I tend to give some land for my family, so even if my baby-eating, kitten-kicking homosexual possessed emperor has safe succession, there's still chance that my vassals will revolt/establish powerful faction or I die in battle with peasants.
How to have fun when you are powerful?
- Thread starter Dainiuskinas
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
It sounds like most here only know how to gain and secure power, but once they have it have no desire or idea how to actually wield it. The world in the Middle Ages is plagued by Feudalism, raids, wars, pestilence, famine, disunity and backwardness. Why desire power in the first place except to remake the world.
Control all the lands where raids originate from to put and end to them. Destroy the roving adventurers. Break the power of the great lords and build a unified state. Enforce realm peace, or have absolute rule and resolve all the wars between your vassals. Imprison those who do not comply as troublers of the realm. Build hospitals to control disease. Research technologies to bring Europe out of the Dark Ages. Bring peace and prosperity to all the land.
Also, those talking about how you cannot expand because of Threat are thinking too small. Instead, fundamentally reject any attempt to contain you! Once your realm is the greatest on Earth, seek to make it unstoppable. Spend decades or centuries building your power until you can defeat each Defensive Pact against you. Once you have beaten them all individually, attack them when you have more than 75% threat so that you will have a chance to defeat them all at once. This titanic struggle will be the penultimate challenge! Those who seek to contain you, versus your indomitable will which will not be contained. To win, you will need to defeat everyone else in the world; enemies who were forced to put aside their petty grievances to confront your unstoppable campaign. Once you have one this war, you can then expand freely, as you will defeat the same enemies again and again, and their strength will wane as yours grows.
After that, seek endgame challenges, like remaking the Roman Empire and putting your house on the Dragon Throne.
Control all the lands where raids originate from to put and end to them. Destroy the roving adventurers. Break the power of the great lords and build a unified state. Enforce realm peace, or have absolute rule and resolve all the wars between your vassals. Imprison those who do not comply as troublers of the realm. Build hospitals to control disease. Research technologies to bring Europe out of the Dark Ages. Bring peace and prosperity to all the land.
Also, those talking about how you cannot expand because of Threat are thinking too small. Instead, fundamentally reject any attempt to contain you! Once your realm is the greatest on Earth, seek to make it unstoppable. Spend decades or centuries building your power until you can defeat each Defensive Pact against you. Once you have beaten them all individually, attack them when you have more than 75% threat so that you will have a chance to defeat them all at once. This titanic struggle will be the penultimate challenge! Those who seek to contain you, versus your indomitable will which will not be contained. To win, you will need to defeat everyone else in the world; enemies who were forced to put aside their petty grievances to confront your unstoppable campaign. Once you have one this war, you can then expand freely, as you will defeat the same enemies again and again, and their strength will wane as yours grows.
After that, seek endgame challenges, like remaking the Roman Empire and putting your house on the Dragon Throne.
It's because it gets boring without any actual challenge to it, especially if you've already done it a few times. The game isn't (just) a map painter afterall; if you want to just blob and take over everything I'd say that EU4 is more your game. I find using house rules helps keep the game fresh, or if not even that at least with some level of suspense. Already being one of the top 5 realms in the game in a generation doesn't leave you much else to strive against or for.
If you start in say 769 and min-max your way to end-game, how big are the field armies?
I can remember an experience many years back playing EU (probably IV . . . maybe III, I dont' recall). I was Castille and after unifying Iberia I targeted northern Italy (which was very rich) and southern France. Within a couple hundred years I was the Bad Boy of Europe and my armies were constantly mobilized in a 2500km shield wall of border with France and Austria. I played it for hours and hours, fiddling with stacks to counter the computer opponents attempts to thwart me. At some point, I stopped and considered this dynamic: It was about late 1600s I guess maybe early 1700s and I had a standing permanent army numbering upwards of 500,000 maybe a million and they were arrayed in "stacks" of a tens of thousands in each province along my border.
I finally just got tired of it, and shook my head *This is silly . . .* turned it off and never played that game again. Tried a couple times, but the graphics haven't aged so well.
I think there are mods which tried to address those late game "Doomstack" issues for that game.
If that is the dynamic OP was talking about, I can empathize.
I can remember an experience many years back playing EU (probably IV . . . maybe III, I dont' recall). I was Castille and after unifying Iberia I targeted northern Italy (which was very rich) and southern France. Within a couple hundred years I was the Bad Boy of Europe and my armies were constantly mobilized in a 2500km shield wall of border with France and Austria. I played it for hours and hours, fiddling with stacks to counter the computer opponents attempts to thwart me. At some point, I stopped and considered this dynamic: It was about late 1600s I guess maybe early 1700s and I had a standing permanent army numbering upwards of 500,000 maybe a million and they were arrayed in "stacks" of a tens of thousands in each province along my border.
I finally just got tired of it, and shook my head *This is silly . . .* turned it off and never played that game again. Tried a couple times, but the graphics haven't aged so well.
I think there are mods which tried to address those late game "Doomstack" issues for that game.
If that is the dynamic OP was talking about, I can empathize.
It’s too easy to centralize power in the game. For most of the Middle Ages, kingdoms and other entities tried to centralize power and weaken vassals. France didn’t achieve this until the 1600s.
If we had dynasty feuds, it would allow for the game to have long lasting effects of taking out rivals. The remaining dynasty members would be quarreling with your dynasty until one is destroyed or a peace is made. This would fit in perfectly in places like Scotland and Ireland for instance.
If we had dynasty feuds, it would allow for the game to have long lasting effects of taking out rivals. The remaining dynasty members would be quarreling with your dynasty until one is destroyed or a peace is made. This would fit in perfectly in places like Scotland and Ireland for instance.
One of the best changeable I’ve made recently is in the settings putting revolt strength up to 4x and frequency to 0.5x
Once you start getting big or if you expand too quickly revolts become a genuine threat. Particularly Independence revolts who take a whole Kingdom and more. Fire one of those while you main stacks are depleted or on the far side of the realm, have the reinforcement event fire and you can have yourself a rebellion with 100k+ mixed levies that puts you in a genuine fight for survival just when you least want it.
Once you start getting big or if you expand too quickly revolts become a genuine threat. Particularly Independence revolts who take a whole Kingdom and more. Fire one of those while you main stacks are depleted or on the far side of the realm, have the reinforcement event fire and you can have yourself a rebellion with 100k+ mixed levies that puts you in a genuine fight for survival just when you least want it.
Now, I have to admit I never really played as far as to really be a dominating power in CK2, but I find that simple things like the abundance of roleplay-enabling events and decisions the game has nowadays make for a continued stream of interesting things to do.
To a degree, yes, but after 400 years (or 600, or 700) times however many games (for many of us, in the hundreds if not thousands) and some of them can become a bit old hat.
I still suggest RP'ing choices since it will allow you to have some possible negative outcomes, instead of powergaming the best stats and traits every time.
I'd rather have the game make it increasingly difficult to maintain anything above HRE size instead of having to artificially limit my expansion.
It becomes a problem for AI too, who can keep massive blobs up and running for centuries. That's how easy the game has gotten, due to players whining about stuff like 80 opinion threshold.
That way I can do what historical dynasties did. Expand rapidly and then implode a century or two later. Not, expand rapidly and then unhistorically release select orderly blobs if I choose to RP.
I don't mind people who want to RP. Just don't pretend that managing a 769 Abbasid sized blob is hard, and that maintaining that size for hundreds of years is RP. Go ahead and RP in HRE or smaller size, while Paradox contains the WC guys with some actual challenge.
Last edited:
I enjoy raising 1 or 2 heirs, give them martial education and make all 3 of us commanders for the main stack. Whatever the realm size it makes up for nice RP.
If you aren't on ironman saves, you could use console commands to occasionally force succession wars/other civil wars/assorted drama.
When you are powerful any kind of idiocy you make is powerful.
Thus, you will never find a challenge as a warrior, but as a lunatic homosexual Emperor giving out viceroyalties only to those who slept with you... well, just an example. Many events are fun at this scale, especially when endorsed officially or such.
The real problem is when you are powerful and still need to fight to get achievments... in that case, you can't have as much space for idiocy. Which is honestly sad.
Thus, you will never find a challenge as a warrior, but as a lunatic homosexual Emperor giving out viceroyalties only to those who slept with you... well, just an example. Many events are fun at this scale, especially when endorsed officially or such.
The real problem is when you are powerful and still need to fight to get achievments... in that case, you can't have as much space for idiocy. Which is honestly sad.
Well, me too. Unfortunately the game doesn't do the former so I have to do the latter.
I don't know how you got the idea that I blob and/or like to blob and/or like to RP as a blob from my post though. I don't even like being the size of the HRE; Ireland or Estonia or Croatia are closer to my favored size.
This is actually something I think CK2 devs have done insanely well. Literally every start date in the game has something fun or interesting associated to it, and arguably Charlemagne is the worst start date for everything except for Jewish nomads. Maybe also Zoroastrian/Bon/Zunism. In EU4 for example, because they clearly have done a very low-effort job at making later start dates feel fun (endless "embraced institution" popups anyone?) 1444 is the best start date (possibly 1447 for Ambrosian republic but I digress), but this just isn't the case for EU4.
Reduced personal demesne is much better if you want to create realm instability and a need to cater to the vassal, pretty easy to manage a realm if you have large large personal holding without any NAP.
It's not so much directed at you than it is at people who are fine with the current settings, sit at empire and a half size or larger, and then claim everything is fine since they are "RPing"
I play as the Bavandids of Persia almost exclusively these days and I can tell you the AI Caliph typically sits at 3 desmense or less (I try to ask for a title often.) He still doesn't implode.
I'm usually factioning against him too regardless of how big I am, primarily to hold titles for dear life. I find Liege AI less likely to revoke titles/vassals from you if you are part of a large faction. The only one that ever really fires are claimant factions and council power. Neither of which split the realm. Independence almost never fires despite a rebellious Sultan of Egypt (typically) and de jure Persian Empire consisting of a sizable chunk of the Caliphate.
Lighten up man, it's a game after all.
You can't blame people for wanting some leniency in what is after all a pastime for leisure. We don't all need to become actual intrigue masters just by playing a PC game.
That's fair. It is just irritating that it's usually the same people who moan constantly about large AI blobs being too stable. (I get negged a lot proposing harder difficulties, and you can check who gives them to you.)
Then the predictable moan about something something Muslims/Pagans are too powerful, when really it's the default realm settings being so braindead easy even the AI can keep a large realm for centuries.
Staying away from good traits can be difficult, as well as forcing yourself to sometimes take bad decisions because you've got to remain a monster.
Not sure which packs it depends on, I got all of them now. But I'm finding the transition from small Bohemian kingdom to big Slavic pagan empire fairly challenging. The fact that your Councillors try to impose their notions of what is the best choice on you keeps it spicy. It'll probably be close to 900 before I manage to switch to Feudal and then another 50 to 100 years before I can get Slavic reformed, and in the mean time, Christianity is already encroaching into the central and northern European pagan areas pretty energetically at 820. If I just went with the flow and let Christianity swallow me up, it would've been a breeze, but since the theme I wanted to follow was to create an ahistorical Slavic pagan juggernaut it makes it more interesting.