My first game of CK2 and I cheated.

Garuda said:

Question What would you have done?

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Yea this might sound easy for you, but I would first stop playing for 1-2 days (calm down phase for me) and after that getting back and trying to get my crown/land back.

Taken the hit, either gone on with whatever was left of the dynasty or started a new game. Cheating just doesn't do it for me...

In one of my early Plantagenet games I lost the crown to one of my cousins after a 'depose liege' war -- but I stuck it out as a duke and managed to get my grandson to become king through marrying my second son to the new king's female heir (his only sons were bastards) and so even though the crown was always within my dynasty, it returned to the senior line after a generation or two. I was tempted to give up at the same point you were, but in this particular example it worked out pretty well (I was still a very powerful duke anyway, so I hadn't lost all hope) so I'm glad I kept playing.

So my advice is to stick it out. You could always try another game as someone else in the mean time; I often have two or three different games (different dynasties/starting points) going at once.

A huge reason I'm drawn to this game is for the narrative of your dynasty. If your dynasty really has nothing left after the war with Scotland, I would say it actually did pretty well, coming up from a small local ruler to the king of Ireland. I would say you played that dynasty to the end of its story and it's time to start a new one. Getting game over is not a waste of time to me, after all there really is no way to "win" this game.

Captain Gars said:

If there was nothing I could do to win the war I would have accepted defeat and become a powerful vassal of the King of Scotland. Then I would build up relationships with fellow Irish vassal (who most likely dislike their new liege) as well as Scottish vassals who for one reason or another also dislike their King (being so young he probably don't have that good a relation with them). Then I would try to get an alliance with someone outside the realm through marriage. Then start a plot and bide my time... Once the Scottish king has gotten himself into some sort of trouble I would strike and take back the crown. Revenge and grudges carried for generations is what this game is all about

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Exactly! It's not game over until the last member of your dynasty dies!

During our Saturday multiplayer game I ended up with a claim to the English throne as Ireland. After a hard fought war, I won it and even created Wales (Brythain). But suddenly my king dies before I could change the succession laws and boom, England goes to the closes male family member and I'm left with Ireland and Wales and a 3 year old female ruler! Took me another 30 years but I eventually wrestled it back. The inept usurper had lost half the kingdom in the meantime, but nothing tasted sweeter than seeing him go down before my mounts and blades!

Never understood why people cheat in singleplayer (or MP),- it seems very childish.

Gaming is only fun if you take it seriously,- I would have continued.

You only learn from your defeats, winning all the time does not teach you anything new.

It's similiar to how I lost the french crown to the English in one my games.. But I took the hit.. and took the english crown instead 70 years later

Some people like to quit-reload, others don't. I myself don't but whatever makes it fun for you. I find that when I reload I stop caring as much what happens. So I never reload but take whatever the game throws at me. It's fun to find yourself in very dire straits, and then slowly work your way back. And then take revenge on whomever put you in dire straits. And I agree with the previous poster that you probably learn more from your defeats. But it is after all a game, so whatever floats your boat.

BodyBag said:

Never understood why people cheat in singleplayer (or MP),- it seems very childish.

Gaming is only fun if you take it seriously,- I would have continued.

You only learn from your defeats, winning all the time does not teach you anything new.

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Some people use cheats to get away from situations that are not fun. Which is completely acceptable if we talking about games, of course.

Garuda said:

Question What would you have done?

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I would have won the war.

Without cheats, mind you.

I take what is given. If decisions don't have bad consequences there is a little point in playing as the biggest fun I have is in overcoming obstacles. In my last game (I play as Bulgaria) this led to a few of miracles that could have been skipped if I'd reload the game or quit it. It is also harder to keep track of events and you start becoming less attached to your current game. I don't advise reloading or quitting, but every can play his game against the AI as he wishes. You don't have to be on top of everything - like winning all wars - as the game is quite long and offers a lot of ways to rise to power.

I was pretty low down in my Ireland game. My ruler was a 46 year old woman, my only son was dead and the English controlled half the isle and there seemed no way to defeat them. I reloaded a save 30 years back. Then I changed my mind, reloaded the only autosave I had left, assassinated the wife of the only remaining male of my dynasty, married him off to a young girl and changed the succession law to purely agnatic.

Despite having my liege defeated by an English relative and becoming a vassal of England under absolute crown authority I eventually managed to crawl all the way up to being king of all ireland. It took me to 1430 to do what most players do by 1180 but I'm pretty happy with that game even if I never made a all conquoring irish empire. I spent like 300 years as just a multi-count in that play through.

Garuda said:

Question What would you have done?

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I would have re-loaded to the start of the war, before I had lost my entire army. I would have raised my levies, got my mercenaries, gathered them together... And then taken ships to hit Scotland's capital while the scottish troops were laying seige to the northern counties of Ireland. Scotland would have waited to finish it's seige before responding, either by marching it's troops back to try to re-claim territory, or continue into Ireland. (probably the former) When it eventually does decide to respond, Scotland would have lost significant numbers of troops just from monthly attrition (generally <1%, but it adds up) and from placing garrisons in the holdings it would have taken. At that point, I'd either wait for them in the scottish capital and duke it out with defense bonuses, or if that didn't work, ship my troops back to Ireland, dismiss my levies (NOT the mercs) on irish territory, re-levied all of them (bringing my totals up significantly higher), and either re-take my territory or go hunt down the scottish troops again (probably by ship once again). At that point I'd probably be facing 2:1 odds in my favor, if not more.

In other words, I would have changed my focus from straight-on-charge to out-maneuvering and out-supplying my enemy.

If that didn't work (pretty unlikely), I'd re-load once again, find out who's claim was being pushed forward in the war (probably the king's), and assassinate them. No claimant, no war.

Keep going, it's gutting when it happens, but it's certainly not game over, you can come out of it actually much stronger then before especially if you hit the new ruler when he's vuulnerable.

In my current game (I haven't lasted much past 1250 in other games so far! ) starting as Count d'Orange of Venaissin in the Duchy of Provence, I managed to get the Duchy title within a couple of years by a well-planned plot for elective succession, then a brief siege. 5 years later the Emperor turned lunatic and after appointing me as his Spymaster then promptly imprisoned me for 20 years, 2 years into my incarceration he stuck me in the oubilette in response to my petitioning. At this point I had only managed to sire 2 bastards before my imprisonment (son I started with died of smallpox). At this point I thought it was game over, so just let the game run for a while. Eventually, I was released after he accepted my ransom. I promptly got busy between the sheets with whoever I could as my wife and my lover had died whilst I was in prison! A few years and a few strategic alliances later, I declared war to depose the liege, won after much trickery and am now 76 years old with a very strong dynasty and 4 duchy titles, building up a base for my heir to form Italy and go independent. After all that I am now very attached to this dynasty and will carry on regardless of what happens, although my heir has produced a club-footed ginger homosexual indulgent wastrel as his heir, so things are looking interesting in that area... ahem.

You have to pay Paradox some indulgence for those sins to be absolved, my child.

didn't have enough gold for assasin?

In my very first game as Duchess di Cannossa of Toscana, I built up my holdings until I was King of Italy and Sicily by 1150. I then felt cheeky and started a war of independence against the HRE with the French as my allies. Needless to say the French were useless as I didn't check to see that they were already in a defense against Valencian aggression war in Spain; so I got trounced, imprisoned and had my Kingdom of Italy title stripped. Then a bunch of my vassals revolted and basically my holdings fell apart... In one fell swoop I went from the most powerful vassal of the HRE to a King of Sicily with only 2 duchies and one duchy as a vassal.

I was about to delete that game but I saved it and played as one of the Spanish Kingdoms to learn a bit more about the game. Came back to that save about 2 weeks later and totally reversed everything to the point where I'm now the Emperor of the HRE within 2 generations of that disaster. I could have cheated (and I have cheated in CK2 games); but it felt so rewarding to rescue that game using all the little tricks of the trade (and that doesn't include assassinations because I refuse to use them in those situations) I've learned while playing around with other dynasties. The game is just so awesome...

One thing I did wrong in my first games is that, anytime enemy's main army defeated my main army I thought the war is over. This is a little too far fetched, as is far from over. It depends on the warscore, and still a lot of things can happen. For example: you could die and suddenly war ends inconclusively (what a glorious death that would be ), or you could marry a princess of the HRE and call it to arms, or some powerful duke could rebel in Scotland. Just fight, there are more things you can do. It doesn't end that easily, till it's -100%.