Holy War is one of the best CBs in the game, yes. I can't imagine how incredibly boring it must be to sit there waiting for a province claim to pop, only so you can fight over ONE LOUSY PROVINCE. It's not nearly as convenient as bordering 3 or 4 different varieties of heretics and infidels so that you can always have at least one holy war going at all times.Heretical lies. Rage is a perpetual state for the Viking people, not a reason to alter behavior. Besides, being a Shiite would be pretty great right now. Jihads and Iberian allies? Yes, please.
Holy War is one of the best CBs in the game, yes. I can't imagine how incredibly boring it must be to sit there waiting for a province claim to pop, only so you can fight over ONE LOUSY PROVINCE. It's not nearly as convenient as bordering 3 or 4 different varieties of heretics and infidels so that you can always have at least one holy war going at all times.Heretical lies. Rage is a perpetual state for the Viking people, not a reason to alter behavior. Besides, being a Shiite would be pretty great right now. Jihads and Iberian allies? Yes, please.
Also, it is actually important to promote the growth of heretics and infidels. Always try to ally with them, even passively, if you can: The more the heretics and infidels win, the more stuff you can holy war over. Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Take his fish away, and tell him that he's lucky just to be alive, and he'll find a way to catch another fish for you to take away tomorrow.
None of this apparently will help you any, since you can't do the Holy War thing, so you're stuck waiting a generation or two to bake a claim to something nice. At least you'll have plenty of revolts and civil wars to handle, since the moment you gank someone's kingdom, all their vassals are likely to revolt against the infidel.
That may really depend on where you happen to be living, I suppose. I have seen a lot of religious defense joins, although usually they're commiting distasteful rape against someone else, which I actively encourage, since I try to encourage the spread of the infidel even while I bite chunks out of them.I think the various CBs became a lot more balanced with 1.05. With the ease of joining wars, declaring a Holy War is almost certain to draw the attention of every infidel in the immediate area.
Yes, that could potentially be a problem as a Duke of Somewhere Unpleasant and Open. As Duke of Axum, on the other hand, I was in the Ass End Of Nowhere, so the only person to worry about was the Caliph, who I would gank anytime someone else distracted him.I've started a new game as the duke of Barcelona, and I'm fabricating claims against my raghead neighbours, because in the event of a Holy War, they call in the whole goddamned Iberian Peninsula, and I suffer instant and distasteful rape. Even in my advanced game as glorious Georgia, I'm hesitant to declare Holy War upon Muslims. Now, Orthodox on the other hand...
Yes, but the catch is that you can do all of those things WHILE YOU SMITE INFIDELS, since all those long cons are, well, long, and there's not exactly anything for you to do in the meantime. It's not like I was missing out on the scheming and plotting over in Ethiopia. It took a fair amount of scheming to make myself the Caliph, and only stab 3 people in the process. Soon I will have the Other Caliph, and I didn't even have to stab anyone for it this time (I stabbed many other people for totally unrelated reasons in the meantime, but nobody was stabbed in the process of acquiring this title).And I think it's a great thing that the gameplay in CK2 changes so much depending on location and religion. As a random count somewhere in Ireland, you can't just invade anyone, but neither can your (possibly more powerful) opponents - and thus scheming, plotting, strategic marriages and assassinations become much more important than they are for an Iberian duke who's constantly at war with infidels. It's really fun to play the long con, marry your heir off to a rebellious Scottish duchess, declare war on Scotland over a minor claim to destabilize them, watch them fall apart, with your heir's wife taking the crown, and 50 years later their grandson inherits Scotland for you.
Haven't found it to be a problem. My ubermensch dynasty and ubermensch advisors and ubermensch wife pretty much boost my diplomacy bonus through the roof: I can keep at least 40+ with even the most unruly distant vassals out in Iberia. No, it's usually the peasants which revolt, and since vassals can't even wipe their own asses without me doing it for them, I'm the one who gets to raise their legions to put their revolt and gain a relationship bonus for squashing their rebels. Besides, between the culture and religious penalties, most of the more distant ones don't even have armies to revolt with. I can see how this might be a problem to people who didn't start an ubermensch breeding program early on, though.1.05 also added relationship penalties for distance from capital, so after becoming Basileus, you'll probably spend the rest of your game pacifying revolts.
A Holy War may be declared against Heretics and Infidels. So, Orthodox Heresy can declare against Orthodox and Muslims, but not Catholics of any stripe, because Catholics are Christian and not-Heretic to you. Shiite can declare against any Shiite Heresies as well as any Christians, but not against Sunni of any stripe. Pagans do not have holy wars. Ever. Against anyone. They suck. Managing this complex religious mess is quite a challenge: Ideally, you want to support anyone you can Holy War against, against anyone you cannot Holy War against, so, as Orthodox, you want Muslims to defeat Catholics and other Orthodox, none of which you can pronounce holy war against, because if the Muslims win, then you can take the land from the Muslims for yourself...the danger here is that you don't want to weaken the Muslims so much that they start losing steadily. Killing Pagans is best for you because Pagans can't Holy War and therefore will never succeed on their own, and so are pretty much worthless in your machinations. It is important to obstruct the efforts of those you cannot Holy War against, when they fight Pagans, though: If you are Orthodox, and Catholics are fighting Pagans, you should support the Pagans if possible, but if Muslims are fighting Pagans, you don't care: In fact, you want the Muslims to win, sort of, because Strong Muslims benefit you...as long as they are not strong enough to kill YOU!By the way, does anyone know the exact requirements for being able to declare a Holy War? For instance, as an Orthodox heretic, you can declare it against normal Orthodox, but not against Catholics. I assume Catholic heretics can similarly wage holy wars against normal Catholics. But what about pagans? Who can you declare holy war against as a pagan? Does it matter what kind of pagan you are?
I'll have none of your patriarchal geographic imperialism, sir.
(Update incoming; doing edits now.)
Bishop-Reichsmarschall Raymond de Montreuil was not used to waiting. In time of war, the commander of the imperial armies stood above even other prince-electors. For a barbarian usurper to waste his time was an insult to the Emperor. The fretful Count Eskild of Gotland tried to calm Raymond, offering the finest wines in his cellar. As though Raymond would let a heathen's lackey bring him anything but contempt. Eventually Eskild left the Reichsmarschall to stalk around the castle walls, with the imperial honor guard trailing behind him.
On Raymond's sixth cycle, he found a giant oaf of a barbarian in his path, leaning against a massive warhammer. Even at an angle, the brute's shoulders cleared Raymond's head, and from them hung a swan cloak. Raymond found his lip curling involuntarily as he regarded this idiot, this ogre in fop's clothing. By his finery, he had some rank among the scum, but he was far too young to be their warlord. Had this chief Gungnir sent an underling to treat with him? Raymond, who was the Emperor's fist?
Raymond stormed up to the barbarian. "Where is your chief?" he barked.
The brute continued looking over the wall as though he had not heard him. "Where is Jarl Gungnir?" Raymond demanded again.
At that, there was a chuckle, and the barbarian turned to him. Raymond could feel the primitive creature judging him. He did not seem impressed. "King Gungnir will be here soon. I came ahead. I wanted to see the truth." Shaking his head, "I did not believe that dead men could walk."
"A shame I'll never find out whatever barb that was meant to bait," Raymond snorted. "I am here to take Jarl Gungnir's surrender, not to trade words with his lackey."
"You are here to forge the doom of your Reich and sign the death warrant of your false emperor."
"You would threaten the Emperor of Romans?" Raymond asked in a suddenly, deceptively calm tone.
"I say nothing Poppo did not know. Unless he truly thought to turn his heart against Odin with hope of keeping it?" He shook his head. "I had thought him brave. Is he merely foolish?"
"Indeed, the way your people surrender at the first sign of trouble is truly fearsome," Raymond said, casually laying his hand on the hilt of his sword. "I will advise the Emperor to avoid future conflict. His gentle heart nearly broke at one such shameful display. A second might kill him."
The barbarian lifted his hammer, resting it lightly on his shoulder. "No need to speak on our behalf. Nailing your treaty to your skull will send a stronger message."
The honor guard drew their blades, though the Reichsmarschall kept smiling at the barbarian. "If only you knew how to write."
"Perhaps if we nail your corpse to a tree, your people can call you a god, too."
There came a shout from the outside the walls. "Gentlemen!" Raymond looked down to see an old warlord at the head of hundreds. Among them was a full company of archers, arrows nocked. "No one will be nailing anyone to anything. Lower your weapons, please."
Neither imperial honor guard nor the barbarian on the walls moved. Raymond called down, "Jarl Gungnir?"
"King. No worries, I don't expect you to be familiar with my people's titles," Gungnir yelled up cheerfully.
"You have brought a very large honor guard to a peace negotiation," Raymond observed.
"I have a very large amount of honor," Gungnir explained. "Now. If you'd be so kind as to come down?"
Grudgingly, the Reichsmarschall waved back his men and went down to meet the king.
From the wall, the giant barbarian glared down furiously at his brother.
* * *
Gungnir set the treaty on the council table, frowning. "These terms are . . . ungenerous."
"You barbarians do know what 'vae victus' means?" Raymond asked. "I had been told you do."
Ah, of course. Some of the Swedish emigrés must have found their way to Kaiser Poppo's court. No doubt their sobbing over a barbarian usurper had hastened this war. "You would take from us our finest jewel, when we have scarcely had time to see it shine."
"I would take from you every inch of land you have stolen, but the Emperor is more merciful than I am."
Gungnir spoke evenly. "The Vikings are not accustomed to giving up what is ours."
"The Emperor is not accustomed to caring about the customs of petty heathens," the Reichsmarchall snapped, rising to his feet. "This is his offer. If you refuse it, I will gladly bring you mine: fifty thousand holy warriors to scour your filth from the earth."
Looking steadily up at Raymond, Gungnir signed the treaty. "This is the beginning of trouble between your people and mine."
* * *
The Norse party had departed hours later, for Gotland was no longer theirs. At the stern of Gungnir's flagship a giant figure stared back across the sea. His cloak was white and his face was dark.
"You seem distraught," Gungnir said, joining his brother at the rail.
"You seem afraid," Mjolnir returned. "You give ground without a fight."
"Brother, the False Emperor can raise ten times as many men as we can."
"What Viking king flees from glorious death in battle?" Mjolnir snorted. "What Viking king denies his men that right?"
"I do," Gungnir answered. "Odin is not done with us yet. We have too many foes left to kill."
"Not killing foes does not help us kill foes."
"Who told you such a foolish thing?" Gungnir asked. "Has he never seen a battle? Wars are won by bringing strength against weakness."
"Losing wars does not help us win wars."
A sigh. "Brother, in my reign, we have taken fourteen counties, two of which we have now lost. This leaves us a gain of twelve new provinces. Do you know what that means?"
"It means you are not a complete failure as a king," Mjolnir admitted with a grudging grin.
"No. It means we are winning land faster than the best of the Christ-Men can take it from us," Gungnir said. "And that means that one day, far from now, they will not be able to take anything at all. I prepare for the coming of that day. As must you, when you are king."
Mjolnir blinked. "When I am king? Is my nephew well?"
"Thord had a hunting accident," Gungnir said. He sounded more annoyed than sad. "The lad will live, but he lost his sword-hand. He can still be a fine steward, but our people will not follow a king who cannot cannot enter Valhalla." [1]
Mjolnir had started this conversation to rebuke Gungnir for losing a duchy, and here he was giving him a kingdom. "I do not know what to say."
"Say you will keep your kingdom strong . . . Prince Mjolnir."
_____
[1] The Norse afterlife was more than the spiritual reward system seen in other religions. Odin isn't just using Valhalla as a vacation resort to incentivize being a badass. He's building an army, because he needs more men to defeat the apocalyptic horrors of the Ragnarok. This has some odd implications; for example, the Vikings believed Odin would often arrange for his greatest champions to be cut down at the height of their glory, on the grounds that they're more valuable to him in Valhalla than in our world. Some also believed that the maimed or sickly would never be chosen, since they weren't as useful in a fight.
Mjolnir said:Let this treaty be as tinder, that we may light it with the flame of the Allfather's wrath. Let us stoke it until it consumes the False Emperor. Let his empire burn. Let the continent bleed.
Some dumbfuck said:To the south we've got Denmark, which is rich, strong, and generally unpleasant. The good news is that the king sucks, and all but two provinces are owned by the powerful Duke of Skane. Since the king can actually raise fewer troops than the duke, the threat of a Danish invasion is minimal.
Holy War is one of the best CBs in the game, yes. I can't imagine how incredibly boring it must be to sit there waiting for a province claim to pop, only so you can fight over ONE LOUSY PROVINCE.
Sadly, it really doesn't. The main bottleneck to waiting is not even the wars, they're just kind of a background activity. The main real-time bottleneck is dynastic management and running the Stasi so as to keep the nobles from screwing everything up by killing each other. There are plots to defuse, wayward branches of the fambly to prune, and people to throw in the dungeon. You absolutely cannot fast-forward through all this or you will miss something important, and the way I'm running it, if I miss anything, the entire thing will collapse on my head. In fact, I suspect the Holy Wars are actually essential to my empire's stability, since they bleed off the strength of the nobles as I use their troops as stormtroopers. And are a good way of maiming and killing undesirable nobility. Every timely KIA I achieve saves me like $150. Although one trick you can use to perform helpful mass purges is the "appoint commander" trick: Raise a levy inside your killing ground, appoint the desired victim to command it, then kill him. Repeat until you have run out of people you need to purge. You can summon and kill many nobles that way, without having to move your spymaster.The game makes it pretty quick to "wait" in relatively little real-time.
I exploited "all your children get claims on your titles".Oh--how'd you become caliph, by the way? Isn't that title open agnatic?
Very nice. This is why you can write an LP about your doings, and I can't: You've managed to spin a grand tale out of what amounts to "not a hell of a lot happened".
One problem I've found with acquiring lots of territory that I have to replace the leaders of that quickly is the difficulty of coming up with enough spare nobles to man them. Do you just conjure the nobles out of thin air somewhere, or were there not actually that many duchies in Sweden to replace?
I take it you were unable to find an appropriately quality Princess that would allow you to pull the same, and that you're gambling (probably rightly) that this move isn't going to bite you in the ass the same way it bit the Caliphs in the ass?
I prefer the opposite approach, giving out land nearly exclusively to dynasty members. In the short term, this can destabilize your realm as immediate dynasty members are claimants to your throne, but in the long term, that's a +5 rel penalty that never goes away, PLUS a significant starting Prestige bonus that will anchor your realm's stability. Once your dynasty is sufficient spread out that only a FEW of them are immediate claimants to the throne, and these you seat in shitty duchies with long-lasting conquer penalties that won't produce any kind of profit or army to revolt against you with. As an Ethiopian, there are no other sources of Ethiopian culture anywhere on the map, and as an unusual religious heresy, I'm probably as unpopular as Pagans are. With the fact that my dynasty is the most enormous in the world, it's a massive Prestige Farm, as all those people collectively hold hundreds of Duchies and Counties, thousands of Baronies, and dozens of Kingdoms (apparently the count includes dead people). This means that even a fresh dynasty noob spawns with hundreds of Prestige, and this prestige is important to maintaining order as it grants a rel-bonus to all. Others here seem to avoid this, as seen in Xenomorph's House Spartenos, where after over a hundred years longer than mine, his House is about a quarter the size in living members and less Prestigious....and as a result, his nobles (and not just the unruly new Catholic ones) regularly revolt against him. Me? No noble revolts. The dynastic rel bonus and the Prestige Farm keeps things orderly. Not to mention my habit of preemptively stabbing anyone with the wrong traits. It's a lot cheaper and easier to have them killed while they're still a baby than to stab them as a Duke.Also, Old Thord had a lot of kids from his second wife. I'm trying to avoid giving out land to dynasty members, though.
You sure of that? I married the Emperor's and Caliphs' daughters. I'm a filthy heretic and infidel. Catholics don't mind me so much, but admittedly I have not actually married any important Catholic nobility, none of their stats have been up to snuff and most of my marriages are for stats to maintain my ubermensch dynasty...at this point, most of my breeding is now occurring within my own dynasty, as my stats tend to outclass most of the others: Base-10 across the board is common now, with the most carefully groomed lines being selected to run the Stasi, the most important organization in my empire, because without the Stasi, the entire thing collapses into squabbling, murder, and civil war. As for a royal liege would NEVER marry a Princess to you, well, that's not necessarily true. A Princess can be rapidly demoted to "Someone I don't actually care about", in one instance where I acquired a Caliphate: Specifically because Caliphates are Agnatic Only, the death of the old Shiite Caliph with only daughters resulted in some random Emir becoming Caliph...and he couldn't give a rat's ass about the old Caliph's daughters, who were sold off like a firesale. I wasn't even responsible for the death of the last Caliph: Although he had good base stats, he suffered from a case of, well, Imbecility. Strangely, he managed to produce a genius-level daughter in his dying years, which I snagged immediately because the new Caliph didn't give a crap about the former Caliph's daughter...but she came with a nice claim that I will soon be able to press for myself. I actually acquired the Sunni Caliphate first, despite its distance from me, much in the same way you did: I noticed that the Caliph had married off a high-quality young daughter to some random Sheik's heir, who subsequently contracted a fatal case of murder, leaving said minor Sheik in possession of a Caliphate Princess that he didn't care about, and so he sold out the Caliphate to me.Right. Remember, everyone hates pagans. A royal liege would never marry a princess to me. I doubt even that doux would have given me one of his own daughters, much less an heir. As for our new brother-in-law getting deposed, well, if a sufficiently formidable contender appears, our spymaster should suffice to make him disappear.
Yeah, that's actually kind of an awkward way to do it. If your wife is an Empress, you lose the spouse bonus. Since those massive stats are the glue holding my Empire together, losing all points from everything would probably result in a massive implosion in short order. In your case, you may not be strong enough by that point to overthrow the Emperor by force of arms to install yourself, though, and the Empire is a long-ass ways away. I actually COULD have arranged for my Princess to have been promoted to Empress quite rapidly merely by stabbing 2 Emperors, but that's not what I wanted to do because the loss of the spouse bonus would have been disastrous for both of us, and both Empires would have collapsed into civil war under such an arrangement. As it turns out, it didn't matter, the Emperor was subsequently overthrown in a hilarious WTFpwned moment like 3 months afterwards, as some crazy Countess decided to overthrow the Emperor, and the Empire just exploded as over half of the Empire decided to side with the Rebels and the Emperor got his fool-ass captured. While I did side with the Emperor to honor my obligations as an ally, I honestly had fuck-all of an opportunity to do anything, being that I was already involved in two other wars at the time and figured that just honoring my obligation to declare war was enough...not that it mattered, because the war just suddenly and spontaneously ENDED when he got his fool-ass captured somehow, probably because the AI likes to raise piecemeal legions and march them crazily all over the place, which doesn't work well when the Empire has exploded into confetti. The AI also doesn't really do a good job matching Counties to Duchies, with the result that random Dukes own random counties everywhere, and are often quite pissed at the Emperor for holding what they feel is their rightful stuff. Me, I run an orderly ship: A Duke holds one duchy, and all the appropriate counties thereof, which keeps them happy. I myself avoid creating Duchies out of my personal demesne, which prevents the "YOU HOLD TOO MANY DUCHIES RARGH" penalty, allowing me to temporarily hold onto a duchy as working room when claiming crap. I also hover like a hawk to make sure people are appropriately married off and that no Duke is in a position to inherit an inappropriately large number of Duchies without contracting a fatal case of murder, not to mention avoiding the formation of too many Counts. This large number of Dukes also provides a good breeding pool for my ubermenschen. Which is good, since I have to murder an awfully large number of people to maintain order, and occasionally have to purge an entire branch just to avoid a fusion explosion.I suspect that if I'd really wanted, I probably could have had one of my rulers married to some third-in-line Greek princess, then arranged for her rapid promotion to Empress and eventually had an emperor for an heir.
Well, just murdering your way to Constantinople is one thing. Doing it as a filthy heretic or infidel, on the other hand...well, you saw Xenomorph's gigantic explosion when he made an Orthodox into the Kaiser. My plan to acquire every single Imperial title available in the entire game: Kaiser, Basileus, both Caliphs, and all 3 Khagans, not to mention as many Kings as I can get ahold of. Gotta catch 'em all!But I played a decent number of Christian games before trying pagan, and from that I concluded that murdering your way onto the throne of Constantinople was the least interesting way to break the game. (Though it sounds like your attempts have been cooler than mine.)
Yeah, about that: That can be a bit of a problem: According to the datafiles, Court Clog actually impedes the ability of your courtiers to reproduce, so it is best to purge the untermenschen and ennoble the rest ASAP to keep the court roomy and the important courtier lines breeding. You can intentionally sabotage other familes by unloading the untermenschen on them. Some of them you're just stuck paying waste disposal fees on, though. The useless old ladies can be impossible to get rid of otherwise, as they are past sell-by date, so no one wants them, but their stats are so terrible that they cannot be used as tutors or anything else...and they will harm your court as above by clogging it and impeding reproduction if the size exceeds 30.A good chunk of the gold that funded Gungnir's assassination spree came from inheriting their lifetime earnings; the few that managed to breed gave me a nice crop of nobles to choose from
Whats the deal with the coat of arms of the kingdoms?
Whats the deal with the coat of arms of the kingdoms?
How do you mean?