Crusader Kings II ~ Quick Answers

[jonjowett]

I am playing 2.5.2 with Swedish Germanic ruler in 1066 start. I managed to get Norse Orthodox character from Varangian Guard. I am trying to stay true to the old ways as long as possible, meaning not reforming Germanic religion. Now I am thinking of turning my heirs into Norse culture. Is there any "easy" way to do this?
I assume making Norse guy a ruler and education heirs will result also in religion change. But that may be OK if once they become ruler, religion can be changed again to take the religion of capital county. Any better ideas?

The answer below assumes you are using the Conclave education system. A similar approach will work in the old system, but I'm not familiar enough to suggest specific steps. (I am also assuming that becoming Norse Germanic is your #1 goal and you are willing to sacrifice anything necessary to achieve this.)

Set the Norse Orthodox courtier as guardian of your heir, and set your heir to heritage focus.

• If he converts your heir's culture before his religion then immediately switch guardianship to yourself (until the child is 12+). (Don't take any of the opportunities to change your heir's culture to yours.)
  
  
• If he converts your heir's religion then his culture, and the child is at most ??10?? years old, switch guardianship to yourself and hope for the event that offers you the chance to change your ward's religion. If the event occurs - success! If not, follow the next option.
  
  
• If he converts your heir's religion and culture, and there's no chance of converting it back (ie. heir is 11+), then:
  • Continue your heir's education in any way you choose - but try as hard as possible to ensure that he does not become zealous because this limits your options later.
  • Keep your heir as an unlanded character in your court, with as many prestigious honorary titles as possible, and personally educate all of his children.
    • Unlanded so he doesn't convert provinces to Orthodox, and so you have no restrictions on educating his kids (see below).
    • Prestigious titles because he will need 1000 prestige to convert immediately after succession (see below), and this is a challenge for an unlanded character without significant dynastic prestige. (EDIT: Councillors also get prestige; if he doesn't have any good skills, steward is probably the least harmful. If you can spare any artifacts with significant monthly prestige, give him those too. Commanders also get prestige, and a commander-councillor with a job will never lead an army so is not at risk of dying in battle.)
    • Educate his children personally (with heritage focus) to ensure that they change from Norse Orthodox to Norse Germanic. (You could try using the faith focus with a generic germanic courtier, but I think the heritage focus gives better childhood traits.)
  • When your character dies, your Norse Orthodox heir should be able to convert to Germanic immediately, via one of these options:
    • If he has 1000 prestige and is non-zealous, you can use the RoI decision (intrigue menu) to convert to your capital religion.
    • If he has 1000 prestige and is already secretly germanic (unlikely but theoretically possible) then he can publicly adopt his secret religion (right-click on portrait).
    • If he has 1000 prestige and 250 piety, he can become secretly germanic (eg. right-click on the shield of any germanic couty) and then publicly adopt his secret religion (right-click on portrait).
    • If he does not have 1000 prestige, gain that 1000 prestige as fast as possible to prevent your vassals from converting. (If he's very low on prestige, I suggest raiding, which should be enabled because he is Norse. If he has 800-900, a quick war - eg. extort tributary - may be faster.)
      
      
• If he doesn't convert your heir's culture, murder him. And your heir. And try again. Or just sob quietly in the corner for all that wasted effort.

 

[jonjowett]

Q1. I get an option in intrigue menu to Restore Papacy in Rome. Is this any good pressing?

I wouldn't. Maybe manually give the Pope the holy site in Rome (for that sweet +5% MA), but it sounds like you want the county for yourself.

Q2. When I restored Roman Empire, somewhere far away in my realm, I got a spawn of units called 'Roman Army' with only 4 units inside, max listed 5555, but it doesn't reinforce even in home territory. When I click reorganize units button, the name on the units is 'Roman Company'. What is this and what can I do with it? Because an army of just 4 horses is utterly useless.

No idea, sorry. Maybe just disband them? Event troops are nice and all, but you should definitely disband them once they are so small as to be useless. (Because their existence often blocks them from being recreated - eg. call to glory, chinese honor guard.)

Q3. I converted from Greek culture to Italian. But now I no longer get an option to create special units in retinue. Do Italians not have any special units? Should I convert back to Greek?

Italians should have the Pike retinue. I checked the retinue_subunits file as well, and there's no special coding that would exclude any type of character. Maybe it's a UI bug? Try restarting the game?

 

[Arheilgen]

How can I get rid of unwanted messages?

The pop-ups are so annoying. Especially when you are just fighting a war and a battle was resolved, it is so dumb that something like "abbot x takes over abbey Y from Z" comes up, doesn't interest me at all - but has to be answered and while I try to move the cursor back to the upper right corner to pause the next unnecessary message comes ...

 

[Andrew0Red]

How can I get rid of unwanted messages?

The pop-ups are so annoying. Especially when you are just fighting a war and a battle was resolved, it is so dumb that something like "abbot x takes over abbey Y from Z" comes up, doesn't interest me at all - but has to be answered and while I try to move the cursor back to the upper right corner to pause the next unnecessary message comes ...

The pause button is your friend. The one on the keyboard works. I forget if space works too or not.

 

[Tur8oed]

The pause button is your friend. The one on the keyboard works. I forget if space works too or not.

I use the space bar exclusively.

 

[marko river]

The answer below assumes you are using the Conclave education system. A similar approach will work in the old system, but I'm not familiar enough to suggest specific steps. (I am also assuming that becoming Norse Germanic is your #1 goal and you are willing to sacrifice anything necessary to achieve this.)

• 
  
• If he doesn't convert your heir's culture, murder him. And your heir. And try again. Or just sob quietly in the corner for all that wasted effort.

Thx for the most detailed answer. And thx for a proper conclusion if it fails

 

[jonjowett]

How can I get rid of unwanted messages?

The pop-ups are so annoying. Especially when you are just fighting a war and a battle was resolved, it is so dumb that something like "abbot x takes over abbey Y from Z" comes up, doesn't interest me at all - but has to be answered and while I try to move the cursor back to the upper right corner to pause the next unnecessary message comes ...

Some messages can be suppressed (eg. so that they only show up in the high/low priority queue) - look for the envelope icon on the popup dialog. (Alternatively, you can right-click on messages in the high/low priority queue; or you can search through "message settings" in the main menu.)

Unfortunately, a lot of popups are actually events - they only pause the game while the popup is visible. And they can get mixed in with "normal" messages, so that it's unclear whether the game will be paused after dismissing all popups. So, if you get a sudden flood of popups on speed 5, you end up mashing the space bar trying to pause. It's a pain.

The only thing I can suggest is to hover the mouse over the pause button in the top right. If the tooltip says "unpause" then the game will be paused once all popups are dismissed. If the tooltip says "pause" then the game will be unpaused when all popups are dismissed. I don't think you can click the button, but you can definitely use the space bar to toggle between these two states.

Good luck!

 

[Andrew0Red]

You can also click '-' four times to go to slowest speed. This works both while player-paused and popupbox-paused.

 

[Cyfral9]

You can also click '-' four times to go to slowest speed. This works both while player-paused and popupbox-paused.

Hello,

Started new game recently. This time it is Pomerania in 1124.
It is challenging game, as my duke didn't come from respectful family.
So I am in 1141 now, my heir is secure, succession law changed to Election.
Treasure - just around 800 gold.
My biggest issue is that I do not know how to play further. My liege is a King of Poland. And he don't like me, so I have to keep Chancellor in Krakow all the time. Cannot create CB because of that.
My borders are with prussians pagan on the East. Holy Wars not working against them, as Catholics will not join me, and I have to fight with more than 10000 mad pagan warriors.
Any suggestions please?

 

[Andrew0Red]

Afaik, your co-religionists aren't supposed to join in regular holy wars; it's supposed to be you against all of them. Maybe work on heir's diplomacy, so he can use chancellor to get claims?

 

[Cyfral9]

Afaik, your co-religionists aren't supposed to join in regular holy wars; it's supposed to be you against all of them. Maybe work on heir's diplomacy, so he can use chancellor to get claims?

Thanks. I will try thus too.

 

[melachromatic]

Is there anyone of your dynasty who has claims on the duchy and is in your realm? If so, you can press their claim and bring the duchy into your realm.

No not yet. I tried to remarry into them with a daughter for one (as they start the game with a patrilineal marriage to my Kingdom), but the first child that came from it happened to get Inbred and died as a teen before inheriting a claim---and the other child from that is now the sitting Duke above, who is not of age yet and thus has no heirs.

I also made the father a Monk before the child that got Inbred died, to remove him from my succession as he was not dynastical and was caught being an adulterer lol, so the current boy Duke has only Aunts left, no siblings.

The sitting Duke's mother is one of my princesses and is still alive, but has since become installed as the Basilissa of Byz after remarriage, which might be a little concerning when she inherits claim, as my son and next King has only had daughters so far lol. On the other hand it is interesting to have a matrilineal marriage on the current Basileus.

I also cannot change law to Agnatic only atm, because I force vassaled a catholic tribal to my east, and his opinion of me is needless to say, not that great yet. (It requires all direct vassal opinions to be + )

Force Vassalisation is different to de jure county/duchy claims.

If you are independent and have JD CBs turned on in gamerules then, you should be able to force vassalise anyone who fulfils ALL of these conditions:

• Is independent;
• Is your neighbour;
• Is either in your culture group or follows your exact religion;
• Is at least count rank;
• Is at least 1 rank lower than you;
• Has at most 30 realm size; and
• Is none of: nomad, religious head, mercenary, or your tributary.

From what you said earlier, I think it's likely you don't have a realm border with him, so you fail the "is your neighbour" test. Fix that and you should be able to force vassalise him.

(I suppose it's possible he has more than 30 realm size if he owns a lot of land outside Beneveto. There's nothing you can do in this case except pick him apart through multiple wars.)

I do have a total southern border with it, not sure what its realm size is though, will look and update. It starts the game as their Tributary, but I have since released it from that.

* It has 32 realm size, with what land it started with as it hasn't grown or lost any---so it would be A county too big lol.

I could take a county or two from it now with what fabricated claims I have, hope it survives the 10 year truce or whatnot and doesn't get conquered by Byz or Amalfi Republic, then get a Force Vassal on it. (Though it seems unlikely they would not conquer it after that while I am truced).

 

[jonjowett]

I do have a total southern border with it, not sure what its realm size is though, will look and update. It starts the game as their Tributary, but I have since released it from that.

* It has 32 realm size, with what land it started with as it hasn't grown or lost any---so it would be A county too big lol.

I could take a county or two from it now with what fabricated claims I have, hope it survives the 10 year truce or whatnot and doesn't get conquered by Byz or Amalfi Republic, then get a Force Vassal on it. (Though it seems unlikely they would not conquer it after that while I am truced).

Wow that sucks. Maybe it's worth truce-breaking?

I forget what religion you are. If you're both Catholic and the duke is still a child and the duke only has 1 duke-tier title, maybe you can get the pope to give you a claim on the duchy? (He's pretty likely to give claims against child rulers.) If so, you could take it in one war and then immediately give him the duchy back again.

 

[melachromatic]

Wow that sucks. Maybe it's worth truce-breaking?

I forget what religion you are. If you're both Catholic and the duke is still a child and the duke only has 1 duke-tier title, maybe you can get the pope to give you a claim on the duchy? (He's pretty likely to give claims against child rulers.) If so, you could take it in one war and then immediately give him the duchy back again.

I already have a claim on his Duchy title from the Pope, that is one of my unpressed claims, the other is an adjacent county to it from the Chancellor.

Though, since he only directly holds the Duchy title and one province (the capital), I don't think that claim extends to all of his Count vassals does it? Only the other province that is its de jure, since The "Duchy of Benevento" de jure is actually only two provinces not all his domain.

Or in claiming his Duchy title do I also take all his county vassals? His vassal counties belong to other unmade Duchy titles.

I hadn't expected just claiming the Duchy would work that way, since I expected you would have to use Request Invasion to take everything under the target at once.

 

[jonjowett]

I already have a claim on his Duchy title from the Pope, that is one of my unpressed claims, the other is an adjacent county to it from the Chancellor.

Though, since he only directly holds the Duchy title and one province (the capital), I don't think that claim extends to all of his Count vassals does it? Only the other province that is its de jure, since The "Duchy of Benevento" de jure is actually only two provinces not all his domain.

Or in claiming his Duchy title do I also take all his county vassals? His vassal counties belong to other unmade Duchy titles.

I hadn't expected just claiming the Duchy would work that way, since I expected you would have to use Request Invasion to take everything under the target at once.

If you successfully press your claim on a duchy, you will take over as duke. This means you will become the direct liege of all de facto vassals of the duchy. (You can check the list of de facto vassals by clicking on the duchy coat of arms and ensuring that the "de jure" box is not ticked.) Since he has no other duke-tier titles, he will be reduced to count, and his county is de facto part of the duchy, so you will vassalise him too.

This sounds like the obvious best course of action for you. (However, I suggest you back up your save before declaring war, just in case something doesn't work as expected.)

 

[melachromatic]

If you successfully press your claim on a duchy, you will take over as duke. This means you will become the direct liege of all de facto vassals of the duchy. (You can check the list of de facto vassals by clicking on the duchy coat of arms and ensuring that the "de jure" box is not ticked.) Since he has no other duke-tier titles, he will be reduced to count, and his county is de facto part of the duchy, so you will vassalise him too.

This sounds like the obvious best course of action for you. (However, I suggest you back up your save before declaring war, just in case something doesn't work as expected.)

That did indeed work thanks

Unfortunately, my 73 year old King just had a second son by his second marriage during this war, after 31 years of no children, which could NOT have come at a worse time, as he is set to inherit everything outside Lombardy now on death.

Winning the war gave me literally 50% of 51% of the land needed to make Sicily and move up to Empire rank---meaning I have to fight Byzantium now for one county, or try to get one of my vassals to inherit one of their counties.

So does giving the random 0 year old son a Bishopric prevent him from inheriting everything I just obtained this reign? Right now the second son would also inherit my Antipope, (by inheriting the Romagna title) which would be even more undesirable.

I could get a Divorce, but I'm not sure if annulling the second marriage kicks the son from her out of inheritance. I could also switch to Elective Monarchy or Seniority.

Also what he would inherit from partition now is 17 provinces and 2 of my Dukes (assuming that im correct that he takes all vassals within the higher title with him). So it is still a bit smaller than what I keep, and so I could probably re-take it or kill him if necessary.

 

[jonjowett]

So does giving the random 0 year old son a Bishopric prevent him from inheriting everything I just obtained this reign? Right now the second son would also inherit my Antipope, (by inheriting the Romagna title) which would be even more undesirable.

I could get a Divorce, but I'm not sure if annulling the second marriage kicks the son from her out of inheritance. I could also switch to Elective Monarchy or Seniority.

Also what he would inherit from partition now is 17 provinces and 2 of my Dukes (assuming that im correct that he takes all vassals within the higher title with him). So it is still a bit smaller than what I keep, and so I could probably re-take it or kill him if necessary.

If you can give him a bishopric then he will be disinherited. However, I suspect that you'll be blocked - either because you can't give a bishopric to an heir, or because he is a child.

Divorcing your wife will have no effect on inheritance. But you might want to divorce/murder her anyway (to avoid having more unwanted sons).

If you die as a multi-king then each child will get strong claims on the other's kingdoms. This means your primary heir will be able to immediately declare war for the lost kingdom(s). If you set it up nicely, your primary heir will be much more powerful than your secondary heir, so the war will be easy. However, it will take longer to regain the counties/duchies that were given to the secondary heir.

If you change to elective, have Conclave, and have a few thousand gold then you should be able to buy the election for your chosen successor. (Buy a favor from half of the electors, call in succession support, die within 10 years.)

The wiki has a lot of suggestions for strategies to manage gavelkind inheritance. It's worth a read.

 

[melachromatic]

If you can give him a bishopric then he will be disinherited. However, I suspect that you'll be blocked - either because you can't give a bishopric to an heir, or because he is a child.

Divorcing your wife will have no effect on inheritance. But you might want to divorce/murder her anyway (to avoid having more unwanted sons).

If you die as a multi-king then each child will get strong claims on the other's kingdoms. This means your primary heir will be able to immediately declare war for the lost kingdom(s). If you set it up nicely, your primary heir will be much more powerful than your secondary heir, so the war will be easy. However, it will take longer to regain the counties/duchies that were given to the secondary heir.

If you change to elective, have Conclave, and have a few thousand gold then you should be able to buy the election for your chosen successor. (Buy a favor from half of the electors, call in succession support, die within 10 years.)

The wiki has a lot of suggestions for strategies to manage gavelkind inheritance. It's worth a read.

I have granted a Bishopric before to a secondary child Prince, however it still listed him as inheriting, so I do not think it actually bars him from inheritance until he comes of age to be the Bishop, but I could try it and see.

I have Celibacy Vows active now, I just didn't use it before, because I didn't expect the King to become 73, much less be having a baby at 73 lol. I certainly don't expect him to live to what 89, for the second son to be of age.

The child shouldn't be that hard to just overthrow by claim, or plot kill him and inherit it back before he comes of age. I'm more concerned about his sisters trying to claim it from the child actually.

It might also be beneficial to let it happen:

He would inherit 2 of my 'powerful' Dukes, neither of which are on my Council and the less content Tribal vassal Carinthia, which gets them out of my hair during the discontent period

He would inherit Rome as a county, which means that he would be having to pay for the Apostolic Palace upgrading cost/month or pause it, and since it lists my primary heir as keeping the Latium title, I should be able to keep the rest of Latium outside Rome, which means I would keep the Antipope in Orbitello.

My primary heir has only had two daughters so far, and I expect when he becomes the King, his sister the now accidental Byzantine Empress will try to kill him. The much younger brother might be helpful if that occurs.

 

[melachromatic]

Which brings me to a question of Pacts.

Bavaria is getting torn asunder now that they've had two internal overthrows. I have a dynast granddaughter that I can press claim for the Duchy of Bavaria on.

(If I was not 1% of land off from creating the regional Empire title, I could claim the whole Kingdom for her, but sadly not)

Bavaria has started a Christian Pact against me though, after absorbing the Duchy of my last war, and currently they are the only member of it. My Threat level is 42%, so that would not last long.

So if I claimed Duchy of Bavaria now with my granddaughter, can other countries that join the Pact after I declared war still defend them?

Serbia is getting a similar thrashing, since it somehow obtained rulership of the Lesser Poland and Prussia area, from Serbia lol. Which would make an interesting time to Holy War it. In which it would call other Pagan or Slavic countries to its aid. So, can countries who are already at war with it still defend them from a Holy War?

 

[Andrew0Red]

Afaik, they can still join the defense pact after the war has started.