CKII is released.

[20 Eyes]

Can anyone name a decent one-province count to start with? Somebody that isn't likely to get raped in the first five years and has room to expand would be perfect.

 

[Malakal]

If you are one province and near pagans/muslims ie room for expansion you are vulnerable too. But try southern Italy, there is a Duchy of Salerno there, one province, independent, nearby muslim states. Rape optional and quite random.

Irish realms are good too, everyone is poor and weak and many have only one province.

 

[Peter]

Basically any one of the counties in Ireland fit that bill. Playing as Desmond myself and having a great time. I'm a first time Paradox grand strategy player, though, so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

 

[spectre]

Can anyone name a decent one-province count to start with? Somebody that isn't likely to get raped in the first five years and has room to expand would be perfect.

I have to second Ireland. Otherwise, check out the italian peninsula, for a climate change. There are a few single-province counts out there, the ones located in Sardinia and Sicily tend to be wiped out first, so just stay away from these.
Otherwise, the only problem is waiting for the claims to get fabricated so you can start expanding.

 

[Kayerts]

Yeah, Ireland's probably the best choice. Oriel is especially nice; you start with a claim on a neighboring county in your four-county duchy, so you don't have to wait to fabricate claims to expand. Once you unify Ireland, you can roll on Wales, and the Iberian Muslims are close enough for land grabs if you see an opening. Do remember that being the King of Ireland isn't the same as being a real king, though; you won't have an easy time soloing anyone.

Salerno is one of the more brutal (although fun) starting locations. Your province has a big sign on it reading "Free infidel lands! Inquire within," by virtue of being the easiest, nearest target in mainland Italy for the African/Med Muslims. If you survive the early game, you'll be well-poised to gobble up the Med, but first you have to survive the early game. Your best bet is probably to try to pick up as many counties as you can on the peninsula before branching out to Sicily or Sardinia.

The single count in Navarra is also fun; you don't start independent, but you can overthrow your king and take his throne within the first two years. Also, you have a huge family that's allied with almost every Christian ruler in Iberia, plus you can get marital alliances with the HRE and England early. It's very possible to win early wars against the Moors without raising a single soldier.

 

[Serious_Business]

I haven't read this thread much, but has anyone found out the best strategy to stabilise your realm after succession? The challenge here is to make sure that everything doesn't go to shit after you loose your king. This was fairly easy to pull off in CK1 as long as you didn't get a guy with disastrous stats. Here stats seem to matter a bit less, but every succession seems to be a fairly harsh affair. Looks like you have to put down rebellions everytime you get a new guy, which is manageable if you have the money - and you should as a king. But it's still tiresome, and imprisoning everyone doesn't give you good relationship with the vassals. I'm thinking you need to break down your vassals' power bases as much as possible, but even then having 10 minor dukes rebelling instead of 3 major ones isn't exactly making much of a difference.

 

[Spectacle]

Traits have a huge effect when it comes to vassal relationships. If your new king has 2-3 green traits, expect a smooth succession, if he has 2-3 red traits then a huge civil war is inevitable. Always educate your heir yourself so you get the events where you can pick his traits.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yeah, Ireland's probably the best choice. Oriel is especially nice; you start with a claim on a neighboring county in your four-county duchy, so you don't have to wait to fabricate claims to expand. Once you unify Ireland, you can roll on Wales, and the Iberian Muslims are close enough for land grabs if you see an opening. Do remember that being the King of Ireland isn't the same as being a real king, though; you won't have an easy time soloing anyone.

Not necessarily. Ireland has good Holding capacity, so you can definately build a strong, centralized power there if you can handle waiting a while for money to pile up so you can build more Holdings.

 

[Silva]

Anyway, tech isn't really important in CK. It's more of a mechanic to differentiate between regions and make Europe progress as centuries pass. If you play well you can get a tech advantage and use it but don't expect much. You can do very well in this game without bothering to look at the tech tab or using your councilmembers for research.

I think the cultural ones are worth planning/looking for (legalism is awesome on the mid-long term as it alleviates the opinion problems with your new rulers, so is feudal customs for rising vassals opinions - and levies and taxes). But yeah, overall technology develops in a such random and slow way that its not worth the headache.

 

[Kayerts]

Here's an in-depth guide to game mechanics from the Paradox forums, if anyone's interested.

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

Seriously whats the deal excommunication spam any way? It would appear reasonable to me that if you pay the pope to remove the excommunication that the same person that got you excommunicated in the first place would not be able to convince the pope to do so again the following day. Oh well the gift of a nice dagger got rid of my bitch of a sister but it did ruin my entire plan for expansion through inheritance.

 

[20 Eyes]

After reading all the recommendations for Ireland, that's definitely going to be my next game.

My current game is kinda in limbo. I'm locked into a seemingly eternal battle for the independence of Glorious North Umberland from Norway. I've killed thousands of their troops and a dozen of their nobles (including their ruling queen) in the last two decades and I occupy some of their British territory (I had more but then most of England won their independence). I've had my war score as high as 18, but they'll never grant me independence despite the fact that every Norwegian that stepped into North Umberland in the last twenty years has been slaughtered and I've occupied as much as three of their other territories. My mighty levies and the occasional mercenaries absolutely terrorize them and chase them around England/Scotland, but they give me nothing (other than begging for white peace every so often).

I should have just waited for the rest of England instead of declaring war on my own. The game is refusing to take me seriously as a one county nation (I planned on swearing fealty to a British King as soon as I could and them moving in on nearby counties) because I don't have the manpower to go over to Norway and wreck their shit directly.

Here's an in-depth guide to game mechanics from the Paradox forums, if anyone's interested.

Good read, thanks.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The war score SHOULD rise up on its own if you're winning as time goes by. That's how my Finland campaign dealt with ejecting the Piasts (alternatively Denmark-Lithuania and Poland, massive claim war between the two branches happened every ten odd years or so) from the Baltic, with me just seizing the neighbouring provinces and then busting up any armies they sent my way, usually they'd let me have my claimed province in a year or so.

 

[Serious_Business]

Been playing as king of France. I've found that not augmenting the crown laws is the best way to keep some form of stability in the realm. Also, my vassals do a lot of conquering for me, and I'm now king of Castille and Aragon, stomping on muslims at will when I'm bored. I'm just focusing on making sure I have a strong power base near Paris. Super dukes are happening, but it's not that of a big deal if I have strong approval, I can just remove their titles or crush them with my realm army. It is a big deal when I have a bad succession though, and it looks like this is going to crash. My next guy in line is a real useless asshole. I don't think you need great kings with this setup for it to work, my current guy has the "slow" trait and some other problems to his name. He even got excommunicated when he took the throne, but it didn't pose that much of a problem. I just had some backwards count of britanny tell me that I hurt his feelings or something. But this other guy, he's not exactly a treat. I haven't been able to educate my sons properly because I usually give them titles as soon as possible so that my vassals are not angered at me for holding out on the goods. So they go to their own lands to be educated by the idiot of the village. Guess that was my mistake, but then when you see your well-groomed sons die at the age of 20 all the time, you just loose the patience for this.

Personally I just can't bother playing anything but kings or really strong dukes. I find the lack of options too boring otherwise. I'm not sure what's more challenging though, but this game isn't really about challenge.

 

[XenomorphII]

The war score SHOULD rise up on its own if you're winning as time goes by. That's how my Finland campaign dealt with ejecting the Piasts (alternatively Denmark-Lithuania and Poland, massive claim war between the two branches happened every ten odd years or so) from the Baltic, with me just seizing the neighbouring provinces and then busting up any armies they sent my way, usually they'd let me have my claimed province in a year or so.

In wars of independence the warscore does not automatically increase.

 

[20 Eyes]

The war score SHOULD rise up on its own if you're winning as time goes by. That's how my Finland campaign dealt with ejecting the Piasts (alternatively Denmark-Lithuania and Poland, massive claim war between the two branches happened every ten odd years or so) from the Baltic, with me just seizing the neighbouring provinces and then busting up any armies they sent my way, usually they'd let me have my claimed province in a year or so.

Since I'm so small, I have to win a bunch of battles to even get one point. I did lose one minor battle, which was just a distraction to screen other actions, and my war score plummeted into the negatives from that alone. I've been building it back up slowly, but there is only one other county in England that is still Norwegian and I've already had that occupied for a while. I think I'm just going to start a new game because this is getting tedious. Also, I kinda missed my chance because Norway was struggling with Denmark but now that war is over so I'm sure they'll be even less inclined to grant me independence ;_;

 

[Malakal]

I had a nice game with house Luisignian. Started as a count, rose to power as a duke of Aquitaine, Poitou and Gascogne, reached the height of my power as a duke of Aragon and Barcelona and then collapsed like a house of cards after a series of bad successions and lost jihads. Still dont know why my awesome 36 year old ruler just died but I learned my lesson. As bad as primogeniture is I will have to aim for it, elective leads nowhere and everything can turn to shit at once with it.

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

Well If you want to become a part of England what you could do is marry your eldest son to the oldest daughter of an English landholding noble. What you need to do is make sure that the daughter inherits the land of her father. Either through some assassinations or finding a count with only daughters and which wife is past child bearing age. Your grandson would then become the heir of both your county as well as the English one assuming you have gavel kind or primogeniture. If his mother then who would be a countess suffers an "unfortunate accident" your grandson would become a count as well as a vassal of the king of England. When he then inherits your original county he will rule both, though it is important that he inherits the English country first or you will remain a part of Norway.

It would take a couple of generations but I think it would work.

 

[SCO]

Can't you kill your wife after getting some 3 sons and kill the rest before being made king?

Or that doesn't work?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well If you want to become a part of England what you could do is marry your eldest son to the oldest daughter of an English landholding noble. What you need to do is make sure that the daughter inherits the land of her father. Either through some assassinations or finding a count with only daughters and which wife is past child bearing age. Your grandson would then become the heir of both your county as well as the English one assuming you have gavel kind or primogeniture. If his mother then who would be a countess suffers an "unfortunate accident" your grandson would become a count as well as a vassal of the king of England. When he then inherits your original county he will rule both, though it is important that he inherits the English country first or you will remain a part of Norway.

It would take a couple of generations but I think it would work.

Crusader Kings 2: A Game of Unfortunate Accidents

 

[Malakal]

Can't you kill your wife after getting some 3 sons and kill the rest before being made king?

Or that doesn't work?

You can but why? Just dont give them lands and keep them as courtiers and reserve heirs in case something bad happens. Seriously, the landless son penalty isnt that harsh.

 

[20 Eyes]

Well If you want to become a part of England what you could do is marry your eldest son to the oldest daughter of an English landholding noble. What you need to do is make sure that the daughter inherits the land of her father. Either through some assassinations or finding a count with only daughters and which wife is past child bearing age. Your grandson would then become the heir of both your county as well as the English one assuming you have gavel kind or primogeniture. If his mother then who would be a countess suffers an "unfortunate accident" your grandson would become a count as well as a vassal of the king of England. When he then inherits your original county he will rule both, though it is important that he inherits the English country first or you will remain a part of Norway.

It would take a couple of generations but I think it would work.

Crusader Kings 2: A Game of Unfortunate Accidents

Thanks for the advice, but my impatience got the best of me. Plus, after knowing a little about the game I was able to manage things more effectively.

A big thing I discovered is the power of ransoming nobles. If you buy some mercenaries and attack a megastack with them, assuming you win, you'll get three or so prisoners that can be ransomed off. This paid for my fuck-huge mercenary army when the King of Scotland attacked my meager two-county Countdom. Occupying holdings can help alleviate the financial burden, too. I ended up making hundreds of ducats and I'm now a top five power in Northern Ireland! If I had known this in my last game, I probably would've been able to get independence. Maybe it's kinda broken, but whatever.

 

[poocolator]

Ah, yes... projecting bloodlines through mind-rending simulations of every possible permutation of marriages in order to find the plausible one that'll maximize future income. The fine art of CK.

 

[treave]

Do you have enough piety, do you have enough money, and do you have half the holdings of Spain? Pray more, brother root.

This game needs a more flexible plot system. They should allow you to mix and match types of plots and targets, and add more ambitions for Kings. I suppose there's always the Plots DLC.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Half the DUCHIES, not holdings.