Crusader Kings II players unite!

[FC Groningen]

I noticed quite some people here seem to like Crusader Kings II. I was wondering what part of the game you liked best and which of you would be up for playing some multiplayer games. I'm from Western Europe myself, in case it matters for connection issues or people lagging behind.

edit: also, what are everyone's best stories to share regarding this game? I have quite some awesome ones myself if I may say so.

 

[Darks63]

I like CK2 however due to losing no less than 10 games due to patches and dlc breaking them and not buying the latest 2 dlc I have taken a long Hiatus from the game to wait till it is done. I am currently playing EU 4 instead running a Byzantine Resurrection game and a Florentine empire game.

My favorite part of the game came after the Old gods expansion. I liked taking my raiders to parts unknown in order to get exotic concubines. I also loved stealing noble children and ransoming them back or raising them and force marring them to my kids to inherit their parent stuff if possible.

I have alot of favorite empires, but the one I love most is the Russian one where I literally killed the mongols off the moment they appeared. I doomstacked the doomstack kings, wrecked them, and asked "how do you like my nope cannon Genghis Khan?"

Another good one was after the Rajah expansion I took the Jews of Khazaria and used them to reconquer Israel. Before the next patch broke that game I was on track to conquer the whole of Persia and declare a Jewish Persian empire.

 

[Recusant]

My favorite story comes from my first successful Zarathustran campaign. I'd managed to reunite Persia and was debating what to do next. This was before Rajas of India, so I'd hit the eastern end of the map. To the southwest were the Abbasids, to the west were the Byzantines. I could take on either, but not both, and attacking one would be exposing myself to the other, so I pushed north instead, into miscellaneous Tengri territory. The king of Hungary still had his boatloads of event troops, so I had to strike and win my wars quickly; a protracted fight would give his troops time to arrive and help my enemies; I'd probably still win, but be drastically weakened, inviting an attack from the Abbasids or the Greeks. I bided my time, waiting and watching, until (surprise surprise!) the king of Hungary was assassinated (not by me) and his Catholic son took the throne, immediately marrying a Bulgarian princess. I begin stomping all over the Tengri, but I'm plagued by revolts and faction issues, and when the dust settles twenty six years later, I'm bordering all three of the area's other superpowers; I've reached the Hungarian-Bulgarian border; the king and queen are married to each other, so it's functionally almost one state. And here I pause to reassess and rebuild my forces.

While I'm doing so, the queen of Bulgaria declares war on me. In the time it takes me to maneuver my forces, she's managed to take one province- the one I accidentally awarded to my firstborn son and heir. He's captured and, oddly for the AI, executed. It's okay; I have a second son, a backup heir: not as good, but he'll do. I vow revenge, but decide that the best course of action is to slaughter as many troops of hers as I can, to make my subsequent attack easier. I do so, but the very day after we sign the treaty, my second son (and current heir) dies from poisoned wine. The culprit? The queen of Bulgaria. Now I'm MAD. I have no other sons, and my succession laws are agnatic. I'm in my sixties; my wife's fifty-eight, and Zarathustrans can't divorce. Even if I kill her, it's even odds whether I'll get another son in time; it looks like it's game over for me. But I'm not going to let this piddling AI get away with murdering my sons. I declare war and send in all my forces, hoping for a quick victory before any other Catholic nations join in. The Hungarian-Bulgarian armies gather for a last desperate stand at their capital, but they don't have a chance; every last soldier is slaughtered- and so, I note amusingly, are the king of Hungary and his son; severing the alliance with Bulgaria. "Ha!" I think, "Now you know how it feels!" I take the province, and am surprised to note the warscore immediately shoots to 100%- until I see that, among several others, I have captured the queen! Since I've essentially already lost the game, I hover my finger above the execution button...

And then I remember: I'm a Zarathustran. And Zarathustrans... can take concubines. And if they're your prisoner, they can't say no. Cackling maniacally, I concubine (or whatever the verb is) her, realizing that if we have any sons, they may well inherit Bulgaria. Then I noticed that in the few days between the death of her husband and her capture at my hands, she remarried. I check her new husband out, and note that (among other things) he has a -50 opinion of me for "spouse snatcher". Not only can you do it, it has a specific named penalty.

I like how evil this game lets you be. I love how evil it encourages you to be.

 

[The Madman]

According to STEAM I've thrown nearly 300 hours into CK2 though I'd be willing to bet it's more seeing as I haven't always played it with an online connection or even connected to STEAM for various reasons.

In any case I've mostly been playing EU4 lately, the plan being to binge on all the DLC for CK2 I'm missing next time it all goes on sale and then delve back into it again for a hopefully newish experience. My last game as Britannia united under Viking rule was certainly entertaining, especially after Europe was almost completely overrun by the mongols to the east and the muslim to the south and west (Byzantines were completely destroyed and along with them most of the Orthodox faith), but I think I'll try something a bit more challenging next time. Maybe see if I can't re-spark the Zoroastrian faith or finally give something in India a try.

As for multiplayer that seems unlikely seeing as I'm in a pretty different timezone and work pretty weird hours to begin with. Pity.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

Yup. I'm pretty new to the Paradox scene though. I've put in 75 hours without actually finishing a game to the end date.
Grand strategy laced with roleplaying elements coupled with random chance make each game just as refreshing as the last. I also love the diverse range of cultures and religions you can play, though historical government systems for each still need work.

One of my other gripes is that there's nothing I can do to make my vassals like my heir. Every time my king kicks the bucket, there's an imminent generational revolt/crown authority/succession war. I also find the Cassus belli a bit too restricting (You should be able to become duke of a two county duchy if you own one).

I've been wondering if I should get Europa or wait until a steam pack with Art of War comes out. For now, I'm playing Wales and hoping to start Miasphyte Abyssinia.

I haven't even touched multiplayer except for that awkward time I was trying to teach my friend.

 

[The Madman]

One of my other gripes is that there's nothing I can do to make my vassals like my heir. Every time my king kicks the bucket, there's an imminent generational revolt/crown authority/succession war. I also find the Cassus belli a bit too restricting (You should be able to become duke of a two county duchy if you own one).

Vassals are more likely to like your heir if they've earned some sort of reputation for themselves. Making them a count or a duke for example, maybe even a member of your council if they have the skills for it can really help. The downside being that if you have multiple children and try to divide power between them there's a good chance they'll begin plotting and working against one another, resulting in a potential war once your current character dies.

With children and younger heirs however there's not really much you can do but hope for a good reagent if your lord dies early. CK2 as with real life isn't very kind to children rulers.

 

[Rozalia1]

According to STEAM I've thrown nearly 300 hours into CK2 though I'd be willing to bet it's more seeing as I haven't always played it with an online connection or even connected to STEAM for various reasons.

In any case I've mostly been playing EU4 lately, the plan being to binge on all the DLC for CK2 I'm missing next time it all goes on sale and then delve back into it again for a hopefully newish experience. My last game as Britannia united under Viking rule was certainly entertaining, especially after Europe was almost completely overrun by the mongols to the east and the muslim to the south and west (Byzantines were completely destroyed and along with them most of the Orthodox faith), but I think I'll try something a bit more challenging next time. Maybe see if I can't re-spark the Zoroastrian faith or finally give something in India a try.

As for multiplayer that seems unlikely seeing as I'm in a pretty different timezone and work pretty weird hours to begin with. Pity.

Could be just me but the AI seems more stable. I'm currently doing a new Fraticelli game starting in Neopolis during old gods (only difference being I'm Greek instead of Italian)... and blobing is not as simple as before as the big enemies to the north and south are so stable.

I was going to do it anyway but I had to make a Custom Kingdom (Zonaria as my guys family is Zoraras) as I only had 49% of Sicily, and getting the one county needed off the Byzantines with their forces 3 to 4 times larger at minimum... yeah. I suppose it was possible if I was very "gamey" but I looked at it as not worth it. Byzantines have shown no ill will towards me all game while war with the Italians and their allies is assured.
I've been slowly holy warring my way up Italy (I like to war Italy after they're done holy warring me) as those conflicts can last decades. Captured Crete and the half of Cyprus needed to form the titular Kingdom there which is useful as it is free prestige and acts as one of the three kingdom titles needed to form a Custom Empire.

Diplomatically Lotharingia is and has been for quite some time (30+ years minium) belonged to my Dynasty and so is naturally Fraticelli. I helped them out during that vital early period where they had all of 1K troops to put down religious fanatics and all that... but they've lost a good two duchies as they are a big holy war target... nice for me as my titanic clashes with Catholic forces have been pretty close thus far, and would have been impossible if those 10K stacks up in Lotharingia came down to fight me.
Thankfully East Francia's heir is a Karling in a matrilineal marriage with someone from my Dynasty (Fraticelli too) and he also has three sons so I'm unlikely to get robbed in my family inheriting the land... annoyingly the ruler of East Francia has refused to kick the bucket for decades now (currently 78 years old).

Interestingly none of my rulers have gone past the age of 40 so I'm already up to Alexandros IV. Longest ruler is the only one with a nickname (unready) as he became King at the age of 4 (35 years as King), and died soon after taking a blow to the head in battle.

 

[small]

my favourite part to play would be surviving as one of the italian patrician families.

under my rule venice chose to become a vassal of the papacy, i almost always managed to be the ruler thanks to dirty politics and murder, milked the papacy for all the money it was willing to give me while under its protection, declared independence, became king of sicily, went head to head with the holy roman empire a few times and kicked their ass in numerous wars of conquest which left me ruler of all italy, thanks to a couple of marriages im also ruler of hungary and england and most of my relatives married into ruling most of the kingdoms of europe.

not to mention leading a crusade into egypt and claiming a huge chunk of land of and we cant forget kicking the aztecs out of europe

 

[The Madman]

Could be just me but the AI seems more stable. I'm currently doing a new Fraticelli game starting in Neopolis during old gods (only difference being I'm Greek instead of Italian)... and blobing is not as simple as before as the big enemies to the north and south are so stable.

The Muslim faith often seems to be annoying stable. The decadence stat is supposed to act as a sort of destabilizing factor, ensuring it's difficult for one faction to become too powerful without also risking great catastrophe, but it rarely seems to have much of an effect beyond making their forces a bit easier to defend against. However once the Muslim nations are powerful enough that they're sending Jihad up into western Europe they've probably also got armies big enough that they can overwhelm any defending force just through sheer numbers.

Or at least that has been my experience a couple times now. The Norse faiths are annoying as hell and dangerous but rarely grow too big while most of the Christian and Orthodox factions have a habit of collapsing under their own weight past a certain point and splitting into bickering nations. I haven't really got much experience with the various faith in and around India so I can't really comment there.

Mind you I have also seen the Holy Roman Empire grow to a terrifying size before, same with the Byzantines, so perhaps it's just a random roll of the dice that has seen factions like the Umayyad grow to such incredible size so often.

Incidentally if anyone is looking for a fun challenge try playing the Jerusalem faction from its historic inception, it's pretty entertaining and having the various holy order as your vassals makes for an interesting twist on the usual Christian gameplay mechanics. Unlike most European nations which largely play out as a political struggle between neighbors seeking to expand, Jerusalem is often more of a struggle just to survive what with being surrounded by hostile factions and having to rely on distant powers for reinforcements. I recommend it! Challenging but fun.

 

[Rozalia1]

The Muslim faith often seems to be annoying stable. The decadence stat is supposed to act as a sort of destabilizing factor, ensuring it's difficult for one faction to become too powerful without also risking great catastrophe, but it rarely seems to have much of an effect beyond making their forces a bit easier to defend against. However once the Muslim nations are powerful enough that they're sending Jihad up into western Europe they've probably also got armies big enough that they can overwhelm any defending force just through sheer numbers.

Or at least that has been my experience a couple times now. The Norse faiths are annoying as hell and dangerous but rarely grow too big while most of the Christian and Orthodox factions have a habit of collapsing under their own weight past a certain point and splitting into bickering nations. I haven't really got much experience with the various faith in and around India so I can't really comment there.

Mind you I have also seen the Holy Roman Empire grow to a terrifying size before, same with the Byzantines, so perhaps it's just a random roll of the dice that has seen factions like the Umayyad grow to such incredible size so often.

Incidentally if anyone is looking for a fun challenge try playing the Jerusalem faction from its historic inception, it's pretty entertaining and having the various holy order as your vassals makes for an interesting twist on the usual Christian gameplay mechanics. Unlike most European nations which largely play out as a political struggle between neighbors seeking to expand, Jerusalem is often more of a struggle just to survive what with being surrounded by hostile factions and having to rely on distant powers for reinforcements. I recommend it! Challenging but fun.

To be fair decadence was broken as hell in a bad way and if fixing it leads to more stable Muslim blobs than so be it I say. A lot of out of control blobing in my games would be caused by the Muslims successfully holy warring Greece so depending on if that sort of stuff happens or not decides how much of wrecking ball they become.
If you're going to try a Muslim game I'd advise being a Ibadi Muslim for the forming of an easy Caliphate and that role play of wiping out the mainstream faith.

Other times like when I started as one of their vassals in Jerusalem (I was Jewish) they collapsed immediately... I'm talking their lands split between many different forces really early on. Formed the Kingdom of Israel and the Jewish head very quickly as a result.

 

[FC Groningen]

One of my other gripes is that there's nothing I can do to make my vassals like my heir. Every time my king kicks the bucket, there's an imminent generational revolt/crown authority/succession war. I also find the Cassus belli a bit too restricting (You should be able to become duke of a two county duchy if you own one).

Vassals are more likely to like your heir if they've earned some sort of reputation for themselves. Making them a count or a duke for example, maybe even a member of your council if they have the skills for it can really help. The downside being that if you have multiple children and try to divide power between them there's a good chance they'll begin plotting and working against one another, resulting in a potential war once your current character dies.

With children and younger heirs however there's not really much you can do but hope for a good reagent if your lord dies early. CK2 as with real life isn't very kind to children rulers.

I personally prefer not to land them. Just too often they end up killing/maiming themselves in battle, picking up bad traits and I want to educate their children as well.

About crown authority, I actually see little reason to have anything higher than low crown authority. It keeps the vassals happy and a few of them growing too strong shouldn't matter as you can conquer faster than them.

 

[FC Groningen]

Wierdest situation by the way so far had been a Hindu Byzantine Emperor so far. Was minding my own business as a duke in West Francia when suddenly, the pope called for crusade about 150 years early. Turns out the emperor either got converted or installed by some Hindu lord. No clue how it happened, but it screwed the entire map up.

Another question: Even if Charlemagne manages to hold his realm together and manages to grow old, I still haven't seen him create either the empire of Francia or the Holy Roman Empire. Any clues on how to help him? I've given him gold at times to make sure he has the gold to create it and after checking, it became clear he had the piety as well.

 

[Darks63]

Wierdest situation by the way so far had been a Hindu Byzantine Emperor so far. Was minding my own business as a duke in West Francia when suddenly, the pope called for crusade about 150 years early. Turns out the emperor either got converted or installed by some Hindu lord. No clue how it happened, but it screwed the entire map up.

Another question: Even if Charlemagne manages to hold his realm together and manages to grow old, I still haven't seen him create either the empire of Francia or the Holy Roman Empire. Any clues on how to help him? I've given him gold at times to make sure he has the gold to create it and after checking, it became clear he had the piety as well.

You can always save scum to get him to do it. Load up the your current savegame pick Charlie trigger the decision, save, and reload as your character. Just make sure to pause during this process lest the ai do something stupid with your character.

edit:That Hindu Situation is not that weird really. Likely what happened is that the previous Byzantine emp got the eunuch event which provided him with a Hindu guy with great stats. He then had his heir raised/educated by the eunuch. When you have children educated by persons of another religion or culture there is a chance to have the child convert to the teachers religion and/or culture.

 

[beastro]

About crown authority, I actually see little reason to have anything higher than low crown authority. It keeps the vassals happy and a few of them growing too strong shouldn't matter as you can conquer faster than them.

I'm the opposite as my play style is restrained and I avoid painting the map. It makes me wish preventing wars was lower in crown authority as in my present Saxon campaign in Northern Europe and North Africa I keep having to tild and play as my vassals to peace them out of their independent Holy Wars to keep the borders the way I want.

To be fair decadence was broken as hell in a bad way and if fixing it leads to more stable Muslim blobs than so be it I say.

It pisses me off. The main midgame objective of any game I play is to break Islam and foster a more divided Middle East by Crusading for Persia and leaving it in the hands of a Zoroastrian, helping out heresy's and Shiites and intervening in Jihads as a pagan by using raiding to kill off their large stacks letting the defender to siege them up. If only I could do that as a Christian power, it leaves me having to save edit to enter myself on the defenders side of a holy war.

 

[Melon Hunter]

I'm fresh off the back of a game creating the ultimate blob: conquering every province on the map as the Roman Empire. I started as the Byzantine Emperor in 867 and the final independent duchy fell in 1247. It was actually a pretty interesting tour through the game mechanics, especially mending the Schism and restoring the Roman Empire itself. Always good trying to scheme and break the back of the vast Muslim empires in Arabia and Hispania, and pushing back the Mongol hordes before they actually managed to conquer anything. I guess I could have also fought off the Aztecs, but I didn't fancy having to fast forward several decades waiting for them to show up. I've converted the savegame to an EU4 mod, so apparently I should be able to take the fight to them in that.

In fact, the best part came after mopping up the last non-Christian resistance in north-east India, Mali and the steppes. I suddenly realised that pressing a member of your dynasty's claim on a duchy or kingdom will vassalise that title as an emperor. Cue me trying to marry peripheral members of House Makedon into every Christian kingdom still standing, then setting up an obscene number of plots to assassinate anyone stood in the way of the claim. A fun bit of intrigue, although I did feel a bit sorry for the last few independent kingdoms of Europe being slapped around politically and militarily by a multi-continental medieval superpower...

Next playthrough I'm looking to be a bit more restrained in my ambitions! I might try a non-Christian ruler for once; one of my friends had a great time playing as an incestuous Zoroastrian dynasty reconquering Persia.

 

[Darks63]

About crown authority, I actually see little reason to have anything higher than low crown authority. It keeps the vassals happy and a few of them growing too strong shouldn't matter as you can conquer faster than them.

I'm the opposite as my play style is restrained and I avoid painting the map. It makes me wish preventing wars was lower in crown authority as in my present Saxon campaign in Northern Europe and North Africa I keep having to tild and play as my vassals to peace them out of their independent Holy Wars to keep the borders the way I want.

To be fair decadence was broken as hell in a bad way and if fixing it leads to more stable Muslim blobs than so be it I say.

It pisses me off. The main midgame objective of any game I play is to break Islam and foster a more divided Middle East by Crusading for Persia and leaving it in the hands of a Zoroastrian, helping out heresy's and Shiites and intervening in Jihads as a pagan by using raiding to kill off their large stacks letting the defender to siege them up. If only I could do that as a Christian power, it leaves me having to save edit to enter myself on the defenders side of a holy war.

I think you meant to quote rozallia1 not me

 

[Shinkicker444]

I personally prefer not to land them. Just too often they end up killing/maiming themselves in battle, picking up bad traits and I want to educate their children as well.

About crown authority, I actually see little reason to have anything higher than low crown authority. It keeps the vassals happy and a few of them growing too strong shouldn't matter as you can conquer faster than them.

I dunno wouldn't Viceroy titles work pretty well, and you need Absolute or High Authority for those, Byz seems to be able to do it from off the bat though (but that could be the mod I was using). Good thing with the Viceroy stuff is the titles (Duke or King) come back to you when the title holder dies so you can hand them back out again.

 

[beastro]

About crown authority, I actually see little reason to have anything higher than low crown authority. It keeps the vassals happy and a few of them growing too strong shouldn't matter as you can conquer faster than them.

I'm the opposite as my play style is restrained and I avoid painting the map. It makes me wish preventing wars was lower in crown authority as in my present Saxon campaign in Northern Europe and North Africa I keep having to tild and play as my vassals to peace them out of their independent Holy Wars to keep the borders the way I want.

To be fair decadence was broken as hell in a bad way and if fixing it leads to more stable Muslim blobs than so be it I say.

It pisses me off. The main midgame objective of any game I play is to break Islam and foster a more divided Middle East by Crusading for Persia and leaving it in the hands of a Zoroastrian, helping out heresy's and Shiites and intervening in Jihads as a pagan by using raiding to kill off their large stacks letting the defender to siege them up. If only I could do that as a Christian power, it leaves me having to save edit to enter myself on the defenders side of a holy war.

I think you meant to quote rozallia1 not me

Strange, I clicked on your quote. :/

 

[FC Groningen]

Wierdest situation by the way so far had been a Hindu Byzantine Emperor so far. Was minding my own business as a duke in West Francia when suddenly, the pope called for crusade about 150 years early. Turns out the emperor either got converted or installed by some Hindu lord. No clue how it happened, but it screwed the entire map up.

Another question: Even if Charlemagne manages to hold his realm together and manages to grow old, I still haven't seen him create either the empire of Francia or the Holy Roman Empire. Any clues on how to help him? I've given him gold at times to make sure he has the gold to create it and after checking, it became clear he had the piety as well.

You can always save scum to get him to do it. Load up the your current savegame pick Charlie trigger the decision, save, and reload as your character. Just make sure to pause during this process lest the ai do something stupid with your character.

edit:That Hindu Situation is not that weird really. Likely what happened is that the previous Byzantine emp got the eunuch event which provided him with a Hindu guy with great stats. He then had his heir raised/educated by the eunuch. When you have children educated by persons of another religion or culture there is a chance to have the child convert to the teachers religion and/or culture.

Not possible as I play on Ironman mode.

That indeed explains how it became Hindu, but it was quite a game changer and the first time I saw the Byzantines ending up with anything else than the Orthodox faith or one of it's herecies.