What videogames have you been playing? version 1.22: What's with that plural?

[Yeekim]

Finished a short CK3 Ironman campaign.

Started in 1066 as world's only Jewish duchy deep in Ethiopia. I found my options very limited, since I was surrounded by Coptic alliances, with no possible allies of my own. Thus I had no way out but to swear fealty to Coptic Abyssinia and spend a couple generations playing to every anti-semitic stereotype there is, eating their realm from the inside, converting counties to Haymanot, murdering rulers and abusing my powers as regent, until I finally had the throne for myself and my dynasts ruling every bit of land in the kingdom.

My ruler died in a candle-related accident literally two weeks before I took the last county that would have let me create Empire of Abyssinia, but fortunately succession only lost me one kingdom, which was reclaimed in quick order.

Couple tough wars against Ismailis and Egypt was mine...moved capital to Cairo and prepared to declare my last Holy War to take my "home" kingdom of Israel, when... bam, I get invaded by Mongols.

An absolutely humongous Mongol Empire had conquered essentially everything between HRE and India (Novgorod, Poland, Hungary, Byzantium and Persia had all fallen). They had not taken Syria, but instead sneaked up to me unnoticed via Yemen and Oman, so the declaration took me unexpectedly. I had only 30,000 troops to their ~80,000, but decided to fight.

Well, Yahweh helps his own... I hit +30 warscore taking castles in Arabia, when Khagan died, Mongol empire fractured and the war ended without me ever seeing any of their armies.

I built the Third Temple and reestablished Kingdom of Israel by 1266, exactly 200 years in.

 

[Synobun]

I should replay CK3 and see if the manpower bug that plagued me is fixed...

Or go back to CK2.

 

[Quintillus]

Yeekim, have you played CKII as well, and if so how do you compare them currently? I can see the potential for improvements from CKII, but I haven't followed CKIII very closely, and I heard that early on it was a bit sparse compared to the older game - admittedly a big ask when succeeding a game with 10 years of updates.

I've considered doing a last-Zoroastrian game of a similar sort. But my only real heretical game so far was a Cathar HRE game several years ago. Fun times dealing with all the crusades. That was back before the map reached all the way to India, in the Crusader Kings 1.x days, and may have been my first long CKII game (never have played all the way to the end of the timeline).

---

So, I'm still playing CKII, as Emir Fezlun "The Lionheart" of Mosul, still loyal to the Caliph Al-Mahi II "The Young". But things are getting a bit cold between us. The one-province punk Emir next door to me called in a favor on the Caliph and got me fired as Marshal, a position I'd filled effectively for well over a decade. He was already high on my expansion list, as his lands are an enclave within my lands, but he just gave us extra motivation to take that land in 3 years, 4 months, and 10 days when the truce expires.

For now though, we're happy to have taken Baghdad. We'd been wanting to add it to our desmesne for some time; even though Mosul is de facto as rich, the House of Wisdom is located there, and only Damascus can rival its administrative prestige.

Alas, my best friend died while the campaign was ongoing, shortly after I'd returned to Mosul from my dismissal as Marshal. From the ashes of that friendship, however, a new one formed - breaking all social norms of the times, my 17-year-old daughter also went to the tavern to mourn the loss of the longtime family friend, and we both got roaringly drunk and she became my new friend. And soon thereafter, Designated Regent and tutor to a prospective heir to the throne. 13 points as her minimum stat - you can't go wrong with that. She wants to go marry someone, like her older sister who married the 4th son of the Sultan of Egypt, but she's too valuable for that. Especially since the Sultan got deposed and now rules just one duchy in Upper Egypt. It would have to be a darn good alliance pact to be worth losing her skills at court!

Meanwhile, Byzantophiles have been mourning the civil war that has besot Byzantium for the past five-plus years. I believe it's the second one of Gennadios I Krateros's 13-year reign, but by far the most serious. From towering heights, the Byzantine army now numbers under 9000, and while their enemies' armies have suffered more, it's still basically a stalemate. Now the Shia Caliph has declared a war for Sicily, and Byzantium is lucky they don't share a border with the Abbasids, or the Sunni Caliph would likely be invading them instead of Azerbaijan and Khazaria.

Our spies tell us that many of Gennadios's vassals regard him as a domineering tyrant, and we wouldn't be surprised if things devolved into a third civil war; even with the +40 "Defending vs Infidels" modifier, most of his vassals dislike him, some intensely. We just need to figure out how to get a border with them and benefit from the chaos.

 

[Quintillus]

I just realized a reason why that neighboring Emir punked me out of that Marshal position. All of his wives have been rotting in our dungeons for the past year and a half. I've given the order ransom off all the hostages we'd captured, which was quite a few, but apparently he didn't have the funds to ransom them all at the time and ransomed his heir and most of his other kids first. So I guess I can see why he was a little bit salty about the situation.

I also figured out what to do with all my prisoners from the rebellion. Pretty much as planned, except the Georgian ordered his frail-giant wife to be burned at the stake, so we decided to keep him in the dungeon to reduce the likelihood of antagonizing the giants in Georgia. Having mercy for two of the conspirators has paid off; the Emira is now our most loyal vassal and provides many troops, and the son who isn't paying for the sins of his father is a valued member of our royal council. And my other vassals think better of me for being merciful.

I am liking this whole "being the good character in CKII" thing. And I think this duke-level existence is the game's sweet spot; politics above with your liege, politics below with your vassal, plenty of local opportunities. It would actually be a lot more boring if we were independent.

 

[Yeekim]

Yeekim, have you played CKII as well, and if so how do you compare them currently?

Only for 1,730 hours and 128/161 achievements.

I got CK3 out of the gate and never looked back. It still has lot of room to grow, but Lifestyles and customizable/reformable cultures and religions alone are worth it for me.

 

[Quintillus]

Only for 1,730 hours and 128/161 achievements.

I got CK3 out of the gate and never looked back. It still has lot of room to grow, but Lifestyles and customizable/reformable cultures and religions alone are worth it for me.

Well you are well-qualified then!

Lifestyles makes intuitive sense, CKII has those too but they could use a bit more depth. Customizeable/reformable culture/religions... help me out a bit, what is that exactly? I saw on the CKIII Wiki that there's a dizzying array of religious beliefs, far more than in CKII. But that's about where my knowledge ends. I would appreciate more variety in the cultural/religious gameplay. Most cultures have no special effects in CKII, and aside perhaps from which secret societies you can join, and holy war/opinion modifiers, religion seems to mostly be "go on a pilgrimage/go on Hajj". Well, I guess there are some other events too, particularly for Muslims (or have I just been playing mostly Muslims? Third game in a row as a Muslim I think), but it doesn't feel as in-depth as, say, Old World's most recent expansion on religion.

So... hmm... perhaps CKIII does focus on some of the areas that I thought could use the most growth. Now should I buy it next, or Vicky III?

 

[Yeekim]

Customizeable/reformable culture/religions... help me out a bit, what is that exactly?

If you are Cultural Head, (ruler with most counties of that culture), you can spend prestige to add new traditions to your culture (they usually start with 3-4, and you can add another 3-4 over course of the game)

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Traditions.

You can also create new divergent or hybrid cultures.

Similarly, you can spend piety to create new faiths by changing doctrines/tenets of your existing one.

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Tenet

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Doctrines

 

[Quintillus]

Hmm, interesting... changing the existing one too? Sounds like it could be... a nice alternative history?

I've played a few more years, and Emir Fezlun has joined the Houris in paradise at age 53. He died of pneumonia. Cursed with an unhealthy love of food, Fezlun was known for his massive girth. Many at court were fearing that his habits would lead him to an untimely demise for years before his death.

But he lead the nation well. Had his levies been at full strength, he would have had 7500 personal troops, and made the Barmakid Satrapy into a major force in the northern part of the Caliphate.

Spoiler Map :

Everyone except the Byzantines, the tiny Addauid Emirate, and Georgia are part of the Caliphate.

That vassal who burned his giant wife at the stake would up inheriting the Bolghar Horde somehow, despite having been in our dungeons for 15 years. It turns out the Horde was willing to pay 384 gold for his release, so that wound up being a nice windfall. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, we also had an unusually high number of horde raiders about that time. Thankfully, Bishop Kyriakos of the Byzantine Empire helped us out a bit by finishing out of the raider armies off after we forced it to retreat across the border.

 

[Yeekim]

Hmm, interesting... changing the existing one too?

Well, you can't change "Catholic" faith, but you can create "Quintilian" heresy by changing some of Catholic tenets and/or doctrines.

 

[Kyriakos]

I was never interested in the CK games, because there's no fun in starting as a superpower (Byzantine).
I mean, the only endgame in such a case would be controlling entire continents. Which tends to be boring.

 

[Arakhor]

Because the only possible characters to play are Basil the Macedonian and Alexios Komnenos, right?

 

[Kyriakos]

Because the only possible characters to play are Basil the Macedonian and Alexios Komnenos, right?

Yes, I mean the other rulers are not as good.

Wait.

WAIT.

You were actually suggesting I played as a barbarian entity?

 

[Arakhor]

I had a fun game once using the Ruler Designer to create a Byzantine count in Achaia, I think it was, and play from there.

 

[Kyriakos]

That doesn't sound like fun :/ Who in their right mind would want to rule in backwater Achaia back when the empire had massive lands.
At least starting in the italian theme would allow for a usurper - many such attempts, one of which would have suceeded if Maniaces wasn't so reckless.
Not that I'd care to play as other than the already reigning family.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, it's your games - play them or not as you see fit.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, it's your games - play them or not as you see fit.

Unfortunately I can't play any game until the third seminar is finished. Which is still give or take 20K words away

 

[Zardnaar]

I was never interested in the CK games, because there's no fun in starting as a superpower (Byzantine).
I mean, the only endgame in such a case would be controlling entire continents. Which tends to be boring.

Start as a count in Byzantium.

I started as the Hapsburg who are a count. Worked my way up to Duke.
Crusade got Into Hungary mobilized the troops and became king

Founded empire of transcarpathia essentially the Austro-Hungarian empire. Then Mongols turned up RIP.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Got bored of bg3.

 

[Kyriakos]

Start as a count in Byzantium.

I started as the Hapsburg who are a count. Worked my way up to Duke.
Crusade got Into Hungary mobilized the troops and became king

Founded empire of transcarpathia essentially the Austro-Hungarian empire. Then Mongols turned up RIP.

Only born-in-purple will do.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Yes, I mean the other rulers are not as good.

Wait.

WAIT.

You were actually suggesting I played as a barbarian entity?

In CK2 you could pick exactly when you started. Some Byzantine rulers were less brilliant than others and the empire was less glorious at some periods than others. Try rebuilding it after Manzikert or the 4th Crusade.