CKII is released.

[JudasIscariot]

I just had the most messed up civil war happen: a duke demands that I abdicate (he has a 40% plot power). I say no, since I've defeated plenty of independence factions before, which is harder since I have to occupy the rebel territory. The rebels get a bonus army of around 15-20K troops. I raise all my troops to quell the uprising.

Then, in a chain reaction, the four rebelling dukes convince nine more dukes to join the rebellion, so that 13 out of my 22 dukes oppose me now. Moreover, a lot of my raised troops change allegiance so I can't gather my forces. I had 2300 gold in the treasury, so I hired 4500 Swiss mercs.

I win a lot of victories against smaller armies (1-4K), but the rebels are starting sieges in multiple counties. I focus on defending my duchies and preventing smaller armies from merging. Some neighboring states declare war on some rebelling dukes to take their territories.

I keep bleeding money due to mercs and baronies being conquered, until I'm down to around 1500 gold and war score -70%. I send my spymaster to the county the pretender duke is currently occupying, and the assassination chance of success is 30%, with a 32% chance of being discovered. I try six assassination attempts (250 gp each), but the duke survives and finds out twice.

My treasury is empty, so I dismiss my mercs and try to save some more gold. I win a few minor victories, defeating a 4500 stack, when the 12K doomstack notices me. I retreat to my capital, but the doomstack is in pursuit. I dismiss my levies, so bolster the defenses and save some more gold. Finally, I save 253 gp and try one more assassination...

... and fail again, being discovered for the third time. The war score is -80% and my personal counties are under siege. I can't raise my levies and have no money for mercs, so I surrender immediately, with the reply expected in 9 days.

Here's where things get weird. The duke is angry from the assassination attempts (-600 opinion penalty), so he tries to assassinate me, but I survive and my spymaster asks in an event whether to try to assassinate the duke in retaliation (for free). Figuring I have nothing to lose, I say "yes"... and the claimant duke is killed!

The rebels lose their cassus belli, and the civil war stops. This is how I won a war after surrendering.

This is why I am aiming to not have so many dukes. Divide and conquer, that is keep the little vassal bastards as counts and no higher, and never worry about whiny dukes ever again. I hope to have no dukes later on down the line, just counts upon counts :D

 

[mondblut]

This is why I am aiming to not have so many dukes. Divide and conquer, that is keep the little vassal bastards as counts and no higher, and never worry about whiny dukes ever again. I hope to have no dukes later on down the line, just counts upon counts :D

With faction mechanics that's hardly helpful. A faction would just invite 50 counts instead of 10 dukes. And with levy penalties per tier, wouldn't they have twice as many troops as their dukes would?

I still stick with kings, and screw their -25 penalties. I'd rather manage 20 ungrateful bastards than 200, who only have a quarter of their collective levies to boot.

 

[Jarpie]

I wonder what's the next DLC will be about, playable holy orders like Knights Templar? Has there been any rumours?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I wonder what's the next DLC will be about, playable holy orders like Knights Templar? Has there been any rumours?

The oldest rumour has been adding Trade Goods to provinces and trade routes in general to add more to the economy gameplay. Besides that, the most frequent rumour has been a "story" focused expansion, meaning a lot more event chains and dynastic drama caused by event chains.

I doubt they're considering of adding theocratic gameplay anytime soon, unless it's kind of like what the Borgias did with the Papal office, meaning you might be able to push your family members into leadership positions in Papacy/local holy order and thus make them temporarily part of your domain.

 

[Zero Credibility]

What pisses me off the most about vassal dukes / kings is that the laws of any title you hand out get set to default. And that means no feudal taxes for anyone except your direct vassals, ever. For me it is just unacceptable that over a half of my realm is paying zero taxes to me. Fuck this, I have set harsh feudal taxes and minimal levies for a reason. I can understand dukes taking a big cut for themselves, sure. But not even bothering to collect any taxes from their vassals? Say I have an average three county duchy with three counts. On average with maximum taxes each count would pay about half what I could get from one city holding. That doesn't sound much, but in a large realm this quickly adds up to very large income. Now I hand out a duchy to one of the counts. Suddenly two of the counts are paying no taxes to the duke, and a percentage of zero is again zero, so they are not paying me anything either and I'm down one city worth of income.

This is why in my games there are no dukes, it's just not worth it.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

True, you'd think Realm laws for vassals would actually have more weight.

 

[JudasIscariot]

This is why I am aiming to not have so many dukes. Divide and conquer, that is keep the little vassal bastards as counts and no higher, and never worry about whiny dukes ever again. I hope to have no dukes later on down the line, just counts upon counts :D

With faction mechanics that's hardly helpful. A faction would just invite 50 counts instead of 10 dukes. And with levy penalties per tier, wouldn't they have twice as many troops as their dukes would?

I still stick with kings, and screw their -25 penalties. I'd rather manage 20 ungrateful bastards than 200, who only have a quarter of their collective levies to boot.

I am not 100 sure about this as I am still new to this game but don't dukes have an elector vote each while counts and below have none? I am running a feudal elective and I notice I have to constantly play the medieval equivalent of a modern-day politician by courting the dukes' votes for my chosen heir.

Also, I tried to kill off my current Emperor because a) he's getting long in the tooth and b) the good heir isn't getting any younger. I fired my Spymaster and tried to assassinate the Emperor of HRE, didn't work and my Emperor avoided the counter assassination. Tried assassinating the Pope with a 14% chance and no Spymaster...and I manage to kill the Pope without anyone knowing it was me. I swear when you don't want them to die they just keel over dead for no reason but try and kill them and your rulers manage to stay alive despite all the odds. So now I am just playing like the old Emperor has gone crazy and doing all kinds of things to try and get him bumped off. I wish I had the Depressed trait but alas, he loves life too much to let it go.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Assuming you have a decent Kwisatz Haderach operation going on, 2k+ Prestige, and have been a good ruler overall then most dukes will suck your dick and vote for whomever you want.

And yea, Depression is awesome in CK2.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I wish there was a way to just abdicate in favour of your heir. Like, if your ruler is 60+ years old with an adult heir he can just step aside and remain a courtier in the heir's court. Or earlier if he has stressed or maimed or infirm or similar traits. To prevent using it for last minute tyranny spree (like depressed is used now) you could make it so that any consequences (treaties, tyranny) of the reign of the old ruler is applied to the heir if the old guy stepped aside voluntarily. And it would limit the silliness we have now with suicide-by-failed-assasination.

 

[Average Manatee]

Well, you can abdicate by having a tyranny war and surrendering. Your vassal chooses who gets to replace you, which may be your heir if they are well-trained.

One of the powergaming LPs used this to unite the entire Karling realm under one ruler within a few weeks of game start.

 

[LizardWizard]

I wonder what's the next DLC will be about, playable holy orders like Knights Templar? Has there been any rumours?

Seems to be focusing on core gameplay

Also:

Spoiler

Charles the Great

 

[RK47]

Depression is awesome in CK2.

Yeah. That's the funny thing about the game.
Knowing that you've the option to 'end it all' whenever you want it is just too strong of an option.
Abdication is basically too advantageous and will just fuck over the AI more.

 

[Jarpie]

I wonder what's the next DLC will be about, playable holy orders like Knights Templar? Has there been any rumours?

Seems to be focusing on core gameplay

Also:

Spoiler

Charles the Great

Where was that?

 

[Lagole Gon]

Spoiler

Probably fake. We will know soon enough.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

More pagan religions would be quite nice.

Besides that an expanded timeline would just end up causing history to be raped even harder.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Spoiler

So it is Charlemagne after all.

...

Meh.

...

On second thought... 769 (?) bookmark can be pretty lulzy. Kebab of kebabs and somewhat stronger pagans. Blob will be strong in this one.
Customizable kingdoms and empires... what?

 

[Jarpie]

Fucking blue blobs again, fuck that.

 

[mondblut]

Customizable kingdoms and empires... what?

So I could have duchy revocation, concubines, welsh retinues and divine blood all thrown together? Awesome :D

 

[Lagole Gon]

Hmmm... Now I have an eerie feeling that 769 can be simply broken outside the event driven Charlemagne game.

 

[Konjad]

What the fuck is this

 

[Konjad]

where is my Pope DLC

 

[Tytus]

Spoiler

So it is Charlemagne after all.

...

Meh.

...

On second thought... 769 (?) bookmark can be pretty lulzy. Kebab of kebabs and somewhat stronger pagans. Blob will be strong in this one.
Customizable kingdoms and empires... what?

Fuck that, seriously why focus on him and not do the more sensible thing and make the expansion about Clovis I? Starting in 481 right after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. This expansion would glorious just because I could the mudslimes in the teeth during their rise to power and save the world from the scurge of Islam. Not to mention, the time period is really fucking interesting.

 

[not an artichoke]

How would they model the rise of Islam within the game engine though? A Mongol style horde wouldn't really be accurate.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

And personally I'd like a new Rome game instead (but one set a lot earlier, since all the cool guys are out of the picture at EU: Rome startdate).

 

[mondblut]

Wait a sec, press says it is going to be "story-driven"? As in, "mission 7: take Roland's army to Barcelona"?



Fucking storyfag larpers can't leave no game unruined.

 

[Lagole Gon]

How would they model the rise of Islam within the game engine though? A Mongol style horde wouldn't really be accurate.

C'mon. We all know swedes are not going to touch anything with Mo' in it. They even censored the fucking portrait.

 

[Abelian]

After a 14-year interregnum, I managed to install my deposed emperor's son.

Unfortunately, when the deposed emperor died, he had two duchies with gavelkind succession (seriously, that is messed up: he had elective succession as emperor; why shouldn't he be able to keep it for the duchies?). He was able to create a kingdom within the empire, but died before he was able to change the succession law. He had twin sons, and unfortunately, I ended up playing as the one with worse stats.

So now I have a kingdom within the empire and the best counties in terms of technological advancements and buildings. I start a faction supporting my twin as emperor. The emperor is getting worried, so he makes me chancellor and gives me a couple of dukes as direct vassals. Idiot. Now my faction is even stronger.

I bid my time (read: save money for mercs) until the emperor is preoccupied with fighting the ERE's megastacks. He is winning, but the main army is outside the borders, busy with a siege.

Now I declare myself as pretender and convince a duke to support me. I get 6K free troops. The emperor rushes to save his counties from my siege, so I lay out my favorite trap: I leave an army smaller than his, so he will attack me. However, he has to cross a major river, which results in a large negative modified. Then, once the battle is joined, I bring my reinforcements from an adjacent county, so now he is outnumbered as well. With the main imperial army defeated, I can conquer counties and depose the emperor.

I love this game.