Crusader Kings II: I desperately want to be cucked by Satan

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crusader Kings II: I desperately want to be cucked by Satan

Jack the Stripper: Feb 9, 2014; Your local cheese loving, wooden shoes wearing drug addict.

double nine posted:

Am I the only one who listens to far too many podcasts whilst playing? I haven't heard the original music in forever...

Same here. Haven't heard the original music since I got sick of it a few weeks after playing.

I usually listen to music that kind of fits the country I'm playing. I listen to this for example when playing as a Norse or Greek, it's pretty awesome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x-5ZkTMyMc. Turisas has a lot of nice songs about aspects of history, big recommendation.

# ? Feb 23, 2014 22:08

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 22:09

a pipe smoking dog: Jan 25, 2010; "haha, dogs can't smoke!"

double nine posted:

Am I the only one who listens to far too many podcasts whilst playing? I haven't heard the original music in forever...

I can't imagine this game without Uhh Yeah Dude.

# ? Feb 23, 2014 22:46

binge crotching: Apr 2, 2010

StashAugustine posted:

It's 1130 and the Byzantines have converted to Catholicism. I know this because they set up an antipope.

I have a game where I'm fighting a war to put my son on the throne of the Byzantine Empire. He's a Reformed Norse Pagan. If this goes well, I can only imagine how fast it'll shatter.

# ? Feb 23, 2014 22:49

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Dongattack posted:

Could one of you just explain exactly what you need to do to make a merchant republic? I'm just not grasping it. Can you do it anywhere? As anyone? How much more extra tax income will you make?

Find a coastal county, and give the county title for that county to the mayor of one of the cities in the county. That'll turn the county into a Grand City. Then give that Lord Mayor a Duchy, which should turn it into a merchant republic. With a decent tax rate, the extra tax revenue is considerably more than an equivalent duke would give and will probably be comparable to your entire demense; I recall the Doge of Venice with just the county of Venice under his control providing me more tax revenue than personally holding the entire county of Constantinople with my Steward parked on it. There's also the fact that unlike feudal and church vassals, city vassals will still provide you some tax income even when you set all tax laws to the minimum possible (assuming they don't hate you enough to blow off the taxes, anyway).

# ? Feb 23, 2014 22:59

Node: May 20, 2001; KICKED IN THE COOTER; Taco Defender

I'm a reformed norse and I would like to get the Holy Smoke achievement, where you sacrifice a religious head in a blot. How can I do this? When you're reformed, kingdoms no longer send missionaries to your realm.

They don't make it easy. You can't declare war on, say, the Pope, hope you capture him, and sacrifice him in a blot because you can't hold blots during war. When you declare peace, the Pope is automatically released.

I can't taunt him into making an army with a really weak raiding force either. He won't raise his armies if I send in 100 raiders and then send them back to the boat.

Is there any way to get this achievement without being cheesy? There is a way of gaming it to hell but I really would like to avoid it. The method I've read a lot of people do is to start as the Byzantine Emperor, have a Varangian raise your child so he becomes norse culture and religion, then when you die, imprison the ecu patriarch, and sacrifice him in a blot. But that is really, really gamey and I don't like it.

Node fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Feb 23, 2014

# ? Feb 23, 2014 23:00

Raenir Salazar: Nov 5, 2010; College Slice

Is it an exploit to have around 30k in retinues but should only have a maximum of 4k because you lost the feudal election (going from big realm to small realm)?

# ? Feb 23, 2014 23:52

Baron Porkface: Jan 22, 2007

I saw that I have a max of 2 theocracy vassals as reformed Norse. What affects this number? Do all religions have it?

# ? Feb 24, 2014 00:00

ulmont: Sep 15, 2010; IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

Raenir Salazar posted:

Is it an exploit to have around 30k in retinues but should only have a maximum of 4k because you lost the feudal election (going from big realm to small realm)?

At least a little bit, yes. I had that happen in a game where I gave in to the "let the other guy rule" faction (I had gone Varangian and ended up Orthodox, which the rest of the realm did *not* appreciate).

But retinue size can fluctuate for other reasons; in games where I move capitals a lot (so changing the military organization tech), I've seen some serious drops without changing realm size. So I say roll with it.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 00:04

chippocrates: Feb 20, 2013

Baron Porkface posted:

I saw that I have a max of 2 theocracy vassals as reformed Norse. What affects this number? Do all religions have it?

Is it not 10% of your total counties can be under a church or mayor vassal?

# ? Feb 24, 2014 00:04

Talky: Mar 26, 2010

The number of theocracy vassals you can have is based on realm size. Religious vassals can only control a certain percentage of your realm (I forget what that number is, but it's Pretty low). You can also only have one king-level church vassal. As far as I know it's the same for all religions.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 00:04

Astro Nut: Feb 22, 2013; Nonsensical Space Powers, Activate! Form of Friendship!

Baron Porkface posted:

What motivates a vassal to start or join an install other guy faction?

Basically, the game takes the vassal's opinion of the claimant, and runs it through a 'what if' scenario if said claimant were in charge instead of you, and depending on the resulting score, this will influence their decision to support their claim. In the Factions menu you can check this with each faction member - they'll have their opinion of you, and then their opinion of the claimant as their liege. Make the former higher, and you should have less worries.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 00:21

Raenir Salazar: Nov 5, 2010; College Slice

Astro Nut posted:

Basically, the game takes the vassal's opinion of the claimant, and runs it through a 'what if' scenario if said claimant were in charge instead of you, and depending on the resulting score, this will influence their decision to support their claim. In the Factions menu you can check this with each faction member - they'll have their opinion of you, and then their opinion of the claimant as their liege. Make the former higher, and you should have less worries.

Does this work for plots?

quote:

But retinue size can fluctuate for other reasons; in games where I move capitals a lot (so changing the military organization tech), I've seen some serious drops without changing realm size. So I say roll with it.

In this case its purely because the player in question went from HRE to Count of Gotland.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 00:27

Bishop Rodan: Dec 5, 2011; See you in the funny papers, liebchen!

Node posted:

I'm a reformed norse and I would like to get the Holy Smoke achievement, where you sacrifice a religious head in a blot. How can I do this? When you're reformed, kingdoms no longer send missionaries to your realm.

They don't make it easy. You can't declare war on, say, the Pope, hope you capture him, and sacrifice him in a blot because you can't hold blots during war. When you declare peace, the Pope is automatically released.

I can't taunt him into making an army with a really weak raiding force either. He won't raise his armies if I send in 100 raiders and then send them back to the boat.

Is there any way to get this achievement without being cheesy? There is a way of gaming it to hell but I really would like to avoid it. The method I've read a lot of people do is to start as the Byzantine Emperor, have a Varangian raise your child so he becomes norse culture and religion, then when you die, imprison the ecu patriarch, and sacrifice him in a blot. But that is really, really gamey and I don't like it.

Keep raiding the capital of a religious head (such as Rome, or wherever the Caliphs have their capitals) and hope you capture one of them eventually.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 00:27

Allyn: Sep 4, 2007; I love Charlie from Busted!

Node posted:

I'm a reformed norse and I would like to get the Holy Smoke achievement, where you sacrifice a religious head in a blot. How can I do this? When you're reformed, kingdoms no longer send missionaries to your realm.

They don't make it easy. You can't declare war on, say, the Pope, hope you capture him, and sacrifice him in a blot because you can't hold blots during war. When you declare peace, the Pope is automatically released.

I can't taunt him into making an army with a really weak raiding force either. He won't raise his armies if I send in 100 raiders and then send them back to the boat.

Is there any way to get this achievement without being cheesy? There is a way of gaming it to hell but I really would like to avoid it. The method I've read a lot of people do is to start as the Byzantine Emperor, have a Varangian raise your child so he becomes norse culture and religion, then when you die, imprison the ecu patriarch, and sacrifice him in a blot. But that is really, really gamey and I don't like it.

Raid Rome and Constantinople, but sack the holdings instead of just trying to bait out an army. There's a (very) small chance you'll capture them. Do it on cooldown with your big-rear end retinue (you do have a big-rear end retinue, right) and just keep trying.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 00:31

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Raenir Salazar posted:

Is it an exploit to have around 30k in retinues but should only have a maximum of 4k because you lost the feudal election (going from big realm to small realm)?

Only as much of an exploit as having 30k in retinues to begin with is. :colbert:

Besides, god help you if you lose them somehow and have to try and reinforce them back to 30k on a Count's income.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 01:09

ulmont: Sep 15, 2010; IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

Dallan Invictus posted:

Only as much of an exploit as having 30k in retinues to begin with is. Besides, god help you if you lose them somehow and have to try and reinforce them back to 30k on a Count's income.

Gonna be a lot of time spent with reinforce off, I assure you.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 01:37

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

My mother was a Byzantine Princess and there was a claim on Byzantium war so I went ahead and made Totil IV, Emperor of Britannia, _{King of England, King of France, King of Jerusalem, King of Irland, King of Denmark, Duke of Essex, Duke of Kent, Duke of Lothian, Count of Middlesex, etc etc.} the Byzantine Emperor too.

Help! I didn't think this through. Now I'm a Norse Catholic ruling a Greek Orthodox empire that stretches from Apulia to the Caucasus, and I had a worrying Independence faction consisting of Skotland, Castille, Burgundy, and various large duchies even before the conquest. And it's just really far away. Putting down a major rebellion across Denmark, France, Greece, Anatolia, the Levant and the distant Caucasus sounds hard. How do I stay on this horse without losing large chunks of my pre-Byzantine empire?

# ? Feb 24, 2014 02:59

binge crotching: Apr 2, 2010

Before war breaks out, hire a bunch of mercenaries. Not only will they help you if you need to fight (so you can have a stack of mercs in one theater, and your retinues in another), but they should add to your force calculations, making the factions appear weaker. That might just be enough to convince them to not actually rebel.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 03:17

MLKQUOTEMACHINE: Oct 22, 2012; Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice-skate uphill

lol, so I just quit a game because for whatever reason the game decided that I wasn't preparing an invasion of France from Norse Brittany, but instead preparing to invade the tiny rump the Franks had in Aragon.

Hahahaha, gently caress that.

I had worked so hard to set up the perfect scenario. Carolinian France was at war with it's German half and a dozen or so vassals were rebelling. :smith:

MLKQUOTEMACHINE fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Feb 24, 2014

# ? Feb 24, 2014 03:26

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Arglebargle III posted:

My mother was a Byzantine Princess and there was a claim on Byzantium war so I went ahead and made Totil IV, Emperor of Britannia, _{King of England, King of France, King of Jerusalem, King of Irland, King of Denmark, Duke of Essex, Duke of Kent, Duke of Lothian, Count of Middlesex, etc etc.} the Byzantine Emperor too.

Help! I didn't think this through. Now I'm a Norse Catholic ruling a Greek Orthodox empire that stretches from Apulia to the Caucasus, and I had a worrying Independence faction consisting of Skotland, Castille, Burgundy, and various large duchies even before the conquest. And it's just really far away. Putting down a major rebellion across Denmark, France, Greece, Anatolia, the Levant and the distant Caucasus sounds hard. How do I stay on this horse without losing large chunks of my pre-Byzantine empire?

You should be making lots of money, so placate as many of them as possible with gifts and honorary titles, lower taxes and levies, whatever. Look at each one's opinion of you and see if there's anything in particular that's annoying them about you, maybe you hold some vassals or titles they want and can easily placate them with a few vassal transfers. If they're ambitious, or just really really hate your personal traits, have them murdered or deprived of their titles at the first reasonable opportunity because those don't go away. You can even hand out titles if you need to. If you can get their opinion of you above 30 or so, you can demand that they convert to Catholicism, and they'll probably then work on converting their heirs and courtiers and vassals and generally wipe out the religious differences malus within a couple of generations. Also, give away one of your duchies, holding more than two gives you the "Too Many Held Duchies" opinion penalty with all of your vassals. If you're not currently assassinating anyone, park your spymaster on the capital of your strongest vassal and set him to scheme; you'll want to leave him there until he pops an event that'll prevent that vassal from participating in factions for a few years, and not disturb him unless another powerful vassal is leading a large faction.

Then pick just one of your king-level vassals, preferably one with strong levies but few allies and an unfixable hatred for you, and make it your life's mission to piss them off. Raise their levies, kick them off your council, give them the Court Jester title, and if you make the Byzantine Empire your primary title you can revoke any duchies they hold for no tyranny penalty (but majorly pissing off that one vassal!). Also, leave your retinues near their territory. The idea is to drive just that one vassal to rebel, all on their own, without them going through a faction or having any similarly-angry allies. Once you put down the rebellion, they'll be imprisoned, and you can revoke any one of their titles for free, so revoke their kingdom. If they'll still be problematic for some reason, you can keep them in jail or even assassinate them in prison. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Peasant/religious/liberation revolts are inevitable with an empire that large, but they should be welcomed and possibly left alone for a while - they take forever to rack up enough warscore to get anywhere close to winning, and as long as they exist all of your vassals will get a +75 "Defending vs Foreigners" opinion boost that makes it really easy to bribe away factions and demand religious conversions from vassals who normally wouldn't give you the time of day.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 03:36

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

I just installed my wife as Queen of England (I'm temporarily Holy Roman Emperor, not really trying to cling to power just increase the HRE's borders and shore up my duchy of Brandenburg). Is there a way to force a succession law switch outside of console tag-switching (which I'll probably do if there isn't one), since England is elective and none of the dukes wanna give it up?

# ? Feb 24, 2014 03:49

CapnAndy: Feb 27, 2004; Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. So you keep your eyes closed at the end. You don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before its oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. You just know it.

Arglebargle III posted:

My mother was a Byzantine Princess and there was a claim on Byzantium war so I went ahead and made Totil IV, Emperor of Britannia, _{King of England, King of France, King of Jerusalem, King of Irland, King of Denmark, Duke of Essex, Duke of Kent, Duke of Lothian, Count of Middlesex, etc etc.} the Byzantine Emperor too.

Help! I didn't think this through. Now I'm a Norse Catholic ruling a Greek Orthodox empire that stretches from Apulia to the Caucasus, and I had a worrying Independence faction consisting of Skotland, Castille, Burgundy, and various large duchies even before the conquest. And it's just really far away. Putting down a major rebellion across Denmark, France, Greece, Anatolia, the Levant and the distant Caucasus sounds hard. How do I stay on this horse without losing large chunks of my pre-Byzantine empire?

Play the long game? Send your chaplain to convert, starting at the most powerful dukes and going down, and educate as many heirs as you can with good catholic tudors?

# ? Feb 24, 2014 03:55

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

I have the third Duchy because I give it to my son every generation, or I use it as an emergency gift to placate a pretender in a bad succession. My son is 7 so I'm going to be holding onto that opinion malus for a while, but the extra Duchy is just too useful to give up.

I think I may end up creating the Kingdoms of Alania and Georgia and just handing them independence if they start to look dangerous.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 04:04

Empress Theonora: Feb 19, 2001; She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.

Can you use the Byzantine emperor's power to revoke duchies for free, or does that only work if Byzantium is your primary title?

Because otherwise you could just revoke the titles of the Byzantines douxes who hate you the most and install Catholics in their place.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 04:14

Knuc U Kinte: Aug 17, 2004

nutranurse posted:

lol, so I just quit a game because for whatever reason the game decided that I wasn't preparing an invasion of France from Norse Brittany, but instead preparing to invade the tiny rump the Franks had in Aragon.

Hahahaha, gently caress that.

I had worked so hard to set up the perfect scenario. Carolinian France was at war with it's German half and a dozen or so vassals were rebelling.

That is far from the end of the world. I just had a claimant to the Byz throne (generations in the making), die in battle during a test war against Byz to lower CA and see how plausible it would be to attack them for his claim when he became Doge.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 05:16

CapnAndy: Feb 27, 2004; Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. So you keep your eyes closed at the end. You don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before its oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. You just know it.

Rincewind posted:

Can you use the Byzantine emperor's power to revoke duchies for free, or does that only work if Byzantium is your primary title?

Because otherwise you could just revoke the titles of the Byzantines douxes who hate you the most and install Catholics in their place.

Oh hey yeah, good call. New plan: switch your primary title to Byzantium, revoke everyone's duchy, install Catholics.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 05:16

Excelzior: Jun 24, 2013

How are you gonna install catholic dukes if all the available counts are orthodox? Revoking the duchy doesn't remove them entirely, it just strips the duchy title. As orthodox vassals, you cannot revoke their counties without tyranny like you could a heresy.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 05:45

Empress Theonora: Feb 19, 2001; She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.

Excelzior posted:

How are you gonna install catholic dukes if all the available counts are orthodox? Revoking the duchy doesn't remove them entirely, it just strips the duchy title. As orthodox vassals, you cannot revoke their counties without tyranny like you could a heresy.

Oh yeah, that's a good point. Your replacement dukes might still be over the moon enough at being grated a duchy to convert on the spot, though.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 05:47

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

Totil got killed by a bear, so now my 11 year old is Emperor and it's Thunderdome time.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 05:52

Node: May 20, 2001; KICKED IN THE COOTER; Taco Defender

Allyn posted:

Raid Rome and Constantinople, but sack the holdings instead of just trying to bait out an army. There's a (very) small chance you'll capture them. Do it on cooldown with your big-rear end retinue (you do have a big-rear end retinue, right) and just keep trying.

I've read from various sources that this can take longer than the game's timeline, the chances are so small.

I don't think I've ever captured a title holder defending their castle, just their family and court.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 05:53

Knuc U Kinte: Aug 17, 2004

Knuc U Kinte posted:

That is far from the end of the world. I just had a claimant to the Byz throne (generations in the making), die in battle during a test war against Byz to lower CA and see how plausible it would be to attack them for his claim when he became Doge.

This test war has been going on for 15 years and stuck at 80 percent in the emperor's favour. 3 doges have lived through the Great War to Lower Crown Authority and I've fended off invasions from Carolingian Italy and a very buff sultanate of Andalusia/Africa in the mean time. My army has been completely wiped 3 or 4 times and I've spent 10s of 1000s of dollars.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 06:21

Inside Outside: Jul 31, 2005

a pipe smoking dog posted:

I can't imagine this game without Uhh Yeah Dude.

This is how I roll too :911:

# ? Feb 24, 2014 06:39

Strudel Man: May 19, 2003; ROME DID NOT HAVE ROBOTS, FUCKWIT

Node posted:

I've read from various sources that this can take longer than the game's timeline, the chances are so small.

I don't think I've ever captured a title holder defending their castle, just their family and court.

It's odd. My experience has been more or less the same as yours, but the actual code for the event suggests that capturing the guy in charge should be quite possible.

on_siege_over_loc_chars is trigger for all characters in the location of a completed siege; it triggers event 62100, the 'capture' event, which requires that the character in question be

code:

OR = {
	is_ruler = yes
	
	host = {
		OR = {
			is_close_relative = ROOT
			any_spouse = {
				character = ROOT
			}
			any_consort = {
				character = ROOT
			}
		}
	}
	new_character = {
		ROOT = {
			prisoner = yes
			employer = {
				character = PREVPREV
			}
		}
	}
	
	AND = {
		new_character = {
			ROOT = {
				host = {
					top_liege = {
						war_with = PREVPREVPREV
					}
				}
			}
		}
		
		host = {
			top_liege = {
				is_close_relative = ROOT
			}
		}
	}

Either a ruler himself, or a spouse or relative of the ruler, or one of your prisoners, or a relative of the guy at the top of the realm you're at war with. The first line should be all you need, and there isn't any weight multiplier which would make it less likely. The base chance of this happening for anyone who qualifies is about 10%. But I don't remember ever capturing a ruler like that, even when I set it at 100% for testing purposes. Which means that maybe the trigger isn't functioning properly? The ruler isn't, or often isn't, being treated as present in their own capital?

# ? Feb 24, 2014 07:10

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Strudel Man posted:

It's odd. My experience has been more or less the same as yours, but the actual code for the event suggests that capturing the guy in charge should be quite possible.

on_siege_over_loc_chars is trigger for all characters in the location of a completed siege; it triggers event 62100, the 'capture' event, which requires that the character in question be

Either a ruler himself, or a spouse or relative of the ruler, or one of your prisoners, or a relative of the guy at the top of the realm you're at war with. The first line should be all you need, and there isn't any weight multiplier which would make it less likely. The base chance of this happening for anyone who qualifies is about 10%. But I don't remember ever capturing a ruler like that, even when I set it at 100% for testing purposes. Which means that maybe the trigger isn't functioning properly? The ruler isn't, or often isn't, being treated as present in their own capital?

I can't read that event code at all, but when the levies are raised, aren't most feudal landed rulers attached to those levies (even if they're not one of the three main generals) and therefore considered to be whereever their personal levy is instead of in their capital? Though I can't recall ever seeing a church vassal doing that.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 07:47

Strudel Man: May 19, 2003; ROME DID NOT HAVE ROBOTS, FUCKWIT

Main Paineframe posted:

I can't read that event code at all, but when the levies are raised, aren't most feudal landed rulers attached to those levies (even if they're not one of the three main generals) and therefore considered to be whereever their personal levy is instead of in their capital? Though I can't recall ever seeing a church vassal doing that.

Very often, yes. But still, if you're raiding (say) one county of a larger realm, the count himself is not likely to be leading any troops, and should be susceptible to being captured.

# ? Feb 24, 2014 07:49