How to play the game?

[James The 1st]

I just bought this game and I'm wondering, what is it about? Is it about building my dynasty? Or about build a nation like in EU3?

Also where can I see my BB rating?

 

[DarthJF]

It's about characters and dynasty. Nations don't matter the way they do in EU3. In fact you could start the game as count in Ireland and end up being King of Africa or Emperor of Byzantium.

If you're a ruler with vassals and hover your mouse over their loyalty number you get to see what modifiers it has. There's a part that says "reputation", giving negative loyalty or -0.00, that's your bad boy and how it affects your vassals loyalty.

 

[TempestDK]

Yep, it is all about the family ... here, unlike EU, if you start as Bohemia, you will not be a big blob just called Kingdom of Bohemia. If you conquer Germany, Poland and Italy also, you would be King of Bohemia, Germany, Poland and Italy (as your title(s)). And at any point you could give a whole kingdom away to a son or relative or vassal or courtier.

The aim is to build up a strong family. Exactly how you do that, is up to you.

As for BB, check this thread: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=162777

It also has a chart of how to convert your Reputation into a BB range. Or you can do as suggested by DarthJF

 

[Count of Reval]

Yes, you can survive without a conquests, but you cannot survive without a heir. So dynasty management is a necessity and must come first.

(In fact, there isn't nations in a strict sense - just realms (and cultures). The situation is like owning and partly controlling multiple provinces with a high and permanent revolt risk. Kingdoms can fall and empires can explode in any time and rulers may lose all their power in a short moment. But the good news is that with a proper character management you can minimize those rebellion risks.)

 

[DarthJF]

Kingdoms can fall and empires can explode in any time and rulers may lose all their power in a short moment. But the good news is that with a proper character management you can minimize those rebellion risks.)

And in fact it's very likely that sooner or later you'll end up with a mad kinslaying excommunicated moron on the throne who everyone hates, and half of your realm decides rebel out of his rule, either splintering your kingdom or giving you years of hedache with realm duress. Good news though is that once you get that diplo 20 grey eminence king following it's pretty easy to get fractured realms back together.

So even if your hard won empire explodes it's not the end. You just need to repair it once things calm down.

 

[Sardaukar]

It is good fun to try to geep big empire like Byzantium in one piece, though.

 

[Explody Smurf]

I finally took the time to watch through those tutorial videos on Youtube, and I think I understand most of the basics of the game. However, I'm still somewhat unclear on when or why you would do certain things. I have tons of questions.

- Should you always create titles when you can, or are there times when it's better to wait? When should you hold off creating a title? Who should you generally give these titles to?

- When should you accept, and when should you decline an alliance? When do you accept someone's offer of marriage to a courtier, and when shouldn't you? How do you tell the best times to offer someone for marriage?

- Is there ever a bad time to build province improvements, and why does it show the shadows of improvements when you click on a vassal's province, when you can't actually build them there?

- Is there a way to expand your demesne through negotiations, or can you only do this through war?

I'm sure I'll come up with more later, but I'll stop here.

 

[Insignificant]

- When should you accept, and when should you decline an alliance? When do you accept someone's offer of marriage to a courtier, and when shouldn't you? How do you tell the best times to offer someone for marriage?

- Is there a way to expand your demesne through negotiations, or can you only do this through war?

Accept alliances which appeal to you and what you think will help you in future wars. You can offer a nation the opportunity to become your vassal but only if they have no liege.

Marrying improves relations and if it is a female who you are not using in your court marry her to someone you wish to get closer to. If it is a useless male same. Try to marry your sons to someone close to the line of succession.

This is my general take, someone may come later to correct me.

 

[Diet of Worms]

Should you always create titles when you can, or are there times when it's better to wait? When should you hold off creating a title? Who should you generally give these titles to?

Pretty much. The only reasons I can think of to hold off would be either you desperately need the money, or if you want to save the prestige bonus for your next ruler.

Who you give them to is probably more a matter of personal preference. There are some monthly prestige bonuses for holding titles yourself, but only those equal to your primary title - eg as a king you get a more prestige the more king titles you personally hold, but nothing for duke or count titles

You also get a prestige bonus for having vassals 1 level below you - so as a king you get a bonus per duke, but nothing for counts.

Personally I aim to have only duke vassals as a king, with each duke holding his natural duchy apart from counties in my own demesne, but that is just me.

When should you accept, and when should you decline an alliance? When do you accept someone's offer of marriage to a courtier, and when shouldn't you? How do you tell the best times to offer someone for marriage?

Alliances I just accept - there is absolutely no downside to failing to honour a call.

I always accept a marriage if the girl is non-dynasty and not good enough to be given an office. If she is in my dynasty I will often marry her to one of my own male courtiers to breed more (often educating sons in the church to give me people to found bishoprics), unless my court is very big (which gives sickness events) in which case I marry her away.

Is there ever a bad time to build province improvements, and why does it show the shadows of improvements when you click on a vassal's province, when you can't actually build them there?

When you need the money, and don't know.

Is there a way to expand your demesne through negotiations, or can you only do this through war?

War, inheritance, and revoking count titles from your vassals is all I can think of.

 

[kadvael56]

- Should you always create titles when you can, or are there times when it's better to wait? When should you hold off creating a title? Who should you generally give these titles to?

I usually create titles when I can if the money is not better spent elsewhere, the prestige is good, it can help with vassals loyalty. Keeping or giving titles can be more for roleplay reasons than gameplay, giving duke titles allows to have less vassals but more powerful ones, balance is needed.

- When should you accept, and when should you decline an alliance? When do you accept someone's offer of marriage to a courtier, and when shouldn't you? How do you tell the best times to offer someone for marriage?

I seldom accept alliances, only to survive if I am small at the beginning or sometimes for roleplay reasons (e.g. Breton/Welsh alliance against English). If the courtiers have good stats I decline offers if not I accept marriages.

- Is there ever a bad time to build province improvements, and why does it show the shadows of improvements when you click on a vassal's province, when you can't actually build them there?

Do not build when there is any illness in the province or you will wait many years. You can see what vassals can build, it is interesting to see what they may do when they have money, after some years you have too much money so it can be good to give some to help improve your vassals provinces.

- Is there a way to expand your demesne through negotiations, or can you only do this through war?

Expansion can be done either from inheritance or through peace negotiation following a war unless you think grabbing your vassals lands is expansion in which case it can be negociated.

 

[GaiusC]

If that's not threadjacking, I'd like to have a confirmation about some recent nasty suspicion.

Is it correct that if you have a family member that is successor/heir to a foreign king (or probably to any noble) that has claims on some province, will the ruler be pissed off if his heir manages to get hold of the province, and will remove him from succession line - because by default, the noble would consider as some kind of rival, or hostile, anyone who holds a province over which he has a claim?
I had my king's son who managed to get first successor to king of Castille-Leon, who had lots of claims all over Spain. In anticipation, I picked some Muslim-owned provinces and gave one to my son (and to help boost his prestige), and all of a sudden, he just totally disappeared from succession line

 

[jordarkelf]

The only ways for someone to completely disappear from a line of succession are if they or their direct ancestors in the succession line get the bastard trait, or if the realm is using elective law and they leave that realm.

 

[Diet of Worms]

The only ways for someone to completely disappear from a line of succession are if they or their direct ancestors in the succession line get the bastard trait, or if the realm is using elective law and they leave that realm.

Just to be pedantic, I think if they or their direct ancestors in the succession line get excommunicated that would do it as well.

To be really pedantic, I think there could be another option: if the king of Castille-Leon had a bastard son with a large family of his own, if this son legitimised himself it would put him and his heirs ahead of the female line succession. If he had a large enough family it could push your guy so far down the succession track that he would no longer appear.

Oh and (sorry ) if the kingdom of Castille-Leon changed to a salic law (I've no idea if AI kingdoms have events to actually do this), that also could eliminate a female-line character from the succession.

I think I've been playing this game to much recently...

 

[jordarkelf]

Sure, excommunication would also work.
Another son "appearing" would not do the trick, it would just bump the rest back. And yes, changing to salic law will also eliminate the female line. The AI can change to this by event if DVIP or Bopack is installed.

 

[Diet of Worms]

Another son "appearing" would not do the trick, it would just bump the rest back.

But if he was a mature bastard with several sons and multiple grandsons, wouldn't his legitimisation put all of his descendants ahead of any of his sister's sons, potentially pushing these far enough back that they don't appear on the succession order any more?

 

[GaiusC]

Oh well, the king of Castille-Leon had one elder son who died without heir, and I married his first daughter. This future king of Sicily-Castille-Leon was obviously first in line of succession, followed by a long line of 20+ Castillan nobles - grandsons, cousins and the like.
Then I give some Castillan province (claimed by his Spanish king granddad) to my toddler, and next time I check Castille succession, the 20 Castillan guys are all still there, but my toddler has totally disappeared from the line of succession. Yet he's not a bastard or a 2-y old heretic, nor is my king.

Wondering if it was a bug or some unnoticed game twist, I reloaded the autosave, gave that Spanish province to my baby, and once again, he goes from 1st successor to oblivion the day after he became count of some Castille-claimed province. Well, out of sheer boredom, I gave him Malta instead

 

[Explody Smurf]

Thanks! I actually seem to be understanding this game, which I used to think was an impossibility.

One other thing I was wondering, though - there seem to be several stretches where very little seems to happen, and I won't be able to make any decisions or change anything for several months or so. I'm still in the relatively early years of my game. This is normal, right?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Thanks! I actually seem to be understanding this game, which I used to think was an impossibility.

One other thing I was wondering, though - there seem to be several stretches where very little seems to happen, and I won't be able to make any decisions or change anything for several months or so. I'm still in the relatively early years of my game. This is normal, right?

Yes that is normal

 

[Explody Smurf]

Yes that is normal

This was probably one of the reasons I may have been having difficulty getting into games like this... whenever I would try to learn a game like EU3 or this one, I would spend a lot of time just waiting for something to happen, and I always thought I was missing something important.

Is there anything in particular I should be watching out for during such "down times"? I generally just wait for cash to accumulate, so I can buy improvements and titles, and wait for marriageable people to join my court so I can marry them off.

I actually had someone propose marriage to a woman in my court who was 65... I guess that Skwisgaar Skwigelf's ancestors had some relatives in Castile .

 

[TempestDK]

This was probably one of the reasons I may have been having difficulty getting into games like this... whenever I would try to learn a game like EU3 or this one, I would spend a lot of time just waiting for something to happen, and I always thought I was missing something important.

Is there anything in particular I should be watching out for during such "down times"? I generally just wait for cash to accumulate, so I can buy improvements and titles, and wait for marriageable people to join my court so I can marry them off.

I actually had someone propose marriage to a woman in my court who was 65... I guess that Skwisgaar Skwigelf's ancestors had some relatives in Castile .

Nope .. if you have no cash and no kiddies growing into adulthood, there isn't much to do, except maybe watch what the other realms are up to

Some people enjoy spending the time looking at the various courts and rulers to find funny/weird/extraordinary things and events.