Crusader Kings 2 Redux

[Razgovory]

Also, people keep talking about retinues but I have literally none of those nor do I understand how to obtain any.

You can find that on the military screen.

[Razgovory]

Dev Diary for The Republic posted. Some new info:

- Only Genoa, Pisa, Venice, Hansa and Gotland playable at the outset but more may be created during game.
- All Patrician families inherit by Agnatic Seniority (painful).
- Nobles and Patricians can intermarry but (i) Patricians need to pay gold for the privilege, and (ii) they cannot inherit each other's holdings (so if the Patrician and the Duchess have 2 sons, one would go on to become the Duke and the other to become the Patrician, assuming both are eligible to inherit).
- DLC to be released on 14 January

I'm not seeing the upside to playing as a country where you only get to do things about a fifth of the time.

[Tamas]

I can't stress easy-to-miss stuff  enough, like vassals not belonging to their de jure liege.

But, if you can't resolve the reason of dislike (wrong culture, your character is Martinus, etc), and you have no money, then yeah you are in a hard position.
Make sure you send your spymaster against the strong dude, to work the "stop factioning" angle.

And if faction war does break out, make sure you concentrate on the leader. It is enough to break him/her and he is often not the strongest of the faction.
Also, do not be too proud to white peace out every once in a while instead of winning, as white peace also gives a good performance boost now.

and: imprison strong faction members at every god damn excuse you ever get.

The wrong culture shouldn't be a problem, because in my latest playthrough of the conquest I literally took every single holding and therefore threw ALL of the Saxons out.  Every title went to a Norman, either of my house or some other house--I recruited some Normans from Apulia to take a couple of counties even.  I also gave a county to a Capet, since my son in law is the King of France, and one to a 'Stephen of Blois' because I thougth that would be funny and ironic.  The last two were probably mistakes, but I expect them to provide some amusement.

Just make sure to check the relationship tooltip for all troublesome character. There are shitloads of possible reasons. Some can be remedied (do so unless totally counterproductive, like giving over a kingdom title), a lot can't (excommunicate, plot, imprison)

[Martinus]

Also, if you can't get the guy to like you, try plotting his assassination.

It's perhaps worth mentioning (if not blatantly obvious) that now you can hatch more plots than just the ones suggested to you in the Intrigue screen. Most notably, whenever you go to another character's screen (not the diplo screen, but the screen with stats etc.), there is a little dagger button underneath the portrait. If it is not greyed out (i.e. you are an adult, not incapable and not having another plot going), you can click it to start an assassination plot against that character.

Then get enough people to support you (you need at least 100% but the more the better) and wait for assassination events to start popping up. The tip here is to get on the good side of his spymaster if you can - having a spymaster on your side usually is enough, on its own, to get between 100% and 1000% (sic!) bonus - and if you are dealing with a troublesome family you want to exterminate, having their spymaster in your pocket is a gift that keeps on giving.

I managed to decimate the entire House of Poitou-Aquitaine that way in my game as the King of France.

The good spymaster ended up appointed as the new Duke of Aquitaine for his trouble.

[Martinus]

Dev Diary for The Republic posted. Some new info:

- Only Genoa, Pisa, Venice, Hansa and Gotland playable at the outset but more may be created during game.
- All Patrician families inherit by Agnatic Seniority (painful).
- Nobles and Patricians can intermarry but (i) Patricians need to pay gold for the privilege, and (ii) they cannot inherit each other's holdings (so if the Patrician and the Duchess have 2 sons, one would go on to become the Duke and the other to become the Patrician, assuming both are eligible to inherit).
- DLC to be released on 14 January

I'm not seeing the upside to playing as a country where you only get to do things about a fifth of the time.

It's yet to be seen how this is going to be implemented, but as far as I understand, you can do a lot of stuff while not being the acting Doge - including expanding your private trading empire, marching your private armies on private wars and the like. Plus there are going to be special plots unique to patricians.

Considering in my normal feudal games wars make up only about 1/3 of my time, and the rest is spent arranging plots and dealing with my family, I kinda suspect there will be plenty to do as a patrician as well.

[Martinus]

One thing that I would like to see is being able to offer to join a plot that someone has started.

For example, as the King, I would very much like to support the efforts of one of my vassal who is plotting to have a Ducal title stripped from another vassal who holds more than one Duchy.

[Zanza]

I understand why that particular option is not there: you should go via higher authority and revokation. If you could  join the plot, it would be successful every single time as you would always win the war against your vassal.

[Faeelin]

So, Gotland now will be a republic as powerful as Venice or the Hanseatic League.  Of course.

[Caliga]

It's perhaps worth mentioning (if not blatantly obvious) that now you can hatch more plots than just the ones suggested to you in the Intrigue screen.

Wasn't obvious to me.

So thank you.

[Caliga]

You can find that on the military screen.

On the military screen, it says I have none of them.

[Martinus]

It's perhaps worth mentioning (if not blatantly obvious) that now you can hatch more plots than just the ones suggested to you in the Intrigue screen.

Wasn't obvious to me.

So thank you.

[Martinus]

You can find that on the military screen.

On the military screen, it says I have none of them.

There is a tab on the military screen titled retinues. There you can recruit retinues up to your limit by clicking the plus icon near to various type of troops (for smaller realms at the beginning the limit may very well be zero, so the plus buttons will be non-clickable).

Every time your realm increases or you get new tech in your capital, visit the screen to see if you can get more retinues.

Various retinues use up different limits btw - I usually just go for the heavy cavalry all the way, which is the most limit "heavy".

[Caliga]

I think what I'm going to do the next time I have time is start a new game as Byzantium, since I bought the DLC, and then another new one as William because I want to get this shit right.  This past time, it took me like 15 years to conquer England because I insisted on destroying all of my rivals militarily AND personally (as in I had both Harold Godwinson and Harald assassinated, and conquered every single English holding).  While that meant that all of my nobles were my homies and therefore owed me and didn't fuck with me, it also meant William's reign was pretty short as he was an old guy by the time he officially became king.  Also, I ended up having to hire mercs which is why I was broke and couldn't create all the duchies.

[Martinus]

I rarely if ever create or usurp duchies when playing as a King, especially when I control all the de jure lands of that duchy anyway. This is for several reasons:

1. It gives your vassals something to do when they plot and attack each other in order to get enough counties to create the duchy themselves.

2. If a vassal creates the duchy, it's his cash, not yours, that is being spent.

3. Once the duchy is created by a vassal, transferring to him all his de jure count vassals usually ends up giving him a relationship bonus with you that is functionally comparable to the one he would get if you created the duchy and gave it to him yourself (sure, the bonus is a bit smaller, but functionally a, say, +100 relationship bonus from transferring vassals is in practice no different than a, say, +200 bonus from giving him the duchy - you end up with the relationship maxed anyway).

4. Most counts have a gavelkind succession law, whereas many Kings have primogeniture. The duchy gets the succession law of whoever created it, and it is much easier to keep your vassals weak if they follow gavelkind rather than primogeniture, because even if they manage to get two or more ducal titles, they usually have enough heirs so it gets split up again on their death.

The only situation where I may consider creating a ducal title myself, as a King, is when one of the de jure lords of that duchy is a count vassal of another duke - in that case by giving the count vassal the ducal title I take him away from his liege and make my direct vassal.

[Tamas]

I highly disagree with Mart's no-duchies strategy:

-I don't want my counts creating titles on their own accord. Hard enough to curb their internal expansion anyway (BTW I hate plot-triggered inter-vassal warfare)

-this game is about managing relations. I'd much rather manage relations to 4 dukes than 16 counts, thankyouverymuch

-if you don't have the money for creating a duchy rather easily in this game, you are doing something wrong