how to make the kingdom of Germany last a bit longer?

[pingupower]

Hi everybody,

I recently got the game and I started as various German minors.

But I always face the same problem. Germany split into duchys with no resistance (or very vain) from the king. In 3 years Germany is turned in a mosaique of duchies and counties.
I first started to change this by making the AI coward and very easy hoping they would be more loyal but the duchies still rebell a lot.
I then used the gold cheat to gift the king with 20k gold every 3 months but in the end he would still loose.

No other realm face such loyalty problems from vassals.
Should I gift them with 100k gold a the start in order to have them more powerfull?
Is there a way to mod or is the a mod out there that changes this?

 

[elDrastico]

1) use DV
2) use the latest beta patch
3) play on Very Hard/Weakling3
4) play Germany yourself


these 4 steps are really the only way (excepting luck/coincidence) to keep the Holy Roman Empire unified for a longer period of time

 

[pingupower]

Well the first two steps are ok.

Step 3 is more problematic. I can't compete with the AI in VH. Normal is enough for me.

Step 4 isn't really what I want to play.

Why is France that more stable than Germany? can't it be modded?

 

[unmerged(176048)]

I think the odds are weighted against Germany and Byzantium. There are realm disruption events in the events folder that have modifiers that bring about realm disruption more quickly. If those numbers were tinkered with, it could make those realms last longer.

Sorry I can't be more detailed- I don't have CK on this computer.

 

[Serbon]

Use the "die" cheat on two rivals of the German king,but that will help only for awhile

 

[TempestDK]

Well the first two steps are ok.

Step 3 is more problematic. I can't compete with the AI in VH. Normal is enough for me.

Step 4 isn't really what I want to play.

Why is France that more stable than Germany? can't it be modded?

Problem for Heinrich, king of Germany in 1066 is that he is a rival with Mathilda, Duchess of Tuscany, who happens to be the Papal Controller. So she will often Excommunicate Heinrich early on. Thus helping the German downfall.

Even when not excommunicated, the italian holdings often break away, as I think they start as rebellious vassals and/or rivals. The republics get events to leave any feudal realm they are part of, if I remember correctly.

No amount of money will keep rebellious vassals from eventually breakting away through events.

Also all the rebellious vassals in the south can make Heinrich get the Realm Duress trait which will further push Germany over the edge.

Usually Germany will eventually grow back in size as the independent realms start to repledge to him.

As said, the odds are against Germany and Byzantium in the 1066 scenarios, of them coming out unscathed in the beginning.

So to mod Germany chances of a stable realm, you would probably have to do the following:

1. Remove Mathilda as Papal Controller
2. Remove Mathilda as Heinrichs rival
3. Remove all rebellious traits from german vassals
4. Remove some/all of Heinrich's rival vassals

 

[unmerged(84239)]

Germany will have troubles, but in CK1.05 at least, they usually control the situation.
some independent duchies here and there, but conquered easily by the king.

 

[pingupower]

Thank you for the precisions.

So I think the solution is to gift Heinrich with a huge amount of money from start ( the more he has, the longer he can raise armies to defend himself against rebels).
Then remove mathilda as a papal controler. (historically she was more papal controlled anyway)

 

[TempestDK]

Thank you for the precisions.

So I think the solution is to gift Heinrich with a huge amount of money from start ( the more he has, the longer he can raise armies to defend himself against rebels).
Then remove mathilda as a papal controler. (historically she was more papal controlled anyway)

or you could mod Heinrich's Prestige to 1000 ... that helps with vassal loyalty and keeps him from getting excommunicated

edit: woops... piety is needed for not being excommed .. not Prestige

 

[unmerged(176048)]

I don't think money will help much. The AI doesn't go below zero gold, so it doesn't matter how much it spends.

Increasing Heinrich's piety (and prestige) will probably do the most good for the least effort on your part.

 

[pingupower]

Now the question is : is there a way to do this easily (text files or so like in the Totla War series) Or is it tricky?

 

[jordarkelf]

Germany in 1066 is supposed to be in trouble: see Wikipedia on Henry IV for details and reasons why.

Historically he did not become emperor until 31 March 1084, but even after that he faced constant rebellions. Even his son Konrad rebelled against him.



Anyway, if you want to help Germany survive, giving him prestige or granting him the emperor trait early may be the way to go. As for modding CK, like all Paradox games it is all simple text files. Once you know what to edit and where, it's trivial.

 

[TempestDK]

Now the question is : is there a way to do this easily (text files or so like in the Totla War series) Or is it tricky?

I would have said, start a game (as anyone) and immediately save it.

The edit that save game file for Heinrich. He should be easy to find. But I can't seem to find where his piety and prestige are located. Maybe Someone else knows.

 

[Serbon]

I would have said, start a game (as anyone) and immediately save it.

The edit that save game file for Heinrich. He should be easy to find. But I can't seem to find where his piety and prestige are located. Maybe Someone else knows.

It is not with the character but with the info about country,just do CTRL + F and search for GERM tag.

 

[Serbon]

Hm my mistake,I was thinking about badboy.

The piety and prestige is right after "culture" line

Like this:

score = { gold = 21.331 prestige = 115.099 piety = 100.700 }

 

[pingupower]

Thanks a lot.

I know Germany was in trouble and faced a rebellion and I don't want to whipe that out.

But a rebellion of more than 3 "bug" duchies in this game and Germany is down for sure. I want to avoid that. Having them fight half the empire is ok but not with only one vassal duke and 1 core territory.

 

[wobbit]

Would giving some of the German vassals the "loyalist" trait help at all? Or giving some of his rivals vassals the rebellious trait?

But yeah, almost everyone rebelled against Henry including his son Conrad (as jordarkelf said), his younger son Henry (later Henry V) and his wife. There were several points where Henry came very close to losing the crown.

Thing was that almost all of these rebellions didn't seek to dismantle Germany (or, more properly, the Empire). Rather, the rebelious vassals sought to obtain greater rights for themselves or to dethrone Henry. Unfortunately, the game can't really model this when Henry has 3 king titles, often leading to the Empire irrevocably breaking up early in the game. In other kingdoms that face early problems with vassal loyalty (France, England and Byzantium spring to mind), you'll often see the kingdoms reappearing largely intact after a few years when the main rebels have been defeated or have claimed the king title and the other rebels have sworn allegience to the king again.

But, as Henry is king of 3 kingdoms, it's very possible that the king titles will be split up into the hands of various nobles. As a result, you're typically left with a patchwork of green and red across Germany, Italy and Burgundy after a noble (often based in Italy) defeats Henry and takes his primary king title- that of Germany. Most of the other rebels in Germany will eventually swear to this new king. Henry is left with the King titles of Burgundy and Italy and will eventually get most of the rebels from these areas swearing to him. He also has a number of loyal vassals left in Germany. If Henry loses the Burgundy title to a second rebel noble (as I've seen a couple of times) the situation can become even more chaotic with three kings holding a mess of lands over the three kingdoms.

Expanding the provinces tagged as being part of the kingdom of Germany to include the provinces presently tagged for Burgundy and Italy could be a way to stop the Empire from fragmenting so swiftly at the start of the game, but would create problems later on- and make it very hard to recreate Germany if the title ever dissapeared. However, if you're only interested in playing the first hundred years or so then this could be a very viable solution.

 

[jordarkelf]

In my own game, I have removed Henry's titles of Burgundy and Italy (historically somewhat justified: he did not become King of Italy until 1080, and there never was an independent King of Burgundy [or Arles/Arelat] after Rudolph III, 1032). This seems to be the best cure to keep Germany together, although the Italians and Burgundians may never re-pledge.
I'm experimenting with removing Burgundy completely now, to see the effect.

 

[wobbit]

I'd be very interested to know how this turns out. Is it possible to change the kingdom tag of provinces by event? Could be a way to keep the empire intact early game and let bits fall off later on...

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

I'd be very interested to know how this turns out. Is it possible to change the kingdom tag of provinces by event?

No, that is not possible