Two Newbie Questions

[Thrumdi]

I've just started playing CKII. I've been away from wargames for so long, I didn't realize games like this existed (until the recent Steam sale ). Needless to say, I'm having a grand old time.

I'm currently playing the King of Sweden, and my current goal is to first unify Sweden under Catholicism, and then start a Northern Crusade into the Baltic against the pagans. So far I'm doing pretty well handling the civil war that inevitably seems to erupt. Though I've started over a few times when I've missed important cues. This has brought up two questions:

1) Is sending your Chaplain in to convert the population the only way to change the religion of a province? Will a province change religion on its own based on opinion towards you or its ruler?

2) Is there any advantage to marrying off courtiers who are not in your dynasty? I can see it might be good to marry two of your courtiers to get superior offspring, or to marry a female courtier to a male courtier of another dynasty (who will then live in your court). But is it worthwhile to marry a female courtier into a foreign court? Does this give you any sort of alliance or opinion boost?

Many thanks for the guidance.

 

[Gqarz]

1. If you give the county to another noble of your religion, they will immediately set about converting the populace. If you wish to keep the county, then you gotta do it.

2. I have never seen the point of marrying off courtiers. If you have plans to give them some land and/or wish to cultivate a pool of people with superior stats and your race/religion to give land to later then yes. As far as I know there is no opinion boost to marrying courtiers to other courtiers from other lands. There certainly is no alliance.

 

[Ahaz Flagg]

1.Not sure, I think they have chance if they touch your border, but not 100% on that.

2. Look at the flag by the portriat on the marrige popup, if Blue hover it will tell you if Allaince is going to happen. As to what to do with them, meh I like my court clean, so keep it pretty small, 25-35 if I can. So I will when a new ruler takes over, look thru court and dump ones I do not want. Some I keep to marry to unmarried council members. But it is a good idea to have some good mentors.

Welcome to CKII!! Crazy insane fun imho!!

 

[Thrumdi]

Thanks for the pointers! CKII is indeed crazy insane fun!

Playing Sweden has been a great way to learn the game. Almost immediately you have to fight your uncle Eric the Heathen. Your forces are about evenly matched, so you either have to 1) learn about warfare 2) hope you have good alliances. At first I could only beat him by marrying into Denmark. Then I actually read about warfare top to bottom, and I was finally able to vanquish him on the field (though it is always close).

I also found if you imprisoned a pagan ruler, you could demand that they convert religions. Since they had a tendency to rebel, this is an option that came up often. Their offspring tend to still be pagan though. So the next step is figuring out how to convert them before they inherit. I am going to try Catholic guardians for them next.

 

[delling]

The advantage in Sweden is also that Erik the Heathen has your wife as heir, meaning you don't need to revoke the title, just imprison him so he doesn't breed.

Press de jure claims in Norrland (so you don't have to fight everyone at once) and then race Norway and Denmark to grab as much as possible of Finland & Lithuania...

I only marry off courtiers if an interesting dynasty pops up the court. (I like to keep Bjälbo & Sverker families around as pets as long as possible ).