Crusader Kings 2

[Sam Eskenazi]

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.

Uhh... http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?584378-Crusader-Kings-II-Demo-download-it-here-!

There you go, the demo. Ever heard of google?

 

[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.

Uhh... http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?584378-Crusader-Kings-II-Demo-download-it-here-!

There you go, the demo. Ever heard of google?

Thank you!

I don't understand why they don't put these on Steam, though.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

Do you need an excuse to attack Arabs if you are Christian?

It is called CRUSADER Kings after all.

 

[Bostur]

Do you need an excuse to attack Arabs if you are Christian?

It is called CRUSADER Kings after all.

You have a permanent excuse to declare war on the many muslim states. The Pope will even hand out gifts if you do it, and expects you to join when a regular crusade is called.

 

[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.

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.

Yeah, I figured out most of it at this point. Just one more question:

When I won a war, the enemy count capitulated and agreed to become my vassal. I figured "Great!" and accepted, only to realize he got to stay the ruler and now I have a vassal that hates my guts, which means no troops or money from that province. So I loaded my game and replayed the war. Now, I've sieged and taken all the holdings in his province, I've beaten all his armies and my army is camped in his only province. My Warscore is 100%. How do I win the war? He doesn't have anything, and yet he's still counted as the ruler of the province.

What I want is to take the province and add it to my demesne (I'm at 1/8 on that count) since I figure that would skip any annoying vassals to piss me off, but I don't know how to seal the deal, so to speak. The only option I have is to make him my vassal, which I do NOT want. Do I need to hold the province for a while or something?

 

[Bostur]

Yeah, I figured out most of it at this point. Just one more question:

When I won a war, the enemy count capitulated and agreed to become my vassal. I figured "Great!" and accepted, only to realize he got to stay the ruler and now I have a vassal that hates my guts, which means no troops or money from that province. So I loaded my game and replayed the war. Now, I've sieged and taken all the holdings in his province, I've beaten all his armies and my army is camped in his only province. My Warscore is 100%. How do I win the war? He doesn't have anything, and yet he's still counted as the ruler of the province.

What I want is to take the province and add it to my demesne (I'm at 1/8 on that count) since I figure that would skip any annoying vassals to piss me off, but I don't know how to seal the deal, so to speak. The only option I have is to make him my vassal, which I do NOT want. Do I need to hold the province for a while or something?

Unless you have a claim on the territory before you declare war, you won't get it as part of your demesne but will simply help another person with a claim to get the territory. You can sometimes revoke the territory of your vassals through the diplomacy options depending on your laws but that will usually make all your vassals angry.

This is where the game gets really complex. It's generally tricky to take away land from nobles - they tend to get a sense of entitlement when they have been granted land. One approach is to try to make him angry at you and make a revolt, that would give you a reason to take away his land after you crush the revolt. Or you can try to improve the relation so that he hates you less, or simply assasinate him. Getting rid of him wont get you the land but his heir may like you better.


There's a few other ways to increase your demesne:
- You can use your chancellor to fabricate claims of your own, which will allow you to wage war for your own benefit.
- You can build new castles in counties you already control. Keep in mind they have to be castles because you are not allowed to control cities or churches. This is rather expensive, and in the early game you are probably better off improving your existing holdings.
- You can wage wars on the muslims, in practice you have a claim on anything the muslims hold.
- You can try to marry someone with a claim, then there is a chance that your heir will inherit that claim.

In many cases the most practical solution simply is to try to deal with the annoying vassals.

 

[bigredlyms]

i LOVE this game. I've put about 75 hours into it over the past month since it went on sale on Steam Store. My recommendation to the people who cant figure it out: Start as a Duke in Ireland. Either Connacht, Ulster, or Thomond. These Duchies are prime for uniting all of Ireland and you won't be in any major wars for some time, so its easy to learn as you go. I didn't play any of the tutorials, just watched someone else play for a few hours to wrap my head around how to do things.

Spoiler

I started out as the Duke of Ulster, took over my De Jure counties, united Ireland as a Kingdom, then have been spreading east into Wales, Scotland, and England over the past 100 years. My Dynasty controls all of Ireland, Wales, and I am now also the King of Scotland, though i don't rule over all of its counties yet. Once i unite the entire British Empire, i think i will just maintain it and see how that goes. No need to get greedy, right?