Factions(i'm kinda new)

[YouWeiDe]

Hello everyone.

I got ck2 recently and got completely hooked on it(I know its not a new game). I only have legacy of Rome DLC for now.

My question is how to deal with factions? Every time my character dies I have a bunch of factions popping up. All my direct vasal dukes and kings join them and there's nothing I can do. I had several of them fire at the same time. I don't understand how to not let them grow?
Imprisoned dukes I guess cannot join factions? But do they still provide you with troops?
For example give my sons some land to help me expand and not to have unladed son penalty, I help them increase their territory and it worked great, then the kings dies, and the other two hate my guts, the AI also prefers them and creates a faction to make one of them a ruler. I could plot to kill them and it usually works ok ,unless i'm in regency and cannot plot to get rid of my siblings), and they have their own kids later on, then it becomes impossible...
I guess marrying daughters to foreign kings isn't a great option too? since they would have a claim on my land and try to kill me?
I tried keeping my vassals week, giving one county each and one of the counts becomes a duke. which in theory should make them weaker, but unless I have medium crown authority they will attack each other and increase their power and then rebel again me again, or join a faction with more power. This problem becomes even more annoying if I usurp another kingdom. Their inheritance laws are usually different, so its likely to lose the title, and they also don't have medium crown authority so they fight each other and not outside enemies. and I cannot increase the crown authority because all of them hate my guts. I guess this is how the game is supposed to be but still. I tried giving the king title away once I became emperor, but one duke got too powerful(the law did allow me to cancel his titles), usurped the seat of the king and declared independence. I tried making the vassals weaker , but that also kinda made them inactive they would fabricate claims or go to war(no max authority). So I kinda don't understand how to make everything go smoothly.

So how to control factions? If you can please give me advice about any other stuff I mentioned. I checked the wiki but someone's else advice might help me more.

 

[jonjowett]

Arguably, the whole point of CK2 is vassal management. It's not an easy thing to learn, but it's absolutely necessary.

That said, it sounds like you're starting off as an emperor of a large realm. This is actually relatively tricky for a novice - it's like trying to learn to juggle, but insisting that you won't use fewer than 5 balls. Sure, you'll figure it out eventually, but it'd be a lot faster if you started with a simpler problem. For CK2, the "simpler problem" is to play as a duke (or possibly as the king of a small kingdom) - for example, the Jimena brothers (N Spain) or the duke of Apulia (S Italy); both of which are available in 1066 (and for a few decades afterwards).

A few general pointers for feudal Christians:

• I strongly recommend against creating vassal kings - it always backfires.
  • And, for similar reasons, you should try to prevent your vassal dukes from creating kingdoms.
  • Duke-tier viceroys are awesome; king-tier viceroys are fine once you have 10-15 kingdoms in your empire; but viceroys require the Charlemagne DLC.
• Prioritise your personal power above everything else.
  • If you can personally field tons of retinues and levies, factions won't be a problem.
  • Conquering more territory is not always a good thing - it's often better to hunker down and build up your demesne. And, if you must conquer something, think carefully before using your personal troops - if they get depleted, you become exposed to factions.

 

[YouWeiDe]

I actually did start as count and worked my way up. Later on it all went to hell.
If I don't have the Charlemagne DLC how should I do it? because I thought to use kings because I reached my vasal limit....
What dlcs you would say is must have to play ck2 in a more convenient fashion?
Is it better to destroy kingdom title once you usurp the title and then recreate it so it has your original kingdom laws?

 

[jonjowett]

Is it better to destroy kingdom title once you usurp the title and then recreate it so it has your original kingdom laws?

Erm, maybe? With Conclave, it's not really necessary - only the 2 crown laws are kingdom-specific. I can't remember what it's like pre-Conclave. And then there's the added complication that usurped titles are usually gavelkind, and you can't destroy gavelkind titles.

I usually try to conquer the land without taking the title. If the title still exists after conquering the de jure territory then I just have to wait a few years for the "de jure required" gamerule to force the kingdom to be destroyed. Afterwards, I can recreate the kingdom on my own terms, with my preferred inheritance law etc, and without any penalties from destroying it.

What dlcs you would say is must have to play ck2 in a more convenient fashion?

In approximate decreasing order of utility, assuming you want to continue playing as a feudal Christian:

Way of Life (focuses!)
Conclave (complete overhaul of realm management) (the most divisive dlc - some love it, some hate it)
Legacy of Rome (which you already own) (retinues)
Charlemagne (viceroys)
Holy Fury (Christian flavor, pagans)
Sons of Abraham (Christian flavor, loans)

After that, every DLC has something that is nice-to-have (very nice-to-have in some cases) but I don't think they're as necessary.

 

[jhhowell]

I actually did start as count and worked my way up. Later on it all went to hell.
If I don't have the Charlemagne DLC how should I do it? because I thought to use kings because I reached my vasal limit....
What dlcs you would say is must have to play ck2 in a more convenient fashion?
Is it better to destroy kingdom title once you usurp the title and then recreate it so it has your original kingdom laws?

Viceroys are entirely optional; you can manage vassals fine without them. If you've reached your vassal limit, that's the game's way of telling you to stop expanding. You can try setting up vassal kings but I agree with jonjowett that they're more trouble than they're worth.

The two must-have DLCs are Conclave and Way of Life. The former makes passing laws much more manageable, the latter gives you more ways to guide your character. The Old Gods is also something of a must-have. I don't know if Paradox changed this when CK3 came out but last I checked it was free for signing up to their newsletter. Aside from the price, the 867 start is one of the better ones, and playing pagans is a lot of fun. The rest are mostly hit and miss from my point of view. Paradox did a careful job of putting something interesting in almost all of them, but to me most fall short of being worth the cost of a DLC. In the Charlemagne example, yeah, I'd like viceroys, but the 769 start is the worst of the lot from what I've heard, so a meh DLC overall; likewise Horse Lords has the Silk Road trading posts, but I don't care about playing nomads - only got that one because Paradox gave it away earlier this year. And there are a couple (Monks & Mystics, and Holy Fury) that I wouldn't take even if Paradox gave them away. A word of warning - Conclave is not save game compatible.

You can destroy and recreate titles (if they're not gavelkind), though the de jure vassals of that title will have an opinion penalty toward you for it. I prefer to be careful about whether, when, and where to expand. This isn't a "paint the map" world conquest game (well, it can be, but that's wildly ahistorical...).

Regarding your original issues:

Faction strength is expressed as a fraction of your military strength. If you rose from count to emperor, I would think you would have been far too strong to have been bothered by factions. As jonjowett said, be careful not to waste your personal troop strength. I can't think of any time I've been faced with a faction problem after I created my retinue and set up my personal demesne the way I wanted it; the only factions I remember having to worry about were in the very early years of my Byzantine game.

So choose your wars carefully, and be careful about how you fight them.

You don't necessarily want to land your sons, either. The unlanded son penalty is negligible; it should not affect your decision-making. But as you've seen (and as the Jimena brothers in 1066 demonstrate), three brothers will want to fight over their father's inheritance. What else would you expect? If you can organize things so that the younger sons combined cannot rival the heir's power, that should work out fine. Otherwise keep (some of) them unlanded. Perhaps their children will make good vassals a generation later, without strong claims or "interesting" lines of succession to pursue.

Keep your vassals happy. Vassals who like you are less likely to join factions and more likely to leave factions they're in. Long reigns are good, choose appropriate traits (Content, for example) for new vassals, etc. You can arrange a marriage such that a key vassal has a non-aggression pact with you to block them from joining factions. A powerful vassal who is indifferent or mildly negative toward you is a good target for your chancellor. Way of Life gives you more options here.

Note that murdering relatives, particularly close relatives, is generally a bad idea. Don't risk getting a Kinslayer trait unless all your other options are worse.

 

[YouWeiDe]

Thanks for the advice. I actually started as tribal ruler in Ireland 936 start. and I guess because of my tribal retinue number I was ok for most of the time, that would mean later my vassals became too strong.
I was thinking to use my personal troops more so I don't make my vassals angry for raising their levy. So I should use their levy instead even if it makes them angry, saving my personal troops?

When you say "the game's way of telling you to stop expanding" does that mean it's end game point for me or something and cannot go further? Because that would mean I can only have like 30 duke vassals and then it's game over.

I will remember the dlc advice and about it being not save compatible.

Few more things... about theocracy...i noticed it just pops up, and i cannot exactly benefit from it... is there anyway to benefit from it, because the main holding is a monastery and i don't think there's a way to change the main holding.(maybe a dumb question)
and about expanding.. i could invite people with dutchy claims to my court, give them a piece of land(even if not my culture), win their claim war, wait until they rebel(that usually happens sooner or later) and give the title either to people from my dynasty or to other people with other claims and repeat the process? it does cause dejure territories become really messy. Especially dutchies.

 

[jhhowell]

Using vassal levies - with care, yes. Don't keep them raised for long periods of time, or the opinion penalty will start to hurt. They're good for short victorious wars (the best kind of war), and for defensive wars where the opinion penalty doesn't apply. If you find yourself grinding out a long bloody offensive war of some kind, you probably made some poor choices somewhere along the way. (Which is fine, of course, learn from experience ). Even then, you can probably do some sort of rotation, using levies from Dukes A, B, and C for (say) six months, then disbanding them and using levies from Dukes D, E, F, etc, and have everyone with only mild opinion penalties.

A related often-repeated piece of advice is that it's prudent to always have a nice cushion of money stored up in case you suddenly find that you need some mercenaries. They're ideal for the "taking casualties" part of warfare, if you have the time and money to hire them, get their morale up to full, and move them to where you need them. The AI will use mercs as well, in case you're ever surprised by an enemy with an unexpectedly strong army (merchant republics are particularly likely to do this, since they're rich almost by definition).

There's more to the game than expansion. Build up what you have and hold it against your neighbors, who will surely make trouble for you sooner or later. Manage your dynasty; sooner or later you'll have some bad RNG and a suboptimal heir which will make your life exciting for a while. Do dynastic shenanigans outside your borders, trying to get your cousins/whatevers to succeed to as many titles as you can manage (and/or start up new realms as Crusade beneficiaries in Egypt, Jerusalem, etc.). Keep a close eye on your near abroad, slapping down potential threats, setting up buffer states, tributaries, allies, however you want to do it.

You can even mess around in more distant parts of the world. One of the more peculiar (but interesting) things I did early in my Norway game was to go "raiding" around Barcelona. With 12000 men. Focusing intently on smashing Umayyad armies, not on sacking the local holdings (though I did sack a few, because why not). The point being that I was doing everything I could to prevent the Umayyads from winning their Holy War for Toulouse, which would have unlocked the Crusades 200 years early. So if you see a balance of power problem starting do develop somewhere, you can probably come up with a way to do something about it, and that doesn't have to involve actually conquering any territory.

The CK games are about your dynasty not your nation, and that distinction matters a great deal. Some of the DLC help a lot; Way of Life in particular makes peacetime much more interesting as you develop your character.

And of course you can just continue expanding despite starting to hit gameplay limits. Those limits are nowhere near strict enough to reflect historical reality, which is why it's fairly easy to create realms that are far larger and more stable than was historically possible in this era. In the case of blowing past your vassal limit, you would eventually have to set up vassal kings (and/or viceroys, if you have Charlemagne). And good luck passing laws at that size if you don't have Conclave. It's probably possible, barely, but I'd expect it to be a once in a lifetime (at best) opportunity. (I picked up Conclave before I reached empire scale in any game, so I don't actually know for sure - just that it was getting annoying to pass laws even as a good sized kingdom).

I'm not sure I understand your question about theocracy. You can change the capital holding of a province if you want, just give the county title to the baron of the castle (or mayor of the city, if you want to set up a republic there). I don't like letting bishops or archbishops hold power, but I know other people do find some benefit to them. Might have something to do with Christian religious mechanics in some of the other DLC - Sons of Abraham I think. I haven't played in the Christian part of the world in quite a while so I'm a little rusty, sorry. (Technically my Norway game has visited Christendom - to loot and pillage; those bishoprics you mentioned are extremely tasty raiding targets! ).

Yes, inviting claimants to your court, giving them a county, then pressing their claim is a standard technique. No need for them to rebel, necessarily, they should have quite high opinion of you and be well-behaved vassals.

And yes, expanding a lot will tend to make a mess of actual and de jure borders. Aside from my "could this kind of expansion have happened historically?" reasoning mentioned earlier, that messiness another reason my playstyle is to reach a certain desired realm size (usually a single de jure empire, and I only go that large because I want Imperial Administration eventually so that I can stop my vassals from launching their own wars of conquest) and then focus on building up infrastructure, managing my dynasty, and messing around in my near abroad instead of actually conquering more territory.

 

[YouWeiDe]

I guess I will get Conclave and The way of life, before my next game (gonna restart and Don't feel sad about it at all). It might become harder than before because I have no idea how to influence council to vote in your favor. And I cannot declare war as I please?

I also learned that it was foolish not to participate in crusade because I don't get those artifacts or the trait. Does my character have to personally lead troopes in a crusade or just send them on it? I choose not to participate because I didn't really have boats and I start in tribal Ireland in 936.

I haven't played anything besides tribal government reforming into feudal but I think I like both. Paying as pagan is for the future.

I didn't know that if you grant the county to the castle/tribe owner it will change from theocracy to another government form.

 

[jonjowett]

@jhhowell wrote a very thorough post above; I have only a couple of points to add.

When you say "the game's way of telling you to stop expanding" does that mean it's end game point for me or something and cannot go further? Because that would mean I can only have like 30 duke vassals and then it's game over.

The vassal limit is a soft cap, not a hard cap. You can go over - all that happens is you get reduced taxes and levies from your vassals. If you don't need any of that material stuff, you can go a long way over - this can be sustainable for decades but probably not for centuries.

If your goal is expansion then you will need vassal kings. If you don't have Charlemagne, they will need to be hereditary - not viceroys. It can certainly be done - but you should expect to spend an increasing amount of time enforcing realm stability. (IE: Slapping-down vassal kings who've acquired 2+ kingdoms.)

But you will probably discover that expansion is not everything. If you keep expanding then, at some point, the gameplay will become more like work than play. But you'll probably need to try it at least once in order to understand whether this playstyle appeals to you.

Few more things... about theocracy...i noticed it just pops up, and i cannot exactly benefit from it... is there anyway to benefit from it, because the main holding is a monastery and i don't think there's a way to change the main holding.(maybe a dumb question)

If you own multiple holdings in the same county (including the county capital), you can right-click on one that is not the county capital, and you will have the option to make it the capital. Eg: If the county capital is a temple and you also own a barony in that county then you can use the right-click option to make the barony into the capital.

I usually like to put count- or duke-level bishops in charge of holy sites but that's just flavour/role-playing. Overall, it's usually best to keep them at baron-tier.

 

[YouWeiDe]

I got conclave. The vasal obligation screen looks less convenient. Maybe it's just me. Education seems much more different. Most likely will make some mistakes. If someone could explain me the crusade thing it would be great too. I understand I ask a lot. :/

 

[jonjowett]

The vasal obligation screen looks less convenient.

Yes, it is less convenient. But I think it's a better reflection of the available tradeoffs - you can choose money or levies but not both.

Education seems much more different.

It is very different. I suggest you read the relevant page on the wiki.

If someone could explain me the crusade thing it would be great too.

I also learned that it was foolish not to participate in crusade because I don't get those artifacts or the trait. Does my character have to personally lead troopes in a crusade or just send them on it? I choose not to participate because I didn't really have boats and I start in tribal Ireland in 936.

To gain "participation score", you need to send troops to the Crusade target. Once there, you gain score from battles and sieges and anything else that makes your troops die. (Yes, the latter is stupid: losing troops to attrition gives you participation score.) Check the wiki for more details.

 

[YouWeiDe]

It seems more complicated too. The council and everything, the game is much less about painting the map but more about keeping most people happy politically to continue my own agenda. Hiring councils members with high stats without caring for their culture or religion isn't as simple or beneficial, also not so easy or worth it to rehire them after my character dies. Same culture/religion is better than stats?
After my character died, I also tried going against the councils disapproval of declaring a war (not being able to declare war whenever I please seems odd) ,and it got my heir assassinated in 10 months...I doubt it was a coincidence. Edit: my sons guardian was my marshal, because he had goodish traits and stats+ brilliant strategist, but they became rivals, that might also pushed things in a bad direction.
Also granting titles, I granted a title with one of them disapproving, because they wanted it, and they left the council. Simple decisions like title granting, revocation, declaring war seem not to be as easy. Anything else I should know what wiki doesn't explain?

Can buying favors in exchange of their vote backfire? can they ask for something back that will ruin my game?


Understanding education will take some time, I usually only care about my heirs education and all other kids is just whatever, especially lower intrigue, so they cant plot to kill me later on... Not sure if it's a good/bad approach.

As for the crusades, I meant does my character have to lead the troops or simply send them there, to try to get some benefit from the crusade? Don't really want him to die especially if no heir.

 

[jonjowett]

Can buying favors in exchange of their vote backfire? can they ask for something back that will ruin my game?

If you can buy a favor and use it to enforce their vote, that's fine. However, if you ask them for support, you are giving them a favor that they can later use on you... which might be a problem later.

Understanding education will take some time, I usually only care about my heirs education and all other kids is just whatever, especially lower intrigue, so they cant plot to kill me later on... Not sure if it's a good/bad approach.

As a first approximation, that's fair enough. However, there is a lot more depth there, if you want it.

As for the crusades, I meant does my character have to lead the troops or simply send them there, to try to get some benefit from the crusade? Don't really want him to die especially if no heir.

All you have to do is send your troops.

However, you probably want the "Crusader" trait, which requires you to be leading troops in the Crusade target. Getting "Crusader" on everyone in your realm is even better - everyone with the trait has +15(?) opinion towards each other. (Fortunately, this is easily cheesed. When your troops are sitting in a target province: pause the game; cycle through all of your Catholic courtiers and vassals; make each person a commander and assign them to the army. Once you're done, reinstate your best commanders, unpause, and proceed with the crusade.)

 

[jhhowell]

the game is much less about painting the map but more about keeping most people happy politically to continue my own agenda.

That sentence is Crusader Kings in an nutshell.

As you've seen, your council is quite different with Conclave, and you'll want to pick Councillors from among your strong vassals, with stats very much secondary. The Advisor slot on the Council is handy for placating a powerful vassal who is terrible at everything. And often you have more strong vassals than Council slots, so some of them will be quite irritated with you no matter what you do.

On the other hand, if you can get just a few Councillors to like you, you can pass laws pretty easily.

As a tribal start, you're stuck with a fully empowered Council until you reach maximum Tribal Organization. My tribal experience was pagan, but reforming the religion made the vassals favor rather than oppose increasing Tribal Organization. Since Catholic is already an organized religion I'd guess that yours will also favor increasing Tribal Organization. If so, you can work on passing that quickly at the start of the game, and then gradually work on the Council Laws screen to take powers to yourself. Title grants, revocation, and imprisonment are the big ones to me; requiring Council approval of war declaration seems pretty sensible. If the war you want to fight is opposed by most of your vassals, that's probably not a good war to fight... As I recall (my Persia game has a fully powerless Council, so I may be a bit rusty) vassals usually like going to war - new land, you might give it to them or their sons. And they usually hate to let you revoke a title or imprison a fellow vassal, for obvious reasons.

Yes, you almost always want same culture same religion; same religion especially since that's a significant opinion penalty if it's different.

Be careful giving away favors. It's often OK, but it can be dangerous - someone can use a favor to try to repeal a law change you just passed, stuff like that. You'll get a sense of what benefit is worth giving out a favor, who is relatively safe to give favors to, etc. For example, giving a favor to a guy who is 70+ years old is pretty safe, since he'll die soon. Another way to reduce the risk of favors is to buy them back afterwards. If you owe a favor to Duke X, they may accept a sum of money (the Buy Favor diplomatic option). As usual, the wiki has useful info on how favors work.

The Conclave education system is very interesting. That's probably the wiki page I visit most often, trying to micromanage guardian selections to get the best traits on young dynasty members. If you want to put minimal effort into that part of the game, I think a simple approach would be:

1. Pick Thrift for Childhood Focus (maybe pick Duty for your heir, to try to steer towards stewardship more).
2. Pick whatever Education Focus has the most beneficial traits associated.
3. Rather than worrying about guardians just pick a Court Tutor with reasonably good stats in everything and no bad traits.

That won't produce ideal results (but RNG being what it is micromanagement doesn't either) but it should produce decent results, and not require much effort on your part.

One potentially useful trick with Education is that you can change the education choice for children in your prisons. Switching them to Heritage is very likely to switch their culture and religion to yours when they reach adulthood. Not sure how common Norse Germanic prisoners are for Ireland 936 (I'd expect the Norse to be more likely to take Irish Catholic prisoners, honestly). Or maybe you capture some kids during a Crusade someday, etc. Or just some Anglo-Saxons, Welsh, or Scots who can be made into proper Irish youngsters.

Having a child's rival as their guardian is an excellent way to kill off that child, as you discovered. I've tried to set up assassinations like that but the kid reached adulthood before anything happened, sadly.

Crusades - the trait trick jonjowett mentioned is extremely powerful. Also extremely cheesy, but it basically means that you'll have great relations with everyone of importance in your realm for a generation, which is incredibly valuable and well worth the implied teleportation involved.

The other major benefit of a Crusade is the insane amount of money you get. Just look at the size of the Crusade pot; everyone who shows up will easily get thousands of gold. Unless you mod your game to tone that down to semi-reasonable levels, which I do when I play a Catholic game. As a matter of gameplay optimization, Crusades are a "can't afford not to" activity, such that you'd want to take note of when they kick off, pre-position as much of an army as you can spare off the coast of the target, and do your best to maximize participation score. If you're strong enough to win the Crusade quickly on your own before most other participants show up, the financial reward is even more insane as you get, say, 50% of the pot instead of 10%.

All this doesn't mean you have to participate in Crusades. From a realism perspective, Ireland is almost as far as can be from the usual targets. And another view of the previous two points (Crusader trait, stupid amounts of reward money) is that CK2's Crusade mechanic is super-broken and terrible, and the least bad solution is to just spend 250 piety every 25(?) years to send a bunch of idiots to die of attrition in Mongolia, Tibet, or whatever unreasonable location strikes your fancy. If adding Conclave hadn't broken my Apulia game I would have started doing the latter.

 

[YouWeiDe]

I do like the education a bit more, seems less random and can have specific goals for the children, and later on with the way of life can improve the skills they are lacking something. Do you not go for war focus for you ruler/heir? Just give them stewardship education and keep them in a safe distance so they don't die in a battle or a duel or get captured?

Not sure if bad RNG, or something is different with conclave but I tried two different games and it's harder to get claims. In 50 years I only got 1 claim. Since it's the beginning of the game it's not great because I cannot invite other claimants and give some land, because they will simply be independent. Since it's the tribal Ireland start( I chose the one with two counties in the north of the island at the start of 936) there's not much you can do. Should I not care about the council in the beginning and just a chancellor any religion and any culture and just care about his stats?
I tried pressing my wifes claim only to learn that my underage age heir leaves with her and goes to her court for some reason. and I cannot really marry or educate him. Same thing happens if my heir isn't landed but his wife is, and he will leave to her court?

After 50 years Vikings change their religion to Christianity so no religious CB can be used. The inconclusive war end because they change their religion mid-war is another thing. Kinda tedious but cannot do anything about it. Also one of the best ways to increase personal power early on.

I'm not sure how good you are with gavelkind, I find it hard to manage(wanting like one son and he shouldn't die and not be an imbicile), but last game I wanted an heir, I used one of those focuses from the way of life, and instead of one or two sons I got 8...Lol That was an even bigger mess. In my opinion the big amount of sons is only useful for giving them war education, and putting them into commander position, they can be useful or if they die they die, win-win situation. I know can disqualify by sending them to holy order , but they should be imprisoned, or can also nominate them for a bishop position. If the ruler dies too early that plan is busted.

Maybe the start I chose is a bit hard for a novice, but I do like a challenge. Will become easier once I know more about it.

 

[jhhowell]

I learned early on to never let my character command troops in battle, unless I'm willing to see him die. Battlefield duel events are incredibly common (inappropriately so, in my opinion, but I don't know what file controls that so I haven't been able to mod it down to reasonable levels), and no matter how skilled your character, there's always some chance of death. And without the cheesy nonsense in Holy Fury, most characters are not remarkably good at personal combat to begin with. Better to leave the ruler in the capital and let expendable commanders lead the armies. Bonus points for getting vassals you dislike killed off this way. Killing off excess sons that way is also totally reasonable (bad parenting, good gameplay).

So no, I very much do not favor military education for my heirs. If I could dictate my heir's stats, they'd be high stewardship characters with middling scores in the other stats (enough to avoid noticeable penalties; anything more would be nice but not at all required). Of course RNG is what it is and heirs can end up with any of the educations (better to go for a decent tier of an education they're suited for than try for stewardship regardless and likely end up an Indulgent Wastrel).

Yes, heir going with his wife's court sounds correct. Going with the mother's court over yours if both of you are landed and equal in rank is plausible but I have no experience of that one way or the other.

Changing religion mid-war (if you're losing) is a valid way out of a Holy War. Not the most plausible thing ever since people typically are strongly attached to their religion, but I believe there were historical cases where people did stuff like that (not an expert so I can't think of a specific citation off the top of my head). So just remember that it's a trick you can use too, if necessary, and if you have the DLC and gameplay conditions to pull it off.

I am disappointed to hear that Germanic converts away to Catholics in the 936 start. I really like watching 867 games develop, with Germanic often reforming and staying very strong throughout northern Europe.

Right, gavelkind is absolutely awful. I think the Irish can do Tanistry, right? Or is that only Scottish culture? Wiki says any Celtic culture, so you should be able to do that. It's pretty decent; elective but restricted to your own dynasty.

A word of warning - trying to have precisely one living son is dangerous. People can drop dead at any time in this game, and having no heir is a worse problem than having too many. Example: my first attempt at a Persia game (also broken when I added Conclave... ), one of my emperors had one son and six daughters. Son was in his early 30s and had two sons of his own. Son dies of illness, the two grandsons also die (natural deaths, just poor health or illness or some such). Fortunately succession was Agnatic-Cognatic and I had been paranoid enough to marry the first three daughters matrilineally, so I was OK, the eldest inherited and had a successful reign as empress despite the female ruler penalty.

Ireland is a terrible place to start, especially to learn the game. It has a reputation as Newbie Island, but that really isn't recommended. It's weak, poorly positioned, and boring, and starting before 1066 just makes things worse since you're tribal as well. Ireland is fine for a challenge game if that's what you're into, but not a learning game. The game's tutorial is pretty good (one of the Jimena brothers jonjowett mentioned in his first post in this thread). I highly recommend Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia in 1066 - he was my first game in both CK and CK2; very fun start. I've seen Poland recommended in 1066 as well.

One down side of 1066 starts is that the HRE is way too strong and stable. You're pretty familiar with the 936 start at this point, so you can probably pick some reasonable characters to play as (one of the German dukes, maybe?). There's also the Interesting Characters Guide with an enormous number of suggestions.

 

[YouWeiDe]

I thought of taking 936 start because you have more time until the game ends.

The poor position of Ireland I can already feel. Boats are heavily needed. Being tribal isn't that horrible. You have the strength in numbers because of call vasal to war ability, since they act as allies. So can help early on. Also raiding gives prestige and money that help with tribal prestige based retinues. What about playing as Gascoigne? Geographic location too dificult? For now just speaking about 936 start.

No idea how difficult it is to be a vasal so I'm not trying that for now

 

[jhhowell]

I do enjoy playing tribal, but as Norse Germanic. Cheap ships make raiding far more fun. And initially pagan tribals are protected by pagan homeland attrition, whereas the Irish are vulnerable to attack by anyone who cares enough to attack them.

Gascoigne - that would be an interesting game. Looks quite challenging, so it depends what you're looking for. I'd expect West Francia and/or French dukes to strip your provinces pretty quickly. And even if they don't, the Umayyads are powerful and relatively nearby. The obvious first move for Gascoigne would be to voluntarily swear fealty to West Francia, in which case you may as well play as any vassal duke on the map.

You could try Brittany. The Monarch's Journey there (1066 start) was interesting. In 936 you're more restricted since you don't have your neighboring duke tied up conquering (or failing to conquer) England. But West Francia has no de jure claim on you, unlike Gascoigne. There's a good chance that sooner or later French dukes will send their chancellors to fabricate claims and gradually eat you anyway, though.

Looking around the map for characters who might satisfy the criteria: 936, Christian, independent, interesting, not about to get clobbered by a neighbor. The Grand Duke of Bohemia is a possibility. He's a Kinslayer but otherwise looks to be in a decent position. The King of Croatia might be OK too. Being a neighbor to Hungary in this era is dangerous, but I believe in the 936 start Otto is scripted to go clobber them. I've heard that King Hakon of Norway is interesting - a Christian king of a Germanic land, try not to get assassinated. And you'd get the cheap ships and river raiding from the Norse culture.

I don't have a good sense of what's going on in Armenia or Ethiopia in this era. Armenia is probably a bad idea because Seljuk is about to show up. Ethiopia - I honestly don't know; you can probably get a sense from your Ireland saves whether AI Egypt tends to push south against them. There might be an interesting game to play in that part of the world.

Being a vassal is fine, arguably easier than being independent since you don't have to worry about being attacked very much. Instead of being annoyed by councilors demanding favors you can be an annoying councilor demanding favors. Playing the marriage game to engineer successions into your dynasty is pretty common. Depending on who you're playing and what's happening around you, you can make a push for independence, or try to take the throne yourself.

I've seen Wulfgar of Wiltshire recommended as a good game in 936. He has two counties, his wife has two counties, and if he can get the money together he can form his duchy (and his wife can also form a duchy). Potentially a very strong power base within England. Though when I tried it the king really didn't like me and I wasn't able to get very far.

The Byzantines are their own special kind of fun in any start. Imperial Elective works by different rules than other governments, so read up on that carefully if you try it.

 

[jonjowett]

Should I not care about the council in the beginning and just a chancellor any religion and any culture and just care about his stats?

You can usually afford to piss off 1-2 of your 4-5 powerful vassals. This leaves you 1-2 council slots that you can fill with competent people (preferably Jews invited from abroad using a favor, because Jewish councillors give +50 techpoints every few years). I tend to prioritise spymaster then chancellor for these 1-2 slots.

I'm not sure how good you are with gavelkind, I find it hard to manage

Gavelkind is definitely the hardest. Your heir probably won't be very good. It's usually best to switch to something else - even elective gavelkind is better IMO. However, as Celtic culture group, you should have access to the unique Tanistry succession law, which is not great overall - but it's a vast improvement over gavelkind!

I thought of taking 936 start because you have more time until the game ends.

I wouldn't worry about this. I haven't ever made it to 1453, from any start date. (I tend to start a new run once I become overpowered.)

No idea how difficult it is to be a vasal so I'm not trying that for now

If your liege has the same religion, it's pretty chill. You're restricted in what you can do, but you are also protected and you can eat their realm from the inside. It's also good for learning the vassal mechanics from the inside.

If your liege has a different religion (and they can easily beat you in a war) then it's definitely hard mode. (There are some Slavic counts under the Christian duke/king of Bohemia in earlier start dates: week 1 revocation from your overlord!) On the other hand, the easiest way to survive if all your neighbours are vastly more powerful and have different religion (eg. Zoroastrian starts, surrounded by Muslims) is to swear fealty to another person of that religion. (And ensure that they don't pass the religious revocation law.)

The Byzantines are their own special kind of fun in any start. Imperial Elective works by different rules than other governments, so read up on that carefully if you try it.

Top tip for Byzantines: If your character is vaguely competent but you don't want to be emperor, make sure you aren't marshal or commander. Resign if necessary.

 

[Drake_Hound]

Factions are fun, easy to beat too..
Just use SWAY on the leader of the faction or if the leader of the faction isn't somebody who can be swayed over.
Then start working on the most powerfull faction member.

Plot assassination , etc for those who can't be swayed and keep working on your ruler positive opinion.
Now the factions you can simply ignore if your OWN REALM STRENGTH is way above all those factions combined.
By giving powerfull duchies and counties to your reliable people of your dynasty or content ones atleast. (never ambitious)
Failing to find reliable dynasty members. give them to content courtiers that have way + opnion of you.
One of the reasons to leave your heir with most powerfull counties that can summon the most levy. till your retinue is big enough that makes any of those factions cower in fear.

But any succession is always meet with turmoil. unless you cleanse the undesired elements in your dynasty and vassals.