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Thund91

I'm probably drunk
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Sep 12, 2010
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I bought it last night since I noticed steam was having a sale. Couldn't resist.

I'm enjoying it a lot. I'm an EUIV player so I was pretty used to a simpler UI and was a bit overwhelmed at first. I've played a couple of games now (trial and error) and took the universal suggestion that Ireland is the best starting area. On my last attempt I formed Ireland and held all territories but ulster (scotland took it and I couldnt beat em). It took me about a hundred years. I'm assuming this is terrible but meh.

I just have a few questions on the things I feel I need to understand better cause they're important.

1. I keep reading how easy it is to expand in this game but I'm not seeing it. Maybe it's cause I played a county in Ireland but it took FOREVER to forge a claim for CB. I got lucky and got a 20 skill diplomat guy but after he died it took forever again. I looked around and got the idea that I can bring people to my court. The problem is that after I pressed their claim they always became independant. Is there something i'm missing here?

2. Marriages. How should I go about doing this? Right now I don't really look at much when marrying someone. I'll look at a few traits and their opinion. Also was it because I was so small that the AI never asks me for marriages? I only got one offer the entire time from the King of Galicia for my sister's hand which was nice, since I got an alliance even though she hated my guts. Also how do I manage to marry with princes and princesses of big kingdoms? also sometimes because of my sporadic marriages I'd get random casus bellis against people. I got a few against England and France to claim a county but I didnt use them cause I assumed I'd get demolished. I got one on Navarre that seemed promising by they were allied to other Spanish powers. The one that seemed best were small counties in Wales and Brittany, but I figured I'd still to my safe little island. Anyway I'm just confused on how I got these CB. is there anyway I can check how a marriage can lead to one?

3. What are the best succession laws? For this playthrough I went for oldest child + female takes a back seat compared to male but can still inherit if there's no one else. Sorry for not knowing the name but I haven't memorized them yet lol. Think it was agnatic-cromatic and then a long word that starts with a p lol.

4. Distributing land. Who should I give them too? I gave them to my siblings and heirs yet I heard that's not a good thing to do? They keep presturing me for land titles.

5. Last but not least, now that I finished my "first" game I'm looking for suggestions for the second. I'd still like a relatively safe location that still offers an easy route for expansion. How about somewhere in scandinavia? I also have the republic DLC and am very interested as playing as one but don't know if that's such a good idea just yet.

6. Oh one more thing. Who should I be looking after often? Right now I just look after my immediate family but should I be marrying or keeping an eye on other people? I didn't find most of the others too important (like cousins and aunts).

Thanks for any help you can give!
 
1. They need to already be your vassal or be of your dynasty AND be of lower rank than you for you to vassalise them upon pressing your claim. I believe there's a tooltip.
2. Marry the daughters and sisters of kings for strong allies, or dukes for easily pressed claims in a few generations' time. Those CB you seem to be getting are probably exiles from those counties and the like, come to your court so you can press their claims. Remember that in CK2 you're a character, not a nation
3. Agnatic/Agnatic-Cognatic isn't too important a distinction. It's useful occasionally to avoid the females so that you don't get that vassal opinion penalty but the other succession laws tend to be more crucial
Gavelkind lets you have a huge personal demesne with improved vassal opinion. Downside is that if you have a lot of sons, you'll probably get a civil war upon succession as your brothers fight for your throne
Primogeniture, Seniority and Elective let you keep your demesne in one place on death. Downside is the smaller demesne and the prestige penalty for unlanded sons.
And no one likes Tanistry.
4. I give land to distant relatives who are of my dynasty but don't have strong claims on my title. Failing that, to claimants on foreign lands or just to invited nobles.
5. Probably start as a vassal of the HRE. Let you play the other kind of game
 
I'm also a EUIV player.

World domination in EUIV is nearly impossible, world domination in CKII doable.

  1. The claim system in CKII is much worse than the claim system in EUIV, so you can't rely on your Chacellor to get you claims. You need to seek marriages for claims, you need to invite claimants to the title you want, land them, then press the claim. If you're not catholic, it's much easier. Muslims get Invasion casus belli, which basically means they can take over an entire kingdom, as do Tengri.
  2. If you're small you should marry for powerful alliances. If you're big, it gets debatable but I go for the eugenics program. I try to get people with strong or genius trait.
  3. There is no 'best' succession law. Some have risks that others don't. Ultrimogineture is very reliable, but you need High Crown authority to achieve it, on the other hand Feudal Elective will make your vassals very happy, the empire very stable, but you also run the risk that your vassals will not vote for your heir and lose the Empire.
  4. Land, debatable again. It's never a good idea to give land to your dynasty. Why? Factions. On succession your vassals will faction you to death to put your brother or uncle in power. It destabilizes the entire realm, hurting you on the long run. I usually land people through the character finder. I find people with good martial and good stewardship. Of the same religion and the same culture. Preferably with the content trait and never with the ambitious trait.
  5. France is a fun game for newbies to play on. If you start as one of the Karlings, you can get a lot of claims on a lot of kingdoms surrounding you.
  6. You shouldn't have to worry about anyone else other than immediate family. I still marry as many people as I can because I like having a lot of dynasty members.
 
I bought it last night since I noticed steam was having a sale. Couldn't resist.

I'm enjoying it a lot. I'm an EUIV player so I was pretty used to a simpler UI and was a bit overwhelmed at first. I've played a couple of games now (trial and error) and took the universal suggestion that Ireland is the best starting area. On my last attempt I formed Ireland and held all territories but ulster (scotland took it and I couldnt beat em). It took me about a hundred years. I'm assuming this is terrible but meh.

That's actually pretty good.

I just have a few questions on the things I feel I need to understand better cause they're important.

1. I keep reading how easy it is to expand in this game but I'm not seeing it. Maybe it's cause I played a county in Ireland but it took FOREVER to forge a claim for CB. I got lucky and got a 20 skill diplomat guy but after he died it took forever again. I looked around and got the idea that I can bring people to my court. The problem is that after I pressed their claim they always became independant. Is there something i'm missing here?

Forging usually take forever hence why expansion is exponential until it plateaus once you're huge. This is usually done via inviting people with large claims. As a king you obviously can't expand by pushing other people's claim on other kingdoms or empires (since you cannot vassalize someone of same rank). From what I've read, that in order for you to keep someone your vassal after you push their claim they should be either a vassal already or a dynasty member.

Also, don't forget pushing de jure claims. If an area is considered by law to be part of any title you or your vassal own, then you can declare war for it.

Also the best way (which can be the hardest way) is to actually make yourself the heir to a particular title. So lets say you marry the Queen of Scotland who has children yet. Now if you make a child with her who is also is your first child (under primogeniture) then you'll have an EU IV equivalent of a "personal union". Another way is to have a de jure elector title of an elective succession law realm. So by default, post 1066 Holy Roman Empire is under elective succession. So if you can somehow get a ducal title within de jure Holy Roman Empire AND somehow convince the other electors to vote for you (or just kill every single candidates) then you could theoretically inherit the Holy Roman Empire.

2. Marriages. How should I go about doing this? Right now I don't really look at much when marrying someone. I'll look at a few traits and their opinion. Also was it because I was so small that the AI never asks me for marriages? I only got one offer the entire time from the King of Galicia for my sister's hand which was nice, since I got an alliance even though she hated my guts. Also how do I manage to marry with princes and princesses of big kingdoms? also sometimes because of my sporadic marriages I'd get random casus bellis against people. I got a few against England and France to claim a county but I didnt use them cause I assumed I'd get demolished. I got one on Navarre that seemed promising by they were allied to other Spanish powers. The one that seemed best were small counties in Wales and Brittany, but I figured I'd still to my safe little island. Anyway I'm just confused on how I got these CB. is there anyway I can check how a marriage can lead to one?

When starting out, first and foremost you look at the age and stats. Regarding stats, inheritable traits such as Attractive, Genius, Quick, and Strong, are something you should snatch up as soon as possible since you want your heirs to have those trait, likewise bad inheritable trait (blue hearts) are to be avoided like the plague. Other traits are usually how it affects their skills or their prestige/piety rate. Also, lustful trait is good when starting small.

In regards to alliances, yeah they are great, iff they like you. On top of that their opinion of your enemy also counts. Also, do remember that alliances are a double edged sword, if they are in trouble then they can ask for your help as well (not that you have to send troops or anything). In terms of getting causus belli, they are claims I was talking about above. Don't push it unless it's either for your dynasty member or a vassal and even then make sure the rank is lower than yours otherwise they will become independent. The reason why you get those CBs are because either the members of your court or your vassals have claims to those areas. Sometimes it is a strong claim, meaning they can push it whenever they want. Other times (most commonly as well), they are weak claims or the claimant is a woman, meaning they can only be pushed if the current title holder is a woman or is in regency (incapable or child).

3. What are the best succession laws? For this playthrough I went for oldest child + female takes a back seat compared to male but can still inherit if there's no one else. Sorry for not knowing the name but I haven't memorized them yet lol. Think it was agnatic-cromatic and then a long word that starts with a p lol.

They all have their ups and downs. The oldest child one (primogeniture) is the most common and the safest route, but shit can still happen (like with everything in life). If you're starting small in Ireland, I actually recommend tanistry, especially if your dynasty is small since the successor will always be of your dynasty while keeping your vassals happy, however once you get big expect a lot of undesired rulers. Other than that, feudal elective is good since it lets you choose your own successor (like tanistry without the randomness), but you can lose the titles so there are risks. As for gender (agnatic-cognatic is what it's called), agnatic-cognatic is safe in case you have no male heir, but having it default to the nearest male line is safer for bigger dynasties.

4. Distributing land. Who should I give them too? I gave them to my siblings and heirs yet I heard that's not a good thing to do? They keep presturing me for land titles.

This depends. I like to give lands to my close relatives, but you are asking for trouble once you die since this can result in a full-blown succession crisis. However, I think this has been removed entirely with the new patch so I don't know. Another reason of not doing so other than a succession crisis, is the opinion malus for being title claimants, but if you can manage this then you should be fine. As for who else, content characters while avoiding ambitious characters unless you like the challenge.

5. Last but not least, now that I finished my "first" game I'm looking for suggestions for the second. I'd still like a relatively safe location that still offers an easy route for expansion. How about somewhere in scandinavia? I also have the republic DLC and am very interested as playing as one but don't know if that's such a good idea just yet.

I hear one of the Spanish kingdoms is good for relative new comers who wants to go on a conquest while being not too screwed over, other than that and you don't mind vassal managements I say that the Byzantine Empire has a medium level difficulty. As for republics, I do recommend them, they are fun and different in that the goal is not so much prestige from land (ie global conquest), but rather prestige from making a shit tonne of money.

6. Oh one more thing. Who should I be looking after often? Right now I just look after my immediate family but should I be marrying or keeping an eye on other people? I didn't find most of the others too important (like cousins and aunts).

Immediate family and anyone with good traits. You really should look after your other dynasty members (if they do well they do boost dynastic prestige), but it's not as important as immediate family member unless you're playing with the tanistry succession law. I myself like to manage every single one of them since you never know what might happen (as well as for dynastic prestige), but each to their own.

Thanks for any help you can give!

Hope this helps.
 
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Thanks everyone for the help. I looked around the map and will start a new game as the count of Tours. I figure being in the middle of France would keep me safe in their many wars. I'll take the advice of what everyone said and hopefully I can do something big this game. :)
 
Thanks everyone for the help. I looked around the map and will start a new game as the count of Tours. I figure being in the middle of France would keep me safe in their many wars. I'll take the advice of what everyone said and hopefully I can do something big this game. :)

Good luck. Just at tip: if you become King of France, the duchy where Paris is isn't that great so I usually forfeit it for another better duchy, like Flanders or Brittany.

Also remember that you can only have two duchies under your name, otherwise vassals will have an opinion malus with you exponential to how many duchies you hold.
 
Thanks. I've already arranged marriage with princess Maria of norway and the lustful trait has her popping out 4 kids in just a few years already lol.

Edit: I think I'm getting the hang of this. I started a faction to install my mother, the duchess of Burgundy as the duchess of Anjou through war. I started a plot to kill my brother and if he dies I inherit on her death. :D
 
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Thanks. I've already arranged marriage with princess Maria of norway and the lustful trait has her popping out 4 kids in just a few years already lol.

Edit: I think I'm getting the hang of this. I started a faction to install my mother, the duchess of Burgundy as the duchess of Anjou through war. I started a plot to kill my brother and if he dies I inherit on her death. :D

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