CKII is released.

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/winter2018bestof/

CK2 with the real long tail.

I'd imagine CK3 has to be, at least, in pre-production. Unless Paradox hates money

CK2 is their best game, its totally deserved.

Alright so I got cucked into elective monarchy by one of my vassals, I voted for my son and now someone is changing his vote constantly which changes my heir and gives me a big notification in the middle of my screen.
I literally can't war without going insane because of the notification appearing every couple days what do I do.

Election AI since Holy Fury hit:

Elector: "I love this guy! He's the best ever and will lead us to a glorious future!"
You: "Yeah, he's great! I love him too! I want him to inherit after me!"
Elector: "Wait a fucking minute..."
Elector: "Fuck him and his whore mother!"

 

[Mikeal]

CK2 is their best game, its totally deserved.



Election AI since Holy Fury hit:

Elector: "I love this guy! He's the best ever and will lead us to a glorious future!"
You: "Yeah, he's great! I love him too! I want him to inherit after me!"
Elector: "Wait a fucking minute..."
Elector: "Fuck him and his whore mother!"

Basically

 

[Kaethar]

Kill the guy
Remove him from your council
Butter him up

But yea I had the same problem, the election AI is still fucking retarded.

Ended up giving him money to fuck off, thanks!

Alright so I got cucked into elective monarchy by one of my vassals, I voted for my son and now someone is changing his vote constantly which changes my heir and gives me a big notification in the middle of my screen.
I literally can't war without going insane because of the notification appearing every couple days what do I do.

Election AI since Holy Fury hit:

Elector: "I love this guy! He's the best ever and will lead us to a glorious future!"
You: "Yeah, he's great! I love him too! I want him to inherit after me!"
Elector: "Wait a fucking minute..."
Elector: "Fuck him and his whore mother!"

Pretty much lol

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So...finally got the game to work, and I'm about 50 years in as Mumu.
Irish unification was going well, until my last king died, his daughter became queen and suddenly I lost half of the territories I captured and they went to my sister instead.
Wtf happened? I can't even reconquer it because my army is smaller and my vassals hate me.

How does assassination work? It says the chance of it happening depends on the percentage, but does it roll for success every year or something? It could be decades of a 70% chance of success before I get a notification.

 

[Fedora Master]

That would be Gavelkind succession striking. Welome 2 da tribe.

What you do as an Irish culture guy is you go for Tanistry succession which is a bit unreliable but doesn't fuck with your territory.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

That would be Gavelkind succession striking. Welome 2 da tribe.

What you do as an Irish culture guy is you go for Tanistry succession which is a bit unreliable but doesn't fuck with your territory.

Well shit, I should have done that to begin with then when I still had 3 territories. Time to go Bloody Mary then and start making heads roll if my vassals bitch too much I guess.
I don't get subjugation cassus belli either, even though my ambition is king of ireland. Do I have to be pagan to get it?

Any tips in dealing with numerically superior forces?
I have about 1.5k, and she has about 2k. Do I let her attack my cities, wait until her forces are depleted, then counter attack?

 

[Fedora Master]

That would be Gavelkind succession striking. Welome 2 da tribe.

What you do as an Irish culture guy is you go for Tanistry succession which is a bit unreliable but doesn't fuck with your territory.

Well shit, I should have done that to begin with then when I still had 3 territories. Time to go Bloody Mary then and start making heads roll if my vassals bitch too much I guess.
I don't get subjugation cassus belli either, even though my ambition is king of ireland. Do I have to be pagan to get it?

Yes, it's not so helpful as a Christian.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Well that's weird. You'd think that religion wouldn't matter. Didn't seem to stop Charlemagne from starting a unification campaign.

 

[Fedora Master]

If you didn't edit the rules before the game start, Charlemagne and a few other characters get special historical events to create the Carolingian Empire, like Charlemagne always inheriting his brother's territory.
They all get claims on each other because they're of the same huge dynasty so everything almost always falls apart horribly.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I mean in terms of actual history. Though I guess that's probably what happened.

So anyway, lots of bullshit happened.
First off, I managed to reclaim the lost territories. Which is good.
But then revolts started to happen.
I crushed two, but then on the third one one of my vassals turned traitor and disposed my queen. Her son became heir, and oddly enough the traitor vassal was still my vassal. Funnily enough, my queen was my best warrior and captured the most land, and if that fucking vassal didn't turn traitor then I would have crushed that last revolt too. Its just I got outnumbered in the end.

Anyway, my king had a rough start. He got cucked by his queen, who fled to a court in one of the lost territories. I did get back one though, Connorgraf or whatever, but then my king died of pneumonia. Which is some bullshit, but anyway.
Had to start off as a regency, now the new young king is marred to a norweigian princess, because if I marry anything else I lose 100 prestige. Well, there was a bastard with good looking starts and didn't give any prestige, but I wasn't sure if marrying a bastard is a good idea. All this was like in a period of 30-40 years or so.
And I still didn't get to instate tannistry, because vassals were angry with my queen and my king didn't live long enough. Maybe the new kid will get to become god-king of Ireland.

I can see why people love this game. Its a lot to digest, but there's nothing really like it and a lot of shit can happen.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Marrying a bastard is a-okay if you don't mind not inheriting claims.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I don't mind not inheriting foreign claims (how am I going to invade Poland all the way from Ireland with only 3k soldiers?), but I do mind vassal and foreign opinions, as well as my dynasty continuing to exist.

Anyway, it seem my choice of bride is paying off. The current king is probably my best one yet, reclaiming all of the lost territory and more, formed good relations with Norway, changed succession to Primogenitor and have overall good relations with vassals.

Well, except for that one bitch who joined assassination plot against me like 5 times even though I asked her everytime not to and was about to get a hold of 2 territories, but I put an end to that real quick. Funny thing is though is that she had like 100 opinion the whole time. Not anymore, heh.

Need to stab my bitch of a sister for starting that plot and making me go into hiding for like, 10 years.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Also, Genius and/or Strong spouse, especially with double tap, is worth taking any prestige hit for. Get dat Kwisatz Haderach.

 

[Average Manatee]

Marrying a bastard is a-okay if you don't mind not inheriting claims.

All children get claims from whomever is publicly considered to be their father. It's strong for the first 3 (IIRC?) in line and weak for the rest. Exception is that you don't get claims for things passed to your vassals under gavelkind (otherwise you could immediately revoke the duchy your brother just inherited when you became king).

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well IIRC bastards always get claims that can't be inherited unless pressed, is what I was saying.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Finally got the Kingdom of Ireland founded. Only took 200 years.
Unfortunately, the English and scots claimed parts of it. I managed to get them back by attacking England when its at war with wales, then assassinate their king to remove the truce and try again. First war with England was a disaster; they somehow pulled 12k soldiers out of their asses, even though the game said they only had 6k available, and wiped my armies out. I think their Queen had high martial stats or something. Doesn't matter, introduced her to a friendly viper. Then I drowned her son and threw her daughter off a balcony. Being a Machiavellian bastard is fun.
Now I have to work out how to get Ulster from the scots and balance power in such a way that the dukes don't get too strong.

 

[Stavrophore]

Gavelkind is not so bad if you consider that the game is about DYNASTY and not your character at the current time. Its in your family, you've got claims, you can always then switch to seniority or elective for chosing different rulers in different countries! It gives the game more fun factor, when your dynasty is big, and you switch to different duches, and not just sit for whole game in your perfectly upgraded de-jure duchy.

 

[IDtenT]

Gavelkind is not so bad if you consider that the game is about DYNASTY and not your character at the current time. Its in your family, you've got claims, you can always then switch to seniority or elective for chosing different rulers in different countries! It gives the game more fun factor, when your dynasty is big, and you switch to different duches, and not just sit for whole game in your perfectly upgraded de-jure duchy.

It's sometimes fun having to start over. I have yet to play with the new handling of Crusades as the new state. The problem is when it happens completely unplanned. I actively fight such a scenario.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Gavelkind is not so bad if you consider that the game is about DYNASTY and not your character at the current time. Its in your family, you've got claims, you can always then switch to seniority or elective for chosing different rulers in different countries! It gives the game more fun factor, when your dynasty is big, and you switch to different duches, and not just sit for whole game in your perfectly upgraded de-jure duchy.

Unless you want to build a kingdom. Having my territories splinter off after I just finished unifying the country seems counterproductive to me. How am I going to build an Empire if I have to keep starting from square 1?

 

[vonAchdorf]

You can game Gavelkind rather easily or switch to elective. Gavelkind is how people handled it historically, before they invented modern "nations". Charlemagne wanted to divide his Empire between his three sons, but (like gaming Gavelkind in CK2) two of them died before him, so he had only one surviving heir.

The eternal question of map painting versus role-playing in CK2.

Members of your family, who hold titles on their own, even outside your dominion also contribute to the dynasty's prestige (which is different from your game "score"), but used for marriage prestige.

 

[Stavrophore]

I like when my dynasty is strong and i like to quarrel with my family members, warring or do factions. I wish CK2 had more family interactions, than just the +relations event and +same dynasty modifier.

 

[oscar]

Go to seniority if you want to reunite those lands. Works well enough too to tide you over until you can unlock primogeniture. Having older rulers is a minor nuisance compared to going through 15 year regencies anyway.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Well, I fucked up. I bred together 2 members of my dynasty who had the same grandfather, and now their offspring are developing inbred and imbecile traits.
Its not my main dynasty, fortunately, but its still a problem. Now I have to try to weed them out before they can continue to reproduce.

A long time ago I read that this game was about Eugenics. I can see why.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Gavelkind is not so bad if you consider that the game is about DYNASTY and not your character at the current time. Its in your family, you've got claims, you can always then switch to seniority or elective for chosing different rulers in different countries! It gives the game more fun factor, when your dynasty is big, and you switch to different duches, and not just sit for whole game in your perfectly upgraded de-jure duchy.

Unless you want to build a kingdom. Having my territories splinter off after I just finished unifying the country seems counterproductive to me. How am I going to build an Empire if I have to keep starting from square 1?

If you can afford constant, rapid expansion, its not much of a problem - just keep trashing dudes and giving land to your heirs. One cool thing about Gavelkind is the extra Desmene, so if you play your cards right you can have super-desmenes that allow you to snowball it into further conquest - just DON'T make more than two duke titles for yourself.
On the other hand, if you're stone-walled against a blob, you got a problem.

One thing a lot of dudes do, is to get an old wife with big stats and then use the Seduction Focus to breed bastards with hot bitches with nice congenital traits. When you get a son you like, legitimize him, maybe his second-best brother as well, in case you need a backup.

Well, I fucked up. I bred together 2 members of my dynasty who had the same grandfather, and now their offspring are developing inbred and imbecile traits.
Its not my main dynasty, fortunately, but its still a problem. Now I have to try to weed them out before they can continue to reproduce.

A long time ago I read that this game was about Eugenics. I can see why.

Yup, this is game has a lot of eugenics. Its all about breeding the proper Genius Strong Attractive super-men that will lead your House to greatness.

Cousins? Pfff, those barely count.
Wait until you have to manage incestual Zoroastrian/Messalian/Dawnbreaker Zunist/Reformed Incestual Pagan families.
You have to do a careful balance between incest breeding and introducing new blood through concunbines and normal royal marriages. It does help the eugenics in some regards.

Suggestion: Marry them to a rival dynasty.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

That's the thing though; they are the rival dynasty. I married 2 close members of my rival dynasty together. And that's not a good thing, because they hold lands and murdering them gives the kinslayer debuff, and their low stats makes them terrible for running a territory.
The "this is a member of your dynasty" icon isn't really clear.

How does Gavelkind work with being king? Will one of my princes become his own king and split the country, or will my heir still get the throne?