Crusader Kings 2 Redux

[garbon]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/04/25/crusader-kings-2-the-old-gods-release-date-and-new-details-from-mondays-livestream/

Since there weren't that many powerful Shiite Muslim landowners in 867, an event will fire after game start that spawns the first Shia Caliph. He will begin as a landless adventurer with a large host of supporters, and carve out a kingdom for himself to begin the Shia rise to power. This event was modeled after the rise of the Mamluks.

Any time you capture a fortress as any religion, you will now be able to take prisoners from the court there, such as the ruling lord's family. If you are a pagan ruler, you can force any such prisoners who are female and of age to become your concubines.

[Viking]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/04/25/crusader-kings-2-the-old-gods-release-date-and-new-details-from-mondays-livestream/

Since there weren't that many powerful Shiite Muslim landowners in 867, an event will fire after game start that spawns the first Shia Caliph. He will begin as a landless adventurer with a large host of supporters, and carve out a kingdom for himself to begin the Shia rise to power. This event was modeled after the rise of the Mamluks.

Any time you capture a fortress as any religion, you will now be able to take prisoners from the court there, such as the ruling lord's family. If you are a pagan ruler, you can force any such prisoners who are female and of age to become your concubines.

Does this mean that characters with no army remaining and their demesne occupied are now considered captured?

[Queequeg]

Doing my first playthrough as the Capets.  It's actually pretty fascinating.  The fact that you're way less powerful as an individual landowner than all but one or two of your dukes makes a pretty unique strategic challenge.  Without English intervention (embarrassingly) Aquitaine would have been independent twice over. 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/04/25/crusader-kings-2-the-old-gods-release-date-and-new-details-from-mondays-livestream/

Since there weren't that many powerful Shiite Muslim landowners in 867, an event will fire after game start that spawns the first Shia Caliph. He will begin as a landless adventurer with a large host of supporters, and carve out a kingdom for himself to begin the Shia rise to power. This event was modeled after the rise of the Mamluks.

Any time you capture a fortress as any religion, you will now be able to take prisoners from the court there, such as the ruling lord's family. If you are a pagan ruler, you can force any such prisoners who are female and of age to become your concubines.

instead of modelling it on the rise of the Fatimid Calphate that actually began a few decades after the new start.

[garbon]

Yep, I thought that one was rather odd.

[The Minsky Moment]

Presumably it is a mistake by the reviewer, switching the names.

[garbon]

Or totally possible was a misspeak by p'dox during livestream.

[garbon]

Based on latest dev diary, looks like they've added a lot of decisions, events and things to do for the other faiths.

Taking back Persia for Zoroaster looks like it could be fun.

[Tamas]

that Ulm guy in his Scandi beta AAR earned almost 400 prestige from a single raid (which went through Brittany and Ireland) 

[Martinus]

I like the fact that you can now imprison the courtiers of the ruler if you capture his capital - this makes losing your capital much more painful. *lolcanibetheongreyjoy*

[garbon]

I'm finally in my first game where I've played long enough that I've seen the bubonic plague. After my first heir died, my ruler (educating his son) took his army and scurried to a plagueless area.

Also, as I've never played so long, I hadn't seen how bad the game gets with blobbing. The map is divvied up among superstates of Francia (me), some Almohad-like state, HRE, Norway, ERE, Golden Horde and Ilkhanate.  Pisa holds almost all of Italy and then there are minor states like Genoa, Venice, Hungary, Croatia and Fatimids holding on.

Only state that ever faces serious rebellions is the Almohad one though it keeps reforming.

[Queequeg]

The little things with this game are almost infinitely fascinating. 

Playing as the Komneni starting in 1100, I originally wanted to play it relatively cool and not try to expand like crazy.  Well, I had a good claim on the throne of Hungary, so that didn't quite work out.  I set up a vassal despotate in Wallachia, and from there took Hungary.  Ioannes (John), grandson of "Maria" Arpad and a princess of Jerusalem, became the King of Hungary, but was then usurped by Janos II of Hungary.  When he became King of Jerusalem after his mother died, he was still in imprisoned by Janos. 

In any case, I love looking at the little details in the game that actually make a great deal of sense.  When Janos II usurped the Hungarian throne from Iaonnes I of Hungary , he was at the end of it still a Byzantine vassal.  He converted to Orthodoxy, and pressed his rights in Hungary (which splintered off under the old Arpad king of unified Hungary-Croatia).  When he took over Hungary, he married a daughter of the Rallis-Roul doux of Achea, so now half of his children (including the current Janos III) look recognizably Greek.  Furthermore, this is happening at all levels of Hungarian aristocracy-intermarriage with Greek families is creating Greek-looking children, and because there are way more Greek families in the Empire this trend will continue for as long as the average Doux-level Hungarian aristocrat is more interested in marrying a member of a Greek house than a local or western girl.  Something very similar is happening with Orthodoxy-it's spread from the Hungarian center (rather than the border with Wallachia) to Slovakia, but the remaining Croatian families seem stuck in Papism.  Interestingly, the Byzantine Empire-now roughly the size of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the reign of Selim the Grim-is now almost dual-national.  The last three Hungarian despots have held the title of Caesar (highest in the Empire), have been my spymasters, have never joined a rebellion, and the 14K men I can rise in Hungary form, together with the retinue, Thrace and Nicaea, the core of most of the armies I send for conflicts with non-Empires. 

Interestingly this trend towards Greek-looking families is counteracted by my actions.  I marry my sons and daughters in to western nobility (Arpad, de Boulgone, Salian, currently de Normandie) meaning that every duchy I give to a son (Aleppo, Syria and Palmyra for instance) or ruled by a cadet branch of the Komenni (Wallachia) don't have those vaguely racist "Christian Brown" faces from the DLC.  I expect that in a hundred years you're going to start seeing a lot more eastern-looking nobility as new families marry locals and marry the old established families.   

[jimmy olsen]

The new DLC is really starting to sound incredible!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo7ttCKInYM

[garbon]

The new DLC is really starting to sound incredible!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo7ttCKInYM

Maybe you were in love with Henrik's visage?

There was nothing incredible sounding in there. He wasn't even excited.

[Tamas]

Well yeah doomdark was very "who gives a fuck"-ish, the actual FEATURE will be quite nice, and I am pretty sure Tim meant that.