Crusader Kings 2 Redux

[Valmy]

So what's the point of the latest expansion?
There's one minor Jewish nation in the old gods start. Doesn't seem like they'd be too fun to play, no different to a pagan nation.

The Jews were a pretty minor part of the latest expansion.  The main part were changes to the Christians and Muslims.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Khazaria has a difficult starting position because all of the neighboring Pagans hate them and their Orthodox vassals also hate them, but it gets easier after the first 20 years because Jews aren't subject to mandatory gavelkind inheritance and can wage religious wars against literally everyone.

[Queequeg]

Yolande Capet, beloved wife of Emperor Deodat I de Barcelona of Hispania and King of Carthage, has become Queen of Aquitaine.  Queen Alice of France married my beloved uncle Duke Ramon-Folc II of Murcia, and their son Bertran is in line to be the next king of France. 

What the fuck?  How did I, uh, get the entire Western Empire within 2 centuries?  All I did was marry for alliances. 

[Solmyr]

That's just what Henry Plantagenet said.

[Zanza]

Shouldn't the Western Empire at least contain Italy, possibly parts of Germany too?

[Queequeg]

Shouldn't the Western Empire at least contain Italy, possibly parts of Germany too?

Hyperbole, and my wife died in labor and the crown of Aquitaine collapsed.  My son has a strong claim on it, so hopefully he'll be able to do something with it.  I'll be able to get England pretty soon.

[Tamas]

It`s been a while since I actually lost my throne, but it happened now.

I have been testing a mini-mod of my own, where I only left the de jure empires of Hispania, HRE, Byzantium, and Persia. (maybe Arabia too, I can`t remember), plus, I tripled the cost of hiring mercenaries. I like both changes, by the way. I think especially the latter improved gameplay, as it is much harder to turn on easy mode by hiring a bunch of merc stacks.

So anyway as usual I have been testing this as King of Hungary. Was going rather well, from the early start date, conquered Bohemia and Bulgaria and most of Croatia as well.

Collapse happened all of a sudden, but it was brewing under the hood for a while I guess. One king of mine died fairly young, his heir still had the short reign penalty. Plus, the family was quite extended by then(1040s IIRC). It was primo succession, with high CA.

So, I decided to try something new: instead of waiting for the pretender factions to rise, and then try to plot-murder the claimant of the war, I saw that there was about 3 or 4 such factions, so I decided to try and do some preemptive house cleaning, plot-murdering the popular claimants one by one. In short order I got busted and got dishonest and kinslayer traits of course.

And when a civil war broke out, I had to realise that a family has managed to unite 3 strong Duke titles under one guy: Nitra, Bohemia, and the western Hungary one. Almost everybody joined the rebels and some of the neighbors wanted to get some counties for themselves so DoWed me. It was hopeless, and I could not assassinate the pretender claimant before I lost the war.

So I was relegated to a lowly Duke, as my second Duke title was quickly taken from me by the new King (who happened to be my brother. Thanks, bro). Who then promptly died and was succeeded by his little daughter, whose heir was his uncle, me.
So of course a plot was started, and an other decisive thing happened: my first child, a girl, got the spawn of satan event chain I figured this could get useful to reclaim my throne when she is an adult, so I went with it.

It was a big mistake. Why? Because after her, I got about 5 other daughters, and succession had been reset to Gavelkind. I got two sons eventually as well, to be killed by my little spawn of Satan.

And, while the female child did not prove to be a popular queen, she did manage to hold against the new civil war, until I managed to have her murdered, and took back the crown.

I still had the problem of having low crown authority, gavelkind, and a trainload of daughters, though. Plan was to survive until Ms. Spawn grows up, and marry her away to Ireland or something, then try to father a son in time.

During all this, some Aquitainian claims entered my family. A vassal family member was a duke in that Kingdom giving me like a province there, and I must had some kind of claim as suddenly I found myself being the claimant for the throne of half of France. With my family member calling me in the war, of course I accepted. I gathered my levies, about 11k, and went to a war which by the looks of it was already being won against a clearly very unpopular Queen of Aquitaine.

Then while my army was arriving to the front, my 26 years old king got ill and died, dividing most of my demesne among the truckload of daughters, and stopping me from getting Aquitaine, and putting a child girl (Ms. Spawn) with a female heir (her sister) on the throne. 

Needless to say, basically all my vassals joined against me to put somebody else on the throne. So I am back to being a lowly Duke, this time having a king with like 3 or 4 sons so no chance of quickly assassinating myself back. Plan is to wait until Ms. Spawn is an adult and wreak havoc.

[garbon]

Apparently CK2 is getting an expansion into India?

[Syt]

Brave.

[Queequeg]

So they'd have to add multiple Dharmic faiths?  Buddhism for the Mongols and maybe some early Indian kingdoms, and then obviously Hinduism, and maybe Jains as kind of Indian Jews?  Interesting.  Also, MANICHEANS! 

[garbon]

The bit I saw said 3 faiths are being added.

[PRC]

If they go that far they may as well go all the way to Mongolia.

[PRC]

https://twitter.com/quill18/status/426372822114766848

#pdxcon CK2 RAJAS OF INDIA -- map expanding to cover India! 50% larger. 300+ provinces.

[Queequeg]

The bit I saw said 3 faiths are being added.

So probs Theravada, Mahayana, and Hinduism?  I don't think Manicheanism or Jainism will be in it.  Manicheanism is already problematically in there as a Zoroastrian heresy. 

[Razgovory]

Well I'll be damned.