A few questions from a begginer

[The'Mats]

Hi everyone,

I've been playing close to 900 hours on EUIV, and I thought I'd give CK2 a try. I started with a small county in Ireland as a lot of people recommend, and for the moment it's going well. I've eaten all the Irish Island, am King of Eire, and I'm starting to eat bits of land in Wales now.

I started playing alongside a video tutorial, just to get the basics. But things seem a little bit random sometimes, and I wondered if you could help me understand a few game mechanics :

- can you create titles ? And how do they work in general ? For example when I conquered the three provinces that make up "The Munster Duchy", I never became Duke and didn't understand why.

- also, I recently dumped the tribal organization for the feodal one, and saw my "force limit" (my game is in French, and still think in terms of EUIV, sorry) go from about 12.000 to around 2.000. I made my vassals vote for more crown authority, so now it's better but still not even close from what it used to be. Is it normal ? Is it good ? How can you explain it ?

- should I build everything ? Basically, what advice would you give me regarding construction ? The bonuses seem quite low to me.

- right before I started this game, I tried one in Asturias and when my first ruler died, all my land got divided between my kids. I guess it's because I had several King titles, right ? Because now it doesn't happen anymore in this second Irish game. But as I eat Wales and other parts of England, other titles are going to be mine, right ? And my land is ultimately going to be divided amongst heirs ? How to prevent that ? Can primogeniture prevent this ?

Well, thanks a lot in advance. I mainly am very confused with all things title-related for the moment. The rest is more or less ok (oh yeah, I just don't understand why my boats don't get into battles with the ones carrying nordic pillagers that seem to LOVE my coasts).

 

[Silver Wizard]

You create a duchy by first opening the screen for your county, selecting "de jure" and then clicking on the duchy shown just above the "de jure" checkbox. Then there should be a "create title" button.

When going from tribal to feudal you do indeed have a temporary drop in military. On the long run you are better off, even with less soldiers overall, as tribal armies are mostly light infantry. You should now have a more balanced troop composition.

Splits on succession would depend on the succession law. What does the laws tab say about it? It it says "gavelkind" somehow, your lands will be split. But as you are Irish, I assume you use tanistry?

 

[smellymummy]

-create titles
You should be getting an alert that says you can either create or usurp a title at the top of the screen like the EU4 alerts. You can also click provinces and then look at their info to see the kingdom and duchy titles. If you click on those coat of arms you then have more information to see how or if you can make the titles

-tribal to feudal
In tribal you had a lot of troops but they were mostly light infantry. Now in feudal you have a lot less, but your new castles or cities will be able to provide better quality troops. As you upgrade your lands you will eventually get even more troops

-buildings
I've always prioritized buildings that give + tax first. More money early means a lot of money 100 years later. Like EU4 the earlier you start the snowball rolling down the more benefit you get later on. Eventually yes build everything, why not, but money first so you can build more faster. Once money buildings are done you can pick whatever you want

-inheritance
Early on you will be in gavelkind inheritance laws which splits everything up. Use your culture tech points to boost legalism tech so you can change your laws to change your inheritance laws. Sounds complicated but it's pretty simple once you done it once, and yes primogeniture prevents that.

Also boats don't attack boats, there is no naval battles in CK2

 

[The'Mats]

I have "salic", which says my titles are divided amongst my heirs. But as I've seen, the oldest gets the Kingdom title and the other get other titles and are my vassals. Is that always the case ? What happens when there are several kingdom titles at stake ?

Thanks a lot those answers, guys.

 

[PK_AZ]

I have "salic", which says my titles are divided amongst my heirs. But as I've seen, the oldest gets the Kingdom title and the other get other titles and are my vassals. Is that always the case ? What happens when there are several kingdom titles at stake ?

Kingdom titles are divided between your heirs. Also, if you use elective gavelkind, I believe game can create kingdom-tier title just before succession, if you control enough de jure land.

I have "salic", which says my titles are divided amongst my heirs.

Strange. I was sure it's called "agnatic". You have two categories of inheritance laws: succession type (gavelkind, primogeniture, election etc.) and gender laws (agnatic - only men can inherit, agnatic-cognatic - women can inherit if there are no male successor, cognatic - both men and women inherit on equal terms).

 

[The'Mats]

Now I'm dealing with very bad opinion from my vassals. Apart from gifting them, how can I fix this ? I acted like a tyrant with my previous ruler, and thought it'd get better when moving on to the next one (my current one), and it didn't, it actually got worse.

 

[PK_AZ]

I acted like a tyrant with my previous ruler, and thought it'd get better when moving on to the next one

Not anymore.

Try to give them honorary titles and maybe council position. Marry your close relatives with their close relatives - you should get non-aggression pact, which prevent vassals from revolting(I think...). Use your councillor mission (improve relations).

 

[Audoucet]

Salic=French for agnatic

 

[Audoucet]

Now I'm dealing with very bad opinion from my vassals. Apart from gifting them, how can I fix this ? I acted like a tyrant with my previous ruler, and thought it'd get better when moving on to the next one (my current one), and it didn't, it actually got worse.

Joue en 2.4.5

 

[R.Graymarch]

As far as I remember, "partage salique" is the French for "Gavelkind" (agnatique exists in French)

Succession laws is one of the more tricky things to get. Indeed most of tribal only have "gavelkind" which split the realm (and forces you to take it over again at next generation). Tanistry which is an Irish specificity is better. Or if you just have one "main" title (one kingdom, several duchies), you are sure that your heir gets the biggest piece. If you have 2 kingdoms, it's trouble ahead.

I wouldn't use EU IV for comparison, the games are very differerent if you enter the details (where devil is^^).

 

[Audoucet]

As far as I remember, "partage salique" is the French for "Gavelkind" (agnatique exists in French)

Succession laws is one of the more tricky things to get. Indeed most of tribal only have "gavelkind" which split the realm (and forces you to take it over again at next generation). Tanistry which is an Irish specificity is better. Or if you just have one "main" title (one kingdom, several duchies), you are sure that your heir gets the biggest piece. If you have 2 kingdoms, it's trouble ahead.

I wouldn't use EU IV for comparison, the games are very differerent if you enter the details (where devil is^^).

The "loi salique", in French, is the law preventing women to inherit. But it's a bad translation, It shouldn't have any place in a game taking place between the 8th and the 15th century. And it wasn't even about that at its origins, It took such meaningful political reasons in the 15th century.

To my knowledge, there is no French translation for gavelkind. Paradox chose "Partage".

 

[Thrake]

-inheritance
Early on you will be in gavelkind inheritance laws which splits everything up. Use your culture tech points to boost legalism tech so you can change your laws to change your inheritance laws. Sounds complicated but it's pretty simple once you done it once, and yes primogeniture prevents that.

Getting higher tier titles is the key. Small titles help a lot, like forming Croatia, Alania, Crimea,... If you inherit as a duke, you can fairly easily conquer another duchy and form the related kingdom in a lifetime. You might loose lands as you expand outside the title but it allows to secure a powerbase to then work on getting yet another higher tier title. Bigger titles are more tricky; while you do loose titles upon succession, it's not too hard to get them back sooner or later, but you will need to have one of your kids as your heir, so that he gets claims on his brothers. Otherwise you can just elect a landed member of your dynasty, thus merging his titles with your main title. Then you loose claims on brothers though and any alliances formed with your previous ruler (if he isn't a close relative like your brother) so I usually try to avoid that if possible.

I also recommend avoiding raising any relative with diplo education; this will make them more likely to be elected; martial education works well with tribal high demesne size and reliance on troops (to loot) and it allows to use heirs as commanders for extra prestige (to make them more likely to be elected).

 

[The'Mats]

The "loi salique", in French, is the law preventing women to inherit. But it's a bad translation, It shouldn't have any place in a game taking place between the 8th and the 15th century. And it wasn't even about that at its origins, It took such meaningful political reasons in the 15th century.

To my knowledge, there is no French translation for gavelkind. Paradox chose "Partage".

Actually in the French the Gravelkind exists, on top of "salic". And the expression "salic law" seems to exist in English too. So... weird.

So to solve my problems, I'll avoid creating new Kingdoms (thanks a lot for helping me with this), even though I would love to be King of Ireland and Wales. Are there some pros to creating the title by the way ? I wanna keep things easy succession-wise but I'm sure I don't know everything...

 

[The'Mats]

There's something else I can't find a satisfying answer for : there's a crusade underway with the dynasty holding all of the Iberic province, several of neighbors are involved but even when I click on "declare war" to the liege of said Muslim dynasty, I only get a CB for Brittany (the Muslims conquered Brittany for some reason), nothing like the "Crusade" CB I read about somewhere on the Internet. Any idea ?

 

[Audoucet]

You have an enormous flag to the left of your screen, you can join the crusade that way, or by interacting with the Pope, by joining his war.

 

[The'Mats]

You have an enormous flag to the left of your screen, you can join the crusade that way, or by interacting with the Pope, by joining his war.

Jeez, the bigger it is, the less you see it. Thanks !

 

[R.Graymarch]

So to solve my problems, I'll avoid creating new Kingdoms (thanks a lot for helping me with this), even though I would love to be King of Ireland and Wales. Are there some pros to creating the title by the way ? I wanna keep things easy succession-wise but I'm sure I don't know everything...

Usurping a Kingdom's title enables to have de jure claims to conquer the rest of it. And 2 Kingdoms (+ enough counties) is the prerequisite for creating an Empire, like Britannia (but just Ireland+Wales won't do as you will lack many English/Scottish counties). It may vary with Charlemagne DLC (if I recall correctly) where you can have a decision to create Empire more easily.
The "best" way would be to get rid of Gavelkind succession but it takes some time

 

[Audoucet]

Or he can reproduce only with seduction and legitimise bastards according to his needs ?

 

[PK_AZ]

It may vary with Charlemagne DLC (if I recall correctly) where you can have a decision to create Empire more easily.

Nope. You can create custom empire, but you need 8000 prestige and 180 holdings (about 60 feudal counties) or three kingdom-tier titles. In other words, requirements are actually higher than for normal empire title.
As a sidenote, custom kingdom seems interesting option for me.

 

[Red Earth]

Are there some pros to creating the title by the way ? I wanna keep things easy succession-wise but I'm sure I don't know everything...

Prestige every month from your titles and to your dynasty every generation. If you've half conquered a kingdom, taking the title makes it easier to take the rest as you are their de jure liege. Also if you take Scotland for instance and destroy the title you are essentially saying there is no Scotland, it's just more Ireland. That will upset the Scottish and it may spawn a huge rebel army to restore the kingdom.