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

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1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

WATCH THIS THIS IS LITERALLY ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CRUSADER KINGS 2 :siren:

Crusader Kings 2 is a grand strategy game set in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East from 1066 to 1453. You take the role of a noble dynasty and lead them plagues, war, and intrigue to power and fortune. Its the latest game developed by Paradox Interactive and the first of their grand strategy games who's learning curve isn't a 90-degree angle.

If you enjoy burning heretics, crushing the peasantry, and murdering your children, CK2 is the game for you!

Almost every ruler in the game is playable, from Count Loser of Nowhereville to the Holy Roman Emperor. There are a number of start dates bookmarked at various significant events in medieval history but you can start from literally any day between 1066 and 1453 that you want. Once you have your character and your start date, you are dropped into the game and are now up against hundreds of other dynasties that all want what you want: power. You will need to manage scheming vassals, foreign invasions, religion, marriages, and the inevitable disappointing glutton your heir will be. There is no way to �win� CK2. The only goals that exist are the ones the player makes for themselves. You can choose to reform the Roman Empire and reunite Christendom or just putter away in Iceland. Whatever you want to do in medieval Europe, you can do.

This is what battles look like in CK2:

It usually comes down to whoever has more soldiers and the only real effect you can have on a battle is picking which people lead it. War is not the point of the CK2, its the result of diplomacy and intrigue. Unlike games like Civilization, where the greatest threat is from other players, the greatest threat in CK2 is frequently from internal forces tearing your realm apart through title claims and plots and rebellion. You can absolutely declare war on people and its one of the fastest and easiest ways to expand your land, but its significantly more satisfying to assassinate your brother before he pops out a kid so all of his lands fall to you.

You can kill your wife when the Pope refuses to grant you a divorce. You can murder your firstborn son because he's awful while his brother is amazing. You can forge vast empires. You can convince dukes to rebel against their liege and then conquer them while they're rebelling. You can win tournaments, throw feasts, imprison that jerk who was plotting to kill you, get conquered by Mongols, get conquered by Aztecs, you can throw babies into sinkholes, you can have sex with and impregnate your own daughter because this game gets a little hosed up some times. There are hundreds of special events that play off your character stats and traits to produce some incredibly awesome and/or hilarious stories.

Rulers can get nicknames. They get a little dumb sometimes.

Sleep with your sister.

You can die from having sex in this game.

From escalator dropdown's LP of the Game of Thrones mod. Break canon.

From the CK2+ mod. Get laughed at.

[i]This will not last.

Yes, but its buggy and kind of weird and not really the focus. Some goons set games up on occasion.

This mod wasn't completed unfortunately.

The latest patch is 1.10. You can get it off Steam automatically obviously and if you bought retail I don't know how you still exist. I don't know, I'm just copying the last OP's banners and he felt it important to talk about the latest patch for some reason.

Its worth noting that, unlike a lot of previous Paradox games, CK2 is stable and quite fun right out of the box. You don't need any mods to make the game functional. But, if you been playing it for a while and want to mix things up, these are some of your best options.

-CK2+ was developed by our very own Wiz (who now works for Paradox) and is the most commonly used mod around here. I'll let him explain it:

quote:

The purpose of CK2+ is to create a broader, deeper, more challenging and more balanced CK2 experience, without straying too far from the original game mechanics or tacking on deterministic railroading events and modifiers. The purpose of this mod is not historical accuracy (although I try to preserve it whenever it is not a major detriment to gameplay) but rather to embrace and enrich the medieval sandbox intrigue simulator that is CK2, while fixing its various little issues and exploits.

In short, it makes the game a bit harder but in turn gives you a lot more options and makes the game more interesting over the long run. After the Old Gods, it will no longer be updated. Go here for the latest version.

Sengoku is also goon-made and set during the Warring States period of 15th century Japan. It works with CK2+.

There is a Game of Thrones mod. It adds tons of new events, traits, and options to fit with the GoT universe. The latest bookmarked start date, A Feast For Crows, has some spoilers ~~so maybe you could just read a goddamn book~~ but completely avoidable and the rest of the scenarios are quite fun.

The Prince and the Thane has some tweaks and adds stuff as well, akin to CK2+.

Better Armies overhauls the game's combat and is compatible with CK2+.

More of a technical fix than a mod, this is designed to force the game to use more than 2GB of RAM if you are having trouble with slow loading times. That thread is for a different engine but it works for CK2 too.

This mod is designed to improve performance. Paradox are pretty lazy coders when it comes to system resources.

There's a lot of DLC for the game. Much of the DLC has added or tweaked already existing systems, but anything that affects the entire game is automatically patched in for free (with one exception). The only thing you have to have the DLC for is to play certain characters. There are five major DLCs.

-The Sword of Islam lets you play as Muslim characters. Muslims have a much heavier focus on religion and piety and must manage a special decadence statistic that can destabilize their realm if left unchecked.

-The Legacy of Rome focuses on the Byzantine Empire, giving new traits and options for members of the Eastern Roman Empire. This DLC also adds retinues, special military units that function slightly different from regular military. You must buy this DLC to get access to retinues.

-The Republic lets you play as merchant republics like Venice. Republics are focused on making money through trade posts built across the coasts of Europe and scheming against other merchant families.

-Sunset Invasion is an alt-history DLC where the Aztecs invade Europe. Its somewhat tongue-in-cheek and serves as a Mongol Invasion for the west (i.e. hundreds of thousands of angry Aztecs land in Spain and wreck everyone's day).

-The Old Gods is the latest DLC and reworks the many pagan faiths of medieval Europe. It also lets you move the start date back to 867 and play as the Vikings. :black101:

There are also a lot of cosmetic packs that add different unit graphics, music, and portraits. These are all worth the money. Except the Mediterranean portrait pack. Don't buy the Mediterranean portrait pack.

Kersch did an excellent LP. Its a bit outdated now, but will still get you up to speed on the basics.

Thanqol also did a LP. While not instructive, it gives you an idea of the crazy-hilarious stories this game can produce.

To better understand how inheritance and succession works, read this big-rear end wall of text: Click.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 16:44

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 23:04

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

FAQ

Oh my god how do I start what do I do ahhhhhhhh

That's a normal reaction to first seeing that map. The general recommendation is to start in Ireland as it serves as an unofficial �Tutorial Island� for the game. I personally suggest starting as Dublin. As a short-term goal, form the Duchies of Meath and Leinster and conquer the other province. From there, aim towards forming the Kingdom of Ireland. Once you can do that, you have a solid grasp of CK2's basic mechanics.

I can't declare war on people!
In order to declare war on another ruler, you have to have a Casus Belli (CB). There are a variety of CB's that varying depending on who you are playing and the game will usually let you know if you have a valid one on someone. You can fabricate CB's but this is unreliable and very expensive.

What are retinues?

Retinues are special military units that are always present on the map. You don't need to raise and dismiss them like normal levies and you can still declare war with them active (you can't declare war when you have raised normal levies). However, when they need to replenish their numbers, they drain your treasury until they're back to full strength. Retinues are expensive and you generally aren't going to make use of them until you're quite powerful.

The Tale of Pope John

Thanqol posted:

Update on the aPopecalypse Game

I reload from a save and pick up the Zirid Sultanate, my muslim buddies from across the water. I married my sister to the Sultan as the Italian Consul because he seemed like a descent bloke and it was the most direct family connection I had. In addition, I wanted to see what it was like to play a Muslim in a world where the Italian Empire was lead by the Pope-King of Everything.

First thing that happened was the least prestigious Pope in the universe somehow calls a crusade for me at negative sixty thousand prestige. Thank flying gently caress the Consul didn't join in - I managed to beat it off by the skin of the teeth.

So then the old bastard, after losing, finally carks it, and sure enough my former character becomes new Pope, Emperor-Archbishop of the Italian Empire and takes the Pope Name "Pope John". But then I notice this little quirk:

Look carefully at this picture. Yes, that Pope is excommunicated. The old Pope must have excommunicated John before he died, and apparently merely being the head of the Catholic Church isn't enough to un-excommunicate yourself.

I like to think that Pope John tried to lift his own excommunication, but he would need to be inside the Curia to do that, and he was barred from entry by the excommunication. Following this, Pope John begins a sequence of wacky hijinks to try and sneak inside, hence the 'Improve Intrigue'.

He stays excommunicated for ten years and then it mysteriously goes away.

Pope John is a decent guy and he sailed 20K men across the Mediterranean to help the Sunni Muslim married to his sister with his border conflicts. Pope John takes family seriously.

Pope John founds a faction to scheme against the diabolical tyranny of Pope John, and Pope John hates Pope John so much that his faction is on the verge of rebellion. Death to Pope John! Pope John for Pope!

This could have been a product of Pope John's stress/ongoing efforts to improve his intrigue/excommunication.

At about this point, something about Pope John catches my eye: His treasury.

FIVE POINT NINE MILLION DUCATS BANKED, HOLY poo poo

Pope John's a decent bloke, though. He's just happily building in every Holding slot in his Empire and waging the occasional embargo war against a rival merchant republic. Pope John hasn't Crusaded me once.

Pope John is a bro.

Thanqol posted:

And now, the thrilling conclusion to the Saga of Pope John.

Pope John, at his core, was a man who had realised that there was no one and nothing that could stop him. He was the sole ruler of the greatest superpower in the world, the head of church and state, the heir to unknowable riches and the most virtuous man on the planet. He was a man who changed the course of history and made it okay to laugh at those in authority. He has been called history's most successful troll and the greatest Pope of all time.

I won't tell you how he died, my friends - I will tell you how he lived.

This happened all the time to Pope John - someone would die and rather than hold a vote or succession as usual, everyone would just agree to put Pope John in charge in the calm confidence that things would turn out better for it. The bemused Pope added the titles to his growing portfolio.

So what did Pope John do with all his time, power and the decades of peace he had secured for Italy?

Well, there was a simple answer. He used it to torment this motherfucker right here. For reasons that historians can only guess at, Pope John spent all the resources of his position and the papacy to ruin this guy's life. The events list was an endless series of embargo wars incited by Pope John against Archon Akakios. He demolished hundreds of the Archon's trade posts, then sat idly by while the Archon painstakingly rebuilt them, only to burn them all again. Pope John never explained why he did this, or why he never moved into Akakios' territory after the embargoes had gone down. Akakios claimed that he had never met Pope John and didn't understand the reason for this endless vendetta, eventually descending into a paranoid wreck that was reflected in his nickname.

Pope John certainly wasn't doing this for the money. His vault had hit 18.4 million ducats and he was the most prestigious man in Europe.

To everyone other than Akakios, Pope John was a bro. His birthday gift to the Arabian Sultan was a ten foot gold statue of himself. Pope John wasn't in the slightest bit worried about the threat posed by the most powerful Muslim empire on the planet, and cheerfully sent gifts like these every few years.

Conversely, Pope John didn't get out of bed for any gift smaller than four thousand ducats.

There was a bit of a concerned debate amongst the Jewish moneylenders when Pope John showed up in the merchant quarter and asked to borrow a few thousand ducats, though. "I'm good for it, I swear," said Pope John.

Eventually, in the twilight of his life, Pope John decided he was sick of curia politics. He walked out of the hall in the middle of a meeting, got on his horse, and started to ride west without a word. People started following him, first by the dozen, then by the hundred, and then by the thousand. Pope John had originally just meant to go for a relaxing vacation in Spain to live out his final days but Christendom took this as a sign that Pope John wanted them to go on a grand crusade.

And when people think Pope John wants something...

...they don't...

... gently caress around.

Pope John didn't die in battle, though. He lay down on a Spanish beach and looked out over the waves while, all around him, hundreds of thousands fought and died in the most spectacular and bloody invasion in history. It was said Pope John died with a laugh on his lips at the absurdity of it all, at the madness of a world that gave him supreme power and let him do whatever he wanted with it.

Pope John left behind a unified Italy, wealthy and prosperous beyond it's wildest dreams. He left behind glowing relations with the Arabian Empire to his south, built up with vast gifts of gold and tempered with the threat of unbelievably overwhelming force should the Islamists ever cross the Mediterranean. And, most importantly of all, Pope John left behind a legacy where people could laugh at the Pope, the Church and all religious authority. Having broken every custom and law of feudalism and catholicism, having been born mere commoner in a Patrician house and raised to a height unimaginable, having lived a life without restraints or limitation Pope John showed by example the depth of absurdity that surrounded the structures of power of the time. Pope John disproved the barrier between Christian and Islam, commoner and noble, church and state.

The world would never take itself quite as seriously again.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 16:44

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

I like how they gave all the Catholic rulers in England a bunch of pre-built structures in their holdings but it doesn't matter cause there are tens of thousands of Vikings rolling around carving up the island.

May this Age never end. :black101:

# ¿ May 28, 2013 17:42

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

Wars seem to end a lot faster now. I started as the Mongols for kicks and the first country I invaded surrendered after losing a couple of battles and about five counties.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 19:50

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

Kill thousands of Anglo-Saxons, take all their wives as concubines, conquer half of Scotland, go joyriding/pubcrawling through Ireland, sacrifice all your prisoners to Odin, do it all again.

~viking lyfe~

# ¿ May 28, 2013 20:33

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

RestRoomLiterature- posted:

how do you get the ability to organize a raid/or just loot a province without taking it....I'm not trying to annex a rich province just grab some gold and leave

Raise your levies, put them into a single army, and then in the leader management screen click the blue button that says "Make Looter". Then pick a province and make the weak fear you.

quote:

Also, has anyone been a little dull and played a standard Catholic ruler from the earliest startdate? While being a viking is great fun, I can imagine it would be very frustrating to have tons of them running all over your realm as Charles the Bald or whatever (historically accurate, if nothing else).

I can't imagine how horrifying it would be to play a Catholic ruler in a Viking nation's sphere of interest because the Vikings are built to kick the poo poo out of everyone from day one.

# ¿ May 29, 2013 02:35

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

CapnAndy posted:

Do they get sore about it?

Vassals get sore if you breath on them too heavily.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2013 19:02

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

It is tremendously satisfying to watch some jackhole who took advantage of the ruler-switch rebellions to blackmail you for independence get torn up by his own rebellions and holy wars then come crawling back to live at your court.

Pretty dumb loving idea to be a one-county Norse count in-between East and West Francia, isn't it Arnfast? :smug:

# ¿ Aug 11, 2013 18:46

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

So what's the rationale behind having to wait 5 years in between county conquests in CK2+ other than "gently caress you player, you're not allowed to expand"?

# ¿ Aug 15, 2013 20:26

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

toasterwarrior posted:

Part of a general bunch of nerfs for pagans, since they steamrolled everyone and made them particularly monstrous against OPMs. Otherwise you can unite Ireland in like a decade or something equally as crazy.

In contrast, I'm now looking at 10 years minimum before I can so much as form the Jarldom of Vestlandet as Haraldr Fairhair, much less create Norway as a whole. Add in not being able to launch subjugation wars and I'm almost certainly not going to be able to get enough Holy Sites to reform the Norse Faith, so basically paganism is hosed and I may as well convert to Catholicism now.

I'll agree that the pagans need some nerfs, but having to wait 5 years between conquering single counties is ridiculous and has completely killed my desire to play CK2+.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2013 20:39

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

NihilCredo posted:

Uh, county conquest at-will is crazy overpowered? Basically whenever any of your neighbours gets weaker than you for any reason (say, because they just fought a war and are out of levies), zomg free province (and all the baronies in it)!!! You didn't notice that while playing vanilla TOG?

Though that only becomes apparent once you're a mid-sized fish who can snag up weakened petty lords with no trouble, so if you still have to form a jarldom those snags might not be as trivial. But again, in vanilla you should have noticed, I think.

A 5-year break is still utterly ridiculous. Cut it down to a year, maybe two, and you still slow expansion without completely gutting it and basically crippling pagans.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2013 03:38

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

What does the new CK2+ map look like? The absurd extra provinces and holdings killed the last version for me.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2014 16:19

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 23:04

1stGear: Jan 16, 2010; Here's to the new us.

quote:

- All byzantine emperors will now have clothes regardless of what DLCs are enabled.

Wow, nice job ruining a fable Paradox. < :mad:

# ¿ Oct 28, 2014 15:55

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