CKII is released.

[Fedora Master]

Fucking hell I remember now why I stopped bothering with CK2. 25 Martial people getting fucking mutilated by 6 Martial randos every. single. battle.

Fuck Paradox.

Level 50 diplomat with 2000 direct vassals whom they send to die, represent.

And then you somehow manage to get ONE guy angry at you so he starts plotting, creates a faction and somehow gets joined by half your realm even though they love you.

 

[Delterius]

Fucking hell I remember now why I stopped bothering with CK2. 25 Martial people getting fucking mutilated by 6 Martial randos every. single. battle.

Fuck Paradox.

Level 50 diplomat with 2000 direct vassals whom they send to die, represent.

And then you somehow manage to get ONE guy angry at you so he starts plotting, creates a faction and somehow gets joined by half your realm even though they love you.

yer not killing them fast enough

vassals are like weeds and war is the herbicide

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, factions are annoying. Especially the elective monarchy factions. I just hate elective monarchy.
Basically, one should always try to rush for primogeniture or ultimogeniture, just so you can continue having a large demesne. That's the mistake I made during my Norse Empire campaign.

Anyway, finally got primogeniture and started building my demesne. For some reason though there are a lot more factions, and the English and Swedish kings are pushing for law changes in Norway for some weird reason.

 

[RK47]

Yeah, Elective Monarchy used to be better until they altered the meta.
Nowadays, pleasing your vassals is very inconsistent.
Better to just take Ultimo/Primogeniture.

Factions are parts and parcel of kingdoms tbh. You prepare for it by finding opportunities to deal with them.
Either you catch them in a plot that entitles you to imprison them, or you use your spymaster to leverage them out of factions play. Ambitious/Brave vassals won't bend this way, so it's best to promote Craven/Content ones.
I think the best part of 'justified imprisonment' is if the vassal resists arrest, you can beat them in a war and revoke their title at no penalty due to treason. So plan for both success/failure of capture by moving your levy & retinue close to the vassal's territory prior to making the arrest. Nothing like having 10,000-strong levy ready to invade an ambitious young duke's territory upon notice to minimize wartime.

 

[Average Manatee]

Elective is fool-proof if you simply bribe electors to vote for your desired heir.

 

[Preben]

Is there any way to prevent vassals from going primogeniture? I like them small and manageable, but they always start blobbing within my own realm somewhere in mid game.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, Elective Monarchy used to be better until they altered the meta.
Nowadays, pleasing your vassals is very inconsistent.
Better to just take Ultimo/Primogeniture.

Factions are parts and parcel of kingdoms tbh. You prepare for it by finding opportunities to deal with them.
Either you catch them in a plot that entitles you to imprison them, or you use your spymaster to leverage them out of factions play. Ambitious/Brave vassals won't bend this way, so it's best to promote Craven/Content ones.
I think the best part of 'justified imprisonment' is if the vassal resists arrest, you can beat them in a war and revoke their title at no penalty due to treason. So plan for both success/failure of capture by moving your levy & retinue close to the vassal's territory prior to making the arrest. Nothing like having 10,000-strong levy ready to invade an ambitious young duke's territory upon notice to minimize wartime.

Yeah, that's what I do. I suspect though that the game has a bit of code that knows if your moving your forces into to subdue the rebel, because arrests always seems to succeed when I mobilized my army.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Is there any way to prevent vassals from going primogeniture? I like them small and manageable, but they always start blobbing within my own realm somewhere in mid game.

Create an Empire, set Empire succession to gavelkind, but leave your own primary kingdom as primo.
Since the Empire title is higher than the kingdom title, its succession laws are the "official" one.
Or you can manually ensure that each vassal gets a county and nothing more, but that's a lot of tedious bullshit.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Elective is fool-proof if you simply bribe electors to vote for your desired heir.

Even then its not guaranteed, depends on diplo skill and requires a lot of money.

 

[Preben]

Is there any way to prevent vassals from going primogeniture? I like them small and manageable, but they always start blobbing within my own realm somewhere in mid game.

Create an Empire, set Empire succession to gavelkind, but leave your own primary kingdom as primo.
Since the Empire title is higher than the kingdom title, its succession laws are the "official" one.
Or you can manually ensure that each vassal gets a county and nothing more, but that's a lot of tedious bullshit.

Thanks.
I want my vassal realms to fracture with each generation. I am way too lazy to manage them manually each time.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Is there any way to prevent vassals from going primogeniture? I like them small and manageable, but they always start blobbing within my own realm somewhere in mid game.

Create an Empire, set Empire succession to gavelkind, but leave your own primary kingdom as primo.
Since the Empire title is higher than the kingdom title, its succession laws are the "official" one.
Or you can manually ensure that each vassal gets a county and nothing more, but that's a lot of tedious bullshit.

Thanks.
I want my vassal realms to fracture with each generation. I am way too lazy to manage them manually each time.

Keep in mind though that you still have to ask your vassals to accept gavelkind, which means keeping them happy.

Is there a way to retract vassals without causing a revolt? The Lappland king has a bit of Norway and the English king has a bit of sweden, and I don't want them to have those lands.
Partially because I'm planning on making Norse Brittania.

 

[wwsd]

Is there any way to prevent vassals from going primogeniture? I like them small and manageable, but they always start blobbing within my own realm somewhere in mid game.

You can demand that they adapt Gavelkind in some cases, but this will usually be in return for a favour.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So I now own Scotland and Sweden after a sneaky usurp of the Swedish crown and a claim war for a kinsman. My threat level is 75% and everyone has a defensive pact against me, even the Byzantine Empire.
My vassals keep attacking catholic countries and losing, causing moral authority to drop which is super annoying and stupid but as the worst offenders are not dejure part of the Empire increasing crown authority won't do much.
Basically, I'm Archaon. Just except without the End Times part, because apparently declaring a Great Holy War triggers the defensive pact. Which is bullshit but anyway.

 

[RK47]

Wow. Great Library event added 1 more holding slot to my county. :D
That and 1500-strong Honor Guard is totally worth it.

 

[Average Manatee]

Wow. Great Library event added 1 more holding slot to my county. :D
That and 1500-strong Honor Guard is totally worth it.

That event is common to all great works but has kind of shitty requirements to get the event. You need to be at peace shortly after the 2nd improvement finishes. Though if you "fail" to get it you can finish another improvement to try again. Even the great works that exist in the game from the start can generate these free holding slots. https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Great_works#A_Town_Is_Born

Not sure where you get the honor guard from? Are you referring to the retinue boost from the Royal Palace? It's definitely the 2nd best great work right behind Great Walls

 

[Fedora Master]

Middle East Jaypeg

 

[Average Manatee]

My understanding is that christians are the only ones who always work to actively convert the realm, other religions only do so if they have a zealous ruler which leads to a lot of religion gore.

 

[RK47]

Eh, my game the Pope never seem interested in retaking Hispania. So the Muslims formed an Empire there.
We did take back Egypt - but as usual it's getting gangbanged post-Crusades with not much hope of surviving for long.

 

[Fedora Master]

Catholicism is extremely strong in my game, but I started in 1066 so that's to be expected.

My heir got kebab'd

 

[RK47]

was about to say that.
Crazy plague coincided with Crusade to retake Aquitane.
Made for some really bleak shit.
I lost 2 adult heirs before they even hit 20 years old.
Courtiers and vassals were dying like flies.
The highlight of it all was catching my Steward stealing kingdom fund event...that amounted to 3000+ gold

Luckily my 61-year-old king's dick still works on a 19-year-old wife and he made 2 more heirs before passing away.
And the best part of winning the Crusade is the massive prestige and piety bonus that cancels away the negative opinions from the vassal.

Now to survive the plague as two brothers aged 4 and 1-year-old.

 

[Fedora Master]

You look away from Europe for ONE SECOND

ONE

SECOND

Spoiler

 

[Fedora Master]

IT KEEPS HAPPENING

 

[vonAchdorf]

It's a 2020 not a 1020 simulator.

 

[Fedora Master]

Shit like this shows how the AI isn't actually playing the game or has any real agency. Too bad I can't fix this fuckery myself, too weak.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

You look away from Europe for ONE SECOND

ONE

SECOND

Spoiler

Did you have secret societies on, and do you have monks and mystics?
Because if yes to the first and no to the second, expect shit like this to happen a lot.
Made my attempt at a Slavic Russian Empire an absolute nightmare, because fuckers kept converting to Old Slavic en Masse even though that's a dead religion. Serious, like 80% of my dynasty converted and refused to reform. Fuck off Paradox, if you are going to add mechanics to the base game, at least have the decency to make it playable without one of your DLC.