I'm lost. What am I supposed to do.

[panionios]

I have started my first ever game (as England) in CKII (yeah!!!!!!!) ..... but I'm completely lost. What am I suppposed to do? I've played EUIII tons of times but I guess you don't go around declaring war on everyone. And where are the cores?

1. Is this a pacifist's game? Do I just sit around caring for my Kingdom and the persons within in (King, wife, heir, other children, council, vassals, etc) and hoping I will inherit some other Kingdom?
2. Do I invade all my neighbours through fabrication of claims?

What am I supposed to do??????????????????

 

[Cymsdale]

The short answer is: anything you can to increase your piety and prestige (and thus the score).

In practical terms, that means doing whatever you can to increase the size of your realm.

 

[dorukdorucu]

First of all, HOORAY! Another person joins our cause
As to answer your questions, be sure to check the wiki as well as the in-game tutorials. CK2 and EU3 have some stuff in common but they are indeed two very different games.
1-)It kindo is, you can't declare war without a CB and CB's are hard to come by. Try to invite claimants to your realm, grant them land(Under the diplomacy screen) and oress their claims to expand. Also try to use marriage actively.
2-)Usually fabricating claims is hard and time consuming. You can try to use claimants as i said instead, or you can holy war infidels/heretics. You can also spend time doing intrigues, building up your holdings, trying to survive civil wars and maybe break the Capet's record.
Also, make sure you register your game and try LoR and SoI DLC's and maybe SI if you want. They all add lots of great content to the game.
WİKİ:http://crusaderkings-two.wikia.com/wiki/Crusader_Kings_II_Wiki

 

[Ahaz Flagg]

I can reccomed the LOR expansion, I wish i had saved my 5.99 on the SoI expansion, the decadence of the muslims is in no way fun for me, so wasted 5.99. I hear a rumor they are looking at it.
This game is not like EU3, despite the looks!! You are not meant to hold oodles of land, at best i think you might get to 15, and that is only sometimes depending on heir. Like EU3, you make the story!! There is nothing you are supposed to be doing, just what you want to do. You could form several empires, take a lowly count to Emperor, and back to count and back again.

A few tips that will hep you imho, find a comfortable demense, and get to that asap!! You need to start upgrading your holdings ASAP!! Always educate your own heirs, or make sure who is educating your heirs are your same culture!! Have fun!!!

 

[unmerged(75409)]

You're not supposed to hold oodles of land, but there is a certain expectation that you should have oodles of vassals, if you want to be a great ruler.

 

[JonStryker]

If you know how you can blob in all directions. Much more than in a typical EU3 games. Holy wars and claimants are very helpful

 

[Ahaz Flagg]

You're not supposed to hold oodles of land, but there is a certain expectation that you should have oodles of vassals, if you want to be a great ruler.

That is one way, you can also play Duke/Duchess King/Queen maker, without ever starting a war. Seeing your family as the heads of the most important Kingdoms or Empires is just as good as vassals, better imho because you have an ally forever and you do not have to deal with oodles of vassals!! You can take 5-7 counties and hold your own forever, without the need of vassals, vassals just make it easier. There are several paths, and blobbing is just one.

 

[Swxpert]

This game is an RPG/RTS so it is very different from EU3 the short answer to your question is
"whatever you want" the wonderful thing about this game is that there are limitless possibilities for what you can do (except rule as pope ) you can totally mess with history or you can live quite happily as a count just minding your own business. You don't have to take over everything to have a huge score.

 

[Cymsdale]

You don't have to take over everything to have a huge score.

But it certainly helps.

 

[Scotias]

I felt much the same when I first started, only other game I played was EU: Rome ( which I enjoyed greatly ). I've never played as England yet, big Kingdoms can be a bit much to start I'd advise something small so you can learn the basics, the Spanish states are quite fun and I think a good place to start ( I think I may have started there my first time actually ).

I like playing as Scotland as it's my country, but otherwise I prefer playing someone close to some muslims / pagans such as Denmark or one of the Spanish rulers. Right now I'm having a fun game as Sicily, expanding into the Muslims in the south when they are otherwise occupied ( with eachother in internal wars hehe ). Last game I was playing as Georgia who are orthodox and it was good fun too. I find it helps if you can:

-Play a ruler near muslims or pagans, you can declare holy wars without having to fabricate claims, wait for someone to die / be assassinated or anything, just be careful as other states of the same religion may (often do ) join in defence of their faith, bring some allies if you can, they can come from pretty far away sometimes so don't look too hard for nearby ones although obviously it is preferable

-If you can get majority of a Duchy or Kingdom under your control you can usurp the Duke/King title for yourself, for a fee, and start a war to claim it; useful for expanding into other Christians hehe.

-I stopped playing for a while but I got the DLC Legacy of Rome and it does add a bit more to the game for me, I think some things should have been in to start with, but yeah check it out Also the Ruler Designer DLC to modify my starting character, add my own dynasty you know Considering getting Sword of Islam, waiting to see what the upcoming secret is :unsure:


Give yourself a chance to settle into the game, spend some time reading faqs etc on the forums here like I did ( and still do haha ), you'll come to love the game I'm sure.

Have fun

 

[TheChronoMaster]

Fabricating claims is a long term losing option, keep an eye out for bastards, unmarried daughters, etc from other nations who will wind up with weak claims, and marry them into your dynasty. Once they inherit the weak claim and they die, their child will inherit their weak claim, and ideally you can take advantage of that at some point in his or her life.


The same applies to strong claims as well, obviously, or complete inheritance -- and while these are more desirable, the AI is very wary of marrying off people high on their inheritance list into another dynasty. You are quite unlikely to be able to get this without marriage first, followed by many, many murders.

 

[Anthropoid]

It never really dawned on me that this is a roleplaying game, but in fact it is. I thought of it as more of a strategy game (it is that too) but I think the description of it as RTS/RPG is quite apt.

I also think of it as a (somewhat unrealistic) Medieval history simulator and that is my mindset when I play it. The game rules setup a playing field and you pick what dynasty you want to play and define what you want to do within that playing field.

Another point this brings up that may not be completely clear from preceding posts: if you play for very long, you will "BE" a series of different characters over history, but always the heir of your dynasty; I forget if that is the same in EU3 or if your continuous group identity is 'national.' That heir could be man, woman or child, but they will age and change over the course of their lives. The only overarching 'winning' construct is to maximize your score by maximizing the cumulative prestige of your dynasty over time. This is done be expanding the influence of your dynasty, which generally means more inherited landed titles for dynasty members.

As in real history, keeping important people in your realm happy is a big part of being a successful leader and passing on a stable inheritance to your heir. Waging constant war or the kinds of pyrrhic but long-term strategically-clever wars that many other long-term strategy games 'allow' is not so much an opion in CK. You've generally got the develop the reason to go to war, and then you generally need to achieve a resounding victory to resolve the war favorable. White Peace or surrender is bad and getting into a war where these are a real risk or worse a probability is not advisable.