CKII is released.

[Fafnir]

They(Golden Horde) appear around the year 1216-18 I believe.

The golden horde comes later, or at least it did in my game, the Ilkhanate showed up first. Golden Horde came at about 1220 in mine.

I think after a certain year each year there's a chance for the "Horde" event to fire and spawn them.

Wincest. Daughter getting some action from her father(the ruler).

 

[Tigranes]

I think the biggest thing I'd like fixed as a personal annoyance is how vassal rebellions work. If 8 duchies in the Byz. Empire all rebel they all rebel separately, calculating warscore separately. Or, they can invite others to join their particular war, but you can't ask to join them. I tried playing as a random Duke in 1076 and when the entire empire rebelled in 5 wars, I was left with the choice of (1) fighting a losing war for my liege for no particular benefit, (2) doing nothing and letting whoever win, (3) waging my own war except it's impossible to gain warscore as everyone is already sieging everywhere, then when somebody is victorious you're suddenly on the spot. So unless you're powerful enough to instigate and carry through a rebelllion originally, there's no real benefit to getting in on an existing civil war, and there are no rewards for steadfast loyalty. That really sucks for the Byzantine Empire, as that was a major part of how things worked.

And yes, this was with CK2Plus, which I imagine would be hard pressed to make such base level changes. I'm still going to try and see if I can play as Alexios Komnenos and get something done.

 

[IDtenT]

Such a waiting game as numbers tick down and you've nothing to do while they do.

Even in the late game of map painting it is easy to just create a bunch of vassals and let them fight your wars for you. That's what I did when I controlled to HRE, by letting France fight my wars. Too complicated otherwise.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I think the biggest thing I'd like fixed as a personal annoyance is how vassal rebellions work. If 8 duchies in the Byz. Empire all rebel they all rebel separately, calculating warscore separately. Or, they can invite others to join their particular war, but you can't ask to join them. I tried playing as a random Duke in 1076 and when the entire empire rebelled in 5 wars, I was left with the choice of (1) fighting a losing war for my liege for no particular benefit, (2) doing nothing and letting whoever win, (3) waging my own war except it's impossible to gain warscore as everyone is already sieging everywhere, then when somebody is victorious you're suddenly on the spot. So unless you're powerful enough to instigate and carry through a rebelllion originally, there's no real benefit to getting in on an existing civil war, and there are no rewards for steadfast loyalty. That really sucks for the Byzantine Empire, as that was a major part of how things worked.

And yes, this was with CK2Plus, which I imagine would be hard pressed to make such base level changes. I'm still going to try and see if I can play as Alexios Komnenos and get something done.

I did a fairly good job fixing this by changing the CB rules that White Peace also results in independence (with Enforced Demands meaning that the liege is super-crippled and likely to collapse entirely afterwards). This works out because the AI won't accept White Peace without a long stalemate or unless the Liege is losing (this was actually the big thing, the rebels can accept white peace even if they're starting to win). However, it didn't seem to work on Byzantine Empire (it worked on Golden Horde and Ilkhanate in conjunction to assassinations).

I also think the Byzantine Emperor title should be titular only (same with HRE) without de jure, and there should be some hefty penalty modifiers on BE to cause it crumble within decades of game start.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Vaarna, not to be rude, but I would recomend less talking and more showing. In short, LP bro, LP bro. We need more CK2 lps.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I also think the Byzantine Emperor title should be titular only (same with HRE) without de jure, and there should be some hefty penalty modifiers on BE to cause it crumble within decades of game start.

Why? The Emperor of Byzantium was the Big Boss, including the head of the Orthodox Church (Equal of the apostles as they say), entirely different to the HRE Emperor.

As for modifiers, there is no reason that things could not have turned out better for the Byzantines. They were on much firmer ground again until the Fourth Crusade. Indeed, not long before the Fourth Crusade (which is much further down the line gamewise) the Empire was in very good shape.

The layman usually throws "Manzikert!" out as a Word of Power, but there were at least two or three times afterwards where the Empire could have resurged to full power again, if not for bad luck, treachery or an incompetent Emperor. Manzikert was not healthy, nor was it the death blow that is bandied around by many.

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

I also think the Byzantine Emperor title should be titular only (same with HRE) without de jure, and there should be some hefty penalty modifiers on BE to cause it crumble within decades of game start.

Why? The Emperor of Byzantium was the Big Boss, including the head of the Orthodox Church (Equal of the apostles as they say), entirely different to the HRE Emperor.

As for modifiers, there is no reason that things could not have turned out better for the Byzantines. They were on much firmer ground again until the Fourth Crusade. Indeed, not long before the Fourth Crusade (which is much further down the line gamewise) the Empire was in very good shape.

The layman usually throws "Manzikert!" out as a Word of Power, but there were at least two or three times afterwards where the Empire could have resurged to full power again, if not for bad luck, treachery or an incompetent Emperor. Manzikert was not healthy, nor was it the death blow that is bandied around by many.

About 40-50 years after Manzikert, under John II Komnenos, the Byzantines started kicking the Turks ass. If he hadn't been killed in a hunting accident, it's widely speculated the Turks would have been pushed almost all the way out of Anatolia.

I hate when people think the Byzantines should be gimped, as you said.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Problem is that in present state it is impossible for the Byzantines to lose without player intervention. By default, AI Byzantines should be raped by the AI left and right, and playing as Byzantines should be a huge challenge.

 

[curry]

Problem is that in present state it is impossible for the Byzantines to lose without player intervention. By default, AI Byzantines should be raped by the AI left and right, and playing as Byzantines should be a huge challenge.

Given historical circumstances, and to keep the game interesting, I think there should be around 50-50 chance between Byzantines or Turks winning.

 

[Kayerts]

Yeah, the Komnenian Restoration was a thing that happened. John II could never have done what Justinian did, even if he'd had a 12th century Belisarius, but the dynasty did well for itself. As for Manzikert, it was honestly a fluke, and there's no reason an alternate history would have to repeat the circumstances leading up to it.

I don't see how to provide a historically consistent nerf to CK2's Eastern Roman Empire within the current gameplay mechanics. The casus belli system makes it impossible for anyone from a different religion to quickly conquer large swathes of territory, which effectively neuters the threat the Seljuks pose and more generally stabilizes large empires' territorial possessions. Add to that CK2's magical regenerating armies and heavy emphasis on numerical superiority, and the largest, wealthiest, most advanced empire in the game is hard to unseat.

 

[Luzur]

Vaarna, not to be rude, but I would recomend less talking and more showing. In short, LP bro, LP bro. We need more CK2 lps.

yes do it, Finland, Sweden or someone else, i dont care.

GO

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I don't see how to provide a historically consistent nerf to CK2's Eastern Roman Empire within the current gameplay mechanics. The casus belli system makes it impossible for anyone from a different religion to quickly conquer large swathes of territory, which effectively neuters the threat the Seljuks pose and more generally stabilizes large empires' territorial possessions. Add to that CK2's magical regenerating armies and heavy emphasis on numerical superiority, and the largest, wealthiest, most advanced empire in the game is hard to unseat.

Well, generally the idea I had was to have a penalty modifier that expires at a set date that gives BYZ lowered vassal relations, support limits, levy size, etc; and then give Seljuks a CB against BYZ that also expires at the same date.

 

[Trash]

With Wizmod the Byzantine's in my game are slowly crumbling. Actually, keeping together any empire or kingdom becomes quite difficult due to civil wars triggering other civil wars and how hard it has become to improve on crown authority. France seemed somehow to survive rather well but that seems due to them having a string of very capable rulers. Now they've got a regency and are tearing themselves apart.

Meanwhile I intervened in an allies nearby holy war. Was making quite some prestige, piety and money when another caliphate declared war on me. That fucker called in all his little friends and I spend three game years fighting a desperate war in which I quickly lost my extensive treasury. I managed to hold out and scrape together a victory in the end only to have my ruler die of plague during the final weeks of a shitty unimportant siege. The moment the war ended and my new ruler got to power two of my vassals rebel and I'm doing all I can to beat their extensive levies with no money and hardly any troops left. Even if I win my plan to create the Kingdom of Sicily has been set back at least two generations and if I lose this war I run a very good chance of seeing the game over screen.

I'm loving this mod.

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

Previously my games have been perhaps a bit to easy, but tried playing as the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Got raped so hard it is not even funny. Started of with minimum crown authority so one of my Dukes conquered most of my lesser vassals that bastard. Combined with that fact that none of my Kings/Queens lived past a couple of years of of adulthood, most likely assassinated by their relative an ambitious count, who was known to have been responsible for at least a couple of such incidents. Then add in a gang bang Jihad and holy wars for my remaining territory, at the same time as my super powerful duke revolts and my King who finally reached maturity dies of at the ripe old age of 18 leaving his 1 year old son on the throne. Naturally with a one year old with out any piety I can't raise any holy orders so it's game over. This game can be painful at times when played properly (no reload), but I love it for it.

Behold the long reigns of my Monarchs, most of their time on the throne was spent as children with no on except the first King out living their 20th birthday. :D

 

[oscar]

Anyone know any good mods for this bad boy (I've been using yours Vaarna)? I'm not a Paradox forum member (yet, just gotta wait till I get some money..), but any word on that front?

This one seems alright: http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/crusaderkingsii/mod/42664.html

But basically all this game needs is fixed combat. No more boring "highest number wins" fights, so wars against smaller kingdoms can go pear shaped if they have higher quality soldiers, good generals etc. Even just transplanting EU3 combat would be enough (complete with different culture units, so we can get the deadly shock of a Highlander charge, the defensive power of late-era English longbowmen and knight-heavy French armies).

Less obvious traits and character development events is also needed. Why would I purposely make my son a coward when I could make him brave for instance? Or choose an option that makes him a glutton if another option means he isn't?

 

[Commissar Draco]

My First two Despots of Sicily had 35 and 53 years reign, So my Sergios II had easy start with only one mayor rebelion of his two halfbrothers but With all easy pickings taken it is now fight for Kingdom of Italy with No Roman Nor Holy Neither Emperor or bid for imperial throne in Constantinople which is in constant rebellion/civil war... Not sure if taking this shitbucket worthy especially when game goal is not to conquer large swatch of land but to build successful Dynasty... which is huge over MTW 2.

Shame you can't really conquer Papacy and replace it with Ortodox Patriarchy of Rome and tactical combat is not like in TW serries.... but this the only Paradox game I have real fun from playing.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

But basically all this game needs is fixed combat. No more boring "highest number wins" fights, so wars against smaller kingdoms can go pear shaped if they have higher quality soldiers, good generals etc. Even just transplanting EU3 combat would be enough (complete with different culture units, so we can get the deadly shock of a Highlander charge, the defensive power of late-era English longbowmen and knight-heavy French armies).

It's exactly like EU3 combat, or actually it's slightly better because Western European armies can't just steamroll everything in sight and you have higher control over your generals.

Anyway, putting more emphasis on leaders wouldn't not work either because larger countries will always have better leaders as well due to larger courts. The only way to fix the problems of the EU3 style combat in regards to giving smaller powers a fighting chance is to ditch the existing model entirely and use the far superior HoI3 model.

 

[Malakal]

In HoI3 smaller powers dont stand a chance either.

What this game needs is more accurate representation of the feudal society. Large realm =/= large army or large income. It all depends on connections, sympathies, crown authority and laws. Several realms at this time didnt have ANY special income for the monarch other than his demesne ie no taxes. And waging war beyond borders was very hard too.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well, it's rather that after you fix shit (= Leadership, better global IC and resource distribution, etc) they DO stand a chance if they have good defensive terrain. Someone like, say, Netherlands is obviously fucked due to lacking terrain, but the important historical scenario is there: Because of defensive terrain, infrastructure bottlenecks and Front Width (really, you'd just need Front Width mechanic equivalent), Finland can repel a vastly larger Soviet invasion, potentially indefinately.

EDIT: Actually that does give me ideas. You see, vassal levy are influenced by relations... So how about after a certain size, you start getting penalty modifiers to relations, which would thus reduce vassal levies, and indirectly force you to do things like lower taxes or crown authority.

 

[Trash]

Anyone know any good mods for this bad boy (I've been using yours Vaarna)? I'm not a Paradox forum member (yet, just gotta wait till I get some money..), but any word on that front?

This one seems alright: http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/crusaderkingsii/mod/42664.html

But basically all this game needs is fixed combat. No more boring "highest number wins" fights, so wars against smaller kingdoms can go pear shaped if they have higher quality soldiers, good generals etc. Even just transplanting EU3 combat would be enough (complete with different culture units, so we can get the deadly shock of a Highlander charge, the defensive power of late-era English longbowmen and knight-heavy French armies).

Less obvious traits and character development events is also needed. Why would I purposely make my son a coward when I could make him brave for instance? Or choose an option that makes him a glutton if another option means he isn't?

Seen the mod I posted a few pages back? It's been renamed CK2plus and is the only real big awesome mod besides the one you posted.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...kingdoms-and-empires-more-ambitions-and-plots

Here is the latest version

I also made some changes of my own. Expanding fertility for oneself and the AI and at the same time increasing deadliness and contagiousness of diseases means about 50% of all children survive childhood with most women giving birth about 10 times. As was historical. It also makes succession a lot more vibrant. Reinstating a nerfed (half of original value) version of the time that culture penalties apply means Crusaders (and foreign occupiers) won't be able to expand that quickly while still being able to survive. They really seem to work in balancing the game out. Byzantium is having a hard fight but is only slowly crumbling, HRE and France are strong but not blobbing and Crusade conquered territory is still around but is not taking over the ME. Here is my version of the mod.

Features
- Holy Wars restricted to neighbours, so that Muslims do not always own Sardinia and France does not always own Gibraltar. Crusades/Jihads are not affected by this.
- Balanced Anti-Popes that are not simply endless money machines.
- More lethal diseases and battles, making medieval life the violent and uncertain existance it should be.
- Many more Empires and Kingdoms to create.
- More mercenaries and holy orders.
- More cultures.
- Vassal rebellions are more of a danger, as one vassal trying to acheive independence can lead to a chain reaction of discontent vassals doing the same.
- It is now more difficult but also more rewarding to raise your crown authority.
- Tweaked succession laws to make it possible for non-Basques to use Absolute Cognatic. Authority requirements for other succession laws have also been eased.
- Rebalanced levies and laws that reduce the military capabilities of large kingdoms with weak authority (like France or the HRE).
- More ambitions.
- Women of your dynasty can hold some council positions under Cognatic or Agnatic-Cognatic laws.
- Many minor and major balancing tweaks for a more challenging and enjoyable experience.

Included Mods
- Heraldy Mod
- Better Rebels Mod
- Council Shuffling Mod
- HRE Revised Coronation Mod
- PMM
- Death Causes Mod

0.28:
- Tall trait is now actually in the mod.

0.27:
- Reworked the Tribal Invasion CB. Upon arriving on the map, the Mongols get one war where they simply take all land they occupy, then they get access to a Tribal Invasion CB that works like Holy War (conquering one duchy at a time) but which only has a truce time of 1 year. This should lead to less insane situations like the Golden Horde vassalizing France because France happened to hold a duchy in Russia, and should make the Mongols less prone to instant collapse from all those wrong religion/culture vassals. Additionally, this special CB goes away once they switch out of the Pagan religion groupl making them into a more normal tag after the initial period of expansion.
- Reduced bonus troops from being on a Crusade.
- You can once again declare war while already leading a war, but the player will not get the Defensive War or Crusade bonus if they are the attacker in any non-Crusade war.
- Increased cost of assassinations.
- Reduced effectiveness of build spy network in improving assassination chances.
- Added three new smaller merc tansport fleets.
- Added eight "mega" mercenary bands of 8000 troops.
- Rebalanced merc sizes so they range from 500-8000.
- Reduced days of damage taking during a retreat to 3 from 5 to buff smaller armies.
- Increased chances of melee initiation tactics in combat (skirmish phase was lasting too long).
- Reduced maintenance of galleys.
- Fixed a problem in my death causes integration that was making some causes not show up.
- Added a hereditary 'tall' trait that improves vassal opinion and sex appeal. It is the opposite of dwarf.

0.26:
- Compatible with 1.04b (so was 0.25 really).
- Integrated avee's death causes mod that uses traits to show you how a character died.
- Reduced the likelyhood of having affairs with close relatives.
- Reduced frequency of childbirth deaths.
- Reduced health effects of illnesses since 1.04 made low health more lethal.
- Swapped the portraits of William and Harold, as was done in vanilla.
- Increased Gavelkind demesne bonus to 33%.
- Fixed a bug that was preventing the Mongols from conquering land.
- You can no longer appoint your spouse to the council. This is nearly always a terrible idea because you lose the spouse bonus to that particular stat, so this saves players from making appointments they think will increase their stats but which actually lower it.
- Fixed some duplicate event ID issues that were causing crashes.
- Fixed a bug that was preventing independence war escalation from working.
- Increased the effects of Quick, Genius, Slow and Imbecile to match vanilla values.
- When the AI wins a holy war or crusade, they will now get a very temporary (1 month) +1000 vassal relation boost to give them time to hand out titles.
- Newly formed Empires will now always start with at least Low crown authority.

0.25:
- Slightly increased the cost of building holdings.
- Characters that have the dishonorable trait can now suffer mental ill effects from being known as a murderer, especially if they have a kind disposition.
- Increased the prestige penalties to the primary heir for being ousted in an excommunication war.
- Fixed some localisation problems.
- You will no longer get excommunicated more than once for being a murderer, unless you commit additional (discovered) murders after the first excommunication.
- Female rulers will no longer get child birth events unless something goes wrong (it's handled invisibly by the newborn kid instead).
- Fixed some duplicate event ID problems.
- If a woman dies during childbirth, there is now a 50% chance the child will die as well.
- Removed the special Empire requirements for raising crown authority as it was making it nigh impossible for the AI. The HRE must still be crowned to raise authority..
- Reduced max demesne size, as currently there is little reason to have count-level vassals for Dukes considering the very generous cap. Reduced demesne requirements on raising crown authority accordingly.
- Fixed some bugs in council request events.
- Integrated new mercenaries, new holy orders and combat tweaks from PMM.
- Fixed an issue that was preventing the 'No New Empires' module from working..
- The AI should now be smarter about when to execute plots against their liege.
- Added an optional time limit remover.
- Catholic latin culture group rulers who hold the Kingdom of Thessalonica can now form the Latin Empire.

0.24:
- Fixed several major bugs with mercenaries.

0.23:
- Fixed a bug in the buildings file that was making city ports not provide any galleys.
- Reduced the size of initial Mongol stacks, to better match the smaller levies in this mod.

0.22:
- Now compatible with 1.04. Certain mechanics like the Anti-Pope relation hit with other bishops were removed as the patch made them obsolete.
- All religions are now playable.
- Vassals with land will now ask to be appointed to your council if they are better than the current councillor.
- Added an option to not be bothered with petitions about replacing characters on the council. This option lasts until your current ruler dies.
- Rulers in a civil war will now suffer a opinion hit with all characters, to offset the extra troops granted by being in a defensive war.
- Fixed a bug with forming empires where they would lose the ability to set demesne laws.
- Kings and Emperors will now get vassal troop bonuses at lower levels of crown authority if they are the defender in any war (ie war leader of the defending side) or the attacker in a war using the Crusade CB. Being attacked in a war of religious defense does NOT count as fighting a defensive war.
- Dukes and Counts will now get vassal troop bonuses at lower levels of crown authority, to represent better local control.
- Newly created Kingdoms will now start with Low Crown Authority to make the levy difference less jarring.
- Men above the age of 50 will now have reduced fertility.
- Characters above the age of 50 will now progressively lose some of their martial stats, but gain learning.
- Increased temple levy sizes, both base amount and from buildings.
- All CBs are now disabled when you are the war leader of a war, meaning you can't declare war if you have already declared war or been declared on. This was done to prevent abuse of the defensive/crusade war troop bonuses.
- The Pope will now demand the County of Rome from any Catholic character that holds it, unless that character has an Anti-Pope as their religious head or the Pope's opinion of that character is extremely high. Failing to comply will result in excommunication.
- Warrior Cults and Republican Levies are once again spread out across the entire realm as there is no way to give them to just the capital barony.
- Greatly reduced the number of bonus troops the Pope receives.
- Holy Orders now get bonus troops in provinces they hold.
- Added a weaker version of warrior cults for east african culture rulers. These can only be built in east african culture provinces inside the De Jure Empire of Ethiopia.
- Revamped grand hunt events to be less arbitrary and more focused on prestige instead of meaningless modifiers.
- The ruler's personal learning score is now the primary determinant for speed of culture spread, and plays a major role in determining the chance of your Chaplain converting provinces. This should help make religious education traits less useless for rulers.
- Slowed cultural spread down significantly.
- Many personality traits now have additional opposites. For instance, you can no longer be a chaste hedonist, greedy and content, or charitable and cruel.
- Fixed graphical issues with a couple of ambitions.
- The AI will now refrain from creating inappropriate titles (no Sultanate of Portugal for instance). Players are still free to create any title regardless of religion.
- The chance of a character being captured in battle is now dependent on rank - you'll capture less Barons and courtiers, but have an increased chance of capturing Dukes and Kings. Overall, you'll get less total prisoners but more valuable ones.
- Reworked troop bonuses for Pagans, Republics and the Pope to be spread out across the realm the way it works in vanilla. This is because I can't find a way to give the bonuses only to their capital holding if they have several holdings in their capital province.
- Kingdom crown authority is no longer tied to its parent empire unless the kingdom is a vassal or held title of the emperor in question.
- Revised the Kingdom titles a bit. Gardariki and Ruthenia were rolled back into Rus and Aquitainia and France were rolled back into France. While I think ahistorical Kingdoms/Empires are fun for the player to form, it's a bit more blatantly ahistorical when the AI always does it.
- Reduced warscore gain from occupating settlements.
- Increased warscore multiplier on occupying capital settlements.
- Increased warscore multiplier on occupying contested settlements.
- Increased warscore from battles.
- The HRE can no longer increase his crown authority unless he has been crowned by the Pope.
- Added an optional module that disables the formation of the non-vanilla Empires (they will still show up in Empire mapmode, but cannot be created and thus have no effect on gameplay).
- Requirements for increasing crown authority are now significantly higher for Emperors.
- Reduced the size of the bonus levies for the Pope.
- Provinces will no longer change culture unless your culture is the same as your top liege.
- Restored 10 years of occupation penalties for conquering wrong-religion provinces.
- Provinces will no longer convert to your culture unless they are already your religion.
- Fixed a bug that was making the Order of Santiago and Livonian Order available from game start.
- Increased lethality of battles slightly.
- Any culture can now create the Kingdom of Finland.

0.21:
- Mod renamed to CK2Plus to represent the growing collaborative effort that it is turning into.
- Heraldry mod is now bundled as a separate mod folder, and must be checked alongside CK2Plus if you want to use it. This allows users who had graphical issues with it to opt out of using it.
- Independent Dukes/Counts who are not affected by Crown Authority will now get a special bonus to the levies they can call on (equivalent to Medium Crown Authority), but get a malus to taxes and are especially badly affected by regencies due to the lack of 'customary' rulership.
- Tweaked levies once again. Crown Authority is now the single most important factor in determining levy size and laws controlling minimum levy size have Crown Authority requirements.
- If the Seljuks win the 1st Seljuk-Byzantine war, they will now take all the provinces they historically gained from it.
- Increased the value of Persian provinces to the point where the Seljuk Turks should now actually be able to win the war they historically won.
- Removed the various claims on England at game start, so that if the Norman and Norwegian invasions fail there won't be a second round. While this is not historical, it's absolutely necessary to achieve anything close to historical results (as otherwise England keeps bouncing between Denmark, Normandy and Norway and ends up a dissolute mess).
- A vassal's entire range of opinion (-100 to 100) now matters for how many troops they will raise for you. At 0 opinion you will get half of the maximum amount of troops.
- Integrated the PMM combat tweaks that reduce the lethality of battles and flesh out combat tactics to make martial score more important.
- Added two new religious orders, the Livonian Order and the Order of Santiago.
- The Teutonic Order will no longer ask for land once granted a county. This should prevent them from owning a mess of Pagan exclaves.
- Reduced the size of holy orders to 1000 men each.
- Added the Kingdom of Algiers in well, Algiers.
- Disabled the demesne restriction on waging holy wars on Pagans, as I felt it was a rather inelegant solution. I will try to figure out a different way of preventing the immediate conquest of the Wends.
- You no longer get any special occupation penalties for conquering provinces of the wrong religion/culture, instead there is merely the normal five-year occupation penalty. Hopefully this should make it possible for Crusades to actually take land without immediately losing it (and make it possible for William the Conqueror to hold on to England...) This change is very experimental, so let me know how it works out.
- Fixed a problem with the Take the Cross ambition.
- Fixed a problem that was preventing landless Mongols from declaring war.
- Reduced landless son prestige penalties.
- Kings and Emperors who do not have control of their entire de jure realm can now get an event where a claimaint to one of their de jure (but not de facto) vassals asks to move to their court.
- You can now always declare Holy Wars on heretics, even if you do not border them.
- Significantly revamped East Africa. The area is now divided into eight duchies and three kingdoms (Nubia, Abyssinia and Ajuuraan) with three cultures (Nubian, Ethiopian and Somali). Province values were raised to give the Nubians and Ethiopians a fighting chance.
- Added Ethiopia as an Empire level title for East Africa.
- Added Nubian and Ethiopian mercenaries.
- Independent republics now get bonus troops in their capital through a special building.
- The Pope now gets bonus troops to discourage other rulers from seizing Rome.
- Tweaked the better rebels events a bit to cut down on repeated revolt spam. There is now only a single revolt modifier and another revolt cannot take place while one is already in action. Revolts are more serious but revolt risk in general is lowered.
- Implemented the Coronation mod from the HRE Revised mod.
- Increasing crown authority in an Elective monarchy now carries a greater opinion penalty, to offset the opinion boost from the succession law.
- Changing out of Elective succession now requires Medium Crown Authority, to represent opposition from the Electors to giving up their power.

0.20:
- Rebalanced the Stamford Bridge scenario to be more historical. William should now win most of the time, with a Saxon victory being the second most likely and a Norwegian victory the most unlikely.
- Taking over a title in an invasion will now give a temporary +100 opinion boost with that title's vassals to prevent immediate civil war.
- The crown authority of a kingdom is now tied to its De Jure Empire if that empire exists. If for instance the crown authority of the HRE is Low, the crown authorities of Germany, Lotharingia and Bohemia will also be Low and cannot be changed on their own.
- You can now employ a spymaster via decision.
- Employing councillors via decision now costs a fixed amount of gold.
- Integrated the latest version of the Better Rebels mod that fixes a bug with rebels murdering rulers far too often.
- Increased loyalty bonus from being of the same dynasty.
- Increased the damage from flanking units (to hopefully make all-in-the-center a less effective tactic).

0.19:
- Fixed a bug with holy wars against Pagans that made them impossible unless your demesne bordered them, even if you had Medium or higher crown authority.
- Tribal invasions are now only possible against neighbouring states or states that share provinces in the same De Jure Kingdom, same as Holy Wars. This should keep the Mongols from creating a weird realm of exclaves.
- Integrated the Better Rebels mod, which replaces the whack-a-mole rebels with province modifiers. Please let me know how you think it works out.
- Fixed some problems with the 'Take the Cross' ambition.
- You will now always get Holy War on Mongols if they border your realm and are not of your religion group.
- Character with the 'dishonorable' trait (from discovered assassinations) now have a chance of being excommunicated by their head of religion. The chance increases with the number of discovered assassinations.
- Removed the 'wary' modifier as it wasn't working right. Instead, if you are caught assassinating you will gain a permanent trait that lowers general opinion and diplomacy. For each discovered assassination this permanent penalty increases.
- Provinces can no longer convert to your culture unless there is a neighbouring province with that culture.
- Reduced speed of culture conversion.
- It is now more difficult to fabricate claims.

0.18:
- Removed a part of the CK2 Heraldry mod that was causing slowdown issues.
- Novgorod should no longer appear as a fake republic when selecting your character (so you can actually play as them now).
- A portion of your of Crown Authority will now 'port over' when creating an Empire-level title. The max Crown Authority you can start with as an Empire is Medium.
- The 'War of Independence' decision is no longer visible to players.

0.17:
- Reduced frequency of vassal plots.
- Fixed a bug that was making wars of independence occur when they should not be occuring.
- Fixed a bug that was making Bohemia not recognize the HRE as De Jure Liege.

0.16:
- Councillors who are fired from the council and then reappointed to it will now suffer only a lesser opinion penalty.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the Not De Jure Liege penalty to apply to courtiers.
- Broke the family bonds between the Russian Dukes to prevent the game from generating claims and thus prevent Russia from unifying in the first decade of the game.
- Women can longer be Chancellors, but can be Stewards instead (under Cognatic succession only).

0.15:
- Savoy now starts the game with all its De Jure vassals as actual vassals to prevent an instant civil war.
- Being called into an ally's civil war will no longer count as being in a civil war (so vassals will not have an increased chance to plot against you or break away).
- Vassals are now less likely to plot against a liege who is the defender in a war that is NOT a civil war.
- Vassals whose liege is not their De Jure Liege are now more likely to try and break away during a civil war.
- Vassals will no longer declare a war of independence against their De Jure liege unless have a legitimate revolt cause OR crown authority is at minimum OR there is already a civil war going on. Only vassals with a very low opinion will declare a war of independence against their De Jure liege, even if crown authority is minimum.
- Vassals whose De Jure liege is in a civil war are now more likely to plot against them.
- Vassals will now have a lower opinion of a liege that is not their De Jure liege. This should make it so it is never a good idea to refrain from creating a title simply because some vassals might desire it.
- Vassals can once again NOT wage private wars under Medium Crown Authority on account of the increased difficulty getting to it.
- Reduced the chance for children to inherit genetic traits, so that all of Europe does not end up as dwarves.
- Cognatic succession is now required for women of your dynasty to be Chancellors. They can still be Spymasters under Agnatic-Cognatic.
- Relatives who ask you for a fief to govern will now wait up to six years for you to fulfill your promise (enough time to build a barony).
- Changed the way warrior cults work. Instead of a getting bonus troops in every province, each independent Pagan realm will only get a single warrior cult in the ruler's capital, but this warrior cult provides troops equivalent to three of the old warrior cult buildings. This should make large Pagan realms more balanced without making small tribes too weak.
- Reduced starting tech levels across the board but increased tech speed, as I felt tech distribution was rather off. Muslims and Byzantines will start at tech level 1-2 in 1066, while everyone else starts at 0.
- You can no longer wage holy wars on Pagans unless your demesne borders them OR you have Medium or higher crown authority.
- Fixed a bug that was making it impossible to usurp Emperor level titles.
- Fixed a bug that was causing culture conversion to occur far too quickly.
- Integrated the CK2 Heraldy mod by pothkan.

0.14:
- Fixed a bug that was preventing the changing of laws due to a bad war check.
- Changed the min/max opinion thresholds for levies to 0 for min troops and 50 for max troops.
- Your capital is now much more likely to convert to your culture.
- Decreased likelyhood of children converting to the culture of their tutor unless the tutor is the same culture group.
- Children will no longer convert to the culture of their tutor unless the tutor's culture matches the culture of the province they're in.
- Added new ambitions: Increase Size of Demesne, Take the Cross, Have Five Children and Become a Duke.
- To want to be a councillor, a character must now have at least 10 in the relevant attribute (Diplomacy for Chancellor and so on).
- Each type of ambition can now only be achieved once per character.
- Added a bookmark for the Treaty of Nymphaeum (the end of the Fourth Crusade).
- Removed the vassal loyalty bonus for Free Investiture (it's a superior enough law as it is).
- Increased the negative opinion effect for the Pope towards Free Investure.
- Rebalanced many traits so that they have more of a mix of good and bad effects.
- Guests complaining over food at a feast will now result in mutual dislike between them and the host.
- You no longer become just for buying the silence of the servants after a murder (seriously, what the hell Paradox?).
- There will now be fewer murders of servants at feasts.
- All guests at a feast now get a small positive opinion boost to the host lasting two years (just long enough to be a constant bonus if you hold feasts as often as possible).
- Guests at feasts are now more likely to approve of lavish food and to disapprove of sparse food unless they are temperate.
- Less chance of becoming drunkard or insulting host at a feast.
- Temporary opinion effects now last longer, to make event choices that influence them more meaningful.
- AI vassals will no longer plot against a liege they have a positive opinion of.
- The duchies of Poitou and Bourbon are now in France.
- Burgundy is now in Franconia to make it harder to form.
- Brittany no longer starts out as a Kingdom (but can still form one).
- France now starts out holding the title to Aquitaine as well.
- A councillor's opinion of you now affects how well they do their job. A councillor that likes his liege is more likely to get good events and successfully carry out missions, while a councillor who despises his liege is more likely to foul up.
- Crown authority now increases minimum levies as well as maximum.
- The AI will no longer increase crown authority if it believes doing so will spark a civil war.
- Increasing crown authority now requires you to have a demesne above a certain size. The requirements are 6/8/10/12 for Low, Medium, High and Absolute respectively.
- Removed the penalties for child rulers. Instead, whenever you have a regency, your feudal vassals will get an opinion penalty depending on the level of crown authority. Highly centralized realms will suffer great strife during regencies, while realms with autonomous vassals will not be affected at all.

0.13:
- Strengthened the Duchy of Apulia and Sultanate of Seljuk Turks on game start.
- Restored vanilla supply limits until the AI learns how to assault provinces or why not to siege one province with their entire stack.
- Rebalanced levies. Vassals will now provide a base max amount of 30% of their levies, which is increased by higher levels of crown authority. Levy laws increase the minimum amount they must provide regardless of their opinion of you. Vassals with -25 or less opinion will provide the minimum amount required by law, while vassals with 25 or more will provide the maximum. In general, opinion is now less of a factor and rulers must rely more on their demesne to provide troops.
- Removed the Russian Dukes' claims on each other. Hopefully this should prevent Russia from always unifying in the first five years of the game.
- Fixed some bugs with ambitions.
- A failed assassination will now result in the target getting a temporary boost to intrigue, making them harder to assassinate. Each successive failed attempt increases the bonus.
- Medium Crown Authority is now required to appoint commanders.
- Vassals can now wage private wars under Medium Crown Authority. High Crown Authority is required for the King's Peace.
- Restored revolt risk but removed tax/levy penalties for wrong religion provinces.
- Increased warscore from battles and holding provinces to make it easier for the AI to achieve decisive conclusions to wars.
- You will now get some piety for winning Holy Wars.
- Fixed a bug that was causing some characters to get the Anti-Pope Controller modifier when they should not be.

0.12:
- Restored many of the title-specific laws that Paradox had commented out in the history files to give countries more historical flavor.
- Instead of revolt risk, provinces with heresies, different cultures and different religions now have reduced taxes and levies.
- Recently conquered provinces now have increased revolt risk.
- Disabled the mod user directory as it does not seem to save message settings properly. This may cause conflicts with other mods installed in the same CK2 folder.
- Fixed a bug that was making some rulers start off with opinion penalties from Increased Crown Authority.
- Added the possibility for women to die in childbirth. The base chance is roughly 5% and varies depending on the woman's health.
- Increased the health decrease from illness and pneumonia to make them more lethal.
- Increased the likelyhood of becoming ill from a wound.
- Increased the likelyhood of children falling ill. Toddlers are at especially high risk.
- Added decisions to employ Chancellors and Marshals. Have not yet found a way to generate a random Spymaster.
- Re-enabled Anti-Pope creation. It now costs 1000 prestige and gives you a monthly piety penalty as long as you continue to control the Anti-Pope. The Anti-Pope will get a opinion penalty with all other bishops to make them less likely to send him money.

0.11:
- Fixed a bug that was preventing the restriction on Holy Wars from working.
- Increased the prestige cost and cooldown time of usurping titles.
- Building new holdings is now cheaper but takes 5 years instead of 2.
- Slightly decreased opinion penalty for increasing crown authority.
- Opinion boost for reducing crown authority now lasts 10 years.
- Ruler martial score now increases land morale.
- Increased the likelyhood of battle events.
- Dishonorable (was revealed carrying out an assassination) now carries a much higher opinion penalty.
- Reduced the crown authority of the Iberian emirs to give the Christians there more of a fighting chance.
- Western Emperors are now called High Kings with the sole exception of the HRE.
- Made Brittany into a Kingdom at game start to make forming Franconia harder.
- Fixed a bug that was making Danubia formable without holding all its King titles.
- Added more kingdoms in Russia.
- Fixed a bug where the requirement for female councillors was inverted.
- Integrated some fixes from the latest version of Strudel Man's fix pack.
- Fixed a bug that was making the Find a Lover ambition unavailable if married.

0.10:
- Fixed a problem in empire forming decisions that was causing severe game slowdown.
- Holy Wars are now only possible against neighbours, to prevent silly things like France gobbling up the southern half of Iberia. Neighbours is defined as realms that either border physically or which both hold provinces in at least one de jure kingdom (so Apulia can invade Malta because they both have provinces in Sicily). Crusades/Jihads are NOT affected.
- Fixed a bug where each character could only buy indulgences once. It is now every 5 years as it should be.
- Decreased the size of mercenary bands and holy order regiments.
- Greatly increased cost of mercenaries, both for recruiting and maintenance.
- Added a flag for Danubia.
- Flanders is now a part of France instead of Lotharingia.
- Alsace and Upper/Lower Lorraine are now parts of Lotharingia instead of Germany.
- Tweaked councillors to be better at their jobs.

0.09:
- Added the Empire of Danubia (Hungary, Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria).
- High councillor attributes will no longer increase the likelyhood of bad job events occuring (in most cases).

0.08:
- All titles should now have flags.
- You can now only buy indulengences every 5 years (to make piety less tied to gold).
- Reduced Kingdom creation piety cost to 100.
- Added the Kingdoms of Thessalonica and Nicaea.
- Added the Empire of Poland-Lithuania.
- Renamed Netherlands to Lotharingia and made the Duchies of Luxembourg and Cologne a part of it.
- To form an Empire, you will need to execute a special decision to enable it (this is done to get around an engine problem with title requirements).
- Instead of 500 piety, forming an Empire now requires 200 piety and holding all its King titles (ie England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland for Britannia).
- Agnatic succession will now improve the opinion of male dynasty members.
- Cognatic succession will now improve the opinion of female dynasty members.
- True Cognatic succession is now just called Cognatic succession.
- Agnatic succession will now exclude women from holding jobs.

0.07:
- Fixed another startup crash.

0.06:
- Fixed startup crash.
- It should no longer be necessary to create empty folders the first time you start up the mod.
- Added a new objective to become independent.
- Councillor attributes now affect their job actions all the way up to 25. Each individual point also matters for chance, instead of only certain threshold.
- Opinion boosts for granting titles now last a lifetime.
- Female characters that are either your spouse, in your dynasty or a ruler in your realm can now hold the titles of Chancellor and Spymaster.
- Greatly increased the positive opinion for being released from prison, to prevent chain-revolts.

0.05:
- A teenage ruler will now cause less vassal opinion penalties than a young child.
- Reduced the chance of less powerful vassals making a bid for independence unless there is already an independence war in progress.
- A victory in a bid for independence will now result in the liege not gaining claims on the revolter.
- A white peace in a bid for independence will now result in the revolter becoming independent.
- Disabled the creation of anti-popes until I can figure out a way to make them less unbalanced (as it is now they are basically massive amounts of free money forever).
- Increased the speed of sieges.

0.04:
- Fixed some bugs with flags and laws.

0.03:
- You now need 500 piety to create an Empire.
- All countries will now start with a feudal levy appropriate to their level of Crown Authority.
- Raised the Crown Authority of many smaller Kingdoms to Low on game start.
- Added a number of additional Empires so that most Kingdoms are part of a De Jure Empire.
- Integrated JonesMod which adds several new Kingdoms and Empires.

0.02:
- Reduced wrong demesne type penalty to -50%.
- Increased warscore for taking the enemy capital.
- Reduced the penalty for female ruler/heir.
- Added a vassal loyalty penalty for having a child ruler.
- Increased penalties of bankruptcy.
- Reduced stewardship effect on max demesne size.
- Added a new ambition to get a lover.
- Vassals will not declare wars of independence unless their liege is the top-level liege of the realm.

0.01:
- Revamped crown authority. Higher crown authority no longer lowers loyalty but also does not grant any levy benefits. Increasing crown authority requires a large amount of prestige and will very sharply reduce relations with your vassals.
- Feudal taxation and levy laws now have crown authority requirements attached to them, so that you cannot raise your vassal's entire levy with a low crown authority. You can still freely set city and temple laws.
- Tied minimum levy numbers to city/castle/temple laws.
- Vassals with an opinion of 0 or lower will now only provide the minimum number of troops.
- Vassals are now more likely to plot to reduce crown authority, especially during a regency.
- Reduced the crown authority requirements for succession laws. It is now Low for Seniority and Medium for Primogeniture.
- Increasing negative opinions for murdering relatives and spouses.
- Removed positive opinion boost from releasing prisoners since it's silly that your vassals love you for releasing a random muslim general you captured.
- If a vassal is fighting a war of independence, other vassals with negative opinions of their liege are likely to join in.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Only Paradox game I have is EU3 (with a bunch of the expansions... probably all? Was a cheap steam bundle). I've been trying to play in Japan, starting as a lesser Daimyo and try to conquer/unit japan then go west as far as I can. I can't go 30 years before being utterly fucked though. Chances are the shogun keeps me from declaring war to begin with. If not that, my leader dies without an heir to stop me. Even if I DO manage to go to war, my enemy gets supported by someone else. If I have support too, they abandon the fucking alliance. Even assuming it's just 1v1, the enemy starts with some bullshit awesome general and I can't even recruit one besides my leader, who either dies within 2 years or sucks balls anyways. It feels like the game is very very cemented in having certain groups be underdogs that lose no matter what unless you savescum, so you either play them and never get anywhere or play a strong faction and get bored because nothing can fight back. (Which basically happened when I gave up and played as Minamoto, only to have the game freeze anyways. Not that conquering helpless peons is terribly exciting to begin with.) And god, the fucking inflation/loan trap is infuriating. A few bad events or dont notice you made 2 extra regiments over your supply cap and you're stuck in and endless loop of hemhoraging money forever. Maybe lowering inflation is actually viable if you're a large nation that makes more than fucking 10 gold a month.




Is any of the shit I'm bitching about here actually valid? Is CK very different? In what ways? Should I give it a shot or go play something else?

 

[Malakal]

CK2 is rather different as smaller realms really stand a chance against bigger ones (well, not always but there are chances, especially early with mercenaries). Due to how demesne works you all get about as much income with maxed demesne.

Winning battles against superior forces is hard but winning wars is very much doable. Also everyone needs a valid casus belli so its harder to even declare war.

 

[Trash]

Game is about managing your dynasty and about all the drama that comes with powermongering relatives. Mappainting is secundary.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Only Paradox game I have is EU3 (with a bunch of the expansions... probably all? Was a cheap steam bundle). I've been trying to play in Japan, starting as a lesser Daimyo and try to conquer/unit japan then go west as far as I can. I can't go 30 years before being utterly fucked though. Chances are the shogun keeps me from declaring war to begin with. If not that, my leader dies without an heir to stop me. Even if I DO manage to go to war, my enemy gets supported by someone else. If I have support too, they abandon the fucking alliance. Even assuming it's just 1v1, the enemy starts with some bullshit awesome general and I can't even recruit one besides my leader, who either dies within 2 years or sucks balls anyways. It feels like the game is very very cemented in having certain groups be underdogs that lose no matter what unless you savescum, so you either play them and never get anywhere or play a strong faction and get bored because nothing can fight back. (Which basically happened when I gave up and played as Minamoto, only to have the game freeze anyways. Not that conquering helpless peons is terribly exciting to begin with.) And god, the fucking inflation/loan trap is infuriating. A few bad events or dont notice you made 2 extra regiments over your supply cap and you're stuck in and endless loop of hemhoraging money forever. Maybe lowering inflation is actually viable if you're a large nation that makes more than fucking 10 gold a month.




Is any of the shit I'm bitching about here actually valid? Is CK very different? In what ways? Should I give it a shot or go play something else?

You are correct. EU3 was designed on purpose so that Western European countries are likely steamroll the entire world. I've never seen an AI country Westernize (also, the Westernize decision is quite harsh to acquire), but if you do you can play European and steamroll everyone around you in short order. And yea, inflation kinda sucks as a mechanic since it's again something that only favours large countries with massive income. Also the AI cheats on military leaders because otherwise it would have absolutely no chance of being a threat in middle-late game.

Anyway, CK2 is a lot fairer in this regard to how much better the economy and domestic politics mechanics are. However, Christians still get better tech progress and have access to Holy Orders, which are essentially uber-hax armies against non-Christians. Also, the Pope can give you really meaty CBs, and Christians have holy war CB (muslims too).

 

[Trash]

CK2plus added holy orders for pagans and islamic nations as a fun surprise for anyone wanting to just grab some pagan lands.