CKII is released.

I noticed another change made by the 2.0.1 version: troops that are placed aboard a boat automatically have their morale set at 50%.

Letting the AI attack me in a coastal county (so I could get the defender bonus) and then unloading tens of thousands of troops from the nearby ships was a favored tactic of mine and the only I was able to defeat the Mongolian death stacks (since troops on ships don't suffer from desertion).

There goes another of my munchkin tactics...

Also, I didn't expect my levies to be reduced to a third of their values before the patch. Oh well, at least it affects everybody.

 

levy nerf is a srs issue. constructing levy booster seems pointless now, better to save for merc spam

 

Wasn't it always like that. MERC SMASH (if you aren't hiring, your opponents will so there's that, too)!

 

Perhaps i am not specific enough. Vassal levies are cut down by half. therefore youre seeing the whole byzantine dwarfed by magyar event troops in old gods and west francia having less army than a merc company

 

And mercs weren't changed at all? Wtf paradox.

 

Yep, it leads to hilarious situation when desperate AI kingdoms hire mercs, only to fail to pay on time and get taken down.
Company of the hats controlling Italy etc.
Hilarious.

 

Mercs, Starter troops, and Event troops (Rebels/Flocking to the Banner/Adventurer) all seem to have gone unchanged. It can make for some interesting situations I guess, but they all really need to be toned down now with the new levy sizes (mercs might be fine size wise, they don't seem to be growing as much as they used to, but they really need the AI to understand that going broke with them is a bad thing and how to use them effectively).

 

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It was like that before too, i dont see much point upgrading your counties when you can instant spawn a doomstack at your capital , less micro and much more efficient than the small levies you get there and there. Even when upgrading to max the amount gathered is miserable compare to the investment.
I noticed to that if you give king titles thats antoher layer of vassality and you get even less levies , not to mention the kings demand their independance at each successions. Am i missing something or its a really bad idea to create titles ?

So the only way to play in a feudal game is not to give feudal titles and use mercs now....

 

Easier to controll one king as emperor then a bounch of dukes.

 

Mercenaries need a dlc of their own to flesh out the experience. Dogs of War maybe?

 

Since RK47 has shown how to break CK2 wide open through holy order abuse, is Catholic Byzantine broken beyond all reason with large retinue + varangians + 5 holy orders?

 

Underkings are a good way to keep choicest counties to yourself regardless of their de jure dukes' opinions. If you hand out the duchy of Svithjod to someone, yet keep Uppsala to yourself, the duke is gonna be butthurt. Now, hand the kingdom of Sweden to another duke to whom you owe nothing, say, a duke of Bergslagen or Norrland, and the butthurt duke of Svithjod can suck himself off to oblivion. The king does not care, and the duke is no longer a direct vassal to pester you.

Also, for world conquest gaming (and is there any other? lol, larpers), a king provides another chaplain to convert the populace. 3 guys doing that in a province (count, duke and king) are better than 2.

 

Pretty much.
Just killed the Horde on my own.

 

So, did they put something related to the Catholic-Orthodox split in the Old Gods scenario with the new DLC? That's a glaring omission.

 

They did nothing about the schism.

 

if u ask me this expansion is too pro catholic

 

Maybe because of polemics? Bear in mind the Schism has different versions on each side. The catholic side has a bunch of uppity patriarchs rebelling against The Rightful Vicar of Christ. In the Orthodox version, the Pope is just a jumped-up Patriarch of Rome who wants to be superior over his equals because he lives in a has-been city that was once capital of the world empire.

The Pope only acquired his total, indusputed head of catholicdom state by 950 or so, if I remember right.

Not to mention mechanics. One wonder how it would work. Everyone starts as "Christianity" or maybe catholicism at first, then events hits and kingdoms and bishops start taking sides across the world, with the West tending to Rome while the East tends to the rest of the Pentachy? Sons of Abraham features mechanics for heresies and such replacing the mainstream as the main religion, so some of the groundwork is already there.

 

I saw a small change with the chism but maybe it was prior to that expansion, now catholicism shows as heresy and seems to dissapear really fast from the map. Playing orthodox byzantium atm, i've seen one "joan d'arc" event , nothing else, they happen very rarely and there's not many different events.The DLC is catholic centric .
Each extension make someone overpowered but it never been that bad , now its catholic turns with infinite papacy gold and 5X superstrong holy order you can vassalize for reduced upkeep. On one side considerably reduced levies all over the map, the non de jure titles especially suffer, on the other side invincible and free armies of god .
I'd like them to pay a little more attention to balance next time .

 

Ehh, I dunno how you would represent it like that. The Schism has much deeper roots, and eastern Christianity was distinctly different from western Christianity before.

I think the best way to do it would be to keep things as it is, but add some kind of "religious tension" modifier. At the outset both religions would only have a minor -10 modifier. If the pope or the patriarchs butt heads (with associated events/decisions that annoy each other to ensure this happens during the right time frame), religious tension goes up, and at a certain point inter-marriage goes out and if things are bad enough even crusades could get unlocked.

Could be a nice thing to generalize and make a part of all religions. Say normal wars/inheritance won't annoy the religious heads, but converting provinces would and holy wars would greatly increase the chance for a counter-crusade.

 

Personally I'm a little irked at just how lazy they were with Sons of Kaleva holy order for Finno-Ugrics. Not only would it stop working once you get out North-West Russia, as Kaleva and Kalevanpojat are Baltic Finnish figures, but worse is the fucking reindeer flag. I mean ffs, the symbol designating Kalevanpoikas has numerous better candidates from archaeological finds. In general the reindeer symbol for Suomenusko is more than kinda racist.

 

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WW Edit: NSFW

 

Not sure if enough time to claim World Conquest but will try.

 

Problem, reindeer docker?

 

Salvius you should swiftly conquer the HRE, for the greater good of a nicer looking map.