Crusader Kings 2 Redux

[Syt]

She was deposed a short time later by a faction (Saxony at this stage is a one province country in Southern-ish France).

[garbon]

Not something I use often but looks like they finally kicked the tires of the converter.

Hello all, and welcome back to another CK2 Development Diary. If you didn't notice last week, we now do CK DDs on Mondays to match up with the Medieval Monday stream. Anyway, getting on to the point of this DD: We've been updating the Converter!

Development in EU4 will now be based on the state of the world in CK2. Holdings, Buildings, Hospitals and Prosperity all count when determining if your capital should be the new Paris or not. The development of the default 1444 EU4 provinces (within the converted area) will be redistributed in a way that makes sense for your world.

Dynamic fort placement. No longer will forts be placed exactly as they were in the default 1444 setup, instead forts will be placed in strategically appropriate areas for each nation.

Revamped Tech Groups. Now, as Tech Group no longer actually affect your technology cost (that's handled by institutions), your group will be based on the geographical area of your capital. This is then used to improve your experience in many ways, i.e. through custom idea generation!

Dynamic ideas. No longer will your nation simply have the 'National Ideas' set, instead a unique one will be generated for you based on your situation in EU4. These idea sets will give you appropriate ideas, so no naval ideas if you are landlocked or just have one port.

Institutions have been revamped to account for the vastly different world that is a converted game. The institutions will spread in a much more dynamic way, and no longer discriminates in favor of Europe (especially not if India or the Middle East manage to get a high Development converted over!). Institutions such as the Printing Press do not necessarily have to spawn in Germany, either.

Converter-centric idea picking for the AI. With most converted games missing a Portugal, and in some cases even a Castille or England, the AI has been readjusted to dynamically assume these positions. One nation will try to assume the role of Portugal - be it Iceland, Scotland, Korea or Majapahit you won't know until you play!

Traits now convert over from CK2. Did you have a midas touched genius ruler or a possessed imbecile lunatic ruler? No matter what, you will recognize them by their traits in EU4.

Improved Sunset Invasion setup. For all of you who wanted the New world empires to be even mightier we've improved the High Americans with new missions and unique units. High American units tend to have many Fire pips, so beware their power!

The Converter will be updated alongside the release of Rights of Man on the 11th. That's all for now, but I have even more Converter stuff to talk about next week.

[Razgovory]

The next DLC will be similar to Way of Life, which soumds good as character development is the centre piece of the game mechanics.

The two things I'd like to see would be cadet branches and a real trade system.

[Tamas]

The next DLC will be similar to Way of Life, which soumds good as character development is the centre piece of the game mechanics.

The two things I'd like to see would be cadet branches and a real trade system.

My money is on a pets feature and werewolves.

[dps]

The next DLC will be similar to Way of Life, which soumds good as character development is the centre piece of the game mechanics.

The two things I'd like to see would be cadet branches and a real trade system.

My money is on a pets feature and werewolves.

Sadly, that seems more likely at this point.

The main thing I want to see is the tooltips updated to reflect the changes that have been made.

[Razgovory]

The next DLC will be similar to Way of Life, which soumds good as character development is the centre piece of the game mechanics.

The two things I'd like to see would be cadet branches and a real trade system.

My money is on a pets feature and werewolves.

Yeah.  I wouldn't hold out on a new trade system but cadet branches would be cool.

[garbon]

Interesting article about CK2 and plans on RPS.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/11/11/crusader-kings-2-characters/

[Syt]

It's interesting more games haven't done something with character relationships like this - I can think of Sims to some extent, Rimworld, and maybe some sports management games. Some Paradox staples start bleeding into other series, though, like leader traits and CBs in Civ6.

[Barrister]

SO I have a complicated relationship with CK2.  I played the shit out of CK1 a decade ago and loved it despite it's many faults.

I bought CK2 upon release, but found it complicated, then got distracted by something else, and never really played it.

Then a couple years ago on a Steam sale I bought everything up to that point, but found it complicated, got distracted by something else, and never really played it.

So then this last weekend on another steam sale I bought the remaining expansions (save the most recent one).

I noticed they have a tutorial system.  Played through that, but this was the very basic mechanics, so it wasn't much help.

Then, since I had been in Scotland last summer, I started a gave in the 8th century, playing as tribal  Pictland.  I got started, was feeling my way around, then BAM a faction revolt, two thirds of my kingdom revolted, and I quit the game before the year was out.

I'm going to give it another try again tonight.  BUt maybe my lessons from EU1/EU2/CK are hurting, not helping me.  I used to feel the best way to get a feel for a Paradox game was to play a small country as you have less choices and can better get a feel for what is going on.  But maybe I just need to leap in to a more major country.

[dps]

If you want a fairly easy start, try the Picts again, but don't play as the king, play as his brother (or is it uncle?  or maybe nephew?) who has a big demense to the north of the lands held directly by the king.  You can easily rebel and overthrow the king and take his place.  After that, the only threat to you in the short term is Northumbria, but you really shouldn't have too much trouble with them. 

[Barrister]

If you want a fairly easy start, try the Picts again, but don't play as the king, play as his brother (or is it uncle?  or maybe nephew?) who has a big demense to the north of the lands held directly by the king.  You can easily rebel and overthrow the king and take his place.  After that, the only threat to you in the short term is Northumbria, but you really shouldn't have too much trouble with them.

That would be the guy who revolted against me in my game...

Glad to know it wasn't that I did something particularly stupid.

I picked up a history book on the Picts while in Scotland, but after reading it I'm hardly any further ahead.  With no written records of their own we know so damn little about them...

[Jacob]

What are you having trouble with?

A pretty decent spot to play is the ruler of the Easternmost part of India in the earliest start... large personal desmense, king level title, no vassals, claim on a (slightly smaller) neighbour, right on the silk road (build trade posts as the very first thing you do).

You're unlikely to get anyone curbstomping you for a while unless your make the troubles yourselves.

Of course, that won't help you with tribal or Christian mechanics.

[Barrister]

What are you having trouble with?

A pretty decent spot to play is the ruler of the Easternmost part of India in the earliest start... large personal desmense, king level title, no vassals, claim on a (slightly smaller) neighbour, right on the silk road (build trade posts as the very first thing you do).

You're unlikely to get anyone curbstomping you for a while unless your make the troubles yourselves.

Of course, that won't help you with tribal or Christian mechanics.

Oh I mostly just have trouble with patience.  BY the time I'm able to sit down with a game it's 9 o'clock and I'm tired, so I just don't want to take the time to learn all the little mechanics.

Meh - no interest in India at this point.

[dps]

What are you having trouble with?

A pretty decent spot to play is the ruler of the Easternmost part of India in the earliest start... large personal desmense, king level title, no vassals, claim on a (slightly smaller) neighbour, right on the silk road (build trade posts as the very first thing you do).

You're unlikely to get anyone curbstomping you for a while unless your make the troubles yourselves.

Of course, that won't help you with tribal or Christian mechanics.

Oh I mostly just have trouble with patience.  BY the time I'm able to sit down with a game it's 9 o'clock and I'm tired, so I just don't want to take the time to learn all the little mechanics.

Meh - no interest in India at this point.

Actually, one thing you need to be with most situations at the start is a bit patient.  It seems that especially on the latest patch/release, your neighbors will pounce if you're overextended.  Hence the advice to horde prestige as a tribal--at some point, 2 or 3 neighbors will jump you pretty much at once while you're trying to conquer someone else, and if you haven't taken the time to build up prestige (or have plenty of cash to buy mercenaries) you'll find you can't fight all of them at once.

[HVC]

Go to Ireland to learn. Isolated from the big guys, but enough neighbors to learn the game in micro form.