Crusader Kings 2

[Double A]

Isn't Beth not a guy?

 

[plarq]

The Most Serene Republic of Sicily players built looks exactly like a mafia nation, with five families and a commission, and a doge named Don.

 

[Double A]

The Most Serene Republic of Sicily players built looks exactly like a mafia nation, with five families and a commission, and a doge named Don.

 

[Mosher]

We should make it a habit of linking pornographic comic strips to cfc threads, AA.

 

[Sonereal]

We should make it a habit of linking pornographic comic strips to cfc threads, AA.

Which...which part of that is pornographic?

 

[PhroX]

Which...which part of that is pornographic?

That particular one doesn't appear to be, but the comic as a whole features regular nudity and sexual conent. Usually played for laughs, but rather graphic none-the-less.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Third ROI dev diary from yesterday:

Hi everyone!

I'm Tobias Bodlund, also known as The Witch-King on the forums. I work as a scripter on the Crusader Kings II team and I will be giving you this weeks' dev diary!

Today we're going to talk about events. You will find that not only do many interesting things happen in India - they are also often different to the things that happen in Europe and the Middle East. When expanding the game east into Asia, one of the things we wanted to do was to properly give that feeling of being on a new continent, in a different part of the world. New lands, new events - not in Kansas anymore (more close to Karnataka, in fact).

Obviously we've worked hard to provide a different environment and flavor through things such as the mechanics surrounding the new religions etc, but an important part of Crusader Kings II has always been the various random events than occur, and we have a bunch of new ones for India. The many new events include several longer chains of linked events, of the kind that tells smaller stories within the grander story of your dynasty. We also have a number of minor random events as well as events connected to the new feast and hunt decisions.

View attachment 101855

Decisions, yes... we are adding a number of new decisions specific to India. For one, there are the religious conversion decisions mentioned in a previous dev diary, but you will also be able to convert to the religion of a spouse under certain conditions, just like in other parts of the world. Hindu characters will also be allowed to choose their personal patron deity, it's a choice that in some cases may open up interesting options. The Indian cultural decisions include the traditional autumn feast Diwali (or the Kali Puja for those so inclined), with associated events. There is also the tiger hunt, which is a social occasion as well as a possibility for display of martial prowess.

Oh, and the gurus of course. You may invite a guru to reside at your court if you are prepared to risk getting some good advice. And strange yogis may appear when you least expect and have interesting things to say.

View attachment 101856

As far as the things you do see, we've put in a lot of work, but there has also been a lot of "invisible" work with this expansion. One thing we've had to do, for example, is go through all the events in the game and adapt triggers to make sure that things which shouldn't happen in India don't. It's a completely different world in the east, so there are a number of things that should definitely not appear there.
Well, that's what I had to say about events and decisions right now. The screenshots give a few illustrations of the kind of things you can expect (note that it's still early days for graphics so the event pictures, portaits and unit models are not the final ones).

View attachment 101854

A bit underwhelming, we knew much of that to some extent and the screenshots aren't too exciting, I have a feeling ROI might be delayed.

Anyhow, a few other things mentioned by the devs in the thread:
- total of six Hindu deities to choose from
- Buddhism and Jainism will have branches to choose from, with three for Buddhism (which will likely be Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana) but they did not say whether these were different branches of the religion (ie like Sunni vs Shia), traits like the Ashari Mutzalite split, traits like the Hindu patron gods, or something else entirely
- unique Indian interface and shield graphics confirmed

 

[Double A]

We should make it a habit of linking pornographic comic strips to cfc threads, AA.

I approve of this plan.

 

[Luckymoose]

We should make it a habit of linking pornographic comic strips to cfc threads, AA.

I'm shocked you haven't been banned for saying the word pornographic.

 

[warpus]

I loaded up this game again after getting my feet wet a bit a couple months ago and failing in spectacular fashion to accomplish much of notice. I had fun but my family & country always ended up getting the shaft in one way or another.

Anyway, I started a couple games this weekend and the third one stuck. I learned a bunch of things along the way and am now at a point where I have a save in the year 1140 or something like that that I intend to play through to the end of the game, so that I can convert the save file to eu3 or 4 and continue playing (that's possible, right?)

I've so far always played this game as King of Poland and what always seems to happen is the king has a bunch of kids and then the kids fight it out at some point for the crown after the dad has died. I have stopped giving anyone who has Piast blood a title, and it helps, but there's still usually problems. I have noticed that in some cases the grandkids have good luck keeping the country stable, but I'm not exactly sure what dynamics are responsible for that. Maybe someone who is still reading could give me some tips? I've learned to keep my demesne large enough for a strong royal army and I keep all my subjects as happy as possible, throwing the ones who act out against me into the dungeon.

I also try to marry off my daughters to young princes who have a decent chance of becoming heirs.. I make all of those marriages matri-whatever, so that the Piast dynasty can continue in far away lands. I would marry heirs directly, but there's never any available it seems. I marry off my sons using similar criteria - to princesses from prominent nations (byzantime, hre, sweden, castille, etc.), princesses who have a chance of becoming heir..

It seems like my marriage strategy is solid, but.. is it? It seems to keep the rest of the family happier when they're married to important people - with less of a risk of them creating a faction to take the crown from you? Or is this only a coincidence and/or my imagination? Plus it seems to actually spread the Piast dynasty from time to time! Right before I quit yesterday I noticed that the Byzantine Empire had a Piast on the throne! My brother married a Byzantine princess and I guess she ended up becoming heir at some point when I wasn't watching.. and then the king died and.. the Piasts are in!

I really hate fighting all those civil wars though, what else can I do to try to prevent them?

I am also not 100% certain about the rules in the game that determine which character you control. At one point I was King of Poland and my brother was fighting a civil war against me. He won the war and next thing you know I'm controlling my daughter - the now ex princess of Poland. Huh? So I play as her for a while - and everyone hated her for some reason - and end up in jail and die. When that happened, I became the ex King again, which made sense to me.. but that initial switch to the daughter didn't. Can someone explain that? Cause I have had my crown taken away from me before and I always kept on playing as the same character. So what was different in this case? Is it that I didn't have any heirs before? That's possible, I guess..

So now I'm playing as the son of the guy above, King of Poland. My wife just died and so I berothed the Ruthenian princess, who is 10. She wasn't a heir when I found her, but I just checked and she is actually the QUEEN of Ruthenia. What will happen when we marry? Won't I be King of Poland and King of Ruthenia at the same time? What happens then? I don't.. inherit Ruthenia or something, do I? That would be awesome, as in my game it is quite huge

 

[Double A]

It seems like my marriage strategy is solid, but.. is it?

It can bite you in the ass if someone gets a claim on your country (but that always happens when kids marry), or if you go senority, you might get stabbed (but that's a normal risk of senority). I generally prefer marrying my first son to a chick with heritable traits like genius and having my other kids get political marriages, though if I can actually get some decent land out of it, I definitely marry my first son to the lady in question. I will generally try to get the best traits while minimizing prestige loss from a lower class wife (but it's not really an issue once I'm the strongest nation because I have more prestige than I know what to do with). I almost never marry off someone if it means the kids won't be in my line, but that's personal preference because I usually use the ruler designer - I can't found a proper dynasty if only one other member can produce more members.

So now I'm playing as the son of the guy above, King of Poland. My wife just died and so I berothed the Ruthenian princess, who is 10. She wasn't a heir when I found her, but I just checked and she is actually the QUEEN of Ruthenia. What will happen when we marry? Won't I be King of Poland and King of Ruthenia at the same time? What happens then? I don't.. inherit Ruthenia or something, do I? That would be awesome, as in my game it is quite huge

Your first son will inherit both. A lot of her vassals and court members are gonna try to kill her because of that - they want to be independent from the smelly foreigner.

 

[warpus]

It can bite you in the ass if someone gets a claim on your country (but that always happens when kids marry), or if you go senority, you might get stabbed (but that's a normal risk of senority). I generally prefer marrying my first son to a chick with heritable traits like genius and having my other kids get political marriages

I've paid little attention go the traits and stats when marrying my kids off - for the most part focusing on the potential political implications. I've looked at the stats and traits before, but I just never had any goals in mind in terms of what sort of stuff I would want, so the political considerations ended up clouding out everything else.

I didn't realize that a character's stats and traits influence a new child so much, I'm going to have to rethink this..

Your first son will inherit both. A lot of her vassals and court members are gonna try to kill her because of that - they want to be independent from the smelly foreigner.

But if she dies, my first son would still get all those titles, right? I mean, eventually maybe, if I was still alive, I'd get them, no? So it seems like you shouldn't have to worry about the people rising up and killing her, but maybe I'm missing something.

 

[Double A]

I've paid little attention go the traits and stats when marrying my kids off - for the most part focusing on the potential political implications. I've looked at the stats and traits before, but I just never had any goals in mind in terms of what sort of stuff I would want, so the political considerations ended up clouding out everything else.

I didn't realize that a character's stats and traits influence a new child so much, I'm going to have to rethink this..

Genius, Quick, Strong, and Attractive are the heritable vanilla traits. It's random, but if you have them, your kid has a better chance of getting them. If both parents have genius, I think there's a 50% chance of each kid being a genius as well. You also want good stats for your wife because your state stats (ie what the game checks 90% of the time) are your stats + half your advisor's stats + half your spouse's stats. So if you, your wife, and your chancellor each have 10 diplo, your state diplo is 20.

But if she dies, my first son would still get all those titles, right? I mean, eventually maybe, if I was still alive, I'd get them, no? So it seems like you shouldn't have to worry about the people rising up and killing her, but maybe I'm missing something.

The only way for your current dude to get the crap is for your wife to die and the first child she bears inherits, then for that kid to die childless. If she's your only wife, succession of multiple realms is very smooth and everything is just consolidated under one person, but if two guys have the same father but different mothers and gavelkind is involved, things get very messy.

If your wife has a kid and he is the preferred heir for both Poland and Ruthenia, he'll get both titles and you'll play as him (as he's a member of your dynasty). You'll almost certainly run into problems, especially if your wife dies first because all the kid's vassals will hate him for being foreign (unless they're Polish too or in the same culture group, then it matters a bit less) and from a new dynasty (while that's not expressed in stats, it does seem to be the case - claimants from the old dynasty, I guess).

 

[Quintillus]

I had some good luck with giving my heir a title before I croaked. For example, if I was an Emperor, I would make the heir a king or perhaps a duke of a couple duchies. Then, by the time of inheritance, my heir will have had several years on the throne in that realm, and the vassals of that kingdom/duchy will view the new ruler of the larger realm more favorably than if they hadn't been given that title before. I stumbled upon this when my wife, Duchess of Savoy, died young, and her son inherited, ruled for 35 years or so until gaining my duchy, and had no revolt risk in Savoy by that time. Repeating this with another heir a century or so later helped ensure that even though there were some powerful vassals at the time of inheritance, she didn't face any revolts.

It does get a little tricky if there are many sons, or if any non-heir children are ambitious. I generally try to give them one decent title (duchy if I have a kingdom), but not so much that they can form a serious revolt without allies. But even then, you can't solve everything.

The other marriage option you could pursue is marrying for allies. If you can work it right, they could prove quite helpful for fighting revolts.

 

[uat2d]

I've so far always played this game as King of Poland and what always seems to happen is the king has a bunch of kids and then the kids fight it out at some point for the crown after the dad has died.

Gavelkind, not even once,

I keep all my subjects as happy as possible, throwing the ones who act out against me into the dungeon.

That's the gist of it though be careful about imprisoning, revoking and executing as you may incur tyranny penalties which will severely harm your standing with the rest of your vassals.

I would marry heirs directly, but there's never any available it seems.

If they're already landed, you can't control whom they marry.

It seems like my marriage strategy is solid, but.. is it? It seems to keep the rest of the family happier when they're married to important people - with less of a risk of them creating a faction to take the crown from you? Or is this only a coincidence and/or my imagination?

I think it's a solid strategy but I don't know about it helping with keeping your own realm stable. Sure, foreign allies can be of great help but with regards to the risk of rebellion, I think it isn't a factor. What seems to be a factor is the culture of your vassals, if they're within your de jure territory and if they are blood related.

I really hate fighting all those civil wars though, what else can I do to try to prevent them?

Focus on diplomacy, keep your vassals happy and don't try to micromanage everything.

Try to get good traits (just, brave, diligent, kind, strong), send gifts if your vassals if they join a faction or may pose a threat (if they don't hate your guts, try to increase the relations to over 50) and remember that as a king it's easier to manage 4 dukes than it is to manage 12 counts and as an emperor it's easier to manage 2 kings and 2 dukes than it is to manage 50 counts.

I am also not 100% certain about the rules in the game that determine which character you control. At one point I was King of Poland and my brother was fighting a civil war against me. He won the war and next thing you know I'm controlling my daughter - the now ex princess of Poland. Huh? So I play as her for a while - and everyone hated her for some reason - and end up in jail and die. When that happened, I became the ex King again, which made sense to me.. but that initial switch to the daughter didn't. Can someone explain that? Cause I have had my crown taken away from me before and I always kept on playing as the same character. So what was different in this case? Is it that I didn't have any heirs before? That's possible, I guess..

It's all about the laws of inheritance and the war you fought and loss. In most cases you'll play as the agnatic-cognatic primogeniture, which means you'll control the oldest son (or oldest daughter if there is no male heir). However you lost a civil war which I'm guessing was a war against your tyranny and your brother was able to install his favourite pretended on the throne which happened to be your daughter.

When your daughter die I'm guessing she died without any heirs and so the crown backed up a level to try and find an heir and since your father (the deposed king) was still alive he became king again.

So now I'm playing as the son of the guy above, King of Poland. My wife just died and so I berothed the Ruthenian princess, who is 10. She wasn't a heir when I found her, but I just checked and she is actually the QUEEN of Ruthenia. What will happen when we marry? Won't I be King of Poland and King of Ruthenia at the same time? What happens then? I don't.. inherit Ruthenia or something, do I? That would be awesome, as in my game it is quite huge

You'll be king consort of Ruthenia and she will be queen consort of Poland. You won't have any power in her realm and she won't have any power in yours. Though you will be allies and your heir will inherit both Poland and Ruthenia.

Though I'd advise you to always join her wars because I'm guessing her vassals aren't too happy being ruled by a women, much less one that's still young and unfit to rule. If she survives the regency and isn't murdered by her spymaster or regent and if she's not deposed, your heir will likely one day rule both your realms.

 

[Double A]

It's worth noting that landed AI spouses and parents will always join their spouse/kid's wars if asked, and there is no -25 penalty for them joining your war.

 

[warpus]

Though I'd advise you to always join her wars because I'm guessing her vassals aren't too happy being ruled by a women, much less one that's still young and unfit to rule. If she survives the regency and isn't murdered by her spymaster or regent and if she's not deposed, your heir will likely one day rule both your realms.

She's been the best wife ever, helping me out in every single war I've been in, civil or not, sending a giant army to crush my foes. I've always joined in her wars and there haven't been any edit: many. Can't wait to see what happens when she croaks

 

[Double A]

She's been the best wife ever, helping me out in every single war I've been in, civil or not, sending a giant army to crush my foes. I've always joined in her wars and there haven't been any. Can't wait to see what happens when she croaks

What if she's the PC and you're the AI?

 

[warpus]

Then I've been sleeping with the enemy

 

[cybrxkhan]

New dev diary up, more interesting than the last one, with good info; there's also a new interview out about ROI. The dev diary link here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...dia-Dev-Diary-4-Elephants-of-Mass-Destruction

Spoiler :

Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India - Dev Diary 4 - Elephants of Mass Destruction
Hello everyone! So finally we address the Elephant in the room, specifically the War Elephant in the upcoming Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India expansion.

When making an expansion based on India we simply couldn't ignore the elephantry that they fielded. These giants will help your Indian rulers to conquer and stampede over any opposition you face, being the heaviest cavalry you can field in Crusader Kings 2. These beasts of war will be mostly available from retinues but there will also be cultural buildings that will produce them for you. They will only exist in very limited numbers compared to other troop types but will have a devastating effect on the battlefield during the melee phase. The Indian general that makes sure to use his unique set of tactics available for these units will without a doubt be victorious.

We also fixed so that the Arabic cultures can field their own camel warriors to face the heathens with.


Showing off their mighty War Elephant Retinues

The old troop type system was very limiting, not allowing for a lot of creativity, and we had nowhere to place the new war elephants in the user interface, it was already over-crowded with the other troop types. So what we did was remake the Horse Archer with a fully script-able troop type known as Special Troops. These now represent Horse Archers, Camel Warriors and the mighty War Elephants. It will be even possible to field Camel Warriors and War Elephants in the same army in your grand pan Arabic-Indian Empire if you so desire. The most important thing is that now modders can utilize this to make their mods even more diverse and interesting, allowing them to add troop types ranging from Wizards to gunpowder troops.


The breakdown of special troops, everything is quite similar to
before except for the numbering of the horse archers.

What is the actual difference for the modders from the previous system then? Well Korbah made an excellent diagram he posted on the beta forum which I am going to borrow from him.



Previously the troop types were hard-coded in place which gave very little option with what you could actually do with them. Each regiment always had six entries: Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Archers, Pikemen, Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry and Horse Archers. This meant an army would always consist of a composition of these troop types. The new system removes the Horse Archers and replaces it with the special troop type, meaning it can be anything and every regiment can have a different composition of troop types and still function as a unified army. The only limit on this is that a regiment can only have one special troop type, so one holding can not produce several different special troop types and mercenaries and retinues can only have one special troop type assigned to them.


With the India expansion the world grows immensely giving us a good opportunity to add some common tactical problems that commanders of the time faced. First we gave the Indian subcontinent the jungle terrain type which will harshly increase your attrition and defense bonuses. But the other problem is supplies, it won't be a simple task to just walk across all of Europe with every single soldier you started with alive. You will now have to combat starvation as you march far away from your home. This means that Norse Vikings armies will have starved to death before even reaching India.

How it works is that while you are nearby your realm or your top-liege's realm your soldiers will fill up on supplies to keep themselves fed. These supplies will always last for 31 days. When they step too far away into neutral territory they will start to starve for supplies and have a ticking attrition that goes up slowly for each day. A good martial leader can of course counter-act it to a certain point. When you do finally reach the enemy territory, the troops will start foraging from their surrounding area to keep themselves supplied. The foraging builds on the pillaging from the loot bar except it goes a lot slower. When the soldiers can't take more from the loot bar they will start to starve again in 31 days. This will balance the rulers of Europe to invade their neighbors instead of happily jump over the Egypt and start carving their piece of India. Instead they will have to put a bit effort into it if they want to actually reach India.

So yes we will see a Norse India eventually, but it will be quite an achievement.


There has been some big issues with what people have dubbed "North Korea Mode", making the game way too easy to play and removing the entire feudal point of the game. So we have made playing this way a lot less rewarding by reducing the amount of levies and income they actually get from doing this. It is of course still completely possible to play like this if you still want to, but you will be a bankrupt France with only 400 troops while the strong HRE will be raising a lot more troops than that. Small counts and dukes who go over their demense limit just a little bit will be a bit penalized but not to the same degree.

Bonus: Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India Interview with Project Lead Henrik Fahraeus
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Exclu...s-429067.shtml

New info from both the interview and the dev diary:

• At least two more expansions confirmed after ROI, though there might still be more if PI sees there's interest in them (and probably I.e. Whether it's financially worth it)
• Horse Archers as a unit have been replaced by unique "special units" that basically are aort of like the UUs from civ ( Arabic cultures now have camel warriors, etc.) It doesn't need to be based on culture, however - the devs mentioned in theory you could make gunpowder units. You can even have a bunch of different special units together (though only one per levy)
• There's now a supply system - once you're in enemy or neutral territory your troops will slowly starve over time, though they can forage.
• North Korea mode is being nerfed by lowering the levies and income the more you hold.
• Reincarnation events are rare (thankfully)
• Faction revolts are now "unified" - the faction leader has the other revolters become his or her temporary vassals
• When relatives ask for a title they might start a war over it

So a lot of interesting stuff.