My second game: Forced to Abandon

[Garuda]

I enjoyed my first game as Duke of Connacht (1.04) and now started up my second game as King of England (1.05c). All is well until William dies and Roberrt ascends to the throne. On ascension my vassals declare war against me and continuously do so - month after month and year after year. There's no end to it. Eventually I got so fed up with constant AI dows that I started to save, load (load as vassal to offer peace to myself) and reload again. I've lost count of how many times I've done this - but the AI dows just keep coming; it's relentless.

This is not the kind of game I enjoy. I want to enjoy playing my dynasty, but the game seemingly does not allow me that. I'm really disheartened and have abandoned the game.


I just needed to post here and vent steam - thanks for listening.

[Calbrenar]

Keep the counts in Jail until you stop all the revolts. Make sure you're mousing over and seeing why they are pissed at you (too many duchies, demesne too big, etc) and take steps to correct them. Some of the biggest ones are holding counties in titles where other dukes have titles or having ducal titles when counts have titles.

You can find prisoners who like you and release them for an easy +10 with everyone. try temporarily turning down taxes or levees with the worst group (feudal) till you get control. Try to focus on leaders with good to high diplomacy as it helps a lot.

The biggest thing is when people revolt you have to hang onto them when you take them out. If you let htem out /ransom them they will generally revolt again and it's 10% for every person. Depending on the size of your empire you can move your cap to be in the middle.

[JasonOfArgos]

Every time a vassal revolts, you can revoke 1 title for free off them. Do so and put in place a content Norman until all of the Saxon lords are gone.

[Cetan]

It's kind of an unofficial "Known Issue" with playing 1.04 saves in 1.05: Vassals are SUPER ANGRY REVOLT TIME all the time.

[SaintEsteban]

It's kind of an unofficial "Known Issue" with playing 1.04 saves in 1.05: Vassals are SUPER ANGRY REVOLT TIME all the time.

I noticed this when I loaded up my Castille game before I decided to abandon it. Aside from my wife's face being GLITCHY MATRIX CODE, all the vassals that formerly loved me suddenly hated my guts. Sigh.

[ryousei]

Its not meant to be easy stablising the english throne as William's heirs. They don't have his huge prestige bonus and may have bad traits. The capital is not right nextdoor and the cultures are wrong. Its meant to be a challenge. But yes make sure the game is started in 1.05c.

[Wraith094]

The solution here is to kill Robert and let a king you personally trained ascend. That way he has good traits and wife from not doing his own thing as a child count. That and deal with the rebels the way described and avoid giving land to your brothers.

[TheChronoMaster]

Stop eating the culture penalties -- either put in Norman lords as quick as you possibly can, ideally through revocation after rebellion, or educate their children with Normans for cultural inheritance.

[SaintEsteban]

The solution here is to kill Robert and let a king you personally trained ascend. That way he has good traits and wife from not doing his own thing as a child count. That and deal with the rebels the way described and avoid giving land to your brothers.

Or just go elective. No need to murder your kids. My 5th son, king Ordulf, recently got the throne.

[Xeorm]

Yea, the instant 10% revolt risk per independence war can easily throw the kingdom into a spiral of revolts.

[Garuda]

Thanks for posting guys. I appreciate it. Just to address some of the points raised – this game was started in 1.05c. I learned from my first game that keeping vassals in prison (and preferably under house arrest so they don’t die prematurely) stops them revolting. I do this as often as I can.

Some of the worst offenders for rebelling are members of my own dynasty. Many of whom were courtiers with high opinion of me until I granted them land. Ungrateful sods.

I was interested in the two tidbits quoted below. Could you elaborate on the meaning of these please? :

Try to focus on leaders with good to high diplomacy as it helps a lot.

Yea, the instant 10% revolt risk per independence war can easily throw the kingdom into a spiral of revolts.

[Hootieleece]

Since they were of your Dynasty. They probably had claims on some of your Titles (-20 malus) and or Pretenders (-50 malus) Also check your Desmesne limit. Also make sure as king you only have 2 Ducal Titles.

[neondt]

Your State Diplomacy (your leader's diplomacy, plus your chancellor's diplomacy, and some contribution from your spouse) determines a bonus to relations with all other characters in the game. It's very helpful. If you raise your children yourself (and you should in most circumstances), always choose event options that give them diplomacy traits. Children now get the same education type as their guardian however, so if your leader isn't a Grey Eminence (just about the best trait), Charismatic Negotiator, etc then consider having them educated by someone who is. That way you'll be able to tutor children yourself in future and be guaranteed to get a diplomacy trait when they turn 16.

When a vassal declared an independece war, all your other vassals like you less and become more likely to declare their own independence wars. If you have a lot of vassals, this could lead to a neverending series of independence wars. Use above suggested methods to prevent this e.g. imprison every rebel until the revolts stop, strip rebels of their titles and replace them with loyal Normans (preferably with the Content trait, as they like you much more and are very unlikely to ever rebel). These rebellions can actually be seen as an opportunity to organise land in England according to your own plan. I like to ensure that none of my vassals hold enough land to be a threat - at the 1066 start as William there's a northern Duke with far too much power you should definitely remove.

[Mr Bernie]

Also, make sure you don't hand out lands to someone with the ambitious trait. I recently won a crusade for Portugal, thoughtlessly put a random courtier with that trait into the Algarve, and with the other revolt risks, he almost instantly declared a war of independence on me. Luckily, I had my two doomstacks just one province to the north.

[Diet of Worms]

Your State Diplomacy (your leader's diplomacy, plus your chancellor's diplomacy, and some contribution from your spouse) determines a bonus to relations with all other characters in the game. It's very helpful. If you raise your children yourself (and you should in most circumstances), always choose event options that give them diplomacy traits. Children now get the same education type as their guardian however, so if your leader isn't a Grey Eminence (just about the best trait), Charismatic Negotiator, etc then consider having them educated by someone who is. That way you'll be able to tutor children yourself in future and be guaranteed to get a diplomacy trait when they turn 16.

Unless this is a feature of the CK2Plus mod (it may well be, I don't have the game here to check), dynasty member vassals (I think, possibly just close family) use personal diplomacy, not state diplomacy.

So a) purely decided on rulers diplo score, not chancellors. And b) it can get much much higher. I had a genius king with diplo training who got over +60 personal diplomacy. A bad diplo king will get a negative, but it isn't hard to get most kings trained right, and simply getting a good diplo education and some good diplo traits can make +30 or +40.

CK2Plus also gives +25 for same dynasty (I think vanilla is +5). So with a good diplo king and elective law (so no pretender modifier) I find it makes perfect sense to hand out titles to brothers and younger sons. Can be a little too easy to be honest, but it feels a lot more historical to favour family.

[Kynaz]

Thanks for posting guys. I appreciate it. Just to address some of the points raised – this game was started in 1.05c. I learned from my first game that keeping vassals in prison (and preferably under house arrest so they don’t die prematurely) stops them revolting. I do this as often as I can.

Some of the worst offenders for rebelling are members of my own dynasty. Many of whom were courtiers with high opinion of me until I granted them land. Ungrateful sods.

I was interested in the two tidbits quoted below. Could you elaborate on the meaning of these please? :

AHHHHHH i think i may have found your problem. NEVER EVER give dynasty members land within your own Lands unless its your direct heir. If they are a title claimant they will probably rebel with no regard to logic , if they are a pretender its even worse , they and many generations of them will instant rebel.


ALSO if you have multiple landed dynasty members under the same rule , its possible that one can call all his "allies" , who happen to be your other vassals , to war. This always causes a huge revolt that is hard to understand.




Overall i wish the ai was a little less nonsensical when it comes to family members ( i know they did some horrible things but did they ALL have to be plotting rebellious bastards to the point that you are better off landing strangers than family?). I enjoy keep track of branching dynasties , but im afraid the game simply doesn't allow for it (inside your kingdoms).

[barny]

Some of the worst offenders for rebelling are members of my own dynasty. Many of whom were courtiers with high opinion of me until I granted them land. Ungrateful sods.

Yeah well, you shouldn't do it. Just ask Henry II about his wife and sons.

[moldeh]

+5 opinion won't make up for their constant plotting, their being allied with each other and many other things that make dynastic vassals the worst vassals.

[Xeorm]

Thanks for posting guys. I appreciate it. Just to address some of the points raised – this game was started in 1.05c. I learned from my first game that keeping vassals in prison (and preferably under house arrest so they don’t die prematurely) stops them revolting. I do this as often as I can.

Some of the worst offenders for rebelling are members of my own dynasty. Many of whom were courtiers with high opinion of me until I granted them land. Ungrateful sods.

I was interested in the two tidbits quoted below. Could you elaborate on the meaning of these please? :

For every vassal currently engaging in an independence war, every other vassal in the realm gets 10% more yearly revolt risk to also rebel. Up to 5 at least (so a maximum risk of +50%), There are multiple other factors that also increase revolt risk, but as this was added in this patch, it can make revolts much more dangerous than before. Though I have heard that only so many vassals will tend to revolt at one time, but this isn't indicated by the game, and I'm not sure how accurate it is.

[SonofWinter]

Since no one told you yet, I'll fill you in, since I had the same problem as Poland and someone explained it to me. Here is the thing. How many Ducal titles do you currently own? Getting rid of them is a nice way to drop your revolt risk. Because then you only have to keep one Duke happy not the 4 counts in that one duchy. Also, if you hold more than 2 Duchies in your personal Demense, the revolt risk goes up +10% for each Duke title over 2.

Now go get it done.