What are some tips for unraveling events.

[hansvanderdrift]

I hope this is not too vague, but I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand rationale for AI decisions and more importantly major geopolitical events that happen outside my realm.

So here is specific example from a game I was playing last night.
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Situation. I am a duke in Wessex. Above me are Duchy's of York and Petty Kingdoms of Mercia.

I am focused on my own internal world for a year of so, I zoom out and now there is no York or Mercia, they are all now West Francia. Now I can guess at what happened, marriage ties or conquest (and I assume there is a long list of other ways the Karling King got control).

Here is the question: How do advanced players work out what happened? How did this large swab of land change? Where do I look to get the trail of evidence?


Other examples I cant seem to work out using the UI:

• A character starts a plot on another character in my court. How can I work out why?
• A county has a new holder, how do I determine the history of how the guy gained control (I see the history tab, but what's the story) (Above example)
• Sometimes the claimant are from a different dynasty, is there a way to navigate to them via the family tree? I seem to be opening every character and connected dynasty till I find them. I can do a search, but then I need to reverse engineer the process.

 

[hansvanderdrift]

Bump

 

[tsk92]

For provinces changing hands, you could look at its history for a basic overview. That will how you of it was won in conquest, inherited, lost in revolt etc, there is no actual story per-se aside from what you see in front of you. If it is a revolt then chances are the liege did something to annoy a lot of people, maybe he tried to unjustly revoke a title?

For plot events, the reason why they're doing it is the objective of the plot, a mother trying to kill her nephew so her son can become heir, two people are rivals an so are continually trying to kill each other/gain the upperhand.

 

[ahyangyi]

• A character starts a plot on another character in my court. How can I work out why?

Most of the time it's pretty apparent: your death brings benefit to him. Occasionally there's no reason, but that character might just be mad.

• A county has a new holder, how do I determine the history of how the guy gained control (I see the history tab, but what's the story) (Above example)

The history tab also contains basic story, which the reason of each holder change: inherited / elected / conquered / peacefully usurped.

Generally, if you want to know more about a living character, you can set him/her as a interesting character and you will receive many more messages he/she receives. That helps if said characters are important to you, or you just want to write a flavorful story about your game.

 

[smellymummy]

Yup the history will show the story. Not only will it show how the title change came about (conquest, inheritance, so on) but I think most important for your example is to whom. Click the character and more than likely you'll see they were landed under France or wherever

As for plots, most of the time it's to get higher up in the line of succession for themselves or their kids, to kill rivals, or just for no apparent reason for lunatics and possessed people (its what those kind of people do)

 

[Thrake]

Sometimes the claimant are from a different dynasty, is there a way to navigate to them via the family tree? I seem to be opening every character and connected dynasty till I find them. I can do a search, but then I need to reverse engineer the process.

Not sure what you mean. There's a claimant tab for titles and you can sort as usual according to many things including dynasty. You can dig harder for their kids though.

 

[Dragatus]

IIRC in my recent Welsh reconquest of Britain Mercia was inherited by a woman who married the heir to the throne of West Francia. It might be that's what ahppened in yor game too. As for York, if you started in 867 they're pagan so after West Francia got a foothold on Britain it might have holy warred it out of existence.