this game is too easy

[Helios Panoptes]

I think part of the reason the game is too easy is you can't ever lose territory except through war.

There's no mechanic for, say, what happened to Venice. In 769, and even under the Macedonians, Venice was part of Byzantium. Then Byzantine power weakened, and Venice became independent without a faction, or a revolt, or anything of the sort.

 

[Dr Gonzo]

I think part of the reason the game is too easy is you can't ever lose territory except through war.

There's no mechanic for, say, what happened to Venice. In 769, and even under the Macedonians, Venice was part of Byzantium. Then Byzantine power weakened, and Venice became independent without a faction, or a revolt, or anything of the sort.

Succession when over vassal limit sort of does that.

 

[Helios Panoptes]

Succession when over vassal limit sort of does that.

I suppose, but how often does that happen?

I would also redo the whole independence mechanic - the onus should be on the liege to enforce his rule, not on the rebel to win it. Vassals can declare themselves independent without a war, and then the liege has to declare war to bring them back into the fold.

 

[St. LongEar]

I suppose, but how often does that happen?

I would also redo the whole independence mechanic - the onus should be on the liege to enforce his rule, not on the rebel to win it. Vassals can declare themselves independent without a war, and then the liege has to declare war to bring them back into the fold.

It makes no sense... from what I've gathered from history lessons - lieges rights were to make an rebellion - that was foundation of modern parliament. Lieges rights were to rebel to change laws, if these laws did not fit them. After crushing rebellion King had to pardon rebellers(without these rules there would be slaughters of King and his kin) - he never had to pardon someone who was seeking independence and STEALING king's land and breaking contract, that liege made with king for life. Bringing back liege would also be useless... who needs headless body? Really.

Anyway - rights to rebell for nobles was normal to feudal system. In other places it might have been different, but then there were similar rules in place.

In the case of Lombardian kings - they still had to ask Basileía Rhōmaíōn and send for book for rights to be called kings(or actually petty kings or consuls) and receive these rights from Constantinopole. Technically they were not lieges, were even independent, but still - juridically part of Roman empire. Seems the same was with Venice.

CK2 is interesting game, but I feel that this is the only fault with this game, that it requires some knowledge or gaining knowledge about history, because it is not flawless in explaining some of the mechanics behind the cover. Not always kingdoms formed by conquests - in the beginnings all of them were formed by banding together and creating unions. Roman Empire(before romans there were no empires and it was called simply - Empire) even got some territories in Asia, because they were granted as a gift(in exchange for prosperity of ruling nobles).


And btw, I wrote so much... but in my games lieges have broken away and formed independent territories, after their ruler died or something. I had to use Offer Vassalization option. If they did not agree, I had to declare war(in some cases even forge rights to reclaim these lands), so this mechanic is already in game.

 

[nevercalled]

So what mods do you play with?

 

[St. LongEar]

Game has already been nerfed into the ground by coalitions, shattered retreats, Council's stupid behavior etc. Since PDX can't make a solid AI that would actually work and use game's mechanics, they try to increase difficulty by adding more and more arbitrary restrictions on players. In reality it doesn't make the game difficult, but makes it annoying.

Ideally devs should rewrite AI from the ground. Probably through the use of scripts emulating long range planning and ambitions.

Secondary option, in case AI can't be improved in a significant manner, is to make some use of existing platform and tinker with difficulty settings. Devs should make hard difficulty AI much more aggressive and ambitious, less easily controlled by players. Give vassals and factions more bite, current rebellions are a joke. If AI can't be made smart, at least make it brutal instead.

Well, actually I would have called for CK3, because for the last couple of years I have watched with horror that CK2 has changed into a mess with every "fix" that is brought with patches and DLC's.

Games are not meant to make smarter AI, but they are made for players to enjoy game. And I see no reason why player, who excells in conquering world should be tampered and beaten to the ground by making illogical obstacles. If there were/is/will be an empire who can take over world - no one would stop it, because there are not enough stupid people who would fight to the death to stop it, if it offers cooperation. Same is with the pacts(yes, I can play on 100% and still crush them all) - who would be so stupid in RL to send aid against some far far away monster, if your neighbors would take this opportunity and invade your own country... Let's look on RL, as a history of Samogitia - germans with aid of other pagans attacked other pagans and pagans joined those attacks because they wanted to have revenge - by getting back what their neighbours did to them... THERE WERE NO PACTS prior the time, when they were all beaten by germans and then surviving tribes of Curonians and Semigallians and banded together with Samogithians and also had to defend against Lithuania, who were keen on giving Samogitian lands to germans as a gift(at least twice).

Same with adding powerful lieges to council - why would every liege who owns a big land and is free to organize it would want a position in consul(that does not make changes to laws) and do a REAL WORK for his king, if he is free to not to do it. Also law-making takes arguing and understanding and processing information - why would anyone would be so keen in wasting his life on this type of work, where he could pay someone to do it for him, while he is enjoying riding with horse or f..ikng some maid instead?




The current problem, what I see about CK2 is not how to make it easier or harder, but CONSISTENCY. Where is it going? Why?
And what the hell?
Why have I became tyrant(-100) by executing enemies?
Why I still receive effect of other option, THAT I DECIDED TO AVOID?
ETC.

With so many DLC's this game has become complete mess - there is no clear mechanics behind anything. It's a saladmix - you get something from everything and because of memories you know how it was. I feel like this game has entered some phase of elderly dementia and it would be mercy to make eutanasia, as clearly devs can't fix a shit and have developed memory loss and aparently they don't have blueprints that would help them with CONSISTENCY.

 

[St. LongEar]

something is in this statement. U have too much information about everything in the kingdom about vassals and characters.

Is there a good mod to make this game more like EU IV ?



Yea Council is broken u can change/fire council whenever u want and u have free characters from piety.

I think that getting new nobles shouldn`t be so easy. After all u can even buy favor and invite to court what is also insane.

There is a good mod for this game to play it like EU IV - it is called Europa Universalis IV.

I've played EU and I've found CK more challenging, than what offered EU. EU was booooooooring. To tell you how booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring it was, I never finished any game in EU, because it took ages, even if I rocked and were unstoppable. There were no real challenges - nothing to do apart from conquest - nothing to build, nothing else to do during gathering of forces for next conquest. AI was stupid in EU and you should have taken the note - AI is not that different in CK.


There were no problems in EU conquesting whole globe, but it did make no sense that religions or cultures did not go away and I couldn't even massacre locals as Mongols did, but still it was manageable(I actually massacred them there because of constant rebellions... on my way to next conquest). CK is giving more options on dealing some of the issues that were present in EU - it still gives you option to play it like an EU, but there is micromanaging part that differs - CK2 is more about spreading blood of your dynasty. Well, anyway - this whole trend clearly went off-topic some time ago, because nobody explained you the differences. So, if you are still thinking, that you are that good on CK2 and it is too easy... SHOW YOUR SCORE(and date). So other players can compare it and waste no time in arguing with you if this game is too easy or not...
There are many ways to play this game and it is kinda marketed as open-ended sandbox game, so the whole argument about game difficulty is kinda useless, but apparently - you have not went to the part, where game starts to lag, realy lag, lag so much, that you could play EU during those lags to fill them. And CK2 lags because of what makes it SO different from EU - there are too many characters. Game tries to calculate all of characters plots - important or not. I don't remember exact number, but I had some 1000 members only of my dynasty(and hundreds of plots I was browsing through to save dynasty members, who were keen on killing each other) and most of them had holdings, but then game met the boundaries of what my OS and processor could offer then and decided to lag, after I took most of India.

Easy or not, but no China for you... or me, because of AI limitations and modern processing power of simulation of thousands of characters and their decisions every second...

 

[nevercalled]

There is a good mod for this game to play it like EU IV - it is called Europa Universalis IV.

I've played EU and I've found CK more challenging, than what offered EU. EU was booooooooring. To tell you how booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring it was, I never finished any game in EU, because it took ages, even if I rocked and were unstoppable. There were no real challenges - nothing to do apart from conquest - nothing to build, nothing else to do during gathering of forces for next conquest. AI was stupid in EU and you should have taken the note - AI is not that different in CK.


There were no problems in EU conquesting whole globe, but it did make no sense that religions or cultures did not go away and I couldn't even massacre locals as Mongols did, but still it was manageable(I actually massacred them there because of constant rebellions... on my way to next conquest). CK is giving more options on dealing some of the issues that were present in EU - it still gives you option to play it like an EU, but there is micromanaging part that differs - CK2 is more about spreading blood of your dynasty. Well, anyway - this whole trend clearly went off-topic some time ago, because nobody explained you the differences. So, if you are still thinking, that you are that good on CK2 and it is too easy... SHOW YOUR SCORE(and date). So other players can compare it and waste no time in arguing with you if this game is too easy or not...
There are many ways to play this game and it is kinda marketed as open-ended sandbox game, so the whole argument about game difficulty is kinda useless, but apparently - you have not went to the part, where game starts to lag, realy lag, lag so much, that you could play EU during those lags to fill them. And CK2 lags because of what makes it SO different from EU - there are too many characters. Game tries to calculate all of characters plots - important or not. I don't remember exact number, but I had some 1000 members only of my dynasty(and hundreds of plots I was browsing through to save dynasty members, who were keen on killing each other) and most of them had holdings, but then game met the boundaries of what my OS and processor could offer then and decided to lag, after I took most of India.

Easy or not, but no China for you... or me, because of AI limitations and modern processing power of simulation of thousands of characters and their decisions every second...

Score is not important.

U get score from piety. You can donate holy orders. When u play nomads u get 100 prestige per month + 3 k gold per month. The game but itself lag every month (something is calculated at the begin of the month). When u have huge dynasty and they not in direct vassals it doesn`t lag. You can have huge empire but with normal amount of direct vassals and nothing wrong would happen.

 

[St. LongEar]

Score is not important.

U get score from piety. You can donate holy orders. When u play nomads u get 100 prestige per month + 3 k gold per month. The game but itself lag every month (something is calculated at the begin of the month). When u have huge dynasty and they not in direct vassals it doesn`t lag. You can have huge empire but with normal amount of direct vassals and nothing wrong would happen.

Conquest is not important. By simple logic:
When you conquer all map, game does not stop. When game stops, score stops as well.
Don't make arguing an challenge and just post it. I don't want to sound like stereotypical macho, but you clearly aren't a girl even if you sound like one...

Claims, that game is easy with nomads were made since the beginning of nomad DLC, so you are not the first illiterate here, who can't browse through forum...


"When u have huge dynasty and they not in direct vassals it doesn`t lag"
Define what is huge dynasty. Because to me huge starts with >1000. ~100 is small, because most of 100 already have holdings and I have no choice when it comes to assigning new holdings to them. Unless I'm desperate. In early game. Note that nomad holding count is at least 4-5 times lesser than other cultures, not to mention holy order "hack", that does not build mandatory city and church holdings.

I did an extensive breeding programm to kick-start my dynasty, so the demographic explosion was significant. Also did some breeding of other characters aside, so I would have something for diversity that would battle inbreeding. Btw, game process dead members, too.
Clearly you have not done anything like that, up to the point by deliberatelly making game unplayable... so, that they had to make new DLC, where excessive amount of characters will be killed from ravaging plagues...

 

[nevercalled]

Conquest is not important. By simple logic:
When you conquer all map, game does not stop. When game stops, score stops as well.
Don't make arguing an challenge and just post it. I don't want to sound like stereotypical macho, but you clearly aren't a girl even if you sound like one...

Claims, that game is easy with nomads were made since the beginning of nomad DLC, so you are not the first illiterate here, who can't browse through forum...


"When u have huge dynasty and they not in direct vassals it doesn`t lag"
Define what is huge dynasty. Because to me huge starts with >1000. ~100 is small, because most of 100 already have holdings and I have no choice when it comes to assigning new holdings to them. Unless I'm desperate. In early game. Note that nomad holding count is at least 4-5 times lesser than other cultures, not to mention holy order "hack", that does not build mandatory city and church holdings.

I did an extensive breeding programm to kick-start my dynasty, so the demographic explosion was significant. Also did some breeding of other characters aside, so I would have something for diversity that would battle inbreeding. Btw, game process dead members, too.
Clearly you have not done anything like that, up to the point by deliberatelly making game unplayable... so, that they had to make new DLC, where excessive amount of characters will be killed from ravaging plagues...

When i was playing under french empire i got more than 800 peeps and didn`t notice any lag. Game was pointless like many otherws when u won the game already.

Never played to the end. Anyway look my previous posts there are some examples with images.

tests on i7:

180 demense game lags a bit but constant - playable
more than 500 direct vassals u wait 20 s each month
more than 600 direct vassals u wait more than 40 s
more than 800 vassals - ...... when i conquered empire more i stopped to play because i needed to alt tab game each month.
800 family members games runs for me smoothly

 

[CplKatie]

While the OP's message wasn't exactly formulated diplomatically, do the rest of you think that the game is the appropriate level of difficulty? I would find it far more enjoyable if the AI attacked me more than once a century (saving enough money for mercs in preparation). I wish that I had a civil war I couldn't win at least once in my hundreds of hours of play.

It very much can be very hard, theres hundreds of characters to play as at every bookmark and some are very hard while others are very easy. Typically the newest expansion lends the easiest starts to that specific content. When charlie was new playing as him or his brother were easy as hell. When ToG was new, playing as the sons of ragnar were very easy. Horselords is the current easy mode. Over time things will become harder, just look at charlie and the norse now compared to back when you could roflstomp as them.

 

[cajun12]

Now this might be because I am using a mod but whenever I am finally able to make an empire it only lasts a few generations and then some crazy stuff happens like faction for elective beats me. Or I get ousted by some random cousin from Hungary.

I have two games going one as duke of Aquitaine. Started in Charlemagne start as custom ruler. Year is now mid 900s I believe. Dynasty is now 100+ strong and as a house rule only dynasty members can be landed if I get land. I own demure kingdom of Aquitaine but retained my ducal status under the Karlings. Those bastards are making it difficult for me.

The Umayyads exploded into like 10 different duchies and the Visigoths are retaking land now.

Maybe I am lucky with my plays however and always have something happen that really cucks me. Like a plague that ends the game for me. Which sucks btw hahaha just sitting in Austria then bam 5 months and 40 males dead.

 

[nevercalled]

Now this might be because I am using a mod but whenever I am finally able to make an empire it only lasts a few generations and then some crazy stuff happens like faction for elective beats me. Or I get ousted by some random cousin from Hungary.

I have two games going one as duke of Aquitaine. Started in Charlemagne start as custom ruler. Year is now mid 900s I believe. Dynasty is now 100+ strong and as a house rule only dynasty members can be landed if I get land. I own demure kingdom of Aquitaine but retained my ducal status under the Karlings. Those bastards are making it difficult for me.

The Umayyads exploded into like 10 different duchies and the Visigoths are retaking land now.

Maybe I am lucky with my plays however and always have something happen that really cucks me. Like a plague that ends the game for me. Which sucks btw hahaha just sitting in Austria then bam 5 months and 40 males dead.

plague is dangerous only for suni.

as emperor you can always play elective without any duchies or u have viceroyals. And even if u will loose an empire you can claim it back in few years (again op "spy on").

I see one problem with dynasty manager -> there should be an option to automatically arrange marriages for not close relatives. The game is boring when u have to each few years check all the dynasty. Too much micromanagement makes everything boring. Look at the other games. It is fun to set up everything but there must be after all at some level a way to automatize it. Partially you have something like that in CK in the shape of vice and in general kings/duchies split.

 

[St. LongEar]

plague is dangerous only for suni.

as emperor you can always play elective without any duchies or u have viceroyals. And even if u will loose an empire you can claim it back in few years (again op "spy on").

I see one problem with dynasty manager -> there should be an option to automatically arrange marriages for not close relatives. The game is boring when u have to each few years check all the dynasty. Too much micromanagement makes everything boring. Look at the other games. It is fun to set up everything but there must be after all at some level a way to automatize it. Partially you have something like that in CK in the shape of vice and in general kings/duchies split.

I would not call micromanagement boring, as things happens, but it is exhausting - like doing unnecessary work. Some patches and DLC's ago there were some marriage ties and dynasty bonds, but since these are gone dynasty members are more than happy to cut each others throats. Well anyway, I agree on that game currently generates only frustration.

 

[cajun12]

Well I play CK2+ and if an empire changes hands to many times it gets a negative modifier. If its too high the empire disbands from vassals leaving. So I cannot just go back and take it cause it doesn't exist anymore in some cases. I also didn't have viceroys set as a law because I wasn't imperial I was a French Empire for some 40 years but it was short lived like I said.

To me I enjoy CK2. I have never found it too easy or too hard. I mostly play mods though. When you have a great warrior King and go on a crusade and get caught in a duel with a Sultan in battle and next thing you know your dead with no son and your ninth cousin takes the throne and he's a hunchbacked imbecile who is cruel and in a relationship with his attractive sister and they have twin babies who are inbred. Makes for an interesting scenario.

 

[Sunbro BigBoss]

I wouldn't say the game is easy per se, but rather it's too predictable. I still remember when factions and adventurers were a real, dreadful threat.

 

[Kumicho]

Do you have proof of you doing that.. ( Screenshots ). Just curious how you broke the back of the Caliph in 60 years.

Started as the Zoro Duke in 769, and this was 845, so 76 years. What you can't see is that he's in the middle of a decadence revolt, which is why I timed my bid for independence then. Here's what it looked like after the war finally ended (it didn't take 13 years, but this is just when I grabbed a screenshot):

I was actually spending time trying to gain more territory (Baghdad and Tigris) while inside the Empire, but the prospect of gaining independence *and* causing him to lose a decadence revolt was too tempting.

I assure you that guy still revokes your titles regardless. He absolutely hates Zorastrians. every single game I've played as one has been a struggle to get him busy with some war (difficult but not impossible) so he has no time to revoke duchy titles.

I had zero issues. He never got to legalism 3, and so wasn't able to get the religious revocation law. Planted my Chancellor in his capital (when he wasn't fabricating claims in Basra) to keep him happy, and was even on the council most of the time. The only thing he did was implement a Realm Peace the first time I went for Basra, but I waited out the 5 years and then took it easily. I had been going for another full-scale Zoro run, but then got bored and went on to do something else...

 

[LordDamien]

Started as the Zoro Duke in 769, and this was 845, so 76 years. What you can't see is that he's in the middle of a decadence revolt, which is why I timed my bid for independence then. Here's what it looked like after the war finally ended (it didn't take 13 years, but this is just when I grabbed a screenshot):

I was actually spending time trying to gain more territory (Baghdad and Tigris) while inside the Empire, but the prospect of gaining independence *and* causing him to lose a decadence revolt was too tempting.

Thanks for the proof !

 

[Kumicho]

Thanks for the proof !

I'll admit I was *shocked* at how much easier it was than any of the other starts I'd done (other than start as a Manichean horde and abandon heresy). WAY easier than either Gilan or the independent Duke (memory blank at the moment) in the 867 start.

 

[nevercalled]

Thanks for the proof !

Nice reading.

I have posted you that u can do it much earlier without any problems as a zoro count.

However minmaxing you can get the empire earlier:
1) Look at the "abys_empire" and "abys_empire_second hier"
791 and you can easily swap the emperor ( because a current emperor is in my prison) and you have 2 heirs just in case

2) normal gameplays - i`ve put screens before but will redo:
a) "zoro" 836 - my grandson is a heir to empire i have elective monarchy so i can inherit empire if i want. "zoro 40 years" i decided not to do anything more just watch the game. On one screens you are able to see that my kinsman is en emperor with a small family of heirs all from my house
b) "zoro2" 819 - i was playing to destroy empire so you see so many independent nations. Also emperor in prison can switch to zoro anytime ( what i have done anyway. "zoro_kingdom..." is a continuation

resuming:
- it is really hard not to switch an emperor to zoro faith even when u play 1 province count all the time before 820 year.
- it can be done much earlier
- you can inherit or install yourself as the emperor before 810 and possibly before 800 if you minmax.
- you can play to either destroy totally an empire from inside or install your family members or yourself - your choice.
- you are completely safe all the time as long as you play at count level.
- you can become an emperor and grand independence for everybody in the empire
- i have done it 5 times from different starts ( all the time counts) just to be shure it is easy to do. In the worst case ( when your first character is a rubbish) you will do it with you heir. Overall when you have a random start it is shorter when you will choose an old zoro count. First 30 years are boring as hell when you only spy on ppl and you have too low intrigue to aim higher so everything what you do is a waiting for a heir.

small tips:
- start as a count and install elective monarchy.
- have as many children as you can have
- don`t go duke level as long as you don`t want to fight ( from intrigue focus you should have enough money to win any fight but still it will destabilize the empire. If you want to destroy it is ok but when to inherit it is not worth to do)
- when you have high intrigue starting character you can easily play as direct vassal. Just keep your liege in prison all the time or just kill him. Constant regency.
- always prepare 2 zoro claimants or wait for them/him to have a child.
- only males can be pressed with claims.