Elective monarchy - there's no need for anti-pope cuz I am God.

[toniagree]

I posted something like this a long time ago before LOR, but here we go again.

When I started playing CK2, I thought having a big empire requires centralization, thus, absolute authority. So whenever I played, I always tried to raise authority to the max and have primogeniture implemented.

When SOI was released, I played as muslims. The turkish rule had me amazed, and wonder at the same time: what if the same elective rule is applied to a christian kingdom? Since then, I have been experiencing with elective monarchy in christiandoms. What I come up with so far is the following formula for a super stable realm:

1. only bishoprics/archbishoprics.
2. minimum authority
3. elective monarchy
4. free investure

With that, I can have max everything and only my vote counts. So with a realm size of ~300, I can have ~60-70k troops and ~100g income by 1120. And my vassals adore me more than their pope. And YES, no revolt/faction/inner war (yes, no one fight over anything even @ minimum CA). That's ***king overpowering. Just last night, playing as poland, I can easily steamroll ERE just after finishing the pagans with my first rulers and HRE with the second ruler. If there's one pope with better stat, I'd just assassinate him and have another moron-of-a-pope comes to power. There's even no need for anti-pope cuz, to my bishops/archbishops, my ruler is the God of the realm.

 

[nyah]

What's the point? You might as well play Medieval Total War.

 

[Imperator1993]

Whats the point there is no fun in a overly stable realm, civil wars and ploting vassels are part of the fun.

 

[Chevaresqye]

What's the point? You might as well play Medieval Total War.

Instead of continously stupid, pointless vassal war, he bring his realm to a state of harmony. For the greater good of people, he made a True Kingdom of Heaven in Medieval Age. Let him spread his ideal to the whole Europe.
That is a real achievement to me.
People play game their own way. Be respect.

 

[tuareg109]

What's the point? You might as well play Medieval Total War.

XD

That's gamey as hell though, toniagree, and not at all realistic. The societal and fiscal changes needed to make nearly all the landed gentry of an area clergymen would take decades or even centuries to take effect. It's like having elective succession when your primary title is a titular one, and you have no others of that rank.

 

[yezhanquan]

I posted something like this a long time ago before LOR, but here we go again.

When I started playing CK2, I thought having a big empire requires centralization, thus, absolute authority. So whenever I played, I always tried to raise authority to the max and have primogeniture implemented.

When SOI was released, I played as muslims. The turkish rule had me amazed, and wonder at the same time: what if the same elective rule is applied to a christian kingdom? Since then, I have been experiencing with elective monarchy in christiandoms. What I come up with so far is the following formula for a super stable realm:

1. only bishoprics/archbishoprics.
2. minimum authority
3. elective monarchy
4. free investure

With that, I can have max everything and only my vote counts. So with a realm size of ~300, I can have ~60-70k troops and ~100g income by 1120. And my vassals adore me more than their pope. And YES, no revolt/faction/inner war (yes, no one fight over anything even @ minimum CA). That's ***king overpowering. Just last night, playing as poland, I can easily steamroll ERE just after finishing the pagans with my first rulers and HRE with the second ruler. If there's one pope with better stat, I'd just assassinate him and have another moron-of-a-pope comes to power. There's even no need for anti-pope cuz, to my bishops/archbishops, my ruler is the God of the realm.

Notice that your last 3 options all help with vassal opinion. However, pure clergy vassals cannot give you as much money or troops as a mixed realm. Stability: high, but gold and levies somewhat low.

 

[OrdepNM]

Its a fairly well known tactic, but filling the realm with bishoprics is also the epitome of gameyness. Id rather play the game as its meant to be played and have a fluid realm where many things can happen at any point. IMO you can only fully enjoy CK2 when you acknowledge that youre not in control and start going with the flow and acting accordingly, rather than using gamey tactics to force control.

 

[Crater122]

Notice that your last 3 options all help with vassal opinion. However, pure clergy vassals cannot give you as much money or troops as a mixed realm. Stability: high, but gold and levies somewhat low.

True, but no need to waste all that money on bribes or mercs to help fight massive rebellions.

 

[yezhanquan]

True, but no need to waste all that money on bribes or mercs to help fight massive rebellions.

Rebellions should come only during succession. If you're always putting out fires even with a long-ruling monarch, something is not quite right.

 

[Ratlegion]

There are a lot of negative comparisons made about Medieval on these forums, but several of the same problems it had, Ck has also, sometimes even worse. At least it looked prettier, and actually allowed you to have a reasonable amount of cavalry. There were also mods that greatly improved the vanilla formula, too. Paradox has made a joke of themselves several times, but how many times have they taken Strategy Game of the Year from a Total War game? ... That's what I thought.

 

[unmerged(26764)]

It's a decent system. It's not how I play, but I think it's an interesting set-up nonetheless. I don't have a lot of patience for the folks attacking your style as too gamey. It's an interesting use of the tools the game gives you to get the result you want. Well done.

The downsides are obviously that you'll have less and less competent realm levies overall over time. Your barons will never upgrade their castles because they have no income -- no cities and bishops paying them taxes -- and castles make all the good troop types. And your P-ABs will fill all the open slots in your realm with more churches, which are the worst overall holding type. And enemies will assault through your kingdom easily when they attack you because your county capitals will all be churches with limited fortification. So your kingdom will be weaker in a few centuries than it would otherwise be, although more stable.

Plus it means every time you take new land, you have to start revoking titles to create more P-ABs. So your bonus to stability will be balanced against constant "revoked vassal title" penalties as you expand.

So the upsides of course are balanced by downsides.

 

[kraussda]

There are a lot of negative comparisons made about Medieval on these forums, but several of the same problems it had, Ck has also, sometimes even worse. At least it looked prettier, and actually allowed you to have a reasonable amount of cavalry. There were also mods that greatly improved the vanilla formula, too. Paradox has made a joke of themselves several times, but how many times have they taken Strategy Game of the Year from a Total War game? ... That's what I thought.

Well, the games are very different, it's basically apples to oranges. When people make quips like that im pretty sure they're generally referring to the lack of depth with which creative assembly treats the feudal aspect/political realism, not the quality of one game vis a vis the other. The core game mechanic of total war games is the battle system, not its representation of feudal governance.

Id read the above comment as "if you're going to sidestep the entirety of ck2s core mechanics, why are you even playing this game as opposed to a game like medieval 2?" instead of "why are you even playing this game? go play that other, much worse, game"

If someone on the total war forums said they auto resolve every battle id tell them to go play ck2.

 

[tuareg109]

There are a lot of negative comparisons made about Medieval on these forums, but several of the same problems it had, Ck has also, sometimes even worse. At least it looked prettier, and actually allowed you to have a reasonable amount of cavalry. There were also mods that greatly improved the vanilla formula, too. Paradox has made a joke of themselves several times, but how many times have they taken Strategy Game of the Year from a Total War game? ... That's what I thought.

But Paradox does have a reasonable amount of cavalry. A horse + knight probably costs at least 10 times as much as a peasant levy, and there weren't anywhere near as many knights or men-at-arms compared to archers and simple infantrymen. A count really couldn't expect to muster more than 100, and the game accurately represents this.
In a Total War open battle I could just surround the AI enemy with cavalry, charge from all sides, and destroy them. I would have all this cavalry, and due to steamrolling blitzkrieg war tactics, I'd gain a few provinces each turn, enabling me to pay for my massive army, with no consideration of the terrain and the weather, and the effects of those on my men.
In CK2 if my army is all cavalry I get terrible attack values during the melee phase of the battle. The only exception is horse archers, and they're actually balanced. If it's winter, or if I'm travelling over a barren, mountainous province, I can get horrendous attrition, and my leaders can catch sick and die (Camp Fever).

Paradox has made a joke of itself at times (Sunset Invasion comes to mind).

Since when do popularity and awards factor into how good a game is?
How many awards have Battlefield 3, the Call of Duty series, Diablo 3, etc. gotten, and they're all terrible games made by companies who only want to exploit their fanbase?

 

[yezhanquan]

Well, the games are very different, it's basically apples to oranges. When people make quips like that im pretty sure they're generally referring to the lack of depth with which creative assembly treats the feudal aspect/political realism, not the quality of one game vis a vis the other. The core game mechanic of total war games is the battle system, not its representation of feudal governance.

Id read the above comment as "if you're going to sidestep the entirety of ck2s core mechanics, why are you even playing this game as opposed to a game like medieval 2?" instead of "why are you even playing this game? go play that other, much worse, game"

If someone on the total war forums said they auto resolve every battle id tell them to go play ck2.

You know, that is almost exactly how I got into PDS games.

 

[Helox]

You know, that is almost exactly how I got into PDS games.

Same here, went from auto resolving battles to paradox games.

 

[tnick0225]

Only reason I play TW games is for the battles Those are gorgeous, and nothing funner that matching combat wits against others online. As far as strategy, well TW games are rather lacking, unless its battlefield strategy.

As far as the OP play how ya want, I think destroying the feudal structure takes the fun out of the game, but that's my opinion.

And as far as game awards go, those are decided a lot by lobbying and vocal fanbases. PI tends to receive the attentions of older more historically interested people than teens that get their daddy to buy a game for them. Same goes for the MMOs I think the makers of EVE are kind of like the PI of the MMO world. Creating a game that brings in more mature intelligent clientele than say MMOs like WoW. You don't see them winning awards left and right either, but they have an extremely loyal fanbase, and honestly it probably is he best MMO out there, just like PI makes in my opinions some of the better strategy games out there.

So awards are awards and they're opinionated and sometimes the winners are not exactly deserving.

 

[barny]

Elective Succession is just overpowered since the release and they never bothered to fix it, even after all the DLCs. I think it is very disappointing and kinda breaks the game on a certain level.

 

[Lessing]

1. It's not gamey when you can easily do it. The game rules describe what you can do, not history. CK2 isnt history.

2. I autoresolve in TW games because I dont like to fight repetetive, anonymous battles with anonymous troups. There is only one game (The King's Crusade, bummer it crashed so often) where fighting battles was fun for me because I kept the same units for all stages of the game, and they earned experience and got traits. Kinda like King Arthur, but without the awful magic bs.

3. I enjoy autoresolved TW games because realm management is abstract anyway, so I don't expect an exact representation of the feudal system of the middle ages, but instead a system that's fun and coherent. CK2 tries both and falls flat after a while because it gets both too easy and too unmanageable when you go big. (On that note, I just recently tried Medieval TW2, and holy hell, that game has some outrageous flaws. The pope interceding all the time, the undocumented and random traits your agents and generals get from a billion of actions and non actions, the lack of decent controls, etc)

4. Elective is the way to go. I don't get why not everybody uses this unless for roleplaying/historical reasons.

 

[barny]

4. Elective is the way to go. I don't get why not everybody uses this unless for roleplaying/historical reasons.

That is exactly the problem with it.

 

[Spartanlemur]

I see this more as shedding a light on an oversight in the game's mechanics. Hopefully game devs will update out this tactic in a future patch.