CKII is released.

[Preben]

AI in this game is genius.

Nothing unheard of in real history of the period. From the top of my head - Urraca of Castille who waged war against her husband Alphonso I of Aragon.

 

[Fedora Master]

Only a few years into my newest game.
(In b4 I lose it after my first ruler dies.)

And my heiress!

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Why can I not make my Jomsvikings vassal a king? I wanted to make the kingdom of pomerania and give it to him, but the game won't let me for some dumb reason.

 

[Fedora Master]

Fucking hell I remember now why I stopped bothering with CK2. 25 Martial people getting fucking mutilated by 6 Martial randos every. single. battle.

Fuck Paradox.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, RNG is bullshit.
I swear the AI rigs things to make it annoying for the player.
Like, in my game the Muslims haven't called a Jihad for like 300 years and haven't really done anything, Bulgaria is a super catholic kingdom that can field like 33k men, which is supposed to be Empire level but its just an absurdly stable kingdom, and the Mongols are also catholic because fuck me right?

So I'm thinking of taking Rome, but it says that nearby Catholic leaders may join the war to defend him.
How close is nearby? Is it 200, like Holy Wars? How can I take Rome without getting swamped by Bulgaria's 33k, Italy's 15k, the Popes 15k+20k mercenaries, and I don't know what else.

 

[thesecret1]

Dude, it's not hard, you are just missing some easy tactics. Hire some mercs, land them in Italy, and keep them around until they crusade you to quickly stomp the pope and win by occupation score. You should have a big enough income to stay in green numbers with a couple merc companies, given the size of your empire. You can also do the same with retinues. Same goes for winning all the other wars. Load your mercs and retinues on ships, sail them next to rome, declare war, disembark, boom, you won the holy war with a quick blitz.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I have 30 income per month. That's not enough to keep mercs up indefinitely. I do have Jomsvikings as my vassals though, which are free. Is feudal taxation worth it? That -10 penalty seems harsh.
Usually blitzing Rome works, however taking just Rome in this case isn't enough to get 100% warscore as he has other counties.
I did try that anyway, and some large enemy force makes its way back down to Italy, leaving a lot more occupying my territory.
Funnily enough, I had the most success protecting England, as the AI only lands 10,000-20,000 at a time, which is easy for me to deal with. On the main land though its a lot harder to bleed them out like that, as you can't funnel them as easily.

I do have a plan for the next Crusade, which will most likely be against Germany (I've spent my time conquering parts of it between crusades. Turns out you just need 6 counties in the target for it to become a crusade target, which means that I can keep making buffers if I let my Vassals go nuts and conquer away. Which means no Absolute Crown Authority, unless that only works on Dejure Kingdoms of the Empire).

I'm going to get more money than the pope, Hire some mercs, have them fight on the front lines to bleed out the enemy, and then rush Rome to get some sneaky warscore.

 

[Average Manatee]

Fucking hell I remember now why I stopped bothering with CK2. 25 Martial people getting fucking mutilated by 6 Martial randos every. single. battle.

Fuck Paradox.

Martial doesn't matter for dueling, that's where dueling skill comes into play.

Its still pretty bullshit though, you'll usually win the straight-up fights if you are 20 or so dueling skill ahead but the random "you got hit on the head in the middle of battle and died" happens way too often. Only way to avoid those is to be in the warriors guilds that reduce or eliminate those events.

Also, I do not understand how Crown Authority works.
Kings seem to be able to ignore it, even if they are de jure part of my Empire.
I have it on High right now, and Denmark isn't giving me 60% of its troops.

https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Levies

Scroll down to De Jure modifier.

It's kind of bullshit and is referenced nowhere in-game that I can find. Its purpose was to reduce the power of large kings/empires by making land worth less the further it was away from their dejure capital. But because you get a vastly decreased amount of levies but the same amount of taxes it turns every game into "just spam mercs and raise taxes higher".

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, I had Kings with 30 combat skill lose against scrubs with 10. Fuck off Paradox.

 

[Fedora Master]

Even duelling skill barely matters and there are plenty of events that have no attribute check whatsoever, like the PTSD or sudden death ones. The problem is that the combat rng decides there has to be an event but the list of events is so small (UNLESS you're in a warrior lodge) that getting the really bad ones becomes inevitable after a few battles. I had hoped they fixed that shit by now.

 

[Mikeal]

I have 30 income per month. That's not enough to keep mercs up indefinitely. I do have Jomsvikings as my vassals though, which are free. Is feudal taxation worth it? That -10 penalty seems harsh.
Usually blitzing Rome works, however taking just Rome in this case isn't enough to get 100% warscore as he has other counties.
I did try that anyway, and some large enemy force makes its way back down to Italy, leaving a lot more occupying my territory.
Funnily enough, I had the most success protecting England, as the AI only lands 10,000-20,000 at a time, which is easy for me to deal with. On the main land though its a lot harder to bleed them out like that, as you can't funnel them as easily.

I do have a plan for the next Crusade, which will most likely be against Germany (I've spent my time conquering parts of it between crusades. Turns out you just need 6 counties in the target for it to become a crusade target, which means that I can keep making buffers if I let my Vassals go nuts and conquer away. Which means no Absolute Crown Authority, unless that only works on Dejure Kingdoms of the Empire).

I'm going to get more money than the pope, Hire some mercs, have them fight on the front lines to bleed out the enemy, and then rush Rome to get some sneaky warscore.

When it comes for taxing the best way is tax shit from mayors and priests and leave nobles alone. No feudal vassals have to small demense to be serious treat.

 

[Fedora Master]

Yea, no. I've been playing around as Karloman to get the achievement. High level King/Emperor gameplay simply sucks ass now.
We just can't have nice things with Paradox, can we.

 

[thesecret1]

Yeah, don't rely on vassal levies too much. Optimally, you'd want to gear with a very big demesne that is fully built up to the latest technology (prefferably prospering, with some of the high prosperity event bonuses for capital). That should provide both a decent income and, most importantly, a large amount of personal levies. After a certain point, you should be able to just nuke anything with your retinue doomstack, ending wars before the enemy even gathers up all the levies. If you still need a big army and need it ASAP, consider handing out kingdom titles to vassals so that you only need to raise a couple levies, and raise them near each other.

 

[RK47]

Which retinue to get for Anglo-Saxon?
I went for Cavalry, despite having 8 upgraded counties as the core holding, as a King I only manage to eke out 1000-strong Cavalry retinue (4 units) which is only decent enough to kill Viking raiders.

 

[Fedora Master]

Which retinue to get for Anglo-Saxon?
I went for Cavalry, despite having 8 upgraded counties as the core holding, as a King I only manage to eke out 1000-strong Cavalry retinue (4 units) which is only decent enough to kill Viking raiders.

The question is less "Which retinue for X culture" and more "Which retinue type is OP in the current patch"

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, don't rely on vassal levies too much. Optimally, you'd want to gear with a very big demesne that is fully built up to the latest technology (prefferably prospering, with some of the high prosperity event bonuses for capital). That should provide both a decent income and, most importantly, a large amount of personal levies. After a certain point, you should be able to just nuke anything with your retinue doomstack, ending wars before the enemy even gathers up all the levies. If you still need a big army and need it ASAP, consider handing out kingdom titles to vassals so that you only need to raise a couple levies, and raise them near each other.

Won't using your Demesne use up income though? I've noticed that when I use my vassal levies I use nothing, but when I use my Demesne I suddenly take a huge hit to my income.
I raised feudal taxes to small. I did get something like an extra 15, which is nice. Will try raising temple and city taxes next.
Its only the cities and temples under me that pays taxes, right?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Which retinue to get for Anglo-Saxon?
I went for Cavalry, despite having 8 upgraded counties as the core holding, as a King I only manage to eke out 1000-strong Cavalry retinue (4 units) which is only decent enough to kill Viking raiders.

Apparently Anglo-Saxons have an affinity with Heavy Infantry, just like North Germanic.
What ever your cultural building is I guess. If its Housecarl then go Heavy Infantry, because you get insane attack bonuses.

Speaking of Retinue, is it worth replacing all of my light infantry / skirmish retinues with Heavy Infantry / Housecarl / Shock, or should I try zerging the enemy and use light infantry mostly?
I keep running into conflicting information which says that Skirmish is OP, but also that light infantry is trash.

 

[thesecret1]

Yeah, don't rely on vassal levies too much. Optimally, you'd want to gear with a very big demesne that is fully built up to the latest technology (prefferably prospering, with some of the high prosperity event bonuses for capital). That should provide both a decent income and, most importantly, a large amount of personal levies. After a certain point, you should be able to just nuke anything with your retinue doomstack, ending wars before the enemy even gathers up all the levies. If you still need a big army and need it ASAP, consider handing out kingdom titles to vassals so that you only need to raise a couple levies, and raise them near each other.

Won't using your Demesne use up income though? I've noticed that when I use my vassal levies I use nothing, but when I use my Demesne I suddenly take a huge hit to my income.
I raised feudal taxes to small. I did get something like an extra 15, which is nice. Will try raising temple and city taxes next.
Its only the cities and temples under me that pays taxes, right?

Of course, using your own levies isn't free. But money is not an issue if you have a decent economy base and if you keep the wars short (which is the point of blitzing enemy provinces with your doomstack of personal levies). If you got 1k gold in reserve, then dropping to -50 income for one year won't hurt you. Relying on vassal levies isn't very good because it usually takes a whole lot more time to assemble the army, they do not give you much individually, and, most importantly, you will end up with civil wars all the time if your personal levy is small compared to your vassals'. If you got a big personal levy, you don't need to worry about their opinion too much and can afford to do some very profitable tyranny actions.

If your economy is shit, the prioritize that over conquering more lands. Your vassals are mostly useless in terms of money (unless they're merchant republics, which, if the AI plays them well, can amount to an impressive income indeed), the money is in your demesne (a castle with fully built town & stuff yields a neat income, especially in prospering counties), your mayor vassals (provided their town is built up) and in raiding if you have the possibility to (raiding levies cost much less than normal, I think it's like 25% or something, well worth the cost). If you need a lot of money quick, then, aside from ransoming everyone in your prison, the best course of action is banishment. Find some unlanded asshole with a large pile of gold, get him to join your court, then imprison and banish him.

 

[Average Manatee]

Speaking of Retinue, is it worth replacing all of my light infantry / skirmish retinues with Heavy Infantry / Housecarl / Shock, or should I try zerging the enemy and use light infantry mostly?
I keep running into conflicting information which says that Skirmish is OP, but also that light infantry is trash.

I believe the case is that pure light infantry retinue is OP in terms of cost for value, except that you'll quickly go over the supply limit because you need 40k light infantry to beat 20k of levies so past that point it becomes hard to control. It's also good for maintaining order since the AI just looks at relative troop counts when determining when to rebel. I am not sure on the light infantry/archer generic mix, I think that one is worse than the generic heavy infantry or pike retinue because archers just aren't very good and the generic light skirmish troops have archers taking up over half the retinue cap of the total unit.

Yeah, don't rely on vassal levies too much. Optimally, you'd want to gear with a very big demesne that is fully built up to the latest technology (prefferably prospering, with some of the high prosperity event bonuses for capital). That should provide both a decent income and, most importantly, a large amount of personal levies. After a certain point, you should be able to just nuke anything with your retinue doomstack, ending wars before the enemy even gathers up all the levies. If you still need a big army and need it ASAP, consider handing out kingdom titles to vassals so that you only need to raise a couple levies, and raise them near each other.

Won't using your Demesne use up income though? I've noticed that when I use my vassal levies I use nothing, but when I use my Demesne I suddenly take a huge hit to my income.
I raised feudal taxes to small. I did get something like an extra 15, which is nice. Will try raising temple and city taxes next.
Its only the cities and temples under me that pays taxes, right?

Correct, only direct vassals pay cash.

Think of it this way, the levies have to be paid by your or your vassals. It's better to always be paid lots of taxes from the vassals and pay the levy upkeep for the 25% of time you are war than it is to have free levies and get far less cash all the time. You also simply get way more powerful investing in your demesne. You'll have several +xx% bonuses (from martial score, capital county/duchy bonus, marshal training troops in capital) while vassals have several penalties (distance from capital, laws, how much they like you), so investing yourself brings much better levy returns.

 

[Mikeal]

If someone is searching for easy noneuropean start, you should check out Kingdom of Guge in Old Gods start.

 

[Delterius]

Fucking hell I remember now why I stopped bothering with CK2. 25 Martial people getting fucking mutilated by 6 Martial randos every. single. battle.

Fuck Paradox.

Level 50 diplomat with 2000 direct vassals whom they send to die, represent.

 

[thesecret1]

It's also worth noting that what pisses you off about vassals can also piss off those vassals in turn. If you're concerned about giving out a large duchy, thinking it might create a way too powerful vassal, simply hand each county to a different dude before making one of them a duke. The guy will then spend the next century in constant civil war as he tries to revoke all the titles for himself. Of course, it means you'll get less levies and money from him, but vassals are shit for both of those, so who cares. If you want to be even more certain you won't be bothered by a vassal, give out titles to really old, childless dudes, prefferably with the chaste trait etc. They usually die before they can father an heir, with you inheriting the whole thing again. While I always hand out titles to dynasty members for fun, it's not actually a good strategy, as they are bound to start inheriting each other's shit eventually and turn very powerful, plus a fair deal of them will be title claimants, at least unless they're from a really distant branch. If you're ever in a tight spot, take out a loan and chase out the jews. Artifacts are OP as fuck and if you start hoarding them, sooner or later you'll be basically a demigod. Super easy way to kill someone is NOT plotting an assassination. It's antagonizing him until he rivals you, picking the war focus, and killing him in a duel. You need good personal score for this, but there's a shitload of artifacts boosting that to hell and back, so you shouldn't need to worry about it later in the playthrough. Always try to blitz enemy capital if it's within reach, there's a decent chance you'll capture the ruler's family and get a large boost to warscore.

There, some tips & tricks for CK2 from the top of my head.

 

[Delterius]

I haven't bought dlcs or played really since Charlemagne. Already felt it wasn't too difficult to get rich, even when my kingdom was mostly based off some very poor areas in the early game. Seems like the game added trade routes, silk roads and Prosperity to just make it even more broken. So... has the game added some gold sinks that I can spam to up the decadent luxury of my noble court or something?

 

[RK47]

It's called the Great Works.
It takes a long time to build and can eat up into your treasury for generations.
But you have to be independent. I particularly enjoyed getting a Great Library up to increase the rate of technological spread.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So uh, the Timurids arrived. They are catholic. They then decided to join the Crusade against me to retake Germany. Because fuck me am I right?
Oh, and my heir is slow, and the game decided to suddenly kill off my previous Emperor just when I started a plot with 172% plot power to kill my slow grandson. No, seriously, as soon as I started the plot my Emperor just died of poor health. At the age of 48. With no sickness or injuries.
I swear this game is designed to fuck over the player.

The good news though is that Scurvy is a thing and is great for killing off unwanted heirs if you can't send them to the church.