Crusader Kings II

[Apollo]

As a big fan of Paradox grand strategy games, this one sounds like a must-have for me. Still, has anyone here played Europa Universalis II or III, and can you tell me how it compares to those games? I haven't read much about the game but on the surface it seems very similar to EU, but with a much greater emphasis on royal dynasties, heirs, royal marriages, etc.

[tgb]

You pretty much have it nailed. The emphasis on characters makes it a lot more lively, and you can create your own narratives.

[e1123]

Playing as Poland and crushing the heathens. Am I the only one who has embarked on extreme use of eugenics? Entire generations of my family have been decimated by assassination. I also find it helpful to forcibly enroll second and third sons as men of the cloth.

[Sepiche]

Playing as Poland and crushing the heathens. Am I the only one who has embarked on extreme use of eugenics? Entire generations of my family have been decimated by assassination. I also find it helpful to forcibly enroll second and third sons as men of the cloth.

Yeah, due to it's other bonuses I find I kind of like Gavelkind succession. As long as you can make sure to make your non-heir's bishops as soon as you can you basically get to pick who your heir is and get opinion bonuses along the way for doing it.

[KW]

Jesus, this game can be vicious.

I started up a game in 1066 as Duke Ramon Berenguer of Barcelona. Seeking some breathing room in anticipation of the inevitable Muslim invasions, Ramon invades and captures Lleida and Taragona in a quick war followed shortly after by Albarracin in another war. Ramon Berenguer lasts 9 years while maintaining positive relations with his vassals and his sons. One son, also Ramon Berenguer, acts as Marshal of Barcelona and seems content with that. Another, Berenguer Ramon, stays in court without ever being given a title or land and on occasion leads a flank of the army. He gets pouty from time to time but never causes problems. Arnau becomes a bishop. But it’s Pere that becomes the new Duke in 1076.

Pere’s reign can only be described as the most rapid turn of fortune I’ve ever experienced in a game. Upon becoming Duke, Pere fights off successive Muslim invasions, the most dangerous coming from Kabylia in North Africa which landed 3000 troops directly in Barcelona. That invasion was barely fought off by 1300 of my troops supported by 1500 desperately hired mercenaries. A close thing too, and only successful due to the efforts of Ramon Berenguer, Pere’s brother, and an exceptionally talented Marshal.

By 1087, Pere has captured two more Muslim holdings in Zaragoza and Calatayud. At this point, Pere holds 9 of the 15 holdings required to become the King of Aragon. As the current King Sancho of Aragon was weak and not-so-affectionately known as “the Careless” due to repeatedly losing wars to Castille, Leon, and Galicia, Pere decides to usurp the throne to become King Pere I of Aragon.

With the new territories, Pere’s demesne becomes too large. Fortuitously, Pere’s wife dies and Pere remarries Queen Consort Guillamette, a 20 steward whose addition to Pere’s ratings boost his demesne to 7/10 from 7/6.

The next 4 years are practically a golden age, albeit a short one. The Pope admires our efforts against the Muslims invaders and provides us 200 gold on two separate occasions. All our vassals are exceedingly happy and Pere has 6 children, 3 sons and 3 daughters. Flush with cash, Pere goes on a building spree to develop his demesne.

But then Pere makes what would ultimately be a fatal decision. Believing relations with his vassals are high enough to sustain the negative hit, he decides to increase Crown Authority to High. Relations plummet. The Count of Empuries revolts, the first revolt in decades. With 1200 troops raised within his own demesne, Pere personally crushes the 600 troop revolt and imprisons the count but loses 200 troops in the process. As the rebellion ends, 800 peasants in Zaragoza revolt. The poorly-led peasants are put down, but not before Pere loses a few hundred more troops. At this point, relations with his vassals are so poor that, if asked, they will only raise 600 levies, down from a high of nearly 1300 only a few years earlier.

With the Counts of Rosello and Urgell threating revolt, the coffers nearly empty, Pere’s demesne short on troops, and few vassal levies to raise, the French invade in 1092. King Philippe I “the Just” presses an obscure claim on the Duchy of Barcelona. Philippe’s first (and 6-years dead) wife Sibila de Barcelona was Duke Ramon Berenguer’s sister. Their son, Renaud de Bourgogne, apparently decided he was bored sitting at court in Paris and wants his own throne. Philippe happily obliges.

Pere raises what’s left of his levies along with everything his vassals are willing to give him—in total, about 1000 troops. Using the remainder of his funds, Pere hires 1500 mercenaries. With 2500 troops, Pere moves into the mountains of Rosello to assume the best possible defensive position. Two months pass and the French are nowhere to be seen. Pere moves into the mountainous county of Carcassone to begin a siege, at which point over 6000 Frenchmen make an appearance. The French arrive in Carcassone before Pere can retreat. The battle, if you can call it that, was brief. In the end, Pere flees to Foix with 400 troops remaining, with a 5200-strong French army on his heels. Pere’s army is annihilated days later.

With no army and no funds, Pere surrenders. Renaud becomes the new Duke of Barcelona. Pere, still the King of Aragon, now holds only Albarracin, Zaragoza, and Calatayud. Only Albarracin provides any income or levies as the latter two are still under religious/cultural conquest penalties. Albarracin only produced anything thanks to a particularly successful Court Chaplain who headed inquisition efforts there years earlier.

None of this would matter of course. Days after Pere’s surrender to the French, the Emir of Cordoba decides to take Muslim vengeance for 20 years of losses to Pere and his father. Thousands of Muslim troops pour across the border unopposed. Pere’s surrender ends House de Barcelona.

[tgb]

Spain is rough.

I started a game as the Duke of Transylvania with my sole goal eventually becoming King of Hungary. Lazlo starts off with a demesne of two counties and a single vassal with one. He has no claims on anyplace within the Hungarian borders, the Pagans to the South and East are far too powerful to take on (although the King of Hungary and the Kaiser of the HRE have joined forces to do so), and a really crappy Council (all with primary stats below 10). Fortunately, most of the other Dukes are kin (as well as the King), so there aren't any immediate threats at least.

40 years and 5 children later I finally managed to fabricate a couple of claims and grab half of the Duchy of Next Door, allowing me to usurp the Ducal title. Now at age 60 I have a du jure claim on the other two provinces, and hope to grab them once I've rebuilt my army (if I don't die first).

[Qantaga]

Hey tgb (and others), I've got a question for you.

I have a button at the top that tells me I can 'Create a Title," the Duke of Albany or somesuch. However, when I click on it to open the window, the Create tab in the larger Duke of Albany window is greyed out. I can't figure out how to interact with anything on that window (History is the only active button and it opens an empty window, too), nor can I find a way through the diplomatic interactions with characters to grant (create/bestow) that title on anyone.

Have you seen that "Create a Title" screen before?

I have, usually associated with creating a Duchy. I know to do that you have to have at least half of the provinces in your demesne. There should be a list of provinces, and as you mouse over them you'll be told which you have and which you need.

You probably don't have enough money on hand for it. It usually takes around 190 gold to create a new ducal title, but you can tell for sure by mousing over the create button... that'll give you a rundown of what you're missing.

One of the best things about the interface is that if you can't do something, there is usually a tooltip to tell you why not.

Creating a title can require both piety and gold.

Thanks tgb, Sepiche and baelthazar. I was out most of the weekend, but I got a chance to get back in the game this morning. The mouse over did the trick. As Sepiche and baelthazar suspected, I have 105 gold and it takes 190. With the current state of my economy, I should be able to create that title by the time my heir is 37.

This is such a great game and now that I have a better understanding of the tooltips/mouse overs, I can't wait to play more.

[tgb]

Now that I am into my first "real" game, I have to comment on just how hard it can be

Playing as Prince Lazlo, Duke of Transylvania, all I wanted to do is get to be King of Hungary. It took the better part of 30 years just to get a claim on another province, and several years of hard work to acquire a second Duchy. Unfortunately, I failed to grok the significance of Gavelkind Succession, and when Lazlo died, his heir just got Transylvania, and his brother inherited the other Duchy, putting me right back where I started.

So I decided to soldier on, and decided I will change to the Seniority succession law, which leaves all titles with the oldest child. Except to do that there has to be at least medium Crown Authority. So the next time my liege puts medium authority to a vote, I figured "why not?". So now the liege has Medium Crown Authority, and once I've reigned for 10 years, I can change the succession laws. No problem, right?

WRONG!!!!!! Because under Medium Crown Authority, vassals under the same liege can't war against each other. So all those claims I want to pursue are worthless, unless I declare a war of independence and win it. Good luck with that one.

For those who might still be on the fence, this week's Jumping the Shark podcast has a good, comprehensive, discussion.

[Sepiche]

WRONG!!!!!! Because under Medium Crown Authority, vassals under the same liege can't war against each other. So all those claims I want to pursue are worthless, unless I declare a war of independence and win it. Good luck with that one.

Could you plot to lower the crown's authority?

[tgb]

WRONG!!!!!! Because under Medium Crown Authority, vassals under the same liege can't war against each other. So all those claims I want to pursue are worthless, unless I declare a war of independence and win it. Good luck with that one.

Could you plot to lower the crown's authority?

I thought of that, but I think the succession law will revert to Gavelkind. I should ask that on the Paradox board.

[Chaz]

Started my first actual game as a Duke in southern Ireland with one vassal city. My initial plan was just to try and get my hands on another county or two, and I have a de jure claim on the one just to the south. Great! Raise the levies, let's go!

Yeah, not so much. I just barely outnumber them, so by the time I fight the defenders and siege the city, I can't actually make any progress. I offer a white peace and head home with my tail between my legs.

Many years later, I see that the lord of that province has headed out to France to help in a war. Great, to arms! Declare war, march in. Except that oh, shit. I should've figured that "helping France" actually means "allied with France". France sends in 2200 soldiers.

Crap.

I get offered a white peace, which is about the best I can hope for at this point, and take it. I spend the next ten years or so biding my time and, apparently, having LOTS OF SEX. Seriously, my wife and I have six children in about a ten year span. Of course, all but kid 2 are girls. Also, I have an older son from when the game started who's....questionable at best. Of course, he's the heir.

Fast forward a while, and my king finally becomes infirm (probably from all the sexing, it really takes it out of a liege), and the son becomes regent. Eventually, he finally drops dead. Shortly after the son takes over, my spymaster finds out that apparently mom has designs on offing her son, the new king. Just rumors though, and I can't imprison her. Stupid mom.

By now, I've got enough levies and money to pull together a good-sized army, and I press my claim on the county to the south and take it without much sweat.

Now I'm working on fabricating claims to the neighboring county. Unfortunately, my current dumbass king couldn't manage to make a son, so I've just got three daughters. I may also have screwed up by marrying the eldest to a prince of England. Not really sure how that's going to work out when my current king dies, but I'm interested to see.

The big thing that I'm having trouble figuring is how one manages to increase the number of troops available for levies. I've got my castle capital that I can usually get ~300 troops out of, but my city vassal province never even seems to get to 100. That just doesn't seem like enough to be able to do much fighting. Is it kind of assumed that when you're that size, you just need to hire mercenaries, or is there something I'm missing?

Fun so far though.

[Sepiche]

The big thing that I'm having trouble figuring is how one manages to increase the number of troops available for levies. I've got my castle capital that I can usually get ~300 troops out of, but my city vassal province never even seems to get to 100. That just doesn't seem like enough to be able to do much fighting. Is it kind of assumed that when you're that size, you just need to hire mercenaries, or is there something I'm missing?

You can get a few more troops out of your vassals by having good relations with them or passing harsher levy laws. For your own land you just need to build expansions in your holdings to increase the levy size and number of troops. It's expensive and takes a bit of time, but you can increase the size of your levy quite a bit by adding a couple upgrades.

[tgb]

Chaz -

I assume you are referring to how many troops you can raise from your vassals. That depends on how much they love you (which you can control) and the Crown Authority (which, as a Duke, you can't). As with everything else in this game, tool tips are your friend. In each province in your realm (including those controlled by vassals), if you mouse over that little bar under the picture of the castle in the upper right, it will tell you exactly how many units a levy will call up.

And to answer my own question, once you change the succession laws, switching to a different Crown Authority will not change them back.

[Mr Bismarck]

Sweet Lord this game...



I once again started as the Earl of Some Ditch on the outskirts of the Middle of Nowhere, in southern Wales this time - Glamorgan, to be precise. Home of a nice cricket club in the 21st century, a thousand years earlier it was home of a nice wooden club and not a lot else.

First steps early on were just to consolidate position and to try to not annoy anyone too much when I was weak. Not annoying people is really hard for me, as I can't think of anything I like more, but with repeated counselling sessions I managed to rein in my need to fuck with people. I set about marrying some likely looking lass, picking the firstest, youngest, lustiest lady I can find in the hope of churning out tiny Glamorgans, but this leads to little more than awkward fumbling for two years before Earl Cadwgan finally works out what goes where and when and Countess Aenor falls pregnant.

Cadwgan's ambition is to have a son, Aenor's to have a daughter, so someone is going to be disappointed.

It turns out that the Countess is the "winner" here, as daughter Rhiannon is born in January 1069 and it takes the Earl another two years to remember where he left his groove and have another go, making another Daughter - Marared. Then it's another two and half years before Aenor falls with baby number three - Cadwgan still has the ambition to have a son, (or a name that wasn't drawn out of a Scrabble bag), while Aenor has the ambition of throwing herself out of a tall window, as living in a rain-filled garbage pile with a dull Earl who can't work out how to take off his pants has her depressed. Fortunately even depressed lusty people still like sex, so they come up with another baby and this time it's a girl with a winky, finally fulfilling Cadwgan's ambition and giving him a proper heir, as previously it had been his "kinsman" rather than his son. The kinsman are annoyed, but whatever.

With the future of the dunghole finally assured, the Glamorgan chancellor finally comes through and manages to fabricate a claim to the county of Dyfed, (for non crazy people that's pronounced "Duff-ed"), and the Glamorgan armies are up Dyfed's drainpipes before the ink is dry on the fake claim. Things look like they're going to go a little wrong and we won't have enough men to successfully siege, but Cadwgan cracks open the coffers and buys in a mercenary army who waltz through Dyfed's forces like they're not there. Dyfed surrender and I've doubled the size of the realm.

The Earl of Dyfed was four years old. So yay me, I'm reading military tactics at a kindergarten level.

I use the new county to create a Duchy and promote myself to Duke. I have a soup du jour claim on the third and final county in the Duchy - Gwent - but annoyingly the Duke of Shrewsbury has already waded in there and taken it and going after him would involve declaring war on his liege - some guy called "The King of England." I'll give that a miss.

Things calm down from there until Cadwgan manages to have a fourth child - another boy - and then dies, bringing the 14 year old Duke Meurig to the the throne. Or rather his Mother, Aenor, for 18 months until he turns 16. Roughly the first thing he's asked to do is to decide if he should go to war in support of one sister against the other - a family feud he politely declines. Instead we set sights on the Welsh counties of Gwynedd and Powys. Even though that Duchy is also missing a county due to English aggression, holding four Welsh counties will allow me to create the Kingdom of Wales and make my favourite Welsh duke the new King.

This will be where my Chancellor lets me down, again, by taking forever to create a legal claim. Eventually I find someone who already has a claim to Gwynedd, invite them to my court and then arrange a matrilineal marriage to a kinswoman, in the hope that that will bring him into the dynasty. Then I press his claim to the Counties, declare war and go in hard with two blocks of mercenaries, meaning I barely have to even raise my own levies. We win, I install the new guy and then offer him an attractive vassalisation, while going off to Crowns R Us to get my head measured for the new shiny hat.

Except the new guy that I manufactured and then installed turns down my offer. WTF!? Dude! Duke... Dude.. whatever. Dude! I made you. Now I must break you. Or rather I must get my chancellor to fabricate a piece of paper saying I'm allowed to break you.

I sit and wait for the Chancellor to do his stuff. And wait. And wait.

Meanwhile I have to deal with this kind of nonsense.


"Iestyn Ap Gwrgant wants to get married."

Firstly, I can't find anyone drunk enough to want to marry into that stupid name. Secondly, you're SEVENTY NINE years old. The average life expectancy is about... four, or something. You're so old that eighty per cent of your children are dead. Just die already.

I arrange a marriage to some old French lady with a lisp and a hunchback, who is listed as "maimed" and an imbecile. Don't say I never do anything for you, Iestyn Ap Gwargledangle.

Four weeks later Iestyn dies and now I'm left with some mad old French hag wandering the halls of the castle, drooling and smelling of cheese.

I try to marry her off but surprisingly no one will have her.

Finally there comes news from my Chancellor. I open it excitedly and read it, expecting details of how I'm the Duke of Powys' Cousin's dog's Aunt's Sister's Uncle, but instead it just says "I have died of old age."

I find a new Chancellor and send him in with instructions to just write something down and he's there about four days when he's faked a claim. I consider digging up the old chancellor and punching him in his dead balls, but instead pay for the mercs again. Go on the offensive again. Kick over the tables again. Capture Powys and Gwynedd again.

Yay me.

Paying for the mercs has dipped me down to 200 gold coins. I need 350 to make myself King and start stamping my own face on the money.

While I try to wring as much tax as possible out of anyone who jingles when I shake them, the Duchess of Kent wanders through my realm and fakes a couple claims because, you know, her Chancellor isn't useless. This is sort of annoying as the Duchesses sister is married to my fourth son, so you'd think they'd pick on someone else. But they're on completely the other side of England, so I'm sure it'll be fine.

Ten minutes after that thought a declaration of war is delivered by the Kentish councillor. Followed by a 1,400-strong army wandering into Gwynedd. I leave it undefended save for the weak garrisons there and hope the Kents wear their army down. By the time they've taken Gwynedd and Powys their army is down under four figures, so I raise a merc unit and my levies and meet them in Dyfed where I take a pointed stick and wedge it in their Kentish holes. I pull together every vassal unit I have now and send it into Gwynedd to try to recapture immediately, but Kent pull another 800 strong army out of nowhere and drive me off the field. I appeal to some allies in Scotland and Norway for help and they both turn me down. That's not what "ally" means, you buggers.

In a fit of desperation I send my spy master to Kent to have a couple words with the Duchess. Words like "knife" and "in the back while you sleep", followed by a practical demonstration that she doesn't enjoy too much. She's succeeded by her sister for some reason and she won't accept peace, so I stab her too. That "her" would be my Daughter in Law and I was expecting her husband, my son, to step up to the big chair at this point, but instead succession goes to their son, with some old bag as regent. He's four. I know how to beat four year olds. So I have him stabbed too.

I'm now spending almost all my time watching the Kentish court and no time watching my own. My Granddaughter is next up to bat as leader of the Kents - she's two. I sit watching the bottom corner of her portrait for news of which inbred knuckle-dragging mouth-breather will be next in charge if something dreadful should happen to her when a face pops up that I recognise instantly. Mine.

To recap, at this point I've spent 150 pieces of gold to kill the Duchess, then my Daughter in Law and then my Grandson and now I still have Kentish armies on the borders and I'm only one small stabbing away from being able to call off my own armies in my war against myself, thereby gaining control over the counties I need to make myself King and picking up some prime real estate in the south of England to build my summer home...

Way to turn stabbing from a chore to a hobby.

But there's bad news - the two year old's regent has noticed a worrying trend of people accidentally stabbing themselves while shaving, so she's clearly called the spymaster back into the county to discover plots, because my chances of successfully stabbing a two year old girl are apparently not very good.

If they'd just given the crown to my son we could have had a nice little chat and no one would have had to have been stabbed. But noooooooooo.

With stabbing temporarily off the table I decide to bust out some diplomacy instead. I invite a bunch of new debutantes to my court until I get one who is both attractive and lusty and young and virile. And smells like vanilla. I then go off to the Kentish court and find the spymaster. His wife has sadly recently suffered a fatal stabbing, so he's back on the lookout and happily accepts a marriage proposal that will see him hook up with Miss Wales 1136. He also happily accepts a small amount of gold coin and suddenly his frown is turned upside down, his red middle finger becomes a green thumbs up when I invite him back to my court and so he goes from being Duchess Two Year Old's Spy Master to being my Master of the Cups.

Completely coincidentally Duchess Granddaughter Wasserface has no other serious candidates for replacement spymaster and, I mean, really... who let a two year old play with a knife? Now there's blood everywhere and I suppose I'll have to split time between being King of Wales and Duke of Kent. I didn't want the job, but someone has to do it.



I only hope I can find out who's behind all these stabbings.

[Sarkus]

That was an excellent little AAR Mr. B.

I wish my game was going as well. Apparently Croatia is the land of regencies, as I'm 22 years in and starting my second long one. If I've had five or six years of an adult in charge I'd be surprised. It doesn't help when your brilliant strategist young king manages to get his head in the way of a mace in his very first big battle. At least he was a drooling idiot for only a few months before dying. Long live the infant king!

[tgb]

I just read that there is a rare event chain where

Spoiler:

the gates of Hell open and your realm is beset by demons. Seriously.

.

One question I still can't find the answer to: If you are playing a Duke or Count, is there any way to become independent without going to war against your Liege?

[Chaz]

I got that event chain, but that didn't quite happen.

Spoiler:

When you get it, there's an earthquakes in one of your towns. I think you have the option to ignore it or investigate. If you investigate, you find that a rift in the earth has opened. From here on out, you can keep investigating, or ignoring it, but now you've got a temp attribute called something like "Opened the Gate of Hell" that gives a small-ish hit to everyone's opinion and some other stuff. As you go along, the modifier gets worse, but eventually, you get presented with a number of options to attempt to close it, including ordering an exorcism, filling it with rocks, throwing cows down it, or tossing in one of your kids.

I opted for an exorcism, which seemed to work, since the "brimstone and voices" coming from it stopped, and my negative temp attribute got replaced with a nice little temp positive one called "Closed the Gate of Hell".

I'm not sure if the negative outcome was actually something that could happen, but damn I kinda wish it had now.

[Apollo]

... I only hope I can find out who's behind all these stabbings.

Excellent write-up, Mr Bismarck!

[Mr Bismarck]

This should be my new Kingly avatar.



Of course, the game's nature means I'll die five minutes before I crown myself King and my children will all fight each other and ruin everything.

Maybe I should stab someone.

[Chaz]

Okay, I have confuse about navies and armies.

I started a game in the mid-1100s as the Duke of Sicily, so I own the toe of Italy, plus all four counties in Sicily. Within a few years of the game starting, a 1200 peasant revolt kick off on the mainland. Okay, I raise my personal levies. This pops up as 433 foot soldiers in each of my five counties and three ships per county.

How the heck do I get the dudes on the boats so I can go knock some peasant heads in? I tried breaking the stack of armies into chunks, but I couldn't seem to get the chunks small enough to fit on the boats, and I couldn't see a way to combine the boats into one big fleet. It's possible I was missing something, since I was playing on my lunch break.

[Sepiche]

How the heck do I get the dudes on the boats so I can go knock some peasant heads in?

Each ship can carry 100 troops, so raise as many ships as you need, move them to a sea zone, then you should be able to combine them like you do armies. Once you have that combined fleet, just pick your troops and right click on the sea zone the ships are in, and they should load themselves up.

[Chaz]

Can you only combine fleets when they're in the sea zone, or can they be combined in port? Is there even a difference? I'm assuming there is.

[Sepiche]

Can you only combine fleets when they're in the sea zone, or can they be combined in port? Is there even a difference? I'm assuming there is.

I would think you should still be able to combine them in port, but I'm not sure that I've tried.

[tgb]

So much for my plot to get the King of Hungary to lower Crown Authority. He refused, and I declared war, but not a single one of my good-for-nothing relatives stood by their alliance. Worse, the fucking Kaiser decided to stick his nose in and declare war on me.

This will not end well. I see surrender in my future.

[tru1cy]

So much for my plot to get the King of Hungary to lower Crown Authority. He refused, and I declared war, but not a single one of my good-for-nothing relatives stood by their alliance. Worse, the fucking Kaiser decided to stick his nose in and declare war on me.

This will not end well. I see surrender in my future.

Yeah, I suffered the same fate in England. Did you have other plotters? My plot included several other dukes and a Count from Sardina. When we raised up half my plotters never showed, but the Count did land 15K troops in York and we actually had the King on the ropes till his Cousin the King of France landed 25K troops to support. The war lasted two years but in the end all the plotters were jailed as traitors. Luckily the king didn't strip me of my titles


Saying all this I am going to re-start the game cause I never realized I could up grade my holdings and I have a better understanding diplomancy. Somehow, one of my baronies is now being held by the King of France and I can't figure out how and you can't usurp counties and baronies

[tgb]

Yeah, I had two plotters involved, but they never showed up to fight. I'm thinking my mistake might have been jumping the gun and launching the plot when it was only at about 92%.

Still, a big part of the fun in this game is rolling with the punches, so I'm going to see it through and see what happens. After all, it's still only 1133. One of my problems (and it is my problem) with Paradox games is tend to forget that they are a marathon, not a sprint.

[baelthazar]

Can you only combine fleets when they're in the sea zone, or can they be combined in port? Is there even a difference? I'm assuming there is.

You can combine in port. Just drag a box around them and that will select them all. No difference, although loading in port is instant.

[Chaz]

Can you only combine fleets when they're in the sea zone, or can they be combined in port? Is there even a difference? I'm assuming there is.

You can combine in port. Just drag a box around them and that will select them all. No difference, although loading in port is instant.

I swear I tried that. I did have an army unit in the same province though, so it's possible that I was accidentally selecting them along with my ships.

[Sepiche]

I have a pretty good game going now that started with King Harold of England...

The Saxons of England start in a pretty desperate situation with a Norwegian army of around 8000 besieging York, and some frog named William the Bastard about to land thousands of troops on the southern coast. The only good news is they start with levies ready to go and an army of about 10,000 troops gathered in the North.

I figured the Norwegians weren't going anywhere soon, so I marched my troops south and got them in position to repulse the upstart duke. We managed to meet his first army of about 5000 as it landed utterly crushing it on the beach and continued to rush around southern England for the next few weeks crushing other Norman armies until they finally stopped landing. Not having the heart for a long fight the Norman duke offered terms not long after and I turned my sights north where the Norwegians had taken York and were about to finish with the last of the baronies there and move south.

I had enough money saved at this point to bring in some mercenaries to bolster my ranks, and after I gathered up as many fresh troops as I could muster I marched north and met the enemy in the field. It was a bloody victory, but it broke the vikings back on English soil and after a few more weeks of chasing I finished off the last foreign army on my lands. Then it was just a matter of embarking my army and landing in Norway.

The Norwegian's had been battered bloody by losing the army they sent to England, but they still had troops remaining in the fjords of the homeland. Luckily the king of Sweden had wisely noticed the Norwegians were suddenly much weaker than previously and started a war over a county they had a claim to along their border. The campaign was slow, but over a number of months one Norwegian city after another was taken and finally they agreed to a truce.

Repelling two invasions successfully gave King Harold of England a nice bounty of prestige and had forged him into a strong, popular king. With my security assured for the time being I set my sights on pressing claims in Wales and Scotland. The next few years went quickly and saw a number of small wars that claimed portions of Wales and Scotland for England and then finally the death of King Harold the Just.

Sadly next in line to the throne was King Harold's eldest son who would eventually be known to the world as King Godwin the Effeminate. The less remembered about his reign the better, although he did see most of Wales fall under his control along with the crown of Wales. In addition, during the reign of King Godwin, the Moors of Iberia had managed to destroy the Kingdom's of Leon and Castille and were in danger of driving Christianity completely from the Iberian peninsula. The King wisely sent a crusading army south while one of the Muslim Emir's was occupied with other wars and managed to seize some land in the northwest corner of the peninsula.

King Godwin sadly lacked a strong constitution and succumbed to illness at a fairly young age. He had been grooming his son for the throne for years and he had the makings of an epic new king, but strangely in the last few months before the death of King Godwin the Prince left the King's court for the court of the Duke of York who promptly gave the good Prince a Bishopric, thus removing him from the line of succession.

Therefore upon Godwin's death his nephew, the two year old King Magnus, assumed the throne and would be forced to try to hold the realm together and keep it under the control of the House of Godwin. The vassals weren't terribly happy with this new boy king, but his regent was wise and, while the northern Dukes of York and Lancaster were the most vocally against the new king, the southern Dukes largely accepted his rule after some new lands were handed out and gifts exchanged hands, and his rule became much more secure.

In the first years of his reign, Wales was finally brought completely under English rule, and much money was spent improving the lands of England, growing the army the young king could call up to almost 15,000 strong. As the young king matured and came of age, the wisdom of his tutor's showed, and he became a formidable strategist. To increase the strength of the realm he married the young Duchess of Lancaster and then turned his eyes to the Duke of York. While the Duke had been quiet of late, the young king had not forgotten the opposition he originally faced from that front upon taking the throne and when the saw the opportunity to act against the powerful Duke, he acted.

The Duke of York was a wise old man who knew how to pick his battles, but he was greedy and had manged to take control of three duchies: York, Northhampton, and Cornwall. The King however also had a claim of the Duchy of Cornwall and in order to force the Duke into confrontation moved to revoke the Duke's control of the Duchy. The proud old Duke knew nothing but honor and rose up in rebellion. King Magnus seized the opportunity to cut the Duke's holdings down to size and called up his banners and overwhelmed the poor Duke. He gave the Duchy of Cornwall to a more loyal vassal, but mercifully let the Duke of York go free once he had properly rebuked him and taken some of his lands as punishment.

With the realm more stable than it had ever before been, King Magnus, now known as "the Bold" decided the time was right to expand his overseas holdings and strike a blow for all of Christianity. First it was a short war against one of the weaker Muslim Emirs in Spain, claiming more land along the northern coast for England. Then, he bided his time until the great Muslim Sultanate of Mauritania was involved in a civil war and multiple border skirmishes. When the time was right he once again called up his loyal lords, set sail for Spain and seized the Duchy of Porto for his realm.

As these new conquests were happening other events were occurring elsewhere in Europe. Pope Gregory was a weak and unloved Italian prince, who was so used to corruption he considered it business as usual. So when an ambitious Welsh duke came to him with "evidence" of the heresies of the English king the pope was quick to act and excommunicated him. All across England the people raged at this upstart pontiff who was clearly an agent of the Prince of Lies, and when King Magnus declared his wise and honorable Uncle Pope Antimonus I, they hailed the beginning of a new era of devotion and faith in England, now with their own un-corrupted pope to lead them.

And so Europe currently stands in 1122. Although he is already among the most prestigious lords of Europe and has ruled wisely for 20 years, the young King Magnus is still only 22 and likely has many good years of rule ahead of him. While his lands in Spain are the most likely to expand soon, he still keeps a jealous eye toward the Scottish throne in the north, and the Irish throne to the west.

[El Guapo]

You named your own Pope? I'm guessing that's an event choice if you get excommunicated, or something? Is that like a "Church of England" kind of deal?

[Sepiche]

You named your own Pope? I'm guessing that's an event choice if you get excommunicated, or something? Is that like a "Church of England" kind of deal?

It's an option on the religious page to turn one of your bishops into an anti-pope. Basically you weaken the church as a whole and piss off the current pope, but everyone in your kingdom becomes immune to excommunication attempts. I think I was in a fairly lucky situation where the current pope was very unpopular, so my bishops overwhelmingly supported the move, but I think if you tried it with a popular pope you'd have a load of trouble doing it.

[El Guapo]

Interesting. Do other nations / realms get to do holy war type things against you too? I'd think that would be another downside.

[Sepiche]

Interesting. Do other nations / realms get to do holy war type things against you too? I'd think that would be another downside.

I don't think so... I still count as catholic, and I've been keeping an eye on the other rulers and so far no negative modifiers toward me because of it. I was expecting a little more backlash honestly, but so far so good. Could be I'm in for a world of hurt when my king dies or if a popular pope comes along, but at the time making an anti-pope was a much better option than being excommunicated and letting half of Europe have casus belli against me.

[Mr Bismarck]

When last we saw Sir Stabbaslot he was curled up in a darkened corner of his room, whispering softly to his favourite knife "Soon, my lovely. Sooooooooon..."

Then in March of 1138 Duke Meurig I of Deheubarth and Kent had to put the knife down for ten minutes to be crowned King of Wales. This meant he had to employ a serf to stand next to him to wear the Duke of Kent's crown, as he couldn't figure a way to wear both that didn't look garish.

King Meurig I of Wales (also; Duke of Kent) looked out over his lands from his castle's highest tower and thought "Wow, Wales is awful" and thus began plans to pick up and move to Kent in the middle of a winter night like a bearded 12th century Baltimore Colts.

Fortunately any potential issues about how he was going to deal with an unruly Welsh populous from all the way over in South Eastern England were solved very quickly when an arrow came through the window with an attached note saying "we are now at war."

It was from the King of England and was followed up rather quickly with several thousand more pointed messages, as a five thousand strong army appeared on Welsh borders and proceeded to remind me why I liked stabbing so much.

With no chance of winning directly against the English army, King Meurig I, (also; Duke of Kent), raised his levies and drove East from Wales into Gwent and Gloucester, hoping to force the King to abandon his sieges on my lands and come south. When they finally assembled, my Kentish levies were instructed to push west into Winchester in a move that completely unintentionally set events into motion that would force a war lasting eleven years.

That war wasn't the one between England and Wales, however. The King finished his siege in Gwynedd and paused to gather in some smaller armies, so I recalled my levies from their largely ineffective siege in Gloucester and threw in 1,500 mercenaries and positioned myself on the hills in Powys.

The King brought his 4500+ men south to meet me and after a nasty fight in which I had all of the defensive bonuses, he drove me from the field , my broken forces rushing south to Glamorgan behind our castle walls.

I hadn't expected to win that battle, but had hoped that I'd be able to write down the English forces enough to force a pause and hopefully cause the King to spend himself into wanting peace. Sadly this hadn't worked, so before they crossed the borders into Glamorgan I surrendered, giving up the three English counties, Gwynedd and Powys, but keeping Glamorgan and Dyfed.

Surprisingly, I was still considered King and from certain angles in the highest tower I was still King of all I could see. Like that cupboard and the table with the plate on it.

Meurig's loss and sadness were compounded when Princess Cecilia died, thereby breaking his heart and shaking his confidence, daily.

Somehow Meurig I, King of Bits of Wales got over his bereavement with the aid of a 19 year old French Woman and, as we can see here, he also got over a 19 year old French Woman, (thank you, I'll be here all week!)



I can only hope I'm so active at 63 years old.

At the start of the one-sided war with England I had attacked into Winchester with my Kentish levies and this had apparently triggered a chain of events that would let me make with the stabby-stabby again, as I was approached by the Prince of England, (also Duke of Winchester), who wasn't mad at me for attacking him, but rather mad at his Dad for not riding to his rescue.

He offered me the chance to join in on a plot with him to claim the crown of England and I readily agreed. It turned out that the King of Navarre was also in on the plot and Navarre had a good opinion of me as he once had an ancestor who was once married to one of my sisters.

The plot exploded early in 1140 with an uprising of the Prince's men in the south and a landing of large Navarre forces in the north east. I waited for the King to react to this and then raised my own levies and struck north back into Powys.

What followed was eleven years of war where all parties involved were, at times, apparently one step from victory, only to find themselves shortly one step from obliteration.

At first the English King lost several battles as he seemed to be unsure of which of his three new enemies to deal with first. Eventually he settled on a tactic of punching his son in the face as often as possible, as I presume he worked out that I was too weak to be anything but a nuisance and Navarre would be crippled as his new territories offered no taxes and plenty of revolt risks.

I recaptured Powys and Gwynedd and then struck east and took Gwent, finally reuniting all of the Welsh counties, and then further east to take Gloucester. I then tried to relieve pressure on my ally by moving north toward the King's home county, Lancaster.

The King reacted violently to this, with two armies swinging toward me, pushing me back into Powys and severely bloodying me there before the English had to rush away to meet a Navarre push into Norfolk. The King routed Navarre from the field and then rebels began to spring up in the recently captured counties of the Spanish King, forcing him into a purely defensive mode.

This was the point where Meurig decided to make rapid exit, stage left, as he passed onto the next life while sleeping, raising Prince Francisco to lead the Welsh forces against the impending wrath of the English King. Francisco reached out to the King of Scotland, inviting him to invade south into England now that the King was so weakened and broke after a decade of war, but the Scots politely declined.

The King then faced his own son in Bedford, capturing the Prince and leaving only one enemy facing the music.

My two small counties were now economic powerhouses, as I'd been investing in +tax improvements whenever possible for about eight decades, so with no forces raised I was quickly rolling in money enough to raise two large mercenary armies alongside my levies.

Francisco waited for the King to approach, then raised 4,000 mercenaries and added his 1,800 levies and struck out into Hereford. The King took the bait and attacked, having to cross a river to do so and although the fight saw massive casualties on both sides, with the advantage of chosen ground Francisco held and the English King blinked first and retreated, leaving behind two nobles - the Mayors of Shrewsbury and Hereford to be captured and ransomed!

Now, in 1151 with the Prince Captured, the King of Navarre bottled up by rebellion and the King of England bested, peace was finally agreed on all sides and King Francisco celebrated with his new counties of... nowhere. With "inconclusive" peace announced, King Francisco got no rewards for his efforts or the efforts of his father.

Two weeks later the King of England and his Queen Consort were found dead in their beds. Their death certificates said "stabbings" or, as we like to call them in Wales; "Natural Causes."

[tgb]

I wish I could write AAr's as good as yours.

[Apollo]

...Meurig's loss and sadness were compounded when Princess Cecilia died, thereby breaking his heart and shaking his confidence, daily...

Another excellent chapter, Mr. Bismarck! Keep them coming!

[Mr Bismarck]

I wish I could write AAr's as good as yours.

Thanks - I think if you have an enthusiasm for a game and you can get that enthusiasm into the keyboard then anyone can write a good AAR.

I'm just very glad that in these "tl;dr" days someone will still read my long-winded guff.

[Chaz]

Do you take notes, or do you just remember everything? I always kind of want to write up AARs, but my memory's bad and I'm terrible at taking notes.

[Mr Bismarck]

I take hundreds of screenshots - every time something - anything - happens I screen it. They then remind me of what happened and help to tie the narrative together. If it's something that might confuse me I'll put the mouse pointer over it and use fraps, (which captures the cursor), instead of Steam, (which doesn't), so I can remember why the hell I took that shot.

[Hrdina]

...Meurig's loss and sadness were compounded when Princess Cecilia died, thereby breaking his heart and shaking his confidence, daily...

Another excellent chapter, Mr. Bismarck! Keep them coming!

Jubilation!

Very entertaining so far, Mr B.