Hello there, Escapists! It's been a while, hasn't it. You may or may not remember my Hearts of Iron III Let's Play, which ended when my computer went on strike and refused to run it. Since I am unwilling to compromise with my sound card, we'll be playing another Paradox game instead - Crusader Kings II.
For those not in the know - Paradox is a developer of "Grand Strategy" games. They tend to cover a large portion of land (if not the entire world), during a particular historical chapter, on a large scale. They run this world in real time, at selectable speeds, and are famous for several things - enormous depth and complexity, bugs, and cracking Let's Plays.
Crusader Kings II is set in the rather spacious period of 1066-1453, and covers Europe and the near bits of Asia and Africa. It's a strange beast. It's not particularly about conquest or warfare, unlike the last LP. Instead, it's about managing a Dynasty. The game is superb at creating a story and character driven narrative, completely randomly, as you guide your family through power struggles and Crusades, murders and jealousy, plotting and important titles.
As with the last game, I'll do my best to explain the important info of the game at the start, set up the LP, and give out as much helpful information as I can as we go along. Let's get going.
EDIT : Next entry I stop being so lazy, and I stop using MSPaint to just plonk down the meme faces in the images. So it will look better in future.
[HEADING=2]Entry 1 - Boot Camp[/HEADING]
This is us. The Kingdom of Scotland, 15th September 1066. My homeland, incidentally. We'll be playing as its current rulers, House Dunkeld.
As you can see, the North and the Western coastlines have a Norseman problem. This is something we'll have to remedy.
To my South is the mighty Kingdom of England, savaged by a giant 3-way war for the throne. Norwegian and Norman claimants battle it out against the Saxon king, Harold, and the victor will have an enormous impact on the future of our nation.
Our other important neighbour, the politically divided Ireland. They follow no single king yet, and the race for power there will also be of chief importance to Scotland.
NOTE : Here's the technical stuff. No special need to put this in, just to explain any jargon that might crop up later, and to help anyone starting out in the game, since the tutorial is pretty poor.
This is your Council tab. Advisors and nobles that help run the nation. You have a Chancellor, who handles Diplomatic matters, a Marshal to manage your armies and castles, a Steward to keep track of all things financial and economic, a Spymaster for wetwork and subterfuge, and finally a Court Chaplain to keep God from striking you down
A breakdown of your kingdom's laws. The really important ones are your Succession Laws, which dictate in what way the throne passes to the next ruler (ours descends through the eldest male child.) and Crown Authority Laws, which dictate your degree of control over your lying, murderous, conspiring, disloyal vassals.
The Technology tab. Largely unimportant, it just sort of runs along as you play with very little player input.
Your Military tab. Here, you call upon your vassals to give you the soldiers you need to raise in times of war. There is no such thing as a standing army, but you can hire out mercenary companies and Holy Orders if you need them.
Since vassals give you tax and soldiers, not to mention their obedience and loyalty, based on how much they like you, a big part of the game is keeping your nobles happy and on your side.
The Intrigue tab. Here you can choose "decisions", like to hold a tournament or a banquet, and pick your Ambitions and Plots. Ambitions are simply your life goals, like to have a son or to get very rich. Plots are used to sneakily murder someone or conspire against them with others.
Also shown here are the Plots in your court that you know about, the contents of your jail, and any vassals likely to rebel.
The final tab of any importance, Diplomacy. Here you interact with characters (you get here by right-clicking on their character portraits and selecting the screen, rather than going to the tab direct) be it a declaration of war or a marriage proposal.
As with Hearts of Iron III, there are a bunch of mapmodes that display different information on the map. For visual easiness, we'll stick in Political Mapmode most of the time.
Now, to business. Those icons up at the top of the screen are Important Stuff and srs bsns. We'll deal with them in time.
Here I am. Malcolm III, aged 27. I'm the guy who took out that asshole Macbeth after he murdered my father and went batshit loco.
Very average set of skills, one dead wife, and the traits Cruel, Cynical, Wroth, and Trusting. Traits are pretty important. They not only shape your own character, but also help dictate interactions between every character in the game.
Incidentally - the music in this game completely rocks.
My heir, Duncan, aged 9. Has one brother, Domnall, aged 6.
Time to remarry. Not only because picking up a bit of French skirt is good for the soul, but also because a wife's stats help yours, your kids will inherit her titles, and my Spymaster has a crappy Intrigue score and she can replace him.
Since I get no titles from her, I picked a 39-year-old in the vague hopes of not producing more kids. Extra sons = extra people with claims on your throne. On the other hand, a small dynasty means you're more likely to get game over if you all get wiped out. It's a trade off.
I tie the knot, and pick up some easy Prestige. Don't forget to set your Ambition to Get Married. You'll get a reward for fulfilling it, and you can immediately pick another Ambition.
As for my Ambition, I chose to Become Exalted among Men. By being generally awesome for a few years and accumulating 1000 Prestige, people will start calling you "the Great". Way cooler than "the Third".
Unfortunately, I'm only at 85 Prestige. Might be a long road.
I have business with these two. They both fancy themselves King, and they have strong claims on my throne. War is coming. There's really no way to reconcile with them. I just have to make sure that I win the inevitable bust-up.
It really was good of my predecessors to not only marry a noble family and give them claims on the throne, but also to have a bastard son, legitimize him, and give him a title so that he'd have the opportunities every boy wants - to be an enormous pain in the arse.
Thanks very much, Macbeth.
To help ensure the friendship of those vassals who do not have claims on your throne, give out honorary titles like Master of the Hunt. I know that if I was involved in a civil war, I'd certainly join up with the side that let me look after the swans.
I name the Earl of Atholl my court jester. Hopefully the sting is compensated for by the negligible salary.
WHO COULD HAVE POSSIBLY PREDICTED SUCH A TERRIBLE EVENT-
Woops the idiots are fighting each other. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, life in CK2 is sweet.
OR NOT. Lothian, man, you were so cool! You were Master of Horse or something! Doesn't that stand for anything?
My other idea failed too. Bugger that. Guess the allure of dat MILF action just got the better of Malcolm in these stressful times. Really, can you blame him?
Pictured - Extreme Silliness. I'm not strong enough to actually fight Lothian, so he can attack my lands as much as he likes. But since he's not the leader of the war, just an ally, he's doing me a favour. See, in CK2, wars are governed by Warscore. It goes from negative 100% (you've lost) to positive 100% (you've won), and it shifts based on sieges, battles, capturing your enemy etc. Since I am the leader of my wars, I can attack Moray and get great warscore, while Lothian keeps anyone important from nabbing my castle, for a piddly warscore percentage.
Damn! Atholl and Lothian met on the field and smashed Moray. This leaves their army free to attack mine. Gulp.
Huh. For whatever reason, they didn't follow through on their victory and hit me, allowing me to arrest Moray and end his war.
Things are looking up. Girls are much less of a problem. They only produce Weak Claims on your titles, which aren't as much of a threat as Strong Claims.
Hilariously, they weaken themselves so much sieging Buchan, they are unable to contest me in the field.
You get these little events, guided by your traits. They're fun. They add real flavour to the game.
I catch the enemy on the move and take each army without the support of the other. FEAR ME, DISLOYAL VASSALS, FOR I-
Welcome to Crusader Kings II. Please leave your sanity at the door.
FUCK. Due to the actions of a child, my army is wrecked and I'm unable to recover.
Fortunately, I did enough damage to Atholl that he's willing to agree to put down his arms, in exchange for staying a free man in possession of his titles.
Sure, brother, let us forgive and forget. We are family after all.
"Wait... whatchu doin', bro?"
THAT'S WHAT YOU GET. DON'T FUCK WITH ME. Smug bastard, sitting in his castle, thinking he'd gotten away with it.
Time to get a hold of these rampaging cattle. Time to institute a little Crown Authoritah.
Lothian, wanker that he is, can stay out of jail on account of being a remarkably loyal vassal with the Content trait. Always watch out for Content/Ambitious. It's a plus/minus 50 opinion trait, so it's worth it to get vassals with Content, and always look out for Ambition.
Strathearn is a child, and as such cannot plot, so it's pretty convenient to just leave him as he is.
I had to spend half the treasury in bribes, but the law passed. Now...
ALL YOUR TITLES ARE BELONG TO ME.
Annoyingly, you can only confiscate one title at a time, so Moray still holds the same two counties as before, and still has claims on my throne, but he's no longer a Duke.
See, CK2 is based on a king of "layered" vassalship, where everyone answers to the rank above them. At the bottom are your Barons, Mayors, and Bishops, who answer to their Counts/Earls, who generally own one or two counties. Counts answer to their Duke, who might control all or part of a Duchy (a small group of counties, like "Normandy" or "Brittany"), who answer to a King or an Emperor.
So I hold the title Duke of Moray. This means the Earl of Buchan, and the Earl of Ross and Moray both answer directly to me. This is no better than it was before, so I'll later get rid of this Duke title.
Moray had no children, however - hopefully, he'll die in prison and pass his lands to his sister, who only has a Weak Claim on the throne and is much less dangerous. Gotta love that glass ceiling, amirite?
While all of my vassals are happy/in the big house/oblivious children, I'll push for taxes on the nobility. I need an economy.
Meanwhile, in England, Harold was hilariously offed by the Mayor of Dorchester (???), putting the imaginatively named Godwin of Godwin on the throne. He is a thoroughly unremarkable individual.
The Norwegians have all but backed off (good for us, we don't want a Norwegian Superpower), leaving England open to William the Bastard.
As I said, I don't really get much for being Duke of Moray, so I hand the title off to loyal Buchan. He'll love me for it and will free me up for more Duke titles. You can't hold more than 2 as a King, since the vassals start getting pissy at you.
Screw off, Popeface, I have real problems. Besides, my Piety isn't that bad. I once had a guy who was known to have murdered 11 people, including one Pope, a baby, and his own sons. You should have seen the Piety on that.
The Earl of Carrick has declared his independence from the Norwegian Duke of the Isles. Since all of these counties are "de jure" part of Scotland (that is, they are meant to be a part of the Kingdom of Scotland, but instead are "de facto" part of an independent Duchy of the Isles), I have reasons to declare war for them.
Claims are how war in this game works. You declare war for a claim, be it on a single county like this, or an entire Empire. You can also fight Holy Wars, but we're a long way off that.
CTHULHU, HE COMES FOR YOOOUUUU.
I should explain - this book... this damn book. It's stalking me. This is a reasonably common event. In fact, you'll probably encounter it when you play a long game. But, I get it every. Single. Game. 75 hours of game time, and nearly every first ruler I've ever had has found this scary, scary bloody book.
Protect me, oh sweet lawd!
Huh. Gained the trait Scholar. Nice.
My eldest comes of age. He's a talented Diplomat (a useful skill), but not much else. Traits Zealous, Charitable, and Just. A good man, should be a good ruler.
Damn though. Soon, he'll start asking for lands to rule, and I've not got anything I want to give him. If only-
Huh. That was convenient. Time to give my boy some land (if you don't, you take a negative to Prestige and your child will whine at you), AFTER he's married off. Once a child leaves your court, you can no longer arrange marriages for them, and they'll marry some random idiot just to spite you.
With no good claims rolling about, I pick him a wife with a rockin' Stewardship stat. Aww baby, fill in those tax invoices! Yeah!
Remember to give jobs to your Councillors. My Chancellor is sent to fabricate claims on Northumberland (I plan on stealing as much land as I can from a weakened England), the Steward and Chaplain are sent to work on tech speed (tech moves glacier slow in this game. I put Focus on Legalism, Castle Infrastructure, and Siege Equipment, to speed those up, and they STILL take decades) my sexy Spymaster dearest is sent off to uncover any plotting in Lothian's court (I still don't trust him. He's far too powerful a vassal for my liking) and once the war is over, the Marshal will go to my Province and Train Troops.
Speaking of which, Carrick enjoys 0.8 seconds of independence. See, when you fight a war over a province, after the war you have a 10 year truce with that person. If they die you can fight their successor, but otherwise it makes taking individual counties very slow. This way, I have Carrick, but no truce with the Duke of the Isles.
Ah. A little peace and quiet for once. Seems a nice place to stop. I apologise for the sheer length, but I had to explain a great deal and go into detail to cover quite a lot of material. That's why we only hit 1073 in 50 images. This will speed up in the future, not least because this was a pretty packed entry.
END OF ENTRY 1
So. Fans old and new (I don't have the Humble trait, you may have noticed), thoughts/comments/suggestions?
. So after three long "Great" Imperial rules my situation is a little tenuous, as my new Emperor is busy once again re-subjugating Brittany, the Northern English lords and this old Welsh hag (And the former Emperor's lover) who just happens to own half of Wales and also Leicester. Not to mention he also has to keep the bloody Kebabs from retaking Portugal and Gallicia. 
