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Let's Play CK2: Ten Years to Greatness

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This is an excellent Let's Play focused on a specific ambition as well as getting out of the hole Capet starts in, packed with a lot of great narration and explanation of strategy and gameplay - all in less than 2 hours total for the 3 videos. Definitely a prime choice for first Let's-Play for someone interested in the game.

The lack of a mouse pointer for my eyes to follow is the only flaw (since I need to click to stop and rewind 3-10 seconds or so very frequently to read the pop-up and tooltip info at 720 resolution when the mouse does not linger on it - with lots of rewinds, videos could really use a "backup 5 seconds" button to reduce the RSI risk). However, the videos being only around half an hour each did make those very short rewinds easier.

Those who don't feel the need to read evertyhing won't care about the mouse, but then they probably don't suffer much from the alleged distraction if the mouse is there either (what exactly is it they are distracted from when the narration is fairly tightly tied to the concurrent UI actiivity?).
 
Ruwaard said:
I noticed that the coat of arms of the kingdom of Burgundy or Arelate is used for the duchy of Burgundy (which should be like IIRC the county of Dijon). Has they changed this in more recent versions?
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dunno if it has been changed but for the duchy it should be the burgundy's capetians' one (Bendy of six or and azure a bordure gules). (for Dijon it should be plain red)
Also the one's for kingdom of Arelate always bugged me as it contains the Venice's lion but I don't know what should really fit better.
 
Arko said:
dunno if it has been changed but for the duchy it should be the burgundy's capetians' one (Bendy of six or and azure a bordure gules). (for Dijon it should be plain red)
Also the one's for kingdom of Arelate always bugged me as it contains the Venice's lion but I don't know what should really fit better.
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I know, but IIRC from this Let's Play they use Burgundy ancien for Dijon. Furthermore I'm also not a fan of the CoA used for the kingdom of Burgundy-Arelat; or the one which is used for the duchy of Lower Lorraine, which should be like the CoA of Austria, but that may be a bit confusing. One of the alternatives for Burgundy-Arelat could look similar to the CoA of the 'duchy' of Toulouse (not sure about the colours though) or a CoA derived from the elder house of Welf (the dynasty which ruled Burgundy-Arelat, before it was inherited by HRE Conrad II).
 
Personally I'd married my sister to the duke of normandy in the second video ;)
 
Ruwaard said:
One of the alternatives for Burgundy-Arelat could look similar to the CoA of the 'duchy' of Toulouse (not sure about the colours though)
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bosonid cross you mean ? maybe. but really don't know about the colors. I found the cross gold but without base.

Ruwaard said:
or a CoA derived from the elder house of Welf (the dynasty which ruled Burgundy-Arelat, before it was inherited by HRE Conrad II).
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what does it look like ?

even tho I find Arles' first known seal is just a lion (1180)
you may be interested in this link http://vexil.prov.free.fr/pays%20d%27arles/accm.html
 
spinoza013 said:
I'm presuming the 4:3 aspect is for benefit of recording.
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Yeah. I record using Fraps. Then, I process it into something more compressed than raw video. Then, I import it all into iMovie and edit/voiceover. Then I tell iMovie to export it in a decent resolution.

I'm sure I could tweak it around to make it look "right," but I'm no expert (as revealed by the Rube Goldberg chain of events in my creation of video). :)

PdoxLP said:
I have noticed that the death of the duke of Aquitaine is the best thing that can happen to the king of France (or French vassal in his neighborhood for that matter). His duchy has gavelkind and splits up nicely. So waiting for him to get a few more children (preferably female) and helping him die might be a valid strategy too.
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See, this might be a better strategy. I could just, ahem, help things along and hope I don't get caught.

I guess I've been traumatized by my previous experiences. That bastard puts together a plot faster than he tends to die, even if I try to kill him. :angry:

Frezzin said:
That seems like it's ripe for a balancing. To be honest, I was really surprised you confiscated the vassal's money as well as the lands. I would figure that money would just stay with the character like it did in CK1.
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Well, you are seizing all of his property, not just annexing his titles. You can only do it when he or she is in prison, so it is more like you are sending your steward over with armed guards and taking everything that isn't nailed down.

The cash can be very useful, since the cash value does not impact tyranny. :)

Doma said:
Very very good! Please make more :)

Any chance for a visible mousepointer? It is a bit confusing not seeing it.
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Yeah, I normally record in Fraps with no pointer because of certain things I do, but I can just click a box and make it come back. I didn't even think about it when I was recording.

Dorevai said:
I believe he's abstained due to the potential for a conflict with his objectivity as a game journalist. I'm don't know exactly what's up with that, but he mentioned something along those lines when I encouraged him to produce an LP before.
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Well, I've been accused of bias before for doing far less. I got roasted over the coals for what I said about EU:Rome, even though I stand by my assessment.

But, I had a chat with my editors, and they figured that it wouldn't hurt anything. To be honest, I'll still have to see the final version of the game before I make my determination about its quality. There's only a few weeks left, but it can still be screwed up. I doubt it, but you never know until you have the real thing in your hands.

Xain said:
Two questions :

1) how long does it last the tyranny penalty ?

2) When you rescue o release prisoners, will their opinion of you improve ?
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Tyranny's decay has changed a couple of times. I think it's sitting at 5 years right now, but I could be wrong.

You don't improve relations so much as remove the Imprisoned penalty. But you can still have modifiers like "Betrayed me for money" still in the mix.

If you release prisoners (not ransom), you do get a small increase to vassal loyalty from being merciful.
 
How much would you say that the game has changed since the preview version?
 
Great video's ! Would you say the game was too easy ? I mean, it only took your roughly ten years to fulfill your ambition and become Phillipe the Great. Extremely awesome of course, but I mean, you didn't exactly conquer the known world or anything, like Alexander. (and yes, I know he didn't conquer the whole world, please spare me the history lessons)

I think the cognomen 'the Great' should be VERY hard to get to prevent them from springing up everywhere.
 
This is still probably the first Paradox game where you never actually become a super-powered blob, or at least it's damn hard. And said blob-empire likely wouldn't last for longer than the lifetime of the ruler who creates it, or maybe his competent son. Eventually you'll get a mediocre ruler at least, and a bit of bad luck, and bam! You'll be set back a 100 years or more.

And of course, you can't ever completely control fertility. It could be you have 100+ people in your dynasty, then 2 generations of low fertility/mostly girls, and you're down to 2 males or something.
 
postm00v said:
Great video's ! Would you say the game was too easy ? I mean, it only took your roughly ten years to fulfill your ambition and become Phillipe the Great.
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He had the advantage of knowing how things normally turn out and acting to evade a piling on of rebellious vassals. Having the good fortune to successfully jail Aquitaine at the start and deal with the other dukes in succession rather than simultaneously was the cornerstone of success and his planned path to success - well-executed.
 
Sir Garnet said:
He had the advantage of knowing how things normally turn out and acting to evade a piling on of rebellious vassals. Having the good fortune to successfully jail Aquitaine at the start and deal with the other dukes in succession rather than simultaneously was the cornerstone of success and his planned path to success - well-executed.
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True, but still. If rearranging the duchies in France is enough to qualify a character to become 'the Great', I feel it is way too easy to achieve that goal.
 
Hm... I think it might be interesting if you couldn't create titles lower than your main one. Or at least, if you do, it *costs* prestige. As you say, administrative shuffling isn't really prestigious stuff. Secret Master's Phillipe was clearly a great mollifier, proving his strength in war enough to make rebellious vassals back down. He was also far sighted enough to break up the largest of his vassals. He distributed duchies widely enough to become very popular. But should that be enough to be known as "the Great"? I think "the Popular" might be more appropriate.
 
Well, the only real requirement to become exalted among men is that you have to have 1,000 prestige. BUT... You can't pick it unless you start out with very low prestige, so the title doesn't get spread around that much.

Of course, I specifically gamed the system in this game to get there. I knew France starts with enough titles to allow me enough to complete my ambition.
 
Yeah, this sort of reorganizing only gives you enough prestige for "the Great" once. It's not very common for ducal titles to become extinguished, is it? (as in, that you'd have to recreate them?)

Later rulers will have to find their own ways to distinguish themselves, but in the early game/middle ages, a far-sighted reorganisation of the country like this could certainly classify as qualifying for 'the Great'.
 
Fantastic videos, I enjoyed them alot! These videos and the forum are beginning to become a bit like foreplay.

Thanks!
 
Great videos! Really informative and tutorial-like. I have a question: I've noticed that during your wars against your vassals, you would accept or offer them a white peace and they would go back to being a vassal. So, if there's a war of independence, does a white peace make things go back to the status quo?
 
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