CKII is released.

[omega21]

Sons of Abraham allows you to play as a Jewish Merchant Prince. It's basically how the Codex views the world.

How do you manage that? Do you start as a random Jewish dude in the Levant and hope to form Israel?

 

[Norfleet]

Someone has also pointed out the new direction the eugenics game could take now - instead of marrying the best genetic stock you can find you now seduce as many women as you can to have as many bastards as possible - AI characters have managed to have more than 20, a player could do much better. Then you just legitimise the best of the best - basically you can designate you heir. Suddenly even gavelkind is no problem - just have only one legitimised son around at any time. If he dies just legitimise another one. True, all the husbands hating you could be a problem, but as long as you don't pick landed targets what can they do about it?

I am going to play it this way now, just to see what happens. Crusader Pimps of the Kwisatz Haderach we go! Now to just acquire this...

 

[Turisas]

Did they ever end up sorting out the issue with marrying outside of your faith? It was practically impossible when I last played, before Rajas came out.

 

[Xeon]

I think you can marry if the person is in your dungeon or something but the liege will not accept his subjects to marry someone of a different religion.

 

[Average Manatee]

The seduce thing is hilarious. Slutty queen is now OP. Being a Master Seducer with seduce focus gives +60 opinion with every man in the world (if you take a week to become a lover that's another +75). Fuck anyone AND murder anyone (everyone supports your plots), and all of your vassals are in perpetual states of bliss at being ruled by you.

One other complaint I have is that Bishoprics are now almost always utterly worthless. All bishops end up with +30 head of religion and +20 pope has theology focus and unless the rest of the popes traits are complete dogshit you'll never have bishops pay you anything or give you any troops. On a side note did bishops always not provide troops when they liked the pope more than you? I seem to recall that not being the case. Certainly when the pope goes to war he doesn't use those troops.

Another new feature they barely bother to test , but i am more annoyed by the retinues change, now they are ultra slow to reinforce and ultra expensive.

It's been that way for a while. It's better, they were way OP in earlier versions. The whole military game is supposed to be based around keeping vassals happy so that they give you levies rather than fight you, not walking around with popamole regenerating health doomstacks. Unless you are Mongol.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Bah, tried to play with the latest patch. My game came to a grinding halt when I realised something is seriously wrong with the AI - most of them were not doing anything. The ERE, the Abbasids and the Karlings haven't declared a single fucking war in 50 years that I have seen.

It looks like loading a saved game will create a problem with any vassal levies raised by any character (player or AI) in the world - they can't be dismissed with the dismiss levies button on the warfare tab. This just breaks any AI realm, it can't dismiss levies so it can't declare wars and just sits there accumulating vassal levies raised penalties until rebellions break out over and over again. And the longer you play the more times you are likely to load the game causing more and more AI realms to be broken. Seriously, fuck that.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Got Way of Life today, started another game with Sogdians again.
So far so good - took martial focus, conquered Chay and then some Afghans started fighting Birjand for a county in Samarkand, which pretty much demolished their army, so I went in and pillaged pretty much fucking everything and killed their small army and shortly after declared war and easily took over Samarkand duchy with mercs + tribal troops (was actually overkill, but I wanted to keep the Abbasids away) and also used it to kill some of their allies' troops to soften them up. After that, Birjand got a breakaway rebellion, which fucked up the Birjands pretty bad so once again I went in and roflpwnd and pillaged pretty much all I could (and destroyed the city of Khiva. Ooops!) and got loads of jewgold. Then I conquered a muslim sheikdom near the Caspian sea using a forged claim (so as to not cause a holy war).

Martial Focus is one hell of a martial boost, nice events, lots of prestige too

The plan now is to conquer what remains of Birjand and become King of Khiva all the while I wait for my ruler to die and deal with Gavelkind's fallout and meanwhile I'm going to pillage the shit of the Tarqids. I also plan to conquer some stuff north to get a extra dukedom and maybe do a expedition to Afghanistan to create a same-dinasty allied buffer kingdom there in order to prevent the Abbasids or other muslims from taking it and get a extra zoroastrian ally on the side.

Too bad I got penalties from being tribal and having normal castle holdings, but I got a nice income and nice land now, and can still raid, so eh. Thinking about doing fabricated claim wars instead of holy wars after I become King of Khiva, its slow and more expensive but at least it avoids the risk of getting the Abbasid blob of doom on my case.


One thing: Its just me or Way of Life just gutted the ambitions system? There's a lot less ambitions there now, especially because a lot of them were "enhance your X stat". Now its just son/daughter, wealth, prestige, piety, become King, get married. They need to put more ambitions there, bad.

I think you can marry if the person is in your dungeon or something but the liege will not accept his subjects to marry someone of a different religion.

Yeah, that "Must not marry a infidel" modifier is fuck strong, its sorta ridiculous because inter-religious marriages clearly happened a lot at the time.

 

[Riso]

Meanwhile I can't upload any mods.

 

[Turrul]

Meanwhile I can't upload any mods.

Steamworkshop? I heard there's a problem with it.

 

[Talby]

Should Way of Life be avoided then? I was going to get it for the sake of having all the important DLC, but it sounds really broken and unbalanced.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Should Way of Life be avoided then? I was going to get it for the sake of having all the important DLC, but it sounds really broken and unbalanced.

The main problem for now is just that it's got several Crusader Pimps issues that a player themselves can address if they want to waste the effort (given that it's going to get patched eventually; probably when they patch the previous patch). I wouldn't say avoid, just wait. The core features added are very good (supposedly there's also a better way to add ethnicity based coats of arms now as well, which I have yet to take a look into) and definately getting used a lot by modders, all it needs is more patching.

Yeah, that "Must not marry a infidel" modifier is fuck strong, its sorta ridiculous because inter-religious marriages clearly happened a lot at the time.

This can easily be changed as the player wishes by modding the religions file. The intermarry parameter is child's play to expand as one desires, personally I usually expand this at least for Europagans to cover all other Europagans.

How do you manage that? Do you start as a random Jewish dude in the Levant and hope to form Israel?

Ruler Designer is the only way to start as a Jew besides Semien and Khazars, and don't know if one can give titles to a Jewish courtier. Khazars are the only way to form a Merchant Republic without giving the title to a Mayor or using Ruler Designer on one of the existing Merchant Republics or Tribes.

 

[Turrul]

don't know if one can give titles to a Jewish courtier.

You could back in 2.1.6 (RoI), I doubt that it's removed.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You could back in 2.1.6 (RoI), I doubt that it's removed.

The only reason I don't know is simply that I never tried.

 

[Kattze]

Why do all seductions result in guaranteed pregnancies? It should be RNG-based, not every time you fuck, there's guaranteed bastard to be chucked out. Also, why the fuck are there 'no, we can't fuck cos we're siblings' for Zoros, when its a cornerstone belief in their religion? Also, you should be able to fuck your parents and your daughters/sons.

 

[Luzur]

You guys know of this mod?

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

A query: When it is the right time to feudalize? Because of 9 provinces in my desmene, 5 are feudal and I got good holdings in Khiva and Samarkand, but new taken province modifiers are still going on in some of them. But I'm afraid of lacking muh summon tribal warriors spell and tribal kickstarters. What is better for Sogdiana?

Btw, tribal warriors can be used as cheese to roll-over entire kingdoms: Just pause when you peace out, get rid of levies and then declare war again, the Tribal Warriors stay, repeat or stay at war until you have whatever you want.

Also, any idea on what to do regarding that giant Abbasid blob of doom? When they get involved in wars, I assault everything to get 100% war score and peace out, but sooner or later my time will run out. They can casually wave 15k doomstacks around like it ain't no thang. Maybe if I summoned three merc companies, recruited every man in my kingdom and used 2.5k worth of prestige to summon a epic army of tribal warriors, then I could match them. In theory. Outside of that, seems attrition and leading them on a chase is the best idea.

 

[RedScum]

Also, you should be able to fuck your parents and your daughters/sons.

- RPG Codex 2014

 

[Turrul]

Also, you should be able to fuck your parents and your daughters/sons.

I was actually suprised when I found out that it was only sisters/half-sisters.

 

[Luzur]

I was actually suprised when I found out that it was only sisters/half-sisters.

wasnt there a mod that fixed this "motherfucker" problem? i know it caused a small discussion at the Paradox forum.

 

[Average Manatee]

A query: When it is the right time to feudalize? Because of 9 provinces in my desmene, 5 are feudal and I got good holdings in Khiva and Samarkand, but new taken province modifiers are still going on in some of them. But I'm afraid of lacking muh summon tribal warriors spell and tribal kickstarters. What is better for Sogdiana?

Ideally all of your demense is upgraded such that it will all become feudal together, rather than only your capital. If that would cost too much then give away the crap ones and take a bunch of feudal holdings before you do it.

Btw, tribal warriors can be used as cheese to roll-over entire kingdoms: Just pause when you peace out, get rid of levies and then declare war again, the Tribal Warriors stay, repeat or stay at war until you have whatever you want.

Ya, this is hilarious. Can easily get permanent 50k armies of doom.

Also, any idea on what to do regarding that giant Abbasid blob of doom? When they get involved in wars, I assault everything to get 100% war score and peace out, but sooner or later my time will run out. They can casually wave 15k doomstacks around like it ain't no thang. Maybe if I summoned three merc companies, recruited every man in my kingdom and used 2.5k worth of prestige to summon a epic army of tribal warriors, then I could match them. In theory. Outside of that, seems attrition and leading them on a chase is the best idea.

Are they at the point where pagan attrition is still a factor? If so then the supply limit in your territory for them is like 2k, so let them eat shit on your sand.

wasnt there a mod that fixed this "motherfucker" problem? i know it caused a small discussion at the Paradox forum.

Yes, it's pretty easy to mod.

 

[kris]

Why do all seductions result in guaranteed pregnancies? It should be RNG-based, not every time you fuck, there's guaranteed bastard to be chucked out. Also, why the fuck are there 'no, we can't fuck cos we're siblings' for Zoros, when its a cornerstone belief in their religion? Also, you should be able to fuck your parents and your daughters/sons.

I checked the files. The Zoroastrians should be able to marry/fuck close kin.

 

[Sranchammer]

It's odd playing EU:Rome and realizing very little was put into use with CK2.

 

[Whisky]

You guys know of this mod?

Yeah, it's great with a surprising amount of good custom face graphics for the races.

Too bad it's probably never going to get updates. It's already two expansions behind.

 

[A horse of course]

Also, you should be able to fuck your parents and your daughters/sons.

And in the game, too.

 

[Destroid]

I read Skaven and thought it was gonna be Warhammer Fantasy, disappointed.