endtherapture said:
So I picked up Crusader Kings 2 in the Steam sale and I am utterly confused.
Tutorial wasn't much help so I just decided to play a game as the King of Norway. It isn't going too badly, I got involved in a weird war on Sweden's side, and now I'm fighting a war for the Isle of Man? Also my son rebelled against me.
It's a pretty dense and confusing game, and the UI could be a lot of better cos there's a lot of awkward navigating between screens.
Any tips for the game and what was everyone elses' first experience of the game?
Hi!
I can't help you with interface/UI issues. I just can't remember most of the fine details.
I highly suggest doing one of the Ireland factions for a first play-through. Ireland is quite remote, has a lot of independent dukes/earls, and it's a good way to learn the mechanics of the game without getting arbitrarily swallowed up. Being someone's vassal, for instance, can be confusing, and being a King without really understand how anything works can be SUPER confusing.
1. Don't play it like you'd play Total War. It is not about aggressive expansion and there's no real "win conditions". You're just trying to get your family lineage through the ages. Obviously expanding your kingdom might result in a higher top score. It might also result in a lot of ugly wars and the dissolution of your entire line.
2. Raise your heirs yourself, don't foster them. You'll get an opportunity to direct their development and get positive stats. Nothing is worse than your main character dying young and having your inbred bastard son seizing the throne, throwing the kingdom into civil war.
3. You can't just declare war willy nilly, as you've likely discovered. You need to actually have a claim on their territory. Usually you just fake one, but you need a good Chancellor for that.
4. Having a good staff in general is highly recommended. If there's no one good in your court, you can invite promising looking candidates of sufficiently low favor/birth in their own courts to come hang out in yours. Better than promoting a guy with an intrigue of 3 to Spymaster.
5. Be wary of randomly marrying off sons and daughters. You give claims to your titles to foreign powers when you do this. Today's doting daughter can result in tomorrow's son-in-law's invading army.
6. Keep your mayors and bishops happy, that's where all your tax income comes from. And remember you can improve the towns/churches for gold. That's poorly documented, but necessary to get a good strong infrastructure going.
That's all I can think of for now, more because I'm out of practice than because there's nothing more to say...
PS - It took me a day or two to warm to the game as it's quite dense/fussy, but the first time I had a game seriously go off the rails I was quite enthralled with it. Disaster WILL strike.
