Crusader Kings 2 Redux

[HVC]

Is there anyway to not have a civil war upon succession? As the king of Leon i'm always on the edge of ruin thanks to all the damn wars. Wars to keep the other kings from falling to muslims, wars to keep me from falling to muslims, and civil wars are making this thing a grind.

[HVC]

also my maimed king was nick named half-hand

[jimmy olsen]

Who are you there?

[sbr]

Is there anyway to not have a civil war upon succession? As the king of Leon i'm always on the edge of ruin thanks to all the damn wars. Wars to keep the other kings from falling to muslims, wars to keep me from falling to muslims, and civil wars are making this thing a grind.

Yes.  I don't know what I did other than be lucky enough to have a very good heir, but I had at least one very nice peaceful transfer of power in my Apulia->Sicily->Apulia game.

[Syt]

Who are you there?

Duchy of Pommerania in Lübeck. I keep trying to build a Baltic demesne.

[Martinus]

Sorry, 1170.

Also, Richard the Monk founded two abbeys and built three castles. At 800 gold per pop. And then fully outfitted them.

Define fully outfitting, cause I think that costs like 10,000 ducats to do.

Building every single available building in them. And it's more around 2000-3000. As I said, I was rolling in cash.

England actually starts with 1000 gold so it gives you a good head start when you build Castle Villages in 10 of your holdings. I guess it's put there to see if a player is clever or stupid (and e.g. spends it all on mercs or purchasing ducal titles ).

[Martinus]

I've had a ruler die in victorious peasant squashing.

Didn't Richard Lionheart die while leading a pretty much victorious siege against a rebellious petty vassal in France?

[Martinus]

Is there anyway to not have a civil war upon succession? As the king of Leon i'm always on the edge of ruin thanks to all the damn wars. Wars to keep the other kings from falling to muslims, wars to keep me from falling to muslims, and civil wars are making this thing a grind.

My succession from Richard the Monk to Martin I was devoid of succession wars. The only potential pretender was my uncle (who had a 60% rebellion rate, despite being at 50 or so relations with my new ruler) but since I put him earlier as a Count of Eu in the middle of lands directly controlled by me, I guess he thought better of this and eventually lost his succession war CB.

Anyway, since on succession vassals lose the "long rein" relationship bonus but gain the "short reign" malus, this is what could be causing the rebellions (which are not technically succession wars). Whenever my King dies I immediately press pause and review all vassals who have a rebellion risk (there is a tooltip that looks like a fist that shows you all who are likely to rebel).

A mix of releasing a prisoner (+10 to all relations; I keep a bunch handy just for that purpose), giving out honorific titles to the most rebellious; sending outright bribes to some; giving some a right to educate my kids; reshuffling the council; organizing a feast; sending the chancellor to the ones I can't lose; and isolating the few that are most likely to rebel by making sure they can count on no support and there is my army (made from my own levies, not those of my vassals) stationed near their fiefs usually does the trick until they get comfortable enough with the new king and the malus goes away.

It also helps to groom your heir beforehand, so he has traits they like (like Brave, Just and Honest) as this gives a small edge too, has some Prestige on the start etc. Also, make sure not to hold too many duchies or too many provinces (compared to your demesne size) as they hate this.

Also, make sure you are running Free Investiture so that once you pick your heir from among your sons, the remaining ones are made successors of bishops. Pick the bishoprics that are not Princes (even the non-inheriting clergy sons can get claims and rebel in succession wars) but only hold a single barony, and obviously pick the old ones first so the succession happens faster (but you can appoint the same son a successor to every single bishop and he just gets the first one, so it's not a big deal).

In my England games, my heir usually gets the barony of Totenham (the second castle in Middlesex - I took it away from the local Saxon baron family in my probably only unwarranted tyrannical move) and the second son gets the bishopric of St. Paul (also in Middlesex) so they do not whine about being landless but I keep them both close and their holdings are one click away from being besieged by my stack of doom.

Finally, your vassals will probably start plots to Lower the Crown Authority and whatnot during that period. If you can have a decent chance of arresting them (remember to send the Marshall in first to "suppress revolts" - this increases the chance), go for it but if you don't, often you can ask them to end the plot instead and they comply. While sometimes you have to ask the same goddamn traitor a few times because he keeps restarting the plot, it saves you a problem of having to deal with his rebellion if he escapes your arrest. And you can deal with him later. 

It goes without saying that you should have a Spymaster at all times uncovering plots.

[garbon]

Transition from William the Conqueror to Richard I was peaceful for me. I beheaded wretched Robert when I caught him trying to kill Richard's heir Gerbert.  Bad news it that it looks like I'll soon be ruled by Gerbert I.

Also the Saxon north has been very quiet...too quiet?

[Martinus]

Transition from William the Conqueror to Richard I was peaceful for me. I beheaded wretched Robert when I caught him trying to kill Richard's heir Gerbert.  Bad news it that it looks like I'll soon be ruled by Gerbert I.

Also the Saxon north has been very quiet...too quiet?

My first move was to break the North. I actually caused the Northern Dukes to rebel several times by making them court Jesters and keeping their armies in the field for a long time on purpose. When they rebel, you beat them, put them in jail, strip their highest title from them (you can revoke one title from a rebel at no cost) then release them (relationship bonus with everyone else) and rinse and repeat (unfortunately with the new patch it takes longer due to 10 year truce periods). Right now Northumberland is an Archbishopric, Lancaster is held by my distant cousins and York is my personal demesne (it seems vassals don't fret for you having "too many ducal titles" if you keep only 2, so I am the Duke of York and Normandy), while the ducal Saxon family is extinct.

Now Martin I is repeating the same with the Dukes of Scotland and Wales.

[Martinus]

Also, in my game Poland is centered around Novogrod, while the actual Poland is split between HRE and Sweden.  And Byzantium controls the entire Southern Italy and half of Northern Africa.

[jimmy olsen]

Transition from William the Conqueror to Richard I was peaceful for me. I beheaded wretched Robert when I caught him trying to kill Richard's heir Gerbert.  Bad news it that it looks like I'll soon be ruled by Gerbert I.

Also the Saxon north has been very quiet...too quiet?

Lancaster is probably to busy trying too assassinate Northumberland's ruler and heirs to care about you.

[garbon]

Transition from William the Conqueror to Richard I was peaceful for me. I beheaded wretched Robert when I caught him trying to kill Richard's heir Gerbert.  Bad news it that it looks like I'll soon be ruled by Gerbert I.

Also the Saxon north has been very quiet...too quiet?

Lancaster is probably to busy trying too assassinate Northumberland's ruler and heirs to care about you.

Oh they rebelled once while William was still around (I think it was a conglom of duke of Hereford/York/Gloucester/Northumberland) but then after that imprisoned duke died and the one of Lancaster, everyone started getting along peachy.

[garbon]

William Rufus was packed off to be consort of the Queen of Aragon. Every so often I use defend the faith cbs to protect him from the muslim horde.  I love how the christian iberians are almost all extinct...

[garbon]

Btw, I found that dealing with France was the most difficult. Thankfully they chose to press their claims to Normandy while the Conqueror was around and I had enough money to raise lots of mercs. Still was pretty tiresome.