Crusader Kings 3: apparently marrying commoners is 'uncool'

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crusader Kings 3: apparently marrying commoners is 'uncool'

Edgar Allen Ho: Apr 3, 2017; by sebmojo

hopeandjoy posted:

My internal borders looking like Gerrymandered voting districts in the South the second I hand it over to the AI to rule (because I don�t want to eat the opinion malus from having too many duchies) sucks rear end.

I don't mind internal borders being nonsense given the period but this game has insane external bordergore even by CK2 standards and I hate it.

Somewhat relatedly, I have a huge chip on my shoulder that the Francias don't change to France and Germany if non-karlings take them. my immersion :argh:

# ? Apr 9, 2021 20:55

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# ? May 28, 2024 22:13

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

I can't believe it's been half a year and Exclave Independence still doesn't do anything

# ? Apr 9, 2021 21:04

Shellception: Oct 12, 2016; "I'm made up of the memories of my parents and my grandparents, all my ancestors. They're in the way I look, in the colour of my hair. And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think"

ZombieCrew posted:

There was that one time where i discovered my sisters secret. Apparently she was banging me and i just found out via discreet whispers. Come on!

Well it may not have been exactly the truth at the time but it sure is now, who is going to doubt you in the matter? get her on the paying line :homebrew:

# ? Apr 9, 2021 21:08

a fatguy baldspot: Aug 29, 2018

PittTheElder posted:

I can't believe it's been half a year and Exclave Independence still doesn't do anything

Pdox has really poo poo the bed this time, CK2 was way better at this point in its life

# ? Apr 9, 2021 21:08

CharlestheHammer: Jun 26, 2011; YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!

a fatguy baldspot posted:

Pdox has really poo poo the bed this time, CK2 was way better at this point in its life

Around this time is the expansion that let you play as Muslims.

Actually the first expansions happened at around the same time

Sword or Islam and the Norse thing

# ? Apr 9, 2021 21:25

scaterry: Sep 12, 2012

PittTheElder posted:

I can't believe it's been half a year and Exclave Independence still doesn't do anything

Explain?

# ? Apr 9, 2021 21:27

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Honestly I'm not sure what the problem is myself, but I've seen completely isolated areas not separated, even with the setting turned up to Total.

Possible issues seem to include:

Naval paths have unlimited distance
Rivers are included in the naval pathing, so everywhere is connected to everywhere
It applies to independent rulers, so vassals can hold land wherever the hell they happen to inherit it
It procs too rarely. I think by default it's on succession, so it can take 50 years to ever take effect. You'd think it would apply to the first succession but it seems not.

That said I haven't studied it or anything, so the overlap in these things might be interfering with my analysis. It might be like the forts in EU4 where the rules are so convoluted that it seems like it doesn't work even though technically it does.

# ? Apr 9, 2021 21:40

Dwesa: Jul 19, 2016; Maybe I'll go where I can see stars

Odd, I saw distant island becoming independent on Limited game rule in my pre-Norse lords game. Are you sure it wasn't AI only rule? Or maybe latest updates broke it somehow.

# ? Apr 9, 2021 21:51

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

It could be that the naval pathing distance is just really long.

But I've seen the Byzantines owning chunks of the steppe with river-only paths back to Constantinople (it was contiguous at one point before they lost bits in-between), and them not getting spun off for years.

# ? Apr 9, 2021 21:56

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

anyway to get electors to not want to vote for someone? the electors of sweden are dead set on making my player heir the next king instead of someone else unlanded in my house

e: nevermind he had a kid and all the electors switched to him

Raskolnikov38 fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Apr 9, 2021

# ? Apr 9, 2021 22:13

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

I see tons of tiny independent delicious morsels all the time, nestled between the bigger blobs of war targets. I'd fully assume its exclave doing its thing, but I don't really think about it and just eat the poor 600 levie saps.

Just confirming: There's basically no way to get someone arbitrary out of jail, there has to be some sort of preexisting condition like family or vassal to request ransom?

And as a open topic, what lifestyle trees are better/worse than they appear? I know the pro play is to dabble into the strong picks at the start of each tree, but then every character ends up being the same. I've found Seduction to be total overkill, Patriarchy to be low-key amazing for stress relief in addition to it's stats and stability, but a lot of trees feel kind 'bleh' until there's a lightbulb moment which I may have missed when I tried them that one time.

# ? Apr 9, 2021 22:21

Baron Porkface: Jan 22, 2007

Since you can't send chaplains to pagan capitals, what is the main way to peacefully Christianize Russia and Scandinavia?

# ? Apr 9, 2021 22:23

Tippis: Mar 21, 2008; It's yet another day in the wasteland.

PittTheElder posted:

Honestly I'm not sure what the problem is myself, but I've seen completely isolated areas not separated, even with the setting turned up to Total.

Possible issues seem to include:

Naval paths have unlimited distance

Rivers are included in the naval pathing, so everywhere is connected to everywhere

It applies to independent rulers, so vassals can hold land wherever the hell they happen to inherit it

It procs too rarely. I think by default it's on succession, so it can take 50 years to ever take effect. You'd think it would apply to the first succession but it seems not.

That said I haven't studied it or anything, so the overlap in these things might be interfering with my analysis. It might be like the forts in EU4 where the rules are so convoluted that it seems like it doesn't work even though technically it does.

It most commonly a variant of #3, from what my digging and experimentation has shown.

It does apply to all rulers, but only if their demesne is entirely outside your continuous and non-de jure realm. If their main holding is within the continuous realm borders (with the full exclave rule, or within the acceptable distance with any of the less strict variants), or if they are part of your de jure realm � even if separated by some annoying git in the middle � they will not go free because the territory isn't truly an exclave to you.

That separate bit may be an exclave to the vassal who currently controls it, depending on how their (sub)realm is set up, but it's often hella-annoying to try to figure out where, when, and why this applies. And even then, you often have to get two quick consecutive successions to make it do anything: the vassal needs to die with a badly set up demesne so his vassal becomes independent of him, and then the realm ruler needs to die so that this vassal now becomes independent of the realm as a whole. Consequently, it's unlikely that you'll see chunks bigger than perhaps a few counties be cut loose from a kingdom, or maybe an entire duchy if you're dealing with an empire.

Funnily enough, border gore protects against exclave independence and AI rulers in particular don't really care about cleaning that up. You could indeed lose an entire kingdom as an emperor, but only if that kingdom is properly set up as its clear-cut standard de jure entity and sits so far away from your main realm that the distance rules apply. Rarely will this happen unless it's a player who's been trying to keep things excessively neat.

# ? Apr 9, 2021 22:28

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Yeah that all agrees with my experience. It requiring a double-succession to really kick in would explain some poo poo.

Wouldn't be so bad if rulers could owe allegiance to multiple rulers as per it's title allegiance, or could be a both a vassal and independent holder of titles outside the realm...

Serephina posted:

And as a open topic, what lifestyle trees are better/worse than they appear? I know the pro play is to dabble into the strong picks at the start of each tree, but then every character ends up being the same. I've found Seduction to be total overkill, Patriarchy to be low-key amazing for stress relief in addition to it's stats and stability, but a lot of trees feel kind 'bleh' until there's a lightbulb moment which I may have missed when I tried them that one time.

I don't know that these would be particularly surprising, but:

Within Diplomacy: Family Hierarchy is good for the openers, Groomed to Rule and Befriend, but the rest of the tree is trash. Ducal Conquest in the Diplomat tree is very easy to overlook, it's basically a free CB on any province who's duchy doesn't exist; not always useful, but sometimes very useful. Diplomacy is probably the second least useful (after the intrigue ones, blech).
Chivalry might be the single best Lifestyle, particularly as small time rulers; that +5 Advantage goes a long way, and there's another +5 Advantage in the tree. But choosing Chivalry focus and then making picks in Strategy is probably the best bet for a small time ruler. The bonus to Siege Weapon effectiveness will win wars for you, and the +15% movement speed will let you run away from stronger armies. +15% heavy infantry damage and toughness is also extremely strong as an unlock. The strategy and chivalry trees seem like the most fun in the game to my taste.
The left line in Stewardship, Avaricious, is by far the most powerful tree in the game. Three picks gets you a -50% discount on MaA at 100 Dread, and it also contains the Extort Vassals and Sell Titles decisions which will generate shitloads of cash (though Extort does require you to have count level vassals), plus the Demand Payment thing. These completely overshadow the construction savings offered by the middle tree. But if you want to really game this, you go down Avaricious for most of your life, accumulate cash, then Reset Perks and spec into Architect and construct en masse at a 20% discount.
The intrigue trees just seem dumb, and I avoid them. +25% fertility is nice, but you often can pick it for free after one of the events for seducing or romancing someone (I always do this with my spouse, not sure if you get the same poisoning event for non-spouses).
Within Learning the Scholar tree is where it's at. Better educations for your children, massive skill bonuses per devotion and councilor skill, the ability to just buy county and duchy claims, and big flat learning bonuses which are great if you're a culture head.

PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Apr 9, 2021

# ? Apr 9, 2021 23:34

Edgar Allen Ho: Apr 3, 2017; by sebmojo

PittTheElder posted:

Wouldn't be so bad if rulers could owe allegiance to multiple rulers as per it's title allegiance, or could be a both a vassal and independent holder of titles outside the realm...

I have a fever dream of that being mentioned in one of the first dev diaries post-announcement, but nope, Harald beat William so Normandy is part of Norway now.

# ? Apr 9, 2021 23:47

Moonshine Rhyme: Mar 26, 2010; Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate

That is a very helpful breakdown, thank you! Wouldn't happen to have The similar breakdown for the dynasty trees would you? So far in my hundred hours I have leaned mostly into the top line warrior tree and the genetics tree, though most of my time has been spent playing as Asturias underdog conquesting Iberia.

# ? Apr 9, 2021 23:51

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

I could certainly spitball something. I often wind up going military a lot of the time too, but ~~I'm less convinced this is the objectively best play~~ after thinking about it it's probably the best one, but the other lines have good stuff. The Legacy trees are interesting, in that the +30% Lifestyle bonuses really encourage you to always play one particular education (and if we're talking about what's optimal, that's Stewardship) [fake edit: did these get nerfed down to +10% with the last patch? That's much less compelling). I also haven't played either of the new Viking legacies, though they look interesting.

Here's my thoughts, in descending order of goodness basically:

Pillage: ngl, this one seems straight up broken. Every pick is great, especially for the tribal you will be to get access to it. First pick: prowess fine, naval speed good, +prestige also great, maybe overkill (you get a lot of prestige from battles right now). Second pick: +2 Heavy Infantry MaA size is crazy good, these should be the mainstay of your armies most of the time, especially as a North Germanic. Third pick: more prisoners and more gold for ransoming them? Ransoms are already a great way of making money, this makes it better. Fourth pick: stack wipe 10k, receive 500 gold; yes please. Fifth pick: +25% siege progress; completely bonkers. In short, you would pick this legacy every time if you could.
Blood: Almost a special case, this is how you create a superhuman race of strongmen through the power of evolution. Take the first three picks (skip the last two) and you'll have a family tree of Beautiful, Herculean, Geniuses within three or four generations. Having all those traits all the time basically breaks the game and makes it trivially easy. Really fun to do once, after that I find it actually takes too much challenge out and makes the game less fun.
Warfare: This one I rate high, mostly because the initial bonuses are so strong. +15% Knight effectiveness goes a long way, especially in the early game or as a tribal. The second pick giving reduces losses is a very strong insurance policy when you're fighting peer opponents (which basically only ever happens in the early game). The fourth and fifth picks are also very strong, though under no circumstances should you ever recruit House Guards, since you can't increase it's size past one.
Erudition: A generally strong line, particularly if you're going to craft your own religion for maximum fun. Piety is a really valuable resource when combined with Sanctioned Loopholes from the Scholar tree. But kind of a toss up with the Law line.
Law: A strong line, though it seems to me that the better bonuses are all at the 3rd to 5th picks. The third bonus is stronger than it seems because Stewardship has the best lifestyle perks. Kind of a tossup with the Erudition line.
Guile: I've sorted this above Kin purely based on how powerful Dread is right now, and that the first pick for +15 Natural Dread and +20% dread gain is really good. The rest of the bonuses seem basically worthless through. Maybe this is more fun if you're playing multiplayer and seducing player's spouses all day?
Kin: The second pick here for better childhood educations is really strong, everything else in the tree is completely skippable. But that second perk is worth it alone, and the earlier you can get to it the better.
Glory: Bad, and not helped by the Diplomacy lifestyles being strangely ineffective. It's not that the bonuses here are bad, they're just worse than every other bonus you could get instead.
Adventure: seems kinda silly? Send to Varangian Guard seems like a cool decision, and it's nice that it's with the opener. +10% movement speed with the fourth pick is also really strong, but worth going 4 picks deep? Probably not.

One annoying thing is that sampling the trees leads to the AI trying to continue them, which is sometimes good (like if you picked Warfare first), and sometimes really bad (like when you pick Guile 1 for that sweet sweet dread).

PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Apr 10, 2021

# ? Apr 10, 2021 00:53

scaterry: Sep 12, 2012

Fabricate Hook is broken. Hooking a claimant and inviting them to your court to press their claim is a flexible, repeatable way to conquer large duchies/kingdoms. You can also strong hook your liege to prevent them from imprisoning you or retracting titles, force an alliance, change your feudal contract, etc... It also combos with golden obligations as an unreliable gold source.

Abduction is broken. You can recruit other realm heirs and force them into matrilineal marriages, or change their faith for maximum chaos. You can abduct heirs for 50% warscore before declaring war, like an OP version of peacemaker. And of course, you can abduct people for money, if you're boring.

Befriend is broken. It gives a +60 permanent opinion boost, makes factions irrelevant, allows you to invite the best courtiers available, and improves your councilor tasks by 20%. This often triples the impact of improving dev, because it ignores the existing dev penalty. With the next perk in the tree you can hit -100% stress reduction easily.

Claim Throne is broken, because you can swear fealty and take over any kingdom/empire from within. Just claim their throne, abduct them, and push your claimant faction demand.

Legacies are lategame investments. Evaluating them as if they'll be relevant earlygame is just wrong, imo-- they just require so much renown. Blood is still the best one, though I've heard people make cases for Guile, Erudition, and Pillage. Glory4, Kin2, Adventure1 might be worth taking if the rest of their tree didn't suck so much.

# ? Apr 10, 2021 03:00

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

"Improves your councilor tasks by 20%" Wait what? Also elaborate on ignoring dev penalties. ...Do friends/lovers in the council work harder than equally loyal non-friends?

# ? Apr 10, 2021 03:14

scaterry: Sep 12, 2012

Serephina posted:

"Improves your councilor tasks by 20%" Wait what? Also elaborate on ignoring dev penalties. ...Do friends/lovers in the council work harder than equally loyal non-friends?

Yep! A friend on the council performs any council task (with a bar) 20% better. In particular, this bonus is additive with the existing development penalty. So suppose I'm at max development penalty (-87.5%), and I have a 15 stewardship steward improving dev. That's +0.34 dev/month. However, now suppose I befriend that same steward. Their penalty is now only -67.5%, so they improve dev at +0.89 dev/month, almost tripling their contribution.

# ? Apr 10, 2021 03:51

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

And if they're your best friend the bonus is even higher I think.

# ? Apr 10, 2021 04:19

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

That... really needs to be mentioned somewhere in the tutorial.

# ? Apr 10, 2021 04:31

Magil Zeal: Nov 24, 2008

Serephina posted:

That... really needs to be mentioned somewhere in the tutorial.

The thing is you can't actually befriend anyone unless you have the perk, not unless you get lucky through events.

# ? Apr 10, 2021 04:52

binge crotching: Apr 2, 2010

PittTheElder posted:

Adventure: seems kinda silly? Send to Varangian Guard seems like a cool decision, and it's nice that it's with the opener. +10% movement speed with the fourth pick is also really strong, but worth going 4 picks deep? Probably not.

Varangian is slightly broken at the moment, since the moment you send someone they gain the trait but remain in your court for you to then marry off. It's basically a cheap way to get a very good trait on every male dynast in your court. It's not really worth putting more than 1 point in though.

# ? Apr 10, 2021 04:55

megane: Jun 20, 2008

Exclave Independence would be a band-aid over a bullet-hole even if it worked properly. Exclaves should go independent because it's horrifically difficult/expensive to keep control of them, not because there's some weird rule shearing them off. Provinces should have a big scaling penalty to Popular Opinion (and/or vassals should have a big opinion penalty) based on their distance from the realm capital, with a massive increase for being disconnected (by water or by other realms), so those stupid half-the-world-away exclaves are in a constant state of revolt. Their king is six months away by boat, why the hell are they so chill.

# ? Apr 10, 2021 05:35

Edgar Allen Ho: Apr 3, 2017; by sebmojo

megane posted:

Exclave Independence would be a band-aid over a bullet-hole even if it worked properly. Exclaves should go independent because it's horrifically difficult/expensive to keep control of them, not because there's some weird rule shearing them off. Provinces should have a big scaling penalty to Popular Opinion (and/or vassals should have a big opinion penalty) based on their distance from the realm capital, with a massive increase for being disconnected (by water or by other realms), so those stupid half-the-world-away exclaves are in a constant state of revolt. Their king is six months away by boat, why the hell are they so chill.

Imperator is halfway to actually doing this. It's one of the things I like about it- far-flung unintegrated culture wrong religion provinces just trend to revolt by default, and your choice is to invest in assimilation, accept that you're going to have to raise homeland levies and march over and crush them a few times, or you just release them as a client state while you pacify somewhere else.

# ? Apr 10, 2021 06:06

ilitarist: Apr 26, 2016; illiterate and militarist

Magil Zeal posted:

The thing is you can't actually befriend anyone unless you have the perk, not unless you get lucky through events.

Does tooltip on friend or council ever tells you this?

I always assumed that council job should depend on opinion in some way. But it mostly works indirectly, like your spymaster will kill you themselves if they don't like you.

# ? Apr 10, 2021 10:19

binge crotching: Apr 2, 2010

Magil Zeal posted:

The thing is you can't actually befriend anyone unless you have the perk, not unless you get lucky through events.

If you offer to join a war twice before they call you to arms (or for your liege, any war they are the primary in), that person will become your friend. It's not super helpful for your own council, but it's a reliable way of getting several friends at least.

ilitarist posted:

Does tooltip on friend or council ever tells you this?

The mission progress tooltip for your council does show the multiplier for being your friend, and then also the extra bonus for being your best friend.

# ? Apr 10, 2021 20:17

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

when reforming a religion can you choose to do feudal or clan government or is clan locked behind muslim faiths

# ? Apr 10, 2021 20:47

AnEdgelord: Dec 12, 2016

Raskolnikov38 posted:

when reforming a religion can you choose to do feudal or clan government or is clan locked behind muslim faiths

clan is locked to muslim faiths

# ? Apr 10, 2021 21:41

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

damnit

# ? Apr 10, 2021 21:41

simonwolf: Oct 29, 2011

Clan can also be forced on you if you make a custom character, though, even if their religion isn�t part of the Islamic family � I discovered this a few days ago when I was making a character to start a �reform Bactria� run, and choosing Afghan culture forced Clan government despite being Zoroastrian and replacing a character who was a Feudal ruler.

# ? Apr 11, 2021 01:10

Jose: Jul 24, 2007; Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

started playing again after a long break and decided to make my own character who is norse and astaru. Anyway I've conquered ireland/wales/england but I've reached a point where seemingly no matter what I do the pope declares a holy war on me that I have no chance of winning as its 30k troops vs 90k. I'll eat the loss if necessary because this is mostly a game to get used to things again and I'll just lose england but Is there anyway to stop it? I blackmailed the pope and formed an alliance and the holy war still happened

# ? Apr 11, 2021 16:39

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

in my experience the crusader armies rarely arrive together allowing you to defeat them in detail

# ? Apr 11, 2021 18:00

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.

Yeah, especially for England (since you can almost always be defending a coastline with a locally superior force) that's actually a very winnable Crusade.

# ? Apr 11, 2021 18:23

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Jose posted:

started playing again after a long break and decided to make my own character who is norse and astaru. Anyway I've conquered ireland/wales/england but I've reached a point where seemingly no matter what I do the pope declares a holy war on me that I have no chance of winning as its 30k troops vs 90k. I'll eat the loss if necessary because this is mostly a game to get used to things again and I'll just lose england but Is there anyway to stop it? I blackmailed the pope and formed an alliance and the holy war still happened

Yea don't be afraid of eating the loss, assuming you have any other territory outside the target Kingdom; the new Kingdom that gets set up is often very shaky and you might be able to topple it quickly later.

As others have said, fight them on the beaches. Recently disembarked (within 30 days I think) troops have a massive -30 advantage penalty, meaning you can punch way above your weight if you can hit them soon after coming ashore, or better still, soon after coming ashore in small clumps.

One last thing that can't be stressed enough is to use Men At Arms. Heavy Infantry and Armoured Cavalry are strong as gently caress, and will absolutely demolish levies. Even at the beginning, heavy infantry are something like 4 times stronger than levies.

And this is more of a late game thing, but that ratio only gets crazier as the game goes on and you apply stat boosts from bonuses and buildings. A late game Heavy Infantry army will defeat an army up to 8-10x it's size, and stackwipe anything smaller about 6x.

# ? Apr 11, 2021 18:41

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

While we're on the topic, is there a 'right' way to blend MAA? I've been using an even blend of everything with cultural uniques substituted where appropriate, but I'm wondering about the practicality of going like almost-pure heavy cav with some anti-pikemen stuff in order to fit a pimp squad under the supply limits. The penalties for getting countered are pretty severe and I'm not 100% sure of the countering mechanics/numbers. Assume I'm not doing anything dramatic like stacking 10 duchy buildings in support of this.

# ? Apr 11, 2021 21:57

megane: Jun 20, 2008

My impression is that it has essentially the same problem CK2 had, i.e. that the AI just buys whatever the gently caress at random and hence there's no meaningful strategy to it. In theory you can go "oh ho, I'm likely to fight the English repeatedly and they'll rely heavily on archers, so I'll buy archer counters," but in practice the English aren't incentivized to invest in archers any more than anyone else and will have the same mix of everything that everyone else does.

# ? Apr 11, 2021 22:05

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Serephina posted:

While we're on the topic, is there a 'right' way to blend MAA? I've been using an even blend of everything with cultural uniques substituted where appropriate, but I'm wondering about the practicality of going like almost-pure heavy cav with some anti-pikemen stuff in order to fit a pimp squad under the supply limits. The penalties for getting countered are pretty severe and I'm not 100% sure of the countering mechanics/numbers. Assume I'm not doing anything dramatic like stacking 10 duchy buildings in support of this.

So right off the top, the best MaA type you can get is the must advanced siege units you can get. This is a Paradox game, and winning siege races will win wars. You want to get a group of those running ASAP. But you're not here for that, you're here to learn how to win battles, so:

Countering is a steep penalty, but it's scaled based on the number of counter units there actually are. So as an example with made up numbers (I don't have the wiki handy), if you put 100 Armoured Footmen up against 100 Light Footmen who counter them, the Armoured Foot will do something like 25% damage; if you put 1000 AF against 100 LF, they'll do like 90% damage.

This, combined with the fact that the AI doesn't focus on particular lines of MaA for whatever reason, means you want to to pick one or two lines yourself - ones that don't have any crucial terrain penalties, and can be boosted by buildings that are available based on the terrain your holdings are in - and just focus on those. Damage is generally the best attribute due to stackwiping mechanics.

For most of the world that composition is Armored Footmen and like one unit of Pikeman if you're worried about cavalry. These units both get big boosts from the Barracks and Blacksmith line of buildings, which is available is most types of terrain. They also have great attack stats and toughness, meaning you can throw them into lopsided battles and they'll come out fine.

Exceptions to this are when you're in the desert/floodplains which don't get the barracks line, or have access to some really good cultural/regional line (Horse Archers are amazing, so are Chasseurs).

Armored Cavalry are something of a special case. They have crazy high attack stats which is extremely good, but obviously come at half size and are expensive as poo poo, and take big penalties in a lot of terrain types. They also don't scale particularly well in the middle game, because there isn't a good building line to boost them until the High Medieval era, meanwhile barracks units will actually approach them in stats. I have tried using a lot of them as a French minor, and they were murder machines; but better than full Armored Foot on a per gold basis? I'm not super convinced.

Personally I think Armoured Cav are hugely let down by the implementation of feudal obligations; vassals paying taxes and levies is historical nonsense, what you want is to be able to require your vassals to supply trained MaA which will come fight your wars with you.

PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Apr 11, 2021

# ? Apr 11, 2021 23:15

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# ? May 28, 2024 22:13

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

So yea, in my particular case I'm English, have Huscarls and Longbowmen in the late medieval, have gold pouring out of my ears and am seriously considering sacking 4-5 stacks of size-12 MAA in order to build a MAA-only unit that can fit under supply limits for lategame roaming vs non-threats who can still field 30k levies. The buildings I've been making support all unit types relatively equally (apart from duchies, which I'm not trying to cheese with), so I'm just kinda squinting and wondering "If I have 5k heavy cav, and 3.5k huscarls, exactly how likely am I to get turbo-hosed by walking into hilly terrain vs light infantry?" It's a lot of gold to disband everything and recruit multiple size-17 stacks of heavy cav...

# ? Apr 12, 2021 00:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crusader Kings 3: apparently marrying commoners is 'uncool'

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