Most Hated Thing About CK2

[Wonyenners]

I have to say that 99% of Crusader Kings 2 I like. I love the gameboard, I love the politics, I love the complexity, I love the challenge, I love the history. Pretty much all of CK2 I love to death. There are a few things I don't like, but I understand (or even agree with). For example, the shattered retreat or defensive pacts. A) It makes it so you don't get stomped if you lose one major battle and B) it's understandable b/c armies in rout would often disperse making it hard for armies to pursue them. With defensive pacts, A) It makes it so you can't just steamroll the entire world in a few generations and have to actually pause your warmongering for a few decades here and there and B) its understandable b/c historically smaller tribes/nations would work together against an aggressive neighbour, sometimes even across national or religious boundaries.

The Conclave I dislike b/c I find it hard enough to placate my whiny vassals without needing a council countermanding my orders and preventing me from giving land or starting wars, but I opted out of buying that expansion so it hardly matters to me anyway, but I like in the opening scenario settings you can turn off the council entirely if you so choose (same with the Sunset Invasion) so even if I dislike that aspect I have control over its inclusion in the game.

I will tell you what I do hate, though. My number one *most hated aspect of CK2* is auto-retreats. If you're trying to move your army, or create a custom path, and you should so happen to engage with an army, no matter how small, you will automatically and irrevocably retreat your entire army taking damage, losing prestige and warscore.

This. Is. Asinine.

First of all, why would planning a march route even cause you to retreat in the first place? Why isn't the retreat function a button or a command so that the only time you retreat is when you directly command a retreat? It is SO easy to accidentally retreat and completely screw over an entire campaign that this method of retreat seems absolutely ludicrous to me. How does it even make sense? When, in all of history, has a general ever said "I think we ought to take the path through the hills to the enemy capital instead of the open plains" and his officers then turn to the soldiers and say "DROP YOUR SWORDS, MEN, RUN AWAY WE'RE COMPLETELY BEATEN! THERE IS NO HOPE, FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!!!"

This insanity could be forgiven if you had some sort of option to cancel the movement order and resume the battle, but no. Once the order to retreat is given accidentally you are locked into that action. I cannot tell you how many times I've lost a winnable battle because of this ridiculous setup. Nothing else in CK2 even comes *close* to how much I hate this mechanic, which 99% of the time causes me to instantly rage-quit the game and stop playing for a few days at least. You can probably imagine what just happened to me right before I made this post.

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So what do you guys think about the auto-retreat mechanic, and/or what is your most hated aspect about CK2?

 

[nyah]

I hadn't noticed. I tend to keep an eye on my armies and don't engage by mistake.

I don't understand why you dislike a DLC you don't even own.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

It's been ameliorated in the Reaper's patch. The retreat order is issued the following day, so if it happens while the game is paused you can still undo it. Not much help on speed 5 though.

 

[RagingJaws]

I've done the auto-retreat a number of times. It's never caused me to rage quit though. At worst, I'm just hyper paranoid about it now.

CK 1 CTD on every successful game action levels of hyper paranoia yhough, meaning of course, that I only cause unneeded retreat-losses once every few hundred years.

 

[Wonyenners]

I hadn't noticed. I tend to keep an eye on my armies and don't engage by mistake.

I don't understand why you dislike a DLC you don't even own.

I know of what the expansion does, I've seen gameplay footage and I don't like the idea of playing that way. I believe I mentioned that it hardly matters to me, but that I appreciated the developers included a way of opting out.

I also keep an eye on my armies and don't engage by mistake. I am neither careless, nor stupid. I have, though, DISENGAGED by mistake and haven't had a way of reversing that issue.

 

[Wonyenners]

It's been ameliorated in the Reaper's patch. The retreat order is issued the following day, so if it happens while the game is paused you can still undo it. Not much help on speed 5 though.

I didn't know that. I usually play on speed 3 which is fast enough to not be boring, but slow enough to maintain control for the most part. Still a little too fast, though, if all you get is one day to react

 

[Madae]

I've done this before. Not a big deal to me. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's easy to avoid, which you will surely start paying more attention to once you've done it on mistake.

 

[Wonyenners]

I've done the auto-retreat a number of times. It's never caused me to rage quit though. At worst, I'm just hyper paranoid about it now.

CK 1 CTD on every successful game action levels of hyper paranoia yhough, meaning of course, that I only cause unneeded retreat-losses once every few hundred years.

My saving grace is auto-saves. Take a day or two off from playing the game, and go back having lost only a few months in-game...5/6 of the year tops. This doesn't happen often to me, it's just supremely frustrating when it does. Plus I don't even understand the logic of not just having a retreat button/command. Makes the whole thing a lot more controlled.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

How can you accidentally give orders to a fighting army ? There are not that hard to miss

 

[Frank327]

Yeah the auto retreat was really annoying. I think it got better now though, I don't have any problems with it anymore but I'm also more careful about ordering long marches.

What makes the council hassle worth it for me in conclave is the fact that a content council can't join factions against you. This actually makes ruling big realms quite a bit easier because you can keep your powerful vassals in check. Otherwise you'd be juggling your spymaster around to stop them joining factions all the time. Also I must be one of the few people thinking shattered retreat is a good thing. I hated it that the first battle in a war decided the entire thing.

 

[Cagliostro]

Yeah, I think Conclave really reduces a lot of busy work from my perspective, and makes it more obvious when you are actually having problems you need to solve.

 

[sbeaber4]

It really needs a pitched battle mechanic. Like a large force fights another large force and one wins. Then spends 3 years chasing it down. The later is OK but there should be war exhaustion or something. Just my opinion though.

 

[FifthMonarchy]

The Mamluks in the Old Gods start are pretty high up there for me when I try a Miaphysite campaign. Them and the Ghilman seem a bit bullshit at the best of times but way back then they're off the scale of unbalance.

 

[xxdspawnxx]

i would say my most hated thing about CK2 is that retinues have a cap if im making tons of money i should be able to have as much retinue as i want.

 

[Sonmi]

How pathetically weak tribals are at the moment, and how rare it is for them to feudalize by themselves.

 

[Dakilla TM]

How the AI pagans never really try to reform. If anything, these tribal pagans should prioritize converting or reforming their faith and become feudal. But no, even starting in 769 and playing to the 1400s, most of eastern Europe is still living in huts and worshiping their own pantheons, posing no threat at all to Western Europe and getting easily run over by the Turkic hordes.

Another thing that I hate is how in the earlier bookmarks, there are no temple holdings for the Tengri holy sites. Now we all know how expensive it is to build a temple, and we also know how bad the AI is at managing money. Combine these two and you've got a case where Tengri never reforms, with HL mainly. The last time I've seen Tengri reformed was way before HL was out, when the steppes were represented by tribal holdings.

 

[Aries666]

The way gavelkind works. I think that when a gavelkind succession happens it should trigger a civil war between claimants with the winner ruling the entire country. The main reason for this would be so that the AI wouldn't lose everything with every succession and so could actually do something with tribals. It would also add a bit of challenge for the player, and I don't care if it is ahistorical.

 

[schondetta]

I hadn't noticed. I tend to keep an eye on my armies and don't engage by mistake.

I don't understand why you dislike a DLC you don't even own.

I just came to comment on this false logic. You don't need to work for NASA to hate rockets just like you don't need to kiss a man to know your not gay.

 

[SBolshevik]

Karlings.

 

[Heiliges Thüringens Reich]

How allies almost NEVER help you or even themselves when you join their wars. Most of the time, if I move my stack to join theirs, they move their stacks elsewhere! I believe they're hard-coded to avoid stack overflow (heh) in the same place because of supply limit, but I rather lose a bit tiny of my army to it than prolongue the war (or even worse, lose it) because my ally's stack wants its personal space!

Also, they rarely attach to you, which used to be more common before. Many wars were won because of that attache stack. Now either my army smells or theirs are too good to join mine.

On the same levle of displeasure, how difficult is to have a multiplayer game. It takes me back to Doom 2 times.