How to have fun when you are powerful?

[Dainiuskinas]

So I've been playing CKII for some years now and it's not a difficult game once you know how to play it. Power is just around the corner even if you start as a count of one county. Pretty soon I become an emperor, or a very strong king, and I feel like there is no challenge at that point.

Establish a strong demesne, buy favors to abolish the council (or minimize their influence while still being able to put strongest vassals on the council if you can't handle your vassals through sheer force), get primogeniture or whatever succession law you prefer and you are absolutely golden at that point. Retinues are a plus but not necessary. Mercenaries are a very easy way to gain power by just stockpiling some gold and winning an overthrow faction revolt with them, or conquering someone. And once I have that much power it is just impossible for me to lose any of it. The vassals will never revolt when you are that tough, the council is neutered, the succession is safe. I feel like I could permanently play with an inbred imbecile character at that point and stay in complete power with 0/0/0/0/0 stats.

So, what do you guys do when you become powerful? I know that a lot of people create empires and they still have fun even then, and I want in on the fun.

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

Yeah, Paradox made realm management way too easy. The new factioning allowed even with NAP is a very good change, but it's still not enough. Probably make that the default rule and return factioning threshold to 80 opinion. Realm management might get interesting again.

As for what I do currently, I hibernate out the threat level. Meanwhile I save most of my cash on upgrades and favors. Buy favors to marry princesses and acquire claims kingdom or higher realms.

 

[Castimirr]

I tend to look for fun or interesting things to use my power for where having the power is necessary to really do it, but doesn't make success automatic.

In my current playthrough, I'm trying to nurture as many independent reformed Germanic realms as I can without just conquering and then granting independence. I'm raiding to capture as many people as possible and raise them with my culture/religion and then helping to make sure if they do inherit they stay in power. Even the non-heirs are useful once you send them home as they make plots easier for me and give the heirs someone to plot with. It's interesting to me since my power makes it possible without it being the automatic I-win button that conquest would be.

I join a lot of holy wars on defense and chip in on prepared invasions and such when I can. There are fewer restrictions on joining others wars than your vassals. I would be pressing claims for them without landing them but I normally play with defense pacts on and my threat never goes below 95% because of my vassals. (I think this is going to be my last defense pact game.) I'm also using raiding as a way to become hostile to someone if I want to interfere in a war I'm not allowed to join. Having your stack of 15k to 20k "neutral" troops arrive in the county with the 10k enemy stack the same day your raiders arrive in one of their counties is far more amusing to me then it should be.

 

[junassa]

I'm trying to take over the world from a religious point of view. This is the first game in years I have religious cults active and it's both blessing and curse. I've only converted one ruler who died but thankfully his two successors (they each got one kingdom) also converted (I'm assuming one by secret cults since she kicked out my diviner earlier in life). I'm raiding the pope (who has about half of Italy in his realm) like crazy and currently their MA is around 20%. I'm hoping to convert more.

Since I also took Sea Bound + Daring my vassals are spreading the religion far and wide .

 

[Geglash]

I like to create a small foothold in India, get my giant retinue there, relocate my capital there, convert to another religion and create balanced (with as least as possible CBs against each other) vassals to whom I grant independence, which leaves perfect world in Europe and frees my hand to get fully invested into a another bloody conquest in totaly virgin area. Sometimes I check on the AI paradise I left them in and wonder about their incompentence.

 

[Zsrai]

Something to do when you get too powerful too fast is to try later start dates. There are plenty of interesting starts in the 12th and 13th centuries. You'll get the same power level but now you'll have 50 game years left instead of 500, possibly making it feel more like a finished of "complete" game.

One of the things that I tend to do is stay on the smaller side (usually a smaller kingdom if I'm independent) and then try and spread my dynasty without rampant conquest. Another is start as a smaller tribal and/or pagan and use raiding to take part in a lot of wars. It really lets you shape the face of Europe when you raid the Umayyads into the ground and allow the Iberian Christians to get an upper hand or do the opposite by grinding the Franks into the dirt.

 

[Federalist girl]

So, what do you guys do when you become powerful? I know that a lot of people create empires and they still have fun even then, and I want in on the fun.

Switch characters and become the underdog trying to defeat the colossus you have created.

 

[RedBaronFlyer]

Whenever I get bored I tend to hard-rp my characters, so that means always taking the most realistic option or even picking the worst option depending on how bored I am.

For example, if my character is lustful, then I will bed anything with two legs. If my character is cruel arbitrary and wroth, I'll randomly imprison characters or execute them, even if it's viewed as tyrannical. If my character is gluttonous and a lunatic my character will try and eat people, so on and so forth.

Granted, it doesn't help if you have a full virtues character, but it can be hilarious if you have a seven deadly sins character and trying to see how long you can go before 90% of the realm is tired of your crap.

That reminds me of how much I want there to be an option to have a reign of tyranny, a wroth and arbitrary character's best options for keeping a realm in one piece are the same as a just and kind ruler.

 

[nightgerbil]

Im no expert: I only have 1958 hours played, but my last 18 runs at WC have failed. Even when your an unstoppable juggernaught the game can still kill you. 40k treasury? 3 merc companies on perma retainer? 20k retinues? loyal council? beloved by all and sundry? Nope your still not safe... SOMETHING always happens.

I'm still trying for my WC. Until then, honestly dude your talking first world problems to me

 

[Tryvenyal]

I agree, but I sometimes set alot of own soft rules to keep the fun up. Such as:

• Only handing out titles to friends(IE from top when sorting realm on _my_ opinion of them)
• Only marry maximum I tier below
• Never take a Prestige hit if there are other options
• RP the events
• Don't min/max
• Have a court tutor raising heir
• Don't game the game

As they are soft, I can jump freely on following them or not. It´s about what I want to achieve.

The game is a sandbox and has to be abit easy to not scare off players. For an experienced player it might be redicoulous.

 

[LordBorsti]

So I've been playing CKII for some years now and it's not a difficult game once you know how to play it. Power is just around the corner even if you start as a count of one county. Pretty soon I become an emperor, or a very strong king, and I feel like there is no challenge at that point.

Establish a strong demesne, buy favors to abolish the council (or minimize their influence while still being able to put strongest vassals on the council if you can't handle your vassals through sheer force), get primogeniture or whatever succession law you prefer and you are absolutely golden at that point. Retinues are a plus but not necessary. Mercenaries are a very easy way to gain power by just stockpiling some gold and winning an overthrow faction revolt with them, or conquering someone. And once I have that much power it is just impossible for me to lose any of it. The vassals will never revolt when you are that tough, the council is neutered, the succession is safe. I feel like I could permanently play with an inbred imbecile character at that point and stay in complete power with 0/0/0/0/0 stats.

So, what do you guys do when you become powerful? I know that a lot of people create empires and they still have fun even then, and I want in on the fun.

Since you seem to have a solid grasp on the mechanics and a decent amount of system mastery there are essentially three routes for you to take (which you can also mix):

1. Start using Mods, which increase the difficulty.

2. Start roleplaying your characters. Do not always take the optimal decision but the decision your character would take according to his traits.

3. Start changing the game rules.

Personally, I use a combination of 2) and 3).

Here is a setup for game rules which, in my opinion, feel more realistic than vanilla CK II.:
- Culture conversion -> slower conversion
- Religious conversion speed -> slower
- Demsne Size -> half
- Vassel Limit -> half

The first two make holding on to "foreign" territory much harder. The last two prevent you from easily centralizing power.

 

[A_Dane]

To be honest, I don't think there are too many things to do, except beat up other realms and babysit some others. I got a game going atm, where I started in Ireland. At this point I control the Empire of Britannia + some of Britanny (vassal conquerored that). My dynasty has through various means gotten control with France-Jerusalem and Portugal, so atm I'm basically just babysitting those realms watching the years go by.

EDIT: Also - do as LordBorsti, I play with those as well (the game's still too easy after a certain point, but it makes it harder, without ruining it.)

 

[GuardianGI]

I like to challenge myself by starting in tribal lands as a feudal by console cheating and trying to civilize and push back the pagans.

 

[Narvait]

That is why I rarely start before 1000 AD. Usually XII century.

 

[Castios]

There is few things that can be done:
- Don't become strong too quickly, take your time, pay attention to your vassals and councillors, many traits matter.
- Don't minmax too much.
- Roleplay a bit. I tend to completly avoid gamey mechanics, things that are not realistic (generally). I only murder characters that deserve it, I never murder my spouse etc.
- Make game more difficult with settings. I changed few minor settings so now I border huge nomads empire I have to deal with.

Also don't scum reload the game whenever bad thing happens, just let it be. I try not to do it at all cost but I did it recently only because I did not notice my main title changed to gavelkind after I lost it it for like 5 years and got it back.. so stupid.

 

[Anthropoid]

Some great posts in this thread, and the themes are a testimony to the underlying design genius of the game! VERY successful sandbox.

In years past I had got pretty far along to the "I'm too powerful, this is now boring" stage. But back in those days, a lot of the core game mechanics were not yet fully fledged (well, at least the ones from the DLC compliment I have) and the game was a LOT easier. Like silly easy. I've been finding the additional challenges the updated game imposes a real refreshment.

Right now I've got a 769 start play line as Premyslid dynasty. Was on a Kingdom Come Deliverance binge this fall, so I'm in a Bohemian Rhapsody state of mind . . . Presently up to around 850 AD and still "just a kingdom." Trying to (a) stay Pagan as long as possible; (b) promote my Dynasty as much as possible (as opposed to the personal power of the current avatar character); (c) adhere to some "avoid doing things which are ridiculously gamy" personal restrictions; and perhaps most importantly (d) don't meta-game.

By (d) what I mean is: ONLY make use of the in-game information to decipher how to optimize my decisions as a player. So for example, I still don't know how the heck I go from "tribal" to "feudal" or whatever the transition is (and no, I DO NOT want to be told how! ). Of course I have my suspicions, and the in-game information leads those suspicions; but I am not CERTAIN of the "gambit" to quickly get my realm from tribal to feudal (just as my in-game avatar would not be). I'll figure it out by playing.

I am a terrible min-maxer at heart, but one "virtue" I have which I see that a lot of even more extreme Min-maxers suffer is, I AVOID meta-gaming in single-player games. Meaning: I don't go read up how to guides and watch YT "how to" videos which instruct me of all the underlying "fine print" dynamics of the game rules. Oh sure, if something in the game's rules is so obscure or confusing as to be unpleasant, I'll seek out some clarification on that, but whenever I do I squint my eyes and try to keep my "field of vision narrow," to avoid gaining knowledge that I could get more fum from gaining through game play. For example, in this game, I had no clue what the adviser was actually "for" and no clue what those little symbols next to prospective Councillor members was really for. After going through a couple leaders where I just made a guess and ran with it, I was seeing the game respond in ways that mostly made sense, so I felt like I had gathered what it was all about, but wanted to be confident what it meant. So at that stage I went ahead and read up on the wiki about how that mechanic (Conclave I think it is called) works.

I think this is a very generalizable strategy for "prolonging" the fun duration of any analytical game one might play, and while it might not necessarily re-infuse the fun into a game that has been completely figured out and "beaten" it might.

 

[sreckom92]

By bullying the weak and pathetic, of course.

Seriously though, some of my best games were when I created a huge empire, and then switched to another character. It's fun when you create a monster. Even more so when you have to fight that monster.

 

[Avil]

I switch to stagnant empire mode:
- keeping my own vassals in tact, observing, how they conquer land, and trimming them from time to time. Strangest things happen when you end up with large chunks of wrong cultures and religions, and they collude against your rule. You start doing things, like searching for ways to isolate members of collusion, and squishing them separately, because their combined strength can lead to a long war, that can make empire exposed to outside threats. And landing your own people, maybe even your own dynasty for extra points;
- looking for opportunities to take whole kingdoms and empires. Basically, marriage games, and sometimes invitation of foreign claim holders. Occasionally crusades;
- because of defensive pacts, you can't really directly declare wars, and when you can, wars should be meaningful. So, there's that.

 

[Dainiuskinas]

I am a terrible min-maxer at heart, but one "virtue" I have which I see that a lot of even more extreme Min-maxers suffer is, I AVOID meta-gaming in single-player games. Meaning: I don't go read up how to guides and watch YT "how to" videos which instruct me of all the underlying "fine print" dynamics of the game rules. Oh sure, if something in the game's rules is so obscure or confusing as to be unpleasant, I'll seek out some clarification on that, but whenever I do I squint my eyes and try to keep my "field of vision narrow," to avoid gaining knowledge that I could get more fum from gaining through game play.

That's a nice way of looking at things but it is too late for me to follow it on CKII since I have already read up and watched videos on most stuff

 

[LordBorsti]

Another thing to challenge you would be to play the "dynasty game" which means try to get as many characters of your dynasty in power as possible...

... and then watch as your dynasty gets torn apart by in-family rivalries