Crusader Kings 2 Redux

[garbon]

One thing that I've found can work is to send your spymaster to your vassals on the "don't join factions" mission. That works best if you get ahead of the curve a bit - once you're bast 80% or so on troop numbers it's usually too late. Obviously your spymaster needs decent intrigue for that to work.

Yeah, anymore I use my spymaster for this and have pretty much quit sending him to Constantinople to study tech unless he's someone I want to get rid of or there are no factions worth worrying about.

Yeah that is basically all that I use my spymaster for. Chancellor used to be great too (for vassal who just slightly hated you) until they added favour system which means your vassal might be at +100 but still is in a faction...

[celedhring]

Set aside my Byzantine game for a bit, and tried a game managing a Swedish merchant republic, since I just bought The Republic in the steam sales. It's fun, I like the election mechanics. In particular, I find the several rival family events pretty hilarious. I just had a pretty great one where I and the head of my rival family got both caught by pirates, and we reconciled during the ordeal - he even saved my life. However, when I was offered a chance to escape, I decided to let him die - only because he was outranking my heir in the upcoming election. I felt like such a weasel. 

[The Brain]

I felt like such a weasel. 

Too soon.

[Josquius]

You guys remind me of my biggest beef with CK2 (or most any grand strategy game in fact): the snowballing effect. The bigger you are the easier the game is, while in fact especially in CK's period the opposite should be true.

I would be so happy to find a mod that remedies this, but so far I have only found ones that made it worse.

Trouble is the logical ways to represent this make the game more unfun.
This annoys me far more in colonial era games than ck2. Every colony making a profit. Pfff. As if

[Jacob]

For example, usually there'll be a demand to raise council authority very soon after starting a game.  I make a change in another law as soon as I start play, then agree to the demand so I get a "free" law change without waiting 10 years to empower the council to enforce realm peace.  (This assumes a start with a realm where the council isn't empowered at all.)

Interesting. I always aim to keep my council not empowered. I normally don't care that much about realm peace, and I really like the +2 personal domain bonus you get from having the council shut down.

What's the advantage of empowering the council to the degree that you'd want to switch it on voluntarily?

This is a good strategy too, but it depends on having a valid reason to arrest/revoke, unless you don't care about tyranny--and if you're in a position to not worry about gaining tyranny, you probably are powerful/wealthy enough you aren't too worried about any factions, either.  Still, no reason not to do it if you have a valid reason.

Yeah for sure... I've been playing a lot in India recently, where that's very viable since the "religious revocation" works against the other dharmic religions. So it comes up a lot more frequently there.

[dps]

For example, usually there'll be a demand to raise council authority very soon after starting a game.  I make a change in another law as soon as I start play, then agree to the demand so I get a "free" law change without waiting 10 years to empower the council to enforce realm peace.  (This assumes a start with a realm where the council isn't empowered at all.)

Interesting. I always aim to keep my council not empowered. I normally don't care that much about realm peace, and I really like the +2 personal domain bonus you get from having the council shut down.

What's the advantage of empowering the council to the degree that you'd want to switch it on voluntarily?

One of the requirements to change your succession law is that no vassals can be fighting one another.  That can be hard to manage if you can't enforce realm peace unless you have a really small realm.

[garbon]

Best parts of the upcoming DLC seem to be the free bits. Of course, ever with their finger on the pulse, p'dox decided that the Norse totally need more flavor.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/crusader-kings-2-dd-13-pagans-advisors-and-warrior-women.955632/

Hello and welcome back to another dev diary about <Secret DLC>! One day we will actually announce this DLC and I'll be able to use the proper name, but that day is not today! Anyway, right now I am here to tell you about some extra stuff we have made for Pagans, which will be part of the free 2.6 patch (of course, you still need The Old Gods to play as a pagan), and our new Female Advisor events. So, uh, actually this DD is really about 2.6 content and not <Secret DLC>, really, but anyway, onwards!

First of all, Defensive Pagans now have the ability to summon bands of Devout Warriors if they are the primary defender against an enemy of a different religion at the cost of 200 piety. Overall this is rather like the Raise Tribal Army decision and gives Defensive Pagans some extra punch when attacked.

Next, Defensive Pagans also have a new decision which can be used while at peace, and not more often than every 10 years: Ancestor Worship. This allows you to ask your ancestors for help or advise with some part of your life, perhaps you want triumph on the battlefield, maybe you want your realm to Prosper, or perhaps you are just lonely? In any case, once you have decided what it is you want, you must decide what you will offer up to get your request heard, and can range from offering up your eye or a human sacrifice to a more modest feast or carving a simple idol. With the sacrifice made, hopefully you see some kind of result in the not so distant future. Although, skeptics might point out that there's no evidence the ancestors actually did anything and you may simply be giving them credit for a happy coincidence, that isn't the kind of thought a pious man ought to have.



here we wish for affection and offer up a feast

With Defensive Pagans covered, let's move into their more Offensive cousins, the Norse. The first change here is relatively simple, and some of you guessed it from the Trait icons I showed in an earlier DD, but there are now two improved versions of the Viking trait: Ravager and Sea King. These are gained from continuing to sack holdings while raiding after the Viking trait has been gained and come with larger bonuses.



A couple of minor yet neat changes:

• The Norse may now also gain a trait similar to Crusader when taking part in Great Holy Wars, called Valhalla-bound.
  
• Norse Culture will no longer split into into Swedish/Danish etc when it's part of a powerful Norse realm (which I seem to remember was said to be the case long ago but doesn't seem to have been implemented) where the ruler either has 2 kingdom tiles or an empire title, or if the faith has been reformed and the Fylkir is Norse. On a related note, Pictish, Old Saxon, and Visigothic cultures will also no longer split/change when part of a powerful realm or their head of religion is of their culture.

Finally, Norse religion rulers now have a decision to appoint female characters in their realm with good Martial skill and appropriate traits as Shieldmaidens. These warrior women can act as bodyguards and/or can be set as commanders for your armies regardless of your gender laws. Shieldmaidens have a number of events relating to both their actions in battle and their training for said battles, and if a player happens to end up as a landed lady they can experience the Shieldmaiden content from the other side.



Now leaving Pagans behind, but staying with cool women, we've added a couple of ways to get more female advisors. Firstly, close relatives of a ruler with high stats may ask to be given a job. Secondly, a talented woman may show up in your court and offer her services to you. In either case if you accept they will take up a council position, but you will get an opinion penalty with your vassals - if you have Conclave the size of the penalty is reduced if you have increased your Gender Equality laws. These events do not fire if your gamerules/gender laws/religion/culture allow women to be appointed normally, since in that case you could simply hire them if you want to.

[Queequeg]

Holy Christ I love this game.  Council is maybe the best expansion.

860 start with the crazy detailed mod as the "Ishkan Ishkanats" of Armenia, a Lesser King title.  It's now almost 1100, and I've now gobbled up much of the 9th Century Abbasid Empire and I'm pushing the Tulunids into Upper Egypt.  Somehow a cadet Ethiopian branch of the Bagratid family now rules in Ethiopia, some of Nubia, Somalia and....the Hijaz.  Keysur (Emperor) Mihrdat I "The Wise" (He's awesome, Formidable Fighter, Brilliant Strategist, Brawny, Shrewd, 6 kids) is starting to push up against the massive Saffarid Empire.  It looks like his son, Khosrov, wlll fight a half dozen wars with the Shahanshah of Iran, Khosrau......the same name.   

Council makes things way, way more complicated.  The neat borders of conquest have long since given way to infighting between various families and invented kingdom titles.  At the moment there's almost 200 living members of the Bagratid family, and probably 230-240 if you include the Georgian Bagrationis (who are a different family in this modification.)  I really wish there was some kind of cadet branches option.  I'm currently fighting a civil war against Vesd I of Antioch (WHO DOESN'T EVEN RULE ANTIOCH, THE ASSHAT), who is something like my 8th cousin, and my main general is Tachat IV of Cilicia, and I had to go back about 10 generations to see how we were related.  Also, like, my family members in Somalia.  Are we really, like, related even?

[garbon]

Is it time to let go after 11 (soon to be 12) expansions? Not a chance! There are still some areas left to explore, and when we finally decide the time has come, I want the game to be in the best shape possible. We'll soon be announcing the upcoming expansion, which is slated for release in late August. It's not a huge one this time around, but there is plenty of good stuff in there as you've probably gleaned from Darkrenown's diaries. After that, we have two more expansions teed up. The first will be somewhat similar to Way of Life in scope and theme, and the second one will likely be huge. After that, it might really be time to let go, but it's also possible we'll wind down with another small expansion (nr 15).

We learned some valuable lessons with Horse Lords and Conclave, both when it comes to design and implementation. Crusader Kings II is an old dog now, and it's getting harder to teach it new tricks. It is unlikely that we'll mess around with the core gameplay mechanics like we did in Conclave. Instead, we'll optimize the game and improve the AI (sorely needed, though I've done some work on it for the upcoming patch) and moddability in the free updates, and focus on roleplaying features and quality of life stuff in the expansions. That said, there are still some blanks in the Old World; rulers you cannot play and regions not yet covered...

Well looks like mostly official that they are starting to feel tapped out and now future expansions will not be introducing any dramatically different ways in how to play the game.

[Razgovory]

If there was one change I'd like to see, it would be a way to implement cadet branches.

[dps]

there are still some blanks in the Old World; rulers you cannot play and regions not yet covered…

Guess that means that they probably intend to add China and/or Japan at some point after all, though I suppose it could mean more of Africa.  To be honest, if there is going to be another map expansion, I'd prefer Southeast Asia, though I'm not sure how well that would work without China.

[Caliga]

I think Mesoamerica would be cool.  It'd be less OCD-inducing to play like a Mayan state, for me at least, since I know so little about their history.  I would be like "LOL that's lame, that could never happen" like I am all the time with shit that happens in Europe.

[jimmy olsen]

They really should do a Darklands style fantasy expansion. It would be awesome.

[Razgovory]

They really should do a Darklands style fantasy expansion. It would be awesome.

Exactly what would you want from such an expansion?  It doesn't seem if dark low-fantasy would have much of an impact on dynastic politics.

[jimmy olsen]

They really should do a Darklands style fantasy expansion. It would be awesome.

Exactly what would you want from such an expansion?  It doesn't seem if dark low-fantasy would have much of an impact on dynastic politics.

Scores of event chains like the Spawn of Satan chain and the Cthuluh chain that are already in the game.