I'd just suggest to watch Arumba's videos, and to realize that the game has a steep learning curve, so you shouldn't expect to be an expert quickly.
10 Things You'd Tell A New Player
- Thread starter General Karthos
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This is one of the greatest truths I've ever read on this game!
... and one of the main reasons why I love it.
1.- Never, ever, forget to disband your ships when you don't need them anymore. This has costed me more than a couple Ironman games.
2.- Save a lot of money before even thinking of a naval invasion. Ship maintenance is extremely expensive. See 1.
3.- You should always be pessimistic about battle outcomes. Never expect to win under equal odds. Always try to fight at uneven odds, stacked in your favour: use mountains, rivers, numerical superiority, etc; just like they used back in the old day. If you want a fair fight, go boxing, not crusaderkingering.
4.- Do not underestimate the Mongols. Do not think you will be ready.
5.- Do not grab territory just because. Some vassals and their territories can be more trouble than whatever benefits they can bring. Do you really want to go to war in order to take a territory that will not only pay no taxes and give no levies, but will actually have a lord who hates you, votes against you and will try to kill you?
6.- Do not get too attached to your characters. The moment you start to feel love and respect for a character, the Advanced Feeling Detection Artificial Intelligence which is secretly installed by Paradox on your computer, will trigger events that will make himl die due to a manure explosion, sifilis, stress, a falconry accident and other things, all combined, all at once, and just before he is proclaimed emperor or some other great deed.
2.- Save a lot of money before even thinking of a naval invasion. Ship maintenance is extremely expensive. See 1.
3.- You should always be pessimistic about battle outcomes. Never expect to win under equal odds. Always try to fight at uneven odds, stacked in your favour: use mountains, rivers, numerical superiority, etc; just like they used back in the old day. If you want a fair fight, go boxing, not crusaderkingering.
4.- Do not underestimate the Mongols. Do not think you will be ready.
5.- Do not grab territory just because. Some vassals and their territories can be more trouble than whatever benefits they can bring. Do you really want to go to war in order to take a territory that will not only pay no taxes and give no levies, but will actually have a lord who hates you, votes against you and will try to kill you?
6.- Do not get too attached to your characters. The moment you start to feel love and respect for a character, the Advanced Feeling Detection Artificial Intelligence which is secretly installed by Paradox on your computer, will trigger events that will make himl die due to a manure explosion, sifilis, stress, a falconry accident and other things, all combined, all at once, and just before he is proclaimed emperor or some other great deed.
1) Turn off defensive pacts. They're not fun to deal with and will just confound you while you're trying to get achievements/ learn empire building and management. I would only consider turning them on once you're experienced if you want an extra challenge.
2) Don't be afraid to swear fealty/ start as a vassal. It can be a powerful option in the right situation. A strong liege can protect you from conquest while you plan to inevitably backstab him and take the throne for yourself.
3) Save up a few years of income and don't spend all your money right away unless its urgent. You want a rainy day fund to hire mercenaries in case something unexpected happens (your liege tries to revoke your titles, an adventurer appears, a raiding host shows up etc)
4) Holy wars are very powerful but very risky. Only use them when your target's coreligionists are occupied or you think you can otherwise win a swift victory.
4.5) If you declare a holy war against a rebellion no one will be able to join on your enemy's side but you have to be quick before the rebellion ends
5) If you marry your children to your vassals family and form a non aggression pact they will be unable to join factions against you. Just keep in mind this may end up with vassals having claims on your title but it can be worth it if you are smart about it.
6) Even if you start in the earliest start date you can get primogeniture within a 2-3 generations. Take the learning focus and study strange things to get hundreds of cultural tech which you dump into legalism. Combined with sending your spymaster to steal technology and your chaplain to study cultural tech its possible to get late feudal administration and primogeniture by your 2nd ruler. Until then its much simpler to use elective monarchy over gavelkind in most cases
7) If you usurp a title of equal rank to your main title, check its inheritance law. If its not the same as your primary you risk losing all of its de jure land upon death.
8) When you predict a war is imminent, whether its because of a declared crusade, large faction or revocation war, raise your levy before the war starts and move them to the place where combat will take place. You cannot declare war with levies raised but you can be called to join them(crusade) or have them declared on you (revolt)
9) Always take a loan from the Jews and never pay it back until 350 gold is worth +10 religious opinion which will be late game. Expelling the jews is almost never worth it because of the negative traits you get and the loss of income will outweigh what you initially seize
10) You can invite claimants to your court and press their claims in war for them. If you grant them land to make them your vassal they will remain your vassal afterwards as long as their new title is of lesser rank than yours. This can be used to take control of huge amounts of land from your coreligionists.
2) Don't be afraid to swear fealty/ start as a vassal. It can be a powerful option in the right situation. A strong liege can protect you from conquest while you plan to inevitably backstab him and take the throne for yourself.
3) Save up a few years of income and don't spend all your money right away unless its urgent. You want a rainy day fund to hire mercenaries in case something unexpected happens (your liege tries to revoke your titles, an adventurer appears, a raiding host shows up etc)
4) Holy wars are very powerful but very risky. Only use them when your target's coreligionists are occupied or you think you can otherwise win a swift victory.
4.5) If you declare a holy war against a rebellion no one will be able to join on your enemy's side but you have to be quick before the rebellion ends
5) If you marry your children to your vassals family and form a non aggression pact they will be unable to join factions against you. Just keep in mind this may end up with vassals having claims on your title but it can be worth it if you are smart about it.
6) Even if you start in the earliest start date you can get primogeniture within a 2-3 generations. Take the learning focus and study strange things to get hundreds of cultural tech which you dump into legalism. Combined with sending your spymaster to steal technology and your chaplain to study cultural tech its possible to get late feudal administration and primogeniture by your 2nd ruler. Until then its much simpler to use elective monarchy over gavelkind in most cases
7) If you usurp a title of equal rank to your main title, check its inheritance law. If its not the same as your primary you risk losing all of its de jure land upon death.
8) When you predict a war is imminent, whether its because of a declared crusade, large faction or revocation war, raise your levy before the war starts and move them to the place where combat will take place. You cannot declare war with levies raised but you can be called to join them(crusade) or have them declared on you (revolt)
9) Always take a loan from the Jews and never pay it back until 350 gold is worth +10 religious opinion which will be late game. Expelling the jews is almost never worth it because of the negative traits you get and the loss of income will outweigh what you initially seize
10) You can invite claimants to your court and press their claims in war for them. If you grant them land to make them your vassal they will remain your vassal afterwards as long as their new title is of lesser rank than yours. This can be used to take control of huge amounts of land from your coreligionists.
1- pirate the game first. Give it a try. If you like it, commit to it fully. All the DLC adds something valuable. But it is too much money for something you may end up not liking.
2- this game runs very smoothly on old hardware.
3- learn to play as a pagan first, so that you learn to play without money.
4- avoid nomadism, muslims, india and tibet for your first runs. They have different rules.
5- deactivate the aztec invasion, deactivate dynastic title names, activate family generation for the AI only, set de-jure drift to restricted, culture conversion to combination and exclaves to harsh. That's how I play, with some other alterations.
6- try to always be on a society. It's just not worth it not to be in one.
7- try to have a healthy treasury. A bad ruler can be made decent if he inherited good weapons, armor and books from his predecessors.
8- your only concern when looking for a marriage should be the base stats of your partner, as well as congenital traits. All the rest is irrelevant. Base stats and good congenital traits is what guarantees sons with 10+ on everything.
9- try to have fun. A lot of times this game uses RNG rolls that just don't seem to make sense. If you feel like you need to savescum a little, go right ahead. But stay away from console commands or you'll never get good at the game.
10- you can sometimes lose a war, become vassalized, or avoid expansionism. There is no way to "win the game" and you shouldn't aim for that. Just navigate your family through the intricacies of medieval court life. It's not always about painting the map.
2- this game runs very smoothly on old hardware.
3- learn to play as a pagan first, so that you learn to play without money.
4- avoid nomadism, muslims, india and tibet for your first runs. They have different rules.
5- deactivate the aztec invasion, deactivate dynastic title names, activate family generation for the AI only, set de-jure drift to restricted, culture conversion to combination and exclaves to harsh. That's how I play, with some other alterations.
6- try to always be on a society. It's just not worth it not to be in one.
7- try to have a healthy treasury. A bad ruler can be made decent if he inherited good weapons, armor and books from his predecessors.
8- your only concern when looking for a marriage should be the base stats of your partner, as well as congenital traits. All the rest is irrelevant. Base stats and good congenital traits is what guarantees sons with 10+ on everything.
9- try to have fun. A lot of times this game uses RNG rolls that just don't seem to make sense. If you feel like you need to savescum a little, go right ahead. But stay away from console commands or you'll never get good at the game.
10- you can sometimes lose a war, become vassalized, or avoid expansionism. There is no way to "win the game" and you shouldn't aim for that. Just navigate your family through the intricacies of medieval court life. It's not always about painting the map.