When the Hell did RNG become so sadistic?

[Castimirr]

do you know if using the save button in ironman kills achievements too? Its the only thing i can think of since otherwise ppl would just save, backup the save, resign to title screen and paste overwrite the save that happens when you do that - instead of task manager

Using the Save button doesn't break achievements, I use it all the time. It just overwrites the same file that the Autosave, Quicksave, and Exit/Save-And-Exit buttons do.

As for manipulating saves vs using the task manager, a couple of hot-keys is much faster to me then bothering to manipulate the save files. I actually really enjoy Ironman and most of the restrictions. I'd probably use it even if I was playing with a mod or rule that disabled achievements. Only keeping one file and having very limited abilities to undo or reroll events provides a happy balance for me.

I lost interest in CK2 when it was still version 1.x because editing the save was too easy compared to the short-term frustration of things going badly - even though in the medium and long term it killed any challenge to the game and the fun I was having with it. I like that time-travel isn't an option (a term a friend and I liked to use for jumping back to much earlier saves in Civ). It really does make the choices meaningful. (And if I really wanted to branch a game and take two different forks I still could, but I've never been interested enough to actually do it.)

At the same time, I also don't find any value in letting a misclick wreck hell on a save that I have been playing for three months. Like surrendering when I was trying to enforce demands, a window popping up as I try to click something else, or one of my cats stepping on the key to toggle off raiding for the army that is currently funding my war. (Why is that even a single button? Given you can't reactivate it during a war or if you are out of your territory, that seems like a better option for a combination.) I will occasionally use it to force a re-roll for an event, but that's generally because I have some story I'm working on and the event wrecked it out of the blue in a way that I don't find interesting, even if that event is one that is a bonus for my character. I know it's a completely subjective line, but since I'm playing to an audience of one, I don't really care.

Killing the process tree and restarting is also just enough of a pain that I don't want to do it often. (Though admittedly it is much less of a pain since I switched to an SSD. I think it made an even bigger difference in the start-up time for CK2 than it did for booting Windows. It was kind of impressive.)

Finally, I have cloud saves turned on to keep a connection outage from breaking achievements. I haven't tested but I think Steam will notice if you switch or change the file while offline (which is why losing connection and having it autosave was breaking achievements). I'm not sure about that though since I haven't really tested it.

 

[Crimson Grog]

I personally never play Ironman. I would like to earn achievements and it can be hard to resist the urge to save scum, but I've played enough Morrowind and Stalker to know that I should never have less than 5 previous save files lol.

This also allows me to use the console to change my government to a MR so I can play a Socotra MR or whatever without having to do that "imprison your heir until he revolts at speed 5" nonsense.

 

[WJS]

My trick to playing a Socotra MR is to start as the chief of Hadramawt in 769 and conquer Socotra from there as a tribal.

 

[Kumicho]

My character was gay. cue me looking for an 18 yo lustful girl, closing my eyes and doing what must be done for the sake of the realm. Fun stuff!

You mean looking the other way while your beautiful, lustful 18yo wife bangs every other guy in court? Come on, there's like a 1% chance that that fumbled and awkward night of "doing your civic duty" resulted in her getting pregnant, and a 99% chance that Brutus, your new 27 Martial general who's strong, brawny, attractive, etc was the father.

 

[knppel]

My trick to playing a Socotra MR is to start as the chief of Hadramawt in 769 and conquer Socotra from there as a tribal.

I've played a lot as Nefoud in that area and also once formed a MR. It's amazing, only large tribe in the arabian peninsula, you're the only Shia. Sending the court imam really feels like "Go tell them how it really was, and that Umar and Abu Bakr did push Fatima and Ali was the rightful heir!"
To get back to the thread title, don't even bother to hit play in this start unless you roll 10+ in martial

 

[Geglash]

In a parallel universe where there are sentient RNGs who enjoy playing videogames is a an internet forum much like this and one of the sentient RNGs has created thread that reads: "In one of my games, the nomads subjugated my Byzantine Empire, forced my sisters, daughters and wife into concubinage before they killed them in a ritual sacriface along with all members of my dynasty except for one infant whom they granted some county in Alania only so that I could witness them from the oubliette as they raized my former lands to the ground, wiping the thousands years old Greek civilization, and let me spend next eighty years behind bars to wait for them to convert to Greek culture which allowed them to castrate me, blind me and release me so that they can make my old wretched survivor their personal jester for a couple of weeks before they sacrifaced him as well. When the HELL have the Human Number Generators became so sadistic???"

 

[vandevere]

In a parallel universe where there are sentient RNGs who enjoy playing videogames is a an internet forum much like this and one of the sentient RNGs has created thread that reads: "In one of my games, the nomads subjugated my Byzantine Empire, forced my sisters, daughters and wife into concubinage before they killed them in a ritual sacriface along with all members of my dynasty except for one infant whom they granted some county in Alania only so that I could witness them from the oubliette as they raized my former lands to the ground, wiping the thousands years old Greek civilization, and let me spend next eighty years behind bars to wait for them to convert to Greek culture which allowed them to castrate me, blind me and release me so that they can their personal jester for a couple a of weeks before they sacrifaced my last dynasty member as well. When the HELL has the Human Number Generators became so sadistic???"

Just Karma having its way with the damn rngs...

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I use Ironman and learned to keep a single save file for emergencies.

I periodically copy the latest auto save into a different directory, maybe once every 50 years, so I don’t accidentally lose an achievement from unreliable internet connection.

Spoiler

I was more than 300 years into a game a few years ago and didn’t realize the network went down... the next time I got into the game a few days later, achievements were disabled! I don’t remember when the connection interrupted but since then, at the beginning of every session start, I copy and overwrite the save file to my restore directory.

The in game way I avoid game overs is to go elective.

Spoiler

I switch to elective ASAP and land my family in at least half the voting vassal slots, my goal is all elective slots but I don’t need to push that hard since I only need half. Drive my realm to absolute authority if not already there, and roll out from there until I hit my demesne limit, then expand until I hit my vassal limit, all the while reassigning my vassals efficiently, so I can continue to expand, cycling between expansion and consolidation. I push to maximize my family birth rate at all times, since the diseases come in and occasionally wipe out dozens of characters at a time.

edit-
I just remembered the other massive benefit of elective...

The strongest of your vassals tends to get the most votes, so your average character is better than what you could expect with primogeniture.

Spoiler

(Also, the top title gets spread around the family, letting you redistribute titles every generation. Even if you picked one vassal and another takes over the vote lead, you can just switch your choice to whichever family member is second place and help push your family's top pick over any non-dynastic candidates.)

 

[Burned Coffee]

You mean looking the other way while your beautiful, lustful 18yo wife bangs every other guy in court? Come on, there's like a 1% chance that that fumbled and awkward night of "doing your civic duty" resulted in her getting pregnant, and a 99% chance that Brutus, your new 27 Martial general who's strong, brawny, attractive, etc was the father.

So what dude? My character is gay. Damn it'd be fun if someone used that argument to contest the right of my heir to rule. CONSIDER THE DRAMA.

Also, your post reads a bit like I would personally be affected by the characters in the game? weird.

 

[Urzhail64]

CK2: A Game of Sadism for Masochists. I recall an AAR where a player posted a gif of a guy throwing a computer out the window after a truly adverse event in CK2 happened to him.

It made me laugh. I could relate.

 

[OscarWilde]

Considering it's a game about the middle ages, frankly I think children survive longer/more than would be the case in the actual middle ages.
Yes, it can be brutal sometimes, but still.

 

[ruzen]

I dont understand the issue here. Game gives you problems and tools for solutions. You only use one of them and then blame the game for not being Sims. Its about dynasty management not leaving your children a better fortune.

 

[gathomas88]

Considering it's a game about the middle ages, frankly I think children survive longer/more than would be the case in the actual middle ages.
Yes, it can be brutal sometimes, but still.

True. But, by the same token, if that's the case, then basically each and every character probably needs to go through two or three wives in a life time, and have eight children.

People in the middle ages (or any pre-modern era, really) tended to be rather prolific. It was the only way to offset the death rate.

 

[gathomas88]

In any case, I dunno... Maybe the Branas dynasty in Thebes just has bad "genetics," or something. Did like eight different playthroughs with them, and each and every one was a disasterous slog.

Started a new game as the Bastarnes (not sure on that spelling lol) in Korinthos, and its a breeze by way of comparison. Its almost 1250, I'm King of Greece, and I'm well on my way to reforming Byzantium post Fourth Crusade.

Only one ruler so far has been unable to produce a male heir before dying (killed in battle against the HRE at age 20). Thankfully, I was simply able to marry the surviving daughter off to her first cousin in the same dynasty, so matrilineal marriage wasn't even necessary. The male line technically continued more or less uninterrupted. Lol

 

[Jams]

RNG is always sadistic in any game, to beat it you have to minimise its impact - give it less chance to play a roll and when you can't avoid it try and have redundancy.

 

[Ruisuki]

Using the Save button doesn't break achievements, I use it all the time. It just overwrites the same file that the Autosave, Quicksave, and Exit/Save-And-Exit buttons do.

As for manipulating saves vs using the task manager, a couple of hot-keys is much faster to me then bothering to manipulate the save files. I actually really enjoy Ironman and most of the restrictions. I'd probably use it even if I was playing with a mod or rule that disabled achievements. Only keeping one file and having very limited abilities to undo or reroll events provides a happy balance for me.

I lost interest in CK2 when it was still version 1.x because editing the save was too easy compared to the short-term frustration of things going badly - even though in the medium and long term it killed any challenge to the game and the fun I was having with it. I like that time-travel isn't an option (a term a friend and I liked to use for jumping back to much earlier saves in Civ). It really does make the choices meaningful. (And if I really wanted to branch a game and take two different forks I still could, but I've never been interested enough to actually do it.)

At the same time, I also don't find any value in letting a misclick wreck hell on a save that I have been playing for three months. Like surrendering when I was trying to enforce demands, a window popping up as I try to click something else, or one of my cats stepping on the key to toggle off raiding for the army that is currently funding my war. (Why is that even a single button? Given you can't reactivate it during a war or if you are out of your territory, that seems like a better option for a combination.) I will occasionally use it to force a re-roll for an event, but that's generally because I have some story I'm working on and the event wrecked it out of the blue in a way that I don't find interesting, even if that event is one that is a bonus for my character. I know it's a completely subjective line, but since I'm playing to an audience of one, I don't really care.

Killing the process tree and restarting is also just enough of a pain that I don't want to do it often. (Though admittedly it is much less of a pain since I switched to an SSD. I think it made an even bigger difference in the start-up time for CK2 than it did for booting Windows. It was kind of impressive.)

Finally, I have cloud saves turned on to keep a connection outage from breaking achievements. I haven't tested but I think Steam will notice if you switch or change the file while offline (which is why losing connection and having it autosave was breaking achievements). I'm not sure about that though since I haven't really tested it.

Oh...huh well if the overwritting a save doesnt break ironman Im confused as to why people would rather quit to the main menu and load up the whole thing again, it takes me minutes to start it all up again.I had assumed pasting over the save had broken my save but maybe it was because I pinned the ck2 exe to my start bar and for some reason it doesnt show me on steam playing it when i run it from there - as opposed to running it from my steam library screen. I assume thats why it counted as me playing the game offline and broke the ironman then, not the overwrititing which you now tell me is A-ok fo ironman.

 

[vandevere]

Just had the Game pull one of it's less-than-charming tricks on me...

My Chaste and Zealous wife gets pregnant by me. I checked her info with the Console open, so I Know there wasn't any jiggery-pokery. Except, of course, on the Game's end. At Churching Time, after my son's birth, a genius, by the way, wife announces child's a bastard.

At this stage of my play through, it wasn't a big deal, I'm on Tanistry, and I have plenty of healthy, and relatively sane, male heirs.

But, at any Game Start, depending on parents' ages and health, that could be an automatic Game Over.

People complain about players using "Gamey Tactics". But they never seem to realize that the Game, itself, is the worst offender Re "Gamey Tactics"...

 

[Castimirr]

Yeah, that's such a stupid event.

 

[knppel]

Eustace de Bouillon. I thought I'd try the new achievement, not too gamey.

Crap stats, epic early game. Monastic society item theft event, Councillor rare item, and he finds it swiftly, and a sword from heaven, leaving me with decent artifacts to crusade. My edlest bastard is a beast of a chancellor, and produces claims on most of Brittany for me, which I press with allies.

Then, 1086, crusade about to pop any day, I had 6 counties split up to 6 sons, and a barony for the youngest, while I was at 100% warscore against my liege Duke for independence, a literal day before I could create my duchy to bundle the holdings, give every brother their county and die.
All that in an ironman game.

Needless to point out, having found 3 rare items in 15 years, and having 5 claims fabricated in that time, AND having been elected as Godfather for the future king France, was a random factor I could not ignore, and had to continue despite gavelkind arguably fucking it all up.

Then again, adapting to situations is what makes the emperors! Pressed elective on my Duke, murdered him, pressed on his kid for my claim, murdered that kid, warred his brother for the lands of my brothers still under his second Duchy he created when forced into elective.

Eventually I had to smash my crusade force into a Fatimid stack, knowing I'd lose that battle, but we were about to win and England was overtaking me in contribution, so I sacrificed men.

Hugues the Protector stayed single for ten years, then married an attractive purple born Princess. She is empress by now, installed by her late godfather.

It was painful when Eustache died, but not giving up paid off so hard. What a tale.

 

[AlexArgos]

Like many people mentioned you CAN savescum in ironman so disastrous events can be potentially avoided (unless of course the RNG sadism hits 1 day before the auto-save date).

On the other hand, and as the stories shared in this thread make evident, disastrous events that are not so horrible as to lead to game over or rage-quitting are the most memorable!

Lastly I want to just vent about never having experienced the devil-spawn event. I guess I have to play a purely agnatic realm and have lots of daughters!