CKII is released.

Except I don't think, that someone are arguing otherwise. Nor I understand, what exactly Ruric could be blamed for.
But if you want blaime someone for something, then just blaime Ruric's grand grand grandson, Yaroslav the Wise, who despite being called the wise made one very retarded decision at the end of his life, that was quite similiar to Marcus Aurelius's one.

Then go and ask them, they have a very interesting story to tell about how they went from front runners of Renaissance to the place for bbattlefied for their much stronger neighbours and didn't have their own state until the end of XIX century. That Machiavelli guy had especially much thing to say about it, so he even wrote some bookon subject.

 

Worked much better in the end than being a blob did for vatniks. Contrary to what games imply, blobbing rarely does good to its unfortunate citizens. Absolute power corrupts absolutely n'shit.

And what is that fetish about "having their own state"? North Italy is already having second thoughts about having to feed the agrarian dumbfucks in Sicily. So much for "reunification". XIX century called and it wants its concepts returned back where they belong.

 

Yes, that what that you should say italians, who seen french armies and german mercenaries rampaging on their lands during all their life. But I forgot, that I'm talking with nazi apologist freak.

 

Also the CKII players called and they want their thread back from people who still use roman numerals to denote centuries. Stop this faggotry at once and get back to rape dungeons and incest, please.

 

So in my current campaign I was starting to worry that Europe was becoming increasingly boring now that there's some French Catholic bastard ruling Byzantium and said Greek devils are converting to catholicism en masse, and my pagan religion cannibalized all the other pagan religions. So I "helped" the last Norse remaining around invade Ireland and Frisia respectively, "helped" Hungary return to Tengriism, "helped" Bohemia return to Slavic, and I may have "helped" the Welsh embrace Norse faith. I also may have "helped" the succesful Zoroastrian rebellion in Persia repel Jihads and stabilize itself enough to retake the Empire.

Now all the action is back.

 

I think he was referring to the fact that Ivan IV was the first official tsar, although Ivan III signed himself as tsar in his correspondence.

Speaking of the Kievan Rus, Yaroslav the Wise was pretty badass. The Kievan Rus state reached its maximum power under his rule and all subsequent French kings were descended from him. His daughter Anna was one of the best educated women of the age and married Henri I of France. She named her son Phillip and popularized the Greek name in Western Europe.

Yaroslav was mentioned in Norse sagas. Also, check out his sweet bling. Now that's gangsta:

 

I sort of "helped" Hungarians become Suomenusko pagans. The whole Tengri thing was causing more trouble than it was worth, given how a solitary Tengri kingdom would need me to constantly make sure I have the daughter battery ready to fire in case of emergencies like Crusades.

 

I was thinking of creating an immortal demigod called the Emperor of Humankind and see if he becomes a threat while trying to stave off his conquests. Can you make someone like that through cheats?

 

Well you could just reset his age using a cheat when he's starting to get old, and create him with tweaked ruler designer costs to have 100 Health or something.

 

I think so. I know there is an Immortal trait somewhere in the files (or there used to be). So the way to do it would be to make an incredible ruler through the ruler creator (for ease of use mostly) then use the console to set his age and grant the Immortal trait. With that done then just save and load as someone else.

Edit: The trait does still exist (just checked in the files it is at the top of traits00 file). No idea how well it works though.

 

No need to save, just use charinfo 1 to show character IDs and then switch using play [charid] cheat.

 

Great tips. Especially the part about an actual immortal trait already coded in.

Now, to decide where to put him...

 

Golden Horde Khan. I also would suggest HRE, but it isn't as aggressively expansionist.

 

Khan should have one thing checked first: Namely, are they immune to conversion if the Tengri faith has been reformed. If they are, the choice is obvious.

 

It could be an interesting experiment, to give a handful of rulers in 1066 the immortal trait, and see how many of them are still around after 400 years.

 

My guess: None.

 

The campaign has certainly gained lots of more fun to it after all the "help" given. The Slavic pagans are kicking ass, no inter-pagan Great Holy Wars (surprised at the total absence of such from Slavic, since you'd think the Finnmark->Ruthenia zone of Finns would be a red cloth). Norse are a delightful spice of life now that they don't have a Fylkir but also have control over 3/4 of the British Isles. There's even a Bohemian Karling king ruling Lotharingia now, and Germany is being alternatively robbed by Norse, invaded by Lappish, and bossed by Bohemians/Pomeranians. Zorro Persia is prepostrously powerful it seems, even decade there's at least one Jihad against them that's beaten like a dead horse. I think they also have the largest army by a wide margin. The current powerhouse of Catholicism is the Byzantine Empire (they somehow ended up with a Frankish Catholic emperor, AND survived in one piece). Heresy is not as widespread as expected though, since due to pagan kickstarter campaigns along the coastlines Catholicism is pretty much locked at 0 Authority (papal donations to building universities in Livonia are great appreciated).

The AI is also surprisingly competent compared to the previous time I ran this campaign when TOG came out. Notable example is Perm, which united after Suomenusko reformation without outside help, and more importantly has become extremely powerful in its area (of course, neighbourly help has been important for driving back the Seljuk invasion). The new levies and holy orders also add nice spice to things, though I'm still a little sad over the fact pagans are designed to cannibalize each other after reformation instead of becoming the multikult block against Christianity and Islam. The Great Holy Wars shouldn't really trigger against pagan neighbours, and pagans should get a group-wide chance to join against the aforementioned Christians and Muslims during religious invasions after reforming. The AI is still piss-poor at reforming too (probably on purpose).

Still, the few new additions for pagans are nice touches and AI is definately better. Karlings are still a tad too stable (seriously, I'd say nine times out of ten all royals in Central Europe are Karlings from start to finish due to the family being able to assist each other whenever a claim war or uprising happens).

 

Gave up on Muslim game.
Yeah I have a sizable Kingdom in Abyssinia, slowly getting stronger but the whole decadence mechanic is just bullshit.
Seeing a really dumbfuck relative attempting petty plot was funny at first, but cease to be entertaining when you simply popamole their asses as they pull more and more relatives into the war when imprisonment fails.
Hence, son gets beaten in war, imprisoned. I move to imprison his nephew, only for the nephew to call his brothers and so forth.
So in the end, almost a quarter of the relative-vassals are staying in the prison, not giving much in terms of taxes or levies. Not that I complain but honestly, with the AI taking multiple wives, it's best they remain there for the sanity of the kingdom's succession. I just can't see why this decadence adds anything to the fun when the starting area is already a logistic nightmare to move between counties.

 

Decadence seems to be something only the AI can work with. I mean, it'd be nice if you actually had to pick succession laws so you don't build up decadence past a certain point, but which in turn would essentially turn your extended family into one large Quake Deathmatch free-for-all for who gets to be sultan instead of the sultan.

 

Immortality only prevents from dying from old age. Character still can be killed by illness, assasinated, executed, killed in battle, etc. Albeit there are mods with immortality that can prevent every death apart from assassination and execution.

 

Indeed the weakness of Islamic states and the drawback of multiple wives was frequent civil wars due to the boatload of children the ruler had (often ending in mass executions of family members with competing claims). The reverse was the case in Christendom, where civil wars could result from the monarch not having an heir at all (a quite possible thing considering the mortality rate of infants).

 

The best combination to this situation is probably Muslim Republic.

 

Ivan IV was the first guy, who was crowned as Tsar, when he assumed the power. But it's his grangfather, who made most of the work, so creation of russian state attributed to him. When Ivan IV came of age, everything was already prepared.

It's true. But in the end he also was the one, who destroyed it by his decision to divide his realm between his sons. And it's not like it was very hard to predict, how well that decision would turn out. Especially when we talking about the guy, who gain throne by defeating his brother. And his father also came to power in very similiar way. In that cases flaws in the succession laws were overcomed by these guys abilities, but lucky streak didn't continue further.
So he played in history similiar role to Marcus Aurelius, since both brought the Golden Age to their countries and both undermine all their accomplishments by choosing the wrong heir/heirs.

But ok. I guess everyone here already got lethal dose of east slavic history.

 

That reminds me of how Louis I of the Caroligan Empire divided his empire between Lothair, Charles, Louis and Pepin. To top it off, Lothair split his share between his three sons. That's why I try to switch from gavel-kind succession law as soon as possible.

 

Elder Kings
Started as some lowly Colovian Lord
Notices he's a Master Wizard background

So I tried transmutation...




Becomes King years later with 2000 mercs...





And 25 Martial Daughter returns from her adventures in the Fighter's Guild with a slight quirk...