Little tip thread

[Dimitri Cosmos]

Let's share some overlooked or simply small tips that give you advantages. Here are some that come to my mind (some of them are well known, but maybe not to new players):

• When something random happens that you don't want (meeting death, infected wound, cancer or whatever), force end the game process in the Task Manager (Alt+Tab, Windows + X OR Ctrl+Alt+Delete and Delete/End task). Restart the game, hoping that it will put you back before the event fired.
• If a mercenary company that you created decides to leave your service, don't press OK on the pop-up message. Instead select the mercenary captain, right-click on his portrait and dissolve the company, so that it can't be hired against you (as it can become very powerful, if you had been sending troops and equipment to it).
• If a Crusade is called against you, gather your retinues and the vassalized Holy Order (if you have one) on your border closest to Rome. As soon as the Crusade begins, march those troops to Rome and capture all holdings in Pope's demesne. As soon as you have done that, the War Score should be around 50% and the Pope will offer Peace.
• Two ways how to get rid of someone without diplomatic penalties: (1) making them a councilor and sending on a mission to a county that has a disease outbreak; (2) making them a commander and putting them on a ship (they will get scurvy and die). You can also put them in charge of a small unit and launch them against a powerful army (on a raid or otherwise). But it doesn't guarantee their death, because they can just become prisoners and be released or just survive for many years.
• If you have Blood of Ashina/Attila, you can make your sons mercenary captains. It will give them the Adventurer trait (PC bonus, diplomatic penalty) and possibly traits like Brave, Lustful, Cruel, Diligent etc. After five years call your son back, if you want him to be your heir. Otherwise he will keep turning more and more barbaric and can even contract venereal diseases.
• If you grant your sons lands, they have a tendency to break betrothals. So make sure that they are adult before granting them land or there's less than 10 years left until their 16th birthday. In the latter case, also make sure that the other partner is "physically" in your court and you are the one who decides who they can marry (guardianship doesn't count for this purpose). As to daughters, you can grant them religious holdings at any time. They don't break betrothals. But betroth them before granting the title, because otherwise you'll be able to betroth them only to your courtiers. (UPDATE: as I've seen in other games, the daughters do actually break bethrotals, if they are queens and the bethrothed is not prestigious enough).
• If you grant you wife a religious holding, she takes her children with her. Be careful about this, as this can potentially damage your children's education.
• You keep all the retinues that you raised as a tribal ruler after switching to feudalism. This means that you can exceed your retinue limit and still keep all the tribal retinues that you purchased with prestige/piety. Their upkeep will cost no money, just prestige/piety as before. For this reason, I wait until I reach at least level 4 in Military Technology. It also reduces attrition in pagan lands that you would otherwise suffer after reformation.
• If you didn't know, you can ignore/reduce pagan attrition, if you build forts. Therefore, Unrelenting doctrine doesn't pay off in the long term (also because of Military Organization).
• If realm split due to gavelkind is a problem for you, make only bastard children through seduction and legitimize only the one you need and marry only old women.
• If you are a pagan, and can't get a woman to your court by inviting her, try to take her as a concubine. If you are a pagan and can't get a non-pagan to your court, try buying a favor from him, then invite him by asking a favor. It still doesn't work, if they are close relatives of their ruler.
• Sending the spymaster to the target county and leading your troops personally in that county, increases your plot power against a courtier there.
• Proselytizing is more effective, if the Chaplain/Diviner/Seer is of the same ethnicity as the target county.
• By leaving one Glory Hound in your council, before declaring war (Council war declaration enabled), you can see whether the target is stronger or weaker than you, by hovering over their icon to see their opinion.
• Character Search bar can be used as a filter, e.g., "Shrewd" filters all shrewd characters.
  
  That's all for now, maybe something else will come to mind.

 

[Castimirr]

You want end process tree, not end process. Otherwise, it will save.

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

• You can get more than 1 "Become a king" ambition, if you switch capitals to a county of another de jure kingdom before founding any. More details how to do it here.
• It is more likely that you will become a target of a crusade, if you hold a land in any of these kingdoms.

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

• If you construct a new holding in a province, the fort that you've built there will be deconstructed and will contribute a small discount towards building the new holding.

 

[GeordieJames]

• If you construct a new holding in a province, the fort that you've built there will be deconstructed and will contribute a small discount towards building the new holding.

Is the discount sufficient that it's worth building a fort before constructing any new holding, or not?

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

Is the discount sufficient that it's worth building a fort before constructing any new holding, or not?

I didn't check how big the saving exactly was, but I've read on Reddit that's it was either 50 or 100. So, considering that the fort costs 19-27 gold units and it takes a few days to build it, it pays off.

I will check how big the saving is exacly the next time I build a temple, and I will let you know. (Hopefully, I will remember to check it).

 

[GeordieJames]

I didn't check how big the saving exactly was, but I've read on Reddit that's it was either 50 or 100. So, considering that the fort costs 19-27 gold units and it takes a few days to build it, it pays off.

I will check how big the saving is exacly the next time I build a temple, and I will let you know. (Hopefully, I will remember to check it).

In my current game, I'm planning on building a new holding soon. If I manage to do it this evening, Ill try to remember this, and post results.

 

[Immortal88]

• Sending the spymaster to the target county and leading your troops personally in that county, increases your plot power against a courtier there.

Leading my troops personally in the capital county of a ruler target does not increase my plot power according to the intrigue tab. Or is the term courtier meant to specifically exclude the actual ruler of the county (who also resides there at the moment)?

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

Leading my troops personally in the capital county of a ruler target does not increase my plot power according to the intrigue tab. Or is the term courtier meant to specifically exclude the actual ruler of the county (who also resides there at the moment)?

Oh, it's been a while since I learned and wrote that, but I think the idea is that it increases the plot power of an actual active plot against any courtier in that county. Also, perhaps there's some time of how much you should wait before you see the bonus kick in.

Anyway, according to the wikia: "Plus your personal contribution, if you are at the target's location" + "Be at the target's location by leading troops". And I guess what "personal contribution" means is your intrigue skill for assassination/fabrication plots and your military skill for revocation plots.

 

[Dragatus]

1. If you're using the independent ruler map view you can hold CTRL and click on a realm to display direct vassals. You can then CTRL + left click on a vassal to display that vassal's direct vassals and so on. CTRL + right click will revers the process. This is handy for when you want to view your vassals and don't care about the vassals of your neighbors.

2. If you have a weak claim try starting a plot to murder the current holder of the title. If news about the plot gets revealed the person might go into hiding, which will put the title into regency and allow you to press your claim.

3. If you have one empire with Gavelkind succession and multiple kingdoms with Primogeniture your eldest child will usually inherit all the titles and you get the 30% demesne bonus. However, be warned that Gavelkind and Primogeniture succession aren't exactly the same, so there is a chance the inheritance will go wrong. Specifically, under Agnatic Gavelkind the son of a sister will be an eligible heir if you have no sons or brothers, but under Agnatic Primogeniture he will not.

4. If you want to murder someone and plot chance is low try inviting Deceitful women and marrying them off to people in the target's court. Works best if the woman is also Greedy and has other dishonorable traits.

5. If you are using Elective Monarchy and your gender law is Agnatic-Cognatic or Enatic-Cognatic you can nominate both men and women.

6. If you are using Elective Monarchy and you only have 1 vassal who can vote your nominee will always be the heir because the ruler's vote counts as a tie breaker.

7. Be warned: if you are an emperor and you use Elective Monarchy all the dukes who are vassals of your vassal kings also get a vote.

8. Enatic Clans will force all your vassals into Enatic succession, but you can later change to Enatic-Cognatic yourself. If you inherit with a male character you can then pick Seduction focus to get a massive opinion bonus from all vassals.

9. The Byzantine Empire is normally stuck with Imperial Elective, but if it gets destroyed and re-created it will copy the succession law from the primary title of whoever re-creates it. In that way it is possible to turn it into a regular feudal realm with a normal succession law.

10. If you're playing with defensive pacts on it may be useful to know that creating the Slavic Union will clear your threat.

11. If theocracies already make up 10% of your realm or more you can't give any more counties to theocratic characters and their vassals. However, there is no limit to transferring vassalage and you can have as many counts as you wish become vassals of a duke tier priest. The same concept applies to republics.

12. Invite old rich people without any family to join your court. When they die you'll inherit their gold and it shouldn't take too long. And if you ever get impatient you can always speed things up a little. Various mayors that have been displaced by holy wars are the prime candidates for such invitations.

13. If your spymaster is stealing technology setting your other councilors to research technology in your capital will speed up how quickly your are stealing technology. But do note it only affects the passive tech stealing. It will not make the event that gives you 50 tech point trigger more often.

14. During a war you can set your spymaster down in a province outside your field of view to reveal it along with all the adjacent provinces. This can be quite useful to follow enemy army movements.

15. If there are both neutral and enemy armies in a province and you attack, the neutral armies will help the enemy armies in the battle.

16. If a neutral army attaches itself to an enemy army, the allegedly neutral army will take part in all the battles of the enemy army.

17. Armies on ships don't suffer attrition.

18. Camels are overpowered and need to be nerfed.

 

[Immortal88]

Oh, it's been a while since I learned and wrote that, but I think the idea is that it increases the plot power of an actual active plot against any courtier in that county. Also, perhaps there's some time of how much you should wait before you see the bonus kick in.

Anyway, according to the wikia: "Plus your personal contribution, if you are at the target's location" + "Be at the target's location by leading troops". And I guess what "personal contribution" means is your intrigue skill for assassination/fabrication plots and your military skill for revocation plots.

Okay, I think I realize what's up:
It doesn't actually visibly work in terms of higher plot power, I made sure by waiting for the monthly tick and reopening the tab. After I read the wiki passage carefully, I think what is probably meant is that even if your plot power itself does not increase in terms of raw number there is a chance that your own character triggers the plot. Basically, the more characters are in on it the better. According to the wiki having 120% plot power with one versus two backers means the latter one is still 2 times as likely to trigger (assuming you are not at the location yourself).

2. If you have a weak claim try starting a plot to murder the current holder of the title. If news about the plot gets revealed the person might go into hiding, which will put the title into regency and allow you to press your claim.

13. If your spymaster is stealing technology setting your other councilors to research technology in your capital will speed up how quickly your are stealing technology.

2. is really good stuff, I never thought of that!
13. is a bit misleading because a lot of people will now envision that the +50 spymaster tech point event fires more frequently. What is actually meant is that if you hover over the gears in the tech screen of your province where you have the appropriate councilor working the +tech job, then you'll see that both the spymaster and the councilor contribute to the monthly chance of gaining +0.1 for each tech in that specific tech group.

 

[Rockphed]

17. Armies on ships don't suffer attrition.

But they do have the "out of supply" timer start from when the ship left port.

 

[Dragatus]

13. is a bit misleading because a lot of people will now envision that the +50 spymaster tech point event fires more frequently. What is actually meant is that if you hover over the gears in the tech screen of your province where you have the appropriate councilor working the +tech job, then you'll see that both the spymaster and the councilor contribute to the monthly chance of gaining +0.1 for each tech in that specific tech group.

That's a good point. I edited my post to make it more clear.

But they do have the "out of supply" timer start from when the ship left port.

That's a little tip for me then. I didn't know that.

 

[majdavlk]

i made a similiar list of different tips on Reddit named compilation of tips/tricks/exploits

I didn't check how big the saving exactly was, but I've read on Reddit that's it was either 50 or 100. So, considering that the fort costs 19-27 gold units and it takes a few days to build it, it pays off.

I will check how big the saving is exacly the next time I build a temple, and I will let you know. (Hopefully, I will remember to check it).

upgrading a tribal holding still seems like a better deal.

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

i made a similiar list of different tips on Reddit named compilation of tips/tricks/exploits

Can you please post a link in this thread? It might be useful for forum users and google searchers.

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

Is the discount sufficient that it's worth building a fort before constructing any new holding, or not?

I checked the exact number. It varies, but it's close to 100. In my current example the discount is 94.

 

[GeordieJames]

I checked the exact number. It varies, but it's close to 100. In my current example the discount is 94.

Fantastic tip. I shall have to remember to use this. Thanks.

 

[junassa]

I don't see this mentioned but I played for years without knowing you could create a vassal for a city/temple/barony by going to the holding and clicking the "create vassal" button. All this time I've been using the intrigue tab to get holy men and nobleman to fill those slots. All that wasted piety/gold when I could have been gaining piety.

 

[junassa]

Also there's a lot of bugs or mechanics I consider not fun or could be improved, so give mods a try. Unless you're playing specifically to get a specific achievement(s) after a certain point you're unlikely to get any anyway.

 

[Dimitri Cosmos]

I checked the exact number. It varies, but it's close to 100. In my current example the discount is 94.

Fantastic tip. I shall have to remember to use this. Thanks.

I guess that I was actually wrong about the discount. Maybe it's not actually close to 100. The price difference was about 100, when I compared it to a price of a new holding in one of my provinces that already has a holding in it. But when I compare the discount against a price of a new holding in an empty province (tribal with no occupied slots) before building a fort in it, it's only about 20 (the price of a fort). So maybe building a fort doesn't make a difference.

I will see, if it helps, when I build a second holding in a province.