How is your Crusader Kings 2 game going?

[SuperBeaverInc.]

Noticed that we had one of these for Vicky II and EUIII/IV but not CK2. Thought I would start one so we don't have to clog up the regular CK2 thread with screenshots of our games and can instead talk about the game itself there.

My current game that I'm playing at the same time as my AAR. This one features an incredibly competent Byzantine AI. Started as the Republic of Amalfi in my long quest to form a Roman republic. Current holdings circled in red. As a note, the only outward expansion of the empire that I have participated in is land I control myself. Everything else the AI has done on its own without my help. I've also mostly kept out of civil wars completely, letting the AI sort out its own problems, except when it can benefit me through lowering crown authority to keep it at low.

I'm also currently using the Byzantines to shield myself from potential enemies like the Umayyads and to make sure Byzantium doesn't decide it wants to take my land from me.

 

[filli_noctus]

My game just took a turn for the weird when I somehow managed to imprison myself following a successful war.

 

[Sonereal]

My game just took a turn for the weird when I somehow managed to imprison myself following a successful war.

My sides.

In my game, and bear with me because I'm not a great CK2 player, I played William the Conqueror and, after a somewhat grueling invasion of England, managed to grab the kingdom. It didn't last long before most of the country rose up against me, but I had two things going for me.

1. I had arrested one of the dukes supporting the opposing faction before the war because he was up to no good conspiracy wise. The Duke of York ended up not rising up in rebellion and, for some reason, was auto-released after the war.

2. I had lots of money. My small force I was able to raise was capable of destroying most of the rebel armies until the remnants, and one large one, started laying siege to Middlesex. I hired the White Company, which shored things up in my favor in a big way.

So at the end of the war, I have seven people imprisoned. Several dukes and one mayor. I revoked as many ducal titles I could, and am probably going to leave them in prison as a way of maintaining compliance. When the Conquest ended, I had imprisoned the previous king and when rebels rose up to support him, I executed him and the war immediately ended. Since these men include all of the most prominent rebels, I think I'll be fine for a while.

Except Duke Morcar of York. He might be a problem, but he'll be hard-pressed to find many allies in England now that most of them are in prison. Not a long-lasting solution, but should give me time to consolidate my holdings in England.

 

[filli_noctus]

As I'm slowly working my way through my first game I'm not entirely sure of the intricacies but this what I think happened.

1. My character, the King of Ireland, died and was succeeded by his clubfoot grandson (the reasonably capable son had died on campaign a couple of months previously).

2. As the new king was Frankish culture (the old king had been married to the Countess of Anjou prior to claiming the throne and I was unable to wrest away on of the children for a decent Irish education) the short reign, foreign and clubfoot modifiers set off a particularly protracted series of civil was, the first of which were put down with some difficulty the third of which (a plot to place my characters brother on the throne) also involved my character being excommunicated (I was too busy fighting wars to send my chaplain to Rome, not that he liked me much either).

3. Skip forward a couple of months and the Queen of France decides to declare an excommunication war. I decide there's no way I can fight two wars and immediately surrender to her, causing me to abdicate in favour of my brother who I immediately become.

4. Back in Ireland the civil war rages on. It takes me a little while an a couple of mercenary bands but I manage to get 100% warscore. I then check the effects of enforcing demands and realise they're a little odd.

• Lose 200 prestige (huh?)
• Gain 100 prestige for war contribution (better)
• King Orson I of Ireland is imprisoned by King Orson I of Ireland (Seriously? WTH?)

The surrender option was slightly less bizarre (my opinion of the woman I just beat goes up by 100) and didn't have the potential prestige loss, but would have reset Crown Authority to Autonomous Vassals. Deciding to eat the prestige hit and trust the game would ignore the imprisonment I enforced demands. Straight away - "King Orson I of Ireland has been imprisoned by Orson I of Ireland", but my prestige went up by 100.

Straight to the diplomacy menu. Try to press Release Prisoner - "You cannot interact with yourself" (presumably because it's un-Christian). Panic!

Fortunately I automatically released myself a couple of days later but it was an odd situation to find oneself in. The annoying thing is I had told a brother I'd give him a landed title which I intended to revoke from the rebels - but they aren't treated as rebels so I can't revoke a title without incurring tyranny, which I can't really deal with on top of the other red numbers.

 

[BvBPL]

That's bizarre filli.

I was playing as the Danes. We had a good run of slowly picking off neighboring territories in Norway and Prussia.

Eventually, my character had a genius daughter. I married her off to another genius courtier and named her as my heir (elective succession), hoping to breed a genius dynasty.

However...

You get a significant prestige hit from marrying a princess to a courtier, and I could not grant her lands, only name her as my heir. So when she ascended to the throne, she was like at -500 prestige. Of course, all her vassals hated her and she had to spend a lot of time putting down revolts, including one from her uncle, Duke Christian. I gave him a spot on the council as chaplain to quiet him down. Eventually, things settled down, but she wasn't able to expand much and eventually passed away with a negative prestige score, actually bring my dynasty score down. How she got the epigraph "the Wise" I'll never know.

She did however have a genius daughter, who was named as heir. When the Queen died, her daughter took over, but she was like five.

The council chaplain was appointed reagent. That is, the new Queen's great uncle, Christian. Who also happened to be the next in line for the throne.

The child Queen's reign lasted for like a year before Christian had her killed and he ascended to the throne.

As it happened, that was a good thing. Christian had a good deal of prestige coming in and did not suffer from the distaff diplomacy penalty. He was able to rapidly consolidate power and ensure domestic tranquility.

I don't remember if it was Christian or his son that conquered Norway the first time. Either way, Norway didn't remain with the Danes after the following succession. The next King was able to conquer Norway and Sweden and keep them, and I think the following one was able to set up the Empire of Scandinavia and ensure primogeniture succession for that and Denmark.

Sometime later, my King installed his wife as Queen of Poland. However, despite having a 100 rating w/ the King, she never agreed to swear Poland as a vassal to Scandinavia. Not sure why. She wasn't his first wife, so after his passing, her lands went to his first son, and her lands went to the son's half brother.

We also managed to get a matrilineal marriage with the heir to the kingdom of Jerusalem who subsequently ascended to the throne. Too bad I was never able to assassinate him and have his lands convert to Denmark.

Still, it was cool to install Yvlings in both Poland and Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, the HRE was expanding every which way. Its western expansion was limned by France, but then the Aztecs should up. They conquered their way up through Hispania into France, casting out the disparate forces of Muslims and Catholics controlling those areas.

A crusade was called for France. Wanting grab some land, put a dent in the Aztec advance, and prevent the HRE from grabbing France, I rallied our armies and sent them out on marine expeditions to Aztec-held France. We had to work quickly because our army was about two fifths the size of the Aztec stack of doom wandering around. I thought our armies did pretty well, gathering significant holdings over this time. However, when the war marker finally hit 100% it was the HRE that got the papal blessing for France. I'm not sure how they topped me in war score.

Oh well.

In a few years, the Aztecs had retaken most of France. When a second crusade was called I didn't bother responding.

This was my first game w/ CKII. I enjoyed it.

 

[Sonereal]

After ruling for what seemed forever, William the Conqueror has died. I was doing well up until two things happened at once.

1.) Kings of France and Denmark decided to kick me off the continent and

2.) Duke Magnus decided he wanted to be king.

Not much could have be done about it. I fought the good fight before finally being corned in Paris and beaten, so I settled and lost swathes of territory, but it wasn't all that bad.

Duke Magnus was king for a short time, before he realized everybody hated him just as much as they hated me so he abdicated in favor a Eadger, who actually seemed to be cool with me.

I spent the rest of my life trying to get a better succession law, but failed. Luckily I outlived all but one son, so it didn't come up.

 

[filli_noctus]

So after a messy couple of decades I think Ireland is stabilising. Some important lessons learned.
1. Consider very carefully honouring a Call to Arms if you can't choose generals. I decided to help the King of Sicily in a Holy War for Tunis, got brain damaged and died a few weeks later, leaving a three year old as King.

2. The AI murders children - aforementioned toddler was smothered about a week after inheriting the crown.

3. Regencies are a nuisance and an opportunity - when you take the throne as a one year old everyone's going to take the opportunity to rebel. Fortunately when you crush them you get an opportunity to claw back some titles.

4. Related to the above, you only get one free claw back - I decided to strip the ringleader, Duchess Siobhan of Leinster, of all her titles for her numerous wars against me (apparently this was the first time she qualified as a traitor. I started with the duchy of Leinster and then discovered that taking the counties on top would be tyrannical and I couldn't afford to alienate any more vassals. I was still able to gain another couple of counties from her mates.

5. Distant provinces are more trouble than they're worth - After Queen Etienne of France declared a de jure war for Tours I gave it up once I saw the 20k stack when the most I could comfortably recruit was 2k. I then decided to foist off Anjou on an irritating uncle and grant independence to let him deal with her (and hopefully give me a second landed cadet branch to escape to if it all goes tits up - the first I discovered in Norway whilst browsing my dynasty tree).

6. Guardians can be dicks - my current character became maimed at the age of 8, although the game gave no reason why my money is on Cennetig mac Cennetig's use of discipline.

7. You can't give duchies to characters outside of your realm - After revoking the Duchy of Leinster I passed the 'too many duchies' limit. I was a bit confused as I thought it was just Munster and Leinster as I'd given away all of Anjou but nope, I was still the duke. I tried to give it to the Count of Anjou but it wasn't possible so I had to take the prestige hit and destroy it (wasn't too bothered about angering the de jure vassals as they were too far away).

So now things are looking good, I'm Irish again after a couple of generations of Frankish Ua Brians spoiling the relationship with the vassals. True it pissed of a couple of councillors but one was the spymaster and got arrested by the duke of Napoli (not sure why, he was sightseeing, not trying to steal the secrets of legalism 4).
The choice of wife of my previous character paid off better than expected. I married the Countess of Man, somewhere along the line she acquired Breifne (one of the three Islander provinces in Ireland), possibly in one of the regular vassal wars of the Petty Kingdom of the Isles. Unfortunately she then married some Norwegian after King Orson died and due to gavelkind her third son would have inherited Breifne whilst I would have got Man. Fortunately someone took Man off her (again, most likely in a vassal war) and I inherited Breine when she died.

Plans for the future:
1. Rebuild troops now civil wars are finished and stability should be better (may have to kill Siobhan's son as he seems to be intent on taking his mother's thorny place in my side with his new faction), wait for a Scottish war to start between the Isles, Scotland and whichever duchy rebels this time (usually Moray or Argyll), start war for Dublin or Ulster.

2. Check my brother-in-laws place in the Danish succession (my sister is matrilineally married to a Danish prince), see about giving him a leg up.

 

[Sonereal]

6. Guardians can be dicks - my current character became maimed at the age of 8, although the game gave no reason why my money is on Cennetig mac Cennetig's use of discipline.

Ouch. That's never happened to me. My guardians just tend to steal from me.

 

[filli_noctus]

Note to self - When declaring war on a neighbouring kingdom to take advantage of a revolt to claim the last of your de jure counties, make sure the leader of the revolt isn't the old, founding king who was deposed and who you were previously keeping an eye on to be able to take advantage of the instability after he dies. He may just die two weeks in and leave you facing down the entire kingdom instead of just two counties.

Fortunately it all worked out in the end and I crushed the armies they sent over to Ireland (the fleet of 125 Scottish galleys had me worried but I relaxed when they only disgorged a thousand or so men into Tyrconnel). Now Ireland's all green and I can start working out how to reorganise my holdings to maxmise my personal levies for when the truce expires and I can press my claim on Man.