[Dumb Question no. 2] Do the effects of great works stack?

[jonjowett]

Okay. That explains quite a bit.

That said - this then branches off to other areas in the strategy...

Say, Baghdad has 7 holding slots, with 4 occupied initially. I was under the impression that somehow holding castles was a better idea for muslim rulers, but this throws monkey wrench at that very idea. Do you build cities as a muslim ruler? At all?

The holdings in your capital have very little impact on the tech there, because the player is probably better at teching-up than any AI.

In fact, because of the massive bonus to levy size in your capital province, it's usually recommended to hold as many castles as possible in your capital. (The "Great Walls" great work synergises very nicely with this - if you can, it's arguably the best GW for your capital province, as it can add 10-20k troops to your personal levy.) There's a smaller bonus for the provinces in your capital duchy, and you've probably used up most of your demesne limit by this point, so you would usually only hold the capital of those counties.

Usually, you should prioritise "spending" your demesne limit on castles (instead of cities/temples), because one of the two things you want from your demesne is good-quality highly-reliable troops, and castles are the best at that. By far.

(IMO, the other thing you should look for when choosing your demesne is a province-specific bonus - eg. a silk road trade post, or a holy site allowing easy conversion to another religion, or both. Kabul FTW!)

If you're looking up to fill up your non-capital provinces, cities are usually the best choice - you can push their taxes up to 80% via realm laws ("obligations"), and that can lead to a really nice continuous base income. However, it can be useful to have a couple of baronies somewhere in your demesne, as they are easy to revoke and grant to claimants. (Pressing kingdom claims as an emperor is the fastest way to expand. Pressing wrong-religion kingdom claims and then immediately revoking everything is even better, although it's also a dirty exploit.)

 

[Palbulchul]

The holdings in your capital have very little impact on the tech there, because the player is probably better at teching-up than any AI.

In fact, because of the massive bonus to levy size in your capital province, it's usually recommended to hold as many castles as possible in your capital. (The "Great Walls" great work synergises very nicely with this - if you can, it's arguably the best GW for your capital province, as it can add 10-20k troops to your personal levy.) There's a smaller bonus for the provinces in your capital duchy, and you've probably used up most of your demesne limit by this point, so you would usually only hold the capital of those counties.

Usually, you should prioritise "spending" your demesne limit on castles (instead of cities/temples), because one of the two things you want from your demesne is good-quality highly-reliable troops, and castles are the best at that. By far.

(IMO, the other thing you should look for when choosing your demesne is a province-specific bonus - eg. a silk road trade post, or a holy site allowing easy conversion to another religion, or both. Kabul FTW!)

If you're looking up to fill up your non-capital provinces, cities are usually the best choice - you can push their taxes up to 80% via realm laws ("obligations"), and that can lead to a really nice continuous base income. However, it can be useful to have a couple of baronies somewhere in your demesne, as they are easy to revoke and grant to claimants. (Pressing kingdom claims as an emperor is the fastest way to expand. Pressing wrong-religion kingdom claims and then immediately revoking everything is even better, although it's also a dirty exploit.)

One landmine after another. (LOL)

I just moved my capital from Baghdad to Constantinople. Both have pretty useless great works. Thanks for the insight!

When I was playing Bavaria last time, I took Bohemia, moved my capital to Prague, then built Royal Palace there. Back then, I was going wide. Held only the capital barony and gave the rest away to vassals. I learned of hybrid strategy only lately - and holding all the capital holdings as castles, synergizing them with Great Walls never hit me until you told me.

I'm still quite some distance away from Prag on this run, but I will keep that in mind. Thanks a lot.

 

[Palbulchul]

The holdings in your capital have very little impact on the tech there, because the player is probably better at teching-up than any AI.

In fact, because of the massive bonus to levy size in your capital province, it's usually recommended to hold as many castles as possible in your capital. (The "Great Walls" great work synergises very nicely with this - if you can, it's arguably the best GW for your capital province, as it can add 10-20k troops to your personal levy.) There's a smaller bonus for the provinces in your capital duchy, and you've probably used up most of your demesne limit by this point, so you would usually only hold the capital of those counties.

Usually, you should prioritise "spending" your demesne limit on castles (instead of cities/temples), because one of the two things you want from your demesne is good-quality highly-reliable troops, and castles are the best at that. By far.

(IMO, the other thing you should look for when choosing your demesne is a province-specific bonus - eg. a silk road trade post, or a holy site allowing easy conversion to another religion, or both. Kabul FTW!)

If you're looking up to fill up your non-capital provinces, cities are usually the best choice - you can push their taxes up to 80% via realm laws ("obligations"), and that can lead to a really nice continuous base income. However, it can be useful to have a couple of baronies somewhere in your demesne, as they are easy to revoke and grant to claimants. (Pressing kingdom claims as an emperor is the fastest way to expand. Pressing wrong-religion kingdom claims and then immediately revoking everything is even better, although it's also a dirty exploit.)

I'm looking at the Great Walls GW from CK2 wiki.

(https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Great_works#Great_Walls)

I don't see any explanation regarding the levy increase. Could you elaborate a little here?

 

[jonjowett]

I'm looking at the Great Walls GW from CK2 wiki.

(https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Great_works#Great_Walls)

I don't see any explanation regarding the levy increase. Could you elaborate a little here?

Eg: Studded Bastions: +200 archers

This means that the base levy of every castle in the province is increased by 200 archers. This base levy is further modified by other castle buildings (eg. keeps) and by your personal martial skill, and by your marshal boosting levies, and by many many other things.

If you build all relevant features, you get +450 archers and +100 heavy infantry - ie. +550 in total. Assuming a 10x multipler (5x from 5 castles, 2x from other modifiers), you would get 5500 extra levies, which is rather nice.

In practice, the "other modifiers" I glossed over can be crazy huge - for example, I just added up the bonuses from walls and keeps and that's already +130%, which is more than the 2x modifier I assumed in the example above. Add all the other common multiplicative modifiers and the results can be a little silly (ie. the 10-20k I suggested in my previous post - but the high end of that probably requires 30-40 martial, which is not possible for every character).

Unfortunately, most of those 10-20k are archers, so they're not the best troops for an actual battle. However, IMO, by the time you have level 2 Great Walls, the main purpose of your personal levy is to deter factions by its sheer size. For that limited purpose, stupid numbers of archers are just fine.

 

[noobermenschen]

EDIT: Exhibit A - Can you spot my demesne?

View attachment 780928

So how do you get 36 tech points per month? For that matter how do you get your demesne limit to 20?

I was proud to have those tech levels 200 years later and collecting 4 points per month.

 

[jonjowett]

So how do you get 36 tech points per month? For that matter how do you get your demesne limit to 20?

I was proud to have those tech levels 200 years later and collecting 4 points per month.

Demesne limit:

• 4 from emperor-tier
• 6 from laws (4 from max centralization + 2 from absolutism)
• 4 from stewardship (me: 20, spouse: 21)
• 3 from peaceful religion (I reformed Bon with "peaceful" nature)
• 3 from gavelkind
  • Gavelkind is temporary until my religion-switching shenanigans are finished; I still have an outside chance of reforming Tengri with this character so, even though it's risky, I might wait a while before going back to eldership.

Tech:

• The game started in 867, so this is after 350 years.
• If you monopolise the Silk Road, you can become VERY rich.
  • Especially if you control a source and force your vassals to not fight on the route. Most of my demesne is made up of scattered trade posts.
  • The Imperial Trade Contract is must-have. And it's absolutely insane in a Golden Age.
• I have lots of high-tier hospitals in my demesne, and they all have all of the tech buildings (+0.06/0.07/0.09 mil/econ/cul per hospital)
  • Building these was very expensive. See above re riches.
• Because of my large demesne, I have lots of baron-level city/temple vassals; their universities/schools in cities/temples all give me tech points.
  • Because of my riches, I build up the universities/schools when I can
• Gompa Monasteries (special Tibetan castle building) gives +0.10 culture per castle
• I am a super genius (25/25/20/19/34), which gives me +2.36/2.16/2.36 mil/econ/cul
  • Actually, every ruler is a super-genius, because I (ab)use eldership succession.
• I keep a Chinese engineer on staff, who creates random province modifiers. Some of these give +1 techpoint.
• I've got a couple of permanent "Scholar's Foundation" province modifiers from excess prosperity (+0.03/0.03/0.03 mil/econ/cul).
• Whenever possible, I have a Jewish chancellor+steward+spymaster (occasional +50 techpoints)
• Up until very recently, my spymaster was always spying on someone (occasional +50 techpoints; this is why I've left my shipbuilding tech so low)
• ...Probably some other things I can't remember...
• And everything is grossed-up by +40% because I'm emperor-tier

Side-note: "Peaceful" religions are surprisingly good, especially if you have ways to mitigate all of the downsides. (Raid culture - check! Alternate religion for holy wars / hunting focus - check! (Reformed Zun) Unlimited piety for religion-switching due to incessant ancestral veneration - check!)

 

[Palbulchul]

Demesne limit:

• 4 from emperor-tier
• 6 from laws (4 from max centralization + 2 from absolutism)
• 4 from stewardship (me: 20, spouse: 21)
• 3 from peaceful religion (I reformed Bon with "peaceful" nature)
• 3 from gavelkind
  • Gavelkind is temporary until my religion-switching shenanigans are finished; I still have an outside chance of reforming Tengri with this character so, even though it's risky, I might wait a while before going back to eldership.

Tech:

• The game started in 867, so this is after 350 years.
• If you monopolise the Silk Road, you can become VERY rich.
  • Especially if you control a source and force your vassals to not fight on the route. Most of my demesne is made up of scattered trade posts.
  • The Imperial Trade Contract is must-have. And it's absolutely insane in a Golden Age.
• I have lots of high-tier hospitals in my demesne, and they all have all of the tech buildings (+0.06/0.07/0.09 mil/econ/cul per hospital)
  • Building these was very expensive. See above re riches.
• Because of my large demesne, I have lots of baron-level city/temple vassals; their universities/schools in cities/temples all give me tech points.
  • Because of my riches, I build up the universities/schools when I can
• Gompa Monasteries (special Tibetan castle building) gives +0.10 culture per castle
• I am a super genius (25/25/20/19/34), which gives me +2.36/2.16/2.36 mil/econ/cul
  • Actually, every ruler is a super-genius, because I (ab)use eldership succession.
• I keep a Chinese engineer on staff, who creates random province modifiers. Some of these give +1 techpoint.
• I've got a couple of permanent "Scholar's Foundation" province modifiers from excess prosperity (+0.03/0.03/0.03 mil/econ/cul).
• Whenever possible, I have a Jewish chancellor+steward+spymaster (occasional +50 techpoints)
• Up until very recently, my spymaster was always spying on someone (occasional +50 techpoints; this is why I've left my shipbuilding tech so low)
• ...Probably some other things I can't remember...
• And everything is grossed-up by +40% because I'm emperor-tier

Side-note: "Peaceful" religions are surprisingly good, especially if you have ways to mitigate all of the downsides. (Raid culture - check! Alternate religion for holy wars / hunting focus - check! (Reformed Zun) Unlimited piety for religion-switching due to incessant ancestral veneration - check!)

So - as I have never played in the Orient before - I decided to give it a go.

Now, I am the Emir of Tripoli, and you know these gory little details.

The question is this: how do you monopolize the silk road? Does that mean you take over the trade posts? Or do you need to secure the path as well?

 

[jonjowett]

So - as I have never played in the Orient before - I decided to give it a go.

Now, I am the Emir of Tripoli, and you know these gory little details.

The question is this: how do you monopolize the silk road? Does that mean you take over the trade posts? Or do you need to secure the path as well?

The Silk Road makes money if it isn't blocked by war/sieges/etc. So, you want to personally own a large number of SR trade post counties, and you also want to ensure that the parts of the SR that feed those counties are never blocked. For this reason, it's usually best if your realm contains a SR starting point, and all of your SR trade post counties are downstream of that starting point. (Because you can force your vassals to make peace, but you can't force people outside your realm to make peafe.)

Tripoli is an endpoint of the SR, not a starting point, so you're at the mercy of literally everyone else in the world. If they're all peaceful, you'll make money. If not, you won't. Basically, SR income in Tripoli is a nice bonus when it works, but it's not reliable. If you want it to be reliable, you need to go a lot further east.

 

[Palbulchul]

The Silk Road makes money if it isn't blocked by war/sieges/etc. So, you want to personally own a large number of SR trade post counties, and you also want to ensure that the parts of the SR that feed those counties are never blocked. For this reason, it's usually best if your realm contains a SR starting point, and all of your SR trade post counties are downstream of that starting point. (Because you can force your vassals to make peace, but you can't force people outside your realm to make peafe.)

Tripoli is an endpoint of the SR, not a starting point, so you're at the mercy of literally everyone else in the world. If they're all peaceful, you'll make money. If not, you won't. Basically, SR income in Tripoli is a nice bonus when it works, but it's not reliable. If you want it to be reliable, you need to go a lot further east.

Okay. That explains it. So - to the East, I go. Thanks a lot.

 

[FailedOmbudsman]

Tech spread from Great Works is like tech spread from universities: it only applies to the county containing the university/greatwork.

Basically, tech spread from great works is almost completely useless. It's not really worth the effort to try to understand it in any great detail.

I recognize this post is a year old, but I came across it because of a reply to the thread 2 weeks old. This is only partially correct information. The stage and Keeper of the Tomes bonuses to tech spread from the Great Library and the Wing of Theology tech spread bonus from the University do indeed only apply to the province they're located in. However, the tech spread bonuses from the Scribe Room feature as well as the various 'collection' features in the Great Library and the Great Seminars feature in the University apply, at minimum, to your capitol province and possibly demesne wide, regardless of if they're built in your demesne or not. It is noted in your tech tab as a separate bonus labelled "Province Owner" under the "Spread Bonuses to Group" section while hovering over the spinning wheel.