CKII is released.

[Spectacle]

Your count vassals will provide the vassal troops you need, so there's no real point in building castles just to give them to a baron. Better to build a town for money. Having multiple towns also lets you build multiple universities, which can give your county a significant boost to technology growth. If you have more money than you know what to do with you can build extra castles for your count vassals so they'll have more troops to provide you.

 

[oscar]

If you've got lots of spare demesne and gold and want larger armies than go for a castle. If you're tight on demesne or already have huge levies and manpower for routines than a town. Though I guess as with all Paradox games you've got to factor just how much game time you have left. It can be useful to estimate in how many years the town will repay itself and thus be worth it. So towns might be better in the early game.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

What do you mean "spare demesne"? Who doesn't go apeshit on all their neighbours most valuable real estate as first order of business?

 

[RK47]

Castle lost its value the moment you have a vast empire to support a large retinue. Levies should be drawn from your vassals, and eventually as a king, you have to give duchies away, unless you can stand micro-ing the small county levy stacks.

 

[Space Satan]

Demense size. if you have 9\9 then go town. If something like 7\9 or 10\12 then castles will empower your income and army.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Though the moment you get more actual counties, it's best to offload the extra castles to barons.

 

[Commissar Draco]

What do you mean "spare demesne"? Who doesn't go apeshit on all their neighbours most valuable real estate as first order of business?

True, but...
There are areas of the game that are Machete Rape neighboorhoods: Iberia, South Italy (including Corsiga & Sardinia and Sicily), North Africa, East Africa, ERE's borders with Seljuks and Crimeia. So if you start small its hard to get some decent clay until you're built up decently or the enemies decide to fight a civil war or two.

Your only hope there is marry your kids well and inherit better clay... Like Hapsburgs did. Kings and Emperors being dumbf... doing nothing when one family takes duchy after duchy does help.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Am I missing something or is there no button to offload all available troops into ships where possible? Having to manually select and embark/dismiss/reorganise every single levy in Britain and Ireland every time I want to take a French county is a massive pain.

 

[IDtenT]

Am I missing something or is there no button to offload all available troops into ships where possible? Having to manually select and embark/dismiss/reorganise every single levy in Britain and Ireland every time I want to take a French county is a massive pain.

This is why they introduced single levies for direct vassals. Otherwise, it's all still very manual.

 

[RK47]

Am I missing something or is there no button to offload all available troops into ships where possible? Having to manually select and embark/dismiss/reorganise every single levy in Britain and Ireland every time I want to take a French county is a massive pain.

Thats why the game encouraged formation of Duchy / Kingdoms if you're a King / Emperor.

 

[KazikluBey]

Am I missing something or is there no button to offload all available troops into ships where possible? Having to manually select and embark/dismiss/reorganise every single levy in Britain and Ireland every time I want to take a French county is a massive pain.

Just merge them before boarding?

 

[Ulminati]

Am I missing something or is there no button to offload all available troops into ships where possible? Having to manually select and embark/dismiss/reorganise every single levy in Britain and Ireland every time I want to take a French county is a massive pain.

1) Drag a big box around a bunch of levies and march them all to coastal region
2) Drag a big box around ships, move them to same coastal region
3) select all levies, merge
4) Select all ships, merge
5) embark doomstack

Huzzah!

You may want 2-3 sites to embark from to speed the whole process up.

 

[oscar]

Any word on whether we'll be able to import Old God save games into 1066 start-date CKII? Seems simple enough.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Any word on whether we'll be able to import Old God save games into 1066 start-date CKII? Seems simple enough.

There's no need to import, they've said you can play from the start of Old Gods to the end of CK2 in one game.

Unless you're asking something else.

 

[sser]

Has anyone ever created the Arab Empire? I'm trying to do it before Old Gods hits, but it seems to be the most difficult of the Empires to create: stretches from West Africa to the Levant, encompassing numerous cultures and two religions, a hotspot for Crusading, and a bevy of areas the republics like to prey on.

Starting as the Sulemeids, I've been slowly breaking the Fatimids, but I'm worried the Mongols will just decimate me when they get there (it's currently 1060). There's so many little areas to conquer it's insane -- plus the Crusaders will definitely start bugging me whenever I get on Jerusalem.

 

[XenomorphII]

Has anyone ever created the Arab Empire? I'm trying to do it before Old Gods hits, but it seems to be the most difficult of the Empires to create: stretches from West Africa to the Levant, encompassing numerous cultures and two religions, a hotspot for Crusading, and a bevy of areas the republics like to prey on.

Starting as the Sulemeids, I've been slowly breaking the Fatimids, but I'm worried the Mongols will just decimate me when they get there (it's currently 1060). There's so many little areas to conquer it's insane -- plus the Crusaders will definitely start bugging me whenever I get on Jerusalem.

I have. I started as the Zirid in Tunis (starts game as Sultan of Africa but has almost no power). It was a very intense game for awhile (Crusades from the Catholics, Jihads from the Fatmids, Republics dicking around in my area). I was very lucky and eventually took down the Fatmid blob, took over Spain and Southern Italy, and overran France.

 

[Trash]

Been looking forward to see the changes brought on by the new patch and The Old Gods expansion. One think I'd love seeing was the improved rebellions. They now have actual goals and leaders and such. Still, Pdox being Pdox they didn't really go all out. I mean, why just three different sorts. Heretics, peasant and liberators. Why no religious uprisings when the liege has a different religion than the province? And then make that rebellion joinable by neighbouring provinces with the same religion. Or neighbouring realms of which the ruler has the same religion. So many opportunities...

 

[Commissar Draco]

Liberators LOL

Religius uprising should be implemented Medieval people tolerated foreign culture rulers but not heretics on throne.

 

[RK47]

Holy Order DLC please.

 

[Kattze]

Been looking forward to see the changes brought on by the new patch and The Old Gods expansion. One think I'd love seeing was the improved rebellions. They now have actual goals and leaders and such. Still, Pdox being Pdox they didn't really go all out. I mean, why just three different sorts. Heretics, peasant and liberators. Why no religious uprisings when the liege has a different religion than the province? And then make that rebellion joinable by neighbouring provinces with the same religion. Or neighbouring realms of which the ruler has the same religion. So many opportunities...

Hope rebellion types would be moddable though.

 

[Trash]

Been looking forward to see the changes brought on by the new patch and The Old Gods expansion. One think I'd love seeing was the improved rebellions. They now have actual goals and leaders and such. Still, Pdox being Pdox they didn't really go all out. I mean, why just three different sorts. Heretics, peasant and liberators. Why no religious uprisings when the liege has a different religion than the province? And then make that rebellion joinable by neighbouring provinces with the same religion. Or neighbouring realms of which the ruler has the same religion. So many opportunities...

Hope rebellion types would be moddable though.

They are.

 

[Ulminati]

In before a bored codexer mods in bored Muslims going apeshit in the streets rebellions.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

In before a bored codexer mods in bored Muslims going apeshit in the streets rebellions.

rebel_undomesticated_snowman

 

[RedScum]

In the patch notes:

- Birth rates have been reduced a lot

 

[IDtenT]

In the patch notes:

- Birth rates have been reduced a lot

Fuck me. Even more ahistorical.