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unmerged(512062)

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Jun 22, 2012
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  • Crusader Kings II
I have been putting hours into Crusader Kings 2 and i enjoy it quite a lot. i was talking with my friend and he mentioned how he was gonna take over Scotland easy with some mercs due to his economy. I asked him what he was making a month and he said 20. I though man that seems low to get any mercs worth mentioning to take a Kingdom. Then i thought and he confirmed Scotland is in constant civil war, but this still seemed off. Then he said he just places his merc squads on the area he is going to attack and then declares war afterwards. So basically he setup to insta blockade places making war not even a battle. I mean that is like punching a kid in the face before he buys the candy you want to steal, so you take his money instead to get the candy.

Either way this would make war really simple to never lose accept to larger nations like the HRE or ERE. I tried to explain that just takes the fun out of everything to have zero challenge. He told me he is just awesome and will be supported in this from the forums. Id like to think people like a challenge and wont support him.

Any thoughts on this?
 
It's a legit tactic and should be left in the game.

(what do you mean I'm biased)
 
It is effective but totally legitimate.

I prefer to declare war while my merc's are on route to the province though. I try to time it so that my enemy will not be able to march out of the province - one day short is fine ;) but will levy his troops (and hopefully vassals). Means I get to eliminate a lot of his troops in battle and the subsequent siege is much easier. Problem with this tactic is that screwy things happen with army leadership when your levies arrive later to reinforce the battle or siege. I thinking that this would be fixed in 1.06 but it now seems unlikely...
 
Something of an exploit, but to each their own. Sounds like the type of guy that would learn how to mod just to give himself a gazillion soldiers and a super-ruler for free too.

If I ever manage to play a multiplayer game though, it sounds like something that should be disallowed by house rules.
 
Something of an exploit, but to each their own. Sounds like the type of guy that would learn how to mod just to give himself a gazillion soldiers and a super-ruler for free too.

If I ever manage to play a multiplayer game though, it sounds like something that should be disallowed by house rules.

I am one of those guys that mod themselves, and I never do this lol.

War is never a threat for me, so I allow the enemy time to prepare before battling.
 
I am one of those guys that mod themselves, and I never do this lol.

War is never a threat for me, so I allow the enemy time to prepare before battling.

I wasn't painting all modders with that brush, just one individual ;)
I happen to be a small time CK2 modder myself.
 
Of course it's intent - it's an easily foreseeable occurrence with having levies normally unraised, but being able to raise your own ones before declaring war. That's why you *can't* have levies raised before declaring war. The fact that mercenaries were excluded from the standard levy rule means that it was purposefully designed that way.

Personally, I like it the way it is. If I am fighting (in the early game, of course, otherwise I wouldn't be using mercs) one war with mercs and plan on fighting another immediately afterward, re-paying the 75 gold for each company would slaughter my finances.

In the meantime, by pre-placing his armies, he will prevent the AI from raising those levies. Which means longer sieges. Which means he's paying more in upkeep than if he had just let them raise their men and fought them in the field. Personally, I think it's a silly strategy - but to each their own.
 
In the meantime, by pre-placing his armies, he will prevent the AI from raising those levies. Which means longer sieges. Which means he's paying more in upkeep than if he had just let them raise their men and fought them in the field. Personally, I think it's a silly strategy - but to each their own.

Who sieges with mercs? Especially in the British Isles?

You hire the biggest merc groups, and park them in choke points (Northumbria and any water crossings), once your levies are raised and forming, proceed to storm the fortress. Who cares if you won't win? Just break off the storm at the last minute and let your moral recover. Which is probably the real exploit, calling off the storming of a castle would be the messiest kind of retreat.... the kind that gets a 1/3rd of the men still living killed.
 
It seems legit to me, why bother informing you opponent your at war until you have the upper hand and all the fighting is just confirming what you already know after all even if I don't use mercs I commonly use assassinations and the like to throw the realm into a period of instability and wait for the right moment to strike, only a fool fights a fair battle.
 
It´s evidently intended, as someone mentioned above. Is it legit? Depends on one´s point of view, IMO. I think it´s legit, because it´ll probably just work if you are invading small realms, like independent counties or small duchies. You can´t use the same tactic with realms with lots of counties, unless you really have a lot of money to spend.
However, as someone also mentioned above, I would forbid it in a multiplayer game.
 
I think that it is really exploity, but then again I use it myself whenever I go on a conquering spree as I can't be arsed to constantly reraise my levies. I think a better solution would be that you can declare war with levies raised, but can't declare war with troops inside the enemy borders (including mercs). The current can't declare war with raised levies is kind of annoying. I would love it if I could see the enemy move levies to my borders, and be able to do the same before war is even declared.
 
Who sieges with mercs? Especially in the British Isles?

You hire the biggest merc groups, and park them in choke points (Northumbria and any water crossings), once your levies are raised and forming, proceed to storm the fortress. Who cares if you won't win? Just break off the storm at the last minute and let your moral recover. Which is probably the real exploit, calling off the storming of a castle would be the messiest kind of retreat.... the kind that gets a 1/3rd of the men still living killed.
The storming of a castle takes days if not weeks. Why can't the general realize a week into an all out assault, that he's not going to get it done and call it off?

As for the OP. Sneak attacks are sneak attacks. There's a reason the Mongols whooped ass. Its a basic strategy of a sucker-punch. Not super honorable but it wins wars. Now if you'd like examples of dishonorable guys, here's the first one. William of Normandy, stabs the King of England in the back, while he's fighting the King of Norway. And the rest as they say, is history. But is it really dishonorable, to have your army ready on the border and simply delivering the declaration of war and then marching? I would say not, that's the job of the defender, to counter any potential dishonorable back stabs.
 
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Honestly, this just screams exploit. There really isn't any reason that you should have to lower your own levies to declare war but not fire the mercenaries. I'd wager Johan and the gang simply missed this when designing the game.
 
Honestly, this just screams exploit. There really isn't any reason that you should have to lower your own levies to declare war but not fire the mercenaries. I'd wager Johan and the gang simply missed this when designing the game.
Not really an exploit. Unless you can tell me when in the history of Europe you had to disband your entire army before you could declare war on an enemy.
 
Not really an exploit. Unless you can tell me when in the history of Europe you had to disband your entire army before you could declare war on an enemy.

Yes, it is an exploit that has a basis in gameplay balance rather than historical accuracy. The entire reason you must lower your levies before marching to war is due to the fact that there are no military access treaties. Without forcing the player to lower their levies, they could easily destroy an entire nations armies at the outset of war. The fact that mercenaries are the only group not included in this restriction has no real basis and only serves to allow them to exploit game mechanics.
 
Maybe a solution could be this. You can still declare war with mercs hired, but in order to hire mercs you HAVE to be at war. That way, the situation described in the OP can only be done if you previously had a war and hired mercs during that war. It would be much less exploitable this way, but you can still declare war with mercs hired, so no extra gold spending if you want to declare a second war right after you finish the first one.