Crusader Kings II

Chesspieceface · Post by **Chesspieceface** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 6:30 pm

tgb wrote:
Unagi wrote:
Am you married
I are!
Well, it is Black History Month

(I keed).

I'm pretty sure that would make it "Is you married?", no?

Yojimbo · Post by **Yojimbo** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 10:40 am

Moving away from ethnocentrism and back to topic, I played yesterday with the demo a bit. If you have the money its a good idea to host feasts regularly. If not, hunting is fun in the fall. I have received martial improvements from hunting and had lots of "good" relationship changes from feasts. It does get expensive however.

I am so pleased that Paradox resisted the urge to make these into "mini games". One of my gaming nightmares would be trying to navigate the sprite of my boar spear into a dancing animated pig.

In general, CKII seems to have everything done right, and nothing done wrong to me. As an aside, I tried to play CK again the other day and I cannot: The new graphics have ruined me for the old graphics.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:26 pm

I gotta say that I never got into the first CK due to the butt-ugly graphics and obtuse interface, but this game absolutely rocks.

I started another game with the demo this morning as King of Poland. I married a princess of the HRE (her brother was the Duke of Bohemia), but all she produced was a couple of daughters. Meanwhile, the Kaiser, my ally, called on me a couple of times to aid him in his Holy War against Pomerania. I managed to pick up some Presitge, but no new additions to my demesne, while also keeping a Duke of Stettin happy enough with gifts and honorary titles to keep him from DOWing me over some counties he thought should have been his.

Right around the time I started getting fed up with the Queen's inability to give me a son, I had an opportunity to take a roll in the hay with one of my courtiers, who immediately told me afterward that she loved me (that's how good I am). Not long after she had a baby. A bastard, but at least a son. I legtimized my boy and changed the succession law to make him my heir instead of my daughter. This REALLY pissed off my wife and her brother, who used it as an excuse to fabricate a claim on part of my demesne. Fortunately, my brother chose that moment to drop dead, and I inherited his Duchy, which doubled the size of my personal levy. When my brother-in-law came calling, I was able to give him a good spanking and send him back to Bohemia with his tail between his legs.

This all turned out to be too much for the Queen, who decided to go off on a religious retreat. That afforded me the opportunity to spend some more "quality time" with my honey. The two of us (aided by a couple of Bishops[!])were able to cook up a plan to make the Queen disappear permanently so we could live happily ever after. The plan worked and soon after she became the second Mrs. Queen of Poland.

All this in the first 10 years. Unfortunately RL intervened at that point, and with no way to save thus ends the tale. Tuesday can't come quickly enough.

dfs · Post by **dfs** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:31 pm

I read this and go...."wow! what a game!" but then I take my hand at it and......I have a son and can't get a war off the ground and spend 20 years marrying off my courtiers and bribing bishops for goodwill.

Maybe I just don't see it. I WANT to like this game so much.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 1:01 pm

dfs wrote:I read this and go...."wow! what a game!" but then I take my hand at it and......I have a son and can't get a war off the ground and spend 20 years marrying off my courtiers and bribing bishops for goodwill.

Maybe I just don't see it. I WANT to like this game so much.

Don't give up - every game plays differently. The most interesting parts of my game (war with Pomerania and the mishegas with my wife and her brother) were based on random events that fired.

As for difficulty getting a war going in the demo - what character are you playing? The only one guaranteed to be able to get into the fighting right away is the K of P, since there is a Holy War CB already in place against the Pagans to the North.

KW · Post by KW » Sun Feb 12, 2012 12:24 pm

... aaaand pre-ordered.

Started a game as the Duke of Novgorod. With most of the Duchy already in my demense except for a couple poor counties, I decided to do some expanding and attacked the county of Tartu to my west as a first step toward creating the Duchy of Livonia (I think that was the name). So I declared war, raised my personal and vassal levies, moved everyone west into Tartu... and some pagan chief to my east decides that's a great time to invade and sends 5k of his friends into my territory. Since I had a mere 1500 troops sieging Tartu, I hired another 1500 mercenaries (all I could afford) and called in my allies - a collection of dukes ruling independent realms to my south including my father, various in-laws, and an assortment of cousins. Over a series of battles, they slowly brought down the large army rampaging through my territory and sieged some of the lands to my east and we (they) eventually forced the pagan chief to terms.

Meanwhile, my young Duke gets maimed by one of the 20-30 troops raised in Tartu near the end of the siege. He dies a few months later and his son (I believe he was 2 or 3 at the time) takes over under a regent. Most of my vassals are content with the new Duke except for one ruling a county in the north (Z.. something). After a year or two, that Count decides to revolt. I figure I'll walk over his few troops, imprison him, and that'll be that.

... what I had previously forgotten about was that, until my current Duke had been born, his grandfather (my original Duke's father and the Duke of Torvu) was next in line for Novgorod. He picked this otherwise minor rebellion to exercise that claim and start a good old-fashioned family feud. Only two of my relatives joined my side this time, but it was enough, after a couple years of fighting and multiple looted counties on both sides, to force my grandfather into renouncing his claim. Except that now my other relatives decided to start pushing claims on a couple of my counties which started two more wars in succession, both of which I eventually won. After all that fighting and some other wars between other relatives, all of the original Dukes of this family had been killed in battle so that my Duke, still under regent, was one of the oldest Dukes in the area.

Except during all that fighting, the King of Denmark conquered one of the other counties in Livonia setting up a near-certain war given my hopes to claim that Duchy. So I arranged a betrothal between my Duke and a Princess of Sweden giving me an alliance with that kingdom as well as hopefully giving my eventual successor a claim to the throne of Sweden as well.

... and that's where my 20 years ended.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 2:05 pm

Here's a tip - Under anything other than the most liberal Crown Authority, you can choose who is leading the flanks in your armies (except for mercenaries, of course). You may not want your avatar fighting on the front lines (which seems to happen by default).

JonathanStrange · Post by **JonathanStrange** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 3:47 pm

Wow. The demo's better than I hoped; more polished, prettier, more involving. I'd seen some of the YouTube playthroughs but they didn't really convey the decision-making and tweaking one can do. It doesn't hurt that the era's an interesting one for me. I may not go back to CK1. My guess in the future, there'll be official expansions/unofficial mods that will just take CK2 to a whole new level.

I don't pre-order and I'm holding to that. I think, though, that I'll buy long before any sale and long before people are saying "been there, destroyed that empire..."

Madmarcus · Post by **Madmarcus** » Sun Feb 12, 2012 9:01 pm

I tried to holdout but the IGN discount was enough to tip me in.

Installing now. Will play after work (12 hours).

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 11:11 am

Finally tried the demo last night. Got through the tutorial, started with one of the dukes (I think), and was immediately overwhelmed with "what the hell do I do now"? I set up an ambition of having a son and let time run for a few months, but I kept thinking "there must be something I should be doing".

I'll have to try again when I have more time to look over everything. I so want to like this game.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 11:39 am

Chaz wrote:Finally tried the demo last night. Got through the tutorial, started with one of the dukes (I think), and was immediately overwhelmed with "what the hell do I do now"? I set up an ambition of having a son and let time run for a few months, but I kept thinking "there must be something I should be doing".

I'll have to try again when I have more time to look over everything. I so want to like this game.

Among the first things to look at:
1) How loyal are your vassals? It's good to spot any problem vassals early and be prepared to go to war with them or appease them if you can.
2) How's your dynasty? Make sure your leader has a wife and do your best to keep him and his wife happy and making babies.
3) Any nearby claims you can press? Depending on where you start there could be some claims you can press. If you enemy is relatively weak you could raise your banners and attack at once, or if they are a little stronger, bide your time, save some money, and hire a mercenary company to back you up. They are a bit pricey, but in the early game it takes a pretty strong kingdom to be able to handle even a small mercenary company.
4) If there aren't any existing claims to press, look for weak kingdoms around you and send your chancellor to start making claims. That can be a slow process and requires a little money, but it's a good way to get new territory and if you play your cards right you can get a couple of new counties with each new claim you make.
5) Any heathens around? In the north east and the south of the map there are lots of Heathen kingdoms and duchies that you can declare on at any time for no penalty. Sometimes they can be fairly strong, but nothing a good army backed with mercenaries can't deal with usually.

One last piece of advice... before you declare on anyone, go to the rulers character screen and see who his allies are. Nothing sucks more to start a war with a small independent county somewhere only to realize after you do that the count in question is the brother in law of the Holy Roman Emperor who just decided to help his family out in your little war.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 12:32 pm

One thing I'll add to Sepiche's post - fabricating claims can be very expensive early game in terms of gold and prestige. If you are not playing a King or Emperor, try declaring war on your intended victim first. A lot of the time you can't because you either can't DOW an independent realm, or because Crown Authority laws prevent two vassals of the same liege from warring on each other, which means a fabricated claim will be a waste of your (and your Chancellor's) time.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:14 pm

Should I be expecting to let time run for long periods of time? I always feel like I should be doing something other than just hitting fast forward through a year or more.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:21 pm

Chaz wrote:Should I be expecting to let time run for long periods of time? I always feel like I should be doing something other than just hitting fast forward through a year or more.

Sometimes. There are long stretches where I'm just waiting for claims to be created, for money to build up, for troops to replenish, etc.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 2:11 pm

But I want to annex something nooooow! /verucasalt

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 2:18 pm

Chaz wrote:But I want to annex something nooooow! /verucasalt

hehe Try playing as one of the Spanish kingdoms... if you can survive your brother's plots to unseat you, then you've got huge swaths of heathen land there for the taking.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 4:02 pm

There are things you can be doing while you are waiting for the big stuff. The number of troops you get when raising an army is directly proportional to how much your vassals like you. While in the process of fabricating a claim, you should be giving gifts and awarding honorary titles. Along the same lines, you should be building up your holdings to make sure you are getting the types of troops you want.

You can also be doing things like looking for places where your Spymaster may be able to steal some tech, or making some of the decision that cause an event chain to fire.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 7:27 pm

tgb wrote:The only one guaranteed to be able to get into the fighting right away is the K of P, since there is a Holy War CB already in place against the Pagans to the North.

And they have A LOT of troops.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 5:06 am

Isgrimnur wrote:
tgb wrote:The only one guaranteed to be able to get into the fighting right away is the K of P, since there is a Holy War CB already in place against the Pagans to the North.
And they have A LOT of troops.

Not only that, but DOW one and the odds are good that the others will jump in against you, even without a formal alliance.

Mr Bismarck · Post by **Mr Bismarck** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:40 am

I like to start CK games in backwaters, but this time I may have picked one too watery and way, way back.

Connacht in Western Ireland is ruled by Aed Ua Conchobair who's 51 at game start and has a 46 year old wife. They have one son who, despite never having married has two sons of his own. The grandchildren are morons who hate PopPop Aed, which is fine because it means that their opinion won't drop too much when I have them killed.

Sadly the surroundings are the worst possible situation - everyone is across a river, which means a penalty to attacking and they all also have sneakily built hills and forests, meaning a bonus to defence. -ATT,+DEF sounds like a recipe for disaster unless you have a spectacular Marshall, which I don't, so I've mostly stayed home building trade villages on my castles and markets on my church to improve tax revenue.

Aed had no useful ambitions to start the game - he could choose from becoming about as pious as eight or nine popes combined, killing his wife, or having a daughter. I picked the daughter one despite the royal couple's combined age of 97 and the fact that he's chaste and she's sick, leading to a fertility rating akin to a pair of rocks. Surprisingly, they didn't manage to get pregnant in the first 10 years of the game and chances of conception then took an even more serious dip when Aed died.

About five years before he shuffled off the mortal coil, the game modeled some sort of mid-life, (almost end of life?), crisis as, out of the blue, Aed took up boar hunting and his wife started bugging him for a falcon. A conversation I look forward to having with Lady Bismarck one day.

Going hunting seemed to annoy everyone as Aed was beset with random people turning up every five minutes begging him to stop in case he hurt himself. He turned them all down at -15 to relations every time he did so. I hope there's an afterlife for Aed to feel smug in, because ultimately: Number of times killed on hunt : 0. Number of times died in sleep : 1.

Aed's son Ruaidri took what passes for a crown and celebrated with his wife, who promptly died. So he switched from being married to an uptight Princess from Navarre to being married to some wannabe-royal from Denmark whose traits suggest she could trip you up and be under you before you hit the ground. Her ambition was to marry into royalty, so I hope she enjoys all the spoils of position she is conferred in a rainy dunghole in the middle of nowhere.

The only consistent excitement in Connacht has been the Priests... (do your own jokes). I'm on my fourth after the previous three all converted to the heretic Cathar religion and tried to sell me on it. This has given me some use of my jails, at least, as the last thing I need is Pope Bastard giving the locals a casus belli to come and steal my stuff. I've run out of useful candidates for the church positions as a result of this, to the degree that the current preacher is somewhat less effective than if I'd given the position to a pig with a bucket on its head.

So I'm turning Connact into a bastion of research and development instead. Partly through hard work and council research bonuses, (apart from the preacher, Father Stupid, obviously), and partly by using my rather good Spy master to go around the surrounding areas and look over people's shoulders. A couple of the things I've stolen have improved troop levels, but ideally I'd like to raise tax levels a bit more so I can bring in some mercenaries to go soften up some of my neighbours. Specifically Breifne to the direct east, as I have a soup du jour claim on their lands, which means I can attack them at any time without having to have a good reason, or fabricating a terrible one.

Favourite thing about the game so far is the new Duke's old dead wife's dad - I would make him King just for that beard alone. Wow.

Yes, even though he's dead.

I'll probably restart somewhere that isn't quite so utterly pointless, but even tooling around here has been fun. This is really a good release state for any game. For Paradox it's a miracle.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:47 am

Great AAR. Are you sure that's a beard? He may have a beehive under his shirt.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 9:41 am

BUG ALERT: Flagging a character as a "person of interest" may corrupt your saves, causing the game to crash when trying to load one.

They are working on a hotfix that may be up today. I'm surprised this didn't get caught sooner.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 10:44 am

Awesome, Bismarck.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 10:56 am

El Guapo wrote: Awesome, Bismarck.

Agreed. I have never even heard of this game or the first and now I must have it. Let me know if you get your commission.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:39 am

I've been waffling about when/if to get this, but man does that AAR push me closer to "buy now!" I just have to keep telling myself that the game doesn't come with the amusing commentary.

dfs · Post by **dfs** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:41 am

tgb wrote:
dfs wrote:I read this and go...."wow! what a game!" but then I take my hand at it and......I have a son and can't get a war off the ground and spend 20 years marrying off my courtiers and bribing bishops for goodwill.

Maybe I just don't see it. I WANT to like this game so much.
Don't give up - every game plays differently. The most interesting parts of my game (war with Pomerania and the mishegas with my wife and her brother) were based on random events that fired.

As for difficulty getting a war going in the demo - what character are you playing? The only one guaranteed to be able to get into the fighting right away is the K of P, since there is a Holy War CB already in place against the Pagans to the North.

I finally did get an interesting game. The polish king got everything he wanted and then overextended his reach by hiring some mercs to take out lithunaia. After the conquest I disbanded my standing army but kept the mercs. I had given away so many titles that I suddenly had financial problems. The mercs didn't much care for not getting paid and went into conquering mode. After 18 very successful years, I got conquered by the swiss. Didn't have the money to bring in new mercs and after several wars, my army just wasn't up to the task of fighting off the mercs.

Good times.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 12:00 pm

dfs wrote:I got conquered by the swiss.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 12:58 pm

While the forum effect is strong on this one, I think I'll just go learn to play HoI III until a good sale. And maybe see if I can get through the demo without pissing off Danzig.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 1:49 pm

I'm having a blast!

I posted this on another forum, but I thought I would cross-post:

Started up in 1266 as Charles d'Anjou, King of Sicily. Charles recently acquired his kingdom, having been granted authority over it by the pope (despite the crown already being held by Conradin Hohenstaugen of Germany. Charles had (before my game begun) executed Conradin in cold blood and officially taken the crown in 1266. Upon starting my game I was faced by a slew of vassals and courtiers who hated me - largely because of my short reign, the fact I ruled too many provinces directly (exceeded by demesne size score), and I claimed too many Duchy titles. So I set about rewarding my most faithful vassals with counties in Sicily and the lower part of Italy. To my son and heir, Charles the Lame (unfortunately a hunchback, but turning out to have excellent potential as a warrior), I granted the title of Duke of Sicily, giving him control over four counties on the island. To his brother, Phillippe, I granted by familial title, given to me by my brother Louis IX, King of France (later known as Saint Louis), of the Duchy of Anjou (in central-north France) - including the counties of Anjou and Maine. Now I had fewer duchies and under my demesne score, so my vassals seemed a tad happier.

I set my courtiers to improving troop training in Naples and researching techs. My Lord Chaplain was sent to butter up the pope a bit. My spy master would search for plots in Naples, my capital. All seemed well.

No sooner had I set back to rest than the french counts of the Venaissin and the neighboring county (which slips my mind ATM) decided they would become independent and fight for an independent Provence, declaring war on me). I would have none of that, so I levied my personal troops (around 6000-8000 troops, more than enough) and raised my fleets to send the Italian troops over to Provence. I crushed the forces of these two upstarts, but the sieges would take some time, so we waited under the walls of Avignon for the enemy troops to starve and surrender. This would be several months, and I would need to besiege multiple castles and cities within the counties before I could enforce my "peace" upon these rebels. So we waited.

While waiting, the nefarious Prince-Bishop of Benevento, a wealthy county next to Naples, decided to buck my authority and declare that I held no right to the throne and thus did not deserve his allegiance. I responded by levying my son's troops in Sicily, he would not want them gone long but was happy to oblige for a the course of crushing this rebellion. Thus we besieged Benevento.

By the turning of a year, both rebellions had been crushed and one count and two Bishop-Princes languished in my prison as traitors. I needed to decide what to do with them. I could ransom them for money, but this would return hated counts to their position with no punishment. I could let them go, out of mercy, improving their view of me and improving relations with all my vassals. Eschewing mercy, I could execute these traitors, but this would be a shock to all my vassals. Even more shocking, I could seize their counties for myself, banish the traitors, and take their personal assets - a most shocking act to all my vassals. Another option would be to take advantage of this as a pretense to up the crown's authority to low, upsetting my vassals, but giving me the power to revoke the titles of these rebels. My vassals would not like the raised royal authority, but would accept the revocation of titles because these men were traitors.

The count and the Prince-Bishop of Benevento were both old men... and languishing in my prison would reduce their health. If they died of "natural causes" while held in my dungeons, well... that would be God's will, right? So I let them rot for a while, no rush in deciding their fate. The other Prince-Bishop was a young man, but I happened to have the authority to appoint his successor. I choose a loyal courtier and then showed my mercy by releasing the imprisoned rebel. Unfortunately, when he returned to his county he fell under an assassin's blade. Pity. No... my spymaster was in Naples... I assure you... any resemblance to the man setting up a spy ring in the month prior to his release would be purely coincidence.

About this time, my brother Louis IX, had a crusade called against a sultanate in Egypt, the home of the Kraak de Chevaliers castle. While I was a bit depleted from war, Louis personally requested that I join, so I was unable to refuse. There is a reason he is called "Saint Louis" and it wasn't only his demeanor, but his dogged and persistent Crusading.

I'll cut off the story there... we did win the crusade, with the help of many European knights. I realized I had made a mistake by not having my sons betrothed before I granted them their duchies, once they became dukes I could no longer arrange suitable marriages for them and they ended up marrying lower born courtiers. Also, giving my second son the duchy of Anjou created problems and his older brother fomented a plot to have him murdered. I had to step in and intervene, but I could tell that wasn't the last I would see of that rivalry.

Malcolm Lock · Post by **Malcolm Lock** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 4:10 pm

Wow, Bismark posting about Connacht inspired me to look a little deeper at the demo i've been trying out briefly. Turns out the starting leader for Kildare Earl Conchobar of the "Ua Mail Sechlainn" dynasty is an ancient ancestor of mine.

Now i'll really have to get the game!

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 6:35 pm

Started a game as the King of Leon (not the band), hoping to lead the reconquesta. As you can see, it's not going too well. Here's the map at the start of the game:

And here it is 17 years later:

Those are Sunni Muslims to the South. First thing that happened was that I had two disloyal Vassals (Count Diego of Asturias de Oveida and the Countess Orraca of Zamora [my sister]) revolt at the same time. I still don't know what my sister was P.O.'ed about, since her claim was on the throne of Castille (held by our brother). Anyway, I managed to put both rebellions down (and start filling the jail cells), when my idiot cousin, the King of Galicia starts pulling me into war after war with our neighbors to the South.

This proved too much for King Alfonso, who dropped dead at age 37, leaving the country in the care of a very young King Fernando, and his mother, the regent. Beja took advantage of the situation, and was able to take half of the country since none of my allies would come to the aid of such a young, inexperienced king.

So now Leon is half the size it was, I'm got a pack of screaming Sunni's just itching to finish the job they started as soon as the truce expires, and my heir is my younger sister. I've noticed France (France!) making some inroads into the peninsula, so my only hope might be to arrange a matrilinear marriage for my sister with someone in the Royal family. Either that or marry her off to a family member in Castille and hope their children aren't club-footed, cross-eyed, inbred, imbeciles.

Either way it's going to be a short game.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:36 pm

Speaking of the DLC... my pre-order DLC disappeared from my GG account. Anyone know where I can find it?

Mr Bismarck · Post by **Mr Bismarck** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 9:34 pm

Start the game and click the "In Game Store" button and then log into your GG account and you can get it there.

Mr Bismarck · Post by **Mr Bismarck** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 9:39 pm

tgb wrote:Started a game as the King of Leon (not the band), hoping to lead the reconquesta.

That's great, tgb. Spain was always insane in CKI too.

It'll be where I start my "proper" game when I have finished half-arsing around with pointless hasbeen Dukes.

Sarkus · Post by **Sarkus** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:18 am

tgb wrote:Started a game as the King of Leon (not the band), hoping to lead the reconquesta. As you can see, it's not going too well.

Heh. I tried Leon as my first game and it was a disaster of similar proportions.

After initially capturing the three county Duchy of Toledo, things went down hill fast when Alfonso died young (probably assasinated by that jackass Sancho in Castille) and was succeeded by a regency for a few years before his reasonably capable daughter came to the thrown. But then there was a vassal revolt. And then none of the allies would come to help. And then Badajoz declared a holy war. And then another province rebelled. This was all within a few weeks. In desperation Queen Toda sued for peace with Badajoz, losing two counties, including Leon itself. Which was immediately followed by being usurped by her minor sister and relegated to the county of Toledo and the Duchy title. Note that Toledo at this point was still muslim, produced 0.4 gold a month, and had zero troops.

I guess I could have kept playing, but that would have been a long wait for relevancy again.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 6:31 am

Sarkus wrote:
tgb wrote:Started a game as the King of Leon (not the band), hoping to lead the reconquesta. As you can see, it's not going too well.
Heh. I tried Leon as my first game and it was a disaster of similar proportions. After initially capturing the three county Duchy of Toledo, things went down hill fast when Alfonso died young (probably assasinated by that jackass Sancho in Castille) and was succeeded by a regency for a few years before his reasonably capable daughter came to the thrown. But then there was a vassal revolt. And then none of the allies would come to help. And then Badajoz declared a holy war. And then another province rebelled. This was all within a few weeks. In desperation Queen Toda sued for peace with Badajoz, losing two counties, including Leon itself. Which was immediately followed by being usurped by her minor sister and relegated to the county of Toledo and the Duchy title. Note that Toledo at this point was still muslim, produced 0.4 gold a month, and had zero troops.

I guess I could have kept playing, but that would have been a long wait for relevancy again.

Yeah, shortly after continuing the game, Sancho declared war, steamrolled me, and poor Fernando was demoted to the Duke of Leon. Shortly thereafter he was called up into a war and killed in battle, with his younger sister inheriting the Duchy. She's already betrothed to the King of England, but I'm hoping he'll break it off when she reaches maturity so she can enter into a matrilinear marriage with someone. Otherwise it's game over.

I could see if it's possible to commit suicide (assassinate myself), and then play as Sancho when he inherits, but that seems a little "gamey".

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:38 am

I did manage a matrilinear marriage, (some Scot Duke), and had a daughter, which at least still keeps me in the game. Both the mother and the aunt of my former heir got pissed and hatched plots to kill my daughter, but neither one acted, for some reason. Meantime I found that I could get a plot called "Reclaim Kingdom of Leon".

Even though the plot power was high enough to set it in motion, I figured it would lead to a bloody war, and decided to wait until the time was right. So while I'm waiting, the nimrod Duke of Next Door, who was in on the plot, gets drunk and shoots off his big mouth. Sancho the Jackass gets wind of it and transfers my title to the Duke of Next Door On The Other Side. I am reduced to a Countess, and the DoNDotOS is my new liege. Along with the reduction in title and pay, I now longer have access to the plot to regain the Kingdom.

But guess what?? I have two counties in my demesne, and my new liege only has one. So if I declare a war of independence, my army will be twice as big as his, theoretically. And it is. Until he calls upon his ally, my old buddy, the Duke of Next Door (d'oh, I should have checked for allies before declaring. Memo to myself). My army is big enough to beat theirs in battle, but not big enough to besiege any of their holdings, so I eventually have to settle for a White Peace. All that work just to lose 100 Prestige.

So all a girl can do now is set back and throw a feast and a festival (neither of my neighbors are invited!), and wait for a better opportunity.

And I'm only 30 years into the game. I don't know if I can take much more of this.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:44 am

The forum effect has overwhelmed me. This will be my third Paradox game, after HOI2 (utterly impenetrable) and EU3 (rather fun, although there were whole swaths of mechanics that I never understood).

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:53 pm

Ron Jeremy ftw!

KW · Post by KW » Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:01 pm

Maybe answered already, but what's a good way to gain piety?