Crusader Kings 2

[madviking]

Old Gods May 28th

 

[Golden1Knight]

With Old Gods the things are going to be hard. Use Munster to conquer Ireland, then Spain and England with vikings storming my beachs killing and raiding my green kingdom is impossible. BUT, play with that vikings, storming the others beachs, killing and raiding foreign lands, will be very cool.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

Current game, starting as the count of Sens.

Spoiler :

Started in Sens (Green) and managed to gain control of the duchy of Champagne (Orange). After that became the duke of Burgundy after marrying the duchess (red). Finally, I fabricated a claim on the Kingdom of France, and the king surrendered the title. At that point I fought off the inevitable civil war, and replaced most of the Occitan lords with Frankish ones. Many of the counts in Toulouse are still Occitan though. Until I took over, France had been in constant civil war, not going more than four or five years without a civil war, and typically having one after another. Blue outline is the border of France when I took over.

Conquered Anjou and Brittany, and started working on taking Normandy. I managed to get the Pope to sanction an invasion of the Holy Roman Empire who were incredibly weak, with crown authority at minimal and practically no levies to draw upon.

 

[uat2d]

What are 60000 mongols doing in Aquileia?

 

[Arakhor]

Maybe they've read CFC and are trying to cross the Po River?

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

What are 60000 mongols doing in Aquileia?

I honestly have no idea. I saw that when playing and looked around, but couldn't figure it out. They converted to Orthodoxy and are no longer doing Mongol invasions, and the only war they are fighting is some de jure war with Sweden.

 

[Maniacal]

Maybe they don't have a big enough fleet?

 

[Double A]

Maybe they're just there because it's a chokepoint and they want to screw everyone else over with attrition.

 

[coanda]

Interesting challenging start for anyone who feels like it - El Cid, Valencia, 1094. Prosper without swearing fealty to HRE or France. Probably take several quick restarts just to avoid a game-ending Holy War for Valencia from the Almoravids right out the gate.

You have just one county, and it's a pitifully under-developed county compared to those of your Muslim neighbors. You will need mercenaries and/or allies; good luck getting them.

 

[uat2d]

Interesting challenging start for anyone who feels like it - El Cid, Valencia, 1094. Prosper without swearing fealty to HRE or France. Probably take several quick restarts just to avoid a game-ending Holy War for Valencia from the Almoravids right out the gate.

You have just one county, and it's a pitifully under-developed county compared to those of your Muslim neighbors. You will need mercenaries and/or allies; good luck getting them.

Spoiler :

 

[coanda]

... ahaha! I started a half-dozen times and never saw the Pope call a Crusade for Andalusia. Nice job winning it.

 

[Double A]

I saw it happen once, and I won it as the Duke of Flanders. My son was the King of Aquitaine, son of the daughter of the very late megaduke.

My borders were atrocious.

 

[uat2d]

... ahaha! I started a half-dozen times and never saw the Pope call a Crusade for Andalusia. Nice job winning it.

You were right, you're often DoWed very early and it gives you hardly any chance to survive (that is, if you don't swear fealty to anyone).

I deserve no credit, as you can see from the picture, I have a lot of gold, I cheated it in to buy mercs and survive the first war and when the pope called the Crusade I won it quite easily and decided to take a printscreen of it

I was just fooling around, though the challenge is there and it's possible to succeed despite the odds being stacked against you

 

[coanda]

Banishment can earn you lot of money...
Expansions, in order, were... claim on duchy of normandy during french civil war; some little county in Ireland; invasion of Scotland; invasion of England; Invasion of Denmark (requested and stored since back before I even invaded Scotland). Also had an invasion of Norway CB, and three more county claims in Ireland, but ruler death made me lose all those.
Too much of a hassle dealing with the constant rebellion pop-ups and managing every troop individually, so I'm abandoning the game here. If I was going to keep playing, next two moves would be Invasion of HRE (just buy 20 Papal indulgences for 500 gold to get the piety and relations with Pope needed), then push a brother's claim on France to add that to the bag.

 

[Wir0s]

Ignoring the performance issue (slows down a lot) ... I enjoyed that game. As a Catalan, to conquer the Iberian peninsula to the crown of Aragon, instead of the Castilian crown was great.

Catalonia came back to dominate the Mediterranean! : P

 

[civ_king]

Ignoring the performance issue (slows down a lot) ... I enjoyed that game. As a Catalan, to conquer the Iberian peninsula to the crown of Aragon, instead of the Castilian crown was great.

Catalonia came back to dominate the Mediterranean! : P

I assume you made it so Aragon was ruled by Catalans instead of Castellanos? Did you liberate your Occitan brothers?

 

[cybrxkhan]

New Dev Diary, on some of the new events and decisions, as well as a bit of stuff on the Zoroastrians: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...Dev-Diary-5-Events-Decisions-and-Zoroastrians


For those who can't see the link or don't want to bother:

Hello, I'm CK2 developer Goosecreature. You may remember me from such Dev Diaries as "Events and Decisions" and "The Heathens are Coming." Today I'll be talking a bit about - you guessed it - the events and decisions of The Old Gods. This DLC will introduce many of these and not just for the Vikings.

As a Norse Pagan, you can hold a blot every nine years during winter. This is a good way of making your vassals like you more, and it is somewhat similar to a feast with one big difference – the human sacrifice. During a blot, four random prisoners will be brought up from your dungeon and you will have to decide whether or not to sacrifice them to the Allfather for prestige and piety. If you have no prisoners, some nameless thralls will be sacrificed instead but this won't bring you nearly as much renown. Anyone can be sacrificed, including close family members, but you will earn extra piety if your victim is a Christian or a Muslim. These are harsh times and the world is not a friendly place.

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Another way of increasing your prestige is to commission a runestone. This can be done only once in a character's lifetime, and you can choose to devote it either to yourself or one of your parents. The Scandinavian dueling tradition of holmgång is also in the game, and Norse characters can, under certain circumstances, challenge each other to single combat on an isolated islet. There are also events for Norse characters leaving to join the Varangian Guard, the discovery of Greenland and Vinland, characters gaining the Viking or Berserker traits, the appearance of the Jomsvikings and the Seljuks, völur (mystic seers) joining your court, and many more.

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The Mongols will have a decision to hold the nerge, a great hunt in which most of their army participates. This is in essence a massive military training exercise that sees the different wings of the Mongol army coordinating maneuvers and driving wildlife before them in close formation. Once encircled, the wildlife is killed and the army gains both provisions and invaluable experience working together as a single fighting force. Doing this will give your armies a morale boost.

Suomenusko pagans will be able to hold the Ukon Juhla festival, where they worship the god Ukko in the hope of improving their harvests. For Romuva pagans, the Užgavenes festival can be held in spring, where effigies to winter are burnt and the coming of summer is celebrated. Finally, Slavic pagans can hold a festival in the name of the god Jarilo, in which a random vassal is given the honor of representing Jarilo and paraded around wearing bells and other glamorous clothing.

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This doesn't cover everything, but as I wanted to write a bit about something else, it will have to do for now.

There have been a lot of requests for us to go into more detail on the Zoroastrians, which is something we hadn't originally planned to do for the Dev Diaries. In order to please YOU (yes, you in particular), the next part of this diary will be devoted to them.

For those who aren't familiar with it, Zoroastrianism is an ancient religion that originated in Persia. It predates the Abrahamic faiths by quite a bit, and was the state religion of the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sassanid empires. Its decline as a major religion came with the Arab invasion of Persia and the spread of Islam in the 7th century, but pockets would still remain in the Central Asian hinterlands of the former Sassanid Empire centuries later.

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By 867, the common folk in several parts of Persia still cling to Zoroastrianism but they are the subjects of Muslim rulers and their conversion to the Mohammedan faith is only a matter of time. Just north of these domains, along the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, Satrap Vandad of the Karen dynasty rules the last independent Zoroastrian realm on the map. This is a challenging starting position and reclaiming Persia and its holy sites for the Zoroastrian faith will not be easy, but it can be done.

Zoroastrianism is not a member of the Pagan religious group, and so they have no need to reform their religion. They will start the game in 867 without a High Priest, but if you hold the Persian Empire there is a decision to restore the position of the Moabadan-Moabad (the Priest of Priests). Just like the Pope, this priest can grant divorces and sanction invasions against other Zoroastrian realms. You'll probably be the only one at this point, so this likely won't do you much good unless your carefully built Zoroastrian empire fragments in civil war.

Also, Zoroastrian rulers are able to enter holy marriages with close relatives of the opposite gender. Such a sacred union will increase their standing among vassals, but producing a healthy heir may become a problem... fortunately, you can always fall back on your concubines for that.

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If you manage to stage a miraculous Zoroastrian recovery and reclaim the Persian Empire, you will have the option of declaring yourself the Saoshyant, the chosen savior of the world mentioned in prophecy by Zoroaster himself. This will not only earn you a new nickname, but you will also get a new trait that significantly boosts the opinion of all Zoroastrian characters towards you. All future descendants of the Saoshyant will also get a less powerful version of this trait, even if they convert to a different religion.

That's all I have for now. I hope you'll have a pleasant Wednesday!

Oddly they didn't mention the West African pagans.

 

[civ_king]

Which CK2 mod is best?

 

[Arakhor]

My favourite is either Elder Kings (Tamriel) or Glorious Knights and Terrors in the Night (vampire mod), though CK2's Magna Mundi is CK2 Plus, in that it's very popular, but its fans are seemingly obliged to plug its use in response to absolutely any question about how to change a feature in the vanilla game. Other popular ones include The Prince and the Thane or the Games of Thrones mod.

 

[Sonereal]

I haven't played Elder Kings yet, but the Game of Thrones mod is a lot of fun.