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Author Topic: Crusader Kings 2  (Read 849 times)

Arkansan

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« on: September 02, 2013, 09:18:10 PM »
Anyone else here playing it? I am loving this game, just got the old gods expansion and have been tinkering around with it.

silva
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« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2013, 09:29:00 PM »
Yup. Im playing with Halfdan Son of Ragnarr (the younger in Bernard Cornwell´s the Saxon Chronicles). Im really liking it so far. The changes to the gameplay are really apropriated to the norse people. (I just sacrificed my traitorous brother at the bloat :D).

And this is a game that could teach a lot to tabletop roleplaying gamers about sandbox and emergent gaming. ;)

Opaopajr

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« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2013, 09:46:30 PM »
Sword of Islam is sadly gimped by decadence. Gotta slaughter all lineage except one son, each, and every, time. Otherwise great fun!
Just make your fuckin' guy and roll the dice, you pricks. Focus on what's interesting, not what gives you the biggest randomly generated virtual penis.  -- J Arcane
 
You know, people keep comparing non-TSR D&D to deck-building in Magic: the Gathering. But maybe it's more like Katamari Damacy. You keep sticking shit on your characters until they are big enough to be a star.
-- talysman

Arkansan

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« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2013, 10:45:06 PM »
Quote from: silva;687971
Yup. Im playing with Halfdan Son of Ragnarr (the younger in Bernard Cornwell´s the Saxon Chronicles). Im really liking it so far. The changes to the gameplay are really apropriated to the norse people. (I just sacrificed my traitorous brother at the bloat :D).

And this is a game that could teach a lot to tabletop roleplaying gamers about sandbox and emergent gaming. ;)


Yeah I was thinking about how good an example this, and most Paradox games are of emergent gameplay. When my first ruler in the old gods died, I stopped and thought about all the cool shit that he did, fighting a duel with an uncle who scarred him in the process, a failed conquest of Norway, a long bloody civil war. The perfect example of the fact that story is what happens when the game is over and your telling the tale round the campfire.

Rincewind1

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« Reply #4 on: September 02, 2013, 10:52:09 PM »
I do and I love it, though like a lot of Paradox games, finding it a bit easy (even with mods that make the game harder/more historical accurate). Also there is a slight issue that unlike other games, there is not that much to do there outside war and diplomacy, where in EU and Victoria you need to genuinely care about tech, economy and PUPs (though admittedly the persoal diplomacy almost makes up for it). I'll link later here to the mod I am using.

 Guess I must stick to Duke/Count levels or I just steamroll the AI with, well, actual planning. Though I admit there was one playthrough when I started recently with Old Gods (sadly save got corrupted), which got tough. When I started a game in year 1000 with Duke Boleslaw the Bold on a mod introducing much harder difficulty and new mechanics, I basically had an empire stretching from Saxony (king of Bohemia, my vassal, inherited a claim to it :D) and Denmark (which I married/conquered into to be able to create an Empire under the mod's mechanics, which required 4 kingdom titles to create a titular Empire) to Novgorod, with "colonies" in Kingdom of Syria and Kingdom of Sicilly. I pretty much curbstomped Golden Horde and Ilkhanate (admittedly partially because Ilkhanate first swallowed the Golden Horde in an inter - Mongol war), managing to defend whole stretches of East from the Mongols, including saving the Crimean and most of Russia from them, slowly making my way through the Mongol's armies (the mod introduces 5 year break period between another Holy War you'd declare, but they are now Nestorian (lol) Christianity so I can't do that anymore). Meanwhile entire Western Europe is split - not only did HRE split, but also France. Muslims were kicked out of the Iberian peninsula, and in fact almost kicked out of the map in general, as crusades won most of North Africa stretch, with Mali pagans conquering most of remaining Muslim North Africa, the last Muslim stronghold are sad remnants of Fatimid caliphate, slowly being conquered by Abyssinia which actually got pretty huge and could form an Empire already (the guy has 4 crown titles), and last Islam might - a Caliphate of Persia, which is going quite strong (they actually kicked Ilkhanate's butt as it just spawned on the map, which is really impressive). Oddly enough given the state of Western nations, Byzantine Empire is still holding, though Armenia gained independence - Byzantines are still holding strong in Greece, parts of Eastern stretches, and expanding around the north/into Hungary. Can't quite remember the state of England, except that the Anglo - Saxons are still ruling it, and they hold crown of Jerusalem. The last true challenge to my power was about 4 - 5 generations ago I think, when I was excommunicated and HRE was still around, declaring a war on me - I admit I'd have probably been forced to abdicate to some cousin if I did not manage to beg the pope for re - introduction in last moment. Nowadays I keep Papal Investiture, though I could probably go Free and plant my Antipope and gain control of Papacy, though Pope is always a problematic vassal.

I went for Rollo of sorts - one province count in the North. First started by conquering surrounding 4 provinces of my de jure duchy, then conquered about 2 other provinces in middle of the Norwegian landmass - and noticed that one of the petty kings got already half of Norway under control, and entire Denmark (Sweden was on it's way to unification too, quite fast actually), so I reckoned it's getting a bit too tight in the icy north, so decided to conquer myself a kingdom - or at least a duchy in the south, convert to Christianity and start Normans of the setting. Fortunately, as luck would have it, Aquitaine was an independent kingdom by that time, with a bad king (and it was at war with other Karolingians I think - either way I know they weren't liked by the rest of the dynasty), rebellions around...so I managed to get the Pagan Invasion going on, and combined with armies of mercenaries bought from the looted gold (probably one reason why Nordic Pagans are rather OP at the moment), I managed to win the invasion (though not subjugate the entire country - the worst was a certain Basque family who held a duchy for good next 3 generations, causing me constant trouble and rebellion), gaining the lands of Aquitaine (well, the ones I conquered at least), various vassals...and a heapload of problems. I admit one of the cooler things to happen during that invasion was me slaying the King of Aquitaine in personal combat (I had Brilliant Strategist with the Berserker perk, 22 Martial is pretty pimp)

Yes, unfortunately I hadn't quite the good luck of Rollo to be able to swear vassalage to my new overlord - and you can imagine my new vassals didn't like being ruled by a foreigner AND a pagan. To add to the problem was the rather much stronger (about 2x at the time) France just north of me, and to the South, just behind the thin strip of few last Christian bastions (including Duchy of Barcelona, or should I say - Kingdom of Aquitaine, as that's where the former de facto king went :D) was probably the second, if not -the- first strongest faction on the map - Umayyad Caliphate, with about 120k men under arms. To add to the problem, I hadn't money to usurp the crown of Aquitaine right away, and a few months after, the King of Aquitaine/Duke of Barcelona started or was targeted by wars, so I could not usurp the title from someone at war...which was a bit problematic, as I was still pagan, and  therefore had enforced Gavelkind, which meant my main heir'd inherit Petty Kingdoms of Aquitaine and Telemark....but also only 1 of my provinces, putting him a bit at the disadvantage over his brothers who'd become "mere" counts...with 2/3 provinces each (yeah I had a buttload of kids too).

So to amend the situation, first I had to become a bigot. After my conversion to Christianity (of course, after last few raids as long as I were pagan), I swiftly switched to Primogeniture (which did not endear me to my kids save my oldest, but hey, I was almost 50 at the time and still a mean murdering legendary killing machine). That was the last meaningful act of my Rollo, outside of taking out a rebellion I think (I couldn't even do anything about the rebels, as I had Autonomous Vassals on, of course). Of course, after conversion to Christianity, there were also a few other problems - namely, few priests refused to convert, and held onto pagan temples in my provinces :D.

Fortunately my son did not only finally usurp the Crown from Duke of Barcelona, but he also managed to root out that whole lot of pagans. Of course, still, I was hated by quite a few of my vassals as foreign/usurper scum, AND my brothers - who got some of my father's land, a Duke (Petty King is that in terms of modifiers) can't really hold that many provinces - I gave up my Northern holdings to the cadet branch as soon as I was a king and could vassal dukes, focusing control in duchies of Gascony and Aquitaine. Still, I was sitting pretty much on blades for this generation and next one - and to make things worse, King of France tried to make some land grabs at my expense (and vice versa, as I was fighting him for the land he took from my "predecessor" as well as lands I had a claim in Burgundy, which he was allied by Karolingian blood to).

But the real challenge, to speed things up a little, came I think 2 and 3 generations later. Fortunately, I also had 2 genius Martial rulers (one had 25 I think).

I was in a middle of some nice conquest of French province... when suddenly the worst happened. Namely, Umayyads finished with last remains of Christianity separating them from me...and declared invasion of Aquitaine - yes, not some holy war for a few provinces, but a full on invasion. I saved and saw what'd happen if I loose the war - entire country lost to them, and me landing with one province in the North. Ouch. Not only I'd be back to pretty much the starting position, with strong Sweden and Norway around the corner (I had to give up those 2 in land provinces by that time, as I simply hadn't the ships and manpower to defend it against Swedish or Norwegian advances, so I decided to surrender one of them, and grant independence to the other one, focusing instead on holding that one duchy in the North, making it my "Normandy").

Fortunately, the bonus from defending against Muslims/Pagans allowed me to keep my rebellious vassals in check - ah yes, did I also mention I wasn't very liked by my non - Nordic vassals at the time? So I had I think...20 to 40k soldiers ready, including fresh mercenaries, half of that tied up in France, and I think 120 - 150k (maybe even 180k, I really just remember it was 3 to 4 times my army) worth of Iberian Muslim manpower raising like bloody hordes of Sauron's orcs combined with Mongols. In other words, I knew I was in shit creek without a paddle. And since I decided to play Iron Man....yeah.

Fortunately however, I had a few tricks up my sleeves. First, was the terrain - Aquitaine is quite hilly to the south and the mountains force the attacks to use pretty much only two entrance points from Iberia. Not to mention a decent amount of rivers, allowing me to fortify my positions and force the overconfident in numbers AI to cross over. Second, was my awesome ruler with Martial around 19 - 20, just the man for the job here. Third, was time - I knew I couldn't count on King of France's help (well, for good reasons too), but I could count on the rest of Christian world not being too happy about a major Christian power falling into Muslim hands, not to mention - Umayyids gaining a definite foothold into Western Europe. The longer I managed to keep that war score from plummeting to auto - defeat, the more allies I'd have - and I did notice Catholic king of Sweden could get about 60k himself, being in control of Sweden and lots of Finland and Norway. So I gathered my forces, prayed Pope sends me money as I fight against heretics, and prepared, as I sent my spymaster to one of the mountain passes and a scout group to the other. The scouting was unnecessary as first stack of doom - big like my whole army - arrived. The other stack, again,  the size of my army, was however quite a few provinces away, so there was hope.

While a few hundreds were lost to the Doomstack #1 before they could mobilize, I had a plan. The AI tends to storm the castles when it has a powerful stack (well, admittedly, so do players), even before it defeats the main stack - though admittedly one can notice the difference in new patches, as AI now hunts actively your own stacks if it has advantage, which it did. I, however, played smart, and fled to the far side of my country, letting them raze and pillage my lands, bleeding themselves out - sadly, that included my royal seat in Bourdeux - but sacrifices had to be made, if my ruler was ever to sit there again. So as a few thousands of theirs bled out, I positioned myself behind a large river's bank, on a hill province as well, waiting for the stack to pick up the bait - while they were roughly my size now, there was another 10k or so stack on it's way to get me.

The battle was thing of a song and a close damn call as well - my arse was saved by my....arch bishop, who had Holy Warrior trait (+30% to Morale/Actual Damage when fighting different faiths), who destroyed 2 flanks with his flank alone after my other 2 flanks fled - you can imagine my surprise as I was actually assuming the day to be lost, when suddenly this guy carries the battle by himself, with his flank's about halfway done with morale damage - by the end of  the battle it was around 5% from breaking itself, so the battle was literally decided by a hair's width. A manoeuvre that was easy to imagine, you know - the whole holy preacher screaming at the top of his lungs to drive the Muslim menace back. Cool stuff as hell, though it was too early to celebrate - I destroyed a third of Ussayid Army, but still was sadly outmatched.

Fortunately, by this time, various Christian kings poured in (I admit I think King/Duke of Burgundy had a few thousands in that river battle, but I can't remember exactly), including said King of Sweden and King of France (I sued for White Peace, deciding the situation was a wee bit too uncomfortable to try and run two wars), whose aid of about 40 - 60k soldiers were enough, combined with mine, to crush the remaining 2 doomstacks of Umayyid, allowing me to reclaim the conquered lands and let the timer do it's thing, eventually forcing Umayyids to pay me good 1k gold of tribute for surrender.

As you might imagine, that wasn't the last of my Umayyid troubles - when my son came to the throne, another Invasion broke out, though by that time I not only had I a tactical plan from the last one but also had vassals in good standing, and an army of about 50k with 10k mercenaries, allowing me a good fighting chance this time. Afterwards the Caliphate started to break from inside struggles in next generation, though sadly before I could begin reconquista of Spain, the save bugged.

Quote from: Opaopajr;687983
Sword of Islam is sadly gimped by decadence. Gotta slaughter all lineage except one son, each, and every, time. Otherwise great fun!

You can always imprison them ;). Admittedly though the biggest problem I have with it is that AI is simply bad at handling decadence, though mods seems to help a bit. Does decadence still appear if you shut off SoI? I can't remember, I admit. That said - Muslims are in quite a good starting position, tech wise and Open Succession wise.
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed

Rincewind1

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« Reply #5 on: September 02, 2013, 11:06:06 PM »
Another game which I have yet to complete (it turned a bit too easy) was when the world turned really bizarre. I started out as Scotland (this was without the mods), creating Empire of Britannia with second character (managed to get a claim on England due to having married Wilhelm the Conqueror's daughter, and war of succession breaking out - though almost lost it by a hair's width as well). Basically the funny thing is that the world suddenly started looking a bit bizarre, as pretty much 75% of it were controlled by one of three parties - Me, HRE or ERE, with HRE being the top dog (the Billungs even managed to get one of their younger sons, who had a claim on me due to me marrying off some relative off mine to the Kaiser once, to get my throne when I had a female ruler....for about 2 years it took me to persuade King of England to join my faction and oust his ass out of Britannia), and me keeping close ties with ERE to keep a balance of power.

It was quite a weird game because usually AI has stern troubles keeping those Empires in one piece let alone expanding to the point where they'd keep up with me - I genuinely had to conquer land to be able to keep up with HRE, partitioning France between me and them so that they'd not grow too powerful- though due to tactics of conquering Spain from Muslims I was growing too strong at some point, so I gave up, as the game was just turning to the point where I'd destabilise HRE and conquer whole world with ease - which is that one gripe of mine with Paradox, that the curve of internal struggle related to growth is still not quite there - though they get this better than any other games on the market still.
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed

Rincewind1

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« Reply #6 on: September 02, 2013, 11:15:27 PM »
On that subject - what's the most morally disgusting/reprehensible thing you did?

For me it'd be probably ordering and executing the murder of my granddaughter.

It was my first game. I was playing as Malcolm of Scotland, just having finished with the 2 civil wars of my brothers, finally managing to strip them of the titles. I granted county of Atholl (I play Scotland a lot so I have almost all names there memorised >,<) to my oldest son and heir...who died during war with England to typhus or Dysentery or some other stuff, but before he died, he made a granddaughter who had inherited the county, but couldn't inherit the Crown of Scotland due to it being Agnatic Primogeniture (I assume county was Agnatic - Cognatic as she and not I inherited). Having bad memories of well, lengthy civil wars with my brothers, and the blood and tears I spent capturing that bloody county, I've decided that stability (and royal demesne, anyone who played Dunkelds knows the king starts with 1 province demesne, which is pretty bad considering Scotland's situation) of the realm was paramount...and I had the poor kid executed before he reached an age of 12.

It was then I realised that Paradox Games can be quite scary.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2013, 11:19:12 PM by Rincewind1 »
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed

Arkansan

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« Reply #7 on: September 03, 2013, 12:02:08 AM »
I happily off my heirs to bring a better qualified one up to bat.

Rincewind1

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« Reply #8 on: September 03, 2013, 12:22:47 AM »
Quote from: Arkansan;688016
I happily off my heirs to bring a better qualified one up to bat.


I stopped doing that as I also try to RP a bit - few fathers'd really be -that- cruel, and considering quality of some kings who had better brothers...
Furthermore, I consider that  This is Why We Don't Like You thread should be closed