Crusader Kings 2

[Lohrenswald]

It would perhaps trivialise the game a bit, but I'm considering turning off vassall limit in future games.
I've already changed to very easy, turned off defensive pacts and shattered retreat (although that one I maybe should turn back on), so it's not really that huge step

should probably have mentioned turning off defensive pacts when I posted the Ming empire. Maybe I did and just forgot. Anyway that's like something I've hated ever since it came out, but at the same time as that was introduced they started to let you decide what game rules to play with, so.

Also @Quintillus you probably already know but I think that even as a horde you can build silk road tradeposts if you're concerned with getting steady income.
That's honestly what's bothered me a lot with playing hordes or vikings. Having to go out and do stuff to get money instead of just generating it

 

[Quintillus]

It would perhaps trivialise the game a bit, but I'm considering turning off vassall limit in future games.
I've already changed to very easy, turned off defensive pacts and shattered retreat (although that one I maybe should turn back on), so it's not really that huge step

should probably have mentioned turning off defensive pacts when I posted the Ming empire. Maybe I did and just forgot. Anyway that's like something I've hated ever since it came out, but at the same time as that was introduced they started to let you decide what game rules to play with, so.

Also @Quintillus you probably already know but I think that even as a horde you can build silk road tradeposts if you're concerned with getting steady income.
That's honestly what's bothered me a lot with playing hordes or vikings. Having to go out and do stuff to get money instead of just generating it

I also have defensive pacts turned off. I started playing back in the 1.x days, and to me it always seemed like a feature that was backported from EUIV for multiplayer balance purposes, rather than one that made sense in the timeframe. After all, the main "defensive pacts" - nearby nations of the same faith having the option to join defensive holy wars - has always been in the game, and I have a hard time thinking of other good examples from the time period. Even when the Mongols invaded it was not common for former enemies to band together against them.

The main other deviation I have from the base rules (I have Shattered Retreat on; I have mixed feelings on it but prefer it to EU3-style ping-pong) is that humiliation/torture/poetry no longer auto-frees prisoners. Again that rule was not present in early versions of CKII, and I have a hard time reconciling it with the time period. But as <s>Khal Drogo</s> Khagan Drogan is a kind Khagan, the modus operandi with prisoners so far has been pretty humane, and centered around collecting ransom.

I did recently discover Silk Road tradeposts! I just conquered one in Samarkand, and also have started building Yams in my capital. So that's a nice income boost. I've also kept one settled province as a vassal rather than razing it, to help with the long-term income problem. I suspect as I go into the Middle East, India, or the Caucasus, I'll start keeping a higher proportion of settled provinces as-is.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Lack of ability to land a claimant + press claim is one of the drawbacks hordes have.

I was able to get the White Hun achievement. I didn't change any game rules other than disabling defensive pacts, as it usually just winds up as a wait fest. Beating western protectorate for required land with China throwing 150k attrition-less troops in my face was unpleasant but I managed. Fighting off the Seljuks was very easy.

 

[Ailedhoo]

Doing a House Blackfyre run on A Game of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings 2, starting as Daemon during hte Blackfyre rebellion which ended up through my run succeeding with Daemon the Dragon becoming King of the Seven Kingdoms: currently on a regency as a child queen after the grandson of Daemon died at sea, while his father was killed by his brother via dual. The queen I am is the second one; sadly the elder one was assassinated by unknown forces.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I'm playing with some nefarious mods and gamerules that make things relatively eay for me. For the most part I could have gotten to the same territorial extent except turning off vassal limits, that's the biggest thing

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can get more vassal limit via tech. Can hold the entire old world by using king viceroyalties, later giving multiple kingdoms to one guy so he counts as only 1 vassal. Even w/o special tricks your retinues and such are too much for rebellion by then.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I mean if you look back on the previous couple of pages you can see that I managed to take the entire map as the zunbils with a vassal limit that reached almost 50, but in the next game playing as Rome had struggles with it early on. For that one I think I could've been more clever with transferring vassalage, but I got kinda exhausted by it

so this time I felt like playing without vasall limits (and I also played ck2 back before that was introduced). It did make things a lot simpler, to the point all I've done in this game might not really be an achievement at all, but I dunno, I didn't want to deal with it

Also I've found for the most part retinues to be pretty useless, because of how expensive they are. Almost all the time I find it better to spend the money on buildings that improve levies or mercenaries in emergencies

I made an exception right now when I invaded China though

 

[Lohrenswald]

At least on steam, maybe other stores, haven't checked, you can get the basegame of CK2 for free until 20. october (but you get to keep it forever after)

dlc also discounted

 

[Quintillus]

Decided to start my annual CKII game a few weeks early this year, and with a slightly different focus. Instead of trying to conquer a large amount of land, my goal was to transform the Emirate of Cordoba into the center of leaning, culture, and trade that it historically became, but hopefully without the gradual decline and fall. Supremacy over the Asturians and Abbasids would be secondary goals, and thus far I have not launched a single external war.

So far, it has been fairly interesting, particularly exploring the Monks and Mystics features. I took Abd Al-Rahman I, who starts with fairly average statistics, and by the time of his demise had his learning up to 37, five more than the next-highest in the world, despite being neither quick nor a genius. And sure enough, the technology points started coming in pretty quickly those last few years. Granted, the sum of all his other attribute points was only 32, but if you're going to write your magnum opus on something, you might as well be highly specialized in it.

His heir, alas, joined Lucifer's Own. Interestingly, however, that allowed me to learn that the Pope was also worshipping Satan, and has been a member of the society since well before becoming Pope. I don't know how they missed that during the conclave! Thankfully, as Sunni, we are not sheep being lead to the underworld.

 

[Arakhor]

The DLC Sword of Islam is still free to keep as of today on Steam. Grab it whilst it's available.

 

[Ailedhoo]

In light of the upcoming Crusader Kings 3 I have taken the opportunity to make a new thread.