CKII is released.

[Beastro]

Right now, roleplaying a normal royal marriage in ck2 means a very good chance of getting cuckholded by every lousy count with a dick and seduction focus on. Which in a large realm is probably several at any time, even after the latest patches. Every single patch since WoL DLC has tried dealing with it by slapping a new band-aid over it, but all it does is try to hide the fact that AI simply has no idea why it does something beyond "the RNG said I should". Seduce the emperor's wife when he can crush me like a bug? Let's do it! Empress / imperial princess opening her legs for every geriatric STD ridden count that asks her? Why not! Faced with shit like this I feel the only reasonable response is to game the shit out of the system.

Or not play with Way of Life installed.

It's like bitching about Aztec Invasions band their BS but not turning the bloody DLC off.

The main thing CK2 has over the other games is the only real counter to blobbing that enriches RPing: You engineer your empires "inevitable" fall and while you're struggling to build your next one you get to pass the cease fires looking over the fragments of your old one and see who rises and falls.

In my "Saxons escape Northern Europe and flood North Africa" I returned to Saxony, installed the Ludolfingers and watched as Saxony and "East Saxony" were slowly eaten up be reconquering Catholics while my Scandinavian kings one by one converted when Crusades came their way as I spread into India leave a patchwork of North African and Mediterranean kingdoms to battle over the scraps.

Given Catholic resurgence and Islam being broken my courts now become a refugee camp in India for every noble house I installed in Northern Europe who didn't convert that has become a base from which the occasional pagan will inherit a Scandinavian kingdom and re-raise hell there. After I conquer India I plan to engineer another downfall, hopefully with Mongol aid and expand into Eurasia behind them to eventually overrun the Baltic again.

The campaigns been going off and on for over a year and I can't wait to do it again with another culture/religion/dynasty, not that I want to spot. North Africa is now half Saxon half German split between west and east modelled on my early westward expansion until I switched eastward and converted to German in order to reflect the influence of Chivalry being absorbed via Mediterranean osmosis since these still are Germans and would evolve along similar military lines given their outward, expansionistic outlook. Egypt is now a heartland for Germans, which I chuckle at given how Arabized it historically is.

On top of that the religion of "Saexneat" ("Germanic and Neo-Pagan names are BS when the last Germanics are only Saxons) is now all over North Africa cept for a few enclaves of Druze and Catholics still around that survived conversion to Islam, Saxony and the Baltic coast is mostly Catholic and Scandinavia is slowly converting while England and Ireland largely resisted conversion before a Catholic restoration and the pagan enclaves are quickly evaporating.

Oh, and the last bit of Nordic religion is in Iceland, beyond anyone's desire to conquer, where the Jomsvikings took over via a theocratic coup and now continue to occasionally send out little raiding parties to loot the North Sea only interrupted by occasional noble rebellions that try to reassert control. I aided the few remaining Zoroastrians to take Persia back and wait while they struggle to even stay together let alone survive the coming eastern storm, while my early gutting of Islam and repeated Holy Wars drained Islam enough that the Zunists survived, reformed and maintain a solid, if dyanstically unstable empire in Afghanistan and Punjab. Ceylon has become the main Saexneat vassel kingdom of mine in the Eastern Indian Ocean while I plan to conquer the coastline and install Zoroastrian, Jewish and Nestorian republics while given the in land to prominent and royal bastard pagan dynasties like I did in North Africa. The Arabian coastline is also a vassel Jewish king modelled on a restored Hymyarite kingdom in the region while Mecca and Medina are under the surviving Shiite Caliphate which I made a vassal upon their Syrian empires disintegration at the hands of the Seljuks.

It's about 1060 now and the games still amusing.

 

[Beastro]

I've read some excerpts of The Prince, like the importance of appearing virtuous and criticism of Louis XI, but I've got both The Prince and The Art of War on my reading list. I know that some scholars consider The Prince to be satirical since he favored republics as forms of government. That aside, my comment was made in jest.

The problem with Poe's Law is it also often hinges on people wishing what is said was only satire.

Had a certain German not gotten lucky and made what he wrote reality in a BIG way in the mid-20th Century I bet a lot of scholars would be calling Mein Kampf a satire of the brand of Fascism from inter-war Central Europe because no one would consider it sane.

Also check your Italian Renaissance history. Republic and dynastic families are NOT mutually exclusive. Most said republics were would-be royal dynasties in the making if they got lucky and united enough of Italy to be more than a city state. That didn't happen largely because of of pan-European politics wanting to keep the region divided (and France wanting it to be French).

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I still wish to one day figure out a simple and functional way to create a pagan domino effect for reforming (meaning that neighbouring reformed pagans make it easier to reform). I already tend to disable holy war and crusade CBs for reformed pagans against other reformed pagans due to how it only leads to the AI pagans jihading each other non-stop.

 

[Abelian]

The problem with Poe's Law is it also often hinges on people wishing what is said was only satire.

Had a certain German not gotten lucky and made what he wrote reality in a BIG way in the mid-20th Century I bet a lot of scholars would be calling Mein Kampf a satire of the brand of Fascism from inter-war Central Europe because no one would consider it sane.

Also check your Italian Renaissance history. Republic and dynastic families are NOT mutually exclusive. Most said republics were would-be royal dynasties in the making if they got lucky and united enough of Italy to be more than a city state. That didn't happen largely because of of pan-European politics wanting to keep the region divided (and France wanting it to be French).

I'm familiar with the Italian wars and the oligarchical city-republics, thank you. I never claimed that republics and dynastic families are mutually exclusive, although I'd say dynasties are very much against the spirit of republics (see Roman Principate). I didn't say I thought The Prince was a satire; I said that's the opinion of some scholars. I haven't studied Machiavelli enough to pass judgement on his actual intent.

My earlier joke was based the popular perception of Machiavelli as an evil manipulator and because this is the Internet, I then had to explain that I do not actually think that, but that real people actually have more complex motivations and that The Prince advocated political pragmatism.

Funny you should mention Poe's Law, since that's what happened to my original joke. In regards to your own post, I could theoretically invoke Godwin's Law *.

*Smiley added due to Poe's Law

 

[wwsd]

The game of throne mod received a big update today.

And it's gotten more retarded. Looks like they're following Paradox's updating model.

 

[Beastro]

I didn't say I thought The Prince was a satire; I said that's the opinion of some scholars

My earlier joke was based the popular perception of Machiavelli as an evil manipulator and because this is the Internet, I then had to explain that I do not actually think that, but that real people actually have more complex motivations and that The Prince advocated political pragmatism.

And my little remark was poking fun over said scholars thinking that way, not over you bringing it up.

Stop being so damn defensive, not every one who posts here is knee deep in the antagonistic mentality that dominates this forum.

In regards to your own post, I could theoretically invoke Godwin's Law *.

Oh that lovely distortion of it where any mention of Nazi's now somehow invalidates an argument. The Law is over shit like "You're a vegetarian. Hitler was a vegetarian. You must like to kill Jews just like Hitler did therefore your opinion on Israel is invalid!" to shut down arguments.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Say, anyone got any idea how portrait offsets work and what they do exactly?

 

[Average Manatee]

Oh that lovely distortion of it where any mention of Nazi's now somehow invalidates an argument. The Law is over shit like "You're a vegetarian. Hitler was a vegetarian. You must like to kill Jews just like Hitler did therefore your opinion on Israel is invalid!" to shut down arguments.

That's just what an animal-supremacist would say. Why do you defend plant genocide?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well, figured out what can be done with offsets, and I'm pretty pleased with the results, since now I've got an Ugric gfx I'm satisfied with:

Spoiler

Once I figured out how to fiddle around with the beards' position, rest was easy. Still don't know what the hell to do about all the tiny shrapnel appearing here and there in the corners (like that little line next to the postrait shield in the pic there), can't figure out where they're from, but overall it's a pretty satisfactory result. I used the same thing to move down the standard beards a little too (as everyone knows by this point, Western European moustaches in CK2 are actually carefully cultivated nosehairs).

Obviously not historically accurate tho, since for that you'd just switch ugricgfx to mongolgfx.

 

[salaciousbcrumb]

I didn't say I thought The Prince was a satire; I said that's the opinion of some scholars

My earlier joke was based the popular perception of Machiavelli as an evil manipulator and because this is the Internet, I then had to explain that I do not actually think that, but that real people actually have more complex motivations and that The Prince advocated political pragmatism.

And my little remark was poking fun over said scholars thinking that way, not over you bringing it up.

Reading the prince and Machevelli's own letters seems to point out that he was a sardonic (though humerous) provocuer. I think the Prince has been badly misjudged by some people e.g. John Gotti, as a self help guide and if you read it in the same viein as Machevelli's other writings to his friends, it reeks of absolute worst truths being so overblown as to become a joke, similiar to Blackadder, being the only sane man seeing the insanity around him and sharing his cynicall humours, though he had no actual power...

...The part about mercanaries, is pure Blackadder.

George/DeMedici
Right Machavelli what do we do about clearing off all these bloody mercanaries, who are raping and pilliging our lands?

Blackadder/ Machevelli

You could use the money you have to train an army or invite some of the better mercenaries to be citezens with property and create your own standing army. Or you could hire more mercanaries to get rid of them.

George/DeMedici.

Bloody good idea.

Blackadder/Machevelli

You're going to create your own army.

George/Demedici

No I'll hire mercanaries to get rid of the mecenaries and if they don't like that, then I'll.... Then I'lll....Well then I'll bloody well hire some more mecenaries to get rid of the mercanaries.

Blackadder/Machevelli

Which mercanaries will you hire sire to get rid of the mercanaries who are supposed to get rid of the mecanaries?

George/DeMedici

Gosh you're so dense Machevelli. I'll hire the mercanaries we're trying to get rid of, of course.

Blackadder/Machevelli

Very good sire.

 

[Beastro]

I didn't say I thought The Prince was a satire; I said that's the opinion of some scholars

My earlier joke was based the popular perception of Machiavelli as an evil manipulator and because this is the Internet, I then had to explain that I do not actually think that, but that real people actually have more complex motivations and that The Prince advocated political pragmatism.

And my little remark was poking fun over said scholars thinking that way, not over you bringing it up.

Reading the prince and Machevelli's own letters seems to point out that he was a sardonic (though humerous) provocuer. I think the Prince has been badly misjudged by some people e.g. John Gotti, as a self help guide and if you read it in the same viein as Machevelli's other writings to his friends, it reeks of absolute worst truths being so overblown as to become a joke, similiar to Blackadder, being the only sane man seeing the insanity around him and sharing his cynicall humours, though he had no actual power...

...The part about mercanaries, is pure Blackadder.

George/DeMedici
Right Machavelli what do we do about clearing off all these bloody mercanaries, who are raping and pilliging our lands?

Blackadder/ Machevelli

You could use the money you have to train an army or invite some of the better mercenaries to be citezens with property and create your own standing army. Or you could hire more mercanaries to get rid of them.

George/DeMedici.

Bloody good idea.

Blackadder/Machevelli

You're going to create your own army.

George/Demedici

No I'll hire mercanaries to get rid of the mecenaries and if they don't like that, then I'll.... Then I'lll....Well then I'll bloody well hire some more mecenaries to get rid of the mercanaries.

Blackadder/Machevelli

Which mercanaries will you hire sire to get rid of the mercanaries who are supposed to get rid of the mecanaries?

George/DeMedici

Gosh you're so dense Machevelli. I'll hire the mercanaries we're trying to get rid of, of course.

Blackadder/Machevelli

Very good sire.

What George/DeMedici proposed was the usual order of business at the time. The Condottieri were aware of their monopoly on war and would refuse to actually fight each other, only preforming mock battles with a minimum of harm to one another so that they all got paid (and made sure they got paid at knife point).

Machevelli's pointing out the humour of the situation and the stagnant thinking of the political leaders at the same time while offering a solution to two problems at once, the short term once being the Condottieri themselves the long term being the well being of the region as a whole to prevent it from being a battleground for the Bourbons and Hapsburgs, which it became.

 

[salaciousbcrumb]

[/QUOTE]

What George/DeMedici proposed was the usual order of business at the time. The Condottieri were aware of their monopoly on war and would refuse to actually fight each other, only preforming mock battles with a minimum of harm to one another so that they all got paid (and made sure they got paid at knife point).

Machevelli's pointing out the humour of the situation and the stagnant thinking of the political leaders at the same time while offering a solution to two problems at once, the short term once being the Condottieri themselves the long term being the well being of the region as a whole to prevent it from being a battleground for the Bourbons and Hapsburgs, which it became.[/QUOTE]

And also he points out the stupididty of inviting foreign powers into internal conflicts (King Charles the ugly), as the British learned with the Saxons. So what I was trying to get at is that although the Prince seems like a schemers guide book it has been written by somebody who is himself a useless schemer, why? Simply because Machevelli is intelligent enough to see the man behind the curtain, but he dosen't join him behind the curtian, he pulls back the curtain revealing the wizard is no more than an old frail man and then takes the piss out of him

 

[Seethe]

A friend gave me this game at my request and I have purchased the important DLCs for it. I really want to get into it because I love the idea behind it. But damn if it doesn't make my head spin. Any veterans here that can give some advice about how a complete noob should approach this game?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Don't treat it as a map-painting 4X game.

 

[Beastro]

Don't treat it as a map-painting 4X game.

What game actually is fun as that?

It's neat to do it once or twice but then it becomes boring and you long for the struggle and actually have a stalemate with slow, bloody progression.

Reminds me of playing Birth of the Federation once when I was young on the highest difficulty. I don't what I did, because the AI in that game was typically air headed and would barely colonize at times let alone make much of a challenge, but I was stuck in a WWI in Space situation barely holding the line against the AI and only slowly making progress upgrading myself to allow more cash for more space stations and more fleets to breaks to deadlock. The odd thing for me was that I was the Romulans with their OP cloak attacks, but it was pretty much the only thing keeping me from losing the game at the time.

Dunno what happened to that game, I never got beyond the stalemate, but it was good enough to make me endure the unpatched memory leak that made me restart the client every couple turns.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Eh, I say paint the map all you like, after a time you get bored with a game anyway (and it can get really slow). The important thing is to set yourself a campaign goal - unite Spain, create British empire, restore Roman Empire, burn down Europe to the ground as a nomad, Allahu-Akbar the Europe as a muslim, crush catholics as a heretic or pagan, anything really. Once you accomplish it you can decide on another goal or start a new game with something else (or just the same, only try to do it faster/better this time). Also, start very small - feels better to go from nothing to a nightmare.

Not sure what's a good start for a complete beginner these days. Start as an independent feudal catholic first, someone small so you can get a feel for the game before moving on, but also somewhere without bigger neighbors that can crush you. A count in Ireland in 1066 start and make yourself the king of Ireland? And then an emperor? Or someone like that. In the old gods start Ireland is tribal (which sucks), but maybe there is someone else you can play (Wales? Scotland?).

Fabricate some claims, save up some money, hire cheapest mercs and go for it. Keep as much land as you can for your demesne, then start giving shittier ones (or recently conquered) to any nice people in your realm (if you can find them, try inviting them or raising them yourself in a eugenics game). Think where you wish to put your permanent capitol - preferably somewhere with lots of castles (or at least empty slots to build castles). Take all castle baronies there, park your marshal on training duties and watch your demesne troops rise. As for retinues, at the moment pikes rule all - scottish pikemen are the best. Just use generic defense retinue if you don't have a good cultural retinue.

Marry for genetics (genius / strong), claims or allies. Do not land your heirs, AI will fuck them up hard. Get out of gavelkind before you create a kingdom. If you do that, you have little reason to ever go beyond medium crown authority. Have as many vassals as you can without breaking vassal limit and make them as small as possible - no dukes until you need them, no kings until you are ready to hand out kingdoms as viceroyalties. If you think you can take a relations hit go for feudal taxes, that can be a huge source of income if you have lots of vassals. Also create a pet republic once you are king, you can get lots of money and ships that way.

Keep a good and competent (generally 15+) council, make sure your chancellor and spymaster like you. Wage wars with vassal troops first if you can afford a small hit to relations. No need to waste money raising your own troops unless you need them. Keep a small reserve of gold for rainy days for bribes and mercs. Always pick a good (kind at minimum, relatively young, good intrigue, absolutely loves you and you heir, unladed) designated regent. Regencies in this game suck. For that reason, do not lead your armies yourself unless it is a really important battle and your ruler can contribute something or you are trying to get him killed / maimed.

That's it really, have fun. If you don't have fun with a current game, try something different. Also, if you haven't already check out the viking LP of this game in the playground. It's a bit dated now, but it does show some of the things this game can throw at you, and more importantly it is just hilarious.

 

[Shadenuat]

I gotta say it became a lot easier now to make sure your enemies are just 0 y.o children with 0 allies with these "ways of life". Don't even need mercenaries that much except to kickstart yourself from 1 county.
Although they say it's even easier with woman-seducer who can just swim in those extra like-bonuses. Add Attractive and whole world is under your heels.
Playing dynasty of french spies, man those Karlings r crazy, I manage to intimidate all these sons and grandsons into giving various kingdoms/empire of France to each other and keep map painted in a big blue blob.
New heir only got 1 Intrigue I was sad so I made him warrior, and in first event he gets free Strong trait and they say genes do not change, yeah right he probably used Space Marine serum for that. And I tried hard to breed good sons and now you get traits like that for free.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Strong is probably the genetically easiest trait to get anyway, even without Kwisatz Haderach project. The real deal IMO is still Genius, the best part of Strong is its duel function and Health bonus.

 

[Beastro]

Eh, I say paint the map all you like, after a time you get bored with a game anyway (and it can get really slow). The important thing is to set yourself a campaign goal - unite Spain, create British empire, restore Roman Empire, burn down Europe to the ground as a nomad, Allahu-Akbar the Europe as a muslim, crush catholics as a heretic or pagan, anything really. Once you accomplish it you can decide on another goal or start a new game with something else (or just the same, only try to do it faster/better this time). Also, start very small - feels better to go from nothing to a nightmare.

Even that is easy to accomplish in a couple generations even as a Count.

It's why I love building and crashing Empires over extended campaigns and seeing how the AI hands the wake I leave behind me as I travel them map.

I finally started up an up to date campaign as an Avar Count. I'll work on conquering the Magyars, Ashina, Cuman and Peshnegs before turning on Northern Italy, Southern France, parts of Spain and Northern Germany before hopping over to Britain and collapsing the Continental holdings and before leaping from Britain to Scandinavia and onto Russia before the Mongols come and push me into Islamic lands and India.

I wanna see what kind of cultural shifts happen with enclaves of Steppe people across Europe while I hone my dynasty hoarding and trying to collect a bunch of Slavic and other big name foreign dynasties as thralls to slowly convert to Steppe cultures to leave as my successor kings.

After that I think it'll be a mass colonisation of European and Asia by the Anglo-Saxons as I move eastward before trying a second campaign as my Zoroastrian Norse dynasty invading through the Caspian or retrying my North African Saxon pagan campaign, both to fuck with Islam.

 

[Fens]

as for your own goals in CK2... this was a viking age start and quite fun:

goals:
- remove karlings from premises (take all their possessions, execute all captured karlings, basically make their line run dry) -> not yet achieved, bastards still exist (down from about 400 living members peak to 50)
- start as moravian count and form an empire -> five empires formed, quite a few kingdoms too
- control slavic church and reform -> done, though the first few high priests were avars and it took a while to readjust the culture to bohemian in the areas they initially ruled or conquered through holy wars
- survive initial holy crusades -> 12 crusades crushed, 5 jihads, 5 tengri holy wars
- spread the faith -> mostly by conquest, though suomi and england eventually switched to slavic by themselves (and a few stabbings here and there) - neither was conquered, both still autonomous kingdoms
- make catholicism lose all authority -> done, though some catholic regions still exist, the church's authority is 0%
- survive the mongols -> conquered all of the east before they showed up, outmaneuvered them for a white peace without them owning any land, a 50k no-attrition doomstack was still present and kept joining tengri holy wars against me, so i had to eventually defeat that too, mostly because it was annoying, not because it was dangerous (AI too stupid to use it properly)
- remove kebab from europe -> apart from spain (no, georgia doesn't count) done

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Incidentally, you all know how that whole Christian variant thing for Norse portraits doesn't seem to do jack shit? Well, I took a little go at it, and I was pretty pleased:

It actually allows for replacement parts for everything for the portrait and supports separate offsets too. I need to check what the BLC dude did with the variation thing, if I can be assed to make separate "pagan" variation for Germans and Saxons (which is to say that the basic is turned to the Christian variant).

Right now the only portraits I haven't replaced with something else are the basic Muslim portraits, though I guess it's only a matter of time until I change those too to use Persian face or something.

 

[Whisky]

So, anyone got any advice for tricking the EUIV convertor into actually working?

I got it working last night with my save after it froze once. However I played a bit more in CKII and am trying to convert again and it freezes after five seconds when I begin the conversion process.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I generally don't like using the converter anymore, the states at CK2 endgame tend to be too big for it to be fun.

 

[Zero Credibility]

So it looks like CK2 is getting defensive coalitions now. I have no experience with EU, so how does this mechanic work out there, on a scale of "great!" to "it gave me aids-cancer"? What was explained here (and especially in the example given) doesn't look good.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It should help contain blobbing critical mass.