CKII is released.

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I tried Erik once, I got screwed over by inheritance and a random-as-hell attack from the Finns.

 

[sser]

As Duke I conquered all that I could then eventually took Sweden over from the inside as Erik's son; the Swedish king was always under attack for this or that and gets weak real quick.

But then across my wife and concubines the son had ZERO legitimate heirs and the game just ended there.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

But then across my wife and concubines the son had ZERO legitimate heirs and the game just ended there.

Damn, I know that feel!

When I need emergency heirs, I turn on seduction focus and seduce hot girls with big congenital traits.

And that, kids, is why I think Agnatic-Cognatic is best. Keeps the sons as the main-line, but if you run out of sons, you get the daughters as reserves. Also, allows use of matrilineal marriages to secure territory.

 

[sser]

But then across my wife and concubines the son had ZERO legitimate heirs and the game just ended there.

Damn, I know that feel!

When I need emergency heirs, I turn on seduction focus and seduce hot girls with big congenital traits.

And that, kids, is why I think Agnatic-Cognatic is best. Keeps the sons as the main-line, but if you run out of sons, you get the daughters as reserves. Also, allows use of matrilineal marriages to secure territory.

Yeah I switch to AgCog asap if I can, but I don't think I could in this situation. It did save one of my Wessex runs when I had like six daughters and zero sons.

The thing about the Erik start is you're hated by almost everyone cause you're a heathen, so it's a nice uphill battle to get anything approved or done. I'm not even sure what happens if you successfully flesh it out - you might start getting crusaded or something nasty.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Running my West Mongolia campaign, I found that eventually going Absolute Cognatic with a system that gives such a high degree of control as Eldership provides you with even more ability to stack bloodlines and breed ultimate lifeforms.

The thing about the Erik start is you're hated by almost everyone cause you're a heathen, so it's a nice uphill battle to get anything approved or done. I'm not even sure what happens if you successfully flesh it out - you might start getting crusaded or something nasty.

Yes you would, albeit if you by then have reformed Germanic paganism you'll probably have at least advantage in having superior religion bonuses (most likely you'll be Unyielding, so the crusader will have to deal with nearly double-sized garrisons and heavy winter attrition). Albeit Germanic doesn't have as good as a Warrior Lodge as Finno-Ugrics do, having a dial-a-trait for Winter Combat bonuses is serious can of asswhooping in your corner.

 

[Space Satan]

The fight never ends

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How does the vassal tribal call to arms work? Because I'm finding it really hard to expand in Eastern Europe, due to my vassals refusing to accept call to arms. I might as well revoke everything on start, take my vassal's lands and try to steam roll everything.

 

[vonAchdorf]

I think it's handled like an alliance. If they like you and have nothing else to do, they might answer the call.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I think it's handled like an alliance. If they like you and have nothing else to do, they might answer the call.

That's why I thought, but my vassals had positive opinion. Hell, one of them had 80+, and he was still like "No"
Is it a slav thing? I was playing as Rurik, and my vassals didn't join in against Slavs, but they did against soumensken (or whatever the fuck they are) and Romuvans

 

[vonAchdorf]

I think they also take into account, how much they like the enemy, but I'd have to look it up.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I think they also take into account, how much they like the enemy, but I'd have to look it up.

Yeah, I read about that too, and my vassal's opinion of me is still higher. Does it have to be in the red or something? How can I even do that?
I really don't like how tribals are handled. They feel really annoying to play as, especially if you want to reform the faith.

 

[Norfleet]

How does the vassal tribal call to arms work? Because I'm finding it really hard to expand in Eastern Europe, due to my vassals refusing to accept call to arms. I might as well revoke everything on start, take my vassal's lands and try to steam roll everything.

If they agree to join you, and unless they hate you and like your enemy, they usually do, for me, they raise their full levies as blue armies under their control, which you can give loose orders to like "go attack this province" or "follow me" or "find someone to kill", or just let them run amok. All in all, they make a pretty good point defense system you don't have to micromanage if you're large enough, as setting them to Hunt will cause them to shoot down all the little annoying armies the AI sends at you from random directions.

 

[34scell]

Just be a a woman with attractive and seductress.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Odd that imperial generals need to be landed, when feudal don't.

Under Roman Empire Duxes/Douxes/Strategoi are in theory at least still generals appointed by Emperor I don't know if its in Vanilla but in HIP game they need Imperial assent to inherit their provincial/thematic Governship so its natural that if you appoint the landless people as generals there would be strong opposition to this to say it least. New election model is great I forced Bazyli II in 1018 AD start to marry and have son, the emperor died in 1026 when the prince was a child but I did gave him before the death the reconquered from Arabs theme of Sicily (Real Life Basil II planned to reconquer it too) so once he was 15 and raised rebellion to get back his father imperial diadem the drunkard died and Senate in Constantinople and Army elected him instead without even closing on city avoiding costly civil war. People say that Orthodoxy is lacking events that might be true but new Imperial politics add enough to offset this. My Emperor is half Slav too being son of Daughter of Croatian King, fun event was that when this King died the Croatian uncle took throne but was forced to become Roman client state. Even managed to convert him to Orthodoxy later and make Croatia imperial Exarchy later when he ''accidentally'' died later and his daughter took over. After all Constantine VIII had greater claim than her. Going to marry him to Serbian princess now to make Tzarogrod Slav again!

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How does the vassal tribal call to arms work? Because I'm finding it really hard to expand in Eastern Europe, due to my vassals refusing to accept call to arms. I might as well revoke everything on start, take my vassal's lands and try to steam roll everything.

If they agree to join you, and unless they hate you and like your enemy, they usually do, for me, they raise their full levies as blue armies under their control, which you can give loose orders to like "go attack this province" or "follow me" or "find someone to kill", or just let them run amok. All in all, they make a pretty good point defense system you don't have to micromanage if you're large enough, as setting them to Hunt will cause them to shoot down all the little annoying armies the AI sends at you from random directions.

Yes, I know what happens if they join. Its just that, even with nearly 100 positive opinion, my Tribal Vassal simply refuses to join in any war against another Slavic power when I'm Rurik. I can not expand past Polotsk because of this, as I have about 4k from my Demense, and the High Chief of Polotsk has about 6k. By the time I get vassals who aren't complete cunts, Polotsk has either expanded rapidly to the point where he can field 10k from his vassals, or it get consumed by a larger power. It is so annoying trying to play as a tribal high chief because of this, as I quickly get confined to a small area, while every other chief can just declare war at will without having to worry about shitty vassals.

I simply don't understand it. There is no reason that I could see why my Vassals wouldn't join. Maybe I should just start revoking that Torvokh asshole's lands so he's not sitting on 1k men doing nothing.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Maybe they have marriage ties or non-aggression pacts with the target.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Maybe they have marriage ties or non-aggression pacts with the target.

Nah, I checked that. I didn't see anything under the Pacts section corresponding to the targets.

A bit of context -

Rurik start, 876
Rurik has culture - Norse, and Religion Germanic.
He has 1 Vassal, Radoslav, Chief of Torvokh or whatever its called.
Radoslav is a Russian Slav who starts with a high opinion (50+) of Rurik.

DLC used - Old Gods (obviously), A Way of Life, Reaper's Due, Legacy of Rome.

If I declare war on any other Slav, Radoslav refuses to join in. This makes expansion really difficult, as I can't really expand southward as I don't have the demesne to deal with them. I can expand east, because they aren't Slavs, and I can take Pskov, because my Demesne does outnumber them, but if I want to make the Tsardom or reform the Slavic faith I'm pretty much fucked.
I got pretty far in my first attempt, in that I did reform the faith and convert to feudalism, but still no Empire, which I need for when the fucking muslims decide to start a Jihad with their 30k+ murderstacks.

Its really annoying. I might as well just play Norse Scandinavia or Convert to Orthodox, but where's the fun in that?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Right, so I worked it out. Slavs will refuse to go to war with other slavs if your ruler is a foreign religion. When I converted to Slavic they started to behave themselves.
Now, the new problem is that Polotsk is a single duchy with 19 vassals, which means about 9000 vassal reinforcements.
If it were a duke with multiple duke titles, I would try to assassinate him and cause a split, but here its just one guy with a single duke title and a bunch of vassals. I can't even declare war on him because we are both Reformed Pagan.

 

[majorsoccer]

Imagine a Political Grand Strategy game like Crusaders Kings 2 mixed with Dune 1 immersive gameplay style ?



Holy shit ! gives me chiils to even thinking about a game like this

 

[vonAchdorf]

The Great Works update has been released earlier this week (for free). I'll wait for their hot fixes before playing.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Shit mang, fo real?

 

[Higher Game]

I've lately figured out that taxes always beat levies. Levies aren't important early on, when you're still building infrastructure, and they don't work consistently later because you're regularly waiting for threat to go down. But gold is always gold.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah, it's been that way ever since they overhauled the levy system: https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Levies#Liege_Levy

It massively reduced the amount of levies you can pull since most kingdoms or empires will average 25-50% of what they should get per the law. But tax is never diminished, and you only need 0 opinion for max tax while levies require 100.

 

[Space Satan]

You will fight with retinues and your demesne army anyway. And for raiding I always use my retinue. With unique slavic heavy infantry you barely take any damage and can plunder France and England as your please, landing wating 1-3 days and then storming the castle.

 

[Higher Game]

Yeah, it's been that way ever since they overhauled the levy system: https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Levies#Liege_Levy

It massively reduced the amount of levies you can pull since most kingdoms or empires will average 25-50% of what they should get per the law. But tax is never diminished, and you only need 0 opinion for max tax while levies require 100.

Gold was easier to get when you could imprison, title strip, and banish a rich baron who had already fully developed his holding generations ago. They end up hoarding thousands of gold. But now, I try that and they change liege, so suddenly I have an insanely rich vassal I have to figure out how to get to spend his wealth in a productive way. Leaving him more levies for his border dispute wars is a good start.

It's still worth using the intrigue focus for this reason alone, but it doesn't completely dominate the business focus anymore.