Are you fan enough for Crusader Kings 2?

Found a steam workshop mod to get rid of the clouds (they are actually some weird moving representation of fog of war.)

So, played as the top guy of Mumu in Ireland, 1066, and just didn’t worry about knowing how everything works. Just looking and doing what makes sense to me, or what looks fun. Still in the lifetime of my original leader, though he’s about to hit 60. So, without knowing anything at all, I’ve:

Started a war with the county below me and lost. But still survived and somehow that leader and I hit it off pretty well.

Married and had kids and had my wife thrown in prison for being behind a plot against me. Eventually banished her, didn’t divorce her or kill her due to the penalties. She even had a kid while banished to Hungary, that is “mine” even though I obviously wasn’t the father. Named him “Doubtful.”

Had some weird war declared against me by someone on the continent to my south. I forget what the war was declared/called. I won, though. I need to figure out how to use fleets of mine at some point. When I won, somehow the leader I beat ended up in my prison and members of his court ended up in my court.

My banished wife died so I married some woman who is the daughter of a king, and she has been popping out babies left and right even though I’m old. And each time the box says “It can’t be mine, can it?”

Oh, I did take on a mistress, and she has had two of my kids. One I legitimized. The other I acknoweldged as mine.

My daughter by my banished wife appears to be some kind of satanic child.

I had a spy that figured out a guy in the southern county, a member of his court, is gay, and blackmailed him. Not sure what will come of that. I felt bad doing it, but hey, I want to start another war and win it this time.

The leader I had in prison from his invasion of my lands just happened to be killed in a “prison escape attempt.” Heh heh.

and lots more. I’m just responding to events, trying to figure out how to build up a bigger army so I can start and win a war in the county below me - I’d like to have that when my son takes over. Even though I have no idea what I’m doing, its fun. I’ll probably play until I lose big, then go look at some tutorials.

Character sheet will list current army size for him. Make sure you have more, or have the cash to mercenary up. Also pay attention to their cash because of that. Also check out their alliances tab to see if they have any powerful friends (alliances are via marriage), and consider alliances when determining your own marriages.

IIRC, the only time you can’t have kids are if one of you is in prison. Long-distance fertalization is a thing here.

Occasionally, landless courtiers will go “hey I’m gonna try and grab some land” and raise an army to try and do so (scaled to target size).

I believe this happens all the time if you picked up the paranoid trait.

Ohh…you may be in for some fun times here. I have never gotten that event. I want to at some point.

Usually not much.

Stabby stabby.

Possibly an adventurer? Otherwise it could be a religious war or something? Do you know what sort of title he had?

I had a spy that figured out a guy in the southern county, a member of his court, is gay, and blackmailed him. Not sure what will come of that. I felt bad doing it, but hey, I want to start another war and win it this time.

Last time I played, this never used to work. I would blackmail lots of people but never saw anything from it. I suspect it’s bugged.

and lots more. I’m just responding to events, trying to figure out how to build up a bigger army so I can start and win a war in the county below me - I’d like to have that when my son takes over. Even though I have no idea what I’m doing, its fun. I’ll probably play until I lose big, then go look at some tutorials.

Option 1: Build improvements in castles and new castle. However that’s very long term in terms of investment.

Option2: A much better use of money is to hoard it all, buy some mercenaries and declare war. Use the mercs as the first wave of the assault so that they all die and you don’t have to pay their outrageous upkeep. You can declare war with mercs, so buy them first, let them get up to 75%, then declare and march them straight into enemy territory.

Hopefully you’re enjoying the game in this chaotic unknowledgeable play through.

edit: fdsaion replied as well :)

Thanks for the replies guys! I wonder if the game will be as fun once I know what I’m doing, LOL! ;)

I want to build improvements, I see all those cool options, but man, they all cost WAY more money than I have. My cash flow is pretty low with the two counties. Buying some mercs for the first wave is a clever idea! And yeah, in hindsight, my enemy must have done that because it looked like his total forces were about 1750, mine were about 1890, but his army looked to be about 2000 when he attacked. I also need to figure out how to combine my armies so it is easier to move them.

What can you do with a fleet?

I think the one was an adventurer, I’ll have to look up what the war/campaign was called. EDIT: Can’t find a history button.

Oh - I could not find in the Steam mods a good mod to give me much better profiles of people. It seems half my court has the same profile.

That’s the spirit. No game has so thoughtfully treated cuckoldry.

Mercs are even more expensive and you are better off developing your holdings first before picking up mercs. Especially as the owner of only two counties.

Military numbers are based, partly on your martial ability, and what improvements are in the holdings. Likewise, having a vassal? under you, his opinion will determine how many troops he’ll offer. Negative opinion is only the bare amount based on crown law. Positive opinion and those numbers grow. Further, his martial ability will determine how many troops he has. And your vassal bishops only give troops (and taxes) if their opinion of you is higher than that of the Pope.

When you’re on top of the foodchain, you really have to keep people happy to stay on top.

Also, I’m really unhappy with the seduction focus and how effective it is in this game :(

You pay 100gp, wait a year, and get like +15 pikemen +30 infantry per year. Sure, over the course of the game it’s worth it, but not in the short term. Same with economic improvements. (Note, the figures for things like castle keep, castle town etc are PER YEAR, not PER MONTH. So that +2 for a town is actually 1/6th of a gold per month! So it takes about 50 years to pay it off)

Saving up money to use on mercs is a very effective strategy. You pay like 400gp and get 5000 people RIGHT NOW. You can basically double/triple/quadruple the size of your army if you only have one or two counties. But they also cost 50gp per month at full strength, so you just need to make sure you budget for that and use them up as quickly as possible ;)

ps: Fleets simply move people about in this game, that’s it. (They can also store treasure if you’re a raider, like a viking). You only need one if you plan on moving your army to other islands, or around your own island a bit faster.

I could not figure out how to move my army onto a fleet. I tried moving it the same way I did moving it to a county, but nothing. Perhaps it was too big for my fleet?

I have a hard time getting money built up. My guy is in his 50s, and I only have about 250 gold. That isn’t enough to purchase a level 1 training grounds!

Another weird thing: In the county above me, I have had the graphic of a siege, and the message Domnal of Domnal’s Host is besieging the Barony of Ros Comain, for a LONG time. Also Domnal’s Host Fleet sitting in the same spot off the shore for that time. It appears to be stuck?

I think the ships need to be moved into the port. Then select the army and I think it has a little button in it to load it onto the ships. The fleet has a capacity limit and the army has a weight to it, so you need to make sure the fleet is large enough.

Yeah, mercenaries are way better than upgrades in the start of the game on the margin (of course the levies you already have are the most cost-effective solution, but we’re talking about you wanting to get X more troops). Let’s take a quick example. You need more troops for your next war. What can you do?

If you hire the Swiss Company, you get:
600 Heavy Inf, 600 Pikeman, 300 Archers = 9.9g/month and 150g upfront

If you have a single un-upgraded castle, to gain an additional army of approximate strength, and with the assumption that you have 100% bonus to levies (potentially unreasonable, depends on your character and existing buildings), you can get:
360 Light Inf, 330 Heavy Inf, 150 Pikeman, 540 Archers, 380 Light Cav, 10 Heavy Cav = 3.28g/month and 2160g for the buildings over 25 years of build time (Barracks 1-4, Stables 1-4, Militia 1-4)

The levies come out ahead after ~25 years of being raised (after those 25 years of build time). Of course, if you’re rehiring mercenaries, the payoff time for levies does considerably shorten. You DO want to be upgrading your stuff for the long term. But for wars, especially at the start of the game and you’re small, mercenaries are way better.

100 troops per boat. You can move armies into off-shore fleets, the fleet doesn’t have to be in port.

Make sure your fleet is merged though.

After getting side tracked playing Child of Light and Valiant Hearts, I opened my first CK2 game back up where I’m still in September of 1066. I am the Earl (count) of the southernmost county in Ireland, the county of Deasmhummain. I’m thinking Ireland never became a world power because they had to spend too much time practicing pronunciation of their counties.

I decided the first decision I would make was where I wanted to expand. My immediate neighbor to the north is the other 2 counties of the Petty Kingdom of Mumu. This is lead by the King Murchad who personally holds the County of Tuadhmhumhain. His vassal, Earl Ragnvald is the Count of Urmhumhain. One on one, I could take Earl Ragnvald as my levies are 1.34K compared to his of 885. We both have a similar amount of money, which isn’t enough to hire any mercenaries. Unfortunately since he is a vassal of King Murchad, I’d have to fight him too. His levies are 1.57K, slightly larger than mine. He also has a similar amount of money.

There is a du jure dutchy (Mide) to the north, made up of 2 independent counties - both a little weaker than myself. Since my county is part of the du jure Kingdom of Mumu, I sense that I may become a target of his. Our relations are strained (-15) since he desires my county. So my choices seem to be go after my biggest threat who is a little stronger than myself, or go after the 2 independents that I am stronger than. My guess is that I should focus on my closest and most immediate threat - perhaps I should have started as the King of Mumu.

I need more troops if I am to attack the Kingdom of Mumu, which means I either need to get a larger percentage of my vassals levies, take a title away from my vassal so I get all the levies, or raise enough money to hire mercenaries. I think if I get married I get the option of accepting some cash, so that may help. I don’t know of any other way to quickly raise money. I need higher legalism to change the feudal law to maximum - that would take a long time.

I could try and raise the opinion of my vassal, but I don’t think that will give my many more troops. Also the only way I know of raising opinions is bribes (which aren’t as effective on members of your own court - plus I am sort a little money to do that), awarding a title, and putting on the council. He is already on the council. He already is my count. I could award an honorary title and arrange a marriage for him. Still I think we’re talking a small increase in leveies with those opinion improvements.

My other vassal holds a bishopric and isn’t providing me with any levies. The bishopric has 733 men in his levies. That could be a boost. His opinion of my is 25. His opinion of the Pope is 58. I may be able to pull ahead in opinion by trying to sabotage their relationship and giving him an honorary title. I could always just take his title. I would get a penalty since it is a bishopric.

Damn, how do you guys keep all of this straight? Am I thinking about this in the right way?
If I remember correctly, a vassal will at most provide half of their levies. If I click on the City of Corcaigh, held by my vassal, its levies are 662. If I click on the military panel and hover over that vassal’s levy, the max he can provide is 342, which is more than 50% of 662 so I’m not sure why the discrepancy. Due to current laws and relations he is only providing me with 75 men, so that is one area where I can increase my number of troops, but that is only about an extra 2

I guess I could borrow money from the Jews too to help me get some mercenaries. I suppose the AI could do that too so I won’t really get ahead.

So my military adviser just croaked, which is a shame because he was pretty good. The rest of the people in my court suck. I just went through the top 50 or so people in the people finder, sorted by military. Nobody was interested. Is there a less tedious way to try and get a good military guy in my court so I can appoint him my adviser?

Is it fair to say if you’re not into the examining lines of succession and arranging marriages to try and take advantage of that then Crusader Kings 2 probably isn’t for you, or is that an over simplification? I still can’t figure out of I’m not getting into it because it’s just not for me or if I just don’t understand it enough.

The marriage thing gets easier as you get more experienced in the game. At the start you can pretty much play it as a straight up wargame. I can’t answer the “does it get fun” thing, because to me part of the sleuthing about trees is part of the fun ;)

Try Sengoku? It’s like CK2 but without a lot of the dynasty/marriage stuff. It’s mostly a wargame.

ps: If you’re a single county, it’s actually sometimes worth just stealing all of your vassal’s holdings, and using the big army you get to go take over more counties. It’s quite hard to keep bishop’s pleased – the easiest way is to change crown laws.

I wouldn’t try and min/max relationships with barons/bishops after you’ve got a few counties. But if you have one, go right ahead! Send him some money and children, and do pious things if you can.

As for getting good advisor: You’re pretty much boned for that until you’re at least a King, as no one really wants to come to your crappy court.

I ended up making the bishop happy enough to get some levies out of him. I had sent my son to a highly skilled military guy and he came back as a decent military leader, so I put him on my council. I’ve been trying to put a hit out on the King of Mumu’s military leader to hurt him levy numbers. I wanted to time my attack right when the guy was killed, but it hasn’t worked out so far.

Then I finally manufactured a claim on one of Mumu’s counties and had a slight edge levy wise. I had just enough money to hire some mercenaries, but I ran out of money to keep playing them. I new it was a risk because i didn’t have too much extra cash. While learning I’m doing some save scumming so I can try different things, so I’ll probably go back to just before I attacked.

I’m not sure if I’ll stick with it or not. It’s one of those games that sound good when others talk about it, but not sure if it’s going to click with me.

Yes, it will. Especially with crown laws tied to legalism which is costly research, and as a count, you don’t get to earn technology points. Furthermore, you can only change crown laws once per lifetime.

What I tend to do is drop Bishopric taxes to none. It means the title holder doesn’t pay taxes to either the Pope, or to you, and odds are he will favour the Pope more than you anyway. That gives a slight opinion boost, and subsequently a few more troops possibly available to you. It also means the Bishop will have a little bit more to spend on his holdings.

I’ll admit, I’ve given up sweating over military numbers. I focus on what I can control and let the maths do its thing. The times I have tried to follow the maths alongside the equation on the wiki, I’ve come close, but never actually what the game tells me. Normally close is 10 or 20 troops which isn’t really much in the grand scheme of things.

I never try and invite people who are already council members at another court. That cuts the numbers down a bit when it comes to finding a suitable replacement. Naturally, you can not invite anyone who is landed, so I filter those out. In fact, my filter in that sort of scenario is sort by skill level, male gender, ruler no, and an adult. Oh, and of course, they need to have a positive opinion of you, same religion helps immensely.

Then I finally manufactured a claim on one of Mumu’s counties and had a slight edge levy wise. I had just enough money to hire some mercenaries, but I ran out of money to keep playing them. I new it was a risk because i didn’t have too much extra cash. While learning I’m doing some save scumming so I can try different things, so I’ll probably go back to just before I attacked.

I’m not sure if I’ll stick with it or not. It’s one of those games that sound good when others talk about it, but not sure if it’s going to click with me.

And this is why I am not a fan of mercenaries. Well, I lie. I like them, and I use them, and I know full well the upfront vs longterm aspects of the game. My Kingdom is in a stage where I can effectively utilise them with a warchest that can sustain their monthly cost, I have levy troop numbers that can successfully siege, and it is typically to do more than attack a single county. I appreciate the idea of using them to snowball in a place like Ireland, but their use is conservative, knowing full well it is burning, in this case approximately 5-10 years of income (assuming a change in monthly balance of roughly 2).

Ways forward:

  1. Fabricate claims elsewhere in Ireland and gradually build up that way.

  2. Swear fealty to the Petty King of Mumu and bring it down from the inside by way of factions. I don’t know admittedly, if a controlled character can become spymaster in this game. I know it is possible to become Chancellor, Steward and Marshall, but not sure about Spymaster. That could be open to abuse.

  3. Play as the King of Mumu. I believe he is in a better, and more interesting position at the 1066 start because it means dealing with a vassal that does not like him and will likely raise his flag for independence. The other option is Dublin, where father has a title that goes to you on his death, and from there, you can snowball through Ireland as well.

There are plenty of other ways to play this game besides a European feudal lord. Try out the Patrician class if you have that DLC. They can be interesting to play, and somewhat overpowered because so much of their gameplay is based on money. Bit like playing Portugal in EUIV really. I did find it a little boring at times admittedly, but then I did it as a tribal Ireland that become a trade republic, so I had an easy time keeping someone from my dynasty in charge of the republic.

Thanks for all of the replies Strato (and Pod above my last post). I’ll probably putz around some more tomorrow with it.

One thing I have to say is not to feel bad if it doesn’t work for you. It is a fantastic game, but there is, to its detriment, too much happening under the hood, so to speak. Ireland is a good start, but it is also a horrible/boring start if the wrong decisions are made, or the leader you control has nothing particularly good about him. And in the case of Ireland and its relative isolation, months and years can tick by before doing anything meaningful again.

I actually came to enjoying the game when I broke free of playing Ireland and instead operating as a vassal in France, learning other facets of the game that way. Then when I thought I had everything together, it was onto a new game in the Viking age as a Duke of Saxony, and I was able to apply everything I learnt, and then some to breaking free from the German empire and forming my own kingdom.

There are a number of systems that are somewhat functioning poorly right now (hello Islamic Indulgence and Seduction focus). I would suggest that when the next big patch drops with the next DLC mid year or so, give it another look then if you do end up shelving it. After all, there are far too many great games out there as it is. What this game does lack is the elegance that I am thoroughly enjoying in EUIV right now where everything is much more straight forward. Or at the very least, systems that are easier to digest in smaller chunks.