CKII is released.

Just wait until your entire realm turns into a consortium of immortal secret vampires.

Elder Kings isn't really bad, but it suffers from a lack of things to do, no major threats to the player and their expansion, and it's too easy to get uber stats.

I do like that you can become a vampire (A World of Darkness Vampire the Masquerade CK2 mod would be amazing) but it's far too limited and poorly balanced in its current incarnation.

 

Elder Kings is enjoyable, one of my favorites, but man is it unbalanced and crazy. You get crazy money doing slave raids for very little drawbacks and if you start transmuting cash as well...

 

Guess it's about time to ask: any major gameplay mods get up to scratch last couple months?

 

PB + SWMH + VIET + Arko is currently your best bet for a mod foundation. Plenty of little ones you can layer on top if you are so inclined. They're all updated to run well with the recent patches, but no major changes to gameplay that they didn't already have.

Just don't forget to delete the dynasties text file from your arko install or it'll fuck up your game via conflicts with SWMH. The modder warned people about it on page 2938473894 of his mod's thread, but didn't edit that helpful information into the OP.

 

CK plus slowed down the game a lot.
Despise it.

 

Yeah, I tried it out; quickly deleted and stuck with PB. It's really well done - the more restrictive CBs in particular are well thought out and it doesn't suffer from feature bloat. Games run acceptably well to the end.

 

I'd say it'd actually be a good idea to make evil traits reduce Tyranny penalties or the like, since currently it's just not worth losing all the good guy trait bonuses to relations and everything else. You know, if you're a bastard you should be allowed to just scare the bejaysus out of your hapless vassals.

 

PLZ LOWER TAXES
(Wroth) How about I lower your life expectancy?
(Lustful) I hear you have a nice daughter...

If High Intrigue lets you get away with framing people I'd be happy.

 

Well more like combinations of nasty traits and stats letting you deal with disobedient vassals through intimidation alone instead of the usual appeasement vicious cycle is what I'd like. You know, (Cruel + Brilliant Strategist + Kinslayer + Possessed) "I eat dukes for a living and decapitate archbishops with my fist" should deter factional attempts as long as you inform everyone that the leader alone is going to be made an example out of.

You know, like an opposite of goot trait guy who just keeps things running smoothly through appeasements and Unfortunate Accidents, that you need to keep Tyranny at a certain critical mass but not above or below to keep up the vassal loaylty-by-fear to keep them from attempting extended family suicide-by-liege but without being such demonspawn you clearly need to be killed before you kill everyone else.

 

Well, it does work if u send spy to tell them NOT to participate in factions.
But like I said, high intrigue > framing vassals for crimes = Imprison with no Penalty = Evil Schemer Tyrant is what I want.

 

Yea, I can get why that'd be good. For me the whole Vlad Tepes approach being viable just ranks a tad higher.

 

Right now the ridiculous part is a good king who is just, honest and kind has easier time when plotting assassination cause people like him more than the target.
A tyrant king would have a harder time doing this since he has to expend more bribes to flip a supporter to his side.

 

If he even can.

Yea, it'd be a p. good idea to just polarize the effects a little more and do On Action removals of traits like Just, Kind and the like if you go around doing Unfortunate Accidents, and in return Kind Just Charitable combo kings just essentially get to discard factional juggling because you'd need to be a gigantic asshole to complain about anything they do. Currently it seems to me that less than 70 relations = forever factioning motherfuckers.

 

The Prince and the Thane mod removed traits like just and kind as soon as a hit is carried out.

 

Well, uh, the first post isn't that bad, in fact it'd be pretty cool. It's just that Awor seemed to respond to it.

 

oh boy

 

Yes we can!

 

That escutcheon is just perfect!

 

http://www.hongfire.com/forum/showthread.php/424955-Crusader-Kings-2-H-mod-possibilties

Have fun.

 

If they ever make that mod, wanna bet that it'll become Codex' favourite in short order?

 

This. The game needs more ways of play, dealing with problems and consequences of that type of play than just flat bonuses and farming for green circles. Like, talented good guy should has less trouble keeping country intact cause church and peasants and other guys like him, but nobody would give him +25-50 relationship points for crushing a revolt, as, well, nobody would be afraid of kind/craven ruler. OTOH, a guy with Dracula for second name would be hated but if this guy actually throws you into prison after revolt you'd be shitting your pants and crying for mommy for those green numbers.

 

Ck2 really needs a measure of a person's feeling towards other people besides like/dislike. Fear/admiration(or respect maybe) would be nice, though I don't think it is something that can be done at this point.