CKII is released.

[Reject_666_6]

- Byzantine Empire can no longer revoke duchies for free (how was bullshit like this allowed in the first place?).

It's there for historical reasons. You know the Byzzies weren't really feudal as portrayed in CK2; the more time passed the closer they got to it, but in 867 they didn't even come close to such a decentralized mess.
Free duchy revocation is the most applicable thing in the game's mechanics that kinda resembles how the emperors granted land. And if anything it's still an understatement: the emperor could revoke any title on a whim, not just "duchies".

 

[RK47]

Picked this island as starting spot.
Doesn't seem like much hope in TOG. Or is it?
Killed 10 wives ... build nothing but levies.
Muslim attacks...
Raise Nestorian Holy Order for 190 Piety no upkeep.
Raise 2000 personal levy from a Castle, Church and a City.
And watch the Mudslims lose battle after battles..

Later on, genius daughter matri-marry Abyssinia prince.
And took advantage on claim-war. Blammo. Nestorian Queen of Abyssinia.
But she's depressed and most vassals are butthurt over different religion and culture.
Acted quickly, imprisoning them, banishing them, revoking all titles down to every single county.
Stuck in gavelkind. Imprisoned all sons except for the sole genius. Killed the rest. Tough luck.
Expelled jews, and one thing left to do...

Time to redistribute the lands to the rightful Bedouin folks.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It's amusing how awesome Depressed trait is in CK2. Whenever you get it, it's like "YESSSSSSSSS", but then you lose it and it's "NOOOOOO".

 

[Brinko]

The one thing that sucks about Ethiopia that I found out is that Axum has the sole 7 holding county but it's packed with temples. What fucking good is that to anyone aside from the muslims who can invade from Oman? I have never found any reason to build temples as they seem like a shit fusion between a castle and city.

 

[Borelli]

It's amusing how awesome Depressed trait is in CK2. Whenever you get it, it's like "YESSSSSSSSS", but then you lose it and it's "NOOOOOO".

Did depressed get some new events in india expansion or something?

 

[XenomorphII]

No. It allows you to commit suicide though, which can be really handy sometimes.

 

[Average Manatee]

The one thing that sucks about Ethiopia that I found out is that Axum has the sole 7 holding county but it's packed with temples. What fucking good is that to anyone aside from the muslims who can invade from Oman? I have never found any reason to build temples as they seem like a shit fusion between a castle and city.

If it's not next to water, why bother?

But seriously, cities without ports aren't much better than Temples.

In that region of the world I would go straight for Sanaa (2 6-holding counties and 1 5-holding), Oman (1 6-holding), and Medina (1 6-holding). All coastal and providing plenty of tax base.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

No. It allows you to commit suicide though, which can be really handy sometimes all the time.

Fixed.

 

[RK47]

As usual, 20k adventurer stack arrives, i surrender - and ... instead of revoking me and utterly destroying me, he went to pick a fight with muslims.
Yes, he's a Nubian Prince, so he goes to help his kin. Attacked Egypt - and got wtf-pwned by 20k Seljuks.

Your tech's too low, try again.
His 20k magical stack goes poof, I bring back my levy and retinue + 2000 merc and reclaim throne.
Seriously, Paradox.
Fix your goddamn adventurer, there is no way 1000AD Kingdom of Abyssinia can withstand 20k adventurer stack without some serious meta.

 

[XenomorphII]

I cannot brofist that enough. Adventures are really, really, stupid. Especially when a random Norseman is able to raise armies larger than any empire in the world can.

 

[mondblut]

I cannot brofist that enough. Adventures are really, really, stupid. Especially when a random Norseman is able to raise armies larger than any empire in the world can.

All armies-from-the-air are retarded. Adventurers, revolts, nomads from beyond the map, you name it.

 

[XenomorphII]

I cannot brofist that enough. Adventures are really, really, stupid. Especially when a random Norseman is able to raise armies larger than any empire in the world can.

All armies-from-the-air are retarded. Adventurers, revolts, nomads from beyond the map, you name it.

I wouldn't be against them if they made the amount of people that flock to their banner a function of both the relative development of where they come from and the individual leading the groups prestige (and the numbers were much lower than they are now as a base line). Hopefully, this would lead to some serious adventurer types (like William the Bastard) on rare occasions, but most would likely be flash in a pan's or would simply not try after failing to achieve enough support.

 

[mondblut]

I wouldn't be against them if they made the amount of people that flock to their banner a function of both the relative development of where they come from

Oh, but they do. Revolts are always 150% of garrison, because "challenj!!! blobs should not be!11". That's basically admitting your own gameplay rules do not work and need constant cheating to keep up with the player.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Actually to me it seems to be mostly in the AI vacuum that those things are needed. The player can obviously compensate, but the AI will ultimately always be a dumb motherfucker no matter what so it needs measures like this for things to start rolling both for the Revolt AI and the defending realm. Just standard continuation of the old RTS resource-cheating AI. The failure of the stacks (revolt/adventurer/horsefuckers) is in that they're still only a problem for non-blobs (or a nigh-unstoppable problem in case of horsefuckers). My ass-feels guess is that the success ratio for things like revolts is probably less than 1% at the end of the day against the AI.

The blob problem is down to the fact there's a linear increase in power that never stops.

 

[RK47]

Yabbadabbadoo

 

[RK47]

Ran into a strange issue.
Was playing a count of Orvieto, vassal of Italy.
HRE formed, eating up Italy in the process.
Then I managed to fabricate a Duchy of Latium, which included Rome as de jure vassal.
I of course declared war, usurped it and then proceed to distribute Rome's holdings to my vassals.
Curiously, the Pope immediately returned to Rome as soon as I unpaused it. He also took everything from my vassal.
What gives?

 

[XenomorphII]

Ran into a strange issue.
Was playing a count of Orvieto, vassal of Italy.
HRE formed, eating up Italy in the process.
Then I managed to fabricate a Duchy of Latium, which included Rome as de jure vassal.
I of course declared war, usurped it and then proceed to distribute Rome's holdings to my vassals.
Curiously, the Pope immediately returned to Rome as soon as I unpaused it. He also took everything from my vassal.
What gives?

Don't know. Same thing happened to me from 867 Spartenos start. I had held Rome for 150ish years, the Pope declared a crusade and immediately after I clicked the don't care button, Rome flipped to him. I immediately took it back, and it immediately flipped back to the Pope.

 

[Abelian]

Ran into a strange issue.
Was playing a count of Orvieto, vassal of Italy.
HRE formed, eating up Italy in the process.
Then I managed to fabricate a Duchy of Latium, which included Rome as de jure vassal.
I of course declared war, usurped it and then proceed to distribute Rome's holdings to my vassals.
Curiously, the Pope immediately returned to Rome as soon as I unpaused it. He also took everything from my vassal.
What gives?

Don't know. Same thing happened to me from 867 Spartenos start. I had held Rome for 150ish years, the Pope declared a crusade and immediately after I clicked the don't care button, Rome flipped to him. I immediately took it back, and it immediately flipped back to the Pope.

Looks like the Pope decided to define the doctrine of Papal infallibility a few centuries early.

 

[Sergiu64]

Yabbadabbadoo

Hmmmm, that a lot of holdings you have.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

he just won a crusade.

 

[RK47]

Nestorians can't into Crusade.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

great holy war. whatever.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Nah don't think Nestorians have those either.

 

[Brinko]

Nestorians just get sanctioned invasions like the orthodox get.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

actually you're right, i didn't notice he had kept those territories for some time already.