Space Satan
Arcane
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CKII is released.
- Thread starter Trash
- Start date
wwsd
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2011
- Messages
- 7,677
Haven't played this in a while, but I got the itch again lately. Decided to play as the Duke of Holland (should be Count, but whatever) in 1066 and managed to grab Zeeland and Utrecht about a century earlier than historical. So far so good. From there it became a bit tougher as my neighbour of Lower Lorraine decided to revive the Kingdom of Lotharingia.
Never noticed this before, but the HRE gets a lot of vassal kings very quickly due to titular kingdoms. Most of them only require you to hold 2 duchies, the capital county, and a big bag of money. So within 30 years of the start there are titular kings in Franconia, Swabia, and Thuringia, along with "proper" kings in Lotharingia and Bohemia. It's a bit much. All these guys are crowned kings and yet they are also fully-fledged vassals of the emperor. There doesn't seem to be any opinion penalty between the emperor and any of the kings. I thought there were opinion penalties for vassal kings, but maybe this is not the case for the HRE's form of government? There doesn't seem to be any penalty either way. I noticed the Byzantine emperor also has a Despot of Thrace under him, also with no penalties except that the Despot resents other titles being given as viceroyalties.
Granted, most of these kingdoms are not very powerful, especially the titular ones that don't have any de-jure lands. But it's easy to imagine that they could be 100 years down the line. The emperor can then simply call in the levies of these kingdoms without any apparent downsides. Historically, I don't think the HRE had any kings except Bohemia, is that right? Probably the empire should fall apart when 5-10 vassals all start crowning themselves, but that's not happening. I never even realised this before. Anyone else seen this happen? It would be nice to be able to change the rules to restrict all these kingdoms from forming, but the option doesn't seem to be there.
Never noticed this before, but the HRE gets a lot of vassal kings very quickly due to titular kingdoms. Most of them only require you to hold 2 duchies, the capital county, and a big bag of money. So within 30 years of the start there are titular kings in Franconia, Swabia, and Thuringia, along with "proper" kings in Lotharingia and Bohemia. It's a bit much. All these guys are crowned kings and yet they are also fully-fledged vassals of the emperor. There doesn't seem to be any opinion penalty between the emperor and any of the kings. I thought there were opinion penalties for vassal kings, but maybe this is not the case for the HRE's form of government? There doesn't seem to be any penalty either way. I noticed the Byzantine emperor also has a Despot of Thrace under him, also with no penalties except that the Despot resents other titles being given as viceroyalties.
Granted, most of these kingdoms are not very powerful, especially the titular ones that don't have any de-jure lands. But it's easy to imagine that they could be 100 years down the line. The emperor can then simply call in the levies of these kingdoms without any apparent downsides. Historically, I don't think the HRE had any kings except Bohemia, is that right? Probably the empire should fall apart when 5-10 vassals all start crowning themselves, but that's not happening. I never even realised this before. Anyone else seen this happen? It would be nice to be able to change the rules to restrict all these kingdoms from forming, but the option doesn't seem to be there.
Beastro
Arcane
- Joined
- May 11, 2015
- Messages
- 8,099
I don't know how it works in vanilla, but with CK2+ the HRE kings are retitled to fit the place of the stem duchies and later electors (Grand Duke of Bavaria, Margrave of Brandenburg, King of Bohemia).
Looking at both as king level titles, they do have a place, the only thing is of the stem duchies all but Bavaria collapsed in the 12th Century and right after were effectively replaced by the rise of Brandenburg, Bohemia and Austria to titular prominence.
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Citizen
Guest
What's his codex handle
skaraher
Cipher
Hey, hey people
fantadomat
Arcane
Ugh, I hate myself for knowing what that shit was about.
Citizen
Guest
Whatever shit you posted didn't load
fantadomat
Arcane
Ok,Kanye.
Whatever shit you posted didn't load
eXalted
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2014
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- 1,213
This guy fucking good. Any other similar channels? Please do recommend. thx bye
catfood
AGAIN
eXalted
Arcane
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- Dec 16, 2014
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Hah, yeah, this is my fav review channel on YouTube.
wwsd
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2011
- Messages
- 7,677
It's absolutely insane right now. I've posted many pet peeves with CK2, but Hory Furry crusades have gotten completely out of hand. At first I enjoyed them, including the challenge of holding off a Fourth Crusade-style war with the Byzantine Empire. But now, at least in the 1066 campaign, it's becoming incredibly annoying. Let me count the ways.
1) The entire Catholic world always seems to join the crusade when it's called, so they always get massive doomstacks. Meanwhile, someone like the Fatimid caliph gets supported by only a few emirs at best.
2) According to the Wiki, Jerusalem is in the top range of crusade priorities out of all the Muslim-owned kingdoms in 1066, but in my games, the Catholics ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS go for Egypt. The Fatimids are obviously no match for them, they're not even a match for the HRE on its own, never mind all the fucking Catholics of Europe. Take into account the warscore system mentioned above and you can see what happens.
3) The crusader Kingdom of Egypt is then formed, usually with a strong king with 20-30k troops at his disposal. So he can easily steamroll Jerusalem, Africa, Arabia (Mecca and Medina) and become completely unstoppable. He usually has some courtiers with claims abroad which he can also push, painting the map further.
4) Catholics constantly have 100% moral authority, Muslims have little. Jihads rarely get called even if Mecca is lost, and then they never get any support. The Jihads I've seen have been for places like Anatolia, even though that's also supposedly far below Egypt on the list of Muslim priorities. So you tell me how this works.
5) When the Catholics win the crusade (inevitably), all participants are completely awash with money from the war chest, something the Orthodox generally don't get. I guess the Muslims would get the same thing IF they ever won a Jihad.
I'm not sure which patch started this thing or what happened to the crusade priorities, but it's beyond annoying. I'm considering playing with Defensive Pacts for the first time ever, just to see if that stops the ahistorical Super-Catholics and their doomstacks. Turning off Holy Fury won't help, because these crusade mechanics are a free feature of patch 3.0. It seems to me impossible to stop this steamroller unless you're playing the Byzantines or Seljuks and you actively prevent it from happening. But starting with smaller rulers is no fun anymore because this shit overwhelms everything. So Paradox have basically sucked the fun out of the one game start that has been the classic since CK1, so you might as well go back in time to LARP Vikings or kike Khazars or something. I wonder if it will ever get patched again now that the base game is free and the focus is on CK3, which by the way looks like a fucking browser game that I will never spend my shekels on.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
Yea, you gotta roll up your sleeves and either pre-emptively get cracking on customizing the situation (another example of a bonkers system is secret cults, AKA your entire kingdom is secretly not your religion) to avoid stupid situations, or activating the console and doing it manually after the fact.
Generally speaking I think there's two main issues with the "wtf Egypt" situation: First is the war system still being shit, CK needs to completely eradicate the levy system (and the retinue system) for something more sensible and functional, and shift focus more to restrictions of roads and terrain and a clear attacker-defender split instead of the utterly stupid "in the same province" system that exists now. Attrition and supply limit is also a rather poor system (I'll say it again because it was so mindbogglingly elegant as a way of presenting pre-modern logistics, but the harvest->supplies taken->either go home or raid the countryside for more supplies system in Nobunaga's Ambition along with how it handles roads for moving troops should so be copied for CKwhatever; heck it's even got a working version of the levy system!). The war system is fundamentally what causes the doomstack invasion to work. Secondly it's that the game's really bad at handling cultural spread, cultural shifts and syncretism (okay, these CAN be modded, it's just that it's extremely inelegant, time-consuming, and rigid), and very importantly motherfucking bordergore (and this is where attempted modding solutions will just cause bigger problems!). Another more fundamental problem is the lack of diplomatic options and diplomacy in general. Defensive pacts are basically a bandaid that doesn't really solve anything since it will just either act as an annoyance to the player or just temporarily deter war.
Regardless, I'd still rather play CK2 because it's much more pliable to mod than CK1 and it does have viking larping (even though I never use the vikings really; the viking larp problem is really just that if you enable pagan reformation, there really should be more of a snowballing effect so if one pagan group reforms odds are the rest will too, just so the campaign and situation gets more interesting).
Generally speaking I think there's two main issues with the "wtf Egypt" situation: First is the war system still being shit, CK needs to completely eradicate the levy system (and the retinue system) for something more sensible and functional, and shift focus more to restrictions of roads and terrain and a clear attacker-defender split instead of the utterly stupid "in the same province" system that exists now. Attrition and supply limit is also a rather poor system (I'll say it again because it was so mindbogglingly elegant as a way of presenting pre-modern logistics, but the harvest->supplies taken->either go home or raid the countryside for more supplies system in Nobunaga's Ambition along with how it handles roads for moving troops should so be copied for CKwhatever; heck it's even got a working version of the levy system!). The war system is fundamentally what causes the doomstack invasion to work. Secondly it's that the game's really bad at handling cultural spread, cultural shifts and syncretism (okay, these CAN be modded, it's just that it's extremely inelegant, time-consuming, and rigid), and very importantly motherfucking bordergore (and this is where attempted modding solutions will just cause bigger problems!). Another more fundamental problem is the lack of diplomatic options and diplomacy in general. Defensive pacts are basically a bandaid that doesn't really solve anything since it will just either act as an annoyance to the player or just temporarily deter war.
Regardless, I'd still rather play CK2 because it's much more pliable to mod than CK1 and it does have viking larping (even though I never use the vikings really; the viking larp problem is really just that if you enable pagan reformation, there really should be more of a snowballing effect so if one pagan group reforms odds are the rest will too, just so the campaign and situation gets more interesting).
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wwsd
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2011
- Messages
- 7,677
It's just getting to the point where the whole façade of being some kind of feudalism simulator with RPG elements cracks up completely. And then the fun does come from just loading up with some probably ahistorical Viking leader, going nuts with warrior lodges, reaving and raping, etc. All well and good, but it has little to do with the original premise.
Supposedly, rebellions by factionalist nobles were toned down at some point because casual gamers didn't like having their empires fall apart due to unhappy vassals, which was a bigger risk a few years ago. But now you have the Conclave council which can cockblock you in many ways, but if you have a bunch of top vassals in there, they can't join factions most of the time. I mean it's not all bad, constantly having to fight off hopeless rebellions is nobody's idea of fun either, but there has to be some happy medium which is lost now. Only the Byzantines seem to have factional troubles, and indeed when the AI plays them, they constantly seem to be in one or multiple claimant wars.
Supposedly, rebellions by factionalist nobles were toned down at some point because casual gamers didn't like having their empires fall apart due to unhappy vassals, which was a bigger risk a few years ago. But now you have the Conclave council which can cockblock you in many ways, but if you have a bunch of top vassals in there, they can't join factions most of the time. I mean it's not all bad, constantly having to fight off hopeless rebellions is nobody's idea of fun either, but there has to be some happy medium which is lost now. Only the Byzantines seem to have factional troubles, and indeed when the AI plays them, they constantly seem to be in one or multiple claimant wars.
Deus Vult goatfuckers.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
The fundamental problem is really just that feudalism simulator and grand strategy game aren't really that compatible at all. You can have a character-driven grand strategy game where Your Guy does epic deeds and cucks the whole world, but you can't do a proper simulation of feudalism because the core considerations are simply opposite. Grand strategy is oriented outwards, a feudalism simulation is oriented inwards. So I look at CK2 as a character-driven grand strategy game, and it has the groundwork on that (the glaring flaws are bordergore and the war system).
A proper feudalism simulator wouldn't really have any strategy view at all. Heck, it might be first person as you go over papers and oral reports in order to manage stuff within your own castle and within the estates general, and then move to the next step to get the clock along, and the entire thing is focused more on the internal politics of a single realm rather than how that realm looks like on the map. I don't think such a game would even have a dynastic timeline for a good focus, just from cradle to grave would get a much better and more realistic (and possibly even educational) experience that serves the gameplay's goal of presenting a feudal system.
A proper feudalism simulator wouldn't really have any strategy view at all. Heck, it might be first person as you go over papers and oral reports in order to manage stuff within your own castle and within the estates general, and then move to the next step to get the clock along, and the entire thing is focused more on the internal politics of a single realm rather than how that realm looks like on the map. I don't think such a game would even have a dynastic timeline for a good focus, just from cradle to grave would get a much better and more realistic (and possibly even educational) experience that serves the gameplay's goal of presenting a feudal system.
The earliest two bookmarks of the AGOT mod are very fun. No Iron Throne means you have a nice geopolitical balance and the lack of technological advancement means realms tend to be quite politically. I've been having a blast as the Daynes working to gain independence and then liberate all the Stone Dornish from the Martells (also having to fend off some pretty damn scary Ironborn raids and Tyroshi slavers). Aegon got assassinated by some random Clawman lord's wife so never got much further than conquering the Stormlands (what his successors seem to be struggling to hold even with dragons) while the Tullys and Freys managed to gain independence of most of the Riverlands from Harren the Black.
Otherwise I find the Targaryen rule bookmarks extremely boring due to the ridigity of the Iron Throne mechanics.
Otherwise I find the Targaryen rule bookmarks extremely boring due to the ridigity of the Iron Throne mechanics.
Chaos is a ladder.
TheEntitledOne
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2012
- Messages
- 4,065
Ironmen are loads of fun.
Ended up hoarding every Valyrian steel sword I could find, not to mention I had a very diverse harem.
Damn one of the Lannister Kings of the Rock has somehow become Chosen of Rha'llor (I see he had a Volantene wife and the zealous trait, I wonder if it's event related?) what has given him some monstorous stats (though only one of his vassals has converted so far) while the Celtigars seem to have pulled a fast one on the Targs and usurped control. Due to a long reign under a good ruler I definitely out-muscle the Martells (who've been taking advantage of the chaos in the Stormlands to try gobble up some territory) so might try and put a swoop on the whole kingdom (and put those filthy Rhoynar gypsies back under rightful Andal authority). I'm bros with the Reach after several generations of inter-marriage so I'm trying to support them just enough to hold back the fire-worshipping Lannister fanatics while also not becoming so strong that they can become hegemon of Westeros instead.
Don't think I've had this much fun or seen such a dynamic game in either vanilla or a mod in a long time.
Don't think I've had this much fun or seen such a dynamic game in either vanilla or a mod in a long time.
eXalted
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2014
- Messages
- 1,213
I've read many comments that after the first generation in a bookmark AGOT becomes kind of boring because of no story-related events. Is this really the case?
Yes and no. It's true, specific events stop with historic characters. There are some generic, random events however. Game just becomes standard after first generation.
No more boring than any game of CK2 then really. But the key strength of the early starts is that there's far more room for expansion and chaos than the boring stability the Iron Throne era brings (the Clash of Kings and Feast for Crows start are good too but I'm sure everyone's played those).
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