Let's Play Crusader Kings - ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL

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My name is Jorge. I was born 48 years ago in Burgos, in the Kingdom of Castille, and for 40 years I have been a monk in this abbey which will be soon lost to time. I have seen things the seeing have not; I have seen the rot spread through the land, where men's will was mistaken for the will of God. The rash norman has at last conquered the Island, and only the Highest knows how many innocent souls this has cost. I have seen brother fight against brother, son against father, all the while the Holy Land perishes in the hands of the heathen. In the land of the Scots, pagans have sacrificed a holy man to their unholy god. The frankish dynasty of barbarians still wages war amongst themselves, their bloodlust endless.

The Pope sits in his throne, oblivious to the words of our Saviour, and watches on as christian fights against christian.If this is God's Will manifest through God's Word, then God never spoke. It is the first of january of the year of our Lord of 1066. I pray that yet one knight will be born, pure of heart and firm of purpose, to sweep such darkness away from this land. For if only evil men are born in these evil times, then we are truly lost and the Apocalypse is upon us. I can only pray that such a knight will come to the lands of Iberia...and deliver us. Deus vult!



INDEX POSTORUM LPEORUM

1. Meet the King and His friendly staff
2. Jew Gold!
3. For the Greater Good of God
4. The King is dead. Long live the King!
5. Parabellum
6. Pater Noster in Caelis
7. Humble origins
8. You're overvaluing the retard, Sire.
9. Sweet Mother of Mercy
10. Gray Eminence
11. Jorge's Letter
12. Family Matters
13. War! What is it good for?
14. La Danza Macabra
15. Heaven is my judge
16. The Loyola Heresy
17. In Medias Res
18. What can change the nature of a Man?

Iberia. Drive the infidels back!

I'd suggest Poland, but its geopolitcal situation in 1066 wasn't as bad as it was in 1938.

quick recap here; i'll only be playing catholic dynasties, so no emperor of byzantium/russia for you, naughty boys.
also, the thing is kinda like this
poland is very, very easy to start, not so easy to expand (although there are some pagans easily conquerable in the kievan rus), hungary is even easier both because of this and due to its proximity to the holy land, very easy to kill infidels, although supply lines and routes are fucking expensive. same goes for croatia, but without the pagans, only infidels. also, croatia has nice trading routes.

italy is just a bunch of random duchies/counties, they are (i think) the richest territories, and it's relatively easy to unite them, although your ruler has to be a bit of a bastard and conquer lots of catholic land. definitely one of the most powerful positions later on, especially because of the trade routes (sicily/genoa/venezia/sardignia) which will give you technology continuously and make you very, VERY rich indeed.

germany is...well, gigantic and very powerful (largest army by far, crushes pretty much everything) but it has way too many vassals and it's hard to keep them in line, especially because it'll be THEIR armies you'll be using, not yours.
england is piss-easy. you start far away from all enemies, the kingdom is stable, and the scots/irish suck cock. i'm also not playing as a feckin oirish.
Denmark is piss easy. It's probably the easiest one to start, since it's a relatively large and powerful kingdom, your demesne is relatively big, it's stable, and there's no threat from anywhere.

for maximum rapeage, the duchies/counties/kingdoms in iberia are recommended. they are surrounded by (very powerful) muslims, who will attack early on, and will probably kill me unless i use some innovative and modern tactics from general whiskey wolf.

you'll notice that AI aggressivenes is set as weakling; that's because anything above that using DVIP's mod makes AIs go crazy and kill themselves idiotically in endless wars (germany will, for instance, fragment itself completely in about four decades or so), also, they will only accept peace if you conquer all of their land, which is idiotic. if anybody knows of a fix for this, i'd appreciate it.

for anybody who's unfamiliar with the game, we can start as either kings/dukes/counts. most of them at this time have pledged allegiance to one of the kingdoms you can see on the list in the second screenshot. there are advantages and disadvantages to this, but it's best to discover them during the playthrough, because there are many (oh boy you have no idea) surprises waiting for us.

well. choose well. and remember: the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of conscience.

I'd suggest starting out with Croatia. It might seem easy early on, when all you're doing is uniting your provinces, you don't have any enemies, and killing an infidel now and then isn't too hard, but more often than not in my games Hungary grows huge and hungry, Germany expands quickly and reaches my borders, Byzantium decides it can deal with several enemies and take on even puny little Croatia, and that's about when the raping begins. In addition to the difficulty spike, I think it would be cool for the LP if it started out slow the way Croatia does, because you'd get to explore your characters in peace before all hell breaks loose and focus on banging maids to stock up on heirs.

Anyway, nice choice for an LP, will be following.

thanks for that, matey

problem with croatia is simple, really; hungary will get power hungry (although i've yet to see that douche doukas attacking anything apart from shitty counties), but croatia can expand into the eastern border of italy (aquileia, venezia, ancona, spoleto, apulia, bari, lecce) and get insanely powerful early on too, since they are all splintered and easy to conquer. only real threat there is venezia, the rest is piss easy, and lecce for some reason is VERY rich, also, a trading route.

I insist that you go for an Iberian Duchy. Throw the Per, Muslims into the Spar, Spanish Pit!

that was my original intention...i was rather thinking of editing my dynasty with the last name 'de loyola'

but i shall stay my jesuitic urges and wait for more input

What about the Kingdom of Jerusalem? You could try your hand in the holy land, unless you only want to start in 1066 that is.

Unify Iberia!

Send the muslin back home. Kill the stronger, maim and convert the weakling.

Iberian Peninsula it should be!

Do You really want to start as a King? Well that makes the early game more interesting.

Good starting choices are:
1. Navarra - relatively isolated from the muslims, Kingdom byt very small and weak.
2. Aargau - county, not interesting itself but ruled by Habsburgs, yes, THOSE Habsburgs.
3. Southern Italian states - rich and rather easy, good for novice players.
4. One of the later electorates of HRE - Duchies, get involved in the Empire, rather powerful.
5. Netherlands - rich areas and a lot of intercatholic warfare.

Yep, take an Iberian country and lead a holy crusade against the infidels in Al-Andalus!

Iberia, Reconquista!

I hope the Mongols aren't a disappointment this round. They usually are for me.

Iberia!

You should change title to "Kill all sandniggers"

I typically play as Bohemia, break away from Germany and become king after a few years.

Iberia is easy but fun.

Is this game not available on any digital distribution network, I really want it now.

Try Gamersgate or bargain bins around You.

easy? it's the hardest place to start if you're not Leon, especially with supa hard difficulty and maniac muslims. perhaps i'll change the AI aggressiveness to normal even tho it goes batshit insane just for the lulz

@treave: yah, i thought they'd be disappointing, so i let them spread. fought them a bit, made peace, let them rest. suddenly they have 151 provinces, conquered all of eastern europe and most of germany, have a gigantic army, and I had a gigantic front to defend, there's no way I could cut them off because it was just way too large and my vassals/other kingdoms were too retarded to use guerilla warfare against them, thinking that engaging 9000 horse archers head-on would be a swell idea

just finishing the editing touches for the dinasty, upping the update later today (still only the last part of the prologue, tho). we will start as the kingdom of castille by overwhelming majority of popular vote, although with some...interesting additions.

Crusader Kings is on Impulse for $5, and Deus Vult is $7.50.

Both on sale right now.

Torrenting them is free.

if i remember correctly you can edit some file and change the "make peace" line into what you like, make peace after one province is captured or all provinces captured etc.

but its been awhile since i played around with EU/CK/HOI files so i could be remembering things wrong.

Meet the King and His friendly staff

Wake up, child.

Yes, Jorge, what is it?

As you know, your father, the King...

Is he, really? My, my, what a surprise. Get to the point, Jorge.

Impudent child! Your father is dead, God rest his soul, and you are king now, may God rest ours. Rise from bed and behold your kingdom.





Indeed? Than now that we have the crown, we intend to make good use of it.


Come, meet your advisors.



Follow me to the great hall...your majesty.



A bit old, isn't she?



Ah, I see we have a jew. How fortunate that father kept the dungeons in good working order.



Young for a marshall, but they tell great things about him. Who is this shady-looking fellow trying to sell me a necklage, Jorge?

That is your spy master Giuseppe, although he tends to call himself count of something-or-other these days. Pray keep your future queen away from him, but he's competent.



And now for matters of state.



Rule wisely, child.

we seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties. please bear with us for a moment.

edit: everything looks fine now. bonus points for whoever spots who all these guys are.