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Pangurban
Apr 29, 2015

CapnAndy posted:

Two main goals. First, they were at 300,000 men strong, and I wanted to cut those numbers down somewhat. This worked; they're at 215,000 now. Clearing 85,000 zombies out of my way for the eventual final battle is a big win. Second, the game has become almost completely unplayable; I have to pause time before clicking on anything or giving any commands, because while time is running, nothing is responsive, everything goes much too slowly and jumps around, and sometimes the game will just give up and freeze completely for a few minutes before recovering and time starts moving again. It's really bad, and my guess is that the White Walkers are the cause; they're running four simultaneous invasions (that I know of), each one has got dozens of allies assisting the defenders -- seriously, did you see that warscore panel? That was for one invasion -- what it boils down to is the entire world is at war simultaneously and basically everyone with land has got armies raised that they're marching around and getting into battles, and CK2 really isn't built for this sort of insane total world war. I was hoping that by ending one invasion I could get at least some nations back to being at peace, to lessen the strain on my computer. That didn't work so well; everyone just jumped in to defend all the other invasions.

We've actually seen what happens if they get cleared off the board without a War for the Dawn. Remember when they were invading from the North, destroyed the Night's Watch, and brought down the Wall, but then ran into my guys who defeated them with contemptuous ease? They just immediately re-declared the invasion, and then did it again after that. They didn't care that they didn't have anyone left to actually invade with. White Walker diplomatic AI is quite simple: "Is there a province adjacent to our borders that's inhabited by the living? INVADE IT." As for respawning, they reinforce through murder. Every time they take a province, their numbers go up. Hand them a loss and they're stuck with the troops they have until they can find somewhere full of new people to kill.

Thank you both for the explanation and also holy poo poo. :suspense: I did not even fully appreciate how potentially dire our situation was until you got into the guts of the matter like that.

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painedforever
Sep 12, 2017

Quem Deus Vult Perdere, Prius Dementat.
This is hilarious. This, I think, is the best CK2 playthrough I've ever seen. And it's so true to the books, too.

Every instalment takes longer and longer to churn out because of all of the invasions and wars. The nobles can't stop bickering enough amongst themselves even though the world is ending. A child dying isn't just a tragedy all on its own, but also because of what it does to the succession. Oh, and the dragons, even though you need them to defeat winter, can't help but be horrible, fire-breathing monsters. I know that mega-war is giving you a hard time, but it's those unexpected consequences that are making this really interesting... and how you're dealing with them. I would've rage-quit by now.

So yeah, build up the war chest, upgrade the holdings, get more kids for alliances and raise the ones that you do get. Try raising crown authority? And, I dunno, what's the current succession? Is it where we want it? Do we want to adjust it?

What's our council like? Anyone we want to replace?

Sindai
Jan 24, 2007
i want to achieve immortality through not dying
Mega war seems like it would be a reasonable way to limit mega-empire power if the scenario didn't expect you to take on magic zombie mongols. Do the Walkers ever lose without human intervention?

Emissary666
Sep 6, 2010

Sindai posted:

Mega war seems like it would be a reasonable way to limit mega-empire power if the scenario didn't expect you to take on magic zombie mongols. Do the Walkers ever lose without human intervention?

If by human you mean player, yes, I've seen them lose to the AI at least once. I don't know what the AI was doing, as I was too busy building a separatist state in the Vale, but it happened; probably a one-off though.

Dancer
May 23, 2011
Does the mod have a mode with weaker Winter? Because it both having hundreds of thousands of zombies + winter literally not ending until someone beats them is kinda silly.

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.

Dancer posted:

Does the mod have a mode with weaker Winter? Because it both having hundreds of thousands of zombies + winter literally not ending until someone beats them is kinda silly.
We drew a statistical outlier in just how bad our Others situation has been, it's not usually like this.

We started the scenario with a lore-based invasion already underway beyond the Wall. In most games, the Night's Watch manages to handle the Others and it never becomes a noticable threat at all. In our case, they bulldozed right through the Wildlings and the Watch and became our problem.

It then became winter, and the winter got steadily worse until it was a Harsh winter, the worst kind. That doesn't happen every time it's winter. I allowed non-canon Other invasions in the initial rules setup, which can only happen during harsh winters -- but they don't have to happen. The odds are actually pretty low. In our case, though, the Others showed right back up at their very first opportunity.

So we randomly got a Harsh winter, and then in that Harsh winter, randomly rolled low enough to trigger an invasion. I'm not skilled enough at reading the game files to figure out the exact odds of this happening at all, let alone in the very first winter of the game, but I'm pretty sure they're low.

And then for whatever reason, the Walkers invaded from the East, and instead of being crushed early on when they had low numbers, the AI once again failed to smother the invasion in its crib and this time, by the time I was made aware of their presence, they already had conquered so much land that their numbers were at 200,000 and climbing.

VanSandman
Feb 16, 2011
SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER
And, correct me if I’m wrong, CKII sucks at replicating early modern armies, right?

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.

VanSandman posted:

And, correct me if I’m wrong, CKII sucks at replicating early modern armies, right?
You need to be a bit more specific.

The very concept of standing armies fell with the Roman Empire and wouldn't be a thing again until the 1800s; CK2 models a time period where your "army" was a small core of professionals who held land and/or income in exchange for learning how to actually fight, and then all the peasants you could grab, put a pitchfork in the hands of, and point in vaguely the correct direction. (In the base game you can build a semi-standing army with your retinue if your realm gets large enough, but the mod disables retinues.)

VanSandman
Feb 16, 2011
SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER
I mean in the ‘Large Standing Army’ sense. Also just the ‘Large Army’ sense.

Midnight Voyager
Jul 2, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

Dancer posted:

Does the mod have a mode with weaker Winter? Because it both having hundreds of thousands of zombies + winter literally not ending until someone beats them is kinda silly.

It is VERY much not usually like this. It's snowballed across the world long enough that we're in trouble. Usually, someone takes care of it before it gets that big, player or otherwise.

Space Bat
Apr 17, 2009

hold it now hold it now hold it right there
you wouldn't drop, couldn't drop diddy, you wouldn't dare
This LP actually got me to start watching Game of Thrones after only seven years of not watching it. Time to glance over the initial first updates since I'll know who some of these people actually are now!

Also based on the winter chat, is this correct?: Winter is usually like a handful of years long, but during a harsh winter the Others can spawn and start messing poo poo up. As along as they exist as a world faction, winter keeps going so you need to wipe them out and hope they don't pop up again before summer comes. At first I was confused how winter works, but the others spawning isn't guaranteed, right?

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.

VanSandman posted:

I mean in the ‘Large Standing Army’ sense. Also just the ‘Large Army’ sense.
Well like I said, standing armies are just not a thing in this game at all. Your military mostly exists in potentia, as the amount of dudes you would have if you gave the order for everyone to drop what they were doing, pick up arms, and march ("calling the banners"). As a quick example, in the last update, I had about seven thousand men under arms. This caused factions who could raise six thousand or so of their own to start getting frisky, because they were as strong as I was. When I gave the North back to Benett, I still only had about seven thousand men under arms, but suddenly all the factions sat down and shut up, because my potential strength had increased by over 20,000 men. You're actually discouraged pretty strongly from keeping your levies raised; they're expensive to maintain and your vassals get steadily more and more pissed off the longer you keep your army in the field (because those are peasants who are supposed to be working the land for them). Since potential strength is treated as actual strength, actually calling the banners is pretty rare and is usually done only as a fait accompli, when you already know how the fight is going to turn out.

Now we're going to get into the part where I speculate because I'm not sure what's choking my game to death, I just have guesses I think are pretty good.

Large armies themselves aren't the problem. If the war was just me and the Others, and they had a single army of all 200,000 of their dudes, and I had a single army of 200,000 dudes or whatever I'd have if my entire realm was together, the game could handle that, no problem. It's just two army objects, one AI actor, and battles would be no big deal because it's just math with big numbers, and computers do math just as fast with big numbers as they do with small ones. (That statement is not actually true, but for our purposes here, it's true. Go with it.)

What's causing the problem are the large amount of armies. Remember this screenshot?

How many circles, do you think, are under that one dude's portrait? Every single one of those pictures is a defender in the war. Every single one has their levies raised, possibly in more than one group. How many armies is that? How many AI actors need to evaluate stuff like where their levies are, where the enemy armies are, and where they want to be moving their troops in order to gain positive warscore? Remember, they all do that every day. Oh, and remember that this is only one of four wars that the White Walkers are simultaneously having, and each of the others has about as many participants.

CK2 once, famously, had performance problems because AI characters were constantly performing "can I castrate this guy" checks on every single person in their realm. I think this the same root problem. Every single AI character in the game is at war at the same time and that is simply not supposed to happen, and it's too much simultaneous decision-making.

Space Bat posted:

Also based on the winter chat, is this correct?: Winter is usually like a handful of years long, but during a harsh winter the Others can spawn and start messing poo poo up. As along as they exist as a world faction, winter keeps going so you need to wipe them out and hope they don't pop up again before summer comes. At first I was confused how winter works, but the others spawning isn't guaranteed, right?
More or less correct. Winter will continue until the Others are utterly wiped out, but then we only need to wait until spring, and I don't think they can spawn twice in the same winter anyway. And yes, it's not guaranteed. It is in fact very unlikely.

McGavin
Sep 18, 2012


Yeah, it's probably the king of Astapor trying to create more Unsullied that's causing the slowdown.

Midnight Voyager
Jul 2, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

McGavin posted:

Yeah, it's probably the king of Astapor trying to create more Unsullied that's causing the slowdown.

Unsullied are sorta intangible numbers. So are large groups of slaves in general. You don't get actual castrated individuals.

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.

Midnight Voyager posted:

Unsullied are sorta intangible numbers. So are large groups of slaves in general. You don't get actual castrated individuals.
I inherited Grey Worm from Dany, though! I'm pretty sure he's dead now, either old age or an Other. He was one of my Commanders for a while.

McGavin
Sep 18, 2012

Midnight Voyager posted:

Unsullied are sorta intangible numbers. So are large groups of slaves in general. You don't get actual castrated individuals.

:thejoke:

Midnight Voyager
Jul 2, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

CapnAndy posted:

I inherited Grey Worm from Dany, though! I'm pretty sure he's dead now, either old age or an Other. He was one of my Commanders for a while.

He's special because he happens in plot.


look, actual ball removal genuinely slowed the game to death for like a year, it absolutely could have been a thing that's killing the game if it was modeled in any fashion.

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.
Happy Friday, everyone! I'm alive and a new update is coming either tonight or tomorrow!

In the mean time, discuss whether or not I should install this weird mod about dick sizes just to see what added insanity gets uncorked. (I'm not going to, but man is it tempting.)

ShootaBoy
Jan 6, 2010

Anime is Bad.
Except for Pokemon, Valkyria Chronicles and 100% OJ.

Something something Greatjon and Smalljon joke.

Luhood
Nov 13, 2012
Littlefingers and Greatjons - Let's Play the CK2 GoT mod!

Cassa
Jan 29, 2009
Owning a dragon is a hell of a way to compensate.

AJ_Impy
Jun 17, 2007

SWORD OF SMATTAS. CAN YOU NOT HEAR A WORLD CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE? WHEN WILL YOU DELIVER IT?
Yam Slacker
The Martell words spring to mind.

Rigged Death Trap
Feb 13, 2012

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Now we know why Dickon Tarly had to die

Pangurban
Apr 29, 2015

We're trying to avert total war - sounds like this mod is destined for it.

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.
Having spent the last 24 hours without power, I would like to update my previous promise to "new update on Sunday".

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.
Part 25: A Dream of Peace



Dorne comes back. Everyone else is still at war, mostly backing up one of the other three White Walker invasions going on simultaneously.



What a nice idea! I really should try to learn Valyrian.



Danny immediately calls in her favor. I don’t want this law -- it shifts the obligation for the nobility away from levies and towards taxes, which is the exact opposite of what they’re good at -- but on balance I’m lucky; she could have forced me to do something outright rather than just calling for a vote.



Yeah, cool, you’ll do. I don’t want to have to deal with Yunkai and all its wrong-government-type bullshit any more. Now it’s his problem.



Even with the cull off, I’m having no success in getting Valyrian culture to spread (in fairness, culture shifts are a long, slow process even under the best of situations). Time for the second best option. I’ll move my capital to Dragonstone so I can pick up the local Westerosi Valyrian culture, wait out the time limit, then move back to King’s Landing as soon as possible.



“As soon as possible” turns out to mean “immediately”, as apparently if you’re the King on the Iron Throne and your capital is not King’s Landing, the mod will provide you with an intrigue menu option to move your capital, ignoring normal game restrictions on how often you can change capitals.




So that turned out to be really easy!




So I get a brand new powerful vassal who loves me and in exchange I don’t have to directly administrate Yunkish bullshit anymore? Good deal.



I try to give him the Kingdom too but I can’t, because Yunkai’s on a Merchant Republic system (hence why it was bugging me about wrong government type) and you can’t hand out King-level titles to non-nobles when you’re Feudal. Whatever, this’ll do.



Danny’s vote failed and I’m clear of my favor.



Keep trying, kid.



Language lessons continue. I don’t gain Diligent, but I don’t gain Stressed either.



Sure, that’s a good match. I’ll agree to that.



I’m switching to Family focus for the health bonus. I’m old now, it’ll help.




New puppy! This one’s for Baelor.



...Interesting. Tell me more about the religion of my forebears, mysterious priest!



Opinion bonuses? Multiple wives? Huge boosts to dragon taming? I’ll take it!

And so King Eddard revives the Valyrian faith of old, speaking in public for the first time of his desire to create a world order in the image of the old dragonriders: New Valyria.




That’s a lot of dudes! Luckily being revolted against doesn’t count as being at war, so my 5 years of peace ambition isn’t broken.



I have... some dudes. It’s enough for this guy, but considering the size of the empire I rule it should really be much higher. Stupid mega-war.



Yeah, I lost the siege -- I couldn’t get my guys across the ocean quick enough -- but look at those numbers. They lost 13,000 men. Attrition is nasty.



Ugh. You?

Very well, the law is clear. You have that right, and as you have challenged a member of the royal family, they must be championed by the Kingsguard.




Boy, I sure feel safe now with men like this guarding me. Maybe his replacement won’t be poo poo?



Babies are good.



Benjen moves to... fourth in the succession? I think? It was a good use of the name, though, I think.



I’d like to make another try at disempowering the council, but the vote would fail. Badly. I wonder why, considering I’ve stacked the council with loyalists and I got it passed once before?



Ah. Danny called in all her favors to try and get that bill passed and is still controlling a voting bloc. I can’t afford to buy a favor from her and I have time to wait, anyway. She’ll hold their votes for about another two years, then I can try again.




Some fruits of peace, as Pentos and the Westerlands finish up their conflicts and return to the fold.



Dragons need sheep to grow up big and strong. Deal with it, peasants.

Question for the Council:

As followers of the Valyrian religion, we get to pick a “Syncretic Faith” who’ll get opinion bonuses to us because we’ve declared them our extra special friend religion or something, I guess. Which religion shall it be? The obvious choices are either the Old Gods or the Faith of the Seven. The Old Gods are the sentimental choice, while the Seven have many more worshippers among our vassals, making it the more effective choice, in my opinion (most Old Gods worship is in the North and we only deal directly with the Lord Paramount of the North). We can pick any religion though, so if you guys have a particular love for the Harpy of Ghizcar, the Drowned God, or even the Black Goat of Qohor, now’s the time to mention it.

Midnight Voyager
Jul 2, 2008

Lipstick Apathy
Syncretic faiths aren't that specific, are they? They're religious groups, not specific religions. So Westerosi Gods to keep our subjects off our rear end. (This doesn't cover Rhllor or the Ironborn gods but does cover the North and the Seven. Not the Wildling variant of the Old Gods, but the North's.)

Midnight Voyager fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Mar 4, 2018

Mygna
Sep 12, 2011
The Cold Gods of Winter, those guys seem to know what they're doing.

Space Bat
Apr 17, 2009

hold it now hold it now hold it right there
you wouldn't drop, couldn't drop diddy, you wouldn't dare
I'm going to say the Seven just because it'll have the biggest boost. Also, for any lore people, what is the religion of Old Valyria anyway? I have a decent grasp of most of the religions in GoT but I've never even though about what Valyria's would be.

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

We're struggling with the Megawar system. We need every edge possible. The Seven.

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.

Midnight Voyager posted:

Syncretic faiths aren't that specific, are they? They're religious groups, not specific religions. So Westerosi Gods to keep our subjects off our rear end. (This doesn't cover Rhllor or the Ironborn gods but does cover the North and the Seven. Not the Wildling variant of the Old Gods, but the North's.)
You might be right, I haven’t picked one yet so I don’t know what the options are.

Midnight Voyager
Jul 2, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

CapnAndy posted:

You might be right, I haven’t picked one yet so I don’t know what the options are.

I loaded up a new game as Aegon the Future Conqueror. The options are:

Westerosi Gods (Old Gods, The Seven)
Wildling Gods (Beyond the Wall Old Gods, Mountain Old Gods, Thenn)
Ironborn Gods (Drowned God, Storm God)
Eastern Gods (Rhllor, Black Goat, Lorath, Moonsingers, Trios, Bearded Priests, Bakkalon, Many Faced God, Father of Waters, Rhoynar, Boash, Weeping Lady)
Sarnori Gods
Qartheen Gods
Ghiskari Gods (Harpy, Lady of Spears)
Far Eastern Gods (Yiti, Lion of Night, Starry Wisdom, Old Ones, Shadowbinders, Bone Mountains, Nghai, Stone Cow)
Ibbenese Gods
Dothraki Gods
Jhogos Nhai Gods
Lhazareen Gods
Summer Isles Gods (Summer Isles, Nath)
Pirate Gods (Pirates, Lady of the Waves)
Islander Gods
Sothoryi Gods
Pagan Gods (Misc, I think this is used for some noncanonical invasions)

Any religions without examples only have one religion in them. I added the lists for easier vote categorizing.

PS: Mygna, Winter's not on the list, sorry. No winterbros.

Midnight Voyager fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Mar 5, 2018

Emissary666
Sep 6, 2010

My rabid promotion of the Valyrian religion has finally come to fruition! Three wives, seven concubines, dragons as all gently caress, divine blood, and opinion bonuses to help offset the "not my religion" penalty; it is one of, if not the, best religion in the AGOT mod.

Midnight Voyager
Jul 2, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

Emissary666 posted:

My rabid promotion of the Valyrian religion has finally come to fruition! Three wives, seven concubines, dragons as all gently caress, divine blood, and opinion bonuses to help offset the "not my religion" penalty; it is one of, if not the, best religion in the AGOT mod.

Rhllor's pretty choice, too. Curing malformations and illnesses and spreading your religion through it? PRETTY good if you want to convert vassals.

(They also get some dragon-related bonuses and some fire-related scrying.)

Midnight Voyager fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Mar 5, 2018

Pangurban
Apr 29, 2015

I'm tempted to vote for Eastern gods just because that side seems to be causing the most issue. But, let's get a lock on our old territory first. Westerosi gods

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

It's time to get married as gently caress. Find the most eligible ladies in all the land and get yo bone on, m'lord.

Emissary666
Sep 6, 2010

Midnight Voyager posted:

Rhllor's pretty choice, too. Curing malformations and illnesses and spreading your religion through it? PRETTY good if you want to convert vassals.

(They also get some dragon-related bonuses and some fire-related scrying.)

If I want to convert vassals, I will feed the non-believers to my dragon and give my many kids the now-vacant titles.

painedforever
Sep 12, 2017

Quem Deus Vult Perdere, Prius Dementat.
Let's go with the Seven, which is appropriate to the kingdom.

habeasdorkus
Nov 3, 2013

Royalty is a continuous shitposting motion.
King Eddard the Amazing is clearly Azor Ahai, and as such we should go with whatever group has R'hllor.

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Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice

Space Bat posted:

Also, for any lore people, what is the religion of Old Valyria anyway? I have a decent grasp of most of the religions in GoT but I've never even though about what Valyria's would be.

It's not really gone into detail. All we know is that it was polytheistic and that Aegon the Conqueror named his dragons after gods in the pantheon.

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