Crusader Kings 2

[BloatedGuppy]

You sure about that? I dont know if I suck or if im putting the difficulty high, but I have been locked in decade long power struggles (that I have occasionally lost) with one faction in numerous Total War titles.

Well, I did specify that you can crank the difficulty level to give yourself something of a challenge, but the higher difficulty levels in TW don't result in a smarter AI or more interesting game play, you just take massive diplomacy penalties for no reason, and the enemy troops get huge combat bonuses, so now their spear levies are fighting like dismounted knights. It's not a particularly compelling way to implement a difficulty spike. The same is true of Civilization, where higher difficulty just means the AI is cheating its ass off. The result is a game that, while it may be mechanically challenging, it feels hollow and artificial.

And I'm not hacking on TW or Civ either, I love both those series intensely. I just appreciate CK2's ability to create a more organic challenge.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Alright, I've picked it up, and yeah, it's fun. I started as Munster in Ireland in 1066 or thereabouts, and by 1110, I've managed to unite the Kingdom of Ireland. Booyah! Now it's on to Wales. Maybe England too, though it actually belongs to Norway now.

Also, Mercenaries are awesome. Mercenaries: for all your unfriendly neighbor disputes.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?684

Some good AARs on the forums, there, for people who like that sort of thing.

Also, Mercenaries are awesome. Mercenaries: for all your unfriendly neighbor disputes.

I almost find mercenaries a little *too* indispensable when fighting at the Earl/Duke level, since actually having enough levies left over to crack open a siege after winning a field battle is rare. That said, I've read a few guides that underscore repeatedly how essential building up your holdings is, which is absurdly expensive, and having mercenaries funneling away your gold non stop would make that next to impossible.

The old guns or butter debate. But yeah, if you're a smaller duchy or earl and you fear incursion, it's good to keep a "float" of about 100 gold in case you need some last second mercenary intervention.

Maybe England too, though it actually belongs to Norway now.

Interesting. England threw off Norway in my game, and then a series of civil wars, and is now completely united. I WANT to unite Wales and declare myself a King, but I'm more than a little afraid of what England will do about that now that they're completely unoccupied. It's a little terrifying having a neighbor 10 times your size.

 

[Fat Hippo]

I almost find mercenaries a little *too* indispensable when fighting at the Earl/Duke level, since actually having enough levies left over to crack open a siege after winning a field battle is rare. That said, I've read a few guides that underscore repeatedly how essential building up your holdings is, which is absurdly expensive, and having mercenaries funneling away your gold non stop would make that next to impossible.

The old guns or butter debate. But yeah, if you're a smaller duchy or earl and you fear incursion, it's good to keep a "float" of about 100 gold in case you need some last second mercenary intervention.

Interesting. England threw off Norway in my game, and then a series of civil wars, and is now completely united. I WANT to unite Wales and declare myself a King, but I'm more than a little afraid of what England will do about that now that they're completely unoccupied. It's a little terrifying having a neighbor 10 times your size.

That's true, in these low-level conflicts of 1-2 province duchies fighting each other, it basically boils down to being able to afford mercenaries or not. If you have a casus belli on someone, and the money for cheap mercenaries + 5 months of wages, so about 90 gold, you WILL win, if he can't field his own. He may have 500 troops, you have 2'000. He simply can't win.

Now that I've taken Ireland, I've been investing a lot in economic buildings, to get my taxes up. It's a good feeling, going from 1 gold monthly income to 14.

One of the things I love most about these games is how history diverges, like the example of whether England can hold its own or not against Norway. Stuff like this can totally change how the later game develops.

 

[Octorok]

I gotta love how everybody says "Oh, Hearts of Iron 3 was too complex for my tastes, but Crusader Kings II/Victoria II is a piece of cake". Are you people mad?!

My brain must be wired up poorly, because I look at the supply system of HoI3 and think "Yup. Crystal clear." and yet I earlier looked at Crusader Kings II and thought "Holy Hell, it's like if my iPod headphones could manifest themselves as game mechanics."

Nonetheless, I'm pleased with the purchase. EU3 never sat quite right with me, whereas this fills the "Medieval Era" niche perfectly for me.

It's the first game in a long, long time where I was forced to break out a pen and paper to help me keep track. I found that was an easier way of visualising the various family trees, relationships, claims on territories etc.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It's the first game in a long, long time where I was forced to break out a pen and paper to help me keep track. I found that was an easier way of visualising the various family trees, relationships, claims on territories etc.

The claims really get me. So far I've just married people off willy nilly, just looking for the best prestige marriage available, or the best collection of stats available, without thinking about the ramifications of what I've been doing. Lord knows how many far flung cousins now have tertiary claims on my titles. It's actually kind of terrifying.

 

[Sam Eskenazi]

Marry your daughters matrillianiary and keep them around. Allows you to breed more people of your dynasty. Encourage them to breed, and have the children educated with someone who has the "Content" trait, so the kids will get it to.

Then, give them a single Dukedom and 1 county! (I've actually modded it slightly so the "Same Dynasty" bonus is +25 instead of +5, meaning that my kinsmen are actually more trsutworthy and don't want to eat my spine for my crown!)

 

[Dandark]

Meh. I just tried it and my biggest problem was that I loaded it up, looked at the map and went "Crap. Now what do I do" then got bored and quit. IM hoping I can get into it some other time but I have no idea how to play it.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Marry your daughters matrillianiary and keep them around. Allows you to breed more people of your dynasty. Encourage them to breed, and have the children educated with someone who has the "Content" trait, so the kids will get it to.

Heh...I tried that in a previous game. Sadly the daughters in question were all ambitious and proud. You can imagine what happened as a result of that.

Meh. I just tried it and my biggest problem was that I loaded it up, looked at the map and went "Crap. Now what do I do" then got bored and quit. IM hoping I can get into it some other time but I have no idea how to play it.

The tutorial isn't particularly gripping, and is unfortunately a little buggy in spots. There's a PDF manual online that you can get the same information from. If it helps, my initial reaction to the demo was virtually identical to yours, and I turned it off on the first tutorial bug thinking "I guess this isn't my cup of tea".

Really, my advice would be to start very small, as an Earl or Count, to get a handle on things. Most people recommend Ireland as a starting nation, and I concur.

I didn't really start warming to it until the first time things went completely haywire. After that I was pretty absorbed.

 

[Octorok]

So I have downloaded but can't play it quite yet, busy with something else. I did however try the first tutorial quick and was instantly bored out of my skull.

It may just be that I dislike stratedgy game tutorials, is it possible for me to just begin a new game and figure it out or is the game to complex therefore requring I get through the tutorial?

Judging by your comment, I'm going to hazard a guess that you aren't that familiar with Paradox games' interfaces.

Tutorials for these games are notoriously unhelpful, given that they basically dump a small novel's worth of textual information on you and expect you to memorise it.

I'd recommend doing the "Basic" tutorial list anyway. They're not as bad as previous titles, and you'll probably need them for a grasp on the game's mechanics. You can probably clear them in under an hour, with a decent understanding of what the game does and how it works on a rather basic level.

From there, start up a game and just experiment. It's going to be a tough difficulty curve, but the goal of your first few games isn't really to win, but more to get used to the game's interface and mechanics, and to teach you how to play and get the most out of the game's depth.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Well, I did specify that you can crank the difficulty level to give yourself something of a challenge, but the higher difficulty levels in TW don't result in a smarter AI or more interesting game play, you just take massive diplomacy penalties for no reason, and the enemy troops get huge combat bonuses, so now their spear levies are fighting like dismounted knights.

Much as I love the TW titles, that's so true... for ETW I found the only difference between the difficulty settings was the income... '

Bizarrely, the I finished the hard campaign (August 1808) of NTW faster than the easy one (February 1810)... and I haven't the faintest idea how... *snrk*

Well... demo downloaded, be back in a few hours...

 

[Soviet Steve]

I was thinking of getting it but the forums indicates that it has the familiar "France conquers the entire world, every time" problem of EUIII so I wont be getting it until the fans have fixed it, which if I'm lucky should be within the next 5-6 years.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I was thinking of getting it but the forums indicates that it has the familiar "France conquers the entire world, every time" problem of EUIII so I wont be getting it until the fans have fixed it, which if I'm lucky should be within the next 5-6 years.

I just zoomed out in my game, to see how France is doing. I've been zoomed in on Wales for the past 100 years carefully monitoring my tiny dynasty.

France is gone.

France is now Aragon.

Frankly, I'm speechless. Now I wish I'd been paying attention, because I'm DYING to know how THAT happened.

 

[Octorok]

Played another 3 hours today, as my native Scotland. I'm still new at this whole "Machiavellian Cunning" business, so my first order of business was to fight a bloody 8-year war with Norway over Caithness, to complete the Duchy of Moray. Unfortunately, the chap who was going to be the new Duke died in battle, leaving his daughter, who later planned on taking my throne, inciting me to lob her in jail before the war to increase her territory was even over.

The damn Norwegians would not surrender. For a war like this (over territory that is basically outside your "nation"), it seems a bit silly that I had to conquer the Western coast of Norway just to get them to hand over Caithness.

It's a bit like Argentina occupying Wales to get the UK give up the Falkland Islands, although it's understandable that the Norwegians would fight for their only territory on mainland Britain.

Fun game, though. I need to get used to the "Claims" system. Like I said, I'm using a pad of paper to track the current claims on my territory and my claims on foreign soil, makes it a bit easier to understand.

 

[Jandau]

Could someone explain how war is supposed to work in this game? I've gotten a basic idea of most of the stuff, but I can't puzzle out how to win a war. I understand I need a cause to declare war, which I either get through family relations, titles or fabrication. But after declaring it, it kinda gets muddy for me. It doesn't help that the basic warfare tutorial breaks halfway through and I can't even get the basic info from there...

I'm playing one of the Irish Dukes (seemed like a nice controlled environment to get a basic idea of the game). I declare war on another Duke south of me. I raise my Levies and my Vassal Levies, go and beat his army up and lay siege to his castle... and nothing happens. At all. He doesn't raise any more troops, I don't seem to have enough troops to perform the siege. What now?

When I'm raising my Levies, the recruiting screen states my max Levies are 279, but when I press the recruit button I get roughly 100-160. How can I get the max amount?

How does Warscore work? I understand it goes up if I win a battle, but what does it do? Do I win the war if it goes up to 100% ? And how can I increase it if the enemy won't field any major armies and I don't have enough troops to siege?

Basically, I've won every battle I could get my hands on, and it seems to have had absolutely no effect, so I'm kinda confused here. If I'm reading the info screen correctly, I would need at least around 250 troops to lay siege to a town (more than the garrison), but I can't even get to 200, even with my personal Levies and my Vassals.

Any help would be welcome.

 

[Bostur]

So far I think it's the best game Paradox have released. That and HOI3. Warfare is somewhat limited but at least there is no shortage of heathens with a permanent Cassus Belli. In the early game Spain is a good spot for conquering small Muslim landholders.

Could someone explain how war is supposed to work in this game? I've gotten a basic idea of most of the stuff, but I can't puzzle out how to win a war. I understand I need a cause to declare war, which I either get through family relations, titles or fabrication. But after declaring it, it kinda gets muddy for me. It doesn't help that the basic warfare tutorial breaks halfway through and I can't even get the basic info from there...

I'm playing one of the Irish Dukes (seemed like a nice controlled environment to get a basic idea of the game). I declare war on another Duke south of me. I raise my Levies and my Vassal Levies, go and beat his army up and lay siege to his castle... and nothing happens. At all. He doesn't raise any more troops, I don't seem to have enough troops to perform the siege. What now?

When I'm raising my Levies, the recruiting screen states my max Levies are 279, but when I press the recruit button I get roughly 100-160. How can I get the max amount?

How does Warscore work? I understand it goes up if I win a battle, but what does it do? Do I win the war if it goes up to 100% ? And how can I increase it if the enemy won't field any major armies and I don't have enough troops to siege?

Basically, I've won every battle I could get my hands on, and it seems to have had absolutely no effect, so I'm kinda confused here. If I'm reading the info screen correctly, I would need at least around 250 troops to lay siege to a town (more than the garrison), but I can't even get to 200, even with my personal Levies and my Vassals.

Any help would be welcome.

You get warscore by winning battles and capturing holdings as you guessed. Holds that are part of your Cassus Belli objectives awards more, so does capitals of duchies and kingdoms, the provinces with coat of arms on them basically.
If you get 100% warscore you are certain to be able enforce your demands, but you can often negotiate a beneficial outcome with less than that.

279 troops is very little to use for waging war. You can either build up your personal holds to get a larger levy or hire mercenaries. It's a good idea to check the size of enemy garrisons and levies before you start a war, to get an idea of how many troops you need and whether it is possible at all to win.

If you can't get the full amount of Levies it's probably because they haven't been trained yet. There are two numbers on the recruitment screen, one for maximum levies and one for the currently available levies. Also there are two buttons for recruiting, one of them will get you levies of your Vassal's subordinates as well, that can amount to a fair bit.

 

[Sam Eskenazi]

Could someone explain how war is supposed to work in this game? I've gotten a basic idea of most of the stuff, but I can't puzzle out how to win a war. I understand I need a cause to declare war, which I either get through family relations, titles or fabrication. But after declaring it, it kinda gets muddy for me. It doesn't help that the basic warfare tutorial breaks halfway through and I can't even get the basic info from there...

I'm playing one of the Irish Dukes (seemed like a nice controlled environment to get a basic idea of the game). I declare war on another Duke south of me. I raise my Levies and my Vassal Levies, go and beat his army up and lay siege to his castle... and nothing happens. At all. He doesn't raise any more troops, I don't seem to have enough troops to perform the siege. What now?

When I'm raising my Levies, the recruiting screen states my max Levies are 279, but when I press the recruit button I get roughly 100-160. How can I get the max amount?

How does Warscore work? I understand it goes up if I win a battle, but what does it do? Do I win the war if it goes up to 100% ? And how can I increase it if the enemy won't field any major armies and I don't have enough troops to siege?

Basically, I've won every battle I could get my hands on, and it seems to have had absolutely no effect, so I'm kinda confused here. If I'm reading the info screen correctly, I would need at least around 250 troops to lay siege to a town (more than the garrison), but I can't even get to 200, even with my personal Levies and my Vassals.

Any help would be welcome.

Well, what likely happened is you lost troops in the battle, and now you are attempting to siege a provice with less than the province garrison, which means nothing will happen.

To get back your troops, do the following:
1. Put your Marshal on the troop training mission in the councillors tab in your main province that gives the most troops.
2. Disband all your levies, allowing them to re-recruit up to (and possibly above) your previous levy amount. Then, re-recruit them.
3. ???
4. Profit!!

Warscore is a representation of how well you are doing in the war. Battles give warscore depending on the percentage of troops killed, and also how large a percentage the enemy army was of the main army.

Successfully sieging provinces gets you more warscore than battles. Sieging the contested province gets you even more, and sieging the enemy's capital province gets you even more than that.

The enemy will always give in demands if it's at 100%, but they will sometimes give up before that if they know they're toast. If you're a powerful force who've lost little to no soldiers, whilst the enemy have lost all their army and several provinces, they will likely surrender to you if the demands you are fighting over isn't too important to them. Obviously if you're fighting for the crown of England, be prepared to kill 50000 englishmen and siege dozens of holdings.

If you manage to capture the enemy leader (I.E., the enemy King or Duke or what have you) then it's an instant 100% warscore. Historical exmaple of that is the invasion of England by William de Normandie in 1066; Harold died, thus the war was essentially won. Of course, decades of civil war erupted form that point on, but still!

If you're still having trouble raising enough levies to conquer the province, consider saving up money to get some mercenaries.

Hope that helped.

 

[Bostur]

I gotta love how everybody says "Oh, Hearts of Iron 3 was too complex for my tastes, but Crusader Kings II/Victoria II is a piece of cake". Are you people mad?!

My brain must be wired up poorly, because I look at the supply system of HoI3 and think "Yup. Crystal clear." and yet I earlier looked at Crusader Kings II and thought "Holy Hell, it's like if my iPod headphones could manifest themselves as game mechanics."

Nonetheless, I'm pleased with the purchase. EU3 never sat quite right with me, whereas this fills the "Medieval Era" niche perfectly for me.

It's the first game in a long, long time where I was forced to break out a pen and paper to help me keep track. I found that was an easier way of visualising the various family trees, relationships, claims on territories etc.

I also thought HoI3 was much easier to get into than Victoria 2, EU3 or CK2. I think maybe it's because I'm used to traditional wargames and HoI uses a lot of familiar conventions from those.

CK2 has a lot in common with Viccy and EU, but I think they wired the components together much better in this game.

 

[Fat Hippo]

I gotta love how everybody says "Oh, Hearts of Iron 3 was too complex for my tastes, but Crusader Kings II/Victoria II is a piece of cake". Are you people mad?!

My brain must be wired up poorly, because I look at the supply system of HoI3 and think "Yup. Crystal clear." and yet I earlier looked at Crusader Kings II and thought "Holy Hell, it's like if my iPod headphones could manifest themselves as game mechanics."

Nonetheless, I'm pleased with the purchase. EU3 never sat quite right with me, whereas this fills the "Medieval Era" niche perfectly for me.

It's the first game in a long, long time where I was forced to break out a pen and paper to help me keep track. I found that was an easier way of visualising the various family trees, relationships, claims on territories etc.

I think it's more a case of brains being wired differently. I tried HOI III, I really tried, but I just couldn't get my head around it, whereas with Crusader Kings II, I pretty much "got it" after a short while of playing. Sure, some intricacies still escape me, but at least nothing has left me as completely confused as...just about everything in HOI III.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

Uhg, why dont games have demos anymore?

I would really like to try this out, it sounds like a flipside version of Medieval Total War 2, all diplomacy and no fighting.

I mean, wow, was that the overview of a leaked plot synopsis for an upcoming HBO mini series?