Crusader Kings II

[Spearthrower]

I remember writing in a thread about this some time ago, but it might have been a general game thread.

So, I've finally found some time to start playing this. I remember my one and only game being Ireland, and managing to form the Kingdom of Ireland without really having a clue what was going on - it was all a bit bizarre.

Now, I've had a second go many moons later, it's all snapped into place! Now I've found the game element to it where before it just seemed to be a odd family tree simulator! What a fantastic game, and so much DLC because I am late to the party!

Just wondering if those here experienced in the game could run me through the arguments for and against creating/giving away Duchies/Kingdoms.

It seems the only time I have dangerous rebellions is when my ruler dies and the newly crowned son is instantly despised by everyone in the Kingdom. A couple of dukes throwing in together presents the only real challenge aside from foreign aggression - I can only imagine it's worse with vassal kings in the equation too. So why would I want to empower a few dangerous individuals when I can keep everyone as direct vassals?

If it's not worth empowering them, what to do with the titles? Should I destroy them?

[Weaver]

Bake them in a pie?

[Spearthrower]

[quote="Weaver";p="2090039"]Bake them in a pie?[/quote]

Can't seem to find the decision for that!

[Spearthrower]

I just watched a Let's Play on YT where a guy created a bunch of duchies as Byz Empire, then died 5 years later. His heir then had 80% of the country rebel against him, specifically including all the dukes his father had appointed.

While I understand this is part of the Fun! of the game, it still doesn't strike me as fundamentally rational behavior.

[Rome Existed]

Giving away.

Pros.

The person you give it to will love you forever (not really).

Cons

Everyone else will hate you forever (yeah, pretty much).

[DSpat]

I prefer a few big vassals rebelling every now and then compared to countless small ones. It does mean your own powerbase has to be strong though, retinues make a huge difference here, as well as a cash reserve for hiring mercenaries. I've sunk a rather large amount of time into the game though and have little trouble with most rebellions. The harder they are to put down, the better. Landed siblings who are popular with the other vassals tend to cause the most trouble, as a father giving land to an ambitious younger son is almost a guarantee for civil war once your heir takes over

As an emperor vassal kings are great, they have their own vassals to worry about and when they feel like it they can even expand your empire's borders for you. Plus when you raise their army it all appears in one spot instead of having to move all the little armies the dukes can bring to the party.

[Animavore]

"The Kingdom of Ireland"

[Thomas Eshuis]

I guess you'd want to move to heriditary scheme whereby only 1 of your children inherets everything.
Most counties, kingdoms etc, start with Gavelkind succesion which means your lands get divided among all your (male) offspring.
You'll want to change to either seniority, primogeniture or ultimogeniture.

See here for more details:
http://crusaderkings-two.wikia.com/wiki/Succession_Laws

[Thomas Eshuis]

Note that you can give individual castles, towns and churches to vassals, rather than just giving them an entire county.

[Spearthrower]

[quote="Animavore";p="2091159"]"The Kingdom of Ireland" [/quote]

Wonderful, huh?

I am currently forming the Empire of Britannia!

[Spearthrower]

[quote="DSpat";p="2091158"]I prefer a few big vassals rebelling every now and then compared to countless small ones. It does mean your own powerbase has to be strong though, retinues make a huge difference here, as well as a cash reserve for hiring mercenaries.[/quote]

I have dozens of vassals, but none of them are remotely within my league so they never rebel! That's what I am finding odd - there should be a risk/reward, but I am not seeing the risk of keeping a squillion little vassals or a reward for making just a few powerful ones.

I only just grabbed Legacy of Rome (big discount this weekend), so I haven't even tried retinues yet. I've got a hankering for a large compliment of Kataphraktoi to mow enemies down!


[quote="DSpat";p="2091158"]I've sunk a rather large amount of time into the game though and have little trouble with most rebellions. The harder they are to put down, the better. Landed siblings who are popular with the other vassals tend to cause the most trouble, as a father giving land to an ambitious younger son is almost a guarantee for civil war once your heir takes over

As an emperor vassal kings are great, they have their own vassals to worry about and when they feel like it they can even expand your empire's borders for you. Plus when you raise their army it all appears in one spot instead of having to move all the little armies the dukes can bring to the party.[/quote]

That last bit sounds nice for when you're up to a continent spanning empire.

I probably will have a play-through specifically to create a bunch of vassal kings just because it sounds Fun! I think I am probably powergaming too much and need to let the shit hit the fan a little more!

[Spearthrower]

[quote="Thomas Eshuis";p="2091180"]I guess you'd want to move to heriditary scheme whereby only 1 of your children inherets everything.
Most counties, kingdoms etc, start with Gavelkind succesion which means your lands get divided among all your (male) offspring.
You'll want to change to either seniority, primogeniture or ultimogeniture.

See here for more details:
http://crusaderkings-two.wikia.com/wiki/Succession_Laws[/quote]

It's my first real 'long-term' goal - gavelkind just seems like playing medieval etch-a-sketch.... build big kingdom, lots of attention to detail, do important stuff... and FUCK IT, start all over again!

Although I have to say I fancy a Norse game to go aviking!

[Spearthrower]

[quote="Thomas Eshuis";p="2091182"]Note that you can give individual castles, towns and churches to vassals, rather than just giving them an entire county.[/quote]

I've been working on the premise that I want every county in 2 - 3 duchies directly under my control, and the rest can go to anyone so long as they only have 1 county.

I did have about 3 generations of a Kingdom of England where nearly every holding in all the provinces of England were a direct member of my dynasty. My first character's wife had about 14 kids!

[Shagz]

Glad to see you're enjoying the game now.

As for giving away or destroying titles. Well, for one, it's easier, when you raise levies, to collect levies from one place (your duke's capital), than from many different counts. Also, it's easier to run an empire made up of a few kings and dukes than one made up of scores of squabbling cunts -- er, I mean counts.

If you have just a few dukes to control, you only have to worry about how much they like you; your dukes' vassals' opinions of you matter not a squat. Make sure your dukes and kings like you, preferably all with the "content" trait, and you'll have an easy to manage empire.

If you hold on to titles, of course your vassals will start to dislike you for holding too many duchies. If you destroy them, your vassals that save up the money might recreate them anyway.

[Spearthrower]

[quote="Shagz";p="2092590"]
If you hold on to titles, of course your vassals will start to dislike you for holding too many duchies. If you destroy them, your vassals that save up the money might recreate them anyway.[/quote]

AH! I thought that happened to me the other day, but assumed I must have misunderstood it! That's absurd! How does a count of my realm just up and decide to make himself the title of Duke?

[Shagz]

[quote="Spearthrower";p="2092606"][quote="Shagz";p="2092590"]
If you hold on to titles, of course your vassals will start to dislike you for holding too many duchies. If you destroy them, your vassals that save up the money might recreate them anyway.[/quote]

AH! I thought that happened to me the other day, but assumed I must have misunderstood it! That's absurd! How does a count of my realm just up and decide to make himself the title of Duke? [/quote]
Same way that you can, if you play as a count in some empire: Gain control of over 50% of the de jure provinces in a duchy and save up the money to create the title.

[Shagz]

I tried playing as a count/earl in Ireland a couple of days ago. Last time I played in Ireland was years ago when I first got the game. Played the Old Gods setup in 867. Things were iffy at first; I was a one province power, and a multi province Norse duke declared war on me almost immediately. I thought I'd have to start over.. but then, out of nowhere, the Pope gave me 350 ducats! He said it was to help fight the heathens. I'd never seen that before. It saved my ass.

After that early trouble, the game got real easy. The Vikings never again gave me any trouble; not a single raid for over a hundred years; and my vassals were very craven and never gave me any trouble, for some reason. Vassals used to revolt constantly when this game first came out.

[Spearthrower]

[quote="Shagz";p="2093023"][quote="Spearthrower";p="2092606"][quote="Shagz";p="2092590"]
If you hold on to titles, of course your vassals will start to dislike you for holding too many duchies. If you destroy them, your vassals that save up the money might recreate them anyway.[/quote]

AH! I thought that happened to me the other day, but assumed I must have misunderstood it! That's absurd! How does a count of my realm just up and decide to make himself the title of Duke? [/quote]
Same way that you can, if you play as a count in some empire: Gain control of over 50% of the de jure provinces in a duchy and save up the money to create the title.[/quote]


I understand from a game mechanic, but the game's meant to represent feudal society. A Duke can't just make himself a duchy within an existing Kingdom! The King/Queen would create the duchy and appoint the Duke!

[DarthHelmet86]

I think that depends on how much power the king or queen had. If a duke felt he/she had enough of his own to press his/her claim I don't really see what is stopping him/her from doing so. There have been times where the king while being in charge was dependent on his lesser nobles and they knew it and pressed their claims to power.

[Spearthrower]

[quote="Shagz";p="2096072"]I tried playing as a count/earl in Ireland a couple of days ago. Last time I played in Ireland was years ago when I first got the game. Played the Old Gods setup in 867. Things were iffy at first; I was a one province power, and a multi province Norse duke declared war on me almost immediately. I thought I'd have to start over.. but then, out of nowhere, the Pope gave me 350 ducats! He said it was to help fight the heathens. I'd never seen that before. It saved my ass.[/quote]

Just after forming the Kingdom of England as Brittany, I had 4 separate Norse invasions commence within weeks of each other. Total forces were around 30k!

Pulled through via attrition and carefully drafting vassal levies to supplement my own, but it was pretty hairy at times. The battles are odd - you can be grinding through each others manpower equally, then all of a sudden a flank pops and the entire opposing army wipes in moments with barely another loss on your side.

After a couple of losses where numbers were even or slightly in my favour, I decided to try out other tactics - I found that feeding in small levies across the duration of the bigger battles seemed to plug the holes in my flanks where they might otherwise have died in the grind or just been in the wrong flank. Seems to work well in battles where you need to break a big stack!