War Aims - Is this working as intended?

[OldRanger]

Still new to CKII and loving it. Here is a problem I have run into:

I declare war on England. I have 2 claims on counties I have fabricated and 2 that are de jure from dutchies I hold personally and one that is de jure from a vassal duke. I declare war choosing PRESS ALL CLAIMS.

I win the war and at the end much to my surprise I get the 2 counties that I had fabricated claims to, but NOT the 2 de jure claims I hold personally or the one for my vassal duke. Shouldn't press all claims press all strong claims? Is there a mechanic here I am missing?

Any suggestion or guidance would be much appreciated. It seems having to fight a war per county or fabricate a claim for each county is an awfully punishingly slow way to solidify a kingdom.

It seems like a check box dialogue where you could choose exactly which claims you wanted to press would be a great way to go.

 

[Red John]

You can't push declare war for ALL dejure counties. Only one piece at a time as far as I know.

 

[Me_]

It's WAD. You cannot press more than one de jure claim in a single war. The name Press all Claims is a bit misleading as it refers only to claims that show in you character screen.

 

[OldRanger]

Thanks for the info., but is seems profoundly silly.

So is the deal you have to fabricate a bunch of claims before going to war or fight a war per de jure claim? Is there anyway to accelerate your conquest?

 

[Tempestra]

No.

This is WAD, one of the design goals for CK was that expansion should overall be quite slow.

 

[Me_]

Thanks for the info., but is seems profoundly silly.

So is the deal you have to fabricate a bunch of claims before going to war or fight a war per de jure claim? Is there anyway to accelerate your conquest?

Among other methods if you press an unlanded courtier's else claim on a teritory that is de jure yours and that is not higher or equal to yours then they will become your vassal (works also if you press your vassal's claim on any title - even not de jure - not equal or higher than yours). This can be used to gain whole duchies by inviting characters who already have a claim without wasting time on fabricating one.

No.

This is WAD, one of the design goals for CK was that expansion should overall be quite slow.

And we know how that turned out. With holy wars and crusades and an ability to gain whole kingdoms via marriage (not that this did not happen in history, but in the game it happens way more often).

 

[nyah]

Thanks for the info., but is seems profoundly silly.

So is the deal you have to fabricate a bunch of claims before going to war or fight a war per de jure claim? Is there anyway to accelerate your conquest?

Get a claim on the kingdom. Marry your ruler to the daughter of a king and wait until you can press a weak claim (their offspring will inherit a weak claim from her), then you can get a whole kingdom at once. An assassination or two might be necessary to ensure you get an underage king in your target to allow you to press the claim.

 

[Malibu Stacey]

And we know how that turned out. With holy wars and crusades and an ability to gain whole kingdoms via marriage (not that this did not happen in history, but in the game it happens way more often).

Playing as Scotland, I've managed to get the Kingdoms of Denmark, Lithuania, Norway & Finland through marriage. Only Sweden remains before I own all of Scandinavia. This is mid 1200. I didn't even mean to do most of this (Denmark owned the counties of Lithuania, ditto Norway for Finland I just created the Kingdom titles for them).
My goal was to create the Empire of Britannia. Creating the Kingdom of Ireland was easy enough since it starts off balkanized so it's easy to conquer each county one at a time. However England & Wales are proving much more difficult. So far the furthest south I've managed to conquer is Westmorland & Durham (also have Cornwall & Devon as they were owned by Norway when I inherited it).

I guess I just need to fabricate a load of claims for most of the counties in England & then press them all at once. Time to start saving.

Also on the subject of holy wars, the Almoravids took the whole of France in 1 war & it's been a splintered mess for the last century which the HRE is slowly assimilating from the east. No one helped France defend against the Muslims when they launched their holy war but when someone tries to Holy War for any of the now Muslim territory in France, they get stomped by every Muslim nation from Spain & Northern Africa.

 

[OldRanger]

Can anyone provide guidance on how to use marriage to obtain claims. I have had 0 luck with this so far. I have married off daughters/nieces to kings, dukes, and counts. No luck. Maybe I am not choosing correctly or following up correctly. When marrying sons I have focused on getting the best heritable traits available (genius, quick, or strong); so I have not really tried with them.
Thanks.

 

[Yenzen]

When you marry off daughters you marry away weak claims, you (or rather your dynasty) only gets claims from the female nobles in regular marriages or male ones where you marry your kinswomen in a matrilineal fashion to the claimants. The children of these unions can then inherit claims.

Also keep in mind that if you make war for any de-jure territory of yours. For example, if France declares anyones claim on Toulouse provided they lost it, it will also be added to France upon victory.

 

[unmerged(26764)]

The real key is to use invasion. Invasions are amazing. You take every single holding in the entire realm in one war. Every county, castle, bishopric, and town goes to you personally.

All you need is to be catholic, have good relations with the pope, and have a target that is either larger than you are or that you have a claim on. Even a weak claim will do.

Invasions are as fast as you can ask for. You nuke every noble in a kingdom all at once.

 

[Strompator]

The real key is to use invasion. Invasions are amazing. You take every single holding in the entire realm in one war. Every county, castle, bishopric, and town goes to you personally.

All you need is to be catholic, have good relations with the pope, and have a target that is either larger than you are or that you have a claim on. Even a weak claim will do.

Invasions are as fast as you can ask for. You nuke every noble in a kingdom all at once.

How did you afford to take on a whole kingdom at once? Attrition is atrocious on levies and mercenaries are expensive. Allies usually ignore, and they want a cut anyways. It would have to be a weak kingdom you are invading so that you can get in and get out before you are broke. Even then, the sieges take forever and think of all those holdings in one Kingdom. Sheez

 

[icon41gimp]

Also on the subject of holy wars, the Almoravids took the whole of France in 1 war & it's been a splintered mess for the last century which the HRE is slowly assimilating from the east. No one helped France defend against the Muslims when they launched their holy war but when someone tries to Holy War for any of the now Muslim territory in France, they get stomped by every Muslim nation from Spain & Northern Africa.

They didn't use Holy War, they used the free Invasion CB they get on all neighbors. It even gives a nice +50 opinion with the conquered people.

 

[OldRanger]

I am sorry I am new to the game. What is an Invasion CB and how do you trigger it? Do you have to have the sunset invasion CB to use it (I skipped that one).
Thanks.

 

[unmerged(26764)]

How did you afford to take on a whole kingdom at once? Attrition is atrocious on levies and mercenaries are expensive. Allies usually ignore, and they want a cut anyways. It would have to be a weak kingdom you are invading so that you can get in and get out before you are broke. Even then, the sieges take forever and think of all those holdings in one Kingdom. Sheez

I just played a game as Brittany where I invaded France, and then the HRE. Both times taking every holding.

What I do is first fight the field army. That's just a normal war. Once the enemy field army is destroyed, I form my levies into small groups of a few thousand each for seiges. I keep a smaller field army to bounce around killing any new units raised. It can take a few game years to actually seige everything. But it works pretty well.

 

[dorukdorucu]

I just played a game as Brittany where I invaded France, and then the HRE. Both times taking every holding.

What I do is first fight the field army. That's just a normal war. Once the enemy field army is destroyed, I form my levies into small groups of a few thousand each for seiges. I keep a smaller field army to bounce around killing any new units raised. It can take a few game years to actually seige everything. But it works pretty well.

Basically this. OR you can rely on retinues and mercenaries to assault-stomp everything. Theoretically, if you have at least 5k levies and a monthly income of around 25-30, you can simply field 3x1.5k mercenaries and won't go bakrupt. ALso keep in mind that every holding you successfully siege gives you some gold(up to 15 gold early game, MUCH higher later on if i'm right) which means you can feed the mercenaries by using them to assault holdings. 1 county a month is usually enough to keep 3-5k mercenaries in line. I used this method as William the Conqueror and later his son AND grandson to stomp England, Scotland and France. I even made a profit of 1k!
To sum it up:
1-)Use mercenaries to assault holdings
2-)Use the money you get from those holdings to buy more mercenaries/and/or reinforce the old ones
3-)Eventually this goes up in some sort of spiral
4-)Since more mercenaries dying=less upkeep assaulting is actually a lot more profitable when using mercenaries
5-)Also, every province you take makes your enemy field less troops. Meaning less people lost in battle, in turn allowing more assaults.

 

[Lwantssugar]

I got lucky with an invasion recently, as king of Scotland and Ireland I invaded England in the middle of their many civil wars and I got lucky at the end because I called Sweden into the war and they shockingly said yes and actually contributed 10k troops (I may or may not have bribed my sister in law before asking her...)

 

[DisgruntledLemming]

I am sorry I am new to the game. What is an Invasion CB and how do you trigger it? Do you have to have the sunset invasion CB to use it (I skipped that one).
Thanks.

No, there are three types of invasion CBs. Christian, Muslim, and Mercenary. Christians need to have a lot of piety, money, or a strong claim on their primary title, a and then ask the Pope for permission to invade a Kingdom, and that mostly depends on the King's relation with the Pope. Muslims, I am not too certain of, I think they just need piety, and since some Muslims such as the Fatimids get the title of Caliph anyways, can easily call an invasion on whoever... And mercenaries may invade (usually the more expensive ones will) a nation that does not pay their upkeep in a war, and take whatever land they occupy.

 

[OldRanger]

So to summarize, as a Christian lord you have to have a claim to the top title to get an invasion CB and you have to get approval from the Pope.

One follow up question from you descriptions. To get the province free and clear at the end of the war, do you need to siege all the holdings in a county of just the first one (the capital by default I believe). Thanks.

 

[nalivayko]

Don't forget crusades. I don't mean the ones to the far off land, but crusades against your Christian neighbors turned heretic. I've had a drunkard king, who got excommunicated. Crusade was an option suggested by the Pope. I listened and had quite a lot of fun crushing the remnants of the Hungarian army... too much fun, as it turned out, since Pope granted my English king the entire kingdom of Hungary. Needless to say, I offloaded it as fast as I could on one of my relatives. Crazy. But fun. Sometimes I cringe at history being butchered. This time I cheered.