty bad long term, but for most buildings it probably takes decades or up to 100 years before they pay off so they're long term investments for sure. If you're still getting used to the game I wouldnt feel too bad about not keeping up with them too much and focus on learning as much else as possible. You can always play more optimally another playthrough. Just make sure you focus on the counties YOU own and that your primary heir stands to inherit, dont build on your vassals, they can do that on their own dime.
Let's say that me, the King, have a brother that is a Duke of a duchy consisting of two counties. The Duke owns one of those counties and the game is suggesting that I grant him the other county. Is this too much power to grant to someone who already has a claim to the Kingdom?
remember that the more territory someone owns the more military control they can wield. it can be an issue
There is also the problem of you getting a malus for owning a county they want (and if there is a vassal on that county, you might not get the same amount of levies and money because you arent the rightful direct liege). You might want to give that piece of land to someone and then transfer the vassalage, as that shouldnt increase the power of the guy too much.
By being the holder of a county where someone else is a duke, you get the "Not my liege" penalty to tax and levy which makes it kind of improductive, I feel like.
Also when you give the land, the person gets a +40 opinion for 20 years so unless he really fucking hates you, that alone will keep him from attacking you.
Distributing land around is actually how I deal with a good portion of early reign revolts.
Also [2] I am really neurotic with keeping everything De Jure.
Yeah, kids can go everywhere. Currently, i've "lost" two of my sons. One somehow became a mercenary captain (and don't seem to want to go cheap on his ol' dad) and the other one (who was my Marshall) suddenly left to become a count in the newest Kingdom of Jerusalem. Guess they'll likely both die soon.
I'm mostly gutted about the one in Jerusalem. I raised him specifically to be a great knight and Marshall. 20 martial skill for a 19yo, it's rather rare.
I'm mostly gutted about the one in Jerusalem. I raised him specifically to be a great knight and Marshall. 20 martial skill for a 19yo, it's rather rare.
It's pretty rough (-20 to all vassals), but it decays fairly quickly, +0.25 a month. So it goes away in 6-7 years. If you've got good standing with all of your vassals (like, above 50 Opinion) it's worth doing, because the longterm benefits of land ownership are so huge. Just do it one county at a time, because it adds up fast.
i can't believe this. my player heir got captured and converted to catholicism to get released... putting him outside my diplomatic range. now his 0 year old baby is heir to scotland and ireland and I can't mould them to give them all the crazy extra stats.
Sitting laughing my ass off at my absurd as fuck Empire now where for one my Emperor has a daughter-wife, my son is also grandson(??) and where i converted my faith into a hedonistic nudist faith were pretty much everything goes. It is pretty much hippie af. Looks soo funny and absurd having your council and vassals be nude lmao.
Ok my new Empress has a Husband who is half brother and brother in law. Both all nude of course lmao.
Ok my new Empress has a Husband who is half brother and brother in law. Both all nude of course lmao.
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Okay I think now that I got the basics down and basically own all of Britain it's time for a new save where I start as small as possible.
I havent gotten into creating my own religion yet, is that hard to do? If I want to do that, I imagine it will be harder belonging to a Christian faith, so I should start as a Norse Ruler for example?
I havent gotten into creating my own religion yet, is that hard to do? If I want to do that, I imagine it will be harder belonging to a Christian faith, so I should start as a Norse Ruler for example?
It's not hard to do, you only need lots of peity which is most easily gained having a ruler with lots of learning.
It's actually easier to create a heresy for a religion that's already formed (like Catholocism) than it is to form an organized religion from an unorganized one (like Norse Pagan). And it depends on what you want to do with it, the new religion costs more the further you move away from the original - the wiki has the cost of each tenet for each religion. Like, Astrology only costs 500 faith for Pagans, but it costs 1500 for Christians.
Note that there's a lifestyle perk under Learning that cuts the cost of forming a faith in half, so definitely get that one.
I threw my adult son with cancer in the dungeon so that he would die faster because I assumed his much better younger brother was next in line of succession. Turns out his one legged idiot child was instead. I guess this is what I deserve.
Cool, I'll do that then. I havent had a ruler with learning focus yet so that'll be cool to try out.
Pretty sure I found a loophole/error that should be addressed by the devs. While it is helping me in my situation, it is a bit broken. Turns out if your character converts faith to something with equal sex rights, it automatically switches your entire domain to equal law. You don't need vassal support, don't need to pay 500 prestige to change the law, just (in my case) 250 piety to switch to an existing religion. So in my case, I didnt want my son to inherit (at the last minute), I'm on my death bed, I switched to a faith with equal gender law and die. Oldest daughter takes over, sets up a hit on the son I did not want to take over, pays 500 prestige to put the domain back into male preference and now my preferred heir (younger brother) will take over next.
Maybe the auto switch for the whole realm was intentional, but the idea that the leader flips a switch on his death bed and now daughters can rule because of his new faith and the entire realm goes along with it, disrupting everyone's succession lines is laughable. The core mechanic of needing to pay prestige and have vassal support makes a lot more sense and is obviously how that was intended.
Maybe the auto switch for the whole realm was intentional, but the idea that the leader flips a switch on his death bed and now daughters can rule because of his new faith and the entire realm goes along with it, disrupting everyone's succession lines is laughable. The core mechanic of needing to pay prestige and have vassal support makes a lot more sense and is obviously how that was intended.
I had a similar issue when I reformed my pagan religion in Africa - my laws were set up for Female Preference to begin with, but the only options for the religious rules are "Equal" or "Female Exclusive." Either choice automatically switches your realm over, and you can't switch back until you're out of the Tribal era, despite the fact we already had that system in place and it's something that those religious rules allow when you do unlock the tech.
In general I don't think the religious switch should automatically change the way succession law works, just give you the options, and maybe give an opinion penalty if you don't change the laws to match the faith.
My empire is getting big enough to where I can finally start adding a little local color to my gene pool as I near Africa. Early results are interesting.
Current ruler is the blood father and there's multiple Herculean beautiful geniuses in the dynasty now.
With 500+ living members I've given up micromanaging outside my immediate family. it's getting hard to find marriage matches that aren't related, and birth defects started popping up with 1 pair. Oops.
Current ruler is the blood father and there's multiple Herculean beautiful geniuses in the dynasty now.
With 500+ living members I've given up micromanaging outside my immediate family. it's getting hard to find marriage matches that aren't related, and birth defects started popping up with 1 pair. Oops.
It's one and done - there's no method to really reform a faith, just creating one. When it's done, it's done.
I assume at some point they'll ad ecumenical councils, but that's probably DLC material.
Succession laws I think are the biggest thing that needs to be changed. It shouldn't take this long to unlock elective monarchy or eldest inherits all. It so annoying constantly having to deal with killing off other male heirs, disinheriting and losing so much prestige, becoming celibate, or dying suddenly and having your entire empire divided and spending a lifetime uniting it all again.
Maybe it's taking so long because I started as an Islamic faction, and maybe the Christian factions unlock it sooner. Anyway, it's gotten to the point where I'm giving up my playthrough because it's just not fun and it's hard to roleplay unless I want every character to be a kinslayer. Going to try a christian faction next and hopefully that goes better.
Maybe it's taking so long because I started as an Islamic faction, and maybe the Christian factions unlock it sooner. Anyway, it's gotten to the point where I'm giving up my playthrough because it's just not fun and it's hard to roleplay unless I want every character to be a kinslayer. Going to try a christian faction next and hopefully that goes better.
120 years in I finally managed to unite the duchies of Sardinia and Corsica and proclaim myself king.
I actually don't raid all that much unless I need some quick cash or there's a forced downtime on seizing land (because I'm missing resources, usually levies, or waiting for a truce to burn out) or an opportunity presents itself because a neighbor is distracted.
Just always be seizing. Dilute your power by giving scattered counties away to talented lowborns, typically your champions. Make sure any major titles have elections, then rig the elections. When you're glutted with prestige, buy men-at-arms. When you're glutted with cash, buy mercenaries. Then just blob the map. You get one subjugation and one kingdom war per ruler, so make sure to use those to blob big chunks at once.
Continuing the legacy of Haraldr 'Fairhair', It was big let down when the successor was only one third the martial genius his father had been.
But closer to an empire than his father ever was!
Presenting the not so perfect King of five Kingdoms, Haraldr II Haraldrsson
Invasion of Finland underway
With succession solved up to an extent.
But closer to an empire than his father ever was!
Presenting the not so perfect King of five Kingdoms, Haraldr II Haraldrsson
Invasion of Finland underway
With succession solved up to an extent.
I think primogeniture is late medieval for all (1200+) ...
there are mods for it if you don't want to edit your save, like " Primogeniture without Requirements " .
Of course, not a valid way if you care about achievements... your call.
Sure is. I was able to take the Kingdom of England through intrigue and marriage
This. As someone who dabbled but was overwhelmed with CK2 and it never 'clicked', I've been completely absorbed by this one. Amazing game. The minute I'm not playing it, I find myself thinking constantly on what my next moves will be or sorting through the spider web of succession lines in my head.
Wanna say that you can switch dynasties at any time somehow, but I haven't tried it personally. Like you'll actually switch the character you're playing as. and leave your old one as an NPC.
But with the dynasty you're controlling? No. You need to control that title to move your capital, which means conquering or inheriting it.
I have to say, the forcing of iron man for achievements is beyond unnecessary. I'm not the usual person to chase achievements, but if I'm putting a ton of time into a game, I like having those little mini goals and time stamps to show when I got them. In this game, with the way the AI behaves and just being new to the series where I'm not even sure what the effect of an action will be, the inability to go back is so frustrating. Civilization has tons of achievements, some of which are insanely hard, and nobody bats an eye about being able to work the save system.
Ah see, the moving capital thing. That's what I needed to know, didn't realize it existed.
I think I burned out on this game a little; I have 80 hours played. But mainly I just need them to fix the achievements so I can start working through those.
Maybe I missed the pop up or something but somehow one of my sons became a eunuch. It works out in my favor because it helps with inheritence, but I would have thought that was something the game would have informed me about with my son and ward. Oh and my heir also somehow became blind out of fucking nowhere as well.
So my son, my next in line, just got cucked by one of my knights who is actually the real father of my grandson. I have no idea if that's going to be an issue later on, the knight got kicked out.
This is just the tutorial man, still trying to conquer Ireland. I need more troops to beat some of those other guys but I need more money to raise more troops or hire mercenaries, I need get a rich quick scheme dammnit. I already borrowed money from the Pope.
How important is it to give powerful vassals council spots? Outside of the spymaster(cause the game kept telling me how important they were) I gave up some of the other spots to my powerful vassals but then they'd screw something up and I kick them out for someone who's actually good. I managed to still get them to see me positively thanks to sway schemes so yeah, is it fine for them to not be on the council as long as they like me?
This is just the tutorial man, still trying to conquer Ireland. I need more troops to beat some of those other guys but I need more money to raise more troops or hire mercenaries, I need get a rich quick scheme dammnit. I already borrowed money from the Pope.
How important is it to give powerful vassals council spots? Outside of the spymaster(cause the game kept telling me how important they were) I gave up some of the other spots to my powerful vassals but then they'd screw something up and I kick them out for someone who's actually good. I managed to still get them to see me positively thanks to sway schemes so yeah, is it fine for them to not be on the council as long as they like me?
It's contextual, but I favor diluting power as much as possible, especially with tribal societies and (I'm guessing) confederate partition. So I try to give away one county each to as many worthwhile individuals as possible. In roughly descending order of importance, I prefer them to be:
1. Lowborn
2. Talented (good individual stats for potential council positions, or just good "sum of all skills")
3. Of the same religion and culture
4. Easy to please (prefer traits like Content, avoid Ambitious)
5. Young and fertile, maybe have claimless kids already
6. Already happy with you (or unhappy for reasons that will decay)
Your champions or knights are often good for this. If you run out of decent candidates to give counties to, you can start giving away second counties, but even then, I'd keep them spread out if possible (i.e, not in the same de jure duchy or even the same de jure kingdom). If you have too many duchy titles, destroy them until you hold two. If you can't, for some reason, then make sure no one else holds more than one county in the duchy to which they have title. The goal here is to have lots of happy, competent, unambitious, like-minded vassals who love your ass, none of whom have significant or centralized claims to power—or can raise a large force against you. You'll also be able to better determine your Powerful Vassals who need council positions or coddling.
You can grant titles to members of your dynasty, but I'd aim for distant relatives with few-to-no claims on your existing lands. You can also give titles to heirs to manipulate confederate partition, but that gets complicated and can seed future problems; in general, you don't want to empower already powerful people if you can avoid it. You may love your brother right now, but your grandson will have to rule his ungrateful grandson in 50 years.
I also think it's good to hold onto your early holdings and centralize where possible, so I tend to give away the newest and farthest-flung titles first—unless there's a significant reason not to (strong existing development, coastal location, or I want to be able to raise armies from there). There is snowball power in developing and building out your own holdings early, so taking steps to ensure those will move with you through the generations is good. Your steward should only be using the "tax" action if you desperately need money right now.
So there is a tool tip that says between ages 6-9, children can be assigned a learning focus with their guardian. I have yet to see that or figure out how to assign a learning focus for a kid. Anyone know how to do it?
So my ruler passed away after a botched surgery from the physician, well it cured smallpox but left me disfigured and dead within a year. Anyway all of his non de jure vassals either got their independence or became the vassal of their de jure liege. I don't usually play as a vassal so is this some game mechanic or did something fuck up? This didn't happen in any of my previous successions.
Either way I think my ironman playthrough is done. Maybe its time to play around in Spain or Africa.
Either way I think my ironman playthrough is done. Maybe its time to play around in Spain or Africa.